Category Archives: Geek

Interesting insight into the results of Microsoft’s “Mojave Experiment” on Wil Shipley’s blog…

Microsoft took a bunch of “regular folks” XP users who were afraid of Vista, and told them Microsoft was going to show them a secret new operating system — which was actually Vista.

UNSURPRISINGLY, these people mostly said they liked Vista.

I hate bad science. Hate it. Hate. So let’s look at not one, not two, but FOUR, yes FOUR (ah-ah-ah!) key flaws in this experiment, any single one of which would render its results meaningless:

* The Placebo Effect
* The Pepsi Challenge Effect
* The Perfectly Controlled Environment Effect
* The Personal Tutor Effect

Microsoft has managed to prove that if you have a friendly expert on a controlled machine (with Vista pre-installed) showing a carefully selected subset of Vista features to an ignorant XP user for a few minutes, the XP user will often say he finds Vista acceptable. Wow.

This so-called experiment of Microsoft’s is an insult to science, and to our intelligence. And I am dying to see the out-takes from their shoot. I mean, how many people do you suppose like being told, “Hey, this giant, unpopular monopolistic software company just made an ass out of you! Ha ha! Our leading scienticians just PROVED that you LOVE VISTA and WANT TO MARRY IT. You are TOTALLY GAY for Vista! Haaaaaaa HAAAAAAA!”

Read the whole article.