I know it's been a posting marathon so far today, but this is too delicious to pass up.
Minutes after completely bootstrapping the entire grid from another update,
Torley enlightens us on how to turn off those icky typing animations and sounds.
Yeah, thanks Torley. Totally what everyone was clamoring for. Way to go.
I have a theory on Torley, but it's brash and probably irrational. I'll have to let it stew for a bit.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Butterflies
Regular paperclips, you can only link together into intricate chains and maybe a few patterns. But for my money, butterfly clips are where office art is at.
The problem with paperclips is their simplicity. You have a strand of aluminium. It's almost two dimensional. Link them together and you have a a bunch in a line, or link a lot to a single point and they make something that looks like metal hair. You can't really mold and fold them into anything besides intricate 2D lines and shapes. There is no third dimension, they are incapable as inanimate objects to exist or comprehend three dimensions as we know them. Thus, while extraordinary at temporarily binding sheets of paper with minimal cost and use of material, they are a poor medium for art.
Which brings us to butterfly clips. Now these, are art of and by themselves. Their triangular 'mouth' which has slender crocodile lips projecting from it, which can snap back and forth for a bite radius of almost 270 degrees. These are no mere 2D clips, these fully exist in the third dimension and they let you know it. Try storing a bunch, it's difficult! They're bulky and rarely fit into any human made container.
Yes, the singular clip is a piece of work by itself. But what about multiple clips? If one is art, two is a masterpiece. If two is a masterpiece, three make a Sistine. And they clip together solidly. They don't slip and slide and fumble about like two linked normal paperclips, when two butterflies clamp it's a solid bond, it's not going or moving anywhere. But it's not too permanent, with a twist of the hand it easily comes off, for adjustment or placement elsewhere.
They are mostly uniform in color and design, making any sculpture aesthetically pleasing. The only differences I've noted are in size (different sizes are a bonus, gives 'texture' to your piece) and the very very rare white/green colored ones. For these reasons, the basis of any office sculpture worth its salt is the butterfly clip. It is the rock upon which you set your foundation, without it you have pieces of office supplies, with it you have da Vinci.
And this is not to say that you should solely use butterflies either. Feel free to add regular standard paperclips, rubber bands, pens, pencils, markers, staple removers, staplers, quarters, discarded forms and papers, thumbtacks, CDs, 3 ring binders, cables, CD cases, screwdrivers, floppy disks, floppy drives, screws, nails, name plates, tape, garbage bags, staples, computer monitors, computers, phones, copiers, fax machines, clocks, fluorescent light bulbs, printers, desks (not necessarily the entire desk, pieces of it will do), folders, discarded coffee cups, electrical outlets, USB flash drives, carts, rug, co-workers, and Rolodexes to your artwork. The more the merrier!
Upon its completion, you should always show your boss your impressive achievement. The more time and material wasted on it, the more impressed she/he/it will be.
I encourage anyone making such a sculpture to email a photo of it, as well as divulging the length of time spent in the unemployment line due to it. I assure that everything will be anonymous.
The problem with paperclips is their simplicity. You have a strand of aluminium. It's almost two dimensional. Link them together and you have a a bunch in a line, or link a lot to a single point and they make something that looks like metal hair. You can't really mold and fold them into anything besides intricate 2D lines and shapes. There is no third dimension, they are incapable as inanimate objects to exist or comprehend three dimensions as we know them. Thus, while extraordinary at temporarily binding sheets of paper with minimal cost and use of material, they are a poor medium for art.
Which brings us to butterfly clips. Now these, are art of and by themselves. Their triangular 'mouth' which has slender crocodile lips projecting from it, which can snap back and forth for a bite radius of almost 270 degrees. These are no mere 2D clips, these fully exist in the third dimension and they let you know it. Try storing a bunch, it's difficult! They're bulky and rarely fit into any human made container.
Yes, the singular clip is a piece of work by itself. But what about multiple clips? If one is art, two is a masterpiece. If two is a masterpiece, three make a Sistine. And they clip together solidly. They don't slip and slide and fumble about like two linked normal paperclips, when two butterflies clamp it's a solid bond, it's not going or moving anywhere. But it's not too permanent, with a twist of the hand it easily comes off, for adjustment or placement elsewhere.
They are mostly uniform in color and design, making any sculpture aesthetically pleasing. The only differences I've noted are in size (different sizes are a bonus, gives 'texture' to your piece) and the very very rare white/green colored ones. For these reasons, the basis of any office sculpture worth its salt is the butterfly clip. It is the rock upon which you set your foundation, without it you have pieces of office supplies, with it you have da Vinci.
