Shiny Mix - Second Life® Information Overload

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May 15, 2008
4:28
Mono Beta Refresh 9
» ‎ Official Second Life Blog

The Mono regions on the beta grid were updated with a new version on Wednesday that resolves the following issues: * SVC-2192 Fixed nested list in list initialisation. * SVC-2309 Fixed a regression with nested lists in LSL. * SVC-809 Fixed an old LSL bug with nested list initialization. * SVC-1393 Rezzing scripts now uses a more efficient method [...]

2:30
Second Life daily news
» ‎ Massively
Filed under: Second Life

Let's hear it for the Sun God! Ra! Ra! Ra!
- ION'08 Redefining virtual worlds for the mass market -- Are you a mass market or are you a mass?
- NASA CoLab -- Collaborating for space and technology.
- Flap your lips with the upcoming RC7 -- Lip-synching didn't work so well for all those pop-stars. Better for you?
Continue reading Second Life daily news

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May 14, 2008
23:35
Outdated Map Data
» ‎ Second Life Grid Status Reports

The Map is currently showing an earlier version of the Second Life grid. This is only affecting the Map - all inworld locations remain unchanged. We are aware of the issue, and the Map data is in the process of updating, which we anticipate being completed overnight.

21:00
Viewer 1.20RC7, Simulator 1.22 expected to see light next week
» ‎ Massively

Filed under: Betas, Patches, News items, Second Life
Bridie Linden has updated the development roadmap (actually, it's not a roadmap so much, as a set of directions, but bear with us) for upcoming releases. The release cycle for the 1.20 viewer is going to be longer than usual, expecting to end in June.

The map is a bit tangled, with a commingling of server-side and viewer-side changes kind of munged together, but there's a new feature in the long, long list of bugfixes and bughunting tweaks: New feature: VWR-4794: Basic voice lipsync for voice visualization. Now that's going to be interesting.

Viewer 1.20RC7 and Simulator 1.22 are both expected to see the light next week.

Nothing much new in SLS1.22, except work to further ease load on the asset servers (if some of you are winding up at infohubs and welcome-areas instead of at home, or getting teleport routing failure messages, those are a part of this work), and code to help identify possible failure points in other systems.

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20:24
Hobo Superstar: Orhalla Zander On "Molotov Alva" And SL
» ‎ New World Notes

Tomorrow night on HBO's Cinemax channel, millions of television viewers will get a glimpse of Second Life for the first time, not as a plot point in a larger external story, but as the story itself: Douglas Gayeton's "Molotov Alva"...

18:32
Pendulum - In Silico is rockingly superior drum 'n' bass
» ‎ Torley Lives
Photo by wonker.

I've made strong points before about drum 'n' bass lacking a wealth of really good artist albums — tragically, a non-trend that continues to this day. Like most dance music genres but even sparser, drum 'n' bass has grown a tree of notable singles over the years, but whole albums (which don't just dabble in the style on a couple tracks) which embrace the form and substantially shape, deform, warp it forward are frustratingly rare.

That's why I'm so happy to share that Pendulum's new album, In Silico, their first since 2005's Hold Your Colour, starts things off with the headbanging stomp of "Showdown", and ends powerfully with the live-action-anime-thrust of "The Tempest" too. Shy of 58 min., not as long a work as their 80-min. debut and hardly as collaborative. However, the tracks are, for the most part, tighter-produced and rich in melody while sacrificing none of the literally earthquaking DRUM and BASS heaviness which made them such a field success in the first place. Let's put it this way: Pendulum take what's essentially good about DnB, chop the slop and let it drop, and add special ingredients to the stew you've never tasted together before.

