Hey Hey! Let's Make Vehicle Lemonade!

I have found the perfect use for AnnMarie Otoole's endless Mississippi river of vehicles so ugly they wouldn't pass muster in SL 2003's shitty prim statue era. People have been bitching and moaning, but like my parents said, "Anna, make lemons out of lemonade."

So, aside from the fact that they lag up sims horribly, are uglier than '60s era 'cars of the future', slam and push people off public roads, behave as if the driver is aching for multiple DUIs, and have an unfortunate urge to offroad into others' sims; what use could possibly be made out of them? Well, look at their single positive: they do manage to find their way around the entirety of Second Life. In every stream, road, and abandoned no-autoreturn parcel, you will find AMO's crimes against decency.

You are probably wondering why I'm pointing their out. Well, the thing is, I'm sick of people writing volumes upon volumes that Second Life is one gigantic wasteland full of abandoned lots and blight worse than Pittsburgh's industrial district, populated solely by AMO's mechanical tumbleweeds. And my conclusion is that these people have never ever "had their boots on the ground," as my grandparents would say. I have no idea why no one notices this huge disconnect between people who bloat about this imagined SL desert and reality.

And hence the saving grace of AnnMarie Otoole. My suggestion is such: strap each person onto one of her vehicles and forcibly motor them throughout Second Life. Let them see all the incredible homes and builds people have made and are still making! Let them see people opening up stores and shops even though there's an offworld marketplace. Even the giant hideous black privacy boxes are evidence that the grid is as populated and lively as ever.

"But Anna!" you interject, "I don't see any dots!!" Ok, I have a riddle for you. No, a metaphor.

In the suburbs, it is a ghost town from 7 AM to 5 PM. Everyone is away, whether at school or at work or the nearest Occupy Wherever protest. And it's also barren from 8 PM to 7 AM, when people are having dinner, and sleeping, or up late walking around Second Life. So, from 8 PM to noon and all the way back to 7 AM, if you wandered through the suburbs, you could declare, "Surely this development is dying! Why, I see no souls moving about!" and have a spot of tea and congratulate yourself on such a remarkable observation. Except you're neglecting that window, that window from 5 PM to 8 PM, when everyone comes home, and before supper is ready, when everyone comes out. Children ride their bikes, and adults water and cut their lawns, and it erupts into the chaos of life.

And Second Life is similar. A quick romp through a particular sim will never capture its spirit. Go ahead and sit by it for a few days, and you'll find people come in (with varying degrees of frequency) and, well, do their thing, whatever it is. It comes to life. But that's something you will never see if you never take the time to go inworld, wander around it, and sit and watch the grid go by.

There is the second virtue of AMO's vehicles, by the way. Wherever they crash, they'll force their hapless occupant to watch the sim as it is.

Thus, my grand plan for taking an otherwise inexcusable plague upon Second Life and twisting it into a net bonus for anyone who wants to seriously discuss the state of Second Life itself.

RL Linkage Is The Only Way To Validate Your Work

Ah, I remember Bettina Tizzy. She was a tad less than enthused about the art critiques of her Flickr stream given by me and my friends. Rendered speechless by our rapier wit. And undoubtedly bemused by our attempts to discuss how a sculpty androgynous statue hovering in a waterfall could Possibly Exist in Real Life. Yes, I remember Bettina alright.

She's moved on from passively aggressively expressing her disapproval (the " . " heard round the blogosphere) to dispensing pearls of wisdom to artists trying to make it in the big bad world of Second Life. Since Bettina is possibly the biggest name in the SL art world (aside from Starax and whatever alt of the week Starax is using to hide from his adoring public), her words carry the weight of the world upon Atlas' tired shoulders. What was this jewel bequeathed to Hamlet Au on NewWorldNotes?

Paraphrased, it was, "Link your Real Life name and your Second Life name!"

Of course! Genius! Surely, no one has considered this. Let us listen to more of this indispensable wisdom.

More Paraphrasing: "If you use your Second Life name on your Second Life projects, then you'll be forever pigeon holed into Second Life itself. Cast off that albatross! Proclaim throughout the land and across the sea your True Name, so that you may expand beyond our pitiful sex-addled insular circle jerk of a virtual world into Real Life praise and glory!"

There were detractors who threw meaningless strawman effigies of Bettina up. They argued nonsense, such as attempting to point out people using pseudonyms in real life, so why should a SL pseudonym be limited to only Second Life? Do I really need to answer that? You silly commentators, you can't use SL fake names in Real Life! Could you imagine ever buying a book written by Anna Tsiolkovsky? Assuming it wasn't pure drivel (and that's assuming a lot), people would research the Internet and say, "Whoa, this Anna, she's a fake name from SL! To think I was almost conned into buying and reading this!"

Or if I crafted an exquisite statue in Second Life, I am sure the Art Life would cast their gaze and hand down the judgement upon me, that anything I may do in First Life would be null and void unless I revealed my Real Life. Think of how much my work would be devalued! All great artists never hide! What are you so scared of?

