Personalized Koinup Widget

I'm sure everybody else but me already knew this - but just in case there are one or two of you in the dark - let me talk about the Koinup widget.

Koinup is a site for pictures, machinima etc. but is devoted to the metaverse. (I'll let you do your own exploration to discover the origin of the name Koinup.) All of the works uploaded by members are from virtual worlds. This makes it interesting from a number of perspectives - not just because you can see things from worlds other than your own. There is a group of pics being gathered at the moment to commemorate Lively - and they have given me something of the flavour of the place.

I find Koinup really easy to use and I like the feeling of community there. I'm a little intimidated by the works of the other members - there are a lot of pictures with far more "artistic" flair than mine. But I'm learning. :)

One of the neat features I've discovered appears on the right of this blog - a Koinup widget with your pics in it. I uploaded pictures of all of the open Aintree islands, added the right tags and then created a widget for one of the tags. cool! It's more than possible that this function is available on Flickr but I never realized it. Again, I find Koinup really easy to use so this took no time at all.

Even if you don't want to join Koinup - you should really go look at the works that people have put on the site. There are some very talented photographers in the metaverse and this is a good place to see a lot of their art. :)

I don't need Plurk!

I don't have time for a new addiction - but I did want to check it out and see what was going on. So I joined (don't expect me to visit very often though) and explored a bit. Turns out there are Plurkebrities! Just what we need. :) Having said that it turns out that one of these Plurkebrities is Paulo Coelho! cool! So I went and looked at his plurks and he linked to the following list on his Myspace page. This is all becoming way too wired! But the list is fun:

Top ten reasons why computers are male

• 10. They have a lot of data but are still clueless.
• 9. A better model is always just around the corner.
• 8. They look nice and shiny until you bring them home.
• 7. It is always necessary to have a backup.
• 6. They'll do whatever you say if you push the right buttons.
• 5. The best part of having either one is the games you can play.
• 4. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.
• 3. The lights are on but nobody's home.
• 2. Big power surges knock them out for the night.
• 1. Size does matter.

Top ten reasons why computers are female

• 10. The instruction manual is mostly wishful thinking.
• 9. Even after you've turned them on, they just sit there waiting for you to make the next move.
• 8. Incorrectly worded commands are completely ignored, or worse, taken literally.
• 7. They reveal all your secrets to anyone who wants to know.
• 6. Upgrades react badly to things left behind by previous versions.
• 5. Rules are absolute and there is no possibility of compromise.
• 4. Whatever you buy for them, there will always be a newer version that they want.
• 3. Nothing is ever "really" deleted... obsolete files will be brought up out of nowhere just to annoy you.
• 2. Error messages always translate to: "Well if you don't know I'm not going to tell you."
• 1. Despite your best efforts to prevent it, they continue to permit unauthorised entry.
  (Found in Internet)
  

OK, so if you can find your friends and Paulo Coelho on Plurk it's probably a good place to be. Now I have to find time!

I cook - OK?

I'm not going to start another blog so that my rl avatar can have her say - so forgive me please for these occasional words from my sponsor.

I love to cook - and I'm pretty good at it they tell me. However, recently I acquired (or just discovered) a long list of food intolerances. Think 'anything to do with a cow', eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, lots of fruits and lots of vegetables and (omg) sugar. Suddenly most of my library of recipes and cookbooks were superfluous. I think of myself as a vegan who can eat some meats but has to avoid most fruits and vegies.

I've become an experimenter in subsitutions and alternatives. So every now and then, when I'm doing some power cooking I'm going to have to share a few comments.

I love the person who gave me my extra coffee grinder - it makes great bread crumbs. :) And did you know there are places where they don't sell Spike? Check with your friends - would make a good present for the holidays. :)

Update: Got an IM asking what I was cooking that needed both bread crumbs and Spike. I'm roasting a large amount of cauliflower and broccoli. Tossed in olive oil and garlic and roasted at 425 for about 15 minutes (covered so the garlic doesn't burn). Then stir and toss in the bread crumbs (generously spiced with Spike) and roast til golden (another 10 to 15 uncovered). I freeze a lot of it to have when needed - I don't always have time to cook these days.

Have you been banned?

