except for the space between the mirror and me

I have to start this entry off with very bad news from Octoberville:

I hate to be the bearer of bad/sad news, but PixelTrix, due to personal issues with in the company, have decided to disband. The island(sim) is already gone and there will not be an Octoberville next fall.

To our fans, customers and friends; We have had a fantastically fun time with you over the years and we can never thank you enough for all that you have done for us. We've met wonderful friends and have forged great relationships with so many of you. Thank You.

Master Kaos

So what does this mean? Without asking the main participants, I don't know whether it was a professional falling-out, or a personal breakup. As friable and emotionally wrought as BDSM relationships can be, friends forming businesses together can be just as charged, and just as prone to failure. Unfortunately, it leaves me with a potentially dysfunctional group for a few days, because--in the time between getting that group notice (about one PM PST, on the 28rth) and now (about five PM PST, same day), all group notices have been deleted, and half the titles of players have been dumped.

Considering how hard Mm. Allen and I worked, last year, to get Octoberville Epic titles, I'm irritated, so I'm taking a few days until I'm absolutely sure it's dead in the water.

The one thing I do know: Octoberville, as a sim, is gone.

Okay, one more comment from the TPV thread on SL Universe. From Sredni Eel:

Lindens should be required to spend a certain amount of time in Second Life doing the same things normal residents do: Go clubbing, go shopping, try to build in a sandbox while a buttshelf brazilian noob tries to sex you out of the blue, and all of the other fun and exciting things we all know and love. Then maybe they'd be more inclined to make improvements to the user experience.

This should be etched in 30-foot-high letters of FIRE on the main wall of the break room/group conference room/Rodvik's office. Wherever's big enough. Because this has been the problem for years now--that maybe two Lindens out of every fifty actually interact on the grid they're supposed to code for.

They desperately need to know what the user experience actually is, to properly code for it. Or to use a ridiculous example: if you want to make donuts, then you pick up a recipe book and look up how to make them. Or you go find a bakery and watch what they do. You don't go to YouTube in the privacy of your office and watch videos about bears and cars, and make donuts based on that.

(Though to be fair, I think it's rather the reverse--we're telling the Lindens that we use their world to dance [synchronized, or, well, not], to make art, to recreate reality [in fantastic or realistic ways], hunt, and to achieve the impossible. They listen, they go off to think, and then they give us in return...well...this. Which is pretty much the Lindens putting together a product that misunderstands everything about how their userbase lives, day to day, night to night, in their world. They just don't get it.)

At least in my opinion, since 2007, at least, there's been a steadily growing, basic disconnect between what we do on their grid, and what the Lindens think we do on their grid...and it's only becoming farther and farther apart, the actual versus the virtual.

And, unfortunately, here the virtuality is all on the Linden side--because they just don't know as a group body how we work, how we play, what we want, and--perhaps most important--what we're willing to buy and keep around. Until they understand any of these things, we're always going to have these problems.

And talk about brain-breaking concepts--someone's come up with SuperWhoLock on Tumblr. The hell, people. The hell.

calls me on the phone, tells me all the ways that he's gonna mess me up

Picking up on yesterday's post, more on the TPV policy revisions.

From Hitomi Tiponi on SL Universe:

My belief is that they see all this work going into TPVs and they'd rather try and persuade users to work with them on developing LL's viewer (i.e. lots of stuff being developed for them for free along the lines that they want) - after all they no longer have a viewer development team as such, just Oz to co-ordinate open source input.

This is all part of the ongoing policy to transform Second Life from being a community to being a product with customers.

I think this is entirely on target. Which is unfortunate, because this is something I would dearly love to be proven wrong on--that the current rulership of Second Life, Linden Lab, do not want an immersive, creative playspace, but instead, want Farmville with microtransactions, bought landspaces, and larger, more complicated user icons.

Latif again:

That cannot work right there. Oz Linden's only real competence is alienating the best opensource developers and making them never want to contribute to Linden Lab again. They would have to find someone with more clue than arrogance for the task Oz is doing.

And as much as I like the way Oz Linden thinks, and tend to put him in the slim and narrow section of "good Lindens"...I can't disagree with this either.

Sean Gorham:

All the development work goes into third-party viewers because very few people think LL have a clue about developing their own viewer. This policy change is the equivalent of LL taking their ball and going home. Yes, this will end well.

This, too. Sean's right; this sounds petty and ill-thought-out, but then, what decision have the Lindens made for the past twelve months that has been well thought out? Seriously, now. Introducing mesh? The big land sale, which saw mainland further abandoned, and estate owners crushed by the weight of tenants rushing for cheaper land? And those are just the first two off the top of my head. The Lindens are not thinking things through, and that's the problem.

