Like Jonah..

..in the belly of the whale.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Rezzable Liberty using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Bones

These instinctively made me think twice before getting too close. Quite impressive!
posted by Sered Woollahra on Rezzable Liberty using a blogHUD : [permalink]

MSN Flickr?

As some of you may be aware, I post most of my visual Second Life or OpenSim stuff on Flickr, here. I had to get a Yahoo! account for that, which I didn't really want, but hey.. part of the deal. Take it or leave it! Yahoo! owns Flickr, and I knew that before subscribing to the service.

But now, a couple of days ago, Microsoft stated their intention to buy Yahoo!.

I may have to resort to another way to store and publish pictures, if this deal goes through. If Microsoft buy Yahoo!, it will only be a matter of time before Flickr is rebranded into MSN Flickr, Live Flickr or something like that. You will probably have to sign in with your Live account, an MSN account or something similar. That definitely turns me off! I just want a decent picture service, I didn't buy into Flickr to become part of the MSN or Microsoft Live empire.

Microsoft is, in my humble opinion, big enough as it is. Do they really need to control each and every thing out there? Can't they just leave something alone, for once?

OpenSim and Windlight together again

For several releases, the Second Life Windlight viewers could not be used with OpenSim based worlds, because of a new login system was being tested with these viewers. That has now changed! Todays' Windlight release, 1.19.0.79185, contains the old login auth system again, as explained in this blogpost. It occurred to me that this could mean that Windlight can once again be used on an OpenSim based world. And indeed, Windlight 1.19.0.79185 does work with an OpenSim 0.5 based world.

To be honest, this Windlight release doesn't improve my Windlight experience. It's much more harsh, there's more glow, as in "where are my sunglasses". But, that may be a problem with my graphic card. Pastrami Lindens' advice is to intall the latest ATI drivers if you have an ATI card, but unfortunately these drivers are not yet available for Lenovo ThinkPad T43 laptops with ATI Mobility Radeon X300 graphics cards. So, these issues may have to do with my old drivers; your mileage may vary!

Btw, this version of Windlight is the first one to be based on the 1.19 release, which contains some changes to the UI as well.

Windlight and OpenSim, originally uploaded by seredwoollahra.

A rude man

A while ago, I was flying the Terra-Kojima Starling over Caledon, repeatedly crashing into houses, trees, hillsides, the sea and unsuspecting bystanders. After each crash, it's back to Penzance Airfield for another try! One time, upon taking off at Penzance, a man jumped in front of the plane. I typed 'stop' to bring the plane to a halt, but he typed 'no, start!' Then he jumped on board and wanted me to take off. Huh??

After I told him I wasn't really amused by what he was doing, he introduced himself and explained that he was a parachutist, looking for a ride. I didn't want to be rude so I put him in the passenger seat and took off.

During the whole flight he kept asking me for a copy of my no copy, no transfer plane, for copies of other planes, offering me freebies in return. He kept demanding I go higher, faster, and by the way, could he perhaps get a copy of this plane? When we were nearly at 1000 meters altitude, I blew my engine and he jumped off. But not before demanding that I return to Penzane Airfield as quickly as possible!

Back at Penzance, he kept up his obnoxious behaviour, until I went AFK for ten minutes or so. When I returned, he wasn't there anymore.. I removed his calling card and friendship offer from my inventory, and never saw him again.

What a rude man!

The video is a bit long, but you can see him yakking to me all the time..

Decentralized grids and the law

Linden Labs has, throughout 2006 and 2007, taken a couple of controversial or unpopular measures to curb possibly illegal behaviour in Second Life. Illegal.. by what law?

As Linden Labs and their Second Life servers are located in the United States, the answer is: US law. Although Linden Labs, as a commercial enterprise, might be sensitive to legal issues arising from foreign law as well. For instance, Linden Labs banned ageplay (avatars posing as kids) mostly because it attracted a lot of negative publicity in Germany and other European countries, which caused governments to take a closer, and often unkind look at what's going on in Second Life. I don't know wether Linden Labs takes non US law into consideration when shaping their policies; perhaps that's a question Benjamin Duranske can answer, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

But, as open source simulator platforms like OpenSim mature, new grids emerge. Not owned by a commercial enterprise, not centrally managed, like Second Life. These are geographically dispersed grids, made up of simulators (computers) owned by different people or legal entities from all over the world, often controlled by a central user and grid registry.

I wonder who, if anyone, is legally responsible for such a grid? Who can assert jurisdiction over the grid as a whole? These questions can be of great interest, now that Casinos and banks, banned from Second Life, are contemplating a relocation to these open grids. An interesting but also worrying development, with possibly interesting legal aspects.

