walk through life, and move ahead to your destination

Remember, every day is a new day. And sometimes all we want is to save the world.

Things that are not steampunk:

• If it just has stripes
• If it just has non-working gears and nothing else
• This entire outfit

Some of my friends with Facebook accounts think some of these ideas are overdue. I agree more closely with the 'even more invasive' concept of all of those filters, and I'm also holding in mind that the Oculus Rift, a technological gaming development/platform that I was very interested in attaining, has now dropped so far off my radar it's somewhere around the core of the planet, once I discovered Facebook acquired the tech because Mark Zuckerberg likely thinks it'll be a fun, "hip" new way to sucker people into further privacy violations. Oh joy.

I'm not alone in thinking this--a great many of the donators who supported the project initially on Kickstarter are clamoring for their money back. They feel as if the Oculus Rift sold them out along with their company's tech, and they're very upset about the whole thing. Markus Persson--the infamous "Notch" behind Minecraft--has gone so far as to say that Oculus Rift support for Minecraft and other games he designs will be nonexistent. Why? Because Facebook "creeps [him] out". I don't blame him in the least.

What's really unnerving me in all of this, how'ver, are the threaded hints given between the lines on the New World Notes article announcing the acquisition. Now, granted, this is me exercising my full reserves of paranoia, honed on extensive conspiracy research, but--Linden Lab has every intention of integrating with the Oculus Rift; Philip Rosedale's new social media efforts are going to, at some point, feature Oculus Rift integration; Cory Ondrejka now works for Facebook's mobile division, and the Oculus Rift will be pairing with and integrating with Android mobile devices...so...at what point on Second Life does a Facebook account and a mobile phone become mandatory?

Because I have neither, and at this point, I want neither.

At one point in my net history, I did have a Facebook account, because a job I was working for at the time recommended it for access. At the time, I didn't use it much, as I was (and this will tell you how far back this happened) more invested in MySpace as a platform that was going places. I never really supported either the culture behind Facebook, or the behavior on Facebook, but discovering that--after over six years of never using that account at all--that I still had an open, functional account because I'd never told them to officially delete it also creeped me out beyond all reason. (Also going through the lengthy, 30+ day process to kill my account creeped me out, because seriously, that's non-intuitive to the point of being obfuscatingly arcane.)

So, yeah. The platform that had the potential to revolutionize gaming, on-the-job training, and person-to-person virtual communication is now something I can only view with suspicion and wary dread. Way to go, Zuckerberg. You've destroyed yet another potentially beautiful piece of the future.

Lastly, sometimes furniture just gets bored. So keep your furnishings entertained, if you can.

That is all.

on a bed of spider web I think of how to change myself

The Oculus Rift VR device got an insane influx of cash recently. So, whereas they were going to be the toy of the privileged few--if them--now they have the means to justify putting one within (fairly) easy reach of most of us, depending. Either way, that kind of money can change the face of gaming, because far more developers are going to start coding for the Oculus headset.

There's a lovely Flickr project called Blog Memes for Second Life Bloggers; what it really is, is a thoroughly ingenious set of reproduced movie posters starring SL avatars. Lovely, lovely work.

Did you know there are pop-up activity books for adults? No, I don't mean Adult adult; I mean grown-ups. Or at least people who think they are.

On the other hand, I've thrown crayon parties before where no one was under drinking age. Adult beverages in the fridge, chips and veggies on the table, butcher paper on the walls and all horizontal surfaces. Everyone gets a box of crayons when they get in.

Those were a lot of fun, as I recall. Pity our current place is so little.

There's, um...how do I put this? A Reddit user has decided to make fanart of the Mindcrackers for potential calendar use.

Pin-up calendar use. Oh, my...and is it sad that I downloaded the one for Pause Unpause?

Courtesy of Slate and Pinterest, I've found another small trove of Victorian (with a scattered few earlier) images, but yet again, it's slightly off-beat. In the case of Corsetra's Pinterest board, it's devoted to breastfeeding art and photography. Who knew the Victorians were so keen to have their pictures taken with attached baby?

But then, in a culture that allowed women to breastfeed (as opposed to one that seemingly goes into frothing hysterics when any hint of a bare breast is divulged), such images would be both common, and acceptable. I never thought of it that way before.

(Just FYI, Corsetra herself is rather a find--I would say easily half of her boards are related to Victorian/Edwardian/Regency concerns, over a wide spectrum of topics. Highly impressive.)

Ten thousand gamers cried out against oppression, and Microsoft backed off some of their plans. So...yay? But family/friend sharing is now out, it seems, along with not needing a disc in the tray to play (something the XBox 360 allowed). I guess that's mostly good...ish...

Facebook, in a landmark reversal, is going to allow mastectomy photos to be posted to their site. This has been a hard, arduous fight (though still a cakewalk compared to having a mastectomy), and many women are overjoyed for Facebook to acknowledge the empowerment that seeing these photos can give women facing breast cancer.

A random perusal of Tumblr a day back brought the String Rabbits to my attention. From there, I found this article, which led me to this article, which led me to the Zoorasian Brass Emissions Orchestra's YouTube account. I highly recommend "Bear-forest", "Ainekuittsu Show Time", and their "Railroad Fantasy" performances, but they're really talented in everything they've posted.

(Oh, and they all have nicknames. For instance, the saxophone players are colloquially known as Saxofox, the string section as String Rabbits [Tsuru-Usagi in the original], the clarinet quartet are the Claricats, etcerera. Fascinating.)

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.

you're drowning in the grief of Jupiter's water

Al Satterwhite's Cozumel Diary project will be fully funded! Congratulations to all contributors!

And Among the Sleep will be fully funded! This one's even more exciting for me, personally, because I think it's an astonishing step in survival horror games. There's been games where the protagonist is a child--there are survival horror games where the villain is a child--but a toddler? And having the entire game hinge on not knowing, from the first moment, whether or not this is that toddler's nightmare, or really something going on? Beautiful.

I seem to be the land of oddly specific links on occasion. But, if you ever wanted to look like a Drow Lolita who's just wandered in from the Battle of Normandy...I can help you with that.

Speaking of Marketplace things, I found this, and I couldn't figure out what they'd done to make the face look like that. So I ordered the demo version, and took a closer look.

(from the Comparisons album; not my standard side-by-side run, but a comparison nonethelss)

I've been logging in and mainly going through new (or new-ish) inventory, so in the above image, I'm wearing the LoveCats 'Spring Fae' skin in purple (bought on sale about a week ago), with an Angelwing outfit (the Naerose set in purple) purchased at their last sale, the Nautilus eyes in Violet from Saturnine Dreams (closing on May 20th, so go buy things NOW!), and Truth's "Adeline" hair with roots in the 'Elvira' tone (bought at Truth's last sale, which was so chaotically handled, that while I'm happy to have more mesh hair, I really don't care if I ever go back to the store).