Latif later linked to an audio recording of the viewer meeting; keep in mind that that is an .mp3 link, so either save it as you'd save a normal linked .mp3, or click on it and let Quicktime (or whatever else works for you) load it for you local. But that might have more information on what's actually intended, and not intended, with these changes.

Latif again, later on:

I read this as "no new cool stuff allowed if it didn't come from LL".

And I don't think he's wrong, but damn, what a restrictive, depressing world this is going to become.

Ilana Debevec:

Then again, would this mean that NON-MESH viewers will soon be verboten? (Affects how others see you, either properly dressed or wearing boxes/blobs)

It's a good question. With the quotes 70% adoption rate of mesh-enabled over non-mesh-enabled viewers, that's a good figure, but if the Lindens want 100%, this might be a good way to do it.

Well. Not "good". This might be one way to do it.

Anyway, back to the comments. From Andromeda Rage on the allowance of non-mesh enabled TPVs:

Nope, Oz said that's a matter of viewers simply not keeping up. I think the general gist I'm getting is that if you want to log in with an outdated viewer, that's fine, that's your choice, but be prepared to see a lot of broken stuff in the future.

Inventing brand-new inworld features without LL's approval is what this policy change is about.

Sounds plausible. Also sounds entirely possible, that people will start to lose functionality on certain things, over simply not being able to see them, as "old-style" viewers get more and more outdated. A slow, grisly end, to be sure, and not a fun one.

Samantha Poindexter:

I can see why the Lab wouldn't want to keep being forced to come up with better implementations of popular features, but from a user's perspective there's much to be said for TPVs being able to demonstrate where the demand is...

Which, to be purely logical and corporatist for a moment, is something the Lindens should be tracking, rather than restrict implementation of all new features until the Lindens are finished playing grabby grabby with the shiny things. Parcel Windlight, f'rinstance--the Lindens never even conceived of customizing Windlight settings to the point people did--that was nearly entirely from the community. By the same extension, the Lindens never conceived of custom Windlight settings per parcel, not just per sim.

Under this new revision, in fact, this very sort of 'user preference' selection is killed at the root. I'll offer an example. Say a viewer came out that allowed all shoes to make noise when they struck a surface. (Shhh; I know there are shoes that do that, I'm talking about hypothethical coding wherein all shoes would make sound.) High heels would clack, metallic gravboots would thunk, animal paws would get soft padding sounds...et cetera and so on. And this was a feature that would affect others beyond the user--anyone else within 20 feet, say, could hear the shoes--be they paws, hooves, fetish heels, spacesuit boots, whatever--and react (or not) as they chose.

This kind of development--and likely, developed just for those specific sub-groups on the grid--would not be allowed under the new policy. So what's left? Looking more and more like the official viewer, until there's really no need to have one over the other--which I suppose is the true end goal here.

And, as pointed out on SLU, SecondLie on Twitter pretty much nails the heart of all of this, quickly and succinctly. (He also has excellent comments here, here, here, here, here (one of my favorites), here (also very well put), here, here, and here. He's been on a roll.)

And did I ever link to this blog? Not so much for the content, which I've covered in this entry and yesterday's, but for the three updates listed at the bottom.

Joshua Nightshade chimes in:

Custom attachment points that only work on one viewer and make things float bizarrely for everyone else are the sort of problem they have decided to end. Custom functionality for yourself that doesn't utilise exploits? I don't think that's what the policy change is about.

I am wholly in agreement on the extra attachment points controversy. Had that exploit of the code actually worked, and worked consistently, I doubt it would be a problem worth addressing. But I'm not the only one past tired of seeing women come in with their tails sticking out of their ears, two hairs clashing badly with each other, their collar protruding from their right eye...In Emerald, and later in Phoenix, the extra attachment points could not be seen unless you also ran Emerald, and later Phoenix.

What's the good in a system that shows you perfectly to yourself, but not to others? In this regard, yes, I think it is important to restrict what a viewer can do--not just what a third-party viewer can do. Is this the right way to implement that restriction? Well, that's the point, isn't it?

Casey Pelous comments:

LL's history of rules enforcement pretty much illustrates "capricious."

And along with that capricious enforcement, I'd also add scattershot--because some offenses get a ban, while others with the same offense don't even get noticed. We never know how seriously the Lindens will take any potential action, frankly.

Penny Patton:

I'm trying to give Rodvik time to implement changes, and honestly from what I've seen he is trying it just takes a while. I've been saying for years that LL has built up so many bad decisions that even if they pull a complete 180 it will take years for them to put a dent in the mountain.

