Woolly Wildcat Writings

All is well

2011-08-22T21:28:00.000+08:00

All will be well...

Come As A Duck...

2011-01-24T10:47:00.002+08:00

This song was originally written on Twitlonger, as I lamented the absence of unusual dress codes for Second Life events. I mean, why can't we have events where we dressed up as, say, a duck?

A Song for Duck Dress Code
(as sung to Nirvana's Come As You Are)

Come, As a duck, with a quack
Where we hold this soiree
As A Grey, As a Puna, As a Salvadori
At this sim, at this time, at this date, please RSVP
Have some fun, as a friend, make some good memories

*storm of duck calls*

Come, dressed in prims, full of scripts, like an AO and things
Join the trend, bring a friend, make some good memories (quack)

Chorus:

And I swear I don't have a gun
No I don't have a gun (x2)

=more guitar, accompanied by lots of panicked quacking and shotgun firing sounds=

Chorus:
And I swear I don't have a gun
No I don't have a gun (x3)

=more guitar, accompanied by lots of panicked quacking and shotgun firing sounds=

(turns it around, looks it over. Maybe there's another reason why this doesn't work -@patchouliW)

And now for something completely crazy!

2011-01-01T01:07:00.001+08:00

Clearly, I've gone mad, starting 2011 celebrations with this song in my room:

Day 1 of 365: Welcome, Goodbye

2010-12-31T23:52:00.006+08:00

The seconds tick into minutes, the minutes tick into hours, and the hours tick into days. How fast they come and how much faster they leave.

As I type this, 2010 leaves and 2011 arrives (finally). A year ago, I didn't have a Dollfie daughter, I didn't have a professional camera and I'd only gotten MRSA for once...

How things change.

A year ago, I didn't live and work in Bay City because property was overpriced and community development was undervalued.

A year ago, I was still a newb. Then I got old suddenly and channelled Baz Luhrmman through a refractory made of lots of prims...

A year ago, Leslie Nielsen was still alive. Now, not so much anymore. As I recall, he had a cocktail party at his funeral. God, if only I can have his chutzpah when it's my turn to go...

A year ago, the world seemed to be collapsing, especially for people with foreclosures in America, not all of them valid. Now, judges in at least one jusridiction are standing up for those with no wherewithal to voice their protest against invalid foreclosure and seizures...

A year ago, the waters of the Gulf were a byword for awesome. Now, a byword for British incompetence. Many many folks would like their lives back, thank you very much!

A year ago, Iran was ruled by a tyrant in a comfy chair. Now, that chair is sprouting barbs, and fires are now raging even more than they ever were at the height of a false election. Any moment now, Ahmadi?

A year ago, an Android was a futuristic construct with limbs. now, it's a mobile device without limbs... that somehow seems to go places.

A year ago, I'd never read the Qu'ran, and I ate pork with relish. Now, I despise it, and I read the Qu'ran... only to the extent that I respect its words even when they raise in me disagreement. I still drink, and I still eat pork, and I still lust after things of beauty and wonder, however much a sin it may be in any religion.

I had L$8365 at the beginning of the year, and five projects. Now, I still have the same amount, but all projects have vanished. But new ones are on the horizon, so I seem to be severely lacking in worry about this.

A year ago, mesh in SL was a distant futuristic thing. Now, it's just next door and about to knock on Agni. Any moment now (don't hold your breath)

I have changed.

I have remained the same.

This is Patchouli Woollahra, and for better and for worst, in this world, that world and the next world and hereafter, this is me... And this is my song.

(Im)Balance - PROLOGUE

2010-12-08T23:32:00.004+08:00

And how long has it been since I last wrote a good story? Too long.

The following post is part of something that may go nowhere, like another story from a Crap Mariner weekly short story comp. Or it could go somewhere.

*deep breath*

Here goes...

The Great Lord of The Worlds leapt from the cliff, his previously shining golden yellow armor tainted a dark ochre with the blood of a horde that had proven he was far from immortal, his hand clutching the dagger the witch had supplied him with.

Wielding it had come at great cost - the metal, which glowed eerily in the darkness and even through the coat of ichor from many victims, sapped his strength as long as it was within his reach. Many a night, he had examined it closely by the firelight, his fingers and eyes tracing their way along its myriad curves, an artifact alien to the forces of Goodness that he served, and yet he was leery to cast it aside, for had the Prophecies not foretold that only such a blade could wound the Beast of The Eurides?

The Beast of The Eurides hadn't noticed his falling approach... He smiled as he fell downwards, letting out a cry of victory. The Beast blinked and stopped munching on a fallen comrade in her toothy jaws, then glanced back with its feral yellowed eyes.

The dagger found its mark, wedging itself between The Beast's shoulder blades. She roared half in pain, and half in surprise as the lush blue fur that had turned even the sharpest blade aside like feathers time and again suddenly failed to provide protection when she needed it most. This ambush was far different from all the previous ones... it hurt. It hurt very badly. The Beast of the Eurides shook herself angrily on all four paws, trying to dislodge the irritant that had taken root on her back.

And The Great Lord Of The Worlds fell away. The dagger had taken its toll on him all these weeks, and the weakness was showing. He coughed into his hand, examined the dark redness in his palm. Blood. He had seen plenty of it ever since this war started, but he hadn't seen his own in a long time.

He stood up and frowned, eyeing the Beast as she writhed on the ground, the dagger poisoning her very lifeblood even faster than it had poisoned his, short of breath. "Ha. Made you look, you wretched feline-"

And so a god died. Well, most of a god...

-----

So much pain.

Need to get away from it.

It keeps getting further and further in.

Need to get away from -

-----

Must Read for Metaversal Fashion Designers

2010-12-03T15:53:00.008+08:00

If you're into the habit of adapting in any form from RL designs for metaversal avatars, you may want to speak to your congressman about the "Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act" NOW.

This act (PDF of original US Senate Filing here) was recently passed in the US Senate on the Wednesday week as this blogpost.

Essentially, it prosecutes any attempts to replicate a design for anything wearable. Articles protected under this law must:

be "the result of an individual's own creative endeavour" and
provide a unique, distinguishable, non-trival, non-utilitarian variation over prior designs for similar articles of clothing.

This could possibly leak into the translation of such designs into virtual formats such as those used by Second Life, Frenzoo, Blue Mars, IMVU, Poser artists et al. The danger exists that this proposed new law may be enforceable across the RL/Metaverse barriers.

I would like to urge discussion on this topic (which for a change, is not frivolous, at least not compared to my usual stuff) - this is important, because last I checked, we do NOT go naked in most virtual worlds (clotheshorsing / clothes tailoring is, in fact, a major activity in Frenzoo!). While there is no place for blind copying of fashion (especially in light of the limited amount of dynamic cloth that many RL clothes rely on), I feel that this Act may have possible chilling effects. After all, how similar is 'similar'?

Comment civilly, retweet if this meets your interests, fret. And if applicable, write in to your Congressman.

These are interesting times...

2010-08-26T14:24:00.005+08:00

These are interesting times...

Linden Lab fired over 60% of its staff, primarily folks working outside of America, but also long-time Lindens of good repute in many cases. They're also canning the Teen Grid and moving the kids (those of 16 years of age at least) to the main grid with everything they own, as well as retiring their firewalled version of Second Life for corporates.

These are interesting times...

Modular Systems abuses the trust placed by over 1/3rd of SL's active unique population in its Emerald Viewer and launches a distributed DOS on a griefer's blog using its users' resources via a login page. Naturally, just because the target is a gray or black hat doesn't make it right, and Fractured Crystal has been fired from the team in favor of Baghdad Arabella. LL finally works out that Emerald has problems keeping to the straight and narrow, and yanks its name (albeit at the team's own request) from the Third Party Viewers list (but not banning it yet)

These are interesting times...

One of New Citizens Incorporated's oldest helpers, Nardok Corrimal, buys the farm abruptly. She wishes for a quiet departure from this world, so the only things that happen are a vanishing profile, a quietly placed tombstone surrounded by memorials, and a barrelful of good memories.

These are interesting times...

In real life, I was taken ill in mid july, on the cusp of a great second semester at my art school. The illness is nearly fatal, but fortunately, I recover thanks to the medical dab hands at National University Health System's facilities. It takes a month though, and I'm still hooked to a bottle of antibiotics that has to be changed daily along with my dressings.

These are interesting times...

Indeed.

I Just Want To Set Your Car On Fire

2010-07-12T22:33:00.003+08:00

I don't want to set the world on fire / I just want to start / a flame on your caaarrrrr...

In my heart I have but one desire / and that one is Boom / no other will do

I've lost all ambition for FIC-like acclaim / I just want be the one to light your car

And if by admission / you hated the same / I'll have reached the arson jackpot that I be-lieve in...

- "I Just Want To Set Your Car On Fire" / The Patchi Spots
- Original pic from Torley's Flickr (click on pic to view original Flickr ref)

Film Viral Videos

2010-05-30T19:46:00.009+08:00

Newbs and Newbettes of the intake of 2010...

Shoot Viral Videos.

If I could offer you one phrase of advice, viral video would be it. The awesome of viral videos have been proven by many Youtube viewers, unlike the rest of my advice, which is based on my experience and surreality.

I will proceed to dispense this advice NOW.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your fully operational Death Star. Oh, nevermind. You will not appreciate the power and beauty of your fully operational Death Star until some backwater Jedi farmboy blows it up. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back on your videos and recall in a way you can't imagine now when George Lucas didn't keep changing things around... how much possibility lay befor you... and how Han Solo shot first. You are not as overdosed on midichloridians as you look!

Don't worry about the future, or worry, but know that worrying is ineffective unless you have a certain DeLorean that does 88+kmph... The real troubles are things that suddenly appear in your in-tray at 4.50pm on a Friday evening and require unplanned overtime.

Do six things before breakfast that seem impossible.

Sing (but not like William Hung, for the love of god)

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, but don't allow others to book you a room at the Heartbreak Hostel.

Floss after brushing at least twice a day.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're on top, sometimes you're below... The race is long, and in the end it's only with that snotty brat who kept flinging boogers at you in Grade 1.

Remember compliments you recieve, forget the insults. But do remember to take revenge on the insults first. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements. Get into trouble with the taxman for failing to maintain proper records later on.

Stretch (but not too hard, lest you crack something not too supple)

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what to do in Second Life. The most interesting people I know didn't know on their first rezday what to do. Some of them still don't know after seven!

Get plenty of calcium. and Vitamins B complex and C. oh and selenium

Be kind to your knees. but if they're gone for good, get titanium replacements.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't / Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't...Maybe you'll die of an abrupt heart attack at 40, maybe you'll fall asleep at 105 and forget to breath.whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself, or kick yourself. God helps your plans sometimes, and laughs at them others. He also does the same for everyone else.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can, even if you have to get XCite parts - it's the most awesome prim you can own.

Dance (touch the Chimera danceball and accept its request for permissions to animate you)

Read the directions, always, even on newbie orientation islands.

Do not read The Alphaville Herald, it will only make you feel shiatty.

Get to know your parents, you'll never know when you have to ask for pocket money to tide you over temporarily. Get to know your siblings, it gives you the upper hand in quarrels.

Understand that friends come and go, but you should hold on to a precious few, cause the older you get, the more you need people who can listen to you babble about how the past looked better and not groan.

Live in Florida once, but leave before it makes you senile. Live in San Francisco once, but leave before someone from Linden Lab calls with a liaison job offer.

Travel! (TPs are free!)

Accept certain inalienable truths: tier fees will rise, Lindens will get fired abruptly without warning and you too will grow old... and when you do, you'll fantasise about how, when you were younger, tier fees were cheap, Lindens seemed immortal, and how newbs respected their elders

Respect Your Elders

don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a Linden Prize award, maybe you have a wealthy partner...but you'll never know when either will run out on you.

Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time it's three weeks old, you'll need extensive prim hair implants.

Be careful with people who sell you land, but be patient with those who supply it. Land is a means of keeping prims permanently rezzed out, prettied over, and scaring visitors with your lack of artistic sense.

But trust me on the viral videos.

Edited on 10 Jun 2010 to commemorate the purge of 30% of LL's staffing

Just marking time

2010-03-18T00:12:00.003+08:00

A mentor of mine once told me to never blog unless I had something extremely fascinating to blog. I seem to have fallen prey to that blog, even if made this to let you know that, yes, I am still alive, albeit much busier in RL now thanks to the magic of a good educational course :D

Are you still with us here in Second Life? You know how to yell for me if you're a friend. :D

No Longer One, Yet Still a Mentor

2009-11-22T13:32:00.006+11:00

I guess I should have seen this coming ages ago after Linden Lab first suspended hirings, then kept holding off on the resumption of intakes...

