Fore too owe

April 20, 2023 by Leave a comment

Despite good intentions, my posting frequency has fallen off a cliff since the start of the year. There are multiple reasons for this, not least of which is a renewed appreciation of el primo cheeba cheeba, a legacy of my trip to California last summer.

There was a time when getting baked inspired my creativity; now I’m older it just sends me into a groove of contented passivity. Which isn’t unpleasant, but it does leave me with a feeling that I could be spending my remaining days a little more productively. Perhaps I should resolve to have a straight-edge summer this year. Starting tomorrow…

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Streak addiction

February 27, 2023 by Leave a comment

There was a story in the papers last week about Jeff Reitz, who visited Disneyland on 2,995 consecutive days between 2012 and 2020, when the theme park’s pandemic-related closure forced him to quit just short of the 3K milestone.

Jeff seems mostly positive about his experience, which he started as a way to keep active during a spell of unemployment, but I’m sure that there must have been some mornings when maintaining the run felt more like a tiresome obligation than a fun day out.

I have similarly mixed feelings about keeping this blog going. I must admit that, nearly sixteen years on from our debut, it’s hard to make the case that my occasional missives have any sort of relevance, and it is sometimes a chore to cobble something together for the deadline, but still, I’m loath to break the streak of posting at least once in each of the past 190 months. In a world where regularity is increasingly difficult to find, especially as one gets older, it’s comforting to have some dependable rituals, however irrational they may seem.

In the article about Jeff in the Los Angeles Times there’s a suggestion that he might have taken a break if he had reached the three thousand mark, but I think that without the force majeure of Covid he would have found it difficult to step off the treadmill. I might tell myself that I’ll quit blogging when I hit 200 months, or 20 years, or some other arbitrary target, but I know that I won’t. At this point “blogger” has, for better or worse, become part of my identity, if only in my own mind, and they’ll have to prise this keyboard from my cold, dead hands…

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2022: The year in review – Part 2: Blogging

December 31, 2022 by Leave a comment

There were plenty of blogable events in 2022, though most of them were rather discouraging. Top of my list of reasons to be fearful was of course the war in Ukraine, though that perhaps betrays my Euro-centricity; the civil conflict in Ethiopia has been equally devastating, despite receiving little coverage in the western media, and dozens of other wars rage on across the world. Other worrying developments included the assault on reproductive rights in the US, political chaos and government dysfunction in the UK, global economic uncertainty, and, rumbling on ominously in the background, the still largely unaddressed climate crisis. It does feel like the worst of the covid-19 pandemic has passed, in the UK at least, though the current resurgence of the virus in China may kick the whole cycle off again.

Is there any cause for optimism? The overturning of Roe v Wade did galvanise progressive opinion stateside, which, judging by the midterm results at least, seems to have put a brake on the worst excesses of Trumpism. Meanwhile, over here, the Tories’ attempts to impose more austerity on an exhausted working class has provoked a rash of industrial unrest on a scale not seen since the 80s, so a shift to the left in time for the next election is on the cards. There is a world beyond the US and the UK of course, and a multitude of social justice movements, particularly in South America, give plenty of reasons to be hopeful.

Away from politics, it was fun to watch the crypto implosion unfold, though I’m still mystified by how easily incompetent hucksters like Sam Bankman-Fried managed to persuade apparently intelligent investors that their half-baked Ponzi schemes were anything other than a scam. On a higher plane, I was encouraged to see the success of NASA’s Artemis lunar mission; I may yet see a permanent moon base within my lifetime.

I did keep up semi-regular commentary on all this, but overall 2022 wasn’t one of my more productive years, as reflected in our ten most viewed posts, which are almost entirely from the archive:

  1. There is no land beyond the Volga
  2. Watching the Okhrana
  3. The Linden Principle
  4. Oscar predictions 2022
  5. Second Life demographics – a brief review
  6. On Second Life and addiction
  7. Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space
  8. War in Ukraine
  9. Endgame forecast
  10. Caledonia rising

I have long given up trying to analyse why these old posts fall in and out of favour, but I did wonder if our 2013 piece about the Battle of Stalingrad had come out top due to the Red Army once more being involved in fighting in Europe, though of course in rather less honourable circumstances than in 1943.

