Some Shakespeare Quotations for Linden Lab

Location: Virtual Globe Theater

The Lab will have an even harder time winning back disaffected educators and non-profits if they let The Virtual Globe Theater close.

Here's hoping that the CEO will let Ina Centaur have access to her account again. As "nexus burbclave" pointed out at New World Notes, the treatment of debtors by the Lab is Kafkaesque. Centaur does owe the Lab a great deal of money, but one wonders about the PR value of magnanimity from the godlike powers in-world? Even one month's extension of the death penalty?

Be wary of portents, otherwise, Linden Lab. You'll get all the academics hauling out their Riverside Shakespeares for appropriate quotations. Here are a few about those who dwell overmuch on money:

• Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that; You take my house, when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house; you take my life, When you do take the means whereby I live.  Shylock, Act IV, scene i, The Merchant of Venice.
• Thus do I ever make my fool my purse. Iago, Act I, scene iii, Othello.

And of the foolish decisions by those in power:

• I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.  King Richard, Act V, scene v, Richard II.
• Men’s judgments are a parcel of their fortunes; and things outward do draw the inward quality after them, to suffer all alike.  Enobarbus, Act III, scene xiii, Antony & Cleopatra.
• As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods, — They kill us for their sport. Gloucester, Act IV, scene i, King Lear.

Of course, Mr. Humble and Linden Lab, Ms. Centaur owes you money. She needs to pay it. But wouldn't it be better to work out a deal and give her a reprieve for a few weeks, before deleting her avatar's accounts? Shakespeare's plays contain a great deal of forgiveness and mercy. And remember:

• All's well that ends well; still the fine's the crown; Whate'er the course, the end is the renown. Helena, Act IV, scene iv, All's Well that Ends Well.

Get Thee to Spivey's Corner, NC: Hollerin' Contest

Location: Hoarse from Hollerin'

Just in case you find yo'self in the Tarheel State next month.

Occasional "In a Strange Land correspondent" Pappy Enoch, expert on all things backwoods, says "git on down, y'all. Hoo whee! Here am the site on the tubes that am the Internet."

I wish I could go, but I'm sure Pappy will provide a full review someplace or another.

And you damn Yankees think we Southerners make this stuff up. Hah. And hoo-whee.

Cloudy Day, Fixed

Location: Hiding in My Fake Office

I was ready to wear Miso Susanowa's head as my avatar, I became so frustrated at being stuck as a cloud.

With both the 1.23 and 2.6 viewers, as well as Imprudence, the forecast remained "mostly cloudy."

My colleague from VWER and moderator-in-training, Grizzla Pixelmaid, gave me a surfer-dude starter avatar. Putting on "Craig" saved me for a moment, even if his smiley gesture messed with my "no perky people" rule.

Soon all was right again with the fake world and I reassembled my usual persona.

Many thanks, Grizzla!

Peak Oil: Should I Be Glad?

One of the most interesting of invented worlds is that of America's auto-utopia of continuous driving. We redesigned...well, ruined...our cities to make them safer for driving and parking cars. What would we do if it cost hundreds of dollars to fill up? Already, filling up my full-sized pickup truck runs $100, the first time I have ever spent that much on fuel. A tank of gas will last over a month, however, given how infrequently I use the vehicle for farm work. I purchased a locking gas-cap, too.

Others drive similar vehicles daily, and they are suffering, often casting about for easy targets to blame. What if geology were the culprit?

It seems that even Exxon-Mobil has come around to seeing that the days of cheap oil are over permanently. I follow Bloomberg's energy-price listing fanatically, given my belief that the data about Peak Oil are correct and we're a year or two from this issue becoming part of the popular lexicon.

As with Climate Change, the transition to public consciousness took a while to realize.  There are a few doubters who believe in an infinitely renewable supply of "abiotic" oil, but the science is just not there.

The next time some guy wishing for $1.00 gasoline to fill the fat tank in his Chevy Suburban blames the President or even OPEC for high gas prices, try this. Hand out a little card with this URL from Energy & Captial:

http://www.energyandcapital.com/aqx_p/26311

When investors start recommending Peak-Oil portfolios, one realizes that the transition to a "new normal" is well underway. I've know "it's over" for a long time, and my proof came in a Guardian story based on a Wikileaks report.  Though the Saudi official who warned US diplomats later denied making alarming remarks about his nation's supply of oil, everything said seconded Matthew Simmons geological evidence for a permanent decline in the Saudi oil reserves.

Meanwhile, Jim Kunstler keeps up his own litany of doom about an America unable "to make other arrangements" than what his loves to call "happy motoring." Jim's prognosis is gloomier than mine, but neither of us know the timing of the disruptions that a permanent decline in the global supply of oil might cause. I suspect, unlike Kunstler, that many Americans will still own cars, but they won't define our lives and places of living as they have done.

Gas prices are dipping, for now. I doubt that will last, given global demand for oil.  And whether global supply permanently peaked in 2006 or whether it will in 2016 (my bet is somewhere in that range) we'll enter a new era of human history. The automobile age, barely a century old, will become a short aberration in a longer story, as driving returns to being an expensive luxury.