Out, Standing In Her Field

For those of you who were aware of it’s existence, my beady blog, A World in a Glass Bead, has gone away. I wasn’t using it, it had just become a playground for comment spammers, and I refuse to pay for something I’m not using.

I’ve posted a few photos on Flickr which does the same thing for me, with less overhead. (If the link doesn’t take you to my page, my user name is Arondelle.) If you have a flickr account, ping me as a friend!

The critters around here are out to get me today.

I just get out of bed and look out on the balcony. Peanut Brain has dug up every single flower pot; the morning glories are big enough to survive, but everything else is probably dead.

Then, I go into the computer room. My monitor was… missing.

Actually, someone (I suspect Koshka) had knocked it off the desk. The desk is a corner desk with a gap down the back where it fits up against the wall. The monitor is just top-heavy enough that a small animal can topple it over.

Fortunately, I keep all the boxes that my assorted peripherals came in and have stowed them under the desk in that gap on the floor. The monitor landed face first on a largish box and was undamaged. Getting the monitor back onto the desk was more exercise than I was prepared for at this hour of the day, however.

The day can only get better from here.

A Cause: Rebels gain a virtual foothold

Okay, anybody who’s taken the time to scroll down my sidebar a bit will see an icon for Second Life. I have succumbed to the lure of a virtual life in which I can look any way I want, and fly, and teleport great distances to attend concerts, take courses in Buddhism, hob-nob with people from all over the world and generally carry on in a way that I wouldn’t — or couldn’t — in Real Life.

The “Revolution” mentioned in this article, is, in fact, old news, and compromises have been worked out. There is corporate presence in Second Life, but I haven’t noticed it unduly disrupting my experience. One has to seek it out; The Weather Channel has it’s own Island — all set up to offer virtual surfing, snowboarding and mountain biking experiences to support their series “Extreme Conditions.” I went surfing: I can’t do that in Real Life. Come to think of it, I’m not much of a virtual surfer either.

But Linden Labs is setting up new “land” all the time, and if you’re quick, just as in the real world, you can get in on the ground floor, even make a few bucks selling or leasing your virtual real estate empire. Or, you can rent, or just squat at a Welcome center. Land owning is for the truly dedicated; it’s not a prerequisite for enjoying oneself in Second Life. Besides, if you own land, you have to pay property taxes….

The population statistics given in the article are only half the story. Sure, there are 2.5 million (and counting) accounts on the Grid, but not everyone logs in simultaneously. The online population seems to vary between 25-40 thousand at a time. Some people signed up for accounts and don’t use them. Furthermore, since this is an international thing, the online population varies with time zone; as one zone logs off and goes to bed, there’s a lull as a new zone wakes up and logs on. On top of everything else, some people have more than one account. I have two, one for a female avatar and one for a male, but I can’t use both accounts at the same time.

As for the non-paying population putting an undue load on the grid without returning anything, that’s a load of cyber-poop. We (I’m one of those free-loaders) still manage to put money into the economy, build things, and contribute to the sum of world knowledge. Charity is high; as one generation of newbies gets integrated, they pass on their knowledge and Linden Dollars to the next generation. Those with freebie accounts will either upgrade if they are truly enjoying the experience, or will log out one day and never return.

So, maybe I don’t get what the so-called revolution was about. Does it matter, in the long run, if the real estate companies are making all the big money? I can’t afford a home of my own in real life, either: I don’t expect my landlord to give up his business so that I can. And, I’m certainly not in Second Life to earn a living, never mind a great fortune; I’m just there to get out of myself, be in a community and have fun.

The folks who worry about corporate oppression just have to remember America Online’s eventual fate. Once AOL stopped allowing user-created content, and sold out to the big corporations, the users start drifting away. Now, AOL is just another bump on the information super-highway.

And, yes… there really was an invasion of giant cocks.

Update: I went back to the Second Life website to check my stats. The number of accounts is in excess of 5 million, 1.6 million of whom have logged on in the past 60 days (doesn’t say if those are unique log-ons) and over 250 thousand US dollars have changed hands in the past 24 hours. Pretty good for a non-real country…

The comment spammers have finally found me. In an effort to derail the growing wad of stuff I don’t want to pay to store, I’m disabling (I hope) my comment stream until further notice.

Sorry about that. Those of you who need to get in touch with me already know how. Be seeing you!

Update: Well, that didn’t work. Must try something else. Bryan, give me a email….

I’m writing this post from my new computer. I must say that I’m quite impressed with the new machine, particularly the monitor. I can actually see stuff at its highest resolution because I can adjust the font sizes globally without messing up anything else. The fact that it has a high DPI and a bigger screen doesn’t hurt either.

As for the box itself, the thing that has struck me most is the silence. The fans are wicked quiet. However, this is the first machine that I’ve encounter that does not have any serial ports. This may become an annoyance when trying to set up my scanner, but I haven’t gotten that far yet. A friend gifted me with her husband’s old Palm (she got a new one and gave hubby her old one, the finest in recycling!) and the cradle uses a serial port; fortunately, there are adapters available.

