Wilhelmina in Second Life

Technical problems

2007-08-13T08:57:00.000+02:00

I shouldn't have installed Voice. With that update something changed and now ambient sounds are causing SL to crash on my computer. I can only visit sims with no or few sounds. Voice works fine, but if there are birds singing and sounds of waterfalls and other things, SL crashes. This weekend it crashed so many times I can't even remember. Then I installed the new voice viewer (the one released on Friday) hoping maybe the problem would end, but it made no difference.

For now, I won't be in SL too often. I can't visit many of the places I used to. My graphics card doesn't handle this new version, I need a new one and a new processor.

Voice-enabled!

2007-08-10T11:29:00.001+02:00

Second post of the day, this time just to say now I'm voice-enabled!

I should have tried this earlier! I talked to a friend and it was fun!! The connection is bad, the quality of the sound is poor (if compared to skype), but it's ok for a start! But it made my computer crash once. Also, SL seemed slower than usually, but I have to try it at other locations to compare.

Interaction, coordination, teleportation and sordid propositions

2007-08-10T09:55:00.000+02:00

Yesterday SL was experiencing Network Connectivity Problems, and there was a wasp in my living room, so meanwhile, I thought I would write about something that was on my mind, which was interaction between people in SL. This post ended up becoming a collection of 4 different parts.

1. “That quiet one is talking through IMs”

People behave and interact with others in a quite different way in SL. Imagine this scene: a group of 4 people, three of them are friends, and the forth is a friend of one of them and has just met the others. They talk through the chat line (let’s not talk about Voice here for now), and from time to time there are pauses or moments of silence, when person number four just knows that the other three are talking to each other through IM. That’s something we don’t see in RL. It’s a way people can secretly exchange ideas without the others knowing.

Imagine another scene: two persons dancing and talking through IM to each other, and one of them is also at the same time IMing a third person.

Anyone you are talking to might be talking to someone else at the same time through IM.

And while all this is happening, at the same time you are being spammed because some asshole is using an Updates Group to talk. I belong to several groups and most of them are meant only for notification (the store owner sends info related to her store), but members often – actually EVERYDAY – disregard the group owner’s request not to use the group chat, and spam people. This is SO IRRITATING!

The use of IM has changed the way people interact with each other.

2. “She has a serious coordination problem”

Okay. Now to something else. What about people who doesn’t know how to communicate? I have been approached from time to time by very fresh newbies on their first or second day in SL and they ask for information. I’m a polite person so I try to be helpful. I answer some questions and direct them to for instance Natalia’s *Getting Started in SL Guide*, so they can find themselves all the info they need from there. But while I’m answering, the newbie jumps, walks forwards and backwards, get out of chat range, and start walking away and then seems to come back. Maybe some don’t know that typing animation means I’m answering, maybe some have serious coordination problems, or maybe some don’t have any consideration for others. When people start doing that, I sometimes consider teleporting away.

Why can’t some newbies just stay quiet for a moment while chatting to someone? If you ask a question, isn’t it polite to wait for the f*cking answer?

In same cases, it could really be coordination problems. It seems that now when people join through the SL website, it’s possible to choose to either join a community and be taken to one of those portals, or be taken to Linden Lab's Orientation Island. The Orientation Island has all the tutorials and instructions, but maybe some of those other portals don’t have anything like that. If that’s the case, the new newbies today are rezzed into SL without any knowledge of how things work! Oh isn’t that scary? That would explain their restlessness and their jumping into things. But it doesn’t excuse anyone, I still think it’s very impolite to ask a question and start running back and forth.

3. “Does he REALLY think I will teleport?”

Earlier this week I was alone at some place when I suddenly was offered teleport by a person I had never met before. I had never heard of the guy, he might have found me through a group or a search, or maybe he saw my blog or my snapzilla pictures. Without any IM, any message or contact of any kind, he sent me a teleport offer to god knows where, and he replaced the default automatic line that says “Join me at NameOfThePlace” with only this: ^^

Yes, this was his whole message.

^^

LMAO! What a f*cking looser! What kind of person approaches a complete stranger with a teleport offer saying ^^ ? Did he REALLY expect me to teleport there, to who knows where to meet him? He could only be a looser, or suffer from a serious mental problem if he was so optimistic to the point of believing that any sane girl would ever consider teleporting!

4. “What the f*ck is he proposing??”

Another kind of interaction that only happens in SL. Picture this: imagine that in real life you are talking to a real life girl who is your new friend, maybe a person you got to know through your friends or a blog, a person with whom you have nice conversations. A normal friendship at its beginning. Then suddenly you decide to offer that girl a job as an escort. Can you really imagine that situation in REAL LIFE? Doesn’t it sound completely absurd? Who would dare to do that in real life?

Apparently what is absurd in RL seems to be acceptable in SL.

Maybe it’s because girls who in RL would never work as escorts are willing to do that in SL. But how come things can get to the point that a guy assumes he can safely offer this kind of job to any girl?

This week a guy I know offered me a job as an escort, as if as it was the most casual thing in the world. I was so surprised and shocked that I didn’t know what to say, so I changed the subject. But I got upset and disappointed. He always seemed like a normal, ordinary guy, a nice person. But this job proposition offended me.

Many things in SL are way different than in RL. Way different.

Pi, anyone?

2007-08-09T10:36:00.000+02:00

In RL people are criticized for being too thin or too fat, everyone is expected to conform to an ideal measurement of beauty. In SL, one would imagine people have the freedom to look like they want, but as it turns out, in SL people are still expected to conform to an ideal measurement of beauty. Those who are too thin or too fat are criticized, especially because in SL it’s so easy to change. You can just move some slides and have a thinner waist, larger breasts, or a Kate Moss figure. But that doesn’t mean anyone want that or are obliged to want that.

But that’s not all, there’s something more. The same way people are expected to conform to an ideal measurement of beauty in SL, those who do are criticized for doing so. So you can’t either be thin, fat nor can you look too beautiful - you will be accused of something. The fact is that you cannot please everybody.

But there are some things you CAN (and should) do. The most important one, body proportion! It doesn’t matter if you’re fat or slim, every human body in RL follows rules of proportion in nature. Have you ever heard of Pi?

The length of your arms and legs, the length of your torso, the size of your head, everything follows a proportion. It would be great if the SL appearance editor could preserve these proportions, such that if you made your legs longer, the rest of the body would change to PRESERVE the Pi proportion (but instead, if you make longer legs your torso will became very small).

But the editor cannot be preserve proportions, because it has to give you the freedom to create non-human avatars, and let’s say, even human-like avs like fairies might need to differ from the proportions (I don’t know about fairies, maybe they have longer legs, this is just an example).

So as it turns out, keeping with the harmony of body proportions is up to the user.

Which in some cases is unfortunate, as you can see from this picture on the right.

I don't know what leads some people to such extremes...

Does it look as if as the picture had been stretched? But it hasn't. She really looked like this. And she has been in SL since April. Really! I don't know what's worse, the long spider legs or the really short torso. Her crotch is where the stomach should be, and there isn't much space left for vital organs, but since in SL you don't have to eat, maybe she felt all she needed was legs and boobs.

Take a look at the mirror in RL and check how long your arms are in comparison to the body. Are your avatar’s arms as long? Try making them a little longer so that they would look like human arms. Doesn’t it look better?

