Disqus - Friends of mobopolitan

Re: Copy This

ordinal — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:54:59 -0000

And what, precisely, is wrong with telnet MUDs? Or MUSHes, more appropriately. If SL all goes pear-shaped, I have repeatedly said that I will set up a MUSH myself.

Re: ænemy of the SLate

ordinal — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 15:15:32 -0000

I agree, there has been a definite reduction in the aggressive greenness of the Scary Green Eye Hand Thing, as I dubbed it. It is considerably more pastel now and the shiny has been turned down.

I would like to know who came up with it in the first place. I'm sure it has some esoteric significance... possibly Egyptian, relating to the ancient secrets discovered carved on a prim by archaeologists, brought by Philip to the secret chambers below the Laboratory, where developers work tirelessly to bring about what they call the New Age of True Enlightenment...

...I have said too much. *They* are coming, I fear. I must away.

Re: Mission Accomplished — The Wii Invades Second Life

ordinal — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 13:59:00 -0000

When you can move around using the wiimote, then I may admit that this is sexy. IRC is not sexy.

Re: Caledon – A Steampunk Second Life

ordinal — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:48:25 -0000

Peculiarly enough, I was informed of this Journal by another resident of Caledon fairly recently, and have been following it since.

I have been a member of the Steampunk community within Second Life for some time now, and was indeed one of the founder members of Caledon; alas, the corner of the island where I still mostly reside has now become just one of many, but if you ever care to visit Ordinal Enterprises I would be most delighted to welcome you. Even if I am not present, a dirigible tour begins there, and you may have noticed one of the three trams operating on the island, which I in fact scripted (though the fine design was by Messrs Shaunathan Sprocket and Reitsuki Kojima). My own Aethernet Journal details some of my personal projects, though I would not wish to promote my own poor endeavours overly.

New Babbage, I believe, is very shortly to be becoming "live" as it were, and will doubtless be a place of many marvels.

Re: Beautiful Engraving, 1500’s to 1800’s.

ordinal — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 15:43:19 -0000

I have spent quite some time researching engraved pistols - with the hope, I might shamefully add, of reproducing them and selling them within Second Life, though they are rather hard to properly reproduce - but that is one of the finest I have seen.

One must have some respect for such mass-produced yet iconic weapons as the Webley service revolver, but the charm of individually engraved items is something that the best Engine would be hard pressed to reproduce.

Re: Better bookmarking of your inworld favorites

ordinal — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 07:10:39 -0000

What a good idea! I never thought of that. Particularly when combined with a desktop searching thing such as my favourite, Quicksilver (though Google Desktop, say, would work too I imagine).

On a tangent I wonder if secondlife:// links work in the in-world browser - one could put a large number of them in one's web profile and go to them directly from SL. Perhaps.

Re: “I am who I am”

ordinal — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:04:41 -0000

Does anybody have any information, incidentally, about data (a) distribution and (b) retention policies on the part of Aristotle? LL has stated theirs, but unless I have missed something, I have heard nothing more than that Aristotle "complies with all relevant US law" (so basically they do pretty much what they want with it).

Re: The Future Of Linden Lab Following Executive Shuffle

ordinal — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:58:30 -0000

"It doesn't have a purpose! Why isn't it like a proper game, like Spore? Why isn't there a tree from start to end which tells people what to do? It's like it _isn't a game at all_!"

Re: The deeper issue behind the Second Life trademark mess - community engagement

ordinal — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:48:23 -0000

This is a perennial problem, and I have to wonder sometimes whether LL actually has a communications department _at all_, beyond a few people writing press releases. Surely they must have! Nobody could really have a company these days without thinking about that, could they?

But there seems to be no consistency in how information is released, vital things appear without warning when they should have been heavily foreshadowed and backed up with documentation and explanation.... There are still inworld meetings and roundtables but they are extremely limited in scope, usually being specifically about one or two highly technical topics as you say.

For that matter, a number of the LL-owned mailing lists were recently shut down without warning - just one final "hello we are closing this list goodbye" email, which a lot of people missed on the scripters' list at least (I certainly did and it seems to have come as a surprise to many others).