I was poking around the main sl website and clicking on links - there are some really interesting things on there! Anyway one of them led me to BanLink. According to the site:

BanLink is a free distributed ban management system developed by Travis Lambert and Mera Pixel. Much of the components are provided open-source to allow customization by subscribers. BanLink is not a global‚ centralized ban list. Rather‚ BanLink is a collection of individual banlists linked together in a format that can be shared on an ala carte basis. Each location that subscribes to BanLink receives a custom-generated banlist based upon their trust selections.

BanLink has one other interesting little function. You can plug your AV's name in there and find out if you're banned anywhere in their database. Fess up - you've plugged your name into Google. Right? Aren't you just the teensiest bit curious?

It'll only tell you if you are in their database - so if somebody else has banned you, it won't be recorded. And it seems they only deal with sites have have traffic numbers over 1500 - so your ex's home parcel won't come up in the search.

They don't let you go searching to see who has banned other people. They obviously knew somebody would think to do that - you need a special number they send you inworld in order to complete the search. So unless you can logon as somebody else (and I'm not talking about your alt) you'll have to restrict your searches to your own AV's. :)

It's a sleigh!

No really - that's what it is! And it'll be functional once I get the script in it. However at the moment my attempts to navigate the wiki explanations of vehicle scripts are making my eyes cross. I will perservere! I thought that - although people could bring skates to use on the winter isle - having sleighs there would be fun. :)

Update: I found a simple vehicle script that I could modify and: Yes! It moves, it goes up and over bumps and hills, it comes back down, it turns, it stops. :) I even managed to find a simple "skate on ice" sound that doesn't work too badly.

It's these little triumphs that keep us going. :)

A brand new experience!

I've had a lot of things go wrong in the time I've been in SL - most of them my own fault. But this was a first for me.

I was puttering away and noticed the handrails on this bridge looked funny - suddenly they were transparent. Except the textures weren't set to transparent (I looked). So I tried to reload the texture and it wasn't there. It was listed in my inventory but it was blank!

I'm running around to the various places on the various islands where I used it and replacing them. I thought about uploading it again and decided that a retreat on this one would be a good idea.

SL is just one big adventure. :)

Unborked?

To recap - I foolishly upgraded my Nvidia driver on Friday (I think it was Friday) - I haven't been able to use the main SL viewer since. At first I would crash within minutes of logging on - after a while I would crash while logging on. I tried going back to earlier versions of the driver but it didn't help. I could use the old RC I have, so I've been working with that for the past few days. With mixed results.

Today I installed an even older version of the Nvidia driver thinking that might help. It didn't. So in desperation I uninstalled SecondLife. I downloaded and installed the main viewer again and redid all my firewall settings.

And yay! it seems to have worked. I hate to be too confident - but I've been working for about an hour and haven't crashed yet. I did have to change some of my graphics settings though - the quality wasn't good enough. But even that hasn't caused problems.

/me crosses fingers

Teensy little problem .........

I've been working on Aintree Willow to setup the winter landscape. I also decided to do winter versions of my sculpty trees. I logged out to bring in my alt to test one of the tree vendors (for some reason I lost the ability to have more than one sl window open).

When my alt logged in ..... this is all that was left of the island.

sigh

Do other people have a sense of humour?

I don't know why, but when I read this my reaction was that it must be somebody used to being in SecondLife.

Really - I thought it was me!

Update: Something was seriously wrong with the photo I used - even I couldn't load this page. So it's gone.

I don't know if it's a sign of arrogance or one of complete insecurity - but when I kept crashing out of SL this morning I was sure it was my fault. I would look at the crash report screen and say "What? Are you kidding me?" like that would help. Then I would login again - and crash again. Sometimes I would move around first before I crashed, then I started crashing during the login.

I upgraded the driver for my graphics card yesterday so that must be the problem, right? I uninstalled all the drivers for the card and downloaded a new one. Unfortunately I also uninstalled my profile and I've spend the past hour or so fiddling with resolutions etc.

Then I tried logging on to SL - and crashed. I'm running out of bandaids.

There's nothing at this point about it on the blog so I still think it must be my fault. More tweaking.

Then I tried the older candidate I have loaded and "ta da" I arrive in SL. Not only do I arrive but I can move around and tp and no crashing.

