Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Community... Leadership... & Reminiscing
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Beauty...Thieves...At What cost?
In years gone by I took a lot of real life dollars from a lot of people, as well as childhood years from my daughter. We as a world society paid a price for my behaviour, just as we in Secondlife pay a price for theft.
The price isn't just that Maxwell had his art stolen and money was made by another from his skills. I have looked first hand at Maxwells work... it's a work of love. I guarantee you he could make a lot more real life dollars in the same time it took to create LagNmoor, the work was also done out of love for all of us. For us to see a bit of the, "What if", that could be here in Secondlife.
****
I am in so many ways not the person I wish to be...
But I'm so glad I'm not the person I used to be.
And so it goes
I love you all, brinda
Namaste
Nअमस्ते
Friday, June 25, 2010
Lindens...Hopes...Abuse...Flags
I do have a rainbow flag texture to put up as well, just haven't made room for it as yet... {I know, it's not a country...although in some parts of the world identifying ones self as other than heterosexual can make you feel like you're from another world}. *** A few brief comments on something I hear way too much about.... False abuse reports. I believe that everyone should have the right to report another avatar for violations of those Terms Of Service we all agree to when we create an account in Secondlife, or for violations of Community Standards. The part that's been really bothering me is those abuse reports that are filed as a form of griefing. Recently an avatar that many of my friends know and call a close friend has been accused of copybotting content and summarily banned from Secondlife. While I don't pretend to know all the details, I do believe that all the people that have come forward in his defense can't be wrong. In his case there is a general consensus as to who filed said report, and that the report was filed out of spite. In a recent conversation with a person that was mentored and befriended by the banned account I mentioned that certainly one reason I don't spend any time at any of the local welcome area hangouts is because of false abuse reports. From what I can gather, a report is sent and re sent by several alt accounts... that seems to flag it and for what ever reason those Lindens that look at abuse reports don't/can't seem to handle the workload and if the report is something serious they bann and the investigation can take weeks. I don't know how the report system identifies which violations are things that need instant attention. In years gone by I can tell you that I have identified underage accounts on the help islands and before I could fill out the second report the first one was gone. I know false reports happen...and banns happen.... and weeks go by. My Secondlife daughter was banned as underage...she came to Secondlife three years ago when she was 18...she faxed a copy of her drivers license to Linden Lab as proof of her age. It took five weeks. Thinking... if it took five weeks then, and now they are 100 people smaller? Will the change at the top of the Lab make a change in this? I don't know if that's possible.
What I do believe is that just as the images above indicate, we have such a chance to be a part of something that is priceless. I can sit in my home in Southern California and have a personal connection and interaction with friends all across the entire world: the USA, Canada, UK, France, Romania, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Qatar, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Japan, Australia, Peru, Brazil. (If I left your country out yell at me! ) =^..^=
I have more hope today than I did last week... I'll leave with something I posted on Zha's blog this morning...
"Those of us that came some time ago understand that Phillip and his company didn’t create Secondlife. They created a platform…they created code and viewers…they bought and fired up servers. We, the customers, have created Secondlife….. Never mind those that said Secondlife isn’t a culture…it is for those of us that made this world we so love. Yes, listen to us or we will feel unwanted and go somewhere else. Not because we don’t want to stay but because we will feel unwanted."
