baptised in the water, you're draining the well

First Nathan Fillion stole Zelda, then he stole Wil Wheaton's wife, Ann, then this happened, and the whole thing ended here.

It's not the first time Wheaton's been a meme, but it's the first one that dragged in guest appearances.

Twilight's been named the worst movie ever, which I think is slightly over the top--I mean, it's bad, don't get me wrong, but there are worse films out there. Like these, for instance. Or these. Or these. Or this list, which contains some even I haven't heard of.

I guess the main point is there's a lot of bad movies out there. Good for Rifftrax; bad for us.

CBS finally gets back to the Star Trek fan community in SL; their response is oddly reasonable. They have no objection to folks making items for their own, personal use; they simply object to those items (created with copyrighted material from Star Trek, by means of logos, insignia, uniforms, and prop items) for sale commercially. While that's a blow to the community--there are folks who make their living on mining IP for tasty financial gain--it's not as large a blow as everyone seemed to expect.

Love Portal? Have the freedom to paint your walls? How about a Portal-themed bedroom? At the very least, that provides a great leap-off point for decorating projects of your own.

[20:05] Axx Sxxxxxx: all the lindens in this chat be big fat faggits.
[20:05] Axx Sxxxxxx: i dont care.
[20:06] Sxxxxx Sxxxxx wonders wtf brought that outburst of rude on
[20:06] Axx Sxxxxxx: wonders wtf is has too do with you
[20:06] Axx Sxxxxxx: fagmatron

I do believe that's one of the strangest insults I've ever heard. What, exactly, is a "fagmatron"? The Urban Dictionary definition doesn't exactly help:

Being a real fag (no homo)

Uh...I don't get it. How can you simultaneously call someone gay but say you're not calling them gay? I don't understand.

Though oddly relevant to that...Viewer controversy? Viewer controversy. And while that's an upsetting turn of events--mainly, because I find it bizarre that Ms. Kirsten would pull something this underhanded--that's not what I want to discuss.

Quoting this bit from the CoolVL forums detailing this event:

I of course tried to contact Kirsten for explanations, but if you visit his BLOG, you will find no email or any way to contact him: I did let a comment on the BLOG entry for S19, but it was never published. I also IMed him in SL (and I know, thanks to a script, that he did connect after I sent him those IMs, so he certainly got them), and again, never got any reply during the past two weeks.

"His"? KirstenLee didn't give the gender away, Henri? But, annoyingly, he didn't stop there. "Tillie" is the first responder to his post:

I am not sure if this is really a post by Kirsten... didn't she announce to no more work on the client? If she came back to work, wouldn't she release some statement like that, not just "this is S19!"? Looks weird, somehow.

Henri responds:

This is his(1) blog, no doubt on that, and the code repository does contain all the other S* releases (that were not Cool VL Viewer clones).

     (1) the person behind the "KistrenLee Cinquetti" avatar is a male.

And my response is...why does this matter?

Seriously, people. Second Life's nearly ten years old. Ten years of gender fluidity, exploration, avatar inspiration, and virtual life. Why is this not simple for people? If they're female in world, they're female. If they're male in world, they're male. If they're neither, keep the pronouns gender-neutral.

If they TELL you otherwise, then you can react otherwise, but seriously--if they don't make a point of it, IN WORLD, then lay the hell off the gender, okay? That's called outing, it's rude, and whether you're the injured party or not, it just makes you sound like a clueless bully.

Notwithstanding the fact that, unless you--the person behind the screen--have an interest in moving in with/sleeping with/partnering with in RL the person behind their screen...it's none of your business in the first place. Be more tolerant, for the love of all gods, or if you can't do that, then shut the hell up. You're not helping anyone by making someone's "real" gender known; all you'll end up doing is hurting them, angering them, or depressing them. Nobody wins with tactics that underhanded.

Finally...SL is celebrating ten years of operation, later this month. To...erm...share? In the festivities? They're offering a bear. But not just any bear--this year, they're offering an avatar-sized rabid animal. Ready to tear out throats in a single swipe, it's a bird, it's a plane, no, it's--*gurgle gurgle death*...

Okay, maybe it's not actually scripted to kill people, but...seriously. It just looks hostile.

(from the bizarre album)

Still think I'm kidding? That's just creepy.

life is cold here, empty hallowed ground

Jean Grey is coming back, apparently. I'm just baffled. Marvel, seriously, just let the poor woman die. She's done enough. You're just bringing her back for dramadramadrama anyway. Leave her alone.

And I may have found the worst anime ever made. Or at least the most baffling: in twenty minutes, one character is named, and we're only quasi-sure that the guy we're seeing is that character. And that's not even the largest question of this piece. There are other, bigger questions, like:

• why are all the police girls? And twelve?
• why are all the twelve-year-old girls in form-fitting plugsuits?
• do they have names?
• why was one of them--after being beheaded--brought to the hospital where resuscitation was performed?
• actually, let's go back to that question again--how was resuscitation performed?!?

