Labels: Second Life
- Despite missing key people, the rehearsal last night went really well. Strangely enough, although Salazar was unavoidably detained elsewhere, a giant snake was sitting in the audience and agreed to play the part of the snake in the act. Yay! Fortuitous, indeed. Vlad is now doing amusification between acts - which helps a lot. Lucy does audience audio warm-up. Maxie was right there with her act and handled her set and music herself. Enjah will do High Flyer understudying, which will be good as last night I was the lone High Flyer, doing intro, curtain, and music and admittedly did not try too hard as it was obviously going to be funny anyway with one person.
Afterwards we stopped in at the Pantheon, then Ida and I went to Grignano. It was hot here in RL and I was sick with it, but it's cool today and I got up at 7 to find Ida had recorded the audio for the next GBC spot. I made it, then we decided that we needed a change in the audio, which I said I would only do if she sent me a file rather than using Hipcast. Now I'm driving Ida kookoo by emailing her every 30 seconds.
Tiff is coming later, which will be good. we'll get the book put to bed.
30 May 2007
Me: Are you building it?
Derek: Craig told me the news as I walked into the door.
I won't personally be building it, but I will be handling quality control and installation for you.
Me: *feeds chocolate to Derek*
/me wonders if he hurt himself.
My Brother at Warneet
Anji's children, Caitlin (8) and Ryan (4) somewhere in the environs of Brisbane.I don't know why R isn't dressed as Spiderman, however.
CaitlinLabels: Australia
From Forbes:
"In addition, people who were knocked unconscious even once had a 35 percent increased risk of developing Parkinson's, Dick said."
Although I've never been knocked unconscious because I'm too thickskulled, I've had bazillions of bad head injuries. Almost anyone who has grown up on the back of a horse has had head injuries. The worst one resulted in neurological damage, a seizure long after the injury, dilantin, an EEG, and a neurologist I went to once or perhaps twice. He was Italian. Dr. Montefiori, I think his name was. He was rather difficult to understand as he spoke with a strong accent. He told me that the thingummies in my brain were not firing at the same time, as they should. I took the dilantin for a short time then chucked it. That was ages ago - early seventies.
The good news is that I'm sure to be dead long before that particular valentine is delivered - yippee!
Whoa. I lead a sheltered life, I think, as this was the first time this has happened to me. As well as having no money to speak of (although I spend it in weird ways that make people think I do), I currently am not particularly mobile, so where in the past I'd've written a check, now I just want to fling a string of numbers down the phoneline.
I was shocked when my compu-builderers said, "Hey, yer card didn't go through." I called the credit union and found out that there's a $2500 limit, beyond which things get rejected. After quizzing me about things to make sure it was actually me, they temporarily raised the limit. I then called Craig and waited while he ran the numbers. "We're good to go!" The credit union was watching the transaction and as soon as it went through dropped the limit again.
Anyway, all is well - after me going like this: ===============:O
It indicates how much theft and fraud is going on, I reckon, but it starts to make writing checks seem good again (not for me, however).
Labels: Dept of ZOMG
I Wonder
It MIGHT be nice to have several specialised viewers. Say, a viewer with building tools laid out cleanly and prominently, and other typically onscreen functions made smaller or accessible by pushing a button to bring up a pane of social tools (Oh, the pain of social tools!).
I haven't spent much time thinking about this, but it came about when I was pottering about in the First Look viewer. I don't know how possible it is, therefore I will just throw my specie into the ring. It might or might not be two cents - it is sure to be two somethings, though.
I wondered if one reason the First Look viewer makes for slower frame rates is because it's running the client-side WindLight on top of the old cloud system. I don't know, I just wondered.
Anyway, my First Look thought was, why can there not be several viewers, from high-end puter specs to ordinary puter specs, so that there is a better experience for people? Thinking about it, the idea might be beyond brand-new users (maybe not, though). Currently I feel brand new people with low-to-medium specs log in to crowded and laggy areas, say, "OMFG!1!1" and log out. I think there could be a page on the sign-up sheet saying, "Assess your specs - choose a viewer. If you can handle more, get the enhanced viewer, if you are getting low framerates tweak or go to the basic viewer."
Anyway, this might not be for new users, but it would definitely be useful for seasoned users.
It would definitely be useful for things like building. There are times I spend hours building, and putting on a Builder viewer would be like putting on overalls in real life - a way of preparing. Builder viewer could have more decimal places, tools laid out differently.
What other viewers might be useful... hmmmm... not sure.
Labels: Cogitation, Second Life
29 May 2007
Birds in WindLight
I can ooonly juuuuuuuuuust move in the First Viewer, which I knew, and why I have a new computer coming soon. There's room for improvement on many fronts with WindLight, as it does some rather peculiar things. The skies are quite pretty, the water is odd-looking, there's a during-an-eclipse look about things (at least on this poor beast which is jam-packed tight to the gills with a lot of projects including The Book and the CC video).
Promising, just not there yet, I don't think.
Labels: Second Life
28 May 2007
Alonso and Ned judge the Photography Studio of Grignano's METAL photography contest.
Nostalgiafication
I was longing for the little rabid army men of catfart Grayson, so went to Fujin to stalk the hillside where, not so long ago, interlopers dared not tread. Actually, I dared tread, as I really got a kick out of running away from those dangerous but diminutive soldiers. I don't know how they worked exactly, but if you got too close to their spawn point a bristling horde of them lit out after you, shooting and, ultimately, killing you, unless you managed to hotfoot it out of range. They were able to motate, by gum.
