atomic-raygun

 
             

   
 
 
----------->vivian-oblivion<--------

Site Feed

www.flickr.com

28 February 2010

 
Air GuitarMorning Lake

My camera battery died the other day, so I didn't bother to take many pictures until the new one came. They last ages and ages - this is the third I've had including the one that came with the camera when I bought it umpteen hundreds of years ago. It was a nice camera when it came out and still is perfectly fine for my noodling around - a Sony DSC S85 Cybershot that I bought nine or so years ago (for some princely sum). Amazing how things change - however my needs have, too, so I wind up downsizing my offerings as I really only post to my blob.

Labels:



 
Like An Anxiety Dream:
The 2.0 Nudibug

Tina: i arrived at a huge opening dressed in an accordion ONLY

The sheer wonderfulness of "an accordian ONLY" makes me swoon. I myself appeared at a music venue in less than complete dress (I DID have a shirt on, though), but fortunately no one was there. There was nothing swoon-worthy about that dull inadvertent wardrobe malfunction, but I shall begin carrying my bagpipes, as that would lend the occasion some panache.

Labels:




27 February 2010

 
Ice

A thousand square mile iceberg has broken off Antarctica.


 
Lucy's post on the handmade book by C.G.Jung

and its recent printing

led me to find this .pdf version

with English translation.


 

"Dangerous Script" Icon


 
Self-Healing
I realised suddenly that struggling with the media controls is going to go away because, unlike when I first logged in using 2.0 to my own parcel with both video and audio playing automatically and cacophonously and no obvious way to turn them off quickly and individually, no one will have both on in the future. There won't be a point when you can fling a film onto a prim.

I dunno if streaming parcel-based vids will still be used for theatre-type showings, or if that will just go away entirely. The parcel-based all-at-once-with-no-address-bars vids are useful for things like my video domes, but I'm sure even that can be done with web-on-a-prim. I haven't played around with it much aside from, like everyone else, setting up a stream (someone asked a ustream question on the blogorums, so I just went and threw a stream from Aditi back into Aditi - someone is ALWAYS asking ustream questions - I don't get it since it's about as simple as it could possibly be. note: Enj, that's what I used to stream your gallery opening that time ages ago).


 
Eep. Earthquake in Chile, 8.8. :-(

That's unimaginably huge.

Update: Photos in the Big Picture.
How is Easter Island?



26 February 2010

 
Just a quick test: streaming live into SL.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5043820



 
I'll try to list how I am using the 2.0 viewer here:

Right-click address bar "show parcel properties" parcel info/icons/coordinates
Control-Alt D advanced menu
Control-Alt Q develop menu

Need to use:
Control-Shift I inventory

Easiest to use World - Show Minimap, then open the Map from the Minimap when needed.

I THINK the only drop option is to use the IM field.

For attachments to notices you need the proper Cntrl-Shift inventory window, not the one on the right, so you can drag and drop onto the square.

to be continued

Notes:
Generally speaking 2.0 is doable if one can learn to dig, and the new features are very nice.

The worst part is the media controls. If you have autoplay media on everything plays at once, so I turned that off. If I want to turn audio or video on I click the media control, click "More," click "Show all on this parcel," click the one I want, then hit play.

Just noticed: when you receive a Friend request it comes through the IM window.

After today I need to go and rescue my profile Notes, as it's full of important information but not accessible in 2.0 as far as I can see. I use that a ton - because, you know, if I need to make a note about someone it really does no good to put it onto their profile. "Oh yes, I remember that - I made a note on the owner's profile and... now what was his name? Oh, I could check my chatlogs except they were all deleted when I had to uninstall/reinstall 2.0. Well... I can go through two million profiles! OK! One... two..."

I need to spend some time trying to figure out the outfits thing, as it doesn't seem to work correctly [items not included in the outfit as seen in the Outfits tab still are accessed and worn, relogging has left me with different unworn items each time - once clothing, once hair - and attempting to wear those things from the same outfit did nothing (I resorted to wearing from an inventory folder)]. The way I used it was to delete all the library outfits and, by going into Appearance, create an outfit from what I was wearing, which showed in Outfits. Perhaps that wasn't quite right.

Gestures seem not to work but I haven't investigated further or attempted to redo/reactivate them.


2.0 reminds me of Tanko Bushi:



25 February 2010

 


This is good film. Mothers, grown children, a father, and their chance meetings weave an intricate story back and forth in time and space.
All the performances are good, but unsurprisingly Hanna Schygullah stands out.

Labels:



 
Duh.

"Biologists: Killer whales 'neurotic' in captivity"

Anyone surprised by that has never been around animals - or captive humans. Even long-domesticated animals such as horses develop various kinds of unbreakable self-destructive neurotic behaviours if kept in an unnatural environment - say, a stable, which is physically restrictive and boring.

Let's take a wild creature and pen it up then make it do tricks to amuse us!

