Dreambits

If this were your dream, would you buy it?

2011-01-09T11:56:00.003+01:00

The first thing that really struck me entering Second Life way back was the feeling of dreaming. It felt like lucid dreaming. I could fly and create, unlike in most nightly dreams.

Now many years after people are still trying to grasp what it is that makes Second Life great. Second Life might be a dream factory. As in dreaming there are nightmares, erotic dreams, and just amazing mirages.

The unique thing about the dream making in Second Life is that we share the dreams. Building dreams on your own has a limited fun period. However, when you share and collaborate in creating, the fun (and/or the drama) goes on. In Second Life, you create and share your own soap, and like in any soap, there is no ending, no final point to be made.

Second Life is a place where we create dreams together. But more than that; Those dreams spread into RL too. People change because of Second Life. People from all over the world meet each other and meet up in real life too. Projects spreads from Second Life to real life, and Second Life is changing the world, just maybe in a lesser scale than Philip & Co. had first imagined.

Dreaming creates value. Some people are trying to make some money out of selling dreams to other dreamers. And some people try to make a living out of selling other people’s dreams to dreamers. This is nothing new. But when the value of dreams is only considered to be an economical one, you can easily lose sight of, and maybe even kill, the subtle values that are created. The stuff that cannot be bought and sold, but only shared.

Luckily the digital goods, the shared dreams, isn’t easily controlled. It is impossible to lock the digital dreams up in some warehouse, and be the sole distributor. As long as people have time, I guess we will keep on creating dreams to share, even if the value created will not be generated in cash.

If I was the new CEO of Linden Lab…

2010-12-25T20:34:00.006+01:00

I would make it a bannable offence to wear system hair, unless it was Monday (everybody hates Mondays anyway).
I would require all my employers, including myself, to start 2011 by being in-world each day for all of January: Everyone should try to create things, start up a shop, buy and sell land, make new non LL friends, try out the sex-scene, go visit the art sims, try to teach a class for newbs, start up a club and make it popular, go to the theatre, make a machinima, make a concert, or just go to one (I don’t recall ever seing a linden at a concert), make high rez product shoots, and art shoots etc. etc.
I wouldn’t greet people with a huge empty black screen/bad screenshot on login, but with an active page with info, containing, but not limited to, the latest blog news, the events, a link to the marketplace etc. No one should log in to SL and not be aware of what is going on.
I would lower the price on server space (come on, it’s hilarious!)
I would get support up and running (nonsupport is hilarious too!)
I would make sims that could hold hundreds of people (maybe just as clouds), and make a proper concert, with great musicians to celebrate this magic world.
I would make a smoother implementing of fixes, and better inworld support for your viewer. It is done amazingly well by a handful of TPV developers doing it for free, why can’t LL do it better?
I would think of something to make it actually worthwhile to be a premium member.
I would hire actual webdesigners, and actual PR people, to make proper functioning web and PR.

Thank You Linden Lab!

2010-03-31T20:25:00.008+02:00

Linden Lab has made their new TOS, and yay there is a good point:

"7.4 You also grant Linden Lab and other users of Second Life a license to use in snapshots and machinima your Content that is displayed In-World in publicly accessible areas of the Service.

You agree that by uploading, publishing, or submitting any Content to or through the Servers for display In-World in any publicly accessible area of the Service, you hereby grant each user of Second Life and Linden Lab a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to photograph, capture an image of, film, and record a video of the Content, and to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the resulting photograph, image, film, or video in any current or future media as provided in and subject to the restrictions and requirements of our Snapshot and Machinima Policy. The foregoing license is referred to as the "Snapshot and Machinima Content License."

"Publicly accessible" areas of the Service are those areas that are accessible to other users of Second Life. If you do not wish to grant users of Second Life a Snapshot and Machinima Content License, you agree that it is your obligation to avoid displaying or making available your Content to other users. For example, you may use Virtual Land tools to limit or restrict other users' access to your Virtual Land and thus the Content on your Virtual Land." [I bolded the text].

Simple and elegant. This makes sense. Further clarification can be found here.

My Avatar and Me (Mein Avatar und Ich)

2010-03-28T13:12:00.024+02:00

Just some quick facts and links around the movie:

"My Avatar and Me" is a movie produced by Milton Media ApS & Fenris Film & Multimedia ApS. It had its premiere on ARTE march the 26th 2010, 22.25 or 22.45 PM in the french and german dubbed version. And it can be viewed from Germany and France (and if you know how to use proxys, from anywhere in the world) on the arte7+ website until Wednesday or Thursday (thx to Prairie for this info). It was repeated on ARTE 12.04.2010 at 03:00 and 16.04.2010 at 10:55.

It was filmed inworld at among other places the 3 sims Scheherazade, Akasha and Skandha. Helena Kirkorian and Mikeproud Sicling are the inworld avatars with the lead roles. To get info, updates etc you can join the group 'Ficumentary Filming' in Second Life.

You can see clips from the My Avatar and Me here. The movies website is here, and you can join the fanpage on FaceBook. You can read this german forum thread to get comments etc. The thread can be translated to english, french etc.

SL viewer 2.0: Old wine on a shiny new bottle?

2010-02-27T13:55:00.012+01:00

So the SL viewer 2.0 Launched. If LL's motive was to make new users stay in SL, I believe that launching the new viewer will only help with a tiny fraction of the barriers people have to cross to start using Second Life:

Wanting to play SL at all: the name could be the biggest showstopper because it’s not really cool these days to want a second life. Attaining a second one is like admitting that you do not have a 1st. However, enhancing your first life with access to 80k international contacts a day is cool. SL makes it possible to meet new people way easier than it would happen on Facebook, Myspace, flickr etc. The cool is also international meetings without the costs of hotels and flight tickets. And so is being able to bring your teachings etc. to the world, not just the local community. But SL has a reputation of adultery, cybersex and losers hangout, that needs to be dealt with. As long as even LL themselves concieves the users to be losers (aka in Philip Lindens quote), then how will this ever change?
Visual appeal: Compared to all other games and platforms today SL looks crappy, ugly, broken, flat, and the beginner avatars are ugly. It oozes a complete lack of style. If possible LL really ought to redefine the choice of noob avatars at least.
Hardware support: Why is it so difficult to get SL to run proper on a laptop? When you can run a world that looks exactly like SL on an iPhone?
Registration: Some has complained on the web that the registration process is a barrier, but it really runs as smooth as most other registrations on the web. The only point of annoyance is that you cannot choose your name freely. Or change your name later on.

