Short comment, lack of meta

Words. Most of the time my words are small ants piling across an endless page towards an uncertain end. Does anyone really care about the thing I have spent so much time studying? It seems like I am out of step, I met someone today who is studying something so small that it hardly seems worth looking at. Why study a lesser painting by an undistinguished painter. Then the explanation became clear: advisor's work is on the undistinguished painter, and the specific dissertation fills a hole in it. Some years ago I learned the phrase "meat puppet" to describe someone who is asked to do something on a web site, like say follow a twitter feed, even though they didn't decide to do it themselves. Academic meat puppetry. It tells me. The limits. Of the thing. I do.

The recent push to get LSL to be able to accept XML and JSON that I've been engaged in is the same thing. It tells me the limits of Second Life. Second Life is a walled garden. It is not the next internet, precisely because it does not connect to the internet. Consider the much discussed and praised studio wikitecture project. It is genuinely metaversial in nature, that is outside data is presented as inside data, and the two inform each other. However, we can't even do this with our inventories, that is to say, manage them outside to inside.

It isn't that this hasn't been discussed at length. I'm part of the AWGroupies group, and several people there are working on client side scripting. Enus Linden has contributed a great deal to a project to have a python based text client, which would allow for the kinds of manageability that would make dealing with a 33K item inventory reasonable. But it is a long, long, long way from being in people's hands.

And that's just the lack of meta on our avatars, let alone integration with our real lives.

I think the JIRA I am pushing will not be done, and it will represent a marker in how Second Life's competing pulls - to be a walled garden that lets people charge each other to avoid frustration, and an information integration platform - are going to be decided, each and every time, by keeping the walls high, and the rest of the world out.

This is sort of where I came in writing about Second Life, and it's time for a real essay.

If only I can find enough time to write the right words. Not academic words, because academics are merely building another walled garden the same way. I know in my real life I am taken seriously about a small thing that no one cares about, because I've done a great deal of small work looking at small things that no one else will. But what I have to say about it really is no more likely to be right than someone just walking in through the door. Wait. There is a story there. I need to tell it.

OK, I have the entry point. I'll be back later to start it.

Social Networking

As people probably know I've been asking everyone to vote up Marvs http jira. The purpose of this JIRA is to allow LSL scripts to receive data in any format that is carried by plain text. This is to allow data to get into the Second Life World™. The immediate desire is to have the ability to twitter with a generic gadget not tied to someone's intermediate server.

However, this would also include things like RSS feeds, various website APIs and so on.

We kept getting told this was the "metaverse" well meta is about about. That is data about data, or acting about acting. We need to be able to get data to have the about.

Sims 3

What every Second Life Player wants is a better looking Ruth.

It's depressing to see that this game's solution is to have even more hurdles to happiness than the last one.

Downloading Lillie

I've been asked why I am doing this project, of documenting the sleaziness of so many males in Second Life. I have a simple answer: Philip Markoff. For those of you who do not follow the real world closely, Philip Markoff is a 23 year old Medical Student at Boston University. He is handsome, if a bit dorkish and socially clumsy. He has a pretty fiance.

He also beats up and kills sex workers for a hobby, after contacting them through Craigslist. Hence his name, the CraigsList killer. He not only robbed victims, he kept trophies, such as panties. Irl I am not Philip's type, but in second life, as the tall often blonde escort, I am. His victim and Lillie, are of the same mold of male fantasy. If I were really Lillie, I'd exactly what Philip Markoff looks for in a victim.

Now, how does this connect with people like Pain Xeno, zebentino Alecto, and mally Rajal. Let me tell you in as few words as I can manage: they have the same view of women. Women are to be beaten into their little script, and their own ego forced upon her. Women exist to immediately serve their needs, and women who have the termity to say no are to be attacked. In each of the cases of these men, they approached me, and then demanded access to my virtual sex, and often, my rl details. In each case, they became upset when I would not follow their script. I don't think I am alone in thinking that an ugly man who believes there is something wrong with a woman for not instantly wanting to perform anal sex with him, is sick. Sick.

Second Life does not create this sickness. Nor is this sickness isolated to the United States. I have examples in English, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Arabic, Turkish, and a few languages of India. It is too broad for any simple explanation, to widespread to be localized, to endemic to be glibbing analyzed by critical theory or pop psychology. It is part, as far as I can tell, of the human condition.

However the electronic media allow for individuals to act in ways that create means of finding victims. And that is what Pain Xeno, Zebentino Alecto, mally Rajal have in common with Philip Markoff: they're players are using Second Life to find victims. They feed an ego so intense that if it were displayed in the real world, they would be in jail. That is what would happen to a man who exposes himself randomly on the street like zebentino did. That is what would happen to Pain Xeno if he walked up to women and demanded anal sex. And yet each of these men believes that his behavior is normal and any woman who does not comply is confused, sad, or wrong.

I've known about the evil beneath the surface. It is not a realization which is unique to me. It is the subject of a very dark film about a woman who decides to kill herself by finding a man to do it on the internet: Downloading Nancy. I've faced it in my time in Second Life. I have secrets that I am not going to divulge about the drives that lie beneath faces and names that are not invisible or completely unknown

This is why the ASLFers are not merely an annoyance, but a fog within which people like Philip Markoff hide. The more dangerous ones to rl are the ones who are just a bit more suave, more careful. Who have a bit of a wink in their eye. But make no mistake: Markoff exists because of all the other men who have the same fantasy of being able to impose their cock on a woman, and being able to impose the waste of their search on everyone. After all, they can ask 100 women to find the one they need, only if none of the 99 are uncomfortable enough to tell them that the search is unacceptable. We hear in the news about "toxic waste" assets, well these men generate toxic waste in their quest for girl with slut fantasy who wants to submit to them right now.

I document this, because it is getting worse, just as there are people more visibly age playing now than before. Second Life, having been crushed of a future of wide open vistas and individual islands, is not rushing head long into the dark of trying to grab people and throw them around like numbers. It isn't working, because the underbelly of LL's vision is age players, aslferians, and a breeding ground for the kind of darkness that the Philip Markoffs of this world use to their advantage.

In some sense the world of the orgy room is going to die soon. Having to identify will rapidly change the nature of behavior, because a complaint will go to the root of the rl person. We are seeing the last volcanic eruption of a passing place.

But what created it will still be there, and will find another medium to express itself. So that is why I do this, because I've seen the fuzzy eyes of a killer in real life, and have a feeling for how he acts when he wants to impose himself on a female flesh that he thinks should be at his disposal.

If you don't like your ass f*cked then Pain Xeno will do something bad to you

[2009/04/30 1:06] Lillie Yifu: your just another jerk off the newbot asembly line
[2009/04/30 1:06] Pain Xeno: ok baby
[2009/04/30 1:06] Lillie Yifu: now wait for a slut or vamp to come along
[2009/04/30 1:06] Pain Xeno: huh
[2009/04/30 1:06] Lillie Yifu: and stop bothering me
[2009/04/30 1:06] Pain Xeno: have a nice day
[2009/04/30 1:06] Pain Xeno: and thanks for the nice words
[2009/04/30 1:06] Lillie Yifu: listen jerk
[2009/04/30 1:07] Pain Xeno: baby
[2009/04/30 1:07] Pain Xeno: u know
[2009/04/30 1:07] Lillie Yifu: you are bad mannered and egotistical
[2009/04/30 1:07] Pain Xeno: who talk like that
[2009/04/30 1:07] Lillie Yifu: inflict yourslef on someone else
[2009/04/30 1:07] Pain Xeno: fell like that
[2009/04/30 1:07] Lillie Yifu: I don't know
[2009/04/30 1:07] Pain Xeno: sp
[2009/04/30 1:07] Pain Xeno: so
[2009/04/30 1:07] Lillie Yifu: do you run around your home town with your cock out saying "can I use your ass?"
[2009/04/30 1:07] Lillie Yifu: And every woman just jumps on your cock and loves it right?
[2009/04/30 1:07] Lillie Yifu: please
[2009/04/30 1:08] Lillie Yifu: I'm tlkaing to you the way people really talk
[2009/04/30 1:08] Lillie Yifu: ]
[2009/04/30 1:08] Pain Xeno: ok u have a hard day
[2009/04/30 1:08] Pain Xeno: tray to realx baby
[2009/04/30 1:08] Lillie Yifu: it is you that is wandering around in some perverted little haze about your own worth and importance
[2009/04/30 1:08] Pain Xeno: its sl
[2009/04/30 1:08] Pain Xeno: not rl
[2009/04/30 1:08] Pain Xeno: tray to realx here
[2009/04/30 1:08] Lillie Yifu: I'm relaxed
[2009/04/30 1:08] Lillie Yifu: I told you I wasn't interested
[2009/04/30 1:08] Pain Xeno: check that gril
[2009/04/30 1:08] Pain Xeno: waw
[2009/04/30 1:08] Lillie Yifu: and you deided to be a jerk
[2009/04/30 1:09] Pain Xeno: its ok baby
[2009/04/30 1:09] Pain Xeno: i told u
[2009/04/30 1:09] Lillie Yifu: it will be when you go away and stop bothering me
[2009/04/30 1:09] Pain Xeno: ok have a nice day baby
-- Instant message logging enabled --
[1:09] Pain Xeno: and try to log out
[1:09] Lillie Yifu: see
[1:10] Lillie Yifu: you are a jerk
[1:10] Pain Xeno: hahahahahaha
[1:10] Pain Xeno: breath baby
[1:10] Pain Xeno: tray to realx
[1:10] Lillie Yifu: I think you need to have your words posted on the ineternt
[1:10] Lillie Yifu: welcome to gogole jerk
[1:10] Pain Xeno: or somthing bad will happen to u
[1:11] Lillie Yifu: You do that
[1:11] Pain Xeno: baby is that the way u talk to people in rl
[1:11] Pain Xeno: i'm sure its a lonly life u have
[1:11] Pain Xeno: i fell sorry for u

