Why is that the standard surprise plot of all of my fave story lines - i.e., your worst enemy turns out to be your secret father? X-Files Season 4 is starting to point that (note that I stopped watching after Season 4 - 9th grade started and I barely had time for TV) out — and the denoument is almost funny… you have this woman who’s impregnated by a man with anomalous striated muscles that could explain for how he can take on the shape of any man (and he took on Luke Skywalker’s form to rape her) … and then the episode before the finale has Mulder suspecting his mother having a relationship with Cigarette Smoking Man… and then you’re forced to see the similarity between Mulder’s face and CSM’s face o.O.

Watching TV series w/o the commercial is really getting addictive. I might finish Angel or start on Smallville next.

This is really exciting. For some odd reason I felt compelled to post to twitter after seeing my fave ep in my xfiles catchup project (4×07 - it’s a corny 45-minute antiheroic Forest Gump wannabe so I guess I’m easily amused) and found timeless’ post on touch coord’s to be implemented in LSL!

X-Files … currently just finished 4×07… it’s interesting how Mulder & Scully have changed through the seasons (Season 1 - Mulder was the more compassionate one, and now it’s the other way around), and how the past few episodes have grown to be more profligate and wild than well-edited like the first season. The first few season’s had finale’s where the X-Files were on the verge of being closed, which, I guess is the storyline allusion to the show being canceled. The interesting thing in “Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man” is that had the publisher accepted the guy’s work, he would have resigned… and probably get killed by another gov mafia though. It’s funny to see his character in awkward mode.

“Success in this project is imperative. Re-instation of the X-Files must be undeniable.” Interesting that the human fluke hybrid looks like the main villain Buffy Season 1. In other news, I finally finished Season 2 today (and finished the Anasazi trilogy) as the wireless totally self-nuked my relay participation in the daytime for. Season 2 has lots of interseting episodes, including some interesting ones on holy ash (non-metallic ash — sci data pending) and also an episode where Scully and Mulder drink contaminated water and grow old (and are somehow brought back to age again) and also an episode about the hazards of stepping in the shadows of a giant (i wonder if something similar might have created a Midas, naturally through some freakish occurance via ex vitro bombardment of cosmic rays). The season finale was disappointing though in its loose plot and cheap suspense, but there’s some interesting character development - you see the naive weakness of the Cigarette Smoking Man’s methods in blind killing and you discover that the global powers in this paradigm seem iconified by mafia head’s from the Godfather (that guy with the raspy voice).

Trick to fixing this error in Dreamweaver CS3 on Vista is to clear config file in appdata roaming.

“The following translators were not loaded due to errors…server model ssi.htm”

Finally fixed this annoying error that popped up every time i update in split mode.

Pillar #1: Ransom for the SL Shakespeare Company & SL Globe Theatre

Shakespeare, Second Life: The SL Shakespeare Company last month announced its Fourteen Pillars Fundraising Campaign, whose goal is to fill up all fourteen pillars to raise L$14 million, L$1 million per pillar. On Friday, July 18, to kick start the closing weekend of its month-long Twelfth Night staged reading series, the troupe plans to hold a “Twelfth Night MegaFundundraiser” in attempt to fill up the first pillar.

At 1 pm on Friday the 18^th, seven actors will be jailed for their acting crimes by “an evil director,” likely Enniv Zarf, producer and director of the Twelfth Night staged reading series. Each actor’s bail will be set to L$100,000. Their goal is to woo the audience with only improv acting and their wits. Enniv Zarf explains, “The practical point is to get all of them out by 7 PM so that we can give the encore performance at our previously scheduled time.”

For the remaining L$300,000, the Company also plans to turn the SL Globe Theatre into a true black box theatre—“black, black, and nothing else”—in the historic first ransom of a virtual building.

Ina Centaur, artistic director and executive producer, comments, “We are truly what we say we are—a group of thespians and other professionals dedicated to our craft, bound together by Shakespeare, and way-too-excited to wait for outside funding before beginning something truly spectacular within the virtual world of Second Life. Furthermore, beyond the fact that we are trying to be Shakespeare’s analogue in live virtual theatre (the man was the foundation of modern theatre; we aim to establish the foundation of virtual theatre), we are also trying to create good within and for the audience of a virtual world that has more often been associated with the bad. In turn, though the money would be raised to create the good within, we believe this good will flow out of Second Life through the positive impact of the experience we create.”