And this is not to say that you should solely use butterflies either. Feel free to add regular standard paperclips, rubber bands, pens, pencils, markers, staple removers, staplers, quarters, discarded forms and papers, thumbtacks, CDs, 3 ring binders, cables, CD cases, screwdrivers, floppy disks, floppy drives, screws, nails, name plates, tape, garbage bags, staples, computer monitors, computers, phones, copiers, fax machines, clocks, fluorescent light bulbs, printers, desks (not necessarily the entire desk, pieces of it will do), folders, discarded coffee cups, electrical outlets, USB flash drives, carts, rug, co-workers, and Rolodexes to your artwork. The more the merrier!
Upon its completion, you should always show your boss your impressive achievement. The more time and material wasted on it, the more impressed she/he/it will be.
I encourage anyone making such a sculpture to email a photo of it, as well as divulging the length of time spent in the unemployment line due to it. I assure that everything will be anonymous.
A Long Walk
SL is going to hit some rough times soon. It is increasingly drawing bad PR for its instability and difficult interface. Also, competitors are looming on the horizon.
SL has always had competition in the Three Dimensional Universe department, the most notorious of these being World of Warcraft and There. The former isn't really similar at all, the only relation is that it hosts people on servers. WoW does not allow content creation or land ownership. But we have to remember the First Rule of the Universe: People are stupid. They will believe whatever they want to believe and they will believe what they are told. SL and WoW are only similar in the sense that English and Korean are similar because they both use your voice box to make sounds.
WoW does have one thing SL does not, and that is stability. I've never played it myself, but I've yet to hear of massive gridwide failures in there, so I assume it is either very rare or very localized. You also have to pay to play, pay for the game itself and then for a subscription. As a non-paying SL user, I'm not too enthused about that, but it again tops SL in that WoW's eight million pay massive amounts of moolah. SL has eight million accounts, but the often heard refrain is, only three percent of those are active accounts (probably half are alts), and only ten percent of that three percent are subscribing customers to LL. There is no doubt WoW has a slightly smarter business model.
But does it really have the edge? Sure, it's too easy to flog SL for being glitchy and crashy, barely profitable and hard to discern any clear goals. But in WoW, we have... quests that you finish and then you're done. I'm sure there are probably more than you could ever do, else it would quickly get boring. There's also groups in it that band together to destroy dragons/other players/themselves. And once you're bored of that, then what? Any WoW players out there care to tell me what then? SL has a certain kind of freedom, where I'm never finished. If I finish building, say a streetlight, then I move on to the next thing I'd like to create. Or I could go hang out with some friends at a bar. Or maybe explore the supposedly 6,000 islands out there. Or maybe I'll go play around with someone's head. Perhaps I feel like blogging about and telling the SL world about it. Here is the beauty, it never gets old as long as you have the imagination.
There comes close. There has the same type of idea and concept of 'your world, your imagination'. But it felt claustrophobic and less immerse. I had to clear my builds with someone to make sure it wasn't anything risque or harmful. The interface was more stable than SL's, but occasionally refused to start at all for reasons unknown to me. It would start and say "loading please wait", and then hang there for hours. I left my computer on for ten hours while I went to work, and when I came back it was still hanging there. It was intermittent. A friend suggested that I log into their website and then run the program, but to no avail. It was supposedly free, so it's not like I had to pay for their service. It's just as well, because I probably would not have stayed long, when it did work it felt cartoony and distorted although that could just be a newbie's complaint.
Kaneva is another, although it hasn't really taken off as far as I've heard. Part of this is due to the fact that you have to start a myspace page of sorts, and befriend a few people and get involved and then you're allowed to access their universe, which while it allows you to create it also cuts off exploration to specific rooms, giving a very claustrophobic feel to it. I'm still waiting to 'enter' their universe, apparently I'm not 'involved' enough yet. From what I've heard, though, I don't think I'll like it too much there either.
MTV ran a 'Laguna Beach Simulator' that has to be a self parody. You can't really do anything in there, you just stand around and chat. In fact, this is becoming the template of the metaverse, you pick an avatar and a setting and you just chat. Nothing else to it, no exploration, no creativity, no nothing. IMVU is also like this. I couldn't care less for either. If I wanted to chat I'd either stay in SL with its extras or go on AIM or Yahoo or Gmail. It's silly, and nothing more than a gimmick to stand out from the current crop of IM machines.
A few others have died. Anyone still play The Sims? ActiveWorlds? Anyone? Let's be fair and honest, I haven't been to either so perhaps I'm out of the loop regarding these, but across the internet lay the scattered bodies of other virtual worlds, all of which enjoyed their moment in the sun and then fell into obscurity, never to be seen again. Who says SL will be any different?
So, right now we have a crop of very limited universes with limited abilities. SL seems to come out on top. After all, it gives the most freedom and while not as profitable as WoW certainly has held long enough to last for three or four years.