SL is new world, and when you start getting to know the place you kind of get through phases in your SL life:

Baby-phase: To be staying in SL beyond this phase is where many people give up. The learning curve here is estimated to be 20 hours in duration, but, that is roughly the same time used on other online multiplayer 3d worlds like wow, eve online, etc. This is where the new UI might be helpful. Also a kind of mentor program would be helpful ; )

Teen-phase: Connecting with people, Finding your way around to connect with people and explore, Party! Now proper group functions, communication tools, working friends-lists, being able to be more than 20 avatars on a sim without experiencing glue environment and sim stalls each time an aavatar TP’s in or out, a working search, working maps, slurls and TP’s etc. are needed. Looking at LL bugtracker, the JIRA, this is exactly where most tools fails! And why not implement the tools that makes it easy to communicate an navigate in an international virtual world like spellchecking, translator, area search and inbuilt radar. Emerald has done that already.

Grownup-phase: some has now found out what they like to do in SL, so now is the need to connect with others with the same interests and the need for specialised tools for builders, artists, fashion makers, community leaders, snapshotographers, etc. It would be so nice to have specialized and well designed applications, for example a snapshot one, with all functions for that: Windligt, draw distance, snapshot functions, etc. in one menu like the build tool.

To me the viewer 2.0 is nothing but old wine in a shiny new bottle. It’s a pretty bottle, and maybe a small step in the right direction, especially if all the bugs and bad decisions gets fixed. Let's hope I am wrong about expecting LL to simply fix some minor bugs, and then launch the 2.0. Let’s hope they really have changed, and that that will eventually change LLs reputation.

Let me laugh and play...

2008-12-27T00:26:00.012+01:00

I just read a lot. Loads. Tons. Words, words, words... made of light emerging from my screen, rendered by O ands I's.

Reading is to recreate a meaning on the basis of decoding the letters words, and understanding the words by knowing about the context, the world in which they are set.

So I tried to grasp the thoughts, motives etc's behind the flickering dots on my screen. trying not to fall asleep as it was text full of boring brainwords, pretend legalese... totally lacking perspective really.

And it was all about greed. About snapshooting and attribution, and copyrights and who is the original creator, who should get the profit, etc, etc. In the physical world the question of copyright and patents ALLWAYS comes down to the dudes with the most money anyway. No case has yet made it, to the courts in the physical world, prolly becoz, no profit mentionable was ever made from an SL snapshot being sold.

As kids we get born into the world and wants to explore it. We play, we pretend, we recreate, we try to grasp and mainly we have FUN. When I got into SL as Kean Kelly that was the first thing I found: my childhood fun. We could play with each other in sandboxes, pretend, explore and laugh, a lot. The only limit in there was my imagination. I could create anything i would imagine.

I never fully understood who decided that growing up should be so boring. Adults never go out and play in the rain. Suddenly the fun things was deemed a waste of time. And SL is becoming a bit like that... loads of people whining about copyright infringement, people selling pictures of SL. And the original 'creator' fighting with the 'photographer' over the loot.

One creator went so far as to claiming she'd rather limit access to her creations... than having a "... snapshotographer to come over, take a high rez snap, apply 2 filters in Photoshop, make a smudge here and there and/or there and sell prints in RL of what I have created...".

All this, the rules we make, (they are so hilarious no?) will shape our use of this playground. And the fun will stop. All because of simple greed.

That’s why I now will set all I make in world from now on to free.

And I will attribute the creators if I feel like it. And if that creator is especially needy, and greedy, and nasty, I'd prolly refrain from doing anything at all with that creators stuff.

And I will dance a merry dance for people like Four Yip, Runo Runo, AM radio, and Eloh Eliot who makes beautiful quality content and share it freely.

May fun and beauty rule over greed any day. Lets laugh eh? Anyway... money is really just a value we agree on in the first place. We have the means today to live like kings, if greed didnt come in the way.

Happy New Year.

I've Been Yipped...

2008-08-27T21:14:00.015+02:00

I was shy... and Yip said she was too... hehehe... its an odd situation really... even more odd to be shy about being 'looked at through four Yips eyes'. And it's really a great painting. Intense.

"How close is you avatar to your real self" Hamlet Au wanted to know. I told him the truth: That I look exactly as my avi in RL. Deformed feet and all :p

Is that me?... The vibe is sorta me... but i do look more soft and rounded in RL. And i definately look older on Yips painting, I kinda like that. I was allways mistaken for being way to young anyway, with equal loss of authority (problems with getting access to the clubs and stuff).

"Now you know how I see your avatar" Yip explained...

You can see her painting in world at http://slurl.com/secondlife/recursion/47/14/781

Avatar Communication

2008-07-07T00:01:00.009+02:00

"You cannot not communicate. Every behaviour is a kind of communication. Because behaviour does not have a counterpart (there is no anti-behaviour), it is not possible not to communicate." Paul Watzlawick

In a virtual environment, it seems, we lack some of the modalities of communication. We apparently communicate with verbal language only, vocal (as in voice chat) or non vocal (as in regular chat). We lack the body-language and the para-language when we talk in Second life. Or do we?

We also emote. A lot. I have been really amazed of how well we all get the message through this communicative-wise simple channel. So in lack of the non verbal modalities, emoting was created and enhanced to a pretty sophisticated level. Mitch Kapor keeps spilling some info about avatar puppetering and body mirroring all over the web, so the nonverbal side of communication might be enhanced very soon.

And in SL we even dress up - or not. Create ourselves in the form of an avatar. Or not. And this communicates stuff no matter what. In the movie 'Second Me' by Anna Thommen, Eifachfilm Vacirca shares some really fine points regarding this.

Also the latest debates about skinny and fat avies shows that how you choose to look tells alot about you. It's a statement. Even when it's not.

We could for the fun of it, try to box this in (the brain loves that no?). Avatars could be categorized in overlapping labels like:

WhoCares - this guy (it is mostly guys) gets into SL, picks a common made up avatar of some sort, makes some minor changes and sticks with it. Famous whocares: Phillip Linden
Toonie - furries, nekos, greenies, tinies, robots etc. Your avi looks nothing like anything found outside the fantasy worlds. Famous toonies: Vint Falken.
Crossover - here we have the people who pretend to be opposite in some aspects of your RL self in weight/height/haircolour/age/gender/race/beauty/economic status etc. Famous crosssovers: Marianne McCann.
RealLifer - tries to make an (often but not allways enhanced) lookalike-version of their RL selves. Famous Reallifer: Mitch Kapor, Hamlet Au.
Shapeshifter - changes shape often, plays around with it. Famous shapeshifters: Torley Linden, Andromega Volare.
Roleplayer - here the avatar is clearly dictated by whatever part you play.

I am sure there are phases in time too, like Rob put it in his blogpost 'the naming of names'.

So what does your avatar tells us?

Now-here :)

2008-06-12T23:21:00.005+02:00

Alessandra Kingsford: we are all schooled to look for the future
You: yes
Alessandra Kingsford: and we miss our lives going by
Alessandra Kingsford: as we look further and further ahead
Alessandra Kingsford: maybe that's the part of what makes SL so amazing
Alessandra Kingsford: it is only that moment
Alessandra Kingsford: there is nothing more

So true in weeks of disrupted asset servers and whutnot.

