I've lost love, lived with shame, I was humbled by my fall from grace

"No person should have that many zippers...I don't care what fantasy it is." Very funny, and kudos to the Lyonesse, Kamilah Hauptmann, for finding it.

Also, Revenge Gears has a new video out. It's akin to listening to a soloist in Bedlam. I'm not recommending it, for anyone who doesn't want to experience the further descent, but I'm linking it because she makes an unsettling point.

The doctor, wants a piece of me, me and
The doctor wants a piece of you, too...

*shudders*

Now we have someone keeping a running tally of Evony ads as they, also, slide downhill. Interestingly, the one I liked a couple days ago isn't there. I may have to dig it up and toss it into the comments.

Courtesy of Mal Burns, a tour briefing for SLENZ, SL's virtual midwifery training group, turns into a "What Not to Do with Tour Groups" experience. Okay, so it didn't go as well as planned, but the virtue of such things must be the tips to avoid such things in future. Which this article details excellently.

And Jeansuis Short is selling stolen items on XStreet. This is not unusual save for a few factors:

1. He's instantly muting anyone who contacts him regarding the stolen textures.
2. Having been a resident since late October, 2007, he's old enough to know better; even though his profile still reads like a who's who of free sex palaces and Zyngo parlors, he's been on the grid over two years, which is more than enough time to get the idea that ripping textures is wrong;
and
3. He's selling the ripped textures no-transfer, rendering them useless for builds.

Part of the conversation held with Happyholly Grigges, owner of Fairy Unique Designs, one of the makers Jeansuis Short is ripping off by this:

[20:03] Happyholly Grigges: Emilly, can I ask a question. Was the textures full perm when you got them?
[20:03] Emilly Orr: No. Copy/mod/notrans. Seems everything he's selling is no transfer.
[20:05] Happyholly Grigges: Oay, thanks for letting me know. :) Apparently that is what they told the other texture artist is how they feel they can sell them and get away with it. *shakes head*

So...he thinks he's in the right...because he's changing the permissions to make them unusable by designers...so it's okay to resell things that aren't yours?

Man. People are unrelentingly stupid. More than that, I'm starting to consider stopping my habit of boxing up one-offs my inventory is too crowded for, and selling them--I might as well just delete them, or give them away, anything else and I might be tagged as a copybotter. That's the last thing I need!

We start today with Meta-Life, a very basic system with lots of clean, crisp, we've-taken-a-great-many-graphic-arts-classes logos. It sets up incredibly fast if you're in world; just go to the SLUrl, touch one sign near the entrance to register, then touch a box near the middle of the platform to get the vendor box itself.

During this entire process, I found out that--for at least some of my vendor shots--it is true what some have said about the Labs--for whatever reason, the Labs tends towards forgetfulness for any image older than one year. What perplexes me about this is that I had to take new product shots for my Bloodscratch dress--seen below--but that the pictures I have stored from 2006, as pictures, seem fine. So whatever it is that happens, it's alarmingly selective.

So...okay. I have been insanely busy all day; so...I'll do follow-ups on Metaverse, MetaLife and Apez tomorrow, hopefully. Because I have to recreate box art in order to list anything, and....why do I have to do this? Why do I have to pay twice for the same box art?

Well, because I was stupid and threw away the original box art on my comp, but...no! That's still stupid--why does the asset server discard content randomly at all?!?

Cariama lost me as a customer nearly immediately, and yes, I know it's me playing the elitist card of literacy, here, but--come on, now:



No. Just no. Not until they correct that glaring mistake.

It's "EASILY". SPELL IT RIGHT.

And so far, that's all we've found.

Creatures of the Night were for so long, so recently, deliciously terrifying...Somehow, you wandered out, alone, into tonight's chill woods. You know the dim light you hold will soon fade, your thin slippers tear, but still you walk on, the layers of fallen branch a snapping scaffolding for your nightmare, the thin cloth across your shoulder a mantle for your shivering, rain-drenched dream. The light flickers and falters, a candle-sputter away from enveloping blackness...and just as the light finally fades, it dances, green and cold, in her eyes. As her night wraps you up, you know you are lost, forever.

Lady Darkling returns. She may not be back in the world, but she has found her poetry again.

up from the ashes grow the roses of success

Alas, Beaker, we hardly knew ye.

[17:13] Hring Swansong: "Little Suzy from Boston Mass
[17:13] Hring Swansong: "Stood in the ocean up to her knees."
[17:13] Hring Swansong: It don't rhyme, now, but it will when the tide rises.

There are times I positively adore the Poetry Slams in Winterfell at der Hut.

How to float awkward questions at that job interview.

In the list of steampunk films, and steampunk-influenced movies--why does no one bring up Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?


(The first sight of the restored car.)

Filmed in 1968, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was based on a children's book written in 1964 by none other than Ian Fleming, the writer behind nearly every Bond film ever made. It was actually based on two high-performance (for the time) racing cars nicknamed "Chitty Chitty Bang" by their designer, Count Louis Zborowski.


(Chitty Chitty Bang Bang takes flight.)

Roald Dahl, of all people, was half of the screenwriting team for the screenplay as it transited from high-spirited children's book into the musical extravaganza it became. It starred Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts, mad inventor, and Sally Ann Howes as Truly Scrumptious, the daughter of the candymaker who falls for Van Dyke's eccentric ways. (The daughter, not the candymaker. That would have made an entirely different film.)


(Potts testing rocket propulsion.)

