New Label, Same Nasty Content

The Sweden Democrats has today decided to change what they call their political ideology from "democratic nationalism" to "social conservatism".

The change is yet another step in the party´s attempts to clean up their act and become more appealing to the Swedish electorate by trying to cover up that the the party´s fundamental political perspective is xenophobic, anti-Islamic, antisemitic and anti anything whatsoever that is not Swedish according to their definition.

The party continues to work with a double set of political thought and language. One to hold the party members together and another on the public scene. Unfortunately for them - but luckily for the rest of us - sometimes leading members of the party cannot distinguish between the linguistic levels, which has lead to a series of rather comical mishaps and ensuing exclusions from the party due to racist comments posted on the internet.

According to the newly adopted policy program, the best thing for Sweden is if as many as possible have a "Swedish identity". The Swedish identity is defined as speaking fluent Swedish, living in accordance with Swedish culture and feeling more loyalty to Sweden than to any other country. Consequently, the party's main issue is still massively reduced immigration and, whatever they may say publicly, their main argument is still  that it is reprehensible to mix ethnic groups, religions and cultures.

Sven Analyzes "the Threshold"

Swedish virtual worlds blogger Sven Idyll over at Svens(k) Idyll has been thinking over Philip Rosedale´s statement to the New York Times recently and come up with this interesting analysis (rough translation by me) in his post "It becomes impossible only when you know it is"

"Philip Rosedale made a statement recently about the threshold of Second Life being high, and to some extent it is true, but one thing is absolutely critical, the willingness to learn and explore. I have in the past month seen how quickly primary school pupils will take on such a thing as building in virtual worlds like Second Life and Open Sim. They do not think it is particularly difficult - if they have the interest they learn extremely fast. Learning how it works is not the hardest part for them but to learn to utilize the many options that are available is difficult. Children do not see so many obstacles, but they try - and often several times. Sometimes, the impossible happens.

Children have not acquired the limitations that we have as adults. We as adults mean something else with "impossible" than children do. Impossible for us older people is a pretty solid stop but for the young, it is a condition that exists until someone finds a way. A few adults manage to keep this desire to conquer the impossible and I would have liked to be one of those but I have put up too many stop signs and signs for both "one way traffic" and "forbidden passage" in my mind.

If you could make a wish for new feature or something else new in Second Life would it be something that has a counterpart in real world, or you could come up with something completely new - something that can only exist in the virtual world? Some children just spurt out such ideas. We are well accustomed to some of those things, being able to teleport, fly and change our avatar anyway we wish - or so we think.

We have a whole new world waiting for us where everything is possible, but we just copy things from real world into virtual reality. When will things start coming in the virtual worlds that we can copy over to the real world? Lack of imagination is in short supply in the virtual worlds!

We want to come to the virtual world because it is different but when we get there we immediately start converting it to a copy of the world we want to disconnect from.

In how many areas of your life are you free from rules and patterns and have a belief that there are no limitations? If you have that, can you describe that which has no borders and that cannot be captured by rules or exhibit patterns?

Second Life needs pure imagination to grow but to let go of the rational thoughts completely and let your imagination reign free is probably the hardest things to do."

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I must say I agree with Sven, if a total gaming idiot like myself - and a few other fools I know all to well - could learn to enjoy SecondLife and develop our skills inworld by ourselves and with the eager help of our friends I do not really see where the huge threshold problem is. There is nothing "impossible" with SecondLife!

Sven is also correct in my mind when he calls for even more imagination in virtual worlds.

Challenges should not be easy, but they must be fun and interesting and allow us to develop in our own pace. Only then will the curiosity and childlike creativity be awakened that makes life so fun sometimes.

Model: Millimina Salamander

I am still waiting in vain for my fashion statement "The Jesters Hat - only for the boldest among fashionistas" to be copied into first life.

Job Opportunity at Linden Lab

I read on GWNews today that there is a job opening at Linden Lab, creators of SecondLife. in San Francisco, California.

