Livin’ La Vida Segunda

Clothes for the daring prim breast user

2012-01-25T21:25:00.001-06:00

If you've read this blog or seen my photos, you know that I lean towards modest clothing. Because of that, I won't be modeling for this post, even though I did make some purchases--but if you like nicely-textured and well-executed prim breast-friendly clothing of the more daring sort, be sure to check out Tw@tty C@ke. Here you'll find low cut (from above) and high cut (from below) tops, jeans that are jeans in front and lace in back, shiny metallic outfits and pants, and swimsuits and lingerie.

To see what we're talking about, head for the store in world, or take a look at the store on SL Marketplace. If you walk more on the wild side than I do, it's well worth your time.

Out of the frying pan...

2012-01-24T06:05:00.001-06:00

...and into the fire. First SOPA, now ACTA. More details from Forbes.

Clay Shirky on SOPA/PIPA

2012-01-23T07:34:00.002-06:00

I could spend the next day or so posting nothing but embedded YouTube videos about the evils of SOPA/PIPA, but I'll stop, at least for now, with this TED talk from Clay Shirky, which does two important things:

puts these laws in context
points out that just stopping SOPA/PIPA is not sufficient; the groups that want all content production to go through them will try again and again, as long as they exist.

UPDATE: That didn't take long.

SOPA Cabana

2012-01-23T07:12:00.001-06:00

Eternal vigilance...

2012-01-22T21:43:00.003-06:00

So... the administration has issued a statement that at least sounds like Obama would veto SOPA/PIPA as they stand... though all those waiting for Gitmo to close might question whether the administration has much concern for keeping its promises. Some in Congress are backing away from SOPA/PIPA, and at last week's Republican debate, all the potential candidates on stage stated their opposition to SOPA (gee--are they, or the Heritage Foundation, who also oppose SOPA, "technocommunists"?).

That said, it's not time to haul out the noisemakers and confetti:

Chris "friend of Angelo" Dodd, ex-Senator now working for the MPAA, essentially said that politicians who don't back the legislation the MPAA wants shouldn't expect funding from them come the election. (There's a little issue about whether that kind of thing is legal, and you might want to sign this petition asking that Dodd and the MPAA be investigated for bribery.)
Word is that PIPA will be up for discussion and voting in the Senate on January 24th. Take a look at EFF's page on the matter to see what you can do.

I think Y Combinator is right: it's time to kill the dinosaurs. Actual creative people have come out against SOPA/PIPA; do take a look at their statement. (No, the interests of the {RI, MP}AA aren't those of musicians and actors; see Courtney Love and Steve Albini, or look up "Hollywood accounting".)

UPDATE: More on the difference between Republican and Democrat responses to the opposition to SOPA/PIPA at Ars Technica.

A Plea to Human Mesh Avatar Makers

2012-01-19T20:52:00.000-06:00

Since around the beginning of 2012, there have been (and still are, as I type) SL clients that include the alpha version of Karl Stiefvater's mesh deformer code. As you can see from Karl's video, it causes meshes you wear to be influenced by more shape sliders than just those related to the shape's "skeleton". This has some very important consequences:

Mesh clothing is no longer Procrustean; no more alpha masks to force avatars into the shape that the mesh item was designed to fit, and no more having to actually make umpteen sizes of mesh clothing.
Mesh avatars themselves are influenced by those same sliders.

I would like to urge you to experiment with those clients with an eye to:

making them behave reasonably with a wide range of settings of those sliders--that is, they shouldn't develop discontinuities as the sliders change
pushing the envelope on the limits of the standard avatar (in the sense of Snakekiss Noir's Proposition 125 under the old system for suggesting changes, VWR-1258 in the JIRA)

I am interested in the first in part because I'd love to have a mesh avatar, but I want it to look like me. Running into people who look just like me is like meeting someone at the party wearing the same dress, but even more so!

I'm interested in both, though, because I'm a member of Second Life's busty community. We exist because a number of creative folks, bless them, have overcome the avatar's limits with prim breast attachments--but those in turn limit us when it comes to clothing. There's a growing number of wonderful clothiers who cater to us, but we are still cut off from the vast majority of dresses and tops in SL fashion. Not all prim breast users delight in having enormous breasts; the pitiful polygon count of the stock female avatar breasts mean that practically, the stock avatar is far more constrained than the slider might suggest--unless you like having breasts with corners.

With the refinement and general adoption of the mesh deforming code, mesh clothing will grow in popularity, greatly so IMHO. Who wouldn't rush to buy tops that aren't vacuum-sealed to one's breasts making T-shirts with art or text a joke, jeans that don't look like your colon is attached to a vacuum cleaner, and skirts that act like real physical skirts, making glitchpants a bad memory, rather than a bunch of strips of cloth sewn together at the waist that go through your legs when you walk or sit down or the wind blows?

With the mesh deformer and mesh avatars, we of the busty community at least have a chance of avatars that will support the figures we wish to have and that will open what I hope will be the focus of new SL fashion. I beg you to help make this happen. Thank you so much for your time and attention.

To members of the busty community reading this, no, this won't be paradise:

I fear that the limits may not be pushed very far, so that not many of us will be able to leave attachments behind.
This definitely won't support polymastia.
Accommodating those for whom real-time growth is important will require another serious change to SL, namely allowing scripts to modify your sliders in real time without making you assume the position as is done when you modify your appearance. I hope that will happen someday, but it's definitely more distant.

UPDATE: Something I forgot to mention here: if you watch the video, you'll see that mesh clothing and hence mesh avatars will be influenced by the physics layer, giving one control over jiggle.

UPDATE: Upon reflection, it's not that easy for clothing. Mesh clothing is going to be designed for a particular shape, and it will take some way to map it to another shape to be usable on more than one kind of avatar. I think people will want to implement that kind of transformation anyway, so that people can migrate their traditional painted-on clothing to a mesh avatar.

Be My Busty Valentine

2012-01-19T07:23:00.000-06:00

Word from Eira Kalil is that Tiny Things will participate in a new hunt for the busty ladies of SL, "Be My Busty Valentine", from February 10 through March 10. See her post on the Tiny Things blog.

I'm delighted by something she says: "It seems the prim-breast community is growing and I'm really happy because I feel comfortable in this community in which I have met many wonderful people." Thank you, Eira, for your work on prim breasts and clothing for them. I'm glad you're part of the community.

We're back!

2012-01-18T23:25:00.001-06:00

We're back, but la lutte continue. Learn more about the evil that is SOPA/PIPA at the following links:

This Khan Academy American Civics lecture
This YouTube video, "WTF is SOPA?"
This YouTube video, "What is SOPA and Why is It Bad?"

Fun in the water

2012-01-15T16:57:00.000-06:00

I was sitting in the stands for the boat races in the Minoan Empire in Exile, awaiting the excitement of the very first such races... when Esteban said "You'll have to race, Melissa."

I did a double take, and allowed as how I had never done such a thing before. He pointed out that he didn't say I'd have to win. I chuckled, agreed, and bought one of the lovely and elegantly simple racing boats available.

The gods smiled on me; another race came before mine, so I was able to see the path to take. (Whew!) They smiled wryly, though; my lack of experience stood out. I overcorrected a lot, and ran aground on the first lap, losing what was fortunately not too much time.

I lost, of course--and ended up being teleported back to shore after derezzing the boat out from under myself. (I did see the spot to disembark. Later.) I lost...

...but it was FUN!

Thanks to my fellow Minoans for their support, and special thanks to Esteban for nudging me into giving it a try, and to Westley, always noble and kind and a worthy opponent. Now, to schedule a little time to practice...

(They really are sweet boats. Minimal, but well-wrought economy is also known as elegance, and I believe they are the work of The Architect himself. They're designed for racing, not passengers, and they are simple to operate.)

The "secure boot" plot thickens

2012-01-15T00:35:00.002-06:00

In an earlier article, I've written about Microsoft's requirements for computers if their makers want them to get Microsoft's stamp of approval for Windows 8. Those requirements open the possibility that such computers will be rendered incapable of booting any operating system other than Windows.

Now we find that for ARM-based systems, it's going to be more than a possibility. For x86 based computers, Microsoft apparently is willing to approve of systems using a "custom" secure boot mode that will allow its owner to boot other operating systems. For ARM-based systems, though, Microsoft explicitly states that they will not approve any system with "custom" secure boot mode; they must be set so that they can never boot any operating system other than Windows.

ARM, at least currently, is the predominant CPU family for mobile devices. Intel has yet to put out an x86-flavored CPU anywhere near as efficient in terms of power consumption versus processing power. These days you'll find a lot of people claiming the desktop is on the way out--and Microsoft is looking to lock out competition so it can dominate mobile devices the way it has the desktop.

For details, see the Software Freedom Law Center's article, and Glyn Moody's article in Computerworld UK.

UPDATE: Even on the x86, the constraints will make life quite difficult. Check out "Why UEFI Secure Boot is Difficult for Linux".

Important: Help Stop SOPA and PROTECT IP

2012-01-15T00:18:00.002-06:00

Hamlet Au in NWN has posted some very important information on the law that the {MP,RI}AA are trying to ram through Congress. (In the House, it's SOPA, HR-3261, and in the Senate, the corresponding measure is called PROTECT IP or PIPA, S-968.) According to the EFF, any Internet site that hosts user-generated content will be seriously affected by the proposed law. Read Hamlet's article and the linked-to pages, and take action.