The film wasn't so greatly enjoyed by adults, but children ate it up like cream, worldwide. To the point that, for one of the first times in existing movie history (remember, this was 1968), movie tie-ins were generated--lunchboxes, Truly Scrumptious dolls, car models, dress patterns for Jemima's dress (all of which are still highly-sought-after collectibles to this day, as the film remains popular) and many other possible "Chitty Chitty" based things.


(Truly confronting Potts in his laboratory garage.)

In fact, for a while this film--though again, not being as popular with adult audiences--spawned a brief Renaissance, so to speak, for Edwardian-era fashions remade for the time, simply because Truly Scrumptious was so breathtaking in her pastel parade of costumes.


(Potts and Truly face down the owner of Scrumptious Sweets with a confectionary invention.)

The film was simple enough, if slightly bizarre--the eccentric creator (who has lost his wife through tragedy, one assumes) is raising two children (played in the movie by Heather Ripley and Adrian Hall) in a highly unconventional manner. They fall in love--as children are wont to do--with an old car, noted for winning the Gran Prix one year, but having now fallen into disrepair after an engine fire. Their father finds the funds to buy the car, and they take off to the seaside for an adventure.


(Flying to Vulgaria to rescue Grandpa, kidnapped by Baron Bomburst.)

While there are many side plots and diversions--the invasion by dogs of the Scrumptious Sweets factory being one, the introductory back-story on where Chitty Chitty comes from, and Truly Scrumptious' slightly stalker-worthy song on how to get Potts as a husband (matched only by the childrens' song to Truly exclaiming ultimate frenzied devotion after knowing her for two days), the real 'meat' of the story unfolds in the form of a tale told to the children before their nap.


(Marital bliss in Vulgaria--the Baron won't be happy until the Baroness dies.)

As the story goes--and everyone seems quite swept up in it, adults and sleepy children alike--a ship was sighted, coming for Caractacus Potts, the inventor that Vulgarian despot, Baron Bomburst, desired above all things, for he, too, wished for a flying car.


(Grandpa Potts in the Vulgarian labs with the very very old scientific team.)

How'ver, they slightly got their wires crossed, and ended up kidnapping Grandpa (played by Lionel Jeffries, which was made even more amusing by the fact that he was six months younger than Dick Van Dyke at the time) and carting him in his 'laboratory' off via zeppelin to Vulgaria--leaving the hapless family, and Truly, to chase after them using Chitty Chitty's wing propulsion system.


(Potts and Truly playing birthday party toys.)

As it turns out, the Baroness of Vulgaria is deathly afraid of children. She has ordered that all of them be declared illegal, and has even set aside funds for a Childcatcher permanently on staff, a beak-nosed, thinly vile man who is very, very good at his job (portrayed in the film by Robert Helpmann, whose carriage went out of control during filming, and nearly saw him slain before his time--thankfully, his long career of dance and acrobatics came to his aid, and he was able to leap free and land on his feet). He steals Jemima and Jeremy, and nothing for it but that Truly and Caractacus must get involved to save them, save Grandpa, and liberate all the children of Vulgaria!


(The Childcatcher caught.)

And therein follows several fun songs, the Baroness in a corset dancing through several attempts at murder by her husband, a revelation on where the children of Vulgaria live, and a surprise appearance by Benny Hill (yes, that Benny Hill) as the Toymaker to the royal house. In the end the day is saved, the Vulgarians have normal families again (one assumes), and Chitty Chitty flies off home to England. Yay?


(Chitty Chitty Bang Bang saves the day!)

So why is this relevant, you might be asking. Which is where my confusion comes in in the first place--why aren't you already convinced? The mad inventor, the trappings of Victorian times, the pulling-up-from-your-bootstraps mentality, the Rube Goldberg Breakfast device in the kitchen, the Vulgarian zeppelin--I mean, it's all there! Follow the Steampunk 101 list and really, it's almost textbook. All it lacks is something powered by steam alone, and something made from cavorite floating to the sky!

It's perfect. Hells, it even lines up to Edward Pearse's claim that there's a brighter steampunk world, to balance all the rust and shadow! Edward, this is your film! A brighter, happier steampunk vision was never recorded. Hells, even the hints of danger and child endangerment sound fun.

So why isn't this listed with so-called "traditional" steampunk fare? Go 'head, hit me with your answers, I'm curious.

(All pictures are screen captures from Netflix; all rights reserved to Netflix and to the production's copyright holders. For anyone who has a Netflix account, btw, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" can now be seen at any time, or sent to your home on disc. How cool is that?)

sometimes I cannot take this place, sometimes it's my life I can't taste

MMORPG's list of ten MMOs that made a difference. It's not a bad list of history-making MMOs, with both good and bad games on the list.

Miss Ina Centaur makes some very good points here.

All right, so I'm sure everyone's heard by now that Linden Labs are dissatisfied with the level of profits they're getting currently (in that they're not WoW), so they're jacking the prices of things on XStreet.

Especially freebies.

While doing nothing to stem the rising tide of blatant copyright infringement and business-in-a-box sales.

So...you're irked with the Labs and you have stuph for sale...what do you do?

There's a limited list of alternatives. One is Slapt.me. Built by three residents and hailing out of the Netherlands, it uses an unfortunate orange color scheme and a rather slow server, all things considered. Setup is a bit tricky, but doable, and no more brain-croggling on listing items than XStreet.

They're discounting largely their advertising fees:

slapt.me does not charge merchants for standard item listings on the Marketplace website.

slapt.me charges Marketplace merchants a commission for each sale. Standard commission rates are as follows:

All Items: 5% of the sale amount

* Commissions are rounded to the nearest Linden Dollar using straight rounding (e.g. 1.5 is rounded to 1).
* Commissions are charged at the time of each sale.

