Chorus of Girls:
D-R
A-M-A
Here's Drama!
Lead girl:
Real life your butt is flat,
and your three kids ain't where it's at,
admit it girl, you've gotten fat,
but here you are a star!
Chorus:
D-R
A-M-A
We're Drama!
Lead Girl:
Fat stays where you put it!
It's a miracle!
But the guys they barely notice,
they just want a cum receptacle.
So how's a girl to get her fill,
of that really vicious catty thrill,
that comes from working wiles and doing ill?
And look like a lady even still.
Chorus:
D-R
A-M-A
There's Drama!
Lead Girl:
So let me tell you what this world is for.
Lover's, Linden, Land?
Just for keeping score.
Until its' getting out of hand,
it's just a bore!
the sex is fake,
we're on the take,
the rules we break.
It's the feelings that are real.
It's when you sink your claws in
that the ride can begin.
When they feel ruin,
When you've spoiled all their fun
and you've roiled their...
nasty c word edited for helevision!
Chorus:
D-R
A-M-A
We're here for drama,
and like it that way.
Poly:
I don't see,
what this has to do with me.
I wrote a bit,
and that was it.
Lead Girl:
There's no such thing as free sex,
or even free expressions.
You want to play the game of lex,
then don't commit social infractions.
We're going to ride you down,
tell the worl your're clown,
make your smile to a frown.
Look bitch, I know you laughed.
As my place was in your trash,
So it's my turn.
Because you've got a lot to learn.
Chorus: (whispered but growing louder)
D-R
A-M-A
Poly:
I've not said,
nor was anything read,
a single idea,
not running through hundreds of heads.
Lead Girl:
That's what makes it worse.
Poly:
Suddenly so terse?
Lead Girl: (Spoken)
Just calling for your hearse.
Poly:
I've got an lm in my purse,
The last person who talked like you,
found himself needing it's help too.
Chorus:
Big words! Love the drama!
D-R
A-M-A
Poly:
So you can have your radio,
rant and bitch and moan,
just so.
But I'll be here, just so you know
Lead Girl:
Oh we've got more than that,
you know the place you rent,
your little flat?
We talked to the rental group last night
and he didn't put up a bit of fight.
Don't go back to your little lawn,
you'll find the whole thing...
poof! is gone.
Sex bed that's no copy?
My how sloppy.
A crash, and you are out the cash.
Poly:
I'll get it back,
I know the maker.
and it will take more than threats,
to bend or break her.
Chorus:
D-R!
A-M-A!
Mouthy girl, has lots to say!
Lead Girl:
You don't know,
the fatal blow,
You know that lover,
with whome you used to go?
Well Mack has made her
into his ho.
A party girl,
who fucks the world.
How's that.
Feeling hot now?
Go inside, he's changed her shape,
she's into pain, and into rape.
She's his bitch,
and cash cow.
Poly:
How?
Lead Girl:
She's hoping to save you.
Or was,
now that's through,
instead, and I swear it's true,
she wants him to do anything
he wants to do.
Chorus:
D-R
A-M-A
Just grow up!
And blow away!
Friday, February 29, 2008
This is no way to live
One thing Second Lfe can do is show, not tell.
We need to show them what Charlayne Hunter-Gault is talking about in Zimbabwe:
Ideas anyone?
We need to show them what Charlayne Hunter-Gault is talking about in Zimbabwe:
That day he showed me farms now owned by Mugabe's cronies and supporters; he showed me burnt-out shacks that had belonged to poor black farmers who were removed shortly thereafter to make way for more of the same – cronies and supporters. (Most of the white farmers have left the country and set up shop elsewhere—some as far as Nigeria. But the over 200,000 black farm laborers had no cushions and no options. They stayed and suffered.)
Ideas anyone?
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Casius has the goods
Ok, I'm a vain creature. I admit it. How can I not link to something that's so nice to me.. but really people. Casius is a man in Second Life, and in every sense of the word. There are lots of guys, but very few men.
Learn from a ... hmmm ... Master (capital "M")....
Learn from a ... hmmm ... Master (capital "M")....
wikiHUD v1.04
Now with the ability to put in different wiki's and shift which one is being queried. Italso properly escapes URLS.
Free, open source available at Yedo.
If you find being able to query data in world, and edit it with a simple text edtior, consider voting up This JIRA to improve the in client browser that is found through help->in world help.
Free, open source available at Yedo.
If you find being able to query data in world, and edit it with a simple text edtior, consider voting up This JIRA to improve the in client browser that is found through help->in world help.
Yes Group IM's are borking
[8:35] Zero Linden: So, welcome to my continuing saga, "Notes from the scafolding of the grid"
[8:35] Saijanai Kuhn: ack ack ack ack
[8:35] Squirrel Wood: ^^
[8:36] Zha Ewry hands Zero another two by foor to hold up the IM system
[8:36] Wyn Galbraith: Ruth'd Tree!
[8:36] Wyn Galbraith: Darn cleared up too fast.
[8:36] Zero Linden: As always - Tree is busy recording the session for future history of science majors
[8:36] Tree Kyomoon: three crashes in a row
[8:36] JayR Cela: Zero how is ther progress with havok 4 & Mono going ?
[8:36] Tree Kyomoon: nasty ones
[8:36] Neas Bade: or anthropology majors :)
[8:37] Zero Linden: I spent some time yesterday debugging the IM problems with Which yesterday
[8:37] Rex Cronon: last time i logged out was from SWT(sandbox weapons testing) and because the scripts and physics were off i didn't even realize that i still had my gun attached
[8:37] Alyssya Vella: the ones that had me talking in IM with one person and a completely random person seeing and replying in the box also?? lol
[8:38] Zero Linden: There are just some astoundingly wild things one can do with a dynamic language runtime like Python
[8:38] Saijanai Kuhn: My chat bot ONLY works when that happens...
[8:38] Alyssya Vella had to remind herself to do ALL business in voice ;-)
[8:38] Zero Linden: Alyssya - we're mostly looking at the one where all of a sudden a group chat process starts using up memory without bound
[8:39] Zero Linden: which causes the machine it is on to swap, which then causes everything else on the machine to stop running
[8:39] Saijanai Kuhn: Zero, remind which he has my chat bot code, which gives a 1200% repro of the group =? conference chat thing (if/when it works at all)
[8:39] Rex Cronon: btw, what is the maximum number of users that a group chat can have?
[8:39] Alyssya Vella: ah alright.. well that is an issue also.. although people you dont know suddenly appearing in private IM boxes with one individual completely unrelated is quite worrying also.. but one step at a time i guess ;-)
[8:40] Zha Ewry: FOr like, days?
[8:41] Zero Linden: Zha - oh no, once the machine goes into swap, we have to kill it and restart the group IM system
[8:41] Zha Ewry wonders, just how hard it would be to fully reset that utility cluster
[8:41] Zha Ewry: We've seen some giroups wedged for days
[8:41] Zero Linden: so it doesn't last for more than a few minutes
[8:42] Zero Linden: when the machine goes into heavy swap, pagers go off
[8:42] Zero Linden: cell phones ring
[8:42] Zha Ewry: AWGroupies, has been hard wedged, Since monday
[8:42] Saijanai Kuhn: which means AW Groupies IM is yet ANOTHER issue...
[8:42] Zero Linden: klaxons in the monkey house
[8:42] Zha Ewry: Nervous looking grid monkeys?
[8:42] Rex Cronon: that is quite interesting alyssya. never happened to me, but i have heard about it. imafine is one person say to another person "lets ger married" and a different person gets the IM:)
[8:42] Zero Linden: Zha - really? that's odd....
[8:42] Zero Linden: Rex - there is no limit
[8:42] Zha Ewry: Yeah, I've been on with conciregre pretty much every AM
[8:42] Saijanai Kuhn: 3 days now, no Groupies IM, zero
[8:42] Zero Linden: there are groups with 1,000s of members
From Zero's office hours today...
We all
Shop too much...
... but never have a thing to wear.
Spend too much...
... but can't stand second quality.
Want to be dressed like everyone else...
... but hate having the same dress as anyone else.
Love shoes...
... except we can't find that one exactly right pair.
Buy many sets of hair...
.. and end up wearing a few a great deal.
Love to spend time looking...
... but hate the lag.
Hunt for sales...
... and then miss the most important one.
Adore how our avatar look works on us...
... but are tempted to start an alt to explore a different one.
Hate violence...
... love having the naughty little gadget that orbits the jerks.
Want to be treated like a lady...
... except when we want to be a sex object... your sex object.
Love to decorate...
... hate to move furniture.
Love looking good for you, and will change anything ...
... but hate it when you dictate what we should wear.
Love consistency...
... but change our minds as fast as we can change clothes, if not faster.
That's us.
Learn to love it.
... but never have a thing to wear.
Spend too much...
... but can't stand second quality.
Want to be dressed like everyone else...
... but hate having the same dress as anyone else.
Love shoes...
... except we can't find that one exactly right pair.
Buy many sets of hair...
.. and end up wearing a few a great deal.
Love to spend time looking...
... but hate the lag.
Hunt for sales...
... and then miss the most important one.
Adore how our avatar look works on us...
... but are tempted to start an alt to explore a different one.
Hate violence...
... love having the naughty little gadget that orbits the jerks.
Want to be treated like a lady...
... except when we want to be a sex object... your sex object.
Love to decorate...
... hate to move furniture.
Love looking good for you, and will change anything ...
... but hate it when you dictate what we should wear.
Love consistency...
... but change our minds as fast as we can change clothes, if not faster.
That's us.
Learn to love it.
Three Linden Opera:We Live
Mack:
We live, only to die.
We learn, only to lie.
We burn, from the other side.
We cringe, at the trades we plied.
We search, for what's implied.
We crow, at debaucheries we've tried.
And laugh, at the tears others have cried.
We sicken, just like cyonide.
It starts, when we drop from the sky.
It grows, as we grow snide.
It crests, as we fly.
It ends, with sluicide.
It's not, a new world,
but into our, abyss we're hurled.
Little linden, in phony banks we've squirelled.
And a banner, of black unfurled.
We bend, and then we break.
We're robbed, until we take.
Every feature, is a careful fake.
An artifice that others make.
Girls:
We live, only to die.
We learn, only to lie.
We burn, from the other side.
We cringe, at the trades we plied.
Mack:
We look, and we never see,
at our own, hypocrisy.
The takings, they go to me,
And the governors in a cubicle sea.
I can't resist the urge,
of all, my dark drives to purge,
Give, the noobs a chance to splurge,
While I sing, my soul's last dirge.
It reeks, and I love the stench,
with each taking of a stupid wench,
while in the real, her guts heave and wrench,
stuck to a lockmiester bench.
It's bliss, to be so wrong,
It's love, you know it all along,
Your mine, and you will sing my song,
You'll suck, my pixelated schlong.
Bruthea:
I only want to help,
Some one that I love,
I cannot stay with her,
nor leave her quite alone.
Mack: (Whips Bruthea)
You're not, getting with the game,
Come here, you're never quite the same,
You've only, your own lusts to blame.
The foolish moth, drawn to dark.
You thought, that this was a lark,
I laugh, with a studied snark.
Bruthea:
I live, because I give,
I love, with the softness off a dove.
Mack:
You need? Then drink my swill
And cum, while I have my fill,
Then bend, to my will.
You want? I'm giving nil.
This fate, will keep you very still.
You real voice, I'll soon hear trill.
As I crush, your spirit in my mill,
And your whoring, will help pay my bill.
Chorus:
We live, only to die.
We learn, only to lie.
We burn, from the other side.
We cringe, at the trades we plied.
Bruthea:(A short note)
Ah.
(Whips her)
Mack:
Louder, longer, stronger, prouder.
Bruthea:
Ah. Ah. Aaaa!
Mack:
When you sing,
you sing for lust,
that ripens, inside your bust.
Give up, on faith or worldly trust,
and do, what you know you must.
Bruthea:(To the tune from "Another World")
Ah. ah, aaaaa. Ah, ah ah aaaaaa.
Ah, aaaa ah.
Mack: (Whips her again, and she is pinned to a torture table.)
(Spoken)
You live, only to die,
you burn, to have me inside,
You'll cringe, at the trades you'll ply.
And you'll scream, my oh my.
Are you mine?
Bruthea:
Ah, aaaa ah.
Ah, aaaa ah.
Mack:(Spoken)
Yes, that's good enough.
Bring in the client.
You are going to play...
his sister.
(A client, cock hanging out, is led in...)
We live, only to die.
We learn, only to lie.
We burn, from the other side.
We cringe, at the trades we plied.
We search, for what's implied.
We crow, at debaucheries we've tried.
And laugh, at the tears others have cried.
We sicken, just like cyonide.
It starts, when we drop from the sky.
It grows, as we grow snide.
It crests, as we fly.
It ends, with sluicide.
It's not, a new world,
but into our, abyss we're hurled.
Little linden, in phony banks we've squirelled.
And a banner, of black unfurled.
We bend, and then we break.
We're robbed, until we take.
Every feature, is a careful fake.
An artifice that others make.
Girls:
We live, only to die.
We learn, only to lie.
We burn, from the other side.
We cringe, at the trades we plied.
Mack:
We look, and we never see,
at our own, hypocrisy.
The takings, they go to me,
And the governors in a cubicle sea.
I can't resist the urge,
of all, my dark drives to purge,
Give, the noobs a chance to splurge,
While I sing, my soul's last dirge.
It reeks, and I love the stench,
with each taking of a stupid wench,
while in the real, her guts heave and wrench,
stuck to a lockmiester bench.
It's bliss, to be so wrong,
It's love, you know it all along,
Your mine, and you will sing my song,
You'll suck, my pixelated schlong.
Bruthea:
I only want to help,
Some one that I love,
I cannot stay with her,
nor leave her quite alone.
Mack: (Whips Bruthea)
You're not, getting with the game,
Come here, you're never quite the same,
You've only, your own lusts to blame.
The foolish moth, drawn to dark.
You thought, that this was a lark,
I laugh, with a studied snark.
Bruthea:
I live, because I give,
I love, with the softness off a dove.
Mack:
You need? Then drink my swill
And cum, while I have my fill,
Then bend, to my will.
You want? I'm giving nil.
This fate, will keep you very still.
You real voice, I'll soon hear trill.
As I crush, your spirit in my mill,
And your whoring, will help pay my bill.
Chorus:
We live, only to die.
We learn, only to lie.
We burn, from the other side.
We cringe, at the trades we plied.
Bruthea:(A short note)
Ah.
(Whips her)
Mack:
Louder, longer, stronger, prouder.
Bruthea:
Ah. Ah. Aaaa!
Mack:
When you sing,
you sing for lust,
that ripens, inside your bust.
Give up, on faith or worldly trust,
and do, what you know you must.
Bruthea:(To the tune from "Another World")
Ah. ah, aaaaa. Ah, ah ah aaaaaa.
Ah, aaaa ah.
Mack: (Whips her again, and she is pinned to a torture table.)
(Spoken)
You live, only to die,
you burn, to have me inside,
You'll cringe, at the trades you'll ply.
And you'll scream, my oh my.
Are you mine?
Bruthea:
Ah, aaaa ah.
