About twenty-five minutes through episode 52 of the Podmafia podcast, Gomem DeSoto mentions trying out an honest-to-goodness 64-bit Linux SL client and being impressed with its speed, getting 30 fps with the graphics cranked to Ultra and draw distance of 512 meters.. (Yxes sounded tempted... I hope she gives it a try. It's not hard, honest.)
Alas, he doesn't mention where he got it, or which version of the client. I hope that the Podmafia site is updated soon and links provided.
UPDATE:in comments, Mr. DeSoto himself graciously gives us the URL: http://www.getdeb.net/app.php?name=Second+Life. Alas, it's just the official version, not the Release Candidate, though keeping up with those is a good bit more work, so I certainly understand. The linked site gives a .deb file, so if you have a Debian-based distribution, you're all set.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Putting jiggle to use
"Harnessing the power of breast motion." (You should pardon the expression... it's theirs, not mine.) Thanks to Instapundit for the link.
Monday, June 23, 2008
"2Life! 2Life! L'chaim!..."
I discovered that there's an online periodical about Judaism and Second Life. The title is one that I wish I'd thought of: 2Life.
It's interesting and well-designed. I'm not Jewish. I'm not even religious, but ever since the long-ago day that I found and absorbed as best I could the contents of Leo Rosten's The Joys of Yiddish, which includes a goodly amount of history as well as word definitions, etymologies, and humor, I have admired and respected Jewish culture and learned more about it when I could.
I urge you to check out 2Life.
It's interesting and well-designed. I'm not Jewish. I'm not even religious, but ever since the long-ago day that I found and absorbed as best I could the contents of Leo Rosten's The Joys of Yiddish, which includes a goodly amount of history as well as word definitions, etymologies, and humor, I have admired and respected Jewish culture and learned more about it when I could.
I urge you to check out 2Life.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
"I'm gonna send ya back to schoolin'..."
After reading the discussion of the initial SL experience and why those who do stick around do so on New World Notes (initially here, with followup here), and after realizing I barely remembered my initiation into SL, I headed to Orientation Island (the public version that anyone can go to) to go through the process again.
<duh>It went a lot more quickly this time.</duh> The first time, I would overshoot, have trouble walking in a straight line, fly into the roof or into a wall. After a mere year and ten months, I've learned how to control my avatar--OK, aside from the overshooting and flying into things. Another obvious source of the brevity of the experience is that I didn't set up the appearance of my avatar.
This Orientation Island is the version that I went through initially, so if I understand rightly, it doesn't tell me much about what people go through now. I hear that one has to deal with a HUD these days, and I don't think that's a good idea. Give people the basics of moving around, communication, and self-defense, and leave things like HUDs for a class. Then they can actually enter the world and make friends, which is what really seems to be the key to staying in SL.
<duh>It went a lot more quickly this time.</duh> The first time, I would overshoot, have trouble walking in a straight line, fly into the roof or into a wall. After a mere year and ten months, I've learned how to control my avatar--OK, aside from the overshooting and flying into things. Another obvious source of the brevity of the experience is that I didn't set up the appearance of my avatar.
This Orientation Island is the version that I went through initially, so if I understand rightly, it doesn't tell me much about what people go through now. I hear that one has to deal with a HUD these days, and I don't think that's a good idea. Give people the basics of moving around, communication, and self-defense, and leave things like HUDs for a class. Then they can actually enter the world and make friends, which is what really seems to be the key to staying in SL.
A must-read from Gwyneth Llewelyn
Gwyneth asks the question: is the SL5B brouhaha an indication of an attempt to get rid of the "early adopters" lest they impede the Disneyfication of SL? It's reminiscent of an earlier article of hers in which she predicted the end of immersionism in SL: late adopters are the bigger market.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
A visit to the Garden of NPIRL Delights
I took a trip there with kalosss Gausman, a dear friend. (About time, too, as it closes very soon indeed!)
We started out with the air tour in a wooden ship in the shape of a fleur de lis (I'm a bit embarrassed at how long it took me to notice that...), and then wandered around some at ground level, at least initially.
First we went to a spectacular factory, all full of things moving on shafts and electricity. Near it were amazing aerial displays... fireworks would be the closest RL phenomenon, but this did things you'd not see in RL. Were we in hell? Were those Blake's "dark Satanic mills"? I tend to think not, that we were in purgatory instead.
We knew we were in hell when we came upon a very disturbing scene that one must walk through a lake of blood to see. After that, we decided we had enough of hell, and went off in search of heaven.
Fortunately, as Mike Oldfield sang, "Heaven's open--fly right in." In our case, though, we teleported to a huge sphere with ever-shifting and spinning blizzard, and thence to a door that led outside. kalosss teleported and offered me a teleport in turn.
That took us to earth--a bright, candy-cane park-like scene--and from there we ended up in a dome with a glorious sky painted inside. Within was yet another, smaller, dome and inside was something curiously labeled "God's Bed."
Well, they do say that He rested on the seventh day...
We had to lie down on it--no thunderbolts ensued, though there are some features that we, um, made a point of avoiding.
By then it was getting late, and the extreme density of hard core graphics and probably scripts was taking its toll even on my lovely new 2.8 GHz dual-core system. The load average had shot up to 13, and the RC client was intermittently freezing, but so often and for so long at a time that it was no longer really usable.
I'll have to go back with the official client to see whether it makes a difference, not to mention that the above is the tiniest fraction of all the things to be seen in the Garden.
We started out with the air tour in a wooden ship in the shape of a fleur de lis (I'm a bit embarrassed at how long it took me to notice that...), and then wandered around some at ground level, at least initially.
First we went to a spectacular factory, all full of things moving on shafts and electricity. Near it were amazing aerial displays... fireworks would be the closest RL phenomenon, but this did things you'd not see in RL. Were we in hell? Were those Blake's "dark Satanic mills"? I tend to think not, that we were in purgatory instead.
We knew we were in hell when we came upon a very disturbing scene that one must walk through a lake of blood to see. After that, we decided we had enough of hell, and went off in search of heaven.
Fortunately, as Mike Oldfield sang, "Heaven's open--fly right in." In our case, though, we teleported to a huge sphere with ever-shifting and spinning blizzard, and thence to a door that led outside. kalosss teleported and offered me a teleport in turn.
That took us to earth--a bright, candy-cane park-like scene--and from there we ended up in a dome with a glorious sky painted inside. Within was yet another, smaller, dome and inside was something curiously labeled "God's Bed."
Well, they do say that He rested on the seventh day...
We had to lie down on it--no thunderbolts ensued, though there are some features that we, um, made a point of avoiding.
By then it was getting late, and the extreme density of hard core graphics and probably scripts was taking its toll even on my lovely new 2.8 GHz dual-core system. The load average had shot up to 13, and the RC client was intermittently freezing, but so often and for so long at a time that it was no longer really usable.
I'll have to go back with the official client to see whether it makes a difference, not to mention that the above is the tiniest fraction of all the things to be seen in the Garden.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Midnight Industry
If you like elegant clothing, by all means visit Midnight Industry, a very new fashion house featuring the work of Mordecai Scaggs and Kacy Despres.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The folly of stagnation
I've mentioned a few times in the past that I think the position expressed in the "Open Letter" of slightly over a year ago--that enhancements to SL be postponed until bugs are fixed--was, and still is, short-sighted in the extreme. While bug fixing is important, and indeed LL announced that it was devoting a considerable majority of its resources to bug fixes, LL can't afford to stagnate while on a never-ending quest to fix all bugs in SL.
Nonetheless, one can count on any LL blog entry that permits comments being inundated with the very same short-sighted demand, whether it's on-topic or not.
Since the Open Letter, we have sculpted prims and Windlight; the former is a major advance in both the ability to make objects that would be insanely difficult and inefficient to build up out of the old, and the results of Windlight can be seen in just about any exhibit of SL photography.
Today the LL blog shows another major advance, I hope soon to arrive on the main grid, that wouldn't have happened had LL taken the advice of the "Open Letter" signatories and the endless kvetchers in the blog: compiling LSL scripts down to C# byte code using the work of the Open Source Mono project. The video in the blog entry compares a Mandelbrot set generator using the old LSL system with one using Mono. The Mono version displays, zooms and displays again dozens of times while the old versions barely manages to get through the initial computation and display of the set as a whole.
Now, fractal generation is highly compute-bound, and may not be representative of what scripts "usually" do; I don't know enough about scripting in SL to be able to say. That said, surely this will cut down considerably on lag, one of the things that is endlessly complained about. Had LL devoted themselves solely to bug fixing, as is continually demanded, it wouldn't have happened.
Nonetheless, one can count on any LL blog entry that permits comments being inundated with the very same short-sighted demand, whether it's on-topic or not.
Since the Open Letter, we have sculpted prims and Windlight; the former is a major advance in both the ability to make objects that would be insanely difficult and inefficient to build up out of the old, and the results of Windlight can be seen in just about any exhibit of SL photography.
Today the LL blog shows another major advance, I hope soon to arrive on the main grid, that wouldn't have happened had LL taken the advice of the "Open Letter" signatories and the endless kvetchers in the blog: compiling LSL scripts down to C# byte code using the work of the Open Source Mono project. The video in the blog entry compares a Mandelbrot set generator using the old LSL system with one using Mono. The Mono version displays, zooms and displays again dozens of times while the old versions barely manages to get through the initial computation and display of the set as a whole.
Now, fractal generation is highly compute-bound, and may not be representative of what scripts "usually" do; I don't know enough about scripting in SL to be able to say. That said, surely this will cut down considerably on lag, one of the things that is endlessly complained about. Had LL devoted themselves solely to bug fixing, as is continually demanded, it wouldn't have happened.
Behind in RL, too....
I've yet to be the first to post about a neat build in SL, as I've noted before. I find out about places in Mermaid Diaries, or on New World Notes.
Well... it's the same in RL, I guess, because I've not mentioned a couple of things:
First, I've been totally remiss in not mentioning Firefox Download Day. With the release of version 3 of Firefox, there's a drive to set a world record for the number of times a program has been downloaded in a day. I hope that you are familiar with the Firefox web browser, and that you download the version of Firefox 3 appropriate for your computer and operating system. Download Day actually started at 6:16 p.m. GMT on June 17, so I (and you!) haven't missed out completely on the chance to help set a record as I type this.
Second, June 17 marks another milestone for the Open Source world: version 1.0 of Wine, an implementation of the Windows API, is now available. The intent of Wine Is to make it possible to run programs written for Windows on other operating systems, most notably Linux. It's not perfect, even at version 1.0, but nonetheless, take a look at the Wine Applications Database; it's grown considerably more impressive as Wine has matured. [Must not... do Orson Welles... imitation...] If some Windows application important to you will run with Wine, perhaps you can finally move to Linux and escape the clutches of the Evil Empire.
