Well, if you haven't been to see Wizzy's sim at UWA, you are very soon going to be kicking yourself.
This is just a tiny fraction of what's on show, and it all ends tomorrow...so go,go,go..
:)))
Monday, 30 May 2011
Saturday, 28 May 2011
Scary Stuff
While I was going to blog that the Death of Cock-up Linden had been exaggerated, the problems LL is having, still, in taking money off its customers pales into insignificance compared to the bigger issue of Internet Freedom.
It seems that the USA Government in particular and the French (shallow thinking) Sarkozy are, for apparently different reasons, wanting to get involved in internet regulation.
Like a ministry title straight out of 1984, [where the Propaganda Dept. is called Ministry of Truth] the US Government wants to be able to censor what floats around on the internet, exactly like China does..... The bill is named... PROTECT-IP Act.
As we recently saw with the WikiLeaks saga, the US wants to be able to crush news that it considers ‘secret’, the definition of that is, of course, down to the Government of the time.... probably Clinton and his floosie would have been considered Secret too.
All you can do is to actually get your act together and sign a petition for Congress....here... it IS important, probably the most important thing you will do this weekend.
The support this Act is getting is from, for example, the film industry.... companies who think that charging a lot of money for stuff is their god-given right.... so a true collusion of big business and Government is using a reverse ‘freedom’ argument.... i.e. we are protecting your freedom by restricting it.
The G8 summit was, thanks to Sarkozy, also debating the whole issue ... a good summary of the stances people are taking is given... here.
“You can't isolate some things you like about the internet, and control other things you don't." Zuckerberg, quite rightly, said.
The impossibility of you or I protecting our IPR is further highlighted this week by the discovery of fraud in China in relation to some of the biggest financial companies in the world... here... When very large companies are helpless against IP fraud, not even being able to protect their name, you and I have no chance.
IP is an illusion, one the West, in particular, continues to nurture so that software companies and others can continue to rob us blind, and Government, with their hands in the pockets of the multi-nationals, is using as a smoke screen for its desire to control and edit what you think.
I personally think that this will, if it goes through, further split the US and the Rest of The World, and hope some less fascist countries will host some of the larger internet search engines and media sites, taking them beyond US control...
.... if anyone is, really, beyond US control... (they automatically become terrorists when they are)....
:((
Friday, 27 May 2011
Linden Lab and Megaphobia.
Now, I would define megaphobia as an irrational fear of megas. As we know it is inherent in some of the leading lights at Linden Lab, and I wanted to lay out a few ideas about the development of this syndrome.
The culture of an organisation is one that develops over time and has its basis in the collective history which that group experiences in its development. It can almost seem to seep into the walls of an institution as a widely held, accepted, “truth” even though it may bear no relationship at all to the facts, statistics or more objective data presented to the group.
It is widely held that a complete change of staff is the only way of combatting behaviour or beliefs that have been thus institutionalised. That obviously isn’t going to happen at the Lab, nor would I suggest it is necessary.
Sometimes, however, a clear presentation of the development of the syndrome is enough to awaken the sufferers to a realisation of their plight. ... this I will attempt.
Lalo Telling, in his very well researched series of articles on the history of the grid, tells us....
"Back before the land tier and prim limit systems were implemented, prims cost $L10 each. Any time a prim was rezzed, you "paid" for it. Conversely, when you took it back into inventory or deleted it, you earned $L10. It was also possible to delete full perm items and claim their prim value (possibly a permissions bug). During the first year of SL, some older builds, such as the mansion and the old Varney Boardwalk were being picked apart for quick Lindens."
Now, it may seem like that way of paying for your SL experience has long since disappeared but, in fact, anyone who pays tier still really, in essence, pays “per prim’. It’s just that with tier you pay for a block of prims...117 for a 512m2 etc etc.
So...there was, in the beginning, and still is a direct relationship between prim and LL income.
Take then the misguided idea that somehow a mega, say a 30x30, is robbing LL of the income they could generate from 9 x 10m prims....
The actual facts, however, are that if you own a 512m2 plot you are going to use all 117 prims anyway. ... and fairly fast in my experience, whether they are megas or standard prims.
This possible cultural dislike is enhanced, possibly, by the fact that the first megas were hacks, illegal, and therefore, basically, “Bad”.... like hackers.
The Myth of Lag is one that still remains even though I have used megas in large amounts on both SL and now InWorldz.... and originally I had a poor lappy to build with... I experienced no lag as a result of building with thousands of megas.
Recently we have been told repeatedly the following “Fact” about Mesh... it goes like this, basically,..... Mesh will reduce lag because... one mesh will replace many standard prims so there will be less work for the server. .. that is never paraphrased “one mega will replace many standard prims so there will be less work for the server.”
A simple blind spot in those suffering from this subtle disease. Selective logic.
There is also an idea which is a totally stupid one about megas, irresponsibly placed, overlapping a boundary line onto a neighbours property. In my experience a 10x10 poking through a neighbours wall is just as annoying, and more common, and it is usually resolved by the parties in question. This has to be one of the lamest excuses, and a poor attempt to hide a bad case of Megaphobia.
However, the irrationality of a phobia is not one that can necessarily be argued with, especially when institutionalised. Megas are bad, and the Lab has this as their standard “view”. [The use of the word ‘view’ in these situations is usually better described as “opinion unsupported by hard evidence”]
Now, none of these defense positions have any relevance to nanoprims. In InWorldz I can scale a prim down to 0.001 m, but not in SL; I can make a prim 99% hollow, but not in SL. There is no spurious ‘lag’ argument, or ‘overhanging prim’ argument, just pure neglect of your core content creators and builders. The code might be changed in a day, if there was the will to do so.... copy and paste from any of the OS sims. TPV’s would read it.
My major joy, however, with building in InWorldz is the ability to link a huge link-set sim-wide. The current SL restriction of 32 meters, for linking, is going to have to change in SL if meshes upto 64 meters are going to be allowed, or they will be unlinkable... a crap state of affairs, making mesh both expensive and useless in complex builds. Having to use Builders Buddy or similar every time you use a mesh will not sit well with builders, it’s a pain.
Now, back to megas ... I realise that my boycotting of SL8B and LEA is not going to change anyone’s mind, I’m just a D-rate creator and they will manage perfectly well without me...... but, the NPISL (Not Possible In SL) builds that I and others are working on in Iwz will, eventually, convince enough people that you can make better, richer, more complex stuff in Iwz ..... and that MAY get the Boys to realise that the mythical 100 Million Users will soon hear of a Better Grid if the gap between SL and Iwz continues to widen. If that doesn’t instigate some changes, some care of content creators and builders, some small advances in tools, then the Lab will continue to lose market share.
[heard this on the radio this morning.....You better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone for the times they are a-changing...]
So, my argument is this.... if you Boys can spare the time to make wobbly thighs, you can sort out this too. SL’s attraction isn’t all about sex...Duh!!
:))
The culture of an organisation is one that develops over time and has its basis in the collective history which that group experiences in its development. It can almost seem to seep into the walls of an institution as a widely held, accepted, “truth” even though it may bear no relationship at all to the facts, statistics or more objective data presented to the group.
It is widely held that a complete change of staff is the only way of combatting behaviour or beliefs that have been thus institutionalised. That obviously isn’t going to happen at the Lab, nor would I suggest it is necessary.
Sometimes, however, a clear presentation of the development of the syndrome is enough to awaken the sufferers to a realisation of their plight. ... this I will attempt.
Lalo Telling, in his very well researched series of articles on the history of the grid, tells us....
"Back before the land tier and prim limit systems were implemented, prims cost $L10 each. Any time a prim was rezzed, you "paid" for it. Conversely, when you took it back into inventory or deleted it, you earned $L10. It was also possible to delete full perm items and claim their prim value (possibly a permissions bug). During the first year of SL, some older builds, such as the mansion and the old Varney Boardwalk were being picked apart for quick Lindens."
Now, it may seem like that way of paying for your SL experience has long since disappeared but, in fact, anyone who pays tier still really, in essence, pays “per prim’. It’s just that with tier you pay for a block of prims...117 for a 512m2 etc etc.
So...there was, in the beginning, and still is a direct relationship between prim and LL income.
Take then the misguided idea that somehow a mega, say a 30x30, is robbing LL of the income they could generate from 9 x 10m prims....
The actual facts, however, are that if you own a 512m2 plot you are going to use all 117 prims anyway. ... and fairly fast in my experience, whether they are megas or standard prims.
This possible cultural dislike is enhanced, possibly, by the fact that the first megas were hacks, illegal, and therefore, basically, “Bad”.... like hackers.
The Myth of Lag is one that still remains even though I have used megas in large amounts on both SL and now InWorldz.... and originally I had a poor lappy to build with... I experienced no lag as a result of building with thousands of megas.
Recently we have been told repeatedly the following “Fact” about Mesh... it goes like this, basically,..... Mesh will reduce lag because... one mesh will replace many standard prims so there will be less work for the server. .. that is never paraphrased “one mega will replace many standard prims so there will be less work for the server.”
A simple blind spot in those suffering from this subtle disease. Selective logic.
