tripsis

Oh that's horrible. -.- I haven't read the book, but I've heard a lot about it. Sounds more like borderline slavery than BDSM. Isn't it meant to be consensual anyway? But I guess she could still be consenting, despite not wanting to go through the painful bits. :P APPARENTLY IT'S CHANGING MARRIAGES ACROSS THE COUNTRY so perhaps people aren't getting the "horrible" part of the message it sends, lol. :P Edit: @Lord Paul: It's a book series, the first book is called Fifty Shades of Grey. Basically (from what I understand) it started off as a spinoff fanfiction from the Twilight universe, involving two characters that the author (of the fanfic, not Stephanie Meyer) created. It gained such popularity online that she took the fanfics down and turned it into a trilogy of novels. Middle-aged women (and Tripsis :P) across the country are going ape-shit over it. It's basically consensual slavery.. to the point where he has a contract written up that she has to sign that says stuff like: etc. The entire contract was quoted in the book and it was literally like 6 pages long. The problem is that the guy is basically taking advantage of her emotions to fulfill his sexual fantasies. Maybe he's not doing it on purpose, but that's what's happening. The main character (Ana) starts out really innocent, is a virgin, and doesn't have much self esteem. Then the guy - Christian - comes along and she's attracted to him. He's handsome and mysterious so there's some sexual attraction. And for her, it's the first time she's ever been sexually attracted to a man. She looks at Christian and wants a romantic relationship. She wants to "make love", go on dates, go see movies, and fall in love. Christian isn't into that and he makes it clear from the get go. But Ana still clings onto the possibility. So she consents to basically becoming his sex slave (according to their contract, she actually has to live with him Friday - Sunday and do anything he says - sexually or otherwise). She's slightly open to simple stuff like bondage (won't go into anything else than that, as it'll start getting inappropriate for TIF), but she NEVER wants to be 'punished' or in pain. But she puts up with it (through her tears and cries of pain) because she's still clinging onto the possibility that she'll walk away with a 'real' or 'normal' relationship. That's why, in my opinion, this book sends a horrible, horrible message. Before Ana, Christian had done this with 15 other women and they were all really into BDSM already. I think that's fine. They know what they're getting into and they enjoy that lifestyle. That is real consent. But I see his situation with Ana as him abusing her innocent and inexperienced emotions. This book basically sends the message that it's fine to tolerate horrible pain that makes you cry and want to run away and hide, because maybe one day you'll get a real relationship out of it. And on the plus side, the guy is really rich and will buy you things. :thumbdown: I honestly had a much different impression of this book before I began. I thought it was going to ultimately be a romantic novel with some BDSM tied in. To be fair, I'm only on page 330/514, but so far it's more like a BDSM, abuse, slavery book, with hopes and dreams of romance that ultimately probably won't come. But as it stands now, I'm actually pretty disgusted that people are enjoying this book. I'm at the point where I'm considering calling it quits. I have a billion other books to read that sound fantastic. I just don't know if I can waste my time with this one anymore. If I do decide to finish it, it will be purely out of OCD. I'm more than half way through and don't like leaving things unfinished. This review sums up my thoughts quite nicely: http://novelsounds.net/review/50-shades-of-grey-by-el-james/ I randomly came across that earlier tonight and it resonates well with me. And a few of the bits made me laugh. :P Like: And yeah, Serpent basically nailed the history behind this book. It's only really similar to Twilight in the really overarching sense. Like on the one hand you have a really average, ultimately unremarkable girl. Her self esteem isn't great, she's fairly innocent, not all that into guys, etc. Then she meets a guy who is really controlling and mysterious and for the first time, feels attraction. Then the book is about their relationship and her struggling to work around his controlling behaviour. That's really the only bit that connects the two books. You see a lot of similar things like Ana losing the ability to think whenever she's around Christian because he's "so hot" or whatever. You see a lot of that stuff in Twilight too. But Fifty Shades of Grey is really a contemporary novel. No fantasy, no vampires, no werewolves. When my mom found out I was reading this, she was like "Omg bring it home to me when you're done, so I can read it!" When she said that, I was like "Okay sure" because I was only like 30 pages in. Now that I'm more than half way through, I'd honestly be horrified if my mom read this :/

:lol: Have you ever read anything like that before? :P Well I have read erotic books before, but never anything with this level of BDSM. Honestly, what's annoying me most is the controlling behaviour OUTSIDE of the bedroom. I don't know if you've read the book or just know about it, but I'm referring to the stupid stuff like "You HAVE to eat" when she isn't hungry or "Go to sleep now" when she isn't tired. Just.. UGH. But the BDSM stuff is certainly a bit... off-putting as well. I have no problem with it in practice, but I find it pretty disgusting that Anastasia clearly doesn't want to participate in it (or at least not the painful elements) but does it anyway because she wants their relationship for other reasons. Sends a pretty horrible message IMO.

