dimensions twist and turn amidst the whims of one foreseen

The Girl Genius Kickstarter grinds on, trilobite by trilobite--they haven't locked in $200,000 yet, but I'm still assured they will. I'll be watching, along with many readers, I'm sure, and I'm both astounded and ecstatic that of the twelve books that desperately needed reprinting, only two remain. Yay for fans.

Also, this is a fascinating idea--harvesting paper from many different printing companies, as well as artists and writers, and rebinding it into "resketch" pads--notebooks that can easily be used for more drawings, more sketches, but that can also be used by artists of any stripe as inspiration pages. With anything from cardstock to brilliants to old map sections in any given book, that--along with the repurposed existing art in each book, and inspirational pushes from the creator of Shawnimals--makes this a very intriguing concept indeed. Even better? Today was the first I'd heard of it, it has twenty-seven days to go--and it's already fully funded!

That Girl Scouts are better than Boy Scouts--or, at least, more accepting, both historically and currently--is pretty much obvious; but the reason this is news is that the Boy Scouts National Council is voting today to allow openly gay Scouts to serve in the Boy Scouts. Annoyingly enough, whether or not they vote to allow gay Scouts to continue to be Scouts, they won't budge on allowing openly gay Scout Leaders to be Scout Leaders.

Which is still tragic, because the gay and bisexual Scouts I've known have, to a man, been honest, forthright, true, and would rather cut their own throats than harm a child in any way. They are devoted to the Scout ideals, and the BSA has done them a disservice for decades.

Boing Boing, in support of this issue, had an article last year on the (then small, but growing) push for recognized Eagle Scouts to send back their awards to the BSA in protest. They've now updated that article, with more letters.

Just remember, it's easier to help, than it is to obstruct. And you get less grief for it in the long run.

Minecraft LPers were the first to notice that the new change to YouTube's ID system has resulted in some aberrant behavior. Baj isn't the only one to notice, either. This was released back in February, but--apart from sounding eerily like one of Torley Linden's cheerier missives--didn't contain much, if any, real information.

Basically, though, it's the same problem as when Second Life adopted display names, with a difference--viewers no longer get the account name, just the channel title. Now, for me--because I'm lazy--my channel title IS my account name, so it's the same either way. But Baj, for instance? His channel's called Minecraft made easy. Now, that's the name shown to any prospective viewer!

How is this supposed to help anyone find people? Answer: it's not. And a lot of folks are getting very upset by this change.

Oh, and there's a petition, if you want to sign. Not sure it'll actually do anything, but there is one.

Meanwhile, Scott Bradlee has put out a video using "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" to show the progression of popular music. It's a lot of fun.

And I have no words for this one save it's a great tribute for YouTube's Comedy Week.

just for the record, the weather today is slightly sarcastic

Seen in Champions the other day by a friend: "Battman". No picture, because it wasn't me, plus she was croggling over the fact that in a game where you can have any particular name you want, even if it repeats another character's name, this fellow still chose to spell the name wrong...but it did get me thinking.

What if that's really what he meant?

What if he didn't mean "Batman", the Dark Knight, the moody antihero with bat wings, but...a softer, cuddly variant?

I now present to you...BATTMAN:

(from the random album, a so-called 'teacup' Pomeranian puppy)

The pint-sized superhero made entirely from cotton wadding! He forces villains to submit because they cannot stop saying "Awwww" long enough to commit crime! He defeats evil masterminds by the awesome power contained in his soft, pettable, cotton fur--and by the fact he can easily distract the sleekly arch, pure white cats of evil from their laps with a can of wet food!

It's a stuffed animal! It's a cosmetic puff! It's a throw pillow wrapped in angel-hair tinsel! No, it's BATTMAN!

Okay, okay, fine, that's likely not what he meant. Shhh. I'm enjoying my version more.

If you're a member of the Eldergoth Macabre group--or even if you aren't--one of their allies, the H.P. Lovecraft Roleplay Group, is having a Twelve Days of Whatevermas event.

(from the bizarre album; the HPL RPG's tentacle tree)

They have a tentacle tree, and the first two gifts are still out. (They're both labeled Gift 2, but trust me, they contain different things.)

