Thursday, February 28, 2008

Early Music in SL

In the past I've mentioned Thom Dowd's wonderful virtuoso recorder performances, but I fear I am remiss in not having mentioned the lovely and talented Atheene Dodonpa. She sings and accompanies herself on organistrum, aka hurdy gurdy (no, nothing to do with guys with monkeys on streetcorners or with Donovan...). Alas, I have not been able to attend her performances often, but I can at least enjoy, and share with you, a performance that was captured and put up on YouTube. (I also urge you to join the Early Music Group, so you can be notified of such performances in the future.)

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Not to be missed on 2nd Sex

Carrying on a tradition that goes back to John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and continues on through Weill and Brecht's Threepenny Opera, Lillie Yifu gives us the Three Linden Opera. I hope she finds a composer, because I'd love to see this performed in SL.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Typing animation

You'll recall that one of the problems with prim breasts is animations, especially the typing animation. There are people who have made typing animations that work well with prim breasts, and I've had the good fortune to use one by a dear friend, kalosss Gausman. If you are interested, you might wish to contact him. (If I knew how to take a picture while typing, I would...)

Monday, February 18, 2008

Blue jaunte

Alfred Bester's classic The Stars My Destination posits that people can learn to teleport, or "jaunte", from place to place... and there's the notion of a "blue jaunte", a suicidal teleport from an unknown location.

The last couple of times I've been on SL bring this to mind, because a significant fraction of the time when I teleport I get logged out of the grid, which is very frustrating to me and to anyone I'm chatting with at the time.

I hope things improve.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

RL Intrudes

Alas, I may not be on the grid for a while... I look forward to being able to see you all again soon.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

DynaFleur

Bringing up the rear in mentioning neat places... :)

If you've not seen it, you should take some time to visit DynaFleur. It's a lovely immersive art installation in which you walk through an ever-shifting kaleidoscopic tunnel (don't be afraid, there really is a surface to walk on; it's just transparent) to reach a central area with gorgeous closeup photos of plants. Be sure to turn on the lovely background audio stream.


It's best viewed at midnight... and do take the walk out as well as in. The installation is even beautiful viewed from afar. It's on a sim set up by Princeton University, and while you're there you should take a look around. There's a store with Princeton T-shirts if you wish to show your school spirit (and other things as well). Even if you aren't in the mood to shop you should take a look at the store from outside at night, as the building itself is lovely... and further on there are still more wonders to see...



Sunday, February 10, 2008

A must-read for scripters

Tiessa Montgolfier's wonderful All Things Tiessa blog has a great tutorial on setting up an LSL coding environment that you can have just about anywhere, with version control, files kept in a repository on the net so you can access them wherever you are connected. The environment supports LSL, autocompletion, folding (so you can select the level of detail you want to see--useful for a bird's eye view of control flow), and lots of other neat stuff. If you are a scripter, then you want to read this.

Saturday, February 09, 2008

Fashion Consolidated

You'll recall the push to increase the limit on the number of groups one can be a member of. Some groups are tied up with permission, but many are used by stores just for announcements... and it's very easy indeed to max out on groups of that sort.

A number of clothing/skin/eye/shape/shoe stores have decided to create one group that all their announcements go out to: Fashion Consolidated. I've joined it, and certainly serves its purpose. If you join, be prepared for a lot of announcements.

Friday, February 08, 2008

The new release candidate client

I've been trying it out. (Actually, it's been a long time since i used any other client. I am hooked on Windlight, what can I say?) Supposedly it brings voice to Linux, though I don't have a microphone, and I have yet to hear anyone talking.

What I can say is that some things are insanely slow. Asking for a map freezes you for an outrageous interval, as does teleporting. I hope something is done about that.

Sunday, February 03, 2008

'You got me jerkin' back and forth..."

SL is being very reminiscent of that old Devo song this weekend. Darn it.

I'm not trying to ignore anyone, I'm just having trouble staying online, which means I had better bite the bullet and do actual RL chores. *pout*

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Stolen Items

Apparently some IP thieves have become very blatant indeed, not only stealing products but even stealing the posters used to sell them. Some designers are refusing to put new work on sale until something is done about it.

For details, look in recent posts in Essence of SL, and in this post to Fabulously Free in SL, not to mention various other fashion blogs.

I urge you to make a point of avoiding stores that sell stolen goods.

Smahsing Prims Lingerie

I succumbed to temptation, and bought the orange set, which in satin looks to me more like copper. As with all the Smashing Prims clothing I have, the prim breasts are scripted, and I have edited them, though not as much as usual. At the sizes I prefer, it's hard to match things up accurately. I'm torn about which photo to use...


Sunrise shows the detail, especially on the torso, to best effect.


Sunset, on the other hand, with a little assist, has its own appeal. In any case, I am very happy with it.

Friday, February 01, 2008

Lingerie

(And darn it, the word doesn't rhyme with "hay.")

Smashing Prims has come out with lingerie. The web site shows it in red satin, but I expect there are other colors available. (There now. I see pink, silver, and orange that looks more like copper to me, but that's just me.) It's gorgeous, and I look forward to being able to wear it.