Must-reads from Maggie

2012-01-14T06:46:00.000-06:00

Of course, Maggie Bluxome's blog is like Gwyneth Llewelyn's. It's all must-read, but the two latest (as I type) articles stand out even there:

A review of the new Essentials prim breasts. They look very good and featureful. Thanks to Jennifur Vultee and TammyTgurl Umaga for their work.

Photos of Maggie and Jennifur. Looking at them, I cry, just as I did at their wedding. They are such a lovely couple!

Giantess avatars

2012-01-09T09:12:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, Susyn Stenvaag kindly invited me over to see some amazing work on giantess avatars. I am embarrassed to say that I don't know whether this is new; clearly I've not been keeping up.

I should say that the photos here show stationary figures, but I believe them to use the same constructs as are used for the giantess avatars--I met someone using the avatar to amazing effect. (Hi, J4ne!)

In particular, we visited the Giantess Avatar Shop... here's a photo I took later on:

The boots are sold separately. Note in particular the array of faces one can choose from. That's been an issue with giant avatars--you'd like to be unique, and the face is the main way we recognize individuals. (Of course, one always wants more; I'd love to be able to hand over my head slider settings and get a customized head that is me.) The faces are even better than this 2-D photo would indicate. If you go to the shop and walk around, you can see them in three dimensions.

One of the issues with avatar shapes built up from prims is joints. I think that the unadorned mannequin in the poster shows improvement... though of course the modest clothing and standing pose hides and minimizes joint issues.

Thank you, Susyn, and thank you to the lovely people I met for the first time.

UPDATE: Read the comments--you owe it to yourself to check out the image of Aliasi Stonebender's impressive work!

UPDATE #2: Definitely check out Ms. Stonebender's latest comment, and the images linked to. You'll be amazed, as I was.

The new BUSTed

2012-01-04T09:39:00.002-06:00

The January 2012 BUSTed magazine is now available. It's an issue of firsts:

Of course, it's the first issue of the new year!
It's the first issue with a new, very classy logo.
Most importantly, it's the first issue assembled by the new staff.

It's not first in one way: breathtaking photography has been part of BUSTed from the very beginning.

Many thanks to Maggie, Shieara, Maylinde, and Tahnee for their excellent work.

Unwelcome wagon

2012-01-02T04:59:00.003-06:00

There are some places in Second Life where prim breast users are not welcome. It's not a new thing; the SL forums archive has a thread from April 2007 about a woman who was ejected from a nude beach (!) for using prim breasts. I was told to remove my (completely covered) prim breasts in one of the Gossip Girl sims in January 2008. More recently, Misty Rain and Shayna Korobase have written about their similar experiences.

So... perhaps the thing to do is to put together lists of prim breast friendly and prim breast unfriendly places in Second Life. Let me know of both kinds of places; I can be reached by email at mel_yeuxdoux@yahoo.com. Then everybody wins. If you're a sim owner who doesn't want prim breast users to darken your virtual door, let us know and we will take ourselves, and our L$, elsewhere.

Picard: The only benefit to the Klingon Empire... would be our gratitude.
B'ljik: That is what you want me to tell [Gowron]?!
Picard: Yes, and please tell him that, if he is unable to provide us with a ship, then I am sure that there are others in the Klingon Empire... who would be willing to help me. And then, they would have our gratitude.

Mesh deformer news

2012-01-01T17:00:00.000-06:00

First, my apologies for time away from the blog and from Second Life. It's nice to be back.

Now for the important stuff. There is an alpha version of the mesh deformer code, and there are SL clients that include that code, for example Niran's Viewer v1.03. There are still some open issues, and like any alpha code, it needs to be exercised, so I hope you'll try it out.

For information, check out not only SH-2374, but also STORM-1716.... and this video.

UPDATE: I hope that the mesh deformer changes will have consequences for SL's busty community; the video looks very promising. Time to experiment.

Anticlimactic best wishes

2011-12-25T01:42:00.000-06:00

We've had all the RL and SL sales and ads and stuff that burns us out on Christmas long before it arrives... but now it is here, and I hope that you are with family and loved ones, whichever life you're occupying at the moment. It's from a silly movie, but it's hard to disagree with the sentiment: be excellent to each other.

/me hugs you

New from Tiny Things!

2011-12-19T20:51:00.002-06:00

Eira Kalil of Tiny Things, maker of the very nice and quite modestly-priced B-Busty prim breasts, has been hard at work and has announced two new models:

B-Busty Basic, an improved version of the original B-Busty breasts, with new skins, a tweak to their construction and positioning to better fit the avatar shape, revised menus, and a HUD!
B-Busty Evolution--these are redone from the ground up, with two shape options and layers for both underwear and top.

Details and pictures on her blog; for now, they're only available via the marketplace, but they will come to the Tiny Things store.

SOPA update

2011-12-17T12:00:00.003-06:00

For a while, it looked like Congress had not set another date to consider the evil SOPA act... but now they've decided to reconvene this coming Wednesday, December 21st, to consider the bill, no doubt hoping people will all be distracted by the upcoming holidays. Please, keep up the pressure on your representatives for SOPA and senators for the Senate equivalent, PROTECT-IP. Their passage means any site on the net can be wiped from domain name servers and cut off from any ad revenue by a mere accusation. Act now.

If you want something done right...

2011-12-17T10:08:00.001-06:00

...do it yourself. In this case, fortunately there's an SL resident out there who knows how to do it.

Check out SH-2761. Alison Alena has gone to the trouble of analyzing the default SL avatar mesh, and has made some improvements in it. The JIRA entry (and Penny Patton's blog post about it, which is how I heard about it; many thanks, Penny!) describes how to set things up so your SL client will use the improved avatar mesh. (In brief: back up the "character" directory under the directory your client is installed in, then unzip avatar_lim.zip into the character directory.)

If you look, you'll see the JIRA entry is assigned to Charlar Linden, and fix version is listed as "Sprint 33". Of course, we all remember what happened to the JIRA entry to let mesh clothing adapt to non-skeletal shape parameters, but maybe this change really will go into the official client. We can hope, and in the meantime we can take advantage of it ourselves.

The Poultry Report: Behold, the Power of Boobies

2011-12-13T20:48:00.000-06:00

Word is getting out that prim breasts exist and can look very good indeed. Check out "Behold, the Power of Boobies" at Uccello Poultry's blog The Poultry Report.

Many thanks to you, Uccello. Outside the prim breast community, I fear many discussions of prim breasts are at best dismissive, at worst vicious and insulting. Your post is a breath of fresh air.

My favorite snow...

2011-12-13T20:44:00.001-06:00

Sometimes when it's snowing and dead calm, the snowflakes don't clump or freeze with air bubbles or whatever it is that makes them white rather than transparent, so that you can see countless perfect little hexagonal panes of clear ice falling to the ground. If you're lucky, it's nighttime and you can stand under a streetlight in the glittering cone of reflected light and marvel at the snowflakes landing on your coat.

In Second Life, there are particle generators that emit a stream of snowflakes... they are quite pretty, but typically white snowflakes. Has anyone tried to simulate the clear kind of snowflake?

If I could only remember my name...

2011-12-13T06:45:00.000-06:00

Since display names were implemented, new residents, instead of choosing a first name and then selecting from a list of last names, have had to choose a unique first name, and appear as "<first name> Resident" in the absence of a display name.

Not having a choice of last name has driven people to the kinds of choices you end up making on other systems that ask for a user name/login id, i.e. appending a bunch of digits to a name to ensure uniqueness. A display name will hide such names... mostly... but can't be counted on to be unique, and the underlying name has to be used where one must uniquely identify a resident. For example, my hug/kiss attachment won't work with display names.

Worse yet, the divide between old and new naming seems to have created a class division in Second Life, and some argue that it's harder to feel an attachment to SL when you're just Joe1234567 Resident.

The JIRA entry requesting true last names, SVC-7125, has 2,136 votes and 696 watchers as I type, but has sat unresolved since its creation in July... but now there may be hope. A recent comment points one at this from Rodvik Linden. To quote:

Last names under active discussion. We are trying to figure out how to do it in a way which would be excellent rather than just ok. We want it intuitive with extra features. Hopefully we will roll out what we are thinking early January latest.
Identity is very important so as we touch it we need to make sure we are adding something great.

I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with, and especially whether all the current <line noise> Residents will be able to change their names.

UPDATE: "we will roll out what we are thinking" doesn't mean that it will go into effect, just that they will announce it. (Yeah, it had me thinking the former.)

At a nudist resort?!

2011-12-12T12:23:00.000-06:00

Shayna Korobase, creator of the lovely "Spanked" skins, tells of her experiences as a prim breast user at an SL nudist resort.

I'm flabbergasted. It's hard to imagine an RL nudist resort telling someone she needs to get breast reduction surgery before she could return, but the SL equivalent exists, it would seem.

UPDATE: Take a look at the SL forums from four and a half years ago, and you'll find this thread starting with a message from a lady who was... you guessed it... told she couldn't use prim breasts at a nude beach. Plus ça change...

Welcome back!

2011-12-12T04:10:00.004-06:00

I am very happy to be able to say that the blog A Busty Second Life is now up and running. Pay it a visit, and welcome Ali back!

Spathic Files update

2011-12-11T06:46:00.001-06:00

There's a new episode (is that the right term?) of The Spathic Files. I very much look forward to seeing the results of the project--I have tweeted the UK conference folks mentioned in hopes that they're going to publish (dead tree or otherwise) proceedings, and can't wait--all right, I have to wait, so I guess I can; I just don't like it--to find out what happens at the Console-ing Passions conference!

