Preparations for the Deadwood sim's re-start -- the military presence

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At the "Ft. Laramie" build for the vendor/orientation area of the redesigned Deadwood 1876 sim, Clay and September (and September's prim children, who I think should be named "Primmy" and "Lagston") meet Sergeant OHanlon. Yep. That will be my new new main avie after the restart.

So by now a lot of you have no doubt heard about the plans to take the time frame for the Deadwood sim back to the spring of 1876. At some point in March, we will have the big 1879 fire in the old build and it will be destroyed. After a very brief transition period we will be reopening with everything taken back to what it was like when Deadwood first started--a rough mining camp illegally sitting on what is supposed to be Indian land, and consisting mostly of tents and rough cabins. You can read about the decision on our forum, and also on Cici Levenque's blog Western Roles.

We're all pretty stoked about this. Deadwood was already unusual in terms of historical roleplay sims, in that time actually moved forward and the sim physically and socially evolved as that happened. It started over two years ago as a relatively primitive frontier town in mid-1876. Now it's a slightly more civilized place and the time frame has advanced to January 1879. Part of what made the environment unique was that it was always dynamic--things changed, people changed, the community changed. It wasn't one of those sims where stuff got built and the builder just walked away to go do something else. And now, we are taking the next step--we're going to trash it and start over.

Why? Well, partly it's because burning shit down or blowing it up is kinda fun. But it's also because a lot of us rather miss those rough and tumble days that the sim represented early on. And we learned a hell of a lot in the last two years--how to organize ourselves and our roleplay, how things should look, and how the people should look, how gold mining actually worked in the 1870s, and what kinds of new stories we could cooperatively develop and play out.

It's a pretty bold move on the part of both the owners and the residents but it will be an an exciting opportunity to put all that acquired knowledge to work, and to do something that to my knowledge, no one else has tried in SL yet. And it is going to be an opportunity to try to do things better, and in more authentic ways than they have been done so far.

One of these areas is the issue of recreating a 19th century military unit in SL. Generally speaking, the US army of the Victorian western frontier has not been represented terribly well on the grid as far as we have seen. Some groups have tried to do it right, but mostly it's been pretty iffy. I won't point to anything specific, because, hey, people do the best they can using the information they have. And mostly they're just trying to have fun. Well, we're going to try to take it to the next step and still have some fun--AND tie the military presence into the sim orientation and greeting process.

As with much of what we intend to do after the re-start, we have already started creating new avies, building new gear and clothing, and choosing what our roles will be and deciding what our new characters will be like. And as you can tell from the picture at the top of this post, sim co-owner and chief builder Caed Aldwych has already started working on the orientation area/Fort build. We want to have just about everything ready to go so that that the transition period will be as short as possible.

For example, I have already got my new avie ready, and Caed has finished a uniform and equipment set for our recreated unit. Like I said, we're trying to do this as well as we can, and the results--which my avatar is modeling in the screenshots with this post--are looking pretty good so far. You will note that Caed made an 1854 style cavalry shell jacket with the yellow trim removed (they were using up a lot of Civil War era surplus in the post war era, as well as forage cap, trousers, gauntlets and riding boots. He also made up an equipment belt with the M1872 belt and buckle, an M1874 cartridge box, and a holster for the SAA Colt pistol first issued in 1873. To go with all this, he also produced that pistol and a Springfield carbine. As I mentioned in another post, we are looking forward to additional M1872 and M1874 uniform elements from Astolat Dufaux, so we will be able to demonstrate the mix of clothing and accouterments that the plains cavalryman of the 1870s was wearing both in the field and on garrison duty.



Here's my new avie, Sergeant Major OHanlon, wearing uniform, cap, equipment and pistol all made by Caed Aldwych, and Ju Weissnicht's KBoots (since OHanlon is a senior NCO we wanted him to have something a little fancier than the issue boots that Caed has made to provide to the privates and junior NCOs). The skin and shape were made by DarkDharma Daguerre, and the hair is from Discord Design.


I don't know about you all, but I think he looks pretty good. Yeah there will always be things to quibble about--including the fact that yes, we know that our representation of Ft. Laramie is the earlier form of the fort, but Caed elected to do it in this configuration for logistical and stylistic reasons related to the orientation and vendor function of this part of the build. But, hey, I think it's still more authentic than other in-world western "fort' builds.

Now of course the appearance of an environment and the avatars in it is only one aspect of trying to do this right. There are also issues of information, and attitude. To this end, I would like to share with you the contents of the following two note cards that Sand Rau and I have been working on to help guide and inform the players who want to take part in this experiment:

Notecard One

Cavalry Units of the US Army on the Western Frontier
After the Civil War, the US army need to reestablish control in the western territories as well as occupy parts of the former Confederacy. Four additional cavalry regiments were added to the existing six. The 7th and 8th were white regiments. The 9th and 10th regiments consisted of black soldiers with white officers leading them. These regiments later achieved fame as the “Buffalo Soldiers,” a name given to them by the Indians.

After the Civil War, the Cavalry had a surplus of commissioned officers. Many had held high brevet (temporary) ranks during the late war. One such man was George Armstrong Custer, who had graduated from West Point in the class of 1861. At the end of the Civil War he held the brevet rank of Major General. These temporary promotions were rewards given for meritorious service. After the war he reverted to the permanent regular army rank of Captain. At a later date when he became second in command of the 7th Cavalry, he was appointed to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Hundreds of other officers were in similar positions. Ex-Colonels served as Captains, and Captains were served as Lieutenants. Though these men functioned at these lower ranks, they were entitled to be addressed according to the highest brevet rank they had held in the Civil War (hence Custer was addressed as "General").

Filling the enlisted ranks was another story. Most of the men who had served during the war were tired of fighting and returned to their families. Some experienced men who had served in the war did stay on--perhaps having gotten used to the life, or not having family to go back to. Among these were former confederate enlisted men--and even officers--who served as non-coms ( A number of years passed before ex-confederate officers were allowed to serve in the US army as commissioned officers).

Recruiting
It was extremely difficult to recruit men for this difficult, hazardous duty. For some men, the cavalry became a place to simply disappear. Most cavalry units operated outside the borders of the states and provided a new start in life with few questions asked. Early on, many of those enlisting in the cavalry had arrest warrants outstanding for them. Some joined the service as an alternative to serving jail time. Some judges believed that a hitch in the military would make a man out of the boy. In short, many of the enlisted men were criminals, adventurers and ex-confederate officers now serving as corporals and sergeants.

Immigrants, especially those from Ireland and German, also filled the ranks. Others came from England, France and Italy. John Martini for example was an Italian immigrant who became a bugler in the 7th Cavalry, survived the Little Bighorn battle, and had a long career in the cavalry.

One of the biggest challenges for these immigrants in the army was the language barrier. Organizational efficiency and communication was somewhat compromised by the fact that many of the American recruits did not read or write, and the situation was compounded by the reality that many of the foreign-born soldiers were trying to learn to speak english at the same time they were trying to learn the the ways of the army.

Pay
A trooper started off at the pay rate of $13 per month. By the time he finished his first hitch and re-enlisted this was raised to $15. At that point, he was commonly known as a “50 cent a day professional.”

Organization of the Cavalry
A regiment consisted of 12 companies, usually labeled from A to M. There was no J troop because in the handwriting of that era it was easy to confuse the letter I with the letter J.

In 1883, the term for a company was changed to "troop".

Four companies (or later, troops) comprised a squadron or battalion. A major commanded each squadron. The company itself was comprised of about 95 men,
broken down to the following ranks:

1 Captain
1 First Lieutenant
1 Second Lieutenant
1 First Sergeant
5 Line Sergeants
4 Corporals
2 Trumpeters
2 Farriers (horseshoers and
veterinarians)
78 Privates (approximate number)


Army Posts in the West
Various forts, both large and small, were established, mostly during the period from the 1850s to the 1870s, throughout the Dakota, Nebraska and Montana Territories on the northern plains, in the state of Texas, and in the New Mexico and Arizona territories of the southwest. As settlement, railroad construction, mining and agricultural interests spread in these areas, these posts were established to to provide bases for operations. A few had defensive elements such as stockades, blockhouses and/or earthworks. The majority, however, looked nothing like the stereotypical log fort shown in the movies--they were generally “open plan” posts, with no protective walls and consisting mostly of large barracks structures and other support buildings (stables, storage buildings, workshops, officers housing, etc.) arranged around a central parade ground. Attacks or raids by Native Americans on army posts was extremely rare. These posts might be garrisoned by either cavalry and infantry personnel, and sometimes were manned by a combination of the two. Garrison life in a fort was structured with most events of the day being announced with bugle calls. The day usually started at 5:30am with Reveille and ended at 10:00pm with the bugle sounding Taps. The working day usually ended at 5:15pm with Retreat, and this was followed up at 6:00pm with Supper Call.

