Hate mails!

Today I got hate mail!

"I think you r a communist stifling the free speech and expression that is our God given rights. maybe you shuld try listening to WE THE PEOPLe who do not agree with your stupid agenda. Tath's why we voted Obama in! To get rid of stupid communists like you!

And why do you hate linden labs? Oh, becuz you r a communist that is why. What is next? Are you going to hate Intel? HP? Electronic arts? Linux? Just becuz they make money that you and your pityful nobody blog canot make? Hahah

go with Christ "

On Voice

Last night was typical of my recent second life.

Jurin took me to a session with the cast of The Guild, which I'd never heard before and concerns the real life face of those playing online games. It was pretty elaborate as someone took the time to recreate the avatars seen on their website, and I have to say it was a pretty good job.

The amazing part was that I did not crash out of Second Life even though there were almost seventy other avatars crowding the sim (all packed into a tiny little corner which looked very funny). In fact, I was able to open up their webpage while it was proceeding, something which usually means instant death for my computer.

It's very strange. I'll be in some ocean sim, crawling on my hands and knees with no one and nothing on it. And on the other side of the coin, I'll be able to pleasantly chat with ninety people in the same sim with everyone running their mystiHUDs, AOs, and all the other scripted crap that people feel are necessary to play (I'll have to check one day whether the new starter avatars Linden Lab has chosen include AOs, I know the tiny dragon does). I hate it. I'm used to consistency. When I could barely move, at least I knew where to go to relieve the agony. Now, it's like roulette.

Also, once again Voice cuts out and kills me. The entire show was in Voice chat. My attempt to turn it on resulted in immediate paralysis. As in, the voices came in sounding like machine guns (nasty stuttering) and the viewer froze. There was a parallel stream, but it wasn't through Second Life, and half the point of attending was to get into Second Life and listen to them. If I used that option, I might as well log out. And of course, that is when Voice decides it wants to work in the first place. All too often it gives me the middle finger and I can't hear anyone.

When it's enabled, it kills me. And when it's not enabled, I'm rendered deaf and pointless. With increasing frequency all major Second Life events outside of small time inworld crews are exclusively voice and while I acknowledge the fact that the fans want to hear the voices of the actors they admire, it's annoying. I stood around supporting the bleachers and chatting to my friends in IM. Such is life.

Since I wasn't doing anything else, I listened into the local chat which, oddly enough, seemed to be how people were asking questions of the cast. When they opened up the Q&A, anyway, it did seem like everyone blurted one out. That's pretty crazy. Did everyone just listen to that podcast outside of Second Life? So anyway, I tuned into the local chat, and it was entertaining to hear what people were blabbing while the show was going on.

I'm rather scatterbrained. I don't tend to save chatlogs manually onto notecards or notepads. I have chatlogging enabled and that takes care of it for me. Once again, my memory failure struck and I do not have the chatlogs on me. Why? When I uninstalled and reinstalled Second Life, it must have reset all the settings and chatlogging is by default turned off. So I've got nothing. Zilch. And without the logs, I really can't remember the details. Just take my word for it that it was really bizarre.

It seems like I'll be busy for some time trying to fix Voice or my computer. Most likely the latter which is rapidly approaching its third birthday. If it goes, I'll be deaf and blind in Second Life. Or probably more like 'dead'.

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Response to a Comment II

On February 11, 2008, this was posted as a comment to my "Great Evils" post on age players. I will respond point by point.

"You probably will not post this, And that is ok. I know you will read it."

My policy for this blog is to allow you, the reader, to post comments of whatever flavor you want. I do not see your comments, there is no moderation. When you click post, it goes immediately into the post itself without me seeing it. This saves tremendously on my time and fulfills my belief in the freedom of speech and freedom of discussion of ideas.

Also, I do make an effort to read and think about comments. This involves a lot of back checking my archives for comments such as yours that get buried in the past. But I honestly believe that everyone should have a fair say in whatever it is I'm ranting or tripping about at the moment.

Hmm, come to think of it, I don't believe I've ever stated that before as my policy. But now I just did!

"I play a child avitar in second life. And while yes there are many there who are not innocent, let me assure you that I know many who are. My child avi acts and speaks in a Pg if not G rated manner. The sim she lives on is a pg sim, and anyone who suggests she do otherwise is reported immediatly."

Good!

"There are some there hon who are only doing in Second Life what many many others are doing. Something you can do in real life and that is be a child again. I had a horid childhood, sl provides a safe and sane place if i am careful where i can have a fraction of that, that i missed."