Centaur has also been involved with numerous fundraisers based in Second Life, most notably her recent notable contributions in the Second Life Relay for Life campaigns. Despite her success she holds uncertainty in this upcoming fundraiser, “While my RFL teams together have raised over L$3 million through passive efforts and huge bursts through short-term events, we had the relatively easy job of campaigning for an existing and well-established charity for a direct health-related cause. Albeit The SL Shakespeare Company is known to be a source of good in Second Life, the concept of campaigning for major funding for a good within Second Life may be too revolutionary for others to get. We’ve got some tough mileage ahead, both with the technology and production mechanics, and also with convincing people of our ideas… We’ll just have to see what happens.”

Shakespeare, Second Life: In June 2008, the SL Shakespeare Company (SLSC) announced the “Fourteen Pillars Fundraising Campaign” to help raise capital for its highly anticipated full-length full-ensemble production of Hamlet and other Shakespearean works. The goal is to raise L$14 million to fill up all 14 currently-empty pillars of the Campaign.

In a backstage private presentation given to VIP and members of the 1300+ member SL Shakespeare Company group on Second Life, executive producer and artistic director Ina Centaur gave a brief recounting of the various Globe Theatres she had built on Second Life and other virtual realities, and also the Second Life land problems the Company had to face, which ultimately forced her to invest in purchasing four island simulators for the Theatre. She then explained the Company’s goals and revealed its financial status, “We’re not funded by any external agency other than our own passion for the endeavor—and that’s really also internal… And it is so rare to see that in a humanities project, but we have it! We’ve already done what other projects with hundreds of thousands of real US dollars could not do. But, to maintain it for any longer, we will need your help…”

The problem arose in April from the Company’s all-too-sensational, but all-too-sudden miniproduction of Hamlet: The Mousetrap, which featured a cast of a baker’s dozen live actors and introduced the faces of the play’s main characters, including Hamlet, Ophelia, Claudius, Polonius and Gertrude. Centaur explained the miniproduction’s major problem, “We tried our best to work the schedule based on the actor’s availabilities; but having Second Life as a second or third or fourth or lower priority simply won’t do for a full-ensemble full-length production.” Managing director Sabina Stenvaag stated, “Scheduling was chaos, and we’ve even had to deal with some last minute re-casting before a show opened.” Co-executive producer and director Enniv Zarf agreed that, “The only way a full-length full-everything production would work is if we had everyone taking Second Life seriously, take their roles as a full time first life job for a month.”

“We’re going to continue no matter what. We hadn’t planned to ‘demote’ our productions to staged readings, but we had to do so due to funding and because we wanted to be able to continue to perform,” said Enniv Zarf.

Ina Centaur explained, “Outside institutes and funding agencies do not seem to understand what we’re doing, and that perhaps explains for their reluctance in funding. We’re new and we’ve got a sprakling new idea. For the past eleven months, I have been spending a huge chunk of my time in both finding and fostering the SLSC. The theatre prides itself in its professional productions and large-scale venue—but those come at a cost. Practically everything I have done on Second Life is in attempt to break even and make the theatre self-sufficient within Second Life.”

The Campaign’s characteristic donation kiosk is a self-updating posterboard, which visually represents the fourteen empty pillars as printed woodcuts on aged parchment. As the funds accumulate, the pillars will appear “filled.” Currently, two kiosks are placed in the SL Globe Theatre. They will soon be dispersed on the walls of upcoming builds in the Shakespeare island simulator as “Elizabethan graffiti”.

It’s weird that I BSoD’ed in the middle of 02-01 around the part where the black couple were tailing Scully in the airport. Anyway, I am really getting into the world of the X-Files now. I’m starting to see things! o.O And becoming something of a TV veggie. 11 days left.

I’ve always wondered why they didn’t combine SketchUp with Earth, integrating a sort of communication/avatar “manifold” to create a virtual world.

