Second Life suffers from Sequel Syndrome

I'll admit, I'm not an aficionado of Warren Ellis. Aside from a few random comic series and an episode of Justice League Unlimited, the most I know about Ellis comes from his guest appearance in Powers. Mostly known for being an incredible blend of pompous ass and storytelling master, his work really puts the "ook" in comic books without stretching the medium incredibly. But then again, not everybody can be an insane Scottish genius.

So it surprised me that Ellis would do tackle something as mundane as digital world correspondent for Reuters. But then again, perhaps it's the closest the creator could get to merging with his creation. In any case, the column is a surprisingly intriguing read. But pouring over old and new entries, I began to wonder: why on god's green earth would anyone want to live Second Life?

When I was in high school, we didn't even have MMOs. We had MUDs, essentially multiplayer Zork. Then, like now, you worked your way through quests, killing creatures, earning gold and buying things. There was always a certain goal in mind and a way to go about it. Nowadays, MMOs offer a narrative to go along with the activities, I suppose to placate those who can't put the effort into creating their own story. But it's still the same.

But in Second Life, the goals mirror those of, well, First Life: offer goods/services for something of hopefully equal value. There's no overarching quest, it's quite literally whatever you want it do be. And the more time you put into it, the more potential return there is. This is fine in theory, if not for the central problem of time.

Homo Sapiens are living longer thanks to advancements in medicine and sanitation. But we essentially still have a very limited time in which to experience life. Some people never experience meat. Some people never have sex or get married., and this was 30 years ago. When you add in the added distraction of a simulated world that offers more freedom and control than one's real existence, the once slightly troubling desire to escape reality becomes a driving reason in creating isolation.

Why doesn't this apply to other video games? Most interactive media is meant to stimulate oneself on a certain level, brief forays into an alternate situation that intrigues or distracts the mind. Engrossing stories, brain challenges, competition can found in all sorts of mediums, games included. But there has never been a question that such activities, books, movies, sports, music, video games, have always been meant to supplement life, not supplant it.

People earn a living playing game after game of online poker. Friends text and chat with each other abundantly, even when sitting next to each other (usually for laughs, but still!). Teens return to their respective homes in order to play online together rather than hang out together.

Thankfully, I haven't heard of someone giving up life outside to live exclusively online, and for the most part such an occurrence is still laughable. But the next generation is already living in a world where computer literacy is a primary skill and the Internet is a staple of everyday life. Who knows how they would view such an existence?

The point is, First Life is superior to Second Life in nearly every way. The rewards of engaging the tactile senses far outweigh the brief humor one might feel from making it rain dildos. As a distraction, SL might be fun for a brief time, but the people that herald it as a revolutionary breakthrough in human communication and lifestyle are either misguided or insane (in the bad way).

There's just nothing really unique to be gained from SL. Selling avatar clothes? It might take a while, but go to school and try your hand at fashion design. Selling property? Real estate licenses are pretty easy to come by. Selling physical services? Okay, this one I think is preferable online if only for fear of STDs. Just don't tell anyone whom you want to respect you that you're an online whore.

I haven't played the game, so my view is biased in that way, but the only business advantage I can see is that it's easier to start up (if you consider 3D modeling easier). But it has the exact same amount of difficulty to succeed. Less, actually, if you count the decreased population.

At any rate, Second Life the video game is just that: a game, a recreational activity, and a boring one at that (phallic storms notwithstanding). Anybody who tries to tell you otherwise, that you can pay your bills (not just supplement your income) by devoting all or most of your time to it while still coming away feeling enriched by the experience is selling something.

Of course, soon afterwards, I stumbled upon a news article detailing Playboy's plan to enter SL. No word yet about what they plan to trade in to make a profit, but if it's the laughable idea of selling sexy avatars or the images thereof, they've already been beaten to the punch.

Read More......

Nothing is Sacred

Sorry for the delay in updates. My church had a break-in.

