by Balsamic Klim, CNN iReporter

In a completely unexpected move, Tenshi Vielle spent this morning announcing her candidacy for SL President to anyone who will listen, torturing poor souls at both the SLU forums and her own blog.

"I’m announcing my intentions to run against Jimbo for the President of Second Life position. (No, there really isn’t a position, but we’re running!)

I’ll be kissing prim babies, filming crappy sex tapes, and if you want you can join my in-world group, “TENSHI ‘08!” – you can either be part of my campaign supporters (”Tenshi ‘08!!) or security (Presidential Security) or my smear campaign. (Tenshi SUCKS!!!) I attempted to invite Lothian Utorid from BH into my smear campaign last night and he said, “Why would I want to be part of your smear campaign?
Hello? Helloooo?”. Poor bastard doesn’t seem to want to connect the dots that he’s already a part of it.

Anyway, come join up! It’s total bullhockey, and you can have a tag that says I rock or I suck – take your pick. Yes, I am feeling a little egotistical today – why do you ask?

KEEP UP WITH THE CAMPAIGN! Tenshi ‘08 blog! We have free tshirts!"

Has Ms. Vielle finally disappeared up her own arse thanks to this recent flurry of hype? We may never know the full truth – or will we?

As for this CNN iReporter, I believe I will be sticking with the Tenshi Sucks campaign, no doubt backed by the incomparable Jimbo Quality. People who wish to contribute to the Tenshi Sucks campaign are asked to contact Miss Ana Boogiewoogie for proper handkerchiefs in which to fling their mud. (You can earn the "Tenshi SUCKS!" title by joining the in-world "Tenshi ’08" group and telling Tenshi that you want to be added to that tag.)

OK. That’s it. You really can’t pay me enough to write any more of this this. What do you mean CNN doesn’t pay for iReporters? Oh for pete’s sakes, what a load of crap! Tenshi ’08? REALLY? How low can the Herald sink?

by Tenshi Vielle

It’s always sad when someone from the Second Life communitydisappears, with little to no explanation. We get to know designersthrough their work, and come to love them through their efforts. Theyare a bit special to us, and it’s what makes us feel like we might beable to support each other. A sense of community.

There are a million words I could type on this page, but they’d allbe meaningless. For nearly a week now, the Second Life fashioncommunity has known something was up, and it’s been horribly silent.There was a dread that echoed. A dread of not knowing what was coming,or maybe it was not wanting to know. We don’t want to lose one of thecommunity – it’s like losing family. Some people may hurt more thanothers, but at the end of the day, I think we all just hurt.

This is why it really, really sucks that the Quad shut down on October 30th. No explanation. Rumors absolutely flew that someone from the Quad had died. We were all genuinely concerned.

YesterdayStarley announced that one of the two people that operated GinnyTalamasca had indeed passed away. Ginny left us on October 30th due toa sudden and unexpected brain aneurysm. The future of his Last Call andDazzle lines are unknown at this point, but not many are thinking aboutthat – we’re just mourning, each in our own way. His best friend and partner wrote a piece on the Last Call blog, to be found by clicking here.

Ginny,from all the outpouring from the blogs at Fashion Planet you obviouslyhad a lot of admirers and friends. See you in the next round.

View one of Ginny’s lasting legacies, Diary of a Dressmaker, here in .pdf file format downloadable in .zip.

Here’s more information on the rates at the Herald and requirements. If you’re interested, please IM me in-world or email smiletenshi [at] gmail [dot] com anytime   The Herald recently broke 150,000 unique hits in a month a one week period, a record for us – and perfect for your business!

Herald advertisers reach thousands of Second Life residents every day. We offer box ads at the top of the left- and right-hand columns, banner ads at the top of the page, and one-time posts in the main thread.

Advertising rates:
468×60 pixels, horizontal banner:
L$6,000 per week, L$22,500 per month

145×145 pixels, sidebar:
L$5,000 per week, L$20,000 per month

145×290 pixels (i.e., taller than it is wide), sidebar:
L$9,000 per week, L$35,000 per month

One-time post, main thread (included in our RSS feed):
L$10,000

RMS Titanic Now Open To The Public for Bookings and Viewing

Glorious in detail, grand in design, the Second Life replica of the RMS Titanic is an absolute ‘must see’!

