Egg-Stracting the Past and Setting the Record Straight against Kim Anubis

Kim Anubis has a comment on the "rental dementia" story below about a stall-renter, recalling her own glorious days a stall-renter with me, but she is so selective and so mendacious about her recollection, that I thought it would be interesting to parse it. Here we go:

Kim Anubis said:

I remember renting a booth to sell eggs, and after some days or (iirc) weeks, suddenly being thrown out of the group I needed to be in in order to manage my objects on the parcel.

Actually, there was no "throwing out of the group".

Here's this strange event -- a Gold Service Provider and FIC who has been in an antagonistic relationship with me for ages and sparred on my blog and bad-mouthed me inworld and outworld to all and sundry suddenly shows up to rent a booth from me on a chicken farm sim called "Belarus" where I had chickens and booths during the heydey of the Sion chicken frenzy. I was of course not at the epicenter of that frenzy, but only had a few cheap booths set up on a low-trafficked sim, but Kim, eager to be "part of the masses" and see what they were up to apparently decided my sim was an easy entry.

She got the best of care, as this interchange illustrates:

[2009/10/25 15:34]  Kim Anubis: Hi, Prokofy.  There is a rental box that appears to be owned by you and rented by someone named amanda2710 Dumpling stuck in my egg booth at Belarus. No idea how it got there, but it's blocking my fanciest egg.  I hope that you will have a chance to fix it soon, please.
[2009/10/25 15:36]  Kim Anubis: I'll toss you a sceenshot so you can see the problem.  Not a huge rush, since the eggs aren't selling so fast anyway, but would be great if you could help with this.
[2009/10/25 15:36]  Kim Anubis: Have a good afternoon.
[2009/10/25 15:40]  Prokofy Neva: ok will do
[2009/10/25 15:40]  Kim Anubis: Thanks

Good Lord, blocking Kim's fanciest egg! She had one rare out for sale for $3000 or something LOL. Those Hank Ramos-originated open-source glitzy rental boxes which I use for various arcane reasons have a tendency to rez out away from their original point even when set to 0,0,0, so that's what happened.

Next, I see I wrote this blog speculating along with others as to why these FIC would descend among the plebes like this, it was creepy. I described Kim coming to rent this...67 cents a month box...to sort of get a gander at the phenomenon.

Next, there was an issue of griefing on this sim constantly from the Woodbuy/Wrong Hands goons who thought it was great sport to kill vulnerable chickens easily killed by being kicked off world. I had no group set at all on the stalls area simply to encourage my twice-a-week tag sales which I allowed tenants to put on from other sims to encourage traffic to the new egg farm.

So Kim was in fact put in a group and told to set her prims

She continues, in outrage:

There was no explanation, just the automated notification. Upon asking WTF, I found you decided I was suddenly, at that point, your enemy, and that was your excuse. This didn't happen right after one of the flamewars we had, or after you snubbed me at SLCC (you bitch about being an outcast but are rude when someone tries to say hello), nor after our previous business dealings (like that floating island my team built for you), or after recommending your infohub and blog in my second SL official guide. Just totally out of the blue one day, without explanation, you tossed me out of the group. You threw me out of the group, but didnt give me a refund on my remaining time -- when I complained you said this hadnt hurt my ability to use the rental booth, because my stuff could still sit there for sale. However, I had no ability to rez more merchandise or displays, and so couldn't use up the prim count I paid for. Real nice.

Let's go over these lies, shall we?

She did get an explanation, in the form of a link to a blog explaining my legitimate OUTRAGE at her joining the Lindens' policy for GSPs to supply special products in special stores inaccessible to anyone but outside business clients using the enterprise sims. I boycotted her and others and ceased doing business with them immediately and screamed loud and hard at this new "beriozka" Soviet-like store for foreigners with hard currency not open to the "masses". I found it an outrage, completely unnecessary, and counter to the spirit of the original open world that Philip in fact had created. The idea that business were going to drink from different drinking fountains was just a collosal outrage, and Kim was front and center part of this and justifying it. Here's the record of the delivery of the link:

[2009/11/04 8:29]  Prokofy Neva: http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2009/11/shakedown-on-wstreet-how-the-lindens-will-ruin-the-world.html
[2009/11/04 8:29]  Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.

