Archive for May, 2008
‘Children’ not welcome at SL5B
May 31, 2008 4:25 pmFor an update go here. Still keeping track of the blogs on this post, though.
This year’s Second Life 5th Birthday party was to be about ‘Celebrating the cultural diversity of Second Life‘: Who do you hang around with in Second Life? What are your communities’ traditions and signature characteristics? Are you proud of your sexy blue fur? Your excruciatingly detailed tea ceremony? Your murky environments? Your sculptures? The help you’ve given to others? (From the Linden Blog)
But guess what? Child Avatars’ builds (and child avatars themselves not really either) are not welcome at SL5B. There’s already a lot written about it - fav title is by Dusan Writer ‘Lock Up Your Kids, Tie Up Your Kajira, It’s Time to Celebrate‘ - and I suggest you go and read on those blogs. I mainly want to say that I still stand behind my campaign program from that dark age when I ran for governor of Second Life and do not agree with this, and revoke my personal participation for the SL5B ‘photography’ part of the exhibition.
As they - Lindens - always say: ‘if you want us to fix something, file a JIRA issue’, I did and created: JIRA ISSUE MISC-1231 Missing Cultures & Communities from SL5B. I labelled this correctly as a ’showstopper’, as a lot of people are already saying they stop supporting the SL5B show, even members from the SL5B organisation team.
Update: ‘Robin Linden has indicated that child avatars are allowed and welcome as attendees - this is simply affecting whether child avatars can be contributors.’(from SecondLifeChildren) This makes absolutely and utterly NO SENSE AT ALL! Shall we all go as child avatars or on a leach then? ;)
Update: ‘If you set the JIRA as a Showstopper..you can see how quickly LL can work when they want to. It’s been downgraded to “Normal - minor loss or impairment of function, other problems that have workarounds..”. No response from them otherwise of course. They’ve just gone into ignore mode, and changed the flag so they don’t get bothered.‘ Shin - Reaction From Vint: ‘Harleen Gretzky’ did so.
I remember clearly when Linden Lab blogged about child avatars, I was so relieved. Ken D Linden said: ‘Please note it does not violate this policy merely to have a child-like avatar. It is not our intent to banish child-like avatars in and of themselves.‘ I assume that is revoked, and they do wish to banish avatars from partaking in social life on the ‘inSL’ grid.
On your reading list: (update: keeping count! ;))
- Daniel Regenbogen’s LL discriminates against the kids - Summary of an email conversation Daniel had with Robin Linden: ‘… kid avatars would be welcome as guests but not allowed to contribute to the showcase - because that wouldn’t be in the best interest of the event and Linden Lab.‘
- Marianne McCann at SecondLife Children - She and Loki got to hear their builds and participation for SL5B is not welcomed. Quite a moderate stand, explaining the Linden that had to bring the news does not stand behind it either. Well, they should not make decisions they don’t stand behind?
- SignPost Marving at his blog - Withdraws from his position as organiser of SL5B, due to irreconcilable differences between myself, Dusty and Everett Linden over ethical issues, and the degree of Linden Lab involvement in what is a Resident-ran event (and has been for at least the last 3 years).
- Tateru Nino at Massively - Background information. About the Evil One that Caused All This (in combination with a lack of backbone on Linden Lab’s side!!) - Just updated with ‘Gor and BDSM communities are apparently not welcome anymore either. Any more that you might have expected to be a part that you now expect to be excluded?’ No sources linked for that.
- OnMr Evans Evan’s avenue the title jumps out: ‘And the sign said: ‘ ________ need not apply!’
- Arial Otafuku is also stepping back as organiser for SL5B. (Reported from group notice by CodeBastard Redgrave).
- CatsAndFishes - Second Life 5th Birthday Celebration
- Crap Mariner - The Fake Children
- Spiffy Serena - Linden Labs
- Adz Childs (artificial boy) - Shape Based Exclusion
- Jacek Lives - [Rant] Intolerance
- Gabby Panacek (Couture Conundrum) - Missing Communities
- Otenth Paderborn - Child avatars . . . and BDSM . . . and Gor . . . and?
- Tali Rasca - Children of the Exhibition
- Ordinal Malaprop - A Restriction of the Youth
- Emilly Orr- I didn’t want to hurt you but you’re pretty when you cry
- Rai Fargis - The SL5B PR Disaster
- Gabby Panacek (Glamourazzi) - Missing Communities
- Dr. Darien J. Mason - all for a children’s crusade
- Ravishal - I did not join SL to be part of the mainstream
- Emilly Orr (2) - Move along move along, like I know you
- Ben Kuchere (on Mark Kirk, not on SL5B) - Second Life a danger to children? Lawmaker trawls for votes
- Ganymedes Costagravas - Barbwiring a Birthday Event
- Daman Tenk - Gotta Ban ‘em All
- Kids5B - Blog created to organise the child avatar’s celebration of the 5th birthday, loose from ‘official’ SL5B events & sims.
