toiling through the ages, making toys on garnished wages

Sometimes I'm the only one seeing the oddity:

(from the bizarre album; sea above, sea...below?)

And yes, yes, I know what I'm wearing. Shush. I was testing a concept.

This is not the first time I've seen something like this, but this (while I was still using Cool VL) was definitely one of the oddest things. This was several months back, during a period where rollbacks seemed to be happening every four days, and I had been having problems rezzing things out in my skybox.

When this occurred, I was standing in a Linden sim, empty of everything but me and a slight protrusion of green. I looked down, checking inventory, and when I looked back up--doubled ocean view.

(from the bizarre album; more of the Booty Brigade at Viviane)

Guess what I found! I'd forgotten all about this one; turns out there were actually four of them, nearly all with the same bottom-heavy, gargantuan-butted shape, tiny little feet, and fully physics-enabled, almost-entirely-maximum-sized breasts.

(Forgot to mention that on the first round--all four of these lasses had extraordinarily bouncy physics layers. It wasn't just the breasts--it was breasts, bellies and butts, and all at full tilt. A little bit of bounce adds a touch of realism. But a lot? A lot pushes it full-tilt into surrealist clown-car territory. On goddamn SPRINGS.)

We move from the very large to the very small. While wandering through Vendom, I caught a wee fierce sleekit beasty...oh, and the Petite riding it:

(from the bizarre album; Petite feral horned hooved...something, riding a squirrel)

I didn't even know the grid had riding squirrels.

Of course, if you look more closely...

(from the bizarre album; Petite feral horned hooved...something, riding a squirrel)

...you'll notice a few additional things. Like the fact that she's essentially wearing a fur bikini. And has horns. And has a little black twitching tail. I don't know if she actually has ears, nor the species of whatever ears those might be, because her hair covered them up.

Also note the hooves. Big black furry ones.

Her profile said she was Gorean, something I find fairly hard to believe (at least in theme, as there's only one recognizably non-humanoid intelligent race on Gor, and it's not teensy pixie people), but mostly, I was just grinning idiotically at the concept of wee feral hooved women, riding fierce squirrelly stags into battle.

Or...whatever wee feral hooved women would ride into battle. I could be wrong. Maybe she really longs for a ferret. Or a shrunken tiger. Who knows?

there will be no sorrow, when you sing tomorrow

I can't believe that no one's flooded the testers with mesh samples yet for Qarl's mesh deformer project. This is something that is vital to continued development on Second Life! Makers! Designers! Get on this!

Seen at Fallen Gods:

[02:39] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: ============================================

[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: Your avatar is being scanned... Please wait!

[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: ================= Public page ==================
http://world.secondlife.com/resident/dff7b36a-7f65-4401-88ce-2cd3068d8b87
[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: Profile pic's UUID: 22db533d-5f70-c76d-7d8b-1f39b835a26e

[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: ================== Avatar info ==================
[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: Avatar's name: Emilly Orr
[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: Display name: Emilly Orr
[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: Key: dff7b36a-7f65-4401-88ce-2cd3068d8b87
[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: Date of birth: 2006-07-10 (2127 days old)

[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: ================= Physical data =================
[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: Height: 178cm (5 feet 10 inches) counting your shoes
[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: (You are average for a male and average for a female)
[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: Mass: 1.497388 lindogram (~64 kg)

[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: =============== Script and memory ===============
[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: Script count: 21
[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: Running scripts: 21
[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: CPU usage: 40 µs
[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: Memory usage: 480 KB
[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: Congratulations! Script weight under 3 MB.
[02:41] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: ============================================

Now, I'm amused by this for more than one reason, chiefest being due to my shoes at the time. I have several pairs of "pony" boots from Show Me On the Doll I still wear, but tonight's outfit involved the Fairlight Industries ballet boots (which, sadly, it seems they no longer make), and they easily have eight-inch spiked heels, if not taller.

So, without those, I'd be 5'2", which is a little accurate (and not that far from my RL height, all things considered).

I also had to look up the "weight" conversion (I'm also amused at the concept of the "Lindogram" as a weight measure. Still, their predicted weight of 64 kg makes my current avatar's shape a curvy little 141 pounds. All things considered, that's not so bad.

