How embarrassing! I didn’t expect anybody to follow the link to my SL (slang for SecondLife) shop but several of you did! Thanks for doing that. If you’ve been there in the last day or two, you may have been surprised to find a very different place than the one displayed in the photo of my last post. This has been for a couple of reasons.
First, after digging through the vast information available at the SL Wiki, I’ve found a new interest in building objects for resale and/or pursuit of leisure. This of course means that I quickly discovered that I would also need to spend time learning SLS, the programming code used by SL to imbue objects with “life.” After giving this some thought I quickly realized that being a capable builder in SL would allow me to do some things that I’ve been wanting to do in real life for ages, without spending very much money at all. I decided that I would need a private place to work in order to develop the physical constructs and accompanying scripts that will be necessary to make my real world dreams a virtual reality.
After removing all of the products in my “store” with the exception of my book’s promotion package, I boarded up the windows and got to work. It would require several trips to places in SL such as Bromley College and Jopsy Pendragon’s Particle Laboratory to get it right, but before long I had completed my very first creation—a Mad Squid blimp.
It looks fairly innocuous, but it is actually capable of doing quite a bit. It will be capable of even more in its next generation. Right now I only feel comfortable with talking about the advertising possibilities for this device. Built into the MS Blimp is a holographic projector that displays an image up to 4 meters square, which hovers just a couple of meters above the blimp itself. At present, the blimp is stationary, but because the holographic projection is an SL particle, it is perfectly viewable from 360 degrees even though it’s really just a 2-D image.
In the 2nd generation of this blimp, I intend to have included a script that gives the blimp autonomous mobility. Now, because property owners often set their land as off limits to the average resident, and because business don’t want you dropping your creations on their land, permission is needed to enter a lot of places. This is a fact that would severely restrict the mobility of my blimps. But there are “roads” that run through SL which are often lined by tiny little “ad farm” plots which tend to quickly fill up with billboards—something that can very quickly anger nearby residents.
My very first piece of land in SL was (and is) the location of the billboard listed above. It was a picture of my book cover and a list of places to go to find it. Not very daring in terms of SL functionality, but it was my first piece of land. Now that I’ve wandered around “in world” a bit more, I’ve come to see that such billboards and “ad farms” are actively opposed. This one will likely come down soon.
The nice thing about the blimp, however, is that I will hopefully be able to program a course into it’s scripting that will enable it to move up and down the various roads of SL while displaying advertising that clients will be able to sign up for at kiosks on all of my land. They will pay weekly subscriptions to have my blimps displaying their ads while moving quietly up and down the road networks. This way the blimps stay off of private property and never clutter the skyline because they won’t be stationary.
As I’ve mentioned, I have plans for additional capabilities with this device, and other devices, but to get a start in SL and really get a foothold I figured i would need a simple, automated means by which to provide a service that SL residents will find useful and less intrusive to their in-world experience.
That’s right, this is the official video trailer for my book Five Years in Hawaii: A True Saga of International Adventure and the U.S. Naval Intelligence Community.
The book is curently available as an $8 download, or as a very nice jacketed hardcover for quite a bit more. In roughly 8 weeks the book will be available via Amazon.com (ISBN: 978-1-4357-6034-9) and other online retailers. Hopefully by October the book will also be on the shelves of bookstores in selected markets.
For more information on my book Five Years in Hawaii, visit lulu.com or click over to the Read My Books page of this blog—the link is just to the right there.
I bet, unless of course you’re one of my more loyal readers, that you’ve still never heard of the SoSan. Most Americans seem to have never heard of her, of this you can be certain. Had more of us been aware of the story of North Korean merchant vessel SoSan, we would never have allowed much of what has occurred in this nation since 9/11 to have happened.
Suffice it to say that the SoSan was secretly carrying WMD capable missiles from North Korea to Yemen (remember the USS Cole?). They were intercepted and boarded by the Spanish Navy, at the request of the U.S. Government, and then redirected to a U.S. controlled island known as Diego Garcia. Small victory, right? Wrong. A few days later the Bush Administration gave the missiles back to Yemen, even though they had signed the NPT prior to this, and despite the fact that we had been attacked by terrorists there before!
Anyway, the bottom line is that I can’t tell the entire story in a single paragraph. That’s why I’ve created the trifecta! I’ve written a song about the SoSan, called Merchant Vessel SoSan, and it seems to be doing fairly well on MySpace as well as other websites like SongVault. In the Alternative Audition charts for the latter site, the song recently moved into the top 40, making #33 after spending days at #52.
Made the top 40!
The song is entertaining and informative, but not as informative as the second piece of this triple threat. I wanted to shore up the song with a factual representation of the events that occurred with MV SoSan back in December of 2002. I also wanted a way to request accountability for the (typically) failed policies surrounding this incident. So, I produced an 11 minute video that explains who I am and then tells the story of the SoSan.
At the end I ask questions of both presidential candidates as well as of President Bush. I also admonish Mr. Bush for his tendency to lie to Americans and let him know how I feel about this nation’s Commander in Chief as a Veteran of his command. If you are a member of the Current.TV community, please help me to spread the word about MV SoSan by voting my video up!
The third piece of this trichromatic look at a historical travesty will be a theatrical (bear in mind that I have EXTREMELY limited resources) music video to go along with the song. The intention is to marry the music with the informational video in an entertaining yet still educational way. Hopefully by approaching this project in three parts I will expand my audience and broaden the base of knowledge with respect to North Korean merchant vessel SoSan.
Take a look at what I have so far and don’t hesitate to leave comments!
