SL on Xbox?
Earlier this week I came across this blog entry by Dusan Writer which talks about a placeholder found on the official Second Life website at the URL - http://search.secondlife.com/.
placeholder page for XBOX, PS3, and iPhone versions of client when they launch next real soon now
However if you visit the site now it says
placeholder for search
So, what’s the deal? Well here’s what I think what happened
- LL is working on an XBOX 360, PS3 and iPhone version of Second Life and someone in the departments placed the wrong placeholder at the URL instead of a placeholder for an offline search engine for Second Life
- A PR Stunt
- An employee who was bored and decided to have some fun without realising that it would be noticed
However if LL is working on a client for the Xbox, PS3 and iPhone then I will be happy for two reasons. I Have an Xbox AND an iPod touch. For those who don’t know the iPhone/iPod touch has the same operating system and hardware (minus the phone, camera and soon to be GPS) meaning it would work on the iPod as well.
On the Xbox and PS3 you can talk via a microphone or keyboard (at least on the 360 you can). Also the whole Flycam features that are coming soon could in theory work well with Second Life. Not to mention that they are dedicated systems for gaming making Second Life be smooth and free of system lag (sim lag will probably still occur).
Although this may never happen I think it would be awesome if it did. Here’s to hoping that the almighty lindens are working on it 
Avatar Rendering Cost
Another new thing in Dazzle in the Advanced section is called Avatar Rendering Cost. This helps to calculate the whole lag that an avatar is ultimately causing. This can help banish some myths about avatars and prim hair stuff etc.
My avatar usually doesn’t wear prim hair since the skin has hair painted on to it. All I really wear is 2 trainers (sneakers to the yanks) and a suit (which is actually a nod to the Tenth Doctor in Dr Who).
Anyway, I tried out this setting and found that my rendering cost was typically 105-110. Which is actually a brilliant score. Compared to Jane2 who at the time had a cost of 2500.
I also tried it out with some prim hair on and that brought it up to about 505. So in a sense I am happy because my avatar is grid friendly and stuff and in a world filled with lag. Especially events, I am doing my part to bring down my “Prim-Emissions”
Who needs to login anyway?
OK, We all know it. The logins were broked for an extensive period of time and yes it did indeed suck. However it wasn’t a problem too much for me (personally). A lot of my friends will know that I am indeed a Dr Who fanatic. Infact my avatar is not of Human based origin BUT a Time Lord (but that doesn’t really matter).
The point is that last night, Dr Who returned and with other things like YouTube the grid downtime did not affect me. However I shall now write some of my top tips for downtime.
1. Download Podcasts!
You don’t need an iPod to listen to any podcasts. All you need is something that plays .mp3 files and IF you don’t have one of those then you don’t have a computer that can run Second Life’s client. A lot of great audio podcasts can be found at http://slpodcast.net and no that is not just a plug. I’ve had people come up to me and say they listen to the shows at work/in-world/car etc. The point is there is some great discussions there for everyone. However if you like the idea of TV there is all those great video shows over at SLCN such as Tonight Live (which i am watching streamed live right now as I right this).
2. Read…
Another thing I was meaning to do was get through all my RSS feeds and stuff. If you like to read internet content but don’t like the hassle of entering in all those URLs there is a better way. Use a webapp called Google Reader. I use it personally and love it. What I do is tag all the blogs into certain categories like say “Second Life” or “Tech News” and as soon as a new entry is up it displays on my window to read. This helps me get up to date on all the news so I can find all the good content about things. That’s one of the things I do with podcasts. Go through all the junk and podcast it in a entertaining way if possible.
3. Get Away from that computer…seriously
Sure you need your SL fix but just step away from that monitor and get some of that good ol’ fresh air. I personally try to do a hell of a lot more these days because even though I am young…I really need to start getting out more. A lot of the time when nothings happening in the feeds or in SL for me, I just sit around. One thing I have been trying to commit more to is walking around. The area I live in is a village so theres some good scenery. What I do is A) Get my podcasts synced… B) Grab my dogs leash C) Go Walking…
I read somewhere that we as humans are naturally lazy and being the climate today we just become victims to it…
Theres a few things for some avatars to do while the grid is down and being broken. Also I mentioned in section 1 that I was watching Paisley Beebe. Well as i still write this the show hasn’t really started yet because of all those SL problems. If Linden Lab™ is wanting to make sure that it’s product is to succeed in the future they need to tackle the problems now. I predicted earlier this year (i’m sure I said this on The Podmafia Podcast) that this year was going to be the year when the Linden Lab™ was going to try and sort out all of the problems with lag such by rolling out things like Havok4 and Mono. Right now they are at the deployment phase. The next task is refining those tools in the real enviroment of the grid and getting to all work. At least thats what I think they are doing
Sport Relief in SL
Every two years, the UK holds an event called Sport Relief. This is a telethon charity aimed at bringing an end to poverty. Now it seems like it has entered Second Life. One thing that I enjoyed about the sims were that you could camp on some treadmills and for every 10 minutes L$100 would be donated to charity. This is far better than the standard L$1 every 60 minute rate that you get in boring lag-filled places. I’m not sure how long these sims will exist but if you go in to your world map and search WeAreHere (all one word) you will make it to one of the four sims.
