Actually, Valve uses the word "own" as well. Just go check out anyone's steam profile. When they buy a game there's a message: "Bob owns BioShock Infinite." So Valve themselves are using the same misleading ownership language.
It's barely added functionality. If you use your steam account on anything approaching a regular basis the feature is useless. For a collection of casual gamers who play half an hour here or there some utility exists. However, a core component of Steam’s audience: hard core gamers with large libraries, will often be using their accounts and therefore be ineligible to share. For the hard core gamer, Steam's bread and butter, this feature is a carrot followed by a punch in the face.
Apple’s policy of five authorized machines is more sensible and actually enables family sharing across multiple computers and family members. Something more akin to that, but with a division of accounts, would be truly useful.
If you play any one game from your library it kicks the person you're sharing with from your library. A library is an all at once or nothing share. So my wife can't play Skyrim from my account while I'm playing Borderlands 2. Without being able to share individual games, the feature is pretty worthless. Step in the right direction, sure, but barely. I still have to make sure I'm not in my account (or go offline) if my wife wants to play one of my games. It's pretty much no change from how we have to do things now. Hence, worthless.
I setup the shared computer with Linux and problems went away. As long as they had a web browser that covered most of their computing needs. One of my roommates even commented she liked it better after I switched because of how much faster the computer became. If guests are persnickety about OS, they can bring their own device. After all, you are doing them the favor by providing them with anything.
Even though the amendment has already been withdrawn, it never hurts to add your voice in opposition such that it won't be reintroduced. The new system where the public can comment on pending legislation is pretty cool
First I'd like to say thanks for the tip about the Keyboard preference. I've been a Mac user for years and that's something that has always annoyed me, having to go to mouse when I dialog pops up where the default is Cancel and I can't keyboard over to OK.
As to the menu navigation thing, it's always sucked compared to Windows and that's one thing I missed when I switched. I never used to know the shortcuts in Windows because a combination of Alt, then accellerator keys made it so incredibly fast to navigate the menus to do what I needed. Only since switching to Mac did I have to learn the shortcuts. I still wish I could navigate the menus in Mac. Even the Ctr+F2 to get to the menu is weak. Especially because on a mac laptop this means it's a hand contortion of Ctrl+Fn+F2. Far less elegant than a simple Alt in Windows. Also the lack of single character underlines makes navigating the menus much more painful.
However, the biggest thing I love is switching between applications vs switching between windows. I tend to keep a lot of windows open, so just simple task switching in Windows can be a chore because the Window list is so long. By comparison the Mac app list is much shorter and switching to the app via the Dock or Cmd+Tab brings up the last opened window for that app anyway which is most often what I want. Mac multi-tasking is vastly superior to me for this reason. Combine that with Expose is a huge reason it'd be hard for me to switch away from OS X. Those features are just too good.
If you ever ride in one, perhaps then you'll learn you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about here. Vision in my velo is not limited. It is a head out design and I have full awareness of traffic around me. In fact I have fuller awareness than in my car because I can hear traffic as well as see it approaching.
You are very visible to cars. Velomobiles are uncommon and very well noticed. I am more likely to cause an accident I'm not involved in, from people slowing down to check me out, than I am to actually be involved in one.
The way you handle a group of bikes traveling at 15mph in a velo is to pass them just like you would in a car.
Many people who use velomobiles, like myself, do so for daily commutes. I have been riding trikes and bikes on roads with and without bike lanes for seven years now. The only accident I ever had with a car happened when he pulled into a crosswalk for which I had the walk sign. I've yet to have a collision while traveling on the road with cars.
But it could reduce your reliance on a car and allow you to make a lot of trips you would otherwise use a car for. In my case, my wife and I share a car. We both work and I bike commute. So most days I take a bike or trike, rainy days I take the velomobile. In addition many of the trips we take to the grocery or the local mall we do by two bikes rather than a car. When children come along we'll add trailers and then tag-alongs to the mix (which my velo will pull a trailer as well).
I think many families could remove one car from the equation by bike and/or velomobile commuting. The velomobile, being faster in general, and especially an e-assit one, greatly extends the range at which human powered commuting becomes possible.
Actually velomobiles have been gaining popularity year over year and more manufacturers have been arriving on the scene. The Quest, which is one of the oldest tried and true designs, has been upping production every year for a number of years now. They publish how many they build on their website: http://www.velomobiel.nl/orderboek/index.php#productie They also licensed the design to Blue Velo in Toronto who makes them for the North American market.
Velo manufacturers used to have waits of several months to over a year. Only in the past couple years have the waits on average gotten down to around 5 months or so. My particular velo took about 7 months to get to me from when I first started contacting the US dealer.