And that's without going into the scary bondage (and internal-organ-removing) process required to get into the big alien suit in the first place by the one named character.

We move on...to SCIENCE! Seriously, that's one of the greatest explanation of the Higgs-Bosun particle--and the CERN scientists' work in general--that I've ever found. (Though I'm going to be amused for a long while that the biggest protests around the announcement of finding the particle were over the Comic Sans font used in the official presentation.)

There's a really odd JIRA involving Microsoft SkyDrive and SL crashes; I don't entirely understand all of it, because I don't use SkyDrive, but it sounds serious. Nalates Urriah goes into it a little bit more here, along with some other concerns that are SkyDrive-specific, and nothing to do with SL in general.

I would tend to agree that Agnes Richter's embroidered straightjacket should be considered a repurposed diary, not a textile art object. While there is textile art in the world, she wasn't trying to make art as much as she was trying to explain her experience, using the tools she had on hand. Nevertheless, it remains an amazing testament to the power of creativity in captivity, and there's a new book on the subject, too.

Remember the breedable Twisted hunt cubes, the last hunt back? They now exist RL. BE AFRAID.

Finally, this is weird, surreal, suitably bizarre and a whole lot of fun. It's a ska version of "Still Alive", the Coulton song from the end of the first Portal game. Starts off slow, then starts jumping off the walls. If you like ska, you need to hear it at least once.

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

Another bit from the article:

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

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

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

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

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

The Mary Sue post pointed this out:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

won't you take me back to oblivion?

Random vampiric conversation:

[11:02] [Hxxxxx]: Never got the attraction of sleeping in a coffin. crap, hard sides, no room to stretch role, get in odd positions
[11:02] [kxxxxxxxx]: but...its not the same freak factor as a coffin
[11:02] [kxxxxxxxx]: that in itself is like a home invasion deterrant.
[11:03] [kxxxxxxxx]: its very OMGWTF IS LIVING HERE.

Weirdly, in SL, sleeping in a coffin is simply a matter of making a doublewide coffin-space and inserting poses. In some sims that's almost the definition of normal.

Issues with the newly-launched Spring Fling in City of Heroes:

Spring Fling Known Issues

There are a few Known Issues with the Spring Fling event that we would like you to be aware of:

• The Ski Chalet is accessible to players who get a Spring Fling mission that points them to the Ski Chalet entrance door.

• Spring Fling Hero teams that go on missions that lead to fighting Carnival of Shadows enemies will spawn level 40 Carnival of Shadows enemies even if teams are under level 40.

• Please note, that if there is a Villain or a Rogue on the team, the Carnival of Shadows enemies will spawn at their appropriate levels.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by these missions, and we are working to resolve them as soon as possible.

Thank you for your patience!

Paragon Studios Community Team

Argh. Basically, translated for non-players: you can't just hang in the Ski Chalet like you could during last year's Spring Fling (though admittedly, that will cut down on the level of ambient anime schoolgirl futa roleplay); and, if you're just playing hero to other heroes for other Spring Fling missions, you'll spawn level 40 Carnival of Shadows bad guys--even if it's a mission that restricts the entire team to level 15, or 20, or 25. So there were a lot of asks in Pocket D about villains or rogues to go on Spring Fling missions with heroes.

So while we're shuffling about, ensuring that we have rogues, villains and heroes on all teams, I overheard this in Pocket D--a conversation between a confused demon in a business suit, and several superheroes/supervillains:

[Local] Corporate Devil: I will not be bound!
[Local] Son of Consolation: [You don't have to.]
[Local] Spark Fighter: All right! Here we go!
[Local] Corporate Devil: You get no new conditions!
[Local] Nitrile: Oboroboroboros
[Local] Corporate Devil: I will not kill my secretary!
[Local] Nitrile: WE WANT HIGHER TAXES!
[Local] Corporate Devil: And you will never get a girlfriend!
[Local] Delligan Conagher: KILL HER DAMMIT!
[Local] Nitrile: FOUL FIEND!
[Local] Corporate Devil: His girlfriend?
[Local] Radiopath: I WANT PEOPLE TO STOP MISTAKING IRISH PEOPLE FOR SCOTTISH PEOPLE.
[Local] Delligan Conagher: KILL HER IMMIDIATLY!
[Local] Nitrile: WHAT RADIO SAID!

Ooookay. *backs away slowly*

There's now a way to make solar panels from grass clippings and leaves. So that's neat.

Too many bars! Run!

In SL news (sort of), there's a new Dutch court ruling that makes virtual property equal to real property--so virtual property stolen, or transferred under duress, equals real property loss and can be prosecutable under the newly established law. Miss Tateru Nino originally covered this, and while I'm not sure it would hold up in non-Dutch courts, it still creates intriguing precedent.

