blinkit

Danger Diz

WMD: Some advice kiddies? Stay out of the way of Gunnery Sergeant DizzyDedman. He's a force on the battlefield (that would be Battlefield 2, to be exact): 5,571 kills, 7,555 deaths (which means he's working hard), and a 16.7 per cent accuracy overall. OK, you wouldn't want him flying your helicopter, or your jet, or piloting your boat, but he's not bad with a tank, and he's a killer, frequently of his passengers, at the wheel of a truck. He's skilled with various weapons, is great with demo charges, and knows how to find the fight and sometimes even to survive it. And he's got a slew of medals to prove it. Now if he could get that NorthernPike guy to pay back the money he loaned him in that bar on Wake Island, things would be even better ...

24 Watch: 2 and 3

24 Watch: Two more to the bodycount, three people rescued. Plus Jack also picked up another cellphone, although that was a gift as much as anything else. And the ending of this week's episode is hilarious as it brings back my favourite TV villain outside of Baltar on BSG.

Today's bLINKit: I came across these podcasting Anglican seminary students while researching a story about local churches. It's a good marriage of faith and tech. That the Anglicans are podcasting is probably good, because the debate about God's existence rages on within YouTube. And video games are good for both your eyes and your local surgeon.

I join the MOB

WMD: That would be the Mean Old Bastards, a gaming clan which these days mostly plays this quiet little shooter. Gaming clans, for those not in the know, are like amateur or pickup hockey or softball teams, except each side is shooting at one another on a virtual battlefield. And what a battlefield: ports, towns, oil refineries, islands, aircraft carriers, you name it, rendered in glorious 3D and crackling surround sound. Blame JaqPike for this latest move, since he got me both into the game and into the clan. They're a thoroughly decent bunch: all older folks in their 30s and 40s with one member hitting 50, so snotty kids or whiny teens. Just adults that like to, you know, play soldier, drive tanks and fly choppers. There are far worse pursuits, and some nights, I'm not too bad at it.

Courier column catchup; latest reading

Today's bLINKit: Hmm, haven't caught up with my day job writing. Here's a column I wrote based on the talk I gave at Randy's memorial. (Thanks to all who emailed or called about what happened: it was much appreciated.) Here's a column catching up with the latest goings on with my property in Second Life. The latest on the latter is the casino development is largely gone: scaled way back, the wall gone, the property reverted to greenspace yet again. I'm not surprised, since I never say anyone actually patronize the place. Then again, it could be a respite during a redesign. The pic is of my Flying Twinkie, my household in the sky. I bought some furniture for it. Now I seriously have to figure out what to do next in this world. I'm not big on the party scene. I keep hearing about salons, lectures and classes, so will begin searching out those. I did attend a live music concert, but ended up getting bugged by a seriously crazy woman. Meantime, a lot of the people I met in the early days of SL habitation have moved on or gone dark; I take it the burnout rate is fairly high when folks overdose too much in the virtual realm. My own participation has been sporadic in the past month, despite the domestic projects. My problem is that I have nothing to sell and have bought just about anything I need, and buying and selling are at the heart of most people's Second life.

WMD: Reading -- still deep in Max Hasting's Armageddon, about the final year of the war in Europe. His ability to jump from the big picture of the movements of armies and supplies to individual stories, of soldiers and civilians, is breathtaking. And he's no Allied war booster. He notes the wide gap in ability and morale among the elite infantry formations in the U.S. Army, basically the airborne divisions, and the regular divisions, which some American commanders regarded as terrible and tended to be the dregs of the draft. Most soldiers in most of the armies involved simply didn't fight. Many never fired a shot. Most sensibly just tried to survive. Western Allied generals were, in the main, not very good or imaginative. Some were unfit to command, highly professional ones like Montgomery had huge egos which got the better of them, (and Monty made a complete hash of Market Garden, which Hastings goes to great pains to show was a badly planned and executed operation) and none were as good as their Russian counterparts, who were far more ruthless and working under a regime as terrible, if not more so, than the Nazis the Allies strove to defeat. Patton was highly imaginative in big envelopment assaults, and a bit of a dud when it came to static assaults, such as the Hurtgen Forest, one of the worst episodes the U.S. faced in the European war. The Western generals also had to contend with civilian soldiers, most volunteers, who were less and less committed to the fight as the war dragged on, which it did largely because of key strategic blunders made by the Allied leadership following D-Day. The civilians in the West also marched in armies controlled by democracies and carried democratic values with them. It's one reason, Hastings argued, that the Germans and Western allies were infinitely more humane to one another compared to the murderous ferocity with which the Germans and Russians squared off against one another on the Eastern front. That didn't stop both sides from occasionally killing prisoners in the West. Usually they just wouldn't let the opposing soldiers surrender, or prisoners sent to the rear would often mysteriously never arrive, with no questions asked. Captured snipers were shot on the spot, since regular infantry hated them. The SS were also seldom allowed to surrender, especially after the SS massacred American prisoners in the Bulge. (They also murdered Canadian prisoners in Normandy, and while there was a big row up here some years ago about a documentary suggesting Canadians responded in kind, the suggestion by Hastings is that all armies participated in it, if only informally on the battlefield, to some degree. It's war.)

