End of the dream

June 5, 2008 by Leave a comment

So it looks like Obama rather than Clinton for the Democratic nomination. I still think he’ll struggle against McCain, but we can only live in hope.

What about an Obama/Clinton ticket? It would make sense from the party point of view, since Hillary would bring in the votes that Obama needs – Hispanic, Asian-American, blue-collar. The fact that Hillary seems open to the idea speaks volumes for her, since her acceptance of the VP nomination would more or less guarantee an Obama presidency for 8 years, which would put paid to her own hopes of getting the top job. Without her his chances of success are much less, and if McCain does win then Hillary would be well placed to pick up the nomination in 4 years time, and with it the presidency, since another term of Republican misrule will surely render any GOP candidate unelectable.

But I can’t see such a dream ticket happening. Obama has made too much of the “change” theme to take up with a Washington insider like Clinton. My guess is he’ll go for Bill Richardson.

The next 5 months are going to be interesting…

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Happy Birthday

May 24, 2008 by Leave a comment

In two days time this blog will be one year old. I’m feeling quite pleased that I have managed to keep it going this long, and without any massive gaps. I’ve averaged about one post a week, which is pretty good, and about 10 hits a week, which is not so great, but not completely hopeless. I’m not sure how many blogs reach their first birthday, but since ex-bloggers outnumber active bloggers two to one, I’m guessing that it’s not many. My Technorati ranking has dropped from an initial 3297860 to a slightly-disappointing 5137428, but I’m putting that down to blog-inflation rather than an actual drop in popularity, or, more accurately, an increase in non-popularity.

This blog’s continued existence is even more impressive when one considers the fact that it has been almost completely devoid of interesting content, and, especially over the last few months, has had very little to say about its supposed subject, Second Life.

The fact that I am posting this today, instead of on the actual anniversary, goes some way towards explaining the low level of SL-related comment. I’m not going to be able to post for a few days, because I have much more interesting things to do in my real life.

The sad fact is that, in my experience (and most SL members agree with me, if you believe Wikipedia), Second Life just isn’t very exciting. Most of the time there seems to be no one else around. There are places that are guaranteed to be busy – you can probably guess the kind of establishments I’m referring to – but even those locations get dull pretty rapidly.

I have had a few interesting interactions on the grid, but nothing that’s really added to my knowledge of on-line psychology. I’ve learned more from a few hours reading journal articles than many, many hours spent wandering round deserted shopping malls looking at virtual shoes.

My hopes for this blog may have remained unfulfilled, but I’m going to keep it going anyway. I may find myself able to devote more time to the project, and I guess it is possible I will find some interesting facets of SL that I have hitherto overlooked. I might start posting up more links to other interesting sites, which, after all, is what a blog is supposed to be for. And I’m sure I’ll have a few more things to say about the US elections, even though Hillary’s campaign looks dead in the water.

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Slipping Away

May 7, 2008 by Leave a comment

Clinton’s fairly convincing victory in Pennsylvania was encouraging, but Obama has come surging back in North Carolina, and Hillary didn’t win by much in Indiana, so it’s looking almost certain that Obama will be the nominee.

In terms of policy it wouldn’t make much difference – he would probably get the troops out of Iraq a bit sooner, she has a better health plan; either of them would make a perfectly decent President.

My worry is still over Obama’s electability. McCain could win in November, which would be an absolute disaster for the US, and the rest of the world.

I’m sure Hillary will be President one day; I just hope it’s in 2009 rather than 2013.

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Eyes on the prize

April 20, 2008 by Leave a comment

Readers will have noticed that I haven’t had much to say about the Democratic nomination race recently; this is of course because my candidate now looks certain to lose. I’m still just about clinging to the hope that a big Clinton win in Pennsylvania on Tuesday will convince the wavering superdelegates that the choice they face isn’t President Clinton or President Obama, it’s President Clinton or President McCain.

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Brand new love

April 13, 2008 by Leave a comment

I’ve been out of town for a while, so as usual I’m way behind the pack on the latest bombshell from Linden Labs, the changes to the SL trademark policy.

I’m pretty sure that the new rules, if strictly applied, mean that I have to pay LLabs for the privilege of using their trademark, or else change the name of this blog. However, since approximately nobody ever reads these posts, I’m hoping that I’ll slip under the radar.

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Conduit (not) for sale

March 23, 2008 by Leave a comment

Weeks pass. Did I tell you that I was a slacker?

I’ve not been on the grid much this month, but I did manage to make up with my neighbour, the guy who overshadowed my little house with two big rocky outcrops. He owns a big estate that completely surrounds my patch, and he has offered to buy me out, though I declined, since I like the view, and I can’t be bothered to look for a new place.

He was a bit pissed off with me because I had restricted access to my land to just me, which meant that there was a “No Entry” zone right in the middle of his property, which I can see would be annoying. I’m not sure why I had done that, since it is impossible to steal things from people’s houses in SL, so there is no reason not to leave your place unlocked, and I have nothing worth ripping off anyway. Some atavistic territorial instinct I guess.

Anyway, he responded by banning me from his property, which meant that I couldn’t step outside my own front door without running into a big red forcefield, and couldn’t go anywhere without teleporting. Again, there is no logical reason why this should bother me, since, at the end of the day, SL is just make-believe, but annoy me it did. I briefly considered starting a proper feud by putting up a big billboard with abusive slogans about him and his girlfriend, but good sense prevailed, and I compromised by buying a lockable door for my cabin, and opening up my land to all-comers. A day or so afterwards my neighbour gave me free access to his property, and now we live in perfect harmony.

