I'm really happy how those white gems turned out...

The white looks really nice in the dayli-

Huh?

Oh... right. I've updated my clocktower HUD to let me remotely control the color of the gemstones.

Let's try blue:

I'm thinking about adding some kind of light trace/inlays with profiles of the residents of the islands.

But then, I've also thought about using crucifixes as fake camping chairs: "Dying for your sins for 1L per year."

I have a lot of dumb ideas, you know.

This site and pretty much everything else isfullofcrap.com might be a bit wonky for the next few days.

Hard drive needs replacing in the server, and we all know how that goes, right?

If you can't live without this stuff, know what? Just die.

That's right - just die.

Because if you can't live without this stuff, you're well beyond help.

I know I am, eh.

In case of super big-bad-world emergency, use the isfullofcrap mailbox at GMail, or if you've got my cell phone number, use that.

I think the new tower fits in beautifully...

Although it would be nice to fit in a little more art in the dome.

I'll work on the venue this week. I'd like to have two versions of the venue: clean and classy vs. grimy and gritty.

Apparently, there's this program called Weblin that lets you create a tiny avatar that walks along the bottom of your web browser on a web page.

For instance, this link lets you walk around the Second Life home page along with everyone else walking along it.

You can jump from page to page as easy as changing the URL in your browser.

Oh, and when you arrive at a new page, your hair and shoes don't wind up your ass.

Still, walking around the bottom of a web page like that, I feel like I'm in a freaking Tiny Elvis convention.

"Lookit that TOS link... maaaaaaan that suckah's huuuuuuge."

I tweeted an idea... holding a Weblin concert.

Just try to guess who was the first to get excited over the idea.

Either hold the concert on the URL for the streaming... or on top of thesixtyone.com to guide bump bombs... or...

The possibilities are staggering my tiny little mind.

Okay, so Charley and her posse had a minor overdose of Real Life yesterday and needed to take a raincheck.

It happens. And I'm cool with that.

I'm sure we'll reschedule, but I really feel like the new Clocktower needs breaking in.

Cylindrian is already planning on a mid-May performance, but I feel like we need something a bit sooner.

First person I messaged was, of course, Dolmere. When it comes to wild enthusiastic madness, that's the go-to man on my list.

As for the rest of April, I think I need a little rest. And I'm not sure which day of the week ought to be the one-a-week performance schedule day, since I'd really like to get my Pub Pizza Mondays back. It's also kind of bad when a 5PM performance goes long and stomps Open Mike at Los Arboles.

Perhaps I'll do some What Is This Crap? Trivia nights in the meantime while I get my head on straight.

If there's performers out there who haven't performed there before who think they fit the theme of the venue, drop me a line. Hey, the worst I could say is "You suck and really ought to take up begging for lindens at telehubs." right?

I've still got some names on my wishlist. But I wonder if I'm on any of their wishlists.

And, of course, does anybody really want to come back to a fully-operational rusty lagmonster like that?

Banana posted about something that I didn't realize was important at first: changes to the Land Store and island prices.

Our new Land Store is moving through testing and will be launched in April, perhaps within a week or two depending on how final testing goes. It will be cross browser compatible and will provide nearly instant delivery of a new island after completing checkout.

For Q2 our Island pricing is changing. New islands will be USD$1000 and this change will go live upon the new Land Store being launched, so before the end of April. Orders placed before the launch will be at the current USD$1675 pricing. Monthly fees will remain the same for Q2.

When I was making the purchase for Edloe, the process what a royal pain in the ass. Failed miserably, slammed my credit cards with $5,000 in phantom charges, and had to do it manually through Concierge in the end.

And we all lived happily forever. Yay.

I wonder if they will have all those issues solved and this so-called near-instant rollout of islands will take into account the permissions necessary to link them up with existing islands.

I also wonder how this will affect the "Void" prices. There's some folks talking to me about voids, but maybe the drop in cost to get an island will change their plans.

Or maybe they'll be hunting for grandfathered old-tier islands?