Listing Enhancements

Featured Item Listing

Homepage Featured Item Listing - L$2899 - (Special offer price) L$499 per 30 days
Homepage Featured Item Listing (7 days) - L$899 - (Special offer price) L$139 per 7 days
Highlighted Item Listing - L$299 - (Special offer price) L$69 per 30 days
Bordered Item Listing - L$299 - (Special offer price) L$69 per 30 days
Bold Item Listing - L$99 - (Special offer price) L$24 per 30 days

I'm trying it for a month to see, with one or two items. I'll tell you how it goes.

Down Sides: To date, there's no effective 'payout' for goods. They say they're working on it. I have doubt. But this is what their FAQ now says:

* How do I withdraw my L$ funds to real cash?

We are currently working towards introducing a method to withdraw your funds directly to RL. We will post more information when we have it and are able to share it with you. For now you can only withdraw L$'s back to your avatar via the inworld terminals. See below for more details.

So...find an inworld terminal--or host one in your store, if they say yes and send you one--and you're good for at least in-world things. This is not the worst concept. I will say that Slapt terminals are much more prevalent in world, now, and it's equally easy to withdraw funds from a Slapt terminal as it was from SLBoutique.

The other big down side: their formatting is crap. There's just no way around that. Their formatting of rigid box sizes and fields that can't be read if they go outside the boundaries of the box ensure that I'm pretty much making a blind stab at category for my outfits, and have no idea what my items are actually listed as. This is not good.

Metaversal Exchange is another virtual reseller to investigate. Many merchants are drifting over there for two reasons: first, it's a fairly easily understood format, easy to set up an account, easy to list items; and second, they claim their end goal is to serve all virtual good designers, in all worlds, so if Second Life ends up being inhospitable to non-business accounts, the assumption is that merchants can hop to another world and still list their items for sale.

Terminals are a little odd to get to, but they're growing; I have an account and I'll try to get set up as a merchant with a sales box tomorrow.

The SL Mentor Group is closing. I can't help but think that, barring the few genuinely helpful souls, this is a good thing; both because the Labs are becoming evil mercenary thugs, and also because the SL Mentors group was becoming full of tinpot dictators with delusions of grandeur...wait, why is Linden Labs closing the Mentor group again? Sounds like their mix of thuggish insanity would fit in fine with the M Linden Labs!

I'll keep you updated, either way.

if dirt were dollars we'd all be in the black

Decals for Second Life? It's a JIRA I voted for, admittedly, but it would ease some texturing worries. I just can't see a way to do it technically...

This Friday, the Transgender Day of Remembrance will be held in SL, at three times during November 20th, so that anyone who wishes to attend, hopefully can. It will be a candlelight vigil with guest speakers and all are welcome. This year alone, from January 1st to October 22nd, ninety-five people--that we know of--died by their own hands or in violent ways at the hands of others, simply for being transgendered and visible.

That's RL, people. Though in SL, the prejudice is widely felt.

For more information, interviews in advance of the day, or to sign up as a partner site, please contact Winnie Sweetwater in-world, or via email to winnie_h@yamail.com.

Now, a certain ralph Anderton, someone's not-very-well-disguised alt (Prokovy Neva mentioned he may be an economics student named Jason, in which case, it's an even stupider idea) proposed a L$500 filing fee--per item--to list items on XStreet.

We need to raise standards and create a fair and level playing field for all, without product spamming or traffic gaming the system [.]

I agree with that. I do. I think that's a great concept. It has some significant flaws, how'ver.

* How are we raising those standards? Whose standards are we imposing?

* How do we level the playing field? Do we offer building classes to everyone so we can be "assured" they are producing "quality" items? Who is judging what counts as a "quality" item? Do we certify builders and scripters in world, so they can add on a specially-designed checkmark logo to their wares?

* Do we offer everyone a set budget for advertising? Or high and low restrictions--to advertise at all, say, each resident must spend no less than L$50 per item, no more than L$3000 per item to have items listed? Do we control keywords? Do we control product names?

Most importantly, how in the hell does in-world traffic apply to XStreet sales?!?

The thread has a lot of replies already, most of them saying some variant of ralph, yer a loon, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Linden Labs--in their *cough* "infinite wisdom"--have already taken some of Mr. Anderton's ridiculous suggestions to heart.

Witness Exhibit A. And I quote:

The Roadmap:
We will enact the following new controls for the Xstreet SL Marketplace within 90 days, with at least two weeks' notice, in order to improve the shopping experience:

Monthly Listing Fee for Freebies of L$99:

• Listings for free items will now be treated as a marketing/promotional tool and thus will have a price.
• L$99 is the price of our least expensive listing enhancement and so we will start there.
• Depending upon desire for this marketing opportunity and perceived value given such demand, we will adjust the price as necessary to maximize this value and keep the freebie listings from becoming bloated again.
• Expected Delivery: 30 - 60 days
  

Minimum Commission of L$3 on all items priced L$1 or greater:

• We will enact a minimum commission of L$3 on all sales of non-freebie listings.
• Since Freebie listings are now considered marketing and are charged as such, they will not incur this fee.
• A L$3 commission will raise the commission on all listings under L$50. This was a range suggested by residents, but it turns out that this is the price range where there is a very high transaction volume and low commission income which combine to cover the costs of those transactions.
• We may adjust this minimum commission as we see its effects on the marketplace. L$3 does not cover the full cost of a transaction, but the goal here is first to manage freebie growth first.
  