I think she's right here, too. Even the best management team is fighting the apathetic drag of former bad decisions, and a resentful population more than willing to protest any new change because most of the other changes have been bad. This is a draining, stressful situation to be in.

Joshua again:

When LL made the viewer open-source, the original point of it was that they would solicit patches and help from other people to improve the official one. For a variety of reasons, many of which being managerial incompetence and Rob Linden in particular, this did not pan out. People submitted patches, LL did nothing with them. People asked for ways to get their fixes into the viewer, LL ignored it. People got fed up and started releasing their own viewers and we are in the state we have now.

Pretty much. And if the Lindens hadn't dragged their collective feet to this degree, and instead, worked with community coders to implement the best patches--well, would we even have viewer 2.0, which was an outsourced project written with zero input from even Linden-level coders, at all? I really don't think so. This is Linden-level willful blindness; it has nothing to do with anyone who's developed a TPV.

Arkady Arkright offers an interesting perspective:

This 'shared experience' wording worries me. What it doesn't say is 'other user's experience'. I would read 'shared experience' to mean 'I have to see and hear the same as every other user in my vicinity'. Features like Phoenix's permanent derender would be disallowed, as no other viewer allows you to log-on with stuff already derended - thus making my experience different to that of a user on the official LL viewer - i.e. 'non-shared'.

Interesting. Let me test understanding on this supposition, because this seems to go larger than the new policy points themselves: would this interfere with muting people? If what they truly mean is everyone must see the same things, in exactly the same way, and affect no other resident's experiences...would muting also be disallowed? (Visual or otherwise.)

Now, I'm not saying this just to engage in rampant hyperbole--I mean, that's always fun, but think this through: A harsh, literal reading of the new revisions would mean that anything, no matter how small, that affects any other resident's user experience would potentially be disallowed. Now, even to me, obviously the Lindens don't want to do this. But if parcel Windlight settings are disallowed, if "forced" media plays are (and have been) disallowed, wouldn't muting also be disallowed? After all, if I mute someone, I am interfering with their user experience in SL.

I'm not saying x must equal y here; it's clear to me, from everything I've heard so far, that the Lindens are not interested in slash-and-burn, all-or-nothing thinking here. But I don't think the future is all "oh, we'll adjust just fine" either.

Shyotl said:

The bigger issue is that having these new features necessitates using a viewer that's a complete mess. Seems most users have decided it's not worth the tradeoff. Who's fault is that?

Ooh! Ooh! I know! *raises hand*

Actually, forget raising my hand, everyone knows the answer to this. The problem is that it doesn't matter what the majority of users think. Any program a company pays through the nose to get, they then because stubbornly attached to using, even in the face of overwhelming common sense. Is viewer 2 the best program for the job? Of course not. Is viewer 2 ever going away? Of course not; it cost too much.

Han Held commented:

More likely, the motivation is financial. It's hard to use windlight as a lure for ppl to buy estates if they are able to get the same functionality by editing the parcel description a certain way.

Which is true, but is the Lab more motivated to selling independent estates, or reclaiming mainland? They seem completely split on this issue.

Adeon Writer offers up a visual interpretation. It may or may not be accurate, but it's amusing and well worth at least a casual perusal.

eighthdwarf again:

The problem is that Ll has seen that TPV dev hobbyists are more creative and competent than their own PAID devs, and they can't have that. If they admitted it, it would mean admitting to have burned a huge amount of money for worthless or low-quality things instead of listening to the userbase.

This is not just a fault with Linden Lab; this is a fault with every large corporation on the planet. And, to a certain extent, humanity at large. We spend of our resources in one area, we become committed to supporting that area--not because it's "right", not because it's better than other areas, not because it even makes logical sense--but, simply and solely, because we spent our resources and therefore must continue to trudge this path. To turn away, at any point, would mean admitting we were wrong in the first place.

For most of us? Admitting--and accepting--we were wrong is very, very hard to do. No less so for the Lindens; in fact, it's often more so for corporations, because they can't just throw a press conference and say, "Oops, our bad, we'll fix this." For the most part, they have to change all underlying architecture that is pushing them down the wrong path; this could also take into account changing staff, changing vendors, changing their basic corporate culture.

And people get entrenched, people get comfortable. It hurts to sit on the radiator, but after a while the nerves are dead and it's fine. Besides, it's cold outside. Why would they move?

And then...Mikey:

And by alienating said bunch of devfurries they've killed the point of developing a TPV.

Wait, what?

