Socially|Mundane

As the article states: 'eat your heart out, Luke Skywalker.' A new technology in headsets will allow people to game and otherwise use the computer and control certain aspect by thought. Anyone remember the old movie "Firefox"? [Gawd I love that movie!]

In the movie, the pilot of a top-secret Russian jet was exponentially more deadly because of the though controls, accomplished through sensors in the helmet. The pilot only needed to think "fire missiles" and away they went, tracking the target the pilot was thinking of. Well, it seems such a pilot helmet is not too far-off. An article in USA Today highlights a new product that does htis:

And in a preview of possible future applications, EPOC's ability to both read an emotional state and transfer facial gestures — a smile, a wink — from a player to its on-screen character also makes it a natural for virtual-world games such as Second Life, says Le.

"Emotiv's elegant, lightweight EPOC headset is a piece of cutting-edge technology that grants Yoda-like telepathic powers, allowing players of computer games to move items on screen with merely their thoughts. Due for release by year's end, the $299 device will come bundled with an adventure game in which players complete tasks for an Asian sensei."

So, how can this device apply to Second Life? Well, the closing statement of the article makes it pretty clear: To me able to visually emote by animating your face on screen, such as frowns, smiles, winks and blinks and so on. Though, such a headset might be a bit overpriced and overkill for such simple animated emotes in Second Life, it might be on your Christmas list of you also are a gamer with other genres...

Source: USA Today

It's no secret by now that Second Life, with all it's frustrating problems of stability and bugs, and all the seedier side of things, such as cybersex and griefers, also is a great place where real good things can happen.

We've heard about how corporations are using the virtual space as a way to cut costs and make meetings and collaboration far more efficient than is can be in the real world. How educators are using it for experiments, educational curriculum and even as long-distance learning centers. and then there are those whose real lives can be changed in a positive way through their virtual lives.

I personally know of a couple people who, in real life dread going into public for a couple reasons. One of whom was in a car accident a couple years ago and is unable even to speak or move around easily, find that Second Life allows her to be 'normal and beautiful' again.

We've also read stories about how the psychological affects of SL can be 'damaging' to many and, yet highly positive to others.

CNN.com has a great story of the latter. Featuring a few residents, the story centers around how Second Life is being used to help those within the autistic spectrum and their families.

"For people with autism, we've found it's a very nice way of setting up situations they might come across in their everyday lives," Bignell said. "For people who have social, emotional, communicational problems ... we can get them familiar with an environment before they actually try it out in real life."

iReport: 'Naughty Auties' battle autism with virtual interaction - CNN.com

Tags: SecondLife, SL, CNN, Autism, Awesome

Unlikely.

At least, we're a little closer, thanks to Jeska Linden and her timely blog post.

Now - where are all the residents who complain about Torley posting tutorials when only posts about the grid's stability should matter? Will they chastise Jeska for this 'irrelevant' post, too?

What will no-doubt be one of the more popular and most visited posts on the Second Life™ blog, Jeska Linden reveals tips that will help merchant and other residents improve their search rankings. However, the post makes it seem somewhat as though the Lindens, or at least most other than the engineers and developers, are still a bit in the guessing stage.

Either way, this blog post is timely, if late, and will no doubt start the frenzy of activity as resident merchants frantically work to implement these tips

"Over the last few months, we’ve compiled some of the best practice tips and guidelines to help improve the relevance and search ranking for your classified ads, parcel listings, object descriptions, profiles, etc."

Tips to Improve Your Search Ranking « Official Second Life Blog

Tags: SecondLife, SL, Classifieds, Search, Ranking, Selling, buying, Commerce, Commercial, Merchant, Awesome

Our wonderfully cheerful Second Life friend Torley Linden posted more tutorials this morning, subject: voice controls. Unfortunately, the gripers and voice-haters come out of the woodwork again. In all the blog talkbacks, 90% of the 'squeaky wheels' dump on Torley and anyone who tries to speak any reasoning to them. Of course, it's the loud minority that gets all the attention. So be it.