Last Thursday I was scheduled to leave for the airport at 2AM to pick up some guests, specifically members of Joyce McMillan's family. Before/after I left, some rogues came in from behind and raided our church. They popped the lock handle off one of the windows and made off with about 20 computers (including the one recording our security cam footage) and a flat-panel TV.

I'm better now, but I'm in a bad place. I was livid the first couple hours when I heard. I seriously thought the day would end with me charged with assault, and part of me wanted it to. I managed to shut myself away from everybody and slept through the anger.

I keep staying up till like 3/4AM, hoping maybe that by staying up, I'll be keeping the church safe for a little longer. I'm real tired, though. So I'm not in a very bloggy mood.

Is nothing sacred? Why would they choose a church, a place of worship, of all places? Putting aside whatever prejudices you might have about organized religion, if it was just the building of an organization that does charity work in the community it would be unpardonable to steal from them. And that's pretty much how it is out here.

I mean really, I've been out here for almost a year, and the
main goal of this church has just been to help the community, religous conversion aside. We run Saturday morning English lessons for elementary kids. Three times a week we have computer classes for adults. We have a joint park revitalization project with the local government and nearby Buddhist temple.
There's monthly visits to nearby schools for story time. There's is no in-your-face evangelism or theologically-based exclusion.
We're just people getting together and doing good works.

Doesn't that count for anything?

Read More......

Microsoft vs. Free

So here's something that caught my eye a couple days ago. Microsoft is attempting to sue Linux developers for copyright infringement. This is just patently ridiculous (hohoho, a funny).

Historically, Windows has been the granddaddy of pirate success stories. The story goes that Xerox was developing a computing system that focused heavily on a graphical user interface (GUI), as opposed to the traditional command-line driven operation systems of the time. Steve Jobs, Apple president/guru/shaman at the time, somehow finagled an exchange with Xerox that eventually ended with Apple producing the Macintosh computer. Bill Gates, riding the wave of success of Microsoft's MS-DOS, releases a GUI operating system the next year that bears remarkable similarities to Macintosh.

How did this all shake down? Some have speculated, but in the end, the general public still views Apple as the eccentric alternative and Microsoft as the mainstream. The monolithic, fearsome mainstream, but the primary choice, nonetheless. They based their ideas around those of a competitor, eventually muscling them out of business. It's practically their slogan.

So imagine my mirth when Ballmer, full of his usual bluff and bluster, cried foul. The best part? Microsoft isn't even targeting a true company, he's targeting developers. Linux is (at its core) freeware, available in many different flavors from a variety of sources. What profit, then, is there to pursue compensation from people who are not in it to make money? I can financially understand the RIAA going after pirates because those individuals are actively taking apart when the RIAA has put together. But Linux (until proven otherwise) is not touching Microsoft's coveted source code, simply implementing the same atomic ideas.

The scary part is that they'll probably win, making it a crime to use to distribute an alternative operating system. they've got the money and thus the lawyers to make it happen. And when that happens, the slippery slop will tilt even more, resulting in the closure of anything and everything that does anything similar to what Microsoft attempts, regardless of who was first. Today it's Windows vs. Linux, Windows Office vs. OpenOffice. Tomorrow it's Internet Explorer vs. Firefox, MSN vs Yahoo, Hotmail vs Gmail, MSNBC vs. CNN, WMP vs. VLC, Xbox 360 vs. PS3.

And in the end, when you listen to your Microsoft while you drive your Microsoft to the Microsoft to order a cup of Microsoft on your way to work, where you run Microsoft on Microsoft to develop Microsoft, you will look up at Brother Bill's omnipresent smiling face and contemplate how much to Microsoft him.

Read More......

Christian Extremitism

It's always tricky talking about an intellectual enemy postmortem. The easy way out is to simply denounce the person and their actions, rather than trying to present a more rounded presentation that doesn't pass judgment. I guess that's why I'd make a terrible speaker of the dead.