Bettina leads the charge by bravely exposing her Real Life self. Whew, and good thing too, because I almost was about to dismiss her NPIRL as the mewings of some anonymous nobody. Now that I know her real life, I will so read and watch her more often. Dodged a bullet there Bettina. Bev. BettiBev? The small fact that despite this linkage people will continue to call her Bettina is irrelevant, of course.

So, budding SL artists, remember that your SL name is only valid in the virtual world it was issued. If you wish to travel to real life, you'd better produce the proper papers and passport.

Up By Your Bootstraps II

I was reading Prokofy the other day and he hit upon another good idea for encouraging retention: create a panel which displays the multitude of things to do in Second Life.

So, for instance, you'd have a panel showing War Sims for Call of Duty-esque games, and a panel to some social clubs if you're into making friends, and a panel to a sandbox and building lessons if you're into making objects and so on. When you click on the panel you want, it spits out a landmark to a location relevant to that interest.

It allows the new user to sort themselves quickly and direct them to where they would go anyway if they followed the current path. Currently, they would land in an infohub, ask where so-and-so is, and then get a landmark. This system would cut the middleman. If all I want to do is rent a house and play with some pets because a Real Life friend hooked me on Sion Chickens, then it's not really necessary to hit an infohub and have to shout over a dozen or so other people asking where I can buy pets.

And again, you can have a feedback system. Ask: Did you feel you were directed correctly? Did you get where you wanted to go? Then you can adjust the landmarks that are sent in each 'mode'. This sim is treating newbies like dirt? Remove them from the Help Station.

This isn't exactly rocket science.

Bumper to Bumper

I was driving down the road when I collided head on with a giant Trojan horse powered by rockets. It thoughtfully said, "Sorry", pushed me out of the way, and jetted down the highway.

"Huh," I said, "That's strange. But Second Life is always strange. Mayhaps someone's vehicle went out of control."

Further down the road, I smashed into a wood burning locomotive. "Sorry!" It said as it shoved me aside.

"Well!" I exclaimed, "Certainly is busy tonight!"

Ten minutes later, I crashed into a Pod.

And then I hit a bus.

Seriously, what happened in the year I was gone? Did the vehicle factory become sentient and spit out a plague of riderless planes, trains, and automobiles? Every five to fifteen minutes I'm hitting these things, which then proceed to push me off the road. Luckily, I never crossed any bridges, but I can imagine these things pushing you off the side into the river below.

So, any reason for this?

It HAS Been Said

Jessica Holyoke over at the Alphaville Herald (I refuse to link there, you'll easily find it on your own) is changing the name of her articles as she believes she's more 'Fox News' than ordinary Op/Ed of a newspaper. It's something about setting her news pieces apart from her editorials although I can't say she's ever made a distinction between the two (which she says as much in the article).

Leaving aside all that, the first piece in this new section is Jessica advocating using the gender presented by the avatar as the gender to address them as.

NS Okasus

We followers of Nunchuck are a peaceful people. We pray to Our Lord Nunchuck for guidance and love. And to unbelievers, we extend the hand of friendship and enlightenment. Whether they accept the Truth or not is irrelevant. Nunchuck's goodness is in all and peace be with everyone.

But when the unbelievers strike at us and martyr us en masse, there but one way for us.

We convert them.

Politically Incorrect? A Study of One Blog

My good friend Ari over at Common Sensible takes his politically incorrectness as a point of pride. Questions arose, however. Was this monster as terrible as advertised? Would, Could he be worse?

In order to answer these unsettling questions, I ventured into the archives of what is, possibly, the den of an unimaginable evil.

NS Nunchuck

The NS Nunchuck LX floating serenely in the sky.

For now.

Your Build Is Bad

I am going to start a new feature. I will go across the grid and sample all the lovely new builds our Grand Department of Public Works and Utilities have erected for glorious promotion of Linden Lab.

Today's victim is the rail bridge running through the snow sims. This particular view was taken in Heaton.

First, I'd like to comment on the boring look. The design is reminiscent of the kind of Lego block bridges I'd build as a child: A simple platform held up by a few lame supports. Even the material induces a yawn (ooo, stone. Boring).



This is being built on Linden Lab land! It has tons of prims available for you to create a rail line. An actual honest to goodness rail line. And a bridge! Of all the bridge designs, you chose 'Nostalgic Stonehenge'? No, wait, strike that. Stone Age bridges were more pleasing to the eye.

I'd also like to point out the horrible configuration. Why cross the river? In the next sim over, the line scoots across the river AGAIN. It crosses this river for no discernible purpose. If they did so solely for the chance to erect a bridge, they have failed. Their bridge is ugly and boring.

They could and should have continued to run the tracks along the road, as they had for the previous ten miles. Someone wanted to get fancy. Too bad their imagination didn't match their drive.



Let's look at the nitty gritty details, shall we? You cannot see or tell from this snapshot, but there is massive texture overlap present. The prims flash like a Parisian neon signboard. These builders are supposed to be the 'best of the best', hired specifically by Linden Lab for creating lovely public builds. And this is the best they could do? I've cobbled together tacos textured better than this. In fact, even the newest of builders and sculptors I have talked to always do one thing first: make sure the textures look right. Failure, as Winter would say.

