Shapeshifters.

When it comes to festivals linked to certain seasons it is useful to think how and why these things came about before houses , for example, existed... yes, I do believe most of them are that old.

Mankind's place in the cycle of nature is the generator of these celebrations, and Halloween is no exception to this.

As trees and plants die back, at least in this part of the globe, there is little wonder that a festival around the concept of death should have arisen. Before central heating, and even now, a higher proportion of humans would have died in this period of the year than average.

Now death is the greatest transformation that a human would have experienced and that may still be true, seen in nature or in a fellow human it is always a striking event which never becomes mundane. The transformation of one state of being to another is a mystical event and, really, one we still have little understanding of.

The aged female in a primitive group had, maybe still does in some cultures, a closer connection to the cycle of birth and death in smaller social groups than the maiden, bride, wife or any male archetypes, so it is not surprising that she is chosen as the figurehead of the mystery of transformation. This figure has become Disneyfied to the Witch.

The Avatar is the greatest disguise anyone can adopt as far as I can see. We are all shapeshifters in a way that is unparalleled in history.

Previous tales of shapeshifters that have been witnessed, allegedly, have involved possession of the individual by another 'being'... tho this is technically incorrect, as it is an autonomous unconscious element within the individual's psyche which has in fact taken over while consciousness takes a back seat, letting the unconscious do the driving..... a bit like your red ink cartridge bursting in your printer and flooding every image with red.

With an avatar I can shapeshift while 'fully' conscious and don't fall down in a trance when I log off.

This puts us all in a transformative situation, we are all witches and wizards, potentially. The transformation which we are all involved in, know it or not, like it or not, is that which Jung calls Individuation. We are all working towards becoming more human, more complete as humans. The fact that Virtual Worlds can help us on this path is why I have often said that we are all undergoing therapy..

...and it's fun. Mostly.

Happy (not solstice) CrossQuarter day.

:))

SpotOn3D or PutOff3D??

Well I know I can get things wrong, but...this is my first impressions of Veesome, the grid that has an economy, seemingly.....I would say the only competitor to InWorldz, but it isn't ....a competitor, that is.

I know that there aren't any rules as to how you build, maintain and design a grid, but if there were...this would be my first...

1) Don't make default skin and shapes NO MOD!!

It means that I am trapped as Ruth, or, in this case more like Barbie. Now I can take looking like I have a Bad Hair Day, I can just about put up with a Fake Tan Look, but the breast implants and the Vertically Challenged avi is not for me... she is a Ruth....

Now, IF I upgrade to Premium Membership at 3$ per month then I can maybe check out what skins are for sale on the marketplace, some of which maybe Mod....but searching gave me no results (mature pages), I guess I might be a sexually aroused pre-teen getting their rocks off on the Veesome marketplace, but this is so unlikely as to be laughable when Google will show anyone anything.....

Anyway, if I did chose to pay 3$ per month, then I could pay another 2$ or so to be non-Ruthed...but...

Do I want to??

Why would I??

Seems to me that paying upfront for an empty grid is not really something I'm gonna risk....and may be why they have cut their prices on land.

At 40US$ for 5000 prims that makes it about 500% more expensive per prim that InWorldz, tho still much cheaper than SL...well...everywhere is cheaper than SL.... but really...what are you gonna do with just 5000 prims...the place is gonna look crap. You can buy a sim with 15k prims, which would look better, now reduced to $60, but that's not cheap either....not compared to IWz.

Now, as a sweetener, you can apparently have your sim moved around the place from business district to whatever.... and it seems like you can get a Cloud Coverage deal whereby you can increase your Avi population for events, which sounds good.



I think it is the cloud thingy that has got Thoth interested for he has opened a club here... called Area54... (no gap, or you'll never find it...)

The thing is tho.... the first thing you need on a grid is the content creators, for free..... it's a must. ....and most of em won't wanna look like Barbie/Ruth...it'll annoy the bejesus out of em....

. ..so make the default avis MOD, PLEASE...

Anyway, not wishing to be unfair, I went back for a second time, I guess I hate to be beat....and I try not to be unfair.......anyway...searching thro 30 or so "default" Ruths....I eventually found one Male skin that was mod, and one female shape with huge breasts.....