Jerry Falwell passed away. A leading American fundamentalist (and televangelist), he was uniquely in a position to bring about
great change for Christianity in the western world. And yet, instead of using his opportunity to build bridges within the worldly community, he merely upheld long-held, archaic platforms that his religious backing demanded he do.

In the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. spearheaded the Civil Rights movement within a nation that, although not discriminatory in writing, was still racist in practice. Falwell, by then a pastor for several years, denounced the actions of King and trumpeted segregation as not only right, but the will of God. He denounced the peaceful actions of his Christian pastor senior (King had been a pastor since '53, Falwell since '56).

Why would he do so, especially in light of Civil Rights contemporaries like Malcolm X? X had a long history of violence and promoting hatred as a member of the Nation of Islam. Practically a poster boy for everything that White America warned against at the time. And yet a Southern Baptist minister who preached weekly about the all-inclusive love of God was Falwell's target. Now, admittedly, Falwell changed his policies later in his career, but such an action is indicative of the changing tide of public perception (or the need for more money), not of a change of heart on Falwell's part.

Most people remember Jerry for his controversial comments immediately following 9/11:

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'

Once again, in the face of public backlash and criticism (this time much more immediate), Falwell back-pedaled. Perhaps I am a product of my unique upbringing (single-parent, single-child, atheist childhood), but I always believed that the role of religion in any and all situations is to bring comfort to people, whether through belief in a higher purpose, support from fellow humans, or the calming qualities of rituals. Prosecution and blame are the charges of justice, not theology. Theology should teach you how to live a better/happier life, not make you crap yourself in fear.

Jerry Laymon Falwell Sr., had a unique opportunity to bring people together but squandered it being divisive and as hateful as his most extreme religious critics. May he find the peace thereafter that sought to deny others.

Read More......

Celebretard

[ARCHIVE: Something that I don't really touch upon here is my belief that the general public is also to blame for the star-centric media coverage. Larry King is guilty of pandering, but we as a people are guilty of actively showing interest in the baser things. We get the celebrities we deserve.]

How on earth did Larry King manage to worm his way into America's column of investigative and respected new presenters?

I only get a couple of English-language channels. All in all, I have the option of five movie channels (who love airing and re-airing Jurassic Park III), The Discovery Channel and CNN. I've found myself watching CNN increasingly, trying to keep on top of not only U.S. news but international developments as well. Gulf War II is still going on (and will for some time, thanks to Bush's Super Veto Technique Mark II). Tony Blair will retire soon, leaving British parliament in search of a successor. Pope Benedict recently made a tour of Brazil. Iran keeps getting more and more paranoid. The accursed times we live in are interesting indeed, with issues of humanity being played out in a thousand stages across the world.

You can imagine my disappointment then, when Larry King, interviewer of Vladimir Putin, Nelson Mandela and Yasser Arafat, had chosen to dedicate his show (at least one of them) to Paris Hilton's upcoming incarceration. The very mention of such notable people within the same paragraph makes my stomach turn, and I apologize for that, but a point must be made.

Paris herself is worthless. A living example of the famous for being famous, she likens herself to Princess Diana and Marylin Monroe while missing the point that the former was a tireless social activist while the latter was a comedic actor that actually had talent.

But somewhere during my childhood I associated Larry King with reputable. Maybe it was the suspenders and the rolled-up sleeves that spoke to my iconic image of an investigative reporter. Perhaps there was an impression of legitimacy due to being broadcasted on CNN. Maybe it was just the receding hairline and the old-timey microphone prop. I never paid much attention to the news back then except for the bigger social events and environmental disasters.

So how does this change my world view? Has Larry King fallen off the shelf of noteworthy news commentators? Is it a sign that CNN is slowly but surely descending into Hard Copy The Channel? Like any half-assed amateur aspiring reporter, I followed up on the story with my most informed and most reliable source, the Internet.

