silver bullets in the jukebox, spin another round

This week's awesome bio award goes to Wrath and Ruin, a level 50 science brute seen in the Rikti War Zone:

Description:
Wrath: They KILLED us!
Ruin: No, not us. Her. They killed her...
Wrath: I'll feast on their eyes! The pain! They'll feel my pain!
Ruin: It is not all of them. They are not all bad. We can help them maybe!... Is it not what she wanted?
Wrath: They killed her! But yes, that IS what she wanted. And THAT's why she's 'dead'.
Ruin: But...
Wrath: She's dead, because WE were too weak to help her back then.
Ruin: We are stronger now... We could do...
Wrath: Something, yes. We can fix their perceptions!
Ruin: Umm, that is nice of us... I guess...
Wrath: 'Very'. We'll help them see. And then, ease their pain. They're in so much pain.
Ruin: Or will be...
Wrath and Ruin: Hah, hahaha, AhhhAHHAHAAHAha...
Ruin: Seriously though. I think there may be something...
Wrath: wrong with us, yes. But I don't care. I like it.
Ruin: Yeah... me too...

Perrrfect.

In other news, artist Matt Rhodes has knocked out a concept for Galactus that I really want to see become the official concept. I'm definitely more highly in favor of his version than the traditional short, stubby, yet somehow still gargantuan pink guy that Lee and Kirby invented. (AND it even explains why that invention exists, without diminishing the power of the new one.)

Friend of mine (who has an established online pseudonym that is not her real name, in her case of over a decade's standing) has been following the main Google+ commentary thread on the "new and improved" pseudonymity policy. After the initial announcement, I hadn't bothered to read any of the comments, for two reasons:

1. I left Google+ because they don't allow me to be Emilly Orr, a name I've established for almost seven years now--which is also the name that nearly everyone in my life, online and off, uses either exclusively to talk with me, or uses interchangeably with my "real name" (and yes, this includes spouses and some family members); and

2. I didn't want to reach that point whereby I either couldn't provide Google with enough substantive "proof" for why I wanted to use that name, and they killed all access to my Google accounts across the board, or somehow tracked down my "real name" and replaced it without my consent, thus giving anyone with (or without) a Google+ account access to my RL information.

So I'm now reading the comments, and...wau. So damn many comments. Here's a cursory few that caught my eye:

First, part of Bradley Horowitz's original announcement:

Since launch we've listened closely to community feedback on our names policy, as well as reviewed our own data regarding signup completion. The vast majority of users sail through our signup process--in fact, only about 0.1% submit name appeals.

When we analyze the set of all name appeals on Google+, we find that they generally fall into three major categories:
- The majority (60%) of these users want to simply add nicknames.
- About 20% of appeals are actually businesses (who are inadvertently trying to set up their business as a Profile, rather than using Google+ Pages which were intended for this purpose.)
- And the remaining 20% would either prefer to use a pseudonym or another unconventional name.

Today we're pleased to be launching features that will address and remedy the majority of these issues. To be clear--our work here isn't done, but I'm really pleased to be shipping a milestone on our journey.

Nicknames and Names in Another Script

Over the next week, we'll be adding support for alternate names--be they nicknames, maiden names, or names in another script--alongside your common name. This name will show up on your Google+ profile and in the hovercards which appear over your name. In the next few weeks, we'll be displaying it more broadly as part of your name in other areas of Google+ as well. So if you're Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Jane Doe (Smith), or Saurabh Sharma (सौरभ शर्मा), you can now communicate your identity the way you want to.

To add an alternate name, go to your Google+ profile, click Edit Profile, select your name and click on "More options." (See attached photos)

It's important to remember that when you change your name in Google+, you’re changing it across all services that require a Google Profile.

Other Established Identities

On Google+, we try to flag names which don't represent individuals, such as businesses or abstract ideas which should be +Pages. Sometimes we get this wrong, so starting today we're updating our policies and processes to broaden support for established pseudonyms, from +trench coat to +Madonna.

If we flag the name you intend to use, you can provide us with information to help confirm your established identity. This might include:

- References to an established identity offline in print media, news articles, etc
- Scanned official documentation, such as a driver's license
- Proof of an established identity online with a meaningful following

One wonders how exactly they're interpreting "meaningful following", but that's the least of my complaints with this announcement.

Sai summed up many of my objections in a comment very succinctly stated, near the top:

1. "Another script"? That would be Latin charset, for people whose primary language is in another charset. Why should English get privileged as the universal default for their "primary" form of name?

2. "with a meaningful following" is extremely objectionable to me.
a) it's complete weasel wording
b) it cements having pseudonyms as a privilege of celebrity

Both are unacceptable. Normal people need to have pseudonyms too, as I think has been extremely well established. (cf. http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F)

3. If it's on your driver's license, it's not a pseudonym. And if it's not on your driver's license, that doesn't mean it's not your legal name either, in common law countries.

4. It discriminates against people (like me) with unusual names. Why do we have to show identification or fame, but the real pseudonyms ("John Smith" et al) don't?

5. Google+ still can't be your first identity online if you have a nonWASP name...but Facebook can. "Google+: your second social network." Seriously?

I'm sorry, but the only difference I see here is that you're now listing the nickname field on the hovercard and profile. I see no substantive policy change. Fame was already an obvious and hypocritical exception to the policy; now you're just open about it.

And this took half a year?

Exactly. I highly recommend reading through the Geekfeminism link; I only wish the folks at Google pushing this insane policy so aggressively would do the same, and, better still, actually comprehend the logic in it.

Yonatan in response to Sai:

You're asking all of the right questions, so let me give you systematic answers. I'll start with the easy one, and write a separate comment for the big one:"Another script:" No, the Latin charset isn't privileged. Your name has to be in any single script (as per UTR-39); your nickname has to be in a single script; but they do not have to be the same script.

Sai's response back:

I understood they don't have to be in the same script. But the example given ("Saurabh Sharma (सौरभ शर्मा)") pretty explicitly says that the native script is the "other one". That's rather rude IMO.

While I've never had a name in a non-Latin character set, I do understand the point--it presumes that English, and by default Latin characters, are the obvious global default, and that anyone who doesn't use English (and Latin characters) are by this definition...well, you could take that several ways, depending on how you're reading it. At the least Google is trying to tell the rest of the world that their languages are by default "alternate" ones; at worst, the communication says they're less, they're not as important, they don't mean as much. These aren't good things to say.

Gary to Yonatan:

firstly, this is a step in mostly the right direction and I'm glad to see it. I would be interested in a response to Sai's other comment, though. Surely celebrity should not be a prerequisite for choice. In that regard, this policy change seems to continue to willfully miss the point: it is not our responsibility to explain our choice of name to you, but rather your responsibility to explain to us why that choice is something we should not have. So far Google has abjectly failed to do this.

Good comment. Is celebrity the only reason a pseudonym would be allowed? What qualifies as a "meaningful following"? And he's absolutely right, why is Google putting themselves into judging what names are "allowed" (hence, "good") and what names are banned, blocked, or denied (hence, "bad")? They're our names, not theirs. Why do we have to justify our own names?

Yonatan back to Sai:

Saurabh is actually one of the PM's on the team, and he uses Latin script as his default script. :)

Sai's comment in return:

Then that's not a good representative case to use for internationalization, eh?

No. It's really not. In that case, Horowitz is taking a name he's seen around the office and pretending that it shows some amazing international sensitivity, when in fact Saurabh likely only uses non-Latin script when communicating specifically with people who use that script by default. And possibly not even then. So that's really a specious example start to finish; thanks, Google, for continuing to denigrate our intelligence.

And what I'm going to end with (at least for now) is Yonatan's comment back to Sai:

OK, +Sai .: Here's the big answer.

First of all, you might ask why we have a names policy at all. (i.e., why we don't simply go with the JWZ proposal) One thing which we have discovered, while putting some miles on the system, is that it is indeed important to have a name-based service rather than a handle-based service. This isn't a matter of functionality so much as of community: You get a different kind of community when people are known as Mary Smith than when they are known as captaincrunch42, and for a social product in particular we decided that the first kind of community is the one we want to build. In order to do that, we want to establish a general norm that the names you put in to the system should be names, not handles.

