• 21Sep

    Tools, Avatars, and the Self

    musings 4 Comments

    Tateru Nino poses an intriguing question about why disabled users often become quite attached and identify with their avatars, more so than able-bodied people do:

    To many such physically impaired users, the body is no more nor less a tool than an online avatar, and the latter (despite lag, occasional inventory loss, network problems and all the other hurly-burly of a virtual environment) is the more reliable, expressive and liberating, allowing more ability to contribute, work, play and socialize.

    Why then, do the able-bodied among us tend to see so much more distinction between our bodies in the physical world and our digital representations? Is that distinction merely an artificial one, a handicap brought about by our able-bodied perspective?

    I suspect it’s a matter of the strength of the connection between thought, action, results, and feedback.

    For a perfectly able-bodied person, the mind directs the body smoothly, precisely, and effortlessly. Thought easily translates into action, and the feedback — sensory input confirming the results — reinforces the mind-body connection. As a result, your body starts to feel like part of your “self”, rather than an external thing.

    But for an able-bodied person using an awkward tool or interface, the translation from thought to action is not nearly so effortless, the feedback is not as rewarding, and thus the connection is not as strong. As a result, the person feels less in control, and more conscious of manipulating an unwilling external object. Continue reading »

  • 22Jul

    The Lost Mythos of Second Life

    musings 3 Comments

    IYan Writer made an interesting post about (among other things) the lack of a mythos of Second Life.

    In the days of my newbiehood, I heard tell of the legend of Gridnor and the coming of Lagnarok. But even in those days, the old stories were all but forgotten, and only the elders spoke of them.

    In those days, the Linden gods stopped walking freely among us. The most ungrateful Residents would spurn the Linden gods and curse their names, just as they do today. Only the stalwart Liasons — who were half god, half mortal — mingled among us.

    But those days were the days of legend, of the rise of new heroes and villains!

    Starax the magician and his wand of infinite wonder, who left our world but was reborn. Anshe the merchant-queen, shrewd and cunning, with an unquenchable thirst for riches. Tateru the goddess and overseer, who even now walks among us, bestowing her wisdom on all who will listen. Gene Replacement the trickster, who stole from the gods the gift of megaprims, but paid for his sins with eternal banishment. Ordinal the inventor, who then, as now, crafted marvels for the delight of young and old.

    There are many, many others legends; too many to recall every one. IYan refers you to the book of Hamlet for more stories of the old days. (Hamlet himself being one of the legends of those and earlier days.)

    But, just as with the legends of Gridnor and Lagnarok, these stories now fade into history. The elders move on to other worlds without ceremony, and the young remain ignorant of our heritage. The old heroes are no longer revered, and the new heroes are too often missed, being but tiny gemstones in a vast desert of sand.

    Or perhaps I have merely become one of the elders, who speak in longful whispers of the legends of their youth, being set in our ways and unable to see the next generation of legends unfolding beneath our very noses.

  • 18Jun

    Early Adopters, Pessimists, and Patriots

    LL policy woes, musings, passions 10 Comments

    I received an interesting comment from someone last night. He said that his first impression of me, from reading this blog, was that I was an “angry SL pessimist”. You know the type: no matter what happens in SL, they’ll bitch and moan about it. Continue reading »

  • 01Jun

    Public Relations vs Resident Relations

    LL policy woes, gripe, musings 11 Comments

    I don’t envy Linden Lab’s situation. Try to dodge the self-serving politicians and reporters nipping at your heels, and the Residents bring out the pitchforks and torches. It’s an impossible job, so it’s no wonder they’re doing so poorly at it. I’d have plenty of sympathy for Linden Lab. I really would.

    Except that they put themselves in this situation. Continue reading »

  • 03May

    Thoughts on Search Flagging

    musings 1 Comment

    Background: Linden Lab has announced that they are planning to implement a system where search results can be flagged as mature, prohibited, spam, or worthy of being showcased.

    I’m quite glad to see that some of the Lindens have started to give some heads up about their plans. The “surprise announcements” on the blog come off as arrogant and aloof (”Feedback? We don’t need your stinking feedback!”), and the suddenness of the announcements also triggers an instinctive opposition to change, the gut feeling people get when suddenly presented with something they don’t have the time or information to understand.

    So, these advance notices are a step in the right direction. However — and this makes me quite sad — very few of the pre-announced systems undergo any significant changes before they are rolled out, even in the face of legitimate criticism (setting aside the usual wall of bitching and moaning). Continue reading »

  • 19Apr

    More Trademark Nonsense

    LL policy woes, musings, passions 10 Comments

    The three-day bloggers “strike” ended yesterday, and Linden Lab issued further clarification on their new trademark policy. I wasn’t really sure what to say or how to feel about it.