The phase of the moon

There is something going on. Up until now, in ages of escorting and exploring sl sex, I had very rarely seen a child avatar in an public orgy room, and never on a sex pose ball. I've encountered real pedophiles, or people who sent that creep alert in my skull. They all do a very elaborate dance, because they know the consequences. The do hidden things. They speak what I call, the "Lolita Language." It is a code of that includes scenarios of incest, requests of very particular kinds. Obsession with adult women who work with children irl. It's creepy because it is clear they know what they want to do is wrong, and they have engaged their whole intellect to doing it anyway. Even sting operations are more careful that what I have been seeing: several age players in a short space of time, culminating in a not work safe picture that I will put on the raise the red lantern blog shortly.

This incident involving an avatar 123kayy123 shieldmaiden began at 11:16 AM sl in one of second life's largest orgy rooms. I saw 123kayy123 Shieldmaiden drop in. Now there is short and flat chested, and there is child. The differences in proportion are evident to the eye. Humans learn them quickly - the large head, the body proportions. This avatar, as you can see from the picture, is done with some care. This is someone who, if they don't know what they are doing, knows enough to ask around for the appropriate material.

After two warnings, 123kayy123 led me on a chase around the first floor of the orgy room, and finally jumped on a bukake pose ball, that is, one with a series of male poseballs around it that masturbate at the female, but don't actually touch it. She stayed there for several minutes. At different moments during that time two male avatars jumped on pose balls and stayed there for more than a minute each.

123kayy123 Shieldmaiden left the area, and then returned, ran around the entire first floor again, and returned to the bukkake spot. Another male avatar asked "why is the kid here" to me in IM. I shouted out for people to report the avatar. Someone asked me how to do that, and I said by Help->Report Abuse.

This is off the scale unusual. My thoughts are varied as to what the player of 123kayy123 Shieldmaiden is. Sting? Extortion? Incredible stupidity? Something awful type prank? Attempting to prove that orgy males will try and have pixel sex with anything (which is true...) ?

I don't know, but it comes on a wave of similar incidents, and is therefore more suspicious because there have been more than one.

This makes the rather garden variety misbehavior of zebentino Alecto (not work safe, has a blurred version of what he sent!) seem almost tame. He spammed me a very large picture of his naked cock. Moments later he sent:

[11:43] zebentino Alecto: i wanna fuck with you
[11:43] zebentino Alecto: come here
[11:44] zebentino Alecto: suck my dick
[11:45] zebentino Alecto: do you wanna more pictures

He then spent several minutes trying to tell me that I am confused, he did not mean it. This is a lie because while the picture could... very remotely ... have been dropped by accident, though someone sending a picture of his erect penis is, in my experience, a great deal more careful about making sure the right person gets it, the follow up indicates that he was not with the person who he was intending to send the picture to, because he said "come here." Which also shows he didn't know the person, but was still in that "come fuck" mode of communication.

A long stream of lies later, I finally told him that I was going to post on this. He's been reported to Linden Lab, but the odds are only 50/50 that they will do anything about him. (And dropping, he's still around after over an hour. Obviously it is not a violation of the Terms of Service to spam pictures of your real world erect penis to people. Good to know that.)

bald fix

We almost all wear a bald almost all of the time. However many of the common baldies leave the default hair texture in place. This gives your "ruth wings" around your ears. Bad. So what to do? Wear your bald base, if it has ruth wings, then go to edit appearance, and select hair. There will be a texture. The default is a white spidery thing. Click on that, and replace it with the transparent texture from the library. Make copies from that bald base.

Designers... you should do this too with your bald bases. Most do, some don't.

AV Vlodovic has a steal for 1L.

AV has a blog and a store with some nice things here and right now, a very good 1L argyle sweater skirt in purple. There are also two lucky boards (which I usually avoid) one with matching argyle pumps, one with argyle stockings. Didn't get the pumps, but the stockings add to the outfit's appeal. Don't know her, don't work for her, but do like the store and the outfit.

No meaning

No meaning, no measure, no minute of pleasure.
No witness, no willing, no wanting, no waiting.
No power, no place, no peace, no province.
No meaning, no measure, no minute to treasure.

They come upon us like a wave,
The call it fun, they call it play,
the do not know the bed they crud,
their first free fucks, paid for in blood.

After that they think they've learned
that within all of us a fire burns,
to be used and then tossed aside,
another notch on their freebie pride.

It's a lesson that we all must take,
that greed leaves contempt,
for women,
in it's wake.

Poems are made by fools like me,
but money is made by the patriarchy.

The Third Life of Lillie Yifu

I am back to blogging and writing. My RL is in transition, and I've come here to help with that. I don't expect to make money in SL, simply because I don't want to be the only thing that would make any money for me here: voice escort. I know that it would make money, because I've already gotten offers. That's Second Life, its a cesspool, and getting worse.

So why return? As one of my professor's best lectures noted, the value of any software, eventually, becomes the cost of getting out of it. My data is a prisoner on Second Life, and until I can, at least quasi-legally, move it off, here I am.

So why return? Because this is the place where I learned about real people. Not the people you read about it books, nor the people you think you meet, but the reality of people. We are a sick world. Americans often think that America has a unique sickness, but that is not true, the whole of the developed world has a sickness. The name of that disease is imprisonment. We are imprisoned in the analog world. Even the nasty nitwits running around demanding instasex, are sufferers too. They just happen to want to inflict their suffering on others.

The first thing I've done on my return is put the older poems into an SL book. It is sort of dull, and I have been thinking about doing something that will make it a more SL experience. I will put out a vendor for it sometime, free, and on my tiny 512.

The second project is the novels. I have two. One is a coming of age story, the other is the story of a nurse who goes to Iraq and participates in torture there. I started both in 2006, but I suppose readers weren't ready for either, and I wasn't able to write either as well as needed to be. That's changed, I hope. So expect me to put the first chapter of both in SL, and a link to the kindle book.

Sorry to be so abrupt and cold sounding, but my fingers fly over the keys now with a purity of contempt that they have never had before. The past has frozen to a bitter ice, that is harder than steel, and colder than the frost on the poles of Mars. We have decided to ignore past, present, and future, and live in a kind of never never land that floats above all of them.

I suppose I have found a calling, and that calling is to write the deep truths. There are two: there is the enormous, soaring, arcing, vaulting beauty of the human spirit, erotic, intellectual and emotional; there is the vileness of the abusive relationships that we have created and pour people into. If I have a subject, it is the collision of that heaven, and this hell.

First life: escort. Second life: fool. Third life.

I don't have a name for it yet, but wait a moment, it will come to me.

There I was,dancing on the beach.. with come clothes on even when....

[23:30] Mally Rajal: hey
[23:38] Lillie Yifu: Hello
[23:39] Mally Rajal: how zit goin
[23:39] Lillie Yifu: Well.
[23:39] Mally Rajal: u need some company ;-)
[23:40] Lillie Yifu: It depends on what kind
[23:40] Mally Rajal: what do u have in mind
[23:41] Lillie Yifu: I wasn't the one who talked to you.
[23:41] Mally Rajal: lol
[23:41] Mally Rajal: i agree
[23:41] Mally Rajal: u still in the beach
[23:41] Lillie Yifu: I am over by the dance pavilian
[23:41] Lillie Yifu: pavilion
[23:42] Mally Rajal: ok... i will be there
[23:45] Mally Rajal: do u knw a place we could go
[23:45] Mally Rajal: this place is too slow
[23:45] Mally Rajal: i am having a hard time controlling my avi...lol
[23:45] Lillie Yifu: places with epople are laggy
[23:45] Lillie Yifu: part of the price of meeting people
[23:46] Mally Rajal: yeah .. very laggy indeed
[23:46] Mally Rajal: where are u
[23:46] Mally Rajal: could u tp me pls
[23:47] Mally Rajal: u r dancing
[23:47] Lillie Yifu: yes
[23:47] Mally Rajal: dont u know of places we could go and have fun
[23:48] Mally Rajal: shall we go
[23:48] Lillie Yifu: it depends on what you mean by having fun
[23:48] Mally Rajal: well... sex of course
[23:48] Lillie Yifu: dear if wanna fuck
[23:48] Lillie Yifu: was all it took to get me to have sex
[23:48] Lillie Yifu: I would be doing it with 30 guys a day
[23:48] Lillie Yifu: I'm not a vampire
[23:49] Lillie Yifu: I'm nt an escort
[23:49] Mally Rajal: lol
[23:49] Lillie Yifu: and I am not your bitch
[23:49] Mally Rajal: hey easy now
[23:49] Lillie Yifu: now get out of my face you creep
[23:49] Mally Rajal: if you want to say No... just say NO... u dumbas
[23:49] Mally Rajal: idont want ur lecture
[23:51] Lillie Yifu: listen slime bag
[23:51] Lillie Yifu: you should make a new avatar
[23:51] Lillie Yifu: because taht one is about to develop a reputaiton
[23:51] Lillie Yifu: a bad reputation
[23:51] Lillie Yifu: good bye
[23:51] Mally Rajal: hey u fuckin bitch
[23:52] Mally Rajal: u cannot say or do anything to me u scumbag
[23:52] Lillie Yifu: actually I can
[23:52] Lillie Yifu: and am about to
[23:53] Mally Rajal: whatever.. !!!



