I Signed Up With Philip

After reading about this on my bosom buddy Apmel Goosson's blog "My Avatar's Name is Apmel" I signed up to become an alpha tester on Philip Rosedale's new project High Fidelity.

The man, the myth, the legend Philip Rosedale (previously a.k.a. Philip Linden), as you all should know, is the original creator of SecondLife, who after leaving Linden Lab has now go on to create another wonderful new world.

Where my Philip goes, I follow! (This by no means implies that I will ever leave SecondLife before they pull the plug on it in San Francisco.)
____

The Idea
We're building a new virtual world enabling rich avatar interactions driven by sensor-equipped hardware, simulated and served by devices (phones, tablets and laptops/desktops) contributed by end-users.

The Matter
Voxels. We're making a strategic bet that rich computer rendering is heading there. Imagine an experience with cubes of many different sizes, with the ability to scale them down to a seamless molecular fabric. Now imagine these building blocks manifesting complex physical properties.

Finally, imagine that world extending visibly to vanishing points like our world does today, enabling you to see your house, your neighborhood, distant mountains, and other planets in the sky. We believe computing power and network transmission speeds are evolving to make such a world possible, represented by a sparse voxel octree data structure.

____

Read all about the new project here: High Fidelity
And when you visit that webpage, please, oh please, make sure to click the sound players under each of the team members, especially Philip!

Demographics of A Diverse World

(via Apmel Goosson at "My Avatar's Name Is Apmel" from Infographics and Data Visualizations @ visual.ly)

Apmel adds the interesting piece of information, that the total amount of SecondLife accounts corresponds with half a person in a world as 100 people.

Today's "Must-Do"

"We’ll “occupy” virtual Moscow from 10am – Noon PDT. After the march everyone is invited to Agnes’ hideaway for a dance party. The cause is serious, but we can still have fun."

Vanessa Blaylock

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Moscow%20Island/249/168/22

Reblogged from my bosom buddy Apmel Goosson's blog "My Avatar's Name is Apmel"

What A Great Party!

What a great evening I had, and I hope everyone else did too.

Avatars came dropping in and out all during the evening and I even missed greeting some of them properly, which I beg their pardon for. There was simply too many to speak to and too much happening that my head was coming unhinged. So many hot men and beautiful women showing as much skin as they dared in the mixed company - and some a bit more than that...

Thank you to all those of you who could come and share this moment with me. To the one's who could not come, I hope to see you another time soon. All of you have my love!

I would like to especially thank my two amazing DJs, DJ sirhc DeSantis and DJ Jared Palianta, for their dedication and for the excellent entertainment they provided!

I was so busy all four hours that I - alas - did not have any opportunity to take pictures but will have to rely on the kindness of friends and other bloggers. (I will post the links as i see them)

My sweet friend and legal advisor Diana Gilderoy sent me a whole bunch of pictures, I am showing you a fraction of them here.

Link:

1. My Avatar's Name Is Apmel; "Housewarming after sad news" (The sad news was that immediately before the party started, Apmelito received news that his friend Sven Idyll, a Swedish SecondLife avatar and blogger, had been found dead at his home in first life.)
2. Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life; Second Life: Party Party Everyday

P.S. Despite Guyke's, Lee's and my own efforts to show the most skin, I should think we can all agree that that contest was won hands down my Apmel's friend ush Underwood in her amazing "mankini" for women (pic on Apmels blog).

Here is the result of my tinting efforts by the way. I think it looks pretty good and when I got the gold shoelace on as a cockring it worked even better.

Break the Chain

(via +Lennart Nilsson a.k.a. Apmel Goosson @ My Avatar´s Name Is Apmel)

Mark the day in your calendar, February 14, 2013. it´s the day of the 24 hour danceathon in SecondLife for One Billion Rising.

For more information on this significant event and the movement, please read my previous post One Billion Rising in SecondLife.

Men´s violence against women is a societal problem. It is not solely a cause for women, but is equally important for men who want an inclusive society where we are all included on equal terms.

Something Old, Something New...

Before I go back to my playing with myself and test if Bock may finally be over the problems we have had lately I would like to take a moment to honor two SecondLife blogs and their bloggers.

The first one is the oldest Swedish SecondLife blog, My Avatar´s Name Is Apmel, which is owned and operated by my bosom buddy Apmel Goosson & alts (in his first life also known as +Lennart Nilsson)..

