I understand that the 'hardcore' gamers in my generation are upset with the Wii, and how it's making gaming somewhat less cool because their parents (and grandparents) are getting into it. However, Nintendo is going to be laughing all the way to the bank for this round of the console wars. The next generation of high-end consoles looks like it's going to have to include impact vests, Wii-like controlers, and Wii-fit like boards. Gamers, even if you don't like the Wii, you better figure out how to use the controler, because that's where everything is going.
No, we just fear that the wii will encourage studios to repackage old games but replace "mash A" with "shake controller" (rayman rabits) and stop making any deep or quality games. And so far our fears have been realized with the current wii library. The wii is a boon to people who didn't play before. It drops a lot of the "grammar" gamers have taken for granted and goes back to the Atari-NES days of simple mechanics and a easier to understand interface. However 90% of the games aren't any different then the NES games. You just replace one mechanic (mash A to run faster) with another "shake to run faster". The ones that adapt something new (wii sports bowling) do it well but it's not the common case.
I agree completely. I wouldn't care if graphics were stuck where Zak & Wiki and Metroid 3 and Mario are. They all look just fine. If someone could figure out a way to make actual curved surfaces fast, that would be an improvement, but those games look fantastic. Heck, even RE 4 and some of the other 'Cube games looked good enough.
In SD maybe, in HD zelda looks really bad. The graphics are pretty sloppy, the 3d isn't set up for widescreen so when you turn the sides of the screen distort much more then they are supposed to. Since the wii knows I have a wide screen I'm surprised they don't' adjust for this. Wii sports cartoony style looks fine.
All about gameplay baby and NOT pretty graphics. While they're nice to have, I'd rather have fun and be somewhat active than sit and look at pretty pictures. Viva le Wii!!! Peace
Gameplay? Like as in 10s shake the controller vigorously mini-games that comprise warioware? I have a wii and I think most of people who exalt it's gameplay are just jumping on a bandwagon. It's basically taking older game concepts (NES era) tacking on a *shake* mechanic replacing button mashing mechanic and calling it a game. Some games are truly innovative (wii sports) others are just old games with *shaking* replacing button mashing (Rayman/Warioware). True innovators (Katamari Damacy, Viva Pinata, Cooking Mama) will find interesting things to do with the controls available. Everyone else puts out the same old shit with slightly different gimics (more pretty lights, bump mapping, shake controller vs pushing button, etc..)
Can you provide and proof (link?) that "Academia is better at doing basic research, research with no immediate profitability"? I'd be curious to see it if it exists. My belief off-hand is that it's "common wisdom", though.
Also, it might be worth noting that "academia" does not necessarily imply "government" when it comes to funding... No one said better. We only said Industry is less inclined to fund far term, low probability of profit projects that are basic science.
Hereand here and here is a few link to my local universities faculty and a brief summary of what they research. Note the distinct rarity of projects with any near term profit motive. Also note this is the same university which had a faculty member create a sequencer which revolutionized genetics by automating and speeding up sequencing. Ever once in a while airy fairy academic research hits pay dirt and then private industry takes over.
It's really no different from the claims in the hospitality and service industry that seek to keep employees there cheap.
Cheap for the employer but some of the hospitality industry make pretty good money. I have a friend who makes less money now as a bank manager then she did as a cocktail waitress at a casino. I had another friend who worked for 5 years as a waitress and part time model (like the suns page 3 model but with cloths on) and save up $100,000 to start her own business. If your smart, attractive, and social you can make a killing int he hospitality industry.. at least till you're 30.
Because central planning really really works. And because PARC didn't discover anything of use, and all those Intel and Microsoft research labs popping up like mushrooms after a heavy rain don't exist, and the numerous research universities throughout the nation, with millions and billions of dollars in endowments, are really just studying not even string theory, but silly string.
