Wow, it’s fancy dress time…. It’s been a while since I wore this outfit from Blaze…. Ummm, like a year, almost. Good thing avatars don’t get cold. -Veyron
posted by Veyron Supercharge on ASI Seychelles using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

I added another feature to the blog, Photocrank.  You can comments - probably amusing ones, to photos in my blog.  Probably should prompt me to actually post more pictures.

-Veyron

Yup, it’s that time again.  This coming Saturday, from 8pm to 12pm SLT.  To top it off…  Dark Eden is going to have a half price sale.  Everything in the store - half price.   Oh, oh…  You know what that means….

-Veyron

I’ve unfortunately become a member of a litany of social networking sites. Lets see here… Facebook, which seems to be a sort of knob turners dream site of time wasting. Myspace which I signed up for some gawd knows reason - oh yeah, so I could stalk some people more effectively. MyOpera I signed up for - why? Probably because I was bored at the moment. Hmm, oh yeah, I think I was tinkering with synchronization with Opera.

The directory sites like Spock and Wink. Oh, and this sorta strange Plaxo thing.

The micro blogging sites Pownce, Twitter, Jaiku which are all linked together - why three of them - I have no idea, I suppose because I can. At least I was smart enough to have Pownce feed the rest of them. There’s also my BlogHUD thingie which is also kind of a micro blogger, but designed for Second Life.

Now there’s the virtual world social networking sites. I signed up for this Koinup thing, but it seems to be down to it doesn’t like me. SLProfiles.com, which actually seems to be useful, as it fits in with your Second Life profile in world. SLUniverse mostly to be able to bitch about Second Life and tinker around with other things like Snapzilla, which is sort of link BlogHUD. I haven’t done much with Snapzilla lately, mostly because I keep forgetting about it.

But that’s not all… Then there’s some other sites to support this blogging madness… like Del.icio.us, MyBlogLog, Digg, SLTopSites, plus more I’m too tired now to list. (Oh yeah, and Flickr.)

Now some more upstairs Second Life social networks have come along. 2LifePeople and RezzedNet. I’m not sure what I think of the two new ones, mostly they seem to be light on features. I’m also not sure what I’m suppose to do with them. Facebook has an interesting application in it that links Second Life accounts to it and does some other features. Of course Facebook is sort of like this whizzbangy machine that makes a lot of noise, smoke, lights and makes pretty colors but in the end doesn’t really do anything - other than consume a lot of time.

Okay, where was I going? Oh yeah, ummm… Then there’s my blog, which circling back seems to be the root of most (but not all) of the above. Sort of a Ying and Yang - who is feeding who? Oh, and while I’ve been writing this, I’ve been invited to Ning. I’ve also been invited to Orkut a month or two ago, but I resisted… I know where I was going, spreading too thin. It’s getting more and more obvious I’ve got too many things flying around and I can’t keep it all up to date.

-Veyron

Okay, so I’ve seen a steady stream of interesting client software come out of Linden Labs lately.  The Windlight software and the new release canidate (RC) line of software.  Both have some pretty nice features and I kinda like how they work.  However, they both have some - well - fatal problems.  One of them is essentially fatal.  It’s memory leaks.  They are serious memory leaks.  I have seen the both beta clients leak 1GB of RAM in a few minutes of use - just before crashing.

What is annoying here is that this problem is probably fixed already.  Yup, probably already fixed.  We’re just not going to get it - at least not right away.

Nicholaz Beresford has been working on a modifying (ie fixing) the Second Life client for some time now, and I am impressed.  His fixed up version is FAR more stable than what is coming out of Linden Labs these days.  This is one guy who is actually bothering to fix problems.  Don’t believe me.  The JIRA database lists 159 issues as fixed internally.  That means the Lindens have fixed the bug, but it’s not actually in the viewers we have.  159.  That is just the start.

Windlight is great, but it is total CRAP if it crashes 5 minutes after launch.  I just don’t get it.  Linden Labs talks about how they are now going to focus on stability, openness, and getting it right.

In the military when they screw up something with safety or similarly stupid, they have a stand down.   Everyone gets their arses chewed and re-explained what needs to get done and how to GET IT DONE RIGHT.  What the programmers and managers need to now is stop playing with chrome, fiddly bits, and other stupid shiny things and fix the damn bugs.

