Mark Kirk has a bit of a problem, that’s likely to soon be a very big problem. See, it turns out he’s been less than truthful about his own military service, and that it’s looking like it’s a bit of a habit with him.

In 2005, a political tussle in Ohio led to Rep. Jean Schmidt claiming that Rep. Mark Kirk (who’s currently running for Barack Obama’s former Senate seat) was a “veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.” It was news to me that any politician had served in Iraq by that time and, as it turned out, it wasn’t true. Mark Kirk was claiming on his campaign site to be “the only member of Congress to serve stateside during Operation Iraqi Freedom,” which was true, but on his official web site he claimed to be “the only member of Congress to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

Then there’s this:

From U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk’s official website.

The U.S. Navy named Kirk “Intelligence Officer of the Year” in 1999 for his combat service in Kosovo….

…Try doing a Google search for “Intelligence Officer of the Year” and “U.S. Navy…

It doesn’t surprise me that a slimeball like Mark Kirk would add Theft of Valor to his crimes against large numbers of innocent Americans he’s never met. He’s fundamentally a coward, and I hope his career in politics is soon to be finished.

-Big Adz))

Life 2.0 Cover

What are we to make of an adult man who leads an online life in which his avatar is an 11-year-old girl?
Inhabitants of Second Life, the online virtual world where this man/girl hangs out, are not troubled by such questions. The ability to explore alternative identities is what attracts many people there in the first place.

For the rest of us, we can find some answers in Life 2.0, a carefully-produced documentary about the real physical lives of Second Lifers.

As for why an adult man would want a school-aged girl for an alter-ego – I’m still not sure. But the man that actually created one? Well, he suddenly doesn’t seem quite so odd.

So, the scientists went along with some fishermen one night and put some cameras into the ocean to observe a bunch of the squid (called a “shoal”). The fishermen threw something like dead sardines into the water, as they usually do, and some squid came nearer to the surface. Normally the animals like to stay down very deep in the ocean (200 – 700 m), but convenient food is always interesting.

The squid stayed in one spot in the water, near the food. Suddenly, a large metal thing plunged into the water and narrowly whizzed by one of the animals. Another one nailed a squid, and it was whisked out of sight. It didn’t matter how hard it fought; the rope pulled it away faster than anything. Squid watched as one by one their friends and relatives got sucked into the sky. What the scientists observed next was very interesting. In the midst of this experience, the squid got very agitated. They started darting around unpredictably. They bumped into each other. They lashed out indiscriminately. They attacked each other mercilessly. They even ate each other, on the spot.

The squid are victims of their own awareness. Smart enough to know what is happening to them, but not smart enough to do something constructive about it.

When your friends get sucked out into the sky, try not to panic. There’s not much you can do. Eating your friends alive isn’t going to help. My advice is to just pack up as best you can, and try to find some tastier sardines somewhere else.

/me skin turns different colors and he squirts water at you.

She last saw Jackson at Elizabeth Taylor’s 1991 wedding.
“He seemed like his own funny self,” she says. “We snuck in and took pictures of ourselves next to her dress. We always seemed to revert to being little kids. It was a sanctuary for him, because he knew I never wanted anything from him but his happiness.”

I think some of us in the (virtual) kid community can identify with that.

I decided to give it a try. I created an account, and arrived on Orientation Island. Looking back, my expectations were low. I doubted I would be able to create something that looked like a child, but I figured I’d get as close as I could, and role-play the rest. “What name should I pick?” “Childs” just to help other people get the idea.

I ended up with something that looked like this:

I looked around Orientation Island. I went to Waterhead and got some ideas about where to go next. A notecard in a billboard at Waterhead listed some Linden picks. One of them said “Free Ice Cream”. I followed the landmark, and got a free cone in a very realistic ice cream parlor. It was very nice, but it occurred to me that I was alone.
So, I brainstormed other places I might find other “kids”. I used the in-world search to find “adoption agency” and “foster home”. There were several. The first two were interesting but empty. The third one was a place I found very inviting, and immediately I made some friends there.