I am not terribly bothered by the marketing part - just communication will do, really.

Re: Soundsnap rocks; what are your fave sound search sites?

ordinal — Sun, 18 May 2008 16:59:46 -0000

Soundsnap is certainly the place to which I go first. Apart from the convenience of the interface, it has a simple and easily understandable licencing system: "it's all free, use it how you like".

Soundsnap also absolutely excels in providing bleeps, buzzes, twings and electronic noises in general.

I do use Freesound, and have indeed contributed to it, but I confess that I do not think I properly understand the ramifications of the Sampling Plus licence or whatever it is called, and this worries me. Still - it is better for detailed source recordings I would say, particularly those of an obscure mechanical nature, and the quality is higher.

SoundDogs is very much aimed at the commercial market, and while it has a wide selection of stuff, the costs of the proper quality files are prohibitive for the average SL developer. I would rather obtain something _close_ to the target for free, and edit and blend it with Audacity or some such. I could perhaps see myself using it for a very specific topic where the sound had to be precisely accurate - perhaps a replica machine of some sort.

Re: Debunking mindjunk about the cost of Second Life's visual quality

ordinal — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 15:13:53 -0000

I must say that I have heard plenty of people saying with deep regret that they can't practically run the current RC, and that if Mr Nicolasz does not keep producing clients they don't know what they will do. These are not people unaware of the situation. Sometimes they live in places where they cannot get hold of the necessary parts; sometimes they cannot afford them. Sometimes both.

For that matter, none of them are neophobic either; I can't remember any great negative reaction to Windlight. The early Windlight clients were actually pretty impressive and in many cases faster than the pre-Windlight ones. But now, well, they aren't.

I myself simply cannot properly develop in SL on my preferred machine, a one-year-old iMac - a high-end consumer machine that is absolutely fine in every other circumstance. I work around this but that is actually more to do with my having access to a PC as well which does nothing but run SL really.

And this is just speaking of people who are pretty technically skilled and won't mind putting in a new graphics card if they can get one and their system can cope with it (it is certainly not always a case of just opening the case and plugging in the new one - I recently had a horrible example of this trying to upgrade the machine belonging to my parents). The average person with a Dell that they'd thought pretty okay, confronted with 5fps in SL, will not go out and fix things; they just will not come back.

Re: Debunking mindjunk about the cost of Second Life's visual quality

ordinal — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:14:40 -0000

This one and then this one seem the choicest offenders.

Re: Two things I need to see in MobileMe

ordinal — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 14:14:32 -0000

Amusingly enough it decided to remove or replace quite a few of my appointments and to-dos the other day, and not consistently either, turning back the clock between a day and a week or two. Twice.

Whilst I am, you know, generally quite fond of historical perspectives, I would prefer to keep them out of my next action lists. (Syncing between Tiger and Leopard may be an issue here, or, well, it may not - it isn't as if one ever gets anything out of Apple Technical Support.)

Complete sync failures are one thing, if necessary one can always export and import into another machine, but sync _errors_ are unforgiveable.

Re: YouTube dynamic compression/audio distortion problem pains many

ordinal — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 07:54:20 -0000

CyFishy: Unfortunately Vimeo, while providing a high quality technical service, has recently announced that it is banning "game videos", and while they do say that they will be allowing "machinima" (for now) they do not really define that very well. As we all know, Second Life is Not A Game, but I dare say that the difference will not be something they care terribly much about, and I also dare say that a lot of Torley's video, for instance, would be banned as a "walkthrough" or some such.

Re: Fake Avatars and the Duplicates Paradox: An Essay by Extropia DaSilva

ordinal — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:39:06 -0000

Well. Simplistic "roleplayed" identities may have difficulty at times from impersonation - or more so than other sorts of selves - but that is really more the sort of "roleplay" that comes from somebody quite consciously picking a series of characteristics and impersonating somebody possessing them. Which is to say: somebody "roleplaying" that character is no more valid an impersonator than anyone else. Anyone can play Hamlet (not Au); it takes a skilled actor to then create a *distinctive* Hamlet.

