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Sunday, April 28, 2013

Dwarfins

Posted on 5:50 PM by Unknown
Our Little Dwarfin Family

I hold breedables in absolute contempt, but I have to say Dwarfins are oh, so cleverly and skillfully made!

Sweetie and I noticed them on display at one fair or another at Christmastime. I was impressed. She wasn't, but only because her ancient Macbook wouldn't rez them (she refuses to give it up because Agent 99 once owned it and scratcher her initials into the back. When I suggested that perhaps she was reading it upside down and it had actually belonged to Agent 66-- well, you wouldn't believe the look she gave me.

So anyway, we ran across them again at the Fantasy Fair and joined the group to get a free Dwarfin. We both drew females, so Sweetie bought a female and a rock for the dwarfins to worship. I bought food for them to eat-- for, you see, you're in perpetual hock to the creator for grub; the dwarfins turn into stone if not fed. The food lasts for a day or more, depending on how much you spend. Food is a ham, which dwindles away as it is consumed.

So yeah, it's a racket, but it's a nicely-crafted racket, and we've had fun playing with our dwarfins this week. Our little dwarven dwarfin family of three has now grown to four-- there's a newly-created rock on the sea decks on Whimsy Kaboom with a newly-minted dwarfin ready to be chiseled out so she (it's a girl!) can begin life. That'll (hopefully) give my male a mate.


My Dwafin Obsidius (Yes, You Can Name Your Dwarfin!)
Keeps Watch Over the Birthing Stone

Our dwarfins each came with a campfire, a chair, and a supply of food that lasted a day or so. There are extras one can by and special-issue dwarfins. Sweetie's female is a priestess of some sort.

The dwarfins are sculpted, or perhaps mesh. I suspect the former, for the land impact is low. They sit immobile about half the time, which is good for the sim, and at other times walk about, sit by the fire, sit in their chair, worship the stone Sweetie bought, or eat a portion of the ham hock I laid out for them, thanks, no doubt, to Puppeteer. Occasionally the prims get a bit out of line, but only rarely on Kaboom.. Surprisingly, the eyes move and blink.

Touching a dwarfin yields its statistics and allows the owner to send it commands. The scripting is well done, allowing the drarfins to interact with their environment.

Like all breedables, newly-born dwarfins inherit traits from their parents. Cleverly, they follow the laws of Mendelian inheritance; there are dominant and recessive traits, and, I suppose, the occasional mutation. Subject to a dwarfin's energy level, he or she can be commanded to mine or read up on dwarfin birthing science. Mining yields gold and jewels; reading increases the possibility of high-value traits in offspring.

Dwarfin offspring can be sold, and those with exceptional traits are highly valued by the sorts of people who believe in perpetual motion machines and pyramid schemes. Low-value dwarfins can be given to the god Andronicus (thus doing away with the cost of feeding them).

We won't keep the dwarfins out for long, or allow our little family to grow beyond four, but we'll probably buy food enough to keep them alive for another week or so, just in the name of science.


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Saturday, April 27, 2013

Maps!

Posted on 9:50 PM by Unknown


I love maps of Second Life-- maps of the first sims, maps of Linden Roads and train routes, maps!

Sweetie and I recently visited the New Kadath Lighthouse. It's an art gallery, and currently on display is the best collection of Second Life maps I've ever seen.

It's a wonderful exhibit. You should visit.

Examples are below the fold.








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Friday, April 26, 2013

Fallen Gods

Posted on 7:07 PM by Unknown

A month or so ago Sweetie and I visited one of our favorite places (JD Mechanical Toy Factory) to see what was new. We found the place turned upside-down. A lot of the goods for sale looked like the work of  the toy factory's Jeanne Dibou, but were unfamiliar. We were perplexed. Only now, as I write this, when I teleported to the toy factory to get its coordinates for the SLURL in the link above, did I realize we went someplace else entirely and not to the toy factory at all. The toy factory is still there, and now the entire sim has been developed. I can't wait to explore this weekend!


So anyway, do NOT miss the toy factory, but that's not what I wanted to write about. Last week Sweetie and I visited Annon, one of the Fallen Gods sims. We found a lot to like there; in fact, in many ways it reminded us of our sim Whimsy Kaboom.


Like Kaboom, Annon is a homestead. That means prims are precious and must be used to greatest effect. That's just what creator Alia Baroque did.

The landing point is at the end of a narrow tongue of land. To the south the tongue continues, appearing as rocks at the mouth of a bay, then re-emerging as dry land,and curving and eventually broadening, terminating at an beautifully-done solarium. A cathedral is visible on an island to the south.



Westward, the spit broadens and rises, showing a mix of lush grass and boulders. The grass was created by Alia and works wonderfully on the slope.


The climb is a long one. It passes a waterfall and terminates at a large stone building. A monastery, perhaps?


Views are stunning along the way.


The monastery perches atop the spit, with sheer cliffs on three sides.


It wasn't until we had desended the spit and crossed to the other side of the bay that I realized the southern face looked like this:


A combination of particles and moving textures and well-placed sound makes for magnificent falls.


It was all just perfect-- the terraforming, the ground textures, the plant and animal life, the environmental sounds, and the buildings. It felt like a place. That's our goal above all on our own sims-- to make a place.

What reminded us most of Kaboom was the walk down the spit of land-- now we were on the Athan sim-- toward the solarium. Here the vegetation was temperate. Kaboom is tropical, but the feeling of walking through wild terrain was much the same.


A couples dance ball rezzer-- perfect!


A sunken dinghy. Perfect!


There are quite a few Fallen Gods sims. We could see promontories in the distance, topped with castles, but we're not finished with Annon. You bet we'll be back!

... And maybe Alia will sell us that great grass!

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Thursday, April 25, 2013

Fly the Friendly Skies

Posted on 7:45 PM by Unknown

Sweetie had been conspicuously absent all afternoon, so I went on a search for her. I found her in the upper gardens rezzing and crashing biplanes created by Twisted Laws' full-perm runway plane generator I had given her. She was training for her new job as an air traffic controller.

"Don't interrupt me!" she said. "I have forty-two Stearmans in the air!"

"And a dozen or so in flames on the ground," I commented. "And that one about to hit the torii.

She shrugged. "Acceptable losses."


If you keep up with news in the real world you probably know commercial flights have been stacked up for the past few days due to a shortage of air traffic controllers. And why is there a shortage? Because the controllers are being required to take mandatory no-pay furlough days because of the sequester-- you know, the delayed government cutbacks forced on Obama by the Republicans during his first term. We are now post delay and all sorts of government services are being scaled back. Don't even think about who's not inspecting your drinking water or the beef you had for dinner last night. Just be happy Sweetie will soon be on the job with the FAA.

"You didn't really get a job as an air traffic controller, did you?" I asked.

"Of course not," Sweetie said. "They would have red-flagged me for any number of reasons."

"Like being on the no-fly list," I said.

"Or wearing my katana during the job interview," she said.

"Or all those wanted posters," I said.

"I'm just going to show up in uniform and lockpick my way into the control tower," she said." "But I'll need to know what I'm doing, so I'm practicing."

"That runway is a bit crowded," I said.


"You should have seen it before I lost those twenty-four planes," she said. "And look straight down! The airplanes make a perfect image of John Lennon."

"I think he just winked," I said. "That's awesome!"

"Exactly," she said. "Straight lines are so boring."

"Sweetie," I said, "you can't lose any planes to art in real life."

She gave me a pitying look. "That's why I'm practicing."

I hope to God practice makes perfect.

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