Adding onto what Rob said, you can also just download a free Kindle application on your PC. You don't need a Kindle for university at all. If you do find yourself reading eBooks for school, you can just use the free application. The only appeal of getting a Kindle would be if you read a lot for pleasure and you read "on the go" (like if you travel a lot).

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James...... ...what the heck is this book? Part of me isn't even sure I want to finish it.

Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry. This book... oh my god. I'm hooked. As made evident by the fact that it's 5am and I can't sleep because this book is so amazing that I can't put it down.

Yeah unfortunately it would require some custom coding. I don't even know if a mod like that already exists or not. We really do try to avoid having custom mods though since they require constant updating and such.

Well we wouldn't want to hide them or put them at the bottom since they have to be noticeable. I would be open to an option where each user could hide them his/herself after reading them, but that's not possible without some kind of custom modification.

I'm hardly an expert, but I used Microsoft Security Essentials for ages and never had any issues. Then I got a new computer and switched to using Kaspersky. Once again, no issues :P I'm happy with both of those options. For what it's worth, MageUK (who does know what he's talking about) is the one who recommended Kaspersky to me.

Hey, my name is Ashley too! :D And I also live in California (but only a few months out of the year). Welcome to Tip.It! That's an impressive list of languages you can speak! Languages aren't really my thing. I like the idea of knowing a lot of languages, but I just can't get motivated enough to fully learn them.

Lol :lol: Thanks for the laugh :P Honestly it's amazing how many errors you can solve (PC and others) just by Googling. But so many people don't seem to do that. Like one of my mom's friends called me up just to ask, "How can I record myself speaking on my Mac?" assuming that I'm some great vault of knowledge. I didn't know because I'd had no reason to ever do that myself. So I just Googled "how to record myself speaking on a mac," got the answer and told her. Easy enough for anyone to do that themselves :P

I've used iShowU a few times. Not that often, but it has served my simple recording needs.

You could just do a complete reinstall if you have a good way of backing up your files. I have a Time Machine, which allows me to really easily back everything up. I did a complete wipe of my HDD and then reinstalled the OS and my Mac has been running significantly faster since then. But as I said, this method is really only easy if you have a Time Machine or another really reliable way of backing up your stuff... and it does take a long time to restore your files so it's definitely something you'd want running over night.

This. Users can host an image on their own site, paste it on Tip.It (such as in a signature), and get the IP addresses of everyone who views them. This is a common threat going around right now and is one that we will be combating very soon. Another possibility is that someone got your IP from when we or RSC (or a large number of other fan/clan sites) were hacked. Tip.It's database was compromised in October and RSC's database was compromised in March. And I could probably name at least 5 other clan sites and fan sites that had their databases stolen in the last six months. Your IP could have been obtained from any of those databases, and I'm sure they're each in the hands of multiple people by now. There's honestly nothing I can say that will convince you, but Tip.It moderators and admins are NOT selling IP information. Only four moderators even have access to IPs (Super Moderators), but even their access is pretty limited. Admins do have access, but there's nothing I can do other than assure you that we're not selling IP information. You wouldn't believe the kind of things we've been offered to give up information and we've turned down every request as a team. It would be fairly obvious if an admin then went behind our backs and gave that information up. It is honestly pretty hurtful and insulting that so many people have jumped to the conclusion that the Tip.It staff are at fault when there are so many other more likely scenarios (as I listed before). I am sorry that this happened to you 999134, but I hope you will understand and realize that there are many plausible explanations for how someone got ahold of your IP. All of the Tip.It staff members value the security of our members and we always do everything we can to protect your accounts and private information.

The new RuneScape cinematic trailer will start appearing as an advert on UK TV. From the official RuneScape Facebook: (click this to view the video ad on Facebook) You can also see a new splash page here: http://www.playrunescape.com I wonder if this will be comparable to the "MiniClip" generation. It's the first time RuneScape will be on TV - do you guys think it will affect the community at all?

Saw it - absolutely loved it!

