Avatar of the Year 2008 – 2nd Place: Sidewinder Linden
by Alphaville Herald on 11/01/09 at 9:02 pm
by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk
The coveted 2008 Avatar of the Year award second place trophy is awarded – posthumously – to Sidewinder Linden, an avatar who unfortunately is no longer part of the metaverse after being removed from Second Life when his RL typist stopped working for Linden Lab in December 2008, and headed off for greener pastures.
During his too-short tenure in the virtual world, Sidewinder shocked the metaverse by successfully leading the Havok 4 project – a project which replaced the in-world physics engine and changed the laws of nature – all without causing massive destruction of resident’s existing scripted content.
The upgrade to Havok 4 improved the in-world experience by removing a number of sim-crashing exploits, and increased the efficiency of SL sim server code. This should have been a cause for celebration, but there was a dark side to this game god's adjustment of the fundamental laws of physics that govern interactions of floating, falling, and colliding prims.
More efficient sim server code allowed Linden Lab to raise the prim limits on their budget-priced virtual land – OpenSpace sims – and promote increased ownership of islands. This move was hailed by thousands of OpenSpace island owners and celebrated by the Lab as the total land mass grew quickly — until the amazing emergent properties of lowering the price of virtual land became clear, and Lab abruptly reversed direction and jacked prices by an astounding 66%. If that slap in the face was not enough, the Lab also lowered avatar and prim limits on the same islands they had been promoting a few months before.
Could Sidewinder have predicted the tragedy and incredible destruction of resident content that Havok 4 would indirectly cause? It appears that Sidewinder's role was to be typical of the rare good Lindens – tragic figures who's success is ultimately tainted by Lab greed and incompetence. Was Sidewinder simply a pawn in a pre-IPO/liquidity-event game now gone horribly wrong?
By the end of 2008, mass destruction of thousands of islands and a significant shrinkage in total land area had caused the Lab to discontinue display of the islands added statistic on the Second Life web site, as residents fled the scene to duck a whopping price increase on virtual goods during a real life recession. The massive drama created – and the boost this gave to grids run independently of Linden Lab would not have have been possible without Sidewinder's success.
Unlike too many of the Linden Lab game gods, Sidewinder seemed to understand the the value of the in-world economy and resident’s creations as being central to the SL experience. He was very highly regarded by the SL sailing community for his willingness to work with residents to ensure their creations would continue to work after the world’s physics changed, and was known as a patron of the arts who attended SL Ballet performances.
Sidewinder set a standard that we do not expect to see matched by the current regime at the Lab, given their shoddy treatment of OpenSpace customers and fixation on hyping questionable ventures for a gaming/entertainment platform — the partnership with Rivers Run Red to market the virtual world as a business meeting place comes to mind.
Perhaps we should count ourselves lucky that the world’s physics were updated before new Lab CEO M Linden took the helm – it seems unlikely that M-is-for-marketing Linden’s positioning of SL for IMMERSIVE WORKSPACES will require physics improvements or a vigorous in-world L$ spacebux economy. So while we salute Sidewinder's achievements, his is ultimately a tragic tale.
But now, with the 2nd and 3rd place Avatar of the Year awards announced, Gorean slave masters, Bimbo Cheerleaders, role-play mafias, *chan-tards, and babyfurs alike speculate – who had more impact on the world in 2008 than Sidewinder Linden, d3adl3yc0d3c, and n3x15? This crucial announcement will have to wait for another day – for today, we celebrate Sidewinder's achievements and mourn his passing by dropping supertwisted toroids onto each other in a sandbox, just to watch them bounce.
Corsi Mousehold
Jan 12th, 2009
It was great working with Sidewinder directly. This man should have gotten the first place award for the year.
Baron Cuttlesmith von Blogharder, Esqu, MD
Jan 12th, 2009
I see that after your moronic choice of 1337SP34K DUO as top three, you have again brought unimaginable disgrace upon your ancestors by failing hard for the world to see once again.
A Linden as number two because he actually did his job? What sort of uninteresting, bland bullshit is this? This is fodder for a woman’s weekly; one can see a done-up trollop reading this sort of _contentless_ material as mere time fodder as she has her twat waxed or hair permed.
