Metaverse News
Second hand deals
I haven't had my eyes tested since 1986, browsing the main page tonight suggests to me that maybe it's about time I got them checked again. They have different pictures on the page, the one tonight shows a couple with their arms wrapped around each other with a caption of "Build your dream house! Get Land", which I read as "Build your dream house! Get Laid". Almost spat my tea out.
This week has been trying, I was at Robin Linden's hastily arranged office hour when I asked if she'd heard about the Bear Infohub war and whoosh, my computer died. Naturally I blamed Robin and her wonder woman like powers for this, being the rational human being that I am. One very interesting development from that office hour was talk of being able to have dual names for your avatar. For example I could have Ciaran Laval and my real name (which is Top Secret). I like this idea, although I'll have to check the fine print. Currently this proposal is in the design stage.
So now I'm stuck with Vista and Windows Live mail, I liked my XP and I liked my Outlook Express. All I get told is "You should have bought a Mac".
Anyway onto my main point. I was embroiled in a drunken debate last night on the official forums about where the responsibilities of a buyer lie when purchasing a second hand island. Generally any post midnight GMT thread I'm embroiled in on a Friday or Saturday night is a drunken debate but I digress.
Druart announces LCA Bankruptcy, LNL Future Uncertain
Four days ago, LNL CEO Lindsay Druart announced the bankruptcy of L&L Credit Agency. Following this announcement was a second announcement that LNL Financial Services, parent company of LCA, would be similarly closed and delisted.
Readers may remember that LNL was the first company to delist from the WSE after the latter closed days before the banking ban. Druart received significant intention when she announced her intentions of a real life L&L Credit Union. At the time, Druart stated that the the real life counterpart would actually be a holding of her virtual enterprise. Apparently this has changed, as Druart has assured investors that real life endeavors are continuing despite the virtual delistments.
Delistment of both companies is scheduled to occur no later than May 31st. In response to investor concerns, Druart has alluded to the possibility of a 'liquidation fund' but has offered no concrete details. In fact, if the forums are any indication, the LNL announcement was completely out of the blue, being Druart's first announcements in over a month. With respect to LCA, the announcement of bankruptcy follows a disappearance of LCA CEO Sully O'Kelly. Of course, in SL terms, 'disappearance' means a few weeks to a month.
Investors have been directed to Druart's blog for further developments, of which there are none at the time of this post. Druart was not immediately available for comments.
The Week in NWN: Summer Fashion and Fun, Iron Man Uninhibited, Playboy Bunny Investigators, Superstar Hobos, Tool Frustrations, Metaverse Art Renaissance
Shuless - Episode Four
I left her in the dust of my tp
by Iona Nikolaidis
[20:04] This girl comes up, says hi, and then offers friendship.
[20:04] Iona Nikolaidis: Oh, did that just happen to you?
[20:04] I left her in the dust of my tp.
[20:04] Iona Nikolaidis: haha!
[20:05] Iona Nikolaidis: That's awesome
[20:05] Iona Nikolaidis: You broke her avie heart!
[20:05] I hate that!
[20:05] Hi. blah blah is offering you her friendship.
[20:05] Iona Nikolaidis: Didn't I offer you friendship immediately?
[20:05] Iona Nikolaidis: hehe!
[20:06] No, I offered first...three seconds.
[20:06] Iona Nikolaidis: hehe!
[20:07] Iona Nikolaidis: see? aren't you glad I don't follow your rule?
In RL, you meet someone, you hang out, you maybe get a phone number or you maybe run into them at a party. Your friendships develop over time as you share experiences. Those experiences are like layers in a cake, each of which, hopefully, make that cake more delicious. Despite the fact that I have spend a lot of time over the last year in SL (which, I am suggesting, might make me kind of socially retarded), I have a lot of friends in RL. In SL, you can have as many friends as will "accept" your offer of friendship, generated by the simple act of right-clicking on the avatars you see on your monitor.
When Iona first started SL, she was "friend offering"-happy. I had more than 70 avatars on my friend list (hey, I spent my early days in sex Sims and Festival Island - those are a discerning bunch!) Over time, the friends list became the bane of Iona's SL. You can use the friends list to manage your contacts. For example, you can give a friend the ability to modify your objects in-world. These are, hopefully, the sober friends that you would let drive you home after a night of drinking. You can click a box on the list to let that avatar see you on a map in-world. This is convenient if you want the friend to be able to join you when they log on without requesting a teleport; not so convenient if you are carrying on a second or third life within your SL that you might want to hide from a significant avatar (Yes, Alex could see Iona on the map and yes, at times I turned that off).