Ah, aaaa ah.
Mack:(Spoken)
Yes, that's good enough.
Bring in the client.
You are going to play...
his sister.
(A client, cock hanging out, is led in...)
Three Linden Opera:Price to Pay
Bruthea:
I came to ask...
Crass
... for a favor?
Then you have to show yours.
From the highest skybox,
to the ocean floors,
there's always a way,
if you know the price to pay.
Mack:
Let us talk, we have some things to say,
so open your mouth, and get close.
Talk to the legs, slut.
Talk to the third leg and nothing but.
Bend over just so,
I'll smack your hips until they glow.
DO you have voice?
I want to hear it if I have a choice?
What about cam?
It's always more glam
if I can see your clit
while we are in the thick of it.
Twist it,
Bruthea's Clit: (Spoken)
Bruthea cries out in pain as her clit is twisted.
Mack:
Have you been fucked?
Have you been fisted?
It needs to be longer than an inch.
Bruthea's Clit: (Spoken)
Bruthea shivers as her clit is pinched.
Mack:
Oh that feels so nice,
Why do it once, when I can do it twice?
What can I say, it's the price you'll pay?
Bruthea:
Is this what we want to do?
Mack:
Oh yes, this is a fuck, from me to you.
And you'll beg for mercy when I am through.
You think this is a night,
or just a tweak?
You want to buy a favor,
I want your body for a week.
I'll feed you to the newbies,
make you come to all the orgies.
And then, only then, will I ask what
you
want.
What can I say, what can I say?
If you want something here,
there's always a price to pay.
And now I've told you,
or you can go away.
(Pushes Bruthea to the floor and anally rapes her.)
I came to ask...
Crass
... for a favor?
Then you have to show yours.
From the highest skybox,
to the ocean floors,
there's always a way,
if you know the price to pay.
Mack:
Let us talk, we have some things to say,
so open your mouth, and get close.
Talk to the legs, slut.
Talk to the third leg and nothing but.
Bend over just so,
I'll smack your hips until they glow.
DO you have voice?
I want to hear it if I have a choice?
What about cam?
It's always more glam
if I can see your clit
while we are in the thick of it.
Twist it,
Bruthea's Clit: (Spoken)
Bruthea cries out in pain as her clit is twisted.
Mack:
Have you been fucked?
Have you been fisted?
It needs to be longer than an inch.
Bruthea's Clit: (Spoken)
Bruthea shivers as her clit is pinched.
Mack:
Oh that feels so nice,
Why do it once, when I can do it twice?
What can I say, it's the price you'll pay?
Bruthea:
Is this what we want to do?
Mack:
Oh yes, this is a fuck, from me to you.
And you'll beg for mercy when I am through.
You think this is a night,
or just a tweak?
You want to buy a favor,
I want your body for a week.
I'll feed you to the newbies,
make you come to all the orgies.
And then, only then, will I ask what
you
want.
What can I say, what can I say?
If you want something here,
there's always a price to pay.
And now I've told you,
or you can go away.
(Pushes Bruthea to the floor and anally rapes her.)
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Three Linden Opera: Did You
Bruthea Wanderlust:
Did you write this?
Poly, did you write this?
Poly:
Every word of it,
though nothing came of it.
Who cares what it is I say?
It's just pixels anyway.
Bruthea:
So you haven't heard?
That would be absurd...
You don't know?
Poly:
What is there to know,
I wrote it a month ago.
Bruthea:
Our World just found out,
They are going to scream and shout.
They say it is a crime.
Poly:
I told them at the time.
Bruthea:
What does that matter,
why couldn't you cajole and flatter?
Don't you see they are going to shatter..
every little bit of you,
until you are virtual goo.
They want' you finished,
they want you through.
What are you going to do?
Did you think first?
Did you think of us?
Did you think of our world?
Poly:
I just wrtoe what I saw,
when was that against the law?
Bruthea:
Here we live by nature's law,
red in tooth and red in claw.
Poly:
It's not the way I live,
I don't take more than I give.
This second life is not for that,
for playing mouse or playing cat.
Bruthea:
Oh can't you see,
this place is not fantasy?
The money here is real,
and most especially what we feel.
Poly:
It's for you I care,
the rest is air.
Bruthea:
Well I am not there,
I don't want to feel his crush.
I feel by death brushed.
You're safest off to sluicide,
or profusely apologize,
he'll find your rl and that will be that,
he'll knock your life completely flat.
(At the same time)
Poly:
I wish, I knew
just what, to do,
could this, be true?
I don't seem through,
but living in a rush....
for adrenaline I'm a lush
I've never felt so high,
I never flet that I could fly.
Before I could only fail and try,
without this I will die.
(Enter Prokofiev Never)
Prok:
Poly did you write this?
Did you mean to write this?
Poly:
Every world of it.
Prok:
Well it's completely shit.
How did you dare to defame,
the best club in this game.
Poly:
I wrote what I heard and saw,
since when is that against the law.
Every 15 second blaring through my speakers
(In the background, the chorous)
"Welcome to Our World."
Poly:
I couldn't stand the repetition,
or the silly competition.
So that is what I wrote.
I even sent them a note.
Prok:
It's just trash you pixel whore,
don't you know that this means war.
You shouldn't play here any more.
That's what this is about.
Poly:
No need to scream and shout.
Prok:
We're going to push you out.
Poly:
Of that we will see,
Right now I'm not believing
Bru:
I'm telling you I'm leaving.
Poly:
How did this come to have meaning.
Prok/Bru/Chorous:
Poly did you write this?
How could you ever write this?
(In the back ground)
Max:
You'll learn what it means to write this,
causing pain is such a bliss,
soon they will be writing your obit,
and every griefer will know to orbit,
you on sight,
you won't last
the night.
Did you write this?
Poly, did you write this?
Poly:
Every word of it,
though nothing came of it.
Who cares what it is I say?
It's just pixels anyway.
Bruthea:
So you haven't heard?
That would be absurd...
You don't know?
Poly:
What is there to know,
I wrote it a month ago.
Bruthea:
Our World just found out,
They are going to scream and shout.
They say it is a crime.
Poly:
I told them at the time.
Bruthea:
What does that matter,
why couldn't you cajole and flatter?
Don't you see they are going to shatter..
every little bit of you,
until you are virtual goo.
They want' you finished,
they want you through.
What are you going to do?
Did you think first?
Did you think of us?
Did you think of our world?
Poly:
I just wrtoe what I saw,
when was that against the law?
Bruthea:
Here we live by nature's law,
red in tooth and red in claw.
Poly:
It's not the way I live,
I don't take more than I give.
This second life is not for that,
for playing mouse or playing cat.
Bruthea:
Oh can't you see,
this place is not fantasy?
The money here is real,
and most especially what we feel.
Poly:
It's for you I care,
the rest is air.
Bruthea:
Well I am not there,
I don't want to feel his crush.
I feel by death brushed.
You're safest off to sluicide,
or profusely apologize,
he'll find your rl and that will be that,
he'll knock your life completely flat.
(At the same time)
Poly:
I wish, I knew
just what, to do,
could this, be true?
I don't seem through,
but living in a rush....
for adrenaline I'm a lush
I've never felt so high,
I never flet that I could fly.
Before I could only fail and try,
without this I will die.
(Enter Prokofiev Never)
Prok:
Poly did you write this?
Did you mean to write this?
Poly:
Every world of it.
Prok:
Well it's completely shit.
How did you dare to defame,
the best club in this game.
Poly:
I wrote what I heard and saw,
since when is that against the law.
Every 15 second blaring through my speakers
(In the background, the chorous)
"Welcome to Our World."
Poly:
I couldn't stand the repetition,
or the silly competition.
So that is what I wrote.
I even sent them a note.
Prok:
It's just trash you pixel whore,
don't you know that this means war.
You shouldn't play here any more.
That's what this is about.
Poly:
No need to scream and shout.
Prok:
We're going to push you out.
Poly:
Of that we will see,
Right now I'm not believing
Bru:
I'm telling you I'm leaving.
Poly:
How did this come to have meaning.
Prok/Bru/Chorous:
Poly did you write this?
How could you ever write this?
(In the back ground)
Max:
You'll learn what it means to write this,
causing pain is such a bliss,
soon they will be writing your obit,
and every griefer will know to orbit,
you on sight,
you won't last
the night.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Three Linden Opera: Welcome to Our World
Sploder:
The sploder is about to explode.
Girls in the chorous:
Welcome to Our World!
Welcome to Our World!
First Girl:
I tease my hands between my legs,
and taste my wetness for which they begs.
Second Girl:
Swing my hips from left to right,
the heat swelling my breasts under the light.
Third Girl:
I dip down so you can see my nips,
you'll seem more for some tips.
Sploder:
The sploder is about to explode.
All:
Welcome to Our World!
Mack:
This is the second life!
Play my wheels,
Play with your knife.
And if that's not enough fun,
take easy insult and draw your gun!
Chorous:
Welcome to Our World!
Music from the DJ:
I need a bitch, I need a bitch,
someone to switch, I need a bitch,
cause here I'm rich,
so bring on the bitch.
Chorous:
Welcome to Our World!
Crass Player:
Boss, have you seen this?
It's some escort,
who wrote about us!
She says this place is a machine
for making hate, and venting spleen!
Sploder:
The sploder is about to explode.
(Mack reads)
Mack:
How dare she cast her words at me,
she's going to pay, you will see!
That little whore!
She wants a war?
I'll show her what,
she is good for.
Crass:
Look, how many things she said about
the competition!
Sploder:
The sploder is about to explode.
Mack:
Then let's make her second life a perdition.
Is her rl a man?
Find that out if you can.
And even if you can't
just so you know,
put the rumor out on our radio.
Crass:
I like it, I'll do it, I'm on it..
Chorous:
Welcome to Our World.
First Girl:
I push my hips in to your face,
they rise and fall, It's like a race,
Want to see more,
put some linden love in place.
Mack:
She's going to burn in a private hell,
I was bored I suppose,
it's just as well.
I've got product, I have to sell,
she wanted to rise, but it's time she fell.
Sploder:
The sploder is about to explode.
Second Girl:
I strip my bra and toss it wide,
I spread my legs, can you tell what's inside?
It's hot and slick and warm you know...
Toss some linden love,
go with the flow.
Chorous:
Welcome to Our World!
Come around Our World!
Crass:
It's out, it's said.
Mack:
You'll shout, until she's dead.
Send the VIPs down on her head,
make sure she knows,
just what we've read.
Sploder:
The sploder is about to explode.
Crass:
I'm through it, I'll do it.
Mack:
Don't stop, stick to it!
Crass:
Oh, boss, one other thing,
the take is down, the patrons are winning.
Mack:
Crock the wheels a little more,
that's what hidden numbers are good for.
Sploder:
The sploder is about to explode.
Mack:
Howl everyone!
Arrr-ooooo!
Sploder:
The sploder is about to explode.
Music from the DJ:
Suck it up! Suck it up!
I need a bitch!
And here I'm rich!
All:
Welcome to Our World!
The sploder is about to explode.
Girls in the chorous:
Welcome to Our World!
Welcome to Our World!
First Girl:
I tease my hands between my legs,
and taste my wetness for which they begs.
Second Girl:
Swing my hips from left to right,
the heat swelling my breasts under the light.
Third Girl:
I dip down so you can see my nips,
you'll seem more for some tips.
Sploder:
The sploder is about to explode.
All:
Welcome to Our World!
Mack:
This is the second life!
Play my wheels,
Play with your knife.
And if that's not enough fun,
take easy insult and draw your gun!
Chorous:
Welcome to Our World!
Music from the DJ:
I need a bitch, I need a bitch,
someone to switch, I need a bitch,
cause here I'm rich,
so bring on the bitch.
Chorous:
Welcome to Our World!
Crass Player:
Boss, have you seen this?
It's some escort,
who wrote about us!
She says this place is a machine
for making hate, and venting spleen!
Sploder:
The sploder is about to explode.
(Mack reads)
Mack:
How dare she cast her words at me,
she's going to pay, you will see!
That little whore!
She wants a war?
I'll show her what,
she is good for.
Crass:
Look, how many things she said about
the competition!
Sploder:
The sploder is about to explode.
Mack:
Then let's make her second life a perdition.
Is her rl a man?
Find that out if you can.
And even if you can't
just so you know,
put the rumor out on our radio.
Crass:
I like it, I'll do it, I'm on it..
Chorous:
Welcome to Our World.
First Girl:
I push my hips in to your face,
they rise and fall, It's like a race,
Want to see more,
put some linden love in place.
Mack:
She's going to burn in a private hell,
I was bored I suppose,
it's just as well.
I've got product, I have to sell,
she wanted to rise, but it's time she fell.
Sploder:
The sploder is about to explode.
Second Girl:
I strip my bra and toss it wide,
I spread my legs, can you tell what's inside?
It's hot and slick and warm you know...
Toss some linden love,
go with the flow.
Chorous:
Welcome to Our World!
Come around Our World!
Crass:
It's out, it's said.
Mack:
You'll shout, until she's dead.
Send the VIPs down on her head,
make sure she knows,
just what we've read.
Sploder:
The sploder is about to explode.
Crass:
I'm through it, I'll do it.
Mack:
Don't stop, stick to it!
Crass:
Oh, boss, one other thing,
the take is down, the patrons are winning.
Mack:
Crock the wheels a little more,
that's what hidden numbers are good for.
Sploder:
The sploder is about to explode.
Mack:
Howl everyone!
Arrr-ooooo!
Sploder:
The sploder is about to explode.
Music from the DJ:
Suck it up! Suck it up!
I need a bitch!
And here I'm rich!
All:
Welcome to Our World!
Three Linden Opera:Poly Morpheus
Poly:
What right have we?
To call for light?
To call for feelings bright,
that live outside the boundaries of this place?
What are we now?
A sim-ple folk?
Under a yolk, of distant Governor,
who taxes then ignores?
W-hat Bare Rose we see,
from over that pacific sea...
what shiny things catch our attention,
acts beyond all mention.
What are we now?
But avatar'ed and feathered,
young but oh so weathered,
having seen rising rockets of our ways,
from ugly older days.
What is this time,
a pantomime, our voices cloaked.
And yet ever present.
I can tell you the day,
I came to play, and found
no money to be found,
was lead to this silent under ground.
Began to cling to this stage,
watching men come visit and then rage,
take be back behind the curtain,
of that first time I was uncertain...
what was left and what was left of me.
I showed him what he wanted to see,
I coo'd the compliments to his freebie cock,
he told me rl he was as hard as a rock,
didn't I wish to see a picture,
didn't I want to send a photo.
He'd buy a ticket and rent a motel,
so long as his wife was fast asleep.
He took me in the mouth and ass,
a happy, for him, hour we did pass,
he tossed half of what he promised and then said
"I'll pay you more when you are better in my rl bed."
I cried before my computer,
wanted to leave my avatar for dead.
But the next night.
The next night.
I was there again.
And I can't now remember when.
I haven't been.
I haven't been.
What right have I?
To wonder why?
To cry for light,
that would only blind me.
Oh what would happen if my real life find me.
It's that secret that will bind me.
To
this
second
place.