In the mean time, I recommend you all give Nicholaz’s viewer a work out.  It seems to be a lot more stable.

-Veyorn

My alarm clock goes off in the morning….  Do I check work email first?  no..  personal email?  no.. Veyron’s email!  oh yes!  Heaven forbid I’ve also had a Second Life dream - nice to be not only be able to fly in dreams but in Second Life.

When I started in Second Life, it was just that - Second Life.  It was sort of interesting, a nice little diversion.  Some neat things to see, kinda tinker around with this avatar and some clothing.  Then I discovered the people and how interesting they were.  Then the people became far more interesting than sites in Second Life.  Then Veyron started creeping into CyberSpace.   Now Veyron has a better social life than I (who ever that is) do.

Once I was teasing Gideon Televison.   Gideon was starting to notice that he was being taken over by Gideon.  Slowly but surely.  Gideon was creeping into his daily life.  Then I called him Tyler - which started him laughing even more - because he knew what I meant.  Tyler from the book and movie Fight Club.

Tiessa has had some interesting real life experiences driven by Second Life, things that would never happened without

Slowly but surely it seems our virtual selves start to take over our real selves.  This seems to be confined to Second Life.  Jennyfur Peregrin pointed out an interesting comparison of how World of Warcraft and Second Life affect her.  Once she logs off WoW, she’s done.   It now seems I never really log off from Second Life….

-Veyron

I know, I just love Google.  I can’t really get enough of it.  I’m not sure exactly what it is.  Maybe because they are not the evil empire….  So, I love their stuff.  Anyway, I heard of some great new products they are working on in their labs.  Some of them I’m really excited to see coming up.   The first big one is the long rumored GDrive.  Google is going to all you to store all your stuff online.  Now, this should be pretty cool, because gawd knows, I have a lot of stuff.

But what really got me going was the new rumored social network for lapdancers called GString.  I don’t know how well it will compete with Facebook and MySpace, but I know Zoe and I will be signing up.  Oh and I’m sure Tiessa will too, just on general principles.

They have also announced they are working on a broadband service that is faster than the speed of sound. The GWhiz is coming very very soon.  I’m not sure how it’s going to work with the Google TiSP or Toilet Internet Service Provider though.

Another Google shot from the Googleplex was just announced is a new mobile service called G.e.ni.us which turns dumb kids into Harvard geniuses - by giving them answers to every single question possible, via mobile phone texts.  Hmm….  Yes, but can’t they speak textish to like grad speak?  I’m not sure if the Google Gulp project is related to this or not.

Lastly, Google has just announced the opening of a new research wing derived from the Google Romance project at their HQ called the GSpot. So far only females have joined up, as all of the male employees have failed to find the signs for the GSpot….

-Veyron

Let’s see if the aspect ratio looks better now… Oh, and this is the New Gomorrah Sim for City of Lost Angels.
posted by Veyron Supercharge on New Gomorrah using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Hmmm…. New outfit for the demoness…. I wonder if this is better than the other one. Sort of an interesting variation on a theme…. -Veyron
posted by Veyron Supercharge on Crimson Shadow Rezzable using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Well, the Virtual Thirst Contest is over, and the winner video is out. Some people you might know made it into the video. Gideon, TheDiva, and a well known Neko made it into the video (she’s at the end). Another lesser known Neko also made it in into the video for a brief moment. See if you can spot the lightning.

It’s a pretty good video.

-Veyron

Haven’t been there yet, but apparently, you can get some freebies from the Electric Sheep Company on the latest movie tie in, Beowulf.   I’ve heard the primary draw on this movie is a neekied Angelina Jolie avatar.  Anyway, the goods can be be found on Beowulf Island in world.  I’m sure the movie is nothing like the original Beowulf, but you never know.

I wonder if they are giving away an Angelina Jolie avie….

-Veyron

Latex party at the Cannery Rezzable going on…. Had to switch over from that angelic outfit to a less - ahem - innocent outfit… Gee, this looks familiar. -Veyron
posted by Veyron Supercharge on Cannery Rezzable using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Here’s the anti-demoness…. I’m in disguise…. I’m usually a perfect angel anyway, just ask Vint. -Veyron
posted by Veyron Supercharge on Verloren using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Here’s a cool little video by Robbie Dingo. It has a number of interesting Second Life people in it. You might find it interesting to watch and see if you can pick out the avatars you can recognize in it before you look at the credits. It’s really well done.  If you have trouble viewing it below, a here’s a link to it.

