A very nice photo of me by Dale Innis

I dunno. I think this is a very good picture of yours truly. For me personally, it captures the essence of what I've tried to put into my avatar. What do you think? Oh yeah, I love the dress. (Garage)

New items from Inga Wind

First I'm gonna show off "Millie" from Inga Wind Fashion. Attention Second Life designers!!! THIS is how you do black. You make it verrry dark grey so you can have both highlights and shadows without losing details. Inga is a master of texturing and it's seeing this outfit in person that shows you just how good she is at this stuff.

Outfit shown includes necklace, shoes and belly chain. Millie is $400L regularly and only $200L for her group as a new release -- a great reason for joining her group.

Next up is a new version of "Pearl", which I would call prom queen with attitude. :)

The ruffled bodice is sooo grrly chic and the unusual color combination of mustard yellow and purple/pink really make this an eyecatcher.

Pearl also comes in a more monochromatic "sand" color which for some, may be more appealing.

As always with most of Inga's creations, Pearl comes with accessories including matching shoes and tiara. Pearl is $600L regularly but only $350L for group members!



SLURL to Inga Wind Fashion

Anatomy of a Spam Viagra Purchase

I thought this was fascinating in light of an earlier blog post about what sort of email others saw in their SPAM folders. Plus, the original article's headline was too delicious to not repeat. :)

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/26785/

My original blog post about SPAM here.

Blondin Linden Leaves Linden Lab

As I recently tweeted, I missed this little personnel change and only found out about it belatedly by reading an article on Inara Pey's blog (Blondin Linden Goes). Yikes. It totally made me relive my own experience fighting the move to Zindra because Blondin was the key communicator for all things Adult Content related!

Just to clarify, I'm no prude but then I'm also not really a consumer of explicit content. However, the way Linden Lab handled the whole thing by forcing adult content to a new X-rated zone was just st00pid. They could have easily made a new, true G-rated area and simply kept Mature the way it was. Mature was already the anything goes zone.

My own little protest of the whole silly affair was to create a couple of really risque items, put them up in my skystore and then apply for a move to Zindra. Like stoopid magic, I got my wish and wound up with a waterfront double-prim 512. I stayed there for a month or so, then sold the land off for 10x what my old 512 was worth. I actually bought a mid-water 512 from the person who bought my Zindra land.

Anyway, to those who said "good riddance" to Blondin, I say you don't know half the story. Here's what I replied to Inara's blog post....

Somehow this doesn’t surprise me but then nothing that happens in and around Linden Lab surprises me any more. I actually had the chance to interact via email and back channels a bit with Blondin and he really was between a rock and a hard place. I sympathize fully. He got twisted internally by his superiors. He would try to do something the community wanted, say it was going to get done and then have the rug pulled out from underneath when the higher ups would backtrack.

Yes he acted as the corporate shill but then that’s what he was paid to do. From someone at his level, it’s pretty much ALL you can do. Which sux because employees like Blondin are the ones on the front lines with the community. Amanda and others often seem to see the community (aka customers) as annoyances who don’t “get” it — whatever their definition of “it” is at any given moment. Ick.

EEEK!! More Bare Rose Madness!

Lilin Outfit from Bare Rose

My infatuation with Bare Rose just HAS TO STOP!!!! Sigh. I went back there yesterday to find a costume for an event and yeesh, ended up buying three more outfits. And I didn't end up with anything for the event! The funny part about it was that I wore a different BareRose outfit --- which everyone loved. And then when I mentioned it was from BareRose, it was like -- ohhh, the "Wal-Mart" of Second Life.

Well poooh on that. BareRose items are all originals, they aren't copybotted, they are exciting and they are reasonably priced. OK they are actually very inexpensive for what you get. That's just fine with me!

On to the outfit details. This one is called "Lilin" and, like most B@R fantasy costumes, it comes in several flavors -- black, red and purple -- all in the same box. Woot!

The red version is absolutely fabulous with wonderful details such as the skeletal fingers reaching across your tummy and the fire-y ribbons dangling off the breastplate. As my friend Lalo noted, it sort of has a barbarian Viking look to it. ("What's in YOUR wallet?")

Lilin also comes with risque options that expose your nipples and nether regions. Sorry, this is a PG blog so I'm not gonna show ya piccies of those!

Anyway, you'll find this somewhere on the massive Bare@Rose wall of stuff for only $150L.

Hair: Bewitched "Izzie"
Skin: Snickers
Boots: Lyra Knee Highs

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Bare%20Rose/147/12/41

Alpha sorting and masking in Second Life

Oooooh, sounds fascinating doesn't it? Yeah right! You're probably saying to yourself -- WTH Snick??  What's this got to do with fashion or anything else in my Second Life experience?? Let me try to explain.