But this is where SL's Achilles heels come into play. SL IS buggy, and laggy, and crashes often, and when it doesn't crash it destroys something (perhaps your inventory, perhaps your friends list, or maybe it eats your money or whatever you've placed out on your land). The point is that a bad crash or a faulty restart on LL's part, and you're screwed. It's very unforgiving, and LL offers no help besides consoling you. Some pin this on griefers, but I don't see any evidence to support that. The M.O. of most griefers nowadays is to attack a specific target or group rather than the grid at large. At most, they might be slowing it a little, but nothing on the scale that the typical SLuser is used to. LL has put up precautions against the kinds of grid attacks that occurred during the dark dark days of July-November 2006 (the last I can recall occurred on November 20th), with the infamous grey goo plastered about.
No, this problem is far far deeper and complex, more likely due to a multitude of bad decisions and ad hoc infrastructure. The thing is held together by a wing, a prayer, some gum, and duct tape. This cannot last long. And this, ultimately, is why SL is still not the dominant beast it should be. When there is so much lag that I cannot move, then things like IMVU and MTV Laguna Beach look attractive. When I can't access my inventory and thus cannot finish a build, There with its (relatively) stable grid looks like heaven. If SL can only just hold its own against these lame competitors, then how is it expected to perform against the new kids on the block? How will its aging and increasingly dilapidated software compete when others offer the same experience?
The short answer is it can't. At the rate it is going, it will limp along for a year, maybe a year and a half but no longer, before it finally drains of players and collapses under its own costs. The number of premium accounts being signed up is dropping, and their sheer numbers are dropping too. People are becoming somewhat dissatisfied with being promised that this update will ease grid problems and then having it worsen them instead (on at least one occasion, as I recall, LL offered the opportunity to 'back'-date to an older client version as the then-recently released update was so horrendously full of bugs even Torley noticed it).
We can also see this in the outside world. Recently Forbes and Times whipped SL a new one, and they're not alone. The trend is turning against SL and it is going to get ugly. The above described issues generate most of this hate. Why should they endorse something that hardly works? Apologists are already dismissing these among other articles as "hate pieces written by those who know not what they speak of". Should we really be dismissing them out of hand? Shouldn't we investigate their arguments? Even a lie has a grain of truth at its center, like a pearl. It surely couldn't hurt to have a small team work to bring stability back to SL, and on the side check out these issues being brought up and discussed. Do we really need all 250 Ls working on bringing Voice to stability? Do we need 250 Ls working on Windlight?
I love SL. It is the best virtual world I've visited by far. But it pains me to watch it fall and turn into a hideous and bloated beast. About nine months ago, I regularly crossed sims on vehicles, and I used to fly across the SL scape on vehicles I made myself. There was about three seconds of delay as SL processed that you were indeed crossing into the next sim, and if you were walking it took no time at all. The other day, I was stuck inside a sim, I couldn't rezz things and when they did appear I crashed each time I tried to cross into the next sim. Even walking resulted in horrible crashes about eighty percent of the time. I should not have to TP into the next sim over to meet a neighbor, I should be able to walk there.
And until SL makes it easier for everyone to walk there, they'll be walking somewhere else.
SL has always had competition in the Three Dimensional Universe department, the most notorious of these being World of Warcraft and There. The former isn't really similar at all, the only relation is that it hosts people on servers. WoW does not allow content creation or land ownership. But we have to remember the First Rule of the Universe: People are stupid. They will believe whatever they want to believe and they will believe what they are told. SL and WoW are only similar in the sense that English and Korean are similar because they both use your voice box to make sounds.
WoW does have one thing SL does not, and that is stability. I've never played it myself, but I've yet to hear of massive gridwide failures in there, so I assume it is either very rare or very localized. You also have to pay to play, pay for the game itself and then for a subscription. As a non-paying SL user, I'm not too enthused about that, but it again tops SL in that WoW's eight million pay massive amounts of moolah. SL has eight million accounts, but the often heard refrain is, only three percent of those are active accounts (probably half are alts), and only ten percent of that three percent are subscribing customers to LL. There is no doubt WoW has a slightly smarter business model.
But does it really have the edge? Sure, it's too easy to flog SL for being glitchy and crashy, barely profitable and hard to discern any clear goals. But in WoW, we have... quests that you finish and then you're done. I'm sure there are probably more than you could ever do, else it would quickly get boring. There's also groups in it that band together to destroy dragons/other players/themselves. And once you're bored of that, then what? Any WoW players out there care to tell me what then? SL has a certain kind of freedom, where I'm never finished. If I finish building, say a streetlight, then I move on to the next thing I'd like to create. Or I could go hang out with some friends at a bar. Or maybe explore the supposedly 6,000 islands out there. Or maybe I'll go play around with someone's head. Perhaps I feel like blogging about and telling the SL world about it. Here is the beauty, it never gets old as long as you have the imagination.