It may take me a bit to get used to Vista. So far I’m having trouble locating stuff, and remembering where to find it later. Of course, this may just be a function of advancing age. I don’t have the fancy Aero interface, which, as noted previously, is fine with me. It is possible to make the interface look just like my old version of Windows which I may do until I finsh getting all my software ported over. Then, I can start fooling around.

Meanwhile, I’m off to use some wizards. See ya later, dudes and dudettes!

The Social Security Administration finally decided that I am gimpy enough to qualify for disability benefits. It took less than 9 months which is, from what I’ve heard, some kind of speed record. Just in time though; it wasn’t going to be too long before I dropped off the edge of the world.

So, in the fullness of time, the SSA (which seems to be ASS spelled backwards, but I’m reserving judgment on their performance for now) has sent me the lump sum for all the payments I would have been due if they had been able to process my application within the 5-month waiting period. Not an enormous sum, but it is enough to do something I’ve wanted to do for several years now:

Upgrade my computer.

Well, actually, replace my computer entirely. Poor ol’ Nellie ain’t got the giddiup to handle my favorite programs, particularly the latest and greatest versions. More bloatware, but the images they produce may actually be worth the overhead.

So, I did the research, and got on the phone to Dell. It’s been almost 7 years since I’ve had to buy a computer, and the selection of options are mind-boggling. I’m very easily boggled these days. Dell’s award-winning website just made matters worse; I had a very specific list of requirements that had to be met in order to run Bryce 6 and Poser 7, and looking at the choices of processors left me scratching my head. It doesn’t say 1 gHz anywhere. Fast clock speeds are wicked important for 3D rendering. I had to talk to a person, preferable someone with the specs in front of them.

After wending my way through Dell’s phone menus, I finally hooked up with a nice, young man who guided me through the purchase. Dell declined my line of credit, which I sort assumed they would, but I had other options for payment. I’ve waited quite a while to be able to make such a purchase, another two weeks (give or take) is no big deal. It’s going to be cash up front.

By the time we actually made it all the way through the ordering process, I was hyped out of my head. He pushed the button and the order (or, in my case, the quote) was in the pipe.

Five seconds after I’d hung up the phone, maybe less, I realized that the rep hadn’t given me the total amount. How the heck was I supposed to write a check? I dialed again, only to be informed that I had reached Dell after business hours. Huh? Dialed again, navigated through the menus pushed “0″ a couple of times and got a customer service rep. She couldn’t find the quote on her system, because it hadn’t gone through yet.

Uh… OK, I’ll give that it might take a bit for the order data to become available for viewing, but it took me at least 15 minutes to get to the rep. Surely, Dell-Corps computers aren’t that pokey. I suspect my rep was somewhere off-shore, but I wasn’t rude enough (or interested enough) to ask. She opened a trouble ticket and sent me an email. (Odd — the guy who took my order didn’t ask for my email address. Rookies!)

Hung up. Went through Dell Menu Hell again. Got a different rep and the same story. However, this girl spent some time poking keys and conferring with her manager, and eventually she transferred me back to sales. The girl in sales was able to pull up my order, we went over all of it again, got addresses, yada yada, and finally I got the grand total of my order so I could, at last, after 45 minutes of farting around, write the damned check! I also got a new quotation# and a new rep ID; sales person #2 will get credit for the sale. Sorry, bubba, Ya gotta pay attention.

Now I get to say: “The check is in the mail!” And, this time I really mean it.

Oh, yeah… I wanted to get Windows XP installed on my new computer, as it seemed to be a requirement to run my programs. Nope. Can’t get it. Gotta settle for Windows Vista. I’m leery about anything new coming out of Micro$oft (Who isn’t?), but allegedly the Big M has repaired all the leaks.

I guess I’m going to be a guinea pig. Light a candle (or tease a neo-con) for me.
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Update: Apparently, no one had a clue about my order after all. Called Dell yet again on Wednesday, and after the usual run-around, got to the sales dept. The Sales Rep found the quote; we both came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to put a stop payment on the check, and re-do the order, this time paying for it through my debit card. No one mentioned that that was a possiblity the first time around. Furthermore, Sales Rep #3 found me a promotion that saved me a few bucks.

Now my order appears in my account on the Dell website, and I can track its progress. As of this morning. it’s in production with an estimated shipping date of 2/8. O.M.Gs

Except for adding a couple more widgets, I think I’m done fiddling here. My next project will be creating a gallery blog at my main site, Arondelle’s Dream Worlds.

Because I have been using black backgrounds on my current gallery, I’m going to use black again. No dark grey or red text, though.

It seems to me that a long time ago, Mitre Corp in Bedford, MA did a study for the Air Force regarding which colors were best to use on the (at the time) new heads-up displays for their fighter jets. I wonder if the results of that study are publicly available; I should think that it would be of great assistance to folks trying to create accessible websites.