A great deal of time in garrison was spent in drill (marksmanship training was limited due tothe army not wishing to spend a lot on ammo, but this changed after the Sioux war). A lot of time was also spent on grooming and caring for the cavalry horses--Stable Call was sounded twice a day.

Uniforms and Equipment
Uniforms and equipment right after the war was mostly left over gear from the Civil War. In the 1870s, new uniforms, weapons and equipment were gradually issued. On campaign the horse soldiers of the middle 1870s wore a gray pull-over 3-button shirt, the M1874 five-button fatigue blouse (a sack coat very much like the Civil War 4-button sack coat), a black slouch hat (usually with brass insignia on the front), sky blue trousers (with a branch of service colored stripe for officers and non-coms, and sometimes white canvas reinforcing on the seat and in-seams), and tall riding boots. Equipment included the 1874 McKeever cartridge box and the 1872 or 1874 saber belt with square US buckle, or the "prairie" belt with loops for ammo, the M1873 .45/55 single-shot Springfield carbine (firing a version of the .45/70 cartridge that had a lighter powder load to reduce recoil from the carbine), and the M1873 .45 SAA Colt revolver. The canteen, saddle bag and other gear were hung from the saddle. The M1860 light cavalry saber was issued to troops in this period, but usually was not carried in the field except by some officers.

Already working on backstory--note the service stripes on OHanlon's sleeve--they indicate 15 years in the service, including 5 years in the war.


Notecard Number 2

Background for the Recreated 2nd Cavalry Regiment at Ft. Laramie in the Deadwood Sim

Origins of Ft. Laramie as a trading fort

Fort Laramie was a significant 19th century trading post and
diplomatic site located in the area that becomes the Wyoming territory in 1868.

During the middle 19th century, it also was a primary stopping point on the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail and was, along with Bent's Fort on the Arkansas River, the most significant economic hub of commerce in the region. In the 1840s it was taken over by the United States Army to protect travelers on the Oregon, California and Mormon trails.

Ft. Laramie as military post

Fort Laramie, the military post, was founded in 1849 when the army purchased the old Fort John for $4000, and began to build a military outpost along the Oregon Trail.

For many years, the Plains Indians and the travelers along the Oregon Trail had coexisted peacefully. As the numbers of emigrants increased, however, tensions between the two cultures began to develop. To help insure the safety of the travelers, Congress approved the establishment of forts along the Oregon Trail and a special regiment of Mounted Riflemen to man them. Fort Laramie was the second of these forts to be established.

In the 1850s, one of the main functions of the troops stationed at the fort was patrolling and maintaining the security of a lengthy stretch of the Oregon Trail. This was a difficult task because of the small size of the garrison and the vast distances involved. In 1851, a treaty, the Treaty of 1851, was signed between the United States and the most important tribes of the Plains Indians. The peace that it inaugurated, however, lasted only three years. In 1854, an incident involving a passing wagon train precipitated the Grattan Fight in which an officer, an interpreter, and 29 soldiers from Fort Laramie were killed. This incident was one of several that ignited the flames of a conflict between the United States and the Plains Indians that would not be resolved for many years. A respite in the conflict came in 1868 when a peace treaty was signed at Ft. Laramie between the major northern plains tribes including certain bands of the Sioux and Cheyenne and the US government. Among other things, this treaty assured the Indians that they would retain title to the Black Hills, an area adjoining the Dakota Territory.

Fort Laramie in 1876

Unfortunately, the Treaty of 1868 did not end the conflict between the United States and the Indians of the northern plains. By the mid-1870's, major campaigns were being mounted against the plains tribes. The discovery of gold in the Black Hills in 1874, and the resultant rush to the gold fields had violated terms of the treaty and antagonized the Sioux who regarded the Hills as sacred ground. Under leaders such as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, they and their allies (primarily Cheyenne), chose to fight to keep their land. In campaigns in 1876-77, Fort Laramie served as a staging area for troops, a communications and logistical center, and a command and control point.

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Jobs and duties of the our recreated 2nd US Cavalry unit at Fort Laramie:

We are a group of Deadwood sim residents who will be forming a recreation of a company of horse soldiers from the 2nd US Cavalry, which served at the real Ft. Laramie in this era.

The U.S. Army on the frontier was there primarily for keeping the peace. But it also was sworn to faithfully execute the orders given to them by the legitimately elected government of the United States, and sometimes that meant carrying out policies that the soldiers did not make and may not have agreed with. However, like the members of the organization that we seek to emulate, we will do our best to follow our orders and carry out the assigned mission.

1. IC, our primary duty here is to maintain the peace between Indians and civilians. However, we may be called upon to expand that mission: in the early months of the gold rush, we will be the only official law in the area of the Black Hills. Remember, in 1876 this land is not yet officially part of the Dakota Territory. There is no local government or law except that which the miners organize themselves according to their usual customs and practices.

2. OOC we will also function as greeters and help new arrivals get started.

We will help any person who is new to DW sim, and provide them with any help they need (such as explanation of Rules and guidelines of the sim.) It is our duty to help anyone who asks or inquires of DW sim. So a good attitude, knowledge of how the sim works and its rules and guidelines, and good communication skills are a must.

3. We will function and behave in a way that honors and respects the memories and the heritage of the professional frontier soldiers who were given a difficult task and who, for the most part, sought to carry out those duties in a responsible and professional manner.

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Serving as a soldier in the DW sim:

Initially, 2nd US Cav will be the only official peacekeeping force in the DW sim, but we will not and cannot take a hand in dealing civilian situations until we are asked by a town or group of people for our assistance.

As a soldier you must be patient in acting on situations. For example, if you see bandits or hostiles attacking a civilian you never act alone, you come to the highest officer available and report the situation--the action to be taken from there will be determined by the chain of command.

This also applies for fights between civilians--HOWEVER, if any shooting or mischief takes place on the grounds of the fort, then and only then can a soldier can act on his own behalf. Likewise, in situations requiring self-defense or defense of a comrade, a soldier should act as his training and instinct directs him to. All incidents should then be reported to the chain of command.

Patrols

A major part of what the unit will do is of course to garrison the fort area. At other times, when we have enough personnel, we will make mounted "patrols," that may take us as far as Deadwood.

These patrols will be led by either the unit commander or a non-com.

**************

JOBS IN THE 2nd US CAVALRY AT FT. LARAMIE:

1. Officers and non-commissioned officers
a. Post commandant--Captain Sand Rau (note: Sand achieved the rank of Brevet Colonel in the Civil War, so although like most army officers he returned to his pre-war rank in the post war army--that of captain--he should still be addressed as "Colonel"
b. Regimental Sergeant Major/senior non-com (Dio alt, Sergeant OHanlon)
c. Sergeants (to appointed as needed)
d. Corporals (to be appointed as needed)

2. Medical personnel
a. Regimental surgeon
b. nurse(s)

3. Enlisted soldiers
a. privates assigned to fight as mounted troops
b. privates assigned to serve as gun crew for the mountain howitzers

4. Support personnel
a. cooks
b. ferrier
c. laundresses
d. sutler
e. post canteen bartender
f. quartermaster

5. Scouts and Interpreters
a. contract civilian scouts (white and African American)
b. US Army Indian Scouts (mostly Crow and Arikara warriors)
c. interpreters (can be white, Native American or African American)


***REMEMBER, ALL OF THE ABOVE DW RESIDENTS WILL ACT IN THEIR CHOSEN IC POSITION AND ALSO AS AN OOC GREETER***

The entry area to the DW sim and vendors will be in and around the fort (possibly including a "trading post" build). This is the only area that will be OOC and IC at the same time. 2nd Cav unit members and support personnel will be expected to be IC as much as they can when talking to or helping visitors to our sim. But when talking to or addressing an officer or other 2nd Cavalry member in open chat, you must be IC.