No Second Life has not gotten any better. They can't get the XXX continent going fast enough for my taste.

Now, given that this is pretty much the typical reaction of a guy demanding free isntatn sex, is it any wonder why they don't get any? They hate women. It's pretty obvious.

Yes, I have documented this a great deal, no it isn't news. But this is the Second Life we lead.

MIME types Voting. Short form.

SignpostMarv's original JIRA is to support MIME types other than text/plain and HTML what we need are the xml families and json. JSON is important because it is much less verbose than xml, and we have to work with small chunks.

Please vote this one on.

Help bring Twitter to Second Life

Second Life's resident community needs your help.

The problem is old, but it is reaching a critical point where it needs to be addressed, and the only way for that to happen is for people to say so. What is the problem? Why no generally available twitter tool in second life? It's simple, but a bit tangled to explain, because there is a lot of geek involved.

You are reading this blog in a browser. The browser does not get a picture of the website from the server, but a series of instructions on how to build the website: HTML. It then "renders" the page by grabbing the needed pictures, programs, and text. The language that it gets is HTML, and it is carried over the HTTP protocol. The protocol is how the information is transmitted, and HTML is what is in the message. However, there are many other languages that are used to communicate. One common one is XML (bleah, but necessary, more later), another is JSON. These are sent, however, in plain text. That's like the alphabet of this whole thing. Just like in the real world, very similar alphabets can carry many different languages. JSON and XML both are usually transmitted in plain text, just like HTML.

So protocol carries messages written in a language. The language is identified by what is called the mime type. The mime type is like saying a book is written in English, or French. It tells the receiving program how to interpret the text. However the data, the character set, is the same. There's no difference between the kind of data in an XML document, and the kind of data in an HTML document in terms of characters.

Get it? Got it? Good.

XML and JSON are used to transmit information of different kinds, including ways to talk to popular services like Twitter. Many services publish what is called an "API" or Application Programming Interface. That is a fancy way of saying the way to send commands in, and interpret the information that comes out. HTTP is the protocol, and plain text is way of storing the data, but the language is often XML or JSON.

LSL, that is Linden Scripting Language, is the language used to make objects do things. Particles, spinning, flying vehicles, HUDs, all run on scripts that are written in LSL. LSL has the ability to send requests to outside services by using the HTTP protocol. So a script can send a request and get back an answer.

Problem. Even though XML and JSON are in plain text, which the HTTP request knows how to interpret, LSL returns an error. That would be like returning an error just because a web page is in French or German. The characters are the same, but the content is different.

The present work around is to have a "man in the middle" or intermediary, that does the actual talking, and the LSL gadget talks to it.

That's where Marvin comes in. Almost two years ago he put up This JIRA to accept other MIME types in to Second Life. However, nothing has been done. I think I will guess why. This is a really useful function. But because of that, it will be used. Bandwidth is not free. The present system limits the kinds of interfaces that can be used. For example, if there were a free twitter gadget, people would start to twitter. That would use bandwidth, and LL would have to pay for that bandwidth (since it goes from server to second life and then to client.)

So I offer the following thought: Babbage Linden has said there will be "memory throttling" in the future for scripts. That is an avatar can only use so much memory in scripts, and a parcel can only use so much. What is needed to balance this function is something very simple: pay for the privilege. Right now there is a sort of rough justice: if you are willing to pay for the bandwidth to do something, then LL figures that that limits how much you will use. However, this is bad all the way round, since one way to pay for that bandwidth, is to steal the passwords that people use. Marvin, and others, who have used intermediaries are way way way too honest to do this, but not everyone is their high standard, and they code is sitting there...

So what is the solution? Put into LSL a simple test on certain kinds of resources: has the avatar or parcel paid for them. There could be a simple check box, say 30L a week (worth it for your twitter addiction?) for an avatar. There could be bandwidth limits per parcel (because that way people won't by a minimum parcel and chatter all day long on gadgets). Premium accounts would get use free (they are paying for the privilege already). Not premium accounts could be charged "a la carte." There could be high, but reasonable, limits to prevent botting on the minimum charge, and to encourage good gadget writing.

So first step would be to open this up. It won't kill LL at first for cost, and it will allow people to write the gadgets. LL collects data on what "reasonable" use looks like, and can price it accordingly.

But give us the ability to talk to the outside world. Even the truncated 2048 bites are enough for us to do something that is beneficial for Second Life, namely get the word out to our Web 2.0 networks of friends.

So log in and vote for Marv's JIRA to bring data into second life. This place was billed as the future of the web, it is time it started talking to the rest of the web.

llgtargetOmega broken again

Linden Labs: more costs, fewer features.

Above us Circles

Above circles a hawk, found place in metropolis
it peers down with a gaze more felt that seen.
It judges us not fit for it's consumption,
but strikes for mouse that wandered from country
sought fit to seize the day.

Above circles of clouds, that swirl
and find a place between the hot humid high,
and the stern low that guards above us,
and see fit to strike us with a dreary rain.
It is cold, cold to my fingers,
even as they clench an umbrella.
It affords scant protection from the wind.

Above us, circles. Circles of power,
of men,
of mice that make decisions for us,
to be peered upon by time and tide,
and washed away in history's rain.

How little I know

I've been reflecting on how little I understand certain things about men. One of them is when they misbehave in little ways that are almost sure to cause problems. Like, for example, not calling and being very late. I'm late a great deal. Punctuality is not one of my special gifts in this world. So I call ahead. Or try to send email. However, men often seem to not call. Then when asked about it, there is this stupid look. I know they thought of it.

One of my friends is involved in a larger version of this. He's promised to tell people about what happened with a project - and has not. Even when he knows he should. Even when he has been reminded, gently.

It is this kind of thing that I don't understand. What are you guys thinking. Is it that you realize, too late, that you are too late, and that, in itself, makes you delay even more?

I ran into a newbie jerk. He demanded sex, and then when told no, he asked why. He kept pushing and attacking, and I finally lost my temper and told him the truth. His name is Kenji Bohemian, and if you don't fuck him immediately - he calls it "making love" - then he will call you an idiot and stupid and demand to know why.

OK, what goes through a guys head when he does this? Doesn't he realize that piling on the attacks only shoes that he was a liar from the beginning?

Now, for my own misbehavior, I often understand the naughty effect quite well. But this whole doing something that is wrong, and gets nothing - what would it hurt to call? Or apologize? Or something.

How little I still understand. I need to reflect on some things, because they are in my fiction. Writing believable male characters is hard, because it seems that there are so many patterns of behavior that exist, but not in words.

The Cold Spring

This is the cold spring, the cold spring.
The cold spring after cold winter,
after many cold hours,
where men gathered and waited for morning coffee,
and set themselves to work, by standing in line,
their hands clench and unclench,
no longer having tools to hold.
This is the cold spring, which coils around their hearts,
and tells them that they are not needed any more.

In a year not long ago the hot winds did torque and blow,
and a city, one that we all by memory know
was marked by map to be half of what it was.

Now another city of singing percussion finds,
that it is tossed out and the present grinds,
grinds it to dust. Not to die in firey water,
but drowned in icy lose of wanderlust.

This is the cold spring,
from which will spring
a new generation, that shall have a faith
that is faithless to a past,
that now freezes us out of all hope and hurry.
And leaves us now, with debt and worry.

This is the cold spring,
from a place that was once, covered in green,
false green, so we've seen.
And from this spring we fly,
and hope, perchance, to land,
on some new land,
which will not torment,
between over heated fever dream,
and burning cold mornings
short of coffee,
while we watch once busy men,
stand
alone
in
line.

Rez Day

I am online working on something, and have some loose ends to clean up. RL is getting better, while SL seems to be slowing down. Still lots of lovely people here, but it is weighed down by it's rulers and the accumulated grime in the sewers.

Perhaps it is time to write again abit. I think I will do that.

Yes I am mostly gone

but I've gotten enough requests for this page that it seemed silly not to open it again. Maybe I will post something now and again, but probably not often.

Second Life seems to be like RL, only it crashes more.

Time to invoke the law.

From Naughty Dreamscape:

I think there is ONE way to get Linden Labs attention. Please keep reposting this, so that many will see it:

Linden Labs is a California Company. This type of action does come under the California Attorney General's Juristiction as it could be considered Consumer Fraud, according to my attorney.