(from the Comparisons album)

Um. Okay, this is terrifying. And I'm not talking about the huge hands--that's an easy change to make on a shape, so you can demo it for potential customers, and they can see how the rest of the shape looks.

(from the Comparisons album)

And then the skin rezzed in. Yeah. That...shape...That is just wrong, in every conceivable way. Not the least of which is, it's supposed to be a 'fresh teen shape', and...bwuh? Teens have no chins and anime eyes? Since when??

(from the Comparisons album)

I did try the skin demo with what (at least this month) I'm considering as my default shape, and--while I don't normally wear tanned skins--this isn't a bad skin. The shading's decent, and overall, having looked through her Marketplace store, her skin line isn't bad. Slightly derivative, but seriously, who isn't, these days? But they look good.

It's just her teen shape that's baffling.

Wil Wheaton made the Rachel Maddow blog the other day, or at least, something he said at a convention did--a heartfelt, sincere, amazing answer to the mother of a new child on why it was perfectly okay to be a nerd. Well worth watching.

And the LEGO company is releasing a Steampunk set soon! It looks very cool, and of course, I am thinking of combining the Steampunk master set with the Pirates set...and maybe the zombie set. Woo-hoo!

I linked XD Design's window device charger a while ago on the blog--a beautifully designed, utterly impractical, inefficient and overpriced solar panel that sticks to a window near your desk or in your home. Well, now they've released something else that's beautiful, stylish, as well as inefficient and overpriced--a sunflower-in-pot solar-panel charger. They're both cute; they're both very sleek. But it seems form means more to XD than function, and that's really not the point.

Like Minecraft? Like 3D printing? Like designing things? Try Printcraft, a scripted variant of Minecraft wherein folks can log in, make their builds, and convert their creations directly to .stl files for 3D printing, in addition to uploading them direct from the game to Thingiverse. I don't know whether it's a pay server or not, but it's yet another great innovation to the base game.

In more...disturbing news, or at least potentially...a Japanese company has invented virtual water.

As Gizmodo--and the company's promotional materials--hint at, this likely won't be used for...well...water. But virtual sex has always been big business, so it's hardly surprising.

"Go home, rainbow! You're drunk!"

we talk about love, we talk about dishwater tablets and we dream about heaven

[19:34] Jxxxxxx Gxxxxx: feijoa, cherimoya, pomellos, are you all living in the rainforrest?
[19:34] Sxxxxxxxx Gxxxx: no
[19:34] Jxxxxxx Gxxxxx: we dont get that there fruit here in Maine
[19:34] Jxxxxxx Gxxxxx: we have apples, oranges and lobster
[19:35] Emilly Orr: ...lobster is a fruit?
[19:35] Emilly Orr: Since when?
[19:35] Dxxxxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: I want a lobster tree
[19:35] Jxxxxxx Gxxxxx: yes, it is the national fruit of Maine! :-p
[19:35] Pxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: its a thing
[19:35] Pxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: lobsterfruit
[19:35] Dxxxxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: but things go better with coke

Let's just say Caledon chat was strange today, and leave it at that.

So, I had some other things planned, but kept finding myself dragging my feet over getting the entries finished and posted. I'm not uninterested in the topics, I will at some point finish those entries, I'm just still dealing with the last vestiges of prior heartbreak.

It takes me a long time to recover from things. You'd think a year-plus would be enough time, but...yeah. No. Not so much.

Plus, my mind is now trying to chew over effective ways to present the upcoming Aether Salon to which I was invited. clear back in....gad. February?? And while I'm still trying to figure out what I want to SAY, and if there's anything about steampunk music I want to update for this blog, I haven't mentioned it because it seemed....well. Impossibly distant.

This is why stress is a bad thing.

Anyway, my presentation will be in the Babbage Palisades district of New Babbage, the Sunday after next, 21 Aprille, at the nearly-ungodly early hour of two in the afternoon, SLT. (Hey. Professional night owl, and that's the law--go to bed during single digits; get up during single digits; and we nicely avoid most instances of the Nasty Bright Thing.) All I know right now is I will be there; I will likely likely be extraordinarily caffeinated; and I'll do my best to keep tangents to a dull roar.

In the meantime, welcome to our next edition of Shopping Naked: Why Is This a Thing?

(from the shopping album; censored because her 'dress' is pretty damned much openwork netting.)

This is a serious question on my part. All the various and myriad stores, maturity ratings, roleplay styles, fetish styles, looks, avatars, and structures on the grid: but unless you're a professional nudist, why would you--why would anyone--decide to shop naked? I don't get the urge, plain and simple.

(from the shopping album; censored because her 'dress' is pretty damned much openwork netting.)

And no, I don't know what was wrong with her hair. And believe me, she didn't port in and port out, so she didn't have time to rez. I watched her for a good ten minutes, trying to figure out whether she was wearing some mesh object that just hadn't rezzed in (she hadn't; besides, the Lola's Tango implants she's wearing are mesh), or if her hair was also mesh, and had just gone buggy around the edges.

But nope. Neither of those things were true. Maybe she just really doesn't understand how hair works on the grid. It's obvious enough she doesn't know how to stand...

Sadly, that may answer the first question, as well: she'd spent all of thirty-eight days on the grid.

[19:36] Mxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: ok, this isn't a snipe hunt type of deal is it? The only lobster I'm aware of is the kind that is served on a plate with butter with a side of steak
[19:36] Sxxxxxxxx Gxxxx: its the fruit of the local land or sea in this case
[19:36] Pxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: crunchy
[19:36] Jxxxxxx Gxxxxx: oh a surf and turf....
[19:36] Dxxxxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: It is ISC After Dark [Mxxx]....
[19:36] Axxxxxx Gxxxxxx prefers it in tacos
[19:36] Axxxxxx Gxxxxxx: lobster, that is
[19:36] Pxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: fruits du mer
Yeah, still strange.

Apparently in the next coming update to Minecraft (currently in beta-like, "snapshot" form, there will be...leashes on chickens? But why? That's what I don't understand. Why do we need leashes on chickens?

lay down for a while, disconnect

"True to myself until the end", this tattoo says, and I'm not quite sure they caught the significance--or the likely unintended hilarity--of the placement, methinks...(May have to have Adult listings enabled on the Marketplace to see it; it is a tattoo, after all.)

And if you ever have a need for two dead mesh goats, I can now help you with that. I have no idea why anyone would need that, but hey, just in case, there you go.

Did I mention God has this odd habit of popping back into my life on occasion?

Oh no not me I won't stand it no: FROM THE HELLS I RETURNED
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: TWICE
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: IN A ROW
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: WOOOOOOOO
Emilly: Yay? And which hells?

This is a legitimate question. For God, there's a lot of hells. Not quite as many as Big Trouble in Little China, but close.

Oh no not me I won't stand it no: just won a game of dota 2
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: so hard
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: i fought 3 people
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: they killed me when i got one
Emilly: Dota 2?

