7. The arrows
Chances are that the first experience you had with a user interface, might have been your first experience with a computer altogether, someone told you that to scroll down the page, you use these arrows strategically positioned that scroll the page. This is officially the worst way to scroll, it's incredibly slow, and you have point your mouse at the tiny buttons each time.

Corollary: Some ui technologies emulate this button (certain flash sites) and instead of making you click it, they scroll when you hover over it. This is an improvement, albeit a small one. Most importantly, you still can't control the rate of scrolling.

6. Dragging the bar
Now you're one step up from clicking on the arrow. You realize it's too slow, so you grab the bar and drag it. This is a very imprecise scrolling method, but a much faster and empowering one. The problem is that you still have to use the mouse button for this, and since scrolling is something you do all day everyday, this is way too much mouse dependency.

5. Clicking the meter
Clicking is an improvement on dragging, so your hand will prefer this. You click the gray area where the bar is absent and it scrolls page-by-page. You also don't have to position the pointer as exactly, just as long as it's somewhere on the long gray bar, much better. Here uis differ, some stop scrolling once the bar reaches the position where you hold your pointer, which is logical, others don't.

4. The arrow keys
What if you didn't have to use the mouse at all? Face it, the keyboard is a much faster control device, and before you had windowing applications with hundreds of pixels to traverse, you didn't need a mouse at all. And it's a much more pleasant control too: I don't know about you, but I find pressing a key much smoother than clicking the mouse button. Maybe you have a fantastic mouse. So yes, you can use the arrow keys. But the rate of scrolling is the same as that of the arrow buttons, so you trade in control for ergonomics.

3. The mouse wheel

Back to the mouse, hah, bet you didn't see that coming! Oddly enough, you might say, the mouse wheel didn't enter the mainstream until a few years ago. It's true, if you go to a museum that has computers from 10 years back, the mice don't have wheels. The mouse wheel is a big improvement, because it doesn't divert your mouse movement to that damn scroll bar on the right side. When you click around, you can just keep your pointer exactly where it is and scroll with the wheel, it's fantastic. But again, the scroll rate is limiting (but it's more than the arrow buttons). If you need to scroll a big amount, the mouse wheel is out.

2. Good ole spacebar

Who'd a thought, after all these years, eh? The spacebar is positioned optimally. If you're right handed, your right hand will cycle between the keyboard and the mouse, but the left hand will be on the keyboard. And vice versa. The spacebar is right underneath your thumb, it's the quickest way to scroll. And you scroll page-by-page, which is efficient too. But it only scrolls down.

1. PageUp/PageDown
This is just like the linux programs more and less. The former only scrolls down, the latter scrolls up *and* down. The location of these keys isn't as good as spacebar, but they are still nearby for the right hand (even better if you're left handed and operate the mouse with it). The keys are at the end of a row, so it's easy to find them without looking. They (obviously) scroll page-by-page and so you have full flexibility. If you're only reading something and you keep scrolling down, you can do with spacebar, otherwise you go to PageUp/PageDown. And if you desperately need granularity, you can grudgingly go to the mouse wheel.

Corollary: One quirk with the keyboad methods is that the content pane must be in focus, which doesn't happen by default on page load in Firefox, so I first have to click inside the content to get this activated. A pet peeve.

There is a time to embrace individuality, and there's a time not to. If a hardware manufacturer decided he would only produce screwdrivers for screws 3*pi/7 cm in diameter, because that's the "ideal size", noone would buy them, because there aren't any screws that size. If an airline pilot decided to land in a non standard location, because the airport is "too far away from the city", he wouldn't be applauded.

It important not to be a robot, but there are times when doing things in a standard way is important. Especially when *not* doing things to standard is based on whim (sometimes known as "historical reasons"). We all think the Yanks extremely silly for not using the metric system, as one of three countries worldwide (of course, the scientific community *obviously* does use the metric system, and able to communicate smoothly with the rest of the world, it's just the rest of the population that is apparently incapable of understanding a far simpler system). Similarly, the Brits still drive on the left. This insistence is actually even more stupid, because unlike a system of measurement, it is only one single rule to be changed. In this they are admittedly not alone, but only because of those, yes, historical reasons going back to the old Empire that is no more.

