let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

There are a bunch of holiday-themed poses for free under the tree at Picture This! Some of the packages are left-click purchase, others are standard right-click to buy, but there's several of them. Who knows, you might find something for that last-minute photo urge!

In technology news, the first bioprosthetic heart has been implanted in a living patient. The patient is--at least as of that report--conscious and functional, but of course the medical team is watching closely to be sure. Still, it's one more step in the advance to ensure that everyone who is in need for heart replacement finds a way to keep functioning.

Genre, for December, is hosting a "Victorian Christmas" themed event. I don't know if it's lasting until the end of the month; what I do know is that there are several lovely L$10 items offered in the mix, and, for a wonder, most of the event's offerings actually are reasonably Victorian in nature. Woo!

There's a lady on Tumblr who's been, for the past year at least, compiling historical research on medieval instances of people of color being described. In fact, that's the name of her Tumblr: medievalpoc. She's been a fascinating source of historical documentation, and this week, she pulled together a post chronicling her most popular posts of 2013, featuring not just largely historical women of color, but nobility, warriors and ambassadors to other cultures.

Among the many links featured--many with historical images--there are several that were among my favorites, too, from the previous year.

Khutulun the Wrestler Princess

Khutulun, first introduced to me as Aiyurug, was born sometime around 1260, in a time when the Mongols ruled from relative positions of luxury and excess. In opposition to her more famous cousin, Aiyurug wished to return to the old ways of the Khans--feats of strength and war, nomadic travel, and physical prowess over sedentary indolence. To gain followers for her cause, she competed in all areas of Mongol sportsmanship: horse racing, archery, war games, and wrestling. She was a large woman, muscled, powerfully proportioned, and she was never beaten. In fact, a common wager was horse against horse, hers against her opponents. In time, she had a herd of trained warhorses ten thousand strong.

Etruscan Warrior "Prince" really a Princess, analysis finds

There's a certain amount of condescension in this article, but based on what little is known of this culture at the time, my theory is that the "Princess" named in the article lived life as a warrior and a man, or at least in a position of higher social status. I'm attributing this not only to the skeletal remains found with a warrior's lance, but the fact that the body next to the first is partially burned--a practice more common to Asian cultures, but also potentially possible for spouses in the Etruscan culture, as well. Add this to the fact that the spouse's body--identified as that of a male--was buried with traditional bridal jewelry, and I think it's fairly clear this is a case where the 'wife' had the privileges of the warrior, and the 'husband' lived a traditionally female existence.

Xiang Fei, the "Fragrant Concubine"

Xiang Fei's story is a fascinating one. Born into the Uighur Muslims, when Manchu general Zhahui returned from "gloriously" conquering the Uighurs in 1959, in addition to the treasures of the culture looted and removed, he brought with him Xiang Fei. Several reports make much of her natural scent, which is how she was named the Fragrant Concubine.

But she wasn't just chattel for the court--not only was Zhahui head over heels for her, but she resisted many of his advances, to the point of concealing small knives in her sleeves to protect herself when he neared. Though it's not clear what (if anything) eventually thawed her, two things are known: she apparently bore a daughter to Zhahui (willingly or not), and he built her a Muslim enclave with a tall tower that overlooked mosques built farther away from the palace. While he did not trust her beyond his walls to worship her faith, he did make it possible for her to worship in her own tower--a concession that many warlords of the time would not have undertaken.

She died in 1760.

Dido Elizabeth Belle, scholar and Scottish aristocrat

Dido Elizabeth Belle was the illegitimate daughter of Admiral Sir John Lindsay, and an enslaved African woman known only as Belle. How'ver, this is where the story becomes interesting. She was raised alongside Lindsay's own children, educated with them, and remained a favorite child of both the Earl of Mansfield (her half-uncle) and her father well into adulthood.

More surprising, part of her household duties included supervising Lindsay's personal correspondence, a position generally reserved for, and given to, educated men. She received an allowance until marriage of thirty pounds per year, equivalent to Lindsay's main heir, and more than any illegitimate daughter of the time received in comparable household situations.

Going one step further, upon Lord Mansfield's death in 1788, a lump sum of five hundred pounds was granted her, and her status as a free woman was carefully, legally documented, so that none could deprive her of her wealth or status.

In other news, the makers of Echo Bazaar now have a new game called the Sunless Sea. It appears to be similar in nature to Fallen London, but in reading through back entries in the blog, I am teased and enchanted by one facet in particular:

"Fallen London's drawn attention (mostly favourable) for the way it treats gender – we allow players to be a lady, a gentleman, or neither. We've been saying we'll take the same approach in Sunless Sea, but actually, we're going to go a little bit beyond that. We're not going to specify gender at all.

That doesn't mean you won’t be able to pick an avatar that looks like a lady or a gentleman or remains teasingly androgynous. Or shaded by a deep-brimmed hat. Certainly you can. But when you're looking through portraits, you won't be limited to the ones for 'male/female/other'. Perhaps you did run away to sea dressed as a boy. Perhaps you don't fit into the usual binary. Perhaps you just want to look through avatars and decide which one you like before you pick male or female."

Fascinating.

I want to scream for everything to stop, 'cos I'm not in charge of anything

Came across a bright blue fellow in Wentworth's Consignments, in City of Heroes. He had a very steampunk-esque backpack on, spitting blue steam, and was a level 35 technology controller. I pulled up his profile:

It is not uncommon for Spirit Masters to go on earthly adventures for wisdom and courage. This particular Stormbearer went into an unknown cave filled with sapphire, one of the rarest gems in the world because it is created using just oxygen which gives the blue. Storm bearer was amazed at the amount of gem the cave had. A stream of sapphire also took place and so he followed it deeper in to the blue cave. He came upon this clanking machine creating the crystal cave, and the sapphire water and took it. He has lived to this day with the machine on his back still producing stormy weather but also bringing greed seekers to their demise.

