Looking Good with Low ARC

Before the addition of the ARC meter to the Advanced menu of the Linden SL client [1], organizers at high-attendance events like fashion shows and similar shouted for you to leave off the prim skirts, remove the facelights and AOs and other scripted items, and generally strip down to almost the bare avatar.  This was to reduce the ever-despised lag, that beast that lurks in every region where the population exceeds 15 or 20, and reduces your movements to swimming in set treacle fudge.

Now we have the meter, and we can see exactly how much we’re straining the system server.  Or do we?  That’s a topic of hot debate, with one side insisting that high ARC affects everyone around you in the sim, while the other insists just as firmly that ARC is more a measure of what your own computer’s graphics card can handle, and that it’s really more of what the True Hackers of the Golden Age once called a “social-science number,” an artificial number with no true meaning.

My thinking is that it does have some weight and meaning.  Let’s go back to the original article on the introduction of ARC in the Big Blog — after the break.

A Retraction re: Wherefore Art Thou, Eric?

One thing you get used to when dealing with blogs:  the newest stories are always at the top of the page.  You know this; you expect this.  If you want your fish fresh, look at the top of the page.

That’s what I was expecting when I went to Reuters’ Second Life page.  And I suspected that they weren’t writing about anything new because the top story was stuck on September 12 for so long.  It still is.  But running down “below the fold,” so to speak, to the headlines-only list, I found several stories I was not aware of; and, bringing them up to read, found that they were written on the 23rd and 25th.  For some reason, these stories never pushed down the three leads that have been there for so long.

I was wondering if Eric and Adam Reuters have been at work, or if their stories were being killed by an editor.  I now know, and I apologize for my earlier article.  Sometimes the simplest things evade scrutiny, and it surely did this time.  I prefer to write this retraction instead of killing the other article; the maxim of the Web prevails:  “Once on the Net, always on the Net.”  So it is better to admit the mistake and apologize for it than to pretend it never happened, when anyone who’s saved or printed a copy of the story knows that it did.  Again, my apologies to both Eric and Adam.

Goldfinger Redux

Well, I finally got the courage, and I posted a few nude photographs of myself to Flickr.  Not something I would do in Real Life, but in the fantasial world of Second Life, different things can happen.

As it was, I still built myself a nice, private, and sealed photo studio at a Secret Location, and only I know the coordinates.  I wasn’t about to do this in a public photosphere!  Now that it’s done though, I kinda like the results.  Nothing I’ll ever win an artistry prize for, but it’s a beginning….

You’re welcome to have a look on my Flickr stream.

Wherefore Art Thou, Eric?

Reuters, that is.  And while we’re about it, wherefore art Adam Reuters, as well?

Reuters’ Second Life coverage is one of the main sources of Grid news for the Grid — and for the Real World as well, which otherwise doesn’t have incredible gobs of contact with what goes on in the virtual world.  Reuters believed enough in Second Life, and saw enough RW/VW intersection going on (especially, I believe, with the big companies coming in during the First Great Business Wave) that they built the Reuters Auditorium (one of the prettiest buildings in world), and assigned two correspondents to cover Grid activities.  They even bought a surname for them — something that the average Joe Avatar doesn’t get the privilege of.  Eric and Adam Reuters hold scheduled office hours in world, and are supposed to flog the virtual beat of all synthetic worlds.

Yet I go to the page, and what’s the freshest story they have there, aside from outside stories on the ticker below the banner?  September 12, with a story about this year’s SLCC.  There’s been more going on than this, though some of it may be of more “local” interest, and worthy more of filler stories than features.  If nothing else, why not coverage of the first day of this year’s Burning Life, or the Hair Fair, or similar Grid-wide events?  Why not a talk with Mark Kingdon (M Linden), who took time to discuss the dichotomy between the recent concurrency peaks (now over 71,000 simultaneous users) and the year-long plateau of approximately 500,000 recurring users with Hamlet Au of New World Notes?  Surely the world’s number 2 press syndicate, which has talked about user rates in the past, could get back to Linden Lab to speak with them about how we’re growing in some directions — and coping with the strain put on the region servers in the process — but not others.  Instead, they’re getting scooped — and by a blogger!  (Admittedly a well-connected blogger, but…!)