Of course, they can't manage to align the prims right, so perhaps it is too much to expect texture alignment. I can clearly see overlap between the support and the tracks. And the foundation is twisted off base of the support. Again, Stone Age cavemen (haha, Geico) could at the least make sure everything is centered. You could probably excuse the support/track junction (by arguing the support is forming a 'cup' in which the track sits), but there is simply no excuse for the improper and twisted junction between support/foundation.



This bridge is bad. The rail line is bad. Even though the builder isn't a Mole, it is built on Linden Lab land and set to the Linden Maintenance group, so this does indeed have the Linden Stamp of Approval. This is what they consider acceptable to show off on the main grid.

Grade: F

329

"There were Giants in Those Days..."

Ari talks about body shapes. I love his parting shot: "Oh, and if you see me in world and I am shorter than you [above 6' 5"], you are an Amazonian-freak-of-nature!"

All too often, I feel like a child avatar. Measuring my height is a meager five feet, ten inches. So tiny! When I first adjusted my torso sliders, I felt like I made my breasts too big. It is hard saying that with a straight face, because after three years or so of Second Life I feel small. Haha! Anna the tiny child av!

I've seen child avs the same height as me, now that I come to think about it.

I am sorely tempted to upload Munchkin tunes into Second Life as gestures.

On the other hand, the 'Amazon Freaks of Nature' only compose of about half my friends. The other half are actually average sized. And no, I'm not counting my alts. For instance, Jurin definitely 'normal'. So is Winter. Although Winter is a tad on the small side. And 'normal' is kind of subjective, there, isn't it?

As for guys, all I know is that Torvald attempted to make a 'normal' male shape. As I recall, he was very proud of it, until a guy hit on him thinking he was a woman. So he crawled into a corner and cried. He refused to come out, and we had to slide his food to him under the door. Winter suggested putting him out of his misery.

Don't worry. Torvald eventually snapped out of it. Kind of. Sorta. But we did manage to get him to move from the corner to the sofa!

One more thing before I fall asleep (I had a bunch of nightmares last night). One of the 'clues' he gave to figuring if a female avatar was transgendered was " “large hands”, “shoulders wider than hips” " This at first perplexed me. Large hands and wide shoulders? Surely such an avatar would come out looking very male. Wasn't the opposite supposed to be true? Don't men-as-women make exaggerated feminine shapes rather than more butch?

Don't worry, it is explained: "Gigantic (non-prim) ta-tas with “buoyancy” set to absolute zero, size set to maximum and shoulders widened to hold them, yet hips half the size of shoulder and short arms with large hands and a pea-sized head." Aahhhhhh... that makes sense. You know, I never really thought too much about the other exaggerations that go into making large breasts seem less out of place.

In short, avatar shapes are scary.

336

Real Life Identity

A very late post.

Dusan says words about linking SL names to RL identities. His main point claims that without the potential for anonymous avatars and those who choose to hide behind their avatars are an untapped pool of talent. In fact, the drive to link real life to Second Life may scare people away. Poor people who in an unmolested world would vastly contribute to this little world of ours.

I suppose I'm hiding behind my avatar, too.

I am Anna J Tsiolkovsky, no more, and no less.

Anna likes to chat, and it is almost always irrelevant. "What is your favorite tree?" "What does green taste like?" "Does Frank litter my lawn with cigarette butts out of stupidity or malice?" Anna deals with enough stress and serious business in real life. Second life is time to play.

For Anna thinks Second Life is a game. Partly to egg on those who say otherwise, and partly because that is how she rolls. She builds things, but rarely completes them. After all, they're just toys, to be thrown back into the box at the end of the day. Only a few times did she ever attempt to finish something and sell it. It had mixed results. Her Second Life is scattered with jokes and occasional mischef. For instance, she wonders if Jurin ever realised just who it was repositioning the statues...

She loves to fly. And drive. And float. Sure, vehicles in Second Life are broken but that's just part of the game. How far exactly can I fly before the sims (or Nunchuck, May Nher Femur Shine Forever) decide to swat me down? There is peace up there in the sky. Nothing is like watching the mainland builds, in their patchwork glory, roll across below you.

Anna is sometimes prone to nostalga. Ah, back in THOSE days. She has, after all, lived in Second Life for a considerable length of time. Certainly not as long as the true oldies, but long enough. Almost three years! Throughout it all, gaining and losing friends, and watching sims and builds and groups rise and fall. As well as the latest Linden attempt to create stability (Which only Nunchuck, through The Femur, will bring). It's been a long life.

Anna sometimes writes. It is bad. Even though friends insist it is good, it is not good. Trust my instincts and knowledge of writing and the english language. But that doesn't matter too much, because she's not looking to get published. She writes to write, and does the best job she can. Being Anna (and so being not 'real'), no one will come knocking down my door and asking what kind of drugs I was smoking to ever think to publish this drivel on the internet. And for the record, my drug of choice is alcohol.

