I think he's wrong in his assumption that navigation transitions are being used just to emulate native apps. They are being used because they provide a usability benefit. A navigation transition can demonstrate a lot to a user about hierarchy and flow [1]
While I agree with your point that computers should do the most they can to take the work out of things for the user, the flight search example used in the article is exactly the sort of thing that at some point you're likely to need to input. It's a plan that the user has that they want to action. While you could use voice recognition or call a person to do the same, some people are probably going to want to type it into a flight search or calendar app or similar, so the GUI for that is necessary.
"Making rounded corners and gradients is easier than making something useful. that's why it gets so much attention"
It's not about it being easier, it's about making it obvious that the user can use it. Following established design conventions for buttons by gradating backgrounds or rounding borders, however right or wrong they may be, can help a user to know the intention behind something without needing to think about it.
Depending on the length of the list, if you need to encourage correct spelling and have a list where the user knows the answer without needing to look at all the options (eg a country) then typeahead (autocomplete) functionality can work well here.
"...so, curiously, not only is water necessary for life, but life may well help retain water on planets."
An interesting thought. So perhaps old planets that still have water are more likely to contain life. We can detect water in some forms on exoplanets already [1] so soon we may be able to predict how common life is in the galaxy?
In the EU, incandescent bulbs were banned as part of a directive [1] to reduce energy use, as only 10% of the energy put in was converted to light. That sounds like a sensible move to me rather than lobbying.
In the UK, CFL bulbs were also subsidised and/or given out free to households by the energy companies before incandescent bulbs were banned.
My father also runs one of these to help people learn Photoshop (mainly for editing family photos). It's surprising the topics that can be learned though these groups
I did this and it worked for me. I taught myself design after finishing a code-heavy computer science degree. I learned how to use Photoshop quite quickly along with some design theory but it took time to get really good.
I used to look at those sites that were popular a few years ago that list well designed websites, and take inspiration from one or several of them at a time by combining the elements to create a new design.
It helped that I was working for a company that wanted a new design created to a brief each week as it helped me to get better quite fast.
Reading a lot of design, UI and UX blogs to understand why things worked was crucial to my development too.
In the UK I believe a good amount of people do keep eggs in the fridge when they get them home from the supermarket. Like yours, our fridges have the plastic containers for eggs.
You can say "a third of a pizza" and not be confused though, so there's no difference in saying "a second of a pizza" if that were indeed an accepted use of the word.
Exactly the same case for me too. At first it seems like it would be great, but it was wearing away at the passion I once had for my career. I now spend my days looking at cat videos and playing games rather than focussing on personal projects. I move jobs in 2 weeks to a harder job with better pay and can't wait.
[1] https://www.google.co.uk/design/spec/animation/meaningful-tr...