Or is this amateur’s picture of what’s important inflated, and the Reuters men actually doing their job?  Or is an editor “spiking” stories they’re submitting?  Only Eric and Adam know the answers.

You reading this today, Eric?  What’s the news behind the news — or seeming lack thereof?

-30-

The ULTIMATE SL Tool — Updated

Prad Prathivi has created the ultimate keyboard for navigation and control in Second Life.  Using this keyboard, which is more versatile than any mouse or trackball, you will have the needed controls to cover any situation that may arise on the Grid.  He hasn’t started marketing it yet, but you can see pictures of the prototype.  Just go to this Flickr photo, see the full size by clicking the “All Sizes” button, and read the testimonials that it’s already accumulated.

Oh, by the way:  don’t be drinking a cup of coffee or eating a bowl of cereal when you look at the full size picture.  You don’t want to need to buy a new screen….

UPDATE — September 24, 8:55 a.m.:

The word is spreading about this nifty new keyboard.  It’s even gaining notice among Spanish SLoggers.

Do We Need Business “Licenses”?

Thanks to Hamlet Au.

Grace McDunnough has raised an argument on her blog, Phasing Grace, that would threaten in part to explode the way business is done in the virtual world.  Please read the entire article, of course; but the key parts:

…The virtual economy has become such a natural extension of my experience, that it was not until recently that I even stopped to think it odd that I would surrender monies to people, charities, or businesses that were not verifiable in some way.

I would not surrender the equivalent of $100USD to an online retail storefront without ensuring that I had a way to contact them…. However, I have handed over the equivalent of that to purchase a parcel in a virtual world. I am not alone. In Aug2008 alone, there were 10,406 transactions valued at over $50USD between two (or more) largely anonymous entities just in Second Life. What happens if you hand over a sizable chunk of your virtual currency to an entity and don’t receive in return what you thought you were purchasing?

I don’t know, and I hope I don’t have to find out. But just thinking about this led me to a simple conclusion:

We need virtual world business licenses.

I want people to be able to maintain their privacy, and manage their online identities in ways that best suit them, but with provisions for equal access to the virtual marketplace. I don’t know if this was the intent of the infamous “identity verification” movement, but if it was, I may have to rethink my position in that context.

I want to know that there is some way for me to whois a virtual business entity, and better yet I want the equivalent of a Better Business Bureau, but on an scale that covers the virtual world space.

I want there to be governance over the execution of transactions for real and virtual currrencies.

Now the creation of a virtual Better Business Bureau would be a good thing, and I would join in a heartbeat if I could afford it.  I have to wonder about the idea of a business license, though.  Who would administer such a thing, at least in Second Life?

• Linden Lab?  Despite the moves much yelled over — banking, etc. — the Lab shows no real inclination of becoming more of a governing force on the Grid than it is.  Such things seem handled more on a case-by-case basis.
• If not Linden Lab, that leaves the Real World government at some level.  But do we really want RL interference in virtual world affairs?  Government-issued licenses tend to be expensive, and business law will differ from country to country.  If you’re doing business from RL USA with someone in, say RL Russia, whose business law would trump?  Or would you need a license from both countries?  From every country in the world that has an avatar resident on the Grid, in a worst-case scenario?  That wold stifle virtual commerce — the great driver of in-world activity — quicker than a war.  Sales die off, the owners of the businesses stop renting space or give up their expensive islands, and Second Life would blow away into the digital sea as the Grid goes dark from its amazing diversity.  (The reality would probably lie somewhere in the center of this alternative, but you never can tell.)

Are there other ways of looking at this?  Would a business license structure actually help SL commerce, which seems to work pretty well already from my experience?  What are your thoughts?

Sabrina Fair

Film fans like me will remember Sabrina.  No, not the vastly inferior version of recent years, but the magnificent Billy Wilder original, filmed in 1954, with Audrey Hepburn in the title role.  The awkward little girl goes off to France, and comes back a sophisticated woman of the world, ready to win the man she loves.  And she began the hunt in a lovely strapless gown that won Edith Head an Oscar for Best Costume Design (black and white) — but that everyone knows was really designed by the man who became Hepburn’s favorite designer, Hubert de Givenchy.