To melt into the sun...

2008-05-26T10:11:00.015+02:00

When someone dies who has been a major hub in a social network, it's like the essence of that persons work stands out clearer. Such a person passed away this Saturday.

I had the honour of meeting her for the first time a little less than a month ago. As a SLP student I wanted to know a bit about how Second Life could make things possible that was otherwise Not Possible In Real Life (NPIRL) for people who has suffered from aphasia after a stroke. The Sojourner, or Soj, was in my eyes one of the best experts in the area, since she as a multiple stroke survivor and Speech Language Practitioner knew aphasia from both sides.

Even though she was busy, she took her time to talk to me, a total stranger. We talked for a couple of hours, and what stands out now, is her wish... 'I would really like to see SLP’s come into SL and learn about it and its pros and cons'.

Second Life really has a potential for everyday magic... and Soj was, as another friend put it, 'pulling rabbits out of the hat every day'.

You can visit her memorial at Dreams, light candles and make donations for the project.

One Hungry Demon...

2008-04-24T12:13:00.005+02:00

... thrives very well in SL. This fellow is convincing you that what you need is somewhere out here, making you feel hollow and fragile, wanting to lock up what you have found, not wanting to share it making you picky, stingy and kinda closed off, making you fear that you can loose it. Even making your paranoia grow towards every new avi that enters your home and says hello.

In SL you have so many means to makes this demon grow, that it can literally drive you nuts. Alts, IMs, mapping, ways of retrieving info... the fact that the person your are hugging could be cybering another in IM at the same time, and the constant factor of the others being something else than what they appear to be, all this can feed the jealousy.

SL is a new social territory, and the ways we relate in RL doesnt allways fit well into it. Unless we learn the biggest lesson: that to love is to let go... coz what you feel is really inside you, not out there somewhere. Love is not a choice, but setting free is... *grins*... luckily!

Huh?

2008-04-22T18:07:00.012+02:00

In a recent blogpost at Reuters Phillip Rosedale stated:

“The only thing that SL users have in common is that they have a lot of time.” Users in big cities [...] were least likely to spend time in Second Life, not only because they were busy but because they had less need to escape to an alternative, anonymous world, he said. “Bad weather, oppressive regimes, poor economic conditions — that’s what makes an SL user.”

That comment really made me wonder where Phil gets his info from?

There are others out there who had made surveys regarding the demographics, social and economical, of what 'makes an SL user'. Two interesting surveys are that worth reading are the EPN report and The Second Life Survey.

A need to escape?
According to The second Life Survey, 15,5% '... often go to Second Life to forget about my real life problems'. That leaves nearly 85% who don't often use SL as an escape from real life. Which again fits with the results in the EPN report:

"The group that spends a lot of time in Second Life is not only economically but also socially privileged. There is a strong correlation between well-being and success in Second Life and well-being and success in real life."

Bad weather?
Yup... I can agree on that one. When its pissing down I'm more likely to log in.

Oppressive regimes?
The majority of the users comes from Europe, closely followed by USA. Now I wont go into a discussion here whether the US and EU are oppressive regimes *grins* but apparently Phillip thinks so :p

Poor economis conditions? Not living in big cities?
First: to get on SL at all you need a broadband connection. That is not something you find way out in the country... and it is often not cheap either. A high end PC is needed too. Which is again not cheap. So to get SL up and running you need to be in an pretty decent economic condition. And in, or close to a web-wired city. This is backed up by the EPN report:

"A considerable portion of those surveyed stated that they have a good income level outside of Second Life. They are able to combine their activities in Second Life with their family life and work. The interviews indicated that the activities in Second Life were spread over evening hours, breaks at work and often a portion of the week-ends."

"It is striking that those surveyed who spend considerable time in Second Life frequently belong to the creative or IT professions. These professions offer relatively high incomes and are populated by those who call themselves “producer”, or one who makes things. It appears that a creative vanguard (IT and creative professionals) has ensconced itself in Second Life."

And finally is having a lot of time (as if!) the only thing we SL'ers have in common?

His comment really speak volumes of how he and maybe even all of LL perceives us.

Workaround®

2008-04-11T17:01:00.008+02:00

My cousin calls SL 'the most busted game I've ever seen next after Big Rigs' and I dunno... Maybe he is right?

It is really weird that I'm still sinking into the ground when I walk, can't cross a sim border without getting stuck/crash, need a wig for hair, invisiprims to cover up my Flappers® (SL feet) when I wear shoes and a bought skin to look decent. The last three isssues are workarounds covering the fact that the SL avatar mesh, skin and hair is just badly done.

The last couple of weeks SL has becomming increasingly unplayable, and i lost track of all the workarounds needed to do just any simple task: TP'ing (log out and log in to the region you want to go to) or IM a friend (find him in search and IM him from there as the friendslist is all 'waiting™' and 'hippos'), an increasingly bad designed and non customizable UI that has a workaround: the Nicholaz edition. Superman aka Beresford stopped working though and left us figthing for ourselves.

Maybe it's time for the really big workaround: finding another world to have fun in, 'cause frankly the fun of SL is getting to meagre. But where to go?

No Promises

2008-03-31T21:48:00.006+02:00

I took a survey today, about spirituality in Second Life. One of the questions was 'Are your relationships in SL as important to you as your relationships in earthly life?' and yes, they are, some of them really are.

SL relationships can be very intimate, some grows to be like that even before the RL facts gets disclosed fully. You meet the essence of the person in SL before you meet the facts. Facts that maybe would have turned you away, or just made you ignore that person.

Sometimes a relation grows beyond the real life facts... to a point where 'shapes' doesn't matter anymore. And when the facts then gets disclosured, you still know that this was the same person all along.

As Rob Danton put it in his blog, SL is both a masquerade and a regular street. But a second life friendship is also very different from a real life one on many levels.

Were traveling on a journey without a map. relationships of virtual worlds can really be 'a passage to brilliant places filled with light and who can tell what wonders...'

One thing I found that works very well is the 'no promises' frame. It would be so easy to cheat, run away, make another alt. But all that is not needed if you really set the ones you love free. It takes balance, honesty and huge buckets of empathy to make it work. And it takes refraining from scheduled meetings. 'No promises' has the good point that you won't get disappointed because there’s no promise to be broken, and when you meet up its just icing on the cake.

Another benefit is the presence. When you don't know when you will meet again, all you really have is the present moment. And to be present together is really the greatest gift...

How often are we truly present together?

Waiting...