I join the landed classes

WMD: I now own virtual land in Second Life. It's a narrow 512 square metre lot (in SL terms) in a new bunch of land recently opened up and added to the SL virtual world by Linden Labs. It cost me exactly 512 Linden dollars, or roughly $2 Canadian. The virtual land represents my portion of space on one of SL's many servers. What can I do with it? Pretty much anything I want, within the limits of the amount of 3D virtual space I'm allocated. I can create a home, set up a virtual store, landscape it, open a club or gathering spot (albeit a small one) or all those things. Right now, it's a place to park my polygons.

I bought the land late last week when I saw that new land was opening up for first-time buyers under the quasi-frontier Land for the Landless program in SL. (There's some redistribution of wealth, and subsidization, in the game's economy, which causes no end of dispute among residents as to its wisdom.) The picture above shows my avatar sitting on what then was a fairly empty patch of grass from horizon to horizon. There were a few other residents out looking at land, and some preliminary surveying and construction, but not much. It looked like a big green park in Saskatchewan, minus the mosquitos.

It grew quickly. The second pic from the top shows the neighbourhood just two days later. At right, is my house, a freebie I picked up from a guy in Germany who created a lovely Berlin-style villa and now gives them away. It features locking doors, powered shutters, a loft and two upper balconies and a ground floor deck. (I'm going to replace it with a purchased home: while charming and private, it takes up too much of the 3D object space I'm allowed to park on that land, meaning I have very little of my allocation remaining for furniture and amenities.) To the left is a cabin built by a woman who owns the lot beside me, and beside her a beginner home created by a guy named Ep. He's since made his plot into a lovely little park surrounding a fountain. Beyond him, out of view, is what looks like a dance club or casino or some kind of combination of the two, where someone has purchased several plots of land or joined with partners to create a commercial space. It's the joy of a total lack of zoning in SL to have a club and gambling joint just a few doors down from your home. To the right of home, out of the picture, is a modern home floating in the air, an empty lot for sale, a modern two-story glass and steel thing, and behind them a corkscrew-like lighthouse and another outdoor, mountain pool thingy built by a man-sized chipmunk. I wish I was making that last bit up. Interestingly, that lot is for sale.

A lot of the newly created lots are for sale. As soon as new land opens up for first-timers, speculators move in and offer to buy your land. Some new owners obviously sell, and the speculators then try to flip the land and advertise its availability. The result is some butt ugly real estate, as in the mess behind my home, seen in the third pic above. Fortunately, the land to the front of my home remains undeveloped, and I have a nice view of sunsets from my top balcony, as seen in the final pic in this post. I doubt that view will last. I'm not sure, but it looks like someone owns all the land fronting the new properties, possibly for a huge development, or it's in some kind of reserve I don't know about it. In any event, I'm enjoying popping in now and then and checking out my little house and property, which cost the equivalent of half a Starbucks grande latte, and enjoying those setting virtual suns, before the giant chipmunks and the capitalists come and screw it all up.

Bavaria, beer and belief, part five: Bruno, RIP

WMD: He eluded bands of hunters, wildlife experts, specially trained dogs from Finland and various traps. He survived getting hit by a car and he once hung out in front of a police station, taunting the Man to get him. He also snacked freely on domestic sheep, chickens, bunnies and beehives. He was the only celebrity in Germany not associated with the World Cup of Soccer, but to some, he was also public enemy no. 1 for his thirst for freedom and the good life. So it's sad to report that Bruno the Bear, believed to be the first wild bear in Germany in 170 years, was shot dead yesterday by hunters in the Bavarian Alps. Casper and I join all bear lovers in mourning his loss. The English version of Der Spiegel waxed eloquently about Bruno's legacy, comparing him, in just one story, to Hannibal, Hamlet, a character from Camus and a whole host of celebrities who died too young from Elvis to Princess Di. Bruno, writes DS, "shook the foundations of Germany's post-industrial society to its core." The magazine continues:

Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel was prompted to comment: "If Europe has nothing else to worry about other than Bruno the bear, then it must be a happy place." In a way, he's right. The quality of life and security which Western European society now provides is unrivalled in human history: we are pampered and protected, led to believe we have reached the summit of human progress. Yet, a single bear, which kills a few sheep is enough to drive us to our baser instincts: kill what appears threatening.