Of the posts we did produce this year, I was quite proud of these:

Our global reach has shrunk a little from last year, with visitors from 39 countries. The UK and the US still provide the bulk of our traffic, but the numbers from China are encouraging, and non-anglophone nations make up half of the top ten:

  1. United Kingdom
  2. United States
  3. China
  4. Canada
  5. Australia
  6. India
  7. France
  8. Japan
  9. Hong Kong
  10. Puerto Rico

So much for the past; what can SLS readers look forward to in the future? For a while I’ve been thinking we should shift away from the political and economic themes that have been our main focus over the last few years, and try to pivot back to our roots in virtual-world commentary, but I’ve been reluctant to make the investment in the updated hardware that I would need to start logging in to Second Life again. However I recently discovered that there is a new mobile TPV available, SpeedLight, which I’ve downloaded, and intend to try out over the next few days. Will this rekindle my love of SL and inspire me to new heights of dazzling analysis? Stay tuned to find out…

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700-ish

December 27, 2022 by Leave a comment

In an indication that I am perhaps not paying as much attention to this blog as I used to, I completely overlooked the fact that the post before last was our 700th, and thus missed the chance to do one of our traditional century-celebrating pieces. In lieu of that I’ve gone back and marked all the previous ton-up posts with a special “Century” tag, which hopefully will remind me to write something more notable when number 800 rolls around, which, at my current pace, should be sometime in 2025.

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Fifteen Years Ago

May 26, 2022 by Leave a comment

Second Life Shrink made its debut on May 26th 2007, an exciting time when technology promised a future of unlimited opportunity. The must-have communication gadget was a BlackBerry, all the cool kids were on MySpace, and it was still possible to dream of making a living by blogging.

A decade and a half later, after nearly 700 posts, we’re still going strong, or still going at least. This would seem like a good opportunity to reflect on how the dream of internet liberation degenerated into the post-truth social-media dystopia that we live in today, but that sounds like hard work, so in true SLS slacker style I’ll just do what I did on our fifth and tenth birthdays, and list my favourite posts from the past 5 years:

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

Perhaps this review will inspire me to post a bit more frequently again; we’ll see. In the meantime I’ll revive a favourite feature that has lain dormant since 2017, the post-title-related music link.

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2021: The year in review – Part 2: Blogging

December 31, 2021 by Leave a comment

After a relatively productive 2020 our posting rate fell off a bit this year, but we did manage to at least touch upon a few of the main political and cultural developments of the last twelve months.

Foremost among these was the continuing dislocation of the seemingly-endless covid-19 pandemic. Any optimism generated by the production of a vaccine has started to ebb away, as viral mutation has brought us to the brink of another dispiriting winter lockdown, sorely testing the population’s willingness to endure further restrictions. The government’s typically confused response has done little to inspire confidence that the situation will be under control any time soon. I guess at some point in the future we’re all going to be either immune or dead; perhaps we’ll get back to normality then.

For a while at the start of the year it looked like US politics might get quite interesting, but, once the smoke had cleared after the Capitol riot, things settled into a familiar routine; the competent but dull centerism of Joe Biden being frustrated by the characteristic obstructionism of an ever rightward-shifting GOP. Meanwhile the momentum for progressive change that had built up under the Trump administration has all but disappeared, as the left shifts its attention to looming defensive struggles around voting rights and reproductive autonomy.

Here in the UK, the last couple of months have seen problems mounting for Boris Johnson, as various scandals and electoral setbacks have given the lie to the notion that he was able to defy the normal rules of politics with his trademark bluster and charm. Bourgeois liberals, who had been in a state of demoralisation since the Brexit catastrophe, have greeted this development with joy, declaring confidently that it signifies a return to sensible moderation, and discouraging any talk of left alternatives, lest the electorate is frightened back into the arms of the Tories. I think this is exactly the wrong lesson to learn from the recent history of British politics; the reason Johnson has been able to make inroads into traditionally Labour-supporting areas is because the left has been too tentative in promoting a progressive vision, rather than over-confident. Pursuing a supposed centre ground just allows the right to set the agenda, dragging the country further into reaction. There are some signs of a left revival, especially in the devolved nations, but hope is still a scarce commodity.

Anyway, here are our top ten posts of 2021, by traffic:

  1. Red star shines on
  2. World Cup predictions revisited
  3. The Linden Principle
  4. Euro predictions
  5. Euro 2016 forecast
  6. Premature relaxation
  7. Fly me to the moon
  8. L’Italia è vittoriosa
  9. 02022020
  10. There is no land beyond the Volga

I’ve given up trying to analyse why some old posts suddenly become popular again, and I’m a bit disappointed that only one from this year made the cut, but at least a few of the vintage pieces are good ones.