....a gruesome meesome....



So, as I wasn't on Imprudence I punched in all the numbers and eventually looked more like me....a sort of VeeSome Meesome.. and immediately I felt better about life the universe and everything...


...even VeeSome...

I can be sooo impatient...

:))

Grid hopping...

Well, I often go and sit around in the coffee shop at InWorldz when I get bored with building and just need a chat..



and while I was there the other night I wondered if it is the best arrivals point in the Metaverse,...soo...I went and had a look...




OSGrid was kinda modern machine type styleee...




...and Reaction was a bit sparse and boring...




As I had never been to Jokaydia, but Thoth keeps inviting me, I though I would log on, registering first. Imprudence was a doddle to get to accept Jokaydia under its Grid manager button thingy... so off I zoomed..




I hated the idea of doing all those shape numbers that you have to do ...so I thought I would try the Import Shape thing I had heard about... it has to be a full perms shape, which I exported from Reaction to my hard drive...thus...




Then...back to Jokaydia where I imported...obviously... it was easy-peasy. ... but the default skin there isn't full perms which is a pain... but found one on the noob shelves..




...and hey presto! I started to look like myself on a Bad Hair Day...




Anyway, I found my way to the Hypergate on Pathlandia....after reading about this, the Hypergrid Adventurers Club......because this blog was gonna be about the Hypergrid, but obviously isn't.... which is OK...cos Maria has a very interesting blog about it here... far beyond my coding skills (which are zero), it is possible to turn any object into a Hypergate...... it just makes you realise how close we are to buzzing through Hypergates around the Metaverse....or, until then... Grid Hopping...

Now all I need is a reason to do it.

.....Oh, yes.....The Coffee Shop is by far the nicest arrival point I have seen so far..,

"Triple Expresso, please, I got a whole Metaverse to check out."

:)))

The Ultimate Viewer

It is has become pretty obvious recently that the Perfect Viewer is being developed whether we like it or not. The Display Names thingy is the latest in the line of seemingly pointless developments which, like a complicated cake mix will all bake out fine in the end...

...well, it does depend on your taste of course.

The Ideal Viewer from the current LL management perspective has the following features....

It allows banner adverts...

It promotes the use of Real Names alongside avatar names...

It allows you to Tweet and give Face from within SL...

It permits Marketplace shopping, and buying from sim owners...

It loads on a mobile phone..

Now, this may hack you all off enough to leave SL, but that's OK, because all white mice will be replaced by the Streaming Hoards of Millions. (yes, I was wrong, the Myth Of A 100 Million Users is not dead at all.)

Now, those that actually use Virtual Worlds have a slightly different set of priorities when it comes to developing the Perfect Viewer....but... those priorities are ONLY shared by Third Party Developers, the Lindens have their hearts set on the 100 Million scenario.... and cloud computing, (project "Skylight") for those too stupid to download a viewer.

I will certainly hang around to see what happens when the drunk fool in the pub, for example, stumbles via iPhone cursing and misspelling his or her way onto my chat list in the middle of a conversation I'm having. I declare war, as of now.

I don't really care that LL has this Display Names thing, I NEVER have names displayed, I'm odd like that, I figure I can wave my cursor over someone, use radar, look in chat, that gives me 3 possibilities of identifying who is there without having to read it over their heads in a way which would not be acceptable in a movie... but... I do hate being lied to very blatantly ....subtly is OK...it's called advertising, and I have got used to that over the years.

So...this quote has annoyed me a bit...

"Why is Linden Lab introducing the display name feature now?

Growing the SL Resident-base is a business objective that we're deeply committed to and we hope that you'll also benefit from that growth. We're also exploring ways to attract new Residents by making their registration and first-hour experiences in Second Life more compelling. We have long known that selecting a Second Life name is one of the biggest hurdles in the new Resident registration process; it is a common reason why potential new Residents abandon registration and it has consistently received very low ratings in new Resident surveys. The freedom to choose an avatar name in Second Life is something that many Residents have been wanting for a long time and it took some time to develop a feature that gave you as much flexibility as possible. This feature is an important step on our social media strategy that will ultimately allow you to connect your inworld identity to other social networks, on an opt-in basis. Again, Display names and eventually, the connection to social networks, is all about choice."