• Expected Delivery: 30 - 60 days
  

Monthly Listing Fee of L$10 for all items L$1 or greater:

• All non-freebie listings will now be charged L$10 per month to remain listed in the Xstreet SL Marketplace
• Currently, less than 20% of Xstreet SL listings make at least one sale per month. This displays just how much clutter of unsold items exists on Xstreet SL.
• Doing this will provide an incentive for merchants to remove listings which are not selling, while keeping this fee low enough to have a minimal effect on listings which are selling and are desired by shoppers.
• By reducing the overall number of listings on Xstreet SL, the shopping experience will drastically improve which will please our shoppers and be a boon to the business of all of our merchants.
• Expected Delivery: 60 - 90 days

Oh, just WONderful.

So the cost of my--so far ONLY--selling item these days on XStreet--a dollarbie collection of two hand-drawn madras textures in light and dark, Caledon tartan varieties--will go up by L$109 per month, plus for every single Linden I make, XStreet will gouge me L$3 for that. Resulting in a net loss of L$109 every month, and a loss of L$2 every sale I make.

Now, why am I bothering to sell on XStreet again? I only have nine items listed--one is for L$50, one is for L$75, none are over L$300--which would hit me with a L$13 per month fee to carry each one, which is, I grant you, considerably LESS but still damaging.

Bits and pieces from some of the office hours held on the freebies/cheapies topic:

[9:18] Ciaran Laval: Can we just get Meta to throw out some sexy stats, I'm a big fan of stats
[9:18] Ann Otoole: LL is not congress and any attempts to make law will be fought in DC
[9:18] Colossus Linden: Yoshi, how many freebies do you have and how many do you feel you actually need for marketing?
[9:19] Pink Linden: Ann, points are noted. Please stay on topic.
[9:19] Colossus Linden: That is the biggest use I've heard of - using freebies as a marketing tool to drive shoppers to your other items
[9:19] Yoshi Zhangsun: i think ive got about 5 up at the moment and yeah they definitely bring faces onto my sim
[9:19] Ann Otoole: it is on topic pink. go get your lawyer in here
[9:19] Yoshi Zhangsun: to be honest ive always seen slx as marketing over a sales space, althoug i make sales most customers i find from slx have tp'd in from the advert
[9:19] Suella Ember: personally i have 5 dollarbies and one freebie - i think that is enough to highlighy my style and items. Then again - if every merchant has that many its an awful lot!
[9:19] Yoshi Zhangsun: perhaps because i sell a lot of furniture and thy want to see in the prims but i dont know
[9:20] Rachel Darling: nods at Suella and yoshi's comments and numbers, noting that hers are comparable
[9:20]TriloByte Zanzibar: yeah, i'd like to see some stats as well. Specifically, what's the cost (in lindens) per item to actually process a transaction and deliver an item in-world. Secondly, what are total freebie admin/overhead costs compared with XSL's commission revenue?
[9:20] Ann Otoole: let's be specific. boot sellers are mad about people selling all colors boots for L$10. well that is all they are worth.
[9:21] Ann Otoole: takes 30 minutes to make the script. boom done. there is no inherent value in them anymore
[9:21] Pink Linden: TriloByte, we don't release specifics on that...but I will say that a disproportionate amount of costs are being caused by items that do not provide offsetting revenue.

So they won't release statistics to prove any of this, but when pressed, Pink did admit the goal--they haven't been able to charge, under the old structure, any percentage of the profit on XStreet items costing one Linden or less. This is about profit loss. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, since Linden Labs bought out the company that used to be SLX, they have suffered a total loss of profits across the board--but because freebies pop up under most searches, they're being noticed more often, so are penalized soonest.

[9:22] Pink Linden: we can no longer afford to support these items.

[9:22] JB Hancroft: So, Pink... it's a LL problem, not a merchant or consumer problem? Just trying to understand what population has the hurt.
[9:23] Pink Linden: JB, it's both an LL problem and an merchant problem
[9:23] Colossus Linden: It is both. Frankly, any merchant problem is an LL problem

Now, I am editing here and there to make points, obviously--you can grab the Commerce office hours link above to read the whole thing in unedited form--but the main point being made is:

1. The Labs aren't making enough money.
2. There are too many freebies in the XStreetSL Marketplace.
3. There is rampant copyright infringement in XStreet.
4. Charging for freebies will make this stop, and give the Labs money.

I can see why they're going there, believe me; but in SL, I don't think A plus B is going to equal C, here...in the least.

[9:26] Colossus Linden: As a number of you have said, you use it for marketing. It attracts different types of shoppers
[9:26] TriloByte Zanzibar: agreed, i think xstreet is an invaluable tool for sellers
[9:26] Colossus Linden: So, Xstreet does not have to mimic or support everything that in-world shopping and selling supports
[9:27] Colossus Linden: So, the biggest thing that I've heard is that freebies and cheapies have value, but the market has become a bit flooded with them
[9:27] Colossus Linden: Some of you would support a minimum price, but many of you oppose the idea of "price fixing"

Yes, but I think the same folks who will shy off at a "fixed price" minimum are the same folks who will shy off at a fixed price minimum of L$99 per month to list a dollarbie! How can the Lindens not see that?!?

