Farewell Dirk Talamasca

It had been some years since Dirk and I had spoken, but I remember him as a very helpful member of Caledon in my early years there.

It was with a sad nostalgia that I saw the blog posts about his passing. I was even more impressed at some of the more widely recognised names who attended Dirk's memorial this past weekend.

I was glad to hear the anecdotes from people who knew him far better than I, and happy that his typist was with family at the end.

Valé Dirk.

Memorial for Nix Sands

Last weekend, the typist behind the avatar known as Nix Sands lost his fight with pancreatic cancer. We were never close friends but I loved his creative spirit and he always had a kind word. We'd initially made friends after discovering a mutual interest in historical re-enacting back when he ran his shop called Yestergear.

Part of Nix's Monstro hat

He had a flair for the whimsy and the outrageous that brought a smile to many faces. And I loved his Dieslepunk vehicles, though I'm sad I didn't get all of them. Now I don't have the option.

Some of the attendees at his Memeorial

This is only the third virtual Memorial Service I have attended. Some people just disappear and you never know what happened to them. In Nix's case he'd been quite public about his diagnosis, although he stayed away from things like Relay For Life as it hit too close to home.

Bon Voyage Mr. Sands where ever you fare. Your light going out makes the place seem a little darker for all.

Titanic in SL II

Many years ago I visited the Titanic in SL and was disappointed to find it little more than an over sized shopping spot.

However Ns5 Xorbun has created a 3000 prim extravaganza that makes me wish I had somewhere to put my own.


Long shot. You need to crank up your draw distance.

The bridge of the Titanic


Heading into the crew section of the ship.


The Grand Staircase

The aft deck with images from the real ship


Aft compass deck


The stern of Titanic

So far, there's no interiors aside from the 1st class staircase and the Bridge, but free updates will be given as additional parts are finished.

Visit it yourself while it's still on the ground at the Grunion sim. It's well worth the look.

Exploring Venexia

Venexia is a vampiric Venice in a world where vampires are the ruling class and humans are intelligent cows. The Venexia Skyline St. Mark's Basilica, Venexia The Basilica interior. Island of the Elders The Slaughtered Lamb. (American backpackers beware) Chapel interior of the Nosferati The canals. My first thought when I was told about a "Vampires in Venice" sim was that someone had taken the idea from the Doctor Who episode "The Vampires of Venice". So far no underwater aliens lurking in the canals but you never know.

 I went to Venexia to look at the architecture and was surprised to discover two of my friends were residents there. I was given a tour and the couple of other residents we encountered were very polite. If I'd seen this 15 years ago I would have been there in a flash. Now I'm not sure vampire RP is my thing.

It is an amazing build though, and the rather maze-like layout would take a short while to come to terms with. They're happy for visitors to come by, just make sure you wear a visitor tag.

Drop by Venexia. It's to die for.

Colossal AVs

I didn't get much of a chance to visit Fantasy Faire so most of what I saw came via other people's blogs. My friend Emilly posted this picture on her entry which really blew me away.


https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/O-hRrSJZN8JaO0EPZqrj6dMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite

The AV was made by Ceri Quixote using the Mesh system. She'll be releasing a slightly downsized version of the AV next month.

Better yet, there's even video of her to give you a better idea of the scale:


I'm looking forward to seeing what can be done with the Colossus sized AVs. Giant Killer Robots anyone?

Who Knows About Your Second Life?

(*Stolen from Zaida, who stole it from SLuniverse*)

Who knows about your avatar?
Only a few friends know my AV specifically, but most family and friends know I'm on SL.

Who doesn't?
Work. Uni. Although my Uni had/has a sim in SL I don't think they ever did much with it.

Are you 'proud' to have a Second Life avatar?
Not proud, but not ashamed.

Are you proud enough to tell your friends?
Have done. A few have even come into SL and met the AV directly. Even discovered one Babbagite was an old RL friend because I recognised her voice on a sound file.

Are you proud enough to tell your family?
I've told them I play SL (though Mum's probably forgotten). My mother has enough trouble working out how to save a picture attachment from email. I'm not about to explain the intricacies of a virtual world.

If you do tell, how do they react?
A few friends have tried it but it didn't grab them. Omega and Grrbrool have been in SL but have moved on.

Do you think their reaction is because something is wrong with having a SL avatar or that they're daft and closed minded about your game life?
No. Most are busy with their specific hobbies, be it Lego, Star Wars, or whatever. I had a couple of friends who came along to the last Doctor Who podshock and have listened to my Breakfasts in Babbage without being in SL but nothing beyond that.

Greg Merryman's passing a few months back has made me think I need to organise a "If I'm dead" file. No-one else has access to my email and I don't have a partner who could pass on that information. And I do my best to encourage the cat to stay off the computer.

Merry Christmas and a Joyous New Year

On behalf of Christine and myself I would like to wish you all the best of the Season and a safe and happy holiday to you and yours.

To our friends in the Steamlands of Caledon, New Babbage, Steelhead, Edison, Steeltopia and beyond may Steam Santa bring you lots of coal for your furnaces and possibly a few pressies to go with it.

Fàilte na Nollaige ort!

Changes with the new client

Not that posting anything on a Jira report will ever mean it gets fixed, it at least gives me a minor place to vent about the idiotic changes to the pie menu that have been put in with client release 1.23.

Please consider voting here:
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-13320

To try and have the interface menu returned to the format that it's been in for over three years.

Sunndale SL

Some time ago I remember being told that there was a Sunnydale sim on the grid. Having been a long time fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer I finally managed to find time to have a look. My reaction is... mixed.