Of the few talkbacks that try to speak some reason - whether it's the fact that the voice abilities in Second Life have hardly any load or bearing on how SL itself operates - the 'voice-haters' still insist forcing their ideas down everyone else's throat. Simply because they don't want to be found out they are really a guy playing a girl in SL - in secret.

Or some other secretive reason they desperately don't want others to know about.

What other reasonable, plausible cause would they have for their vile hatred of a pretty simple, and incredibly useful technology? And they always find a way to justify their hatred: "Sl is unstable and voice is the cause" or "fix SL instead of putting features" and so on.

Okay - if that's the case... and voice as a feature is hosing the Grid - then let's remove the voice feature from Second Life.

While we're at it, let's follow another suggestion made in the talkbacks: Let's remove all "flexi" (flexible prims) capability. But why stop there?

Let us also remove all particle effects, too. Those can cause huge lag in a crowded area where they might be overused. Oh, wait - all 'networked' vending machines should be abolished as well. Come to think of it, since we are talking about the grid's performance issues - I think all textures and screenshots uploaded should automatically be limited and resized to 128 by 129 pixels in size.

Oh, but wait... water should not be animated and the particle clouds used in the currently 'traditional' viewer (as opposed to WindLight) should be abolished, too. Oh, and WindLight itself should not be introduced. In fact - scripted prim attachments should also be abolished. After all, those "MultiGadgets" can kill a sim if you get more than two or three on the same sim together. So... no more scripted HUDs, please!

In fact, let's also just remove all scripted objects completely.

OH! I almost forgot... if you get more than say six or seven people in the same location - especially on the mainland - grid performance and stability (from these individuals' perspectives) drops drastically low. It's horrible!

So let is also abolish all avatars. No more avatars to clog the system performance! There! That will solve everything! Someone please put this suggestion into the Public JIRA, quick!

In fact - it's the easiest solution of all: remove all avatars and you won't have to bother with removing all those other features that cause grid instability I suggested above.

The grid would be ridiculously stable then, wouldn't it? It doesn't matter how popular all these 'features' are. The important thing is that grid instability is vastly unpopular. And since all these things combined are the cause of it - they should all be abolished!

So... among all the talkbacks - DaQbet put it most eloquently:

DaQbet Kish Says: "Obviously Im parroting what I see as nothing more then speculation offered up as fact. After a almost a year of reminding people that Voice is a choice and that many things can cause lag the voice haters still cant resist attacking anyone who dares to mention Voice and Second Life in the same sentence. Why no lashing out at Troley’s many other helpful tutorials other then to take cheep shots when ever the opportunity arises. Ill comment no further. And once again thank you Torley for your efforts."

So - all you voice-haters: just turn it off and nevermind. Stop forcing your ideas and 'solutions' down everyone elses throats and keep to yourself.

All you bling-haters, turn it off in your viewer and nevermind. See above.
All you particle-haters: turn it off and nevermind. See above.

All you script-haters: turn around and walk the other way. I don't see how you can turn those off!

Source: Second Life Web Log

Our wonderfully cheerful Second Life friend Torley Linden posted more tutorials this morning, subject: voice controls. Unfortunately, the gripers and voice-haters come out of the woodwork again. In all the blog talkbacks, 90% of the 'squeaky wheels' dump on Torley and anyone who tries to speak any reasoning to them. Of course, it's the loud minority that gets all the attention. So be it.

Of the few talkbacks that try to speak some reason - whether it's the fact that the voice abilities in Second Life have hardly any load or bearing on how SL itself operates - the 'voice-haters' still insist forcing their ideas down everyone else's throat. Simply because they don't want to be found out they are really a guy playing a girl in SL - in secret.

Or some other secretive reason they desperately don't want others to know about.

What other reasonable, plausible cause would they have for their vile hatred of a pretty simple, and incredibly useful technology? And they always find a way to justify their hatred: "Sl is unstable and voice is the cause" or "fix SL instead of putting features" and so on.

Okay - if that's the case... and voice as a feature is hosing the Grid - then let's remove the voice feature from Second Life.

