NS Nunchuck

The NS Nunchuck LX floating serenely in the sky.

For now.

Blue Mars II

I have played Blue Mars.

This is going to be my last post on Blue Mars. You will find out why.

Blue Mars I

Anna sent me into Blue Mars. I do not know why.

I downloaded the client. Logged in.

Lag. Lots of lag. I tried to make an avatar but I gave up quickly because it lagged choosing an avatar.

Then when I went into the world it didn't load. My vision filled with some kind of neon black and purple landscape with ghosted outlines of avatars.

Then my computer crashed.

I think I need a better computer.

Fresh New World

Today is going to be most exciting. I finally got the go-ahead to register and download Blue Mars.

Let's see if they can top all the myriad imaginative ways to crash my computer as LL has.

Metaplace

Metaplace opened today. I haven't joined it.

My big problem is that between Second Life and Real Life, I really don't have the time to dabble in yet another virtual world. My previous jaunts in MeetMe, Twinity, There, and HiPiHi were short lived partly for the same reason.

I know if I create a Metaplace account, I'll use it for a week (at most) and then drop it. I'm saving myself the energy and time by not bothering.

440

Soaring

There is a zero to zero chance of me ever actually obtaining a pilot's license or an airplane. In fact, I think it's illegal in twenty two states for me to have either (same to you, Missouri). In fact, it's illegal in all of them. Screw you, FAA.

Thus, I buzz about Second Life in planes of my own making. Half of which are horrible failures. When they do work, Second Life and its sim seams eat the remaining half. It's not terribly hard scripting them as I just tweak the one I got (it was a freebie which is all but unrecognizable from its original form). It's not terribly hard building them either, as in SL I can completely disregard all laws of physics. I could build a flying sofa if I so wanted.

Most of my planes are pretty vanilla. But I like them that way. I'm totally a traditionalist. I'm boring that way. On the other hand, it does cut down on IMs inquiring as to why I am flying a giant turd.

I'm also traditional in how I like my planes to fly. None of that mouse view junk. Or that one plane which required inputting half a million commands just to take off. Give me a throttle and a control stick, maybe some rudder, and I'll be set. Simple as can be without all that junk in the interface. Half of it is pure junk. 'Press T and chat '/2 gurp' to execute so and so maneuver'.... why bother when I can just pull the same stunt with a little action on the arrow keys and throttling down a bit?

Some may complain ban lines interrupt their flight, but go up a hundred meters or so, up above the clouds, and you can go anywhere. With Windlight, it's really beautiful. And if you really really have to absolutely touch the ground, well, find a linden sea or park and swoop in a little bit. By definition, the airplane should be in the air, anyway.

Having to focus your energies on altitude maintenance is relaxing. It's also fun attempting to IM friends while pulling off barrel rolls. I'm not nearly that big of a thrill seeker (SL's lag discourages such things anyway, a little lag and you'll find yourself embedded in someone's house fast). No, I'm quite content to just watch the sun on the water in Windlight while chugging across the landscape, blissful of everything down below. Above your petty squabbles and concerns of intellectual property. Ah, escape.

I love it. But I still wish I could break half a dozen regulations in real life.

Oh well.

447

On Partings

So, My Dear Friends, we have arrived at the end of another April. Winter has left and Spring is in! And as winter goes, so go many other things.

Lots of news agencies. Goodbye SLNN and Reuters and all those others who found out too late that Second Life is about a different kind of story. Or perhaps just not interested. To them our bickering were like the mews and howls of Centralia, PA. Interesting and strange to those big guys in New York or LA, but dull after many tellings. Seriously guys, we get it. Your entire town is rotting underground from massive coal fires. Move on already! Did you hear about swine flu and Obama's visit to where ever he was? Now that's news.

Not to mention that grabbing an audience is difficult. Choosing to run a news blog outside of Second Life is an uphill battle. Massive advertising is required to get attention inworld, and heaven help you if you don't keep your hands on the pulse and fail to update often. Or if you miss a big story. Or neglect to report one. Or neglect to go outside of 'looking up LL's blog'.

Running a newspaper inside of SL is as difficult. You get all the burden of collecting and editing stories with the challenge of cramming it into a notecard or prim book. The prim book may or may not rezz. People won't wait the two or three minutes for the pretty pictures to load completely. Large notecards (and large they will become if they are truly reporting Second Life) also are a pain to deal with. Once again, attention has to be earned and getting paid is one of those luxuries up there with my desire to own a house on the shore. Not having income kills everything dead fast.

I mentioned before that looking at a map of the grid is akin to watching the stars at night. Thousands upon thousands of islands dot the scape. If each of those had only one avatar that regularly logged on and used them, that's thousands and thousands of avatars. Each with their own little cliques and circles. Some stories may unify them all (such as banks buckling under or the openspace debacle) but each has their own story to tell and stories that they alone are interested in.

A metro area divides up into towns and cities around the center city. A city divides up into neighborhoods. Neighborhoods divide up into blocks. Each has their own cares and worries. That's why the Inquirer has special sections for Jersey and Delaware and the suburbs. It brings relevant news to its target demographic. Attempting to do the same in Second Life is a time consuming, if nigh impossible, task. Furries and War sims are two that come to mind (and indeed, were often highlighted in the former SL Herald). There's all manner of roleplay communities. There's the sailing sims. The art community. The devotees of Nunchuck. SL Pride. And so on. What a hassle to organize all that and the hottest stories off the Lindens and general community on top of that! And why bother going to a news source for that when you can easily gossip with the neighbors (after all, how big are some of these communities? probably not large enough to not notice what their left hand is doing) and check the Linden's own blog for news. Why bother?

