Reading Radar

Lately at work I’ve been in a mode of this kind of melancholy feeling. The constant having to fight idiots to be allowed to do my job is getting to me. And having to answer questions to people about why I need to do something when they aren’t my boss or even my peer pisses me off. I’ve been told to do something, it makes sense and it needs done, I’m going to do it, so shut the hell up and give me the information I need.

So I understand why certain aspects of real life are happily escaped from with something like second life, or any other hobby or enjoyable past time. A movie, a good book, a hard bike ride, whatever… anything that gets your mind off of whatever’s stressing you out. But I’ve seen a few plurks lately about people who claim they’d like to completely get out of RL and live in SL. Or how much greater their SL’s are than their RL’s. And that really makes me wonder about those people’s state of mind.

It’s easy to get immersed in second life. There are enough cues that the brain picks up on to trick our minds into believing in the experience. When I’m in-world working on something with people and talking to them, I believe I really am there, working on something with them and talking to them. And I am… it’s just taking place in this inner world instead of the outer one. I understand people who get deep into it, then, but I think people who are easily immersed in things like second life need to remember that you are what you are, and you take that with you. The longer I’m in second life, the more I see the view of the “augmentation” view of SL as the healthier view vs. the total immersion view. It’s a part of your RL, it’s a part of what you do, it’s not a replacement. I’ve seen a few people go over the deep end and totally lose sight of that completely. They’d rather BE their avatar than themselves. In essence, they’re looking for the easy button.

By stating that you’d rather live in SL than RL, you’re pretty much stating that you’d like to eject yourself from reality. And yeah, reality sucks at times, given the system we have in place where any idiot can survive without huge amounts of effort, but everyone has to pretty much give themselves over to doing things they’d rather not just to pay their bills. Still, it beats working 15 hours a day trying to grow crops so your family can eat or having to hunt down your own food and hope it doesn’t kill you first. It’s not like we have it any rougher than generations gone by, most of us actually have it a lot easier. We just have it different. We have more leisure time and more time to think about how much we hate our jobs. And our expectations are hugely different now. But reality is reality, and SL is clearly a life where very little income goes a long way, you can always find something fun to do and choose to do what you want when you want (generally speaking), and the banalities of life such as going to the doctor, waiting for airplanes, mowing the lawn, and similar things don’t apply. So expecting realistic comparisons between RL and SL is impossible. One takes place in the inner world and the other one takes place at the most fundamental level. If you check out of that world, you’re done. Your avatar will have *poofed* forever.

In my mind, that’s why the augmentation view makes the most sense. It’s just an acceptance of reality. Just like going on vacation and escaping some of those real life responsibilities for a short time doesn’t make them go away, neither does being in second life. They’re still there, as they should be, waiting for you to get off the computer and get to work on them.

I enjoy second life most of the time, and there’s a lot of things that interest me in second life. Making things work, getting stuff done, getting to do those things with great friends, that’s fun. But there’s no way it’s more than just a part of life. And definitely not the most important part.

So be healthy. Have a fun second life. But don’t forget that you’re not your avatar.

Itazura’s RezzHud rocks. The engine from that powers the on-demand podcast set rezzer at the SLPN Headquarters on PI. Creating a set is easy (so long as the items are copy/mod, see previous post) and rezzing and clearing them even easier. I could stand here and clear/rez sets all day long.

The Podmafia (work in progress) set (notice the “Yxes Parrot” Stuart installed):

The SL Under the Radar set:

Yay! Umm.. Now I think I’m supposed to hold some live events. Damn!! I knew this would just make more work for me.

I like to point out great customer service when I get it, and again tonight, a content creator went above and beyond to help me complete a project.

The SLPN Headquarters on Podcast Island is using two copies of the Akeyo prefab Trii edited and mashed together, with modified textures as the building it’s housed in (see below).

