What a great start into 2008 :-(

While working on some custom animations for a client, my PC repeatedly crashed rather badly. checking the PFN_LIST_CORRUPT error message on Google hinted a problem with the installed memory, and indeed a Memtest86 running right now shows loads of red. This, and the repeated failures of my internet connecting, really have a negative impact on my SL experience. Sigh. Hope the new year continues better than it is about to start.

Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome

The other night, my new friend (and old acquaintance) Therese Carfagno invited me to a masquerade ball at the "roaring Twenties" styled Ballroom. I had my teeth sunk deep into a scripting task, and when I finally IMed her back and asked whether the ball was still going on she replied everybody has left already. But incidentally she needed a male avatar for a photo so I TPed over (the result can be seen here).

Therese had a great Las Vegas showgirl outfit on, and soon we talked about about fashion again, and I mentioned the great female Tux at Blaze, and she showed me a Tux she had. One word gave the other, and soon we were transforming her in showgirl in honor of Berlins Friedrichstadtpalast, famous for its linedancing ballett girls.

After tweaking Therese's shape a bit (what an odd feeling to wear a female shape and adjust the sliders), and after giving her Vette's new (and as of yet unreleased) waistcoat, the result was quite stunning. Excuse my poor photography skills:

Flickr got me

I might have been slow with this - and in RL I still have no page, but Peter Stindberg is now on Flickr (and was dumb enough to not figure out the order of images): http://flickr.com/photos/21820486@N08/

Great customer service: Zabitan Assia

One of my favourite clothing items is the ":FORM: Warning Tee" witht he nice inscription "Don't fuck with Tokyo". The only downside was that it only came as shirt and jacket layer, not as undershirt layer. While I managed to get around this most of the time, I ran into problems when I tried to combine Vette's lovely scarf with it.
So I wrote an IM to Zabitan Assia, the owner of :FORM:, described the situation and asked whether he could make an underwear layer too. And today upon login I had a folder with the whole set again, including the underwear layer - for free. Thanks a lot, Zabitan, that's great customer service!

Vette's Boutique

Two nights ago my friend an ex-piano-addict Caterin took me Freebie Hunting. I got dizzy from the quick teleports she fired off into my direction, but finally we found some rest in a rather small shop called Vette's Boutique. The available freebie was not really my taste, but I found some nice and unique designs, and actually yet another unisex item which I bought for myself - a rather nice red-and-white scarf.
Last night I took my sister Chey to Vette's boutique and - as I usually do - sent a cold-calling IM to Vette DeCuir, the owner of the place, offering my translation services. It turned out that she was right above our heads and came down to say hello.
The three of us had some great fun, and Vette is a really charming personality. She had just started SL in July, and - being a graphics art student - decided to make her own clothes out of frustrations that she couldn't afford and/or find decent clothing for herself. Her collection is still rather small, but she is working on 20 new items to be releases January first.
Obviously Vette has enjoyed our conversation as well, since she posted her own report on her blog. I can highly recommend Vette's Boutique - here is a designer who has come a long way in a short time, and who is certainly worth watching out for in the future!

Happy Holidays

My good friend Gina (who is due for her own blogpost for a while already) had the courtesy to make some great photographs of me. One of which I turned into the official season greetings card for Babel Translations:

The solution to all crashes of SL

Overheard at Dark Eden:

Lady Ma'am, i'm about to crash, may i reboot please?

Well - just say "No!"

New neighbours in Beachwood

I'm renting the office in Beachwood for almost 4 months now, and I've seen a lot of neighbours come and go. There has been quite some strange "businesses" among them, and for whatever reason the tower seems to attract "security" companies. The newest addition to the gallery:

"Wh security is hi class hi tech we dont take shit from anybody we have disabled whole mafia groups we are loyal and also do pr work for club, bas restaraunts is u want a job im me willo westland or haitham neddings we own the firm"

Well, that surely inspires confidence...

The cold season

Ever since reading about the Charlatan coat on SL Men on December 11, I sidled around the vendor, undecisive whether to buy it or not. I showed it to my sister Chey and my friends Elusyve, Gina, Ramo and Tina who in turn loved or hated it. Which did not exactly help to decide for it. Then Chey considered recommending it to her Sweetie, since both where looking for coats (read more about Chey's recent coat madness here, here and here ). Of course if Chey's Sweetie would wear the coat, I would not buy it. But I kept returning... sneaking around it.

Tonight, Chey asked for the landmark to the coat again, since she wanted to buy it as a present. I teleported her to the shop and she tried to figure out if it is trans. Finally she bought it, and I begged her to put it on, because I wanted to see it on someone. But she declined, saying it's not right. All of a sudden Ramo appeared:

[12:00] Cheyenne Palisades: Peter, I'm afraid this is an ambush
[12:00] You: Oops?
[12:00] Cheyenne Palisades: We are here to wish you a merry christmas and to ask you to accept this present from the two of us
[12:00] You: uh?
[12:00] Cheyenne Palisades gave you [CIVVIES] "Charlatan" Coat (mod/trans/nocopy).
[12:00] Cheyenne Palisades: hehe
[12:00] You: Awwwwwwwww!
[12:00] You: Oh wow!
[12:00] You: Oh my!
[12:01] Ramotswe Nagy smiles
[12:01] Peter Stindberg gulps
[12:01] You: Oh... wow
[12:01] Cheyenne Palisades giggles happily
[12:01] Peter gives Cheyenne a big hug.
[12:01] Ramotswe Nagy likes to see peter speechless
[12:01] Cheyenne Palisades likes hugs
[12:01] Peter gives Ramotswe a big hug.
[12:01] You: You shouldn't have!
[12:01] Cheyenne Palisades: Yes, we shoudl have
[12:02] You: Wow, thank you!
[12:02] Ramotswe Nagy: of course we should
[12:02] You: Am I supposed to leave it until Christmas?
[12:02] Cheyenne Palisades: Any man that goes four or five times to look at a coat is serious
[12:02] Cheyenne Palisades: No, put it on.
[12:02] Cheyenne Palisades: Let us see you in it
[12:02] Ramotswe Nagy: yes do it now!!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you you crazy women! I love the two of you!