Re: How my 2010 predictions failed, and what to expect in 2011

ordinal — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 17:55:56 -0000

I do enjoy your relentless optimism, Ms Llewelyn - no, really, I do, that statement is not in any way sarcastic. It is rare to see anyone so clearly knowledgeable regarding SL who has high hopes for the future and can articulate why.

I would however like to point out, in the face of "new APIs!" / "mesh will be great!" / "SL will do a thing with web viewers and it will be terrific!" that group chat still does not work.

There are not going to be technological improvements to SL. There are not even going to be ones like the APIs you suggest which feed into the basest fears of Facebook incorporation but at least make commercial sense. Everyone who understands the basic code has been fired, and what we have now is all we will ever get. There will be no new APIs or scripting functions or any of that stuff.

Re: A Traveler’s Notebook supplier: Glassworks Studios

ordinal — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 11:42:42 -0000

I think that there are some places in the US that sell Traveler's Stuff, but it never gets _that_ cheap. The non-standard paper size can be irritating too, even if the Midori refills are very good quality. (The lightweight paper refills are a little better value as they have 128 pages, working out to three point something pence per page.)

Re: Simplenote Yojimbo Sync v0.3(1)

ordinal — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 05:08:55 -0000

I've been having trouble as well, but have also been having trouble using Notational Velocity on two machines and duplicating text files in Dropbox (a long boring story) so had put it down to that.

I'll take a look into it. It sounds like there may have been an API change or other issue somewhere which means the script isn't getting the IDs of the Simplenotes properly, and thinks they're all new each time.

Re: If iPads are “post-pc devices” why must I sync with iTunes before I can use one?

ordinal — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 17:09:45 -0000

(Mostly) yes and (slightly) no. While, clearly, iPads need to be docked with a computer at the moment - they still follow on from the basic concept of iPods, that they are peripherals that are slaves to and are updated from user accounts, rather than independent devices that sync with them like a laptop would - it isn't conceptually necessary that they use a computer that you own.

An iPad is a peripheral that connects to and updates from user accounts, in the case of the USB connection mostly based on iTunes and also anything from your local machine that you've added. But all the non-Apple apps also update from other accounts, and usually OTA, and even the Apple apps can often sync via .mac and the App Store (you can buy apps on the desktop and download them on the iPad without syncing). I almost never sync my iPad because it's only necessary for backup and to transfer stuff effectively too big for OTA like music and movies, which I don't do a lot. If I could back up by some other method I would almost *never* need to plug it in at all.

Re: Noodler’s Bernanke Blue Fast Drying Fountain Pen Ink

ordinal — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:25:59 -0000

That's actually a really nice colour. I ordered some of the black, but I'm now thinking that the blue would have been better. Oh well, too late now - I'll have to wait until I next make an international order (Noodler's inks rarely make it over the pond to the UK).

Re: 4chan Founder: Anonymity is Authenticity

ordinal — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 18:57:01 -0000

It is almost as if the concept of a *pseudonym*, preserving consistency of identity but with available details of that identity controlled by the author, hasn't been around and in use for thousands of years.

Re: Simplenote Yojimbo Sync v0.3(1)

ordinal — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:58:02 -0000

I've tested it back and forward for a while and it seems to be working fine at the moment. I'm not sure what the original issue was - perhaps some sort of Simplenote blip - but deleting all my Simplenotes and resyncing has, over the last few days, produced no issues.

I added a post about this and uploaded the latest version.

Re: SNYS v0.4, “Delete all Simplenotes” script, sundry data duplication issues

ordinal — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:22:19 -0000

It may well be an issue with the administrator vs user account. Have you tried running it as the administrator?

Re: Thrifty, prim, snobbish, anti-bling – UK Uncut is like the youth wing of the Women's Institute

ordinal — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 18:28:38 -0000

Phoned in. Dreadlocks? You can do better than this.

Re: BBC criticised for bias over Zadie Smith broadcast

ordinal — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 11:14:18 -0000

After all, there is only a certain number of times they can have Douglas Murray on. Though that seems to be quite a high number.