09 March, 2011

shake it 'til the moon becomes the sun

What do you do when you have free rein on a cable talk show and you want to support Finnish industry and talent?

Why, build a live-action Angry Birds set, of course. That's just perfect.

Okay, so...there's been some drama in the background for the past few days that has kept me mostly silent. Now I'm linking to Theia Magic's blacklist on her blog. I'm still not in support of hosting blacklists, but I'm putting this one up there because, until this morning, Solace Beach was on there. (It's not now, but the comments reflect that it was.)

And I think it's important to talk about why it was on there.

Ayesha Lytton, who owns Solace Beach Estates, invested in a RedZone unit. She set it up in the main sim, and it didn't do what she wanted. Flat out. So a few weeks later, she removed the unit. RedZone hasn't been on any Solace Beach sim after that.

But, unbeknownst to Ayesha, RedZone does something unexpected: it takes over the media URL on any land on which it's installed. Thereafter, when any other media URL is entered, it stays there, lurking, in the background. So when people new to the sim port in, RedZone surfaces, and goes active.

This is unconscionable. And I'll tell you something else--it was something I never would have looked for. In fact, when trying to find something, anything, with RedZone capability, I spent three hours over two days trying to track down every prim with even a slightly vague or hard to interpret name. (I found nothing.)

With the help of Hank Rucker, who remains the god of gadgets, we searched the main sim thoroughly, and everything narrowed to the media stream. Or, more importantly, the saved list of media URLs.

This is TERRIFYINGLY IMPORTANT, people. If you are one of those who owns, or has owned in the past, a RedZone unit, and you have thrown it away or disabled it--CHECK YOUR MEDIA STREAM.

So, the steps to fix the problem (if anyone hasn't already figured it out yet):

* Open About Land
* Go to the Media tab
* Press the Set button
* Press the Clear button
* Enter a random media URL (I used the Cape radio station at Solace Beach because it was what I had on hand; they're doing their best to be the radio of City of Heroes, plus, they play a damned good selection of music. But ANY URL will do.)
* Test it out, or have a friend who hasn't been to the sim recently test it, to ensure the pop-up requesting media access for a RedZone site doesn't activate.

It shouldn't show up past that, but if it does, clear your saved URLs again!

So, other items.

From the Solace Beach album

Okay, quick test: pick out Miss Rayven Gloom in this picture. If you think it's the woman in black behind the woman in the white dress, with the pink hair and the tattoos...yep, you'd be wrong. (Because that's me. I still haven't figured out tropical-sim-appropriate wear yet.)

From the Solace Beach album

From her profile:
I SELL FAIRIES AND FAIRY EGGS FOR GOOD PRICES.COMMONS ARE 5 UNCOMMON GLITTERS 30 RARES VENUS 400 AND RARE WATER 500 MEADOWS FOR 50 U CANT BEAT THOSE PRICES ANYWERE SO JUST IM ME AND U CAN COME SEE WHAT I HAVE.

I BELONG TO ECLIPSED SOULS CLAN WE ARE BUILT ON FAMILY VALUES AND NOT SOULS COUNT.
Right...So she's a Bloodlines vamp who breeds fairies in her off-time...in a clan that believes in "FAMILY VALUES". The hell.

From the Solace Beach album

To her credit, it's really difficult to pull off tanned skin, bright tattoos, and pink hair. She sold it. She had a really good AO, she was personable, and--past that atrociously all-caps bio, she has some decent things to say, and she looks happy--and cute--in her RL photo.

The bling has to go--both that heart necklace and her earrings flashed blue epileptic-seizure tones--but the avatar--and the person behind it--seem decent overall.

But good gods. Vampires who breed fairies. This is the way the world ends.

4 comments:

Aunt Foggy said...

Thanks for clarifying on the Solace Beach thing. I saw it on the blacklist and wondered, figured you would talk about it when appropriate :)
Scary stuff about the Redzone hijack. Wonder how many other folks on that blacklist are in the exact same boat?

Emilly Orr said...

What I'm wondering is how many other people who use RedZone (for whatever reason) know it hijacks the land media stream. Because I know for a fact--since the main sim also hosts concerts--that Solace Beach's media stream is changed, and *often*. Yet RedZone was still in there...still asking newcomers who ported in.

Could it still scan them without the main unit? Doubtful in the extreme. But it's still bothersome and on the creepy stalker side.

Hank Rucker said...

Aw shucks. Glad to be of service.
Heh.

Emilly Orr said...

*smiles*

You helped, a lot. Because seriously, I never would have discovered that on my own.

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...