Lektyr

"Den nya överklassen - en bok om Sveriges ekonomiska elit" av Bengt Ericson

"Det är en dag som alla andra för några medlemmar av Sveriges nya överklass I Schweiz har Jacob Wallenberg just avslutat ett styrelsemöte i ABB. Det pågick i sju timmar och för det kan han kvittera ut ett arvode på 440 000 kronor. På sitt gods utanför Nynäshamn sitter riskkapitalisten Björn Savén och tummar på den medalj som han har fått ta emot ur kungens hand. Den ska bäras om halsen i Serafimerordens band. I Västindien glider Arne Mårtensson in mot hamn i sin nitton meter långa segelkryssare. 55 år gammal pensionerade han sig från Handelsbanken. På pensionskontot ligger betryggande 225 miljoner kronor.

Den nya överklassen erbjuder en guidad tur genom ett rikemansland där pengar och position betyder allt. Vi får veta hur dess invånare bor, semestrar och roar sig på andra sätt. Vi får läsa om herrgårdarna, kungajakterna, privatskolorna och de slutna elitsällskapen. Plus om den svans av andra karriärister, som så gärna vill hamna i samma guldsits."

Spännande lektyr av en duktig journalist. Jag har precis beställt boken och längtar redan efter att få ta del av överklassens "inte-fullt-så-diskreta" charm.

The Emerald viewer debacle

The Emerald viewer has been my favorite way to access Second Life for a long time.

After the recent criminal activities on that viewers developement team, which you can read about on other blogs,("Tinas universum" or "Eddi Haskell´s Second Life"), the viewer was taken off the Linden Labs "Third-Party Viewer Directory" yesterday.

This means it is now against the TOS to access Second Life with the Emerald viewer If you do that anyway you can get into some major problems with Linden Lab and your account can get suspended (see the link below about Eddi´s experiences).

Hopefully my friend Eddi Haskell is correct in his assessment that the Emerald viewer probably will be quicky reinstated, but the recent events have caused me to lose all trust in the people involved with that viewer.

I hate changing to a new viewer, does that mean I am getting old already? (I am so NOT allowing comments on that - at least not if you agree!) I already tried the official viewer and hated it...

If I do not answer you in SL you know the reason, I am only trying to learn how to control my new viewer. Aaaaaaaaarrrrgggghhhhhhhh...

The IKEA catalog 2011 is here

Yesterday they started the distribution of the IKEA catalog 2011 to all the Swedish households.

This is the 60th edition of this "must-have" for any decent Swede. (Well, nowadays the catalog is actually printed in over 70 million copies in at least twelve languages, but we don´t care too much about that...)

All Swedes have the catalog - whether they admit to the fact or not!

If you ever want to understand Swedes, you must learn the importance and the impact of the latest catalog from IKEA. It doesn´t only signify that autumn is near, it also shows us how our friends and neighbors homes - and prehaps even your own home - will look in a few months time. The latest edition is also discussed in all the design forums and every workplace.

We all claim to hate assembling furniture from IKEA but the Swedish author Fredrik Lindstrom once said "Anyone who believes that IKEA sells simple solutions is wrong. The company delivers "just-the-right-sized problems" to the Swedish people. A successful assembly of a furniture gives the same satisfaction as solving a crossword puzzle."

Just so you know, if you start seeing your Swedish neighbor in Second Life starting to redecorate or building new furniture, you read about it here first. And they were influenced by the latest catalog from IKEA.

Introspection

Right now I am thinking a lot about how people seem to perceive me and also how I act and what I say to make that happen. 

Perhaps I can change my actions or my words so what others perceive is who I am and not who I am not.

It may seem strange that I am doing this still at the ripe age of 40, but hell it is never too late they say.

Nakna avatarer i SL 103

Yesterday I got a shy IM from Chiyo Yuhara, asking if I was still doing this peace and art project. I told her, "Of course, my dear, it will continue as long as I keep getting pictures!"

Chiyo then promptly sent me a whole bunch of beautiful pictures of her amazingly sexy avatar. I hope you enjoy and appreciate them as much as I did. And let me asure you, Chiyo is not only strikingly beautiful, she has an abundance of charm and good sence of humour also!

Let me tell you all that I actually have four firm promises to send in pictures sometime, but they did not tell me when... (and one of them may have changed his mind, since we had a run-in recently.)

