Weddings, Pron, and Funerals

Last night all kinds of geekworld friends and acquaintances were IM'ing me and telling me how groovaz and kewl the new streaming media thingie was.

Meanwhile, I was hunkering down with my customers as usual, and we weren't able to install the new streaming groovay thingie on some sims (all sims?) because the texturemajig was not working. You couldn't get it to put in that texture, so that it could then be replaced by the URL with the streaming media. Yes, we read the menus. Some of my tenants are from geekworld so they are reinforced from any idiocy I may show in this regard. It just didn't work. Maybe it will work tomorrow.

But after answering an IM from a particularly entrepreneurial friend who wanted to know if I knew of any free porn sites he could stream in, I began to think it was the same old thing.

I know we are supposed to find all kinds of neat applications of this new media. And I know people are already grousing that it will all be porn. It doesn't bother me if it will all be porn, I figure you can walk around the robots as always in this game.

But I do challenge all the breathlessness.

The biggest application I see of this new media is for weddings and porn, those two extremes of the lurve spectrum, if you will. Many people spend a lot of money on wedding gowns and weddings in the game, and they will spend on getting videos of their wedding event, which is a big occasion they plan for months sometimes.

It's hard to understand how SL-based movies will take hold, given all the crashing and whatnot, and the fact the sims don't have expressions on their faces. Some people have gotten particularly good at doing their gestures, but I find that even after six months, I never toggle gestures because I have to hunt for them and pull them down and it is too much trouble.

Sync dancing in clubs is another thing that movie-makers might enjoy filming.

Bringing in movies into SL does beg the question: if I want to watch Roseanne, while curl up in my laggy house with griefer neighbours and crash off the sim periodically, I can sit in my non-laggy RL house that at least has a can of Coke in the fridge and watch Roseanne.

I know everybody is bustling self-importantly with stories about how "the gummint" "educational institutions" blah are all going to use this fantastic new tool. I guess I can't help thinking of a story I know of a teacher who tried to use the Sims in her classroom for developmentally-delayed children, and just got a wall of misunderstanding from the management. It's a game, and people know it's a game, and you're not going to fake them out by jollying them along with your notion that it is "educational".

When the camera was first invented, when the first instant photos appeared, when the Internet appeared, there was also all kinds of fanfare about how it was educational and revolutionary and stuff, but in the end, it's just ordinary people making use of a more democratically accessible technology for recording their weddings and their pron, which is what they want to do basically, not get educated or help the gummint achieve some vasty unaccountable goal.

Anybody who won't take those human realities into account will be seeing this new technology cover funerals, not weddings.

So one person brings up streaming porn and you have now made up your mind that it's "the same old thing"?

Why do you hate it when other people get excited about anything at all? Misery loves company I suppose.

My god man, just do your thing and quit whining about other people being happy Eeyore. If you really can't stand that other folks are happy, go play Sim City or something and leave the rest of us alone.

Just because you are incapable of happiness, that doesn't mean you have to constantly barrage the rest us with your malcontented nonsense.

*Turns on 4 lights* How many lights do you see Prokofy? Let me guess, 3...

That's a good laugh LOL. Great one. I love thistles.

Nolan, this is a philosophical discussion and I'm raising generic issues to think about over the millenia. Don't make it personal and think it's about my negative persona lol. It's just a debate point.

Seems like there'd be lots of practical uses, if you ignore a little thing called Copyright Violation. Like, you could throw an event where you screen a movie. This would be a great way to show off some independant or foreign film. Or just get people together to watch your favorite illegal DVD rip.

Well, I already do that in RL though after my son gets back from the 27th floor of our RL building where there is some kind of "hot spot" and where he is using his wireless IMAC fast illegal DVD downloader. Then we all gather around the white laptop screen and watch a little bit of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" but then remember why we didn't pay to go see that movie when it first came out, nor did we turn it on when it came on TV....plus the feds could be busting in the door any moment and arresting us for illegal downloads.

So again, why would I sit in laggy crashy SL with asshats who will grief and laugh and talk in room chat and drive everyone nuts etc to watch a movie.

It might be perfect for the Rocky Horror Show set. We could all bring Toy's Rain, and turn on Toy's Rain at the strategic point in the movie when you have to get rain and umbrellas and stuff LOL.

prok we talked about this inworld. it takes time for people to assimilate new technology. for example look what you do - you make virtual surburban rentals. is that a revolutionary use of technology that can stream infinite cariety of forms textures and colours scripted to move appear and disappear and interact with remote users?

the first content of new media is old media. it takes time for people to really assimilate the technology and go with it. that's why there is a teen grid. because all of us old people, we will just make cars, jewelry and suburban homes.

i don't even understand why you are complaining about new options in SL. you don't have to use them all if you don't like them. focus on the land tools and you'll see there are some amazing changes that might make your enterprise more sustainable!