(Amusingly, I went back and checked it again after taking off the ballet boots. I got this:

[16:38] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: ================= Physical data =================
[16:38] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: Height: 163cm (5 feet 4 inches) counting your shoes
[16:38] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: (You are short for a male and average for a female)
[16:38] [OO] Avatar Examiner 1.2: Mass: 1.355744 lindogram (~58 kg)

So apparently, shoe height is counted in total avatar "weight" (presumed, not script load). This is making my brain giggle.) But okay, apparently they're only six inch heels. (Hee. "Only".)

Why am I linking this, however? Simply put, because these things are popping up all over the grid now. While few are this involved, most will evaluate your current script load and active processes, and it's making me very glad I developed a limited AO for hunting and traveling. That AO has two scripts (yes, the other nineteen were in my shoes, and in the flight feather I wear to get around wearing the Mystitool whilst hunting), and two animations--a fairly uncomplicated walk, and one stand. All other animations are deleted from that AO, along with all other lines in the text file the AO uses to read the animations into memory.

But there have been building rumors for over a year now about the possibility of script limitations, and we seem finally to be moving into that era. So, many designers are now taking it upon themselves to police their stores and their sims. (And, to be fair, this is something that's been a long time coming. The more scripts you have running, the more memory you're using, the more lag you're creating. The thinking goes, less scripts = less lag, and they're not wrong.)

Apropos of nothing under discussion, there's a free mushroom umbrella for Petites on the Marketplace, with hold pose.

There's also a set of tops and jeans for "urban petites on the Marketplace for free, and a five-pack of simple dotted tops for petites as well. (Oh, I know there's more, but this was what a casual perusal, whilst searching for non-fantasy mesh Petite clothing, led to.)

[2012/05/05 13:36] Exxx Rxxxxxxx: SL is hating on me today.
[2012/05/05 13:36] Exxx Rxxxxxxx: Hehe so kind
[2012/05/05 13:36] Rxxxxx Axxxxxx: Ahh it hates us all quite equally Dear, never fear
[2012/05/05 13:36] Sxxxx Axxxxx: we will love you enough to make up for SL hating you
[2012/05/05 13:36] Exxx Rxxxxxxx: :)
[2012/05/05 13:36] Cxx Exxxx: (What a great motto for Winterfell!)

It really is.

This leads to a wild little art project that makes me think of Minecraft and Second Life both. It's definitely unusual, but intriguing. What else could be replaced with Legos?

[00:59] TBF Loudspeaker shouts: Attention please. Beware of child avatars. They may in fact be FBI agents.

Good advice, just about anywhere.

There's a vintage toaster radio for L$10 at WarBug that plays...scarily peppy music. I can't decide whether it's going to make me homicidal or overly bouncy. But I had to buy it.

They've also got the Telefunken TV mentioned earlier, in case you're interested. It's going for L$20.

Think Geek terms it "Twenty Sides of Suck", which is somewhat suggestive, but nonetheless fun. It's insanely expensive for a single confection, but if you plan to impress the gentles at a gaming convention, it might be the accessory to acquire for sessions.

And from the Modem World blog:

While I have been prone to avoid personal opinion in “news” items, that there is upcoming maintenance does prompt me to ask Linden Lab as to whether they could also broadcast a reminder in-world prior to the work commencing, for the benefit of those who may not routinely read the Status Page or who are not engaged on Twitter?

It's a good question. Why don't the Lindens make more of an effort to communicate at least the extreme upcoming changes?

Oh, wait, that would require the Lindens to want to communicate. Of course, I forgot.

Finally, the creators of Space Quest want people to help fund their latest project--essentially, updating their game for the modern era. While it's not jumping up by leaps about bounds like Amanda Palmer's Kickstarter (which so far has spawned over six hundred thousand dollars in donations, and inspired her to start LoanSpark, which could turn out to be the independent musicians' Kiva, it's still moving up fairly respectably. You still have most of the month to decide to help, or just tell your friends who might be interested. (In any of the projects mentioned--let's face it, they're all worthwhile endeavors.)