take your baby by the ears, and play upon her darkest fears

A mention on Tateru Nino's blog brought me to this New world Notes entry, that's mostly about yet another Linden departure (seriously, how many Lindens are left? Anyone?). But the bulk of that article really wasn't talking about Gez Linden leaving at all:

However, even with Gez gone, I believe there's many other top Lindens who are big supporters of integrating game mechanics (such as achievement awards) into SL, and several plans to do so, and even as Gez goes on to bigger things, I bet we'll still see them.

...Yeah. So...my mind immediately leapt to achievement awards, and thought at that point briefly ground to a halt.

What would count for achievements in SL? Some would be obvious: You made your first prim! seems a given; You have a Lindenhome! seems another obvious one. The first object you link, the first thing you buy, the first time you teleport...in this sense, sure, these all make sense.

But what else would be on the list? I'm cynic enough to see You've been ignored by a Linden! as a possible one. Or one measuring emotional touchstones--from You've spent ten minutes cuddling to You've been divorced! I'd also likely toss in You're pregnant! and You have an AO! and You've successfully changed your avatar! as potential achievements.

Here's the problem, though. A lot of games have achievement awards. Halo has achievements for killing people on your team, killing two people at once, and blowing yourself up. Minecraft has achievements for cutting down your first tree section, making a forge, making a portal to the Nether. City of Heroes has a ton of achievement possibilities--everything from logging off in a specific area to taking a million points of damage to participating in special events. Team Fortress II has so many achievements, they're character-specific. And some servers exist just to get those achievements, if we have trouble getting them any other way.

Both versions of Portal featured achievement unlocks, some of which involved playing through the game multiple times.

What puzzles me, though, is not what type of achievements could be gained in Second Life, but why. Walk a sim crossing--Achievement unlocked! Make an outfit--Achievement unlocked! Sell something on the Marketplace--Achievement unlocked! Change your hair--Achievement unlocked! It's not the concept of deploying an achievement system in Second Life that makes me headtilt, it's the concept of them at all. Why does Second Life need achievements?

"I believe deeply in this vision of building serendipity to connect people." Shervin Pishevar said that, and it's an intriguing concept--of fostering online friendships (or at least connections and networking) between people who otherwise wouldn't socialize. It seems heavily weighted towards Facebook, and I'm not sure at this point if it will grow large enough to trump existing social media sites, but it's a fascinating experiment, nonetheless.

On the face of it, Worlds Inc. claiming that its patent rights have been violated by Activision and Blizzard seems specious at best, and a wrongful suit at worst. But if they really do have a patent for " any system that allows for multiple gamers to interact in a virtual environment that doesn’t restrict the number of players at any one time"...well, that's pretty much all MMOs, isn't it? Including Second Life, InWorldz, and every other SL-based virtual world.

"Patent trolls", indeed.

And there's a new JIRA to watch for folks on the official SL viewer; no word on whether it's also hitting TPVs with viewer 3 aspects, but essentially--there's a wave of pink washing through the world, whenever Basic Shaders are turned on. Not only are avatars dip-dyed pink, but their alpha layers break, which would be hell for anyone who likes to wear shoes--or mesh.

out pops the cracker, smacks you in the head; knifes you in the neck, kicks you in the teeth

(from the Train Wreck Love Life album; image courtesy Historic LOLs.)

Though to be fair, the love life, these days, is fairly free of wreckage. I am, of course, still wary of this, and waiting for bad things to happen is just part of what I do. Still, I did have to link this, for obvious reasons.

All right, in other news.

The resizeable mesh project seems to be zipping along; apparently the Lindens are working with him to actually implement the coding changes he's working on, so I tend to agree--this is far from the worst thing that could happen.

Why are there banana Dachshunds? Does anyone have an answer? (There's also apple owls, scallion cats, and carrot bunnies, among others, but the banana pups confuse me most.)

May I present to you the Origami Apartment! It folds, it pleats, it maneuvers to entertain. (Which made a friend remember the Hong Kong transforming apartment, and yeah--different execution, same basic concept.)

"I'm appalled that Linden Lab is so completely disreputable and its employees apparently so completely incapable of identifying ethical behaviour or even understanding just how badly this reflects on them, that they have taken absolutely no action to protect their rapidly diminishing reputation."