In the linked article, Reuters mentions that Casinos are welcome in CentralGrid, as long as they come from a legal entity, and ban American avatars. I wonder how CentralGrid plans on doing that? How are they going to determine from what country an avatar comes from? Is that even relevant in a virtual world? It's easy to choose a completely random country for your avatar (or an alt) if you want to, and even tracing IP traffic may not 100% reliably determine where the human, controlling the avatar, is located. In my opinion, statements like these from CentralGrid
are little more than window dressing, intended to fend off US law enforcement. But, even if it's little more than that, the statement still implies that CentralGrid considers itself subject to US law.

What if I, a citizen of the EU, rent a hosting server in a country with, uh, let's call it a less restrictive legal climate. I base my central user and grid registry on this hosted server, with a couple of sims. Subsequently, people from all over the world connect their sims to this grid, and soon casinos, shady night clubs, banks and an exquise assortiment of weird types of roleplay can be found there. Now what law applies to this grid? It could be EU law as I am a resident of the EU, or it could be the law of the country where my central user/grid server is located. Or, perhaps, each simulator falls under the jurisdiction of the country where it's hosted? If so, it's probably going to be very hard to enforce any law.

Any informed opinions out there?

Flickr groups for OpenSim and Twinity

One of the things I like about Flickr, is the ability to create groups. My snapshots didn't get much attention at first, but after I started posting them to the secondlife group pool, the number of views rose steadily. As I am also posting photographs and snapshots of other virtual environments (like OpenSim based worlds and Twinity), I tried to locate groups for those as well, but to no avail: no groups for Twinity and OpenSim existed. So I created them myself! They are of course public groups, so if you have relevant pictures or snapshots to contribute: be my guest!

The groups can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/twinity/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/opensim/

Twinity: not yet a world

Yesterday I blogged about my first experiences with Twinity, the 3D virtual world that's currently in limited beta. In the mean time, I have had the opportunity to think things a bit through, so here's another take on Twinity.

First off, yesterday I mentioned that Twinity doesn't know land as it's known in RL and SL. Instead, Twinity offers locations; anyone with a Twinity account can create one. A location is either an apartment, a club, a public place or a shop; for each of these, default layouts (rooms, floors, garden) are available.

A location is tagged with a real world geographical location. You can have a shop in Toronto, or an aparment in New York, for instance. But, as for now, Twinity doesn't seem to do anything with those real world places: a certain type of apartment is identical all over Twinity, wether it's located in Amsterdam or New York; even the view from the windows is identical. It is left to the creativity of the apartments' owner to give the place a personal touch, by redecorating or placing furniture.

Apparently it is possible to build stuff for Twinity yourselves, but as of now you can't do that in world. You will have to do it on your own computer, and upload the results to Twinity. I have not yet found out how that works.

Second Life is, and I know it sounds odd, a real virtual world. It has seas, continents, skies and stars, land you can walk on, with countless different buildings, landscapes and views. Twinity, in it's current incarnation, does not resemble a world to me; it's a list of geographically tagged locations you can redecorate, and to which you can TP to. For me, that's the main difference between SL and Twinity at this stage of Twinity beta.

If this sounds negative, it's not intended to be. If Twinity primarily wants to be a social environment with some limited options for expression and creativity (as I believe they do), they are right on track. And, I think there's probably an audience for such an environment, too! Many of those who tried SL once or twice but never really made it off orientation island, may feel right at home in the more limited, less confusing environment Twinity has to offer. For instance, ease of use and the familiarity of RL elements in locations and names may be beneficial in that regard.

For those who missed it yesterday: I posted some Twinity screenshots at flickr.

Twinity: first experiences

Today, I got an email message saying I have been allowed into Twinity beta. Twinity, built by the German company Metaversum, is a 3D environment which mashes up the real and virtual world. Currently, Twinity is in a closed beta phase, where every now and then new batches of users, who have applied for an account, are given access.

Twinity is a 126 MB download and requires a reasonably up to date graphics card. My ATI RADEON X300 is officially not supported if I read it correctly, but it works nonetheless.

As a Second Life resident, SL has profoundly influenced my view on virtual worlds. I am used to the SL client (yes, really!), the SL world, the SL way of doing things. Wether that is the best way remains to be seen; but being used to SL will undoubtedly show, in a report on first experiences with another virtual 3D environment.

And while we're talking about environment: Twinity's physical environment is very different from SL. To begin with, Twinity is based on real world locations, and the Twinity map is simply a map of the world as you can find in any school atlas. The day and night cycle per location also follows the physical world; it's evening now in The Netherlands, and so is it in Twinity, but in Canada, both RL and Twinity, the sun has not yet set. Not that there is a sun in Twinity. At least, I haven't seen it; neither are moon and stars, for that matter.

As for locations: everyone can create one, you don't have to buy land. A Twinity resident can choose from a certain list of countries to create their place; in each country, you can choose from a couple of cities to put your place. In The Netherlands we're obviously talking about Amsterdam, for Canada it is Toronto and Vancouver.