And she couldn't have missed this well-read blog then even if she somehow had "messages capped" -- it was widely discussed. Here's the nut graph:

NON-COOPERATION WITH GSPS

And I'm deleting Gwyneth Llewelyn and Kim Anubis and Sitearm Madonna and any other Solutions Providers I find in my list, too, and I will cease buying from them, attending their events, or supporting them in any way.

Gwyn and Kim happen to be my tenants -- they instantly now get expelled from what happens to be my only two closed groups because now that I see they represent a viciously hostile class interest, they cannot be trusted with ban/terraform powers. If a tenant has not violated my rules, I don't refund or return their prims, and they can stay if they somehow need to make a point. But hereby I put them on notice in this little symoblic act of protest that I view them as the enemy -- fifth columnnists merely renting from me to spy on how the plebes live and grab ideas to resell in a marketplace we will be barred from, ideas that I and their fellow tenants are creating for pennies to their hundred dollars.

I see no reason why I should be objectively supporting the killing of the world by sustaining such people in the New Class.

Regarding SLCC, why on earth would I be friendly and conversant to somehow who had behaved like an asshole in general, on the forums, and on my blog? I'm not required to friend up my enemies at SLCCs.

As for her claim of "previous business dealings" like the "floating island," I had to gasp in outrage anew at her utter self-serving mischaracterization of this story.

First of all, this was no business dealing. She was not paid for that build, she and her then-partner RacerX Gullwing in fact build it, with most of it coming from him.

What happened is that I approached RacerX, who has long since parted ways with Anubis and found a far more enjoyable and loyal and nice partner (whose wedding I attended in SL) at the time to ask him if he could help me make something creative to advertise my business. It was part of my effort to go to these older oldbies -- geeky scripters and designers who did all these neat, creative things in SL and convince the nicer ones that they should engage more with newbies more interested in being merchants, and not see them as the enemy. RacerX is such an affable rabbit that he was very cordial and helpful from the beginning and didn't treat me like other oldbies on the forums, who were insufferable.

First, he helped me take a seagull that if I'm not mistaken was originally made by Garth FairChang, and helped me put a script in it to have a hovertext and to fly around with a kind of flying banner saying "Ravenglass Rentals. Set Home to Here!" or something like that. I'd have to dig it out of inventory. He fooled around with other ideas for me -- signs and such. Kim, because she was his partner, nosed in on the interchange and I remember she made a stone sign frame by using the stone texture for land in the Linden Library, something I later learned how to do myself.

At the time, I already had several floating islands made by quite competent oldbies, including Shack Dougall who had landscaped Ravenglass. But they were too large-primmed or big for this little space that I wanted to decorate for the land preserve.

So RacerX volunteered to help by putting together a little "Treasure Island" with a ship wreckage and sea plants and some other odds where I could put some little treasures to find. Kim threw some rocks together. It's still there today, right across from Ravenglass Hall, the Celtic Tower. It was RacerX's idea, and Kim contributed -- that's how I recall it. Of course, she erases him out of the picture and makes it into a "business proposition" although of course it was donated to the land preserve. Neither of them set their prims to a group, unfortunately, and I had to be careful not to return it.

Then, years later to prevent griefing as the 0-autoreturn area was turning out to be a frequent safe-haven for Woodbury goons, I asked her to set the prims to the group,but as you can see, she doesn't really believe in fighting griefing as a problem because she's one of the golden ones and doesn't see it among the plebes AND sticks loyally and uncritically to her Linden masters regardless of the awfulness of how they handled governance:

[13:09]  Kim Anubis: Okay, I think I have all the prims set to the correct group now
[13:09]  Kim Anubis: Let me know if you have any trouble with it.
[13:10]  Prokofy Neva: thanks so much, it's been a problem
[13:11]  Kim Anubis: Sorry -- I would have come out to fix it up sooner if I had known
[13:11]  Prokofy Neva: it used to not matter because I didn't mind if people set prims there but the griefing has gotten so bad I have no choice but to put on autoreturn
[13:12]  Kim Anubis: there's been a spike in griefing lately. At least, it seems that way to me.
[13:18]  Prokofy Neva: yes with new tools
[13:19]  Kim Anubis: It's like an arms race.
[13:19]  Prokofy Neva: I disagree, the Lindens don't fight it, and arms races are ok to fight, not like it's a nuclear winter threatened, just keeping up with exploitation of the tools through existing hacks the Lindens refuse to close off
[13:24]  Kim Anubis: It's hard to tell what they might be up to.

