Goodbye Rheta

Today I'm in mourning, for someone who I barely knew, and for her baby who was just about to be born.

I have a little boy of 18 months, and I love him very much. It's surprising how a child can change the way you look at the world.
It's how you notice other children, how children seem to know that they are in this child-like state together.

Today we heard about the death of Rheta Shan on her blog .

In my mind I can see her out shopping, on the other side of the road she can see her normal bakery. At 9 months , she can't walk very fast, she puts her hand on her stomach and says something like "Yes, soon it will be time", then starts to cross the road. Then she hears the sound of an engine, but it's too late.... I won't be able to get rid of this image for some time.

Both Rheta and baby died, and I'm just so sad that there is one less little person, who would certianly made the world a slightly better place, as Rheta did.

My thoughts are with her husband, with her family, and those of her friends who knew her virtually, but who were no less real.

Today when I got home from work I hugged my little boy and I could feel the tears, just like I do now.

I often travel around the UK, and I like to see the Cathedrals, while I have no organized religion, they are still great places, next time I will have two more candels to light.

Goodbye Rheta, and goodbye baby Shan.


Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't. ~Richard Bach

Google predictive text

The image is coming out rather small for some reason, but enter "Second Life" into Googles predictive search. :-)







Some say Google is God. Others say Google is Satan. But if they think Google is too powerful, remember that with search engines unlike other companies, all it takes is a single click to go to another search engine. - Sergey Brin

Moving to OpenSim

I've never met Zonja Capalini, but her blog has lots of good writing , and you can feel the anger flowing from her keyboard.

Her latest post is about her OpenSim Condensation land, and how it's progressing, and how she is still very angry at Linden Labs. From what she has written about her customer support experience, I don't blame her.

Now I really want to go to Condensation land, it looks beautiful.

I have been able to install my OpenSim on a Linux server, and it's permanently on, but it just sits there idling, as I really don't have much time to do anything with it yet.

The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet. -William Gibson

The Ultimate SL blog list. At least for now

ArminasX Saiman has been a very busy man. Some time ago he decided to have a look how many Secondlife blogs were active. This was done via Technorati rank.

I wondered this some time ago , and the consensus was there would be 500 or so, ArminasX and his mighty crew of helpers found at least 1,202. I guess it was a lot of work.

I'm equal ranked 84th :-) Who would have guessed?

It's more likely that there are a few more that have been missed, and there are those that are abandoned, but one day might be resumed.

Personally I hate it when someone deletes their blog, it's almost like a personal insult.

"Here are the thoughts I shared with you, and now I'm taking them back."

I think the pleasure of completed work is what makes blogging so popular. You have to believe most bloggers have few if any actual readers. The writers are in it for other reasons.

Blogging is like work, but without coworkers thwarting you at every turn. All you get is the pleasure of a completed task.

- Scott Adams (creater of Dilbert )

Learning French

I have been trying to learn to speak French, but so far I can't say it's been going well. It would have been nice to have the change to live there for a year or so, but I suspect with the current economic outlook, it's not very likely.

I have a few books on the country and some teaching aids, so to get a deeper understanding of the country, I have read or am reading:-

Sixty million Frenchmen can't be wrong

50 things to hate about the French

The discovery of France

The complete Merde

Unleash your inner Gaul

Two lipsticks and a lover

For the language itself:-

Teach yourself French in 3 months

BBC the French experience

Michael Thomas

Accelerated learning French

I'm still working my way though them, Michael Thomas has a good reputation for his European languages, but I have yet to see how the Chinese course works.

Can't say I found French For Dummies very helpful, it was very dry, and not very interesting.

There is also Rosetta Stone software, I hear it's very good. But these days I use Linux at home, and it's Windows only

I would love to spend some time in France hopefully in July, but that is when the French all take holidays.

It's also a case to decide what part of France to visit.

The history of the country is surprisingly diverse, at least as written by Graham Robb. Much more than the simplistic ideas than the Anglo Saxons moved in after the Romans left.

I've been to Paris once before, and Calais twice, and living in the UK for so many years I really would like to see more of Europe.

