Second Life

[Note from Justine: Jenna Papp asked me about being a Post 6 Grrl months ago, and waited patiently for her turn. Then, one day while I was out shooting pictures for an article in SexySecond Magazine, I ran into her while shopping. Her snapshot as a fashionably dressed shopper now graces the pages of SexySecond, and here are more pictures of her for the Herald!]

Hi! I’m Jenna Papp. I want to first of all thank Justine for having me here, and also thank the readers for, so far, being kind. I know I’m only a sentence into my babble, but you all have a reputation.

So, here I am. In Second Life I’ve done the shopping bit, the fashion bit, the building bit, and the naughty bits too. Actually, it’s this last part (along with the clothes) that has most held my attention. As a real life single woman whose children have left the nest, Second Life has been a great way for me to get out and “date” or just meet people, without the hassle of feeling out of place in the bars and clubs that we singles have to suffer through.

In fact, I’ve found quite a happy place here. I have no delusions or desires to go back and be a teen again, so I’m happy to be a single older lady here, as there are certainly enough eager and willing men (and women) who are willing to come calling here in Second Life, while in real life I’ve had obviously interested college kids ask me about my daughters while they get the nerve to admit they want an older lady.

I’ve remarked on this to a number of my friends, both irl and here, and as an experiment started a group called MILF Hookup. If you’re one of the many who would like to chat with some older women, or in fact are an older woman, join us! There’s an enrollment fee to keep the less than earnest out, so I think you’ll find it a good time.

As for the fashion, I love that too. This skin I’m wearing in these pics is something I’ve just discovered. It’s by Slippery and you have to get it. The pale is only 250L and the tan is 500L. You won’t find a better deal anywhere. The first outfit is by Simone Stern, the others by X2. The hair is by Curio. I wish Rita Groshomme made more stuff.

Again, thanks all, especially Justine. Stop by and say hello sometime!

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How to reach /b/tards and the *chan

by Pixeleen Mistral, business desk

After a year and a half of failed attempts at corporate marketing via the metaverse, Second Life finally found a secure place in the ad-supported media universe yesterday. Despite the predictions of a number of pundits, Google did not buy out SL, fix the crash-prone universe, institute mandatory avatar tracking and chat logging systems for all residents to better target special 3D ad-words, and send Philip Linden packing to pay off the accumulated bad karma of a game where more than 20% of all sessions ended in a crash. In the end, the answer was much simpler.

At just the point when legions of highly paid new media consultants had given up hope, a few plucky upstarts both identified the target market that SL appeals to, and demonstrated a cost-effective strategy for reaching these affluent, influential consumers. It is now official - skywriting for the 4chan audience is the best use of SL. See the map view below.

skywriting for 4chan - will 7chan respond?

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Using elephant guns and rocket powered Hummer H1s to hunt virtual kangaroo

by Bawana Bill and Lady Questi

off-road and 649 meters straight up

Greetings big game hunters! Ever wondered about the game here in SL? Well, Lady Questi and I have put together a series of articles on hunting big game here in SL, where we will be showing you the places to bag the big ones!

First we needed the proper equipment. So over to the Black & White sim we went, where we purchased our elephant guns, back packs and pith helmets. For the lady huntress, boots and bag from Box, hair from Mystikal; some old boots for me from Shiny Things, a safari jacket for both of us from Head - TOE Mens’ Wear, and a matching pair of pants I made myself and we were almost ready to go…all we needed was a suitable vehicle for our adventure…something with a classic look, yet able to get us out of (and into) difficult situations.

So over to Domus Cars we went where we purchased a Hummer H1 for $1,500 lindens, which had the ability to fly besides travel on rough terrain. This prepared us for our first game outing….to hunt the dangerous and wiley kangaroos at Sanctuary Bay.

We began our adventure by going into fly mode; the wheels on the hummer turned sideways and became rockets..and up we went to the lair of the dangerous Sanctuary Bay ‘roos, usually found at an altitude of 649 meters.

Located on the west side of the sim, they were grazing peacefully as we set the hummer down behind them. Starting up the motor we first attempted the easy kill…run them down!

The wiley ‘roos managed to jump out of the way as we pulled over and drew a bead on their large, furry heads. Taking 3 slow breaths..we fired. The elephant guns kicked us backwards on our butts, but we were able to bag one of the buggers. Now I know what you are thinking…no, neither Lady Questi or I were injured by the kick of the elephant guns.

Next week- hunting the viscous giant butterflies in Mexico, where we unexpectedly run into blood-sucking hummingbirds!