That was from a blog post made back in August (not mine), so the bulk of it is dealing with issues that have already been resolved (the great Buy an Ozimal bunny, it'll help Second Life promotion springs to mind), or issues that plainly won't ever be resolved, no matter what amount of wrongdoing comes to light (JLU and the Dragonfish data leak). Still, there's valid information there, which leads me to the entry posted yesterday.

This came in the mail this afternoon:

From: "Second Life" {secondlife@e.secondlife.com}
To: emilly.orr@gmail.com
Date: Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 3:31 PM
Subject: Please disregard earlier Second Life Renewal Reminder message

I could just stop there, but hey, I'll carry this out entire.

Dear Emilly

Our sincere apologies. You recently received an email from no-reply@secondlife.com in error. The message subject was "Second Life Renewal Reminder," and it stated that your account would be charged for the cost of a renewal of a Premium Membership, and on a date that is in the past. Please disregard that email. We will not be charging your account for the stated fees.

Again, please disregard our previous message and accept our apologies for any confusion. If you have additional questions, please contact support.

Best Wishes,

Linden Lab and the Second Life Team

Now, there are a few interesting things here. First, the Lindens have moved from "Dear Emilly Orr" to "Dear Emilly". I'm a neo-Victorian online, not (so much) RL, so while I note the added 'familiarity', it doesn't offend me.

Secondly, it's an apology letter. The Lindens actually apologized. They don't do that. In the half-decade I've been involved with SL, they've never done that to my recollection (at least, without temporizing it heavily to make the apology sound like something they're doing for the courtesy of it, but it 'shouldn't count'). So...how many residents received this letter? And how many complaints, notecards, IMs and phone calls did they get?

Third, yeah, let's talk about the mention of calling support with additional concerns. First, it would have been nice if they'd provided an actual support number, but I also know that if I dig long enough on the site, the phone number turns up.

Here's the problem with that, though--while I, personally, have had good luck the few times I've needed to call (and only twice as a Premium account holder; the other times I've been Basic), by and large the average report is that if one is not a Premium member, one does not call support. Period. Because there's no help on their help lines, for non-Premium members.

So...they're stating they sent the email in error; they're apologizing (and profusely, for them, which is even more stunning); and they're asking people to call support if they need any other help.

You know, those tentative urges towards resubscribing as a Premium member? (Not so much for the Lindenhomes, because they're fairly useless for me, and not so much for the "gifts" designed for Premium members, because I have more than enough virtual things, but mainly for the member-only sandbox options.) They've been fairly effectively quashed by this. I think it's going to be at least six months if not longer before I think it might, possibly, be a good idea again.

this town is crazy; nobody cares

From: no-reply@secondlife.com
To: emilly.orr@gmail.com

Dear Emilly Orr,

We hope you're enjoying your Second Life.

Well, off and on. This week it's mostly been off.

This is a reminder that your Second Life Premium Quarterly Plan will be renewed on February 22, 2009, at which time you'll be charged $22.50(USD).

Wait, what?

You don't need to do anything; renewal and billing are automatic.

Let's go back to the fact that I don't have a premium account. Oh, and that it's 2011. What?

As a Premium Quarterly Plan participant,

--which I'm not--

you're eligible to extend your Membership to an Premium Annual Plan at a special rate of just $6.00 per month or $72 billed annually.

That's awfully nice of you. Why is this just coming to my inbox now? Because let me tell you, 2009? Two whole years ago.

To review or modify your account details, or to change or cancel your
Membership Plan, visit https://secondlife.com/account.

Right, which I check off and on, have checked off and on since 2009. By the way, you've never mentioned you're billing me for anything, since I stopped being a Premium acccount-holder. So I'm back to "Wait, what?"

If you've forgotten your password, you can go to https://secondlife.com/account/request.php to start the password recovery process. As part of the process, an email with a time sensitive link will be sent to the email address you registered with.

Right, knew that...still confused.

Best Wishes,

And to you as well, and my best hopes that you'll go into rehab soon,

Linden Lab and the Second Life Team
http://www.secondlife.com

Linden Research, Inc.
945 Battery Street
San Francisco, CA 94111
USA

What the hell is going on??

hey, give me space so I can breathe; it's too close for comfort

Facebook will have to become a lot more invasive to match Mexico's death of personal privacy. They're essentially turning the entire city of León into a giant retinal scanner, and tying it in--of course--with tracking databases that will keep track of criminals versus upstanding citizens.

