Creationism, is it?

SL9B Remarks

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 07:53:12 +1200

SL9B - Second Life’s 9th Birthday Exhibit, is here and gone. The 2nd birthday exhibit not sponsored by the creators of the Second Life Virtual World, Linden Lab.

Rather, the event was run by a group of dedicated customers.

Wading through lag to explore, resorting to sim-to-sim teleports rather than biting the bullet and play sim crossing roulette. Still quite unpredictable whether you are going to make it onto a new sim or not; either you successfully cross into the new destination sim or you get disconnected after a minute or two.

Over 200 exhibits and 95 snapshots. Roughly 2-5 exhibits inbetween snapshots.

Nice to see someone (Crap Mariner) organise an impromptu little get-together on one of the semi-neglected exhibits. Around 30 people - mostly SL9B Volunteers, in a somewhat cramped train, a train going nowhere. Also the backdrop to one of Crap’s ‘angel of death’ SL9B promo videos.

The suggestions I submitted for the next Second Life Birthday Exhibit, provided that Linden Lab are going to delegate the event to its customers again:
————————————————————

Name/Author clearly visible on each and every exhibit

Themed exhibitions grouped by build height. Including Adult orientated sims!

Moving away from a square grid exhibition layout

Navigation Maps, like in amusement parks and SL Shopping Malls

Activities/concerts for the entire duration of the exhibits, rather than having them abruptly end after the first week

Hopefully the next SLB team will implement a few of my suggestions, if not all.

Second Life 9th Birthday Exhibition

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 16:54:21 +1200

Second Life 9th Birthday Exhibition

25th of April again. Lest We Forget, ANZAC Day.

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:21:04 +1200

25th of April again. Lest We Forget, ANZAC Day.

While trading Winter Holiday 'gifts' on Steam:

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:42:00 +1300

While trading Winter Holiday 'gifts' on Steam:
---------------------------

Me: I offered for on forums
Other Guy: yes i like that :)
Other Guy: please leave feedback on profile and in thread :) i do same
----------------------------

Zero-risk trade, don't you think? Comments are normally reserved for high-risk trading, such as trading a game key that actually does work for another game.

Burning Life '11

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 09:39:19 +1300

Favourite snapshots from BURN2 (Burning Life) 2011

Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011. Apple Co-Founder, Businessman, Visionary, Community Pillar

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 03:42:00 +1300

Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011. Apple Co-Founder, Businessman, Visionary, Community Pillar

Sad Farewell - Kirstens Viewer

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 03:03:45 +1200

KirstenLee Cinquetti has ceased development of Kirstens Viewer, citing that his SL/RL Partner, Dawny Daviau, is very ill and that Kirsten can’t continue to work on his bleeding edge viewer and tend to his partner at the same time.

Quoting KirstenLee:

You may have noticed that the client has not been updated in some time. Sadly Real Life events have taken an unfortunate turn which basically puts an end to any more development.
The Plans for S22 have been shelved and the project has been marked as discontinued.

[…]

Dawny has been very Ill, and had to stop working. As you can imagine my priority is to support her in any way possible and that means I have to become the main bread winner, as much as I enjoy working on the client it’s obviously the first thing to go.

[…]

I would like to wish everyone who has supported the project over the years, a huge hug and many thanks, Jabba, Altair and all the people who have put up with my ranting and raving and unusual colour choices in UI. :)

Who knows what the future holds! But for now Kirstens Viewer goes into a deep sleep.

Presses the Shut Down button, Drives spin down, silence……….

Sad to see another third-party SL viewer dev retiring, especially since Kirstens Viewer was (and still is, for the time being) my favourite Second Life viewer.

Best wishes to KirstenLee and Dawny. Hopefully Dawny will get better in the near future and Kirsten can begin working on his bleeding-edge SL viewer again.

Nymwars, really?

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 22:18:00 +1200

A thought:

Handful of people on Twitter (and on the web) seem to be uber-fussed about Pseudonym Wars - dubbed ‘nymwars’ by Google+ Policy Bashers on Twitter and around the web. Why is that?

Is it because they want on-line Privacy (against matching their Real Life data with their on-line activities)? Or is it because they secretly support full anonymity (hive, collective, borg behaviour) and that pushing for pseudonyms will get them closer to their goal?

Pseudonym users generally want an established, legitimate identity under a different name, handle or callsign. They don’t want to remain totally hidden or their identity merged with thousands of others, like anonymous. Privacy from prying eyes, like institutions and corporations, is what they are after.