I'm also asking the same question as the Rock Paper Shotgun blog--does the space core showing up in Skyrim mean that Elder Scrolls and Aperture Science are set in the same universe?

And obviously, I have no idea where this image came from, but taking it purely as the advertising for skin, makeup or eyes...I think it fails. Why? Because that image is using not only Windlight programming, advanced shadows, and depth-of-field photography techniques, but a soft-focus slight blurring either achieved through PhotoShop or through a tinted/glowed filter over the photographic field itself.

No one is going to look that good on Second Life, ever, who's not standing in a photography studio being retouched on the fly. Products being advertised should reflect slightly more reality than that, people, even virtual ones.

this day, doesn't matter where you go or what you do, 'cos if I burn, so will you

Marc Rossmiller invited you to join him on Google+

The hell, dude. Stop inviting me. I don't even know who you are.

Comcast continues to be evil; they're actually going to charge folks in hurricane paths for the service they didn't receive. I sense a letter- and email-writing campaign in Comcast's future...that is, if folks have net to send those emails...

[NPC] Wolf Spider TacOps: I have a weapon pointed at a man's head and I'm in the middle of an interrogation. Did it ever occur to you that MAYBE trotting past like an elephant could be considered an intrusion?

Yeah, maybe. But hey, I'm gone now anyway, so nyaah.

Folks closer to Disneyworld may have seen Princess Minnie-Leia before (pictured with Darth Goofy, because, well, who else would play Vader? He's the only TALL Disney guy), but the character's taken a somewhat disturbing turn. Back in 2009, a limited-run series of Slave Minnie-Leia were put out, a joint effort between George "I'm a whore" Lucas and Disney "Sure, we'll take your money for that". Which wouldn't have been so bad, itself (though it's really weird to think of 'sexy' and 'Minnie Mouse' in the same breath), but now concept art has surfaced.

Even worse? In 2010, as a joint project between Disney and Forever21, Minnie was made over as a thin, leggy sophisticate. (I am totally not kidding, click the link--there's a picture.)

Man, talk about several years of bad decisions for Disney tie-ins...

Remember the Minecraft socks from a while back? Now there are Portal socks! ...Just don't fall off testing facility cliffs in them. For those, you actually need the heelsprings.

More Steam woes, this time where Minecraft is concerned, but I'm also a bit concerned about something said by Notch on that blog post:

We (probably?) wouldn't be able to, say, sell capes or have a map market place on minecraft.net that works with steam customers in a way that keeps Valve happy.

Um...why do two-cube-tall block people need capes? Seriously, why?

There's a fairly dense but really interesting article on the new advances coming to E-Ink products. Thinner? Lighter? More pixels to the bit? They can do that. Watches are already on the market.

More from the military tech front: this time, another way to hide a tank. Apparently there's a large need to hide tanks as cows or random land features. You'd think people were trying to sneak up on each other, or something.

SL Freebie Hunters have the second part of the Twisted hunt up! So now I add these stores to the list:

51. Gothic Desires (pretty good cemetary set piece)
64. Virtual Alchemy Photography (for the Unseelie Court set piece)
69. Venomous Rage Designs (for the eyes)
75. Lolapop (for the eye necklace)
78. [noctis] (for the photo prop use of the baby carriage, if nothing else)
79. Moon's Howling Creations (for the creepy dark trees decoration)
83. Eclectic Firefly (the male outfit doesn't do anything for me, but the female outfit is intriguing)
85. Bloodmyst (for the crypt)
88. DaBuVa (because occasionally I'm a sucker for interesting mouth noms)

I hate to say it, but at this rate, I'm going to end up doing the whole hunt, and I just don't have the time...but that brings our running total of possibles to seventy-eight.

I keep on thinking that it's all done and all over now

[03:07] "TSG" Lillith Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:07] "TSG" Lillith Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:07] "TSG" Lillith Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:07] "TSG" Lillith Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:07] "TSG" Lillith Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:07] "TSG" Lillith Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:07] "TSG" Lillith Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:07] "TSG" Lillith Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:07] "TSG" Lillith Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:07] "TSG" Lillith Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:07] "TSG" Lillith Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:07] "TSG" Lillith Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:07] "TSG" Lillith Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:08] "TSG" Genevieve Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:08] "TSG" Stella Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:08] "TSG" Stella Lucky Board whispers: Sorry, your name begins with K.
[03:08] Emilly Orr: Little bit twitchy there, [Kambo]?
[03:08] [Kambo]: YO HAVE som problem?
[03:09] [Kambo]: Hey... If you don't like it, go to russia...

Yes, because my mild objection to someone hitting a board without their letter on it fifteen times means I'm a Communist. No one bothers with education these days.