JWu, it takes time for new technology to work right, so people need to be less breathless about it. It is always buggy and annoying for the average user so there just needs to be less "ooh shiny" stuff adulating around it.

Yeah, it's cool making virtual suburban rentals on a server. I like playing store and my tenants like playing house. It's fun. But we can do that with my dolls and my analog doll house too when SL is down. I guess I just don't get all ga-ga about new technology.

I imagine the teen grid is just going to make vehicles, weapons, and bling, JW. Yes, we might make cars, skins, and homes, but they will do the same boring predictable stuff too, let's not glamourize them.

It's always important for Prok to complain about each and every thing that comes into SL precisely because there is a tidal wave of feting and beting and crap always surrounding it and all sorts of "luv hugz" and stuff. The role of the dissident is an important one in any society. You should read more Dostoyevsky. You need to puncture all the pretentious balloons. I'm pricking them JW. The streaming media thingie didn't work. And when it works, eh, feh, me, so what? Like I can't just watch Roseanne in RL without crash-loggers and griefers in my puss?

Honestly, it's not personal. It's not like you have to cry hurtfully "well if you don't like it don't use it so there naaah". I have to challenge all these tekki thingies because everybody *always* gives them a pass and I find that they *always* waste just as much time as they save, and when they innovate, they degenerate too. Something is always lost when something is gained. What feature of our world will it be this time?

what is your point exactly prok? that LL should stop improving the secondlife engine and stop making more versatility of "game play" because it's all pointless? is it you ambition that SL remain completely static so that in about 3 months we all get bored and never log in again? that the unknown possibilites of any human endeavor never be realized because the unknown is scary, unpredictable, or difficult to arrive at?

new options can be celebrated while simultaneously being critical of their shortcomings. right now the media option crashes my client. but i still love it. i love the idea of it. and i will keep sending in crash reports and bug reports until it works on my computer.

What's important is that LL do what it's going to go on doing anyway -- like I'm going to stop them lol? and that the feted go on saying "ooh shiny" but that somebody like me be there to say "feh".

Why? Because geeks think that because they are somehow "odd" or "cutting edge" or "different" or whatever their self-image is in RL society that they get a pass from any criticism about how they have become hopelessly conservative and hopelessly status quo ante. It's important that someone just show up and say, um, you know what? That thing doesn't work. And when it works, feh.

I am not at all afraid of any technology, and that is why I completely debunk it every time it comes around with a "feh" and a Missouri show-me attitude. I think that is quite the right attitude to take toward something that has stripped away so much of our old civility and humanity and just given us a new way to wound and kill each other, and now virtually, and now more deeply in our cyber-souls. You don't have to be a Luddite to just have a bit of a "feh" attitude to all this new crap that in fact merely slows down the game, makes it hard to log in, and isn't of immediate value to quite a few.

Most of the time I learn to use that new technology pretty well and just shortcut around all the geeky language and silliness and show-off stuff and just learn a few rote procedures for how to manipulate it. And I am utterly sanguine about it when it doesn't work and I never stare off into the middle distance and start bantering around phrases like "server side" and "client side" to explain the obvious, that the SL servers are over loaded and don't work. And given all the money we and they spend, they should work better.

Like I can't upload a new texture with something I wrote on it for a survey. That's annoying. I can't do the old ordinary game thing because the servers are groaning under the load of doing the new shiney game thing.

I might add that Philip has complained about all those trillions of textures that people are hoarding on their inventories so I, for one, am going to hold an event tonight called TEXTURE SACRIFICE and I want you all to assemble at the Aztec Temple and delete all your unwanted and unneeded textures so we can purgate the server and help it do this new shiny stuff.

No? Am I wrong?

yeah, i think you are wrong. i also think your time would be better spent knitting or playing hopscotch if you have such disdain for technology. if you do follow my advice, i'll buy your m land under the dam for 5/m

I should go to the teen grid so as to see a version of Second Life that is not a tired copy of real life? Sounds interesting....

Why would I do boring crap like knitting when using technology, but with a healthy, healthy dose of skepticism and absolute sanguinity about its "ooh shiny" features, is more fun?

OH, now it's down to $5? Bah, you are lowballing me.

This is my own personal Linden-built club. It's that one refuge I have in the game where I can retire from my battles with the FIC and know that secretly, the Lindens love me best because they let me buy this land

It's probably a mistake but they can't undo it now without calling into question property relations and values for millions of customers muahahahah.

SO no it is not for sale!

