Burning Life

Let's do two positive entries in a row! This one's for Philly. I hear the negative nellies are making him sad.

Hopefully, people got a chance to check out the Burning Life plots. There were some amazing builds, some funny builds and some poignant commentary. It was a really nice way to exhibit some fun SL work. I would like to see more of this. The sheer scale of multiple sims of user content jammed together was impressive. Residents really came through and it was an enjoyable experience wandering through the plots. Some that particularly stood out for me were Vivianne Draper's tribute to Starax Statosky (had quite a few of his animals), Ulrika Zugzwang's outlaw build (a really cool giant ball made of tiles that formed a picture of SL faces, which morphed as the tiles changed), Ilianexsi Sojourner's Snakes on a Plot (how can you not laugh), Starling Glitterbuck's Further Bus, the Bone House by Jamma Newt. Too many to name, see all my pics here.

Gonna Fly Now

There is always a ruckus going on with SL/LL. What else is new? I am going to divert from random ranting and mention something worthwhile.

The Shelter Lost Lake Balloon Tour was just the thing to set me right. The launch spot can be found directly east of the Shelter, near the shore of the Lake. Wonderfully set up. Just sat your av arse down in the balloon and off you go. According to the balloon, you are set for an 18 minute tour around the lake. I didn't time the trip, but it was certainly a substatial ride. Sim crossing were smooth. The view was first-rate. Rolling along the coast of the lake, the balloon informs you of some of the more notoble builds along the way, though not all - look it's Nocturnal Threads! Wave to kaia! Finally, the balloon takes a turn for home, passing by the teen center (I had never seen this, which is out on an island and is, I gather, the location where teens jump from Teen SL to the adult grid), and settling down softly back at the launch spot.

Here's the mumbo jumbo from a notecard available on site:

This attraction is provided by The Shelter in Isabel and was the original concept of Travis Lambert.

It was developed in conjunction with Traven Sachs of Wolfhaven Productions.

Special thanks to everyone else that helped to make this project a reality - Garth FairChang of FairChang Engineering for his assistance with the scripting, Ordinal Malaprop for help with some of the concepts behind the balloon navigation, and Renee Roundfield for her contribution of the Wicker Basket texture for the balloon.

If you have questions regarding the Lost Lake Balloon Tour, please contact Travis Lambert of The Shelter, or Traven Sachs of Wolfhaven Productions!

ENJOY YOUR RIDE!

Thanks Travis and folks, it was a good ride.

Pictures please! (see them all in my flickr thingermajob here)

And I read this somewhere in the vast interwebz and, since I'm sharing, I provide it for your amusement (balloon humor courtesy of this website poddys.com)....

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below.

He lowers the balloon further and shouts: "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"

The man below says: "yes you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."

"You must work in Information Technology," says the balloonist.

"I do," replies the man. "How did you know?"

"Well" says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's no use to anyone."

The man below says, "You must work in Management".

"I do" replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well", says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault."

The Scourge is Gone!

In a bold move, LL took over title to the Satyr sim (blahgged about in a previous installment - complete with pictures) and (perma)banned the majority of the alleged griefer group, V5. This is an ineffective policing maneuver at best and better described as an attempt to create some positive PR. The Lab has been accussed of going lite on griefers and not administering much in the way of security in Second Life. Timed such that an announcement could be made at the recent Town Hall and in the wake of a grid attack using self-replicating prims, the Black Tuesday bannings were just another smokescreen. The Lab is ever attempting amateur prestidigitation and illusory tactics that are meant to obscure the ongoing primary problems in the 'verse.

All 60 members of the group were banned as LL shouts out loud that SA is not welcome in SL. However, they continue to allow unverified accounts making this gesture all but useless as far as controlling and/or punishing the actual few that were responsible for recent attacks. I am under no illusion that there is specific evidence against all 60 banned accounts. I am also under no illusion as to who the Goons are and how they comport themselves. I am not ashamed to admit that I visit the somethingawful.com forums (oh no! is my ban on its way?). They span a great range of personalities that goes beyond the stereotypical "script-kidde griefer" to include people that have a more raw sense of humor than many are comfortable with as well as some truly fine and multi-layered folks.