If MANY of us contact the California Attorney General, they will investigate. Here is the contact information for the Attorney General's office:

Attorney General's Office
California Department of Justice
Attn: Public Inquiry Unit
P.O. Box 944255
Sacramento, CA 94244-2550
(916) 322-3360

I would suggest calling them AND writing them. Please keep the following in mind when you do:

1. Their office is in the same time zone as Linden Labs, they are open from 9:00 am to 5:00pm, Monday through Friday.

2. Be polite. Remember, they are just a fact collector and they are always on the side of the consumer.

3. Be clear and have a talking plan. Most likely, the person you speak to, will not know anything about Second Life, so be prepared to clearly explain how Second Life works and why you believe their actions to be illegal and immoral.

4. Know Linden Labs Contact Information:
Linden Labs, 945 Battery Street, San Francisco, CA 94111

5. Don't fear retialation from Second Life in any way. In California that would be a criminal act. They may not suspend cancel your account, or act in any adverse way against you for attempting to exersize your legal rights.

Good luck everyone.

The division that handles investment complaints is:
here or you can phone them: 866 275 2677

From Vryl Valkyrie:

Originally Posted by Vryl Valkyrie

[url]http://slurl.com/secondlife/Castle%20Valeria/54/58/24[/url]
[url]http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mos%20Ainsley/132/137/48[/url]

Both of these Open Space sims actually built by the Moles who work for Linden Lab. Both of these Open Space sims are perfect examples of hypocricy and deception on the part of Linden Lab.

This is a prime example and can actually be used as evidence against them in a court of law that they are indeed in violation of the AntiTrust laws of the United States. They are monopolozing the economy and market to benifit them, giving them an unfair and unrealistic advantage over their competitors, the users of Second Life.

Speaking of attorneys, my lawyer has kindly offered to represent the users of SL (probono) pertaining to the Open Space sim issue. You can contact him via his website:
http://www.ralphgaboury.com/

He is currently setting up an official petition to present to Linden Lab.

Once again, I really do love Second Life and normally I support Linden Lab on many of their policies but this time are they are just wrong. This action will hurt more than 50% of SL users. It will destroy the virtual and even real life dreams of many. I sincerely hope that they rethink this decision carefully.

Vryl Valkyrie

I don't live here any more

I don't live here any more

Broken by circumstance,
Left without a chance,
without place or romance.
The future is not glistening.

I don't want fortune,
I don't want fame,
I just want the past,
where everything was the same.

I came here to escape,
the failures of my past,
the marriage that is dwindling,
like late winter kindling,
It's not to last.

I don't want money,
more than I need,
I didn't come here,
out of aravice or greed.
I just wanted sunlight
instead of rain.

I just need someone,
who understands,
who can feel me,
without using hands,
and if you tell me,
that these are imagined lands...

I'll agree,
because you see,
I don't live here anymore,
I don't want drama or war.
That's not what this second life is for.
But now I've got a poverty of hope,
at the end of my rope,
but riches of memories galore!

Sometimes I try to write, and realize I already wrote it. I only wish the composer who wanted to set these words had stayed in sl.

But that's this place, dreams that die on the vine.

A Third Life

One reason this blog is named as it is, is because it was always going to be time to move out to the larger world. Second Life, for me, is basically over. I will help close up Yedo, but the 5th of December is the end for us. Linden Lab has chosen to behave in an unethical and criminal way, and other hands have made the decision for me.

That leaves what next. The what next is doing, and that means, for me, making art, and writing about the topics which flutter into my mind, through my fingers, to the keyboard, and out into the world.

This then is the after life of Lillie Yifu. She's not dead yet, but mostly, yes, she is gone. She's she now, for a long time, I thought of her as me. Dizzy calls entanglement with the avatar one key part of entering virtuality. If your avatar is "me," that is different if it is "a toon" or "it." It's different if your avatar is human "her" or "him" as well.

My first project is to collect all of my poems and put together a pdf of them, and put that out some place. People don't buy books of poetry by unknown people, and mine aren't good enough on the scale of the pageant of literature anyway. Or perhaps to be more honest, I will say more consistency from my hands is needed. Some are very good, while others don't work. But who is to say.

The second project is to finish the two novels I have started, one is a fable of America as it is, and perhaps will be, the other is my coming of age story. I think, or feel, rather that coming of age now is not looked at correctly, because people who are older than I am saw themselves as plugging into a system, and the question was selecting threads out of a tapestry. Don't get me wrong, I was there for a long time, but for me, coming of age has been the reverse process. Not finding my place in someone else's treadmill, but finding that the treadmills are that, that they shift and chimera (verb, intentionally, deal please) before your inner eye of hope.

One thing that reminds me of this was this New Yorker piece that a friend sent me too. It is on the age of "sexual debut" and the differences between two kinds of teenagers, which they divide by red and blue. I think that this kind of language is wrong, but the point of the piece, and of the researchers that they cite, is that there is a divide between educated late marrying metropolitan teenagers and young people, and more provincial and less educated teenagers and young people.

The argument is that teenagers, especially young women, who feel they have everything in front of them, and who weigh risks carefully, see youthful sexual intercourse as not worth the risk, even though they accept, in principle that sexuality and sexual intercourse are natural and normal. The other model is women who are in a socially normative environment that presses them to marry younger, and have children quickly. Leaving aside the broad brushiness of this, I have a few thoughts that differ.

I see there as being two bursts of coming of age, at least for myself and my friends. The earlier one is self-exploration. This will eventually involve sex, or it might involve what might be called mechanical sex. Doing it for the sake of having done it, with someone chosen to do it for the sake of having done it. Many of us have a floating category of sex that doesn't count specifically to encompass these kinds of encounters. Guilt as charged.

The second burst is the point where you are looking for someone to be a life partner. The first burst is about not knowing yourself, and being alone. There is a desperate craving for being approved of. That's why there is a good correlation between parental approval, and later first sexual intercourse. There is a glow to the attention that can't be denied. However, that peters out, with the lack of the high. That lack of high is rooted, I feel, in the moment where you are not searching for yourself and your own pleasure (which can be awfully hard to find) but for someone to be with. Someone to please and be happy through their happiness as much as your own.

That first flowering is an unconscious, or preconscious one, where as the second is one that is born out of a moment which is the conscious unfolding of needs as deep as the sea.

I have a few more things to say about secondlife

But not in this venue, and not until I've left SL.

I notice that reaction is as predicted: those who benefit are in favor, those who are destroyed are against.

But that is the keye, those who are in favor are merely made slightly happier, and those who are against are crushed.

I am leaving SL

With a stroke LL decided the future. The old land barons should be toasting their good fortune. The mainland flippers should be snarfing up parcels. The os revolution is dead, killed by LL's fiat. It is a grossly illegal act. Anyone working for LL should realize that their paycheck is blood money, squeezed from small people who wanted to make money here by creating and selling.

It is time for me to go. I will convert this blog into my creative writing blog.

Well it looks like things are going to change, alot.

This means the end of the openspace boom.

Many of us will be out of business, or have to change openspaces back to normal estates, because the difference in tier is going to be very large. It means changing pricing structures and everything else.

Personally I think this is an unwise decision by LL, but clearly they want to get rid of the openspace rental business, and only have full sims as rentals. It may mean that we will have to combine and sell our sims to others, and hope to recover enough. Current holders will be contacted, and we will do what we can transition people quarter full sims as we can.

Nothing I can do about this, unfortunately.

The Second Life Economy

There is, in case people have not heard about it, a recession in the outside world. It is reaching the US and Britain, Japan, and is spreading to countries both core and peripheral. So it is no surprise that this recession is reaching here. It's also no surprise that old business models are dying in SL, even as new ones come into being. This is the edge of technology, not the staid and settled. The bad news then, is that there is going to be a lot of cutting back, and people will cut back here too. The good news is that there will be a lot of cutting back, and people will come here, to cut back out there. Which side of that you are on in the Sleconomy, is to some extent up to you.

Now my knowledge of business comes, mostly, from working in other people's businesses. I did the books for my ma from a young age, I worked in my ba's business. I help run a small business here in second life. There are lots of people who know more about business than I do, and so I can't offer that really great cogent business guru advice that people really need. But I can say what I've seen.

One is that there is going to be a big cut back in pure consumption. People who do things here and just pay for them at whatever price, are not going to do that as much. Another is that people are going to dream more here. There are lots of people who are going to treat modern Second Life, the same way 1930's glamor movies were an escapism. There are going to be more people with more long distance relationships, and more using second life as a test of real world ideas. That's going to mean these people will work doubly hard.

Another thing is that people are going to be in less of a hurry. The time in Second Life when it seemed you had to rush into get in early is long over. Our recession started here with the gambling ban, land crash, and bank crash in August of 2007. Second life has been in recession since then. LL responded by cutting prices and coming out with a new product: open space sims. They are responding now by increasing the quality of mainland, which has also crashed in price. People in second life have to realize something that you can learn from studying history: periods of economic downturn are not necessarily bad for creativity, in fact, they often unleash it. Some of the greatest works of art and music occured during wars, periods of financial and economic instability. Letters from great artists are sprinkled with references to how hard it was for them to make ends meet.

Second Life has undergone tremendous changes in the last year: sculpties, havok 4 and mono have made significant changes to the landscape. Content creators have gotten much better at content, and buyers better at finding it. That it is going to be harder for people who have gotten used to running vending machines for mainland to make money, isn't really going to change the way people experience second life.

