Shove it down my throat, why don't you?

Judging by my accent, which is an odd mix of Kansan, Oklahoman, Dutch, Brummie and a touch of deep-southern US thrown together, you would never guess that I am not from the United States. I call that country, for the time being at least, my home, but it's not my home (so to speak). When you first set foot in SL, you probably weren't thinking too much about the fact that you were about to meet people from all walks, many different generations, and all corners of the globe (the latter being technically speaking impossible since a globe doesn't have any corners).

The other day I was at an event at Linri's Palace. I was probably not in the best of moods to start with, and poor DJ Winston got to carry to the burden of me becoming violently upset over something that, in hindsight, probably wasn't all that important. Looking back on it I realize that I should not have attacked him like I did. It did however (once I calmed down) give me a chance to reflect on some of the intricate intercultural socialization (wow that was a mouth full!) that happens in SL.

Even though Second Life brings together the planet in a way that was previously unheard of, the celebrations that we share seem to be heavily biased towards the North American calendar. At least, that's how it seems to be, but in all honesty that could be because I like to spend my time with people who I have a language in common with and the fact that I am in the same time zone (roughly anyway). But let us for a moment just use my observation as the working assumption... For the sake of argument.

There are two American celebrations that I, for reasons entirely personal, have a big problem with. Those two are Veterans Day (the cause of my argument with Winston) and Thanksgiving. There are others that don't have any meaning to me whatsoever, but they simply don't bother me as much. Veterans Day celebrates the lives (and losses) of US soldiers. It is my firm believe that none of the conflicts, starting after WWII, the Unites States engaged itself in, were warranted. So to honor the soldiers fighting in those theaters, is awkward for me to say the least. I fully understand that not everyone is going to agree with me on that, and if you want to honor your (fallen) "heroes", be my guest. But please do it in a way that actually honors them. Closing the post office and sticking toy flags in your lawn is not the way to go about it! If 80 percent of the nation goes about their business as if nothing ever happened, you are not properly (as a nation) celebrating those that "fight for your freedom".

But let's get back to SL. If the crowd is so international, how come the celebrations are so one-sided? Why is it that a club, with a Japanese decor even celebrates Veterans Day? Doesn't that just seem a little bit ironic? We honor the service men of WWII in a setting that borrows its decorations from a culture that attacked the US in Pearl Harbor?

So I am very vocal about what I think is right (or not). You probably don't agree, and that is good! But all of a sudden I understand how people must feel when they get something rammed down their esophagus. You know, the Jewish kid who, every December is made to listen to the stories about Jesus Christ... The pacifist that is made to observe 11 minutes of silence at work, even though he (or she) is against the violence that goes on in wars...

If, as an international, intercultural society, which is SL we want to have a future, we have to be more thoughtful of the people around us. That maybe means we have to let go of certain rituals and embrace others. Maybe we have to stop celebrating Christmas and instead adopt Kwanzaa. Better yet, we need to create our own celebrations. Those that are not tied to a certain nation or a certain belief, but instead celebrate the life, the culture, the people that make up the new society that we are part of. We owe it to the (in)world that we inhabit.

I win I win I win!!

Feenix is having a possitive affect/effect on me. Today I won the "race that stops the nation". Had I betted I would have been 120 dollars and 59 cents richer then I was before.

The Melbourne cup is the biggest horse race in Australia. People go goo-goo over it. To me it's just a bunch of animals that would be better served being in front of a plow, but ever since we mechanized those things I guess that the only way for a horse to not end up on a sandwich is to... RUN!!! I know nothing about horse racing, absolutely NOTHING. So when someone asked me which horses I'd pick I jokingly said: Shocking

Then they asked me to pick another name, for the long shot. I looked over the list and "Nothing Leica Cat" was already out of the race, so instead I (randomly) picked "Crime Scene". I thought it was kinda fitting that if Shocking was my number one pick, Crime Scene would be second. Well today whatever God you subscribe to smiled on me. In the order above, my picks came in. Shocking won and Crime Scene came in second.

Should have placed a bet, but... I win the race! My picks came in First and Second. Take that that you fools! Next year I will bet on "Purple Toothpaste".

Technology, or lack thereof...

This post was entitled "Crap!" but at the last moment I changed my mind.

I love it when technology just works. I just successfully sat here and watched my PC clock flip from 1.59 AM to 1.00 AM. Simultaneously my Mac did the same thing. All I had to do was sit there! It was a thing of geekly beauty. What bothers me then to no end, is that with all the machinery in the world, we can't seem to create an SL experience that is seamless.

Linden Labs has a few data centers that aren't anything to sneeze at. Yet, as 1.59 is quickly approaching a second time (an event that can only be witnessed once a year) in one hour, my AV has not fully rezzed yet. Oh and I already did three rebakes!

From a technical perspective, although I don't claim to understand how the SL viewer works, it shouldn't be that difficult. It is of course highly likely that me thinking it shouldn't be that difficult is exactly because I don't understand how the SL viewer works. But it occurs to me that the rendering engine of SL needs some work. Say... my upper body is gray, it stays that way until I change my shirt, in which case my torso is all of a sudden, as if by magic, rezzed in...

Again, I don't know the innards of the SL viewer, but I do happen to understand how data-communication works. And from that little experience I would have to conclude that somehow a message traveling between LL and my computer got dropped and neither machine is any the wiser. That being the case, I would have to conclude poor error handling. The other day, I saw Linri's boobs! She swears she had a shirt on and none of the other patrons at the Palace corroborated my experience. Mind you I am not complaining, the lady in question is not entirely unattractive so there is an upshot to all these glitches at times.

But lets think about this. Linri's computer sends a message to LL. The message being "I am wearing a shirt". LL responds "OK, you are wearing a shirt". Then my computer comes in and asks LL a question. That question being "What is Linri wearing?"

The computer sitting in the LL data center is a) ignoring my question or b) giving me the wrong answer! Before you ask, this wasn't a case of clothes not being rezzed yet, I actually saw boobage! The litmus test for this one is always "Do you see nipples?" And why is it, while we are at it, that the minimum configuration for running SL are so insanely high? Specifically, the graphics card!

SL uses a graphics rendering engine that is fairly unsophisticated. When I say unsophisticated, I don't mean bad, but's let's face it, it's nothing compared to some video games, which incidentally run fine on machines that the SL viewer can't even be started on. In my current household I am running FOUR different versions of the SL viewer. My netbook runs the Cool SL Viewer, on my laptop I run the SnowGlobe release, on my desktop PC I run the official release, and on my Mini I run the official Mac release.

Not surprisingly, the Mac does best... It has a wicked video card! On the Windows side, the two machines that do best run unofficial releases. One (Cool SL viewer) not even produced by LL! It's pretty sad that a third party can create a better experience than LL themselves, On less hardware no less...