But Kim -- selective though her memory is to the point of, well, not telling the truth, and despite the record that overturns her selective memories even from old chat logs, thinks I'm the problem.
Is that how slumlords do things in Nooyawkcity? I can't recall if you then wheezed something belatedly about being able to get a refund from the rental box, as you usually do, because by that point I was less interested in the few L$ involved and more concerned about having to set up shop all over again somewhere else, and even more by your freaky b.s. about why you'd done it.

Gosh, a 67-cents-a-month rental, and she may have missed getting her 17 cents. Should I send her a FEDEX check for that in RL mail?!

Now, this smoking gun that shows us that far from *not* getting an explanation -- as she just claimed, she admits she *did* get an explanation!

You went on to post some offal about how I might be there spying for profitable ideas about virtual chicken farms. As if being in the group with no discussions in it would give me all sorts of inside info I couldn't get from standing around your almost completely vacant market. I rented from you because the markets I liked were full or the rentals weren't automated and I was tired of trying to contact the owners. Even though you were Prok, I thought you at least knew how to do business, manage rentals, and advertise a market. Unfortunately, I was wrong on all three counts.

I discourage discussions in my rentals groups, but there were a shit-load of chicken discussion groups in those days she could have easily joined and I even advertised some of them and had them on my profile.

I advertised that market fairly well, it remained full enough to eventually pay for the sim and still remains full and I still do actually quite well selling chicken eggs, even, and other sundry stuff on that sim, it's actually a minor miracle. It's fun. But don't let the facts get in the way of a good 15-minutes-hate. I and the turtle-farmer kept a weather eye on all the markets and we were able to land scarce booths on the highest-trafficked sims ourselves with diligence which was quite interesting and also worked to sell stuff at quite a clip for awhile, before the market collapsed, as such pet markets always do. Kim could have done the same thing, but just didn't have the stamina to really play SL.

Oh, and that bit about mentioning my infohub? Well, it really isn't "mine" -- it's built by Jessica Ornitz and is a public sim and had a number of contributors of its various features, freebies, ideas, etc. If she overcame her spite against me and mentioned it, it would only be the proper thing to do because it's a good infohub. As for mentioning my blog, gosh, I hadn't realized that, I'm, um, overcome with gratitude. I got a free review copy of that book which may be around here somewhere but I think I sold it on Amazon, I'll have to check.

If, after taking my money for a while, you decided you just found it uncomfortable having me around for some reason, you should have just hit the IM button and contacted me, like a reasonable person, and I would have made arrangements with you to take a refund and move, or just leave when my current rental term ended. Instead, you acted like a giant coward for some unknown reason, and later tried to claim you did it because I was allegedly your political enemy -- you even tried to smear me on your blog over it. You knew I was renting there before that, though -- obviously, you watch your transactions closely, if you noticed when I was the only one to put a donation in your Belarus bucket. Not to mention my great big logo sign on my booth a few down from your own. Something set you off, and I don't know what it was, but it wasn't me. You just went off on me. Sort of the way you went off on this other tenant after giving them a malfunctioning landmark.

I always marvel how the people paying the smallest amount in my rentals have the largest sense of entitlement. A chicken egg booth! Which she was given for a song, by contrast with the gougers of that era on the big arms. And a clear-cut economic boycott precisely because she and hers were harming our economy, forcing big spenders from real-life companies to go into the closed market and shun the existing world market. That was a huge offense -- and one to start a major protest about -- and I did.

And furthermore, I didn't give Bloody Lena a malfunctioning landmark. I checked. It would have functioned. I don't know what they clicked on or whether they just typed the sim name and landed at 128/128/ The stalls would have been visible immediately upon landing.

I explained my very valid and legitimate reasoning for instantly cutting off business contact and boycotting any and all GSP members who were creating a parallel closed economy to the previously open economy of SL. That was worth fighting for hard. And indeed, the multi-million Nebrasks/the Enterprise sims and the closed store collapsed first, and IBM collapsed, before my little egg farm which might make $4.37 a month US to keep me in chicken feed. So there *shrugs*.

Kim herself has spent a Friday night or a Saturday afternoon writing a lengthy post dredging up recollections of how 67 cents were spent on my chicken farm sim about 3 years ago (!). But no matter, I'm the problem, *chuckles*.

To me, the egg booth is trivia from a long time ago, and these days I'd rather laugh at you than bother posting a comment on your blog. However, I couldn't just sit here and watch you drag another former tenant through the mud without speaking up.