Speaking of land: there is none in Twinity. Not as we know it in RL or in SL, anyway. When you create a place, you choose a certain location for it, e.g. San Francisco or Amsterdam. This may show in the view from your window (as it does in Amsterdam), but nothing else will indicate the actual physical location. There is no minimap that shows nearby avatars; you don't see your own or anyone else's avatar indicated on the world map either. You can't leave your place and take a random hike outside; you can't fly out of the garden or over the garden wall; you can't TP to a random place on the world map. Only the user created shops and apartments are available, as isolated locations presented in a list, to TP to. This does give a claustrophobic feeling to Twinity: there's almost no open spaces, no open sky above my head. This is not a positive part of the Twinity experience, as far as I am concerned. I did read, however, that Multiversum intends to add more outside, open locations as Twinity evolves, so this may change in the future.

Another part of the environment is the day and night cycle. As indicated, Twinity follows the RL physical day and night cycle, and, unlike in SL, you cannot change that. Again, this is perhaps a logical choice for a world like Twinity. it means however that, as it is currently winter and I have a day job, I can only spend time in Twinity in the evening - when it's a bit dank and dark in my own Twinity appartment.

The last word on the physical environment in Twinity: water and sky are not yet as evolved as Second Life Windlight, but Twinity definitely has potential here. Water reflections for instance are not bad at all. And, let's not forget, not everyone likes Windlight.

As for creating stuff and houses: you can't do that like to are used to in SL. You can rightclick on the floor of your apartment, and choose to add a script or object from your inventory, your hard drive or the shop. I bought a chair for 20 Globals like that. Globals, that's the game currency Multiversum is contemplating for usage in Twinity, although the specifics are not yet public.

So how does an avatar live and move in this Twinity mirror world? Well, not bad at all, to be honest. Avatar movement is quite smooth, flowing and natural. Avatars display a breathing motion, at a slightly higher pace than my RL body, which makes the avatar look a bit unstable or busy, even when left to stand still or when avatar appearance is changed.

Twinity offers two modes of avatar control: basic control, which is really not much different from SL, and Action Controls mode, which offers a more game like experience. Twinity also has 3D voice chat; it can be disabled, but is enabled by default.

Twinity has a nice and clean user interface. There are not many configurable options (yet?) so a few buttons here and there is all that's needed. I could get used to a client like this. Imagine an SL viewer with only a HUD like bar in the screen, that allows an avatar to call common functions or the more advanced menus - very easy to work with. When using Basic Controls, chatting is also easy: just start typing. Your text will appear in a grey chat bubble, where you can still backspace and/or edit; when you hit 'enter', it's sent, and the color changes to green. There is no specific chat text box to use.

All in all, there's some areas I'd like to see improved when the beta progresses: I want to be able to leave an apartment and walk outside, for instance. But I am already quite satisfied with the usability of the client and the ease of controlling an avatars' movement, and the smoothness with which avatars move.

My Twinity screenshots can be found here.

I will have to put more effort in getting to know Twinity better!

More childplay at Ciuso

My kids love to run around our OpenSim island Ciuso Prime. Here's some of their latest work! The first one shows my eight year old daughter as she puts ornaments on a garden wall; the second one shows my six year old son, as he creates a letter and posts it to the mailbox at his house. His sister and me had to help him a bit, but he did most of it himself!

OpenSim Ciuso

This is an OpenSim based island my kids (aged 6 and 8) and their nieces (age 9 and 12) use. Most of what you see there is built by them, although, of course, I have helped them occassionally.

Windlight and Flying - not good on ATI X300

I created this machinima to show SL Windlight, but the combination of flying and Windlight wreaks havoc on my ATI X300 graphics card. There's just not enough computing power to draw the landscape and objects fast enough! The result: a laggy, bumpy flight over an empty Caledon landscape. For me, flying is only feasible with the main SL viewer, 1.18.5(3).

Dazzle flying

I like to testdrive new stuff! Today I stumbled upon a post from last year about Dazzle, a tryout for a new SL viewer interface. Granted, the post was from November 2007, so it's not really that new anymore :-)

But, I like Dazzle. I hope they pursue this direction, as I find it an improvement over the existing, dark and green interface.

Griefbuilds in Second Life

Hamlet, Ordinal Malaprop, Rik Riel and others have paid attention to the ad farms littering the SL landscape. There's even a Flickr stream for Griefbuilds, which I contributed to. This plot at Thetidia looks ugly, but is not for sale; apparently the owner is trying to make a few lindens by placing ads on their land?
The plot in the back, in Timandra, however is for sale for a cool 28.000 lindens for 512 square meters.. I don't suspect they will be bought out anytime soon.

(manual crosspost from My BlogHUD page.)