Goodbye, dear news agencies.

Ginsu Linden left, and Robin Linden left just this February. That's the last of the Ancient Elders (the founding Lindens from before 2005 or so) and most of the current cast are the new guys like M. I find it interesting that I've been in Second Life longer than most, if not all, of the current Linden Lab staff. These new Lindens are forging their own path and forging their own new Second Life.

Anytime you shake up the management, the outcome results in changes. Lincoln's election resulted in a civil war and civil rights (at least, right to not be enslaved). Steve Jobs electrified Apple. My own university's late president, upon taking up his position as president, transformed our poor school from 'that ugly orange brick blot north of Market street' into an increasingly awesome college (albeit still ugliest in the universe, alas, some things never change). And with his own passing (ah, yes, my university's president, another victim of April), that ugly orange brick blot is going to take another turn. Hopefully for the better, as I'd prefer my degree to flow from an actual existing institution. Embarrassment would abound to explain how it came from an extinct and dead school.

Ginsu left, Robin left, Philip left. Torley's still around but he hasn't really been in the forefront for some time and is probably quietly churning out tutorials. Didn't he used to be a very public face to LL? I miss those days. Torley, for all his faults, presented a sappy happy image of LL and SL in general. And now? More or less invisible. There's Blue, too. He's around and ... um... doing things. I never really looked too close at what Blue does. He always seems to be around, though. A case of a Jack of all Trades. One of those Liaison style Lindens. Gosh, there were a million of those.

Also, you could argue that Philip is still around, just leveled up. The personal touch is gone. When he was CEO, he was THE guy in CHARGE. He seemed to have a bigger impact and greater direct control over things. And personable to boot. For as often as people would gripe about the direction of SL and blame Philip for everything, no one really hated him. Now... we have M. Like a minted officer out of MI6, M gives me this feeling of being more than he pretends to be. Oh, there's the funny 'diary entries' and 'fireside chats' about the brave new world he has had placed upon his shoulders and his follies with having a box stuck on his avatar's head, but it seems forced to me. I suppose he's a better politician.

And Robin? Hell if I know her direct replacement. Ginsu, too. I think that's another thing that's leaving with them. Recognition. Robin and Phil used to come in and greet us mere mortals, and in doing so grew a special kind of fondness from the populace. The new guys? Well, they do have their office hours, but those are supposed to be official business. Those get derailed, too, and hijacked by someone or other into some inane unrelated topic. And you only get a solid hour with the Linden in question, sometimes only that solid hour for the entire week. That special Aura is gone.

Add in that in our ever growing world, where the vast vast majority will never ever see a Linden ever, and the Lindens have pretty much become 'Those Guys'. You know, the guys at work who are really high above you on the hierarchy. You never ever see them but you do get emails from them and always with that faux kindness to a message laced with urgency or doom or something serious. That's the Lindens these days. Not an integral part of our world, but bigwigs far removed from us.

They are different from us. They are not like us.

Goodbye, dear Ginsu. And the Lindens who left before you.

Adult content is being herded off into a super special awesome Adult Only continent. It's official. You can read it on the main blog. If you have adult rated and adult themed (I like the 'adult' euphemism, by the way, I wonder if other adult things like the military sims or big business headquarters will have to move) then you better have the wagons packed and ready to roll. March off into your ghettos! This is SL, so do it with a smile. Take your sex and drugs off our grid, off this brave new world of ours.

And you'll be blinded out, too. Unless someone is age verified and has adult content enabled on search, the citizens of the main grid won't be able to find you. Given the previous verification fiasco, not too many people will be keen to register and have their hand stamped. In fact, given the only reason to do so will be to access adult content I can imagine it to become a stigma of sorts, similar to someone purchasing Viagra. Sure, it's for your pulmonary hypertension! We all know what kind of tension you're relieving, wink wink.

With this enforcement, we also enforce fraud. Heaven help you if you mismark your parcel, for you will be reported and action will be taken. There's a reason it's called a reservation. I can easily imagine LL stripping the offending content off your parcel if they find it misflagged. It might end up being abused by the vengeful like any other bannable reportable offense that's been implemented since the dawn of time. And what about the home? People tend to place home to have sex in them. If 'Mature' is a code word for 'PG sim with cursing allowed and nothing else', then by definition such homes will have to be 'Adult' rated.

In a way, I can't wait to see the result. Will there be a mass exodus, leaving LL holding the tattered remains of the original mainland continents, the tattered PG/Mature remains of ad farms, mini malls, and Mole roads (remember that Landlords will have to move if their renters are partaking in activities of the night)? The occasional art gallery will thrown in there too somewhere, I suppose. It seems such a case will result in the life of the grid moving off center stage behind the wings.

Imagine the seedy gritty underworld of the adult themed Second Life. A virtual Big Easy where anything goes! No worries about offending some silly age player or RL teen cause we're all over 18 here! People might register as Adult Only just to be free of the Disney-esque restrictions being imposed on the mainland. What would you report them for, labeling their land too high? Are you going to set up some third party regulatory body that will label each parcel without the owner's consent, like the movie ratings in real life? Because the main grid will indeed become like Disney land, full of art galleries and infohubs and fancy builds put up by whoever. Completely vanilla.

