>Belated Stuff.

>Well, you know how it is, sometimes you don’t get round to it all and something has to go by the wayside. Unfortunately its been my regular postings which have taken a back seat this last few weeks… as Brinda says…”so it goes”…

Anyway…I have been popping around the metaverse in addition to having my nose firmly stuck in the TV watching the boys and girls in white strutting their stuff on the lawns of Wimbledon …and what a mess they make of those after just one week. (not helped by people like Djokovic doing a spot of farming with his racket… guess he thought digging up the turf might help…)…

Anyway…. I did get to visit Selavy Oh’s “Construct” again, it’s found a home on Magoo, Mab’s sim…

It started life as a 75 day residency at Humlab, Selavy making a new scripted piece each day (mostly) during her term there. It is now like a catalogue of what can be done with a script. There is probably no other build in VWs that shows such a range of scripts or what can be achieved. Selavy is probably the most ‘leading edge’ scripter we have.

More details on Mab’s blog … here. Selavy has another piece on Magoo worth visiting while you are there …its at sea level and called Spherical Topography.

Its your last chance to visit FreeWee’s huge build at UWA if you haven’t already been. A very large project, Angry Gods will only be there til the end of the month, so, not long…. full details on FreeWee’s blog .. here.

…and on the subject of UWA, Gingered has become the latest sponsor there, initiating her own monthly prize from funds generated by her DJing skills… she told me all about it as I cut a rug at Manamizic Tryjen (above) which I have posted before… (built by Trinny Mizin) that she wanted to pick her own winners …. great idea.

The UWA machinima prize pool continues to rise… now at $L300,000,…. that’s what I call an endowment…

In other news….

As I predicted …..not all of the world will go along with America and UK on their attempts to strangle freedom of the Internet, and sure enough The Netherlands has announced…

“A broad majority in the Dutch parliament voted for crucial legislative proposals to safeguard an open and secure internet in The Netherlands. The Netherlands is the first country in Europe to introduce a net neutrality law. In addition, provisions were launched protecting users against disconnection and wiretapping by providers.”

…so a good piece of news maybe we will all have to end up using Dutch servers… full story here.

…and an interesting take on The Cloud quite clearly seen as The Future by different groups of people…i.e. Google vs. Apple Cloud.. here.. Apparently a companies CEO and their Techies have a very different take on the importance of Cloud… Dell survey details here.

In other news… well my show on Monday … small post to follow..

…..have a great day…….

:))))

>Wizard Gynoid.

>Well, if you haven’t been to see Wizzy’s sim at UWA, you are very soon going to be kicking yourself.

This is just a tiny fraction of what’s on show, and it all ends tomorrow…so go,go,go..

:)))

>on Service and Servers….

>Now, I had sort of planned not to write about LL anymore, for a couple of reasons….

The first reason is that Miso has put The Situation under her microscope and summarised it so well that really I need only to point to her post every time the Boys shoot themselves in the foot… I could even develop a short hand to signify a cock-up covered by Miso’s post…. “Reply Part III”?…whatever…

The second reason is the rise in the number of fangirls who want to give me a hard time every time I criticise LL, I know they are all in denial, so I’ll just wait til Sunday when they are all sitting on the Right Knee of God….. Peace on Earth.

…but I could hardly deny a friend a hearing. … and JayJay is not normally so annoyed. Now, no one could accuse JayJay of being a serial complainer like me, but he has been trying to get LL to make it possible for Voice to cross his sim boundaries. He has been in contact with them about this problem for more than 3 weeks now. …(just a side note here,…. LL has Voice crossing sim boundaries on their sims it seems…)

So…after being given the run-around for three weeks it now transpires that it just isn’t possible …. now I understand that this is because some servers are in Dallas, some in DC, San Fran…and (spookie) Phoenix. [thx to @ChuckBaggett for the research] Now…for the signal/data to travel from DC to San Fran does not take zero time. This was a point that was made when we first heard of this plan back in 200X, and it lies behind the reason why LL will never fix sim crossings….. (or chat? in spite of renewed rumours)

But.. what has annoyed JayJay, and rightly so I think, is that he, as customer, was never informed of this when he bought the sims….and it is a basic flaw lurking in his University’s Campus arrangement….

Miso’s take on this that the servers are like 1Gb laptops (slight paraphrase) is a very good analogy. I had to upgrade. Everyone has to upgrade. The Savoy Hotel (I learned last night ) closed for 3 years to upgrade (cost £200million)… but LL won’t upgrade, just get you to wear fewer clothes…and become short-sighted (64m)…Duh!!!

Anyway…. as JayJay couldn’t blog it himself (his blog is taken up with Machinima stuff), I am happy to air his problem online …..and hope he will correct any mistakes I’ve made in comments.