But it got worse--she started playing "oh EXCUSE me" gestures, which were annoying, as gestures nearly always are.

[03:09] Emilly Orr: Oh, a gesture-spammer.
[03:09] [Kambo]: I like to hit the boards, other kind of people like other things
[03:10] [Kambo]]: I would not call myself spammer, go to club and see how noobs spam.
[03:10] Emilly Orr shrugs.

I was doing my best not to cause controversy. Keep in mind we were at the Sugar Garden, where there are a group of five group-locked boards--four with different shades of skins, one with random items ranging from candles to clothing. All four skin boards, by the way, were for female skins.

[Kambo] was male. On top of everything else.

[03:10] [Kambo]: "wooo TP your friends" yea right... go fuck yourseld damn spammers I am not for calling my friends
[03:10] [Kambo]: yourself*
[03:10] Emilly Orr said nothing of the kind.
[03:11] [Kambo]: he's the host it's his damn job not mine
[03:11] Emilly Orr: He's not here.

This used to be a habit of mine, back when I was young and stupid--responding to people who were talking to me in IM, in public. For the most part, I've cleaved that behavior away, because listening to it from [Kambo], I am realizing anew how insane it sounds.

I thought everything was over for that miniscule spat, but one minute later...

[03:12] [Mediterranea]: That's some boobs on the skin!!!
[03:12] [Kambo]: I feel sorry for you
[03:12] [Kambo]: never seen boobs
[03:12] [Kambo]: ?

*sighs* This would be more disappointing, but this kind of thing happens all the time on the grid. I can't even say it's an American-versus-international thing, because it happens with just about every nationality, given time and inclination.

In the meantime, there's a new Muppet tribute album out, which has a terribly amusing video as a tie-in, featuring OK Go, nearly every Muppet that's appeared in any version of the show, sleight-of-hand, puppeteering, Rube Goldberg moments, and strange sleepovers. In short: it's perfectly Muppet-astic.

While there are several factors, I'm sure, that led to the shut-down of Atomic Comics, there's at least one artist out there who believes that the largest one is tax dodging. I haven't heard that, but it does present an interesting perspective.

It's not a new fad, but it now has a new name--they're calling it horsemanning now. After, y'know, that movie that one time.

In the meantime, enjoy this list of ten Harry Potter characters scarier than Voldemort. In general, I think they're absolutely right, which should tell us something about how dark the series got in spots.

Real world science news: Russia is planning a pipeline/train tunnel to run from Siberia to Alaska. It will cost an incredible amount of money, but, once done, it will both be the world's longest train tunnel, and an easier conveyance for Siberian raw goods to feed Canadian and American needs for those goods. Will this help the US economy pick up? Only time will tell.

And this is now the only record of the now-deleted 'robot diaries', from a robot operator working on the beleaguered Fukushima nuclear plants. It's a pity they were deleted, because there was actual solid information there--information that other robot design companies were putting to use as solid product testing details--in and amongst the complaints critical of the job itself.

For fans of Portal, I have two videos for you. First up: the Gary Hudston Engagement Project, which is pretty impressive as a level and as a proposal.

Next up, No Escape, which is singularly one of the best fan-made videos I've ever seen, with absolutely top-notch casting, effects, and set design. Well worth a watch, it's highly recommended.

"Food or comics? There's no app for that."

Which is exactly why people go to comics movies then don't turn around and actually buy the comics. It's blatantly obvious--to anyone who's not DC Comics--that they're prohibitively expensive for the folks who are most likely to buy those comics. Period.

I finally got to the Beta Grid after numerous tries and I was immediately griefed with objects that took my name, spammed chat with racist hate speech and offers to open Web sites to learn about avoiding griefing, but were, in fact, advertising pages. Later, I got to see some mesh objects."

It's nice to know that the new Linden Labs hard-lining on their policies and how important it is to keep mesh builds above-board, with no copyright infringement and specific guidelines, has protected people from harassment on the beta grid.

Yes, that was sarcasm.

I would Tipp-Ex you out but that only hides the pain

Is there ever a time where this picture:

(from the shopping album)

is really going to be the best advertisement for your store?

I mean yes, it's not the skin, it's likely the underlying shape, but seriously.

At least she came pre-censored.



Also, isn't visible penis supposed to be in Adult lands, not Caledon? As always, click on the picture for the non-censored link.

(And don't mistake me--there is perversion in Caledon, and I'm a happy proponent of [at least demi-accurate, and/or semi-historical] the same. And this is a powerful image, with or without the water prim cascading down in front. But there should be limits, in an open, airy shop with no other pretensions to modernity, in part of Caledon, to suddenly turning the corner and being faced with modern bondage photography.

(This is not bondage, you say? Of course it's not. It is full frontal male nudity, however, and it was next to portraiture of females in bondage poses, and all of it is derived from modern, not historical, sources. Therefore.)