UPDATE: do read Kaseido's comment on this post, and keep an eye on the "Spathic Files"-tagged items.

P.S. I don't recall whether I already mentioned this here, but, for those seeing "spathic" and scratching their heads: minerals are called "spathic" if they resemble spar, in particular by having good cleavage. It's used humorously to refer to a buxom character in Spider Robinson's Callahan's Bar short story "Did You Hear the One About...?", and if you didn't know that already, I hope you'll head promptly to your favorite source of books and acquaint yourself with that lamentably fictional establishment.

P.P.S. It was used earlier in Algis Budrys's classic SF novel Michaelmas, which I similarly urge you to read.

Farewell, PixelDolls

2011-12-05T16:19:00.001-06:00

On the first of the upcoming year, Port Seraphine will close down, and PixelDolls as well, along with the Gallactic (I checked; that's really the spelling), Romance, and Chroma shops. Until then, all items are going for L$50, and there will be a special limited edition last item.

I am happy to say that Nephilaine Protagonist isn't leaving SL, and will still be doing things.

For me this is kind of like Goldie Locks going away; I have a LOT of items from PixelDolls. I use the skirts from the Bourbon outfits a great deal, as well as many of the PixelDolls tops that lend themselves to easy adaptation to prim breasts. Thank you, Nephilaine!

For more details on what's happening, including things to commemorate the event,. take a look at this thread on the SLUniverse forums.

Firestorm is Officially Released!

2011-11-28T21:03:00.001-06:00

Word came to me first from Juggernutz Ivanovic via IM, and then from a blog post by the inimitable Crap Mariner. Heading to the Phoenix/Firestorm web site turned up an announcement and a place to download it: the release version of the Firestorm client.

It includes changes made to avoid deprecated OpenGL calls, which makes Crap very happy and I'm sure will make many other people happy as well. (Problems with those deprecated routines drove some people to 1.x clients, which deprived them of some lovely rendering, which you can see examples of on Crap's blog, and other features.)

If you've yet to try Firestorm, now would be the time to do it. I think you'll be pleased.

Zzzzz....

2011-11-27T19:59:00.001-06:00

Back from a pleasant Thanksgiving with RL family. I hope you had a wonderful time in both lives. I think I'd better rest.

Reasons to be Cheerful

2011-11-21T21:26:00.001-06:00

"Life without caring was a shadow; the great moments of exhilaration came amidst the battles that only a crusader could know. Yet so few people accepted the risks, and those who did not care came closest to caring only when telling the rare crusaders that they were fools." --Marc Stiegler, David's Sling

That passage (if you find David's Sling, by the way, read it, as well as Stiegler's Earthweb) makes me think of griefers. To quote myself (a bit vain, but I don't want to pretend it's new here): "[Trolls] just, for some reason, can’t stand the notion that there are other people out there who care about something, and are willing to cause those who have the audacity to care injury or bother so they don’t have to think about it." (In the context of the post my comment appeared with, "trolls" was being used to encompass griefers as well.)

A lot of the time I worry that the world has sunken into that sort of blasé attitude, the kind that vermin like David Letterman cater to: join me in feeling smugly superior to the day's target.

"And they call for the three great stimulants
Of the exhausted ones:
Artifice, brutality and innocence
Artifice and innocence..." --Joni Mitchell, "The Three Great Stimulants"

So I was delighted today to come across a Russian band, "Gogol Bordello", that defies that attitude. Here's some of their "mission statement" (sorry, I had to use the term; it's headed with "Artist's Statement", but the web page title is "Mission", so I compromised :)).

"Gogol Bordello's task is to provoke audiences out of post-modern aesthetic swamp onto a neo-optimistic communal movement towards new sources of authentic energy....

"We chose to work with gypsy, cabaret and punk traditions. It's what we know and feel. And many more are possible that can make the beloved statement of post-modernism 'everything has been done' sound as an intellectual error."

I'm glad there are people like these. They will win the future while the jaded sink into overwhelmingly-deserved oblivion, and I hope there are still some of them here in the US.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Back to the Butterfly

2011-11-19T18:57:00.001-06:00

Caminante de Sueños recently showed some photos from a sim called Villefranche sur Mer. I had to go there, and was delighted to discover a group of trees with a sunbeam-lit path, and along the path monarch butterflies flitted about... so I had to take a picture.

After doing so, though, I realized I wasn't dressed appropriately for the occasion. I went through the inventory and found a famous classic dress designed by Vindi Vindaloo, "Azazello". After some adaptation (which included wearing the boa rather higher than the designer intended), I went back and, while not being able to reproduce the first photo, I think I got something worthwhile:

By all means, visit Villefranche sur Mer. It's a beautiful place.

Best in Black at H-Bomb Lounge

2011-11-17T08:24:00.001-06:00

vString is once again sponsoring an event at the H-Bomb Lounge. It will take place on Friday, November 18th, from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. SLT. (That's Saturday, November 19th, 0200-0500 GMT/UTC.) Go through your inventory, find your best black outfit, be it LBD (whether "L" is "little" or "latex") or big black gown, debonair tux or black leather. As with the previous vString-sponsored event, the prize is a set of vStrings prim breasts to be given to the person of the winner's choice. Have fun!

Sic transit Alphaville Herald?

2011-11-16T10:00:00.001-06:00

Just for the heck of it, I wandered over to the Alphaville Herald only to discover that the latest post there is sneaking up on a month and a half old.

The buzzword is "blog fade". Burnout, finding another more appealing activity, having to give precedence to something else... for whatever reason, the articles slow and then stop. It happened to me with Pectoral Virtual Fashion; Maggie Bluxome did, and still does, far more than I was doing and did it far better, so why continue? I don't know whether that applies here. To know I'd have to know what the heck the Herald's purpose is, or was.

That said, though, it is a shame, unlike What the Fug. There for a while, the Herald had taken to writing interesting and worthwhile articles, a kind of last hurrah.

Please take RL action against the so-called "PROTECT-IP" and "SOPA" acts

2011-11-16T08:05:00.001-06:00

I just emailed Congress to urge them to oppose the Internet Blacklist Legislation, known as the PROTECT-IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. This legislation seeks to give the executive branch power to conduct slash-and-burn campaigns against websites that allegedly host – or even link to – content that infringes on intellectual property rights. That would “disappear” whole domain names, fundamentally undermining Internet security, and/or choke off their financial support. The Internet Blacklist Legislation puts more sites than ever at risk, effectively upending the DMCA safe harbors that have been crucial to the growth of Internet innovation and creativity.

Sadly, these short-sighted and dangerous bills won’t do much to stop online infringement – but they will jeopardize our ability to speak and read online with the kind of freedom we cherish in the offline world. Deep-pocketed Hollywood lobbyists are aggressively pushing to control and censor the open Internet, willing to sacrifice free speech and our Internet culture in hopes of controlling how people view their movies and products.

We need to stop this bill before it goes any further. Will you contact your representatives in Congress and urge them to oppose the Internet Blacklist Legislation? Visit: https://eff.org/r.C8A

BUSTed magazine: help wanted!

2011-11-13T12:42:00.001-06:00

BUSTed magazine has been around for nearly a year and a half, putting out an issue each and every month of its existence. It's the closest thing there is to mass media in Second Life targeting the prim breast community, both users and admirers. IMHO that makes it very important indeed, especially since it's being noticed outside that community. (Remember the wonderful article about BUSTed in Gwenwifer Parx's Portuguese-language blog?)

The magazine is now seeking people for positions with the magazine. The positions are honest-to-goodness jobs; if you take a position, people will be counting on you to do what that position requires, each month. The positions:

advertising/accounting
producer
design and layout
photographer editor

I urge you to read the announcement on Maggie's blog. It describes the duties for each position and gives more information, including how to apply for a position should it interest you.

A Hunt for Us!

2011-11-11T18:43:00.001-06:00

A popular sort of event in Second Life is the "hunt". At various spots there are hidden tokens that one can retrieve and that bear gifts, or that lead one to a gift if one reaches the end. Often they're sponsored by stores--while you're looking for the next token/clue, you're acquainting yourself with their products, which you may not have seen before and which you may decide are worth your L$.

Well... soon there will be a hunt of great interest to us prim breast users. A great many of vendors of prim breast-related items have united to make possible a hunt that sounds really good, featuring new designs--so even if you've heard of all the participating stores, there will be things you've never seen before. (I'm both embarrassed and pleased that I haven't heard of them all before. Embarrassed because I'd like to think I keep up, and pleased because if I don't, then there are more of the wonderful people who make it possible for us to do what we do.)

The Winter 2011 PBCH (prim breast clothing hunt?) will run from November 21st through December 15th.

I came across a poster advertising the hunt while shopping... I expect that all the participating stores will have such a poster.... and I urge you to make a space available to join the associated group, "PBCH"; you'll need to to participate in the hunt.

Here are the participating shops--but please don't IM the shop owners with questions about the hunt. Ask in group chat for the PBCH group, or ask Hellena Skytower or Ashtoreth Walpole.

(UPDATE: no, really, here they are! I must have been very distracted last night.)

S&S Design
Jinxed Fashion
Aqua Kisses
Sha Boutique
P.S. Design
THIRTEEN
Whimsy's Closet
Que Bella!
TAVWEAR
Tiny Things
Amazon Designs
BL Design
It Figures
Hyper Couture
G&S-TEAM
ICON
Busty Dreams
~ By Eve ~
Big Breasted Sluts
Designs by Shalenda
MF. Creation
Bimbos
Candy Cloud Clothing
" VOOH " Designs
Tw@ttyC@ke
Vixen Wear

Thank you to Ms. Skytower and Ms. Walpole, and to all the store owners!