I miss them. Gadzooks, but they were great. Must remember to ask Bunny.
File under: Men, Army, Small + Self, Remind, Bunny, Catfart
Labels: Second Life
26 May 2007
Trapped in the desert.
=========:O
I love it!
Passed on to me by Candide.
Labels: Dept of ZOMG
*weeps*
I was looking at the Wikipedia entry on mezzo roles, and couldn't find Prince Orlofsky - where the deuce was he? Not in with the other trouser roles like Cherubino. Reading down I found Die Fledermaus lumped in with operettas and musicals: cheek-by-jowl with the like of You're a Good Man, Charley Brown.
Somebody be dissin' Strauss.
*flicks switchblade*
Labels: Opera
Ooooh - right up my alley - an Una voce poco fa Contest* on youtube.
*Not new, but so what?
*Listens to Flicka twice.*
Labels: Opera
My Computer Builders.
Wednesday 23 May
I'm such a whiny brat. I really chafe at having to depend upon others as I have always been supremely independent. Anyway, my needs are thus: I have to have someone build and set up my new computer as I am a wreck. I decided that there was no sense having hurt feelings* as very likely I caused the problem myself by being a crap communicator.
I decided I'd better just go and see them, so I did today, and they were the same as ever (weird and prickly but trustworthy not unlike me). I told them what I want in the way of specs:
/me: herky
them: kk
Actually I said duo core, 1 or 2 Nvidia cards, 2 g minimum ram, etc. They will email an estimate or 4 tomorrow.
Thursday 24 May
Backing and Forthing with Derek.
Friday 25 May
Me: I hope you don't mind me asking all these questions. I know just enough to be a PITA.
Derek: No worries.
It would be easy to choose if the two systems were side by side, however it's all speculation based on anecdote and theory.
Upshot: by working dilligently** I managed to raise the price by $1300.
Derek: (paraphrased) Personally, I'd go with the original quote. Nvidia's working on cards with dual GPU that will fit in the Intel mb.
Me: OK, I will go with your opinion (of course he'd left by then so I can overheat my bain all long weekend).
*...only took me a year to get over it - FAST!
**...wanting an AMD mb, 2 vid cards, and a bigger power supply - see, a brat.
Vid card: EVGA GF8800GTX 768MB DDR3 PCIE 575MHz DVI #768-P2-N831-AR
Labels: Brat Girl
Shipping Mice
I was forced to say in my profile that I decline unsolicited teleport offers because I get a lot of unsolicited teleport offers for some unknown reason and wanted to head them off at the pass. Sometimes it's someone I know, but usually it's from a stranger. Tonight while I was video-ing I got several from someone who wanted me to go to a Motorati sim.
I popped up from my suppressed UI state to find stacked teleport offers and then an IM telling me the sender needed to show me something. I explained that I was busy, and he asked me if I'd give him my drive-through tree. Me: No. Him: Why not? Me: I want it to be a unique build. Him: Please give it to me. Me: No, but I'm glad you like it.
I got so hunkered down in my UI-less state that couldn't talk to someone with a legitimate interest in my googie signs. I explained I would have to talk another day, then, even though I meant to note his name, I closed SL without looking at it. Googie sign business is my kind of business, so I hope he calls back.
Thank G'al my new mouse came today. The other one has been killing me. That's the old, old Logitech mouse, as my red diamondback stopped working a while back. I kept doing things like reinstalling, etc. but it was No Use. I was torn as I loved it yet what good is that type if it doesn't even last a year? My (perhaps erroneous) view is that it went south when I programed its buttons in a way it seemed not to like (for suppressing the UI, full circle, pass Go collect 200L). Finally I decided to get another and did so on Wednesday, after I talked to Derek. Yesterday the shipping tracker said "in transit, due to be delivered 11 June" - haha. This new one is green and I'm afraid to program the effing buttons.
Labels: Second Life
25 May 2007
IM of the Day
Note: This is the ENTIRE IM not an excerpt.
[17:21] Fosho F: are you rich?
[17:21] Osprey Therian: no
[17:21] Fosho F: oh ok
[17:22] Fosho F: bye
Oopsie!
I left the Yosemite DVD in the drive on Thursday and something in its autostartiness or something made SL go completely haywire. I was a bit perplexed and rebooted, then noticed the drive light and removed the DVD. Presto! All fixed! I am teh technogenioid!!!!!11!1
Labels: Second Life
Hmmmm... I have an idea...
24 May 2007
At sea on Aditi without my friends list. Maybe all will come clear in time.Labels: Second Life
Antiheap
I spent 5 minutes in Wings3d making this: a one prim antiheap like the (9?) prim things the arenas sit on at Spagnel. I'm the dot on the arena.
Actually, before I made this I spent about 20 minutes making robot heads that crashed the exporter as I kept doing bad things (but it was fun anyway).]
I made something weird just to make a piece of vid. No, I wasn't trying to make anything, and I wasn't even thinking.