Second Life Alpha Masking and Sorting Illustration

Have you ever noticed when looking at an object in SL that you can't quite tell what part of the object is in front or in back? Here's a quick illustration I made in SL to show you.

Alpha sort demo

This is supposed to look like two disks crossing each other. C is how it should look. A & B show how it actually looks in Second Life from two different angles.

I made the object using two flat, square prims with a filled circle texture applied to the front and back faces. The circle texture has an "alpha mask" which effectively hides the unwanted parts of the image. 

Second Life renders the masked part of the image as transparent. Without the mask, the square corners would typically show as white. (D shows how the texture itself looks in Photoshop. The dotted line is the outline of the mask.)

What's happening in A & B is that Second Life can't decide which part of the object should be in front and which should be in back. So you get that weird flashing look where parts of the object normally in back will suddenly jump in front depending on your viewing angle. You'll see this problem in everything from prim trees to prim skirts and outfits. Even worse, try standing in a building with lots of windows. Sometimes it will look like objects that are physically OUTSIDE the building will look like they are inside and vice versa.

We need answers!

So why am I writing about this? Simple. Linden Lab has known about this issue since forever; they seem to have the ability to MOSTLY solve it; and yet, they haven't done so. A simple case in point is that Linden trees do NOT show the sorting problem YET Linden trees use alpha-masked textures. I won't bore you with all the technical details (frankly, I don't fully understand them myself), but I will point you to the JIRA issue that was created almost 3 years ago. I got involved in the issue because it affected my fashion designs and dammit, I wanted it fixed!

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-6713

Three years and still NO Lindens assigned to work on it. Three years and numerous solutions offered by residents but no action. In fact, reading between the lines from some posts by Lindens participating in the JIRA discussion make it sound like one of their proposed fixes could be worse than the original problem.

So if you'd like your Second Life builds, outfits and general experience to be better, please view the JIRA issue above, log in and VOTE for it. You can also drop in a comment such as "Fix this now." Maybe then the Lindens will take it seriously.

Tiny Empires in Second Life

OK, I'll admit it up front. I'm hooked on Tiny Empires. For those who don't know, it's a HUD-based MMPG you play inside Second Life. There's not much to it. You buy/sell land, earn gold, build on your land, answer riddles now, read info texts, take part in polls -- all with the goal of trying to accumulate land so you can move up in your kingdom's hierarchy.

It's kind of like Amway where the more people you sign up as your subjects, the higher and faster you can go up the chain. I am a fallen princess in Tiny Empires. When I left Second Life for about 4 months to take a RL break, I lost about 6 subjects and all the land they had. So I went from being a Princess to a lowly Marquise. Now I've worked my way back to Duchess and am probably a month or two away from being a Princess again.

Depending on what kingdom you belong to is key to enjoying the game. I've been in three different ones now and each had its own personality. One was very focused on recruiting and snagging as many people as possible without much social interaction. Another was back-stabbing and crazy. My current kingdom, White Horse, suits my personality perfectly. The people (and King Tremor Trefoil) are mellow, kind, generous, fun and really interested interested in helping people along.

If you find a good kingdom, the chat, activities and friendships can be as good as anything you'll find in Second Life. And it's not like raising rabbits or chickens or doing an intense role play thing (although you can if you wish). TE is very light in its demands on your Second Life time -- which makes it perfect for a busy chica like me. You can get as intense about it or you can float merrily along. :)

Getting started

If you are interested in playing Tiny Empires, feel free to contact me in world (Snickers Snook -- send me a notecard if I'm not on) and I can get you started with the free, 14-day trial HUD. If you decide to continue playing and wish to join our kingdom (or hopefully my line hehe), depending on your situation, we can help with a discount on the full HUD ($799L regular price).

Here's the website for the game: http://tinyempires.com/

You can also pick up the free HUD in my store at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cherry%20Park/95/230/24
It's on the wall to your right. However, if you do go straight for the HUD, please IM to let me know you've started. You'll need a liege so we have to make sure you are tagged to the right person. :) I also want to make sure you have the latest tips & tricks etc.

Happy empire building!

UPDATE: -- I've left the old blog post intact but things have changed dramatically since I posted this. I'm no longer in White Horse and was pretty naive about realities when I was there. There are good people in the kingdom but suffice it way, I'm no fan of the king period. Regardless, I have since worked my way up to Vicerine of the very fun Queendom of Hirilorn and am pleased to call Queen Aabbi my friend.