- Dandellion Kimbal - Tie up those Kids and send them to Gor
- Morris Vig (secondarts) - The Linden Department of Self-Immolation
- Jacek (2) - Public Relations vs Resident Relations
- Rosie Barthelmess - SL5B Outrage
- Mr Evans (2) - Sign Sign Everywhere a Sign
- Sougent Harrop - Kerkuffle
- Raul Crimson - You are not invited to the party
- Emilly Orr (3) - when the one thing you want is the only thing out of your reach
- BardHaven - Your World, Our Trade Demo!
- Marianne McCann - SL5B
- Solomon Devoix - Linden Lab proclaims Child Avatars only for sex
- CeNedra Rivera - My name is Cen and I am Hypocrite
- Gamepolitics.com - Congressman’s Political Pressure Impacting Second Life Child Avatars
- YOU NEXT?!
The Grid Democracy party might not have made it to office, we continue to campaign for the future of our kids: The Grid Democracy Party wishes to make clear that when governing she shall not accept parents to put the responsability to raise their children with the government. When ruling, the Grid Democracy Party shall use all means in it’s power to prevent mass murder on our children and to preserve their innocent lives. When given your vote, the Grid Democracy Party will do anything within it’s reach to keep our children safe. Because they are the Goreans of tomorrow. Because they are the Neko’s of tomorrow. Because they are the Furries of tomorrow. Because how we treat our children today, that determines our future! (And now the news just have come in that Gor and BDSM communities are not welcome at SL5B either, the Grid Democracy press attaché is considering sending out a ’see, we told you so!’ press release! ;))
Assumed progress: first children are declared illegal, than Goreans and BDSM, next are the neko’s and furries, after that come the tinies? And then? Then only humans are left. And then all human females with less breast than a ‘B’ size will be illegal. And all male humans with big stomachs. Because it’s offending and not pretty. And next thing you know? We’ll be living in virtual f*cking Baywatch!
(Virtual) Ages ago I did a ‘bikini template’ for my ‘SL Bikini Project - Showing Second Life’s Citizen’s Diversity Through or In Bikini’s’. Although many downloaded the free template, not many bothered to show me what they created. :( Ah well…
Now Virtual Surfline is doing a bikini contest, and they needed a template… Hmmm. There is my old one available - with some info on how to use it, ty Kaeli!. And I made a totally new ‘next gen’ free bikini template that has shading - don’t mess with it - and less fabric and more room for nude skin! ;)
As usual, the template is created in Photoshop, but I’m sure it will open in The Gimp too. Also as usual, shading is based on Miss Eloh Eliot’s free skin templates. Rumours go I’ll do basic support - that does not contain ‘I want Photoshop, help me find a crack!’, btw - on the Bikini Template page, so if you have any questions regarding those templates, go there.
You find both templates at Miss Gweneth’s blogpost ‘Surfline’s Create Your Own Bikini Contest‘, a contest in which you can partake and win 1000L$. Hey, if you are going to create a bikini anyway, might as well show it off on the sunny Virtual Surfline beaches! ;) Oh, and let nothing, but really - nothing - stop you from adding a few prim details to your new bikini. For more info regarding the contest, also see the blogpost on rezzable.com.
At your virtual clothing service,
Vint Falken
Second Life web resources for May 27th 2008 through May 28th 2008
May 29, 2008 1:30 amTypeRacer Timewaster
May 27, 2008 12:50 am!Warning! This is addictive! What is? The TypeRacer game. Basically, you need to copy a text and get your ‘words per minute typing abilities score’. After 20 games I had an average score of 94 words/minute and a best of 121 words/minute. (You need to do a verification if you are a real person if you reach that one. :d) Not so bad for doing this in my second language, no?
But actually, this little game is genious:
- It’s not time consuming. A round lasts at max. 2 minutes or so. So it’s great to ‘quickly play’ if you have some free time.
- You play against others. Competition effect is always nice.
- It’s something simple, everybody can do it.
- You can play against your friends on a private match.
- The creator(s) get to feed people quotes they love. A Clockwork Orange, The Inconvenient Truth, Terminator, … talking about indoctrination! ;)
- If people like that quote, they can buy the book, film or song on Amazon. And a percentage of those sales of course goes to the creator(s).
