31 December 2006

Happy New Year 2007!

Here in Rome the fireworks have been going since dark. It's probably like being under
fire, or Saturday night in Iraq.

Here is hoping for a better year for the Earth and all it inhabitants.



Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man. ~Benjamin Franklin

30 December 2006

Resolutions

Learn LSL
Learn Building
Go Premium
Get job? ( already had 2 offers )
Get own house
Slip ***** an exploding poseball instead of one of her sex poseballs.
Become a muse.
More Piracy
Shoot down some planes.
Get a slave.

Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self-assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle. - Eric Zorn

29 December 2006

The Shockwave Travel Writer Part 5

I don't remember how many days it's been now, I can just see the end of my time in Rome coming to a close in a few days. The Lemonchello in the evenings does sort of make my memory of the number of days disappear.

So I have actually been in the Colesseo now, and walked all around Old Rome, and the Palatine.

Surprisingly in one shop they were selling Italian made XXXX beer from home.

Walked around the Castle, and it was full of frescos.

I installed SL on the PC in the apartment here, the CPU is a 2500 but the video card is 512M. It has less lag than the 300064 and the 128m video card. Of course it might be the network it's on as well.

vincit qui se vincit (S/he conquers who conquers her/himself.) - Roman Proverb

26 December 2006

The Shockwave Travel Writer Part 4



Xmas eve
Saw Trevi fountain, (and others ) the Presidents Palace, went to the Portaportese Flea Market and found that the trendy boots were anywhere from 10 Euro to 20 euro, that's about 5 UK Pounds!

Walked though a main shopping area, and compared prices. It's almost worth getting on Easyjet and flying here and back to the UK, when I have a few hundred pound to spend on clothes.

Xmas Day
The the stroke of midnight on Xmas eve all the church bells in town were ringing.
Opened Presents.
That day I went for a long walk to the Tiber River, and crossed at Tiber island and then back again a bit downstream.
I went past a few old temples, and you can see marble rubble just lying in courtyards of buildings, and churches that have Roman columns built in to the walls.
Travel on train/bus is really cheap, 1 Euro for 75 minutes, thats if you put your ticket in the machine. The last two days, the busses have been so full we have not been able to put the tickes inthe machines to validate them.

Boxing day
We took the Archeobus to see the Appian Way, San Callisto Catacombs , There are about 1 km of aqueducts just outside Rome.

Police forces
There are about 6 police forces in italy, andthey are mostly armed
1)Polizia di Stato (Civil Police)
2)Carabinieri (Military Police)
3)Guardia di finanza (Financial or Tax Police)
4)Corpo Forestale dello Stato ( Foresters)
5)Polizia Municipale ( Municipal Police mostly for Traffic)
6)Polizia Penitenziaria ( Jail officers )
There are armed guards on the subway, and at some stations.

Street Traders
There are a LOT of guys, selling Sun Glasses, Tripods, Wooden Trains in the shape of letters, scarves, etc.
I think they are mostly Bangladeshis.
The Natural enemyof the Street Trader is Number 3 above.


As in Rome there is, apart from the Romans, a population of statues, so apart from this real world there is a world of illusion, almost more potent, in which most men live. - Goethe

24 December 2006

Pirates

I'm very happy to say the PiratesofSL group is back and having battles. Woot!

So please join in, get your best pirate gear, jump on a ship and start shooting some cannon.

"The average man will bristle if you say his father was dishonest, but he will brag a little if he discovers that his great-grandfather was a pirate.” - Bern Williams

23 December 2006

The Shockwave Travel Writer Part 3

Rome. Day one
Train from Milan was four hours.
We arrived in the afternoon, it took ages to find our apartment, but it was not yet dark, so as the coliseum was so close, we decided to have a quick look. It's one of those things I have always wanted to see, it was just like seeing Stonehenge for the first time.

Day Two

We took a few buses around the city, and arrived at the Vatican. St Peters is much bigger than I had imagined and much more ornate. I had to do the tourist thing and send a postcard from the Vatican Post office. In general Italy is much cheaper than the UK, Food and drink is almost half the price as the UK.

Dealing with crossing the road against the endless traffic is easy, if a little nerve racking, just walk, and the cars will stop.

They like to get as close as they can before they stop, but they will stop. Don't run, or hurry, then they will know that your a tourist. I think I have blended in, but my features show that I'm not a local.

Day Three.

Highlights of today, back to the market, walked around Old Rome,Trajan's Column, went to the Spanish Steps, and shopping, birthday for a friend.

"Methinks I will not die quite happy without having seen something of that Rome of which I have read so much -Sir Walter Scott

22 December 2006

The Shockwave Travel writer Part 2

Milan,
Took the train from Geneva.
Two main sights of Milan is the cathedral, and the castle. The Cathedral is huge, and is a survivor of WW2, most of the rest of the town was flattened. You can also go up and walk around the roof, there aren't any warning signs that would be plastered everywhere in the UK.

The castle is brick built and contains the city museums.

The woman are well dressed in skinny jeans and boots, a fashion I adore. The men have not got the skinhead look that is so popular in the UK.
Lots more men with long hair, and there are more people wearing hats.
The shopping is excellent.

People in Europe seem to be thinner. I didn't see any fat people walking the street.
Aha!! I have just realized the cause of obesity!
It's speaking English!
Looks like another boost for Esperanto.

The main train station would look perfect in Gondor due to all the statues, and fountains. I suspect it's one of Mussolini's gifts to architecture.


Everyone loves justice in the affairs of another. - Italian Proverb

Xmas Card


card sl final
Originally uploaded by shockwaveplasma.
Here is a XMAS card I gave to some SL friends.

