patrick.net

ROFL!!!

I want to be a virtual religion cult leader!

Oh my freaking virtual Buddha!

Buy soon because they're not making any more virtual land!

You know what Randy? For a long time I thought you were a credible, rational economist. But this rant finally exposes you as a jaded, bitter reality-lover. Why are you clinging so tightly to the "real" world? Get unplugged man! Having a virtual life is a spectacular lifestyle investment--I can't tell you how much better everything becomes when you can make yourself the way you were really meant to be. People are making real money in the Second Life economy. Heck, it's kind of like a stylish version of the 60's, with free love and some wicked cool trips. And what's with you riding people about the legitimate business around visual stimulation? Look, it's the oldest profession. I'll keep paying for it until they invent some virtual transmissible diseases!

Look, real estate is restricted everywhere. They aren't making any more virtual land! Well, okay, they kind of are, but land creation is tightly controlled by Linden Labs. With so many new users arriving every month, supply is tight and the prices have to keep going up. It's sort of like California with all the new immigrants keeping the prices level.

Seriously man, it's completely insulting that you keep calling it a Ponzi scheme. Just because you couldn't manipulate the markets in the virtual economy is no reason to trash the rest of us. We're making money and loving every second of it.

And frankly, I'm really curious to know what kind of extra "perks" these Coldwell realtors will be offering in Second Life. Buying property there just might end up being your dream experience with a realtor... in more ways than one!!!

P.S. Anyone who thinks my above post is anything but pure mockery, please Google "satire" and "sarcasm".

Brand,

Thanks, made my day :)

Brand,

Yeah, I'm looking forward to these virt-whores too.

Glad to hear it. :)

I have sometimes wondered if Second Life is like the mob-run Vegas at the end of its era. Legitimate businesses are piling in quickly. Eventually that means the business environment will have to clean up its act. Maybe a "bank" can scam a couple players, but if you screw with Coldwell Banker or IBM, you would be facing some serious legal firepower. The currency market will have to stabilize with real rules and the big companies will start forcing real-world laws on Linden Labs.

I doubt that IBM wants their virtual office next to a brothel, and I doubt they want their employees roaming a virtual red light district on their lunch hour. Since it's mostly just advertising dollars, I do wonder how some companies are tackling the metaverse.

"Buy a ThinkPad with the new 512MB nVidia 3D Metaverse engine with advanced fleshtone rendering. Why see your favorite escort in anything less than lush polygon smoothed glory? Lace looks like lace, and the leather renders so real that you can almost smell it. Hear that riding crop crack in new 7.1 Viiv-compliant surround sound! Unlimited customer support for 3 years. Comprehensive servicing contracts are available for both you and your new laptop!*"

* IBM subcontracts certain "servicing agreements" to gold medallion partners. While IBM makes every effort to verify the quality and reliability of all subcontract services, it does not guarantee the fitness of these services for any given purpose, including but not limited to all the filthy things you perverts usually do in Second Life.

ThinkPad is a registered trademark of International Business Machines.

tOs

If you're referring to moderated comments, this blog has long used a keyword spam filter which causes many otherwise seemingly normal posts to go into moderation hell. It's about impossible to sift through spam and find legit comments. There are thousands per day.

My advice is:

- Write your longer posts in notepad.
- Copy / paste them into here.
- If you see the "awaiting moderation" flag, then try modifying and posting again.

Example: Social1st will pass, the proper spelling won't. Similar with \/iagra.

The benevolence runneth over. And here for all this time I was just a cynic.

“Rather than having to negotiate for top dollar with Second Life ‘land barons,’ users can visit our virtual office and interact with our virtual sales associate to buy homes from Coldwell Banker at reasonable rates,” Young continued. “Ironically, Colbert Coldwell, and later Benjamin Banker, founded our company after seeing similar practices in 1906 San Francisco. Coldwell Banker was founded just 18 weeks after the earthquake largely because our founders saw the need for ethics and integrity in assisting victims of the devastation who were being preyed upon by unsavory businesspeople. We want to do the same thing in Second Life: give residents the opportunity to participate in fair and reasonable real estate transactions."

That suggests there is economic advantage for Linden Labs to create natural disasters. :)

The best is the image Terra Nova used for their article on this: a "furry" standing with rifle in hand under fluttering Coldwell Banker banners.

For anyone who doesn't know what a "furry" is, just imagine your worst fears about the depravity of man, then assume you're a wild eyed optimist.

So if people have weapons in Second Life, does that imply that you could storm Coldwell Banker HQ? That would be an awesome quest in World of Warcraft, perhaps enough to get me to sign up and play.