More than 25 groups

I blogged about this a while ago already, but I'm more than willing to join the effort of alpha bloggers Veyron and Vint to give this issue a bit more publicity.

Check out the issue MISC-208 on JIRA, log in with your SL name and password, and vote for this issue. Goal is to get at least 500 votes, that's only 94 from now on.

You know you spend too much time in SL when...

... you are at your companies Christmas dinner, watching some of the restaurant staff squeezing their way along a Christmas tree half-blocking a door, and wondering why they don't simply set the tree and door to "phantom" and just walk right through it.

Rezbians

I've been intending to blog about the apparent large number of lesbians couples in SL - and the (from my perspective) apparent rejection of male avatars by many female avatars for a long time. However, Kit Meredith has written a very long post about it, and I can agree to many of her thoughts about the topic. So while I let my own thoughts simmer for a while, maybe you enjoy Kit's post in the meantime.

Good hair day

The first "real expensive" thing I bought was prim hair. I harvested money trees for weeks, sent my avatar camping while I attended to other things, went to events where prizes were given out (preferably when there was a CampMaster in the vicinity as well), and finally bought, after long consideration, "Spike Brown" by Adam and Eve (~250L$).

For a while now, I felt that it was time for a change. As an experiment I put on a freebie hairstyle I still had in my inventory. The hair was more messy, and pitch black. I got all kind of reactions along the lines of "I liked your old one better" (Tina) as well as "It was about time you changed it" (Sonne). So I kept on looking, trying demos, browsing blogs. But the male hairstyles I found were all either extremely dull and boring (think "Ken"), or were intended for broad shouldered warrior/barbarian type of avatars with a glistening sixpack under their leather coat. In short: not at all what I looked for.

Before Sonne turned her back on me, we've been looking for hair at FNKY/Cake, where I saw a hairdo explicitly listed as "unisex". I went there with my talented photographer friend Gina the other day, who was looking for new hair as well, and she in fact bought the style called "Rumor" and it looks great on her. That made me thinking. A hairstyle that works both on men and women. Hmmm....

And I started to look into the female hair sections of the shop. And a world opened up for me. Of course not all female hairstyles work for a male avatar. I did not even bother to try any long haired, ponytailed or curly styles. But there is a whole lead of great short hair styles available, and a lot of them worked on my avatar. Cake's "Rumor" and "Dawn" by Adam and Eve were among my favourites, but in the end I settled for "Luth" bei Elika Tiramisu Designs (ETD).

The other day I told all this to Elusyve, and she smiled and surprised me with having the same hairdo in her trademark red. I took the opportunity for a photograph, so you can see it really works on both of us.

Bottom line: Guys, don't be afraid of looking at female prim hair! And a message to hair designers: you are missing an opportunity here - offer suitable hairstyles either as unisex, or put them up in the male section too!

Plywood Man for sale

My wise older sister Chey gently (ahem) nudged me to put some of the items I developed in the past up for sale. Being notoriously good at not finishing things, I used my involuntary sick-leave to tidy up some of the projects. The first item, which will be availabe both in Chey's new shop Flights of Fancy as well as on OnRez, is the full avatar Plywood Man. I created that one when sculpted prims were introduced, as a hommage to the old style prims. Enjoy!

More JIRA issues worth voting for

Found another few ones:

• SVC-114 Inventory loss
• VWR-890 Categories in Friend's List
• VWR-1080 Span cleavage
  

Evolution

Downtime. And I'm at home on sick leave. Arghhh.... (or, as my lovely sister Chey puts it: "We're not addicted... we can stop anytime..."). I used the time to organize my SL projects on my harddrive, and doing so, found some old pictures! A while ago Chey held a rez-day party for Xubi, herself an me, and she asked me for old pics. If only I had them by then. OK, here we go:

Me, 4 weeks old, newbie skin, newbie clothing

Preparing for St. Patricks Day

The first (and last) piece of clothing I made in SL when I was 6 months old.

The skeleton avatar I used quite often, nicely demonstrating the notorious transparency bug.

My first office in SL (more or less exactly 10 months after I joined), for 50 L$/week including 50 prims.

Me and Chey skydiving at Abbots Aerodrome. The jumpsuit is out of a freebie box, and I wore it quite a lot before I made my "Bob the Builder" outfit. This photo is older though.

Snowmen art

Alpha-blogger Veyron Supercharge posted some hilarious sculptures involving snowmen here and here. Now I found another installation along these lines myself:


Visit it at Labyrinth while it lasts.

Pity me

I'm on sick-leave, which might sound great but isn't if you have the go to the restroom every couple of minutes. I'll spend most of it in-world, and I'm pretty bored. You're all invited to cheer me up :-)

Dues paid

What a strange day. Readers of my blog know that my love-life in SL was not very successful. However I managed to retain a friendship with my ex-wife Djanna, and since she knew I worked on skins in the past she asked for my assessment on new skins she intended to buy. In that process, she very cautiously asked for a loan. After hearing that that would be no problem for me, she then replied "OK, then in January you get xxx Linden$ from me" - where XXX was about twice the amount. To my suprise she did in fact remember a previous loan AND the partial rent of our joint property.

Talking about money I decided to take a look at my transaction history, only to find that - on the very last day covered in the report - the alt of my first SL-love sent me 800 L$. I contacted the alt (who in the meantime is the main account since the original account got deleted), and she told me it was old dues, and that she never forgot them and had to pay them back as soon as she could.

Both incidents actually made me feel better. Not because of the money involved, but because of the underlying intentions.

Ouch... that hurt. Tagged by Caterin

Last night when we were iceskating, my friend Caterin threw a snowball at me and hit me. She threw another snowball at me earlier that day - she tagged my blog for one of those popular memes. Funny enough being a RL blogger for over two years now, I never got tagged before. So this is not only an SL premiere for me, but an overall premiere. Thanks Caterin!

The rules:

(1) Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
(2) People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
(3) At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
(4) Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog

Well... let's see...

