walk in the woods and I will try something in the trees that made you cry

[23:39] Kamilah Hauptmann: Desmond's in Regency if anyone wishes to go grief him. I can't TP with this hotel wifi or I'd do it myself.
[23:40] Desmond Shang: do. not. grief. meeee...
[23:40] Desmond Shang: I am helping someone with land

Ah, life in Caledon.

Someone made a Wheatley puppet! Damn, but that is shiny cool.

And Microsoft made a...Twitter dress? I do not understand, but I would like to voice my support for the corset keyboard concept. Yes, we need more of those.

I know what the basic concept is behind the SQUAIR system, but the way the original article dealt with it, it makes it sound like they're wanting to vent the smoke before the surgical staff gets hungry.

From Winter Ventura (via a status message, appropriately enough), comes this gem:

AOL Instant Messenger now has a "facebook" function that records every away message you set, and publishes them (by default) for anyone to search for and find. Using AIM via a client like pidgin? Check your lifestream: http://lifestream.aol.com/

I personally don't, as far as I know, but if you do--yeah, it's a good idea.

And here's another game I won't be buying--if you buy Rage, makers confirm, and are the first player, you get the whole game. But if you buy it used--say, from Gamespot or similar retailers--you get an entire single-player section cut out.

No, thank you. Not interested.

Apparently Robin, in the new DC reconfig, is going to cease to be Robin, the integral sidekick, and shift to Robin, the internship program. I'm totally not kidding. DC may have, in point of fact, gone crazy from the heat.

Meanwhile, more hot and heavy JIRA action! This, again, from the JIRA That Will Not Die. We begin with, as usual, Kelley Boyd:

"@Yoz: I did not choose to share my profile online (your own words), so I wish it to no longer be shared anywhere except within the Second Life Grid. You have taken that choice away from me; that is a violation of the Laws of Canada, UK, Australia, Singapore, and many others. It is unlawful to publish personal information about any members of those nations without their EXPRESS permission (a privacy policy/terms of use agreement does not constitute express permission."

Cue peals of my very amused laughter at this point. Now, granted, I was going to track down all the international privacy laws, and I'd even go a small way towards posting the relevant sections, but...bored now. The profiles may well be, in some scattered country (that is not the US, UK, Canada, or Australia), illegal.

BUT. The key is "personally identifiable information". Most of us--and I do believe most courts--would never take the usual First Life tab mention of "23 female Birmingham" as to be that personally identifiable. How many 23-year-old females live in Birmingham, anyway? Maybe that amount is diminished if you add that you have brown hair and love wearing culottes in the summer and your eyes are green, but again--seriously, Birmingham is only going to have one green-eyed, brown-haired, 23-year-old culotte-wearing female? And let's get really specific here, no one's specified whether it's Birmingham AL or Birmingham UK, have they?

But sure. Okay. If you post that you're Jenny Abrams, a 122-pound bantam-weight street fighter that works at the Starbuck's on the corner of Grand and 14th, who's 23 years old and has a law degree in applied organization table folding from the University of Wisconsin (where you lived before you moved to Birmingham); that your parents are Rodg and Malindera Abrams and you have one younger sibling named Nip who plays in a touring band currently in Broken Fork, Toronto; and that you now decorate the dueling scar that lines your left cheek with glitter and small round blue glass beads glued on for effect...yeah. Okay. That is personally identifying information. From that, you could be found on the net.

BUT. It's helpful to remember you put it there. Sure, I have problems with the web-only based profiles--not the least of which is they slow the game down--but if I don't want something in my RL profile section? Guess what? It's not there.

The closest I've come to personally identifiable info is to mention that yes, in fact, I'm female (this is not news) and over the age of consent in all countries (and that is not news). And neither qualifies as "personally identifiable information".

But Kelley went on:

You will cease and desist the use of Web Profiles, or include a way to disable them completely for those who so wish, on pain of violation of the laws of those lands and the filing of a class-action lawsuit.

And you know, I really would like to see that. I'd love to see what the court--of virtually any civilized nation--would make of this. Because at this point--now that the Labs have created a way to block the profile, block the feed from the profile, and removed the automatic Facebook and Twitter buttons--they're pretty much in the clear.

