if it was a game why couldn't I play?

Why is this study surprising people? Marion Zimmer Bradley said once, "The mind writes deeply in the body." And she's right, it does. If we imagine exercising, we're better at exercising in RL. If we see ourselves being held, we feel as if we have been held. People have woken up with bruises from being bruised in dreams. We accept what our minds tell us to accept.

We always have.

Sort of in the same vein, though turning much more towards thoughts of self-improvement, I found this. Advice--from someone who knows pain--on why pain hurts, simplistically, and how we might help pain not hurt so much. It's a short piece and that's really all it says, but it's revolutionary in how it says it.

She says we need to feel our pain, experience it, be in that moment of pain and wounding, because we need to listen to the signals that pain is giving us--but we need to not fear the pain. Because fear makes us contract. Fear makes us pull back, and tighten, and become strained and rigid--in thought, in emotion, in the sheer movement of body muscles. And that contraction, she says...is what truly causes that pain to hurt.

It's a revelation, in that sense. Get hurt; try to relax. Get injured; think of things to soothe, not things to block.

Emotional blow? Think about it, talk about it, let it go. Imagine it as something else, and be open to it. Relaxation, over repression. Acceptance, over abolishment, over bitter rage.

This will be hard. But it's a good lesson.

Jaime Skelton over at MMORPG turns in an excellent report on the ongoing court case on Linden Labs and virtual property ownership. Like many residents of Second Life, I think the people bringing action against the Labs won't win, and moreover, should have known better in the first place--but I'm with Skelton that the case itself is highly interesting, and relevant.

I can also see how the people involved decided to file suit in the first place--because the recent change to the Terms of Service reversed a long-standing suggested position of 'We host it, you own it'. Virtually every news story, many of them out of Linden Labs directly, featuring Anshe Chung has made a great deal of noise over the fact that she owned--owned, outright--so much land in SL.

Now? The Terms of Service state:

6. "VIRTUAL LAND" IS IN-WORLD SPACE THAT WE LICENSE

Virtual Land is the graphical representation of three-dimensional virtual world space. When you acquire Virtual Land, you obtain a limited license to access and use certain features of the Service associated with Virtual Land stored on our Servers. Virtual Land is available for Purchase or distribution at Linden Lab's discretion, and is not redeemable for monetary value from Linden Lab.

The Service includes a component of In-World virtual space that is stored on our Servers and made available in the form of virtual units ("Virtual Land"). This "Virtual Land" constitutes a limited license to access and use certain features of our Service as set forth below. Linden Lab may or may not charge fees for the right to acquire, transfer or access Virtual Land, and these fees may change at any time.

Something of a difference, indeed.

There's an odd translator on the grid now. I don't know which one it is, but I know it's not working. Witness the exchange below:

[15:10] Emilly Orr: Welcome, Angelus. Let me know if I can help you.
[15:10] Angelus Braham: merci
[15:10] Angelus Braham: "thank you",[["noun","thank"],["interjection","thanks","thank you","ta"]]

Merci equaling "thanks", that I knew. Merci equaling "thank you"/"thanks"/"thank you/ta"/interjection/noun...That one's new.

The Nextgov blog reports on military science and Second Life. It's called the "Military Lands" project, or "MiLands", and if they can work out the security issues, they say they might be able to make great strides on military research projects.

Joy.

I say they need to talk to IBM; IBM's been doing the virtual thing for far longer, and they might be able to help.

In the meantime, God--you remember God, right? Well, I remember God, even when the rest of his semi-faithful have forgotten--has problems:

King God: Hail
emilly.orr: Hail
King God: Em, if there's one thing I kinda miss
King God: It is being treated as if I were a god
King God: Ironically or not
King God: Godhood is fucking sweet
emilly.orr: Well, you did leave.
King God: Well, freshman year I didnt have a laptop that could run it
King God: Also, I upset that one woman something fierce
King God: if I do say so

Ah, the plights of gods, far beyond the ken of us wee mortals...I asked him what woman it was he so upset. He can't recall. But apparently it coincided with upsetting a girlfriend of his, off the screen, so go figure--life in parallel.

I have friends who send me odd things, but this has to be one of the strangest--that is Peep sushi. Or as Serious Eats names it, Peepshi.

Yeah, I can't make this stuph up.

(Don't like Peeps? Traumatize yourself with gummy worm sushi instead.)