SL client frustration

Sigh. Kirsten's SL client doesn't have the SL 2.0 client bug in which enabling shadows stops your eyes from rendering... but it's become unusable for another reason. A minute or so after I start it, it consumes all available RAM and slows to a crawl. I hope that's fixed soon.

snapshot metadata

If you use Linux (and GNOME), open up a directory you have RL photos in and right click on one of them. Choose the "Image" tab, and there you will see a lot of information: I was taken on a Mumbleflex BS9000, so and so f-stop, 1/120th second exposure, ISO 400, on March 25th 2009 at 3:15 p.m., and I'm X pixels wide and Y pixels high I bet that someday there will be cameras with GPSs that record where you were when the photo was taken..

Right click on an SL snapshot. You'll see the image size.

Many are the times that I wish I could remember where I took a picture in SL , the camera's orientation, what Windlight preset I was using, what my graphics settings were, the draw distance, the pseudo-time of day on the sim... but that data isn't there. I expect that just about anybody who's taken a picture in SL has wished that as well.

Please consider voting for VWR-19178, which asks that such information be stored in the metadata for SL snapshots.

UPDATE: Sorry! I fixed the link to the JIRA entry; it now takes you directly there.

UPDATE: I rummaged around my cell phone's settings, and it can store the location as determined by GPS with the pictures it takes. How much easier it would be to do in SL!

Photographing again

I had to go back to caLLiefornia to take a picture now that Kirsten's SL client exists for Linux and renders both shadows and eyes. What a relief!

Thank you, Cheyenne, and SL bloggers

I just crashed out of a dance held by the SL Bloggers group for the second time. I had a wonderful time, and met lots of great people. Thank you, Cheyenne, for inviting me there, and I apologize to everyone for dropping out so unceremoniously.

FarmVille

So, FarmVille is a "casual game", Flash-based, that has drawn in a huge number of players. It has a system of rewards and levels, something that Hamlet Au really, really thinks that SL should have in order to cut down SL's high initial attrition rate. It's casual because it doesn't require great skill to advance, just grinding away. One can, though, select crops and fit the varying rates of crop ripening around one's schedule to optimize one's rate of advancement, or take advantage of game features, e.g. confining one's avatar in a tiny space so that you can harvest and plow without waiting for your avatar to walk around.

I have friends who play FarmVille. (I can't play it--to really play it requires a Facebook account, and we all know Facebook's attitude towards avatars.) What do they talk about? About FarmVille forgetting about their last however many minutes of work, having difficulty signing on, ignoring one's attempts to purchase items, not being able to rotate buildings, and so forth. Sounds kind of like complaints about Second Life, only more so... and in FarmVille, all you have is a square plot of ground in not particularly realistic isometric projection. There's a half-hearted attempt to show "neighbors'" farms as being next to yours, but each farm is really like a "room" that one teleports to or from. No notion of geography at all.

I think I'll stay with SL, thanks.

Only a week to go!

Ubuntu 10.04 is getting very close. The Release Candidate version is now downloadable. Give it a try; you can do it without touching your computer's hard drive.

Boobquake for Second Life?

Recently an Iranian cleric has asserted that women dressing immodestly increases earthquakes. Jen McCreight of Blag Hag proposes an experiment: Boobquake.

On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that's your preferred form of immodesty.

Perhaps we in Second Life should join in the experiment—or would that introduce an extra variable that might skew the results? Perhaps it's the reaction of the viewer that moves those tectonic plates, in which case virtual immodesty should add to the effect, or perhaps not.

Blog burnout?

SL Fashion Police and What the Fug? seem to be fading out. The former hasn't had a new article since mid-December 2009 (enough to get it on Cheyenne's list of "Dead (and Missed) Blogs"), and the latter has only run four articles this year.

Perhaps there's only so many things one can make fun of.

Apple Shoots Itself in the Foot

Details here; I think that this will pretty well assure that developers will prefer Android/Chrome OS.

P.S. Ironically, I appreciate Apple's thumbs down to Flash, because I hope it hastens Flash's demise in favor of an open standard.

You know you've been in Second Life a long time...

...when you see email with the subject line "Got Big, Ugly Carbon Feet? Fly into Second Life for Help!" and you have an urge to check your appearance and wonder if you have the right skin on.

Kirsten's viewer for Linux

Many thanks to Athy for pointing out in a comment that KirstenLee Cinquetti is once again making a version of her SL client for Linux.

I've given it a short trial run, and... I like it, but I'll have to read the instructions to find out how to make go away what in LL's 2.0 client has a little >> thing to click on to make go away--and after reading about how this client has solved the problems that shadows (aka deferred rendering) have had in the past, it's kind of frustrating to find that, after twisting all the knobs to turn shadows on, they doggedly refused to appear for me.

UPDATE: I found the sequence to close the sidebar. Unfortunately, if an IM window is also open, it makes it go away too.

UPDATE: I managed to miss something, I guess--shadows are now enabled, and I can see my eyes, so Kirsten's managed to do something that has escaped LL. So... back to photography, thank goodness. I have photos to do for Pectoral Virtual Fashion articles.

Elf Clan must-read

You should read "Turning Point—An Open Letter to the SL Community" on the Elf Clan Social Network.

While you're at it, you also want to read Ariane Barnes's “'New Era' of Second Life: Role Play Getting Screwed!"

Yay! It won't be long now...

I blush to think that I didn't notice when it actually happened, but the countdown to Ubuntu 10.04, "Lucid Lynx", is underway. (10.10 already has its nickname, Maverick Meerkat.)

Bright Eyes

We're not talking the Watership Down movie here.

Back when I could see my eyes, there was one thing that kind of killed verisimilitude: if anyone was waiting to shoot until they saw the whites of my eyes, they didn't have to wait long. They positively glow in the dark!

I'll check the textures next time I'm on the grid. Meanwhile, does anyone know of a good source of emerald-green eyes with non-phosphorescent whites?

I'm surprised

What's up with the Alphaville, née Second Life, Herald? It seems to have become worth reading. Someone must've read Strunk & White and paid attention to the "Do not affect a breezy manner" section... or perhaps it's just that whoever currently holds the reins has ditched the "too cool to care" attitude. Whatever the cause, I applaud the result.

Ouch!

So I was back in the grid last night, getting my rent in at the last minute, when a dear friend IMed me, saying hello, and asking whether I wished to dance. Alas, I had to pass the chance for dancing and delightful conversation by--and ironically. it was because in RL, my left knee was complaining about my having sat too long in one position.