Labels: , ,




24 February 2010

 
Alpha Masks
I made a couple of quick alpha masks yesterday from textures I had (including a totally invisible av), and was jazzed that there was no conflict with water/alpha textures, but just now spent ten minutes making one in P'shop as I needed to explore further.
Results:
It's either/or, so 100% alpha makes everything underneath disappear, but anything less (well truthfully I only went to 80%) shows everything as opaque - an awesome, revolutionary development that will take away many, many huge botherations, like Tinies against water, feet on dancefloors, flea av wearers appendages, peglegs (attn: Unga Pau, World Despot), and robotic limbs with wires.
Imagine:
Use the head template to guide placement; make a white alpha channel with a black dot on the forehead area, upload and wear - now you have a hole in your head.


 
I need to use macros, really, as it's hard to stretch my hand all over the keyboard, not to mention remembering them all. Cntrl + Alt + i is going to be necessary now, since the 2.0 viewer is a wee bit funny when you need to add attachments to notices.



23 February 2010

 
HTML On a Prim


 
Be Careful.

I had to uninstall and it wiped everything to do with Second Life's official viewer.

Hey, I wasn't finished with those chatlogs!
No settings: IR noob.

Update: I keep forgetting to say I uninstalled because a ton of media was playing automatically and the play/pause buttons are reversed. SL seized up and went into spasms at .3 fps, and I should've just rebooted, but I was ill and made the wrong choice.


 
Shadows 2.0
Enable Framebuffer Objects then Deferred Rendering.


 


Viewer 2.0

So far I can't find HOVERTIPS. If anyone sees them let me know.
Gone except for hot objects, but I expected that :(
=============
Can't suppress the UI properly. That's a bad 'un.
VOTE HERE
=============
No indicator for Flycam :(
Vote: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-17017
=============
I see HIPPOS.
All is not lost.
The old Flycam text was recycled as a badge!
=============
Alphaed skins + tattoos.
=============
There's something funny about making outfits. I made an outfit that showed 2 things out of several, but it actually worked OK, it just showed peculiarly.
=============
The YOU ARE HERE THING on Place Profile is really funny!


New and Improved! 25% more FREE
=============
Health Meter Update:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-17051 damage meter is shown in address bar if you right-click "show parcel properties"

I was wrong. Yay!



22 February 2010

 
I accidentally wound up with Slumdog Millionaire because it wove its way up to the top of my Netflix queue when I wasn't paying attention. I put it on the queue because it's one of those films everyone says is good but which I don't think I'll like, and I was right - I didn't think it was very good. The performance of Anil Kapoor as the show host was a standout, however, so at least there was one bright spot.

This type of movie is hard to rate in Netflix as their system goes from 3 stars (liked it) to 2 stars (didn't like it). I think it's 3 stars but more like Manipulative-feel-good-pabulum-yet-not-entirely-lousy-just-not-to-my-taste. I suppose I should rate entirely subjectively or there's no point, but I still wouldn't give it 2 stars - more like a "meh."

Labels:



 
Enjah's Tiny noir thriller is finished!

Notice the *incredible* acting on the part of Harry, the police detective ;-D

Labels:




21 February 2010

 
Thorium In 16 Minutes

Labels:



 
I stumbled across a blogpost I made in 2007 that talks about the shared space that was Kinko's when that type of business (use of copiers, computers, paper cutters, staplers) began. That was sort of the beginning of what we have with the internet - and which is not a brand new thing, just a brand new (global) scale for an old thing.

I feel more hopeful in a way, now, as it seems we approach a tipping point with our sharing and shared memories and lessening of individuality. We may all be us, and there will be no them. People won't try to change - they won't do things that require effort. What will happen is that the sharedness, the us-ness, will become like the air surrounding us, and without effort or thought there will be a new way of thinking about one's place in the world.

Listening to, at the MMIF last night, the Nigerian filmmaker whose film addresses political issues he said could get him arrested, made me think about the degree of interaction ordinary people can have, and how much to the status quo's advantage it is to keep that from happening.

A-R in 2007 -
"It's a bifurcated path. One side fosters anything but a global village - more like techno-haves being able to ignore reality. The other side of the split is the techno-haves frothing madly with youtube and facebook and twitter and craigslist and google - which is nice to see and something that I first saw happening with copy shops like Kinko's that encouraged people to hang out and make things. All of a sudden, I could go and to do SOMETHING (making xeroxes of weird objects for handbound books was one little project) and when I walked in the shop was jam-packed with people doing hobby group newsletters, geneological whatsits, making stationary, copying blueprints - I don't know. I was jazzed to see lots of people immersed in their chosen projects and working side by side in a creative zone.

That part in the history of technology was a brief time as soon afterwards it became normal to have most of the tools at home - no need to go to the shared space. I'm not social at all but even I enjoyed being part of that busy mass. In a way there's still a busy mass but it's a disembodied mass. MM said, "When you are on the phone or on the air, you have no body."

