don't hide the treasures you've found in a hole in the ground

(continued from part I!)

More from Burn2, soon to open to the public.

(from the Burn2 album)

Next, I went off to Yman Juran's build, Cosmic Circusality, of which the artist says:

Cosmic Circusality is the relationship between an idea and its implementation into action, just as your decision to share light, life and love with your fellow beings to help mankind and its creator forward on the path to beauty, goodness and truth.

Wau. That's a lot to lay on your average avatar.

(from the Burn2 album)

I popped in next to a floating orb of spinning fire, directly beneath a spinning trapeze ring. At the top of that build, though, I noticed a collection of fluttering, tattered black flags Mm. paramparamm Papp had installed. Distractability, thy name is me, so off I went to investigate.

(from the Burn2 album)

Alas, that's the only picture I got, because the security orb prohibiting entry on that parcel was lethal. Decidedly unfriendly; verging on hostile, even, I thought, plus it bopped me into the corner of the entire sim, and with only five minutes of press time remaining, I didn't even know where I was.

(from the Burn2 album)

I wasn't offended so much as confused, but it did bring me walking past Nik Gandt's Matrix skull on my way to figure out my bearings. I stood and watched it for a bit, the skull's pupils dilating to pinpoints and expanding again as the code strands rippled over the surface.

(from the Burn2 album)

Just past that, I I briefly happened across the skeleton mermaids created to float above a tangle of striped tentacles, surmounted by calavera skull heads.

(from the Burn2 album)

And I was just as briefly waylaid by indecision, past the calavera mers.

(from the Burn2 album)

Two minutes until the press tour closed. I picked a direction at random--a shadowed box containing dimly seen blue figures. Once inside, everything changed.

(from the Burn2 album)

Ultraviolet Alter's sculpture series on the Playa is ethereal, luminous, and transcendental. Ultraviolet paints her women out of light, and they are both frozen and mobile, active and passive at once.

(from the Burn2 album)

She paints them impassioned, in pain, pondering significant thoughts, reaching out, pulling back. I was absolutely enthralled, I must admit, and completely swept away by the interplay of color and shadow in the space.

(from the Burn2 album)

With that, though, it was eight, and the end of the press tour. I sighed and began to drift slowly away, circling the sculptures one last time as I went.

(from the Burn2 album)

As stated, Burn2 opens officially on the 1st of October, and goes through, I believe, the 9th of October.

(from the Burn2 album)

Do try to make room for it in your schedule; it's well worth the trip. I am definitely going back and taking more pictures!

Also opening on the first is Octoberville. They have a Facebook page now, which I'm not going to link, because please, it's Facebook. (Oh, all right, if you must know, it's here. Happy now?) And they're very excited to be opening again, this year on schedule.

Last year, between the organizers not thinking they'd be able to open, and personal stress in my life away from the grid, the decision was made--and, surprisingly, held to--not to hunt at Octoberville. I missed it, keenly, not the least of it because I would not move up my ranking by one level more. (Currently, I'm rated at Epic, which means I've completed at least two verified hunts; I've actually done more, but the first one was not recorded, alas. My next level--hopefully to be achieved this year!--will indicate that I've completed three verified hunts, start to finish.)

This year, I am hoping to achieve the rank of Octoberville Master (or Mistress, in my case, though it's the same title regardless of avatar gender). Getting three completed hunts under my belt will feel good, especially since Octoberville's arcane locations for the items leaves the Twisted hunt in the dust.

Things to remember for both Octoberville, and Burn2: dress as minimally as you can, and by that, I don't mean attractively placed bandages and corks, people, I mean low-prim. Figure out how much your hair is at, make sure it, your skirt, your shoes, and anything else have no scripting involved. Leave complicated HUDs at home. Take off anything that generates particles, and unclick any likely gesture culprits, especially if they come with sound files. There will already be plenty of scripting, particle action, and sounds flying around in either locale; you don't need to add to it.

Even with that, though, that doesn't mean you have to walk around like a putty-colored noob either--there are alternatives, from hairbase tattoo layers for a close-cropped look, all the way down to simply sculpted shoes that clock in under twenty prims for the entire pair. It can be done...it just takes a bit of effort. And that effort will be rewarded by objects you can actually rez in, things you can interact with without crashing (My hair was pretty good at 54 prims total, but I was wearing 36 flexi prims on each leg for the fluttery drawstring pants), and it won't take hours to move. That, also, is well worth the time it takes to pare down.

and realized I loved you in the fall

Look what I got handed today!