On Dec 11 this year, LL is shuttering three Second Life Volunteer groups: Second Life Mentors, Second Life Mentors Q&A, and the Instructors team. With this, the volunteer programs that Linden Lab originally put in place back at the beginning of Second Life are all gone, officially.

This is kind of upsetting in a way - I've been on SL Mentors nonstop since December 2006, and the fact that it's going away (albeit for good reasons of scalability) makes this the second time this has happened - I was on Live Help when it went away too. It's certainly a sign of the times when things that worked back in 2003/2004 no longer work in this day and age - like keeping 3.5k folks in one group. ^^;

I haven't posted in a long time despite this news being available because I've been busy trying to ignore this happening: trying out Torchlight, playing with the new OpenGL shift/zoom effects on Photoshop CS4, attending the Anime Festival Asia this weekend.

No longer one, yet still a mentor... I guess that sums up the peculiar state I'll be in very shortly. I'll still be in-world of course, just spending more time building up other things...

See you guys in world... or better yet, throw me a notecard - I'm getting my IMs capped a lot of late despite notices trickling down to a dribble in my most important places...

Open Letter - Piss Off, Adwords.

2009-04-30T17:12:00.005+08:00

So apparently blogger Tateru Nino makes a serious effort to revamp her website to improve its readability and entertainment value...

And then scores a scoop with revelations that "Fallout" may possibly become a television or movie property in the future.

This scoop gets picked up on by a lot of people in the know, and cited. very. very. much. which in turn leads to a lot of people picking up and discovering Dwell On It's blend of awesome and funneh.

In the process, a lot of people are viewing Google AdWords and clicking through partly as thanks and partly because Google is supposed to be serving very relevant ads.

So what does Google AdWords do? They cut her off, citing a lame reason like "You pose a risk to our advertisers". Simply because the place abruptly explodes from one moment of good reporting.

Google seems to be misdefining "risk". She provides content that everyone wants a load of for the first time in ages, and that should be rewarded, right? right?

I'm closing ranks with Tat on this - you won't ever see AdWords on this blog ever again as long as it's not in the same sentence with at least two obscenities, a sledgehammer-wielding dwarven horde, a industrial concrete vibrator used like the usual sort of vibrator, and the Prince Of Eternal Darkness.

Oh, and "manure lagoon".

Nino probably would choose less hurtful words, but I'm a passionate person, and the one thing I cannot accept is unjustified shafting based on resounding success.

Thank you for listening to what little blogging I've managed in recent weeks. This has shaken me up enough as well to consider my own little revamp ":D

OpenID: a reply to Prok

2009-03-02T18:45:00.003+08:00

This article is a copy of a reply to a blogpost on Second Thoughts crucifying OpenID as found here. To read it without this in context will probably be like attacking George W. Bush with only one shoe, so I think, yes, you should read the original post first. As always, constructive positive/negative comments will be welcomed, trolls will be shot out of a cannon containing the contents of my piggy bank. (Look how it jingles.)

1. OpenID is hard to use and misleading in its claims.

I'll be the first to admit that until recently, OpenID was a closed book to me, but they have done a reasonable job in recent weeks of remedying these issues. In fact, if you log right into http://openid.net, the homepage has reconcentrated more on blogged news about the system, as well as the three main issues: What and why OpenID, Where to get OpenIDed and Where it can be used. The main issue is poor design that doesn't draw attention to these three places:

Externally, both Google and Yahoo! have also thrown their weight behind providing OpenIDs linked to people's accounts with them, although their efforts to reduce confusion by renaming them as "Yahoo! IDs" or "Google Accounts" could just as easily worsen matters.

But if nobody cares, and nobody does anything, nothing changes. Or worse.

2. OpenID is decentralized and therefore not the same everywhere.

OpenID is merely an identity and authentication scheme. You'll find that in actual fact, a lot of accounts in many places use a lot of other data besides just your login data and passwords.

Forums need to track your timezone to help you keep a perspective of when other people post and comment in relation to your local time, as well as what posts you haven't read and might want to read. - Your OpenID provider shouldn't need to keep that info that unless it's the same service.
To-do lists need to track your specified chores and how you're doing with them, whether you're early, whether you're late, what you need to do them et al. Your OpenID provider shouldn't need to keep that info unless it's the same service in question.
Blogging services may want to link the comments you've made to date together to allow you a clearer view of how you've said things previously. Your OpenID provider shouldn't blah blah blah ditto.
The only thing they seriously need to keep is enough info to identify you if subpoenaed for legally valid reasons. They should not be handing it to anyone else, and their policies should reflect that. the only thing a OpenID provider should say is "yes/no, the guy who claims to be this OpenID is indeed/not the person he claims to be."

Would you rather open yourself to compromise by setting only one policy and openly sharing your personal data willy nilly after OpenID login, rather than offering only what you believe to be acceptable for public consumption whenever you log in?

I thought not.

3. OpenID accepts other services' log-ons, but would I give my email password to everybody?!

Best practice is already laid down on this matter: if a site gets a OpenID-based request, it should redirect to the OpenID provider you chose, allowing it to handle the authentication on its own side, and handling the matter of confirming your identity with the requesting server on its own.

Obviously, unless the OpenID provider is insane, it should be able to say this according to the schema laid out by OpenID WITHOUT involving your password in any manner, only confirming that your OpenID is being used legitimately.

This kind of makes OpenID provider servers the weakest link in the system, but OpenID also provides repudiation services to reject OpenIDs issued from select places where the server has clearly been compromised beyond the reasonable standards of the a server, and this is not system-wide, only based on the judgement of the administrator of each service relying on OpenIDs.

4. OpenID has a reputation system, with all the awfulness that implies.

Only to the extent that any form of id has a reputation built up around it. As a wag once put it to me - a troll under any userid and auth scheme, is just another guy to wield the banhammer on.

Also: remember what I mentioned about OpenID's ability to stop accepting an OpenID from a provider - it is enforced only on per-administrator level, and never on the entire network of logins and providers on OpenID. that means that if your OpenID gets turned down at the door and errors are not involved, you (or your choice of provider) are just not welcomed by the admins. Whether this is a good or bad thing really depends on circumstances beyond this discussion's bounds...

5. OpenID makes it impossible to make multiple accounts with similar names, or alts.

Far from it - I used three separate OpenIDs to date: one off of Edith Cowan University servers that certifies users as staff and students of the colleges it runs, one off of SLOpenID.net that confirms I am indeed THE blue wooly wildcat with THAT NAME, one off of gov.sg servers that confirms that I am indeed working on governmental issues on an irregular basis... but I only run that last one when I'm really working seriously.
OpenID does not preclude the use of multiple accounts or identities, Prok - in fact, it can just as easily be one way of clarifying the distinction about something said in mere jest, and something said in an official capacity.

Your current woes with your current OpenID provider are specific to provider, rather than the actual schema itself. Do NOT incinerate the entire flock simply because one sheep is black. (Though I understand the end result of doing so is that every sheep is equally black and charred to bits xD)

6. OpenID *is* centralized, in fact, really.

But of COURSE some aspects of it must be centralized, as a standard - the prompting and reply methods for authentication have to remain standard. The server requesting proof that an OpenID is indeed being used properly has to expect a certain reply back from the provider. Computers are dumb and only understand "yes" in the ways "yes" has been defined, and we have to unfortunately live with that limitation in terms of being less-than-ambiguous with computer-based replies.

But OpenID doesn't exactly conjure up nightmares of Python's benevolent dictator for life. far from it.

7. OpenID is impossible to troubleshoot.

There are three main points of failure: the user's browser, the requesting server, and the OpenID provider's server. (We're simplifying things by ignoring failures in network media or routers here, now). If you're getting the same failure to login across multiple sites, your OpenID provider may be experiencing issues. If you're getting it on only one specific or handful of sites, it means that they may most likely have out-of-date handling for OpenID or errors of some other sort... It also doesn't help that some sites seem to rely on browser-side Javascript for the redirects involved in a proper OpenID login request. (I'm looking at you, Google)

My suggestion? Email your OpenID provider first and note to them that your OpenID is not working properly, step with them through the possibilities. The unfortunate fact is that with all these extra moving parts, OpenID is inevitably more prone to disruptions than a system run entirely under one roof by one company - like Microsoft Live ID, anyone?

One thing I could suggest: your membership as a TypePad blogger entitles you to an OpenID as "http://(username).typepad.com" ( being the same username that brings up your personal profile). I would suggest trying to type it in as an OpenID in that form the next time you're logged into TypePad, and seeing if the server you're doing it at redirects to TypePad. If implemented properly, TypePad should prompt you at least once to confirm that you indeed want to confirm your identity, and then redirect back if all goes well.

Not everyone can implement an idea well. But it does not mean the idea itself sucks.

Looking forward to reasonable reply,

Patchouli Woollahra

Volkswagen Genetic Engineering Efforts

2009-01-01T22:38:00.001+08:00

Have officially jumped the dogfish:

7 Things

2008-12-17T11:00:00.003+08:00

I see epredator Potato's tagged me on one of those crazy SL blogger memes about revealing seven mysteeerious facts.

I'm frankly not the least bit interested in this sort of thing, but I suppose I should get it out of the way.

I'm not a troll, but I play one on Forumwarz. It's getting a bit stale, but as simple browser and AJAX-based gaming goes, I would put it right up there, barring the propensity for pretty disgusting ideas. (at some points, the game has hints of ageplay, nuclear terrorism and shooting R. Kelly in the nuts. and the walnuts. And extremely fattening recipes involving copious amounts of duck fat.)
I'm mildly autistic. I've had a couple of head injuries in my childhood years, and it's probably only good fortune that I'm not totally retarded... although I have a habit of being able to devote my attention in only two ways: not at all, or sharply spiked.
I have a weakness for lemon lime and bitters IRL. It's a bit of an old biddie's drink, not really something a late 20s folk should be enjoying, but there you go.
I first used a pirated Photoshop 4 waay back in 1995 to get images for a fast-foodie website done up during Web 0.9's heady days. Ten years later, I flitted back from GIMP and splurged on a legitimate copy as part of Creative Suite 1. I've never really looked back. much.
I'm not a fan of SL's default avatar face mesh. It's always the same to me no matter how badly I contort it, and i wind up doing all sorts of things to avoid having to look back at it when I'm inworld. I've been furry, I've been anime-ish, I've even bought licensing to reuse Ichigo Mayo's Unreal prim head. anything to stave off my phobia. You will never see me looking like a regular SL barbie. ever and ever.
I'm diabetic. I take my metaformins and my glucomets everyday, and I watch my diet six days a week, but have a weakness for lapsing into delicious meat and veg on Fridays. In SL, I eat so much prim food that would induce a coma IRL, I'm often found poking my way around SL's catering and restaurants. (this is despite the fact that food in SL is purely psychological)
I have a weakness for good music regardless of origin, genre and taste. At one point, I had Rammenstein, pre-war Shanghai jazz chartreuses and David Bowie on the same MP3 player. and it was a 64mb flash player - none of this 4Gb/8Gb bullshit we folks seem to have these days.

Not tagging anyone else for this. This is an old chestnut, and it's been rolling for a year, and I don't know anyone who HASN'T done this.

Later.

Interesting bug issue

2008-10-23T12:39:00.003+08:00

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-1728 notes an unusual occurrence in SL:

Ever since the release of 1.21 many prims in SL now are round and orange with faces on them. They were not there before. Many places I know well now have some prims like this. Seems like maybe one in ten prims in SL are now suffering from this bug.
I am furious that Linden Labs can release a viewer with such an obvious rendering bug.

.... I LOLed. xD

Flower Tower Power - Eshi Otawara Does It Again...

2008-07-22T05:21:00.006+08:00

Yet another one hour build by Eshi Otawara... blossom themed... and IT IS AWESOME.

it is 512m of flowers, flowers flowers meditation and flowers.... and the kudos have been pouring in at a rate not normally seen in SL these days. We may be looking at SL's newest celebrity artist as I type this, and pardon me for messing up my punctuation and speling now, I'm all choked up at the awesome.
SLURL to build (link expired)

Spotted while running Artrage

2008-04-10T21:25:00.004+08:00

As a avid artist and painter, I find ArtRage2 to be a awesome digital analogue to fresh oil arcylics and canvas (partily due to my inability to cope with the itching that comes from working with the real stuff.

This just popped up in my app today while I was firing it up for design work:

Shades of Pre-CS Photoshop... =^.^=

Kewlage: Second Life's New Automated System Requirements Test!

2008-04-03T20:11:00.010+08:00

As a Second Life Volunteer for almost two years, I've come across my fair share of technological cluelessness. For many people, a computer is something that you plonk out of a box, plug in and push your needs around with. If the PC has a 'Dual Hamster Wheels' CPU and two blackboards manned by tiny radioactive weevils, who cares as long as it works?

