long absence--to be explained for the billions who wonder!

Some posts I wrote in 2010 aren't here as expected---but I have to admit that with several blogs it is certainly possible that I've lost track of where I posted what. Disconcerting, anyway.

I want to recommend to any reader the site for Duer Press: hmn...can't paste it. (?) (Or maybe it will appear three times on the post once I click "Publish Post"!)

http://www.duerpress.com/

End of days for SL Forum approaches

When I began this blog, I intended to focus on posting helpful information for newbies.

The place I've found the most helpful information myself--and helpful particularly because it came quickly--has been the Forums at secondlife.com.

But those boards are in their last weeks.

It's not just sad for the newbies (who will post questions on LL's replacement for the Forums, the Blogs, and wait...and wait....and wait....), but for those of us who've come to enjoy the give-and-take possible on a site with true forum functionality.

The Blogs don't have it.

It's a shame.

Figured it was off the internet

Due to the time demands connected with some family events I let this blog go quite a while ago. I'm surprised to see it's still searchable.

Hmn, I need to consider whether or not to resume. My focus had been 'through the eyes of a newbie', and of course my eyes are older, now.

absence due to....

I've had a couple of weeks of concern over a financial matter with LL.

I'm not prepared to say that I think there's anything actually wrong---but also not prepared to say that I know that everything is copacetic.....hence....silence until I know more.

(I suppose that many companies are experiencing changes in their SOP at the moment. Not that I actually can say that there's any change in SOP.)



((dull, eh!?!?)) :-(

Update on 'Weird Week'

In my late-September blog post entitled 'Weird Week', I mentioned an in-world IM from someone requesting me to buy land they didn't own.

(I may not have posted all the details here, though I did in the Forums.)

I had eventually gone over to the land, where I was immediately IMed by an avatar present there, who had the same name as the Owner name that came up on the About Land window. This person said that they knew the person who'd originally IMed me, and that this person was up to no good.

However, I'm still not sure if it was someone genuinely engaged in the business of fraud, or someone just hoping to stir up trouble.

Coulda just been a griefer.

In the Forums, someone made a thread complaining that they were being followed around by people harrassing them.

My own weird experience with that person who may have been a griefer (detailed in the "A Mystery" thread in RA) leads me to think that it's not just you well-known-in-SL folk who attract the occasional 'character'.

I'd suspect that there are some people in SL who spend all or most of their time going around and finding random people to poke with virtual sticks.And if the person yelps and makes a fuss----Funsies! (to the 'character', anyway).

When my own 'character' IMed a week or so after the events described in my thread, saying Stop Showing My Property, Someone Told Me You've Been Showing My Property, Stop Or I'll Report You, I'm sure they were hoping I'd send a reply filled with indignation and counter-threats.

(Of course the fact is that I don't 'show' any property I don't own. I don't even 'show' my own, really, other than answering questions people IM me with.)

But instead I just replied "I see".

And that was no fun, and the person left to find someone who'd be more responsive.

Long-winded way of saying----if the person who wrote that Forums thread about being harrassed is finding that people follow him/her around, then it seems quite possible that the person is doing something to encourage them to do so.

(Never feed a troll.)

Measuring a Land Parcel

People selling land in Second Life tend to try to make the parcels rectangular, because buyers like rectangular parcels. They're easier to understand, and that can make them easier to build on.

But that doesn't always work out. To name just one reason why a parcel may not be perfectly rectangular: it could border on a Linden Road, and thus have one irregular side. To make the number of square meters come out exactly to one of the Tier Limits (512m, 1024m, 1536m, etc.), it might be necessary to have some other non-straight-line sides, too.

To measure, you can right-click the ground and choose Edit Terrain. Clicking the ground again will make a small, 4m by 4m yellow square show up. Technically you could make a lot of these and add up all the 16-square-meters together, but counting individual 4 x 4 (16m) squares can be difficult because each disappears as the next is clicked, and it's easy to lose track.

A fairly quick way to be sure you've got the right length, along one side of a parcel, is to do the right-click and Edit Terrain, then do one click in a corner to be sure you've got the 4m by 4m width selected---but then to extend the rectangle (still 4m wide---be careful, it's easy to accidentally widen it to 8m) from one end of the parcel's side to the other. Then whatever number shows in the Edit Terrrain window---divide it by 4.That will give you the length of that side.

Advice to SL Newbies: Quiet Neighborhoods

Two things that might serve as indicators of a quieter sim:

1) PG, as opposed to Mature, status. (all mainland sims are one or the other--the designation is right next to the name of the sim). This isn't an absolute guarantee, but people who want to run XXX clubs are certainly going to put them on a Mature sim.

2) Lack of green dots (each indicates the presence of either an avatar or a bot). Pull up the Map when your avatar is in the sim of interest. If you see a lot of green dots, there may be a very active club or mall there. (Of course it's ideal to do this check at various points within 24 hours, as a sim that's very quiet for 20 hours out of a day may routinely be maxed out at 50 avatars or more for 4 hours of each day).