There is also an idea which is a totally stupid one about megas, irresponsibly placed, overlapping a boundary line onto a neighbours property. In my experience a 10x10 poking through a neighbours wall is just as annoying, and more common, and it is usually resolved by the parties in question. This has to be one of the lamest excuses, and a poor attempt to hide a bad case of Megaphobia.
However, the irrationality of a phobia is not one that can necessarily be argued with, especially when institutionalised. Megas are bad, and the Lab has this as their standard “view”. [The use of the word ‘view’ in these situations is usually better described as “opinion unsupported by hard evidence”]
Now, none of these defense positions have any relevance to nanoprims. In InWorldz I can scale a prim down to 0.001 m, but not in SL; I can make a prim 99% hollow, but not in SL. There is no spurious ‘lag’ argument, or ‘overhanging prim’ argument, just pure neglect of your core content creators and builders. The code might be changed in a day, if there was the will to do so.... copy and paste from any of the OS sims. TPV’s would read it.
My major joy, however, with building in InWorldz is the ability to link a huge link-set sim-wide. The current SL restriction of 32 meters, for linking, is going to have to change in SL if meshes upto 64 meters are going to be allowed, or they will be unlinkable... a crap state of affairs, making mesh both expensive and useless in complex builds. Having to use Builders Buddy or similar every time you use a mesh will not sit well with builders, it’s a pain.
Now, back to megas ... I realise that my boycotting of SL8B and LEA is not going to change anyone’s mind, I’m just a D-rate creator and they will manage perfectly well without me...... but, the NPISL (Not Possible In SL) builds that I and others are working on in Iwz will, eventually, convince enough people that you can make better, richer, more complex stuff in Iwz ..... and that MAY get the Boys to realise that the mythical 100 Million Users will soon hear of a Better Grid if the gap between SL and Iwz continues to widen. If that doesn’t instigate some changes, some care of content creators and builders, some small advances in tools, then the Lab will continue to lose market share.
[heard this on the radio this morning.....You better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone for the times they are a-changing...]
So, my argument is this.... if you Boys can spare the time to make wobbly thighs, you can sort out this too. SL’s attraction isn’t all about sex...Duh!!
:))
Thursday, 26 May 2011
Meeroo's warning and general blog stuff...
Well, I had a dance last night to celebrate Alizarin's rezzday in InWorldz, which will be followed in quick succession by quite a few others I know.... now, it's probably right to say that Aliz took a bit of convincing in the beginning to try Iwz, but, after a while it all started to vome right and she now loves building here... I can't help thinking that Chestnut will come round after her initial problems, I know that for me, my fps is far higher in IWz than in SL, and altho there are rumours that Search will at last be fixed (I'll believe it when I see it... two years after they broke it)....SL has been behaving like crap the last week plus.
The chat at Aliz's rezzday, which Jeri kindly threw for her and where DJ Megan Cline was pumping out the tunes.....was...yes, Phlox, the new script engine which has been developed for InWorldz.... the whole grid was buzzing about it.
Now....this bit of film is enough to get builders interested....
.... more so than the 'news' that builders have been given permission to use megas at the LEA sandbox...ha!!...big deal...
see below....
16,000 prims on my little sim in InWorldz so far, all are megas, (some big)...all potential megas, I should say.... more than a thousand active scripts.... so I call BS on this idea that megas cause lag.
Giving builders 'permission' to use megas on the LEA sandbox was necessary or the place would be empty..... it's no big deal, what is needed is for LL to sort their brains out. Their's is the ONLY grid where megas are seen as a problem. There is some brain malfunction going on here.... time to sort yourselves out Boys.
...oh...and Meeroo's have arrived, The Next Big Thing...that is, for people who haven't had bunnies or horses or chickens... I did a blog about the breedables addiction as I had two good friends who got addicted, and very poor in the process.....
.... the sad tale of an avatar who has sunk into addiction can be found ....here... almost exactly a year ago....
Nothing changes, just new people getting conned in the same old ways..
... hope you have deep pockets if you fall for fluffiness...
More tomorrow..
:))
Sunday, 22 May 2011
Jayjay Zifanwe
Two years ago, it may be slightly less, Jayjay asked me if I would like to build a little something on the University of Western Australia's new sim.
Art was not really the business that the UWA was in, it was, and is, a university who decided to get a virtual campus for, no doubt, a mixture of PR reasons and because they could.
Today, Jayjay stood on stage and gave away 660,000 L$ as prize money to the best machinima entries in the UWA Machinima Challenge, their third.
So, any talk of sponsoring the Arts in SL, or of endowments is always going to have to, in my mind, measure up to what the UWA have achieved in two short years.
Jayjay is far to modest to take the credit for this, but, in reality it is he who has made this work. Sure he has had help from hard-working assistants and he has an enlightened board of people at the university who have understood his enthusiasm for this project, but, ultimately he has brought the threads together and 'sold' the ideas. He will, no doubt say that it is the artists who should be thanked for their talent and commitment to the project, and that is surely true as well, but, without a liaison officer, someone to transmit the ideas, the prize money wouldn't have been there and the whole thing could have faded instead of grown like it has.
There will be a full list of prizes and winners on the UWAinSL blog, and others will no doubt blog the results. I will simply post the machinima that was, in my humble opinion the best there. It took joint first prize and, within the rules of the competition, managed to bring the Clock Tower ( a signature piece of architecture at the campus) into the story without forcing the issue or simply as a token shot.
ERIC BOCCARA of the Netherlands' piece, called Juroney, was a deserving winner, and congrats to him for his hard work.
Expect a full list here.. once Jayjay has had a bit of sleep...
:))
New Start-up Blender File
OK...for those of you who have been using my cherry-picking tips for Blender, here is the new start-up file for the latest Blender release......
Obviously you need to download Blender first....
This is a 9 minute mushroom tutorial aimed at those who have already taken the Blender Is Easy tutorial but want to upgrade.
There are a few improvements that I noticed with the new Blender release.... one being the Smooth Vertices, which seems to be less fierce... and the sculpt mode has more preset brushes... oh, and there are more preset Views for those of us that dont' remember hotkeys and shortcuts....
As you will see from the final result the sculpting of the top of the mushroom didn't produce many lumps...oh well...
:))
Well Done Lindens, except for the sandbox.
Well, it's not often I personally feel that I can congratulate a step taken by the Boys, because most of them are crap, however, the new international 24 hour billing support, although limited in cover is a real step forward and one they should be patted on the head for.
Toll-Free (US/Canada): 800.294.1067
Long-Distance (US/Canada: 703.286.6277
Local Toll-Free numbers:
France: 0805.101.490
Germany: 0800.664.5510
Japan: 0066.33.132.830
Portugal: 800.814.450
Spain: 800.300.560
UK: 0800.048.4646
Please press option 3 to get to Billing Support.
Since the UK office was closed along with the European ones, the idea of trying to stay up late to ring USA did not appeal much, not that I have needed to. The idea of having a local call centre is a bit of a comfort, even if its late in arriving.
Strange that I do not feel the same about the arrival of one LEA sim as a sandbox..... or maybe not so strange really. Although it sounds bad to suggest that 50,000 concurrent users can share one sim as a sandbox when every other grid provides 4 or so sims for a few hundred (concurrent) users ... I know that all 50k are not gonna end up in the same box...why??....well, this is the bit that annoys me...
For the last 7 or so years altruistic sponsors have been paying to provide us with sandboxes.... yes, paying to provide us with a facility that, by any standards of service, should be down to LL to provide. So, for Sasun, Art Mother, to suggest that she has worked hard to get this, the very most basic service, for us 'Artists' just makes me see red.
The fact of the matter is that LL want us to mentor incoming noob future-content-creators to make up for the ones fleeing to InWorldz where Artists and Content Creators are welcomed and cared for..... and, when you consider how much a sim actually costs Linden Lab to provide for our pleasure, it probably amounts to about 10US$ (obviously a guess) ...and, to be honest, I feel it is a disgrace.
It feels like someone has tipped me a penny after a few years work. I know that's not a perfect analogy but emotionally that is what it feels like.... and that's why I'm boycotting the whole farce.
It is not satisfactory for someone to say "well, it's a step in the right direction" because as I just explained it feels like an insult. ...and I have heard it said more than twice now... that we shouldn't keep harping on about a promise of 70 sims... I have seen written.... "...by a man who has now left LL..." ...a disingenuous statement considering he was not just "a man" but the CEO of Linden Lab giving a keynote address.
70 sims would have had me congratulating the Boys for their vision and balls....
... one sandbox... pathetic.
...and the Griefer Day.... I can't even go there......demented. I leave that for SaveMe to explain.
:))
Toll-Free (US/Canada): 800.294.1067
Long-Distance (US/Canada: 703.286.6277
Local Toll-Free numbers:
France: 0805.101.490
Germany: 0800.664.5510
Japan: 0066.33.132.830
Portugal: 800.814.450
Spain: 800.300.560
UK: 0800.048.4646
Please press option 3 to get to Billing Support.
Since the UK office was closed along with the European ones, the idea of trying to stay up late to ring USA did not appeal much, not that I have needed to. The idea of having a local call centre is a bit of a comfort, even if its late in arriving.
Strange that I do not feel the same about the arrival of one LEA sim as a sandbox..... or maybe not so strange really. Although it sounds bad to suggest that 50,000 concurrent users can share one sim as a sandbox when every other grid provides 4 or so sims for a few hundred (concurrent) users ... I know that all 50k are not gonna end up in the same box...why??....well, this is the bit that annoys me...