A private company creating some interesting things does not invalidate the argument that academia researches things that aren't profitable. It's a complete tangential straw man. To summarize all academic research into a bland sentence about a particular area of physics is deceitful. Industry is good at bridging the last gap between an idea and a product. usually things that are within 5 years of being useful. Academia is better at doing basic research, research with no immediate profitability, and research that industry simply doesn't have a desire to fund. Laser's, the computer, algorithms, genetics etc... were all at one time just random academic ideas with no profit in sight. Once it hit a certain point industry took up that research and made products out of them. Basics research is high risk, you get results but the results are rarely usable in a product. Thus governments usually fund it as Industry is often extremely risk adverse.
the PS3 has basically turned me right off the brand. Not for the price, but the lack of compelling titles. That sort of a weird gripe as every console (wii included) suffers from a drought of games first year. Right now for my wii I have and play Metroid, Zelda, wii sports, and mario party 8. 2 of those 4 aren't fun to play alone. For my Ps3 I have resistance, AC4, NG Sigma, R&C: TOD, Heavenly sword. Honestly the PS3 games gets a lot more play for me. Both those consoles have something of a titles drought, both fill the void with some pretty bad filler games and an occasional gem.
I have a bit of a desire for bioshock and mass effect but aside from that the 360 isn't pressing the right buttons yet.
You forgot the most important thing- the game with sucky graphics but a lot of fun gets my $50. The one with great graphics and low fun doesn't. The game with stale mediocre gameplay but a lot of marketting gets everyone else's $50(Madden 2008).
What are you going to do when the zombies show up at your door? I have a zombie proof bunker stock piled with canned food, can opener, guns and ammo, and enough porn and video games to last me half a lifetime. Naturally i didn't tell my family or GF because the #1 cause of death in a zombie infestation is other people.
Never ascribe to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
Microsoft corollary: Unless it's Microsoft then never ascribed to incompetence or bad management what can adequately explained by pure unrelenting evil.
I assume you're speaking of Donna Purvis and the Libraries without Borders conference in Ontario last week. As a California law librarian myself, I am one of her regional peers. I do not know where you may have received the information that she is considered "on the cutting edge" but that is simply not accurate as to how she is regarded by her peers. Purvis may be an accomplished manager, but is certainly not known as any sort of a tech whiz. Sometimes managerial and people skills can provide opportunities to thoroughly demonstrate your tech incompetence to a skilled audience. Actually it was another person at a conference in Calgary. I'm too polite to name names but you probably have a good idea who. In her defense all of her good points were poached the night before by the keynote speaker. But she still came off boorish and a bit behind. Oddly I work for a law library as well. Small world. Over here I've been surprised at how in touch with technology my particular organization is and of savvy many of the people at the conference were.
Ironic, considering this is being discussed on a US tech-oriented website. Thats why I described it as a mixed bag, you have little islands of massive technical compitence and intelligence intermixed between oceans of other. You can't tell me that the average slashdotter is representative of your average American.
I think most companies know if you want to make it big and you have a product to sell you sell it in the US. Just like if you are a rock band and you are from another country your sales jump when you cross the pond.
If you want it to stay that way, don't take it for granted. The economic markers point down right now. If this trend continues you may see a day when the US isn't such a important market.
damn right. First of all if it was good, they'd market it here since America is one of the top gadget markets. Either it doesn't meet our standards or it's not cost effective to market here because it sucks. All of these fancy gadgets are probably way crappier than they sound and will break before you get them home or they contain more lead than a 19th century pipe. Plus apparently the article author has never heard of ebay.
Conversely Americans tend to buy the same 3 gadgets (an iPod, a Razr, a Blackberry), while in Japan, Korea, China, and Europe it tends towards more diversity. In Japan you tout your toys like we tout our musical tastes. It's not here because the US market is so homogeneous that the niches those products fill may not exist here or we don't have sufficient technolust to get a OLED when we already have a 42" LCD.
The US isn't always on the cutting edge of technology. I was at a Canadian librarians IT conference last week and the speech on the second day was given by a Californian librarian considered by her peers as on the cutting edge. Like getting a lecture about technology from a Luddite. Her notions of technology were a good 20 years behind everyone else in the room and a good 25 years behind the actual technology. The audience was appalled at her patronizing attempts at "friendly jabbing at Canadian self image" with down right insulting jokes and her apparent hate of her IT guys and IT in general.
The US is a mixed bag, on average it's far behind the technology curve. It's not population density because Canada is less dense but more in touch with technology. Some areas and industries are cutting edge but the average American seems pretty low on the tech literacy totem. At least from my interactions with Americans on trips there and on visitors here.
Really? Let's say you're looking at 7 characteristics of the crimes and each has 3 different possibilities. That gives you 2187 different variations. And at 2187 variations, given an even distribution among 21 million instances, you can have 9602 instances of *each* variation. Yet even if the distribution is even and the sample is sufficiently random so it produces no duplicates, prove to me that a sample of 517 events will give sufficient insight into all 2187 possibilities in a set of 21 million instances.