***
And so it goes
My love to you all, brinda
Namaste
नमस्ते
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Mothers...Tricycles... & Dancing with tears
Everything seems to happen as it's supposed to...no matter what I think. Raven just a day or so ago approached me about a few more prims and I told her I'd get back to her. I explained last evening that there were a couple of options to achieve that... certainly one of those plans is to wait for a few days and see if angel is going to be well enough to return. With me, you see, it's not all about the money. I owe Angel a certain amount of allegiance, she was the first resident here as well as a close personal friend. The parcel she ended up with was the Secondlife home she had always wanted, so a few days grace is both in order from her standpoint as well as giving Raven a bit of time to think. I see it as a good thing for all. *** I spent a portion of last week exploring old landmarks. Secondlife is a rapidly changing environment and locations often change quickly. There are places in Secondlife that have endured... {see this link to the start of a 40 odd post series of very early Secondlife places.} http://lalotelling.blogspot.com/2010/06/seconderth-deep-map-preface.html Many of the landmarks I had from 2 or 3 years ago are now gone. I can tell you that to teleport in and land in a living room on someones coffee table gives one a great way to start a conversation! *** I want to take a moment to personally thank both Poly for spending some time with me today, and to Raven for and invite to a music venue this morning. Think about this for a minute...at any given time there are upwards of fifty thousand plus people on line...two of them decided to spend time with me. Thank you both. *** Curious. I wonder if there is a set quantity of tears we need to shed in a lifetime? Just joking...a little. In these last couple of years I seem to get emotional over the darnedest things. Today when I was over cleaning up Loris parcel and chatting with Poly I had the TV idling in the background... I was ok with the movie "Dirty Dancing" playing in that background, until the very end, when the last scene started and "The Time of My Life" started playing... I sat in stunned silence with tears just running. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpmILPAcRQo
(30,927,637 views of this video)
Really, it seemed like a much better movie in 1987...but that end dance scene with the Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes duet as scene music just did me. (I'm such a sap for stuff like that)
And so it goes
I love you all, brinda
Namaste
नमस्ते
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Learning...Teaching...Being
Returning to Benares, Drew invited Ines to join us and this is finally where I have been headed with this post. Ines is from Indonesia and is a school teacher in both real life and Secondlife. Because Secondlife has allowed me intimate exposure to cultures from all over the world I am able to be quiet enough inside to sit and learn how much we all are alike. Many years ago I learned that to communicate with anyone...you have to speak their language. That doesn't mean I must speak Indonesian, or Japanese, or anything else. It does mean that I need to speak from my heart. {And yes, out of courtesy refrain from slang or Internet shortcut chat } As many of the followers of this blog know, I spent the first couple weeks of February in Northeast India... it's amazing the reaction I got from two simple exchanges. ठनक यू , (the Romanization is D'hann Yavaad) Thank you, in Hindi, and प्लेअसे (Kripaya), Please. That's the total of my Hindi, but the emotional doors those words opened were amazing.
If people understand that I care enough to try and really communicate it enriches all of us. I said I come to Secondlife to learn, to escape to Australia, or Romania, or Turkey. I think I come to teach as well. "We teach best what we most need to learn" And so it goes My love to you all, brinda Namaste नमस्ते
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Changing Worlds..sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly
Monday, June 14, 2010
Imagine....
The coffee house at Inworldz...Just to the left in this image is where new residents arrive.
***
Now imagine that many of the same people that wanted to destroy that world where the despotic rulers gave them "cause" came to this new world... and did the same things they had done before.
That is what I base my belief on, that those that come to harm and destroy, have no legitimate cause.
As a practising Buddhist I have great difficulty in seeing the middle path where this is concerned. You see... there is a solution. It's not palatable... it's illegal..it's, from a Buddhist perspective, immoral... but it would work.
(A legal disclaimer here... I am not condoning, or encouraging anyone to follow this train of action)
I was smart enough in school to not take Latin... so I can't give you the Latin phrase for this...
"Where there is no police car... there is no speed limit"
Many years ago my neighbors husband physically attacked her. Another neighbor across the street was standing outside the next morning when the attacker was headed to work. The wife beater didn't go to work that morning.....and he never touched his wife again either.
People know who these griefers are... Publicise their names and actions...don't let them hide in their mothers basement anymore.
I remember looking at ones real life photo...trust me, he couldn't have even visited Frontera... much less a mens prison.
If you do know who these people are, ostracize them... stop condoning their actions. I'm not sure there aren't legal actions that could be pursued... civil suits, restraint of trade..I don't know.
***
I also know less now than I did a few years ago...I looked at my fish bowl last weekend, it looks so full still...and yet a qwik mental calculation is that I'm likely just under 600 weekends left now. There is so much to learn...and so little time this time around...
Forgive my games of hate and jealousy...I'll try harder
And so it goes
I try to love you all, brinda
Namaste
नमस्ते
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Some Goodbyes are Harder Than Others
This was her dream come true...her own little private islet out East.
I got the note card below at log in last evening...by the time I accepted it...and looked at friends list she had logged off. Coincidence... maybe. I've learned how hard it is for family here to say goodbye. As another friend told me in a goodbye note, they had planned and wished the note to be a lot different...deeper perhaps...it just turns out to be incredibly difficult to say goodbye.For me, this is so much more than an empty parcel.......... Right now it's a hole in my heart... There's time left...I have hope.
