Getting Somewhere…

For over a year I have been using an open-source piece of software called OpenSim which is a reverse engineered Second Life simulator. (If you don’t know what a simulator is, it is the thing that gives you land and prims and all that happy stuff). Ever since it was released I have always felt that those servers would one day interact with the Agni grid.

Another thing that I love about the OpenSim project is the ability to run your own simulator locally. This is great for a variety of reasons. Testing scripts outside of Second Life, Building Practice, Tutorials etc. I basically love OpenSim. There are a few problems with it i’ll admit. It is still unfinished in terms of physics, inventory and usability but this will all be ironed out in the future.

So, recently the main grid was able to connect to an OpenSim server, which of course excited the hell out of me. Then this happened to appear in my feed reader. Open Grid may still be in it’s early days but it is something that makes me excited for the virtual worlds. This obviously opens up so many possibilities such as independantly run servers.

I will continue to keep watching the space and finding out what happens with OpenSim because whatever it will bring. It will be a good thing for all.

Moving On…

So. Maybe you have heard or maybe you haven’t.

But I am going to be leaving Nowhereville. Why?

Well. I figured that I would leave to make way for a change to Nowhereville. Theres some prime candidates who want to move in and it makes sense that I should leave to make way for change. I have always been a big believer of change and the good it can do but having looked back at Nowhereville I just don’t think it has changed all that much. The major changes to the island were mostly on my parcel(s), Gomem’s parcel, When the Newggenheim came in and when Caleb changed things around. But now it probably needs a major change and I believe that may be around the corner, and it’s gotta be good…right?

But what about you, Stuart?

Well. I am moving to Podcast Island. Why?

To be honest not a lot happens there. It needs to be injected with new life and events to make it seem more active. The main event that happens each month is of course the Podcaster Meetups. But with SLPN moving in there will be more events garunteed with the live podcasts we are starting to do more and more at SLPN.

Finally Declared Dead…to iTunes

A long time ago in the summer of 2006 I tried to start a weekly podcast called "The Weekly Warf Show" but it was kinda…really…boring. So it went into my archive of Podfade.

It was of course submitted to iTunes, but I deleted the show and its feed last year. However iTunes has only just caught up with this revelation

Dear Podcast Owner
The podcast located at the URL shown below has been blocked or removed from the iTunes directory as a result of technical problems with the feed.
Name: The Weekly Warf Show
Feed URL: http://www.podshow.com/feeds/warf.xml

I wonder how many dead podcast feeds still lie on the surface of the iTunes store…

Remember, It’s only a Server

Last week the Lindens announced that they were going to be introducing a new land store system which promises almost instant delivery of sims. With this a price drop was announced for the purchasing of Estate simulators.

When the new Land Store launches, setup fees will be:

* Normal Islands: USD$1000 setup
* Normal Openspaces: USD$250 setup
* Educational Islands: USD$700 setup
* Educational Openspaces: USD$175 setup

For some reason people started to interperet this as being a move against the OpenSim project or that the Lindens are having poor sales.

But if you take a logical approach to it. You will realise that it really isn’t the case. The fact is that technology gets cheaper and cheaper. Take an iPod for example. As more features and storage is added, the prices drops. This is the way that the tech industry moves and it obviously ripples into Second Life.

But wait, what about OpenSim?

Well… I am pretty sure that just last week, it was announced that OpenSim and Linden Lab are working together to integrate OpenSim servers into Second Life.

How is that going to work?

I think that they will probably have a message that pops up every time you enter the area of an OpenSim based server like, “This is a third-party server and Linden Lab is not responsible for what may happen”.

Personally I am excited about the prospect of having third-party servers in Second Life as this will lead to even cheaper server options for people. Of course all the backing up is down to the third-party or you instead of Second Life, hence the cheaper aspect. After all part of the cost for sims is that you need to pay the maintainence fees, backup charges, bandwidth etc.

As stability slowly comes to Second Life…so does some really exciting stuff that I just love the idea of.

Take it or Leave it - One Night Only!

OK, So the 2008 season for the Second Life Relay for Life is in full swing and I am part of the team Take THAT, Cancer so. I decided to bring back an original idea I had proposed to one team for last years RFL that never happened…and make it happen.

So… on SATURDAY 5th APRIL 2008 at the SLPN HQ in Nowhereville will be a One Night Only for Take it or Leave it.

What is Take it or Leave it?

Take it or Leave it is the Second Life version of Deal or no Deal which I used to host before the gambling ban. However for this night it will be a Just For Fun and hopefully we will get a tournament thing going with some prizes and stuff.

If you have any products that you want to giveaway for this please IM me in-world because I want to offer MANY prizes. But of course the aim is raise cash for the Relay for Life cause (preferably for the Take THAT, Cancer team).

I will have more on this hopefully in the next week or two

Tonight Live with Paisley Beebe - 2nd December 2007

Here’s another photo update of the recent Tonight Live with Paisley Beebe.

Yxes finally had enough of Crap/Cee goofing around before the taping and bit his/her head off and used it as a trophy and a warning to those who annoy her as she prepares for the show

The MODA fashion students strut their stuff on the catwalk

Then we got some tunes from Luigi DiPrima

The show ended with Brianna Beresford of the Virtual Male Institute. A company aimed at improving the look of male avatars in Second Life. Of course I don’t need any help.

