Recent Comments:

Censorship at Burning Life. Again.

Second Life Insider

Aug 29th 2007 9:09AM It's on a PG sim? Already, associating it with Burning Man is a travesty right there.

Voice not such a hit in WOW - how will it do in SL?

Second Life Insider

Jun 20th 2007 12:19AM I'm not really following, Moritz. Saying I won't be using voice when/if it is an option is equated with nation building at all costs? I'm not even suggesting that voice shouldn't be there - I'm simply saying that I won't be using it. If you have to equate that to some bigger RL issue, I'm the vegetarian person who is going to select the veggie platter at the deli in spite of all those meat options being there for everyone else.

The only freedom I'm restricting for anyone other than me is the opportunity to hear my voice or to pester me with theirs, and I'll be handling that by not having a headset and continuing to keep my sound off in SL. Live and let live - just don't require me to join in the noisy fray.

I'd be worried that this might shunt me off into the sidelines of the next-gen SL, except I'm pretty well settled in a few select groups in SL, and so far not a one of those I know that I've spoken to on this are eager to go voice.

I think voice integration has tremendous application for people using SL for specific real-world supplementation - businesses using SL for meetings, and educators using it for long distance learning. I gather those are not the majority users of SL at this time, but I do get that they are the demographic LL is trying to court.

But for me, personally, it will add nothing to my SL experience as I currently use the platform, and I have no problem with explaining why - what you call criticism that helps no one is information LL can either use or discard as they see fit. Me, I'd want to know how a new expensive feature will be received before financially commiting to it, but I'm well aware that LL doesn't do that sort of risk assessment prior to adding features. That said, i'm not surprised that WoW didn't have a massive orgasm over the addition of voice, and I don't expect SL will either. I am a terribly average user and I think my issues with it will be fairly average, too.

Voice not such a hit in WOW - how will it do in SL?

Second Life Insider

Jun 19th 2007 6:23PM I won't be using it - at all, and I rarely travel with sound on now.

My reason is simple and has nothing to do with 'maintaining the illusion' or concerns about how my voice sounds. It has to do with pure RL practicality.

I don't live alone, and would find it terribly rude to those who share my space with me to be jabbering or flooding the room with sound that makes no sense to nonparticipants. The only way around that would be to remove my computer to some private corner of my home, which would drastically cut the time I spent in SL at all, because I'm not wired to hole up alone with the computer.

Currently, I can be online *and* engaged with my family members at the same time. At present that means that sometimes I dance to music I can't hear, and I'm willing to live with that. And if everone wants to go voice, I guess I'll make a little prim sign to hold announcing that Morgana is deaf - but I won't be joining them in the voice chatter.

I have a very hard time believing I'm the only person in SL with RL etiquette concerns regarding voice, and I don't think this has been well thought out at all. (Not to mention those many many people in SL who will find their SL activities sharply curbed if they have to whisper into a headset to avoid being overheard by RL spouses and SOs. You know who you are.)

More on THAT blog post

Second Life Insider

Jun 6th 2007 5:30PM LL has acheived the Better World Robin speaks of. Unlike my RL - in a Bible Belt community where all manner of victimless acts are deemed to be criminal, I can not walk down the street in the dark without always being vigilant about the possibility that I might be attacked, robbed, raped, or murdered. And I live in one of the safest areas I know of - regardless of that, the possibility is always there and always a part of my awareness.

In SL, none of those things can happen to me and I can explore at will. At worst, I can be annoyed - but I'm a big girl, and can get over that trauma.

In RL, my involvement with BDSM means I must lead a very careful and circumspect life or risk informal and formal censure from my community (which can not guarantee my safety in truly nonconsentual situations). In SL, I was able to establish a home base on a sim that openly advertises a friendly opinion of alternate lifestyles.

My First Land, on the other hand, was deliberately chosen on a PG sim and continues to be a fun place to explore building without worrying about sharing space with low rent stripper bars.

Now here's the real irony - I live on a sim where everyone there is involved in some variety of kink, and I spend most of my time in sims that focus on role play, including sexual role play but have solid rules about where and when. That is, enjoy yourself but don't force your private playtime on others.

And the result is.... I don't even recall the last time I witnessed sexual activity among random strangers or, for that matter, people I know. My RL partner is my SL partner and we are monogamous, so we don't hunt sex. And in spite of living where we knew we would not be shunned or accidentally irritate our neighbors, our sim is the residence for some of the most polite and neighborly people I've come across in SL or RL. And yet... I now worry that the witchhunt atmosphere currently in force will cause us to once again go into hiding or face harrassment in the form of ARs for something no one will ever be aware of unless they spy beyond the confines of our walls.