IBM: the era of social networks

Right now, in Orlando, Florida, IBM Lotus has it's yearly party/conference: LotuSphere. A big reunion for IBM Lotus aficionados from all over the world, who happen to form a very active community with many online discussion forums, blogs, RL conferences etcetera. I have been at 'Sphere once; a terrific experience. But, this year I didn't get to go unfortunately.

The formal opening of LotuSphere is the General Opening Session, traditionally featuring IBM Lotus' General Manager, currently Mike Rhodin. I didn't get to see it live, but well known IBM blogger Alan Lepofsky liveblogged Mike's speech here.

Mike said something interesting, and for followers of virtual worlds relevant, about how people collaborate online: first there was document centric collaboration, then we saw people centric, but now there's community centric.

Let me expand briefly on that thought.

At first, online collaboration was document centric. The typewriter and overhead projector got replaced by the word processor and powerpoint, but the document is, in this paradigm, still central to collaboration, storing knowledge and exchanging it.

The next generation of collaboration put people at the center: email and instant messaging are the tools which let people work together. In my opinion, the document is still a strong presence here; it's just that people centric tools emerged, to help people deal more efficient with (document centered) collaboration.

But both these styles of collaboration are now eclipsed by the third style, community centric collaboration: social networks, and social networking software enable people to exchange knowledge, locate expertise, find and provide answers. Knowledge is stored in wikis, on blogs, in profiles, and yes maybe in documents too.

This fits in with the emergence of all the well known networking sites: LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Hyves (the dominant social network site for The Netherlands), plaxo etcetera.
But, it also fits in with the emergence of virtual, 3D worlds like Second Life: these are social environments, where people (ok, avatars..) and communities are central. These worlds largely revolve around meeting new or likeminded people, sharing activities and experiences, talking, meeting, discussing, doing stuff together, like shopping, visiting a concert, or having a dogfight using WW1 era airplanes.

It's not an accident that IBM is investigating ways to integrate this third dimension into it's existing collaboration software, most notably IBM Lotus Connections. This is the era of social software, of open networks where knowledge is easily accessible and shared by people, and IBM Lotus is actively trying to integrate those values (which are at the heart of what Lotus has advocated for years) into business computing. I wonder if IBM's own Metaverse software will play a role in this, and wether it will interoperate with Second Life.

As an aside: I get to witness all these stages at once, at one customer of ours.
At their Systems Administration department, management is struggling with how to store and index operational knowledge, how to use it efficiently. Some people still think all that knowledge should be stored in Word documents, according to a strictly determined structure (chapters which should be covered etc) and those documents should reside on a shared network drive. But many younger employees percieve these digital documents on a shared network drive as too static and too inflexible to store knowledge that should be readily accessible and easily editable in a browser. Among many professionals working at this department, the wiki is now the preferred way of storing the departments' operational knowledge. Management is still at the first stage of collaboration; instant messaging has only been turned on recently; but most of the workforce is at the third stage, and would rather see wikis and blogs. Too bad they are a Microsoft shop; these are always a bit behind when in comes to innovation and collaboration.

again,

stuck in mid air.. Another full sim. They are the sandbanks and icebergs of SL skies!
posted by Sered Woollahra on Caledon Penzance using a blogHUD : [permalink]

more between heaven and earth :-)

There's defnitely more between heaven and earth!
posted by Sered Woollahra on Caledon Middlesea using a blogHUD : [permalink]

under a blood red sky

posted by Sered Woollahra on Caledon Cay using a blogHUD : [permalink]

nightflight

more here.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Caledon Stormhold using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Sopwith Camel 1917

A Sopwith Camel 1917. Easier to fly than the Spitfire, but I miss the HUD.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Caledon Morgaine using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Not a dog fight

When flying over Caledon Penzance, I suddenly noticed a Spitfire suspended in mid air - all alone. I was afraid it was one of mine, as it has happened to me before: if you crash in mid flight, the plane stays at your last known coordinates, motionless, until you go and pick it up. Upon inspecting the airborne wreckage, it turns out it's owned by someone else. So..I beamed back to my own plane and off I went.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Caledon Penzance using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Spitfire

As far as I'm concerned, on of the most beautiful planes of the 20th century.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Caledon Penzance using a blogHUD : [permalink]

RCAF

bought a Dutch WW2 era uniform, which seems to be more fitting for the RCAF.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Caledon Penzance using a blogHUD : [permalink]

handy map..

..this map of Caledon shows the safe areas for flying: the green lines. Red sims have less than 30 prims fee, and should be avoided like a ship avoids an iceberg.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Caledon Penzance using a blogHUD : [permalink]

I swear..

..I'm not doing this on purpose. I'm just not paying enough attention to flight altitude, that's all :)
posted by Sered Woollahra on Caledon Speirling using a blogHUD : [permalink]

a good landing..