H-Bomb 1st Anniversary!

2011-11-11T09:45:00.001-06:00

Wow... has it been a whole year? If you'd asked me, I wouldn't have thought so, but there the evidence is... and it's an anniversary well worth celebrating. I hope to see you there!

(A reminder, in case you're as forgetful as I am: the US is back on standard time, so Second Life Time is GMT-8 again. In case it's easier to work from GMT/UTC to your local time, the celebration is Sunday November 13th from 0200-0500 GMT.)

Let the Wind Carry Me

2011-11-05T09:27:00.006-05:00

With all the beloved sims that have vanished, it's a pleasure and a relief to visit one that is still around, such as Da Vinci Gardens.

You're offered a number of ways to tour this beautiful region--at least two are, appropriately enough, based on sketches of flying machines from da Vinci's notebooks, but I took one that struck my fancy, catching a ride on a giant dandelion seed.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the grid

2011-10-31T16:11:00.001-05:00

The memory leak is back with a vengeance, and it looks like the same darn thing--the client endlessly trying to load up a WAV file. Once I thought it was a 32 bit issue, but I did run the client on a computer running 32-bit Linux, and the same thing happened. I've commented on the JIRA issue, and attached crash logs--it doesn't look like I can reopen it.

I suspect it is...

2011-10-29T20:38:00.003-05:00

Got a notice from "Rhi's Circle of Philosophical Freinds" [sic] that made me laugh...

"Group Notice: IS TIME REAL?

STARTING NOW!"

Tonight at the H-Bomb Lounge... Trick or Treat!

2011-10-29T18:00:00.000-05:00

Tonight at 6:00 p.m. Second Life time (aka 30 Oct 2011, 0100 UTC), a tradition begins... the H-Bomb Lounge will have its first annual Trick or Treat Bash, a dance and costume contest in which the grand prize is a set of vString prim breasts plus L$500. DJ Haley will provide the music. It sounds like it will be great fun--so put on your costume and get ready to dance.

Funding: we're good for Karl, now what about Kirsten?

2011-10-27T01:29:00.002-05:00

The money's been raised for Karl Stiefvater to implement a change to let mesh clothing adapt to shape parameters other than just skeletal ones. Details at NWN.

That leaves the issue of funding further development of Kirsten's client. That may not be as easy, as we're talking nearly five times as much money... but we're also talking about the SL client for people doing serious graphical work in SL--photography, machinima. If we want it to continue, it's time to colocate our $$$ and our mouths.

Progress

2011-10-27T00:46:00.004-05:00

The latest LL Linux beta looks like it fixes the memory leak that has been plaguing me for some time. (It also includes some of the UI changes that people have been talking about.) The client was endlessly allocating RAM for a .WAV file!

BUT... it still suffers from SH-2306, i.e. the screen goes to near solid blinding white when you turn on shadows. (I was too overjoyed with the RAM usage staying under about 670 MB in a session of nearly an hour to notice the lack of shadows, I guess.) That bug is now labeled as dependent on the bug of the SL client using deprecated OpenGL calls, so I guess when that's corrected, I will be truly happy. In the meantime, maybe I can plead with the Firestorm people to correct the memory leak, and have the best of both worlds. :)

UPDATE: Sahkolihaa Contepomi kindly suggested I try the testing client linked to from the SH-2240 JIRA entry. Sure enough, it works with shadows turned on, and after the better part of an hour wandering around stores with several SI standard posterior-loads of textures, RAM usage had slowly increased to around 2.2 GB, whereas the memory leak that's been clobbering me would have grabbed over 3 GB in mere minutes. So... I am happy--and even better, there's word on the Phoenix/Firestorm blog that a new Firestorm version is near completion. I hope it will include the memory leak fix!

What we can look forward to...

2011-10-24T12:54:00.001-05:00

First, something silly--is this why they call it "enhanced reality"?

OTOH, this is truly amazing. With a little input that a minimally-trained (we're talking five minutes here) user can give, they can insert realistic-looking objects into a photo of a scene and have them move, with illumination changing appropriately for the move and with reflections from the inserted objects appearing on the stuff that's really there.

Shoes

2011-10-21T09:42:00.000-05:00

Sigh... going back through inventory, I see that I've accumulated a lot of so-so shoes. Worse yet, some shoes that I've counted on over the years don't look good any more. Now, invisiprim-based shoes don't always hide the mutant foot shape, which flashes in and out of existence as you pan the camera. It doesn't look like it will be fixed, if that's even the right term. (See Whirly Fizzle's comments on a pertinent Firestorm JIRA entry.) Invisiprims are a hack that builders were driven to use in the days before alpha layers.

So, I must sadly kiss those shoes goodbye (any chance of an alpha version of those lovely Vintish heels, Aphrodite? *bats eyelashes and tries for the sad-eyed puppy look*) and seek out alpha layer shoes (mesh? Only when they can adapt to my shape, thanks)... but L$ are sparse these days, so I'm liable to be more confined to basic black for a while.

But wait! There are tintable shoes out there. This is Second Life, and in theory, for solid colors and apart from some special textures (e.g. metallic), all one need do is get white shoes, edit, fiddle with the color that is overlaid on the texture, and there you are. (Similarly, one could mostly just get albino hair and tint as desired.) And sure enough, there are some that can use an alpha layer--it's nice to see that some virtual cobblers aren't in the business of selling you almost exactly the same thing over and over. I'm accumulating a list before I set out shopping. (Now if only one could both wear hosiery and shoes with prim feet...)

Good news on the rendering front

2011-10-18T04:21:00.002-05:00

Crap Mariner reports that he's able to run a test build without tripping over some long-vexing graphics issues (vide SH-2240 and SH-2276).
Many thanks to Runitai Linden, and may Bao Linden polish off SH-2526 as readily.

Must-read from the FSF

2011-10-18T04:00:00.002-05:00

As I've mentioned before, Microsoft has decided that to get the official "Designed for Windows 8" seal of approval, computers will have to implement UEFI "Secure Boot". Unfortunately, this may end up as a way for Microsoft to prevent you from running the operating system of your choice.

Read more about it here, and please consider signing the FSF's statement on "Secure Boot".

Apology

2011-10-18T03:52:00.000-05:00

Apologies for the long delay in posting... I've been dealing with the move to Ubuntu 11.10. In the process I've gained a new appreciation for the beauties of Enlightenment and the austere simplicity of Fluxbox.

Countdown to Oneiric Ocelot

2011-10-10T21:03:00.006-05:00

Goodness! Ubuntu 11.10, "Oneiric Ocelot", is closer than I realized.

I'm undecided about what I will do. I don't care much for the "Unity" UI, and I am utterly disgusted with GNOME 3 and the "we know better than you do what you should have" and "letting people change things is bad, because you can't trust them not to do something evil, and because changing things hides the sheer greatness of the GNOME 3 experience" attitude of the people responsible for it. I may switch to another Linux distribution, or I may just upgrade and stick with other window managers/windowing environments. Linux gives me that choice, among many others, and I'm grateful for that.

Godwin's Law

2011-10-09T19:51:00.000-05:00

Long ago in the days of USENET, one Mike Godwin stated what has come to be known as Godwin's Law: as a discussion goes on, it becomes certain that someone will draw a comparison with Hitler or the Nazi party.

If you'd asked me before I came back from a trip for the weekend, I'd have said I hope that we in the Second Life prim breast community could avoid Godwin's Law, though I'd never actually considered it. Silly me; SL is a virtual world, but we bring our real selves to it.

Look: playing the Nazi card is like playing the race card. It's an attempt to end or preclude discussion and irreparably tar an opponent. Anyone who had a valid argument in support of a position or claim would use it, so frankly, I consider the use of fallacious arguments, such as drawing comparisons with Hitler ("reductio ad Hitlerum"), evidence that the user has no valid argument.

Must-read from Iris Ophelia in NWN

2011-10-06T18:56:00.000-05:00

"Ophelia's Gaze: SL Fashionista Entitlement is Bad for the Economy, Bad for Creators, and Bad Karma for Everyone"

By golly, if LL won't do it...

2011-10-05T18:12:00.001-05:00

...hire someone to do it!

There's a proposal on indiegogo.com that people can contribute to. The proposal: hire Karl Stiefvater, formerly Qarl Linden, to implement the software proposed in SH-2374. As I write, $1,501 of $5,400 needed has been raised.

Also as I type, 827 have voted for the proposal. If they all forked over $6.53 (US dollars), it would be paid for. Sounds reasonable to me.

"I hate when that happens..."

2011-10-05T06:31:00.003-05:00

Some things make me really feel guilty. Among them is one that just happened--I clicked on the "yes, I really do want to sign off" button and immediately thereafter noticed an IM. I hope it comes to me in email, and I hope that the sender forgives my oversight.

Goddess Misty

2011-10-04T22:28:00.002-05:00

I was up way too early when SuperBelinda Ametza invited me over to chat. I met some wonderful people there, and was amazed to see how a friend, Misty, had grown; she's now officially a "goddess" in Laurana's Cuties:

BoobieThon 2011

2011-10-04T13:57:00.000-05:00

My sincere apologies to all. I should remember by now, or set some kind of annual popup to nudge me. As I type, we're close to halfway through BoobieThon 2011, the fourth such event in Second Life.

