Firestorm Q&A: "The Future of SecondLife"

(via my friend Neo Timeless' blog "Free Your Mind")

Jessica Lyon, of the Firestorm team, hosts a Q&A concerning the future of SecondLife, with Oz Linden and Peter Linden.

This is an interesting talk, especially due to the (in my opinion) somewhat excessive reactions among residents since news spilled recently that Linden Lab is investing financial and labor resources in creating the next generation of an immersive 3D virtual reality, i.e. a new SecondLife or a "SecondLife 2.0".

Among My Countrymen

This evening I went visiting in the Swedish community in SecondLife, the reason for this nowadays rare venture was that Bara Jonson and Free Balan were performing a benefit live gig for Relay For Life at my friend Apollon Allen's bar, which is located on my ex-wife Iendi Laville's sim Yadkin.

The place was packed and I thought I had never seen so many Swedish avatars in the same place for a long time, but someone said that it wasn't much busier than a regular Friday evening.

For a long time after Ars had passed away, I sought refuge among the Swedes, where I felt safe and protected, which I was extremely grateful for and needed badly at the time. They involved me in all sorts of activities to keep me from brooding. They also responded kindly to and took part in some of my crazy projects, most notably the "Nakna avatarer i SL" ("Nude Avatars in SL") blog project. I think I had well over 100 entries where the Swedes dropped their clothing and sent me their wonderful and imaginative nudie-pictures for publication. I still have many friends among them although my visits are not as frequent these days.

I danced with Jasmine most of the evening, which was a pleasure, apart from the obvious fact that we looked great dancing together.

It was a fun evening and I had a very good time seeing and talking with friends I had not been in touch with for some time. People were generous to the cause, which made it even better.

Jasmine Cazalet, I and Apmel Goosson (He is wearing a hat, could he be losing his hair?)

"There was a young man from Nantucket..."

Above, Selma Edman and Iendi Laville show some of their moves.

NE0 Timeless's search is over

Tingeling captured between someones legs

I Am Leaving Facebook - Again (Updated)

This is just to inform you all that I have decided to drop out of Facebook again. It will most likely happen during the coming weekend.

If I remember correctly from the last time I left, my account will remain on Facebook for two weeks after I have deactivated it  before it is removed.

I rejoined Facebook as a favor to my friend NE0 Timeless and stayed on much longer than I had originally intended, but now I am completely fed up with being easily accessible for certain people there even though I love most of you.

The thing I will miss the most is probably "poking".

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Update
OK after posting this I have received a lot of feedback from friends and people I did not know before. Three things have been said that have made me reconsider my decision to leave Facebook.

1. "If you leave, they win"
2. "Noli illegitimi carborundum" (Mock-Latin for "Don't let the bastards wear you down") and
3. "Block them, its easy".

I am now thinking about it and will let you know as soon as I am done.

Philip Linden Is Dead, Long Live Philip Rosedale (Updated)

My buddy NE0 Timeless has a wonderful knack of finding interesting stuff when he is scouring the Internet.

As you may remember, I reported a while back, that Philip no longer holds a official position at Linden Lab, either in management or on the board.

Today NE0 has published the trailer for an interview with Philip Rosedale (creator of SecondLife formerly best known as the avatar Philip Linden) Free Your Mind: Philip Rosedale Interview Trailer 2013-06-21 (Second Life).

In the interview for the upcoming Burning Man Philip Rosedale appears in his new avatar.

I must say that it is a wonderful and vast improvement, I am going to name this update Philip (Linden) Rosedale 3.0.

Update You can now see the full interview at Daniel Voyager's Blog: New Philip Rosedale Interview at Burn2

Funny Coincidences

Yesterday my buddy NE0 Timeless posted a response to my recent post about my problems with insomnia. In his post he suggested a wonderful piece of interesting, soothing and relaxing music that I should listen to whenever I had problems sleeping.

The music was Thomas Dolby's song N.E.O. which I am sending you to NE0's blog to listen to, Free Your Mind: A song dedicated to Bock McMillan.

While I was listening to the song I focused on the photography of a meteor that is displayed throughout the video. Suddenly I saw a vague outline of my own face on parts of the meteor, which was rather amusing.

The next funny thing that happened was that when I was going to comment on the post and thank him, I got the following word verification.

Thank you so much for the caring suggestion buddy, I will try it the next time I cannot sleep!

A Must-See

"On the Grid; Living in Second Life" is a wonderful little documentary machinima made by greybox.tv on life in SecondLife and the residents differing views on it.

You can watch it on my buddy NE0 Timeless' blog Free Your Mind in this post Second Life Documentary: On the Grid. NE0 has always had an uncanny ability to find the most interesting machinimas on SecondLife. Kudos!