"The insolent Realtors of Fortress Sunnyvale have transpired many betrayals against the hapless peasants. The great King Ahnnold has denied a bailout for the masses... but there are heroes who would assault the impenetrable halls to gain back their honor! Are you one such hero?"

alien,

I cannot fathom a pay grade high enough to deal with the sort of SLers on a day to day basis...not even Bob Nardelli's old gig

I still maintain the big virtual bucks lie on finding a messiac cult, centered on believers giving me all their worldly possessions so they can really get into their second life.

alien,

Perhaps I should apply. They'd get a grand laugh out of that.

From the job description:

Many are making their living by creating content and selling services using our virtual currency, the Linden Dollar. The L$ economy is by far the fastest growing economy on the (real world) planet. As a virtual global micro currency the L$ is traded on the LindeX. Last month more than $5m USD worth of L$ were bought and sold, up from about a million USD worth of L$ just six months ago. If we're successful what we're building will become the platform for all 3 dimensional communications on the Internet.

My first order of business as the new VP of Customer Relations would be to quit peddling that line of bullshit. (Or at least come clean that the $5m USD worth of L$ "traded" included a couple million we printed and sold in order to "manage" the exchange rate, not so we could profit from it, no certainly not for that reason).

What was wrong with just playing Monopoly?

Is it illegal for someone to become a virtual God Father type crime boss in second life?

Are automatic weapons banned in the virtual world?

You assume that I would rather look at my coworkers than some spiffy avatar. :)

justme

You're onto something there at least as far as comparing Second Life to a religion of sorts. What I call "Cult Second Life" is only partially tongue in cheek. There are, in fact, True Believers who actually think that SL represents some sort of eminent transformation in humanity. They see SL as delivering a new ordering to the world in which they are rightly rewarded for their beliefs while us unbelievers are left behind in growing irrelevance.

They think that one will need to be immersed in "Matrix Second Life" in order to have the right to even participate in business, commerce, society, education and even love and relationships. I've thought about editing through all the emails and comments I've received over this issue from True Believers and listing a best-of so people can see just how much actual faith these people have in this thing.

Incidentally, Linden Lab uses Kool Aid packets to advertise for employees.

The CEO more resembles a cryptic cult leader on drugs.

Oh, I can't stop. I love pointing out bullshit so much that maybe I'm an addict myself.

(Last one, I promise)

Scientology is there too, so it's gotta be legit. There are rumors that the whole thing is really a clandestine Scientology operation. But I don't dare suggest those rumors might be true. I'm scared of Scientologists (and their lawyers).

I prefer to post with Firefox, which caches information on prior pages. Whenever my post doesn't go through, I just click back arrow and retrieve.

Owing to spam activities, it is increasing more difficult to get posts out of moderation. Be careful!

I can't claim immunity from void filling. I've wasted dozens of my hours tweaking elaborate Sims 1.0 constructions (I had the cheat code though, so at least I didn't spend hundreds of hours working to pay for them).

Given the wrong set of circumstances, I could be mesmerized by Solitaire and Free Cell for entire nights. I had to remove them to neutralize the temptation to zone out.

Peter P,

That should be a project for this blog. All the older pages should be permanently closed to new posts. That would dramatically cut down the moderation problem.

If possible, we should also switch to a random image key system to verify posts. That cuts down on spam tremendously.

That should be a project for this blog. All the older pages should be permanently closed to new posts. That would dramatically cut down the moderation problem.

That may worth a try.

If possible, we should also switch to a random image key system to verify posts. That cuts down on spam tremendously.

Even I have trouble passing those image tests. Maybe I am a version of Jukubot.

Stop trying to antagonize the nutters over at Linden Labs, Randy. Blogwars are kind of stupid.

ThinkPad is a registered trademark of International Business Machines.

Thinkpad is a product of Lenovo, the Chinese hoard, want to buy a type matched kidney from a shot in the back of the head political prisoner while shopping for pirated technology sold to finance Amerikan debt? Well then, look no Fuhrer that Lenovo.

but don't worry, there is a robust service technology going on, why shit, there is no possible way anyone could export programming. California Uber Google. Why just yesterday Mrs. X and myself were shopping and loaded the cart up with Amerikan made goods. We bought stuff from all over the good ole USofChIndiMexifornia.

On your knees boy. Shit, sorry, everyone is rich, everyone is rich, everyone is rich.

Then why is real estate on the otherside of a logarithmic slide?

temptation to zone out

I hear ya loud and clear. (Carpal tunnel syndrome from Tetris back in the old XT days, anyone?)

