Three Types of State

Screen State is data displayed on a user interface. Session State is data that the user is currently working on. Session state is seen by the user as somewhat temporary, they usually have the ability to save or discard their work. Record State refers to more permanent data, data that's expected to sit around between the sessions.

 http://martinfowler.com/eaaDev/OrganizingPresentations.html

Adoption of View/Controller Separation

[T]he MVC approach did two separations. The most important separation was Separated Presentation - separating the model from the view/controller. The other separation, that of the view and controller, was not popular in rich client GUI frameworks, although it did have a resurgance with web based user interfaces. In MVC the view was a simple display of information in the model and the controller handled the various user input events. This doesn't work well with most GUI frameworks because they are designed so that the UI controls both display and receive the user input events.

 http://martinfowler.com/eaaDev/OrganizingPresentations.html

Crystalization vs. Entropy

The formation of crystals does not disprove the second law of thermodynamics:

It is true that crystals and other regular configurations can be formed by unguided processes. And we are accustomed to saying that these configurations are "organized." But crystals have not been spontaneously "furnished with organs." The correct term for such regular configurations is "ordered." The recipe for a crystal is already present in the solution it grows from — the crystal lattice is prescribed by the structure of the molecules that compose it. The formation of crystals is the straightforward result of chemical and physical laws that do not evolve and that are, compared to genetic programs, very simple.
http://www.panspermia.org/seconlaw.htm

Controller-View = Tool

The Controller is responsible for creating and coordinating a number of related Views. I sometimes think of the Controller-View combination as a Tool that the user employs to work with the system’s latent information.

http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~trygver/2006/09-JavaZone/mvc-dca.pdf

Person.Save()

A person “saves” themselves into various domains when they register to vote, sign up for a mailing list, sign a petition, apply for citizenship. We could come up with all sorts of cute analogies where the immigration clerk is the DAO, etc., but the basic point is that these things are initiated by the person (and indeed some can only be initiated by the person themselves).

Jaime Metcher - http://blog.objectmentor.com/articles/2007/11/02/active-record-vs-objects

Benefits of Objects over Data Structures

In short, algorithms that employ objects are immune to the addition of new types.

http://blog.objectmentor.com/articles/2007/11/02/active-record-vs-objects