In Silico will definitely appall and provoke lots of guttertalk from technosnobs, and it already has. Wise words from lead singer Rob Swire about the DnB "echo chamber" aka "ideological incest":

my only real problem with dnb (which i also tried to point out with my other post but fucked it up)… is the insular thinking that sometimes pollutes every electronic scene. when people don't look outside their given genre / scene for musical inspiration, things tend to get boring and tired very quickly. the music goes in circles, repeating itself…the amount of fans never changes, new people aren't attracted to the scene to give it fresh input and shit gets stale very quickly. all the drum n bass i have really liked since i got into it sounded like it took inspiration from different places…

Well, all that spew in response can only result in more things being said about Pendulum — you know what they say about publicity — and if we were to rattle off a list of comparative features for In Silico like most tech products on the market today, it might go something like this:
- Energetic, powerful sound!
- Arrangements rich in texture!
- No boring 32-bar parts that loop mindlessly!
- Lots of somewhat cryptic lyrics!
- Beautiful, emotion-inducing moments!
Let's look at those points one by one:

Energetic, powerful sound! Pendulum refuse to let things get stale, and a lot of the tracks contain beats that pound and slam away for less than a minute before varying things up, whether it's slow-rolling into an arcrescendo punctuating the next dramatic section, or impressively breaking into half-tempo stride (like "Showdown" @ 3:10) before regaining full momentum. It sounds like an awesome hybrid of beat programming and live performance, and whatever they're doing, it's superb. Not only that, the chord progressions and harmonic developments are a lot more complex than most music of any genre you'll hear out there. Gated synth lines creep in, guitars wail behind the scenes before smashing to the forefront, and strange sound effects cue one passage into the next. Pendulum have taken big risks here by embellishing their current sound as being a mixed-raced child of artificially-divided genre camps. Like I alluded to, quite an aural feast.

Arrangements rich in texture! Whether it's referencing classic ambiences on "Different" and "Midnight Runner" (which have late-90s sheen seamlessly grafted all over them) or even more retro vibes like the vocoded, Daft-Punky vox on "Visions", Pendulum continue reaching out to what's inspired them without sounding desperate or overly derivative. There's even a warbly-LFO sample at the beginning of "Mutiny" which sounds like it could've come from the Chemical Bros.' "Music: Response" before kicking into high gear, and parts of "Propane Nightmares" sound chordwise-similar to Dune's "Million Miles From Home". Most jungle purists would shun stepping into happy hardcore, but I'm glad to see Pendulum aren't restrained by such nonsensical mindjails. I've also noticed that 3 tracks ("Different", "The Other Side", "Mutiny"), have what are essentially DnB breaks played at lower tempos, making them hard-slugging tracks well-suited for the next movie based on a Philip K. Dick work. (Incidentally, Dieselboy's new mix album, Substance D, is en eponymous nod to PKD.) I'd like to see Pendulum follow the pioneering path of another DnB maverick, Photek (Rupert Parkes), and carve out some tasty film scores.

No boring 32-bar parts that loop mindlessly! This is a downfall of most DnB. Yes, I know, not just, but it puts a lot of casual people off who might be interested, if they could just get past the intro section that's designed to be DJ-mixed, the middle section that, uh, could also be mixed but it's boring as heck, etc. Instead of straight-looping, I've long advocated adding slight rhythmic shifts, atonal stabs, and other bits to make things more engaging — and to be fair, since my personal preferences get brazenly reflected in what Pendulum's doing, that makes it all the more exciting for me.

Lots of somewhat cryptic lyrics! Every song has some degree of vocals, even if it's the brief bits in "Midnight Runner" and "9,000 Miles". I initially found this mildly contentious, because it took me awhile to warmup to Rob Swire's delivery. Depending on what effects are applied in a track, he can sound somewhat nasal or surreally nascent. I still prefer the original interpretation of "Mutiny"'s lyrics as they were intoned in the Matrixy dark steps of "The Terminal", but "Mutiny"'s punky groove draws lineage from both No Doubt's ska antics and System of a Down's politically-charged cymbalthrash. I'll emphasize that a lot of the lyrics do sound well-matched for a cyberpunk movie, or whatever they're calling it nowadays: just the right poise of fear, mystery, enclosure, and hope.

