Happy St. Andrew's Day

The national day of Scotland and a reason to celebrate all things Scottish. Sadly this year concerns with larger events have overtaking the organising of a proper celebration.

But I wish you and yours the best for the day, even if the closest you get to being Scottish is the tartan ribbon you tie around a present.

Alba gu Brath!

New sim for Steelhead

This week saw the arrival of Steelhead's 4th sim, Steelhead Port Harbor. Unsurprisingly this will sit to the west of Steelhead Harbor



They've also been named as sim of the month for this issue of the Primgraph. Christine's hard work decorating the inside of Rosehaven has resulted in a double page photo spread.

And I don't think the Primgraph mentioned Floppy Dong once.

Voices in the Machine podcast the Third

Episode 3 of Voices in the Machine is now online and ready for your listening pleasure.

Recorded November 20th, 2008 the regular lineup of myself, Gabrielle Riel, Fuschia Begonia and Nix Sands welcome special guest Eladrienne Laval and discuss her upcoming exhibit at the Whitehorn Memorial Library in Caledon Victoria City, "The Past Reimagined: Victorian Fashion and the Designs of Eladrienne Laval" (December 7-March 1).

Feedback welcome.

The Grand Tour

With all the heated debate and hurt feelings over the Open Space controversy, Miss Fogwoman Gray organised The Grand Tour; a multi-sim dance that ran for most of the weekend and covered sims in Colonia Nova, New Toulouse, Orcadia, Victoriana, Neufriedstadt, Winterfell, Caledon Carntaigh, New Babbage, Steeltopia, Caledon Argylle, Al Andalus, Isles of Fatima, Giggleford, Caledon Stormhold, Wunderbar, Uhr, Antiquity and Steelhead.

Sadly I was unable to attend much of the dances but there are a few places that I must get out and visit before Christmas. Because many of these places will cease to exist once the new OS changes come into effect.


Her Grace of Carntaigh, Gabriel Riel, with Baron Wulfenbach


Myself with Miss Laval.

Two of these sims that will be consolidating are Carntaigh and Argylle. Thus this event was something of a farewell for these sims. Argylle has only been around some 6 months but Carntaigh came into existence 2 years ago, just after I arrived in Caledon. Both places are special to me and will be missed. I'll see what new memories shall come with Caledon Rothesay.

Photos stolen from Miss Laval's blog.

Tarot Meme

You are The Hierophant

Divine Wisdom. Manifestation. Explanation. Teaching.

All things relating to education, patience, help from superiors.The Hierophant is often considered to be a Guardian Angel.

The Hierophant's purpose is to bring the spiritual down to Earth. Where the High Priestess between her two pillars deals with realms beyond this Earth, the Hierophant (or High Priest) deals with worldly problems. He is well suited to do this because he strives to create harmony and peace in the midst of a crisis. The Hierophant's only problem is that he can be stubborn and hidebound. At his best, he is wise and soothing, at his worst, he is an unbending traditionalist.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Shaken not Stirred

Steelhead had its weekly dance last night and for the first while in a long time I was able to make the party.

This week the theme was Bond, James Bond.

There were Bond Girls, villains and Bond clones out in force. A great turnout and an impressive line up of music from Sheriff Fuzz.


A very good turnout for the night


Yours truly as Hugo Drax, a little something I whipped up that afternoon.


My dear Christine as "Maple Sugar". We're trying to find out if there's ever been a Canadian Bond Girl. Maybe James doesn't like Canadians.


Kamilah grooves to the tunes.


Kara Timtam practices at being Shark Bait. Sharks with fricken lasers.


Miss Eladrienne gets up to some High Jinx.


The Tanarian of the Davies sisters shows off her new wheels. The dropbear had to get one as well. Vrooom!


Hawc DeCosta in the Bond Barrel tunnel I built for the evening. Special thanks to Professor Avalanche for the free poses given away at "The Spy Who Lagged Me" party the week before.


The Baron shows his sparkiness with a Q jacket.


Fuzz wears the pimp-hat I sent him after his announcement about Steelhead Port Harbor.


"No Mr. Bond I expect you to die!" Wonderful scenery for the night.


Steelcobra and his huge Fist of Doom.


Even the Jägers were getting into the feel.

Voices in the Machine podcast the second

Episode 2 of Voices in the Machine is now online and ready for your listening pleasure.

Recorded November 6, 2008 (recorded sooner than our hoped-for biweekly schedule), Gabi, Fuschia, Nix and myself discuss the November 5, 2008 announcement by Linden Research updating changes in policy and pricing for Open Space sims.

And I stammer more due to trying to wake up during the recording :-)

Second Life's Endangered Spaces

Saw this video on the Winterfell forums and thought it needed to be shared.

Lest we forget

Today marks the 90th Anniversary of the end of the "War to end all Wars".

On this day in 1918 the Armistice was declared. In more recent years Armistice Day has become Remembrance Day.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

-- From Laurence Binyon's "For the Fallen", 1914

From Fuschia with Love - The Spy Who Lagged Me

The evil Pixie and the Professor had another of their stunning parties last night. Usually I'm busy sleeping at such times but with the change in Daylight Savings Time for everyone I've now moved 2 hours back from where I was relative to SL.



Dancing around Sharks with fricken lasers.

