Yes, I did.
Friday, I saw that the parcel adjoining mine for 1,024 meters from the coast, and separated from mine by an unsold inland parcel for another 1,536, had been sold. This is the one with the thunderstorm and Giant Rocks, all of which, regrettably, were merely a sales tactic.
One that worked.
So the new person had put up a Club. Since the sim is rated PG, I wasn't terribly concerned about a lag-inducing attraction that might bar me from my own land...something that DOES happen on the Mainland (and the main reason for my Grand Plan, which of course involves spending over 1K, so that's in the future.....)
The 'club' part didn't take me aback, but the 'benches with pose balls' deployed along the unsold parcel, did.
This unsold parcel had been set up as an inland lake--only 1,024 meters inland, so it was feasible to 'dig down to water', and indeed the seller had done just that. And clearly, my new neighbor-with-the-club was counting on this attractive vista to remain, for the enjoyment of his hypothetical club patrons.
The sight of this reminded me forceably that whoever purchased that parcel might well decide to raise the attractive lake and place a gigantic purple cube in its place. Or put a big black floating platform over the entire parcel, blotting out the light for all parcels to either side (meaning both me and Mr. Club). Or anything else that took their fancy.
So I started in with the calculator.
Could I afford both the price of the parcel ($10/square meter, which is about right, currently, for non-coastal land) and the monthly tier?
I decided: marginally.
I suppose that the fact that when I logged in Saturday with these thoughts in mind, I saw my neighbor Mr. Club hovering there, looking at the same land, impelled me to give Linden Lab my hard-earned cash (to purchase Lindens sufficient to complete the transaction). I felt a weird sort of guilt---did I do something mean to my neighbor?
On reflection, I'd say 'no'. He could have bought the parcel himself, if it were important enough to him. And certainly I will leave it in a condition that's less likely to cause him pain or grief, than would any random purchaser. I have no interest in making giant black floating platforms or massive purple cubes.
Still, it's interesting how this Second Life reflects the first. In first life, people 'do' each other out of land deals, and build things their neighbors hate, and all the rest. It just takes longer than it does in Second Life.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Social Control through Numbers
When I logged in last night, there was a Survey Question on the screen. (A first for me, but I gather, not uncommon.) It concerned the privacy of an avatar's number for....I should have written this down!....well, terms denoting resource-usage by that avatar. I believe this refers to some combination of Inventory size and attachments worn.
I had some things I wanted to do and so didn't take the time to explore this, but, presumably, this number is always available somewhere. I'd assumed that one of the drop-down menus offers it.
I guess the survey question was gauging reaction to having this number be in every avatar's Profile, so that when you right-click on someone and look at their Profile, you'd know if they were a 'resource hog' or not.
My first reaction was of revulsion. Though clearly some types of social control through peer-pressure are useful (a world in which people were unashamed to, say, openly torture animals, would not be a good world)----the whole concept has some very icky aspects.
Of course it's cheaper for Linden Lab to have users police themselves--and others--on their resource usage, than to provide the hardware and the level of service that would mean Hoochie Hair made no difference in performance. Possibly, LL people dream of a Second Life experience in which users routinely checked each others' Numbers and wrote songs and ballads praising those with Low Numbers and formed a culture based around Inventories with no more than 50 objects and going barefoot (those shoes can really cause lag!)
But that may be unrealistic. Many might have the same type of cynical reaction that I did, and even if the Number were to be made public, might form a culture based around not looking at that number.
On the other hand, as long as LL offers the Second Life experience to users for no fee, they do have a right to restrict what avatars can wear and carry around with them.
So in spite of my libertarian reaction, my final vote was based on the knowledge that this IS a business and that we ARE being offered quite a lot for free.
And I voted for Big Brother.
I'd hoped to read some opinion about this; rather foolishly, I suppose, I looked all through the SL Forums. Either people are disinclined to talk openly about such issues, or the Survey question was NOT sent to everyone, yesterday. (Though logically, if you want results of a Survey, you DO send it to your entire sample at as close to the same time as possible....)
I also Advance Searched the Internet in general, but haven't yet found anything about it. Well, I do need to remember the exact terms used; I hope to come across them in my general reading about SL.
I had some things I wanted to do and so didn't take the time to explore this, but, presumably, this number is always available somewhere. I'd assumed that one of the drop-down menus offers it.
I guess the survey question was gauging reaction to having this number be in every avatar's Profile, so that when you right-click on someone and look at their Profile, you'd know if they were a 'resource hog' or not.
My first reaction was of revulsion. Though clearly some types of social control through peer-pressure are useful (a world in which people were unashamed to, say, openly torture animals, would not be a good world)----the whole concept has some very icky aspects.
