The Rebirth of the Cool

Finally. Today I had time to seriously clean my computer, paying special attention to heat sink fans and fins.

Results: wonderful! I spent a whole hour and a half in world with nary a beep. I heard a slight noise from the graphics card fan when I first powered up again that makes me worry a bit, but the noise seems to have gone away. (I'll ask the card maker about a replacement fan in any case.)

Now for a plea that I expect will do no good. (Like I expect motherboard, heat sink, CPU, and graphics card makers to read this blog...)

For heaven's sake, all you above-mentioned people, please hurry up and adopt the Sandia Cooler. It's

• ten times smaller than current coolers
• very quiet
• immune to dust fouling!

OK... I feel better now, both for having written that and having corrected the problem I was having. I'll be in-world more often now. I've missed you.

Something else to do for St. Patrick's Day

It's Saint Patrick's Day. In America, alas, it seems to be a day for stupid people to drink insane quantities of beer that's been dyed green. (In Chicago, the Chicago River is dyed green, but I once saw it on another day, and it was still green--just a different shade.) In a bizarre promotional campaign, Arby's is tying a bogo offer for its Reuben sandwich (whose invention is attributed either to a Lithuanian or a German) to Saint Patrick's Day. (?!)

This Saint Patrick's Day, though, you can do something a bit different. Trinity College Dublin has made the Book of Kells viewable at no cost in its entirety online. If you aren't familiar with the Book of Kells, suffice it to say that it's one of Ireland's, and the world's, art treasures, an amazing work of calligraphy and illumination. I'd include an image here, but trust me, you want to see it on the web site where Trinity College Library has made it available. Images I could put here wouldn't do it justice.

I will, though, share a wonderful song by the highly talented Susan McKeown. (Unlike a certain other song, this one actually is an Irish lullaby.)

The sad part

I fell for the begging scam, aka the "flatterbot", a few months ago. Alas, I was caught before I entered a store in which a very helpful person was pointing out what was going on, and I have to admit I should have noticed some things that didn't quite add up.

So... I lost a few L$, but now I see I've lost something else.

In today's email came this:

Hi there, my name's [redacted] and I stumbled upon your vida segunda blog one day recently... I like it, especially the pictures you've taken. I'd really love to get into second life, but I've always been afraid I'll get addicted to it! But your pictures and your accounts of your experiences make me want to jump in too, haha. So I just wanted to say hi and that I enjoy your blog, and... Maybe if I join SL one day, it would be nice to chat with you :) thanks for providing some inspiration, ~[redacted]

Now I can't help wondering--is this flatterbot v2.0?

UPDATE: Yes... that's the real loss. Being burned once poisons future possible interactions, and I fear that my having written about it has done just that, though it was not my intent. Darn it.

Hoping to be back soon

Events have conspired to keep me away from the grid in large part.

• Remember "The Melissa Yeuxdoux Chair of Second Life"? That unfortunate episode has replayed, save that I didn't have time to seek out alternatives, but instead wobbled atop a failing chair until I could get a replacement. It didn't give me much motivation to use my main computer.
• Lately my computer of choice for SL has, I think, developed heating issues. At first, landing in a new spot caused beeps that eventually went away after a while--perhaps after all the new textures and such from the new sim were loaded? Now, I arrive at Whimsy and in a few seconds the beeps start.

Now that I can sit at the computer desk without feeling at risk, I can open the case and do some serious cleaning and inspection. I hope that I will be back in SL soon. (I'm way overdue for a "price an inexpensive SL computer" article.)

Must-read from Whimsy's Closet

"Aphrodites vs. Vstrings vs. Tangos: the New Queens of Prim Breasts?" is a great article comparing (and contrasting, as my English teacher would say) the three breast attachments of the title. It's informative and thorough, and the nice part is that Ms. Melgund doesn't have a horse in that race; she supports them all and has no ax to grind, though at the end she does get up on the soapbox about the issues of adapting clothing to breast attachments. It's not trivial, she convincingly argues, UV map compatibility or no. Please do give it a look.

Improvise, Adapt Part 3: Now to get clothiers to adopt it...

Wonderful news from eCorp in a notice today from Emeline Magic: she has come out with version 1.0 of universal appliers.

(I am not sure quite how that would work; would one have to come out with a new version for new breast attachments? Is there some standard way that prim breasts identify themselves, say, the way USB devices or monitors announce themselves and their parameters?)

I urge clothiers to get it touch with Ms. Magic; it would be a way to greatly expand your market. Thank you, Ms. Magic.

Improvise, Adapt Part 3... and Thank You, Whimsy's Closet

Woo-hoo! Emeline Magic of eCorp sent out the following notice:

Hello,I've started a grid-wide update of eBoobs v1.3.This version add compatibility with Tango's cloth system.Happy new year ;)Kisses

So... a third breast attachment maker is adding compatibility with Tango appliers. I'm hoping the trend continues...

But even more than that, I wish to express my appreciation to Whimsy Warrhol and Cindy Melgund of Whimsy's Closet. Head over to Maggie's blog (and if you don't subscribe to her RSS feed, you should. If you want to follow the SL busty community, that's as good as it gets) and read "A Note from Whimsy's Closet". Note in particular how Whimsy's Closet isn't just committed to supporting the major breast attachments, but goes to the effort of doing as well by each brand as possible. Now that's service.

More than tier...

Botgirl Questi posts a pointed reminder that when it comes to SL survival, tier pales in comparison with the minimal retention rate. Watch the videos and compare, or as my English teachers would say, compare and contrast.

UPDATE: Must-read: Honour McMillan's blog post "The Serpent in the Second Life Paradise". Must-watch: the first show of the new season of Designing Worlds, viewable on the Prim Perfect blog. Perhaps this is one reason newcomers to SL don't stay:

Imagine newbies being taken by the hand and given skins/hair/clothing by a “nice” older resident. Imagine that they are then informed they “owe” this person and have to work it off. Sound familiar? Immigrants being forced to work off a “debt” is not just a real world problem.