And I could not let that go. So, I dropped a note his way:

[Tell] -->Sapphire Stormbearer: Just as an aside, sapphire gets its blue color from titanium and iron, not oxygen. Otherwise very cool hero.
[Tell] Sapphire Stormbearer: i am not a scientist im a weather controller otherwise ppl love me for my backpack

At which point I smiled, complimented his backpack--because it was a nifty thing of gears and dials and aged blue steel--and backed away. Because really, there's just no further talking possible.

"The Zombie-X rifle was created by DoubleStar as a more effective tool for dealing with the imaginary apocalypse of the undead that's never going to happen." Okay then.

Also, almost a year ago there was speculation about a UFO on the ocean floor. Did they ever find out what that was?

From the Department of WTF Happened, a Hollywood-based lobbying group announced it needed SOPA to shut down Megaupload...five days after Megaupload was shut down, and a couple days after SOPA was stalled in the shallows (maybe permanently; Senator Lamar Smith has withdrawn the bill on the list of bills he's now sponsoring).

And you thought SOPA, PIPA, and now ACTA were bad? And your head is still reeling from PCIPA? Well, meet TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. What's involved in that one? And I quote from the relevant section regarding intellectual property provisions:

"TPP countries have agreed to reinforce and develop existing World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) rights and obligations to ensure an effective and balanced approach to intellectual property rights among the TPP countries. Proposals are under discussion on many forms of intellectual property, including trademarks, geographical indications, copyright and related rights, patents, trade secrets, data required for the approval of certain regulated products, as well as intellectual property enforcement and genetic resources and traditional knowledge. TPP countries have agreed to reflect in the text a shared commitment to the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health."

To break that down, the United States, along with Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, and Vietnam (and possibly Japan and Canada, should they wish to join in, but intriguingly enough, not Mexico) will all be agreeing to support intellectual property rights on trademarks, geographical locations, copyright issues, patents, preservation of trade secrets, internal testing and regulation, including scientific study, empirical findings, and genetically-modified seed crops (and/or clones)--at least within those seven (to possibly nine) countries, and will be fighting back against non-member countries who try to dilute those copyrights, studies, findings, genetic modifications, and chosen locales.

Even worse?

"The Obama Administration has developed a policy on transparency for the TPP negotiations which apparently does not involve any commitments to sharing the text with the general public, even after it has been given to all member countries in the negotiation and to hundreds of corporate insiders on the USTR advisory board system."

Well, wonderful. And yes, that means what you think it does--information on the TPP is very sketchy, and it's highly likely that the (leaked) documents we have of the phrasing may be several drafts back from the final form to be passed.

Meanwhile, the folks now running Minecraft have decided that, in addition to the utterly useless addition of wolves, we're now going to be able to tame so-called "ocelots", which, when tamed (with fish, not pork), turn into...housecats. Not kidding. All ocelots start off spotted, and when they are tamed, they turn into striped orange tabbies, Siamese, or black and white cats.

Let me repeat that, because it sounds vaguely important. The new ocelot "mob" type looks like a blocky, spotted ocelot-like thing when untamed, and when tamed--with a fish--they spontaneously transform into three different potential varieties of squared-off, blocky housecats completely randomly. Because that's what feral animals do when domesticated, you see.

I realize it's Cubeworld, and I'm getting hung up on the transformation of a pixel thing into another pixel thing, when I don't bat an eye that you can dye two sheep, breed them, and have the baby sheep show up with that color of dyed wool. I can't explain it, but my brain is going nononono, the hell, that's not even POSSIBLE.

(from the Minecrafting album. Seriously. Not possible.)

(And yes, there are cat toys in Minecraft 1.2. The gods help us all.)

In news from a different direction, H&M apparently thinks that being inspired to copy someone else's design is radically different from actually copying it, which amuses me greatly. People, it's the same design, just give in already.

I'm a backer for Mother Henriot's Elixir, an actual, herbal-derived, absinthe tea. They need to raise slightly under ten thousand dollars in just slightly over a month. I have faith in them. Consider a donation if you have folding green; their benefits are generous and most come with at least a sample of the tea, if not enough for a full pot!

Paula Deen's developed diabetes (no surprise there); a circuit court says it's okay for cops to discriminate based on intelligence (that explains a lot); Tor Books offers up a lovely little run-down of speculative fiction takes on works of art; Echo Bazaar develops the Radical Okapi; and Anina Bennett and Paul Guinan seem to have done it again, debuting an 'autobiography' of famed steampunk explorer Frank Reade...who, like Boilerplate before him, never existed.

Goodness, I think that's everything, and I still have too many windows open! No wonder Chrome keeps crashing on me.

now baby, we could shoot a Russian unicorn

(from the bizarre album)

This is Athon. Apparently, Athon plays a "Planewalker"--someone who can teleport at will, and can't be killed. Oh, and he's a doctor, so he helps people. On occasion. Oh, and he's bright blue. Oh, and he's a demon. Oh, and he's fond of narcoleptic partners.

Yeah. Great guy. Godmodder and alternatively helpful and evil in turns. Remind me never to run into him for the foreseeable...EVER.

