The Biannual Confusion

Spring forward

On Sunday March 11, 2012, at 2 AM the United States (except Hawaii) - and thereby SecondLife Time (SLT) also - start Daylight Saving Time (DST) and "spring forward" the clocks to 3 AM.

The following three weeks will mean a period of total time confusion in SecondLife before Europe and Australia catch up.

Europe "springs forward" on Sunday March 25, 2012,  while Australia (in the southern hemisphere) "fall back" on Sunday April 1, 2012.

...and then all will be well for awhile until the fall, when we go trough the opposite confusion.

I cannot understand why the International community cannot agree on the same two dates for starting and ending DST. How damn difficult can it be anyway? We are talking a three week period here, just agree on one or the other or a Sunday in between and let us avoid the mess.

Bock in SecondLife is - as always - here to aid you and has a clock with the SLT in the right column for your convenience.

Announcement

The Much Honored Bock McMillan, laird of Southern Charm and prince of Cascade Falls, wishes to inform his friends that due to personal reasons he will not be celebrating his upcoming anniversary on Sunday March 11, 2012.

The laird begs for your indulgence on this whim and asks that you refrain from any and all mention of it.

A celebration may occur at a later date, if so you will be duly notified through this blog and by personal invitation.

Bukowski & Witches

Quotes by Charles Bukowski seem to be popular on some of my friends Facebook accounts I have learned from a post at my buddy Apmel Goosson´s blog today.

As I am not on Facebook anymore, I will send my response of support here with another usable quote from the same man. I think I actually love it, but I am crazy because I have a weak spot for witches also.

And this will be my final contribution to the civil war that has flared up in Swedish SecondLife thanks to the anonymous bloggers at Prim Team/Netlott (or whatever they may call their blog today) for unearthing old battle axes.

The Interview With Oz Linden

(via Treet.TV)

Jessica Lyon, from the Phoenix viewer, interviews Oz Linden of Linden Lab on the Labs policy changes on Third Party Viewers (TPV). (Unfortunately parts of the interview is silent or inaudible.)

Oz Linden (Scott Lawrence in first life) is the director of Open Development at Linden Lab.

This is my humble take on some of the issues discussed in the interview (and please remember I am not a programmer):

1. Privacy
The change has been put on hold indefinitely by Linden Lab to investigate more on legitimate uses, except concerning whether someone is shown to be online against the users consent.

2. Identifying viewers, operating systems, IP-addresses and other personal data about the users
I support the change in policy as I cannot see a legitimate reason for anyone to gather, store and display this information about users.

3. Altering "shared experience" (the rendering of the world itself)
I support the change as long as testing in small scale is allowed as the Lab says it will be. Most of the brouhaha on this issue seems to me like the usual psychotic Linden-bashing and mostly comes from "the usual suspects", i.e the high-strung prima donnas.

4. "Feature surprises" by Linden Lab
I don´t understand why the Lab shouldn't be allowed to develop new features in private, just like the TPV´s can.

5. Cooperation vs. Competition between Linden Lab and the TPV´s
I highly approve of the fact that Oz strongly stressed the Labs wishes to cooperate with the third party viewers in improving the user experience and SecondLife as a whole.

It Ain't Cheap To Look Good

Bock as a noob dancing at Badboy Plaza

My buddy Eddi Haskell has a new poll running on his blog Eddi Haskell´s Second Life, asking How Much Do You Spend To Look Good in SecondLife?

Take the poll, please, I am so looking forward to see the final results.

I will not share with you how much I spend, but if you look at the picture above I am sure you can guess it took some hard work, many cosmetic surgeries (with shape and skin changes), AO´s to get rid of the "duckwalk" and a more than a few Lindens on a decent wardrobe and accessories to make that hideous noob look as halfway good as I do today.

The picture above shows me in my third or fourth month in SecondLife. I had just managed to buy the Pride Flag after about 25 hours of "camping". Soon afterwards I plugged in my credit card to SecondLife and the ugly duckling turned into the swan you see today, or close.

This is the only snapshot from my early days that I have found in my Inventory yet, I know there should be some more but I haven't taken the time to go through my 2,000+ snapshots and textures yet. Unfortunately I also remember how I at one point started deleting things from my early days (I will never do that again), but I am hoping there may still be some I overlooked

And the Struggle Continues...

After almost a century great strides in women´s equality have been taken in many ways and in many parts of the world. However, much more work remains before women achieve full and equal rights even in the countries where they have come the furthest. In other parts they still live in patriarchal slavery and are treated worse than cattle - and are more expendable - with hardly any human rights at all, if any.

Be strong, be determined and join forces among yourselves and with those other allies you can find. Hopefully you will not have to wait another hundred years.

A.B.B. Indicted For Terror and Murder

 Lise Aserud/AFP/Getty Images

"Norwegian prosecutors on Wednesday indicted (A.B.B.) on terror and murder charges for killing 77 people in a bomb and shooting rampage on 22 July 2011 but said the confessed mass killer was unlikely to go to prison for the country's worst peacetime massacre.

Prosecutors said they considered the 33-year-old rightwing extremist to be psychotic and would seek a sentence of involuntary commitment to psychiatric care instead of imprisonment unless new information about his mental health emerged during the trial, due to start in April.

As expected, they charged him under a paragraph in Norway's anti-terror law that refers to violent acts intended to disrupt key government functions or spread fears in the population.

(A.B.B.) has confessed to the attacks but denies criminal guilt, portraying the victims as "traitors" for embracing immigration policies he claims will result in an Islamic colonisation of Norway."

Read the whole article on guardian.co.uk here.
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Please note that the question whether or not A.B.B. is indeed criminally insane is being reinvestigated by order of the Oslo District Court..