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29 June 2008

 
As I say, I love reading about EVE, although I have no particular interest in playing. Massively pointed out a New York Times article about BoB's new strategy in the Empyrean Age faction warfare recently unleashed by CCP, the Icelandic company that makes EVE.

CCP has made a number of changes lately, what with upgraded graphics, characters being able to get off their ships and walk about, and a player council for input.

Does that make it more than a kiddie's game to ordinary people, now? Exactly how less real is it than anything else I don't see with my own eyes?

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Uh... yes, well, it was a bit chilly a few days ago, however now it's 105° F.

Last week it was in the low forties at night.

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Postcard from Second Life.

Cool Shades Day - courtesy of Maxie :D

That's the hazy sky I made for The Fool - it looks superficially like a low draw distance but actually it's a huge amount of obscuring haze with a high draw distance - in other words it makes no sense :D


 
Postcard from Second Life.

MadCow Cosmos's The Fool from the 3d tarot.


 
I don't use voice, however even I have tried out the lip synch function. I think a lot of people don't know about it, at least judging by a mention of it I made on the forums.
If that's you, go here: RC - Advanced - Character - Enable Lip-Sync.



28 June 2008

 

A Chat With One of My Former-Performers
(Luc was Sven in From the Shadows
performed at the New Globe in 2006)

[2008/06/28 17:28]
Lucifer Baphomet: [17:27] Lucifer Baphomet: contact osprey therian [17:27] Lucifer Baphomet: shes doing newsworthy theatre stuff again [17:28] Phoenix Psaltery: ok (17:28] Lucifer Baphomet: :D

[2008/06/28 17:29] Osprey Therian: And let me tell you it ISN'T FUCKING EASY.
[2008/06/28 17:29] Lucifer Baphomet: :)
[2008/06/28 17:29] Lucifer Baphomet: i remember
[2008/06/28 17:29] Osprey Therian: Oh my God it's even harder now.
[2008/06/28 17:30] Osprey Therian: Since WL I have a few performers limping along with 1 fps.
[2008/06/28 17:30] Osprey Therian: ty for passing my name on for... whatever you passed it on for ;D
[2008/06/28 17:31] Osprey Therian: PP: Who is a glutten for punishment - any idea? Luc: contact Os
[2008/06/28 17:32] Lucifer Baphomet: :P

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A man came in as we were beginning our first rehearsal at the Gaiety. He asked me if I would mind if he took pictures for his blog and I said, "Yes." He said, "Yes - you would mind?" I said, "Yes." I said if he asked performers and they said it was ok then he could.

I IMed him during rehearsal to apologise for being grumpy. He was very sweet.

[14:29] Osprey Therian: Sorry - just a bad time - I am sorry for being grumpy though.
[14:29] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.
[15:30] R: Your were not grumpy
[15:31] Osprey Therian: you are too kind
[15:31] Osprey Therian: :D We were having issues ;D
[15:31] R: there is never enough kindness

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OK? OK.


 
What happened to Frisch?
I was scouting castles but the entire thing is gone.

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27 June 2008

 
Watching "Honeydripper" on Nedfligs, which is a 2007 John Sayles film (I like him) about a juke joint in 1950. So far I like it.

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I started out the day waiting an hour for the Titanic owner, who didn't come, but I did a lot of set-up work (she just IMed me and told me she'd put up a phantom wall in our space, which is distessing). People don't actually understand what we do so think their changes are benign, but the changes usually are anything but.

HBA teleported me to Orange Island as they were attempting to get 100 people in a picture. I sat down and immediately got an IM from Jade asking me if I would come - I said "I'm already here." Haha! I asked if anyone remembered that preview pile-on ages ago when there were more than a hundred people in a sim. I remember making a blogpost with a picture of the mini-map showing towers of green dots. Damien Fate said he remembered, so it wasn't my imagination. I've always wondered what happened to that bit of code.

While I was sitting and waiting I shot some footage and made a super-quick machinima to keep busy. I was anticipating filming Serpentus Gigantus later, so set up at the Eleanor and filmed the half without the snake. I was unwilling to send an IM to Salazar as there were grid problems, and anyway today was a nice day and I think most people would not wish to be inside.

So I'm neeeaaarrrlllly finished with the video - I can't wait to get it done and kick about a beellion gigs off my HD.

Enjah got her replacement computer - excellent.


 
Alazi's new act.