Improvise, Adapt part 2

For those of you who own both Tiny Things' Magnus Ubera breasts and Lolas! Tango breasts, Eira Kalil has posted a method by which you can use Tango appliers with Magnus Ubera breasts. I believe this is intended as a purely temporary fix, and I hope that before long there Ms. Kalil will adapt Magnus Uberas (or is that Magnae Uberae?) to let Tango appliers work with them as has been done for Lush breasts.

UPDATE: excellent news! "Goodbye Limitations. Welcome Tiny Things Translators."

The Map is Not the Territory...

...but it can come pretty close with a good cartographer and good data.

In particular, one advantage cited for Lolas! new Tango mesh breasts is that their UV map matches that of the stock Second Life avatar.

(No need for sunscreen; the UV map is the computer graphics version of a problem man has faced since the great Age of Exploration: how to accurately represent a three-dimensional shape (the round earth) on a flat sheet of paper (a map)? Here we aren't talking the great globe itself, but instead breasts, and having a consistent UV map makes life easier for clothes makers.)

Reading that in a comment in "The Explosion of Breast Implant Fashion in Second Life" (on Soul Train's SL and MMO Blog, and thanks to the ever au courant Maggie Bluxome for mentioning it on her blog) made me start rummaging through my inventory. I knew I'd read that before...

...and I had.

In particular, at Rygel and Lustbaby's Workshop web site, on the page describing Pixel's Paraboobs:

Pixel's Paraboobs are different because they were carefully modeled and UV mapped to match up with the default SL Avatar. This means that skin and clothing creators can make a single design for regular outfits/skins and those same textures will work on the Paraboobs. This saves a lot of time in the creation process and it also allows designers to make things for regular users and Paraboob owners all at once! This also means that it might be possible to get your favorite fashion and/or skin designer to take 90 seconds and create an "applier" for you.

Note the date at the top of the page: January 24, 2012.

I'm extremely happy that many clothiers have taken an interest in Tango--I just hope that interest spreads to other breast attachments as well--but I do wonder: why not a year ago?

See-through

So... I did take the L$1750 plunge and buy some Lolas! Tango breast attachments. I also bought a set of Lush breasts, the ones that can be used with Tango appliers.

They look very nice, but they're not for me. I can't make them as large as I'd like. They're shaped appropriately for being supported by one's torso, but too big and they look like they're suspended by a force field. Over and above that, at large sizes you find them transparent from behind. Of course, that is because you're seeing a portion of them that you shouldn't see, a portion that is hidden from view by your torso at smaller sizes.

I will experiment some more with them; I'd especially like to see whether anyone's made a Tango applier for a T-shirt with art or text on the front. I want to see how that works with Tango breast attachments.

In summary, though--if you are happy with the range of sizes that they support, they are a fine choice. If you, as Billy Joel sang, "go to extremes", you won't be happy with them.

Bewbapalooza

Bewbapalooza 2.0 is underway, and it's well worth a visit. I found a wonderful dress from Renee India:

and ellemeno's beautiful ruched gowns

(also check out Ximena McAndrews's blog). These are just two of the lovely outfits to be found there.

Compensating Disproportions

Second Life avatars tend to be very tall compared with real life, as many have pointed out. The average height of American women is 5'4" (that's 1.63 meters for you folks with a rational system of measurements), but despite the trend for more realistic avatar heights, I believe you'll find most women in SL are taller than that.

I like that trend, by the way--not because I want "height police", in either direction, but because, given the limits on avatar height, I can't be tall if everyone is tall. So please, if you don't want to be tall, don't be! :)

One problem with being tall is the limit on arm length. That gives rise to what people call "T. rex" avatars, avatars with disproportionately short arms. It occurred to me that one aspect of my disproportion saves me, at least a little, from another.

You see, I don't just want to be freakishly tall; I want to be freakishly leggy. Svetlana Pankratova and Iwona Syhre are among my role models. (Can I realize my dreams with a mesh avatar? Height, yes; legginess, I'm less sure of.)

So, when I set out to adjust my shape, I had an eye to maximizing leg length, and it turns out that doing so requires cranking down torso length. I wish it weren't so, but... it makes my arms look less disproportionately short, because they extend further past my shortened torso and down my lengthened legs. Alas, despite being cranked to 100, they really are too short--boxing with God is still out of the question--but it's not as obvious. Until that mythical day when Linden Lab improves the avatar, I can get by.

Improvise, Adapt...

I noticed some good news in a blog that is new to me, Big Boobie Babes: "Fantastic News From Lush Boobs". The maker of Lush breast attachments has made it possible for them to use appliers made for Lolas! Tango mesh breast attachments.

In view of the recent interest in Tangos, I'd say that's a wise move, and I hope other breast makers will take notice.

(BTW... I would love to see and try out a set of Lush breast attachments, but I can't find a vendor or store to save my (second) life. I saw a blog entry with a link to SL marketplace, but when I clicked on it, I just went to the Marketplace home page. If you could send me a landmark, I'd be greatly in your debt!)

UPDATE: Many thanks to Eira Kalil for the pointer (see comments); the page gives a link to the in-world store where one can find a demo. The next time you see me, I may be kicking myself for not having noticed the as-vigilant-as-she-is-beautiful-and-talented Maggie Bluxome's report on Lush breasts.

A new year arrives

2013 has arrived, and with luck and work things will be better. Second Life at least holds promise of some wonderful new capabilities, such as the mesh deformer and normal and specular maps, and closer to home, Lolas has made a breakthrough with their new Tango mesh breasts, gaining the respectful attention of mainstream SL for the first time.

Alas, we are not all here to see it. I hope that at some point during your celebration of the start of the new year you raised your glass in the traditional toast "To absent friends".


I wish you all prosperity and happiness in 2013.

Nanami and Sissi Design go Marketplace-only

As Maggie Bluxome reports, Nanami and Sissi Designs are closing their in-world store. I hope that they prosper; they make beautiful, finely-detailed dresses and other outfits, and I want to see them continue to do so.

