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Comment Re:Vertical panel (Score 1) 251

I'd rather it strip the icons than the text. Like someone mentioned above there are so many icons now and they're so similar to some other icon that there is really no info there. Yes, I'll eventually get use to doing it by memory, at least in readers and other simpler devices, but for a desktop or a laptop this would be a regression in usability.

Comment Re:Brilliant! (Score 1) 251

Seconded. This is a wonderful idea. I've tried it on and off for decades but it never seemed to last. There was always some thing or other that broke it to the point that just using autohide was better. If they can make it really work it'll be great but that top bar needs to be on the right.

Or better yet, the other way around.

Oh and they both need to be wide enough that the widgets remain useful. And there needs to be room for optional text labels as icon-only buttons are both unintuitive and nearly useless on complex devices.

Comment Re:pulse, flash, java (Score 2, Informative) 567

9.10 was the first version of Ubuntu that I could get sound up on since 7.04. The developers of Pulseaudio supposedly said "We will break your sound." They certainly did. I'd tried no fewer than 5 distros and had decided to go back to WinXP when a last-ditch effort got 9.10 working right. Usually. It still goes into a 'funk' sometimes.

Comment Re:Don't pick on Time Warner! (Score 1) 210

I'd still be on Verizon if they could actually get their service to stay up. It went out two days before Christmas last year. Given that it was the season I gave them two weeks to get it back up and they couldn't manage it. It had done something similar before and it turned out to be intermittent line noise coming from a particular source near a local restaurant. It took them several hours to track it down last time but they did fix it. This time they switched out the bridge, tested the line for 5 minutes and pronounced it done. It dropped out about half an hour after they left and stayed down until noon the next day. I could not get them to do a more thorough examination.

Thank god for Charter. I've heard bad things about them too but the connection does actually work now which is a distinct improvement.

Comment Re:((((((56.6/8)*60)*60)*24)*30)/1024)/1024 = 17.4 (Score 1) 353

Because games on dial-up suck. They're going after the gamers and the movie downloaders and are using the P2P abusers to justify it. Of course they're also trying to leverage their media services by creating a walled garden. This lets the attack piracy and lock out their competition with one move.

Comment Re:Was this such a bad glitch? (Score 1) 396

That second paragraph sounds perfectly reasonable. In fact it would be a good idea in general. That first paragraph sounds like you made the same mistake Amazon did and the third supports that conclusion. Most of the people that I've seen make that argument are trying to get anything and everything 'homosexual-related' dumped into the adult category. This includes everything from John Holmes material to Martina Navratilova's autobiography and everything else that involves gays as more than porn or a fetish.

This tends to support the conclusion that it was a glitch as I doubt that Amazon would do that without trying to curry favor with those demographics that would like it.

Comment Re:Yeah, but what's the point? (Score 1) 394

Why? I would have expected under/oversteer to depend more on weight distribution and on acceleration than on wheel configuration.

It does. It's nothing fundamental it's just that it's usually more practical to put the engine nearest the end with 2 wheels.

Most 3 wheelers with the 2-front configuration are also front engined front wheel drive in order to reduce costs and weight and to help keep the center of gravity low.

Most of the rear wheel drive 3-wheelers Ive seen are similar for the same reasons.

There are exceptions though, the Scorpion and the T-Rex that someone else mentioned further down, for instance. The designers responsible for the T-Rex managed to get a low CoG with a rear-engined rear drive design.

Comment Re:Boy this has politics written all over it... (Score 1) 394

"Hey GM, if you want to get another gov't loan, you have to do this partnership with Segway..."

Will create the perfect urban vehicle that sells as much as the original Segway does.

Why not just have GM resell these... Maybe bring the Oldsmobile name back just for them...

That's probably not far from the reasoning behind this. It does look a lot like a Hoveround for the road. They even point out the aging baby boomer demographic.

Comment Re:Yeah, but what's the point? (Score 1) 394

Two wheels forward, one back ("tadpole") is a very stable design (assuming a reasonable CG -- low and near the front)... but rear steering is not. It's hard to get used to and is very prone to oversteer.

Hm, yes it would be if it weren't managed somehow. An electronically assisted system would relieve that problem and leave you with increased maneuverability for parking. It'd also jack up the weight and cost though.

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