I caught the last hour of the party and enjoyed it immensly. It was nice to see Professor Avalanche again. Haven't seen him in ages.

I'll also have to set up a suitable photoshoot with the nifty new "spy" poses. I think my gift of the shark pool will turn up at Steelhead's Bond theme dance next week. :-)

Miss Emilly has some better pictures as she had her camera busy snapping.

The next one is "Bedknobs and Boomsticks". Based on that I've suggested that the Pixie will be played by Angela Lansbury and the Professor by Bruce Campbell. Should be fun!

Pirates!

Arrrrrr! Avast ye lily livered scurvy dog! Today's From th' Library takes ye on a journey o' bilge rats, rum, salty dogs an' more rum. Cap'n Edward Pearse gives ye music t' sail yer ship by.

Tune yer listenin' devices t' http://music.radioriel.org for a day o' shanties 'n' hornpipes an' some educatin' an' entertainin' ditties.

Let me tell ye why me Roger be so Jolly.

Shipmates, Brigands an' Privateers abound in today`s selection o' music in honour o' th' New Babbage Shipmate Regatta.

So help yersef t' a pint o' rum (sprinkled wi' gunpowder fer th' more hardcore) an' tap yer wooden leg t' th' likes o' Great Big Sea, Th' Dubliners, Th' Irish Descendants, Gilbert & Sullivan t' Tim Curry an' Split Enz. Somethin' in thar fer also sea dogs an' land lubbers.

From the Library is produced by Radio Riel in conjunction with the Caledon Library in Second Life. Today's program was produced by Edward Pearse.

You can listen now at http://music.radioriel.org - the ideal URL for you to use in your home parcel media address in-world - or simply visit any Caledon Library branch in-world and press Play on your embedded music player.

Voices in the Machine

The début episode of Radio Riel’s new podcast Voices in the Machine is now online. Our format is envisaged as a bi-weekly show and will include a guest interview, cast discussion of news and events of interest to Steampunks and neo-Victorians in virtual worlds, and viewer opinions.

Our regular cast is Gabrielle Riel, Fuschia Begonia, Nix Sands and myself. Our first episode introductions are made with some history of each of the cast before turning to Her Lyonesse, Kamilah Hauptmann, Vicereine of the Independent State of Caledon, and the hot topic of open space sims.

You can listen to this episode or download a variety of formats at archive.org.

We welcome feedback and listener opinion pieces. Send us an email at podcast@radioriel.org, and we will arrange to record you reading your contribution, or a staff member can read it for you. Funny voices entirely optional.

More thoughts on the Openspace sim debate

Further to my earlier post I've had a chance to read through the announcement and have a think on it.

The new changes come into effect on the 5th of January 2009 so if you're one of the Openspace sim users you've got just on 2 months to make a decision on what you're going to do. You've got four options.

Option 1:
"Those of you who chose to use the Openspaces as intended may stay at the US$75 rate, but will need to contact the concierge team to do so." The openspace sims will be seeing their prims reduced to 750 and restricted to 10 AVs at a time. Once you put in a few trees and shrubs you won't have much primmage left for building, maybe you can put in the corner of a crumbled ruin but that's about it. Forget your skybox as well. That's less that what the original openspaces had.

Option 2:
"If you want more than an Openspace, we will offer you the choice of moving to a new product called Homesteads that is intended for light use such as low density rentals." Homesteads will effectively be what an openspace is now with 3750 prims at your disposal. However the number of AVs allowed on a Homestead will be capped at 20. So you can probably have your dogfights or your small pirate regattas but certainly no balls, fund-raisers or even large parties. To add insult to injury even though they've extended the time it will take before full increase hits, LL have decreed that on the 15th of July 2009 you will be paying US$125 a month for the new style sim (though they've backed away from the initial "no discount" for Educational users). So not only is it going up 66% in tier you will be getting even less utilisation out of it than you can now.

Option 3:
If you have 4 openspace sims, LL will consolidate them into a full sim free of charge. Possibly the only good bit of news out of this, small though it is.

Option 4:
Walk away from it all.

This sort of behaviour on the part of LL really proves that their Customer Relations department is non-existent and their staff are vastly out of touch with their user base.

My own rule has mainly been that Pearse'd & Cut pays for my SL. At this point the rent for my shops and Argylle comes out of the profits from the sale of items of P&C. While I'm hoping to get some new items out and ready for sale during the summer break of Uni my typist has, I'm not so naïve as to believe I'll suddenly be able to increase business by that amount. While my dear Lady has said she can contribute I really don't think either of us can afford the full tier increase.

I may have to chat with the Guvnah about options.

The openspace controversy updated

The ongoing outcry over the 66% price increase to the openspace sims in SecondLife(tm) finally got some follow up this week with M Linden posting a change to the price hike and a rollout of a new type of openspace sim.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/11/05/a-letter-to-second-life-residents/

The Knowledge Base article explaining the differences between Openspace and Homestead is here.

Radio Riel covers the US election

Radio Riel was asked to broadcast a "count party" for Info Island with people gathered to watch as the results of the US Presidential Election come in. Myself, Soliel Snook and Gabriel Riel covered the period of 6pm to 9:30pm SLT and were still broadcasting when the official announcement came through.



It was a fun night and we got some nice compliments on the music. Nice to have been there for it.

Now the world's media can get back to doomsaying the economy.