Since Fort Laramie will function as both an orientation and vendor area, 2nd US Cav members will meet all types of people. As time goes on, people will get to know you for who you are and we want their memory of you to be that you conducted yourself responsibly and honorably as a member of our unit and a representative of the DW community.

*****************

***Basic Unit Guidelines***

UNIFORMS: Unit members on garrison duty will only wear government issued blue uniforms (either the trimmed or untrimmed M1858 shell jacket and forage cap from older quartermaster stocks, or the M1874 sack coat and M1872 kepi--approved slouch hats may be worn in some circumstances on post). Garrison uniform will include sky-blue trousers with yellow stripe--white canvas trousers may be worn for fatigue duty such as stable call or KP. Accouterments will include the M1872 belt and McKeever cartridge box. All of these items will be provided to you though the unit once you are accepted as a member.

Campaign dress may include slouch hats (including approved civilian versions), the shell jacket or sack coat, buckskin jackets for officers, canvas trousers or trousers that have been reinforced with canvas, grey issue shirts, blue or grey civilian shirts, neckerchiefs, either standard equipment belt and cartridge box or the prairie style belts with ammo loops, and riding boots.

By the time winter comes an approved issue overcoat will be identified or developed.

SWORDS: An approved version of the M1860 light cavalry sabre will be worn for parade (but seldom on campaign). These will be provided by the unit once you are accepted as a cavalry member)

WEAPONS: for enlisted personnel--M1873 Springfield carbine and M1873 SAA colt pistol; officers, scouts and interpreters may provide themselves with other weapons that are historically appropriate for the period 1876. The government issue weapons will be provided by the unit.

HORSE: Enlisted combat personnel will use horses provided by a group horse rezzer with the army style saddle blanket. Officers and scouts may provide horses from other sources. Certain non-combatant personnel such as the sugeon, quartermaster or laundresses and cooks may utilize horse-drawn buggies or wagons of approved patterns (some wagons may be provided using group rezzers)

RANKS: Ranks will be assigned by Col. Sand Rau ((he wants you to know that promotions will be based on merit and attitude, and will not happen overnight...nor in a week, for that matter))

EVENTS: At any event hosted by either Fort Laramie or Deadwood ALL Cavalry unit members MUST wear full issue blue uniforms.

Military courtesy: Officers and non-coms will be addressed properly according to rank, and in garrison duty, will salute when appropriate (salute anim will be provided)

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A message from Col. Rau:

HOW I HOPE FOR US TO BE SEEN as members of the recreated 2nd US Cavalry: I want both our visitors and our residents to look upon us as those "Good ol boys of the cavalry" and/or "The nice helpful folks up at the fort." I want to have people respect our members and to feel safe with us. Having their respect is an honor, but remember that respect has to be earned by being honorable.

*******************************************************************

Ok so you're probably wondering why I went through putting all that information up here for you. Well, I was thinking that maybe some of you might look at that and say, Hey, I'd like to give that a try. But seriously, the main thing I wanted to emphasize there is that preparing for this big change isn't just about building stuff and picking out new skins. It's about sharing information, and ideas and expectations. A big part of the effort in getting ready involves learning.

Yes, we will still learn as we go, just like we did with Deadwood during the previous couple of years. Yeah, it's also hopefully gonna be fun, and we'll get to whomp up some kick-ass storylines and have some action, suspense, drama, and the occasional comic moment.

But we're gonna have history too.

So like I say, we are real excited about this. I will keep you updated, and we will also probably talk at some point soon about some other areas of concern--not the least of which is how Native Americans will be represented in this experiment. There are some real complex and emotionally charged issues to deal with here. You know, it's most likely not going to turn out how we expect or hope (remember nothing does in SL). But it should be interesting.

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A further thought on the memes at the extremes

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A couple of people who I think pretty highly of have linked to my previous post about the standardized thinking at the extreme opposite ends of commentary on SL, and I wanted to thank them.

First off, Dusan Writer, bless his heart, linked to the post on Twitter and actually said something nice about it, rather something like, "you're not going to believe this tripe."

I do appreciate it, pard. It's nice when someone like Mr. Writer links to your stuff because it does expose your writing to some new folks, and hopefully, one or two of 'em might stick around for the ride, or might just come back now and then. Either way that would be pretty cool.

Also, as I was looking through today's "visitor paths" data at Statcounter, and noticed that one of the readers who linked through by way of Dusan's tweet was from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. I hope they maybe looked at some of the creative writing as well as the obnoxious opinion pieces. Just so you know...I can be bought.

Anyhow, the other person who linked to the post was Emilly Orr in her most recent post. Emilly is one of the more unique independent thinkers who regularly comments on virtual worlds, particularly SL, and I always take it as a great compliment when she links to something of mine. In this post, she takes what is arguably a more open-minded look at Barry Collin's piece in PC Pro than mine was. And the really cool part was that the things from Mr. Collin's commentary that she quoted got me to thinking a bit further about what actually was wrong with what he was saying.

Emilly's post included the following:

"PC Pro's Barry Collins asks, whatever happened to Second Life? The article seems curiously tilted; for all that he's calling it a wasteland and abandoned by all the cool kids, he's also noting that Second Life keeps making money--and lots of it. You can't make money off an abandoned property; people are still interested in SL, and all the bleating otherwise won't change things.

But I will say I agree with his assumptions in general: the Labs pissed a lot of people off, so now, yes, the mainland's pretty empty. It's rare I port to most stores and see more than one avatar standing around. It's equally rare that if I go to Zindra, I don't find it packed--at least by my definition of "packed" (which is still sixteen to thirty avatars visible).

I did admire how he ended the piece, though:

"It’s like the nouvelle cuisine of the 1980s: pretty, fascinating but ultimately unfulfilling. “What’s the point of Second Life?” I asked one of the “greeters” on the Second Life Help Island, desperate to find something that could make this vast, billion-dollar empire seem worthwhile.
“I’ve had a real life for 28 years and I haven’t worked out what the point of that is yet,” came his unexpectedly philosophical reply. “Second Life’s only been going six years. Give it a chance.”

Sorry, I’m afraid I’ve got a proper life to be getting on with."

And I was glad she focused on that bit because it really help me to crystallize my own perceptions about what constitutes the essential, wonderful purpose of the platform. I tried to hit on this in my previous post here, but really didn't do a very good job of explaining what I was feeling. Thanks to Emilly, I tried to move a bit past feeling and get more to the thinking stage of things, and here is what I said in reply to her post:

"Hey Hon thanks for the plug, you know I always appreciate it.

As for Mr. Collins' parting shot about the comparison between Nouvelle Cuisine and SL, I think his half-assed little attempt at an Oscar Wilde-ish bon mot there pretty much illustrates precisely why witless lumps like that don't do well in Second life.

He's comparing an essentially passive activity--going to a restaurant and consuming something that was prepared by someone else--to an activity that, at its best, is an empowering tool for self-expression and creating one's own entertainment and social activities.

SL is NOT like nouvelle cusisine because when you order a meal in a restaurant, you can't go in the kitchen, take the cooking process out of the hands of the chef, then look through all his storage shelves and coolers and find what you want in order to make something that's completely different and probably much more interesting than his artful arrangement of green beans and chicken bits.

And it is not just the technical side of being able to build a better environment or artifact or work of art--it's the ability to build your own social structures, your own communities of like-minded goofballs (or differently-minded goofballs for that matter).

In short, as we all know and he obviously missed--the point to SL is what we choose to impose on it. As much as the Lindens may seem to fight that reality, or look for other ways of their own to make it profitable (something I'm cool with as long as it doesn't interfere with what the rest of us are doing), the "point" of SL is whatever its users choose for it to be. Consequently, it has as many potential "points" as there are of us who use it.

After all, what's the "point" of a rock? It's just a rock until you pick it up and use it to pound a tent stake into the ground, and then it's a hammer. Or you use it to slug some feckless tosser upside o' his punkin' head, and then it's a behavior modification device.

