Bock in SecondLife

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

"There, There, I Didn't Mean It!"

Of course I will not ban you from Southern Charm, Guykechen. You can always come anytime you want! I had a great time shopping and not shopping with you, let's do it again sometime soon!

Love you!

Monday, June 24, 2013

Strange Messages

Lately when I log in to Second Life I have been getting these messages (see image). On these occasions I do not get the inworld IMs or notices that I have been able to see in my mail.

When I relog I am mostly OK and don't get the message and everything works perfectly.

"It grows mysteriouser and mysteriouser", as Alice said in Wonderland.

I have reported the issue to customer support to Linden Lab and am looking forward to hear from them soon.

Take the Feedback Survey!

Link to the post: http://second-pride.com/blog/2013/06/23/2013-second-pride-feedback-survey/
Link to Second Pride Festival: http://second-pride.com

The Redecoration Project

When Ars and I moved in at Southern Charm, just before or after New Years Day 2007/2008 (I cannot remember at the moment), we were in a hurry to get settled in before my vacation ended and the clubs in SecondLife, with whom Ars worked both as a DJ and as a manager for The Sarco Sound Group, started getting busy again after the holidays.

We rented the house and 12,000 sqm (two parcels) because we had both fallen in love with the house sitting over the beautiful waterfall. The house was a part of the deal and the landowner expressly preferred that we kept it a it was. The house is a prefab from one of the biggest suppliers of such homes in SecondLife.

Ars and I did the interior decorating of the second floor and the kitchen and bathroom on the ground floor ourselves. When we realized that we were running out of time and would not be ablé to get the living room area ready we discussed it and decided to get the readymade package of furniture for that room from the supplier. It was an interesting moment and a new experience for me when i suddenly found myself sitting in front of my computer controlling all the prearranged furniture with my cursor. I was told by Ars not to let go before we had it in the right place because if i did we would have to arrange every individual ugly item ourselves. Luckily I made it without problems (not counting a very high pulse rate) and I believe Ars was really proud of me, for the very first time.

This arrangement was meant to be a temporary measure that we would take care of at the first convenient moment ourselves. Alas that time never came. I detested the living room furniture from the start, and I believe Ars did so too.

When I the other day realized how much I hated it I finally decided to take action. I decided what to do and considered the possible options carefully. When I had thought everything through I contacted my buddy Butch Diavolo, who is an excellent interior decorator.

We discussed the matter and he agreed to help me. We also decided that the first thing he should do was see if he could find a better house that would fit on the top of hill over the water falls. A house that I could have full rights over, as the present one is still owned by the former landlady (who has since left SecondLife) which means I am not able to change anything about it..

If he could not find a good enough house we would settle for redecorating the living room and the adjacent reading room. Butch would, with his expertise and exquisite taste, tell me what to buy and in what quantity whereafter I would rez them in the house for him to move them around. If we needed to do anything about the house itself we would find some suitable workaround ( I have been thinking of Potemkin villages a lot lately). We will cross those bridges when we come to them.

It was with great joy I set about deleting all the shitty stuff in the living room and reading room. The rooms looked much better when the furniture was gone, even if they were empty.

Protection Against Gesturbation

In SecondLife we have something called "gestures", which are pre-programmed messages often combining sounds with words or other signs in local chat.

Gestures can be quite amusing if they are not used too often and are reasonably short and sweet.

As an example of this kind of gesture I will one I received as a birthday gift from my dear friends Vampi Twine-DeSantis-McMillan- McMillan (honorary) and her husband sirhc DeSantis-McMillan.

Having activated the gesture beforehand all I have to do to play it is write the trigger in local chat. The trigger to this particular gesture is "/bock". So when I (or anyone who happens to have the gesture) write that trigger in local chat and press enter everyone in the room will hear sirhc saying with his sexiest voice; "Bock is in the building" at the same time as they see the same line appear once in local chat.

Another example is the popular gesture "Yeahaaaawwwwwwwwwww!" where you will hear a someone shouting yeahaw. A third example is "Mmmmmmm Bock, is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?". The last one was a present to me from my buddy Regi Yifu so you hear his sexy and very dark voice speaking the words.

The best thing about the three examples I have given here are that they are one-liners and last at the most about five seconds, so the interruption in chat is minimal, both with sound and text.

Evil people in SecondLife have spent a lot of time making gestures that last extremely long and fill the screen with jibberish for up to - or sometimes even more - than 100 lines. If such gestures come into the hands of unscrupulous avatars - especially if there is more than one in the room - the result is pure havoc with spam filling your screen. The most notorious gesturbation-lovers in my experience are generally Italians, Germans and Americans (not necessarily in that order). As always you should be careful when reading generalisations because they do not mean that every individual of the mentioned nationalities gesturbates.

Previously the only option has been to block/mute the culprit(s) after you have gotten sick with them, in the Firestorm viewer there is however now an option that, if you activate it, automatically detects and protects you against the gesturbators. You activate it by going to your viewers Preferences and in the Firestorm tab go to the Protection tab and check the box that says "Enable Spam Protection" (see the red arrow in the image below).

In the same place you are also able to choose the options when you wish the spam protection to be activated. There is also an option to immediately protect you from repeat-offenders.

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

The Final Day of Second Pride 2013

I am sorry for posting this so late, but yesterday was a very long and happy day!

Here are some pictures and comments from four of the last six events. I could not make it to the final events due to extreme fatigue (I was falling asleep over my keyboard). Just for the record, I am NEVER going to dance again ever, or at least not for a month...

My final opinion on this years Second Pride will most likely be published sometime during the week. Now without further ado, please enjoy!