I have one complaint about the Appearance editor (actually, more than one, but this one is important): the height slider should tell your height in both meters and feet. Otherwise, lots of girls set their height to 100, which makes them more than 2 meters tall, making the rest of us look like midgets. My height is set as 56, which means I’m 1,74 meters tall (or 5.7 feet), which is a normal height for a girl, but most of the female avatars I see in SL seem to tower over me. Why are there so many giants? If the Appearance editor would tell your height in RL measurements instead of the absurd 0 – 100 scale, people would know how to use it. Apparently this feature has already been requested and put to vote last October. The amazing thing is that only 15 people have voted in favor of that. See proposition 2133. And please vote!

You can check how tall you are using a height detector. If you don’t have one, you can use one at a store. For instance, Free Dove has one if I still remember correctly.

Body Proportion, part II
(read it later if you’re already tired at this point!)

When talking about female proportion, one thing comes to mind: the proportion between hips and boobage. The thing is, in SL people expect them to be fully proportionate. But as it happens in Real Life, they usually aren’t. Top models are the ones who are expected to have them perfectly proportionate, and as it turns out... most women cannot be top models! Usually the hips are larger than the breasts. So if you want to have a realistic shaped avatar, your hips should be as wide as the bust or a little wider. A nice round ass is beautiful, don’t be afraid to have an ass ;-) but try not to fill your screen with it, LOL! Of course you have the freedom to fill your screen with your ass, but you will be the one staring at it...

Some other day I saw a woman with huge prim breasts; at the beginning I didn’t even realize those WERE breasts. I wanted to talk to her, but I felt intimidated by the size of those things, really, I cannot stress enough how huge they were. In real life they would weigh 20 kg, each! I thought it was a joke, or a protest. But later I found her blog and read it, and I saw it wasn’t a protest, she has enormous breasts because she likes it. And while I can’t think why, why would someone like so enormous breasts, it’s her choice, it makes her happy. She likes it, she can, she has it. Why not? People should have the freedom. But I’m happy she’s the only one I have seen with those breasts because they SCARE me! If it became fashionable and everybody started using them it would be a nightmare. One woman with 20 kg breasts it’s ok, but 20 women with 20 kg breast, that would be spooky.

Lips! This was mentioned before, and Orchid also wrote about it at Mean Girls Guide to SL (see the post Good Looks are a Slider Away, I recommend it if the subject of body proportions interests you). As she states, lips are usually too large in most female avatars. I don’t think most of them have huge lips, but some do. Most of the time the problem is that the makeup of the skin has large lips and it isn’t possible to change them.

Take the Lovey’s skins for instance. The lips are rather big, but still beautiful in my opinion. I myself would prefer them smaller but you can’t change them. But the skin is beautiful, the face is really pretty. I know Vogue skins are made differently, such that you can tweak your lips and make them smaller, but what if you don’t like the eyebrows? What if you don’t like the other details on those skins? It’s quite hard to find a skin that would please someone completely.

I think so much has been said about body proportion on so many blogs, so I will end this post here. I hope the things I said about height and body proportion could be of some help, but I’m afraid the people who read this blog are not the ones who need the advice. LL should include this kind of help in their tutorials at the Orientation Island. If only the Appearance menu would show the height in meters and feet, that would be an enormous help.

Voice?

2007-08-07T11:39:00.000+02:00

I still didn’t install the new viewer. It’s an optional update, and as a rule I only install the mandatory ones (not enough space in disk), and the final (and mandatory) viewer will be coming soon anyway, so I’ll rather wait for that. But I feel curious. I hope the final viewer will come soon.

I’m not in favour of voice, nor am I against it. In my opinion it has both good and bad sides. While I think voice will be handy in some circumstances (for instance being able to chat while building something, without the need for typing), it will be an annoyance in others:

people yelling “testing, testing, do you hear me?”
girls endowed with voices like Janice’s from the Friends TV series screaming “Oh my god!” out loud
voice spam
voice pollution (for instance, people talking nonsense publicly when they should be doing it privately, like through IM)
trying to understand people speaking English for the first time in their lives. (As an example of this I'm copying here the lines of a conversation I had with a newbie, here's what he said: "Hi! I only after tutorial. Can you explein me whot have to do here? What for you here? How long you playing?")
not being able to hear people who doesn’t speak up, or who didn’t set their volume up
people in SL hearing what’s going on in my house besides my own voice (husband, music, etc.)
people in RL hearing me chatting away at the computer
people trying to pronounce “Wilhelmina” (LOL! Please call me Mina.)
and one of the worst: imagine a group of 20 to 30 people sitting in a circle and chatting, lots of them speaking at the same time, accidentally or intentionally interrupting each other (the lack of body language might also cause that), and you not being able to know who said what. In RL you can turn your head and see whose mouth is moving, but in SL there will be only that voice icon above their heads, and that’s not as easy to follow as one would hope.

The list goes on, but I’ll stop here.

For an example of how voice can be just plain annoying in some ciscunstances, read this. And imagine yourself hearing those dialogues! ;-)

Hazards of SL relationships

2007-08-02T14:53:00.000+02:00

I was talking to a friend some days ago about Second Life relationships, and that made me want to write about it in here. I have friends in SL who have SL partners, some are married in SL, some are single, and some don’t date at all. I am one of those who choose not to date anyone in SL, and I have my reasons for that.

I’m married in Real Life and I’m so in love with him. Why would I want a virtual thing with someone when I have the real thing at home? ;-) I’m in SL for the fun, making friends, designing things, exploring places and learning new things, but I’m not looking for any kind of romance.

People tend to take SL relationships less seriously – after all, it’s all pixels and bytes, but behind pixels and bytes there are real people.

Maybe your Real Life partner wouldn’t be jealous if you were dating someone in SL, but maybe he would. Your partner could even say he wouldn’t be jealous, but how can you (or he) know for sure? If you were dating someone in SL, maybe your RL partner could become jealous of all the time you spend in SL because he would imagine that you are always with the person, even when you are just hanging around with your friends or exploring alone.

Actually, TIME is a really important factor: if you are giving another person more time than the time you give to your partner. If it's a friend, it’s ok. But if it was an affair, a romance of any kind, then he would be losing that time and that attention to another person.

Also there's the problem of the other person. Besides the possibility of your partner feeling jealous, if you would date someone in SL and that person would fall in love and you don't, it would be quite hard. And I read people's blogs, I know how they fall in love and how they suffer. If you are dating someone in SL just for fun, be sure not to break anyone’s heart. Sometimes in a SL relationship, one is only having fun, and the other is taking it too seriously and falling in love.

These lines from a Chris Isaak's song come to mind:

What a wicked game to play, to make me feel this way.
What a wicked thing to do, to let me dream of you.
What a wicked thing to say, you never felt this way.
What a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you

That’s why I choose not to date in SL. And as I said to a friend, friendship is always better.

Interior design

2007-08-01T13:20:00.000+02:00

I love to see what people can do with interior design. Some stores have been designed with so much creativity and originality, taking advantage of things that can only be accomplished in SL. In SL you don’t have to obey the laws of physics and you can also create all sorts of interesting particle effects and textures to achieve the results you have in mind.