(from the bizarre album; the HPL RPG's Shoggoth on the roof)

And of course there's a Shoggoth on the roof. What holiday would be complete without one?

the highway signs say we're close, but I don't read those things anymore

fxxxxx.rxxx changed their display name to νєηÕMÕÛş 乃αşｲαя.

Are you kidding me? Those are not words! This is Unicode abuse!

Back on the 14th of this month, I covered a little of the Lara Croft controversy. I updated that by a bit on the 22nd. Now, the designers behind the Lara Croft reboot strike again, having this to say about their initial announcement that Croft gets raped in the reboot:

According to Crystal Dynamics global brand director Karl Stewart, there is no sexual assault or rape in the upcoming video game, despite executive producer Ron Rosenberg's statements to me in Los Angeles earlier this month. Rosenberg had said that island scavengers will imprison and attempt to rape protagonist Lara Croft. But Stewart says that's not true.


"He said something which is certainly a word that is not in our vocabulary and not in our communication," Stewart told me on the phone yesterday. "He did say it... It's his personal opinion and certainly... like I said, it's not something that we communicate."


Stewart says he doesn't know why Rosenberg used the word "rape." He continues to emphasize that the scene, which you can watch below, does not represent any sort of sexual assault. He calls it a "pathological situation." He says it was meant to evoke fear and intimidation.

Err. Let me just pull one phrase out of that mish-mash of backpedaling:

He said something which is certainly a word that is not in our vocabulary

A word that is "not in their vocabulary". Really? At all? That's incredibly badly phrased, and I can virtually guarantee will now irritate people more than simply going to Kotaku--and anyone else covering this--and saying, "We said it wrong. We meant this."

Another bit from the article:

There are undeniable sexual connotations, and Stewart even admits that if a male hero like Nathan Drake had been placed in the same situation, the thigh-rubbing wouldn't happen. But he says it's not sexual assault: it's "close physical intimidation."

That, also, is telling: if a male hero had been placed in the same situation, there would be no sexual interaction. Why does that change when the gender does?

Here's the grim dark heart of this entire thing: One in four women in America has been sexually assaulted. One in four. In 2000, that figure equated to 246,000 women who've survived rape or attempted rape (and no, this figure doesn't count the women who didn't live through the experience). That's almost a quarter of a million women every year, or twenty-eight every hour. That's both harsh and terrifying, especially with the figures on how often rapists are not convicted.

Seen in this (very dim) light, while they're absolutely doing everything they can to divorce the word "rape" (or even the words "sexual assault") from the Lara Croft reboot, think about it this way: what if, subconsciously, they're just reflecting the society they're in? Twenty-eight women an hour. That makes it within the realm of everyday experience. That makes it an experience that twenty-five percent of all women have had. Twenty-five percent of the gender who've been raped; who've had rape attempted; who've been sexually assaulted...and most of these women were raped or sexually assaulted by a family member, or someone that they knew. So it's not just random sexual violence; most of it is sexual violence perpetrated by someone they trusted (at least at some point).

Let's take this farther--the point at which the sexual assault takes place is not a cut scene. While it is pre-rendered (one would suppose to lessen the graphics burden and up the responsiveness of the controls for the console), there is a point at which control is restored. If the player does nothing, the sexual assault happens. It only fails to happen if the right commands are issued from the controller.

The Mary Sue post pointed this out:

Lara Croft will be punished with rape for failing to complete the game objective of not getting raped. The responsibility is wholly upon her to protect herself, it is not upon the scumbag rapists who are trying to hurt her. According to the producers of Tomb Raider, it is certainly not the fault of a culture that encourages depictions of sexualized violence against women. "The ability to see her as a human is even more enticing to me than the more sexualized version of yesteryear," Rosenburg states.

Let that sink in for a moment. This is victim blaming raised to wideband broadcast status, because as a section of the Lara Croft franchise, this will be highly advertised and--I think I can honestly state--widely bought by players looking for the Next Great Game, or wanting to see what all the controversy is about.

And let's also be brutally honest here--this is an industry that still widely sees itself as catering to men only. Which also ties in, uncomfortably, on that statistics level--because if one in four women have been raped by or after their fourteenth birthdays--that means one in four men have actually raped, or attempted rape. Which also makes that a common experience.

