The Voices in My Head

“Unbending”. “Opposite of her ancestors”. The name probably has a few other meanings and literary implications, some flattering, some not. I won’t compare myself to her too closely.

But certainly, I am unbending. I have, at least twice in my life, pursued some goal that, on the face of it, seems pre-destined to failure due to insurmountable odds. But each time, I persevered, and succeeded. ironically, I seem to have more success at these bigger goals than I do at the mundane day-to-day living.

And in many ways, I guess I am the opposite of my ancestors. I have invented my own religion (which I don’t plan on proselytising much. Don’t follow me - start your own godamn religion). I suppose each time a religion started, someone must have started it, but they are by far the exception from the norm. I also regard myself as a card-carrying member of the Internet age (despite an allergy to remembering my PIN numbers). Both my parents were born before computers were much more than military secrets, and, if they had their druthers, would keep it that way.

Me? Antigone? For sure I am. I am here to stay. I shall never be gone.

So I’m contemplating a move to the US of A to study, and possibly work. And it occurred to me that, should I decide to apply for citizenship, I might, nay, will, be asked to swear some silly pledge of allegiance.

One of my hobbies is collecting passports. I have no problem with swearing any silly pledge in order to further that hobby. But any pledge of allegiance won’t mean a thing. Not because I don’t believe in such pledges, but because my allegiance is not mine to give.

I owe my allegiance to a higher power than any mere nation. And no, I’m not getting all religiousy on y’all.

Read the rest of this entry »

So I was cleaning out my mother’s fridge, and what do I find?

• A jar of red hot chilli peppers, best before date: 1999.
• A jar of black olives, best before date: 2002.
• A jar of sun-dried antipasto, best before date: May 2006.
• A jar of mayonnaise, best before date: I don’t know, since the writing had faded beyond readability.

Sometimes, she scares me.

“How do we know the dead long for life? Perhaps death is to awake from a dream, and we cannot remember why we lived at all?”

So what is death? Certainly, it ends all social contact with the living, barring a few incidents with psychic mediums and the like. But what else is there? Shakespear wrote “to sleep, perchance to dream”. He was talking of the idea of giving up on the great struggle that is life, to willing stop living. Whether he meant death by your own hand, assisted death, or simply giving up, is unclear, but with those words it seems to me the character was contemplating death as a peaceful end to the struggles and trauma that face us in our daily lives. And certainly we do face such slings and arrows.

This is kind of opposite to what Zhuang Zi said. Zhuang was of the opinion that death is like waking up, which is the complete opposite of what the Bard of Avon said. Who is right? There’s only one way to find out.

Read the rest of this entry »

Linden Lab has posted more details on their age verification. yet again, they are dropping the ball.

They want land owners to flag their parcels if they have mature content, and will shortly be imposing penalties against any land owner who doesn’t comply. That’d fine as far as it goes. Except… so far, only concierge-level landowners have been given the option to do so. there are an awful lot of land owners with adult content on this grid (which was sold to us as 18+ only) who do not have the option of verifying with LL’s chosen “trustworthy” (if you can believe that) 3rd party supplier, as LL has not yet rolled out verification to them. Even for land owners, this will make them very lonely in their palaces, as no one else 9except concierge users) can, at present, verify, and only verified users will be allowed into such flagged parcels.

yes, LL is being remarkably stupid in how they are presenting this. It’s remarkably stupid in core concept too, but the presentation is just as stupid.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just a few random hints on how to make voice work for you in SL.

• Make sure your microphone is plugged in properly.
• Use a headset. Separate microphone and desktop speakers will cause audible feedback.
• Turn off your main desktop speakers. if you don’t, your microphone will pick that up and cause feedback. That can be very unpleasant for anyone near you. This can’t be repeated enough. Especially since it will sound like you are repeating everythng you, and everyone else, says.
• Make sure you have no background noise in your room when doing voice. No one wants to hear your TV, your favourite radio station, your screaming kids, your mother telling you to wash the dishes, or those police cars rushing outside.
• In your windows control panel, open the “Sound & Audio Devices” window, look at the “Volume” tab. Click on the “Advanced” button that is in the Device Volume box.
• Make sure the master volume is at or below 50% of maximum. If it is too high, feedback will often result.
• Within the audio input controls, make sure the master volume is at 100%, and the microphone volume at about 75%.
• Obviously, linux and mac users don’t have control panels that work in the exact way described above, if at all. Alas and alack, I lack both of those, and can not offer specific advice there.
• After you have checked all the sound settings above, run the voice setup wizard that is inside SL. It can be found in edit/preferences, and then clicking on the “Voice Chat” tab.
• Inside the “Device Settings” button, make sure both input and output are set to your main sound device. If you use a voice changer program, make sure the input is set to that program.
• It is highly recommended that you use the push-to-talk settings. Without that, SL will constantly broadcast every cough, wheeze, and nose-scratch to the world at large. This can be a little bit obnoxious to some. Make sure the “Use Push-to-Talk in toggle mode” box is ticked, then press the “Set key” button to choose a key. I normally have the F12 key set for this purpose, as it never gets used for anything else.

Oh, there are a bunch of other settings, but it is mostly common sense, I think. If something isn’t clear here, feel free to leave a comment highlighting the issue, and I’ll try my best to improve this article.

So according to Forbes (video interview), we are all a bunch of losers who like nothing more than gambling and cybersex. Proof, if ever there was a need, that fact-finding and honest reporting are passè. our intrepid reporter even boasts of saying Sl will collapse, and has been saying that for over a year now. With all due respect, everything and everyone collapses, sooner or later. It is no great feat to predict that a new born baby will die one day, and is in fact almost idiotic in its obviousness. Just like people, companies eventually die, and its no great trick to say a particular company will die one day in the future, with no specifics. At least, none he mentioned in that interview that date back to his “over a year ago”.

Read the rest of this entry »

So today I received a call for help from the SL mentors group. there was a new resident, a young lady from Japan, who was stuck on Orientation Island. Since her English was almost as good as my great-grandfather’s (ie. next to nothing), I was called in to help her in a language she was more accustomed to.

In the process of helping her, it transpired that she was most definitely a young lady, of no more than twelve summers. Much too young for the main SL grid, and even, as it happens, too young for the official Teen Grid (which is for ages 13 and up). Since I was wearing my official mentors’ hat at the time, I had no real choice but to follow the official rules, and report her as underage.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is the first in a series of articles I plan to post in this blog, detailing some of the things a new avatar can do to make their Second Life more fulfilling.

Today’s topic: the profile.

Right-click on one of the mentors in Orientation Island. You can tell who the mentors are, because they have the title “Second Life Mentor” hovering above their name. Look at the profile. There’s usually quite a lot of text, telling you when that avatar started SL (yes, we are SL addicts), what groups they are in, a little bit about them, and so on. Click on the tabs at the top of that profile window, and you can see even more information about that person. Do the same thing on a non-mentor in orientation island, and you will see a comparatively empty profile.

People like to fill these spaces out because it helps to find people with similar interests, and if you have ridiculously large friends lists like I do, it helps to remind them who you are. Many people all but refuse to talk to newbies who have an empty profile, simply because they have no idea what that person is like. After all, woudl you spend a lot of time and emotional energy on a new person you know nothing about, or a new person who is willing to say something about themselves up front? In that context, although SL is NOT a dating site, similar social networking rules apply - a person with an empty profile will get passed over.

So, what is to be done?

Read the rest of this entry »