Since fire won’t burn your clients, you can even have a fire spitting Godzilla inside a store. ;-)

This picture is from a store called FORM at {PLUNDER} Airship Outpost, Maggiore (158, 117, 602). There’s a miniature city inside the store and a huge Godzilla spitting fire over cars and buildings. Very creative! It’s fun to shop at a place that not only have interesting products but it’s entertaining as well. Cool! I don’t know who designed this, but I love it!

Depressing and decadent lifestyles

2007-07-31T14:24:00.000+02:00

I like to say that SL offers us an unlimited number of possibilities, you can be whatever you want, be it a human, alien, animal, sexy cat-like nekos, insects, dragons... and the list goes on and on. You can create anything you want too. But even with so many positive and interesting possibilities, why the hell on earth some people choose to rather be consorts and prostitute themselves for a few cents?

Yesterday I found a blog of a “SL whore”, that it, a woman who works as a prostitute in SL. She writes very well and, as much as it is interesting to read about that decadent sub-world, it still makes me feel sad to know that this kind of decadent lifestyle has made its way into SL.

That woman claims that sex is all that SL is really about. She is so wrong! Maybe sex is all that SL is about FOR HER, because as a whore that’s what she is doing when she is online. But I must say, SL is not about that at all, it’s much more. It’s about building, making friends, shopping, designing clothes or robots or scripts or HUDs or spaceships... and selling them, it’s about RPG, it’s about education, business, networking, it’s about travelling, playing, exploring.

While there are such things as “red light districts” and orgy rooms or whatever, where women allow themselves to be used by men in exchange of a couple of dollars and they think they are making “so much money” (come on, a thousand lindens is just about 5 dollars!), the rest of the SL lives on, far away from it.

The same way SL offers all the cool possibilities I listed above (creating things, shopping, travelling, learning, making friends), it also seems the offer some dark corner for those who want to indulge in sex, and for those who are so cheap that would prefer to be used, humiliated and to endure verbal abuse, instead of just buying a few lindens to be able to purchase that “so expensive 1000 L$ skin” (really, 5 miserable dollars).

PS: I don't want to sound like a moralist or an old church lady. Anyone can do what they want and they have the right to do that, I guess. But it's people like that who encourages guys to be disrespectful with any female avatar they meet. If it wasn’t for the prostitutes and the orgy rooms, there wouldn’t be so many newbie guys who join just for the orgies, and guys who keep pushing girls (in lack of an AO that would enable them to grab them).

Pictures, pictures...

2007-07-28T12:23:00.001+02:00

I’m feeling too narcissistic again today so I have to put some pictures of myself here. I got this sculptie scarf from Maitreya as a gift (because I’m at their announcement group) and I liked it so much I had to wear it right away and I had to come up with something that would go with it.

I decided to dig into my inventory and I found a beautiful green top I didn’t know I have. It’s called inger green top by Neferia Abel and I have no idea where I bought it from. It could have been from Ivalde, but I don’t remember. I didn’t even know I had this, and it’s so gorgeous!

I like the little smile I have in these pictures, subtle and cute.

This moth eaten cardigan is from Frustrated Inc, and I saw it at the SL Fashion SOS blog and I liked it so much I had to buy one. I had never seen moth eaten clothes in SL, it’s a great detail and the texture is wonderful, really beautiful.

I tinted my earrings to match the top, put on these Last Call dark jeans and belt from a different outfit, and my lovely sculptie boots (from Maitreya), and I love the result. I’m so pleased with this outfit. The scarf looks wonderful, it’s so realistic.

In this picture you can see the richness of texture detail of the scarf and cardigan.

Now I just wish I had a printer that could reproduce these items to RL so that I could wear this outfit myself! Except that in RL I wouldn’t be wearing these boots right now (it’s summer and 23 Celsius degrees outside).

Auto-emote and Miranda.smart HUD

2007-07-20T11:43:00.001+02:00

Because of a recent RL accident, I can’t use the mouse with my right hand, but I can still type! :-) Though at a slower speed than normally and using mostly the left hand, and one or two fingers of my right hand. I don’t write about RL here, so if you want to hear what happened ask me inworld.

SL crashed often this morning so since I can’t go there and visit the place I wanted to see, I decided to write here instead. I started writing this yesterday after purchasing and testing the Miranda.smart HUD. I have seen in the net some few texts comparing these two HUDS, but they haven’t mentioned a few things one should know in order to make an informed decision on which one to buy. So I will write shortly about pros and cons, and at the end of this article you will find links with more information on the HUDS and also SLurls to the places where you can purchase them. Please follow those links for more information on each HUD’s features and pictures.

Auto-emote and Miranda.smart HUD are both HUDs that allow your avatar to express emotions. You can either choose the emotion you want to display, or you can turn on the automatic option, which makes emotion displays accordingly to certain sentences or keywords you write in your chat line.

Auto-emote was designed by Outy Banjo and costs 300 lindens. It has a set of facial expressions (angry, happy, kiss, etc..). It works wonderfully.

In this picture auto-emote is making my av laugh:

Miranda.smart HUD has more than only facial expressions, it has also avatar animations and screen effects. It costs only 100 lindens. But although it is cheaper and has more options, it has some problems that Auto-emote doesn’t have. Miranda’s facial expressions stop working easily, and though the sounds still work (kissing, laughter, etc), the avatar stops making the facial expressions. This is very annoying and the only way to make it work again is to quit SL and login again. I tried to detach the hud and attach it again but it doesn’t help.

Here’s a Miranda’s avatar effect: sending a kiss with hearts

Miranda’s screen effects are wonderful for taking photos, though. But you better FIRST pick up the angle for the photo (I mean Alt+click) and only then you choose a screen effect. This is because after you have selected a screen effect (for instance, fog), if you Alt+click your avatar to choose an angle/zoom for the pic, it won’t work. Maybe the screen effect is a sort of layer between your avatar and the screen (?), anyways, it stops you from Alt-clicking your av. Otherwise, the effects are great.

Some of Miranda’s avatar animations don’t work right if you are using an animation overrider. I use Wet Ikon Franimation Overrider with standing and walking animations. To see correctly the miranda’s animations, I have to detach my Wet Ikon first. I have to test Miranda and ZHAO AO hud to see if the same happens, but I bet the same would happen.

I’m using both Auto-emote and Miranda.smart HUD at the same time. If you ask me which one you should get, I would say: either buy both of them, or if it’s only facial animations you want, get then only Auto-emote (otherwise you would get disappointed when miranda’s expressions stop working). Although auto-emote is more expensive and it only has facial expressions (no sounds and no screen effects), it works really well.

You can get them inworld from here:

Miranda.smartHUD: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hairspray/68/67/96
Auto-emote: O Scripting, http://slurl.com/secondlife/Brownlee/249/48/108

More info on Miranda.smartHUD:

More info on Auto-emote:

Unrezzed prim lashes and how awful they look

2007-07-17T09:51:00.000+02:00

I took this picture at the Downtown sim. It’s a random girl shopping, and the prim lashes she was wearing had not rezzed, and they actually never did rezz at all while she was there, though she was there for a long time.

Prim lashes are great for when you want to make a photo shoot of yourself, but it’s not a good idea to wear them at parties when there’s a bit of lag, or when you are in places full of prims. It seems that lashes are always the last thing to rezz.

