1) The state should not be in the business of sanctioning marriage.

2) Since the state *is* in the business of sanctioning marriage, Constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process apply. Thus:

3) Yes, of course.

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

Searching for a place to stay in the middle of Portland, OR. Consult Google Earth. Turn on both ‘hotels’ layers.

Looking around…. Looking around…. Holiday Inn is full, Shiloh might work, but do they have parking… Scroll around a little bit…

Ah! Here’s one: Sekhet-Maat Lodge.

Yes, that’s right. The Portland-area Thelemics are listed as having a hotel, probably due to the word ‘Lodge.’ I wonder what wacky hijinks have ensued as a result…

BTW, it looks like they eat well, those Crowleyites. And there will be an open house while I’m there. Hmm.

I just got started writing about people who are important to me on Second Life. I was thinking I’d write about The Sojourner, but now I have to write something very different.

She passed away this morning of cardiac arrest.

There’s a memorial being set up on Dreams island.

I might have more to say about this later.

In the department of ‘what he said…’

Enabling Voice, from friend of this ‘blog, Ira Socol.

He’s not just correct, he’s an example of how correct he is.

A while back I had the idea of doing little profiles of people who are important to me on Second Life. I was hesitant, because first of all it could be sort of like sucking up to them or something, which I don’t want to do, but mainly because it would require making a list of why they’re important and trying to communicate those things without being maudlin or, you know, sincere.

Sincerity is so far out of fashion it’s hard to even say the word. But say it we must because we need to re-engineer the culture to accept it as valid.

So I’m sincere when I say that I really enjoyed hanging out with Elpis Oh this afternoon.

She showed me her grove of trees that illustrates deforestation issues. Or more accurately, illustrates what is required to slow or halt deforestation.

Here we are hugging trees. The whole sim is covered with a randomly-generated forest of trees which will be felled at a rate proportionate to that of deforestation world-wide. You can save the trees, though, by paying them money, or by hugging them. Of course, hugging only prolongs the inevitable; the one way to really put off the destruction of your little tree is to pay it money.

The money collected will be donated to an as-yet-undecided charity working on the problem of deforestation.

But as you stand there hugging your tree or paying it, it tells you all about the value trees give to people.

This exhibit will open soon; I’m not sure when.

I mentioned offhand that I was trying to solve a tricky scripting problem: How to orient a prim to reflect the slope of the land. She said, “Oooo….” and I knew we’d spend the next 45 minutes trying to do it. Which we did.

Elpis is brilliant, and I’m glad to know her as a friend. But we never did figure out what the llGroundSlope() function return value actually means.

You know how the web is: You look for something, you end up finding something else.

I forget what I was looking for. I think it was a famous sculpture park on the Isle of Man, but I can’t be sure, and I’d rather write this than re-research it. But I found this picture:

Which immediately reminded me of a recurring theme in many dreams of past decades: Being in a car that was on a roller-coaster track, or being in a car that was on a platform held up by cables much like this.

The sculpture is full-sized, by the way. Those are real cars.

Sometimes my real world and my dream worlds collide in ways I never thought possible. Something’s down there, trying to send me a message.

Which leads me to my ‘public good’ theory for the Second Life proposal. But I need to refine it before talking in public.

The best L$423 you can spend in SL is on the Mystitools HUD. Sometimes, however, I find myself wondering why I don’t turn off the ‘take a break’ function, since I usually ignore it. I guess it’s nice to have an hourly metronome telling me that it’s time to pay attention to the real world. I think what I’ll do from now forward is to take the break every hour, and at least find some garbage to take out, or perhaps clean the toilet or shred some old receipts. Joy.

Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

See also:

I spent much of today making a volcano.

In school, there was always some kid that made a volcano for a science project. Well, I just helped make one for the Happy Clams in Second Life, and it was a total blast. So to speak.

They got four extra ‘void sims’ to go around their island. ‘Void sims’ are low-spec simulators that aren’t quite as good as the regular ones, and you can only get void sims to attach to a sim you already own. So the clams got four, and one will be a volcano. For now. Until we blow it up into a submarine caldera, where there will be a reef, and the reef will be an exhibit dealing with the loss of reef habitat due to climate change.

So today was volcano day, and I’m pretty happy with the results. Of course, I just logged out without taking any pictures, and I’m not logging back in now. So maybe later. And anyway, the real reason for this ‘blog:

The reason I asked before about ‘the public good’ is because there’s an Annenberg grant for an SL project demonstrating a use of SL for ‘the public good.’ The prize is L$100,000, so basically US$400, which is supposed to be a stipend for three months of keeping the project alive. I’m interested in at least going through the proposal process, just to see how it works. I only have a vague idea about what I might do, however.

I need a quick, reasonable definition of the phrase, ‘the public good.’ Any approach to or attitude about this phrase is welcome, and any definition appreciated.

To get started, perhaps consider finishing these two sentences and then compare and contrast the way you finished them. 1) “The public good is of utmost importance because…” 2) “I hate it when people yammer on about ‘the public good’ because….”

Please offer your reaction to this phrase in comments. Thanks.