So I take a pic of me on my balcony to prove I was there - didn't have a newspaper or anything to establish timeline but I figured you'd take my word for it.

I come into Blogger to write a brief self deprecating post and go to fetch the pic. I get a message from Blogger that "there's been a problem uploading the photo". I get that message 5 times. "What?" I reply, "Are you kidding me?".

More tweaking. I finally just said something really rude in every language I know even a smattering of - apparently Blogger responds to bad accents. :)

Four Seasons?

Was talking with Wrath last night - always enjoyable. But the man has no shame when it comes to "giving me suggestions" about things I could do. They always involve a lot of work and unfortunately they always appeal to me. As a result of this conversation I'm considering making the last of the Open Spaces (or homesteads) a seasonal landscape. It will have an obviously Northern Hemispheric bias - but that's to be expected. I'm pondering and I'll putter - but it's likely. :)

Oak is now open!

She's almost done - still needs bird and water sounds- but Aintree Oak is now open - more park-like than the forest on Aintree Common and way less formal than the garden on Aintree Parterre. It's not what I thought I was building but I'm pleased anyway. :)

Changes

This wasn't the look I originally planned for the upper part of Aintree Oak - but once I put out the game boards I needed to make it more open, parklike. If it doesn't work I can always go back and change it. :)

Word Game!

It's not the game I love in RL - cause that would be infringing something I'm sure. But it is a fun word game - so I'll put it out too. I'll play anybody who wants to try. :)

Games?

Do people still play chess? Well I'll put it out just in case - would love to find some bocci though. :)

It's not real life .......

So I can have a giant lavender thyme next to a giant lavender. Because I like them and I want to. :)

Aintree Oak

I'm finally starting to plant. :) But the theme of this park is country lanes and informal gardens. They aren't all bright shiny and new - so here and there are some broken pieces, but roses will grow most anywhere. :)

On a lighter note..........

Doesn't look like much I know - but I did make quite a bit of progress on Aintree Oak. You have to put in the "bones" before the "pretties". So the terraforming is done and the trails are in. Now I can start some of the stone walls and other fixed items. Then I can plant. :)

Sick Age Play, part two

It's a little ironic that there won't be a picture with this post - since it is mostly concerned with pictures. Don't read any further if you don't want more information on what I saw this morning or if you don't want to be offended! Seriously! I'm going to be as tactfully graphic as I can, but I want to provide some background to a decision I made.

I haven't been able to get what happened this morning out of my head. More accurately - I haven't been able to get what I saw this morning out of my head. One of the groups this av had in her profile has a manga picture of two young girls - one has her panties around her knees and her bum exposed. The other has no panties and her pubic area just peeks out from under her little dress. The charter for this group reads:

(this group its only for adult RP)
Group created for these young girls who can do anything for her daddy.
dont caring if others say thats its wrong.
you know daddy its always right.
he is your daddy and never lie you right?
and Daddies who know his girls are obedients and little dumb and know how take advantage of that using or abusing his young girl

"qualities"tags: Smart daddy, Dumb girl, Daddy,s toy,

If that description really bothered you - don't read the next one.

The same person who created this group has another one with a real life photo on it. The girl in the photo looks underage - she has no body hair except for the curly blonde locks on her head. Breast buds only. We know she's a girl cause that critical part of the anatomy is facing up in the photo. But that's not the part of her body being penetrated by what is obviously a full grown man. Her head is down near the ground - where her mouth is occupied by another full grown man. There are other bodies in the photo but the focus is definitely on her.

This is the rl photo on the main page of an sl group.

I really, honestly, truly believe that LL wants this garbage gone. Not just because it's offensive and not just because there are real life victims - but also because of the legal implications. On top of that is the pr nightmare if we get stories about this on top of the divorce ones. Secondlife and sordid will be synonymous. The rest of us will never be able to convince our loved ones that we're innocent.

I also believe that LL doesn't have the resources to tackle all of its priorities at the same time. Inappropriate age play (nice euphemism there) isn't something LL will be able to pro-actively root out and trash. At least not on their own.

Remember Hilary's "it takes a village"? Well communities have responsibilities too. And as members of communities so do we.