Meanwhile - sex for pay isn't ever mentioned as potential issue (and I'm not saying it is, either - I'm just appalled that that seems to be the one and only form of sexuality in SL that is declared appropriate, and it's the one least likely to result in any emotional involvement whatsoever. That's a cold view of sex, there).

And I have to wonder about all these pearl clutching SL residents gasping over how the sex is everywhere! And they can't avoid it! I wonder just where they hang out. If you aren't interested in sex in SL, get away from the pole dance clubs and start exploring some of the beautiful and intricate sims out there where the rule about sex isn't about 'better' or 'morality' and is all about being respectful of both those participating in it and those who aren't. If you don't like it being in your face, get your face focused on something else.

It's there. You just have to want to see it, instead of gasping and tsking at what other people are doing.

And yes, Robin, I want a better SL. I want somewhere where I can be left alone and not made to feel wrong because I find meaning in something someone else doesn't. If they catch me in the streets with it, assaulting their senses, then by all means come after me. But first, could you get rid of some of those horrible rotating signs and abandoned builds that assault my senses around my First Land? I bet they're more annoying to others than my sexuality is on my most ribald day.

The campaign for equal heights

Second Life Insider

May 11th 2007 5:02PM If I understand the article correctly, the couple having simulated sex in front of the reporter and the person who passed actual photoes and indicated there was more where that came from where two separate events the reporter witnessed/was a part of.

I'm honestly at a total loss as to why LL is saying the couple was immediately banned. Aren't there recent comments on record that they were banning the advertisement of ageplay, etc but weren't getting into banning the act itself since no children are involved. Down the Memory Hole, I guess?

The campaign for equal heights

Second Life Insider

May 10th 2007 8:25AM As long as we're going all silly-season about this, I insist that we have height and weight verification as well as age verification - no more 8 foot tall women, or ridiculously Conan-style buff men in SL! Everyone set your sliders back to the 5'6", 200 lb selves with thinning hair that you really are.

Wait...what? That fantasy self is ok?

If a 21 year old wants to play a 12 year old is that really all that drastically different than the 40 year old that wants to be a tall, ridiculously thin 20 year old?

(No, I do not have a child's avatar, but those that I know of don't use the avs for sexual role play. They use them to get away from the hyper-sexualized appearance of most avatars in SL, especially when they're busy with something they don't want to be interrupted by come-ons.)

The appearance of a child is no more the cause of pedophilia in SL than it is in RL. If we're not banning our real children fromm public view so as to avoid turning on the predators, why should we need to do so here? Please.

Belgian police patrols Second Life to prevent rape

Second Life Insider

Apr 21st 2007 10:38PM I don't get it. Someone's figured out a way to prevent other people from logging out?

Big brother is watching you?

Second Life Insider

Apr 15th 2007 8:15AM I used to work for a DoD office, and I can see a million cost-saving uses for SL, mostly in terms of reducing the number of costly trips for meetings or as an alternative to the 15K teleconferencing room and the staff of 6 it took to keep it (nominally) working. The TC method was difficult to use and never worked properly and many of our users opted to fly across country for a 2 hour meeting rather than risk the TC going poorly.

SL has no more limitations than video teleconference and in no-lag areas (which a gov't funded private sim should be) and many benefits - anyone with a decent computer can have it up and running in an a few minutes and modded to their liking shortly after that. Video teleconferencing requires a large initial hardware investment and regular staff support to keep it functional. Business trips, of course, require transportation, food, shelter and time. While some facial cues are lost, they are just as lost on a VTC where lag and stuttering remove the expression from much of its context.

Finally, in terms of training ops, many RL training scenarios are not conducted entirely realistically, either, but are in terms of moving and utilizing assets and are handled much like a text RPG are (that is, people describing what they're doing and the training manager describing the result). SL would do fine for the types of training conducted that way. No, it would not eliminate all RL training, but it could reduce the number of large group gatherings (each with their individual travel expenses) to those that are actually needed, and allow for more training bang for the buck, since conducting a training session in SL can be done quickly without months of pre-planning.

I don't see the downside here. The government has been exploring virtual worlds as a method of cost and resource reduction for years. With SL they have one without having to create it themselves. That is also a cost savings for all of us. I hope it works for DHS so that other agencies will follow suit - I like having my tax dollars not wasted for a change.

Just Askin': What's Squicky To You?

Second Life Insider

Jan 9th 2007 9:14AM The talking pregnant bellies. It's like being forced to hang out with the most obnoxious real-life pregnant woman you've ever dealt with in RL. I don't want to know that your fetus has hiccups, or that you need to 'eat'. You want to RP being pregnant, that's fine - but why do the bellies need to broadcast the boring details to everyone around you? ack!