Some thoughts on SnowGlobe

Wow, what can I say. Snow Globe works really, really fast. I’ve used it for a week now and it is my default viewer now. A lot of other bloggers have written about it, notably Gwyneth Llewelyn. I’m not sure if she’ll bring this up in a future post but it occurred to me that the potential implementation of private/personal asset servers opens up a whole new world for moving assets between grids. The biggest issue with going to an opengrid is that you have to start fresh with basically no inventory and very few options to outfit your avatar. Imagine of you will that your avatar’s shape, skin, prim hair, Animation Overriders and clothing were hosted on a server outside of the SL main grid. You could teleport between the Main grid, OSgrid, Hypergrid, OpenLife grid, and essentially be the same avatar in appearance in all of them.

Of course this presents a wide range of issues and challenges. Being able to protect the intellectual rights of the creators would be a problem to tackle. Perhaps some sort of encryption or watermarking would be called for. I can also imagine a whole new class of merchant that sells their products outside of SL. If such a scheme were to take off I can also imagine SL avatars imported into other virtual worlds. Just so long as the game/world engine could faithfully render the correct amount of polygons and animate it in a decent manner I can see it taking off. Picture this: Hamlet Au conducting an interview with his trademarked white suit in World of Warcraft or Crap Mariner terrorizing the peaceful resorts of Blue Mars.

I’ve just scratched the surface here and I am sure others can take these ideas further. The Metaverse will potentially get much bigger if it goes in this direction. Perhaps our avatars will not have to die if our current worlds fade away.

http://gospeedracer.wordpress.com/2008/06/06/virtually-forever/

 

A little close to home

Yesterday an EF3 (possibly an EF4) tornado ripped through Suffolk, VA doing major damage. I have a lot of in-laws who live in that area and I was very concerned for their well being. All of them are fine and accounted for, thank god. It was very eerie seeing places I knew very well totally devastated. Hardest hit was the small community of Driver where I was married back in 1990. The church suffered minor damage, but several landmarks were wiped out completely.

I had a close call with a tornado back in 1993 when I used to drive a daily route between Suffolk and Richmond, VA. There is a very tall prominent bridge that crosses the James River that was struck by a tornado after it killed 3 people at a Walmart in Petersburg, VA. 6 tractor trailers were flipped on their side some 10 minutes after I crossed the bridge in a driving rainstorm. Had I been on the bridge when it hit I could have been flung over the side in my 24 ft Ryder truck. For years afterwards you could see the tree damage on either side of the river where the tornado cut through the trees. It really put things in perspective for me at the time.

http://weatherfirst.blogspot.com/2008/04/virginia-tornadoes.html

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/southofjames/dp-local_tornadoes_0429apr29,0,5577833.story

 

Release Candidate bug – Crash at start up

Release Candidate Bug – Crash at start up

Seems a few people out there are having problems with the latest Release Candidate viewer. Things will go fine and then BAM! They are not able to log back in. When trying to log back in it will crash to desktop when you see “Initializing World”. This actually happened to two of my SL capable computers at the SAME TIME. Coincidence? Maybe, but the other machines in our household did not have that problem. (Yes I and the spouse have several computers. We hold onto the older ones as back-up).

An Uninstall and Reinstall did not work. The Linden Lab blog had nothing but I did find in the LL forums that some one did have a solution. They recommended uninstalling ALL instances of SL, deleting every folder that SL creates and editing the registry to remove all instances of Secondlife in it. Well I did that and it indeed worked. I tried it on my other computer and missed a step and it did not work. What did I miss? Well there is a folder that holds the user settings and it is chocked full of XML files and screenshots of your Home and Last Location when you log off. In Windows XP that folder is at: C:\Documents and Settings\USER NAME\Application Data\SecondLife . If you find yourself in the position where you can’t log in then try deleting that folder and launching SL again. My bet is that an XML file gets corrupted somehow preventing a successful login.

Since I’ve been a bit remiss in blogging lately here are some pics n’ stuff

You Are a Natural Flirt

Believe it or not, you’re a really effective flirt. And you’re so good, you hardly notice that you’re flirting. Your attitude and confidence make you a natural flirt. And the fact that you don’t know it is just that more attractive!

What Kind of Flirt Are You?