In-world stores have advantages for customers and potential customers:

• An in-world store can show you how the product really looks in world.
• An in-world store can be a meeting place. Anyone you find there is likely to share your interest in the type of item the store sells, and you can trade information and landmarks and even make new friends.

That said, I understand why a creator might choose to sell solely via the Marketplace, and can't hold that choice against any creator. Linden Lab, maybe, but not the creators. I am amazed, especially given the RL economy, that anyone buys land given tier charges.

Shiny Toys

I was watching TV, and on a Saturday morning news show they were in a festive near-New Year's mood. One woman wore a top made of liquid lamé, and I felt a brief stab of jealousy--I'd love to have a liquid lamé top or gown in Second Life.

I'm hoping that will be possible once the work on normal and specular maps makes it into Second Life, and I also hope more generally that it will mean more realistic metallic objects and drive a long overdue stake through the heart of pre-baked highlights; now you need only wear your latex catsuit at the wrong time of day, stand on your head, or step half into shadow for an instant verisimilitude wreck as your suspension of disbelief hits a huge pothole.

(Is there a competition for most tortured metaphor in a blog post? I'd like to enter...)

Normal and specular maps (specular maps are the ones pertinent to shiny things; normal maps let you efficiently make a low polygon count shape look more detailed) are among the things mentioned in "A Look Back at Improvements in Second Life in 2012 and Forward to 2013", a December 20th Linden blog post. (The mesh deformer is conspicuous by its absence from said post, and I suspect I'm not alone in being less than happy about that.)

P. S. I know there are good arguments against using song titles as blog post titles, but as a Joni Mitchell fan I couldn't pass it up. :)

New World Notes must-read

"Cloud Party's Advantages Over Second Life for Content Creators (Comment of the Week)" is very much worth your reading.

Some time ago Gwyneth Llewelyn wrote about the obstacles to scripting in Second Life; Ezra makes the more general point about the hackery required in SL to do what should be simple things and contrasts with Cloud Party (which no longer requires Facebook to sign up--yay!).

Taking the plunge

I have bought a set of Lolas! Tango mesh breasts. I have yet to try them out--I have but taken the parts out of the box they came in and looked at the user manual (which comes in English and Spanish versions).

The Tango mesh breasts, like some other breasts, have two clothing layers, here called "top" and "bra". Apparently applicators for Tangos require a multi-step process:

1. Wear the applicator.
2. Click on the breasts and select the clothing layer to which you wish to apply the texture.
3. Click on the applicator to actually apply the texture.

rather than the more usual method of simply wearing the applicator. In the past I have been able to use a Lolas! applicator despite not wearing Lolas! breasts at the time, with some texture adjustment afterwards, but no more. I fear what this might mean if newcomers to breast attachment-friendly clothing devote their efforts solely to Tango.

I will experiment with the Tango breasts and put up some photos. There are some things I'd like to try out.

A Chat with Ceri Quixote

Just so you know: I am likely to be all gushy in this post.

I was wandering around this morning and had gotten into a conversation with a handsome and sharply-dressed fellow--I think he said he was about 3'9" tall. As we chatted, a group announcement came through with a new landmark for Quixote's Dream. It hadn't gone far, just enough to move a pesky sim crossing out of the way.

It occurred to my that my dapper chat companion might be interested in seeing the store. (Procrastinator that I am, I have yet to get myself properly set up with a giantess avatar.) Off I went, and after moving away from the landing point, back the TP offer went, followed quickly by his arrival.

It took a bit for things to rez, but then we saw the bridge leading to the shop. Partway across I noticed a figure that looked like she might be using a giantess avatar. "Cool, we can talk to a customer!" I thought, and we walked the rest of the way over and I saw the name tag. It was Ms. Quixote herself!

OK, here comes the twittering fangirl gushiness...

She was utterly breathtaking. I can't imagine what it must have been like to be present in person when she appeared at The Tides at a height of two hundred feet. The photos and the video are great, but they're just not like being there.

As a mesh avatar, her avatar doesn't have the obvious, verisimilitude-killing joins of early giant avatars.

I was able to converse, and we chatted. Alas, the gentleman who accompanied had to go, but we talked a bit more, though I suspect I was less than coherent. We did talk a little about clothing layers for the growing number of outfits for her giantess avatar.

Ms. Quixote graciously let me take a picture to publish here:

Thank you, ma'am, for your time, for letting me take the photo, and for your lovely work.

More from Penny Patton

A while back I pointed readers at Penny Patton's blog, The Digital Pasture, which had an important post about avatar proportions (which you should read, or reread, if only to point out the ways it's been misinterpreted).

Penny's done it again, this time with a multi-part series, "A Critical Look at Second Life". (Here's Part One.) I hope you will read it.

"We got both kinds [of music] here..."

"...country and western!" This famous line from The Blues Brothers may have been intended to show the wide variety of music liked at Bob's Country Bunker, but if that was its intent it was, I dare say, less than successful.

For a long time, that line has echoed in my head when I look at a possibly-useful application to see whether I could run it, only to find that it proudly supports both operating systems... Windows and Mac OS!

The recent surge in talk and support of prim/mesh breasts has been exciting... but then I'm reminded of that scene when I read the descriptions of some new clothing items and see that they support both prim and mesh Lolas!

I hasten to add that Lolas are, IMHO, among the very best breast attachments for a natural look, and they and their designer have my utmost respect... but there is more to the breast attachment market.

Clothes designers, thank you so much for supporting breast attachments. I hope you'll consider supporting multiple vendors' breast attachments.

Taking Inventory

I took a shot at reorganizing my inventory a while back. It definitely paid off, and I should go for another iteration, with a particular eye to paring down--but this time I'll be far better armed.

Don't miss Cheyenne Palisades's two-part series on Inventory Control (part 1, part 2). It's full of very good advice.

As promised...

