The big announcement: the Linden Prize.
Mitch Kapor seems like a decent man, despite his close relationship to that most dreaded of all human inventions, the spreadsheet. In a firm but gentle manner he told us the Age of Immersion is over, the Age of Pragmatism begun. He indicated that the step from one to the other is not a choice but is the way technology applications develop.

I suppose it goes along with the SL5B being a trade show and how it feels like so much is done for the aggrandisement of those doing it. Truthfully I've never seen such egos* as are grown in SL. On another note, after having spent yesterday at a talk and just now watched the announcement video, the unnecessary and annoying remarks made by the audience makes me very tired indeed. It occurred to me, unkindly, that the speakers are disrupting things just to get their names out there, but perhaps I am wrong and they are merely obnoxious idiots.

The crazy-making particle behavior when the UI is suppressed is (unavoidably) visible in Torley's machinima, and I hope the pressure is being applied to get it straightened out as it's THAT AWFUL. It's bad enough with two hands but much worse with one, and although I used to have a mousebutton programmed to toggle the UI, I don't anymore (for a reason).

In the Bwahaha Department of Bad Debbil Osness, I accidentally bought the presentation laptop the other day when I was flying past the stage area. I'd just bought an SL5B bracelet and I had thought (well, truth is I didn't think at all) it was just a freebie. After a bit I got an IM asking if I'd bought it - to which I replied, "Yes, and I don't know why I did." I sent it back without looking at it (or I suppose I could've Known the Announcement Ahead of Time). The owner was Everett. I have never met him, but he has received blame from many residents for the controversy-and-backpedaling leading up to the celebration when he announced that the theme would be community but this-this-and-this community could not participate. As I said on some other blog, it isn't easy living in The Handmaid's Tale (the USA), which explains but doesn't excuse what happened.

*I can be annoying, too, I would reckon.

Labels: ...Is Teh Debbil, Department of Bwuhahahaha