Considering the speculation that LL is merging in the teen grid (a useless gesture considering that de facto teens can register on SL merely by lying on a few of the sign-up questions for a freebie account alone), the old mainland will become Teen Grid 2.0. You know, earlier I stated that stigma may accompany those who verify, but perhaps the opposite will be true. Perhaps not verifying will label you as a stupid teen or kid. In any event, I can easily imagine the new adult continent as the most lively of the two partitions of the main grid if only because, and let's be honest with ourselves, a good majority are in Second Life for the mature content. Whether it's empty sex or a desire to find someone, the right one, fancy builds and nifty contests and events are more or less secondary to that. Maybe even integrated with it, a good date might be to a live concert.

Eventually, Linden Lab will crack down on the new continent. Teens will get verification through their parents, they can already get their parents to sign up and pay for game like World of Warcraft, and the Lindens will have to move to prevent the children from accessing adult content again. The true end will occur when OpenSims takes off and allows everyone to build their own grid. This world of ours will shatter into isolated universes that in all likelihood will be forever cut off from each other. There could be a 'wood between the worlds' concept a la Naria, but you'd run into the adult/teen demon again, because Linden Lab would have to monitor the gates to the Adult worlds and frankly why bother? It could end up as nothing more than a phone book, where you can look up which grid is what. That way, LL is not responsible for anything except the server code and their own Disney world, if they can manage to hold onto that. Can you imagine LL publishing a metaversal yellow pages?

Goodbye, dear Adult Content.

The Lindens themselves put up a Memorial garden for everyone who died in RL or just decided to get out of Dodge City. As I said a few days ago, it's kind of tasteful, if a bit bare and focused on a few. This was set up last year in April and now it's back again, as if the Lindens too realize that April is a cruel month. I think there's more to mourn than just those of our friends who have left and never returned.

And yet, onward we march.

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Let's hope the lilacs of Second Life bred this April are beautiful.

On The Vast Ocean

It's amazing to look at the grand map of the Second Life universe and gawk at the thousands of islands (and the huge continents) that dot its ocean. Just look at them all!

And if you zoom in real close, you can pick out all little details. You can spot the homes and trees if it's a residential sim (most of them are) and sometimes the land is sculpted into clever little shapes (my university's is a cute little dragon). You can always tell a shopping mall: they're the big blocks or sometimes rings and split into little cubicles (although the divisions may not be visible from space).

Some people have actually made little continents of their own. I find that amazing because it must take some serious cash to run all those islands or some serious business skills to maintain whatever source of income the purpose of the continent is bringing down.

But what I find interesting is that this landscape isn't molded scenery like the main continents are. No, these are little parcels that are built up to the specifications of the buyer. Aside from providing the space, Linden Lab does nothing to interfere. It feels the most organic than most other games of this type, and I dunno whether it's the tools or what. Granted, teh graphics do bring it down with textures that don't load or don't fit and so on. But it's interesting to see what people make when they have full reign over everything. Maybe I need to expand my horizons, haha.

In any event, I try to imagine how long it would take to visit every island. And by visit I mean 'stay for ten minutes (even then probably too short a time) and poke around, then move on'. Even if it's just someone's home, like the little spy I am I enjoy seeing how they decide to decorate.

I should really do a show about it. Like that show that was on MTV where they'd visit the homes of these superstars. I can't remember the name.

We're Closed

Really now, when I saw this sign during one of my wanderings I could only wonder why Linden Lab does not put this up when log-ins are disabled. Rude, perhaps, but immature fun.

This way we wouldn't expect any kind of service from them. It would be a beacon: we don't care, come back later. Any complaints? Well, uh.... they are fairly transparent about it, aren't they?

....

Well, this is an old joke, isn't it?

Ghosts!

The other day, I was wandering about Second Life as I usually do when none of my friends are logged in and I'm bored.

There is a beautiful build on that ring shaped continent, in the middle or thereabouts, in the Iris sim. It's some kind of pagoda with lovely deep red pillars framing its graceful arches and rooms. It is also the place where I discovered now that I am completely insane.

There was a bunch of people standing around, some afk, some bots. And someone walked by, decked out in some kind of blue spiky avatar that was named, and I kid you not, Okasus. That, my friends, is how I know I am officially insane. I am starting to see things that I made up walk around. I couldn't catch him/her/it before it left, but the name was definitely Okasus.

Someone could have been messing with my head, though, and made some alt, found me, and walked by to make me think I am going crazy. Who would go through all that trouble, though? Is it you, Jurin? Or is it you, Torley? I can't think of anyone who would be that spiteful to try and get me to think I am crazy, so I conclude that I actually am crazy.

Hell, now I wonder if I am actually typing anything or just think I am typing something.

Ah ha ha?

New Linden Build

That new Linden Build that's nestled in Nautilus? The huge temple one with the giant purple crystal?

I swear upon Nunchuck, it's the Lindens trying to rip off of Atlantis.

Notice how there is one central canal that ends in a ring? The actual Atlantis had the same layout, only with more rings and a bit grander. Even the theme of 'giant island in the middle of the sea' is all the same. Plato is probably rolling in his grave. Trust me, read the ancient stories of Atlantis (not the modern crap about it) and then look at the Linden's 'Nautilus'. You can't tell me they aren't parallel.

