My Hopes for 2013

At the end of a year it is customary to express ones´s hopes and predictions for what may await us in the coming year. I will - a bit reluctantly - follow this tradition, so here goes. Excuse the naivety!

Universal
The universe is. It was here long before us and will remain long after we are gone and forgotten, in one form or the other. This year I am not going to be so presumptuous to make a prediction about it, I will instead merely express a hope.

1. I hope that the universe as we know it will still be.

Global
On the global level it is easier but also more difficult, because there is so much that is simply "wrong" with the state of things, we all know it but we do not know what to do about it or cannot agree among ourselves what is the best way to go about correcting the wrongs. However, here are some personal hopes and wishes that are at the top of my mind and that I choose to air here.

2. I hope that Syria will be liberated from it´s butchering dictator as soon as possible and that he will not be replaced by another dictator.
3. I hope that the Arabian spring continues.
4. I hope that President Putin of the Russian Federation and the rest of the Russian political establishment realizes that world politics is not a game.
5. I hope that The Peoples Republic of China realizes that it has a great responsibility for world peace and acts accordingly.
6. I hope the United States of America leaves its road to isolationism and takes its responsibility as the leader of the Western democracies seriously and passionately.
7. I hope that the North Korean dictatorship implodes.
8. I hope that the people of the world gain further understanding that we share a single ecosystem and that what each of us does affects others just as what they do affects us.

SecondLife
My wonderful virtual world, which is as real to me as my equally wonderful first world.

9. I hope the technical improvements we have seen will continue, little-by-little it does get better all the time.
10. I hope SecondLife will grow faster, better and stronger in every possible way.
11. I hope that Linden Lab will realize that it needs to improve its customer relations and work with the community as a whole instead of catering to the whims and wishes of a loudmouthed and technologically hostile minority.
12. I hope that Linden Lab will get better in collaborating with the residents on future developments and at communicating its intentions for the future to the residents.

Metaversal
This year I will refrain from making predictions about other blogs. Whether or not a blogger wishes to continue blogging is a strictly personal decision.

When it comes to my own blog, Bock in SecondLife, I believe that my experiences, thoughts and feelings are still relevant, if not for anyone else then for me alone. After all there are so many other blogs that through their bloggers superior knowledge, experiences and contacts are better at financial, informational and technological issues.

13. I hope that the blog Bock in SecondLife will still remain.

Personal
In 2013 I and Bock will be 43 and 6 years old respectively. We will have reached the points in our lives where we should become more mature and less flippant, where we should realize that lives are serious matters not to joke around with. Let me assure you that we do realize it, but we still choose to ignore it - completely.

14. I hope that I will remain in SecondLife.
15. I hope that I will have reduced my medication with antidepressants.
16. I hope that I will have sex again, in both lives but most importantly in first life.
17. Most of all I hope that my loved ones in both lives will be safe and still with me through it all.
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That concludes my hopes for the coming year.

I would like to thank you all for the support and love you have shown me and the blog in the past and hope you will continue to do so in the future.

I wish you all a wonderful, prosperous and happy new year and hope to see you all in the coming year. If we should not have met yet I hope we do, I am actually a nice guy most of the time - even if I say so myself.

SecondLife Declared Doomed

On the evening of the day that SecondLife had been declared to be doomed by a Swedish journalist in the country´s largest morning paper (the article in Swedish "In the Company of Dead Avatars") the Much Honored Bock McMillan, laird of Southern Charm and prince of Cascade Falls, decided to go dancing as a neko at Club OrmDricka.

"If my world is dying, I sure the hell haven't noticed it yet. Why would I take the condescending declaration of my worlds impending death from the visiting snobbish Swedish journalist Ms. Hanna Fahl of Dagens Nyheter as the truth? She knows nothing!

On the contrary, now that we are doing away with the outdated technology that has been holding us back for the last couple of years due to an extremely loudmouthed and vocal minority of residents. We have a wonderful future waiting and I am happy, thrilled and excited to remain here and see the amazing things that are to come and to be part of the wonderful and vibrant SecondLife community, my people!"

Technical Malfunctions

Since a couple of weeks I have been experiencing some strange technical problems in SecondLife. Below I will give you a complete list of the various problems, the causes that have been suggested to me and what I have done to try to solve them.

I noticed all the problems at the same time, so as far as I know they arose simultaneously. At that time I was using the Firestorm viewer.

Problem 1:  Repetition of my chat in local

Frequency: Daily

Description: When I speak in local chat all my remarks are repeated once. It looks like this in local chat:

"Bock McMillan: I am speaking in local chat.I am speaking in local chat."

or 

"Bock McMillan: I am speaking in local chat.

A.A: Bla bla bla

B.B: Yodel-yodel-yodel

C.C: Di-da-de-da-dum-dee-dum.

Bock McMillan: I am speaking in local chat."