Maybe it's less about the game designers being blasé about rape, as much as it's about the game designers' subconscious understanding of our culture: namely, Lara Croft is sexually assaulted in the new game because everyone knows someone who has been. Sexual assault, in this light, is commonplace.

Forget the game; that's the truly outrageous thing.

In other news, Lego International is seeking votes on an upcoming game-tie in Lego set: namely, Portal. You'll have to register an account on the site to vote, but it's a painless, free process. If you want to see Lego-based Chell, a Lego-built Companion Cube, and Lego-designed orange and blue portals--go vote!

And not only will Warehouse 13 get a fourth season, but they've got a fun new guest star: Brent Spiner. Considering the amusing way Spiner met Rubinek in the first place, this pretty much brings both actors full circle.

A full-scale zombie wedding was planned--and executed brilliantly--in Colorado recently. If for no other reason, you should click the link and read the vows, at least: they're epic.
Finally, five years ago, artist Jason deCaires Taylor installed an underwater sculpture collection to highlight the problem of disappearing coral reefs. That video was shot in 2009, to show the initial two-year development of coral and sealife on the sculptures. It's both eerie and beautiful.

take me away to a better place, far from anyone

How Toy Story 2 almost didn't happen. (AKA, thank the universe for backups!)

[11:39] Beer Battered Chicken [Ixxxxxxxx Cxxxxxxx]: [11:38] Second Life: Chicken Fettucini (Ixxxxxxxx Cxxxxxxx) is now known as Beer Battered Chicken.

I have no words.

And I'll just, uh, leave this here.

So, back on the doll thing--and I think I'm expanding things slightly. Instead of just going over goth and Lolita retailers on the grid (and if that's what you want, you can check out this entry for RL stores for Loli fashions, or this entry for in-world options), I'm trying to narrow in on dollplay as an entire concept.

So, when we're talking about gothic or Lolita fashions, and talking about dolls, we need to define our terms.

Never let me lose the marvel
of your statue-like eyes, or the accent
the solitary rose of your breath
places on my cheek at night.

I am afraid of being, on this shore,
a branchless trunk, and what I most regret
is having no flower, pulp, or clay
for the worm of my despair.

If you are my hidden treasure,
if you are my cross, my dampened pain,
if I am a dog, and you alone my master,

never let me lose what I have gained,
and adorn the branches of your river
with leaves of my estranged Autumn.

~Federico García Lorca, "Sonnet of the Sweet Complaint"

(from the dolly album; photographer Marianne Williams [halfasecond])

So what is it about dolls that fascinates us so? So far, it seems like there are two strong, divergent strands of thought: dollification (objectification) and collection (indulgent domination). The threads do interweave, and they also touch on some other areas, but those are the two main concepts involved. In this entry, we're going to concentrate on:

Dollification. From the profile of a user named "Rubbamaster" on Rubberpals:

Are you willing to surrender completely to the control of another, knowing they will keep you safe from harm?


Do you wish to be encapsulated in skin-tight latex, transformed into a rubber covered doll, fantastically re-shaped into a parody of humanity, your shape, movement and bodily functions controlled for life?


Once you see yourself in the full length mirror, totally depersonalised, a gleaming black doll with mirrored eyes, the reflection copying every movement you make, no human features visible, as you realise that the image is your true form, will you sink so far into your new persona that you will not want to return to the 'real' world?

Put simply, depersonalization.

There are many reasons why one may want to be treated as an object (in positive or negative ways); it could be a stress release for that person, or they may simply understand no other form of being dominated but complete subjugation. While this is far easier to understand in the rubber or latex communities, it also has a place (albeit with several different varieties) in the doll communities. To wit: the Broken Doll.

(from the dolly album; part of Neil Creek's "Broken Doll Celina" series. All Rights Reserved.)

On the grid it's pretty easy to be a broken plaything just for fun. But for those engaging in this for reasons of depersonalization or objectification, there are several different ways to go. By far the largest group in this category are those interested in reconstruction: for instance, building a partner from the ground up, or altering someone with the end goal of utter transformation.

While, again, this is easier to understand in stronger fetish communities, in terms of dollplay it's important to be able to ask questions, and to receive honest answers. Much of this can verge on--or stroll right into--extreme edge-play, and as such must be given weight and importance by all partners.