I spent a week or so hanging at this adoption agency. There was a playground, an reading and activity center, a train kids could ride, some camping tents (at some point I figured out that “camping chairs” on the home page’s world map were stupid), and a little house where I could wash up and tuck my little avatar into bed. How cute! I later found out that the bedroom was not for orphans but instead belonged to the owner’s son. Oops! He didn’t mind, though. Also at the adoption agency there was a pool with a water slide, though I didn’t have a Swimmer yet. So I became good at the hover-float technique.
At some point, Gemini came along and showed me some other places besides the adoption center. In his office at The Vortex, he suggested that I buy a wig. Boy, was he right.

I didn’t go back to the adoption center much after that, and, like the ice cream parlor of my first day, it has since closed. Much has happened in the last 1000 days. I’ve taken some long, unannounced breaks, but I’ve always come back eventually. I’ve made several extended-duration family role play arrangements, the longest of which is ongoing. Domineck and Randy are Adz’s virtual adoptive fathers, and David is is virtual brother. Adz now has a treehouse, a bedroom on RanDom island, and a secret headquarters. My inner child has room to play and grow. I built a separate identity for Adz. I created some content for SL that fits into the child-like-avatar-wearing (C.L.A.W.) niche market. I created a website that helps new users pick a good last name, and declared Adz the owner of that, for better or worse. Along the way, Adz has changed appearance with only a few tweaks here and there.

Even though the prime focus of my first hours and days in SL was my avatar shape, this is not the most important thing I’ve gotten out of SL. Rather, it has been the like-minded friends and the acceptance I’ve gotten in my virtual community.

And good friends who understand me, know who I am inside, and, for some reason, accept me anyway.

It is all very good for my health.

Thank you all. Happy New Year.

I am experiencing some Internet troubles that won’t be resolved for a few days. If I enjoy anything in SL today, and this is a long-shot, it will have to be parked in a seat with lots of time to fill the cache. No moving. No streaming audio. You may notice some missing scenery in the first snapshot, above. I won’t bother with snapshots today since they’ll look like Arthur.
Cyr Eel! Cyr Turtle! Cyr… Little Boy! ))

1. A RL celebrity will sue for the rights to use their own real first and last name on Second Life, which someone in Second Life has already reserved months or years ago either on purpose or by coincidence. If the settlement is reached within the year, then the outcome will be that the defendant will have to give up the name but can keep the avatar.

If it happened, I didn’t hear about it. Score: 0

2. A major virtual stock exchange, perhaps The World Stock Exchange (WSE) will close or will be shut down. Customers will lose money. It will re-invent itself in another form, in a move widely seen as a way to avoid paying liabilities associated with this failure.

I was right about everything except the very last part. Indeed, WSE closed within four days of me making this prediction. It reopened in August, definitely in a different form. Ordinal Malaprop had the quote of the day, saying, “I’m sorry, but after this lengthy downtime, I expect an unusually entertaining form of con-job to have been developed. I will not be mollified with the usual tripe; I demand something particularly complex and imaginative, and not just ‘hello perhaps you have forgotten that we are crooks’.”. However, the reopening was not “widely” seen as a way to avoid liabilities. There was my error. Aggressively de-listing companies, while the WSE itself was closed mind you, whenever the management of listed companies spoke poorly of WSE in third-party forums, was more closely associated with reneging on liabilities. In any case, it is currently closed again, after a November announcement with almost identical wording as the January 2008 one. I should have made the prediction twice. Lots of news happened in-between these closings and openings, but who cares. Honestly, I’m glad I don’t have to pay attention to it anymore. Score: 0.75

3. There will be a significant change to the “Community Standards” document. Specifically, section 5 will be significantly changed or removed.

Wagner James Au gave me a bit of a freebie in January 2008, saying,

but I’m not going to take it. There were several other virtual edits to the CS document, for example, there was a definite change in advertising rules on the Mainland. However, with this prediction, I had in mind that the text of the CS document would be revised. It wasn’t. Score: 0.