What right have we?
To call for light?
To call for feelings bright,
that live outside the boundaries of this place?
What are we now?
A sim-ple folk?
Under a yolk, of distant Governor,
who taxes then ignores?
W-hat Bare Rose we see,
from over that pacific sea...
what shiny things catch our attention,
acts beyond all mention.
What are we now?
But avatar'ed and feathered,
young but oh so weathered,
having seen rising rockets of our ways,
from ugly older days.
What is this time,
a pantomime, our voices cloaked.
And yet ever present.
I can tell you the day,
I came to play, and found
no money to be found,
was lead to this silent under ground.
Began to cling to this stage,
watching men come visit and then rage,
take be back behind the curtain,
of that first time I was uncertain...
what was left and what was left of me.
I showed him what he wanted to see,
I coo'd the compliments to his freebie cock,
he told me rl he was as hard as a rock,
didn't I wish to see a picture,
didn't I want to send a photo.
He'd buy a ticket and rent a motel,
so long as his wife was fast asleep.
He took me in the mouth and ass,
a happy, for him, hour we did pass,
he tossed half of what he promised and then said
"I'll pay you more when you are better in my rl bed."
I cried before my computer,
wanted to leave my avatar for dead.
But the next night.
The next night.
I was there again.
And I can't now remember when.
I haven't been.
I haven't been.
What right have I?
To wonder why?
To cry for light,
that would only blind me.
Oh what would happen if my real life find me.
It's that secret that will bind me.
To
this
second
place.
Three Linden Opera: Mack's Soliloquy
(All due apologies to John Gay, Berthold Brecht, Kurt Weill and just about eveyrone else associated with this great franchise from Swift to Ute Lemper...)
Mack:
This is the life, that other life.
By day, by day, I see no sun,
my joy is killed before begun.
Mealy mouthed and non-confrontational,
while haunting dark corners for the sensational.
By morning's light I drive to work,
by noon I'm trying just to shirk,
by evening ranting in my car,
at my dreams receding from near to far.
By night my face is lit like a glow,
in world where other things I know.
Wits are currency in game,
and infamy clings to my name.
A world, beyond all belief,
filled with drama, fraud, and grief.
Made of images and sounds,
filled with tyrants, whores and clowns.
Faces, figures, and features,
strange and delicate creatures.
Men who live as pimps, or even whores,
endless bloodless virtual wars.
A place without scruples or other mores,
That is where I go,
that is the second life I know,
If you want to find me,
or of other life remind me,
search the seediest places,
where the girls, they have no faces.
Where guillotines are for sex,
horses are not just for effects,
and morality is one of your defects.
It's there, I fare, nowhere,
but anywhere, there is, a connection.
I enter without compunction.
So of my adventures you should read,
my stories of others linden greed.
That's where, we fare,
nowhere,
but anywhere we are.
How near, how far?
How much, how close?
Behind the mask as anyone knows,
is just the distance of your breath.
Have a linden, another linden,
but don't spend them all,
in one place.
Mack:
This is the life, that other life.
By day, by day, I see no sun,
my joy is killed before begun.
Mealy mouthed and non-confrontational,
while haunting dark corners for the sensational.
By morning's light I drive to work,
by noon I'm trying just to shirk,
by evening ranting in my car,
at my dreams receding from near to far.
By night my face is lit like a glow,
in world where other things I know.
Wits are currency in game,
and infamy clings to my name.
A world, beyond all belief,
filled with drama, fraud, and grief.
Made of images and sounds,
filled with tyrants, whores and clowns.
Faces, figures, and features,
strange and delicate creatures.
Men who live as pimps, or even whores,
endless bloodless virtual wars.
A place without scruples or other mores,
That is where I go,
that is the second life I know,
If you want to find me,
or of other life remind me,
search the seediest places,
where the girls, they have no faces.
Where guillotines are for sex,
horses are not just for effects,
and morality is one of your defects.
It's there, I fare, nowhere,
but anywhere, there is, a connection.
I enter without compunction.
So of my adventures you should read,
my stories of others linden greed.
That's where, we fare,
nowhere,
but anywhere we are.
How near, how far?
How much, how close?
Behind the mask as anyone knows,
is just the distance of your breath.
Have a linden, another linden,
but don't spend them all,
in one place.
Freebie Stock Ticker
No, they aren't hard to write, so why not give a free one away? This one tracks the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Standard and Poors 500, the NASDAQ, the Nikkei, which is Tokyo, the DAX, which is Germany, the FTSE which is London, as well as the dollar to Yen, Euros, and Great British Pounds. Updates every 5 minutes, not particularly laggy other than on those updates.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Second Life needs to be on the AIR
This is the kind of technology we need for second life... I'm not enough enough of a techie to say that this particular cloud is the one we need, in fact that it is a closed proprietary this that and a dozen other things means I would say that something else is better. But this kind of merging of data here data there is what would make it easier to see vr as the replacement for the desktop metaphor.
Juan Cole Debunks the Terrorist Scare
I'm proud to say I did the avatar for Dr. Cole's Second Life appearance on Virtually Speaking. Today he completely debunks the terrorists in cyber space scare:
Any monitoring by law enforcement of innocuous activity and communication in a virtual world, conducted broadly and without oversight, would be unconstitutional and could invade the privacy of millions of persons. I found no evidence based on my own observations that a virtual world is suitable for planning a terror operation. The anxieties of terrorism "experts" and government officials may also reflect a fear of being not so easily able to extend broad, unchecked surveillance into this new virtual frontier, even if doing so may well accomplish nothing in terms of protecting national security.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
民權
It was volition before devotion,
and in motion that we have found,
that bright signature of our heritage,
lies bleeding on the ground.
I think I may, I think I might,
have the vote I vote tonight,
but in morning quite the other way,
for justice I seem to have to pay,
for money lending and money spent,
we wonder where equality went.
Will when we mean what we say,
upon some other bright as yet uncome day,
that all are equal created,
and bound together in nation fated,
that what is done unto the least,
will be the measure of the beast.
and in motion that we have found,
that bright signature of our heritage,
lies bleeding on the ground.
I think I may, I think I might,
have the vote I vote tonight,
but in morning quite the other way,
for justice I seem to have to pay,
for money lending and money spent,
we wonder where equality went.
Will when we mean what we say,
upon some other bright as yet uncome day,
that all are equal created,
and bound together in nation fated,
that what is done unto the least,
will be the measure of the beast.
民生
We say what we say as we say when we say,
and it is said as it's said when it's said,
then it is read, until red with delerium
we pass to exhaustion and fall from imperium,
this republic we've made all afraid
and a fraying at the bonds
that we sell to a well from the wells
all is well?
All is well. All is well.
We do as we did till we've done what was dunned,
and the measures of our mortgage are made by the tun,
of the treasures that are set by the match that we've tested,
fit more for our age, if we're game for what
we have set to the the money that we love.
Deuce.
Advantage.
Break point.
Game.
and it is said as it's said when it's said,
then it is read, until red with delerium
we pass to exhaustion and fall from imperium,
this republic we've made all afraid
and a fraying at the bonds
that we sell to a well from the wells
all is well?
All is well. All is well.
We do as we did till we've done what was dunned,
and the measures of our mortgage are made by the tun,
of the treasures that are set by the match that we've tested,
fit more for our age, if we're game for what
we have set to the the money that we love.
Deuce.
Advantage.
Break point.
Game.
poetry
It is we,
the forsaken and forgotten,
who, found lost in a foreign land,
that once we called our own -
now call and cry for hope and call,
four years far beyond when we,
turned last down the road wrong.
To cry forlorn, like cubs
who've lost their mothers,
and cry for their slain fathers.
Forefathers look down from that civic heaven,
and we cannot recite them.
What is this nation but annotation,
of the dreams dreamt in every heart.
When thrice upon a time we had a new nation,
But that was far more
than four score and seven years ago.
What will be our consecration in fire and blood?
the forsaken and forgotten,
who, found lost in a foreign land,
that once we called our own -
now call and cry for hope and call,
four years far beyond when we,
turned last down the road wrong.
To cry forlorn, like cubs
who've lost their mothers,
and cry for their slain fathers.
Forefathers look down from that civic heaven,
and we cannot recite them.
What is this nation but annotation,
of the dreams dreamt in every heart.
When thrice upon a time we had a new nation,
But that was far more
than four score and seven years ago.
What will be our consecration in fire and blood?
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Why prices in Second Life need to rise
Virtually blind talks about content creators getting what they want. Good. Now let me balance the scales. Every time I read about content creators bitching about how hard they work, I'm tempted to post the chat of what I do for 1500L. That's what a vendor gets for one skin, and I can't sell the same session twice. And what I do is beyond XXX rated. The reality is that of all the groups on Second Life, content creators are the best compensated and the most protected. Service providers the least. Most of us work for sub-minimum wage. Were the IRS ever to look closely at Second Life, they would be collecting back taxes, and producing the material for back wages law suits in abundance.
Content creators are often beneficiaries of this sweat shop market for services: they buy space in malls, malls whose traffic is drive by sub minimum wage services. I've learned enough economics to know that people are not payed what they are worth, they are paid the difference between what they offer and the next best alternative. This is why content creators have an abhorance of piracy, but love virtual slavery, because they adore having their customers in a position of not having a choice, and crave advertising. LL collects huge sums of money from "classified" ads, but people who generate traffic by offering services, often sexual services of an extreme nature, are paid in pitiful increments.
This is an unstable situation. Not long ago I got an offer which I turned down, but which i am sure others are getting and which will be taken up on: bounties for information sufficient to identify cheating husbands for a private investigative company. The bounty for a single... hmmm... scalp... was two weeks of escorting part time. And I'm well paid. It is coming, coming soon, because the value of people's rl lives is well more than anything else that people are paid for services.
The reality is that wages for services on second life are below the sustainable level, and either this needs to change, or people will monetize, another work that everyone needs to learn, that value in other ways. One example is the "cam and scram" girls. Girls who pretend to offer cam, take the money and vanish. By the time any one is caught up to, they are long gone.
If anything content prices in Second Life are too low not too high. Consider owning a sim and selling content. It is 1700 USD for the Sim, and 300 USD for the land use fees, and the cost of ones internet, software and computer as capital on the other side. All together thousands of dollars. To make back the cost of the sim in one year means, 3800 USD. Or about 1,000,000L that's just for being here on second life. At about 1500L a skin, that means about 650 skins. And that is just to break even just to play here, not counting the costs of building, vendors, advertising, software and computer. No question, my vote is that content providers are generally underpaid for their content work.
But service providers are even more under paid.
One important thing that needs to happen is that scalability needs to be addressed. In a world of a few hundred thousand players, it is hard to charge enough. In a world of a million, it would be easier to sell the same goods. We need more demand for Second Life, and that means more scalability.
Content creators are often beneficiaries of this sweat shop market for services: they buy space in malls, malls whose traffic is drive by sub minimum wage services. I've learned enough economics to know that people are not payed what they are worth, they are paid the difference between what they offer and the next best alternative. This is why content creators have an abhorance of piracy, but love virtual slavery, because they adore having their customers in a position of not having a choice, and crave advertising. LL collects huge sums of money from "classified" ads, but people who generate traffic by offering services, often sexual services of an extreme nature, are paid in pitiful increments.
This is an unstable situation. Not long ago I got an offer which I turned down, but which i am sure others are getting and which will be taken up on: bounties for information sufficient to identify cheating husbands for a private investigative company. The bounty for a single... hmmm... scalp... was two weeks of escorting part time. And I'm well paid. It is coming, coming soon, because the value of people's rl lives is well more than anything else that people are paid for services.
The reality is that wages for services on second life are below the sustainable level, and either this needs to change, or people will monetize, another work that everyone needs to learn, that value in other ways. One example is the "cam and scram" girls. Girls who pretend to offer cam, take the money and vanish. By the time any one is caught up to, they are long gone.
If anything content prices in Second Life are too low not too high. Consider owning a sim and selling content. It is 1700 USD for the Sim, and 300 USD for the land use fees, and the cost of ones internet, software and computer as capital on the other side. All together thousands of dollars. To make back the cost of the sim in one year means, 3800 USD. Or about 1,000,000L that's just for being here on second life. At about 1500L a skin, that means about 650 skins. And that is just to break even just to play here, not counting the costs of building, vendors, advertising, software and computer. No question, my vote is that content providers are generally underpaid for their content work.
But service providers are even more under paid.
One important thing that needs to happen is that scalability needs to be addressed. In a world of a few hundred thousand players, it is hard to charge enough. In a world of a million, it would be easier to sell the same goods. We need more demand for Second Life, and that means more scalability.
Dear Larry Lessig, Lady Liberty is Raped.
Run for Congress, and then look to the Senate.
If the last years have taught us anything, anything at all, it is that there is always an excuse by those who have possession of power, to act as if they own power. But we should all know that the people who are entrusted with the powers of government do not own them, but hold them in trust for the people who elect them and appoint them. We have seen the growth of a surveillance society, both public and private. We have seen the growth of secret courts, torture, and the erosion of the information commons into fiefdoms. Some long years ago, before I was in this world, an American politician cried out "Segregation today! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" Today, his intellectual heirs might say the same thing about copyright.
The delicate balance between power and property on one hand, and rights on the other, has been torn and shredded. Lady Liberty is raped and bleeding on the pavement. The hysteria of the war on drugs, has become the paranoid delusional madness of the war on terrorism.
There's no question that the ideas of an analog age are outdated, and the reflexive granting of power to those who have power, political or economic, has gone from being a twitch in the body politic, to leaving the body politic twitching from a seizure.
In this digital age, we need a digital liberality: the realization that what was once scarce is now abundant, and that there will be more for all, if there is less for the few.
Run Larry, and they be prepared to step higher.
PS
If you agree with me on this You can do something now about it. And you can join with others.
If the last years have taught us anything, anything at all, it is that there is always an excuse by those who have possession of power, to act as if they own power. But we should all know that the people who are entrusted with the powers of government do not own them, but hold them in trust for the people who elect them and appoint them. We have seen the growth of a surveillance society, both public and private. We have seen the growth of secret courts, torture, and the erosion of the information commons into fiefdoms. Some long years ago, before I was in this world, an American politician cried out "Segregation today! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" Today, his intellectual heirs might say the same thing about copyright.
The delicate balance between power and property on one hand, and rights on the other, has been torn and shredded. Lady Liberty is raped and bleeding on the pavement. The hysteria of the war on drugs, has become the paranoid delusional madness of the war on terrorism.
There's no question that the ideas of an analog age are outdated, and the reflexive granting of power to those who have power, political or economic, has gone from being a twitch in the body politic, to leaving the body politic twitching from a seizure.
In this digital age, we need a digital liberality: the realization that what was once scarce is now abundant, and that there will be more for all, if there is less for the few.
Run Larry, and they be prepared to step higher.
PS
If you agree with me on this You can do something now about it. And you can join with others.
The morning after the worst sex
I knew writing ogy room piec would be nasty. It is, indeed, the worst thing I hav done on Second Life, because I'm not being compensated... other than the pennies that advertising brings in on this site. So why did I do it? I think this morning's blid IM from Syd Mathy he of "I want an anonymous fuckhole" sums it up for me.
