Second Life’s 32-Bit Viewers

by

The Lab and most other viewer authors are building 32-bit programs. We are seeing more people building 64-bit viewers. The Lab has yet to move that direction with their Second Life™ Viewer. The stats coming out of the Lab show that 64-bit versions are way more stable or in plain English; crash less often.

Lifeguard Kwai
Lifeguard Kwai by Bernard Broono, on Flickr

The game PlanetSide 2 is discontinuing support for 32-bit systems. Specifically their new version of the game will only run in a 64-bit operating system. Massively OP mentions it in their article: Planetside 2 Discontinues Support For 32-Bit Client. The game managers realize some people will be locked out of the game. From there stats it is ‘a very few people.’ Management presumably feels keeping up with technology is worth the cost of losing a small number of users. 

Read more

Manipulated: the Defense in Your Mind

by

Canary Beck points us to an article by Auryn Beorn: Defend yourself from manipulators. It is interesting that this pops up now. A friend of mine just pointed me to The Federalist’s article by Stella Morabito titled How To Escape The Age Of Mass Delusion a day or so ago. Both of these writers are working with the presupposition that people are manipulating us. I’ll expand on that later.

Bobby and the Aversion Therapist
Bobby and the Aversion Therapist by Robert Goldstein, on Flickr

Auryn starts off with entitlement. Auryn describes the entitlement people I have a problem with exactly as I see them. The TL:DR is give an inch and they’ll take a mile, cause you owe them. 

Read more

Second Life Chat & Abuse

by

Massively OverPowered has an article by Editor-in-Chief Bree Royce titled: Why MMORPG’s Still Need Traditional Chat. The article is about the problems of jerks annoying people in global chat. We have our share of those people in Second Life.

Je suis Charlie..
Je suis Charlie.. by VOIDAR // Ashley Carter, on Flickr

I find the article interesting because I think it reflects what is going on in RL. Chat in virtual worlds is different. But, it is still humans conversing. Humans may feel they can get away with more in anonymous chat. But, their basic behavior and thinking does not change at login.

Nor do our solutions for these problems in virtual worlds differ from what we propose and experiment with in RL. People in games seem to be learning that the final step in the progression of language restrictions and attempts to control abuse is removal of the ‘global’ chat system. In RL we are imposing restrictions on Hate Speech just as we try to restrict it in game worlds. It doesn’t work in either place. In both places all forms of conversation are injured.

In RL it gives governments and bureaucrats control of what is said. In games it is moderators that have the last say. Bree’s take is that life is better with messy annoying chat than without it.

Making Better Use of Facebook

by

Many of us in Second Life™ run businesses and some of us also run RL businesses… ummm… that means businesses  not in SL. I suppose whether a business is in SL or not, the business is real. Whatever, I came across this article on making better use of Facebook to promote your ideas, products, services, whatever…

See: How to Improve Your Facebook News Feed Visibility

Embryonic-3 : Mecha-Amonite II
Embryonic-3 : Mecha-Amonite II by Nebraska Oddfish, on Flickr

For bloggers in Second Life, or anywhere I guess, there is the problem of how Facebook is reacting to comments on linked-to sites. Having comments on in my blog drops my points with Facebook.  They are less likely to extend my reach, or in simple words… they will show my stuff to fewer people.

As the article points out, you can have comments on your site. But, if you can encourage visitors to comment on Facebook, your reach will increase. It isn’t so much that you have comments that is the problem for Facebook. It is that Facebook responds positively to people commenting on your links on Facebook.

So, whether you are selling something or just trying to increase your popularity, there are good and bad ways to do that with social media.

Second Life Bits

by

Land

Second Life™ has a valuable virtual real estate market. Yet, SL is not the only virtual world with real estate issues. ArcheAge is coming up on a new land rush and the problems of players losing existing land holdings.

lostdreams11
lostdreams11 by Sannita Cortes, on Flickr

In SL we often hear ‘the rent is too damn high’ exclaimed. I’m one that disagrees and believes the free market gives people control of what they pay or receive and most equitably distributes land and sets prices.

Read more

Net Neutrality: Curbing Free Speech

by

Many in Second Life™ were and are pro Net Neutrality. The ideas associated with the words Net Neutrality are noble sounding but dig in and you find they are out of touch with the reality of the laws being passed and basic economics.

(image gone…) Bound III by Sacha Audeburgh, on Flickr

In America we are seeing the US State Dept. making the first rules to kill free speech on the Internet and turn it into Government Approved Speech ONLY. Of course, they have chosen an emotional issue many liberals can get behind: gun control. Is it OK to ban this type of speech? I suspect many liberals will think so. They are banning hate speech, the first step and that OK with many, now gun related speech, don’t you wonder what is next? Obviously free speech is going away, if we allow this trend to continue. 

Read more