For many applications these days, provided you spend a not-unreasonable amount (and it is not a very big amount either), that is exactly what you get: a box that will service your spreadsheets and help you keep track of your media collection (legitimate or otherwise), and run most ordinary applications.

Unfortunately, some applications are a bit more fincky. Second Life is one of them.

Despite using a relatively modest generic graphics engine (even with recent upgrades considered), standard full-service Second Life viewers demand a higher level of grunt from the PCs they run on. It's a world where the only things that are 2D in nature remain so because abstracting them to a 3D metaphor is inefficient or sheer stupidity - script editing or menus, for instance.

It's a world where your view changes with alarming regularity and broadness in a way that is rarely seen in your garden-variety MMO. That places serious demands on your Internet connection in a way that recommends against most connections below a certain level of speed, latency and potential for forced retransmissions, especially if you teleport regularly through the world.

There have been times when I have met residents in world who are experiencing issues that are more often than not the product of running Second Life on a rig that either fails to meet minimum requirements or just barely glides over the limit.

When faced with a lack of hardware hindering the ability to use Second Life, the best thing that a Resident can have is another person who is at least conversant with reading system requirements and/or arranging for the necessary upgrades to get their PC up to speed. That is not always a possibility. Sometimes, that leads to wasted money as someone buys a new PC to enter Second Life, only to be told either by a passing Resident or (worse) actual bizzare visual or connectivity issues that whatever they bought isn't going to cut it.

For the less technically inclined who run Windows PCs and lack such close-range technical support, Linden Lab recently introduced a browser-based test that allows users to check that their PC can run Second Life properly @
http://secondlife.com/support/systest.php which is provided by a company called System Requirements Lab (Apparently a company with more technical bones than imagination...) .

Currently, Linux and MacOSX users are SOL, still stuck with the old 'look up yon system config and system requirements' schtick that has existed ever since someone decided how nice it would be to start diversifying what you could put into a computer all those years ago, but in theory there's no technical reason why the same tools could not grab the same details from such computers as well, so here's hoping that's exactly what happens.

Setting that slight niggle aside, I don't have to tell you just how much this eases entry into Second Life for potential newcomers on Windows-powered PCs.

What the test does in absolute terms is check your Windows PC for certain hardware details, such as CPU speeds , memory availability and video cards, and compare them against what Linden Lab believes to be minimum and recommended requirements for accessing Second Life.

(Disclosure: pitting my standard RL working laptop, a earlier model Inspiron 5150, against this test put me almost halfway to having a recommended rig for Second Life. As noted on so many technical forums and blogs dedicated to laptops, the GeForce FX5200 2 Go is a dog, and this alone blew away my ability to meet recommended system requirements. But I'm still happy. And no, this is not a reason for me to be so 'shiny' about this new test.)

What the test does, in plain English, is tell you as well as it can whether Second Life will run properly, well, or at all on your rig.

Like many browsers and other forms of media viewer, however, even a system that meets recommended system requirements for Second Life access may not necessarily be a panacea for all issues.

For one thing, Second Life's biggest cause of lag beyond what you can control, is pretty much the entire world: Grid glitches (as regularly experienced), poor internet connectivity, abusive script use in a sim, the presence of large numbers of people, even poor in-world design decisions (spraying a truckload of 1k x 1k textures on everything you own is being a poor neighbour and a major cause of lag, people!). And with Linden Lab continually developing and improving the grid and the way it operates, system requirements will inevitably change. Your world beater of today will eventually start gagging on Second Life several years later, I can practically guarantee that.

In the end, maybe all that anyone really needs (aside from a computer that meets or barely exceeds the minimum sysreqs) is an open mind and a sense of personal rightness to have fun in Second Life. Just ask the thousands of people who dance in nightclubs every night to framerates that nobody in their right mind would accept in supposedly more 'visceral' things like first-person shooters...

Expose! The Evil of The Easter Bunneh!

2008-03-24T00:01:00.001+08:00

The Easter Bunny Haets you!!!

Kotomori on Koinup!

2008-03-11T22:43:00.002+08:00

Another day, another Koinup from Second Life. This time it's just Kotomori, the little girl who wandered into the Millions Of Patches cubbyhole one day and never really left... or is it only her? o_O;

A Moment Of Peace - My first KoinUp entry!

2008-02-20T14:03:00.004+08:00

"All in all, she thought, it certainly beat doing the dishes and poledancing back home..."

My first KoinUp entry, and my first attempt at a post-photographic image in Second Life with a heavier hand!

Now a Second Life Exotic contestant!

The dangers of massive Pocky ingestion

2008-02-19T22:30:00.003+08:00

Shortly after this picture was taken, Patchey Woolley and Gessepi Gillespie were evacuated from the Pocky sim to the nearest hospital for treatment of Hyperglycaemia. (note the giddiness already in Gessepi's eyes at the time this picture was taken.)

Teleport to Pocky Sim (via SLURL)

Pat-chibified!

2008-01-10T02:39:00.000+08:00

From the hand of the Cuddlefish-luvin' Jacek Antonelli :

Ia! Ia! I wuv Chibi! xD

Most Poignant Post ever

2008-01-05T23:36:00.000+08:00

Not even a week into 2008, and this post got put up posthumously...

Major Andy Olmstead's very last blogpost

Wow, just... wow.

Merry Christmas to one and all!

2007-12-26T09:04:00.000+08:00

It's certainly been shaping up to be a most interesting Christmas in Second Life. When you've done stuffing yourself full of Christmas meats, popped open the box on your grandma's eighth gift of woolen green socks (Why granny, you shouldn't have! xD), and roasted Chet's scrotum on an open fire, consider this:

Please put a penny in the poor man's hat.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Still Annoyed

2007-12-17T18:06:00.000+08:00

A rehash of Johnathan Coulton's 'Still Alive' from the 3D puzzler game "Portal" from the viewpoint of 'Bowser' from Super Mario Brothers.

I can't believe they did this one. Go listen.

The Patchouli Council - Partying with a Partyfennec

2007-11-23T00:18:00.001+08:00

Our first interview of Patchouli Council members is with Patchouli Partyfennec, a mentor in the Second Life Official Mentor Corps and a raver fanatic. (All opinions expressed here in are personal and are not necessarily shared by Linden Lab, the Patchouli Council as a whole, or blue colored fennecs around the metaverse)

TheWorldOf Tomorrow: Thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to speak with us on everything under the sun.
Patchouli Partyfennec: Pleasure's all mine.
TWOT: Why don't you start by telling us a little about yourself, Pat?
PP: well, there's not really much to think of. I was born about 1873 in Malacca. Father passed away shortly after I was born, due to complications from pregnancy.
TWOT: Ahh... usually, it's the mother who dies from complications from pregnancy.
PP: The poor man was really flustered. He apparently keeled over from a stroke in his panic to get the midwife over.
TWOT: Oh.
PP: Prior to that, he was kinda fretting about finding the money to keep me properly educated on being a fine young fennec.
TWOT: It must have been hard on your mother.

(Photo: Picture of Mama Partyfennec in a calmer mood)

PP: Yes, yes it was. I understand I wasn't very polite or well-behaved as a child. But she really took pains to make sure I had a semblance of a normal childhood like any Peranakan girl deserved. My being an only child possibly helped.
TWOT: So you had a good childhood and grew up into a perfectly upright fennec there, I see. That's it? no dark disturbing secrets?
PP: Well I may have indulged in opium a tad bit before it was banned. There was a den near my home, and the ventilation wasn't exactly airtight.
PP: I may have inhaled a few times as a kid whilst walking by...
TWOT: Opium? How... quaint. I've seen people on harder drugs straight from the local pharmacist.
PP: Like that Seclimine stuff Gideon Teevee drops occasionally?
TWOT: Yeah, that stuff.
PP: A bit distasteful to me. drugs is for people who can't take meta-reality.
TWOT: Agreed.
PP: But those days are pretty much behind me now. Being a mentor means being disciplined in public.
TWOT: all the time?
PP: Welll... not all the time. Like anyone else , I do have my own foibles, but I don't smoke anything at all these days. As for anything else, you may not dig further on this detail, young man.

(Photo: independently sourced picture of Patchouli Partyfennec shaking her moneymaker after duty hours at Dance Island)

TWOT: Ah... right. ^^; So moving on... how did you wind up in Agni?
PP: Charming fellow from some little town named Caledon visited and offered to pay my passage and my school fees. Naturally, I sprung at the chance. How was I to know it wasn't exactly a boat trip down to Koala Lumpur in a week?
TWOT: That was a pretty hefty teleport there, yes. Do you regret making that trip at times?
PP: At times, yes, I am a tad homesick
PP: but you live with the world you know, not the world you want
PP: and there's enough going on here that I rarely have time to indulge myself in any lowish moods.
PP: Besides, the Peranakan Museum here is pretty close to what I would have had if I hadn't been so hasty about my choices in life.
TWOT: Nicely spoken... so what's your biggest pet peeve these days?

PP: Illiteracy.
TWOT: Illiteracy?
PP: While working, one of the biggest problems I face as a mentor is getting people to read. While it's not really solvable when the person in question doesn't understand the language used, it's rather appalling at times how some people don't have the same spark of curiosity that I used to have.
PP: They just walk right past the sign, and they don't even think of examining it, or touching it.
TWOT: Maybe they're too busy to do so?
PP: Excuses of the lazy. if you know you can read something in front of you, you should. it may be important enough to your enjoyment of the world, perhaps even your wellbeing, to do so. There are so many examples I laugh/cry over.
TWOT: Like?
PP: For example, the newbie who didn't read the danger sign shortly before he tipped himself into a grinding machine at a shop for gore fans.
TWOT: Could the possibility be considered that maybe he INTENDED to try out the machine?
PP: ... possibly, but you'd think the pain would be a negative selling point. And then there's the greedy guts I see sometimes.
TWOT: Like?
PP: It's amazing how many people actually attempt to sell freebies. FREEBIES. FREE-bies. What part of that is not understandable to these people?
TWOT: The 'free' part?
PP: The thought had occurred to me, yes. We are talking about the labour of the people involved in creating these items, which is worth something, but being given for nothing, just being ripped off.
PP: It's appalling, and if I had my way they'd be dangling off a nice hanging noose for it.
TWOT: You live with the world you know, not the world you want, remember?
PP: Pssh.
TWOT: You've been around long enough, are there any locations that you would recommend personally to anyone?
PP: I would recommend any newcomer to Second Life hang out at a new resident support organisation such as The Shelter or New Citizens Incorporated .
PP: For eye candy, Light Waves' work at Black Swan (formerly Rezzable Hallucinogen, formerly Error) has to be seen to be believed. just the ones that come to mind right on the spot.
PP: You must excuse me, I have other matters to attend to soon.
TWOT: cya later? and thanks for taking the time to say hello there.
PP: Indeed.

The Patchouli Council Interviews

2007-11-23T00:16:00.000+08:00

Over the next few posts, we will be interviewing members of the Patchouli Council - partners in crime of Patchouli Woollahra. We're not sure how boring this will become, or how controversial... or stupid.

Anyways, keep watching.

Nota Bene: This series of interviews will be conducted mostly by TheWorldOf Tomorrow. If you enjoy it, be sure to tip your reporter woozl :D

Foamee - A killer (with laughter) app for Twitter?

2007-11-15T16:17:00.000+08:00

Have a beer on me over Twitter.

Foamee is a Twitter application that takes advantage of the time-honored cliche "Have a beer on me". By following @ioubeer and texting a message with your Twitter account specifically to @ioubeer, you too can now reward people with virtual beer for one good reason or another...

This world gets crazier by the minute...

Lawd, I Love This City At Midnight...

2007-11-08T20:43:00.000+08:00

Picture taken at Midnight City, 4am in the quite hours of the Agni morn.

Sleeping On The Job

2007-11-07T18:01:00.002+08:00

Bizzare respawning bug on Tabula Rasa. (Woollahra on Casseopia US) Otherwise, TR ROX.

The Wronged Feral - Tiberious Neruda

2007-11-02T16:06:00.001+08:00

In recent days, some of you may have seen video on Sky News of a 'paedophilia in SL' scandal. While childporn is one of the things I have had terminally serious issues about, I feel I have just as much in the way of issues with people who I call my friends being maligned.

His name is Tiberious Neruda, and he is a friend of mine.

The 'Truth' is A Lie.

Certain individuals who believe they have the license to lie as journalists have painted this tiger in army slacks as a childlover.

I have known Tiberious Neruda almost since my first days as a Agnian in November 2006. Like most residents he has his penchants, his flaws, even his fetishes. Those fetishes do not extend to humping little kids. He would not associate with builds or groups known to indulge in sexual ageplay, and he has no love of ageplay whatsoever.

