Socially|Mundane

I've been thinking about my favorite pet-peeves of Second Life for a while now. No, I don't mean all the Linden Lab SNAFUs or the Second Life Viewer bugs or the general wonky nature of the Second Life Grid.

I'm referring to those things in-world, usually the cause of which are residents themselves. So I am going to work my way through my top-ten pet-peeves list. But rather than just plop a bullet lists here, I'm hoping to elaborate on each, so you know why it's a pet-peeve. And that if any apply to you directly, you'll understand why it's a pet-peeve and so irritating not only to me, but likely many, many others who come into your presence.

Number eight in my list is "talking prims".

Okay, this one I need to quantify a bit: not all 'talking prims' are evil, bad, annoying or even unuseful. many prims offer very welcomed talk. So i'll try to be clear as I can with regard to my pet peeve.

First, like facelights, many freebies, and strobing texures, talking prims are an evil cast upon us by creators.

The speaking feedback is intentionally inserted into the script that resides in the prim. I know in the majority of cases the creator had the owner or user in mind when this was done and no ill-will was intended.

The best ones are those that speak only to the owner in 'whisper' mode - also known as "IM" mode where only the owner or user will see the feedback at all.

Then there are some where the feedback is given in open chat. The obvious example we all know of — and the very first talking prims I remember — are the primdicks all males are forced to create or purchase because all males are "outies", we are incomplete as created by Linden Lab. The most notable are the X-cite line of erotic (read: indignant sex-spam) add-ons.

Okay, so in the early days of Second Life, it is likely the scripts simply didn't allow a method to give feedback to the owner or user privately. I'm not a scripter, so I really don't know - but will offer benefit of doubt. Open chat was likely the only option. However, now the ability exists to send all feedback privately to the owner or user.

The line of X-cite naughty bits are all talking to each other amogst the gagglefest of sex-starved pixel-swingers that the creators should set that stuff to only speak privately to the participants instead of spamming the open air with talking distasteful body parts. However, these activities are usually attempted in whatever privacy one can find.

Thus, when idiot users don't know how to click the button called "discreet" and their primdicks and other 'functioning' bodily parts start broadcasting to the world what's going on, it's the idiot user's fault and not the creators. So I'll give X-cite and other likewise 'products' a pass.

In this case, I am referring more or less to those dumb-ass talking pregnantprim bellies for example. Yo, creators of the pregnantprims: how about you take all that really irritating chat-spam and send it to owner only, then the owner can emote her reaction?

Fortunately, I don't run into that pregantprim crap very often. Sidebar: unfortunately, not only must one put up with the irritating chatspam of preganantprims, but they are followed soon enough by butt-fugly-assed babyprims that look like cabbage-patch dolls run through a mangler of some sort.

Other evil talking prims are the freebie crap like "Bonehead's Freebie Newbie Radar for Idiots Version 666" that has to chat-spam the crowd every damned time a user puts it on or logs-into the middle of a crowd.

What, you think I'm going to remember you, mr. Creator and run out and try to find a copy of your chat-spamming piece of junk that offers useless functionality because it's included in too many other, better products so i can irritate the public en-masse, too?

It's a freebie!
Eeew!!!

The same with many other items, like that "OOC Textiness" tool that role players use often. You know what? As a fellow role player, I beseech you other role players: throw that piece of junk away.

First, it's irritating every time you crash and relog into our midst and it blurts out "OOC textiness for people who think they are being cool and really not: type /666 to speak in OOC terms and irritate the shit out of everyone in a 96-meter radius!"

And second, when you use it, your text is green and thus too easy to ignore because we all are too used to tuning-out evil speaking prims!

The flip-side of this are those items the user controls and they do so through open chat. Yo, creators: set your objects so they must be controlled via a channel. Especially you, Amethyst Rosencrans. Your collars are the bane of chat-spam because too many RL males-playing SL-slaves are giving collar commands in open chat.

Meh. Amethyst collar is old useless overpriced news anyway. So I guess it makes sense only the boneheads would be the ones using it.

Too many effing idiots with collars, (usually the outdated overprices Amethyst,) are spamming open chat every time they want to change position, or their master or mistress wants to spank them or take control in any way. On top of that, the open-listen in crowded areas seriously adds to sim lag. Set the effing default to a channel because these idiots obviously never read instruction notecards and are all to lazy with netspeak any damned way.

"How r u? want a mstr 2 spnk u? I am best! .abaddowner mstr666 Idiot"

Talking collar spams open chat with: "mstr Idiot now owns wantsPrimSex Badly"

And you users of these things: read the effing instruction notecards and change the damned channel away from zero (0) - which is open chat and stop proclaiming to the pixelworld at large what an idiot you are.

Obviously there are countless other evil speaking prims in Second Life, like those damned already-way-too-laggy vendors that the owner feels they need to actively and intentionally set to speak the description of whatever product is on the screen at the time and it changes products too fast for the each to even rez on the screen properly.