Click here to watch me goofing off in Wings3d
Labels: Combat Cards, Second Life
23 May 2007
I got on SL at around 5:30
Rehearsal was fun, with Lucy and Ida, Salazar, and Crystal all doing their parts. Theo was there as a spectator. Afterwards Salazar made a huge peach and we kicked it over the edge to watch it roll into the canal. Movie: Freefall Fruit, Fruit Fysics, uh... I forget the other potential titles.
J told me that after the Maker creator saw the little video she gave him the BIG sandworm - that will be fun to video!
World Leader unga Pau told me he is getting compliments on his outfit (I need to make medals, etc.).
I was asked to open shop in Tir but told them I wanted to interview them for a blogpost on slgames.
Sculpties hit the MG. I made a crude topiary tree and textured it.
I talked to Aliasi about filming her on Friday.
Some other things.
Labels: Second Life
Yosemite ROM
Because Enjah is so nice to me, she sent me a postcardified DVD when she went to Yosemite recently. I'd never heard of such a thing - I am such a RL noob. Anyway, I have watched part* of it, and at first all I could do was analyse the video editing (as that's what I'm working on). Then I imagined being the cameraman and could quite see how the shots tied in and which shots he or she probably gleefully though of as reelly kewl (like the deer in velvet nibbling the Queen Anne's Lace). Then I started to see it as a strange document chronicling the way Late Mankind separated himself from Nature (i.e. everything else), then applied tiny doses of it therapeutically by standing in groups gawking at small waterfalls or riding bicycles along macadam paths. It began to seem extremely odd to me, so I turned it off and will look at the as-yet unseen 70% of Chapter One and the other 6 chapters (!) later.
As a time traveler I can only express wonder.
*It's teh LONG
Labels: Still Life
22 May 2007
I need something to eat. Obviously I am suffering from low brain juice.
Osprey: (to Mothra) Are there wrong answers on the Alliance path? And Tandy needs to fix Q7.
Osprey: Chu-Shid - find a spot on your path for a question
Osprey: and make it happen.
Osprey: If only one path is finished by race day that team will win by default.
Osprey: Tristan, we already used that gastropod question.
Immigration Officer: You are being joined by Mothra.
Osprey: We need a system so we don't put the same Q multiple times.
Osprey: System might be: RUN THE PATH BEFORE YOU ADD A QUESTION.
Mothra: wdsthhsewadsassssssssssddddddwasdswdw
Osprey: Hi Tandy!
Osprey: ty for changing the Q
Osprey: Want to do 8?
Osprey: Mothra are you speaking in tongues?
Osprey: (to CheyenneS) What question are you doing?
Osprey: I tilted the question signs in my valley to show some that we used already.
Osprey: =============:O I accidentally deleted one though.
CheyenneS: no problemo
Osprey: 10. What does the snail use to break up its food?
Osprey: A) A knife and fork
Osprey: B) The joke about the rabbi, priest, and minister
Osprey: C) The correct answer
Shania: Where do Whelks (missing verb - lay? cook? hide? fertilise?) their eggs?
Osprey: Whelks are cool.
Osprey: Isaiah get to work.
Osprey: All these rotating objects are making me dizzy.
Osprey: Isaiah looks like he is asleep in the air.
Osprey: Floating lying down...
Immigration Officer: You are being joined by Shania.
Osprey: Shania, how is it coming along?
Shania: not good
Osprey: no?
Osprey: Pick a question and go make it on the path.
Osprey: If you need a better question go and research on the internet.
Osprey: Maybe I will delete the questions we have used.
Shania: i love me
Shania: kinda hate me
Osprey: I like you.
Shania: ok
Labels: Wa He Lut
21 May 2007
WindLight
I would guess the new sun is intended to go with the new sky. It's exciting that the sky will be adjustable by each resident as a lot of the things are too gaudy by far for me. It's not that the real world is never ever gaudy, it's just that I wouldn't, for instance, paint what I thought was a gaudy scene, and I don't base my VR needs on the real world. Anyway, LL is astounding us left and right, which is good.
I'm a bit frustrated as I want a new computer but I've never dealt with anything other than a local woman-owned business that built to my needs. I'd just say, "I need it for editing video, or I want it for SL," and they'd make it exactly right. They knew I'm a software, not a hardware, person, and just built it herky for my needs. I have bought a puter every three years, so far, and I want one now, but that business changed hands and no longer seems... uh... trustworthy.
So... I keep looking at things online. That probably won't help me a lot. I should probably look in the phone book instead. :( '''drat' damnation
Labels: Second Life
Johannason as a little maker.
Labels: Second Life
20 May 2007
SL Hockey
19 May 2007
Today in Second Life
Am I blue? Trickster Enj expresses solidarity with Salazar.
Second Earth had an open house - thank you for letting me know, Johannason. It's well worth visiting (and even moving into if you are a role-player).
Am I blue? Trickster Enj expresses solidarity with Salazar.
Second Earth had an open house - thank you for letting me know, Johannason. It's well worth visiting (and even moving into if you are a role-player).
My kewl temporary outfit madeup of my friends list, IM window, and various nearby things from my screen. It was only for a second but made me laugh.
Labels: Second Life
Beauty and the Beast
High Flyers costumes
High Flyers on stage
Polonsky & Keen
The Show Must Go On pix from Daedalus Young and Vlad Bjornson
Labels: Second Life
18 May 2007
SCULPTY NEWS
May I Have Your Attention Please: SL Residents Rock
I've been beating my brain with Blender, but also playing about with resident-made-or-added-to sculpty options.