1) I barely change my outfit - it's so hard to find decent male clothes, once I have a new set I keep it until inventory loss seperates me from it
2) I can only handle up to 3 parallel IM conversations
3) I have a lot of ideas, but never really seem to finish things
4) I once tried to talk my favourite RL band to perform in the Dublin sim, but didn't manage to sufficiently describe the attractiveness of a SL performance
5) Even though I know it's to no avail, I still pop in at Midas every once in a while to check my balance
6) I have a crush on Cat
7) When I was new in SL I gender-bended quite a lot
8) I still miss Sonne

So, what does all those random facts tell Dr. Freud? Let me know in the comments.

And then let's see how Nicholaz, my lovely sister Cheyenne, great tutor Natalia, charming Véronique, my new elf friend Elusyve, SL explorer Eppie, fantastic in-depth blogger and sex-worker Lillie and my shot at celebrity - gorgeous and witty Vint will do!

Update: *sigh* - 3 from my list have been tagged already

Making a point for translations in Second Life

To many, Second Life appears to be a US dominated community. But every one of you ran into the occasional French, German, Italian or Japanese user already. True, English is the predominant language on the grid. But you'll be surprised how many ethnic communities there are throughout SL. As you know I run a translation agency in SL, so my daily challenge is to raise awareness that even though English is widely used and accepted, you are missing on opportunity to not support other languages as well. And also if you have offerings for your German or French commune, you are missing on opportunity if you don't address the English speaking population.

In order to make my point, I had a close look at the key metrics published by Meta Linden, as of early October. Unfortunately, these statistics only list Countries and not languages. And it also does not list the total number of users, but only the countries by activity and hours spend online. As much as I had loved absolute numbers, I decided to go for countries by activity since this is the important number to my clients anyway.

To my best knowledge, I broke the countries listed down to languages, for example splitting Spanish speaking users from the US count, dividing Belgium into French, Dutch and German users, as well as taking away French users from Switzerland. Then I focused on the languages I am offering translation services for, and tried to calculate their share on the active user community. The result looks like this:

Language Percent
English 39,7%
German 15,1%
Spanish 11,8%
Japanese 9,4%
French 8,3%
Portugese 5,5%
Italian 5,3%
Dutch 4,9%
100,0%

I am well aware that this statistic is - like all statistics - rather skewed. However I think it comes rather close to what I see in SL on a daily basis, and what my clients seem to have realized as well.

As one conclusion to push my point I decided to give a 10% introductionary offer to new clients. If you plan to go international with your second life business, now is the time to do so. And if you think it's too expensive: the majority of translation jobs we do is less thann 1000 L$ in translation fees.

When do YOU plan to go international?

Shameless vote whoring

Unnoticed from the majority of SL residents, the JIRA system is a way of reporting bugs and feature requests to Linden Labs. Nicholaz has a great article on it here and here. I reported some issues to JIRA too, and I voted on other issues. Here are my favourites - take a look at them and eventually vote for them too:

• MISC-208 - More than 25 groups
• MISC-686 - Eliminate script delays
• VWR-27 - The notorious "transparency bug"
• VWR-489 - Multiple attachments per attachment point (that truly would come in "handy")
  
• VWR-1449 - 3 new avatar clothing layers (finally wear a tattoo AND underwear)

What are your favourite JIRA issues?

I lost a friend today....

... due to misunderstandings, and hurt feelings. The person that was the closest I had in SL unfriended and muted me. I am sad, and I am crying. Love is cruel.

Suddenly poor

When the translation office started to generate some revenue, I was reluctant to hold too many L$ in my account in fear of thievous scripts. That's when I learned about banks in SL, and after learning a bit more (and steering clear of Ginko) I deposited some money at JT Financial, Midas and SLIB. Midas always looked the most straightforward to me, constantly adjusting interest rates between 0.1 and 0.2 percent. Also Midas barely got mentioned in negative context on the blogs.

Seems that finally Midas got into trouble as well - the ATM is inaccessible, my savings locked and probably lost. However the owner appeared in the bank and answered my questions, so that's a good sign.

Peter Stindberg: So what happened?
Midas Commons: I don't know but Luke the boss of the WSe has created a lie about what happened that he has placed on the WSE announcement board
Peter Stindberg: Checking the WSE site right now. You're positive to recover at least part of your assets?
Midas Commons: not for the short run. Luke pushes the buttons on the WSE and has even posted a complete piece of lying rubbish about what happened for the companies to be delistedc
Peter Stindberg: Are you going to try for the long run? I mean, you standing here seems to me that you are not prepared to give up.
Midas Commons: what can I do? besides mount a boycott and a protest that people seem unitnerested in?
Peter Stindberg: So apart from the protest, any ideas and plans how to move on? To save what's being able to be saved?
Midas Commons: I am not sure I have to see how the Sl press reacts
Peter Stindberg: I'm surprised it's only on SL Reports so far.
Midas Commons: I will have to check backin later today

I probably lost a substantial part of my savings today, making me all of a sudden very poor. You might comment that I was foolish to deposit it in the first place, and you're probably right. Still Midas Commons seems to be a straightforward person to me. I hope he gets this sorted out.

It's a small second world

For the last couple of months I keep on bumping into persons I met before - only in completely different places. And I am not talking about "tourist locations", but a small shop here, a hidden club there, a lonley castle - you get the idea.

The most unlikely coincidence however happened early this week. A new client - Emilie Watkins Premier Equestrian Supplies (great clothing, check it out!) - approached me for some Japanese translations. Since I am always curious about the type of business my clients run, I visited her shop with my new old friend Cake, who in turn brought her friend Nynke in. As I understood it, the Ladies bought quite a lot of the clothing, so giving the translation jobs to me was already a smart move for Emilie... I saw a few things in the shop which Angi, another friend of mine, might like, so I sent her the landmark too.
Angi visited the shop the next day, and in turn brought one of her friends in. Not onlydid he knew the shop before, but he wanted to show it to Angi the week before and simply could not find the landmark. And finally it turned out that he even knew the owner, but under her previous account which she had to give up for some reason. And as Angi tells me he was quite happy to get back into contact with her again.