There comes close. There has the same type of idea and concept of 'your world, your imagination'. But it felt claustrophobic and less immerse. I had to clear my builds with someone to make sure it wasn't anything risque or harmful. The interface was more stable than SL's, but occasionally refused to start at all for reasons unknown to me. It would start and say "loading please wait", and then hang there for hours. I left my computer on for ten hours while I went to work, and when I came back it was still hanging there. It was intermittent. A friend suggested that I log into their website and then run the program, but to no avail. It was supposedly free, so it's not like I had to pay for their service. It's just as well, because I probably would not have stayed long, when it did work it felt cartoony and distorted although that could just be a newbie's complaint.
Kaneva is another, although it hasn't really taken off as far as I've heard. Part of this is due to the fact that you have to start a myspace page of sorts, and befriend a few people and get involved and then you're allowed to access their universe, which while it allows you to create it also cuts off exploration to specific rooms, giving a very claustrophobic feel to it. I'm still waiting to 'enter' their universe, apparently I'm not 'involved' enough yet. From what I've heard, though, I don't think I'll like it too much there either.
MTV ran a 'Laguna Beach Simulator' that has to be a self parody. You can't really do anything in there, you just stand around and chat. In fact, this is becoming the template of the metaverse, you pick an avatar and a setting and you just chat. Nothing else to it, no exploration, no creativity, no nothing. IMVU is also like this. I couldn't care less for either. If I wanted to chat I'd either stay in SL with its extras or go on AIM or Yahoo or Gmail. It's silly, and nothing more than a gimmick to stand out from the current crop of IM machines.
A few others have died. Anyone still play The Sims? ActiveWorlds? Anyone? Let's be fair and honest, I haven't been to either so perhaps I'm out of the loop regarding these, but across the internet lay the scattered bodies of other virtual worlds, all of which enjoyed their moment in the sun and then fell into obscurity, never to be seen again. Who says SL will be any different?
So, right now we have a crop of very limited universes with limited abilities. SL seems to come out on top. After all, it gives the most freedom and while not as profitable as WoW certainly has held long enough to last for three or four years.
But this is where SL's Achilles heels come into play. SL IS buggy, and laggy, and crashes often, and when it doesn't crash it destroys something (perhaps your inventory, perhaps your friends list, or maybe it eats your money or whatever you've placed out on your land). The point is that a bad crash or a faulty restart on LL's part, and you're screwed. It's very unforgiving, and LL offers no help besides consoling you. Some pin this on griefers, but I don't see any evidence to support that. The M.O. of most griefers nowadays is to attack a specific target or group rather than the grid at large. At most, they might be slowing it a little, but nothing on the scale that the typical SLuser is used to. LL has put up precautions against the kinds of grid attacks that occurred during the dark dark days of July-November 2006 (the last I can recall occurred on November 20th), with the infamous grey goo plastered about.
No, this problem is far far deeper and complex, more likely due to a multitude of bad decisions and ad hoc infrastructure. The thing is held together by a wing, a prayer, some gum, and duct tape. This cannot last long. And this, ultimately, is why SL is still not the dominant beast it should be. When there is so much lag that I cannot move, then things like IMVU and MTV Laguna Beach look attractive. When I can't access my inventory and thus cannot finish a build, There with its (relatively) stable grid looks like heaven. If SL can only just hold its own against these lame competitors, then how is it expected to perform against the new kids on the block? How will its aging and increasingly dilapidated software compete when others offer the same experience?
The short answer is it can't. At the rate it is going, it will limp along for a year, maybe a year and a half but no longer, before it finally drains of players and collapses under its own costs. The number of premium accounts being signed up is dropping, and their sheer numbers are dropping too. People are becoming somewhat dissatisfied with being promised that this update will ease grid problems and then having it worsen them instead (on at least one occasion, as I recall, LL offered the opportunity to 'back'-date to an older client version as the then-recently released update was so horrendously full of bugs even Torley noticed it).
We can also see this in the outside world. Recently Forbes and Times whipped SL a new one, and they're not alone. The trend is turning against SL and it is going to get ugly. The above described issues generate most of this hate. Why should they endorse something that hardly works? Apologists are already dismissing these among other articles as "hate pieces written by those who know not what they speak of". Should we really be dismissing them out of hand? Shouldn't we investigate their arguments? Even a lie has a grain of truth at its center, like a pearl. It surely couldn't hurt to have a small team work to bring stability back to SL, and on the side check out these issues being brought up and discussed. Do we really need all 250 Ls working on bringing Voice to stability? Do we need 250 Ls working on Windlight?