[9:30] Colossus Linden: Okay, let me go into some of the ideas we've had. I have some responses to the questions you have all asked, but I am doing my best not to drive you to 1 solution before you have some time to think
[9:30] Colossus Linden: Okay, options:
[9:30] Colossus Linden: 1. Limit to free listings or listings under price L$X
[9:31] Colossus Linden: - Hard limit of 3 per merchant. Perhaps a monthly fee to list those 3 or to have a higher limit
[9:31] Colossus Linden: 2. Time Limit - add an incentive to remove cheap items. No item under L$X can remain listed for more than a month
[9:31] Ann Otoole: charge me for freebies and they just move in world and go out in groups
[9:32] Ann Otoole: LL cannot beat this [unless] LL bans all sales and transfers in world
[9:32] TriloByte Zanzibar: a time limit would be a problem for me, we only make/offer a few freebie items per year
[9:32] Colossus Linden: 3. Marketing Enhancement. - Freebies and cheapies are used as a marketing tool. Just like listing enhancements they should be priced by the month. Make a monthly fee of L$99-L$2899 to list a freebie (just like listing enhancements)
[9:33] Colossus Linden: 4. Freebie Marketplace - Separate freebies into a separate shopping experience which is designed to better advertise the items which are not free. - create a new advertising opportunity
[9:33] Colossus Linden: 5. Removal - ban all freebies and all items below L$X

Thankfully--I guess thankfully--they didn't decide, when they decided earlier today, to stick with #2 and #5, and the latter part of #1. I suppose we should be grateful for small favors.

[9:36] Ann Otoole: basically look at everyone doing well and destroy their business and the rest will be pleased

Ann is very, very cynical, but I can't say I disagree. This just seems more cost fostering than anything else--forcing people (many of whom already pay the Lindens at minimum premium account fees, if not the equivalent of, or more than, each month) to pay more, to sell lesser-priced items. That seems insanely unfair, and unbalanced.

[9:41] Colossus Linden: Additionally, if you really want to distribute a freebie when the rest of the merchant and shopper base foots the expenses, why does that merchant not want to do it when they are asked to cover the expense of distribution of those freebies?
[9:41] Ann Otoole: what is the expense of distributing a freebie [Colossus]?
[9:42] Ann Otoole: excactly what does LL pay?

More to the point--for me, at least--I don't think it's about sharing the cost of the expenses. I think there comes a point where spending over L$100 to list one dollarbie item just isn't worth it. If I'm passionately committed to some religious, socially conscious, or empowering bit of frippery that I want to put up and keep up--well, likely that might fall under their educational category anyway, and the costs might well be defrayed. But textures? Outfits? Ornaments?

Oh, hell no. I'll sell them in world--if I sell them at all.

[9:42] Colossus Linden: Ann, I can't share hard costs, but for any item on Xstreet there are data storage, data transfer, listing review, item delivery, etc. costs.
[9:43] Ann Otoole: and if those messages are that expensive why isn't LL charging for every object message in and out of SL?

Which is a damned good point--if they're going to get all finicky about things now, is this a sign of things to come? Are they soon going to charge per IM? Are they going to charge people out of their own game entirely??

More and more, I'm thinking, this is their incredibly arcane way of not just kicking everyone out of the pool at once, but suffering the slow death of user attrition as a net loss, before sealing the entire playground and paving it over with office complexes. Because it's really starting to sound like the Lindens don't want residents in world anymore.

[9:52] Colossus Linden: Yoshi, sounds like I should reach out to Arcadia Asylum. But, I will warn that they may not be best served by Xstreet.

Yeah, good luck with that.

Your world, your imagination? Only if you can afford the fees.

we're on the move again, join in or step aside

There are several useful tips on how to make blog posts more accessible in a Bitch Magazine article; I'm not doing quite a few of them. I'll work on that but the first one, right up, is light-colored text against a dark background--and in my case, a patterned dark background. This is not likely to ever change.

And Dragonfish signs a contract for international payment processing with Linden Labs. For the life of me, I can't decide if that's a good thing, or a bad thing.

In other news, Peter Strindberg says most SL relationships, on average, last about nine months. But that's not what I wanted to bring up.

Pointed my way by Ciaran Laval, Peter Strindberg actually has a very interesting post on inventory and IMs. Namely, delivery failure due to IMs capping...and what, in world, constitutes an IM.

Some things I never expected are on that list. For instance:

* Port requests. We're actually IMing the sim, asking for a transfer; the port is the sim's answer of that call.

* Force teleports--those click-and-go devices mostly used in roleplay sims and scavenger hunts? Those are IMs.

* IMs from objects. Things like, "Lady Disdain Welcome Sign gave xXladygagaXx Nacht a notecard" (not a real name) and "Cyro Ripper called Brokencyde Moonwall yelled the AVkey of Zion Zemenis" (actual names).

* Friend requests. Every time someone asks to be my friend; every time I turn down a friend request or accept it; those are all IMs, on the system side.

* Inventory offers. Any time a designer sends you a notecard; a group gift; a landmark; those all count as individual IMs.

I'd hazard a guess that group invites also count; I know subscribe-o-matic sends count.

Here's something I didn't know; while no one is quite sure of the number, the number is vanishingly low for our IMs capping.

"There is a limit to how many IM's an avatar can receive while being offline," Strindberg says. "I did not find an official statement as to how many IM's it takes to cap, several discussions on forums and the JIRA suggest that the cap will happen after 15 IMs. While you still get offline-IM's that you received something, what you actually find in your inventory is different."

That is insanely low. That is frighteningly low. What do they expect folks to do, log in every two hours for ten minutes and clear any backlog?

In my mind, the whole Subscribe-o-Matic system only exists because the Lindens refuse to up the amount of groups each avatar can be in. If there's not a rational, technical reason why they refuse to do this (and by 'rational' and 'technical' I mean, "If we do this the grid will fail and here's why"), then they have no excuse.