He is a professional, and a good friend, however. He was providing security for a friend, and keeping a hands off approach to anything that went on. He had no reason to believe that the management was attempting in any way to provide sexual ageplay or child porn, and would have most likely abandoned his posting without due notice if this had indeed been the case.

Like most tigers however, he has a big bite when he is clearly wronged. I cannot imagine he would simply let this slide, and I don't imagine whoever did this will come out of this in one piece. Well, maybe he will.

I just don't think it will be the same-sized piece. That's the thing about big bites - they tend to make things smaller.

As a personal request, he has asked that I not disclose extra details of this matter beyond what I have noted so far to anyone else, pending further action, and I will respect that as a friend. The only three things I would ask are these:

There are people who have known Tiberious Neruda for several years, in a world where one's personal foibles become all too well known pretty fast. (It must be something in the air in Agni or something.) Why was he not turned in earlier if sexual ageplay or child pornography was illegal in Second Life, as it always has been? or is there something that the journo has not revealed, because doing so would make a total mockery of what he intends to write?

If you know Tiberious or have known Tiberious in his time in SL or RL, on a genuine personal, unmercenary basis, please show him your support in these trying times. That's what being a friend is all about.

If this is eventually going to lead to where I think it is going, you can have anything else, but I want the head to mount on my wall.

I will not comment on this further until after the matter is resolved in a matter that is deemed satisfactory. It would not be... fair.

Not A Linden

2007-10-12T14:01:00.000+08:00

I am NOT Patch Linden...

Or am I?

No excuse for this

2007-09-26T02:18:00.000+08:00

There is no excuse for this. There can be no excuse for this.
(LOLKitty and Happy Place Supplied by Dale Glass)

Patches of Insanity #4: Do As I Say...

2007-09-26T01:04:00.001+08:00

(To view this strip in full please click anywhere on the strip)

Special Thanks to Hervy Rikchi and TheWorldOf Tomorrow. (Yes, there really is such a Resident in SL.) He's da Woozl. No, I really didn't eat him... I think.

XSS Attack on Second Life logins and My Recommendations

2007-09-17T20:15:00.000+08:00

(Special Thanks to Ordinal Malaprop for pointing this one out)

pdp over at GNUCITIZEN highlights a serious exploit that affects Windows-based Second Life Users. Read this like your SL depended on it, because it does!

Explaination of exploit:
The exploit basically uses a inline frame tag with a deliberately malformed set of parameters. (This is a common trick in Cross-Site-Scripting Attacks) it passes what is apparently a secondlife protocol link, which should fire up the SL client by default and pass along the parameters following it.

In a proper secondlife:// link, it would simply be a sim name and XYZ coordinates in a segmented URL). However, this hack truncates the URL awkwardly and instead passes on command-line options that specify that the client should fire up the client and automatically and submit login details, including a MD5 hash of your password if "Remember Password" is enabled in the client, to a specified server at another URL other than the one for the Agni or ADITI grids as run by Linden Lab.

This is a severe compromise, as a false login can be performed at the genuine Second Life authentication servers simply by playing back the request from start to finish (actually logging into the Second Life website would require a further step of unscrambling the password hash, which is possible, albeit tricky, no thanks to pregenerated 'rainbow tables' from projects established to break MD5.)

Until this issue is publicly addressed and fixed by Linden Lab, my recommendation would be to disable password caching by unchecking "Remember Password" at the client login screen. An attempted auto-login would still send your name and client version and type as in a normal login request, but without a saved password to hash, no password will be sent along, rendering this exploit mostly useless.

Switching to Firefox would also help. The vulnerability in IE that is used to run this exploit also used to exist in Firefox, but was patched within days of recognising its existence (yay for FOSS). Attempting the same attack on a updated copy of Firefox would merely result in Second Life being passed a odd "Startup Location" rather than actual command line options (with the security leak that could be used to create)

Paprika

2007-09-16T02:34:00.000+08:00

The way Second Life works ensures that it has been described on numerous occasions as resembling a dream at times. Even Hamlet reported in his earliest writings that SL resembled "underwater, lucid dreaming" - a odd feeling from the floatiness that Internet lag causes to low-latency movement mixed with the attention and alertness that comes with being in an interestingly wierd world. The things people put out sometimes help a lot :D

I got that odd feeling while watching a anime movie tonight. The name of the movie is "Paprika", and it is based on a sci-fi Japanese novel about the ramifications of playing with people's dreams without due care.

It was directed by Satoshi Kon, whose previous works such as Tokyo Godfathers, Perfect Blue, Paranoia Agent, and Millenium Agent were commonly known for depicting uncertainty in the boundaries between realities, aided by the fact that anime is a considerably more economical artform for depicting the odd and the bizzare. In this movie, Paprika continues to play the fool, but a very interesting fool.

The plot is relatively simple: the prototypes for a world-changing advance in psychotherapy are stolen before the work needed to make them safe for widespread use is completed. In less than ten minutes, we are already thrown in the deep end as the protagonist, a young redhaired dream detective named "Paprika" explores the concerns of a cop with mental issues through interacting with his dreams, using one of the prototypes as a diagnostic tool, which has been illegally smuggled out of the lab. The opening sequence after she takes her leave is surreal, and surprisingly detailed, something that keeps repeating throughout the movie .

Paprika's RL ego is actually a chief researcher for a psychiatric facility named Atsuko, and a surprising contrast to the saucy lass - for starters, she seems horrendously uptight and serious, fearful for the future of the DC Mini technology and its potential for abuse without proper access controls.

Surreal is the keyword here. This is pretty much what David Lynch would have done if he had turned to cels instead of celluloid to film his works. Within the first ten minutes of the film, we already start getting an inkling of how potentially serious the problem is as the thief infiltrates a delusional dream into a colleague's brain, causing him to burst into a really odd essay on stuff as he starts seeling strange dreamlike things while still awake:

"Even the five court ladies danced in sync to the frog's flutes and drums. The whirlwind of recycled paper was a sight to see. It was like computer graphics. That I don't support Technicolor parfaits and snobby petit bourgeois is common knowledge in Oceania! Now is the time to return home to the blue sky! The confetti will dance around the shrine gates. The mailbox and the refrigerator will lead the way! Anyone who cares about expiration dates will not get in the way of the glory train! They need to fully realize the liver of the triangle rulers! Now, this festival was decided by the third grade class with the telephoto camera! Move forward! Come together! I am the ultimate governor!"

And then he jumps through a window, several stories above ground level. For what?

Thank god for well-placed trees. It gets much wierder from here onwards. The movie doesn't have a tonne of separate plotlines... what it DOES have is atmosphere. quite hard to describe, but if you watched it, you'd see it.

To describe it further is to spoil a very good film.

If you see it, rent it. better yet, buy it.

The soundtrack is equally gorgeous, with most songs heavily laden with verbal scatting and lyrical singing as composed by Susumu Hirasawa. In fact, two songs have been released free of charge (for noncommercial uses only) from the soundtrack. If they are any indication of the quality of the OST, I think I will be placing an order for it when I see it at my local record store.

Good Grief! - Laetizia Coronet asks about coping with griefing

2007-09-14T23:20:00.000+08:00

Laetizia Coronet writes in her blog "A Virtual Village Voice" about responding to spates of griefing like what is oging on in the past fortnight:

http://laetizia.wordpress.com/2007/09/14/good-grief/

Some good proposals, and comments are welcome at the original post as always. Your opinions will help make up proposals on the matter she plans to put forth to the people above - make it count :D

Heartbreak on Caturday

2007-09-06T22:24:00.000+08:00

Joel Veitch of rathergood.com is known for kittens, and cute... He also does poppy, upbeat music with his band "7 Seconds Of Love"

His latest video is something different: film noir kittens, heartbreak and more rain than a worst day ever.

Patches of Insanity #3: The Price of Poor Hearing

2007-08-20T03:35:00.000+08:00

This post was originally going to be big, special, spectacular even, for the SLCC. It seems to have sputtered out before it even began though.

I wonder why... ^^;

Small leap in furry avatar uncanniness - Muzzletalk

2007-08-20T00:27:00.000+08:00

Matt Deigan just built this:

Cool stuff, if you can wrangle it. the toolkit from NORTEC LABS is available on SLExchange at http://slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=297916

zomg Bioshock

2007-08-19T01:37:00.001+08:00

Apparently, this is causing serious disruptions with Second Life beyond Linden Lab's control:

Bioshock Steam Preload

Under normal circumstances, I would question a claim like this for any other game...

Except for one problem here: Bioshock is System Shock with a new genetically engineered Art Deco flavor.

Bioshock has the world's best water since idiots tried to put infinite planes in Doom and call it water.

Bioshock has a seriously disturbed art design and direction. Even their idea of kawaii goes into the spooky.

Bioshock will do System Shock and unlike the previous two versions, it will be a major hit. I'm going to save you the continued blurb and let you google for it - it's been plastered all over the place repeatedly in recent weeks.

In short, I'm not normally keen on system disruptions... but if it's for dozens of people giving a good game the attention it genuinely deserves, I think I can live with it. Just this weekend.

Seriously, if you're running a modern, over-powered DX9.0+/10 rig and you're only using it for Second Life at the moment, you seriously owe it to yourself to go over and grab a copy even if you're not exactly a FPS junkie by default (the game has ways of playing through that deemphasise twitch if you look carefully enough, though one might question exactly what sort of sacrifices are required)

Watching Ginko Closely - Tateru Commentary

2007-08-12T23:22:00.000+08:00

No sooner had I written the previous post than this article lands up in Second Life Insider.

"Welcome to BarterTown"

Vandeverre is right ... and wrong when he says "have no monetary value". You see, as long as he sticks to first party tokens (W$, in this case) he's right. We're just talking game tokens. However, any interaction with Linden Dollars (L$) or other currencies messes up the statement. -Tateru Nino

Take it away, Tat!

As with any commentary or advice, always think carefully based on your own circumstances as well. I for one do not imagine I will continue to invest in the WSE if this is true, but I'll be asking my accountant for a second opinion.

Watching Ginko Closely

2007-08-12T21:33:00.000+08:00

To be played softly while reading this article:

This letter just arrived in my mailbox. for those of you who have funds currently trapped in with Ginko Financial, it bears reading:

Dear Customer,

GINKO FINANCIAL ACCOUNT TRANSFERS COMPLETED!

All Ginko Financial account holders now have an account on the World Stock Exchange and all Ginko Perpetual Bonds have been issued.

Any Ginko account balance with decimal values has been transferred to your new WSE trading account balance. WSE trading accounts earn a base yearly interest rate of 15.95% calculated daily and paid fortnightly (every 14 days). *Subject to change without notice.

If you did not have an existing WSE account please reset your password by visiting a WSE ATM and typing: "reset password".

You can view a list of WSE ATM locations by visiting: https://www.wselive.com/education/atms

ABOUT THE WORLD STOCK EXCHANGE

World Stock Exchange (WSE) is a fictional securities exchange developed for use in virtual worlds such as Second Life. The exchange provides Virtual companies with the ability to raise capital using the fictional Linden and World Internet Currencies.

The journey started in December 2006 with an opportunity which was followed by the vision of Australian entrepreneur Luke Connell. Today the concept of an Internet based World Stock Exchange servicing the virtual world community of Second Life has achieved over 24000 trading accounts and over 60 virtual companies exceeding 400 million linden dollars in trading volume. The WSE has exceeded all expectations however it is an emerging and development market that will always be improving. This is only the beginning.

The World Stock Exchange includes enhanced security features such as 256-bit SSL encryption, Risk API for Second Life residents along with the ability for general Internet users with a browser to trade on the World Stock Exchange using the World Internet Currency.

The World Internet Currency acts as one fictional currency bridging the gap between the real and virtual worlds. This will encourage growth in the virtual economies around the world especially in Second Life while providing the everyday Internet users with the ability to LEARN - HAVE FUN AND PROFIT.

By visiting and using the World Stock Exchange website (www.wselive.com) you will be accepting the WSE Terms of Service ("TOS" located on www.wselive.com. Please read them carefully and if you disagree with the TOS in any way, then do not use the web site or services provided by the World Stock Exchange.

The WSE provides users with a fully automated trading platform that operates 24 hours, 7 Days per week. Traders have access to real-time and historical trading data allowing them to make informed decisions.

To learn about the World Stock Exchange and how to use the our services please visit our Education Centre which can be found at https://www.wselive.com/ed ucation

USEFUL INFORMATION:

*'Virtual Company' refers to an Internet based business generating income from a fictional currency and includes many businesses based in virtual worlds and 3D multi user environments such as Second Life.

'Fictional Services' are all "Fictional" services provided by HopeCapital on the World Stock Exchange. Fictional services are an imaginative creation in a simulated gaming and education environment that are without basis in reality and hold no legal monetary or asset value.