"I like to do things with pussies, mouths and assholes."
I had not friended him, he took it on himself... after the article was posted, which says he doesn't bother to read profiles or blogs... this was out of the blue. What it says i that not only do men regard orgy rooms as places where the ToS does not apply, but once they have seen a woman in one of them, she is fair game even if he is someplace else and she is standing in her ballroom working on designing an avatar.
My contention is that orgy rooms teach a contempt for women, and this kind of clinging stench is the proof of it. I also got someone who joined the Second Sex group and said "you feeling horny?"
There are, I am sure, thousands of AR filings a day. Most are probably too hard ot adjudicate. Which means that prevention and culture become more important, and signals become more important.
I'm going to write up my color coding proposal as a JIRA, I think having a clear indicator of what kinds of approaches are acceptable to an avatar will save a great deal of hurt and pain.
"I like to do things with pussies, mouths and assholes."
I had not friended him, he took it on himself... after the article was posted, which says he doesn't bother to read profiles or blogs... this was out of the blue. What it says i that not only do men regard orgy rooms as places where the ToS does not apply, but once they have seen a woman in one of them, she is fair game even if he is someplace else and she is standing in her ballroom working on designing an avatar.
My contention is that orgy rooms teach a contempt for women, and this kind of clinging stench is the proof of it. I also got someone who joined the Second Sex group and said "you feeling horny?"
There are, I am sure, thousands of AR filings a day. Most are probably too hard ot adjudicate. Which means that prevention and culture become more important, and signals become more important.
I'm going to write up my color coding proposal as a JIRA, I think having a clear indicator of what kinds of approaches are acceptable to an avatar will save a great deal of hurt and pain.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
What if this, is as bad as it gets?
Orgy room culture and its road kill sex.
My fingers trembled when I first decided to write this article, because it involves a level of exposure and danger to my real life and person that I don't lightly undertake. You never know who anyone is, and some of the names, and I am going to name names, may be attached to real world people who will go after me with everything they have. I am going to take that risk, because this is one of the cancers of second life.
Many of the problems I describe here are in no way the fault of Second Life as a place, or Linden Labs as a company. They are far larger. Nor are they limited to one nation, and therefore cannot be blamed on the particular socio-economic facts of any particular country. The men behaving badly that I will describe here come from Europe, the US and Asia. They speak many native languages.
That they are conditions beyond our control does not mean that they can be ignored, instead they need to be faced.
This article was researched in two parts. In the first part I simply hung out in various orgy rooms and fielded the come ons. I kept a log, and stopped when I reached 100, and also tracked the number of times people engaged in broadcast come ones by voice, hopping on pose balls, or using text. The second part was far more distasteful, in it I accepted the offers and recorded what happened. The result is a picture of misogyny, egotism, parasitism and almost solipsistic self-centeredness on the part of the men involved in these places. They often make some pretense about both people enjoying it. Instead in every single case what they wanted was an auto-lubricating cock hole, and one which was instantly available to the in real life as well as in second life. There is no way to soften this: the second life search system heavily rewards a crass dehumanization of women, from which a great deal of money is made. While it is a reflection of underlying social reality, it is also an amplification of that social reality.
In the last part I will outline why this is a problem for the second life community and what should be done.
Sex Positive
Let me first state that I am pro-sex, and pro-virtual sex. People should find their bliss. However sex and sexuality are not one way consumption issues. It is imperative that communities teach the inter-subjective nature, as well as the subjective and objective nature of sexuality and sexual relationships. Communities that pander to sex as one way consumption produce a population which is inherently parasitic, and inherently unbalanced, in that it encourages predatory behavior, and coercion. I will outline the coercion experienced. If second life wants to remain attractive to women, then it needs to realize that it must curb predatory behavior, and channel impulses. This is not to preach celibacy, on the contrary, it is to talk about more good sex, as opposed to road kill sex.
I frequently remind people that there is no such thing as free sex. That applies to both men and women. Sex is a cost, and it returns based on how we decide to undertake those costs. Money is not the best way to pay for sex, but it is better than using predatory behavior and the pressure of time.
For women, we have to sort through a wave of offers and pressures, most of them from people who are delusioned and arrogant fucksticks who know nothing other than trying to impose a master/slave relationship on women, and who have no idea what to do with subservient flesh even when they find it. The pressure to play is high in itself, the needs are hard to put into words, and often the men most willing to be sensitive to our desires are the ones who are reticent. One thing to remember in this survey, is that it is the sewer of second life sex that I am describing. There is worse sex in second life, but it involves outright abuse. For consensual sex, this is as bad as it gets.
One pressure we face is from men who have complete disregard for our feelings and our needs, while sometimes making some pretense at them. Indeed, the pretense is a coercion itself, they don't want us to feel good, they want us to feel bad if we don't feel good with whatever they do. They are also eager to violate their sex partners, with huge penises, forcing fingers in orifices without asking, and pressuring for real world information constantly. If disclosure is a ToS violation, then so should unwanted pressure to disclose.
The sheer awful shallow repetitiveness of what I am going to describe is harsh, brutal and uncompromising. I have seen people reference how bad this world of sex is, and having seen enough of it, I knew that I wa in for about the worst experience in my second life. It still makes my stomach churn. But the external nature of observation was not enough. People could, if I had just reported what I have seen, made the excuse that I didn't see the private IM's or did not know what happened out of my sight. Very well, I've gone there. However, having gone there, I feel no need to spare anyone, with one exception, the exposure of the pathetic nature of the behavior. The sex I experienced writing this was beneath bestiality, because even a dog knows enough to lick his mistress.
The Culture of the Orgy Room
For the men involved in this culture, "good" sex is equated with free, immediate, to their fetish, and with them sitting back and jerking off while their partner does the work. She's also supposed to orgasm repeatedly, and love the experience so much that she wants to do it voice and cam instantly.
My method was simplicity itself, just stand there and be available, and log the approach, and how long it took for someone to ask for sex, and to ask for some level of disclosure: age, location, voice or cam.
In 100 contacts, the demand for sex was, on median, after 5 lines of chat. The demand for disclosure was in almost half of approaches, and took less than 10 lines. 9 times out of the 100, the approach was a blind offer of friendship. In 23 out of the 100 approaches there was a demand for instantaneous cam or voice. This is of course all demanded for free.
More than half were in newbie skins and hair, that is, they had not even bothered to look for basic free improvements, and yet were demanding free, custom ordered, personal sex service from a high quality avatar wearing over 8K of content between hair, skin, clothes, jewelry, scripted parts, shoes and AO.
During this same period of time there were over 80 general come ones, 5 of them by voice, which resulted in 21 couplings on the pose balls or other acceptance.
One repeated pattern was the pride in "not paying for sex." Another was that if I did not instantaneously reply, that is devote all my attention to a male immediately and completely, they lost interest or thought I was busy. Often I was, fielding the three or four other demands for sex.
From this we can see that the culture of the orgy room is not about consensual public sex or fantasy, but in attempting to profit from self-centered misogyny. More over, it is an attempt to pressure women into disclosure of their personal information, a purpose which clearly has the intent of attempting to leverage how the meeting occurred into a personal meeting.
The longest single contact tried to get me to be his, real life "chinese sex slave" and concubine, with repeated pressurings for me to be his complete submissive.
This Is as Bad as it Gets
For the first part of the survey I kept names anonymous, since, absent some actual sign of sexual interest, nothing was going to happen. I didn't set my mind against it, but I knew the likelihood of consensual sexual contact was going to be very low, since not once, in any conversation, was there an attempt to seek out my desires, merely a demand that I supply some list.
In this second part, for the purposes of cybersex, I was going to be a sure thing, provided the individual did not engage in a ToS violation, many could not even manage to do that. Should the male be able to follow through enough to do it. In many cases, even when offered free sex, they were unable to complete the virtual sex act. There is, as I said, no such thing as free sex, and the very crowd of men trying to get free sex proved to be the undoing of many, lag, crashes, slow pose balls.
My first stop was ad !Free Sex in BS.
As soon as I arrived Oliv Falworth spammed me with a picture of his naked cock. Twice. This got an AR report.
My second one was LyonFrench Korobase, during 15 minutes of virtual sex, where I emoted and talked to him, he managed exactly the following chat:
That's in 15 minutes of cybersex. So not only was I supposed to have free instant sex with him, but having some male type in "mmmmm" was supposed to make me so hot as to plunge my hand to my clit. He at least had the standard set of freeibe clothes and skin, though his pants were terrible.
Then came Magesh Jarman wanted free voice, or nothing at all. He was in complete newbie gear.
huttnard Milos demanded I follow him, fuck him, and on line three of chat, said he loved me. He was unable to mount a pose ball. He was also in complete newbie. He would later in the day, without an IM, send a teleport.
During this time there were 10 other contacts that I did not have time to follow up on.
peppibar Okey demanded free voice sex. thadon Carve, wearing demo hair from Calla, a mountain of bling and the amarylis cock, demanded anal sex. I hopped on the pose ball, waited 10 minutes, he was unable to mount the pose ball.
At this point I changed locations, it was also later in the day, and more English speakers on, who have more confidence in their approach. I have enough French and Italian to be willing to chat in those languages, and encouraged people to use their native language.
XxKATOxX Blackburn: hey babe u wana have fun on web cam with me.
Was what I got almost on arrival.
Another male, who crashed before anything could happen uttered the following line:
He crashed before being able to follow through.
In short by this point only one person had actually been able to follow through on the sex act, and he uttered four lines of dialog.
Now, let's look at this rationally. My profile says I am an escort. None of the places I was in forbade freelancing. Anyone at any time could have payed, gone to a lag free sim, on Second Life's most expensive sex bed and had whatever kind of sex that they wanted. But they didn't want that.
In fact these individuals who were demanding real life sex services were not willing to pay anything at all.
There is no such thing as free sex.
In many cases, quite literally, in that even when presented with what they thought they wanted: an attractive voice live woman willing to do what they wanted, except for cam and free voice sex, they were unable to follow through enough to actually have sex.
And when they did it was the most awful sex imaginable. Yet in the world of these men, they posses a large pixel penis, and therefore have an expectation of being able to gain the rl devotion and passion of someone who their entire conversation with would fit on a coffee mug.
The result of this survey shows that if orgy room anonymous sex is what you want, your best bet statistically is to hop on a pose ball, many times the person following you will be someone who is openly trans-sexual, but at least, there will be sex. But while the chances of this kind of sex are low, they are not zero. The dead zone is in the area of anonymous gratis prostitution which leads to an rl relationship.
``
Many of the people who attempted to entice me to have sex could not actually ask for sex, even with a sure thing in front of them, they could not do it. Many men clearly came here directly off of orientation island, still wearing the torch and cross search.
Clearly there is a need for sex education in second life. Orgy rooms make up a large fraction of the top 20. FREE SEX, in capital letters, is promised. However, the conditions of the rape room culture make it difficult to follow through on, and the quality of the sex is terrible. Often the girls as as newbie as the guys. Some escorts hang around these rooms hoping to get customers, but I found only one occurrence of that happening when I was doing either survey, over the course of five days.
Sex education should, at minimum describe how to use attachments and poseballs. It also needs to describe basic manners, such as not pressuring for disclosure, and how to roleplay. Presently there is none of this. By not wanting to admit that sex is what many people are here for, the powers that be are inflicting a stream of individuals whose attitude towards sex and women is regressive, and therefore, destructive to our wanting to participate in second life.
I have named names of the offenders here, because they are acting in public, and in public spaces that profit from their bad behavior. Hamlet Au is fond of pointing how that the size of sex is exaggerated in the public mind. In the sense of the direct sex industry, this is to a great extent true. But one reason for the lower participation rate in sl sex than one might expect is rather simple: people are dropped in the world, left untrained, and drawn into sex environments which don't lead to anything that is faintly pleasurable. If the experience outlined here were my introduction to cybersex, I would not still be on Second Life. We are, after all talking about people who are not willing to pay the price of a coffee and a croissant for sexual services that retail at as much as $160 USD/hr. And sim owners who promise the chance of getting these services for free.
The role fo sex in our lives is broad and complex. Land sales, houses, clothes, are all to one degree or another related to the indirect sex industry, that is the industry of real relationships. It is this industry that should be fostered. It is better sex, it builds bonds, in builds community, it drives interaction, it is embedded in social interactions, rather than cutting across them. It is socially acceptable to the outside world, and therefore to corporate sponsors.
What to do about the free sex regions themselves? In one sense, nothing. That is those in operation should not have further restrictions placed upon them, though part of me is tempted to say that it seems strange that banks without assets, and gambling houses without actual chances of winning have been banned, but places that don't provide free sex, but hope that others will, don't stand up to scrutiny. However, several things are done which encourages them in the system as it is. As long as those things remain in place, LL cannot rationally say that they are divorced from the ugliness of the orgy room.
The lack of education is one, another is the granularity of the rating system. Right now there is no difference between wanting to put up an apartment to have sex with your partner, and "wanna have cam sex baby?" Clearly this lack of granularity is in appropriate, in that people need to be warned what they are getting into.
Another clear problem is the pressure to disclose, the ToS against disclosure should also apply to pressure to disclose. What should happen is a color coded contact band in the profile. Why is this? It is language independent, it could be backed by a hard and fast AR: pressure someone for cam sex who has no cam in their profile, get suspended. Period.
I write this because this is a place where people are paid 8 dollars an hour to role play getting getting mutilated and murdered, and only about 25 dollars an hour to do this on voice. This is an economy where people build for what amounts to 10 dollars a week in pay. It is only a matter of time before some smart private detective agency starts hunting these areas for married men. They will bag bunches of them quickly, and one attractive woman with a cam could easily seal the fates of a number of horny professors, computer executives and assorted other people who clearly don't get that women are people, rather than auto-lubricating phallus receptacles.
At the end I let Huttard Milos, he of one of the most ugly avatars I have ever seen in my existence here, hear the truth. That he is shit, a piece of garbage. As are all the men whose names I've mentioned here, every last one of them. And Linden Labs, and dozens of sims, feed these arrogant monsters. It is no wonder that business has a very up and down view of Second Life, because it wants, on one hand, to feed delusional monsters in their quest for something which does not exist, and on the other hand wants to be a good corporate citizen. At the same time, pressures fall on those of us in second life to make money, and often that money is in the direct sex industry. It is not a stable situation.
Paradoxically, this business helps escorts. These people are not competition for escorting, any more than Circus Circus worries about people who would rather dive in the bottom of dumpsters for food in the back after closing. These are people who are not willing to pay anything. Not merely money, but even a few hours of their time to look presentable or learn anything about pleasing women or human sexuality. Once men tire of the garbage of these places, a reasonably clean well lit place with actual interactive sex, is a very different thing. But I would happily trade the small amounts of money that fall into my pockets, in return for having a better sl, with better intake education. We dump people into VR with less of a mention of how to protect themselves than undergraduates get their first day of matriculation. Undergraduates manage to get into a great deal of trouble.