There's techno-havenots - and if something happens to cut off the trizzities and still the automobiles they will probably take over since much of the old survival knowledge has not been passed on in the techno-have clans. Who knows. It's a familiar plot of science fiction - the split in humanity with one elite segment* separate from or ruling over the masses.

It would be too sad if the elite turned out to be grotty us with no flying cars and no plugging in our brains to gain the knowledge of the world painlessly in 35 minutes and no immortality. What if this is the split and we're as high as the elite gets before Things Happen and anyone with the ability to grow a turnip, kill a chicken, and suffer toothache swoops in to inherit the earth?"


 
AM-ish Paradise

Canal (should've changed the water but was too sick to bother)
Old Airfield

Much of it is very AM-ish. An AM-ish paradise.
If you want to know where it is ask Molly - jPeace? dunno *collapses*


 
WhoseTube?

A short article analysing ways the music industry doesn't understand how viral works, written by someone with first-hand experience (OK Go).



20 February 2010

 

DADAMACHINIMA
Originally uploaded by PLANETART

Shot of MMIF2010 from PlanetArt in Amsterdam
It was a mixed reality film festival :-D



 

Postcard from Second Life.
Originally uploaded by Vivian Oblivion

Party just started!

Films are Here.

My films included are Virtual Reality in the Future, and Therapy.

From the website:

‘MMIF 2010′ is the second edition of an annual film festival in 3D cyberspace with a screening in physical space (‘RL’). A seven hour movie marathon with a two hour afterparty. MMIF 2010 can also be followed on the web via live stream broadcasts.

The MMIF is a celebration of ‘Machinima’: a new cinematic art form, created with virtual worlds and video games. On 3D Internet platforms like Second Life®, any kind of movie sets can be build for very low costs. The MMIF aims to bring machinima to a wider audience, online – and offline. Machinima artists from all over the world are present in real time at the virtual MMIF Theatre. They present over 50 short films and have talks with other machinimatographers and an international audience.


Many thanks to Chantal Harvey.


Labels:



 
Safeco just sent me a letter - they donated their art collection to the Washington Art Consortium. I think that's good news (they have two paintings of mine so I hope they choose to display them).

From Philanthropy News Digest:

Safeco Donates Hundreds of Artworks to Washington Art Consortium

Safeco Insurance has announced that it has donated more than eight hundred artworks from the Safeco Art Collection to the Washington Art Consortium.

The gift, worth an estimated $3.5 million, according to the Seattle Times, includes nearly 500 works on paper, 130 on canvas and panel, and more than 180 three-dimensional objects such as glass, ceramic, bronze, and mixed media, including pieces by internationally known Northwest artists Jacob Lawrence, Fay Jones, Morris Graves, Barbara Thomas, and George Tsutakawa. Well-known in the local art community for its strength in contemporary Northwest art, the Safeco collection encompasses a diversity of philosophies, ideas, and cultural backgrounds.

The Washington Art Consortium comprises seven major art museums, including the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Washington State University Museum of Art in Pullman. Over the coming year, the works from the Safeco collection will be displayed at each of the WAC member museums, beginning at Seattle's Wright Exhibition Space in April.

"Safeco has a rich legacy in art investment [over] more than thirty years, so it was important to find a donation partner that could preserve the collection in such a way that would honor the rich history of the Northwest and its art," said Safeco president Michael Hughes. "The Washington Art Consortium is our perfect partner, and we look forward to watching the collection come to life in museums across our state."




19 February 2010

 
Scratchy Cough :(
Sore throat
Glands
Chest
etc

A: Head, B: Body from b0tterman on Vimeo.




18 February 2010

 
Sore Throat/Coughing/Burning Chest/Headache

Be careful, in case my blog is infected (don't lick your monitor).


 
Is it just me being fanciful or has the image upload quality suddenly nosedived?

I noticed it last night.

Update: I think it's just my own weirdness.

Labels:



 
It became necessary to begin-end in one spot - so this looks like it's it!


 
Nobody likes planes flying into buildings :(



17 February 2010

 
Google's phone picture translator is interesting. It seems very useful.



16 February 2010

 

Postcard from Second Life.
Originally uploaded by Vivian Oblivion

Tina's Fifth Rezday
She got an official greeting from the Swedish embassy :-D



 



Leave a trail, draw in the air, change the colours using a web interface - and more! - at the great contraption Opensource Obscure called Chromutate.
Filmed using KirstenLee's S19.



15 February 2010

 


My MOTHER?!!??
(She says at about 2:00)
Sid Caesar and Nanette Fabray

Labels:



 
This is the next part of my everything-I-think-is wrong-is-right extravaganza, except I am too tired to do more than lay 10% of it out. I hope I'll get back to it as it doesn't make much (any?) sense as-is, I'm sure.

User Interface

Our brains contain what we use to interface with the world, and our senses are part of it, too.

