Second Life: bots, mechs, cybernetics, transformers
updated some old pages.
updated some old pages.
oldie but goodie. Second Life Military Videos
RESEARCH PROJECT: Personality, sex roles and Avatar identification in online gender selection
Charles Darwin University, in Darwin, Australia, is conducting a psychology study on online gender selection. See: http://cduhes.asia.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_brQ0uYKeagINqo4
via Amalia Badawi, for Dr. Jon-Paul Cacioli
best particle making machine: Xah Particle Maker, still.
Updated the playable arenas: Second Life Tech Warfare Guide
The virtual singer Hatsune Miku is available in SL!
Full story at: Hatsune Miku, Vocaloid: Computer Generated Virtual Singing Doll.
A new version of lsl mode is out. This version, v1.6.0, added function completion and snippets for 18 new Linden Lab functions. Get it today, at Emacs LSL Mode (xlsl-mode) for Linden Scripting Language.
Bold eagle holding a machine gun with US flag. The eagle avatar is made by An Ballinger, and the nest, machine gun, flag, is a creativity by Kristian Kit. ❐
New version of Blender v2.5 just released. The major news is that it finally got traditional user interface.
Want to buy lindens? I sell them. You get better rate than Linden Labs. See:Buy Lindens?
“2009 ABC Television Interview with Paisley Beebe in Real Life”
In case you don't know, Paisley BeeBe (sl name) runs a TV show in sl. Usually interviewing people. I've attended a couple. First in around 2008.
i'm giving a special for my Xah Particle Maker. For 1k linden each. Just IM me in sl (sl name: Xah Toll). Offer last till end of this week (ends in Sunday Feb 27 midnight).
if you on twitter, here's some good tweeter to follow.
For starter, just pick ones from my friend Wizard Gynoid's list, at http://twitter.com/wizardgynoid/following.
you can also follow me at http://twitter.com/xah_lee, but most my tweet is about programing stuff and others.
Discovered some new 3D tools:
Also, Unity (game engine) @ unity3d.com seems pretty hot.
See also: List of 3D Modeling Software.
Thanks to Ina Centaur.
Linden Labs raised the group limit to 42 now. That means, you can join a max of 42 groups, instead of the old 25.
Here's how to change Phoenix to support that.
Info source:
“1/8 Ton but want to be a slave-girl?” Source alphavilleherald.com
〈Display Names on Phoenix Viewer〉 By Jessica Lyon.
perm url with explanations: Second Life Login Name, Display Name.
World of Warcraft (WoW) players are all excited about the upcoming new system〈World of Warcraft: Cataclysm〉 amazon
By the way if you don't already, WoW is known as the most addictive game in existence. here's some quotes from Wikipedia:
World of Warcraft, often referred to as WoW, is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...
The third expansion set, Cataclysm, was announced at BlizzCon 2009,[10][11] and entered into closed beta testing in late June 2010.[12][13]
With more than 11.5 million monthly subscriptions in December 2008,[14][15] World of Warcraft is currently the world's most-subscribed MMORPG,[9][16][17] and holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG by subscribers.[18][19][20][21] In April 2008, World of Warcraft was estimated to hold 62 percent of the MMORPG subscription market.[22]
On the net, there are quite a few articles, groups, about addiction problems with WoW. Here is a YouTube video.
World of Warcraft Addict
I remember reading online that there are cases of death in China and Korea. Where, it is reported that the gamer just played non-stop, then dropped dead. There are also news about suicide. The suicide cases is not surprising and likely happens now and then, but am not sure about playing to death by exhaustion.
Second Life military group Chthonic Syndicate's memebers in casuals, at the new sim Hydros. 2010 Aug. Mayra is the admiral. Arvid is the vice admiral. Want hot chicks? join CS.
See also: Second Life Military Videos, Furry Soldiers (images).
Want to by furry avatars? One of the best place is: Rocket City. Go there, enter the building, then tp to the shop in sky.
Another good furry av place is Elliquiy
For picts, see: Furry Soldiers, Second Life's Furries 1.
A L$1000 discount on my Xah Particle Maker, for Memorial today. Buy it here: Xah Particle Maker.
The emerald guys are announcing AjaxLife, a web browser based, text-only, Second Life viewer. So, if you are on a lousy computer with no graphics card and just want to login to chat with your friends or get your IMs, then AjaxLife is your solution. I tried it. It works. Pretty neat.
Start using here: http://ajaxlife-0.modularsystems.sl/.
A lil' new tip. Want to make your av invisible? You can!