"In the recent survey, Pink Linden asked whether merchants would welcome a system that guarantees delivery. Yes, of course we would, but not at a 15% premium. Inventory transfer is a basic functionality of SL, and to say it bluntly - it is broken! Fix it! Asking a premium for guaranteed delivery strikes me as - well - unethical. I think it is Linden Lab's obligation to fix the functionality that is there, and not ask money for a workaround."

It strikes me as very unethical, which now puts the little mutant Linden-bunny in two distinct camps. Either she is:

* Completely clueless (in which case she has no power in the Linden substructure, and why is she talking to us? It wastes our time, and hers, and gives no one benefits. Also, if she's the bunny in charge of XStreet, when is the blatant and, by the way, constant copybotting going to cease over there? It wasn't good before LL bought it out; but ever since they have, it's gotten worse in spades)

or

* Deliberately malicious (in which case, she needs to stop and snap out of it, and again is wasting our time with the survey of stupidity, because she's only going to do what she and the Lindens want to do anyway, and it doesn't matter what anyone says. Reference the entire Zindra catastrophe, and how fast Blue Linden went from 'helpful forum guide' to 'evil mind-controlled Renfield'. How long did that take, again--four weeks? Three?)

In short, it seems to be we have very few options, all of them grim:

* Ditch objects that IM us. There are workarounds, we need to find them. Most of what we have IM us is not necessary. This may involve a ton of work, how'ver, and for some of us, investing in new scripts to replace the old scripts we didn't write, and can't modify, so we get one that stops announcing every time a script event happens.

* Unsubscribe from high-traffic/high-notice groups. But even that is going to be tricky, because some of the high-notice groups we're in could be land groups, or our own shop groups, or groups we really want to remain in.

* Unsubscribe from Subscribe-o-Matic based groups. (And having done that, I am here to tell you that is INSANELY difficult, because we have to remember which group IMed us, track down their main store, track down their Subscribe-o board, and unsubscribe. Napalm-rinse-repeat.)

In short...it seems we take the road of cumbersome difficulty, and pare it down to the base essentials, and risk getting capped again anyway from the groups we can't ditch, or insist that the Lindens fix the broken aspects, and that's never going to happen, so we really just have the first option.

Y'know, just once, I'd love to have a day where someone saw a problem with functionality, and some Linden noticed that, and FIXED. IT. That would be great, really.

karma's a trip now, you probably should turn around and take yourself home

Remember, when Evony launched, it was all grr-fighters-swords-kill-things?

Yeah, they've pretty much abandoned that angle entirely.

By way of Miss Samantha Poindexter, RCAF pilots find themselves in a quandary. And it's a serious one, as serious as the sailing quandary with the OpenSpace/homestead sims last year.

Linden Labs pushes this big get-away-from-it-all, sandy-beaches-and-sunshine, virtual playground world, and yet, when push comes to shove, they don't seem to care at all about recreational activities. Or at least, they don't care if they're not the sort of things they might be interested in doing.

And sure, flying machines are the focus, but aeronautics in general capture Miss Connolly, and many of the RCAF pilots--in fact, according to her Twitter stream, she had--at least at one point, it may be there still--a mock-up of the Apollo II Lunar Lander at the Penzance Aerodome. How cool is that?

But right now, the extreme lag involved in all sim crossings--and I do mean all, even walking over bridges that span two sims results in, on the best days, sinking beneath the sim surface and wandering the murky blue under the .raw file for a bit--is killing air flight. She says they're having a little more success with VTOL aircraft over prop jets, but be serious--how many VTOL craft did Victorian aeronautics have?

If the Lindens don't find a way to debug the system, simple vehicle-based flying is going to become as frustration-filled as sailing when the ocean is chopped into sections--or maxed out on prims in that location!

This may be a problem only the Lindens can solve, honestly. And the true tragedy is, it's a problem the Lindens caused. If this gets worse, that's another checkmark off the list of what keeps people in Second Life, and in Caledon.

Again, the question springs to mind--are they trying to kill their own platform?

in the fields of love, you're the scarecrow

One world, one avatar certainly doesn't work for me; apparently, it doesn't work for a lot of other people either.

Ann O'Toole explains lag again. It has nothing to do with ARC, it has nothing to do with your shoes or your hair, she says--unless they're scripted to resize. Mostly, it comes down to three factors: scripts each avatar is carrying (in the HUDs, the fishing rods, the AOs, the resizing clothing/shoes/hair/accessories, the gadgets, the multi-tools, Tiny Empires, Bloodlines, the Hunger, and every other resource-clogging HUD it's possible to wear), enabling Windlight, and actually walking around in avatar form ourselves.

Sucks to be us.

Dragon Age apparently is having some bizarre avatar problems. I have to say, based on that, they have SL's fold-in-half-for-proctology move beat.

In other (decidedly NSFW) news, the age of sculpts and ultra-realism have hit...genitalia. And it's not pretty. (Think that's bad? Try this on for size. Now even cheaper-looking!)

I swear, I saw either of these coming at me--anywhere at me--I'd throw salt and run screaming, I'm not kidding. A), they do not look "ultra-realistic". B), they do not look "natural", or even "natural for SL" (which in my estimation is even more important). Basically, if you're going to use photorealistic textures, and it looks artificial and scary, you are fail at photorealism. And C), this is Second Life! We're used to male genitalia--and female genitalia--looking wonky! Trust me, this does not help!

On occasion, Twitter shakes me to my foundations:

"Such silence tonight. The earth might be uninhabited. I told her it was no use going on and she agreed."

~John Larroquette

That's just...damn. That's hard. Beautiful, but hard.