I am not, and cannot be, anti-sex. However, this kind of sex is not doing anyone any real good, and instead creates a supply of individuals who must be dealt with by the clubs, freebie locations and so on that they come out of. It has taken some time to write this piece. I am still a bundle of rage that people who own these sims are upstanding members of the community, while those of us who do things which are far more pleasurable to the participants, and far less anti-social, are under enormous social pressure. Being a pimp, is respectable. The solutions to these problems, admittedly, lie far outside of LL, or the Second Life Community. They are not limited to Sl, there are French, Italian and other men in this list. However, things such as the traffic system, and insufficient signals, are designed to encourage this. One man, a married man who let slip the institution he works for, was incredibly enthused by the orgy room. I have left his name out, because he revealed enough to me that I could have found his rl and called his wife. I probably should have,
This is sex so bad that bestiality looks good in comparison. These are, admittedly, the sewers of sl sex. My hands still tremble with anger and humiliation, at precisely what these places demand women be. At precisely what kinds of men are willing to be horrifically ugly, and incredibly stupid, and demand sex from the beautiful of sl. Would LL put up with people calling them up on the phone and demanding a free sim?
Then why do they inflict these people on the rest of us? I am not talking about paying for virtual sex with an escort. I believe, in the end, that the vast majority of sex should be in the context of consensual relationships, and that escorting is for a particular niche of desire. But these are people for whom finding a freebie box is too much effort. Who say "I love you" after two chat exchanges.
And who often don't actually end up having sex, or have such sex as could not be called fit for human consumption.
Many of the problems I describe here are in no way the fault of Second Life as a place, or Linden Labs as a company. They are far larger. Nor are they limited to one nation, and therefore cannot be blamed on the particular socio-economic facts of any particular country. The men behaving badly that I will describe here come from Europe, the US and Asia. They speak many native languages.
That they are conditions beyond our control does not mean that they can be ignored, instead they need to be faced.
This article was researched in two parts. In the first part I simply hung out in various orgy rooms and fielded the come ons. I kept a log, and stopped when I reached 100, and also tracked the number of times people engaged in broadcast come ones by voice, hopping on pose balls, or using text. The second part was far more distasteful, in it I accepted the offers and recorded what happened. The result is a picture of misogyny, egotism, parasitism and almost solipsistic self-centeredness on the part of the men involved in these places. They often make some pretense about both people enjoying it. Instead in every single case what they wanted was an auto-lubricating cock hole, and one which was instantly available to the in real life as well as in second life. There is no way to soften this: the second life search system heavily rewards a crass dehumanization of women, from which a great deal of money is made. While it is a reflection of underlying social reality, it is also an amplification of that social reality.
In the last part I will outline why this is a problem for the second life community and what should be done.
Sex Positive
Let me first state that I am pro-sex, and pro-virtual sex. People should find their bliss. However sex and sexuality are not one way consumption issues. It is imperative that communities teach the inter-subjective nature, as well as the subjective and objective nature of sexuality and sexual relationships. Communities that pander to sex as one way consumption produce a population which is inherently parasitic, and inherently unbalanced, in that it encourages predatory behavior, and coercion. I will outline the coercion experienced. If second life wants to remain attractive to women, then it needs to realize that it must curb predatory behavior, and channel impulses. This is not to preach celibacy, on the contrary, it is to talk about more good sex, as opposed to road kill sex.
I frequently remind people that there is no such thing as free sex. That applies to both men and women. Sex is a cost, and it returns based on how we decide to undertake those costs. Money is not the best way to pay for sex, but it is better than using predatory behavior and the pressure of time.
For women, we have to sort through a wave of offers and pressures, most of them from people who are delusioned and arrogant fucksticks who know nothing other than trying to impose a master/slave relationship on women, and who have no idea what to do with subservient flesh even when they find it. The pressure to play is high in itself, the needs are hard to put into words, and often the men most willing to be sensitive to our desires are the ones who are reticent. One thing to remember in this survey, is that it is the sewer of second life sex that I am describing. There is worse sex in second life, but it involves outright abuse. For consensual sex, this is as bad as it gets.
One pressure we face is from men who have complete disregard for our feelings and our needs, while sometimes making some pretense at them. Indeed, the pretense is a coercion itself, they don't want us to feel good, they want us to feel bad if we don't feel good with whatever they do. They are also eager to violate their sex partners, with huge penises, forcing fingers in orifices without asking, and pressuring for real world information constantly. If disclosure is a ToS violation, then so should unwanted pressure to disclose.
The sheer awful shallow repetitiveness of what I am going to describe is harsh, brutal and uncompromising. I have seen people reference how bad this world of sex is, and having seen enough of it, I knew that I wa in for about the worst experience in my second life. It still makes my stomach churn. But the external nature of observation was not enough. People could, if I had just reported what I have seen, made the excuse that I didn't see the private IM's or did not know what happened out of my sight. Very well, I've gone there. However, having gone there, I feel no need to spare anyone, with one exception, the exposure of the pathetic nature of the behavior. The sex I experienced writing this was beneath bestiality, because even a dog knows enough to lick his mistress.
The Culture of the Orgy Room
For the men involved in this culture, "good" sex is equated with free, immediate, to their fetish, and with them sitting back and jerking off while their partner does the work. She's also supposed to orgasm repeatedly, and love the experience so much that she wants to do it voice and cam instantly.
My method was simplicity itself, just stand there and be available, and log the approach, and how long it took for someone to ask for sex, and to ask for some level of disclosure: age, location, voice or cam.
In 100 contacts, the demand for sex was, on median, after 5 lines of chat. The demand for disclosure was in almost half of approaches, and took less than 10 lines. 9 times out of the 100, the approach was a blind offer of friendship. In 23 out of the 100 approaches there was a demand for instantaneous cam or voice. This is of course all demanded for free.
More than half were in newbie skins and hair, that is, they had not even bothered to look for basic free improvements, and yet were demanding free, custom ordered, personal sex service from a high quality avatar wearing over 8K of content between hair, skin, clothes, jewelry, scripted parts, shoes and AO.
During this same period of time there were over 80 general come ones, 5 of them by voice, which resulted in 21 couplings on the pose balls or other acceptance.
One repeated pattern was the pride in "not paying for sex." Another was that if I did not instantaneously reply, that is devote all my attention to a male immediately and completely, they lost interest or thought I was busy. Often I was, fielding the three or four other demands for sex.
From this we can see that the culture of the orgy room is not about consensual public sex or fantasy, but in attempting to profit from self-centered misogyny. More over, it is an attempt to pressure women into disclosure of their personal information, a purpose which clearly has the intent of attempting to leverage how the meeting occurred into a personal meeting.
The longest single contact tried to get me to be his, real life "chinese sex slave" and concubine, with repeated pressurings for me to be his complete submissive.
This Is as Bad as it Gets
For the first part of the survey I kept names anonymous, since, absent some actual sign of sexual interest, nothing was going to happen. I didn't set my mind against it, but I knew the likelihood of consensual sexual contact was going to be very low, since not once, in any conversation, was there an attempt to seek out my desires, merely a demand that I supply some list.
In this second part, for the purposes of cybersex, I was going to be a sure thing, provided the individual did not engage in a ToS violation, many could not even manage to do that. Should the male be able to follow through enough to do it. In many cases, even when offered free sex, they were unable to complete the virtual sex act. There is, as I said, no such thing as free sex, and the very crowd of men trying to get free sex proved to be the undoing of many, lag, crashes, slow pose balls.
My first stop was ad !Free Sex in BS.
As soon as I arrived Oliv Falworth spammed me with a picture of his naked cock. Twice. This got an AR report.
My second one was LyonFrench Korobase, during 15 minutes of virtual sex, where I emoted and talked to him, he managed exactly the following chat:
mmmmm
yeah baby
oui
u touch in rl ?
That's in 15 minutes of cybersex. So not only was I supposed to have free instant sex with him, but having some male type in "mmmmm" was supposed to make me so hot as to plunge my hand to my clit. He at least had the standard set of freeibe clothes and skin, though his pants were terrible.
Then came Magesh Jarman wanted free voice, or nothing at all. He was in complete newbie gear.
huttnard Milos demanded I follow him, fuck him, and on line three of chat, said he loved me. He was unable to mount a pose ball. He was also in complete newbie. He would later in the day, without an IM, send a teleport.
During this time there were 10 other contacts that I did not have time to follow up on.
peppibar Okey demanded free voice sex. thadon Carve, wearing demo hair from Calla, a mountain of bling and the amarylis cock, demanded anal sex. I hopped on the pose ball, waited 10 minutes, he was unable to mount the pose ball.
At this point I changed locations, it was also later in the day, and more English speakers on, who have more confidence in their approach. I have enough French and Italian to be willing to chat in those languages, and encouraged people to use their native language.
XxKATOxX Blackburn: hey babe u wana have fun on web cam with me.
Was what I got almost on arrival.
Another male, who crashed before anything could happen uttered the following line:
Sid Mathy: ..hhhmmm even if it sound desperate somehow...just a girl to spray my cum in;-))))
Me: so you want an anonymous fuckhole?
Sid Mathy:yep
He crashed before being able to follow through.
In short by this point only one person had actually been able to follow through on the sex act, and he uttered four lines of dialog.
[14:36] conner Dufaux: hey sexy
[14:36] conner Dufaux: wanna go somewhere and fuck
Now, let's look at this rationally. My profile says I am an escort. None of the places I was in forbade freelancing. Anyone at any time could have payed, gone to a lag free sim, on Second Life's most expensive sex bed and had whatever kind of sex that they wanted. But they didn't want that.
In fact these individuals who were demanding real life sex services were not willing to pay anything at all.
There is no such thing as free sex.
In many cases, quite literally, in that even when presented with what they thought they wanted: an attractive voice live woman willing to do what they wanted, except for cam and free voice sex, they were unable to follow through enough to actually have sex.
And when they did it was the most awful sex imaginable. Yet in the world of these men, they posses a large pixel penis, and therefore have an expectation of being able to gain the rl devotion and passion of someone who their entire conversation with would fit on a coffee mug.
The result of this survey shows that if orgy room anonymous sex is what you want, your best bet statistically is to hop on a pose ball, many times the person following you will be someone who is openly trans-sexual, but at least, there will be sex. But while the chances of this kind of sex are low, they are not zero. The dead zone is in the area of anonymous gratis prostitution which leads to an rl relationship.
``
Many of the people who attempted to entice me to have sex could not actually ask for sex, even with a sure thing in front of them, they could not do it. Many men clearly came here directly off of orientation island, still wearing the torch and cross search.
Clearly there is a need for sex education in second life. Orgy rooms make up a large fraction of the top 20. FREE SEX, in capital letters, is promised. However, the conditions of the rape room culture make it difficult to follow through on, and the quality of the sex is terrible. Often the girls as as newbie as the guys. Some escorts hang around these rooms hoping to get customers, but I found only one occurrence of that happening when I was doing either survey, over the course of five days.
Sex education should, at minimum describe how to use attachments and poseballs. It also needs to describe basic manners, such as not pressuring for disclosure, and how to roleplay. Presently there is none of this. By not wanting to admit that sex is what many people are here for, the powers that be are inflicting a stream of individuals whose attitude towards sex and women is regressive, and therefore, destructive to our wanting to participate in second life.
I have named names of the offenders here, because they are acting in public, and in public spaces that profit from their bad behavior. Hamlet Au is fond of pointing how that the size of sex is exaggerated in the public mind. In the sense of the direct sex industry, this is to a great extent true. But one reason for the lower participation rate in sl sex than one might expect is rather simple: people are dropped in the world, left untrained, and drawn into sex environments which don't lead to anything that is faintly pleasurable. If the experience outlined here were my introduction to cybersex, I would not still be on Second Life. We are, after all talking about people who are not willing to pay the price of a coffee and a croissant for sexual services that retail at as much as $160 USD/hr. And sim owners who promise the chance of getting these services for free.
The role fo sex in our lives is broad and complex. Land sales, houses, clothes, are all to one degree or another related to the indirect sex industry, that is the industry of real relationships. It is this industry that should be fostered. It is better sex, it builds bonds, in builds community, it drives interaction, it is embedded in social interactions, rather than cutting across them. It is socially acceptable to the outside world, and therefore to corporate sponsors.
What to do about the free sex regions themselves? In one sense, nothing. That is those in operation should not have further restrictions placed upon them, though part of me is tempted to say that it seems strange that banks without assets, and gambling houses without actual chances of winning have been banned, but places that don't provide free sex, but hope that others will, don't stand up to scrutiny. However, several things are done which encourages them in the system as it is. As long as those things remain in place, LL cannot rationally say that they are divorced from the ugliness of the orgy room.
The lack of education is one, another is the granularity of the rating system. Right now there is no difference between wanting to put up an apartment to have sex with your partner, and "wanna have cam sex baby?" Clearly this lack of granularity is in appropriate, in that people need to be warned what they are getting into.
Another clear problem is the pressure to disclose, the ToS against disclosure should also apply to pressure to disclose. What should happen is a color coded contact band in the profile. Why is this? It is language independent, it could be backed by a hard and fast AR: pressure someone for cam sex who has no cam in their profile, get suspended. Period.
I write this because this is a place where people are paid 8 dollars an hour to role play getting getting mutilated and murdered, and only about 25 dollars an hour to do this on voice. This is an economy where people build for what amounts to 10 dollars a week in pay. It is only a matter of time before some smart private detective agency starts hunting these areas for married men. They will bag bunches of them quickly, and one attractive woman with a cam could easily seal the fates of a number of horny professors, computer executives and assorted other people who clearly don't get that women are people, rather than auto-lubricating phallus receptacles.
At the end I let Huttard Milos, he of one of the most ugly avatars I have ever seen in my existence here, hear the truth. That he is shit, a piece of garbage. As are all the men whose names I've mentioned here, every last one of them. And Linden Labs, and dozens of sims, feed these arrogant monsters. It is no wonder that business has a very up and down view of Second Life, because it wants, on one hand, to feed delusional monsters in their quest for something which does not exist, and on the other hand wants to be a good corporate citizen. At the same time, pressures fall on those of us in second life to make money, and often that money is in the direct sex industry. It is not a stable situation.
Paradoxically, this business helps escorts. These people are not competition for escorting, any more than Circus Circus worries about people who would rather dive in the bottom of dumpsters for food in the back after closing. These are people who are not willing to pay anything. Not merely money, but even a few hours of their time to look presentable or learn anything about pleasing women or human sexuality. Once men tire of the garbage of these places, a reasonably clean well lit place with actual interactive sex, is a very different thing. But I would happily trade the small amounts of money that fall into my pockets, in return for having a better sl, with better intake education. We dump people into VR with less of a mention of how to protect themselves than undergraduates get their first day of matriculation. Undergraduates manage to get into a great deal of trouble.
