There is an option to set the font to bold, which does dramatically improve the thin fonts (though some of the larger text, like the lock screen clock looks odd), it's under the accessibility settings. There's also an increase contrast option (which is distinct from the invert colors option) though I haven't found where that takes effect.

There are a number of UX issues with iOS 7 that I'm frankly quite surprised made it through testing or that anyone thought these were good ideas. Ignoring the theme itself (lower definition icons means less context, especially with hi res screens, that context would have been very usable it's the whole reason we do things like image previews for icons in modern OSes rather than generic jpg icons).

1) The "partial shift" no longer has a distinct visible mode on the keyboard. iOS has 4 modes for the shift button. 1: The button is off, everything is lowercase, 2: The button is on, the next letter or symbol is uppercase / shift symbol (? vs /), 3: The button is locked on, all letters are uppercase, but symbols are not shifted, 4: The button is partially on, the next letter is uppercase, but symbols will not be shifted. Mode 4 is the mode the button goes into at the beginning of a line or after a period. It was also previously distinguished by a blue highlight around the shift arrow rather than the arrow being filled in. Now there is no visual distinction between modes 4 and 2.

2) Minimalist button icons. For buttons that aren't text, the icons are very minimalist and without previous knowledge give little to no clue about what they do. For example the "share" button is now a simple box with an up arrow. The bookmarks icon in safari is a weird divided rectangle that if you squint just right you could argue looks like an open book.

3) The ".com" button is now hidden behind the "." key for web address entry making is non-discoverable except by accident.

4) Folders only display a 3x3 grid, even on iPads and do not remember your last position (nor does there appear to be an option for that).

5) When you first open the OS, it tells you that spotlight has moved and to now simply swipe down from any home screen. That's good, it's great that the search functionality is available anywhere. What it doesn't tell you is that you don't swipe down from the top (which gives you notification center. You instead swipe from another place on the screen.

6) The keyboard seems slower and less responsive. This may be just my iPad for some reason, but it appears that the keyboard sometimes hesitates on displaying and coming ready when displayed.

7) Videos have a "make full screen" button, but no longer have a "leave full screen" button that doesn't stop the video from playing. The "Done" button remains, but this stops the video. The only way to leave full screen without stopping the video is to pinch the screen.

None of these are show stoppers by any stretch of the imagination, but they are the sorts of "little things" that apple (and steve jobs in particular) are noted for fussing over. For making sure that those little experiences add up to be a better experience than the sum of their parts.

Thank you for illustrating my point so neatly. Just as die-hard communists insist that real communism looks nothing like was practiced in the USSR, so do free-market fundamentalists insist that real capitalism looks nothing like what we have in the US ... both groups neatly ignoring the fact that in the real world, this is how their preferred system behaves. You can talk all you want about how it should work, or how you think it would work if certain conditions were met, but it doesn't make a damned bit of difference to how it actually works.

Yep. Anyone can describe a utopian economic system ("Under communism, everyone will work together for the common good!" "Under capitalism, competition and individual choice will lead to the greatest possible efficiency!") but in the real world, they all tend toward cronyism and corruption. Every single time.

I'd be willing to bet there are more deployments of MySQL than of all other standalone RDBMSs combined.

Does it cover both the aging of the body and the heart? Both the aging of the body and the liver? Both the aging of the body and the third toe on the left foot?

I know what you meant, but I get really tired of people acting like the brain and the body are something separate. The brain is part of the body; a complex and unique part, to be sure, but essentially it's just another organ. So if we can slow down aging generally, most likely our brains will benefit just as much as the rest of our bodies will.

Okay, you win. ;)

If I see "such-and-such biological structure is too complex to have arisen by chance," I don't need to see the word "create" to know the person making the post is a creationist. If I see "Barack Hussein Obama" and "Kenya,", I don't need to see the word "birth" to know the person making the post is a birther. If I see a rambling post about Israel, the melting temperature of steel, and the patterns of building collapse, I don't have to see the word "truth" to know the person making the post is a 9/11 truther. Etc.

Oh, please. This experiment is performed over and over again on Slashdot, on every story on the subject, and the results are plain to see. Most AC posts go unnoticed because they're AC, but for those that don't, there are plenty of responses giving links to easily accessible information on the actual science involved ... along with lots of upmods for the person making the original post, and responses talking about "warmism" and the huge piles of money allegedly being made by the AGW conspiracy and "hah hah, Al Gore is fat."

Like Italy?
No, like Switzerland.

American ballots aren't as simple as you think they are. We have lots of candidates for each office (almost all the time, the Democrat and the Republican are the only ones most voters have ever heard of, but there's no shortage of others) and tons of ballot initiatives as well. Granted, we don't have the problem of major parties with confusingly similar names, but that's mainly because we're so boxed into the two-party system, without even a semi-major third party to act as a spoiler most of the time. On the rare occasions that candidates who aren't (D) or (R) get the top spot on the ballot, they do tend to get a lot more votes, probably for exactly the same reason as happened in this election.

Or it can get you lots of upmods from all the Bold Individualistic Un-PC Rebels Speaking Truth To Power just like you.

Like religious fundamentalists, denialists pretending they're a persecuted minority are simultaneously pathetic and hilarious.

Don't forget the part about being followed at night by an aggressive stranger, who is considerably bigger than you and may be (and in this case, of course, was) armed. Also don't forget the part about how you live in a state where you have the legal right to stand your ground. But maybe you should forget that last part, because Terms And Conditions May Apply.

Ah, well, yes, there is that.

They didn't "redefine" it, they studied it until they understood it better. If you go to the doctor, are you upset because you get a diagnosis of a specific bacterial infection and a prescription for antibiotics instead of a diagnosis of "fever" and a bleeding to restore the balance of your bodily humors?