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31 March 2011

 
Spoons
Caution: I just read a brief review so am FOS, but the book isn't out yet (nor will I read it when it is, however).

Paul Allen's Idea Man says that Bill Gates paid no attention to social convention. When Allen, his girlfriend and Gates had dinner in college, Gates ate his chicken with a spoon.

How do you eat chicken with a spoon? That doesn't seem like ignoring social convention (which I do, too) as much as using the wrong tools for the job. If it were somewhere with only a spoon available and the chicken was, say, hot, then it doesn't seem like ignoring social convention, just using whatever was available. And why is it important enbough to preserve in a book? There was either a reason for it, or it was a silly thing to do. Either way it doesn't seem to matter. I presume he doesn't always use a spoon to eat chicken. I realise it was an illustration of Gates' ZOMG lack of social conventionality, but the anecdote is missing the detail needed to allow the reader to assess its meaning.


 


My little sister E is currently in San Diego, California training with Team USA to compete at Special Olympics in Greece :-D
Her specialty is powerlifting, and that takes place this summer in Rhodes.
Tiff wrote a tiny book about E (for a Spanish-language class project), which is HERE.

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30 March 2011

 


Peter Watkins films are the best.

Update: Here's someone's review from Netflix - 'This is a good movie but unnecessarily complicated with flashbacks, especially shots of children coughing up blood as they are dying of consumption many years ago in the artist's past life. I find it unpleasant to watch two people hugging and kissing when one of them has consumption (tuberculosis) and is coughing. It is just as bad when one is a parent and the other is a dying child. Anyone with good sense should know he should avoid contact with a contagious person, regardless of how much he or she may love him or her. I get the same unpleasant feel when watching the opera in which the gal is dying of tuberculosis and her boyfriend is kissing her. I guess that's La Traviata, isn't it?'

heh

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squee!111!
ZOMG excellent postcard ty Candide and Kumi!
*stabs accidentally*

I did have to dodge a bit as the ink had run over the B + *

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The Music Box

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29 March 2011

 
I forgot to add until just now on that jira issue:

Most animations do not have permissions that allow them to be used in a gesture.

I make a lot, but not all that I wish to use.


 

Nice!
Very nice indeed!


 
Hmmm. It seems weird that people are having to rally and fight to protect the Grand Canyon from uranium mining.

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Russian Boreal Forests undergoing vegetation change.

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28 March 2011

 
I popped in to see BubbaC John and the Bubbettes as Luceh had sent a mail saying, 'Elvis surfaces after a few weeks of not being around....' He's a real life Elvis impersonator who performs at times in SL [which has had its share of elvi over the years although I've never before made the trek (tp) to the shrine (stage) where the acolyte channels the holy one (performs].

It was fun although no one else I knew was there, unfortunately. I didn't stay long, but he was very good.

The trouser bug made me want to yell EVERYONE REBAKE, but I didn't. When shooting machinima I resort to that (with justification), though, and the response is about 50-50 (some people don't hear, don't understand, or just don't do it).



27 March 2011

 


Tsunami

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Cover


 
Everyone is abuzz with Kitely, which runs (your) sims on demand in the cloud, linking by Facebook so anyone can enter through and visit. I signed up/linked FB but haven't made anything - just spend a couple of hours doing other things and trying to come up with a reason/need/desire to make a sim or three. If I were not so feeble I'd jump at the chance to make something wonderful, but I only have just about enough energy to type thi. s... get t ing tired...
*crash*



26 March 2011

 
Get Off My Lawn

I had this idea that if I assembled a picture of myself from every year it might reveal something I haven't understood before. Consequently I spent ten minutes looking at the pictures closest to hand. I have to start somewhere, but damnation putting dates to them is hard.