Retail and residential spaces are available for lease immediately on this magnificent stationary model of the famous Olympic-class ocean liner, which also provides romantic recreation and dancing areas with scenic deck side views.

Situated on the lovely tropical Volcano Cay, the official grand opening of the elegantly impressive and truly ‘unsinkable’ super liner Titanic was recently held on Friday, October 19, 2007.

Visit http://www.kallisto-estates.com/ for a dramatic video presentation of the ship.

Contact the builder, Morphius Barbosa for rental details, join the Group ‘RMS Titanic Ballroom’ to be updated on Titanic events, and visit and enjoy the marvelous RMS Titanic at  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Volcano Cay/172, 167, 23

by Tenshi Vielle, Fabulous Fashionista

Okay, so 50 Cent was brought in-world a few days ago, a special in-world screening and live interview. I watched the video for a whole five minutes until the first "N word" was uttered; then I shut it off. I listened to his interview for a bit longer – until he started talking about his credit card with a $100,000 credit line, and getting hot dogs for free – and then I quit listening. (Oooh, HOT DOGS.) It also occurred to me during the interview that dear "Fiddy" has a very unhealthy obsession with MTV whiner Kayne West and they should just get a room- and get it over with.

I never, however, stopped looking at the amazing quality of 50′s avatar. So instead of his interview, I’m going to tell you all about his amazing avatar – created by DarkDharma Daguerre.

Who commissioned you for 50′s avatar?

Thanks to Motorati for doing such a great job with everything. If you’re ever looking for an event in-world, go check out the Pontiac sim!

Monday night was the kickoff for the 12avatars.com contest – where a printed calendar will feature a sexy female avatar for every month. Founder Monkeyface Wooget and Fallon Winnfield arrived by helicopter – no, I’m not joking – along with Callie Cline’s entourage.

Arriving by helicopter… just like RL celebrities! Wait… where’s Brangelina?

The whole concept seemed a bit new and exciting to me, so after hanging around the party for a while I grabbed an interview with co-founder Fallon Winnfield the next morning.

Ally Geer, Bianca Darling and Callie Cline

[9:53]  12AVATARS.COM whispers: Welcome to the 12AVATARS.COM Contest Area.  Enter to compete for the top two winning spots in the first-ever printed calendar of Second Life’s hottest avatars. With stunning women from cover to cover, it showcases the heights of virtual world beauty and fashion.  Interact with our official contest kiosk today!
[9:53]  You: Where is your partner at?
[9:53]  Fallon Winnfield: He’s actually flying out to meet a client
[9:53]  Fallon Winnfield: So he won’t be here
[9:53]  You: Ah, okay.
[9:53]  Fallon Winnfield: Sorry . . .
[9:53]  You: It’s okay!
[9:54]  You: Maybe you can give me the full rundown on 12 avatars then… the concept, initial formation, etc.
[9:54]  Fallon Winnfield: I can try . . . .
[9:54]  You: Also who you will be using to print the calendar, etc.
[9:54]  Fallon Winnfield: It was Apollo Interactive’s idea . . . they came to us with the concept of doing a *printed* calendar.
[9:54]  Fallon Winnfield: Giving all the proceeds back to the people who distribute it.
[9:55]  Fallon Winnfield: And with a percentage going to a RL charity of the person’s choosing.
[9:55]  Fallon Winnfield: That was the beginning of the idea.
[9:56]  Fallon Winnfield: Nathan came up with the very cool pose-booth kiosk, and we’re going to be using a voting system similar to what we developed for ING’s Virtual Cha Lounge.
[9:56]  Fallon Winnfield: Those are the nuts and bolts.

