Artificial Boy

The Humboldt squid is pretty big. It can be up to six feet long. It lives in the Pacific ocean, near the western shore of the US. They are carnivores. They have strong tentacles and a razor sharp beak. This species of squid has long been known to attack divers and fishermen, but the attacks are much more common when they are being fished. Some researchers decided to figure out why the squid fight back. It is rare for a fish to know it is about to be caught. How do they know who their aggressors are? How can they be so smart? Read the rest…

(( This article I am about to link to is not relevant to what I want this blog to be about. But, it does deserve a least a link considering Linden Lab’s policy dilemma I discuss here from time to time. M.S.M. articles with on this topic always make me cringe, and dredge up some bad emotions from multiple origins; so, I usually avoid clicking them. I took a risk with this one. It is interesting and link-worthy because of the “+5 Insightful” SlashDot comments on the matter. As always, there is an unreasonable perspective out there, but I think that the default +5 filter does its job in this case.
Slashdot: The Slippery Legal Slope of Cartoon Porn.
I’ll resist the temptation of quoting the comments I find particularly insightful and simply recommend that you read them all.
The only further comment I will add on my part is that for the sake of Free Speech in America, I hope the discussion continues. You can find a link to the text of the ruling in the comments. Much of it is beyond my grasp, and I would be out of place commenting on it directly here. If you are inclined to read it, yourself, let me add that the opinions of the individual justices are sometimes more reasonable than the ruling as a whole.
-Big Adz ))

I clicked on the age banana at The Vortex and it said that today is my 1000th day! Wow!

Meanwhile the rest of Second Life, and the outer-space world of course, is celebrating the turn of the New Year. Epic Epoch! Read the rest…

((
On January 1, 2008 I made 10 predictions for the new year. One of them was voted #3 most popular in New World Notes a few days later. Now that 2008 is nearly over, let’s see how I did with all of them. If I did well enough, I’ll post something similar for 2009 shortly. Read the rest…

I thought I’d never have a chance to do this, as this blog has some dare I say attention outside of the child-like-avatar-wearing community. But, here it comes: a (real-life image|avatar portrayal|other depiction) of a (sexual|lewd) act (involving|appearing to involve) a (child|minor)*, right here on this very blog. Ready? Read the rest…

Through the 1st Second Life Bloggers Mix-And-Match program, Kanomi (of T I N Y D A N C I N G) wrote for the blog of Rik & Osiris Pfalz on the topic of “being a child avatar in Second Life” in a post entitled, Second Childhood.

“Dani lives in a nice big town where only little kids and good mommies and daddies are allowed! She’s a lucky girl and her mommy loves her just bunches and bunches!”

As we skated up and down the streets, looking like children, acting like children — in for a penny, in for a pound; I’m nothing if not a method blogger — my own memories kept returning, and I’m afraid towards the end I bent poor Dani’s ear about Candyland and Risk, or how me and my sister used to sneak into our neighbor’s yard and tiptoe through the courtyard, playing pirates or Robin Hood, or how I remembered reading every single Oz book when I was eight or nine…

read the rest at rikpfalz. Kanomi’s own post about it is here.

Excellent use of in-character, out-of-character text, Kanomi! I’m glad your day as a kid av brought back some nice memories.

-Big Adz

((
After a friend of mine was falsely accused of SL’ing while underaged, and I watched the difficulties he went through and the presumption of guilt and the utter lack of compassion on the part of Linden Lab, I decided that it would no longer be my place to report suspected underage residents through the in-world A.R. system under any circumstances. I adjusted my in-world profile accordingly. Read the rest…

(( Adz’ cousin Gabriel Canning reminds me why I chose to be a kid avatar in SL™. I don’t know how to elaborate on that, in words. So, just take a look. ))

After the July 4 Milk N’ Kookies Show, everyone ran to the dance floor to dance. I ran into my cousin Gabe. He is my cousin because my Daddy Dom is Gabe’s mom’s brother. I think his Bob The Builder stuff is really cool. He has a really neat backpack filled with stuff like fat crayons, comic books, regular books, and a video game. He also has shoes you don’t have to tie. They have plastic straps. He also has these bright plastic bracelets on his ankles. When you take them off you can link them together in a chain! I’ve seen girls wear them mostly but I think the part about linking them together is cool and I am happy to see Gabe wear them because that means I can too I think and maybe the girls won’t laugh. I talked with Gabe a little bit while we danced to the music that closed the MnK show.

Read the rest…

Milk N’ Kookies broadcast a show in Kids5B today. Here is a pic. Sorry for all the grey in the background. My player needs to get more memory! Crap Mariner visited too, and she wrote about it. Her pic is a little better than mine, as hers doesn’t have the grey in the background. Anyway, you can see how many kids came! It was a great show. Sokmunky spoke about story time, and how she felt about the time she read The Little Prince. She also talked about girl scouts and said some interesting thing about why its tough to translate girl scouts into SL. Sok, it was nice to hear you today. You are very special to me!

This is what I wore. Blue zipstrap shoes are by Trodden, mismatched socks are by Jeremy, red shorts are by Loki, SB underooz are by me, two-tone shirt is by Tepic of Kids Outfitters, flag is by David , and the neat stars sticking out of my head are by Marianne. Thanks Marianne! My player says there is a reason why I dressed like this today, but *shrugs* I just think its fun.

Read the rest…

Kids5B exhibit Kid Bloggers of SL – by Koffeekid Smalls, Alton Icarus (55, 141, 23). Koffekid made a tribute to the Kid-friendly bloggers of SL.

As always, you can check out Adz Childs’ Shared Items which often has links to articles that are interesting to our community. However, today inspired by the Kid Bloggers of SL exhibit I have decided to share a new Google Reader feed entitled “Kid’s Blogs“.

The feeds comprising it are hand-selected by me, but the individual posts are not. Here you will see all of the kid blogs I visit daily. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Maybe you will add some of them to you own news aggregators. Of course, Artificial Boy RSS feed is in there too. Which is kinda spooky.