Beautiful, emotion-inducing moments! This is not something to be ashamed of if you're a real human. From prison-break flutes leading into the lively hand percussion backing the toe-tapping guitar strumming @ 2:00 of "9,000 Miles" (shades of a Pendulum's previous hit, "Hold Your Colour" from the album of the same name) to the arpeggiated organ riffage @ 3:30 of "Propane Nightmares", this is music both cinematic and celebratory. One of drum 'n' bass' kryptonites is that most tracks are "flat" in their emotional range: you either get balls-to-the-wall aggro-distortion OR mellow jazzy brush fills, but NOT both in the same span of minutes. As an AND person, I'm pleased to hear such a mature level of plotting here, and it's perhaps best illustrated, evocatively and goldenly, in all 7:26 min. of "The Tempest" (this album's analogue to Muse's "Knights of Cydonia). This basically means you can listen to the album and over and it won't get boring fast — and isn't high replay value important in a time of deprived attention spans and disposable culture?

"Tempest", my fave song on In Silico

FINAL WORDS: if you like Prodigy's Fat of the Land or DJ Fresh's Escape from Planet Monday or Chemical Bros., Crystal Method — just about any quality "rocktronica" (labels are funny), you'll likely like In Silico very, very much. As I touched on earlier, fans of Muse's Black Holes & Revelations and devotees of other bands that've married synths + guitars (New Order and Fischerspooner wouldn't be a stretch, either) will also find a lot to cheer about about the sonic quality. The overall combination of electronic and acoustic sounds is reminiscent, as is the use of vocals soaring atop styles which historically limited themselves to shunning them (aside from the odd sampled snippet). If you've never of drum 'n' bass before, this is a fine place to start — it's accessible, rewarding, musically challenging, and perhaps most importantly, fun.

17:19
Tutorial: How to Replicate a Real Life Building in Second Life
» ‎ The ARCH

One of the most frequently requested services I receive as a freelance builder and consultant in Second Life is to replicate real-life buildings. While I’ve written a lot (here, and here) about the potential for a new (non-replica) language of purely virtual architecture, based on the inherent characteristics of the virtual environment, I [...]

14:27
Cinemax Presents: Molotov Alva
» ‎ The Loop

Thursday, May 15th at 5pm SLT the first two dispatches of Molotov Alva and his search for the creator will be broadcast at the newly opened Cinemax Island. These screenings will be followed by a live interview with Douglas Gayeton, creator of Molotov Alva. The event is open to the public and it is suggested that you arrive early to secure your seat.

12:58
Metaverse Style And Culture Clashes
» ‎ New World Notes

So if a tattooed woman walks down a Second Life street wearing nothing but dead fish, is that a fashion faux pas, or something else? How about if another one is spotted in spangly cowboy boots and a lead pipe...

12:00
One Shots: Motu Teya panorama
» ‎ Massively

Filed under: Screenshots, Second Life, One Shots, Casual

Today's One Shots comes to us courtesy of a person that many Second Life folks know and love -- Torley! Originally he contacted us to tell us he really enjoyed looking at the One Shots gallery, but he also linked in his own awesome gallery of panoramic Second Life shots in the mail. We couldn't resist featuring some of his gorgeous panoramic screenshots here! Of this one (which you really should see full-size to appreciate) Torley said, "Bruce Patton is so nice, he came up with this project and... it made a dream of Philip's come true in Second Life -- golf!"

Do you have some great panoramic screenshots that you made from your favorite game or virtual world? Perhaps you caught a fantastic sunset that just made everything look fantastic. Whatever your story or screen, we want to see them! Send them to us here at oneshots AT massively.com, along with whatever information you'd like to give us about them.
%Gallery-9798%

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11:46
A missive from the gamemaster at Novoking. ...
» ‎ atomic-raygun

A missive from the gamemaster at Novoking. Uh...

在这里我们很高兴地告诉您，我们新版的Novoking客户端（0.94Beta版）于5

月8日上线了。这是我们一个季度以来的最新开发成果，在原有版本基础之上我

们增加了许多新的内容。从现在开始您可以下载我们新的Novoking0.94Beta版

客户端，体验一个全新的Novoking虚拟世界了！

10:37
Republicans want SL out, Bavarians want in !!!
» ‎ Mal Burns Annex

For some politicans, the end is near: comic books and Rock'n Roll were not able to destroy culture, but SL sure will! In contrast, the Bavarian State Library enters the metaverse with hopes of spreading knowledge. Draxtor Despres is confused!

The latest from our favourite roving reporter.