P.S. Would you like to build something in it? I think I will have a contest.

One of the problems with SL is that Philip wants to keep it contigous, so it's difficult to move away from the "game" reputation.

Ie, I can't private-label the world, which is a shame, because I can't seriously market the SecondLife engine to anyone as they'd do a few minutes research and they'd end up thinking it's just a silly game.

This is NOT a philosophical discussion. This is you complaining, yet again, because everyone else has a different plan for the future of SL.

Um, who is that "everyone else," Ardith? You and a few beta'ed, feted friends? Huh? There is no "everyone else". It's a pretty big game now. There are all kinds of viewpoints. Some people spend a lot of money on this game and never waste a minute of their time on these forums and they are beyond you and me in terms of listening to the realities of the game market and making decisions based on it. They have connections to SL that you couldn't dream of, and they will overtake the village artisans circle and leave it far behind. I'm sorry, but your claims of speaking "for everyone" are woefully deluded. You just don't. Nor do I. It is so much bigger than any of us, and the vision that Philip has of "a million" with all kinds of WWW aspirations and RL investors will mean that no one can make that claim of "having a different plan for the future of SL" because the people with the power to implement a "different plan for the future of SL" are either not here yet, or not visible yet. Honestly, the provincialism and parochialism of this discussion constantly reminds me that I am not having an urban experience. I had gotten so used to the Internet largely being an urban experience that I have to constantly readjust my lenses whenever I log into this very small-town-minded game.

The most terrifying revelation in this thread is that Prokofy has, in fact, reproduced

That seems rather mean-spirited Cristiano. I have kids in RL and that is somehow a horror to you? The idea that a hated forum poster might have a completely different RL as a parent? If anything, that shouldn't be a terrifying revelation, but a cautionary note that forum wars are just wars in a game, and people have RL families and activities far from the game that are a completely different dimension to them and are a reminder that you should not treat people so cruelly on these forums. Prokofy didn't reproduce in SL, and my RL son's avatars in other games are completely separate from me and SL and shouldn't be a topic of discussion. I merely cited him and his DVD downloading experience as a RL example of why you don't need movies in SL, you can get them in RL lot. Like a lot of other SL stuff that seems overrated, that you can get in RL too LOL.

Im thinking someone had their wheaties peed in this morning

It wouldn't be me because I don't eat Wheaties, I eat Cheerios, and they seemed their usually cheerful self, free of pee : )

I do want to point out, forum moderators, that it is OK to express horror about my RL children's appearance on this earth, and imply that I have pee for breakfast instead of milk, but hey, I'm the one accused always of "spewing negativity" on older players and "hurting the community".

Huh?

I want to question why streaming media is considered such a big deal when a) it isn't working so hot (me and other players with crash/lockup issues are even being asked to turn it off LOL) and b) you can get it in RL. I know everyone thinks it is the thing that will mesh RL and SL together. I guess I'm not so certain that is true, or a good idea. So it is a philosphical debate to be had without references to reproduction, urination, and other RL functions, thank you.

hmmmmm, I dont remember mentioning any names

Oh Prokofy lighten up - you can certainly dish it out but then cry foul at the drop of a hat. The terrifying thought is you passing on your irritatingly verbose personality to a future generation. You have hardly been treated cruelly in these forums, Prokofy, and you are the last person who should give out any reminders on decorum.

I know you have a received wisdom and have have spewed venom on the forums. Find me an example of a personally-delivered nasty like that to another person, bringing up their family or something. You won't find it. I make sharp commentary about patterns of behaviour and classes of people. I might even call them fuckyou hedonists or hectoring fucktards or who knows what as a group or as a pattern of behaviour. But I don't call individuals those names first. I am still here. I will give out reminders on decorum because I think it is important to have these discussions be about ideas and not about individual people, but individual people always take umbrage, take offense as if I have dissed their rep in some mafiosi society, and behave like we're in some small-town drama. But it's not personal. If the shoe fits for them, wear it.

I can agree that 'sharp commentary' is a good thing at times. Constant negativism is a bit much.... You apprently dislike almost everything about SL. I see almost no positive posts by you.

I personally would never submit myself to something I abhor.

In the legendary words of Marie Antoinette when she was told the peasants had no bread to eat: "Let them eat cake!".

The point I like to make is that there are members of SL that have it easier than the rest - whether through connections, charter perks, or deep insight of SL's inner mechanisms - and members like Prokofy are waiting there with the guillotine lest the needs of the more common folk are forgotten, or worse, misunderstood by those who have the ability to produce change.

While streaming media has a certain cool factor, I would have preferred to see improvements in other areas of SL, myself. Zoning, inventory accountability, better event tools.