http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/armozel/ Second Life discussion forum and photo sharing en Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:50:53 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/images/styles/bingo/misc/rss.jpg http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/armozel/ http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/armozel/290-second-life-related-unsufferable-rage.html Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:26:33 GMT As much as I've attempted to grow a thick skin throughout my life due to being transgendered and part of many "minority groups" it's one thing to face down an oppressor face-to-face, it's another thing to deal with one that's faceless. One which can morph with each new account in a nearly obsessive manner to simply find their 'joy' in the emotional and psychological torture of you own person in SL.

Regardless of reasons, and the misshaped brains that they originate, it truly shows that the most depraved truly exist to leech on the worse in others. For me, it's my anger and my inability to shut up even when I'm fully conscious of the futility of the fight. I won't name the person in question, but it seems to me it's not worth it trying to AR them as they see no concern with the amount of finangling required to target me or others like me (transgendered, gay, etc) in SL. All I can advise others is to simply let go and ignore the bastards as they're truly the worse kind of people to even think of: the kind that rob you of your life, your joy, and the hope of tomorrow by simply getting you to respond; advice that I need to take to heart more so than others, probably. ]]> armozel http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/armozel/290-second-life-related-unsufferable-rage.html http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/armozel/277-feelings-random-thoughts-second-life.html Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:27:16 GMT I hope this post doesn't come off soppy with emotion, but it's something that I think I'm not singular in this sort of experience. Namely, it's the experience of being around in any crowd (maybe fitting in, maybe not) and not really finding any sort of social or emotional connection to those in the crowd. I'm not sure if it's simply that I don't talk enough or find the right kinds of crowds to socialize in, but I tend to notice no matter how I change my attitude or my methods of communication, there's no interest to continue any conversation with me. Ultimately, I have to wonder if being what I am and who I am, and being up front about it in my profile, that it simply 'scares' folks away. In any case, right now I do feel quite lonely in the crowds in SL. ]]> armozel http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/armozel/277-feelings-random-thoughts-second-life.html http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/armozel/148-observation-secondlife-truly-never-sleeps.html Mon, 07 Jul 2008 07:11:00 GMT As I'm trying to wear out my mind enough to get some slumber before I have to turn over my half-busted bicycle to the repair shop on Monday I've gotten the keen interest to find non-english sims throughout the Main Grid. And I'll tell you, Secondlife truly never sleeps. Just by looking through one of my older landmarks to a merchant that resides in a large cluster of sims that are primarily owned and operated by Japanese individuals, I found a quite an interesting variety of locales. Granted, like most of SL it's still mostly commercial, but beyond that there were many other odd areas such a micro-savannah plot with simple prim'd animals and trees that looked like something out of an old National Geographic documentary. But among these sims seem to be also very savvy sim owners. For example, as I look through the map browser to find actual users (there are some, but many are not able to speak english and I can't speak a lick of Japanese), I noticed there were some sims either in part or in whole containing an advert that only one could clearly see from the browser. It's not unlike some of the adverts one can find in Google, although it's probably not an efficient use of resources considering the price range of sims, but it's certainly a novelty that seems like something LL should consider if they really are not getting the return on their investment as they believe.

Anyways, among the commercial parts of the sims beyond the adverts that caught my eye is the subtle difference in artistic stylings. Take any old US/EU skin creator, many of these folks focus on either extreme realism or some form of extreme pseudo-mannerism (stark lighting and rich color palettes). But the Japanese skin creators by comparison tend toward subtle shading and almost pastel color palettes. It's not that I their style is superior, but that it's markedly different. Even some of their clothes focus on more traditional trends among Japanese subcultures, but with a stricter adherence to their historical originas such as the Lolita dresses and the like, which look more like Edwardian/Victorian period pieces than Goth/Scenester clothing.

And my final observation about the Japanese sims is this: they're growing. As much as they don't look massive compared to the cluster of sims that some companies and individuals own in SL, many of these sims owned by Japanese firms and individuals are clearly building up and they're quite organized. Organized in the sense that there is strict planning in plot arrangement (similar to RL city street grid layout) and each plot that isn't sold is demarcated with a sale sign with all the important data laid out (of course in Kanji and the other non-english languages [but with the numerals that we all use today]). I suspect if LL gets their act together on sim management (and possibly doing the same for the Linden Exchange), they could take full advantage of this clear growth in the Grid, rather than just spinning their wheels. ]]> armozel http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/armozel/148-observation-secondlife-truly-never-sleeps.html http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/armozel/144-opinion-observation-whats-up-tag.html Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:48:33 GMT I remember the first time I used a search engine, it was Yahoo! just after they went .Com instead of being at their .Edu original address (which at... I remember the first time I used a search engine, it was Yahoo! just after they went .Com instead of being at their .Edu original address (which at the time redirected users to the .Com one). It was amazing to have the information that thousands of other people compiled into the search index itself. At the same time, there were other sorts of search engines coming out that took advantage of meta-tag data that one could insert to define the content of the webpage itself. Like the old human indexed version of Yahoo, this had problems (where the human indexed one was more about the fact of maintenance of links): one could stack their meta-tag data to 'float' their site up to the top. So, say you wanted to find a site devoted to cooking, Renaisance literature, or simply your favorite baseball team, then there was a good chance another site would become first hit if you didn't craft your search well enough. Today, this is reduced because of page ranking and other well hidden algorithms by the likes of Google that evens out such 'floating', but it's still present as "Google bombing."

Now, what this has to do with Secondlife is very simple, whenever I try to find what I want on the classifieds, events, or places tabs on the search function often I get dead ends. It's not uncommon for me to literally go through six or more pages of hit results (depending on how common the term I use) before I find exactly what I'm after (like I want to find a TARDIS blue box with scripted effects or whatever). And sometimes I simply can't even find it at all due to all the other 'floating' dead ends that have nothing to do with the used terms in question. After all this time, you'd think LL would just hire Google to help produce the first "metaverse search engine" so users can reduce the dead ends and find what they want.

I doubt there will be any resolutions on this front for a couple good reasons. First, there's no strict 'linking' between places on sims, whether in-sim, or cross-sim. Granted this is not entirely true as touch scripted objects can hand out landmarks all the time, but they're not in the same sense a link as a link in a webpage, where there's an actual code-tag which one can use to embed in their site. To my knowledge there is no such mechanism for sims or plots on sims. Second, the nature of how sims are spread all over the place would make the mapping of given locations also harder too (some sims are simply floating alone in the wider 'sea' with no topological connection to other sims, or simply these other sims are meant to be wholly private away from the public at large (basically no robots.txt exists for sims either...)). Ultimately, I think this is something that LL will have to address along with the other core issues with their system(s) that I've seen in my three years off/on the grid. Or they may lose out big to a better service/product. ]]> armozel http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/armozel/144-opinion-observation-whats-up-tag.html