'Fictional Currency' is used as game tokens and have no monetary value in and of themselves and as a result are not be taxable as income. In most cases a fictional currency constitutes a limited license right for use by account holders and is subject to the terms of each Fictional Currency provider. The World Stock Exchange supports the "Linden Currency" (Linden Dollar, LND$, L$, Lindens) and the "World Internet Currency" (WIC, WICS, W$).

The financial and group operations of a virtual company are controlled and managed by the controlling WSE account holder who is assigned with the title CEO.

Kind Regards,

LukeConnell Vandeverre,
Chairman and CEO,
World Stock Exchange

Kind regards,
World Stock Exchange
http://www.wselive.com/

An interesting turn of events, to be sure. a 15% p.a. return may be considerably lower than what Ginko was offering, but more realistic (although this rate is normally associated more with credit card bills than most deposits)

I gotta ask: will you hold, or will you fold? Replies in the comments please :D

The Case For Undemocracy in Software Development

2007-08-06T13:10:00.000+08:00

The point of creating any software product or introducing new upgrades (rather than merely bugfixing) is to introduce to users new functions and ways of doing previously doable tasks with more efficiency and less waste, as well as enable new methods and activities not previously achievable.

This would seem to make the case that a democratic approach to software development would make sense: let people make more decisions as to what they want, and vote for it. Bees do it all the time. Zerg hives as well. It's a form of swarm theory - nobody sees the big picture, but they have the same interests in general that the decisions that they make wind up being the most efficient.

Swarm theory, unfortunately, only works well if you're THINKING reasonably and looking at it with a reasonable skillset. If not, you need to be able to put your foot down and say 'no' at some point. at some point, giving everyone a say and a veto for everything leads to total sloth in development.

Just ask the people who are waiting for perl 6 how long they've been waiting for their Holy Grail. :( It is not a pretty answer, and contains 300 RFCs since 2000. 6 years plus of waiting for upgrades to a language that is readable only by savants, or severe hair-tearing. 6 years is a long time in Internet years - do you want to wait that long for anything to happen?

I thought not.

Software development will always be a meritocracy or oligarchy (developer/client owned/controlled). Live with it. Let a thousand ideas bloom, and stop trying to hamper other people's ideas with FUD without reasoned analysis.

Okay?

(Disclaimer: The writer uses more scripting languages and does more graphics/scripting than actual programming languages, but most things that apply in scripting development and graphic design still apply in programming too :( )

"If I listented to people all the time when I was working, nothing would ever get done."

Ginko Doubles Down - Bigger Bust, or More Secure Future?

2007-08-01T21:40:00.000+08:00

Well, with the recent upheavals that have been going around, it seems a bit obvious that depositors at SL Banks might feel the need to put more of their trust in real-life currency rather than Agnian L$. This has obviously caused a run at several banks.

Now any bank, in any world, will more often than not have very little of the finances it claims to own available for withdrawal. Money sitting in actual currency rather than sunk into investments is money that does not earn money. However, not having enough of this float to cover depositor's regular demands up front is dangerous: word gets around fast and eventually, the bank loses consumer confidence. There are also costs involved in cutting and running from investments prematurely. It's a balancing act on tightrope, perched above fiducial damnation.

One of the biggest victims of this run on SL Banks has been Nicholas Portocarrero's Ginko Financial. Eloise Pasteur writes in the Second Life Insider a summary of the matter as well as some good links to other websites that practically thrive on reporting this sort of thing. Nobody Fugazi has also attempted to tease more answers about his intentions out of Nicholas as well, and the results are in his KnowProSE blog.

It is not as if Ginko was a stranger to controversy. Since the moment it offered what was initially an effective interest rate of about 72% p.a. in its heyday, the company has been accused (fairly or otherwise) of being a Ponzi scheme by many residents on one hand, . On the other, you have Residents who have ridden the tiger and profitted significantly (encouraged in part by the explosive growth in signups in Second Life.), who urge that Ginko can be a valid investment like any other investment instrument that is native to Agni provided you do your homework before investing and never risk anything that you can't afford to risk.

So withdrawals per day from Ginko have been significantly capped, and its offered interest rate reduced significantly since then. To make matters worse, prudence has dictated that the Ginko Financial Lottery be shut down in case it falls foul of LL's recent ban on wagering inworld. While part of the rake from tickets was always going to seed the current draw and the next, there was also a portion being funnelled back into Ginko's fund.

While I was browsing over earlier today, I found that Ginko Financial has introduced two things:

It has cut interest on openly accessible funds to 0.1% per day from the 0.13% it offered in previous weeks due to a earlier run by residents to other banks perceived to have more financial stability...
and it has introduced term deposits.

What are Term Deposits anyway? Especially if you're a teen fresh off the TSL or someone who's not particulary keen on financial knowledge, this might sound newfangled.

Unlike a normal bank savings account, a term deposit is essentially a contract with a bank whereby you hand the bank an agreed amount of money for an agreed period to earn an agreed interest rate.

For the duration of this contract, you cannot take any of this money out for use on other matters. This is money that the bank does not have to budget for in its cash float till the day it matures at the end of the term, and can be sunk in to investments that require more stable funding but promise greater interest. Some banks in real life DO offer early term deposit cashouts, but impose onerous penalties to ensure that depositors do not do so unless they have absolutely no choice.

On the flip side however, the bank also pays a price of sorts for this stability in its investment funds: many term deposits are tied to a higher interest rate than the current interest rate set by the banks in order to compensate for the inability to access the funds involved, and this increases slightly with every extra month or dollar tied up in the deposit. This rate is also not renegotiable for the term of the contract - bad news for the bank if the interest rates fall.

And it still has to be repaid at the end of the term. It is still possible for a bank to default and fail to be able to make payment of depositors' demands in the end - only worse, because all that extra interest means more money owing.

Different banking jurisdictions will have different ideas about what to do in the event that a bank falls over from the weight of its obligations. For instance, the FDIC guarantees up to US$100,000 per investor per insured bank on any bank defaults in America (with extra insurance provided in certain cases), with anyone who has more than the insured limit basically plumb out of luck for the excess barring any successful legal action. Other countries may have more generous offers to cushion the blow, or totally fail to provide a safety net - check your local governmental body on finance for more details.

And there, for most of us, is the nub. In Second Life, regulation is not a cornerstone of most of our activities (excepting possibly the Terms of Service, The Big Six, and whatever covenants our landlords require us to agree to). Who watches the bank? Except for a few million depositors and a couple of more attentive, more inquisitive residents, most finance in Second Life is virtually bereft of oversight, not to mention guarantees or insurance. if a SL bank falls, you're going to be left picking up the pieces barring the appearance of some damn fool who doesn't mind spending money to pick up the tab (and possibly some other ulterior motives - banks don't get bailed for altruistic reasons)

It is a double-edged sword: it cuts out a lot of the costs many oversight bodies inflict on banks as a result, and allows them to take risks that a oversight body would disapprove of or even deny coverage for. But then, there's a reason why they were so prudent, these bodies. Having dozens of trained eyes to keep looking for possible problems in the system isn't cheap either.

So is taking out a term-deposit with Ginko, at what is effectively twice as much interest per day (and if you're taking a compounding interest deposit, considerably more than double the dividend due to the power of compounding) a good investment?

Yes. No. Maybe.

You have to ask if the future of Second Life is going to be bright enough that whatever portion of it Ginko can get hold of will be enough to service your deposit, especially if it's a compound interest deposit.

You have to ask if you can afford to let go of the money. You do NOT put your rental money into extremely highrisk investments. Let's be brutally frank - Ginko is inherently that with its lack of transparency and its insane interest rates (even if it HAS honored most withdrawals till recently). Money you don't mind losing is the best money to invest, especially with such risky instruments.

You have to ask if you can afford to let go of the money for long enough. whatever you put into term deposit is something you're not going to see for a long time. Possibly up to 360 days (just shy of a year) in this case. and especially more so if you're opting to keep the interest in play with a compounding deposit.

It's a personal choice. Best way to deal with them is to look at yourself and ask the questions you do want to hear... and the ones you DON'T want to hear (but really should).

Good luck out there.

(DISCLAIMER: The Author has sunk a modest amount she can afford to lose in a 30-day compounding deposit with Ginko. The author also recommends that the reader ideally seek more professional advice and opinion prior to committing to any financial investments, and will not be held responsible for any damages incurred due to failures in investment with Ginko or other banking companies.)

The result of too many surnames in SL Episode #1

2007-07-31T15:10:00.001+08:00

Until one or two years ago, Linden Lab used to retire lastnames when 150 people had gotten each of them. This was done on the basis of Malcolm Gladwell's socialogical writing "The Tipping Point". These days, you get about several thousand people sharing the same surname... and the results are startling. On a recent go through I found these people sharing my prims in Second Life:

Catherine Fitzpatrick (I have it on good faith that whoever took this name is Second Life is NOT the genuine article. And so you know - judge a person in Second Life by his or her actions, not by his or her name...)
CatherineAnn Fitzpatrick (EDIT: so Prokofy Neva registered this instead to play safe. Rationale: the horse may have bolted, but the pony hasn't... so shut the door already!)
Oysters Fitzpatrick (Erm... I thought that stuff with the bacon and cheese bake was Kirkpatrick?)
Paul Debevec (doesn't ring a bell? Think HDRI)
Paul Huldschinsky (1944 Academy Award Winner - Best Arts Direction - for the movie 'GasLight")
BaiOu Chemistry (Bio-chemistry. geddit? xD)
NoDetectable Paulse (No Detectable Pulse xD)
Vincent Price
Half Price, HeavilyDiscounted Price and RecommendedRetail Price
TheWorldOf Tomorrow
PennyPinching Miszer
Jonah Lomu
Camui Gackt
LetMeTellYouA Cooljoke
Natsume Aya
Ham Burger, Beef Burger, Chicken Burger, QuarterPounder Burger
Maccaron Charron (think 'batmanbox')
Judi Dench
Electric Eel, Moray Eel
EbbAnd Flow
RollingInTheA Lisle

here's a hint, not all of these names have been actually taken... which ones though? :D

[EDIT - clarified actual ownership of Catherine and CatherineAnn Fitzpatrick names in Second Life. Catherine is owned by some random person, CatherineAnn by Prokofy Neva. Apologies for the misunderstanding]

Why Prolonged grid issues are harmful...

2007-07-30T13:51:00.000+08:00

[22:49] Patchouli Woollahra: for dinner tonight we'll be having fillet of gridbork served with gridbork sauce, with a side of gridbork salad. To warm your appetite up we will first have some soup: cream of gridbork. For dessert, gridborkcake.

[22:49] Patchouli Woollahra multiplies into a horde of SL Vikings and chants 'gridbork' repeatedly.

yeah, me noggin's taking a funny turn. losing IQ points on a visible scale, even.

[2:17pm, 31/07/07] - Things are looking up more and more. TPs still borking regularly, and item rezzing not working perfectly, but considering where we were earlier, it looks better.

Going to sit for a while longer, then go to sleep in the sun.

End of The Line

2007-07-26T22:29:00.000+08:00

I woke up late this morning and found my Wake Up News clock had pulled this up:

Wagering In Second Life: New Policy

Now I don't know about you, but I'll bet this is going to be a total bitch to enforce. Seriously guys, where do you draw the line? This is a question that needs a relatively clear answer.

All I can say is that Torley's office hours this Friday are going to be decidedly less civil. Ah well.

What worries me is the abruptness with which this policy is being announced. Governments that abruptly announce an about face on national tradition and prior rules tend to make abrupt turns like this only if they're totalitarian. More fuel for Prokofy, I say.

People are also asking me how I can continue to defend the Lindens after repeated incidences of this. I need to clarify some matters:

The Lindens I work with are associated with first responses. They help to ensure the rules are followed, and that wrinkles in the system are followed.
The Lindens I work with do NOT have much say as to exactly how rules should be formed. They also do NOT have much say to voice their opinions on this sort of thing, as to whether it is good or it is bad.

I feel perfectly justified and willing to stand behind them on the matter until there is clear evidence that whatever they are doing is contributing to the current situation. Not something that has happened... yet.

It just wouldn't be fair. It would be something I would be against doing.

Off-Topic: The Theory of Cat Gravity

2007-07-22T22:55:00.000+08:00

A friend of Robin Wood nee Sourjourner came up with a curiously compelling theory as to why felines seem to exert so much gravity on others around them...

Cats, as everyone knows, sit on the window ledges where, as everyone knows, they collect solar rays. What everyone does not know is that they transform these solar rays directly into gravity. You can tell that they are doing this because when they get into the window they hardly ever make any noise; but when they get out they almost invariably go "thud."

You can't seriously make stuff like this up. To read the entire text (which makes a almost Agnian sort of sense), click over to: Robin Wood's Cat Gravity Poster. xD

Starry Starry Night - Robbie Dingo Rox!