I’m a natural flirt it seems :).

Things get “Funky Funky Funky” at last nights party in Sailors Cove.

Running a radio station and DJing  you notice that not every who can listen to you music is actually listening. While you cannot insist that everyone you see in your “coverage area” to listen it is yet another matter when you are playing music for a party. They are there to listen to the tunes and socialize. Last night I had 16 people on the dance floor but my software said that only 10 were listening. Some of those 10 were no doubt elsewhere on the grid or listening via the website. To see who was listening I got on the mic and said IM me if you hear my voice. Four people responded and I paid them $25L. I shared this with a friend and station sponsor who offered my a big prize to hand out. I got back in chat and told the audience to be listening as I was going to hold another contest in 30 minutes and a new prize was to be awarded. Time ticked by and the listener count began to rise. I continued to tease the contest in chat and on the microphone and when the time came I said “5th person to IM me gets $2500L”. Congrats to Kendal Timeless for being a true fan!

Really, if you’re going to be at a party then at least tune in the music. If the music is not to your liking then why are you there? Seems you are going to miss out on half of the fun of being there. It might cost you too!

 Listen to KONA Radio for some good tunes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YAY! Google Calendars on a prim! click for a larger pic.

Rav

 

WordPress Hosted Blogs now offer 3 Gigs free

 Wordpress Hosted Blogs now offer 3 Gigs free

Good news for you bloggers out there. If your WordPress blog is hosted by WordPress your disk space went from 50mb to a whopping 3 gigabytes! If you’re not on WordPress and you’re needing room for files and Graphics then now is the time to join.

http://wordpress.com/blog/2008/01/21/three-gigabytes/

 

Hey Stalker boy!

One of the drawbacks to posting yourself on Flickr is the IM stalker. You gals know him (some of you guys too). He sees you somewhere and obsesses finally IMing you. Of course this person is not able relate to people normally and usually spews a lot of creepy stuff.

Creep : “Dayum, you look fine baby”

GoSpeed : “Do I know you?”

Creep : ” I’ve seen your pictures on Flickr.”

GoSpeed : “Oh, Ok, thanks”

Creep : “I’ve seen you around too.”

MUTE!

Tell you what Mr ROKILL aka “Creep”. You come around me or my friends and it’s the BEES for you buddy!

 

KONA Radio… Payin’ my dues

On June 1st I changed business models and have come under the umbrella of a small station co-op that pays the licensing fees and royalties. So far so good I must say. Listener levels have remained consistent and my sponsor base has stepped up and provided me with enough donations to cover my operating expenses. I still have room to grow for adding listeners before I would jump to the fee level. If you would like to give KONA a listen and maybe use it in your parcel then please check out this link: KONA Radio

Contact me or GoSpeed Racer in world for the URL if you want it for your parcel / estate. I can also give you a HUD to use so you can launch it when you are anywhere else in SL. Sponsors and donations are of course welcome. Remember, I am paying my fees and royalties, so the artist are getting their take!

Rav

 

Nekkid Noobs hate Bees!

So there I was on a Saturday morning in Sailors Cove, enjoying the view. I saw a few people sailing one of the new ACA 32 racing yachts slide through the channel in the Fishers Island sim. Two green dots in the southern end, hmmmm. I head back to the clubhouse and ALT Zoom my camera to observe them. Two naked noobs, male and female and the guy was “ready for business”. Of course the ordinary way of doing things is to talk to them in IM and if they sass you then you eject and / or ban them. I decided to have a little fun with them! Meanwhile my friend Abella Beck says “Did you see them two?”.

“Yup, sure did!… watch this!”

I rezz Ordinal Malaprop’s beehive launcher and dive into the water. Cautiously I swim, getting within 20 meters of the horny couple. I poke my head above the water, go to mouselook and aim slightly above them.

“Phoink!”…………missed, came up short.

I adjusted the elevation a bit higher.

“Phoink!”….. right between the two!

The bees pop out and swarm over the both of them. It’s a thick particle cloud of angry, buzzing particle bees that blind them! I pop another round to make it last longer…. Heh heh, I zoom in for another look and and they are moving around with the swarms following their every move.

Poof! Poof!… They TP out. Mission accomplished and a good laugh is had by me and Abella :).