Here are my favourite posts of the year:

Our global reach shrank a little this year, but we still managed to attract visitors from 40 countries; here are the top ten:

  1. United Kingdom
  2. United States
  3. China
  4. Japan
  5. Canada
  6. India
  7. Malaysia
  8. New Zealand
  9. Vietnam
  10. Germany

After a year when it sometimes seemed we were stuck in some sort of temporal loop, I have a feeling that 2022 might deliver some significant change, so there should be plenty of topics to comment upon; we’ll see if I manage to be a bit more productive. Whatever happens, I hope all our readers have a happy, safe, and prosperous New Year.

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August intentions

August 31, 2021 by Leave a comment

I started this blog back in 2007, an aeon ago in internet time, and since then not a month has gone by without the appearance of at least one post. It’s true that more than a few of these missives, including this one, have been hastily thrown together as the deadline loomed, but I’m still rather proud of our record.

I am a bit annoyed that I didn’t post more this month; there was no shortage of potential topics, and it’s not like I’ve been particularly busy with anything else. As I noted not too long ago though, at this point in my life I don’t really have the inclination to come up with instant opinions on current events, but prefer to take some time to look at all the angles before producing a suitably considered response. I’d like to think that this is a sign of intellectual maturity, but I have to admit that it’s mainly laziness, as evidenced by the fact that the closely argued analytical pieces rarely appear either.

Anyway, on to September. I’ll try to post early in the month, so that I don’t find myself once more scraping together some random thoughts as the clock runs down on the 30th.

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2020: The year in review – Part 2: Blogging

December 31, 2020 by Leave a comment

It would be somewhat of an understatement to say that 2020 was an eventful year; certainly there has been no shortage of topics to blog about, and we managed to keep up a fairly steady stream of posts throughout the year.

Most of our pieces focused on politics. We obviously couldn’t avoid touching on the effects of the coronavirus pandemic (once we finally noticed how serious it was), but the bulk of our commentary concerned the two areas we had identified as important back in January; the US Presidential election, and the Brexit endgame.

The result in the US was not quite as good as we had hoped – our prediction of a President Sanders was a little over-optimistic – but nowhere near as bad as we feared during the summer, as the threat of a Trump coup turned out to be nothing more than empty rhetoric. Whether the election of Joe Biden represents a return to some sort of normality, or just a pause in the downward spiral, remains to be seen.

Over here, the Brexit saga dragged on through countless missed deadlines, before culminating in a last-minute deal that promises to be merely semi-ruinous, rather than a complete disaster. There is a chance that, now the political heat has been taken out of the issue, the country will be able to start quietly rebuilding relations with our continental neighbours, but that was what we hoped for after the election last year, so I expect that this story has a few more unhappy chapters still to come.

We actually wrote surprisingly little specifically about the pandemic, considering that it is probably the most globally significant event since WWII. I think that this is mainly because I am aware that my personal experience of the lockdown has been far from typical. My job has changed a bit, my social life has been slightly less active, and I haven’t had a proper holiday, but apart from that it’s been more or less business as usual. I’ve managed to avoid contracting Covid-19, at least as far as I know, and nobody of my acquaintance has died, or even been particularly unwell with it. If anything I’m better off than I was last year; with the pubs and cinemas closed I’ve been exercising more, and I’ve been getting paid extra while having less to spend the money on, so I’m in pretty good shape, physically and financially, a fortunate position when half the country is facing a bleak winter of enforced idleness and financial precarity. In any case, the true significance of events like these often takes a while to become fully apparent, so it feels like it’s a bit soon to comment. We may have more reflections on all this, particularly the social and psychological effects, in the months ahead.

In between all that excitement we also found time for a bit of cultural commentary, and a couple of obituaries. We even gave a rare mention to Second Life, though only in the context of comparing it unfavourably to Animal Crossing. Despite otherwise completely ignoring virtual worlds in a year when, arguably, they have been more relevant than at any time in the last decade, I did keep my connection to SL alive by renewing my premium membership. This now costs a not-inconsiderable $99, so I’m hoping that 2021 will be the year that Linden Labs finally produce a mobile app that will let me get back on to the grid.

Anyway, on to the statistics; here are our top ten posts of 2020 by traffic:

  1. The Linden Principle
  2. There is no land beyond the Volga
  3. Second Life demographics – a brief review
  4. Watching the Okhrana
  5. Thoughts on La Peste in the time of Covid-19
  6. Six hundred
  7. Furry traversing
  8. One further message to my friends in the US of A
  9. Lost Christmas
  10. Get well Boris

The good news is that, after years of coasting on our past glories, over half of the top posts were published in the last 12 months, perhaps indicating that we are engaging more with a new audience. Less encouraging is that the most popular piece, by some distance, is one from 2010, which owes its hits to people searching for something else entirely, specifically the Linden Method, a rather costly repackaging of standard anxiety-management techniques. I could probably monetise this confusion by directing visitors to my own website, and overcharging them for some proprietary self-help therapy, but that seems a little unethical.