See, it seems Larry King has been pulling this kind of stool for years. I didn't give any thought to the chortles thrown his way over interviewing Marlon Brando because, hey, Brando's insane in addition to being ingenious. Plus, you don't mess with Jor El. But I apparently missed the "Anna Nicole Smith Memorial Trubte Week" earlier this year. I have no problem with people taking a moment of their time to remark on the passing of individuals (especially since it appears Smitha nd King were friendly). But to gush about them and rearrange your entire schedule to memorialize them is at best unprofessional and at worse a blatant sensationalist move.

But even apart from this, a cursory glance at his past guest list reveals a show that skews towards the celebrity and the paranormal. I'm not joking about the last one either; he has a panel of psychic "specialists" on like every other week. Imagine if Chris Matthews ever tried something like that.

Now one could argue that King's target material and audience are vastly different from some more hard-hitting like Hardball or The O'Reilly Factor (I hate him, but his material is undeniable on-topic with current pressing issue). But if this is the case, why do so many people celebrating King as a great news commentator and interviewer? How does one attract every single U.S. President since Nixon when one wastes time rehashing JonBenét for the fiftieth time, years after it initially occurred?

Larry King has an unjustly deserved reputation for greatness. Although he has held some great interviews, the quality stems from the guests, not from King's program or style. Nothing great about his program couldn't be replicated by somebody else who at least wouldn't parade sensationalism as integrity.

Read More......

Jeebus Corpses

[ARCHIVE: At this time in my life, I was in Taiwan, teaching English to junior high school kids. Living abroad was the beginning of my increased interest with United States politics, partly because I was starved for any news, partly because I started thinking outside of the "gaming news is the only thing that matters to me" thought box.]Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, your position dictates that you are the head of the Department of Justice. Naturally such a position should be well versed in law policy and the current practices thereof. So, in regards to haebus corpus, do you know if any U.S. citizens are currently being held by the government and denied haebus corpus, that is, without formal legal charges brought against them?

Gonzales: LOL, i dunno.

These are the men that are running the country, United States citizens. Men who do not and will not defend your right to an expedient and clear prosecution. Men who do not deem it even worth consideration. Men asking for the right to treat anyone and everyone however they see fit while parading the justification that it is "all for your protection."

Alarmingly, this is not the only attack on civil liberties being levied against you by the current administration. You are told not to speak about seeking peace, for it would be unpatriotic. You are corralled into faraway "free speech zones" if you choose to protest current policies. You are threatened with incarceration and intrusion should you even question the policies of the government.

And yet you do nothing. You've never known somebody who's been unjustly detained, nor fined for expressing their opinion. Your cry and you weep about how the "liberal media" misrepresents your religion, yet you cry fowl if a Persian is on television for forgetting to remove a tube of toothpaste from his carry-on. It doesnt affect you, and it's not worth raising a fuss so long as you have your daily beer and your Fox News.

So, America, what happens when all the dissenters are gone? What if your administration proves successful, and there is nothing left but a nation of yes-men? What if there is no need for freedom of speech, for everyone parrots the same ideas? What if there is no need for a search warrant, for anyone suspected of wrong-doing must be guilty of thinking of treason, if not of practicing it?

Do you suppose your government will rest on its laurels? Leave well enough alone and retires into the night? Or will they, in the absence of clear targets, begin manufacturing them?
Suddenly, your father is taken away because he expressed interest in a movie that made Iraqis pitiable. Your daughter is questioned for lending a crayon to a black child whose grandfather was a Black Panther. You express dissatisfaction with your boss, and find yourself in a reevaluation camp because your words made him "uncomfortable."

What will you do, America, when the people you trusted to defend you perceive you to be your greatest threat?

Read More......

Delirium

[ARCHIVE: I thought it would be nice to write something that was positive for a change. Just because negative things are what ususally cause me to speak up, I don't want to misrepresent myself as being always negative.]