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Content theft in Second Life on the rise
Don’t like someone? destroy their business

by Tenshi Vielle, fabulous fashionista

Resident content theft runs wild while Philip and Robin Linden have gone missing

Content theft has been absolutely rampant in Second Life lately. It’s like scabies - once you think it’s gone, a whole new bunch of the little jerks pop up.

First we had Nicky Ree’s dresses stolen by ADiva, shoes by Enkythings primjacked, then there were a bunch more smaller …ALLEGED… thefts - a Brasilian user ripped RaC, Redgrave, and a host of other skins, cackling the whole way that no one could stop him. Designers chased him around the grid in a desperate attempt to squash him down, protesting and contacting sim owners to get him shut down. The problem was, he moved around faster than the designers could count and tended to be hard to track.

The most recently publicized case of alleged content theft is Laynie Link vs. Lalinda Lovell — yes, THAT Lalinda Lovell - Laynie was trying to innocently raise money for autism research via “Autism Speaks” and Lalinda decided she didn’t like it. Of course, you all know the normal set of actions to take when you don’t like something in SL - you cuss the person out, ramble on endlessly, and then you find a way to get their creations and resell them for free at your own shop.

Both cases have resulted in some form of widespread panic across the Fashionista Blogosphere. Skinners from the first episode protested in homage to a 1960’s sit-in. “WE WILL NOT RELEASE NEW SKINS UNTIL THIS THIEF IS TAKEN CARE OF!” They screamed. I scoffed, pointed them towards the Lindens and DCMA’s and left it at that. Emelia Redgrave has yet to be seen since she quit SL after finding her few skins ripped and resold.

The problem is, the Lindens don’t know anything that’s going on - or pretend to not. I emailed Robin Linden two weeks ago asking her what the Lindens were doing to make thief takedown more efficient, and Robin replied with, “What content theft?”. Now, I can’t expect the Lindens to be up to date on everything, 24/7, so I emailed her back with the relevant information and plenty of reading material (along with Cliffnotes) - it’s been a week, no reply. Designers have also been looking for her at her normal Office Hours, but she hasn’t showed.

Most other Linden employees encourage AR’s (what is it now, 100 AR’s to get a person banned - and not even that gets enforced?) and/or state the Linden mantra, “That’s not my job.” Few Lindens are actually around to help any more. There’s a Linden assigned to Inventory Loss according to the SL Wiki, but no Lindens assigned to any aspect of content creation… but one Linden has been known to release the UUID of a skin to a resident who didn’t own the original texture. Yeah. Two words: Great employee.

Content creation was a hairy niche to enter in the first place, and now with theft abound and becoming easier to do, becoming a designer of anything in SL is much like Russian roulette. Sooner or later, someone gets the bullet.

Linden Lab should be providing better DCMA support and paying attention to ARs. Linden Lab should be communicating with its residents - and it’s not. Even Torley Linden has been turning a blind eye to this issue as far as I can see.

Where are we when Mr. Shinypants won’t even listen?

Dear Lindens:

WE NEED EFFECTIVE TOOLS TO DEFEND OURSELVES.

Sincerely and without much love at this point,

The Designers of Second Life.

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Copy “protected” prim hair, motorcycles now easy to copy -
In-world economy threatened?

by d3adlyc0d3c, ex griefer

>>>>
video demonstrating use of a prim replicator for potential customers on onrez

Recently it came to our attention that certain devices have begun to circulate inside Second Life that allow object owners to circumvent Linden Lab’s digital rights management/permissions system. These new products are simply LSL scripts that are able to copy themselves into every prim in a linkset, and then they use the llGetPrimitiveParams function to detect prim shapes and position within a linkset.

Once the target prims have been “enhanced” by the addition of the prim copy script, they can communicate the prim’s size and position information to another object which then rezzes a number of cubes that automatically change shape, adopting the shapes and colors of the original prims and position and link themselves — making exact copies of linked objects. The only missing elements are the textures and the original scripts, which current prim replicators do not currently steal duplicate.

The accuracy with which these objects copy linksets is astounding. Unlike the original copybot, prim replicators only work on objects that you own and said objects must be set with modify permissions - this includes most sorts of prim hair - an essential avatar accessory and a mainstay of the virtual fashion business.

Why would there be concern over such a device for content creators? The answer is simple - using a prim replicator one could purchase a no transfer/no copy object with modify permissions (many products are set with these exact permissions), then use the replicator to produce an exact copy that would then have full permissions.