...the Renee India "Retro Maxi" gown. (Hosiery and shoes not included, but I don't care. I love this gown!)

Fuschia boots will have to wait for now.

Merry Spam-mas?

I think that this Christmas season I'm getting a lot more spam... how sad.

Darn Blogger!

I thought I'd change things a bit... and boy, did I.

Somehow I managed to get the various gadgets underneath the blog posts rather than to the side of them, and now they won't move.

I hope to have things back in something approaching a reasonable shape soon.

UPDATE: Whew! I will try to bring back some sidebar items that didn't seem to want to move back into position, and I will rethink the masthead image, but at least I've overcome the major snafu. The odd part--nearly as I can tell, I had to edit the blog with Firefox to move items around. Under Google Chrome, they just did not want to go.

Yet another apology

The new Busted is out, which you should of course immediately read and admire. I, alas, am not there, and I apologize for that.

RL work (for which I am extremely grateful!) is cutting down on my SL time and writing time. Once I get settled in, I will once again write.

For now, you are in very capable hands--Misty Wraine, Zenith Hawke, and Angel Eulenberg appear in this month's issue, and I hope to see more from them in the future.

UPDATE: Sigh... I have to apologize for my apologies, having not mentioned Playful Howley's look back at the progression from Pong to Second Life. Don't miss it.

Hitting the big time

OK, we've pointed you at articles about breast attachments in various blogs, some of which are outside the "SL busty community". Now, there's one in the SL blog: New World Notes.

Iris Ophelia's fashion eye and virtual pen have turned to breast attachments, with "We Love Mesh Hands, Mesh Feet, Mesh Heads... Why Not Mesh Breasts?"  As with the aforementioned articles, the coverage is of Lolas!, in particular the new Lolas! Tango breasts. That saddens me a bit, as I don't think the other makers of prim breasts should be ignored... but given that, it is nonetheless a good article. The best sentence:

There's nothing wrong with [pixel sex or fetishism] necessarily, but they're often used as an excuse to push everything associated with them into a dark little corner of shame.

Alas, that enlightened attitude is not universal.

By all means, read the article, and comment if you are so inclined.

UPDATE: Be sure to read the comments. After one "mousebi" posted "...the bigger the boobs that means the smaller brain size you have.. just like in RL" and other similarly astute observations, "Eva" was one of several who responded--my thanks to all of you! From Eva's comment:

Oh, and mousebi? I wear a 38L bra IRL, and I don't have implants... but I do have a Master's degree and some old IQ tests with results in the genius range. Unlike you, I can also properly spell, capitalize, and punctuate in English -- and oddly enough, I don't use my breasts for any of that! Hey, you know what IS a fairly reliable indicator of stupidity, though? Prejudice like yours.

It doesn't hurt to ask

Recently I came across a store that had gowns that reminded me a bit of the gloriously ornate works of the late, lamented Crystal Queendom. It was a sad memory, first because the store is no longer in SL, and second because I could not wear the vast majority of those glorious dresses.

I created a notecard saying how beautiful the gowns in the store are, and that I very much hoped that the designer would consider supporting busty SL avatars.

Yesterday, I got an IM in reply. The designer said she would keep my request in mind. Not a commitment, but a pleasure to receive--courteous and enough to give me hope, a thing that's hard to come by sometimes.

So, if you come across a similarly wonderful clothing store that doesn't currently support the busty SL avater, do consider sending the designer a brief, courteous message asking that he or she consider supporting prim/mesh breast users in the future. It doesn't hurt to ask.

Not what I thought it was...

When you see a link to a blog post titled "Hacking My Vagina", if you're like me the first thing you think is that it's related to Second Life.

It isn't, though. Instead, it's a description of one woman's attempt to create a more flexible user interface for a vibrator with a very primitive remote control... and when the woman has the imagination and highly impressive engineering CV of the blog's author, the results are fascinating. Check it out.

Speaking of beards...

The question of prim versus tattoo/skin beards that came up in the "Hamlet 3.0" discussion made me go back and pull out a beard (you know, that may not be the best turn of phrase) from inventory.

Prim beards are great for Victorian/steampunk. In this regard, check out the wonderful blog Century of the Beard, or the stern rebellious bearded face of John Brown on the John Steuart Curry mural Tragic Prelude (or, if you're at my lower level of art history knowledge, the Kansas album cover art)... or bearded ladies such as Annie Jones, who inspired me to try it out in Second Life:

Clearly not doable with a tattoo or skin layer!

That's not as much the fashion of beards these days--quite the opposite. Often one sees beards that are more like car pin striping but for guys' faces. It doesn't have to be that extreme to still be better done, IMHO, with a tattoo or skin layer--just not as fluffy as the style of the 19th century:

Hamlet doesn't strike me as the fluffy beard type, so I'd say tattoo/skin. (And he may drop the beard altogether, judging by his comment on the reborn NWN Hamlet makeover post!)

Renee India

I'm happy to say that I've found yet another clothing store that is new to me and that supports prim breast users: Renee India.

At Renee India you will find mesh shoes, and you will also find prim breast-friendly clothing ranging from some items I'm too timid to wear to informal outfits and dresses to some lovely formalwear. When I can, I will buy their "Retro Maxi" gown, not to mention some really pretty fuschia mesh boots.

Do check Renee India out. (I hasten to add that they should not be confused with an engineering company that is actually in India. Renee India can be found in SL Marketplace, and the inworld store is at Mayotte (47. 62. 31)).

Hamlet 3.0?

So I peeked over at New World Notes this afternoon, and found a post by Iris Ophelia, "Hamlet 3.0: Help Me Give Hamlet a Head-To-Toe Avatar Makeover!" You won't find it on NWN now--the link is to Google's cached version. I'm not sure why it was wiped from the blog proper. Iris asks for comments and suggestions, especially on the tattoo beard versus prim beard question. Since the post is no longer on the blog, I'm not sure how best to send them.