Well... it's the same in RL, I guess, because I've not mentioned a couple of things:
First, I've been totally remiss in not mentioning Firefox Download Day. With the release of version 3 of Firefox, there's a drive to set a world record for the number of times a program has been downloaded in a day. I hope that you are familiar with the Firefox web browser, and that you download the version of Firefox 3 appropriate for your computer and operating system. Download Day actually started at 6:16 p.m. GMT on June 17, so I (and you!) haven't missed out completely on the chance to help set a record as I type this.
Second, June 17 marks another milestone for the Open Source world: version 1.0 of Wine, an implementation of the Windows API, is now available. The intent of Wine Is to make it possible to run programs written for Windows on other operating systems, most notably Linux. It's not perfect, even at version 1.0, but nonetheless, take a look at the Wine Applications Database; it's grown considerably more impressive as Wine has matured. [Must not... do Orson Welles... imitation...] If some Windows application important to you will run with Wine, perhaps you can finally move to Linux and escape the clutches of the Evil Empire.
Monday, June 16, 2008
New from Foxbean Laboratories
Foxbean Laboratories has come out with a new package of prim breasts. It includes a variety of shapes and sizes.
I admire and respect all makers of prim breasts; they go to great lengths to overcome the deficiencies of the stock SL avatar shapes, and in the case of Smashing Prims, make beautiful clothing for them as well. But I love the shape of Foxbean Laboratories products, and that's why I always return to them.
I admire and respect all makers of prim breasts; they go to great lengths to overcome the deficiencies of the stock SL avatar shapes, and in the case of Smashing Prims, make beautiful clothing for them as well. But I love the shape of Foxbean Laboratories products, and that's why I always return to them.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Spotsylvania
Darn it, I had hopes for the new Release Candidate SL client.
To give credit where credit is due, it does look like the "log on twice, get on once" bug is fixed, but I took a high-resolution picture with it, and the spots are still there.
This is highly frustrating.
To give credit where credit is due, it does look like the "log on twice, get on once" bug is fixed, but I took a high-resolution picture with it, and the spots are still there.
This is highly frustrating.
Postscript Re: Costs of DRM
One of the things involved in DRM is end-to-end encryption. The level of paranoia is such that even the bus on the motherboard can't be allowed to have "cleartext" (in this context, unencrypted content) on it. This implies that at various stages the data must be decrypted, processed, and then re-encrypted to be passed on to the next stage.
That decryption and re-encryption requires processor cycles, memory, and energy. You can thank DRM for, to some extent, slowing down your computer, increasing your electricity consumption, and shortening the time between recharges of your laptop's battery.
That decryption and re-encryption requires processor cycles, memory, and energy. You can thank DRM for, to some extent, slowing down your computer, increasing your electricity consumption, and shortening the time between recharges of your laptop's battery.
A can't-miss podcast
No Linux podcast is perfect. Lug Radio is self-indulgent and littered with gratuitous profanity (I was sorely tempted to submit an audio clip full of F-bombs from LugRadio episodes to the "Pimp My LugRadio" contest); TLLTS (The Linux Link Tech Show) is similarly self-indulgent, has an occasional background of screaming children and whatever they happen to be watching on TV at the time, and needs to get rid of the funny-only-once audio clip at the end of every srizonified show.
That said, they're both excellent sources of information and discussion, and if you listen to only one episode of any Linux podcast, you should listen to the June 11, 2008 episode of TLLTS, for the discussion of Lindependence 2008.
That said, they're both excellent sources of information and discussion, and if you listen to only one episode of any Linux podcast, you should listen to the June 11, 2008 episode of TLLTS, for the discussion of Lindependence 2008.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
I swear this is not a fashion blog, but...
...alas, it seems that I don't have much time to do anything but look around at a few of the endless list of places that show up if you join the Fashion Consolidated group, or that appear on Fabulously Free in SL. I hope that will change.
In any case, even though I swear that this is so not a fashion blog...
Eclectic Eclipse: if you want gloriously ornate gowns, this is on the list of places to go, along with Nicky Ree and the Crystal Queendom. (And RFyre, and.. if you know of others, I'd love to hear of them!) I'm a sucker for the Borealis gown.
Lemania Indigo: original works and clothing inspired by the glamour queens of the movies. I succumbed to the Gloria Swanson-inspired gown. I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille...
In any case, even though I swear that this is so not a fashion blog...
Eclectic Eclipse: if you want gloriously ornate gowns, this is on the list of places to go, along with Nicky Ree and the Crystal Queendom. (And RFyre, and.. if you know of others, I'd love to hear of them!) I'm a sucker for the Borealis gown.
Lemania Indigo: original works and clothing inspired by the glamour queens of the movies. I succumbed to the Gloria Swanson-inspired gown. I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille...
Machinima I'd love to see
I would love to see a machinima of Ishmael Reed's "I am a Cowboy on the Boat of Ra." (If there can be music videos, why not poetry videos?) SL would be the perfect place to build a visual analogue to Reed's wonderful mixture of ancient Egypt and the "old" West (or these days, should I say "cultural mashup"?).
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Gina's Ubuntu HowTos
Gina's Ubuntu HowTos is a straightforward web site with a lot of good information about Ubuntu Linux and how to set it up and use it. If you've been thinking about trying Ubuntu, or even if you already use it, it's a great place to start if you have a question. (And if you haven't been thinking about trying some flavor of Linux, then I need to work harder. :))
Monday, June 09, 2008
Like moving through molasses
Last night I found myself unable to move... I'd walk a distance, and then would be dragged back to where I was. Ah, well, I figured, I have to sign off anyway, so I apologized to my friends and signed off.
Then came this morning, and SL was acting very strangely... My walk seemed to be at about half speed, and flying was like moving through molasses. I tried the RC client, and then the "official" client (weirdly still called the Linux "alpha" client, just as it was on my rez day). It made no difference.
And then something happened:
Melissa Yeuxdoux gives a hug to don Fulano de Tal
and I remembered something from last night. The hug/kiss attachment I use has a bug (or is it a feature?): other people can invoke it, causing me to hug/kiss them. I should take a look to see whether it's something I can set to permit or forbid. In any case, don Fulano de Tal (names changed to hide the fact that I've forgotten them) took advantage of that facility and I saw
You ask don Fulano de Tal for a hug.
but nothing happened afterwards--or nothing seemed to. After I gave the hug to the long since disappeared don Fulano, movement went back to normal.
So, should you find it impossible to move at normal speed in SL someday, try stopping all animations. I know I will.
Then came this morning, and SL was acting very strangely... My walk seemed to be at about half speed, and flying was like moving through molasses. I tried the RC client, and then the "official" client (weirdly still called the Linux "alpha" client, just as it was on my rez day). It made no difference.
And then something happened:
Melissa Yeuxdoux gives a hug to don Fulano de Tal
and I remembered something from last night. The hug/kiss attachment I use has a bug (or is it a feature?): other people can invoke it, causing me to hug/kiss them. I should take a look to see whether it's something I can set to permit or forbid. In any case, don Fulano de Tal (names changed to hide the fact that I've forgotten them) took advantage of that facility and I saw
You ask don Fulano de Tal for a hug.
but nothing happened afterwards--or nothing seemed to. After I gave the hug to the long since disappeared don Fulano, movement went back to normal.
So, should you find it impossible to move at normal speed in SL someday, try stopping all animations. I know I will.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Hello, Voronezh!
Many of the visits here from Russia are the 0:00 variety, but there are several with non-zero duration from Voronezh, which turns out to be the home of Cherenkov (as in Cherenkov radiation) and home to many lovely buildings.
Yet another place I would love to see someday.
Yet another place I would love to see someday.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Not like the song any more...
"And I'm standin' at the crossroads, believe I'm sinkin' down."
I just had a novel experience for SL, and one that I was surprised and pleased by. (The preceding sentence is brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.)
I hadn't been to Northstar Mall for some time, and so I teleported there and wandered through, past the kiosks, on down the hall, on to the hallway with the bright red warning of the sim boundary. I steeled myself for that sinking feeling that comes with a walk across the border...
...and it didn't happen.
As they say these days, w00t! Whoever is responsible for that long-awaited fix, thank you! If I ever see you in SL, I hope I may hug you.
I just had a novel experience for SL, and one that I was surprised and pleased by. (The preceding sentence is brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.)
I hadn't been to Northstar Mall for some time, and so I teleported there and wandered through, past the kiosks, on down the hall, on to the hallway with the bright red warning of the sim boundary. I steeled myself for that sinking feeling that comes with a walk across the border...
...and it didn't happen.
As they say these days, w00t! Whoever is responsible for that long-awaited fix, thank you! If I ever see you in SL, I hope I may hug you.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
The fall of cheesy phrases
"Cheesy phrases" has fallen way behind in the Google Analytics search list. Ahead, by a large margin, is "vida la segunda".
What's really weird is that a Google search for "vida segunda" (without quotes) turns this humble and inconsequential blog up ahead of Ruben Blades's Maestra Vida: Segunda Parte. It's a little scary. Of course, there are many, many links for the latter and only a few for the former, which is as it should be.
UPDATE: Darn it! I just thought of the proper title for this entry: Sic Transit Gloria Casei.
What's really weird is that a Google search for "vida segunda" (without quotes) turns this humble and inconsequential blog up ahead of Ruben Blades's Maestra Vida: Segunda Parte. It's a little scary. Of course, there are many, many links for the latter and only a few for the former, which is as it should be.
UPDATE: Darn it! I just thought of the proper title for this entry: Sic Transit Gloria Casei.
Friday, May 30, 2008
This is proving to be a musical evening...
Via Digg, a Musicouch article on various neat music web sites. In particular, I want to mention Songza, a site that lets you search for songs or artists and play the songs the search turns up. I mention them especially because they have several tracks by the wonderful and still loved and missed Jimmie Spheeris, which I am listening to as I type. If they only had Laura Nyro's "Keys to the Treasure," they'd be perfect.
(Alas, the article doesn't mention pandora.com, which I urge you to visit if you're in the US.)
(Alas, the article doesn't mention pandora.com, which I urge you to visit if you're in the US.)
Tom Rapp said it best...
It's been a long time since Pearls Before Swine first gained a following, but Tom Rapp is still around, and the music he made has influenced other artists and is still worth your while to check out.
My personal favorite (OK, not counting the title cut of Rapp's solo album Stardancer) has to be the gorgeous and evocative "Another Time". And why do I write this? Because trying to sign on SL this eveninig reminds me of it: "Or have you come by again to die again? Well, try again another time..."