For the last 7 or so years altruistic sponsors have been paying to provide us with sandboxes.... yes, paying to provide us with a facility that, by any standards of service, should be down to LL to provide. So, for Sasun, Art Mother, to suggest that she has worked hard to get this, the very most basic service, for us 'Artists' just makes me see red.
The fact of the matter is that LL want us to mentor incoming noob future-content-creators to make up for the ones fleeing to InWorldz where Artists and Content Creators are welcomed and cared for..... and, when you consider how much a sim actually costs Linden Lab to provide for our pleasure, it probably amounts to about 10US$ (obviously a guess) ...and, to be honest, I feel it is a disgrace.
It feels like someone has tipped me a penny after a few years work. I know that's not a perfect analogy but emotionally that is what it feels like.... and that's why I'm boycotting the whole farce.
It is not satisfactory for someone to say "well, it's a step in the right direction" because as I just explained it feels like an insult. ...and I have heard it said more than twice now... that we shouldn't keep harping on about a promise of 70 sims... I have seen written.... "...by a man who has now left LL..." ...a disingenuous statement considering he was not just "a man" but the CEO of Linden Lab giving a keynote address.
70 sims would have had me congratulating the Boys for their vision and balls....
... one sandbox... pathetic.
...and the Griefer Day.... I can't even go there......demented. I leave that for SaveMe to explain.
:))
Saturday, 21 May 2011
Friday, 20 May 2011
Rapture, Crapture Capture.
Wizzy pointed me at this first... and it must be the best business plan ever devised in the history of the world, period.
Which world is the virtual one?
??
Thursday, 19 May 2011
Transubstantiation revisited
Many thanks to Hexx for composing this music especially for the build in spite of now being in employment...
hugs.
:))
on Service and Servers....
Now, I had sort of planned not to write about LL anymore, for a couple of reasons....
The first reason is that Miso has put The Situation under her microscope and summarised it so well that really I need only to point to her post every time the Boys shoot themselves in the foot... I could even develop a short hand to signify a cock-up covered by Miso's post.... "Reply Part III"?...whatever...
The second reason is the rise in the number of fangirls who want to give me a hard time every time I criticise LL, I know they are all in denial, so I'll just wait til Sunday when they are all sitting on the Right Knee of God..... Peace on Earth.
...but I could hardly deny a friend a hearing. ... and JayJay is not normally so annoyed. Now, no one could accuse JayJay of being a serial complainer like me, but he has been trying to get LL to make it possible for Voice to cross his sim boundaries. He has been in contact with them about this problem for more than 3 weeks now. ...(just a side note here,.... LL has Voice crossing sim boundaries on their sims it seems...)
So...after being given the run-around for three weeks it now transpires that it just isn't possible .... now I understand that this is because some servers are in Dallas, some in DC, San Fran...and (spookie) Phoenix. [thx to @ChuckBaggett for the research] Now...for the signal/data to travel from DC to San Fran does not take zero time. This was a point that was made when we first heard of this plan back in 200X, and it lies behind the reason why LL will never fix sim crossings..... (or chat? in spite of renewed rumours)
But.. what has annoyed JayJay, and rightly so I think, is that he, as customer, was never informed of this when he bought the sims....and it is a basic flaw lurking in his University's Campus arrangement....
Miso's take on this that the servers are like 1Gb laptops (slight paraphrase) is a very good analogy. I had to upgrade. Everyone has to upgrade. The Savoy Hotel (I learned last night ) closed for 3 years to upgrade (cost £200million)... but LL won't upgrade, just get you to wear fewer clothes...and become short-sighted (64m)...Duh!!!
Anyway.... as JayJay couldn't blog it himself (his blog is taken up with Machinima stuff), I am happy to air his problem online .....and hope he will correct any mistakes I've made in comments.
...and mentioning Machinima... I must clarify that just because I am annoyed with the concept ..or the decisions ... of the LEA does not mean I hate everyone who has put in their hard work into trying to make a silk purse from a pig's bottom.... it's not personal... you aren't Mr/s Linden..... jeez ...XXX
...and just because I am boycotting SL8B as well as LEA doesn't mean I hate all Lindens either. I just don't like being told I can't use megas (for a start.. there are other reasons).... Don't get all personal, I can take it as well as dish it... relax. Without self reflection through criticism we'd all be as dumb as... Hmmm... [insert dumb persons name]....
In other news... well... Tateru has word from one of the Boys, Oz Linden, about the Most Hated Viewer In History... here. "If TPV's don't keep up, things will break".... that is his view... mine is : if you don't fix that bloody mess you call a viewer everyone's gonna migrate to IWz..... the idea that things break magically is a sort of schizoid view of life.... things get broken by people, or animals possibly..... but let's assume the Boys don't have a room full of an infinite number of Boy monkeys typing the 800,000 lines of code in the search for perfection.... (oh, and chat).... Who broke it, Oz?? You did.
So, otherwise, the weather is fine, and I'm off to drink a white wine spritzer and make a tree.
:))
The first reason is that Miso has put The Situation under her microscope and summarised it so well that really I need only to point to her post every time the Boys shoot themselves in the foot... I could even develop a short hand to signify a cock-up covered by Miso's post.... "Reply Part III"?...whatever...
The second reason is the rise in the number of fangirls who want to give me a hard time every time I criticise LL, I know they are all in denial, so I'll just wait til Sunday when they are all sitting on the Right Knee of God..... Peace on Earth.
...but I could hardly deny a friend a hearing. ... and JayJay is not normally so annoyed. Now, no one could accuse JayJay of being a serial complainer like me, but he has been trying to get LL to make it possible for Voice to cross his sim boundaries. He has been in contact with them about this problem for more than 3 weeks now. ...(just a side note here,.... LL has Voice crossing sim boundaries on their sims it seems...)
So...after being given the run-around for three weeks it now transpires that it just isn't possible .... now I understand that this is because some servers are in Dallas, some in DC, San Fran...and (spookie) Phoenix. [thx to @ChuckBaggett for the research] Now...for the signal/data to travel from DC to San Fran does not take zero time. This was a point that was made when we first heard of this plan back in 200X, and it lies behind the reason why LL will never fix sim crossings..... (or chat? in spite of renewed rumours)
But.. what has annoyed JayJay, and rightly so I think, is that he, as customer, was never informed of this when he bought the sims....and it is a basic flaw lurking in his University's Campus arrangement....
Miso's take on this that the servers are like 1Gb laptops (slight paraphrase) is a very good analogy. I had to upgrade. Everyone has to upgrade. The Savoy Hotel (I learned last night ) closed for 3 years to upgrade (cost £200million)... but LL won't upgrade, just get you to wear fewer clothes...and become short-sighted (64m)...Duh!!!
Anyway.... as JayJay couldn't blog it himself (his blog is taken up with Machinima stuff), I am happy to air his problem online .....and hope he will correct any mistakes I've made in comments.
...and mentioning Machinima... I must clarify that just because I am annoyed with the concept ..or the decisions ... of the LEA does not mean I hate everyone who has put in their hard work into trying to make a silk purse from a pig's bottom.... it's not personal... you aren't Mr/s Linden..... jeez ...XXX
...and just because I am boycotting SL8B as well as LEA doesn't mean I hate all Lindens either. I just don't like being told I can't use megas (for a start.. there are other reasons).... Don't get all personal, I can take it as well as dish it... relax. Without self reflection through criticism we'd all be as dumb as... Hmmm... [insert dumb persons name]....
In other news... well... Tateru has word from one of the Boys, Oz Linden, about the Most Hated Viewer In History... here. "If TPV's don't keep up, things will break".... that is his view... mine is : if you don't fix that bloody mess you call a viewer everyone's gonna migrate to IWz..... the idea that things break magically is a sort of schizoid view of life.... things get broken by people, or animals possibly..... but let's assume the Boys don't have a room full of an infinite number of Boy monkeys typing the 800,000 lines of code in the search for perfection.... (oh, and chat).... Who broke it, Oz?? You did.
So, otherwise, the weather is fine, and I'm off to drink a white wine spritzer and make a tree.
:))
Monday, 16 May 2011
The Reality of Virtual Art.
I've been stewing and brewing on the topic of Art in VW's.
It started a while back after Man Michinaga posted a long but insightful comment on my piece about Sponsorship and Exploitation.
It would be worthwhile reading the whole comment, but, amongst other things he says...
"The issue is that artists who wish that Linden Labs would act as an advocate for them are looking in the wrong direction, not only because of LL’s mindset that the Residents are assets for free marketing, but that Linden Labs itself has lost a great deal of its ability to leverage credible PR for its content in the past years. "
"It’s not that we’re against Linden Labs; far from it. It’s that we understand that they don’t understand the art and festival world because they’re a software company, and high artists are a) not amateur assets, and b) don’t really care if they’re famous in Second Life."
Now, I hope I'm not taking this out of context, but it very closely resembled a conversation I had the day before with White Lebed where she said, as does Man, that to really promote the SL Arts there would have to be a concerted effort to connect to RL arts groups (Man's point) or do some seriously good PR (both Man and White pointed to this).