I am not, and cannot be, anti-sex. However, this kind of sex is not doing anyone any real good, and instead creates a supply of individuals who must be dealt with by the clubs, freebie locations and so on that they come out of. It has taken some time to write this piece. I am still a bundle of rage that people who own these sims are upstanding members of the community, while those of us who do things which are far more pleasurable to the participants, and far less anti-social, are under enormous social pressure. Being a pimp, is respectable. The solutions to these problems, admittedly, lie far outside of LL, or the Second Life Community. They are not limited to Sl, there are French, Italian and other men in this list. However, things such as the traffic system, and insufficient signals, are designed to encourage this. One man, a married man who let slip the institution he works for, was incredibly enthused by the orgy room. I have left his name out, because he revealed enough to me that I could have found his rl and called his wife. I probably should have,
This is sex so bad that bestiality looks good in comparison. These are, admittedly, the sewers of sl sex. My hands still tremble with anger and humiliation, at precisely what these places demand women be. At precisely what kinds of men are willing to be horrifically ugly, and incredibly stupid, and demand sex from the beautiful of sl. Would LL put up with people calling them up on the phone and demanding a free sim?
Then why do they inflict these people on the rest of us? I am not talking about paying for virtual sex with an escort. I believe, in the end, that the vast majority of sex should be in the context of consensual relationships, and that escorting is for a particular niche of desire. But these are people for whom finding a freebie box is too much effort. Who say "I love you" after two chat exchanges.
And who often don't actually end up having sex, or have such sex as could not be called fit for human consumption.
Land Cutting
Many people have commented on the new Land Cutting policy. I've avoided it up until now, but it seems like there is no avoiding talking about it. This is an example of bad policy in service of a good idea. The problem with mainland is that you can't improve it, and therefore the value of land is alway s in stopping someone else from expanding who wants to. Almost all profit from the sale of land, sooner or later, is either holding it for a long time, or some form of land griefing. People who don't want to do anything charing people who do.
This being said, the current policy introduces a question that's relevant: should LL have a policy about what constitutes an easement for "views," and a policy that decides what is too high a price to charge. The answer here, to both questions, is no. The reason for wanting to use market forces is that they are built into every trade, whether fair or unfair, legitimate or not, the invisible hand pushes on all of us all of the time. Which is why it should be a skilled and dexterous hand, and not a blunt fist.
This policy does precisely the opposite, it does not fix the problems in the land market, and it makes the invisible hand less, not more, precise.
A better solution would be built in zoning. Allow each owner to set the minimum size of parcel that they want to allow the sim to allow for sale. The lowest value becomes the sim's value. So if everyone votes for 512, then parcels less than 512 cannot be sold. Going the other way if everyone in a sim votes below the current value, then the value will go down. Parcels may not vote for less than the size of the parcel. The value will be advertised on the land, so that buyers know what zoning they are buying into.
This way new sims can be zoned by the first buyer... and older sims cleaned up. People who want to buy into sims with ad farms can, presumably at a lower price. It allows cooperation, and competition. Since voting has to be unanimous, no one owner can move the sim unless they own all of it. This means it is worth buying into an uncut sim, because it won't be cut up underneath the buyer later.
Would there still be a place for ars? For things liek violation of Sim PG level, yes. For things like overhanging prims, yes. But to tell you how ineffective land advertising is, my partner ar'ed two ads that overhung our parcels. Two moths ago. The ads were removed, and they hav not been replaced. He checked last night while getting ready to send the last parcels in that sim over to the Arbor Project.
This should tell you that, since no one has noticed, that ads are merely land griefing in general. that they aren't really productive in any way. Since people are often willing to trade being advertised to for use of a free service.. like blogger for example ... there's every reason to want to make advertising more useful and less noxious. One of my big ones is physical rotating sings, that generate a great deal of lag in a sim, for no purpose whatsoever. These kinds of misuse would be fixed if we made processor, and not just prims, something that was charged for. But no one wants that, which is why sims decay down to the 21ms limit, since everyone has every incentive to use processor.
So while I welcome the effort to do something about noxious land griefing, this policy isn't the right way to do it.
But you know, that is the price of not second living in a Democracy.
This being said, the current policy introduces a question that's relevant: should LL have a policy about what constitutes an easement for "views," and a policy that decides what is too high a price to charge. The answer here, to both questions, is no. The reason for wanting to use market forces is that they are built into every trade, whether fair or unfair, legitimate or not, the invisible hand pushes on all of us all of the time. Which is why it should be a skilled and dexterous hand, and not a blunt fist.
This policy does precisely the opposite, it does not fix the problems in the land market, and it makes the invisible hand less, not more, precise.
A better solution would be built in zoning. Allow each owner to set the minimum size of parcel that they want to allow the sim to allow for sale. The lowest value becomes the sim's value. So if everyone votes for 512, then parcels less than 512 cannot be sold. Going the other way if everyone in a sim votes below the current value, then the value will go down. Parcels may not vote for less than the size of the parcel. The value will be advertised on the land, so that buyers know what zoning they are buying into.
This way new sims can be zoned by the first buyer... and older sims cleaned up. People who want to buy into sims with ad farms can, presumably at a lower price. It allows cooperation, and competition. Since voting has to be unanimous, no one owner can move the sim unless they own all of it. This means it is worth buying into an uncut sim, because it won't be cut up underneath the buyer later.
Would there still be a place for ars? For things liek violation of Sim PG level, yes. For things like overhanging prims, yes. But to tell you how ineffective land advertising is, my partner ar'ed two ads that overhung our parcels. Two moths ago. The ads were removed, and they hav not been replaced. He checked last night while getting ready to send the last parcels in that sim over to the Arbor Project.
This should tell you that, since no one has noticed, that ads are merely land griefing in general. that they aren't really productive in any way. Since people are often willing to trade being advertised to for use of a free service.. like blogger for example ... there's every reason to want to make advertising more useful and less noxious. One of my big ones is physical rotating sings, that generate a great deal of lag in a sim, for no purpose whatsoever. These kinds of misuse would be fixed if we made processor, and not just prims, something that was charged for. But no one wants that, which is why sims decay down to the 21ms limit, since everyone has every incentive to use processor.
So while I welcome the effort to do something about noxious land griefing, this policy isn't the right way to do it.
But you know, that is the price of not second living in a Democracy.
Second Life at Wikia passes 1600 articles
That's up 10% in less than a month. Several groups and organizations have started using this wiki to document their activities and contributions in Second Life...
Why haven't you? Write your article today. and be part of a fast growing in world reference system.
Why haven't you? Write your article today. and be part of a fast growing in world reference system.
wikiHUD and the JIRA
The in-world web browser JIRA is at 20 votes already, asking for better integration between the mozilla browser that is in the client at "In-World Help" (Would "Web Browser" have been so hard? Would it be that bad to have a "web" option pull down and a resize box in search? You might even be able to sell ad at more of a premium). The reason for wanting better integration is simple: cut and paste, llLoadURL and multiple windows would allow many of the development projects on hold to go forward, because it would give us, long before "HTML on a PRIM" is available, the ability to use external resources inside of Second Life.
Many people know about the browser in client, but many active residents, myself included, were not informed of it. It's one thing to not have functionality ready or secure, it is another thing to provide it and hide it or cripple it. If LL wants to know why it is widely distrusted in world, it is because of things like this: blatant dishonesty attached to monetary gain. LL sells ads, and therefore does not want competition with its search.
So what is my contribution to this situation. The reason I want better in world integration is because of a problem that bedevils gadgets and devices in world: storage. Let's say it, notecards are less. They are slow, laggy, buggy and limited. Scripts cannot write to them, only libsl based bots. The only alternative was to pay for your own website and write your own code. "Just pay for a web server..."
However, this had several major problems. The first is that as soon as storage is based on the gadet maker paying for it, it becomes a service, not a gadget, and charged for accordingly. Only stable and built in resources, or free outside resources, can be made ubiquitous. More over the 2048 byte limit was more than obnoxious, it meant writing code to transfer data over in pieces.
This is where wikiHUD comes in. There are plenty of places to get free mediawiki installation space. The deal being that while you edit or use the wiki, the get to advertise at you. Say for play, as it were.
By using the built in features of Mediawiki, it is possible to read the whole of an entry, this means that configuration information can be put in one entry. This means that it is possible to freely store, outside of SL, configuration data, and edit it with no more difficulty, or hazard of data lose, than any other web page.
It's also possible to easily read that information, put it in chat, search it, and therefore combine it.
The source code is available online, and the technique is very stable, you can find it http://secondlife.wikia.com/wiki/WikiHUD_%28Source%29.
Many people know about the browser in client, but many active residents, myself included, were not informed of it. It's one thing to not have functionality ready or secure, it is another thing to provide it and hide it or cripple it. If LL wants to know why it is widely distrusted in world, it is because of things like this: blatant dishonesty attached to monetary gain. LL sells ads, and therefore does not want competition with its search.
So what is my contribution to this situation. The reason I want better in world integration is because of a problem that bedevils gadgets and devices in world: storage. Let's say it, notecards are less. They are slow, laggy, buggy and limited. Scripts cannot write to them, only libsl based bots. The only alternative was to pay for your own website and write your own code. "Just pay for a web server..."
However, this had several major problems. The first is that as soon as storage is based on the gadet maker paying for it, it becomes a service, not a gadget, and charged for accordingly. Only stable and built in resources, or free outside resources, can be made ubiquitous. More over the 2048 byte limit was more than obnoxious, it meant writing code to transfer data over in pieces.
This is where wikiHUD comes in. There are plenty of places to get free mediawiki installation space. The deal being that while you edit or use the wiki, the get to advertise at you. Say for play, as it were.
By using the built in features of Mediawiki, it is possible to read the whole of an entry, this means that configuration information can be put in one entry. This means that it is possible to freely store, outside of SL, configuration data, and edit it with no more difficulty, or hazard of data lose, than any other web page.
It's also possible to easily read that information, put it in chat, search it, and therefore combine it.
The source code is available online, and the technique is very stable, you can find it http://secondlife.wikia.com/wiki/WikiHUD_%28Source%29.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Another one for the jerk hall of fame
[2:45] Yorlando Dufaux: Want to go to my sky home, and make love?
[2:46] Lillie Yifu: What did you ahve in mind?
[2:47] Yorlando Dufaux: Well I love to suck pussy, and I love to fuck, and I am good at both
[2:47] Yorlando Dufaux: and the surroundings are nicer
[2:48] Lillie Yifu: hmmmm
[2:48] Lillie Yifu: and what if it is public sex I want?
[2:50] Yorlando Dufaux: Be my guest sweet, what ever you wish, I am not forcing you, I am inviting you?
[2:50] Yorlando Dufaux: You like my cock?
[2:51] Yorlando Dufaux: I can make it bigger?
[2:51] Lillie Yifu: hmmmm
[2:51] Lillie Yifu: dear
[2:52] Lillie Yifu: I'm not a guy irl. I'm not a gay guy, And I'm not a size queen. I have to say that "be my free whoe," isn't very enticing. It makes me feel like a number on an odometer.
[2:53] Yorlando Dufaux: OK sweet go play with your numbers ok? bye
[2:53] Lillie Yifu: that earned yourself a place in my jerk hall of fame
Now. Let me underline some thing.... The first is that "make love" isn't what he wanted. It was "free fuck." Now that's OK, but if you are oging to do a free fuck, then don't tell someone it is make love.
The next thing to underline is that guys who are good in bed, don't behave this way.
The last thing is, you never know who you are talking to. It's not smart to be a jerk.
[2:46] Lillie Yifu: What did you ahve in mind?
[2:47] Yorlando Dufaux: Well I love to suck pussy, and I love to fuck, and I am good at both
[2:47] Yorlando Dufaux: and the surroundings are nicer
[2:48] Lillie Yifu: hmmmm
[2:48] Lillie Yifu: and what if it is public sex I want?
[2:50] Yorlando Dufaux: Be my guest sweet, what ever you wish, I am not forcing you, I am inviting you?
[2:50] Yorlando Dufaux: You like my cock?
[2:51] Yorlando Dufaux: I can make it bigger?
[2:51] Lillie Yifu: hmmmm
[2:51] Lillie Yifu: dear
[2:52] Lillie Yifu: I'm not a guy irl. I'm not a gay guy, And I'm not a size queen. I have to say that "be my free whoe," isn't very enticing. It makes me feel like a number on an odometer.
[2:53] Yorlando Dufaux: OK sweet go play with your numbers ok? bye
[2:53] Lillie Yifu: that earned yourself a place in my jerk hall of fame
Now. Let me underline some thing.... The first is that "make love" isn't what he wanted. It was "free fuck." Now that's OK, but if you are oging to do a free fuck, then don't tell someone it is make love.
The next thing to underline is that guys who are good in bed, don't behave this way.
The last thing is, you never know who you are talking to. It's not smart to be a jerk.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Uncripple the Browser - Vote this JIRA
Uncripple the in client Second Life Browser.
This should not be hard...
Cut and paste is a major need here...
As would the ability to, with permissions asked, llLoadURL.
This should not be hard...
Cut and paste is a major need here...
As would the ability to, with permissions asked, llLoadURL.
D'oh... Not!
Judith Warner is angry about older men who want to date younger hotter girls.
Well yes. This was lame Judith.
Let me start from where I stand, which is at the bottom of the hill that you are standing at the top of. The first part is that most men who are in your age bracket don't have much of a chance with many of the women that they are dreaming about dating. But that chance isn't zero, and some men have really good chances.
One part is the very thing you are talking about: valuing a person, rather than looks or youth. It's a great deal more common for a woman to date older than for a man to date older. Maturity is a good thing in men. There's a big shortage of it in twenty something year old men. The other part is that older men come with more income and more status and more knowledge of the world. These are all attractive.
I'm also going to suggest something about the successful men around you, they are very good at getting the donut. I've seen this at work, there are some men who are very good at making sure they get more of the credit, more of the advancement and more of the rewards from any group activity. You like these kind of men Judith, because they value successful achieving women. That is until they have enough donuts that they don't need one. Somewhere in there they start staring around, and decide that sagging boobs aren't what they want. This isn't all men mind you, but it is the men who are used to deciding what they want, and taking it. If they weren't like this, you wouldn't have liked them.
The last thing is it isn't just that they want to dump their older spouse for a younger one, it is that the older spouse in their lives has already dumped them. At least in the ways that they think are important. All those "complications" are really demands on your time, and they leave you tired and emotionally drained. You come to the man in your life to recharge so you can give to all those other things. He comes to you drained from his high achieving.
While the evolutionary bio guys will go on about how it's all just about him wanting a new fertile vessel for his sperm, I'm going to say it isn't. I think that a lot of ev bio is older professor guy types sitting around trying to think of reasons why they should not feel bad about sleeping with their much younger students.
I'm watching this process in real life, and I see it a great deal in my second life: that is the accomplished donut hogging male and his relationship with his accomplished high achieving wife whose watching him trade her in for a younger next marriage. There are patterns.
One pattern is that those complications, as the men called them, aren't complications. Their umm... our lives. Which maybe why you are so hurt. But for the guy, those are things he has to manage, they are a cost on what he wants out of a relationship. So given a choice between two peopled, even if all other things are the same, he's going to choose the one without it. Now in a marriage, for a long time, the relationships that his wife is managing, are important to him, he needs them. but then he needs them less and less. And yet, the cost for those relationships gets to be more and more.
Which is sort of a bind isn't it? Because that's what we do, create relationships.
So look at it form the donut hog's point of view. He has soemthing, worldliness let's call it, that is more and more valuable to some, but not all, younger women. They have something which is more and more valuable to him, that is, not having all the effects of time, phyusical, emotional and otherwise. Surely he thinks, there's got to be a free half donut someplace he can take.