Hamlet 2.0 is of 2010 vintage, and a bit too square-jawed; I much prefer his more affable RL face... and I hope that Iris will find him a new outfit. Tom Wolfe had the "writer in dapper white suit" thing down and trademarked long ago, and Mark Twain before him. (If you're reading this, Iris--for purposes of Hamlet 3.0, definitely tattoo beard. It's the way to go for the close-shaven beards of today. Prim beards are for the Victorian/steampunk avatar. Having been a bearded lady in Second Life, I speak from at least a little experience.)

UPDATE: It's back on NWN proper; here's the link.

Serendipity-do

(It makes your hair stay in place by happy accident, right?)

While looking for info on Lolas! Tango mesh breasts, I was induced to peek at the "about" page for Bootie & Boobies, and there I found out that one of the people behind it, Elle Caerntown, is a partner in a store that I'd not heard of before, [J'adore]. (The brackets are significant. French has been the language of choice for English speakers naming fashion items and companies for quite a while, and "j'adore" shows up in a lot of store names in SL!)

[J'adore] sells prim breast-friendly dresses and lingerie, and other items such as skirts.

Having found out about it, I went to visit, and discovered at the other side of the loop another store for the busty avatar: Sick Puppy. Now, I just looked up Sick Puppy on SL Marketplace, and it does have a presence there--mostly selling T-shirts with wiseguy (or whatever the female equivalent is) text on the front. What I didn't see there is what is in the in-world store, namely prim breast-friendly clothing. Not just T-shirts, but nice dresses and pretty darned impressive gowns!

Alas, as I write, I can't model the work of [J'adore] or Sick Puppy, thanks to RL issues--but you should visit the stores in world and check them out.

New Mesh Breasts from Lolas!

Lolas! (shame on me; I keep leaving out the exclamation point) have just come out with unrigged (and hence editable) mesh breasts; they are called "Tango". Initial photos look very good, though of course the proof of the pudding is how they look in-world, and reviews I've seen are quite positive.

I see that people are already working on appliers, so I hope that Tango users will have a broad choice of clothing soon. (As Hugsie points out, it may be possible to apply a clothing layer texture and then tweak manually.)

Googling turns up a goodly number of posts about them; Colleen Criss's very enthusiastic article has nude and clothed photos and links to other articles, and Hugsie has details on applying skin textures to Tango breasts.

Prim Breast Support Extra

So far I've seen a couple of shops that sell clothing and also support prim breasts--but there's an extra charge for the prim breast support. For example, if you head over to DeeTaleZ you'll find tops and outfits for sale and, nearby, a sign saying that appliers for prim breasts can be found in a room devoted to them. (When I did that myself just now, it was a bit hard to find that room; unlike all the others, it had no brightly lit sign above the doorway identifying its contents. I have to wonder why that is so.)

What do I think about this? I think it's fine.

I have my libertarian hat on, true, but most of all I have my love of the SL busty community, and I say it's a good thing on the whole.

I am forever grateful for all those clothiers who make clothes for us and include appliers in the bundle, and I wholeheartedly support them, funds permitting (as would be obvious from following my L$ balance and purchases!)... but if the choice is between a clothier either

• blowing off support for prim breast users, or
• deciding to do so, but reasoning that he or she deserves reimbursement for the added work involved, and that it doesn't make sense to charge those who don't use prim breasts for something they won't use*, and hence selling appliers separately

I choose door number two without hesitation, and I wish success to those who make that choice just as much as I wish it for those who bundle appliers, in hopes that their success will induce more to support us. (We all have our own lists of "mainstream" fashion houses from whose work we are cut off and think "if only...")

* or think they won't use...  though given those blog posts that assert prim breasts' new-found popularity, will that really be the case? If you're reading this and you aren't a prim breast user--don't you want breasts without corners? Aren't you tired of T-shirts with text distorted into illegibility or art twisted into a mockery of the artist's talent? Prim breasts aren't just for those who enjoy having breasts so big they have to use the freight entrance (not that there's anything wrong with that, at least in SL), and you aren't confined to slutwear. I hope you'll consider trying them out.

Not the Usual Suspects

So after seeing the SL Universe thread, I thought I'd go googling to see whether prim breasts really are more widely used these days. An NWN reference to Juicybomb as among readers' top choices there caused me to do something that turned out to be a better idea than I realized. I searched for "juicybomb 'prim breasts'", wondering whether Juicybomb itself had any posts on the subject... but it proved to be a good way to find the more general set of pages I was really after. What's a common feature of blogs? Links to other blogs. What are mainstream fashion blogs likely to link to? Really popular mainstream fashion blogs... like Juicybomb.

So... here's what I found (in addition to the pages I linked to in the preceding article):

• "Sunday Quickie | Layerable Prim Boob Bras? O.O" in My Words Devour Souls: bras for prim breasts that have a lingerie layer (or at least one such set; alas, the article doesn't specify) from The Sugar Garden.
• "Divine" in Not Quite Naked: blogger Eve Graymoon hesitates at first to try prim breasts as her SO suggests, but finds a jacket by Lapoint and Bastchild that works beautifully with Lolas. (UPDATE: that's a jacket not made to work with prim breasts, and to get the effect, she wore it open, not buttoned up.)
• "2nd of 12 Days in Lingerie" in The Poultry Report: Uccello Poultry proves to be a very distracting construction worker with Bad Kitty's "Allure" lingerie and Lolas.
• "String Bikini for Implant Breast, Mon Cheri" in Urban Leyends: Natsumi Kangjou shows variously-patterned string bikinis for Lolas (which may work for iBoobs and eCorp as well).

Not as much as I was hoping for, so I will try some other searches. More news as it happens.

UPDATE: I tried "fashion 'prim breasts'". A lot of links to the blog we all know and love turned up (Hi, Maggie!), but I did find things new to me, like this gem, Lavish Inside: SL styles for prim and standard breast beauties. Each post features a pair of similar outfits, one for prim breast users, and one for non-users.

