I know this is sort of a lame excuse, but at the moment I have real difficulties pronouncing the ‘right click‘, ., ;, k, K, l, L, i, and I. I’ve enabled my spell check, but that helps only so much, and is really slowing me down.

What happend, you’ll wonder? Sudden twist off the tongue? Switched keyboards? Nope, even more stupid. The human - I swear you, she did this on purpose - says she suffers from a severe case off ‘right middle finger squashed by door: bloody, painfull, and a blue but luckily not endangered nail‘.

Really, that girl needs to get work on getting her attitude right! Vint-style: middle finger in your face. Human-style: middle finger inbetween door and wall. Pffff. Did I use the word ‘lame’ yet?

For a few seconds - whilst she was screaming like a pig does a few weeks before you’re having your ham sandwiches - I hoped that this so called accident would get her a sick leave but alas, 90% functioning is still good enough. Really, I can’t say this enough: when the f*ck will they turn ‘damaged enabled’ off for those RL sims?!!

Tags: rant, real life
Categories: Rant
5 Comments »

Why* does this ‘documentary’ by Pure West Films called ‘Second Skin’ on MMORPG’s feels a bit to ‘tabloid‘ like to me? Is it because I refuse to believe what kind of a world I, Vint, life in? Or could it be because the trailer seems not very nuanced on where MMO’s and Virtual Worlds are - according to Vint - about? Why does it make me think of a combination of CNN and Jerry Springer?

*I quote a quote:

I knew I was sick from playing it, I knewI had to stop, 14 to 16 hours a day easily, I’d fall asleep in front of the computer: wake up, keep going, … . I wanted to … just kill myself. (Add dramital music.)

Yet, if able, I’ll take the human to go watch this one anyway. ;)

Pure West Films about Second Skin:

Second Skin takes an intimate, disturbing look at computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by the emerging genre of computer games called Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs). World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Everquest allow millions of users to simultaneously interact in virtual spaces.

Second Skin introduces us to the real people who populate these online virtual worlds. Couples who have fallen in love without meeting, disabled players whose lives have been given new purpose, those struggling with addiction, Chinese gold-farming sweatshop workers, wealthy online entrepreneurs and legendary guild leaders- all living in a world that doesn’t quite exist.

It says ‘More info at www.secondskinfilm.com‘, but that domain does not look very alive yet. Now it does, here you go: secondskinfilm.com

Tags: documentary, pure west films, second skin, video, virtual worlds
Categories: SL Web Resources, Second Life
7 Comments »

Having an RSS - or Atom, whatever you prefer - feed on your blog is a great thing:

1. People can subscribe to you feed so they do not need to check your blog, Flickr account, … themselves. Their feedreader will notify whenever a new post appears.
2. You have a ‘basic’, stripped down content to start with that you can ‘call to’ from anywhere and that even text browsers can chew.
3. Others may use this feed to spread the your word and display it on their sites so it’s even more accessible to others.

Today, I want to talk about number 3, websites that are using your feed (and thus content) to feed it to others: web (feed) aggregator sites. Using your feed, those sites display parts of your blogposts or even the complete post.

Are feed aggregator sites a good thing?

Yes and no. Yes if they drive traffic to your blog and/or help you to get your words out and heard. No, if the web aggregator just ’steals’ your content. Examples of this are: not linking back to the original blogpost, feeding lots of ads with it, using your content because they do not have any content of their own on a commercial website, … .

Re-chewing? Is that allowed?

Depends. Basically, what you write is yours - except if you ‘took’ it from someone else, that is. They may use parts of it and/or temporarily display it IF they state their source, but in no way they are allowed to take the complete content and just post in on their website permanently.

It is possible though, to apply a CC license to your blog and/or it’s feed. For instance, my blog has a CC attribution non-commercial license, which means that they may use it if a.) they state they fetched it from my blog and b.) they do not have commercial motives.

A message often seen on blog feeds is ‘This RSS Feed (or Atom) is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement‘, and yes, this is true.