Well, excuse me, but that is a whopper of a lie.... and even if people were that stupid it does not account for all the people who manage this extremely difficult trauma of choosing a name, log on and never come back.

The lie is there to make you think that this is not part of their master plan to integrate real names and Facebook into the viewer for advertising income, which is, after all what this whole viewer thingy is about.

I don't think any one change in the viewer has been accompanied by 3 videos from the Smiling One, FAQs and pages of explanation. It makes everything more complicated, another layer of confusion for the noob (and oldbee) and another way for the griefer to escape before I have cut and pasted the name into the appropriate report. It has been developed with Facebook in mind, not the noob who can't decide on a name.

The "opt in" ..."it's all about choice"... is smoke and mirrors. It takes very little for this supposed freedom-to-choose to morph into an 'expected' or "normal" behaviour. This is how Consent is Manufactured. Those who refuse get marginalised and ridiculed over time, and eventually ejected from the group.

So What??

Well, so...nothing... it's their world, they will do what they like with it... if you don't like it, get out. They think they will manage well without you and me. They can buy in outside Content if all the creative people who want a viewer you can build with, leave.

...but... I believe Blue Mars has a basic flaw in allowing only the Elite to build, and that this flaw will passed on to SL if this is they choose to run this world. The flaw has to do with the amateur, and with Content by Committee.

The best content is supplied by the amateur, the worst by Committee.

That, for me is fact.

:))

Wizard Gynoid.

This is just a reminder for those of you who may not have remembered.....tonight is the opening of a retroperspective show....details here...

Turing Gallery | Wizard Gynoid, Four-Point Retroperspective
Oct. 20 - Dec. 1

Reception | October 27th 6pm SLT

Four-Point Retroperspective

"The creations shown here are a retrospective of some of the things I've been working on over the last three and a half years. Precise geometry is the unifying theme. My work has largely been about shifting these objects to an artistic context, so that their inherent beauty can be appreciated.

The lobby has several works by my collaborator Polagirus Paragorn. These works are significant from a "Sacred Geometry" perspective, and are suggestive of the significance of the isometric grid. The "Flower of Life" motif is recurrent.

The next room has objects representative of the Kepler/Poinsot group of geometric solids. The Platonic Solids are represented, as well as various higher-dimensional (than three) objects."

http://core.extropiacore.net/

....for Wizzy and geometry fans... pop along and see...

:))

InWorldz, work in progress...

I thought it would be good to show a little 'taster' of what people are building in InWorldz. 652 regions, all being built, so this can be no more than a glimpse.... one which I hope to repeat as I see stuff I like.

The large number of content creators on the grid will of course mean a fast maturing of the built environment, especially when prims are so plentiful...







These are three snaps of a build by Sasha Bowie, which promises to be a very atmospheric build apparently inspired by The Fifth Element, one of my very favourite films.... so this is ground level...it has a subway too, waiting for nVidia Physx which is programmed for January, I hear.




Mouser is working on the Icefalls here on Terreract and I hope to help with the planting of the crystal islands... will be great fun...




Zauber has made a great start on his Isla Draconia which looks to be up to his usual high quality..




Skaldistaad Viking settlement .... I missed finding out who the creator is...




Juanita Deharo is experimenting with some amazing terrain textures high above soror Nishi Island...




Julianna Holmer, the well-know aeroplane maker is building quality stuff at London Core, also waiting for the PhysX




...and Elfhaven.... lots of elves, and it looks like a commission for me to plant up a shop....details to follow..

In other news..... Eshi Ottawa has popped in to Iwz and I understand that she will bring over some stuff to buy, according to Arabella Steadham. Arabella is also now blogging fashion in IWz.... here.....

.. so Ruth to Diva, no prob....

:))

Avatar Beauty Treatment

Wizzy, celeb Burn artist, flushed with success of her hot recent build, goes for all-over beauty treatment....






....skin therapy...


:)))