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26 June 2008

 

It Is Happening to Others

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25 June 2008

 
Cruising for Castles: Rustica



23 June 2008

 
A message from Share:
"Hello. I saw the link on your blog Sunday evening and spent about 20 minutes as Share, but was suddenly logged off with the message that someone else was trying to log on from another location. That is interesting. Share was with a couple of my friends at the time. I logged me on and there was Share. Share never spoke, unfriended us and after about 5 minutes disappeared."

"Thought you'd get a kick out of hearing from Share."



22 June 2008

 
Les Contes D'Hoffmann
Olympia's Aria "Les oiseaux dans la charmille" (doll song)

Although Olympia is supposed to be able to fool people into thinking she is alive, most stage productions make her obviously mechanical because it's more fun that way.

Here's a very whacky version of the doll song, featuring Moira Shearer dancing and Dorothy Bond singing, in this 1951 film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.


The world's most hard-to-watch* doll song is here.

*Be warned.

Elizabeth Vidal in Concert


Gwendolyn Bradley Onstage

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"I am a public second life character. Please exploit me."

An interesting experiment indeed!


 

A boyscout (Michalius) showed me around Kids5B, which is chock full of well-done content on two sims.
I'm not much taller than Mich. It's funny at Combat Cards sometimes because Doc, Mich, and I are about half the height of the average Second Life resident.



20 June 2008

 
==========:O

From a Guardian news story about the severed human feet washing up in British Columbia:

'"The big picture is that there are body parts washing up all over the place all the time," said Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a retired oceanographer-turned-beachcomber who is writing a book about flotsam and jetsam to be published next year titled The Floating World.'

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19 June 2008

 

"Hi, Osprey. Your doodle was drawn on the Doodle Collage project! Cool idea, by the way. I had a lot of fun drawing it."


 

Avatar Rendering Cost of Ebil

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18 June 2008

 
I was checking in on Open Sim* this morning:Atomic-raygun squished - but web on a prim nonetheless.
A nice message board (type on a channel and the words appear).
A video site.

*I like to go around to various worlds every so often to see how they are faring. I'd spend more time in them except I am busy in Second Life. Sometimes I have a standalone sim (like now) but aside from wanting to experiment with RAW files (which I have wanted to do for six months without finding the time) I'd rather be on a grid.


 
It's interesting to me that the Boeing 767 is much in the news at the moment as that was the last aircraft my pater was on before becoming a general Boeing troubleshooter, retiring, then dying. It's a fuel-efficient plane.

From the Boeing website:
Did you know: The air flowing through a 767-400ER engine at takeoff power could inflate the Goodyear Blimp in seven seconds.

Johnny, take your mouth off the engne cowling - you'll inflate >:[
*POP*


 
There's a weird thread on the SL forum where people, apparently, have just discovered that you can take unlinked objects into your inventory then rez them in build and have them be in the same alignment. I remember saying to Doc about two years ago, "When did rezzing unlinked prims in build get beyond people?" as I was having to explain my custom unlinkable tents very carefully to buyers, and go and demonstrate for them.

Apparently that knowledge was lost by the common resident, and some people have now discovered the information anew. I find that rather bizarre. In the past there was no "coalesced" icon and things returned did not arrive in a wad, but came one by one by one by one by... You get the picture. It was less easy to know what was a group of unlinked prims. Products like the Rez Foo, which originally were intended I think for large builds, became commonly used for even modestly-sized unlinkable builds. I think that's about when the ordinary resident started being unable to function fully.

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For some reason one may rent a cube in Bitropolis. I'm not sure why one would need to, however they do make a nice picture.



17 June 2008

 
Enjah, the little tailor of Palomarian, has killed 2 more. No, not flies, harddrives. Actually she isn't killing them, but it sounds better to say that. /me quickly sews a sash.
What's the score, Enj?

This week has been horrid - the amount of weird, bad things going on is perplexing.


 
Running on Empty

I seem to be overtired. It's not making me go to bed or anything constructive. I am just obsessing over things like the POD cards and deciding ZOMG I am doing it wrong then after beating my head against the wall for an hour realise, no, I was doing it right. I keep agonising over the righthand icon placement. My spacing of icons is as follows: centre the widest icon (they vary in size) then place them all on that line so the numbers on them are straight. That makes them hang over the frame edge, which I like, as it is more 3d-looking.

The righthand icons match the spacing of the lefthand icons. There's a tiny bit of room between the icon and the card edge, which I need for printing vagaries and wear by users. The righthand icons could cleave closer to the right edge, but I tried that and didn't like it. I don't know - I think running a proof and cutting it might help me, but meanwhile I'm agonising over hairswidth spacing. In other words: overtired.


