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Years later I am using sophisticated OTR, and I have TOR at my disposal if I feel the need to "mask" my IP.

It's funny you should mention OTR. One of the more popular third-party viewers for Second Life encrypts IMs with OTR, and the people running Second Life aren't happy with this at all because it interferes with their ability to monitor IMs. (Seriously - they have real time monitoring of IMs and in-world chat to try and catch troublemakers, or at least did.)

LL should put up a splash screen saying "This is not the U.S. Its laws do not apply here, motherfucker". Then again, most Americans wouldn't understand it, and everyone else already knows.

Linden Labs is in the US. Its servers are in the US. I think most Americans would agree that that puts them under American law, even if you don't understand that. The rest of us realize that virtual worlds aren't real.

Virtual worlds aren't outside reality; they are contained within it. The content of the Second Life grid is digital like everything else on the internet...are you claiming the internet isn't "real"?

Possibly the important question here is...is a SL Taser a protected form of expression; is it "fair use"? If I write a story in which a Taser is a prop, must I call it something else? I don't think so. But a number of people have been shut-down in world for using characters and other elements from copyrighted works.

By the way, I've heard rumors that LL wants to locate a datacenter in the UK. There's currently a huge kerfluffle in-world about a recent move by LL to add an additional rating "adults-only" to the existing "PG" "Mature" scheme. (Under 18 users are already segregared to a completely separate virtual world.

Some folks believe (me included) that the recent "extreme pornography" provisions of the UK Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 is one reason for the tighter content controls. Certainly fear of procecution under the UK's draconian pedophilia laws was related to the similar kerfluffle a year ago about age play in-world.

Wikipedia is misleading and properly only concerned about US.

A quick google on Second Life and child pornography brings back articles from last year of a hunt down of traders of real child pornography and the ones doing virtual child abuse.

Dutch Prosecutors
German Prosecutors

Anonymous coward is telling the truth. I've seen one that someone made. Pictures? Wouldn't you like to know. :-) But this might be a location to check out:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/bel%20Highland/171/143/33

Should be near where you can get the baby unicorn. NSFW link:

http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/09/afternoon-delig.html#more

It might be a custom thing though so it might not actually be there.

The idea of Second Life property being equivalent to "real" property may seem ridiculous, but it's one that the makers of Second Life, Linden Labs, have encouraged. There's some interesting coverage of the case at the Second Life Herald.

Here are a few links, deteriorating in horror and decrepitude about the online sensation known as second life.

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,69878-0.html

http://www.somethingawful.com/index.php?a=4410

http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh...ay_in_seco.h tml

http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh...al_child_p.h tml

This is beyond sad & lonely. I'm not judging the depravity of the acts, which given 10 minutes I could dream up much worse. What I'm amazed by is that this fringe world is a nexus for like-minded people to act out THE SAME fantasies. You'd think in perversion and depravity people would finally truly be unique. It turns out there's a whole alternate universe of people just like them. Welcome to the fringes of conformity?

it seems that despite the interweb bringing us all closer together, humans seem to be getting lonelier all the time. the irony is that the more self-absorbed we get, the more we want to share our self-absorption with others.

Solipsism loves company

Here are a few links, deteriorating in horror and decrepitude about the online sensation known as second life.

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,69878-0.html

http://www.somethingawful.com/index.php?a=4410

http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh...ay_in_seco.h tml

http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh...al_child_p.h tml

This is beyond sad & lonely. I'm not judging the depravity of the acts, which given 10 minutes I could dream up much worse. What I'm amazed by is that this fringe world is a nexus for like-minded people to act out THE SAME fantasies. You'd think in perversion and depravity people would finally truly be unique. It turns out there's a whole alternate universe of people just like them. Welcome to the fringes of conformity?

it seems that despite the interweb bringing us all closer together, humans seem to be getting lonelier all the time. the irony is that the more self-absorbed we get, the more we want to share our self-absorption with others.

Solipsism loves company

Less likely when people who enjoy the game find out that the Coldwell Banker developers who were contracted are two of the most prolific land terrorists in the game. They buy chunks of land then sell off all but a 16 meter square then put up eyesore ads to force someone who wants a half assed view to buy it for an inflated price.
http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/03/signex tortionis.html

There always seems to be deadlines that require OT and weekends.

You have bad management. Either they don't know how to do project planning or they do this to you on purpose.

Let's assume incompetence over malice. Make sure they've read The Mythical Man Month and PeopleWare.

If they have, they're either not getting it or they don't care. If they haven't maybe they can learn. Then they can become Good Management.

If none of the above apply, move on - the company can't ultimately be successful with this model. They'll either lose their staff (no product) or wind up with low quality staff (poor product). Clearly some programmers don't mind the abuse but I wouldn't recommend it unless you want an ascetic lifestyle.

Lessee, Edwards ventures into the world of blogging and hires left wing maniacs with a penchant for using the word "fuck" (in its many forms) while hating on anybody to the right of Lieberman. Now he's venturing into Second Life, a world chock a block with http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/11/did_li ve_help_l.html furries sporting erections, http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/01/agepla y_in_seco.html pedophiles and http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Sec ond_Life other faggotry. I can hardly wait until these deviants start filling up the Edwards campagin office, trying to volunteer virtually. Maybe they should put up a sign outside that says "No shirt, no shoes, graphically depicted animal penii, no service".

Lessee, Edwards ventures into the world of blogging and hires left wing maniacs with a penchant for using the word "fuck" (in its many forms) while hating on anybody to the right of Lieberman. Now he's venturing into Second Life, a world chock a block with http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/11/did_li ve_help_l.html furries sporting erections, http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/01/agepla y_in_seco.html pedophiles and http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Sec ond_Life other faggotry. I can hardly wait until these deviants start filling up the Edwards campagin office, trying to volunteer virtually. Maybe they should put up a sign outside that says "No shirt, no shoes, graphically depicted animal penii, no service".

In France we have too candidates who are on second life, the facists and the stupid Ségolène Royal

You'd think that, but when there isn't an obvious opportunity for good PR, Linden Lab is even more proactive in chilling efforts. This article details how they sent a frantic letter to the CBC to keep a critic from speaking out on a radio show. Not that you'd ever know it from the mainstream media's lack of coverage.

>I find it interesting that there's no big launch party, midnight madness, etc for Vista.

Well... CompUSA opened at 10:00 p.m. last night offering various items for sale pending the midnight availability of Vista.

Also, evidently MS held some sort of launch party at various sites in Second Life. People have noticed that a goodly number of the sites chosen in SL for the party (it was necessarily distributed, since at most 40 people can be at any one place in SL) are places at which "escorts" are commonly available.