10:04
"then they fight you..." -- Tracking Negative Reactions To SL
» ‎ New World Notes

Yesterday Boing Boing highlighted a fascinating story from Science News on the many research applications scientists and academics are creating in Second Life. It features Luciftias Neurocam, in real life a Drexel University neuroscientist, Horace Moody, a purple furry who's...

10:01
Going Schizo — Your Avatar And You [Digg]
» ‎ Gwyn's Home

Dandellion goes through the old paradigm of your avatar in a virtual world being 'better' than your real self.

9:00
Second Life Places: NASA CoLab
» ‎ Massively

Filed under: Culture, Second Life, Education, Virtual worlds

We've wanted to visit NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) for years, but haven't previously had the opportunity. Some of us live on the wrong continent to do so, for one thing. We've visited NASA now however, and you can too. NASA has a presence in Second Life.

NASA created the CoLab Island to enable 'co-working and project incubation ... for NASA staff and the entrepreneurial technology community'. There's a bunch more marketer-speak on their 'NASA CoLab SL Project Overview' notecard, but the English form of it is that they want to talk to us, and want us all to talk to them.

%Gallery-22814%

Continue reading Second Life Places: NASA CoLab

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7:30
ION 08: Virtual worlds for the masses
» ‎ Massively

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Entropia Universe, Events, real-world, Second Life, Virtual worlds, Massively Event Coverage, Gaia Online

What's a virtual world? Why do we even call them virtual worlds when we could easily call them digital worlds, or just simply, worlds? This was just one of the many interesting topics discussed at ION 08 this year in a panel entitled, "Redefining Virtual Worlds for Mass Markert Consumption" which is quite the mouthful. So lets put things in a more understandable -- and far more interesting -- perspective.

Whether you're talking about Club Penguin, Gaia Online or Second Life the truth of the mater is that these "worlds" are here to stay and they all share similarities -- social interaction. Not only are they here to stay, but they've only just begun to grow as a market. Which is why this panel was all the more interesting. The panel includes Erik Bethke (GoPets Ltd), John K. Bates (Mindark/Entropia Universe), Craig Sherman (Gaia Online), Rob Lanphier (Linden Lab/Second Life) and was moderated by David Elchoness (Association of Virtual Worlds).%Gallery-22798%
Continue reading ION 08: Virtual worlds for the masses

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5:05
Cinemax documentary asks: Why Second Life?
» ‎ Reuters/Second Life » Second Life

The new documentary film "Molotov Alva and His Search For His Creator: A Second Life Odyssey" seeks to tackle the issues of virtual identity head-on.

3:49
Tale of TalesIncidentally, the site's ...
» ‎ atomic-raygun

Tale of Tales
Incidentally, the site's LINKS are a treasure trove.

How wonderful Tales of Tales, the makers of The Endless Forest, are! I am sorry 8 is not around at the moment - there should be more variety in the games out there, and ToT has had a tough time, it seems, getting the right kind of funding, although they have garnered critical acclaim.

Rather than cede the floor completely to killer boys wanting to shoot things (which is fun, too), why can't one game have two or more different aspects? I like to run around Entropia, and I don't mind being killed by mobs although I really hate being killed by other players. You'd think there could be an overlay game that uses the program's basics, but to a different end.

Enjah said TEF is boring, which could be rightfully said. However, I enjoy the gentleness, the nonverbal aspect (a lot), the way it looks, the interaction and change. I will be happy to be a stag, and have magic stick (spells on fawns last but a few seconds for the most part). There are lots of results of spells, and it would be fun to get friends together and see what we come up with. Spells affect headdresses, coats, masks, and what else? I'd like to be able to zoom in a bit closer, however, but like many things a closer look might reveal less, not more.
3:46
I got a comment (repeated here as ...
» ‎ atomic-raygun

I got a comment (repeated here as the post is lost in the sands of time:

Just to let you know about a new site set up to accompany the release of Saragossa on DVD.

http://thesaragossamanuscript.info

Hope it adds to your enjoyment of the film

Timjim (site creator)

Now if the film would just show up...

2:35
SF-to-SL Mixed Reality Music Show Tonight At Blue Fusion
» ‎ New World Notes

The show starts tonight at 7:30pm SLT, but I've secured my seat early. The six act live music show happening this evening in San Francisco will be streamed in-world at the Blue Fusion Lake House-- direct SLURL teleport at this...