My favorite quote from the video is: "You can either say that there is NOTHING to do in Second Life... or that you can do ANYTHING"

NOH8 Avatars 9

NE0 Timeless

For more information about the The NOH8 Campaign and how to join it in SecondLife please read my previous post The NOH8 Campaign in SecondLife. There you will also find instructions on where to find the necessary duct tape and cheek painting free of charge.
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If you would like to be a part of the NOH8 Campaign on this blog please send me your picture (fullperm), I will be happy to post it. Name the picture NOH8 and your avatar name and drop it on my profile or send it to my email lundamats@gmail.com.

A Cane Received, Five Thrown

When I checked my e-mail today, I noticed a message from SecondLife that my bosom buddy Apmel Goosson had dropped a note card on me bewilderingly entitled "A cane".

To still my curiosity about what this was about I immediately logged into SecondLife to check what this was about. The note card didn't say much, only that Apmel had thrown a cane at me and that I should check a certain post on his blog, My Avatar´s Name Is Apmel; "Q&A plus cane throwing".

There I found these instructions on cane throwing.

"Throwing a cane means: someone (a blog owner) asks you five questions and you have to ask five questions to another blogger. It is a pyramid scheme but nevertheless some fun. So I will post the rules and then select some other bloggers. The rules:

1. Set a link to the blogger who has given you the cane..
2. Answer the questions.
3. Then throw the cane on five other bloggers.
4. Tell these persons that they have received a cane.
5. Ask five new questions."

Sounds simple enough, huh, so why not take part? OK, here goes. The first rule is already covered above, so on to the second, the questions Apmel asks me and my responses to them.

1. A blog usually is a factual report (albeit subjective) about real life. A blog about an avatar is a
factual report about a fictional life. Your thoughts about that?

I may be missing the point here, but I actually don´t see a conflict. On my blog I recount what I experience in both my realities and both are factual to me. My personality, thoughts, feelings actions and reactions are the same in both worlds. Only the superficial things are different, not the important ones, not the things that really matter to me.

2. Do you think of yourself as an immersionalist or an augmentalist Second Lifer?

"The difference in mindset between the two groups reflects the titles they're given: Immersionalists primarily see SL as an entire virtual reality, and enjoy doing the broad range of activities there that they also enjoy in RL (including shopping, sports, relationships and sex, artistic creation, tourism, vacationing and more); while Augmentalists primarily see SL as a next-generation platform for communication, and are there primarily to enhance a particular interest they already have in RL (such as marketing, architecture, filmmaking, music, artistic distribution and more)."
From the blog "In the Grid" by Jason Pettus, 2006

I am most definitely an Immersionalist. I am in SecondLife to meet R-E-A-L people and interact and engage with them.

3. Do you have more than one avatar? If so why and are they of different gender and/or species?

Yes I have ten alts  - Wild Zepp, Callum Beamish, Hedda Millar, Matt Gaboian, Ian Pomfret, Seamus Lycheborne, Angus Maldor, Duncan Aycliffe, Dan Zise and Minerva Xenno (in order of their creation). All of them are human and two of them are women, Hedda and Minerva .

I created my first alt Wild after a big row with Ars on the same day as he was going to do an important set. I did not want to miss that set but as I did not want to cave in at once Wild came to my rescue - sort of. I could catch Ars set and then make up with him the next day and not while I was still furious with him. I also told Ars that I had been there, he said he already knew because I had dressed Wild in a kilt.

Then I joined a silly in-world game called Tiny Empires (url), in that game you needed to gather subjects, so I used Wild as one and then created Callum and Hedda. The rest of them were created when Bara Jonson took part in a contest where every avatar could only vote once a day, I cheated and voted for him 11 times a day.

The alts are now entirely used for Tiny Empires and are mostly only online when I am taking my naps to gather gold.

4. Do you think you will still be in SL a year from now? If not why?

Hell yeah, I will be here til they shut down the last server at Linden Lab, standing side-by-side with Philip Linden and the rest of the aficionados.

5. What is the ratio of the time you spend on blogging contra being active in world? How has it changed over the last year?

It depends on my mood, whats on my mind and whats happening in my first or second life, but roughly I would say I am in-world about two times longer than I blog, so 66-33.

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I will now throw my canes at - and I agree with Apmel this is the most difficult part - but here goes. My selection was limited to blogs that deal with SecondLife and are mostly in English-

1. Butch Diavolo - Butch´s Ramblings
2. Carl Paneer - NakedCarl
3. Eddi Haskell - Eddi Haskell´s Second Life
4. NE0 Timeless - Free Your Mind
5. Ziggy Starsmith - Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life

Now I must hurry to throw the canes at them, but I will post this before doing that!

