Very much this book. I personally believe that this book should be on every high school econ (and or gov't) class reading list. Comprehending this book will make you a better citizen, whatever your personal beliefs.

Yes. And yes.

Steam boxes are just prebuilt PCs running the not yet released, but promised to be "free" SteamOS. The same page says it can be licensed to companies too, so I can't speak to exactly how gratis it is.

It seems the only real source of information is Valve's Living Room page and subpages, but this techradar article digests it pretty well.

On the contrary, Valve is doing approximately the same thing.

A painfully apparent fact to indie game devs is that Steam is a walled garden (as exemplified by the Not On Steam Sale). You have to get Valve's approval to get a game on Steam, which means it can't be crap "me-too shovelware" in the first place. In fact, the Greenlight program has already seen some backlash because some devs put their stuff on Greenlight, it got approved, and then it turned out they couldn't deliver what they were promising. Gamers hate that.

Furthermore, indie games on steam are generally very cheaply priced (to the point where Valve's cut of the proceeds is almost painful for some indie studios). And then there's the sales. The unending sales.

Lockdown is still a feature. It's just cheaper for the customers now, and we've a bit of say what gets put on Steam. Personally I'm happy with it, but there are plenty of indie devs who have a love/hate relationship with Steam.

As someone who's been in the fandom since the beginning, I can tell you that most "bronies" (including myself) watch it with complete sincerity. The fact that so many young adults watch the show might be memetic in itself, but actual enjoyment of it requires actually enjoying it for what it is. Colorful pastel catfaced quadrepeds that are pure of intention and completely genuine. There's almost zero parental bonus, and that's okay.

It's like watching Road Runner cartoons. There is nothing below the surface, only a purity of intention translated to onscreen slapstick.

Also, this cartoon. For reference, a "cutie mark" is an outward symbol of a pony's "special talent", i.e. job skills. Ponies literally wear their resumes on their flanks. They don't limit activity (and they're open to interpretation) but they're good indicators.

Very much this. People who complain that this or that news story isn't "news for nerds" are forgetting that the "nerds" who read Slashdot often provide more insightful commentary than any other group of private citizen commentators, and certainly more insight than what the majority of the 24 hour news-cycle organizations. Furthermore, because Slashdot has global readership we get commentary from people outside the United States. I love reading slashdot comments for the same reasons I like listening to the BBC on the radio on my local public radio station (KQED), because I hear fresh viewpoints that originate not in this country.
 
Slashdot's readership is one of the largest college educated and tech focused groups out there. It's clear to me that the people who read these terrible story summaries and comment here are frightfully smart, and it would be a terrible waste not to capitalize on the group intelligence present here whenever possible.

No, I'm not talking about the irritating tween idiots. I'm talking about the artists. For every groupthink mob of self-entitled screaming idiots shouting their misinformed opinions at the top of their tiny little lungs, there's an artist taking advantage of the dead simple microblogging platform.

Tumblr is the home of the Drawblog (contains art), the Ask (ask a character questions, receive drawn responses) blog, and the art compilation blog. To my knowledge, none of these things substantially exist outside of tumblr. Sure, I could follow an "art appreciation" group on facebook, but because facebook doesn't deliver stuff to me in anything resembling chronological order it's largely useless to me.

I am worried. Legitimately worried that Yahoo is gonna screw up Tumblr.

Citation provided. There was even a Slashdot article about it.
In 2010 the McFarthest Spot in the contiguous 48 United States was a patch of Nevada dirt some 115 miles from the nearest McDonald's. Doubtless this has changed since then, but I can't find anything more recent.

You don't get it, do you? It is a horribly demeaning and invasive process. I've had the patdown before (only once so far, I've been able to avoid it and the scanners since). Even though the agent who did the patdown was extremely courteous and detailed exactly what each step was before he did it, I still felt invaded and demeaned. I have nothing against the man, he was very professional about it. I felt weird and violated for the rest of the day. As Sonic says, "That's no good!"

If you're gonna opt for the patdown, wear shorts if you can. They don't have to pat down your legs if they're bare.

Does this mean google is going to stop trying to get me to change my youtube username to my "real" name?
I swear, I've told google to take a flying leap about it five times already. I'm getting hot under the collar just thinking about it.

The submission quotes from the wired article, specifically the first and third paragraphs. It's not kosher to delete words from direct quotes just because they're "hype", and might even be improper in this case (because the phrasing comes from the wired article and conveys how the writer of the article feels about the device, which gives important information for the reader). Of course, that doesn't mean a clever editor could jump in anyways with ellipsis and such, but ellipsis are ugly and in this case the sentence is so short there would be no point.

For the record, omitting the second paragraph (which details pricing) from the submission and not indicating the omission with ellipsis or making it two separate quotes is bad editing.

(I'm not a "real" editor, I just have an interest in proper formatting. I may be getting something here wrong, and if I am please feel free to jump on my head and/or correct me.)

My peers are college age students and the people I chat with on IRC (who I happen to know are mostly young, college age adults because of the demographics of the fandom that the IRC channel I frequent was created for).
I certainly reply faster than most others who use the channel. My replies contain more words and characters and usually have correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. In most cases I can get out a grammatically correct, spelling-error free, and properly punctuated short reply faster than other people replying to the same comment with sentence fragments.

The people on the IRC I compete with in the arena of fast and tidy replies are the people who I happen to know are well into their thirties and forties, and are also heavy computer users. E.g. at least one professional writer, a computer engineer, and a professional librarian. Co-incidentally, the engineer and the librarian are both fathers with middle-school aged children.

I learned to touch type on a qwerty keyboard by playing UT2004, not having a microphone, and wanting to chat a lot. I had a personal rule that I would only use full sentences. I played that way for a few years.

It's been a while, but the last time I used a WPM test I was rated somewhere around 50 wpm. I am almost certainly remembering that wrong but I can't be arsed to go take another test.

Folks will use the internet available to them, as dictated by their residence in European countries or elsewhere. They may "choose" their internet by moving to another country, and that's not a realistic solution. Your assertion that people have a choice between UN internet and "other" internet is false.

For me, adblocking is a quality of life necessity. I find any and all advertisements that I do not seek out to be irritating and distracting, and my usual response to them is an immediate visceral sense of "fuck you". I must adblock, or else I would go crazy. Any websites that I encounter that refuse to show me content without turning off adblock immediately go on my "never visit this place again" list. My frustration with ads in the in-game browser from the steam overlay led me learn about and begin using hosts files.

That said, there are two places I can think of off the top of the head where I do not mind advertising: Steam popup notices (which can be disabled with an account option at no cost) and movie theater previews (I don't watch television, so this is the only place I can find out about movies).

If adblock becomes illegal, I will become a criminal. For me, there's no other option.