..is one you can walk away from!
posted by Sered Woollahra on Caledon Morgaine using a blogHUD : [permalink]

another unfortunate landing..

..this time a wet one :-)
posted by Sered Woollahra on Visit using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Tree stops airplane..

And yet another landing in the friendly trees at Caledon..

flying and filming

I really like this flying thing. I have created a couple of movies with the wegame recorder. You can see me crash multiple times when I'm done uploading :-) Here's one example: Flying at Caledon, ended up in a tree.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Caledon Penzance using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Flying at Caledon - ended up in a tree..

navigating the clouds..

..over Caledon.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Caledon Stormhold using a blogHUD : [permalink]

at Penzance Field,

home of the Royal Caledonian Air Force. Take the ornithopter demo ride if you're there, it's a lot of fun! Get one by touching the green orb near the antique airplanes at the end of the runway.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Caledon Penzance using a blogHUD : [permalink]

on board!

On board of SimplyAmy Iwish's airship.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Caledon Penzance using a blogHUD : [permalink]

for all you science geeks..

..you should take a look at the ISM. It's got rockets from all over the world!
posted by Sered Woollahra on NASA CoLab using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Vanity fair

Do you know the Flickr group for Second Life pics? There are many, but this one is linked from the www.secondlife.com blog page. Anyone who wants to draw some attention to their photos, can use this group to reach a larger audience. I've tried it, it works.

Because some of my own shots are in that pool, I check it out more often than I used to. And, to be honest: I think there's a lot of wasted creativity in those photographs! Most people seem to think SL photography is mostly about avatars - usually their own, or a friend. People apparently love their avatars very much. I can appreciate that: if you've put a lot of effort in creating something beautiful, be proud of it and show it off! By all means! Twice, even ;-)

But after three or four pics of your golden perfect body, that mysterious gaze in the distance, or that sensually, moodily lit female avvie, could we perhaps move on to other areas of virtual life? There are definitely more things to photograph out there. There are venues, clubs, landscapes, sunrises, gatherings, art, games, banks (take a picture while you still can!), islands, mountains..

Second Life is, at heart, a social environment. It's not *that* strange that most of the attention would be focused on people. But please.. Be creative! Picture something else today! ;-)

The bitching base

For almost a decade, I have been working with software; usually software that would run on the desktop and would be used by ordinary office users. For the biggest part of these years, I have been an active member of several online communities for this software.

As in any software oriented community, there often was a lot of discussion. Feature requests, the user interface, stability, strategic directions, and more, were discussed amongst peers and (intensely I might add) with those responsible - IBM in this case. There was always room for dissent, other voices, differing opinions - but we stayed within certain boundaries: we'd keep it polite, focused on the business, and we'd keep in mind that we all had the same goal.

For over a year now I have been reading blog items and responses concerning Second Life. One of the things that's really wearing me down, is the incessant bitching that can be found in certain parts of the SL userbase. Whatever Linden Labs does or doesn't, there's always complaints - usually quite vitriolic, and there's no boundaries to the ignorance or malice that will be ascribed to Linden Labs.

Either someone is complaining about ancient graphics, or someone is complaining about Windlights' greed for grapics computing power, is only about 'pretty' - or how a skin doesn't look perfect in it.

Either someone is complaining about how SL is only about sex, or someone else is complaining about how LL limits their ability to play out every (weird, strange or possibly illegal) slex fantasy someone can come up with.

Either someone is complaining about how LL suffocates freedom in SL by instituting more and more rules, or someone else is complaining about how the lack of law enforcement or oversight enables fraudsters to steal thousands of Lindens from gullible residents.

Linden Labs always communicates too late, too early, not explicit enough, too explicit, at the wrong location, to the wrong people, didn't invite the right people, invited everyone but meeee, doesn't care about Second Life they only care about ... On and on it goes, often in the comments to blogpost at Second Life as well.

You know, it's entirely possible that one of these complaints is justified, that LL is making big mistakes here or there (and possibly here *and* there). But the high, pitched sound of endless whining drowns out any meaningful debate there could be had in public. Stop it already!

Her gift arrived today!

A while ago, I blogged about this Starfruit shop, that sells SL products, and their RL equivalents. You give someone the SL present, and they can have the RL product delivered as well, nicely tying SL and RL together. The way this works, privacy is guaranteed for all involved.

I ordered this necklace for my wife. She liked it very much, but didn't know that there was an RL necklace on it's way as well - I arranged that for her. Today, the necklace arrived, unexpected of course, and she liked it very much. Points scored: many :-)

Check this store out if you ever need to give someone a special gift!

A little more on OnRez viewer

I have several SL viewers on my desktop: the main viewer (1.18.5(3) at the time of writing), Windlight, OnRez and I had the beta grid viewer as well. It's sometimes useful to have two or three viewers: I can be logged in as myself with one of them, and use an alt account (or my wife's) to login with the other. In doing so, I've noticed a couple of weird things with regards to the OnRez viewer.