Also, I'd like to humiliate the idiot Linden who named some of the seaways. "Bingo Strait"? What the hell? Couldn't they think of something a bit more normal? Bingo makes me think of dogs and the game and certainly is humourous when labeled on a sim named for Admirals. The Halsey and Farragut sims of 'bingo strait'?

P.S. I'm not capitalizing bingo strait. It doesn't deserve it.

The Zeppelin

It was late at night and I was dozing off in Anna's Annex. It was a cool and cloudless night. The smell of my cooling coffee drifted lazily into the breeze and curled around an old flag hung in the days of optimism. From my seat on the balcony, I could see the owner turn off the lights and turn off the stove, getting ready to log off. The shop was plunged into the dark and she shooed me out the door and locked up.

So rude of her. I wandered about patio drowsily stewing over it. And that was when I was jolted to full conscienceless by a loud bang, and then a sound of crumpling. Hissing and a slow wheeze followed. I ran towards the source of the noise, fearing something worrisome. While all instinct screamed to run from the ominous din, curiosity begged me to investigate toward it.

What I found was a zeppelin, crashed into the seaside. Its silvery sheen melted into the sea, like a majestic whale breaching for breathe, beached upon the shore, gasping for breath.

I couldn't take my eyes off of it. It creaked steadily into the breeze. It was surreal, to watch such a leviathan lie helpless. It arched into the sky like a child reaching for the stars, almost in one final desperado attempt to regain its rightful place as champion in the skies. An attempt inevitably doomed to failure.


I wanted to swim across and see if anyone was trapped and in need of help. But I was scared for my own life. What if it lost its battle with gravity and the forces and collapsed completely into the water? But should I consign another soul to that fate?

In the end, I built up my courage and plunged into the chilled waters. It seemed like a long swim to the wreck, made worse by another frightful and terrible noise and a choppy wave across the waters.

Finally reaching the wreckage itself, I climbed up and onto it to discover the cause. The bow had stripped off and fallen away, crumpled down into the sea bed below. Only further evidence of the impending doom of those entrapped inside as well as myself.


What was most curious is the lack of furnishings in the vessel itself. Had they been jettisoned in a last ditch effort to maintain buoncy? Or was this blimp on its maiden voyage, one gone horribly wrong?


One thing was certain, there was no soul left in this zeppelin except for myself. It was likely that, upon discerning their fate in this dying craft, they chose to leap from it and allow it to tumble where it may. Tumble practically onto my feet.


As I struggled against the tilt of the craft towards the exit, I heard yet another dreadful sound. The sound of metal gnashing against metal and fabric rending from its steel skeleton. This sound told me the time to make my dash to safety had passed. I ran with as much speed as my body would give without failing.

And yet, as I ran towards the collapsing exit, I saw a sight that I will never forget. It was the sight of one of the steel pinions of this zeppelin, plummeting directly into my face. And then silence.

An Examination of Second Life Astronomy

I engaged in a small project about three weeks ago. The aim was to take star charts of the Second Life sky, in particular the stars, and draw constellations from them. A success would have been to find visible and repeatable constellations in the sky over the course of a few weeks.

As mentioned, a chart of the stars and constellations is worthless if it is only valid on one day and so I took to taking full snapshots of the midnight sky every night. The reason was, at the time, to establish the precise movement of the stars and extrapolate that data into charts that could be used to establish fun constellations such as "The Femur" or "Philip" or "The Gorean".

What I discovered was that each night the star positions changed completely. I took photographs over the course of a week and a half, and no two nights showed any correlation with any previous night. Attempts to discern movements of identified clusters of stars failed, as such defined clusters disappeared the next night and could not be identified.

The stars do not move in the sky. Taking photos at various times of the day yielded the same star positions, indicating that the astronomical sphere in Second Life does not rotate as the sun and moon do.

It was then suggested that the coordinates might be linked to a series lasting the course of a week. Again, photographs taken during the week of observation yielded no patterns. It was concluded that the stars' coordinates are not rotated on a weekly basis.

The mystery does not end there, however. On occasion, the stars will completely disappear from one's Second Life client, causing the night sky to appear completely dark with only the moon set in the sky. The first such event occurred at approximately 11 p.m. EST, and it was assumed to be the period at which Linden Lab changed the star map. However, a similar incident occurred two days later at 6 p.m. EST, leading to the conclusion that such occurrences are due to failures in the Second Life client or servers themselves than action on the part of Linden Lab.

The last test carried out was to determine if the star positions were similar across different viewers of different users. It was carried out by myself and Madison Rutledge. We stood in the same spot, focusing upon one direction (NW). The results were that to each of us a different star map was displayed.

In light of this evidence, the case can be made that it is implausible for one to create accurate and reproducible star maps of the Second Life night sky. This is due to failures of the client and viewer, randomness of star coordinates daily, and differentiation between different clients and IPs. The project to establish recognizable Second Life constellations was dropped.

Some further areas for study include logging in multiple times to determine if patterns change over each log-in, as well as photographing the night sky over a period of months if not years to determine if a series can be drawn on a monthly rather than a daily or weekly scale.