Feed aggregators for Second Life

As far as I know - and not counting the rubbish Sweet Second Life is - there are three services that particularly re-chew feeds concerning Second Life:

1. The Planet @ World of SL
2. Yolto
3. Grid.iheartsl.com

Planet.worldofsl.com

The most famous one is probably ‘The Planet’, located at planet.worldofsl.com. At the moment this Second Life news aggregator ran by Tao Takashi syndicates more than 120 Second Life related blogs. They list the articles most recently appeared and when there are ones items, the old articles disappear. Good stuff when bored, or when digging for random information on Second Life.

Not syndicated by the Planet yet? Drop Mr. Takashi an e-mail and I’m sure he’ll add you.

Grid.iheartsl.com

Another feed aggregator for Second Life is ‘grid.iheartsl.com’, one that I only recently noticed in my ‘uncommon feed uses’ on feedburner. Although it displays my entries and lists me as a ‘contributer’, I’m rather sure I never asked them to syndicate me. They also ‘keep’ the syndicated content: old news does not instantly disappear when newer one arrives. The do link back to the appropriate blogpost.

Upon clicking ‘about’, I find a blank WP page: no contact information is provided. Registrar for the domain name iheartsl.com: c/o IHEARTSL.COM , P.O. Box 821650, Vancouver, WA 98682 US.

I’m really wondering what they are planning to do with my content and why they want to maintain anonimity that badly. At least they could have supplied some means of contacting them, be it in real or virtual world? I contacted them by means possible, asking for more information on this and the spin-off fashion.iheartsl.com. Wonder if they will reply.

Apparently Melanie Kidd is behind this one. She wants to replace planet.worldofsl.com - as Tao Takashi is presumed missing in action. Strangely enough, Tao is not missing in action, and unlike the Planet, I Heart SL does archive our content. Until I hear more on the motives of this Second Life aggregator, or Miss Kidd fixes the archiving, I want to opt ‘out’.

Update on IheartSL’s feed aggregator: 

Although defending the archiving by saying ‘people asked for it’ - well, I did not - and the anonymous domain registration with ‘look at how easy Vint can find out the info’ -, the latter I might have accepted if they from starters provided decent contact information on the site, Melanie Kidd did react to this blogpost: just not here. *rolls out, nice how they just assume you’ll find out using technorati or whatever*

Grid.IheartSL.com now has a FAQ with contact information. Information about opting in (and out):

How do I opt-in or opt-out? (from iheartsl.com’s feed aggregator/syndication)

Having your blog added to or removed from our feed is easy! Simply send us an email at iheartsl@gmail.com and include your blog name, URL, feed URL, avatar name (optional), and e-mail address (optional).

They also saved me the trouble of having to e-mail them asking to remove my feed from the aggregator. I do find some email or IM notification on that would have been appropriate, although I’m glad I’ll stay ‘opted out’ until they get rid of the archiving thingie. Which they are not planning to do anywhere soon.

Yolto.com

Now, this is a confusing one! Yolto’s main page has four tabs:

1. Pay - They Yolto on-line card. Commercial stuff, to be sure about.
2. Get payed - Not working!
3. Learn - Google custom search
4. People - A very dubious page, syndicating my content back to December 18th 2007. Other blogs syndicated and archived: Smiley Barry’s, Dusan Writer’s, VirtuallyBlind, CodeBastard Redgrave’s, Are We Not Men, Dolmere’s, … . Actually, they syndicate and archive almost all on virtual worlds.

Hiding behind a mission statement that says ‘we help people to express themselves‘, they are _definitely_ a commercial service, trying to sell their ‘Yolto’ pay-card and stealing content to look more interesting. So.. euhm.. can someone prep me a cease and desist letter for copyright infringement to send to them? :D Arranged without the cease and desist letter. Thx. =)

What can you do to prevent abuse of your feed & content?