Anna likes to read. And sometimes think. She sometimes goes to 'discussion' events (even if most of them are silly) and she reads SL blogs. She will read backlogs. She has the awesome achievement of having read through the entire archives of Prokofy's blog. Even the chat logs. She was very bored that week, indeed.

That's her second life: reading and writing and playing and chatting all in mindless fun. Real life is sad and stressful enough, so let's avoid drama, unless we're watching it. And the only regret is, that due to real life duties, she can't be around as often. ;_;

That's me. And whether you think Anna is a coward hiding behind the visage of a computer game avatar, or just an expression or extenstion of real life me into Second Life, it's all the same, isn't it?

Anna is Anna.


352

Oh Rezzable, You Tease

Some time ago, Rezzable (you might know them of Greenies fame) decided the time was right to leave Second Life. Lots of people have delved into the reasons why, but I couldn't care less. Rezzables was just one of a number of people displaying weird and unusual builds. Their selling point was a massive PR campaign and buying out of a lot of famous builders, Starax/Light Waves being the prime example. I got nothing against them, and they got nothing against me.

But then, Rezzable went and discussed releasing what some have called 'Industrial Copybot'. It operates by catching all the objects in a given region, shunting the data into a separate offline file where it can be edited. They promise to erase any sensitive license infringing content from their scans.

They seem genuinely perplexed about the backlash on this. "But we're only using it to back up our own data!" Ok, but why are you releasing it onto the open market then? What do you think will happen when you release what is, in the description of its inner working, Copybot Jr.?

I recall Rezzable being the torch bearer against Copybot many times (with due reason, all their content out there). Why now are they even considering releasing this out there? I think they've gone completely off their rocker. Just read the linked page. They seriously consider charging for this. $75 for the 'Pro' version. Discussing some bugs that need to be fixed (sculpties aren't always picked up by it).

They give the same lame reason the Copybot crowd gave: 'This stuff can be copied whether or not you like it, so why worry if we sell the copier?' "Everyone else is doing it!! Why can't we??"

Really, though, the comments on those posts say everything better than I ever could. Nice one, Greenies.

373

Forum Arguments

There was a big hubbub on Xstreet today.

Oh, by the way, I've taken to reading the forums there lately as I've been starved for entertainment. It's priceless when you throw a bunch of people together and all but force them to interact. So really, saying there was a big commotion doesn't really tell you anything at all.

So that thread is about someone thankful for finding out a family member is a-ok and who makes the grievous mistake of invoking god. Of course it's misconstrued in a hilarious manner, and also resulted in this follow up thread with even more hysterics.

I don't participate in forums. If you see anyone on the forums with my name, it's a faker. Too often someone beats me to whatever I'm about to say and it ends up as a 'me too!' post which clutters the board. Rarely do I have some new angle to think about. If I really want to write an argument, I do it here where I can scale Mount Redundancy Mountain without seeming to mimic someone else.

But that doesn't mean I can't mine them for comedy value!

420

Replacing Posts with Comments!

I've reached an all new low in posting quality and am now going to just post a comment I wrote on this blog. Yes, that's sad. I spent more time drafting a comment than actually trying to, you know, write a post on this blog. Shame on me.

Begin Quote:

Work was slow today, so I went ahead and read the entire thing.

It seems to me that people are/were confusing what is legal with what is morally ethical. According to your research, Minnu did not violate the EULA at the time. But the way she did it struck a chord with people. They knew/know something is not quite right, and that something should be done.

In each post and the resulting comments, a constant hymn was that Minnu was ethically wrong for 'stealing' skins. Ok. That's fair enough. But due to the license, she could and was able to do so legally. That's all there is to it. Ethics, morality, and all that, however noble, cannot deny that there was nothing to prevent her from doing so. If there is a case.

For a real life example, many consider abortion to be ethically wrong. However, it's legal according to the law and no matter how much mewing is done by however many people (barring another bill or court case) it will remain legal.

The take home lesson here should be that if you're going to release something, draft a license so specific people won't be able to wipe their nose with it without your permission.

As for irresponsible blogging, this really isn't much of a surprise. I'd wager about 95% of bloggers aren't any kind of journalists, just regular ol' people banging away at the keyboard (before everyone leaps on me, know I'm one of that 95%). Doing research and covering a story is HARD work and often bloggers are just not going to care. Throw in a lack of editors and you get things like this.

The wonderful part about the internet is that everyone is free to express their opinions. The sad part is that automatically shuts down the typical user's inhibitions.

441

Linden Prize Double Take

So, let's get this straight. Linden Lab awarded the Linden Prize to Wikitecture because they integrate Second Life into real life projects. When Hamlet interviews this group, they say they are moving away from Second Life itself to OpenSims and their kin. How embarrassing!

It's not too surprising, though, considering that these nominees were nominated quite a few months ago. In Second Life, months are akin to decades with our rate of churn.

And let's consider Wikitecture itself. On its very website, it treats Second Life the same way any other college and university treats it. To them, it's just a giant collaboration project. All this unnecessary grid on the side that's getting in the way doesn't matter to them. In fact, in view of their needs, their movement towards gaining a sim of their own is perfect as they no longer have to deal with the lag and potential nastiness that might flow in.

