Discomfortable Disconnect

It’s been a tough month or two for the typist; currently she’s on her fourth “ergonomic” office chair seeking a more comfortable balance of chair height, monitor height, keyboard height, mouse distance. Her RL job now involves MUCH heavier keyboarding, and she’s got 2 “offices,” one for work in an otherwise uselessly small little room (euphemistically called a “nursery” but she scoffs at such useage). Her mousing arm has been getting pretty painful and she’s duly been working through the ergo guides provided by her company and trying to avoid seeing a doctor, because BOTHERATION.

The RL work office has more adjustment possibilities, and seems to be set up for the most neutral position (keyboard, chair height, mouse angle) it can get without being installed on the International Space Station (they probably have an opening for a Twitter person).

The RL “play office” has a decently adjustable chair, but a crap desk purchased without much thought about ergonomics from Office Despot. And also an heirloom desk, solid maple, currently used as a return or credenza, which is completely the wrong height for keyboarding. We’re trying it out in a slightly different configuration today with some cobbled-together stuff that seems to be comfortable enough. We shall see if the typist’s daily consumption of Ibuprofen gets reduced.

Second Life Buries The Lede: It’s the Virtual Economy, Stupid

I haven’t been following the recent controversy over Linden Lab’s decision to change the terms of service (ToS) to prevent third-party virtual currency excnanges from selling (and more importantly, buying) Linden dollars (that’s $L to those of us inworld).

I do know that this change has caused a lot of agita for those fortunate or hard-working enough to have a successful inworld business; people who are great content creators can make a small trickle of real world cash, and people who are REALLLY great content creators (like several people recently profiled in the Drax Files videos) actually make their real-world income from making virtual trees, animations, and so on.

The problem that let to all the third-party exchanges in the first place was that LL has a cumbersome system for buying Lindens in your home currency, and an even more cumbersome and slow system for SELLING Lindens and turning it into US dollars, Euros, or whatever your local ducats are called. Once a transaction is completed, it can take days for the funds to hit your local bank account, and at every step of the way, LL takes a little percentage. You can’t just click a button on the SecondLife.com website and request that an amount of LL gets put in your bank account as US dollars; you first have to convert it to a US dollar credit on the website, and then cash out from that to whatever entity – PayPal or your bank – you’ve set up. I’m actually not that clear on how it’s done, as I don’t have a very successful business (mostly because I don’t devote as much time to it as I should – it’s “play). I do know that turning $L into Euros or yen or kronor is a LOT harder and takes longer through the official Lindex, but was much quicker (though there were fees) to do it through one of the alternative exchanges, such as Podex, VirWox, or so on.

In today’s blog post, clarifying what has become a pretty turbid and murky stew, the emphasis is on a new “authorised reseller” kind of way to buy Lindens for cash – and how easy that will be once they get some resellers to request authorization through email (yeah, THAT’S SECURE). Only at the bottom does it address what many international Residents see is the big problem: it will still only be possible to SELL Linden Dollars through Linden Lab’s own Lindex currency exchange. And yes, it seems to be tied to some security and fraud prevention issues. At least they finally admitted that the cashout process takes an unacceptably long time, and make a vague promise to do something about it.

We successful and not so successful virtual shopkeepers hope they don’t hand off this task to the same team responsible for running the SL Marketplace, which has a poor reputation for transparency and responsiveness when there are problems. Just when the US (and it’s to be hoped, the world’s) economy is finally recovering, Linden Lab does its best to screw up the virtual economy and cause Residents to lose confidence in their ability to make a bit of cash from content creation.

Now, to give users more options and make it easier to purchase L$, we’re launching a pilot program of Authorized Resellers of L$. These sites are authorized by Linden Lab to purchase L$ on the LindeX and then resell those L$ using a variety of international currencies and payment methods. To be clear: per the Terms of Service, these resellers will not be allowed to purchase L$ outside of the LindeX (i.e. they will not be able to buy L$ back from users and cash people out). The list of Authorized Resellers participating in the pilot program is available here.

 If you would like to receive an application to the program when it formally launches, please send an email to LDollarSeller@lindenlab.com.

We know that users are also concerned about the length of the LindeX’s cashout process and the limited choice of currencies when selling L$. We’re currently investigating ways to improve that experience for users while still providing superior fraud protections, and hope to hasten the cashout process and offer new currency options in the future.

Via http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/More-Options-for-Buying-Linden-Dollars/ba-p/2011355

Folding Mesh Screens – Duc de Berry “Printemps” – $L250

Animated folding MESH room divider screen adds classic style and modern flair to any room. Touch to fold screen to the side, touch again to open. The screen panels are one retexturable face, as are the wood frames and the hinges. Keep a backup copy if you retexture (remember to retexture the folded screen too).

DucduBerryScreenAd_001

Here’s the way it looks folded:

DucduBerryScreenAd_002

The screen is available here:

Finally, some new stuff for sale in my #SecondLife store

I’ve been absent lately from my shop and my group events, owing to a pesky problem with arm and shoulder pain (stupid Real World Problems(tm) anyway).