The Lab, in my view, has crossed yet another barrier. They are learning to mesh bureaucratic efficiency with operational mediocrity and tossing in a touch of hubris for a smooth finish. They are astonished and unhappy with the negativity (on blogs, in posts, at Town Halls). I am astonished at the loss of personal payment info, the continued bugs, performance hiccups and the "presence" problem. I have had less desire to give LL the benefit of the doubt as they break through each new barrier.

There seems to be a duality about SL that The Lab has never been able to solve. LL doesn't want control, yet They crave it. Control is integral to the egos and the growth of the business, but also demands an amount of accountability that LL is determined to put on the residents. The more they attempt to teeter between the two, the worse the problems become. The negativity is not separate from the actions of The Lab, nor is it entirely on their heads, but LL is in the best position to address the issues of SL. It is not unusual for paying customers and dedicated residents to demand better. Unfortunately, in the corporate world, it isn't that unusual for a company to see through tunnel vision. Not only do They do nothing, but They don't even recognize what is going on (or at the least, refuse to admit it).

So, there were bannings of accounts, but the drivers of those avatars are dropping prim penises on furry sims in SL right now. For those with knowledge, there is no permaban. SLife goes on but for a note in history and a sim changing hands. Those outside of the immediate blast zone are not affected beyond the few hours off the grid and some hysterical forum postings to read. The SL community is not better off, the security of SL is no more robust and the griefers are not gone. What is gone is a little bit of soul from all of us as the powers that be turn a blind, as we use the suffering of the few to assuage the bloodlust of the many.

Where were you then, Where are you now

Word is that the fun sections of the official SL Forums are finally, officially closed. I would like to thank LL for officially pissing me off. Many folks deprecated the General and Sandbox areas of the SL forums. I was not one of them. I like to think I wasn't a total asshole and that some of my contributions could be seen as valuable, be they informative, humorous or just another puzzle piece in the overall forum community. I felt that way about almost every other poster. They were part of the whole, even the people that drove me insane with illogical posts, personal attacks and ideologies that were the polar opposite of my own. I wouldn't have had it any other way. I love to hear what people have to say, even when I disagree. It helps me gain perspective and it hones my own stances. It provides a complete experience.

As of now, I have no official SL Forums, little connection to LL (as I just don't care to read the blogs), and a wonderfully buggy snapshot experience that has made my SL trekking a good deal less enjoyable. My next blahg entry on Burning Life, complete with snapshots, is dragging as I couldn't take snapshots and read notecards during the same logon period without crashing. I will have to take another trip to BL in order to get some worthwhile information to go with my snapshots.

I feel angry, saddened and disassociated.

Which brings me to 5 years ago today....

I heard The News while at work on that September morning. My workday did not come to an abrupt end, but continued for much of the day, albeit with much more apprehension than I would normally expect in a typical working day. Having heard that my NYC relatives were fine, I was left tending to the kind of daily business that could be termed "second-tier, essential daily work" - the sort of thing that isn't life-and-death, but that should get done if at all possible. Things that many people assume never get interrupted. I was not watching the events unfold and was not viewing the footage repeated and discussed ad nauseam.

When I finally left the building, at around 2PM US Central, I was confronted with a deserted downtown Chicago. Deserted, that is, except for a plethora of heavily armed police and federal agents. Though at the acme of my emotional barometer and, of course, in a different league than today, I nevertheless felt angry, saddened and disassociated.

Fecund Life - A Burning Life Exhibit

Linden Lab sposored another Burning Life recently (I won't call it an annual thing because it hasn't been around long enough and they may never do it again, who knows). It is, for all practical purposes, a virtual art exhibit in the spirit of the Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada (Burning Man). There were tons of interesting things going on (think nekked drumming sessions) and some really great virtual builds (time traveling viking pirates). The one that really struck me and coaxed me out of my hole was an exhibit on vivi Odets' plot (I'll have to find out who was involved because it was not apparent, a complaint I had overall about the whole joint, but that is neither here nor there).