I had to sneak a little closer to the HOTTTTT champagne vendor

[9:56]  You: Yeah, those pose kiosks are amazing.
[9:56]  You: Oh, you did the ING sim?
[9:57]  Fallon Winnfield: Yeah, I can see us doing some more things with them.
[9:57]  Fallon Winnfield: We didn’t do ING–just ING Asia Pacific.
[9:57]  Fallon Winnfield: ING is Rivers Run Red.
[9:57]  You: Ah. (news to me.)
[9:57]  Fallon Winnfield: I can’t go into huge detail about the distribution ideas we have for the calendar.
[9:57]  Fallon Winnfield: But they will include RL appearances.
[9:58]  You: RL appearences of the people behind the avatars? :O
[9:58]  Fallon Winnfield: And a way to make sure everyone who distributes the *free* virtual version will benefit from sales of the RL one.
[9:58]  Fallon Winnfield: RL appearances of some of the avs, yes.
[9:58]  You: That should be interesting.
[9:59]  Fallon Winnfield: Yes, I think it will be.
[9:59]  You: It’s been long known that a lot of people’s avatars look nothing like their RL selfs.

TheDiva Rockin and Tenshi hit a pose or two on the red carpet. (Who am I kidding? The red prim.)

[9:59]  Fallon Winnfield: Yes, we’re aware of that.
[9:59]  You: Will you require submission of RL photos from the winners then?
[9:59]  Fallon Winnfield: No, not at all.
[9:59]  Fallon Winnfield: Unless they want to.
[9:59]  You: Ah… ok.
[10:00]  Fallon Winnfield: The idea is virtual beauty . . . which, I guess really is talent . . . creating your avatar.
[10:00]  Fallon Winnfield: Hopefully we can extend this next year.
[10:00]  You: I look forward to seeing the winners – chosen by the people who vote, correct?
[10:01]  Fallon Winnfield: Yes, that’s the idea.
[10:01]  Fallon Winnfield: It should be interesting to see how many submissions we get.
[10:01]  Fallon Winnfield: This may be a big gallery.
[10:01]  You: how many do you have thus far?
[10:01]  Fallon Winnfield: I think in the range of 50 right now.
[10:02]  You: Yes, that should be a rather large gallery. It will be in-world, then?
[10:02]  Fallon Winnfield: Yes, it will be right here.
[10:02]  Fallon Winnfield: Voting only by people in-world.
[10:03]  Fallon Winnfield: We considered web voting, but thought it would be more fair to residents to limit it to SL.

The awesome kiosk you can take photos in for your entry

[10:03]  Fallon Winnfield: We’ve had a couple of people register just so they can vote.
[10:03]  You: Budweiser had a glitch in their voting system that allowed people to click however times they wanted for a maximum number of votes per contestant.
[10:04]  Fallon Winnfield: Hmm, I hadn’t heard of that.
[10:04]  You: That was on a website though.
[10:04]  Fallon Winnfield: The voting system we’re using writes out to a web DB, and it verifies against unique avatar names. One av = one vote.
[10:04]  Fallon Winnfield: As far as we know, it’s working well in ING.
[10:05]  You: Will you be displaying the number of votes per avatar in some manner, or will it be unknown until the contest is over?
[10:05]  Fallon Winnfield: Yes, the number of votes is visible at all times.
[10:06]  You: What is your end goal for this project?
[10:06]  Fallon Winnfield: Actually, two.
[10:06]  Fallon Winnfield: One is to just have some fun–there’s so much serious stuff we work in, this is a nice change.
[10:07]  Fallon Winnfield: The second is to hopefully find ways to stimulate in-world commerce–and reward the participants.
[10:07]  Fallon Winnfield: We’ll see how that goes when we have calendars to distribute.
[10:07]  You: Is being in the calendar the only prize, or do you have other things set up as well?
[10:07]  Fallon Winnfield: Being in the calendar is the main prize, there are some L$ and other prizes as well.
[10:08]  Fallon Winnfield: The people who distribute the SL calendar should be the ones who benefit most.
[10:08]  Fallon Winnfield: I’ll be able to talk in more detail about this as we get the tech worked out, and have something to distribute.
[10:08]  You: Okay. One last question… how do you think people will react to purchasing the calendar? A lot of people in Second Life go to great lengths to keep their RL and SL separate. Do you think this will affect that?
[10:09]  Fallon Winnfield: I think it’s a choice–people can enjoy the avatars like any other virtual representation of beauty.
[10:10]  Fallon Winnfield: But there’s no overt link to RL beyond the printed piece–we’re not asking for details about their real lives.
[10:10]  You: Alright. I think I’m good to go… is there anything you want to add that I may have missed?
[10:11]  Fallon Winnfield: I think you covered it . . . thanks for all the great questions . . . sorry to be so shrouded on the actual distribution . . . maybe we’ll talk about that soon.
[10:11]  You: Thanks!

