SecondLife

Just as the song says, "Come on and join the peace train".   While Ciaran Laval was watching the pretty women in the stands and I was not, there was "PEACEFEST '09 happening in SL.  With some of SecondLife's greatest artists attending.  This benefit started July 31st and ended at 11:59 PM on August 2nd.

I was sent the invites but was otherwise busy, caught somewhere between Snail Racing and Star Trek and missed out on one of the greatest events that I have seen come to SL. The event covered multiple sims and featured live music, theatre and dance performances, art exhibitions, panel discussions and more. It represented a true cross-over from RL to SL and back again as they brought RL speakers in-world to discuss peace related initiatives in our global open and free SL forum. Musicians and speakers were streamed in SL while panel discussions and performances were streamed back out.  This event raised over L400K in 3 days.

Now a little about Peacefest and who benefits from this years donations.
PeaceFest is a global, interfaith, cross-cultural effort to create lasting peace through mobilizing support and learning for RL Peace organizations.  All proceeds from this year's PeaceFest went to benefit the following organizations:  The Edith Benson Babies Home (in South Africa - a home for orphaned children, some HIV positive), Amnesty International's work to end child soldiering, and Peace Direct.

 If you are interested in this project, please consider donating some of your time and effort. Their group in SL is "Peace Train" and this is their second PeaceFest!

Dream.  Care. Do.

The Peace Train Engineers
Coordinators of Peace Fest and fellow dreamers for peace

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It has been a snails pace tying to get Ciaran Laval  out to the snail races.   Yet, not only did I get him out there but he practiced, ran, and competed....I remember the comment right before the race commenced.  It went something like this, "Your ass is mine Bailey".  

Well this is the first time either of us had ran a real race, and I was thinking that he might be right!  He had been making some good times  1:45, 1:56, times like that, I knew I was in trouble.  I would never hear the end of it!  So we both had donned our Y2P textures....yes we wanted to make Uncle Nobody proud of us. HaHa.  And then we were OFF!......

If you have ever seen the tracks you will know that if you go off the track...you go down vvvvv straight down, as the entire race is ran in the sky.   Thankfully, neither Ciaran nor myself went off the track this time, though in practice Ciaran fell off and landed in another SIM completely. Well I went down in the water, got bitten by the sharks....hit on the head with the flails, stopped to sit with the mushrooms, cows and sheep.....went sailing through the air when I was caught by a moving violation I mean mushroom. Flung to Jupiter and back....and I started to race an extra lap.....but....BUT.....BUTTTTTT.....in the end......(yes thats what it is called too "The End")...in the end....this is how it all turned out: vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv



Just notice whose name is on top of whose!
Maybe next time Mr. Laval.

After, which we watched the professionals race, though they really didnt look like they did much better than we had done, sitting in the stands is a trip also.  Afterwords we all adjourned to the Snail Club Bar!


Jez
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Hello? Nobody has added some funky features and who the heck is Lena Eagle when she's all at home? That threw me...where was I? Oh yes the official blog.

The official Linden Lab blog has been a pitiful impersonation of its former self these past couple of months and then like a bus they have two entries coming along in close succession after you've waited ages for one.

Just what on earth is going on in the communication department over there? There's a new viewer out you know, if you've been watching Massively you'll have seen the announcement. If you've been following the official blog you won't know about it at all, Linden Lab released details about the new viewer a few hours after Massively and hid it away on the grid status reports page, here.

How on earth do they justify having information about the new viewer hidden away on the grid status page? Shouldn't that be for letting us know the status of the grid?

It's bad enough that Torley is no longer gracing the blog, now even important information like new viewers is considered not worthy of being passed along to residents via a sensible channel. Who on earth is making these decisions?

I've been told that it will get better, that changes are coming. This is all fine and dandy but do they really need to restrict their communication flow whilst these changes are at the work in progress stage?
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We all know at least one person who we suspect has an alternate avatar. If anything, it's amusing to consider someone who is all prim and proper tossing on a fresh avatar and running around scantily clad. Personally, I think that Gorean simulators are made up completely of human men engaged in a digital form of homoeroticism. This will not endear me to Goreans, but then - I don't want to be liked by Goreans...

And I won't even get into virtual attempts at stock exchanges such as the WSE. For all I know, everyone on the WSE - aside from a few - could be all running in an air conditioned room by the person or people behind LukeConnell Vandeverre.