While we're at it, let's follow another suggestion made in the talkbacks: Let's remove all "flexi" (felxible prims) capability. But why stop there?

Let us also remove all particle effects, too. Those can cause huge lag in a crowded area where they might be overused. Oh, wait - all 'networked' vending machines should be abolished as well. Come to think of it, since we are talking about the grid's performance issues - I think all textures and screenshots uploaded should automatically be limited and resized to 128 by 129 pixels in size.

Oh, but wait... water should not be animated and the particle clouds used in the currently 'traditional' viewer (as opposed to WindLight) should be abolished, too. Oh, and WindLight itself should not be introduced. In fact - scripted prim attachments should also be abolished. After all, those "MultiGadgets" can kill a sim if you get more than two or three on the same sim together. So... no more scripted HUDs, please!

In fact, let's also just remove all scripted objects completely.

OH! I almost forgot... if you get more than say six or seven people in the same location - especially on the mainland - grid performance and stability (from these individuals' perspectives) drops drastically low. It's horrible!

So let is also abolish all avatars. No more avatars to clog the system performance! There! That will solve everything! Someone please put this suggestion into the Public JIRA, quick!

In fact - it's the easiest solution of all: remove all avatars and you won't have to bother with removing all those other features that cause grid instability I suggested above.

The grid would be ridiculously stable then, wouldn't it? It doesn't matter how popular all these 'features' are. The important thing is that grid instability is vastly unpopular. And since all these things combined are the cause of it - they should all be abolished!

So... among all the talkbacks - DaQbet put it most eloquently:

DaQbet Kish Says:
"Obviously Im parroting what I see as nothing more then speculation offered up as fact. After a almost a year of reminding people that Voice is a choice and that many things can cause lag the voice haters still cant resist attacking anyone who dares to mention Voice and Second Life in the same sentence. Why no lashing out at Troley’s many other helpful tutorials other then to take cheep shots when ever the opportunity arises. Ill comment no further. And once again thank you Torley for your efforts."

So - all you voice-haters: just turn it off and nevermind. Stop forcing your ideas and 'solutions' down everyone elses throats and keep to yourself.

All you bling-haters, turn it off in your viewer and nevermind. See above.
All you particle-haters: turn it off and nevermind. See above.

All you script-haters: turn around and walk the other way. I don't see how you can turn those off!

View the blog post here:
Can you hear me now? 7 VOICE CHAT Video Tutorials! « Official Second Life Blog

Tags: SecondLife, SL, Voice, Torley, Linden Lab, Whiners, DaQbet Kish, SL Feature, SL Grid

I think it is about time.
There have been a lot inquiries to Linden Lab about getting a hold of the Second Life logo for use in or out of world. So this new logo program is a good idea and, no doubt, it wasn't invented yesterday. These things take a lot of time to prepare and build, long before such an announcement.

So, do you plan to sign-up? I do. Though, I do have reservations about the claim to trademark over the initials "S" and "L" - whether it's used in context with Second Life or not.

And yes, I stole their banner right off their page! But i have 90-days to apply and make myself legal. >:)

Though I am still laughing really, really hard at all the childish replies on the blog post.

could also use the inSL logo in marketing materials, on your website, on your letterhead, in conference materials, in presentation slides, on promotional items, on product packaging, and in other areas where you wish to promote your contributions to the Second Life world.

Second Life | The Second Life® Brand Center

Blog post here: http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/03/24/introducing-the-second-life-brand-center/

A. D. Laboratory has a great thread posted on their site. Holy wowzers - the crass boldness of some thieves is astonishing. What I really want to know is: how did 'she' react when she was called-out in the open to be a bald-faced thief and liar?

Okay - so here's a quote of a quote from the site [names removed in respect, and from me it's just hearsay, so I implore you to go over there and read this article - link at the end of my rant - quotes are [sic]]:

[21:23] [Original creator]: i changed the price to $0
[21:23] [Original crator]: can you get a free copy?
[21:24] [Alleged thief]: i dont want a copy of shit i have in my inventory .. thiose legwarmers are a STRAIGHT UP RIP!

Woohoo!