Now, add to this the obvious but necessary point that SL is a software company, (maybe not even that, they rent server space) not an arts organisation and it is rather obvious that it just isn't going to happen..... and so.... is the LEA as insignificant as passing wind in a thunderstorm?
But there is something that holds me back from fully endorsing the idea that the Arts in VWs need to align themselves to RL Arts (organisations), apart from the fact that there aren't mature or functioning groups that back Digital Art.
For, while everything that both White and Man pointed out is 100% true, I feel that there is another dimension.
Alpha Auer wrote a post back in 2009 (in NPIRL's great blog) about Art ... The Work of Art in the Age of Computational (re) Production, which I consider to be a very important piece.
In it she points to the way that RL Art has lost it's way and how Virtual Art has, to a far greater degree than RL Art, the ability to transform through play. Art in VW's has the possibility of instigating Behavioural Change, she relates how artist friends of her bemoan the fact that wearable art doesn't get worn ..... unlike Nekko tails in Virtual Worlds....
[is our fascination with Lady Gaga, Aladdin Sane, Mick Jagger etc. a desire to see this transformation around us?...(Johnny Depp as pirate could stay at my place permanently) ... of course, unlike these part-time transformations, avatars don't have to 'dress down' ... ever.]
In her piece Alpha mentions Brian Sutton-Smith, a man who believes that evolution itself is dependent on play.... not just a thing we should grow out of....but the instigator of change.
Now, I consider myself to be fairly bright, and I have been trying for two years now to envisage how someone in RL can walk in a soror Nishi forest. I have not found a solution that is possible with todays technology. Assuming therefor that I am not stoopid ... the following logical conclusions are that we are technologically pushing the limits of what is possible and this is New Art
So, if my experience of the Art World (business) in RL and Alpha's theory of the loss of meaning/direction (usefulness) of Art is a partial or complete analysis of RL Art ..... would I want to ally myself to Art (organisations) lost in this mess?? Does New Art need to align itself with the Old Fine Arts in order to promote it's own credibility? ... or is it just a question of time...
Are we just being impatient? This is a new medium.... and a body of work takes a long while to develop.
It may be Alpha. or some other commentator, who pointed out that it will be years before Digital Art is accepted into the RL Art community in the same way as, for example, photography has recently been accepted. I say recently ... photography was invented and used for decades before it became seen as an artform.
Then, today, I read this post by Botgirl and I also had a sort of waking up experience.
My waking up was to realise that, as music fills the air, not a segment of it... so does Art in VWs. There is nothing that isn't art. Very similar to my objection to the use of the word "Immersive" to describe a sim (i.e. show me one part of SL/VWs that isn't immersive) .... show me one prim of SL/VW that isn't Art.
As I wrote last year "Art in SL is different. There is no difference between Artist and Artisan in SL.
That means.... there is no difference between a great pair of shoes and some twirly rotating anim smooth sculpture...both are High Art."
So...the semantically inclined might say..."well, that depends on your classification of art..." Mine has, hitherto, been the "long, immense and deliberate derangement of the senses" [Rimbaud]...I haven't found a better one yet... and every prim fills that definition.
So, the question still remains, can we get some better PR? Do we need it?.... hmmm ... well, I know someone said that if you make a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door ..... and while I'm not planning a JFK "ask not what LL can do for you..." solution, I do wonder if we need to organise ourselves better, content creators and artists alike...
.... and do that thing we do so well....i.e. international, multi disciplined, collaboration.... on PR, not another piece of art.
:)))
It started a while back after Man Michinaga posted a long but insightful comment on my piece about Sponsorship and Exploitation.
It would be worthwhile reading the whole comment, but, amongst other things he says...
"The issue is that artists who wish that Linden Labs would act as an advocate for them are looking in the wrong direction, not only because of LL’s mindset that the Residents are assets for free marketing, but that Linden Labs itself has lost a great deal of its ability to leverage credible PR for its content in the past years. "
"It’s not that we’re against Linden Labs; far from it. It’s that we understand that they don’t understand the art and festival world because they’re a software company, and high artists are a) not amateur assets, and b) don’t really care if they’re famous in Second Life."
Now, I hope I'm not taking this out of context, but it very closely resembled a conversation I had the day before with White Lebed where she said, as does Man, that to really promote the SL Arts there would have to be a concerted effort to connect to RL arts groups (Man's point) or do some seriously good PR (both Man and White pointed to this).
Now, add to this the obvious but necessary point that SL is a software company, (maybe not even that, they rent server space) not an arts organisation and it is rather obvious that it just isn't going to happen..... and so.... is the LEA as insignificant as passing wind in a thunderstorm?
But there is something that holds me back from fully endorsing the idea that the Arts in VWs need to align themselves to RL Arts (organisations), apart from the fact that there aren't mature or functioning groups that back Digital Art.
For, while everything that both White and Man pointed out is 100% true, I feel that there is another dimension.
Alpha Auer wrote a post back in 2009 (in NPIRL's great blog) about Art ... The Work of Art in the Age of Computational (re) Production, which I consider to be a very important piece.
In it she points to the way that RL Art has lost it's way and how Virtual Art has, to a far greater degree than RL Art, the ability to transform through play. Art in VW's has the possibility of instigating Behavioural Change, she relates how artist friends of her bemoan the fact that wearable art doesn't get worn ..... unlike Nekko tails in Virtual Worlds....
[is our fascination with Lady Gaga, Aladdin Sane, Mick Jagger etc. a desire to see this transformation around us?...(Johnny Depp as pirate could stay at my place permanently) ... of course, unlike these part-time transformations, avatars don't have to 'dress down' ... ever.]
In her piece Alpha mentions Brian Sutton-Smith, a man who believes that evolution itself is dependent on play.... not just a thing we should grow out of....but the instigator of change.
Now, I consider myself to be fairly bright, and I have been trying for two years now to envisage how someone in RL can walk in a soror Nishi forest. I have not found a solution that is possible with todays technology. Assuming therefor that I am not stoopid ... the following logical conclusions are that we are technologically pushing the limits of what is possible and this is New Art
So, if my experience of the Art World (business) in RL and Alpha's theory of the loss of meaning/direction (usefulness) of Art is a partial or complete analysis of RL Art ..... would I want to ally myself to Art (organisations) lost in this mess?? Does New Art need to align itself with the Old Fine Arts in order to promote it's own credibility? ... or is it just a question of time...
Are we just being impatient? This is a new medium.... and a body of work takes a long while to develop.
It may be Alpha. or some other commentator, who pointed out that it will be years before Digital Art is accepted into the RL Art community in the same way as, for example, photography has recently been accepted. I say recently ... photography was invented and used for decades before it became seen as an artform.
Then, today, I read this post by Botgirl and I also had a sort of waking up experience.
My waking up was to realise that, as music fills the air, not a segment of it... so does Art in VWs. There is nothing that isn't art. Very similar to my objection to the use of the word "Immersive" to describe a sim (i.e. show me one part of SL/VWs that isn't immersive) .... show me one prim of SL/VW that isn't Art.
As I wrote last year "Art in SL is different. There is no difference between Artist and Artisan in SL.
That means.... there is no difference between a great pair of shoes and some twirly rotating anim smooth sculpture...both are High Art."
So...the semantically inclined might say..."well, that depends on your classification of art..." Mine has, hitherto, been the "long, immense and deliberate derangement of the senses" [Rimbaud]...I haven't found a better one yet... and every prim fills that definition.
So, the question still remains, can we get some better PR? Do we need it?.... hmmm ... well, I know someone said that if you make a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door ..... and while I'm not planning a JFK "ask not what LL can do for you..." solution, I do wonder if we need to organise ourselves better, content creators and artists alike...
.... and do that thing we do so well....i.e. international, multi disciplined, collaboration.... on PR, not another piece of art.
:)))
Saturday, 14 May 2011
New Blender...
Just a few words for the noobie Blender users.....
Don't panic, if you were just getting used to the older Blender UI... they have come out with a new one.....but.... it's easy....
If you install the new version 2.5, and then want it to look like the one I had introduced you to... well you just open this file... in your new UI and the user settings will revert it to something you have just started to get used to, I hope.
Pheww... easy peasy.... still not sure about the colour combos...but I'm pretty sure they are Mod.
Will investigate further...
:))
Friday, 13 May 2011
Friday Feeling....
... is not that my body is a temple, more like an eroded ruin...it's been a hard week.
Blogger made a big cock-up, and admitted to it which actually impressed me quite a bit... so you may have had trouble reading my previous post. I know Miso's piece "Miso and the Wolf" went AWOL for a while....
...in other news... made a new tree for UWA and, of course, anyone else that wants one.... not quite got round to putting it for sale yet.
It's called The Old White Pelican Tree....why?? don't ask, it's complicated.
...in other news I am helping Allure Magazine with some graphics and photos, hopefully.... it's a new InWorldz magazine and there's a lot to sort out for the first edition...
...in other news I am actually also going to put in a personal appearance in the film I've been providing content for ..... hope to see some first rushes in June.
There's been a few comments and posts on mesh recently... the rumour going round is that we will have mesh by the end of the month. This is incorrect. We will get an announcement by the end of the month.... and there's various stuff been leaking out, like there's still 400 bugs to fix and that the new mesh will break all old OS meshes.......and etc etc..