Also from that search:

• "Miss Virtual World" in Rage Log - A Second Life Fashion & Travel Blog: From the post, Mimara (who doesn't have on prim breasts in the photos shown) on the prim breast issue: "Prim breasts. They're controversial. It's odd that people in SL seem to accept furries, vampires and men built like action figures but shun, or even scorn prim boobs. With the right look they can be fantastic."
• "[QE] Designs and Bewbapalooza" in Virtual Fashion Feed: "In case anyone has not noticed, Second Life boobs/bewbs/implants are pretty popular at the moment [October 19, 2012] and it's no secret I am excited about it! I've been an implant lover/wearer for 2 years now and it's as important to me first for the obvious reasons, I am a female and I am an ample female IRL..."
• "If You Dare" in Octavia Dorchester's blog: "So, I just wanted to take a minute to talk about my boobs. Prim breasts are all the rage, and I can see why. They are fab." Ms. Dorchester delights in her prim breasts, and the pleasure she takes in them is contagious. I do hope that she's found more of the sources of prim breast-friendly clothing that are out there. The blog post, is, I suspect, early in her prim breast experience, as she only mentions one clothing store, Milk.

More Signs of Growth

I'm not keeping up--and that's a good thing.

It's an indicator of a growing market, and that is a good thing, almost by definition.

As someone who's getting behind, I'm about to mention things you may already know about. You may well think to yourself "Goodness, Melissa, it's about time, get with the program!" but, just in case, I will make a point of mentioning them.

First, there's a nice interview over at Tekila Vella's blog Tekila Unplugged, "Today's SL Breasts". I can't say I agree with Ms. Vella on some things, notably her singling out Mused, Lolas, and Ecorp as today's "main contenders" in the prim breast world, but then I'm no maven, just a prim breast user. The only ones who might know are the prim breast makers themselves, Linden Lab if they had the urge to monitor what prim breasts people have attached at any given time--and I'm guessing they have other priorities :)--and, perhaps less accurately, clothiers who cater to prim breasts.

All that said, the interview, with Tayla Arado, lets Ms. Arado give her opinions of the aforementioned triumvirate (triumfeminarate?), what she'd like to see in prim breast-friendly fashions, and why women should take consider prim breasts.

Speaking of Tayla Arado, Ms. Vella kindly links to Ms. Arado's blog, Modern Lady: Fashion for Breasts. I must mention that much of the imagery on Modern Lady is very much NSFW. That said, it shows some fashions that I have not seen elsewhere, and any new (to me, if nobody else!) source of information is good. Check it out... somewhere safe.

Must-read from New World Notes: Animated Mesh Heads

I don't use Second Life facial expressions much. They remind me of the scene on ST:TNG in which Data tries to smile. (Darn; can't find the clip.)

Perhaps that will change someday, though. You should head right over to New World Notes and read "Animated Mesh Heads May Be the Expressive Face of Tomorrow's SL Avatar", and above all, watch the videos! Shirousagi Noel of Snow Rabbit has done some amazing work.

To be sure, there's the problem of customization--will people choose a face that is theirs, the result of slider tweaking to one's satisfaction, or one that is beautifully expressive but, modulo skin tones and hair and eye color, looks just like all the other beautifully expressive faces? Fix that problem, and Second Life will be that much more immersive.

RIP Thom Dowd

Thom Dowd, who did a great deal to promote and perform early music in Second Life, has lost his battle with cancer. Please keep his family in your thoughts and prayers.

Moving towards the mainstream?

I was wandering around on SLUniverse, and found a thread that surprised me greatly: "Where Did You Get Those Boobs?"

The original poster was curious about them, but here's what caught my eye:

I'd been out of SL for about two months, and rarely reading any fashion blogs or feeds, but while I was gone something very strange happened.

Everyone got boobs.

I don't know if they are prim, or mesh, or part of clothing, it's really hard to tell but a lot of feeds, blogs, and particularly avatars in world have them.

The original poster was honestly curious, and the responses mostly straightforward. A post of

Behind every set of prim "ta-tas" there is a over sexed [sic] male at the keyboard. That is my theory and I'm sticking too [sic] it.

got responses from people who either cited themselves as counterexamples or simply disagreed. Many pointed out the superior shape of prim/mesh breasts compared with those of the stock avatar.

The whole thread is well worth reading; they get into mesh avatar questions and some of the issues that are familiar to any prim breast user.

I will see if I can find out which feeds and blogs the original poster was referring to. If there are portions of the SL busty community I'm not familiar with, then there are more of us than I thought, and that's a reason to celebrate. That and the relative lack of snark and mockery gives me hope.

Layers

I'm behind on multiple attachments, I must admit. If you look in the Knowledge Base, you'll see an article about the feature from February 2011. I started taking advantage of it a few months later. I am happy with the results:

• No more having to wrangle necklaces into spine-relative positioning!
• I can be a well-endowed fairy with jewelry! (yay!)
• I can layer textures!

At the moment, I seem to use the last one the most. I set down the details here to fix them in my mind and just in case there's someone who hasn't taken advantage of the ability.

The thing to notice is an additional option in the menu for items in your inventory. There's not just "Wear" now; there's also "Add".

"Wear" works as always. If you "wear" something, it replaces whatever was already there.

If you "Add" something, it goes on in addition to what is already there, so that is how to get multiple attachments.

For clothing textures, order is important. The last "add"-ed item is on top. An example: I wanted to wear Bad Kitty's gorgeous burgundy cheongsam, but it's quite short! What to wear with it? Stockings, of course. For a while I had a habit of wearing Rufeena's "Temptation", but by themselves they're still rather revealing. So, add some other translucent stockings:

Perhaps a better picture is from an extremely bright English sim--it makes the effect easier to see.

Of course, there are other uses: freckles and makeup can coexist separately from the skin.

P.S. Thanks to the Emerald developers. Had they not implemented a multiple attachment feature, idiosyncratic as it was, I suspect we'd never have seen it in an LL client.

Steam for Linux starts to pay off...