I'm not sure that a full sim to the North would be as desirable as one of the Void sims. It's one thing to have a nice small peaceful private owner with lots of water for sailing or land for gardening. But a full sim full of rowdy... icky... people?

Hrm... a sim full of clean and orderly robots and clockworks might be nice...

Nah.

I should stop thinking in terms of "Piper Point" and instead think in terms of "A new desktop with a Quadcore and SLI."

Learned quite a bit about video podcasts when Cali Lewis came by Podcast Island for a meetup.

Radar and Chug joined me on the sofa:

But Radar kept crashing out.

And when Keeme couldn't come up with the ransom, the Jewish Mafia... um... well...

They didn't even the doughboy's family RISE?

YOU BASTARDS!

Recording and editing a podcast with HD equipment, despite it playing mostly on handheld devices with tiny resolution... very interesting.

Planning for the big time.

There's a new show in the Newggenheim on Nowhereville, featuring Filthy Fluno.

But the elevator locked up.

So...

Call in the Repair Rabbit!

Elevator derezzed and rerezzed.

All is fine.

Union Micro has a group, a blog, and an announcement bot for updates.

Also, you can click the panel of each item to get an update sent to you.

Every major product out there ought to have that kind of backing, right?

I got word that there were Havok 4 issues, but then the blog said there were none.

As long as it all works, right?

I'm jealous of Caledon Sky City.

Up there, they have a Deckard engine in the heart of the build with animated pistons.

So, I asked Yrrek Gran to design an engine for the clocktower.

Yrrek assembled something about 2 meters tall, but everybody knows that I like to grab those white blocks on the corners and draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag...

Hrm... why is the lobby of the clocktower so open and big?

Wow! That's big!

I added a steam sprite to the steam script Yrrek put in there so that it would look smokier.

It adds character to the back of the build, and I've run fanbelts from the base to the venue.

I changed a bit of timing on the gears for dramatic effect, but Yrrek's an engineer at hear, so I slowed them down a smidge to be closer to real velocities.

But then, this is a world that you can make gravity your bitch in.

Must the timing be real?

Okay, so the outer shell was boring and needed a bit of prettying up.

I was going to put a bunch of pipes around the perimeter and flowing constantly, but while I was ShapeGenning up the peices, it came to me.

I turned the blocks into cylinders... then I shaped them... and I turned them into spheres... made them shiny... added a chrome texture... a touch of glow...

Bingo.

I may do something to that upper row of thick copper blocks.... or not.

I do not want to overdo it.

I think I've got the venue ready to host Charley Inhen and her posse at 5PM tonight.

There's some work I need to do on the deck for The Broads.

And I'd like to integrate Yrrek Gran's mechanism somehow into the build... either in the venue or on the base of the tower connected via a gigantic fanbelt.

Hrm... gigantic mechanism... on a pedestal... some pressuretanks with pipes to the unit... yeah... (sketching for a bit)... might need to move the airship a bit... yeah...

Maybe I'll do that after the show and the Podcaster meetup... or... DURING!

MUWAHAHAHAHAHA!

(I was going to collapse the old matzoh tower at the end of the show tonight, but... um... well... heh)

Yeah, it's Opening Day at Minutemaid Park (aka The Disaster Area, home of The Disastros) today, but it's gonna be an easy win for the Cardinals, I think.

Skip!

First off, prayers and well-wishes to Podcast Pickle's Gary Leland, who is going in for surgery this morning.

Everything I said on That'SLife the other day from Podcaster Island (when Radar and Chug and others were hiding for some reason), I meant.

Now if only I could remember what I said...

TONIGHT @6PM on Podcast Island: Podcaster Meetup with Cali Lewis of... of... what podcast does Cali Lewis do?

Rezzed and Confused with Itazura Radio - the grid was down, but Itazura was on fire.

Night Guy with Bluesmoke Hextall. He gathers up his Weekly Challenge entries from some podcast out there... funny stuff, very surreal, and he's taken the surreal to a new level with his warning about the explicit tag.

He's got a book out! Yay! Another 100 word stories book, joining mine and Elisson! Woot!

Living a Second Life explores yet another island out there for your enlightenment.

