Gambling could return to SL?

About three years ago a law was passed by the US Congress (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006) which basically killed off legitimate online gambling (didn’t stop illegitimate gambling), leaving us with online poker sites that are more like training and game playing than actual gambling. Around this time was when Linden Labs banned casino games from Second Life.

According to this article in the New York Times talks about a possible repeal of this law.  Because of the global economic problems going on right now, many governments (U.S. included) are considering legalizing gambling as a new source of revenue , by simply taxing it.  This could open up casino gambling in SL if something like this goes though, especially of other countries also change their polices.  I had assumed that the reason LL banned casino games from SL, was due to pressure from laws of different countries. Since Second Life has a world wide user base, LL often succumbs to the laws around the world; having to fit to the lowest common denominator of the law.

But laws never stopped so-called “off shore gambling” web site who are located in international waters and don’t reside in any country and are basically lawless, and yield millions of dollars for these organizations.  Even in legalized gambling, as is with Indian casinos, nets them millions of dollars in revenue, even for the local state governments they are located in.

But this idea might not be a good idea.  The state of Nevada, where casino gambling is legal state wide, where anyone can set up a slot-mashine at thier stabishment, isn’t doing so well.  An article at the Review Journal that Nevada’s economy took a huge nose dive in January 2007 and is dead LAST. Plus it couldn’t have possibly gotten any better two years later.  Everyone is feeling the economic crunch where every dollar counts, so people aren’t willing to gamble thier money away unless you’re a compuslive gambler.

Linden Censorship, and segergation.

There’s a whole lotta chatter and paranoia about the proposed changes with adult content in SL.  Linden Labs seems to want to ignore the obvious fact that the #1 reason why people use SL is for the adult content with little to no restrictions to newbies accessing that.  Where esle can you play interactive virtual porn, and pay little to nothing in doing so?  It’s often this sort of content that encourages new users to become paying members.  Most other places (say uthereverse) require subscriptions to access the adult content with out so much as a sample. Oh and lets not forget the fact that SL is a cross platform MMO where as most other MMO’s are windows-only.

The thing that I really love is the PR spin the Lindens give on this.  Taken from the Adult-oriented content controls FAQ, via SL’s knowledge base, they answer some common, yet very weak, questions:

Is this something that Second Life users have asked for?
Yes. Numerous Residents, ranging from adult-content vendors to educators, have requested that we provide additional tools to enable them to tailor their inworld experiences and make them more predictable.

Horseshit. This is something the Lindens basically sprang up on us over night. If we, the users, have been asking for this then we would have been expecting this years ago. After the initial controversy of Adult Verification, that became a huge joke, that should have been our first hint to something grander since it was clearly a step towards more restrictions and lack of freedom. However they waited a good two years or so after the Adult Verification fiasco settled down before they announced this new segregation proposal.

How does this move prevent minors from entering Second Life or accessing content?
As part of this initiative, we will require Residents who access adult content (or view Adult search results) to go through an account verification process — either being verified through our age verification provider, or have a verified payment method.

Then what was the entire point of Adult Verification, since one of their main mantra (which I agreed with) was that having billing info dosen’t mean the user as over 18 years old. Any person of any age can get a bank account in their name, and use that to pay into Second Life. Credit cards companies and banks aren’t in the business of checking a customers age since it’s not against the law for a minor to have them.  While these institutions likely hold DOB information in their databases, but it’s not public record. So it’s not any one else’s business to access that information, and in most cases it’s illegal for them to do so.

Doesn’t this move go against the free spirit of Second Life and the internet?
No. From its inception, Second Life has been an open place, where Residents are free to explore a wide diversity of creative pursuits. This openness has fostered a tremendous amount of amazing content inworld and helped make Second Life what it is today. We are committed to preserving that openness while at the same time, ensuring that Residents can engage in Second Life in the manner most suited to their needs and interests.

This is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard.  I know that LL has the best intentions in this regard if given the choice they would HAVE let Second Life become the wild-wild-west of the internet.  They would have allowed casino gambling to continue, they wouldn’t have bothered with adult verification, and all this extra bullshit that make it sounds like The Man is coming down on us.

But the reality is that you can’t have security, and “protect the kids” with out censorship, restrictions, and segregation.  You end up retarding creativity, freedom, and choice. The Lindens know this but they don’t want to admit it publicly, since the user base may quit en masse. Thus causing a huge portion of their economy to vanish over night. So they are trying to spin this as if nothing will change.

Is LL trying to deemphasize the community so it can focus more on the enterprise market?
Not at all. There are many communities in Second Life — from educators, artists, entrepreneurs, gamers, enterprise users, and many more, including those interested in adult content — and there’s room for all of them in Second Life, just as there is on the Internet at large and in the real world.

WHAT? The reason why LL is making these policy changes is because THEY CAN! The reason why there’s “room for this on the internet at large and the real world” is because no one has that much control over them, DUH!  At least not as much control that Linden Labs has with Second Life.  This analogy is ridiculous and slaps in the face of common sense.  Whoever wrote that is a fucking idiot.

How will this program help attract new users?
It will make Second Life more attractive to new users by making it more customizable and easier to search for relevant content, whether adult or non-adult.