For one, it's using much more memory (RAM) and CPU than the main viewer or even Windlight, sometimes using about double of what those other clients use. I did a little experiment, where I put two avatars next to another at the same location. I did nothing else but monitoring the CPU and RAM. As for memory, right now SL main viewer is using 145 MB RAM and holding, OnRez is using 375 and rising. As to CPU, OnRez is using anywhere between the same and double the amount of CPU the main viewer uses - but never less. (all figures according to Windows task manager.)

In a later experiment, I changed some values for OnRez which differed from the main viewer's settings, most notably the cache size, and this improved things a bit; but still OnRez used much more memory than the main viewer - I'd say about half.

And, OnRez is slower to load the environment once you're logged in. I used to think that was because I am starting it as a second client and my laptop must be very busy, but I also noticed this with only OnRez loaded.

Finally, I stood side by side with my wife at our plot of land at Timandra; she was using the OnRez client, I was using the SL Main viewer. The main viewer provided a much better SL experience in terms of visuals. It just plain looked better, at exact the same time and location!

I'm quite happy with what OnRez is trying to do with their viewer, but there's a few issues they need to solve in future releases, in my humble opinion.

OpenSim update

Things are looking up at OpenSim land. Of course, it's not finished by a long shot, but a couple of painful issues have been solved recently. Most notably: OpenSim now remembers avatar settings between sessions. This means clothing, body shape etcetera are now persistent. That's a huge win, and I've noticed my kids are much more eager to use OpenSim because of this. They are also starting to customize their avatar now that these modifications are automatically persistent.

My kids are happily building stuff and houses; I try to teach them a new trick every now and then, to keep them involved. So far this seems to work. Check out the last pictures in this set for some of their recent work!

I have provided a teacher at my daughters' school with a couple of logins; he's thinking about using my OpenSim environment as a part of the computer training all kids receive. Unfortunately, his home PC is not able to run SL, so we'll have to wait until he's back at school after the holiday break.

HTML allowed in Second Life postcards

Ok, this may look like a trivial thing, or something you have known for ages, *duh*! But I could not find this information online. It's just not mentioned anywhere. At least not where I could find it! So, to clear this thing up once and for all: yes, you can use HTML code in the message body of a Second Life postcard!

...Phew! Yes, much better, thank you, thanks for asking!

Köln closed

After admiring the Sistine Chapel and, earlier, the San Francesco Assisi, I went looking for more rebuilds of churches, cathedrals and the like. I found this one, the Dom from Köln (Germany), but unfortunately the thing is open only two hours a day. I don't know what their reasons are for doing this, but I think it's quite lousy. Even though the project itself looks impressive!

posted by Sered Woollahra on Visit using a blogHUD : [permalink]

seeing the Sistine Chapel from Michelangelo's perspective

I visited the RL Sistine Chapel a few months ago. But, of course, you only get to see it from one perspective: from the floor. This build however allows you to see the Chapel like Michelangelo saw it when he was working on it: from above, up close.

SL allows us to view this art in ways that would be impossible in RL!

posted by Sered Woollahra on Vassar using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Numbers

Recently I've read a lot about Second Life numbers. For instance, there are over 11,5 million accounts created; there is still 10 percent user retention, and SL seems to plateau at 538 K active users.

I have been thinking about that last number: 538.o00 active users. An active user is someone who has spent 45 hours in SL in the past month.

45 hours? That's quite a lot! Personally, wether I'd want it or not, I would be hard pressed to find 45 hours in any given month to spend online. I have a fulltime job, a wife and children to spend time with, volunteer activities in our local community, spend a few hours on my mountainbike to stay at least a bit in shape. I'm lucky if I can spend 20 hours online, and there are months where I can barely log 10 SL hours.

So, maybe I'm not an active user after all. But this does not mean I'm not there, interested, reading up, and buying stuff in SL. I am also the sole SL resident in my entire family and extended circle of friends - and most of my colleagues, as well.

Maybe 45 hours is a bit on the steep side for the many people who've got just too much other RL stuff going on. There are probably plenty people who consider themselves active SL residents, like me, but are not counted among the 538.000 'officially' active users.

Hip IBM

IBM may not have the reputation to be the hippest of big IT, but it's a dynamic place nonetheless. Because of my day job I am closely monitoring IBM, and they've made a couple of surprising statements recently.

At my day job, we're using Lotus Connections - a corporate version of social software tools like Facebook, Hyves or LinkedIn. Think Facebook within the firewall. It has profiles, blogs, shared bookmarks (called DogEar), communities and activities, a kind of (shared) todo's on steroids. We're also using IBM Lotus Sametime, IBM's corporate, secure Instant Messaging and web conferencing application. Recently, I have picked up several articles that point to a 3D future for IBM Lotus Connections, integrated with Sametime.

