Montecito Bay UFO: The Military Responds

Montecito Bay has seen no shortage of weirdness. But it was about six months ago since it's weirdest time, when one of the town's buildings was hit by what looked like a UFO. Following when the strange craft was removed from the building but before it was taken away, the Newser managed to get a closer look. It's being taken away and the weird building that appeared in the wrecked structure's place overnight might have been the last word on the story. But this week, the Newser finally got an explanation from the US Military about the incident. So did they give a reason other than "swamp gas?"

Read the story in Extra.

Announcement: Letter to Santa Contest at Trotsdale

The Library is running a writing competition again finally. This time you can thank Milo as the idea to write letters to Santa was his, and he has generously donated a sizable prize to start the prize pool. Details and instructions are in the attached card. It is open to everyone so feel free to pass a copy to your friends.

Uh oh! Christmas is coming, that goose is looking pretty tasty, there are lights and things going up, undercover elves spying on us all a lot more noticably and not even in stealth mode anymore. It must be time to write that letter to Santa!

RULES

1) There is ONE prize. Send in the best letter and you take home the prize.
2) The rating is G. G-rated content only.
3) Notecards must have both your SL LEGACY NAME and your CHOSEN PEN NAME. Display names change too often, legacy names stay.
4) All submissions must be set on full perm notecards and placed in the scroll case drop box on the library table.
5) Copies of this rule card can be picked up from the inkwell in the library table if needed.
6) These entries will be archived on the library forum. They will also be read in a video placed on Youtube for the library's audio archiving. This is why if you don't want your SL Legacy name out there it is important to have a pen name chosen.

JUDGES
Amehana Ishtari and Milo (decitrex) are the judges. If a tiebreaker is needed they will enlist a third judge that is not competing.

PRIZE
The contest prize pool currently is 1,038$L started off with the first donation being ponied up by Milo (decitrex). It may increase depending on any donations received (please send those to Hanaarashi Resident, who is the contest bank account/alt of Amehana Ishtari) or through the pile of books on the library table.

Trotsdale Library:  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Trotsdale/22/156/25

More on Net Neutrality: Over 200 Businesses Sign Letter of Support, Philip Rosedale Predicts "Especially Negative" Consequences

By Bixyl Shuftan

Earlier, the Newser wrote about the plans of the FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to dismantle regulations protecting Net Neutrality. To the ordinary Internet user, it may seem like a David and Goliath style struggle of thousands of little guys like him versus huge corporations. As it turns out, the little guys have some big guys on their side. On November 27, also known as "Cyber Monday," one of the biggest days of shopping online in the year, over 200 online businesses and trade groups signed their names to a letter to the FCC asking them to scrap Pai's call to end Net Neutrality protections. Among those on the list were Pinterest, Reddit, Tumbir, Twitter, and Vimeo.

Because of the open internet, a web developer can launch a business out of their own apartment, an aspiring fashion designer in Wyoming can sell clothes in Los Angeles, or a caterer can find new customers in their town. Because of net neutrality, consumers and businesses have unfettered access to one another, increasing competition and consumer choice.

Without these rules, internet service providers will be able to favor certain websites and e-businesses, or the platforms they use to garner new customers, over others by putting the ones that can pay in fast lanes and slowing down or even blocking others. Businesses may have to pay a toll just to reach customers. This would put small and medium-sized businesses at a disadvantage and prevent innovative new ones from even getting off the ground. An internet without net neutrality protections would be the opposite of the open market, with a few powerful cable and phone companies picking winners and losers instead of consumers.

And what would the repeal of Net Neutrality mean for Second Life? According to Philip Rosedale, the founder of Linden Lab, it would be very bad. In a post on Twitter, Rosedale reminded everyone that for many users of the Internet, where they live there's only one Internet provider, especially for high-speed Internet.

Many Americans have only one internet provider. Removing the requirement for net neutrality would allow their opinions to be biased by the provider. Unbiased information will become a privilege of the rich. This is against everything we stand for as a country.