I agree, figuring out how to lock it is a hassle. But it's also about 90 pounds with gear that isn't easy to walk off with and where exactly would you fence it? A theif would be putting a big "I stole this" sign on himself if he ever took it out for a ride. That's assuming he even knew how to operate it, which while not hard, isn't something you just jump in, and ride away with.
Side winds are not a significant issue. Yes they can affect the velo, however it is a trike and not so prone to tipping over.
My velomobile is the most visible vehicle on the road. Routinely at stop lights, when the light changes, I'll hear honking across the intersection as I begin to pedal through. This is often because the cars across the way in the front of the line are too busy looking at me to notice that light has changed.
The only places in which I'm concerned about height are parking lots where speeds there are slow anyway. A number of velos are equipped with horns. I know several velo riders who use air zounds which are quite loud.
Many sports cars are just as low or in a few cases lower than a velomobile.
Every bit of feedback I've ever sent them has gotten implemented. When first using the GOG downloader I sent them feedback that it's annoying I had to queue individual bonus content pieces one at a time. Few months later they updated and now you can add all bonus content for a game in one click. Later I gave the feedback that for any Dosbox based games they should have Mac versions. Lo and behold, today my purchase of Syndicate I can now download for Mac as well.
The problem with recumbent cyclists riding in traffic is they're invisible. A cyclist riding a traditional bicycle with a blinking light on his helmet is up high and very visible to me as a driver - I give him space. Often with recumbent cyclists people don't see them until they're on top of them. I think if your region has lots of cycling infrastructure that keeps you separate from cars (Vancouver / Amsterdam) then recumbents make sense, but not if you're in traffic.
Do you also find yourself wandering into other lanes because you don't see the traffic markings on the road? After all, they're pretty low, being as they're flat with the pavement. I've never understood claims that a recumbent is harder or too low to be seen. On any of my recumbents I am always passed with much greater margins of safety than on my uprights. In addition, the height I'm at with the recumbent bikes is still higher than most sports cars and in addition puts my face at eye level with the majority of cars.
Non-professional cyclists should follow regular pedestrian laws - moving against traffic, etc.
Actually moving against traffic on the sidewalk is the MOST dangerous way a bike can travel. Cars pulling out from side streets to make right turns do not see these cyclists. Riding in the road on the right side of the street is the actually safest. Even riding on the sidewalk going the correct direction is more dangerous for a cyclist than being in the road. Again, because people pull out of side streets and driveways and don't check the sidewalk, yet they always check the road.
This! I fucking abhor those buttons. What a useless backwards change that makes it harder to distinguish the things you care about. I've gotten mostly used to it. But it doesn't change the fact it was a very poor change on their part.
I see, so your solution is to saddle the man with a bill he could most likely never possibly pay. Think of that if your house is ever burning, especially due to negligence such as a child leaving a candle burning. Think how much you'd enjoy paying that firefighting bill, on top of your house being burned down.
We create shared resources such as emergency services for the benefit of all members of the publice. Saddling this guy with a bill of several thousand, or possibly 10k+ for a "house extraction" will not fix the underlying issue. The man is a food addict and needs treatment. Putting him in debt will not fix his problem or the fact that we as a society had to react and deal with it. It also will not balance the budget of the local departments because he simply will not have the money to give them.
Actually, there is case law that went all the way to the Supreme Court that decided the cops indeed have absolutely no obligation to help you and cannot be sued for not showing up.
Two women heard a sexual assault going on in their building. They called the cops. No cops showed. The women heard the assault stop. They waited and figured the guy had left. They went downstairs to help the assaulted woman if they could. Turns out the guy had not left and proceeded to rape the would be saviors.
The good samaritan women sued the police force for not responding to the call. Several years and appeals later it reached the Supreme Court where it was affirmed that the cops are under no specific obligation to respond to any given call. Cops can freely ignore 911 calls if they so choose with no legal repercussions unless local statues are in place that say otherwise.
Your post encapsulates the entire problem with the TV companies and their attempts to build UI. Lots of reasons why we can't do things, very little innovation.
Invisible gestures, please explain how the iPhone's gestures are visible? It's one of the easiest devices around to use, people found the gestures.
While you're telling us how voice recognition will never work, Apple is using Siri to build an enormous database of people's voices and accents. Kinect has to deal with a huge variety of postures and shapes and sizes of people and does it well.
Please don't tell us how things won't work. Existing products show how these things are already becoming a reality.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Valve uses the word "own" as well. Just go check out anyone's steam profile. When they buy a game there's a message: "Bob owns BioShock Infinite." So Valve themselves are using the same misleading ownership language.