Brianna showed off her latest work (the avatar standing in the tuxedo)

It looks like SLCN is having a Xmas special on the 20th of December at 5PM SLT (assuming I converted the time right) . Also the calendar claims that Tonight Live will also be on the 23rd as well.

Metaverse Security Seminar

Last Saturday I attended a Metaverse Security Seminar that was held by the Justice League in Second Life. I was alerted of this event by an email from a fan of The Podmafia Podcast (and the email specifically asked me not to grief the event lol). The first 40 minutes was spent on introducing themselves and it then seperated in to three parts. A newbie course, A estate management security course and something else (remind me to blog after the events…not days).

I think this is the newbie course…

With all these superhero’s hanging around, it makes you wonder if SuperWarf will come on in flying to save the day! (SuperWarf has not been since the Edlantis incident)

The Introduction

I think we’ll be speaking more in depth about this event when we record the next episode of The Podmafia Podcast on Sunday.

Forbes Guy…

Everyone is talking about this idiot at Forbes who seems to be moaning about the “economic crisis” in Second Life. So as i write this i am going to be watching this video and telling you my thoughts on this.

After Post Note - WHY is there so many advertisements just to watch one freaking 300 second video

Note 1 - Gambling was NOT shut down months ago, only the advertising of it

Note 2 - It is not one of the only ways to earn an income in Second Life, theres clothing, building, entertainment such as Live Music, DJing, sadly the Sex industry which may become a target next as everyone is rumouring. Theres owning land and profiting from that along with rentals. Theres all sorts of other methods for earning an income in Second Life.

Note 3 - Why is “most of things going into sex”. BECAUSE THE MEDIA HYPED IT TO BE A SEX CRAZED WORLD!!!!

Note 4 - You may have spent a lot of time in the world but WHERE DID YOU SPEND TIME (sorry the rant mode is ON)

Note 5 - I think the corporate businesses are already losers because they ultimately have made their purpose boring and dead. Sure the openings are filled but they offer absolutely nothing after it. Stuff like Woodstock which was a homegrown effort gained popularity for what it was and has shown that sex and gambling is everything when it is not. People tipped the artists like crazy and because i was once married to someone in a sex club i can tell you the artists EARNED up to 10 times more in one fucking hour than those sex club workers. L$1000 for an hour night in some cases compared to L$10,000 for an hour shows the POWER of other places.

Note 6 - Of course its stupid to have a washing machine in Second Life. You don’t need to wash your clothes in Second Life and also it does nothing. Washing machines that eat an avatar up and spins them round for 10 seconds is far more intresting than that

Note 7 - World of Warcraft firstly is a waste of time. I spent about 10 hours and was more bored of the newbies going around saying stuff like “TRAD WTIH M3 B4 I KIL YOU” on a server which people don’t fight each other…only the monsters/creatures. Also do you hear live music in WoW? Do you actually have fun? Has anyone died playing Second Life on a 57 hour spree? No is the answer!

Note 8 - How is Mario Kart and Second Life related? Pre - Made cars which you can change a color to blue, red, white etc. ?

For a Video to this detailed and obviously smarter guy than I am click this link

That felt good to rant, I don’t do that often

What about a Podcast Union?

Earlier today i saw a blog entry on SLBuzz from Banana Stein which seemed to cause a bit of an uproar in the community about events. So i got to thinking after reading the comments. Thats when i came up with the idea for a Podcast union. Sort of like how unions in Real Life work. This union would tackle issues within the community like griefers or event clashes and how to solve the issues to provide the best for the community. However one of the problems i have with the sims right now is that they are all spread around and i might be in one sim and blissfully unaware of what could be in another sim at the time. If i could easily fly to those sims without much worry (apart from getting your prim hair on your genitals)…

So I came up with this concept map of what I think should happen and how the sims should be located to each other based on events and styles.

Read more

Some Housekeeping to do…

Well lets see what have i been doing this week. Well you could say that i have not done too much this week or have done a lot depending on your definition. So i want to take this time to talk about some stuff that is coming up and what’s been happening.

Take it or Leave it
Just in case you haven’t read the blog “New World Notes” i was recently mentioned in the blog and was very pleased at what was said. I am still sort of modest about my hosting skills but people keep saying that i’m great so im inclined to believe them . Also i am pleased to announce that I will be hosting Take it or Leave it on Tuesdays at Nowhereville at an earlier time of 1PM SLT. This event is really for the Europeans because they never get a L$2,500 game on at that time which is kind of upsetting so I offered to do it. Also I will be hosting at the Audiocourses “ACHUB Spring Festival” on Sunday at 1PM SLT. That will also be L$2,500 top prize so fans of my work have a two for one deal as I will be heading over to Nowhereville pretty much straight after the event.

New World Notes Entry
ACHUB Wiki

New Blog Theme
I decided that Kubrick was looking a little old for me now and so i switched to another theme and I am currently in the midst of redesigning a lot of the work to make it more eye-appealing including easier ways to subscribe to the blog.

RL : Eazy Computer Help
Finally, I have teamed up with Louis Ringgold in a blog called Eazy Computer Help. Sure this isn’t Second Life at all but i promised him that I would plug it at places so I thought that I would start here. It is really good if you want some tips although its more aimed at computing novices

Eazy Computer Help

I am going to the Bucket event tonight as a …. You will have to come and find out and I hope to see you there, Bye!