1972
ca 1994
ca 1992
ca 1990
1972

ca 1976
ca 1975
1954


 
According to the Eletronic Frontier Foundation:

'Microsoft Shuts off HTTPS in Hotmail for Over a Dozen Countries

Microsoft appears to have turned off the always-use-HTTPS option in Hotmail for users in more than a dozen countries, including Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Congo, Myanmar, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Hotmail users who have set their location to any of these countries receive the following error message when they attempt to turn on the always-use-HTTPS feature in order to read their mail securely:

Your Windows Live ID can't use HTTPS automatically because this feature is not available for your account type.

Microsoft debuted the always-use-HTTPS feature for Hotmail in December of 2010, in order to give users the option of always encrypting their webmail traffic and protecting their sensitive communications from malicious hackers using tools such as Firesheep, and hostile governments eavesdropping on journalists and activists. For Microsoft to take such an enormous step backwards— undermining the security of Hotmail users in countries where freedom of expression is under attack and secure communication is especially important—is deeply disturbing. We hope that this counterproductive and potentially dangerous move is merely an error that Microsoft will swiftly correct.

The good news is that the fix is very easy. Hotmail users in the affected countries can turn the always-use-HTTPS feature back on by changing the country in their profile to any of the countries in which this feature has not been disabled, such as the United States, Germany, France, Israel, or Turkey. Hotmail users who browse the web with Firefox may force the use of HTTPS by default—while using any Hotmail location setting—by installing the HTTPS Everywhere Firefox plug-in.'

Pointed out by Kristian on SCmkII.




25 March 2011

 


Russian Furries Marry in Style

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24 March 2011

 
Ha!

'WELCOME to world wide famous Sokoblovsky Farms.
The best and only breeders of Petite Lap Giraffes.
'

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The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.



Luceh provided the link to this magical video.

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23 March 2011

 
Becky sent me this picture of American elected politicians working hard.
Underneath it read:
'This is one of their 3-DAY WORK WEEKS that we all pay for (salary is about $179,000 per year).'


 

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Hideaki Akaiwa

"But Hideaki Akaiwa isn't a regular guy. He's a fucking insane badass, and he wasn't going to sit back and just let his wife die alone, freezing to death in a miserable water-filled tomb. He was going after her. No matter what."


 
Earlier today

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22 March 2011

 

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I don't agree at all with the binary mindset that resolves all things to either cutting edge or dying. A number of people are doing that with SL at the moment, and it's very stupid if you ask me. About 99.9% of all human interests and endeavours fit between cutting edge and dying.

There's been a change from rooted-in-one-spot and time-consuming to some things being on-the-fly and momentary/ephemeral but not everything needs to fall into the latter category. Ask artists how much interest they have in using Photoshop on their phones. SL is time-consuming for the most part, and that's neither good nor bad, but just a description.

I think something akin to FourSquareSL or FourSquare3d would be fun.

I think optional gamefication of the new user experience would be useful.


 
NYT's article about the (lack of) distribution of wealth in the USA.

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21 March 2011

 
SL Men


A random trio of SL men.


I've been working on a machinima piece for something like a year (very slowly, and no nothing has been filmed yet). I decided to spend eight minutes looking at men's clothing for Anchor and teleported directly to a shop full of (for some reason) underwear. It was well done, but... it seemed odd. In general, after looking at men's clothing for five or possibly seven minutes I have to say most of it would not suit men without a strong feminine element to their personalities. Or maybe it would appeal to theatre types.


 
I couldn't find a screenshot so decided to log into SL to see where I'd put them last.
It needed an update, and closed itself to download.
I went off to find the starlight skin AGAIN to d/l and install it, then thought, "WAIT! THIS TIME I DON'T HAVE TO!!"
SL had opened itself again as its update had been installed.
My Starlight skin was intact.
I logged in and Classic Clouds were still off as I'd left them.

YAY!


 
Candide sent me THIS LINK, which is very interesting* and led me to the website of Jon Rafman, where I saw this video of an interview in Second Life.

A Conversation with Jon Rafman from badatsports on Vimeo.

