Torley is everywhere

I don’t like the favourite colours of Torley Linden. They make my teeth hurt and my eyes water. I think his office in Grasmere should be the Brittannica entry for the word eyesore. I can’t say that I know exactly what Torley is doing at Linden Lab, nor can I say that his office hour is where the news is made and the hard talk is talked. I can’t even say being there is particularily useful. There’s no Hamlet Au at his office hours and even professional Linden basher Prokofy Neva doesn’t show up (he would probably say that the Torley office hours are strictly for fanboys and -girls, and tekkies. And probably be partly right). There is no reason for any SL media to show up.

But let’s try and find another Linden who goes about Second Life with an enthousiasm that’s sometimes almost (almost!) embarrassing. A Linden dedicated to helping us all have a better Second Life with his endless stream of video tutorials. A Linden with such patience, such understanding, such… benevolence. And I dare you to post any negative comments about the man. I simply don’t have them.

And he is everywhere, you know. Not just on the Help Islands and Infohubs with his textures, or in Grasmere with that monstrous office, but truly everywhere. As I found out this morning upon close inspection of my headset plugs…

Now the question is… were they always like that or is that the Torley magic?

Sing Along With Tish

Here’s a song dedicated to my fellow mentors, especially those who have chosen to admit that they are totally and utterly mental. With thanks to my homie Coolio, here’s Griefers’ Paradise. Let’s make some noooooise!!!!

[instrumental version here]
[normal version here]

As I walk through the sandbox with the cages of death
I take a look at my life and realize there’s nothing left
Cause I’ve been sendin ARs for so long that
Even the Lindens think that my mind is gone

But I ain’t never crossed a griefer that didn’t deserve it
We be treated like a punk, you know that’s unheard of
You better watch how you talkin and where you walkin
Or you and your homies might be off the grid

I really hate to trip, but I gotta loc
As they croak I see myself in the particle smoke, fool
I’m the kinda mentor little noobies wanna be like
On patrol in the night
Spoilin’ fo’ a little street fight

been spending most our lives
Living in a Griefers’ Paradise
been spending most our lives
Living in a Griefers’ Paradise
keep spending most our lives
Living in a Griefers’ Paradise
keep spending most our lives
Living in a Griefers’ Paradise

Look at the situation they got me facin
I can’t live a normal life, I was rezzed like a box
So I gotta be down with the V-team
Too much mental mentor talkin’ got me chasin dreams

I’m a educated fool, with griefers on my mind
Got my Glock in my hand and a gleam in my eye
I’m a loced-out mentor, grief-bustin banger
And my homies is down, so don’t arouse my anger, fool

Crashin ain’t nothing but a heartbeat away
I’m livin life do-or-die, what can I say?
I got ‘em down now but will they come back fo’ mo’?
The way things is goin I don’t know

Tell me why are we so blind to see
That noone gives a shit ‘bout you or me

been spending most their lives…

PN and the /b/tards, /b/tards and the PN
Goatse or those turtles, Ya don’t know what ya seein’
Everybody’s running, but half of them ain’t lookin
What’s goin on in the kitchen, but we all know what’s cookin

They say they back me up but nobody’s got the power
They went open source and now there’s griefin ev’ry hour
So back me up? I guess they can’t
I guess they front that’s why I know my life is out of luck, fool

been spending most their lives…

Tell me why are we so blind to see
That noone gives a shit ‘bout you or me

Southpaw

Now there’s a subject which has never bothered me at all - but it never ceases to fascinate people around me. With amazement, fear or horror they watch me doing such everyday things as drinking coffee, cutting some bread or writing a note. “How do you do that? It looks so dangerous! That’s just… weird!” To me, nothing amazing, dangerous or weird is going on… I am just left-handed.

But yet… in Second Life there’s something wrong with me. When I grab my trusty Smith&Wesson (thank you, Rails Bailey!), I hold it in my right hand, with a holster on my right hip. When someone hands me a drink or a pizza slice, I hold it in my right hand. I made a coffee machine and - without even thinking about it - even that puts the virtual paper cup in my right hand.

Granted, I can do a few things with my right hand in Real Life. In the Dutch Army someone decided it was cheaper to have gas masks with just one filter pot - on the left side of the mouth. And so I learned how to shoot the venerable M-1 .30 Carbine shouldered left (when no gas attacks were imminent) as well as right (at which point the act of ’shooting’ became nothing more than just ‘pulling the trigger’ - aiming was pointless, pardon the pun). But in Second Life… I can hardly do a thing with my left hand.

Let’s eh, give it a shot then. Here you see me ready to take aim on my own firing range on SL Volunteer Island (sorry… no access for non-volunteers). In my hands a very nice freebie, the WWII vintage Mauser Kar98, which I downscaled to make it look less like an 18th century muzzle loader. Ask me for one in-world if you’re into noise, falling shells and German WWII gear.

Tough stance, innit? But I’m holding the damn thing wrong! Sure, it looks good, but it isn’t. ‘Kay? Right. So let’s try another approach: attach to left hand.

Hmmm… now the gun is floating somewhere in front of me - not exactly how the Handbook for the Soldier explained firearm safety, back in the day. And look at that stance! Still the same, now holding on to thin air. That won’t do - let’s put it back in my right hand.

Aghk! Talk about shooting yourself in the foot… now the whole carbine is well and truly borked. Good thing I’ve made a box of free giveaways.