Now this can be yours.  Baiastice is making its new collection available at its main store, and a faithful copy of Hepburn’s famous gown is available for about L$1,300.  It sure ain’t cheap; but oh, my dear –

This gown is faithful in about every detail, and comes with two pairs of glitch pants and a variety of skirts, allowing you to wear it about as you choose. As I am here, you could almost expect William Holden to walk in and ask you for a dance….

Photographed at Shengri La main island.  For more photos, see my Flickr stream.

Adfarms Revisited by Linden Lab

Catching up on the news about the Grid, I find that Linden Lab is revisiting the question of Mainland adfarms again.  (Adfarms, for the blessedly uninitiated, are (usually) small plots in world filled with towering, spinning, strobing clusters of advertisements, either to actually attract attention for the advertisers, or to blackmail nearby landowners into purchasing the small plots at inflated prices to get rid of the eyesore.)  This is of some concern to me, as most of the apartments/houses I’ve lived in are on the Mainland, and at least one loft was fronted by an adfarm.  The contents were usually, blessedly, just beyond my draw distance setting of 128 meters.  But, if I ever did move to a new place and was up against one of these eyesores, I would be pissed indeed.

The Lab attempted to bring some control on the blight by allowing Residents to report clusters of ads as harassment under the Terms of Service.  This, however, led to some abuse of the right by Residents who mistook any ad near their house as an adfarm.  LL’s Jack Linden announced in a September 4 article on the Big Blog that “network advertising” would no longer be allowed on the Mainland unless you had obtained a license from Linden Lab.

By Network advertising we are specifically referring to the practice of using many parcels over multiple regions, especially small micro parcels where the predominant purpose of the land is to hold advertising. In the vast majority of cases we believe it will be very clear whether a particular use is a violation or not but we will provide a way for people to appeal and discuss their own case with us before any action is taken. We will assess any edge cases as we encounter them.

You’ll note that I’ve mentioned Licensing. I’d hope that most of you will agree that advertising itself is not the bad guy here, the issue has been with the way in which advertising has been done and the excessive number of adverts. There are lots of positive forms of advertising already inworld that are no problem at all, from the signs you place above your own stores to the club owner that will place your ad on the wall behind the bar for a fee. Besides, much of what we call Ad Farming is not genuine advertising at all, but geared more towards selling the parcel.

So, whilst we are no longer going to allow Ad Farming, we accept that there may be genuine advertisers who wish to operate on the Mainland and are prepared to sign a license with us to do so. The idea here, is that where we do allow a small amount of network advertising to take place, it is highly controlled, low impact and managed responsibly. Licensee’s will be limited in number, capped to a specific number of advert locations and with strict rules about how their adverts look. No more spinning, floating cubes, no more unsolicited notecard givers, no more improper use of ban lines.

Jack opened up the matter to discussion in the Forums, and it read mostly in favor of the licensing move, with one or two worries about creating a “bureaucracy” enforcement layer whose only job was to ensure compliance.  It appears that the Lab listened to those concerns, as Jack announced in a fresh Big Blog article on September 12.  As I read this, LL is returning — before the new change goes into effect — to the previous model, but with some tighter restrictions:

What does this mean? if you operate any such networked advertising business on the Linden Mainland, that breaks any one of the following rules or restrictions, we will consider it to be a Terms of Service violation leading to disciplinary action that can include account suspension and loss of land.

• We will allow no more than 50 advertising locations owned by a single individual, whether personally owned or via groups in which you are a member, unless you have written permission from Linden Lab to exceed this limit.Use of Alt accounts/groups to circumvent this restriction will be considered a violation.
• In addition to the cap, we will allow no more than 1 advertising placement by an individual in any single region.

The advertisements themselves..