It is interesting to note that the Second Life sky itself is rather bland and sparse, consisting solely of white stars of variable intensities. No galaxies, nebula, novas, comets, meteoroids, or planets have been observed. Consideration should be given that no functional telescopes can be built in Second Life which severely limits the viewing possibilities, although the more likely theory is that Linden Lab simply was lazy and did not include such things for simplicity.

Finally, it should be noted that all of this probably could have been solved quickly and efficiently by asking a Linden, but that would have ruined all the fun.

Twinity

Today, I was going to regale you with tales of my excursions in Twinity. There is just one small problem.

The stupid game won't work.

I signed up for 'beta', waited three damn months, created a stupid profile, downloaded the stupid program (which took forever for some reason), downloaded a bunch of patches (why didn't that all come from that particular version I downloaded?), and I go to run the pile and it doesn't work. It doesn't log in.

I get to the loading screen, when suddenly I'm pelted with an error message:



I'm sure blogger screwed that photo up, so let me say what the box says:

"Cannot autorize SpeedtreeRT. Check license key. Enter debugger? Cancel will exit the program." Then it presents me with yes, no, and cancel. Here's where Twinity started acting like a bastard.

If I hit yes, it then asks if I want to file a bug report, and if I say yes or no, it closes out the program. I can't click cancel, that shuts the entire thing down and asks me to send another stupid bug report. Both add the wonderful side effect of stalling out on my computer, hogging memory until I force it to quit. Sometimes I had to restart the computer because no matter what I tried, it refused to stop... doing whatever it was doing besides actually loading Twinity.

Oddly enough, if I hit no, I get to this screen:



Go figure. Yet ANOTHER patch loader. Don't worry, before you get the idea that it actually worked that time around, I should let you know that at this point, it crashed. With no warning. I didn't know what happened. I had to run up Twinity twice to manage to snap that shot, by the way.

My excursion in Twinity was short lived to the point of actually being non-existent. I won't render an opinion on Twinity because how can I? I can't log into the god damn world. It's like being blocked at the border of a country and then being asked your opinion of it. So, for now, I will say that I guess Twinity is an okay world. I wouldn't know because I can't get in it, but hey, whatever.

In short, I hate Twinity.

Indiana Juran and The Secret of Flickr

Today, for lack of anything better to do, I think I will go and rip some photos off of Jurin's Flickr page. Jurin is quite the adventurer who isn't so bad with (virtual?) photography. Personally, I suggested that Jurin go and found her own photo blog, but I was met with "Not for me!". Naturally that means I have to take up the mantle and hot link a bunch of photos! Before a million copyright lawyers descend upon me, I'd like to point out that I have linked to Jurin above, and also that I have not asked permission first. Hmm, perhaps I should not have let slip that last part.

Jurin claims this is an orchestra, and I can only imagine the sim owner claims the same. All I know is that now I'm going to have nightmares of Oompa-Loompa Bishops, all staring at me with their judging eyes. OH THEIR EYES.

On second thought, they aren't really looking at the camera. Looks more like they're asleep. Probably plotting their next victim. Maybe electing the next pope of the Holy Willy Wonka Catholic Church.

A throne fit for a Pharoh. Judging from all the rainbows, I suspect the pharoh who erected this throne was either a leprechaun or gay. The entire thing appears to be on stage. "Comedy Hour, starring Ramses the Third!"

"Hey, you're a great crowd. Now, what is the deal with The Nile? What, it hasn't moved onto anger yet?" Cue the Seinfeld sound clip and computer synthesized audience laughter.

Ever see the City of Phoenix, in Arizona? This is almost a dead ringer in terms of architectural styles. Honey bunches of block buildings. It's that new style of American downtowns, where the buildings ain't that high and are rather monotonous. Not implying that is a bad thing, nobody said cities have to be giant art comments of architects.

I think the true beauty arises from Windlight and the way the sunset frames each building. You know what I think when I see this? I'm thinking it's Friday afternoon, I've just punched the clock in my office, and this is the view while I'm waiting for the elevator. You can even see that there's no traffic, because I've worked overtime and everyone already went home, probably down the shore in this season but the mountains in the background along with the trees give me a vibe that this town is a long way from a sunny beach.

Jurin juggling. Just jumps off the tongue, jiving about like an Irish jig.

There's an invisible christmas tree to her left, and I'm sure that red ball is about to be dropped. You can even see her looking at that red ball, in a resigned sort of way. It's okay. You've gotten farther than I ever have in juggling. Damn gravity.

"More bears :P" is the comment Jurin supplied, and indeed, you can just make out the little critters. A grizzly Columbus, just landing on a brave new world of Native bears (who knows, red pandas?). I guess the Nina and Pinta didn't survive the voyage. Santa Bearia did.

Dragons in a wing of three. I guess magic is holding them up, because I see no visible means of support. One has to wonder what they are up to, because a single dragon is bad news enough. Imagine a swarm of three descending upon your hapless sim.

The lag would be horrible, for one.

A Second Life pinball machine. Incredible. From the comments, I assume that an avatar is the pinball. In pictures like these, I like to notice the backgrounds. There's an ice castle, a giant robot decked with what appears to be red wings, and a small village of shacks and things. There is only one conclusion.