Meanwhile, this was overheard in Atlas Park (in City of Heroes):

[Broadcast] Jack Smooth XXX: WE ARE RPSG Lycans Of Avalon.Recruting new members and to help build our base.memebrs must be Active all times. have fun.Our Theme is Werebeast Academy.We have an website.Online Radio station also.PST for info or an Invite.

Um. Okay then. Just for future reference, spell-check is your friend.

But my actual reply was:

[Broadcast] Literal Lass: "We have an website" might have to become a catchphrase, temporarily. That's as good as "the intarwebs".

It really is.

Of course, there are still fun things in CoH. Witness, the bio of "Lizardo", a level 50 Mutation Controller.

"Ricardo Ricardo Lizardo, in an unlikely twist of fate, was born a mutant displaying elements of lizard dna. Although at birth his mutation was barely noticeable, it advanced very rapidly such that by his first birthday he was no longer recognisable as human. Abandoned by fearful parents, he was left in the wilderness where he was raised by a pack of lizards. During this time his mutation continued to advance and he developed an affinity for the earth, which grew to become full blown control.

"Now for some generic reason that seems kinda forced, he is in Paragon City taking on the role of hero and protector."

I like heroes that admit their origin stories have flaws. It's amusing.

BioWare, the makers of Mass Effect 3, are letting their players decide the next feminine version of Colonel Shepard in the game--but only if they have Facebook accounts. All of them look profoundly angry at having been tapped to play Shepard. Is that a good thing?

Meanwhile, the first steps are being taken for human cloning in Japan. Oh, not really, but it's pretty much your face on a doll, from a 3D printer. Which means they're getting very very good at human reproduction in synthetic forms. And they're already pretty good with robotics...

Maybe the goal isn't to clone humans into better versions of themselves. Maybe the goal is to go completely synthetic and leave the meat behind. Is that a good thing?

Echo Bazaar has suffered a case of accidental lesbianism, apparently. Now, the article is well worth reading for many reasons, not the least of it the accurate breakdown of character developments in games and RPGs. But the intriguing thing--for me, at least--is the player behind that particular character instantly assuming that the final line of text for that quest indicated her character had become a lesbian.

Why couldn't it mean that her character went over to warn the other woman about what she'd discovered? Or to commiserate with her? Maybe make a nice soothing pot of tea, talk about inconsequentials of the day, and stroll off home, nary a garter rumpled?

What happens when rock and roll gets crossed with comics? This. Is it sad I'd love to see this as a full-fledged book?

The Google+ disintegration is getting chilling; not because they're deleting Google+ accounts, because--for me personally--I really could not care less.

The unsettling thing for me is the reports of Google shutting off all Google services. And I've had this account for five years. My bank has this account name. My insurance has this account name. My family writes to Emilly, not an account tied to my "real name".

If I lose it all...it's just painful to contemplate.

Friend of mine, in separate research, ran across Joe Clark's contact page. Have no idea who he is, really, but I adore his clauses for contact.

Random images from wandering over the past few days.

(from the shopping album)

Remember a while back, while in Curious Kitties, I found an example of really well-done prim feet?

Yeah. These aren't them. But I don't entirely think it's the fault of the avatar (admittedly, even with a HUD, tinting can be tricky). I think it's the fault of the shoes, frankly. This is an example of bad prim feet.

Unfortunately, I have no idea who made them, because shortly after snapping that pic, the feet--and the avatar in them--ported off. But seriously, if you saw prim shoes made this badly, would you buy them?

(from the shopping album)

Some of the folks behind the Seasons hunt have gotten very...whimsical...with shark placement.

(from the shopping album)

Witness what's happened at Willow, for instance. Land sharks, indeed.

Finally, seen at this year's ComicCon--brace yourselves if you're going to click, this may leave mental scars: Hello Kitty, slave Leia version. You're...welcome?

faded pictures on the wall (it's like they're talkin to me)

Ah, Sarah Jane...and that ridiculous, yet beautifully charming haircut...Dr. Who girls are something special, aren't they?

The news was both good and dire from Echo Bazaar:

Congratulations! You've reached the end of Book 2, Part 1!

Content is currently capped at level 83. But we'll be adding more very soon. See blog.failbettergames.com for details. Or you could try one of the Shadowy, Dangerous and Watchful tracks instead. The Bazaar applauds your progress! We have given you a very small present for reaching this point.

You now have 7 x Ragged Clothing.

Well, they weren't kidding about small...but wau. And I would happily jaunt over to the Shadowy, Dangerous or Watchful tracks instead, seeing as how I'm capped on Persuasive, save...my Watchful is 82 and my Shadowy is 81. Aheh.

MMORPG put out a list of why gamers should embrace free-to-play games over more traditional subscription-based versions. The list itself is fairly standard, but the first comment from SnarlingWolf caught my attention:

Two of your items in the list are the same and they basically say that it will be cheaper. Most people that currently have no issue paying a sub will likely pay MORE a month with f2p because they can. There will be more people who try the game, never spend a cent but also don't stick around. There will be more people who play it every now and then when they're bored, don't make much progress but don't spend any more. There will be far more people spending over $15 a month. So I find those two points to be dead wrong. Games like DDO have shown they make more money with F2P, which in turn shows that the average money brought in when factored by number of players is higher. This in turn means that more people pay a lot less and more people pay a lot more but the average in the middle pays more then it used to. So not cheaper.