And often he's right. Not all guys are donut hogs, not all women are desirous of being their confection. But you'll find guys who like the extra donut... around women who are putting out donuts for them.
So where am I going with this. I get the boil over. We grade grub, we please, we play nice, we help others, we form relationships, we are supportive.
And we are told that well formed fat underneath smooth skin is more important.
But it is also the choices we make along the way. Over and over again we pick men who are good at gettign the extra donut. And then, when the donuts are gone, we wonder why they wander off.
Or rather they wander off from your table, and they start hanging around mine. This is where my view changes what I think. It isn't a negative for me that there are older men in my world. I've been attracted to people much older than myself. Yes they;'ve traded away some youth for other things, but those other things are nice qualities too. I also more than a little bit think, partially because I am tired of stories like yours of older women feeling the men in their lives slip through their grasp. I'm tired of the boomer women who have woken up, and realized that in a consumer society, they are just another product, and that they don't compete well against the other products.
It comes across as bitchy and jealous. One one hand to like men who are used to getting the products they want, and on the other hand bitching about not being the best product any more.
however, I resent the being treated as a better product. Maybe I am, right this instant. But that's not what I value about myself. I know what I get paid for on Second Life, and being a better product wins hands down over the things that I feel are more important. That's just the way it is in our world. In your world too. The world that you have a good deal more to say about than I do. You can sit there, with oyur nice job and position, and complain about men coming to younger women, but the reality is that that's what we have. Your world doesn't pay me for my writing, and it doesn't pay me much for my art. I think those things are more important. It won't pay me 35 USD an hour to talk about my ideas. But it will pay me that much to talk about a hot hard cock and how if he were only here I'd slip my thong to one side... umm...
I could go on, but won't.
So the view from down here on the bottom of this hill is this... your world doesn't pay for my mind. Instead, I have to work for others to even get a chance at being someone allowed to think for a living. You sit up there furious about how you want a better world, but really, you've fought hard to make sure we've had a worse one.
Because in that worse one you do better. And it really comes across as being as self centered as the men you complain about to say that you want the advantages that come to you for living in that worse world, without also having the disadvantages.
But that's you, and you should admit that. After all, given a choice between doing better in the conversation, and giving up a puff of fat and sugar held together with white starch... you put your claws around the sugar and fat. Whydo you crticize the men for wanting sweet cream on their tongues, white sheen before glistening before their eyes, and well formed round fat in their hands... it is what you valued more than intelligent conversation...
The suggestion from me that men like themselves might actually prefer to date contemporaries, women who’d lived, matured, grown wiser and more human with the experience of parenting, and, at the very least, could recall the 1980s, was met with nothing but outraged looks and half-chewed-donut silence.
“Why?” one of them finally said.
“Why,” the second one swallowed to spurt, “would you want all those complications?”
That is where the sputtering on my own part began. And this, perhaps, is the point where the raucous laughter on your part will begin, as you think of me there at the table, nattering on about “inherent value” and “friendship” and “being a human being.” Perhaps you’ve already laughed yourself into red-eyed delirium.
Or maybe you’re in the camp of my husband, Max, who ventured, “I don’t understand what you’re getting all worked up about,” when I took the topic up with him later that same day. He did not actually use the word “hysterical,” though I heard it anyway.
I had heard the phrase “burn your bra” thrown at me from the breakfast table as I made to leave it.
“No bras have ever been burned,” I threw back over my shoulder.
Which was so horribly, terribly, lame a thing to say.
Well yes. This was lame Judith.
Let me start from where I stand, which is at the bottom of the hill that you are standing at the top of. The first part is that most men who are in your age bracket don't have much of a chance with many of the women that they are dreaming about dating. But that chance isn't zero, and some men have really good chances.
One part is the very thing you are talking about: valuing a person, rather than looks or youth. It's a great deal more common for a woman to date older than for a man to date older. Maturity is a good thing in men. There's a big shortage of it in twenty something year old men. The other part is that older men come with more income and more status and more knowledge of the world. These are all attractive.
I'm also going to suggest something about the successful men around you, they are very good at getting the donut. I've seen this at work, there are some men who are very good at making sure they get more of the credit, more of the advancement and more of the rewards from any group activity. You like these kind of men Judith, because they value successful achieving women. That is until they have enough donuts that they don't need one. Somewhere in there they start staring around, and decide that sagging boobs aren't what they want. This isn't all men mind you, but it is the men who are used to deciding what they want, and taking it. If they weren't like this, you wouldn't have liked them.
The last thing is it isn't just that they want to dump their older spouse for a younger one, it is that the older spouse in their lives has already dumped them. At least in the ways that they think are important. All those "complications" are really demands on your time, and they leave you tired and emotionally drained. You come to the man in your life to recharge so you can give to all those other things. He comes to you drained from his high achieving.
While the evolutionary bio guys will go on about how it's all just about him wanting a new fertile vessel for his sperm, I'm going to say it isn't. I think that a lot of ev bio is older professor guy types sitting around trying to think of reasons why they should not feel bad about sleeping with their much younger students.
I'm watching this process in real life, and I see it a great deal in my second life: that is the accomplished donut hogging male and his relationship with his accomplished high achieving wife whose watching him trade her in for a younger next marriage. There are patterns.
One pattern is that those complications, as the men called them, aren't complications. Their umm... our lives. Which maybe why you are so hurt. But for the guy, those are things he has to manage, they are a cost on what he wants out of a relationship. So given a choice between two peopled, even if all other things are the same, he's going to choose the one without it. Now in a marriage, for a long time, the relationships that his wife is managing, are important to him, he needs them. but then he needs them less and less. And yet, the cost for those relationships gets to be more and more.
Which is sort of a bind isn't it? Because that's what we do, create relationships.
So look at it form the donut hog's point of view. He has soemthing, worldliness let's call it, that is more and more valuable to some, but not all, younger women. They have something which is more and more valuable to him, that is, not having all the effects of time, phyusical, emotional and otherwise. Surely he thinks, there's got to be a free half donut someplace he can take.
And often he's right. Not all guys are donut hogs, not all women are desirous of being their confection. But you'll find guys who like the extra donut... around women who are putting out donuts for them.
So where am I going with this. I get the boil over. We grade grub, we please, we play nice, we help others, we form relationships, we are supportive.
And we are told that well formed fat underneath smooth skin is more important.
But it is also the choices we make along the way. Over and over again we pick men who are good at gettign the extra donut. And then, when the donuts are gone, we wonder why they wander off.
Or rather they wander off from your table, and they start hanging around mine. This is where my view changes what I think. It isn't a negative for me that there are older men in my world. I've been attracted to people much older than myself. Yes they;'ve traded away some youth for other things, but those other things are nice qualities too. I also more than a little bit think, partially because I am tired of stories like yours of older women feeling the men in their lives slip through their grasp. I'm tired of the boomer women who have woken up, and realized that in a consumer society, they are just another product, and that they don't compete well against the other products.
It comes across as bitchy and jealous. One one hand to like men who are used to getting the products they want, and on the other hand bitching about not being the best product any more.
however, I resent the being treated as a better product. Maybe I am, right this instant. But that's not what I value about myself. I know what I get paid for on Second Life, and being a better product wins hands down over the things that I feel are more important. That's just the way it is in our world. In your world too. The world that you have a good deal more to say about than I do. You can sit there, with oyur nice job and position, and complain about men coming to younger women, but the reality is that that's what we have. Your world doesn't pay me for my writing, and it doesn't pay me much for my art. I think those things are more important. It won't pay me 35 USD an hour to talk about my ideas. But it will pay me that much to talk about a hot hard cock and how if he were only here I'd slip my thong to one side... umm...
I could go on, but won't.
So the view from down here on the bottom of this hill is this... your world doesn't pay for my mind. Instead, I have to work for others to even get a chance at being someone allowed to think for a living. You sit up there furious about how you want a better world, but really, you've fought hard to make sure we've had a worse one.
Because in that worse one you do better. And it really comes across as being as self centered as the men you complain about to say that you want the advantages that come to you for living in that worse world, without also having the disadvantages.
But that's you, and you should admit that. After all, given a choice between doing better in the conversation, and giving up a puff of fat and sugar held together with white starch... you put your claws around the sugar and fat. Whydo you crticize the men for wanting sweet cream on their tongues, white sheen before glistening before their eyes, and well formed round fat in their hands... it is what you valued more than intelligent conversation...
Sunday, February 17, 2008
The Doctor is Out
Dr. Scantling misses the point. Which is that there is a point. That is, this is not a game, except in the same way that politics is a game.
She asks a series of questions, I'm going to be a bit wenchy about answering them, but that's because they questions are firmly grounded in proton think. That is, without punishments and penalties and the quicksand of the hard real world, meaning, morality and emotion must be disintegrating.
No, quite the opposite. First, even in the digital world, not "everything is under your control." The most important thing, the emotions of others, is not. The world of Second Life is not a contained fantasy filled with a few people and a million automata acting out parts in a screen play, but instead a shared reality, with a vast inter-subjective tide that not even the monarchs of this new country can control.
So I reject what could be called analog normative bias. Instead the question is whether at the end of the day people can function. Some can't but some could not have in any event. Some would have found alcohol or pornographic movies. What's wrong with admitting that a marriage has become an economic and social contract, and that emotions are to be fulfilled in other ways. Cyber sex is safer than analog infidelity.
My reply hinges on what I think is the most important bias in what she wrote, that there is something superior about achieving satisfaction in the physical over the virtual. The history of art and literature and theater is the reverse, that many people have dreamt of better worlds before, when faced with a mastery over the physical world which was too disappointingly limited to come close to their goals. With out these dreams by daylight, there would not be all of the things that we now take for granted as creature comforts and political freedoms. As it is with us, so it is with the people in the future, who will owe more to the people who could not live with the present, and so went off to make the future.
Here is the core of what is wrong:
No. When you are in world, you are your avatar, except when there is compelling need to bring the player's needs to the front. Instead, it is a certain detachment for the analog world that is important, looking out beyond the wardrobe and remembering hazily that there is another place, and another identity that shares this time and space.
Yes the disappointments are real, but that is because this isn't a fantasy or a game, but a metaverse, a reality where what we do here, changes who we are out there. We are denied many of the metaversal aspects of this technology, but in the realm of self, it is there with full force: our actions as digital avatars, change our understanding of the desires that move the analog avatar.
So I will argue at each point that what the Dr. is missing, is based on the analog bias of what she asks, the implicit prejudice that digital reality is a mere recreation and subordinate reality. Instead, I would propose that both our analog avatar, and out digital avatar, are subordinated to forces of reality and society and desire which are larger than any of us. Where the digital realm creates a space and a set of tools that will work these greater forces, then that is the place we should be.
What happens is that some people come in and do this, griefers, newbies and so on. And they find out that in a world where your commitment to the world going forward, and not the weight of the world going backwards, is your trustworthiness, that social norms, generous behavior, altruism, kindness, concern, manners and interpersonal affection are more, not less, important.
I'm also puzzled by "concrete issues." I think that supportiveness is a concrete issue. I think that the ability to face the mirror, and face the day, is a very concrete issue. Filled with all the small things we have to do, how do we do them? Often because other people care.
If you want to know what the consequences are for being a jerk, try the experiment. Log on as a playdo male. Proposition a string of women. Find out how long it takes to enjoy the view from 7000M…
Yes, post-war nuclear marriage is broken, the lives that people lead are broken, the economy is broken, the hopes are broken, the incentives are broken. People know that the rich live differently than the rest of us, and until they can change it, there is no use fighting the hard reality that for must of us, playing our analog avatars, is, at best, treading water on the way over the waterfall.
Nothing in this world is. But are the harmful to the wrong things?
She asks a series of questions, I'm going to be a bit wenchy about answering them, but that's because they questions are firmly grounded in proton think. That is, without punishments and penalties and the quicksand of the hard real world, meaning, morality and emotion must be disintegrating.
No, quite the opposite. First, even in the digital world, not "everything is under your control." The most important thing, the emotions of others, is not. The world of Second Life is not a contained fantasy filled with a few people and a million automata acting out parts in a screen play, but instead a shared reality, with a vast inter-subjective tide that not even the monarchs of this new country can control.
So I reject what could be called analog normative bias. Instead the question is whether at the end of the day people can function. Some can't but some could not have in any event. Some would have found alcohol or pornographic movies. What's wrong with admitting that a marriage has become an economic and social contract, and that emotions are to be fulfilled in other ways. Cyber sex is safer than analog infidelity.
My reply hinges on what I think is the most important bias in what she wrote, that there is something superior about achieving satisfaction in the physical over the virtual. The history of art and literature and theater is the reverse, that many people have dreamt of better worlds before, when faced with a mastery over the physical world which was too disappointingly limited to come close to their goals. With out these dreams by daylight, there would not be all of the things that we now take for granted as creature comforts and political freedoms. As it is with us, so it is with the people in the future, who will owe more to the people who could not live with the present, and so went off to make the future.
Here is the core of what is wrong:
Keeping your real and virtual selves from blurring can be a challenge. MMORPGs require a degree of practiced dissociation -- floating above one's avatar like some disembodied puppet-master. But players who stay partially attached may invest their avatars with a level of consciousness or "humanness" that leads to interpersonal confusion. Let's face it. You've created your avatar, so its part of you -- your hopes, dreams, needs or desires. If your avatar's romantic advances are rejected, will the real "you" feel disappointed?
No. When you are in world, you are your avatar, except when there is compelling need to bring the player's needs to the front. Instead, it is a certain detachment for the analog world that is important, looking out beyond the wardrobe and remembering hazily that there is another place, and another identity that shares this time and space.
Yes the disappointments are real, but that is because this isn't a fantasy or a game, but a metaverse, a reality where what we do here, changes who we are out there. We are denied many of the metaversal aspects of this technology, but in the realm of self, it is there with full force: our actions as digital avatars, change our understanding of the desires that move the analog avatar.
So I will argue at each point that what the Dr. is missing, is based on the analog bias of what she asks, the implicit prejudice that digital reality is a mere recreation and subordinate reality. Instead, I would propose that both our analog avatar, and out digital avatar, are subordinated to forces of reality and society and desire which are larger than any of us. Where the digital realm creates a space and a set of tools that will work these greater forces, then that is the place we should be.
The virtual world opens fascinating opportunities for researchers in human behavior to study the self and social interactions. Without clearly delineated social consequences, how will people treat one another in their imaginary environment? Will we dispense with politeness, generosity and other social norms? Some of this research is already under way. Researcher Nick Yee's findings show that men and women socialize about the same amount in role-playing-games, but women focus on developing supportive "friendships," while men are more interested in more concrete issues.
What happens is that some people come in and do this, griefers, newbies and so on. And they find out that in a world where your commitment to the world going forward, and not the weight of the world going backwards, is your trustworthiness, that social norms, generous behavior, altruism, kindness, concern, manners and interpersonal affection are more, not less, important.
I'm also puzzled by "concrete issues." I think that supportiveness is a concrete issue. I think that the ability to face the mirror, and face the day, is a very concrete issue. Filled with all the small things we have to do, how do we do them? Often because other people care.