For details, check out The Realm of the Red Rose's post "Once Again We Work to Save Second Base - BoobieThon 2011", and give them your support. Breast cancer is a terrible thing; may we find a way to defeat it soon.

UPDATE: Do not miss the art up for auction for BoobieThon at the RoHaus Art Collection and Sculpture Garden. It is by turns amusing, beautiful, and heartbreaking.

New club seeking employees

2011-09-29T22:09:00.000-05:00

A long-time friend of mine, Synamon Kinsei, has taken up the job of managing a new club in Second Life, and seeks employees. After the break is the application form for those who might wish to apply.

BBS Industries :: Big Breast Slu, Ordenham (75, 170, 31)

**APPLICATION WILL BE HELD FOR TWO WEEKS ONLY**

++fill out completely or it will be discarded for lack of information++

Thank you for your interest in joining the Big Breast Shemale Staff!

Our main goal is to make sure that everyone has a good time and enjoys themselves while here in our "home". We are a group of easy going, fun (and even a bit naughty on occasion) people who love to party! We do not require experience but it is definitely a plus!

• APPLICANTS MUST HAVE A MINIMUM OF 1 MONTH SL EXPERIENCE •

First, change the name of the card to your name (first and last) and then Big Breast Shemale Manager; Host; or DJ App

Second, answer a few questions for us, please be detailed in your information that you provide:

TODAY'S DATE:

POSITION APPLYING FOR:

NAME:

Alt Avatars:

SL Date of Birth:

PLEASE LIST 2 SL REFERENCES:

1. Do you have previous nightclub experience in SL? If so, please list the following:

YOUR POSITION:

NAME OF ESTABLISHMENT:

NAME OF YOUR MANAGER:

HOW LONG YOU WORKED THERE:

2. Please briefly describe why you desire to work for Big Breast Shemales.

3. What can you bring to Big Breast Shemales that we don't already have?

4. What goals do you have in working at Big Breast Shemales?

5. What would you describe as your best asset?

6. Finally, and most important, when are you available to work?

*Please note! We do operate on schedules. While these times can and will be adjusted due to changes/needs, it will be your responsibility to make sure you are available for the times specified or inform me about any changes ASAP!*

Send Applications to Synamon Kinsei or Sway Halster

Thank you for your interest in working at Big Breast Shemales. You will be contacted ASAP for an interview.

Trying to narrow it down...

2011-09-28T20:41:00.000-05:00

So... I have created a JIRA entry. VWR-27041, for the problem I have in which the SL client allocates all available RAM and then crashes. The symptoms have shown up before, vide VWR-2840; for all I know it's the same issue.

I have learned one thing: it doesn't look like it's a 64-bit versus 32-bit issue. I installed 32-bit Linux (Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 2) on a spare computer, and it did the same darn thing--allocate all the RAM in sight and then crash. (It was nice to be able to hear streaming audio, though.)

I hope someone will find a solution; this is getting old.

UPDATE: It's now been assigned to a Linden, and "fix version" is now "Sprint 29"--we'll have to see how hard it turns out to be to diagnose. I will provide any info I can. I'm hopeful that it will finally get killed, which will just leave the job of pleading with some TPV folks to incorporate the fix.

Unhappy Campers

2011-09-27T20:25:00.000-05:00

SH-2374, the request to add a facility that will allow mesh clothing to take into account shape parameters other than just the skeleton, has had its status changed from "sprint 28", i.e. to be done in a particular "sprint" (that's an agile programming term; more details here), to "someday/maybe".

People are not happy. That includes me; as people have repeatedly pointed out, not having that capability makes mesh clothing highly impractical. So far, Second Life clothiers have for the most part gotten away with "let's pretend one size fits all" clothing, with the occasional scripted skirt or shoe as exceptions. Unlike painted-on texture clothing, with mesh clothing you have two choices:

do things the way they're done in RL; make them in multiple sizes
have some facility like that of SH-2374, so that one master template will adapt to your shape when you put it on

Clothiers do not want to have to do the former; customers have put up with the problems of texture and attachment clothing so far, but won't tolerate clothing that their body pokes through. Without something like SH-2374, mesh clothing will not catch on, and that would be a shame.

UPDATE: Thanks to Charlar Linden for posting a comment on SH-2374. Lest I give a wrong interpretation, here it is in its entirety:

waves hands to get everyone's attention

Hi everybody,
First, because we've wrapped the Mesh release 2 project, we're moving items into other backlogs. We don't have any subsequent dedicated mesh project planned so _all_ remaining items, including this one, will end up on our general viewer or the server backlogs.

This does not mean anything as extreme as some residents have assumed. The fact that the backlog is called "someday/maybe" means that it's something we want to do, but can't commit to a timeframe yet.

We did some investigation into the problem that Maxwell's solution attempts to solve. We're doing some more research and prototyping, trying to find a solution that might be faster/easier to implement. We have Top People on it.

As we said in the Usergroup, we'll have the results in about two weeks. At that time we'll update this ticket and also talk about it in the usergroup.

I can't promise anything - we might come back and say 'no', we might say 'yes, but later' and we might say 'here's what we doing'. We might say something i haven't thought of yet.

thanks

Charlar

Beautiful top from Bad Kitty

2011-09-26T19:09:00.002-05:00

A while back I put up a photo as part of a review of the vString prim breasts included Bad Kitty's gorgeous "Tied Up" top, but didn't show the top off as it deserves. Here's a photo that shows the top in all its beautiful detail:

I really love this top.

Back to normal

2011-09-25T06:02:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Whimsy underwent some turmoil. I didn't see the worst of it, but what I saw was scary enough; lots of painstaking work vanished. *shudder*

Thank goodness all has been restored.

It's a good time to urge you, Gentle Reader, to visit the wonders of Whimsy. I'm very grateful that you can do so; thank you, Linden Lab, for rolling the sim back.

Freedom of Choice

2011-09-23T15:32:00.000-05:00

OK. We're getting serious here.

If you've read this blog, you know that I use Linux, a free (in both senses--in Spanish I'd call it gratis y libre) operating system that runs on a wide variety of hardware, notably including commodity x86-based computers. There are a number of organizations, most notably the HeliOS Project, who take advantage of this by refurbishing used computers, installing Linux on them, and giving them to people (in the case of HeliOS, central Texas children) who could not otherwise afford computers.

Well, Microsoft has come up with something that will eventually make that impossible.

If you look around at off-the-shelf computers and peripherals, you'll notice that typically either (1) they're made by Apple or (2) they have a little Microsoft stamp of approval saying something like "Designed for Windows [insert version here]". Microsoft is now working on the successor to Windows 7, Windows 8. Windows 8 uses UEFI (son of BIOS). By itself, that's no big deal, save perhaps to anyone wanting to upgrade to Windows 8 without having to buy a new motherboard that has UEFI; Linux has been able to work with it for over a decade now...

BUT...

A few days ago, Microsoft announced that to get the Microsoft stamp of approval for Windows 8, computer makers will have to have the UEFI "secure boot" feature enabled. With this, the computer will only boot programs that have a digital "signature" it knows about. This has the potential to preclude installing anything but Windows 8 on such a computer, because the easy way out will be for the computer maker to only put in the signature for Windows 8. (There are also hardware driver issues as well, since those have to be signed to work in that secure mode.)

Will it be possible to turn that mode off? Perhaps, but OTOH, any computer that offers that possibility may well be branded as insecure (perhaps you recall Microsoft's campaign against selling "naked PCs", i.e. computers without an OS (*cough*Windows*cough*) already installed on them... this would be much the same).

So the time may come when the only off-the-shelf computers you can install Linux on are ones so old that nobody would have them. You can get any OS you want... as long as it's Windows.

For more details, see Matthew Garrett's journal here and here.

Still in beta...

2011-09-14T01:35:00.000-05:00

In the ongoing campaign to organize the inventory, I've been noticing Firestorm Beta 3 crashing when I save the photos of outfits that Ms. Ohmai recommends. Looks like it really is a Firestorm bug; I hope it's corrected soon!

UPDATE: the LL 3.x client doesn't do that, but OTOH, today when I'd put on a flexiprim skirt, it would show in inventory as worn, and would appear on me... for a few seconds, before disappearing! I think I'm better off with Firestorm--especially since the "crash on saving a photo" bug is intermittent.

Mesh boots

2011-09-14T01:17:00.002-05:00

Mesh clothing is starting to appear... and while it can't yet pay attention to all one's shape parameters, it certainly helps that it can notice your skeleton.

Slink has mesh boots out in leather as well as silver, gold, and other colors, and they are getting rave reviews. I agree with those raves. Here I am with a demo (at L$700 a pair, one pays to be an early adopter...):

My choice to make my avatar as leggy as I possibly can makes clothing somewhat difficult: unmodifiable glitchpants that stretch beyond the hems of unmodifiable flexiprim skirts. Mesh items that pay attention to how long your legs or arms are, so that thigh-high boots really are thigh-high, should be a major improvement. (Let's hope that they will be able to pay attention to other things soon: vote for and watch SH-2374. (They made it accessible again; it now has 512 votes.)

Feedback request

2011-09-13T18:02:00.005-05:00

A friend of mine, Imavery Welty, seeks to work in RL on game design, and would very much like feedback on a project that you can see at a blog he's set up. I find this look into game design interesting, but not being a gamer, I certainly can't give an informed opinion. Check it out.

I bet you'd get a really good frame rate...

