Okay, we Second Lifer’s do some weird things, but this has to take the cake….

New Haven, Conn. — April 17, 2008

Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art.  Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials.  She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages.  The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.

She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art.

Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.

Well, she got the attention she was looking for, obviously.

-Veyron

I’ll admit it, for grins and giggles, several times I’ve camped out.  Why?  I’m not sure, perhaps the thought of getting something for nothing.  Which really is not true since I am sure I consumed more in electricity than I gained in Linden dollars.  A few times it was almost a social event.  Sitting in a silly chair with some other strangers making odd conversation.

One thing that does annoy me is the whine from various n00bs and even some veteran Second Lifer’s that they have no money to buy Linden dollars to get things.  Somehow this stretches the believable.  The fact you could get online with a computer makes me think you’re exaggerating.

You know and I know that a few dollars in Second Life, if spent wisely, will go a long long way.  The price of a Starbuck’s latte and scone will do you well.  I think these cheapies probably fall into a few groups:

1. The underaged.  Sneaking into the main grid.  They don’t have PayPal or a Credit Card.
2. The lazy.  This goes without explanation - because that would take a lot of work to explain.
3. The sneakers.  Afraid of producing a money trail to their Second Life account.  Get over it, we know where you live, it’s just we don’t really care about your little life (although it makes you feel better that we might)….
4. The true idiots.  See the Second Life Fashion Police for the evidence file on this one. 

But I do offer a small solution for the rest of you lindenless who don’t fall into the above, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.  You can be paid slightly more than camping for using the grey matter between your ears that computers don’t have.  As part of this, you can play around with a new service called TagCow.  For a bit less than a penny you can tag a picture with who and what it is.  Arrington thinks that you could make a $1.20 US an hour at this….  Which is around L$350 - better than camping - except you’ll have to work at it.

Moo!

-Veyron

Now boys, pay attention to your flight attendant. She has important safety information to tell you.

Hmmm…. I wonder who cast this little skit? Who said safety can’t be sexy? So, buckle up, I heard it might be a bumpy ride today….

-Veyron

Mmmm…. I wonder if this is distracting. At least there’s no audio.

-Veyron

So, I scored an invite to the private Wuala online storage thingie. Seems kinda interesting. The more you share of your own available storage space, the more you get in the cloud space. Might be useful for storing things. Also has a social sharing thing. It’s in private alpha or beta or whatever it is these days. Comment here or email me if you want an invite. First come first serve until I’m out of them….-Veyron

I know I’ve seen this before…. Hmmm…. I think it had a clock on it. Yeah, that’s it. And mine is usually black.

-Veyron

Blogged with Flock

My computing needs used to be small at home.  I use to think my lil’ ole Athlon with a Nvidia 5700LE video card was more than what I needed.  After all, I mostly used my computer for web browsing, tinkering here and there and God forbid, some work.

The Second Life came a long.  Well, the Athlon and the old Nvidia card got the heave hoe pretty quick.  Dual core Athlon 64, Nvidia 7900GS, whoohoo!  Yeah, I know.  No longer top of the line, but hey - I’m frugal, and at the time it was cost effective.

So now I find myself on the road, and having to use once again, inferior hardware for playing Second Life.  Gasp, even more inferior than before.  My laptop has a puny ATI 9000IGP video chip which is basically pathetic.  Of course this is starting to cause some laptop obsessions and a strong case of shopping-itist.  I think I’m going to get a new laptop in the next month or so - well - I HAVE to get one or I will just slit my wrists.

I’ve zero’ed in on one particular beauty, an ASUS C90.  Uh huh.  This beast has a few charming bits to it.  It uses a desktop CPU socket so you can actually upgrade the CPU.  Even put in a Intel Core 2 Extreme CPU.  It’s even got a mode to overclock the CPU.  Also the video card is replaceable.  In other words, you can upgrade the video.  It’s some standard called MXM NVidia came up with.  Right now they have an Nvidia 8600GT but there’s rumors of the latest hotness, a 8800GTX - which is what I’d really like… mmmmm…..  lol

Now, I’d prefer a bigger screen, because we all know that wider is better.  But I’d rather not lug around any more weight.  So, I think the C90 is the way to go.  I’m trying to keep my budget to about $1500.  Actually, I’d like to spend about $500, but that’s not going to cut it.

I know there much harder-core nerds out there than I.  Think it’s the right choice?

-Veyron

Blogged with Flock

Well…  On the road!  Life made some big changes for me now.  I’m doing some serious traveling back and forth every week now.  When I get home on the weekend, I spend it mostly on things to get ready to head out again (bills, housework, laundry, etc).  I’ve also been having problems with sleep with the timezone shifts - I’m popping awake at 3:30am - and I’m not getting enough exercise anymore.  It’s time to start working out in the hotel.

I also don’t have my swanky old laptop from my last job, but my own personal crappy laptop, which really sucks for Second Life.  It gets about 1 frame per second - on a good day.  It is so painful to use, that I can hardly stand to play in Second Life.  It lacks a GPU so it’s a dog with Second Life.  Oddly, the regular client locks up the machine, but WindLight does not.  Yes, I will be replacing it in the next few weeks.  I’m having an internal argument over cheap versus powerful….