Sunnydale High School - hangout to insect teachers, werewolves, witches and the occasional vampire.


Including its (in)famous School Library.

Under the school are some sewer tunnels and a nice large room with a pentacle on it.


1630 Revello Drive


The Bronze

The sim suffers from a small problem though. The school building is restricted to group access only. The teleporter with the red dots under the Welcome Centre sign is just inside the restricted zone, rendering it unusable to non-members. Additionally flying has been turned off for nearly all of the sim. Thankfully I found a spot where it wasn't turned off allowing me to reach some of the other builds.


Wolfram & Hart


Spike's crypt

The upper levels of the sim house things like Angel's Mansion, the Factory, some warehouses, as well as Willy's Place and a cemetery. None of which you can see unless you manage to find a way to fly up.

Overall, the sim is good, though it could still be improved with some some trees and grass here and there. I don't know how long the sim has been going but I had expected something a little more than this.

Sunnydale SL

Miskatonic Valley Authority

I've been a fan of Lovecraft for many years and peripherally involved in one of the early attempts at setting up a Lovecraft themed sim. Some early builds had been made but it never really took off. The group eventually parted ways with Martian Wei making a go of a horror theme and setting up October Country.

Back in January I heard about the Miskatonic Valley Authority and popped over for a look. The three sims of Dunwich, Kingsport and Arkham were mostly bare at the time but time has passed and made for a revisit.


The picturesque Miskatonic Valley looks like a rather quiet seaside village.


With fishing and ports


And a local University


The local Archaeological Society seem to have stumbled onto a major find.


Though this temple looks in rather better repair


Not so much a museum piece but an active temple. Yikes!

The Miskatonic Valley Authority sims are due to officially open on the 21st of March and will have both retail and residential occupation available. Contact Ceres Eilde for full details.

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens there.

Interesting eyes

Not a set I purchased but a glitch that managed to put part of my HUD onto the eye texture. I doubt I could repeat it if I tried but it looked pretty special.

Terraforming and a long overdue fix.

Waaaaaaay back in April of 2007, someone logged a fault saying the SLURL maps not showing up to date images unless you were viewing at full zoom. If you pulled your view back vast numbers of sims disappeared. Well it finally seems that Jira WEB-87 has been fixed. Might be able to do the large scale map at last.

While looking to see which sims were furthest in any direction I stumble across these. Sadly direct TP is blocked but I did pull up the sims on the internal map.

Someone's done some nice terraforming loading of their raw files.

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.

Second Life's Endangered Spaces

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

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.

An early New Year's Present

Wow, Linden Lab[s] seems to really know how to go about pissing off its user base.

Today they announced new measures for open source (void) sims. Not only will there be a 2/3 increase on monthly tier from $75USD to $125USD a month, but brand new ones will cost an extra 50% up from $250USD to $375USD.

Our Guvnah has said *wait and see*, though early indications from the emergency meeting held today show some valid fears.

Caledon is 20 open space sims out of 44. Antiquity has a significantly higher proportion. I know Steelhead was in the process of getting one and New Babbage has one as well. Winterfell certainly has more than half of its sims as open space.

I know I will have to think long and hard if it goes up by that much. With the exchange rate going through the floor I can't just pop in and buy some Lindens either. 3 months ago we were getting $1.00AUD = $0.96USD. This week the Aussie dollar buys $0.61USD.

Well I suppose for now it's "wait and see."

New hardware for your next computer upgrade

You know you want one.

Exploring SF on the grid Part III

The Babylon 5 Experience. Babylon 5 station has slowly evolved from a corner of a mainland sim to having two full sims of their own. I don't know if the aim is to eventually build the whole station, but they've gone an impressive distance to far.



Located in the Epsilon 3 and Epsilon Eridani sims, the Bab 5 station hovers high above the planet surface.


The Zocalo is a retail centre where you can find all manner of Babylon 5 and other SF outfits and ships.


View from one of the meeting rooms aboard B5.


Command & Control (or "C&C") the heart of operations on Babylon 5.


Chambers of the Interstellar Alliance


MacBari's: That even in the future some things stay the same.


The newly installed rail car let's you travel from one sim to the next.

The layout boasts security rooms, alien environments, rentable quarters, medical labs and an a variety of levels from the show. Friday nights are RP nights, but they have various things happening outside that from time to time.

For some reason the idea of Security Chief Garribadger stuck in my head during one of the conversations. I'm waiting for Raglan to invade the sim and see what the result is :-)

Changes to Steelhead

It's been many months since my typist's work roster was changed, preventing him from attending most of the social events in Steelhead. As a result my visits to Rosehaven or to the Pearse'd & Cut outlet in Steelhead rarely take me beyond their doors.

Recently after adding some new merchandise I noticed the footpath out the front of the shop had seen some work and it was then I remembered that some of the old underground tunnels from Ambertown had been excavated.


I think the cultists' Egyptian temple has long since been cleared away but it would be nice to see them join up with the tunnels under Boomtown.


As I was investigating I noticed that the Kokopelli stage has also seen a facelift. More trees and less brick, though the trumpeters have been kept.


The interior of the Steelhead Ballroom and Hotel has also undergone a facelift. The new carved panels and timber floors give it more of the feel of old world charm and style. You can almost feel the waltz as you walk through the door now.

Steelhead has changed greatly from the rustic frontier town is used to be. The discovery of silver and the growing market for "guard turkeys" has obviously been of huge benefit to Steelhead's growing wealth.

Congratulations to Lunar for his continuing work on the booming growth of Steelhead.