2007-07-19T23:45:00.000+08:00

Please watch this and then try telling me Second Life is overrated. I dare ya.

Busy Busy Busy

2007-06-27T15:14:00.000+08:00

Man, I haven't posted in here in a long time... why?

I've been busy busy busy...

I've been taking due care on my studies. This is my final semester at Edith Cowan University. I need to find a job after this month is through, basically. If you know of someone in Australia who needs a web developer and can cope with extensive use of telecommuting tools (outside of Perth - I can do physical presence in Perth), drop me a comment inworld by notecard - I'm all ears.
I got back to working on Second Life's 4th Anniversary. If you see the SL01 Telehub/Tram Station complex in SL01 Region, or the New World Notes installation at SL01 PG, both of them were my work. I make no apologies for the lack of style or primming/textures on both of these builds - I didn't think showing my neighbours up was a good idea at all...
Building a new outpost in Blumfield. Basically, the shop I run in Tamarack has become untenable in terms of accessibility, thanks to a camper arcade It will eventually go. So I'm detiering. In the meantime, you can still reach me inworld by the usual means and methods - drop an IM or notecard, or visit me at The Living Room at Fishermans' Cove.
Thinking very hard about my future, and the future of newcomer education in Second Life. Second Life remains esoteric to the average Internet user, and most Residents require a hand to understand it. Linden Labs has thrown open the provision of such orientations to select SL Resident Organisations that have a plan that doesn't involve mature content or crass commercialism. I for one welcome our new Orientations, and have started working on a few of them an hour or two at a time. This should be interesting.

Lame firewall or pure intolerance?

2007-06-01T23:32:00.000+08:00

For the first time today, my School's firewall actually blocked my ability to surf the Second Life Blog, due to "Nazi Propaganda". I was very busy at the time, but it was pretty shocking to be told that, even though I knew the Bayesian filters on it sucked royally.

When I got home late, this is what greeted me:

http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/05/31/keeping-second-life-safe-together/

Daniel Linden, I'd never thought I'd be able to say this of a Linden, but seriously... dood? how good can it be if even my school's firewall thinks your blog post reeks of the purest form of intolerance known to mankind?

HiPiHi latest test footage

2007-06-01T19:11:00.000+08:00

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TFNBmyrjetI

Watch this if you love the following:

vintage 2003 Second Life UI
Chinese labels on everything.
beta work that made the Primatar age of art as done by early Lindens in primatar outfits look like the damned Louvre.
Sluggish helicopters
Two different ways to draw a progress gauge screen, none of which are easy on the eyes.
World Map drawn by some alternate world version of Torley Linden (who in this alternate world loves bananas).
reduced quality and quantity of avatar UV maps, Appearance tweaks
parachuting out of a helicopter in a stance associated with Vogue dancing, not parachuting

Everyone else keep clear. This really begs the question: why even bother? Wouldn't it be easier to just translate the SL UI to Chinese and use it instead?

(petitions to add QQcoin-L$ support to SL)

Downtime

2007-05-29T17:27:00.001+08:00

Going to be a LOT busier these next few days starting today. I've set up no-build and/or autoreturns on all of my holdings in Second Life - please don't think you can do anything funny while my back is turned, the lot of you.

Okay?

Turning Chinese in SL #2: Help = Sugar Rush

2007-05-28T08:45:00.000+08:00

I admit right now that December was a bit of an awkward month SL-wise. I should have been relaxing, getting a RL job, regrouping.
Instead, I was hanging out in Second Life a lot. Days where I would be in at the stroke of midnight to the stroke of midnight (the next day obviously) came around two or three times a week. These were wasted on exploring the sandboxes, the casinos (I spent a small sum on last-minute Slingo raids, but only what I could afford.), the furry fandom and gorean cities, the institutions and Svarga. Friendlist growth (and a couple of pares, I'm not ashamed to admit)
I spent enough time that I started getting comfy with my wildcat self and it showed when I got back to college from SL. I used to be fearful of interaction, often preferring the company of others considerably older and wiser than me. Having the feeling I could reach out and maul hard (even if only in spirit) gave me excuses to speak more to my classmates in non-professional matters.
Some wise dolt once said the next stage of progression from ceasing to fear others is to start making others fear you. I strongly disagree with this negative view of any world. The next thing is to offer help. I started to learn more and haunt other places. Help Island and Orientation Islands Public. Shovelling through the knowledge base regularly for help.
I put in an application.
Initially it was just to cover the bases - there had been horror stories where willng participants formalising their assistance towards others became a matter of waiting for months on end.
I got a lot of work done in the end though, throughout those days. It eventually became a matter of point where someone up there felt I should start running with the people in Live Help (later retermed Help Request, subsequently retired from public (ab)use).

At this point, I have something really personal to say. Shortly after I first badged up, in the midst of the congrats and the regular buzz-ins, someone tried to make me feel very unwelcome and unwanted. You took one look at my tag and my age while I was working hard, and dismissed me as a advanced hire into Second Life's concentrations and networks of power.

You managed to sledge the people who decided for me, the people who said I should apply for the job, and even a handful of people who were publicly my friends. The way you did it was perfectly legal, but it hurt. It hurt very badly.

I've kept one eye on you since then, and your behaviour has gotten no better since then. In fact, it seems to have gotten worse.

You should be ashamed of your self. You know very very well who you are. You spend thousands of dollars on land every month, partly to poison the ears of newcomers every passing day. You pass on values that, long-term, only lead to more suffering.

You're feted, but only amongst the very sort of people you claim to eschew. In short, you are the sort of trash whom nobody would mourn for long if you slipped up one day and got hauled for it.

Don't let me be the one to help you over the edge.

The months seem to have gone by very fast. I eased up on the throttle to avoid burnout, but I still got into the world with a passion.

Several hundred thousand other people would seem to concur with me. Just look at the 60-day login figure that comes up here...

All sorts of nationalities in that mix. Agni was once primarily a place filled with people from the western hemisphere (if that actually exists), people whose main choice of language was English, or japanese, or some European language I can't parse for gobbledygook.

Amazing what a difference a year makes. It say something when Max Case actually gets rejected from Yahoo Pipes and Google translation services suddenly after months of working on his Babbler translation software...

And some of these guys were Chinese. Setting aside the fact that Anshe Chung started from a very very low position (in more ways than one) in Second Life, China should be proud that it has a daughter who has reached out and grabbed her fortune in the "damned-if-I-don't" manner that only Chinese hunger can manifest. Publicity about her would have become an obvious thing.

And some of that would spark minds. While most of China labors under what can only be charitably described as dial-up on chewed copper wire mesh, there are some parts that have access to broadband. and computers with good 3d accelerators.

Get them into the hands of the curious and the interested, and you have visitors. Get visitors into Agni, and you have people who can't leave. Sure there's churn, but any online service has churn.

My first call in Chinese came through one quiet April evening. Prior to that, I had only noted my ability to handle Chinese as a matter of fact, and not even a given - half the incoming Chinese diaspora was educated in countries and ages where people didn't consider putting over ten strokes into a single character a waste of time or money.
It was a pretty interesting call. it was mundane, the usual call people put in asking for ways to make money in SL. But it was in Chinese.
Help Request may be dead, but I haven't stopped getting those calls. Two chinese phrases come to mind that keep popping up half the time:

兄妹，朋友。(sisters. Friends)

It's an odd Chinese habit. you tend to leave China for anywhere. Paris, Egypt, California, Nanyang, Hongkong... anywhere but your home.
You don't even have to be a Hainanese (客家人，'guest people' - something like Chinese for wanderer). You just have to be Chinese, and in a position where things could improve for yourself and your family (which basically covers everyone living and breathing with Chinese roots)
You get out there, often become native - you learn the local rules and rites, the local language, the local demands and the ways you can contribute to society. You might forget your native language in whole or in part. But one thing remains:

饮水思源

When partaking of water, one considers the source. One forgets, but one doesn't forget totally. I remember being Chinese and of late, I've been finding more excuses to read it when time permits.

I've been rifling through my Besta. It is not a power workstation - hell, it doesn't even cope well with most things a Windows CE can do. But it IS a window into learning Chinese. (Bonus - if I get bored ever, I can learn Korean and Japanese later on with it as well xD) I spend an hour on it every day, and leave it to recharge once a week, and learn something random every day.

I really don't think I'll get out from any of this funk ever. Not that I'd want to.

On that note, I think I'm done. I apologise for making you guys sleepy and yawning, but I simply had to let go of my neuroses for a while. The funny and stupid will resume shortly.

Turning Chinese In Second Life #1: My youth, my first SL fling

2007-05-23T20:39:00.001+08:00

I am writing this as I am in real life. No masks, no pretensions. But I've changed subtly in a way I didn't realise, until I read something I'd typed up for Hamlet.
I need to reason it out, and I don't see the damage in doing so in front of you, my reader...

It's not something I advertise much, but in real life, I have a bit of Chinese heritage. I don't spew classics like a person seeking a official post in feudal China, but I can write and read simplified JianTiZi (Beijing's idea of Chinese, less strokes, more speed) at a level that lets me read the weekly Perth Chinese papers without picking up my Besta dictionary more than once or twice a page, though I don't speedread in JianTiZhi the way I do in English.

My real-life father once bragged that knowledge of Chinese opened the doors to an entire new kingdom in a way few other experiences could match (No, fanboi, your copy of WoW Burning Crusade doesn't hack it). I was the last person anyone would ask to translate anything written in Chinese. As a kid, I was rebellious in a way that proved deleterious later on in life, and I chafed at my father's suggestion to read the classics and learn the language deeply. I regret a little now that my command of Chinese is barely sufficient enough to order a short-order cook to get me my favorite mock beef claypot (he doesn't have a good command of English, but apparently, Australia is short on good cooks, so... ^^;)

For most of life, I felt far from comfortable with this aspect of me. I confess to having flunked formal Chinese qualifications on several occasions in my youth. In Singapore, failure to meet standards of understanding in one's mother tongue led often to abject failure. Significant work was done to correct this, but only after my cohort, sadly - There is a recognition that some people *JUST* don't cope well with their mother tongue in a country where a unified language is a must-have, and that this is not necessarily a sign of stupidity on its own. But it was too late for me...

Following my obligatory years in service to my country of birth, this necessitated relocating my RL avatar to Perth for further studies, where Chinese was an advantage only half the time. Except for a couple of stumbles, I have found a certain calm in the way my studies were conducted (barring my contraction of Ross River Virus, something that still occasionally moves in and makes my life a living hell for a few days).
There were others like me - bonded in a knowledge of English rather than whatever their parents' patois was - Swahili, French, a million other languages, all bonded by the fact that they were anything but the Queen's English (or POTUS' English, come to think of it). I didn't feel like I needed to speak or write Chinese any longer.

And then I logged into Second Life on Halloween, in a country where the only cool thing about it was the opportunity to pub crawl while disguised as a demon from hell. I entered Agni, another world where being disguised as a demon for hell was something people sometimes did all their lives. (Garn Conover, you are one hell of a Cerebus, and one damned good shephard of newbies. Aryn Lassard, you are an accursedly patient scripting mentor. Charming devil too.)

They say people change Agni by the way they touch it. I'm proud to confirm it. But what most people don't consider is the fact that the favor is reciprocated! I would lapse back into a desire for my mother tongue as part of my new sickness, but that's telling the story a bit too fast.

At first, it was a couple of touches here and there. brief excursions into the world. often lasting less than an hour. I camped here and there while checking my mail and writing my obligatory educational stuffs. I may have indulged in some minor griefing (<-- spoken in an 'I may have inhaled' tone) at one or two points in time.

And then I got to know of the full extent of the world via a chance encounter with a older Resident. I believe you may already know her all too well if you have come here via references in the Second Life Insider or her own blog. If that doesn't chime totally: she wears her heart, but she doesn't bother to waste a perfectly good sleeve to mount it on. Why would she need to?

But I digress. Over the course of several drop ins, I learnt the fact that Second Life had beauty and power beyond anything one could imagine in the real world. Prejudice still existed in Agni, but the things that people could be prejudiced about were ideas and beliefs, not fixed constructs like age, sex, or cultural backgrounds. One could, given the right application of smarts and societal skill, become someone of significant note, or even wealth (take a bow, Aimee Weber, Starax William Niangao, Max Case et al.)

I would wake into Second Life every other day with a new landmark from someone who thought I needed to see more of the world... And I did.

Navora. NCi Kuula. Midnight City. Silk Waters Mountain. Samurai Island. New Paris.
A few others. I didn't pick any favorites consciously when I wrote that list... I think.