This presents a serious threat to builders as their products can be easily copied and resold by crooks throughout SL. What recourse do we have as residents? Curently prim replicators are not in violation of the TOS as they only may copy prims owned by whoever is using them, even though using such a device provides an extremely easy way to circumvent permissions.

Observers speculate that the Linden game gods will suggest that concerned content creators either set their works to no-modify permissions or pursue the DMCA copyright infringement takedown route. Meanwhile, we have been tracking four such products that are currently in wide circulation and wondering - do prim replicators have any legitimate use?

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Roleplaying CEO’s pretend stock market still down after 51 days

by Jessica Holyoke

Who wants Kool-Aid?

LukeConnell Vandeverre of Hope Capital Ltd, made an announcement via video link outside of Second Life on Sunday about the status of the World Stock Exchange. (WSE). The WSE went dark fifty one days ago with an announcement that they would be down for a month.

In his opening remarks, Vandeverre reminded market watchers that the WSE is the first Internet based stock market/bank and role playing game. Vandeverre also reminded people about the history of the WSE, and how back in December of 2006, he saw a need for a virtual economy to have a virtual stock exchange. After the virtual financial history lesson, the topic turned to what is happening with the WSE in relation to Second Life moving forward.

While both the Linden dollar and the World Internet Currency are both fictional currency and game tokens, only the World Internet Currency was going to be used on the WSE from the time the stock exchange becomes operational again in mid to late March. The reason given was that with the banking ban, which is formally known as a ban on paying interest, the WSE foresaw the Lab making many decisions not in the WSE’s interest, including possibly doing away with the Linden dollar entirely.

To counter potential Linden Lab concerns about their role playing game, the WSE decided to transfer all stock holder’s balances from Lindens to WIC’s. Previously, the exchange rate was 1 US dollar equaled 1 WIC. With WSE 4.0, 265 WIC’s equals 1 US dollar. All previous WIC balances have been adjusted to reflect this new exchange rate. The WIC can be bought and sold on the WIC currency exchange for US dollars, Australian dollars and Euros via PayPal, Paymate and in the future Western Union. In addition, prepaid credit cards will be usable by those under the age of 18 to take part in the role playing game that is the WSE.

Vanderverre took the time to remind stock holders that CEO’s of companies on the WSE are not really CEO’s, but also role playing participants who are simply learning the stock exchange game themselves.

The reason why the new roll out is taking so long is not only due to using Ruby on Rails as their development language, but also that the WSE cannot afford their own full time developer. So within five days of the developer being finished, testing will commence and trading will resume. Previous versions of WSE have been afflicted with bugs due to unrealistic timelines and hurried expectations.

Many times throughout the announcement, Vanderverre reminded users that both the Linden dollar and the WIC are fictional game tokens that represent a limited license right that users buy and sell the right to, not the underlying Linden dollar or WIC themselves.

While selling off is predicting, Vanderverre reminded stock holders that there would be buyers who would be willing to make a profit off of buying low and then later selling high, although this is not an investment, but rather a role playing game.

With the technology in place, Vanderverre sees the WSE providing 24 hour/7 days a week trading capability and potentially handling real stocks and securities. [will WSE still be fictional at that point? - or is pretending it will be real someday part of the roleplay? - Editrix]

Additional features for WSE 4.0 include the ability to make buy and sell limit orders and not solely making market orders.

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The Celebrity Trollop interview

by Pixeleen Mistral, fashionable reporter

IMVU fashionista

Recently, Celebrity Trollop took time from her busy schedule for an interview about the pixel clothes scene in SL, IMVU, HiPiHi and elsewhere. Celebrity also mentioned what promises to be a very interesting event - The Virtual Fashion Summit - a conference for virtual fashion designers, texture artists, prim sculptors, committed virtual fashion watchers and shoppers this coming June.

Pixeleen Mistral: Celebrity, you have been a huge figure in the SL fashion scene - where do you see that going? what is next?
Celebrity Trollop: I think Havok4 and Windlight are going to be the next major technical things coming down the pipe from Linden Lab. A lot of content creators are going to have to adjust to those differences between the SL of now and the SL of 3-4 months in the future.

Pixeleen Mistral: is this going to help the fashion scene or hurt it?
Celebrity Trollop: In general I think it’ll be huge leap forward in terms of framerates, avatar appearance and general grid stability. But on the other hand, most fashionistas have a pretty huge wishlist of flaws they wish would be addressed.