In other game news, there's now a blog specifically for female dwarves in the Lord of the Rings Online--it's called Curved Steel. The entry that first came to my attention, with a tip of the hat to Headburro Antfarm, was To Dress or Not to Dress--and yes, they mean that literally. Should female dwarves dress in a feminine manner? Especially when adventuring, when skirts would be cumbersome and potentially dangerous in battle, is it a good idea, or would it be a lethal indulgence?

And there's an entry on dwarven concepts of beauty which is wonderfully written. They know their dwarves--at least, how the dwarves are written in Tolkien's lands. Which is kind of the point, because it's a LoTRO-centered blog.

And now there's Duck Tron! Or at least Duck brand duct tape, in Tron motifs. (Plus there's a moment of absolute giggle-worthy childish behavior at the very end, which is very nearly charming.)

Also, there's going to be a Ghost Rider 2, for those following such things, and--because I am one of those followers--here's the trailer. (And a tip of the hat to Fawkes Allen for finding it for me.)

Like Portal 2? Like physics-defying puzzles? Like user content? Have at it--a downloadable, non-Euclidean level for Portal 2. Trippy as hell. Even the set-by-set breakdown at the end does not remove the visual trippiness. (Oh, did I forget to mention? Yes, there's a video along with the download.)

From the Know Your Memes site comes this actually informative piece on Maru the Cat, complete--as ever--with videos, images, but also, accurate information. Good to know.

And the Shadow is returning to comics--but in the hands of a group of publishers and writers who know nothing about the character. Oy.

Finally, courtesy of Miss Magdalena Kamenev, this delightful link on traditional bathing suits and bathing machines by the shore. Pity I can never find a good pattern...

here I am in silence, it's a game I have to play

"Gotta go to space, gonna be in space...are we in space yet? We NEED to go to space! ...I love you, space...I'm the best at space!"

It's over three minutes of pure overdriven space-based mania from Portal 2's space core. Sadly, it capped its download limit within minutes of being posted.

There's a band out there called the Horse Thieves. If Conor Oberst had a stronger yen towards alt-folk, he'd fit in well with the Thieves, I think. You can listen to their first single off the upcoming album, or if you're on Facebook, you can check them out there. And if you want to hear a live performance, check them out at the Lewiston, Idaho Art Walk.

They hail from the Cursed Earth, aka Spokane, Washington, and I'm for anything that gets them out of there and into someplace where the water isn't radioactive.

Are they steampunk? Hell, no. But they've got something. It's that edge of vintage, that American-roots music I seem so drawn to as the music of people, people working, people living, people loving, people crying. The miserable depression of the working class, the hard driving stubbornness to keep moving forward, make it through another day, keep breathing and keep walking, for to stop walking is death.

But they're not purely acoustic, either, so while I think they're very listenable, and I'd like to hear more from them, I'm standing just a bit back from adding them in to the patchwork of other bands of the roots movement.

At any rate, their album comes out October 21st, self-published; you can buy the first single off it for 99 cents from BandCamp.

In a world driven by protests, both local and international, it's nice to know some people have kept their core values: harassing Valve to put out Half-Life 3 already.

I just have one comment: on the center panel of this dress, does it really show several ghosts gang-banging Ms. PacMan? Man, even for an 80's-themed hunt, people, that's low.

If that's what's going on.

[Insert from the Editrix: No, it's not. Apparently everyone I asked today saw it on the pervy side, as I did. Oops?]

Finally, pursuant to a conversation in Caledon yesterday, peruse why the British fry-up is the healthiest breakfast of all. (Oh, I don't specifically believe that...but it's a fun article.)

walk in the woods and I will try something in the trees that made you cry

[23:39] Kamilah Hauptmann: Desmond's in Regency if anyone wishes to go grief him. I can't TP with this hotel wifi or I'd do it myself.
[23:40] Desmond Shang: do. not. grief. meeee...
[23:40] Desmond Shang: I am helping someone with land

Ah, life in Caledon.

Someone made a Wheatley puppet! Damn, but that is shiny cool.

And Microsoft made a...Twitter dress? I do not understand, but I would like to voice my support for the corset keyboard concept. Yes, we need more of those.

I know what the basic concept is behind the SQUAIR system, but the way the original article dealt with it, it makes it sound like they're wanting to vent the smoke before the surgical staff gets hungry.

From Winter Ventura (via a status message, appropriately enough), comes this gem:

AOL Instant Messenger now has a "facebook" function that records every away message you set, and publishes them (by default) for anyone to search for and find. Using AIM via a client like pidgin? Check your lifestream: http://lifestream.aol.com/

I personally don't, as far as I know, but if you do--yeah, it's a good idea.