The four are (so you can help in putting some pressure on them - but in good way...)

1. Midnattsdotter Fride,

2. Stirred Diesel,

3. roby Orellana and

4. Bara Jonson (but I am not expecting any from him until after February 14th, 2011, for reasons that must remain undisclosed)

Jadå, ni är fortfarande välkomna att skicka era bidrag till mig antingen inworld eller till min mejl lundamats@gmail.com

Yes, you are still welcome to send your contributions to me either inworld or to my mail lundamats@gmail.com

Tyst min mun, så får du socker!

"Tyst min mun, så får du socker!" is a Swedish expression that directly translated would be something like ""Shut up my mouth, and I will give you sugar!". It is mostly used to tell oneself to keep quiet in a situation where any discussion will be pointless and achieve nothing except rancor and strife.

But I could not help myself from posting this anyway... (Yes, I know, I know, I really should have tried harder but I am a weak and opinionated man.)

Hell no, I won´t go!

There has been a lot of talk about alternative virtual worlds lately, alternatives to "Second Life" of course.

The three alternatives I have seen discussed most frequently are "OpenSim", "InWorldz" and "Blue Mars".

The comparisons made by the believers in the alternatives invariably emphasise the shortcomings of Second Life. OK I have tried all three so called "alternatives", OpenSim a while ago and the other two just recently.

Admittedly I have only tried the alternatives for a short period of time and also with a huge degree of initial scepticism, but all I can say is that at the present stage of development they are no real alternative for me.

The points often raised by the believers in the alternatives are less lag, lower prices for land and everything else and more prims. They also speak about "the great pioneering spirit".

Less lag?
In my own experience - and I am no physicist or computer wizard - lag is often associated with the amount of avatars that occupy the same sim or perhaps the "world as a whole". No wonder then that the alternative worlds may have less lag, they only have a fraction of the inhabitants of Second Life. When I was in OpenSims there were 32 in that world, in InWorldz there were 68 and in Blue Mars there were also less than 100 (but I cannot remember the exact number).

The amount of users in those other worlds are extremely low. Being there feels very lonely, boring and absolutely useless. And even with this said, it took more than 45 minutes for my avatar to rez in Inworldz the first time I visited.

I hated Blue Mars because they let me be born with a childish face and I did not like the rest of the graphics either. (Yes I have seen that my friend Eddi Haskell has succeeded in creating a beautiful avatar for himself in Blue Mars, but all I can say it seems to have taken him a very long time, and I am not half as artistic as he is.)

Lower prices?
This is simply a question of supply and demand. The supply is infinite, the demand is extremely low. Do any of you really believe that the prices will stay low if and when more people come to the worlds you are promoting?

More prims?
I have all the bloody prims I need and a shitload of prims to spare. If i had even more prims I would not use them anyway. Who wants or likes clutter (with the possible exception of hoarders).

Pioneering spirit?
Pffffft thats just another way of saying "We don´t have anything ready made for you here, build it yourself or do without!" (I remember walking around in OpenSim with black socks and two black box shapes on my feet because there were no shoes provided in the inventory I was born with and nowhere to get any.) And to be perfectly honest, I am not a pioneer at all, send me to a shop anytime!

My top five reasons for staying in Second Life - at least until further notice - are:
1. My Ars and our Southern Charm sim.
This is where Ars was and Southern Charm still is. Until they tell me I can move Southern Charm to another grid I am staying put til Linden Lab pulls the plug.

2. My family and close friends in Second Life.
Love you guys and don´t want a virtual world without you!

3. Cultural developement.
The fantastic musicians and poets, the amazing artists, the awesome landscapers, the terrific builders, creators and developers. My world would be less without them.

4. Economic developement.
You can get almost anything you want in Second Life, and if you cannot get it you can order it from one of the creative developers.

5. I believe in Philip Linden and his creative staff.
The original dreamer is back at the helm, and soon with a better look...
Overall my Second Life experience has vastly improved during my three and a half years here, and it keeps improving.

Admittedly there are still problems to be handled, but I believe the issues will be taken care of. New problems will arise in time of course, and they will be taken care of also. I want to be here and see and take part in the evolvement of my Second Life so...

Hell no, I won´t go!

P.S. Yeah, I decided to remove the "update".