I don't know Mr.Collins' background or what he actually does in meatspace. And I really don't give a hairy green shit, to be honest. But the fact that he has some connection to PC Pro suggests that he comes from some kind of wanky-techie occupation. If that's true, I wouldn't be at all surprised, as I suspect one of the common problems that the professional techies have with Second Life (including, it seems some of the ones at LL) is that despite the dreaded "learning curve" that people keep whining about, SL is something that almost anyone can use to construct and maintain their own entertainment, education, and/or social activities. They don't have to be mere consumers unless they choose to be. And I think some people on the professional side of the equation find that frightening.

They'd rather be the chef, arranging the couple of string beans on the plate with the cute little chicken blobs themselves."

I really think that's it: if you come in expecting to be entertained--if you want to be a passive consumer--that will work for a while. Or maybe not. I will cheerfully acknowledge that Mr. Collins clearly had an unfulfilling experience with SL the second time he came to use (three years after his first experience). But let's consider the possibility that perhaps what was unfulfilling wasn't SL itself, but the fact that he approached it as a passive consumer. He sat back with an "entertain me" attitude, which is, of course, the approach that many folks bring to the platform.

And that's fine. Just don't come pissin' and moanin' to me if you decide that's not going to be rewarding enough for you. The fact is, that kind of attitude will only get you so far with any activity. Eventually, you need to move on to the next thing.

So what makes SL unique and gives it some staying power--and ongoing earning power--is the fact that we can all give it the "point" that we choose for it to have. We don't all need to abandon it when the initial buzz of being wowed and entertained wears off. We don't need to move on to the "next thing"--we can build our own "next thing" within it.

And this is the key lesson that I hope the Labsters are learning--that the strength of the platform lies in something other than amusing a huge pile of passive consumers for a brief time. Yeah. it can do that too. Hell yeah, it is a pretty amusing and awe-inspiring place to come in and just mosey about, mouth agape and all googly-eyed. Yep...be a tourist, shop, consume, have pixel sex, it's all good. But that will only work for a while. SL has to be both the big midway tourist attraction and shopping mall, and it also has to be the open-ended creative and social tool that will hold the people who can impose their own "point" to it. Linden Lab just has to work out striking the balance that will bring in the tourons without damaging the platform's ability to serve the more complex purpose.

~~~

The memes go on -- extreme ends of a spectrum in recent commentary on Second Life

~~~

Here's a picture I took of my friend Aldo climbing Total Lunar Eclipse's magnificent Mt. St Helens model. yeah..It's a metaphor of some sort. Aspiring to something higher, or some such fucking nonsense.

In the last few days a couple of different pieces have shown up on the interpipes that to my mind typify the perceptions that are held at the extreme ends of the spectrum of opinion regarding what is going on in Second Life at present, and what its future holds.

In one of these pieces that I am referring to, the respected and beloved M Linden weighs in at the “happy shiny avatars holding hands” end of things in his New Year’s message to his partners on the grid. Meanwhile, a delightful gentleman named Barry Collins has trotted out yet another “Sl is dying” effort under the dreadfully misapplied tab “analysis” at PC Pro UK.

Cheese and crackers, boys and girls! I am going to have to talk to my British friend Headburro about why there seems to be an unfortunate pattern among the British bloggers to simply repeat the same sort of negative opinions without really seeking to actually investigate the circumstances in anything more than a very superficial way? They are entitled to their opinions, but it should be emphasize that whey=t they are generating is "opinion" and not "journalism." If someone wants to really see some serious journalism being done about SL, I highly recommend Randall Hand's excellent new new series of reports on VizWorld starting with this one:

http://www.vizworld.com/2010/01/state-union-vizworld-life/

Of course, the people who, like Mr. Hand, are thinking most clearly and realistically about the platform--and many related issues ranging from the development of virtual education opportunities, to the evolution of virtual economies, to the growth of virtual literature and the new publishing models--fall somewhere in the vast area in between the extreme views of SL. But there do seem to be an awful lot of folks drinking the kool-aid at the one end, or wallowing in the slough of despond at the other.

Why is that?

Well in M’s case, I think he jolly well has to, and I admire him for giving it a good shot. I would think he wasn’t doing his job if he didn’t believe things were getting better and try to sell that to the masses. He has to have that vision of a bright and grand future, because that’s what a guy in his position is supposed to do. Yeah, as Rostand’s Cyrano pointed out, tilting at windmills may cast you down into the mud, but their long arms also might launch you up among the stars.

"Excelsior!"

Look here, boys and girls, those of us who look at the platform realistically know that SL is a “festival of unintended consequences” (and yes, I am inordinately proud of that phrase, thank you very much). Whatever the residents or the Lindens do or try, the standard outcome is gonna be Something That We Didn’t Expect. So M might as well go ahead and preach his vision for a gorgeous, interconnected, massively-adopted future for SL, because, by golly, that outcome is probably as equally likely or unlikely as anything else any of the rest of us are envisioning at present.

That said, I just can’t say that I buy into a lot of what he’s testifyin’ to. But rather than picking at the bits that don’t make sense to me or quite ring true, I want to focus on two things he says that I think are kinda important.

First off I note that he says the following about their new trend in showing us “roadmaps” to addressing SL issues:

“So, what’s ahead in 2010? Before I jump into this, a caveat is in order. Linden Lab is not a traditional software company. Historically, roadmaps were simply not part of the Lab’s DNA. This kind of project planning is new for the Lab. That being said, we are trying to share our plans in advance, in the form of dialog with the community because we know many of you are building your businesses on our platform. “

Hold on a just a gol-danged minute there, Shirley! Are you tellin’ me the Labsters didn’t do project planning before this?

Well, that certainly explains a lot about why it always felt like they were jolly well makin’ it up as they went along. The old Linden way of doing business after the initial launch seemed to meander from being pathologically laissez faire to flailing around with knee-jerk reactions to the threatened lawsuit du jour. If there was a plan, it must have been some kind of mystical bushwah that required an oracle to decipher. Or maybe Phil really DID let all his secondary employees just do what ever gave them a Big Smile, and said "pooh" to the customers’ needs.

So if this is the case--that they are in fact actually thinking this stuff over before they do something, if they are actually moving towards a more proactive stance on issues, AND they are going to run things past us (even if it is just for shits and giggles)--I want to applaud this concept. Planning is sort of essential in most modern enterprises, and the idea of lettin’ your partners (ie, us customers) in on the plan and giving us a chance to react and share our thoughts is a pretty darn good idea.

There are many really thoughtful, creative people using the platform. Yeah, an awful lot of us are knuckle-draggin’ idiots and some of us have embraced the zen of being “less than genteel.” But all told, they could probably learn alot from the folks in the trenches. Even some of us who are not genteel.

The other thing that I was struck by was that in a couple of places M said the following kinds of things:

“We’ve also been working on improving the support we give to the ecosystem of content creators, merchants, landowners and solution providers since they/you are the lifeblood of Second Life. Finally, we’ve been working on platform projects to improve stability, reliability and quality of the Second Life experience which is top-of-mind for all Residents.”

And the final point under “So what's ahead in 2010:”

“Last but not least, 'Technical Must Dos' that improve inventory management, lag and other sources of Resident frustration through a global infrastructure, parallelization in the simulator, enhanced viewer to simulator data communication and improved caching.”

I hope this isn’t just lip service. I hope that M really believes this and he is doing the leadership thing 110% and making these priorities clear to all the his staff. The last year was characterized by a certain lack of leadership, reflected in what seemed to be happening around the middle of 2009 with lower level Lindens responding to the lack of direction by “going feral,” while the ones in the middle apparently started eating their young.

M, if you’re reading this piffle, then please, make a priority of that commitment to dealing with what we really want and need...and please kick some tookus and take names until the whole organization jolly well gets it.

And again, let me say that even if I ain’t sippin’ the Kool-aid like some folks, I have more empathy with M’s hopes and dreams--and I have more respect for his overly optimistic perspective--than I do for the utter piffle being spewed at the other end of the spectrum by people like this Barry Collins gentleman.

Here’s how an editor (or someone) introduced his “analysis” piece on Second Life:

“It's desolate, dirty, and sex is outcast to a separate island. Barry Collins returns to Second Life to find out what went wrong, and why it’s raking in more cash than ever before.”

Frankly, I think the reason they write stuff like this piece is for sensationalism value--put sex in the promo blurb, get people's attention, and then they all get stirred up and all the Second Lifers will bump up your site traffic by coming to trash the post or to argue.