I like talking with friends.

Don’t get me wrong, for the most part I’m pretty introverted. I guess developing coping mechanisms and the ability to amuse yourself (electronically or otherwise) comes with being an only child. An only child of a single-parent family. And only child of a single-parent Asian family in a town of all white people. So no, Jack Thompson, not all of us who play video games are gearing up to become serial murderers. Some of us are doing it for, y’know, entertainment.

But there are several points in your life where you’ll meet somebody and really connect with them, so much so that anything becomes viable subject matter. Poop, art, artists, cigarettes, coffee, right back to poop, it’s all up for grabs. And it’s not boring in the least, because the dialogue is serving the true purpose of interaction. It’s not so much what you talk about, but the information you get about the other party. This can be straight-forward, when one talks about feelings and emotions, but even when evaluating different movie preferences, you get an insight into what makes them tick. The latter is important because, as a manly man man, comparing different predilections is almost all you have to gauge personality.

Of course, being fairly introverted and (let’s face it) slightly self-absorbed, I go long times where I just don’t talk to people. Old friends, good friends, family, I just don’t communicate about matters that don’t have a practical value (“Where is the water closet?”). This was a huge problem in college, where half the experience is getting out and talking to people. I found some friends, most of them just like me. A little bit on the quiet side, playing video games and watching movies to pass the time. But thankfully, they weren’t all.

So I had/have/has/will-have-going-to-have this friend, um… for tradition’s sake we’ll call her Delirium (no, not that Delirium). She’s been a really good friend to me, despite long absences and foisted drama on my part. It’s been that way since the beginning. The beginning being 9/11, for those that didn’t know. It was a rough time for everyone in the States, and aside from those of us who knew people in New York, our proximity to D.C. added another layer of cocern and agitation over the whole thing. Not a lot of people emphasize the Pentagon and its attack nowadays (except for the crackpots), but it was a regular commute for people who lived in our area.

I kinda missed the whole thing myself; I was asleep in the library, already cutting class in the second week of the semester. But the impact on life extended for weeks afterwards. I trudged to classes despite angry rants by some professors that having classes after such an event was ludicrous and asinine. But every day I came back, there was a freshman (it was my second year) glued in front of the lounge television, absent-mindedly eating peanut butter from the jar. It was the first time she had moved away from home, and the sheer drama and scope of the event overwhelmed her a little bit. I made a joke about her not having classes, to which she offered a feeble response, and it just grew from there.

I can’t say we were already the best of friends, or that we were always there for each other. College drama has a way of drawing lines in the sand and suddenly you find that you’re facing off. Sometimes your life is filled with pressing obligations and you get so caught up in them that you don’t notice how little time you have for the old things. There are moments where you’re a complete dick and just cut ties refusing contact even when you know they could use your support. But surprisingly, we’re still friends. Despite changing allegiances, emotional episodes, living together for a year (can’t believe she put up with me), I look back and I know my life is better because we both aspired for a lasting friendship and would eventually rebuild.

She graduated before me and we had a very understated goodbye. No tears on my part, just kind of a hug and a wave. She’s back in her home town now, doing the graduate school thing. She’s got a boyfriend (who is an awesome dude, so hands off), and they get along great, problems and all. She’s still figuring out life but I think she’s happy with where life is going, if not with where life exactly is at the moment. But I’m glad to have her as a sister, and I just thought you should know.

Read More......

Unwitting Martyr

[ARCHIVE: When I first saw this on the web, it really got me angry. It's one of the never ending line of examples of human worthlessness that makes me question if we really deserve to exist.]Du'a Khalil Aswad. Dead at the age of seventeen. The pictures, the video (playable in Real).

In brief, the teenage girl was stoned to death for going out with a boy of another religion. Accounts vary, but it was roughly about a thousand men from her hometown, possibly some of her own relatives, and a few local policemen. In addition, the mob had the audacity to record the execution with their camera phones. This will backfire for them, at least in the short term, since that's what happens when you record damming evidence of yourself committing heinous acts.