The plot, Fecund Life, was a major statement about SL and where it stands today, complete with red ban lines indicating that you couldn't actually access the plot, some Fecund Life signs, and a few trash cans labeled "Feedback Container", complete with a lid labeled "Your Comments Are Appreciated! Deposit feedback in this container". The signs and trash cans seemed to be a clear statement about the closing of the official SL forums and the general feeling about resident relations with LL at the moment. The blue box that would normally pop up upon trying to enter a no parcel plot indicates "Teh For-Umms (CLOSED, KEEP YOUR FEEDBACK TO YOURSELF)". I thought the whole thing was great and had to see it as soon as I was informed of its existence (thank you, kaia Ennui, for the heads up and the pic of Kendra's Viking Pirate Time Travel Ship!).

The signs are brilliant, having what appears to be a warped LL "hand" logo that is flipping the bird, a Fecund Life slogan - "Your Imagination, Our Profit Margin", and a notice, to wit...

Lazy Labs are committed to providing a fun, enjoyable experience for our empoyees. However, due to you, the customer, whining about 'quality', 'stability', and 'griefers', we have decided to close Teh For-Umms. We apologize for the action, but it is critical our employees only do 'fun' things, not dull stuff like bug fixes.

Please continue to feel free to leave feedback at our one-way communication mechanism, the LazL Blogs.

Now get out, ungrateful wretches. We have to work on our Tao of Lazy.

Sincerely,
Pharticulary Lazy, CEO.

To make the whole thing complete, there is a cheap Lazy Lab t-shirt distributor that you can, presumably, click on for a t-shirt. Now, I'm not suggesting this was the design of this particular Burning Life plot, but my night was complete when, upon "touching" the distributor, I promptly crashed out of SL.

Der Kapitanshaus!!!!

Kendra Bankroft, with inspiration from Aimee Weber's review of third party forums (Second Life Insider forum review), has created an Alsatian Biker Bar in the cool arse Port Neualtenburg build in the Fundama sim (74,71,22). You just have to like that kind of spirit. I do anyhow, and I also had to go check it out. I like PN anyway, so it isn't pulling teeth for me to pop over there. The place has a good feel and it looks good. I recommend checking it out.

As for the biker bar. Had no trouble finding it with the coords given in a forum post, provided in the link above. I walked up to the sight of a line of sleek two-wheelers (most of which I am told are made by Mannie Madonna) parked in front of the building. Walking into the otherwise homey looking room, you turn right to find a tasteful black curtain. Behind the curtain? A nice little spot hidden away in the basement. I hear there may even by a clothing optional area.

Take a gander at me swilling a rum and coke at the bar and then kicking over some bikes!

Wrong Side of the Tracks

I was perusing some forums and noticed a comment that the Satyr sim in SL was undergoing a retrofit and going with a tiki theme for the time being. I hadn't been over there in a bit, really not since I was "invited" via IM by someone who didn't appreciate my SL profile. That was fun!

I TP'd over to Satyr and poked about. There were a few folks around but by and large, nothing was really going on. One of the avatars gave me a flyby, but apparently determined that I was harmless and left me unmolested. Though not complete, the tiki atmosphere was pretty well done. After walking around and taking a few pics, I made my way to the mall in residence, which was decently built and spacious, but had the most annoying musical loop playing. I walked right out, but went back in the interest of a complete sim experience. There was some interesing stuff for sale, but I really couldn't concentrate (or didn't want to) with the sound loop going and eventually crashed. I'm not going to blame the sim lag. It could have been anything. I did, however, take that as a sign to end my meandering for the evening. I would have purchased the damn hobo kit (see below) if it hadn't been for that awful cacaphony and my subsequent ouster from the grid.

As you can see from the pics, there are some edgy elements at play, but that is part of what I love about SL. It isn't terribly offensive and actually took a bit of snooping to get the shots, so it isn't the kind of thing LL likes to call "readily visible" to the casual observer. Sorry Furries, but the de-furrestation sign and the freakish, hanging bunny made me laugh. You have to take most of this with a grain of salt. Some people may find it mean spirited, but there is plenty of SL culture that doesn't pass muster with 100% of the population.