Contact Sheet 21

Contact Sheet is an irregular column of selected photographs and portraits from Residents of Second Life and other virtual worlds. Images used in this article are used under permission of the owners via their participation in the Creative Commons license; otherwise, all rights are reserved. Click on the links as necessary to go to the required blog, Flickr, Koinup or Snapzilla page. Please go to these artists’ pages in any case to leave comments, (as well as comments here), if you have an account on the appropriate service.

Suggestions are appreciated; please send descriptions and links to me by in-world IM, notecard, E-mail to harper.ganesvoort@gmail.com, or leave a comment below.

NOTICE: Some of the photos/links may contain nudity. Viewer discretion advised.

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As a post-Hallowe’en treat, here are some favorites of mine from my Koinup and Flickr groups, Wizards and Sorceresses.  No tricks here; just good art.

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Ludmilla Writer, in Nuevo horizonte, gives an impression here of the symbology of the Magician in the Major Arcana of the tarot — the master of elemental power, calling on heaven and earth and the elements stable and mutable to obey the Magician’s will.  She commands the potential to shape her future as she chooses, for the power is within her….

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To the powerful sorceress, even her personal reality is mutable and unfixed to any single aspect, as Ariel Brierly demonstrates in sacred geometry.

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With such power comes the responsibility for its control.  It can be used in a truly creative fashion (Autumn Queen by Ruriko Bracken), to control (Chess war by Vadim Levonenya), or to destroy (Dark Magic by Gweneth Lange).

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Will the wizard master his own potential (Leaving the world behind by PANTELEIMON-AEON), be frozen to her heart’s core by the Talen’s dark seduction (Maleficent by Miss Scarlet), or be consumed by its raw power (The Fire by MedeAthena)?

Only the wizard knows, and the wizard is not inclined to reveal secrets easily….  (Don’t Mess With the Sorceress by RobsterRawb Jaxxon)

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This is just a sample of the talent in my groups.  If you’re interested in adding your work, visit either group at Flickr or Koinup, and read the rules for joining and posting.  And leave comments on these people’s work!

Computer’s Down Again!

This is getting very frustrating….

I’ll shoot for a Contact Sheet, as well as my anniversary article, over the next day or so; but until I get it fixed up (or, forfend, replaced), don’t expect much from this quarter of the Grid.

Go Read New World Notes!

Hamlet Au of New World Notes has been a busy boy the past few days.  He’s got a mess of fantastic articles in his blog since Friday, and you should go and read them.  Attend:

• A link to a piece by Peter Stindberg on why transaction deliveries fail
• A link to a new exhibition of war poets, especially from World War I
• A comment, with link to the original story, on the BBC’s Web piece on “What happened to Second Life?”  I’ve glanced through the original piece, and I agree with Ham:  not only is the Beeb a little late in joining the bandwagon of media defection, but they’re completely off the mark with current events in world.

No, I don’t shill for Ham Au; I just think he’s one of the best reporters we have in world, and his blog is one of the most valuable, accurate news sites there is.  Go forth, and be enlightened!

Seven Deadly (Second Life) Sins

Almighty God
We confess that we have sinned against you
In thought, word and deed
By what we have done
And by what we have left undone….

The Book of Common Prayer, 1979 edition
The Episcopal Church

There have been many interpretations of the Seven Deadly Sins before in art, usually in painting.  A favorite modern interpretation was done by “blackeri” at deviantART, with excellent fashion imagery added in to each pose.  Now Kyra Pfeffer has taken the concept, and given us an interpretation in fashion photography in Second Life.  I can’t place a picture here, as Kyra reserves full rights to her works; but check out this set on Flickr (with two pieces to go at this writing), and see what you think.  If you have a Flickr account, please be sure to leave comments!

Refusing to Shed My (Snake)skin (Skirt)

Once in a while, you gotta have something not part of a single dress combination.  As Cajsa Lilliehook and Gidge Uriza of It’s Only Fashion are so fond of showing, and as we all know in real life, mix ‘n match is the way to go.  Of course, these days it’s called a mashup, but (shrug).

I saw this skirt on a shopping run one afternoon, and knew I wanted it.  I’d never wear snakeskin in real life; snakes have their rights, after all, except maybe for invasive-species pythons in the Florida Everglades.  But here in Second Life, snakes are far from an endangered creature; they’re just another texture on a prim.  To go along with this, I dug until I found this halter top from League, and added a belt to the ensemble to make the waist look right.

Since it was a midi skirt, I could wear boots with no problems; and so I pulled out an old favorite, my pair of the original model of Biddle black boots.  Bax Coen is all the rage right now, but Biddle still has fine boots, and I’d never delete these babies.

The jewelry is a set (purchased as separates in this case) of what looks rather pre-Columbian themed pieces:  a collar, cuff bracelets and earrings from alaMood.  And the hair!  I didn’t know that Miamai did hair, but now I do.  I had to mess with this to get a fit, but it adjusts quite readily, with no scripts.

The details:

Shape/skin:  my standard Type 1, except for: Atomic Bambi’s Lana Sunblush skin (Siren eye makeup, gloss lipstick)

Hair: Miamai Teresa (ginger)
Top: League gold halter top
Skirt: Nardcotix Eve snakeskin skirt (green)
Belt: fri.day Wide Waist belt (gold)
Shoes: Biddle Sculptie Boots (black)
Jewelry: alaMood Akhal Teke collar, cuffs and earrings

Got a Spare $3,000 Or So?

