I don't know, but I can tell this isn't you, your cover's blown

For whom, precisely, was the announcement of the closing of the Greenies sim "sad news"? Seriously, now--how many folks who read this remember the Carnival of Doom more fondly than the Greenies sim? I went to the Greenies sim once, loathed it thoroughly, never went back.

Though I suppose, everything on the grid has fans somewhere, and I deeply mourned when the Carnival closed up shop.

But surely, people: this can't come as a surprise to anyone. It was only a matter of time; I think Rezzable just kept Greenies as long as they did because it kept making money, or allowed them a prim offset for other projects. They don't need that now.

While there is still need for Haiti relief efforts (and I'm still involved with those efforts), and while SLRFL is in the slow and long process of winding down, Operation Squeegee has been declared on SL. What is this new charity effort, you ask? Well, there's this small ecological disaster occurring in the US, and from what they tell us, it's liable to be ongoing for a while, too.

So the National Wildlife Federation is getting involved, and it's putting forth an effort on Second Life as well--because one of the larger pelican sanctuaries is being directly impacted, right now, as you read this. Recovery efforts are ongoing, with a mix of workers hired by BP, Wildlife Federation veterinarians and volunteers, and people in the area donating their time and effort. But more funds are needed. Which is where Operation Squeegee comes in.

I'm aiming to either be an official blogger or a merchant, or both, depending, and I'll be contacting them later in the day; but in the meantime, go over to their website, and read up on the issue if you happen not to know. Help if you can.

Tara Yeats, on the other hand, sums up the recent layoffs at the Labs brilliantly, and--while I think much of her hoping is overly optimistic--I agree with what she says. I think making Second Life easier for the 'everyone' class--that 80% of residents who do not create, script, program, or sculpt--is very important, but making SL easier for them by making it harder for the 20% who do create, script, program and sculpt is not the answer.

I'd also toss in something that everyone blogging on the recent changes seems to have missed, including me--and it took Mr. Allen pointing this out for me to see it. With the advent of voice morphing, for the first time in SL's history, the Labs are offering access to the client for sale.

Think about that--take a trip down to Voice Island; pay your L$750 to start your subscription; set up your chosen voice pack; and you are now paying to activate certain effects in your browser. This may or may not be client-side, as well, but I strongly suspect that--since I haven't heard anything about residents being asked to download anything--the voice morphing software is server-side. Which means you are paying for (specific and limited) access to the client. You are, in effect, being granted a license to manipulate certain behaviors of the SL viewer.

That's the first time the Labs have done that, I believe. What will it mean for the future of SL? Not really sure, but I think it's a sign of how things are going. Want this particular access? Pay for it. Different skin for viewer 2.1, once it goes live? Pay for it. It's not a trend I'm comfortable with, mind you, but it is something to watch for. At least, to see what happens when and if they try it again with another "feature".

Interesting thing at the Caroline's Jewelry booth in Connection:



Far as I know, this is the first breaking-pearls strand necklace I've seen. Good for those 1920's storm-outs or RP alley robberies? Also, just below it (you can catch a glimpse in the larger picture), also in simple black and white, is a knotted pearl strand for L$200. Lovely work, really lovely work, and very appropriate for the 1700s to the present day.

Frightening news from MMORPG: GameForge is introducing a free-to-play Star Trek game. And I quote:

"The game will run using Flash in a browser-based format, no further details are currently available."

Yup. Very frightened by that. Bad graphics, poor animation and raving fanboys? Ack.

In other news, Jaime Skelton goes into why there's such a disparity between fans of pay-to-play-style games and free-to-play games; and Justin Webb talks about the impossibility of selling games in China.

And someone in SL has actually made an avatar of Salad Fingers. *shudders*

YouTube covers Neda Soltan and the struggle for human rights in developing countries; it was a year ago that easily half of Twitter went green in support of Iran's struggle for equality and fair treatment, and the videos that Iranians uploaded of police actions and Neda Soltan's own death turned the tide of worldwide public support. They make a good point; before practically every camera had a video feature, it was much more difficult to document police crackdowns, human rights violations, and incriminating governmental behavior in any country.

These days? It's everywhere. One never knows when one is being filmed, which has both up sides and down sides.

The more SL goes on, the more we keep cycling back to problems in the code...



Unfortunately, at this point, we're steadily realizing if it hasn't been fixed by now, after being reported over two years ago on the JIRA...it won't ever be fixed. EV. ER.



Maybe I can start a new trend, come up with a reverse dress, or something--that looks equally good as a dress, or upside down as a hat worn on the shoulders when I'm folded in half. This could take some work...

Lastly, wish I'd had the ability to hear the vocal half of John Carter McKnight's presentation on Gor in SL, but at the least, you can view (and download) the PowerPoint presentation to the faculty at his college. Apparently, it went very well, and he's still working on the main study project. More power to him--being an academic researcher, researching Gor, and as a female avatar...that's a lot of difficult all in one package. I wish him all luck in his endeavors.