See this is where LL wants to ignore the reason why people login to Second Life in the first place.  FOR THE ADULT CONTENT. Yes it’s not like the adult content will be removed from SL (but a lot of it will be LOST due to this change), but the moment new users find out they are RESTRICTED from the content they are seeking, and probably have to spend money doing so, then why bother logging in again?

I do believe the search engine in SL has a LOT to be desired, but that’s because users simply abuse how the search engine works to get hits on searches (using discriptions filled with common meta key-words, but no acctual description).  Linden Labs isn’t talking about making it easier/customization to find what users are looking for they are going to restrict search results based on you being verified or not.

The fact the news of this is going around, will likely cause users to NOT BOTHER starting accounts on SL if they are going to be restricted from the content they are seeking.  If users want to explore a PG world, they can already check out www.there.com.

XsteetSL to use SL logins

XstreetSL has announced they will be using login information from Second Life. I think this is great. I never got an account set up proper at Xstreet. I’ve tried to set one up, but it kept saying my email address was already being used, yet my login info didn’t work. Asking for a password reset dosen’t work since since it asks for your login name, and not your e-mail address. So hopefully when this goes into effect, I won’t need to worry about this anymore.

Now there are some obvious concerns about this, mainly security.  If XstreetSL was still a separate entity; then yes I would be quite alarmed that all of a sudden my account information on Second Life would be magically migrated over to some 3rd party web site. But remember kids, Linden Labs acquired XstreetSL not to long ago, so this isn’t a big deal, so our private information is still being kept by a single entity. I would only question is to exactly how they are doing this, since I don’t believe the two sites are even remotely compatible.  They won’t be changing how SL works, so they will have to change how XstreetSL works. It’s not likely they manually copy and convert login info from the 6million+ users accounts that already exist, as well as the thouands of new ones that are created every day.  So the paranoia about this I think isn’t neccessary.

Also this is a step forward in integrating all the services that Linden Labs has, with out requiring separate login accounts for SL it self, it’s web page, JIRA, SL Blog, and now XStreet.  I’m also going to assume that XStreet will eventually lose their name, and just be integrated as appart of Second Life, using the built-in web browser in the viewer; a lot like how shopping is done at There.com.

There are other high risk security issues that Second life still needs to address:

No secure trading function
SL has no way of guaranteeing that when you buy or trade something, you’ll actually get something in return. Short of using scripted vendos, if you’re dealing with another user directly, you’re giving your complete trust that the other person wont just skip out on you after you paid to buy someting from them.  Though the direct pay function still needs to exist, otherwise you couldn’t pay into vendos, or give others gifts. There.com has had a secure trading function for many years, where you’ll see all the details of the item(s) you’re giving, as well as receving, with TWO confirmations before the exchange takes place. SL has yet to have anything like this, so users have to file fraud abuse reports to LL if a deal goes bad.  If LL implemented this, it  will cut down a lot of their abuse reports of fraud and less work load for Linden employees who can spend time fixing something else.

Remember password
This is a stupid thing to have.  If a user can’t remember thier password then they are SOL.  Functions like these just makes user lazy-minded anyway.  I’ve hand many occrances where I’ll meet someone new, have a good time chatting with them.  Then the next day I see them again and they are like a completely diffrent person. Often abusive, insulting, or just plain stupid. This is because it WAS A diffrent person. This user kept “remember password” and so thier roommate, BF/GF/Spouse, sibling logged in as them.  Linden Labs is always talking about password security, how it’s a violation of TOS to give your password to anyone else, and you should change it on a regular bassis.  Yet they have this “remember password” function that opens up a whole new avenew of insecurity; it ought to be removed completely, or at least tucked away deep inside prefrences, and set OFF by defualt.

Those are the top two things that have bugged me for years.. i know there’s more but nothing i can recall right now. I’ll add more to this list later.

Newer DLC for Fallout 3

I got the Pitt, and it still hasn’t raised the level 20 cap!  ARG!  How am I supposed to check out the new perks if i can’t level anymore?  I really don’t want to re-play the whole game yet again. Otherwise it’s kina cool so far, though it does have a tendency to lock up my 360 from time to time.  There was a system/dashboard update on April 1st, which is said to fix lockup issues with certain game titles; I guess that exlcudes Fallout 3 DLCs.

I love my 360, but one of the biggest gripes I have is how slow it is at rezing textures.  Ever load up a map on Gears2, and everything looks flat and dull. But after about 10 seconds it clears up sharp. and and it looks much better as if you had just put on your glasses?  For some reason the 360 loads textures so slow, and this occurs on many games not just Gears.  It’s like how textures and objects rez slow on Second Life when you login, or teleport somewhere.  But that’s only because everything has to download to you for it to rez on Second Life; it should be nearly instantaneous when all the assets of the virtual enviroment you’re in is all local.  Maybe if I copied Gears2 to my hard drive it would help?  As if I had room anymore.  Maybe this is why Gears 2 has these all of these stupid 5 second count down before the game starts, giving your 360 some time to load those texture up.  Often it still needs yet another 5 seconds.