Those are very good points, and true, overall. I know in my case, I can't afford that much, so carry no active subscriptions to any games, and even those games I do play, I try to work to earn currency (in Runes, they offer surveys in exchange for diamonds, though when finances allow, I will buy $5 or $10 diamond cards when I'm out and about; and in Second Life, though it's hardly MMO territory, I have bought Lindens for the game) rather than simply pay a set monthly fee. How'ver, I am largely in the minority here--most people, even in, or perhaps especially in, so-called "free-to-play" games, end up paying on average at least $15 to $25 per month--if not more.

At that point, are those games really "free" to play?

"Convergence is real, it is happening…but it will never make everything possible in a single device in my lifetime."

Which, honestly, is both good and bad--I still yearn for the culture that exists in Robert Heinlein's novel, Friday, wherein the screen in every room is computer, television, live music broadcast, research station, programming center, games center, and interplanetary/international telephone service...but he's right, it's not going to happen in my lifetime, nor in the lifetime of the children I don't have.

And is it really something we need, right now, anyway? I mean, I can make my computer play music, and my netbook play music, and my .mp3 player play music; I can play games on two out of three of those; I can read on all three; but it's what's suited to the task at hand. My .mp3 player is easiest to carry, my desktop can't be as easily carted around. What do I want my devices to do?

I promise you, I will never want a single handheld device that can get me up in the morning, start my coffee going, warm up the car I don't own to take me to the job I don't work at, tell jokes to me on the way home from work, and hand me my mail as I leave the garage. (And if you're the kind of person who really wants that? We aren't on the same page. Unless you're currently inventing that kind of device, and if you are, hey, toss me a line, I'm open to suggestions.)

What I want is pretty much in line with the article--I want my tech to do a few things, but not every thing; I want to be able to take what I want with me, be that programming, music, books or games. But I'm not looking for the One True Gadget.

It doesn't exist.

Is SL group chat still broken? Yes, but they promise it will be fun, fast and easy....soon. You just wait.

Any day now.

Yep.

"The ship of Linden state is listing pretty heavily to starboard."

I'd actually agree with nearly all the points made in this article, especially this one:

"First off, Linden Lab doesn’t appear to know what its core business is. Hint: it’s server hosting."

I'd pair with that the nigh-perpetual complaint that the Lindens do not spend any, or hardly any, time on the servers they're hosting. They have no idea how people actually play the game they've developed.

This is a hard-core blindness issue that doesn't seem to be going away regardless of how many Linden changeovers/layoffs/outright firings they have.

Which brings us to the next inescapable point: the utter and complete lack of any vestige of customer service or, dare I say it, customer support. This is verging on criminal, at this point, and we've long since passed the verging on stupid. As Mr. Jennings puts it:

"Second, after the server hosting is there and done, the second neglected feature that is killing Second Life – customer service. Or rather, the lack thereof. I’m sure it will surprise few MMO watchers that much of Linden Lab’s recent bloodletting was in customer service."

I doubt this comes as a surprise to anyone. I doubt it will further surprise anyone that now, post-bloodletting, there's virtually zero way for the end user--the customer actually paying the Lindens money--to get anything even resembling abysmal customer service.

For all the sarcasm of that essay's end, and for all the perpetual emphasis on overweight men wanting to be hot fashionistas...The market Linden Labs has found for their product seems to want, in large doses, to be:

• attractive, young, "fun"
• sexually capable, with an emphasis on sexual poses
• almost exclusively devoted to high heels or cleavage-enhancing tops/gowns/minis
• interested in programmable collars, viewers and toys to enhance said sexual experience
• wanting really great, highly detailed prim hair

What, in any of this, said Let's move all the icky adult stuph to Zindra so we don't have to think about it, cripple search so no one can find anything, introduce a viewer no one wants to work with, and neglect to fix group chat, group notices, and grid stability? Because I don't see that on the list.

A bit more on the Ikaru Aichi ban...Still no clue on when, if, or ever Miss Aichi will be unbanned; considering she just launched a new sim, the timing is especially morbid. But Aura Falta's throwing a 50% off sale at Tacky Star, and has introduced a new skin specifically for the sale. I still don't know precisely how it works on paying tier when your account has been banned, thus erasing that access to your Lindens...but hey, if you spend it in the stores dotting the Bad Blood sim, they'll at least have money to move if it comes to that.

Are we finally in the era that contains the death of the phone call? Maybe. Or maybe we're just evolving, using better systems to inform us when people can talk, and when they don't want to, and working from there. This is not the worst place to be.

Finally, if you're in one of the countries directly affected by ACTA legislation--or even if you're not--you should consider learning about ACTA and how best to fight it. Because if legislators have their way, it's coming. And it does not have our best interests in mind.

And one last mention of oddity: "I know more than one superstitious critic who will not say anything bad about Gallo in print. And no, I’m not kidding." Wau. I had no idea.

disconnecting, no one calls, the phone don't even ring

Sometimes, playing Echo Bazaar ends up a uniquely trippy experience:

A dream about a corridor lined with brass mirrors

In the dream, the mirrors on the left-hand side reflect you walking through a desert of ash, spiked here and there with the blackened stumps of trees. When you turn to your right, you fall out of bed. You open your eyes. Moonish light filters into the room: for a moment the floor beneath you seems to ripple, reflecting it like a pool of mercury. No, hang on, you're awake. This definitely just happened.

I've had nights like this.

At the turn of the century, a Danish painter named Vilhelm Hammershøi predated the Second Life effect of viewing the world over your avatar's shoulder. Notwithstanding the fact that he's apparently the go-to artist for 'serious literature' book covers, I find myself very comfortable with the view of the back of his wife's head. It seems natural to me, at this point.

And, following up on the current bans from yesterday and on Monday, this is by report the exact letter Hybrid Ansar got from Linden Labs as to why she was banned.