Oh, and those shouters in stores and malls that scream "join my grp, plz!" every 15-seconds. And "lucky chairs" that feel the need to shout out the alphabet every 10-seconds for the ... eeew... freebie give-aways. All of this stuff is not only irritating as hell, but adding to sim lag.

If I'm on a hunt and land in the middle of this crap, the place won't get an iota of a chance to even begin to rez before I'm out of there and off to the next destination.

I'd rather deal with evil bling nonsense over evil talking prims.

But that's another story.

Wired magazine — a rag I rarely read through because they've gone so downhill over the last decade, (just my own opinion here,) sometimes produces interesting content that isn't agenda-biased.

One of the more interesting reads I've run across is their top ten 'vaporware, disappointments, false promises and plain old BS'. The first thing I hit when I go in for a quick scan is number 10:

"Home was originally announced in March 2007, but was repeatedly sidelined. And now that it’s kinda here, it's woefully incomplete. Promised features like video sharing are absent, Sony has removed voice chat until further notice, and users from different countries can't interact with one another — a major problem for an international platform."

I actually wouldn't have thought Sony Home would be on this list. But after reading through this 'winner', it all came back to me. It's amazing how much and how quickly humans forget the past.

And it caused me to reflect: when first announced, Sony Home was supposed to be the Second Life alternative. A Second Life-killer. Look, operate and otherwise just be better than second Life.

Problem number one: it can only be used on one OS: Sony Playstation. Windows, OS-X and Linux are all out.

It looks pretty based on all the screen shots I've seen. But a lot of entertainment on the Mac and PC, game consoles - even Hollywood movies all look 'pretty' with stunning graphics or special effects.

But in the end, it's not about the 'pretty-factor'. It's about content. In the case of a Hollywood movie, there have been many flops that look brilliant and beautiful. But the story just plain sucked. Even bad acting can be overlooked if the story is compelling enough. "Dances with Wolves" is a perfect example.

As for the many 'beautiful' games, graphic prettiness is just icing on the cake. It's about the game-play. How does the user interact and what can they do or not do. What is the code law? "Rainbow Six" was number one for years and the 'prettiness' of the graphics was laughable. it was about the way the user interacted.

So many newcomers and even 'olbie' virtual worlds always seem to be compared to Second Life and all have failed miserably in that comparison. In most cases, these comparisons are being made by people who have no idea what they're talking about. Usually destroying any credibility they might have possibly had with anyone who spends five-minutes of investigation.

These comparisons are surely based on content - not the prettiness of Second Life. They just don't realize it. Content is king. The reason Second Life is king is content.

It is the content of Second Life that keeps Second life on the top of the heap as the benchmark to compare all others.

Yes, a majority of the content is all crap because 90% of the creators don't know what they're doing or have no eye for aesthetic design and so on. But when I am allowed to create something, no matter how good or bad - it's mine. It's my baby.

I created it.

On top of that, if I manage to become good at creating, I can sell it and earn enough real money to have my game pay for itself. Some have even managed to make enough real money to actually supplement their real life incomes.

But it's not about that.

It's about the ever-changing, always morphing, user-created virtual world. User to user controversies, agendas, politics, the good, the bad and the ugly. all of it.

It's ours, not theirs.

via Wired

Mele Kalikimaka, Ha'ole maka'hiki hau.

That's what I grew-up saying.
No, I am not sure that is the correct spelling. But I don't care. it's the intent of the message and a wish of good tiding to you and yours.

I despise political correctness because it is so insincere. So, for all of you whom have figured out how to pronounce what I have written above, it means:

Merry Christmas and a happy new year.
...in Hawai'ian.

Yes, I do say Merry Christmas. The whole purpose of this legal United States Holiday is: Christmas. So, let's take a quickie look at just how stupid and ignorant the politically correct buffoons really are, shall we?

Christmas, a truncation of Christ's Mass. A religious gathering in celebration. many non-Catholics actually attend midnight Mass for the tradition alone.

So, have a merry Christ's Mass.

Happy holidays.

Hmmm... well, first, you bastardize the English language as the way I learnt grammar a single consonant following a vowel causes that vowel to have a 'long' sound, hence the "o" in holidays should have the long sound, which makes perfect sense since the word is a truncation of two words: Holi Days, thus in today's spelling it is: Holy Days.

So, when you wish me "Happy holidays" my return wish for you will be "Happy Holy Days to you, too." And if you don't believe me, ask anyone who's already wished me that as to my reply.

Kris Kringle: Um... this is the same American screw-up that turned "Dachshund Sandwiches" into "Hot Dogs". It's a whack-job on "der Krist Kinder" - or rather in English "the Christ Child" and said in German.

So, I will now say to you all:

Merry Christ's Mass during these Holi Days and may you and yours be safe and happy as you commemorate the Christ Child.

And, a genuine wish for a happy and safe Hanukkah for our friends who practice such.