Their winning of the Linden Prize does not betray this move, because they are still using Second Life the Platform. They're just not using Second Life the Grid. Completely different things, I assure you, and as Linden Lab gave the prize to those utilizing Second Life the Platform in a real life manner, they really have won honestly. Any accusations otherwise are unfounded.

444

Canary in the Coal Mine

Ah, Prokofy can add another notch to the 'U GONNA GIT BANN'D' belt.

I think it's unsettling to think that they're putting a knife to his throat on the objection to what he writes. Sure, he goes off like a bottle rocket sometimes over nonsense issues you or I could not care less about. On the whole, however, he does raise interesting points. Discussion would be poorer for lack of him.

Also, I regard him as a sort of 'test' of Linden Lab. Prok doesn't pull his punches but he's not outright flaming, either. He's that curious mix that you want to hate and report and shut up but hasn't ever actually done anything. He's a polarizer. If Second Life were Korea, he'd plant himself right up along the border and moon the North.

In short, he makes me feel safe. As long as LL tolerates him well enough, I can rant and rage on my own, smaller, scale and be immune from complete punishment! If he goes, what's to stop a small fry like me from being smeared across the floor?

I can only hope my active campaign of non-action in Second Life can protect me.

Six Birthdays

This coming June, Second Life is going to be six years old. Just step and think about that. Six whole years of lag, naked noobies, and general insanity. It's the better part of a decade. Six years is longer than a single presidential term (in the United States, anyway). In fact, it's one and a half terms in office according to that metric.

We've seen a lot in those six years. Let's not get goofy, however, because comparisons between way back then and the right here and now have been done to death. "We didn't have skins, point to point teleporting, and we have to walk fifteen miles uphill both ways to reach the sandbox in order to build. Newbies these days don't have no idea how good they got it!" That's just way too easy.

The harder angle would be what's changed over this past year.

I think in terms of technical progress, nothing groundbreaking was unveiled. Nothing revolutionary was put to market. SL is still as laggy as it ever was and any significant changes towards stability have been lost on me (and, it seems, a good 60% of the rest of the population). For all of the opensourcing of the viewer, I haven't seen any high visible third party viewers, either. I still use the Nicholaz client, especially when the latest Linden experiment to 'lower' lag backfires.

The Lindens have exerted their significant muscle with more pressure than any other year. With the acquisition of XstreetSL and Onrez, they effectively circled the wagons with regards to the economy. Their fingers are in all the outlets. With the ramping of activity of the DPW moles and the creation of themed continents, competition is extending into the land itself. This wasn't simply an auction of the land, but the physical creation of an essential atmosphere. Granted, their attempts fell somewhat flat if you've seen Nautilus or Bay City these days. However, when they can't bootstrap, they glomp onto the next best thing. They went and tacked the United Sailing Sims (or whatever that USS acronym stood for) onto Nautilus and declared it 'good'.

We also witnessed Linden Lab making moves to control Second Life. For all their bluster about allowing the world to be free and easy, their actions have spoken otherwise. Not a few months ago, Jack Linden sat down and discussed bots and what to do about them. In addition, there's talk of moving against traffic fraud. Ad farms were finally flogged back around October or so of '08 with the caveat that ads without extortion are a-ok. They have a big stick and they're starting to play with it. It hasn't been pleasant all the way, either, because Openspaces and the move to treat them as regular sims on billing hurt. Hard.

Of course, the most notable example in these times has been the 'Adults Only' move. This was a resounding shot that yes, indeed, age verification is going to go ahead. The kinks have been worked out (you can use your credit card if you're disinclined to use your IDs) and full implementation is upon us. If you have adult content (specifically, adult content in the public domain and in public search), you must take it out of the limelight. Get your sex club offa our mainland! An option in the abuse report menu allows one to report the mislabeling of such content. The buzz word is 'predictability'. The Lindens are trying to force a Second Life experience that can be predictably controlled.

The outside venues of SL were revamped. The website and blogs got a much needed face lift, although the results are mixed. The new website has a pleasing design. The only gripe is the lack of ability to teleport to the locations and events featured on it. Same goes for the splash screen on the viewer log-in. I want to reach out and touch these places, but they're behind a glass wall. The new blog site is ok. All the categories have been butchered and you have to click around on everything to make sure you're really up to date on the latest comings and going of Linden Lab. Clunky, is the word, but not in the sense of being slow to load. Even the forums later got a good wash (I'm not a frequent visitor there, so I'm not sure how that change went).

And all the while the Second Life economy has... stalled. It hasn't continued its astronomical boon from 2007, but it hasn't completely went bust, either. It's doing what any other normal economy is doing, and that's existing. Doing its... economic thing. Stability, I think it's called. It's keeping in theme with the new mantra of SL: "predictability". It might be tougher to enter the market but once you're in you're alright. As long as you keep at. The moment you slip, the sharks'll get you.