I actually had to go back and find the original Nightshade post, because I admit, I'd just started skimming his to get back to less bitchy content later down the thread. I had to go back several pages before I found the comment in question, and even with context, I don't get it. This is the comment, with the lines before and after for reference:

It is a problem, but it's not a problem because other viewers are "better." They aren't, at least not to me, but this is an irrelevant line of reasoning in any event because it's a subjective opinion.

What is not subjective is the risk to SL if a third party viewer continues to hold a significant portion of the userbase. Thankfully, this is a problem that LL has elected to correct.

Given the fact that SL itself is more important than a bunch of devfurries coding a viewer and whining on the internet, I think it's a good move of LL to make.

So...he's just talking about the Exodus viewer team? Or what? I'm very confused, here.

At this point, someone brought up Tateru Nino's post on the subject, and she finished with a very succinct and damning line:

It’s a small change to the policy, but it makes Linden Lab’s development priorities and development timelines your own – however you still don’t know what they are.

Yes. The only real difficulty with this is we've rarely known what their real goals are, at least since Philip Linden left. (The first time.) This revision to established policy just reinforces that with a sharp and razored edge.

And this to me was worth lifting a screencap from SLU; it's in the comments of Ms. Nino's blog, but here, for reference:

(from the miscellaneous album)

So...sure, that's funny on the face of it, but think about what's really going on here:

• Qarl: People are asking me about this new policy. What should I tell them? (Interpretation: Oz, I need an answer from you I can safely pass on.)

• Oz: Tell them to talk to us, not you. (Interpretation: You don't rate an answer from me. Tell anyone asking you to ask us. We won't tell you any answer we have.)

That, right there? That is scathing contempt of Qarl, a former Linden. Was this what Oz actually intended? No idea. But how it comes across is damning; beyond that, it's chilling. If they'll treat a former employee like something not even worth washing off their porch after a storm...what chance do any of the rest of us have?

What's the point of trying to communicate with the Lindens at all...ever?

From Argent Stonecutter:

Other ideas that seem like they would break 2k: per-parcel muting, so you can put "block #parcelid" in your description and nobody on your parcel can see the adfarm next door; extended linden trees, using prim parameters to modify linden tree details, so you can take the gum tree and apply a different leaf texture to it.

If these things do break 2k, then that's a problem.

From Trinity Dejavu:

From the wording of 2k and what was said by Oz at the TPV meeting, they absolutely do.

And from Argent in response:

That's not just wrong, it's daft.

I agree. Unfortunately, by Tuesday or Wednesday, it won't matter.

In the time I've been trying to bring myself up to speed (let alone anyone else) on this issue, the SLU commentary has swelled from three bare pages to--at this point--ten, with more comments flying in as I type this. While there's disagreement among the denizens on SLU, for the most part the overwhelming consensus seems to be:

• no one has any clue on the real reason this is happening
• TPVs have more power than the official viewer at present; LL wants to take that power back
• and this policy will, in addition to breaking TPV content, break actual Linden content

Yeah. Well. So that's not going to be fun...

Oh, and Urlai.com thinks I'm a senior citizen who's just thrilled beyond repair and wanting to spread the joy around. The hell.

Well, I suppose it's better than Google analytics, who think I'm an 18-24 year old young man who likes rock music, gaming, and outdoor activities. (At least, until I moved to the shiny loaner laptop--now, I hit the Ad Preferences Manager and see "No interest or demographic categories are associated with your ads preferences so far." I suppose, give it time, it'll think I'm a 40-year-old Peruvian businessman into beekeeping, or something.

why dream a dream that's tainted with trouble, and less than it seems?

The...hell...is this? Infantwear for adult women? I don't get it. I get the babydoll look....but there comes a point, doesn't there?

Maybe there doesn't. A thousand apologies; the SL version actually looks better.

So, this new TPV policy. This one's going to be a lot of fun. First, the basics:

• On February 24th, on the Second Life forums, in reaction (to whatever degree) to surfacing privacy and security concerns, whomever's under the Community Manager's tag posted an addendum to the Third Party Viewer policy.
• Not much was actually changed; in fact, it seems, for the most part, the entire policy was streamlined, with only four new additions.
• These additions are all in Section 2.

"We’ve also updated the policy to be clearer about the sorts of innovations that developers should work on for their particular Viewers (Section 2.k), and which they should work on in partnership with Linden Lab for all of Second Life. This is so that we can avoid the problems that result when a Viewer changes the way elements of Second Life are defined or how they behave, in such a way that users on other Viewers don't experience the same virtual reality."

Now, to play devil's advocate for a bit--I kind of see their thinking here. If they put up a tree, and they post pictures of a tree, and someone codes a viewer so that all trees are actually seen as neon flamingos with pumpkin hats and poodle skirts, then yeah, anyone who downloads that client is having a vastly different experience than the rank and file resident.