 

Twinity has an outside now!

However after hours of downloading
I went in and wasn't able to access it,
although I am on the list. /me knocks louder
I have a support ticket in and hope it is quickly resolved.

Update: I have access, yay!


 
Yesterday's intense heatwave* is over, and it's 56° (13°C) today. Phew.

* 70° (reputedly)


 
I have a crush on my little round stage, now.

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Audio

Saturday/Sunday
Build stage.
Get invited to land group with request for deeding to group rights.
Monday
Don't have deed rights, so accost strangers and ask them if they have deed rights.
Someone does; give him audio box and he rezzes and deeds it.
Need to add an mp3 doh.
Tuesday
Candide adds the mp3 quickly but now the box needs resetting.
Accost strangers asking them if they can reset the audio box.

Update: The head of security reset the audio box - yay! I must say everyone there has been kind and helpful.

I dunno why it has to be so hard. I can't delete the audio box, either, so afterwards I have to make sure it gets deleted by someone. Ideally I'd have deed and delete rights. Even deed rights makes things easier.


 
This is very true.
*weeps*



16 June 2008

 

Cait's act is fabulous in the ball room!
Sadly we were going to rehearse everything but I discovered I had no audio - I'd been listening to it in vid editing software and hadn't sent it to Candide.
Quick, Os! Run to Candide and jump up and down and wave your arms!

I've been overloaded with CC POD reformatting, BlogHer, TSMGO, rl, and various other important but time-consuming things.

Blowing raspberries on Enjah's head (or maybe I'm wiping my nose) at Abominations. We had to go there and buy Tiny dance anims as on Saturday I gave out 4 and Enj gave out 3. I didn't have one to perform with.

I'm searching for performers for the flea circus. Damnation, Enjah, be still.

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ZOMG
It's 70°

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I was looking for a nice horror-ish build and thought of Tusk. It didn't fit for my purpose, but it is always interesting.



15 June 2008

 

Enj and I at the Gaiety with theatre owner and TSMGO performer Persephone. We are setting up permissions and things so we can get the show prepared.

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Enj, Alba, her friend Auriga, and I had fun watching our own Alazi in La Performance.

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14 June 2008

 
Plumbum

I equate plastics now with the use of lead in Roman times. Cheap! Easily formable! Toxic! When I was young I was rather shocked to find out that styrofoam coffecups were poisonous as it seems the most basic good sense to keep anything toxic away from things one ingests. Even forgetting plastics, the food supply in these parts is contaminated with any number of things from hormones fed to animals to antibiotics to chemical residues so widely dispersed through the air, soil, and water that there is no way to avoid them completely.

Plastics are widely dispersed, too, from the shower curtains people use to food packaging. Manufacturing, using, and disposing of toxic plastics - a modern short-term convenience with a nasty hangover.



13 June 2008

 

I've been busy, so hadn't logged into The Endless Forest in more than a week. I lay down as a fawn in a mask with poppies on my head.

I woke up as a stag in a mask with poppies on my antlers.

Sleeping in a fairy ring.


 

Contest 39: FOOD
Entries will be accepted until the 19th of July.


 

The awards ceremony for Bay City was sparcely attended due to login-closure, but it was fun anyway. I had dolled the gallery up as a deco room, which was fun.



12 June 2008

 
Orange


 
Web-based alternatives to Photoshop.



09 June 2008

 
One Small Step...

[18:42] R : WOW! the time on my tool bar is going BACKWARDS!
[18:43] X: that's awsome!
[18:43] J: kool, time travel xD
[18:43] N: Time travel?
[18:43] H: be careful. you may wind up in diapers if it goes too far back.
[18:43] R: a minute ago it was 642 ... then voila! its 640!

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Brrrrrrrrrr

I'm not complaining as I have difficulty with hot weather, however 54 degrees is a bit low for June. That's the temperature right now. The high tomorrow is supposed to be 52° (11° C).



07 June 2008

 
My pal Lucia is now blogging for Harriet, the Poetry Foundation blog.



06 June 2008

 
8 June is World Ocean Day.

There is a continent-sized floating garbage patch in the Pacific ocean that is chiefly plastic, and it's not the only one.

Limit your use of plastics when possible.





 
The film Water by filmmaker Deepa Mehta is available in the instant play section of Netflix, where so many wonderful films languish. It's a very good film.