Pure speculation, of course. But that speculation, because of the nature of Second Life and the way that it can be used, lends itself to a deep sense of mistrust. While corporations may be embracing (and now, not) the ability to have an avatar, I don't think that they truly have a plan for multiple avatars. Why? There is no easy solution; sock puppets just evolved.

When I read about a man with 36 Second Life avatars, I was a bit surprised. 36. And apparently they are all registered.... which is all fine and dandy, but how does one find the time for 2 avatars, let alone 36? And if you look at the pic, you can see that there's a significant amount of hardware involved - enough so that one could talk to one's own avatars.

Why log in to talk to one's self? I do that without logging in...

And this leads me to the question: How much is too much?

Calling all Angels!

I know, I know!  It has only been what? a few months since Relay For Life has been over, but here in Second Life, as well as RL, the fight continues.  For one of the RFL events this next year we are looking for 9 count em!, 9 sims.   The Sojouner, who had donated most of the sims for the past several years, lost her battle with cancer this past Relay season.  She has been greatly missed and will continue to be missed.  Please, help us continue this fight. Not just for her, but for our sons and daughters and our grandchildren. (Speaking of grandchildren meet Ms. Zoey Grace, my new granddaughter at 2 days old!) Zoey has many Angels watching over her.  Most whom have also lost their battle with this dreadful disease. It is for all of our children we continue to fight.

So please, if you have the space to share for this event that raises hundreds of thousands of Lindens towards the fight for a cure, please contact myself , Haroldthe Burrel, or Synergy Devonshire, in World. The Fashion Fair will continue with your help.

Calling all Angels
Jez Bailey

P.S.  Isn't she beautiful!

It's like Christmas Eve here at Your2ndplace as I await Nobody's changes. I'd say I'd have trouble sleeping but it's Friday night in the UK which equals beer and sex and chips and gravy, in no particular order. I'll sleep like a log. Also I've never seen Nobody with a big white beard and a sack of goodies.

Whenever I set my private land for sale for one week's rent I always have a sense of trepidation that the person renting the parcel won't understand the terms and conditions. So tonight as I sent my newest openspace tenant the notecard to tell them where to pay tier, I awaited the inevitable reply of "You F*cking conman, it was land for sale...." however as has always been the case I received no such response, indeed I received no im response at all, which is oft the case, instead I received three weeks worth of tier payments.

I've been arguing for some time that the estate buying window should look a lot different to the mainland buying window to assist tenants. There are some great advantages to the selling parcels for rent model for us estate landlords. These advantages reach the tenant too, no need for an extra group for example but I'd be much happier if this was all explained in the buying window.

I'm a small time landlord, not a big owner like Sexy Sarah Nerd, or Sexy Skye Whitcroft Enigmatic Elanthius Flagstaff. I would like the evil empire, an army of witches, wizards, orcs, elves, dwarves and humans, but alas world domination is a long way off at this stage. However landlords have feelings too you know.

There seems to be an impression that landlords have some sort of Satanic lodge where we all sit around plotting how to impoverish more residents. This simply isn't the case, we laugh and dance, we are human. Well I'm part vampire and a part time wizard but that's a whole different story. { Read more }

Is the game almost over for Second Life? asks News.Com.AU in a typical article of little substance, it's all doom and gloom the corporates are leaving balderdash.

The corporates have to actually be here to leave, and by be here I mean more than just having an island and hoping people will come. They need to make their presence felt and I see very few bothering to do that. Build it and they will come doesn't work here.

They do mention that education and meetings inworld are a good use of Second Life. If that is the only plus point of Second Life then we should all be worried.

Fortunately that's absolute balderdash. There are some harsh home truths in that article regarding the development of social networking and Second Life's apparent lack of but there are many ways to skin a cat ....although raising the bloody group limits with some outside the box thinking would be a marvellous step in the right direction.

Meanwhile Diabetes UK has taken its Silent Assasin campaign into Second Life. The campaign aims to raise awareness of diabetes via a virtual poster campaign that teleports people to the Diabetes UK inworld headquarters. This exemplifies two things, one that advertising can have noble purposes and two that Second Life is seen as a damn useful resource.

This is further exemplified by the University of Cincinatti's recreation of the Galapagos islands, as reported here by January 2009 we should all be able to retrace Darwin's steps. { Read more }