"Once upon a time, there was a man who wasn't there anymore." - The Man in the Viking Helmet
Prokofy and I had a back-and-forth on Twitter this evening over the fact that I noticed something really weird at Komuso and Hathead's gig on Artopolis tonight...
No, not Komuso and Hathead. They ROCKED as usual.
It was this:
Um... what?
This isn't just the grey avatar from failure to load textures. This is something else.
And it was ruining my shots with the flycam functions of the 3d mousey thing. I wanted pretty snapshots, darn it.
Hrm... I then realized that this was someone I had muted at some point (The list is disturbingly long, okay? I'm sure I appear on a ton of mute lists, too.)
So, I unmuted them:
Whoa! When did this start happening in the viewer?
Or, as I twittered:
@isfullofcrap Just noticed that Muted avatars are appearing in grey silhouette. Way cool!
And, yeah, it is cool in the sense of techno-cool, trippy, wow, philosophical ramifications, etc. A kind of Nigel Planer as Neil of the Young Ones... whoooaaaaa trippy far out, man.
What can it do? Well, it's helpful when dealing with a 20,000 ARC reztard, for certain.
However, in some ways, it isn't cool. In fact, upon further reflection, it can be kinda creepy.
(By the way, it appears to apply only to avatars and not to builds... for now?)
Prokofy has pondered this kind of thing previously, recalling Stalin's purging of historical record of enemies and nuisances.
I cannot help but think of the endless examples of Arabic and Islamic and Moonbat-Liberal Western media, education, and other institutions brazenly displaying maps of "Palestine" in place of Israel (sometimes burning, sometimes bloody) while giving lip-service to a two-state solution so the Palis can collect their usual billions of international aid (rockets for murdering Sderot schoolchildren don't just build themselves, you know).
So when I'm offered this:
@isfullofcrap I want you to grasp the entire ontological ramifications of this move. It means *no one has any shared context any longer*
I'm going to take some time to ponder this one.
I have a feeling that a lot of people are going to be pondering this one. If not, well, perhaps they should.
If you maintain the shared space metaphor of SL, the idea of people out of ideological phase being out of reality-phase, wiped from your relative existence, null-routed data...
I really want to break out the heavy-hitters on the shelf and think this one through with them. The existentialists are muttering in my general direction, like the sirens luring the sailors to the rocks.
But instead, sleep beckons, and I have a bloody knee to bandage up. (My "WHOA!" was accompanied my a jerk of my right knee, slamming it into the table I use as a computer desk. Theodoric of York would give two thumbs up to the volume shed.)
Oh. My. God.
Does anybody even know who Theodoric of York was anymore?
*sigh*
Comments (9)
In RL, our individual perceptions differ due to everything from physiological variations (nearsightedness, color blindness, depth perception, tone-deafness, anosmia, etc) to ideological bias. In SL, the physiological differences parallel variations in graphics cards and Preferences settings. This grey-muting effect is a good parallel for the ideological bias although far more blatant and conscious than would occur in RL.
From a practical viewpoint, I think it's a great idea. It certainly solves the problem of someone causing trouble not by word but by wearing an avatar covered in offensive symbols. You could also consider it a metaphor for the customary blindess we often turn to undesirable people on the street in RL.
Posted by Pandora Wrigglesworth | April 27, 2008 2:19 AM
Posted on April 27, 2008 02:19
"@isfullofcrap I want you to grasp the entire ontological ramifications of this move. It means *no one has any shared context any longer*"
I disagree. I think this erodes our shared context, but we have been able to change the time of day in our viewer for over a year (not sure when that started). And it's been more obvious under Windlight, where we might all have different settings, and thus see the scene around us in remarkably different ways. That has had a large impact on shared context.
In some ways, this isn't much different from the annoying incidents of clothing textures rezzing for some onlookers and not others. Except you don't get "Missing Texture." Oh, and this one was on purpose.
Posted by Feline Slade | April 27, 2008 4:16 AM
Posted on April 27, 2008 04:16
Call me shallow, but my analysis extends to "thank god I won't see that annoying 20 line WOOT! any more", or "thank god no more "make fuck?" requests".
Now if only I could do this in RL....
Posted by Jane2 | April 27, 2008 7:36 AM
Posted on April 27, 2008 07:36
It's been too long since I've heard a Young Ones reference, Crap! You've made a skeleton smile and that's saying a lot right there.
I have to wonder if there is already a new debug setting to toggle this behavior. It seems like something that one should be able to opt out of if they wanted.
Posted by dolmere | April 27, 2008 7:41 AM
Posted on April 27, 2008 07:41
During my wild days, kept this on a shotglass...
Vyvyan: What's a good thing for a hangover?
Mike: Drinking heavily the night before.
Posted by Crap Mariner | April 27, 2008 7:50 AM
Posted on April 27, 2008 07:50
Shared context? I don't think there is a shared context in SL anyway. A person might be listening to what is happening "locally" or not. Might be sitting in front of the PC or cooking dinner in another room and checking back from time to time. Even the difference between the Just a Game people and the Kool-Aid drinkers. Not to mention all the various ways which the world may look completely different to people based on graphic settings.
Isn't crying over a loss of shared context a bit like decrying the fate of the Unicorn?
Posted by Caleb | April 27, 2008 7:53 AM
Posted on April 27, 2008 07:53
FWIW, I agree with Caleb. I haven't been around that long, but I question the notion that there ever truly was a "shared concept" in or of SL.
For the sake of picture-taking, it might be nice to have the option to make the person totally invisible if they are muted.
Posted by Lunette | April 27, 2008 8:15 AM
Posted on April 27, 2008 08:15
Perhaps there should be an option similar to allowing some one/object to animate your avatar:
allow settings/context to default to those of xyz's?
Posted by xyryx Simca | April 27, 2008 5:08 PM
Posted on April 27, 2008 17:08
Our desire to control our perceptual filters (because it would be useful and cool) conflicts with our desire to connect to others, which works best when we have common perceptions even if those common perceptions aren't what any one person in the sharing would most like for emself.
I was somewhat freaked when I first found out about the localness of Force Sun. Whoa, that means it might be noon for me and midnight for you! That's wrong! :) And Windlight multiplies this a zillionfold.
Hm, maybe anyone who's using significant non-default rendering options should show with goofy sunglasses on. Very There-like!
Posted by Dale Innis | April 28, 2008 9:46 AM
Posted on April 28, 2008 09:46