So one thing that our name checking flow tries to catch is handles, which should normally be nicknames, shown in addition to a name. The other important thing it's trying to catch is people who are creating individual accounts, rather than +Pages, for non-human entities such as businesses or organizations. The behavior of +Pages is deliberately restricted in the system, and we don't want people to be creating fake human accounts to circumvent that. The name check turns out to be a very powerful tool to catch these.

Our name check is therefore looking, not for things that don't look like "your" name, but for things which don't look like names, period. In fact, we do not give a damn whether the name posted is "your" name or not: we will not challenge you on this basis, nor is there any mechanism for other users to cause you to be challenged for this.

There are two main cases where the name check screws up. One is false positives: people (such as you) who have unusual names which get flagged because they looked like handles. Being able to appeal via things such as drivers' licenses is useful for this case, since it's a simple "oh, we got this wrong." The other case is people such as +trench coat, who are so well-known under this handle that it would be bizarre not to let them onto the system under this name. For this case, we allow appeals based on being well-known under the name: thus the ability to prove the "established pseudonym." We've deliberately set the threshold for that latter case fairly high for now, but we intend to continue to tune it; the objective is that the frequency of such names should basically be the same as their frequency in meatspace.

So to answer your questions one-by-one:

(2) "Meaningful following" only applies to cases of established pseudonyms which do not look like names. The definition of "meaningful" is deliberately vague so that we can tune it, so that it behaves in a natural fashion.

(3) That's correct; drivers' licenses are for false positives, not pseudonyms.

(4) Unusual names will indeed hit friction, because of false positives. We're trying to minimize that, but it's going to take some trial and error.

(5) Google+ can absolutely be your first identity online. No matter what your language, no matter where you come from. The "established pseudonym" logic should apply to a very small subset of people. If some groups are seeing a higher false positive rate than others, that's a bug, not a feature, and we have the data available to spot this situation and remedy it.

Does this answer your questions better?

Not really. Let's take this point by point:

1. So Google's only interested in surface community--they don't want people with goofy-sounding names to apply, because that would not make a strong social network of honest people, but a bunch of kids who would do bad things simply because they don't have "real names" like adults do. The hell.

2. Even if we somehow manage to convince them that our psuedonyms are real enough for their data checks to pass over, we'll still have to use "real names", it sounds like, because nick-names are only pairing with "real names", because that's the way adults in the real world operate.

3. In fact, we do not give a damn whether the name posted is "your" name or not: we will not challenge you on this basis...Except that's not what Google said earlier. Google said earlier that if we were operating under a pseudonym, then Google would kill all Google functionality across the platform. If we lost Google+, we lost Gmail, we lost Picasa for pictures, and people were wondering if this would also block use of Chrome.

In fact, I'm still not entirely sure that's not going to happen in March; that even though I'm not on Google+, they'll "discover" I've been running under a pseudonym all these years and tell me that (even though, to their new and revised definition, "Emilly Orr" looks like a real name) it's not good enough, and kill my Gmail access.

4. If I have a strange-sounding pseudonym (which I don't), and I have sufficient celebrity and name recognition (which I don't), then I get the name by default because it would be "bizarre" not to operate like that. Which is, I suppose, fine for people like "trench coat", Cher and Madonna, but where's the dividing line for those of us not deemed strange enough? Is this the Google version of "go big or go home"?

5. Google doesn't want to tell us how they define "meaningful" because they don't want people to "game the system". Gosh, that sounds familiar...Anyone else flashing to the Lindens' policy on Adult terms in the Marketplace? You know, obviously bad words like "pe", "5" and "*"? (Though rumors are "5" got fixed.)

6. Finally, this bit: [T]he objective is that the frequency of such names should basically be the same as their frequency in meatspace. Right. So in my case, the fact that most of the people I know call me "Em", including the ones that know me by the name on my ID, means I can establish "Emilly Orr" as my official name. Right? Save that Google did everything they could, several months back, to terrify me out of my tiny mind that if I held onto that designation on Google+, I would lose all ability to use my email address--which at this point is tied to several major institutions and would be a pain and a half to replace. I'm not talking Second Life and City of Heroes registry; I'm talking banks, hospitals, and politicians.

You can't have it both ways, Google. Either it's okay for us to have pseudonyms, or it's not. And restricting us to pseudonyms that sound like real names just makes you look like consummate dicks, frankly. To be blunt.

I want to scream for everything to stop, 'cos I'm not in charge of anything

Came across a bright blue fellow in Wentworth's Consignments, in City of Heroes. He had a very steampunk-esque backpack on, spitting blue steam, and was a level 35 technology controller. I pulled up his profile:

It is not uncommon for Spirit Masters to go on earthly adventures for wisdom and courage. This particular Stormbearer went into an unknown cave filled with sapphire, one of the rarest gems in the world because it is created using just oxygen which gives the blue. Storm bearer was amazed at the amount of gem the cave had. A stream of sapphire also took place and so he followed it deeper in to the blue cave. He came upon this clanking machine creating the crystal cave, and the sapphire water and took it. He has lived to this day with the machine on his back still producing stormy weather but also bringing greed seekers to their demise.

And I could not let that go. So, I dropped a note his way:

[Tell] -->Sapphire Stormbearer: Just as an aside, sapphire gets its blue color from titanium and iron, not oxygen. Otherwise very cool hero.
[Tell] Sapphire Stormbearer: i am not a scientist im a weather controller otherwise ppl love me for my backpack

At which point I smiled, complimented his backpack--because it was a nifty thing of gears and dials and aged blue steel--and backed away. Because really, there's just no further talking possible.

"The Zombie-X rifle was created by DoubleStar as a more effective tool for dealing with the imaginary apocalypse of the undead that's never going to happen." Okay then.

Also, almost a year ago there was speculation about a UFO on the ocean floor. Did they ever find out what that was?

From the Department of WTF Happened, a Hollywood-based lobbying group announced it needed SOPA to shut down Megaupload...five days after Megaupload was shut down, and a couple days after SOPA was stalled in the shallows (maybe permanently; Senator Lamar Smith has withdrawn the bill on the list of bills he's now sponsoring).

And you thought SOPA, PIPA, and now ACTA were bad? And your head is still reeling from PCIPA? Well, meet TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. What's involved in that one? And I quote from the relevant section regarding intellectual property provisions:

"TPP countries have agreed to reinforce and develop existing World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) rights and obligations to ensure an effective and balanced approach to intellectual property rights among the TPP countries. Proposals are under discussion on many forms of intellectual property, including trademarks, geographical indications, copyright and related rights, patents, trade secrets, data required for the approval of certain regulated products, as well as intellectual property enforcement and genetic resources and traditional knowledge. TPP countries have agreed to reflect in the text a shared commitment to the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health."

To break that down, the United States, along with Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, and Vietnam (and possibly Japan and Canada, should they wish to join in, but intriguingly enough, not Mexico) will all be agreeing to support intellectual property rights on trademarks, geographical locations, copyright issues, patents, preservation of trade secrets, internal testing and regulation, including scientific study, empirical findings, and genetically-modified seed crops (and/or clones)--at least within those seven (to possibly nine) countries, and will be fighting back against non-member countries who try to dilute those copyrights, studies, findings, genetic modifications, and chosen locales.

Even worse?

"The Obama Administration has developed a policy on transparency for the TPP negotiations which apparently does not involve any commitments to sharing the text with the general public, even after it has been given to all member countries in the negotiation and to hundreds of corporate insiders on the USTR advisory board system."

Well, wonderful. And yes, that means what you think it does--information on the TPP is very sketchy, and it's highly likely that the (leaked) documents we have of the phrasing may be several drafts back from the final form to be passed.

Meanwhile, the folks now running Minecraft have decided that, in addition to the utterly useless addition of wolves, we're now going to be able to tame so-called "ocelots", which, when tamed (with fish, not pork), turn into...housecats. Not kidding. All ocelots start off spotted, and when they are tamed, they turn into striped orange tabbies, Siamese, or black and white cats.

Let me repeat that, because it sounds vaguely important. The new ocelot "mob" type looks like a blocky, spotted ocelot-like thing when untamed, and when tamed--with a fish--they spontaneously transform into three different potential varieties of squared-off, blocky housecats completely randomly. Because that's what feral animals do when domesticated, you see.