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree on this point. It is a release, certainly, but it's not treating the source of the problem, the horrid childhood itself. That is something that will require some serious therapy and playing a child on Second Life is something like repressing this rather than confronting it. Perhaps you have already done this, and in that case I'm something of an ass for suggesting it.

I am going to be honest, life is shit. Life sucks. It's short, horrid, and brutal. But I try to live in the future and look ahead, I personally don't try to go back and rewind my life to that point. Again, I may be presumptuous on your life but I only have your Second Life to judge this from. Please forgive me these assumptions otherwise.

If you believe this to be true, and it helps you, then more power to you.

"Also let me assure you that the innocent child avis are at war against the not innocent pedos as much as the next person."

That's great to here! Keeping house in your community is vital, precisely because it was ignoring the problem which brought age play to the forefront in the first place. It's great to hear that your community is taking steps against this.

"You dont have to understand, and I will not loose any sleep if you do not even try. But you do need to remember that there are real people on the other side of that screen of yours, and we reserve the right to play our game in any way that we choose."

And I respect your right to choose how to live. I understand perfectly the direction from which you are coming from, and I also understand the people on the 'other side of the screen'.

"Everything I do there is legal in rl, i would be more focused on those who do things in sl that would NOT be legal in rl. Such as rape? verbal assault, harassment."

Verbal assault and harassment are two things which in SL are easy to solve. Mute the person, ban them from your lands. It's very simple and I do not understand why they will stand there and complain that so-and-so person is IMing them lewdly when there is a mute button right there. This is a RL problem where you can't mute. But in SL? Something of a non-issue. I've been harassed in SL, and I mute them. If they're a (former) friend, then I turn off 'see my location' and 'see my online status' and destroy their friend card if they get annoying enough.

"I am signing this anonymous, because i really do not care to be harassed by you in game. I go there to have fun not deal with grief. Open your mind and eyes a little. You just might be surprised. =) Have a great day."

I would never think to harass someone just because of their beliefs or comments. I'm sorry you got that impression. It hurts me a little that I scared you to the point where you could not give your SL name for fear of harassment.

Having said all that, let me explain myself. My great evils posts were, at their heart, tongue in cheek. I really don't care about what people do in SL if, as you say rightly, they remain in RL laws.

The Great Evils Posts focus upon communities and people who people seem to always scream about as bad or not acceptable. When I wrote that Great Evils of Ageplay, it was just before the age player ban, when people at that time were calling for age verification (strange, they don't seem to like these days) and banning of child avatars. I was just more than a little disgusted and so wrote a post describing all the 'evils' of child avatars. I wrote it in the manner of a 17th century naturalist, even ascribing latin names to avatars. My idea was to write about age players doing and being something so over the top, that the reader would come to grips with the fact that perhaps the hype about age players was a little overblown.

I'm not saying I'm a saint, and you could probably dredge up a few posts of mine where I submit to this scandalizing of child avatars. That is my own faults of character. However, all the Great Evil posts were intended as comedy and not taken seriously. If people have, that makes me sad. I'm sorry if I offended you in any way, but please take consolation in the fact that I actually intended it to show off the overblown fear of child avs present at the time.

I honestly thought that the bland picture of the child av labeled as "hideous", that a herd of them would be called "Bunch of snot nosed brats", that they eat avatars by mimicking children and lowering your guard, that I would even need to warn an avatar having sex to check to see if their partner was an age player in the first place, was funny and a mockery of the taboo people placed on them.

The Great Evils was going to be a running series, but I stopped because I forgot about it and it was tiring to think of unique ways to make someone 'evil'. I only covered child avatars and griefers, and I had posts written about Nude Newbies and Copybot. But between Real Life (school finals), Second Life, and writing the Nunchuck Bible, I just stopped. Maybe that is just a little unfair to griefers and age players.

How Come We Cross On Green?

I meet a lot of very dim bulbs. They're very nice people, but sometimes a sentence will pop out and floor you with its ignorance. A few select pearls (my dialogue is italics):

On New England

Super bowl is coming up.

Yea, I'm so excited

Who are you rooting for?

New York, of course

Why?

Because I want the USA to win

Isn't New England in the United States?

If it is then why is it New ENGLAND? Duh. It's in England!

On Salad

I like to eat healthy.

Ah, that explains why you only have a salad then.

Yea.

-Proceeds to pour italian salad dressing all over salad

uhh... what are you doing??