Dota 2 seems to be, from my understanding (after looking it up) to be sort of a formal, official sequel to a few informal, non-official mods for other released games.

Oh no not me I won't stand it no: so my guy auto rez'd
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: and then i killed another and they killed me again
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: AND I CAME BACK AGAIN
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: AND KILLED THE THIRD
Emilly: Woot!
Emilly: TRIUMPH

Figured it was appropriate. Still wasn't sure what was going on--the looking-up phase hadn't happened yet.

Oh no not me I won't stand it no: ALL HAIL THE SKELETON KING

Hey, that was appropriate too. Not that I knew what God meant (though that's a fair point, also--sometimes, it's really hard to tell what God means in any given conversation).

Oh no not me I won't stand it no: yeah dota 2
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: its like nerd sports
Emilly laughs
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: the international nerd sports
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: wish i took a screen of that guy asking why wont you die

I mentioned my watching of back-to-back Let's Play videos of Final Fantasy (begun with FFXIII, and now nearing the end of FFXIII-2). God mentioned another game I'd never heard of:

Emilly: Also, up to part 55 of an insanely long YouTube series on Final Fantasy XIII-2
Emilly: I think it's nomming on my brain
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: Hahahah
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: Its a lp?
Emilly: Yep
Emilly: Kung Fu Jesus and PokeCap'n, Medibot, MyNameIsKaz, some others
Emilly: Just a big room of guys playing Final Fantasy, eating cookies, and going crazy on occasion from the stress of playing the game
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: I think I know kung fu jesus
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: he started on SA I think?
Emilly: Yep
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: Hes in their lparchive
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: OH You should see GODHAND if you want a hilarious one
Emilly: It's weird, I now have LPers I recognize.
Emilly: Godhand?

Still a valid question.

Oh no not me I won't stand it no: Its
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: like
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: a beat-em-up
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: but
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: uh
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: you have the arm of a god
Emilly: Just the one?

Apparently, yes. Just the one.

Oh no not me I won't stand it no: and go after demons
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: and
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: its in the old west
Emilly: So you're Hellboy, then

Because seriously, that's how it sounds.

Oh no not me I won't stand it no: and you fight a mexican elvis demon
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: well
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: hmm
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: theres a poison chihuahua
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: uh
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: you fight 2 gay luchadores and one doesnt have a dick
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: man
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: theres like
Emilly: 0.0
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: a ton of crazy shit

I don't even. There's so much that's so deeply odd in that section. (Since having this conversation, by the way, I've watched part of a run through the game by the same group, and...yeah. It really IS that odd.)

Oh no not me I won't stand it no: and yet, its a more reasonable game than Anarchy Reigns, which is new for 30$ tell all your friends
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: Anarchy Reigns is a fighting game. With 16 people at once. Over 5 city blocks.
Emilly laughs
Emilly: Advertising!
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: AIRPLAINS FALL
Emilly: Snakes were probably on them
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: YOU CAN PILEDRIVE HELICOPTERS
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: CATCH MISSILES
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: TITS
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: MUTANTS
Emilly: Wait, you catch missiles with your tits, what?

Still trying to understand it all.

Oh no not me I won't stand it no: BUTTZ
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: ROCKET HAMMERS
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: AZN TRIPLETS WHO ARE SEXY ASSASSINS
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: ROBOTS
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: ROBOT NINJAS
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: NINJAS
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: THE BLACKEST MAN ON THE PLANET, THE BLACKER BARON
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: HIS ROBOT HOOKER
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: CHAINSAW ARMS
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: its pretty sweet

Uh...

Oh no not me I won't stand it no: So in summary, Godhand is cray and Anarchy Reigns made it look normal
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: http://youtu.be/0eQSSwmCUks 20 sec video on how hype i get about anarchy reigns
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: http://youtu.be/G6U12dQPykI the actual reasons to get this game
Emilly: Yeah, we watch a lot of Achievement Hunter/Roosterteeth, because at times they play games SO badly (Minecraft, generally)
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: Hahaha
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: You watch the one of them playing Clouds?
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: the minecraft map they made?
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: I loved that one
Emilly: Oh man, that one just COLLAPSED me
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: Hahaha
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: But yeah, anarchy reigns
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: im gonna go play that right now
Emilly: hee!
Oh no not me I won't stand it no: laterrrrrr
Emilly: Ta!

"We're all doodlers by nature," says Brandon Griggs, but what if we had the ability to make our doodles real objects? About two weeks back, parent company WobbleWorks launched what they thought was a modest enough proposal--$30,000 to get their proof of concept into mass production. Now, still with half a month to go, they've topped one million dollars in donations.

I guess more people really want to give their sketches shape than they thought.

Sadly, gadget canes are not as popular anymore--and most of the ones that are still made involve swords or alcohol--but on occasion, a vintage one surfaces that can, if nothing else, be appreciated from a distance. This is one such cane. An ornately carved ivory knob over the metal collar (complete with monogram initial), it hides a metal pick, a small dagger, and a fine ivory tool that resembles a bodkin to my eyes, but then, I sew; everything starts to look like a needle after a while.

In a prime example of cultural differences, this struck me as just odd: Minami Minegishi, one of the young singers in the idoru group AKB48, was caught leaving her boyfriend's home by press. Her reaction to this news? She shaved her head and offered a seemingly heartfelt apology--complete with wracked sobs and genuflections. But here's where it gets really odd:

[6:30:35 PM] Emilly Orr: Apparently, she's been demoted to "trainee" status, which means she'll only appear in the back of the group on tours, and not be shown outside of small clips in music videos.
[6:31:23 PM] Emilly Orr: The weird thing is that the management company for these girls forced her to wear a wig after the head-shaving vid went viral and garnered eight million views in two days. And fans reacted--but in a wholly unanticipated way: they were angry.
[6:31:49 PM] Emilly Orr: They flooded fan boards and chat rooms saying the wig told them she wasn't sorry at all, and now it's a PR nightmare.

I never thought I'd say this, but I am dying to know what this vegan, fat-free, chocolate pudding tastes like...but I'll admit, I don't think I'm brave enough to try it on my own. Why? Two reasons: half of its base is zucchini; the other half is sweet potatoes.

But hey, feel free, experiment and share the joy. Or something.

The Real Tuesday Weld have returned from their Russian tour, and have now set up a dedicated domain for their various natterings. The Blogspot for the Clerkenwell Kid is still active, as is their Facebook and Twitter feed, and the Antique Beat email service. But this will now be the spot where all new updates are sent first. Wonderful.

Finally, Google Glass gets a test run, and looks damn fine doing it. Wave of the future? Pretty much.

I'll wait up till the morning light; to stay awake is to stay alive

There's a new Minecraft parody video out there, this time to Daft Punk's "Harder Better Faster Stronger". It's amazing if you know the song, and know Minecraft; but it's still pretty awesome if you don't.