We always have been, we are, and I hope that we always shall be, detested in France.
The Duke of Wellington

F***myslife

GoSpeed Racer has started http://fmyslife.wordpress.com/

I hope it becomes a place of angry venting :-)



Life may suck, but it beats the alternative.
-Anon

Censorship and who is touching your ports.

The Australian Senator Steven Conroy has had a few set backs recently, the main one being his blacklist being published on Wikileaks, this brought the entire list under scrutiny.

What was found was not impressive, I quote from the Brisbane Times

But about half of the sites on the list are not related to child porn and include a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.

Clever isn't it. Blocking a Dentist.

I used to work and help run an ISP in Australia, and the Govt have been trying to find ways to censor it for over ten years. I remember having discussions about it in 1999.

Remember this is for our own good, just like the Australia Card was supposed to be as well. This was a National ID Card for everyone, that was to be implemented in the 80s, it never got off the ground. Two years ago, the Howard Government was going to give it another try. But it would only be needed to access the Government provided Medicare system, so as long as you had enough money for private heath care you were fine. (HA!)
BTW I asked Vint Falken if they had ID cards in Belgium, they do, and you can find a list of countries that have them here.

So what else other treats to the Internet have surfaced recently?
SCO have a Morality police section it seems.

SCO is short for Santa Cruz Organisation, they are, or were a major player in the Unix software field, but when faced with declining sales due to Linux, they decided to take Linux to court. So they have taken Red Hat, IBM, and Novel to court for various things, and have found to be totally wrong in pretty much everything they alleged.

They also share with this group cp80.org an intersection of Mormons

So this group of Mormons want to stop all porn and objectionable material from TCP/IP port 80, that the main web browsers port. Weird.

I understand Mormons are very popular in California right now in the way they made sure that Prop 8 didn't pass.


It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creeds into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.”

Robert Heinlein

Quote of the day

Soft Cake
Originally uploaded by jjacek

Jacek wins Quote of the day with :-

"Oh bother. I borked my kernel and now I can't boot."









Everybody may know that work is good and games are bad. But everybody can be wrong too.
-- Edward Castronova

Let hope

fix-sl-lets-hope
Originally uploaded by shockwaveplasma

I have been looking for a way to so this for a while, and finally found Obama.me

Thanks a lot to Vint Falken for the picture



"When using single quotes, double quotes do not need escaping and vice versa. " - lslwiki

OSGRID

I visited http://osgrid.org , for a short time, just to see what it looked like. Well, it needs a much better Ruth, it's quite awful.

This visit was inspired by the latest post from Gwyn basically she says the future of 3D worlds is with Linden Labs following the Opensim model. But go read it yourself.

“We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Happy New year

Happy New Year

Wishing everyone a great 2009

New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions. - Mark Twain

Not a believer

I'm not one for faith, as it seems to be the ultimate answer for those who can no longer think for themselves.

One thing I do believe is that the UK Labour Government has created yet another disaster in the encouragement of so called "Faith Schools".

So rather than mixing with young people of different backgrounds, and possibly learning that there are other people who have different ideas, these schools will foster isolationism and intolerance.

Another brilliant idea from Tony Blair, who converted to Catholicism, and oddly enough is supposed to encourage peace in the Middle east.

Question:-
Lets see, name a group of people starting with, ummm "C", who have persecuted the Jews for just about 2000 years?
Who has also been the enemy of the Arabs since about 1300 or so , that also starts with "C"

Answer:-
The Catholic Church...

Genius....Really,,




So yeah..I gave...


Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color. - Don Hirschberg

On the Bus

Here is a quick update on the Atheist bus campaine

You can see here that the word is spreading

When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion.
-Robert Pirsig

Fighting Australian Censorship

The Australian government is hitting a few obstacles with it's Cleanfeed program, and I can only say this makes me very pleased.


Although the forces of stupidity are strong
The Rebel Alliance is starting stir.
And what are Rebels without posters

We have a petition as well

The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion. ~Henry Steele Commager

SL Magazines that exists outside SL distribution.

This is Nadine Nozakis entry for the Bloggers Mix n Match.

