Reality Check: Kunstlerism of the Week

Location: Clusterfuck Nation Blog

Jim's at it again, in some dizzying verbal pyrotechnics about the Greek economic crisis that has piled up worries larger than the Gyros in my favorite sandwich shop:

Europe is a sad case, really poignant, because it became such a darn nice corner of the world after the convulsions of the mid 20th century. Who, for instance, can spend two weeks walking the lovely ancient streets of Bruges or Orvieto, or Lisbon and not fall to their knees in overwhelming despair on return to the slum of Kennedy Airport? Europe rebuilt itself so beautifully after the war while America became a utopia of overfed clowns riding in clown cars around the plasticized cartoon outskirts of our ruined cities. Europe had wonderful public transit while America let its railroads rot away. European men went about their business in grown-up clothing while Americans men dressed like five-year-olds and got flames tattooed on their necks as though contemplating a barbarian invasion of Akron, Ohio.

As a Europhile who has often called Americans some variation of "blind, fat white people, racing toward the edge of an abyss in their SUVs," I agree. Should add "while chatting on their cell phones and watching action flicks on the car entertainment system."

Jim's only overstatements are as follows: 1) I happen to live in a nice, slowly reviving city, only hampered by a clownish city government and 2) Jim needs to go back to look at younger European men's clothing. Fashion crime has arrived, in the "I wear sports attire but don't play" variety we see in America, too, and baggy "doofus drawers" that threaten to fall down as soon as the cops begin foot pursuit of a thug.

That the Euro-zone is not immune to the stupidity and greed that led big finance to wreck the world economy, remains a profound disappointment to me. Maybe there exists no paradise beyond the warmth of family and friends in close community, the very localism that Kunstler champions and that will be the likely result of life after oil begins its terminal decline.

And for a while (here's the virtual world reference) we'll build fake paradises of code and pixels. Good luck with all that and may your power stay on.

Read the rest of "Euroland, The Horror Movie" here.

Setting up Shop in Reaction Grid

Location: subQuark Blog

image from the site

You are looking at a Reaction Grid build that subQuark discusses in the post "Moving from Second Life to OpenSim." With Ener Hax, subQuark was part of a large investment of time, energy, and cash in Linden Lab's metaverse.

Now they have emigrated, shuttering their 19 sims in Second life. Educators considering a similar move should have a look at subQuark's reasoning, including a not-so-subtle jab (and an accurate one, in my experience) at Linden Lab's management style.

I have recently said hard, but accurate, things about Reaction Grid's performance, but the fact remains: it's a viable alternative to SL, if rough around the edges.

Keep in mind that subQuark and Ener are experts using, I presume, systems faster than God's. Their work will bear watching as more content developers make their move to diversify their work, or just leave SL completely.

Thinking about Aesthetics in SL

Location: Blind

"My God, I'm blind."

Have you ever said that when you looked upon really poor taste? Taste so bad that it's good?

I won't reveal the identity of the happy avatar couple or where I found this photo.

I'm glad they are happy. Maybe I'm just a grumpy professor and Spring still seems far away.

But why? Why?

"Why not?" is not an acceptable answer.

February Road Trip: Campion Road Rally

Location: Highest Point on the SL Mainland

After struggling mightily with Reaction Grid, it was almost a pleasure to log on to Second Life again. Say what one will about dodgy sim-crossings, lag, and clunky graphics, SL's mainland gives me a sense of place that I've yet to acquire in a competitor's world.

I began my exursion in Tuliptree sim, with an eye on a very nicely done headquarters of the Virtual Railway Consortium. I noted that the rez point allowed one not only to move a locomotive along the tracks but also to rez other vehicles for Route 1, one of the Lindens public-works projects. Studying the maps at the railroad station, I noted an obvious goal: Campion sim, with the highest point on SL's mainland.


Yes. I had to go there.

Route 1 carried me first past Calleta, with its famous Hobo encampment. Here there were enough green dots present to encourage me to throttle the bike down and talk. I met two new SLers; the man shown here was still in his stock hair and clothing, so I handed out some landmarks from my class. The woman had already acquired the generically sexy "skirt like a belt" SL look, including obligatory 1970s porn-star shades. She wanted to sit on the back of the bike.


I rolled on, apologizing for the lack of a passenger seat. The lonely road does not brook company, especially with chatty porn-stars.

North of Calleta the land became a little less crammed with juxtaposed styles. Perhaps that's a happy result of so many residents moving from the mainland to private islands or the adult-rated continent. I started seeing some nicely rendered builds and areas that, aesthetically, followed common rules of decoration. One leafy stretch of highway was particularly moody...the type of road I'd seek if I were on a gas-powered trip. And, gasp, I found road-signs pointing me to certain sims ahead. Those signs are a first. It seems that the Lindens did go ahead with planned infrastructure improvements.

Even with such help, Campion's high point was not easy to reach. Route 1 runs to the south and there are no connecting roads, so I decided to gun the bike off-road. I did not get pictures of my epic, Kineval-besting ride.

I almost made it, riding vertically up the mountain that loomed ahead. But even in SL gravity counts for something. I flew off the mountain twice, once flying so far on the bike that I crossed into another sim. While airborne, I could still turn and control the bike, but I was determined not to activate its flying controls: dammit, I was going to RIDE to the top.

Then, on my third trip off-road and straight up, at a sim-crossing I wrecked, with the bike crossing into a banned area and me landing, in a heap, on the other side of the line (and in a different sim, in fact).


I took the bike back into inventory and walked uphill. Soon I had to fly. The high point measured just over 400 meters, and of course it was privately owned. Lacking ban-lines, I could land and IM the owner of a castle for a noteworthy quotation. I wanted to know how it feels to own that land, to have only skyboxes further up. This is, after all, where the land ends.

And what does one do in SL from a high point?


Well, jump of course. And of course the trip ended with the sort of circularity I love in my vacations: I was back at a northern hub of the Second Life Railway.

By far, this was my best road-trip ever.