I can sort of feel Candide shaking his fist at me, though, for posting this.

NSFW and apparently people get up to some weird shite in SL that is entirely out of my experience (which is all unicycles and fortune cookies).

"I think we've reached a point now, my generation, where we don't even know if we are celebrating something, and saying its great and affirming it, or if we are engaging in an ironic critique of and mocking it, we've almost collapsed the two."

*Google Earth shots that show A) what a lovely world we live in and B) how fugly the most human-influenced parts are.

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20 March 2011

 


"It used to be there were respectable people. I live by the old ways; this is the new generation."
"It was better to be in prison under the Communists. They gave sane prison terms and the laws made sense."
"Now everything's changed. You can't tell who's who or what's what. Now everything is money. You need money to survive."
"I don't understand the majority of people here now. By my camp values, their way of life is just unacceptable. They are frivolous and irresponsible."

This is an absorbing documentary.

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Swede: Rösta upp låter verkligen inte klokt - så jag röstar upp dig!
Someone else: I wish our a's had cool hats :(


 
Meme Troupe
Next they'll be walking against the fickle winds of intarweb popularity or perhaps pretending to be trapped in a monitor.



18 March 2011

 

(notes on) biology from ornana films on Vimeo.



Heffalump FTW

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The man who almost killed himself eating Mickey D's food has a new documentary.

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It's fun to watch someone else paint.

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17 March 2011

 


Still waters run deep. A good thriller.

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16 March 2011

 
From Luceh the tin duck aficianado comes this link to Evil Genius scenarios to melt the ice caps and flood the earth. How far-fetched can you get?


 
Current way things are run includes getting people to work for free. It was always that way for fine artists, as we'd be expected to do ludicrous amounts of work for free because 'you are an artist so you like doing it.' Now, however, the concept has been vastly extended.

Here's a designer's annoyed response to a gambit.


 
'A US agency helping Japan tackle its nuclear crisis at a stricken nuclear power plant says there is no water in one of the reactor's pools, leading to "extremely high" radiation levels.'
--Sydney Morning Herald


 
Loki Eliot speaks the truth in his blogpost about developing in SL. LL needs to stop competing with their customers or before too long they won't have any.


 
Supposedly RedZone's creator has been banned and the product itself is in the process of being deleted, but I know nothing except gossip. I hope it's true as he's not a nice person, but, as they say, 'There's plenty more where that came from.'

The entire paranoia thing is ridiculously destructive by itself. The IP thievery (by various means) is what started the ball rolling but the paranoia has catapulted things to 11. Or over 9000. Your choice.

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15 March 2011

 
I Fully Understand that I May Not Be Using the Correct Term
Someone enlighten me, please.

Merov: Some elements of the description are unclear (how do you "Suppress the UI" for instance). In any case, the proper way to get an animation to play without having to click a button is to create a Gesture for that animation and associate it to a shortcut key. If this is not adequate for your usage, please log a feature request and describe in details the needs/requirement and, possibly, a proposed user interface model.

Os: I learned to refer to what happens when you hit Ctrl-Alt-F1 as suppressing the UI here in SL years ago, and I don't know what else to call it. 'Derender the ui'? It isn't hiding it as it did formerly when we could still use it even though it was not visible.
As you may or may not know gestures haven't worked reliably for years. Specifically, setting gestures inactive/changing gestures is unreliable. I use lots of gestures for repeating tasks, however the number of buttons is limited and it's frustrating when one isn't able to change their assigned tasks quickly, or conversely open and play animations on the fly as we were wont to do in former carefree times.

Enjah and Salazar: That's why you kept hearing a zombie groan. I remapped three buttons to cameras 1, 2, 3, and the '1' camera would play its former (inactivated) gesture task about 75% of the time.

ALSO
M
ost animations do not have permissions that allow them to be used in a gesture. I make a lot, but not all that I wish to use.