4. Child avatar boy and girl shapes and outfits will be added to Library available to new users, or a 3rd-party registration portal that includes such shapes or specifically markets to adults wishing to join a community centered around child and family simulation will emerge.

I’m going to declare a small victory with this one. Only a child would be able to fit into a costume this small:
I’m going to ignore the second-class status lent to us on the eve of SL5B, since this policy was eventually reversed, and grant myself a win just for the cardboard robot costume. Cute! Score: 1

5. Total residents will not exceed 16million. Refers to http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php Number of users logged-in in the previous 30 days will continue to hover around 1million, its current average for the last six months, until next summer, when it will take-off to 1.25million by the end of the year. It will not exceed 1.5 million. Or, the way the statistics are calculated will change in an intractable way.

No and no. Score: 0

6. New last names available for new accounts will be released sporadically in 4 batches of 150 to 500, for a total of 1200 new last names available to the general public. This includes last names exclusively provided by alternative registration portals as long as they are open to the public.

Here is a recap of last name release episodes in 2008.

There were a total of 7 batches with 100 to 1254 names in each. The total number of names released for public consumption in 2008 was 2,954. I was quite off with the predicted numbers, but I was correct that the names would be released in irregular batches. I’ll give myself a Score: 0.25

7. Very few mainland regions will be released. LL will not return to auctioning new mainland regions until Q2. It is difficult to find statistics about mainland supply. But, supposing such statistics are available, however many regions were added to the Mainland in 2007, only half that number will be added to the Mainland in 2008.

This prediction was about Mainland, not Private Islands or OpenSpace. I said LL will not return to auctioning mainland regions until Q2. I was off on the timing by six months. LL did place a hold on Mainland auctions, but was delayed until June. The hold on Mainland auctions was pledged for only one month at first, but was renewed for two weeks, then another month at least, then despite a promise of an update nothing was posted on the subject again. The economic stats show there have been few if any full region auctions. I think Jack Linden should read my blog. As far as net Mainland growth goes, let’s compare years. In 2007, Linden Lab added 98 million square meters to The Mainland. In 2008, Linden Lab added 41 million square meters to The Mainland (pending December 2008 numbers not yet released). (Source: Key Metrics Downloads). I was dead on with the overall numbers, but I overestimated LL’s responsiveness and got the timing wrong. Score: 0.75

8. The distance between the world of Second Life and the Second Life Grid technology behind it will increase. (blah blah)

None of this happened. Score: 0

9. This will be the year of intellectual property in Second Life. My specific prediction is that a patent will be issued on a virtual invention. (blah blah)

This didn’t happen the way I expected. In March, Linden Lab decided to enforce some of its trademark rights. It was a big story that I don’t feel like writing about. With the threats of trademark enforcement, it shaped up to be the year of IP in Second Life by mid-year. I think I get partial credit for it. However, I can’t really call it that, since Linden Lab did not exercise all of the trademark challenges against individual SL users some of us anticipated it would. That said, there was some IP-related news this year. Most of it was related to trademarks, namely the SLArt controversy. Also, I’ll give myself partial credit for this patent granted in 2008, though. Score: 0.50

10. There will be a breakthrough in technology that allows integration of 2D and 3D Internet. For example, there might be a Second Life plug-in for Firefox.

The HTML-on-a-prim feature was stagnant. Maybe there were some technologies I didn’t hear about. Dusan Writer recently wrote about the awkward marriage of 2D and 3D, here. There are many neat ideas brewing, but there is nothing I would call a breakthrough in 2008. Are we stuck? Score: 0

Total Score 3.25 out of 10.
Feel free to comment if you feel I’ve missed any 2008 news affecting this analysis.
- Big Adz ))

Here are the changes:

• Adz Childs is your host, admin, and moderator. Contact me to set up and make changes to your kids’ blog. Email adz -at- SecondLifeKid.com.
• Katronix no longer has access to the ftp, email, or administrator controls, so don’t bother asking him.
• Your blog is hosted by Bluehost. (Specifically, SecondLifeKid.com is now an add-on domain for SLNameWatch.com, but that shouldn’t matter much).
• The web server offers a much greater storage limit than the one Kat was using. Effective immediately, your pictures upload limit has increased from 10MB to 50MB. If you need more, ask!
• I have beautified the front page with some pics of SL kid avatars, some teasers from the most recent posts across the whole site, and a sidebar featuring kid blog posts not restricted to this site.

