26 June, 2011

I got wiring loose inside my head, I got books that I never ever read

What's the line between supporting a friend and aiding and abetting a crime in progress? Police and prosecutors in Ogden, Utah are going to have to decide that very thing after a tense, sixteen-hour overnight standoff which saw, bafflingly enough, the kidnapper in a hostage crisis update his status several times on Facebook.

Facebook is evil. This is just more proof.

In medical technology, Tokyo researchers have discovered a way to hack body parts--their prototype, unnervingly titled "PossessedHand", is shown here with an accompanying disturbing video. Still, could it one day help stroke victims, or those who can't walk, to regain mobility and limb movement? The researchers think that's a strong possibility...possessed or not.

Meanwhile, more hacking of personal information--this time, CitiBank was hacked, and the perpetrators made off with more than 360,000 credit card numbers (CitiBank admits not knowing how many more numbers were discovered, due to a huge gap in their, I hesitate to name it so, "security").

And back to SL, with this lovely quote:
"Why is Duran Duran opening a virtual club in Second Life? Is Duran Duran even still a group? Is Second Life even still a thing that people do? Is there a vast crossover demographic of Duran Duran fans who enjoy virtual sandbox realms? Is this going to lead to a rash of overly-sexualized "Hungry Like The Wolf"-themed avatars?"
BWAHAHAHAHAHA....

In the meantime, a little video action:

Soup Radio at SL8B from Raul Crimson on Vimeo.

This is Soup Radio's "exhibit" (and I use the word loosely) for SL8B. I haven't said much about the celebration, because outside of a scant handful of really stunning exhibits (like, maybe, four), everyone turned in...well. Is there a more polite word than "crap"?

And this one, from Soup Radio, is pretty much the typification of the level of crap builds people were offered at SL8B. If Second Life has been around eight years, and the highest aspiration people can think to bring to the table is a cheesy pair of open lips screaming "ART ART ART" and "DEBATE DEBATE DEBATE" into disembodied cheesy ears, while four copybotted statues of Philip Linden hold up a sepia-toned earth globe...well, no, that actually pretty accurately represents the state of things on SL right now.

Great job, Soup Radio. You've shown exactly why so many avatars and businesses are turning their backs on SL, never to return. Go you.

4 comments:

Winter Ventura said...

I owe you and your readers an apology. The "Famously Copybotted AFK Noobs" in this build do indeed appear to be official AFK Noobs created by Art Laxness, and not the Copybotted ones.

They are still the "AFK Noobs" that were famously copybotted some years back, so there's not much originality shown in using cookie-cutter freebies.. but they're "legit".

That was my mistake for not checking that.

Heh, my captcha word is "scrod"

Emilly Orr said...

Okay, so to make sure I have this right--he was the creator of the original ones used in the LightWave piece? In other words, he was the one who had his work stolen and so widely distributed as to make the whole concept of 'ownership' of those prims meaningless in the extreme?

Anonymous said...

I would like to know which exhibits you liked if you have time to share. I do enjoy seeing great builds but don't feel very motivated to wander the sims looking for them.

Winter Ventura said...

Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up...

The "noob" sculpture was originally created/uploaded by the avatar "Art Laxness". The sculptures were originally used in some specific build, and someone else ripped them, and gave those out as freebies. There was a lot of drama over this at the time. Then Art Laxness released his sculptures as freebies, because the genie was out of the bottle, so he might as well get his name on them.

http://npirl.blogspot.com/2009/05/free-noobs-for-all-art-laxness-releases.html

The AFK Noobs being used in the Soup Radio build show Art Laxness as creator...

Other than making the noobs, Art Laxness seems to have had no part in the building or creating of the Soup Radio display.

Therefore the assertion that the Soup Radio people "just rezzed some freebies" and tried to make Art™ .

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...