2011-09-13T08:54:00.003-05:00

Via Slashdot: "AMD Breaks 8GHz Overclock with Upcoming FX Processor, Sets World Record".

The return of the wizard prang

2011-09-13T06:13:00.001-05:00

I'm seeing some crashes from Firestorm Beta 3 that aren't the usual "grab all available RAM and die" (though that, too, has happened). Sometimes it's just after I save a photo--that's playing havoc with the inventory cleanup! Other times there's no obvious correlation.

I'll be installing 32-bit Linux on a spare computer and trying clients out on it.

Sophiekittycat

2011-09-11T11:55:00.001-05:00

I was shopping with friends when we noticed a fellow shopper dressed in a beautiful outfit. I asked where she'd gotten it, and it turned out to be from a lady who is relatively new to Second Life clothesmaking--though you couldn't have told it looking at that striking dress.

The new clothier is Sophiekittycat. She doesn't yet have a store, but makes and sells custom work. I will add a photo of the item I bought when I can... but if she's this good starting out, I can't wait to see what she does with more experience.

Thanks, KirstenLee!

2011-09-08T22:18:00.002-05:00

Alas, RL issues are forcing KirstenLee Cinquetti to stop work on Kirsten's Viewer, an excellent third-party SL client that has been the client to use for quality graphics. It is still be available for download.

Many, many thanks, KirstenLee, for all that work that went into the client, and all the best to you and yours.

It's going to be a tedious job, but...

2011-09-08T10:01:00.001-05:00

...it has its rewards.

I'm going through clothing in my inventory and sorting it out. Initially I am categorizing it in the inventory by how usable it is with prim breasts, but in going through and by golly taking pictures of each outfit, I will have a local catalog that I can use a photo management program to tag appropriately, including multiple tags, which the hierarchical inventory doesn't do well. (Each photo will be named with the name of the outfit being pictured.)

In the process some forgotten gems are turning up. Isn't this so cute you could spit? (Say, that would be a good tag...)

UPDATE: Sigh... when I put this up on flickr I referred to Anya Ohmai's very helpful guide to organizing one's inventory as a "four-step program", which took my thoughts down a path. Have I admitted to being powerless over my inventory?

UPDATE: There is a problem, of course. Once you find that great outfit in the inventory, you realize that you don't have the right jewelry for it, and...

FreeBSD for Linux gamers?

2011-09-08T09:12:00.002-05:00

Check out the Phoronix article "FreeBSD: a Faster Platform for Linux Gaming than Linux?" It looks like a number of games run better under FreeBSD with a Linux compatibility layer than they do under straight Linux! Anyone out there try this with a Second Life client?

Plea for a podcast episode

2011-09-07T13:52:00.002-05:00

I don't know what made me think of it, but... I have lost track of the episodes of The Goddess and Banana that I downloaded back when I had an iPod. It ended a few years ago, alas, and those of you who didn't get a chance to hear it missed out on a truly wonderful thing. There are about thirty epsiodes that I've found that are on iTunes, but they all appear to be from 2007, just after a particular one I'm interested in, which was their Christmas episode of 2006.

It was a set of Christmas songs prefaced by a short intro from Yxes, but what a set! If memory serves it started out with "Watchstar" by 3 Blind Mice, went by way of the hilarious "Fistful of We Three Kings", and through a beautiful track by Matthew Ebel. And now I can't find it.

UPDATE: It was Gomem Desoto who had "Fistful of We Three Kings" close a holiday show of his. My mistake.

Anyone who knows where it may still live on the web, or who even has the song list, I'd be forever in your debt if you could send a URL or the list to me. Thanks.

UPDATE: The lovely and kind Vognod Maximus pointed me at the ever-useful Internet Wayback Machine. As I type, I'm still not sure I can get to the MP3 file, but the saved page does list the tracks. Thank you, Vognod.

UPDATE: Matthew Ebel's "Walk a Thousand Miles" can be heard on his Myspace page. Give it, and him, a listen; he's really good.

Firestorm Beta 3 is available!

2011-09-07T07:25:00.000-05:00

You no longer have to give up mesh or depth of field to have the neat features of Firestorm. Beta 3 is available now, and supports mesh and depth of field.

The linked wiki page that explains the various depth of field settings is not up to date when it comes to how you adjust them. It's a lot easier than that, at least on Firestorm Beta 3: edit preferences, and pick "graphics". There's a tab for depth of field with sliders for the settings.

Note that the initial setting, when you turn it on, will have a rather shallow depth of field. This makes it easy to see the kind of results you can get, but you may wish to adjust it.

Now to go experiment!

Radegast 2.0 Released

2011-09-06T09:12:00.001-05:00

Radegast 2.0, which can display graphics--including mesh--is now officially released. Check out the Radegast blog's announcement and Inara Pey's review.

Now, please, Linden Lab, officially point the "class 0" users at Radegast so that the SL experience of two thirds of the population isn't constrained by what obsolete hardware is capable of!

Speaking of 64-meter prims...

2011-09-05T11:31:00.002-05:00

...can we hope this will mean that we'll see updated BIGAVS that will allow giant avatars 6.4 times as tall as before?

Now it begins...

2011-09-02T15:39:00.005-05:00

I urge you to read the New World Notes post "Second Life Mesh Clothing Raises Real Life Body Issues" and the Vaki Zenovka blog post that it references.

People have already noticed the deficiencies of mesh for clothing: see Iris Ophelia's post "Ophelia's Gaze: 3 Great SL Fashion Items Which Show Off the Potential -- and Limitations -- of Mesh", and if you haven't already, please vote for and follow JIRA entry SH-2374 (if you can--I just tried to look at it in the SL JIRA, and got a "permission violation" page!). That and the Zenovka post, and its reference in what I would think is among the most-read SL-related blogs, show that people are finally realizing what's happening. Mesh clothing gives them the problem that we prim breast users have always had.

This is our chance... if we can get avatar shapes that support the figures we want, a solution to the mesh clothing problem will work for us, too, and we can come out of the fashion closet, at least for mesh clothing... and as designers realize the advantages of mesh clothing and learn how to create it, I think it will become the norm.Please express your opinion. I have already, at least here and on NWN in the comments on the first-mentioned post:

Welcome to the world that those of us who have had to resort to attachments to get the figure we want have had to live in for years. I sincerely hope that this will inspire a solution that will work for all of us.

UPDATE: a comment on that NWN post from Paola Tauber says that apparently the JIRA entry has been moved into an "internal LL project" (JIRA?) after getting over 470 votes in a few days, and thus it's not in the publicly visible JIRA any more.

Where to find Foxbean Laboratories products

2011-08-29T22:49:00.000-05:00

Busty Village Mall has recently undergone some changes, and in the process, the Foxbean Laboratories store has gone away. I hope that will change very soon--but if you wish to purchase Foxbean's Nadine 1.5 prim breasts, there is a vendor at Amazon Designs.

I am exceedingly grateful to AndromedaStJohn Aeon for having that vendor in her store--thank you!

UPDATE: It indeed changed very soon. The Foxbean Laboratories store in the Busty Village Mall is back, and I've updated the SLURL on the right hand side of the page here. Thank you, Foxbean; I owe you more than I can ever repay.

Excellent Mesh Work from Mikki Miles

2011-08-29T20:54:00.001-05:00

OK. I have been kvetching about mesh as it is now in SL for clothing use, but... even as things stand mesh will make SL a more amazing place. As an example, you want to take a look at the beautiful work that Mikki Miles does with musical instruments.

First, I should be up front that they are not musical instruments in the sense that you can play an arbitrary tune on them. They are objects you can "wear" or sit down at that look like musical instruments and can have associated sound files that you can play.

That said, they are gorgeous, and more so now that mesh is available and Ms. Miles has started to come out with mesh versions. You can look at images and buy them at her SL Marketplace store, but don't just do that. Fire up a mesh-capable SL client and head over to Montisigard (139, 52, 79) so you can admire the beautiful detail, the shapes, textures, and especially the gorgeous soundhole roses.

Many, many thanks to Reine for showing me Mikki's beautiful work.

Hayley Spore

2011-08-29T03:11:00.003-05:00

A few days ago I was notified that Hayley Spore had added me as a contact on flickr. I took a look at her profile and photostream, and was amazed... I felt as if I had discovered a sister I was separated from at birth!

Light & Shadows
Originally uploaded by Hayley Spore

So I reciprocated... and then looked her up in-world. We exchanged some IMs, and then became friends. We've since met, and have had fun exploring SL and taking pictures.

She says I'm the reason she signed up for Second Life, which makes me very happy and a little proud.

I guess others have noticed the resemblance, too--last night I had the curious experience of being thought to be someone's alt!

The Poppins Challenge

2011-08-27T22:13:00.002-05:00

One of the traditions of Second Life is the "Poppins Challenge". Those who take it go out, typically but not necessarily on their rez day, and ascend to a high altitude wearing nothing but a Mary Poppins style umbrella. Then they descend to earth, taking pictures or shooting video as they go.

It's my fifth rez day, and I decided I was long overdue for the challenge. So I went, as the song goes, way up in the middle of the air, and descended...

I leave a life behind me, I feel myself begin
I'm reaching out to keep you, falling farther in... --October Project

Wow... it was quite an experience.

I especially liked the effect of the "Rosemary and Bergamot" Windlight setting. The folks who don't like Windlight because of the effect on their skins have a point with some extreme settings, but OTOH the effect can be just the thing. The photo showing this is NSFW, so it goes after the break.