Mehta concedes that Water is a call to action — but not in the way you might think.

“We are very good, as different nations and different cultures, to have a collective amnesia about our own [problems],” says Mehta. “[Water] is about three women trying to break that cycle and trying to find dignity, and trying to get rid of the yoke of oppression, and if it inspires people to do something in their own culture, that’s what’s important.”

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05 June 2008

 
Spore... nearer my spore to thee...

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04 June 2008

 

At the Eleanor Theatre Enjah showed me the flea accoutrements she has enshrunkavated from their usual size (under a magnifying glass). :-D

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Yippee!
LL is deploying server code on Aditi that includes this:

  • DEV-14174: Avatar no longer sinks slowly while hovering (and ‘hopefully’ no longer displays other slow rise/fall symptoms in hover modes)

I hope it makes a quick dash to Agni - the drop-and-hover has been a small but bothersome bug.


Update: Bodega and Phobos (only sims I checked) had the new code Thursday morning.

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Yesterday
Fog in the Forest
Picnic on Tina's installation



03 June 2008

 
From the LL blogpost about SL5B:

"We’ll close with a ceremony including a special guest speaker with a very important announcement."

I wonder what that could be. I can't begin to guess. I tried - I can hardly think of anything that would be of interest to everyone, and nothing I can think of is likely.
Guest speaker: not one of us. Announcement: done deal. Very important: uh... scary. Maybe my idea of "very important" doesn't match theirs. "Important" must be for all residents, though.

IPO?
A permeable barrier to VR so people can flit around as the same entity?
Neal Stephenson has written a book about SL?
SL 2.0?
UN declares SL its own separate country?
Gort, Klaatu barada nikto?
Uploading of mind now available?
Forming a partnership with some other VR like HiPiHi?
All VRs working in conjunction?
Nvidia is forming a partnership with LL and offering all premium members 50% off video cards?
First Linden in space? (Doesn't include Bub.)
LL partnering with hardware company which will produce SL-ready computers?
LL offering certification for hardware so people can purchase "SL Certified" computers.
Dalai Llama announces Tibet will be expanding its role as spiritual centre of the world by creating a presence in Second Life?
Haney Linden is going to come back and open the beta time capsule?
Someone declares SL birthday an official world holiday?


You wouldn't think things like open-sourcing server code, mono, puppeteering, etc. would be at all the type of things that might be announced as hardly anyone has a clue about them.



02 June 2008

 
I had jin shin then a dentist appointment. Frank worked on my RSI which has been back for a week. I left there and went to get a few groceries - nuts*, cheese**, and something else. Oh, some kind of seed/fruit mix with raw sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, cranberries, almonds, sultanas, and so on.

I arrived at the dentist's a bit early and was asked if I'd like to go to a different hygienist as she'd had a no-show. I did (I know them all, anyway), and told her not to yell at me but during the 2 months I had the crushing pain I hadn't been as dedicated a tooth wrangler as I should've been. She said, "I won't yell at you," but Jill shouted, "I will!" over the wall section. Heh, but apparently no shouting was necessary as it was all fine. We talked about Enjah's work for her local no-kill shelter, and animals in general (everyone there being animal people), and lakes, mostly.

*Almonds
**Double Gloucester


 
The Golden Compass

Finally it came limping in 10 days late, so I watched it. Enjoyable to watch in a drivel-icious way, when one is in the mood for nothing much and holds no expectations. Well, take 4 parts Star Wars, 4 parts Harry Potter, 1 part LotR and 1 part The Sting (the part where Paul Newman first appears) - mix it up in a basin with half a pint of blue dye.

It is always nice to see old reliables like Christopher Lee, though. The heroine had no character ("plucky orphan" is all), and there was nothing in the film aside from visuals. Nicole Kidman is beautiful and her first gown in the film is stunnng (I was wrong - it's not the first. Actually the one I like is half an hour in when the little girl is wearing a blue dress). It's shocking to see her spank the monkey ====:O

It made me feel funny to see a chinchilla collar in the film. In the future will people "love" animals only through computer generated shadows, or, indeed, is that what is happening now?

I forgot to add that there's no weather in the film. Although much of it takes place in the frozen lands of the north, no one is cold at all, and even when the uncle is standing on a crest surveying the ice plain and speaking no cloud of icy breath comes from his mouth. That quite struck me.

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01 June 2008

 

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I want to ask for thoughts about improving the world -- what do people need? How can things be organised?