Mesh....well, the jury is out. It may eventually be the best thing since Display Names and Voice Morphing.... one thing is pretty sure, however, and that is that SL Viewer 1.23 will not be updated, so...time to try a new one.
....and ... continuing on a techy note started with a recent post of mine, here's another invention to look forward too... the future of broadband ... maybe..... here.
Finally... I love a bit of pure hypocrisy, don't you. This one is a gem. After the recent attempts by the USA government to stop Wikileaks, US government to spend $30 million fighting internet censorship.
You couldn't make it up.
:))
Blogger made a big cock-up, and admitted to it which actually impressed me quite a bit... so you may have had trouble reading my previous post. I know Miso's piece "Miso and the Wolf" went AWOL for a while....
...in other news... made a new tree for UWA and, of course, anyone else that wants one.... not quite got round to putting it for sale yet.
It's called The Old White Pelican Tree....why?? don't ask, it's complicated.
...in other news I am helping Allure Magazine with some graphics and photos, hopefully.... it's a new InWorldz magazine and there's a lot to sort out for the first edition...
...in other news I am actually also going to put in a personal appearance in the film I've been providing content for ..... hope to see some first rushes in June.
There's been a few comments and posts on mesh recently... the rumour going round is that we will have mesh by the end of the month. This is incorrect. We will get an announcement by the end of the month.... and there's various stuff been leaking out, like there's still 400 bugs to fix and that the new mesh will break all old OS meshes.......and etc etc..
Mesh....well, the jury is out. It may eventually be the best thing since Display Names and Voice Morphing.... one thing is pretty sure, however, and that is that SL Viewer 1.23 will not be updated, so...time to try a new one.
....and ... continuing on a techy note started with a recent post of mine, here's another invention to look forward too... the future of broadband ... maybe..... here.
Finally... I love a bit of pure hypocrisy, don't you. This one is a gem. After the recent attempts by the USA government to stop Wikileaks, US government to spend $30 million fighting internet censorship.
You couldn't make it up.
:))
Thursday, 12 May 2011
Nordan Art
Better late than never, they say (mind you They say a lot of stuff, often crap).... I have wanted to post a little something about this show since it opened on the 7th May. Well, you couldn't have got in to see it anyway, it was too busy...
Firstly there's Shellina Winkler... she has an installation outside which resembles a chess board after a major earthquake. It's put together with the usual class and style you would expect from Shellina, a lady who knows about composition as well as torturing prims...
Inside the gallery are a few intimate photos by Paolo Tauber and on the floor above, work by Simotron Aquila. I particularly liked Insomnia2.
In the New Extension by Igor ..
[sorry Igor, nothing personal, but I have to rant again about stairs in SL... why oh why oh why .... we can fly....why do people keep on making stairs... great building...but I hate stairs, both in principle and in particular.... No fault attributed to Igor, here, he was probably expected to put stairs in....]
....anyway...in the great new extension by Igor...*smiles sweetly* ... is the most impressive work of Claudia222 Jewell (see above).
Claudia is extremely skilled in her use of Blender and a skilled texture artist too. Her work is organic, (as in .. like organs), humorous, dark and quite Sci -Fi. I haven't seen anything this good since Kaltusaran left SL....in fact, if I had found flora like this when I first came to SL, I might never have bothered making a tree at all...
I love this dark and brooding side of vegetation, and, because I seem to be unable to conjure up that part of my psyche, it is great for me to see someone else doing it.
Well, as you may have guessed ...I have to recommend a visit to Nordan ..... (I would always recommend a visit to Nordan... a well run gallery indeed)... it's on til the end of the month approx. The next one opening on the 9th July.
It's a Must See .... here.
:))
Firstly there's Shellina Winkler... she has an installation outside which resembles a chess board after a major earthquake. It's put together with the usual class and style you would expect from Shellina, a lady who knows about composition as well as torturing prims...
Inside the gallery are a few intimate photos by Paolo Tauber and on the floor above, work by Simotron Aquila. I particularly liked Insomnia2.
In the New Extension by Igor ..
[sorry Igor, nothing personal, but I have to rant again about stairs in SL... why oh why oh why .... we can fly....why do people keep on making stairs... great building...but I hate stairs, both in principle and in particular.... No fault attributed to Igor, here, he was probably expected to put stairs in....]
....anyway...in the great new extension by Igor...*smiles sweetly* ... is the most impressive work of Claudia222 Jewell (see above).
Claudia is extremely skilled in her use of Blender and a skilled texture artist too. Her work is organic, (as in .. like organs), humorous, dark and quite Sci -Fi. I haven't seen anything this good since Kaltusaran left SL....in fact, if I had found flora like this when I first came to SL, I might never have bothered making a tree at all...
I love this dark and brooding side of vegetation, and, because I seem to be unable to conjure up that part of my psyche, it is great for me to see someone else doing it.
Well, as you may have guessed ...I have to recommend a visit to Nordan ..... (I would always recommend a visit to Nordan... a well run gallery indeed)... it's on til the end of the month approx. The next one opening on the 9th July.
It's a Must See .... here.
:))
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
The Wizard
Wizzy has probably the best show of geometrical art that you are ever likely to see in VWs on show from today at the UWA sim devoted to art.......here...at VIRTLANTIS.
Now, a full interview is also online at the UWAinSL blog... ... and Juanita has posted about the show here..... the official opening is set for Saturday at 12.
Wizzy has attracted a lot of interest in several worlds as she has a way of turning maths into a thing of beauty, or, in this case several things....... It's really worth going to see for the shear perfection of geometry.
These things could never be made in RL... the one Thingy is 7200 prims...and it took an enormous amount of determination to rezz the bloody thing... (insider gossip...Wizzy was v frustrated...:))...
Anyway, if you wait til the opening or pop along beforehand, you won't be disappointed.
:))
New York Agora Gallery, 12th May.
A friend from Australia is showing at the Agora Gallery in NYC from the 12th.
Alison-Jane Rice is one of a few artists from Down Under whose work is featured...and I think she is very good and well worth popping in to see if you have a chance.
The show is a collection of work...
"Out From Down Under & Beyond: Fine Art from Australia and New Zealand presents the work of artists who delve into their shared geographical and cultural heritage to produce marvelous creations of strength and vigor. Exploring different mediums and adopting varying styles, each artist achieves something unique and remarkable for its vibrant and emotive power.
May 12, 2011 - June 1, 2011
Reception: Thursday, May 12, 2011
Gallery Location: 530 West 25th St, Chelsea, New York
Gallery Hours: Tues - Sat, 11am - 6pm
Recommended viewing...
:))
Tech stuff...
Now, not being a real through and through geek I seldom get into posting stuff I don't understand, but I make exceptions.
The thing that has got me flexing my geek muscles is a recent post on the Tri-Gate Transistor courtesy of Ars Technica, (the post not the transistor). The transistor has been developed by Intel and promises a New Age in computer speed and power consumption...
"Intel claims that the 22nm tri-gate transistors switch between 18 and 37 percent faster than the 32nm planar ones (depending on the voltage level). Or, looked at from the voltage side, the new design can reduce active power by up to 50 percent."
...and....for non geeks like me, I have to compliment Jon Stokes for making a very difficult subject available to all.
The full article is here.
The reason for my interest is my ongoing Wish List where I have started to yearn for more... just more.
Now, I'm not so daft as to think I can have a better resolution before the average computer has grown a few more muscles, i know that we are, some of us, still struggling along with the 'normal' laptops and machines that are on the market at the moment. However, the day will come when we will smile when we think about 2011 machines with that same smile that grows when we think of our first (1980's?) computer.
16kb, was the first Commodore I think, or was it 64........ mine is 639.78 Gb...
/me smiles....
There's a list of dates... computer history....here. (1981...IBM joins the computer race by announcing the IBM Personal Computer on August 12, 1981, which runs the new MS-DOS operating system and has a starting price of $1,565.)
:))
Sunday, 8 May 2011
Euro Phlox Test Party
Well, it was quite a change at a party to be asked to increase my ARC, something I have no problem with at all.
The European guys and gals , feeling left out of the Phlox testing because of time zone considerations actually got to try out this new Script Engine in InWorldz.
So, forty people, wearing everything they could, dancing, collected at the 2nd Birthday Sim on InWorldz to see what Phlox could take....and then 3 horses rode by too...
These are the hard facts. I have a Quad Core Mac Desktop, (2.66 Ghz) so it's not an average laptop, but it has just the basic graphics card (Nvidia GT120, 512Mb) and is mid/upper end, but even so, there is no way, maxed out on Ultra, that I could have still been moving in SL....
I was impressed.
I guess, for most of us, that the times we are most likely to stress out the server is at a party. If we can party, all's well. Interestingly enough Chat didn't suffer either and... it was well tested.
All in all we were all pleasantly surprised and very thankful/impressed by Tranquility's efforts.
Thanks again InWorldz crew... when Physx arrives... wow... what a grid!!
:))
Friday, 6 May 2011
Weekend Fun at Raglan and The Shires.
Raglan Shire hosts the wonderful Art Walk again from Sunday for the next three weeks.....here.... on two of the 7 Sims run by the Small People
There is a hedge boat, self-guided, which will take you round the sims, tho you may feel a little cramped if you are a biggie.