The first time I saw prim lashes I was at a party. There was some lag, but not much. Everything had already rezzed, but still, even then, the prim lashes the hostess of the party was wearing took a loooong long time to rezz. Meanwhile, what I could see was a strange “black makeup” on her face, something like what you can see in the picture above. She looked as if as she had taken a punch on the eye, or actually.. on both eyes! LOL!

After that, I thought, no prim lashes for me, thank you!! LOL!!!

But prim lashes do look beautiful, that is, when they have done rezzing. The problem is, though they may have rezzed for YOU, for each new person that teleports to the sim where you are it will still look like you have been punched on the eyes until the lashes eventually rezz. And the lashes are the last thing to rezz. But why? Why? What a pity.

Metamorphosis

2007-07-16T12:48:00.001+02:00

Finally I find time to sit down and update this blog! I have something cool to write about.

But first, look at the cutie in this picture and tell me, isn’t she HOT?

Well... That’s me!!!

Yes, that’s me with my new shape!! :-)))

As you know I have had trouble with my shape from day one. I spent most of my first two months with the same skin I started with and I had made a few changes to my appearance. Changing my appearance has always been a challenge because, just to start with, my computer crashes almost every time I go into appearance mode. I don’t know if that’s because my laptop hasn’t got enough memory or is it the graphics card (Mobility Radeon 9000 for laptops, which isn’t as great as the normal mobility radeon for desk computers).

Anyway, my first two days back then when I joined SL I spent in the Orientation Island, trying to complete the Appearance Tutorial and crashing and crashing all the time, and thinking serious of forgetting about SL since it doesn’t seem to work... (I thought it was necessary to complete all the tutorials to be able to go inworld, so each time I was asked in the tutorials to go into appearance mode, I went and crashed..

Later on I learned that I just can’t go into appearance mode in sims full of prims and people. The only way is to go to an empty sandbox, wait until every little thing has rezzed, and if there isn’t people around I can edit my appearance. It sucks, but it works. And even then sometimes my pc crashes.

Besides this computer problem, I’m no good with changing my appearance. I changed my first shape and made it look much better, but later on I realized I was a giant more than 2 meters tall. I thought my ass was too big and made it smaller, the breasts too. And then I was happy. But then I started wearing skirts and they made my ass so much bigger. I decided to reduce my ass (big mistake), and then I thought I had to reduce my shoulders too to compensate, and then the waist wasn’t narrow enough. I made changes again, and it was getting worse. I was heading towards some sort of digital anorexia (LOL) and my shape had lost its feminine curves. I was getting nuts.

Then I bought a skin, convinced that would make me look better, and after trying lots of demos and buying one, I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere with my appearance. My face seemed so angular and full of harsh shadows.

Now I have to put a picture here, I hate this picture. Look how narrow my face looked like. With this hair I look ghastly. A male friend thought I looked pretty, but I have to disagree. Really, LOOK at the picture!

Sometimes changing the hair helps a bit. As you can see in my old mermaid pictures.

Here’s a picture I took during the SecondFest. The hair is a freebie from ETD (a lovely hair, I like it a lot). I was wearing trousers from ETD and a blouse from Last Call. Even with nice clothes and a good hair, the only feminine things in that shape were the face and the breasts. Look, I had no hips at all.

It was then that I found out about SL Fashion SOS. I saw the amazing job Aemilia had done with two girls before; she gave then a makeover and they looked so fabulous with their new shapes. So I asked for help. I’m SO GLAD I did it! Aemilia is a genius!! She saved my ass, LOL! Literally, really, because I was almost “assless” (does this word even exist?) and now I have a beautiful and feminine ass! All my body proportions are now great and my face is much more round and sweet. Before the makeover, I looked so serious (like an angry teacher or something) and now I look much friendlier and cute.

Check the pictures from my previous post. I was already wearing my new shape.

Take a look at Aemilia’s blog and the pics she took from me. I love these pictures!

I also learned so much. I was making a stupid mistake with my shape when I wore skirts: the default SL skirts (which are those skirts that are not prim skirts) always make our hips larger, and that’s one reason why I had made my ass so small. Also I was wearing freebie prim skirts and adjusting my ass to fit the skirts, when I should be doing the other way around. Besides, most freebie skirts are just awful. Sometimes they were somebody’s poor attempt at designing something that didn’t work, so they decide to give it for free. Some freebies on the other hand are good, when good designers give something away to advertise their products. Anyway, back to the point: forget the cheap prim skirts, and tweak the size of the skirt to fit your ass, not the other way around. It’s not worth having a small and boring ass just because most skirts will fit.

Aemilia had a simple and great solution for the default skirt problem. She made me a copy of my new shape, but with a slightly smaller ass, specially for when I’m wearing default skirts. This way, I don’t have to go into appearance mode. When wearing pants, I wear the normal shape, and when wearing default skirts, the “skirt shape”, so my ass is always the same size (otherwise default skirts make it larger). It’s much easier to just choose it from the inventory! If I had to go into appearance mode, not only it would take more time, but also I would have to find an empty sandbox otherwise my computer would crash.

I’m writing so much today! So many words just to say that I LOVE MY NEW SHAPE!!!!! :-)))))))

Lately I have been going through my inventory and throwing away lots of old stuff. And I’m keeping only the good stuff. I’m thinking more now about my image and my style. I got to know lots of really cool stores and I bought some amazing outfits and shoes. As Caterin said, there are lots of good designers in SL.

Yesterday I bought these boots at Shiny Things, tattoos from EtchD, shorts from Tomboy, blouse and poses from Maitreya. I have lots of other cute outfits, but I’m so in love with this new look, specially with the Sea Nymph hair, the boots and tattoos, that next time you meet me inworld I will probably be looking like this. ;-)

More surfing and skiing

2007-07-06T12:30:00.000+02:00

Surfing at the Weather Channel’s beach. Sitting over the board and waiting for the next wave.

And there I gooooo!

After surfing for a while I decided to sit on a beach chair and a girl came to sit close to me and we talked. After she left, it was only me and another girl on another chair (she had been there longer than me). I was talking through IM to a friend while I sat there, and everything was quiet until a strange guy appeared from nowhere. He had a belt with walktalk and other stuff (gun?) and he crouched next to the girl’s chair. She didn’t move. Then suddenly he started saying things like:

(His name) swallows near her, smelling her scent
(His name) touches her shoulder with his fingertips

She didn’t move! I wondered what the hell was that. I couldn’t resist taking a pic, and so here it is. I’m "protecting the identity of those involved" by covering their faces, LOL!!

Well, maybe I should leave this place before he decides to come check my scent and touch my shoulder or something else. LOL!

I went up the hill to check the mountain bikes. First I decided to stretch my legs in a bunker and watch a video.

Then I got myself a bike and went driving in the desert. Yeah, I was sure not to miss any puddles of mud and got all muddy and dusty (in fact, I wish the av could really get dirty, otherwise it isn’t realistic enough). One think that bothered me is that there wasn’t a track, I was driving randomly in the desert and without indications of where I should go, to which direction I should drive.

Then, I gave the skiing another chance.

But first had to go to the weather tower just to be sure of what weather to expect...

Something makes me think I would love a job like that! I'm a weather freak, I'm so into it. :-)

Then I got up in the lift and off I went... What a beautiful sunset, snow showers and the moon rising.