2008-03-09T09:56:00.009+01:00

Second Life is indeed a social thing. I would claim social relations the main drive in everything that makes the wheels spin in SL. We log in again and again because of the relations we have, whether it be co-builders or the newly wedded couple. We shape up our avatars, go on shopping sprees, to communicate who we are, and how we want to be seen. We stand in clubs, animate ourselves in dances, to meet new people. We display our art/products to be better known. We log in to this international playground to have fun, create and socialize, educate or study, do business, with +50k other people at the busiest peak of the day.

SL is really amazing in making opportunities to meet and get to know people from all over the world. It rules over sites like Facebook, where you practically only confirm what people you already know. In SL you actually meet new people, start new relations. And you can do that without going on a plane, you can club while your kids sleep and still be a proper parent, and you can of course meet up with your new found friends in RL when the possibility is there.

As the spine of everything, you'd think that all the social features would be a major priority of Linden Lab, if one of there goals was to raise the percentage of returning users.

So here is my wishlist : )

I'd love a working 'friends online' page. As it is now this page hasnt worked proper since january the 30th. Please vote for the issue to get fixed at the Jira issue ~~WEB-482~~ WEB-511
I'd love to have a working, proper uploading friend list in-world. Please vote for the issue to get fixed at the Jira issue VWR-4570
I'd love to be able to deliver notices in groups. Please vote for the issue to get fixed at the Jira issue VWR-1323
I'd love to be able to chat in groups as well. Please vote for the issue to get fixed at the Jira issue VWR-2950

As Greta Umarov puts it on the Second life Blog 'This thing (Second Life) will never be more than a curiosity to the business world until REAL PEOPLE can use it, and use it easily.'

RezzedNet Meme No. 1: Whut Differences???

2007-12-11T22:44:00.000+01:00

Kean Kelly has joined yet one more social network thingies on the web. As if I didnt have enuff platforms to rant on! To get things started there they gave us a meme assignment: List 10 things that are different between Real Life and Second Life. Actually I dont love memes, but SL is down and I need an excuse not to study, so here I go:

1. SL is sometimes taken down for maintenace. In RL down time is a personal matter only.
2. In SL tp's still function while I can't tp in RL as the rezz time would exceed the travel time.
3. We can still genderchange in SL. In RL they dropped that feature as they ended up with to few males =)
4. In RL I can try the clothes before I buy, in SL everything fits.
5. In RL I wear flats most of the time, in SL i wears heels most of the time.
6. In RL shoes can hurt. In SL only words can.
7. In RL looks matters. In SL, b'coz everybody can look amazing, personality is the only thing that really counts.
8. In RL I never smoke, in SL i do it ALL the time (nearly).
9. In RL im a brunette. In SL im often readheaded, but i change hair as often as i like.
10. In SL you can have as many alts you want going at the same time. In RL it's limited to one a lifetime.

SL Sucks?

2007-11-20T22:00:00.000+01:00

At the moment Second Life is having severe problems. Several of the bugs I encountered the last couple of days has a workaround though. So here we go:

Ruthed
To get out of a ruthed state go into appearance mode. This will often solve the problem. If this doesn't work a relog might do the trick. If this doesn't work either then make a great snapshot of it and post it here :)

Your avatar is all grey or displays 'Image Missing' or your clothes wont rez
Alt+shift+ctrl d gets you the debug mode menus. After you got that go alt+ctrl+r to rebake your avatars textures. If this doesn’t do it, try relogging into another sim. If this still doesn’t do the trick, well...

Black/grey/image missing eyes or skin is black/skin is blue and red in squares/your avatar is invisible
The above workaround may sometimes do the trick, but most often it isn't enough, and a relog is needed. Try to log in at another location, preferably on the mainland, as it will sometimes do the trick. Speciality bugs should be snapped and posted as above.

Friends online not working
Use the friends online list on the second life website (unless its not working either)

Linden dollars shows as ‘loading’
I have heard of this bug getting solved by receiving 1L from a friend, but it never worked for me.

System skirts rezzes for a second then poofs... hehehe
This happens in windligt, but I experienced it in the regular viewer as well. The work around provided by Dorrie Bellman goes like this: "try going into appearance in the regular viewer, move the skirt slider up and down a few times till it disappears from appearance. It should appear on you then."

Inventory is missing (regular)
Clear your cache proper: Open c:\Documents and Settings\(yourusername)\Application Data\Second Life and delete the contents of the Cache folder. (If you cannot see the files or folders: 1. Select Tools > Options in Windows Explorer. 2. Click the View tab. 3. Select Show Hidden Files and Folders. 4. Click OK.)

Inventory is missing (grave)
arteer oliva commented on SVC-553:

An "angel" sent me this solution today. It worked for me this first time I tried it. I have been getting the "Missing from Database" messages for four weeks. Tried all The Labs solutions to no avail. This one form the "angel" worked for me. Not guaranteed, but worth a try, right! Go for it! Wooohooo!

"If you realize that you have missing inventory, follow the steps below as soon as possible.

1. If you do not yet have it installed, install the latest Beta Client.

secondlife.com/community/preview.php

2. Login to the Beta Grid and find a quiet place where no one will annoy you while you are trying to solve a problem.

DO NOT REZ ANYTHING WHILE ON THE BETA GRID. GO INTO BUSY MODE IMMEDIATELY. DO NOT ACCEPT ITEMS, DO NOT DELETE ITEMS, DO NOT PASS OR RENAME ITEMS.

3. Open your inventory, type in a search term (I used Tree) and allow your inventory to populate.

4. Got your goods back? Awesome! Quit the Beta client, login to the Main Grid and do the same thing. Once you have retrieved your items on the Main Grid and your inventory has fully populated, clear cache, logout and see cache'ing as you ...

5. Log back into the Main Grid, recheck inventory, smile a lot, raise Hell as usual.

This technique has been proven to work more than half the time so it may save your hide. Please bear in mind that you should only expect positive results if you attempt this workaround as soon as possible upon discovery of your missing items. I am not guaranteeing that you will be able to recover your items but having at least a chance at doing so is much better than no chance at all. I hope this helps some of the residents that fall victim to this issue."

Bugs that don't have a workaround that I know of:
Objects wont attach/detach
Objects wont rezz
Objects wont rezz and disappears
Gesture missing from database
Friends shows as Hippos and waiting
Group IM’s not working
Group names shows as (???)
TP’s fails
TP’s doubles and you crash
TP’s makes you crash
Doubled, tripled or quadrupled IM’s (according to Ann Otoole this also effects money transfers, so don’t make any if you encounter this bug)
Vendors don’t deliver but your money is gone
Search isn’t working
Map isn’t working
Snapping pictures isn’t working
Textures on objects gets swapped to screenshots from your PC
Bugreporting isn't working
JIRA (the place to post bugs to get them solved also called the public issue tracker) isn’t working
Loggin in isn’t working
Communication between LL and SL's users isn't working
Second Life isn’t working

Second Life… Now Owned by Kean Kelly

2007-11-10T20:19:00.000+01:00

This is the message a friend of mine got when I returned some stuff from my land:

The object 'Second Life' has sent you a message from Second Life:

Your object ’xxxxx xxx' has been returned to your inventory lost and found folder by Kean Kelly from parcel 'xxxxxxxx' at xxxxx xxx 123.456, 789.000 due to parcel owner return.