I have put three sculptures in the woods and had a wander down the hedgerow where a lot of 2D art is on display...
...and I have no excuse for republishing this photo of a budgie conga line from a disco a few years ago....
The following is a list of shops in The Shires with Stuff for sale for Small People...
DATE OF LIST: Friday May 06 2011 (8pmSLT) thru Sunday May 08 2011 (8pmSLT)
*All items on this list are spot-checked on Friday at 8pm SLT. The TSW Staff does not verify all the entries but randomly teleports to participating stores. If you have a question or concern about one of the entries, please IM Tia Macbain, Eleanora Newell or Misa Delight. Sale prices are only guaranteed until Sunday 8pmSLT . Thank you and have fun! *
***************************************
1.
STORE NAME: Tiny TAMA
STORE OWNER: Eleanora Newell and Fox Obviate
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Heron%20Shire/100/202/22
2.
STORE NAME: Arizona's Fashions For Tinies
STORE OWNER: Arizona Noel
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Morning%20Shire/121/218/21
3.
STORE NAME: Greenwood Cave
STORE OWNER: Clowey Greenwood
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Morning%20Shire/112/215/21
4.
STORE NAME: Elefantabulous
STORE OWNER: Stainlessteelrat Solo
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Raglan%20Shire/127/120/41
5.
STORE NAME: Izo's
STORE OWNER: Izo Ryba
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Morning%20Shire/37/231/21
6.
STORE NAME: Lidl Audz Lidl Kisses
STORE OWNER: Audrey Fotherington
SLURL: ???
7a.
STORE NAME: TOTALLY TINIES
STORE OWNER:Clover Dezno
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Raglan%20Shire/140/239/23
7b.
STORE NAME: TOTALLY TINIES
STORE OWNER:Clover Dezno
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Heron%20Shire/36/218/29
8a.
STORE NAME: MOUSEHOLE
STORE OWNER: Chow Wise
SLURL:http://slurl.com/secondlife/Haven%20Shire/96/219/21
8b.
STORE NAME: Tinies Rock!
STORE OWNER: Chow Wise
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Haven%20Shire/96/219/21
9.
STORE NAME: Maffle's
STORE OWNER: Maff Constantine
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Raglan%20Shire/21/172/37/
10.
STORE NAME: Druscilla's Whim
STORE OWNER: Druscilla Ferraris
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Heron%20Shire/68/176/22
11.
STORE NAME: Cirrus Design
STORE OWNER: Liandras Jameson
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Raglan%20Shire/223/134/23
12.
STORE NAME: Tigpig Inc.
STORE OWNER: Tia Macbain & Dorian Longstaff
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Raglan%20Commons/145/231/23
So....go shopping if you are small....
if you are big....
....and if you haven't already heard from Tateru's blog.... time for a little shopping at Celestial Studios who are closing down and moving on...
....and as the economy is reported to be improving ... pop along and fill your invent a bit more....
:))
There is a hedge boat, self-guided, which will take you round the sims, tho you may feel a little cramped if you are a biggie.
I have put three sculptures in the woods and had a wander down the hedgerow where a lot of 2D art is on display...
...and I have no excuse for republishing this photo of a budgie conga line from a disco a few years ago....
The following is a list of shops in The Shires with Stuff for sale for Small People...
DATE OF LIST: Friday May 06 2011 (8pmSLT) thru Sunday May 08 2011 (8pmSLT)
*All items on this list are spot-checked on Friday at 8pm SLT. The TSW Staff does not verify all the entries but randomly teleports to participating stores. If you have a question or concern about one of the entries, please IM Tia Macbain, Eleanora Newell or Misa Delight. Sale prices are only guaranteed until Sunday 8pmSLT . Thank you and have fun! *
***************************************
1.
STORE NAME: Tiny TAMA
STORE OWNER: Eleanora Newell and Fox Obviate
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Heron%20Shire/100/202/22
2.
STORE NAME: Arizona's Fashions For Tinies
STORE OWNER: Arizona Noel
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Morning%20Shire/121/218/21
3.
STORE NAME: Greenwood Cave
STORE OWNER: Clowey Greenwood
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Morning%20Shire/112/215/21
4.
STORE NAME: Elefantabulous
STORE OWNER: Stainlessteelrat Solo
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Raglan%20Shire/127/120/41
5.
STORE NAME: Izo's
STORE OWNER: Izo Ryba
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Morning%20Shire/37/231/21
6.
STORE NAME: Lidl Audz Lidl Kisses
STORE OWNER: Audrey Fotherington
SLURL: ???
7a.
STORE NAME: TOTALLY TINIES
STORE OWNER:Clover Dezno
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Raglan%20Shire/140/239/23
7b.
STORE NAME: TOTALLY TINIES
STORE OWNER:Clover Dezno
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Heron%20Shire/36/218/29
8a.
STORE NAME: MOUSEHOLE
STORE OWNER: Chow Wise
SLURL:http://slurl.com/secondlife/Haven%20Shire/96/219/21
8b.
STORE NAME: Tinies Rock!
STORE OWNER: Chow Wise
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Haven%20Shire/96/219/21
9.
STORE NAME: Maffle's
STORE OWNER: Maff Constantine
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Raglan%20Shire/21/172/37/
10.
STORE NAME: Druscilla's Whim
STORE OWNER: Druscilla Ferraris
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Heron%20Shire/68/176/22
11.
STORE NAME: Cirrus Design
STORE OWNER: Liandras Jameson
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Raglan%20Shire/223/134/23
12.
STORE NAME: Tigpig Inc.
STORE OWNER: Tia Macbain & Dorian Longstaff
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Raglan%20Commons/145/231/23
So....go shopping if you are small....
if you are big....
....and if you haven't already heard from Tateru's blog.... time for a little shopping at Celestial Studios who are closing down and moving on...
....and as the economy is reported to be improving ... pop along and fill your invent a bit more....
:))
Sponsorship and Exploitation.
A great post by Honour McMillan yesterday left me feeling like I had, in my glib way, been a little unclear about my thoughts on my last post about SaveMe and Dan.
so....that’s easy to clear up, and, though Honour says she doesn’t have the patience for this discussion, I certainly do....and that discussion is...?? ...
When does ‘sponsorship’ of the Arts become exploitation?
This is certainly a subject which, after years of making art in RL, has come often to the fore. I have personally lost track of how many freebies I’ve done on thin promises and “great opportunities”.. and I am not bemoaning that, I continue to do freebies.
I fully understand that sponsorship by companies is often a two-way street, I wasn’t born yesterday.
What I do object to, personally, is when companies, and rich individuals, use Artists, (well me, specifically) without any payment. Unlike painting the Sistine Chapel, many artists are expected/offered work where they even buy their own paints and other materials.... like in SL.
So I feel that Dan’s outburst at the LEA opening is justified. LL has done nothing for artists for 6 or 7 years except charge them tier and now wants free machinima to use for PR.
Good... but I think the artists should be paid, when you consider how many millions of dollars the Lab makes each month.... what would a PR company charge them? What do their PR employees earn per month? .......No cash prize?
I know that it is often just a token payment, a prize, but it is a public recognition that the Art has a commercial value too.It's like bringing flowers to a dinner party hostess...sorta good manners.
LL=Cheapskates.
There are some people who seems to think that rules are OK. That’s fine. Many of what we now consider to be great artists, however, broke all the rules. Breaking rules is what changes the status quo, it’s what artists do ... well, those that aren’t merely going through the motions.
If we don’t put what little pressure we can on the established perception of art in SL and continually question the narrow-minded censorship of what is and isn’t permissible ... no one else will.. I don't really think there are many rules I would not question, push against and criticise, especially when it comes to Content in The Internet Age.
.. and the Linden’s aren’t gonna suddenly say......Megas are OK really, unless we continue to nag them.
Some recent blogging about SL suggests nothing has happened, and everything is fine. To read them you would think nothing has changed. I am not sure whether they are just in denial or so uninformed about the general decline of SL that they cannot see it.
72 sims lost this month equals another $250,000 per annum. Elf Clan’s move to InWorldz is a major event which Rodvik found out about through Twittering...too late...
The negativity which some of us have been tarred with is a natural reaction. Standing by while a leading tech company pisses it’s credibility down the drain could be fine, if I hadn’t invested time and energy through my artistic endeavours and financial support.
Well, I have, I did, and They pissed it away...
... So...yes, I’m annoyed.... v annoyed.
.... not negative.
:)))
so....that’s easy to clear up, and, though Honour says she doesn’t have the patience for this discussion, I certainly do....and that discussion is...?? ...
When does ‘sponsorship’ of the Arts become exploitation?
This is certainly a subject which, after years of making art in RL, has come often to the fore. I have personally lost track of how many freebies I’ve done on thin promises and “great opportunities”.. and I am not bemoaning that, I continue to do freebies.
I fully understand that sponsorship by companies is often a two-way street, I wasn’t born yesterday.
What I do object to, personally, is when companies, and rich individuals, use Artists, (well me, specifically) without any payment. Unlike painting the Sistine Chapel, many artists are expected/offered work where they even buy their own paints and other materials.... like in SL.