My first instinct was "Bock, you must send in an application whatever the job is!" but when I kept reading and hardly understood any of the requirements and responsibilities I decided that perhaps I shouldn't burden the Lab with my CV.

After all what use would the Lab have of my talents as a semi-charming European pseudo-nobelman with almost five years of virtual living experience and an ability to often change appearances but still always remain stunningly handsome, mostly humble, often patient and sometimes friendly.

Especially when the Lab is looking for someone with "strong, versatile computer science fundamentals who will become core contributors to refactoring, building, and designing new features of our server product. You will need strong skills in application and server-side development and experience with open-software and distributed software teams is a plus" and responsibilities that include "Refactor code written mostly in C/C++ with some C# and python". (Ughhh say what...?)

When I had - very reluctantly - disqualified myself as a candidate I thought of Mrs. Vampi Twine-DeSantis (the laird´s main tech support), Mr sirhc De Santis (cool cat and skilled techie) and Mr. Sven Idyll (technical wiseguy with a profound knowledge of the workings of virtual worlds). I would warmly recommend all three for the job to my friends at the Lab.

If you wish to read the full ad and perhaps apply for the job go to Craigslist Software Engineer at Linden Lab.

Thanksgiving 2011

I would like to start off by wishing my American friends and readers a very happy thanksgiving weekend, with lots of good food and drink, loved ones, friends and family around you and - of course - football on TV!

On my own behalf I would like to give thanks my friends and families in both lives for supporting me through the last years, for being patient with me and letting me do things in my own pace.

I would also like to say thanks for learning again that you gain nothing from trying to communicate reasonably with people who live in another reality created by their own warped minds. Hopefully I will learn not to even try doing that in the future.

Bock Wins Again - Almost...

The laird celebrates the added funds

Today Swedish blogger Sven Idyll announced the winner of the contest that he has been running on his blog Sven´s(k) Idyll the last week.

The contest was to pick out the common denominator for ten videos presented one at a time.

Video 1 Fool´s Gold med Thin Lizzy. (The singer in the band was Phil (Philip) Lynnot, so we get PHILIP)
Video 2 Walk of Life med Dire Starits. (The singers name is Mark Knopfler, so we get MARK)
Video 3 Thats´s all You Need – The Faces. (Rod Stewart was part of the group during this time and he is the singer in the song. Rod´s real name is Roderish, so we get RODERICK)
Video 4 Online Venting – Rosedale. (Easy, we keep ROSEDALE)
Video 5 Dave Gahan – Kingdom. (Another easy one, we keep KINGDOM)
Video 6 Norah Jones – Humble me. (We keep HUMBLE)
Video 7 Outkast – B.O.B. (We keep BOB)
Video 8 Ulf Lundel – Kom in, Kom in. (We get KOMIN)
Video 9 Riverside – Second Life syndrome.( We keep SECOND LIFE)
Video 10 Ledtråd CEO – White magic. (CEO is the lead here)

We now have Philip, Mark, Roderick, Rosedale, Kingdom, Humble, Bob, Komin, Second Life and CEO, what do they have in common? Mix around a bit and you have four of the CEO´s in a company. The company's product is Second life.

LINDEN LAB is the common denominator and the correct answer.

Sven tells us no one managed to get the correct answer but that Bock McMillan (that's me!) after only six clues had been presented guessed on "Second Life" and is therefore awarded a consolation prize - or as he so kindly calls it encouragement prize - of 250 Lindens.

Out On the Town

This evening I have been gallivanting out on the town with some friends in first life, so all you get is this picture of the establishment I have been at.

The food was great, the wines were excellent and the company very pleasant and amusing.

Planet With Moons

Jupiter with it´s moons Io and Ganymede
Photography by Damian Preach (UK)
Astronomy Photo 2011

There is something about planets with  their moons, here represented by the mighty giant Jupiter.