Or almost perfect harmony. I’m still a bit cross about the big rocks, so I’ve retaliated by painting my house bright blue, which clashes with the rustic theme he’s trying to create. I’ll probably get tired of it before he does though.

blue_house.jpg

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(In)decision time

March 5, 2008 by Leave a comment

I’ve been sticking by my prediction that Senator Clinton will win the Democratic nomination, though for the last couple of weeks that has been based more on faith than reason. The results in Texas and Ohio are positive, and it does look like Hillary will pick up momentum in the next month or so, and probably win the last big state to vote, Pennsylvania, but it’s clear that this race is going to go all the way to the convention.

The Florida and Michigan delegates have become a big issue – I can’t see how the party could maintain the position of excluding them when the contest is this close, but Obama supporters could legitimately cry foul if they are seated, since Hillary ran more or less unopposed in both states. Still, plenty of people were predicting that these delegations were going to end up being crucial, so Obama has only himself to blame for his no-show.

Even if the Florida and Michigan delegates count, it is probably still going to come down to the superdelegates. Just following the popular vote, or siding with the delegate leader, would be a cop-out. They have to take responsibility, and ask themselves this question: who can beat McCain?

It would be easy to think that Bush has made any GOP candidate unelectable, but that is over-optimistic. The Democratic nominee is going to have to be able to stand up to the worst the right-wing noise machine can generate. Hillary has been under fire from Republicans for the last 16 years and is still fighting, and winning in the big states. Obama has had an easy ride so far – maybe he’ll be able to take the flak, maybe he won’t. Is that a chance worth taking?

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Remember the Alamo

February 14, 2008 by Leave a comment

I’m still exiled from Second Life, due to unreliable tradesmen – it would be a lot simpler if I could just point at the walls to make them change colour. Still, I’m not missing it too much, since my real life is about ten million times more interesting than SL at the moment anyway, and I don’t have hours to waste in front of the computer.

Despite my confident predictions, Obama seems to have the Big Mo, and Hillary looks in serious danger of losing. It seems like the super-delegates are going to line up behind whoever is ahead in the popular vote, even though I thought the whole point of having super-delegates was to provide a safeguard against the party getting swept away by a tide of enthusiasm for a lightweight nominee. Texas and Ohio on March 4th will be Hillary’s last chance to turn things around. I can only hope that the primary voters stop and think long enough to realise that McCain is a very electable candidate, and that it’s going to take someone with more experience than a few years in the Illinois State Senate to take him on.

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Super Tuesday

February 7, 2008 by 1 Comment

So Senators Clinton and Obama are still neck and neck after Super Tuesday. I still think it’s looking good for Hillary though, for two reasons.

Firstly McCain seems to have the Republican nomination in the bag, which will concentrate Democrat minds, since of all the GOP candidates, he looks the most electable. This makes it likely that experience will be a big issue in the general election. Exit polls show that voters who felt “experience” was a key attribute in a candidate favoured Clinton over Obama, supporting her contention that she is best placed to beat McCain. Of course the voters might think that Obama’s newness will be refreshing, but inexperience is hardly a presidential quality – even JFK had 8 years in the Senate behind him – and there would be the risk that McCain would blow him away in the heat of a national election.

Secondly, the US looks as if it is about to lurch into recession, if it hasn’t already, making the economy the number one issue for voters, well ahead of the war in Iraq. Clinton significantly outscores Obama amongst those who are looking for economic competence in their President, a section of the electorate that is likely to grow considerably over the rest of the primary season.

Add in Hillary’s appeal to women voters, and her popularity among the Hispanic community and Asian-Americans, and it is hard to see how Obama can pull in enough votes to outstrip her. It will be close though.

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Stuck in the real world

January 31, 2008 by Leave a comment

My real-life house is getting decorated at the moment, one consequence of which is that my desktop computer, with its fancy graphics card, is packed away in a box under the dust sheets. I can access the internet on my old laptop, but I’ll be exiled from the grid until the paint is dry.

My trusty old Toshiba Satellite is a bit slow, even with a stripped-down linux distro (DSL) installed. Its original Pentium processer ticks over at a steady 166MHz, but it really doesn’t have enough memory to run Firefox, which means that web pages can take an age to appear, even over broadband. It’s reminiscent of the old dial-up days in a strangely comforting way though.

Being unable to get into Second Life may be a blessing in disguise, since just wandering around on the grid isn’t really the best way of finding out what is going on anyway. Instead I’ve been reading other SL blogs, which is rather more illuminating, not so much about Second Life itself, but more about the interests and preoccupations of residents, or at least that subset of the population who blog their experiences. I should probably start leaving comments on some of the more interesting blogs, but to be honest getting into any sort of dialogue seems like a bit too much hard work at the moment.

Anyway I’m still a bit distracted by the the Democratic primaries. Opinion seems to be divided about the significance of Clinton’s good showing in the supposedly meaningless Florida vote, though bouncing back after the South Carolina result has to give her some extra momentum ahead of next Tuesday. It’s not clear which way Edwards’ supporters will shift now he’s out of the running, or what effect McCain’s performance in the Republican race will have. I think the latter development may swing people towards Hillary, since she seems better equipped to take McCain on than Obama does. I’m still fairly confident that Hillary will win, both the nomination, and the vote in November.

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