I’ll categories this little one under ‘time waster’ and ’surely ingenious!’. But … euhm.. for the competition effect. What are thou scores? ;)
Tiny Universe Convention
May 25, 2008 2:21 pm
Rezzable and Greenies released two ‘tiny greenies’ avatars and landed at Tiny Kingdom. Side effects for Vint? Google Translate English - Japanese and Japanese - English are now added to the ‘browser thingies that need to be open for Vint to function’. ;) That and I’m slowly getting addicted to the ‘Turning Japanese’ song from the Vapors.
But what a nice world has opened itself for me: the Tiny sims are full of lovely, humorous and amazingly cute details! A few examples? Do you remember those snow balls from when we were young? Glass balls, filled with snow and a tiny scene, which you put next to you bed. I dare to bet almost all of us owned at least one. And I also dare to bet almost all of us wished they could ‘disappear’ into the snowball’s scenery at least once. Suddenly, become a part of that little tiny world. At the Tiny Universe Convention, find Cue Fride’s ’snow balls’ which are tiny little scenes you can sit your tiny avatar in: read a book, go to the toilet, get eaten by a shark, … . Just utterly lovely! More photographs of these tiny snow ball scenes you can find in my ‘Tiny Universe Convention’ Flickr set.
Another great example is Miyaoka Hitchcock’s latest release: the cutest fan you can imagine. And it’s an actual avatar! Very strange seeing that around. If it were not for the avatar tag, you would think it’s part of the scenery, and then suddenly it starts walking. Astonishing, that one is. Behold the ‘tiny electric fan avatar’:
And then there is the way of presenting all the avatars taking part in the convention: a long tunnel you walk through, and they are all lined up as little toy soldiers with their creator tags… there is the beautiful logo that’s build in prims… ah well, just go and take a look for yourself: Tiny Universe Exhibition - Dust - 97, 146, 90 (May 25th to June 1st)
Virtual Suicide: Linden Case File
May 24, 2008 9:42 amFound on Some Linden’s desk. This is a file I fear will never make it to the… hey, where did that blotter go? Aha. Incident reports.
The frustrations kept piling up. The final trigger? Waiting over 20 minutes to download the newest release client. This 20 minutes were spend on doing the preparation work. After that it was just quickly rezzing in-world to take the matching photographs. Which would not work because my Pandora animation HUD I need for the ‘play dead’ animation did not work. (Lindens?! Grrrr!) and I did not exactly get the shot I wanted because my shoe would not rezz either. And there were ugly black stripes on all my snapshots. And I crashed. Etc. Which started the debate between me an my owner: is this an actual virtual suicide, or a cover up by Lindens of the homicide and maybe even murders that they are committing on a daily basis? Mass genocide? Anybody? Ah, well.
I won’t do this for real. And my owner can’t stand the idea of having to pull the plug on me. But still, sometimes we both agree, that maybe the only thing they would still hear, is a letter written in - virtual, but none the less - blood.
PS. We’re feeling a bit more optimistic again today! ;)
PPS. Don’t try this in your virtual homes on damage enabled land!
Koinup ‘WindLight’ Exhibition and Jax Streeter Live
May 21, 2008 12:27 am
A few weeks back the three first price winners of the Koinup WindLight Contest were announced. Today they were celebrated in world with a live performance of Jax Streeter and an exhibition of their photographs and 7 ‘honourable mentionings’ at the Rezzable ‘Cannery’.
Seeing there works on display in the virtual world was sure as hell impressive, and so was the music and the guests… Miss Ravenelle and Mister Torley ‘Linden’ Olmstead. Woot! I must admit, this was the first time for me to see Torley IRL.. euhm.. IVL and I was kinda stuttering. First thing Torley said to me? ‘Is that a watermelon drink you’re holding?’ :p
Jax Streeter gave the best of his virtual self and played one hell of a set - with ‘Avatar Superstar’ as my favourite song. As promised, I bumped the song 9 times on TheSixtyOne.com and gave Mr. Streeter my underwear layer. He has at least one new fan after this gig! /me hums: ‘No matter where you’re from. No matter who you are. In this world… you are… superstar… avatar. Play like you are. Act like you are. Rezz like a superstar, avatar!‘
More photographs of the exhibition opening in the Koinup Windlight Exhibition Opening Flickr set. For those curious: All photographs except the one of Torley Olmstead were shot with the ‘Pirate’ WindLight Preset.