And saying "So you're one of those 'me hate science because I smartest' types?" or suggesting I don't understand because I haven't obtained a degree in statistics just reinforces my subject line, a partial quote of: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." Lets draw a distinction here, that quote "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." is an emphasis on how people can use statistics to distort the truth. Individuals like Frank Luntz are very good at using it this way. However statistics itself is not at fault it's the generally low level of mathematic literacy that is at fault.
Case in point: The size of your sample varies with the confidence level you want and the margin of error that you will accept. The actual population size is not a significant factor. For some studies if the trend is strong enough a sample size of 30 is sufficient even if the total pop is 100,000,000. If the trend or trait is subtle you may need more samples as the margin of error is as large or larger then any pattern you discern. Your "characteristics" is a irrelevant as a sample of 517 out of 2187 possibilities will still give information on frequency etc... If your results lead to 517 separate variations of those 7 characteristics then indeed your study has advised you to get a larger sample size. But most studies look at much fewer then 7 variables or characteristics at a time. Dismissing it because it's not a significant % of cases underlines a significant misunderstanding of statistics making you part of the problem with "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." (As others have pointed out mroe eloquently then I)
If a sample is random and the data gives a pattern that is significantly stronger then the error margin then it says something. The conclusion may be distorted but you can't write off a study merely on it's sample size when the sample size look adequate statistically. If they had a sample size of 7 then yes the sample size can be used to write off the conclusion, however 517 ought to be fine in most cases. 30-100 is usual for many studies. 517 is not too shabby. Now the real criticism (as I pointed out) is if it was random or not.
A lot of older people just don't realize that **comfort** is not a particularly big deal I work support for some extra money on the side. Each and every client says something along the lines of " is a genius with computers but he just couldn't figure this one out." usually translates into " thought he knew what he was doing and installed a virus/trojan/spyware that is now crapping out the system." Comfort means next to nothing. The computer users these days are less inclined to open the box or dig around in the guts of the system and thus know less about their system.
So, if you didn't major in Statistics, you're not allowed to distrust them? 517 was the number of cases the agency closed in a 7 year period. This was not a representative sample of all cases from all law enforcement agencies dealing with this problem. It was all cases handled by one specialized agency. The only thing that matters is 517 is a random sample. If it isn't sufficiently random then you can't conclude much but a random sample 517 is sufficient to draw some correlations, patterns, data, or even some conclusions depending on the data. Merely stating 517 / 21 million is not sufficient to dismiss it.
And furthermore, let's talk statistics. There are like 100 things I can do that will statistically reduce my "chance of death" by 10%. How the fuck can I reduce my chance of death? Statistically, based on ALL available data, my chance of death is 100%! All these statistics do is tell me that if I quit smoking now, my chances of dying in the next 10 years go down by 40%. Now that doesn't mean I go from a 100% chance of death to a 60% chance of death. As a man in his 30s, it means my chances of dying go down from about 15% to 9%. That 9 percent includes drunk drivers, gang bangers, suicide bombers, tainted meat, crimes of passion, poisonous snakes, chainsaw accidents, unexpected heart attacks, and 18 types of cancer that smoking doesn't much influence one way or another. So you're one of those "me hate science because I smartest" types? Most studies come up with correlations. Often weak patterns which then get blown up by the media. You can take the advice or not, with the media new advice will come along in a week. General trends look like a more traditional diet, lower calorie consumption, moderation of of all habits, and plenty of protected sex lead to a fairly long and likely fulfilled life. If that is not for you, fine. Please continue your smoking, chronic burger munching, promiscuous unprotected anal sex with rodeo clowns, and heroin habit.
From the AP article: "The Federal Trade Commission has said about 3 million Americans have their identities stolen annually." And this study covers 517 cases over 7 years (2000-2006). I'm sorry, but I can't see a study of 517 cases during a period of approx. 21 million crimes providing really useful data.
A fine product of the US education system I see. Stats was your major?
It is clear after reading your replies that you have no real idea what you're talking about.
I may be less qualified I only took psychology to 300 level courses as my university arts options, What qualifies your as more valid opinion?
Schizophrenics as I am led to believe are still thinking however there is disconnection with what they perceive or how they think and the world around them.