I love SL. It is the best virtual world I've visited by far. But it pains me to watch it fall and turn into a hideous and bloated beast. About nine months ago, I regularly crossed sims on vehicles, and I used to fly across the SL scape on vehicles I made myself. There was about three seconds of delay as SL processed that you were indeed crossing into the next sim, and if you were walking it took no time at all. The other day, I was stuck inside a sim, I couldn't rezz things and when they did appear I crashed each time I tried to cross into the next sim. Even walking resulted in horrible crashes about eighty percent of the time. I should not have to TP into the next sim over to meet a neighbor, I should be able to walk there.
And until SL makes it easier for everyone to walk there, they'll be walking somewhere else.
Show Me The Money
Lindens in game are worthless to LL, even if you pay texture fees, classifieds, group costs, and the like.
You pay them RL money for fake money. It gets passed around, and eventually either you or someone you paid (directly or indirectly down the line) pays a fee in L to LL.
But that doesn't make money for them. Why? They already got their money, they sold it to you in the first place! The only way they can make money at that stage is to resell the L they've collected. And that can only happen if people are buying L.
So what if no one is buying? Then it sits. It's like a rechargeable battery, it's spent and it's not going anywhere or doing anything.
They collect more L when people cash out, where they gain a tiny profit (i.e. they'll set the buy-back price lower than the original buy-in cost, generating a tiny income).
The important thing is that paying LL in L doesn't help their bottom line. They'd have to resell the L they have on hand to make money off of it. It has the potential to garner them revenue, but by itself it is worthless to LL.
They can't just keep printing L either, or else they'll trigger an ingame inflation. And if they sell too little, the price of a L will skyrocket to the point where no one will want to buy. In other words, they have a very tight rope to walk.
So many people get confused by this because they are looking at the situation from the point of view of the consumer, not the mint. They paid dollars for their L, and when they sell their L they get dollars, so they assume that when they pay LL in L, LL gets those dollars. But that Peter robbing Paul to pay Paul. LL behaves like a mint. Having currency in their vaults is worthless to a mint, they have to recover costs (in LL, this cost is time and employee salaries) so they sell their currency. If you sold your money back to a mint (highly unlikely :) ) then they'd sell it again, because having dollars and cents stacked around isn't making them money. Selling it is.
So everyone claiming that increasing uploading and group fees ingame will generate income for LL is delusional, all it would do is give them an excess of L they'd have to sell, and by definition there is no guarantee they will sell. That's what LL needs. Guaranteed profit, not projected.
You pay them RL money for fake money. It gets passed around, and eventually either you or someone you paid (directly or indirectly down the line) pays a fee in L to LL.
But that doesn't make money for them. Why? They already got their money, they sold it to you in the first place! The only way they can make money at that stage is to resell the L they've collected. And that can only happen if people are buying L.
So what if no one is buying? Then it sits. It's like a rechargeable battery, it's spent and it's not going anywhere or doing anything.
They collect more L when people cash out, where they gain a tiny profit (i.e. they'll set the buy-back price lower than the original buy-in cost, generating a tiny income).
The important thing is that paying LL in L doesn't help their bottom line. They'd have to resell the L they have on hand to make money off of it. It has the potential to garner them revenue, but by itself it is worthless to LL.
They can't just keep printing L either, or else they'll trigger an ingame inflation. And if they sell too little, the price of a L will skyrocket to the point where no one will want to buy. In other words, they have a very tight rope to walk.
So many people get confused by this because they are looking at the situation from the point of view of the consumer, not the mint. They paid dollars for their L, and when they sell their L they get dollars, so they assume that when they pay LL in L, LL gets those dollars. But that Peter robbing Paul to pay Paul. LL behaves like a mint. Having currency in their vaults is worthless to a mint, they have to recover costs (in LL, this cost is time and employee salaries) so they sell their currency. If you sold your money back to a mint (highly unlikely :) ) then they'd sell it again, because having dollars and cents stacked around isn't making them money. Selling it is.
So everyone claiming that increasing uploading and group fees ingame will generate income for LL is delusional, all it would do is give them an excess of L they'd have to sell, and by definition there is no guarantee they will sell. That's what LL needs. Guaranteed profit, not projected.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Great Evils, Part the Second
Firstly, I shall test your knowledge of our previous lecture.
If you encounter a pack of ageplayers, how do you respond?
A) Engage them in polite conversation, and offer friendship to them. After all, they are just human beings like the rest of us and not demon spawn.
B) Abuse Report them mercilessly as you run away, and hope the Lindens vanquish this vile and terrible blot upon Second Life
C) Put your head between your knees and kiss your buttocks goodbye.
The answer will be revealed at the bottom.
Now, we shall proceed to the next of our Great Evils of Second Life, The Griefer.
If you encounter a pack of ageplayers, how do you respond?
A) Engage them in polite conversation, and offer friendship to them. After all, they are just human beings like the rest of us and not demon spawn.