A landmark into Svarga pretty much clinched the deal. It is pretty funny how the things one takes for granted in the real world suddenly become important in Agni. Feeding the birds with virtualised birdseed scattering and listening to visitors turn Svarga into a celebration of Second Life on the region's own elven orchestra, right there in the virtualised morning sun of Svarga, I realised something important:

This is the best of all possible worlds.

I also realised something else:

Now and tomorrow, this is where I want to be.

Like a Red Gyarados on a Neo-Realms Epic Rod, I was hooked in Agni.

(To Be Continued)

Walk on Machinima part

2007-05-23T20:39:00.000+08:00

This isn't Mel Gibson, but I did appear for two seconds at 00:50 in this celebration of the Chinese New Year by Oglivy One of China.

Post #27: SL-Specific 300 spoofs

2007-04-25T12:52:00.000+08:00

Overheard in Sandbox Island during a attack of self-replicating graygoo ahhboxes:

"This is Madness!"
"Madness? THIS IS AGNIIII!"

Overheard on Live Help:

"One of these days, the world will calm down enough that Linden Labs can get in a good thank-you dinner."
"I can see the tagline on the invite now. 'Tonight, we dine with Elle!'"

Signboard rezzed on a passerby during a particularly laggy day with very high concurrency:

"Phillip Linden's 30,000 - Prepare for lag"

Post #26: April Snapzilla Update

2007-04-25T12:11:00.000+08:00

As usual, I persist in being a snap-happy Snapzilla fanatic. Like Torley Linden, only with more fur and blueberries.

Attached, find more insanity:

What does a Hungry Penguin eat?
Whatever it jolly damn well wants to eat! Updated: Editor's Choice Award! Yayzerama!

Year Of The Cat
I've been accused of taking my name and choice of main avatar from an old Al Stewart classic about a lovely girl who lives in a rural area in the Year Of The Cat. Now as poetic as if sounds, I'm afraid I have to disabuse you guys of that notion. It just popped into my head and this song never came by me until I was fishing in Simkast Cove and fell over on hearing the lyrics.

Knowledge Fruit Tree
More a symbol than an actual genuine purveyor of intellect, this sculpture is available on approved request via inworld IM. For those with prim shortages, a alternate arrangement is available - a fruit hat! (disclaimer: may contain matriculated worms)

Prism Durosport MP3 player
Shown actual size, this inworld MP3 'player' is a Moldovian POS no-tech item. Actually, it was a really big April Fools' joke. I mean, nobody would seriously consider doing something like this in Second Life for real right? (Sony Ericsson *cough* *hack* *wheeze*)

Luskwood Easter Bunnies!
Easter Sunday this year saw the hosting of a easter egg hunt in Luskwood... or at least it would have if there had been a properly working grid...
That didn't seem to stop Samara Nerd from getting a vendor cobbled together. over 5650 of these bunnies were released into the grid by 2am the following morning. For the most part, the day was mostly one long party in Luskwood consisting of record serverloads of visitors to Luskwood often dressed in their new Easter bunnies. These bunnies are no longer available folks - if you missed out, cross your fingers and hope for good furtune next year.

DarkDharma Daguerre's Halloween Haunted House
Neo-Realms Ride: classic Totoro scene
Emerce Shun and Emerce Tween - Two private islands consisting of showrooms for nothing but metaversal artists in Second Life. Any estate that has Totoro and a haunted house in place is either mainland gone out of control, or cool art. Firms such as Aimee Weber Studios, Rivers Run Red and Neo-Realms Entertainment make their homes in here...

Post #25: Less than 60 minutes to go...

2007-04-25T12:02:00.001+08:00

Ever since I could recall, I enjoyed the possibility of helping out in Second Life as a volunteer. When I applied though, times were tumultous - the programme was undergoing a revamp, the full effects of which weren't obvious then, and even now. I'd heard horror stories about how the average volunteer could expect to wait several months on top of their usual required SL experience before they could tag up and join the legions of Mentors and Live Help. I was very surprised when a whole month of intensive 8 hour days in SL turned into a invite to join in late January.

There are others who have helped longer than me. Hell, there are people who are more passionate than me (yes, you there in the back row, stop laughing on the latter). It has been a swell 2 to three months. I've made my mistakes, but out of little more than misguided stupidity or unawareness about the way things work in any world.

As I type this, SL is beginning to wind down Help Request in world. In its place will come a structure that follows the simplest and yet hardiest of mantras any metaversal explorer could have, whether it is mere HTML or all-singing, all dancing primmage:

HELP THYSELF

There have been postings on the forums and in the offiical blog about the changes to be wrought: a gradual shift from Linden Labs as a mere San Franciso startup/upstart to a full 24/7 service on most, if not all, matters, the reworking of pull channels for knowledge such as the Knowledge Base and SL wiki, the introduction of a actual 'system is down' report to alert gridmonkeys more directly to unwanted griddeath.

And the usual 'the end is nigh' BS. I need to reiterate this since it seems to have gotten lost despite repeats:

Live Help is not going away totally.

Blue Linden has noted in meetings about this sea change in how we help Residents make sense of Agni that there will always be room for people to help each other, and the death of Help Request is not going to mean he becomes less busy. Far from it - one of the new priorities in SL now is to find ways to help Residents help each other better, to help themselves better. I fail to see exactly how that is a bad thing.

Well, maybe I do... I for one am going to miss dispensing advice and sweetness (and the occasional foambatting) to people who need it, anywhere within SL's 70,000+ regions.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Ahhboxes self-replicating in sandboxes like rabbits on heat. I've watched Lindens bling in the sunlight near the Tenera Train Station. All those moments will be lost in time, like cache losses on crashing regions. Time to concentrate on Real Life for a while.

...

I'll see you guys on the other side. Don't forget to send me a private IM when I'm on if you need help, okay?

Post #24: Snapzilla Review #1

2007-03-15T19:26:00.000+08:00

Well, after 3+ months of being a Resident in Agni, I've had quite an extensive lot of memories in many different ways... keepsakes from inventory drop, Snapshots in Photo Album... and there's also Snapzilla. Attached find some classics that I just had to share with you guys...

Giant Volunteer Cheshire Cat

Blue Linden's Coffee Mug

Spaceballs, anyone?

Panda Claus!

Renaissance Winged Woolly!

RIP, First Land / Developer Subsidy / Instructional Subsidy / (Insert favorite defunct LL initiative here)

Yak with Chinese name in SL!

Big Brother: SL midget pirate jig

Prelude to a Luskwood Core 40-main raid - "After I Relax Michi Lumin with my Luskwood Core Rifle, you are going to DPS very, very slowly. throw lots and lots of dots."

"My name is Yamabushi. Tengu Yamabushi."

Post #23: Even Zombies Have Standards

2007-03-13T21:19:00.000+08:00

Also: the newest Plywood webcomic by Moriash Moreau takes a spin on the common zombie cliches and asks... if a brainless couple show up, are they dinner, or empty plates?

As an aside, this comic was filmed in the Garage of DOOM, a zombie survival game set in a garage above The Gardens of Mo... Great fun for all, and the game is coded to be gentle to the sim Moriash set it in - it won't run if the sim's TD goes below 0.75, which is his way of being a good neighbour and not being accused of causing the problems that bring the sim to that point. More potentially lag-prone builds like these need to be coded this way - props to Mo on this one!

Post #22: More PlyWood hilarity

2007-03-13T21:03:00.000+08:00

Now there's this common habit amongst SL Residents to mix two closely related things together. Regions and sims are NOT the same thing - a region may take up the entire resources of a sim, or a fraction of it - the sim is a physical unit crammed somewhere in San Francisco or Texas keeping part of the world up.
Agents and avatars are two different things as well. Your agent is your identity on SL, and your avatar is a 'physical' representation of that identity. To muddy the waters, even Linden Labs routinely blurs the lines between these two different things in communications.

Moriash Moreau documents an example of the further indignities that avatars in SL suffer from. Read. Laugh. Then treat your fellow avatars better in future!

----
AV-Woollahra

Post #21: More Thievery in SL - An Open SL Letter

2007-03-13T20:36:00.000+08:00

Sometime over the weekend, Simone Stern's account was hacked into and money to the tune of L$400,000 siphoned out. The money has apparently followed the usual route taken by so many illegally gained funds and has been presumably shifted all over the grid by the miscreant(s) in question.

I gather from what other residents have said that Simone is one of those people you hear about: the successful businesswoman who can sustain her RL avatar solely on the proceeds from her work in SL. She has also helped to raise funds for a fellow Resident inflicted with serious RL maladies in order to help her secure treatment (See "Ayeshe's Millions").

All in all, I gotta say this couldn't happen to a nicer lady, but the fact is, it could. :( There has been quite a recent spate of larceny on the grid to the tune of hundreds of RL dollars, in such places as Furnation, Darklife, AKK Ranch, and now Simone Stern.

I honestly have to ask the people who indulge in such acts of depravery:
just what the FUCKING hell sort of kick do you get out of it?

It's at times at this that I'm grateful that my RL avatar is a Augustinian on the matter of the human condition: people are innately bad and need lots of rules and rope to tie them down before they go out of control. Now I want to strongly disagree on this point, but when stuff like this happens... PEOPLE, you are not making easy for me to stand up for what I believe in in Agni.

That'll be all.
-----

Post #20 - Quiet in DarkLife Sim

2007-02-25T16:47:00.000+08:00

So the Navora sim was hacked today... to the tune of US$400 in losses.

The sim has become significantly quieter in the past few hours, as I carry out the motions of kicking undead ass.

....

I do hope it's not permanent

Patchyoulli Woolluhraa

[UPDATE: The sim has been reopened on a partial basis. In a way, the hack attack could be considered partially a sort of blessing: it has accelerated development of the new upgrade of Darklife 2, and given the developers a chance to clear out deadwood and find out exactly who their friends are. Entry into Navora is currently restricted to current players and carefully vetted friends and invitees on the offchance that further hacks into the system haven't been found yet. If you're a prior Darklife Player and wish to get back in the game, please send an in-world IM to your previous groupmates and/or the moderators for an invite.]

Post #18 - City Fennec with attitude

2007-02-16T01:34:00.000+08:00

Not all fennecs are cute...

Post #17: Friendlist Raid!

2007-02-13T12:32:00.000+08:00

Well, I haven't posted as often as I promised myself I would, but I figure now would be a good time to do so.

The grid has been on the blink for at least the past 24 hours as I write this, with no apparent end in sight. While people are playing blame games and wringing their arms around like squids shouting about the implications of being asked to refrain from handling the assets, I raided my friendslist. Send a few hundred IMs, chattered like an idiot, hung around in Live Help helping out whenever the system wasn't making it impossible for Help Request to route stuff over. It's amazing how much you can still do when restricted to standing in one spot in a ghost avatar that you pulled on just before the worst hit... with no TP abilities.

It's something to consider in future when things go bad: not all your assets are on the asset server or the LindeX.

That will be all for this post...

(Update: things seem to be on the mend now. We shall see how long they stay up again before another issue like this happens again... Back to partying)

Post #16 - Happy Birthday Rusty Opel!

2007-01-29T15:00:00.000+08:00

28 Jan 2007 saw the birthday of Simkast Radio DJ Rusty Opel.
We here at Woolly Wildcat Writings would like to wish Rusty Opel a happy birthday and more good years to the folks over at Simkast Cove - a SL outpost of the TSO/CoV/CoH/WoW Internet Radio station Simkast Radio!

Post #15 - PARTY

2007-01-22T04:11:00.000+08:00

Frontier Linden hosted a party to honor and thank the Volunteers of SL at Portage this Sunday. I was fortunate enough to snag an invite, so I brought my camera and got on my favorite leather dress...

The Author as a Leather-draped Party Fennec. Pizza was great. Where's the camera? Hey, great cleavage has its advantages... ;P

The party got underway around 12PM SLT after a brief moment of technical setup by DJ Ron Overdrive. Despite some teething problems, the music was soon on in high-quality Ogg Vorbis

Ron Overdrive DJing, dancing and jiving with Amber Linden at the party

Sponsor of the party, Frontier Linden, twirling some glowy Poi around to the beat of Tetris. Yes, Tetris.

A fun time was had by all!

Patchoulli PartyFenneq

Post #14 - Forks In The Code

2007-01-13T12:03:00.000+08:00

As so many of you have heard, the Second Life client source code has been thrown open to open sourcing. Now most of you who've used Open Source software know that one of the common habits of OS developers is to take the same code and tweak it in a million different ways to produce a million different 'forks'.

If you had l33t coding skills and could code and compile the source differently, what would you put in the client for yourself? None of those lame "less lag" things - everyone wishes for it already. I want off the bat answers, and I want them... erm... now? XD

Answers in the comments please!

Post #13 - Called on account of insanity

2007-01-13T04:27:00.000+08:00

(We were going to run a post here by Mad Shopper Patchouli, but it appears that she's gone crazy with the post-Xmas sales in Agni. Attached find proof of her incarceration...)