My personal favorite (OK, not counting the title cut of Rapp's solo album Stardancer) has to be the gorgeous and evocative "Another Time". And why do I write this? Because trying to sign on SL this eveninig reminds me of it: "Or have you come by again to die again? Well, try again another time..."
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The Laughing Academy
Antiquity Township is a beautiful 1800's era sim that I was totally unaware of until I got word of The Laughing Academy. I'll have to explore the sim further when I can.
The Laughing Academy is a clothing (and other things--they have some lovely eyes and shoes) store. It's new, so the inventory is not extensive, but it is strongly reminiscent of the motto of the great Karl Friedrich Gauss: pauca sed matura (few, but ripe), for the detail of the gowns is exquisite.
Even if gowns are of no use to you, I urge you to visit if only to see inside the beautiful house that holds the store. It is a marvel of Victorian decor.
UPDATE: Oops! The Laughing Academy has been around almost a month; just goes to show, as Cheyenne would say, this is so not a fashion blog.
The Laughing Academy is a clothing (and other things--they have some lovely eyes and shoes) store. It's new, so the inventory is not extensive, but it is strongly reminiscent of the motto of the great Karl Friedrich Gauss: pauca sed matura (few, but ripe), for the detail of the gowns is exquisite.
Even if gowns are of no use to you, I urge you to visit if only to see inside the beautiful house that holds the store. It is a marvel of Victorian decor.
UPDATE: Oops! The Laughing Academy has been around almost a month; just goes to show, as Cheyenne would say, this is so not a fashion blog.
"You come crash into me..."
This morning's crashes were definitely not those of the metaphor in the Dave Matthews Band song...
I spent this morning and this afternoon mostly watching the SL RC and official clients crash. Clearing my cache didn't make any difference; finally I went whole hog and did
cd; mv .secondlife .secondlife.bak
so the client would completely regenerate my data, and I was back.
Thank goodness.
I spent this morning and this afternoon mostly watching the SL RC and official clients crash. Clearing my cache didn't make any difference; finally I went whole hog and did
cd; mv .secondlife .secondlife.bak
so the client would completely regenerate my data, and I was back.
Thank goodness.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Out, damned spots!
That photo with the new skin shows up a problem in the RC client: at least sometimes, when you take pictures with it, things have spots. Here's a detail to show the problem more clearly:
I've created a JIRA entry (very NSFW)--apologies for the NSFW image, but it first showed up when I was in the Minoan Empire, I was dressed appropriately for there, and I submitted the image I had, and... *blush*
Do any fashionistas or fashion photographers read this blog? If you do, I hope you'll look into it, and vote for the JIRA entry, VWR-7071. I will ask around elsewhere, like the Second Life flickr group. This had better not get into the official client.
I've created a JIRA entry (very NSFW)--apologies for the NSFW image, but it first showed up when I was in the Minoan Empire, I was dressed appropriately for there, and I submitted the image I had, and... *blush*
Do any fashionistas or fashion photographers read this blog? If you do, I hope you'll look into it, and vote for the JIRA entry, VWR-7071. I will ask around elsewhere, like the Second Life flickr group. This had better not get into the official client.
"I've kicked the habit/shed my skin..."
For nearly a year and a half I've worn the Paris Athletic Light skin. It's very nice, and I couldn't pass up the abs. (I guess it's as I've said in the past--the RL mindset carries over into SL for me when it comes to appearance. I can change it totally at a whim, but I don't.)
I couldn't pass this (NSFW) up, though: "Honey-Freckled Harmony" from Soft Touch is gorgeous. and at least at the time of the Fabulously Free in SL post, on sale with some other items in a box for just L$5. I bought another at regular price--anyone who does that kind of work deserves support, and besides, I wanted darker lipstick.
For comparison, first, here's the picture I currently use with my profile here on Blogger, at a reasonble size to see detail, with Paris Athletic Light:
And here's a picture I took with the Honey-Freckled Harmony:
I've changed my mind about the lipstick; I like it fine.
I couldn't pass this (NSFW) up, though: "Honey-Freckled Harmony" from Soft Touch is gorgeous. and at least at the time of the Fabulously Free in SL post, on sale with some other items in a box for just L$5. I bought another at regular price--anyone who does that kind of work deserves support, and besides, I wanted darker lipstick.
For comparison, first, here's the picture I currently use with my profile here on Blogger, at a reasonble size to see detail, with Paris Athletic Light:
And here's a picture I took with the Honey-Freckled Harmony:
I've changed my mind about the lipstick; I like it fine.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Linux Info
You may have noticed that there's a topic I tend to write a lot about... but this time, I want to give some information about the other topic I tend to write about: the Linux operating system.
Linux is an operating system that is free in both senses of the word. Were I writing in Spanish, the confusion wouldn't be there: Linux is both libre and gratis. English forces us into the circumlocutions "free as in speech" and "free as in beer" respectively.
Free as in beer is nice... but it's the "free as in speech" part that's more important. Linux gives you control, which is contrary to the trend of proprietary operating systems. Above all in the field of audio and video, today you are assumed to be the enemy; an incorrigible who will steal if given any opportunity to do so, and who must be prevented from doing so by having control over your computer, your TV, etc. taken away from you, including the "time shifting" capability that you might have thought the "Betamax decision" assures you. (That seizure of control comes at a hefty cost in resources; see Peter Gutmann's analysis for details.)
Let's keep away from the issues of so-called "digital rights management" for now, though. (If you want to pursue them, head for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, defectivebydesign.org, or the Open Rights Group.) Instead, let's stick to something that matters to you as a Second Life user.
If you have the misfortune to be using Windows Vista, you know that it has a reputation as a serious resource hog, especially if you turn on the fancy "Aero" GUI. Some will say "No matter; computers these days are fast, and graphics cards capable"--but the SL client is also a serious resource hog. Wouldn't you rather your computer spend its resources running the SL client?
Linux, like Unix before it, isn't inextricably linked with a particular GUI--or any GUI at all. Compiz Fusion provides fancy graphics effects at far lower cost than Aero, but one can happily use Linux without it, or even eschew the relatively ornate GNOME or KDE in favor of minimalist window managers like Xfce, IceWM, or Fluxbox.
So, where can one go to learn more about Linux? linux.org is a good place to start. distrowatch keeps track of, and describes, the various Linux distributions one can choose from. These days, Ubuntu is getting quite a bit of attention, and via Wubi, can be installed on a Windows system without having to deal with hard drive partitioning.
Linux is an operating system that is free in both senses of the word. Were I writing in Spanish, the confusion wouldn't be there: Linux is both libre and gratis. English forces us into the circumlocutions "free as in speech" and "free as in beer" respectively.
Free as in beer is nice... but it's the "free as in speech" part that's more important. Linux gives you control, which is contrary to the trend of proprietary operating systems. Above all in the field of audio and video, today you are assumed to be the enemy; an incorrigible who will steal if given any opportunity to do so, and who must be prevented from doing so by having control over your computer, your TV, etc. taken away from you, including the "time shifting" capability that you might have thought the "Betamax decision" assures you. (That seizure of control comes at a hefty cost in resources; see Peter Gutmann's analysis for details.)
Let's keep away from the issues of so-called "digital rights management" for now, though. (If you want to pursue them, head for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, defectivebydesign.org, or the Open Rights Group.) Instead, let's stick to something that matters to you as a Second Life user.
If you have the misfortune to be using Windows Vista, you know that it has a reputation as a serious resource hog, especially if you turn on the fancy "Aero" GUI. Some will say "No matter; computers these days are fast, and graphics cards capable"--but the SL client is also a serious resource hog. Wouldn't you rather your computer spend its resources running the SL client?
Linux, like Unix before it, isn't inextricably linked with a particular GUI--or any GUI at all. Compiz Fusion provides fancy graphics effects at far lower cost than Aero, but one can happily use Linux without it, or even eschew the relatively ornate GNOME or KDE in favor of minimalist window managers like Xfce, IceWM, or Fluxbox.
So, where can one go to learn more about Linux? linux.org is a good place to start. distrowatch keeps track of, and describes, the various Linux distributions one can choose from. These days, Ubuntu is getting quite a bit of attention, and via Wubi, can be installed on a Windows system without having to deal with hard drive partitioning.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Sun Gate by Moonlight
Sorry... I just had to take another picture of the Whimsy Sun Gate when I saw it the other night.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
KoinUp Windlight Competition Winners
Vint Falken posts about the event and exhibition honoring the winners of the KoinUp Windlight Competition. By all means take a look; Clarrice Cinquetti's "Hosoi Ichiba" is my personal favorite and a breathtaking work of art (in the opinion of this geek who avoided humanities courses as much as humanly possible, you should pardon the expression), just to name one of the winners.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
SL Under the Radar
If you don't listen to Radar Masukami's SL Under the Radar podcast, do check out the episode current as I type this, episode 29, "The 2004 Show". The initial few minutes had me fighting off laughter that would have convinced those around me of my insanity. Come for the parody, and you'll stay for the discussion.
Adios Twitter
I've been noticing a very long delay in the rendering of the blog, and I think it's caused by fetching Twitter data. So, so long Twitter, at least from the blog, though if I'm going to be honest, probably altogether--I don't think anybody really gives a hoot about the minutiae of my days.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
The Garden of NPIRL Delights
I use the phrase "do not miss" rather a lot, though I mean it when I use it, but in this case it can't be overemphasized. The Garden of NPIRL [Not Possible In Real Life] Delights is now open, and will be through June 22nd. It covers four sims, so you won't want to wait until the last minute or not give yourself time to explore.
Inspired, of course, by the famous Hieronymus Bosch triptych, it depicts the creators' images of paradise, earth, and hell.
"Heaven, I'm in heaven..."More coverage at New World Notes, the above link, the Flickr group, and from Vint Falken.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Definitely in my eyes
I went exploring. After some time in some of the Bay City sims (be sure to find the building, in Moloch I think, with the blackboard; you'll get a chuckle out of it), I went searching for flowers... and found lovely stained glass.
The Pennie Lane sim has various shops arranged around a circular piazza. (Yes, I almost typed "pizza".) I can't tell you about any of the other shops; I spent all my time in the stained glass shop.
Pennie Strauss, the owner and designer, has done a far better and more thorough job of documenting her work than I can, so I'll just point you to her web site.
The Pennie Lane sim has various shops arranged around a circular piazza. (Yes, I almost typed "pizza".) I can't tell you about any of the other shops; I spent all my time in the stained glass shop.
Pennie Strauss, the owner and designer, has done a far better and more thorough job of documenting her work than I can, so I'll just point you to her web site.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Thanks
The other day I was off to grab a freebie that had just been announced--a rare experience for me, considering how little time I have in SL these days. There was quite a crowd there, and a woman said to me she hadn't seen a figure like mine before in SL. I assured her that I am by no means the record holder, and we had a pleasant conversation--she was very supportive. "Knock 'em dead" sticks in my mind, and I still haven't quite come down; it more than makes up for the rude comments and insults (thankfully, they haven't been many).