If you have suggestions for how to improve the site, post a comment here, or contact me in-world.
If you don’t have a kids’ blog yet, and you want one, follow the instructions at SecondLifeKid.com.
Wewt-wewt! Thanks to all the SecondLifeKid.com kid-bloggers!
-Adz

Yes, this is a vendor image for Robin (Sojourner) Wood‘s kid skins. Adz wears one of these exclusively (he wears the version show above, with bonus freckles!). Robin is a terrific artist with a stunning attention to detail. She is especially good at making realistic skins for pre-teen shapes. When I try to explain why I feel this way, I realize it is not right to pick apart a masterpiece. I’ll just say, this is one piece of art where it’s okay to look at it close up!

Robin’s vendor objects were returned to her on Sunday night (11/30), with a note from a Linden. The note read, “Real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of sexual or lewd acts involving or appearing to involve children or minors are never allowed within Second Life. … Please update your vendors so any child-like avatars are fully clothed.” (ht: Marianne McCann). Robin appealed the decision to the G-Team, who reaffirmed it (see comment). Robin’s has re-rezed her vendors, but instead of a snapshot depicting the skin for sale, there is a text-only message explaining the problem and offering to have Robin manually drop textures on anyone expressing interest. Each skin purchase comes with three skins, two of which have the tie-dye underwears permanently baked on. The baked-on version are what appear on the vendors. UPDATE: Robin’s vendors now show a head only, and offer a demo version of some skins.

I’m speechless. Thankfully, Ceera Murakami, a poster in the SL Official forums said much of what I’d like to say, in reply to the thread, Resident Conversation > Resident Answers Define: Broadly Offensive I will simply repost it here.

Clearly there is a need for a path of appeal to G-Team decisions when the G-team itself refuses to reconsider an action that would be deemed insane by any rational person.

I can’t speak for the newer vendor’s images, but the images on the second merchant’s vendors would have been right at home in any Sears catalog. Heck, the pics my Grandmother happily used to show at church of me and my sister, as two topless kids in their diapers, were potentially more “offensive”, because there were adults in the same images!

The vendor pics showed a child avvie, in her can’t-be-removed kid’s cotton underpants, in a completely innocent and non-suggestive pose. Anyone who saw that pic as being in any way “a lewd or sexual act” needs to be seeing a psychiatrist. Because they are VERY sick.

The only potentially “offensive” factor was that the avatar, who was portrayed as too young to have the slightest need of a bra, (as flat-chested as any boy), did have childlike nipples. Same as the boy skin vendors from the same merchant, which were NOT removed! [editors note: I believe both vendor objects were returned] Putting a bra on a child that young would be overtly sexualizing the avatar, and completely inappropriate.

The G-Team needs a reality check, and an administrative review by their superiors. Disney has more lax standards than what the G-team is trying to force on us.

*This LL policy wording is attributable Daniel Linden, former employee of Linden Lab. Please note that the CS document and the TOS document make no mention of this rule.

Update: Robin writes:

[18:21] Robin Sojourner: Hi Adz, thanks. Only one of my vendors was returned; and that one had girl skins on it. However, one of the G-Team Lindens that Mari spoke with said that she wasn’t sure, but she thought that boys also need to be covered. (Not being sure of a rule she’s supposed to be enforcing is a whole ‘nother question.) Also, I haven’t appealed yet. I’m still trying to get the wording perfect on the appeal letter. But except for that, yeah, you got it right.

To this, I add a pair of photos available from ShutterStock.com