"The line is "voluntary" vs "involuntary" but i can't think offhand of many situations where a mental illness can cause you to commit many crimes involuntarily"
Then you're not trying very hard.
Schizophrenia.
"The law says no in some conditions."
Sorry, but the "involuntary" IS the condition. Schizophrenia is the detachment of ones perception of reality and actual common agreement on what is reality. Although they may behave bizarrely everything they're doing is "voluntary".
It's a suitable defense but it's doesn't absolve you completely either. It often substitutes time in a mental institution for time in a rehabilitation centre. Actually this would be the case I wish they would be more strict about since FAS, Schizophrenia, and various other disorders makes it harder for you to understand what you did and not do it again.
The law is tricky, mental illness has been rejected as a defense in many cases even when a psychologists states there is mental illness. So the verdict is "The law says no in some conditions." As even one case confirms the statement.
The law says no, despite what you would like to see..... If someone has some type of damage that causes them to INVOLUNTARILY mimic criminal behavior, does that make them a criminal?
The law says no in some conditions. Having FAS does not absolve you of murder. Having epilepsy and not disclosing it if you knew, to an airline, while applying for a job as a pilot may result in criminal persecution if something were to happen. The line is "voluntary" vs "involuntary" but i can't think offhand of many situations where a mental illness can cause you to commit many crimes involuntarily. Having a seizure and severely injuring someone may be one of those situations. But it's not common. In automotive accidents involving epilepsy I do believe it's a not "criminal". However most mental illness leading to criminal behavior is more in line with how FAS influences you.
Which brings up an interesting point, if an individual acquires some type of damage that causes them to mimic criminal behavior, are they in fact, criminals?
If they commit a crime, yes. Retarded, brain damaged, emotionally scarred, etc.. ought not influence conviction although it may mitigate sentencing. I'd argue that it ought to increase sentencing as it's not more likely for the offended to re offend and less likely they can be rehabilitated.
These statistical correlations are a complete crock. There are a million things that have changed over the last few years that could also be attributed.
Personally, I think the most likely cause is one of:
* Reduction in the use of slide rules. With calculators it's easier to get a job as a clerk.
* Increase in CPU speed. Too much time playing games == less time being bad.
* Global warming. It's getting too hot to commit crime.
Strength of correlation matters and if you have multiple cases to draw from (each state is a sample) then you can more confidently state your correlation. If you notice that the correlation occurs a set time or general range of time after the banning of leaded paint in all jurisdictions then it suggest some sort of relationship. I believe that is what TFA is outlining. The assumption that Correlation != causation is good however sometimes Correlation => causation and often correlation => some sort of relationship.
Slashdot Mirror
I understand that the 'hardcore' gamers in my generation are upset with the Wii, and how it's making gaming somewhat less cool because their parents (and grandparents) are getting into it. However, Nintendo is going to be laughing all the way to the bank for this round of the console wars. The next generation of high-end consoles looks like it's going to have to include impact vests, Wii-like controlers, and Wii-fit like boards. Gamers, even if you don't like the Wii, you better figure out how to use the controler, because that's where everything is going.
No, we just fear that the wii will encourage studios to repackage old games but replace "mash A" with "shake controller" (rayman rabits) and stop making any deep or quality games. And so far our fears have been realized with the current wii library. The wii is a boon to people who didn't play before. It drops a lot of the "grammar" gamers have taken for granted and goes back to the Atari-NES days of simple mechanics and a easier to understand interface. However 90% of the games aren't any different then the NES games. You just replace one mechanic (mash A to run faster) with another "shake to run faster". The ones that adapt something new (wii sports bowling) do it well but it's not the common case.
I agree completely. I wouldn't care if graphics were stuck where Zak & Wiki and Metroid 3 and Mario are. They all look just fine. If someone could figure out a way to make actual curved surfaces fast, that would be an improvement, but those games look fantastic. Heck, even RE 4 and some of the other 'Cube games looked good enough.
In SD maybe, in HD zelda looks really bad. The graphics are pretty sloppy, the 3d isn't set up for widescreen so when you turn the sides of the screen distort much more then they are supposed to. Since the wii knows I have a wide screen I'm surprised they don't' adjust for this. Wii sports cartoony style looks fine.