And here's another game I won't be buying--if you buy Rage, makers confirm, and are the first player, you get the whole game. But if you buy it used--say, from Gamespot or similar retailers--you get an entire single-player section cut out.

No, thank you. Not interested.

Apparently Robin, in the new DC reconfig, is going to cease to be Robin, the integral sidekick, and shift to Robin, the internship program. I'm totally not kidding. DC may have, in point of fact, gone crazy from the heat.

Meanwhile, more hot and heavy JIRA action! This, again, from the JIRA That Will Not Die. We begin with, as usual, Kelley Boyd:

"@Yoz: I did not choose to share my profile online (your own words), so I wish it to no longer be shared anywhere except within the Second Life Grid. You have taken that choice away from me; that is a violation of the Laws of Canada, UK, Australia, Singapore, and many others. It is unlawful to publish personal information about any members of those nations without their EXPRESS permission (a privacy policy/terms of use agreement does not constitute express permission."

Cue peals of my very amused laughter at this point. Now, granted, I was going to track down all the international privacy laws, and I'd even go a small way towards posting the relevant sections, but...bored now. The profiles may well be, in some scattered country (that is not the US, UK, Canada, or Australia), illegal.

BUT. The key is "personally identifiable information". Most of us--and I do believe most courts--would never take the usual First Life tab mention of "23 female Birmingham" as to be that personally identifiable. How many 23-year-old females live in Birmingham, anyway? Maybe that amount is diminished if you add that you have brown hair and love wearing culottes in the summer and your eyes are green, but again--seriously, Birmingham is only going to have one green-eyed, brown-haired, 23-year-old culotte-wearing female? And let's get really specific here, no one's specified whether it's Birmingham AL or Birmingham UK, have they?

But sure. Okay. If you post that you're Jenny Abrams, a 122-pound bantam-weight street fighter that works at the Starbuck's on the corner of Grand and 14th, who's 23 years old and has a law degree in applied organization table folding from the University of Wisconsin (where you lived before you moved to Birmingham); that your parents are Rodg and Malindera Abrams and you have one younger sibling named Nip who plays in a touring band currently in Broken Fork, Toronto; and that you now decorate the dueling scar that lines your left cheek with glitter and small round blue glass beads glued on for effect...yeah. Okay. That is personally identifying information. From that, you could be found on the net.

BUT. It's helpful to remember you put it there. Sure, I have problems with the web-only based profiles--not the least of which is they slow the game down--but if I don't want something in my RL profile section? Guess what? It's not there.

The closest I've come to personally identifiable info is to mention that yes, in fact, I'm female (this is not news) and over the age of consent in all countries (and that is not news). And neither qualifies as "personally identifiable information".

But Kelley went on:

You will cease and desist the use of Web Profiles, or include a way to disable them completely for those who so wish, on pain of violation of the laws of those lands and the filing of a class-action lawsuit.

And you know, I really would like to see that. I'd love to see what the court--of virtually any civilized nation--would make of this. Because at this point--now that the Labs have created a way to block the profile, block the feed from the profile, and removed the automatic Facebook and Twitter buttons--they're pretty much in the clear.

Adams Scarmon added a comment:

Actually i think its a violation.
As to be honest, non-SL users should NOT be able to view my profile from outside SecondLife.
What IS the point of that anyway????? Why doesnt LL protect its users?? How often do you hear that people are being bullied or harrashed, because some random idiiot has acces to all this information?!

Should we tone down the info we decide to put in our profiles now or what? As that would suck.

Yeah...likely as much as claiming this on your profile, Adams:

PLEASE BE ADVICED THAT I LOG EVERY IM AUTOMATICALLY. IF REQUIRED I SHARE THESE LOGS WITH 3RD PARTY GROUPS.

Well, we're now "adviced", Adams, thanks for that.

Lance Corrimal:

Kelley, you did in fact choose to share your profile online.

You did so by clicking on "yes i accept the tos" when you signed up.
Like Yoz already points out, the tos explicitely says that your profile will be available online and that you should not expect privacy for it.

If the problem here is that you did not read the tos when you signed up, who exactly is to blame for that?

Good point.

And Yoz again:

Adams: If you want to stop non-SL users from viewing your profile, simply click "Edit Profile", then the "Privacy" tab, and set all the drop-downs to "Second Life". Done!

Which is true. How'ver, this is my one question on that: when you check everything to "Second Life" only, does that really mean it's just seen in SL and not on the net? Because it used to be that hiding our profiles hid our profiles--from everyone, including people trying to get in touch with us for personal reasons, professional reasons, tenant questions, blog questions, merchant questions...Our choices used to be "visible" or "we don't exist". And that was no choice at all.

Kelley did not see this as a reasonable accord, however. His next comment:

No, Lance. I did NOT choose to share them. The ToS applies only to the Second Life Grid, not the Internet. Yoz said there is an option to not share them on the web, and there is not. Please stop spreading misinformation.