(By the way, if you've ever seen Daft Punk's original video for the song, this version won't make much sense. It only makes slightly more sense when you also factor in the two best-known fan tributes to the song, Daft Bodies and Daft Hands.)

And though the holiday season is over at this point, I wanted to link the Twelve Days of Minecraft for your perusal. He's not the strongest singer, but then, for this song, he doesn't need to be. It's cute without being cloying, though I am more amused that the "nine ladies dancing" all seem to be Link.

And and, there's finally a Gangnam Style parody out there for Minecraft--well, at this point, there's likely more than one. But this one features Endermen!

And last, "Don't Mine at Night" pretty much sums up my Minecraft experience. Also, monster choreography! It cannot be missed. Brad Knauber and Tyler Clark strike again. Beautifully done.

Also, Curio's back! There are both positive and negative things in this. While the major takedown of Hush Skins we hoped for won't happen (at least not at the best of Curio, League and Belleza could still file), they have reached a legal settlement and binding arbitration. To wit: neither side admits legal liability, but both have agreed that their stores--and their product lines--arose independently.

Interestingly, Hush Darkrose also announced that she never filed a Supreme Court action in the first place, which--after many of us pored over the inner workings of the Canadian Supreme Court system--we already knew, but...at least it's good that she finally came out with it.

I will also say that it makes her supporters--especially those who purported to have seen the "court documents in question"--look rather foolish, now that she's admitted she never did any such thing.

Unfortunately, neither side can discuss it at this point. There are still questions to be answered, but...really, the ultimate thing is that Gala Phoenix is no longer banned from SL, her store and sim have emerged from the chaos more or less intact, and she can legally sell her skins again. So...overall, yay?

And finally, random profile philosophy:

It was the coldest winter ever. Many animals died because of the cold. The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together to keep warm. This way they covered and protected themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest companions.

After a while, they decided to distance themselves one from the other and they began to die, alone and frozen. So they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth. Wisely, they decided to go back to being together. They learned to live with the little wounds caused by the close relationship with their companions in order to receive the heat that came from the others. This way they were able to survive.

Moral of the story: The best relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people, but when each individual learns to live with the imperfections of others and can admire the other person's good qualities.

The other moral: Just learn to live with the pricks in your life!

Which just about sums up this post.

and if you don't have anywhere to go, you go down on the pedal and you're ready to roll

Anyone not living in the current USA might find this tale difficult to believe, but as an American, I can tell you--while it's appalling and wrong, it's also standard operating procedure at this point. After all, we've had people detained for hours at airports for reading Prisoners of Azkaban in line; what's a little terrorist accusation for a comics artist between paranoid, suspicious enemies?

Also, the category changes for the Marketplace are in! I'd list the changes, but there's a ton, so read through the wiki to better make sense of them all.

Also II, this is one of the stranger ads for noodle soup mix out there, but damn, it sold me, and I don't even live in Japan. I am honestly tempted to go to our local Asian market and hunt it down, so I'd say as ads go, that's a very successful one.

Also III, I'm amused by people calling their spokesperson the Asian Robert Downey Jr.

[And also IV: An anonymous friend told me I was wrong on the derivation of the noodle soup--it's Korean!]

This is a lovely thing, but I think it would be a collectible only--actually using it to hold beer would result in alcohol abuse, as it would pour through the rings.

While wandering around the grid tonight, I got a dropdown message I'd never seen before:

"We are sorry, Linden Lab has discovered degraded performance on your connection to the sim you are on. You will need to restart Second Life and log into a new region for the next 30 minutes to an hour. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Really? I was able to port home, the message disappeared, then reappeared, so...I logged out. Strangest thing.

Finally, what do you get when you combine the Powerpuff Girls and Minecraft vidders? Well--at least if you're talking about the three Canadians in the bunch, VintageBeef, Etho and PauseUnpause--you get this. Which is disturbing enough in its own way.

Though I think VintageBeef really does rock that little blue dress.

turn out the light, and what are you left with?

I realize it's been some time since my last post to the blog. It's not looking sure that Disney's going to even bid on the City of Heroes software and code, and with them out of the picture, who's left? Of course, in a depressing bit of improper timing, the Titan Network's ongoing debates on Plan Z--the player-funded 'after project' of City of Heroes--have already hit a major snag, as one of their committee members went off and set up her own game site with no one from Titan the wiser. "Hurt feelings" over this duplicitous move is putting it mildly.

And NCSoft's already killed another game--and another game studio.

It seems to be what they do.

In the meantime, there's apparently been a rash of very coordinated thieves--or at least one coordinated thief with a lot of alts. My bet's on more than one, though, because of how frequently it seems to be happening. Flatterbots, panhandling bots, beggar-bots, call them what you will, but what they add up to is even more cynicism and lack of trust on the grid.

Moving to games, Quantic Dreams have put out a new "prototype" video called Kara, that they say isn't tied to any particular game at present. But, considering that Quantic's a game studio, and they have developed games in the past...actually, you know, I don't so much care if it's a game or a movie. I'll take either. It's that beautiful. (Note of warning: some [mild] robotic nudity, and some [again mild] adult concepts, but no bad language, no blood, no spinning weapons.)

Also, Ragnarok Online 2 may be getting a USA server soon. Beyond that, I don't know much, but it would be fun.

Meanwhile, Think Geek has invented...a...thing. It's tentacular, it moves, but it's not a memory stick, so...I'm afraid my mind is contemplating more adult uses for the...err...do they really call it the "Squirming Tentacle"? Really?

Cesar Kuriyama will be putting out his "One Second Everyday" app; it's been fully funded and has eighteen days to go. The "Dancing in Jaffa" documentary, about Pierre Dulane's journey to bring Jewish and Palestinian children together on a neutral dancefloor, will also be fully funded--three days ago, it was at $18,000 of its goal, but it's now well over the asking fund of $35,000. And the "Amazing Capes" Kickstarter is ridiculously well-funded, and will go into production within a couple weeks! Yay for innovation!

And the desire to be superheroes, apparently.

Maskull Lassere is a woodcarver, a sculptor, and a painter, but he's recently come to my attention on Tumblr of all places for the carved bone intersection work. You'll see what I mean when you look at that particular archive, but feel free to look at the rest of his work. If you like those in-between places between the inanimate and the organic, and ponder the potential inner structures of objects, you'll like Lassere's work.

Tardar Sauce, the internet phenomenon named "GrumpyCat" by the masses, has been given the Storyboard treatment. What's that, you ask? Storyboard is this odd, quirky video project where everyday objects--including pets--are overvoiced by small children. It's perplexing, occasionally baffling, and usually very fun.

Two French designers have decided to immortalize their love for retro geekery in the form of a table. A table designed to look like a floppy disc. It's definitely innovative, and witty design, and features a hide-the-whatever pocket in form of a shutter that actually slides, revealing a small space just large enough for most remotes. Perfect.

This may well be the most impressive Minecraft shot--using the default game textures, that is--that I've ever seen. Phenomenal...though I don't think there's enough torches...