Nominally, we have millions of residents, but only a fraction of those is online regularly. The population of a small town, so no wonder one bumps into each other occasionally. SL is small then, really small. But still it is funny how things turn out sometimes.

Additional read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_world_phenomenon

Djanna

I met Djanna at the most unlikely of places - in front of a guillotine in a vampire sim. The sim itself was recommended to me by Asrael Hax, of the old Backyard days, but it only has one central telehub, so I wandered around it a bit aimlessly and cluelessly. Djanna had a rather tall avatar, and I still wore my Bob the Builder outfit back then. She had the same nationality as myself, so soon we were chatting about almost anything. When I had to leave she offered me friendship - and even though I usually don#t accept it that quick these days, I felt lighthearted and happy when the offer came.

The next day, she IMed me upon log-in, and we talked a few hours away with spirited and funny conversation. I felt quite attracted to this youthful, but also mature person. However I was in the last days of my unhappy un-relationship with my neko friend. It was not officially over then, but it grew more bizarre each day, and the suspicion and certainty grew each day that it was over, that in fact there never really was any relationship, and that I was badly played upon, as well as others were played upon. Still I was reluctant to admit that I had feelings for Djanna. Partly out of loyalty (ha!) to the neko, partly due to the fact that I was pretty much hurt and desillusioned back then, and certainly not looking for a new relationship.

At this time, I met her almost daily. Sooner than expected, the un-relationship with the neko dissolved itself in a pretty bizarre and soap-opera like turn of events. I fell, hurt and wounded, and my great sister Chey, my great friend and ex-Mistress Kim - and Djanna - they all comforted me in their own special ways. Djanna revealed a very similar background. She - too - was hurt in a very similar way. She - too - was done with romance in SL. She - too - still had wounds that had not healed completely. She - too - did not want to get hurt ever again.

It was pretty obvious that Romance had plans for us. But we decided to play it slow, see where it leads us, and to proceed in babysteps. Romance was impatiantly drumming its fingers on the tabletop, but we managed to play it slow for a while. I proposed to Djanna the day we rented a parcel in the great medieval sim of Triskele, and it was the happiest day in SL so far.

Djanna dropped off the grid 12 days ago. Since then, all I heard of her was a single email almost a week ago, where she admitted to have some RL issues. I am sad, concerned, and the poisenous plants of suspicion and doubt has sown their seeds into my soul. I write her daily, and I a full of hope that she eventually returns, but I am doubting it more from day to day.

Please, whoever feels in charge, please don't le me be played upon a second time!

Celeb group IM's

[13:12] dandellion Kimban: where's the party?
[13:12] Vint Falken: i'll tp you
[13:13] Peter Stindberg: I have to post these two lines on my blog... :-)

(I myself was deep in conversation with my new old friend Cake, so I didn't go)

New Shoes

Ain't they cool? I was shortly tempted into buying the "blue suede" version too, but then it would have only been for the nice name - I'd never wear them. Black or anthrazit is really my color...

(No animals were harmed in the production of this photoshooting)

The Internet looks like the SL map

Two guys in Southern California sent out 2.8 Billion "ping's" to map the whole internet. As a result they created a large mural which eerily reminds me of the Second Life worldmap when you zoom out a bit.

See the images here: http://www.isi.edu/ant/address/whole_internet/index.html

Rez-Day

So it's been a year now? Feels like at least 2 years, if not more. Time in SL is very compressed, and very "dense". Well, time to see how I score so far.

• Made friends: an inner core of about 10, and many acquaintants
• Made enemies: maybe one or two, but I don't really know
• Lindens seen: Alexa, Bub, Benjamin, Cornelius
• Lindens talked to: Bub, Philip, Qarl
• Lindens met: Phillip
• Celebrities met: Nicholaz Beresford, Nobody Fugazi, Tao Takashi, Caterin Semyorka
• Celebrities talked to: Blaze Columbia, Pavig Lok, Prokofy Neva, Mystical Cookie, Mykael Goodman, Vint Falken - and probably a couple more of whom I simply not knew their celebrity status or forgot about them or neglected them poorly or whatever - so stop complaining about not being in the list, it's nothing personal :-)
  
• Found romance: twice
• Found betrayal: once
• Married: once
• Divorced: no
• Camped: yes
• Stopped camping: yes
• Gambled: yes (lost)
  
• Stopped gambling: what a silly question
• Got hired: lots of odd jobs as chatbug finder, scripter, tester
• Hired someone: I signed up a lot of freelance translators for my SL-company
• Started a business: yes
• Bought land: no
• Rented land: yes
• Cashed in: once, 15 EUR
• Cashed out: not yet
  
• Got scammed: only with minor sums

Puh, can't think of anything more right now.

Shaved and collared

BDSM and Dominance/submission lifestyle are very widespread in SL. Among my friends, there's a whole assortment of Dommes and slaves. I personally looked at it with some interest, but never felt really inclined to join either side. However on Monday an innocuous side comment turned out to become a rather long and intense discussion, with the consequence that I became the slave of my friend Kim, or rather my Mistress Kim as I should say now. Neither of us has any prior experience, and we'll see where it leads us. One of her first orders was to get rid of my body hair, and last night she collared me.

Update: Now with image
Update 2: Experiment stopped after 2 weeks. Seems that neither Kim nor myself are really Mistress and Slave "material"

Of dead cats...

I was sent on an emotional roller coaster ride the last couple of weeks. Some 2 months ago I would have never thought it possible how intense emotions I could experience in SL. Then I met Meow, and fell in love with her. From the beginning it was complicated, but we had many many happy hours together. The end came as aprubt as the beginning, with lots of lies, hurt feelings and broken hearts. Thankfully I have freinds who comforted me when I was down and out. The cat has left SL, probably forever. The RL cat who supposedly died in a fire was hopefully never in danger.

Goodbye, Meow. I enjoyed every minute with you. Hope you find what you are looking for.