My questions are:

1. How long have you been in SecondLife and why did you join?

2. It is sometimes said that there is a problem with "the threshold" in SecondLife, meaning that it is difficult for new users to learn. What are your thoughts on this?

3. What do you wish for most in the future development of SecondLife?

4. What is the most important thing you have learned about yourself in SecondLife?

5. Why do you blog?

All the pictures of the canes were found at Wayfair - Shop Harvy (url).

A Blogs Demise

It was not without some pleasure and great satisfaction that I late last night noticed that the Swedish virtual worlds blog Netlott, previously named Prim Team, declared that it was closing down after only 20 days (February 21 - March 11, 2012).

I have informed you about this blog earlier in my posts "Ich Bin Ein Prim Teamer" and Bukowski & Witches.

The blog started by declaring that the bloggers were a group of people with technical interests and that they together had amassed more than 25 years of experience in virtual worlds. They also declared that they were going to remain anonymous but gave no specific reason for this decision.

I am sure the blog would have been welcomed in the Swedish SecondLife community despite the fact that the bloggers wished to remain anonymous if the blog had settled for their proclaimed field of expertise, the technical aspects of virtual worlds. Such a blog written by people with keen insight and knowledge on the workings of the viewers and a willingness to share and educate the rest of us is sorely needed and would fill a vacuum.

However, the Prim Team and Netlott blog (Netlott is by the way a word play on the English word "net" and the Swedish word "nitlott" which means "drawing a blank"), instead chose to start delving in social issues and unearthing dirty linen and rusty battle axes from the close or distant past. This caused the Swedish community in SecondLife to erupt and the tentative armed peace that had been established over the past two-three months evaporated. Ghouls from the past that had relished in the previous unrest reappeared and the favorite object of hate was yet again reviled.

Once the blog started declaring who was not a member of the blogging team I declared myself to be one of them to see how they would handle that. This was never commented upon.

I am now completely certain that one of the team members is in fact "The avatar formerly known as Sven Idyll". I have come to this conclusion from the language used in some of the posts, some of the topics raised on the blog, a question directed at me by one of the anonymous bloggers which was exactly the same as one Sven Idyll previously had posed to me and now - finally - the way in which the blog was closed.

The blog was shutdown in exactly the same way as Sven Idyll´s previous three (3) blogs. with some choice words of recrimination, "no one understands me", "you have all misinterpreted me" and "you bore me" etc., and letting the blog stay online for a while after removing all the previous comments and assorted posts and not allowing any new comments.

I would be the first to welcome a new Swedish blog that focused on the technical aspects, but we do not need more trolls. We have enough of those already, thank you very much!

UPDATE (04:58 AM SLT): And now "The avatar formerly known as Sven Idyll" has read this post and has posted a not so subtle comeback at me. Hilarious! (No link to that waste of time will be supplied here, I am sure that others will be happy to help you.)

PROBABLY RELATED: My buddy NE0 Timeless over at Free Your Mind has found an interesting article from March 7, 2012, on a Swedish website that could have some connection to this matter. An IT-consultant of sorts is bashing SecondLife as a waste of time and claiming we now have drugs inworld, something called "Seclimine". 

Apparently it is something that messes with the shared inworld experience I gather, as he mentions something about a hazy viewer and sound distortions. I never heard about it though, but I am a sanctimonious prick so...

For NE0

Hey NE0, I got your message through my e-mail! Let´s try a little show and tell instead and hopefully you will get the "SecondLife button"-gadget working on your blog also.

Image 1

1. Start by downloading this image of the SecondLife logo  to your computer. (see image 1)
2. Click "Design" in the top right corner of your blog.
3. Click "Layout"
4. Click "Add a Gadget" anywhere in the Layout (you can move it to wherever you want it later)

Image 2

5. Choose the "Picture" gadget (see image 2) in the window that pops up
6. Fill in the window with the name you choose for the gadget, the url to SecondLife´s main page (I use http://secondlife.com/?lang=en-US), and add the picture with the logo from your computer. Check the box that says "Shrink to fit".
7. Click "Save"

Image 3

This is how the gadget should look once you are ready (see image 3)

When you are done you can move the gadget  to any position in your blog you wish in Layout

Good luck! Please get back to me if you still have problems.

RL Photo Exhibition & A Colorful Rezday

On Thursday I was invited by tthe gallery owner Aake Roffo to a exhibition opening at his gallery at Yadkin. The exhibition was called "Houses in RL" and featured the first life photography of Kaja Lurra, well known sim landscaper in SecondLife.

I liked the pictures a lot and even bought a beautiful one showing some old beautiful blue tapestry. As I am mostly a people person here are some pictures of the visitors at the exhibition.