In my time here I've seen how, over and over again, the bad information system of second life has been exploited by people who scam and engage in high pressures salesmanship. That's going to get harder and harder. People who aren't rushing to do things now, who have more time in their real lives, are going to be less willing to just pay to get the problem out of the way. Everyone is going to watch expenses more closely.

In summary, things are bad in real life, they are going to get worse. To the extent that a business person in second life can provide a haven from that, they can survive, even flourish. To the extent that a business in second life is dependent on bubblemania, scamming, and merely being in the way, they won't. I don't know which group I will be in, but at least I know what the challenge is, and am not running around spouting racist or paranoiac nonsense as a cover up for what is always the reality of business: provide things people want, at a profit, at price they are willing to pay.

[Well now I know, LL just put us out of business. So I am in the "gone forever" category.]

Political Blackmail

No on 8 supporters blackmailed for their donations.

If anyone needs to know why I am firm about these things, it's because the dark creatures all live under the same rocks.

Energy with Watts and friends

"ENERGY AT THE CROSSROADS" - Eikios Commonwealth

The first in a series of interactive discussions on Ecology, Energy, Economics and Our Common Energy Future.

Hosted by Watts Larson

Date: Thursday, October 23rd 2008
Time: 5:00 PM SLT/PDT

On Eikos Commonwealth

The panelists and audience will discuss and debate the energy choices facing US in November.

Watts Larson is the director of the Northwest Solar Center at Washington State University.

In SL, WSU/Shoreline CC helps finance projects through the Green Islands Project.

The panel this evening :

Edsel Heinkel - * Smart Grid * Paul
holds a BS Mechanical Engineering degree from the University of
Massachussetts, and an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University in
Florham Park, NJ. Currently, Paul is serving as the Comverge
representative to the Mid Atlantic Grid Interactive Cars consortium,
and is leading the charge toward embedding V2G capabilities into a
comprehensive Demand Response solution set for utility programs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQTwgzZnbjs

Jimbo Hoyer - * High Tech Space energy * Quote: "The
surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is the fact it has not
tried to contact us."

WilliamThewise Goodman – * Energy & Communities *
Owner of Etopia Island, an environmentally sustainable village. This
Island is a showcase for individuals, organizations and businesses
wanting to offer goods and services which promote a socially and
environmentally sustainable world.


October 2008 Intermediaries :

SL's Troy McLuhan, RL's Troy McConaghy
B.Sc. in applied math and physics from the U of S
PhD in astrodynamics from Purdue University.

SL's Paolo Rousselot / RL's Peter Lundquist
RL business - HeatSaver Thermal Shades - Office on Etopia Island with
new showroom under construction on Han Loso!
Heat saver shades


Host: Watts Larsson
Producer: Bevan Whitfield
Producer: Sloan Skjellerup

A Northwest Solar Center at Washington State University Sponsored Project

Some disclosures: Sloan's a friend of mine, so is Jimbo. I do work for his Virtually Speaking show. Watts is very knowledgeable, I've heard him in our salons for Outlook (more on that later today!)

Date virtually

Slate trashes LDR's carbon problems.

Wonderful, how to solve the carbon problem: young people should date people they don't like. Better idea, why not create jobs for us and make it so that housing isn't such a pain? I'm hearing from friends out in the job world that layoffs are coming and opportunities are drying up.

Well think of SL as carbon efficient LDR. A carbon offset for hormones...

Draxtyor Despres gives us a small video rhapsody in hope.

A glimpse of what SL could really be for people.

How not to be an escort on second life

hmmmm... she should have come to me.

First, getting a good avatar, or good enough, takes about 2 hours of freebie raiding.

Second, the thing to do is to get to vox. Vox. Vox. Put this in your profile. You'll get offers, even if just for cyber.

Third, the thing to do is to go to "freelance" clubs, and then get an ad. You can get advice.

Fourth, speed of computer is much less important than being able communicate.

Three weeks. Hmmm, that's slow. Samantha! It's easier than that! Really.

But what's better about sl these days, is there are a lot more options.

Time to actually write I suppose. Getting started in any business in sl is about three things, learning sl, learning to create your content, and meeting people. The first part is learning the client and how to find things, including what is free and what is for pay. The second part is learning about the tools used to create the content that you are interested in. This could be in sl tools, or photoshop, or poser, or learning to use sound. The last part is about meeting people, and using contacts.

The best advice on the first part is to talk to people who are mentors, and to do a quick google search on the topics that interest you. A search on building in sl turns up useful links quickly. SL is communication rich, but information poor. It is hard to find things. But a search on freebies turns up fabulously free, which is where almost anyone entering sl should start for improving their avatar, including access to things like coupons.

The best advice on the second part also starts with a google search, but goes to using in world search well. Traffic is a weird thing. Too much means too crowded, and often a bot farm or newbie dump. Too little means too many empty hours. Middle upper traffic is the best indicator. Crowded enough to be filled with people at different hours that have some knowledge, and not crowded enough to drive experienced users crazy. Want to build? Look for a sandbox, like the one run by my friend Arthur Fermi.

The third part goes deeper. It comes from having a basically positive assurance about who you are and what you want. Having a sense of self and direction, more than being a shopper, is key to it. People who know what they want and project themselves, will work out.

So that's the three step advice for anything: search the web, search the grid, and search inside yourself to present to others the person you want them to see.

The Right to Be Out:The Constitution is not a Closet

There is a right, it is often not spoken of. That right, is the right to be out. Who we are, in a sense of identity, is a right. To expose that right, whether our patriotism, sexuality, or religion, is part of the right to free expression. It is not in words, so many words, that it is displayed, but in actions and symbols. It is a right under siege, a right under threat, and in many cases, a right denied.

The fight against California's proposition 8 is part of that. To be married, to feel firmly in the good graces of society, is part of being out. Marriage is being out about a certain person, and a certain mixture of love, passion, association, and future. This is sometime cast as a right for a particular group, but really, the right to be out touches everyone. Because where people cannot be out, they hide, and they take with them those who do not truly know them. Consider the woman who marries a homosexual man, who, because of his fear of being out, denies it. Even to himself. How does she feel on the day that her marriage is exposed as a lie? The right to be out means also, the right of others to feel secure. Truths about the self should not be hidden.

Many people come to Second Life, not for the sex, but the right to be about about their sexuality. Here people can wear leather, silks, whips, or whatever other symbols of their inner lives and desires they need. Here men who feel like women, even if only part of the time, can express that. Here, people who identify themselves as furries, can be who they feel themselves to be, within the boundaries that they set for themselves.

This means it is important to defeat this pernicious amendment, because it denies the very right to free association, and the right of free expression, which are the reason for the other rights we have. If feminism means anything, it means the right to choose our lives and live them. Bigoted and hateful movements demand that other people affect a purity that they do not have. No homosexual men in the Mormon Church? No lesbians? Please, it is outside of belief that this is so.

The right to privacy is also the right to being public. The right to be with, means the right to protections. The right to love, is the right to love in light of day. We don't have separate but equal elections, schools, contracts, buses, or any other thing which is based on the civil rights that all have. Even now there is the Defense of Marriage Act, an odious statement from an odious age, passed by the odious generation, that nakedly declares that the words of the constitution are merely words, and they do not have to abide by any promise. There is no faith and credit to a nation, that denies rights state by state, after promising otherwise. We would not permit a state to bar marriages between two people of different faiths, or different ethnic backgrounds, and yet we feel comfortable doing the same thing based on gender.

I am not married, and maybe I never will be, I almost certainly will marry someone of the opposite gender when I do. But that's my life. Not the Mormon Church's life, or the Catholic Church's life, or the Southern Baptist Churches life. It is against the principles of America to impose religious law on civil contracts, it is unAmerican in the deepest way possible. You can have your religion, but you cannot, by any vote, establish it.

Vote, and donate, against 8, because a constitution is no place for a closet.

Giadan DeCuir is spamming pictures of his penis

Apperantly LL doesn't think this is a ToS violation, since he has not been banned yet.

This is probably not their best decision of the week.

The Price

The rise and fall of a high priced call girl.

Note the punch line: the pimp and the lawyers got the money.

Federal Judge May Resign over Use of Escorts

Colorado District Judge may face impeachment.

Another perk goes by the boards

Australian PIs no longer need to have sex to prove illegal brothel.

Fiji Sex Trade

Radio Australia on the growing sex tourism trade in Fiji.

Sex and Death on stage and sl

Reuters reports on a new production of Tales of Hoffman. Nudity on stage is a big deal in the opera world these days. For a long time it seemed to me that many singers would be paid to keep their clothes on, not take them off. But maybe there is method to this.

I think we have been through an age of cover ups... and well comb overs too. I think that there is a lust for the unvarnished and exposed in stage and art. SL too is a place where things are both hidden, and exposed. We expose parts of ourselves that don't have a place in the outside world, and even if the truth isn't the physical truth, it's an emotional truth. Opus wished for wings that worked, the beloved cartoon penguin is gone, but everyone is Opus, at least on some days.

Is this a conflict? On one hand to see the exposed flesh and reality, and on the other hand to expose spiritual truth even at the expense of analog truth. I think so, and not. So because people come here, often, searching for real flesh and blood. But how often are they not willing to pay the price to support it. I don't mean in money, but in emotional terms. I think not, because while dropping one's panties is one way of exposing physical truth to the inspecting eye of someone else, we often conceal. How often have I choked back things that I feared might offend someone, and thus deny me his affection? Too often.