…and mentioning Machinima… I must clarify that just because I am annoyed with the concept ..or the decisions … of the LEA does not mean I hate everyone who has put in their hard work into trying to make a silk purse from a pig’s bottom…. it’s not personal… you aren’t Mr/s Linden….. jeez …XXX

…and just because I am boycotting SL8B as well as LEA doesn’t mean I hate all Lindens either. I just don’t like being told I can’t use megas (for a start.. there are other reasons)…. Don’t get all personal, I can take it as well as dish it… relax. Without self reflection through criticism we’d all be as dumb as… Hmmm… [insert dumb persons name]….

In other news… well… Tateru has word from one of the Boys, Oz Linden, about the Most Hated Viewer In History… here. “If TPV’s don’t keep up, things will break”…. that is his view… mine is : if you don’t fix that bloody mess you call a viewer everyone’s gonna migrate to IWz….. the idea that things break magically is a sort of schizoid view of life…. things get broken by people, or animals possibly….. but let’s assume the Boys don’t have a room full of an infinite number of Boy monkeys typing the 800,000 lines of code in the search for perfection…. (oh, and chat)…. Who broke it, Oz?? You did.

So, otherwise, the weather is fine, and I’m off to drink a white wine spritzer and make a tree.

:))

>The Wizard

>

Wizzy has probably the best show of geometrical art that you are ever likely to see in VWs on show from today at the UWA sim devoted to art…….here...at VIRTLANTIS.

Now, a full interview is also online at the UWAinSL blog... … and Juanita has posted about the show here.…. the official opening is set for Saturday at 12.

Wizzy has attracted a lot of interest in several worlds as she has a way of turning maths into a thing of beauty, or, in this case several things……. It’s really worth going to see for the shear perfection of geometry.

These things could never be made in RL… the one Thingy is 7200 prims…and it took an enormous amount of determination to rezz the bloody thing… (insider gossip…Wizzy was v frustrated…:))…

Anyway, if you wait til the opening or pop along beforehand, you won’t be disappointed.

:))

>Transubstantiation opens today….whenever…

>I actually hate being told how to look at stuff… but for those of you who like to play with their windlight, these are the settings I used when building…. just sayin’…

Midnight, water reflections on, if your graphics card will take it… and..

Well, I put this together in 48 hours as I didn’t have ages to play around, I have the sim for just one month….

oh, yes…it’s here.

I hope you enjoy it… more stuff on the philosophy…in previous post.

:))

>Transubstantiation

>

Some thoughts about my new build at UWA.., which I have called Transubstantiation.

Now, in the normal course of events I build a piece without much of a ‘back story’ and rely on my feelings for composition, colour etc to compose a piece that has a volumetric balance to it.

I’ve been doing this since I was about 5 or 6 I think and I just try to obey ‘the Law of Volumes and Lines”, if such a law exists…. it seems to, in my eyes.

So, any theory is really a sort of post-rationalisation of what I have built, though it does actually inform the details and some choices I make in the latter stages of finishing a piece, giving, hopefully, a meaning for myself if no-one else.

Some theories are more than just passing intellectualism for me and form the basis of a personal theology.

Considering the prim as Increatum, I had the following to say <a href="http://sorornishi.blogspot.com/2009/09/increatum.html
“>prior to my build at Magoo…

“Paracelsus was the first person to coin this word, using it to define the “uncreated” which is basically what it means.

“Prima Materia“, an Alchemical concept, is what everything is made of, literally the First Matter. Now, according to alchemists, the Prima Materia is what you start The Work with, and through diligence, ritual, and devotion you turn base matter into gold.

Now, as this Matter is “the root of itself” (radix ipsius) it bears a (projected) resemblance to the godhead in that it, like Uroboros, “fertilises and gives birth to itself”.

It is the Uncreated Creation. A god.

Now….let’s fast forward a few hundred years to Second Life….. The Prim.

The Prim is the Prima Materia of Second Life, everything is made of this “stuff”, and like alchemy (often called The Art) we can, through diligence, ritual and devotion turn this humble prim into pure gold. “Everything is made by prim and without prim is nothing made that was made.”

The Prim is an uncreated creation.

The Prim “fertilises and gives birth to itself”.

The Prim is Increatum. ….

i.e……. the Prim is a god.”

Taking this idea a step further in my consideration of Nature I wrote the following when I built Tree of Trees at IBM..

“There’s a thing about nature that I have been trying to express these last three years that is intrinsic to the way nature works.

Nature is economical. It takes matter and sculpts it in the most efficient manner to suit its ends.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe wrote a book in 1790 called The Metamorphosis of Plants, in it he points out how a stem is basically a transformed leaf, as is a petal, as is a root. The basic unit of the plant is simply metamorphosed into different ‘organs’ by, as we now know, a fairly mathematical process of the changing shape and nature of the unit cell.