1. Put a copyright message on your feed. Yeah well, does not help much, but you may include a link to your blog, so if a person stumbles over it on an aggregator that’s a ‘mean one’, they at least know where the feed comes from and who’s the author. (Lazy WordPress user go here.)
2. Only display a part of your content on the feed. Most blog services (WordPress definitely) allows this. If not, you can always use feedburner to burn your feed and set a max. count of words displayed there. I do not like this technique though, as I find it rather annoying to see the ‘click here to read more’ messages. Usually, regardless how interesting the blogpost may be, the story ends at that link for me. ;)

Feel like you missed a few steps? I’ve written a post on helpfull apps for Second Life bloggers a while ago.

Tags: blogtools, sl blogs
Categories: SL Blogs
14 Comments »

Haiku is a strange thing, if the term is not used to refer to an obscure open source operating system, an English Haiku is a poem that consists of three lines, where the first and last have 5 syllables and the middle one has 7. They should be calming, thoughtful, errr… whatever. I prefer the ones that are funny, though.

Examples given:

Haiku 404
The Web site you seek
cannot be located, but
countless more exist.

Blue Screen Haiku
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

Certainty Haiku
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

Of course, sooner or later, somebody had to write some Haiku on Second Life too. Or even establish a Haiku Club within our virtual world: the Shin Tao Haiku. Needless to say, I still like the ones that make me laugh the most?

In another world
I am prettier, skinny,
naturally blonde.
(a haiku a day)

Of course, I needed to give the whole Second Life Haiku stuff a try myself. As I know I’m not that a great poet - calling being a non-native-English-speaker to my defence - I wonder, who can do better than this?

A Second Life
Who thought it possible
Guess I need a Third
(Vint Falken)

Tags: haiku, second life
Categories: Vint Falken
13 Comments »

Yep. Richard Minsky blogged a response to ‘a blogger’s accusations on trademarking SLart. But first, I want to do a quick summary of a very interesting article that appeared on Virtually Blind.

SLart trademark is ‘unfounded’

Thayer Preece - a new guest writer on Benjamin Duranske’s blog - has taken a more thorough look at the SLart trademark issue, and comes to 4 main conclusions:

1. As it is a descriptive term, SLart should never have been allowed to be trademarked in the first place: ‘When Minsky filed his application for SLART, the trademark examiner assigned to the case actually did issue a refusal based on descriptiveness‘.
2. Minsky protested to that refusal of his SLart trademark application with incorrect arguments, but still he got the trademark: ‘… it looks like the trademark examiner simply dropped the ball on this one.‘
3. As SLart is trademarked now, the SLart community is screwed. Three things that we may consider:
   1. ‘Comply with his demands, whether reasonable or not.‘ Thayer Preece includes a minor warning to this option: ‘If you take this route, however, you may be giving up rights that you actually have, as well as strengthening his mark.‘
   2. ‘Refusing to cease use of the mark. In this case, it puts the burden on him to take action. If the alleged infringer refuses to stop using the mark, Minsky has to either take legal action, or allow the use to continue.’
   3. ‘Petition the USPTO to cancel the mark, if they can prove that it was registered improperly — in this case, because the mark is descriptive and therefore should not have been registered.‘
4. Thayer Preece also notes that the mark - SLart - includes an abbreviation of “Second Life” — a registered trademark of Linden Lab. The Second Life trademark is also used profusely throughout the SLART websites and magazine, even appearing in the websites and magazine’s subtitle. Richard Minsky may claim as he does not only cover Second Life art, that the SL does not stand for ‘Second Life’, but on his website he separates the SL from the ART by using a different colour, which clearly makes it SL ART.