The fear of exposing physicality is very real. Do we ever measure up? Can we ever really have that perfect round yet floating perky bust line? Well some of us for a while, but gravity, genetics, and reality, don't allow it for most people most of the time. The exposure is, in it's own way a concealment. It draws the eye away from the emptiness of emotional intimacy. Show skin to hide the absence of touch. Flash a smile, to dazzle, and in the glare of this false happiness, blind the inner eye.

For a moment, for a while.

Exposure to hide is a little death, we ease into it, knowing that we have given up an inner need, to cover over an inner fear. You can show sex on stage, and there is nothing wrong in this. You can show skin irl. And there is certainly nothing wrong in this either. But there are times and ways that it is spirit and not skin, that needs to be exposed.

I hope this trend in stage comes attached to an artistic honesty about the deep yawning hollow that we feel with this world we have inherited. Because it could easily be the last lie, and not the first truth of the glorious beauty of the human body, the source from which our sense of life comes, and life itself. The beauty of the body, exposed, can remind us of how everything else we do must come from it, and return to it. It is a sun to which our eyes turn, and a focus that pushes aside the ornaments we often use to clutter it.

In my better world

1. It would be illegal to sell twinkies to 12 year olds, or have coke machines in high schools. What is wrong with you people?

2. Video games depicting sex would be available starting at 14, but ones depicting violence would require age verification of being 18. Seriously, which do people do more in this world, kill people or have sex. It's absurd that many of my students arrive in a Freshman class more qualified to kill a girl on their first date than bring her to orgasm.

3. Meals would have a maximum of 1000 calories. Do we really need a muffin top majority in America?

4. Things like proposition 8 in California would embarrass people to put on the ballot. What's next, polygamy, chattel slavery, or beheadings. You European Americans have some seriously fucked up religious traditions.

5. Foreign language instruction would start in kindergarden.

6. Child care would have to be free for any woman employed 32 hours a week or more. If it can't support someone doing it, then maybe it doesn't really need to be done.

7. We wouldn't see industries get a 700 billion dollar bail out and then pay out 70 billion in bonuses. Clearly they didn't need the money that much.

8. No party would be allowed to nominate someone for the Presidency who looks like he needs a wick and belongs in a scented candle shop. Political parties would be discouraged from nominating people who would best be portrayed by Anna Nicole Smith, if only she could have lost 30 IQ points for the role.

9. Three star restaurants would have to donate half of what they make from their wine list to reducing famine.

10. The death penalty would be abolished, except for shoe makers that make heels that snap between the cab and the stairs.

11. Congo's rape epidemic would be regarded as a foreign policy crisis of the ahead of countries not importing US cigarettes.

12. Elected officials would have to live on a meals allowance equal to what the median individual lives on.

13. K Street would be turned into a flower garden.

14. Everyone would be registered to vote, everyone would get a mail in ballot, and the salaries of all elected officials would be multiplied by the voter turn out of the most recent election. If people aren't voting, clearly they aren't doing their job.

15. We'd send bankers who took phony mortgages, turned them into phony bonds, and sold them to small towns as a good investment, to live in some of the houses that have become vacant. Without heating.

16. Any city or state that subsidizes a stadium would have to spend at least as much on housing for the poor.

17. And while we are on the subject, we'd require that people would be able to recite their legislator's voting record before being allowed to play fantasy baseball. It's absurd that people know more about someone's ability to hit against left handed pitching when their mustache had been waxed more than a day before, than about what their representative to congress spends a few hundred billion dollars on.

18. The interstate high way system would have to come as close to breaking even as Amtrak does.

19. They'd drop lobbyists from B-2 bombers to convince a country we really mean business.

20. It would be a violation of the ToS to ask asl before revealing your own.

21. The last bus or train would leave 30 minutes after last call. To the person who nearly hit my roommate last Friday while driving home drunk, we've got your passenger's side mirror if you want it. It took a bit of work to pry it out of the street lamp though.

22. The most expensive football ticket would have to sell for the same price as the most expensive ballet/opera/concert ticket.

23. Tabloids/People/Us would have to show the pictures of the publicists who put the stories in them.

24. On a related note, all columnists for Cosmo would have to do a YouTube video demonstrating their lame sex tips.

25. Do not get me started on what would happen to the makers of shoes that don't come in size 4.

26. Price tags would have to disclose what the business actually bought the item for.

27. Unit prices would have to be the same for all comparable items. Not like by the ounce for one pasta sauce, and by the pint for the next one over.

28. People who leave gum under chairs would have to be stuck to the ceiling of the lecture hall for six months with the stuff.

29. Academically promising students would not be suspended for having a beer in their dorm room, while athletically promising ones get a free pass when their gf shows up in class with a black eye.

30. They'd get the American Idol judges to rate speakers at Department meetings.

31. There would, actually, be some reason to buy the text book for a class.

32. All architects would be required to go around in wheel chairs, so that their buildings would be assured to be wheel chair workable. Or else.

33. Yogurt containers would not spurt yogurt out at you when you peel the little metal thingee.

34. Packages could not use "NO TRANS FAT" in big letters, when they have 25g of saturated fat.

ACLU files suit over retromunity

ACLU files law sut to get retroactive immunity for telecom spying overturned.

Sacramento Bee:Equality is a myth, the right to bigotry is real

Of course we should equalize marriage laws.

However, some people would prefer the world of bigotry.

Once upon a time the right for people of different races to get married was considered a myth...

Once upon a time our right to be in the work place on equal terms was a myth. Which is why it is hypocritical for Margaret A. Bengs to take the stand she does, because she's the beneficiary of previous struggles for equality. Shame on the Sacramento Bee for publishing such obvious trash, and shame on the editor who felt that there is a place for naked bigotry in our public debate.

Keeping Up Appearances

It seems being old is in fashion.

But realistically, eating well and staying off processed garbage is better for your skin than most "high end" cosmetic products.

Skip the creams, and sticl with organic greens.

If You Want Peace, You must pray

If you want peace, then you must pray.
Pray with your body and not your lips,
pray with your hands upon your hips.
Pray with your throng'd multitude.

The boys, children into their middle age,
will use their toys of hate and rage.

Is it, must it, will it,
come to this?
All consumed,
by their bloodlust bliss.

But rising in the streets
from out of the air,
is our pulsing blood,
our moving prayer.

Will will not clean,
nor cook, nor sew,
until the boys, will come to know,
that spirit rises from the dust,
will it now eat, their machines to rust.

You can rape, if that is your will,
our blood and life, smash and spill.
But you cannot with bullets, bombs and grease,
make us walk in love.

And give you peace.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell
a cresting wave, a growing swell,
a tide that washes clean the war,
until no one will fight it any more.
You do not fight to protect our home,
nor kill to make it safe to be alone.
If you want war you must gun us down,
and leave our bodies smashed upon the ground.

But then, boys, who will bear your sons?
To whom you will give, your next generation guns?

Shovel all the land into that maw,
call it freedom, or shock and awe.
But we know it is satan's paw,
A script with corpse as pen,
and breath as ink.
That turns the nations to sewers,
and leaves only stink.

Only one truth, I have left to tell.
With our bodies we must pray the devil,
back into hell.

UK to Police:Only arrest people for sex in public as a last resort

New guidelines issued.

^^

Turn the key

Offered without comment. Meaning I think people should read it even though I don't agree with it.

Desire and reality of pornography.

what a nobel prize for Paul Krugman means to a former pixel prostitute who likes pretty things

I had a long conversation last night that went into the very early hours of the morning with a friend of mine. At a certain point there was a "you should write about that" moment. So here I am, writing about it.

As you may know, economist Paul Krugman has won the Nobel Memorial award in Economics. Alfred Nobel did not establish this prize, instead it was established by the Bank of Sweden to piggy back on the Nobel Prizes. It comes with a hefty cash award, and is generally regarded as the most important honor for publicity sake in economics, though people on the inside, I am told, follow the "Fields Medal" more closely.

There are of course, political overtones to the award. However, it is also an award for the actual work done, and that work is in the subject of trade, capitalism and consumerism. And it touches on what I study irl. More specifically, the subject of consumer taste, which he wrote about in an important 1979 paper does, and part of my work touches on his theory, which has become known as the "New Economic Geography."

When I began my study, I did not know his work, and, honestly, I am not really competent to teach a class in it. Well, maybe I am, but let's put that aside for a moment.

No, wait, I can't. Let me explain his theory in simple terms.

People buy things, and they like a variety of differences in what they buy, and they like variety in choices. They like choices for their own sake, in addition to the choice they end up making. Shopping is, in itself, a pleasure.

Now, it's well known that a business that expands and has capital, can make each addition item more cheaply up to a certain point. This is called "economies of scale." It also works against consumer choices, because the more economy of scale, the fewer participants, and the harder it is for a new firm or individual to enter in to the business.

