Memorial Park Memory

When my PC laptop died I had scattered and limited backups so quite a few things are gone forever. This image turned up, much to my giggly pleasure, for this goes way back into my life in our virtual world. The Memorial Park in Nangrim was on it's way to being huge and I had my first in-world girlfriend. We had invited a couple friends to just relax in the Park with some Classical music on the stream. Someone put on wings and started dancing so we all put on wings and danced. Then someone released particles and the clothes started coming off. It was a beautiful night. We danced and made small talk and just enjoyed being there for quite some time. Serendipity. Happy serendipity.

I made some FISHIES!

It seems like a hundred years ago I set out to make custom fishies for the 7Seas^® fishing areas at the Isle of Lesbos Resorts but never got un-busy enough to do it. But while making prizes for the up-coming Valentines Hunt I was inspired to make LOVE Fish ... in eight colors!! Win them now or a custom (rather mature) t-shirt or a rainbow bikini. The clothes and the B/W fish are set to Common whilst the rainbowy-color fishies are Uncommon. I have ideas for more fishies so I hope to have them before the Easter Hunt.

Isle of Lesbos Mall (SLurl)
Bay of Lesbos (SLurl)
Imsucha Beach @ The Isle of Lesbos (SLurl)
Sappho's Point Beach @ The Isle of Lesbos (Women Only; SLurl)

New Memorial Park

When my brother, CC Columbo, started his Second Life^® one of his activities was building a parkland with a memorial for his daughter. At one point he owned most of the mainland region called Nangrim and when I came from the Teen Grid I added to it, helping to form a sprawling landscape where people could relax in a "natural" setting. Over time it had many forms but it always featured a focus point about my niece, usually pictures and an info signboard. Eventually we sold some land when CC minimized his time in-world and then sold the balance when a pre-gambling ban casino kept the sim full, completely locking us out.

Not too long ago I used nearly the last of my Christmas gift money to get a premium account for my regular Alt and then had her buy a 512m² plot of land (SLurl) to use as a home and to re-create -- if only in part -- the Memorial Park. Since then I sometimes wander by the computer while CC is using it for something and spot the SL viewer, open and showing his avie sitting at the grave.

If you visit, please click the stone for information about the disease that took little Lydia's life.

XStreet & OnRez Acquisition Reactions

Quite a few blog hours have been burned over the XStreet & OnRez acquisitions so, of course, Hamlet Au of New World Notes has done a round up (Web). I've posted a comment there (Web) and I copied it below for those who just can't wait to read it or who are too lazy to click a link.

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A feeling of betrayal was my first reaction. On my blog I wrote that "the situation reminds me of the plight suffered by my Irish immigrant ancestors who worked the mills and mines, paid in Scrip redeemable only in the Company Store, essentially no better than indentured servants." The acquisition of the independent services gives more power to The Company. Rather then spend the money to solve asset database server issues they chose to spend money to monetize Residents, further relegating us to the role of revenue streams rather than having us participate in the "Your World, Your Imagination" partnership.

I agree with Hiro Pendragon that shopping malls will suffer unless they are innovative or closely linked to a community such as you see with Rocket City FurMeet, the Isle of Lesbos, and the Raglan Shire malls. The loss of OnRez and the elevation of XStreet to being the official shopping service could lead small-scale merchants to abandon an in-world presence in favor of being only virtually virtual. What would this do to the economy? What would this do to the culture?

Smarter people than me likely have answers to those questions just like they (i.e., Peter Stindberg ... "Hi, Peter! Love your blog!") are much more competent to judge issues like trading Linden Dollars. From my point of view (very small merchant; active shopper; experienced Resident) not having an independent source where I can trade my currency is not a big issue. But rather I liked being able to keep a sizable portion of my funds tucked away off The Company's notoriously unreliable servers. I've seen my Inventory whittled down by server issues and I full well expect to some day see my Linden Dollar balance not recover from a 'Loading ...' state.

The upside of the news? Maybe people using in-world search will find my shop and buy more of my products (Look out, Peter! I sell upwards of L$600 of stuff on XStreet each month). Sure, I'm not trying hard to make a living or earn a lot of money ... mostly I build what I feel like building and price it low to recover my costs and a wee bit more ... but some money is nice. And being able to send purchases to anyone in-world, not just registered service users, will be wonderful. Or will anyone miss having go to a terminal or find a place to rez a wallet to deposit money for a purchase?

Up or down, right or wrong, good or bad, keep this in mind: We don't have a choice. It was taken away from us.

Linden Labs Acquires Xstreet SL & OnRez

This letter (click for larger image) greeted me this morning, announcing that Linden Labs^® has acquired both the Xtreet SL^® (Web) and OnRez^® (Web) shopping portals (read more on the official blog). My first feeling after OMGoodness was betrayal. Then I felt outrage ... "What a buncha Communists!" More about that in a moment.

Upon reflection, I'm not 100% sure why I felt betrayal, but initial reactions are usually spot on. The situation reminds me of the plight suffered by my Irish immigrant ancestors who worked the mills and mines, paid in Scrip redeemable only in the Company Store, essentially no better than indentured servants. At one time the Lab provided the infrastructure in a "Your World, Your Imagination" (Web) partnership with the residents. Gradually they have been taking the world back. For example, the Lab killed the banks leaving an alt account or Xstreet/OnRez the only places to stash money in case of balance issues. And now they consolidate the shopping industry, killing an important part of free enterprise. Of course, I'm not required to list my creations with Xstreet, but the service is so popular that not doing so would be foolish. The listing/sales commission that is paid to Xstreet will now go to the Lab, one more step to completely owning the means of production and a Communist utopia.

Perhaps that is a bit harsh, but consider that creators have to pay for texture uploads, have to constantly tweak scripts to compensate for changes in code, are not allowed to create prims larger or smaller than certain sizes, have no truly fair means by which to pursue copyright infringements or defend claims of same, and are hamstrung in many other ways, it is easy to make the analogy. Perhaps not Communism, but certainly not a business-friendly environment.

Like many I'll need to see how things work out. What is clear, however, is that the Lab is shifting us from being Residents to being Revenue Streams.