so if you care to find me, look to the western sky

Portrait of the Artist as an Avatar. While this article is about art in Second Life, and art in general, I'd point your attention towards the end, wherein it mentions that virtual worlds may help to achieve long-desired goals in real worlds. Insecure? Be confident in SL; Shy; be outgoing. Because what we play at being, we become.

S'pose it's good for me, now, that I don't spend quite so much time zombified. Erk.

Japan remains baffling.

Seen at Violent Seduction:



Meet Jinx. Jinx is one of the freestanding ornamentia in the Sound of Silence sim. It's a lovely sim, well worth a walkthrough without being the home of Violent Seduction; it's perpetually night, there, and everything (well, nearly everything) is monochrome, in overlapping velvety shades of grey.

Jinx stands out, though.

Speaking of cats...



This is Smoke, a black cat I purchased from Damiani Creations at some point when I was feeling flush and triumphant. (I will not lie; they are ridiculously expensive.)

Sie (I've never been comfortable inquiring as to the sex of my virtual pet) likes to levitate at odd times.



Take this series, f'rinstance. I kept snapping pics, Smoke kept staring at me, seemingly completely unaffected by hir paws not meeting the ground.



To date, I've been more impressed by the purchase of said small Smoke-cat than nearly any other purchase I've made in SL. The scripting is amazing. There are multiple controlling options, but there's a limited AI functioning in there, and the pet will start making its own choices as to what it wants to do. It's been intriguing to watch.

Still, it's moments like these--when sie just casually hangs out, defying expected conventions, because it was born on the grid, and understands implicitly its rules of behavior...that make them joys to own.

Now, if we could just figure out a way to keep hir rainbow ball in my skybox, damn it!



Yellow Jester's just come out with some LOVELY zombie poseball sets, from L$249 to the gluttonous six-ball set, Feast of Flesh, for $499. Just in time for the holidays, too!

I can't decide if these are cool, or...odd. I think it's the oddly bulbous skirt of the lass on the left of the image.

And finally, we come to the heart of the argument between Eros LLC, and Linden Labs: as mentioned by this article for the Kotaku blog, the sex coffin available on XStreet.

Now, is Alixandre Oleander in violation of Eros LLC's copyrighted, DMCA-protected, SexGen engine and animation sets? Oh, indubitably. But, though that is concerning, what I find slightly more galling? Is the same could be applied to everything they sell. Everything they have listed on XStreet violates someone's intellectual property.

(And yes, I do know, the rules governing such only changed recently, but--they did change. Which means not only did they not comply with the rules as they changed, but they then stole SexGen's animation and engine, somehow--which again, shouldn't be that easy at this point...)

Also, while it mostly covers World of Warcraft, remember Second Skin is now available on DVD, in limited release in theatres, and on Hulu, for the Americans reading along.

Last note--is it copyright infringement, or tribute, for art? To find the Persistence of Memory interactive, and decide for yourself, go for a visit. You can own a copy for yourself...or just observe and interact.