What?

That dressing is loaded with junk, it's not healthy at all.

But then how is the salad supposed to taste good?

-By now, it is more soup than salad

Jesus, you're going to need a spoon instead of a fork at this rate.

This is not a soup. It is a salad.

I doubt that. It's more dressing than food.

Salad dressing isn't a food?

On Cosines

So, cosine is like measuring the length of one side of a triangle, right?

I suppose you could look at it that way.

Oh, okay. I'll get a ruler.

No no no, you use this formula.

But how can you check it? I'll go get the ruler and measure it.

-This drawing was in meters. The answer was 13 meters. She turns to me and says:

Hey, you're wrong. This is only 3 centimeters.

On Computers

Hey, you have a Dell!

Indeed, I do.

You're a Bill Gates lover then!

I guess?

I had a Dell once.

Really?

Ya, it broke after a few weeks. I was so so angry.

I imagine. Computers aren't cheap.

Yeah, so I bought a gateway. I wasn't gonna buy another dell and give Bill Gates more money.

Uh, Gates makes the Operating system. He doesn't have a hand in the hardware.

What? THen who makes Macs?

Apple.

What? I thought it was dell?

Dell makes PCs.

Oh.

Who makes Dells then?

On Brains

Hey, did you catch that slide?

Yes

Cool. What was the last point?

Uh, I think something on nerves.

Yeah, I know. What about the last slide?

I think something on brains?

I know. It was on the midbrain. What was it?

The brain?

Yes.

The Brain? Like the thing in your skull? The big cheese?

Yes, that brain. What was the last slide about?

We're doing brains?

Yeah, for the past week. Where were you?

Uh, I thought we were doing the nervous system.

On Standing in Line

Hey, what's this line for?

To get tickets for the movie.

Oh.

...

What movie?

Cloverfield.

Oh.

...

I don't want to see that movie.

Okay. Then I'd get out of the line and leave.

okay.

...minutes later...

Hey, can I see another movie?

Yeah, that line over there.

But then I'll be last in line.

Well, if you stay here you'll have to buy tickets to Cloverfield.

I don't want to see that movie.

I know. That's why you should exit this line.

Oh.

...

But I don't want to be last in line.

On Crossing the Street

Hey, if cars go on green, how come we cross on green?

On NeuroSurgeons and Nurses

One of the scariest things I have seen was a surgeon with intention tremors.

Wait, why did none of his fellow surgeons or nurses call attention to it?

Nurses aren't allowed to do surgery.

Okay then, how many patients did he kill?

Well, maybe a nurse or surgeon helped him.

How would you say they did that?

I guess they held his hands.

On GPA

Hey, what's your GPA?

2.8

WHoa, that's really low.

Well, that's about a C, isn't it?

No, no.

70 is a C. 2.8 is like a way way low F.

No, GPA is out of 4.

Oh.

4% is low. People must be really stupid if a 4 is an A.

On Shooting

Hey, I need help.

Okay, shoot.

I don't wanna shoot you.

On Warranties and Refunds

Hey, I rezzed your sax and now I can't find it

okay, teleport me over. Maybe it's ghosted.

kk

..I teleport over..

Hmm, and it never popped out?

Yeah, it's gone.

Not in your lost and found?

Nope.

Okay, tell me when you bought it so I can cross check that you actually bought one.

You don't trust me??

I'm just making sure you're not trying to rip me off.

But I swear I got it legally.

Okay, okay, I understand. I just have to make sure. I have to be consistant. Otherwise everyone will be saying they bought and lost one.

Why dont' you trust me?

Just tell me the goddamn date.

Feb 13th.

Okay, hold on one second, and it should come along in about a minute.

kk

Did you get this as a gift?

No

Well, I am not finding your name coming up as a buyer. Are you sure you didn't get it as a gift?

Yeah I bought it

Well, you didn't buy it from me.

I did buy one!

From who?

From "Guy" (name blacked out to protect innocence)

Okay, what's his full name?

"Guy Gisborne".

Okay, I'll ask him then.

Why don't you trust me?

Store policy, I'm sorry. I have to be fair and watch out for myself.

kk

Okay, Guy did buy one. Let me ask him if he gave it to you.

I swear I did!!

okay, okay, hold your horses.

...

Okay, he did sell it to you. Now, I'll tell you what. I can give you a new copy of it. I can't give you a refund because you got it second hand. But if you want a new copy of it I have plenty of those.