Of course it's cheaper for Linden Lab to have users police themselves--and others--on their resource usage, than to provide the hardware and the level of service that would mean Hoochie Hair made no difference in performance. Possibly, LL people dream of a Second Life experience in which users routinely checked each others' Numbers and wrote songs and ballads praising those with Low Numbers and formed a culture based around Inventories with no more than 50 objects and going barefoot (those shoes can really cause lag!)
But that may be unrealistic. Many might have the same type of cynical reaction that I did, and even if the Number were to be made public, might form a culture based around not looking at that number.
On the other hand, as long as LL offers the Second Life experience to users for no fee, they do have a right to restrict what avatars can wear and carry around with them.
So in spite of my libertarian reaction, my final vote was based on the knowledge that this IS a business and that we ARE being offered quite a lot for free.
And I voted for Big Brother.
I'd hoped to read some opinion about this; rather foolishly, I suppose, I looked all through the SL Forums. Either people are disinclined to talk openly about such issues, or the Survey question was NOT sent to everyone, yesterday. (Though logically, if you want results of a Survey, you DO send it to your entire sample at as close to the same time as possible....)
I also Advance Searched the Internet in general, but haven't yet found anything about it. Well, I do need to remember the exact terms used; I hope to come across them in my general reading about SL.
Friday, June 20, 2008
"Property"
I'm still thinking about this weird animalnapping thing. I had spent about half an hour (all I had available) reading over the Second Life Forums, yesterday, wondering if someone had written about their experiences with the DMCA-infringement action...but I didn't find anything. (I thought I checked all the logical places for such threads, but maybe not.)
I should mention that none of the objects in question contain any scripts....and my understanding of the Wednesday action was that it was specifically about people stealing other people's scripts.
By the way, when I logged in last night, I was particularly interested to see if my neighbor's scripted cat would be in its usual place, pacing back and forth under a tree at the edge of the property. It WAS gone when I logged in. BUT, it was back by the time I logged off.
Weird. I'm not really thinking of all this as "My Property", so I'm not outraged by the 'violation', as much as puzzled by the mystery. Will I ever find out what really happened???
Anyway, I had fun working on making some rugs. I tried using the Hair Textures in the Library as an underlayer, to look like fringe on the rugs. It actually does look like fringe; the trouble is that the hair rezzes on a sort of 'plate of glass' (or at least that's what it looks like). And though I played around with various settings, I didn't succeed in getting rid of the 'pane of glass'.
So I'm still looking for a better thing to use for rug-fringe.
I notice that I'm dreaming about the Edit box almost every night. I tend to remember a lot of my dreams, most nights (or at least when I don't have to wake to an alarm clock), and it's quite common for things (or people) I've dealt with on any particular day to feature in the dreams. But the Edit box is becoming quite a star....I seem to do a lot of considering what Edit Box Settings are needed for all the various activities I participate in, while dreaming.
(And certainly there are many things in Real Life that could use a bit of shrinking or stretching or being made Transparent or Phantom...... ^_^ )
I should mention that none of the objects in question contain any scripts....and my understanding of the Wednesday action was that it was specifically about people stealing other people's scripts.
By the way, when I logged in last night, I was particularly interested to see if my neighbor's scripted cat would be in its usual place, pacing back and forth under a tree at the edge of the property. It WAS gone when I logged in. BUT, it was back by the time I logged off.
Weird. I'm not really thinking of all this as "My Property", so I'm not outraged by the 'violation', as much as puzzled by the mystery. Will I ever find out what really happened???
Anyway, I had fun working on making some rugs. I tried using the Hair Textures in the Library as an underlayer, to look like fringe on the rugs. It actually does look like fringe; the trouble is that the hair rezzes on a sort of 'plate of glass' (or at least that's what it looks like). And though I played around with various settings, I didn't succeed in getting rid of the 'pane of glass'.
So I'm still looking for a better thing to use for rug-fringe.
I notice that I'm dreaming about the Edit box almost every night. I tend to remember a lot of my dreams, most nights (or at least when I don't have to wake to an alarm clock), and it's quite common for things (or people) I've dealt with on any particular day to feature in the dreams. But the Edit box is becoming quite a star....I seem to do a lot of considering what Edit Box Settings are needed for all the various activities I participate in, while dreaming.
(And certainly there are many things in Real Life that could use a bit of shrinking or stretching or being made Transparent or Phantom...... ^_^ )
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Animalnapping
This is so weird that I can't help wondering if someone is amusing themselves. But I suppose it's more likely to be some side-effect of the DMCA infringements crack-down that took place yesterday:
When I logged in last night, all seemed normal. Though I'm striving to have all content on my parcel be something I've created, I'm not there yet (and won't be for months). Of the three dozen or so items created by other residents on my land, there were four animals.
Well, after making a new version of my 9-Prim House, I wanted to make a snapshot with both the original and new houses. On the original, I have two cranes on one of the decks---white freebie cranes that I'd tinted blue-gray (to look like Great Blue Herons)---they look great against the white stucco.