And now on to my reply to Richard Minsky’s reply…

From: ‘a blogger’ To: ‘R. Minsky’ Subject: SLart

I beseech you to ignore the ignorant claims of people who are hiding behind aliases as they slur my real name with false accusations.
R. Minsky, Januari 24, in ‘Infringement of the SLART™ Trademark’

One should always admire people that succeed to write down three false statements in one sentence:

1. As is written about on Virtually Blind, the fact that Richard Minsky had no right on ‘SLart’ as a trademark in the first place is not a false claim. Neither is my accusation of Minsky sending out cease and desist letters, and offering a license for the trademark - which he should not own in the first place - in exchange for ‘a small fee’.
2. Although Richard Minsky chooses to refer to me with the alias ‘a blogger’, I am not hiding behind any: either you apply some basic tekkie skills and do a whois on the vintfalken.com domain, only to find out my RL name and my RL address, or you may just click the ‘About’ page here, to see a glimpse of my human.
3. Richard Minsky trademarked the ‘SLart’ word, so I write about Richard Minsky, not Artworld Market. It is also Richard Minsky who send out the cease and desist letter to Rezzable. As for slurring and insulting, I only called Minsky a SLass. Following Minsky’s reasoning that SLart is not a descriptive term for Second Life Art, as there is no separation between the SL and the ART, SLass is not a descriptive term for a Second Life Ass. Hence I did not call Minsky an ass. The real definition of SLass lays close to what - Minsky in his trademark application claims - is the real definition of Slart.

… the USPTO published it for opposition in August of 2007. There was no opposition.
R. Minsky, January 24, in ‘Infringement of the SLART™ Trademark’

Indeed. Who would have thought that we had to look out for someone trademarking SLart? As it was not supposed to be allowed to trademark. Isn’t there a rule or something, that you need to inform the people you are planning to send cease and desist letters to, that you’re planning on trademarking it? :d

SLART™ is helping artists in SL achieve recognition for their work. The time that I am spending dealing with this controversy can better be used to help artists in SL get exposure that they do not pay me for.
R. Minsky, January 24, in ‘Infringement of the SLART™ Trademark’

‘… get exposure that they do not pay me for.’ Aargh! Really, Richard Minsky makes it sound as like he was forced to trademark SLart and that he’s the only one interesting in helping out SLartists. Oh, and in the meantime, the fact that he does not charge artists to mention them, makes that he may own the SLart. Geeh. I dislike villains that play victim. Want to spend your - and my - time more useful, Mr. Minsky? Drop the SLart trademark and concentrate more on your SLart & SLartists.

Tags: SLart, SLassholes, trademark
Categories: Opinion, Second Life
12 Comments »

Zoe Connolly’s looking for a victim with blood type 0 a host (or hosts) for the next Blogger Party. Now, why is hosting a SL Blogger Party so much fun?

1. You get to pick the location.
2. You get to pick the strippers.
3. You get to pick the DJ.
4. You get to meet a lot of kewl, interesting and hawt Second Life Bloggers. Oh, and Veyron too! *ducks for incoming fire*
5. You get to tell Prok she’s not invited.
6. You get to pick the theme. (Who says webpolls can’t be tricked? ;))
7. You get a lot of attention.
8. You get to spend a lot of time setting the whole thing up.

Past hosts, did I miss something?

If you feel a bit insecure, or not sure anybody will attend if you are hosting, feel free to pick a co-host. And drop me an IM too, I have the neatest idea for an invitation-system. And, Smiley, no! We are not keeping this one on the Teen Grid. Sorry.

Zoe’s original lines:

If anyone would like to host the next Second Life Bloggers party, please let me know in the next few weeks.
I’m thinking we could use a party in February or March depending on host/hostess schedule , party theme selection, etc….
SLBloggers parties are usually held on Sundays .

Tags: sl bloggers
Categories: SL Blogs
8 Comments »

IP addresses, string of numbers that identify computers on the Internet, should generally be regarded as personal information.

This quote comes from Peter Scharr, who leads an EU report preparation on how well privacy policies of search engines comply with EU privacy law. On monday, he told the EU parliament in a hearing on online data protection that when someone is identified by an IP, or Internet protocol, address “then it has to be regarded as personal data.“

That means that every single log file that is generated by any form of server that cointains IP addresses becomes “protected information” and has to be stored in accordance with EU privacy directives.