So I feel that Dan’s outburst at the LEA opening is justified. LL has done nothing for artists for 6 or 7 years except charge them tier and now wants free machinima to use for PR.
Good... but I think the artists should be paid, when you consider how many millions of dollars the Lab makes each month.... what would a PR company charge them? What do their PR employees earn per month? .......No cash prize?
I know that it is often just a token payment, a prize, but it is a public recognition that the Art has a commercial value too.It's like bringing flowers to a dinner party hostess...sorta good manners.
LL=Cheapskates.
There are some people who seems to think that rules are OK. That’s fine. Many of what we now consider to be great artists, however, broke all the rules. Breaking rules is what changes the status quo, it’s what artists do ... well, those that aren’t merely going through the motions.
If we don’t put what little pressure we can on the established perception of art in SL and continually question the narrow-minded censorship of what is and isn’t permissible ... no one else will.. I don't really think there are many rules I would not question, push against and criticise, especially when it comes to Content in The Internet Age.
.. and the Linden’s aren’t gonna suddenly say......Megas are OK really, unless we continue to nag them.
Some recent blogging about SL suggests nothing has happened, and everything is fine. To read them you would think nothing has changed. I am not sure whether they are just in denial or so uninformed about the general decline of SL that they cannot see it.
72 sims lost this month equals another $250,000 per annum. Elf Clan’s move to InWorldz is a major event which Rodvik found out about through Twittering...too late...
The negativity which some of us have been tarred with is a natural reaction. Standing by while a leading tech company pisses it’s credibility down the drain could be fine, if I hadn’t invested time and energy through my artistic endeavours and financial support.
Well, I have, I did, and They pissed it away...
... So...yes, I’m annoyed.... v annoyed.
.... not negative.
:)))
Thursday, 5 May 2011
An Unexpected Alliance at LEA Opening.
The LEA event opening the Machinima Event went off with a little drama, SL style.
SaveMe Oh, probably the most controversial artist in SL, who I interviewed properly for my blog post on Koinup (not something I do much) entertained the troops with an impromptu performance as she often does when given (or not given) the chance.
She rightly states in her blog that really you don't need a fancy building to view something that looks better on YouTube, where there is no lag or crashing.
"Machinima has to rescue secondlife and Linden Labs. Now as a frequent user I am happy with every attempt to keep SL online but what did they invent?? A stupid event about machinima (NO NUDETY,NO VIOLENCE) (Oliver Stone, Al Pacino, Angelina Jolie and Kate Winslet must be banned in advance), An horrible building (who needs to be covered watching movies in sl?), 1000 seats were you are glued in according to the CARP concept where you can sit and shut up to see machinima that you can view 1000 times better on YouTube, Vimeo or AviewTV."
SaveMe got banned, art is only art if the Organisers say it is Art, I guess.... and let's face it SaveMe can push the envelope better than a herd of elephants.... so I think neither she nor anyone else was very surprised. She is the most banned artist in SL, I would guess.
So... all quite traditional so far.
Ole Etzel, a longterm creator in SL, could not of course show his stuff, especially Part Three of The Disease... (see below)...
Ole, along with Mrs Bones (who has a chainsaw, and knows how to use it) has been amusing me for years with his personal view of life, and death.....but.... similar to Nipple Gate, the incident with Rose being banned because of Susa... (and consequent comment by me)... Ole likes blood in his art....and that is not allowed. Like megas, there are rules.
Now, anyone who thinks they can promote the Arts and yet make sure no one breaks the rules is a bit daft. Art and Rules don't mix, they never have, and never will. Period.....as I wrote before in these pages..."The creative anarchy of the human condition is revolutionary and irrepressible."
...But... it was not for reasons of Artistic Freedom that two very unlikely people have become united in their dislike of LEA...
...an excerpt from SaveMe's blog....
Dancoyote Antonelli: did you know why we are on the same side?
SaveMe Oh: Maybe I become the Don Quichotte of SL
SaveMe Oh: tell me?
Dancoyote Antonelli: The director of user experience spoke
Dancoyote Antonelli: one Rhett Linden
Dancoyote Antonelli: and said how greatful he is that art is such good free marketing for Linden Labs
Dancoyote Antonelli: that was the moment we became on the same side
SaveMe Oh: They gave us the canvas, we had to bring the crayons ourselves, and now they want everything back.
SaveMe Oh: So fight along with me for freedom of expression on our own terms
Dancoyote Antonelli: I am with you
Dancoyote Antonelli: and now
Dancoyote Antonelli: we need a private channel
SaveMe Oh: Fear is also not an issue, the moment we brought in our crayons we start to be faster then them.
Dancoyote Antonelli: more on this later. Now LEA will try to kick me for my protest
Dancoyote Antonelli: it will be a big mistake if they do
SaveMe Oh: Make it difficult for them! Good luck as you have every right on your side."
May 4, 2011
Now, I have called this LEA effort Artists Endowment of the Lindens, and it is. Unlike UWA which, for the last 18 months has been awarding cash prizes to artists, known and unknown, and the many altruistic sponsors out there who donate prims and sims so that creators can create, Linden Lab has done nothing. Not a penny, or a cent has been offered. No sim has been donated, not even for Burning Life.
The thing about sponsorship is that there is, or should be, an element of altruism. Art should be sponsored for Art's sake, and the commercialisation of the LEA, i.e. it's use as cheap marketing puts me on the same bench as SaveMe and Dan.
Dancoyote Antonelli: shouts: Artists are NOT Marketing
For while Sasun can say...
"The LEA exists to help encourage and cultivate art and artists within Second Life, to foster community, creativity, and innovation among artists, and collaborate with existing art galleries and groups to help nurture their valuable participation in the SL arts."....
...it's all just words.... and I've heard a lot over the last 4 years....(previous Sasun)
16 months of dragging their feet, there's no 70 sims as promised, (link included for those that claim 70 sims was never mentioned)... just a large building, a game and a sandbox .. oh, and future plans for a welcome centre....
..big deal. I should be impressed??
:))
SaveMe Oh, probably the most controversial artist in SL, who I interviewed properly for my blog post on Koinup (not something I do much) entertained the troops with an impromptu performance as she often does when given (or not given) the chance.
She rightly states in her blog that really you don't need a fancy building to view something that looks better on YouTube, where there is no lag or crashing.
"Machinima has to rescue secondlife and Linden Labs. Now as a frequent user I am happy with every attempt to keep SL online but what did they invent?? A stupid event about machinima (NO NUDETY,NO VIOLENCE) (Oliver Stone, Al Pacino, Angelina Jolie and Kate Winslet must be banned in advance), An horrible building (who needs to be covered watching movies in sl?), 1000 seats were you are glued in according to the CARP concept where you can sit and shut up to see machinima that you can view 1000 times better on YouTube, Vimeo or AviewTV."
SaveMe got banned, art is only art if the Organisers say it is Art, I guess.... and let's face it SaveMe can push the envelope better than a herd of elephants.... so I think neither she nor anyone else was very surprised. She is the most banned artist in SL, I would guess.
So... all quite traditional so far.
Ole Etzel, a longterm creator in SL, could not of course show his stuff, especially Part Three of The Disease... (see below)...
Ole, along with Mrs Bones (who has a chainsaw, and knows how to use it) has been amusing me for years with his personal view of life, and death.....but.... similar to Nipple Gate, the incident with Rose being banned because of Susa... (and consequent comment by me)... Ole likes blood in his art....and that is not allowed. Like megas, there are rules.
Now, anyone who thinks they can promote the Arts and yet make sure no one breaks the rules is a bit daft. Art and Rules don't mix, they never have, and never will. Period.....as I wrote before in these pages..."The creative anarchy of the human condition is revolutionary and irrepressible."
...But... it was not for reasons of Artistic Freedom that two very unlikely people have become united in their dislike of LEA...
...an excerpt from SaveMe's blog....
Dancoyote Antonelli: did you know why we are on the same side?
SaveMe Oh: Maybe I become the Don Quichotte of SL
SaveMe Oh: tell me?
Dancoyote Antonelli: The director of user experience spoke
Dancoyote Antonelli: one Rhett Linden
Dancoyote Antonelli: and said how greatful he is that art is such good free marketing for Linden Labs
Dancoyote Antonelli: that was the moment we became on the same side
SaveMe Oh: They gave us the canvas, we had to bring the crayons ourselves, and now they want everything back.
SaveMe Oh: So fight along with me for freedom of expression on our own terms
Dancoyote Antonelli: I am with you
Dancoyote Antonelli: and now
Dancoyote Antonelli: we need a private channel
SaveMe Oh: Fear is also not an issue, the moment we brought in our crayons we start to be faster then them.
Dancoyote Antonelli: more on this later. Now LEA will try to kick me for my protest
Dancoyote Antonelli: it will be a big mistake if they do
SaveMe Oh: Make it difficult for them! Good luck as you have every right on your side."
May 4, 2011
Now, I have called this LEA effort Artists Endowment of the Lindens, and it is. Unlike UWA which, for the last 18 months has been awarding cash prizes to artists, known and unknown, and the many altruistic sponsors out there who donate prims and sims so that creators can create, Linden Lab has done nothing. Not a penny, or a cent has been offered. No sim has been donated, not even for Burning Life.