Some questions which might be good to ask:

• Was the doll broken before being found?
• Was the doll broken under a partner's control (past or present)?
• Is it a goal for the doll to start out broken and then "heal", however that works out in terms of joint play?
• Is it a goal for the doll to start off slightly broken, and move into a more extreme broken state?
• Is the doll capable of tears?
• Can the doll bleed, or bruise?
• Is it a breaking of the exterior shell, or interior mind, or both?

That last one's pretty much vital; the answer to that can change all the other questions.

(from the dolly album; part of Neil Creek's "Broken Doll Celina" series. All Rights Reserved.)

Some Broken Dolls are crazy; they don't get better, or they only get worse. All of them show signs of damage somewhere--everything from bits of shattered porcelain down to exposed gears in one direction, and scars, wounds, and bruises in the other. In this sense Second Life is pretty much ideal--want porcelain cracks on your skin? There are both tattoo layers and actual skins for that. Want to move like a broken doll? There's a couple makers who offer "doll" or "robot" AOs (I'd heartily recommend Creative Insanity; they do fantastic AO sets for virtually any RP setting).

Broken Dolls are abandoned toys; they can be bitter, they can be needy, they can yearn to be better than they are, they can shrink away from any contact. "Broken" is not chosen as a term lightly; most of the personalities behind the broken dolls on the grid are fairly fractured themselves. I'm not saying roleplay = therapy; but I am saying that who we choose to roleplay expresses very deep things about who we are as minds behind the screen.

There can be audible whirring of gears, or gasps of pain when tender parts are touched. They can be mute, they can talk, though what they say may not always make sense. They can be mindless, or reactive; sobbing or dazed or drugged; locked inside their broken shells, or trying to repair themselves by what they find nearby.

In fact, the "beauty" (if I can say that) of the Broken Doll is that they're so very adaptable. Steampunk setting? No problem. Futuristic? We have that covered. Puppet show? Sure. Ballerina, punk princess, Edwardian destroyed doll...it all works. (And don't take my use of pronouns to indicate there can't be male Broken Dolls; there can, absolutely, I just have more experience with their female counterparts.) Anything from bandaged patients to circus performers to doll amputations to women sewn into place--there are some very dark experiences waiting for those who want to be broken, to be sure, though there can be joys as well. It all depends on what form of play you want.

Next up: Doll collectors. And then I'll do what I can to run down stores.

we are strange in our worlds

Seen while hunting: Miss Ȼá໓ץ Sȶring-ყooȶʐ at Cute Bytes. Seriously, why do people do this to their display names? I now have no desire to interact with this person in any way for the rest of my virtual life.

There's even someone on my friendslist who did this: he's now Ŧяσ乙єи яαﻮє, and I just want to throw things at him every time he logs on. Thank you for officially destroying any shred of respectability to the yammering herd who wanted display names in the first place, people.

Um...Here's the thing. I realize most of these were in-house jokes just to keep the Lindens amused during their workday, and being a business full of coders and geeks (and I mean that in all good ways), things like "Cheerfully Malevolent Turret" and "Jazz Hands" seem tailor-made to be giggled over on coffee breaks.

But..."Lipstick on a Pig"? What the hell was that about? "Project Donglescrub"? Please dear gods, let that not be an employee hygiene reference. And "Perfect Threat"? Isn't that what the Lindens spend most of their time doing to us anyway?

Just confusing.

Something in a similar confusing vein, from the Help channel chat on City of Heroes.

Help] New-Type: Is there any way to make the fog that covers draw distance go further back?
[Help] New-Type: I've used vis_scale but that didn't push the fog back.

Fairly polite question. How does a player make vistas more "that's an incredible view" and less "there's something over there, but it's hard to make out"?

[Help] Mender Breaker: New, I believe your GFX settings will do so. Try fiddling with World Detail, and with Ambient Occlusion for starters
[Help] Kauter: New-Type: the setting you want is "World Detail".

Answer; clarification. Okay, I think we're done here, we'll just move on--

[Help] New-Type: But it doesn't actually push the fog back, it just increases how much it's drawing beyond it.
[Help] Mender Breaker: The thing that makes distant objects misty and out of focus was added with Ultra mode
[Help] Kauter: You're talking about Depth of Field blur, and it was actually in the game before Ultra mode.
[Help] Kauter: It came with Bloom.
[Help] Kauter: That's not what New-Type is talking about tho.
[Help] New-Type: No, not the ultra stuff, and not blur. I'm talking about how things are fogged over. It's an old trick games this old used to use so you couldn't tell where the draw distance ended.

