Maybe people turn on ban lines because they're tired of users who want to impose their own idea of "fun" and "harmless pranks" on them. You don't get to dictate how other people use SL. Either they'll want to interact with you or they won't, and just like in Real Life don't be an annoying asshole and "no means no". So when a friend and I are standing on their Mainland parcel discussing the build they want to do and some jackass kept walking around us and bumping into us, then yes, that asshole first of all gets yelled at in local chat and then gets blocked/banned from the parcel. Because they're an annoying jackass who does not get to impose their idea of "fun" on us or dictate how we should use SL. We have things we want to do in SL, we are not in SL to amuse narcissistic creeps who thinks the entire (virtual) world revolves around them.

How is it a problem? Maybe people like having their own spaces to interact privately with their friends or to work on builds, and then go to the bars/clubs when they feel like socializing and meeting new people? Like...you know...the real world? *gasp!* I have friends from around the world, so SL is a way for us to meet up "face to face" and socialize. When I'm sitting on my couch in the real world having a conversation with a friend, should I have to put up with some jerk who barges into my house and demands attention? No? Well I shouldn't have to put up with jerks in my virtual house either. Go to a club if you want to socialize with strangers and stay out of people's private parcels/houses unless you're invited. And maybe if you stop with the "harmless pranks" and use some common courtesy, people would be willing to interact with you in SL.

And what's wrong with cozy bubbles anyway? I don't recall anything in the SL TOS that said I am required to socialize with anyone. If I want to pay for a parcel and spend the entirety of my time in SL building things without talking to anyone else, I can do that. I am not required to make SL a safe space for entitled extroverts.

Also, if you're unable to find anything to do in SL, you're not putting any effort into looking. There's announcements of events whenever you open the viewer (SL Viewer and Firestorm). You can go to the destinations tab to find themed sims and events. You can search for things you're interested in to find groups/sims -- Steampunk alone has at least four large communities. It's not the responsibility of other random SL participants to entertain you, put some effort into finding areas/groups that fit what you want to do in SL, and if you can't find anything that fits you, make it yourself. Form a group and/or rent land to create what you like. SL is supposed to be user-created, after all.

What do you use for watching Netflix? We use an AppleTV and I've never seen this. I just tried it out, played an episode of Daredevil (one of their original series). The episode began playing immediately, no ads. I fast-forwarded to the end. The credits minimized to the left, and on the right it showed the info for the next Daredevil episode and a countdown timer for it to auto-play (if you consider that an ad, that is being really nitpicky). To see the credits in fullscreen, just select them and click.

It's still far cheaper than paying the cable company for 200+ channels I don't want. And if a $2/month increase means Netflix can finance more of its own shows, I'll happily pay it. Daredevil and Jessica Jones alone are well worth an extra $24/year for me.

What? Twitter is not preventing you from "speaking freely". They just don't want you to do it in their private business. You can go set up your own social network on your own server and "speak freely" all the hate you want.

Twitter is under no obligation, legally or morally, to provide a soap box for bigots and extremists. Just as a grocery store is within its rights, legally and morally, to kick out a person who is running up and down the aisles ranting racist shit. And a newspaper is under no obligation, legally or morally, to print a paranoid call to violence in its Letters to the Editor.

Everyone loves to pick on the SJWs (ok, admittedly they sometimes make it too easy), but there are a helluva lot of people on the other side with just as much of a Special Snowflake Syndrome, who think that everyone owes them a platform (for free!) to spew whatever hateful shit they want.

I first encountered the vomit flavored ones in the Bertie Bott's Beans that Jelly Belly made for Harry Potter (for those unfamiliar with HP, the candy in the story contains EVERY flavor, not just good ones). So that is most likely the origin of the horrible flavors. They also had booger, earwax, and soap flavors (plus others, but I don't remember poop!). You try them once and then their only real use is to put into your desk candy bowl to keep people from stealing. :-D

We wouldn't need overburdening regulation if these dumbasses would act like adults with more than two brain cells to rub together. This is why we can't have nice things.

I'm also a (newbie) pilot. I wouldn't be opposed to having to pass a safety course and getting a license (similar to a driver's license) if it keeps (most) idiots from ruining the hobby for the rest of us. Or at least allows the same punishments that car drivers get for reckless driving, because the drone pilot can no longer use "I didn't know the rules" as an excuse.

I watched the announcement and I don't remember any mention of other consoles, why you should buy an AppleTV over other consoles, or how games are better on an AppleTV versus other consoles. It was more 'You can already play cool games on your iPad and now you can play them on your TV! With friends! And motion control!"