The thing about sponsorship is that there is, or should be, an element of altruism. Art should be sponsored for Art's sake, and the commercialisation of the LEA, i.e. it's use as cheap marketing puts me on the same bench as SaveMe and Dan.
Dancoyote Antonelli: shouts: Artists are NOT Marketing
For while Sasun can say...
"The LEA exists to help encourage and cultivate art and artists within Second Life, to foster community, creativity, and innovation among artists, and collaborate with existing art galleries and groups to help nurture their valuable participation in the SL arts."....
...it's all just words.... and I've heard a lot over the last 4 years....(previous Sasun)
16 months of dragging their feet, there's no 70 sims as promised, (link included for those that claim 70 sims was never mentioned)... just a large building, a game and a sandbox .. oh, and future plans for a welcome centre....
..big deal. I should be impressed??
:))
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Mid week bloggery
Yes, I know I have made a sort of promise to myself to stop taking the Michael out of the Boys, but I was slightly amused at the following suggestion which arrived in my Inbox today from the strange Sandbox publication from the Boys....
I was very glad that they have taken onboard all the suggestions that Phaylen and Toxic and Chantal had to offer in their recent (not so recent) podcast about how machinima is a vastly underused tool for positive SL PR.... Indeed the first actual action taken by the infamous LEA was to open a month of machinima ... then the sim crashed...(details here).
Oh well, it won't crash all month.
....anyway....under "hot tips" for places to see original content....at Number One... Treet TV
That's a really good recommendation.... for InWorldz, anyway, as the latest interview with Lady Sakai and Jim Tarber is a great bit of coverage on What It Is Like To Move To InWorldz.... so great bit of PR for InWorldz by LL...
The Interview is so good I can recommend it and the transcript on Jim's blog is well worth reading, I think.....especially if you are thinking about moving (as two friends have said they are today).. Paisley blogged it too...
....and UWA have launched another competition, this time a Photographic one, both in RL and SL, and featuring the Campus. There are, as usual, good cash prizes to be won....get all the info....here. This is again down to Jayjay promoting SL to his boss and getting SL included.
No prizes of any kind from the Boys, of course..only the following amusing advice. This... Did You Know?.... from the SandBox (how did I manage before they started sending out this??)
DUH!!
In other VW news, Open Sim has just released 0.7.1 according to Ener. ....who is a great source of OS news... with an interesting security feature (OS, not Ener).. permitting grid owners to disallow taking objects off the grid while still allowing Hyperporting (or whatever the tping between grids is called). So the security of the Hypergrid increases...expect a blog from Maria soon (guess only).
...and to all my Mac owning readers... what about the new iMac and VWs... well Trilo Bytes has blogged a few answers... here.
So ... that'll keep you 'busy' at work... have a good week...
:)))
I was very glad that they have taken onboard all the suggestions that Phaylen and Toxic and Chantal had to offer in their recent (not so recent) podcast about how machinima is a vastly underused tool for positive SL PR.... Indeed the first actual action taken by the infamous LEA was to open a month of machinima ... then the sim crashed...(details here).
Oh well, it won't crash all month.
....anyway....under "hot tips" for places to see original content....at Number One... Treet TV
That's a really good recommendation.... for InWorldz, anyway, as the latest interview with Lady Sakai and Jim Tarber is a great bit of coverage on What It Is Like To Move To InWorldz.... so great bit of PR for InWorldz by LL...
The Interview is so good I can recommend it and the transcript on Jim's blog is well worth reading, I think.....especially if you are thinking about moving (as two friends have said they are today).. Paisley blogged it too...
....and UWA have launched another competition, this time a Photographic one, both in RL and SL, and featuring the Campus. There are, as usual, good cash prizes to be won....get all the info....here. This is again down to Jayjay promoting SL to his boss and getting SL included.
No prizes of any kind from the Boys, of course..only the following amusing advice. This... Did You Know?.... from the SandBox (how did I manage before they started sending out this??)
DUH!!
In other VW news, Open Sim has just released 0.7.1 according to Ener. ....who is a great source of OS news... with an interesting security feature (OS, not Ener).. permitting grid owners to disallow taking objects off the grid while still allowing Hyperporting (or whatever the tping between grids is called). So the security of the Hypergrid increases...expect a blog from Maria soon (guess only).
...and to all my Mac owning readers... what about the new iMac and VWs... well Trilo Bytes has blogged a few answers... here.
So ... that'll keep you 'busy' at work... have a good week...
:)))
Monday, 2 May 2011
Marketplace and 1.23 ... and other bloggery
Transubstantiation at UWA is now finished.... this is Wizzy, JayJay and I hovering over the sim that housed the build. Wizard Gynoid is now going to have the next month for her Geometrical Thingies.... I'll keep you posted....
Avril Korman brought the news, here, that Marketplace is gonna have to change again. I really feel genuinely sorry for the retailers. This is becoming a regular feature of selling on Marketplace.
Seven months of problems...viz... The Boys say...
"Marketplace is currently experiencing delays in delivery and delays in order status updates on the Marketplace. Here are 2 situations you might see:
Orders on the Marketplace may still be in a “Queued”, “Undelivered” or “Being Delivered” state and no items have been delivered.
Orders on the Marketplace may still be in an “Undelivered” or “Being Delivered” state and items have been delivered.
In both cases, there is a delay: orders will continue to be delivered and Marketplace order status will be updated to reflect this, after a delay. We are actively working to fix this issue and will post an update when it has been resolved.
For those of you with customers who purchased multiple times, Linden Lab will refund the amount of your commission on refunded orders. The following requirements must be met for the commission refund to occur:
The customer has attempted to purchase the same item(s) in multiple orders after experiencing a delay in delivery and has asked for a refund on all but one of the orders.
As a merchant, the full order amount or purchase price of the item purchased more than once must be refunded.
Submit a ticket on the web as a “Marketplace/General Marketplace Issues” ticket. Please include the order number and item(s) that were ordered more than once, along with the copy of the entry from your L$ Transaction Log showing the refund or refunds.
We do apologize for these failures and are working actively to correct this and to prevent it from happening in the future.
Brooke
Update post is here.
Excerpt:
One other question that has come up concerns negative reviews received due to failed deliveries. Please flag the review using the link provided below the review comments, and these will be removed from your listing if the failure is due to a technical problem with the Marketplace."
Basically The Boys are going to change the way Inventory is handled.... not only to allow Direct Delivery (i.e. straight to your invent) but also because if you currently have more than 60k items in your Invent, you are lucky... seems like you won't see em all on any one login...but might get most of them some of the time...
So this new system will solve all the problems??? Well, what do you think?
I am, as I have said before, very against Marketplace and FaceBook for different reasons. They both, however, have similar effects in transferring activity from a 3D platform to a 2D platform, and this is my principle objection.
On a more detailed level... in it's attempt to make 5% (currently) on all sales through Marketplace Linden Lab has made it unnecessary for merchants to own shops and get people to come visit..... obviously if Search doesn't work, and tier is high, this is a financially viable solution for all concerned.....except....fewer shops means less land=tier and less activity inworld.
There is something slightly traitorous in backing 2D solutions because you can't solve Search and want the 5%.
Facebook is a little the same in that if you can't fix Chat, then promote a 2D solution...except obviously it's not a solution and there's no income involved...yet....( advertising will be the future idea, I guess).
The 1.23 SL Viewer has had another nail in it's coffin in the form of wobbly bits. Apparently 1.23 can't handle The Wobbles and so people show up wearing both Ruth hair and their own prim hair. This information courtesy of Tonya Souther here.... this from her blog...
"Dan Linden's comment on the LL JIRA describing the problem, VWR-25479, is telling:
Dan Linden added a comment - 27/Apr/11 12:49 PM
This is a known incompatibility with 3rd party viewers. We are not going to commit to fixing this."
...so...it's a known problem. Now, while the TPV's may try and fix it, LL is not going to..... and we have all had fair warning that 1.23 was gonna be phased out....so the time to change to Phoenix or Imprudence just moved one step nearer.
Mesh maybe just round the corner anyway....and that'll need Viewer 2.X... so it may be time to stop my recalcitrance, or, better still spend more time in InWorldz...YAY!!!
Games and the sexes ...the subject of an interesting post by Aaron P, here... Are Games Sexist....?? Gamification is another one of those words I hate, it seems grammatically acceptable to make a verb out of any noun.
Hmm... thinks...future blog posts maybe called....the Bunnehfication of SL..... the Cockupification of Marketplace.... and the Errorification of the English Language....[no....don't worry, I do have some self respect].
In other news....Alizarin Goldflake has a new build in SL, and in Iwz too, I believe... ....A Requiem for Fukushima.
You can read more about it here.
"Rather than my usual party for a new build, I am trying something different: multiple studio hours throughout May, so drop in at your convenience to see the build, ask questions, or just say "hi."
Studio hour #1: Saturday 110430, 2 pm PDT
Studio hour #2: Saturday 110507,12:30 pm PDT
Studio hour #3: Sunday 110515,2 pm PDT
Studio hour #4: Friday 110507,12:30 pm PDT
Studio hour #5: Tuesday 110531,2 pm PDT"
It fits really well in her japanese garden ... here.
...and I have to admit to being somewhat lax in reporting from UWA competition this month... but all the details are ...here.
Have a good week...
:))
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