Using Emerald, all you have to do is ground sit (Ctrl+Alt+s) while you are in mid-air.
Spend 3 hours and re-wrote my Xah Particle Maker manual. See:
Second Life's adult rating system is changing names. Instead of PG, Mature, Adult, the new name is General, Moderate, Adult. For reason why, see: wiki.secondlife.com. This name change already happened in Viewer 2.
A lil tip. Are you annoyed by the overly glaring glow in sl? You can reduce it. Go to “Advanced‣Debug Settings...” (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S), then choose renderglowiterations, put a value like 1. (default is 2) That will reduce the glow rendering.
Apparantly, Stroker Serpentine (rl name Kevin Alderman), a Second Life made real life millionaire, has made several law suits against copybotters, and against Linden Lab as well. See Wikipedia article, link at Second Life Product Market Value.
A new sl combat tip i learned today. You know, whenever you land from a high jump, you splash into the ground, with about 1 second being immobile? I always wondered if that can be turned off. Yes you can, with Emerald.
Go to “Advanced‣Debug Settings...”. Then type EmeraldIgnoreFinishAnimation, set it to true.
When you set that, you don't have the landing delay, nor the delay when starting jump.
Thinking about it, i actually haven't played ANY massive online games except Second Life. In fact, the last 2 games i remember played on PC is American McGee's Alice, and that is in around 2000.
(am 42, and in my teens and 20s and 30s, i surely have played lots of video games. Basically, my gaming behavior is like addiction. When i got into a game, i'd play it for weeks EVERY MINUTE WHEN I'M AWAKE, even skipping food, rush to bathroom, or went sleep deprivation, till i mastered it thoroughly. Then, usually guilt overcame me for playing video game so much, and i'd swear never to play game again. I'd not play another video game for half a year or a year, or longer especially when i get older.)
Though, in the past 3 years while spend several hours in Second Life almost daily, i learned tremendously about the online gaming community today. (note that massive multi-player online games is only a phenomenon say after 2005, because before the internet, net speed, and technology, simply isn't there) Today, i learned about Steampowered.com. Here's a Wikipedia quote:
Steam is a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications platform developed by Valve Corporation. It is used to distribute a large number of games and related media entirely over the internet, from small independent efforts to larger, more popular games. Steam is set apart from similar services primarily by its community features, completely automated game update process, and its use of in-game functionality.
There are over 1,100 games available through Steam,[3] and in January 2010 Valve announced that it had surpassed 25 million active user accounts.[4] It regularly services in excess of two million concurrent users.[5] Although Valve never releases sales figures, Steam is considered by its competitors and clients to be the market leader, controlling an estimated 70% of the digital distribution market.[6]
See also: Introduction to Second Life.
Linden Labs has created a new policy about third party viewers. Basically, viewers that does not respect their Term Of Service policy or does export items without respecting the permission system will no longer be able to login to Linden Labs's server. This policy is enforced starting on 2010-05-01. For detail, see: secondlife.com Policy on Third-Party Viewers.
They also have a page listing approved viewers at http://viewerdirectory.secondlife.com/. Some of these viewers have interesting features. For example, a text based viewer, viewer for cellphone (iPod, iPhone, Android), viewer for film makers and photographers (basically high-end rendering).
Note that Emerald viewer is compliant. I highly recommend the Emerald Viewer for power players.
A poster artwork made by Mayra Roffo, leader of the Chthonic Syndicate military. ❐
See also: Second Life Military
I play in Second Life several hours a day. I had a 10 years old microphone. So, recently am shopping for a headset. There are lots of headsets out there, from $10 to over a hundred. If you use headset casually, such as 30 min a day for online voice chat, then any $10 will do fine. If you use headset for more than 1 hour a day, then, you need something comfortable, high quality, and with good microphone.
For gaming...
Server 1.36.4 is deployed in main grid. Release Notes/Second Life Beta Server/1.36.4.
Hot from the press, the Emerald guys has discosed a document of rogue viewers that they know of. Rogue Viewers are those violate LL policies, such as those can bypass permission system life, free upload, IP address spoof (so bans have no effect on them), ..., and in some cases, send out your login name and password. The list is here: http://onyx.modularsystems.sl.
The Xstreet SL Terminals is obsolete, announced by Linden, here: Say Goodbye To Xstreet Sl Terminals.
Second life Viewer 2 is here: http://secondlife.com/beta-viewer/download.php. Very new! A complete redesign.