I think I'd like the refund.

I cannot do that. I can only refund the original buyer, and he sold it to you.

But you robbed me!

No, I didn't. You bought it second hand off of Guy. I will only refund Guy. If you want a refund on it you'll have to go talk to Guy.

YOu fuckin bitch, you robbed me.

Please, I can give you a new copy.

I want my money back this is fuckin ridiculous

This is your last warning. I can give you a new copy. I will not refund you for something sold to you by someone else. Take it up with Guy if you want a refund. I can't patrol each and every yard sale around Second Life with people who have bought something of mine from someone else and wanted their money back.

But he's your employee!

No, he is not, if he was I would have refunded you without question.

But he sold me something you made!

Yes, that is called capitalism. Selling anything and everything.

I have told you explicitly what I can and cannot do. If you are stuck on this choice, I can wait until you reach a decision. If you continue to pester me about refunding you, I am going to have to mute you.

I'll tell all my friends to boycott you!!!

If they are anything like you, then please do.

Sadly, this is only the tip of the iceberg. I think I am going to stop here before I lose all hope in humanity.

A Duel

I don't always agree with Prokofy, and I don't always feel he's attacking the right issues, but I do approve of how he can always make me laugh even when I don't care a fig about what he's talking about.


Case in Point.


Prok and some lawyer have taken to blows between their blogs. But the best is this (in response to the lawyer's critiquing of Prokofy's avatar):


"I wasn't aware that we have to apply ages to our avatars. Usually people refer to avatar ages by their actual years -- mine is nearly 3. I'm 51 in real life. Prokofy looks to be about 35, I imagine, I'm not sure, I never really worked at ascribing him an age. I don't feel he is 'slight' as he is some 7 feet tall I think in avatar equivalents and often can't walk under a doorway. I imagine his duffle bag slider is set at a higher number than Benjamin Noble -- and that wouldn't be hard to do, trust me."


Not to be outdone in absurdity, his opponent responds!


"[Prokofy's] modes of attack include deliberately misquoting people [he] wants to discredit, personally belittling anyone who disagrees with [him], making up horrible lies about interlocutors, and ultimately, taking what appears to be an immense amount of joy in being one of the most wantonly disagreeable people in the virtual world."


Modes of attack? I suppose Prok is some kinda robot now, with five configurations! Batteries sold separately!


He later accuses Prok of libel, to which Prok challenges:


"Let Duranske submit all my posts to a panel of experts and they will find that criticism that specifies people's actions as objectionable isn't libel; it's robust discourse necessary in a democracy!"


"Thank God I'm here to perform this public service, or we'd only have one kind of commentary in Second Life, that of the smug and arrogant tekkie."


"[Prok has accused me] Of supporting the torture of Chinese dissidents ... and then, a few weeks later, of trying to destroy Second Life and have its founder arrested ... And of being a half-dozen vulgar anatomical terms including — at the PG-13 end — “massive asshole,” and “giant dick."


Prok offers no denials: "Major-league asshole is I think the expression."


"Be that as it may, I will keep fighting the good fight. People like Duranske trying to make grabs for power and influence to pump up their vanity need to be stopped. It's hard work, and I hope I will have more company in this. If I'm stopped, I have no doubt someone else will pick up the torch. Seriously, it's a job that needs to be done."


This is a tragedy. A tragedy that these two individuals, who otherwise appear to be of sound and sane mind, have devolved into this school yard fight. It's pointless, nonsensical arguments about first, a bank that had been ailing for some time; secondly, who's more right and more important; and thirdly, who's banned from where and why. Stupid Stupid stupid.


This is the main reason we won't get anywhere with regards to unified resident communities and voices. None of us seemingly wants to compromise. Reading Prok's earlier posts, he notes that Ginko was dying off, but take a look AFTER Benji claimed it was a ponzi: suddenly, Prok endorses it! Even adding money to it! Benji goes and crashes a meeting of Prok's, alt-zooming in, making snide remarks, being disruptive. It's just ridiculous. Tragedy is the word for it. Two brillant minds focusing their energies solely on who is right, like children in kindergarten. It is the most terrible waste I have ever seen or heard of since North Korea.


And this is just a game. These kinds of debates (raging at the moment all across SL) make me cry even as I'm laughing.


And that's terrible.

Treatise on the State of the SLunion

I met three new friends at Bear today

all typing

it was kinda like old times

Are you sure they just weren't humouring you? Or so new they didn't know about voice?