If you do, then your box and client can do this:

That was shot in sick city region by mk Curtiz, the builder, and it’s with the client graphics turned up to the max.  Ya gotta love it, don’t ya?

(Thanks to Hamlet Au)

Omega Point Reopens in Second Life

I was distressed when I got the group announcement a few months ago that Omega Point, the dark-fantasy region built by Sweetlemon Jewell, was mostly closing for a substantial rebuild.  Her stores, KWZ and Omega Point, would remain open, but the rest of the sim was getting a thorough makeover.

The rebuilding, I’m glad to say, is now done, though mists still hang about the middle reaches of this strange region, almost a dream — or nightmare — out of Lovecraft or Giger.  The results can be explored starting here, the telehub landing point.  (All internal teleports take you back to the hub, so don’t worry about Emerald point-to-points on double click.  I’m suspecting double-click autopilot will work.)  For an initial taste:

Unfortunately, I’ve had little time to give it a real exploration; I hope to take care of that on the coming Monday.  Initial impression:  those who remember the original build will recall that it was much larger, and I’m hoping that Sweetlemon and her friends will add more onto this area.  It has great potential, with many of the familiar winding stairs, the same delicious textures, and the wonderful cyber shop of Omega Point, as well as the more playful-Goth (yes, I used that term deliberately) KWZ store. A few other fresh features, such as a “genesis” section — and it looks like that may be the proper term here, judging by the pods I saw projecting from the ground — give promise of more ideas to come.

Sweetlemon, in the meantime, is working on a neighboring sim, called Alpha Point.  There’s one fragment open for general inspection currently; be prepared!

Firefox Tip for SL Emerald Viewer

Here’s a tip, if your copy of Firefox does this.  Remember that I’ve had to reinstall everything over the past few days, and that included Firefox, my preferred browser, and Emerald Viewer, my current preferred SL client.  I clicked on my first SLurl today, expecting that Emerald would be opened as it usually is, but Firefox told me that it didn’t recognize the protocol!

I think I’ve seen this before, and it’s because Emerald doesn’t patch the browsers to make them open it when you click on the SLurl link or button.  The solution can be found at this page from Firefox’s Knowledge Base; it shows you how to quickly add the recognition to the browser.  Use the third choice, “For other protocols.”  You’ll need to change “protocolName” to “secondlife” and “programName” to “Emerald”.  After that, follow the instructions the rest of the way, and you’ll be home free!

The one caveat is that it seemed to start Emerald fresh and clean, at least the first time, which meant that it started with all the tutorial bubbles popping up on me.  I haven’t tried it further than this, so use at your discretion.

Back from the Grave…Again

My computer’s been spending more time in the shop than on my desk lately.  This time, the E: drive was fried.

No great thing, you say?  Just one thing:  I had Net Nanny installed on that drive.  And when that drive fried, that meant that I couldn’t connect to the Internet.  At all.

It took a full reformat and reinstall of Windows XP to clear the problem.  Now I’m reinstalling programs…most of my programs.  I can’t say “all of my programs,” since I had a lot of stuff on C:.  Some of it probably useless, I’ll admin, but…!

I believe the appropriate phrase from the Litany of the Saints is “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us….”

Hopefully, though, I’ll be able to get back in world tonight…and actually with a leaner machine than I had before.  That may be one good thing from this fiasco.

Is Second Life’s Current Client Windows 7-Compatible?

I’ve been quite satisfied to date with Windows XP — yes, I know, your mileage may vary — and have not yet had a reason to go out and buy a copy of Windows 7.  (Thank all benign powers, I have never experienced Vista!)  It’s been a temptation, though, just for the sake of being up to date.  (I think the current box has enough marbles to handle it.)  Three things hold me back:

1. It’s incredibly early days yet in the life of this latest version of the Microsoft flag program (no pun intended on the Windows logo).  I’d rather let someone else be the gamma testbed, and wait until the first few rounds of bug fixes are out of the way.
2. I don’t have the money (the leading reason!).
3. I’ve heard Dreadful Rumors, verging on Unconfirmed Reports, that Second Life won’t run decently, if at all, on the new system.

From what I’ve seen in a quick Google search, this last is again a case of Your Mileage May Vary.  Some people may have the proper drivers to do the job; one report I’ve seen says that the native Windows graphic drivers (from Intel) can’t hack it, and you need an Nvidia card and drivers to carry the load.  Others report things just fine if they install XP drivers.  Others tell tales of woe and no success (or login), no matter what they do.

One thing is probable; you’ll need an up-to-date box to run Windows 7, and that means a relatively current graphics card.  Desktops, of course, will be in the lead on this, as their owners can buy new graphics cards (“Please, Santa, bring me a new Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 as a stocking stuffer!”); laptop users are pretty much shafted by the nature of their beasts.

Assuming that the card is compatible with Windows 7, then the ball is in the court of the client writers.  I’ve been checking the Big Blog, but Linden Lab is silent to date on whether either the official client, any of the Release Candidates, or Snowglobe will cope with the new system.  The independents are probably working faster on the question; their progress will be controlled by whether they’ve obtained Windows 7 themselves.  I’ve already heard of one workaround for Emerald, probably the most popular independent client.

Do you, gentle readers, have any information to relate?  Any workarounds that can assist the lunatic fringe, uh, the early release users of Win 7?  If you know of something, drop a comment here.