***
The image below is from the Rouge "graveyard" where the impromptu memorial was set up for the Lindens that lost employment last week. I had chatted with a few over these last three years, most just a passing chat or a one line IM. One seemed to find my independent mentoring a thorn in her side... and then came Mia. Mia came in during those last few months of the Secondlife Mentors and she and I had several chats. She was good... I know she saw what I was doing as a good thing and would "speak to me" because she was getting various old line mentors ragging on her. I remember one evening at the Sutherland Dam meeting where Dirk Talamasca was chiding me for alting on the help islands...telling me that what I was doing was improper and that I knew it. (while perve camming my boobs...guess he wasn't aware or didn't care that Emerald allowed you to see where anothers camera is focused.) My response was... "Ask Mia Linden".
I guess he did ,{or someone then did}, a day or so later I got an IM from Mia telling me there were a lot of ways to help, and that she was in a meeting just then. Subject closed. Mia cared... She was one of us.
And so it goes
My love to all, brinda
नमस्ते
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Words of Hope...A Goodbye to Many
Yesterday I mentioned meeting an interesting person at leogan Magics Speakeasy music venue. As is my habit anywhere I go, I start looking at rezz dates. I am always interested in what people that came to Secondlife before me have to say.
Woodstock Burleigh... When I read his profile and his quote from a recently departed icon of the United States political system I felt the same feelings I felt in 1980 when I first heard these words.
"the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die." http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/tedkennedy1980dnc.htm
I have known for many years that I don't have to know how I know things...I just need to know when I know things.
I didn't conciously know when I read those words that *The Benevolent Monarchy* was about to make a business decision known that will have such long range consequences for so many of us. For those of you new or relatively new to Secondlife, the original advertising had a famous line... a line so many of the early people believed in... "Your World....Your Imagination".
The Lab has changed a lot of that... what you see today..no, what you saw eighteen months ago was that dream. Today Linden Lab has changed that dream for us. Today they actively compete with in world content creators... and today they actively compete with both small land owners such as myself as well as those that own in excess of one hundred regions. {Yes, I said one hundred regions!}
That corporate competion is what brought Ted Kennedys quote home to me...I still have the dream... I've said before that I will stay as long as they let me.... But yes, I am making contingency plans... plans I hope won't be used.
Part Two BelowA few sad moments this morning. If you haven't heard by now...likely in excess of one hundred Linden employees were terminated yesterday... http://bit.ly/aVyKh6.
I took these images this morning at Rouge
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Rouge%20%20/161/68/29/
If you look carely, you will see not a few Lindens as well as some well known names among those of us there to say a goodbye....I'm hoping it was only a goodbye to Lindens.
Farewell Mia Linden My love to you all, brinda
Namaste
नमस्ते
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Miscellaneous...Music Harassment Voice
Both of these guys are great professional musicians...(this image from stage doesn't show Sandy's "casper".) I invited one of my friends and she had a good time as well...it was about time for her to have a good time. Sometimes it's easy to get hooked up in drama that you don't want and didn't start. More about drama in a few lines. *** Music in Secondlife is a place that sees a lot of oldbies... those that have been in-world longer than I have. I did come across a guy at this venue who's profile text... and my ensuing IM chat was wonderful. I want to devote an entire post to this guy and his message...it's not a new message...but a worthy message. *** More about drama. My friend Boyd has recently posted this:
http://parktownprogress.blogspot.com/2010/06/sexual-harassment-and-stalking-in.html
I did have some indirect "help" from this avatar a year or so ago. I had met a very nice, smart woman from the UK at the Hanja welcome area. While I never did get all the story...it was a general opinion from more than one of the more stable people I know there that the avatar that has been considered persona non grata in several areas was one that spread a lot of "tales" to my UK friend and not only put a stop to my friendship... she has in effect caused that woman to stop coming to Hanja and perhaps to Secondlife.
***
While I agree with all that Boyd has said...I did find one bit of his post that makes many of us uncomfortable.
Quote, "What's most surprising, this serial stalker of women in Hanja presents themselves consistently with female avatars, even though they've never used voice to confirm that as their gender."
