Tarot Reading by Grease Coakes

Most everyone wants to know what the future holds in store for them. For Deaflegacy, she pondered over a couple issues. Someone whom offered a few predictions was friend of the Newser Grease Coakes, whom has been doing some tarot card readings. She decided to see what the cards had in store for her.

Read Deaflegacy's article in Extra.

Grease Coakes' Tarot Card Readings

"What does fortune hold for me?" An old question people have asked fortune tellers for ages. One method of this is through tarot cards. Grease Coakes has recently taken up this old art that Second Life has given a modern twist, tarot card readings given through the virtual world. So how does he does it? Grease offered me a free reading to show me.

Read the story in Extra.

What's In A Name? Defining What To Call SLB Events.

There's little argument the Second Life Birthday was a great celebration, and if there's one big complaint, it's that it didn't last quite enough. But there was one small issue mentioned to me not about the SLB, but about how I described the last big event, the "Cake Explosion." I had described it as an "unofficial" event, and one reader felt this wasn't the case. But there was a reason I gave the event that description, even though I personally loved it.

Read more in Extra.

A Tarot Reader in Second Life

Most everyone wants to know what the future holds in store for them. For Grease Coakes, he wondered what does the future hold for his fiction writing. Someone whom offered a few predictions was his friend Amehana Ishtari, a tarrot card reader. So how did the reading go?

Read Grease's article in Extra.

One Resident Speaks Out on a Weakness in the Teen Rules

After I did a commentary on the issue of the Teen Grid merger, one my my readers, Shockwave Yareach contacted me about the subject. He told me there was one thing he wanted to show me. We teleported to a particular sim that was mostly grass, near a corner which had one section of an “X” shaped structure that spanned the adjacent corners of four sims, “Anyway, this is the sim Idu. And there is the welcome center. This is one of the places teens can rez, and can play. Cool so far, yes?” Everything looked innocent so far.

Shockwave then began walking to the opposite corner, “Now follow me to the Southeast. We walked for a while across the grassy field that was most of this particular sim. We soon got to the edge of the sim, which bordered another with a few stores at the edge, though there was a space between two with a “we’ve moved” sign. Standing in front of one particular brick building, Shockwave asked, “Now, standing here in the PG sim, cam into the store.” I did, and looking around, after some moments some pictures were soon visible that were definitely *not* PG. “This is safe for kids?” Shockwave asked me, “And all those demo poseballs on the ground, anyone can watch ‘the show.’ "

This, Shockwave argued, was a clear weakness of Linden Lab’s teen grid merger, “I've tried to warn them. I begged for a PG continent. But this,” he pointed again to the adult store next to the PG sim, “this is what we got. Just wait until one of the religious nutjob Americana family groups find out. Geez! ... Oh, and the empty spot, that was a store. They closed the day the teens arrived. While I bear the teens no ill will, and I want them to be able to play, I don't want them to ruin our fun and endanger our real lives in the process. By the way, there are several stores around these four PG rated sims selling skins and the like. And the kids can cam in and buy anything they can afford, PG or not PG.”

Earlier, Shockwave had suggested a JIRA for Linden Labs, that would block teen accounts from caming and buying outside PG sims. But Linden Labs never seemed to pay any attention to it. Why hadn’t they taken this and other precautions? Shockwave thought, “They are either incompetent, or think they can clean up the mainland by using the teens as a reason and are shortsighted. Second Life can be both clean and filthy. It can be thousands of things at once. It need not be only one thing. M Linden was utterly stupid for not figuring that out. Second Life is not a cable channel. it's a cable SYSTEM filled with different channels for different tastes. And realistically, the only way to keep the grid safe from problems like these here, is three separate rated continents.”

“Back when Linden Lab didn't tell us what to do or how to behave, it wasn't an issue. With teens and the volumes of TOS, it now is. The PG continent along with Zindra was asked for when the Zindra debacle occurred. We saw the writing on the wall and begged for it. But not, this is not hard for the teens to locate. This is an example of the silliness and the danger of the teens in PG.”