Over time, the friends list became the bane of Iona's SL. The list just was too damn long, and too distracting to see who was logging online and offline when I was in-world. You could prevent that from happening if you hid your avatar from others, but that always struck me as a little too deceptive (funny, I know, in the context of a virtual reality based on fantasy and deception). I needed to take action. The friends list as the measure of your friends did not give me hope or happiness. I needed to take a chain saw to it.
First to go were those avies I couldn't recall in any capacity. I had a lot of those on the list. The next set consisted of those folks with who I had maybe an IM or two, followed by the group of avies with whom I had more contact, albeit superficial. I had more difficulty whittling down the list when I began to see names of avatars with whom I had a significant conversation or event. Some of those folks I liked, a lot. But I wanted to play the game differently. For this bunch, I wanted to rely on my memory to tell me who my friends were, along with our shared experiences. I know I made some of these folks angry. I am sorry. Very, Lorna, Count, Kat, Rayne, Minty, Federico, Darkling..... can we still be friends?
At Iona's demise, she had 7 avies on her friends list. And in Iona's demise, I peeled off these last seven friends who, I know, were my friends, and would be friends IRL if I could magically rezz a TrixeBelden Batz, Danielle Nemeth, SleevedBetty Abrahamson, Shrimpney Poultry, Kristie Bechir or Wyeth Bailey to go out to the club with me. It hurt me and Iona to strip them from the list. But, as in RL, you can't take them with you into the oblivion.
Another feature of the "friending" of an avie always struck me as a little old-fashioned, in a good way. When you friend a fellow avie, or the friend you, you transfer a copy of your in-world profile as a Calling Card, a little reminder for you of who your friends are. I had accumulated a lot of Calling Cards along with my friends, and deleted them accordingly. From the Calling Card, you can see the date and time you acquired it, although not whether you were the giver or the receiver. April 15, 2007, almost a month into my SL existence. That's the date in the properties of the Calling Card in Iona's inventory for Alexandra Shu.
I don't remember how I acquired it. But, unlike many of the avies on the list, I am fairly confident I didn't get it immediately. I wish I could remember for historical purposes, but I have had to learn to live with a lot of uncertainty....what's one more unknown? I think, though, that friendship was offered after a little give and take, a circling of each other to suss out whether it would be a productive endeavor to make the add, and a few bouts of "So who's a man?" It turned out to be, in fact, the greatest addition I had to my friends list. I had no better friend in SL than Shu. No better friend.
[13:38] Iona Nikolaidis: So you have a new friend!
[13:38] well, like I said, she was there before, so we must have connected at some point in the past, I just don't recall.
[13:39] Iona Nikolaidis: I'm sorry, I should have said you have a new "special" friend.
[13:39] Iona Nikolaidis: I remember she was at the Brew one time you and me were there, and we talked to her
[13:39] Maybe that was it.
[13:40] I have to clean out my friends list. I don't remember half the people on it.
[13:40] Iona Nikolaidis: Good to do!
[13:40] And the other half I don't know.
[13:40] Iona Nikolaidis: hehe!
[13:41] A lot of times I offer friendship just to get them to stop bugging me.
[13:41] Iona Nikolaidis: The path of least resistance
[13:41] Iona Nikolaidis: Tell me if someone bugs you and I will fucking kill them
[13:41] Iona Nikolaidis: If you want.....
[13:42] hehe...use your orbit machine.
[13:42] Iona Nikolaidis: I will!
[13:42] Iona Nikolaidis: I have other things too
[13:42] Ooooo! I shudder to think!
[13:42] Iona Nikolaidis: hehe!
[13:42] Iona Nikolaidis: You have nothing to worry about!
[13:43] Do you have one that turns them into a giant ass hole?
[Shuless appears courtesy of http://soshuless.blogspot.com/ and is reprinted here by permission of Iona Nikolaidis]
Learn building at the Ivory Tower of Primitives - Video Tip of the Week #34
Friendly greetings! Torley here. I’ve been busy with many forthcoming wonderful video tutorials to keep you entertained + educated!
This week’s installment is more of a tour than a tut, but I’ve had a number of requests to do it — behold, the Ivory Tower (Library) of Primitives in Natoma, a historic location which has proved helpful for many Residents who want to learn how to build and needs to be highlighted!
00:37 - Find the Ivory Tower!
02:35 - Explore the Ivory Tower!
08:45 - Visit the sandbox next door!
09:27 - YOU can build!