It's barely added functionality. If you use your steam account on anything approaching a regular basis the feature is useless. For a collection of casual gamers who play half an hour here or there some utility exists. However, a core component of Steam’s audience: hard core gamers with large libraries, will often be using their accounts and therefore be ineligible to share. For the hard core gamer, Steam's bread and butter, this feature is a carrot followed by a punch in the face.
Apple’s policy of five authorized machines is more sensible and actually enables family sharing across multiple computers and family members. Something more akin to that, but with a division of accounts, would be truly useful.
If you play any one game from your library it kicks the person you're sharing with from your library. A library is an all at once or nothing share. So my wife can't play Skyrim from my account while I'm playing Borderlands 2. Without being able to share individual games, the feature is pretty worthless. Step in the right direction, sure, but barely. I still have to make sure I'm not in my account (or go offline) if my wife wants to play one of my games. It's pretty much no change from how we have to do things now. Hence, worthless.
I setup the shared computer with Linux and problems went away. As long as they had a web browser that covered most of their computing needs. One of my roommates even commented she liked it better after I switched because of how much faster the computer became. If guests are persnickety about OS, they can bring their own device. After all, you are doing them the favor by providing them with anything.
You can submit comments about the bill yourself at:
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=5211&year=2013
Even though the amendment has already been withdrawn, it never hurts to add your voice in opposition such that it won't be reintroduced. The new system where the public can comment on pending legislation is pretty cool
No, it's part of being human. Oh, and being part of the somewhat sexually repressed culture of the United States.
First I'd like to say thanks for the tip about the Keyboard preference. I've been a Mac user for years and that's something that has always annoyed me, having to go to mouse when I dialog pops up where the default is Cancel and I can't keyboard over to OK.
As to the menu navigation thing, it's always sucked compared to Windows and that's one thing I missed when I switched. I never used to know the shortcuts in Windows because a combination of Alt, then accellerator keys made it so incredibly fast to navigate the menus to do what I needed. Only since switching to Mac did I have to learn the shortcuts. I still wish I could navigate the menus in Mac. Even the Ctr+F2 to get to the menu is weak. Especially because on a mac laptop this means it's a hand contortion of Ctrl+Fn+F2. Far less elegant than a simple Alt in Windows. Also the lack of single character underlines makes navigating the menus much more painful.
However, the biggest thing I love is switching between applications vs switching between windows. I tend to keep a lot of windows open, so just simple task switching in Windows can be a chore because the Window list is so long. By comparison the Mac app list is much shorter and switching to the app via the Dock or Cmd+Tab brings up the last opened window for that app anyway which is most often what I want. Mac multi-tasking is vastly superior to me for this reason. Combine that with Expose is a huge reason it'd be hard for me to switch away from OS X. Those features are just too good.
If you ever ride in one, perhaps then you'll learn you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about here. Vision in my velo is not limited. It is a head out design and I have full awareness of traffic around me. In fact I have fuller awareness than in my car because I can hear traffic as well as see it approaching.
You are very visible to cars. Velomobiles are uncommon and very well noticed. I am more likely to cause an accident I'm not involved in, from people slowing down to check me out, than I am to actually be involved in one.
The way you handle a group of bikes traveling at 15mph in a velo is to pass them just like you would in a car.
Many people who use velomobiles, like myself, do so for daily commutes. I have been riding trikes and bikes on roads with and without bike lanes for seven years now. The only accident I ever had with a car happened when he pulled into a crosswalk for which I had the walk sign. I've yet to have a collision while traveling on the road with cars.
But it could reduce your reliance on a car and allow you to make a lot of trips you would otherwise use a car for. In my case, my wife and I share a car. We both work and I bike commute. So most days I take a bike or trike, rainy days I take the velomobile. In addition many of the trips we take to the grocery or the local mall we do by two bikes rather than a car. When children come along we'll add trailers and then tag-alongs to the mix (which my velo will pull a trailer as well).
I think many families could remove one car from the equation by bike and/or velomobile commuting. The velomobile, being faster in general, and especially an e-assit one, greatly extends the range at which human powered commuting becomes possible.
Actually velomobiles have been gaining popularity year over year and more manufacturers have been arriving on the scene. The Quest, which is one of the oldest tried and true designs, has been upping production every year for a number of years now. They publish how many they build on their website: http://www.velomobiel.nl/orderboek/index.php#productie They also licensed the design to Blue Velo in Toronto who makes them for the North American market.
Velo manufacturers used to have waits of several months to over a year. Only in the past couple years have the waits on average gotten down to around 5 months or so. My particular velo took about 7 months to get to me from when I first started contacting the US dealer.
I agree, figuring out how to lock it is a hassle. But it's also about 90 pounds with gear that isn't easy to walk off with and where exactly would you fence it? A theif would be putting a big "I stole this" sign on himself if he ever took it out for a ride. That's assuming he even knew how to operate it, which while not hard, isn't something you just jump in, and ride away with.