Oddly enough, it turns out that Vint and I share the same rezday.  I didn’t really realize it until I saw her posting.  Sort of a twilight zone sort of thing…  Anyway, it has been an interesting year full of ups and downs.  From a Second Life perspective, I have meet a lot of people I really love and respect.  People I would have never meet and interacted with otherwise.  I always think now if today was my last day in Second Life I would remember these experiences forever.

On the Second Life relationship front, I seem to have found myself in a strange limbo, of not knowing who or what I want anymore.  Thinking I know what I want but I’m not sure I can have it.  Every time I get tied down in a SL relationship I feel constrained, yet when I’m not I feel alone.  It seems to be a catch-22.

I’ve also noticed over the last year my evolution in clothing tastes.  When I started out, I made an attempt to try and control spending.  I knew that might be a problem.  Obviously, that was a failure.  :)  I started out dressing fairly cute and stylish, but nothing outrageous.  Then I moved on to more gowns, dresses and evening wear.  All very “normal” sort of outfits.  Then I think the turning point was a chance visit last January to Dark Eden.  This was the turning point to more exotic clothing.  While I continued to buy “normal” clothing, the more interesting articles started to become more the norm to buy and wear and normal clothing became worn less and less.

When I started in Second Life, it took quite a bit of time, money and effort to get the look that I have.  The body, skin, hair, and clothes all took a lot of coordination and effort.  Now it seems to be a lot easier, at least from what I see.  I have a thing about being individualistic.  Yes, I did dye my hair wild colors when I was in high school just to be rebellious and different.  The last thing I want to be is a Barbie clone.  While looking attractive and seductive is a lot of fun, and to be honest it is part of the whole environment, being a clone is not.

By around March or April it seemed to me more and more Barbie perfect clones were running around, complete with notecard recipes on how to get a perfect avatar.  That’s about when I stopped being as much of a fashionista and more of a costume fanatic.  After all, if I can look like anything I can start to appear really interesting.  This also started the game of how exotic can I look.  You’ve seen pictures of me as the demoness.  This sort of becomes a minor obsession.  It can become quite challenging to get all of those bits attached to an avatar and working together.  I think at one point I was using every attachment point on the avatar - everyone.

I also found I was pretty much in love with my shape.  I think most of use who have been in SL for a long time are very attached to their shape.  It is their core of their being in Second Life.  It’s what you see pretty much all of the time.  Sort of narcissistic, but I suppose it is some form of self love or perhaps an reinforcement of self in an abstract world.  In Real Life you don’t see your self the same way all the time.

One of the bigger events in Second Life was a Dark Eden party.  It’s where I met Etain Peregrine and Charissa Korvin.  Charissa got me going into City of Lost Angels role playing game in Second Life.  Not by asking me to join, but by my own curiosity.  Joining CoLA turned out to be a really good thing for me.  It gave me a sense of belonging to a group and a common goals.  Something I am really having fun with.  I also like being able to dress up, role play - oh and being evil is fun too…  we have cookies.  I also like to try running around and shooting people now and then too, when the need arises.

Regrets, I regret not taking enough snapshots of places and people.  Something I need to work on.  I regret that Second Life changes so fast and thing disappear so quickly.  I regret not being able to give attention to all the people I should.  I love and hate IM’s.  They are like leeches.  I wish the Second Life world was smaller so you could walk up and talk to the person you are IM’ing, instead of talking across the world.  But then you have privacy.  It too is a catch-22.  It’s like a multi-line telephone.

Second Life has also been rough on Real Life.  At times it’s been a real vampire on my Real Life.  I think we’ve all been there where we have allowed SL to take too much out of Real Life.  It’s an equation, SL + RL = c.  If you give to SL, you must take from RL.  Usually that means loss of sleep.  Sometimes I regret spending too much meaningless time in world, othertimes I wish I had been there when I wasn’t.  I don’t regret my Second Life experiences, I just wish I had more time for both Real Life and Second Life - maybe I need a Third Life. 

I’m looking forward to another year.  Another year of fun and play.  I’m sure it will be interesting.

-Veyron