• Adverts should be grounded to the terrain, not floating.
• Adverts should extend no higher than 8m from the ground.
• No rotating, no flashing content and no particles.
• No unsolicited dispensing of IMs, notecards, landmarks or content.
• No light sources or glow (full bright is acceptable however).
• Advertising hoardings should be Phantom.
• Adverts must be clearly PG in nature.
• No sound and no temp-on-rez content.
• Ban lines should be switched off.

I’m not sure if this is better than the license requirement, but I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.  When it comes to Second Life, the minimum amount of “law” needed to ensure enjoyment is the best amount, in the sense of Lady Sally McGee’s directive in Callahan’s Lady.

=====

Considering another aspect of the matter:

The question arising from all of the above is, whatever is done, will the adfarmers find a way to game the rules and win back the point?  Adfarmers’ first concern is profit, and they aren’t worried about how much frustration they cause others around them.  Indeed, it’s generally believed that many farms are stuck up in gerrymandered properties to force the surrounded landowners to pay through the nose to eliminate the eyesores.  In a completely libertarian society, such as we’ve tried to foster in Second Life, such abuses can arise easily.  This is why libertarian societies eventually metamorphose into more controlled social schemes; because the majority of society demand a change to eliminate perceived abuses.

Will the slightly manic libertarianism of Second Life manage to endure, or will we need to add on deeper layers of virtual law to control abuses of the freedom we’ve encouraged?  This, along with the banking, ageplay and other rule changes made by Linden Lab over the past year suggest that the previously deistic and benign tyrant is slowly becoming a true governing presence on the Grid?

Reflection by Digit Darkes

Mercy, but this gown must be hot!  I was thinking I was going to be the first to write about it, and I’ve already seen two other blogs with photo features.  (@*%$%@!!)

In any case, I got the word for the Digit Darkes group that a new gown was available at her store, called Reflection, and the enclosed pictures were good enough that I ran over and purchased one.  And it’s not too bad a choice.

The texture of the dress is lovely, both on the bodice, and on the prim skirt, which is made of translucent layers.  It’s lifted in front just enough to reveal your shoes, so make sure that you’re wearing some nice ones (grin).  The pair I have on here were also from Digit, named Goddess, and I picked them up on a half off sale she held over the weekend.  (I went back and checked the regular price — L$400.)

The one thing I wasn’t crazy about is the pair of asymmetrical glitch pants, which leaves almost your whole left leg exposed.  I admit, though, that the confection has grown on me; who doesn’t like to leave a bit of leg to display occasionally?

The back may be my favorite part.  I like the almost full absence of a back (grin), and the way Digit laid out the straps she used.  I love strapless gowns, but well-placed straps can be as beautiful, and leave a lot more back exposed.

More pictures are on my Flickr stream.  All photos were taken up in a corner of the Aretai Desert (coordinates 247,229,40) — which is a Gorean sim, so I kept my eyes open.

* Shape: Alady Jane Seymour 7
* Skin: GemCorp Wendy
* Eyes: Curious Kitties Crystal Eyes (green); Digit Darkes high/high point brows; freebie lashes from Alady
* Tattoo: Eye of Horus by PopFuzz
* Hair: ETD Phoebe (copper blackened)
* Gown: Reflection by Digit Darkes (harvest)
* Shoes: Goddess by Digit Darkes
* Jewelry: Gold and black pearl earrings by Phia Vaughan; Catherine black pearl cocktail ring by Muse; wedding suite and watch by Virtual Impressions; Royal black pearl necklace by Kurione Merlin

Anglican 9/11 Remembrance Service on Epiphany Island

Among the other remembrance activities today for the seventh anniversary of the September 11th Attacks, there was a service of remembrance and reconciliation held at 1:00 p.m. SLT at the Anglican Cathedral on Epiphany Island.  The service was part of the normal Thursday prayer service, and was conducted by avatar Helene Milena.

I’m not sure if Helene will be publishing her meditation; but one place you may find it is at the church’s blog, The Anglican Church in Second Life.

All are welcome to attend our services; though the orientation is on an Anglican/Episcopalian style service, the message is nondenominational.  See the above blog for news of the schedule, or stop by the Cathedral and the Chapter House for a schedule.

The Peace of the Lord be always with you, and with those gone from our lives.