Kendra Bancroft died. Lindens left. Sarah Nerd went out of business. Lots of churn. And yet life goes on. People flocked to some new worlds, and then came back. Lively came and died so fast heads twirled. Metaplace has come out, but I haven't visited it yet and I believe it's still in beta. Some of the bigger news blogs and agencies have pulled out as well. No one seems to notice or care. Unless it directly impacts them, no one stands up and shouts. They may glance up from their own personal blogs and put up a quick two paragraph eulogy. If that.

OpenSim has progressed, but not nearly as fast as initially anticipated. From the reports in '07 and '08, you'd think there would be a sim in every garage. The initial eureka moment over being able to host SL sims independent of LL's servers and reach led to all sorts of crazy reports. It reminds me of the predictions made in the '70s about life as it would be today. Astronomical imaginations of cities on the moon and flying cars gave way to reality: that stuff is hard! So it is with OpenSim. It's getting there. But that stuff is hard! And the big issues aren't really technical. Do I trust you with my log-in? With my copyrighted materials? That's funny.

We witnesses two major competitions: the Linden Prize and the Resident Choice Awards. The Linden prize was notable for being strictly inhouse and up to the judgement of the Lindens. You could sign up for a nomination, but they made the final judgement call. Upon seeing residents weren't keen on awards given without their input, the Resident choice awards were created and of course created whole new controversy. I could write volumes about it and it seems almost everyone had an opinion on it. Everyone seems to agree that something was not quite right about the entire thing. It felt shoddy to some.

And then there's me. This year will be my third in Second Life. Three entire years. Depending on who you ask, it's either a waste of time or a waste of energy. I kid. But I marvel at how I've seen a good half of Second Life's existence. At the people I've met, the friends I've made (and lost), the things I've seen and built, and all the things still left to see. Ah, I just can't wait until next year!

450

On Partings

So, My Dear Friends, we have arrived at the end of another April. Winter has left and Spring is in! And as winter goes, so go many other things.

Lots of news agencies. Goodbye SLNN and Reuters and all those others who found out too late that Second Life is about a different kind of story. Or perhaps just not interested. To them our bickering were like the mews and howls of Centralia, PA. Interesting and strange to those big guys in New York or LA, but dull after many tellings. Seriously guys, we get it. Your entire town is rotting underground from massive coal fires. Move on already! Did you hear about swine flu and Obama's visit to where ever he was? Now that's news.

Not to mention that grabbing an audience is difficult. Choosing to run a news blog outside of Second Life is an uphill battle. Massive advertising is required to get attention inworld, and heaven help you if you don't keep your hands on the pulse and fail to update often. Or if you miss a big story. Or neglect to report one. Or neglect to go outside of 'looking up LL's blog'.

Running a newspaper inside of SL is as difficult. You get all the burden of collecting and editing stories with the challenge of cramming it into a notecard or prim book. The prim book may or may not rezz. People won't wait the two or three minutes for the pretty pictures to load completely. Large notecards (and large they will become if they are truly reporting Second Life) also are a pain to deal with. Once again, attention has to be earned and getting paid is one of those luxuries up there with my desire to own a house on the shore. Not having income kills everything dead fast.

I mentioned before that looking at a map of the grid is akin to watching the stars at night. Thousands upon thousands of islands dot the scape. If each of those had only one avatar that regularly logged on and used them, that's thousands and thousands of avatars. Each with their own little cliques and circles. Some stories may unify them all (such as banks buckling under or the openspace debacle) but each has their own story to tell and stories that they alone are interested in.

A metro area divides up into towns and cities around the center city. A city divides up into neighborhoods. Neighborhoods divide up into blocks. Each has their own cares and worries. That's why the Inquirer has special sections for Jersey and Delaware and the suburbs. It brings relevant news to its target demographic. Attempting to do the same in Second Life is a time consuming, if nigh impossible, task. Furries and War sims are two that come to mind (and indeed, were often highlighted in the former SL Herald). There's all manner of roleplay communities. There's the sailing sims. The art community. The devotees of Nunchuck. SL Pride. And so on. What a hassle to organize all that and the hottest stories off the Lindens and general community on top of that! And why bother going to a news source for that when you can easily gossip with the neighbors (after all, how big are some of these communities? probably not large enough to not notice what their left hand is doing) and check the Linden's own blog for news. Why bother?

Goodbye, dear news agencies.

Ginsu Linden left, and Robin Linden left just this February. That's the last of the Ancient Elders (the founding Lindens from before 2005 or so) and most of the current cast are the new guys like M. I find it interesting that I've been in Second Life longer than most, if not all, of the current Linden Lab staff. These new Lindens are forging their own path and forging their own new Second Life.

Anytime you shake up the management, the outcome results in changes. Lincoln's election resulted in a civil war and civil rights (at least, right to not be enslaved). Steve Jobs electrified Apple. My own university's late president, upon taking up his position as president, transformed our poor school from 'that ugly orange brick blot north of Market street' into an increasingly awesome college (albeit still ugliest in the universe, alas, some things never change). And with his own passing (ah, yes, my university's president, another victim of April), that ugly orange brick blot is going to take another turn. Hopefully for the better, as I'd prefer my degree to flow from an actual existing institution. Embarrassment would abound to explain how it came from an extinct and dead school.