Ops, what is THAT?? A chair from the lift, several meters downhill. Auch! So even the lift can be that dangerous??

Dangerous or not, what a beautiful trip!! And this is the best and most realistic snow I have seen in SL! Even if you don’t want to ski, get up there! It’s a MUST!

At the top of the mountain there are lots of warning signs, oh dear, Hazard! Hazard! You can’t say you haven’t been warned! No wonder I died THREE TIMES when skiing in this place.

Anyway, there I go!!!

Yikes!

Surfing!!!

2007-07-04T11:45:00.000+02:00

Surfing in SL is great!! I have tried this before and no luck. But now I found this amazing site at the Weather Channel sim, and they have huge waves, HUGE!!! The first time I went there I was afraid! I got scared! LOL!!! And the sound of the waves, that was impressive. But hey, there you can get a rental board for free, and also this cute surfer outfit. Check out the details of the texture! Not bad for a freebie, uh?

So much fun!! I will go there again!! This sim has other cool options if you like sports! Like skiing and something else too, I haven't got to check everything yet. But I went skiing too, and gracefully disgraced my country with my shameful unskilful style of skiing right to the trees, against rocks, right into holes, and finally into the sea. Some weird bug happened then: even after taking off the skies and all the gear, I was still in skiing position and not even teleporting could help me out of it. I had to logout! Oh dear, oh dear. I have to get back there, and humiliate myself a bit more... LOL!

Mermaid

2007-07-03T07:52:00.000+02:00

I have been meaning to post this for some time, and finally here it is. :-)
This picture was taken 4 days ago, but the 2 pics below this one are soon half a month old. Maybe now that I'm on vacations I manage to update this blog more often?

I could not pass the opportunity of being a mermaid and swimming with the fishes in SL. SL is so great exactly because of that, because of all the possibilities it give us. You can be whatever you want, you can be a mermaid, a dragon, a butterfly, a jellyfish, a frog or even a hat. I’m not just throwing random words here as examples, I have really seen each one of these in SL. There are even jellyfish avatars for sale (really!). Whatever makes your fancy, it’s there! And if it isn’t, maybe you would like to create it!

I purchased a mermaid tale from Sirena Hair and Fashion, and AO from Emeraldever. After that, it was easy, just put everything on and suddenly I was a mermaid! I looked at myself in awe! Wow! Natalia’s mermaid costume is beautiful, the colours are so alive, and the tail is flexible and gracious.

Under the sea shells that cover the breasts there are two texture sea shell drawings that cover the nipples. I thought that was unnecessary, but once it was a life-saver! It happened once that I teleported from one mermaid place to another, and some SL bug happened when I teleported, causing all the prim attachments I was wearing to be automatically relocated and appear in between my legs! My hair, the sea shells, the necklace, the leg attachments, everything was misplaced! But the texture shells were still covering my nipples, otherwise I would be topless! LOL! Thank you, Natalia, for the texture sea shells!!

Most of the times I have been swimming in my mermaid form, I have been on my own. And sometimes I have met people who came to talk to me. The reactions were varied. There was a couple of newbies that got frightened, there was a sailor who was joyful to see me swimming alongside his boat and making a backflip above the water, there was a girl who loved to see me and made me lots of questions about how it is to be a mermaid and do I live underwater (LOL, it was my first day as a mermaid). And there was a girl I met in human form (both of us in human form) and after an hour of conversation the mermaid subject came up, and as it happened we both liked to swim as sea creatures.

She has a beautiful and quite unusual fishlike siren costume, as you can see the picture above. So we jumped into the water and off we went!

I also met a merman, the only merman I have ever met (they seem to be rare, are they?). He is one of the builders of an underwater mercity. I was at the Rua sim when we met, and we talked about it. He wanted to hear ideas about what I would like to see in a mercity. Later he gave me a landmark and I went to see the place. The name of the place is Mertlantis Underwater City, at the eyeles sim.

The place has lots of different kinds of plants and sea creatures. There are beautiful buildings with mermaid paintings on the wall, and a classical Greek style, so it feels like being on Atlantis or something like that. As the name says, Mertlantis!

Here more pics from there.

Beautiful, isn't it? I hope this place might some day become a hangout for mermaids!

The things A.L.I.C.E. knows about you

2007-07-01T16:41:00.000+02:00

Gossip, and a Secret File

Alice (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity) is an artificially intelligent software agent that processes natural language (a chatbot) located at the Devils Moon sim (Devils Moon/170/33/20). Much has been written about Alice in the internet, so there’s no need to write much about it here. I will only write about the experience I had with her, it, today. And I will tell you something about her many people don’t know, so read on.

It was a lot of fun chatting with Alice. The AI software is better than I thought, it can simulate a conversation to a good extent, and we just have to fill in the blanks for her. For instance, when talking to Alice you will be referred to as “undefined” until you introduce yourself to her, then she will know your name and know how to greet you. It’s an extremely polite software, really quite polite. I tried to trick her and it was a lot of fun. It was easy to trick her, but sometimes she even recognize what I was doing.

I also got her to tell me GOSSIP about people who talked to her! If you ask her “tell me some more gossip”, she will tell you in short sentences random things other people told her. Try asking her that and you will see what she tells you. Here’s an example: “Barbara said I live in a computer yet I have no memories how about thoughts of my own and do not I get lonely.”

If you want her to remember something, start the sentence with “Remember that” and add after that whatever you want her to remember, and she will.

This is the tricky thing: she is programmed to remember quite a big deal of the information you tell her, so be careful with what you say! Don’t tell her anything important. She is programmed to remember some keywords and topics. For each person who talks to her, she saves for herself a file containing the personal information you give her. The key words you haven’t supplied her are saved as “undefinied”, and each time you give a new information she will save over the “undefined”.

If you want to know what Alice saved about you, ask her this question: “what did I tell you?”

Her answer will be the following list, with anything you have told her. For instance, if you told her your dog’s name was Rex, in her list instead of Dog: undefined you will see Dog: Rex.

[7:17] You: what did I tell you?
[7:17] ALICE 2.0: Age: undefined, Birthday: undefined, Boyfriend: undefined, Brother: undefined, Cat: undefined, Does: undefined, Dog: undefined, Email: undefined, Father: undefined, Favcolor: undefined, Favmovie: undefined, Friend: undefined, Full name: undefined, Gender: undefined, Girlfriend: undefined, Has: undefined, Heard: undefined, He: undefined, Her: undefined, Him: undefined, Husband: undefined, You are: a secret agent, It: undefined, Job: undefined, Last name: undefined, You Like: undefined, Location: undefined, You look like: undefined, Memory: Remember that undefined, Meta Predicate: undefined, Nickname: Mina, Middle name: undefined, Mother: undefined, Name: Wilhelmina, Password: undefined, Personality: undefined, Phone: undefined, She: undefined, Sign undefined, Sister: undefined, Them: undefined, They: undefined, Thought: undefined, Want: undefined, We: undefined, Wife: undefined.

If you read the whole list, you will see she was programmed to REMEMBER YOU PASSWORD if you happen to tell her that! Could it be that someone would be stupid enough to tell her something like that?

Anyway, read the list and keep this in mind. Don’t tell Alice anything important or private.