What I have tried to illustrate above is that sometimes the repetition is instantaneous while at other times there is a delay of between 10-60 seconds. There are no brackets around the repetitions. Mostly I can see it happening myself but at other times I don´t see it.

Suggested causes: a) Translation is activated, b) Pushing Page Up, c) Lag

a) I have checked this at least 25 times and translation is never, and has never been, activated, besides if it were a translation it would - usually - have brackets around the repetition.

b) No, I do not try t annoy myself and everyone else at the venue by pushing the "Page Up" key on my keyboard every time I have spoken in chat. (You will have to take my word for this, I´m afraid.)

c) Yes, it happens in venues where there is lag, but it can also happen where there is no lag at all.

Problem 2: Repetition of my chat in Instant Message

Frequency: Daily

Description: When I speak in IM all my remarks are repeated once. Reportedly sometimes the repetition is instantaneous while at other times there is a delay of between 10-30 seconds. I cannot see it myself but the people I am talking with tell me about it.

Suggested causes: See Problem 1.

Problem 3:  Repetition of payments

Frequency: Daily

Description: When I buy, donate or tip my payment is repeated either immediately or within 60 seconds afterwards. This means I make two purchases and receive two deliveries of everything I buy or that I donate or tip twice the amount I had intended.

Suggested causes: Lag (See Problem 1 c and my additional information about this)

Problem 4: HUD's are turned on or off involuntarily

Frequency: Daily

Description: If I have a HUD turned on it turns itself off and if I have it turned off it turns itself on.

Suggested causes: Lag. (See Problem 1 c and my additional information about this.)

Problem 5: Involuntary movement

Frequency: Weekly

Description: When I am standing around or dancing at a venue my avatar starts moving around until it ends up in a corner from where it cannot be moved.

Suggested causes: Lag. (See Problem 1 c and my additional information about this.)

Measures I have already taken to try to solve the issues, to no avail so far.

1. I have cleared my caches 984,367 times (Well, no less than 100 times if that is more believable)

2. I have restarted  my modem no less than 25 times, on occasions leaving it off more than an hour.

3. I have re-installed the SecondLife viewer more than 20 times, making certain that I did a fresh install every time.

4. Switched to Linden Lab´s viewer 3 and then back again to Firestorm and then back again to Linden viewer 3, making sure every time that I did a fresh install.

5. I have talked with a sweet Linden on the labs Live-Chat support. She made the same suggestions that I have listed above (1-2), checked my avatar for corruption and told me it was low but she was going to run a cleaning procedure anyway, which she did. 

6. I have taken off all my attachments and HUDs and reset the HUDs.

7. I have run several virus and malware scans on my computer, both online and offline.

Today, after yet another fresh install, I took the drastic measure to delete everything in my Inventory that was younger than sixty days. Luckily I have not been purchasing much lately, but unluckily all your holiday greetings had to go I am afraid. Results of this drastic measure are still pending. This measure did not help at all!

(The information in this post was later turned into the support ticket #01587329 I sent to Linden Lab)

One Down...

Today I had a long conversation with my stepson Guyke. We discussed several things that were good to get out of the way.

As I told Guyke, "It is at least good for me to know, that I have two wonderful men who love me, care for me and look out for me even if the two of you should never see eye to eye on anything else again."

However, I still believe and hope that this tiff can be laid behind us soon, when I have spoken to the other party involved.

Cease and Desist

I am receiving a shitload of offline messages from two of my loved ones in SecondLife.

As I understand it the two are at each others throats for some reason that I do not yet know or understand. I am not feeling up to getting involved in this today, but I am feeling better and will be in-world tomorrow again to speak with you both in turn. I am convinced we will work this out.

Meanwhile I would like to tell and kindly request the following.

• I love you both very much and refuse to imagine a SecondLife without either of you in it.
• Please, cease and desist from any further direct or indirect communication with each other for the time being.
• No one moves anywhere or leaves anything before I have had the possibility to talk with the party concerned.

See you both tomorrow!

I ask that some responsible person that knows what I am talking about in this strange post please does me the favor of directing my two loved ones attention to this post. Thank you, I am much obliged!

Setback

I´m not quite sure what happened, but suddenly and quite unexpectedly - for me at least - I am back in the dumps. The medication I am on have now so limited the scope and depths of my feelings that everything seems connected with "tired". "Happy and tired", "doing fine and tired", "sad and tired", "bored and tired" and sometimes even "tired and tired".

Even I get bored with myself, its no wonder that others do too.

Photography by Peter Marlow

The way I know if I am feeling better or worse is if I wish contact with others or not. Right now I just avoid contact, I can easily do that in first life by turning off the cellphone or simply by refusing to answer, in SecondLife it´s not that easy, so I am staying away until my mood changes.

Just A Beautiful Picture

Photography by W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978)

This picture somehow reminds me of a western movie I once saw, cannot remember which. The picture is said to be taken during WWII and show a soldier washing up after coming home.