The mob justifies their actions as an "honor killing." Conflicting reports talk about a relationship to a Sunni boy (her family was Yazidi), possibly marriage or religious conversion. None of these reasons are justifiable for murder, especially not as gruesome, prolonged or cruel as this one. And yet basic human decency is superseded by religious dogma. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for religious freedom and different interpretations of the human spiritual experience. But when the cost is basic civility (no matter verbal, written or physical), there can be tolerance.

A brave man once said "Religion is supposed to comfort people, not scare them to death." Every single major religion Christianity/Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam (well, Sufism anyway) , emphasizes the love of God for man, and the compassionate expression of this love between each other. No boundary is placed upon the set of people that one is supposed to care for. Jesus didn't say "Love thy neighbor, unless he has a PS3; those guys suck."

Actually, the argument about the inclusiveness of compassion doesn't even enter into it. Du'a was stoned to death to people of her own religion, most likely her own family. Where does one come up with the rationality for that? How do you find justice in a region that condones this behavior? How do you try a system? How do you force these men to open their eyes to the crimes they have committed, so that they may fully realize their guilt and be burdened with the weight of their actions?

Read More......

Once more unto the breach

[ARCHIVE: This is the intro paragraph I wrote for my personal blog, Whiskey Tango. I like doing the "This Day In History" bit, but it does make me feel old.]Every few months or so, I get a correspondence from my old college roommate, mmm... we'll call him Alai (not for ethnic reasons, you understand), asking me about how I'm doing and sharing where he is in life. Now I have a handful of closer friends, fewer than most, that I keep in contact with this way. What's unique about his messages are that they always end with a suggestion to take up blogging once again.

College was a golden time for us. The year was twenty double aught, and America was at its best. The Matrix still had the public fooled into thinking Keanu could act. Microsoft had lost antitrust lawsuits levied against it. 9/11 was still a year away from ruining everything. And the Internet was still a wild frontier, being staked out by everyone and anyone with an email address and a bag full of html tags. Napster was still free, Scour dominated, BitTorrent hadn't even been developed yet (let alone sold out), and the Internet, not yet a series of tubes, was littered with unchecked spam pop ups.

And in the middle was Alai and me, babies given full reign in a magical chocolaty land of high-speed Ethernet. He devoured flash files like candy, while I gorged myself on webcomics. We discovered commercials we wouldn't have seen otherwise (it was free back then), found walkthroughs for every single video game we could download, discovered music we never would have heard of otherwise. And, we discovered a growing number of web pages that disseminated links and information fell into the category of weblogs.

It would take two more years (and a couple ex-girlfriends) before I actually entered the blagosphere myself. And I was pretty consistent about it. I liked the feeling of participating in a community (albeit an unseen one). It felt like a mashup between a relay race and a soapbox. Information had to be found, commented and expanded upon, and then handed off to the next unseen person. You might not know who would find the info and pass it along, but there was an ephemeral assurance that one's post was a small but integral piece of the information machine.

Of course, as happens to many people, I got caught up in the little issues of my life, rather than the observations. I spent less and less time commenting on the world and more time explaining to the world who I was and why I must be pitied. What started out as a fruitful mental exercise turned into intellectual self-masturbation. So I edited myself, deciding to save my words for worthwhile topics, and found that really, I had little to say.

Life went on. I graduated college and moved to a different country. It's been several months, and though I speak the native language more-or-less fluently, I keep tabs with the States (in some cases, not as well as I should), not just on video game developments and friendly exchanges, but real issues and news items. And in reading about the world, I became more involved. I rediscovered my voice. It's not yet as creatively original as I want it to be, but it's strong, opinionated, and
wants to be heard.

even if it likes to wack off every now and again :P

Read More......