And the image below comes from Wordle. One of the earliest entries on the Train Wreck turned into a word cloud. It fits...

and the weight is crushing down on my lungs, I know I can't breathe

Canada's trying to draft a DMCA-like copyright law to bolster its current looser, freer system. No, Canada! Don't do it! DMCA is bad! It will stunt your grown and grow hair on your palms, NOOOO!

Seriously. Bad idea. Listen to me on this, I live in America. I know how bad the DMCA is.

Now. Other topics. Pink Linden is sending around a survey to SL merchants. (Apparently, omitting me. Nice to know I'm completely ignored by all sides...unless they're paying me...and then I'm a big deal and must be fired.

(...Ahem. Sorry. Anyway...)

Friend of mine had completed the survey, but still had the link he was sent, so he sent it my way. What neither of us can figure out, how'ver, is the survey coding: id est, will the survey credit to him if I take it, or credit to me? Do I need to be sent it with my own special little coding?

Instead, I took pictures of the damned thing, because it's on crack, start to finish.

The first and second questions aren't bad:



(As always, click for the larger version.)

Standard, even: have you ever taken out a classified ad, what sort of things do you sell? Simple questions.

There's one in the next batch that gets very odd, though.



Do they really expect people to answer that honestly? I'm not talking about the ones who do personally create everything they sell. But for the ones who don't? If they don't create what they put out, they aren't going to be honest enough to give a percentage accurately.

It's a specious question to ask.



The next couple are again odd--after all the trouble they went to, to all but ensure that the Linden view is clearly and unambiguously stated (namely, that this is a game, that no profit is guaranteed or intended, that anyone using this game as a means to increase RL income should stop), to ask first, what percentage of the merchant's given RL household income is provided by SL, and next, how much each merchant makes on average...it seems ridiculous and surreal. What do the Lindens care about how much anyone's making...unless the Lindens want a bigger cut down the line?



I suppose owning land, or at least renting it, and the main activities we do in SL would apply to a merchant survey...as much as it sounds like Big Brother Linden...Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out the really odd questions--the ones about Linden-made vendors (for a fee), and listing things automatically on XStreet (for a fee), and the ones about asking if it would be a good idea to charge five or ten US dollars--you know, what they consider a 'nominal sum', I'm sure--per listing, per item on XStreet...

They're on crack. There's no other word for it. They have completely and utterly lost their minds.

Does anyone know a Linden who might be able to confirm why they've suddenly turned into minute-by-minute, charge-by-the-moment types? I mean, this isn't even money on the dresser, thanks, seeya next week--hells, it's not even watch five minutes of porn for free, pay eternally for the rest of the movie.

This is robbery with a smile and a chainsaw strap-on. And not a nice one, either.

What's going on with Pink Linden? And who's telling the insane little bunny to hop out with this survey in the first place?

let me hear you roar

Via--amusingly enough--Duchess Eva, comes this interesting bit from Vernian Process. If you like his synthesized explorations of classical music, steampunked to a high shine, you will adore the new album. But they're having a bit of problem funding it. So, for a limited amount of time, you can download the pre-release version of the album for free (always, of course, knowing the actual album release will be tighter, more polished, and come with a nifty case and nifty art). He's also soliciting donations to help cover the cost of self-pressing the album.

It's a good cause and it's good music; give if you can, and in return, you get to hear what the album sounds like before he's finished tinkering with everything (sort of the middle step between live and fully recorded, if you will), you get the chance to download the artwork from the album as wallpaper, and you know you're giving your money to someone who's going to turn it around into more music--either on his own, or through his record company, Gilded Age.

Ran into an old friend and an amusing new acquaintance over at DV8 Designs--so, just to prove I don't always mock other residents on this blog, I present to you Unlimited Clip. With mask:



And without:



Very, very spiky avatar. Plus, y'know, the arrow through the heart, that's never good. But it was a striking look, and looked good on him.

He says he's not antisocial, though, in spite of the spikes. And he has one of the most wonderful SL bios I've ever read. Pull his profile, you'll see.

(This next bit, unfortunately, crosses a bit of SL and RL. Can't be helped--in that I'm not going back and editing out anything I'm typing on the fly--I'm just going with it. I'm tired and my head hurts so deal.)

The War Poets Exhibition is now open in SL. Laird Brideswell, Elric Merlin, tipped it my way, but I wanted to take a look for myself. Unfortunately, I was asked to delay to make this a group thing, and several hours past that, my typist got smacked in the back of the head with her desk chair (gods, don't ask), so by the time I actually got back to wandering the exhibit, things were a little...off.

They recommend specific Windlight settings--my new favorite, Gelatto--but it's not essential. You can walk this exhibition without Windlight.



(Miss Neome chose dark blue for the journey. It looked good on her.)

The bubble system of transport--I've had one for years, I adore it--is really unique. I will say that, while I doubt this will happen to anyone else, putting an avatar in a bubble whose typist has a head injury--and then spinning the bubble wildly--is not destined for good things.



(Around and around and around and...ugh, let me down already.)

I got out of mouselook, and breathed for a while, and things were fine, but that was not fun.

Some of the audio transcripts were--for me at least--very, very faint. Whether that's a result of injury and shock, or sound quality, I'm not sure. I honestly couldn't tell you, save to encourage you to zoom in on the box itself; it amps the broadcast volume.

It was about this point I realized I somehow hadn't fully set Gelatto on my Windlight settings. Ah, well.

Several things could be clicked on--the archive boxes for poetry and description of conditions, a small field of poppies one could click for a wearable remembrance poppy.



(The aid station, with some very talkative rats.)

And the rats in the aid station.