From MarketWatch, the following, which I'll let Blogger preserve the text size etc. from the copy/paste for once because it's good news!

NVIDIA Delivers Massive Performance Boost to Linux Gaming

New GeForce Drivers Optimized for Linux Double Frame Rates, Reduce Game Loading Times

From the article:

The result of almost a year of development by NVIDIA, Valve and other game developers, the new GeForce R310 drivers are designed to give GeForce customers the best possible Linux-based PC gaming experience -- and showcase the enormous potential of the world's biggest open-source operating system.
Available for download at www.geforce.com, the new R310 drivers were also thoroughly tested with Steam for Linux, the extension of Valve's phenomenally popular Steam gaming platform that officially opened to gamers starting today.

Thank you, Valve, and to everyone involved. I am looking around for the drivers; the geforce.com site drivers page isn't being very helpful at the moment. More news as it happens.

"Help me get my feet back on the ground..."

So now in the post-invisiprim shoe world, you put on the "shoe" which often seems to be there mostly to distort your feet appropriately for the shoe, attach prims that show most of the real appearance of the shoe, and then wear an alpha layer that hides part of or all of your foot (and maybe your ankle as well). The results are beautiful...

...and, if you look too closely or from a low POV, they wreck verisimilitude, because you'll see yourself hovering above the ground. At least I do.

Am I doing something wrong, or forgetting something? Please let me know in comments!

Must-read from Thin and Curvy

"Just Who Makes These Rules, Anyway?" discusses the "rules" that should supposedly guide one in making or choosing tops for busty women, e.g.

• no patterns
• no lace
• no ruffles
• no high necklines
• no low necklines
• etc.

and suggests that you choose clothing instead based on what makes you feel good about your body.

In the process Brittany, the blog's author, says something I wholeheartedly agree with: "Taken to its logical extreme, what ['fashion experts'] are really suggesting is that our breasts are so shocking, and so mutant, and so inherently, overtly sexual, that we need to draw as little attention to them, and to ourselves, as humanly possible." Goodness knows that is consistent with the experiences of the SL busty community.

I am yet again grateful for the creative people who make prim breasts and clothing for them, and I hope that they will continue to ignore those "rules".

In Memoriam

Remembering Abbie Jinx. Please keep her, her family, and her partner Tilly Putzo in your thoughts and prayers.

Batten down the hatches!

Cheyenne is, as I type, in New York with Sweetie. Most days I would just do a happy dance and mentally wish them well upon hearing that, but this is not most days:

Please take care, you two!

Clouds have gathered over Whimsy as well. At first little puffballs of gray clouds appeared, almost Bob Rossian (Be sure to check today's Google doodle!)...

but then they darkened...

and with the night the thunderstorm came...

...and it came very close indeed.

Everyone in Sandy's path, please take care (don't be like me :)), and be prepared to evacuate if need be. You're in our thoughts.

Thanks, Abbie

Abbie Jinx is closing down the Jinxed store on October 31st, though her products will still be available on the SL Marketplace. (Between now and then, the vendors in her main store will offer a 50% discount to Jinxed group members.)

Thank you, Abbie, for your beautiful clothing and for the work you have put into it. I hope that the circumstances that keep you from devoting time to the store are happy ones, and I hope that you'll continue to spend some time in SL.

As a reminder of the wonderful work Abbie does, here's a photo featuring her "Siena" dress:

You've Been Owned

(UPDATE: The banner's gone now, but I hope you will still visit youvebeenowned.com and take action.)

What's that banner at top right, you ask?

I'm glad you asked.

There's a case, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, coming before the Supreme Court. It will be heard on Monday, October 29. The court will either agree with lower courts or disagree. If they agree, it will put an enormous crimp in the Doctrine of First Sale, the notion that once you've bought something, you can sell it, lend it, or give it to someone else if you wish.

Wiley & Sons is a book publisher. They publish cheap editions of their books for sale outside the US. Mr. Kirtsaeng noticed this, and set up a business in which he had relatives buy the cheap editions outside the US and send them to him in the US, where he could sell them for less than the expensive books Wiley publishes to sell in the US cost and turn a profit.

Wiley wants, and so far the lower courts have agreed, that Mr. Kirtsaeng shouldn't be able to do that, i.e. that the Doctrine of First Sale should not apply to copyrighted items made abroad.

That's quite a lot of stuff these days. Thinking about holding a garage sale and selling your used computer hardware, or your old iPod? (Or are you thinking of giving it to Goodwill to sell?) If Wiley & Sons get their way, you (or Goodwill) won't necessarily be able to. Remember Garth Brooks getting his knickers in a knot over people selling his CDs used? If the Supreme Court decides for Wiley & Sons, all musicians will have to do is get their work copyrighted and CDs pressed outside the US, and Garth can get his wish.

Please head over to youvebeenowned.org and learn more about the case and its possible consequences.

The Fontconfig Affair

(Sorry, I had a flashback to the days of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.)

For those of us who use Linux, there's a library called "fontconfig" that has changed in a way that breaks Second Life clients.

The version in question, 2.9.0, is present in the recently-released Ubuntu 12.10, so I suspect that many more are tripping over the problem now.

Third-party viewers are proving quicker to respond to the issue than LL. The upcoming Firestorm 4.3 will not have the problem. In the meantime, the fix from thickbrick.sleaford in the Firestorm JIRA page for the problem works.

Serendipity

Second Life is a wonderful place to take pictures. The creativity of builders, animators, and residents means there is always somewhere new and amazing. (And if you want pointers to such places, they are easily available. Look at Second Life residents' flickr or Picasa galleries, and at blogs that feature such photos. Dorka Barzane's Caminante de Sueños is a great place to start.)

Once you've found a place, Second Life gives you an advantage over RL: you control the skies. Create your own Windlight settings or find some created by others that you can use. Some Second Life clients come preloaded with a batch of them.

I have 453 pictures up on flickr as I type--I've taken more, but I don't put everything on flickr. Some aren't up to snuff, or are experiments with slightly different point of view or pose or whatever, so there's no point.