I regret not asking for a notecard or offering friendship on the spot. If you're reading this, ma'am, thank you very much indeed.
I regret not asking for a notecard or offering friendship on the spot. If you're reading this, ma'am, thank you very much indeed.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Another bell, or perhaps whisle
I was reading October Hush's fine blog, and noticed that it features a selection of music one could play. There's a free service, playlist.com, that lets you create such a thing and embed it on your web site, and her blog takes advantage of it.
So... I've decided to do it, too. (It's down at the bottom of the page; it was too wide to fit down the right hand side.) I will follow her wise choice to have it default to not play; if there's anything more irritating than the <blink> tag, it's sound that starts playing when you arrive at a web site. Even if it's pleasant sound, it's a bother--you may already be listening to something, or trying to keep from waking someone up, and you end up fumbling for the !@#%! off button!
I hope you enjoy the music; it does kind of indicate my leanings toward the mellow, if not downright melancholy.
So... I've decided to do it, too. (It's down at the bottom of the page; it was too wide to fit down the right hand side.) I will follow her wise choice to have it default to not play; if there's anything more irritating than the <blink> tag, it's sound that starts playing when you arrive at a web site. Even if it's pleasant sound, it's a bother--you may already be listening to something, or trying to keep from waking someone up, and you end up fumbling for the !@#%! off button!
I hope you enjoy the music; it does kind of indicate my leanings toward the mellow, if not downright melancholy.
Virtual World Tour
Well... not in SL, but with Google Earth.
A while back I wondered what it would be like to travel and visit all the places where people who read this blog come from; Google Analytics provides that kind of data. I couldn't possibly do it for real, but I can do it in a minimal sense using Google Earth.
In another window as I type this Google Earth is zoomed in on Wissous, France, where someone visited here for twenty-six minutes (or perhaps came here and then had do something else for twenty-six minutes before deciding to shut the computer off). Google Earth has improved greatly, with markers of places people have pointed out--I happened across a spot marked with knife and fork and the legend "La Grange aux Dîmes". Apparently it's a restaurant built in a 13th century barn... kind of puts Iowa Machine Shed to shame. Such details make it a little more real.
So some weekend I'll sit down with the map overlay, plan my virtual itinerary, and go on a virtual trip, no need to deal with airports, passports, or packing. If you blog, you might want to try it too... Bon voyage virtuel!
A while back I wondered what it would be like to travel and visit all the places where people who read this blog come from; Google Analytics provides that kind of data. I couldn't possibly do it for real, but I can do it in a minimal sense using Google Earth.
In another window as I type this Google Earth is zoomed in on Wissous, France, where someone visited here for twenty-six minutes (or perhaps came here and then had do something else for twenty-six minutes before deciding to shut the computer off). Google Earth has improved greatly, with markers of places people have pointed out--I happened across a spot marked with knife and fork and the legend "La Grange aux Dîmes". Apparently it's a restaurant built in a 13th century barn... kind of puts Iowa Machine Shed to shame. Such details make it a little more real.
So some weekend I'll sit down with the map overlay, plan my virtual itinerary, and go on a virtual trip, no need to deal with airports, passports, or packing. If you blog, you might want to try it too... Bon voyage virtuel!
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Tunnel of Light
Many thanks to Natalia Zelmanov for writing about her travels through the breathtaking Tunnel of Light. I've been there twice now, and I'll be back repeatedly.
The Tunnel of Light is another product of the folks at Rezzable, and it's a tour de force. It makes use of the glow feature that arrived with Windlight--turn up your graphic knobs as far as you can while maintaining reasonable performance.
I don't want to reveal all the delights that await you there, but this should whet your appetite:
I hope you'll go and experience it. (Bring a friend; it's best with company.)
The Tunnel of Light is another product of the folks at Rezzable, and it's a tour de force. It makes use of the glow feature that arrived with Windlight--turn up your graphic knobs as far as you can while maintaining reasonable performance.
I don't want to reveal all the delights that await you there, but this should whet your appetite:
I hope you'll go and experience it. (Bring a friend; it's best with company.)
Friday, May 09, 2008
dandellion Kimban asks a question
A while back, there was a huge brouhaha about age verification in SL, and about the company LL chose to implement it. It was announced as available, and so far it's not been mandatory... and probably most of us just forgot about it. I know I did.
dandellion Kimban asks the question, what happened to age verification? As she says, it's a dangerous question to ask; the temptation is to let sleeping dogs lie.
On the other hand, it's also dangerous not to ask. It's only a matter of time until the next tabloid, radio or TV host, crusader, or politician wants to score cheap points and paints a lurid picture of SL. (Just the other day there was news of an Illinois representative up for re-election frothing about how the FTC needs to alert parents to how dangerous SL is for their children.)
LL had better be ready, and we'd better let them know what we're willing to put up with before the next flap.
dandellion Kimban asks the question, what happened to age verification? As she says, it's a dangerous question to ask; the temptation is to let sleeping dogs lie.
On the other hand, it's also dangerous not to ask. It's only a matter of time until the next tabloid, radio or TV host, crusader, or politician wants to score cheap points and paints a lurid picture of SL. (Just the other day there was news of an Illinois representative up for re-election frothing about how the FTC needs to alert parents to how dangerous SL is for their children.)
LL had better be ready, and we'd better let them know what we're willing to put up with before the next flap.
I'd buy it, but I can't
PixelDolls does lovely work; here is a set of brocade halter tops in various colors that they sell... sort of.
The thing is that you can't buy them. I've tried. They cost L$100 each, but if you click on the vendor and select "Pay", you are presented with the choice of canceling or of paying L$200. If you choose to pay, the L$ are returned to you and you're told that the price is L$100.
If you've managed to buy one of these, please let me know how. Thanks.
UPDATE: Before that post, I'd followed the instructions and both IM-ed and notecarded the person Nephilaine Protagonist's profile said to IM, to no avail. Now I've IM-ed Ms. Protagonist, and I guess we'll see what happens.
The thing is that you can't buy them. I've tried. They cost L$100 each, but if you click on the vendor and select "Pay", you are presented with the choice of canceling or of paying L$200. If you choose to pay, the L$ are returned to you and you're told that the price is L$100.
If you've managed to buy one of these, please let me know how. Thanks.
UPDATE: Before that post, I'd followed the instructions and both IM-ed and notecarded the person Nephilaine Protagonist's profile said to IM, to no avail. Now I've IM-ed Ms. Protagonist, and I guess we'll see what happens.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Not just a name in a song...
While rummaging around Google Analytics, I was surprised and pleased to see that someone from Carrickfergus has been here. It drove home to me that it's a real place; even seeing a photo of Derek Bell with Carrickfergus Castle in the background on an album cover didn't quite register.
That in turn induced me to go Googling, and read about Carrickfergus's long (to us Americans, at least) history, its well-known sons and daughters, and even about Carrickfergus in Bloom.
So thank you to the, um... what is the proper adjective, I wonder?... to the person from Carrickfergus who took a peek here. It's been fun and educational.
That in turn induced me to go Googling, and read about Carrickfergus's long (to us Americans, at least) history, its well-known sons and daughters, and even about Carrickfergus in Bloom.
So thank you to the, um... what is the proper adjective, I wonder?... to the person from Carrickfergus who took a peek here. It's been fun and educational.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
One More Photo...
I can't resist posting another photo taken in the Minoan Empire sim, because it shows the gorgeous textures used there:
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
The Minoan Empire
RFyre announced a new outfit, Ondari, inspired by the famous statuette of the Minoan snake priestess. (It includes a version of the top that deviates from Minoan women's clothing, for situations that call for more modesty than historical accuracy.) It is available in a number of colors. I chose the crimson and gold.
It's not clothing that one can wear just anywhere... OK, it's clothing that one can't wear in most places. So, I started the search for places to try it out aside from at home with the curtains drawn, and came across the Minoan Empire.
It's a gorgeous place, with beautiful architecture, residences available for rent, a harbor (are those triremes?), a temple, a chariot racetrack, a place for a women's council, a shop, and more things that I've yet to see.
It's an RP-friendly place, and there are rules intended to preserve the atmosphere and sense of place of the Minoan civilization. (In particular, women visitors are requested to, and women group members expected to, dress in accordance with what we know of Minoan women's fashion.)
I will confine myself to showing a photo taken in the temple at sunrise.
It's not clothing that one can wear just anywhere... OK, it's clothing that one can't wear in most places. So, I started the search for places to try it out aside from at home with the curtains drawn, and came across the Minoan Empire.
It's a gorgeous place, with beautiful architecture, residences available for rent, a harbor (are those triremes?), a temple, a chariot racetrack, a place for a women's council, a shop, and more things that I've yet to see.
It's an RP-friendly place, and there are rules intended to preserve the atmosphere and sense of place of the Minoan civilization. (In particular, women visitors are requested to, and women group members expected to, dress in accordance with what we know of Minoan women's fashion.)
I will confine myself to showing a photo taken in the temple at sunrise.
"I hate when that happens..."
Yesterday I edited a copy of an item to work with a particular outfit... and forgot to rename the copy to remind me of what it's for.
Of course, now I can't find it to save my (second) life.
I hate when that happens...
Of course, now I can't find it to save my (second) life.
I hate when that happens...
Saturday, May 03, 2008
A Peek Behind the Scenes
I read that LL had already decided what they were going to do with search, and all the talk of wanting residents' input was a sham. There was even a link, so I figured I should go take a look. By golly, there it was:
Feature Design Document
(none)
Functional Spec
(none)
Discussion for Future Improvement
(none)
User Guides
(none)
...well, there you have it.
Of course, that's the great thing about conspiracy theories; any contrary evidence just shows how darn clever the conspirators are.
Feature Design Document
(none)
Functional Spec
(none)
Discussion for Future Improvement
(none)
User Guides
(none)
...well, there you have it.
Of course, that's the great thing about conspiracy theories; any contrary evidence just shows how darn clever the conspirators are.
Friday, May 02, 2008
"Holy cow, 7500?"
Yup, 7500. Jewelry was a significant hunk of it, but the real killer was this dress:
It's a beautiful dress, and wearing it is sheer bliss, but skirt attachments run the ARC way up, so I will, as the stupid old Hai Karate commercials put it, "be careful how I use it."
I think I'll go through my inventory and take pictures showing a range of ARCs, so I can get an idea of what I can get away with in various situations, and then post the results. I can keep well under 400 while still having simple earrings, nice shoes (Aphrodite Creations; she does very good work indeed!), and hair I really like (the hair in the photo)... or I can load up on the bling. I'll give the fairy wings and multi-colored particle emitters for hands and feet a try, to see what happens!