I guess that answers that.

[15:28] Tomoyuki Batra: The update is that they have changed Azriel's password so he can't get into the site or xstreet. He is getting ready to call them.
[15:28] Sakura Rajal: O>O what?

For those who don't remember yesterday's mention, Azriel Demain has been banned from Second Life. The thinking was this would only be for seven days. An additional email made it clear that the ban could be for seven days, or "indefinitely".

"Indefinitely" is a bad, bad word at this point.

[15:29] Tomoyuki Batra: They suspended Azriel for a week starting yesterday
[15:29] ZombieToy Fretwerk: wtf
[15:29] Tomoyuki Batra: because he had the words 'inspired by dracula' on one of his xstreet listings

Here's how we think it goes--Azriel has the listing up. Doesn't think to change it, because it's been that description for at least two years. Someone happens across it--who knows who? For all we know, it could have been a wandering Linden. This soul then reports it as a violation.

And Linden Labs freaks out completely and bans Az from the grid.

[15:30] Vylna Daviau: when Second life ADVERTISES - come on second life and be a vampire?

I should point your attention towards the current ad in the sidebar--it's been replaced with text-only, but the ad I had before for SL, if anyone remembers, was the one Vylna's referring to. Apparently it's okay as long as they don't say "Twilight" or "Dracula"...

(Though to that end, just as a side note...why haven't KayKay Stine, Xtasy Veil, Acekala Porthos, AngelinaJolie Laville, Azriel Watanabe, Caroline Tairov, Madonna Ohare, Sherry Moleno, MK Magic, TrishaNicole GossipGirl, TheCureAndTheCause Ghost, snoe Halostar, or Tristan Careless, just to mention a few who are quite blatantly ripping off the "Twilight" film series, been banned, then? There's no equality in the ban process? Or maybe it's that "Twilight" and "Avatar" are so much bigger than SL, and nobody will mind or notice, but Universal might sue Second Life for the "inspired by" line? Help me understand the thinking, here.)

[15:31] Tomoyuki Batra: yesterday he was able to access xstreet and secondlife.com
[15:31] Tomoyuki Batra: now he can't.
[15:32] Tomoyuki Batra: that means no transferring of moneys from xstreet into second life for tier, sim, anything else
[15:32] Rayven Zelmanov: How can they do that to him???

Well, pretty much because they're Linden Labs, at this point. But what Azriel is most worried about is that tier, which is due on 2 August. And he doesn't get in at the earliest until 8 August. What happens on the second when tier isn't paid?

[15:32] Tomoyuki Batra: that means he can't pay his vendor spaces
[15:32] Tomoyuki Batra: that means no creating, no new releases, nothing
[15:32] Rayven Zelmanov: totally unfair
[15:32] Tomoyuki Batra: this basically screws him completely because this is his rl livelihood.

I've been saying for most of eighteen months now, that the end goal of Linden Labs' new management is to finish user-created content, once and for all. Because they seem to want a safe world, a sanitized world, a world that's flirty enough for adults and bland enough for the tweenybops and hot and cold running events for everyone else. Where money comes in and doesn't go out and everyone on the planet has a Second Life account.

This isn't a bad dream...well, actually, yeah, it's kind of an absurd and ridiculous dream that's completely delusional, but compared to, say, placing a private ad for a young man to slaughter and consume, well, it's a small fluffy happy dream. More power to them.

But the Lindens--old or new--still don't live in their world. They keep failing to understand the basic premise--if people are banned from creating; if people are turned solely and wholly into consumers of existing content; who's making that content? And if it's turning into that kind of game, where everyone has a choice between the jeans and the green t-shirt or the magenta disco dress, then we might as well be playing the Sims.

[15:33] Tomoyuki Batra: this could mean the end of falln if they keep going.

If Azriel Demain is permanently banned for something that was easily correctable, and it turns out to be entirely Linden-contrived, no one else noticing at all--that means this entire thing could have been avoided with a phone call, a personal note, hells--a notecard or IM sent in world.

This may well be the worst PR disaster the Labs have ever suffered, because--and especially so soon after the mass lay-offs--it will mean pretty much anyone is fair game. That no one is sacred anymore. That it doesn't matter how many sims we might own, we can go down on a whim.

This is not what the Labs want us all to be thinking.

When we were having this discussion this morning, there was at least one fellow who didn't get it, and kept making inappropriate comments in the group.

[15:34] VIKTOR Faerye: chill out ppl , just get the stick right out of ur asses

Tomo finally bounced him. Me being me, I couldn't leave it there:

[15:50] Emilly Orr: We did try to warn you. Apparently you don't listen.
[15:50] VIKTOR Faerye: cmon i have things to do here and that window keep coming
[15:51] Emilly Orr: So close it. That stops the window from popping up. Instead, you've now irritated the highly stressed partner of Azriel, who has banned you from the group and from the store. Consider it your lesson in being polite on SL.
[15:53] VIKTOR Faerye: lol i dont even know why i was a member,so how can i tell u i dont care

Yeah, I should've dropped it there. But I am stubborn when frustrated, and I am frustrated in so many ways at present.

[16:02] VIKTOR Faerye: why ppl is so hostile these days, i just was trying to have fun
[16:02] VIKTOR Faerye: i dont even know wat the problem is
[16:03] Emilly Orr: Azriel Demain, the owner of FallnAngel Designs--the group you got kicked from--got banned by Linden Labs for using what they consider to be a copyrighted word in a description on an XStreet listing.
[16:03] VIKTOR Faerye: wats the word_

(As it turns out, actually, it was the "inspired by", not so much the "Dracula", near as we understand things now.)

