Author: Ciaran Laval

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Izzy Wizzy Let’s Get Busy

Before Jezebel and I go Relay For Life crazy, I thought I’d blog about abandoned land in Second Life. I was pondering the other week about the sheer amount of abandoned land in one of the mainland sims I have land in, some of it was set for sale but plenty of it wasn’t.

I found a plot I liked, my land didn’t border it on three sides but it was adjacent to plenty of my land, but alas it was merely owned by Governor Linden, not set for sale. I decided to chance my arm and put in a support ticket anyway. However I had heard nothing back, which was frustrating as I could make use of this land. Then today I received a response.

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Identity Not Labels

The fuss about Google + and pseudonyms is based largely around issues of identity, rather than anonymity. There have been quite a few posts about this, Hamlet Au over at New World Notes makes the observation that Hamlet Au brings more results in Google search than James Wagner Au, I nearly always call him Hamlet, Hamlet is an identity.

Tateru Nino has a few posts on the subject, one of which discusses why it’s difficult to prove the name you go by on a daily basis. However this discussion in itself proves the folly of social networks encouraging people to social network with names that aren’t as widely known online as pseudonyms.

Google haven’t really given any convincing reasons as to why Google + is following Facebook down the anti pseudonym route and for Google, this is extremely disappointing considering how they tailor adverts to content, they absolutely do not need a database full of real names to make Google + work whereas Facebook came from a different angle and whereas I don’t see why today, they still insist on real names, it evolved from people knowing each other at University.

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Google + Doesn’t Look Second Life Friendly

Opensource Obscure, Italian blogger, sometimes pain in the bum, sometimes extremely insightful, currently suspended from Google + for calling himself Opensource Obscure! So the question whether Google + would be pseudonym friendly and then by extension, Second Life friendly appears to have been answered on Opensource Obscure’s Flickr account.  This is extremely disappointing.

I don’t have a Google + account, I don’t have a Google profile either, however Google have plenty of information on me, some of you may notice I have Google Adsense running here, to make that worthwhile I provide Google with my real information, it’s needed at that stage. This is how we normally act as humans, we part with information when we deem it necessary. One of my beefs with Facebook is that they try and push humans into acting in a manner that isn’t natural, I’ve mentioned this before but I know people down my local pub by their nickname only, I’ll buy them a pint, they’ll buy me one back, we don’t need to know each other’s full names, indeed if we did know them they wouldn’t sound right because we know each other by nicknames!

So enter Google +, with different values apparently, different groups of friends in different circles. However this still isn’t natural ordering or filtering, there’s generally crossover, but Google + has moved into the do not touch with a bargepole territory with their moves to suspend Opensource Obscure because it means that we can’t, as Second Life users, use our Second Life names, even though that’s how plenty of people know us!

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DRTSIM-65 – Silencing Sounds, Hiding Avatars

I’ve mentioned before how it’s worthwhile keeping an eye on what they’re discussing on the Mesh forums and user groups, another group worth keeping an eye on is the Server Beta User Group. Now, you should bear in mind the name of this group and therefore be prepared for what’s discussed there never to reach the light of day on the main grid, some projects will prove not to be feasible, others will be superceded, but others will arrive on the main grid and one catches my eye, codenamed DRTSIM-65 and with a name of “Parcel Sounds” this has potential.

Basically the aim is for land owners to be able to restrict sounds from gestures and attachments, so when you’re hosting an event nobody can throw down the train … wait that’s World of Warcraft! Basically nobody will be able to do the woohoo’s and make them audible if you restrict sounds on your parcel, music streams and voice will be fine but those sometimes distractng gestures won’t be.

The other part of this is named Hidden Avatars and this will mean if you have this setting set, you will only see other avatars on your parcel and other avatars will only see you, if they are on your parcel, or to quote Simon Linden: “what happens on your parcel, stays on your parcel“. The good thing about this is that you can test this out on the beta grid right now, I’ll discuss that later in the post and with pics to prove it!

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Linden Lab Do An Age Verification U-Turn

One thing that is driving me nuts about Linden Lab is that I get more information on what’s happening from Cristiano Midnight’s SLUniverse than I do from the official site. Now in some cases there are mitigating circumstances, such as the rumoured new profiles issue, they aren’t ready for an announcement or they never will be I guess. However for things like the new age verification policy? Why on earth am I finding out about this via a thread on SLUniverse?

Tateru Nino has also covered the new age verification process, rather than seeing an announcement from Linden Lab. Linden Lab are also not the best at marketing, they never have been but to improve matters on these fronts Linden Lab should just bloody well go and make Robin Harper an offer she can’t refuse (and I don’t mean a horse’s head in her bed) and drag Catherine Linden back kicking and screaming too! Communication is key.

Anyway back to the point of this blog post, the new age verification process and it couldn’t be much easier, you simply enter your date of birth and promise to be telling the truth.

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