I realize it's Cubeworld, and I'm getting hung up on the transformation of a pixel thing into another pixel thing, when I don't bat an eye that you can dye two sheep, breed them, and have the baby sheep show up with that color of dyed wool. I can't explain it, but my brain is going nononono, the hell, that's not even POSSIBLE.

(from the Minecrafting album. Seriously. Not possible.)

(And yes, there are cat toys in Minecraft 1.2. The gods help us all.)

In news from a different direction, H&M apparently thinks that being inspired to copy someone else's design is radically different from actually copying it, which amuses me greatly. People, it's the same design, just give in already.

I'm a backer for Mother Henriot's Elixir, an actual, herbal-derived, absinthe tea. They need to raise slightly under ten thousand dollars in just slightly over a month. I have faith in them. Consider a donation if you have folding green; their benefits are generous and most come with at least a sample of the tea, if not enough for a full pot!

Paula Deen's developed diabetes (no surprise there); a circuit court says it's okay for cops to discriminate based on intelligence (that explains a lot); Tor Books offers up a lovely little run-down of speculative fiction takes on works of art; Echo Bazaar develops the Radical Okapi; and Anina Bennett and Paul Guinan seem to have done it again, debuting an 'autobiography' of famed steampunk explorer Frank Reade...who, like Boilerplate before him, never existed.

Goodness, I think that's everything, and I still have too many windows open! No wonder Chrome keeps crashing on me.

make the same mistake, I'll be here all night

Was Megaupload targeted simply for the actual criminal acts key members performed, or was it also to stop them from launching music and movie sharing services later this year? I don't know if we'll ever know for sure, but it's intriguing that they'd started to make announcements on what was coming--and soon after, were indicted and shut down.

Keep in mind that in the wake of Megaupload shutdown, both FileSonic and Uploaded.to have closed down access from American accounts. FileSonic has gone one step further and declared that users now can only download items they have personally uploaded--so no sharing large videos with family or sending big-packet extraps to fellow law partners, for instance.

And I really don't think they'll be the only closures or changes in services. I think this entire thing is going to end up having a very isolating effect on American media and media sharing--legal or not.

Meanwhile, somewhere far away from that legal battle, ocean waters are turning into froth. Cappuccino-colored froth. Ecological changes in our oceans, you say? Surely you jest.

And have I mentioned scientists are currently trying to prove if multiple universes exist? That's just wild. (And what will such proof, if we get it, do once it percolates fully into the culture?)

From the so-not-safe-for-work department, the newest edition of sexy fairytale pinups. There's a lot of Ariel, a rather curvaceous Elphaba, a Cinderella straining at the seams, and a rather more adult than anticipated Wendy, from Peter Pan. (Among many, many others.)

And, though I rarely touch on religion in this blog, here's a disquieting link on why Biblical literalism can be a very bad thing, using as example the new American version (though with references to the original version, and the book) of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Finally, though this goes out only to one or two readers, Tom Banwell's now made a plague doctor mask. It's available both in brown, and in a "doctoral" white version with red lenses. (The white is less expensive because the design choice turned to rivets, not hand stitching, but either one will set you back a fair chunk of change.)

all of this dust, all of this past

All right, I want to talk to folks that make sculpts. Maybe folks that make mesh, too. I have an avatar concept and I want to see it realized.

(from the fashion album; wedding dress from 1976)

This is a wedding dress, circa 1976, supposedly modeled (in some inspirational fashion) from Anne of the Thousand Days, and displayed at the Victoria & Albert Museum. There are more details on the archive listing of the gown.

(from the fashion album; wedding dress from 1976)

This is a closer shot; for purposes of display, specifically of the embroidery on the dress, and the detail work on the veiling.

So, okay. That avatar. First, in the above two shots, throw the dress away. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely wedding dress concept, but I'm not overwhelmingly interested in that. What I am interested in, however? The monochromatic tone-on-tone: arms, face, outfit. Any outfit would work with that, if everything was that same even off-cream tone.

Or, hells, pick a color--though I'd prefer not vibrant, or a dead black. But still, what I'm seeing in my head could work with just about any outfit that matched the tone of the avatar skin.

Because what caught my imagination so in this is the utter facelessness, while still being definitely feminine. More than that, even, I don't want to put any specific binds on this--while I want a smoothly faceless avatar, I'm thinking even an actual head replacement paired with a toned skin would work. But what I keep seeing on the grid? Beautifully made immersion fetish hoods; blocky robotic avatars; or actual headless entirely avatars, where a neck stump--sealed, or bloodily fresh--is all that's seen.

And all of those have their place; I've even pondered if there's a way to tint parts of Mm. Allen's holographic avatar to be more monochromatic, and demi-opaque. But what I think I'm most intrigued by is not a single-tone face, but the absence of face--those perfectly smoothed angles that still say, to our seeking eyes, "face", over "hood" or "mask" or "helmet". Part of it is because of the slight central vertical elevation--not enough to suggest 'nose' or 'lips' but simply something pushed forward, just slightly enough, for the merest suggestion of face to occur.

What I found most intriguing with this particular mannequin--which even a Google search didn't discover a similar design for--is it seems as if it's covered in cloth, instead of paint. I'm fairly sure that it's simply a very matte finish, though I would adore to know the exact composition.

But I'm fairly sure it's possible, to some talented modeler out there. Anyone interested in taking it on? I also may drop a word into Mm. Allen's ear, see what happens there. This needs to be a Thing, though. It really, really does.

have we lost the magic that we once had?

I profoundly disagree with Joe Wilcox; I think he's wrong on nearly every conceivable count of that article. But then, I think Google's taking a fairly wrong-headed policy on this whole real names policy, anyway. Let's cite some personal examples:

• I have a stalker. Things seem to have calmed down over the past year; mayhap he's found another hobby. But the thought that he might see my real name on something has made me not only chary about sharing it, but about sharing any personal details. Discovering--several years back--that he not only has friends in my area, but has friends that I've met has made me exceptionally paranoid. I refuse to share my real name on the net if I don't absolutely have to, for this reason among others, and if Google can't get that through their thick corporate heads, not my problem.
• It's not just me; my cousin no longer has any online identity tracked through her real name. She used to; in fact, she used to have a Comcast email in her name, and a blog in her name, and other online services, all under the name she was born with. She doesn't now. Why? Because a former roommate hacked her computer and downloaded her personal information, passwords and the like from across town and set up a blog wherein this person trashed the reputation and standing of my cousin's husband. (Which, by the way, this roommate had attempted to murder earlier.)

And that's just family, just me and my cousin personally--but ask around. Who do you know who is wary of netizens? How many women, in fact, have felt threatened by someone on the net? Someone in RL who found out where they were on the net? Abuse victims, rape victims, survivors of war and other crimes, and hey, let's talk about the men, too: they can can be battered nearly as easily, and it's also far easier to trash a male's reputation these days--one woman who thinks she's been wronged cries rape and that's pretty much it, the man's entire life is toast.

Or how about military personnel who cannot, for many reasons, go under their full legal names? What about children? Do we want to force our children to give out their full legal names where anyone might be able to add up full name + gender + gullibility due to age?

What about people in witness protection programs?

Google's getting a lot wrong on this issue, and Mr. Wilcox is just as wrong. And no amount of "go whine elsewhere, trolls" commentary is going to change my mind. Not everyone anonymous on the web is anonymous so we can say mean things to people on the web. (Hells, I say mean things in person. I tend to stand behind the mean things I say, too, just as strongly as I stand behind the nice things I say. Neither means I want my real name attached to anything on the internet.)

In other topics, check out the winners of the latest Taiwan Design Awards competition--favorites of mine (that I'd wish they'd put into production!) are the banana-shaped "Caution" sign and the photochromic, UV-blocking 'leaf shadow' stickers.

For anyone who may remember--and who may have loved--Christopher Livingston's Livin' in Oblivion series, well, he's at it again for Skyrim. Only this time, PC Gamer's paying him to do this, so it's something he'll have valid financial interest in pursuing. Yay! Once more, he's starting out by crafting an NPC--this time around named Nordrick, not Nondrick (because, well, Nondrick was a distant relative, or grandfather, one of those); and gifted with the now-traditional protruberant family schnozz. And once more, he's starting out with little more than the clothes on his back to make his way as a non-adventurer.