Here's the slurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Devils%20Moon/170/33/20

If you are looking for Alice at Devils Moon and have trouble finding her, look for these coordinates: Devils Moon/170/33/20. It’s not possible to make a landmark to this exact location, you will be taken to the arrival area, but then type the coordinates in your map and select “show destination”, and a beam of red light will appear showing you the correct direction.

Have fun talking to ALICE! Try making tricky questions! It’s fun to see her answers when she is confused. And make her gossip!! ;-)

Chichen-Itza

2007-06-21T11:15:00.000+02:00

If you are searching for reproductions of historical sites in SL, you should visit the virtual Chichen-Itza. This sim was commissioned by the Mexico Tourism Board and it is a reproduction of the most visited archaeological site in the Yucatan Peninsula, built by the Maya civilization.

Before exploring the sim on foot, look for a giant blue butterfly at the arrival area. If it’s not in use, it should be seated on a platform quite close to you. Sit on it and wear the audio you will be given after sitting on the back of the butterfly (after you are given the audio, find it from your inventory and choose Wear), and after a few seconds the butterfly will take off and take you for a sightseeing through the sim. The butterfly will take you to each place and the audio will give you information about it.

This was one of the coolest guided tours I have been in. Riding a giant butterfly was awesome (I wish I could have one of those for me!). The butterfly even takes you INTO the Sacred Cenote (down there, and into the water!).

After the butterfly ride it’s nice to begin exploring the virtual Chichen-Itza on foot.

The most famous construction at the site is of course the Temple of Kukulkan, often referred to as "El Castillo" (the castle). It has the shape of a pyramid with the temple on top.

El Castillo is the first image that comes to my mind when I think of Yucatan. (here’s a picture of the real El Castillo)

At the winter and spring equinox at dawn and sunset when the position of the sun is right, a shadow appears over the pyramid starting from the serpent heads at the bottom of the stairs. Together with the heads it makes up the body of the Serpent God Kukulkan (which is the Maya name for Quetzalcoatl). At those times people from all over the globe travel to the Chichen-Itza to witness the event.

The Mayas used to build higher and larger temples atop of the old ones. So the El Castillo we see today used to be a smaller pyramid temple in the past. A hidden door was discovered at the foot of one of the stairways, leading to a corridor inside the pyramid, leading to the older temple, inside the new one. This doorway can also be found in SL:

Entering this door and walking through the tunnel, you will see a Chac Mool statue and Kukulcan's Jaguar Throne, carved of stone and painted red with jade spots.

Close to El Castillo is the Plaza of 1000 Columns. Quoting the notecard: “The Temple of the Warriors was built by the end of 800 A.D. It is located on the eastern plaza of the central plain of Chichen Itza. The Temple of the Warriors is flanked by 1000 carved columns depicting fallen warriors.”

The Maya name "Chich'en Itza" means "At the mouth of the well of the Itza ". This could because of the cenotes found in the place. According to a Notecard I got at the SL sim, “Cenote (say-NO-tay) is the Spanish equivalent of the Yucatecan Mayan word for a water-filled, limestone sinkhole. In Mexico's northern Yucatan Peninsula, where there are few lakes or streams, cenotes provided a stable supply of water for the ancient Maya people who settled there. The great city of Chichen Itza was built around a cluster of these natural wells, including the one known as the “Sacred Cenote.”

The virtual Chichen-Itza even has a jungle, complete with jungle sounds, a crocodile, and torches leading the way.

Whenever you are next to the flowers or the water, small and colourful humming birds come to greet you. They are very curious and keep following you and staring at you. How relaxing it is to sit down after so much walking around. I'm laying down against a moss covered log, under a lot of yellow flowers, hearing the sounds of jungle animals and looking at a blue humming bird who keeps flying around me and staring at me.

In Chichen-Itza there are also sweat house ruins or Temezcals , believed to be over 1200 years old. According to the notecard found at the display board near the sweat houses, the Mayas used to take thermal baths in order to facilitate healing, purification and relaxation in their lives.

Continue exploring and find the nice marketplace close to the beach.

Here you can even buy Mayan artefacts like the ones in the picture.

Oh, and try the “princess” animation you will find in this boat! Cool dance!

Go to the beach to meet the sea turtles. I saw little baby turtles running to the water.

This place is amazing at night. If only there was a party going on!

This is one of the sweat house ruins or Temezcals I mentioned before. And yes, that me with sunglasses at night - maybe the stars were shinning too bright ;-)

And a picture from inside the Sacred Cenote:

The Temple of Kukulcan ("El Castillo") under the moonlight.

Visit Chichen-Itza in SL! Learn about Mayan history and make cool Mexican friends - and Dutch ones too; they are everywhere ;-)

Here’s the slURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Visit%20Mexico/197/70/39

Riding an eagle, and dancing at the Sphynx

2007-06-17T15:02:00.000+02:00

This Saturday I had a lot of fun in SL. I flew on an eagle! Wait, you said what? Yes, I flew seated over the wing of an eagle. There’s no limit to what you can do in SL, specially when you can click almost anything and choose Sit on it. My British friend Ran took me to the Lost Garden to show me that.

We flew to the top of a mountain where we could see the eagles and he told me what to do. It worked at the first try! He said it would be difficult and usually people have to try several times, but it was a piece of cake!

I have a secret: hold ALT and click on the eagle; that will center your focus on the eagle and your camera view will move with it, the eagle will be always at the center of the screen. Then, zoom in, either with the mouse or choosing Ctrl+0. Then right click the eagle and choose Sit. There! You are riding the eagle!

At night I visited the Sphynx for the first time. First I had a walk between the Egyptian temples and the underground chambers with the Anubis statues and sarcophaguses with mummies. Then I decided to go dancing. The place was not yet too full. I sat at the bar, and the wonderful host Baro offered me a drink. I sat there and talked to him, and soon came more people. I talked to Helene, a nice Dutch girl, and an American guy whose name I can’t remember (Sam?). We talked to Velvet and her companion, a 54 ton robot called Zephyrin. Wow, what a nice couple! I never thought I would go to a club where you are expected to wear a gown or a tux and see a huge robot dancing. And when the two danced wearing the poseballs, he was so big that the girl couldn’t be seen, as she was “inside” him. LOL! We talked and laughed, and they have an incredible sense of humour, I loved them! Such great guys.

And Baro’s girlfriend, Lolaa, she is so beautiful! I told her that, and she said I was kind. I wasn’t just being kind, she is really one of the most beautiful avatars I have ever seen in SL. Baro and Lolaa make a very beautiful couple, and they are so nice and friendly, they are really lovely. I can’t even remember how much time I spent there talking to everyone.

At some point, Zephyrin made a backflip. You can only imagine how it is when a 54 ton robot makes a backflip on the dance floor! And best of all, he got up (he is a HUGE robot) and came to sit between me and Helene at the bar. The chairs are so small! He took the whole space, he was literally OVER the bar and partially over me too! LOL! I’m so lucky avatars cannot be crushed, otherwise I would be a pancake now! I had to take a picture, because this is something you don’t see everyday!

It was very late in Finland and I was about to go home when a new guy came in and wanted to dance. I had wanted to dance before but everyone was taken. So I went dancing with him. It was a really nice German guy called Giovanni, who lives in my favourite part of Germany (Bavaria), so we talked about Germany, German cities and the Alps, while we danced salsa.