This is a theme park in a third world country. The rich Americans go the park, while the huddled masses build shanty towns around the gates (or lack thereof in this photo) while the common folk work earning peanuts and two cents a day in the park shoveling the cigarette butts from the morons inconsiderate enough to just throw them on the ground when the trash bin is three feet away and the cigarette tower (the little spike looking things you're supposed to dispose butts in) is six INCHES away. I mean, sweet Jesus, does it really take that much effort to chuck them in the bin, Jack?? Do you really have to litter my lawn? It didn't look crappy enough for you as it is, you have to go and attempt to burn it with your disgusting habits? I'm going to install tasers in the ground, and when you come near they'll trigger and shock you. Then, I'll drag your body onto YOUR lawn. How's that, Mr Too Good To Dispose My Cigarettes Properly? Stupid morons. Smoking is bad for you anyway, and bad with second-hand smoke to others, the least you could do is just throw your garbage where it belongs instead of making my lawn, and by extension my city, state, nation, continent, planet, solar system, galaxy, cluster, and universe uglier. Thanks a lot.

Oh, uh, so anyway, I'll bet the avatars who ride that thing get real sick.

Buzzing About The Land

After playing around in SL with various aircraft, I have come to the conclusion that the most stable platforms for flight are the helicopter and various forms of blimps.

The biggest problem is that flight is really only practical when you have the ability to cross sims at will. Anything that crashes more than fifteen percent of the time is useless as a vehicle for crossing sims. The fact of the matter is that most airplanes will fail this. Ideally, to cross a sim you want to reduce the number of prims and scripts making the crossing and to do so at a speed which will not cause SL to flip out. It's really hard making an airplane that can do this. My best attempt at this doesn't look much like an airplane and relies upon a stripped down version of Cubey's freebie plane script.

So airplanes are useless. The chances of failure to cross (hereafter referred to as %FTC) are too high. When you're rocketing across the landscape SL can't handle it most of the time.

There's another problem, and it involves the time it takes to rezz something. Once again, in real life an airplane's speed is what gives it many advantages, however in SL that is a huge weakness because not only do you not give the server time to hand you off between sims, but you also run the huge risk of smacking into the broad side of a skybox, skyscraper, mountain, or any number of things that involve user created prims. Unless you have a very good lay of the land, something that is hard to accomplish when you're scouting over unknown lands, you're going to hit something. Throw in the fact that land is transient and can be bought and sold fast with new owners changing the landscape and it's a recipe for disaster.

I've encountered this. I've hit parcels where the new owner erected banlines or built something new and I hit it. When you scream across at Mach 2, it's fairly easy for SL to not keep up with how fast you whiz by.

You could negate this by extending the draw distance so as to give the grid a longer range and time with which to rezz something. Then you hit the problem of lag. And it doesn't change the fact that ban lines can hardly been seen these days until you're on top of them (which I wouldn't change for all the money in the world. Banlines are ugly enough as it is without them being seen across the sim).

Airplanes just won't work well in Second Life. Unless you are willing to crash a lot and deal with the consequences of that.

Helicopters and blimps solve these problems by having such reduced speeds. Blimps are notoriously slow, limping along at a crawl and giving the servers ample time to pass you around the metaversal canyons. Helicopters can be much faster (almost as fast as aircraft) but can be reduced to a crawl fast and without the problem of stalling like an airplane or a jet would at such low speeds.

This ability to reduce speed to an acceptable point for crossing sims is their greatest strength. In my entire time flying such vehicles, their most prominent problems are due to pilot error than the craft themselves. Such as when I push a chopper to maximum speed across the land (which can be faster than you would expect). They lack the sheer speed of airplanes and jets but have a much lower %FTC when flown right. This gives them a larger operating zone since they can then cross multiple sims whereas a jet pilot might operate over only two or three to avoid the risk of crashing.

There's also a host of minor annoyances when flying airplanes and most are due to the fact that you cannot divert attention away from the aircraft itself. I can't really answer IMs when flying because if I do I run the huge risk of not being able to switch from the IM box to the aircraft in time to avoid something awful. This isn't so bad over Linden Seas where I can fly level for a stretch to utter a few sentences but is a serious issue over land where hitting banlines and prims is a concern.

In this case, helicopters and blimps soundly crunch airplanes. Both have the wonderful ability to hover in place which allows one to pause to answer and respond to IMs. I can stop right then and there without fear that the helicopter or blimp will continue beyond my control and blow itself to hell. It's a minor problem because, perhaps, a pilot just won't have or wish to answer IMs or perhaps won't care. I care because I don't like to leave people hanging and waiting for my reply.

It isn't all good on this side of the rainbow. Unlike airplanes, helicopters and blimps can be prim and script heavy, a necessity of the fact that you're making something much more complex than what is, in Second Life, a flying car. Most airplanes in Second Life are simple car scripts with the ability to lift off the ground thrown in. For Choppers and Blimps, this is much harder to accomplish. I have seen a few great builders who have pulled it off but for someone constructing their own it is not an easy skill.

While Blimps are easy to learn, helicopters are much harder to get trained on. A tiny mistake or over adjustment on the controls and you can spiral out of control straight into the pavement. And due to the fact that a scripter has to create something that both flys and hovers, the controls to accomplish this can vary wildly and you really have to relearn how to fly a helicopter between different builders. Some may use simple keyboard controls, some may use a form of mouselook, and some may mish-mosh the two. The steep learning curve is a major turn-off for casual flyers and I do not blame them.