More power to him; and hey, it's funnier that way.

[11:51] [cxxxxxx Axxxxxxxx]: since the Lindens are promoting vampirism is Caledon going to accomodate such groups of people in turn --- not that I am into such activites (biting and being bitten) but it seems that this mythology does fit into a Victorian/Steampunk venue.
[11:54] [Axxxx Mxxxxx]: In the latest viewer, the first avatars suggested are vamps

Here's the thing: while there have always been darker-minded Caledonians (and Winterfallen) who are drawn towards the imbibing of liquid protein, I can say with nearly solid surety that they have never felt the need to have a HUD for it designed to spam gentles with bite requests.

[11:54] [Gxxxx Bxxxxx]: Well, they've been using vampires in the adverts for a while....
[11:54] [Axxxx Mxxxxx]: Honestly, sinking to the level of "using Twilight hype" is really really bad

And, just as a side note, Lindens? It does tarnish your reputation a great deal with those contrary to Miss Meyers' narrow and antithetical world view that vampirism equals vegetarianism and celibacy; more to the point, trying to convince those Twilight-minded that Second Life is where the Cullens live in perpetuity, and then having them find out upon logging in to the new "vampire" SL experience, and finding out that vampires are a small portion of a greater diversity of residents will also get you complaints.

You lose both ways. Not good.

[11:57] [Bxxxx Bxxxxxx]: Yes there were Ads on you-tube promoting RP a few years ago "Be a vampire" - that sort of thing -indirectly tied to the twilight /vampire diaries phenom etc
[11:58] [cxxxxxx Axxxxxxxx]: Well anyway I thought maybe Caledon could introduce those interested in"biting" to RP Steampunk style and be a part of this what ever is a foot thing.

I remain unconvinced that she's talking about actual SL vampires, and not simply spampires who play Bloodlines, here.

[11:59] [Axxxx Mxxxxx]: There should be an add-on for period illnesses
[11:59] [Axxxx Mxxxxx]: "You just contracted small-pox by biting xxxxx."

And I remain convinced that he is talking about spampires, not actual SL vampires. Just to make the point clear: spampires aren't vampires. They're people mostly paying to feel like vampires, gather in clans that then emphasize a top-down multi-level-marketing scheme to drag in more victims so they advance higher in rank, and most of them can neither dress appropriately, nor spell well enough to come to Caledon and interact.

[12:00] Pxxxxxx Pxxxxxxxx: Haha. Be a Victorian! Contract TB today!
[12:00] [cxxxxxx Axxxxxxxx]: or [cholera]!
[12:00] Sxxxxx Sxxxxx: that would make observing them all that much more fun - the vampire drinking game!

Now, that would be fun. Take a sip from your blood doll if:

• you see a spampire in silks
• you see a vampire in a mini-skirt or hot pants. Take another sip if you see them wearing both together.
• you see a spampire with fetish heels wearing a locked collar
• you see a spampire head to toe in black leather. Take an additional sip if it's black leather with buckles, and a third sip if it's black leather with buckles and spikes.
• you see a spampire with some variant name like "LrdVladDrac Resident" or "MasterGodVampire Resident" or "SeXiIFaNgEdOnE Resident".
• you see a spampire wandering around asking people if they can be bitten because they need the blood for their Queen
• you see a spampire wandering around asking people if they can be bitten because they ARE a Queen
• you see a spampire asking in chat, "What's a garlic necklace?"
• you see a spampire with a tan. Take an additional sip if they're blonde. Break out the blood champagne if they're wearing pink and they refer to themselves as Princess, Empress, or Duchess, or if any part of their name contains the words "girly", "cute", or "little one".

This could be fun to develop. Any other ideas?

you never needed any help, you sold me out to save yourself

We now reach the third missive, the one not sent from Miss Edwards:

And--unless I hear from them again--this should tie up the series (and part two is here).

Donna Cullen (dcdonnacullen679@gmail.com)
To: Emilly Orr:
1:03 AM (9 hours ago)

Hi Emilly,

Is it just me? I think I'm going to have this knee-jerk reaction to anyone named Cullen because of those ridiculous books.

I recently discovered your blog, and I have become a frequent reader.

I highly doubt that.

Coincidentally, we recently published an article entitled (10 Ways to Find Out If Your Love Wants Kids) that I believe would draw considerable interest from your readers. If you are interested in sharing with them, then feel free to do so.

Here's the link for your convenience: ([[trimmed this one because it was from "topdatingsites", not "bestdatingsites", and yes, I do believe that is spam I smell]]).

Regards,

Donna Cullen

I'm not so much interested in this topic (not that I was that interested in the other two), but I still traipsed off to see what they'd come up with this time:

1. Invite Them To Family Dinner – Dinners or other gatherings where the extended family will be together are a great way to expose your mate to the little ones in your family. If they ignore the kids altogether, they might not be interested in any of their own.

Flashing back to the first article, it's also a great way to scare a new partner off. But let's assume this one was written from the perspective of people who've been together a while, and one of them is thinking they want kids, so this is a list of...what, how to maneuver them into asking about children? Who knows?

2. Take a Trip to The Park – A romantic day at the park can also serve as a barometer for parental instincts. If your lover avoids the kids or seems irritated by them, they might not be parent material.

....What, you can't just go strolling in the park anyway, first, and second, a romantic day out is a great "barometer" for judging parental instincts? Hells, take them to a G-rated movie on a Saturday afternoon. Why the romantic stroll? I don't get it.

3. Point Out Cute Kids – The next time you're enjoying a shopping trip or dining out with your honey and you spot a particularly adorable tyke, point them out. If they seem disinterested or change the subject, starting a family might not be on their to-do list.

"Oh, honey, look, isn't she just the sweetest thing?" You're going to get three reactions to this from most people:

• 1. "Hon, are you feeling okay? Maybe we need to go home."
• 2. "If you say so..."
• 3. "You're creeping me out, here."

4. Talk About General Plans For the Future – Asking your sweetie where they see themselves in ten years or what their long-term goals are might turn up the answers you're looking for. If they want children in the future, they'll probably say so in their response.

And they may not. So you could just, oh, I don't know, mention kids? Why can't you just say you want kids? (Or don't want kids, for that matter?) Isn't it better to be honest and just ask?

5. Mention Friends' Children – Talking about your friends' kids can elicit a response from your significant other in a general sense; if you relay a particularly cute anecdote, they may mention how they're looking forward to children of their own one day. Conversely, they may firmly state that they never want kids.

And either is okay, but it's better to be sure either way. Still, this seems awfully premeditated. Again, why can't you just sit down with the one you love and ask if they want children?

6. Start a Discussion About Birth Control – The issue of birth control is one that every couple has to address; it's a great opportunity to say things like, "I want children one day, but definitely not yet." Statements like this can get the conversation off the ground without feeling like you're pushing too hard.

If they aren't already creeped out by your romantic strolls pointing out cute kids after meeting your family, sure.

7. Visit Friends or Family in the Hospital After a Birth – Few things stir up the parental instincts like a newborn. If a friend or family member has a new baby, bring your mate along for the visit. Simply seeing new parents in action might cause the conversation to develop naturally.

So, spend the day strolling in the park while your partner points out cute kids after meeting the family and talking about birth control, and that evening--go to the maternity ward!

Honestly, at this point your partner is waving signs and lighting flares. If you're still clueless about the way the conversation is going, you may be too dim to date.

8. Pay Attention To Their Language – The words that a person uses and their inflection can often clue you in to their thought processes. When the subject of children comes up, watch their facial expressions and listen to the way they speak. If their tone is derisive or disgusted, it's a good sign that they're not interested in parenting.

Yes, or calling children "hellspawn", say, or always carting around a ball of yarn and knitting baby socks with, there's another huge clue. Who are these people? These are their best tips to start that conversation about children?!?

9. Observe How They Interact With Their Nieces and Nephews – While introducing your mate to the little ones in your family can give you some clues, their behavior can be colored by the desire to make a good impression or anxiety from meeting the whole clan. Watching how your lover interacts with the children in their own family can be more telling, as they're likely to be more comfortable and genuine.