So when I wanted to get some couches for my SL Under the Radar podcast set that I could rez on demand, I went back real quick to see what they had as far as copy/mod furniture. In order to rez any object from the inventory of another object, it has to be copiable, and in order to put the scripts in it for setting the position to be restored upon rez, it has to be modifiable.

Unfortunately, the couches were no copy, no mod, transfer. I looked at the creator profile and found that artoo Magneto was online. So I contacted him and told him that I was hoping to use his product for a rezzable podcast set. Well, he came through for me. He tp’d me over to his workshop where he was busily working on products, and set me up with a mod/copy/no transfer version of the floating couch. Cool.

It just shows you that a lot of the more creative content makers do it not just for the lindens, but because they love what they do. They just want to get their stuff out there. Obviously they want to get paid for their work, and good work is always worth paying for, but when you get customer service like this, you know they started not for the dough but for the love of making things they can be proud of.

So a huge thanks to artoo Magneto! And do go check out his work at Akeyo… it’s good stuff.

Here’s a glimpse of the floating couches as I mock up a set real quick, and then take a much needed break. Having people do a lot of work for me is tiring!

Check out a fuzzy flash video of the rezzer in action, sans commentary.

I grew up on Japanese anime and manga. I don’t mean like kids in the US do now. I mean, before any of you snot nosed punks even knew what it was. I was there, beyatch. So things like Uchu Senkan Yamato and (my favorite) Ginga Tetsudo Suri Nain (Galaxy Express 999) were manga I enjoyed as a kid for a glimpse into Japanese sci-fi.

So when Zoe Connolly did a short video on Insilico, I knew it was someplace I wanted to see.

Teleporting in, you’ll see a futuristic, upward, space city environment crowding around you. If you don’t like claustrophobic locations, this might not be for you. That’s pretty much how any major Japanese cities are, so it’s understandable that it translates into their futuristic sci-fi works.

Any British amongst you will be right at home with the ever present monitors and cameras vigilantly guarding the streets of the city.

Note, some mature themes are present, such as at the place on the right here. There’s also a dance club with some graphic anime videos looping, so just be aware it’s present. For me, several years of observing Japanese businessmen reading that shit on buses and trains on a near daily basis skewed my view heavily towards the “no thank you” side of the spectrum.

There’s several levels of shops, mainly them consistent for those looking for gear along the lines of space and sci-fi.

There’s a bar called the Blue Ant and also a control/monitoring area which are both typical of the well done, futuristic feel of the place.

I think I pulled a Keeme and broke and entered into someone’s space. Oh well. I meditated on the severity of my crimes on moved on.

Hungry from my travels, I found a restaurant that appeared submerged in some blue liquid of some kind, or maybe the humidity was cranked to 11. Not sure, but the service blew chunks. I waited for what seemed like 15 whole seconds before shaking their dust off my sandals.

The train diner’s more my thing, and hey, maybe I can actually sit in a Japanese train car without having to spot anyone reading any dirty manga! Yay! I’ve altered the past into a more pleasant … hey.. what’s that puddle of puke on the floor? Ewww… these noodle are tasting a little rubbery, dude. Gimme some shochu to flush that taste out!

Here’s Zoe’s video for a short taste of the atmosphere of Insilico.

Huh. I was adding Insilico to the Destination Station wall, when I realized that clicking on any of the signs would bring up the map with the destination highlighted but the menu asking if you’d like to receive a notecard about the destination was NOT coming up. So the notecards would not be handed out for people to get an idea about the place the sign represented.

I looked at the script and monkeyed around a little and found that just handing out the notecards as normal instead of asking first worked (as expected) so it was just the menus. I rezzed an object that brought up menus on touch and those worked fine. Puzzled, I rebooted the sim.. and presto. They all work now.

Weird. Shrug.

I started changing some of the SLPN headquarters interior textures to those of podcast banners and adding a script to each new sign to offer to load the web site for the corresponding podcast on click.