But in both cases it is fighting a long lost battle. It is a lot like France trying to pretend that English is just any other foreign language by suppressing English content and culture. Well, guess what, English is the cultural language of the world. France and Britain both tried their luck at the whole colonize-the-world and Britain won. Just accept it already. France with their highly rated school system would be much wiser to shoot for bilingualism rather than censor English language movies from their cinemas. If French people were just as fluent in English as the Brits (or the Dutch, to give a practical example), don't you think that would be a huge advantage?

I know it's hard to believe, but it is in fact fully possible to preserve the valuable parts of your culture while changing the system of measurement (Britain), or which side of the road to drive on (Canada, Spain), or adopting a second language (Netherlands, tons of other countries).

That reminds me. Germany, German is *not* the "language of science/business/whatever crap". Get on the ball already and stop pretending you're unable to master English, everyone else in the world can do it just fine.

If you're at all interested in theology and religious questions, this will probably be an interesting book to you. Richard Dawkins is a crusader for atheism and what he essentially sets out to do in The God Delusion is to encourage people to embrace atheism, chiefly those who either aren't quite sure about it, and those who feel atheist but fear admit to it.

I should say from the beginning that if you are religious, you should read this book with an open mind. Dawkins is aggressive, and at times arrogant. He basically calls out agnostics as a pathetic fence sitting bunch that should just get with the program already. And he doesn't stop there, with phrases like "an imaginary God" he is sure to ruffle feathers. I can't say I enjoy this type of expression, it is divisive and negative. But he certainly is a lot more than a troll. And that's why you shouldn't let this aspect of the book deter you. His approach as a scientist is still for the most part completely scientific, quoting results of studies on the various topics that are being discussed.

However, his belligerence towards religion does raise one (of many) very important point. As it is, religion lives a very sheltered life in our society. You can criticize and condemn just about anything you please, but you may not say a bad word about religion. This is such an ingrained part of our culture, and no one will think to question this. I think Dawkins is absolutely right in saying that religion should face the same scrutiny as everything else, and precisely because it is so important to people. Why *should* religion be the sacred cow?

What I see as the main value of the book, however, is that many claims that are made about religion in general and specific religions as well. For example, religions like to claim morality. Religious leaders like to say that it is through religion that people are moral and that without religious rules we wouldn't know how to establish our ethics. Dawkins disputes this violently, by saying that scripture is extremely ambiguous on morals and that studies have shown that people with no exposure to religion whatsoever have the same values as religious people do. This to me is perhaps the single most interesting point made.

Another fascinating point is a theory about where religion actually comes from. In terms of evolution, Dawkins suggests that religion is a cultural artifact, a byproduct of our evolutionary process, that has proven sufficiently attractive for us to cultivate it.

In what goes more towards advocacy, in his quest to promote atheism, he is eager to show how religion is destructive in all sorts of way. This too may be instructive, as it brings out how there are a lot of things about religion that we do not notice very much. In particular, Dawkins makes a point of saying that moderate religion is indeed dangerous, because it fosters an environment in which extremist religion is possible.

One final issue that makes Dawkins's blood boil is the indoctrination of children into religion by their parents. This is essentially how religion is perpetuated, and it's a pretty thought provoking issue when you think about it.

The things we do in life can be split into different categories. Some are noble (not too many of those), some are a pursuit of excellence, some are intellectual escapades, some are efforts toward physical improvement. Generally these are things we don't mind people knowing about us. Then there's a different class of things. Things we do out of discipline or duty (mundane things like clean and work), things done out of temptation, things done out of greed or jealousy, things done out of want for physical gratification. These things are more sketchy, some of them don't make us look so good.

Among those definitely in the latter class of things is alcohol consumption. Now, I didn't say responsible consumption of alcohol or cultural enrichment, or anything like that. I call it by its most colloquial, universally understood name: drinking.

