If a "general purpose" processor solves your problems fast enough, it's good enough.
How the fuck is that "harmful"?
You miss the point. It's not the "general purpose processor" that is harmful per se. What is harmful is the labelling of a certain class of processors as "general purpose", when, in the view of the author, they are not really general purpose, but specialised for executing C code with, at most, mid-sized working sets and little inter-processor communication. By assuming this workload as the default and calling processors good for it "general purpose", we may miss other approaches that might be more suitable for certain classes of problems.
Saying that's not how it works implies you know how it works.
Not true. There are many things of which I know how they don't work without knowing how they work. Before the detection of nuclear fusion, we didn't know how the sun was heated. But we did know that it was not a chemical reaction (not enough fuel for the time it had been burning). I don't know how Google indexes keywords. But I do know they are not looking them up via sequential search (too fast for that). I don't know what the annoying traffic light on my way to work is triggered by, but I know its not telepathy - or I wouldn't be standing there forever each day. And so on. Indeed, that's how science works - you formulate hypotheses and then refute them one-by-one. If you can't refute a reasonable one, that's your tentative model of reality.
Nowadays, most journals will expect the author to provide a camera-ready copy. They don't do any editing or typesetting anymore, they just handle peer-review and publication.
It is the field of biology that you are talking about? That's certainly not the case for my own field (linguistics). The editor still molds the submissions into a house style before it goes to the printer; the author isn't expected to do all the typesetting himself.
Ok, my experience is mostly with computer science, math and physics. Typically, you write your paper in LaTeX with a style provided by the publisher. LaTeX does the actual typesetting, of course. Some journals also have Word templates, but that's much rarer.
I would have assumed journals would let you err on the side of caution and simply remove your citation if it were unnecessary, but apparently citing too much can block approval.
Nowadays, most journals will expect the author to provide a camera-ready copy. They don't do any editing or typesetting anymore, they just handle peer-review and publication. Authors can modify papers following suggestions from peer review, which may include suggestions on citations. I think Nature and Science still to their own typesetting, and may commission better illustrations, but that's a rare exception. In nearly all cases where the paper has been accepted, the author has the final say about the details (within reason, of course).
You're looking at it from a very technical perspective, which is valid for the few who have the time and knowledge to dick around with a UNIX system to make it things. Apple's user-base isn't that sector, despite the fanboi protests (cue accusations of trolling). Apple shines brightest for people who want to get other things done without worrying about how they get done. For someone in the humanities, there's no better machine for putting together a fast, smooth workflow with an amazingly small learning curve. [....]
I'm regularly attending conferences in the field of theoretical computer science and AI, and about 70% of laptops there are MacBooks. 25% are Linux, and then there are a few researchers paid by Microsoft Research
Another thing that Apple has going for it is consistency. The PC market is gigantic, and if you want to get a good deal, you must spend a lot of time investigating and usually also get lucky. With Apple, the chances of getting a complete lemon are very low, and the choices are limited enough that it's easy to get an overview.
It's not any different with open programs, as no one has the time to read the source code anyway. It always boils down to trust towards the vendor.
That's wrong. Not everyone has that time, but someone usually does have - and for popular programs, many people do take the time. That does not make the system completely fool-proof, but it does make hidden backdoors a lot less of a concern. If neither of two approaches is perfect, it does not mean that one is not vastly superior to the other. Take antibiotics and witchcraft as treatments for pneumonia....
Yes, commercial software is based on trust. We have now found out that Adobe does not respect our privacy and we can simply stop using their products. The system still works.
Maybe you forgot a smiley here? We run this risk every time we install and run a proprietary program - how often do you need your nude pictures, private medical records and credit card information leaked all over the internet?
[...] on the street [bicycles] interfere with traffic.
Just for your information, bicycles are part of the traffic! As for "interference", the appropriate control situation is not one where the cyclists are magically poofed to New Delhi (or the moon), but one where every cyclist is replaced by yet another car...
It is the job of a "scientist" to present claim and data that supports said claim in such a way that it may be consumed by anyone and still stand on its own, only then is there "consensus."
Well, the job of a "scientist" may be to provide soundbites that so-called think tanks can feed to sympathetic reporters and the uninformed public. But it is not the job of a scientist (no quotes) to present his results in a way that "anyone" can consume them. Scientists need to present their results in a way that an interested, fair-minded, and, most of all, sufficiently educated person (i.e. usually another scientist with a similar speciality) can follow the research.
Some complex research can be presented to the general public (although even then not to everybody), but then it's necessarily simplified and no longer iron-clad. It's a sad illusion to assume that modern science can be spoon-fed to a passive audience in a way that said audience can really understand it. If it were that simple, we would not need universities and Ph.D. programs.
Isn't that socialism? Or communism? Anyways, that's a wimpy European idea. Proper American heros are more Wyatt Earp, Dirty Harry and Jack Bauer. Civil rights are as quaint as the Geneva Convention. If you're a law-abiding citizen, why would you walk outside your gated community? Or inside after dark? Can't you afford a car? Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius!
Real Programmers don't eat quiche. They eat Twinkies and Szechwan food.