Although I understand _why_ an IP is regarded as personal information - AOL publishing it’s users search histories and the stories build with these are telling enough - it somehow feels as ‘over the top’ to me. But then again, I must admit, I’m rather not-carefull as it comes to personal data and the internet.

Oh, and girls, guys and avies, did you know when connecting to a media or audio stream in Second Life, the server those files are hosted on can easily - and probably will - log your IP address? Or that this blogs logs IP addresses with comments, so if you’ve left a few comments and did not use a proxy server, I can take a wild but rather correct shot at where on planet earth your human resides?

What do you think? Will you stop logging IP addresses of commenters on your blogs? Do you already use a proxy whenever surfing the web? Is an IP address private data and should it fall under and thus be protected by Privacy Laws? Or is an IP just a random gathering of numbers and dots? ;)

Tags: IP, privacy
Categories: Privacy
13 Comments »

For those who did not follow the updates on the ‘SLasshole trademarks SLart’ topic, what I deemed impossible, is a - far from virtual - reality after all: Richard Minsky owns - at least some kind - of trademark over the SLars: slart, Slart and SLart are all his. Apparently, according to USA law, putting a TM means just a trademark, the R with a circle around it, is a registered one. It’s still not 100% clear to me which if SLart is now a registered trademark: this document would say it’s registered, but Richard Minsky still just shows the ‘TM’ on the SLartmagazine’s website. Either way, this leaves us with only SL art, Second Life Art and SL-art to use…

… and me with a lot of e-mails, IM conversations and blogposts to read and ponder over. This all started with Loki Popinjay’s blogpost, which was quickly followed by mine. Also Daman Tenk expressed his views on this and so did Sofian, in English as well as French. Tateru wrote a more nuanced piece for Massively and Cyanide Seelowe rethought changing the SLartwiki’s name. The discussing goes on on Flickr and on the ‘virtualartpedia’ - former known as the SLart wiki - someone says there is a bit of a controversy going on about the term ‘SLart’. Before yet another person asks, I did not edit that wike. Ever. One has always be taught that one needs to be more or less neutral to change informational wiki data. ;)

Also:

1. Dandellion Kimban - How To Kill A Businessman
2. Osprey - SLart Warfare
3. New!! Virtually Blind - SLart trademark

I contacted Mr. Minsky on this through IM, shortly after my first blogpost - hoping for more clarity on which use of SLart he considers fair use and which one he would send cease and desist letter out for. He never replied to me, so we did not have the chance to have this conversation.

I am still convinced that I although I believe there is no clarity on if Rezzable would be allowed to use the ‘SLart’ word as ‘fair use’, he had no right, no reason and not a single feeling of ‘ethics’ when he bothered Ganymedes on removing the SLart word used for describing - guess what, Second Life Art - from his profile. Neither does ‘protecting your trademark’ asks from you that you force a wiki that has no aim in making money to change it’s name.

In the bunch of e-mails, the IM conversations and etcetera, some ‘Plans of Actions’ were suggested to me and discussed. I’ll run them here, with a statement as to why or why I’m not considering them. Please bear with me, and feel free to correct me when you think I’m wrong.

The choice of what to do, and how to react to possible cease and desist notifications when you use ‘SLart’ is something we need to decide on for ourselves. Yet, personally, I don’t believe in the ‘let them walk over you, a broken back is something to enjoy’ theory. ;)

An eye trademark for an eye trademark

A very popular suggestion was: ‘trademark something that he thinks is important, and then switch/force him in letting you use SLart in exchange for his use of your trademark‘.

I can not find any good reason to this, as it would take a lot of effort, some money, I would need to come up with something that actually makes sense trademarking it - unlike SLart - and I would feel mean. Next one.

Legal assistance: why we feel we may use SLart

A costly plan of action, that would mean we should get organised and seek professional legal advice. That professional legal advice could get the asserted group a general draft document on ‘why we do not think your cease and desist letters make any sense and we should not obey’ for general use.