If you want to know what the consequences are for being a jerk, try the experiment. Log on as a playdo male. Proposition a string of women. Find out how long it takes to enjoy the view from 7000M…
But I'm equally curious about short- and long-term effects of MMORPGs on real-life relationships. I worry about couples who immerse themselves in isolating activities to fill their emotional voids with virtual "fixes." The same couples, who tell me that they're too busy to share intimacy, manage to sequester themselves for hours at a time to read e-mail, chat online or play MMORPGs. Obviously, something is very wrong with this picture.
Yes, post-war nuclear marriage is broken, the lives that people lead are broken, the economy is broken, the hopes are broken, the incentives are broken. People know that the rich live differently than the rest of us, and until they can change it, there is no use fighting the hard reality that for must of us, playing our analog avatars, is, at best, treading water on the way over the waterfall.
So, are online role-playing games harmless?
Nothing in this world is. But are the harmful to the wrong things?
Coming to a Galaxy Near You
I remember going to Galaxy soon after it opened, when it was still trying to find its way. It was a big box standard club with no mall. The owners have spent the money and time and held on to remain the largest club of its kind. Galaxy is a throw back club to 2006. Campers, lag, poles, high pressure dj's telling you to spend money. The music is about leading a whore to culture. ASC spam. So why galaxy and not the others? Why is it still here?
Because the management is on top of everything. Because the dancers are part of the environment. It isn't claustrophobic, but is decorated in open blues and whites.
The dancing is very polished, not ornamented, and as direct as the soundtrack: filled with equal parts violent lust and violent misogyny. Horny, cum, bitch are on the list in tight rotation. But despite all the talk of being sexy, naughty and bitchy, practically the Galaxy Anthem, it isn't really, it is busy telling the clients that it is ok to be a little bit out of their work a day world.
Here's an example of the chat:
stops swirling around her pole, she jumps off her stage and dances her way through the mcrowd.... her hands running through her hair, her hips swaying, her breasts bouncing...
For all this hard sell over drive, the crowd is in fact remarkably laid back. They aren't really orgy room tearing and pawing, but are remarkably quiet and well behaved. I saw one girl dancing who had just been an orgy room - laughing at the sight of people trying to crawl all over each other. Instead, they boing, they tip, they tease. And they are very laid back about it.
passes her fingertips over her hot silky skin, running them along the hem of her shorts....she pulls at them sliding her finger underneath them to her sexy ass and then spanks it...mmmmm
As you can see, it doesn't have flair, but it is to the point and fits in with the lyrics well. Often the dancers pick up lyrics into their routines. It is something that patrons respond to, because it says the girls are here, and not just pasting it in.
One Galaxy trademark is the silliness of the "boing song," which captures the /b/chan very very light, practically vaporous, of the Galaxy as it is. Don't take us too seriously, the whole set up screams. Clean well lit laid back open space to listen to people sing songs about bitches, whores, and fucking people up. Call it the need for politically incorrect hair hanging. The ability to leer at some ass, shake a bit, run fingers in the naughty corners. But not really the hard core. They don't have an escort wall, they don't have any sex rooms on site. This club is, in fact, one of the cleaner ones both in terms of its language and its visuals. The poles don't get dialed to the hard splits and doubles, there isn't a show going on here, there's a place.
In this the Galaxy is a good deal like Sensual Elements: come, be yourself, let it loose...
They also make no secret of their money fetish. The calls for cash are constant, a big turn around from most clubs which are overtly handing out linden. Bad. Yeah umm. No.
Instead the galaxy is about being fun for everyone, and minimal drama. If you want the dark edge, go elsewhere, but most people just want to feel like the man with the bling for the night, not really. A bit of ho talk before going home, to have sex. With the girl.
The bottom line is, that the Galaxy delivers, where dozens of other clubs have been half way about it. It isn't creative, extraordinary or different. That's where people make mistakes. They think that because what a party club is simple, that it doesn't take attention. Quite the reverse, it requires a lot of attention. The Galaxy staff and management pay attention, and everything works well.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
How To Browse The Web in the LL Client. Really!
Tech wiz Kathernine Berry points out that the in world help screen is even better. It has the URL box, and resize. However, it too does not have tabbed browsing. I'm using two browswer windows now, so the JIRA is still useful. Cut and paste would make them more inter-operable.
So I'm going to edit the JIRA accordingly.
This is how to punch another hole the artificial wall between the web and Second Life. It requires no coding or anything like that. You just need to be able to click some links, fill out a few text boxes, and you are on your way.
Many people use other clients, which have browsers built in, and open up an inworld browser in response to llLoadURL(), which is an LSL command to open a link. Since this command can be put in say a HUD, like Mystitool, it effectively means that if you can chat it, you can browse it.
It turns out that the second life client from LL has a browser in it, and one with a fair amount of functionality. You just need to be able to get to it and use it.
Here is how:
Think of this as a configuration process, it will be easier to do once you have it set up, but the first time through, basically, you need to tie this browser to your account.
First open up Search, click on the "All" tab. We should be familiar with this, this is "new search," which is a pay for play web search of second life sites. It's more useful than traffic counts, but so loaded with "sponsored links" as to be untrustworthy.
Second from the drop down menu search just the wiki. Don't worry about exactly what this means. Or perhaps W-Hat this means. We will get there.
Third type in a search term. It doesn't really matter which one, we don't care about the results, so long as there is at least one. I like "Village Pump." But then, I spend a good deal of my time dealing with people who like to pump...
OK, some results came back. Guess what? Click on one of them.
Now what do you see? That's right, a wiki page. A page of regular old HTML.
That, as it says anyone can edit. You are an anyone aren't you?
Click on log in/create account. You don't have an account on the wiki? Yes you do! It's your second life account name and password. Don't want to use your main account? Use another. Fill that out. Create it.
Now that's not to strenuous right? But where is the fun?
Well here it comes, bear with me. Now as th page reloads, you should see at the top a link with your account name. I see Lillie Yifu. Click on that, that is your user page. That's right, the nice elves at Linden Laboratory have given you a nice page on the wiki.
That you can edit. Click on that link to your user page. It will tell you there is no such page. So you want to create it.
You will see a large text edit box. That's the wiki edit box. The wiki that, stop me when you get this, anyone can edit. You are editing it.
Type in
http://secondlife.wikia.com
Now save that.
The page should come back with your user page, and a link that says
http://secondlife.wikia.com
Oh look, it is a live link. Should you press it? I think you should. Go on.
Now you will see a page which is the http://secondlife.wikia.com
That's to say, the world wide web. You are now surfing the internet. Click on the back button once to get back to your home page. Edit it again. Add
http://www.google.com
and
http://mail.yahoo.com
Now save that.
OK, now to surfe the web, all you need to do is
Search -> all -> wiki
Village Pump
click on your user name, or log in.
(Yes the browser takes cookies. Yes, you can stay logged in.)
Click on your user name.
There you are, with your list of links, ready to go out on to the internet.
But you are saying to yourself, this can't be much of a browser. Well it is a bit feature poor. But yahoo mail works. You can send mail.
Uploading files to wikis works.
Quick time music streams work. Parcel media settings? What parcel media settings...
Logging on to information sites like the New York Times works.
Gmail does not work on my mac. :S
Why this is a net neutrality issue
This is, if you think about it, a net neutrality issue. everyone's sites should be the same. If LL, "because they own the service" can say that some sites, which pay them, can be accessed easily, and others can't, then what is to stop your ISP from saying the same thing. They own the fiber. Why shouldn't they be able to force you to use a browser that only goes to sites they like.
Because that would be wrong. That's why.
Every site should be the same, the internet should be the internet.
So what should we do?
Well someone needs to start a JIRA. The JIRA should say that there is a bug fix, because that's what not having a browser that is already there work properly is, a bug.
The JIRA needs to request that a full URL edit box be put in the search-> all browser. Say by having an option on the drop down, and using the text box that is already there.
The JIRA needs to request that there be a resize tab on the search window. I am pretty sure this is also easy.
The JIRA needs to request that the search-> all browser cut and past with the second life interface. This is harder I am sure. but I am also sure it can be done.
The JIRA should stat that there needs to be an otion to have llLoadURL() to go to the client based browser.
The ever resourceful Dahlia Trimble has found One with 23 votes that is similar. So I've added http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-5004 asking to "Uncripple the browser."
So there it is. The client from LL has a browser. You can use this browser to browse the we in world, read and answer email, search, read blogs, comment on blogs. I don't know if it is possible to do things like shop on rez or slx. Someone could check that.
Sometimes I click on a link, the screen goes black, but clicking again on the viewable area makes the page appear.
Summary
It is possible, inside of second life, to configure the LL client to browse the web in world. It is a reasonably useful browser as is, large enough to edit, do useful work without leaving second life. Including listen to music, read and answer web based email, search the web, post to blogs. In short, there is no compelling reason to cripple the functionality of the browser that is already in the client.
I am told that the Microsoft/Netscape case hinged on exactly this, the bundling of a browser by MS that was designed to give MS an advantage. Anyone know the details of this? Is this a good analogy. I mean, what this shows is that the whole pay for play land scape of "sponsored search" is really a crippling of the functionality that is there in the browser. Which I have a feeling LL didn't write from scratch.
How to solve many of our data problems
Open the search browser, which is clearly capable of displaying web pages, to any URL. It already works... what does it hurt to have a browser window.
Make it resizeable. And copy and pasteable.
Make a URL object.
With the ability to read txt from wikis that wikiHUD gives u, we could more or less dispense with notecards. Text could then be edited. We'd have email. It doesn't need to be on a prim, we don't need flash or other things. Just what is already there.
It is maddening, what we need is inches away, through the bars of the cage. I mean, now we can go to a wiki page, edit that wiki page, type in the url we want, save, click and....
There we are...
Friday, February 15, 2008
wikiHUD evangelism
This is a major improvement in wikiHUD, the new version has several query modes on of these is "full." In full query mode the wikiHUD queries every section of the article. This means that if the article is broken up into sections of less than 2048 characters, the whole article will be displayed.
For example, this is me:
No notecards, just information.
So why I am evangelizing for wikiHUD and the second life wiki? I'm not making any money on this, since the code is free, the wiki is free, and I do not own the wikia.com site.
The first reason is simple history. Second Life history is disappearing along with the people who made it. There is no good historical source. There is no repository of who did what when. There are scraps, clippings, blog posts, conflicting accounts. It's impossible to get the straight story on anything, and there is no history of Second Life.
Related to this, but not quite the same, is that there is no guide to second life that isn't in the hands of someone who seeks to profit from. This belongs to whoever decides to edit it.
The next related pair of reasons have to do with meta data. As anyone who has tried to work with actual data in second life knows, there is no such thing as meta data in second life. Notecards are so primitive that they will drive you crazy if you try and use them.
WikiHUD is an in world tool. It is one that isn't dependont on some one else to write or fix, or dependent on renting your own web server. It works with any MediaWiki that supports action=raw, yours or anyone elses. There are other wikia sites for other fan groups. this means you could give out a wikiHUD that reads those as well, and even allows second life images. Fan of World of Warcraft in Second Life, then have an in world tool.
Most importantly this is a no screen scraping involved data tool. Even if it just does that, it's of importance.
So that's why I am evangelizing, because we need the history, we need the information, we need meta data, and we need them in world, before the mythical day of HTML on a prim.
You can get a free, full perms open source wikiHUD here at Yedo, and I know at least one tool maker Arthur Fermi, who is going to offer a wikiHUD on his all purpose tool.
For example, this is me:
*[http://secondlife.com/app/image/7e609910-885b-6d8c-543d-079f5c27debd/2 In world image]
[15:25] wikiHUD 1.02: == Summary ==
''Lillie Yifu'' ([[March 11]] [[2007]]) [http://sexsecond.blogspot.com Second Sex] [[2nd Sex (Blog)|Second Sex]]
[[Image:Lillie_Yifu_02.jpg|right| 200px]]
Lillie Yifu has been described as an [[slebrity]] for her unapologetic and unabashed "blog on sex by a top [[escort]]," named, [[2nd Sex]]. But in addition to being one of Second Life's better known [[blogger | bloggers]] and writers, she's also a [[builder]] and avatar designer. Her column for SL Looking Glass, the Second Sex, offers clear and honest advice on how to get the most out of sex, that just happens to be happening in Second Life.
[15:25] wikiHUD 1.02: == Activities in Second Life ==
She is a contributing editor for [[Second Life News Network | SLNN]], and has a column for [[SL Looking Glass]]. Author of poems and short stories, she's also known for her one liners, such as "The only difference between content and crack is... I'd never whore myself for crack." As a writer and speaker she has been at numerous panels, including [[Blogher '07]]. She often blogs on identity and meaning in Second Life, as we discover it through sexuality. Her blog brought her to the attention of [[Hamlet Au]] who ran a short profile in [[New World Notes]]. But her diverse topics have been given links from [[Virtually Blind]] and [[Second Life Insider]].
Her sculpture garden at [[Yedo Basilica]] features two sculptures based on mathematical series: [[Flight (Sculpture) | Flight]] and [[phi (sculpture) | "phi"]], one based on circles entitled [[Longitude (Sculpture) | Longitude]] and the [[Kinetic Pagoda]].
She is the creator of [[wikiHUD]], a utility for reading wiki entries [
[15:25] wikiHUD 1.02: == External Links ==
*[http://sexsecond.blogspot.com Second Sex] [[2nd Sex (Blog)|Second Sex]]
*[http://primical.blogspot.com Huge Prims Blog]
[[Category:People]]
[[Category:Class of 2007]]
[[Category:Bloggers]]
[[Category:Scripters]]
[[Category:Builders]]
No notecards, just information.
So why I am evangelizing for wikiHUD and the second life wiki? I'm not making any money on this, since the code is free, the wiki is free, and I do not own the wikia.com site.
The first reason is simple history. Second Life history is disappearing along with the people who made it. There is no good historical source. There is no repository of who did what when. There are scraps, clippings, blog posts, conflicting accounts. It's impossible to get the straight story on anything, and there is no history of Second Life.
Related to this, but not quite the same, is that there is no guide to second life that isn't in the hands of someone who seeks to profit from. This belongs to whoever decides to edit it.
The next related pair of reasons have to do with meta data. As anyone who has tried to work with actual data in second life knows, there is no such thing as meta data in second life. Notecards are so primitive that they will drive you crazy if you try and use them.
WikiHUD is an in world tool. It is one that isn't dependont on some one else to write or fix, or dependent on renting your own web server. It works with any MediaWiki that supports action=raw, yours or anyone elses. There are other wikia sites for other fan groups. this means you could give out a wikiHUD that reads those as well, and even allows second life images. Fan of World of Warcraft in Second Life, then have an in world tool.
Most importantly this is a no screen scraping involved data tool. Even if it just does that, it's of importance.
So that's why I am evangelizing, because we need the history, we need the information, we need meta data, and we need them in world, before the mythical day of HTML on a prim.
You can get a free, full perms open source wikiHUD here at Yedo, and I know at least one tool maker Arthur Fermi, who is going to offer a wikiHUD on his all purpose tool.
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