CheySecondLife

  • Subscribe to our RSS feed.
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Digg

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Beep Beep! The Oui Coupe!

Posted on 6:46 AM by Unknown

Pandora Wriggleworth's tiny Oui Coupe is a riot and a bargain at five hundred bucks.

Henry Ford would be proud that it comes in basic black--



but the color can be easily changed via a menu.


Available colors are black, gray,white, pink, red (shown), blue, green, purple, copper, and rust.

My favorites are flames...


... and clown car:


Note the tires on the flames car. The menu lets you switch between blackwall and whitewall tires.

The clown paint is especially appropriate, considering how one gets into the Oui coupe.

First, check out how small it is.


Now watch me climb in.




Here I am, fully ensconced. I was too lazy to take off my flexible prims before sitting, or I would be completely inside.


Click on the picture just above and notice the license plate. It has named itself after me-- as best as can be managed with six letters.

Other menu options control access, a beacon (which can be most happy when the car gets lost), the color of the license plate, and the size of the car. It can be made considerably smaller or much bigger.

Driving the coupe is easy, if precarious. You can use the arrow keys to move forward and backward and to steer, both in and out of mouselook. Page up and page down select high and low speeds, and e honks the horn.

I've had great fun with the Oui coupe, racing about chasing friends, bumping into things, and driving off ledges-- unfortunately, so much I didn't take any photos. I hate when that happens.

Buy the Oui Coupe at Curio Obscura.

Read More
Posted in | No comments

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Obey! Says Pandora Wrigglesworth. Consume!

Posted on 8:28 PM by Unknown


Read More
Posted in | No comments

Monday, March 25, 2013

We Love Curio Obscura

Posted on 2:29 PM by Unknown

Sweetie and I absolutely love Pandora Wriggleworth's Curio Obscura shop. It's full of clever gadgets, priced reasonable, and the shop itself is a hoot.

Most people never realized it, but the old shop was a giant mechanical insect-like creature. Well, spider-like, as it had at least eight legs.



Visitors could drive it from a cleverly disguised control room.



When Sweetie and I visited last week, we discovered a new and larger, but still mobile stucture.


Like its predecessor, it has legs. These are fancier-- they're shod.


The head is a magnificent blend of ship's prow and Crap Mariner's head.


Inside, clanking and hissing steampunk machinery is everywhere.




I'll write about some of Pandora's great products in my next post.

Read More
Posted in | No comments

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Enkythings

Posted on 10:55 PM by Unknown

Once upon a time, Enkythings was one of the go-to places for shoes in Second Life. My friend Peter Stindberg took me there and I wound up buying several pairs of shoes.

Now, of course, Second Life is about fake feet and mesh-- and yet while Enkythings no longer seems to be making new products, there's still a store in world, where shoes sell for laughably low prices. The sim, happily, is named Shoes!

If you visit, check out the back wall near the entry. There you'll find several models for sale at just $25L. Demos are available.

A few weeks ago Sweetie and I visited. I was focused on the shoes, but she was appreciating the design of the store. When I tore my eyes from the display I wondered how I had missed it.



First and foremost, a store's design should provide an atmosphere that keeps the customer focused on the products. In that, the design succeeded, for I had been totally focused on the products.

The design is open, with large opening between the different sections of the store. It's not necessary to carefully maneuver your avatar to get from one place to another, and there are no obstacles in the middle of the floor.

I liked the gentle curves and the fabric in the window openings. The horizontal stripes on the walls added to the open feeling and drew my eyes to the products.

Here's the store from the outside:


By the way, the floor, which looks gray in the photos above, is beige.


Here's a photo of Aoharu, another place I like.



The front galleries are open, but sales take place in rooms that look like Filene's basement-- minus the crowds.


Well, that's what it feels like, anyway.

So anyway, if you're in the market for cheap shoes, drop by Enktythings. Your feet won't be fake, but perhaps that's not entirely a bad thing.


Read More
Posted in | No comments

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Linden Endowment for the Arts

Posted on 7:40 PM by Unknown
The Linden Endowment for the Arts  is a partnership between Linden Lab and the art community in Second Life. Lea maintains twenty-nine sims on which selected artists showcase their work.

I think this is wonderful!

To visit, just open your map, type in LEA in the bottom search box, and teleport. Have fun!

If you're an artist, you should submit an application for the next round of builds.

Read More
Posted in | No comments

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Danger in Evolution

Posted on 9:40 PM by Unknown

Before the Mandelbrot sets, Second Life artists Nessuno Myoo and Kicca Igaly had a sim-wide installation called Danger in Evolution.

Unfortunately I didn't keep their notecard, and the work was gone when I returned yesterday, so my apologies if I misrepresent their intent, but they wished to show the dangers inherent in advanced in technology-- atomic power, robotics, biochemistry, and genetically modified foods.