But...is this that bad a thing? Let's jump to SL Universe's post on the matter, and Latif Khalifa's comment:

2)k basically prohibits innovation by TPV viewers. If this was always in place stuff like bouncing boobs and parcel windlight would've never happened.

I have no idea what business advantage they see in preventing innovation.

This sums up the potential reservations for me in many ways: this will stifle creativity, inhibit innovation, and restrict people who want to help with perceived needs, but also want to stay within Linden Lab's established ruleset.

So what is provision 2.k? For that, let's jump back to the actual revised policy page. I'm quoting specifically from Section 2 now:

2. Prohibited Functionality

If you are a user or Developer of Third-Party Viewers, the following features and functionality are expressly prohibited in all Third-Party Viewers:

a. You must not circumvent our intended limitations on Second Life features. For example:

i. You must not circumvent the Second Life permissions system or any features that limit copying, transfer, or use of content within Second Life.
ii. You must not alter content metadata like the Second Life creator name or the Second Life owner name.
iii. You must not provide any feature that circumvents any privacy protection option made available through a Linden Lab viewer or any Second Life service.

b. You must not use or provide any functionality that Linden Lab’s viewers do not have for exporting content from Second Life unless the functionality verifies that the content to be exported was created by the Second Life user who is using the Third-Party Viewer. Specifically, before allowing the user to export the content, the Third-Party Viewer must verify that the Second Life creator name for each and every content component to be exported, including each and every primitive or other content type, is the same as the Second Life name of the Third-Party Viewer user. This must be done for all content in Second Life, including content that may be set to "full permissions."

c. You must not circumvent any security-related features or measures we may take to limit access to Second Life. For example:

i. You must not mask IP or MAC addresses. By “mask,” we mean disguising or concealing the IP or MAC address when including it was possible.
ii. You must not spoof the viewer identifier or the identity of a Third-Party Viewer connecting to Second Life. Each version of a Third-Party Viewer must have a unique viewer identifier and must not use the same viewer identifier as a Linden Lab viewer or another Third-Party Viewer.

d. You must not use or distribute features or functionality that deceive, defraud, or harm anyone or that violate any Linden Lab policy or the law. For example:

i. You must not transmit any virus, Trojan horse, worm, spyware, phishing or spoofing functionality, or other harmful code.
ii. You must not use the Registration Application Programming Interface ("Reg API") to create fraudulent accounts.
iii. You must not launch Denial of Service ("DoS") attacks, engage in griefing, or distribute other functionality that Linden Lab considers harmful or disruptive to Second Life or the Second Life community.

e. You must not use or distribute features or functionality that transmit Second Life usernames or passwords anywhere except to Linden Lab servers. Third-Party Viewers must not retain a user’s username or password anywhere except on the user’s own system.

f. You must not impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure or interfere with our providing the normal functionality of Second Life.

g. You must not use or distribute features or functionality that conceal information in any Second Life asset, including through encryption or steganographic techniques, with the sole exception of information that LSL scripts produce or consume.

h. For Third-Party Viewers based on our source code, Developers must not omit our viewer statistics packet, and users and Developers must not falsify or circumvent our collection of information about use of our service. We use this information to analyze and improve the quality of our service.

i. You must not display any information regarding the computer system, software, or network connection of any other Second Life user.

j. You must not include any information regarding the computer system, software, or network connection of the user in any messages sent to other viewers, except when explicitly elected by the user of your viewer.

k. You must not provide any feature that alters the shared experience of the virtual world in any way not provided by or accessible to users of the latest released Linden Lab viewer.

Okay, that was a wall of text, I know. Let's break it down. The biggest issue people are reacting to is provision 2.k. That no TPV can provide any feature that the Lindens haven't already installed in their main viewer. This is astoundingly vague, and a bit on the scary side; as confirmed by Simon Linden elsewhere, however, this is (at least currently) defined in two ways:

• 1. No TPV can alter any other resident's functionality for those residents, and for the world;
• 2. But TPVs can alter the user's own experience of other residents, and/or the world.

For example, RLV. RLV is allowed under this policy, because it's entirely under the user's control. The RLV viewer, and all TPVs that use RLV coding, have to have that coding turned on in the first place, because off is the default. But what about viewers that allow parcel-based Windlight settings? Or show specific particle effects that the main client doesn't allow? These things--or so goes the thinking--are what's disallowed.

Jessica Lyon in response to the TPV policy changes (specifically 2.a.iii):

This means viewers will not be allowed to have true online status. We will remove this feature in the next Phoenix update. LL has also indicated they intend to break scripts ability to look up a users online status except for the owner and creator of the script. No time frame has been indicated for when this will happen.