So on one hand, consumers like higher quality, lower cost goods. On the other hand, they like choices. These two things make it so that even firms that are no competitive on capital terms, can still remain in the business, if what they offer is different. In decision theory they spend a great deal of time talking about indifference of choices. What choices, don't really matter? If there is high consumer indifference, then there will be more concentration, because the capital advantage of higher quality and lower cost, or higher returns, will feed on itself. One company does better than others, so investors put money into it, banks loan to it, and it can invest in more capital, or buy up competing firms that offer genuine choices, and come to dominate the market.

Think Starbucks, at a certain point, they were rich enough to buy any one who was better, and better than anyone who wasn't rich enough. And so we get over roasted road tar as "coffee." Bleah.

OK now trade. His theory is simple: there is the advantage of capital production, and the cost of transporting the goods. If the cost of moving things is high, then economy of scale never really happens. Each firm competes in a sphere of a particular market. Some exceptional goods get moved if they are really better, but no area can overwhelm the others. However, when transportation costs come down, the area that a firm can sell to gets larger. As it gets larger, it can get to economies of scale. As it does that, it can then compete over a yet larger circle. The process feeds on itself, and pretty soon only a few centers of production dominate the market on a national, or even global, scale.

As my friend point out to me, the important part about Krugman's theory is that it explains several things that "old trade" theory didn't, and it predicts that there will be a dramatic shift from the natural monopoly of distance - that is, a firm is protected from competition because other competitors have a barrier in moving the goods - to the monopoly of capital and economies of scale. The playing field tilts, and the market changes rapidly.

Now, what does that have to do with art history? Well. Alot.

You see some kinds of art are very value dense, and ship easily. Like paintings. Others don't ship well at all. Like old buildings. Painters, themselves, are relatively mobile, and so can be hired. In the decorative arts, the aspect of capital is even more important, because most decorative arts are about producing high quality work in sufficient scale that everyone who is important can have it, but of sufficient barrier that they can't easily be duplicated. Even if that means royal intervention.

Take porcelain, which is something I spend a lot of time on. China established porcelain factories early. The most important of these was near the source of the right kind of white clay. This works because the clay is bulky and hard to ship, and by itself, not particularly valuable. It isn't easy to pick out from other white clays visually. It's just clay, until combined with the right feldspars, and fired with the right techniques.

When the cost of porcelain shipping was prohibitively high, Europeans used lower quality pottery. They didn't know any better, even though higher quality earthenware goods were available to them, the cost was high enough that it could never be the taste of the elites. However, once the cost dropped, suddenly there was enough porcelain to develop a taste for it.

And that's not in Krugman's work, but at that point New Economic Geography starts to take over, and in lots of ways. China initially had the knowledge of porcelain, and the capital. What it did not have was a knowledge of European taste, and it was hard to get this information. At first, Europeans did not have the knowledge of making the good kinds of porcelain, and so they made inferior kinds as they experimented. In the lingo of the trade, "hard paste" is the right kind of porcelain, and "soft paste" is any other kind. European's tried mixing glass with white clays, then figured out feldspar and so on. Finally in Germany hard paste was rediscovered, and then an way of making it at scale was discovered. Rapidly other European nations copied this, finding out which deposits of clay were the right kind, and what to mix with it.

So in the first stage, Europeans competed with better Chinese porcelain because it was cheaper, because of mercantile barriers, because of knowledge of local taste, and much cheaper transportation costs. As transportation costs dropped, this was no longer sufficient.

In the second stage, where the demand for porcelain became almost a necessity in the centers of wealth, the local European product focused on art. Even when a nation could make hard paste, the capital advantage of better art, and the rent advantage of being closer to taste makers, was enough to provide an advantage. This was particularly true in France. Think about it, someone who paints porcelain really wants to move up, and paint walls, and canvases and other things. So it is an advantage to be close to the centers of aristocratic demand, and not necessarily as important to be close to the clay itself. The people close to the raw materials make a better base, but they don't paint as well, or as much to the taste of the times. It isn't transportation costs of the thing itself, but information costs. It's hard to climb the court ladder if you are in some distant place.

The third stage combines the two. People specialized in painting porcelain, and there was a unity of art and technology. But this took a remarkably long time.

So back to Krugman. Krugman's theory is important for the development of artistic taste, because it gives certain lines where the market for art objects will shift from raw economic factors. What can be called a "phase change" by people who work in economics. However, where there are other phase changes, ones that are as measurable, clearly there is another factor at work, and that is a factor of information and economic rent in social space, not just physical space.

Part of my assertion is that these differences are, in fact, very much the same as the transportation versus economy of scale division, because what they are is specialization against economy of taste.

So that's my personal look on what Krugman's Nobel prize means to me, it is part of my work now, and I am grateful to the people who patiently explained why I should read some papers by a geeky guy at a geeky university, and look at how his papers had to do with the creation of aesthetic objects for everyday life.

How does this apply to SL.

In SL, now a days anyway, it was different once I am told, transportation costs are nil. And yet, a few producers do better than others, but the markets never collapse below a certain point. I am going to posit that there are centers of taste, and that the flow of information keeps many areas of inferior production in business, like about 80% of the shoe makers on sl, while at the same time creating a space for both big content houses, and new players, to vault in. There is, then, an economic geography to SL information, and it should be possible to measure the cost of moving information in SL, by measuring the economy of scale effect in that particular market.

This isn't completely my idea, I will admit, but I like the idea that by seeing which areas have quality, it is possible to see how expensive it is to move information.

What about you?

I have to confess, i don't spend a lot of time looking at myself ... meaning my avatar here .. once I ma changed. I like knowing that I have put myself.. meaning my avatar here ... well. But once that's done, what's as important is not looking. Having the confidence to go out and look at the world, at other avatars, at the flow of conversation and chat.

What about you?

Do you spend time looking at your avie when going about the world, or do you have some other pattern?

Why Dargo Skytower can't get laid

[5:33] Dargo Skytower: just tryin to make convo....
[5:35] Dargo Skytower: Blow it out your ass....
[5:37] Dargo Skytower: I,m sure you know what that means bud.

Football coming to Second Life

Sport takes another step forward.

"It's Not plug and play."

The hill second life must climb.

Kent Ensemble in the news

Theatre in second life gets a boost.

To Paint is to Remember

African modernist painter Ib Ndiaye dies having lived a long and busy life, where he went out into the world, remembered, and came home.

Is he one of the greats? No, but he was a master, mixing a realist sensibility, with baroque like drawing technique that focused on the tension between lines, and washes of shadow.

Burning a life

Former child television star's tell all book details sex for drugs as the reality of much of her life, until settling down and letting go of the celebrity dream. In her case, cocaine.

Sex is, in itself, a drug. Paralyzing and shaking, shattering and compelling. Life can slip through the cracks and crevices as we hunt for that one perfect thing, turning us aside from the one true thing which is in front of us.

Reality is also, a drug. Virtual or analog, feeling ourselves flow into the ebb and crest of events, trying to find some moment where we merge with it, and when we act, it reacts as we expect it to. That is what pleasure is for, to train us to meld with something else. Sexual pleasure, or pleasure in doing.

Which is why drugs work, they let people cut across this and get to the chemical moment itself, by passing the moment of flow, to get to the moment of glow.

When I searched for "sex" in google news I got articles on equal marriage, and a stream of articles on child sex convictions or allegations. It was a stark separation: people who just want to live their lives as their lives, and people who are cursed with a disease that they cater to, and in so doing destroy young lives.

The power of pleasure means that we would give up everything for scraps of it, or even more, for others to experience scraps of it at our hands. Or be willing to kill someone, body and spirit, to have it.

This is SL, we traffic in pleasure, and it can be the kind which builds or destroys too. I talked to someone who I met early in SL, she was the friend of a friend, and clearly very lonely. She's found someone, she hopes, that will make things work for her rl. They talk all the time, they are partners in sl. She is floating with happiness. SL can do that. Create a space which clears away the clutter of distance or even separations considered greater in analog life, and open a conduit where we act, and the other reacts, and there is pleasure, and the dance begins.

Witchcraft and the erotic

Greer reviews a book on witchcraft and witch hunts. She finds it shallow, and touches on the question of witchcraft and witch hunting having it's roots in misogyny. If so, why are we so willing to use it in application to other things that are not related to gender. I don't disagree that witch hunts are targeted at pounding down women more than men, though there are ample cases of accusations of supernatural evil doing against groups of men. But the practice of creating more ordinary black magic adheres, both in myth and in the pseudo-judiciary of other ages, to women.

These two parts, the relationship of the root to women, and the broader application to a genderless body of "them" struck me on reading a novel "Let Me In." It has been made into a film, and its focal point is a child-vampire and the boy who falls in love with her, and the complex fall out of the results of their entanglement. Blood death is feminine, and the fear the women of blood, and hence the dark side of fertility, is very deep.

This depth of fear, of the dark side of blood, is connected with not only our role as life givers, but our role as survivors. Disease generally spares more of us, than men. This and other factors related to the nature of biology of women, are linked with the social factors, of power, dominance, and the need to control bloodlines. Generally analysis tries to make this flow one way. But that's wrong. Human beings have been gathered in groups, stalked by disease, seeking power and reproductive advantage, since, well, before we were human.

