Second Life Posing

More about everyone’s favorite online human zoo, Second Life: ‘Second Life’ faces threat to its virtual economy, via CNET. Seems some industrious open-source types have unwittingly (they claim) given everyone the keys to the kingdom. From the article, “Linden Lab, which publishes Second Life, posted a blog alerting residents of the virtual world to the existence of a program or bot called CopyBot, which allows someone to copy any object in Second Life. That includes goods such as clothing that people purchase for their in-world avatars …” heh, lol? Half the fun of gaming is having something the other guy doesn’t. And when everyone’s super, no one will be.

Nevermind, Let’s Not Talk About Second Life

The Chicago Tribune featured Second Life on the front page today, below the fold, in a multi-article profile.

(Makes ya wonder how long they had that in the can waiting for a slow news day, and, wow, this is a REALLY slow news day.) Anyways …

Despite the curious placement, it’s an interesting set of articles about Second Life: the hardware, the people, the commerce, the celebrities, the absurd.

Now, because the Tribune is under the mistaken belief that locking content behind registrations is a GOOD IDEA, I can’t share and we can’t talk about it and now we’re all just annoyed, so try to imagine the 2-paragraph pithy commentary I would have written instead of this one sentence:

I’ve lost interest.

Google, Yahoo, Warcraft and You

If you’re a Google calendar user like I am (because I want Google to know everything about me, and some day, if the government needs to compile a Foton dossier, they can just go to Google and pinpoint the exact location and time where I’ll be so they can serve me with papers), you probably know that you can subscribe to any number of public calendars, which will add their events to your giant calendar too.

For example, below is the World of Warcraft Google calendar containing the Darkmoon Faire dates and locations, the PVP battleground holidays and the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza. The calendar could really use the raid instance reset dates, especially Onyxia, but eh, can’t have everything. (The subscribe link is at the bottom.)

Several guilds have set up their raid schedules in Google, as have a few Everquest raiding guilds — not mine however, we don’t want the government to know our raiding schedule, nosey bastards.

On to Yahoo. If you’re widgetized — the desktop doohickeys — there are a few Warcraft widgets available (gallery of Warcraft widgets), including an RSS Breaking! Warcraft! News! feed, item search widgets connected to Thottbot or Allakhawhatsit, and several realm status widgets. Not available yet: a World of Warcraft in-game weather widget or a World of Warcraft Faked Patch Notes widget.

I didn’t find any EverQuest widgets, but there are a couple for Second Life — an auction widget, a brothel location search and news feeds. Not available yet: a Vanguard in-game Beta Cam (view the vast and empty landscape) or an EQ Day/Night Clock for noobs without adequate monitors or night vision.

Bringing this all full circle: a Yahoo widget for your Google calendar. (Note: a new version is expected shortly as the current one is … bug-riffic.)

Harness the power of the new technologies so that wherever you are, whatever you’re supposed to be doing (but aren’t), know what’s going on in your better other world.