(What a mess - Ed.)

Post #11 - Viewer update called on account of bugs

2007-01-10T23:57:00.000+08:00

And for those people who claim Linden Labs doesn't do enough testing:

the 1.13.2 viewer update has been scrubbed today in favor of server patches only. Apparently, the new viewer creates bigger problems with region crossings and attachments than the problems it seeks to solve... Considering how important it is for many people to cross regions, or wear attachments, or cross regions while attachments, this move is to be applauded.

The update will still take five hours. These are five hours you've never had to schedule anything SL related in unless they said there was no update, so it's no big loss. I'd like to know what you're doing while waiting for this stuff to happen, and will be in the SLUniverse Chatrooms as always!

Patches of Insanity #2 - Not particularly useful in a Shai'Hulud...

2007-01-08T17:16:00.001+08:00

Patches of Insanity #2 - Not Particularly Useful In A Shai'Hulud...

Because there has been so much fear going on in Agni of Late, our friend Dune Fanatic will recite the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear as a prayer for all SL Residents in these troubled times...

Not particularly useful in a shai'hulud, now...

\Paging Patchouli Coalition Rescue Crew number 2... Again.

Patches of Insanity #1 - Total BS

2007-01-07T02:02:00.000+08:00

Post #9 - For Real: Choose Second Life.

2007-01-03T02:44:00.000+08:00

Choose Second Life. Choose a firstname. Choose a lastname. Choose a payment plan, a client download and a random help island jump point. Choose a home landmark. Choose your friends. Choose an avatar and matching clothes. Choose a First Land plot surrounded by fellow newbies erecting a wide range of wierd builds and annoying spinning signs. Choose sitting on that camping pad zombifying away for a pittance in Lindens, while you AFK to do your RL laundry. Choose learning something eventually, making something of yourself, becoming an inspiration to future newbies you referred to Agni and who came of their own accord.

Choose your future.

Choose Second Life.

Post #9: I'm In Ur Technorati, claiming your blog!

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

This is a temporary post. Post #9 will most likely be something else in the near future...

Technorati Profile

Having said that... props to Tateru for reminding me that people actually set up websites to do nothing but aggregate a million other blogs!

Post #8: Less of that, more of this!

2007-01-02T12:30:00.000+08:00

In honor of Tateru's post begging for less penis in Second Life:

http://dwellonit.blogspot.com/2007/01/give-me-less-of-this.html

I'd like to give you some ideas for gooing up Second Life that are more creative:

Self-replicating teddy bears
Self-replicating Abuse Reports
Self-replicating hypercubes
Self-replicating Yellow Lanterns
Self-replicating fruit that goes "Mmm, delicious." - bonus points for watermelons. or pears
Buying four chibibotfoxes, sitting them down with pen and paper, then asking them to ghostwrite a New World Notes column.
Actually using your main account for once and be counted
Buying your own private island and spending lots of your own time crashing the grid repeatedly.

(I was bored by the Texas Outage. can't you tell?)

Patchouli (the griefer one)

Post #7: 1 Jan 2007

2007-01-01T01:39:00.000+08:00

Listening to: Simkast Radio
Watching: the fish bite @ Simkast Cove
Waiting for: DJ Baptist's last show as a Simkast DJ
Just bought: one Russian Christmas Gift as a thankyou to Dale Glass for inventing Trustnet
Just sold: one low prim 512sqm house for L$1000
Just thinking: of very little.
Just writing: nothing of importance in here...

Post #5: Darklife Journal - A Day In The Life of a Vorpal Bunny Paladin

2006-12-30T15:30:00.000+08:00

(We were originally going to run a puff piece about fear in Second Life, but it appears that our contributor Mentat Patchouli was swallowed up by a Worm. More details in an hour, along with a replacement. Hopefully, a rescue crew if our budget can stretch to it.)

(UPDATED: We were originally going to run a replacement puff piece about Escort Parlours in Second Life, but it appears Gideon Television has done a much better job than any one of us could have done. Those responsible have been shot by the chief, then resurrected, then shot again, ad nauseaum.)

(UPDATED YET AGAIN: And now for something completely different but publishable. Vorpal Bunny Paladin!)

(Patychoulli Woolluhraa in her combat armor. Specially tailored to follow the old rule of armor for women: less coverage, more protection!)

Written thisth Twenty-Nineth Of Decembre, Two Thousande And Sixeth
By: Vorpal Bunny Paladin Neophyte Patychoulli Woolluhraa

Some days, I get asked... "Patychoulli, what is it that you accomplish every day in Agni?" I have a pretty busy schedule, and today I will write about it...

Cock's first crow: Annoys me to blazes. Make mental note to ask Chief Patchouli about spatchcock cockerel for breakfast one of these days.

Cock's second crow: Dressed up and ready to take to the field for another day of slaying all manner of foul beasties, such as rats, Culinas and the foul Manitou...

Most of the morning: Bashing said creatures. I die once or twice, but thanks to the magic of Dark Life, I am resurrected and sent back into the field with little damage... except for maybe a bit of forgetfulness.

(Patychoulli Woolluhraa confronting the fiercesome Praying Manitou. EN GARDE! (She died for the first time of the day shortly after this picture was taken - ED.) )

Midday: All this fighting and spellcasting works up a major appetite. I find a quiet spot, get out my iron rations and Oriental green tea, and waste some time in the forests relaxing...

(Patychoulli having a moment of peace at lunchtime. (HEY - MY SCHOOL LUNCH COOKIE! :( - Patchey) )

Afternoon: more pain and suffering. Mostly inflicted on Manitous, but not totally... (pained sigh)

(Patychoulli Woolluhraa confronting another fiercesome Praying Manitou. DIE, VERMIN! (She died for the second time for the day shortly after this picture was taken - ED.) )

Late evening: after cutting my profits, I check my spoils. Amongst them are a couple of keys to chests strewn around town, holding goodies for newcomers such as me.

A DarkLife Level 1 Chest and its accompanying key. What treasures lie concealed within?

Several chests later, I'm about 200 gold richer, and my backpack is completely restocked on beneficial potions of all shades... Time to celebrate! I sadly confess that i can't really hold my mead well, but that doesn't stop me from having one glass... then having an early night. I'm sure I'll regret it tomorrow morning, but I don't have to train on New Year's Eve, so I don't care...

And while we're about it.... Have a great 2007, everyone!

Yours sincerely,

Patchyoulli Woolluhraaa
Vorpal Bunny Paladin Neophyte
Dark Life

Post #4: Emergency Chat now in session!

2006-12-30T02:01:00.000+08:00

If anyone wants to discuss or shoot the breeze while SL is down, I will be starting a public chatroom on SLUniverse shortly. No password or registration is required, but I humbly ask that you log in using your SL name or a close derivative when you join in...

Look for 'Aoi Neko Emergency Chat' as you come in through the door. Looking forward to seeing what happens in the next four hours...

[UPDATE: Closng the doors on account of Second Life coming back to life. I'll check things for a bit, then go to sleep if nothing major needs fixing

Post #3: We are not amused

2006-12-29T23:13:00.000+08:00

at 8am SLT yesterday, we met beez Linden and had a lovely effusive chat with her while the grid came back to life, talking about a million things, including how fast the grid seemed to be running after the asset server maintenance.

At 7am SLT today, we're taking back some things we said about the asset server that were very far from impolite, and We Are Not Very Amused.

The grid has been down for 8 hours as we write this, and this is 8 hours' worth of plans, schemes and Coonspiracies(sic) down the drain.

If Real Life was like this I'd be sitting in a camping seat from Ravenous Dingo, shooting myself in the head with a revolver from Robbie Dingo and leaving the angels to sing an Asset Server Lullaby about the 400th time this happened. Or earlier, if I lost something priceless and irreplaceable. (Props to any country fans who get this reference)

Fortunately, most of us Patchoulis are much more well grounded. If you wanted us the past 8 hours, our RL self was rampaging through the bookshops of Perth devouring every possible book, and buying a few more. We had a good meal @ a popular local vegetarian restaurant, had a good dose of Ginseng coffee (ginseng + caffeine), and rented a bunch of Bubblegum Crisis spinoffs. (A.D. Police, Parasite Dolls)

If nothing else, at what is essentially the last of midnights in 2006, I say I'm sitting pretty in the catbird seat. What about you?

I'd be interested to hear comments. Drop me a line at the end of this post - what do you do when Linden Labs is forced to pull Agni out from under you.

Yours sincerely,

Patchouli (the sensible one)

Post #2:GridMonkeys Run Amok again - Asset Server misbehaves again!

2006-12-29T15:53:00.000+08:00

(Image cribbed from the Official Second Life Homepage - "The Grid Is Down While We Bang on Things" - accessible only during downtimes. Copyright of this image rests with Linden Labs and its use on this blog is a form of tribute, not an attempt to infringe on said copyrights. Those responsible for providing the hardware causing the problems have been interrogated in GridMonkey OOK and subsequently bashed in the head with a really big bone.)

Oh noes, here we go again... from 7am to 8am today, the Agni grid was brought down for a moment of solitude in which Lindens could work on the asset server without the millions of transactions that happen every waking moment on the grid. Once brought up, things certainly seemed hunky dory for the most part.

Less than 24 hours later, the asset server falls over again.

Symptoms occuring prior to the crash included a strange reluctance by the asset server to take in perfectly compiled LSL, refusal to open LSL scripts previously saved, and a odd tendency (as reported by TUi Neophytes Lecturer Compulov Weeks and several NCi members) of things refusing 'take copy' requests or taking a looong time to get them across.

Add to that the currently occurring issue and things look per-eeety stunted.

It happened at a pretty bad time too. True Lock, if you're reading this, IM me the next time both of us are online and we'll continue modding that Gorean Observer Tag into that technicolor titler you wanted.

Otherwise, excuse me. I have a beef stew that needs stewing while the grid is dead in the water. Beef, not Linden - although given this slip up, a lesser furry vore could be forgiven for indulging in that sort of fantasy.

Post #1: Waiting on Outside

2006-12-28T23:16:00.000+08:00

Well, this is it: my first attempt at making a fool of myself in the part of the web that isn't on Agni. XD

As I write this, the grid has gone on a Linden-only login list while they patch up the asset servers. It's only an hour's worth of waiting, but even an hour can become almost too long for a lot of people.

I guess I should introduce myself. To save you the frustration of corny lines, I won't begin with the following lines:

Call me Patchouli
It was a dark and cool night
My momma always told me there'd be days like this.

What I'll begin with is this:

Who I am in the so called real life isn't really important. This is a blog written by someone who is usually a wildcat, but prone to bouts of significant, but often transient changes.

Her favorite colors are the lighter shades of blue and the fresher shades of green, and her favorite part of the Metaverse is Second Life.

She likes watermelons, but prefers a good tangerine and blueberry salad given an open choice about dessert for dinner.

She is a furry of a decidedly unyiffy disposition, but prone to bursting into song and dance like a thousand other Luskwood furries on the Luskwood platforms, amongst the Luskwood trees. Usually a kitty, she can become a million other people, all with something blue on them. If MillionsOfUs wasn't taken, she would have pounced on it.

She is a avid fisherkitty, prowling the jetties of Simkast Cove and the Samurai Islands on a regular basis, the local station blaring in her oversized ears as she catches bigger and bigger fish. Today, a Midgar Serpent. Tomorrow... who knows? Maybe a Red Gyarados?

She is an undergrad at a SL university. She does not have the scripting skills of Timeless Prototype, the artistic perfection of Starax Statosky, or the creative flair of a million, better creators in the grid, but she tries and is willing to learn if someone deigns to spend some time and let go of some secrets... She hopes one day to snag a part-time teaching position.

She is a business incubator, spending a little monthly simply to give new merchants room to try their hand at merchandising without risking too much. She thinks not everyone is cut out to be a merchant, and that it seems harsh to ask them to risk anything significant when starting out...

She is a spoilt foxy little brat, whose only claim to power is a sheer brutal shove of personality strong enough to create its own space in People Search and bound into the Tatcave at the third worst possible time (Do a search for Patchey Woolley ^^;) ...

She used to be a military woman, but those days are mostly behind her, even though she still keeps her old pager charged and maintained for some call that might never come from her ex-CO... right next to her personal uniforms and her rifle (she calls it her 'boyfriend')...

She is a crazed weekend Paladin, whomping mosquitoes in training for bigger and deadlier foes... like critics.

She is a occasional helper, willing to offer help to people who have drained the help files and the wikis of the world drier than a desert, but has no love for griefers, and no like for people who refuse to participate properly and build up a profile of a Second Life well lived...

She is one person. She is a dozen. She is NOT Echo Omega, just so you know.

What is she really? Who knows?

Watch this space.