I'm hoping that this will cause clothing and attachment makers to tell us what putting their wares on does to one's ARC. More information is always good, and it will encourage them to achieve their results as economically as possible.
It's a beautiful dress, and wearing it is sheer bliss, but skirt attachments run the ARC way up, so I will, as the stupid old Hai Karate commercials put it, "be careful how I use it."
I think I'll go through my inventory and take pictures showing a range of ARCs, so I can get an idea of what I can get away with in various situations, and then post the results. I can keep well under 400 while still having simple earrings, nice shoes (Aphrodite Creations; she does very good work indeed!), and hair I really like (the hair in the photo)... or I can load up on the bling. I'll give the fairy wings and multi-colored particle emitters for hands and feet a try, to see what happens!
I'm hoping that this will cause clothing and attachment makers to tell us what putting their wares on does to one's ARC. More information is always good, and it will encourage them to achieve their results as economically as possible.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
LL VP of Platform Technology and Development speaks on Open Source
Thanks once again to Lillie Yifu for mentioning this interview on the Linux World website.
The interview is with Joe Miller, the Linden Lab VP of Platform Technology and Development, and concentrates on LL's use of Open Source and opening of the SL viewer code. One portion that I find quite heartening:
The interview is with Joe Miller, the Linden Lab VP of Platform Technology and Development, and concentrates on LL's use of Open Source and opening of the SL viewer code. One portion that I find quite heartening:
If we've learned anything in the course of the year, we learned that you can't be "half-in." You can't be partially committed. We're "all-in." We know we need to be a fully committed to this effort with Second Life.This, I hope, puts the lie to the gleeful posts of some pundits that Cory Ondrejka's departure kills LL's move towards Open Source.
Impossible in Real Life
There's an interesting group called "Impossible in Real Life"; it's a group for those interested in folks who make creative use of SL to do things that are, well, impossible in real life. It's a good way to find out about neat things that are being done.
So, I've joined the group, so I can explore new places and be inspired. I'll post about some of them, I'm sure.
(Not to mention that if you have the group active, you're labelled "Imposible in RL", and I get a good laugh out of being so labelled.)
So, I've joined the group, so I can explore new places and be inspired. I'll post about some of them, I'm sure.
(Not to mention that if you have the group active, you're labelled "Imposible in RL", and I get a good laugh out of being so labelled.)
Monday, April 28, 2008
I saw the treehouse!
I finally found the treehouse at Chakryn Forest. It's beautiful, and well worth the search. (Does anyone actually live in a treehouse? Whoa... I guess they do.)
Upstairs, there's even a harp...
Upstairs, there's even a harp...
"Oh black water, keep on rollin'..."
Perhaps I'm lucky, or perhaps I just haven't seen an example of what people are talking about so I don't know what's under discussion, so... [pause to look at JIRA and see sample photos]... OK, I guess I'm just lucky. Some people are reporting that water is showing up as black.
I hope that the problem is fixed soon. Here's some non-black water around Whimsy. (Is that a shark fin? Surely not...)
P.S. I just thought of the Frank Zappa song I could have used. Ick...
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Creating sculpted prims in-world
Via Kryptonia Paperdoll, by way of vintfalken.com (thank you both very much!): Mango Splash has created a way that you can, while in Second Life, create a sculpted prim. You don't have to spend thousands of US dollars for Maya, or even download and learn to use Blender or Wings3D... instead, in world you manipulate an array of little spheres to get the shape you want, and Mr. Splash's generator creates a texture that will give you that shape when applied to a sculpted prim. The generator creates a prim on which you can sit to be positioned properly to take a picture of that texture. Save the picture, create a sculpted prim, and apply the texture you just photographed as its shape, and poof! There it is.
I think we can now all agree that the notion that sculpted prims are the exclusive province of an elite who know the arcane secrets of 3-D design software has been killed, a stake driven through its heart, pureed in a blender, dumped in a vat of acid, plowed into the ground, and the ground salted. Right?
I think we can now all agree that the notion that sculpted prims are the exclusive province of an elite who know the arcane secrets of 3-D design software has been killed, a stake driven through its heart, pureed in a blender, dumped in a vat of acid, plowed into the ground, and the ground salted. Right?
Friday, April 25, 2008
The Bird is the Word--More about Ubuntu Hardy Heron
(Sorry... I couldn't pass up the chance for a Trashmen reference, though I'm not the first to do it.)
Check out lifehacker's entry on the new Ubuntu. It has a lot of good pointers and hints, most of which I didn't know about and will be taking advantage of.
Besides, the default wallpaper is gorgeous!
Check out lifehacker's entry on the new Ubuntu. It has a lot of good pointers and hints, most of which I didn't know about and will be taking advantage of.
Besides, the default wallpaper is gorgeous!
Serious Spike
Whoa... I just looked at Google Analytics again, and saw a spike even bigger than the last one. 108 visits on April 22... I'm amazed.
OTOH, perhaps I'm not. On April 21st, the incredible Lillie Yifu mentioned a post from a while back, "The Girl Who Would Be Gibson." (When Hamlet Au referred to Ms. Yifu as "SL's closest analogue to Anaïs Nin," I was startled for a second--and then wondered why on earth I hadn't thought of the comparison.) A link from such a popular and esteemed blog by a popular and esteemed blogger would generate such traffic, I'm sure.
Thank you, Ms. Yifu.
OTOH, perhaps I'm not. On April 21st, the incredible Lillie Yifu mentioned a post from a while back, "The Girl Who Would Be Gibson." (When Hamlet Au referred to Ms. Yifu as "SL's closest analogue to Anaïs Nin," I was startled for a second--and then wondered why on earth I hadn't thought of the comparison.) A link from such a popular and esteemed blog by a popular and esteemed blogger would generate such traffic, I'm sure.
Thank you, Ms. Yifu.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
T - 1 and Counting...
Tomorrow Ubuntu 8.04, codenamed "Hardy Heron", will be officially released. I've been living semi-dangerously and running the beta on the new computer with no complaints.
If you've wondered about Linux, this--or rather, tomorrow--is a good time to try it out. (Servers are likely to be heavily loaded for a while following the announcement, but there's always BitTorrent.) You can download an ISO file and burn a Live CD, or if you run Windows you might consider Wubi. (If you don't have reasonable bandwidth, you can even ask to be sent a Live CD. It's free.)
Linux is of particular interest to SL residents; I've seen several reports that the SL client runs better on Linux than on Windows on the same hardware. (I wouldn't know. I only run Windows under duress.)
UPDATE: It's official! Give it a try.
If you've wondered about Linux, this--or rather, tomorrow--is a good time to try it out. (Servers are likely to be heavily loaded for a while following the announcement, but there's always BitTorrent.) You can download an ISO file and burn a Live CD, or if you run Windows you might consider Wubi. (If you don't have reasonable bandwidth, you can even ask to be sent a Live CD. It's free.)
Linux is of particular interest to SL residents; I've seen several reports that the SL client runs better on Linux than on Windows on the same hardware. (I wouldn't know. I only run Windows under duress.)
UPDATE: It's official! Give it a try.
Sparkly
Oh, dear... something is wrong. Things look sparkly, or more accurately, light is coming through them, almost as if when you hold them up to the light you could see the wireframe.
I wonder what changed to cause this?
UPDATE: whatever it was seems to have gone away; I even went back to Chakryn Forest at midnight, where I first noticed the effect, and couldn't make it happen. (That was with the new RC client, which didn't crash at logon time!) I hope it's gone for good.
I wonder what changed to cause this?
UPDATE: whatever it was seems to have gone away; I even went back to Chakryn Forest at midnight, where I first noticed the effect, and couldn't make it happen. (That was with the new RC client, which didn't crash at logon time!) I hope it's gone for good.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
A Must-Read
"The Hate the Lindens Game," on Cheyenne's blog.
More traditional games (or, if like me, you don't think SL is a game, games) can precalculate and pre-render a great deal, so that much of what your computer has to do is just barf a bunch of data generated once and for all long ago onto the screen. SL's performance at any given time depends in large part on varying numbers of objects whose behavior is specified by scripts running as you go along... and those scripts are user-generated, written by people with widely varying levels of programming skill and experience. (How many vendors can hand you a computational complexity analysis of the code for the scripted object you just bought from them?)
Enough of the kvetching, already.
More traditional games (or, if like me, you don't think SL is a game, games) can precalculate and pre-render a great deal, so that much of what your computer has to do is just barf a bunch of data generated once and for all long ago onto the screen. SL's performance at any given time depends in large part on varying numbers of objects whose behavior is specified by scripts running as you go along... and those scripts are user-generated, written by people with widely varying levels of programming skill and experience. (How many vendors can hand you a computational complexity analysis of the code for the scripted object you just bought from them?)
Enough of the kvetching, already.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
More of Whimsy
While Forsaken will always have a place in my memory, Whimsy is proving truly wondrous. Here's a photo that puts the new graphics card to far better use than me standing in a pool--this is the Whimsy Sun Gate about whose origin Cheyenne writes.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Avatar Rendering Cost... holy cow!
As Massively reports, the new RC client has an option (ctrl-alt-shift-D to get the "Advanced" menu, then Advanced>Rendering>Info Displays>Avatar Rendering Cost) to display the "Avatar Rendering Cost" of avatars you can see. The effects of various clothing and attachments can vary widely.
In the article, Tateru Nino shows how her ARC varies with changes in clothing and the like; her ARC typically runs from about 400 to 500. So, I fired up the client and turned on the option, thinking I'd probably run a bit higher than that...
...7500?!?!
Jewelry, alpha textures, and hair can seriously run the ARC up.
Good heavens; now I want to go around and apologize to everybody I've ever been near! Can I ever wear those gowns with a clear conscience again?
At least I have an outfit that gives me an ARC of 350 while still having nice hair for those times that ARC is crucial.
In the article, Tateru Nino shows how her ARC varies with changes in clothing and the like; her ARC typically runs from about 400 to 500. So, I fired up the client and turned on the option, thinking I'd probably run a bit higher than that...
...7500?!?!
Jewelry, alpha textures, and hair can seriously run the ARC up.
Good heavens; now I want to go around and apologize to everybody I've ever been near! Can I ever wear those gowns with a clear conscience again?
At least I have an outfit that gives me an ARC of 350 while still having nice hair for those times that ARC is crucial.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
New Masthead
When I saw the magnificent new masthead at Cheyenne Palisades's blog (and if you don't read it, why not? She's kind, insightful, and mischievously creative), I decided mine was overdue for a change. I hope you like it!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Return to Chakryn Forest
I went back for a bit to see the forest by night... and in a way, I failed, because the wonderful filtered sunbeams are present whatever virtual time one's client is set to. That said, the mysterious vortex does benefit:
I do wonder about one thing, though. The forest is quite laden with effects--and I think it shows up bugs in rendering or perhaps in graphics drivers. Try taking a picture at midnight by the lovely running water, and you'll find your avatar looks as though it's developed many holes. I did manage to get photos that pleased me:
I still haven't made it to the treehouse!