Guess you're out of luck if they're an only child.

10. Just Ask – Taking the plunge and asking this question can be nerve-wracking, but so can analyzing their every move and trying to decode their statements. If becoming a parent (or not) is a deal-breaker for you, you should take the bull by the horns, so to speak.

Why didn't you just say that in the first place?!? Good gods, these people are irritating.

Yeah, I think this ends here. I hear from them again, I'm just marking it as spam. Lunatics.

no more rain, no more rain, I just smile and bleed into the wind

Some people are slow on the uptake. For choice example, scroll down to the comments from Miss "poo", wherein she suddenly has to defend her honor from those despicable whatevers...two years after the original events happened.

The hell.

Anyway, back to the 'love advice' oddity I mentioned yesterday.

From: Mary Edwards (maryedwards26@gmail.com)
To: Emilly Orr
Date: Jan 18

Hi Emilly,

Hi again...

We just posted an article, "10 Fights Every Young Couple Has" ([[trimming it out again because I swear, these people strike me as slightly more articulate spammers]]). I thought I'd drop a quick line and let you know in case you thought it was something you're audience would be interested in reading.

That's "your", actually, and I doubt it, but I took a look anyway.

Check out 10 fights every young couple has.

1. Toilet seat: Do you leave the toilet seat up or down?

Oh, you have to be kidding me. Maybe I use "argument" more seriously than most, but I have never had an argument over this with any partner. I get that people can be that petty and small-minded, and I'm not without my flaws, but still, this is ridiculous.

2. Toilet paper: Now this is a funny argument, but one that people feel very strongly about even into their 60's. Do you put the roll on so that the toilet paper comes over the top of the roll or from under the roll? If you ask the makers of toilet paper they will tell you that toilet paper was designed to go on the roll with the paper coming over the top of the roll, but frankly you can do whatever you feel comfortable doing. Just know that this is a little battle so someone should be the bigger person and bend to the other's wishes.

Well, again, that really should be "into their sixties", I think, or if stuck on a numerical fixation, "into their 60s", at the least, but...I think what you're trying to get across is "these are all little arguments, don't get hung up on them". Which I guess would be good advice, as far as it goes...but from here, they get weird.

3. Which side of the bed: If you grew up sleeping in a twin bed it probably won’t make any difference to you which side of the bed you sleep on, but it may if only one side has a lamp for reading or a nightstand to put a book or a glass of water on. If both sides are equal in terms of furniture and lighting then it's just a matter of taste. Your body will have gotten used to sleeping on one side of the bed and it can actually cause insomnia in some people to sleep on the other side of the bed. Good luck with this one.

*blinks* Maybe I grew up in a strange place, but people, I stopped sleeping in a twin bed when I was twelve. I moved from there to an 1800s French canopy full; from there to a queen-size futon; and, now I'm "settled down" with two other people, we have a platform king. (And there are still occasional tickle fights where I swear there's not enough room.)

But...okay, if your problem is that you stuck to a twin bed until you got involved with another person, and you're just really used to having a water bottle or a book on the side of the bed, and now only the other side of the bed has one? Well, isn't it a better idea to talk that out, than get fixated that the left-is-always-your-side-of-the-bed, damn-it?

More importantly, it's not only that side of the bed you may be used to, but that orientation. If you've always slept on the right side of a north-south oriented room, and you move to the left side of an east-west oriented room, you actually might be more comfortable there, depending. I know I've switched sides of the bed depending on where we've moved. It has more to do with where your head and feet are pointing, over what half of the bed you get.

4. Dishes: Who's going to do the dishes? You would think in this day and age of dishwashers that this would be a moot point, but it isn't.

Yeah, this one has gotten me from time to time with people, but oddly, not with loves, but with other roommates. Like the idiot who said neither he nor the other (male) roommate should have to do the dishes, because they're guys. Also, it's likely just me, but I'm irked on the assumption in the rest of the paragraph that insists that every house has a dishwasher. Mine doesn't.

5. Paying the bills: Who is going to pay the bills? Some couples will think that they will pay them together. For some this may actually work, but for others paying the bills will be a point of stress and cause an argument between the couple. It may work to have one person organize the bills onto a spreadsheet or list and have the other person actually pay them.

This is the first thing in two articles I've profoundly agreed with. In fact, the single largest factor that causes individuals to break up is financial stress--who's making money, how much money, how are the bills divided, how much is going for food, rent, utilities, fun...It can be a huge issue. So this one, I get--because yeah, there's no faster way to end up single again than to argue about money.

6. Toothpaste: This is a funny one on the surface, but after a while it really gets irritating. You know how lovey dovey young couples are at the beginning? They want to be together all the time and want to share everything, even toothpaste. Do you squeeze the toothpaste tube from the middle or from the end? What about the cap? Do you put it back on when you are done or just leave it on the counter? This is such an issue that toothpaste makers have made toothpaste in bottles and toothpaste tubes with caps that stay attached after you open them, like flip tops.

Personally, this whole idea baffles me, because I've only met one person who didn't put the toothpaste cap back on, and hey, I broke up with him. (For better reasons that had to do with his inherent racism and not liking all the bruises he gave me, but hey. Still a point.) Me, I'd say, this issue really bothers you? Don't date people who leave the toothpaste cap off (or on, whichever it is).

7. Buying something without discussing it: When a couple is newly married it’s hard to break the habit of buying whatever you want when you want it. Just make sure that you work together and set a limit above which the item has to be discussed before purchasing it. The national average is $249.

You people are insane. Our in-home average of buying without discussion is zero. Because we always discuss purchases, who ARE you people?!?

Honestly.

8. Wet towels: Leaving wet towels on the floor is a huge area of contention. Why is it one person’s job to pick them up and hang them somewhere to dry? A question for those people who leave the wet towel on the floor or bed. Who do you think is going to pick them up, the maid? Why is it anyone else’s job to pick up after you?

While I agree with the last comment, I don't get the rest of this. Oh, I get that people argue about this, but maybe it's again my personal situation--we leave anything on the floor, the girl in the wheelchair can't move around the apartment. End of issue.

9. Hair in the sink: Now this goes both ways, women hate when men leave hair in the sink after they have shaved and men hate it when women leave hair in the drain from washing their hair. Bottom line is that you both need to make sure the sink is pretty clean and presentable when you get ready to leave the bathroom.

Ew. Yeah, there's a word for this type of person: slovenly. I've always liked that word, in that it sounds both shabby, run-down and dim-witted at the same time. But seriously--doesn't this go back to people who can't pick up after themselves as adults? Yes, I have long hair, and yes, sometimes when I comb it out I leave hair on the counter, because I shed--I have few irritating cat habits, but that's one of them. Still, I have learned to check out the counter afterwards, and throw things away. Shock and horror.

Other people don't do this?

10. Remote control: Who controls the remote in your family? How do you decide who gets to hold the remote? Do you have one of those partners that like to keep flipping through the stations without even waiting long enough to see what's on?

Okay, I grant you, I hate the people who just randomly flip channels too, but seriously, people break up with each other over who's holding the remote? Isn't that time to reevaluate your priorities in life? Because trust me, when you move from dating to marriage, compromising becomes a truly refined art. If you can't find the points of compromise when dating...well, you're going to make a lousy spouse, then, too.

and there's a kind of hate that tastes like birthday cake

From: Mary Edwards (maryedwards26@gmail.com)
To: Emilly Orr
Date: Jan 17

Hi Emilly,

Um. Hi...

We would love to share with you an article that we just posted on our own blog! (10 Tips for Being Patient with a New Relationship) is linked below and could be a fun way to share this announcement with your readers.

([[link redacted because it's off a 'bestdatingsites' site]])

Err. Have you read the title of the blog? Relationship success seems not to be my thing.

It has been a sincere pleasure to read your great content.

I'm...glad?

Sincerely

Mary Edwards

Huh. How weird. So, I perused the link:

1. Step Away From the Cell Phone – In our constantly-connected society, it's easy to flood a new partner with Facebook wall posts, texts and emails from a cell phone. While keeping a line of communication open is vital, it's equally important to allow a new relationship some breathing room.

I don't own a cell phone. Problem solved.