B) Abuse Report them mercilessly as you run away, and hope the Lindens vanquish this vile and terrible blot upon Second Life
C) Put your head between your knees and kiss your buttocks goodbye.
The answer will be revealed at the bottom.
Now, we shall proceed to the next of our Great Evils of Second Life, The Griefer.
Figure .1 A Male Common Griefer (Avatarius nunchuckarus minora)
The Griefer can take many a form, but it is most distinguished by its often unusual and flamboyant appearance, varying widely depending upon the subspecies of the observed griefer. Observe Figure 1. Notice that this particular griefer has taken the form of an extremely thin and frail male, with a large 'package' and a massive mane perched atop his head, which houses a pair of chameleon eyes and a slender long nose. This is only a singular example, and each griefer chooses a different form or style depending, again, upon subspecies and local culture.
The griefer is most noted for being the most dangerous of all the Great Evils in existence. They should never be approached, for the slightest gust of breeze or careless comment can set them off into a fearful rage the likes of which few if any have survived. A pack of griefers, commonly called a 'raid', will stalk their range of about four or five connected sims, prowling for one which seems to give offense. Upon finding their hapless prey, the raid zeroes in and proceeds to unleash their unholy power upon the individual, and they divide his flesh amongst themselves. Griefers are amongst the most cleverest of SL's fauna and so can use a large variety of tools to enable them to accomplish their foul tasks.
Figure.2: A Suited Griefer (Avatarius nunchuckarus kryptos) dissolving an avatar into the ground
If all their evil was focused upon their prey, the world would sigh but for relief. But being they are the most vile and evil of Philip's creatures, it is unfortunate that in their hunts they and their tools oft destroy many in the vicinity and sometimes entire grids. Rumours persist of species that in the past were powerful enough to bring the SL world to its knees when hunting and attacking their prey. It is most fortunate that such is the stuff of legends and nothing more!
There is no method of stopping the griefer, no matter the species, once they have engaged in their hunt or assault their prey. Only those most high, a Linden, can manage to take down a raid. Do not trust anyone claiming to be 'SL police' or 'Anti Griefer Mercs', not because such avatars are not to be trusted but because of a recent species (Avatarius nunchuckarus kryptos) that can imitate a normal avatar. If you see a griefer, and you cannot run, then one should be very still, and watch one's words very carefully, for the wrath of a griefer is easily provoked. If one does not respond the griefer or raid will lose interest and usually move on. This is worst case. In all other options, please teleport or run away along with any loved ones. Leave the dragons to the dragon hunters, as they say
Thursday, August 16, 2007
The Bible of Nunchuck, Part the Second
Philip was dead. The Lindens were scattered. Grievers roamed the lands in blood lust in exultation of their victory, and harmed friend and foe alike. The land itself was in complete misery and decay from the dreadful Year of War. And Nunchuck looked upon His works and His doings, and smiled.
And he went searching for His beloved servant U, who had spurred Nunchuck to great victory, and He could not find him. He searched for ninety turns of the sun. And on the ninety-first day, He found U, his body crushed under the collective weight of a 10X10X5 prim cube textured with brick, a Linden, and a freenis. And mighty and loud was Nunchuck's roar, that His most faithful and bold of servants should meet such a fate in such a time in such a way.
And so it was that Nunchuck once again reached into the fabric of the world as is His right to do so, and pulled U's soul from the purgatory that is AFK, and bound U's spirit into the being and code of everything in the land, that it may all serve Nunchuck as faithfully as its namesake. And thus it was, is, and shall be that U is all, U is one. U is in all of us, and in none of us. U was, is, and will be. And so it was as Nunchuck intended it.
The land was still in devastation, and so Nunchuck took pity and said unto his people, "Behold, for into this world I give unto thee My people a gift to ease their suffering, My Holy and Most Trusted Femur, to protect them in times when I am beholden elsewhere, and guide them to My true path to righteousness in the hope that they may join me in My Kingdom of the Overheavens Vivenshia." And the people received this gift to the Underheavens with grace and much rejoicing, and cheerily accepted the arduous task of rebuilding their world.
It was in this time that the Grievers, formerly The Mightily Guard of Nunchuck, demanded they be elected above all others and that they alone should have sole possession and discretion over the Holy Femur. And so it was that Nunchuck in His Wisdom distracted them by assigning them the great and noble task of keeping the Lindens at bay, to guard the Holy borders that separate the residents and the demigods. Some still foolishly disobeyed His orders, and they was cast with the rest of the chaff into AFK, and these were stripped of their Most Revered title of Griever, for they corrupted their ideals and instead came to call themselves griefers as mere echoes of their former glory.