Scary? You bet. Futuristic? Hell, yes. Dystopia, here we come.

As tipped by Warren Ellis, Kim Boekbinder's first EP is out, and it's available for download for nothing at all, or to purchase. As Miss Boekbinder says, though:

"You can download this for free, but if you give me money, I can make more music. And eat. I like food. And music."

Help her out, if you can, or spread the word yourself. Near as I can tell, apart from a few echo effects, the first track is just her, a keyboard, and hand and foot percussion. The second track sounds lush and electronically produced. "Gypsy", the first track, reminds me palpably of current Rasputina melodic structures. And the fourth track is very much like life in N'Awlins, from sleepy mornings with café au lait and beignets to sitting in sidewalk cafes, eating muffaletta and listening to music from sidewalk performers just out of sight.

She's worth supporting.

A while back I talked about the upper teen classes mainstreaming on the main grid. I think at this point I should make something plain. When I speak negatively about "children" on the grid, I don't mean teens like this. I mean teens like this. Okay? We're not talking about good teens. We're talking about bad teens.

Now, I know, there are a lot of amazing teens--and amazing children, as well--out there. What I'm referring to when I speak negatively on the issue is the spectacular fubar moments, the documented why are they that STUPID moments, the I can't believe they actually DID that cases. The rank and file have little to worry about; most of them aren't honestly interested in Second Life in "that way".

What I'm honestly worried about, with the potential flood of incoming older teens, is:

• increased grid violence (potentially leading to international lawsuits)
• increased grid coverage in negative ways
• increased griefing
• increased paranoia that all 'the kids' will be copybotting

Though, while we're on the topic, though, there was something in that video that palpably struck me. Their law expert, Parry Aftab, said "As long as you're not delivering real sex, in real life; as long as you're not touching someone for money, it's just talk. And talk is always legal when adults are involved."

Which was fine as long as the Labs maintained their stance on Second Life being eighteen and over only. What about now? Sixteen and seventeen year olds are not counted as adults in most jurisdictions, national or international; so, while it's still not real sex under the stipulations, it could be considered as sexual involvement with minors. Easily.

Which should scare those in the sex professions to death right about now. Me? I'm still saying Linden Labs is playing a long-haul version of take-back: "Yeah, um, we were wrong about the sex stuph, let's not do that anymore, mmkay? Thanks, great, perfect, buy a Linden home, buh-bye!"

Phhht. Maybe it's just me being irascible and out of sorts, of late, but seriously--it seems like an inescapable (and rather quick-paced) march towards the shore of grid-wide PG ratings, no (or only "approved) user content, and subscription-only service. Am I wrong? Or does this not seem like exactly where we're going?

the lonely escapade in outer space

Lenore Koenkamp's SL bio:

uhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
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mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
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mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Okay then. (Yes, that's a quote.)

Also, note to self: even on an island sim it might not be appropriate to wear a bikini top in the workplace:



Taina Dorben--all of one day old--came by and asked if I'd give him a massage. He asked me to use voice, which I did (and shouldn't have). He (and whatever woman was in the background) laughed at what I typed in main chat because I was "sexy" and I wasn't talking about sex. They seemed perplexed that--standing in the Solace Beach sales office--my first priority wasn't to screw the avatar's pixels against the nearest wall, but (shocking, I know) sales.

It gives me even less confidence in the process that anyone can bypass Orientation Island--if Second Life even has such a thing, these days--and just dump themselves, whole and dripping, onto the main grid.

Me, honestly, I was wearing the Alaysia skin I got at Skin Within's half off sale, with the fAkE oilslick bikini top and broomstick skirt I got from Operation Squeegee. It's comfortable, it's cool, it goes with many things, and how often do I get to wear pure island get-ups?

Not past today, I'm sure of that. Or at least not in the sales office.

Jolie O'Dell goes into the difference between journalists and bloggers, after touching on the topic a few days prior to that entry. I am absolutely clear on my position in the spectrum--I am a blogger, first and foremost; I am not a journalist. (In point of fact, the closest I've gotten to actual claiming of journalistic status is to name myself a "muckraker".)