Today the blog celebrates it´s sixth blogoversary and having reached 5,000 posts. The number of pageviews should be close to 700,000 by now as the blog reached the 600,000 mark on March 26, 2011.

My Avatar´s Name Is Apmel has previously been honored by The Bock McMillan Art Foundation´s (a part of the BMcM Corporation) lifetime achievement award on March 26, 2011, read why here SecondLife Culture Blog Honored.

I for one am looking forward to following Apmel and alts on their adventures in SecondLife the next six years also, It is - and will remain - an obligation for every SecondLife blogger to read what Apmel has to say about our life and times.

On the other end of the scale I also wish to congratulate my friend Benja Aquila, who started blogging just recently, on hos blog Benja Aquila´s Second Life. The blog passed it´s first 5,000 pageviews yesterday!

Congratulations to both the blog and the blogger, I am so looking forward to still be a faithful follower when you pass 500,000 pageviews!

Je Suis Là Aussi

My bosom buddy Apmel Goosson tipped me about this new virtual world in his post For this party you have to join a new world!

At the landing place

The new world is called "AIRE Mille Flux" (webpage url), and you are rezzed even uglier than you did in SecondLife in March of 2007. It seems to be a French artsy world and not that exciting yet... 8 sims and at least three are private.

Perhaps the artworld is hoping that they can convince the annoying Ms. SaveMe Oh to emigrate there so they don't have to bounce her off their sims and ban her all the time.

Avatars Creating Art from Art

"I love to leave the interpretation of my music up to the listener. It's fun to see what they'll say it is."
Erykah Badu

The artist, SaveMe Oh

I don´t know how the artist SaveMe Oh feels about the quote above, neither do I care, because to me experiencing art has to be what it does to me, emotionally or intellectually whether that is what the artist intended or not. What the artist intended is not really - or not always - of any interest to me, more important is how the art affects me or if it leaves me indifferent.

So yesterday I ventured out from Southern Charm to experience the adventure that is SaveMe and the art she had created for me. Let me start off by telling you all that no anchovy, olives or even Dry Martini´s were served. 

My dearest sister Millimina was there which made me very happy, because I have not seen her in a long time. Even if we were both busy running around in SaveMe´s installations and did not speak as much as we usually do it was a great comfort to have her there.

Now, without further ado, here is my interpretation. I am going to show you parts of the exhibition yesterday. I have chosen to give you a series of pictures I took in random order. In the captions to each picture I have written a few words, thoughts or statements. By stepping into the installations we became part of it and changed it, for ourselves and for the onlookers.

For more pictures - and a different experience - please visit my buddy Apmel Goosson´s blog post Min avatar heter Apmel; Oh: Confusion is the healthy soil on which creativity grows

Afterthought. Rereading what I have written I am stuck by the gloominess, but I actually had a great time and lots of fun yesterday!

"I want a divorce!"

The mother in-law arrives

Alone in a room full of people

"How did we get here?"

Poison or despair?

The harbinger of death

"I have nothing to say"

"It is time to leave"

Booze helps - sometimes

Blue 

Out on the town

Alone, at last

"My life could be better"
Photo by Millimina Salamander

"What a wonderful day, I am happy but tired"

At dawn after a sleepless night

"I will always love her" he thinks to himself

The Mushroom in SecondLife

The inauguration of "The Mushroom" (Svampen in Swedish) in SecondLife takes place tonight. The replica in SecondLife has been built by Iga Clawtooth.

Landmark for "The Mushroom in SecondLife".

I had actually never heard about this particular building before, so I looked it up on Wikipedia.

The Mushroom is a water tower in the town of Örebro in Sweden. The tower was designed by Sune Lindström and is 58 meters high and holds 9 million gallons of water. It was inaugurated (in first life) in May 1958. In the first life version of the tower there is a water exhibition, a cafeteria and a conference center.

A previous copy of The Mushroom (but 33 percent larger) can be found in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.

Thanks to my pal Apmel Goosson and his blog "My Avatar´s Name is Apmel" I can now reprint the note card which I have received but have not yet logged in to read.

WELCOME TO SVAMPEN/THE MUSHROOM IN SECOND LIFE!

Svampen is a building in Örebro, Sweden, and the great designer in Second Life, Iga Clawtooth, has created this replica of the first life building.