2. Spend Time With Friends – Don't be a cliché by ignoring your friends in favor of a new honey. If you have a long-standing tradition of poker with the boys or girl's night margaritas, keep it. Your friends will be more likely to accept a mate that doesn’t take up all of your time, and these outings will give the two of you something to talk about the next time you get together.

I suppose that's fair. New relationship, you want to spend all your time with the new love; I get that. Still, people abandon their friends for the new lad or lass entirely? I'd think that means you're not really fond of your friends.

(And yes, I separate ignoring people because I'm trying to figure out my own life from swooning over the new exciting love--sure, I'm still ignoring my friends, but really, some days I'm not good company anyway.)

3. Focus On Your Hobbies and Favorite Pastimes – Losing yourself completely in a new relationship can easily be the kiss of death; your interests and pastimes are likely a big part of what attracted your new mate. Letting them fall to the wayside to spend every moment together leaves very little material for conversation and can cause your lover to feel stifled.

Yeah...don't think that's really an issue. Considering if I'm not typing I have a needle in my hand--and I'm not kidding, I bring embroidery projects and patchwork bits to sew on the bus, while waiting for the bus, in restaurants, at theatres, shopping--I mean, some cloth-based project is pretty much constantly with me.

4. Avoid "The Talk" – It's natural to wonder where a new relationship is headed, but it’s a good idea to hold off on having "The Talk" for a while. Letting things develop naturally can be a bit nerve-wracking, but it's necessary.

Riiiiight. Okay, 1. For whom is letting things develop naturally, "nerve-wracking"? And 2. Many people wonder where relationships are heading right off the bat? Seriously?

5. Keep It Light – In the early days of a relationship, it's best to avoid the heavy plans for your future and talk of marriage and children. Don't introduce your long-term plans when a coupling is new, or it may not last very long.

Doesn't tip 5 pretty much just repeat tip 4?

6. Be Careful With the Booze – There's a reason why alcohol is also called "Truth Serum." One phone call after a night of drinking can undo all of your cautious work when you've just started dating someone.

Well, sure, but that really goes for anyone--be careful drinking with new loves, be careful drinking with new friends, be careful drinking with coworkers.

7. Don't Change Your Plans – Before you met your new love interest, you probably had some long-term goals and plans for your future. Avoid the temptation to change those plans to suit a brand-new relationship; despite how you feel in the honeymoon phase, there is always a chance that things won't work out.

To be blunt, duh. And not only duh, but again, aren't they repeating themselves? I mean, unless your long-term goals are eat the next person I meet and pour lye on the bones, in which case, hey, don't do that.

8. Keep Your Priorities Straight – Though it's difficult in the first blush, try to keep your priorities in line. Don't let your new relationship take a toll on your work or other obligations, as it can very easily cause resentment when things inevitably begin to cool down and you’re forced to play catch-up.

Uh...okay, first, they're assuming you're going to a) neglect everyone you know in favor of b) this person you just met for c) long-term relationshipping which d) you're not supposed to talk to them about because e) they might freak out and leave you, so f) keep your mind on the target which you're not thinking about, because all of this is going to fail and you'll be left alone again to wither and die.

This is love advice?!?

9. Don't Play Mind Games – When things aren't moving as quickly as you'd like, don't resort to passive-aggressive mind games. Slyly referencing others that are interested in you or the ex that still has feelings will almost always blow up in your face.

And well I know this, however--seriously, most people do this? I mean, I play mind games as a matter of course, it was how I was raised. Hells, I honestly had no concept that people could just ask for something without angling it to sound like you were doing the other person a personal favor to give you whatever it was until high school, I'm not even kidding about that. And I've been working very hard in my adult years to tone down that instinctive response. (Just in case I've been unclear--playing with people who don't know you're manipulating them is BAD. No ifs, no ands, no buts. From lowly peasants like me all the way up to Newt Gingrich, it's just plain wrong. Period.)

But do most people in the dating realm do this? And if they do, why? Unless you're very, very good--and if you're very good, you generally don't care about anyone else in the first place--what does it get you? Someone who doesn't know who you are, reacting to words chosen more carefully than your everyday speech, and responding to manipulation, not honest emotion.

Even if you win, you lose. So why?

And finally:

10. Hold Off On Introducing the Family – Even if you have the most welcoming and interesting family on the planet, your new love interest shouldn't be meeting them for a while. Family members will ask questions that you may not be ready to answer, which will put undue pressure on you both.

Not only that, but again, seriously, if you just met whomever it was and the next weekend, you're dragging them to brunch with your mom and dad--only the hardiest soul will not see this as a Big Warning Sign. So seriously, this is dating advice? What the hell kind of people do they think are going to honestly, whole-heartedly, need these tips?

And why the hell did they decide to send this thing to me of all people?!?

More to come.

sunny days seem far away

There's a few research projects going on demonstrating how easy it is to create false memories. They've even got an archive where you can enter your own false memories. Part of this is for the science of it, part's for an future art installation project...but really, at its heart it's more creepy than anything else. To me, at least--knowing how easily we delude ourselves, on a daily, monthly, weekly basis? It tells me humans are inherently unreliable. This is not comforting information.

From the same site, comes a list of reimagined superheroes. What happens to an identity if you change one letter of it? So, we come up with Booster God over Booster Gold, Spader-man (over Spider-man), and my personal favorite, Nick Furry. (The joy of Nick Furry? Samuel L. Jackson could still voice him.)

More on SOPA and bills even more unsavory--it's beginning to sound like government-grade alphabet soup, honestly. First there was SOPA (which seems now to be fairly soundly defeated); then there was PIPA (still moving through Congress); then ACTA (which takes everything that's wrong in SOPA, and makes it global); and now...PCIPA? Is the new one?

As usual, they've wrapped some extraordinarily unpleasant actions around a simple mantra--in this case, "save the children". There aren't many pro-pedophilia lobbyist groups for a good reason--because pedophilia is a crime, should remain a crime, and does far more harm than when the crime itself actually took place--damage from early sexual experience and abuse can last years, if not actual decades.

The problem here is in section four of the bill, entitled RETENTION OF CERTAIN RECORDS BY ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION SERVICE PROVIDERS. If that's not clear, here's the specific passage:

(a) In General- Section 2703 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
'(h) Retention of Certain Records-
'(1) A commercial provider of an electronic communication service shall retain for a period of at least one year a log of the temporarily assigned network addresses the provider assigns to a subscriber to or customer of such service that enables the identification of the corresponding customer or subscriber information under subsection (c)(2) of this section.
'(2) Access to a record or information required to be retained under this subsection may not be compelled by any person or other entity that is not a governmental entity.
'(3) The Attorney General shall make a study to determine the costs associated with compliance by providers with the requirement of paragraph (1). Such study shall include an assessment of all the types of costs, including for hardware, software, and personnel that are involved. Not later than 2 years after the date of the enactment of this paragraph, the Attorney General shall report to Congress the results of that study.
'(4) In this subsection--
'(A) the term 'commercial provider' means a provider of electronic communication service that offers Internet access capability for a fee to the public or to such classes of users as to be effectively available to the public, regardless of the facilities used; and
'(B) the term 'Internet' has the same meaning given that term in section 230(f) of the Communications Act of 1934..
(b) Sense of Congress- It is the sense of Congress--
(1) to encourage electronic communication service providers to give prompt notice to their customers in the event of a breach of the data retained pursuant to section 2703(h) of title 18 of the United States Code, in order that those effected can take the necessary steps to protect themselves from potential misuse of private information; and
(2) that records retained pursuant to section 2703(h) of title 18, United States Code, should be stored securely to protect customer privacy and prevent against breaches of the records.

So what does that mean? In essence:

• the government is trying to shift policing of internet user behavior onto owners of domains and owners of servers, not police or government officers;
• the government subsequently wants said service providers to retain information on who uses their systems, including real name, address, phone number, email address, and any other pertinent information specifically designed for matching email addresses and net handles to that real information, for a period not shorter than one year, but not to exceed eighteen months;
• the government has two years to complete a cost analysis of the extra manpower, equipment, storage, and work hours it will take to complete such actions, but is not obligated in any way to report sooner, or in fact to pay for such costs;
• the government is instructing such service providers to retain this information in a secure setting, but is very very vague on how that should be done; and, as they're fobbing this off on the shoulders of citizens, not trained law enforcement personnel, they're also metaphorically washing their hands of any accidential (or deliberate) mishandling of data such that such data is released.