 Two bombs hidden in a mushroom-shaped metal dome represent the dangers of nuclear fission and fusion.


Note the shock wave at ground level and the cityscape it will soon level.


Robots at workbenches, test tubes, and a double helix represent the twin evils of automation and biochemistry.


I wasn't sure if this was meant to represent a man in a HazMat suit or a robot in a MazMat suit. The hole in the pelvis persuaded me it was the latter. Of course, one wonders why a robot would need to use sterile rubber gloves to manipulate the radioactive material in the chamber.


The above photo reminds me of Homer Simpson in the introductory segment of The Simpsons (watch from about 20 - 25 seconds).

There are children playing next to drums full of radioactive waste...


... and robotic figures circling the maelstrom...


... and  spiders. I think the artists missed a trick by not using instead the cockroaches that will survive the conflagration we are unleashing upon ourselves:


There are also eyeballs-- hundreds of them.



I suppose (as I said, I no longer have the notecard) they represent the human collective, or at least the part of it that sees the dangers inherent in our technologies.

I have to so say, when I see skulls or eyeballs in a piece of art I immediately suspect it's crap. In this case, it's not. The build is well-planned and well-executed, and Nessuno and Kicca are warning us about technologies that pose a threat to our continued existence.

Read More
Posted in | No comments

Monday, March 18, 2013

Changing the Mandelbrot Set

Posted on 6:25 PM by Unknown


Mac Kanashimi was kind enough to rez several of his fractal sets for me. All span the sim, and all use sim's allotment of prims. You can view one above.


Mac is working on decreasing the rez time for 15,000 prims, many made of mesh. I suggested that rather than having his scripts calculate each rez he somehow capture the finished field of prims with a program like Rez Faux (but with permissions, so he can set a schedule for rezzing), and use that to make more rapid changes.

Next: Danger in Evolution

Read More
Posted in | No comments

Mandelbrot Fractal Art by Mac Kanashimi

Posted on 4:22 PM by Unknown

Today I teleported to the former site of Danger in Evolution, an art display by Nessuno Myoo and Kicca Igali-- but in its place was a work in progress by Mac Kanashimi called Mandelbrot Fractal Art. This post is about the latter. I'll pick up Danger in Evolution in a future post.

Note the fractal image above. Pay no attention to the black spots, the prims that will go there aren't yet in place there-- I think. I turned my draw distance up to 1000 and still couldn't see anything.

I took the image from directly above the build. Watch what happens as I lower  my camera.






Way cool, huh? I'm just sorry I was so enmeshed (so to speak) that I forgot to set midday before taking the photos.

Mac's notecard informed me the build is sim wide and the fractals change regularly. Placement was figured by a program written (by Mac, I'm sure) in C, which figures out which type and size of object to display, and where to place it. It's brilliant.

Mac teleported in as I was taking the last picture above. The transition between fractals isn't yet fast enough to suit him; he's having trouble with the Linden viewer besides. Some prims aren't rendering. Perhaps that's why there are holes in the first photo, above.

Take a look at Mac's wonderful fractal work on his FLICKR site.

Next: Mac rezzes a new Mandelbrot set for me.

Read More
Posted in | No comments

Forgotten City

Posted on 3:46 PM by Unknown

Visit in world.
Read More
Posted in | No comments

Mesh Head

Posted on 9:40 AM by Unknown

Creepy.

Read More
Posted in | No comments

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Prepare to Look Like This

Posted on 4:07 PM by Unknown

Prepare to Look Like This

Written 16 March, 2013

The Lindens are preparing a revision of their viewer and server software that will feature server side baking of avatars. The code will prevent what is known as bake-fail (you're in bake fail when you're a cloud or when you add or remove clothing and you or others don't see it.

So yay, avatar rendering will be much more reliable, but a big boo because (wait for it!) viewers using V.1 code will no longer be able to correctly render avatars. They'll look something like the photo above, which I caged-- err, borrowed-- from the Firestorm Viewer website.

And so, all those people who use viewers based on older code won't be able to correctly see avatars-- and that will be a deal breaker for thousands of Second Life residents. I mean, who wants to spend time in a world in which everyone looks like a frigging blueprint?

Phoenix will no longer work. Viewer 1.23 (which many people still use) will no longer work. And most other third party viewers won't work.

Implementing the new code will render V.2-based Firestorm unstable. Expect lots of crashes and other craziness when SSB is implemented.

The Firestorm viewer has an energetic and industrious team that is working hard to make the transition smoother-- but quite frankly they don't think they'll be ready when the hammer drops in three or four months.

God knows that the independent single coders who do all the work on their viewers will do. I expect a lot of viewers will just go away.