Me, personally, as an advocate of sufficient privacy, am all for this change. I don't want people to know I'm online if I'm mostly working on the net, outside SL; I also don't want people know if I'm really online if I'm set to "busy" (something I rarely do anyway). And I'm not the hugest privacy advocate. I know Ms. Lyon will have to change a great deal of code for this, but my only reaction is--good. About damned time.

Ms. Lyon on provisions 2.i and 2.j:

This means that Viewer identification tags are now a policy violation. LL has indicated that they will be breaking the viewer tagging system for ALL third party viewers between Tuesday and Wednesday with the region updates. This also breaks color tags in our viewers.

This is going to bother me, for two reasons:

• first, knowing who's using what viewer has been a part of the SL experience for years now;
• and second, how does knowing I'm using CoolVL, the woman next to me is using Firestorm, and the centaur next to her is using the official viewer, harm anyone's security or viewing experience? It's not changing all buildings to giggling clowns; it's a tag. This one, I don't entirely get in the first place.

And finally, Ms. Lyon's reaction to provision 2.k:

This means that third party viewers will no longer be allowed to innovate features which relate to the shared experience unless LL has the features in their viewers first. However LL has indicated an interest and preference in working with third party viewers to develop such features together.

And as I pointed out earlier, I'm not in favor of restricting innovation for any reason, but it is good to hear that the Lindens may want, now, to work with TPV developers and...hmm...innovate together? Maybe. We'll know more on Tuesday or Wednesday, when these changes go live on the grid.

More to come.

and birds circle above you waiting for the night to fall

Terry Moore gives a short talk on how to properly tie your shoes. Hint: you're likely doing it wrong.

Also from Laughing Squid, ever wanted to write a bike? These people have. Really intriguing idea.

From personalized bike frames to "ghost signs"--it's a leap, but it's one well worth taking. There's a Flickr gallery (not all of which are actual ghost signs, but well worth perusing for fans of painted signery all around), there's a Wikipedia entry, James Lilek wholly redid his online gallery from 2007 for brighter, larger, clearer images, there's a Twitter feed, another Flickr group, and a Tumblr. (And that's not even touching the private pages devoted to "ghost signs" in specific towns.)

Basically, if you don't have an interest, you might still enjoy some of these pages just for the vintage aspect of much of the work, and if you do have an interest, maybe this will tell you it goes deeper than you knew!

You don't have to follow Horse_ebooks on Twitter to be charmed by this investigative article; in point of fact, it gives Tweeted examples, so you can get the jist of why this bot account has a following. Personally, I'm neither outraged nor offended that the writer tried to find--and in some sense, succeeded in finding--the man behind the bot. For me, I think it just adds to the mystique.

So, um...this is scary. It would likely go well with yesterday's barnacle lamp.

There's a grid-wide hunt that just launched that should be celebrated, at least a little--not because it's a 1L hunt, not because it's got some good stores in it, not because there are SLUrls for all the stores, and not because people obviously put more than three seconds of thought into the prizes. Those are all good things, but no; I recommend the Penitent hunt purely and solely because the hunt site HAS PICTURES. Frankly, more hunts should do this, seriously. Pictures and SLUrls make a hunt more approachable, offer a deeper interaction, and incline current hunters towards being future clients.

And let me briefly divert to the botanical, and introduce you to Silene stenophylla, a very nearly Pleistocene-era plant. (It's not purely that old, but it was grown from very, very old stock indeed.)

Sadly, I have a very sad, very enraging close to this evening's festival of links and oddity. Namely, that the upcoming film The Lorax is now being used to sell SUVs. If you know anything about the environmental story behind the original book, you know how baffling, angering, and confusing that statement is, and I only wish I were kidding.

...No, I can't end there. That's just too depressing. Because really, irony is now officially dead. So here's Neil Patrick Harris in a toga fighting ninjas.

You're welcome.

(And if that didn't help, have some baby kittens. There you go.)

And on the next post, I'm going to try to untangle the new TPV policy.

I feel it like a wave of love, come and cover me

It's getting towards another span of time where I go through my tags and decide whether or not to delete the tags that are only tied to one entry. I haven't done this in about a year, though. It may take some time.

In the meantime, the latest snapshot (think of Minecraft snapshots as release candidates for the game; they're the quickest way to test new features) features iron golems. Iron golems are somewhat akin to snowmen--you put down two snow blocks, and a pumpkin, you get a snowman. If you put down two iron blocks, and place a pumpkin on top, you get an iron golem.