Okay - you really have to read the article to understand the 'woohoo' part.

Now my take on all this copybot nonsense:
Okay - it's not all nonsense, but it comes close. Copybot itself is not 'nonesense', but I feel the overhyped reactio to it is, or at least mostly is. Back in summer, 2006, copybot found its way into the wild. The entire grid went stupid.

What I mean to say is - it was worse than someone shouting "fire!" in a crowded theatre. The panic was insane and everyone went nuts. As it turns out, most of it was hype.

A quickie background: Second Life was a lot more unstable then than it is now. People were panicking that the grid could not handle 10,000 concurrency and simultaneous population in-world was quickly approaching that number. At 8500, the grid would creak and groan and it was a nightmare.

Creators feared losing their creations. Some enterprising residents discovered a way to 'rip' in-world content and back it up to your local hard disk drive. The concept is pretty simple: if it is drawn on your screen, it can be 'captured' and saved.

However, the side effect was that it would copy everything you see, whether it was yours or not. Hence 'copybot' was born. The panic was crazy. Entire sims were locked down, not allowing access to anyone for shopping or anything else. And there were these 'speaking' scripts that did nothing more than annoy the hell out of everyone around - and were totally defunt - it doesn't work. Some of them even still exist ("Copybot killer...Ignore me - STOP!" or some such nonsense.)

As it turns out, the original copybot could only copy prims. Not scripts or contents inside or anything like that. It was an over-hyped 'threat'. Now, along comes "copybot 2," supposedly this thing is far superior and much more powerful, apparently able to 'rip' complete duplicates of avatars, including the outfit and attachments worn.

Pardon me for a second: [YAWN].

Perhaps this is true. Perhaps it's completely bogus. perhaps it's a hoax.
I suspect it's true at least to some degree with the capabilities of at least the original copybot.
So why all the hype? If you are a creator, what makes you think you are so special and that your creations are so good that anyone who has this thing, with it's supposed capabilities would even be interested in paying any attention to you or your creations?

And... even if they did - SL is a big place.
I'm not saying "don't worry about it" or "just ignore it", but the fact of the matter is that plagiarism happens millions of times a day in real life, it certainly will happen inside SL, too. The best you can hope for is that anyone who has this thing will be more interested in other stuff beside yours and that the capabilities of this 'tool' are overblown and highly exaggerated.

The other tool (yes, a real tool) is the subject of the article over at A. D. Laboratory: a "prim duplicator" - A.K.A. "Prim Replicator". It doesn't matter what you call it, it does the same thing. A script is placed into the root and all linked prims of an object, then that object is duplicated via a 'master' script.

There are articles and shrill panic over these prim duplicators. And all for naught.
Many uninformed, uneducated will refer to a prim duplicator as a "copybot" when it's not, and could never be.

First, the permissions system Linden Lab has built into SL works quite well with regard to prim duplicators. You see, you must have modify permissions on all the prims you want to duplicate. Why? Simple - the prim cannot be duplicated unless the duplicating 'child' script can be placed inside the prim.

So, if I have a prefab building all linked together, and parts of it are no-modify, and I attempt to copy it using a prim duplicator - only those parts that and modify will be copied. Anything inside any prims will not be copied, except for "documents" - meaning modify-enabled scripts, notecards and landmarks. Nothing else.

I know because when the news of these hit the blogosphere, I went out and bought one. I tested it vigorously and have found that you really must have modify permissions to copy anything and ending up with a copy worth doing anything with.

Yes, this can be a problem for the creator of anything you have in your inventory that is modifiable.

This presents a concern for fashionistas and the the hair/clothing/avatar-attachment world. The reason being that many prim attachments are offered as modifiable, so to allow the purchaser to be able to adjust a good fit to their avatar - whose shape and size are highly customizable.

So, what can they do? Not much.
I do offer one solution, it's not perfect but would solve the problem: sell your wares as no-modify and place a resizing script into them. These scripts have existed for a very long time. Avilion has been using them in their cloaks since I can remember. And, these scripts are available at little cost at Onrez.com and the other place, too. [Okay, I'll say their name: SL Exchange - but, it's no secret I am not a fan.]