Side winds are not a significant issue. Yes they can affect the velo, however it is a trike and not so prone to tipping over.
My velomobile is the most visible vehicle on the road. Routinely at stop lights, when the light changes, I'll hear honking across the intersection as I begin to pedal through. This is often because the cars across the way in the front of the line are too busy looking at me to notice that light has changed.
The only places in which I'm concerned about height are parking lots where speeds there are slow anyway. A number of velos are equipped with horns. I know several velo riders who use air zounds which are quite loud.
Many sports cars are just as low or in a few cases lower than a velomobile.
Who shot first is the difference between murder and self defense. Order of actions do matter.
So what I'm hearing is you're an arrogant engineer.
Every bit of feedback I've ever sent them has gotten implemented. When first using the GOG downloader I sent them feedback that it's annoying I had to queue individual bonus content pieces one at a time. Few months later they updated and now you can add all bonus content for a game in one click. Later I gave the feedback that for any Dosbox based games they should have Mac versions. Lo and behold, today my purchase of Syndicate I can now download for Mac as well.
GOG rules!
This! The walk lights across 156th make me want to tear my hair out. They take forever to change.
The problem with recumbent cyclists riding in traffic is they're invisible. A cyclist riding a traditional bicycle with a blinking light on his helmet is up high and very visible to me as a driver - I give him space. Often with recumbent cyclists people don't see them until they're on top of them. I think if your region has lots of cycling infrastructure that keeps you separate from cars (Vancouver / Amsterdam) then recumbents make sense, but not if you're in traffic.
Do you also find yourself wandering into other lanes because you don't see the traffic markings on the road? After all, they're pretty low, being as they're flat with the pavement. I've never understood claims that a recumbent is harder or too low to be seen. On any of my recumbents I am always passed with much greater margins of safety than on my uprights. In addition, the height I'm at with the recumbent bikes is still higher than most sports cars and in addition puts my face at eye level with the majority of cars.
Non-professional cyclists should follow regular pedestrian laws - moving against traffic, etc.
Actually moving against traffic on the sidewalk is the MOST dangerous way a bike can travel. Cars pulling out from side streets to make right turns do not see these cyclists. Riding in the road on the right side of the street is the actually safest. Even riding on the sidewalk going the correct direction is more dangerous for a cyclist than being in the road. Again, because people pull out of side streets and driveways and don't check the sidewalk, yet they always check the road.
(damn damn desaturated buttons in Lion)
This! I fucking abhor those buttons. What a useless backwards change that makes it harder to distinguish the things you care about. I've gotten mostly used to it. But it doesn't change the fact it was a very poor change on their part.
Please mod parent up!
I see, so your solution is to saddle the man with a bill he could most likely never possibly pay. Think of that if your house is ever burning, especially due to negligence such as a child leaving a candle burning. Think how much you'd enjoy paying that firefighting bill, on top of your house being burned down.
We create shared resources such as emergency services for the benefit of all members of the publice. Saddling this guy with a bill of several thousand, or possibly 10k+ for a "house extraction" will not fix the underlying issue. The man is a food addict and needs treatment. Putting him in debt will not fix his problem or the fact that we as a society had to react and deal with it. It also will not balance the budget of the local departments because he simply will not have the money to give them.
Actually, there is case law that went all the way to the Supreme Court that decided the cops indeed have absolutely no obligation to help you and cannot be sued for not showing up.
Two women heard a sexual assault going on in their building. They called the cops. No cops showed. The women heard the assault stop. They waited and figured the guy had left. They went downstairs to help the assaulted woman if they could. Turns out the guy had not left and proceeded to rape the would be saviors.
The good samaritan women sued the police force for not responding to the call. Several years and appeals later it reached the Supreme Court where it was affirmed that the cops are under no specific obligation to respond to any given call. Cops can freely ignore 911 calls if they so choose with no legal repercussions unless local statues are in place that say otherwise.
Actually, I believe it's correctly said:
"Da story woulda read sometin like..."
God love the Brits!
Your post encapsulates the entire problem with the TV companies and their attempts to build UI. Lots of reasons why we can't do things, very little innovation.
Invisible gestures, please explain how the iPhone's gestures are visible? It's one of the easiest devices around to use, people found the gestures.
While you're telling us how voice recognition will never work, Apple is using Siri to build an enormous database of people's voices and accents. Kinect has to deal with a huge variety of postures and shapes and sizes of people and does it well.
Please don't tell us how things won't work. Existing products show how these things are already becoming a reality.
Always wanted to go to there and to New Zealand. Guess I missed my window.