This is pretty much an instant way to piss off people who might otherwise be interested in helping you. While granted, City of Heroes did debut several years back, "games this old" is confrontative language guaranteed to put people on the defensive about a game they like, and still, substantially, pay subscriptions to enjoy.

[Help] Kauter: Yeah, we know what you're talking about.
[Help] Kauter: Are you in Ultra mode?
[Help] New-Type: I've been in and out. Couldn't exceed. I know where I should be looking, but there's nothing specific for it.
[Help] Mender Breaker: If you have already used/maxed World Detail, disabled Occlusion and Depth of Field, not much left, no
[Help] Kauter: Occlusion doesn't have anything to do with the draw distance.

At this point, they'd answered his question twice over, as far as I'm able to interpret. But he had more.

[Help] New-Type: I mostly just want to inspect that city just north of Grandville. Says it should be St Martial but clearly not, as it has nothing but highrise.

I have issues with this statement. Two issues, actually:

• First, St. Martial is pretty much a cross between Monaco, Las Vegas, and London's old gaming district built up to ridiculous extremes: so yes, it's mostly just highrise buildings between the pyramidal Golden Giza and the more traditional Art Deco-inspired concrete structures.
• And second, there's no city north of Grandville.

I looked:

(from the City of Heroes album)

Literally, there's nothing there. No misty structures, no indication of a far-off city--just ocean and sky. What the hell is he talking about?

Plus, map-wise, there are cities that adjoin Grandville, but each city is fairly discrete and disconnected in various ways. There's nothing to physically see to the north of virtually any City of Heroes city that's not just window dressing; and in the case of Grandville, there's far less. You simply can't see anything north of Grandville, because nothing exists north of Grandville.

[Help] Kauter: World Detail visibly and unquestionably pushes the distance haze back on my machine.
[Help] New-Type: Yes, but only by 2x.
[Help] Kauter: Oh, you said it didn't do it at all.

Now we have further point and counterpoint: "My experience tells me this happens", point A; "But only so far"; point B. "This does not match what you said before; I find fault in your verisimilitude", counterpoint A.

[Help] Kauter: No, once you've maxed World Detail there's nothing else you can do.
[Help] New-Type: vis_scale does the same thing, but the haze only goes as far back as 2x
[Help] New-Type: Whereas draw distance goes 4x.
[Help] Kauter: What are you defining as "draw distance" in this context?
[Help] New-Type: The distance where geometry is drawn up to. Exactly what Draw Distance means.

Well...no. "Draw Distance" varies pretty severely game to game depending on how they're interpreting it.

[Help] New-Type: Haze and fog have nothing to do with how far off you're drawing your world out to, they're just there to cover it up.
[Help] Kauter: That didn't answer my question. Am I to infer that you are referencing a console command to change the draw distance independent of the vis_scale (World Detail) setting?
[Help] Kauter: New-Type, please stop assuming I am a moron.

So, challenge in return to what she's perceiving as attacks from New-Type.

[Help] Mr. P0cKetS: You are in grandville and you want to see St. M from there? you do realize this is not a continuous world......it is just separate maps on a server....

About what I was thinking. Outside of one specific location, which is treated as a separate "world" entirely, there are no adjoining sectors in either the Rogue Isles (villains) or Paragon City (heroes).

[Help] New-Type: Vic_scale is a slash command, yes. Where the GUI lets you go to %200, vis_scale lets you go to %400.
[Help] New-Type: Okay, how about people actually listen?

Now he is attacking.

[Help] New-Type: Pockets, if you go as far north as you can in Grandville, there is a city skyline in the distance.
[Help] Mr. P0cKetS: yup

Nope. Remember, I went and looked. This is it:

(from the City of Heroes album)

This is my superannuated viral villain at the shield wall that rings Grandville. There is no further north that can be gone, not by me, not by anyone. And there isn't even a watercolor-painting suggestion of buildings beyond the shield wall. There is exactly what you see here: ocean; sky; force field.