Sorry I missed a few of you out, but it was the last thing I was doing before I left for my holiday. And I stopped dropping it in to Inventories at 2.30 am


I couldnt help but put an FSM in the graphic.


"The whole mob has let itself go in pleasures" - Seneca on the Saturnalia

20 December 2006

Where's Shockwave?

The Shockwave Travel Writer

Geneva

Well for those that ever want to go to Geneva, dont go on a Sunday, the whole city closes down. Only the corner shops and the ppl who run the roasted nut stands were open.

But I was able to go underneath the Cathedral to see the extensive work, done by the archeologists. It's a great display, but not really one I would do a 3 hr flight to see.

The Swiss franc notes are very colourful and they start from 10F, from 5F and below are coins, all the way to .5F. Thats equal to half an australian cent. Oddly the city is full of banks, no kidding, banks, banks swiss army knifes, watches ,swiss army knifes and clothes. Not just ordinary clothes, but the stuff Princess Di would wear ( if she still alive ). And Fur! Lots of fur.
Needless to say everything was expensive, even the golden arches was expensive.

The hotel was right in the middle of the red light district, so the working girls would gather at the rear of the hotel. One was wearing a short black leather skirt, with a black leather halter neck top and black thigh boots, I thought that looked really sexy, and strangley so familiar...oh yeah....*cough cough*

So rather than go to Geneva, unless you have a thing for bankers, do something exciting, defrag your harddrive!

I would post some pictures, but the Camera came up with the error message "Insufficent Input", and shutdown.


Switzerland is simply a large, lumpy, solid rock with a thin skin of grass stretched over it.
- Mark Twain

14 December 2006

PixelPulse is out


ppulse2
Originally uploaded by shockwaveplasma.
When I say it's Hot, I mean it, and I've just started reading the contents!
A Journalist is a machine that converts coffee into copy.-- Michael Ryan Elgan

12 December 2006

Why SL is hard to write and fix

( Totally unrelated picture )

















One of my favorite thinkers ( and Terry Prattchet fan ) Gwyneth Llewelyn has written a post on why SL is more than just an application, and basically how silly comments from the great unwashed masses are.

I think I left a note on Erbos blog some months ago , about the same thing, and how I used to work for an ISP, and the stupid comments in the forums from the customers. The tech guys would tell me the callers who are windows networking people have the oddest ideas.

Caller: My email is down, do you have a problem with your exchange server?
Techie: We don't have any exchange servers, what error messages are you getting?
Caller:NO Exchange, no wonder the emails are not working.
Techie falls off chair laughing.....

The CEO was called a port swilling, suited fatcat, in reality, he's never more happy than when he's putting Cisco gear together, and has the largest collection of black t-shirts, excepting Death Metal fans.

EDIT:
I suspect I was still out of my mind from lack of sleep, I wrote this originally


I would rather be the lead role in a zombiegoatbukkake movie than touch that "thing" of yours
-Shockwave Plasma

11 December 2006

work

Due to an unseen amount of work, like four, twelve hour days in a row, I've not been doing much in SL :-(

Not even any old pics to load. Sorry

EDIT:- 28 Hrs awake at the office is not fun, but I came home before the hallucinations started.

While Matrix like bulges in the fabric of spacetime are a tolerable visual hallucination, it's when the hands start coming out of the bulges and start talking like a sock puppet, you know it's time to get some sleep.


Personally, I have nothing against work, particularly when performed, quietly and unobtrusively, by someone else. I just don't happen to think it's an appropriate subject for an "ethic."
Barbara Ehrenreich

06 December 2006

The Princess of Purple and The Pixellated Paperdoll


I would like to say Hello to Reina Quine and Patience Xie, newly added to list of "Random Mad People".



"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." --Alice Walker

04 December 2006

Numbers and money

Last night I had people asking me, "How do I make money"?

While this is not unusual, it was odd that the new people who where asking didn't even seem to know what SL was about.

The same people were asking "What do I do now?" and "How do I play this game"?

It was only when I looked at Saturdays Times, ( on Monday morning ) that I saw this cover.
The article inside also covers Moopf and his skates.

I can only conclude that this was the reason for the very high number of people in world last night.

The Times has a daily circulation of about 650,000.

A link to the online article
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,28053-2479694.html


( Blogger formatting is back...yay )

“Newspapers are unable, seemingly to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization” - George Bernard Shaw

03 December 2006

Number

Well I saw 17982 as the highest inworld at about 23.00 GMT

17340


17340
Originally uploaded by shockwaveplasma.
I'm sure I saw it hit 17,650, I wonder if we will hit 18,000 ?

Book Review

I have seen a few mentions of the book "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage, from Ordinal and Erbo.

So on my last visit to the Library, I ordered a copy. It was not as big as I thought it would be, but quite a good read. It's about 200 pages long.

It's full of lurid tales of vice and naked ambition and seedy hotels with record company executives ripping off young talented..hang on, sorry wrong book.

Victorian Internet is mostly about Samuel Morse and how the telegraph system he invented changed the times it takes to communicate news from months to minutes.

It gives a backgroud to people and ideas leading up to his invention, and the incredible amount of trouble it took to get some backing to get it recognized as something worthwhile.

But I suspect most people who read this blog will recognize the misunderstandings that people had then, as now.

An ISP where I used to work, was once asked to send a caller the Internet on CD. There was also the ever popular, "Do I have to be connected to the Internet to get my Email"?


BTW: Blogger has taken all my formatting away! ( Stupid Blogger )



If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.
~Edith Wharton