I can't just go away and be bothered by this. I have resolved to try and do something about it. So I will create an av whose primary role will be to detect this garbage - and based on a little work this morning that's not hard. The av will then submit abuse reports. I will use the system but I won't sit back and wait for the system to do it all on its own. And I will feel like maybe I'm doing something positive in regard to something really really ugly.

And yes maybe I'm fooling myself - but sometimes you just have to feel like you tried. You know?

Sick age play in SecondLIfe

I had just arrived in SL this morning - in my little den, when another av appeared in front of me. She landed just in front of that cabinet. I'm about 6 feet tall (because I want to be, thank you) - she wasn't as tall as the cabinet. Barely came waist high on me. And yes she was definitely a child avatar. I should have taken a picture but I was so surprised that she tp'd into my home I didn't. I pointed out that it's my home and she left.

There's no picture in her profile (for obvious reasons) but some of her groups include; Daddy,s Dumb lil girl (sic) and Young, Tight & Wet. I should mention I guess that the titles of her groups weren't meant to be funny, ironic or anything but truly reflective of the purpose of those groups. The charters and photos made that perfectly clear.

And yes I filed an abuse report. I thought these days the worst I'd have to fear from child avatars was "baby talk". And I hate baby talk with a passion. Now I'll have the memory of her and her groups to deal with.

I didn't do a separate abuse report for the groups - I figure just looking at the pic on at least one of them will be enough to get it trashed.

blech

Update: I don't know what the process is exactly, so I went back and did a separate abuse report for her groups.

double blech

Update 2: I started looking at the profiles of the people who created those groups. Found one guy with many groups and their photos are from real life. If the girls in them aren't underage he certainly wants you to think they are. There are some truly sick people in all worlds. More abuse reports filed.

My dog needs a walk and I need fresh air.

More ghosts!!!!

I admit that I'm tired and not a little cranky tonight. But I've had it with these ghosts! I banned 15 of them not too long ago and I'm getting more. Another 9 of them today alone. I don't get it. Is this one of those things everybody else understands and I'm just too thick to figure out? What is the point of them appearing (although not rezzing) on my land? They stay for 10 to 20 minutes and then leave. They come back 5 or 6 times a week - sometimes in pairs, sometimes by themselves. They never rezz - you can't communicate with them.

Is there a ghost wrangler out there sending them to my place and then assigning them locations from there? Is there a way to identify who owns these things? I'm starting to think I have to figure out a way to ban anybody without a pic in their profile. This is just silly.

OK. Rant over. :)

Paris 1900 - In Memoriam

Paris 1900 was the first "destination" sim I visited when I started to explore. I've been back a few times and my reaction is always the same - damn but YadNi Monde can build! This build unfortunately will be taken down tomorrow - unless some last minute saviour appears. I know there are photos of this incredible place all over the net - but I wanted to take a few of my own..... just to confirm that it was here.......or that I was there. And it reminded me of Shelley:

Nothing beside remains.
Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

Except of course, unlike Ozymandias YadNi Monde is still with us. Unfortunately Paris 1900 won't be.

Another time waster ......

Or, yet another list to disagree with. I saw the link to this list while reading an article on CNN.com about a woman in the UK divorcing her husband cause he messed around on SL. Don't get me started on that topic.

Any way, I thought if you haven't seen it you might like a link to Time.com's list of the top 50 web sites for 2008.

Enjoy! :)

A roof with a view!

I've spent the past two days chasing devils...you know the ones that hide in the details? Mind numbing but worthwhile.

Today I indulged myself. I've been thinking that it's unfortunate that the roof of the castle is not accessible (apart from flying of course) so today I went and got one of Kheph777 Enoch's steam lifts and played around for a while. I had to set it up so it arrived at the right height but metres away from the edge of the roof - so I put in a metal sky walk to meet it. Now you can get to the roof from the back yard. :)

I have to start putting plants and flowers on the decks - will make it look lived in. Unfortunately I have to keep it locked up all the time - I keep arriving to find strangers wandering around inside. Maybe I should just post a big sign with a link to Alex Bader's demo castle. Then maybe they wouldn't come in uninvited.

Julius Caesar (and the rest)

Bet these guys never had to worry about prims. :)

Procrastination?

