It's Time To DIVE!!!

It's time again for our 4th Annual Halloween Horror Haunted House! In DIVE you take the role of a Paranormal Investigator trying to Discover the Secrets to the Haunted Hyperion Hotel. Running NOW thru November 14th.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Snatch%20City/30/56/29

Here are just some of the comments from our opening week:

My friends and I did Dive tonight and we had the best time. We've done your Halloween build for the last two years, so we were really looking forward to it. It was too much fun and extremely creepy. We were talking about how LL should be giving you a grant or something because you're contributing actual gaming content to grid.

Wow that really blew my socks off thank you so much for Dive, its the best thing I've done in SL in a long time! I hope you guys keep making more of these.

Ok, the bathroom with the creepy mirrors in Dive was just enough for me to stop for the night.

We come every year to your Halloween events and they just get better and better every year. It's so creepy and the prizes are so fantastic. Thank you for making SL fun again!

Finished Dive, and omg! Got so freaked out at one point, I actually screamed a little. The maze, omg! That place.... I can't even think about it.

I had an amazing time going through this! I was scared the whole time!

Just wanted to say thankies once again for another awesomely wickedly devious haunted event this year... I've done them since you started and this one by far kicks the most butt... Thank you to you and everyone else who put time and effort into it, and thank you for all the prizes!

I Just finished the DIVE adventure at Snatch, that was A-W-E-S-O-M-E!!!

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Free stuff? Prizes? You betcha! Scattered Everywhere are gifts from...

Sn@tch
!ReTox!
[Gauze]
Nomine
Fierce
Dreams
Crimson & Clover
Moonshine
Elymode
Weather! Or Not?
Acid & Mala
Rara Avis
Extempore
Blackberry Jam
Tainted Desire
Infamous
It's Cake
Eat Me COuture
Old Dirty Bastards

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So now that I know you are coming, Here are a few tips. No Spoilers, Promise!

#1 Go with a group if you can. There is so much to see and do it's almost the only way to not miss everything.

#2 Click everything!

#3 Read the notecards

#4 Read the notecards? YES read the notecards! Most of the info you need are in them.

#5 Cheat if you like, we could care less. (I have seen a couple of the cheat notecards already and they will make you miss a TON of fun and prizes)

#6 PLEASE do not shout or give out hints in open voice in the DIVE build. Please keep that to your Private IM's or Private Voice chat. It wreaks the experience for others that want to do the puzzles on their own.

#7 Do #6 too much or randomly give out cheat notecards and find yourself sim banned.

#8 There is NO CASH PRIZE, that is only part of the back-story. (If you can find and get the fictional "Winthrop Institute" to pay you, go for it!)

#9 Remember this is Game with hidden Prizes, Not a hit and run hunt. Looking for a quick and easy Hunt? DIVE is not for you.

#10 Have Fun!

Hope to see you there!

Direct Link to DIVE!

...and thanks for all the fish.

So this and my next blog post about what is going on in the Gulf of Mexico and How SL is helping, are likely my last “serious” blog posts for a while. Sorry but the “new black” today seems to be fast and stupid rather than researched. I don’t expect citations and references in blog posts; it’s not that kind of medium. But come on!

How does describing someone’s efforts as “fail” or even a derogatory usage of “tranny” pass for a maverick well thought out review? How does 5 years of blog posts about how a corporation is about to fail every next month pass for insightful? Not even getting the actual meanings of words like censorship? I love that I have a voice and that you ALL have a voice on the Internet but THINK PEOPLE THINK! Give your brains 2 minutes to process what you just heard before you feel the need to react it to it. If something is really important to you, maybe take the time to look into it yourself, before you overreact?

Ok to cover what I promised I would and sweep over the things I wanted to talk about deeper. Yep there was this small spike in the exchange rate over on the Lindex. It’s all over and it is obviously Again due to overreaction to the layoffs. Funny thing is it didn’t happen over on the Xstreet exchange that has much larger exchange rate sways all the time. We take cash out of SL almost daily and we have seen much larger rate spikes than this freak-out all the time. It’s actually odd that an exchange like the Lindex is so stable day to day normally.