Inventory
Things we posess are linked (memory) and seem to include many types:

Things close to hand (close to hand changes according to where we are)
Things accessible but not close to hand
Things we own but can't access without effort
Big things like land
Things that don't exist like bank balances
Memories (like Snapshots in SL)
Dreams/Dream memories (bit like wireframe)
Shared memories (movies, books, television - degree of sharing is greater as the personal input lessens)

Bugs:
Things we think we own but actually got rid of years ago
Memories that are false
Dreams we think are real
Illusions

There's a moving around thing going on. Whereas in SL we have things in our inventories, things rezzed, and things worn, in real life we just hold the links to most things except for memories, which exist only in our heads.

Partial breakdown of inventory (I broke down before finishing):

Relationships
Family
Friends
Acquaintances
People we don't like
People who are meaningful to us because of positive things ("That salesman is always smiling.")
People who are meaningful to us because of negative things ("That deliveryman gives me the creeps.")
People we've heard of but don't know (Nelson Mandela, A.S. Byatt, Zazu Pitts)- exist in reality and in imaginations of people so they are like shared memories<-- shared significance

People we've heard of who don't exist (James Bond, Gandalf, Philip Marlowe) - exist only in imaginations of people so they are like shared memories<-- shared significance Safety<---->Danger
Input from senses (smell smoke, feel softness, hear a familiar voice)
Energy
Cogitative effort and capacity
Degree of interest in self-preservation ("It was on fire when I lay down on it.")
Response to slow-moving danger as opposed to immediate danger
Imagination

Bugs:
People who don't exist but we think they do
People who exist but are entirely different from our impression, accidentally
Viruses:
Media Constructs<-- shared significance
People who exist but are entirely different from our impression by their nefarious design (scammers, politicians, gypsy fortunetellers, oversexed boyfriends)

Personality
Reactions to other people's reactions to our appearance
Reactions to other people's personalities and appearances
Sense of humour
Cheerfulness/lugubriousness
Reactions to incidental details in our lives (born rich, orphaned, talented at singing)
Empathy

AND HERE I BROKE OFF

Anyway...
We have gone from sharing with a few people in our unit (cave, village, family) to sharing a small percentage of things with millions (Star Trek, Ode to Joy, Peter Pan) to sharing a significant percentage with billions (Internet, global news, movies, television, music). We must be near a tipping point when there will be no more "them," only "us."

Labels:



 


OK, things got a bit weirder.


 
Embryo


 
Chromutate @ LOL



14 February 2010

 


Departures

This gentle, little film explores how ritual allays timeless fears. As modern man in his isolation fails to recognise the value in ritual, it is abandoned, but the fears stand in the way of healing.

Sadly, the Netflix version has totally effed up audio.

Labels:



 
Forums
Oh, well - it's fun reading forums. I was *shocked* mightily last year whent the Goons succeeded in causing the demise of BoB - but I haven't been paying much attention to the EVE forum since then. Now, though, it seems the GoonFleet imploded royally in EVE a couple of weeks ago, but are already bullying the locals in STO, where they are Starfleet Dental, with a big molar logo. Their antics are always sort of amusing unless they happen to be playing fast and loose in one's own neck of the woods.

EVE players are looking down their noses at STO, which does sound buggy and much less hardcore. The EVE forums are nice because of the very blunt speech, which I find interesting to read. In a forum for "new citizens" someone asked about things to do for someone who isn't interested in PvP or working with others. Very bluntly (but usefully) they pointed out that the OP and the game were not a good match. Sometimes, it's true, there is no point in persisting.

I've considered trying it, in the past, except that almost no games work one-handed. It was like that with LOVE especially after Eskil made the AI more active (temporarily because he was trying to solve a problem that turned out not to be helped by doing that). I'd log in, then get killed after X (short) amount of time as the AI honed in on me in their rather relentless fashion. Then I'd log in again. I couldn't move and shoot, so I hardly ever got them before they got me. I'd log off after ten minutes, in agony because I'd try to do things I can't do, which is why I didn't re-up.

I was fond of shooting monsters in PE, and may one day go back and resume that pursuit. Part of the interest was in needing to read and study literally hundreds of pages of data on weaponry and things, for which the (now defunct) Entropia Pioneers were very useful. I just threw all that out recently, too. In There everyone hacked up their clients to have various player-made additions for er... emotes and GPS, I think.

Before I got to SL I'd read every single piece of documentation which (I didn't know at the time) were absolutely MAJESTICALLY out of date. I spent months expecting to pay to TP and to use light :-D I never did use light much because it was dinned into us that it was a resource hog. That was before fullbright and hardware lights - the only thing we had was local lighting - a huge fps hit that was left off until necessitated by a special venue (Gravity Space Station, once in a blue moon).

I spent ten minutes on the Blue Mars forum earlier, but BM makes me feel tired for some reason. I suppose my energy and enthusiasm has been used up.

Update: Oof, apparently the TGers are merged into the blogorum along with the rest of the people.

Labels:




13 February 2010

 
ZOMG I Sorry

*gets on knees*

Please forgive me. I should never've gone there but they have vBulletin and... I miss the forum a lot and.. it won't happen again.