This of course is not as intuitive or as comfortable to use for the purchaser as being able to just edit the prim as desired for a good fit.

So the question comes to be: where is the balance?

Do you lock everything down as tight as you can in paranoia, causing your own customers to suffer because of it? Or, do you leave that openness in permissions with the risk some idiot will come along and plagiarize your long, hard work and creativity?

For me: it's the latter.

As I've said - Second Life is a big place. Even if my creations did get plagiarized and are being resold by thieves, I might lose some sales. I could file a DMCA and deal with that nightmarish headache. Or I can do what I fully intend to do, should such a thing happen: make it known and clear to as many people as possible.

Blog about it, send the news (with names and places and pictures) all through the SL blogosphere, and place notices all over the place: in my store, on all my land parcels, at my OnRez and the Other website descriptions and so on. Call them out publicly and call for a boycott.

But be prepared to prove your case.

The side effect of plagiarism: it will cause me to work more at creating new stuff and if I create a good replacement, I might even consider making the stolen design a freebie. Of course, skin and other "one-time-customer" designers really couldn't do that.

The problem is: there is no real answer.
Anywhere and everywhere in business, there is risk.

But, when you find you are being accosted, business-wise - do anything and everything you can to call them out in public and make it known to as much of the SL-world as possible.

As for prim replicators? I actually find it to be an invaluable tool that I use weekly with regard to my own creations. But I build furniture, so it is suited well to that kind of work. As for the other stuff... I can only shake my head.

And do remember this: if someone wants to hurt you and rocks are outlawed, they simply pick-up a stick. So the problem isn't the tool they use. It's their whole mindset. For instance: no one needs a prim duplicator to duplicate your prim creations. it they are modifiable, they can easily edit each piece and write down all the numbers that are found there: size, position, rotation.

A prim duplicator only automates this process.
So, if there are calls to ban prim duplicators (and there are) - then let us ban the ability to reedit prims by forever hiding all those numbers as soon as that object is taken into inventory of the creator. People kill people with hammers. So should we ban hammers and outlaw them in real life?

Now, go read this posting at A. D. Laboratory - it really is a must-read.

Tags: SecondLife, SL, copybot, creator, commercial, selling, buying, plagiarism, thief, A. D. Laboratory, prim duplicators, awesome

Prokofy Neva noticed what many of us did and wrote a great article over at the SL Herald about the 26th group Concierge clients of Linden Lab received.

Now, love her or hate her, it's a good article. Finally, she writes for them again as, in my mind, their stories are ridiculously amateurish and intentionally written to cause friction and sensationalism. So are many of Prok's writings. But at least Prok can write.

I am not a Linden lover. But I do respect them and the gargantuan task they have, a delicate balancing act in many of what they do. Constantly being beaten up by the whiners and 'better-than-thou' crowds, especially in the blogs, and definitely in their own Second life blog.

Here is an excerpt of what she wrote in that article:

The first thing they did was make this the 26th group. 26th! How can you have 26 groups!!! In every office hour, on every JIRA comment, at every real-life meet up in the back of the bar, the Lindens have told us that we can never never never ever never ever ever ever never have more than 25 groups. Because. It would be too many calls to the data base. Yet...here they made one at the drop of a party hat.

Linden Lab is ridiculously transparent is what they do. But they also are not.
There has been shrill screaming about the 25 group limit for the longest time.

I understand why many want more groups. My stand on it is "deal with it." If they raise the limit to 50, you'll want 100. They raise it to 100, you'll want 150. The limit has to be placed somewhere.

Now, I said they are transparent. Just read the SL blog every day - you'll get more information than any other 'media' company is willing to divulge in terms of communicating directly with you or about internal workings.

But also they aren't. They don't divulge everything... either by choice or simply by not thinking of it. For instance: when people asked for some kind of "back" link after a teleport. It's here now and it just appeared out of nowhere.

Many other requests and 'shines' have been answered this way.

