Scylla Rhiadra

haxeonelove, what Treasure Ballinger doesn't tell you above is how much time and work and effort she has put into helping others and advocating for those with disabilities in Second Life. She's on the Board of Directors for Virtual Ability in Second Life, and is estate manager for Cape Able, a residential sim for SL residents with disabilities. She's an advocate in both RL and SL. She's also one of the most relentlessly cheerful, positive, and sweet people I've ever known in SL. I admire her a great deal. You could do a lot worse than looking to her as a kind of model for making SL fulfilling, not just for yourself, but for others too.

As self-indulgent and boring for most of you as it will undoubtedly seem, I hate missing old friends. Sooo . . . Hugs to Canoro, and Dres, and Love, and Dillon, and Celestiall! :matte-motes-smile: (I hate these smilies.) And just as a parting shot at relevance . . . it is outrageous, obviously, that the government (any government) spies on us. They couldn't do this without judicial authorization if we were on the phone, but apparently harvesting us like we were a junk crop is fine online. But the real disturbing thing, surely, is that LL hasn't just let this happen. They invited them in. So much for the free spirit of Burning Man, eh? kk, enough! Byeeeee! :-)

My. That sounds exciting and dangerous! Are you an operative, or just a freelancer? Unfortunately, Mum told me never to go to Hemmingway's with someone less that 48 hours old. And I always listen to Mum. :matte-motes-grin:

(I'm sort of kicking myself that I didn't do this as a parody thread. I seriously think I've lost my touch. I might have even dragged Richard out of mothballs, kicking and screaming. You know, "Stunning Revelations as Online Tarsks Revealed to Be in Employ of Insect Lords." Or maybe even something clever. Oh well. Next time . . .)

A world without trustworthy erotic manga, or clean tissues, is nowhere I want to be. This has been waaaaaaaaaay too much excitement for me! I'm outta here for . . . well, probably a very long while. I have to go write up that debriefing report on forum alts now. Hugs and kisses. It's been really lovely seeing some old avatars. Take care all. :-)

*sigh* My fingers slipped. And I'm out of practice keeping the local grammar nazi happy.

/me waves back at her favourite Martian. The existence of Barry (the John the Baptist of crack-smoking mayors, who merely prepared the way for the Greater One) is grounds for commiseration rather than consolation. ETA. Edited because I'm not REALLY a dumb blonde. I'm just drawn that way.

Oh god. Why did I ever admit to being Canadian? Yeah, he's a tool alright.

i jest perfer to pertend im a reel dum blond. *giggle* It may not get 'em off my tail, but at least I can take satisfaction in knowing that, somewhere, some idiot who thought that working for the NSA meant being James Bond will think he's found his perfect girl.

Storm, I am increasingly convinced you are right. It's the reason, I suppose, for my outrage fatigue. Increasingly I'm giving up on the "global" part, and thinking locally, I guess.

I see the OP hasn't been back to respond. Perhaps he's found a "classy" Mumbai girl to his taste, and is otherwise occupied.

MADDY!!!! :-)

You worry too much. What happens in the Forum Cartel stays in the Forum Cartel.

Wow. How did this project get past a research ethics board? Or is ethics just a quaint, old-fashioned notion in the Brave New World of the neoliberal university?

Hey Qie! Nice to, um, see you again! Yes, but I always thought -- evidently incorrectly -- that Rosedale was an "old fashioned" libertarian, rather than a neoliberal. Which is to say, a libertarian with at least some semblance of ethics.

Yeah, thank god for incompetence. But at least it's cheap, automated incompetence: you'd have to pay someone truly prodigious sums to be as wrong about the stuff that gets posted on my FB feed as these algorithms are.

Wow, the spam here is . . . impressive. No wonder this place is an echo chamber now: who can be heard over THIS? Mind you, it seems pretty fertile ground for a feminist. I'm sure that our Mumbai pimp is paying close attention to his posts, just waiting for an intelligent discussion about the sex trade in developing nations . . . :matte-motes-big-grin-evil:

Thanks Storm. Just a quick visit on a slow morning is all. :-)

I'm sort of suffering from outrage fatigue myself. And this is, I suppose, pretty small potatoes compared to what we know about the NSA and really big players like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. Ultimately, how much safer is our privacy if it is only Silicom Valley that is mining our data and turning us into marketable algorithms? Should we trust huge unaccountable corporations more than we trust a government that is, at least in theory, responsible to the people it represents? I don't really have an answer for that: they both seem vile. What IS a bit surprising is that this occurred under Rosedale's watch. Rosedale was supposed to be the great libertarian, remember? How the hell did HE reconcile this with what SL supposedly stood for?

For all intents, most of us are.

I kind of like the idea of a furry from the NSA unknowingly cybering with a vampire from MI5, perhaps while an operative from Interpol uses a tiny to alt-click and watch. SL worked very hard, at one point, to sell itself to the military as a good place for training and planning. So, yeah, this is only a little new.

Ugh. Creepy. But again, perhaps, unsurprising. University research (and teaching, for that matter) is only "important" nowadays if it produces something that the government can use, or that can be patented and monetized. These are much more valuable than, you know, "educating people." I do wonder how that one got through an ethics review board, though. You'd have thought there'd have been some eyebrows raised, at least. Sadly, for me, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Agency seems uninterested in funding work in either literature or feminist discourse. But I've learned to live with disappointment. Too bad about the forums. The format here is better for establishing a community (even if a bickering one) than feeds. I wonder if this will get pulled for impugning the good name of Cory and SL?

You can expect me to disappear again shortly, Pe . . . I mean, Rudy. This is just a brief excursion. :-) I ran across this story in the Guardian this morning, and found it interesting. It's not, as I note, very surprising, but I'm interested in the connections between the corporate internet and surveillance, so . . . On another note . . . Kind of a ghost town around here now, isn't it?

Well, well, well . . . "In 2007, as the NSA and other intelligence agencies were beginning to explore virtual games, NSA officials met with the chief technology officer for the manufacturer of Second Life, the San Francisco-based Linden Lab. The executive, Cory Ondrejka, was a former Navy officer who had worked at the NSA with a top-secret security clearance. He visited the agency’s headquarters at Fort Meade, Md., in May 2007 to speak to staff members over a brown bag lunch, according to an internal agency announcement. 'Second Life has proven that virtual worlds of social networking are a reality: come hear Cory tell you why!' said the announcement. It added that virtual worlds gave the government the opportunity 'to understand the motivation, context and consequent behaviors of non-Americans through observation, without leaving U.S. soil.' Ondrejka, now the director of mobile engineering at Facebook, said through a representative that the NSA presentation was similar to others he gave in that period, and declined to comment further." I knew that there was something fishy about that bisexual furry skunk. http://www.propublica.org/article/world-of-spycraft-intelligence-agencies-spied-in-online-games

Perrie Juran wrote: Seeing her name mentioned again I had to control my gag reflex. She even trashed her best friend Scylla here on one occasion. She was the epitome of something I've known for a very long time, there is no such thing as a compassionate communist. Wait. Suspiria was my "best friend"???? And she TRASHED ME????? The B*TCH!!! :matte-motes-agape: (And yeah, Suzy was no communist. That'd be me. Well, socialist, but I know we all look alike to you neoLiberals :matte-motes-oh-rly:)