Furthermore, I assume you must have self-edited this article. _Two_ people could not have made the same oversights of style, punctuation, spacing, and structure. I’ve seen far better from the newspaper of my community college when I attended.
Prokofy Neva
Jan 12th, 2009
I’m gay.
up_ma_ass
Jan 12th, 2009
Pretty dark day when even I can spot the typos.
Maggie Darwin
Jan 12th, 2009
H4 is a pretty amazing accomplishment, we are in Sidewinder’s debt.
The final big H4 problems, both bugs introduced by bugfixes to H4, should be resolved by server version 1.25, coming soon to a region near you, currently scheduled for this week, in fact. (SL Herald covered one of these bugs extsnsively.)
H4 has vastly improved stability and immensely expanded rezzable space.
Well done, Sidewinder.
Dirk Talamasca
Jan 12th, 2009
Sidewinder is a great guy and quickly became my favorite Linden for his eloquent posts that shunned semantics and hype in favor of a clear and resident-friendly approach. Residents were not required to be tech-savvy or otherwise immersed in Second Life beyond that of a casual user to understand exactly what he was working on, how it would affect them, how it would benefit them, and what obstacles there were to overcome to make their experience better as he worked his way towards his goal. He was organized and on top of things and left little doubt that was so after he had stated his case. In the midst of all of his work, he understood and still participated in the community and cared about the issues that were affecting their ability to maintain spaces for interesting, educational and artistic ventures.
It is much to the demise of Linden Lab that they no longer embrace the community, for it is the community that vaulted them to success. Linden Lab has never advertised but has instead benefited from media coverage garnered by members of the community who found new and interesting ways to make their point of view shine in a multitude of different causes, whether they be personal, humanitarian, artistic, commercial or educational. Everyone benefited from this model but the success was embraced over the model and the community was left behind. Rather than encouraging and stimulating the model, they allowed it to fall into disrepair and the community paid the price and struggled to maintain footing through price rises and decreases that altered dramatically the way they operated. Productivity and creativity were forced to take a back seat to dealing with a crisis which was wholly unnecessary. Offering a trinket such as the Linden Prize is nothing compared to the benefit Linden Lab would receive by embracing the community as a whole rather than singling out an entity in Second Life in order to make a pretty blog post and Press Release. Not that the prize is not a good thing. I agree that it is a fine thing, and that work that serves humanity should be heralded. However, without the countless ideas and imaginative creations of the community as a whole, the platform would never have come this far.
To lose a Linden that understood this, is a great loss indeed. I sincerely hope that the coming year will see Linden Lab embrace the community once more and that the community stands with them as they once did. When the community is embraced, you could not beg, pray or wish for a better customer base than the residents of Second Life. If something went wrong, we knew someone was working to fix it and they had our support and we stuck with it and toughed it out. If we had to shut down the grid to deal with an exploit, we were glad they found it and were repairing it. Pretty much any negative comment that was made was met by a mob that was supportive of Linden Lab. But that was in the past. These days the mood seems far more on the solemn side, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. Residents seem afraid to take a chance on projects because halfway into it Linden Lab may do something that meddles with the economy rather than bolstering it and negative comments made to that affect are no longer contested but accepted with a “that’s just the way it is now” philosophy.
This needn’t be so. I know a lot of Lindens that are very passionate about the residents and the community as a whole but for one reason or the other, at this time, are somewhat powerless to do anything but keep their jobs. I don’t fault anyone for that. I have met a whole slew of Lindens and they are bright, funny, intelligent, thoughtful people. Many of them being SL residents long before becoming Lindens, I know they understand the value of the community as Sidewinder did (and does).
Here is to hoping that 2009 brings them the power to revive the community. And to Sidewinder, who did his best.
Orion Pseudo (Shamroy on SL)
Jan 12th, 2009
Well put Dirk – I only wish I could share your optimism. Within the past six months LL and SL have both taken a 180 in terms of how they operate. They’ve gone from user / service centric to money centric in my view and the only way they’ll be able to survive is to do another 180 and attempt to fix what they’ve broken. A hard task to say the least!
