Metaverse

We've seen the bans and the policies changes from Linden Lab, the
widespread financial scandals and all the many issues every stock
market has faced.

Right now, the financial sector is in a situation where every stock
exchange will stand up once every while presenting its achievements and
successes to the general public, a situation where we can still find
businesses willing to go public and launch their IPO, a situation where
some people will give a try at reviving public shells, or giving a
continuity to endangered companies.

We could go on like this for an undefined amount of time; months,
years. By operating in Second Life we're bound to Linden Labs and their
policies changes. At this point one could bring up other synthetic
worlds, but this won't be the main topic of this open letter.

Following up with the many issues we've had to deal with and using
our foresight, the VSTEX has been growing strong as a SRO
(Self-Regulatory Organization), with an extensive set of rules and
policies modeled after "real life" stock market rules, policies and
laws. That was a due answer to issues, but far away from being a
complete solution for the whole SL financial sector. { Read more }

Just think: If Linden Lab were to run the United States...

• There would be no invasion and/or occupation of foreign countries. People would just buy new simulators.
• If you wanted to be a citizen with Rights, you simply buy an annual subscription to the United States. Or you can wander around the United States in eternal vagrancy.
  
• The banking industry would not be in trouble because it would not exist.
• There would be no true real estate market; Linden Lab would keep making more land.
  
• There would be no 'Pro-Choice' or 'No-Choice' issue on abortion.
  
• Gay marriage would not be an issue.
• Shooting or otherwise attacking other people could result in you being exiled.

Feel free to add to the list...

We all know at least one person who we suspect has an alternate avatar. If anything, it's amusing to consider someone who is all prim and proper tossing on a fresh avatar and running around scantily clad. Personally, I think that Gorean simulators are made up completely of human men engaged in a digital form of homoeroticism. This will not endear me to Goreans, but then - I don't want to be liked by Goreans...

And I won't even get into virtual attempts at stock exchanges such as the WSE. For all I know, everyone on the WSE - aside from a few - could be all running in an air conditioned room by the person or people behind LukeConnell Vandeverre.

Pure speculation, of course. But that speculation, because of the nature of Second Life and the way that it can be used, lends itself to a deep sense of mistrust. While corporations may be embracing (and now, not) the ability to have an avatar, I don't think that they truly have a plan for multiple avatars. Why? There is no easy solution; sock puppets just evolved.

When I read about a man with 36 Second Life avatars, I was a bit surprised. 36. And apparently they are all registered.... which is all fine and dandy, but how does one find the time for 2 avatars, let alone 36? And if you look at the pic, you can see that there's a significant amount of hardware involved - enough so that one could talk to one's own avatars.

Why log in to talk to one's self? I do that without logging in...

And this leads me to the question: How much is too much?

Calling all Angels!

I know, I know!  It has only been what? a few months since Relay For Life has been over, but here in Second Life, as well as RL, the fight continues.  For one of the RFL events this next year we are looking for 9 count em!, 9 sims.   The Sojouner, who had donated most of the sims for the past several years, lost her battle with cancer this past Relay season.  She has been greatly missed and will continue to be missed.  Please, help us continue this fight. Not just for her, but for our sons and daughters and our grandchildren. (Speaking of grandchildren meet Ms. Zoey Grace, my new granddaughter at 2 days old!) Zoey has many Angels watching over her.  Most whom have also lost their battle with this dreadful disease. It is for all of our children we continue to fight.

So please, if you have the space to share for this event that raises hundreds of thousands of Lindens towards the fight for a cure, please contact myself , Haroldthe Burrel, or Synergy Devonshire, in World. The Fashion Fair will continue with your help.

Calling all Angels
Jez Bailey

P.S.  Isn't she beautiful!

A while back, I remembered hearing something about Linden Lab's Showcase, and I recall being less than impressed. Initially, I thought that this would be something that would skew inworld businesses to anyone who, for all intents and purposes, is a favorite of a someone at a company which has always been found to be just a little more favorable to those it... likes. Be it a book on the front page of SecondLife.com, or ear-muffs that allow music to be played, or what have you. This, of course, is a travesty to all those many people out there who have never had the good fortune to be on the cover of a magazine, or gain some level of respect and/or notoriety by having a way to put letters together to form words to form sentences on a website.

But I forgot all of that. I logged in with an alternate avatar, and was poking around out of sheer.... boredom. The events list is, as always, clogged with lackluster events. Everyone wants our avatars to join their groups, reminiscent of Facebook. Everyone wants to give away freebies, or even in some cases sell them. The selling of freebies is something no one seems to care about anymore, perhaps because Linden Lab just doesn't... do anything about the DRM of Second Life to assure once something is free, it is always free.

So I looked in search and found the other tab. The one called, "Showcase". Without even thinking about all the stuff I wrote in the first paragraph here, I took a look.

The 'All' link is the default, and had some interesting things there... the other tabs also have some interesting things, and are almost decidedly not inworld business related. Whew. I was wrong. Maybe.

I found it odd that there was fashion listed there. I look up to the right, see the link to fashion and roll my eyes. It's what I thought. Linden Lab is playing fashion police and skewing fashion to the folks it would like to skew fashion toward. { Read more }