In essence, Privacy Wars, not Nymwars. For people who haven’t ousted their Real Life identity with their pseudonym, that is.

Google+ Identity Service. Image Credit: Botgirl Questi

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:51:32 +1200

Google+ Identity Service. Image Credit: Botgirl Questi

Seriously Overpriced

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 22:40:59 +1200

iD Software’s Rage (publisher: Bethesda Softworks) - Seriously Overpriced on Steam

Copyleftist Cory Doctorow on Pseudonyms

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 21:46:00 +1200

Pseudonymity makes it possible for the most marginalized people in our community to communicate with us; it also allows people who are notorious or famous to join the discussion without dragging in all the baggage of whatever it is they’re known for, making for debates that focus on substance, not celebrity.

— Cory Doctorow. Source: http://my.nameis.me/393/cory-doctorow/
(emphasis mine)

Most Marginalized, as in Social Rejects?

If my assumption is correct, then Cory Doctorow is labeling pseudonym users as ‘retards’ and asking the public to take pity on them.

The 2nd part makes more sense, in which famed people can contribute meaningfully on discussion boards etc via a pseudonym, without prejudice.

Update: realavatarsofgenius.tumblr.com’s short comment

Google+ and Pseudonyms

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:15:00 +1200

Initial Observations

The recent outbreak of Google+ Social Networking policy dissents are staggering. The dissents are all trying to persuade Google to officially allow pseudonyms to use the service. Execs and G+ leads continue to ignore calls by the community to allow the ‘nyms’ to officially stay.

Google continues to suspend some pseudonymous G+ users, and people with weird-sounding, 100% legal names. Select security experts critique Google for their unsafe names policy.

———-

Botgirl Questi, Prokofy Neva, Tateru Nino, Wizard Gynoid and Gwyneth Llewelyn are some of the people who fully support the use of pseudonyms on the Internet. All five of them are established pseudonyms with several years’ worth of history.

Of the five individuals I mentioned, Botgirl Questi seems to be most ~~vocal~~ “comical”. Mock interviews with a fantasized Google employee and comic-style cartoons/posters used to emphasize the issue.

———

Google+ community manager Natalie Villalobos writes:

You do not need to use your last name or even your “real name” but a name that you are commonly known by. You can put “Natalie V” with no symbol, as we no longer support symbols in the names fields.

(Link to Source - scroll down to read the comment)

However, Google’s official policy seems to contradict Ms. Villalobos’s statement, albeit a little hazy on what constitutes a ‘real name’.

———

On the other end of the scale, Forbes magazine contributor Benoit Raphael is in full support of Google’s names policy. He argues that the new Internet requires the use of your Real Life identity to function properly.

[New Internet? What’s that? Is it even here yet?]

[Benoit Raphael also seems a little perplexed at people using “avatars” on Today’s Internet].

The Forbes Contributor/Blogger asks:

now that Facebook, Twitter and Google+ have become public spaces where people can meet to share or to protest, is there a danger in housing theses public places in the exclusive hands of private companies? If “Internet” is a new country, then who will protect freedom in its public places ?

[On-line Privacy issues are not discussed, oddly. Privacy is utmost important to those in favour of Pseudonyms]

———-

[Follow-up post(s) coming soon]

Second Life is a Dating service now?

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 19:36:17 +1200

Unwanted spam ad from Linden Lab | Second Life

Plurk Widget Broken, Needs Replacing

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:04:00 +1200

Long story short, Plurk widget broken (For some time now. Not auto-recovering like it used to), ~~new widget/info panel coming up soon - hopefully in next 3-4 days)~~.

SL8B Snapshots

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 07:03:29 +1200

Main set - Best 11

The Dad Who Forgot The Magic of Make-Believe

Google Plus G+ Social Networking - Public Preview

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 08:08:00 +1200

Google Plus G+ Social Networking - Public Preview

A Very Public Donation

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 23:53:00 +1200

Unexpected donation to the Australian Cancer Council, even though I’m not an Australian Citizen. Initially I was going to give 130 AUD (by bidding on a Virtual Item), but the item owner changed his mind.

Happy 8th Birthday, Second Life!

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 06:21:00 +1200

Lag, Grey Avatars, Some Neat Exhibitions. Snapshot collection coming soon…

Even though Chrome comes bundled with it’s own variant of...

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 21:27:00 +1200

Even though Chrome comes bundled with it’s own variant of Flash player.

Linden Research promoting Piracy?!

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 22:20:00 +1200