Okay, granted, Second Life is a computer program that is hosted on the internet, there is that fine line difference. BUT, again, the Terms of Service for Second Life state, in this relevant passage:

4. SECOND LIFE IS A VIRTUAL WORLD SERVICE

4.1 Second Life is a virtual world service consisting of a multi-user environment, including software, websites and virtual spaces.

"Account" means the entirety of your contractual rights and obligations under this Agreement associated with a particular Account Name you have selected for accessing the Service.

"Content" means any works of authorship, creative works, graphics, images, textures, photos, logos, sounds, music, video, audio, computer programs, applications, animations, gestures, text, objects, primitives, scripts, and interactive features.

"Intellectual Property Rights" means copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade dress, publicity rights, database rights, patent rights, and other intellectual property rights or proprietary rights recognized by law.

"In-World" means within the three-dimensional virtual world environment of Second Life.

"Linden In-World Content" is the Content provided to you In-World by Linden Lab under license in connection with the Service, except all User Content (as defined below), including but not limited to Content we created or licensed from third parties.

"Linden Software" is the software provided to you by Linden Lab and/or its suppliers under license in connection with the Service, including but not limited to the viewer software for accessing the Second Life environment (the "Viewer"), any other communication software, whether facilitating text-based, chat-based, voice, audio or other communication, within or outside of the Second Life environment, and any application program interfaces for use with Second Life (the "APIs").

"Second Life" or the "Service" is the multi-user online service offered by Linden Lab and includes the Websites, Servers, Linden Software, Linden In-World Content, and User Content.

"Servers" are the online environments that support the Service, including without limitation: the server computation, electronic data storage, software access, messaging and protocols that simulate the Second Life environment.

"User Content" means any Content that a user of the Service has uploaded, published, or submitted to or through the Servers, Websites, or other areas of the Service.

"Websites" are the websites and services available from the domain and subdomains of http://secondlife.com and http://marketplace.secondlife.com and any related or successor domains from which Linden Lab may offer services.

What all of that boils down to? Kelley is agreeing to the exposure of his profile on MySecondLife.com, and/or any other related websites that Second Life may acquire or develop as links to Second Life. And why is this? Because it's in the Second Life Terms of Service.

Was it always there? Maybe not. But it's there now.

And wau, this is getting long, so let me jump to part II.

I turn to the crowd as they're watching, they're sitting all together in the dark, in the warm

GlaDOS as Venus? It's a theory.

Meet Pun-Pun, the single scariest creature in D&D.

Via William Gibson, finder of so many intriguing things, comes an article from the Ladies' Home Journal, circa 1900, predicting events a hundred year hence. I'm surprised how close they came.

Someone really needs to update the ISC page on the Caledon Wiki. Just sayin'.

Pixels & Policy comments on what happens to virtual goods upon the owner's death. And true, there's no specific law for individuals, though I do remember two times in my history when the death of someone else directly affected me, in terms of property.

First, was the idiot vampire prince, who died through fraud. Though I had my home set to his sim, and had, in fact, decorated his house with my belongings, when he died, the sim owners erased his house and sent everything back. This was my first brush with the 'fire-and-forget' method of sim cleaning, and it was shocking at the time.

Second, of course, was Sumie Kawashima, whose RL family dedicated a virtual executor for her estate. What could be passed on, or what was under individual names, was, quietly and without fanfare.

Was it legal, in terms of what the current laws regarding the metaverse say? Not sure, though in a head-to-head legal challenge, probably not. Was it ethical, however, and morally responsible? Yes. And to that end, I look forward to laws--or at least, guidelines--developed for such instances.

Sort of on the heels of that--considering Sumie died from a deep bone infection--scientists have now discovered how to graft specially-treated rattan wood onto bone. If the sheep survive the process--and to date, none of the test herd has rejected the implants out of hand--then within a few years, we could see implanted rattan-wood bones for people who've lost bone mass, with little risk of rejection, retaining the strength of original bones.

So very very close...yet another dollop of sadness, but still.

Runes of Magic is further narrowing how diamonds can be used. Believe me, they're trying to pimp the cards, because the cards are supposedly "safer"; I get that, and I don't mind the diamond cards. I use the diamond cards; in fact, that nifty translucent mount we all got for the game? Came from a diamond card.

But it's still irritating. I buy diamonds, I'm putting money on the line for in-world funds, which cannot, thereafter, be translated back into cash. I want to know I can gift them, if I wish to; trade them in the Auction House if I want; I don't want or need restrictions like this.

"[T]his fantasy of being under constant siege by a multitude of external feminizing forces is really an unconscious defense that is employed to keep out of mind something even more disturbing - an identification with women."