I know that Boyd uses voice almost exclusively as do many of those regulars that call Hanja a second home, that's fine. As far as presenting herself as female?... who really cares, unless one plans to have a "relationship". Total immersion in Secondlife is a lot easier in text and impugning anothers motives for not playing Linden Labs game to make this into a 3D chat room is unfair.(See the link below to soronishi's post... do follow her link @ 'Read more here")
{My gosh! You mean all those dragons at Cathedral aren't really dragons?}
What about those accounts that have speech impediments? Or those that are deaf/mute? Only 40% of Secondlife accounts are from the United States, the vast number here use English as a second language. Who the heck am I to judge anothers motive for any decision.
I've found it very difficult to multitask in Secondlife if someones using voice... my immediate reaction is to think that the person using voice has decided that my listening to them is the most important thing in their world. With text I can always return to chat history and see what has been said.
http://sorornishi.blogspot.com/2010/06/shit-hits-fan.html
Having said all that...I was pleased to see that my estate manager beat me to our estate ban list with the accounts mentioned above. re: "stalking"
***
OK...that's enough prattling from me for one day...(please do read soro Nishi's post...one hundred Lindens got fired!) might be hard to beat the rats to the life boats.
And so it goes
My love to all, brinda
Namaste
नमस्ते
Monday, June 7, 2010
Odd Fellows & I don't mean the service org.
I contacted this, "wonderful man". Now as you can see...while I was attempting to help the nooblet, I wasn't very thrilled with her choice of people, and I guess it shows =^..^=
This is an edited IM history of our long IM session! Yes, I could have been more patient....and polite. NOT! I absolutely despise the men that play this dominating bullcrap.
As you can see, I've edited all his personal info out. I refuse to help advertise his perversity. That's also why I edited his name out of IM log...{btw, it's legal to post IM and chat logs as long as they are off Linden servers.}
I realize that everyone has the choice of the role they choose to play in any venue...even in real life venues. And I also realize that my thinking is colored by a situation of virtual slavery and mind control that occurred here at Benares. Role play of equals is fine...but it's not for me...and sometimes those that seem to be equals really aren't.
And so it goes
I'm supposed to love all...yeck! Some just won't go down
brinda
Namaste
नमस्ते
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Yak & Yeti.....and men!
Small shop... don't miss up the ladder to second floor... Lots of womens clothing.... and yes, there are outfits for men as well (More about that below} There is a small stupa worshiping one of the Hindu gods...Ganesh. Such a cool dragonfly...scripted so as to face you often. I asked Lori to join me... of course she had to ride the resident Yak! The owner, Annapurna... I thought I recognized her first name....be sure and peek at her first life picture. We are so blessed with such cultural diversity in Secondlife. I found some great Indian outfits.
***
The other thoughts that have occupied me recently....
The differences in male and female avatars.
So many of the females have been aptly described by my friend Lou Netizen as six foot Barbie dolls... totally unrealistic. Now few of us would want to have all of our real life attributes or our perceived defects imported to Secondlife... certainly at 68 I'm happy with my tall skinny butt here. But the females do, as a group, dress so much better than the males.... and there are real life females that approximate Secondlife avatars.
Benares is blessed with having reasonably normal looking guys.... rarely do we get the "Incredible Hulk" looking ones... (maybe there's just enough estrogen here!). Recently I've noticed the guys don't seem to take criticism about their clothing choice well either...(surprise). I had thought that having a perve camming me gave me a leg up so to speak...not so.
Picture this... We are at a music venue, it's a beach setting.... "GI Joe" {not sl name} shows up dressed in military desert camouflage. He stands at a far edge...I see an open chat line ..."xxxx cams brinda"....hmmm....OK, been here, done that, all done. And then I thought "Hey, give the guy the benefit.... maybe its just a nice icebreaker". I find him via camera... read profile... and send him a teasing IM about his choice of dance/beach ware. No response. A bit later, I see he's changed into a lot more casual wear.... teasing still, I send an IM that applauds his clothing change and tell him that no matter what the girls said, I knew he could do it. About thirty minutes later after I've left I get a terse IM saying that desert camouflage goes well with a beach. And the guys wonder why I'm generally very cool to conversations. Of course the best cutoff line is...I'm 68.
And so it goes
I want to love you all, brinda
Namaste
नमस्ते