You can’t blame the guy for being a bit vague – in SL, copybot is rampant in the hearts of thousands!

Visit 12avatars.com on their website, or hit them up in-world for more information.

by Tenshi Vielle, Fabulous Fashionista

Unicorn babies need love

What’s the latest trend among the elite Fashionista groups of SL this week?

I’ll give you a hint.

It’s not bubble hemmed sleeves.

It’s not scarves, nor Shai’s plaid jackets.

No, no – this time we’re talking unicorns. Tiny, adorable baby unicorns that you can hold and cuddle… but they come with a price.

You can only get them by having sex with an adult unicorn (although the unicorn isn’t age verified) located at the bel Highland sim in a shop called Sensual Stoneworks. This week pictures of baby unicorns (and some pictures of the sexual act!) have been popping up on Snapzilla.

[WARNING: both super-cute unicorn babies - and not-safe-for-work unicorn sex after the jump -- the Editrix]

Nylon Pinkney and Toast Bard are gentle mothers to their unicorn babies

I took a short trip to Tableau, origin of this fad, to interview a few of the Unicorn baby caretakers. They were hard to find – because each of them denied having heard of such a thing.

An avatar gets nailed by the Nightmare

“I think….that unicorn love is a beautiful thing” says bystander Moisie Swindlehurst, one resident I found in tableau who was willing to talk about the fad. “…and that if you find a spicy sexy unicorn stud muffin and want to let him fill you with his magical glittering seed, that is just fantastic. And i support it. 100%”

After much digging and several dead leads, I came upon Marcelle DeCuir, famed originator of this cult by way of Snapzilla. “I was hanging out with Polyester (Partridge) one day and she had the baby, so I asked her where she got it. She pointed me towards Sensual Stoneworks, and I was shamelessly raped by a unicorn. I don’t mind”.

Marcelle DeCuir conceives her first unicorn prim baby

But how many tries did it take you, Marcelle? I heard the unicorn doesn’t knock you up every time.

"It does it on the first try if you make sure the poseball is set to ‘mounted’," says Marcelle. "That whole place is creepy."

The sexual statues are marvelously crafted at Sensual Stoneworks. One of the griffin-bugs actually reaches out to grab you if you sit on him, and he holds you in place as he rams you from behind. It’s frightening, morally wrong, and yet you just can’t look away for appreciation at how many hours it must have taken to get the programming just right.

be careful near the stone demon

The stone demon reached out and grabbed me without warning. I cannot say what happened next. It’s just… it’s too painful.

Minx Mousehold, creator of Sensual Stoneworks, says that people are now holding contests to see who can get the most prim unicorn babies in a row the "right" way. It’s truly become an underground movement; one of the most demented kind. She also says that out of the statues in the shop, only the unicorn (the white horse), the nightmare (the black horse) and the spider (currently down for repairs) will give you miniatures. The Xen statue, found in the main room, will give you a cute (and hideous) little larvae to keep.

Xen grabbed me by surprise – don’t make the same mistake by glancing into the gaping well!

I’d definetely put "Sensual Stoneworks" on your must-see list. However, for this fashionista reporter… she’ll be sitting at home in the corner of her attic, rocking back and forth with her painful memories.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting a place in Second Life via Cherry Tokyo called the Geisha House. If you wish to experience a great, culturally subversive build in second life, definitely check this place out.  When I teleported in, I was immediately amazed with the build, but what was even better were the costumes, props, and mannerisms of the Geisha who were performing that afternoon. Pre-scripted dances and objects along with seamless avatar control allowed for a wonderful, distracting, enchanting performance.

I had a brief interview with the proprietor, Ayumi Khorana, after the performance.

Did you create this build? How long did it take, and what was the inspiration?
I started work on Waterfront Japan in December 2006, the very first thing I made was the old bridge and pathway up to the Geisha House.  How long is a piece of string, it isn’t finished yet so its difficult to say how long did it take, but with the original Geisha House I guess it was opened just before Christmas 2006. The style, the culture, the clothing all of these things were part of the inspiration.