As we are in different situations here - SLart at the Cannery, use in profiles, a public wiki, blogpost, … I feel this would get very complicated, and doubt if there would be one document that could serve all. Yet I am not completely ruling this one out, and neither am I dismissing the following option completely.

Legal assistence: cancellation of the SLart trademark

(If existent.) An even more costly endeavour, but the one that feels most ‘just’ to do. Yet, a lot of avatars & their respective are needed to work on and pay for this, which would be a waste, as I don’t feel the trademark was justified in the first place. Of course, if it does exist etcetera, this is the only way to prove it shouldn’t have existed in the first place?

I should thank both Mr. Duransky as Mr. Legal Writer for explenation of terminology, pointing out some interesting links to me and advice on the legal options.

Cease and Desist

Not an option. Over my dead body!*

*On a no-damage-enabled sim, that is. ;)

Screw you! I have to right to say ‘SLart’

As for this moment, I’m going with this one as it comes to vintfalken.com, my flickr account and in-world pressence. Rezzable’s SLart at the Cannery’s future, is not a thing I can decide upon solely, I can just give my opinion and advise.

As far as my vintfalken.com is concerned, I fall under Belgian & EU trademark law. I find my use of SLart as a descriptive terminolgy for the Second Life arts & artwork to be justified, and shall not end this. The same goes for my presence on Flickr. In-world use of it might be a bit more tricky, as LL is rumoured to actually comply to trademark violations reports - opposed to copyright violation that is. ;) Yet, if I may write I drink Redbull in my profile, why would I not be allowed to say I consume SLart on an almost daily basis? Or put a profile pick on the places I love to go for my dose of SLart?

And you? Do you still dare to say ‘SLart’, or do you stutter ‘S… SL… a.. aarrr….’ and then fall into silence?

Disclaimer: This post is written as an in between follow up, and is in no way a definite statement of mine as it comes to my position on the use of the - assumed - trademarked letter-thingie ‘SLart’. Especially as discussion is still going on, I’m learning new things everyday and someone promised me another dose of information on the subject.

Tags: art, second life, SLart, trademark
Categories: Art, Second Life
25 Comments »

If you just occasionaly upload texturs, the 10L$/texture upload is not a big thing. But if you are a poor n00b - no offense - or have tons and tons of textures to upload, or even just a few for non-commercial experimenting reasons, the 10L$ fee for uploading textures to Second Life quickly starts to become annoying.

Be annoyed no more, as slup.jp - obviously derived from ‘Second Life Upload’ - has released it’s beta version for a free texture uploading service for Second Life. At the moment they are admitting 500 beta testers.

So, what do you get?

1. You get to upload 20 free textures/month for now. (That’s a total of 200L$.)
2. You may upload .jpg, .bmp and .gif images. SLUP.jpg does not mention .tga, but I’m going to test that later. It would be sad if alpha layers are not available for the texture upload.
3. A nice Japanese interface with some English mixed inbetween. ;)

The texture upload service is currently free & sponsored by showing an ad once in a while: when uploading that is, not on your texture. Register for beta testing - and thus free texture uploads - on slup.jp here.

Hat tip to Nock Forager

Tags: freebie, japan, slup.jp, texture
Categories: SL Web Resources, Second Life
13 Comments »

1. 2nd Sex: Is HBO stopping Vagina Monologues in SL? - Vagina Monlogues temporarily on ‘hold’. HBO considers the Second Life performance to be a broadcast, not a theatre performance. Now that’s a tricky one: it might be theatre, but we - indeed - have no other way to watch it than through ‘broadcast’. Even if
2. YouTube - Hitler Explains Second Life - LMPAO. Let’s hope this isn’t a preview of a real machinima biography on Philip Linden / Rosedale in a few years.
3. Post to Second Life Video - Second life video, the youtube for Second Life video and machinima. Neat is that you do not need to reupload the video - although they will host it for you if you wish - you may just submit the url or even youtube embed code. (found in SL dmoz directory)

Categories: Links
No Comments »