As for the 25 group limit - and I have no inside knowledge about anything and Linden Lab - it was explained that there are technical issues. Knowing intimately how computers and databases work, I concur. However, for the concierge party this last weekend, the Lindens decided to create a group for the purpose of access to the party sims... and, I think, as an experiment.

First, there was no invitation to the group. If you are a concierge member, you simply logged-in one day and found yourself to be a member. So, this was handled at the back-end.

For some (many?) it turns out this was the 26th group they are now member of.

it also is the largest... an unheard of number of people in the group. Prok counted 6727 people. On the day of the party, I counted almost 7300. I believe Linden Lab is considering the request to raise the group limit seriously, but not making that public knowledge.

I believe if they can do it, they will. And this was some grand experiment. To see just what the load on the system might be, how well communications in the group would go and so on. Pokofy even reported that a vote proposal took ten minutes to finally appear after being sent.

And that's with only 7300 peopl in the group. Okay - so that's a lot of people in one group. But how did the back-end handle it? I don't think we will publicly know. But I'm sure the lindens were watching... and taking notes.

if the group limit is raised, that could mean exponentially more groups and group communication... and load on the back-end. So, I suspect this was, partially at least, a test of sorts... to see just what would happen. If not intentionally a test, definitely something they kept an eye on as a 'side benefit'.

Go read the article and gain two things: first, see that someone at the Herald actually can write, and on a good, interesting subject. And two: see the rhetoric that follows, which is why if you love the "Star" and "National Enquirer" type of tabloids, you'll love the SL Herald.

Second Life Herald: Tier Nation: The 26th Group

Tags: SecondLife, SL, Group Limits, Prokofy Neva, Linden Lab, Concierge

"No payment info on file" - finally! Being a premium user or, at the very least, having payment information on file finally has it's benefits, and damned good ones they are:

Tateru Nino of MASSIVELY reports:
"Sharp-eyed Wildefire Walcott has spotted (and we've spent the last few hours checking and verifying it across a number of accounts) that the profiles of Second Life accounts that have no payment information on file are excluded from the new Linden Lab search system."

I've been using Linden Lab's web search for several months now, and I never could quite figure why it either never displayed certain people in the results, or it would display their name, but you have to be in-world to view their profile. Finally, someone has put two-and-two together and found the real answer!

Now this is great news.
In my view, anyway.
I use a bot, too.
One, sole, single, lonely-old bot.
In fact, you can look at his profile: Blackthorne Destiny.

I don't know if he'll show-up in in-world search, but when you find him you'll notice something you won't see on most other bots: He is an enigma, a blank, a complete mystery.

Okay, maybe not a mystery.

But one thing will be absolutely clear: he's not being used to 'game the system'.
You will notice everything is completely blank, except for two groups. His whole lot in life is simply to manage those two groups. By using LSL scripting, I am able to allow the parcel owners on my sim to manage their own participation and invite a limited number of others into the sim's 'owners' group, allowing they and their friends and guests to access to the play toys in the community area - paddle boats, jet skis and so on.

He also automatically invites purchasers of my products into my support group. When you purchase one of my products, (see links on the page to my OnRez store [shameless plug, but why not?],) you automatically will be invited into my product support group the first time you rez it in-world.

This makes management easier for me. So, there really are notable and honorable uses for bots. The one side benefit I get is that he adds a teeny bit of traffic to my parcel because he sits quietly all day monitoring my vendor and rental servers. Poor guy, sitting without complaint in that hot, stuffy server room.

My point is that I don't use a bot to try gaining some unfair advantage. I use my bot to simply automate what would be long, tedious work in managing my groups, by adding new users to my product support group and adding and removing people from my sim owners' group - when and if I am notified there is a change (pretty rare that I ever am, actually.)

So, I love this paradigm. I love the way the new search is working. It makes it damned harder, if not near impossible to 'game' the system for search optimization. For example, the search engine looks at many things including, but likely not limited to the number of people who have your parcel listed in their Profile Picks, the amount of traffic to your Parcel, the number of direct teleports? The amount you pay for your classified advertising?