Of course also, Philip Rosedale is coming back as CEO of Linden Labs, so what does that mean?!?! Not a damn thing. What matters is what he does going forward. Now personally, I think he is one of the smartest people in the room, he more or less took Neal Stephenson's novel “Snowcrash” and brought it to life. Linden Labs virtual world Second Life is arguably the most successful Virtual World ever created. Even the eggheads over at Google couldn’t make a go at a Virtual World with its Lively back in 2008.

Don’t get me wrong there are some very interesting things going on in the virtual worlds of Blue Mars, Rezzables, InworldZ and others. However they are all in more or less Alpha/Beta mode and while I watch in interest, they are just not there yet.

As I care to glance at my chosen home Second life, 65,401 people are in right now with well over a Million active residents. The home to America, Apple pie, Baseball and the Red Soxs, Fenway Park seats a maximum of 37,402 people at once. You know what that means? Not a damn thing. But Rob 82 Million people play “FarmVille” doesn’t that mean something? LOL Of course not! Look SL is unique, it’s not going to be the next Facebook, Twitter, or whatever. I will say, I don’t see people playing Farmville ten years from now. ;-) Hope to see you in world.

A couple of things…

The First thing: Ok the elephant in the room is the 30% layoffs over at Linden Labs (LL). I decided I would wait about a week to say anything about it. Obviously it’s very sad for everyone involved, it really is. Of course the usual “the sky is falling” bunch is using this event as proof that the lab is closing up any time now. Ok but Rob, why else would a company layoff so many people off without doing it because they are so desperate for cash this is the last gasp? Nope sorry that’s not the case at all. OK two points here, #1 LL is reasonably valuated at 650-700M $US privately owned company. You think a company that big is off the Federal United States radar? Let alone the Hyper Liberal US state of California that they are based in? Sorry they don’t get to lay that many people off and make announcements about why without justifying it to severe scrutiny. That is a fact. Prove me wrong that there are no consequences to laying off that many people.

Ok so what is going on? Why drop that many talented people? Because, as LL has stated they are restructuring. But Rob isn’t that just BS that they need to cut jobs to cut costs because they are about to fail? Nope sorry, let me make this personal, forget about what I said above. Lets say you or people you know have a baby. The need is a good, reliable babysitter that can be trusted to take charge of the job. Fantastic, someone is found that fits the bill, wonderful! Ok time moves on and needs move on, now the need is for a home health giver and not a baby sitter. So what happens? Do you retrain the babysitter as a Home health giver? Do they even want to do that? No, you thank your babysitter for a job well done, maybe give them a send off bonus and wish them the best, and move on to find a great Home health giver. That is what is going on over at LL, they have new needs and are changing members of the staff to meet the new needs.

Also I think some people are taking the layoffs a little too personally. I saw the Linden Memorial over at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Rouge/165/72/22 and that’s fine. What I haven’t seen is a conversion list of Linden avatar to alternate avatar, or even where to follow these people on Plurk, Twiter or Facebook. (Obviously hard to do with the many “Unknown Lindens” that got gavestones) Maybe SL was just a job to most of them? Maybe we were not all as close as some people seem to think. The only Linden I can say I ever talked to outside of a professional arena was Pathfinder Linden. (He was laid off a while back so I guess he didn’t qualify for a headstone) ***UPDATE! Looks like he got a headstone after all. http://bit.ly/a6nyhg *** He seems a nice guy, I follow him on twitter and he seems to be doing fine post LL. He didn’t die when LL laid him off, he moved on. So maybe don’t worry so much, these people and the lab will be just fine.