The winning entries and 7 nominees for the Koinup Windlight Contest will still be on display in-world for a few week, so if you missed the opening, you can still go and see them. Correction, you should still go and see them! Directions: Open your map and search for ‘Cannery’ (or click this SLURL), upon arrival at the Cannery sim, you’ll see a big sign saying ‘Koinup & Rezzable’. Click the TP disk located under it, and we’ll get you right to where you need to be… but you won’t hear a live concert of Mr. Streeter.
PS. A certain Miss Mira owns me bandages for my poor little sour paws. Never ever give me a lighter before telling me to detach it when I plan on typing! ;)
Mr. Jax Streeter performing ‘Avatar Superstar’:
SL5B or the Second Life 5th Birthday Event - taking applications
May 20, 2008 1:10 pm
How many of you went to visit SL4B, and did you go to see my little exhibition / build there? Did you enjoy your stay, or was it laggy as hell? And did you get to see some new artists, Second Life ’scenes’ or virtual worlds stuff you never heard of before?* And how many of you will be participating in the new and upcoming Second Life 5th Birthday Event? The theme for this years SL5B is pretty much set to be the “culture” theme. An overview of the different ‘cultures’ can be found here although they are still debating and tweaking them.
Art at SL5B
Who’s in charge of the ‘art’ department - and especially virtual photography - you will no doubt wonder. Because she did such a great job last year, she’s back this year: Miss Shoshana Epsilon. She warns us to be timely with our applications for some space at the art part of the Second Life 5th Birtday Event:
Just a quick note to introduce myself and my team. I’m Shoshana Epsilon in SecondLife, photographer, gallery owner, curator, mentor. My helpers are CodeBastard Redgrave and Stephen Venkman, both excellent SL photographers. Together, we will be deciding who gets to show art in the show, as well as how much land they will get. Don’t try to bribe us … we’ve already been bribed.
The show will feature art made in SL. That includes photography and sculptures. We’re open to new ideas, so if you have something that doesn’t fit there, let us know!
A note …. once we close the application process, we will NOT be opening it again. Please don’t ask us for special consideration, etc. There will be another show in a year, so stick around and look for information in March of 2009!
Have a great time, keep up the great art, and watch this space for additional information!
So, you all heard Shoshana, if you want to exhibit at SL5B, get your ass over to The Exhibit Application form and I’ll see you there! ;)
* For those interested, I did a little overview of the Artists displaying work at SL4B and links to their websites - if I could track those down - last year. =)
Second Life web resources for May 14th 2008 through May 17th 2008
May 18, 2008 1:30 amDiscovering the Garden… again… and again…
May 17, 2008 7:54 pm
For those of you that own a garden, did you ever ‘discover’ something in it? Something that makes you go ‘woooow, this is awesome’? It may be little things - a beautiful butterfly, a cute little frogg - or huge things - ‘hey, did I have a three, that grows eatable stuff?! Woot!’ A friend of mine recently discovered a secret pathway to the city centre in mine. How can one miss that? Well, there’s a whole pile of crap in front of it. :p Anyway, those little things can utterly amaze you. This is how I feel each time I visit the - Rezzable, yes, Jon, I won’t forget to put that in front this time - Garden of NPIRL Deligihts.
It’s huge, and although I saw it grow and flourish, there are that many builds I have not seen yet. Or that you take for granted, as being part of the Garden, but that are actually little artworks on itself. A beautiful example are Artoo Magneto’s beautiful trees: a small detail, easily overlooked, but it makes the whole… well.. astonishing.
Another thing that I overlooked - or did not know off - is my own, Dutch music heritage. Apparently the song ‘Het Land van Waas en Maal’s lyrics are about the Garden of Earthly Delights. Would be so kewl if it could be covered by an artist who performs at Gardenstock.
So, there are a few ways how you can discover the Garden of NPIRL Delights:
- Get the HUD. Available at The Dump entrance.
- Go to The Dump and go on foot - don’t forget to take a miner’s helmet - or fly or jetpack or whatever. NPIRL ways of strolling the Garden are encouraged.
- Go to The Dump and walk through the tunnel and take a tour vehicule. Best for easy adjustment to a huge load of NPIRL virtual art. The tours give you a great overview in less than 10 minutes, so it’s a great start before you explore on foot.
Let’s end with a quote of Lauren Weyland that I absolutely love:
Alice in Wonderland never fell far enough. Gulliver didn’t sail far enough. Michael Smith didn’t imagine enough. For if they had, their authors, Carroll, Swift and Heinlein would have written about the Rezzable Garden of NPIRL Delights.”
PS. Yeah, the belgian weather is back and it is sure as hell rainy. More SL playtime for Vint again! ;)