I put question marks on the last two because I suspect they play into it, but I'm not really sure. Just as the Google formula is a tightly-help secret, so it the Linden Lab formula - and on top of that, they are using Google hardware - so let's just dounle-up the formula complexity.

The point is this: all those people gaming the system with dummy bots, building traffic, putting their parcel into each bot's Profile Picks multiple times over, even paying real people to host in their own profile picks... all a waste of time, energy and resources.

By including and weighting the search results based on those people who are premium account holders ("payment info used") or who are not premium account holders, but have a credit card or PayPal set in their account ("payment info on file") simply evens the playing field and creates a fair, balanced environment regarding business in Second Life and marketing that business.

So - I certainly hope Linden Lab keeps on with this scheme - accident, fluke, bug or intentional - please don't stoop to the son-to-be-squeaky-wheel whiners. Please keep it just as it is right now.

As for Mr. Blackthorne Destiny?
He'll still be around, listening to the whir of server fans and computer beeps as he rigorously listens for any request to join a couple of particular groups.

Read Tateru's full post here:
No payment info, no search weight: Put down your SEO bots

Original post by Wildefire Walcott:
Unverified-accounts-excluded-new-search

Tags: SecondLife, SL, BOT, Marketing, Commerce, Selling, Buying, Commercial, Gaming, Massively, Tateru Nino, Search, Stats, Classified

I had no idea Xerox was in SL.
But, since it's all top-secret and non-public access, it comes as no real surprise.

So there we were at one of the most famed research labs on the planet - where things like the PC, Ethernet and laser printers had their start - and the CTO of Xerox took us through a Romper Room journey into in the trite and vacuous. For example, Vandebroek bragged about Xerox's creation of a Second Life research and development center as one of the ways the company is encouraging openness. Unfortunately, only authorized Xerox folks can visit the site. Even worse, Vandebroek polled the 160 or so people in the audience to find out how many even use Second Life, only to discover three timid hands going into the air. Her jaw dropped in shock.

Xerox bets R&D future on pap | The Register

Tags: SecondLife, SL, Xerox, Corporate, Commerce, Selling, Buying, Commercial

[youtube=transparent]

So there is another documentary out about MMORPGs and Virtual Worlds. This one apparently focuses on World of Warcraft and Second Life. View the trailer and read the review. According to this movie - it's all bad. At least, that's one I'm getting from the reviews I've read thus far.

No, I don't really have any interest in seeing it. But hey, who am I to judge, right?

Quote from the article:

"More and more, I see people exploring their wildest ideas and fantasies online, and more and more, I see some of those same ostensibly happy folks ready to tear each other to bits over the tritest slight.
"I know people who sit on message boards for hours a day playing semantic one-upsmanship, taking cheap ironic shots in some bizarro quest to pass as pseudo-intellectual on a given subject. I know others who seem to think passive-aggressive or just plain incendiary behavior in chat channels is the new Feng Shui.
"Blizzard's World of Warcraft played a role in wrecking the marriage of a relative (of course I blame the player, not the game). It may have been a major factor in delaying someone else I know a full year toward their terminal graduate degree.

"Ask any psychologist: Going online removes basic communicative cues developed over evolutionary eons. It's called the disinhibition effect, and it can be as toxic as it is liberating."

Game On Could "Second Skin" Trigger Second Thoughts About Online Gaming?

Tags: SecondLife, SL, Movie, Real Life, Losers, Review, WOW

Like the Rezzable Dinosaurs, SL went kablooey. Again.
I really should have known better!

I was working on a few things. Suddenly, I noticed the scripts weren't working. No response. They weren't resetting. In fact, it was bizzare: I got the old error that there are no scripts in the object.

Of course there are scripts in the object. I'm looking at them. Just put them in there as a matter of fact.

So I took the object back into inventory and set it out again. Now, the delay in the object jumping out of world and into my inventory should have beena loud, bright clue. But it went eventually and I was multitasking in Fireworks and Photoshop at the time, so my full attention wasn't in-world.

When I set the object out again, the scripts should have reloaded. Nothing. Hmmm...