= Second Life is owned by Kean Kelly
= Location unknown.

Now… I know I won the non-governor election… But someone at Linden Lab must have confused the 'non' with 'on' or something. If I now own Second Life, im pretty damn rich! According to the latest rumours of a sale of 10% stakes for at least US$500 million!!!. Problem is, I haven't seen a single cent yet */me impatiently taps foot*.

Be Afraid... Be VERY Afraid...

2007-10-28T15:00:00.000+01:00

Ok... I admit it: Kean Kelly loves (and hates) Second Life. I encounter lots of people all the time who don't get it, or who is very hostile against it. Like in this discussion on Flickr. Quickly the discussion provoked all the usual statements. The hostility makes me curious, why all the judgemental emotional expressions?:

Seeing the SL people on here with their fake profiles and in game pictures seems ridiculous. I mean keep that shit in the game, now it's spilling out into the web like it is their real life. Anyone feel me on this?

The person starting the thread with the above quote, had portrayed himself as a toy-horse, and had a flickr stream full of dolls :)))) I think it is super interesting: what is going on here?

Second Life is a virtual world where you can exist when real life gets to scary, boring, complicated, what have you. You create an avatar and a profile and then do stuff that you'd do in every day life, only you're doing inside a little world in your computer...

We all do things to escape boredom: watch telly, read books, paint, travel, see friends, party and what not. Some even plays SL on top of that. Personally I'd prefer playing SL to watching telly, hanging at a hotel bar or chatting on MSN anytime.

Most people with a scary or complicated life, don’t have neither the time or the resources to enter SL. A study by a Dutch think tank, EPN concludes: "those who do well in real life, appear to manage equally well in Second Life. Those who have trouble coping in real life, also have a harder time in Second Life. Kraut’s theory ‘the rich get richer’ is very much applicable to Second Life."

Second life, as if your current life's not exciting enough!

That’s right! the excitement meter suddenly raises to 200% when you start playing SL. The amount of social interactions increase as does the amount of feelings. Suddenly you know a lot of people, and there is a lot going on in everybody’s life, and you hear about it, help out with stuff, discuss it, get involved. Its like participating in a soap, except its a real soap, with real people. Can be quite exhausting at times!

... SL's apparently great if you have a coot obsession. I don't.

SL’ers are coot? Compared to any general popuplation the education level is far far higher in SL and there are far more people from creative and IT-organisations. There was a man once who thought that people like that should be removed from the world. I think he was the real coot.

What about sex in Second Life? Now that is just really weird.

Humans are sexual beings, so in a world where you can create anything you can imagine, sex is there too. Cybersex is not new, nor is it exclusively found in SL. Cybersex existed long before SL did.

So what is going on here? Neophobia?

whaddayaknow?

2007-10-21T11:22:00.001+02:00

I know I love raspberry juice. I don’t doubt my love for raspberry juice, I want it as much as I can get it. Luckily it's a healthy love. And nobody questions my love for it... Nobody asks 'but how well do you know it'? I don’t know a thing about it! Have no clue if raspberry juice has thoughts, feelings, where on the political spectre it would place it self. It's unconditional love from me to it :p

Now, falling in love with a communicative, movable being *grins* is different. You can get feedback, share ideas, stuff like that.

Falling in love in a virtual world, is different too. You don’t know who the person is, everything he/she writes to you, could be lies. Some stuff can proven: voice is great for gender-testing, and a lot of other stuff as well. An accent isn't easily faked. But there is still loads we can hide or change in a virtual world: age, social status, history, weight, friends and family, vice and virtues. But the fact that we (more or less) consciously create our avatar gives a lot away, that we don’t have information about in RL.

Some can argue that in a virtual world you only fall in love in a fantasy. Is that different from RL? How much more do we know just because the physical representation is a chance thing, not designed by you. Eh? A fat person can be stigmatised as well as a beautiful. Your looks matter in RL, so much that your surroundings change behaviour towards you because of it. Does that makes it easier to really know the person behind all that, or not?

I'll take your picture again

2007-09-20T20:32:00.001+02:00

they came to the river
from the dusty roads
They gathered at the waterhole
left their pain there

drank like black holes drink
desired to quench their thirst,
but it wasn't thirst, but endless infatuation
Sharp and clear as diamonds in the sun

At dawn
shadows grow long
as the need to believe

so when the water went
all that was left was the dust
and the animals
Ran wild, furious

none of us any different
all thirsty, even her
thirsted for the pain to bind you
all can make you happy
no one makes you scared

myth grew, the haze
became more real
than the person behind

to live healthy in a real world
the ghost went missing
in the hope of building a real house
paint real walls
paint the sky
found nowhere

a dream that walked away
something allways takes the place
of missing pieces

she never left...
she was here all the time...
how can you hate a dreamer?

ill take your picture again

Art Opening @ Cannery rezzable

2007-08-28T11:25:00.002+02:00

Rezzable made another great sim, Cannery Rezzable, which is an amazing build and a SL gallery, with club and shop. The opening will be celebrated at 15/3pm SL time th 29th of August at and guess who's DJ'ing? Nananananana nah Nephie Eerie is... big yay!... which means I will be there for sure :)

Read more at Rezzable SLart. Vint Falken and Shoshana Epsilon did a grrrrrrreat job getting this up and running... w00t!

The exhibitors are: Andromega Volare, Arminius Heron, Arteer Oliva, Bella March, Claudia Mantis, Collin Savon, Corbett Howard, Hiro Edelman, Iris Ophelia, Kaylin Idora, Kean Kelly, Kimberly Mirabeau, Loki Popinjay, Looker Lumet, Melodious Source, Mia Olivier, Nephie Eerie, Melissa Yeuxdoux, October Hush, Raul Crimson, Rob Danton, Ryker Beck, Shoshana Epsilon, Stephen Venkman, Timothy Lilliehook, Tyffany Flintoff, Vint Falken, and Yann Mip.

The Triangular theory of Love... and a bit about marriage

2007-08-27T12:00:00.002+02:00

The Triangular theory of Love by psychologist Robert Sternberg is based on 3 principles: passion, intimacy and commitment... what a bunch of crap really... coz, what's invisible in this theory is love itself.

Just think of the love you feel for your child. All I know who has become parents says that the love of there children is greater than any love they ever felt. Now... that’s a love without passion, yet it feels stronger. And the commitment is there naturally, you don’t promise your kids to be there for them 'till death do you part', but still that's how it works.