I had already looked into Wings3d a bit but this heroic resident, Omei Turnbull, has made an exporter! w00t! Forum thread. Note that you need to be sure to get the 0.98.36 version. Wings3d is pretty damned good.
For sheer ease, fun, and the PERFECT name, Rokuro* made by Yuzuru Jewell, is fabulous. Here's the forum thread.
I made the vase on the left in about 2 minutes, and threw on any old texture from my inventory: I love it! For in-world donations go HERE.
There are more - I haven't had 2 minutes, or 2 braincells, lately. If you have a favorite tell me in comments.
* Potter's wheel in Japanese.
Labels: Second Life
Why do people I don't know invite me to groups all the time?
Why do people I've never met offer me friendship when I'm not even online?
Labels: Questions to ponder
16 May 2007
Teef
I had a dental appointment at 1pm. I got there at about 12:55, then had to wait until 1:30 because the person ahead of me was going to Africa and wanted to talk. Apparently he and his wife took a family under their wings after having been penpals for a number of years. Now they are going to visit and taking over various things. I thought I'd be home by 2:30 easily but I am just back. I do like my dentist and the employees a lot and so the appointment was yer basic rolling on the floor laughing until I couldn't see straight-type yuckfest. Teef B fine.
Reply to LT
(as the response I sent didn't go through)
My *packs* was ironic as I think the idea of Augie takeover is wrong. However, I'm struggling to understand age verification. My own take on it is LL doesn't want to be held accountable for what every anonymous person chooses to do in SL. What I see is that age verification and the like will make it more attractive for people to run their own servers, i.e. they can be responsible for the content.
While I think that German "news" squad set the virtual faked "child" rape scenario up (and participated), there's no denying that such things go on in SL as in RL. Robin must've felt horrible. I think LL would love to get such things out of their hardware. They are making all this up, remember, and don't have the answers. No one does.
I think the age verification is like excising tissue to remove the diseased part - healthy tissue is removed as well. I think it's a knee-jerk and hasty reaction to get clean legally and make the SL setting less attractive to people who need anonymity for their creepy uh... whatevers.
I'd guess the structure that would make sense would be for SL (including the Linden grid and other grids) to be the huge commons area with (privately hosted) side pockets of various types, from a couple's lovenest to a casino. Dunno...
All I will do is watch and see what happens, at the moment. Now is the time for people with great ideas to come out and say them. On the one hand people treat SL like it's a world where residents need to be accorded all rights, but at the same time they regard SL as a product and cast their eyes around to see what other products are on the horizon. For me, SL is a place, and I am willing to change and grow with it, since it, like the real world, is not a perfect place. The process demands participation. If we graze from VR to VR we likely will wind up with nothing.
*stands her ground*
Labels: Second Life
15 May 2007
Gah
As we all know, Any Warhol said that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. Obviously he was correct. I'm wondering when that phase is going to stop. I'm hoping the future he was talking about is nearly past so the
REAL famous people can stop worrying.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Falwell.
'Two days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, he blamed "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians ... who have tried to secularize America."
A year later he called Muslim prophet Mohammad "a terrorist", to which Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khameini responded with a fatwa command for Falwell's death.'
Labels: Bad Persons Bureau
I went to bed early last night - not long after midnight. I was moving my pillow and a rather large-bodied spider plopped onto the floor and walked a few steps. About, say, from leg to leg, 1.5 inches. Although that's not big compared to the Giant House Spiders it's much, much bigger than I want on my pillow, or anywhere in my bed for that matter. I went off to plug the hose end into the wall to suck it up, but alas, it had moved by the time I returned and is still at large.
I spent five minutes fooling around and found some things under my bed (a zone I usually don't bother with now) including half pairs of socks and a pair of (unmissed) trousers, trying to make lemonade out of missing spiders. Next time I should put something over the spider to trap it before wandering off (seems unfair, though).
Labels: Dept. of I-Hate-It-When-That-Happens
14 May 2007
Cornflakes
A Modern Poem
1. My current corn flakes box has a picture of Anthony Quinn on it. He was never one of my favorites (for the same reason I don't like Sean Connery) although he was a good actor. However, should I be assigned the task of finding a person's face to plaster on a corn flakes box I think I could manage to find one belonging to someone who's not currently dead. Anyway, AQ looks down upon me from the top of the fridge (mouse-proofing).
2. I'm probably the only person in SL who always thinks "Semple McPherson" after hearing "Aimee." It's because I'm a hundred years old. Yes, Peaches and Daddy Browning, too, are tucked away in my head, in all their sordidness. All kinds of odd things are in there.
3. The New Yorker, which admittedly is not as good as it used to be, still managed to enhance my cornflakes by having an article about ASM that related that AQ had been her translator for a short time. I now need a big box of cornflakes with ASM on it. Or maybe Peaches Browning.
Honk! Honk! It's the bonk!
13 May 2007
Pictures from Vlad
Thank you, Vlad!Waiting in the bunker. Lucy is dressed for the unicycle drll act, Vlad is dressed for his Inferno act, I'm in snake act garb, while Polonsky blocks Keen from being seen. Salazar and Enj are in mufti.