The whole article is telling, but wau, that bit just leapt out and hit me. Only two years ago, Cory-at-the-time-Linden said there was, on average, 45% of all players in SL being biologically female, and 50% "playing as" female--and most of us at the time thought, yeah, the 'playing as'? That's higher than you think.

"I can tell you a million personal experiences of me covering this industry as a woman where people are just clearly freaked out by the fact that you're a woman but you're not a booth babe," Heather Chaplin commented in the article, and I believe her. I'm not going to go for the obvious and say there's a retrogression in gaming, of wanting to make females both accessible and minimized, but a woman executive in the gaming industry is still treated as something of a puzzle.

Take Team Fortress 2, for instance, my current obsession--there are no female characters in the game. There are no female voices in the game. It practically drips testosterone as if it's an engine for the stuph.

Had at least one female designer on the game. Who was a designer on the game because she liked the game, because she wanted to play that game, because she wanted to code and design that game. It's not an all-male industry anymore, and it hasn't been for some time, yet men are still somewhat shocked to discover women like to play games.

"Our secular culture produces all kinds of fear, including fear of the female anatomy," said Janet Jakobsen. And I believe that, too, I know that one. Fear of the feminine goes way back. Shub-Niggurath, the Goat with a Thousand Young, is presumed to be female, and when described at all is described as a dripping, oozing, fatally fecund presence. Fast-forward to Starship Troopers--at least, the movie version--and the "big bad" at the end is the Brain Bug, who--when defeated--is shown tied down while a group of men shove a sharp probe deeply into its...let's just say "mouth" and not go farther.

And Silent Hill...man, the entire game is pretty much Man Faces the Monster--and the Monster is, variably either female, neuter with female attributes, or male intent on hurting females. From Silent Hill comes Miniaret, the Nurses, what can only be described as a femipede...and that's without going into the horrors of the film version, where the evil mastermind behind the world's ills is female, ruthless, insane--and gets raped to death by barbed wire at the end.

"It is not that there's something pathological about being male," Ducat said in The Wimp Factor. "Rather, the problem is the psychological cost of developing a male identity in a culture that disparages the feminine and insists that the boundaries between the masculine and the feminine remain unambiguous and impermeable."

I'd agree with that, too. There's a lot going on, in the Western world, at least, that's very conflicting. Men are told to prize women--and then told that women have no worth. Men are told to be strong, to take control, to dominate--and then told that that dominance doesn't matter, won't matter, and is, in large part, a joke. Men search for an identify as men and are offered examples of men that vary from gay and celibate, to sociopathic, as role models. And on top of that they're told gender should play no part, and everyone should be equal.

It's no wonder men are confused. In this light, it's easier for women to develop an identity on their own--we're told we're weak, emotional, and without worth, but that's both easy to incorporate and move past, as well as easy to reject to search out new paradigms. I'm not saying men don't do this as well, but I do think we put more pressure on growing men, and it's not surprising that their heads spin, trying to process it all.

"If you could kill male prostitutes in the game, then it would be different, but you can only kill female prostitutes," Samhita Mukhopadhyay said. "It's clearly a fantasy. This is not the real world, and you have the right to fantasize about what you want to fantasize about. I'm more interested in what informs that fantasy. It's not coming out of nowhere."

It's not, and it is interesting to note that fantasies of destruction pervade a lot of countries' darker corners. The film Hostel, Eli Roth's tribute to snuff, has been censored in several countries, and it's been both critically acclaimed and lambasted for its subject content.

It's uncomfortable to think about what births these fantasies of vaginal gore and dominance through aggression. We argue that Chaplin is wrong because not all men are the way she says. Mukhopadhyay is wrong because there is so much more to GTA IV than sex and killing hookers. But making these observations is not an all-or-nothing statement.

And that's true, too. They're not saying all men are "bad", all men will destroy before preserve; ostensibly, this is about the fear of the female overall in online and console games. But it does make an impact when, time after time, men are shown a protagonist that is female and that tries to kill them, or shown a female that is obviously weak and frail, and then told either to protect her (with the game rigged for the player to fail), or to kill her (to gain achievements down the line).

I think, overall, games have gotten better in the past few years, both for female gamers, and the industry at large. Ten years ago a game like Portal--with a female antagonist and protagonist, a game somewhat drenched in estrogen, in a sense--would never have been made. And I think it's a good step forward that it has been, and that Portal is pretty standard in terms of FPS gameplay. It's centered on the feminine, but the only pink hearts in the game come from the Companion Cube--who never talks, and interacts only to the extent that it can be lifted and carried, and subsequently dropped.

We have a long way to go, sure. But I don't think more 'female-positive' games will really do the trick. I think we need to figure out why we're raising our children with these expectations, and change those expectations for them. The rest of us are dinosaurs, at this point, men and women alike. It's their world.

Let's see what games they come up with in ten years.