As far as I can tell, that kind of thinking is the only possible motivation for publishing a piece like this, because Mr. Collins really didn't have anything to say. (although unlike the last gentleman who flogged this sort of anti-hype, Mr. Collins actually had some screenshots from SL to illustrate his post.)

So basically what this gentleman tells us that is that SL is different from what it was like when he visited in 2006 (that should have been a real "aha" moment, Sherlock). But he never does get around to explaining or even exploring why “It’s raking in more cash than ever before.”

You know one of the things I found interesting in M’s new year’s post was his reflections on all the wacky and important things and stuff that have happened with our expansion into the virtual during the last ten years. The virtual evolves faster than any other context these days--cycles are more rapid and it’s an intellectual, social and entrepreneurial pressure cooker. Just about any moron would realize that after a few minutes reflection. But this Barry gentleman goes back to SL three years after his first visit and is all disappointed that the virtual pub he hung out at and his pub friends aren’t there any more?

This is a surprise?

I find the gentleman's lack of perspicacity somewhat remarkable.

It appears that at the heart of his perspective is the same old meme that is current among the brain-dead techies who produce nothing and add nothing to either the virtual or the physical world. All this guy seemed interested in was the pixel sex, and reinforcing another variation on the same pointless meme that people who have a virtual element to their lives need to “get a life. My goodness gracious. Talk about being out of touch with reality...did this Barry gentleman actually think the same people would be hanging around in the same spots, three years later?

The grid is a darn sight more dynamic than that. Golly...the sport of curling is more dynamic that that.

Ok. I will say this one more time, and with a little clarification:

There is no difference between first and second life. If you are doing it...is is life.

The clarification? Yes...life ideally has to have balance between its various parts. If you spend so much time on SL that you forget to get enough sleep and the cat is fighting with the baby over the last bowl of kibble on the floor, then your life is out of balance and it is NOT HEALTHY. But the same goes for anything:

You can work at your rl job so much that your life is out of balance and you never see your kids grow up. That ain’t healthy either.

You can spend so much time watching TV that your hindquarters fall asleep and your circulatory system shuts down. Nope, not good.

You can sit in the basement masturbating so much that you injure your naughty bits. Definitely not good.

But that’s not what I am talking about--I am talking about creating for yourself a balanced, healthy life that may include a virtual element to it. All other issues aside, that virtual element IS part of your life.

People need a balance of things in their lives, and a reasonable amount of time spent on the SL platform, like a lot of very cool recreational stuff on the web, can make your life richer, more fun, and more complex in a positive way.

The thing that I think Barry Collins missed--and I hope M is not missing as well--is that the real genius of the platform is that a certain part of the population always keeps getting motivated to do more...to go that next level, to do something different that broadens a horizon or two. What you do in your second month, or your second year, or your sixth year for that matter, will most likely be far different from what you were doing in-world early on.

Of course the people from 3 years ago aren’t sitting in the same pub talking about the same sex clubs or whatever they were taking about in 2006--it would be appalling if they were. By now they’ve either moved on to a new experience, or they’re working at making stuff, or rp’ing vampire chipmunks, or something. But I can pretty much assure you that if they are still in SL, they’re there because they chose to aspire to something higher and more challenging--and they did so on their own and of their own free will, not with guidance or direction from above.

An Addeundum, 1/18/2010:
I note there are a great many new readers stopping by, particularly from the UK, directed by a link from Mr. Collins' most recent article on SL. If you found this discussion of interest, I respectfully invite you to also see a follow-up piece on this blog at

http://ephemeralfrontier.blogspot.com/2010/01/further-thought-on-memes-at-extremes.html


Another Addendum, 1/21.2010:

This blog is not written for everyone. But since Mr. Collins chose to link to this and we've drawn a great many readers who seem to come from more genteel circumstances, I have elected to re-edit the article so that their eyeballs will not melt from their heads. Wherever you see words like "gentleman" feel free to put your own noun of choice back in. Oh, and I also put in a link to Randall Hand's article. I would like people to see what real journalism looks like.

"Are we there yet? I dunno...what does the roadmap say?"
~~~

A Deadwood story -- bad money

~~~

It was about four days after New Years when Dio got back from the trip to see Sepp. Traveling back hadn’t been too dreadful, but it hadn’t exactly been a trip to a hurdy-gurdy house either. When she rode Hoss over the rise to where she could look down into the semi-civilized little rats’ nest of a town that she called home, she felt slightly warmer inside than she had for a while. Once again having to part ways with that ol’ one-eyed cuss had been harder than she let on.

She had actually been tempted to just send Roku a telegram and tell her she could have the No. 10 if she cared to have it, and another to Hepzibeth giving her the laundry, so she could finally run it with the unfettered frugality and soulless efficiency that her crusty little heart seemed to desire. But after a moment, the thought passed: Sepp had to do what he had to do, and Dio had her part in their plan as well. So long as Providence kept ‘em both from crossing over to the Other-side Camps in the next year, the long-term pay-off would be that much sweeter when they would at last have a ranch together in the hills above Deadwood City.

The plan was draft horses. They were gonna raise draft horses.

And now--coming over the rise and heading down the rutted, dirty snow of the road that led to the Deadwood Creek bridge and onto Main street, and smelling that jumbled perfume that wafted towards her of hundreds of cooking fires, wet straw and raw lumber, and spilled beer and shit--she was glad of her resolve. It was good to be home.

After leaving her two horses to the care of the Metis boy who was working for Silver at the stable, Dio set off with just her saddle bags and carbine for the No. 10--she’d send for her other gear from the pack horse later. Carrie Anne was staying with JF and Lola Kanto and was probably enjoying being part of a more or less normal family for a spell, so she figured she would go collect the girl later. Main thing at the moment was to make sure business was being taken care of. Dio had asked Roku to oversee the 10 in her absence, and to keep an eye on the young man man--an out-of-work miner--that she had engaged to serve the customers.

As she entered the 10, it was fairly busy--some miners in their dirty brown coats and shapeless slouch hats, a teamster wolfing down stew. There were also some of Miss Sal’s girls, off the clock and utterly uninterested in any male company, siting at the one table in the back, smoking their thin, hand-rolled cigarettes and playing a quiet hand of poker. And Roku was tending bar. Dressed in a man’s shirt, waistcoat and trousers--her usual “security guard” garb--washing out some beer mugs.

Roku’s standard hard and unreadable expression briefly broke into a slightly softer form when she saw Dio come through the door.

“Howdy Dio. Glad to see yah ain’t dead yet.”

“Pleasantly surprised to see you ain’t dead yet neither,” replied Dio. "What ye doin’ behind the bar? Where’s that feller I’d hired on to draw beer whilst I was gone? He get shot or somethin?"

“Nope,” answered Roku with a scowl. “Ah fahred the feckless cocksucker.”

“Fired him? How come?”

Roku sat down the beer mug she was wiping off, and leaned across the bar.

“We had somebody--some no-good rat bastard--passing bad bank notes in here,” she said in a hushed tone. "An’ that idjit never caught on...so ah tol’ him his services was no longer required.”

Roku called out to one of the Bella gals who was playing cards: “Hey there Suzy! Hon, would ya take o’er watchin’ the bar here fer a short spell, whilst ah talk with Miz Dio in the back room?”

The girl nodded and took Roku’s place behind the bar. Dio followed her friend into the back room of the saloon, and after lighting a lamp, they closed the heavy door behind them.

Roku pulled a folded banknote out of the watch pocket on her waistcoat and handed it to Dio, who unfolded it and examined it, turning it over a couple of times. It was a twenty dollar note issued by the First Gold Bank of San Francisco, and it looked pretty damned good. If anything, it was tad on the fresh and crispy side compared to the usual condition of the shinplasters that you saw being handed around on the frontier...but it seemed to have the right colors and correct details.

Dio looked back at Roku, who was watching her friend with her hands on her hips and an expectant expression.

“Well, Hon other than the fact that it’s in mighty good shape, and is a relatively larger denomination, which leads me to be suspicious....I can see how they would fool someone of a trusting nature...or a greenhorn...”

Without a word, Roku pulled out a second banknote from the black japanned cash box that Dio kept under the bed. The paper bill was from the same source and of the same denomination as the first one...and it had the same serial number.