Excellent shot of our audience, rapt in their enjoyment of the show or perhaps just stunned.Labels: Second Life
I am trying to sort out my freezer just a bit. Horrifyingly (well not to me as I don't care) it still contained the food that was in it when teh trizzities went out for a week. I just took out most of it including elk stew from Marilee ('''drat'), a bag of scallops, a bag of shrimp, and a whole lot of mixed seafood that would've been paella but now is poisonous. It made me laugh to see how many loose tentacles my freezer contains. They are all over! I like tentacles, obviously.
I am reminded of going to a Korean restaurant with my friends Kath and Howard (a married couple). Kath does not like tentacles. Howard (fisheries biologist) and I shared the hot seafood stew and Howard, to tease Kath, stuck a long tentacle in his mouth end in and wiggled it about, eliciting a horrified response from Kath. Howard is my friend who dropped dead in the parking lot as he was leaving work one day.
I have always considered it to be a cruel twist of fate when someone dies after working all day - I'm not exactly why I think that but I do. Or getting a speeding ticket on the way to work. That's not quite in the same league, though. I also hate to think of people dying hungry. Didn't Richard III go into the Battle of Bosworth Field without breakfast? I have a lot of very peculiar pockets in my brain - a bit like diverticulitis of the brain ========:O what a bizarre idea!
Labels: Dept of ZOMG
Noob Accoutrements
Excitin' time at the Kill Club yesterday at about 1:30. I was across the room and had to zoom in to see what, exactly, that orange attachment was. He was perfectly nice - I think he was just... uh... uh... unaware that his attaching was not quite working out (or maybe it was - who am I to say?). I had some interesting attachment happenings myself way back when.
Ha ha! Teh noob Os on Day "Last night before the internet disappeared I was talking to Hiro Pendragon, who makes swords. He advised me to make my nose shorter and tighten my trousers. I asked him about the strange knitting motions we were making, which made him laugh (ho, ho, ho)* -- it's the avatar "typing" when we type. Why? I have NO FRIGGIN' CLUE why the avatar would be doing that. He had swords crossed on his back, which looked very cool. I was emulating him today, but accidentally put two swords THROUGH MY SHOULDERS AND OUT MY BOTTOM.
I didn't see it until I was flying (I am sure there must be a way to see from different angles, but I don't know it). I got a giant monkey and attached it** to me..."
*Too he said, "You look at your hands when you type, don't you."
**on purpose so it looked like I was being devoured
Labels: Second Life
Daedalus Young sent me some enhanced The Show Must Go On pix - thank you! I'm slow uploading them as I have had video processing for ages and I don't want to get too jiggy or I'll damage the output. So - more to come from Daedalus and from Vlad!
Labels: Second Life
12 May 2007
From Gwyneth Llewelyn's blog:
"I don’t think that you can have two radically opposing views of a “metaverse” running inside the same environment — immersionists will have to go away, there is no more room for them in SL."
*packs*
11 May 2007
I haven't read The Stragner in a long time, so I was amused to see that Savage Love has discovered SL.
I still miss The Rocket a bit.
Phew.
The show went well (I was a bad unicyclist though due to lag and tiredness) - and maybe someone will send me some pictures that I can post. Right before the show had to be set up Doc IMed and I got the fast anvil - w00t! Thank G'al it wasn't DURING the show. It was laggy but could've been worse. We are meeting on Wednesday to discuss changes, then it's on to booking theatres for me.
Tomorrow: Saturday Slaughter, videoing hockey for a GBC spot, then videoing Johannason and Aliasi. My RSI is bad at the moment, but maybe if I rest my hand a bit it will improve. After I make the CC movie file I want to reinstall VideoStudio10 as it needs it. Then remake.
Labels: Second Life
I'm wrong more often than I'm right, as what the Hell do I know about these things, but this is how it seems to me things might evolve:
LL Grid (including mainland and islands)
Islands owned by corporation or individuals which are hosted on their servers but connect to the LL Grid
Islands owned by corporation or individuals which are hosted on their servers which don't connect to the LL Grid
Pocket spaces hosted on private servers which connect in a limited way to the LL Grid
So - one could arrange to have a small area hosted somewhere. That would allow a person and a short list of friends to access a private area with no fear of being barged in on, while the greater grid would be accessible. That would end the privacy troubles involving peeping Toms taking screenshots, video, or the like. No one would need to worry about their poseballs getting worn out or have need for ban lines. Hosting companies could do this - provide a variety of sizes in small areas that ordinary people could afford - exactly the same as what they do already but with the tie-in to Second Life's LL Grid.
A business, say a casino or an X-rated shop, could be on its own server if it desired and have its own rules of entry, presumably. They would need a LL Grid parcel to connect with SL, but that parcel could look like anything (I mean, for instance, it might not be flagged Adult and contain no X-rated content, just be the portal to an X-rated shop).
I'd like to see everywhere open, with privacy areas for people who want them.
Labels: Cogitation, Second Life
10 May 2007
I've got a ton of things coming to a head right now, including The Show Must Go On, which is having its first performance tomorrow. Rehearsal yesterday was a billion IM windows, most unrelated to the show - new windows just went to the end of the line. Afterwards I had to drum up a fight and asked in the CC group if anyone was available - and got a really nice person who had everything in order but had never fought. I gave her the url to Alonso's video, and she asked, "Can you really fight robots?" Upon learning you can, she instantly appeared and fought Ned a number of times. I videoed her, and invited her to Saturday Slaughter. It's fun to get a lot of people fighting - we are just edging up to having enough people to make the event interesting. Doc has leagues on the horizon, too, which is a great idea.