Commitment... that's where the marriage stuff comes in, but why do we need to promise stuff we cant possibly know whether or not we can keep? Love is not a choice. Love happens. And when it's there the commitment is enclosed as a natural thing, coz you really want the ones you love to be happy, and you love being with them, and yet you know that you are actually never separated, so you can easily set them free. Love is a great time machine, coz its able to transcend all sorts of barriers, space, time, age, gender. Its able to make you remember that you are one no matter what. To touch that is just the greatest everyday magic I know.

Love is like a room, either you've entered it, and know how the room is, or you haven't got a clue. So I guess you'll never really know whether or not you did experience the real thing.

So is marriage just for people who never really loved? But thought they did? They needed to make a promise, because the love, that would make that promise unnecessary wasn't there?

Why I Hate and Love Second Life

2007-07-29T15:17:00.000+02:00

‘log in failed’. Sweet and short. That was the message for me Sunday when I tried swoooosh into my second life for the third time. On the linden blog it read: ‘[RESOLVED] yadda yadda yadda ya ya yadda…’ Hmm it seemed matters weren’t exactly resolved. But then again, [RESOLVED] in Linden language never meant fixed (hence the brackets?). A bit grumpy (the party yesterday was pretty cool, and now all I wanted was to sit through my hangovers entertained in SL) I typed ‘a better second life’ into google search and found this.

Reading the article didn’t give me much info about the Entropia Universe, but reading the comments kinda helped. It helped me to understand why I hate and love SL.

For me one big thing is important, and that is the unlimited creative self-expression I can do in there. I haven’t found that in any other virtual world so far. And I can do it together with other people. The social aspect is also mucho importante. Those two things really is the stuff that makes me come back again and again.

So when the article states: ‘Users/players must setup an avatar with a bewildering array of options. Entropia Universe claims that they have the best avatars in the business and it’s a fair claim. Much nicer looking than Second Life with more customisation options than you’ll probably ever want to use’ I can only snicker. I mean, every avatar in EU (EU… hehehehe) looked a bit like an add for rat poison. Admitted the avatar mesh in SL can be improved for sure, but where else can you customize your avatar with such diversity as in SL?

SL is used by talents like Madcow Cosmos and Light Waves, fashion are made art by Paper Couture, photographers are born, stories unfold in blogs like M is for Myg, machinima is created, sims are made art etc. etc. And you don’t have to invest thousands of US dollars to get by, cause you can create it all yourself for free.

I totally love the freedom and the so called aimlessness. Coz, it makes me my own goal-setter.

So, when a virtual world emerges that has this creative freedom, works on all platforms, is reasonable low-priced AND has less lag, better graphics, lesser bugs, better support and information, then Kean Kelly will immigrate. But I still haven’t found it.

The Ultimate Dream Relationship vol. 2

2007-07-04T12:49:00.003+02:00

Love vanquishes time. To lovers, a moment can be eternity, eternity can be the tick of a clock. Across the barriers of time and the ultimate destiny, love persists, for the home of the beloved, absent or present, is always in the mind and heart. Absence does not diminish love. ~ Mary Parrish

Half a year ago I would have said 'bullshit' to the above quote : ) But this is true for me now. Virtual relationship is something completely new, and it raises so many questions:

'Can you talk about a relationship if it's only virtual?'
Yes off course we can. A relationship is any meeting between two minds. Some just lasts longer than others. Reality is a shared experience. It still only goes on inside our minds. Reality is nothing but impulses, filtered through our senses, and interpreted by our brain. The more we can agree with at least one other person, on what is going on around us, the more real it is. Love is really something that are going on inside me anyway.

'Can you talk about commitment if you can't be sure one will spend its time with the other?'
Friendships don't seem to suffer the same craving to regulate and box in. Why is this any different?

'But I concluded that SL in no way can replace RL love / relationship'
I am sure you are right about that. I would definitely miss the physical side of things: touch, sex, etc. Still… I am amazed of the intensity of what ever it is that is going on in SL.

We are the ones walking these new paths, without a map at all. Happy exploring!

I won!

2007-07-02T15:21:00.000+02:00

I hereby declare Kean Kelly the official non-governor of SL. Thank you all for your non-votes. None other has ever been so massively non-voted! It makes me really really happy that people stood up to this and took their and SL's fate in there own hands. You are all very powerfull. Never doubt it. I will again thank Francz Kuhn, Rob Danton, Brianicus Quintus, Dylan Dumart, Looker Lumet Trinity Clift, Belorda Stuer and many others, who did the job of promoting the idea of non-dictatorship, by wearing my 'free tee for free people'. IM me if you want a copy. Non-winning SL election 2007 is a major dream that has now come true. Mwuah! <3 you all.

Now... Do as you please.

Spoken Words

2007-06-22T16:46:00.000+02:00

Ok… I give in and turn around… ~~vice~~ voice is great! Some improvement has been made to: Now you can see who’s talking, and the Voice IM is cool to. It seems the balance has tipped to the good side for me. So here’s Kean Kellys Hot’n’Not list for voice:

Hot:

It takes less time to communicate
You get a lot of info about the other person qua his/hers voice
Voice IM works most of the time and is independent of distance in SL
People with disability to type DON’T have that prob anymore : )))
New feature that indicates who in your surrounding is voice enabled, and shows who’s doing the talking

Not:

Lack of ‘scrolling back‘… hehehe… that is a great feature in chat
People talking on top of each other, there's a lot of, ‘what did u say?’
Boooooooring talk subjects: because it is way easier to talk than to type, people talk just to say something! It is a bit like visiting your grandmother… and you don’t have time to think as much about what your actually saying
Lack of logs

So for me it will be okay at times. Chat has its good points to. So I am sure I’ll be using both. Oh... and do help Loki Clifton out with the testing of this, join the group MG voice testers and help out anyway you can so we rid voice of as many bugs as possible. Bring it on!

The things that makes you go errmmmm???

2007-06-14T01:21:00.000+02:00

Being part of a virtual world is weird sometimes. But… it isn’t that surprising. It is after all virtual. Weird stuff happens. Now, this week has been weird times a lot! I am beginning to seriously having a hard time finding out what is fact, and what is fiction. Not so much in SL as in RL! So make your bets… is this fact or is it fiction?:

Linden Lab ask their residents to report on anything “broadly offensive“, yet allows one weird animal fetish, namely strip-tease show with avatars half woman half rabbit.

The German government asks Flickr to censor accounts from Germany, so that they cant get access to pictures flagged “moderate” or “unsafe”.

Facts or fiction? I haven’t got a clue!

U P D A T E :

The censorship of german users on Flickr seems to be a fact... amazing!