The first one is this eweek article: "The mashing of Virtual Reality, Social Computing". It tells how IBM Lotus engineers are working on ways to get data from Connections in a 3D environment. Your avatar would show data from your profile, for instance.

Another article discusses IBM's own 3D software: "IBM gulps it's own web 2.0 kool aid": IBM is apparently working on a 3D platform of their own, called Metaverse. It's currently being tested by 2200 IBM internal staff, and it's mostly used for web conferencing activities. IBM is looking at integrating Sametime with Metaverse, which would provide VOIP services in world, much like Second Life has.

So, is IBM creating an enterprise alternative for SL, like Connections is to Facebook or MySpace? I'm not so sure. IBM is actively participating in OpenSim development; limited, but official. And, in october of this year, they inked a deal with SL's Linden Labs to work towards open standards and interoperability for 3D environments. IBM is, at this moment, not betting on one horse it seems. Maybe IBM will tell us more at LotuSphere, the big annual IBM Lotus conference in Orlando, Florida, which will take place in January 2008.

In the mean time, IBM's Jo Grant posted some interesting thoughts on integrating Second Life with other software - IM or otherwise. He makes a couple of valid points: first, a 3D environment may not be the most suitable for all activities, and second, easier methods to integrate SL in other software (Lotus Notes, AOL chat are the examples used) would be beneficial to both Linden Labs and SL residents. Read the whole thing, as the saying goes.

her present - in SL and RL

Yesterday I noticed this Starfruit shop. They sell virtual presents, which can be delivered in RL as well. For instance, you buy a lady a virtual necklace and she gets the present in SL. When she clicks on it, she's given the opportunity to go to a RL website, enter her address, and have a RL copy of the same necklace delivered home. You don't get nor need to know her RL address. And she gets to wear the necklace both in SL and RL! They do this for other stuff as well, and they deliver in many countries.

I was served by Greygar Gibbs; he's even selling on a saturday night. Let's keep him occupied :-)
btw, I have no ties to this company or anyone working there.

posted by Sered Woollahra on Starfruit using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Windlight Redlight?

Does anyone know why I keep seeing certain images all red, when watching them through Windlight? Are there workarounds? grapichs card is ATI X300..
posted by Sered Woollahra on Vassar using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Another view of the Sistine Chapel

Most people never get to see this in RL. And if you do, you're not allowed to take pictures. It's good to be able to view in in SL!
posted by Sered Woollahra on Vassar using a blogHUD : [permalink]

after the synagogue, here's the church (2nd try)

This is actually a nice build. Lots of pews though. I wonder how many people visit these church services - and what is taught there.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Truth using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Linden snowball island

It looks like an iceberg, and in some respects, it is exactly that!
posted by Sered Woollahra on Kovari using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Cannery Rezzable - the last one..

..for today. You know, large parts of SL are made to look like a Caribbean island. Cannery definitely does away with that fake tropical atmosphere. Somehow, this sim reminds me of William Gibson..
posted by Sered Woollahra on Cannery Rezzable using a blogHUD : [permalink]

more art at Cannery Rezzable

More from Cannery Rezzable. Dark, industrial, smudgy, a worn out and weary feeling environment. But very beautiful!
posted by Sered Woollahra on Cannery Rezzable using a blogHUD : [permalink]

ABM AMRO stock market analysis

This is a meeting organized by ABN AMRO, one in a series on current events in the stock markets. ABN seems to be satisfied with the format, although it depends on an evaluation of 2007 to determine how this will be done in 2008. It's Dutch spoken, and given that, I'd say there's a nicely sized crowd here. btw, this is the third pic, but the first one seems to be gone - hence another try.
posted by Sered Woollahra on ABN AMRO 2007b using a blogHUD : [permalink]

another one from ABN AMRO Analyst meeting

posted by Sered Woollahra on ABN AMRO 2007b using a blogHUD : [permalink]

ps. The red glow comes from Windlight, with the normal viewer it looks perfectly ok..

fossils at Svarga

Even with my no longer supported hardware, Windlight is worth a try, as you can see at Svarga.

posted by Sered Woollahra on Svarga using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Not supported :-(

Until earlier today, I had a fairly up to date IBM laptop, with plenty RAM, a reasonable CPU and such - at least that's what I thought. It got a bit stale recently, but overall it did the job. But as of this moment, my trusted T43 laptop is officially designated 'old'.

Why, do you ask? I installed todays' update to Second Life Windlight, version 1.18.5.74642. And for the first time since I got this laptop, an installer told me that my hardware was no longer supported. Not good enough. Not fast enough. Not capable. In short..Old. It said I could of course try to install and run the SL Windlight viewer, but I would experience lag and other malfunctions. And lag I did experience, even in an almost empty sim.