Most kids think that alcohol is very exciting, because they can't have any. Once they're in their teens, they actively participate. Not only do they drink, but in the course of testing their newfound freedom, they do a lot of really dumb things. Driving under the influence, vandalism, violence, drugs etc. Now, there is an unwritten rule saying that this is okay. "It's part of growing up." You're authorized to act downright infantile in the assumption that in a few years you'll be an adult and you'll have this behind you." But there is an important point to this, that of freedom. Going from a kid to an adult is a steady increase in the number of freedoms you have. This is very tingly. You go from being able to do certain things in a restricted way to being able to do just anything and everything. When you're a kid, you're likely to want the things you can't have. But when you're an adult and you can have anything, what are you supposed to want?

I definitely have this instinctive conviction that life is supposed to be an evolution. You're supposed to develop in some way, to improve yourself. That doesn't mean a hopeless quest for perfection, this isn't some holistic belief system. And you won't be the perfect person at the end of it. It's just a conviction that you should be trying to develop in some way or another, at any given moment. Life is long and you have the time to try anything you want to try. For every new thing you learn, book you read, country you visit, hobby you acquire, you go from who you were to someone.. slightly different.

On the other hand, there are some things that don't change. Physiological needs don't change much, emotional needs don't change much, the need for intellectual fulfillment changes in form, but not in principle.

One thing I find completely pathetic, that doesn't change, is the craving for alcohol. Think about it, think back to the first time you were really excited about drinking. Maybe you were 18 then. And what is it that people do when they're "enjoying themselves"? They drink themselves under the table. It's true for teenagers, it's true for students, it's true for working people, for senior working people, for seniors, it never stops. Now tell me, how many of the things you really loved doing when you were 18 do you still do a lot? How many of the interests you had then do you still maintain? And wherever you are in life, extrapolate to all the different stages of life. We don't stand still in life, we're moving somewhere.

But drunkenness just doesn't stop. Teenagers revel in it, students worship it, working people yearn for office parties, Christmas parties. It is that escape, that excuse for entering the other class of behavior. It's an excuse to do things and not remember, or do things and regret them.

But let's ask the question, how pathetic is this? How sad is it that people who have become 20 years older still crave the same primitive fulfillment they did two decades ago? And it's not just that they crave it. It's that they still observe it with the same sense of worship that they did in the past. Alcohol is still the escape, it's still the fulfillment. Nothing has changed. Where is the sense of development? You've lived 20 years and you haven't made any progress towards more ambitious goals. How sad. If you had wanted to play with the same toys at 35 that you did at 5, most people would think there's something wrong with you. Or if you were reading Harry Potter at 15 and still at 45, a valid question would be "where is your intellectual development, why haven't you moved on to more challenging books?".

Now, there is a distinction to be made about alcohol. If you consider it as a cultural artifact, then it is a lot more like food and drink we consume. If you have a glass of wine with dinner, because that's cultured, you're not really taking an excuse to do things you couldn't otherwise have done. Alcohol as an "enhancement" isn't really a problem. If you "get a buzz going" and feel a little more comfortable with the people around you, that's okay. But enhancement means just that. If you try a new brand of fuel and get a 20% better mileage, that's an enhancement. A 50% is an enhancement, perhaps even even 100%. But if you get totally fucked up, not knowing where you are, what you did or what your name is, that's not an enhancement, that's total transformation.

Does that mean drugs that totally alter your consciousness should be outright dismissed? That sounds a bit hasty. Perhaps there is merit to it. But they aren't universally worshipped like alcohol either.

But, here's the problem. So often alcohol isn't an enhancement, it's the goal itself. When people look forward to that weekend party, "having a good time" is defined explicitly by drinking itself. It is the goal. If you told people let's have a party without alcohol, they would protest. You wouldn't be removing just some addition, you would be removing the very thing that makes people excited. There's nothing more obvious to prove that drinking is the goal in itself.