Tabliopa Underwood
Jan 13th, 2009
Is good that you recognise Mr Sidewinder Linden. He do alot to make our lives in SL better.
I think that the person who do more for more people than anyone else this last year though was Mr Jack Linden. So I hope that you recognise him. Our homes on the mainland are much better now. So thankyou Mr Jack.
Garmin Oxendine
Jan 13th, 2009
GARMIN SAYZ
ATLAS SAINTLOUIS SHOULD GET THE TROPHY FOR #1
(WAS THERE A VOTE ON THIS ANYWAYS? HOPEFULLY WE R NOT TOO LATE & THIS IMPACTS THE FINAL DECISION)
HE IS WIDELY KNOWN AS A FOUNDING FATHER OF REPORT FAGGOTRY
HIS PROFILE AND BIG <3 FOR LALA IS A GREAT EXAMPLE FOR ANY ASPIRING RPFAGGOT
AND THE L.KRAVITZ INFATUATION DISPLAYED VIA HIS FAGGOT AVIE ANIMATIONS MUST LEAD TO RIGHT HAND BLISTERING IN EPIC FASHION; LMAO – GET TI? – FASHION? – ROFL
IM GARMIN OXENDINE
&
YOURE OUT
&
IM IN(side)
THAT IS ALL
Voice Print Oxendine
Jan 14th, 2009
CLIKING ON “posted by VOICE PRINT oxendine” WILL TAKE U ova ta YEW-TUBEZ; A CURIOUS LITTLE CLUSTER OF NICHOLAS MAFIA CHILD LIKE POSTINGS!
tHE PrObLEm is
THE VOICE PRINT ATTRIBUTES OF THE NICHOLAS VS MIKEY ANTHONY DIRECTLY MATCH THE ‘now gone’ (FULL) AUDIO FILE THAT ONCE GRACED THE NICHOLASMAFIA.COM WEBSITE. EvEn bEttEr yEt, iF u UNDASTAND acoustic processing like WE DO, bumping the gain on the audio strean and filtering out echo and sibilance PRODUCES a MUCH CLEARED voice print- SUITABLE for multi CONDUIT transmission. FOR ALL OF YOU THAT WANT TO GRAB SOME PIECE OF EPIC HISTORY, USE ANY ONE OF A gazillion TOOLS AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNETZ AND GRAB THIS PRECIOUS VOICE PRINT BEFORE ITS GOing – GOing – GONE- like the nicholasmafia.com WEBSITE.
ATTY SAINTLOUIS AND THE NICHOLAS CHUMPS TURN’D OVER ONE 2 MANY STONES & WEE’VE CRAWLED OUT FROM beNEATH that last one!
THIS WILL LEAD TO AN EPIC 2009
yOu CaN cOuNt oN iT!
I AM GARMIN OXENDINE
YOURE OUT
&
I’M IN(side)
tHaT iS aLL!
Garmin Oxendine
Jan 14th, 2009
OH &
1 mOaR iMpOrTaNt iTeM pReViOuSLy miSSed
tHe vIdEo “labeled” with ATLAS SAINTLOUIS iSnT vErY sMaRt eItHeR iF yOu sTaRt tO pUt tOgEtHeR tHe pIeCeS yA kNo
GARMIN OXENDINE
THAT IS ALL
Professor C
Jan 14th, 2009
@Corsi Mousehold
STFU scatrat, I doubt any Linden would work with you directly unless they needed thier Babyfur Diaper changed. Since Sidewinder Linden is not even a FurFag like you, i do not see why he would even talk to your dumbass
asta lavista
Jan 14th, 2009
since viewer 1.20 the cache don t work properly..
that merely that problem that overloaded the sims and server usage.
but you can wait till the lindens do check something everyone experience.
not all are a sidewinder..
Archie
Jan 16th, 2009
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FIX !!
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Darling Brody
Jan 18th, 2009
That is twice secondlife herald has got the story wrong. Sidewinder Linden did not leave SL, he just got orbited so high that the asset servers cant find him. Is it really that hard to beleve the asset servers cant find someone? :p
Darling (I didnt do it) Brody