Shockwave felt that Second Life residents were now at risk for being placed under arrest, “when some momma sees Little Timmy camming in here, someone is gonna have the cops at their door. Linden Lab will pass the buck, naturally, so the store owner there will get a 2AM visit from the state police some night. The law doesn’t differentiate between my snapping a naughty picture and emailing it to a teen, and them seeing naked pictures in Second Life. ... I can't point to a case where someone is in jail for pixel sex in front of a kid. But I'd like to avoid the danger. I can, however, point out that the law is so irrational that they've charged teens here in Texas with possession of child porn for having a picture of themselves. ... Wonder if a teen having a pic of their avatar in the buff constitutes child porn?”

“I have no problem with teens being in a properly set up Second Life. THIS isn't it!”

What would Shockwave say to the teens themselves, “I'm sorry LL shafted you all. But that wasn't my doing, and many of us BEGGED for a PG continent that you and us could have and be safe together. We saw what was coming and wanted to make the grid safe for all. Now it isn't safe for anyone.”

So if a resident was worried about teens, why not just change the rating on his sim to keep them off? Shockwave answered, “Trouble is, you cannot change the rating on a mainland parcel. And even if you could,” he felt it wouldn't do much good if the sim next to you remained PG.

As for Shockwave’s own kids, “I have a teen daughter. She wanted to enter Second Life. ... But with the merger, she's uninterested anymore, ‘I don't want to hang around a bunch of old people.’ "

Shockwave soon had to attend to some business, and we went out separate ways, leaving the adult store still next to the PG-rated sim.

Bixyl Shuftan

Do You Have a Story?

On occasion, Second Life Newspaper will print an article or picture submitted to us by one of the readers.

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 post in the appropriate section and to investigate any names used in submitted stories (please ask permission before using anyones name or picture or use an alias for them).

Do You Have a Story?

On occasion, Second Life Newspaper will print an article or picture submitted to us by one of the readers.

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 post in the appropriate section and to investigate any names used in submitted stories (please ask permission before using anyones name or picture or use an alias for them).

Reader Submitted

It's life Jim but not as we know it.

So Linden Labs have been clearing out their inventory. 30% of their global workforce have crashed never to return. As we all know it's never nice when it happens, and I am sure we all wish them and their families the very best for the future. It's definitely goodbye and not "brb." This time of course though the crashing is in real life, not SL. And the ones who have gone have real families to support, real mortgages to pay and real bills to face up to. It's not just a few minutes or hours of inconvenience, because you can't dance the night away with your mates.

So what are the ramifications? What does this mean for us toons? Have our gods deserted us??.. Linden Labs are certainly not shouting the news from the rooftops, and why would they? .... Shedding nearly a third of your workforce is bad news however you look at it. Hard facts about the state of Linden's affairs are hard to come by. Facts and figures about the Linden empire fall firmly into the category of "statistics" (as in lies, damn lies and statistics), so we can't know for certain. One thing is certain though ... companies do not relieve themselves of a third of their workforce lightly. Was it always the plan to sack one in three of the workforce or did Bigwig Linden just wake up one morning and think it seemed like a good idea? The fact is they, as a business are in trouble, and if they are in trouble ... we are in trouble!

Residents beware! If the Lindens decide that 1 in 3 isn't enough and that they may as well turn the lights (and the servers) off and go home. What are you going to do? Suddenly the killer shoes you just bought seem less sparkly as you may not be able to log on and wear them tomorrow. If you think that's bad ... have a thought for the poor old landowners. Not only have they previously endured price manipulation of their assets ... now it is looking more likely than not that they will loose everything. I am no land expert but a quick check of prices tells me that an island is $1,000 us dollars and $295 dollars a month for maintenance whatever that is. That equates to over $4,500 us dollars a year for a few pixels that will go "poof" at the flick of an administrators index finger.

If you want my advice fellow residents....save your money and sell your house while you still can.

Izzie Schism

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.