I swear I'll never go to the There forums again :-(



I think I'll go read Blue Mars, EVE, and PE. Myst is always interesting, too.


 
My friend says about her grandson:

"When he was younger, I bought him a swimming suit with flotation. We called it his floaty suit. He outgrew it a few months back so he wore a regular bathing suit. The problem is that even in a heated indoor pool, he still gets cold because he is such a thin little guy. I got him a shorty wet suit and told him he could swim really well now because he was wearing a warm floaty suit. He ended up trying to swim, but only able to keep his eyes above water. He was definately losing ground when I pulled him back up. He looked at me disgusted and said, 'Silly BaBa. This is not a floaty suit--Its a sinky suit.'

He says he has a little light inside of him so that if he opens his mouth we can look in and see that what he drinks turns to pee and what he eats turns to poo. He says he has a magic ear that causes this to all take place.


 


PICK A DUCK/PARADE ROUTE FOR THE 20 MARCH


 
Copycats - Just Trying to be like Salazar >:[

Labels: ,



 
I love how Myst Online refuses to die :-D

In the world of online games, usually the plug that gets pulled by the company means the customers are well and truly out of luck forever. In a complex place like Uru, where the players develop great love for the interactions and general style - so much so that an identifiable Myst diaspora spread out across the internet into places like There and Second Life - it's like exile. Once the place was home - now it's gone forever: the sadness of avatars is that they live inside a company, and decisions are made based on company health and prosperity, not avatar rights (it is difficult to see how avatars could have a right to exist, although in our little electronic pipedreams we wish we could have that).

I think it was like this: Cyan developed Myst, put in online, shuttered it, but players resurrected it, then Cyan got back in the action, then it went down again, and now it's back up again, and free. Although I'm not much of a Myst Online player* some of my dearest friends are, and must be rejoicing a bit. Their servers are being hammered at the moment, which means there's interest; I hope the donation effort carries them through this rough patch and into solvency.

* I tried it and just couldn't like the fly-eye thing. My earliest Myst memory, though, is before it was online, as Sam had the game. That was back in the simple, crude game days of the mid-90s.

Labels:



 
Goofing around 2004


 
Art Expo 2004


 
Governor's Mansion 2004


 
Taber-Welsh 2004


 
The Ivory Tower in 2004


 
Abbotts 2004


 
Armord in Miramare - looking South to Grignano 6 July 04


 
Found some old pictures.
My first day - flying around attaching things all over just for fun.

This is my second day in SL.



12 February 2010

 
Inventory must be a very big issue* to LL, to judge from the little bit of information that manages to seep under the door. I've always thought about it, and it's a very difficult issue given that there's no LL-built backup system. I would say that as long as third-party backup systems can export one's own creations to xml, I could live with an absolute inventory cap.**

What I couldn't live with is artificial-obsolescence-by-age, with or without backup systems (but especially without). In my view of things, which is my ritual versus fashion theory, things become more valuable as they become older because I'm ritual-based. In fashion things lose value as they age (don't confuse fashion with style).

That's me, though - perhaps there are people who are the opposite in SL. *pauses* Nah.

* Understandably.
** People have (somewhat meanly) for years advocated capping free account inventories to effectively add value to premium accounts.


 
On the set of The Malted Bunny, Enjah's new fim. I play a police detective here, and Enjah is a PI.


 


I'm 20 minutes into Surrogates, which so far has an interesting story but is so badly directed/edited I can hardly stand it. I watched a trailer for a Chinese movie today that was really funny: Triumph! (shows people cheering) Sadness! (shows people crying) Struggle! (shows preople struggling). This is like that in a very plodding and maudlin way, but a movie, not a trailer. It's like a movie for people who aren't paying attention so every little thing has to be reinforced heavy-handedly. Bludgeoning and soul-deadening.

Maybe it will pick up in a few minutes!
lol

I don't really get why you'd need human scale. That's a lot of junk to build and move around and cycle through after it'd reached the end of its use. If people had pint-sized surrogates then your house and property would instantly be huge. Even at, say, 4 feet tall, all horses would be nice and big, not little things like they are now. Everything would be better :-D


Update: All I can say is, "Dudes, where are your surge suppreessors?"
Further update: Wow, that was really bad.

Labels: ,



 
"Freebie Mitigation"

Ha ha! That must be the first time in history those words have been used together. Not even mentioning "freebie mitigation roadmap."

Labels:



 
I just finished watching Frygtelig lykkeli, which is not bad. It strives to create an atmosphere of strangeness, and succeeds, but we've seen that umpteen times before. The acting was good, especially the lead. It was worth seeing - just a bit over the top in general, though.

I think it translates to Terribly Lucky, which makes much more sense - then again I don't speak Danish.

TY, C :-D


 
Last night in Omega Point



11 February 2010

 
Trying out a media player thing: Fyfe Dangerfield – She Needs Me


 
Aviary has just "set itself free."

"As of today, we have decided to make using Aviary's suite of editing tools FREE for everyone.

