Party on Saturday

OK....

On Saturday I am having a combined Rezzday Party and Open House on Maeve Eiren's sim. Maeve and I have put quite a lot of time and energy into remodelling her island, (above and below sea-level) and this will be the first oportunity that most of you have had to see it.

The Born Again Pagans will be playing live (SL gods permitting) from 2PMSLT......here.....well....walk over the bridge.....

...or just IM me and I'll tp you...

:)))

A Quick Note re. inventory

Well, I was just reminded by Scotsgreymouser that we have until 30th....that means tomorrow..... for Transworlders to box up our stuff thro Emerald or Meerkat to save back to hard drive...

...after that you can kiss your stuff..............but you can't take it with you....

Get busy.


:))

Cole and Bryn in another masterpiece..

This is a piece by ColeMarie for Shanghai and it is, of course, well up to her usual standard. It's called No Colour, one of the Open This End themes for the show there.

The build is by Bryn who excels in that desolate landscape thingy with a few odd plants by me...... as Cole quipped.......Bryn angst meets Soror weed.

ColeMarie is really bringing a completely new medium to life in how she uses Machinima, it is fast becoming HER medium, as she seems to understand how to use it better than those who treat it like a video, which it isn't (and can't be for xx years, (or however long it takes for the graphix to get to film quality).

Her talents with photo manipulation were the first thing that amazed me, maybe two years ago when we first met, and her work in machinima is a direct continuation of those skills she taught herself in 2D image making.

The fact that she also writes and performs music, makes great clothes and amazing particle shows etc, etc....just goes to show she is a mad autonomous robot disguised as a faerie.

:))

miso susanowa

Mostly I run a mile from art that is political simply because the link from the piece to the idealism is often forced, tenuous, and 'thin'. Like when I get asked to do a piece for an "Aids" show for example... although I would of course support any attempt to "promote Aids awareness", what, in real terms could I do with a virtual landscape?? Is there actually anyone that would be affected by any particular tree that I was to build for such a show? Is there anyone who doesn't know that 'safe sex' is best?? or, am I just promoting my own stuff and packaging it up for a mildly politically correct cause, probably 10 years after the event?

Miso escapes this rather tame political agenda by creating a piece which is one she believes in, or, rather has personal opinions about, presents it dramatically and with some humour, and then, as a sort of by-product it gets taken up and appreciated by Amnesty International.
This is her press release....
""State of Mind" is an installation about the politics of information. "State" covers the topics of government propaganda, the internet and the struggle for free communications. Materials presented include the topics of rumor- and fear-mongering using altered or skewed statistics on child abuse, the war in Iraq, politics, RFID radio tags, net "piracy," spycams and disinformation, and images and captions designed to evoke irrational and emotional responses for the purpose of manipulation by the principles of "psyops," a military use of advertising techniques.

"State of Mind" is a multimedia installation. The piece is a combined work including sound, graphics and a dataweb linking to many sources of information on the subjects included in the installation. The piece will engage avatar interaction as well as avatar exploration and discovery. "State" appears as a "state fair" to point out the absurdity and slanted way in which these serious matters are being treated in the media and the tendency to trivialize and mock issues in order to divert debate.

Unique to this installation is the ability of any avatar to spy on and watch all other avatars in the installation through a network of hidden cameras, to bring home the reality and saturation of such hidden cameras in our daily life.

Avatars are REQUIRED to wear a "RFID" identification bracelet in order to tour the installation; an automatic ejection system will send any avatar not wearing the ID tag to their home rez point to underline the compulsory nature of state id cards, fingerprinting and required radio identification."

It is surprisingly shocking to have to force your avatar to do things which in FL we take as the norm, and exposes the inhumanity of it very clearly...

It is a must see....here... before the 30th....


:))

b

:)))

Philosophy

"It's always easy to see who is an an alt and who isn't."


.......be offline for a few days....wish me luck...


:)))

LL will set you free.

When I first came into SL 3 years ago, no-one knew for certain that SL would still be around at the end of the year, let alone in 3 years time. There were, more or less, no other grids to go to except WoW, and people bought stuff in the same way that people build houses on the slopes of volcanos.......i.e. you have to be prepared for the day when you drop everything and run, fast.

Now, I seem to have read several times the sentence..."..non-transferable inventory...." in the context that those who have invested in such assets have the most to lose in jumping ship to another grid....
Owning, having an invent full of stuff, is surely not the primary reason for being in SL, anymore than it is the reason for FL existence.....and...as the various bloggists keep pointing out, under the ToS you only rent a licence to use anyway.

That should be no surprise to anyone, we all knew that years ago, so why the big debate now...??

As I'm in the process of moving hovel in FL I am made very aware of how much FL crap is in my FL inventory and wiping the slate clean with a huge lava flow would not really damage me that much. The necessary creativity that would be called forth for a new life would be hugely beneficial in so many ways.

So....alts.... well, alts are a good example

[According to M Linden.. commenting on NWN.....

" Second Life is growing. We added more than 50K active users (defined as those who spend more time than one hour in-world in a month) December through March, and they are staying with us. Sure some are alts but the vast majority are new users. I've been greeting them in Welcome Island and its always easy to see who is an an alt and who isn't."

