Why Philip Left .. (Pure Speculation)...

There are, of course, so many elements that need to work for a business to become and remain successful that it would be a little stupid of me to begin to tell LL what has gone wrong and how to do it better, not that that has stopped me, ever, from voicing my half-baked theories and opinions. With no possibility for us to vote or otherwise be heard by the Lab, then blogging and commenting is our 'pressure release valve' and, by the gods, we need one.

["I hear you" and "we are listening" are euphemisms for "you are wrong"]

Tateru Nino's post on the problems some people are having paying LL is not the first I have heard of it by any means.

Aliz told me of a friend last month who had troubles, and since then I have heard of several such problems. Well they lost peoples billing information... the list must have slipped down the back of the sofa along with the remote, I guess....

This follows on the back of Eners blogging of the basic turmoil involved in working for the Lab. I read quite a lot of Glassdoor which, as someone said, is like Linden Labs WikiLeaks. Now, at the time I thought that maybe the bad reviews of working for the Lab and the good ones maybe sorta cancelled each other out to a certain extent.

But... there are a couple of points from these two posts which have stayed in my head.

1)...from Tateru's.... [question to the Lab]“if the billing system is down, can I be assured that my sim won’t be taken offline due to non payment?”

[Reply] ”I can not assure you of this at this time”

2)... from Ener's..... [ex employee] "Business folks view technical must-do’s as things to negotiate. Since the business folks are the ones setting development priorities, and developers tend not to be good negotiators, this leads to cutting corners, resulting in fragile software with poor performance." [my highlight]

Now, with a smaller grid, like InWorldz, if someone were to cock up, then someone would be online to apologise ... I blogged this before... in a post called "A Good CEO" , and as Tateru points out, and would be obvious to us all, silence is the worst course of events.

However, by admitting you cocked up you are liable... so the Legal Dept. may have advised silence.... and so the slide continues... [they really need a Rapid Response Task Force, don't they]

Now, the quote via Ener..(2)... just reinforces what we have all suspected for a long time, namely, that the Bean Counters are running the show and it makes no difference how brilliant your staff are if they have, ultimately, no say in what happens.

Now, ranting at LL is more and more like shooting fish in a barrel, and I am actually starting to feel sorry for the Boys (a bit, not much). They had the best, the only, show in town, but they are heading towards an "..Also Ran" status.

A Benevolent Monarchy as Brinda calls them is actually less efficient than a Benevolent Dictatorship which would, really be the best outcome....
....but more and more it is looking like the Impotent Monarchy and, obviously (to most of us), the reason for the chaos and dissatisfaction rather than a passionate and engaged User Base.

Did Philip realise that.. and turn to Lurvvv... ((he was always a bit smarmy, mind you))...


:))

Culture, Art and shadows..

Obviously it is as stupid to make generalisations about the Boys as it is to do so about the Citizens that populate our virtual worlds... but..

..whereas people who feel that avatar existence is pathetic and meaningless, (engaged in by losers), soon stop being citizens and leave SL never to return, I can’t help feeling that employees at the Lab, or some, have an attitude which is tinged by these thoughts.. there have been remarks over the years to support this feeling, so this isn’t pure paranoia.

You have only to listen to Tom Boellstorff on Metanomics (as mentioned before), to realise how important issues of avatar identity are (an issue many of have been struggling with for years) to people who understand how revolutionary this experience is. If everyone at the Lab understood what he is saying, life would change inworld.

It is well worth reading Dusan Writer’s latest blogpost where both the video and a transcript of the video is posted. His assertion that we have a culture, obvious to us, is less so to some Lindens who are excluded from this experience because they are, at best, casual users of their product.

Peter Greenaway accused the Lab "You are endangering a tool that is greater than you", when discussing a censorship issue, and it became very clear to me that, for the most part, they have actually no idea how big virtual worlds are.

Most of them are not visionaries but office slaves, most of us are visionaries, or at least pioneering spirits.

...but certainly virtual worlds are huge compared to the Lab.


In other news.... Happy Rezz Day V2.

Yes, it’s the Sewer Viewer’s Rezz Day. One year ago some foreign geezers stopped work on the darned thing after making a digital scrambled egg of what used to be a UI...

..and the rest is history, or, as the Lab calls it, Release Notes.

It will go down in history as the most unpopular UI ever to have been invented I think, which, is quite an achievement. Whether or not it takes on the status of the iceberg in the Titanic thingy has yet to be seen, but...it’s gotta be somewhat on the same level.

