What I am working on
I am working on my sim Lummerland currently most of the time – so if you don’t see me around, chances are good that I am there, building stuff. It’s coming along nicely and allready has lots of content – especially my new store in a nice lighthouse and my new castle:
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| From Second Life S… |
So if you want to see what it is like to live in a childrens book (allthough I took quite some freedom with the story) – come over and have a look.
Second Life Herald: AvaStar Moves to Silence Critics
Second Life Herald: AvaStar Moves to Silence Critics: Issues Bans, Files Frivolous Abuse Reports, and Seeks Real Life Information on One Critic. About how the Springer-Tabloid AvaStar works in Second Life. Well, it was to be expected. The AvaStar being made by the Bild Online people (I don’t dare to call them Journalists) isn’t expected to be any better than their paper or online equivalent. And those are the worst kind of Journalism you can get in Germany – constantly lying, deceiving, playing their own political games – like Fox on steroids with far less journalistic ethics (yes, there is something below that treshold).
Second Game of Avatar Chess
White won the second game of Avatar Chess, too. This time with a classic check-mate. Great game, even though I added an additional obstacle by having the clock scripted wrong, so it called for red when it meant white and other way around (note to self: team names have to be variables, not constants, teams change sides dammit!). It was crazy, laggy, chaotic and tons of fun. Thanks to all who attended. And yes, there will be pictures as I get them and I will this time have a transcript of the game!
The moves of the game as pulled out of the chat protocol:
| F2 – F4 | E7 – E5 |
| F4 – E5 | D7 – D6 |
| B1 – C3 | D6 – E5 |
| G1 – F3 | B8 – C6 |
| E2 – E4 | C8 – G4 |
| F1 – B5 | G8 – F6 |
| D2 – D3 | F8 – E7 |
| H2 – H3 | G4 – H5 |
| C3 – D5 | F6 – D5 |
| E4 – D5 | D8 – D5 |
| C2 – C5 | D5 – C5 |
| H1 – G1 | H5 – F3 |
| G2 – F3 | C5 – G1 + |
| E1 – E2 | G1 – G2 + |
| E2 – E3 | E7 – G5 + |
| E3 – E4 | F7 – F5 + |
| E4 – F5 | E8 – G8 + (0-0) |
| F5 – E4 | G5 – C1 |
| D1 – C1 | G3 – F3 ++ |
Who will hear you? Who will hear me?
Tateru Nino on the results of the move to more audio tools instead of text chat. Never forget that text chat is a great enabler – text chat can be used by a lot more people than audio chat. Never forget those who can’t hear you or can’t talk to you for various reasons – be it cultural, situational, physical, psychical – it’s irrelevant. Don’t throw them overboard in the next hype, just because you think audio chat is cool. It’s not for those around you that can’t use audio tools for various reasons.
How Many Machines?
If you like me were stumped by the different numbers flying around about machine counts at Lindenlab, read Avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians, especially the comments by several Lindenlab people. It boils down to about 1500 physical machines, with up to dual core-duo woodcrest CPUs, adding up to about 4100 cores. Of course, for Lindenlab the number of cores is more important than the number of machines (despite the obvious requirement to keep the ratio of cores per machine as high as practically doable, to reduce energy consumption), as it’s the cores that run the simulator software.
Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver
The story of my sim, Lummerland. We allready have two mountains and I made Emma and started on Luke 
Intelligent Lawyer Alert
The guy defending Bragg (the land-snarfer whose complete belongings where seized by Lindenlab) in Interview with Bragg Attorney Jason Archinaco gives good reasons and thoughts about why we should care what the outcome of a case against someone we all might not essentially like (because he exploited a web interface to get land cheap), but whose case is essential for everybody who has virtual belongings (since Lindenlab seized all his balance and land – regardless on how that was received, and wether that was actually a result of the exploit or not). Do we actually have ownership of our content, like the LL head honcho says in his town halls and in the media, or don’t we have any ownership worth speaking of, as the ToS tell us?
I for one will be looking very interested in the development of the case, especially since I get the impression from what the lawyer says, that he actually has a quite good grasp of virtual worlds and the resulting problems of virtual ownership.
This is not just important for business users in Second Life – this is as important for anybody doing any content creation inworld. Is there any liability of Lindenlab, to secure our created content? Are they allowed to seize everything and destroy everything for ANY REASON or NO REASON as the ToS tells us? And how does that compute with the public talks of Lindenlab? Wether you create content to sell or wether you do it just for fun, this should be a question that you are interested, too.
Working with Raw Terrain Files
Terrain, or The Only Mesh in SL is an article that shows some ways to work with the raw terrain files. Maybe I should play with that a bit on the Lummerland terrain.
Joining the Hypervent
Kingdom of Media 75,129,28 – Big Brother in Second Live – that’s a bit like show-and-tell designed by a gorean. Would have the same charme to me, if it wasn’t for some of the participants. So – Go Team Kit
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| From Second Life S… |
What to do on a sunday with horrible lag?
Well, what we allways do on every sunday at 2 PM Gametime in Yongnam: running the Yongnam Show and Tell event! I am constantly amazed how smooth it works, how people show up, sit through the lag, show their creations and how many fun we get out of this little event. Nothing special – just showing things, talking about building, having a little competition on building (with a few prizes – based on attendents donations!).
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| From Second Life S… |
The event is friendly and interesting to both newbies and oldbies – just come over and have a look at it, or bring your own things and show them. Up to 9 contestants can show. And yes, we try to get it going even if the sims crash around us, the packet loss lags us down and whatever problems the grid throws at us. The only time we couldn’t run it was when LL once closed logins over all of early sunday evening.
