So anyway, beside the fun work, there's the non-fun at work too. I'm fighting to keep my little project going. There's still tons of stuff to do and few help to get. Besides help doesn't always come in the way I want -- meaning the web app is non standard in its architecture and the way it operates and I want to keep that intact.

Outside of work, babies are being fantastic, with even a couple of cry-free nights, and definitely I'm having a blast playing with them.

Yesterday I recently realized there was a tech talk about Second Life a while ago and the video is actually available here: The Virtual World of Second Life. My opinion of Second Life was rather low (i.e. pointless and graphics suck) and since the creators of course say it doesn't suck and I thought, hey let's try. Accounts are free so trying it out is just a download away.

For some reason trying to connect to their web site, create an account and download the client took forever. I mean literally web pages would take dozens of minutes to load. I finally found a mention in their blog that they had a server maintenance going on. I tried again the next morning and it was all fast again.

So after trying it, I'd say it confirms my opinion, and least it's not for me. As far as I am concerned it is pointless. However the client is nice and the whole thing is rather responsive for something that happens all server-side.

One thing I immediately liked compared to Wow is that I'm not "stuck" in the game. Wow is designed to extend game play and things take time to accomplish. It takes time to travel anywhere in the world and it takes time to complete quests. Login out has a timeout and you have to wait a bit and your character can get killed if it's not in an inn (meaning generally you plan for your time play because you'll want to go back to the inn before leaving.) It's by design, and although some people complain it gets nerfed all the time it's still the main design strategy. So yes Wow literally sucks time out of the player. I guess you can spend timeless hours exploring SL too but you don't have too. Login in is pretty fast and login out is almost instantaneous.

But SL is not a game in the sense that no quests are offered to you with in-game rewards (although I'm sure that happens somewhere in the world.) You just go there and it's up to you to find what you want to be doing.

It's also obvious there's an emphasis on the monetary side of it.

When I was playing I was thinking of my old [Netdroids|Dev/NetDroidsNotes] idea and that where I realized such a thing could not work on such a scale. I bet SL main motivation is monetary. It's not the same public.

Jumping subjects, the week-ends ended up at MM's place to "help" him with all the food he came back with. And as always that was a nice evening, even nicer because I hadn't done this in a while.