And, um...apparently the Daleks are invading. And I do not understand Imgur. That is all.

I can't do well when I think you're gonna leave, but I know I try

[Zone #1] Nevalith@reaperxi: *brofists his homie*..WOOOOO
[Zone #1] Glaive@MrHurin: Ey,bro! Whatcha doin',bro? How are ya,bro? Okay,bro! Bye,bro!
[Zone #1] Nevalith@reaperxi: BTdub
[Zone #1] Glaive@MrHurin: a conversation of modern people.
[Zone #1] Glaive@MrHurin: a.k.a idiots.

To be fair...

[Zone #1] Nevalith@reaperxi: In my my culture they replace bro with the N word..
[Zone #1] Nevalith@reaperxi: *sigh*
[Zone #5] Knightly Grave@Grave-Family: Noob? D=
[Zone #1] Glaive@MrHurin: Not not nothing?
[Zone #2] Skyfire@JonSills: Neville? Neighbor? Nitwit?

But the idiot factor dropped for this part, so okay, people are not completely without redeeming merit.

I'm not in the best space right now, I'll openly admit. I'll take my points of humor where I find them.

The giant hand avatar from 2010 is up again on Marketplace. If you want it, get it now, because it vanishes when October ends.

Here's a list of catgirls in various media from a wide variety of nations. You're welcome?

Fans of Dr. Steel have been dealing with a strange, sidewise loss--I was never a fan, but a friend passed this on to me, which sounds strangely conspiratorial and bizarre. If anyone knows more, leave a comment in, well, the comments, and I'll update. I'll also do my best to run down what actually happened in the meantime.

Here's Sheldon the Tiny Dinosaur in Minecraft, some hysterical Wor'ds Best Father pictures, the 'Ecce Homo' restorer now wants royalties (the hell??), and for anyone interested in quilting, this is the best tutorial I've found so far on the new "quilt as you go" method.

And I found this completely randomly--it's a stupidly charming paean to the joys of the Nether in Minecraft. Well worth the watching.

Also, if you have recently experienced anything with the new "BUG" reporting system (over the actual JIRA system)--good or bad--consider going here and telling the Lindens why.

so keep your head up, keep your love

What did I just watch? Creeper stalkers? Endermen that fight back and steal chests? Air kraken?

Wait, air kraken? So it's not just a CaleCraft phenomenon!

Somehow that relates to this, which is the opening of an anime that's very nearly too weird to describe, but I'll make the attempt: it envisions a world where the elder gods are aliens, and one of them--Nyarlathotep, to be specific--decides to transform into a silver-haired high-school student to protect a high school boy.

I'm not kidding, that seems to be what it is. It's been a small but pervasive part of Japanese culture, in that it's appeared in manga, anime, and light novel formats, and is at least partially based on the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game.

Ooookay. Moving on...It seems glaringly apparent, now, that Marvel has decided to make the X-Men villains. Now, sure, they're supposedly possessed--en masse--by the Phoenix Force (the same sort of nebulous world-destroying entity that turned Jean Grey into Dark Phoenix), but that doesn't explain the weird changes in costume.

For instance, the Sub-Mariner--Prince Namor--went from this:

(from the media album, a cover of the Sub-Mariner comic)

(which made sense for a mostly sea-dwelling superhero) to this:

(from the media album; the so-called "Phoenix Five")

which...makes no sense for the character.

From left to right on the above (Prince Namor is on the far left) picture: the Sub-Mariner, Husk, Cyclops, Emma Frost, and Colossus. So, we have Namor in red and black scaled tights, black winged boots that belt around the thighs, opera-length latex gloves (and bwuh, Marvel? Why fetish gloves?!?), and gold spaulders (bet those would be hell to swim in). We have Husk, one of the more disturbing of the new crop of X-Men due to her ability to tear off her surface skin to reveal metal, stone, or differently-organized skin underneath, wearing smoking red, riveted spaulders, seemingly studded black opera-length gloves, black studded thigh-high boots, and a kicky little miniskirt in red--plus carrying a flaming sword. We have Scott Summers in pretty much Nightwing's costume, but in red and black--and with added, wholly ridiculous-looking, red thong (who's also carrying Captain America's impossibly damaged shield, and Thor's hammer, which also makes no sense). We've got Emma Frost in gold and white, when gold has never been one of her colors, either (though weirdly, she's actually wearing more in her new outfit than she does usually). And finally, we have Colossus with gold touches over his metallic form, but wearing red and black boots and gauntlets, and what can only be described as a loosely belted red toga. What the hell, Marvel?

[Late insert from the Editrix: I'm wrong! While Marvel.com has nothing on this, Scans Daily had it incorrect, and the one I identified as Husk is actually Majik, the younger sister of Colossus.]

So what's happening now with the Marketplace JIRA? Glad you asked. I have a picture:

(from the bizarre album)

For anyone following along at home, in mid-June I noticed the description had changed:

(from the bizarre album)

And now it seems to have changed again. Here's what I want to know:

• First and foremost, why are people changing the description? 
• Second, how are they changing the description? 
• Third, is this expected behavior or a recent change? 
• Fourth, is this part of the bug also affecting the Marketplace itself? 
• And finally, fifth, how does someone change the description back to the original for this particular bug? Does anyone know? 

Because people updating their comments on that JIRA, and changing the official filing description of that JIRA, should not be the same thing.

beams of light he's working under

I'm certainly not going to say that any crafter who chooses a price for their wares is wrong; heart, soul and effort went into every handcrafted item, all handcrafted items. I'm just saying that, price aside, this is the cutest Creeper I've ever seen.

So, going back to the Marketplace JIRA again, I find a comment from Sassy Romano:

Status: Fix Pending

•WEB-4587 (Listings with the wrong images): This is currently under test. (from http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Marketplace-and-Direct-Delivery-Update/m-p/1562745#M24277 )

And yes, that's the complete text of her message, but the reply to which she refers hasn't been updated since the seventh of June.

Still, for what it's worth--even though I'm fairly sure I linked this earlier in the month--here's the latest reply to that comment on a sub-thread of a forum no one reads, so it's confusing why CommerceTeam Linden still insists on hitting "reply" to that one, buried comment, over, you know, actually COMMUNICATING WITH CUSTOMERS...

Overall Marketplace

There are also several issues that occurred around the time of the Direct Delivery launch that we are still working to address, but are not issues with Direct Delivery.

• WEB-4587 (Listings with the wrong images): This is currently under test.
• WEB-4441 (Orders stuck in "Being Delivered" state): We have been able decrease the number of orders getting stuck and continue to work on preventing all orders from getting stuck.
• WEB-4567 (Bulk delete fails for some merchants): We will evaluate the priority of this once we have completed the above Direct Delivery fixes and features.
• WEB-4592 (Orders marked as "Delivery Partially Failed" on success): This is currently under investigation.
• WEB-4696 (Deleted listings appearing in search results): We continue to investigate this issue.
• WEB-2974 (Listing enhancement stuck in "Charging, cannot edit right now" state): We are investigating this issue.
• WEB-4138 (Confirmation emails failing to deliver): We are currently investigating this issue.