This process is almost identical to the one I use in Blender. I can only do one thing in Blender, namely change the distance between vertices.

In plants this is called homology and has a lot to do with why my plants in SL look as they do. All my plants have evolved in this manner from a single group of vertices in a Blender file: this is Virtual Homology.”

i.e. there is only One Prim, really..

So, in my build at UWA this thought process takes a further step when considering this process, as The Prim undergoes Transubstantiation in the artistic process.

Artists turn stones into bread and water into wine (on a good day).

Alchemists considered that the work of redemption was left unfinished by the Christian god as it basically applied simply to Mankind and not to the actual Matter of the Earth. Nature and Matter were left, they believed, to be redeemed by the Art (alchemy).

The spiritualisation of matter may be the greatest task before the artist, redeeming the atomic world to a conceptual purity, to thought, to emotion, while the Second Law of Thermodynamics charts its destruction… in that “The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum.”.

..i.e. erosion is universal, only art creates.

What does this mean?

Well, as greek mythology tells it, we humans stole The Fire of the Gods, the power to create… and were duly punished, not collectively, but poor Prometheus got severely punished by Zeus.

Because we have created virtual worlds, we act as gods…. (I am one of the gods sat here in my Olympus squabbling with the other gods and generally interfering with the lesser avatars below).

We create and destroy worlds and conjure emotion and spirituality from prims, well, actually from The Prim.

Each Prim is essentially a Cornucopia as its final manifestation is at my whim, my desire.

The Prim contains my body and my blood… my essence.

How? ….Every Prim I build is actually a REAL part of my psyche… (there is nothing virtual in this argument/statement).

.. and so this artistic process is a transubstantiation.

I am a god, The Prim is a god, I am in The Prim and I manifest through Transubstantiation.

More details on opening and location to follow when I’ve finished building it….

:))

>Other World at UWA

>

This is just up my street as a build, no need for an lengthy back story, just land and explore….excellent.

Cherry Manga, Anley Piers & Elfe Imako have done a really great job at the UWA Full Sim Art.

They have created an imaginative world ..

….with lots of stuff to explore (make sure you get into the basement)….

The address is… here.

….and the UWA blog has more details ...here.

One that is well worth a visit and a wander…

Well done to all involved. …,. formidable

:))

>UWA on FRIDAY…..

>In a slight change to tradition, it seems the UWA awards thingy will take place on Friday….see below…..

“UWA 3D Open Art Challenge : FEB Ceremony – 6AM SLT, 4th MARCH

Please keep 6AM SLT, Friday 4th March Free for the announcements for the February Round of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge.

Peoples choice vote round still ongoing through Noon SLT 3rd March.

Artwork now also being received for March Round”

….so tomorrow is the last chance to vote…

…and on their Art Sim at UWA Virtlantis (dodgy name, whoever thought that one up…sorry)… a new exhibition for March…
Called ‘Other World’ it is the work of Cherry Manga, Anley Piers & Elfe Imako

“Mankind created the machine and always wanted to improve it, adding abilities, and even gave the machine artificial intelligence.

The machine had its own evolution, once it gained artificial intelligence it grew to possess artificial consciousness then the collective consciousness. The machine grew up through many aeons, learned from its own mistakes.

The machine is now in the other world, all parts of the machine are closely bounded, if a little robot cuts itself, the sadness is shared by the entire machine. The machine lives in harmony in the environment it is set, all energy needs are calculated to keep and preserve the world, nothing is taken freely from nature, the machine looks after nature, conscious that its energy depends on the global health of its natural environment.

This way of living is what humankind could call utopia or eden.

This exhibition shows the irony of machine beings, supposed to be heartless and without emotional feelings able to live in respect of its environment, and in harmony with all members of its community … and the sad conclusion that human beings in 2011 are still fighting for power, for money, for religion, not able to think of the future of our children, continuously draining all that earth can give.”

I haven’t been there yet…but I will…soonish… RL is wasting my time, currently…

:)))

>A weeks bits and pieces.

>The Inworldz photo competition was one of the first things I popped along to this week.

..and this piece by Us Vemo caught my eye. The show is at Alinja and there is the possibility of voting for your favourite piece.

Nyx Breen‘s Chrysler Building is an impressive piece of building, the inside being fully ‘deco’d’ out. The clubroom is amazing..

..and the texture shop which I blogged before has come down to earth..

…and now sits next to the Chrysler., on Sunset Beach, InWorldz.

I did manage to catch the last divorce at Ant Vegas on Monday where “The Aeonia Artist Group presents: “Welcome to Fabulous Ant Vegas” – The Ant-ology”. I was very amused … great fun. It is at Aeonia. Check Ally Aeon‘s profile for the TP.