    At first, I was excited. We (bloggers, whether “strikers” or not) managed to evoke a response from Linden Lab. And a seemingly sympathetic response, at that. It was a well-spun post, I’ll admit. I was suckered in for a while. I so very much wanted to believe that everything was all good now.

    But it’s not. Linden Lab has now confirmed that they are waving the banhammer threateningly at anyone who doesn’t comply. Their assurance that they will issue warnings first, reads like a sherrif from an old cowboy movie, brandishing his gun and saying, “Come along quietly, now. I don’t wanna have to shoot you, but I will if it comes to that.”

    Linden Lab has also said, in plain terms, that they will use the Terms of Service as a tool to enforce compliance both inworld and offworld:

    The Terms of Service are the conditions under which Linden Lab offers the Second Life services. One of those conditions is adherence to our trademark policy, meaning that any use of our trademarks–both inworld and outside of Second Life–must comply with our policy. (emphasis mine)

    Clearly, this is a gun aimed squarely at the Residents, since the Terms of Service doesn’t apply to anyone except Second Life users.

    And lest there be any confusion, this isn’t something that Linden Lab had to do to protect its trademark. This policy reaches beyond all logic, and beyond the requirements of U.S. trademark law. (As always, remember that IANAAL — I am not an anal-retentive lawyer. I’m just a concerned Resident with two ears and a brain between them.)

    Firstly, non-commercial use of a trademark (e.g. on a fansite such as this one) is not considered infringement under United States Code, Section 15 (a.k.a. the Lanham Act) which spells out U.S. trademark law as we know it. The Lanham act also explicitly makes an exception for “All forms of news reporting and news commentary” regarding the thing the trademark refers to; that’s why newspapers don’t have to ask permission every time they print the words “Microsoft” or “Second Life”. Whether blogs qualify as a “form of news commentary” is not legally well-defined yet, but I think there’s a strong case to be made that many blogs do, depending on what’s posted. (This post, for example, is clearly news commentary: I’m commenting on the news of Linden Lab’s policy clarification.)

    For the curious, I’ll excerpt the relevant text of the Lanham act:

    The following shall not be actionable under this section:

    (A) Fair use of a famous mark by another person in comparative commercial advertising or promotion to identify the competing goods or services of the owner of the famous mark.
    (B) Noncommercial use of a mark.
    (C) All forms of news reporting and news commentary.

    Secondly, the risk of “genericide” from bloggers referring to Second Life by name is patent nonsense: not only does it fail to dilute their trademark, it actively strengthens their trademark by establishing and reinforcing the connection between the name “Second Life” and the services offered by Linden Lab. This non-dilution is recognized under the doctrine of “nominative fair use,” which has received significant support from judges in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the time since it was first applied in 1992.

    The deciding factors for determining whether something is nominative fair use are as follows (excerpted from this PDF by Chad J. Doellinger; and also spelled out on Wikipedia for your satisfaction):

    (1) the product or service in question must be one not readily identifiable without use of the trademark;
    (2) only so much of the mark or marks may be used as is reasonably necessary to identify the product or service; and
    (3) the defendant must do nothing that would, in conjunction with the mark, suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark holder

    (And mind you, this is for commercial use of someone else’s trademark. Noncommercial use is already in the clear under the Lanham act, and doubly in the clear if it passes these tests.)

    You’ll notice that I’ve said “Second Life” quite a few times in this blog post. Am I liable for infringing and/or diluting Linden Lab’s trademark? Let’s check.

    1. Since I cannot readily identify the Second Life service or world without using the trademark “Second Life”, the first test is passed.
    2. Since I’m not going beyond the bare mininum, e.g. using the eye-in-hand logo or the font used in the Second Life trademark, the second test is passed.
    3. And since I’m not implying sponsorship or endorsement by Linden Lab (and in fact, I’m going to extra measures to expressly disavow it), the third test is passed.

    I can therefore be quite confident that a judge would find this to be nominative fair use, and thus neither infringing nor diluting the trademark. Add to that the fact that this blog is noncommercial, and that it also might qualify as a form of news commentary, and I’m in the clear under the Lanham Act, too. In other words, Linden Lab has no legal basis to object to my use of the words “Second Life” throughout this post.