All about gameplay baby and NOT pretty graphics. While they're nice to have, I'd rather have fun and be somewhat active than sit and look at pretty pictures. Viva le Wii!!! Peace
Gameplay? Like as in 10s shake the controller vigorously mini-games that comprise warioware? I have a wii and I think most of people who exalt it's gameplay are just jumping on a bandwagon. It's basically taking older game concepts (NES era) tacking on a *shake* mechanic replacing button mashing mechanic and calling it a game. Some games are truly innovative (wii sports) others are just old games with *shaking* replacing button mashing (Rayman/Warioware). True innovators (Katamari Damacy, Viva Pinata, Cooking Mama) will find interesting things to do with the controls available. Everyone else puts out the same old shit with slightly different gimics (more pretty lights, bump mapping, shake controller vs pushing button, etc..)
Also, it might be worth noting that "academia" does not necessarily imply "government" when it comes to funding... No one said better. We only said Industry is less inclined to fund far term, low probability of profit projects that are basic science.
Here and here
and here
is a few link to my local universities faculty and a brief summary of what they research. Note the distinct rarity of projects with any near term profit motive. Also note this is the same university which had a faculty member create a sequencer which revolutionized genetics by automating and speeding up sequencing. Ever once in a while airy fairy academic research hits pay dirt and then private industry takes over.
It's really no different from the claims in the hospitality and service industry that seek to keep employees there cheap.
Cheap for the employer but some of the hospitality industry make pretty good money. I have a friend who makes less money now as a bank manager then she did as a cocktail waitress at a casino. I had another friend who worked for 5 years as a waitress and part time model (like the suns page 3 model but with cloths on) and save up $100,000 to start her own business. If your smart, attractive, and social you can make a killing int he hospitality industry.. at least till you're 30.
Because central planning really really works. And because PARC didn't discover anything of use, and all those Intel and Microsoft research labs popping up like mushrooms after a heavy rain don't exist, and the numerous research universities throughout the nation, with millions and billions of dollars in endowments, are really just studying not even string theory, but silly string.
A private company creating some interesting things does not invalidate the argument that academia researches things that aren't profitable. It's a complete tangential straw man. To summarize all academic research into a bland sentence about a particular area of physics is deceitful. Industry is good at bridging the last gap between an idea and a product. usually things that are within 5 years of being useful. Academia is better at doing basic research, research with no immediate profitability, and research that industry simply doesn't have a desire to fund. Laser's, the computer, algorithms, genetics etc... were all at one time just random academic ideas with no profit in sight. Once it hit a certain point industry took up that research and made products out of them. Basics research is high risk, you get results but the results are rarely usable in a product. Thus governments usually fund it as Industry is often extremely risk adverse.
I have a bit of a desire for bioshock and mass effect but aside from that the 360 isn't pressing the right buttons yet.
Marketing > Graphics > Fun
Never ascribe to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
Microsoft corollary: Unless it's Microsoft then never ascribed to incompetence or bad management what can adequately explained by pure unrelenting evil.
It's worth mentioning that the person to poached all of this Californian librarians good points was an American librarian from Illinois.
I think most companies know if you want to make it big and you have a product to sell you sell it in the US. Just like if you are a rock band and you are from another country your sales jump when you cross the pond.
If you want it to stay that way, don't take it for granted. The economic markers point down right now. If this trend continues you may see a day when the US isn't such a important market.
damn right. First of all if it was good, they'd market it here since America is one of the top gadget markets. Either it doesn't meet our standards or it's not cost effective to market here because it sucks. All of these fancy gadgets are probably way crappier than they sound and will break before you get them home or they contain more lead than a 19th century pipe. Plus apparently the article author has never heard of ebay.
Conversely Americans tend to buy the same 3 gadgets (an iPod, a Razr, a Blackberry), while in Japan, Korea, China, and Europe it tends towards more diversity. In Japan you tout your toys like we tout our musical tastes. It's not here because the US market is so homogeneous that the niches those products fill may not exist here or we don't have sufficient technolust to get a OLED when we already have a 42" LCD.
The US is a mixed bag, on average it's far behind the technology curve. It's not population density because Canada is less dense but more in touch with technology. Some areas and industries are cutting edge but the average American seems pretty low on the tech literacy totem. At least from my interactions with Americans on trips there and on visitors here.
And saying "So you're one of those 'me hate science because I smartest' types?" or suggesting I don't understand because I haven't obtained a degree in statistics just reinforces my subject line, a partial quote of: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." Lets draw a distinction here, that quote "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." is an emphasis on how people can use statistics to distort the truth. Individuals like Frank Luntz are very good at using it this way. However statistics itself is not at fault it's the generally low level of mathematic literacy that is at fault.