I have talked to our hardware guys about this laptop, as I said it did get a bit stale recently. But this is proof positive that I am really lagging in hardware upgrades..

metaversed meeting about to start..

..quite an audience, again.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Metaversed using a blogHUD : [permalink]

It's the time of the season!

Even these tropical islands get a "winter look and feel" makeover these days :-)
posted by Sered Woollahra on Timandra using a blogHUD : [permalink]

more Windlight reflections at Bug Island

more Windlight reflections at Bug Island
posted by Sered Woollahra on Bug Island using a blogHUD : [permalink]

this shiny test reminds me..

..of a real life office building. The difference: this thing is warped on the outside, at that office the warped things work inside :-)
posted by Sered Woollahra on Bug Island using a blogHUD : [permalink]

an army of pacmans

This army of pacmans is another windlight test, for the bump mapping and shiny part. Again the results on my screen differ considerably from what I should see according to the accompanying hud.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Bug Island using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Torley's windlight test

Vint Falken proposed a Windlight test for different graphics cards; today Torley Linden appears to have such a setup ready. Here I am testing with different settings. The results are not all ok: the live view and the hud screenshot should be identical, and it appears they are not. At least not for the midnight setting. I'm still testing the rest.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Bug Island using a blogHUD : [permalink]

The three servicemen

The three servicemen, vietnam veterans' monument
posted by Sered Woollahra on The Wall using a blogHUD : [permalink]

San Francesco Assisi, detail

yesterday I posted a pic of the outside of this church build, but be sure to view the inside as well. Rich in detail; it must have cost a lot of effort to bring this together.

posted by Sered Woollahra on san francesco assisi using a blogHUD : [permalink]

San Francesco Assisi

..what an amazing build! A must see, rightly mentioned in todays' NWN article "The Best of Second Life's Ten Best of Second Life".
posted by Sered Woollahra on san francesco assisi using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Games booming business in The Netherlands

This news today captured my attention: "Nederlandse Gamesindustrie groter dan filmbranche", which means: in The Netherlands, games are bigger than movies - in some respects. The article cites the chairman of the Dutch gaming industry organization NLGD, who claims that, in 2007, the game industry will employ over 1500 people and have an annual turnover of an estimated one billion dollars - more than the Dutch movie industry.

Of course, the Dutch movie industry isn't exactly Hollywood, but it's still significant when something new overtakes the old, isn't it?

What makes this really interesting from my point of view however, is that it's especially the 'serious games' (training, simulation, education) that do well; they create most of this economic activity. One of the biggest universities of The Netherlands, the University of Utrecht, created the "center for advanced gaming and simulation" (English site), in a joint partnership with the Utrecht School of the Arts and TNO.

This looks very promising for anyone with an interest in virtual worlds and their usability in business or work situations. Especially the work of the center at Utrecht University looks promising. I wonder when they''ll have an event in Second Life..?

enjoying the afternoon sun

I built a little perch up in the sky, to be able to enjoy the afternoon sun. Nice view, I really like Windlight. I ran OnRez and Windlight together to be able to really compare, and once you've done that, you'll never return to the old viewer!

You know what was eerie? Yesterday I watched the moon rise here, between the scattered clouds. Beautiful! After logging off, I went out for a smoke, looked up at the RL sky and it looked almost identical!

posted by Sered Woollahra on Timandra using a blogHUD : [permalink]

I think I'll like it here

I haven't owned any land for quite some time, but as the stipend Lindens kept coming in, I felt it was time for a small investment. So now I own a nice small plot of land, next to a Linden owned waterway, with a view of the ocean nearby. Nice sunsets here, too.. I think I'll like it here.
posted by Sered Woollahra on Timandra using a blogHUD : [permalink]

something wrong - redux

Todays' first experiments with Windlight atmosphere shaders didn't turn out well, as an earlier post revealed. A search of the jira bugtracker for RADEON ATI X300 pointed me in the right direction: I might need a driver update. So I installed the latest Catalyst stuff for that card, and sure enough, atmosphere shaders now work flawlessly. Second Life sure can look pretty with Windlight fully enabled!

For others suffering from this issue, here's the JIRA reference: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1235

posted by Sered Woollahra on caLLiefornia using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Sundown at Ciuso Prime

I've been wayyy to busy recently, almost no time to blog - but I had to try out the new Windlight viewer. Looks nice, although, as you can see at the previous post, I do have problems with atmospheric shaders enabled. It gives the world a funky color - not exactly what's intended, I think! But the water and lights effects are great, both in SL and in OpenSim.

Something wrong...

I just started playing around with todays' version of the Windlight first look viewer. After enabling atmospheric shading, this is how the world looks. I must be doing something wrong :-)

posted by Sered Woollahra on Dulce Dal Mare using a blogHUD : [permalink]