To that end, I am frequently biased, highly opinionated, slanted, impassioned, slipshod, and dare I say it, inaccurate--never by intent, but I have made mistakes in the past, and not all of them I retract. Still, I'm interested in her conclusions, and I'm not offended by her dividing points between those of us who blog, and those of who report the news as it happens.

Darrius Gothly presents a plan to save Second Life...and he may have a point, there. It does seem like a simple enough fix, and I've been trying to think it through; I just don't see a problem with such a proposal.

Even with the fringe cases, they can easily be gotten around. Escorting off a residential parcel? Stop doing that, or arrange it purely as a gift-from-resident transaction, entirely by IM. Or even better--have a whole group of escorts, services, camgirls, voicegirls, whatever, chip in on a single unified 'pay station'--and have that be the first pay stop. After that, they can do the escorting on any grade of land they want--money's not trading on residential property.

The other fringe case I can think of is folks keeping a donation jar in their homes. I still don't understand why one would want to, but I've seen it a few times, and the easy way around that is also to move the action to a commercial parcel--because if it's a social club, it's a club, innit?--or to locate the donations off-site or off-parcel--either at a nearby community center rated for commercial use, or again, by way of person-to-person 'gift' transactions.

Either way, it might work, and it might work quite well. Let's see if the Lindens perk up and put it into practice.

darkened rolling figures move through prisms of no color; hand in hand, they walk the night, but never know each other

MMORPG's Jon Wood on why 'Community' shouldn't mean 'Marketing'. Short but insightful article; the Lindens could do worse than to read it, considering that Pink Linden seems to be in the cheerleading/marketing position now, when she was hired more as a community (read forum) supporter.

Or, put another way--when you feel you as a game player/subscriber/resident (depending on the game) can talk to rocks in the game and get better feedback for your time than talking to actual people working at the MMO's company...the time has come and perhaps passed for things to change.

Of course, the actual chance of getting a Linden to read, and/or reconsider what they're doing to damage their company is about 0.000000000876% to 1, so...

By and large, on this blog, I don't go mad over nifty new tech toys; I leave that to other blogs who do a far better job. But this one I had to mention. With this amusing codicil that arose in separate conversation: What do you want to bet that, when that mouse is released, it sells to more women than men?

I'm serious. I think it will. Slap breasts on a remote, men will buy it; make a beer can container in a bikini, men will buy it. A sophisticated visual pun on female anatomy that pretty much demands dexterous fingers to use...that's selling to more women than men.

In other news, while this is not primarily (or even secondarily) a recipe blog, sometimes things come up which are so bafflingly stupid, I have to include them on general principle.

I present to you now the Cooks.com version of teriyaki sauce. Note the first ingredient is, yes, teriyaki sauce. That's...insane.

Teriyaki is actually just a style of Japanese cooking: in this case, glazing or marinating meat or vegetables ("teri", which means 'shine' or 'luster') followed by grilling, roasting, or barbecueing ("yaki", which means 'grill' or 'broil'). It results in a tender, slightly sweetened end product, be it beef, pork or tofu, and it's turned into a pretty good, standardized flavor with the commercially-bottled varieties.

What teriyaki sauce actually is is, a sweetened, thickened version of soy sauce, soy sauce being the actual base for true teriyaki sauce. Sara Weaver has a wonderful version on her blog, and there's a lot of other homemade and "restaurant-style" variants. Here's one that's pretty simple and keeps well:

1/4 cup soy sauce
1 cup water
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp garlic powder
5 Tblsp packed brown sugar
1 to 2 Tblsp honey
2 Tblsp cornstarch or tapioca flour
1/4 cup very cold water

Mix everything but the cornstarch and the cold water in a medium sauce pan; heat on low, stirring with a whisk. In a separate cup or bowl, mix the cornstarch and the very cold water until fully dissolved; drizzle into the saucepan while stirring until completely mixed in.

Then you just heat until your sauce is as thick as you want it; you can add a bit more water at need (if it gets too thick). Bottle and store in the fridge; lasts to a tedium if chilled.