(from the Burn2 album)

Still, by the time I got home today, I was barely in time to use my shiny press pass to see the Burn. But I did promise pictures, so I started out with a parcel at random (which happened to be Trill Zapatero's build, called "Grailquest").

(from the Burn2 album)

The Grail in question is a rather monolithic goblet, attached to a rustic wooden ladder, which you click to climb (you can also right-click it, and choose your climbing speed).

(from the Burn2 album)

There are instructions. The instructions are basically "click things". Click things.

(from the Burn2 album)

Some are poses, some are sits, or climbs, some active, some passive, like the mirror trick depicted here. But don't be afraid to click anything you see. Fun things will happen.

(from the Burn2 album)

At the top of the grail, I was presented with several doors. Lagging a bit from the fire dancers, I ended up at the red door. Feeling this was the virtual hand of destiny, I touched the red door, and crashed. This did not bode well for my first Burn2 press outing.

(from the Burn2 album)

By the time I returned to the Playa, night had fallen. I had a scant amount of time to get any of the pics I wanted to get. But again, at the top of the grail I am faced with many doors. While I rezzed things in, I considered them.

(from the Burn2 album)

Red door. Blue door. Purple door. And a small garden gate. I chose the garden, which seemed safest, but it was full of old books on the grass, their pages wildly fluttering. And just inside another curtained hanging, I found a small image of the Buddha affixed to a hanging rope. Out of curiosity, I clicked it.

[19:45] Buddha: "Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity."

Indeed. I must remember to return and explore this work in more depth.

(continued in part II!)

I just feel this sense of mission

Alice Cooper's released a new album! Just in time for the coming Hallows season, the long-awaited sequel to "Welcome To My Nightmare" hits stores now. (And the first single? I'll Bite Your Face Off. Hee!)

In more local news...



Burn2 opens to the press (this year, that includes me) tomorrow! I'll do my best to snap a ton of pictures and post them; it opens to the public October 1st.

Last year's Bad Sex Award was handed to Rowan Somerville for writing what may be the worst sex scene in a decade of the Literary Review giving out the award. If your stomach's strong enough, you can read an excerpt of why he won.

We're still waiting for the 2011 winner, but don't get your hopes up--it will likely be easier to read than Mr. Somerville's contribution. Nocturnal sniffing nipples, indeed.

The Real Tuesday Weld has some new songs and remixes they're offering to the public. Or, you could skip directly to the chase and buy an album.

Why not to put socks on cats. (Seriously--that feline is now PLOTTING YOUR DOOM.)

Rather than continue the JLU analysis (though I'm sure she'll get back to it when more solid information surfaces), Axi Kurmin is now taking on mesh and the tyranny of size. Why "tyranny"? Well, it's a good word, insofar as the mesh clothing item in question won't fit, if your shape doesn't match the designer's. If the Lindens ever wanted a cookie-cutter world, they're going to get it with mesh, if with no other advancement on the grid.

But there's worse in store--I highly recommend reading the article, but I want to pull out this quote in particular:

"But since the userbase is strongly divided on who can see them at all, some sim owners are choosing to ban mesh from their sims, rather than run the risk of people seeing things improperly. In some cases this is not really so far fetched, as with mesh clothing, a deformed mesh can lead to an avatar looking as though they are wearing no clothes at all, risking sanctions depending on the rating of the region."

Remember that huge fight that raged on blogs, on forums, on the grid, and with the Lindens during office hours when Ursula was proposed, right up through the renaming to Zindra, and the popping of the new, all-Adult continent? Part of that was the Lindens "firming up" their language on what constituted ratings, as far as SL goes. The breakdown of that...well, it's still pretty broken, but here's the short version.