2:30
Second Life daily news
» ‎ Massively
Filed under: Second Life

When megaprims attack.
- Linden Lab moves to block megaprim creation -- Bug, not feature.
Continue reading Second Life daily news

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1:07
Parody Time
» ‎ Mal Burns Annex

Grand Sex Auto - a Second Life Videos by PlanetVideo on Koinup

A great spoof on the current Grand Theft Auto advertising set in Second Life.

May 13, 2008
22:37
Grid Status
» ‎ Official Second Life Blog

Updates on current grid service status and issues are available on the new Second Life Grid Status Reports blog page, [status.secondlifegrid.net].

21:30
Inworld Services Disrupted
» ‎ Second Life Grid Status Reports

[ALL CLEAR 11:43 PM Pacific] Logins are open and the asset system is stabilized. Please be patient logging in for the next few minutes. If possible, wait for the first login to complete instead of canceling and retrying, so that you maintain your position in the login queue.

[UPDATE 10:58 PM Pacific] Logins are now Linden-only while Operations repairs the asset system. Please do not attempt valuable transactions until the ALL CLEAR is given.

[UPDATE 10:30 PM Pacific] Operations is continuing to assess the slowdown. They’re sufficiently engaged in the effort that getting more details from them at the moment would be a counterproductive distraction. We’ll ask them for more information when possible, and a follow up post when the slowdown is cleared.

There’s an issue with the asset servers which is interfering with a number of inworld services. It is being investigated, but until the issue is resolved, please refrain from making transactions or rezzing no-copy items.

21:15
How I dealt with technical challenges behind Second Life video tutorial production
» ‎ Torley Lives

Second Life poses some unique hurdles to make video tutorials for. I want to share my experiences in hopes it'll benefit someone(s) who's interested in making SL vidtuts but has run into the same obstacles I have. And if you've never seen one of my vidtuts before, watch and learn something valuable in just a few minutes!

Way back (in 2006), I was using FRAPS to record my videos, which I originally heard of from BuhBuhCuh Fairchild (ex-Ben Linden). FRAPS continues to be a popular choice for "pure" machinima, but not for video tutorials. Why? Because it fails to capture special cursors (like those used in click actions), has no means of highlighting the regular cursor and clicks (as I've come to enjoy), and it can't capture "regular" applications like Firefox with the ease-of-use Camtasia Studio Screen Recorder can, which is why I switched.

But wait, that's where I ran into another problem: the TechSmith Lossless Codec is great… if you're capturing mostly flat areas of color. But throw in a lot of gradients, motion, and near-photorealistic scenes as Second Life often has, and that's where you run into a lot of problems: my capture often dropped to sub-10 FPS (Frames Per Second), which isn't acceptable for showing Second Life in motion.

Second Life contains game and application attributes, and some might argue, is like an operating system unto itself. That's what makes it so difficult, because teaching in such a vibrant, dynamic medium requires a lot of keep-running improvisation and spontaneous creativity. If you're teaching After Effects or Photoshop (as Andrew Kramer and Russell Brown so excellently do), there's no chance someone will suddenly run up from behind the camera and across the screen. But that's exactly what repeatedly happens when I do my SL vidtuts. Or, I get IMs in the midst of it all, like at the end of "Creating & uploading animations". I sometimes film on alt accounts so I can concentrate better, but overall, I've grown to embrace what actually happens inworld without faking it. (See my 13 Rules for more on that!)

Anyway, about codecs, I tried a whole bunch out and while none of them totally meets my needs, I've settled on the DivX codec using the settings shown here:

» Read more about my step-by-step vidtut process.

It's generally good: captures high FPS and maintains reasonable quality at a small filesize (much smaller than FRAPS, which, I might add, has no compression alternatives), but fails noticeably in two key areas: (1) when there are subtle gradients like a blue sky, artifacting is noticeable; (2) when anything with brightly-saturated colors is shown, like my favorite hot pink, it pixelates really badly. I've asked around and haven't found clear answers to this, and ratcheting up the bitrate hasn't helped noticeably. Kinda odd, but frustrating at the same time.

