Virtually Valuable

While reading the comments on a friend’s blog post about Freebies, I came across the standard comment (and from a Second Life resident no less), which goes along the lines of “it’s all just play clothes on virtual dolls, why do you all give a crap?”. I was going to reply to it but realised [...]

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Anxiety and Paranoia in a Virtual World

I have had Second Life friends who frequently suffer anxiety attacks – I can think of four people off the top of my head but there may be more. I always encouraged them to be open about the way they were feeling so I could reassure and comfort them. I did this primarily out of [...]

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The danger (and idiocy) of claiming expertise in matters of the mind, esp re suicidal people

A recent heart-breaking post about suicide, written by Prad over at Metaversally Speaking, lead to numerous comments of the predictable type: One grouping was “Prad you’re so kind and brave” (which he is), and the other line of comments was “suicidal people are evil ass-hats”. What I want to talk about is the dangerous idiocy [...]

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Sexual Perversion and Deviance, in Second Life

Replies to my recent post about Virtual Illegalities, and reading this very entertaining item (“Vaginas with teeth and other sexual myths“), got me thinking about what we can learn from Second Life about sexual “perversions” and “deviance”. This post brings together a lot of thoughts I’ve expressed over previous blog entries, specifically as they relate [...]

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Read the fine print

Even after doing a fancy-pants law degree I still don’t read the fine-print on most on-line contracts – I scroll down to the “I agree” box just like most of you do. A single page contract is usually my limit for online stuff, beyond that I get impatient and my eyes go fuzzy so I [...]

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Join the Black-out

This post is directly related to the one below it, but going a step further to try to raise awareness of the wider implications of this badly constructed law which effects New Zealander’s at this point in time, but could easily become a wider adopted policy that could hurt you directly too. Please help us. [...]

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Cutting off copy-right infringers at the ISP

I’ve only recently come across a blog entry about a law that is meant to come into force here very soon – one that makes ISPs cut off Internet access once a customer has infringed copyright more than once, via their Internet service. It’s seen as a highly controversial move, mostly turning on the issue [...]

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When internet dating goes so very wrong (and down-right scary)

Yesterday I happened upon a story on a local news site promoting a new book that warns people about meeting up with dates met online. Typical story, fine, you hear it all the time and we’re used to these warnings, it’s not really news. But today I found this: “Armed Police Raid Ends Internet Romance“. [...]

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The Why

I’ve had at least one very negative reaction to me leaving Second Life (quite a scathing one), and a few people worried about me – wondering if they can fix “what’s wrong”. Nothing’s wrong. And I guess I better explain my departure a bit more for those of you still angry or concerned about me.
I [...]

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Watching Love

I’m at Crown and Pearl right now, just watching love, and it’s making me so calm and happy.
Two people I barely know are slow dancing in a room where it’s only me and them. I’m perched on the DJ box looking down over the place I adore, and no one’s speaking. And I feel no [...]

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