Nothing else.

[Help] Mender Breaker: New-Type, have you tried the same things in Praetoria, which has the more advanced mapping (the ones the max settings are for)

Praetoria is the zone I'm talking about. There are places in Praetoria, developed several years after the rest of the game, where you can walk, run or fly from sector to sector--but even there, there's some visual distortions from one side to another, because you're still changing servers. It's just more subtle in Praetoria, as opposed to featuring a loading screen in the rest of the game.

[Help] New-Type: By the world map, it should be St Martial, like how you can see low LOD versions of other areas in praetoria.
[Help] Kauter: So, vis_scale is the only console command you're speaking about, and it "goes to" 400% - which I assume you mean it allows you to set it to 400% without giving an error - but has no visible effect beyond 200%, which is as far as the GUI lets you go?
[Help] Mr. P0cKetS: sounds terribly unimportant...

Pockets obviously detaching and walking away from something that was sounding like an argument.

[Help] New-Type: It only doesn't have a visible effect because the fog covers it. When you set it to 4.0 it refreshes quite clearly, though.
[Help] Kauter: You realize, though, that if there's only the one setting, you can't adjust the qualities individually, right?

Valid question.

[Help] New-Type: Clearly there's a haze/fog command loitering somewhere, as there's one for DrawD. That was the question.
[Help] Kauter: Except there isn't, because the one command controls both qualities, and the haze/fog variable is simply clamped to lower values than the render distance.
[Help] New-Type: *facepalm*

Frustration is high at this point, I suspect on all sides. I guess it's good it's not spam? It's at least a user trying to get help with something on the Help channel?

[Help] Kauter: I'm talking about internally, you realize.
[Help] Kauter: You can verify it yourself with a memory viewer, you know.
[Help] Elisia Sin: lol, he is not going to stop asking until the answer to his question is 'yes'

And that answer is not valid in this context. Because there's nothing out there for him to see. What does he think he's seeing, again, north of Grandville?

[Help] New-Type: No, I'm not going to stop searching until I get an answer that isn't "The GUI won't let you so you can't"

We have a winner!

[Help] Kauter: That wasn't the answer I gave you, but sure.
[Help] Kauter: Don't listen to the lady who writes game engines for a living.
[Help] Mori Voltare: I don't think eroge games count

And there, I think, everyone threw up their hands and stopped talking.

To wrap things up, remember, you are here. (Also, I'm amused that their "here" symbol is pretty much a bulls-eye.)

And interdusing CatBlock! (Yes, that was deliberate. Also, it's proven far more useful than the original AdBlock at catching ads on pages I don't want to see, and it's simpler to set up for pages I want to screen with ad content, instead of without.)

And Razer's Aprille Fools' Day joke made me more irked than it made me laugh, because damn it, that's necessary. Get on that, slackers! Invent it already!

My last mention for today is regarding Mass Effect 3. There's now a "nude mod" out for the female Shepard model. (Which, if you click, is fairly NSFW, yes.) I only have one question:

Commander Shepard, how long has your head been attached to someone else's body? Because sure, I know that head-mapping and body-with-clothes mapping are two separate things, so there will be that line of definition across the throat--which, since Shepard is in a uniform always, isn't an issue.

Until this mod. And now the join line is glaring and disturbing. Honestly, I'm not that interested in having game characters running around naked in the first place, but still--this would be too visually jarring for me to enjoy. I'd rather have someone come up with a more revealing uniform that still hides the join line!

Lionel and Dave and the Butcher made three

(Continued from part II.)

First, the non-JLU news: the Lindens have increased benefits for their premium members, including exclusive gifts (most people seemed blah on that) and private sandboxes (for most people, me included, that's enough to have us jump for joy. Hells, that's nearly enough to end my long-standing ban on supporting the Lindens financially until they stop being stupid, and buy in again).

And Firestorm has today been updated for mesh.

Also, while I'm here: Archangel Mortenwold, the maker of the 'accidentally' stolen Daleks? Turns out he lied about that. And he's now being welcomed on board as a loving supporter of the JLU.

So...the members of the JLU care about griefing, but could care less about copyright infringement...Oh, what am I saying, they walk around as trademarked superheroes, of COURSE they don't care about copyright infringement!