Green Guy Lounge - Is this the right URL? If so, well, get your earplugs in and raunch it up!

Chillcast with Anji Bee - This time, she interviews a musician and plays a few of his tracks. Which one? Well, head to the site and find out... this one's a good one.

Yes, I listened. Enjoyed. And um... forgot to write the name down in this post when it was drafted.

Science for Girls, right?

FakeChillcast with Someone Else - From the UK. Video. Play. Now.

You know, we beat you in 2 wars and saved your ass in a few.

SL Under the Radar - While the grid was down, we bitched and grumbled about various issues with LL and SL.

Podmafia with Yxes Delacroix, Gomem DeSoto and their sidekick Stuart Warf.

Space Llama? Huh?

Go to SLPN for news on a mid-week livecast with Stuart Warf.

Black Tie Martini Club smells something stinky.

Lots of daily content out there for you to enjoy... and more every day from SLCN.TV, Quiet Time Podcast, 100 Word Stories, The Latest at Second Life, The Daily PWN, and M is for Myg's Music.

Don't forget about the SL Podcasting Network and my directory for all your (two-letter-abbreviation) podcasting listening needs.

Or, if you're a lazy-ass, just keep coming back here for my useless roundups. Or if you just want to chit-chat, comment on my lame summaries or non-summaries which make it obvious which shows I haven't listened to yet.

I build this entry over the course of the day, Daphne, so IM me or add a comment pointing out any that I've overlooked.

Buckle up. Water's not deep, but put on a life jacket anyway.

This post is going to wander around the creek a bit.

We're all looking for something... something so simple to use, it's as simple as... flushing a toilet.

Sit, shit, and push the handle, right?

Interfaces. Keep them simple. Keep them intuitive.

Why the remote to the television and cable box and DVD player has gotten so complicated, I don't know. They should sell two remotes with these things... the rock-bottom simple one with just the basic buttons you need for everyday operations, then another one with all the feature you might possibly use.

Oh, and put the things you rarely need in an on-screen menu, please. Especially the dangerous ones that mess everything up. I want to have to hit two buttons to mess up my settings, please.

And that's where I contemplate Grace.

When you're with one of the Old Media trying to get a handle on shifting content and services to New Media, it's better to have a grasp of the new platform and help pump things in as opposed to sitting up in the ivory tower and pumping things out blindly.

Content-providers are shaped by the platform and audience they are providing to.

After all, would you expect McDonalds to have a drive-through window in a location that cars can't get to? (I can say McDonalds, right? As in "Boycott McDonalds because they're an Olympic sponsor and the Chinese are killing Tibetans." right?)

Sorry. Where was I?

Right.

Grace is in there, learning, exploring, experimenting, interacting, getting a feel for the world and the culture. Sure, her music is beautiful, but if you've spent any time reading her thoughts on virtual worlds, you discover someone who is dedicated to making virtual worlds easier to use and more beautiful content and interface-wise beyond the experience of music.

Shaping the world and shaped by it.

However, I get a little bit leery when I hear things like "Standards" invoked, as they were last night.

Most programs involving moving a person around a 3D space use ASWD/Arrow Keys for movement. If you're in a 3D space, it's very likely that at some point, you need to move through it.

But when it comes to the key combinations for interacting with the world, I'm not sure that there's really much that can be done or ought to be done with standardizing on various key combinations.

Some worlds are combat-oriented, some are socially-oriented, some are corporate-oriented.

I know it's a silly example, but you don't quite need "swing axe" when you're dancing among furries or giving a presentation on growth potential in Third World markets. (Okay, maybe you do, but that may be a hostile work environment that requires something other than a virtual world to mellow out.)

For the basics, sure... walk, turn, activate object, manipulate inventory, take a snapshot, teleport, check stats for client and server, etc. Standards can help. Print Screen for Windows is a screen capture, so why not make use of that for other platforms... why not settle on a common standard for stats and activation and...

Because if you enforce standards on interacting with a virtual world, what of innovation?