Ginsu left, Robin left, Philip left. Torley's still around but he hasn't really been in the forefront for some time and is probably quietly churning out tutorials. Didn't he used to be a very public face to LL? I miss those days. Torley, for all his faults, presented a sappy happy image of LL and SL in general. And now? More or less invisible. There's Blue, too. He's around and ... um... doing things. I never really looked too close at what Blue does. He always seems to be around, though. A case of a Jack of all Trades. One of those Liaison style Lindens. Gosh, there were a million of those.

Also, you could argue that Philip is still around, just leveled up. The personal touch is gone. When he was CEO, he was THE guy in CHARGE. He seemed to have a bigger impact and greater direct control over things. And personable to boot. For as often as people would gripe about the direction of SL and blame Philip for everything, no one really hated him. Now... we have M. Like a minted officer out of MI6, M gives me this feeling of being more than he pretends to be. Oh, there's the funny 'diary entries' and 'fireside chats' about the brave new world he has had placed upon his shoulders and his follies with having a box stuck on his avatar's head, but it seems forced to me. I suppose he's a better politician.

And Robin? Hell if I know her direct replacement. Ginsu, too. I think that's another thing that's leaving with them. Recognition. Robin and Phil used to come in and greet us mere mortals, and in doing so grew a special kind of fondness from the populace. The new guys? Well, they do have their office hours, but those are supposed to be official business. Those get derailed, too, and hijacked by someone or other into some inane unrelated topic. And you only get a solid hour with the Linden in question, sometimes only that solid hour for the entire week. That special Aura is gone.

Add in that in our ever growing world, where the vast vast majority will never ever see a Linden ever, and the Lindens have pretty much become 'Those Guys'. You know, the guys at work who are really high above you on the hierarchy. You never ever see them but you do get emails from them and always with that faux kindness to a message laced with urgency or doom or something serious. That's the Lindens these days. Not an integral part of our world, but bigwigs far removed from us.

They are different from us. They are not like us.

Goodbye, dear Ginsu. And the Lindens who left before you.

Adult content is being herded off into a super special awesome Adult Only continent. It's official. You can read it on the main blog. If you have adult rated and adult themed (I like the 'adult' euphemism, by the way, I wonder if other adult things like the military sims or big business headquarters will have to move) then you better have the wagons packed and ready to roll. March off into your ghettos! This is SL, so do it with a smile. Take your sex and drugs off our grid, off this brave new world of ours.

And you'll be blinded out, too. Unless someone is age verified and has adult content enabled on search, the citizens of the main grid won't be able to find you. Given the previous verification fiasco, not too many people will be keen to register and have their hand stamped. In fact, given the only reason to do so will be to access adult content I can imagine it to become a stigma of sorts, similar to someone purchasing Viagra. Sure, it's for your pulmonary hypertension! We all know what kind of tension you're relieving, wink wink.

With this enforcement, we also enforce fraud. Heaven help you if you mismark your parcel, for you will be reported and action will be taken. There's a reason it's called a reservation. I can easily imagine LL stripping the offending content off your parcel if they find it misflagged. It might end up being abused by the vengeful like any other bannable reportable offense that's been implemented since the dawn of time. And what about the home? People tend to place home to have sex in them. If 'Mature' is a code word for 'PG sim with cursing allowed and nothing else', then by definition such homes will have to be 'Adult' rated.

In a way, I can't wait to see the result. Will there be a mass exodus, leaving LL holding the tattered remains of the original mainland continents, the tattered PG/Mature remains of ad farms, mini malls, and Mole roads (remember that Landlords will have to move if their renters are partaking in activities of the night)? The occasional art gallery will thrown in there too somewhere, I suppose. It seems such a case will result in the life of the grid moving off center stage behind the wings.

Imagine the seedy gritty underworld of the adult themed Second Life. A virtual Big Easy where anything goes! No worries about offending some silly age player or RL teen cause we're all over 18 here! People might register as Adult Only just to be free of the Disney-esque restrictions being imposed on the mainland. What would you report them for, labeling their land too high? Are you going to set up some third party regulatory body that will label each parcel without the owner's consent, like the movie ratings in real life? Because the main grid will indeed become like Disney land, full of art galleries and infohubs and fancy builds put up by whoever. Completely vanilla.

Considering the speculation that LL is merging in the teen grid (a useless gesture considering that de facto teens can register on SL merely by lying on a few of the sign-up questions for a freebie account alone), the old mainland will become Teen Grid 2.0. You know, earlier I stated that stigma may accompany those who verify, but perhaps the opposite will be true. Perhaps not verifying will label you as a stupid teen or kid. In any event, I can easily imagine the new adult continent as the most lively of the two partitions of the main grid if only because, and let's be honest with ourselves, a good majority are in Second Life for the mature content. Whether it's empty sex or a desire to find someone, the right one, fancy builds and nifty contests and events are more or less secondary to that. Maybe even integrated with it, a good date might be to a live concert.

