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Comment "Pig in the Python" effect? (Score 3, Interesting) 168

An additional contributing factor might demographics. Consider the baby boomer population. This is often called the "Pig in the Python". During the 1990's, there were a large number of educated baby boomers in their 30's, in an environment where there were fewer open slots of any type above them. So there may have been a greater incentive to "create your own slot" by doing a startup.

Comment Just rename it HAL-9000 (Score 1) 268

The main problem is that users become too relaxed and complacent. Solution: activating autopilot will bring up HAL's eye on the screen with a "Good morning Dave" (regardless of time of day or name of driver). When autopilot finds a situation that it can't handle, it can say, "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that". When the user takes control away from the autopilot, the autopilot can say: "I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal."

Comment Pedestrian walking a bike = sign or fence? (Score 1) 698

Another possibility -- the LIDAR profile of a pedestrian slowly walking a bike could have resembled a something that the computer was designed to ignore. For example, signs on the side of the road, or fences, would generally cause a lot of false signals unless the system was designed to ignore these.

Comment The Adobe Acrobat Pro ads just write themselves (Score 1) 189

Scene: Home office, Manafort look-alike is typing on his computer. "Now how do I alter this spreadsheet? -- Gates will know". Overhead shot lets us see him starting to type an email. Cut to Mueller look-alike in a large office with an FBI logo on the wall. He is giving a high-five to other individuals wearing dark suits and sunglasses. Cut to Putin look-alike, saying "Need to alter a pdf? Get Adobe Acrobat Pro!"

Comment Re:Add in the 'low-contrast text' fad... (Score 1) 408

... and you've got difficult to read and difficult to navigate, some good reasons why the current UIs are less than usable. So... why were these productivity reductions made in the first place?

I suspect that the "flat" designs were used because Microsoft wanted to bring Windows to $100 cost devices with minimal processor speeds and minimal amounts of memory. So they were doing everything they could to reduce processing cycles and memory use. They were so fixated on running $100 devices with low RAM that they decided to ignore the rest of their user base.

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