VerticalLife has a temp home page at: Source. (click on the link “[Vertical Life v1.5.8]”) VerticalLife is alternative viewer designed for Second Life combat. Created by Nexii Malthus. It isn't as feature rich as Emerald, but you might give it a try.
Some tips from sl damage weapon maker Matthias Rozensztok:
A scripting friend has a combat hud system. “brave new world combat system”. Pretty nice. http://bnwcs.org/.
Rumor has it that this bug is fix and about to roll out: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3895. Basically, any script that does rez, lags the sim. This is especially important in combat sims, where there are 20 or more people all firing guns, and each gun rez like 10 bullets per second. Though, i haven't personally verified this bug. I heard some rumors that when you write a gun, you want to not use mono.
Just discovered that Linden Labs has a rating of F at Better Business Bureau. See: Source.
In this year, often i found many sl news's original source is from this MMORG news site: http://www.massively.com/. Today again, so i take a look.
Discovered Tabula Rasa (video game). Which closed down, and with a law suit from Richard Garriott, a famous game developer and entrepreneur, for USD$24G.
More detail of this lawsuit, including link to court documents, are reported here Source.
asides from the business aspects, here's a vid of the game play, their final day:
I'm reading Massively's top 5 stories of 2009. The closing down of of Tabula Rasa was #5. Another interesting story i learned, is The Matrix Online, also closing down. Here's a vid of game play:
seems boring to me.
while reading gmail today, the side bar prompted these google ads:
3D modeling for SL - easy create 3D models by simply drawing its shape and export to SL! http://www.archipelis.com/
Buy Second Life Lindens Fast delivery,online live support. The easiest way to purchase lindens http://www.tradelindens.com/
Second Inventory Backup Restore tool for Second Life Legitimate CopyBot for OpenSim http://www.secondinventory.com/
Texturama.com Seamless Texture Map Collections 4000+ Download Pro Texture Maps http://www.texturama.com/
A Beautiful Virtual World Create a Whole New Life. Make New Friends, Chat, Play Games, & More! http://www.there.com/
Except there.com, all these are new to me. Quite amazing how diverse and majorish business for sl are growing. Remember slx? which is bought by Linden Lab for gazillions.
While searching for how much Linden paid for slx, i ran into this blog. Source by Gwyneth Llewelyn. She seems to be a pro gamer, with some insider knowledge.
Starting a blender blog. Xah's Blender Blog. Subscribe there.
Voldo Dance 4. Fantastically funny.
For those of you using Emacs xlsl-mode for Linden Scripting Language, there's a new version (1.4.6) of the yasnippet template. Download at: http://code.google.com/p/lsl-mode/downloads/list.
A bit of rare juicy info on sl business. Here's a quote from Wikipedia Second life:
According to figures published by Linden Lab, about 64,000 users made a profit in Second Life in February 2009, of whom 38524 made less than US$10, while 233 made more than US$5000 [21]. Profits are derived from selling virtual goods, renting land, and a broad range of services. In March 2009, it has become known that there exist a few Second Life entrepreneurs, whose profits exceed 1 million US$ per year[22].
Some companies generate US dollar earnings from services provided in Second Life. Examples are Languagelife.com,[23] Rivers Run Red[24], BNT Holdings, and Beta Technologies.[25] This opportunity is extending to normal residents and non-Second Life users via affiliate programs.[26] The total value of these transactions has not been calculated but in 2008 consultancy firms Rivers Run Red and Electric Sheep have reported annual revenues of $6 million.
The reference 21 about who made what amount, is from sl official site: http://secondlife.com/statistics/economy-data.php. That page is raw data, you'll need to do some computation to get a readible summary.
The reference about those making millions, is from a blog: Top Second Life Entrepeneur Cashing Out US$1.7 Million Yearly; Furnishings, Events Management Among Top Earners (2009-03-24) by Wagner James Au. At Source
The source of this is millions claim is from Robin Harper's blog, at http://couldtherebewhales.blogspot.com/2009/03/correction.html. Apparantly, Robin was a VP of Marketing and Community Developmen at Linden Labs, and left in 2009-02.
Robin being a VP is readily verified on web. Here's a article: http://www.massively.com/2009/02/02/robin-harper-to-leave-linden-lab/, and here: http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/02/robin-linden-leaves.html. Here's Robin's linkedin url: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rharper.
SL military the Chthonic Syndicate, now has a website, at http://chthonicsyn.hostzi.com/.
Note that Ordo's website is http://www.ordoimperialis.com/ some info about them here: http://secondlife.wikia.com/wiki/Ordo_Imperialis.