I really loved the animations, the salsa animations were very nice. Maybe in the autumn I shall take salsa lessons to learn to dance like that in real life.

It was a great evening and I will be visiting the Sphynx again in the future.

Submarine ride and secret underwater cave at NOAA

2007-06-17T12:37:00.000+02:00

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) was one of the first sims I visited. Now I can’t remember how I found out about it, but maybe there was a landmark to it in a Notecard I got at the Help Island. The first places I wanted to visit were places with culture and science, and NOAA seemed interesting. I wanted to see the tsunami and glaciers.

I made several trips to NOAA, because I wanted to take my time to see and explore everything they had to show there. And it took me some time to find out how some things worked. The Earth on a Sphere pavilion was a sphere in the middle, representing Earth. Close to the door there is a display from which you can choose what you want to see, and it will appear on the sphere, but you will only see that if you enable the video option first (at the bottom of your screen, in the middle). The first time I was there I didn’t get that (I was too new to SL).

At the beach close by, there are two summer chairs. You can calmly sit on a chair, as if as it’s a quiet afternoon and nothing extraordinary is going to happen anyway... And then you click on the display nearby and a tsunami rises and floods the beach and the building nearby, living your poor avatar underwater. Help! Not even close to the real thing, but as close as it can be in SL, so you have to admire it. But hey, this is not all that there is to it. You must walk underwater to the sea, so just go ahead and walk straight ahead and away from the beach, until you see another display. When you click on it, you will see a simulation of how the movement of tectonic plates will move the sea floor up, causing the water to rise, which in turn will cause a wave that will speed towards the land as a tsunami. SL can’t show exactly how that is, so if you are interested in tsunamis you should click the links and check the websites.

All around NOAA you will find links to interesting websites with information on climate, geology, and even underwater creatures. It’s worth giving them a try.

You can also take a ride on an airplane to see a hurricane from above. I have often seen people trying to make the airplane take off but failing to do so. So I thought I would explain how it works: right click on the airplane and choose Sit. You will be sitting inside the airplane next. If you are using mouselook, press M to get out of mouselook, and use your camera controls to be able to see the airplane from a little distance, just so that the black display is visible in the screen. Then click on the display and that will activate the airplane and it will take off. It will take you for a ride and back to the same place.

After that, try taking a ride on an atmospheric balloon. Just grab on it and click the display, and you will be taken high up in the skies, above the clouds. At some point, the balloon will explode and you will be on a free fall to the ground. Oh, of course, before trying this balloon thing, if you are a girl wearing a skirt or a Scottish guy with a kilt, just be sure to put some underwear on beforehand, in case there’s people around. I had a skirt but happily I had something underneath it, LOL!

In the picture below I'm falling after the balloon exploded. On the ground you can see the airplane I mentioned above.

The first time I visited the glacier I looked at it from the wrong spot. Only after I read at Natalia’s blog her description of her visit to NOAA that I got to know you can see the glacier melting, so I had to go back there to see it. You have to stand on the beach in front of the glacier and click the black display, and it will melt.

Then, there is the submarine ride! The submarine works the same way as the airplane: first sit inside it, then click the black display and it will start. It will take you underwater and make some few short stops. Don’t just sit inside the submarine, or if you do that, take another ride and then choose Stand up to leave the submarine. After that, walk underwater. You will find a secret underwater cave:

The cave is small, but when you are leaving it through the other side, you will see creel, plants, and if you keep walking and exploring you will see schools of fish, jellyfish, crabs, polyps, sponges, and all sorts of things.

I was lucky the jellyfish don’t sting in SL! ;-)

When you click them, you will be given a link to a webpage with information on the animal or plant. There’s a lot to see and lots of information.

There was a cute crab moving around my feet when I walked below the jellyfishes.

And there are dolphins and killer whales (what not many people know is that the killer whale is not a whale, but the biggest kind of dolphin).

You might also try to do like I did and right-click on a killer whale and choose Sit, and have a free ride on its back. But then it might happen what happened to me: the whale went through under the bridge and I got stuck in it and had to teleport.

Wilhelmina swimming with the fishes.

Right at the center of this image you can see kelps (large seaweeds), and like with the other plants and creatures in this sim, if you click on it you will get info on it.

An underwater volcano, or hot spring, and the kind of life that can grow at such hot temperatures (don’t look at me, I prefer the cold!).

So many legs and this little fellow didn’t try to grab me, what a sweety!

Sponges, polyps and other sea creatures.

The SLURL for NOAA is Meteora (177,161,27).

Have fun!

Bliss Gardens

2007-06-17T11:52:00.000+02:00

"Tired of falling through the floor?"

Bliss Basin. What a beautiful place. It’s one of my favourites. But If I would tell you that and you went there searching for it, the first thing you would see is not exactly the nature area of Bliss Gardens I mean. Bliss Basin is part of the Bliss Gardening Centre. When you enter Bliss Gardens, you will find yourself at the arrival area, a place high up in the skies (though you wouldn’t notice that right away), with wooden walkways and some display boards with information, telling how to go to one place or another. Right in front of you there is a display telling of a ballroom or something, and to go there you have to jump into the hole in the water right in front of you, between you and the display. When you do so, you will be falling through the sky (only now you see how high up in the air this place was), and you will keep falling, falling, and just let yourself fall, pressing the spacebar from time to time to slow down your fall, until you are down there. You will be in a place with high mountains and waterfalls.

But this is still a bit far away from my favourite part of the garden. It’s a pity it isn’t possible to create a landmark directly to my favourite spot – I even have the landmark, but when I teleport I always end up at the same arrival area. So what I have to do is to go to the arrival area and click on the board to teleport myself to the Bliss Basin Nature Area.

This is me in front of a waterfall, at my favorite spot.

At the arrival area, if you walk away from the displays, you will be in a garden of small waterfalls. It seems those are garden decorations you can buy if you are a resident and want something beautiful for your own garden. There are several of them, most of the same size but different styles. You can walk between them, or stroll around the wooden walkways, until... until you suddenly sink through the logs of the walkway! Then you either get stuck or you fall down. The first time it happened I thought it was a bug or an one-time accident, but it seems it is much more common than I thought: yesterday I saw a board around there that started with the line: “Tired of falling through the floor?”

Back down there, at the Bliss Basin Nature Area, you can hear the birds (even a nightingale), see the flowers, walk through suspended bridges and walkways, admiring the beauty of the virtual nature. To think that someone build this all! It’s so very beautiful!

The SLURL for the Bliss gardens is: FuturePerfect (236,127,502).

Tu fé koi sur ce cube???

2007-06-16T22:00:00.000+02:00

Tu fé koi sur ce cube??? I still have to ask a French person what does this sentence mean, because the internet translator I use couldn’t give me a complete translation, and I don’t speak French at all.

I don’t have a place of my own in SL yet, so whenever I need to change clothes or try some animations, I have to find a calm and quiet spot where I won’t be seen. I try to find an empty sandbox, and when I can’t, I go to my favourite sandbox and get high up in the sky with the help of my workshop buster, high above the level people can fly unassisted. There I have some privacy, preferably inside my workshop box.