How long as the Geisha House been around in Second Life?
This Geisha House opened around Christmas 2006, I believe but don’t know for sure that it was one of the first, It is certainly one of the most long lived as we see other houses come and go regularly.

What is required to become a Geisha here?
I have a simple motto that can be seen on some of the boards around the house. ‘Honesty & Honour’ that is all I expect of the Geisha that work here. Too many people in SL have no respect for the people they meet here and due to the secret identity nature of everything they do seem prepared to happily play dirty tricks and do evil deeds to each other. To be a Geisha here takes ‘Honesty & Honour’ thats all I require.

How often do you (re: the geisha) perform?
We have regular scheduled performances every thursday and sunday at 12 noon PDT and with the recent appointment of Minna Kurka as performance manager I’m hoping we will have a few more unscheduled performances advertised too.

How authentic do you become with the performances?
The authenticity of what we do is governed in the most part by the quality of the dance animations, the sound of the instruments we play and of course the look of the kimono’s, hair and skin that we wear. I’m not sure how totally authentic each part is on its own but for me and for most of our visitors the total adds up to something that has the look and feel of a genuine Geisha Performance.

What is the general public response to this area?
Most certainly it is a positive response, I am always receiving IM’s from people who are just looking around saying how much they like it here. The Geisha Performances have a lot of regular visitors who come week after week to see us.

On a general note I believe that our Geisha House is fairly unique in SL in that 1. It is not combined in any way with some sort of brothel and 2. No charges are made to become a Geisha or Maiko here. All of us do this because we enjoy it and everything is funded by donations from our visitors.

Make time to visit the Geisha House in Second Life for their performances, Thursdays and Sundays at 12:00pm SLT.

by Tenshi Vielle, Fabulous Fashionista

As many of you know, I tend to ride the fence on issues regarding Linden Labs. Recent events between residents and Lindens have begun to change my mind; I am definitely pro-content creator and less pro-Linden.

The most recent content creator vs. Linden Labs cases involve the Electric Sheep Company (whose footwork makes Second Life what it is today in the corporate world) and, in smaller but no less important cases, Enktan Gully of Enkythings.

Cory Edo of the ESC was banned once again last week for distributing several payouts of Lindens among different avatars. This occurred once two weeks ago, while she was stress-testing a project. Cory found herself facing lock-out over the weekend, killing any progress she had hoped to achieve on the project. Both instances included over-the-weekend lockup. What exactly is going on here?

In Enktan Gully’s case, her interaction with Linden Labs was to be greatly ignored regarding stolen content and a DCMA she filed because of the lack of action. Enktan has kept me updated through the entire process, and rather than interject my own thoughts into her case, I will simply re-paste what she has told me. Formulate your own opinions. (Those of you may also take note that Enktan runs one of the best, well-organized freebie places in Second Life on her sim – she gets a lot of traffic and spends a lot of time assisting newbies.)

Stivie Jewell copied 2 of my shoe designs, not copybotted but rebuilt, prim by prim. Stivie also copied the notecards I give with my shoes, simply replaced my name with his. He even forgot to take the name of my update group out of it.

1) 06/05/2007 – I file an Abuse Report: The very next day I got the ‘Resolved’ reply but the copied works were still for sale. So i figured they didn’t consider it a copyright infringement. Then OliveEue Sholokhov from the SLBB asked their lawyer to take a  look at it and said I should file a DMCA notification cause the lawyer thought it was case of copyright infringement.

2) 06/20/07 – I file a DMCA Notification: After 3 weeks without reply I contacted Concierge Live chat. They couldn’t tell me why I got the Abuse Report Resolved message without anything done nor why I got no reply on the DMCA.  They said I should email my concerns regarding this to abuse manager.

3) 07/10/07 – I send an email to abusemanager@secondlife.com:  Again no reply. Two other incidents and I begin to suspect maybe something else is wrong. After explaining the situation to some friends I was suggested to write a letter to Torley Linden and ask if he/she would be willing to take a look at what’s (not) happening.