Yeah. That's pretty low. I'm starting to think Lamar Smith is just a bitter, vile human being who hates us all.

Oh, and as icing on the cake, Chris Dodd, the former member of Congress who then joined the MPAA, went on Fox News and publically threatened all Senators he thinks his new company has bought and paid for. I'm not making that up.

We're in turbulent times, friends.

Also, I hate Blizzard, but that's not really news.

swift and sudden, fall from grace

So we have a single-picture release of Katniss' Fire Dress from the Hunger Games, and...well, I'm hoping I'll be more impressed later. Also, I'm a little gobsmacked by their choice of actor to play Cinna--to be truthful, I was thinking someone closer to Austin Scarlett than Lenny Kravitz.

Originally seen on New World Notes came another mention of the SL vampires phenomenon--but this time, from a slightly different direction. And it's one I agree with, quite honestly.

This is the current best-of attempt to lure in the vampiric masses to SL:

(from the Blogger Pictures album)

So, this vampire. I'd love to know both who took this picture, and who's the model. Because I can tell several things wrong right off the bat:

• Where is she, in Little Silent Hill? This is not a Ridley Scott movie. Clear out the snow effects.
• It would also be nice to have someone with a little knowledge of attachments, and adjusting same, to have worked with this avatar before the shot was taken? Because right now they look like fang-shaped lower-lip piercings, not--you know--fangs.
• It would also be nice if they'd have used a vampiric eye that didn't look jaundiced over supernatural.
• And while we're at it, they couldn't have done a little PhotoShop work, trimmed out that jutting ribcage on her torso? Not exactly aesthetically pleasing.

Then (as they mention in the article) Alicia Cachenaux decided to pull up what she thought was the same outfit (called the Vampire Xyla avatar in the Library, apparently). This was her take, which she says was only lightly PhotoShopped, and took her about twenty minutes all told:

(from the Blogger Pictures album; Some rights reserved, Copyright, Alicia Cachenaux; used without permission but not altered in any way save machine resizing (original as downloaded is the same as seen on her site.)

Now, things I noticed about this one:

• You can emphasize "winter" and "chill" without having floating snow particles. Gosh! Imagination! What an astounding thing!
• Also, she's got to run shadows on her machine. Which I will admit, makes this picture look phenomenal without a lot of editing. (But truthfully, most folks can't run inherent shadowing on their systems.)
• She knows how to adjust prim fangs. You'd think Lindens who worked for the Labs would know that, too.
• It's a lovely pose, it's a lovely background, the extraordinarily jaundiced eyedrops-of-Midori look seems toned down, and even the hair looks good. Amazing.

See what a little effort can do? And I do mean little; that was a twenty-minute shot, start to finish. That's about the time it takes to watch an episode of the Daily Show without commercials, people.

Lindens, you could have put up this picture to advertise for vamps. Why didn't you?

I would like to bring up one more thing from the Iris Ophelia article also linked. It seems staggeringly apparent to me, after six years on the grid, that what the Lindens expect and what they get are two radically different things, but this complaint is more specific than that.

What Linden Lab seems to want is pretty clear: they want people to pay them money. They want people to keep paying them money. They want people to play their games, and keep playing their games, because let's face it, it's not easy to live on the grid and not spend money.

I'm not saying these are bad goals. And more power to them when (though usually if) they happen. But here's where the problem is: the tools they're employing to get these paying customers are woefully inadequate to get those paying customers.

Why? Well, first, they seem to use vintage 2006/2007 avatars for almost all promotional materials, unless they're specifically advertising new products, like the vampire avatar. Why do they do this? Moreover--and this one has baffled me every time I see a Linden--nearly every Linden on the grid is also in a 2006/2007 avatar--if not in a significantly older avatar. I'm sure there's a value to nostalgia, but seriously, when the big redesign for Philip Linden takes him from looking like a Naruto clone in spiky hair and an impossible codpiece to...well, someone who walked out of the Castro district after a particularly vigorous night...I mean, okay, the skin's better (and a custom design); the hair's better (sort of); but the outfit? It's an essentially (and only slightly) better-textured version of his original outfit. Come on, now.

And if that's the thinking of the CEO (at the time), that's the corporate culture. And if the corporate culture is saying things like Never update and don't use an AO and don't use prim hair and stay to system layers...that filters both down to the support staff, and down to the customer base.

Frankly, if you emphasize that money's not needed, you get people for whom money doesn't matter, and from there you get people who don't want to pay to play the game. That's a pretty callous statement, I know, but it's not wrong.

More than that, the tutorial walk-throughs on Orientation Island used to emphasize these things. This is how you walk with an AO; these are clothing layers; these are eyes; this is how to walk, this is how to turn, this is how to interact with an object, this is how to open a box.

Once that was thrown out, the only instruction left is the userbase, and most of them are still telling the random conglomeration of friends and strangers that arrive on the grid several specific, and fairly Linden-unfriendly, things:

• Get an AO. NOW.
• This is prim hair. Never wear system hair again. EVER.
• DO NOT USE SECOND LIFE'S VIEWER. Use Firestorm.
• You don't need to rent land. Just pop a house up at a sandbox. No big deal.
• Wear fur.
• Wear fangs.

Is this really what the Lindens want to pass on to their userbase? Because from here, we have to look at the advertising. What's the advertising for SL telling us?

• If you're not human, you don't count.
• If you're a vampire, you count, but really, we think of you as human.
• Water sims are really, really important for all those fun outdoor activities we know you'll love.
• It's possible to change clothes by activating a swirly particle effect.
• It's possible to hold hands with an avatar anywhere you want.
• It's possible to kiss an avatar anywhere you want.
• Ideally, even more than being human, we at Linden Lab really want you to be white. Even though other skin colors are just fine. But you'll have more fun if you're white.

But break down the bulk of the newcomers to Second Life recently. What are they, in majority groups, identifying as? They're almost always from this list:

• Furs
• Vampires
• Vampire furs
• Nekos
• Victorians

Think I'm kidding? Look at the folks around any welcome center. Or even better, look at who's renting land or even buying whole estates after they join the grid? Who are those people? Chances are, they wear fur, or they wear fangs, or both. (And nine times out of ten, within a week, even the "human" appearing girls will be wearing cat ears, anyway.)

So, if you're taking into account the Lindens' stated goals with their advertising, they aren't really working. Even worse, if you're taking into account the userbase's generic and mobile goals, they aren't really working, because in spite of all instruction there are still people wandering around wearing houses on their right hand and complaining that SL's too hard. (And some of these people are using the official SL viewer--I truly think a time must come when the Lindens sit back and say, okay, some people, they're just dumb, and stop trying to drag every single procedure down to kindergarten-speak.)

Ultimately, it leaves us in a very uncomfortable place. Namely, telling our friends to log into SL and join in the game, while ignoring every single image they see on the SL website. And it leaves the Lindens trying to speak to a userbase that really, truly, for all intents and purposes--doesn't exist.

Who's going to pay the bills at that point? That's the question the Lindens really need to be asking.

I will not let you define everything I am, by the one thing that I don't have

There's a short but important post over on Geekosystem on how broken DMCA is as a law, and how we really don't need SOPA or PIPA (or ACTA, for that matter); what we really need is to analyze DMCA, break it down, figure out what works and what doesn't work, and go forward with that.

I've featured a lot of posts on this blog about DMCA, and I think Mr. Limer is absolutely right here. When people entirely unconnected from the copyrighted product in the first place can file a DMCA takedown--and give no good reasons for doing it--the system is broken. When the burden of proof is not on the accuser, but the accused, the system is broken. When we're trying to force DMCA to do things it was never designed to do, by people who were never supposed to use it in this way...the system is beyond broken, and desperately needs to be fixed. (And let's be honest, the last time even partial revision was considered? It was 2004. Eight years later, the law is still profoundly broken, and subject to more misuse every year. Even though every three years this law is supposed to be re-evaluated, nothing much changes, and even though Congressional Librarian James Billington perused it again for minor changes in 2010, not that much was changed, a, and b, people still claimed misuse and filed cease-and-desist orders even on the material that was altered to fall under fair use.)