14 March 2011

 


Lightbulbs

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13 March 2011

 
The terrible situation in Japan: when will it end? One dire event after another keeps happening with no time in between, and the news pictures look like a battlefield. The island, it's reported, has shifted 8 feet.


 
Ugh - my power was out until just now due to a storm.

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12 March 2011

 

END:CIV

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A meltdown may be occurring at one of the reactors at an earthquake-damaged nuclear power plant in northeast Japan, a government official told CNN Sunday morning Japan time.

"There is a possibility, we see the possibility of a meltdown," said Toshihiro Bannai, director of the international affairs office of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety, in a telephone interview with CNN from the agency's Tokyo headquarters. "At this point, we have still not confirmed that there is an actual meltdown, but there is a possibility."

Bannai said engineers have been unable to get close enough to the reactor's core to know what's going on, and that he based his conclusion on radioactive cesium and iodine measured in the air near the plant Saturday night.


 
Candide has searched the intarwebz and found tbis gem:

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11 March 2011

 
4Chan in Vanity Fair


 
I was thinking about the various poems I've been mentioned in, from strictly amateur rhymes to 'real' poet's work, so emailed Judy Fitzpatrick and asked her for this one:

Ms. Kendall explains my mustache to Kareem

Three times you mention

the hair on my upper lip.

Ms. Kendall has an answer.

“We are close to the animals,” she says.

“That’s why we look like them.”

It is like her to tell you such things.

At seven years old you know this:

it is a teacher’s job to teach.

When I introduce you to my father-in-law,

you pose, arms laced across your chest, shoulders bare.

Your young Native man’s face engaged

in the formal business of family presentations.

I explain our connection.

“You like me because I tell you stories?” you ask.

“No,” I answer. “Because you are nice.”

“Both,” you say.

The handsome Coville storyteller speaks to your class

and I stand beside him.

Hands fly, tongues wag, heads shake.

You see us together and ask, “Is he your husband?

You go together. You look the same.”

The storyteller has a thin, downy strip outlining his upper lip.

We are both dark.

We are both tall.

He is Rainbow Cougar

made from colors and strength.

I am a new name in the process of being born.



 
It's alway Something Day.

WORLD BOOK DAY - Game Rules: grab the book nearest to you and turn to page 56. Write down the 5th sentence. Don't choose your favorite book, choose the one nearest to you right now. Post the rules as your status and copy the sentence in your comments.

"Extension lines are fine lines drawn from the outline and extending past the arrowhead." - Mechanical Drawing (printed 1944, copyright 1919)



10 March 2011

 


'Starsuckers 2009 Directed By Chris Atkins. Starsuckers is the most controversial documentary of the year, and was released in British cinemas in November 2009 to critical acclaim. It's a darkly humourous and shocking exposé of the celebrity obsessed media, that uncovers the real reasons behind our addiction to fame and blows the lid on the corporations and individuals who profit from it. '


 

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09 March 2011

 
I watched La jetée on Netflix. I'd not seen it before; it was good. Also Chris Marker was/is in SL ('Sergei Murasaki') - at least he was a few years ago. He turns ninety this year, and I'm unaware of his current endeavors.


Then I watched 'The Girl Who Played With Fire," the second girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo film. It was absorbing, but as expected the first was better. This one is a bit too luke-i-am-you-father-y but Lisbeth Salander is a good heroine.


Very windy.

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Ooh, my brother just rang.
:-D

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Qarl

There were a couple of (long ago) Linden hires that were so brilliant they took my breath away and made me feel lucky. One of these was when Qarl was hired by Linden Lab. His sculpties, that brilliant hack, revolutionised Second Life; previously the impossibility of creating organic shapes was frustrating, limiting. An inventive problem-solver, his background in digital design includes creating effects for The Matrix. SL and all its users were cherished, indeed.

Then LL did something no one could understand: they pushed Qarl out the door. Even after that Qarl developed a major wonder - the prim alignment tool - and expressed his belief in our ongoing 3d adventure. Recently he stated he'd go back to work for them if they asked. Apparently they haven't, and won't, ask.