For indeed Bruno was murdered, shot down in the prime of his young life, executed in cold blood. We should reflect now on whether we feel happy with what we have done. We share a collective guilt for Bruno's demise, our inability to co-exist with nature has yet again prompted us to reach for the trigger. Bruno is dead and we are all the poorer for it: May his ursine soul rest in peace.

You can read about DS's breathless coverage of the bountiful life and tragic death of Bruno here.

Today's bLINKit: Trouble in online paradise. See the video here about how some residents of Second Life worry relaxed registration requirements mean the online world will soon be flooded by horny teens and virtual griefers. Note, you no longer need a credit card to play the game.

 

I'm a Barbie Girl ...

Today's bLINKit: Second Life has a ton of naughtiness. This online site for the Barbie Club, one of the most popular gathering spots in the game, according to traffic counts, shows just what's going on. BEFORE YOU LINK: Please note (very) mature content! And it's all polygons, too.

All the virtual news that's fit to print

Today's bLINKit: Second Life has its own media. Travel from zone to zone, or even building to building, and you'll come across dozens of streamed radio stations created by users. Some have ads, others have live DJs using Shoutcast and 360 to find an audience. You can buy radios in the game to tune in the stations, but I'm told you need a house in which to put it. But SL also has print publications, including the Second Life Herald, which reports on the scandals and the buzz.

Second Life's like that

Today's bLINKit: Second Life-based journalist Wagner James Au describes the scene when a SL resident created a memorial to coalition (not just U.S.) soldiers killed in Iraq since 2003. The resulting reportage contains various elements about what life is like in Second Life. There's the boob who shows up, propositions someone in front of everyone else and then apologizes later. There are the people who don't get the idea of a neutral memorial and can't keep their mouths shout during a moment that's supposed to be communal and respectful. And then there's the person with a real story that stops the presses and shows how virtual environments are surprisingly good at conveying moments of public emotion and feeling. There's also, as Au notes, the fact the memorial is located "next door to a disco and across the street from something called SL*Mart, a knockoff of a Walmart superstore, except that this one is permanently on fire." Sl has no zoning controls. You'll see a medieval castle next to a Dali-esque private home next to a shopping mall that looks like a spaceship. Sometimes, the jumble of images works. Most of the time, it does not, especially with the millions of floating billboard cubes for fashion stores and (in-game) escort agencies. Yes, virtual avatars are getting it on online.

My so-called Second Life; TV catchup

WMD: Thanks for the comments on the cats. Nothing gets Blinkit readers more excited than cat stuff. I put the various theories about feline communication to Casper. He's mulling over them now, although he's not talking much these days. He's trying to figure out Stephen Harper. Admires him, he says, but also hates what he's doing.

Blinkit's been watching TV lately, since it's all he can afford. Caught two season enders and one series finale:

The West Wing: Ended this season's fine revival in the series' sagging fortune with a lot of mush and an attempt to pair various characters off for happy endings. But it was nice to see the show that made intelligent banter and political discourse both a virtue and a source of entertainment ended on a high note, instead of fizzing out like Al Gore in 2004. Hopefully the goofier moments of this show's seven seasons (ie kidnapping of the president's daughter) will be forgotten and its devotion to both characters and language will be remembered.

24: OK, we get it. Jack is a borderline sociopath who works for the good guys. But the best moments of this season came from the nasty piece of work in the form of the president: 1/3 Nixon, 1/3 Bush Sr., 1/3 total prick. Also, saw the ending a mile away. It was the elephant in the room.

Lost: Not bad for a second-season finish. Some development in the continuing mystery of the island, some nice tension between characters, and the end of that stupid computer in the bunker business. But the real mystery is why most of the 30 or 40 or so passengers who survived the plane crash stand around like sheep and let the half dozen or so pretty people get all the fun.

Today's bLINKit: A week of links about Second Life, a current fascination of mine. (Brief explanation: online virtual world, with several hundred thousand residents who make and sell stuff, including themselves. Has own economy and in-game currency that's traded for U.S. dollars.) We begin with two introductions, first this dry but thorough Wikipedia entry, and this succinct and hilarious video, which hits the highs and lows of virtual worlds dead on.