But today I came back with a purpose – my friend Mistletoe opened the Festival of King Richard in Lionheart Ahadi – here’s the SLURL:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife//181/229/28

There’s storytelling and (I think) some music events planned – here’s Mist enjoying a tale:

MistletoeKingRichardsFaire

I managed to get my little booth set up with a few minutes to spare – fortunately most of my products currently can go in various eras. But I managed to quickly put together 2 new wall fountain/windows with projection lighting, and also I had the Duc de Berry “Printemps” mesh folding screen from the Antique Grid Show. After that burst of productivity, I even managed to get them all listed on the Marketplace and loaded into my vendors.

DucduBerryScreenAd_001

Here’s the way it looks folded:

DucduBerryScreenAd_002

The screen is available here:

The new Celtic Rainbow Knot fountain – I tweaked a full-perm image I had so that it displayed in front of the water – it has the usual soothing water sounds and the ability to turn the volume up, down, off, and on.

CelticKnotFountProj512

It has projection lighting (settings must be on Ultra to view) and is found on the Marketplace here.

And this is a similar one with a Victorian stained glass window embedded in the waters – it’s dimly visible, but the projection lighting shows it clearly. The lighting effects for both fountains are on just one side – touch the gold lampshade at the top to turn it on and off.

VictorianGlassFountProd512

This fountain is available here.

Latest products at this link: Second Life Marketplace – Chameleonic Possessions by Lelani Carver

Tweekly Digest: 15-Apr – 21-Apr

Tweekly Digest: 01-Apr – 07-Apr

  • @RobertPicardo You're welcome. It might have been an electrical emergency. ->
  • SF fen and English majors LOL, all others say wut? RT @RobertPicardo Chris Barrie: We are the holo-men…
    [ apologies to T.S. Eliot] ->
  • I just used #Shazam to tag Rumble And Sway by Jamie N Commons. http://t.co/J28HQivxMZ ->
  • Memo: Shady Falls Saurday ->
  • No meeting scheduled tonight, no choir… hmm, tonight seems like a good night to screw up my websites. ->
  • Should I be worried that the local public library has a "budding writer's workshop" series planned? Or intrigued? Gulp! ->
  • r, "LRL" ->
  • @Tish_Coronet H! HW R Y? R FN! LL! in reply to Tish_Coronet ->
  • RMGRD! N VWLS N TWTTR! ->
  • @InaraPey Looks like Firestorm Mobile is the answer to all our prayers. Also, it runs Angry Birds! ->
  • Firestorm Mobile will revolutionize #SecondLife just in time for Disneyfication. Very timely offer, one day only http://t.co/6bFn5bCYEy ->

Now THIS Makes #SecondLife Look Like An Interesting World To Leap Into. Drax? That you?

Who’s the maker? It looks like Draxtor’s work (that looks like him in the goggles). I recognize a few content providers, artists, builders, and products (I have that one Wasabi Pills mesh hair with the side braid in red). Seems to me Linden Lab is finally taking Resident suggestions to heart in marketing SL:

  1. Make it look COOOL.
  2. Emphasize the CREATIVITY
  3. Show people DOING STUFF like building, dancing, and shooting ZOMBEHS

Interestingly, this video does not have any dialogue – just pounding music, jump cuts, saturated colors, and some text on-screen: “Explore. Share. Create.” and the classic “Your World. Your Imagination.”

That sound at the end? It’s the sound of being sucked down the Matrix’s digital rabbit hole, immediately after taking the Red Pill, which is pretty ironic when you consider that the Red Pill allowed you to escape from the Matrix, “pulled the plug” on the artificial reality, and flushed you into the sewers. The Blue Pill let you stay in your comfortable, womb-like pod.

Link: Second Life – YouTube

Now That Easter’s Over I Have No Excuse For Procrastinating

I’m participating in an Antique hunt that starts on Friday – must check in with the organizer and make sure I’ve got all my stuffs in a row.

Here’s what I’ve been working on – I will be adding something to go with it, probably a nice rug made from a new set of tapestry textures I got.

DucDuBerry

It’s derived from the exquisite Duc du Berry’s “Les Tres Riches Heures” manuscript, using the largest images I could find from a copyright-free museum site. I had to work with the images carefully so that they lined up correctly, as the original digital images weren’t exactly the same size.

I’ve got a couple of hats in development – one really just needs some product photos and decisions about final textures (it’s another texture change one, and probably the last from the one sculpt map I’ve used the most, I’m nearly ready to give mesh a whirl).

I will probably put this and some of the other screens in a Relay for Life vendor along with some of the fountains and other things, to be placed by the weekend at my store. So you don’t have to be an antique hunter to get it, but if you are, you’ll get it for a nominal price (the hunt has a $L10 fee for prizes).