Clothes that Perfectly Fit Your Skeleton

2011-08-25T20:48:00.002-05:00

(See today's Ophelia's Gaze for a discussion of this issue that is more balanced and includes some photos that show just how good mesh avatars and clothing can look!)

Alas, mesh clothing has a problem as things stand now. They can take into account your skeleton, which is affected by some of your appearance settings (height, leg length, torso length, et al.), but not by a lot of others (e.g. body fat, love handles, breast size). Apparently the current solution is to use an alpha mask to hide the parts of your body that mesh clothing is supposed to cover, so that it will appear to do so even if you have, for example, a shape that makes Sir Mix-A-Lot happy. In other words--currently you have to adapt your shape to mesh clothing.

If you want mesh clothing to fulfill its promise, I join Ophelia in urging you to vote for and watch JIRA issue CTS-693. (LL hasn't taken away voting as it seemed they would earlier, but my understanding is they pay a lot more attention to people willing to put up with the email generated by an issue, which is what watching entails.) This proposal will let mesh clothing take your shape into consideration, so that it really fits around you. If you want serious booty, you should be able to have it, and your clothes should work with it rather than forcing you to hide it.

(UPDATE: CTS-693 has apparently been moved to an internal LL JIRA, so the above link is broken. In the publicly visible SL JIRA, it received over 470 votes in a few days.)

Now... the meshophobes will no doubt point and laugh, BUT... as we've pointed out (perhaps more times than you care for if you've read this blog for long) the current painted-on clothing has an issue with adapting to one's shape as well. It "fits" your shape, all right--by being stretched or shrunk to fit. It's as if in RL you went to buy clothes and found that everything was made of rubber and made for a size 6. You get to put it on and stretch it to fit over the appropriate portion of your body, with the pattern stretching and blurring as well. Real clothing actually uses more cloth for larger sizes! Clothes should have the opportunity to adapt to your shape, including the cloth patterns. Please also consider voting for and following JIRA issue VWR-10839.

Allons, enfants de la vie seconde...

2011-08-24T06:06:00.001-05:00

...le jour de mesh est arrivé!

It's official; mesh is now in place grid-wide. (Please hurry, Firestorm team!)

Things to check out:

This video of Cinder Roxley dancing in a mesh dress. Finally, actual skirts instead of a bunch of strips of immaterial cloth tied together at your waist! (Yes, someday you can pull an old flexi-prim dress out of your mothball-scented inventory, put it on, and when the newbies point out your legs moving through it, tell them all about what an advance it was when it first came out and share a laugh.)
This post at NWN, which I hope will become more informative as comments come in with more links and less snark.

Let's hope that LL gets the PE issue settled reasonably.

Uncanny valley or ignoring the flaws?

2011-08-23T19:32:00.000-05:00

According to the notion of the "uncanny valley", after a certain point, more accurate renderings of humans become not better, but creepy, and that one has to approach complete accuracy to overcome that effect.

On the other hand, I recall a story about 19th century venture capitalists. It may be apocryphal, but here it is: Alexander Graham Bell was looking for money to fund further development of his invention, the telephone, and so he did a demonstration for people who might provide that money. Did he have Mr. Watson go to the other phone and speak? No, he had Watson go there and sing popular songs of the day. Why? Because the VCs already knew those songs, and would mentally fill in gaps and glitches with the words they already knew should be there.

So, when we see our friends in Second Life, which of the above two apply, if any? I'm inclined to say the latter, at least for those of us who've invested ourselves in SL (and posing the question in terms of friends presupposes we're of that sort). We want to immerse ourselves in this virtual world, and we're willing to overlook the inconsistencies. But what about the newcomer to virtual worlds? I wish I knew.

Nothing whatsoever to do with Second Life, but...

2011-08-23T14:51:00.002-05:00

I seriously urge you to give a look/listen to the videos of "Garfunkel and Oates". They are great fun--so much so that I even forgive them for including Sixpence None the Richer's sweet and beautiful "Kiss Me" in their medley of "worst songs".

UPDATE: Warning: at least one of their songs is very NSFW.

Ob2L: Maybe they'd consider performing in Second Life?

Found it!

2011-08-18T06:15:00.000-05:00

One of the good side effects of organizing one's inventory is finding things one forgot one has, and I'm glad to say that I have the Poppins Umbrella that I need to finally take the Poppins Challenge. I have yet to do that, and my fifth rez day is fast approaching. The big question: where to do it?

Where's Hercules when you need him?

2011-08-17T05:57:00.002-05:00

If you see him, let him know I need help cleaning my Augean inventory... though OTOH, while his methods are direct and effective, I want something left in my inventory when the smoke clears, or rather when the water recedes.

Inspired by NWN's post pointing at the start of Anya Ohmai's four-part series on organizing one's inventory, I've started on the process... and after almost five years of neglect, there's a lot to do. Seeing the way Ms. Ohmai takes a picture of each item of clothing to save on her computer is both amazing and daunting. I presume that one would have to use a program like f-spot or digikam so you can tag the photos for searches.

So, I'm still going through a very rough initial classification, getting rid of duplicates and outdated items (remember the SL Gendar rating HUD? I just deleted mine). It's tedious work, and I hope that you will all learn from my bad example. Keep your inventory organized from the start; it will save you much grief. Though I must admit, it's good to see the things one has lying around, like this:

Sometimes I tell myself I shouldn't buy anything new until I've worn everything in my inventory once... but that wouldn't help vendors I want to support, would it?

UPDATE: I think I just about have the first cut of sorting things out done... but of course, the next task is classifying clothing, and while that was not quite as big a fraction of my inventory as I thought, it is pretty darned big... and for prim breast users, things are made a little more interesting, since one will want to have a separate folder for outfits or items that are prim breast-friendly (by being either designed thus, adapted after the fact, or by not including tops so they're trivially OK). Guess I'll be wearing, if not everything, the vast majority of it so I know how to classify it.

Dancing on Water

2011-08-16T04:34:00.000-05:00

Juggernutz Ivanovic invited me over to try out the dance floor she put on a lagoon, and I finally went yesterday, the sounds of the Cars' "Magic" echoing in my head. (Remember the video with Ric Ocasek walking on water as he sang?)

I had to take some pictures; you'll see the results of fiddling with the Windlight sky and water settings.

Manipulating Inventory

2011-08-13T16:13:00.004-05:00

Not being able to find a skirt I wanted to wear finally nudged me to start organizing my inventory... and it's proving to be a major pain.

One can have two inventory windows open, which helps a lot, but as I started a first cut of moving clothing into the "Clothing" folder, things got hairy. As I dragged cargo towards the destination window, folders would open there that I didn't want to open, things would change about the display that I didn't want to change--I wanted it to remain the way it was so I could accurately hit the destination folder and dropped things into it! I'm not sure exactly where some of my clothing wound up.

It finally occurred to me that this is yet another example of NIH. Your inventory is effectively a file system, and people have known how to access file systems across a network for a long time. There's NFS, Samba, and nowadays all those interfaces for cloud-based backups.

If you use a computer, one of the first things you learned was how to manipulate files--move them from one ~~directory~~ folder to another, copy them, and delete them. You have your favorite way to do so, be it via a command line, Windows Explorer, some Norton Commander-like program, Nautilus, Thunar, Konqueror, or whatever. You're familiar with it, and you probably prefer it... but the only option Second Life gives you that I've found is its in-world inventory window, requiring all the overhead of a 3-D world viewer so you can do the moral equivalent of

$ mv *Pixel\ Dolls* Clothing

So... please, LL, set up an interface that lets us access our own inventory using the interface of our choice. If we copy one of our files to it, charge us L$10. If we're the creator of an object, let us read it or copy it so we can back it up. Samba's probably the way to go, since necessity has meant everybody has to hold their noses and be able to access Windows file systems.

UPDATE: SVC-7188 is the place to look to see whether anything comes of this idea (and to vote for it or, more importantly, follow it if you wish it to be acted on).

UPDATE: Even if nothing comes of the JIRA entry, I can seriously recommend Radegast for this kind of usage. Right now, I'm not to the point of taking pictures, so I'm using the official, text-only flavor, and my graphics card is very happy to not be flogged heavily while I'm doing nothing but move stuff from one folder to another. Once I want to take pictures, I may well give the experimental version of Radegast that does render one's surroundings a shot. That said, I can't help imagining myself as Radegast pulls down my inventory standing there more or less immobile and unaware of my surroundings.

Perhaps there's something to this gamification... :)

2011-08-12T05:32:00.000-05:00

Looks like someone has put together Kinect, the Blender game engine, and Metasploit to let you probe your system for vulnerabilities in a virtual environment. More details here.

0 0 Auspicious

2011-08-10T21:17:00.000-05:00

That's the name of a sim, honest. With the digits and the following spaces. You'll need to type those to find it on the world map.

I came across it in Caminante de Sueños, an all-photo travel blog of the grid. If your favorite movie is Yellow Submarine, and your favorite artists the 60s-era Peter Max and whoever did the art for Family Dog Productions posters, you'll love 0 0 Auspicious.

I had to go there and take some pictures. There was a strange tunnel that went up into the air and ended with a blindingly bright area. I took some pictures there and a few on the way back down.

Out in the open is a riot of brightly colored trees, flowers, and even land.

Pay a visit to 0 0 Auspicious. It's quite a trip.