Pixeleen Mistral: *nods* how are you spending your time lately? is SL your main thing?
Celebrity Trollop: Mostly I’ve been running around IRL looking for a new job; but when I’ve been in SL its been mostly on Second Style business. I do spend most of my time in SL, but I also like checking out some of the other VWs - IMVU, or the really rudimentary fashions in places like hiphiphi

Pixeleen Mistral: tell me about the fashion scene in IMVU
Celebrity Trollop: It’s pretty active. One big difference between SL and IMVU is that in IMVU you can use some other’s creators work as a basis for your own extension. This is called a “derivation” and when you sell a work like that both you and the original creator get some of the fake money they use.

Pixeleen Mistral: wow
Celebrity Trollop: It’s also a bit more limited in the sense that the avatar model on IMVU is a bit more limited than SL’s. Everyone knows SLs avatars are a bit long in the tooth, but IMVU has a pretty simplistic avatar model.

Pixeleen Mistral: how is business in IMVU - are you making money there? what are the prospects for growth?
Celebrity Trollop: I’m not active as a content creator there, but there really is a thriving content scene there. Some SLers who are pretty well known also have work for sale in IMVU too. Starley Thereian is probably the best known SL content creator who also works in IMVU from time to time. In fact, some of her skins on IMVU have the same makeup as her Charmed skins in SL.

Pixeleen Mistral: what about HiPiHi?
Celebrity Trollop: Everything’s still in flux there, of course. A lot of the content creation is a little bit undefined because the platform itself is still under construction to a large degree. But I think there’s eventually going to be a really thriving content scene there too — as long as its not too heavily censored by the Chinese government. That remains to be seen - how independent content creators will be treated there.

Pixeleen Mistral: what sort of thing will they censor? we know LL hates Nazi imagery - do they have similar sensitivities?
Celebrity Trollop: I think if you make t-shirts with that iconic photograph of the lone man in front of a line of tanks in tiananmen square from 1989… probably not real keen on that sort of content.

Pixeleen Mistral: probably free taiwan is also off limits
Celebrity Trollop: Or Free Tibet. [smile]

Pixeleen Mistral: what about really naughty sexy things? a lot of people like SL to try on sexual fantasies
Celebrity Trollop: Hmm. Hard to say, but I’d bet that’s probably not something the Chinese government is eager to read about in the foreign press.

Pixeleen Mistral: I understand you have a conference coming up - can you say a little about that?
Celebrity Trollop: In June I’m organizing a RL conference about pixel clothes in my home town of Minneapolis MN. http://www.virtualfashionsummit.com It’s the “Virtual Fashion Summit.” I’m hopeful I’ll be able to get some representatives from other VWs to talk about the fashion scene in those places. I think it would be kind of cool to see some Second Life-only content creators branch out into some other environments.

Pixeleen Mistral: will you cover how to migrate from one virtual world to the next?
Celebrity Trollop: Hmm - we are accepting proposals for both speakers and panel discussions, plus attendees will have the opportunity to arrange their own sessions about whatever topic they want to discuss. I felt like that was something really missing from SLCC (for example.)

Pixeleen Mistral: Well, SLCC seems like it is really over - I think the interesting things will be in other conferences now
Celebrity Trollop: To me SLCC seemed like a conference that was half-way between a business-y conference for suits and a hard core Star Trek convention. It didn’t seem to have made of its mind which one it was.

Pixeleen Mistral: that is not a good thing - you have to know your limits
Celebrity Trollop: Plus being the pixel clothes nerd, that topic in particular got really short-shrift at last years SLCC… so that was one of the reasons I thought maybe having a conference just about pixel clothes would be a good idea.

Pixeleen Mistral: I think you are right and I think the pixel clothes thing is HUGE- I mean - this is how we present ourselves in the metaverse
Celebrity Trollop: Definitely. It’s also just a fun way to explore a lot of different clothing genres without a lot of risk. Ideal body, hundreds of different types of clothing, probably even hundreds if not thousands of different types of avatars. So no doubt that fashion is and will remain a huge content field in just about every VW platform.

Pixeleen Mistral: I think this is also why there is so much grass roots work in this area - I mean its really cool how lots of people make clothes - there is so much to choose from. I’d have bailed out on SL 6 months ago were it not for the shopping
Celebrity Trollop: hehe

Pixeleen Mistral: but it seems like there is a malaise in the SL fashion scene lately - or am I imagining it?
Celebrity Trollop: Hmm - I think a lot of veteran content creators are having some burn-out. The advent of wide spread content theft has also demoralized a lot of designers.

Pixeleen Mistral: its sad
Celebrity Trollop: Yes it is.