[16:03] Emilly Orr: It is now July 29th. He was told he was banned yesterday. This gives him seven days before he will be able to log back in--IF the Labs don't make it a permanent ban.
[16:04] VIKTOR Faerye: but wat was the word he used
[16:05] Emilly Orr: On the 2nd of August, tier is due for his sims. If he doesn't pay it in in-world currency, there are two ways that Linden Labs can deal with this. One is to pull funds from his personal checking account, which means certain longer-term RL plans will be scotched; the other is to declare the sims defaulted, return everything, and reclaim the land.
[16:05] Emilly Orr: Which word?
[16:06] VIKTOR Faerye: damn he is in some trouble then
[16:06] Emilly Orr: Yes. And you came in with your sense of humor and pretty much stomped on Tomo's last remaining nerve.
[16:07] Emilly Orr: Do you understand why this is a little big bigger than 'damn, people, chill, pull that stick outta yer asses' territory?
[16:07] VIKTOR Faerye: lol poor tomo im sorry bout him too * no kidding *

Go figure. He's sorry now that he's been bounced from the group and estate-banned. Some people.

[17:21] Emilly Orr: Did they tell him anything about payment on his sims?
[17:21] Tomoyuki Batra: they just kinda said 'oh well'
[17:22] MichaelE Eiren: don't they WANT their tier??
[17:22] Emilly Orr: This is a PR nightmare, but I'm not entirely convinced the Labs care.

This is the exact listing from XStreet's current "Report Item" policy:

Report Item

Before you continue to file a report, please review the following:

Are you having delivery problems with an item? Is this a general complaint better handled by Customer Support? Please DO NOT use this tool. Instead contact the Customer Support team directly.

Contact the Customer Support Team

Do you want to report an intellectual property violation? If you are an intellectual property owner with a complaint about a marketplace listing, contact the Intellectual Property team directly.

Contact the Intellectual Property Team

If the above situations do not apply to your complaint, then use this tool to report basic listing issues. Examples include: miscategorized listings, adult content, wrong language, listings for real-world goods or services, non-item listings, item or keyword spam, re-listed items, references to other e-commerce websites, anti-competitive or abusive behavior, or other Second Life Community Standards violation

It sounds like "inspired by" anything isn't even an issue, by what they're looking for. What they're looking for according to this would be:

• adult content in non-adult listings
• item or keyword spam in the listing
• re-listing the same items with new names
• referencing websites not XStreet/SL Marketplace
• abusive language or "gaming" tactics used in the listing
• assigning listings to the wrong category
• using the wrong descriptive language in the listing

Maybe the Labs are just that nervy, but if they're telling him he can't re-enter SL, or use any SL-related services, until August 8th...he's going to lose all four sims.

FallnAngel Designs at that point will be a dead fashion house. Does Linden Labs really want this?

One last thing: on this YouTube video (don't ask, Fawkes is dragging me through Phineas & Ferb), they list the allowable use section of the Copyright Act of 1976:

"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for 'fair use' for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

Does that matter a whit in terms of DMCA provisions, or Linden Labs' own internal Terms of Service? Not a lot, no, per this section:

2.6

Linden Lab may suspend or terminate your account at any time, without refund or obligation to you. Linden Lab has the right at any time for any reason or no reason to suspend or terminate your Account, terminate this Agreement, and/or refuse any and all current or future use of the Service without notice or liability to you. In the event that Linden Lab suspends or terminates your Account or this Agreement, you understand and agree that you shall receive no refund or exchange for any unused time on a subscription, any license or subscription fees, any content or data associated with your Account, or for anything else.

Yeah. Like that. So according to that passage, it may not matter why Azriel was banned, just if the Lindens will let him get back on. But this is making a great many of us nervous about many things--creating in world; living in world; and staying in world.

It is becoming a very, very hostile Second Life.

In other news, there's news on MyWorld--is it the next Second Life? Or the next Facebook? From here, it's hard to tell. All we know so far is it's an international social game--there are no avatars, but there are vehicles--be they cars, trucks, planes or trains--that one can use to compete in mini-games.

[23:59] Poppet McGimsie: this really happened: a friend of mine was teaching a logic class, and explaining how two negatives can make a positive, but two postiviers can never make a negative, and someone in the class said (very sarcastically) "yeah yeah"

Showed them, huh? And that's all from the cheap seats for tonight. Ta!

and you say that you can when you know that you won't

Stephen King is my hero.

So, Blizzard says they're listening to complaints about the RealID implementation.

"[We] will be carefully monitoring how people are using the service," a Blizzard representative told Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra this week.

Apparently, they're listening about as well as Linden Labs has the past two years.

There are other worrying signs in the article. Notably, that anyone is free to not opt in to the service (in which case, they have no posting rights in the forums), or to enable parental controls on their account (in which case, they have no posting rights in the forums). They can also "choose" not to use their real name when setting up accounts on Blizzard products:

Players can actually register any name they wish when signing up for their Real ID -- but an account for a given game must be tied to a unique CD key for that game, and Blizzard says it plans to attempt to enforce the use of legitimate names.

Of course, the problem is:

"[...] if a player uses a fake name, it would ultimately impact our ability to provide him or her with timely service."

Is that what they're calling it now? Of course it would.

As many readers know, I don't play WoW. Never been interested. It's not that I don't like MMOs--I play Runes, and the slutty sorceress factor in Tera may pull me in; I was wholly looking forward to Gatheryn until my personal circumstances changed.