But for my money, I'd prefer helicopters and blimps, despite their faults, over airplanes these days. I like to explore SL in an aircraft beyond the local sim or two and I have time to burn learning how to fly. I like airplanes but these days considering the stability of SL (nonexistent) I like to spend more time online than in limbo waiting to red map. Your mileage may vary.

Meet Me

There is a pseudo-virtual world out there. Provided, of course, that you speak Japanese and don't mind the fact that you really can't create anything in it. It's called "MeetMe" and the basic thrust of it is you're some person taking up residence in a virtual Tokyo.

As you can imagine, you need a significant understanding of Japanese to slog through it. Or, you can be like me and turn to my good friend, Google Translator. It's all free to play and simplistic enough that once you're inworld and set up, you really don't need much in the way of translating.

As you can see, the world itself is beautiful, if somewhat sparse. You can find several landmarks, such as Tokyo Tower and the elevated in this particular screenshot. There's several skyscrapers as well. The elevated, subway, and rail lines are all rideable and can take you very far from Point A to B through out the city, provided you have the proper pass. Once you purchase the tickets, you keep them forever so you don't spend a lot of money on tickets. So if I buy tickets to 19th street station, I can always board and exit there from then on.

If you don't have the cash, or the rail tickets, or the rail line hasn't been built in that area yet, then you're in for quite a haul. I do not kid you when I say that the city is built almost true to scale. It can take you HOURS to walk from one neighborhood to another. Your character will also faint and stop and take breaks like a semi-real human which adds to the transit time when legging it. So it's in your interest to make money and buy tickets.

How do you make money? Well, many ways. One is fishing. Another is picking up rocks and sticks you find along the paths and streets. Sometimes you'll see a billboard, which will ask you a question in Japanese, and if you guess it right, it gives you money. The last few of those gives you pathetically little amounts of CoCore, the ingame currency. Plus, rocks and sticks and billboards are few and very far in between. Some in world have taken to forming 'rock' gangs of sorts and scoured the streets looking for them. I'll get to fishing later.

You can either stick to the original freebie apartments, or you can buy a plot of land for a pre set rent amount. Either way, MeetMe lets you set up a small flat with whatever you've found lying around or what you've bought. Being cheap and tight, I stuck with the freebie flats. And you can see my lovely window, recliner, and clothing stands. If I had chosen to buy a land plot then I could also set up and build my own house and add doors and windows and such. The bigger the plot the larger the house and although I never figured out how to string together plots to make a larger house, some people have built virtual mansions. In addition, you can retexture anything provided you've bought the in game textures.

The game is very customizable but you depend upon the creators to plop in all the things and textures found in MeetMe.

There are no animation overrides, but the default walkings and such aren't so bad. What may drive you insane is the limited options available to customizing your avatar. Plus, it's all too easy to make some super deformed character and look like a freak. In a word, it's all in this anime style, which means that many characters you might look alike for the most part. As you can probably see for most of these screenshots, I don't look like SL me at all for most of it. El Oh El.

And then there's fishing, which is one of the most fun things I have ever done. I wish Second Life had fishing like this. I can't describe it, you really have to be there and try it yourself. There's a large variety of fish in many different locations. I could spend the rest of my life just trying to master how to fish. Good Nunchuck, I love it.

Plus, the larger fish can be sold for significant sums. And really, in the end, fishing ends up supplying most of the in game economy, such as it is.

Here I am, with the largest fish I caught. Evidently it was some kind of goldfish/cod mutant that was 20 cm.

The people in MeetMe are Japanese. Thus, about 3/4 of them do not speak English. I do not and cannot recommend it on that basis, since like SL most of the fun comes from grabbing a buddy and messing around. There were maybe four people who spoke English and were very polite, but I'm sure I got on their nerves after a fashion. Consider also that the entire thing is still in a form of beta testing, and I'd say avoid MeetMe unless you have a masterful understanding of written Japanese.

Oh lord, I could fish forever.

Zeppelin

Madison and I were goofing around per usual and bought an 80-90 meter long airship dubbed the NS Deukalin (or something along those lines).

This thing is 263 prims. It has about six rooms: A main reception room, two bedroom/observation rooms, a hallway between those three, a maintenance room on the top for access to the balloons, and an engineering/cargo space on the bottom. Six engines propel this massive beast across the skies, and it needs a helmsman, a navigator, and an inflight engineer to do so. There is no limit on its capacity, but it starts with seating for three in the cockpit. More can be added if the rooms are furnished.

Did I mention this thing can actually fly? It crawls along looking for all the world like a metal caterpillar but it flies in one piece and doesn't look half bad doing so. Madison and I flew it across the Russian continent (they call it the 'Japanese' continent but the names are all Russian). We kept to the open sea Linden sims along the coastline, just as I do with my airplanes, to avoid banlines and full parcels.

And so we cruised, admiring the beach houses and yachts people placed out. There was minor trouble as our tail was shot off as we tried to break into Mia and Bree's hide-out, but we managed to keep it together. We were finally done in when we hit a full parcel (the ocean ran out and we had to make a land crossing). The cockpit kept chugging along until it finally fell out of the sky and crashed.

I think I like blimps more than airplanes now. They move much slower, so I can chat and fly at the same time without worrying whether I'm going to smack into the broad side of someone's house or marina. Moving slower lets it cross sims easier and lets objects rezz, meaning I crash into something far less and can enjoy the actual view. And for this particular vehicle, it can hold multiple people on a cruise to hell.