My buddy Emarald Harvey and his sweet avantgarde wife Zigadena Gabardini

Party people

Beautiful Svessa Hax  flanked by Aake Roffo and NE0 Timeless

After the gallery opening I had originally planned to retire because I had a early morning meeting in first life on Friday, but Kandinsky Beaumont and Apmel Goosson convinced me I would have time to drop in at a rezday party.

The rezday party was for SaveMe Oh, famous and/or notorious performance artist in SecondLife. She has made her whole public existence inworld into art by behaving rudely and by being obnoxious and cantankerous. Sometimes I find it amusing and am wholeheartedly entertained, at other times not so much.

Apmel and Kandi had been appointed as my caretakers by my little sister Millimina Salamander when she went off on a first life adventure for a couple of days. When I learned this I could not refuse them any more so I crashed the rezday party.

Luckily Apmel had warned me beforehand that it would be colorful, but what I saw when I was teleported in was the most amazingly bright cacophony of colors in all imaginable shapes and forms. It was a veritable bombardment of the visual preceptors (i.e my eyes). Occasionally we would also have shoals of sharks attacking us. I presume the shark is her totem-animal, but I am not sure.

I enjoyed the experience thoroughly but after about half an hour my sight was suffering from an overdose and it was time for me to sneak of to bed.

The rezday girl SaveMe Oh

NEO Shares Jewels

Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol

My friend and co-blogger NE0 Timeless shares two interesting clips with me - and you all - on his blog Free Your Mind.

The first clip To Bock McMillan (url) shows the creator of our dreams and our amazing world Philip Linden, in first life also known as Philip Rosedale, talk about the origins of SecondLife and the directions we may be heading.

The second clip To Bock McMillan (nr 2) (url), is the first part of three in a series of conversation called "BAN6 Conversations @ YBCA - Radical Identities". In the first part we can hear a mind boggling conversation between anthropologist Tom Boellstorff (url) and Philip Linden about our identities in first and second life and the interactions between them.

Kandi´s Rezday Party

 Here are some pictures from Kandinsky Beaumont´s rezday party! All the the five Apmels where there and quite a few others.

After arriving back home today from a two day visit to Stockholm I was too tired to stay long, but as long as I was there the party was going strong!

The rezday girl Kandinsky dancing for the camera

Apmel Goosson shows NE0 Timeless some new moves. NEO doesn't seem too impressed...

Four Apmels and one ush

SEMA 2011 - Oh What A Party

Finally the long awaited evening arrived. As an old hand in SecondLife I arrived early at the venue, The Fallen Gods Club at Yadkin. I have missed to many events before by not getting my ass on the sim in time.

The laird resting before the party stasrts

Once I was safely there I could take a smoke, eat a little and prepare for the party to start.

Oh what a great party it was! All the men were stunningly beautiful and the women looked reasonably OK too, even if some of them were showing a lot of their legs and boo.. uhmmm lets say chests.

Apollon Allen, DJ and one of the organizers

Emarald Harvey (in the background) with his partner Zigadena Gabardini 

Iendi Laville

Svessa Hax

My Sergeant at Arms sirhc DeSantis-McMillan

Vira Broome, one of the organizers

Blanche Argus, cbreak, Apmel Ibbetson and Kandinsky Beaumont

Chaplin Early and his partner Stella Guardian, Aake Roffo in the background

Some cute stranger

NE0 Timeless, one of the organizers

I had a wonderful evening and an unexpectedly great time, most people actually spoke with me. It was good to be able to in some little way show my appreciation of the hard work the event makers do for us. All in all I had a splendid time with no bad lag surprisingly because avatars were crashing left and right.

I would like to finish by once again thanking Apollon Allen, Vira Broome and NE0 Timeless for giving me this opportunity to extend my thanks to the event makers. I know I didn´t get all of them on my camera, for which I especially apologize to Vampi Twine-DeSantis-McMillan-McMillan (honorary and through handfasting), Midnattsdotter Fride and Gittrika Mint. All three of you looked wonderful, but my pictures of you were ugly and not publishable,

I just noticed that my bosom buddy Apmel Goosson has also been working hard and has already published his great pictures from the event here (url).

Even more pictures from the event at Blanche Argus blog now (url) and on Ewa Aska´s blog.

UPDATE:
Oh, I forgot, the evening actually ended very well when Blanche Argus finally found the humongous and  enormous tip jar for the event makers.

I understand her completely because I have been there myself countless times! Sometimes tip jars are just too big to notice, one cams above, around, behind and under them... I cannot remember all the times that Guyke, Ars or some other friendly soul has had to drag me in front of them for me to see them.