Goodbye, Bob the Builder

During my SL youth, when I roamed Waterhead, some kind avatar gave me a box full of clothing, and I picked an outfit which I considered back then as "not so bad". Soon enough I found out that the social hierarchy in SL is not the least based on your appearance (see Dandellion's post for a good explanation), and I invested my first few Lira ... er... Linden$ into some outfit. Robin "Sojourner" Woods flannell shirt was the first item I bought, a tee I created myself, I spent a week sorting through my freebies, I bought shoes and finally some stuff by Bro'Gear. Only my trademark visor - almost the first thing I built myself in SL - stayed. This outfit was a major improvement, though it got dubbed "Bob the Builder" by some.


Though I can build and script - probably better than the majority of avatars - it turned out that I pursued a different career path. I became an entrepreneur, actively selling services to some of the major contributors in SL. The hands-on builder outfit seemed almost preposterous, and it did not reflect my developing interests anymore. My recent side trips into the Neko and Vampire subculture - both very fashion conscious - and my mostly female very fashion conscious friends, did (unknowingly) their part to make me interested in male fashion and outfits. So let me introduce my new outfit - Urban Stindberg - a much more mature, and a tad darker appearance than Bob. I still might to use Bob from time to time. The outfit is still close to my heart. But I am looking forward to the adventures Urban Stindberg will experience.

We are family

Cheyenne Palisades was among the first persons I met after my graduation from desorientation island. Somehow I stumbled accross her blog (I wish I could recall how), and read a lot about her volcano on Pele. I IMed her and asked whether I could see it, and gladly enough she was even online so she sent me a TP. She was with her partner Excuberance, and we had some fun exploring the volcano and her sim.
We never lost contact after this, and despite all timezone differences I often had the pleasure to spend time for her and Xubi. I grew fond of her island, especially of the East Beach, which is the spot that comes closest to my "home" in Second Life. I often sit there to think and build, or do my inventory, or just idle around.
Over the time, I emotionally got closer to Chey. Our Humans have many similarities, share many interests. She is a source of inspiration for me, she acts like a mentor, and like a friend in good times and in hard times. Especially during my recent romantic roller coaster rides, she was always there when I was down, she had advice when I asked her for it and she didn't dispense advice when I didn't ask for it.

Last night I was sitting in thoughts at East Beach. I must be a familiar sight to her, and she respects me sitting there. My romantic roller coaster was both on a downward as well as an upward curve (a situation I experienced on her little train running the island often enough). And again she listened, commentend, soothed.

And in the end I told her that I love her, like I would love a sister. And we hugged, and she adopted me as a brother.

I'm not sure if this makes me related to her other SL brethren and sisters (of whom I only know a few casually), but I am very honored and grateful to be her brother now.

Thank you, Cheyenne, beloved and trusted sister!

They are among us

Seeing the occasional grey ruthed avatar is a familiar sight in SL. However this formation was rather bizarre, so I took a photo.




The next day I encountered this group of Aliens in Temenos. I immediately recognized them as Asgard from Stargate, but they denied. The rightmost female alien complained loudly about her stiff nipples (uh, the bad word) and considered buying some undies.

Winning contests

After having won "Best in formal" with my beloved Meow a few weeks ago, I returned to the Butterfly Lounge a few days ago for "Best in Beachwear". I figured that everyone would come in bikinis or shorts, so I put on my scuba gear and as a consequence won the contest. It helped that I was the only male as well, but the Ladies said I'd have probably won even with more competition.

Bittersweet Symphony

During the rare and almost divine moments, where my Human allows me a glimpse into His mind, I learned that He thinks it funny when we discover romantic feelings for each other. The message I received from my Human was unmistakable: stay clear of such follies! But who is He to demand such things? I owe Him nothing. I have not asked to get placed into this world in the first place.

I found a very special person a few weeks ago. I was not looking for romance, but romance sneaked up on me. I instinctively knew that I want to share my life with her, and the deep and intimate chats we had since then only reassured my initial feelings. Last night, I have proposed to her.

It is not that simple however, romance and love always seem to involve drama as well. She engaged herself with her best friend. It was meant as a joke, and a bit out of desperation since both women figured they don't get a decent guy anyways (and one of them would not really want a guy). My beloved one is now in the situation that she has to hurt one of us. Once we realized this, it virtually tore us apart, at least our hearts.

She will be on vacation for a week. Upon her return, she wants to inform us about her decision. I can't wait until next week.

I love her!

Update: it's all over

How to conduct business - not

I think this creator of a very well known and widespread product in SL misses out on a business opportunity.

[8:47] Peter Stindberg: Hi xxx, my name is Peter and I run a translation office in SL. I was approached by a user of your product who asked me to translate your manual from English to German since he doesn't know English good enough. Though I'd love to do this for him, I wonder if not maybe you would be interested in requesting a German (and maybe a French, Italian, Spanish...) manual yourself? It would certainly benefit your business. I am taking the liberty to send you my latest notecard, and I'm certainly open to negotiate bundle deals for translations. Best regards, Peter!

[8:48] xxx: Sorry, not interested. If I appeal to forgein users that means also giving them support in german. I cant do that.

[8:48] Peter Stindberg: You really think so?

[8:49] xxx: I already get more questions in spanish, german, and japanese than I can handle. I dont want to make them think I can help.

[8:51] Peter Stindberg: Hmm... I see your point. And you don't think a disclaimer "No support unless in English..." would help? After all German users are the second largest language group in SL.

[8:52] xxx: Let me put it this way. English users dont read the notes in my profile. English users dont read the manual. German users arent giong to notice the warning even if it were in 72 point font and blinking.

[8:54] Peter Stindberg: OK, but you'd be OK if I do the German translation for a private user?

[8:54] xxx: Sure. Since when are instruction manuals a trademark secret? Just make sure that there's a disclaimer at the top notifying that I am not condoning or supporting this document. So they dont think its official or something.

Well, I am going to check out the competing products and see if their creators are more receptive to my offer.

