I’m using the celebrations at #SL8B as a way to get more socially active in Second Life; have to admit that it’s been occasionally exhilarating getting IMs from old friends and new friends saying “get over here!” or “OMG famous people at this party.”

I had never actually seen a Linden with my own virtual eyes and real monitor until I went to the Thursday event, which featured an appearance but no speeches by Rodvik Linden and Lexie Linden. I now have an actual Linden bear, and yes, I know I could get a bunch more at “Bear Island” on the celebration grounds. I’ve decided that I’ll stick to real-world interactions for my bear begging.

I’ve decided that although I’ll never be a major merchant with thousands of items for sale, I will try to focus on fun, quality things and try to learn as much as I can about how things work. I’ve recently made a simple dance gadget that seems to get “DO WANT” comments every time I use it (but interestingly, only from males). However, it doesn’t seem to work under Viewer 2… hmm.

Meanwhile, I’ve been tinkering with my size and avatar features again; for some reason, I keep wanting to revert to an older skin and shape because it looks more friendly-like and “me” than what I’ve been using more recently. I’ve been playing with size sliders again in the Appearance menu, as I realize I’m probably over 7 feet tall as currently sized.

Not only that but I’ve been working on a couple of simple buildings, and dealing with the challenges of having enough headroom so that the camera position doesn’t “bump” the ceiling without having to be adjusted to a closer angle.

Tateru Nino’s main page pointed to this excellent post on the Building and Texturing Forum by Penny Patton.

This article is intended an informative post about the practical and aesthetic implications of scale for content creators in SL. It is not a judgement against large avatars, only an objective assessment of the affects of scale on SL and how both content creators and Linden Lab would benefit from encouraging the trend towards properly scaled avatars.

If you’re new to SL you may not have realized it yet, but scale is really, incredibly “off” in SL.

If you’re an experienced builder you probably realize it but aren’t aware of all the ways in which it affects you.

via A Matter of Scale – How scale affects content crea… – Second Life.

The whole thing is enlightening, especially the part about sizing attachments appropriately so that they can be worn by a wider range of differently-sized avatars. Very much worth a read and a ponder.