Our specialty at Svampen will be FOOD! In the beginning we will change the menu once a month. We have a special table where you can take your love for a romantic dinner or go for a dinner with your friends.

Once a month there'll be events, and even spontaneous parties. The best way to be updated on what's happening at Svampen, is to join our group "Svampen/Mushroom". Just click on my profile (rultan Zeplin) and join the group :)

OUR FIRST MENU IS - FAST FOOD:

• Tomato Bisque Soup
• Quiche with Ham, Caramelized Onions and Gruyere
• BBQ Chicken
• Hot dogs
• Cheese and Crackers Platter

At the inauguration we will of course serve champagne :))

WELCOME TO A NEW ADVENTURE IN SECOND LIFE - SVAMPEN/THE MUSHROOM!

Good Business

"We don´t have to hire five thousand people to make and build contents for us, they´re all doing it all and they're paying us."

My blogger-buddy Apmel Goosson (My Avatar´s Name Is Apmel (url)), in a post today "Uncle Ib quotes (url)" quotes an anonymous developer at Linden Lab in an anthropological study of that company made by Thomas M..Malaby, "Making Virtual Worlds".

Random Thoughts

Chaos (et ordre) Lionel Allorge, 2006

When I got in-world yesterday I was in a splendid mood. It had been a good day and I knew what I was going to do and where I was going to go, even if I was going alone.

So there I was, the Much Honored Bock McMillan, laird of Southern Charm and prince of Cascade Falls with my Saturday evening and early night planned with the most exciting and amazing events.

And all my well laid plans came crashing down right at the start because the first event didn't start when it was supposed to. It was a release party for a new Swedish Techno album that was announced to start at 1 PM SLT at a certain place. I tried going there about three minutes into the party and first got the message that the sim was full, when I tried again ten minutes later there wasn't a single soul, not even the artist himself. It infuriated me so much that I deleted the blog post I had made about the event yesterday

I am sorry to say, but I am rather anal about keeping appointments and if there is a cock-up or a change that this be announced to the interested parties in a timely fashion. (Hell, I still haven´t forgiven my dear buddy Bara Jonson for not turning up at his own bloody bachelor party four years ago - which I was hosting - leaving me alone at that event with three "working women" and a pimp/club owner. My Ars never laughed at me so much as that time, after he had made me simmer down.)

Well, it seems my bosom buddy Apmel Goosson made it to the event together with Kandinsky Beaumont and they had a fabulous time as he tells us on his blogpost about it today, Min avatar heter Apmel; Tack Bock

When I complained my misery in the Swedish group chat - hoping to attract attention from the artist himself or someone who was at the party - I instead got pounced on by a two week old noob who started telling me they had probably known I was coming and moved the party to avoid me.

It is rather unusual for noobs to be sassy with the laird, but I still did not make the connection at first. Not until she kept repeating herself and going on about it did I add two and two together and come up with the right conclusion by combining her rudeness with her chosen name. The name is inspired by Viking tradition and she is of course a quintuplet/cousin/friend of the infamous mudslinger.

Luckily my evening ended well anyway, because Butch Diavolo was there to save my bacon and teleport me to Arcangelo Hellman´s set at The Sanctuary. What are friends for if they cannot give you a pity-TP, huh?

Message To My Buddy Apmel - UPDATED

Hey, bosom buddy, when I surf on to your blog I get this message from my Internet Security program. You better check it out and fix it!

Update
When I try to go to virtual.outworlding.blogspot.com I get this message.

Update 2

The problem has been handled by my tech-savvy bosom buddy. All is clear now!

Reentry

Art work by Randi Strand

Mustering up to come back to my second life and blogging again after this strange week,

I started with a nap after work (which was supposed to last an hour but went on for five) and reading up on the other blogs.

As usual I started with the last updated blog on my blogroll and went down the list until I came to a blog post by my bosom buddy Apmel Goosson (Min avatar heter Apmel: Chatlog from the baddest LEA party ever!) which consisted of a complete log from local chat at some art event and consisted of 21 967 words.

After reading the ten first lines I decided that all was still well in the world and stopped reading. Even if my buddy had posted it for the purpose of future scientific research into the SecondLife art scene in 2012, it was asking a bit too much of me. I was again reminded why I have always detested reading chat logs.