P.S. Honest, I wasn't trying for forced perspective; the bench showing up by my ankles is purely an oversight on my part.
I do wonder about one thing, though. The forest is quite laden with effects--and I think it shows up bugs in rendering or perhaps in graphics drivers. Try taking a picture at midnight by the lovely running water, and you'll find your avatar looks as though it's developed many holes. I did manage to get photos that pleased me:
I still haven't made it to the treehouse!
P.S. Honest, I wasn't trying for forced perspective; the bench showing up by my ankles is purely an oversight on my part.
The Blustery Day
It's a Blustery Day in RL in Iowa. Street lights and traffic lights are swaying like SL trees, but it's so nice outside that you enjoy it anyway, right down to leaning into the wind.
I hope your day is as good.
I hope your day is as good.
Chakryn Forest
After reading about Natalia's experiences in Chakryn Forest, I had to go exploring.
Chakryn Forest is every bit as lovely as Natalia describes it: lush, green, and sun-dappled. A strange vortex hovers at one spot...
Alas, work took me away before I could visit the treehouse... but I will be back. I want to lie in the grass and listen to Pink Floyd's "Grantchester Meadows" until I am totally mellowed out.
Chakryn Forest is, like "Heaven in SL," a trompe l'oeil sort of environment (there aren't rectangular forests in RL, are there?), though light-years past what I saw in "Heaven in SL" at the time. It's surrounded by water... and, to show off the results of the new graphics card, I can't resist adding a photo, though yet again to get the real effect of the waves and the shifting images of things underwater, you need video.
Chakryn Forest is every bit as lovely as Natalia describes it: lush, green, and sun-dappled. A strange vortex hovers at one spot...
Alas, work took me away before I could visit the treehouse... but I will be back. I want to lie in the grass and listen to Pink Floyd's "Grantchester Meadows" until I am totally mellowed out.
Chakryn Forest is, like "Heaven in SL," a trompe l'oeil sort of environment (there aren't rectangular forests in RL, are there?), though light-years past what I saw in "Heaven in SL" at the time. It's surrounded by water... and, to show off the results of the new graphics card, I can't resist adding a photo, though yet again to get the real effect of the waves and the shifting images of things underwater, you need video.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Calling Bishop Berkeley...
As things stand in SL, buying a sim (a 256 x 256 meter patch of "land" in SL) is buying time on a server that is dedicated to simulating that square piece of virtual land. That's a straightforward way to do things, but that fixed allocation is almost never the right amount. Of course, nobody's complaining when there are CPU cycles to burn, and you're on a deserted island with a sweet frame rate... but attend a popular SL event--for example, any performance by the magnificent Jaynine Scarborough--and you have a lag-fest that not many people can attend, even with the clever (and expensive!) dodge of putting the stage over a corner so the audience can be spread over four sims. This is a shame; in the specific example, I would like as many people as possible to hear (and appropriately tip!) Ms. Scarborough. Many people have pointed out this limitation as a major impediment to the appearance of very well-known performers in SL. (If you fill huge stadiums, are you going to go to the trouble for a bit over a hundred people tops?)
I have to hope that LL is rethinking this "one sim = one server" setup. There has to be some way to balance the load, so that the CPU cycles can, figuratively speaking, go where they're needed. In the limit, this has the curious consequence that if nobody's in a sim, there may be no servers spending any CPU cycles on it, a situation oddly reminiscent of Bishop Berkeley. I would also hope that, contrary to a temper tantrum I've seen thrown and assertions I've read, SL residents will either realize by considering the issue or be convinced by the results of such a redesign that it will greatly improve SL.
I have to hope that LL is rethinking this "one sim = one server" setup. There has to be some way to balance the load, so that the CPU cycles can, figuratively speaking, go where they're needed. In the limit, this has the curious consequence that if nobody's in a sim, there may be no servers spending any CPU cycles on it, a situation oddly reminiscent of Bishop Berkeley. I would also hope that, contrary to a temper tantrum I've seen thrown and assertions I've read, SL residents will either realize by considering the issue or be convinced by the results of such a redesign that it will greatly improve SL.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
In the immortal words of Dr. Phil...
"What are you thinking?!"
This is addressed to Linden Lab upon finding that Nicholaz Beresford, who has put a LOT of effort into improving the SL client since it has been made open source, has decided to hang it up given the non-support received from Linden Lab.
Such behavior from LL is amazingly short-sighted. Thanks to Nicholaz for what he's done to date, and I hope LL comes to its collective senses about this issue.
This is addressed to Linden Lab upon finding that Nicholaz Beresford, who has put a LOT of effort into improving the SL client since it has been made open source, has decided to hang it up given the non-support received from Linden Lab.
Such behavior from LL is amazingly short-sighted. Thanks to Nicholaz for what he's done to date, and I hope LL comes to its collective senses about this issue.
Friday, April 04, 2008
A Sudden Realization
The last few versions of the Release Candidate SL client have not had the file with the eye-in-hand SL logo that seems like the obvious choice for an icon to click on to fire the client up. People have understandably complained, but it didn't make any difference, and if you look at the new release, it doesn't have it either.
Finally this morning a possible reason occurred to me: I bet it has something to do with the recent brouhaha over the Second Life brand! It's just silly and petty enough to be the correct answer.
UPDATE: more recent versions of the RC client now have the icon file. Thank goodness.
Finally this morning a possible reason occurred to me: I bet it has something to do with the recent brouhaha over the Second Life brand! It's just silly and petty enough to be the correct answer.
UPDATE: more recent versions of the RC client now have the icon file. Thank goodness.
New computer
I've taken the plunge and put together a new computer, and it's very nice indeed to get 34 fps with the graphics sliders run up all the way.
I didn't go whole hog for graphics; I'm still behind the curve there, with PCI Express 1.0 ("How pathetic," the gamers all say) and running with an nVidia 8600 with only 256 MB of RAM ("Hahaha 1 p0wn j00!" some gasp out between guffaws), not even running SLI with two or more graphics cards to run up the parallelism even more. (At this point, we should give some of the gamers oxygen; they're laughing so hard they're having trouble breathing.) I have, though, made the move to AM2 bus, dual core, and 4 GB of RAM (DDR2 is very inexpensive; I've actually read speculation that the RAM glut is thanks to manufacturers ramping up to deal with demand caused by the obscene resource usage of Vista... followed by people running screaming from Vista back to XP or avoiding Vista altogether).
Nevertheless, SL is a much nicer place to be, and I'm far less plagued by lag.
I didn't go whole hog for graphics; I'm still behind the curve there, with PCI Express 1.0 ("How pathetic," the gamers all say) and running with an nVidia 8600 with only 256 MB of RAM ("Hahaha 1 p0wn j00!" some gasp out between guffaws), not even running SLI with two or more graphics cards to run up the parallelism even more. (At this point, we should give some of the gamers oxygen; they're laughing so hard they're having trouble breathing.) I have, though, made the move to AM2 bus, dual core, and 4 GB of RAM (DDR2 is very inexpensive; I've actually read speculation that the RAM glut is thanks to manufacturers ramping up to deal with demand caused by the obscene resource usage of Vista... followed by people running screaming from Vista back to XP or avoiding Vista altogether).
Nevertheless, SL is a much nicer place to be, and I'm far less plagued by lag.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Design for Society
I share a laundry room with others in the complex in which I live. The rules say to empty the dryer lint filter after you use it... but that leads to a free rider problem, because the temptation is to not bother; after all, if everyone else follows the rules, you never have to deal with the lint filter. The system rewards lawbreakers... or perhaps I should say "laundry griefers"?
The sensible rule would be this: "clean the lint filter before you use it." Everyone is motivated to do that, because they want their clothes dry... and rather than having jerks who can avoid cleaning the lint filter and decent people cleaning it twice, everyone is guaranteed one cleaning per dryer load.
In that regard, Massively has a brief article pointing one in turn to this excellent article in Gamasutra on designing games so that not being a jerk is to one's advantage.
Marc Stiegler's excellent novel David's Sling contains many insights, and among the best is this: zero-sum games can turn men into brutes; positive-sum games turn brutes into men. Some games are inherently zero-sum--but even they can benefit from design that encourages sportsmanship, and virtual worlds far more so.
UPDATE: In Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds mentions receiving a book on a similar topic: Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.
The sensible rule would be this: "clean the lint filter before you use it." Everyone is motivated to do that, because they want their clothes dry... and rather than having jerks who can avoid cleaning the lint filter and decent people cleaning it twice, everyone is guaranteed one cleaning per dryer load.
In that regard, Massively has a brief article pointing one in turn to this excellent article in Gamasutra on designing games so that not being a jerk is to one's advantage.
Marc Stiegler's excellent novel David's Sling contains many insights, and among the best is this: zero-sum games can turn men into brutes; positive-sum games turn brutes into men. Some games are inherently zero-sum--but even they can benefit from design that encourages sportsmanship, and virtual worlds far more so.
UPDATE: In Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds mentions receiving a book on a similar topic: Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.
More Forced Perspective
Sorry... I had to go back and do some more forced perspective pictures; Diversity Hair kind of lends itself to it, with the high ceilings and the tall panels.(I do have to wonder what the people there were thinking, though.)
Now I need to learn how to make shadows for a little added verisimilitude.
Monday, March 31, 2008
The Crystal Queendom
If you are looking for beautifully detailed ornate gowns, among the first places you should go is The Crystal Queendom. The dresses there are truly amazing, and though I can't do them justice, googling "The Crystal Queendom" will turn up a great many fine photos.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
So tell me again just what a useful purpose griefers serve?
From Wired, which ironically recently put up an article highly sympathetic to griefers:
Internet griefers descended on an epilepsy support message board last weekend and used JavaScript code and flashing computer animation to trigger migraine headaches and seizures in some users.Details here.
In Praise of Pandora
I'm always amazed by pandora.com. Sometimes in a strange way, when it jumps the track and goes off on a tangent—though that's probably my fault, because I have one "station" with all my random eclectic suggestions in one place—but most often in a delightful way, when it finds something wonderful I'd never heard of before, like the songs of Scott Walker.
The tracks I've heard sound like a strange cross between David Sylvian and Jack Jones, and they appeal to the part of me that likes to wallow in melancholy.
Alas, for legal reasons, pandora.com can't offer its services to those outside the US—at least not yet.