Okay - let's restart the sim.

I go back to work off-line and return about 10 or 15 minutes later. "Region unavailable, you are being moved to a nearby [read: half-way across the SL globe] location." I end-up at my home location, currently set to Naoki's shop.

Okay - I go to map and search for my estate. There it... why is it still red, reading "offline"? Okay - just stand there, go back to offline work. 10-minutes later, search the map again. Funny. Still offline. Must be my viewer.

I log out and back again. STILL offline. Okay - contact support.

So, in the chat, TJ tells me he'll get the sim marked to return to online status, but that it might be very slow because of the database issues. I thank him and move on.

Not two-minutes later comes the Linden in-world notice to not perform any land transactions or L$ transactions at all. LL BLOG is updated.

I laugh.

Yes, laugh.

I am not going to whine and be all pissed-off because the database is borked, my sim is down and all money I earn in SL is in or on (vendors and servers) that sim - so as my sim is offline and effectively dead to the SL world... I laugh.

I don't consider SL to be a game. But I don't stake my life on it either. And, I have no doubt the Linden weekend crew are jumping through bootstraps to get things working again.

So, back to offline work for me... with a chuckle and a smile.

Did the Sunday database borking piss you off?
If so, I can only shake my head and ask why?

References: Rezzable Dinosaurs Go Extinct

Siemens is one of those companies using their presence in Second Life the right way.

They are actually expanding their presence with regard to their "PLM" software, a Computer Aided Design application suite. Now, I'll admit I had no idea Seimens even made CAD software. But this is a fascinating use of Second Life to further information and educate potentials on it.

A quote from Design News:

To me, this is awesome.
I've heard about other companies doing similar things, such as Dell computers allowing residents to build their own customized computer, and then being able to purchase a real life version of their own creation. This is pretty cool and I'd likely go try it, except that I prefer a more 'vertical' brand of system than the off-the-shelf brands (even if it is customized.)

"Virtual communities like Second Life are increasingly becoming important collaboration forums for companies, according to a new report from Forrester Research Inc. titled “Getting Real Work Done in Virtual Worlds.” The report notes that virtual worlds have advantages over other approaches to communication and collaboration, including the ability to “let people work with and share digital 3-D models of physical or theoretical objects.”

I thought this was an interesting read - not as much about the PLM software or Siemens themselves, but in how they are using Second Life to their own advantage.

It would appear that corporations coming into Second Life are finally starting to 'get it'.

Full article here:
Siemens PLM Software Expands Presence in Second Life - 3/4/2008 4:59:00 AM - Design News

Tags: SecondLife, SL, Siemens, Corporate, Sales, Economy, Buy, Companies-in-SL, Awesome

It doesn't matter what Linden Lab or anyone else says about Linden Dollars. Linden Dollars (L$) are a real world currency. It's as if Second Life, even though a 'virtual world' is like it's own country.

TechNewsWorld has a great article that evaluates virtual currencies and why they are so important to the very survival of the virtual world it supports. So, if you want to know how the virtual economy actually works - in relation to the real world and how Linden Lab requires a stable one to even survive... read the following article. maybe then you'll understand why the Casino and Banking issues are real issues for Linden Lab.

Exchanging Real Money in Virtual Worlds

This solution is cost-efficient for the consumer, as "real world" payment instruments and corresponding costs are also decreased. The consumer feels more closely affiliated with the community as the game character is fostered. Finally, the virtual currency has to be convertible to real world currencies, which allows the consumer to retract the money from the virtual world at any time. In summary, consumers are motivated to use the virtual currency and are retained as active participants.

Wow.

SL itself is the medium for a Chinese artist and his creations are mind-numbing. if you get the chance, you absolutely have got to visit these builds.

Here's the original story:

Chinese Artist Uses Second Life as Lucrative Artistic Medium
“RMB City… doesn’t restore the full present, nor does it recall our reminiscence of the past. It’s a mirror that partially reflects; we see where we were coming from, discover some of the ‘connections’ that fill the pale zone between the real and the virtual, the clues of which get disturbed, enriched, and polished.”