They were gone! I looked around, and the other three types of animals were gone, too.
Now, contrary to what I'd read in Reuters about the day's DMCA action, the four animals were still in my Inventory---so I could see that they were all Full Permissions. And all were made by different creators.
It seemed beyond belief that this DMCA action would hit just animals.
I thought: well, maybe someone who has a strong personal belief that Animals Should Not Be Depicted in Second Life, is using the announced DMCA action day as a time to take away people's animals, under cover.....
And maybe that WAS it.
But when I logged in tonight, not only were all the animals back where I'd left them, but another copy of each was sitting in a pile on the ground, next to my original house.
WEIRD!!!
When I logged in last night, all seemed normal. Though I'm striving to have all content on my parcel be something I've created, I'm not there yet (and won't be for months). Of the three dozen or so items created by other residents on my land, there were four animals.
Well, after making a new version of my 9-Prim House, I wanted to make a snapshot with both the original and new houses. On the original, I have two cranes on one of the decks---white freebie cranes that I'd tinted blue-gray (to look like Great Blue Herons)---they look great against the white stucco.
They were gone! I looked around, and the other three types of animals were gone, too.
Now, contrary to what I'd read in Reuters about the day's DMCA action, the four animals were still in my Inventory---so I could see that they were all Full Permissions. And all were made by different creators.
It seemed beyond belief that this DMCA action would hit just animals.
I thought: well, maybe someone who has a strong personal belief that Animals Should Not Be Depicted in Second Life, is using the announced DMCA action day as a time to take away people's animals, under cover.....
And maybe that WAS it.
But when I logged in tonight, not only were all the animals back where I'd left them, but another copy of each was sitting in a pile on the ground, next to my original house.
WEIRD!!!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Freebie Closet and the Blank Map
My inventory was in the mid six-thousands, so last night, with my few-minutes-available-for-leisure-Internet play, I worked on offloading clothes into storage prims. But I wanted to try them on before doing so, so I stood there (well, my avatar stood there) in undies and tried on one garment after another.
Before doing so, admittedly somewhat irrationally, I checked the World Map to see if anyone was around.
'Irrationally', because, honestly, what difference could it possibly make?
But in the event, no one was around.
I couldn't help wondering: it's now 10 days since I bought this land. From the location of the sim, this isn't the most recent mainland that Linden Lab has created.
Yet it's still just the outline of the 'continent' on the World Map....no 'snapshot' of what people in the parcels have created.
How long does that take to appear, anyway? My narcissism demands an overhead shot of my parcel!!!!!!!!
(Or something.) ^_^
Before doing so, admittedly somewhat irrationally, I checked the World Map to see if anyone was around.
'Irrationally', because, honestly, what difference could it possibly make?
But in the event, no one was around.
I couldn't help wondering: it's now 10 days since I bought this land. From the location of the sim, this isn't the most recent mainland that Linden Lab has created.
Yet it's still just the outline of the 'continent' on the World Map....no 'snapshot' of what people in the parcels have created.
How long does that take to appear, anyway? My narcissism demands an overhead shot of my parcel!!!!!!!!
(Or something.) ^_^
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Brown again
My land... the new large parcel. Now I've seen this green/brown/green/brown sequence over time in two different sims.
Well, someday maybe I'll happen on an explanation of it.
Busy week at work. I suppose those who commit to blog every day sometimes fall short. (Or don't have to go to a job!) I got only about 45 minutes in SL itself, last night....and I wouldn't have liked to give up much of that time to blogging. Anyway, I'll try to do at least a paragraph or two each day.
More progress on The Amazing 9-Prim House---I took a window from the Library cabin and enlarged it to make the top story of the house secure against intruders, not that I care about intruders. I know, there's griefing and whatnot to be concerned about. But so far, I don't have the same "none must intrude here!" territorial feel about my Second Life 'property' that I do actually feel about my first-life property.
Still, if I hope to ever make my house saleable, I must at least offer a version with Security features.
I was sorry to see that the Big Rocks And Thunderstorm property is up for sale---it's just a developer's sales-tactic, not the Dream Home of a resident. (The big rocks are not Objects Included in the sale, so it's doubtful that the land will stay in its current state after sale.) Oh, well.
Looking forward to the weekend...
Well, someday maybe I'll happen on an explanation of it.
Busy week at work. I suppose those who commit to blog every day sometimes fall short. (Or don't have to go to a job!) I got only about 45 minutes in SL itself, last night....and I wouldn't have liked to give up much of that time to blogging. Anyway, I'll try to do at least a paragraph or two each day.
More progress on The Amazing 9-Prim House---I took a window from the Library cabin and enlarged it to make the top story of the house secure against intruders, not that I care about intruders. I know, there's griefing and whatnot to be concerned about. But so far, I don't have the same "none must intrude here!" territorial feel about my Second Life 'property' that I do actually feel about my first-life property.