I'm not a great photographer. I'm no Maggie Bluxome or Whisky Monday... but once in a while, I happen upon a combination of location, lighting, and, if it's not a landscape, pose and clothing, that works. It happened this morning, I'm happy to say. The results are above.

It's a good time to take pictures in Second Life, and I hope that the mapping happens soon so it will be even better. (And could we bring back global illumination, please? *bats eyelashes*) The depth of field means that you can use still more techniques that photon wranglers :)--er, real life photographers--use, like bokeh or intentional shallow depth of field to keep the emphasis on a subject. There are tutorials, and many of the principles, e.g. composition and lighting, are the same in SL and RL... so if you haven't dared before, give it a try.

Gaming for Good

Sorry about the short notice, but I just found out about Extra Life. It's a gaming marathon taking place today in support of the Children's Miracle Network. Teams select a hospital they wish to help, ask for sponsors who will donate to the cause, and then they game.

Check it out, and participate if you're so inclined by creating or joining a team. (If you choose to game, please take the advice on the site's safety notice page!) If you aren't up for marathon gaming, then consider supporting a team, such as, for example, the CBT Tankers.

For once, I will have to actually say something good about the G4 network: they are supporting Extra Life, and live streaming a sort of online telethon. Well done.

Ubuntu 12.10 is here

I'm not sure why the countdown graphic isn't updated (UPDATE: it is now!), but Ubuntu 12.10 is available. I've upgraded to it, and so far, it's very nice. If you've always wondered about Linux, check it out. If you are a Windows user, you can try it out via Wubi without even having to repartition your hard drive, and if you don't like it, you can uninstall it via the Windows interface for deleting programs that you're familiar with.

For your reading enjoyment and convenience...

Maggie Bluxome of Busted magazine has put together a document that has all three parts of Angel Eulenberg's fascinating "No Fake Tits in Gor" in one spot. If you're a Busted subscriber, you know this (and you have it already). If you aren't, first I urge you to consider becoming one, but also, I have it, and will happily send you a copy ASAP if you wish. I have the knob twisted to get IMs via email, but I have still at times seen the "Too many messages", so email me at mel_yeuxdoux@yahoo.com if need be (or even if that's just more convenient).

It's Not Just for Minoans...

From a University of Warwick press release:

Historian Angela McShane Jones from the University of Warwick said: “In the 1600s it was fairly commonplace for women to bare their breasts in public. The fashions were initiated by court members and Queens, then replicated by ordinary women, and common prostitutes. 17th century fashion, rather than demeaning women, could be empowering. The extremely low cut dresses were designed to encourage men to look but not to touch. They empowered some women to use their sexuality.”

For more information, check out McShane-Jones's article "Revealing Mary" (History Today, v. 54 issue 3).

Countdown to Ubuntu 12.10

Shame on me; I didn't notice that the Ubuntu image had switched to the countdown for 12.10, or to use its codename, "Quantal Quetzal". The second beta is out, so I should have realized.

What's new, you ask? Quite a bit--best visit the 12.10 Beta 2 Ubuntu Wiki page for details. There are changes to X and the proprietary nVidia driver (the latter of particular interest to those of you running with multiple monitors).

Eight days to go... at least as I type this.

80's Flashback

I went shopping today and stopped at Gatherings, where I bought a few items, including the "Women in Black" outfit that one can wear either with a skirt or with slacks. I put it on, had an 80's flashback, and knew what I had to do.

I bought gloves and a cane. I put on just the base that came with a red hairdo, and bought some tattoo layer lipstick/eyeshadow, and headed for an office furniture store.

I will have to look for the right gesture to do it up right, but here's the best I managed--and, believe it or not, as I took the picture, the store's audio stream had started playing Eurhythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)":

Fashion for a Good Cause: Perfectly Pink Latex Ensemble

Kayliwulf Kingdom has created a lovely pink latex ensemble that it has for sale... and all profits from such sales will benefit the National Breast Cancer Foundation. (And I would hope that, especially if you regularly read this blog, this is a cause near and dear to your heart.)

The outfit includes a skirt, a bra and an underbra, a thong, and wonderful fuzzy sandals and gloves. Were I not a shy sort, I'd happily wear it. Photo after the break; it is definitely NSFW. Give it a look, and thanks to Kayliwulf Kingdom for creating this ensemble and supporting NBCF.

This is the sort of thing...

...that makes you forget all the drama and flakiness and brouhaha and be happy that SL exists.

"ThankyouSL" at Shopping Cart Disco. Go read it, and see if you don't find yourself smiling.

P.S. Thanks to Hamlet Au for pointing the post out; I'd not have seen it otherwise.

The new Busted is here!

The new Busted is out... and as always, it's well worth your perusal.

You know by now to expect impeccable photos of gorgeous models, and indeed, they're there. The theme is science fiction, and if you're like me you will be seeking out the places where the outfits they wear can be found.

There's part two of Cindy Melglund and Whimsy Warrhol's series on creating a well-proportioned shape. If you are less than fully satisfied with your shape, you want to read both parts!

(And speaking of proportions, here's a plea I will repeat in a letter to the editor: please, Ms. Melglund and Ms. Warrhol, write the analogous article or articles on shaping one's head. I am happier having moved away from the heart-shaped head I started out with, but think I could improve a bit more if I worked at it, and I'd greatly appreciate advice from such knowledgeable folks as you two!)

Zarah Undercroft writes more about putting together outfits for the busty figure... and in passing has greatly heartened me about my shoe inventory. Invisiprims were once the state of the art for shoes--but now it's alpha layers, and current SL clients don't deal with invisiprims as they once did, with the result that the foot parts the invisiprims are meant to hide flash in and out of view as your point of view changes. I've been hoping there's a way to make those old shoes usable in the new regime, and apparently, if the shoes are editable, it is possible. Thank you, Ms. Undercroft, and I'm off to check my inventory to see which old shoes are editable.