quantumofmalice

And doubly unfortunately, even the gathering of experimental evidence is subject to this problem: funding is denied for politically incorrect studies, the methodological problems found in all real world experiments are emphasized in the studies we dislike, ignored in studies that confirm our biases, etc.

Comment · 8 years ago

This makes far more sense than apples touch bar, especially if it was modal with a few different keys that brought up different screens.

Comment · 8 years ago

That is simply emotional nonsense, on par with young earth creationism. The heritability and heredity of intelligence, for example, has been established beyond all reasonable doubt and no one in the intelligence research arena disputes it.

I appreciate the moral sentiment, and to an extent I even feel it myself, but being a denialist is not an answer. We need sane, sober and humane discussions about public policy dealing with the increasingly uncomfortable results coming from the genetic research community.

Comment · 8 years ago

Eugenics has a bad name, but it is scientifically valid. We now know that genetics play a huge role in life outcomes (e.g. adult IQ appears to be 70-80% heritable) and, for better or for worse, the eugenicists were right, even if their methods were morally wrong.

We don't focus enough on positive eugenics: getting smart, non-violent and conscientious people to have large families. Right now we do the opposite: smart folks feel all sorts of pressures to have a small or no family due to careers, the expense of elite schooling, the environment, etc. The opening scene of Idiocracy nailed it.

It is reasonable to look at soft negative eugenics, such as offering free, voluntary sterilization for reduction of prison sentences for violent crimes, but getting smart folks to have more kids is far more important.

Comment · 8 years ago

It is worth meditating on the fact that such a terrible idea was and is able to dominate the visual design community for so long without any significant push back. It has caused real pain for end users, and people who objected were shouted down or ignored.

All the more outrageous in an industry that likes to wear the mantle of empiricism.

Comment · 8 years ago

Your weekly reminder that flat ui (and its derivatives, like material UI) are big steps backwards in usability:

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-design/

Granting the validity of many aesthetic criticisms of over the top skeuomorphism, it will be a good day for users when the fashion-chasing flat ui era is over.

Comment · 8 years ago

Javascript is the Chauncey Gardiner of programming languages.

It was there.

Comment · 8 years ago

Yes, that is a great book as well.

I think "From Bauhause to Our House" is more important because we can survive a period of terrible art: most people will simply ignore it and when it is over you can throw most of it into the dumpster easily enough.

Unfortunately we are not free to ignore the work of architects, and correcting their mistakes will take us centuries.

Comment · 8 years ago

Very sad to hear. His book "From Bauhaus to Our House" changed my life, finally giving me a plausible explanation as to how we managed to create such a horrific built environment post WW2.

Comment · 8 years ago

Setting aside the logical impossibility of people f-king up but not f-king down, that is not true at all: men will f-ck down quite readily if it is convenient and there is low commitment. This is due to the obvious reason that males can have ten kids in a day by ten different women, whereas females can have perhaps 10 kids in a lifetime and each birth is incredibly high risk to her.

The core problem in the mating world is that the middle of the female attractiveness curve is having sterile sex with the top of the male attractiveness curve and then failing to pair bond with the middle of the male attractiveness curve. This is due to female hypergamy coupled with male promiscuity, arising from the dynamics of male and female reproductive constraints.