Sounds like a pretty cool month! :D

Great new photos :)

I'm not really a big fan of the processing or the subjects on these photos. This is the only one I really like:

Divergent - very dystopian, amazing book, has kind of a caste/faction system. This book is seriously amazing. I read it in one sitting. Basically the factions are divided according to what people think is the cause of war. So there's one for people who believe it's selfishness and everyone in that faction has to be extremely selfless. There's one who think it's cowardliness so everyone is really brave and daring, etc. When you're 16 you have to choose a faction. The main character Beatrice has to choose her faction -- does she stay with her family's faction or choose one that actually suits her and almost never see her family again? The Selection - commonly described as a mix between The Hunger Games and The Bachelor. There's a very strict caste system and 35 girls from different castes compete to become the prince's wife.

Currently reading Gladiatrix by Russell Whitfield. Just finished The Selection by Kiera Cass -- awesome!!

Books, how I love thee. Here's the loot from this week: You can ignore the first two. I know I posted them in my last blog entry but I took this photo for something else and couldn't be bothered taking a second one. However, I did actually finish Shiver and The Scorpio Races. The Scorpio Races really, really disappointed me, unfortunately :( If you want to see my reviews of them, you can check them out here: Shiver, The Scorpio Races. So moving right along. DIVERGENT!!!! Holy crap this book is freakin' amazing. And it's written by a 23 year old - how crazy is that? Here's a plot summary: Honestly, I first read the plot summary and thought "meh," and skipped over it. But then I kept hearing about it over and over again so I thought it must be better than it sounds. So I finally decided to buy it and I'm SO GLAD I DID! I literally finished it in one sitting. I read straight through the day, only to take a 10 minute break to eat. It's absolutely AMAZING. I don't even know what else to say :XD: You can read my whole review here if you want: http://booknook.me/divergent-by-veronica-roth/ There is a second book coming out May 1st, called Insurgent. I've already preordered it :) Grave Mercy This is what I'm reading right now. I had really, really high hopes for it. So far I like it, but I don't love it. I'm hoping it will get better though and cross over into "love it" territory. Lord of the Silver Bow This is an interesting book about Troy and the Trojan war and all that jazz. Sounds interesting, but it will have to wait a bit since I have several other books further up in my queue! (like Gladiatrix, which I mentioned in my last blog entry) The Selection (not shown - preordered) I have this book preordered. I've heard nothing but AMAZING things about it! The book isn't even released yet and they're already talking about turning it into a TV show. Awesome! Here's a plot summary from Amazon.com: So yeah, I've heard it's amazing and I wish I already had this book in my hands. I'm so insane that I actually ordered two copies -- one to be sent to my house in California and one to be sent to my boyfriend's house in the UK (which is where I'll be when the book is released). It's almost like The Bachelor meets The Hunger Games.. So it has the whole caste system thing and there's a big competition, but it's fighting for a guy rather than actually slitting your fellow kids' throats. Totally psyched! Bitterblue (not shown - preordered) I'm hoping this book will be good, but I do have my doubts. It's the third book in the Graceling Realm series. I read the first book - Graceling - and LOVED LOVED LOVED it! But then the second book - Fire - was written as more of a prequel and had completely different characters (well it elaborated on the lives of minor characters from Graceling). But I loved Graceling because the main character was awesome. Then she just wasn't in Fire at all so it didn't really interest me. Bitterblue is a similar case. It takes a minor character from Graceling and elaborates on her story. I don't think I'll love it, but hopefully I'll enjoy it more than Fire. Throne of Glass (not shown - preordered) This isn't released until August (so no cover art yet :() but it sounds awesome so I've already preordered it! My Wishlist These are the books that I've heard are awesome and sound interesting to me, but I can't justify buying them just yet :lol: Considering I've been on a major book binge lately... but hopefully I'll be able to slowly buy them over the next few weeks. Between the Lines Clockwork Angel Hunting Kat ExtraNormal The Lost Code Revived I.O.U. Sex Half-Blood Spider's Bite

Time for a new release of the: >>>Tip.It Times!<<< WRITE FOR THE TIMES - SUBMIT A GUEST ARTICLE: Remember, YOU can write an article for the Tip.It Times! You can apply to write full time, or just submit a "one-off" guest article any time you want! Our editors will work with you to ensure that your article is ready for publication. All guest articles can be submitted to @tripsis or any other Editorial Panel member. For more information, including details on how to apply full time, read this forum thread: http://forum.tip.it/topic/209138-how-to-write-for-the-tipit-times/ I'd like to remind people of the rules pertaining to Times threads: [hide=Read these rules before posting in this thread] [/hide] When replying please make sure to clarify the article you are replying to! Thanks! If you spot any typos or mistakes in the article then please PM them to @tripsis :) Enjoy the articles!

Happy to help! :D

Divergent by Veronica Roth. I'm only like 1/3rd of the way through but holy crap it's awesome. Go read it. Like now.

Layz? My picture has more cats!!! :P