Case in point: The size of your sample varies with the confidence level you want and the margin of error that you will accept. The actual population size is not a significant factor. For some studies if the trend is strong enough a sample size of 30 is sufficient even if the total pop is 100,000,000. If the trend or trait is subtle you may need more samples as the margin of error is as large or larger then any pattern you discern. Your "characteristics" is a irrelevant as a sample of 517 out of 2187 possibilities will still give information on frequency etc... If your results lead to 517 separate variations of those 7 characteristics then indeed your study has advised you to get a larger sample size. But most studies look at much fewer then 7 variables or characteristics at a time. Dismissing it because it's not a significant % of cases underlines a significant misunderstanding of statistics making you part of the problem with "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." (As others have pointed out mroe eloquently then I)
If a sample is random and the data gives a pattern that is significantly stronger then the error margin then it says something. The conclusion may be distorted but you can't write off a study merely on it's sample size when the sample size look adequate statistically. If they had a sample size of 7 then yes the sample size can be used to write off the conclusion, however 517 ought to be fine in most cases. 30-100 is usual for many studies. 517 is not too shabby. Now the real criticism (as I pointed out) is if it was random or not.
From the AP article: "The Federal Trade Commission has said about 3 million Americans have their identities stolen annually." And this study covers 517 cases over 7 years (2000-2006). I'm sorry, but I can't see a study of 517 cases during a period of approx. 21 million crimes providing really useful data.
A fine product of the US education system I see. Stats was your major?
It is clear after reading your replies that you have no real idea what you're talking about.
I may be less qualified I only took psychology to 300 level courses as my university arts options, What qualifies your as more valid opinion?
Schizophrenics as I am led to believe are still thinking however there is disconnection with what they perceive or how they think and the world around them.
Then you're not trying very hard.
Schizophrenia.
"The law says no in some conditions."
Sorry, but the "involuntary" IS the condition. Schizophrenia is the detachment of ones perception of reality and actual common agreement on what is reality. Although they may behave bizarrely everything they're doing is "voluntary".
It's a suitable defense but it's doesn't absolve you completely either. It often substitutes time in a mental institution for time in a rehabilitation centre. Actually this would be the case I wish they would be more strict about since FAS, Schizophrenia, and various other disorders makes it harder for you to understand what you did and not do it again.
The law is tricky, mental illness has been rejected as a defense in many cases even when a psychologists states there is mental illness. So the verdict is "The law says no in some conditions." As even one case confirms the statement.
The law says no, despite what you would like to see.....
If someone has some type of damage that causes them to INVOLUNTARILY mimic criminal behavior, does that make them a criminal?
The law says no in some conditions. Having FAS does not absolve you of murder. Having epilepsy and not disclosing it if you knew, to an airline, while applying for a job as a pilot may result in criminal persecution if something were to happen. The line is "voluntary" vs "involuntary" but i can't think offhand of many situations where a mental illness can cause you to commit many crimes involuntarily. Having a seizure and severely injuring someone may be one of those situations. But it's not common. In automotive accidents involving epilepsy I do believe it's a not "criminal". However most mental illness leading to criminal behavior is more in line with how FAS influences you.
Which brings up an interesting point, if an individual acquires some type of damage that causes them to mimic criminal behavior, are they in fact, criminals?
If they commit a crime, yes. Retarded, brain damaged, emotionally scarred, etc.. ought not influence conviction although it may mitigate sentencing. I'd argue that it ought to increase sentencing as it's not more likely for the offended to re offend and less likely they can be rehabilitated.
These statistical correlations are a complete crock. There are a million things that have changed over the last few years that could also be attributed.
Personally, I think the most likely cause is one of:
* Reduction in the use of slide rules. With calculators it's easier to get a job as a clerk.
* Increase in CPU speed. Too much time playing games == less time being bad.
* Global warming. It's getting too hot to commit crime.
Strength of correlation matters and if you have multiple cases to draw from (each state is a sample) then you can more confidently state your correlation. If you notice that the correlation occurs a set time or general range of time after the banning of leaded paint in all jurisdictions then it suggest some sort of relationship. I believe that is what TFA is outlining. The assumption that Correlation != causation is good however sometimes Correlation => causation and often correlation => some sort of relationship.