I'm not procrastinating. Exactly. I just thought it was time I clicked on some of those advanced windlight settings. :)

Honour's Early Days in SecondLife

Crap has posted about the "first hour" experience referencing Cen and Nika. This led me to think about my own initiation and early times in SL. I don't usually do think pieces, true - so if you're not interested I won't mind. Just stop reading now. Or go read the posts I linked to above - they're much better. :)

There are some things you need to keep in mind when I describe my early times in SecondLife:

• I'm pretty much a geek. However, I only discovered this recently - and since I'm now in my middle 50's, this was a shocking thing to learn at a relatively advanced age. My life would have been very different if I'd realized this a long time ago.
• I don't have a back ground in video games - I remember being intrigued with "Adventure" on the old SQL machines but since I wasn't a techie I never got a chance to really play it.
• In real life I'm a nester - I need my home base. I'm all for travel and adventure - but I have to have a place where I can return/hide/own/control/feel at peace.
• Although I make fun of the old time techies who believe this - it probably holds true for me as well -: "Reading the manual ruins your amateur status". Which, of course, is just a way of justifying the fact that they (we) don't read the instructions.

  So understanding all of that - the following might make some sense. :)

I first joined SL because I'd encountered it in my online reading on a number of occasions - and I was intrigued by the thought that I could "build" things. I signed up and went through the "orientation". Could not bounce the basketball, kept walking into things, but manage to fly over the bit of water. I figured I'd practice and get better on my own so I left the Orientation Island and went to find some land (remember the nesting?).

I'm pretty good at exploring menu's, but only til I find what I'm looking for - no reading it all in advance for me. So I found the listings of land for sale and tried to find some I could afford with the L$1200 they gave me. This was the budget partly because I'm cheap and partly because I wasn't allowed to bring in more money for a couple of days. So I tried to find something I could afford.

I found two listings that seemed promising. One said it had a great view - but since it was always dark when I tp'd there I couldn't confirm that (remember, I didn't read the "manual" and hadn't found the "sun" controls yet). The other listing was for a whopping 96 sq m - but next to a Linden Road. It was jammed in between some pretty ugly builds but there was this road - and even a newbie figured that would be a good thing to be next to. I bought it and my blood pressure immediately went down - I had a home. :)

Over the next couple of weeks I started buying up these weird little 16 sq m parcels that were around me - ugly things. Once I could import more reasonable sums of money I started buying bigger parcels in the area. When I wasn't doing that I was exploring - I knew I wanted to learn how to build (figure out is probably more accurate, I didn't look for courses and didn't "read the manual"). I decided I would start with something I love in RL - gardening. So I looked at garden centres in SL and honestly was not impressed. I decided that there was a niche for photo realistic material and that's what I'd aim for.

Once I had a reasonable amount of land I did my first "build". It was a hedge maze - not bad. Extraordinary though when you realize that I didn't know about "shift copy" and couldn't control my camera to allow me to look down at the maze. I can't believe I managed to build that thing with those handicaps - but I did. And it's been uphill from there.

On the social side - well, I was a hermit. Partly because I was obsessed with the early building. Partly because I was sure I would be the proverbial "sore thumb" - so I just kept my head down and tried not to do anything to draw too much attention and, therefore, not feel too stupid. I've learned since then that there are far more of "us" than people would think - the older residents - one day we'll rise up and take over. And won't the rest of you be shocked. :)

After a particularly good day of land buying, I met one of my neighbours - Wrath. The first person to talk to me in SL he's still a good friend - and has put up with a lot of my ignorance. I literally did not do anything to improve my AV for the first 3 months I was in here. I was Ruth with bad hair and shapeless jeans. Wrath actually asked me with a straight face if I was planning to open a clothes store. As if.

I didn't get out much until after I did make changes to my AV - but that doesn't mean I didn't meet more people. I used to get newbies (meaning even younger than me) landing in my garden every day or so. I would share the little info I'd managed to glean - help them remove bald spots, find portugese speaking clubs, etc. I couldn't understand why they kept landing in my garden - I mean was there an Orientation Island nearby or something? I finally asked one of them who told me that on the map my land was a big green square and it looked safe to land in. I still keep in touch with a few of them - nice people.