I now limit sessions by strictly applying stop rules. For FreeCell a loss, for Minesweeper (with 99 mines) a win in under 150 seconds.

Now if I could just discipline my share trading that tightly...

Oh, and OT I know but the World Swimming Championships are being held in Melbourne Australia at the moment, and the US Men's Coach said in an interview that he thought his team could win every Olympic event.

Granted, they currently have a truly fantastic Men's swim team (and one of Australia's two Individual world champions has recently retired), but I wonder if people in the US truly appreciate just HOW much a prediction like that p!sses off folk from anywhere else.

Even if it's correct. Perhaps especially if it's correct. As Willie Nelson sang, "Time enough for countin, when the dealin's done".

(And in fact, I note a young Korean just won the first Men's individual final, the 400 Metres Freestyle. Tunisia and Australia filled the minor placings. Even though I have liked just about everybody from the US I have ever met, :D :D :D.)

wasn't it kenny rogers

Surfer-X brings up a good point. If SL really becomes useful(I don't think SL will be, but some better 3D web productivity suite), it'll accelerate outsourcing of some current *secure* US jobs. I can easily secretaries, administrators, receptionists, etc going overseas.

Just wait until they get to really good remote control robots. No more paying $100/hour for auto mechanics and plumbers.

surfer-x Says:

ThinkPad is a registered trademark of International Business Machines.

Thinkpad is a product of Lenovo, the Chinese hoard, want to buy a type matched kidney from a shot in the back of the head political prisoner while shopping for pirated technology sold to finance Amerikan debt? Well then, look no Fuhrer that Lenovo
_____

Awesome post. And for the most part, true!

Don't feed your cat any kitty chow made with Chinese grain products. It now looks like they've sprayed it with rodenticide, i.e. rat-poison.

You see, in the "people's" republik, the dictatorshi of the proletariat doesn't feel the need to inconvenience itself with such trivialities as, say, human rights, or FDA standards to protect people from rat poison in their food, much less their kitty's chow-chow.

Hell, rumor has it, that in some famished parts of the hinterland, where Mao's glorious five year plan for a bountiful harvest for the people hasn't materialized, they even eat cats for breakfast. So who cares, right?

Oh, sorry, it's just the new order of things.

So much for the evolution of two hundred years of laws to protect American citizens from such inconveniences as, um, rat poison in your food and illegal immigrants walking across the border with diseases such as Leprosy, incurable Tuberculosis and Chagas (research this one, it's pretty hellacious).

As for a decent living wage, benefits and affordable housing? Let 'em eat cat food!

I never thought the dissolution of this country would go down so quickly. But then again, never underestimate the power of greed wedded to mass delusion.

Michael,

Easy come, easy go. Remember this country was founded on the Three Fifth Compromise. Remember that in 2004 gay marriage was more important to the majority of electorate than social security, separation of church and state, or the horrors of Iraq.

Don't blame China for what America does to itself.

Also - the Chinese don't eat domesticated cats (even feral domesticated cats) and is any Chinese food more disgusting than what America serves in its school cafeterias?

I am OUTRAGED!!!!

From what research I've done (I even joined the darn thing), Second Life is ran by a company in downtown San Francisco. Yet, when you join Second Life, you have the option of submitting some form of payment (ie, credit card, paypal, whatever). What happens to someone like myself who joined with no payment and is now a homeless virtual citizen?

So far, I've found no homeless shelter and no politician that gives a rat's ass about my oppressed condition. I would think that a city as "progressive" as San Francisco, would not allow such capitalism, even though it is virutal, it is still evil capitalism!!!

Does Great Mother Nancy Pelosi or Dear Leader Gavin Newsome know about this?

Second Life even has this thing called "The Marketplace"!!! WTF?!?!?! What about the needy? Haven't we learned from the real world that free-markets are cruel and evil and only benefit corrupt big businesses?

Don't just take my word for it....here's what the site itself says!

"Second Life has a fully-integrated economy architected to reward risk, innovation, and craftsmanship.

How can this be? Karl Marx must be turning over in his grave by now. Perhaps some enlightened soul (maybe one of the Google billionaires) will create "Second Collective" or "Second USSR" to show us virtual compassion done right.

Seriously folks...all mocking aside. I think that we all should join second life as flaming, bleeding-heart liberals. Just join and act like your neighbors. Drive this thing into the ground with a good dose of San Francisco liberal values!! :)

How can this be? Karl Marx must be turning over in his grave by now. Perhaps some enlightened soul (maybe one of the Google billionaires) will create “Second Collective” or “Second USSR” to show us virtual compassion done right.

How about SOL? Second Objectivist Life.