• General (formerly PG): No sexually explicit content. No violent content. No nudity of any kind (including skin and shape shops). No sexually-oriented equipment, poseballs, animations or gestures are allowed to be rezzed out anywhere, at any elevation (aka, even at 3000 meters you're not safe on your sex bed if a Linden wanders by), or sold in any shop (again, no matter whether that shop is on ground level, or 2000 meters up). No cursing. No Adult/sexually-oriented/threatening/abusive gestures. No Adult group tags, either. [Note: where PG previously was interpreted as the movie rating, that is, some Adult concepts are allowed, the General rating restrains that concept level to none.]
• Moderate (formerly Mature): Dance clubs are allowed, as well as dancers (burlesque with non-revealing lingerie on, not full stripping), though "theme nights" cannot include nudity or Adult-designated concepts. Stores, malls, galleries (without nudity), music venues, beaches, amusement parks, essentially nearly everything in SL is allowed under Moderate, with a few codicils: no Adult search tags must be used in advertisements for the businesses, no publically promoted Adult activities can be hosted, no Adult group tags can be seen. No escorting. [When Mature was the rating, the general understanding of the native population was that that included everything that PG didn't. This is not the case.]
• Adult (no former designation as it didn't exist in the former ratings structure): I'll lift from the Maturity Ratings page for this one: "The Adult designation applies to Second Life regions that host, conduct, or display content that is sexually explicit, intensely violent, or depicts illicit drug use." So places like Hard Alley, the Crack Den, or the Horror Rape Asylum? All Adult. (And yes, all real places.) Essentially, if there's anything on the sim (and note, Adult is the only designation that requires the sim-wide rating) that hosts, promotes, or uses search terms for the sim or business that depicts "death, torture, dismemberment or other severe bodily harm, whether or not photo-realistic", or "sexually themed content, spaces or activities, whether or not photo-realistic" (oh, and the on-the-ground definition of what does and does not qualify, while generally clear, can change depending on the Linden viewing said content), or photorealistic nudity (and yes, this does mean skin and shape shops are, by default, Adult by this designation, even though so many skin shops complained that the Lindens relented on that for some regions). In addition,

  "Groups, event listings and classified ads that reference these themes or content must also be designated Adult. Linden Lab will enforce these rules but cannot monitor all ephemeral content and conduct within Second Life. Therefore:
  Regions, groups, and event or classified ad listings that employ search tags plainly suggestive of adult behavior or content require the Adult designation, and will [be] viewable only by Residents who have verified that they are at least 18 years old."

  Oh, and any sim designated Adult must be either on Zindra, or on a private estate that is rated Adult by the sim owner. This means what you think it does, no mainland spaces are allowed to be Adult-rated.

The point of quoting all this is simple. Where mesh is concerned, if you can't see it, it's not like a sculpt that just doesn't rez in and remains some grey covering shape. Since mesh has so many different ways to make it, and save it, some will show up as splinters, some will show up as translucent triangles or prisms, some will show up as knifelike darts in the air--but for all of it, if the sim owner can't guarantee that people will be walking into their sim fully clothed, they're opting not to take the risk.

Why? Because anyone can AR someone for being nude in a General sim. Anyone. For any reason, which includes, now, "not being on a mesh viewer so not seeing what mesh-enabled viewers can see". For them, they could be walking in on someone actually naked. And yeah, some people flip out that easily.

Then the Lindens get involved. And if there's too many ARs for one business/sim, the Lindens generally choose to kill first, ask questions later. Poof, there goes the sim. Poof, there goes the account. And fighting to get the sim, or the access, back is a lot harder than it looks, and believe me, it's never looked easy.

So some sim owners are choosing not to take the risk. This further hampers mesh adoption by the rest of the grid.

Another quote I want to pull out for specific comment:

"The thing about mesh when it comes to things you wear, or things you attach to your avatar, is that it is not like a traditional attachment. You cannot alter its position. You cannot resize it. You cannot recolor it. You cannot do anything at all with it other than wear it. In SL, where anyone can take on any shape or size they wish (often changing it at a whim) this lack of flexibility is problematic."

"Problematic" is a word for it, yeah. I've actually demonstrated this personally, after hearing about this on multiple blogs (most notably Dame Ordinal's commentary on the topic). Essentially, what it comes down to is rigging--the act, in making the mesh file, of specifically mapping it to defined skeletal points, so that a set of pants will move with the waist, hips, knees and ankles, and a top will move with the shoulders, elbows, wrists, and torso.

Now, on the plus side, this creates items that move with the avatar, instead of clipping through arms and legs like flexi prims or sculpts can do. And that's a good thing, that's a very good thing--there's a steadily growing business in slinky mesh gowns, and the beauty of mesh is, with even a halfway decent texturing job, the items look nearly effortlessly good.

If you have the right body type. And if you can see mesh at all.

Admittedly, people are just taking their first baby steps with mesh constructions, and as time goes on, it will get more popular (that happens with everything, generally). The big problem goes back to the viewer issue for me (though for Miss Kurmin, I think she's right on target with the creeping tide of "sizism" that mesh also represents). If your viewer does not see sculpts, you're out of luck, and that used to be where it stopped.

But now, if your viewer cannot see mesh, you cannot see mesh clothes properly, which is an AR waiting to happen if you're highly excitable. And if you wear mesh clothing, or a mesh avatar, and someone else cannot see you--well, you're now an AR waiting to happen. As sim owners are discovering, who needs the hassle? And right now, with as many different viewers as are in use, many of them not mesh-enabled, this is a very big problem indeed.