Vertical Life is a viewer designed for Second Life damage land combat, often used by people in Second Life military communities. It doesn't have a public download location anymore, but the author, Nexii Malthus, lets me post the current url and notecard info about here.
Download the latest version (v1.5.7) at http://nexii.ordoimperialis.com/client/Vertical Life v1.5.7 Setup.exe.Fascinating: Corrupted Blood incident.
The Corrupted Blood incident was a widely reported virtual plague outbreak and video game glitch found in the Blizzard Entertainment computer game World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game in the Warcraft series.
See also: Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (aka MMORG). MMORG is pretty much the future of web. (be sure to read the Psychology section of the article in Wikipedia.)
Also note, MMORG game are in my opinion the most advanced and complex software system today. Quote from Wikipedia article, Development section:
The cost of developing a competitive commercial MMORPG title often exceeds $10 million.[34] These projects require multiple disciplines within game design and development such as 3D modeling, 2D art, animation, user interfaces, client/server engineering, database architecture, and network infrastructure.[35]
am wondering, among all the MMORG, which has the most user, and what are their numbers.
World of Warcraft (WOW) has 11.5 mega monthly subscriptions as of 2008-12, and holds Guinness World Record for that. WOW holds 62% of MMORG subscription market. (info from Wikipedia)
Second Life has 16 mega accounts as of 2009-10. Of course, huge part of it is alts and people who tried and never used again. No reliable data about actual active users. Though, at any time there are about 40k to 60k people online. Total number of active users is probably just a few times of that.
Some online Second Life friends are also getting into Eve online (EVE), which is science fiction theme, with space crafts. Much of my thing. Not much into medieval and sorcery theme as in WOW.
But besides playing, major part of my interest is looking into the business prospects, and the 3D technology and communication technology and social impact thing, i.e. virtual world.
Imagine, if one can teleport from Second Life to EVE, or WOW, or EverQuest, or from any of the MMORG to another. This is similar to different telephone phone networks merging (1900s), IM chats networking merging (2000s), or as recent cell phone networks merging. It is just a matter of time, say 5 years, 10 years.
According to EVE official site Source, EVE has a record of 51k concurrent users, as of 2009-02.
So, am wondering what does WOW virtual world actually looks like. Here's a youtube vid:
Here's what seems to be a typical EverQuest game play.
Just reading a linden blog about their update on their map technology. Improvements to mapping and upgrade to SLurl.com (2009-01-22) By Philip Linden. Source.
Few interesting tidbits. The new tech can update 30k tiles (regions) in 2 days, running on 4 machines. They are using Amazon S3 tech for storage. And of course, they are also using Google maps tech.
Their map API doc is here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Webmap_API.
Am downloading and trying the SnowGlobe viewer (http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Snowglobe). It is much faster, but of course does not contain all the neat features of Emerald Viewer.
So, why is Linden Labs creating a new viewer? Apparantly, it's a new generation of viewer geared toward LL's open sourcing initative. It's a very good thing. Partly, because a fresh viewer will probably get rid of the gook in the old official viewer. You can read about the why's of SnowGlobe here: Source.
Though, Snowglobe doesn't have any extra features in Emerald. I can't live without Emerald. In particular, features like sim wide radar, hide my show look at (extremely useful in combat), adjusting view distance without going into preference, several commands such as “gth” for tp to particular height, button to show chat history, removal the tp black screen and annoying sound effect, cancel stuck tp, ..., in fact, Emerald got so many important features that doing without it is now a major pain in the ass... (not to mention breast physics! LOL)
Gaming news. “News” in the sense of my own discovery. Quake Live, Combat Arms, Eve online.
Quake Live is based on Quake III Arena. Quake 3 was released in 1999, which i played a demo. Quake Live just brings it into the web browser, and free. When you play, you'll see what 3D gaming tech is like in 1999.
I remember, back in 1999, it is a great fantastic 3D graphics advancement, with lots brouhaha. Playing now, the graphics feels so extremely lousy.
Mont Saint Michel. See: Exotic Architectures in Second Life.
Just bought 2 keyboards: “Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000” (review) and “Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard” (review) Love them both.
Update on the Computer Keyboards Gallery page. Excerpt:
Update on the Computer Keyboards Gallery page, on the purpose of the keys: PrtScn (Print Screen), SysRq (System request), ScrLk (Scroll Lock), Break keys. Also, some design problems of Apple's keyboards.
Tim Burton's new film. Trailer at http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/aliceinwonderland/. See also: Misc Alice Artwork, White Rabbit. Jefferson Airplane live.