Come to think of it, that title is a bit misleading. I don't think I've ever mentioned my dear friend Pandora Barzane here, and it's overdue. She's a sweet and charming lady, and I'm very glad to have met her.
The tracks I've heard sound like a strange cross between David Sylvian and Jack Jones, and they appeal to the part of me that likes to wallow in melancholy.
Alas, for legal reasons, pandora.com can't offer its services to those outside the US—at least not yet.
Come to think of it, that title is a bit misleading. I don't think I've ever mentioned my dear friend Pandora Barzane here, and it's overdue. She's a sweet and charming lady, and I'm very glad to have met her.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Creepy
I was wandering through Italia 3 Torino, a lovely though unpopulated place, when I noticed someone's name hovering at about waist level. I did a double take. All that was there was a fairly generic barrel for trash. I zoomed in... and saw the eyes of the poor fellow in the barrel.
I suspect he was camping, and that creeps me out. Having campers sit idly on a bench? Ignoring the obnoxious nature of camping, I can sort of live with it. Having them animate street sweeping and the like? I suppose it's "local color" or adding verisimilitude. Live models in stores I can almost see as reasonable, though the pay is obscenely low. But sitting in a trash can? In the words of Jumba Jookiba in Lilo and Stitch, "That is low even for you!" How degrading!
I suspect he was camping, and that creeps me out. Having campers sit idly on a bench? Ignoring the obnoxious nature of camping, I can sort of live with it. Having them animate street sweeping and the like? I suppose it's "local color" or adding verisimilitude. Live models in stores I can almost see as reasonable, though the pay is obscenely low. But sitting in a trash can? In the words of Jumba Jookiba in Lilo and Stitch, "That is low even for you!" How degrading!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
"...and when I do I'll give her my brand..."
Linden Lab has announced The Second Life Brand Center, with lots of rules about the use of LL trademarks and the tagline "Your world. Your imagination."
I'm slightly concerned. I made a point of asking whether the name of my blog was OK, and was assured it was. Is it still? I am not sure; they explicitly mention "foreign language equivalents" of Second Life as "not OK".
Also, it seems that they want to forbid any snowclone of the tagline. Can a cook-at-home pizza chain use "Your Oven. Your Pepperoni."? I don't know.
I guess we'll see what happens.
P.S. That title's from the Byrds' classic song "Chestnut Mare." I'm showing my age by quoting it, and fear that it may suggest Gor to those who haven't had the pleasure of hearing the song. So follow the link, please--you have some fine listening ahead of you.
I'm slightly concerned. I made a point of asking whether the name of my blog was OK, and was assured it was. Is it still? I am not sure; they explicitly mention "foreign language equivalents" of Second Life as "not OK".
Also, it seems that they want to forbid any snowclone of the tagline. Can a cook-at-home pizza chain use "Your Oven. Your Pepperoni."? I don't know.
I guess we'll see what happens.
P.S. That title's from the Byrds' classic song "Chestnut Mare." I'm showing my age by quoting it, and fear that it may suggest Gor to those who haven't had the pleasure of hearing the song. So follow the link, please--you have some fine listening ahead of you.
Spike!
Wow! Ninety-two visitors yesterday!
Google Analytics shows what happened. There was a massive spike in referrals from images.google.com; rather than wandering around in the single digits and occasionally up to eleven or twelve, yesterday forty-one people came here via images.google.com.
I wonder what they were looking for? Searching is still mostly for "cheesy phrases" (who'd have thought that would be so common a search?).
In any case, it's a new peak. I'm happy to see it, and I hope all of you who came for pictures will stay for the text.
Google Analytics shows what happened. There was a massive spike in referrals from images.google.com; rather than wandering around in the single digits and occasionally up to eleven or twelve, yesterday forty-one people came here via images.google.com.
I wonder what they were looking for? Searching is still mostly for "cheesy phrases" (who'd have thought that would be so common a search?).
In any case, it's a new peak. I'm happy to see it, and I hope all of you who came for pictures will stay for the text.
Monday, March 24, 2008
It's A Scaggs Life!: A Gentlemen's Duel
If you don't read Mordecai Scaggs's fine blog It's a Scaggs Life!, you should start, and the entry A Gentlemen's Duel is absolutely not to be missed. The machinima embedded therein is delightful and very steampunk... as is the blog as a whole.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Speaking of beautiful places...
I promised photos of WM Dragons Temple, and now I can honor my promise.
Perhaps I am doomed to post photos that don't give the full effect of things. In this case, you're missing the lightning, but even so, the dragon is magnificent.
The Birth of Whimsy
I've now been to Whimsy... and I am very impressed. Even in its early stages it is gorgeous. People wanting a striking and unique build in SL should contact Cheyenne and Sweetie.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Paging Nancy Archer...
The folks who run the SL Fashion Police blog put up photos they take or that are sent to them of avatars committing fashion faux pas. I would not at all be surprised to find myself featured there someday, but in any case, they turn up some, shall we say, amazing things, and I make a point of reading it.
I listen to the Going Broke with Daphne and Tamara podcast as well. They interview interesting people in the world of SL fashion, and even though I resist the temptation to shop at the places they describe, lest I in fact go broke, it's still a great podcast.
So imagine my surprise and delight when the two came together. The March 17th episode of the podcast featured TheDiva Rockin, who heads up the Fashion Police. It was enjoyable... and TheDiva mentioned that she'd post an entry with a "Mystery picture" that appears to show a woman somewhere around fifty feet tall at Diversity Hair. TheDiva tried to take a picture from the same POV of her standing where the purported Amazon stood, for scale.
So... some things about the image make it look fake; the woman's feet are not apparent, and it looks like her image has been stretched. Another theory, which I think likely, is that forced perspective was used.
[UPDATE: I have to laugh at myself for writing that; it's like the people who ask me "Are those real?" This is SL; nothing's real... but I think you know what I mean by "fake" here, i.e. that the image of the woman was inserted later, and not the result of the photograph of the shop.]
I am keeping an eye out for the woman in the picture. If she has a real giantess avatar, I'd love to talk with her. If not, I'd still love to talk with her. Either way we share an interest. If you read this, ma'am, I hope you'll do me the honor of emailing me.
(Do note that the coordinates TheDiva gives in the entry will take you to a private home that has restricted entry; perhaps DH moved recently?)
In the meantime, I thought I'd take a few forced perspective pictures in the store myself...
I listen to the Going Broke with Daphne and Tamara podcast as well. They interview interesting people in the world of SL fashion, and even though I resist the temptation to shop at the places they describe, lest I in fact go broke, it's still a great podcast.
So imagine my surprise and delight when the two came together. The March 17th episode of the podcast featured TheDiva Rockin, who heads up the Fashion Police. It was enjoyable... and TheDiva mentioned that she'd post an entry with a "Mystery picture" that appears to show a woman somewhere around fifty feet tall at Diversity Hair. TheDiva tried to take a picture from the same POV of her standing where the purported Amazon stood, for scale.
So... some things about the image make it look fake; the woman's feet are not apparent, and it looks like her image has been stretched. Another theory, which I think likely, is that forced perspective was used.
[UPDATE: I have to laugh at myself for writing that; it's like the people who ask me "Are those real?" This is SL; nothing's real... but I think you know what I mean by "fake" here, i.e. that the image of the woman was inserted later, and not the result of the photograph of the shop.]
I am keeping an eye out for the woman in the picture. If she has a real giantess avatar, I'd love to talk with her. If not, I'd still love to talk with her. Either way we share an interest. If you read this, ma'am, I hope you'll do me the honor of emailing me.
(Do note that the coordinates TheDiva gives in the entry will take you to a private home that has restricted entry; perhaps DH moved recently?)
In the meantime, I thought I'd take a few forced perspective pictures in the store myself...
In Search of... Tattoo
(No, Leonard Nimoy is not narrating this, and I won't make any reference to Hervé Villechaize. OK, any more references.)I am the last person who would have a tattoo or piercing--in RL. In SL, on the other hand, a tattoo isn't a lifetime commitment; it's just a piece of clothing that is transparent everywhere but where the tattoo is. And, in SL, I have dresses like this one.
And so I want a very particular kind of tattoo: a vine with flowers running the full length of the outer leg.
There are a lot of tattoo vendors in SL, but I'm still looking. Who knows? This might be the thing that finally drives me to doing something more than cropping with GIMP; there's a really nice vine "pen"...
Monday, March 17, 2008
SL versus games
SL isn't a game, part aleph-null:
SL permits what's called RMT (real money transfers, I think it stands for). SL isn't a game; buying L$ isn't looked at as being like putting cork in your bat, taking steroids, or riding a Harley in the Tour de France. Not everyone is the SL equivalent of Martha Stewart, any more than people in RL build their own cars or have their own chip fabs, clean rooms, surface mount, and wave solder technology in the garage so they can build their own computers in a nontrivial sense. Specialization benefits everyone; see Adam Smith for details.
In games, it's different; the technical term for doing such things is "cheating", and the people who run games have every right to ban it and eject those who cheat. Simple as that.
Am I missing something?
SL permits what's called RMT (real money transfers, I think it stands for). SL isn't a game; buying L$ isn't looked at as being like putting cork in your bat, taking steroids, or riding a Harley in the Tour de France. Not everyone is the SL equivalent of Martha Stewart, any more than people in RL build their own cars or have their own chip fabs, clean rooms, surface mount, and wave solder technology in the garage so they can build their own computers in a nontrivial sense. Specialization benefits everyone; see Adam Smith for details.
In games, it's different; the technical term for doing such things is "cheating", and the people who run games have every right to ban it and eject those who cheat. Simple as that.
Am I missing something?
"Hello, I must be going..."
Looking at Google Analytics, I'm struck by the number of entries that show one visit, average duration 00:00:00. I kid about the long average times being people who get distracted by a long phone call and then look at the screen and go somewhere else... but surely the zero-time visits are automated. I wonder how many web crawlers there are out there and what they do.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Aloha, Pele
I couldn't make it to the "Aloha, Pele" party... but I had to come see Pele once more, so late last night I signed on and asked for home.
I set the sky to midnight. I don't remember the sky being so brilliantly starry... is it Windlight, or is it that the graphics card I'm stuck with for a while displays the sky less subtly, and thus in a way more strikingly? I have no idea, but the effect was dramatic. I looked around and flew to the temple. Would that I had a maile lei or `ohelo branches to give to Madame Pele, but all I could do is say "Aloha" and express my hope to see her manifest on Cheyenne's new island.
By then I was starting to lose my composure, and I had a lot to do today, so I called it an evening.
It's been glorious, and I am sure that with Cheyenne and Sweetie's talents, what is to come will be even more so.