At Aviary, we believe that everyone in the world should have access to powerful creation tools. We therefore chose our company mission to be We make creation accessible to everyone. Our powerful set of tools helps fulfill this mission by enabling small businesses, students, artists & creators across different genres."


 

VANITAS. from Tale of Tales on Vimeo.


My fave game creators Tale of Tales have joined the iPhone app dev clan with their Vanitas. As always they think a bit differently and create things with subtle beauty.



10 February 2010

 

Jiri Trnka, illus. for H.C.Andersen Fairy Tales, 1959
Originally uploaded by A Journey Round My Skull

Jiri Trnka, illus. for H.C.Andersen Fairy Tales, 1959

As seen on A Journey Round My Skull, an excellent blog.



 
Yo, dawg...

"Google on Wednesday said that it plans to build a series of experimental high-speed networks that will provide broadband connectivity at speeds 100 times beyond typical U.S. broadband connections.

"We doing this because we want to experiment with new ways to make the Web better and faster for everyone, allowing applications that would be impossible today," said Google product manager James Kelly in a video.*

Google expects that the availability of high-speed Internet access will allow developers to create new applications that haven't yet been imagined."

*Although the quote says "we doing this" that's not actually what he says.



09 February 2010

 

Metal things
Originally uploaded by Cause Without A Rebel

Metal things



 

The Wailing Wall

"We will be making the url to the archived forums available as soon as it is available."

I'm trying to get interested in the *new* blogorums which popped up out of the carcase of the forum, and I hope a lot of changes will occur that make that software useable. Right now it's a lot like Assyrian architecture (you never know where you are), but maybe it can be beaten into a useable format.

I don't understand why it was necessary to - not reinvent the wheel, but take a non-wheel and put it in place of a wheel. Is there something for the user that makes it better than actual forum software? Right now the only reason anyone can think of for it being used is a desire on the part of LL to limit and control interactions from customer to LL and customer to customer.

Update: Every once in a while I go to the Jive site looking for their forum so I can find out more about them, but I've decided they don't have one.


 
As seen on Laughing Squid:

Labels:




08 February 2010

 
In a 2006 thread about griefing, Jopsy posted this great list:

I think the cornerstone for griefing is "disrespect" in any of it's many manifestations. Just for fun, here's a stab at the 7 deadly sins of SL =)

SLOTH: Unwelcomed Loitering and Littering

WRATH: Unprovoked assault (verbal) and/or battery (physical)

GREED: Selling freebies, begging/demanding L$, land swooping

GLUTTONY: deliberately lagging folks by hogging resources with scripts, excessive prims, bling/particle spam, many physical objects, too many light sources, enormous textures, ...

ENVY: annoying and inappropriate "Look at me!" stunts that interrupt events, parties, conversations or just people just trying to do their own thing

PRIDE: drama factories, like self-centered types that threaten a storm of community retaliation if they don't get apologies for whatever imagined slight they were offended by

LUST: foisting mature objects, textures or animations on uninterested people

Labels:



 
Regarding the Destruction of the Forums Set for 9 Feb 2010
(A little End-of-Times levity)

DV: This just in!
Apparently, no one currently employed at LL knows the admin password for the forums.secondlife.com server, so they cannot disable logins or posts! The only person who knew the password had left employment over 2 years ago.

Labels: ,




06 February 2010

 

Join the reenactment of an event from Nova Albion's history on 20 March at 2pm!

In 1887 a large number of wild migrating ducks lost their way and came down in the middle of an important municipal gathering, then ran amok through the city. The mayor cried, "Fowl!" but the city fathers attempted to whitewash the situation.

Join the flock of confused ducks as they struggle to find their migratory route! (Duck avatars supplied - meet in Southern Grignano). Increasing the mayhem quotient will be the Bay City Blurtophone Band, who will attempt to drive the ducks from the city!



05 February 2010

 


The Return

Two boys are astounded when their father - absent for twelve years - turns up.
Haunting and beautiful film, with incredible acting and cinematography.

Labels:



 
Tooltips
Someone on the forums in this thread expressed exasperation with the tooltips that annoyingly cover up things like the chat field. When some people erroneously thought she meant hovertips I said I thought she meant the squared-off boxes (annoying help messages), not the rounded hovertips (which I can't do without). I knew, theoretically, there was a way to alter the files to get rid of that, but had never done it, so there was nothing I could add.

SuezanneC jumped in most helpfully, explaining how to get rid of them, and the OP responded by saying, 'Thank you so much! The one that was driving me crazy the most was "Press enter to say, something else to shout". That file is called panel_chat_bar.xml.
Once I edited and relogged, it was gone! Yay!'

I agree - yay, and thank you, SuezanneC.

Labels:



 
Peek360°

Automatically generated panoramic views from the coordinates you specify are sent to your email address when you use Peek360° to get a glimpse of SL without logging in. It's a free app from Avatrian, who are the people who built RMB City.