Last night I had a dance..

Gingered Alsop was providing the music at a great venue… I didn’t have time to ask, but it looked like the builder was Trinny Mizin … why aren’t more dance venues NPIRL? Excellent company and music.

FreeWee has been busy with the UWA and it’s just a week left to pop over and cast your vote in the “most popular piece’ thingy…
..huge number of artists involved this month. It just grows and grows.

Have a good weekend.

:))

>Soror’s Saturday Round-Up…

>…not that this is a regular thing, it happens some weeks and not others…. still, at least my typist isn’t battling viruses this week in a metabolical Ragnarok (on a cellular scale)…

Now, first things first… best pop over to UWA if you want to vote in the People’s Choice thingy for this week or you’ll be too late.

As SaveMe is keen to point out, and it’s pretty obvious to all, you can’t really vote for art as it’s not, in essence, a popularity contest and, let’s face it, some of the most popular things in this world are complete crap i.e. TV programmes and dodgy newspapers. Best advice is to relax, it’s just a bit of fun and not really necessary to riot and burn cars in the street.

Alternatively, you could, if you are talented enough, use your artistic ability to produce a piece like Miso’s and say everything that needs to be said about the Art Business in one brilliant work.

I enjoyed this piece too, by Loup Erin, TV Rules The Nation, Loup is one of those artists that really catches you by surprise at times … great imagination and a lateral brain…

…and I like to pick out a piece to show you that may well get over-looked (it happens) as there is such an array of great work in one place. I loved this piece by Nino Vichan, it looks like a modern stained glass which would grace any RL gallery or modern home…. excellent.

So… the news about UWA Machinima competition is all here.

…and the “let’s delete megas” debacle I already blogged here…

Yesterday some of our most respected and venerable Elite were admitted into the presence of our Toga Wearing Boss for a little Audience with Rodvik… not much was said of any note.. Rod’s contribution being, basically, the following in reply to the basic “What are your plans” Question..

“…..firstly to have more people come and enjoy the world you have all built, i would say empowering our current residents to enable easier creativity and better creativity…

……..addressing lag and other fundemental issues that kind of take you out of the expereince…
…and address in a very significant way the usuability mountain new customers have. SL is a very very deep experience and many new users are overwhlemed by Ui issues.

……..In general those are the areas i would think about. Obviously the hard bit is in the details of how each area is apporached.”

Now, the cynical amongst us (who? Me?) could claim that nothing much was said, and they would be right.. but, those present did feel graced to be in the Presence and, let’s face it, previous CEO’s didn’t do much Baby Kissing and Hand Shaking, preferring to keep away from the great unwashed masses.

My number two “mmm” point was that “empowering our current residents to enable easier creativity” are words I like to hear….
(might be my medication again, Brinda,…:))

Anyway…this wasn’t what has got some bloggers hopping up and down this week, its the whole Patent Saga that got some peoples blood boiling…
It started with this….here. Reaction Grid announcing they were gonna take out a patent…..on….(and here’s where fur started to fly…) …” to setup, deploy and maintain virtual worlds on virtualized servers.”….(the vagueness of it causing the fever).

Well, that spawned a host of comments and blog posts, especially because it was very unclear what exactly it was they were gonna try and patent. As it later became obvious, it wasn’t Virtual Worlds they wanted to patent, just a crumby piece of software that no-one is really that excited about. Now….excuse me Reaction Grid Peeps if I have got that wrong…but…you know…. the reality is pretty Yawn.

This is a good piece about patents tho… here. Diva Canto needs a round of applause….. so no friends gained by this move …. just an Adverse Reaction.

On a good, healthy Philosophical level I was very impressed this week by Metanomics. A staggeringly interesting (excuse the superlatives…it goes with the job) chat about Digital Anthropology .. here… with an eminently sensible chap, Tom Boellstorff talking to Dusan Writer. It’s a bit long… an hour, but many interesting points which I will, no doubt come back to at some point… food for thought.

InWorldz passed the 30,000 user mark this week and, as Tranquility continues to stick his metaphysical fingers into ancient holes in the Code Dyke, the news is that a new shiny physics engine is, according to Jim Tarber’s guestimate still a month of coding away before testing can start…

I have noticed though a significant increase in the stylishness of people, better dressed, with better skins, all looking very chic.

On a personal level, I am starting to gather tools for Machinima production, Space Navigator first and then some software…will have to be ScreenFlow, unless I rob a bank, and … really. Bank robbery is such a bore.

…as for skills…well..none so far and some of the worst video Tutorials on the planet (for ScreenFlow)…

But that never stopped me before…

:)))