Lively seems to betray Google’s lack of understanding of virtual worlds. It’s not really the 3d chatroom feature that draws people to it. It’s the collaborative elements, content-creation, and also its ability to be as open-ended as the real world, so that people would stay in it to do basically everything. Lively seems only a slightly more graphical version of IMVU. And yet, since it’s from Google, everyone falls in love with it at first sight as if it’s the emperor’s new coat…

This Shakespearean Theatre Company’s artistic director says to the big G, “More matter and less hype!”

Overall it is really quite impressive how strong the plot and execution of the first season so far is - I guess when you’re dealing with some unlikely phenomena as visually manifested by tech from the early 90’s, that’s a necessity! 

The elevator problem is seen in Episode 7 in the “ghost in the machine.” When Mulder’s old partner is killed by a falling elevator… would it make more sense if the guy is floating rather than pushed down?  Even if the elevator were being *pushed* greater than gravity in downwards acceleration, he would feel lighter rather than heavier as shown in the pic where he sort of cowers squooshed in a pile.

13 could almost have been a rip from Green Mile. Psychic touched-by-mysterious-force deathrow inmate can see things and channel with the dead. Political forces prevent Scully from successfully preventing his execution, even though Scully believes he has some sort of mysterious link. 12 has the interesting twist where we see a bit of Mulder’s past and a glimpse of his romantic life; was the other way around. (Interesting foreshadowing in 11, when Mulder gets a call from Deep Throat, and Scully asks jocularly if he’s going on a date.) When Scully went on a date with divorced guy, Mulder didn’t seem jealous, just focused on the case… unlike Scully, later, with M&P.  13 is also the switch where Scully started believing, and Mulder didn’t. (He used something that Randi would have done - and yet shouldn’t he understand that psychic phenomenon isn’t as clear-cut as being able to see the answers on a multiple choice exam? The crux of the problem is that it’s extremely unlikely to occur under a controlled environment, unless the subject grows acclimated to it and the right time strikes… In a way, it is almost like how some people cannot get any work done if they aren’t in their work environment.) The acting has been rather great. The alleged psychic man’s testimonial ranged from “fake tone” to “real” - to even “realer”, as the flashbacks started.

So, for the next few weeks, I am going to be watching every single episode of the X-Files prior to the release of the new X-Files movie. (Is this yet another thing that clearly betrays my age?)

Just saw episodes 1 thru 5 tonight. Actually haven’t seen all of them - actually don’t remember much of them. Some interesting paranormal motifs… but mostly, it’s interesting to note the traditional mystery/detective story plot technique of information loss applies. That is, Gov doesn’t actually have eyes *everywhere* (albeit they do in most places).

The salient thought is that once upon a time, I thought they would just attempt the simple solution of axing out the people completely. But now, after SL, I guess I can understand why that isn’t possible. It’s interesting that even in a theoretically controlled environment - i.e., where communication can essentially be filtered by a central system - a lot goes on that escapes the view. There’s also the tales of MS tech’s draining out to Google due to the tech behemoth’s increasing inefficiency as it gets to become a more of a megacorp. Information loss and people not knowing the right thing… and basically not knowing the right person to axe out - and the solution of axing out everyone wouldn’t work (lol) since I guess the point of power (the petty kind that people seem to go for) is really to control people.

For me though, it is really about knowledge. Not just encyclopedic knowledge, since I’ve found out firsthand that I can’t seem to access all of that at once - even if I do have all of it in me… rather, memory seems more easily accessed through epiphany. Similar to Hume’s argument about a person’s concluding in a decision based on a spike in emotion…

There’s also the part about going back and watching these after having suffered the toils of a sci-eng deg with a focus more on theory than the other misc items. A lot of the science doesn’t really seem as cool anymore to my kid eyes when I first saw them, and some just seem unlikely. Episode 4’s Conduit, where you have the toddler seeing binary on the static TV screen and constructing complicated segments of messages… really not sure if he can write all that *by hand*, and also whether he can keep organized enough so that they can later decode it (and how are they decoding it, what metric are they using, etc. o.O). Nevertheless, there are some interesting ideas integrated with a good storyline.