Second Life Notes Trojan Horse?
After reading about Google flagging Chill Moksung’s blog “Second Life Notes” as having badware on Dolmere’s blog I decided to go and check out the site myself (since I am a Windows user and I use protection (Eset Anti-Virus cos Norton Sucks) and well… strangely enough I got a message pop up when I visited the site.
Not sure what sort of trojan it is…or even if its just a false-positive… I wonder what the deal is with this.
The Lag Meter
CSI : Nonsense
I am currently in the process of stealing the latest episode of CSI:NY (since it has yet to air in the UK as far as i can tell). I just want to see what all this fuss is about….Like those sims, you know the 4 times 103 = 400-something to accommodate all these newbies who must be jumping up and down like a jack russell terrier just to play around in a virtual world…
Maybe it’s just the fact that i am not truly a CSI fan which is why I’m not too excited but more worried about the lag…
Archipelago Speedway Update #1
What is the Archipelago(Fruit Cup as well) Speedway. It is a project first mentioned by Razzap Snookums which i am currently building and carrying out because, Razzap is busy building a city with shadows, Crap is building some temple for podcasting and other people are either pissed off at people in the locations and do not want to help.
So it looks like its up to me to have the fun round here and sort this crap out.
So for the first update -
- I am currently on Minitrack one which is the BlaksleeWorld Speedway track.
- The road for BlaksleeWorld has been made now
- Barriers are still in construction but are taking shape
- I have bought a Lap Timer/Counter and all that fun stuff for L$5000 from the creator at Domino Designs (his name just this second has gone blank to me, i’ll probably remember soon)
- The Jack Pitt’s Stop paving is done, I need to now make the areas for the cars to sleep in. The plan is also to have a VIP room for racers only above the Pitt Stop.
That pretty much covers it for the first update of the Archipelago / Fruit Cup Speedway.
Edit - I am aiming to get the track done for this Sunday, so we can perhaps have a BETA test of the track. If not then hopefully we can test on Tuesday, nothing ever happens then.
Age Verification will still not work!
This is another rant but also i don’t think that the new voluntary Age Verification may work in preventing minors from accessing the adult content of Second Life.
Lets come up with a theory that due to the large size of Second Life is a plausible idea. Lets say there are two sisters/brothers who are in Second Life and one of them is overage (ie. 18-21) but her sister is underage and is roughly 14-16. Now the older sister created her sisters account but as an alt but the older sister could indeed own either an escort club or a strip club to attempt to make some money in real life and the younger sister wants a piece of the action or help her sister out in her venture.
When this verification comes into play the younger sister will be cut off from this community because obviously the older sister will have verified the account. What will it look like the older sisters dancers at the club now that the younger sister has not verified the account. It will look very suspicious indeed , So the older sister has two choices. Class the strip club as mature and risk getting flagged by the Lindens…OR verify her younger sisters account and continue what the younger sister was doing.
Am I crazy for thinking this idea up? perhaps i am a little but then again I do know of places with situations like this. So when this method of verification comes into play i will be interested in seeing what happens.
Personally, even though i know its going to look odd, but I am not going to be verifying my account. I have no need in my Second Life to look at sex clubs within Second Life because the industry doesn’t interest me one bit. I do not see the point of seeing a texture based on these polygons dancing around on a poseball. It just seems like a waste of time to me so I will not verify.
Sure there may be a trust issue with me then but in my opinion but I don’t think that just seeing Mature content will affect me at all.
My Teen Grid Theory…
I have speculated about this idea before in IM’s and general conversation and after hearing about the Adult Verification scheme mentioned once again at SLCC I had the theory pop into my head.
I consider Mature content to be accessible to people who are 16 years old or more. Where as content that is Adult to be 18 years old or more. Therefore PG which does stand for Parental Guidance to be all content that can be deemed appropriate to anybody under 18 as long as a parent approves of it.
How does this relate to teens coming onto the grid? Well as we all know the main grid has currently got two types of sims. Mature and PG. PG seems to be maintained as a clean area where no swearing / sex / mature and adult acts happen. But in a world that is mature in nature and requires the user to be older than 18 (although we all know that can be easily bypassed) seems to be a little farfetched to me.
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