I videoed the land texture flashing two separate times and sent the urls in with a bug report. Most of my bug reports are utterly worthless drivel, but every once in a while I hit something useful. Not very often though. LL probably rolls their eyes when anything of mine comes in.
Today I met someone who had tracked me down with the idea of having me build some little attachments - if I can get some of these projects to simmer down I'll probably be happy to do it.
Today I dragged my chosen two - Johannason and Aliasi - into meeting at Ride. They are my chosen two for the video fight as they both are into amazing avatars. They got into some competitive magic and the sim wound up crashing accidentally. Woops! I set up a time on Saturday, a location, and just need the anvil from Doc. It's been a lot of work just getting to this point, so I am thankful it's on track. We talked about doing a transforming kind of video, too, which would be fun.
I'd missed the 5pm hockey I was to video, which was too bad but unavoidable.
Tiff rang about the alphabet book I told her she should make for her grandson. She's excited and wants to pay me to do the graphics work, which I tried to put a stop to, to no avail.
Labels: Second Life
09 May 2007
There's an interesting-ish article about Barbara Stanwyck in the New Yorker. I was startled to see her described as a slip of a woman not even five and a half feet tall. Five feet five inches is a mere slip? When did that happen? At the time 5'5" was on the taller side of normal.
Labels: Dept. of Mystification
When I logged in to the CT-CUNI Sci-Fair program yesterday I had a telegram from queenbee, who is the person who invented and guides that Cornell University VR teaching uh... thing which uses the ActiveWorlds platform (which is crude but runs on school puters). It's a wide range of ages and real-world locations from Wa He Lut Indian School fifth graders to infinity.
I met queenbee in 2004 when she came to run a workshop at the Lut. Our then-principal, John, had signed us up but neither he nor anyone else in the group except me had clue one about virtual reality. I was overjoyed to learn of the proposal, and because Mothra is my special pal, we have wound up doing it these three years. (Me in 2006 when I told Mothra I was having to stop working - "Do you want to do Sci-Fair next year?" Mothra - "Not without YOU.") Therefore, I am unpaid but happy in the service of the Lut.
Anyway, in 2004 queenbee was glad to know I was a virtual world person, and she said she'd have to try Second Life out. The telegram asked for denoobification help and gave me her SL name. I'm already trying to decide how I can rope her into doing a GBC show on the Sci-Fair program or perhaps on coming to SL from other worlds... or maybe an editorial... hmmm...
Anyway - welcome to Second Life, queenbee!
Labels: Second Life, Wa He Lut
07 May 2007
I hate to be curmudgeonly, but I had to stop what I was doing* to go and find out what was going on. Actually I'm just plain angry.
[18:07] Second Life: Your object 'Strawberry Cone' has been returned to your inventory lost and found folder by MP from parcel 'Roadside attraction' at Motorati 207.2, 79.7417 due to parcel owner return.
[18:07] Second Life: Your object 'Object' has been returned to your inventory lost and found folder by MP from parcel 'Roadside attraction' at Motorati 207.252, 79.7406 due to parcel owner return.
[18:10] You: you rang?
[18:10] MP: hey osprey
[18:10] KC: Well, I appreciate that :) But even as a contractor, it's my ballywick to take ownership of these issues. It's just good PR.
[18:10] KC: :)
[18:10] MP: did i
[18:10] KC: Hi Osprey :)
[18:10] You: I just had things returned
[18:10] KC: Did you get your autoreturn set back?
[18:11] KC: The what?
[18:11] KC: What was returned?
[18:11] MP: oh, i returned a snow cone that was on the ground is that what you mean
[18:11] KC: Ahh.
[18:11] KC: Okay, phew.
[18:11] KC: Don't make me panic like that :D
[18:11] You: That was part off my build.
[18:12] You: *of
[18:12] MP: i'm sorry i thought it was trash
[18:12] KC whaps Motorati
[18:12] KC: ;)
[18:12] You: If you see that I am the owner don't return things.
[18:12] MP: sorry
[18:12] You: As this is my build.
[18:12] You: OK
[18:12] You: bye!
*hires hitman*
* setting up for a shoot
Labels: Dept. of jF
Sunny and warm - blecch
I did what this morning, I wonder, before going to jin shin... Oh, yes - I was fiddling with something when a shiny orb spoke to me, then apologised and turned into a panther. We had a chat and I told him to watch out for the show. I teased someone a little in IM. I talked to Idey a bit. I went to Drive In as there had been a problem reported* at my build (but nothing was amiss). While there I made a settings sign for the show, realised I had 5 minutes before I needed to leave, set up a video to export from QTPro as last night it had chugged away for two hours (reaching 34% before I got annoyed at 2 am and shut it down). Then I went for the last jin shin of May as Frank is off to France (appropriately enough) and I don't see him again until the 4th of June.
Eagle just flew by the window - the sun makes each feather stand out clearly. Yesterday I saw the spider-gathering Stellar's jay again - she must wait a certain time for the spiders to grow plump and toothsome.
* The same person who returned part of my build later in the day had IMed me to say he'd accidentally changed my autoreturn but turned it off immediately in case my whole effing build got returned.