Talking to Hamlet Au of New World Notes, Rosedale explained more, "The end of net neutrality would be especially negative for high bandwidth services like SL and High Fidelity that are delivered by less powerful companies. I would not be surprised to see providers with no competition simply re-introduce by-the-megabyte billing for 'non-premium' services, taking us all the way back to the stone age of AOL and other early online services."

Second Life can be quite a "bandwith hog," to quote the starter of a 2007 thread from the SL Universe forums in which one person stated his Internet plan's bandwidth allowance for a month only covered slightly more than three days of use. With this in mind, it's fair to say the end of Net Neutrality would strongly affect a number of core residents. For users who spend a lot of time here whose Internet provider ends up putting a strict bandwidth limit with high charges for going over,  this would mean paying more, perhaps significantly more, for a higher level of use, or severely cutting their time here.

On another note, an article by the Washington Post reported that "hundreds of thousands" of emails to the FCC about Net Neutrality were likely fake. An article in Hackernoon stated that there were more than a million fake messages to them calling for the repeal of Net Neutrality, concluding that only three to four percent of the total of comments they had received were probably real.

Sources: The Verge, New World Notes, Twitter, Ars Technica, SL Universe, Washington Post, Hackernoon

Bixyl Shuftan

Reader Submitted: "The Us in LL"

Hello,

I feel compelled to bring up the point that with all that is going on with Linden Labs there is still a point that LL has and is over looking. This being the us in LL, the customer, and we are the driving force behind LL. Case in point being LL in the effort to try to keep the momentum going has overlooked an across the board decision to put an avatar on hold for any reason. I realize this is a necessary thing in trying to hold down all the scams etc, but. This is also sweeping up many of the good and loyal customers that have been with LL for a long time, and due to only a mistake with the pass word or security question LL will not release the avatar back to its owner. I like many others fail to understand how LL can track down such interrelated detail of any avatar in its investigation that they can not come to an ascertainable fact that will link the avatar with the owner and with any and all other avatars this person may have.

For this reason I believe many are having second thoughts about spending money on inventory plus keeping money on an avatar only to have LL take it and refuse to give it back no matter how much evidence in the form of picture ID's or birth records along with real name and addresses is supplied. I for one have more than one avatar in Second Life and have one of my avatars on hold, now I am trying to decide if I want to cash out and quit or just stop spending money in SL, we are being driven out of SL and word of mouth and the stroke of pen is a slow death to anyone who will not listen to or make every effort to help in this. It has been one hell of a ride but I like many are having second thoughts about spending more money in a loser, LL support is the laughing stock of the gaming world, and will bring them down.


James in Texas

Reader Submitted: Letter to M Linden

Hiya M!

Thank you for being VERY responsive to my prior missives!

Topic: Viewer 2... I love Viewer 2... it's a great user interface. I am in the 3% minority. Duh?
http://blogs.secondlife.com/poll.jspa?poll=1018

Right to Speak: I wrote and taught over 100 classes about SL, about 2000 of your core peeps. The root question always "How to find fun?" and "How to make the funsters come to my gig?" Truism: The teacher always learns the most.

I am sorry you're losing viewership. You can stop the bleeding.

The key is SEARCH. Viewer 1.x finds 20-30 live music events each hour. Viewer 2 finds 3 to 5. Duh? If Google ain't delivering dump them!

Bring back the real search, and real SL fun! IMHO.

Cheers! Peace! Love! and Happiness! Forever!

P.S. My friends asked me to write you. I care. And IMHO, SL rules as a form of entertainment, completely crushes movies, videos, CDs, MP3s, etc. It's all about people and fun and world peace - WOOT!

any1 Gynoid

* * * * * * * * * *

Have you seen a particularly well-detailed sim? Went to a great event? Found yourself in a hilarious "only in SL" predicament? We're very interested in what you the readers have to say. Send us a story or funny picture, and if we like it, we'll post it as a Reader Submitted. For pictures, jpg format is preferred.

Mail submissions to bixylshuftan(at)gmail.com.


PLEASE include your SL user name and tell us if you wish it to appear with your story.

Second Life Newser reserves the right to investigate any names used in submitted stories. Please ask permission before using anyone's name or picture or use an alias for them.