Your source of news about the people, places, things, and events across Second Life.
If there's a universal complaint among the residents of Second Life, it's the lag. The slowness in our viewers rendering images of objects and avatars. Except perhaps for those with the most top of the line computers, everyone gets it. But what opinions differ on is what causes it. Over time, people have pinned blame on things from blingy jewelry to breedables to poorly made objects. But last month in New World Notes, an interview with the creator of the Black Dragon Viewer suggested that some of the more popular mesh avatars were actually particularly bad causes, being so resource intensive, they would slow everyone around them. This caused quite a bit of debate about solutions.
Today in 2012, this year's election doesn't seem to have quite the same impact here. Part of it may have to do with the real-life media spotlight largely off of Second Life. Also the Capitol Hill sim is gone, and with it the most noted spot of neutral ground debates had. And then there's the theme to the election itself. Four years ago, we had a crusty old war hero against a promising up and coming young candidate. Today, the President's once shiny promises have long been replaced by gritty realities, challenged by a candidate whom while competent seems more than a little bland. And of course there's the deepening partisan divide. Drama-shy residents may be more than a little reluctant to get involved in discussions they fear may quickly become heated.
For those interested in participating in political discussion, there are still some places one can go to. For Democrats/liberals and progressives, there is Cafe Wellstone in the mainland Pini sim (56, 78, 45), next to the highway. For Republicans/conservatives, with the closing of the GOP Cafe (formerly the Straight Talk Cafe), their place with the most traffic seems to be The Republican Party of SL Headquarters in the Sunset River sim (180, 198, 23). Second Life Newser does not yet have weekly schedules of either location.
Most of us do our best to use courtesy in the way we talk and write, though there are complaints from some about pressure to make them go out of their way from potentially offending someone by the use of unnecessarily complex language. And it's not just speech, but even in whether or not someone gets a job because they're not of the "right" label that has little if anything to do with how the job is performed. I went to the Coffeeshop in the Breakers sim where the people asked themselves: "has political correctness gone too far?"