In addition to the above issues, there have been reports of Direct Delivery purchases silently being delivered and the Merchant not getting paid (the order is marked as "Failed"). We have not been able to confirm this report and would like to investigate further, so please file a support ticket with details if you see this.

So basically, that's where we...likely still...stand: more than three months (for the Direct Delivery/corrupted database issue), possibly up to two years (for the original corruption when moving from XStreet to SL Marketplace)...is it any wonder people are reaching their breaking points?

And seriously, people, how many sim-owners, merchants, institutions, corporate accounts, and even average consumer customers have to leave Second Life before the Lindens take this seriously? Because right now, all we're seeing is "hey, thanks for your patience, we're working on it"--which is being sent into a sub-thread instead of any of the other avenues of communication the Lindens have.

For completion's sake, those are:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Tumblr
• Pinterest
• MySpace
• the official SL blog
• the official SL forums
• the actual main SL website

Is it sinking in yet?

If the Lindens wanted to be excessively arcane about it, they could even choose one of these:

• SL Universe (while not owned by the Lindens, messages could be left and reach a more diverse section of the population, including merchants and sim owners who are more directly impacted by Marketplace dysfunction)
• the SL Universe Twitter feed (again, not owned by the Lindens, but they could easily hashtag a response to the feed, which again, would reach more people than CommerceTeam Linden making eternal replies to a buried forum thread)
• the Second Life Wikipedia page (again not a main avenue of communication, but hey, for fun and profit they could create a page here, then link it on their Twitter feed)
• the New World Notes blog (which has a large readership, and being run by a former Linden, has a certain trust cachet built-in)
• Tateru Nino's blog (which isn't operated by a former Linden, as far as I know, but is also a generally trusted resource for actual journalistic details)

What they seem to fail to realize, any time this comes up, is how many diverse sources for spreading information they actually have. Do they ever use any of these? Beyond the forums, and scattered personal letters (some of which, in the past, have been radically wrong and drama-laden themselves), I'd have to say the answer is no, more often than it's anything else.

So why doesn't a company who wants to reach its customers persist in avoiding 98% of all forms of direct communication with those customers? Got me. I've never been able to figure that one out.

Lord, make me a rainbow, I'll shine down on my mother

Ice bomb! (Do not try this at home.)

The results are in: teaching gaming theory to budding gamers gives them a greater sense of play, creativity, and understanding about the basic issues. You can find out more on his blog.

This is one way to get rid of that feeling of being surrounded by blank white walls...but if you rent, I'm going to go out on that limb and say it may not be your best choice.

Do you like gummi bears? Do you like fiery-hot things? Why not mix the two? For eight bucks a bag, you can get 250 of them in a bag suffused with warnings and cautions.

Why does this even exist? People want to be drunk for less than a minute? Well, I guess it spares folks the discomfort of being hungover the next day?

If you really want to know more, contact the designer.

These will likely sell out, but they are very cool-looking.

Mimic octopus!

Everyone knows about sporks by now, right? Well, the knork has been introduced. My only concern: how sharp is that cutting edge? Is it safe to slide into an open mouth?

While this likely will encourage paranoia in those souls already inclined to it, I think it's a fascinating application of technology. Hummingbirds already strike us, visually, as being unnatural in their movements, so seeing one that's artificial likely would be dismissed. Which is sort of the point.

My only problem? Those poor law officers stuck with shaky-cam footage, and trying to identify crimes in progress without getting seasick.

Sticky notes are available in just about any size, shape, color, or design you can possibly think of. Now Suck UK brings us the next sticky note evolution--random shapes. Designed as page markers, their use can be expanded anywhere one needs a dash of color, and it's pure whimsy that will get you any of their designs from the website. (If you go into their UK store, well, then you can pick out what you want in person.)

There is a Minecraft texture pack out there which is simultaneously the most terrifying and the most kawaii thing I've ever seen. But, start to finish, it's also one of the most creative packs I've ever seen. Why? Because the High on Sugar pack was created as an inclusive whole, something other packs really don't do.

Let me explain that because it's an important point.

(from the Minecrafting album)

Yuikami is, like many of us, a die-hard Minecraft player. But where many texture packs simply imitated what already existed in the game (and I'm not saying that's bad for retexturing, at all), she chose to break it down from the ground up. Cows and certain bricks are made out of chocolate-bar sections. Ghasts have smiling happy faces and little pink bows. The beds are frosted cake bars with little sprinkles--if I had to guess on flavor, I'd probably think strawberry. Armor becomes different colors of cafe-maid frocks. The portal into the Nether is comprised of animated hearts. Creepers blow up with an explosion of cherry-blossom petals and more little hearts.

(from the Minecrafting album)

But that's not where it stops. No, she's created animation sets for many of the textures, which can still be used by people in my position, who either don't have good results with MCPatcher (the industry standard) or just don't want the extra graphics burden on their systems. She's made monster skins random, so if you're set upon by three zombies in the wilderness, you won't be seeing three undead Steves coming at you.

(from the Minecrafting album)

While form does--and must--follow function (all cows are shaped the same, all monsters are shaped the same for that monster type), she's really given serious thought to how that form and function are represented in her pack--and that level of thought and attention to detail is seen in every single texture within her pack.

(from the Minecrafting album)

Sure, it's saccharine as all hell, and it gives your eyes diabetes, but push all that aside--here is a designer who reached into the heart of what she wanted in Minecraft, and made it a reality. It's a syrupy, overly twee reality, to be sure, but from the very grass on the ground, to the sun and moon in the sky, everything matches her base concept.

Man, though, those wheat stalks...I swear I was having Children of the Corn flashbacks. "He who Walks Behind the Stalks...Nyan!"

Or something. Anyway, I'll work on getting back to normal Minecrafting entries...or at least, the evolution of Team Caledon.

how you break my heart in this cold waiting room

[desmondshang] runs screaming in a cave

This kind of thing? Happens a LOT. But to be fair, between the slimes, creepers, skeleton archers, zombies, two varieties of cave spiders...really, Minecraft is pretty much designed to creep folks out at night.

Or in caves.

Like to knit? Like Dr. Who? Want a fairly elegant way to bring the two together? Try this--a lovely, lacy Tardis capelet.

The issues surrounding intellectual property, copyright, and trademark are labyrinthine and diverse as an individual; but on occasion, they're even daunting for commercial enterprises for which these laws were ultimately designed. Witness the current wrangling between Sam Raimi and Award Pictures over the trademark to the Evil Dead franchise. On Raimi's side--he wrote the damn thing, as well as produced and directed it, along with Robert Tapert (co-producer) and Bruce Campbell (actor and producer). On Award's? A chance comment attributed to Tapert and Raimi from 2000, that they would "never" produce a sequel. This, according to Award, was trademark abandonment. Which is wrong, but they seem insistent.

