six times two is lemon

One for all the old-school gamers out there--the ten most shameful RPG dice. *cackles*

And a vastly different take on why blanket bans on words is a bad thing.

And look! Little steampunk wonders for your desk! Whee!

Lastly, Virtual Mobility and Studio Wikitecture won the Linden Prize--they designed a sensor-driven system for fully disabled people to enable them to control avatars in Second Life. Virtual walking around? Weirdly, it helps more than you think.

Back to the grind, I think: it's sheer perversity that keeps me going through this. No pun intended.

Grady Vuckovic on page 278:

[Every time] I think I've worked this out, I read just [a little] bit more, and everything doesn't make sense again.. according to Linden Lab's own website, 'Content, communication, or behavior which involves intense language or expletives, nudity or sexual content, the depiction of sex or violence, or anything else broadly offensive', all apparently is intended for Mature parcels. Yet now all of that is intended for the Adult parcels. So if anyone less than that is for the PG areas, and anything that includes that is for Adult. What is going to be in Mature? O.o Nothing?

Wondered that m'self, actually.

Valerius Constantine on page 282:

In order to do that without a legal nightmare, LL has to segregate *all* adult content, not just the "most extreme". which is why Blondin's comment about "removing adult content from the mainland" is so telling. That is the plan. and I'm pretty sure that the eventual plan is to herd everyone into the the "adult continent" and then change the TOS and either remove Ursula from the main grid, or to simply say "All this content violates our TOS- we're shutting it all down" and BYe-bye Grownup SL.

Which is what I'm hoping won't happen.

Aeslyn Dae from the same page:

So, what *is* the real, underlying reason? To me, it appears very much that they are either (a) clearing decks to sell up, or (b) clearing way to make profit themselves from access to "Adult" content. When it's all in one walled off area it'd be a short step to charge extra subscription fees, extra tier, and so-on and so-forth.

She's not wrong.

Kate Spengler on page 283:

Forget porn though, look at where [Second Life] came from. Do you *really* think suits would want to trust an idea that came from hippie-land? Philip based it on the ideals of Burning Man. What Mitch wants to do with this continent is in direct opposition to those founding principles.

And this one made me think. I know Burning Life is a large part of SL culture, and I've heard a lot of theories as to what actually started SL off and going.

But, even if it's just a part of the founding principles, Burning Life? Well, think of those principles. The paradigm of the gift economy--make, give, exchange, bring back, make again, ideas flowing like streams into one river. You influence me influence them influence her influence him....flowing, interweaving, art, music, dance, creation.

Giving of the spirit, giving of what you have, approaching life with open hands, open hearts, wired and ready for the experience...

Yeah. I can see why Mitch Kapor isn't 100% behind that, if true.

Ceera Murakami's entire post on page 285 deserves a look, but I pulled out this bit in particular:

Some of these encounters may offend you more than others. Some may not offend you in the slightest, and may even mark that person as a potential new friend.

Should they all be [segregated] into little communities of similar tastes, just so someone won't be offended by seeing them? Doesn't work that way in most of the Real world. Why should SL have to be that intolerant?

Why, indeed? As many of us have said, we thought the point of Second Life was second chances, and, more importantly, deliberate choice--to do things differently, to live more openly, to embrace more of life in the virtual, in the hopes that that will translate (or has translated) to the real. Why this insistence on shutting down part of that community, that concept?

Arishia Nishi on the same page:

Please consider unintended consequences, some of which are showing up on this forum. This decision might validate and embolden those with an external locus of control. Please consult with social psychologists before you proceed.

Will they? Likely not. Should they? Absolutely.

Ceera Murakami again, from the same page:

A three post transcript of the [brown-bag] meeting is burried way back in this thread. I read the whole thing... Lots of people asked pointed questions, and Blondin stonewaled them on everything. The only point that Blondin raised that seemed useful new information was that they don't expect to have a working definition of what is affected until at least another week from now. And yet they stick stubornly to their assertion that even without a valid definition of what this witch-hunt will run out of town and isolate on the pornotopia continent, tat it will still only affect 2% to 4% of the mainland content.