Interestingly, I submitted a guess as to coordinates, then ten minutes later had a message from Rod of Avatrian saying he thought my Z had been too high. I replied, "I was going off half cocked - I did a second one with better coordinates (not guessing!) that will look better I hope. Still, the first one is interesting ;-D Interesting app - thanks!" I was trying to get my pavilion and things, which of course means missing my cave, but oh well. Can't have everything.

It has a handy share feature that allows me to stick the panorama
directly on this blog, FaceBug, MicePace, and Twitter.

Avatrian, what about Avatars United? (Also it's Osprey, not Atomic.)




 


Ugly Furniture!

Labels:



 


Tiny Invasion!
Enjah's film will be shown at the Raglan Film Festival Saturday Sunday morning at 11:30 am.



04 February 2010

 
Cleaning Out My CP

First private message - 31 December 2004 from Enjah:

the fuckin brick killed my COMPUTER!

I was in and exulting and you said /me throws brick at Enjah and BAM! my computer froze SO BAD I had to turn off the power supply!

LOL

I replied quoting Enjah's signature:

"With identical bricks, one man builds his happiness, the other his despair, but a truly resourceful woman can crash a computer thousands of miles away." --Osprey

Enjah replied facetiously:

YOU ARE SO POWERFUL!
I BOW TO YOUR SUPERIOR WISDOM AND POWER
/me bows deeply

---------------------------
Another message came 29 August 2005 after Torley Torgeson left and I made a Torley Trap to lure him back to Second Life:

Torley Trap

it worked. thanks, Jadey gave me one... so cute... lol... ^_^

--------------------------
Enj sent me a message when she was in France in May 2006:

Lonely in Nice

MWF, 59, vacationing in France, is homesick and misses all the pleasures of Second Life.

-------------------------
Also in May 2006 Sarg pointed out that my postcount made me 1337:

1337

Congratulations on being so 1337!

Sorry, just saw your message count and couldn't stop myself )

Sarg

------------------------




 
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-5349

My latest stupid idea meant to alleviate the limited group number issue:

Since one can set an object to the correct group then leave that merchants group, the only reason to stay in merchant groups is to change the rezzed objects. I wonder if there could be an addition to Group functions that could allow a list of former members, OKed by the group owner, to join without needing owner permission.

So it would be:

A forms Group 1 and invites B, C, D, E.
They all place objects and B and C leave the group.
A has a list of all members, and one of the default role capabilities is "rejoin any time."
A unticks that capability for D, because D reveals herself to be an asshat.
B needs to change his vendor, so he rejoins the group, changes the vendor, then leaves.
C never needs to rejoin as all her things are networked.

I suppose it wouldn't really help as there would need to be a ton of checking going on and it would be very complicated, but I'm just telling it anyway in case it's useful.


 
This kind of thing is horrifying and common:

AO: "I am on the crux of banning all (so-called famous shoe reseller) products from my sim. I'm tired of people coming around with a pair of shoes running over 0.500 milliseconds. LL needs to disable all (so-called famous shoe reseller) products as a public service."

SG: "I hear you Ann, I have guests that come to my sims with as much as 4.x ms (yes, four milliseconds) on their avatar.
You, as an estate owner, can disable the running of scripted items but you can't unload them from memory."

And I KNOW people love their multi-gadgets and mystitools, but I've always thought those were killing SL. I don't get why people think they need them, either. It might be a good exercise for a Linden to get kitted out with all the accoutrements some people wear, then see what the experience is like.


 
Kidnapped!
Ozymandias (my brother) set up a trap for Eileen (his former lover), using Anchor (who lacks imagination so is an easily-used pawn). Lying in wait for her, he watched her approach Cafe Jack, and quickly put his plan into action (she received a drop down notice saying "Ozymandias Flytrap's lustful desires would like to kidnap you." and an "OK" button. She pressed "OK" and then they went dancing at Ambat (kidnapping isn't easy in SL).

Being surrounded by new people (which is not something she does much of), she was taken aback by something:

"Ppl talk about Lindens as if the were fauns or griffons!"

Someone, noting her age (haha!) had asked her if she'd "ever seen a Linden."*

*This despite the fact that one sat at Ambat for about an hour the other day.


 
ZOMG *faints*

Molly sent me the url for LetterCult's top custom letters of 2009 as they see it. I love lettering, and bad kerning or other things can make my eyes cross. In the olden days it was necessary to completely redo things, most of the time, if a problen was noticed or a change needed. Now it's easy - but lettering isn't better - it has machine-type errors (bad kerning) plus I see the same fonts over and over and over ad infinitum. It's refreshing to see some custom lettering by masters.

Labels:



 



Nothing is as like Second Life as Barbarella



03 February 2010

 
Scalability


 
Arrrrgh.

I can't sleep lately* even though I'm very tired (and no wonder). I went to bed at about 2am, fell asleep, woke up a 2:31 fully awake and thrashed around until 2:44. Got up and made some toast, turned on the puter.