I set the sky to midnight. I don't remember the sky being so brilliantly starry... is it Windlight, or is it that the graphics card I'm stuck with for a while displays the sky less subtly, and thus in a way more strikingly? I have no idea, but the effect was dramatic. I looked around and flew to the temple. Would that I had a maile lei or `ohelo branches to give to Madame Pele, but all I could do is say "Aloha" and express my hope to see her manifest on Cheyenne's new island.
By then I was starting to lose my composure, and I had a lot to do today, so I called it an evening.
It's been glorious, and I am sure that with Cheyenne and Sweetie's talents, what is to come will be even more so.
Friday, March 14, 2008
What, me flirt?
I don't think of myself as a flirt at all, but according to a web questionnaire...
You Are Seductive Flirt |
 Smoldering hot, you don't really flirt. You seduce. For you, flirting is just foreplay. You don't flirt unless it's going somewhere. You have one goal in mind when you flirt... And you usually get it! |
Monday, March 10, 2008
It's back!
Whee! I can search my inventory again without crashing!
....just in time to go back to work. Darn.
UPDATE: Alas, that was short-lived. I hope things improve.
....just in time to go back to work. Darn.
UPDATE: Alas, that was short-lived. I hope things improve.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Good thing I like green...
...and good thing one doesn't sweat or get dirty in SL. (Sorry, Captain Beefheart; your classic "Dirty Blue Gene" doesn't apply. In SL, old women don't sweat, and young girls don't glisten... unless you buy "clothes" to make you glisten.)
Any attempt to search my inventory is a sure crash with the new Release Candidate, so I'll be in the green sweater dress for a while.
Sigh... I have new outfits to try on! (Good heavens... did I just type that?) Maybe I'm being shallow... OK, I am being shallow... but there's a rush to wearing new clothing, and SL makes that rush dangerously easy to indulge in.
P.S. Double sigh. I probably should have said "get one's clothing soiled." My fate is to ever be the comedic straight woman.
Any attempt to search my inventory is a sure crash with the new Release Candidate, so I'll be in the green sweater dress for a while.
Sigh... I have new outfits to try on! (Good heavens... did I just type that?) Maybe I'm being shallow... OK, I am being shallow... but there's a rush to wearing new clothing, and SL makes that rush dangerously easy to indulge in.
P.S. Double sigh. I probably should have said "get one's clothing soiled." My fate is to ever be the comedic straight woman.
Friday, March 07, 2008
I'll get there...
Windlight is making its way towards being a part of the official SL client. I had to grab the new Release Candidate, which includes Windlight.
Now, if only I didn't have to look at my inventory... any search of the inventory either times out or takes the client down. Pretty frustrating.
Now, if only I didn't have to look at my inventory... any search of the inventory either times out or takes the client down. Pretty frustrating.
Help! Which graphics card?
OK... I have hopes that I will be upgrading soon. It's obvious that I'll make the move to a nice dual core processor, sneaking up on twice the clock rate of the Socket A processor of my current computer, and a lovely SATA II hard drive (not quite hard core enough to consider RAID... yet) and plenty of DDR2 RAM.
The question I have, though, is what graphics card to get--where the sweet spot is for price/performance. I really wish that work were far enough along on Open Source 3D-capable ATI device drivers that I could make the switch, but for the time being at least it's got to be nVidia. The only 3D-intensive thing I do is run the SL client, though perhaps that will change if I have sufficient graphics capability to turn all the knobs up on Compiz Fusion. (I hasten to add that Compiz Fusion can do amazing things with far more modest requirements than the bloated obscenity that is Aero.)
So, what do you use, and how do you like it? Can you run the sliders for the Windlight client up against the wall and still get a good frame rate? I know that the upper bound for me on price will be something under $200, since the widely-acclaimed 9600GT cards are going for that and I'm sure it will run SL beautifully, but something less may do well enough for significant savings. Let me know what you've found.
P.S. I am a little undecided about CPU still--there's a 2.8 GHz Athlon 64 X2 with 512K L2 cache per core, and then there's a 2.6 GHz Athlon 64 X2 with 1M L2 cache per core. Is locality of reference enough that the added cache beats 200 MHz difference in clock rate?
P.P.S. Should I take the plunge and go for PCI Express 2.0? I'd have to to get the full advantage of the 9600GT.
The question I have, though, is what graphics card to get--where the sweet spot is for price/performance. I really wish that work were far enough along on Open Source 3D-capable ATI device drivers that I could make the switch, but for the time being at least it's got to be nVidia. The only 3D-intensive thing I do is run the SL client, though perhaps that will change if I have sufficient graphics capability to turn all the knobs up on Compiz Fusion. (I hasten to add that Compiz Fusion can do amazing things with far more modest requirements than the bloated obscenity that is Aero.)
So, what do you use, and how do you like it? Can you run the sliders for the Windlight client up against the wall and still get a good frame rate? I know that the upper bound for me on price will be something under $200, since the widely-acclaimed 9600GT cards are going for that and I'm sure it will run SL beautifully, but something less may do well enough for significant savings. Let me know what you've found.
P.S. I am a little undecided about CPU still--there's a 2.8 GHz Athlon 64 X2 with 512K L2 cache per core, and then there's a 2.6 GHz Athlon 64 X2 with 1M L2 cache per core. Is locality of reference enough that the added cache beats 200 MHz difference in clock rate?
P.P.S. Should I take the plunge and go for PCI Express 2.0? I'd have to to get the full advantage of the 9600GT.
I'm sorry, Ireland
I read somewhere that a woman, ashamed of how she'd treated Rory Dall O'Cathain, apologized, and in response he composed "Tabhair Dom Do Lámh".
In a little over a week it will be Saint Patrick's Day... and I want to apologize to every single Irishman and Irishwoman for my countrymen.
In the United States, Saint Patrick's Day seems to be mainly an excuse for idiots to drink themselves stupid on beer dyed green. The Chicago River is dyed green, too... which really means it's just a different shade of green than usual. (I like the usual green better.)
I will conduct my usual reserved protest; I won't go to any parades or drinking establishments, but I will spend the day listening to U2, the Chieftains, Clannad, Van Morrison, Dervish, Susan McKeown and all the other Irish music I can gather together, and see about finding some images from the Book of Kells to put on my computer as wallpaper. (Ah.. here we go!)
(And rest in peace, Derek Bell, wherever you are. Your music and your humor will not be forgotten.)
In a little over a week it will be Saint Patrick's Day... and I want to apologize to every single Irishman and Irishwoman for my countrymen.
In the United States, Saint Patrick's Day seems to be mainly an excuse for idiots to drink themselves stupid on beer dyed green. The Chicago River is dyed green, too... which really means it's just a different shade of green than usual. (I like the usual green better.)
I will conduct my usual reserved protest; I won't go to any parades or drinking establishments, but I will spend the day listening to U2, the Chieftains, Clannad, Van Morrison, Dervish, Susan McKeown and all the other Irish music I can gather together, and see about finding some images from the Book of Kells to put on my computer as wallpaper. (Ah.. here we go!)
(And rest in peace, Derek Bell, wherever you are. Your music and your humor will not be forgotten.)
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Lip Gloss and Laptops
If you don't listen to the Lip Gloss and Laptops podcast, you should at least check out the current episode for a couple of reasons:
- The "Reality Check" section, which discusses this post on Miss 604's Vancouver Blog. Miss 604, a Canadian blogger and podcaster, discusses a very critical comment she got on a photo that accompanied a blog entry, and talks about the double standard that others have mentioned in comments here, and in the sequence of posts about my experience in the "Gossip Girl" sims.
- The closing song, Jonathan Coulton's "A Laptop Like You." Long ago, the classic magazine Creative Computing ran a cartoon in which, for the first few panels, a guy watches the scene from 2001 in which HAL 9000 is deactivated; as HAL haltingly sings "Daisy Bell" (honest, that's the title), he bursts into tears, two other guys walk by and one says "You can always tell the CS majors." Coulton's wonderfully clever love song to a Mac laptop reminded me of that; I was teary-eyed during the last verse.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Star Wars as told by a three-year-old
What does it have to do with SL? Not a blessed thing, but she is so adorable!
Monday, March 03, 2008
Ready for Spring
Smashing Prims has wonderful new dresses for spring... and I am very ready for spring to get here! The design of the top may limit the extent to which I can edit the associated prim breasts, but having a spring dress designed to work with prim breasts will be a joy. Pictures to come.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Comic relief
I was reminded of this song while reading a blog entry by an SL pontificator. I have heard it a few times; it's by a comic/singer-songwriter who appears from time to time on the Bob and Tom Show, but whose name, alas, I don't remember.
It's all about me,
It's all about me,
I've got a lot of stories to tell,
And they're all about me.
I am the guy next to you on the plane
With a big mouth and a pea-sized brain,
Talking with glee,
Excessively,
All about me.
You're trying to read,
But you won't succeed,
By the end of this flight you'll be able to write
A whole book about me.
I just bought a brand-new Lamborghini
To compensate for my small self-esteemie!
Oh yeah, me, me me me me, it's all about moi.
My friends' telephones
Are broken, that's all,
Or improperly installed—that's why they don't
Return my calls.
I've got a girl now who's perfect for me,
Because she doesn't have caller ID!
We talk about me, all about me—and the first minute is free.
You want to change lanes,
I don't even see,
Got my phone on my ear adjusting my mirror
So I can see me.
It is so strange with an ego this vast
That my head will still fit up my... hat,
Why can't you see it's just astronomy?
The world revolves around me!
WM Dragons Temple... oh, my!
My current graphics capabilities don't permit me to do places in SL justice, so I must try to get things across purely with text.
I happened to get an announcement that brought me to the WM Dragons Temple sim. It is a beautiful and wondrous place, topped by the opulent and gorgeously detailed Dragon's Temple, all teal and gold brickwork with dragons on the walls reminiscent of pictures I've seen of Babylonian or Sumerian relief figures. At the top there is a variety of clothing for sale, including some amazing gowns, and some SF-oriented clothing... but by far the best are the "dragon's eggs", eggs on stands very reminiscent of Faberge eggs, but very different because no Faberge egg ever gave birth to cute little dragons that fly around!
Photos to come when I can do them up as the place deserves. Do not miss it.
I happened to get an announcement that brought me to the WM Dragons Temple sim. It is a beautiful and wondrous place, topped by the opulent and gorgeously detailed Dragon's Temple, all teal and gold brickwork with dragons on the walls reminiscent of pictures I've seen of Babylonian or Sumerian relief figures. At the top there is a variety of clothing for sale, including some amazing gowns, and some SF-oriented clothing... but by far the best are the "dragon's eggs", eggs on stands very reminiscent of Faberge eggs, but very different because no Faberge egg ever gave birth to cute little dragons that fly around!
Photos to come when I can do them up as the place deserves. Do not miss it.
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