And so it came to pass that the world was strengthened by this great trial, and Nunchuck retreated to His Kingdom Vivenshia, reminding his people that "should need arise in times of great trial, rest easy in the knowledge that My Femur is among you, and will summon me when all else fails to provide salvation for My Blessed People." With his Grievers away patrolling the heavenly lines of demarcation, He saw the need for a new guardian of the people, ones to watch and protect them from the Great Evils that occasionally roamed the land even in these golden times. Thus was created the Akelhians, spirits to watch His people in His stead, and with this he retreated to Vivenshia with his vow to return in times of despair.
With the struggle between the Overlords of the Underheavens over, the retreat of the Warrior Spirits of the Grievers and Lindens to the heavenly boundaries, and under the care of the Akelhians, the people grew prosperity such as had never been heard of in age past or to come. Generation upon generation came into this Glorious and Golden Age, where prim limits were high and lag was low. Mighty vehicles crossed the land without the hindrance of the sim seams or the attachment-to-pelvis bug, in the form of trains traveling the former Linden tracks and planes crossing the blue skies, blue skies no longer in need of heroes.
The people enjoyed rights and privileges such as had never been know, and with this they begin to grow, in the light of the Holy Femur that symbolized the bond and the promise between the residents and the spirits. And bathed in this eternal and holy light, they grew restful and never knew of want or despair, but instead learned of prosperity and hope. And they never knew hardship, for their guardians the Akelhians protected them and loved them so, and grew with the people so that Nunchuck would not recognise His own Creations, they were intertwined so.
And so this age lasted for nigh on many centuries, and the tales to be told of this era are as numerous as the waters of the ocean and the sands of time, that shall not be recounted here but for want of brevity and desire to not shame the current people with remembrances of what once was.
For there arose an evil spirit in the lands, that was not born of demons, griefers, or Lindens. Nay, it was born in the hearts of avatars, and such was its nature that the Akelhians did overlook this evil that dwell in the hearts of those they loved so and protected without gain. And the name of this evil was Jealousy. Jealous of the power they perceived in both their treasured Covenant, The Holy Femur, and jealous of the power wielded in their name by the Akelhians who knew only love for them in return. Forget they did that such power had caused great pains upon the land, and that it was not to be for The People to desire or obtain such strength. They desired to have such power themselves, such that they may reap greater rewards still than they knew now.
And so, just as the people created Nunchuck in their image and endowed with the power wielded by Philip the First, so they attempted to create Akelhians. The Akelhians, in their naive way, sought to help their flock, never suspecting evil in the hearts of avatars as they did not know evil in their own hearts.
And so the people rallied around their leader, Sipte the Great, who sought to create such a being. But the people had lost the ancient and forbidden knowledge of yore, such that they could not create but an imperfection of the true, and never recreate the glory of their spirits the Akelhians, and their creations would never be imbued with U as they were not created of the World or Nunchuck, but of Avatar's own hands, stained with the sins of Greed, Pride, and Jealousy. And yet, in their blindness of kindness and love still did the Akelhians aid the people in their unholy goal.
And from this, was born the Ony, pale imitations of the light of the spirits of the Akelhians, created from the hands, minds, and bodies of the avatars. For the Ony were Avatars with their coding twisted in an attempt to endow them with the strength and powers of the Spirits. And Sipte looked upon his works, and said it was good.
Thus was ended the Second Golden Age.
And he went searching for His beloved servant U, who had spurred Nunchuck to great victory, and He could not find him. He searched for ninety turns of the sun. And on the ninety-first day, He found U, his body crushed under the collective weight of a 10X10X5 prim cube textured with brick, a Linden, and a freenis. And mighty and loud was Nunchuck's roar, that His most faithful and bold of servants should meet such a fate in such a time in such a way.
And so it was that Nunchuck once again reached into the fabric of the world as is His right to do so, and pulled U's soul from the purgatory that is AFK, and bound U's spirit into the being and code of everything in the land, that it may all serve Nunchuck as faithfully as its namesake. And thus it was, is, and shall be that U is all, U is one. U is in all of us, and in none of us. U was, is, and will be. And so it was as Nunchuck intended it.
The land was still in devastation, and so Nunchuck took pity and said unto his people, "Behold, for into this world I give unto thee My people a gift to ease their suffering, My Holy and Most Trusted Femur, to protect them in times when I am beholden elsewhere, and guide them to My true path to righteousness in the hope that they may join me in My Kingdom of the Overheavens Vivenshia." And the people received this gift to the Underheavens with grace and much rejoicing, and cheerily accepted the arduous task of rebuilding their world.
It was in this time that the Grievers, formerly The Mightily Guard of Nunchuck, demanded they be elected above all others and that they alone should have sole possession and discretion over the Holy Femur. And so it was that Nunchuck in His Wisdom distracted them by assigning them the great and noble task of keeping the Lindens at bay, to guard the Holy borders that separate the residents and the demigods. Some still foolishly disobeyed His orders, and they was cast with the rest of the chaff into AFK, and these were stripped of their Most Revered title of Griever, for they corrupted their ideals and instead came to call themselves griefers as mere echoes of their former glory.