Snowmen pretty much wander around aimlessly, making the ground ice over and irritating enemy mobs around them. That's all they really do. They're fun to make--especially if you're in a snow biome--but they're not very effective.

Iron golems, on the other hand, defend villages. They also give roses to villagers they saved, so that's doubly cool. So what could possibly go wrong?

Well, there's now at least two ways that folks have discovered to farm the defenders into nonexistence. For what? Well, if you set up the traps right, a nearly endless supply of iron.

I don't actually think this was what Jens had in mind for this development, how'ver...

In more Minecraft news, THE MELON GOD DEMANDS SACRIFICES! Bring him melons! Or suffer his explosive wrath!

Also in the latest snapshot, something else that may well come to the game: oppositely-rotated staircases. Sure, we're still limited on the materials we can make staircase blocks from, but I don't care--architecturally speaking, they're going to make some really, really pretty builds.

In non-Minecraft news, Japan says they're going to have a space elevator by 2050. Whether or not it works, I am really, really excited by this. (And vaguely reminded of the "skyhook" concept in Robert Heinlein's "Friday" book.)

Also from Gizmodo, you might want to check if the FBI will shut off your internet on March 8th. Not kidding. There's a link there and it's dead easy, it's just clicking a button and seeing if the background turns red or green.

You want green. You also want to do this. Because the FBI's fairly serious about cutting off access.

And from Macworld comes an article on how many really ancient computers are still in operation around the US. The list is kind of scary. And I thought the catputer was bad for having 2006-era parts.

I am both astounded and worried at the potential involved in the new super-glue that's been developed from flesh-eating bacteria. For one, flesh-eating bacteria, that cannot be a good idea. But for two, this could become a non-invasive way to seal wounds, repair bones, reduce the need for invasive sutures...and that's just the human-based uses that come to mind.

And now all the recent prim breast posts have their own blog, and all new entries that are devoted just to that topic are going to be parked there as well. Still no real idea why--maybe I'm just that bored in SL at present--it's a continuing interest, but it is. And those gentles who raised the point with me are right--this really isn't an Adult-rated blog, for the most part, and it's not really designed to be.

Despite former jobs in the past.

So, demos, testing, outfits, if I actually get it together enough to start another business, future hunts, and anything I do involving primwork and employment (if I do)--it'll all be over there. Feel free to wander over if you feel like it, but--while I promise I'll do my best to stay clothed--one or two not-quite-clothed photos may emerge. (One, in fact, this week.)

Finally, this is one of the most baffling songs I've ever heard, this is one of the most innovative table designs I've ever seen, and a seamstress suing Facebook found out that they're not nice people. Gosh, what a shock. That sort of alarming naïveté really requires her to lay down for a few weeks, rethink her life experiences to date.

more gently than anyone, call out my name

[Broadcast] Applebloom: {Lv24 team LFM} Hiya everypony! Ah don't suppose y'all would mind comin' along with me for a mission or few? Ah don't care how strong you are, 'long as we get to have fun!
[Broadcast] Literal Lass: Every....pony? You are prepared to be shot on sight, right?

No, no, NO--NO Bronys in City of Heroes!

Party at Jensen's! Otherwise known as, what happens if you kill fifty people, and then let ragdoll physics take over? It's almost awe-inspiring, and deeply absurd.

Speaking of deeply absurd, get prepared for the single most awesome Skyrim mod you've ever heard--and trust me, you want to hear this one--Project Pew. Pew pew pew pew. Hee.

"I present to you the most awkward encounter in the history of everything." Likely hyperbole, but funny nonetheless. In every combat game, there has to be a resident Stiv, right? This player is that man.

For more adventures of Not-Stiv, I'd like to finish with his instructive, step by step video for How to Helicopter. There you go--everything you need to know, all in one place, about how to fly badly, crash into things, and terrorize your friends. I'm sure there's at least one person who deeply needs this information.

Unless that person is Stiv. In that case, he likely already does this.

On a slightly more serious note--and pulling on crafting excellence--may I present to you the homemade Tardis phone charger. Yes, thank you, I would like that on my desk. I'll get right on making one.

The most terrifying lamp in all of existence now exists--and if you know anything about Half Life, the game, you'll know exactly why that's so terrifying. (Even if all you know about Half-Life is the Full Life Consequences version, that's still a terrifying lamp.)

Finally, proving that there is, in fact, a Tumblr for everything...let me introduce you to Hugh Murphy, who sketches T-Rex dinosaurs trying to do things with their tiny, tiny arms.

I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower

Axi Kurmin continues to amaze me. When she's not managing three businesses in SL, listing new pics and descriptions on the Marketplace for three more plus her three, spinning discs in SL, or posting columns on Search Engine Watch, she carves eggs, paints them, and sells them. She has a whole bunch of them. I'm fascinated, and deeply impressed.