So, when making vidtuts, I'll alternate between DivX and TechSmith Lossless in Camtasia, depending on if I'm showing SL or an app outside of it (e.g., Firefox, Sculptypaint, QAvimator) . I'm not entirely or even 90% satisfied with this, but I can live with it until a better solution arises.

I continue to use YouTube because they're cheap 'n' cheerful and their sheer audience reach is unparalleled. But, what's maddening with YouTube is poor customer support and neglecting obvious areas of improvement, leaving features half-finished or crippled. For example, I like their custom player and we've embedded it on the Second Life Showcase, but… it's not better-sortable aside from playlist order, and names get cut off. Argh! There's also the issue of so-called high-quality mode having low-quality, distorted audio. I've written to YouTube several times with a clear repro, and haven't heard back since the first volley of emails. What also irks me is when I get blamed for the shoddy noise, since it's beyond my control. On the thankful side, I'm glad YouTube's available to use.

Next: the Official Second Life Blog is hosted by WordPress.com. We originally had some rockiness with stability and uptime, but that's gotten much better. And unlike YouTube, WordPress' recent support has been nothing less than stellar. They often reply in a matter of hours, and believe me, I've sent numerous queries their way. A big tip of the hat off to them. At the same time, customization of the blog is somewhat limited, since we can't install plugins ourselves. I can embed YouTube videos via special code (thank goodness!), but not a more flexible custom player (yet, sigh). I eventually found out about VodPod and it's been a spiffy solution for watching videos from the left sidebar, so I'm thankful for that. Kudos for their responsive support and helpful suggestions on how I can use VodPod better. There's even a Second Life connection, so good things come full circle.

If you're planning to make a series of videos, I recommend having lots of free space. Buy a cheap 500GB or even 1TB external hard drive — prices regularly drop below US$100 for the former and are listed on dealnews and other bargain sites — so you can back your work up. I've had good experience so far with Aluratek, Cavalry, Nexstar, and AcomData. YMMV. With wise codec usage, you'll easily be able to fit a lot of master project files on one drive. Prices will continue to drop, but things are good now, especially for all the work you put into stuff.

Encoding videos for delivery is another interesting area: I've stuck with H.264 because while it's slow (can't someone make an effective mass-market hardware accelerator? I'm not sold on Elgato's Turbo264) it's high-quality, iPod-compatible, and QuickTime is playable in Second Life. (Considerations, considerations!) I've closely looked at what other sites use, and more often than not, I've seen Sorenson Video 3 with a relatively low (5-10 FPS) framerate used. That's insufficient for Second Life action. I'm willing to explore further means and having most of my original project files means I can re-render in the future if needed (altho it'd be very time-consuming), but I must say I'm impressed by Don McAllister's HD stuff on ScreenCastsOnline.

Also note that my use of smooth zooming to focus on key areas in my vidtuts came out of a need to do 2 things: (1) FOCUS! (of course) and (2) YouTube quality is fuzzy, so I wanted to make sure vital text and other fine elements were still visible. It's more time-consuming than I'd care for to do the manual keyframing (I know Camtasia has an automatic mode but it doesn't have the visual sleekness I'm looking for), but from the reactions I get, well-worth it. And of course, I also use Camtasia's visual effects: a yellow circle around my cursor, a pink circle for left-clicks, and a green circle for right-clicks.

I love to learn about what else is out there: I've watched 100s of video tutorials from many other talented creators and distilled achievables as to what works the best with Second Life. Always more to absorb.

That's a few of my thoughts on how I've worked on this thus far. I have no doubt many great Second Life video tutorials will be made in times to come, and I'm just happy to lead, light, and guide the way. Let me know if your have questions in the comments!

20:00
Rolling update: Last chance for megaprims?
» ‎ Massively

Filed under: Exploits, News items, Second Life
It is not presently clear as to whether the disabling of the megaprim constraints are intentional or not. We've got some third-hand information that Andrew Linden said that the change was not an intentional one, but Linden Lab have remained silent on the topic, so we've got no official answer on the matter.