This means that the biology and the societal aspects that make the suspicion of the older or outcast woman as what feminist theory calls "the other," grew up together. The bands of primates, their struggles for advantage, position, survival, lead to violent acts. Gorilla males kill infants from before their rise to power. Is it so strange then that we, primates, kill out of primal drives which find expression and excuse, even if those expressions are irrational? The patina of rationality, or at least narrative coherence, on the madness of blood lust, is a better theory than trying to have some sort of generative etiology of the witch hunt.

May be I should back up there. Often what primates do out of deep evolutionary drives doesn't make "sense" in that it has no reasonable chain. It works, on average, and that is why it evolved. That doesn't mean that every specific thing works, or confers an advantage, only that it is part of a complex of behaviors that on average, does. So, for example, bouts of homocidal rage may seem inexplicable, but they may well just be the down side of a kind of immune response which does.

Let me take an example. On average, women have much better immune systems than me. Diseases, other than those associated with reproduction and child birth, kill men more than they do women. However, that doesn't mean that the women who survive aren't infected, but merely that they have fought off the onslaught of the illness. Now think about the woman without children, especially older. She is, on average, likely to be the source of infection. A trop towards expelling such women who do not conform to the social group could well, on average, work as a survival trait. Even if it is irrational and wrong on specific cases, and irrational and wrong in our more symbolic society. A million years of being walking apes, will not be erased by our much shorter history of society.

So that's what struck me about the book, and I think it makes me want to see the film: the interwoven nature of human beings, where the negative traits and the positive ones are intertwined by biology, personal need, and society. All of which are locked in a deathly and ghostly embrace.

But let me finish the thought finally. The same things that make the outsider woman a danger, make her a prize. She possesses genetics or knowledge or both that, if woven into the fabric of the community, are valuable. This is why so many legends focus on bringing in the faerie to the community, and the role of the fertility goddess even in a nominally patriarchal monotheism.

This makes the witch not only an object of fear and loathing, but one of both power and desire, a priestess as much as a demoness. And more alluring for both. Men don't just burn witches, they burn for them.

4495 + 987 = 1

With all of the worries in the outside world, with all of the fears about the markets and the economy, with the increasing worries about homes and bail outs, there is something that should not be forgotten. Overseas, even now, men and women are fighting and dying in military uniform in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some 4495 in Iraq and 987 in Afghanistan. They are being crowded to the background by other worries.

They used to say they wanted the boys home by Christmas. We just need them home, and home remembered and not forgotten. As with many things they served to serve, and the arguments over whether we should have been in the war are not on their shoulders, but on ours. We sent them there, they went because they had promised to do so. In a world where bankers are tossing trillion dollar promises away like confetti, it would be good to remember that soldiers and sailors and marines have served for less than many people make, and have given all and everything for that promise.

We have made promises to them too. Let us hope we, all of the we in every nation involved, fill them with the same faithfulness.

Porn, blessing or curse?

This one made me laugh out loud.

Listed as a con for porn:

"Promotes promiscuity, especially in teenagers."

No survey shows this in any reliable way.

"Encourages extramarital sex, thus undermining the institution of marriage."

No survey shows this in any reliable way.

Porn, like any form of expression, spoken, written, visual, or some combination of these, is like any other. It is both a blessing and a curse, and it can't be judged as a category, any more than murder mysteries encourage people to go out and kill people.

We should recognize every form of expression as sacred, while at the same time relentlessly critiquing each act of expression. Though I have to say that I could do without spam.

Department of D'uh

Early sex education is good.

Really. Next we will learn that we should teach young children to count and learn to read.

Right now every child gets lots of sex education, on how to look, act, talk. From advertising and television and images. Children are sponges. Is it so bad to try and get a little bit of info in with all the tainment?

They should do this one in second life

Tim Miller's performance art to be done at the start of conference.

International performance artist Tim Miller will open California Institute of Integral Studies' (CIIS) Queer Bodies in Psychotherapy Conference with a special performance of "Sex/Body/Self" on Friday, October 17, 7:00 PM, at the Hotel Whitcomb in San Francisco. Tickets for the evening, which is open to the general public, are $25. For more information or to register, call CIIS Public Programs at 415.575.6165 or register online at CISS.

Portugal's Parliament buries marriage equalization

bills get only small support.

Clearly people have a long way to go before they get this.

MO man gets death in sex murder case

videotaped the woman he murdered.

Not a believer in the death penalty. But they can't find a pit deep enough to toss these people into as far as I am concerned.

I want to write more but I have to get going to class, there are thoughts whirling and churning in my head that haven't reached my fingers, quite, yet. Or something.

Anyway, I've been spending huge amounts of time on footnoting and editing the last few months, and the same impulses that made me want to come here and write in the first place, the liberation from being tied in with the acceptable ways of writing and speaking, are bubbling again. Stories are suggesting themselves.

Also things are bubbling in SL. I have reports on interop, ad farms, and other things, and they need to be written up.

But time is opening up, the students have sort of accepted the fact that, yes, they need to do the required work, and yes, I am watching them. (my habit: walk around the lecture hall while talking. I had one person playing an MMO in class. I had them stop, plug the computer into the projector, and show everyone the scene. I started talking about how it was made, and where the ideas and techniques came from. There was a certain amount of mortification, because ... hmmm ... his character had a rather round bubble butt. I'll leave it at that....)

National Coming out day

National coming out day post from Pam.

Everyone is in the closet about something, so come out, or help a friend come out, and just live your life the way you want to.

University looks into Sex in Second Life

though it seems in an unsystematic way.

Hint, the thing to do is set up a script and situation, and then log the results. I've done this, and the result is data, not anecdotes.

Putting the L in SL

The L Word in SL revisited.

CT supreme court equalizes marriage

Overturns lower court 4-3

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled on Friday that same-sex couples have the right to marry, reversing a lower court decision that had concluded that the civil unions legalized in the state three years ago offered the same rights and benefits as

It is important that California voters defeat question 8, which is attempting to restrict marriage in that state.

Every vote counts, because every marriage counts.

On Ad Farms

There was a meeting on the ad farm rules today, unfortunately I was doing work for SL, and could not be there. There is an effort by a few land barons to hurl invective on this situation, and to make it seem as if all large land barons are against the efforts to control and limit the use of land griefing and ad farms. They don't speak for us here, and we are, in fact, supportive of these efforts and more dramatic steps to improve mainland experience for all users.

I've written a great deal about this topic, for some time, there isn't much more to say other than it needs to be done, and quickly.

NSA recorded and passed around phone sex calls

Got FISA?

Rivers of Eden

Mine eyes, my eyes are teared with dust and grit,
at all the ages I have cried for you, alone and cried.
My eyes bleed the truth of you, for all that I have seen.

Is this all, for me to be left standing and staring
out an open door, as you trod to regions left unknown.
Where was once my happiness,
in the glorious noon of your love.

Where was then? Where now am I?

Having lost my self and soul into you.
Having fallen like arch angel from heavans dark,
into the land, that you promised,
of my fertility.

Where was then? Where, o where,
Where was then? Where am I now?

Where are the lush gardens you whispered of,
grown by touch of your hand?
Where is the ripening of the seed?
Where is any or all of it?

What is it that vanished illusion that I saw?
Where flowed the rivers of mine,
into desert Eden?

Where is it now? And what was it ever then,
only mirage and mirrored of the life.

Oh my eyes, bliss driven to agony, tears torrent
are that left in the light of ecstatic twilight,
that is scraped with ecliptic dusk.

Oh my eyes, they are see through dust and tears,
when once they were open blind.

Where is it now? It is where it was then.
In something called, something called,
a dream.

Let me sleep and dream of you.
Nothing but of you, nothing else for you.
It was all for you.
I can think of nothing but your locks asleep,
all ready in home and keep.
What once, what once, where.
Where oh where are you now?

Independent notices second life campaigning

For the US Presidency

Soul Mountain

Archangel wings of prayer flow fire,
and leave us not forgotten.
Where have you come to us this moment
alighting and then fleeing to streaked heavans lost.

Why were your prophecies made to ridicule?
Why are you lost to us.
And yet you are so soon gone.

With which what and where we have
we have forsaken all.
Ribboned to ruins a rules and left
a Republic only of reminders.
Force fire and fear are our foes,
but they are our lords and masters.

From this day let me cleanse all hope illusion,
there is no life but the air I breathe,
there is no history but from these hands I make,
carved in cinder sided steles
that are the teeth of soul mountain,
whose roots run to the depths of our creation,
and have not been worn in a billion years.

They sneer upon all our epochs, depth,
as you, Archangel,
flee far upward,
leaving us behind to wonder and to gaze
at your coming and passing.

There is no life but the air I breath,
There is soul but the history carved on me
in this moment.

We must struggle now,
for not to breath is not to be.
If our voices are now lost,
then we will not have been at all.

Precipice

I the news feed it talks about the bailout bill getting a second life. I know that this is the most ironic thing I can think of, because many of us are working here to create opposition, if not to passage, then to the world that the bail out bill comes from.

It is a strange mix of far left and far right that sees through this charade, with the center standing on the street corner trying to hail a 700 billion dollar cab.

There is no second act after this, it will be out into the unknown.

MMO Glider Loses Lawsuit in WoW case.

Many of my friends are talking about this, and I am not sure what it means for SL, but clearly there has to be some relationship to the ways people access games.

That and it shows that there is something perverse about a game that people want to skip the game part of the game.