Other wierd things, I now have my own personal cell phone.  Before I always had my blackberry from work, but now I have my own thing.  It’s one of the Winderz Smarthphones.  Sort of amusing, it gives me something to play with on the airplane, and it keeps me from getting lost - which has happened several times now even with Google Maps and the GPS.

So, to use some technology for the smartphone, I started using FeedDemon for news reading from NewsGator.   It’s now free and they have a web version, windows version, mac version, and a pocket pc/smartphone version.  The cool part is they can sync up together.  So, I can read on my PC, and then, sync up and keep reading on my smartphone on the plane.

I’m getting more settled in now, I’m in my third week of this, and I hope to get at least more active on the web.  Second Life activities are going to be slow until I get this laptop replaced.

-Veyron

I’m not going to miss you….  Veyron agreed to the let the narrator make this infrequent post…  This blog post is a bit late and I’m a bit late in posting, but I have a good excuse.  I keep my Real Life and Second Life separate for a few good reasons.  One of the biggest reasons is I use it as a reality escape.  I think a lot of us do the same.  For me, I like to be on the grid and be pleasant, happy and an escape into another existence.  In reality, 2007 has been an Annis Horribilis for me.  It actually started going down hill around the the end of 2006, but really picked up a full head of steam in 2007.

It pretty much encompassed the full gamut of whatever could go wrong did go wrong.  Personal relationship problems, work political problems, family problems, financial problems, and health problems.  One driving the next driving the next in an interesting snowball of one right after the other in almost a perfect feedback loop.  It’s also been punctuated by an acute bout of “what have I done with my life and what am I going to do now?”  I will spare you the dramatic details, and in to some degree, it doesn’t matter - and I have no real interest in discussing it further.

A wise preacher once said, “If you want things to be different, you have to do something different.”  About four months ago I put those words in motion and as of today they have come to fruition.  I’m now working at a different place and a different state (in the United States).  I’m making a fresh start with a new operation that is a positive opportunity for me.  For various reasons I am not moving from where I live now, so I am going to be commuting each week to and from where I am now working and pretty much living out of a suitcase and in a hotel, five days a week.  I may decide to get a place to stay here, but I will be working here indefinitely - probably for next few years.

It’s a big change for my lifestyle, which had been much less - frantic.  I had three choices, keep on the slow sinking into the quagmire of where I was at, cut my losses and call it quits or take this opportunity.  I had seriously considered that I have had enough of the rat race and sort of “retire” from it.  How I was going to that - I have yet to figure out.

Normally, I wouldn’t talk about this at all, but the outcome is it will make a change to my Second Life, so I thought it was fair to make a post about it.  My weekends are now probably going to be more consumed with me being home, seeing my friends I missed from the week and taking care of things at home.  My weekdays might involve more Second Life, but that is yet to be seen.  My new job is going to involve a lot of responsibility.

From a technical side of things, I’m using my now ancient personal laptop on the road.  It lacks a 3D accelerator….  The regular Second Life client locks up after a while but the Windlight client seems to run, but at a glacial pace.  It’s also rather frustrating to use as it like playing Second Life in molasses, even with the graphics basically turned to bare minimums.  At some point in the next few months I’ll probably get a new laptop, but for now, Ill probably be a Second Life cripple… 

I’m looking forward to 2008 and I hope it to be an improvement over last year.  Now back to Veyron….

Okay, get me that new laptop - I need some parties to go to….

-Veyron

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

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

Looks like CNN is coming to Second Life.  I wonder if Anderson Cooper will be hanging out at any Dark Eden parties….  I’m sure he would have a good time there.  He could do one of those 360 degree specials.  I can only imagine how that would go.

Anyone know where they’re lurking in Second Life yet?

One thing I miss is that all these private islands are not “connected” to the mainland.  Too bad that walking or driving between sims sucks so badly.  You could have like roving parties rampaging through the world.  Pillaging all in their path….

-Veyron

This is a great post by lashxevious, How not to Charm a girl in SL. Covering some obvious points like moving too fast, cheesy lame Casanovary, IM whoring, Muscley-Caveman-Fabio drool, and of course Desecrating Dante. I haven’t seen too many of the big ugly out of proportion guys. You know with the giant arms and shoulders and tiny little heads? ::sigh:: Maybe that should be a contest?

-Veyron

It’s interesting how American English and British English are different. As Churchill once said, "Two nations separated by a common language." Amanda used an interesting term on Pownce today, and I actually had to look it up… "On the pull". An interesting idiom. I found this pretty amusing site, the English-to-American Dictionary.

pull v. The art of distracting the opposite sex. Pulling is conceptually very similar to hooking up. To be on the pull is a less proactive version of sharking. Single males and females are almost all on the pull but will deny it fervently and pretend to be terribly surprised when eventually it pays off.

I wonder if they have a Second Life to First Life Dictionary anywhere…

-Veyron