A rolling update is starting at 7:30PM SLT (US Pacific time) today (Tuesday 13 May), which is rumored to reinstate the constraints among other 'crucial security fixes'. If so, the next couple days could represent your last chance to fabricate custom megaprims for a while.
Continue reading Rolling update: Last chance for megaprims?

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19:24
Torley's tasty music recommendations for May 13, 2008
» ‎ Torley Lives

I often get asked to suggest music I enjoy. The following is some of what I've been listening to recently. It's mostly electronic, but if you're not into "that techno stuff", don't worry, don't be scared off: I love melody meshed with a memorable momentum of production, and it isn't boring robot music. (And hey, even Kraftwerk had a sense of humor.) My point being: listen, and if you like and want me to suggest more, let me know in the comments, 'kay?

Aril Brikha - "Winter" and "Bergain"
Download audio file (SF255851-01-01-01.mp3)

Download audio file (SF255851-01-02-01.mp3)

This guy's been known for "making techno that sounds like trance". Hmmm. What does that even mean? Heck if I know, labeling evils are near-meaningless to me, but what you should care about is he's got bouncy beats + bass underpinning a sparse weave of echoey chords and a lovely sensibility that makes you go, "If I was in the 80s in a Ferrari driving to the beach with mirrorshades attached to my face, I'd totally be bangin' my head to this!" Only not so obtrusively. A fine choice to photograph models to.

Vangelis - Pulstar: The Hits of Vangelis
Alas, no sample here. There's a funny story behind this, tho: years ago, I found this in a Thai music store on cassette tape, and put it in my Uncle's car deck. He's deaf and a damn good driver, so he was cruising down a Bangkok road (before running into one of those notorious traffic jams) while my bro and I were bopping in the back. The first track is a kickass version of the classic "Pulstar" with a heavy disco beat and synth tom action. It influenced my choices later to use many synth tom rhythms myself. In case I haven't made it clear, this is an album of covers by some unknown source, but they're well-done "parallel universe" versions of the originals. None of the others are as dancy as the "Pulstar" remix, tho. Good to sleep to.

Peter Gabriel & friends - "Make Tomorrow"
This song looks like it took a small army of cooks to put together: chiefly noticeable in the production mix is BT (Brian Transeau), endowing the river of this 10-min. aural masterpiece with his distinctive beats and flanged stutter edits. There's beautiful strummed acoustic guitar and other instruments, making for a very down-to-earth yet soaring sound. The sublime, excited jam that kicks in past the 7-min. mark is UNMISSABLE. What an optimistic message, too. At least on some levels. Wish there was a music video; this track is one-of-a-kind.

If you want to browse music samples at your leisure, I recommend the smartly-designed Trackitdown, the MP3-well-linked Juno Records, and the taste-catering Pandora.

'Round the bend, I've got an action-pax0red review of Pendulum's In Silico (released today!) coming up, so stay chooned!

19:04
Showing off some new hair! [Flickr]
» ‎ Gwyn's Home

Gwyneth Llewelyn posted a photo:

Hair's by Aden... I love it, although it's WAY too primmy, and each prim is a single sculptie... a nightmare for ARC hehe.

Also, I don't like "hazel" as a colour... I much prefer the shades from Gurlywood & the amazing Six Kennedy... but, alas, what can a girl do?

18:46
Part II of Torley's creativity talk at Campus Hamburg
» ‎ Torley Lives

Continuing from Part I, Ole Etzel has graciously uploaded his recording of the second part of my lecture @ Campus Hamburg. It's part of the "Games & Beyond Open Lecture Series". In this segment, I cover my love of expression through avatars, being resourceful, my ongoing fun with the SpaceNavigator 3D mouse, more video tutorial fun, and how I make my movies. I even use my avatar as a pointer. Pardon I don't have a text transcription for this one but if anyone does one, let me know in the comments and I'll post it up. Otherwise, enjoy!

15:50
Bugfix 1.21 Server Deploy Tue 05/13 - Thu 05/15
» ‎ Official Second Life Blog

Update 2008-05-15 06:30 : Please note that regions restarted during this rolling restart may be down for as long as 30 minutes. This is because of recent changes to how regions are assigned to hosts. We will try to mitigate this downtime in the future, but for the current restart, please do not [...]