This tenant hasn't been dragged through the mud.  And a Gold Service Provider earning thousands of RL dollars in consultant fees can hardly be compared to some vampire roll-layer selling somebody else's dresses or whatever.

They've been told that if they threaten to tell all their friends not to rent from me, after getting compensation, an apology, and help -- and then even a refund, which few mall landlords ever get -- that their bad behaviour will be publicized -- and it was. Full stop.

 

Comments

[Kim Anubis]

While I know what you think of me, it was really crappy of you to drag Racer's love life into this, about which you know nothing. You like and respect him, and yet you use his tender bunny heart for tabloid fodder? This is just about the lousiest thing I have ever seen you do. You're an idiot, and you owe Racer an apology.

You have some logs to quote, but your chronology is all screwed around. You also don't know anything about my business relationship with Bun, and apparently didn't realize several other people worked on the island. It was many years ago -- 2004 or 5 -- so I'm not surprised.

I doubt anyone but you and I cares about most of what you've written here, and I don't think you're ever going to get it, even if I spend five hours rebutting each point and pulling up my own chat logs. So screw it.

Anyone who's been around long enough to care about the SL history brought up here knows your reputation, and knows mine. They know how you twist stuff, and they know that I'm so freaking honest that it gets me into trouble. I don't think I need to bother with a rebuttal.

I'm going to refresh your memory on one thing, Prok. You and I were on our way to being what I would have called friends, or at least I thought so. We had some really cool conversations about online communities and virtual worlds, and I thought you were sharp and funny as hell. I was psyched about that other project we discussed, for after the island, and I was thinking that we could do some really cool stuff together -- show people how it really should be done. Then, one day, you IMed a scripting question. I said toss me the code and I'll look at it, and fix it for you. You had a fit. You went off about techies always trying to hoard the knowledge, to keep people dependent, by fixing things for them, instead of teaching. You treated me as if I had shot your dog or something. That was our big falling out -- it escalated from then until today.

Thing is, Prok, you totally got it wrong. I wasn't some geek trying to hoard the knowledge. I was a beginning scripted taking scripting classes, and I couldn't actually just up and give you the answer, because I didn't know it. I needed to poke at the script and look some stuff up to get it to work. And I tried to tell you that at the time, but you wouldn't listen. You assumed malicious intent. When I was trying to help you.

And that's what's wrong with you, Prok. When you get it wrong, that's why.

You were wrong about me then, and you're still wrong about me, though it stopped hurting a long time ago. I did get a great giggle out of your description of me supposedly "descending among the plebes" though. I never have to do any self-aggrandizing cause I can always count on you.

[Prokofy Neva]

Including RacerX in the story isn't "tabloid fodder". It's giving credit where credit is due in a self-serving and one-sided story of the island project. He was really the one I was in touch with and discussed things with -- you were a kibbutzer and just had to horn him. He was well shed of you, that's for sure.

We were never "on the way to being friends". That's some self-delusion you are indulging in.

I looked at the authors of the objects, I don't see "several other people". If there were, such as in a waterfall, great, but geez, this isn't the Taj Mahal. It's a nice little landscaping job with some nice features, no need to outsize it.

Everyone knows you had a romantic as well as business partnership for a time, it's a public matter, why be so coy and angry about it? And like many SL relationships, it ended and people moved on to other things. Good!

Indeed, tekkies are always trying to keep people dependent, and I hate that. Really do. It's well worth fighting about. I don't recall any other project planned and the scripting incident was just an annoyance -- yet another FIC putting themselves in the loop and encouraging dependency.

The idea that there was some sudden turning point in which a happy and robust intellectual relationship suddenly went south is a fiction. It was not like that at all. From the beginning I thought you were bossy, a show-off, and overbearing. Like I said, Racer was well shed of you. So was I. You were never my friend and that's all there was to it. We don't share the same beliefs and attitudes and values, even if we come from a similar generation. That's all there is to it. Deal with it. You are not loved. You are disliked.

You imagine you are a Tragically Misunderstood Artist lol. Maybe the tragedy is that you are all too well understood.

I haven't "twisted" anything but merely told the truth, and supplied ample documentation of your self-serving manipulation of events, like claiming you weren't informed about a 67 cent rental ending when in fact you were -- then revealing your hypocrisy by saying in the next paragraphs that a reason was given in fact -- but you just found it too odd, never conceding that creating a separate, elite market for GSPs and big business was thoroughly disgusting in every way and contrary to the open spirit of SL.

