Must Read for Metaversal Fashion Designers

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:

1. be "the result of an individual's own creative endeavour" and
2. 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...

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

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

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

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

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.

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