4) 07/16/07 – I send a notecard to Torley Linden: Although I got the message he/she accepted my notecard I got no reply.

"Hi Torley,

Although it is uncertain what is really happening, I find myself in a very worrying situation.  I’m not sure if and how I can do something about it, but I was told adressing me to you would be the first and best thing to do.

An avatar called Stivie Jewell copied 2 of my shoe designs some time ago.  I filed Abuse Report and the next day I got the ‘Resolved’ reply but the shoes were still for sale at his place. (RT #877357 on 06/05/2007)
So i figured they didn’t consider it a copyright infringment altho it clearly are copies of my designs, not copybotted but rebuild prim by prim. Stivie also copied the notecards I give with my shoes, simply replaced my name by his, he even forgot to take the name of my update-group out of it.
Then OliveEue Sholokhov from the SLBB asked their lawyer to take a  look at it and said I should file a DMCA notification cause the lawyer thought it was case of copyright infringment.  So I did that, the DMCA was send on 06/20/07.

On 06/18/2007 my account got disabled. I was logged off by an administrator without warning or explanation. My account wouldn’t be available for 1h30m. I waited and when I tried to log in it said my account was disabled.
I contacted concierge Livechat and they closed the session when i said my name.  I tried to ask again but they closed the session even before I could finish my sentence!
So no other choise left then calling them.  The person that answered the phone said my account was being investigated in a fraud case and that my account would be back enabled after a few hours.  But it stayed disabled.
When 7 hours later it still wasn’t back I tried Livechat again and this time the Linden there was willing to talk to me.  He connected me with Billing
and the person there asked me if I recently had purchased Linden dollars on e-bay.  I told him I didn’t, that I make enough Lindens in-world to cover all my expenses.  He said that probably somebody had paid me with illegally achieved lindens and finally he enabled my account again.
All IM, notecards and items send to me while my account was disabled were never recieved.
It was a frightning day and it seriously damaged my trust in LL.  I run a high traffic sim and that it is so easy to get my account disabled without even caring to enable it again is very scary.  It doesn’t show any concern towards me or my business.

Two days ago (07/13/2007) Stivie Jewell contacted me.  He invited me to the Yuka shoe store saying they too were selling copies of my designs, wich of course wasn’t true.
He said that now he has a program called Dopestyle to make 99% perfect copies, wich wasn’t the case with the ones he made prim by prim. 
Then he offered friendship and said he wouldn’t copy no more of my shoes.  But then he said that it was no use to ban him from my store cause he uses an alt to make the copies.
I asked if he knew I filed a DMCA against him.  He replied that it would never work as he is from Los Angeles.  He said a Linden told him not to worry about it.
He may be lying about what a Linden may have said but it suits the situation.
So far I haven’t got any response on the DMCA, it’s been more than 3 weeks.. Stivie already changed the name and location of his business..
I contacted Concierge Livechat 5 days ago and they said I should email my concerns regarding this to abusemanager.  Wich i did on 07/10/2007 but again, no reply.

All this gives me the feeling that there may be a Linden that for some reason doesn’t like me, and is working against me.
I have invested more than a year of my life in this virtual adventure, almost every day at work online for many hours.  And this not only to benefit myself, I think I may say that I have spend a lot of time and effort in helping others and contributing to the community. 
Secondlife and enkythings have become very important to me.  And now I’m afraid it may all be in vain.  I am very scared that other of my designs will be copied by Stivie and his Dopstyle program, and that if I ever am able to get them taken down by a DMCA they will be released by an alt full permissions to damage me.

Secondlife used to be fun and magic, and the wonderfull promise of being able to run a small business here as a designer.  At this moment I don’t feel that excited anymore.. why am I treated like this?  I feel it in my stomach.. even difficult to sleep..
I still have the courage to go on and to contribute in this great new world but I so hope it doesn’t turn into a nightmare for me.
Would you please be so kind to look into this situation? There’s still no real harm done and it would be very nice if I could leave all these worries behind me.

Thank you,
Enktan"

I start to search the forums regarding ignored DMCA, to find someone who was in the same situation and after contacting her she gave me the email address of the copyright agent.