4 Lindens in one Sim

I was checking out the Straylight sim with my friend Sonne, when I noticed Benjamin Linden standing around. I IMed him - and crashed. I relogged, only to find Cornelius Linden, Bub Linden and Alexa Linden. I asked Bub if they do a company outing? And after a witty remark and the explanation that they take new photos for the homepage - I crashed.

"Fascinating Peter. I will pass that along" or: Office Hour with Philip Linden

ZOMG I met Philip Linden last night! The log-in message said there was an office hour with him imminent, so after checking on my IM's I teleported to his - well - platform in Waterhead and was among the first handful of avatars to arrive. A quarter past Philip opened the discussion and asked for issues. I expected a rush on him but actually it was quite civilized and constructive. However with more and more avatars arriving, it got more and more chaotic and - well - bizarre. High on the list of topics - or shall I say complaints - was the gambling ban. What scared me though were people asking - and even volunteering - for a police force, and where people who simply do not seem to grasp that this is a game we play!

I have a 10.000 word chat transcript which gets more and more chaotic towards the end. I try to give it some structure and post the highlights below:

My initial question:

[14:15] Peter Stindberg: I have an issue with the "Search" function and uppercase/lowercase in non-English languages.
[14:15] Philip Linden: Peter... can you explain?
[14:16] Peter Stindberg: Yes. If you search for "Translator" results come up for "translator" as well. That's good. If you search for "Übersetzer" (Translator in German) unfortunately NO results come up for "übersetzer".
[14:17] Philip Linden: Fascinating Peter. I will pass that along.

Philip Linden on banking (this on'es for you, Nobody):

[14:19] Jay S.: lol, is there any new policy concerning the Ginko scandle, Ie it looks more like a ponzi scam
[14:19] Philip Linden: jay we haven't created any policy thusfar on bank, etc.
[14:19] Philip Linden: we try very hard not to make rules we do not need to.
[14:20] Philip Linden: We haven't made any about banks
[14:20] Jay S.: ok
[14:20] Philip Linden: I would note that there is a lot of transparency around projects like Ginko
[14:20] Philip Linden: moreso that in the real world

Philip Linden on the physics engine:

[14:20] Enzo S.: When will we have a new physic motor for vehicules ?
[14:20] Philip Linden: Enzo we are getting quite close.
[14:20] Philip Linden: Active work going on.

Philip on community self governance and policing:

[14:20] Tree K.: I was asking about how much Linden Labs wants to offload on to the community, as in the lindex, money, legal issues etc. in the future? As much as possible? Will SL eventually be entirely community run?
[14:21] Philip Linden: yes as much as possible, tree
[14:21] Philip Linden: SL will grow faster than we can grow our company team
[14:21] Ginger R.: Philip, do you think we will ever see a police force here? I think as in rl the presence might be welcome!
[14:23] Philip Linden: i don't think we ever want any kind of 'global' police ginger

Philip on server source code and colocation:

[14:22] Electron E.: i would like to know if ll ever plans to opensource the sim server code, so that people can run their own sims on the grid... How would this effect ll's business plan and is this in the forseeable future?
[14:22] Nathan M.: have you consider renting servers to different countries to run
[14:23] Philip Linden: electron yes we are going to open the server code.
[14:23] Philip Linden: nathan, we are working on how to let other companies run servers.
[14:23] Philip Linden: working on that now.
[14:24] Peter Stindberg: Colocating servers in Europe would be a huge relief for us Europeans. I second Nathan in that.
[14:24] Philip Linden: longterm there will be many servers that LL does not run.
[14:24] Philip Linden: Yes that would be a first priority! Europe, australia.

Philip on LindEx:

[14:24] T.: what about the lindex, will that always be owned by linden labs? Would you consider opening the "buy" in the pie menu to link directly to paypal?
[14:24] Philip Linden: We might consider that tree.
[14:25] Philip Linden: We built the lindex because there needed to be a safe and stable way to exchange currency.

Philip on Voice and lag:

[14:25] lorinz G.: don't you think that there has been rather more lag than usuual since 'Voice' came on line
[14:25] Philip Linden: I'm not sure lorinz because it is too early to see stats. If our crash, frame rate, and server framerate stats show us something is broken,
[14:26] Philip Linden: we will divert everyone we have to fix it.
[14:26] Philip Linden: We measure 'lag' to the extent that we can in 3 ways:
[14:26] lorinz G.: my karting lap times have gone right out of the window
[14:26] Philip Linden: server frame rate, client frame rate, and crash rates.
[14:26] Philip Linden: the last is indirect.

Philip Linden on griefing, police and live support:

[14:26] Nathan M.: we seem to have issues out of the hrs that lindens are not there to assist like when a sim goes down or a griefer can we get someone 24/7 just for sim issues
[14:27] Philip Linden: we need to add capabilities to better handle griefing.
[14:27] Ginger R.: yes Philip i need powers
[14:27] Philip Linden: for example we are working on some ways to share ban lists
[14:27] Philip Linden: which could be great.
[14:28] Crash G,: phillip, if you greif with style does it make it ok?
[14:28] Philip Linden: well does it make people happy crash?
[14:29] Philip Linden: we need more controls for landowners to control there own space.
[14:29] Electron E.: maybe an LL database and an example script so people can make their own antigreif security
[14:29] Peter Stindberg: You realize that shared ban lists bear a huge potential for abuse?
[14:29] Philip Linden: yes peter but i suspect that they will only be widespread if trusted and well administered.
[14:29] Ant W.: you should be able to choose who you share ban lists with
[14:29] Philip Linden: this is an interesting topic.
[14:30] Crash G.: some of the most fun ppl i know are greifers
[14:30] Philip Linden: really widespread banlists will probably need courts of some kind,
[14:30] Philip Linden: to ensure that the users of those lists are adequately informed as to why people are on them.
[14:30] Peter Stindberg: Put someone you don't like on that list, and he/she is not only banned on your parcel, but on many others too.
[14:30] Philip Linden: Right Peter.
[14:30] Philip Linden: But banlists with a reputation for such behavior would not tend to be used.
[14:31] Philip Linden: Some folks have already built such systems
[14:31] Nathan M.: if i own a 512sq lot in a sim what can i do to stop sim attack
[14:31] Philip Linden: Nathan we will make the sims more resilient to crashing.
[14:32] Philip Linden: But ultimately sharing a public space will still have some risks and rewards.
[14:32] Ginger R.: so..courts but no police..
[14:32] Philip Linden: i think there are likely to be more local forms of police
[14:32] Electron E.: i will sign up for a local police force the moment in becomes available
[14:33] Philip Linden: These are big issues.
[14:35] Ant W.: I personally am against structures of goverment and policing bodies here
[14:36] Ant W.: that is LL's job
14:36] Philip Linden: Ant I disagree. We should not be trying to meet the needs of people from every country in the world as to governance.
[14:36] Philip Linden: we need to build tools.
[14:37] Philip Linden: how does the internet deal with griefers?
[14:37] Philip Linden: We need to solve it that way.
[14:37] Ginger R.: yes people to have the power and the tact to deal with these griefers
[14:37] Nathan M.: u can only deal with it by giving us support 24 hrs
[14:37] Tree K.: technology cant solve social problems, the community needs to solve them with education, influence, and telling the lindens what tools would help
[14:38] Nathan M.: if we dont have powers to stop give us people who do
[14:38] Peter Stindberg: That's a generalization Philip: there is no such thing as "the internet". You can secure your webservers, you can tighten your forums, you can ignore users in chat. But there is no general answer.
[14:38] Wyn G. doesn't think a SL Police force is the answer.
[14:38] Philip Linden: Right Peter.
[14:38] Philip Linden: But I think the same will be true of SL.

Obviously glad to change the subject, Philip Linden focuses on a question by my friend lorinz and commenting on Open Source:

[14:39] lorinz G.: to change the subject Philip, how about support for twin screens - to put menus out of the way?
[14:39] Philip Linden: lorinz i think that would be cool.
[14:40] Philip Linden: probably not something we should actively work on right now because most users don't have 2 screens.
[14:40] lorinz G.: it would make life easier
[14:40] Philip Linden: but a great open source project that I would love to see.
[14:40] Philip Linden: Open source has been working really well, btw.
[14:40] Electron E.: i have a 5monitor set up
[14:40] Philip Linden: You are scaring me electron.
[14:41] Alykia C.: 2-screens. "The game could use a system to be -able- to detatch chat from the main screen of SL so thsoe who -have- 2 screens can put chat and tools on another screen to not clutter the graphic screen itself."
[14:41] Philip Linden: yes alykia i agree that would be cool. we need to change the basic windowing strategy tho.
[14:42] Philip Linden: I'd love to see more screenshot ideas from community on how to improve the UI btw.
[14:42] Philip Linden: we need to see more examples.
[14:42] Peter Stindberg: Check out Nicholaz Beresford's blog, Philip, he put up screenshots of a better Voice layout there the other day.
[14:43] Philip Linden: Peter do you have URL?
[14:43] Peter Stindberg: http://nicholaz-beresford.blogspot.com/

Philip on the Wii:

[14:46] Tree K.: any plans to translate actual RL movement into avatar movement, with say, the Wii controller?
[14:47] Philip Linden: Tree, I think we will do something like that soon.
[14:47] Philip Linden: Or better yet someone in open source.

Philip with devastating news on scalability:

[14:49] Peter Stindberg: Philip, is there a way to find out which sims share a physical server? If not a published one, is there a way to ask in single cases for that information? And are neighbouring sims on the same servers, or is there no pattern there?
[14:50] Philip Linden: Sometimes Peter there are neighbors. We don't give out that info.
[14:50] Peter Stindberg: No offence meant, but "1 core per sim" isn't exactly what gets teached as "scalable" these days. I assume changes will be made eventually under the hood?
[14:51] Philip Linden: Yes Peter, we would like to have ability to dedicate many cores to a sim.
[14:51] Peter Stindberg: Like to have - or working on? ;-)
[14:51] Philip Linden: Turns out to be a harder problem than you might think.
[14:51] Philip Linden: Not working on it.
[14:51] Philip Linden: When server is open source that will all take off too!!

And then the pro-gamblers started to take over:

[14:45] Graciella P.: mr. linden, i have been trying to contact yu daily wishing to reach a compromise regarding this new ban, and even bringing ideas to you through notecards, etc
[14:46] Graciella P.: is there a time that we can arrange to sit down and discuss this issue together, please?
[14:46] Graciella P.: to reach a compromise that suits all of our needs?
[14:46] Philip Linden: Hi Graciella... haven't had time to read yet.
[14:46] Graciella P.: i can meet with you any time, day or night, just let me know when and i will be there
[14:46] Philip Linden: I assume you are talking about policy regarding gambling?
[14:46] Graciella P.: we wish to discuss this without disturbing your meetings
[14:47] Graciella P.: yes sir, that is correct
[14:47] Philip Linden: Graciella can you send me an email... philip@lindenlab.com

Only the goodies now:

[14:53] Bolle B.: If this is really "OUR WORLD & IMAGINATION" then there should be no laws or policies from Linden....... pls comment on that
[14:53] Philip Linden: we aren't going to take a position of judgement.
[14:53] Philip Linden: we simply want to keep SL growing and accessuble.
[14:55] Bolle B.: Another question: Mr Linden: do we get democarcy, so we can VOTE aout policy changes in the future????
[14:56] Philip Linden: Bolle, not on decisions that would risk the operation of SL or make it very difficult for us to make any progress.
[14:56] Bolle B.: So we live in a dictatorlike society ????????
[14:57] Peter Stindberg: Bolle, we don't live here - we PLAY this!
[14:57] Philip Linden: Look for an update to the gaming FAQ. I don't have answers on specific games for today.
[14:57] Mithik V.: do you see a reversal of this policy if the rules regarding gaming change in the US?
[14:58] Philip Linden: Mithik, yes we only seek to comply with law.
[14:58] Philip Linden: If things change in the US, we would change too.
[14:58] Allana H.: Philip wouldnt be basing the company outside the USA or even as some american casinos done by opening daughter companies abroad wont give more economical and better economical boost than forcing non-american users playing according to amercian laws?
[14:58] Philip Linden: Again, on principle I deeply believe that we are not here to pass judgement or set social policy.
[14:58] Graciella P.: but there are compromises available that can help you to comply with us law, as well as allow us to still have our gaming. i'll email it to you again, philip, so that you can read it and run it past legal. :D
[15:01] Mithik V.: Philip: another question: since this business decision effect so many business that were based on gaming, their income was genrated from gaming, and payed tier through this income, would there be slight compensation on tier for those businesses that are now in a situation to loose everything?
[15:02] Philip Linden: No Mithik. The Linden economy overall is much larger than the revenues of Linden Lab, therefore we cannot take on liability for it and also not tax it.