It is this worship of drinking that's depressing. In many circles it's almost religiously observed, and this has nothing to do with peer pressure or "you don't have to participate if you don't want to", it has to do with how incredibly sad and lame the actual pursuit is. So when people do actually get together "in good company", what they actually want, their interests, their level of ambition, what they value, it's pathetic. And it's just as primitive at age 25 as it was at 15. People who are otherwise intelligent, successful, admirable, they turn into individuals whose one thought is "let's get drunk."

You've lived 60 years and the one thing in life that you think about in terms of feeling good is drinking. You're so pathetic.

Good computer games have been around for a long time. "In the beginning", you could say that the idea was just kicking off, it was an experimental thing, very small market and few titles. But the 90s certainly made games omnipresent and ever since they've just been around us.

Obviously, when something is new, there tends to be slight adoption by enthusiasts, but not much beyond that. People in marketing will say that you've become successful once you've succeeded at selling your product to people with no special interest in it. Then you know it's good enough "for everyone", not just those with an acute interest in the topic.

But by those standards, games have always been a bit of a special case. Even though they are unquestionably popular, they're not quite like other integral elements of our culture. I used to wonder many years ago at how it was only guys who seemed interested in computer games. All through elementary and well into junior high, I was really into games, and most of my friends were too. But girls weren't. It seemed like an anomaly.

Girls may not buy the most expensive stereo, but they will buy a stereo, they like music. They may not buy the most expensive tv, but they will buy a tv, they like watching tv. And so on, and so forth. So what was so specific about games that had such a gender based appeal? Was it because games weren't made for girls? Probably. Was it because studios didn't know what kind of games girls would play? Probably. Was it because the market for games among guys is naturally bigger? Possibly, but that's just guesswork.

I would say that games reached some kind of threshold in the 90s, early 21st century. When I was growing up, games were becoming better all the time, they were developing quickly. New techniques and new technologies made games published 2 years apart really show that they weren't contemporaries. Of course, I'm generalizing here. But I think that at some point we reached the end of that sharp gradient. I just get the feeling that techniques that came up are now fairly established, and they are continually refined as new hardware allows it. But I don't see that kind of pace of evolution that I did back then. As such, the number of things you could do in a game have been discovered. I don't think games today are offering vastly new ideas than those 5 years ago. Compare that to the mainstream switch from 2D to 3D, that one was huge.

So what I hypothesize is that games have been an established thing for a while now, and studios know what they can and can't achieve, and they don't expect the technological landscape to change drastically in the near future.

At the same time that games have matured, it seems to me that the genre has specialized too. It has narrowed its spectrum to the kinds of games that really are successful. What is the single most popular genre of games right now? (From my perspective, at any rate.) It's shoot-em-up-games. Or at least that's what we used to call them then, I don't know what they are called now. It was Wolfenstein, then Doom, then Quake and so on, it's the Counter Strike genre of games. And there are tons of them. When I see people talking about games they play, it's overwhelmingly this genre of games. At the same time, other genres have suffered greatly. Where is the Settlers, the Transport Tycoon of our time? Many genres have just gone lost it would seem. I certainly feel like the variety today is much narrower than it was 10 years ago, even though there are probably more studios and more titles out there.

So who is playing these games? Reports have shown that when it comes to the most popular genre of games, it's teenagers/young adults. Guys say below 30 who love this stuff. This is the target demographic now.

Coming back to the question why girls aren't interested in games, I was reminded of this issue when I saw an article by a female game developer. In an effort to characterize the female attitude towards games, it would seem that a) women don't enjoy this super popular genre because they find the violence boring (so do I, for that matter) and b) they don't like playing games that are hard to figure out. Obviously, there are very few women *in* game development to begin with, so ideas that would be popular to everyone aren't being heard. Which produces a line of product that doesn't appeal to women. Which again makes women unlikely to go into game development and change the status quo.

Disclaimer: Before you flame, I take the following exceptions.

1. I don't consider console games, I'm not interested in consoles, and I probably never will be.
2. There has been a recent surge in online game play with fantasy games, which seems to be more gender inclusive. As such, this opinion may have been more accurate a couple of years ago.