Politics are sooooooo last year... ; )

2007-06-09T15:15:00.002+02:00

My take on SL elections 2007: It’s weird how difficult it is to think out of the box. Second Life gives us an opportunity to create anything. Our fantasy is our only limit. We could create a completely new way of living. But mostly we create malls, kitchen units and the illusion of democracy, just like in RL. We walk on the ground, build stairs even though we can both teleport and fly. Let your non-vote be a vote for thinking out of the box. Just this time.

DISCLAIMER: SL elections 2007 is nothing but political satire. The elections are NOT real. Nor are they Virtual : )

The Ultimate Dream-relationship

2007-06-07T16:47:00.000+02:00

Nowhere can you have intimate relations as in Second Life. it’s a special world, where you can enact your dreams and fantasies. Love happens in SL and people get married in there, some even get kids and a family. Yet one guy I spoke with said, passion exist yes, but not commitment. Without commitment, it wasn’t really love, he said. I’ve thought about this a lot.

Marriage in SL has me puzzled to: You promise to commit yourself (your time, your fidelity) to another, in a world of hazy mirages and fleeting dreams. Does this really works for some? And is that form of commitment love? To me love is no choice. If it happens I wish for my loved ones that they’d be happy and free. That’s my commitment, a natural consequence of my love to them.

It’s all in the eye of the beholder. That little projection, mirrored on the shiny surface of the eye. No details may be the clue to a happy relationship, but I don’t know if it is the opposite of commitment. For me love equals commitment in a natural form. Bonding is about wasting time together. Does it have to include facts? I don’t know.

The feelings seems to fade a lot faster to. There’s no real physical memories. Falling in love has felt like finding home. No one has ever sparked that feeling in me. And I will just let it be like this. I will. No future. No past. This makes me laugh a lot because all this scares me, and fear has always made me laugh. But sometimes the feelings fades away, coz’ this is only as real as a dream. Maybe it is just that. My dream. That makes me laugh even harder.

Sometimes I wish it all could just melt together.

Not-A-Meme # 17 ????? WTF!

2007-05-25T19:15:00.001+02:00

“… I want to hear from someone new to the SLBloggers group: Timothy, from Bella if she’s back from that well deserved holiday, from Kean Kelly as we have some groups in common and…” DAMMIT, my name mentioned… arrrrrgh… now I kind of have to react. Well… what is it she says, sweet’n’crazy Vint Falken: State Thy Groups? Hmmm… okay.. Its actually a good way to promote some very interesting people of SL, so… *bows down and picks up the glove* here we go:

Alt Busters Inc.
A group founded in the pure amusement over a ton of alts pouring into our circles at one time. Of course it’s an undercover group, with secret members. Mums the word.

Art place d-oo-b
A group made by Eifachfilm and his wife Delphina Vacirca, two great people who makes a lot of interesting art projects in SL

Deviant Models
An offspring of Deviant Media, founded by my kindred spirit Rob Danton and Helena Kirkorian, with the purpose to go where no man has ever gone before. Machinima is the keyword here.

Fashion Consolidated & Fashion Emergency
Both groups are a shopaholics essential. The first to get update notices and the second to get emergency help.

HK Estates
My best friend alias the boss-lady Helena Kirkorians landholder group. As I’m a renter I’m in here to.

HUDDLES Customer service
Title says it all. A practical hud for all your animations, poses and whutnot.

Kelly House Development
I develop houses and stuff. On Jon Renneville’s land. Hence this Group.

Loki’s Messanger Groupe
For Loki Clifton’s friends. Great scripter and bodyguard, grins.

Nowhere Builds
A builder group founded by Helena Kirkorian, to build for HK Estate.

Paradise Lost…
As Vint stated: Work ; ) Malachite Seattle is the top architect behind the club, and the one who originally got me started on building.

Pfeni’s Angels
Pfeni Hera, my pfunny annoying SL little sister, made this group for the people she loves. Sweet really :p

Prisoner of Love Blues Band
A branch of the Sister Act, playing blues in the late US/early EU hours.

Rezzable Creators
RightAsRain is a good friend of mine with a big SL vision.

Royal Flush
For the love of Poker. When I was invited to this group I didn’t have a clue to poker at all. I still don’t.I’m just superlucky.

Sanitorium Wackos
A group for the criminally Insane. I could leave that actually. Hey... I could!

Sister Act!
Originally founded by the legendary Christina Basiat, it's just a group for sweet, little girls who likes to giggle a bit now and then. I don’t know really why people makes such a fuss about it? Group rules can be found here.

Stella Errans
The world of my ‘soeur-du-sang’ (pardon my french) Nephie Eerie. Total talented in many areas. I big bang love her.

Swirly Lovers
Now…I’m a Swirly fan, so I had to join “A fan club, for those who love and adore the fabulous Swirly Cyclone!“ She has a fab fashion blog as well.

The Talk
“Conversation room for the senior staff. The home of the righteous!” Paradise Lost’s afternoon tea room.

Trigger Happy
The cream of the crop of the old Sister Act! For the love of guns... To Protect & Serve.… it’s the Original ‘Girls with Guns’ group. Really.

Pheew... think I got the most covered here.

Time is the Space Between Us

2007-05-25T14:03:00.001+02:00

… and time is also life. It’s the frame we have to fill with pictures, experiences, memories of our choosing. Time is really the last frontier. The only thing we know for sure is, that we get less of it each second.

All we really have is now. And now is such a fleeting moment, that only few are aware of. A man I know had a breakdown over stress. He wasn’t able to be conscious, about more than a minute at a time. Couldn’t remember the past, couldn’t plan the future. Sitting in his couch it dawned on him, that if he let go of the past and the future, the expectations from others, and from himself; if he dared doing that, letting go of what he might become, he experienced total bliss. And the tiny moment he held in his mind, the now, expanded. He was thoroughly shocked by this. Happiness was all of a sudden so simple.

And I remember the holiday we partied in stead of writing an assignment for college. Running wild in a full moon night on the beach, seeing the sun rise as the moon set, while the lights of a lighthouse rotated over us. That was magic. The score we got wasn’t good, good-enough though, but the magic moments we had when we didn’t write, I wouldn’t have missed.

I guess when it’s not time, it’s really a waste of life to do it…

Dust and death and global warming…

2007-05-24T09:58:00.002+02:00

... is non existent in SL, but we still have destruction. Scripts can break, inventories and even our avatar shape (shudders) can get lost, and we yell at the linden gods when it happens. But who have ever guarantied us the 100% carefree, non-breakable environment?

“I have a business in here, FIX Second Life!” I hear some say. But I have never heard of a business anywhere that was risk free (except for being a undertaker, if you want a risk free bizz, be an undertaker).

Come on… running a bizz in SL is a piece of cake: You got NO production cost but the time you put into it. Once made, a copy can be sold in UNLIMITED numbers. You don’t need staff to sell your stuff, it sells itself, right out of the box. Of course you need to do some good advertisement to get your shop noticed. If you sell education, you save a lot on not having to pay much more than a tiny tier, or rent, to have a class. And you can reach people all over the world (now that the group IM is fixed that is… if it's fixed).