Ziggy cruising a sexy toad,
the tongue, the tongue

Another buddy of mine, Ziggy Starsmith, has turned into a very cute and sexy pixie with the cloven hoofs of a bull. You can´t turn your back for a day until they shape shift on you.

More pictures of him can be found here; Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life: Petite Mesh Avatars...I Am Hooked.

On some of the blogs I have also read that there has been an "unscheduled maintenance" of our wonderful world which has caused some disruption

Well, I just wanted to let you all know I am doing fine and on my way back again. See you tomorrow!

Weekend Distraction

DJ Arcy, Arcangelo Hellman, gives us another therapy session, #18 (Tech Trance Special). You can find more of DJ Arcy´s music here Soundcloud - DJ Arcy

This session could not have come at a better time for me because I need some distraction after having read my bosom buddy Apmel´s latest post.

I am breathing, breathing and breathing. In and out, in and out, in deep and long breaths to keep my composure after reading his revealing post My Avatar´s Name Is Apmel: "Cowardly Attack On Bock" (in Swedish).

Bukowski & Witches

Quotes by Charles Bukowski seem to be popular on some of my friends Facebook accounts I have learned from a post at my buddy Apmel Goosson´s blog today.

As I am not on Facebook anymore, I will send my response of support here with another usable quote from the same man. I think I actually love it, but I am crazy because I have a weak spot for witches also.

And this will be my final contribution to the civil war that has flared up in Swedish SecondLife thanks to the anonymous bloggers at Prim Team/Netlott (or whatever they may call their blog today) for unearthing old battle axes.

Butch Does It Also

I am just going to give you a slim strip of the picture I just saw over at "My Avatars Name Is Apmel". In the post Apmel - as the darn hetero dude that he is - asks "More Nudity! Where Are the Chicks?"

Some men huh? There is just no way to satisfy them - they always want more, more, more... Head on over and check out Butch Diavolo in the flesh... *blushes*


Oh Apmel, be warned! I did ask a few more guys and a chick or two to send you pictures, perhaps they just didn't get around to sending it to you yet... of course they could be too shy...

Enough Is Enough

OK, I simply cannot hold on to the blackout any longer, I have pictures to show and stories to tell!

However, it is my firm belief that if the United States Congress should pass legislation like the ones proposed in SOPA or PIPA it would set an extremely bad example for the world and for the future of freedom of speech.

My bosom buddy Apmel Goosson has on his blog "My Avatars Name is Apmel" today published a statement by the American lawyer Chris Savage that express my thoughts and sentiments on this completely:

"Speaking only for myself and not any clients, SOPA is a horrible, protectionist over-reach by content-owning industries. It is bad for the Internet and even bad, in a "spoiled versus tough love" sense, for the content industries.

The Internet makes distribution easy and cheap. That makes stuff easier to copy. They can either live with that and find a business model that works within it, or they can go the way of the player piano."

Happy 5th Rezday Apmels!

Apmel in an installation for Naked Avatars in SecondLife

Apmel Goosson, the lovable enfant terrible of the Swedish SecondLife community celebrates his 5th anniversary in SecondLife today.

Apmel Jr, uncle Ib and Apmel Sr.

I am proud to call Apmel a friend and indeed my bosom-buddy, He is not always easy to be around, but hell he is well worth the time!

Apmelina in Naked Avatars in SecondLife

Apmel is of course the head of the well known artsy SecondLife family of avatars the Apmels of Solace Island. Apart from Apmel himself hius family consists of uncle Ib, Apmel J.R., Apmelina and Apmelsprivatabankman, Robotina and perhaps some more that I have not yet been introduced to.

Apmel is of course also the owner and writer of the blog "My Avatars Name is Apmel", which was the Bock McMillans Art Foundations (a part of the BMcM Corporation) lifetime achievement award for 2011,

Happy rezday Apmel, may you have very many more!

Named Avatars 3

Today it is my great pleasure to let my buddy Apmel tell us about how he named his avatar - and his host of co-avatars.

As you perhaps already know Apmel is a prominent figure in the virtual art world of SecondLife. His blog "Min avatar heter Apmel" ("My Avatar´s Name is Apmel") is also the oldest existing Swedish SecondLife blog and the distinguished recipient of the prestigious lifetime achievement award from The Bock McMillan Art Foundation (a part of theBMcM Corporation).