And so it came to pass that the world was strengthened by this great trial, and Nunchuck retreated to His Kingdom Vivenshia, reminding his people that "should need arise in times of great trial, rest easy in the knowledge that My Femur is among you, and will summon me when all else fails to provide salvation for My Blessed People." With his Grievers away patrolling the heavenly lines of demarcation, He saw the need for a new guardian of the people, ones to watch and protect them from the Great Evils that occasionally roamed the land even in these golden times. Thus was created the Akelhians, spirits to watch His people in His stead, and with this he retreated to Vivenshia with his vow to return in times of despair.
With the struggle between the Overlords of the Underheavens over, the retreat of the Warrior Spirits of the Grievers and Lindens to the heavenly boundaries, and under the care of the Akelhians, the people grew prosperity such as had never been heard of in age past or to come. Generation upon generation came into this Glorious and Golden Age, where prim limits were high and lag was low. Mighty vehicles crossed the land without the hindrance of the sim seams or the attachment-to-pelvis bug, in the form of trains traveling the former Linden tracks and planes crossing the blue skies, blue skies no longer in need of heroes.
The people enjoyed rights and privileges such as had never been know, and with this they begin to grow, in the light of the Holy Femur that symbolized the bond and the promise between the residents and the spirits. And bathed in this eternal and holy light, they grew restful and never knew of want or despair, but instead learned of prosperity and hope. And they never knew hardship, for their guardians the Akelhians protected them and loved them so, and grew with the people so that Nunchuck would not recognise His own Creations, they were intertwined so.
And so this age lasted for nigh on many centuries, and the tales to be told of this era are as numerous as the waters of the ocean and the sands of time, that shall not be recounted here but for want of brevity and desire to not shame the current people with remembrances of what once was.
For there arose an evil spirit in the lands, that was not born of demons, griefers, or Lindens. Nay, it was born in the hearts of avatars, and such was its nature that the Akelhians did overlook this evil that dwell in the hearts of those they loved so and protected without gain. And the name of this evil was Jealousy. Jealous of the power they perceived in both their treasured Covenant, The Holy Femur, and jealous of the power wielded in their name by the Akelhians who knew only love for them in return. Forget they did that such power had caused great pains upon the land, and that it was not to be for The People to desire or obtain such strength. They desired to have such power themselves, such that they may reap greater rewards still than they knew now.
And so, just as the people created Nunchuck in their image and endowed with the power wielded by Philip the First, so they attempted to create Akelhians. The Akelhians, in their naive way, sought to help their flock, never suspecting evil in the hearts of avatars as they did not know evil in their own hearts.
And so the people rallied around their leader, Sipte the Great, who sought to create such a being. But the people had lost the ancient and forbidden knowledge of yore, such that they could not create but an imperfection of the true, and never recreate the glory of their spirits the Akelhians, and their creations would never be imbued with U as they were not created of the World or Nunchuck, but of Avatar's own hands, stained with the sins of Greed, Pride, and Jealousy. And yet, in their blindness of kindness and love still did the Akelhians aid the people in their unholy goal.
And from this, was born the Ony, pale imitations of the light of the spirits of the Akelhians, created from the hands, minds, and bodies of the avatars. For the Ony were Avatars with their coding twisted in an attempt to endow them with the strength and powers of the Spirits. And Sipte looked upon his works, and said it was good.
Thus was ended the Second Golden Age.
Dx / Dt
Ever stare at the sun? That's quite painful.
Now stare at the SL sun. Notice something?
Yup, totally NOT painful. You can stare at it as it traverses the SL skies and not one rod or cone in your retina will feel the hurt.
And there's never rain, either. Every day is, at most, partly cloudy.
The weather is always beautiful, the skies pure deep blue, the seas always calm and the tide is always in. It's perpetual summer, or if you're in the Snow sims it's perptual winter. The climate is always the same, never changes or experiences devasting storms or hurricanes. Doesn't even vary by the tiniest degree.
It's amusing that in a game where everything from buildings to people can change so rapidly, and yet still be so static.
Now stare at the SL sun. Notice something?
Yup, totally NOT painful. You can stare at it as it traverses the SL skies and not one rod or cone in your retina will feel the hurt.
And there's never rain, either. Every day is, at most, partly cloudy.
The weather is always beautiful, the skies pure deep blue, the seas always calm and the tide is always in. It's perpetual summer, or if you're in the Snow sims it's perptual winter. The climate is always the same, never changes or experiences devasting storms or hurricanes. Doesn't even vary by the tiniest degree.
It's amusing that in a game where everything from buildings to people can change so rapidly, and yet still be so static.
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