“Oh Satan’s huge red testicles,” hissed Dio with disgust. “Some knee-walkin’ peckerhead was payin’ fer shit with new-lookin’ twenties...multiple examples of ‘em, no less...and our goddam bar man didn’t look at the red numbers?”

Roku shrugged. “It was the eve o’ New Year’s, an’ we was busier’n a fifty-cent whore in Abilene during cattle season...but yeah, ah wasn’t too fuckin’ happy. Our man wasn’t bein’ too bright."

"Jeezusfuckin’Christ on a steamboat to St. Louis! The swindler warn’t too overly bright neither, havin' a bootle o’ nothin’ but bad notes with the same numbers!”

“Oh, he had batches of a couple different serial numbers--he just got careless or lazy when he was in here an’ din’t mix ‘em up enough,” answered Roku with a sly little smile. “Yah see, ah kinda caught on, an’ followed the chiselin’ bastard out when he left. Him ‘n me had a lil’ ol chit-chat down by the crik an’ he wound up goin’ for a swim.” Her expression went very hard suddenly. “And he ain’t godamn comin’ back. But ah took the libbaty o’ relievin’ him of his saddle bags--bein’ as he sure as hell wasn’t gonna need ‘em no more. And sure enough they had his bootle, which was about six lil’ bundles o’ twenties, each with a differnt serial number, an’ mebbe 'bout fifty to a hunnert notes in each bundle. Ah saw that, an’ then ah come on back here ‘n fahred yer wuthless bartender.”

Dio shook her head in mock sadness, and chuckled. “Damnation, once agin, I am sorely disappointed in humanity an’ its wicked ways. Oh well, let’s move on to more important things. Unless I am very much mistaken, payment to Pratt on the debt is due tomorrow. We need to work on pulling together what we need t’ keep that ol’ sheep-fuckin’ grafter happy fer another month.”

This was actually a sore subject between them. When Dio had taken over management of the Saloon Number 10, that not only meant getting the lease, lock, stock and rain barrel, it also apparently meant everything else that went with it--including a debt that the previous owner had incurred with Bill Pratt, owner of the Red Eagle saloon and a real shark in the moneylending business. Charging exorbitant interest was Bill's specialty. This explained a good bit of why the old owner had been so eager to get out from under running the 10. Dio was not happy when this development cropped up, but Pratt did have a piece of paper that said the money had been lent to the business, not to Mann personally. After reviewing the situation with some of the town’s sharpest legal minds--the sober ones, anyway--Dio had decided there was no recourse but to pay it off. Roku, naturally, had wanted to simply shoot the sonofabitch and be done with it, but Dio wasn’t too sure how that was going to work out, considering the friends and associates that Pratt seemed to have around town.

So anyhow, when she brought the subject up, Dio fully expected Roku to scowl and cuss and grumble about making the payments on that debt...but instead she was remarkably relaxed, rolling herself a cigarette and smiling a happy little smile like the proverbial cat who had just eaten the canary.

“It’s allright Dio. Me an’ Hepzibeth already done took care o’ the matter. In fact, we done got it paid off in full an’ have got you a signed note from that cocksucker Pratt, sayin’ the debt is discharged.”

Dio looked at Roku for a moment, and her mouth actually moved up and down a little bit before something actually came out: “Oh...Hecate’s britches Roku...you...you didn’t...did you?”

Roku just grinned happily and struck a lucifer on the edge of the ice box to light her smoke with.

“Roku...surely he musta..or is gonna notice the notes that have the same serial numbers--you cain’t pass bad money in big batches like that...”

“Shit Dio, ah ain’t as goddam stupid as all that,” Roku snorted. “No, we mixed in some real notes--a reasonable number by mah estimation--an’ we had Lockmort use his artistical skills to change numbers on a mess o’ the bad notes. Then we took em all an’ Hepzibeth worked ‘em over in one o’ her warsh tubs to soften em up a tad to make ‘em look more used.”

“But...”

Roku held up her hand to stop Dio from saying another word. “An’ besides..we also took out some insurance, to gar-on-tee a satisfactory conclusion to the situation. You know how Meri is now workin’ fer the gov’mint--the Treasury department?”

“Ah. I see,” said Dio in a thoughtful tone.

Meriweather Runningbear was a friend of Dio and Roku's--a former territorial lawman who had been hired on by the federal Treasury department to work as a member of what they were calling the “secret service.” Agents like Meri were assigned to such tasks as looking for distillers who were making untaxed whiskey, tracing down confidence men who chiseled on government contracts, and--most important of all--catching counterfeiters.

“So ye gave Meri a tip-off that Pratt was holdin’ an’ passin’ bad money?”

Roku nodded cheerfully. “Yep.”

"Ye know that when Meri looks at the notes that Hepzibeth paid him with, an’ he sees they’s bogus, Pratt is a’gonna explain they all come from here.”

“Oh, ah din’t tell Meri to go look at that money,” Roku laughed. “Hepzibeth payin’ the debt off was just a distraction--an ‘sides, with the work that Lock and Heppy did on 'em, they’s probably gonna pass better now.”

“So...Hon...what’s the actual grift?”

“Well mind ye, this was after dark, last night. So whilst Heppy was keepin Pratt an his lapdogs all occupied, makin’ a big show o’ turnin’ o’er the money an’ buyin’ em a round o drinks an’ all...ah clumb o’er the second floor porch under the cover o’ darkness an’ went in thru the winder to Pratt’s office. I took the remainder o’ the bootle o’ bad banknotes--unchanged, with many of ‘em havin’ the same serial numbers--an’ I stashed ‘em under the cushion of a easy chair in the fucker’s office.”

Dio looked impressed. “So...when is the turd gonna land in the punchbowl?”

Roku opened the door and called out into the bar which still had some of the miners and the Bella girls in it.

“Hey y’all!” Anyone got the time?”

“Hang on a second, sweetie,” replied one of the girls. She pulled a small watch on a chain out from between her breasts and peered at it. “About five to ten.”

Roku looked at Dio and smiled. “About five minutes from now. Matter o’ fact I promised Meri that I would pervide him ‘n JF some assistance if needed, an’....”

Just then, a great deal of commotion erupted from across the street at the Red Eagle. Glass was breaking, and several shots were fired. Dio and Roku rushed to look out the door of the Number 10, just in time to see the right-hand first floor window on the Red Eagle suddenly explode into a shower of sparkling glass fragments and bits of window frame as one of Pratt’s lackeys came flying through it--no doubt propelled by JF’s massive arms. The man landed in a bloody, unconscious pile on the boardwalk.

“Well shit,” said Roku, her voice flat with disappointment. “I reckon Meri’s watch must run fast.”

Suddenly, there were two more shots and a scream. Just as suddenly, another window--but this time up on the second floor of the Red Eagle--shattered to pieces as a figure dove through.

It was Pratt. He rolled to his feet on the porch and leapt off down to the street. He quickly got up and limped a few steps to a horse that someone had tied to nearby post.

As he was clambering on and beginning to gallop off down the street, Roku said something under her breath that sounded like, “I don’t fuckin’ think so.”

She dashed back behind the bar where Dio’s Spencer was leaning. By the time she had run back out into the street, Pratt was already across the bridge and heading up the rise past the stagecoach office. Roku threw the carbine to her shoulder and fired two rounds at the disappearing figure of Pratt.

It was one hell of a shot with a short-barreled carbine at that distance. Dio watched as the rider slumped and droped off the horse.

Dio walked out into the center of the street She could see Meri coming out of the Red Eagle, carrying some kind of a bundle in his right hand. His left was wrapped in a bloody rag. JF came out next, pushing another of Pratt’s men who was in handcuffs, hatless and disheveled, with blood streaming down his face. Dio assumed that the remainder of Pratt's boys were incapable of walking--perhaps likewise incapable of breathing.

Meri called over to the women: “Roku! did Pratt get away?”

Roku shook her head, “No.” She pointed up to the rise on the other side of Deadwood creek where a dark shape could be seen crumpled on the snow. Then, wordlessly, she turned and slowly went back into the Number 10.

Dio watched JF put cuffs on the unconscious man and tell some of the bystanders to go fetch Mr. Sorrowman's little hand cart to bring him along to the lockup. As JF started shoving the other man who was still upright in the direction of the jail, Dio turned away and returned to her own saloon.