My early times in SL probably aren't typical, and maybe I'm not either. But if SL is looking at the orientation of new residents let me make a couple of suggestions.

• Don't label helpful locations, items, people, etc. in SecondLife speak. Use terms that make sense to a newbie. There's always time to give them the vernacular later.
• Remember that we all need a "safe" harbour - home, location whatever. People who are really social will find it right away in a bar or club. The rest of us have to make our own. Figure out a way to give a newbie their own safe corner - right away - something they can retreat to if things get too overwhelming. Something that feels like theirs - even if it's only for a month or so. Something where there isn't somebody being helpful, wanting you to make decisions. Someplace where you can modify your appearance without feeling like a dork. Someplace where you can just take a deep breath and plan your next move.
• Provide a list of places in SL that speak different languages - that Portugese fellow I mentioned was thrilled when I found a club I could send him to. They don't have to be official locations - just places where the people will welcome a newbie and speak to him or her in their own language.
• I always tell newbies that they need a reason to be in SL. If they want to build, socialize, have sex - whatever. Just arriving without an agenda makes your eyes glaze over. Once you know what you're looking for it's easier to start finding it. SL could give a list of places to start based on the things that people are looking for. Once they start on that journey it's easy to start making progress on their own.

I love this place and I'd like everybody who arrives here to love it. When I look back I'm astonished that I did what I did - and that I didn't get embarassed and just leave. Keeping your head down does work - I just don't recommend it. :)

Next!

Well she's as done as she's going to get. So I can start boring you with a new island. :)

Parterre

I still need to plant some more trees, put in the water sounds and work with the top of the hill. But Aintree Parterre is close to being done (at least til later when I tweak it). :)

Full day .....

It's ironic, or kharma, that they announce the 750 prim limit for open spaces on the day I start planting the Parterre. These are not low prim beds. So I guess - since I really like my prims, I'll be Homesteading. Even the forest on Aintree Common is more than 750 prims.

While I was working on the fountain etc. those ghost people I mentioned kept showing up on my radar. Since there is also a limit to the number of av's you can have concurrently on these islands, it seems unfair for these ghosts to be using my land - uninvited, unexplained and unwanted. I have a list of 15 of them who appear regularly. They might be bots I guess - whatever that means. I mean I know it's not the Crap Mariner type of "bot" - but I don't know what their purpose is or why they spend any time on my island. It became more and more annoying as they came and went so I finally banned them all.......dusted off my hands, logged off and now to bed. :)

Working and listening ........

Just in case you thought I was ignoring the empty islands and just playing with my castle ... :)

While I'm working I'm listening to the BBC's coverage of the American election. I enjoy the BBC in ordinary times, but they really come into their own when covering elections. Any coverage that includes Christopher Hitchens as an analyst has to be a hoot - and it is. I'm chuckling even as I try to get something done. :)

Setting things up .........

The woman who wrote the great cartoon strip "Cathy" once said that until she created the strip, and heard from her readers, she hadn't realized that she was not the only person who balanced their chequebook by changing banks.

In that vein - it seems the only time I have a clean desk is when I first move in to a new place. :)

More Music :)

I listened to another video of that choir I liked - singing Robbie William's Angels - then I found this video. Much larger "choir" singing it. :)

Tree Kyomoon's Island

Sometimes you see something on the map and you just have to go visit. For me, Tree Kyomoon's Island was one of those times. :)

I love this!

The person who does Honour's typing occasionally takes control of the content of this blog. This is one of those occasions.

One of the things few if any people in any life know about me is my weakness for men's choirs. I know a little odd perhaps. But large groups of men's voices lifted in song gives me goose bumps. Of course I would prefer that they have at least a modicum of training and that they're all singing the same song. :) I was once at the track and field events at the Commonwealth games and a Welshman won an event - I was sitting in the middle of a group of Welsh fans and when the national anthem was sung I melted.

So imagine how pleased I was to discover that the BBC recently had a reality competition for choirs - The Last Choir Standing. This is a video of the winning choir's performance during the final. Take time out from Morrissey and the Smiths to appreciate it. :)

And if for some reason the video doesn't appear - try this link: Only Men Aloud