The second thing: Much like after the lindens jacked the prices around with the homestead/open sim mess, rumors are flying that people are leaving SL like a sinking ship off to other virtual worlds. Pretty obvious rumor to run with, but this time it is different. There was this one new world where all the “talented creators” in SL were running to and that was going to leave SL with a talent vacuum or something and that was going to be the end of SL. I consider my partner and myself fairly talented creators and so how did we not hear about this magical new virtual world that was better than SL in every way. Even odder, why were most of the posts I could find not including the name of this brave new world. Well I finally did my “Davinci Code” work and figured out where everyone is supposedly going.

http://inworldz.com/ is a virtual world run off the same software that runs Second Life. (You can get a copy here http://opensimulator.org and get an island running on your local machine pretty easily) So I made an account, and took a look. As I write this, here are the stats they report.

Grid Status: Online

Total Users: 4606

Users Online: 55

Total Regions: 213

I’m not going to show the SL numbers here because I don’t need to. Also I’m not going to get into just how unstable and how many issues I found in my brief visit. This is a perfectly great start for a new virtual world. However, why would so many people be leaving SL to this new and frankly unstable new world? Ok first few people are actually talking about leaving SL and even fewer are actually leaving. So what is all the fuss about? This vocal minority are generally older Avatars or “Oldbees”. (Yes even at almost 4 years in world I am considered a Noob by some) I think the big issue they have with the SL of 2010 is that is just isn’t the Wild Wild West they remember from when they first came to SL. So a new grid like Inworldz is very attractive to them. For me, let them have it. If inworldz, bluemars or any of the other growing virtual worlds gets independent cash out, a significant number of invested players and a bit of stability my associates and I will expand into it, but not leave SL.

This is not the first upheaval we have been through in SL and it will likely not be the last. Trust me most SL residents never even heard about the layoffs let alone all the rest of this drama. If you believe in virtual worlds like I do, and you are here for the long term, you must know that right now Second Life is hands down the best virtual world available to us. I look forward to the future filled with rich genuine options to grow into, even then, for as long as she is around I’m sticking with SL.

The ban-hammer vs. the Blog-hammer

So after what was a very nice day of day of shopping and getting out in the sunshine and feeling like normal people for once what do I wake up to? My Partner Ivey crying her eyes out... Why? Because of being held pretty much at gunpoint by a blogger. My strong empowered girl reduced to tears over what? This. http://pennelopethiessam.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/to-post-or-not-to-post/ The avatar Pennelope Thiessam has decided that a sim ban, a personal ban done by ME for personal reasons is such an atrocity, censorship, outrage that her and her friends needs to attack, anyone and everyone she can. My partner, every store on my sims, the operator of 69L humpdays, and as far as I can tell anyone and anything she can. I wake up to things so bad that not only is Ivey in tears but she has unbanned Pennelope Thiessam from our sims. So you know what Penn, you win. Your Blog-hammer is clearly bigger than my ban-hammer. After I post this I am going in world to clear out my ban list, and then proply throw up. I guess I just have no right to have control over the regions I pay the lindens $780US a month to. A bloggers rights to tell me I have no balls are just more important than mine to not want her around. So I hope you are happy Ms Self Appointed SL Quality Control Coordinator, you win.

Wanna be a big time RL blogger and blog about SL?

Ok this is funny but it isnt. Wanna be a big time RL blogger and blog about SL? Let me hand you the template. You get the line, after the Colon : that's my comments, ready? here we go...

Remember Second Life? : Yep reword it however you like, This is your opening gambit because you know why would anyone remember around a million and a half players active today?

Next you do a line or two about from SL from 3-5 years ago. : You know the deal, Lag, copybot, virtual sex, wild wild west, whatever tired story you want to hook your wagon onto.

Get the word "avatar" and James Cameron in your post. : Yep just do it, Hey look I just did! Apparently the work done by Howard Rheingold, Jaron Lanier, Philip Rosedale, and countless others to bring virtual reality to life never happed. Yep it all came out a half an hour before the movie.

...fading into obscurity... : Apparently if you are not on the cover of every newspaper and magazine weekly you don't exist. Funny because last time I checked newspapers and magazines were having a hard time of it.

...because "whatever my pet project is" has a home in second life its all good. : Yep thats it, now just ramble on about how SL is useful to you and your readers.