She vaguely wondered if Roku would feel any discomfort at the idea that her plan to frame Pratt had ended with a number of men being killed and wounded. Yeah, Pratt was a weasel-fucking sonofabitch, and as they used to say down in Texas, he probably “needed killing.” Even his so-called friends would not be inclined to hold anything against Roku for shooting him, once it was made known that the man was “passing bad money” and thereby threatening to ruin the local economy. No one would mourn his passing, and quite a few would most likely rejoice, especially those who owed crushing debts to the man--but it still didn’t seem quite right to Dio.

Back inside, Roku already had the Spencer’s breech open and was running a cleaning rod and patch through the barrel. No one was speaking. Roku did not look happy. Maybe she did feel some regret about this situation.

Dio leaned on the bar next to her and asked softly. “Hon? everthin’ allright? You look as though somethin’ is botherin’ ye”

Roku looked up at her friend.

“Yeah. Goddammit Dio, ah’m sorry.”

“Sorry? About what?”

“That ah didn’t go an’ kill that bloodsuckin’ leech before we got yor debt all cleared up an' paid off.”

~~~

Virtual fragments -- a year's end miscellany

~~~

This is me, being reflective.

The end of the year is usually a time for reflection and assessment: an arbitrary point when we make lists of bests and worsts and most memorable and crap like that, and then others come up with predictions for the coming year.

Well...some people do, anyhow.

I'll be honest. I'm too tired right now to do anything that requires that much forced thought. It hasn't been that great of a year in a lot of ways. There have been some high points, including doing this damn fool blog...and of course getting to know some of you goofballs out there a little better (Headburro and Rhia, if I was going to make that list, you two would be at the top). Actually, I guess I really don't need to make a "best of" or "most memorable list, because an awful lot of that kind of stuff--those people, the things I did that were most enjoyable and rewarding--you can find all that in some form in this blog.

Hey! so that means I can skip the usual "list" crap, right?

Fine. Then if it's ok with you guys, I'm just going to clean out the mental file drawers and share some marginally random stuff--things that I just don't have enough to say about them (or can't find the mental energy to properly evaluate) in order to make a full-blown post. These are in no particular order. They are not about favorites or bests or worsts or anything. They just are.

First off:

I got on twitter and now I find it not only kind of amusing (well, sometimes REALLY amusing thanks to SecondLie), I really like how it has steered me to other people's blogs and commentary that I would not even be aware of, such as the writing of this gentleman, John Carter McKnight:

http://johncartermcknight.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/space-and-virtual-worlds-why-were-not-mainstream/

I really enjoyed the above post about why VW's aren't mainstream. The guy has some interesting things to say, he's really goddamed bright, and he's not afraid to say "Beats the fuck out of me" when that, quite simply, is all that you can say about a subject.

~~~

Next up from the mental filing cabinet:

Take a look at this virtual recreation of the Mayflower that I came across in the search "showcase." It was built by Lora Chadbourne and lies off a small recreation of the original Plymouth settlement.


I just want to say that I think virtual recreations of ships in SL keep getting better and better all the freakin' time.

Miss Chadbourne did a hell of a job on this--unlike on many SL ships you can actually go down below the main deck, and it looks and feels remarkably real. Yeah, there's a lot of odds and ends I could nitpick about this 3-D model: the lack of rigging other than the ratlines (even standing rigging like shrouds and stays is missing--saving prims I imagine); and the fact that there are details like the windlass, but no tiller and whipstaff. If I may digress here, something SL ship builders need to learn is that ships did not have wheels for steering until the early 18h century--but at least Ms. Chadbourne didn't make that mistake--instead there is no steering mechanism at all. I think her higher priority was giving some sense of the living conditions in which the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic, not educating you about the history of naval technology.

Anyhow, I think this represents a really good step in the evolution of recreated ships in SL Next I want to see something this cool be made to actually sail. And yes, I know Ham Au would tell me right now that I should put a slurl here. You know what? I fucking hate slurls. It's in search; it's in showcase. Geez, just look it up if you want to see this thing.

~~~

Speaking of things getting better in SL, look at these boots that Sheriff Glen Dover is wearing:


They have a realistic shape, they look like they have been worn to Hell's suburbs and back, they have decent spurs with the straps as part of the texture...and Holy Moses in his bathrobe, no bling, no jingly noises, or other distracting, superfluous bushwah that clogs up a sim's pipes. I don't know who made these--if you are curious send me an IM and I'll just ask Glen for you.

~~~

There are a lot of you who really made this year tolerable for me, both out in ye olde meate-space and in-world. One of the people who made a difference for me in-world was Clay Kungler. Here I am sewing up a wound in his arm after he got shot the other night while taking out a troublemaker with a fucking bowie knife:


Whenever I sign on, I get a happy greeting from my pard Clay, and he brings me up to date on what's happening in the sim, or what he's working on. Lately, he has gone just apeshit crazy making a line of great hand-to-hand combat weapons like knives and hatchets and axes and bottles and other stuff--using animation scripts from a number of sources and melee system scripting that the always awesome Estwee Vansant has developed. I just get a real hoot outta the enthusiasm that Clay has for making things to hurt other avatars with. The joyful child-like glee he takes in crafting some new implement of cold steel destruction restores your faith in things like...oh, I don't know...killer clowns and evil Santa, maybe? What is really a hoot is that his girlfriend September throws herself into testing these things out with Clay, and it just does your heart good watching two young people who are very much in love, viciously hacking at each other until one of them crumples up in a little heap. It's goddam endearing, I tell ya.

~~~

Hey, speaking of Clay, take a look at this plaid mackinaw he's wearing in this shot:



It was made by my friend Astolat Dufaux of Montaigne Noir clothiers. Good men's clothing is hard to find in SL--at least stuff that doesn't make a feller look all man-slutty or goofily feminine. Astolat does really nice stuff, and bless her heart, both she and Caed Aldwych are working on authentic gear and uniforms for an 1870's US army look that we'll be using after we re-start the Deadwood sim in March and turn the clock back to the Spring of 1876.

Caed is doing accouterments and weapons, and a very good-looking Civil War-era bummer's cap (of a style that was still worn into the 1870's until stocks were used up), along with an M1854 shell jacket with all the yellow cavalry trim stripped off (a typical field expedient in the economically constrained army of the post war period). Astolat is working on M1872 uniform elements like the low-crowned kepi and the M1874 5-button sack coat. This is great--we're going to try to do this right, and these folks have thrown themselves into working on the project with enthusiasm. I also appreciate how they have been putting up with my ongoing suggestions and undoubtedly irritating attempts at support and encouragement.

Anyhow, you gotta go see Astolat's stuff--just look it up, 'cuz I don't have the slurl for her either. I mean Jeezus christ on a freakin' pogo stick, do I have to do everything?

~~~

Hey speaking of people I appreciate, this is Quinn Porthos, one of my library assistants at Hogwarts United:


I am very thankful for my whole team of assistants in the library, but I especially have a good time with Quinn who is also a member of Hufflepuff, of which I am now co-Head of House (which is sort of like being a dorm mother/security guard/cheerleader/psychoanalyst). Quinn's typist has created this engaging persona of a girl who is 12 going on 40: sarcastic and funny, cynical before her time, whip-smart, and fond of blowing shit up (in fact, in this shot you can see the scorch marks where we "cleaned off" some graffiti from a library table with a spell that was more pyrotechnic than magic).

She and Dio get along incredibly well, and in fact Dio finds Quinn easier to talk to than many of the adults at Hogwarts. I really enjoy rp'ing with Quinn--it's another one of those highlights that has got me through the past year.

The other thing about Quinn, with all her cynicism and slightly hardened edge...both the character and the typist have a heart of gold.

~~~

And another cool thing about SL is that I keep meeting thoughtful, pleasant people who have interesting ideas and who share useful information. For example, just the other night, I met a lady called Serenek Timeless, and Sere has an avid interest--both professional and personal--in the education potential of the platform. We had a really nice chat and she gave me some landmarks to some educational sims that I had not been to, including the NOAA build which actually goes back to 2006. Here's the submarine ride from that sim:


You know...it looks VERY 2006: (the texturing is somewhat crude and the prim work decidedly clunky compared to what is being done today); and the didactic point of the "exhibits" isn't always clear...but it's still a better than average educational build. It's worth going to see, even with being outdated and flawed. There are things like little gizmos that link to interesting web sites so you can learn more, a glacier that melts, a plane that flies into a hurricane, and a tidal wave that washes ashore and destroys everything in its path (I believe the key didactic lesson there was if you hear the tsunami warning, get the fuck away from the beach).