Referring back to the sexism in games entry, I present more irrefutable proof:





Right. Because the hip swaying and that outfit are completely innocent.

According to game mythology, the Elim are apparently not little underdressed girls, but instead, centuries-old tree spirits that choose to take the form of underdressed little girls. Because that makes the whole thing better. Sure it does.

(In all fairness I should mention that according to a friend, in the North American version of the game, the Elim are heavily censored. But that's not really the point, is it? Not when they're obviously designed to be taken as little girls.)

(And it's not like they're not cute as a race when they're all together...but seriously, people.)

More scenes from a hunt.

(from the scavenging album)

If I was going to spend my time as Alex Blackwell--quite literally getting under his skin--I realized after the first few hours hunting that the hair had to go. But--not being one--I don't have a lot of male, or even unisex hair. This was the best I could do, "Criss" from Discord Designs (and I'm not even sure it's sold anymore).

But the point of this is not to point that out; the point of this is that, immediately upon putting on Alex's skin--and the remnants of his clothes--I decided there was no way in hell I could wear Alex's clothes...at least not out of the box, so to speak.

(from the scavenging album)

This was my solution: I grabbed a random damaged plaid pattern, and made goddamn leggings to go underneath those tattered, tattered jeans.

(from the scavenging album)

And Alex from the front, to show off the "leggings", which--at least for me--solved the issue of when these jeans were going to completely dissolve and fall off Alex.

(from the scavenging album)

Another of the Missing posters. Here's the fun thing about the Missing posters: not that I'm going to, but I could, quite literally, do a blog entry and snap a picture of where all fifty of them are located. I could do that because, without the HUD and without being within ten meters of each poster, no participant can grab the numbers and just punch them in. You have to be within that ten meters, period, no other option. No camming around the sim looking for things; no touching objects you're not close to.

More to come!

and I won't say that I can be repaired

[10:15:20 PM] Emilly Orr: Oh, and news from [Mxxxxxxx] on the ground--in fixing the latest Marketplace delivery bug, the Lindens managed to cock up group chat AND teleportation! Way to go!
[10:18:05 PM] [Axxxxxxxx Rxxxxx]: Wheeee
[10:18:11 PM] [Mxxxxxxx Bxxxxxx]: oh and even higher than normal lag everywhere. And group chat for most is buggered also
[10:18:20 PM] Emilly Orr: Great
[10:18:20 PM] [Axxxxxxxx Rxxxxx]: *facepaw*
[10:18:30 PM] Emilly Orr: WTF did they DO
[10:18:38 PM] [Mxxxxxxx Bxxxxxx]: They fixed things.
[10:19:10 PM] Emilly Orr: With what? A mallet and a fruit fly with a brain injury??
[10:19:41 PM] [Mxxxxxxx Bxxxxxx]: Nope they used a vibrating chain saw also.

What makes my brain seriously hurt in all of this was that they knew there was a major problem on Friday. In fact, they flipped it up on the grid status page that it would happen on Monday:

[Posted 1:00pm PDT, 27 April 2012] We will be performing scheduled maintenance Monday April 30, 2012 beginning at 6:00am until approximately 9:00am. Please save all builds and refrain from rezzing no copy objects or making inworld L$ transactions. Some residents may experience delays logging inworld. Please follow this blog for any updated information.

So, after an incredibly bumpy weekend, the maintenance finally happens on Monday...and just about everything is showing signs of breakage.

Why?

Heard over on Mr. Antfarm's blog, there's something called the Newbie Bloggers' Initiative. I think this is a great idea, and a great many people are getting involved, so hit up HBA's post for all the details. (I think I'm sidestepping this one, because my basic blogging advice to anyone is "Don't be me"...which isn't very helpful.)

I've been pleasantly surprised with how good Avatar: the Legend of Korra is--it's got pretty tight plots, great action, characters that feel real despite the fantasy bent, and is an animated show that adults can enjoy instead of endure--but discovering this was hysterical. It makes sense, though--who else does Konietzko have around all the time?

Chocolate planets? Absolutely. Likely cost an arm and a leg to ship, but they're really well done.

Minecraft's sent out a tats and connections page that looks like one of the end scenes from War Games. It's fun, though. It has three display settings: "a few", "a bunch", and "Kaboom" (for which the hovertext is "You're on your own").

New World Notes has tracked down Ceri Quixote, the owner of the largest avatar in SL--which makes it easier for me to tell people who she is, because of that pesky not-so-many-SL-names policy. Ethics are tricksy things. But confirmed there as well, she's planning on releasing a (slightly smaller) version for retail sale. Still intrigued to see how tall that avatar turns out to be.

Flipping (briefly) to the Marketplace JIRA, a word from Kampu Oren:

At some point, I think it's reasonable for people to assume the problem is being left deliberately unsolved in order to achieve some unstated purpose.

Now, I think it's a fair assessment to call me a conspiracy theory fan, if not so much follower. (In fact, one of my uncles RL was so fascinated by conspiracy theories, especially crop circles and the "glass tubes" on Mars, that he and I communicated for the bulk of our interactions with tips overheard from big conspiracy sites like the Enterprize Mission site and the Crop Circle Connector site.)

But even I have to shake my head at this one. While I believe there are many, many things behind the scenes that we do not understand at Linden Lab--some few of which, likely to our future detriment--I can't believe the Lindens would go through all the fuss and nonsense of announcing code updates that they're not actually putting in place. And there are code updates going on--many of them breaking other bits of code, to be sure, but they are being employed. From hot fixes to patches to code editing itself, the Lindens are changing things.

If you play City of Heroes, and you're a member of MMORPG.com, you can get in on a costume giveaway they're hosting. It's for the Alpha and Omega tech-armor sets, and there's still almost three thousand keys left.

Finally, a lovely bit of urban camouflage--it's expensive, but it's an ingenious way to hide your laptop from casual glances. I wonder if it comes in other headlines?

my ship is sinking but it's all good and I can go down

Remember what I said about the particles?

(from the Minecrafting album)

Yeah. Where blazes are concerned, less really is more. Trust me, you'll want to turn particles down.

(from the Minecrafting album)

On the other hand, full particles or not, they have their own odd beauty.

At least, until they realize you're there and try to burn your face off.

(from the Minecrafting album)

Transition points between biomes are sharply delinated, as with all things in Minecraft. (There are no curves, after all, unless one makes the curving object very large.

Still, even with the blocky construction of ecologic zones...there are times it all comes together into a perfect shot. This was one of those times, I think.

(from the Minecrafting album)

Let's get back to exploration. Also understanding. Now, a few days after the original Nether portal was built--long before the blaze generator was up and running, which took about a week--two other residents set up Nether portals of their own very near the main village.

This was not a good idea.

