May 2008

I don’t have any interest in being a virtual child, and I sometimes find child roleplay in virtual worlds even more annoying than how real children can act. I similarly don’t have any personal interest in BDSM (in either the virtual or the real worlds). And I actively disapprove of Gorean roleplay of slavery. But nonetheless, all three of these groups should have the right to be involved in any event that purports to be “Celebrating the cultural diversity of Second Life.”

In this instance, however, they cannot, except as spectators. Everett Linden, in comment 103, says “I’ll be working over the weekend with a few other Lindens on a blog post for Monday to help explain and expand on the SLBirthday.”

In the meantime, I’ll join my voice to that of Ordinal Malaprop, Marianne McCann and Loki Eliot, Dusan Writer, Daniel Regenbogen, Erbo Evans and many, many others in saying how utterly disappointed I am in Linden Research, Inc.

As ever, we owe a debt of gratitude to Tateru Nino at Massively for first covering the story.

Update: There’s now a JIRA issue for “missing cultures and communities from SL5B.”

Resolution: Linden Research, Inc., is now taking an active role as organizer. The entire birthday celebration is now PG, and everyone is welcome to submit applications.

Soldiers of the Queen - An Online Museum of Authentic Victorian-era British Military Photographs

Antique Images of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces Brought to You Through Great Peril From the Far Corners of the British Empire

(Tip of the hat to Hexidecima at Steamfashion.)

So far it only goes back to 1885, but eventually the online Sittings By Decade (Hansard) will go back to 1805.

Hansard, the Official Report, is the edited verbatim report of proceedings in both Houses of Parliament. Hansard is not a verbatim account of debates in Parliament. It seeks to eliminate “repetitions, redundancies and obvious errors”.

I very much regret the late reminder, but tonight, as every third Tuesday, you may find me at home at Ormsby Hall, Little West Sniggery, Caledon Murdann for a literary salon from 5:00 to 7:00 pm SLT. Tonight’s starting point:

Sir Timothy was a fluent speaker, and when there was nothing to be said was possessed of a great plenty of words. And he was gifted with that peculiar power which enables a man to have the last word in every encounter,—a power which we are apt to call repartee, which is in truth the readiness which comes from continual practice. You shall meet two men of whom you shall know the one to be endowed with the brilliancy of true genius, and the other to be possessed of but moderate parts, and shall find the former never able to hold his own against the latter. In a debate, the man of moderate parts will seem to be greater than the man of genius. But this skill of tongue, this glibness of speech is hardly an affair of intellect at all. It is,— as is style to the writer,— not the wares which he has to take to market, but the vehicle in which they may be carried. Of what avail to you is it to have filled granaries with corn if you cannot get your corn to the consumer? Now Sir Timothy was a great vehicle, but he had not in truth much corn to send.

—Anthony Trollope, The Duke’s Children, chapter 26