Oh, and Mortenwold apparently is also Raife Resident, which wouldn't be relevant, save that apparently in the drama-filled world of Whovian fandom (since when? Seriously, since when? I've always found the fandom to be almost Xanaxian in its laid-back lack of attitude), he's holding Raife up as the example of a 'good' person to be involved in his company, because he's never infringed on copyright.

But...Archangel is Raife. So...incredibly dense end-run achieved, that ultimately convinced no one and placed him farther behind on embattled trust issues than he was before? Way to go, Archangel?

Back to the summary thread on SLU.

Again, I may be wrong here, but going by my initial impressions: Tux, a member of the hacking group Wrong Hands, was following the RedZone thread closely, and missed something that in retrospect becomes glaringly obvious: the RZ-like collation program, as yet unnamed, was being hosted by a JLU server. That's very daunting, if true.

And of course there's this entry on Potosi's blog. And see, personally, I have a severe problem just there, because I don't trust Zen now, flat out. Him telling me--telling anyone--that we can trust the JLU just because he does? That's a big neon sign for me, and it reads "YOU CANNOT EVER TRUST THESE PEOPLE; RUN, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES".

But that has to do with personal history, more than anything, as depressing as it is. Back to the thread--oh, wait, one note from the original I just ran across. This from Desmond Shang:

"Here we've got... group A, that has been fixated on harassing certain people for years.

"And on the other hand, we've got group B, fixated on harassing certain people for years.

"Prok's certainly not a sympathetic figure, but only a fool at this point wouldn't think that 'real life' wasn't dragged in. Seriously, hand puppets made to look like Prok, pictures, you name it... and the fixation continues to this day.

"Now, what has happened, there's the JLU also getting into it on a similar scale (see above posts &c &c). On that measure, the 'bad guys' won their day, big time. The JLU is down in the mud also. They did one tiiiny step in the right direction (presuming they actually deleted the RL data) but... meh, that ain't much. Just like the 'griefer' crowd, it's the same game as before.

"And, why? Because I think both groups *like* doing this. Why not play around on a platform where you *can* pound your opponent all day if you like? I'd recommend lineage2, it's ancient but at least it's hardcore and you can really torment an opposing group there and make them regret playing for years. You can be a total tard on either side, put alts in the enemy camp, betray, lie, steal and do pretty much whatever else you want within the game. Would that satisfy the need to be a tard for all sides?"

In total agreement, here. JLU wouldn't be in this mess if they hadn't wanted to, to co-opt superhero parlance, use their powers for evil. They're pretty much all playing Parallax and claiming they're still playing Captain America. It just doesn't work.

In Search Engine Watch news, Axi's been busy with the JLU thing as well: it starts here, and will likely spawn other articles; and, intriguingly enough (considering the Second Names campaign, especially), an article on what a colossal failure Display Names have been. My favorite part of the latter:

"Then there's the unicode abuse.

"The reason unicode was allowed for display names was reasonable – it allowed people whose names were not written in western English characters to set a display name in their native language. That's a nice, inclusive reason to include them, and in fact they have been used for that purpose.

"Sadly what they've also been used for is to use a bunch of funky looking characters to make your name look 'cool.' It doesn't look cool. It just makes it harder to read.

"Turning your name upside down does the same thing. In a busy location, or even on your own friends list, the use of unicode to simply 'coolify' your name makes communication more difficult, not easier, and caused even more people to turn display names off entirely. Unintended consequences strike again."

For the love of all gods, YES. This is my single largest complaint on display names choices. I've pulled out unicode names on the blog in the past, because I look at that as a name choice, and it just irks me. Why would you ever, for any reason, make your name less readable, and less memorable, for onlookers? They may want to hire you for whatever skills you might have--maker, scripter, sculptor, model, photographer--and if they can't remember whether your name is "SallyAnnNickels (Resident)", or "¿$ª£Ļ¥ Ąŋʼn ŊīĉĸêĻ§?"...well, they're just not going to find you, cupcake, are they?

More when I next have energy for more. This is labyrinthine and mentally stunning. (Not Axi's column, no, just the whole JLU thing. How does the phrase go...Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. And in setting out to answer the question of whether the JLU is corrupt, I think I'm starting to swing towards 'absolutely'.