There were a couple of (long ago) Linden hires that were so brilliant they took my breath away and made me feel lucky. I hate looking back on that time as it seems long ago, now.


 


This is the way things are different now.

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08 March 2011

 
I wasn't able to resolve the url for months and thought it was gone. ===:O Today I was looking at some JLI video I took ages ago and feeling homesick and tried again - it worked! Yay for JLI!

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Weird.

Apparently Facebook, which disallows SL avatar accounts, is "the best place to find out about cool things going on in Second Life, share ideas, and get the inside scoop on inworld events, contests, machinima releases, PR activities, fun discussions, and more." according to Amanda Linden.

I dunno - maybe it's true in some way since Events doesn't work, but it's still weird. I'm not much for Facebook as I don't let its tentacles connect to much of anything.

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• Bay City Expansion
• Nova Albion 7th Anniversary
• Magellan Linden Whereabouts
• Weather Report

Enjah Mysterio - Anchor
Osprey Therian - Directing, Videography, Editing & Graphics
Salazar Jack - Copywriting, Photography & Graphics
HeadBurro Antfarm - Photography

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07 March 2011

 


A well-done trippy saga of love and death, The Fountain is perfection if you are in the right frame of mind.

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EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK

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I have an appointment tomorrow at 1pm with Frank :-D
With a bit of luck he'll be able to roll me back from the brink a few inches.

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06 March 2011

 
From Candide, an article about a blind man who taught himself to see.



05 March 2011

 

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Words of Wisdom

I've done the calculation and your chances of winning the lottery are identical whether you play or not.
- Fran Lebowitz


 
Wildly complex columns are fabricated from laser-cut cardstock.
As a commenter asked, "How would one clean them?"



04 March 2011

 

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Camera Capture

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03 March 2011

 
Sellouts. Shocking to me as I hate Disney.

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Inside Job, a well-done documentary about the global financial crisis.

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Above the Sun from Coudal Partners on Vimeo.



Intrepid men face the unconquered Big Snowpile of Chicago and attempt an assent.

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02 March 2011

 


The Wind Journeys
This enigmatic and beautiful film follows a young man who follows a troubador across Columbia.

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Living Room from Mr.Beam on Vimeo.



Projector Redecorater

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01 March 2011

 


Tick Tock

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I ran into Douglas :-D which is always a treat.
We talked about a few things including griefers (Douglas: my idea of a game is pooping on griefers), and the liklihood of the new CEO adding a gamelayer to SL:
Osprey Therian: A gamelayer might help sl keep noobs (I think he might possibly add game elements).
Douglas: so long as they're optional
Douglas: I'm really not a gamer
Osprey Therian: Course. Like the shopping hunts, games that are available but not required might be good.
And renewal of enthusiasm:
Osprey Therian: BTW my idea was to close every summer so people's enthusiasm was renewed yearly.
Douglas: Ahh, I like it - to make us appreciate what we have.
Osprey Therian: yes but imagine anticipation!
Douglas: difficult to do for months
Douglas: hehe WHOS summer ;o)
Osprey Therian: a couple maybe - or just one

I bring out the same old ideas every once in a while. They aren't necessarily very good but at least I'm thinking.

But I DO love the noob tree and the pneumatic tubes.


 
Mono2 SL wiki page.


 
Today I was at the peak of my current energy range - nothing to write home about for anyone else, but very good for me.


 

I made a skateboard for my fortune cookie and was skating around checking the new anims when a Spanish man hove into sight. He was concerned about the bazillion griefer cubes all over Bodega, Bolinas, etc., so we both ARed them. I'd been ignoring the dastardly things. He likes exploring and helping noobs. I switched my translator from Chinese to Spanish and it was helpful.

 

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I want to ask for thoughts about improving the world -- what do people need? How can things be organised?