And it's not even that I don't think companies don't have every right to know who's playing their games. When age verification came along in SL, I age-verified. I gave the Labs identifying information about me, accurate real info, and I don't feel bad about that. And I've had payment info on file since six weeks into the game.

But. There is a distinct, and might I say, brutal difference between handing over my name, my address, my phone number, and my credit card information to people in charge of my world; and those selfsame people taking that information and making it public to everyone I know. And everyone they know. And the six thousand folks those people sort of know. And everyone in Albuquerque, and their friends in Toronto, and the 39,000 gold spammers in China who seem to know everyone in these games...

It reminds me very much of those STD ads social health orgs used to run--"When you sleep with Mary, you're not just sleeping with her--you're sleeping with everyone she knows. And everyone they know." It sounds paranoiac and insane, but it's kind of true: register your real name using RealID and you're not just giving your name to your trusted friends, you're giving it to their trusted friends. And the people they sorta trust. And the people friended to those people who they may not quite remember clearly. And those people have friends, and those people have friends, and...on and on. How far does the circle ripple away from you and your real name? Endlessly far, with over a million confirmed individual accounts on World of Warcraft alone.

Echo Bazaar, meanwhile, in the wake of this great tsunami of protest, launched their own mildly controversial position change. I am not immediately going up in arms about this: for one, I play in Fallen London, and I adore the people, and when I can support them, I do (and I do intend to buy tie-in merchandise, though I do wish the Rubbery Men were on a mug). But second, they aren't insisting anyone sign up on Facebook. It's just an option. So they won't be bereft of players of the Great Game when Twitter inevitably sinks under the weight of its own massive tweetage. It's an option, it's not a demand.

I like them for that.

laying underneath the stars, strung out and feeling great

Perhaps a first for Twitter, an announcement that Ronnie Lee Gardner was going to be executed.

Now, let me be frank: Gardner was not a serial killer under any definition of the word. There was nothing mystical or horrifying, he did not skin people alive, he did not braid intestines into hats. And I realize there are people against the death penalty, because they believe--and they may well be right--that the taking of any life cheapens all life; that there should be a better way.

Maybe there should. One of my friends holds this issue dear to her wounded heart, because her brother was arrested for a crime he did not commit, sentenced by people who didn't care to investigate the case fully, and died in Texas because that's what they do in Texas, after all: kill large numbers of prison inmates.

But Gardner--for all that he wasn't spectacular--arrived quite understandably on Death Row due to premeditation. In 1984, he was arrested after a robbery went bad; he shot and killed Melvyn John Otterstrom, and that was originally what sent him to jail.

He successfully made an appeal, and had been transported to Salt Lake City's original courthouse to face final sentencing. His girlfriend had hidden a gun on the premises; Gardner found it (as he was intended to), and shot and killed attorney Michael Burdell, and shot and wounded Nick Kirk, the court bailiff. (He himself was also shot in the process.) New charges were levied, and after a lengthy trial, the court re-sentenced him to Death Row.

It has taken twenty-five years from that original sentence to now, to actually confirm the death sentence: in Aprille, the choice was presented to Gardner of lethal injection, or firing squad.

He chose the firing squad.

Only two firing squads remain in the American judicial system--one in Utah, one in Oklahoma. Oklahoma has never used theirs, oddly enough, but both states hold to the same dynamic--five men, trained sharpshooters, using matched rifles.

When this first broke on Twitter, there were cries of outrage, which I find morbidly amusing. As I said, he was no Albert Fish, but the callous disregard shown in shooting the three men he did (resulting in two lives lost, and a third, the bailiff's, cut tragically short due to the bullet lodging in an inoperable place internally) puts my mind, at least, at ease in terms of him dying by firing squad--or dying at all.

It does prove to me, though--people will use Twitter for any and all purposes. This, I actually think, is not a bad thing. One simply must be selective in what one chooses to hear.

"A dream about a burning river...

"You dream that you're flinging books happily on to the Stolen River, the one they used to call the Thames. Quite abruptly you wake. Er, you're crouching over your fireplace, smearing your hands and face feverishly with ashes. You pause there in the dark. Perhaps you need a little holiday."

Indeed. My nightmares are rising towards 9 and I'm not utterly raving yet. Perhaps I do need a small break from the rigors of Fallen London...save, where else is there to go?

Tch, I mean besides SL.

In more news from FL, not SL, it's taken me three days to track down the problem with my main computer, and burn all the information off that I can't simply download again from the net. It will likely take another day to set up a second working computer--and hope it's good enough to build. If all that works out, I can get back to building on Monday.

I am fervently hoping this is true. If not, then I'll begin slowly chewing my fingernails down to the elbow; happens all the time. I never handle the spectre of net disconnection well.

In the meantime, I'm off the Big Bad Blogger Challenge until I pick up the old entries; I'm thinking I carried it fairly well though, considering right in the middle of it, my comp started going haywire, restarting randomly, and eating its own feet. But--just for my own sense of completion, if nothing else--I will be going back and picking up the last of the questions for answering and posting in a day or so.

(Again--hopefully. Keep a good thought.)

and when it all comes crashing down, what can you do?

I should have known there would be problems when I introduced God to Echo Bazaar:

Man or Astro Man?: Well, I went insane
Man or Astro Man?: Nightmares at 10
emilly.orr: DUDE
emilly.orr: I've never gotten above eight!

I'm still not sure how one can get above eight. At eight I'm always slapped right into Yep, you're bonkers-land. How do you go two points past madness?

God works in mysterious ways.