You can find the details of this idea of here at Vint Falkens blog:-

http://www.vintfalken.com/sl-projects/sl-bloggers-mixn-match-link-overview/


Now read on:-

I enjoy reading, I read news, gossip and much about SL on a daily basis yet this topic made me think, what to write about. I mean what is a magazine?

wiktionary gives:
magazine (plural magazines)

1.An ammunition storehouse.

2.Detachable ammunition holder enabling multiple rounds of ammunition to be fed to a gun.

3.A periodical publication, generally consisting of sheets of paper folded in half and stapled at fold.

I'm pretty sure that even though I'm a fan of guns in SL, and carry on Zoes tradition, as I'm a girl with gun, that not the topic for this blog, it's the third meaning. As the works changes zine are as well. There are mainly two big types of magazines out there now. News and others on of the biggest running magazines in SL is the Avastar, even if it have been closed, it still much what formed the news around second life.

Today I see the news flow dominated by Hamlet and his New World Notes , and Tateru writing for Massively.

Neither of these are magazines in the traditional meaning. They are public stories more like a blog, when ready and the news value is there, something on the other hand you can see major magazines turn into on the web side.

The other form that is growing now is big nice fashion magazines, such as Glam and Runway. These are nice web publication at about 100 pages each. Nice layout nice images and the really nice glossy paper feel, however I miss reading them in my google reader.

Even given that the fashion magazine can be a nice long relaxing read, and gives some great ideas both in photo and dressing. The art in many of the more stunning outfits and dresses is quite awesome, but must be kept to the look like normal super models. Maybe as I'm a vampire it's a little strange. Maybe it's just a part of the fashion industry as such.

Once I meet a boy who was planning on making a paper, now one hears very little of it. Now it's more modest in that area probably to do with the economy slowing down. Lets look at an example.

New World Notes, main writer Hamlet Au. This is one of the major sources of news in Second Life, Hamlet keeps following many different aspects and also have contact with some of the Lindens feeding us with comments and information from the inside.

Hamlet makes the publications much like a blog like the major web-newspapers. The pace is usually about two three stories a day.

By Nadine Nozaki

Christian love for all, except when you want to kill gay children

There is a good reason for me giving money to the Humanist Society, and it's right here:-

http://baptisthomeschooling.blogspot.com/2008/10/perilous-times-sodomites-in- school.html

Oh, It's gone, it seem that wanting to blow up a school full of gay kids is a bit much for blogger.

Thanks to Google Cache you can read all of this fantastic christian love for others.

http://tinyurl.com/5ewusx



"When lawlessness is abroad in the land, the same thing will happen here that happened in Nazi Germany. Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals--the two things seem to go together."
--Pat Robertson

and the quote, well most of those working with Hitler were actually Catholic, and not many where Gay either.

On the busses

The things you see on the sides of busses these days

BTW, I donated. I'm sure the FSM will forgive me.



Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca the Younger

The Great Wall of Australia

I used to work in the the ISP industry in Australia sometime in 2000, the Government of the time was always throwing around the idea of censoring the Internet.


The main culprit was Sen Richard Alston beloved by the Register as the World Biggest Luddite, now we see this ridiculas idea being carried by Sen Stephen Conroy , who just might be the Worlds Second biggest Luddite.

It was generally agreed in the ISP world that this was impossible/impractical, and just a way to get votes. But the government has been beavering away in it's fevered desire to shield us sensitive Australians from the sad debauchery that prevails on the Internet.

The government has a Netalert program that is designed to keep children safe on line, this of course is a worthy idea, but typically doesn't really account for much. The UK has a simalare site called Stay Safe on Line. I suspect many of the UK internet users have ever heard of it.

So far only one person has come out to save us, and produced the wonderful Netalarm it's designed to help those poor adults who are just to stupid to think for themselves, oh hang on, this might just be a parody site. It will get blocked soon, you can count on that.


There are a few issues that need to be looked at


Someone else is going to decide what I can look at on the Internet...seemingly I have to abide by their moral standards. This is the same as someone deciding what TV I can watch, or what Videos I can rent.