Becky Shamen's Guide

2011-08-10T11:24:00.000-05:00

I was looking through Maggie Bluxome's directory of prim breast clothiers and happened across a name I either hadn't seen before or had forgotten: Becky Shamen. If the latter is the case, shame on me, because she sells, in addition to clothing for prim breasts, her inexpensive "Do It Yourself Guide to Implants: wearing, adjusting and making your own clothes." This, I hope, will finally pushing me over the edge to getting that T-shirt made--though I must admit that text is an interesting issue, because the things that render text don't know from UV maps.

(BTW, she also sells a package that includes the texture with coordinates that you want for this work.)

Lovely Gown from Gatherings--Thank You, Stacia!

2011-08-08T15:14:00.005-05:00

I signed on yesterday and found an IM and inventory waiting for me from Stacia Zabaleta of Gatherings. She had a surprise for me... and boy, was it a surprise! It was a robin's egg blue version of the gorgeous brocade gown she has on sale in pomegranate (which I bought one of).

I was, and still am, utterly amazed. It's a gorgeous gown. It brought many compliments at Bosom Buddies Formal Night--and compliments from the impeccably dressed and breathtaking women who dance there are to be cherished. (If you've never been, by all means go! There's a contest; well, two, actually, one for guests and one for employees, for best-dressed. I swear that every week I go, it becomes harder and harder to vote as everyone looks more amazing, even though had you asked me the first time I went there, I'd have called it impossible.)

Here are a couple of photos, taken on Tempura Island. Yes, after going on about how wonderful shadows are in fashion photography, I picked one of the Windlight settings that flatten things out, but I didn't want to skew the colors as I did for that Jinxed "Siena" dress.

So head on over to Gatherings and take a look. I should add that this outfit is flexible--it has many more options than I am showing here.

P.S. I am a total sucker for details such as can be seen here, and having them on tops for the well-endowed is still a rare thing, to be celebrated when it happens. Thank you again, Stacia, and thank you to other clothiers who accommodate my tastes in this regard.

Maybe we can make everybody happy?

2011-08-07T06:10:00.003-05:00

New World News reports that Radegast, a light SL client, is adding graphics. The version with graphics is not out yet, but there is a YouTube video showing what it looks like.

If you've been following the discussion of mesh "PE" (prim equivalence?), it's been mentioned that about a third of SL users have "class 0" (inadequate, e.g. Intel integrated graphics, or obsolete) hardware. That influences that PE decision as well as what features get implemented in LL's SL client. More bluntly: the SL experience of two thirds of residents is constrained by the one third with class 0 hardware.

Could LL please consider this: once Radegast has graphics up and reliably running, just point folks with class 0 hardware at it. (This is somewhat problematic because Radegast doesn't have a Macintosh version, but if it did...) Then LL can proceed without having to take class 0 hardware into account.

The August 2011 BUSTed is here!

2011-08-06T00:18:00.002-05:00

The August 2011 issue of BUSTed magazine is out, and it's excellent.

The photography is amazing. In addition to Jinx and Wicked's beautiful work, you can see the photography of Shanti Bright, who you'll recall had a great exhibit of photographs of busty women at his Shanti Art Centre. It's worth repeating his comment on his exhibit, which Minka Pearl quoted on her blog:

Much too often, very busty women are seen in a bad light. Some feel they are ugly, some make stupid jokes about them, some see them as a sexual attraction. I want to show them in an artistic way, and I hope that this exhibition will help show them with more respect.

Ashtoreth Walpole, a new editor at the magazine, has a great column in this issue, and there are now letters to the editor! By all means, read the magazine (it's free--how can you pass it up?) and do send in those cards and letters.

To see the cover, and get some more information about this month's issue, check out what Maggie Bluxome has to say about it.

Serious Bokeh!

2011-08-05T23:40:00.000-05:00

"Bokeh" is how English-speaking photographers spell the Japanese word that in Hepburn romanization is spelled boke, so that you don't think it's just one syllable, like "broke" without the "r". The Japanese word means "blur" or "haze" (not just visual--it's used to refer to mental fuzziness as well), and photographers use it to refer to what lenses do with things not in focus. Bokeh can be used to good effect--it can keep your eye on the subject, which is in focus, and it can make for a pleasant (if you're lucky) or unpleasant (if you're not--for real lenses it depends on how the lens is built and the shape of the aperture) background.

I was making sure I knew what I was talking about (that the current official SL client makes it easy to turn on snadows) and found that the client had been set such that the depth of field was shallow--and the result was some pretty nice bokeh. I had to take a picture, and here it is:

Now to learn how to control it (and find out whether or when it will be in Firestorm!).

A New Style for SL Fashion Photography?

2011-08-05T18:00:00.002-05:00

Today is the second Friday in a row that New World Notes has made a point of featuring fashion blogs specifically because of the quality of the photography. Last Friday Hamlet featured Suri Yangtz's blog, and this Friday he featured Brie Wonder's Token Chic.

If you take a look at the blogs or the NWN posts, you'll notice something they have in common: shadows. If you take a look at Elysium Eilde's gorgeous Photographing Second Life blog, you'll see shadows there, too (in recent entries; she recently got a new computer and turned shadows on). It's very different from what one usually sees in fashion blogs--they seem to do their very best to flatten out their images and destroy all depth cues.

When Windlight came out, there was an uproar--how dare the sun actually cast shadows, like in RL! Many created Windlight settings designed essentially to undo Windlight and make things as they were before. Some simply turned off Windlight (see Mariko Nightfire's "Walking With Windlight" posts here and here.) But perhaps these blogs Hamlet has praised ("...so vivid and mysterious and tinged with silent contemplation, they remind me of a waking dream", "...so perfectly composed and luminously beautiful, they are more like paintings, than screenshots") mark a change. (I won't do it! I won't write "paradigm shift"!)

Is it a style issue, or just that shadows are now easily turned on in the mainstream SL client, the client doesn't have some earlier nasty bugs with shadows, and people have new computers? Heck if I know. I just like the results!

Lips Update

2011-08-03T13:15:00.002-05:00

(These are the surreal ones, not the metal ones.)

Val Suisei asked me about the prim breasts with lips and where I got them. I told her, and she said she'd made her own using what turned out to be Ghanie Lane's "Nano Lips". Ghanie Lane has quite an amazing assortment of lovely sculpted prim objects for sale, and I seriously recommend that you check them out.

So, I will eventually experiment with them myself, time and L$ permitting. No tongue, but I can live with that for now.

Big in Nigeria...

2011-08-01T15:22:00.001-05:00

...and Côte d'Ivoire, and Burkina Faso, and...

If any further proof were needed about the bogosity of spammers, surely this is it: that a Second Life avatar is being hit up by all those alleged lawyers, executors of wills, and people offering to share a big pile of money acquired in dubious circumstances if she'd just send some money to let them set it up.

Yeah, right.

Pictures of Sara

2011-07-28T09:36:00.001-05:00

This morning Sara Halberd and I both happened to be inworld and Chakryn Forest seemed like a good place to take pictures, so... we did.

And we found that in one way, Chakryn Forest isn't a good place to take pictures. It is beautiful and picturesque... but part of the way it gets to be beautiful and picturesque is by having lots of alpha textures around for sunbeams and the like--so when you're panning and zooming, and juuuuuuust a little bit to the left will make the composition just what you want, you end up clicking on one of those alpha textures instead of the subject and your POV goes flying off into the distance and behind you! Now I can see one reason Maggie sticks with green screen...

But I shouldn't kvetch. Chakryn Forest is worth the hassle. Here are some of the photos I took.

If You Love Something...

2011-07-27T17:13:00.000-05:00

[This is another essay that originally appeared in BUSTed magazine. Don't worry, we won't be quoting any Sting songs here, but the message is important, and we have an addendum.]

Thufir Hawat, the Mentat who served Duke Leto Atreides in Frank Herbert's Dune, said "Parting with friends is a sadness. A place is only a place."

I say bull! Especially in Second Life, where a place reflects the time, effort, and in special cases the love that its creator has put into it. A place is where friends gather, and without it, they tend to lose touch and drift apart.

Who knows how many thousands in Second Life are finding this out the hard way now?

We in the prim breast subculture know about this kind of loss; after all, last year we lost Mammatus. Now, though, the closures seem to be coming thick and fast, or at least they're getting more publicity, and they're hitting far more people. Elysium Gardens: gone. Midnight Reflections: gone. The Minoan Empire: going soon, ~~possibly~~ definitely by the time you read this. Even the Lost Gardens of Apollo is (are?) gone! How many of you have not been there, have not had Apollo pointed out to you as a beautiful place to visit, explore, and dance? This isn't just entertainment; the Second Life presence of Fearless Nation, an organization that does real work to help people overcome post-traumatic stress disorder, is going away soon.

It's all too easy to assume that a place will be around to visit tomorrow, that it can get along without your attention and help, but it's not true. If you love a place, do what you can to support it. Find its owner and ask how you can help, before it's too late.

ADDENDUM: Really, the above is a special case of what I should have said. If you love someone or the work they do, do what you can to support him or her or it--and don't pass up an opportunity to express your appreciation.

Happy Rez Day, Maggie!

2011-07-27T03:34:00.002-05:00

Yesterday marks Maggie Bluxome's second rez day. I swear it doesn't seem like it's been that long! Maggie has done many amazing things in a short time in Second Life, and everyone using prim breasts has a lot to thank her for.

Be sure to read her blog post on this occasion (posts, actually! a second one is on the way), not just to read in amazement about all she's done but to learn. In the first post she talks about how she creates her beautiful photographs and things to watch out for.

Happy (belated) rez day, Maggie, and thank you for all you've done. You're an inspiration, and a dear friend.