This next bit is NSFW, or at least, some of the pictures are--Solange is back! It's been months since I heard of any new releases, and now she's back to designing, but...well, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. This is the front of the "Carnal" outfit (in pink); this is the front of the "Carnal" outfit (in red). So far, so good, right? Lovely illicit design, with erotically placed cut-outs, and, as shown, the option to have full-coverage cups as well as more revealing ones. Beautiful silk velvet roses ornament the attached skirt, the gloves, and the fascinator headpiece, and it's perfect for burlesque dancing and, I would imagine, lovely for taking photographs to send to a loved one, or an admirer.

The problem? Would be "Carnal" from the back. In discussing this one with a friend, I think we both agree the front is lovely, but the back is...problematic at best. I think, visually, I expected the bustle to persist across the back. Instead what we get are...well...hip bolsters. Which are pretty from the front, but not that attractive from the rear. Strangely, it's too revealing, which I will grant is odd to say about a piece of lingerie.

Still, it's good to know Solange has returned! I'll be sure to traipse across the sim now and again, and see what's new in the shop.

And aren't Zen gardens supposed to be calming? Isn't that the point? This is something guaranteed to make at least one poor soul out there shriek in utter terror and run the other way!

who do you work for, baby? and does it work for you, lately?

New Babbage hit the Destinations page recently, which--as some of us have figured out over the last few months--is a double-edged sword. While such designations do hold (limited) honor, and can attract new, vibrant eyes to investigate your lands...mostly it's just a pain in the ass as every troll within hearing decides to come and play.

For any residents of New Babbage, specifically the ones surrounding the direct area mentioned on the Destinations page:

• keep build off your lands, or restrict build to group only
• make sure the group your lands are under is a group you control, or an invite-only group
• consider turning scripts off (obviously, if you're a merchant, you can't do this)
• turn on auto-return (or if you don't feel right about doing that, turn on auto-return for anyone not a resident of New Babbage)
• be polite and courteous, but don't be afraid to bounce (ban temporarily) or mute for the extraordinarily offensive

With any luck, there will be few incidents and fewer folks going to New Babbage just to hassle the dwellers there, but based on what's happened on other sims in the past, I hold little hope.

Also, I have to wonder, who does their press release work? This from the blurb under the picture:

This vast Victorian steampunk area is full of airships, clockwork devices, submersibles, and other amazing technology. It's an ideal place to explore life as it was in the 19th century.

I admire that they managed to insert both "Victorian" and "steampunk", but...an "ideal" place to explore "life as it was in the 19th century"? Seriously? None of the Victorian lands, or the steamlands for that matter, are perfectly accurate according to 19th century standards of the day. Oh, there are some architectural marvels that are recreated as perfectly as can be managed, but even then, they're surrounded by things which aren't, so...does that balance out? And while Babbage has more strict restrictions on builds, even there things go a little haywire now and again.

And trust me, as much as we all love to dream about days gone by which include airships, clockwork citizens, air kraken and "other amazing technology"...that's not how life was in the Victorian era.

But then, it is a press release, I suppose outrageous hyperbole is just standard operating procedure.

and thirstily from the dew I drank 'til my veins became a running stream

(And this one's been moved as well. Cheers! Come read it over here.)

lost souls in the hunting ground

(Why yes, this entry's been moved. Find it over here.)

within the casket called myself, my soul yet moves

(There's no here, here, anymore; instead, look over on the new blog for this entry. T'would be a kindness.)

and dragon ladies now talk that talk about who loves who, who loves best

(This is another one that's just plainly missing. Find it over here. Thanks!)

he stretched me out on a mossy bank and sang to me my name

(This entry entirely left! You'll find it over here. Thanks!)

I toss and turn, I'm losing sleep

(The non-Stiv portions of this post have been moved over to the new blog.)

God still has this odd habit of popping up unexpectedly:

butts: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
butts: ENERGY
butts: JUST GOT OFF WORK
butts: TIME TO
butts: P
butts: A
butts: R
butts: T
butts: Y
Emilly: Wau. I haven't gone to bed yet.
butts: Ditto, kiddo
butts: NYTE SHIFTTZ
Emilly: So, how is life treating the former god who's now working...where are you working, anyway?
butts: PSYCH WARD
butts: Fitting, I know
Emilly: But of course you are
butts is now Offline.

But of course he is.

gather up your tears, keep 'em in your pocket

(Wau, this entry's been trimmed into invisibility. But it's been moved over here, so go look for it there.)

And Happy Valentine's Day.