And feel free to change it up however you wish. After all, the point is the thickness as a glaze and a certain sweetness of flavor, not any particular ingredient list beyond soy sauce and some sweetener (be that honey, brown sugar, molasses, rice syrup, or Splenda for all I know). People have added dry mustard powder, sliced green onions, sesame oil, whole chunks of ginger, onion or pineapple...be creative. Experiment. Write down what you like and do that from now on.

Came across two entries on the launch of the Linden Homes project, one by Dusan Writer and one by Trisha Gelber. Of the two, I vastly prefer Dusan's, because Trisha's is far too chirpy for me. B'sides which, Dusan gets into the hard code of the rules for these little themed home offerings:

* Linden Home is for residential use only.

Makes sense; they're giving you that 512 block to live in, not to create a store.

* Business use of any kind is prohibited, including parcel rental, rental boxes, classified ads or other forms of advertising, and event listings.

So, no turning your Lindenhome into a club, subletting it, setting up rental boxen or vendors; right, right, we get it.

* Land cannot be terraformed, sold, deeded to group, joined, or divided.

That also makes sense, in terms of the Lindenhomes being on strictly themed and controlled areas, and designed for new residents who may not be in a ton of groups...but they fly in the face of virtually all other contract agreements for land on private estates, and, in many cases, for mainland as well--thereby creating a class of land wherein no land change, no transfer, no group ownership, is allowed. I think this will confuse residents down the line, honestly.

* Land cannot contain sky boxes, temp-rezzers, or individual prims beyond the allocated size of the Second Life Viewer build tools – 10×10x10m (no megaprims).

The hell? All right, we have recently learned that temp-rezzers were massively abused, and therefore I can see them being disallowed--but no skyboxen? And no building with megaprims at all?

* Linden Homes may not be removed, modified, exchanged, set or deeded to group, or transferred.

Again with this reiteration--we get it, yes, land and homes cannot be removed or modified or altered or exchanged, if we get one we don't own one, not in the sense that we can own other homes, and we don't own the land either...it feels like the worst sort of gated community, land owned by small and petty dictators, telling new residents what they can and cannot do from the first day on--then expecting grateful payment for the privilege!

* Linden Homes should be kept presentable and in-theme.

So...no Danish modern furniture in Elderglen? No faery chairs in Shareta Osumai? Okay...

* Linden Homes should not be used as sandboxes.

Okay, for mass building of everything, I agree with this, but this combined with no skyboxen makes me think that new residents aren't supposed to use Lindenhomes "gifted" them to build anything, which is...pretty anti-SL, actually.

* Linden Homes do not include traffic tracking.

I'm trying to figure out why this matters...

* Ownership is limited to one Linden Home per Premium Account.

And this last one's just a duh statement start to finish.

Wandering on Instant Watcher, discovered it now has ads. It's a simple service, basically a rundown of what's new on Netflix, so it's partially comped by Netflix to do so. Everyone's happy.

I'm not even saying I mind the ads, just--this one, in particular.

My reactions, in order:

1. Yay, Second Life is buying ad space on other services!
2. Whoa. Second Life is buying ad space here. Man, they must be getting desperate for new people.
3. *peers at the ad* What the hell??

First off, one: "becoming" your avatar in SL has NEVER been the focus of SL. In all my time on SL, in fact, I know less than one handful of individuals who make it a point to match their in-world avatars exactly. (Though to be fair, that number *might* be higher, because I don't ask to see peoples' photographs to stop and compare!)

And two: "becoming" your avatar was always a byline of IMVU, so, what, now Second Life is stooping to the level of stealing other virtual worlds' advertising slogans? Is this cool at all?

But then I stop and remember, Second Life was the one that did the big "Avatar" film tie-in with the Na'vi avatar in the banner ad--and then backpedaled clear into Kansas to get away from the blunder when several of us pointed it out. (Which also didn't make their in-world stomping on people who hand-created their own Na'vi skins look good at all, because it very clearly became a case of "Do what we say, not what we do, because we're the Lindens and you're not!)

*sighs* When did this blog become mostly Linden bitching? I mean, really, I know we live in a world where the overlords are distant and unapproachable; I know they don't listen to us; I know they keep making mistakes; but really, is it all about that, now?

I'd go on, but really, it'd just turn into a rant. On so many things currently...