Green Chili - Recipe? Please? Pretty Please? :-)

They couldn't do any better than a character from an un-funny series that ended 13 years ago? If anything this brilliant marketing fail makes me not want to use the Google wallet.

Giant D20 cast from dice donated by interested gamers from across the world.

Yesterday. Annoying but not critical

So it begins. A group of fans takes some fictional, but well grounded, movie dialogue, expands that out into a language. The language gets tacked onto a particular Con culture and both grow with some vigour. With this opera, we are seeing the creation of a fine arts and by extension, philosophy. A hundred years from now when we have followed Hawking's command to get off the planet to survive, will humankind see Klingon enclaves on Mars? Are we in fact creating our own antagonists? Add a little religiosity to the mix and a future Terran space navy could find itself fighting D7s manned by biologically Human but culturally Klingon beings. Gene would be happy he got the appearance right the first time. Or perhaps this is what he was getting at all along - we are Klingons.

"2: People who have tried SL and left unimpressed have little clue what goes on there and are therefore little more qualified to make informed judgements of what goes on there."

No, people who have tried SL and left unimpressed are making an judgement informed by their experience. To say that they had little clue about what goes on there simply means that Linden and the cabal of initiates in the know have done a piss poor job in exposing "what goes on there" in a simple, attractive and easy to use fashion.

The rest of your post was interesting - I hadn't thought of SL's possible uses by the disabled community.

Tried it - just a vacant boring wasteland with a crappy interface. Even the hookers were uninspiring. The text MUDs I used to play had more users, more interesting content and were easier to use.

How about... If I'm going to commit a crime in the area covered by cameras I'll just wear a baseball cap

Let's not forget they've made the public get used to being watched.

hmmm.. but see, now we're having a philosophical discussion. We can discuss what is the right/wrong way to treat offenders. However that wasn't a choice back in the day.. and I don't think that has anything to do with freedoms

Back then the law didn't have the ability or resources to track someone down. Someone could have made a stupid error they should get away from, or they could have committed the most heinous crime where they shouldn't be able to hide in any corner of the world. We can't kill those two birds with one stone.

Freedom isn't about having the ability to hide from your past. Everyone has the right to freedom, but you forgo that right when you commit a crime. BUT we have always had the opportunity to forgive people who deserve it, now we can do it not on the terms of those who perpetrated the crime!

In terms of the law being unforgiving, I don't think the law has ever been forgiving, people have just dodged rules. Crime hasn't magically shot up recently, we've just gained the ability to see it.

What's interesting is the duality of your last argument, this discussion spawns from the growth of government (using CCTVs) at the same time you talk about privatization of jails, and how it's a terrible thing to happen. We have to remember that the law is on the people's side.. and when the law no longer is, we don't avoid laws, we do what we can to change them. Sure that's wishful thinking, but isn't that the "right" thing to do?