The Apmel Trinity - from the left Meerson, Ibbetson and Goosson

"When I registered my first ava I first looked up a surname that ended with “-son”... it just happened to be Ibbetson and Apmel as first name, which was simply a reversal of one of my nicknames at work - "Lempa" instead of Lennart.

Later, I wanted to have a name ending in “-sson”, two s´s, and more Swedish I thought .. while I kept the first name. Apmel Goosson plain and simple with everything that it has come to mean...

When I created the next avatar, that was first conceived as a pure backup, the choice for a surname happened to fall on Meerson.

Eventually these alternate versions of Apmel developed, as several of you already know. 

Apmel Ibbetson was modeled using pictures of myself taken just before my sixtieth birthday in real life and hey presto, he became Uncle IB. The "last name" IB comes from the fact that my primatar initially was determined to promote his RL-activity, "Indexkompaniet Bokförlag" (The Index Company Publishers) and started an Index Company book café in-world where the group´s members were called IB-agents (Yes, I did have the (for Swedes) well known IB-affair in memory, and liked the ambiguity).

Apmel Meerson quickly turned into “Kludden” (the daub). An inexperienced young cousin to Apmel who is finding his way around in Second Life. Daub rapidly strengthened my interest in the virtual arts.

At long last Apmelina Slingshot came along and proved to be the sister of Apmel that Apmel´s dad never had. Apmelina rapidly extended my old-fashioned (albeit narrow) musical taste in a more contemporary direction - with a little help from Milli, I readily admit. :))

 

And the last (latest?) avatar that I have acquired is a banker who originally was of the same indeterminate sex and age as the name I gave it, "Apmelsprivatabankman" (Apmel´s-private-banker). I refuse to use the ugly surname Resident that automatically and not so amusingly came with it. This avatar later developed into a beautiful woman in her fifties. I am hoping she will bring order to the Apmellian finances :))"

On Moderation of Comments

Photo by Nam in Geum

I always like to tell people "I am the most patient man in SecondLife, absolutely everyone tells me so!" Those who know me well and love me - like my Ars, Guyke, Andrey and perhaps Millimina also - laugh in my face when I say this because they of course know damn well it is as far from the truth as you can get.

All the same I still persevere in telling all and sundry this as soon as I can possibly squeeze it into a conversation, in the vain hopes that someone who has known me longer than 15 minutes will one day agree.

The last week I myself  feel I have shown an amazing restraint that would rightfully make me entitled to truthfully keep on stating that I am in fact am the the most patient man. Alas no one seems to have noticed...

The Swedish SecondLife bloggers have been... hmmm... "discussing" the question of whether they - and everyone else - should use pre-moderation or post-moderation/reactive moderation on the comments made on a blog. There are of course valid reasons for each approach. I found an excellent summary here "Everything in Moderation - On Four Types of Moderation".

On my blog I have lately chosen to switch to post-moderation/reactive moderation primarily because I have had no experience with any misuse by commenters and I believe that a free flow of opinions between the commenters is of vital importance.

It is my personal opinion that it must be the choice of each blogger which type of moderation they choose. This choice must of course always take into account the experiences the blogger has had earlier, for instance it is well known that the Swedish blogger PetGirl Bergman with her blog Tinas universum has is the not-to-distant past had problems with defamatory personal attacks on herself and on others by anonymous or signed commenters.

Photo by Natalia Luzuriaga

The Swedish bloggers war was raised another notch when my bosom-buddy Apmel Goosson, the enfant terrible of Swedish SecondLife with the oldest Swedish SecondLife blog "Min avatar heter Apmel" (My Avatars Name is Apmel) the other day stated that he would link differently to blogs that used pre-moderation.

This decision by Apmel caused one blogger to stop blogging altogether and another blogger to express hurt feelings on being negatively discriminated against by not receiving the same exposure as post-moderated blogs.

It is my firm belief that every blogger has the prerogative to choose not only which blogs he wants to link to or not to link to, but also how he wishes to link to them as long as it isn´t done in a derogatory or defamatory way. There is no human rights issue involved in this, nor is it an infringement on anyones freedom of speech or expression.

I have actually kept myself a bit distant from these discussions where I have many opinions, in a way that is totally unlike me in these situations, so thats why I believe I now deserve at least a plaque or  medal telling the world that I am indeed the most patient man in SecondLife.

(The pictures on this post were chosen solely for their beauty and calmness so as to sooth any hurt feelings of my readers.)