Now what?

WTF 5:30??

*past couple of weeks



02 February 2010

 


Quack

Fake Trailer

Labels:



 
Verify your AU account by synching it with your SL name:

SL Blips HUD for AvatarsUnited.com


 
I apologise, Enj, please forgive me.



01 February 2010

 


Your Face(book)
Some nut is running around trying to get FaceBook accounts banned if she thinks the owner is using a Second Life name - there's a website and a Twitter stream of doom.

"I missed the #Grammys bc some fake person was screwing with me on #Facebook :("

Hah!

I'm sure none of those performing artists were using stage names :-D

"
Stop using Facebook as a Second Life fake avatar shelter. Report fake Facebook accounts now!"

Just because we signed up on Facebook doesn't mean we really care about it. It was like Mount Everest - it was just there. No boo-hoos from most people, either way.

I'm linked on FB to real people. They know me in real life. What's the difference between this and an actor's stage name? I'm not attempting to defraud anyone.


 
Goodbye Post on the Forum
(somewhat premature I think as I'm sure to post more)

I don't mind moving if we switch to functioning forum software. If we don't, then I suppose I'll wander off. If anyone in the future reads this and needs help just IM me and I'll try to solve your problem.

Or maybe I'll just hide in the storeroom and wait until they archive me. I can run around in the dark and drag sentences from one post to another. I could try to use sharp letters to scratch messages on the inside of monitors, and maybe even tunnel through to the Wayback Machine.

/me waves.


 
Will Keep Open Mind
but need to see to believe

Well, I knew it was going to happen soon after the AU thing was announced, as it just made sense, so it isn't a terrible shock that the forums are closing, and I'll hope for the best. I suppose I'll just watch. It might turn out to be OK.

/me stands a long way away and refrains from asking /me wonders what "upcoming changes to our hosting infrastructure" means. on the blog.

I don't really understand why it wasn't possible, three years ago, to have archived everything and leapt to an updated forum software, or to have hired outside people to fix the forum software, or even why software companies give themselves such weird names ("jive," "BS"). I'm awfully glad the forum is being archived on the Web and not in someone's garage.


 
RYU-OH-DOH
Samurai Sho, Wet Hoof (39, 68, 41)
I swear to you - years ago I stumbled across a shop selling detailed samurai armour and lost its name and never could find it though I tried. Today Molly send me a message about a place with detailed samurai kit.

Os: Does it have a dragon sculpture?
Molly: Yes.
Os: w00t! (leaps into the air and bounds across the grid)

I was about to buy a set when Enj called me for her Tiny Invasion movie, so I had to wait. When I returned I ran into Bett, who was radiant as always. I bought my Honda set, then had to leave, but returned a third time wearing KLee's S19 viewer, which has (wewt wewt) antialiasing + shadows. And more.


 

.

Site Feed

vivian-oblivion

oblivionstore

firemist red

Combat Cards

Blip TV Rocks

So many things to do, so little motivation

Backpacking Burro

Salazar Jack

Lucy Sits Up and Blogs

Tina's Universum

Nova Albion Detective Agency

Playing Statues

Yarn Miracle

Baedeker

Don Carson Creative

Flummer, Flummel, Flummo

Elle Coyote

Painting Soul

Upload Video and Images - Putfile

Artists Union

Tempietto

2002-10 2002-11 2002-12 2003-01 2003-03 2003-04 2003-05 2003-06 2003-07 2003-08 2003-09 2003-10 2003-11 2003-12 2004-01 2004-02 2004-03 2004-04 2004-05 2004-06 2004-07 2004-08 2004-09 2004-10 2004-11 2004-12 2005-01 2005-02 2005-03 2005-04 2005-05 2005-06 2005-07 2005-08 2005-09 2005-10 2005-11 2005-12 2006-01 2006-02 2006-03 2006-04 2006-05 2006-06 2006-07 2006-08 2006-09 2006-10 2006-11 2006-12 2007-01 2007-02 2007-03 2007-04 2007-05 2007-06 2007-07 2007-08 2007-09 2007-10 2007-11 2007-12 2008-01 2008-02 2008-03 2008-04 2008-05 2008-06 2008-07 2008-08 2008-09 2008-10 2008-11 2008-12 2009-01 2009-02 2009-03 2009-04 2009-05 2009-06 2009-07 2009-08 2009-09 2009-10 2009-11 2009-12 2010-01 2010-02 2010-03 2010-04 2010-05 2010-06 2010-07 2010-08 2010-09 2010-10 2010-11 2010-12 2011-01 2011-02 2011-03 2011-04 2011-05 2011-06 2011-07 2011-08 2011-09 2011-10 2011-11 2011-12 2012-01 2012-02 2012-03 2012-04 2012-05 2012-06 2012-07 2012-08 2012-09 2012-10 2012-11 2012-12 2013-01 2013-02 2013-03 2013-04 2013-05 2013-06 2013-07 2013-08 2013-09 2013-10 2013-11


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