Does this mean I will all ways have Safe Search turned on in Google? Possibly since google can find P0rn it will be blocked totally.


One of my favorite site is Boingboing.net, it is blocked by many censorware programs as it links to ways to bypass these Censoring programs. So I can say goodbye to BoingBoing.


Age of Conan has bare breasted woman characters, so we can say goodbye to Chimmera. (Actually it seems a wardrobe revolution has taken place in the last few months)


SL, that's a major den of sin and depravity, well I guess the Gov had better block that as well. It has it's one embeded browser, so that will not be blocked.






Does filtering work?

Not if your a reasonably intelligent child, it only took Tom Wood about 30 minutes to break the government recommended filter (GO TOM!!). Not only did he bypass the blocks, but it still looked like it was working as the tool bar icon was still there.


So lets see what else can we use to view material that might be deemed unsuitable by those Australians who feel the need not to be coddled by the government:-




We have overseas proxy servers

The Tor network

Webpages by email

SL users have a web browser built in the client, oh of course, it's probably going to be blocked.




So what can we do? Probably not much as it's almost certain not to work, and will be another waste of taxpayers money. The govenment wil no dought call it a truimph, and says it protects familys.

I have some questions
What happens if the servers doing the filtering fail?
Will the interent just completly stop?
Where will the servers be located?
How do I get a site rechecked to get unblocked?
Is the list of blocked sites and material going to be public? If not, why not?


There is a petition than can be signed, but then again, since when have politicians ever regarded them? I guess that site will be blocked as well.


We used to say that Australia has a "cultural cringe" but..well that was a long time ago , and now we Australians are well over that. I have a slight problem with that belief. It looks to me that it's still there and actually increasing.


You only have to look in the newspaper about the supposed outrage over the latest works by Bill Hensen, a world renowned photographer. Our brilliant new PM called them "revolting", but I'm glad to say that some people have spoken out for common sense . In the past he has done nude of teenagers and there has not been a problem, so what has changed?


Sometimes I'm ashamed to be an Australian.


Censorship reflects society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. ~Potter Stewart

Hate and the Virtual Person

The definition of a Hate Crime from the UK Home office

Hatred is a strong term that goes beyond simply causing offence or hostility. Hate crime is any criminal offence committed against a person or property that is motivated by an offender's hatred of someone because of their:-

race, colour, ethnic origin, nationality or national origins
religion
gender or gender identity
sexual orientation
disability

In Second Life and other Virtual worlds people can choose their race, colour, height, even not to be human.

In the last few weeks there have been some remarkably bigoted opinions aired on some blogs, about other people who make the choices to be a difference race or gender. Threats have been made to "out" them. I personally think this is covered under gender identity.

Sharing/publishing information about the RL another SL citizen is also forbidden under the TOS, and can get your account cancelled.

Sophrosyne Stenvaag was so disturbed by these occurrences that she has decided to make October 25 "Gender Freedom day", and this will be celebrated in Extropia.

What is even more disturbing is the fact Sophrosyne and I are seeing different occurrences of the same problems. So it's even worse than we both thought.

The Metaverse Journal has also reported on the day, and a google for "Gender Freedom day" brings up a few results, but not nearly enough for it to be widly known.

Class, race, sexuality, gender and all other categories by which we categorize and dismiss each other need to be excavated from the inside. :- Dorothy Allison

Freedom to Read

This week is Banned Book Week in the USA.

September 27 - October 4, 2008

I quote from the Website:-

"It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982."


According to the American Library Association, more than 400 books were challenged in 2007. The 10 most challenged titles were:

1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
2. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
3. Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes
4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
7. TTYL by Lauren Myracle
8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
9. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Why is this so important? Because it means the suppression of ideas, the ideas that can show other long held ideas to be fake.

Who has hit the headlines for wanting to ban books? OMG it's Sara Palin, but is it true?

It might have been possible a year ago to find out for sure, but now, I suspect every disinformation trick will have been pulled, and getting the real story via the internet is impossible.

"There are many little ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is the best of all."

— Jacqueline Kennedy