The Lindens, of course, have a considerable history of being late with rollouts, and revisiting their decisions-- so manbe SSB will be delayed, giving the Firestorm team more time to get ready. And hopefully the Lindens will decide to preserve the ability to render avatars the old way.

I've been forced to spend time in Firestorm so I can deal with direct delivery on the Second Life marketplace, so I won't be completely lost when SSB debuts. With the legacy skin, Firestorm looks and works a great deal like Phoenix-- but I hate the damn toasts. Hopefully they'll one day go away. Let us hope.

To learn more about server-side baking see the following sites.

Inara Pey: Avatar Baking "And the Clock Has Started"

Inara Pey: Firestorm: Where Next and Early Looks

Natales Urriah: Firestorm Q&A Meeting Summary




Read More
Posted in | No comments

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Overhead View of Crossing Currents

Posted on 7:02 PM by Unknown

Read More
Posted in | No comments
Newer Posts Older Posts Home
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Popular Posts

  • Glitch and Happenstance: Part II: Problems with Rendering
    Written 25 January, 2011 Glitch and Happenstance Part II: Problems with Rendering Full frontal Sweetie Sweetie arrives at Mouse World in a B...
  • My This-Is-Not-A-Fashion-Blog Parade of Styles from the 2013 Hair Fair Will Shortly Commence
    The title says it all.
  • Changing the Mandelbrot Set
    Mac Kanashimi was kind enough to rez several of his fractal sets for me. All span the sim, and all use sim's allotment of prims. You can...
  • Whimsy Kaboom View
  • Sweetie's Rez Day Party Disrupted by Linden Bear Collective
    Sweetie's 7th Rez Day celebration was going without a hitch-- until the Linden Bear Collective showed up. It had to do with my present t...
  • Okay, Maybe Not This One
    "Hair emergency! Hair emergency!" "What is it now?" asked Sweetie. "Look at this hot mess!" I cried. "Oh,...
  • Off On a Secret Mission
    Written 15 October, 2010 Off On a Secret Mission I fly out of Atlanta tomorrow on a secret mission (visiting friends, spending a month with ...
  • Farewell, SLB10
    The Second Life 10th Birthday Celebration closed today. Featuring 22 sims crammed with citizen-based art, performances of all types, and, be...
  • Chey Flies Up
    Written 5 June, 2011 Chey Flies Up Sometimes I like to set midnight and just fly as high as I can into the sky. My Mystitool makes little co...
  • Bowl Haircut
     Just in case my readers were thinking I was kidding about bowl haircuts ... Here's my mom and dad staging a haircut. They always claim...

Categories

  • Marnix (1)
  • Second Life (1)

Blog Archive

  • ▼  2013 (74)
    • ►  September (2)
    • ►  August (6)
    • ►  July (7)
    • ►  June (15)
    • ►  May (7)
    • ►  April (4)
    • ▼  March (25)
      • Beep Beep! The Oui Coupe!
      • Obey! Says Pandora Wrigglesworth. Consume!
      • We Love Curio Obscura
      • Enkythings
      • Linden Endowment for the Arts
      • Danger in Evolution
      • Changing the Mandelbrot Set
      • Mandelbrot Fractal Art by Mac Kanashimi
      • Forgotten City
      • Mesh Head
      • Prepare to Look Like This
      • Overhead View of Crossing Currents
      • Rethinking my Product Line
      • Chey Visits the Robot Shrink
      • Links to the Late Unpleasantness
      • Dixie Ladies MC Ride the Whimsy Train
      • Whimsy Wildlife
      • It's a Black and White Virtual World
      • Sexism in Video Games and Misogyny in the Real World
      • Marketplace Frustration
      • Bitchy Profile
      • Our Seventh Valentine's Day
      • That Horrible Stumping Sound
      • View Through Windows
      • Rethinking a City
    • ►  February (3)
    • ►  January (5)
  • ►  2012 (101)
    • ►  December (3)
    • ►  November (14)
    • ►  October (23)
    • ►  September (10)
    • ►  August (17)
    • ►  July (2)
    • ►  June (3)
    • ►  May (7)
    • ►  March (9)
    • ►  February (7)
    • ►  January (6)
  • ►  2011 (198)
    • ►  December (20)
    • ►  November (15)
    • ►  October (9)
    • ►  September (31)
    • ►  August (12)
    • ►  July (15)
    • ►  June (9)
    • ►  May (12)
    • ►  April (20)
    • ►  March (15)
    • ►  February (17)
    • ►  January (23)
  • ►  2010 (127)
    • ►  December (26)
    • ►  November (20)
    • ►  October (50)
    • ►  September (18)
    • ►  August (13)
Powered by Blogger.

About Me

Unknown
View my complete profile