Feeble attempts to get back to other issues:

[15:04] Ante F.: what was this meeting supposed to be about?
[15:04] Philip Linden: This is my office hour, Ante.

[15:05] Tree K.: Philip what has been a great experience for you in SL? something you remember most?
[15:06] Philip Linden: Watching that 'vincent' video... that was very moving.
[15:06] Philip Linden: for those who saw it.
[15:06] Paul B.: van gogh?
[15:06] Philip Linden: being inside a van gogh, tes.
[15:06] Philip Linden: yes.

[15:07] Tree K.: I read a notecard from a person with terminal cancer who died a few months ago, she said she was able to be a dancer in SL even though in RL she had no legs due to the cancer
[15:07] Philip Linden: wow tree that is cool.

Due to notecard size limits I was unaware of, my transcript stops here. I hope you can estimate the amount of confusion and chaos during the second half of the meeting. I was overwhelmed with the rapid fire of chat lines, and I wonder how Philip Linden kept up. I hope he has a chat log too, and I hope he and some staffers have a look at it and try to dig into a few things. I personally think it was a fascinating experience.

Graduation, Part 1

I told you they come in reverse order...

When you start in SL, you have a steep learning curve. However you don't REALIZE it is a steep learning curve, since everything is nice and interesting and SEEMS easy, and usually you find people who help you along. On of the first challenges is to model a decent outfit, other challenges are learning to use the controls etc.

I personally think there are many milestones in order to become a seasoned citizen, and one of these milestones is a clash with Prokofy Neva. I had my clash with her on June 17, after I read an article on the Second Life Insider which linked to a griefer group website. At that point, I have never heard of Prokofy before, but the linked article held so much hate and loathe for her that I fired an IM in Prok's direction simply asking "Why do the griefers hate you so much?".

I can very well imagine the smirk on the face of people who know Prokofy reading this. Of course I did not know who I talked to, and I only felt symphatetic for her. Her response, however, teached me better. Here's the "Best of...":

• Prokofy Neva: um, you're one of them, and playing dumb, DER
• Prokofy Neva: you must be one of them or from SA if you have to ask this question, retarde
• Prokofy Neva: anyway who gives this link [...] is one of them, or a sympathizer
• Prokofy Neva: the SL Insider sympathizes with griefers; they are rehabilitating plastic duck
• Prokofy Neva: ERRR???? what a total fake! rolls eyes

I get a great chuckle every time I tell this story. So even though it seems fairly easy to get into an argument with Prokofy, I still consider it a graduating event for me :-)

Graduation, Part 2

Actually I wanted to elaborate. Actually I wanted to give an analysis. Actually I wanted to vent some heat. But almost 2 weeks have passed since then, and that made me indifferent. I still feel it is some sort of graduation, making my SL fuller with experience.

Let's not beat around the bush: I got banned from my first sim recently.

There were no reasons given except "If you don't now you never will" (typo is original). I can only speculate about the reasons (I dared to voice criticism), and the fishy part is that I got banned after I have visited the sim in question for the first time in more than a month, and shortly after I talked (in publich chat) to one of its frequent visitors and asked how "the mood and politics" have evolved since I visited it the last time. And I trust that person NOT to have relayed it to the sim owner herselv.

But, as I said: I don't care anymore. I liked that sim when I visited it more often, but the novelty has worn off, and my focus and interests have evolved dramatically since then. I miss some of the friends I made in that sim, but IM was not cut off and if we want to meet we can do this at oher places. So I see it as taking the next step, becoming a "fuller" resident, completing a new layer of experience.

Graduation, part 3

These 3 articels come in reverse order - please bear with me.

I filed my very first bug to the JIRA system today. Please add 100 points to my "Good Citizen" account. Here it is: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1889

Stindberg. Peter Stindberg.

Hello, my name is Stindberg. Peter Stindberg. I was born on October 9, 2006 - which makes me an old hand by Second Life standards - and spent a brief youth on Orientation Island before I roamed around Waterhead. For what I can tell, I am controlled by a 30-something Human from Central Europe, despite the Scandinavian name He selected for me.

Certain things in Second Life come easy to me: early on I discovered a talent for building and scripting, as well as for creating textures and animations. My Human (or Humatar - Humi) seems to have some background in that aspect, though I often feel some kind of frustration seeping over from His dimension whenever I built something. Also my Humi seems to have a talent for languages, since you instructed me to open a translation business some time ago.

On the other hand, my Human does not seem to be a good businessman, since I barely ever get decent payment for the work I do. So He still did not provide a place for me to live - my office hardly counts - and I am forced to hang out with the hobos. That is, if I am not with my friends, which I tend to be very often. Lovely and charming Chey, the Volcano Princess, with her partner Xubi. Lorinz, of which I still don't know what to think. Kinky Annie, evenly kinky Sonne with her great music club, Milky whom I haven't meat in a while, Angelika who took a rather surprising career move recently, and a few other who'd probably rightfully protest if I don't name them.

To start this blog was my idea. Proof of my existence so far was only in-world, and I felt that I had to reach out beyond this, that I had to start an attempt at touching the Dimension my Human resides an. Though I never will be physical, I now have a foothold in His world.

I intend to talk about my world on a regular basis. I'd love if I could get some feedback.