The average citizen in the street may think so, but that's not saying anything.
As for physics, it doesn't make people smart to study physics, it just tends to attract some of the smartest students. Having pre-meds major in physics wouldn't make them any smarter.
One of the issues is that Dr Callendar has is a fear of Math and equations in popular reading. A lot of other people are afraid of these few very pretty symbols. Lets do an experiment and see if using some equations and symbols drives readers into fits of terror and prevents their understanding as they cower shivering under their chairs.
The below is from Heinz Pagels in the Cosmic Code (available on Kindle from Amazon and Nook from B&N for about 10 bucks). It shows up on Google books too. Go look, it's fun.
One part of the Uncertainty Principal is (p)x(q)h – where p and q (the is pronounced delta, e.g., delta-p) are the sums of all of the uncertainties — or differences — in a huge pile of measurements of the position and velocity of some particle we're measuring – and h is the tiny, but still not zero, number called the Plank constant. The mathematical symbols haven't changed meaning, so if h ain't zero, neither p or q can be either. We can be as precise as we like, until we hit the Plank Constant. This is not some mathematical oddity, it is how the universe operates. That is weird, and that is one example of quantum weirdness.
The question for the experiment is: Would Dr Callendar have done better to use the equation in the first article instead of metaphors from TV and Movies? Or, did they so frighten you that you need a good stiff brandy and a foot rub.
So I'm asking the same question to everyone on Slashdot. Would Dr Callendar been better off just diving in and dealing with Heisenberg and quantum mechanics using the tools that were developed for it.
...but my first GUI was Rogue.
What, no love for castle.exe?
Rogue is from 1980, so it's at least 4 years old than Castle Adventure and the Tandy 1000, both of which came out in 1984.
Rogue is actually older than the PC; it was ported to the PC from PDP 11 Unix 7th Edition. It's actually a bit older than 1980, but that's the date that wikipedia gives.
...but my first GUI was Rogue.
What, no love for castle.exe?
Rogue is from 1980, so it's at least 4 years old than Castle Adventure and the Tandy 1000, both of which came out in 1984.
Rogue is actually older than the PC; it was ported to the PC from PDP 11 Unix 7th Edition.
HOWEVER, there is a difference in attitude between "losers are stupid and should never be informed of the facts of life" and something at least aimed toward making the users more informed.
If you have a deadly disease, there is a difference between the doctor knows the name and refuses to tell you that name and the doctor tells you the name but you are not competent to understand the terms. Me I prefer the latter.
Hiding file extensions does not do EVERYTHING to help out the bad guys, but it does draw a line in the sand as to where Microsoft stands regarding informed victims of its software.
Even casual users find typing faster than mousing. So while there are modes of interaction where it’s nice to sit back and drive around with the mouse, we observe people staying more engaged and more focused on their task when they can keep their hands on the keyboard all the time. Hotkeys are a sort of mental gymnastics, the HUD is a continuation of mental flow.
It’s smart, because it can do things like fuzzy matching, and it can learn what you usually do so it can prioritise the things you use often. It covers the focused app (because that’s where you probably want to act) as well as system functionality; you can change IM state, or go offline in Skype, all through the HUD, without changing focus, because those apps all talk to the indicator system. When you’ve been using it for a little while it seems like it’s reading your mind, in a good way.
Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none.