    But as I mentioned above, Linden Lab’s legal department has decided to reach beyond the law, and add further constraints under the terms of service; they have decided to be bastards above and beyond the call of duty. Noncommercial use, nominative fair use, news commentary use… they don’t care about the law, they just want you to obey their nonsensical, self-destructive whims.

    Well, I’m going to continue to talk about Second Life and Linden Lab. And I’m going to call them by their names. And I’m going to continue to do all the things that I and other Residents did to give life to Second Life and get Linden Lab where they are today.

    Linden Lab can go ahead and smack me with the banhammer and send me as many baseless Cease & Desist letters as they want. The moment they do, I’ll willingly stop talking about Second Life, contributing to Second Life, or logging in to Second Life, because at that moment I would know that Linden Lab had fully deluded itself into believing Second Life can exist without a community.

  • 05Apr

    Service issues over the past month

    musings 5 Comments

    Lately, it has felt like there has been a blog post every day about some problem in that certain virtual world. But I was curious: is that feeling accurate? Have there been issues daily, or does it just feel like it because sore points stand out in memory?

    So, I looked over the blog posts for the past month, picking out posts made about unplanned service interruptions and other unexpected system troubles. It’s important to note that I’m not including things like planned rolling restarts, planned downtime for service upgrades, or other planned service outages.

    But before I list the results, I want to preface them by saying: my purpose isn’t to bash the company behind that certain virtual world, nor the grid monkeys or other peeps who work there. I’m not suggesting that they are slacking off or incompetent — to the contrary, they have been reasonably prompt about both reporting and relieving (however temporarily) the issues. I salute the grid monkeys, and hope they all get 2 weeks vacation once this is over.

    My purpose here is this: to put a spotlight on the climate of longstanding frustration that hangs over our beloved virtual world. Service interruptions are one component. Bugs and crashes another. New, user-hostile policies from the legal department yet another. It all adds up to a frustrating experience for users.

    Now then, let’s look at the day-by-day look at blog posts about unplanned service issues for the past month, in reverse chronological order:

    As you can see, my gut feeling wasn’t wrong: there have indeed been service issues of some sort every day nearly every day for the past week-plus. Some days have had two or even three separate issues, while only ten days of the past month have had no issues posted. It averages out to just over 1 issue per day for an entire month. And that’s only counting issues that were widespread enough to warrant a blog post. There have been numerous localized issues such as individual sims going down (sometimes repeatedly), brief spurts of asset server slowness or failure, and others. As the innkeepers say, *sigh* Times are tough…..

    All this is to say: It’s not easy to be loyal to that certain virtual worlds company these days.

    But we try. Some of us do, anyway.

    And now, because I don’t want this post to be a total downer, is the good news: H4 and WL have both come to fruition recently, and with them come hopes of fewer sim crashes and better client performance (not to mention increased sexiness all around). Dazzle is coming up soon, and although not everyone likes the new style, everyone should appreciate the fact that it’s just the first of many steps towards a cleaner, more organized, and easier-to-use interface. The Architecture Working Group is coming up with new, more robust ways to run the grid that should (hopefully) keep things running smoother in The Future.

    See? It’s not all bad. You just have to look up from the waist-deep mud we’re in now, and see the purty rainbow on the horizon. ;)

  • 25Mar

    Idea for new ‘error’ LSL event.

    code, feature, musings, wishes 4 Comments

    The problem: runtime error handling in LSL is… well, it’s practically nonexistant. If something goes wrong, the script will usually shout some message to the world and then die. The obvious problem there is that you have to then manually restart the script and lose all data! Also, for the security-concious, it can potentially reveal implementation details of your script.

    Idea: a new event in LSL, error, which would allow scripts to intercept and deal with error messages in a sane and consistent manner. Here’s an example:

    default
{
    state_entry()
    {
        integer a = 1/0;
    }

    error( integer type, string message )
    {
        if( type == ERROR_MATH )
        {
            llOwnerSay( message + "You should have paid more attention in math class." );
        }
    }
}

    The two parameters for the error event are the type, which is one of a selection of integer constants, and the message, which is a human-readable message describing what went wrong. In this case, the type is ERROR_MATH (indicating a math error), and the message would be something like “Error: Division by zero.”. The output from this script would be a message to the owner, “Error: Division by zero. You should have paid more attention in math class.”

    Some more useful (and less insulting) ways of handling errors might be to reset the script, send an IM to an assistant shopkeep, clearing some buffers to free up memory, giving a custom message on chat, or some other appropriate behavior for that particular application. If the script doesn’t define the event block, errors are reported in the default way, as they are now (e.g. shouting the error on the debug channel).