Adams Scarmon added a comment:

Actually i think its a violation.
As to be honest, non-SL users should NOT be able to view my profile from outside SecondLife.
What IS the point of that anyway????? Why doesnt LL protect its users?? How often do you hear that people are being bullied or harrashed, because some random idiiot has acces to all this information?!

Should we tone down the info we decide to put in our profiles now or what? As that would suck.

Yeah...likely as much as claiming this on your profile, Adams:

PLEASE BE ADVICED THAT I LOG EVERY IM AUTOMATICALLY. IF REQUIRED I SHARE THESE LOGS WITH 3RD PARTY GROUPS.

Well, we're now "adviced", Adams, thanks for that.

Lance Corrimal:

Kelley, you did in fact choose to share your profile online.

You did so by clicking on "yes i accept the tos" when you signed up.
Like Yoz already points out, the tos explicitely says that your profile will be available online and that you should not expect privacy for it.

If the problem here is that you did not read the tos when you signed up, who exactly is to blame for that?

Good point.

And Yoz again:

Adams: If you want to stop non-SL users from viewing your profile, simply click "Edit Profile", then the "Privacy" tab, and set all the drop-downs to "Second Life". Done!

Which is true. How'ver, this is my one question on that: when you check everything to "Second Life" only, does that really mean it's just seen in SL and not on the net? Because it used to be that hiding our profiles hid our profiles--from everyone, including people trying to get in touch with us for personal reasons, professional reasons, tenant questions, blog questions, merchant questions...Our choices used to be "visible" or "we don't exist". And that was no choice at all.

Kelley did not see this as a reasonable accord, however. His next comment:

No, Lance. I did NOT choose to share them. The ToS applies only to the Second Life Grid, not the Internet. Yoz said there is an option to not share them on the web, and there is not. Please stop spreading misinformation.

Okay, granted, Second Life is a computer program that is hosted on the internet, there is that fine line difference. BUT, again, the Terms of Service for Second Life state, in this relevant passage:

4. SECOND LIFE IS A VIRTUAL WORLD SERVICE

4.1 Second Life is a virtual world service consisting of a multi-user environment, including software, websites and virtual spaces.

"Account" means the entirety of your contractual rights and obligations under this Agreement associated with a particular Account Name you have selected for accessing the Service.

"Content" means any works of authorship, creative works, graphics, images, textures, photos, logos, sounds, music, video, audio, computer programs, applications, animations, gestures, text, objects, primitives, scripts, and interactive features.

"Intellectual Property Rights" means copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade dress, publicity rights, database rights, patent rights, and other intellectual property rights or proprietary rights recognized by law.

"In-World" means within the three-dimensional virtual world environment of Second Life.

"Linden In-World Content" is the Content provided to you In-World by Linden Lab under license in connection with the Service, except all User Content (as defined below), including but not limited to Content we created or licensed from third parties.

"Linden Software" is the software provided to you by Linden Lab and/or its suppliers under license in connection with the Service, including but not limited to the viewer software for accessing the Second Life environment (the "Viewer"), any other communication software, whether facilitating text-based, chat-based, voice, audio or other communication, within or outside of the Second Life environment, and any application program interfaces for use with Second Life (the "APIs").

"Second Life" or the "Service" is the multi-user online service offered by Linden Lab and includes the Websites, Servers, Linden Software, Linden In-World Content, and User Content.

"Servers" are the online environments that support the Service, including without limitation: the server computation, electronic data storage, software access, messaging and protocols that simulate the Second Life environment.

"User Content" means any Content that a user of the Service has uploaded, published, or submitted to or through the Servers, Websites, or other areas of the Service.

"Websites" are the websites and services available from the domain and subdomains of http://secondlife.com and http://marketplace.secondlife.com and any related or successor domains from which Linden Lab may offer services.

What all of that boils down to? Kelley is agreeing to the exposure of his profile on MySecondLife.com, and/or any other related websites that Second Life may acquire or develop as links to Second Life. And why is this? Because it's in the Second Life Terms of Service.

Was it always there? Maybe not. But it's there now.

And wau, this is getting long, so let me jump to part II.