Still, if I hope to ever make my house saleable, I must at least offer a version with Security features.
I was sorry to see that the Big Rocks And Thunderstorm property is up for sale---it's just a developer's sales-tactic, not the Dream Home of a resident. (The big rocks are not Objects Included in the sale, so it's doubtful that the land will stay in its current state after sale.) Oh, well.
Looking forward to the weekend...
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Responsiveness
I'd given Second Life an email that I haven't used regularly for a while, because at the time I joined, I'd been getting too much spam on the two email accounts I use most often.
And I've been thinking for several weeks 'I'd better check that account'....but I didn't seem to get around to it.
But I should report: on the night I went Premium, and discovered the spending limits meant that I couldn't buy Lindens so that I could buy a small piece of land (though someone going Premium with a pay-by-the-month account COULD buy Lindens)---on that night I'd filed a ticket to say 'this isn't a smart policy'.
Having just complained about the policy in my previous post, it's ironic that it was today that I finally saw that I had, in fact, gotten a prompt reply back from LL.
I'm not entirely happy with the reply, since it sort of implied that I was a crank to care about this. (That's just my interpretation---the email was perfectly courteous.)
But whoever opened my ticket DID change the spending limits for me. And now that I think about it, it wasn't a full 24 hours between the time I went Premium and the time I bought that 512, the next day. So I guess they offered me a few hours' grace.
That wasn't enough to prevent what happened---some smart land trader noticed the amount of traffic (me, not knowing better, I assume) on the parcel that interested me, and bought it, and raised the price. So by the time the Linden in question had relaxed the time limit for buying Lindens, it was too late for me to buy the parcel that interested me at the price I'd found it at (in Search).
It was just a matter of a few dollars, for this 512. I guess it 's the principle of the thing that bothers me.
Am I wrong? Of course LL needs to have a limit on the dollar amount that can be changed into Lindens on Day One of a new Premium account. I don't dispute that. I don't have the criminal imagination necessary to be able to guess all the bad things that people could do if there were no limit, but I accept that such bad things could happen.
But that's not what I'm asking. I'm not asking for 'no limits'.
I'm just asking for those who commit to an Annual payment of their Premium fees, NOT to be treated differently from those who commit only to one month's Premium membership.
I'm saying: let the Premium fee be separate from the first-24-hours-limit. Make that limit US$25, or US$15, or whatever makes sense for fraud prevention.
But don't penalize people who commit to the full year.
(Okay, that is enough on that topic!)
I do want to commend LL for being so quick to respond to my ticket. I know from my reading that customer service has been a sore spot for many...but I can't offer any complaints.
And I've been thinking for several weeks 'I'd better check that account'....but I didn't seem to get around to it.
But I should report: on the night I went Premium, and discovered the spending limits meant that I couldn't buy Lindens so that I could buy a small piece of land (though someone going Premium with a pay-by-the-month account COULD buy Lindens)---on that night I'd filed a ticket to say 'this isn't a smart policy'.
Having just complained about the policy in my previous post, it's ironic that it was today that I finally saw that I had, in fact, gotten a prompt reply back from LL.
I'm not entirely happy with the reply, since it sort of implied that I was a crank to care about this. (That's just my interpretation---the email was perfectly courteous.)
But whoever opened my ticket DID change the spending limits for me. And now that I think about it, it wasn't a full 24 hours between the time I went Premium and the time I bought that 512, the next day. So I guess they offered me a few hours' grace.
That wasn't enough to prevent what happened---some smart land trader noticed the amount of traffic (me, not knowing better, I assume) on the parcel that interested me, and bought it, and raised the price. So by the time the Linden in question had relaxed the time limit for buying Lindens, it was too late for me to buy the parcel that interested me at the price I'd found it at (in Search).
It was just a matter of a few dollars, for this 512. I guess it 's the principle of the thing that bothers me.
Am I wrong? Of course LL needs to have a limit on the dollar amount that can be changed into Lindens on Day One of a new Premium account. I don't dispute that. I don't have the criminal imagination necessary to be able to guess all the bad things that people could do if there were no limit, but I accept that such bad things could happen.
But that's not what I'm asking. I'm not asking for 'no limits'.
I'm just asking for those who commit to an Annual payment of their Premium fees, NOT to be treated differently from those who commit only to one month's Premium membership.
I'm saying: let the Premium fee be separate from the first-24-hours-limit. Make that limit US$25, or US$15, or whatever makes sense for fraud prevention.
But don't penalize people who commit to the full year.
(Okay, that is enough on that topic!)
I do want to commend LL for being so quick to respond to my ticket. I know from my reading that customer service has been a sore spot for many...but I can't offer any complaints.
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