Hmmm...well... then maybe we could get some figures on the population if it is that easy....]

My point with alts is simply that, for the most part, our alts have very small inventories compared to our principle avatar (even if they are used as an external hard drive by our fear of inventory loss) but they have a life of their own and friends etc. that is less dependent on what they own, rather who they are.
Life on alternative grids is similar to having an alt.
OK, so it might be more buggy, less stable, like SL 3 years ago, but it is a joy to plant my first trees (see above) knowing that there is no tier accruing, no membership to pay, and the 2000 items in my invent are all textures.

OSGrid is like moving to the country, you lose a lot of attractions, and the shopping is crap, but you can always tp in to visit.....

So, it won't be long (the way things are going) before as many of us that have alts in SL will have Grid Alts, SSL, a second Second Life. The degree to which this happens is directly proportional, I think, to how well or badly, LL manages the Bean Counters. The Bean Counters are much less interested in how much talent migrates from SL than in how many new recruits it can plonk in dodgy housing slums using dodgy viewers. There is little point in getting annoyed or irate about their lack of consideration for the user, FL banks (for example) have been acting like that for years.

We will all become Transworlders apart from the consumerist noobs with deep pockets who prefer to shop than build. The Bean Counters won't mind that because it will make the bottom line look better when the Boys decide to sell up.

Watching this happen can be unsettling, but think of your TV (gathering dust in a corner) ..... a few years ago, in the 80's there were 4 TV channels in the UK, now...hmmm...not sure.....600 odd (mostly very odd).

It's called progress, and as freedom is now synonymous with freedom of choice...

"LL will set you free" ... hmmmm...

:))))

Politics, stuff and blurb.....

Just a little shot of Nishiland rising from the sea. I uploaded a homemade Raw file and I think its a bit crap but as there was no default setting I have taken it as a challenge to mod onsite with my terraforming tools....so we shall see.....

As you will have gathered by now I am moving hovel in RL so I get a bit less time for this 'boring little melodrama' but I have been reading around to keep up to date with stuff....

"Second Life's New First Hour Experience Not Yet Increasing User Concurrency" is the ground breaking news from NWN...LOL...must be difficult to find stuff to write if you have to blog everyday.... but it's as newsworthy as.."Baby born with two ears!!!" And... please don't think I'm having a go at the Boys, that's like shooting fish in a barrel, it got me thinking...

I have been hearing gripes about new viewers for nearly three years now and, mostly, they have been about stability and bugs. I have never heard so much outright disgust tho for a viewer before from quite 'established' people (not fringe nuts who will have a moan about anything) who are not just complaining about the various bugs or omissions but who generally hate the whole viewer......

...and I was trying to think of another product or service where those designing it have little or no regard for the end user.... and, it being the start of a Crazy Season here in the UK, my mind focussed on politics....(for about 10 seconds).

Spin, a word that has crept into the language about 1990/5, is what we used to call a lie. Lies are what politics and advertisers deal in continually. However, if you lie enough, and often enough, no-one will believe you, so, when it comes time to try and get people to believe in what you are doing......

Now, I'm not saying that the Boys have lied to anyone..... BUT.... if you have little or no regard for your end-user and treat them like 'punters' then there is gonna be a growing credibility gap which will be your 'undoing'.

...which brings me to the question....who was the new viewer designed for??...and.... when is a good time to admit you have made a mistake?? ....and....why do I feel like no-one "in power" gives a damn??

...and....one question I can answer is....Do I give a damn?? Well, not really, no: not about politics or the viewer.

If the viewer gets too bad I shall move...if the politics gets too bad..well....that would be normal, I have come to expect nothing from those lying cads.

Anyway.... [14:41] Alizarin Goldflake: soror - you are a sort of wiseass nymph.

hehhehehehee...

I got that HUD from the virtual looking glass place but then couldn't shift it off my screen....needs some work someone....

Now....Juanita has written some nice things about the show at Treeline ...here. and it would be remiss of me not to remind you that, if you haven't yet been...it closes on Monday...so get your butt over there...:))))

...and...lastly but not leastly...just discovered Nyx's blog... Prim Pushers where he talks building and stuff. Could not agree more on his article about the importance of textures..... well, the guy is amazing....he's gotta have some good advice, you don't win all those competitions without knowing a thing or two.....

:)))

OS grid and Mayana Mersereau

This is a sort of back to front thing. This is an "after" shot.....and the following one is "before".




This is Nishi Beach as you may know.....well...it's the first time I have been able to snap it with my new computer, Max.... so it's Nishi Beach thro Max's eyes...

......and.......that's my first OS Grid prim there in the centre of my new sim...:





Now, a very generous girl called Mayana Mersereau has given me a sim to play with on OS Grid. It's proper address is New Libertopia VI, but I have christened it Nishiland, of course,....what else...?




Have managed to de-Ruth to a certain extent and am looking forward to a thick 15k prim forest arising, in between RL hovel-moving....

....further details to follow...it's not the most stable grid....yet.....but you will be made welcome, and, if you are already a visitor....friend me.....


