. . . In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.

—Suarez Miranda, Viajes de varones prudentes, Libro IV, Cap. XLV, Lerida, 1658

From a writeup of a recent Second Life Left Unity protest of Front National, the radical-right political party led by Jean-Marie Le Pen:

It's unclear when the shooting started, or who fired the first shot (several witnesses claim FN security forces assaulted them with "push guns", weapons capable of flinging a Resident across the island like a ragdoll), but in the final days of last week, at least, the assault raged from both sides.

[. . .]

And so it raged, a ponderous and dreamlike conflict of machine guns, sirens, police cars, "rez cages" (which can trap an unsuspecting avatar), explosions, and flickering holograms of marijuana leaves and kids' TV characters, and more. By California time, the battles often culminated at 2am, 3am, and even later into the small hours of the American clock, when Residents in Europe are most active. So amid the exchange of salvos, the chat log was choked over with pro and anti-Le Pen curses, most in French. And when the lag was not too overwhelming to stream audio, the whole fracas was accompanied by bursts of European techno.

One enterprising insurrectionist created a pig grenade, fixed it to a flying saucer, and sent several whirling into Front National headquarters, where they'd explode in a starburst of porcine shrapnel. A few native English speakers joined the fray, though at least one missed the point in either direction, unhelpfully shouting "The French stink! Get out of Second Life!" and the like amid the conflict.

A screenshot from the protest

The Second Life Herald reports that Front National staff were forced to evacuate the facility; a casino now stands at the site of the former headquarters. But that's not the end to political tensions for the Porcupine arrondisement: the Modern German Army has identified the casino as a prime ground for recruiting. The Herald explains:

In a series of interviews with German Army führer Tristan Mineff and his troops, the Herald was told an unhappy tale of "French lag" and vigorous defense virtual German virtual real estate from the noisy partisan politics of another country from another universe—real life. [sic]

We discussed the how selling some land to get a buffer between the German Army's base and the FN proved to be a mistake when Irish leftists purchased the plot and set up an anti-FN outpost. Führer Mineff also provideded the Herald with a copy of the "SECOND LIFE STRATEGIC ARMS LIMITATION TREATY", and discussed the joys of damage enabled land, using black soldiers to make the point that the German Army are not fascist nazis, and the Alliance Navy.

In an unrelated news item, the Herald reports on an outbreak of a highly contagious strain of Haiku. The first reported case was recorded today at 3:45 p.m., and follows:

Teleports, Linden$,
My virtual nards shriveled.
Concurrency sucks!

In brighter news, pics are up from the winter opening at the University of Texas's Metaverse Gallery, which exhibited works by portrait photographer Shoshana Epsilon. The Flickr set is here. (My avatar was unavailable to attend.)

[Via Jackmormon.]

Posted by Kriston at January 23, 2007 2:54 PM