Both of them remapped, causing linkage, which is why it's not good. You see, when a Nether portal is built, it acts as a two-way channel--the fixed spot on the dayside world, wherein one enters to travel to the Nether, and a generated point inside the Nether (which will be marked by the same obsidian-and-swirling-glow that marks the initial portal). That's all well and good, but when another portal is built too close to the first one, it will map over it, causing one of several effects. These can include:

• walking into the portal resident A built and coming out of resident B's portal (either entering or leaving the Nether);
• walking into the portal resident A built and coming out at some random disconnected point (either in the Nether or in the dayside world);
• walking into the portal resident A built and not going anywhere at all.

Upon researching, we discovered that many believe (though there's no concrete surety) that Nether portals must be built at least 1,024 blocks from each other to be effectively disconnected. Learning this, I set to digging out a passage, to ensure that any portal we built would be a sufficient distance away. This took a great deal of time.

(from the Minecrafting album)

Along the way, I discovered the greatest hazard in all of Minecraft...over and over again. We call it the "chunk error".

Part of what made Minecraft so revolutionary was that it used a new world generation system. Put plainly: if I'm not in a given block, or "chunk", of Minecraft code, it doesn't exist. If no one's there, it just doesn't load, end of story. This allowed Notch to create incredible, spanning vistas, because--for the most part--the world you're not in is imaginary; it's not draining your system's memory, it's not fighting for control of your computer's graphics card. If you're not there, it's not there.

How'ver, on occasion this backfires. The glitch is this: sometimes chunks won't load for you. This isn't a constant happening, but it does happen a fair amount, and the main reason it's so dangerous is because, if you forget to stop, and happen to walk into the chunk error, it confuses your computer terrible. The world is telling your computer you're no longer on solid ground. Your computer is trying to insist that you are on solid ground. No one wins in these fights.

The only successful traversing of a chunk error happens in a boat. Because your forward movement is being handled by a separate object (the boat, in this case), you can sail right over the nothing where the chunk's gone invisible, and come out safely on the other side.

Unfortunately, this only works on waterways. You can't just flip out a boat and slide across sod, for instance. Or stone, or ice, or lava. Can't be done.

Also, this trick doesn't apply to minecarts. If you ride a minecart down a section of track and hit a chunk error, you're toast. And the only way to fix the eternal falling that happens then is to disconnect, quit the game completely, the restart the program and log back in.

And even then, once you log in you may be relocated to another area, because the server "forgot" where you were before. (It's kind of like SL that way.)

More to come; having some annoying comp problems (on the loaner comp now, yay...), so that's delaying things a tad.

through the crowd I was crying out, and in your place there were a thousand other faces

This is almost tempting me to get involved with Guild Wars 2. I don't know if I will, mind, but...damn, that's just such an odd character class.

Recently, a picture archive compiled from various news and police sources was released to the public. It's an amazing, in-person look at life at the turn of the century, to the 1940s, in terms of fashion, architecture, city life, crime, and punishment. Absolutely worth looking through; it's amazing, and it's huge--870,000 photos in all.

Also, clearly from the NSFW front...an art student came up with a rather intriguing casting class final project--namely, that of embedding a small toy Tardis inside a silicon...er...well.

Prompting many of us to wonder, is it bigger on the inside? AND WE MOVE ON.

More from Minecraft? Why yes!

Now, you may have seen the Tesla tower in the distance of the last image. I don't know if it has an official name, but here's a better look at it:

(from the Minecrafting album)

This is the view from another, taller watchtower behind the village. You can see many of the animal pens, and about center-left, by the Tesla tower, you can see the L-shaped structure that's the main community center. Inside that, on the first level, are chests for supplies, crafting tables, book shelves, and a small forge area; below that are more forges (looking eerily crypt-like, set into the stone wall) and the main Nether portal for the village.

(from the Minecrafting album)

Another view. You can see the reed farm (on the lower left) and two of the three gardens.

(from the Minecrafting album)

The last shot I got, pretty much by hanging on to the crenellations of the tower, and inching out as far as I could to snap the shot. Scary, but it shows you more of the lay of the land, so to speak.

Now, this next one's going to take a bit of explanation. While I was excavating undermountain--specifically, under the mountain base--Fawkes was plotting out the parameters for an XP spawner in the Nether. Specifically, for blazes, that would work to help folks level up much faster, much easier.

Well, as "easy" as any XP generation system is, I suppose.

For those who don't know, the Nether was introduced to Minecraft on Samhain, several years back. It was a dark and spooky landscape, lit by hellish red light, its natural stone being either meat blocks, or shifting sand that was able to slow forward progress to a scary extent. At first, the only denizens of this hellscape were zombie pigmen (decaying pigs armed with gold swords), maniacal slimes (brighter and more ferocious than their cavebound brethren) and ghasts (giant floating tentacled nightmares that launched fireballs and giggled like mutant children).

(from the Minecrafting album)

Later were added blazes.

When one goes through the Nether portal--and survives the run to the spawner--well, this is somewhat typical of what you might see, once in the generation chamber:

(from the Minecrafting album)

Here's the down side--as with any XP generation system, your best bet for highest XP gathered is to let whatever mob the spawners spawn build up--so waits of two minutes, up to half an hour (for those with really robust computers) is considered fine--before wading in and slaying left and right. With most XP generation systems, the goal is not whatever drop the monsters have; that's considered a bonus. The goal is to gain XP and level up to enchant better, more protective, or more dangerous items.

(from the Minecrafting album)

With any other mob, that's pretty much the end of us. Build around the spawner, build a staging area, off you go on your quest for XP. But with blazes, even in the best of conditions, they still have an effect on those near them. Partially because of their higher-than-average temperatures (both ghasts and blazes breathe fireballs), partially because of the smoke particles they spew, just being near blazes slows you down, in terms of reaction and moving out of the way.

Put simply: even when trapped inside a spawner, blazes can hit you. And they drain endurance (read: increase your hunger) just by being near them.

(from the Minecrafting album)

Believe me, if I could have held the camera absolutely still I would have, but these things have a push factor that's equal to large slimes. And when several of them gather in the same place, they're not only loud, but, if you're not careful, they can push you right out of the room!
And that's before you get close enough to hit them!

The reason to go through all this? Well, because the XP's higher. Killing skeletons gets you on average two XP orbs. Kill twenty or so, you have a level. Whereas killing blazes gets you ten XP orbs, per blaze. Believe me, it adds up.

(from the Minecrafting album)

There is a setting to turn down particles seen in Minecraft. I'd definitely do so. Also, if you're interested in gaining XP this way (either on the Caledon server, or in your own private worlds), I'd consider turning down your sound, as well.

Because blazes sound like nothing less than ancient, mutated horrors trapped in iron lungs. And believe me, in the Nether, surrounded by that dim, reddish light, listening to metallic wheezing all around you...Well, I don't know about you, but it gets to me, plenty.
More when I get more time to sort!