(Fun bit while you're on the site, unconnected: the ten scariest doors in geekdom [by that they mean works of speculative fiction, whether movies, television shows or video games] with explanations why for each one. Also well worth a read.)

Adafruit continues to do fun and interesting things with do-it-yourself electronics, but their latest design goes above and beyond just about everything. Called the "Flora" by designers, when it ships, it will ship with project details already designed for it, the specifically Flora-addressable (and chainable) 4000 mcd RGB LED pixels, and premium stainless steel "thread" (for stringing out guiding wires from solder point to LED ends, I'd imagine...or anything else you have in mind).

It features fourteen sewing 'tap pads' for attachment to fabric as well as electrical connections. There's no need to worry about overlapping traces, because of the redundancy factors of interleaved data buses and power and ground pads--cross-wiring is made really difficult by this; you'd almost have to deliberately try to cross-wire it by braiding the stainless thread together from the pads!

If you'd like to get an email when it launches, just sign up here. Nothing simpler. They'll only contact you the once, and only to let you know the Flora's now ready to ship.

(System specs for the technogeeks among us: the Flora comes with built-in USB support, works with Mac, Windows, and Linux; any USB cable works just fine. Equipped with a mini-B connector, USB HID support, so it will emulate a mouse, keyboard, MIDI soundboard--whatever you need to attach directly to your cellphone. They're designing an iPhone/iPad app, with an Android app to follow soon. It has an onboard power switch connected to 2A power FET for safe and efficient battery on/off control.

(Onboard at time of shipping: Bluetooth, GPS, 3-axis accelerometer, compass module, piezo wiring, IR LED, push buttons [including the single-button reset], flex sensors, an embroidered and capacitative keypad, OLED, and they say "and more"--I'm wondering what's left!

(In addition, Miss Fried really thought this through not just from a programmer's perspective, but from a crafter's: they're calling it "fabric friendly", which means it doesn't use FTDI headers [it has built-in USB support, remember], so there are no headers of any kind sticking out to grab and tear fabric. Everything soldered to the Flora plate is micro-electronically set.

(It's compatible with 3.3v modules and sensors, has an onboard polarized 2 JST battery connector for use with external battery packs from 3.5 volts to 16 volts. It can be used with just about any battery on the market today geared to those specs. It also does not have a LiPo charger, and this was by design--this means there is a reduced risk of fire with use on fabric.

(And, above all else, Miss Friend wanted to design something that anyone could use, from the beginner to the electronic engineer--so it's very, very difficult to connect a battery backwards and have it fry the system--it's protected by a series of polarized connector and protection diodes. So, for example, if you lost your mind and connected up a 9 volt battery block to the device--it wouldn't fry, it just wouldn't work.)

So, yesterday, the FBI--in a joint operation with several other countries, coordinated months in advance--shut down MegaUpload, and all its partner sites. It is notable to emphasize here that the parent companies behind MegaUpload were not charged with file sharing and copyright violation; they were charged with embezzling funds, fraud, and money laundering before any copyright violation charges were assessed--and even then, those two charges, when filed, were the last on the list of things that went wrong.

However, since the raid, shutdown, and arrests all happened on January 19th, one day after the SOPA/PIPA protests on January 18th, some impassioned souls figured 2 + 2 did in fact equal 5 in this instance, and banded together to shut down the main FBI website, along with the Department of Justice site, the website for Universal Music Group, and the RIAA and MPAA sites, respectively. It's being called the largest Anonymous action yet, and--while I have never supported Anonymous actions in general--I have to admit this may cause a similar feel-first-think-later response in these organizations: that of, if they take unpopular actions, the internet will go after them.

And--to me, at least--it feels very much like Anonymous wants to play on that image--that of "the internet" as a loose collective of angry, criminal-minded individuals who will batter people with technology failure and coordinated DDoS attacks until the good guys give in and whimper in submission. I'm not comfortable with this, especially since our current Congress (beyond a few notable examples) seems to be comprised of 60-year-olds who still think checking their email requires logging into AOL and donating a pint of blood to the nearest black goat.

But on the other hand, both the Anonymous attacks and the massive protests and coordinated call-ins by concerned citizenry made Senators and Representatives flee for the hills, and...considering what a truly awesomely bad idea passing either SOPA or PIPA would be...isn't that a good thing?

But then, I'm always reminded of the Buddhist theory that beginnings must be clean--if divisive change was achieved by means of terror, is it a good change? Can it ever truly be a good thing when criminal acts were required to help kill the bills?

On the other hand (though I've long since run out of hands), expedience is sometimes key. The end goal is to prevent the bills passing, at all, in any form. Maybe anything that helps with that is a good thing, because above all, those bills cannot pass.

It's a hard ethical tangle to be sure, and not a pleasant one. But--for now--we live in a world without SOPA, when bill supporters as well as large media companies were happily assured it was a slam dunk. I'll take my victories where I can.

when present tense gets strangled in the woes made of our future foe scenarios

I swear to you, my jaw has just dropped completely off my face. WHY, why why WHY do people do these things?!?

And "Because Skyrim" is no longer an acceptable answer!

So, a new Evony bracket-ad popped up on one of the sites I went to today:

(from the Games album)

So...granted, this is a composite image (noticed after the fact I hadn't quite lined everything up perfectly, argh) featuring both sides of the braced ad background. Understand that, even as wide as I could get my screen to display, I couldn't get both sides of the complete game name.

But does that really matter? It has the three signature focus points of nearly every Evony ad:

• breasts (see also this)
• revealing attire
• playing for free

The problem? Actually playing in the Evony game world, you never see the girls again. They're bait-and-switch for standard top-down castle tanking, like Lord of Ultima, save that Lord of Ultima never seduced anyone in by ads that indicate lots of semi-naked women calling players "My Lord" in breathy seductive voices.

And even worse? They weren't the first, they're not even close to the last--as competition, they've got War of Legends, AQWorlds, 8Realms, the aforementioned Lord of Ultima, Dragons of Atlantis, Illyriad, down to such low-tech 16-bit games like Castle Defender and Castle Wars--most of which are free-to-play, or planning on heading that way soon. (And believe me, there's tons more I'm not mentioning, because frankly, no one has that kind of time.)

And that's not even the worst of it--trying to game the lust quotient of young male gamers (they hope with money), as well as photomanips of stock porn models (I'd suspect without paying for the original shots, and no, that's been proven since 2009) and above everything else, is so closely modeled on Civilization that it used to be called Civony. The hell?

(Update: apparently LOCO will be giving Evony serious competition in the cheesecake ads contest. And, if you take a look at their trailer, it also seems like your prototypical Asian MMO--no explanation as to why some characters are made of boobs and others are [fairly] modest [but then again, they find a way to make that creepy, too]; no explanation for the hairstyles; no explanation as to why some swords are longer than the fighters using them and others are cartoons, even down to hair colors and spiky Sonic-hair protrusions. So we're back to the hell, people.)

Video game characters apparently fall into fugue states with great ease.

And there's another Marketplace fail, and this one is bizarre. "PE", just that, those two characters, changed a listing without a single hint of adult content into an adult-listed item. So what are the Lindens trying to prevent? "Penis"? Well, sure, but that's automatically an adult listing anyway. "Pee"? Okay, but that would also be understandable as an adult listing in the first place.

Anyone feel like testing if it's just 'pe' as a word part, or would it scotch other words? Like "pen", say? Or "pencil"? Or "peerless"? How about "pew" or "peril" or "pentacle" or "pendant"? How far does this go?

Apparently Congress now has the power to re-copyright public domain works. Yeah, I really have nothing to add to that that wouldn't be more baffling. This pairs rather unfortunately with

Russia wants to build a permanent moon base. I'm fine with this. Not only because we need to be in space--NEED! To BE! In SPAAACE! People, get on this--but because I've read so many dystopic future tales that feature a Russian moonbase. So to my way of thinking, it's another step towards...the FUUUUTURE!

I am sorry for the potential mental scars from these next links. I'll make them quick. First, the chibi Disney princesses, which scare me to death; then Disney-inspired (apparently) wedding dresses; and finally, Disney princesses of the Sith.

And I leave you with the "Dark Water" carpet collection. Yes please.