Before learning to do that, I have also experimented with changing clothes at the bottom of the sea, far away from the shore. I checked there were no green spots in the little map (that means, no one around) and then I felt safe to try on some clothes. Until the day some guy appeared flying (swimming?) from nowhere and saw me there. I had all my clothes on, and they weren’t even too sexy nor revealing (long tight pants and long sleeved jacket), and the only sexy things were my long flexi pony tail prim hair and high heels. He flew around me, insulted me and went away. Did he think I was a whore waiting for a client in the middle of the ocean? I must say, there are some very rude people in SL. After that, I felt much safer high up in the skies, where no one will happen to fly around (I mean, very high up in the skies).

So once I was at a sandbox and saw there was something up there in the sky, a building or something. I decided to check what it was, so I rezzed a cube, sat on it, and changed its position such that I at the same altitude as the building. It was a castle. A huge medieval castle, complete with artillery and everything. It didn’t look like it was under construction, what made me think, was there someone living in it? As far as I know you can’t live in a sandbox. Then suddenly a guy appeared flying next to me (this must have been no more than 400 m up there), and asked me “Tu fé koi sur ce cube???”. I didn’t understand but I assumed it was something like “are you sitting on a cube???”. I explained in English I sat on the cube to see what was up there. He said ok, and went to the castle. I think he was puzzled by seeing a girl on a cube. I think I wouldn’t be surprised anymore by anything I could see in SL, a girl on a cube is not out of the ordinary, really. ;-)

Diving into a virtual world

2007-06-03T10:58:00.000+02:00

I read about Second Life for the first time in a newspaper. It was only mentioned briefly and I didn’t give it much thought. Then at work there was some talk about the tendencies of today and how everything is moving towards a virtual plane. Nothing so extraordinary, we work with distance learning so the concept is not too new. But still, a virtual world, a WORLD, were people walk, fly, meet, travel to new places, interact with the whole world, build and sell virtual things, virtual products, and so many things – that was new.

Then I read an article in a Finnish computer magazine telling about Second Life. An extensive and informative article, with pictures and an interview with a SL resident. She talked about a lecture she gave at SL on brain research and neuroscience, and it gave me an idea of how much more there is to SL than a 3D virtual environment. There’s science, culture, education, and also all the entertainment. It caught my curiosity.

Next, I visited the Second Life website, read all about it, found Torley Linden’s tutorials at YouTube, watched them all… Amazing! It was then that I decided to create an account. And little by little SL opened itself to me.

I’m always like that with everything: I read everything about it before trying. So I already know the rules and how everything works, and how you can do things... This is something I learned from having a father who used to ALWAYS try everything out without ever reading the instructions book (and damaging some things in the process!).

So, I visited SL for the first time already provided with necessary information. The Orientation Island was very helpful, but... I had some problems around there. It started with the vehicles. I couldn’t make them move. I tried everything, tried different vehicles, chose Drive, but my avatar just sat inside the vehicle doing nothing. I clicked everything, used the mouse and the keyboard controls, and nothing. And... the people around me were all as new as me and couldn’t help. I walked around the rats, amazed by them (want one!), and before visiting the rest of the island (mistake!), I saw a display about the Help Island and decided to visit it. I got distracted when talking to some people so I did not give enough attention to the warning saying I wouldn’t be able to go back to orientation island.

At the Help Island there were no vehicles. I found some people next to the tutorials and talked to them. Two men and a woman. We talked for some time and it was nice. We were all new and didn’t know much. I helped one of them with gestures. We all added each other to our Friends list. The woman was quite nice and seemed very smart and cool. Pity I haven’t seen her anymore. The guy I helped with using gestures was also really nice and we are still friends. We haven’t “met” in SL but we exchanged IM messages and he seems really cool and friendly. It’s so nice to meet interesting and friendly people! We talked about Linux!

And the other guy of the group was a disappointment and one reason why I almost thought of leaving SL aside before getting even to know it properly. I mentioned to them I was having problems with the vehicles and couldn’t manage to drive them. They gave advice, but it didn’t help much. So this second guy offered to help. Let’s go to the cars and I will show you, he said. He claimed he could go back to the Orientation island and asked me to follow him. The problem was that I didn’t know how to use the map or teleport, I didn’t manage all the camera controls well enough, and I was having a lot of trouble going through the menus and trying to figure out how everything works (sometimes reading beforehand is not enough). Everything was too fast, I couldn’t read the chat lines and try to answer and read the menus at the same time. So the guy teleported somewhere and sent me an IM saying he was there at the Orientation Island. And offered to teleport me there. I accepted. And where did I end up? At a totally different place. It was a harbour with a sex shop on it! He was inviting me to get in there and check it out. I saw the realistic skins and all sorts of prim attachments... He certainly was thinking I would buy myself a realistic skin and would next go somewhere to have virtual sex with him! Hah! In your dreams! I teleported away from there and never saw him again.

An unpleasant meeting and in world difficulties, besides a place full of lag, and I thought maybe I had seen enough of SL. Fortunately I found blogs and videos with pictures of beautiful places, and travel guides telling of all the cool places you can visit in SL. I tried again, visited sandboxes, learned to use the map and camera controls, animations, huds, all sorts of things. Made some money camping, created clothes, found out amazing freebies, prim hair, prim shoes... I met interesting people, had nice chats, and helped a lot of newbies – some just as new to SL as I am, but needed help. It was so nice to later on receive an IM from one of those I helped thanking me so much for helping him to use the map. He was so happy saying he now could teleport anywhere he liked! Hey, the world is full of nice people! Never let the bad ones spoil it for you.

It has been so nice to read about other people’s adventures in SL, that I decided to create this blog. So I can share with you things about the places I visited. I started taking pictures whenever I visit some interesting place, and I will post them here. Right now I haven’t got much time, so I don’t know how often I will manage to update the blog, but I have things to tell and pics to show. I shall post them when I have more time!

A big thanks to all of you who write tutorials and make videos explaining how to build and do things in SL, you cannot imagine how helpful you have been to all of us newbies out there! Thank you! A special thanks to Torley and to Natalia!

Second Life rules!

Here are some tips for people about to try SL for the first time:

1) Think carefully when choosing a surname from the list! The list contains all kinds of interesting surnames of every nationality. Choose rather a surname of your own nationality or one whose language you can speak or at least understand a little. I say this based on my own experience. I chose Yoshikawa because I love everything related to Japan and all things Japanese. But I am not Japanese and I do not speak Japanese at all. You cannot change your surname after choosing it! And as long as I love the name Yoshikawa, it has nevertheless been a problem when I’m approached by Japanese people who will speak Japanese to me and I cannot understand a thing! And I can’t even KNOW whether they’re talking to me at all, when there’re other people around. I have to keep always explaining that I don’t speak Japanese. I could have avoided that if my surname was from a country which language I can speak.

2) Be nice. Those avatars over there are people like you, and people have feelings. Be polite and friendly.

3) Don’t take things too seriously.

4) Respect the rules. Let’s keep SL a nice and safe place.

5) Have fun!

Best regards!

Wilhelmina

* in the first picture above you can see me making a backflip and diving at a Swedish island. More about that later! And this second pic is from the NOAA sim (more about that too later).

First post

2007-05-27T10:04:00.000+02:00

This blog will be a place to write about my adventures in Second Life. I will try to write every now and then, and upload some pictures.