Don't get me wrong, A couple of years ago, heck even a couple of months ago it was all much much more negative. I give Linden Labs their due with the 2.0 push, us "oldbees" hate the new viewer but if you are new or "back" you will love it. However SL 2.0 it way more than just the viewer, way more than I care to get into here, and it's all pretty good. So welcome back folks, we kept it all nice and warm for you.

Six impossible things before breakfast

Six impossible things before breakfast

I think James will be OK thanks.

Love it or loathe it James Cameron’s new movie “Avatar” worldwide box office today is at $1,347,224,441 (IMDB.com) and in the end will certainly overtake his previous blockbuster “Titanic” by a very wide margin. So with profits like that it seems so strange to me that anyone would be so worried about poor James and what might be going on related to it in second life. However that what is going on over at New World Notes, questioning an apparent Avatar related SL ad campaign, and resident created “Avatar-like” avatars and RP. By itself its fine, hell it’s smart to be talking about anything related to the movie this popular. However ladies, gentlemen and genderless alike, I give you the pure definition of ironic in the form of a screen cap…

Yes on the same page NWN questions SL about their Avatar-like ad campaign and all the questionable goings on in SL, they themselves have a for-profit and pretty obvious “Avatar-like” IMVU banner ad on their site. I’ll leave you all to make your own conclusions beyond this with one final comment. SL drama aside, I think James, his stakeholders and their billions in resources can figure out what they want to do as far as that ad and all the dimes and quarters bouncing around SL on their own. ;-)

SLFashionFails etc.

I’m going to keep this quick so I actually finish and post it. Last night I was made aware of a plurk account called SLFashionFails. This little gem of an account was set up, as far as I can tell, with the simple purpose to anonymously bash random fashion designers. As much as many have called this account harmless, it included very loaded statements that crossed the line IMOHO involving suicide, racism and gay bashing. Me and my “Lynch Mob” as anyone like minded has been labeled, didn’t find this account funny at all, so some of us reported the account to Plurk for violation of TOS and I am happy to say the account has been removed.

End of story right? Well apparently no. Aside from the “Lynch Mob” baloney, many seem confused why I care about this at all. This account was what I refer to as “Anonymous Hate” one of the nastier little afterbirths of the Internet. SLFashionFails was not a mixed bag of praise and criticism, constructive criticism, or light hearted look at SL fashion. SLFashionFails was only set up to post mean and nasty often line crossing comments anonymously. Beyond this little gem, Anonymous Hate is one of the more dangerous things around on the net. Why? Inside of all of us, you, me, your mom, ALL OF US is this nasty little monster that will say, do and think the worst of the worst. What hopefully keep us in check are empathy, morals, and simple consequences for our actions. Anonymous Hate ends all of that, say whatever, no consequences at all.

Ok Rob that’s a cute opinion you have there but doesn’t this mean you are against freedom of speech and all forms of Anonymity on the Internet. Nope, I am a huge fan of Anonymity where it is needed. Live in Iran and want to talk about the sham of an election they just had and not see members of your family dragged away with bags on their heads? You Need anonymity. Are you in an abusive relationship and need to connect with others in your situation for support without getting kicked in the teeth again? You Need anonymity. Have an avatar in SL and don’t like something you see on one of the fashion feeds and want to say something about it? You know what? YOU DON’T FUCKING NEED ANONYMITY! You just don’t. Worried about what people will think about you after you say something? That’s a clue you shouldn’t be saying it.

As far as freedom of speech, give me a break. Online social networks and blog systems while free tend to have standards and Terms of Service. They pretty much all tend to be against hate speech in general gay bashing and racial references made things very easy to report this account. But doesn’t freedom of speech mean anything anywhere? NO it doesn’t. Screaming “fire” in a crowded movie theatre is the classic case, but freedom of speech does not mean you are not accountable for what you say.

-Sigh- and as I am writing this I have been called a Nazi for my efforts. If Aeon only had the slightest clue to what that term really meant. Ah the ignorance of youth, I truly miss you.