Labels: Birds, jin shin, Second Life
06 May 2007
==============:O
When did "Osprey" become a surname in SL?
Update: Maybe it isn't. Someone signed their name as _____ Osprey on something but maybe that isn't really their name. I did a search and no surname Ospreys resulted. I was interested to see that now there are a lot of Ospreys (I was the first). I should look up Ozymandias (my brother) as he was the first Ozymandias back in 2004. He had an identity before he had an account.
Labels: Dept of ZOMG, Second Life
Ida fighting JohannasonLabels: Combat Cards, Second Life
05 May 2007
This seems sensible: LL handing the task of denewbificationisationing to others.
The Orientation Islands and Help Islands have been reported as being chock full of clueless noobs needing help including voyagers from FPSs who think it's fine to blast everyone they see. I remember someone commenting on the L Word orientation by saying they wished the official SL one was as good.
Labels: Second Life
I miss Enjah.
Labels: Dept. of Mystification
Sumo wrestling for Tinies at Raglan Shire
04 May 2007
Good Timing
I met a nice new person this morning in Cowell. He is industriously trying to figure out how everything works. Just now I logged in to Cowell right in front of a griefer shooting him for no reason. I froze, ejected, and banned the griefer. Dvid thinks I have superpowers now, I think.
Labels: Second Life
Strong Password Month
May is Strong Password Month (I don't remember where I read that heheh). It's the perfect time to review your passwords and change them they are guessable or even if they *gasp* are just old. I know I'm safe as all my passwords are 123abc - no one could possibly guess that.*
Actually, although I'm pretending to be a smarty-pants I need to address this at least as much if not more than most people. I keep meaning to look into Password Safe.
*Ha ha fooled you - it's actually abc123.
Moved teh Feed Link
No one was ever able to find my feed link so I moved it up (not that I believe anyone would subscribe anyway :).
I like my ancient template for a number of reasons: it's a robot, it looks like a robot, it's robot-ish, it has a quality of robotishness about it. I have never seen another one like it, in part because blogs have all lapsed into a kind of sameness that is functional but uninspired. Mine manages to be disfunctional AND uninspired! No wait, that's not right...
Labels: Blawg
03 May 2007
Chill Out
It takes time to build a metaverse.
I've always had the feeling that at some point LL is going to implement some huge changes they've been working on that will change things drastically for the better. One thing seems sure to me and that is that anyone who tries SL and walks away would be likely to pop in after a year or two if they hear news they like. They already know the way. The hype thing, too, can't be sustained but will likely go in waves. I have never thought it to be a bygone conclusion that I'll be around to see it happen, but I hope I will.
Had jin shin this morning, did a bit of grocerialisationing, hosted an awards ceremony at the Photography Studio (I thought I had awarded the lot in 4 minutes flat but forgot to mention a few things, thereby putting it up to 11 minutes - speed awards is fun), tried to talk to the geocache person who wants to meet with me (a great idea as I'd love to learn more). I hate being a crabby reviewer. Usually I just keep my thoughts to myself.
I realised the 2 best judges* for METAL are Alonso and Ned! They can make a machinima announcement. w00t!
*maybe "judges" is laying it on a bit thick - perhaps announcers is a better role.
Labels: Second Life
02 May 2007
Preview Performance 11 May @ 6pm
We had our first rehearsal on the stage at AskPatty, and despite a few missing performers (Enj is out of town, Maxie is about 9 hours ahead, Chuck was missing for an unknown reason) the show was fab and around 25 minutes long. Salazar was a good curtain wrangler (except for our act when he teleported away without closing the curtain haha!). I didn't mess up too much, I don't think. There was a lot to work out, but the stage is roomy and nice (I built it) and all in all more easy to work on than Cowell Amphitheatre which is cramped for spectacles such as the Synchronised Knitters Precision Unicycle Drill Team. The first preview performance is an exciting prospect! My best news of the day came from Crys, who popped up after a forced absence from SL and is almost ready to get back into it. I'm making a little commercial for our show. Once we get this milestone past I'll start scheduling performances.
Labels: Second Life
Damned Bald Eagle [=>
I just saw one attack an osprey that had lifted up from the lake holding a trout. The osprey dropped the fish and the eagle went after it. Maybe it's that bad fisher eagle I thought would never survive.
Labels: Birds
"The Decider" is So 2006
Current Bush self-description: "I’m the commander guy.”
Labels: Dept of ZOMG, Disfunction Junction
Ha Ha!
I logged in to pack up the AskPatty build that's in my inventory to give to J and B - bad timing as I should've realised since today there was an update. After an update things take a while to settle down. It was entertaining, though. First I was ruthed, then I noticed I had no inventory, so searched on the vowels then the rest of the alphabet and watched as it came back. Things were not always rezzing promptly, and then too I was building in Sandbox Island Extension which is always fraught.
Things seemed to settle down but I dropped my AP build idea and instead built something else and then made a HUD for a robot MC... then decided Patch's doodle bot would be fun for that - completely forgetting about Alonso, who is such a show biz personality. I have a call in to Patch asking permission, but I'd better whip out Alonso and have a bot-off at rehearsal tonight. Poor Ned, I fear, would not be up to this task, since he is not able to speeg.
Labels: Second Life
Second Life/Sports Cars*
Bear in mind that as usual I have no clue what I'm talking about.