...and...on the 23rd of February 2010...we got the following news...
Announcing the Linden Endowment for the Arts
"In the upcoming months, it is our pleasure to take a more active role in encouraging the arts inside of Second Life. We are excited to announce the creation of a Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) program which will help support, encourage, and highlight Second Life artists and their work. We hope that the collaboration between Linden Lab and the wealth of talented Second Life artists will contribute to a vibrant new chapter for the arts in Second Life.

The Linden Endowment for  the Arts (LEA) program's goal is twofold:
1. To create an immersive space for artists to share their art, build connections, and prosper in the Second Life community
2. To provide a new way for artwork to live on within our ever-changing virtual world. 
While still under design, this program will be a partnership between Linden Lab and Second Life artists, with the additional objective of gathering, displaying, and maintaining art at an inworld Arts Hub. We are currently building the LEA organizing committee, which will include members of the Second Life artist community and Linden Lab employees, to guide the program's management. Under the creative direction, organization and guidance of the LEA committee, we will hold biannual art exhibitions, highlighting the most creative artwork happening inworld.”

...by June (and the mass cull of Boys) I blogged...”I expect to be severely disappointed with the LEA.”.. it’s tricky to know what to say now, a year on....

A year ago I was getting excited about shadows too, but, though there are people who can get them, it is still beyond the scope of my graphix card, it seems...


...and people wonder why I am skeptical about mesh.

:)))

Twice the Size of Hong Kong...

Now, as a caveat, I would just like to say I am not mad, or bitter. I just like to do a bit of straight talking when the BS gets stacked too high... that's all....

~...........................o0o...........................~


We've all watched enough adverts and seen enough politicians on TV to have developed a special gland for picking up the faint whiff of bullshit.

So, when, in the Q4 report someone tells me that SL is twice the size of Hong Kong, I wonder why...I'm like that. I have lived in Hong Kong for many years before the hand-over and even I have no real concept of what a land mass twice the size of HK with it's countless islands, would look like, and, seeing as how most of the readers of the report would be Americans, I wonder why one of the US States wasn't used as a comparison.

Obviously, clarity isn't really the ultimate goal in presenting a report like this and it is down to us to sift through the spin (as I believe it has been called since around 1991, before which it was called lies) to try a ascertain if any information of any relevance can be, or is worth being disseminated.

Basically SL has gone nowhere this last year.

That's not news, I guess, and the slide in concurrency, profitable businesses, and land rentals has been covered up quite simply by not providing the figures.

It makes no difference to me, I think. I would, however, be very glad if the Hong Kong model of hiding the truths was not applied to the reasons for the slide.

The reason is not exploding volcanoes in Iceland, Economic Downturns, oil spills or The Price of Pork Bellies... it is the cost of tier.... AND the Viewer From Hell.

Just as long as those facts aren't glossed over too quickly I am a happy bunny... well, not happy exactly, I think the Boys have blown a hole in the side of the company big enough to float an iceberg through. This has been done through inefficiency and thoughtlessness.

Good Luck in the New Year with the repairs.


:||

ToS

Well, we have all signed the new Terms of Service and, for once, I thought I would make another attempt at seeing what it was I signed.

So, searching the SL site didn’t get me very far...search produced some problems people had been having in May signing on after the ToS had shown on their screens.... Eventually, tho I found it here...

But, of course, there is no way of knowing how it changed from the last time I signed it... that would amount to a customer service feature which we know LL is allergic to.

As before, I couldn’t get past this following clause..

"Linden Lab has the right to change and/or eliminate any aspect(s), features or functionality of the Service as it sees fit at any time without notice, and Linden Lab makes no commitment, express or implied, to maintain or continue any aspect of the Service. You acknowledge that your use of the Service is subject to this risk and that you knowingly assume it and make your decisions to participate in the Service, contribute Content and spend your money accordingly."

I mean, that makes the whole exercise a complete waste of time.

They, could just as easily condense the whole thing to.. “I agree I do not have a leg to stand on and LL can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants.”

Anyway I just clicked on it, like 99.9% (maybe more) of all users, and because of this I missed the paragraph 15.z which states.

"Linden Lab has the right to harvest any or all of your internal organs for a profitable little side line now that the cyber bunnies have failed to make us rich. You also agree to any or all sexual favours which Linden Lab (and its officers, directors, shareholders, agents, subsidiaries, and employees) may from time to time require."

As a foot note.... breaking news... Linden Lab Jack's off.

Oh well, that’s life.