Maybe someone could write a script which mirrors everything your avatar does. Just to please us lefties out there. I felt so special… but in Second Life I’ve joined the grey masses of right-handed mediocrity…

“I don’t like to walk around with lots of money”

The bank scare has the Germans running to the bank this morning. In the main office of JT Financials they are standing around and all the talk is about how much money they have in the bank, how much they may be able to pull out, and in general how bad SL is regulated - one girl even thought LL should have translators present “before offering their product in Germany”.

JTF, in a statement on the website that is clickable in-world, states that it switched off the server and is working on a plan to pay everyone back. Thing is, not everyone reads English and their in-world sign leads to the main page of SL Reports which had, at the time I was there, a much less clear statement from BCX on it’s front page.

One girl contacted me with a question and told me she had lost a lot of money earlier in another such event - I am guessing she meant Ginko. I told her outright she was damn stupid to try and put her money in a bank again, but she told me she didn’t like to walk around with lots of money.

Excuse me? I walk around SL all day hauling houses, cars, boats, airplanes, tons of clothing, jewels, watches, gimmicks and money. It is not like someone can just rob me like that. Banks in SL offer no added safety at all - quite the contrary I should say. Unregulated banks offer nothing but promises which cannot be enforced.

Unless you want to earn interest, you do not need a bank in Second Life. Your money is safer on the servers of Linden Lab than it is in the hands of someone playing bank in his spare time. Deposit money in-world in any bank - the viewer will tell you that you paid someone, after which LL assumes that person owns the money. You can only hope they’re good folk - but we’ve all been sent Nigerian scam letters before so we know the world is not a happy little lalaland.

If you don’t want to walk around with lots of money despite this, you should stop trying to earn it. And if earning money is what you are in Second Life for, then you’re a pretty dumb businessperson to dump it all into the account of some unknown person posing as a bank. I suggest you go back to flipping burgers.

The Metaverse, Internet 2.0, a virtual world - my ass. As long as I can call myself a banker, a doctor, a lawyer, a notary, a CEO, a policeman - and play at being one, Second Life remains a game. Wake up and smell the coffee.

ummm… yeah, what is Scion City?

There it is, a fresh post, a mysterious text about what Hamlet cannot divulge and how involved he was, and a link, which he hopes we check out for ourselves.

Well, people, it’s an ad. Scion is a car brand sold in the US by Toyota. Sure, it’s a machinima, it has a certain cool for those who are into this kind of stuff, but in the end, it serves to sell cars. And the author of it all is our own Hamlet.

Comments are off on this one - we are to sit, watch and swallow our words. And so I cannot tell him how cheap and outdated I think the concept of this ad is (desert, explorers, treasure in the sand… try an IMDb search on that concept… yawn), how well executed it is (granted), how uninterested I however am to see the rest of it, but above all, how amazed I am to see Hamlet point me to an ad as if it’s the most exciting new thing since cherry coke - without telling me that what I am about to watch is an ad. For a car, I might add, I cannot even buy here in Europe.

So what is Scion City? It’s a new way to flog cars, and a not-so-new way to score hits on a website. Yay, yay. Next time I’ll double-check the status bar of the browser before I click on anything, Hamlet.

The Second Life Calendar

I guess it’s a first. And I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it comes from Italy. This is a country where the cameras pan close-up across the bodies of female TV presenters, from their feet up to their fake blonde hair, almost by default. A country which, in it’s veneration for female beauty, to my more northern eyes seems stuck in the seventies - the golden age of sex sells-advertisements. And so a serious newspaper like la Repubblica publishes a series of calendars on it’s website every end of the year, most of which are somehow connected to female nudity.

This year, in the amateur section, there is Il Calendario di Second Life 2008, a collection of twelve black and white screenshots of topless avatars, worked over in an editing program, shot in a virtual photo studio and on location in the SecondNation sim. The calendar was created by Ryder McLeod or, in real life, Gianluca Neri of the Macchianera (’black spot’) blog, and the final selection of models has come about by a vote of visitors of SecondNation. The whole calendar is downloadable for free, in PDF, to print and hang in your office - if you so desire.

It’s a bit odd, to say the least. Sure, we are looking at the avatar of, for example, Lady1986 Arida (the winner), but we are actually looking at a skin someone created, hair someone created, clothing someone created and maybe also a shape someone created, sitting in a pose someone created, with Lady1986 doing nothing more than clicking the ball and choosing ’sit’. I mean really… even after two bottles of cheap Italian wine I could still do that, and my avatar would look none the worse for it. I think the calendar lacks credit for the many content creators whose work we are admiring.

Secondly, although the pictures are quite good, the photographer has chosen some of those quirky Second Life accessories that never really fit, like a floating necklace, and there’s also a pose (October) where the model’s hand disappears in her leg. I mean, come on, there are ways to avoid such problems. Choose a different pose, take off the necklace, or for God’s sake pick a different picture to feature on your calendar.

On the upside it’s at least not a Linden issued calendar, which in these times I’m sure would be filled with girls in full ski gear lest a nipple would be gazed upon by an underage eye. And hey, it’s free, it’s marketed for neither Linden dollars nor euros, and if you print out the high definition pages, you’ll have something tangible from Second Life to gaze upon while the grid is down.

As for me, it doesn’t rock my boat. It’s all pixels to me. In the words of a certain Giulia, who reacted to the Macchianera blog: “This calendar gives new meaning to the phrase fake boobs“. And really… I never liked fake boobs.