Why don't we send an astronaut into a black hole, but tie a rope onto him or her first? Once they cross the event horizon and make some observations, we just pull the rope and drag them back to the mothership. We could make the rope out of carbon nanotubes or something to give it infinite strength.

This is not dumbing down, this is finally applying basic usability theory. Designers should be aware of the fact that nobody reads dialog boxes for example, and take care with their design to not use them, and where they do, to keep it short and to the point.
Using black and white instead of colour icons? Yay, finally colour-blind people will find things easier to use.
Not everyone needs to access every function all the time. A good designer will anticipate what the common functions are and make it really easy to use them, and tuck the less commonly-used things out the way. Too many choices can be just as bad as not enough.
The /. bias is towards technical people who will mostly see it from the other side, but in reality the vast majority of users only use a computer as a tool to achieve simple goals; a good designer should make this easy for them.

I can go one better than that. I don't even use the internet, except the occasional booking at the library, to ensure I don't use Facebook. One time at the library I did stumble upon Facebook by accident, so I crushed the computer with a steamroller, closed my library account, and moved to a different city.

I cycle to work and I concur. I get to see all kinds of things like car doors springing open in front of me, cars cutting in front of me without warning (though I rarely see an indicator flashing), and drivers that think there is ample room for a pushbike and an SUV in the same lane.

I drove from Melbourne to Mildura and only had to look at the map once at the start. Just follow the one highway with the big green signs telling you that you are going in the right direction. The drive takes about 6 hours (8 if your engine catches fire on the way like mine did).

That's the one!

Well, I have a few objections to them violently slaughtering her. The point I was trying to make is how messed up those particular people's views are - they were enthusiastic about killing a girl for what amounted to a minor offense, yet they were against the essentially harmless display of some skin.

It was footage from a mobile phone. Not a staged movie. The girl died when they slammed a cinderblock onto her head.

I once watched a video clip of an Iranian girl getting stoned to death by a crowd of people. At one point during the ordeal her dress started to ride up her legs. One of the attackers was very quick to cover up her legs again.
Extremely horrific violence: Ok.
Semi-nudity: Not ok.

I'm an Australian, and since the Australian dollar is pretty good against the US one now, it would be a good time to go there for a holiday. But I refuse to allow myself to sexually abused or get hit with an unknown and possibly unsafe dose of ionising radiation, so instead I holiday elsewhere.

There are plenty of seismologists that can predict an earthquake a week ahead of time. We just lack the technology to predict which seismologists they are.

I'm amazed that it's even worth mentioning that you are allowed to carry water into sporting events. Isn't the right to carry water just assumed?

I'm a business analyst, and when I did my degree they taught me UML and DFDs and various other types of diagrams. In the real world I never follow the rules though - I pick and choose the bits and pieces that I need. Ultimately my goal is to express information; having rules and a structure helps, but it's just as important to know when to break the rules.

A properly managed brainstorming session is a great tool for generating ideas. Some minds (such as mine) work really well in a brainstorming environment. One person says one thing, it leads to another, and through an associative process a whole bunch of ideas will come out. Lots of them will suck, but that's ok because sometimes a sucky idea will trigger someone to have a great idea. Only when the session is finished to you start evaluating them.

You ought to be careful using brainstorming to get a person to buy in to a project, because if they have bad ideas and you don't include them it will have the opposite effect.

You have no choice; they install the smart meter whether you will or nill it.