NSA, Google, and Games

Within the SL Blogospher several people are writing about the NSA listening to players in Second Life™ and other games like World of Warcraft™. Well, they are listening to our phones, reading our emails, tracking our Internet use (notice how often Google comes up in the results) and tracking our GPS locations. It should be no surprise that they are inside our games and listening to  us.

I’ll paint you the really dark picture of what is most likely happening.

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The security teams are looking for any way that terrorists and bad guys can communicate. If that was all the information was used for, it would not be a problem. But, they are limited by law in the USA and they are breaking it. If they are willing to break one law for a supposed good reason, they will have little if any resistance to breaking others for what they consider good reasons. But, they are still breaking the law, something politically active citizens shape.  Continue reading

Climate Change

There is no doubt the climate is changing. The problem is which climate science is being published and provided to people. Without a complete story people cannot decide whether to prepare for increasingly hotter or colder weather nor can they tell which politicians are lying with an agenda in mind. Will you be supporting ideas and taxes that help you or enrich politicians and their friends?

Volcanoes

Consider. Recent reports of 2013 volcanic eruptions show 80+ eruptions this year. The average range of eruptions is 50 to 60 per year. 2013 has seen about a 50% increase.

Each eruption throws millions of tons of ash and gases into the atmosphere.  That mean more reflective particulate matter, a big concern in the late 70’s when everyone thought we were going to freeze to death from a coming ice age due to manmade particulates in the atmosphere. The USA’s EPA was formed to correct the problem and done an amazingly good job of achieving that goal within the USA.

But, one volcano can release several times more material in a day or even hours than humans can release in a decade, even at 70’s pollution rates.

Sulfur Dioxide is a common gas released by volcanoes. It is highly reflective when it forms an aerosol compound in the stratosphere.

All this means that we will likely see a 2C drop in global temperatures from 2013 volcanoes. How long will such a drop last? When Mt. Penatubo erupted in 1992 it dropped global temperatures 0.6C – 1.5F for 2 years depending on one’s information source and other effects lasted for years. That was just one big volcano.

Have you seen any of this 2013 information reported? Continue reading

Fun April Fools Stuff

Rabbit

There is a Second Life Easter-April-Fools trick going around. Thank you to Outfits and a feature of the SL chat. Type this into chat: [secondlife:///app/wear_folder/?folder_id=bedd047e-a3d7-23e6-57bc-1ef367d848e7 HAPPY EASTER!]

Not Exactly an Easter Egg

Not Exactly an Easter Egg

Include the [ ] too. Then click the link that appears in chat. It takes a minute for things to happen. Don’t abuse the trick.

Change to another Outfit to get out of the Easter Rabbit.

Google Nose

In your browser, head over to Google Nose. This is a new feature of Google search that supposedly allows you to search for scents. It will also allow you to smell scents via your computer.

Twitter

Twitter announced today that they will disallow the use of vowels in tweets.

Virgin Atlantic

Virgin Atlantic announced today they will be adding glass bottom airplanes to their fleet.  Continue reading