5) 08/02/07 – I send an email to copyrightagent@lindenlab.com: After one hour I got a reply. No questions answered but saying they would investigate my DMCA. And indeed on 08/07/07 I got the message that in compliance with the DMCA they have ‘expeditiously’ removed the copied works. The next day Stivie Jewell placed the removed works again in his store. I contact Concierge Livechat and they say I have to file a new DMCA.

6) 08/10/07 – I file a new DMCA Notification: On 08/18/07 I got the reply that in compliance with the DMCA they have expeditiously removed the copied works. The same day Stivie Jewell places the removed works again in his store.

7) 08/18/07 – I file a third DMCA Notification: No reply so far. The copied works are still for sale.

Lindens, where have you gone?

by Tenshi Vielle, Fabulous Fashionista

I’ve been rather annoyed with Time magazine the past few days. Icracked open an issue to read the interview with Drew Carey, and thenseveral pages in I was assaulted with an article about Second Life -illustrated by some horrible mash up of a Second Life screen shot and over sized human beings, cut out and pasted together like a third gradeart project.

Alas,the picture was the least of my issues. The largest issue was thatwithin the first paragraph of the article, like so many others thathave been published recently -  started off with the negativity andjust kept right on going. (Note: All quotes are from the original article. My thoughts follow.)

"Reality is catching up with Second Life, the much hyped 3-D websitethat lets users create alter egos called avatars who can walk, chat,fly, have sex and buy and sell virtual stuff for real money."

Thereyou have my problem with the whole article right there. Instead ofstaying with the neutral platform, the first sentence proclaims thatyou can have sex in second life. I’m not saying you can’t. I’m just saying that out of the base functions of Second Life, the things this game was built with – sex isn’t one of those functions.

Walk,chat, fly, buy, sell – those are base functions. The sex came inlater, after people who could build realized that you really COULDmanipulate your avatar into nearly anything you wished, to do anythingyou wished. Second Life was subjected to a virtual Pandora’s Box byallowing anything to be created.

Thus, we also have childpornography running on the grid in some underground sectors. Is thatLinden Lab’s fault? No. So stop blaming them. The grid growth hasgotten out of control. They didn’t plan for this size, and I’m notquite sure any of them thought their users would be so twisted enoughto upload pictures of six year olds in coitus. I haven’t seen thosepictures, and I hope I never do. I hope those assholes are arrested forsuch a thing. Again – I don’t think Linden Lab should have to be responsible for the creation of those items – only the removal of the offending material and the users attached.

"[...]but the site’s failure to live up to expectations is serious business."

Whatexpectations? What exactly are you talking about? You mean you couldn’tfigure out how to get the box off of your head? Way to go, congratulations on being another small-minded user. Second Life, as faras I know, began as a basically unknown covert operation until theywent public. They didn’t go ahead and make all kinds of crazycommercials on television, nor did they set the bar higher than theycould reach. The users set the bar for Linden Lab, and right now,Linden Lab is having a little bit of trouble keeping up. Patience isnot a virtue in Second Life. Patience simply doesn’t exist.

"Amid low traffic and raunchy behavior, American Apparel and StarwoodHotels are a couple of the big brands that have pulled out of SecondLife recently."

I’m not even touching that one.

I do NOT believe that high-endreporters should sign into second life for an hour or two, fail tobother to learn the controls, walk around and behave like idioticnewbies, and then sign off forevermore and write a national newsarticle about it. That’s not good journalism. That’s disgusting.

"(I spent my first hour on Second Life wearing both sneakers and highheels because I couldn’t figure out how to discard one pair. And yes, Ipassed Computer Science 101.)"

Computerscience 101 doesn’t have a thing to do with how Second Life isprogrammed and run, sweetheart. Computer Science 101 teaches you what amotherboard is and how to turn that funny little box on that blinks andpurrs and  lets you send your E-boyfriend an email occasionally.Computer Science 101 does not, however, teach you how to use MicrosoftExcel, Photoshop, Maya, or even Second Life. Those are different thingsyou have to learn on your own. How foolish of a thing to say.

Honestly,guys, I’m not quite sure why I’m venting about this on the Herald, butI sure as all heck had to vent. I felt this article to be horriblymisinformed and disgustingly orchestrated.

Way to go, Time. You just lost a reader.