Can't define what they are hunting, yet they claim to know just how much content will be affected? That is pure BS, to me.

Didn't correct this one, because I was adding in "brown-bag" to refer to the meeting she's talking about--and that link goes back to the blog posting that lists all of the "brown-bag" meetings to date. But spelling errors or not, this is a very valid point--you can't define exactly what it is that constitutes "Adult", yet you know it only comprises 2 to 4% of grid content? Something's up.

Wynochee Leshelle recommends protest on that page as well:

All in all I recommend to everyone, to *not* move. Not a single millimeter. General strike, no one moves - and they cannot ban thousands of customers, it would ruin them - so: strike, resistance and ready.

I don't think that's the best solution to the problem, honestly. Because they can ban thousands of customers. They're convinced they'll get more. They don't have to keep the accounts they have.

Mystique Chambers vents some understandable irritation on page 285:

This move "when" it happens is going to take time. I can't be prepared in a day. I will need time to get everyone "legal Adults" that work for me. Yes, some have been working on it. We've had open discussions on "where do we go from here?". But everything is on hold awaiting word.

And IF I chose to buy a Private [sim] will it still be as strict as the Adult mainland. Is this just effecting Mature mainlands now? I have a lot of questions that need answering and not a dang linden around to ask. No one has answers. Anyone else trying to take this and be serious and preparing? What should I do NOW to prepare for this?

She's not the only one with these questions. She's also not the only one not getting answers.

Shockwave Yareach also has a great comment on page 289:

So this move will a) negatively affect thousands of people, b) make some percentage of them quit (a number are already cashing out), c) not eliminate the potential of seeing an orgy in the mainland, d) worsen public relations rather than improve them, and e) render most of mainland an empty, uninteresting ghosttown, useful to nobody at all.

All for the sake of some prudish busybodies who won't spend dime one in SL in the first place. Me, I drop a considerable amount of coin here and have been for years. So if it's between me and some company that hasn't spent anything here, SL should take the cash it has now and be grateful for it. Grace is when you dig for worms and find gold. But what is it called when you dig for gold and find only worms?

Generally? Means the gold rush is over.

Couldbe Yue from page 289:

One hunt organiser says on the blog that porn shops are not allowed tp participate.. wtf?? they don't even bother to say what they consider porn. I'm sure that gangster/biker whore outfit shops are allowed though.

Another says they only want shops that are kid safe. I'm sorry but I thought the grid was supposed to 18+. I was almost tempted to AR that organiser for encouraging underagers to be here.

We've hit some strange sort of internal limit regarding the grid-wide hunts. "No porn shops", but they won't give specifics. The "must be kid-safe" hunt ended up traveling through a *ton* of SL nurseries and birthing centers.

You know, that brings up another point to consider in all this: what is going to stop someone, who is fully age-verified, from transporting to Pornotopolis in a child avatar? And is that an instant AR in the making? It's not abuse if the name is verified, but would SL children be banned from the adult continent?

Would any of them want to be age-verified? I mean, yes, actual children don't get to go inside strip clubs...but SL children, that's a whole other issue. What's 'safe' for an adult in a child body?

Lindal Kidd from page 290:

Guess what? IBM *is* interested in making SL a corporate platform (shudder!) The problem is that doing so will, inevitably, kill it as the entertainment platform that it is now.

All right, I've said this before, I'll say it again--as far as I know, IBM is working/has been working on a corporate co-developed platform--for their employees only. They have island estates; certain of them are locked to outside transport, because they are internal corporate meeting/development areas.

That's all. They aren't buying the grid or forcing anyone to "clean up"; they're content with leaving SL the way it is, and their islands being secluded off, just as any corporate campus of IBM would be secluded. And they've been here for years, guys; so this isn't some "sudden move" on the part of IBM.

At the top of page 291, Mark Dudek has a very good question indeed:

With the exodus of businesses, clubs, and some residents to the new continent, there is undoubtedly going to be a lot of abandoned land on the remaining mainland. Has there been any thought about reinstating First Land?

That is a really good question. Within thinking too long about it, I'd say most likely, the answer is no, but I'd love hearing the official Linden response to that.

More to come, I'm close to the end, but not...quite...there yet...