24 July, 2009

the music that you gave me, the language of my soul

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That makes my head dizzy. Also known as, someone at Google was thinking ahead. Try it for yourself.

And LostCheetah's latest video reminds me, yet again, however much I may want to investigate motion capture in SL...one needs a very, very fast computer to make machinima, and I am just not there yet. If ever. (Not for the song, mind, I find Lady Gaga derivative at best, but for the movements--most of which, if not all of which, are from Sine Wave.)

It's odd, I fall into contemplation far too easily these days, but I realize I've been taking some things for granted, and not in a bad way. Like Miss Straaf's Eighties Mewsic on Radio Riel, Thursday nights at ten. Like--for all I'm terrible at publicizing it--the Poetry Slam, Thursdays at five (usually in Winterfell Absinthe, but today, for instance, we moved to Winterfell Laudanum and declaimed poetry whilst being pelted with falling mushrooms.).

Well, the Poetry Slam happens nearly every week, but the airwaves have missed Eighties Mewsic for more than a month. We may not have said it, Miss Straaf, but we did miss you, and your music, and we're very glad you're back.

(Of course, then Snowglobe crashes and it takes me twenty minutes to get back in world...grr...)

(Remember: you can always tune in on Radio Riel's events stream in world on your parcels, or on your external players; and if you like to show up and have fun on the ground, as t'were, you just need to hop over to Edison Hypatia from ten to eleven pm, SLT.)

So I've been trying like anything to get my inventory under control (mentioned here among other places), because it's gone on long enough; I have a low movement rate in world, packed sims log me out, I lag....it's just too much to deal with.

I logged out with 58,959 inventory items, then, after a brief spate of getting in and hacking at more inventory shrubbery, I got down to 57,709. Which is still good, don't get me wrong, but I wanted to do better.

As the day progressed to afternoon and evening and night, I've been logging in and out, checking things, deleting things, trying new combinations of search terms--anything to keep the progress moving forward, not reversing entirely (not easy when I hit three Midnight Mania boards at the behest of friends and they all came in--two of them texture packs!).

Around six, I hit 57,373; which was good, but there was still a great deal of work to do. Around nine pm SLT, I was at 57,282. Not much progress, and I was starting to get depressed. In a frenzy, I went through my eyes, deleting everything that wasn't up to the latest specs--that took me down to 57,178 (yes, I'm serious, I had that many eyes).

And then midnight turned, the Midnight Manias came in, and I knew the push was on in earnest. So I turned to the hunts folder.

Anything I didn't recognize, anything that didn't have a descriptive folder name, anything which seemed to be more attachments than clothing layers--erased. Anything that I hadn't looked at in over a year--a ton of Ivalde and Retrology folders disappeared then. Anything I hadn't worn in over two years--a lot of my older ballgowns went away, especially the ones from Prim & Proper and Nymphetamine.

At 2:20 am SLT, I hit 54,999.

My goal for tomorrow? 52,000. Or less.

This is hard, grueling work, though. My attachment to things is very strong.

One last note...

Much later, on idle in SL, helping Miss Allen develop more translucent and lovely avatar bits I will pray of being released...at some point...a member of another group I'm in revealed that she had gotten a desist-and-move notice from Linden Labs, requiring her to move her business (on the mainland, containing BDSM and Gorean equipment) to Zindra. Since Zindra ticket filing is coming up so very soon--all tickets must be filed by ten am, SLT, July 24th, which is not that very far from right now--I went hunting information for her.

In >this entry on Zindra, though, something else caught my eye entirely:

Greetings from Shell Beach!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Shell%20Beach/221/23/36


...and I had to pause.

Linden Labs just made a Dark City reference. Did they think they were being funny? Did they think it was an ironic comment on the relocation and rebranding process Second Life is currently mired in? Did they think it through in any way whatsoever?

Or was it entirely unconscious, this choice of the Labs to portray Zindra as part of some vast conspiracy, having kidnapped their population forcibly, to enact experimental procedures upon them, knowing there's nowhere else to go?

At the very least, the irony? Is high.

3 comments:

Dale Innis said...

As with the original Oatmeal region, where the "test to see if you can get to Adult regions" area was full of barbed wire and ominous warning signs, my theory on Shell Beach is that someone (or perhaps rogue subprocesses within the minds of several someones) on the Linden Zindra team is just as aware as we are of the awful aspects of the whole thing, and is trying to sneak messages of solidarity to us.

(And see the region name "Whorlebow", which makes me giggle.)

Edward Pearse said...

And my radio plays and breakfasts get no love from you.

*sniffs*

Emilly Orr said...

Dale: It's a good point. In the course of three years on the grid, I've realized one thing with stunning clarity--individual Lindens may be good people, may be very helpful, and may be sincerely devoted to the world and the game; but as a whole, the entity of Linden Labs is flawed and very disconnected from the world it supposedly supports.

I've known for some time that there are quirky senses of humor living within the Lab; you can't look at any name release and not get that. But "Shell Beach" turning up made me blink, and not in exceptionally good ways.

Edward: You know why your Breakfast spins get no love? It's not that they get no love, you have a great sense of the absurd, you love subversive comedy, and you're obviously having a ball spinning for New Babbage...

...it's just I'm never up at that hour to hear you!

I wanna live a vibrant life, but I wanna die a boring death

This is the..."Ham Tree"...at LORE . It's a group gift. Mesmer's love of meat where meat should not be is spreading... ...