SL is not risk free. Show me a world that is, and I’d prolly stay away from it. That sounds like such a bore. I mean who'n'what could Kean Kelly yell at when she felt the need to let off some steam?

Sweet Julitcha bleeding to death at "Fright Night at Paradise Lost"

2007-05-20T11:01:00.001+02:00

Bleeding to death * Fright Night Paradise Lost*
Originally uploaded by julitcha_messmer.

[1:54] Gennady100 Loon: hi
[1:54] Gennady100 Loon: you left blood on the floor of paradise lost? can i have a copy?! lol

Baby, you can drive my car…

2007-05-19T16:45:00.002+02:00

Helena Kirkorian is star. She’s a hub in the network connecting tons of people, with a talent for a flow of SL’s primary resource: Communitability : ) She created Paradise Lost Club, with a traffic as high as 25 k, without any use of campers. Quite a task.

Being a mom to a lot of people, and a manic tornado at times, party is always a part of hanging around her. And she wants to see people grow, and inspires them, giving a lot the opportunity to make their dreams come true. As a big dreamer, always speaking up for living the dream in SL, she’ll be the last to ever tell her RL identity.

Lately she has figured as "Avatar of the Week" in the Avastar, and had a long interview in Seconds of Life Magazine (buy it in world), and she now figures in a RL film project by Fenris Film & Multimedia, that, if it gets the funding will be the first RL film made about SL. So she’s indeed part of SL history.

So… yea she can drive my car.

Grins.

Sotto Voce

2007-04-05T20:49:00.000+02:00

Entering Voice Beta one evening to check it out was a mixed experience. The illusion of a lot of intelligent, awake, mature, young people was gone! People sounded horse, tired, old, lazy, immature, some was talking while eating and drinking, chips, the chips bag very close to the mike…. grins…. it was all in all very... I mean, usually in SL as it is now, it takes some time to form an opinion about someone. You have to get to know that char first. With voice my decision about another happened f a s t !

One woman tried to get a serious conversation going, asking how about intimacy (you hear like you see… with your camera… so listening in on others is easier than ever), and what about clubs, music and talking at the same time. The answers was like: Intimacy… that's why they invented skype, and clubbing…nah that was clearly for noobs and losers… grins… So what is left? Where does this take voice chat? Nowhere? I guess it will be ok for meetings. But even at meetings I like the log filing of the talk.

It was bad having 3 Spanish guys talking Spanish, not being able to translate, or let others hear what they were saying. I felt very vulnerable and isolated in that situation. With written chat you could use a translator. Or copy paste it into Babelfish, to get an idea of what they where talking about. So weird this, because they could just IM each other in SL and the situation would be the same.

Its hard to tell who's saying what. So orientation is worse with voice. And finding out who screamed, or farted was not possible. Griefers will have a hell of a time.

Another funny thing was, I missed the copy paste function a lot. "Everybody is at daboom" one said, and another said, "could you spell it?".

And how do you pronounce ": )" ?

Poetry is gone. Intimacy is kinda lessened not enhanced. Very weird. And Kean Kelly felt definitely much more vulnerable. Its like, spoken words are tougher than written ones.

Some of the really good things I guess are: alts will be easily spotted and gender bending isn't really possible. Or maybe that's a bad thing? One of my friends thought so. And for sure: chips mongering dorky voices, giggling at silly jokes wasn't magic.

But hey, SL is a river as always, only sure thing is change. But please let the voices be subtle at first. Let me whisper sweet things in your ear… : )

A little detail... Time

2007-03-12T16:46:00.002+01:00

No matter how many alts we may have logged on ... we can only be one place at a time. So we might have second lives, but time is really the limit eh? We might have tons of friends, but only so much time to share. Mono ... time is really mono. All we have is now.

I have a friend in RL. She's getting famous really fast. Suddenly she have more friends than she can handle. And they get angry if she can't be with them, share time with them, and feels she's gone arrogant. Some are really needy, manipulating ... others resign. Few can entertain themself. Those are the ones whom she wants to share the little time she's got!

So the needy becomes the pain ... effect of Matthew in action. It's not deliberate, just a fact of any life, Second Life included.

Love sets free.

2007-02-10T14:31:00.000+01:00

Love sets free. I really do believe that loves deepest power is setting free. Love is eternally expanding. Cannot be any other way. When love hits you and starts growing in your heart, pushing you to your limits, it may feel as if your heart will burst. May even feel as if your torn apart, split open, like a flower blossoming. It might hurt, a little, even a lot, as love tryes to make your heart more spacious.

But sometimes, love turns around, and becomes infatuation. A twisted posessive addiction. When you wont let go, clingy, needy. Deciding that it is the other person who are the key to your happiness. Not love itself. Suddenly we are possesed wanting to lock up the cage, box in. Exercising the direct opposite. And in the process, love cannot flow at all. Fear steps in, closing all doors, narrowing the heart down to a withering dusty stone. Not being able to feel the flow of love, some want to torture whatever reminds them of their pain.

That is the scary side ... and prolly why I, untill now, ran away all my life.

Love is...

2007-01-18T14:28:00.000+01:00

- something that hits you hard, out of the blue. Like a flu. Feeling terrible, hot flashes, shivering, stomach going crazy with butterflies. Sleepless fever dreamy nights. It hurts. Can't think straight. Can't concentrate. Uncontrollable. Makes you go f***** nuts! … and it's such a great joy to. A real-life experience for sure.

What happens then in a virtual world? Emotions are the most real 'thing' in SL. In a world of dreams, love happens. For real? I've heard the love stories. Even met a couple once who decided to move together in RL. Love happens in all worlds : ).

Such a crazy experience. But what is it?

It's just... a matter of wrapping.

2006-12-12T14:15:00.000+01:00

In Second Life (SL) I've met people ranging from aquaintancies to soulmates. I feel I've reach some of them on a deep level. The intimacy is apparently deeper in this dreamy world of anonymity. We speak about matters I'd only rarely talk about to my closest friends in real life (RL). Love grows between us. I've made friends with some I'd prolly never had talked to in RL.

In SL we meet each other without the disturbing reality called appearance/status/gender/age. Many I dont know much RL stuff about: Their age (I've met loads of very vise, very talented and very yong people... grins... and not one woman over 40!), where they live, what they do exactly for a living, how they look, maybe even what gender they really are... and so on. According to a christmass gift I got, "Second Life - The Official Guide", 14% are men who chose to be women. Only 3% are women in a mans avatar. In SL women have friends of both sexes, while the men have a hard time finding male friends.

So what is going on? Is it just a matter of being liberated from the normal wrapping?