If I'm inworld, feel free to IM me and I'll give you a ride. I swear it's completely worth it, and if we do crash, it's also good for a few chuckles.

Sex And Battery Acid

They say everyone at one time or another has tried their hand at Second Life Sex.

I can understand the language and the words and the thoughts conveyed. But I could never bring myself to do it, I'd feel silly and goofy typing out each and every reaction and detail and what not.

Plus, you might have noticed I have a tendency to go crazy on people and provoke a reaction. Like when I held a dance party on Mia Linden's roof. Or filled Lillee & Shell's with prim babies. I just wouldn't be able to resist on such a thing as cybering. I'd have to do something weird or goofy.

I was discussing this very topic with my good friend Chaos (completely innocent, I assure you), and I had a chance to find what I would be like as a SL lover. Here is the exact quote:

"As I slide my hot, wet pussy down your hard, stiff, virile cock, my nipples start to leak sulfuric acid in delight. It drips on your rock hard abs, burning a path down your abdomen and around your scrotum. You scream in agony, while I scream in delight"

Another day, another discovery.

My Second Life

For lack of a better thing to write, I have decided today to post all the snapshots I took in the first two months of my Second Life, which spans from November 5th to January 5th for those of you watching from home.

To begin, the first snapshot is from November 17th. I don't have any photos from when I was first rezzed to that date. Why? I didn't know how to, simply. It is a shame, because it was one of the more interesting experiences. I was easily amused by the smallest details. I got a rise out of the 'boop' noise and the menu that popped up when you right clicked. I was an oddball.

This is my first photo. It is a pic that I took of me and my friend, Solta, dancing in someone's home that we had raided. Solta was my first real friend in SL. We used to run all over SL, into and out of people's homes, playing around with freebie weapons and toys.

This was my first snapshot, and it shows. I am zoomed out all the way, you can hardly see us. I hadn't waited for all for all the textures to rez. It still holds a special place in my heart, it was the first day I decided to document a pictorial history of my Second Life.

Z13's island. He was a friend of Solta's who offered us a house in exchange for rent. He didn't realize we were both paupers. So instead, we discussed things. Mostly about Second Life. Nothing important, we were just passing time.

My first pic of Bear. I lived under those benches. All but three of the people here quit SL about a month later.

My first visit to a club, the Pink Panther Lounge. It was located in some horribly crude newbie type build, but at the time it was impressive to me that they had built a huge building. It was standard club fair, with a radio station blaring some crappy silly stream, and all of us just mindless dancing using a dance ball.

I was always pushing limits. Solta and I had a contest to see who could fly higher. She lost when she logged off, but I continued, all the way up to 500,000 meters, at which point the sun went up into the horizon and disappeared and the sky would change from blue to night at random, and my avatar looked like she was ready to fall apart. I didn't try to go higher, and I haven't ever since.

Some random person at Bear. I thought he was weird at the time since he was half covered in tattoos. You could tell I was new.

A friend showing off his hot pink jeep/thing. We took a drive until a sim seam ate his car. The robot in the back jumped on as a hitchhiker.

I didn't always spin couches. I would also spin other pieces of furniture. Here I am showing off a spinning chair to James. James came to Bear to relax, socialize, insult Ryan Radio, and run furries over. I stopped him with dominoes and tacos.

I'd also like to point out that back then, you used to be able to rezz anything at Bear, and scripts would work too. This lead to massive griefing, but it also let us add lots of user things to Bear, like sofas, chairs, coffee tables, and show-off builds ("Look, I made a head scarf!"). It was all turned off later by a Linden due to the unearthly amount of abuse reports that would flow from Bear.

Sometimes, they still find an abuse report from those times wedged in some corner of the abuse report team HQ. There was so many, they got into everything in Linden Lab.

An "oooOO-Look-at-that" picture. His wings brought the sim to a crawl. Joke was on him, he couldn't fit into the actual Bear lodge.

Or any doorway, for that matter.

Mimi, another one of my good friends. We went around messing around with the Christmas sims that were cropping up around Christmas time. This chair was supposed to be for Santa and an kid on his lap. This was all slammed and squeezed between two mini-malls.

Messing around Club Vanity. In the window in the background, you can see the desolate landscape, as Heaton village wasn't built yet. This was when Club Vanity actually hosted live musicians, usually Bill and Pam. And others who were just starting out and wanted to mess around. We went through a few new singers who had just entered SL. A few were good, most were about average. One sounded like he came off a binge the night before.

Me spinning a sofa. By now I was famous for doing so.

I forget if there was a live musician this night, or whether we just all went crazy. In the background in the red room was the short lived "Vanity Gambling/Camping", which was gamed by campbots.

There is also a herd of Chickens. I am the chicken playing the drums.

Hazel, the co-owner of Club Vanity, showing off her jello avatar.

Nalin, or Orsaka, or Hazel showing off her jello avatar. The transformer was some random person flying by.

Chaos setting off a flash bang. I think this was when I first met her. Chaos is a great builder and scripter who made lots and lots of weapons. She would shoot griefers. This was us testing her weapons next to Bear. Bear by this time was under lockdown, so we went to the neighboring parcel and caused some havoc.

With that, this chronicles the first two months of my SL, at least, the parts that you can pull out of my snapshots. There is obviously more to it, but I am lazy and don't feel like writing and spell checking the monster that would be.