But Beelzebub's backside, I kept thinking "this would work so much better with people here--if periodically this was staffed--I wish I had someone to talk to about all this here junk and what it all is supposed to mean." Maybe they do that on some kind of regular basis, but I'm guessing certainly not recently: there was prim litter in abundance:


It just said to me that they turned the switch on, and then--other than updating bits and pieces occasionally--they walked away from this. And maybe that's not fair, but it sure is what it fucking felt like.

~~~

The other thing that happened was that this year I made more shit in-world than I have ever done before.

Here's some cigar boxes that I made using a scripted basic box provided by my buddy Rod Eun, and cigar box label images from my own collection:


Now you may sneer at this because--yes, as I have freely admitted before--the only SL content creation that I pull off with any success on a consistent basis generally involves right angles and flat sides. You may recall that September and I keep talking about starting our own in-world store called "Rectangles R Us." But it was fun. It gave me something a little bit unique to sell, or more often, something to give to people (besides a hard time).

And if you like, feel free to look me up in-world sometime and I'll give you a box or two o' stogies and we can talk.

~~~

You know what? I think that in between the inevitable nonsense, drama, and angst, next year is gonna have its fun and congenial aspects, just like this year did.

~~~

It's not second life or first life...it's just life.

~~~

RANT ALERT If you don't like it when I cuss, skip this one. The vocabulary got out of control.

Some poor schmuck recently did yet another one of those shallow, whiny blog posts about "I went to Second Life and I couldn't figure it out and it was full of strange pervy folks and it's dying because it's not (choose one):

a. Twitter
b. Facebook
c. World of Warcraft
d. all of the above
e. chocolate

I didn't feel the need to comment there on the actual post, because plenty of other intelligent folks dog-piled on the feckless turd, pointing out that he had not done enough actual exploration of SL to comment on anything other than his own brief experience, and that his comparisons between SL and the most broadly used social media applications are an apples and oranges thing. I was quite pleased to see our friends Fogwoman Grey and Emilly Orr, among others, pretty much make the author their bitch.

And I'm not really going to bother with commenting on his post here either, except to get one thing off my chest. I was really, really, really fucking irritated by the one-panel cartoon the author (or someone) selected to go with his text. It showed this geeky looking clodpoll sitting at a computer while some bitch (his mom? his wife? his dad dressed in drag?) says with a sneering expression:

"Second Life? Please, you don't even have a FIRST life."

First of all, it pissed me off because it had nothing to do with what the author was writing about. I hate lazy assholes, and it was obvious that some lazy asshole had put the cartoon there just because The Idiot's Guide to Blogging says "to succeed as a blogger you have to keep your posts short because your readers are spit-dribbling retards, and you also must have an illustration because they are visually-oriented spit-dribbling retards as well...so go ahead, stick some kind of a picture in there even if it has little or nothing to do with your subject matter."

It would have been so easy for this dumb, cockchafing lackwit to take a fuckin' screenshot while he was in SL (unless of course, he was too goddam dirt-eating stupid to figure out how to take a screenshot). Then at least his illustration would have had something to do with what he was writing about.

But noooooooo...he got this half-assed cartoon from somewhere and plugged it in.

So that was one thing that irritated me. Now on to the other:

The subject matter of the cartoon was the same old, tired, feeble arrogance about people who spend lots of times on their computers--not just in Second Life, but in any virtual context--needing to "get a life."

Ok, boys and girls, here's the fucking deal:

There is no difference between so-called "first life" and the unfortunately named Second Life.

If you are doing something...whatever you are doing and whatever context you do it in: it is life.

Do you enjoy it? Does it help you pass the time when you are not doing shit that someone else is making you do? Then it is valid. No one, and that means NO ONE has the right to tell you that you need to "get a life" or that you "have no life."

Why is it that so many people look at what someone else is doing, and if it is not what they would be doing with their free time, they think that it ain't valid or worthwhile? That is just plain and simple, utter cocktwaddle. Hey, I don't like football. But if you like to play football every chance you get, or you like to watch the sport on TV every goddam weekend, then that is just fucking awesome as far as I am concerned. The fact that I don't give a rat's tookus about football doesn't mean that you guys who like the game and care about it passionately need to cut it the fuck out and "get a life."

Everybody needs something to do...to add something to their lives other than merely existing. Even early Paleolithic people who lived in caves and dressed in furs, and who scrabbled just to survive from day to day...they drew cool pictures on the rocks, invented a calendar of sorts, and probably danced and sang, and more than likely laughed when someone farted.

It doesn't matter what you choose to do beyond just surviving--whether it is playing canasta, ballroom dancing, going to Nascar races, watching old movies, gardening, reenacting Civil War battles, refinishing furniture, brewing your own beer, fixing old trucks, rescuing abandoned cats, writing poetry, feeding slot machines at an Indian casino, singing in the goddam church choir, playing video games, or making stuff and fartin' around with your friends in Second Life...it's valid, it's worthwhile...and it's life. It's part of what makes you a human being.

I was thinking about this issue even before I saw the dumb-ass cartoon. This time of year is always hard on many Second Lifers. You're visiting the relatives and someone asks about that online thing you're doing, and you have to try to explain Second Life to them...and they kind of smile, while their eyes regard you with this mixture of pity, contempt and confusion. And maybe even fear.

Well fuck them. Either people get it or they don't, and if they don't, then they at least should respect what you do.

They may say, "oh but you spend so much time doing it! You're in front of that computer for hours!"

Yeah? So what?

Look--unless something is completely passive, or dumbed down to the most basic level so that even a retarded penguin with the reading comprehension abilities of Glenn Beck can master it--anything we choose to do is going to take a lot of time and practice and effort if we want to get good at it.

You want to play an instrument or a sport? Then you gotta practice--you have to put a lot of time into it.

Fix cars? You gotta sink a lot of time into gettin' greasy and laying underneath big chunks of metal with rust flakes falling in your eyes.

You wanna paint pretty pictures? Then you gotta take classes and practice and keep painting, over and over.

You want to do well at video games? You gotta put in your hours with the controller and get those finger callouses.

Likewise, if you want to get good at doing stuff in Second Life: it's just like all those other things--it's going to take a lot of time. You have to put in the hours, maybe take some classes, do a lot of experimenting, and keep working at it.

That's all there is to it.

Like many things in life, it takes time and effort and practice to get good at SL, to really maximize what you get out it.

Which does kind of bring us to the question about the advisability of re-working SL so that it can accommodate the mega-masses. To survive and flourish, do the Lindens need to make SL so that anyone can come in and there will be things planned out for them to do, and that getting started is simple, with outfits and avatars that can be easily made up, and a house that is easily put in place, and they won't be bothered about making stuff and all that?

Guess what...that platform already existed.

It was called The Sims Online.

And it did work...for a while.

Hey...skiing is generally regarded as a successful past time, right? Lots of people enjoy doing it and lots of businesses make good money off it. But you can't just run up and start doing it without the right equipment, some lessons, some practice, etc. etc. It's not for everyone, and you can't just jump on the slope and instantly do it perfectly, right? Yeah, you can get started, but you won't be able to do it as well as you can after you been doing it for a while.

So why should SL be different from that?

Not everything in life has to be easy for everyone.

But I digress.

My main point is that these arrogant morons need to stop sniveling about Second Lifers needing to get a life. Like this cartoon--it's good for a cheap laugh from people who know nothing about the platform--but it just oozes a smarmy ignorance that is unconscionable. Just remember bucko, whatever you are doing, there is someone else somewhere who will look at what you do and say "you have no life," Mr. cartoonist guy.

And when they do, you have every right to tell them to go crap in their hat and pull it down over their ears and bark at the moon. But then don't turn around and tell me that what I'm doing in Second Life is somehow less valid than what you're doing in your spare time on your blog or video games, or in your garden or in your bathroom. Cuz after all, you have a hat too, and I am about to tell you what you can do with it.

~~~