Second-Life

Havok 4 (now belongs to Intel), the recent version of the physics engine Second Life uses, is going into beta test. This is something many people have been waiting for one or two years.

This is first going to be a change under the hood; Lindenlab expects a more reliable SL experience out of it. So you should not expect big changes in the beginning.

Later this could lead perhaps to better prims per vehicle, since many ppl awaited this feature for long. We are going to see.

Finally! Today is my first rezday, meaning I entered Second Life exactly one year ago.

And boy, what a ride it has been. Considering that I am now somewhat of an SL oldie already and still don’t have intentions to leave this platform at all.

…too many residents would try to cashout all of there L$ at the same time? Would Lindenlab still be able to pay them? Or would the value of the L$ go down so quickly it wouldn’t hurt LL at all?

Just a funny thought that popped up into my mind after reading an article about a similar problem - bonus mile programs of airlines.

Many good going clubs are living on the presence of some live staff, mostly a host, better going clubs also a live dj from time to time and a security officer.

In many clubs I can always here the slogan “Please don’t forget to tip your host - we’re working hard…” - this is nonsense. The work of a host is no hard work at all. It’s mostly greeting people, something you can do with some good macros at east. Perhaps just also looking if the people behave, and if not, ejecting or banning them as last measure and that’s all.

This is a kind of job, that’s quite easy to do and which I also appreciate, but it’s no hard work at all. I almost cannot stand this saying anymore.

”I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig, you get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it…" (George Bernard Shaw)

Benjamin Duranske on Prokofy Neva and why he stopped reading his blog and communicating at all with him.

It seems that Lindenlab introduced today a new version of their ToS according to their blog. This means, if you want to continue to play SL you need to agree after the next login in the client to them. There should be a dialogue box with the new ToS in it and you can either agree or disagree.

Well, in reality the dialogue box on my client looked like that:

This is something that shouldn’t happen. I could have agreed to it that way. After a restart the client showed the new ToS correct.

It’s nothing new, but today I’ve taken a look at the police blotter after a while. Seems the Lindens are really serious on their no gambling policy now.

For example you can read there things like this:

**Date:Monday, September 17, 2007Violation:Terms of Service: GamblingRegion:De CampionDescription:**Operating a casino.**Action taken:**Suspended 14 days.

**Date:Monday, September 17, 2007Violation:Terms of Service: GamblingRegion:DeepscaleDescription:**Operating a casino.**Action taken:**Warning issued.So no one can’t say he hasn’t been warned, yet.

I haven’t noticed griefer activity for months now in the sims I am visiting frequently. It seems they come and go, and the more succesful a business is, the more griefers you can get. Whatever. I was visiting the region of Daikoku today, which is always quite populated because Blackheart’s Cafe is in it and became the witness of a griefer attack.

Well, I’ve taken a look at the objects, filed an abuse report, but this is not going to help much, I guess, because the owner of the scripts was just created today and I bet there is soon going to be another avatar.

Well, here’s also a picture of the whole event; click on it to get the bigger picture.

[Edit]: A funny thing is, when I take a look at the picture no: I’ve never realized until now that water is reflecting objects above it. Cool.

This is the profile of a female avatar:

Looking to have fun plain and simple.

Keep your drama to yourself as I will drop you like yesterdays news

Nothing fancy, but it shows you what you can expect quite clearly.

We are all sometimes in a situation, where you want to get to now a new person on the block and try to get into a conversation with him or her. Some don’t have a big imagination and are using always more or less the same lines, which gets very boring and they’re not good, either. It’s just typical like the old line “ASL please” from IRC (Age, Sex, Language).

So, how should you not try to do a first talk? A typical talk could go like this:

1. “Hi!” or “Hello!” - nothing against that.
2. “Where are you from?” Well, is this Second Life or something else? At least I don’t want to share with all parts of my real life, so normally this is something you should ask later perhaps, when you know the avatar a little bit better. Rule of thumb is for me: if it’s not in the profile of the avatar, don’t ask.
3. “How old are you?” Even more worse. We are in Second Life, not real life, I cannot stress that enough, and why should my or your RL age matter from the beginning to somebody else? This is just wrong, wrong, wrong.
4. “Are you really a male/female?” If you should really ask that one, you’ve lost it there completely. That’s the worst thing you could ask on a first chat ever.
5. “Are you solo?” Well, this is ok to ask in Second Life, if someone hasn’t something like that in his/her profile. You still shouldn’t do it on first talk ever since this gives the other side just the impression you’re after a fast lay or bf/gf. It’s wrong to ask this about the real life in first talk ever. If you want to ask it, do it better after a few dates; the better way is just to read the profile of the avatar. Most avatars have a statement there somewhere if they are taken or not.
6. “Wonna fuck/have some fun?” Unless you’re visiting a swinger club or sex club that’s also one of the dumbest things you could ask in normal places. Better just don’t do it.
7. “You’re beautiful.” Arg. Also a very worse pickup line. Face it: almost 99.9% of all the avatars in Second Life are beautiful. Why? Because it’s easy and because most like it to be that way! So telling someone already at the beginning that (s)he is beautiful is really ridiculous since normally all other avatars around are, too.
8. “You’re a good dancer.” Also arg. Have you ever, ever seen a bad dancer in Second Life? Have you? I for myself haven’t and it’s no wonder why: most dances are packed into poseballs and of course looking good. And since you’re seeing in 80% of the places always 80% the same pose balls, there are no bad dancers in Second Life. We’re always good dancers there.
9. “I need 10 L$ to buy myself something.” If you want money, don’t ask people for it you don’t know, get the money yourself. Either camp somewhere on a dancing pad, just buy it or do some work to get some money.
10. Befriending someone on first conversation. Just don’t do it. This normally goes wrong. Many ppl tend to clear their friends list from time to time and why should I keep up with somebody I don’t really know? And if I try to befriend someone on first sight I don’t really know him.

So, since those are the things you shouldn’t do, what could you do in a first conversation? Be nice. Listen exactly to what the other avatar says. Read his profile. If there’s a topic you can talk about, too, you could start the conversation on that matter. Don’t behave like a lust ridden avatar that has “I JUST WANT A FAST FUCK” written all over his face. Try to write in good sentences. Observe, what the other avatar likes/dislikes.