13:15
Birthday Visit
» ‎ Enjah Mysterio

To the cairn! I visit Steve's cairn now and then, this time for his birthday (it was last Saturday, but I was busy)

9:36
5 Minute Fashion Show
» ‎ The Loop

Check out the 5 Minute Fashion Show each weekday at 3pm SLT, brought to us by Clever Zebra, featuring some of Second Life’s Top designers for an up close and personal look at Fashion Design and the inspiration behind it.

9:21
Open Forum: What Summer Fashions Should Iris Feature?
» ‎ New World Notes

After a brief absence, New World Notes style correspondent Iris Ophelia is busy preparing one of her sumptuous guides to the best and latest in metaverse fashion for the season-- in this case, Summer, when the dress is diaphanous or...

6:30
Land Store is open for business again
» ‎ Second Life Grid Status Reports

Further to the message in the previous status post, the Land Store is open again; feel free to log in.

4:44
[nt]
» ‎ atomic-raygun

:D

2:30
Second Life daily news
» ‎ Massively
Filed under: Second Life

Ontario Public Service Careers -- more interesting than you might expect.
- Peering Inside -- The US billing provider that Linden Lab won't talk about.
- Megaprims for everyone -- Nicholaz hands out the candy with custom viewers, or roll your own with patches.
- Second Life suspended -- Offline for asset fixes.
- Linden Lab hiring -- Looking for Web-devs and *nix gurus.
- Playboy bunnies seeking violators -- What else can we say?
Continue reading Second Life daily news

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1:47
Eselle's Mental Hospital
» ‎ Mal Burns Annex

Riving reporter Sphie yates came across this strange place. In her words ...

"I was visiting the Bay City sims since when upon logging into SL the LL's mentioned it so i did and came upon this place. Pretty odd but cool. So I decided to film the place. I don't think it makes any sense and it may be dark but then again interesting. One person i met there was a bit shocked and said it was sick really. In poor taste. I just thought it was kind of neat how they got the lighting in there with the windows and the sun shining in. Not sure why there is a Mental Institution in SL maybe they send Linden employees there for a little rest and relaxation after working on new releases? There's everything else you can think of in SL so why not this? Enjoy!

May 12, 2008
23:55
Vigilant Bunnies: Second Life's Playboy Staffers Investigate Knock-Offs, Offer Partnerships To Some Violators
» ‎ New World Notes

According to CNN, virtual Playboy Bunnies are leaving their island paradise to track down unauthorized Playboy products being sold in Second Life. This is not a sentence I ever imagined writing, but it happens to be the case, with voluptuous...

22:30
Linden Lab hiring, Web-development and operations
» ‎ Massively

Filed under: MMO industry, News items, Second Life, Virtual worlds
Linden Lab is looking for Web developers at all of their offices, particularly at Brighton, Mountain View, and Seattle, as well as remote (telecommute) staff for Operations from all over the world, though particularly from Singapore and Australia.

If you're interested in working for Linden Lab and can pony-up with the sort of strong skills they're looking for, you should check out their job pages. From what we've been told, Linden Lab pays below market-rates for staff, but prefers top-class people who love their work and would rather have job-satisfaction.

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21:30
Second Life to be switched off, asset system repairs
» ‎ Massively

Filed under: Server downtime, News items, Second Life, Virtual worlds

It's no secret that Linden Lab has been having problems with the Second Life asset system. Daily problems. Last year a major outage was traced to third-party-provided systems (other people are apparently also capable of making mistakes). We're not sure if the problem system is actually hardware or software (though we think it is related to the RAID storage array), but the vendor has apparently provided a patch or update which is supposed to alleviate some of the problems.

Linden Lab will be closing logins at 11:45PM SLT (US Pacific time) tonight, and will be disconnecting all remaining users shortly after that (probably around Midnight). Applying the patches/updates and testing has been allocated 2 hours, so the Second Life grid will remain off the air until around 2AM.

What can we say? We're wishing Linden Lab luck and hoping that this will do the trick -- though, we'll just have to wait and see. We've been through this sort of thing ourselves, actually, with vendor-provided RAID hardware, and it took multiple attempts and considerable downtime and failures to make things right.

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