JMK
Good luck to all U.S. athletes competing in the Beijing Olympics!
Well, I’ve been absent from this blog for a few days and I apologize for any lives that may have been turned on end as a result. I am willing to refund up to one chicken per household for any damages done. Please file your claims with my Circular File Department.
Anyhow, I have been doing something with my time, and I have incontrovertible proof. I’ve been working on a 3-part project that relates to a specific topic in my book, Five Years in Hawaii. I’ve written a song—in the style of Reggae—about the North Korean merchant vessel SoSan. Chances are that you have never heard of her. This is precisely why I had to write this song.
The SoSan was a ship that set sail from North Korea carrying a secret shipment of missiles to customers in Yemen. Bear in mind that Yemen had already signed the NPT by this point. As part of my job, working at the Joint Intelligence Center Pacific at the time, I helped to track this vessel on her journey. In the end the Spanish Navy intercepted the shipment, and the vessel was diverted to Diego Garcia.
Because the attack on the USS Cole in Yemeni waters was still fairly fresh in the American psyche at the time, it seemed very odd to me when President Bush decided to give the missiles back to Yemen. Their claim was that the order for said missiles had been placed with the DPRK long before they had signed the NPT, but as usual the North Koreans had been late in delivering their shipment. It was this loophole that Bush exploited to return the missiles.
Never mind the implications of boarding a foreign vessel in international waters (read: piracy); never mind the risk that the brave warriors from Armada Espanõla took in boarding a vessel manned by a crew that was very likely to be completely hostile. Bush sidestepped all of that by sending another nation in to take the risk, and then giving the missiles back to avoid offending a state in which we had previously been attacked by terrorists!
But, the worst part of all is the fact that almost concurrently with the SoSan debacle President Bush and his cronies in Washington used the false threat of WMD in Iraq to stage an invasion which would place America in direct control of a nation that sat right on the border with one of his three declared enemies, Iran. On the one had we had a President that was justifying his invasion of Iraq with the need to eliminate WMD in the region, and on the other hand allowing an intercepted shipment of WMD capable missiles to go straight to a country where terrorists had already attacked us. To me, this was the epitome of hypocrisy.
So, without further adieu, here is the song that I have been working to record. It’s still not perfect, but it’s much better than it was a few days ago, trust me. The associated video is an interim accompaniment. I intend to make both a theatrical music video for this song, as well as an informative video about the SoSan incident in general. The second project will likely wind upon Current.tv.
Okay, this has been bugging me for a couple of days now. To change things up for our kids my wife and I decided to borrow some Disney movies from family, one of which was the Greek themed Hercules. In this movie there is a brief reference to the infamous Trojan Horse, where one of the movie’s characters points out that the city of Troy had bet on the wrong horse.
When I heard this my ears perked up and I thought for a second that I had found an error. Now before I expound on this, let me point out that while I am no expert I have studied Greek mythology in a classroom environment before, as well as having read at least one book on the topic in my free time. I know, one book an expert does not make—good thing I’m not claiming to be an expert.
Anyway, in order to reveal my point in the proper context let’s take a very quick look at some fairly standard modern manufacturing and distribution practices. When one person or company or country produces something wholly original, they—or those who consume it—will often name it after the creator. Swiss cheese is a good example. I would imagine that today it is likely produced in most nations, and yet the “Swiss” remains part of its name.
That name, Swiss cheese, would make no sense if that particular kind of cheese had originated from, I don’t know, say Yugoslavia. Wouldn’t that cheese then be called Yugoslavian cheese? There are other examples as well that do not directly involve cheese: French bread, German beer, Texas Toast, Canadian Bacon, and so on. Are you starting to get the picture?
Now, if an item is produced in and by Country A, but then winds up being bought and consumed by Country B, we do not tend to change the name of it to reflect its new home. If you export German beer to India, it does not suddenly and magically become Indian beer. If a Christian gives his bible to a Taoist, it does not become a Taoist bible. See where I’m going with this?
When I heard that reference to the Trojan War in Disney’s Hercules regarding the Trojans having bet on the wrong horse, I became confused. Without thinking back to my preexisting knowledge of the subject, I decided that it had to be a false statement. The Trojan Horse simply should not be called the Trojan Horse. The opposite would have been true only if it had been produced by, you guessed it, the Trojans! But it wasn’t built in the city of Troy, nor was it built by the Trojans, it was built by the Achaeans outside of Troy’s walls. In fact it was built in utter secrecy, so the Trojans weren’t even aware of its existence until it was too late. So, why isn’t it called an Achaean horse?
When we gift something to a friend, family member, or even to an enemy, we do not suddenly change the name of the present to reflect its new owner. If I design a sculpture of a fire hydrant and decide to call it the “JMK Thirst Quencher,” then that is the name that it will bear indefinitely. If I were to gift that sculpture to someone—let’s say Hunter S. Thompson because I know his initials like I know U.S.A.—it wouldn’t suddenly become the “HST Thirst Quencher.”
So why, when the Achaeans build a horse and give it to the Trojans, does history decide to call it a Trojan Horse? The Trojans had nothing to do with the horse save for making the mistake of bringing it inside of their city gates. Perhaps this could be called a Trojan mistake, but convention dictates that the horse remain Achaean.
There you have it. I’ve toppled a story of mythological proportions using nothing more than sound reason. Now the historians of the world can laud me as a corrector—indeed, as the harbinger of truth. I’m sure that all of my readers are already doing so, right? If you disagree with my point of view, it’s no big deal. I do have a nice, large wooden horse here that I’d like to give you though. We can even name it after you if you wish!