[1:50] Rat Fact: Rats transmit Murine typhus fever, rat bite fever, salmonellosis or bacterial food poisoning, Weils disease or leptospirosis and trichinosis, melioidosid, brucellosis, tuberculosis, pasteurellosis, rickettsial diseases, and viral diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease.

The aid station was stark, terrifying. Bodies laid out as best they could, desperate conditions, too few nurses and too many wounded men, as happens in any war, all wars. There was a port circle at the back leading to the hospital, but we elected to push forward to the front.

[1:53] Rat Fact: Shooting rats was discouraged because ammunition couldn't afford to be wasted so it became a common practice to use bayonets or shovels.



Another rat I clicked gave me an agonizing poem and a sketch of dead rats--the nearest thing the artist had to work on, during his hospitalization.

O Life, Life, let me breathe,---a dug-out rat!
Not worse than ours the lives rats lead---
Nosing along at night down some safe rut,
They find a shell-proof home before they rot.
Dead men may envy living mites in cheese,
Or good germs even. Microbes have their joys,
And subdivide, and never come to death.
Certainly flowers have the easiest time on earth.
'I shall be one with nature, herb, and stone,'
Shelley would tell me. Shelley would be stunned:
The dullest Tommy hugs that fancy now.
'Pushing up daisies' is their creed, you know.

(from A Terre by Wilfred Owen)

The exhibit grew darker, the deeper we went into it.

[1:54] Rat Fact: 1 pair of rats can produce 900 offspring in a year.



The barbed wire is black against the green-looming sky. Traces of cordite and mustard gas in the air give everything an unsettling haze. The poppies stand out like drops of blood on bright stems.

[1:55] Rat Fact: Rats have poor vision. To compensate for this, a red or pink eyed rat will often weave its head side to side to add "motion" to see better.

There is some lag, and we were very confused at first; yes, it's got some fair amount of scripting, but why would just that lag things out? There's nothing beyond scripting to account for it.

Then--entirely by accident, trying to click one of the reading stations--I discovered the nurse skirt has resize scripts. So does the belt, the cape, and the cap and veil. (They are all no-modify, of course.)

When I related this to Miss Midnight and Miss Fawkes--who had elected to wander garbed as soldiers--they informed me that hat, belt, boots and backpack were resize-scripted. (And also no-modify.)

Well, no wonder--we're our own walking lag machines!

Barbed wire landscape

[1:56] Rat Fact: A group of rats is called a mischief.



Everything ends--as much as it can--with a small tutorial, a mini-theatre where you can see another film, and some credits and acknowledgements. This is one person's machinima on the project. There are others.

All in all, this comes highly recommended. It takes some time, but if you have the time, it's worth it to go. I would suggest possibly scouting about for World War I attire on your own, that is not fitted with resize scripts, but that's your own call--go early enough, the lag is not too bad.

Plus--free Lassitude and Ennui boots, ladies! Come ON now! And they aren't resize-scripted!

you leave it all on the table, if you lose or you win

Windows Marketplace? Hacked in seven hours. Wau, that was quick.

And Sasy Scarborough weighs in on content theft--curiously on November 5th. Yeah, I hadn't even realized the 'no blog posts' portion of the protests--not that I would have followed that anyway. Not much keeps me from blogging if I want to. Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad; but that's part of who I am.

At least that post helps explain some things; as one of Maitreya's shop contacts, I'd contacted Miss Scarborough in relation to a hunt, some time last year; I got a fractious and seemingly insane reply back, full of highly offended you-have-insulted-me-and-mine statements (which to this day baffles me to no end). If she was under that level of pressure, however, it does make me understand how even a casual question, dropped into such a ferment of doubt and paranoia, would spawn distrust.

We move on.

I'm going to tell wtf is happening with me, the notecard began. I'm part of the group SHE WANTS REVENGE, half because she's incredibly prolific, and half because I like the band that inspired her shop's name.

i'm tired. everybody is asking me what's happening but nobody really cares.. I have hepatic steatosis, erosive esophagitis, my pancreas is working 4 more times than a normal pancreas, my liver is fucked and i need a surgery, but my health insurance is a shit. Okay. I don't want your money, I don't need your help.. Just leave me in peace playing my music. I'm not here for charity or other thing.. I just want to make my art and spread my awesomenesses around the universe.

This is a hard call for anyone, in or out of world.

I'm desperated. I can't die. So, i'm no online on second life, because i'm going to a lot of doctors. My sister will take care the things here. be Kind with her!

I'd also think a gentle encouragement towards buying things she puts out wouldn't be out of line, but note--that's not her request. This is:

I'm making a lot of songs, because i'm afraid to die and people forget that i exist.. So I just want that you listen my work, my pain, my sickness.. I want to share it.. I don't want your money, my music is free.. I just need to share with universe what's happening with me..
Thanks for all support. I'm not dead.

As long as you're still breathing, the game's not over. Right?

Sorry for all. Revenge Gears aka Marcy Mars

Marcy Mars on last.fm.

Her latest video, I'm not dead, with links to other content on her channel.

Maybe you don't like her style, and can't support her that way. Maybe you won't like the music, once you hear it. But at least listen. That's all she's asking. Click one of the links and at least tune in for a bit, to her voice, her fears, her pain, her dread.

She just wants to be remembered. Just in case. Who doesn't?



(Update, 14 November 2009: She's recorded what her sister says is her last song, Survive. It's a reaction to the past few days of people sending IMs and emails to her, saying she's just being an attention whore and seeking money. Her sister wants this to stop, because that's not what Marcy Mars/Revenge Gears wants. She just wants to sing. To reach out. To survive.

(It's a little like swallowing broken glass while tribal drummers play you down, but it's worth seeing at least once.)