Think back for a bit. Before the iPod, you had the basic VCR controls for most media devices, right? Sure, you could skin Winamp, but the basics were there for 99% of the devices out there because that's what people were used to and that's what they expected.

Then... suddenly... scroll wheel.

Took me all of 5 minutes to get used to. But 5 minutes that came smoothly, and it makes me wish that every interface were that simple and easy to use.

Would the presence of industry standards prevent the virtual worlds equivalent of the touch-sensitive scroll-wheel? That great, undiscovered "Holy cow, this makes using this thing MUCH easier!" eureka moment some interface developer stumbles upon, or a third party gearhead comes up with in their basement and posts the hack to the forums.

Does setting a standard limit those kinds of innovations?

What should be a standards, not just for games, but all service-level interactions, is a walkthrough or tutorial.

One thing you'll find most games is a "Level Zero." That's where you're walked through the commands and menu options you need to know to play that game or use that interface effectively.

Lara Craft in Tomb Raider was probably the best example of a Level Zero I can recall. You got the basics of walking, running, jumping, climbing ropes, shooting, opening doors, finding secret rooms, and so on. Thief had a good one, too. (Yes, I'm a little out of date with such things, but the classics never die)

The Welcome Islands with their tutorials, to me, weren't all that bad with the rock-bottom basics. I learned the very simple stuff there.

It's the advanced stuff, like building and inventory management and other things that were a kick in the tuchus. And interacting with others in Friends lists and groups and such... that's beyond the basic intro, too.

Thank goodness for Torley's videos, I say. If they had been around when I had started, I'd have gotten off the ground much quicker... those are a must-see for new folks, I say.

I kinda wish we had those where I work. I suggested a "Level Zero" a year ago because customers were coming in blind, having nothing more than a credit card and delusions of grandeur when it comes to server management, thanks to lies the Marketing folks smeared in glossy brochures.

It was going to be a lot like walking through an Orientation Island. When you completed the task in one stage of the tutorial, you got the code to start the next.

Walk people through the basic terminology used for a server.
Walk people through updating billing information.
Walk people through policies on DCMA, Spam, Phishing, Abuse.
Walk people through some simple concepts of backing up data, running DNS.
Walk people through the difference between their server control panel and their customer portal.
Walk people through putting in a complete and effective trouble ticket.
Only when they put in the test trouble ticket and then successfully read an update do they get the password for the server to start working with it.

And when it comes to trouble tickets, the interface itself should goad or force people to provide all the information necessary. Not invite or entice... force.

If you're adding a DNS entry, it would help to have the nameservers you want them on, the IP address for each A record, any special A Records, any weird SPF or MX entries, and so on.

And having the domain name helps, too. People forget that sometimes, if you can believe it.

Makes you wonder how they were raised to think we read minds. That must have been one hell of an interface they were taught on. Where can we get one?

Go figure.

Yeah, having standards might be nice. But what I'd like to see is that the interface not only become more intuitive, but it also has the options practically leap out and slap you to be filled out and clicked on.

Does an intuitive interface come through years of experience with similar interfaces, like the VCR controls?

When I was in college, I went back to Ohio to paddle a creek with some friends.

The water wasn't more than 3 feet deep anywhere. In fact, it wasn't even there for some parts... we got out and carried the canoes a few times.

So, you tell me - why did we have the life jackets on?

Continue reading "Standards" »

One of the annoying things about being at the 128,128 point of the island is that people teleporting to the island end up in the middle of my parcel at the lowest point available.

I wanted to create a boat dock, but that would put people underwater that are coming in at 128,128.

Yes, I could set a landing point, but where?

The ground?
The venue?
The art gallery?
The catwalk?

So, I'm just going to leave it, make the pool shallow, and stick a visual element in there:

Maybe I need to add some more to the base of the tower like taker tanks and pipes and a few gears. Or a ginormous water wheel. Or a fanbelt going from the top to the bottom of the tower.

I'll let it percolate for a bit.

Radar went exploring.

And he didn't get wet.

Waiting for the technical issues to subside during Paisley's show...

I'm sure Wiz will be a wiz with the editing gear again to patch this one together.

People are at their finest when the going is the toughest.