At most, Apple may be going after the audience who bought a Wii as their first console because of the casual party and sports games. It's not competing with the PS4 or Xbox, instead it's picking up the casual gamers left behind when the Wii fizzled. Those people won't buy a PS4, but they'd get a cheap set-top box that displays their movies and photos and now also let's them play motion-controlled bowling with friends. Yes, they're also offering combat games like Warhammer, but it's still aimed at people who are happy playing combat games on iPads, not Xboxes.

I just don't see the AppleTV being marketed as a gaming platform, it's an entertainment center that has games as one of its features. If you're more than a casual gamer, you'll play most games on your desktop or have a PS4/Xbox on the shelf next to it.

I'm a woman and have read (and enjoyed) Starship Troopers. And given its historical context, the book never came across as sexist to me. In fact, it's the opposite of sexism. Keep in mind the book was published in 1959, not long after women went from Rosie the Riveter to being depicted as so technically incompetent they were unable to even back up a car in many TV sitcoms.

When I read Starship Troopers, I was amazed at how progressive Heinlein was at making women the pilots of the ships, even establishing that they were better pilots than men. That was amazingly progressive for 1959! And the fact that women were given full status in the military (women were kept separate in the US Air Force, as WAFs, until 1976) and allowed to go into combat zones (USAF women were not allowed into fighter pilot training until 1993) was amazing!

Heinlein treated the women soldiers in this book as intelligent, capable, and competent in an era where popular entertainment often depicted women (those same women who had worked in factories and flew military planes as WASPs during WWII) as scatter-brained nitwits who must be patiently guided by their husbands. Starship Troopers is a feminist paradise compared to other works of that era.

It's not clear if she's already a gamer, but if you just want something to get her into gaming, I'd recommend games like Portal, Dragon Age: Origins, Skyrim, Neverwinter Nights, Diablo, and Starcraft. They are fairly easy to learn and play, and I think the heavy story components of DA:O and Skyrim make them newbie friendly (it's engaging and not constant combat, just make sure to start her on the lowest difficulty level). And you can do multi-player together on Portal 2, NWN, Diablo and Starcraft.

If you want MMOs, maybe try something like LOTR Online if she is a fan of Tolkien, since it would be a familiar world.

If she's not into combat games, there are also many casual games and computer versions of board games that have multiplayer. My husband and I play Ticket to Ride, and I play Carcassonne with a friend who lives in another country.

Your attempt at logic and reasoning is admirable, but as we learned from the Elizabeth Moon article not too long ago, it's a battle you can't win. They're not interested in fact checking. They happily and willingly eat up whatever incorrect/unsupported nonsense is fed to them in a summary and turn it into pure Nerd Rage.

It's too bad the first thing to come to your mind wasn't "Hmm, maybe I should investigate this further", since Elizabeth doesn't actually support this. It was a debate over an idea, not an opinion piece.

From her blog:

But, once again, Slashdot shows just how willingly its members will swallow any bit of misinformation that is fed to them, without any fact checking, and react exactly as expected to attack "the enemy" without question. Big Brother is so proud of you all.

CSS is about separating content from design. That's the point. Go to CSS Zen Garden ( http://csszengarden.com/ ) to see what that means. Every example on that web site uses the exact same content. Only the CSS is changed.

It is not a "developer" vs. "designer" situation. It just makes practical sense for development and maintenance of a site. If you use tables for layout, your site has become extremely difficult to update if you want to make major changes to the layout, especially with large, multi-page sites. With CSS, you change your stylesheet and it's done, site wide (see the CSS Zen Garden examples). The developer can concentrate on content and function, and leave the layout to the designers.

Dude, your bleating of "Apple Marketing iz teh Ev0L!" FUD is pathetic. You can't even keep your argument straight. First you say "kind of blame Apple" then you say "equal parts blame". Next I suppose they'll be entirely to blame and the NYP is just a victim of Apple's Department of Evil Marketing?

If Apple is so against the web, then why is Safari Dev Center ("Resources for designing and creating websites and extensions for Safari") featured on the Apple Developer site? Why are they pushing so hard for HTML5? Why does WebKit exist? Fit those into your juvenile conspiracy theory, because I really want to know what you come up with.

There are only seven states (plus Washington DC) with a population density larger than Wales. They are all in the upper East Coast, and all but New York are very small.

I know, right? Those arrogant fools, denying CMU students the chance to ever learn OOP! They should at least offer a sophomore-level course in object-oriented design methodology!

And also a course for reading comprehension skills.