I ran into an article about English sports cars just now, and there were some things that reminded me of SL. In the comments:
"...they weren’t soft enough, easy enough. Reliability being a part of that failing. Society will no longer tolerate being let down or inconvenienced..."
"...personality-driven design... lack of mechanical reliability that you get from personality driven design."
"I think they were defined largely by the directness of the experience. Your butt might be numb, but the steering wasn’t. Remember being chased by snarling dogs with their teeth at the height of your face?"
"Today the typical driver is so accustomed to being insulated from the environment in which he/she travels that they would be offended by our wonderful old cars. And you can’t survive in the marketplace without a product with either broad appeal or incredible exclusivity."
This is far from being a perfect analogy. It has value to me because I am (apparently) a time traveler and the way people think now is not the way I think. Which I am just starting to understand. To me, the fun is the whole - each part contributes to that raw directness of experience and any part left out diminishes it. If I understand what people are saying now, they want only certain parts of the experience, not including hard suspension and tinkering, as they are accustomed to being insulated and coddled.
*As far as sports cars - part of the pleasure was the endless tinkering and now hardly anyone seems to have what I consider ordinary skills in that area. In part that's probably due to the super-complicated-computer-balanced manner in which cars are fashioned at the moment. I often think about this: In, say, the 1700s any person could look at any machine or object and understand how it worked, but now almost everything is far beyond the ordinary person's ken.
Labels: Cogitation, Second Life
As we all know I don't like Stellar's Jays, but I have one that regularly hops along the balcony railing in front of me. I was watching him just now and suddenly realised what he was doing - eating the spiders. I didn't know they did that. This house is an absolute spider haven, and although I have nothing against normal numbers of normal-sized spiders, the bazillions of spiders everywhere* inside and out have reduced my spider sympathy. I liked watching spiders and ants, etc. as a child** and I still watch them a bit, but I no longer carry them outside. Anyway, the carry-outs probably just got immediately eaten by the outsiders.
Looking up Stellar's Jays I see they eat (or gather perhaps it is) more insects when they are feeding their young. They are quiet near their nests. My main objection to them is that they are so raucous, so there must be a nest or two in the Douglas firs to my left. I ran into a Pine Siskin entry, too, which reminded me of driving down East Bay Drive and seeing a dead flock of those tiny birds in the road. It turned out that, as it was winter and their usual watering spot was frozen, they had drunk from a puddle of antifreeze and all been poisoned.
*including Giant House Spiders, an agressive type that lives under my bed, and those peculiar biting ones that aren't big but leave a long-lasting wound.
** maybe that's out-of-the-ordinary I don't know
Labels: spiders birds
Sweet!
The AskPatty.com presence in Second Life was blogged again!* I do so appreciate how wonderful the AskPatty women have been to me - I couldn't have asked for better people to work for.
*That is the old first trial version of the machinima, though, which somehow leaked out and is now everywhere, which is a pain.
Labels: Motorati, Second Life
01 May 2007
Got mah hairs cut at midday by my beloved haircutterers. We weren't rolling on the floor in hysterical laughter today though, as is usual, for some reason. Kevin talked about his hero who was the best make-up artist in the universe but had something like gigantism and died in his mid-40s. Shawn said the man was THE BEST and had made up EVERYONE but was reduced to four lines in People magazine upon his demise.
Shawn also talked about styling enormous hair in Dallas in the Eighties, and we discussed Mall Bangs, which I became acquainted with when I first started making art trouble at Wa He Lut in the Nineties. The older girls had aerodynamic fringes that were like spoilers on the fronts of their heads.
It was a whacky fashion. [[Aside: I think I mostly had very short and stickyup hair at that time. I was going to Martin Coogan who had somehow acquired some big letters from the Capitol Theatre. The only hair-related word he could make was Coil, so that's what he called his place. He unaccountably decided to go to nanny school later. That was an experiment doomed to failure. I painted a portrait of Martin at that time which he owns.]] Things seem rather subdued at the moment - too subdued in this area, which Shawn says has the world's most boring hair.
Labels: Beloved Hair Cutterers
Start Yer Search Engines!
Today in CTCUNI SciFair with my class of Fifth Graders.
Osprey: We are still making new questions.
Osprey: Next week we will start making the paths.
Osprey: :D
Osprey: All right - start yer search engines!
Immigration Officer: You are being joined by Isaiah.
CheyenneS: vrum
Osprey: :D
CheyenneS: XD
Osprey: Your Q should not be too easy.
Osprey: Remember you are going to compete.
Immigration Officer: You are being joined by ChuShid.
Osprey: But - not impossible to answer.
CheyenneS: ='(
Osprey: Are you Googliing?
Osprey: Get to work.
Osprey: Work until 2:20 then we can build or visit other worlds.
Osprey: =========8>
Immigration Officer: You are being joined by Tristan.
Osprey: #;-[]
I sent them off at 2:20 in a contest to come back with the coolest object. They brought back ENORMOUS things which then made me get all mixed up as I couldn't see and they were duplicating each others, so I erroneously proclaimed Isaiah the winner instead of the rightful winner Shania. She said WHAT??? then they all left before we got it straightened out. We need a lesson in "If something is not correct say what is wrong as saying WHAT??? doesn't help."
I tried to call Mothra but the school was on the answering machine.
Labels: Wa He Lut