:)))

Chrome, Cole and Wizzy....

Well...just a few things you may or may not have missed over the past few days......

This is a blog that is always worth checking... Chrome Underwood, I like most of his stuff... and I particularly like his most recent offering.... here.

and....well...not a lot to say about Cole's latest video except that it is staggeringly good.... here, as, of course, is Bryn's sim .....

and Wizzy gets her share of media attention...here....

I know Aliz has been up to her eyes with her mixed reality show..Through the Virtual Looking Glass which is a Caerleon backed enterprise...full details here.

so....that'll keep you surfing for a while...:))

I've done some trees and flowers for a new Bryn/Cole production but otherwise been RLed a lot... them's the breaks...

Maeve and I have more or less finished at Clissa, her parcel, and hope to have an opening on my rezz day...still 3 weeks away so I should have time to move house etc. and let the dust settle and my ISP reconnect me beforehand....details will, of course, follow.

....and.... the weather is mild....at last...

:)))

Self Service and Self Serving

Life is a bit of a jungle, and it's very easy to forget that cos we live in comfortable and relatively safe environments as compared, for example, to our pioneer forefathers and mothers.

This statement holds true in both worlds.

LL, and my local Estate Agent (I am trying to secure a new RL hovel) behave in exactly the same manner. Now, in the pioneering days when a greedy self serving power crazed fool took over a town you could get him shot and hope things would return to normal.

LL has a new bullet proof vest (the ToS) and we all wish them the best.

Mostly the power crazed don't really affect our sense of Self, and the greedy simply steal stuff.

It is right to look at our virtual existence occasionally and ask "What do I want?" ...If the new viewer and the death of the alternative viewers is just too much to handle, well, then Botgirl is right....use your feet to vote and go to another grid.

There is a point at which, in the development of any major organisation or collective of people, the initial 'spark' gets crushed by the 'suits'. Money men take over with their lawyers and the 'spirit' of the creative originators is a worthless commodity. Anyone who thinks it could never happen to Reaction Grid is naive.......it's a type of inevitable maturing, never well managed, always bemoaned by the originators who get stabbed in their beds at night.

So...there will be, for years to come, the fight between the free (gratis) web and the Gated Community (Lalo's link in comments to Snickers) of Apple and ilk.
It is probably possible to trace the different mind-sets back to Plato and Aristotle if you like that sort of thing.

I'm not gonna start a review of that particular topic here.

My point is that you simply have to serve your Self. I have to let LL and my Landlord walk over my inflated ideas of what I 'should' have a 'right' to........if.........it serves my ends., if it serves my Self.

No-one said life was fair, but then being down-trodden is possibly better than being eaten by wolves....who knows.

But, of course, the opposite of wisdom is bitterness....and being eaten by wolves is probably better than becoming bitter.

so....make sure you get plenty of sweetness in both your lives ...even tho it might be self-service...hehehehehehe

:))

Weekend ... a Million L$ and other stuff

Well...lots of not-very-much been going on in my lives. RL has claimed more than it's fair share with me having to look for a new hovel to rent at an outrageous price. Why are all landlords utter bastards?

Anyway, Max is purring and my brains fused into a mushy mess after having tried to install an OpenSim which would be fine if I had a PC, but something isn't quite right...so..I dropped into OSgrid instead and started messing with my Ruth there until I crashed, well..the whole place crashed (was it something I uploaded?) ....and...soo...I saved some trees to my harddrive with Emerald...which got me thinking about how good Emerald is compared to the SL 2.0 which it seems like everyone hates...and the new ToS which probably 99.9% of people agreed to without reading, ..well...life's too short. If you had to read every software agreement and everything the bank sends everytime they change the colour of their toilet paper.... you would get very little done.

Well, the new ToS sort of implies that SL is heading towards a SL-viewer-only environment...all viewers have to conform/be approved by LL.....so that means that the Emerald boys and girls will have to do what LL want, I guess....that's gonna be popular....

...oh, yes, and if you didn't know before...the ToS explains that you own nothing and They own everything, just in case there was any misunderstanding there.... well....I knew that, even tho LL has been inviting people to Buy Land and Buy Lindens..... you don't actually own the Lindens you just have the right to play with them....like a sort of borrowing until they want them back, I guess...

Anyway to get to the cool MillionL$... I have it straight from Jayjay that he has a Million to spend as yearly budget for prize money for the art comp they do each month and a half million for the machinima awards...per year. That is the sort of sponsorship we would expect from LL (but be sadly deluded), and the sort of sponsorship we would not expect from a private source, (if a university is private)...anyway...again it shows who thinks art is important.

Well done to the University of Western Australia, it shows balls and an appreciation of what matters.

Well done to Jayajay and Quad for the work they put in to get that cash, and to the machinima makers who actually inspired the men with the pockets....

...so...the next machinima competitions will have 100,000L$ as first prize, as I understand it, and the theme will not be the campus...:))....any ideas for a theme, (is one needed?) to Jayjay...he's open to all suggestions....

....and any spare cardboard boxes put to one side in case I end up sleeping rough.... (not really).....(crosses fingers and toes)...


:))