Eventually, Linden Lab will crack down on the new continent. Teens will get verification through their parents, they can already get their parents to sign up and pay for game like World of Warcraft, and the Lindens will have to move to prevent the children from accessing adult content again. The true end will occur when OpenSims takes off and allows everyone to build their own grid. This world of ours will shatter into isolated universes that in all likelihood will be forever cut off from each other. There could be a 'wood between the worlds' concept a la Naria, but you'd run into the adult/teen demon again, because Linden Lab would have to monitor the gates to the Adult worlds and frankly why bother? It could end up as nothing more than a phone book, where you can look up which grid is what. That way, LL is not responsible for anything except the server code and their own Disney world, if they can manage to hold onto that. Can you imagine LL publishing a metaversal yellow pages?

Goodbye, dear Adult Content.

The Lindens themselves put up a Memorial garden for everyone who died in RL or just decided to get out of Dodge City. As I said a few days ago, it's kind of tasteful, if a bit bare and focused on a few. This was set up last year in April and now it's back again, as if the Lindens too realize that April is a cruel month. I think there's more to mourn than just those of our friends who have left and never returned.

And yet, onward we march.

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Let's hope the lilacs of Second Life bred this April are beautiful.

On Participation

There was a big argument over at Prok's blog concerning the Resident's Choice awards. Vickie Greenwood won many of the building categories but the big question all across Second Life became: Who the hell is Vickie Greenwood? Prokofy being Prokofy, he went and did a lot of digging and found that Vickie does not have much of a footprint into the Second Life world. In fact, it seems that unless you personally knew her, you wouldn't have heard much of her at all.

That leads us into an interesting discussion. How can someone win a contest such as this and have almost no visibility in Second Life or its related websites? At the time, it was noted that she didn't even have a profile picture. And is it right to award a distinction to such a person?

The awards were about the resident's choice. And one would expect the resident's choice would be someone who engages and is active in the Second Life universe. This can usually be gauged by such things as profiles, blog posts, items listed on Xstreet, and so on. That indicates an outreach into this world of ours. They've invested some time and energy into putting something out there.

By not engaging and not listing on Xstreet, not blogging/being blogged about, and not spicing up one's profile, you've disengaged from Second Life. You are attempting to be aloof. Plus, there is the implication that you're an alt. People don't keep alts well. If alts were jugs of milk, then people tend to let them turn to cheese. Not having anything 'there' triggers an instinct, and that instinct is 'the person I'm dealing with is someone else, this must be their alt'.

It could also mean that you don't give a shit about Second Life. Visit any university sim or any island where the inhabitants are students/employees forced to register an account and check out the profiles. If there is a profile picture, it will be one of the random default picks in the inventory library and the profile space will have 'Penn faculty' or 'hey all, Temple CoE '08'. Read them and the feeling of apathy oozes out. This pattern also drifts into my mind when I see a skimpy profile.

There's this feeling, this attitude that if you participate and build and create in Second Life, or hold discussions or host and create music, or design the latest in sculpty socks, that you'll be taken up into the current. And you'll make a profile. If you're good, bloggers will come to you and interview, if not, you'll make your own blog. I think this is inevitable, especially when you're really good at what you do. Just imagine if Torley had nothing on his profile. I cannot imagine that, it's up there with making a word for that squelshing noise my shoes are making because I got ripped off and the soles are falling off and when water gets into them it makes that noise or calculating all the digits of pi.

Not that it isn't possible, just extremely implausible. In fact, it's nigh upon suicidal if you're serious about being recognized and having others buy your work or join your groups. Johnny McAlt will put up hours you can contact him in case you need debugging of your prim scooter, or Suzy Avatarvik will put the hours when she hosts a discussion on the recent policies of French cheese imports.

Let's come around now to my opinion. Vickie deserves a medal for being low key and then winning three of the categories. However, she also did herself a disservice by not making herself visible for whatever reason. The announcement left everyone scratching their heads and that's not a good thing. You're the best, dammit! Promote or something. Although, this is probably a moot point now as Linden Lab's contest has single handed pushed her into the top.

That's what's fueling all this speculation. It is as if my alt won the award for blogging. What's that you say, you've never seen my alt's blog? Well, it's set to private. And there's only a few posts. And I've never told anyone about it (until now) and I've never linked there. But trust me, it's good. My alt doesn't have much of a profile, but that doesn't matter, does it? It's the exact thing. My alt could have writing that would make Jesus cry in its wonderful subtlety and supreme skill but I imagine people would rightly question how I won the award. Well, it's the same deal with Vickie. She may very well be the best of the best of the best, but it is kind of scary that not many have heard of her until now.

Considering this is the awards as granted (or so Linden Lab says) by the residents, one would think that one requirement for this would be an awareness among the populace of the person who won. If most of the community is left scratching their heads and frantically googling your name and asking everyone around who you are, something might have gone wrong. You would imagine the winner would be someone well known. It's only logical that the winner of all the residents would be pretty famous else hardly anyone would have voted for them.

Then again, what do I know? I'm writing this in the middle of the night punch drunk.

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'.