Other posts I was quite pleased with this year:

Of all of this year’s output, I think our Camus review was probably my favourite.

The US and the UK still provide the bulk of our traffic, but we did see a big jump in visitors from China this year. Our posts were read in a total of 49 countries, from American Samoa to Zimbabwe; the top ten were:

  1. United States
  2. United Kingdom
  3. China
  4. Germany
  5. Canada
  6. France
  7. India
  8. Australia
  9. Japan
  10. Brazil

So, 2020, with all its challenges, has come and gone, and we’re still here, which feels like some sort of triumph. 2021? Bring it on, we say…

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Summer of discontent

August 30, 2020 by Leave a comment

In recent times, as the reality of mortality has impinged ever more forcefully upon my consciousness, I have fallen into a routine of working through the winter and taking extended summer breaks, in an attempt to maximise my remaining time in the sun. This year I had scheduled another long, secluded retreat, but events disrupted my plans somewhat, as I heeded the call to help combat the national emergency.

Obviously, being obliged to work in a well-paid job for a few months instead of taking a holiday doesn’t exactly make me the biggest victim of the coronavirus pandemic, and, truth be told, I could probably have weaselled out of it, since what I ended up doing was mostly routine. I did cover for people who were off doing more important things I guess, which was just about enough to convince me that I had fulfilled my civic duty, and to confirm my rather narcissistic belief that I am a vital cog in the health service machine.

Whatever, the government has decided, almost certainly prematurely, that we are over the worst of this, and that everyone should get back to work already, so I’m set to slot back into my usual winter post at the end of next month.

I do have some belated time off before then, and I had considered going away somewhere, but the options are limited, the weather is getting colder, and, in any case, I’m not sure that I’m in the right frame of mind for relaxation. There’s a low-level haze of unfocused anxiety floating around on the edge of my awareness, which might just be due to me not having had a break for a while, though I think it’s more likely to be my brain’s fairly reasonable response to the objectively terrible situation we find ourselves in.

What’s most unsettling of course is much of it is beyond my control. The thing over which I have most influence – my personal risk of contracting coronavirus – is the thing I’m least worried about. I should be able to do something to ameliorate the effect of the epidemic on my immediate community, since I’m not completely out of touch with the local activist scene, and perhaps my professional skills, such as they are, will come in useful if and when the second wave of infection hits. But when it comes to the big bugbears lurking in the background – Brexit and the US elections – my only recourse is writing about them in this blog, which seems unlikely to make a significant difference.

Still, even useless activity feels better than doing nothing, so look out for some posts excoriating Johnson and Trump, as I attempt to exorcise my feelings of impotence by superstitiously scribbling.

Alternatively, I could make like a Polish pachyderm, and up my weed intake. It would probably take elephant-sized doses to calm me down though…

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Isolated musings

April 5, 2020 by Leave a comment

One might think that our current circumstances, while clearly troubling, would at least provide some encouragement to bloggers, especially those inclined towards philosophical speculation, as the enforced idleness allows plenty of time for writing, and the situation naturally inspires commentary on all sorts of deep topics, like the nature of society, the limits of scientific knowledge, or the ultimate meaning (or meaninglessness) of life.

And, who knows, perhaps some bloggers are seizing this opportunity to compose memorable posts, but, as readers may have noticed, I am not among that number. I’m actually a good bit busier than usual, as the health service gears up to meet the challenge of the anticipated wave of infection. I’ve been redeployed into the sort of forward position that I haven’t occupied for a couple of decades, so I’ve spent the last week or so furiously refreshing my basic skills, which has at least kept my mind engaged. I’m glad to have the routine of work, which gives me an excuse to get out of the house, keeping me anchored to some sort of normality, though it also allows me access to information indicating that we are not quite as prepared for the coming storm as the the government would like the population to believe, which makes me think the immediate future may get quite rough.

So, it might be difficult to find time to post much over the next few weeks, but I guess I should try to make the effort, because these are the kind of times that’ll I’ll look back on in the future, and be glad that I recorded my contemporaneous impressions. Perhaps, if I live through this, I may even produce my own version of La Peste.

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