In mo’ exciting vidtut news:
- I recently did a lovely Q&A session with our Volunteer Mentors. Some FABLICIOUS questions got asked, my answers flowed forth, and you can read the transcript on the kewl VTeam Blog. Go there to learn more about making our Second Life better.
- I’ve started including the version each video tutorial was filmed in after the beginning titles, because as vidtuts age, things do go out-of-date, and this will help lessen confusion. For the record, I usually tend to film in versions “ahead of the curve”, and am using the 1.20 Release Candidate (wha? LEARN MORE) which is not the main viewer yet. But it will be.
- Remember that the Tip of the Week and Quicktips can be sorted by category to find the stuff you’re interested in easier! After a good idea from Melissa Linden, I’ve also defined what the different categories mean.
Grateful & gracious for your enthusiasm so I can help you better,
-Torley Linden
Watch 150+ Second Life video tutorials, free & fun!
Please subscribe, rate, and favorite my vids on YouTube — it helps me make more of them for you!
Metaverse Art Renaissance: The Garden of Possible Impossibility Is Now Open
We Had The Talent, But Not The Tools?
Geona Graves - Post 6 Robot Grrrrrl
by Alyx Stoklitsky
When Pixeleen paid me a random visit recently, we chatted briefly about the usual topics: Woodbury, drama, and Herald. When the subject of the Herald rolled around, she let slip that she was itching for more Mecha in the Post 6 articles – fortunate then, because I knew just the robot for the job.
Geona Graves has long been a frequent visitor to the various Woodbury locations, and I've long admired... her (?) various steel frames. Quizzed on its gender, the mech states that it is “technically without one” – but adds “If it is female in appearance...”
Known simply as Drilltits to her friends, her profile pic shows her grinning away with a seemingly feline expression, eyes glowing a bright, fluorescent green – though once prepared for her moment of internet fame, she adopted a more subtle look with half-lidded eyes, and stood with her drills perpetually spinning as I twirled my camera angles and fiddled with windlight's environment settings.
(Let it be known that I felt like a huge pubfag at this point.)
A top hat will instantly increase your social status.
Virtual Homemaking: Ryker's Second Life Pied-à-Terre
OMG! Free Linden Snow?!
DON’T EVER GIVE OUT YOUR PASSWORD. Linden Lab won’t ask you for it, and if anyone does, they want to do you harm.
Sandwiched somewhere between John Gabriel’s Greater (greatest?) Internet Theory and Godwin’s Law exists another apparent inevitability - The surprising ease with with the word “free” can disable one’s otherwise extraordinarily capable skills of logic and critical thinking. In order to facilitate the most correct alphabetical sandwiching, let’s call it the JP Linden lesser theory of, “Gadzooks! Free!” As in, Gadzooks! This spam - It says I’m going to get this for free! Handing over my login and password is just my way to help them help me get to free stuff! Type faster fingers! Faster!”
Half-joking aside, hundreds of residents were victims of unauthorized access to their accounts in the last month. Account security is serious business, regardless of what finds you in Second Life . If your password is free to a criminal for the asking, so is your inventory, your friends & groups, your land, your L$, and whatever unspent balance remains in the payment method on file.
-If you are being spammed in-world or anywhere else regarding the purchase of L$ or free L$, you’re almost certainly being spammed by a fraudster.
-Never use your Second Life login or password outside of the Second Life viewer or secondlife.com - Your password is not required for someone to send you L$.
-Never provide your password or security answer via chat or IM to anyone inworld (including Lindens and people claiming to be Lindens), and when accessing a password protected terminal, always double check which window you’re typing that password into.
-If you’ve been the victim of fraud, contact our fraud hotline at 800 860 6990. Then, talk about it. Post your experience to forums, blogs and chat. Tell others about who it was and how it happened.
It is unfortunately impossible to list, in real-time, every website operating a phishing operation - many are gone before they are discovered. Basic web and search engine optimization skills are all that are needed to create a site that appears legitimate. We therefore urge you to make every effort to know who you’re dealing with, and always remember, if the offer is too good to be true, it probably is.
Knowledge Base Article of the Week #26 What are those region server notifications about?
Have you traveled between regions and seen pretty yellow-gold messages on your screen letting you know that the region is running a different server version? Welcome to Het Grid, short for Heterogenous Grid.
Check out this weeks KBAotW if you would like to know more About the Heterogenous Grid. This article is packed full of information and will also explain those region notifications you’ve been seeing!
As always, if you have questions about Second Life, and you think the answer should be in the Knowledge Base, please stop by Documentation Office Hours today at 2pm PDT. We love to hear from you! You’ll find our valiant and scholarly Documentation team at our usual pier-shaped office in Beaumont.