    To complement the new error event, would be a new function for triggering errors: llError( integer type, string message ). When called, it triggers an error of the given type, using the given message. If an error event block is defined, the error is given to that block to be handled; if there’s no block, it’s handled in the default manner for that event type.

    A second new function would be llNoHandleError, which behaves like llError, except that it always performs the default handling, bypassing the error event block if it exists. This could also be used within the error event block to “pass through” event types that it’s not intended to handle.

    So, scripters: give me some feedback on this. Should we make a JIRA for this, or is it actually a really stupid idea?

    Tags:

  • 11Jan

    Photography Is Photography

    art, musings, passions, snapshots 4 Comments

    Regarding whether images captured in SL should be considered “photographs”, Hamlet writes:

    I’m not totally convinced. Photographs, after all, are created by exposed light hitting a film or data strip. That doesn’t happen in Second Life. And while I think it’s fair to say that an image which is captured “raw” from SL is very similar to a real world photograph (I discuss that here), it’s also possible to subjectively manipulate the world’s appearance in a way that’s totally different. (When an RL photographer needs more light, he can’t just move the sun where he wants it.)

    What’s more, many SL images are drastically altered in programs like Photoshop. A lot of real world artists use photographs as their medium, staging them in fictional narrative scenes, say, or even painting on top the actual photo, and because of that very process, they’re not called photographers– they’re called artists.

    I consider Hamlet’s view here to be somewhat narrow.

    There is no significant difference in the amount of scene-manipulation in RL photographs versus SL photographs. RL photographers may not be able to move the sun on a whim, but they can and do carefully schedule the time of day of their shoots, and use bounce cards and/or studio lights to manipulate the lighting of the scene. You can bet that they’d move the sun if they could. (And I bet some SL photographers would die for the ability to have light bounce off cards in SL — both realities have their challenges.)

    Nor is the amount of post-processing (Photoshopping) significantly different between RL and SL photographs. We’ve seen the Dove Evolution film that demonstrates how much manipulation goes on before, during, and after a RL photo shoot.

    Both RL photographs and SL photographs run the gamut from casual snapshots (”This is us having a good time at Jack’s bachelor party”), to careful attempts at capturing reality (”Behold the natural beauty of a majestic waterfall”), to highly manipulated digital imagery (”I cloned in the crowd of a thousand cheering fans later”), to strange and beautiful photo-collage and mixed-media imagery (”I think you’ve been sniffing too much rubber cement, Marcel”), and so much more.

    The compositional skills — framing, balance, depth, contrast, and so on — apply equally to RL and SL photography.

    So we’re left with one distinction. RL photographs are created by photons bouncing off physical objects, passing through the lens and aperture of a physical camera, and stimulating photosensitive materials. SL photographs are created by careful mathematical projection of virtual objects, rendered as polygons onto a framebuffer in a computer. In both cases, the result is a 3D scene being projected onto a 2D image plane.

    It’s just that one of the scenes exists inside the computer.

    I’ll leave off with one last thought: Photography has long been about capturing the vision of the artist. That’s not always the same as an accurate representation of the physical world.

  • 31Dec

    SL in 2007, a retrospective in lists

    adventures, musings No Comments

    Let’s have some lists. Everybody loves lists!

    Awesome news from LL:

    • 3. Sculpty prims. Everyone celebrates with new fruit, genitals, and fruit-shaped genitals.
    • 2. Open sourcing of the client. 2007 starts off with a bang. Nicholaz consistently kicks ass throughout the year.
    • 1. Windlight Firstlook. Ooh, so smexy. *licks*

    Lame news from LL:

    • 3. Exit Cory Linden, stage left. Second Life’s already-shakey backend tech hangs in the balance.
    • 2. Gamblers and ageplayers begone! Linden Lab clamps down on sinners, but hides true motives (which are probably more about business than morality). Residents asked to spy on and report their neighbors.
    • 1. Age-verification and new login system. Your RL personal information and SL login details put at risk by ill-conceived, shoddily-implemented systems. Linden Lab shrugs and says, “Quit worrying so much.”

    Personal events of note:

    • 4. 2007 is the year of the chibi! (I made a handful in 2006, but their popularity rose dramatically this year.)
    • 3. Sold out adorable cartoon character, opened my own SL store. My days as shrewd business mogul start. (Yeah, right.)
    • 2. Submitted a dozen patches to the viewer client, most of them UI-related.
    • 1. Drifted away from some old friends, bumped into some new ones.

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