Pixeleen Mistral: is there anything else you want to tell the Herald readers?
Celebrity Trollop: I’d just say if you’re feeling a little burnt out on SL for whatever reason, play around with some of these other virtual worlds. IMVU and There.com for example have opportunities for content creators to make and sell pixel clothes too. And besides, it doesn’t hurt to take a step back from SL just to recharge and get away from all of the drama.

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AAP awards Best in Media and Cultural Studies - WTF?

Yes, the infamous Doomsday book (The Second Life Herald: The Virtual Tabloid That Witnessed the Dawn of the Metaverse) penned by literary lions Ludlow and Wallace has shocked and awed friend and foe alike for months now, and the reviews have gushed over its Mark Leyneresque prose and its Quentin Tarantino plot stylings, but now even the academic publishers and their fellow travelers have weighed in with a simple message: this is one of the greatest works of something or other in weeks! really - at least two or three weeks!!!

In a press release dated Feb. 7, the Association of American Publishers (APA) announced that their Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division were giving a 2007 Award for Excellence to the Ludlow/Wallace masterpiece in the category of Media and Cultural Studies. And who can really blame them? To this end they join a chorus of fanbois, fangrrrls, and assorted fluffers who are all on the same page about this one deep truth: The Second Life Herald is not only the greatest online virtual tabloid covering virtual bukkake and griefer-on-furry drama in the metaverse, but the book is even better than that!

As the award committee said might have said: “If you haven’t read it, your life is fail.”

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[Justine Babii has totally outdone herself this time - with the ultimate photoshoot of the sexiest avatars in the known metaverse. I don’t even want to think about the lag that these models endured to create these historic pictures - I just know it was totally worth it! - the Editrix]

click image to enlarge

Most of the credit lies with Siobhan OFlynn, who actually suggested a reunion, but some of that same credit should also go to newcomer Aloe Stradling, who happened to make a comment in the Post 6 Model Group Chat that she was honored to be in the group, which opened the conversation, which led Siobhan to suggest a reunion.

The next thing I knew, I was standing on a deck with a dozen or so of the most beautiful people in Second Life.

It was not long after that that I realized that lag and SL’s performance of late would not help me, and I would not be getting any world class pictures of this group. Instead of lighting, clothing and hair, I just worried about getting everyone more or less in line and happy with their outfit without runaway lag causing the slightest of movements to send a model careening into the group, scattering models like bowling pins. (You can see I didn’t do well with this either, as I think each picture obscures a different model!) Ten minutes into the shoot, I gave up on being Picasso and I opted to get a drink and enjoy the company of these good people.

And wow, it was fun. I got to meet several models whose pictures Marilyn Murphy had taken, and they all got to meet the other models for the first time. I hope I haven’t missed anyone, but those that showed up included Siobhan OFlynn, Cicatrice Oh, Bells Semyorka, Fortunate Szondi, Uma Troell, Musimba Yellowknife, Daeynaries Lane, Aloe Stradling, Aurel Miles, Perphides Capalini, Angelica Ludovico, Patrice Cournoyer, Scarlett Niven and Celebrity Trollop. We talked about SL and the things we do here and what it means to them to have been a Post 6 Model.

Siobhan said, for example, “I thoroughly enjoyed being a Post 6 Grrrl.  Posing for Marilyn was a really amazing experience.  I’d never had anyone take “professional” pictures of my avatar before and that whole morning was just so special.  We talked and laughed so much, it took twice as long as it should have, but I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world.  Waiting for the article to appear on Friday night, I had major butterflies in my stomach, I have to admit.  It was the riskiest thing I’ve ever done with my avatar in her (now over 4) years in SL.   I wondered if I was doing the right thing “for her.”  It was probably the most exciting week I’d ever had in Second Life and I was ultimately very glad I did it.  My friends really came through for me in the comments, too.  All in all, a positive experience.”

Bells Semyorka echoed Siobhan’s words when she said “I loved being a Post 6 Grrl! Post 6 was something I aspired to do since first reading the Herald in 2006. It meant a lot to have this dream of mine fulfilled.*smiles*  I also loved reading the comments after my entry I found them to be quite funny, some of my friends have now turned the comments into our own inside jokes. Doing post 6 has made me a braver and a tad stronger, after all I survived the firing squad.”

Though the idea was born of a random comment in a conversation, something fun came out of it, and I look forward to more group get-togethers with the Post 6 Models group in the near future. In fact, if you are a club owner or store owner and would like to host a wild bunch, give me a shout, as I think we’re a party looking for a place to land! If you have posed for Post 6 and are not in the Post 6 Model group and would like another invite, IM me!.

Next week we’ll be back with another new member of the club, until then, I hope you enjoy the mini stroll down memory lane!

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