Man or Astro Man?: THERE WAS A WELL
Man or Astro Man?: I looked
emilly.orr: And it talks to you
Man or Astro Man?: there were voices
Man or Astro Man?: I know, it wasnt a good idea
emilly.orr: Don't buy the Fourth City rags, either
Man or Astro Man?: I bought those too
emilly.orr: *snerks*

Yeah. God--at least, my God, the PBR-drinking, stay-up-til-dawn-partying, asking-me-for-chick-advice one--doesn't exactly learn by doing, unless the doing involves FIRE.

Man or Astro Man?: I really had it coming
Man or Astro Man?: I clicked to see where I was and it said
Man or Astro Man?: Your nightmares have overcome you. You are as mad as a bright brass button. Everything around you is red and gold.
emilly.orr: Apparently.
emilly.orr: Hee!
Man or Astro Man?: You can drink water and lose persuasion or talk to people and loose watchfulness
Man or Astro Man?: so Im losing a lot of watchfulness

That makes a stupid amount of sense, too. God doesn't change? There's some security in that...limited though it is.

It's a strained and archaic joke which I must, perforce, repeat here...One Name2KService to rule them all? Maybe. You've got two options there: Miss Ordinal Malaprop's original script offering on her post (linked to the main), and Schmoebag Hogfather's (wau, what a name) alternative. What's the difference? One (Miss Ordinal's) is a single script that can be dropped in a single prim. Mr. (I'm assuming Mr.) Hogfather has a different approach: open a new window, type in the query string, his device will poll the Second Life website for the UUIDs of people you want to send the package to, without ever having to access their UUIDs yourself.

(Of course, before that lovely little program was developed, at least two well-known browsers already lift the UUID numbers and place them lovingly on redesigned profiles. But it's still a nifty idea.)

There's already a website on how to learn Na'vi. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, there are multiple books written in Klingon at this point...

Continuing in the media vein, Mr. Allen pointed me towards the Wilhelm scream notes on Wikipedia, and that's good to know, but sadly, what I'm really after is the female version--and I suppose the question really is, is there a female version? I think I've heard it in Total Recall, but I can't seem to track down the precise place. I also know that there's a moment very clearly in Spiderman--where the Green Goblin turns and attacks Spiderman in the burning building after posing as a woman in trouble)--and in the film Copycat (where the lead character Helen receives a threatening email about a dancing girl who's about to die).

Is there a female version of the better-known Wilhelm scream?

And to tie up the media section, let me introduce you to the Akinator. He wants to guess what you're thinking. He's also available as an off-the-web app for the iPhone. He's still learning, but he's not bad with the less arcane stuph.

Mr. Dirk Talamasca tipped me to the phantom prim sit issue on JIRA; I thought it was just me. I've been having the worst time just sitting on things, sculpted or not, so I thought it was just that I'd forgotten the Art of Bench. Please go vote for it; there's a lot of powerful ("powerful" equalling scripters/makers/teachers/inventors on the grid, that just might sway a few Lindens--maybe) names on the list, so hopefully this is a JIRA bug that will be identified and fixed.

In a brilliant case of miscommunication, the owner of the sim that Autogenic Alchemy and Lady Disdain had their new main stores on decided to repurpose the sim for non-commercial concerns. This meant every commercial client--not just us--had to move.

We thought we had three weeks. We have less than one.

So of course--me being me--I pulled up everything and put it down on the Overlook, the new parcel. It's a gorgeous place, it really is, and the view is incredible. You can see it anywhere you look, because at present? There's nothing on the ground.

Because--no matter what browser I use--there seems to be a unique flaw in the ability of Second Life, at present, to hold fixed coordinates in memory. I picked up the Witch House in Black Sands, carried it to the Overlook, placed it down, took everything out of edit--and watched as two walls moved--in different directions--a full ninety degrees from where I set them down.

I've been building for several hours over the course of two days, high overhead, and what's come out is a small little fenced parcel, with fog, and gravestones, and I'm trying not to take it as an omen for other things. It doesn't help that this:



is the current avatar. Yes, the needle goes straight through.

It also doesn't help that the sim of Twilight Tears, of which the Overlook is a part, is a gothic-themed sim. This was a view at the neighbors across the small river:



Their tree drips blood.

This is not a bad thing, by any means, but I'm discovering that most of my gothic decor is very, very primmy. The cupola, f'rinstance:



or gazebo, or whatever the word for that thing is, clocks in at fifty prims. Plus particle effects. The altar:



(one of the first things I bought in SL, as it happens), while still amazing and I adore it, is forty-eight. And includes blood spatter, three poses, and fog.

The standard deal I have to gain access to this land (it's not owned by me, you see), means I have use of two hundred and fifty prims. I'm just not sure how that's going to work out, with what I have.

--

[Update: in the day and a half I've been holding to this blog entry, I decided screw the primmy props, and screw the Witch House, though likely, it would have dropped cleanly onto the site with only a need for retexturing the outside. No, I went for something far more odd:



I present to you the Graveyard Shop. Yes, I planted a lot of gravestones and tilted vendors on them, and I still have to work to update the landmarks in the vendors. And I'll probably still have a skybox overhead because I don't want to leave the clockwork citrus collection--soon, with any luck, to develop three more members--outside. So those and the rugs and likely the texture sets will all be inside another skybox...somewhere.

[Hee. I'll put up a freestanding door.

At any rate, we're up, we're running--at least Lady Disdain, in the all-new outdoor venue. Mr. Allen is still working on getting his shop up and running.

We have until Wednesday to clear everything off of Black Sands. Here's to us succeeding.]