I need to get some rotating signs in place I guess… or else there’s no way all the SLPN podcasts will fit. There’s TOO MANY!! STUART!!!!!!!!!!!!! Quit taking on everyone with a mic who can breathe in and out and upload mp3’s!

The SLPN Headquarters moved from Nowhereville to Podcast Island awhile ago, so it’s kind of a bummer that it’s taken us so long to get on the ball and get a place set up for rezzing sets for each of the podcasts for live recordings at the headquarters. Stuart and I have both dinked around with ideas but nothing has really stuck.

Today I gave in and bought something to use instead of building it myself, because I don’t really have the time and also I was in a mental block. I bought one of the Akeyo Prefab skyboxes, threw it on the ground, and pulled out three of the glass panels to make always open doors. Then I rezzed another copy, and used about half of it as an addition to the main section. This addition will serve as the home for the Podcasting Exhibit created by Crap Mariner, which will serve to educate people on podcasts and podcasting. If you saw his build during the SL5B celebration, you’ll know what I mean.

The new SLPN headquarters is nothing if not colorful. The prefab came with the green glass look and I modified it for several additional colors for a kind of disco barrage of color.

The side “exhibit-to-be” area:

I added a megaprim circular area on top of the main section to serve as the podcast set rezzing pad. Each of the podcasters who wants to record live here can create a set and store it in the rezzer, then rez that scene as needed.

The rezzer is almost done. It uses the engine of the RezzHUD, Itazura Radio’s HUD-based item and multi-object scene rezzer. I can probably get that finished today/tomorrow and show stuart how to use it and be ready for ACTION! Woot wooo!! And stuff.

It’s got kind of a funky look that I’m diggin’. For sure it’s not the same ol same ol’. The test will be how well the podcasting exhibit fits in and how we can make use of the floor space inside. I’m not worried about the podcast rez pad as it’s a big, open, 20 x 20 area with lots of room for a podcast set.

RezzedNecks are serving the community by going on display on Podcast Island for all to see. In order to facilitate this aspect of their sentence, Itazura put up a viewing area, complete with video screen, for watching the necks in action when they’re doing their thing (should be recording Ep 2 sometime in the next couple days, btw).

I came across Chug checking out the viewer, only she was afk… So for all the afk people she’s “punk’d” over the years, here’s one for you.

Rezzedneck halloween come early?

Anyway, the video player is invisible when not playing videos.. just use the player controls in front of the glass, and presto.. instant nausea!

Chug must not have thought too much of it, or she’s just saying “hi.” Ummm. Okay.

Anyway, check it out if you’re bored… more live taping coming soon!

A few posts ago, I complained about some chairs I bought at the Loft and posted video of me having problems with them. Tonight Colleen Desmoulins from The Loft sent me a couple working chairs and those were much better.

The BEST part of it is that she also made up some new versions that have a much simpler menu system… just sit on it, and choose one of eleven poses from the menu. VERY nice. I like that a LOT better. And they’ll be selling those in the store now too.

The green ones are the new simplified menu versions, and the white ones are the (correctly working) ones with more menu options.

I think what I’ll do is buy two more green ones! I like that version a lot, and for people who just drop by casually to hang out, which is what I want these to be able to be used for, they’ll work better.

Thanks to Colleen and everyone at the Loft. I mentioned they had nice products before, now I can attest to their customer service as well. She really went above and beyond to make sure I was happy. That goes a long way with me. And their stuff all looks very nice too. My one complaint was taken care of thanks to Colleen.

Yay for toilet bowls! I mean, PODCASTS!

Ep 35 of SL Under the Radar is up, finally.

This is part one of a two-parter. I just had too many good interviews to cram into one, and that’s even with the fact that there were a lot of people who I wound up not contacting.

It’s about a topic that hearkens way back to Crap Mariner’s comments in Ep 1, and indeed that underlies every episode of this podcast and probably almost every other podcast about Second Life.

No, not toilets. Well. Not SPECIFICALLY about them.