[Kim Anubis]

As for the stuff about the Enterprise program ... We've been over all that before. There is still an NDA keeping me from defending myself, and you know it. It sure wasn't my idea.

While I was bothered enough to see you using yet another former tenant as a chew toy that I felt like speaking up, I'm not going to make documenting the 67-cent tragedy my work for the day.

And the personal stuff is, for anyone but you and me, drama. And I'm bored with it already. I guess I'm finally over it.

I can't tell if you really did think I was a pushy windbag way back then, or if you're remembering feeling that way earlier than you actually did, or if you're just trying to make me feel bad now (though, of course, I have no doubt of your current feelings). Anyway, once upon a time, I really did think we were going to be friends. In retrospect, that's pretty damn crazy, huh? It's so crazy that, as worn out as I am by this point, it's still a twinge sad, and the same when I read you apparently still have that island. Wow, I had such a good time building that with my friends ... It was so long ago, and SL was so different, and I miss those times.

I do admit to a personal failing you've indicated above. I take this stuff personally, all of it. SL (and the people in it) has never been just business for me, and that's why it was so easy for you to wind me up. I can't feel bad for caring about it, or for caring in general, though sometimes it's a real pain in the butt.

I wish I had known back in 2004 or whenever it was we were having those long interesting conversations that you actually didn't like me or think my work was of value. I would have just refunded you on the fireplaces if you couldn't place them yourself and I would have told you to find someone else to help with your other prim-handyman needs and that would have been that. I'm sure you would have dragged me onto your blog with the other GSPs, but you wouldn't have had so much ammo, and I wouldn't have for a time had the misimpression that, if I put in enough time and effort, we might come to understand each others' views.

Oh well. It seems to be a time of nostalgia and stock-taking for a lot of us old Residents lately, and I guess this is just a part of that.

[Guitar String]

So Prok pretends to be friendly with a creator and manufactures a reason to toss them aside when she no longer finds them useful. Why am I not the least bit surprised? Even followed suit with a perfectly executed "I never liked you to begin with" bit sprinkled with fudged timelines and that wonderful revisionist history we've all come to expect. What a miserable old windbag. Sorry you had the misfortune of having to deal with this internet nutcase Kim.

[Prokofy Neva]

1. Kim's recollection is HUGELY self-serving and selective. I never liked her, never even liked her creations that much (that stone oven is too big and unwieldy for most homes) and I have no idea what she's talking about when she thinks we were friends and going to do some great project together. This is insane.

2. Kim has trouble understanding her own limitations as she's probably been flattered and coddled too much but if there was some long convo with her, it was probably her doing the talking or remembering a few exchanges as more than they were.

3. I didn't friend Kim or toss her aside. I friended in fact her then-boyfriend. I talked to her, merely because at first, I bought some products from her (Tibetan yoga sit cushions) and some candles or something, that's all.

4. There aren't any fudged time lines as I've reprinted them exactly as they are.

5. As suspected, "Guitar String" is not an account in Second Life. Boot/ban/bye!

[c3]

cant we all get a....oh yeah. he's dead.

i just watched a video from some google invites authors thing.. tossed onto g+

had the head of EFF... bring Vernor vinge in to talk to "students" google employees at lunch?

anyhow... he said that google funds the singularity university -down the block ...

the room of dudes all read their libertarian/anarchist sci fi.. and discussed the science.. well one guy "got the fiction part" of the singularity....

then they all went back to work on making it non fiction...

kinda makes he whole sharing online and commooonity thing kinda silly.

inyaface strikes again.

[Eva Destruction]

I just found it funny that Prokofy wants "knowledge" to be freely shared so badly, but has one of those stupid you-must-pay-me-as-a-consultant-because-my-knowledge-is-valuable Picks on his profile.

Real life consultants offer qualifications and professional insurance to the client Prokofy, and I will bet you have neither.

[Prokofy Neva]

Um, nice try there "Eva," but you're spouting nonsense. I'm very much for consultants being PAID. That's why I put in my profile that I want to be PAID. I expect other people who do work to be PAID.

My point about the "information wants to be free" freaks is that want OTHER PEOPLE's information and knowledge to be free, while THEY CHARGE. They are hypocrites and exploiters.

I have 8 years of experience in Second Life and quite a lot of knowledge, actually, but it doesn't matter, because I don't need your approval.

Meanwhile, next time you'll have to tell us WHICH Eva Destruction you are in SL or you can't post here!