No they were new but new about and didnt like voice

I wonder why.

one of those news was a knew

In fact, one of them is online, Im gonna invite her over

youll like her

'cept shes not responding ATM

Probably away or busy

Yup, guess so

Or so lagged out that she cannot respond

Which has happened to me on occasion

yeah me too

Anything cool been going on with you?

I was building an engraving. It's coming along a little slow, but it is almost 50% finished

I'm going to plaster it onto somewhere

Thats the kind answer I expected from you! ha ha

It just dawned on me that you can chat via the IM window now

With voice? Yes

Not sure if I like having that window open

the chat is see thru

the window isnt

I haven't upgraded yet, but I do remember the chat window being unnecessarily big and bulky from First Look.

Tere definitely is more stuff than you can have on the screen at one time

That was one of the hard things to get used to

It's going to reach a point where it will be a laggy Myspace page, with an itty bitty window to see something that looks like avatars interacting in someplace. You won't be able to see it clearly, it'll be so small

I hope the hell not

Its too damned gimmicky as it is

You can already publish your profile to the web, among other things.

It probably won't get that bad.

After all, if you can't see your land, you won't buy it, and land and tier are 3/4 of LL's revenue.

Uh huh

The other 1/4 is dreams and lies.

and Fairy dust, dont forget fairy dust

How could we? Torley is always reminding us about it!

Or, as Torley once eloquently put it, "Woozerpazoozer, roflcoptors Loolzoorama! "

Wow it gives me a headache to read that.

And that is the face of Linden Lab

I can honestly say I havent met a Linden who seemed pleased to met me

"Torley, are the Lindens doing anything at all concering the horrendous lag and crashing we go through daily, if not hourly?" Torley:"Wowzers, that sounds :(( sad muy sad. But I'm not a codeing monkey, so youll have to ask Ben or Phil or someone else."

Essentially said to me "Well, we'd care about what you say, but you're new to SL and also not a paying customer so eat your gruel and like it"

I'm waiting for Philip to say something like "Crashing Builds Character"

ha ha

I was on the roof with you that time, when we partyed on top of that Linden's home

Yes

she should have joined the party

lighten up for fucks sake

Funny thing is that she was a liason who is supposed to be, you know, intermingling with the residents

They all waltz thru like they dont care at all

We're all just guinea pigs in a cage to them

Why doesnt one of them hang out at bear for an hour?

They observe as they provide various stimuli

They don't even have to log in to observe us, they can shift through chat logs

are conversations recorded?

Frankly, at this point, if one of them DID hang out at Bear, I'd suspect something was up. Something like "Hay Guys, fun here isn't it? Guess what's cooler, we're shutting down SL tomorrow! Nice meeting yous! LOL"

They do record logs of chat, because they've used it to ban griefers on occasion

Ah

But not IMs?

IMs as well

An expectation of privacy thing?

Illusion of privacy is more like it

If that is true, that upsets me

I can see chat... that takes place out in the open

But IMs are, rather obviously, private messages

But recording IMs in an invasion of privacy

exactly

How do you know they do that?

Because I've had friends on the receiving end of such things

"Don't be silly. I'm IMing my friends who are griefing, the Lindens won't be able to pin it on me LOL"

Do they actually permanently ban people?

Another time a Linden all but implied they watch all the key holes on every door

I mean, Chrome usd an alt to nuke a whole sim 5 times

and the alt got banned for one week

Yes, they have a variety of bans, from simple account blocking to blocking entire IPs or specific hard drives permanently

They up the ante for each offense

Makes me wonder what you have to do to get banned for good

Easy

Crash the entire grid

Knock it out, for more than an hour

Wake up the next day, Suprise! Perma Ban!

unless you move

or buy a new comp

But the Lindens assume you'll be too lazy to do that

This talk is depresing me

I cant type tonight

It's the sad state of our SLworld

State of the Slunion address

Also, your ban depends upon what you crash

Crashing sandboxes, no one cares. Crash a company's island, or Anshe Chung's islands, or anyone with clout, and watch the fireworks fly

Eh, Im tired of all this

I'm just tired.

I'm going to log off.

Im beginning to see trouble coming for LL if things dont improve

Sorry about discussing such a sordid and depressing topic. And trouble is already brewing. The SL economy is slugging down, land prices are down, sign ups are dropping, and always, at the fringe, the griefers wait, with their hideous appetite for destruction.

Ah, this ugly and beautiful world of ours!

You should write horror movie promos