Ciaran Laval

So there I was on Sunday trying to understand a couple of Spanish residents, one of whom was a new renter. Altavista babelfish really wasn’t cutting the mustard. So she of the Kryptonite boots offered to help, Quaintly Turqiri has a friend who can speak Spanish!

Hooray I said. This however soon turned to chaos and there was quite an entourage on the parcel by now, so with people struggling to be understood what happens? Yes, hand out the dance animations and just do something we can all understand!

Onigokko, breaks down all language barriers!

I still have no idea what the tenants wanted!!!

Land in Second Life is always a contentious area. When Jack crashed island prices a lot of people were quick to point out that it’s merely hosting space, binary numbers on computer hardware, it’s not real land. They’re right, it’s not real land, it is hosting space, binary numbers are involved but there’s more to it than that. If there wasn’t anymore to it than that then all land would be priced the same.

On a daily basis people all over the world exchange pieces of paper for goods, it’s just a piece of paper, but it has a value attached to it, it has worth, these are the basic principles of business and have been for some time. The fact that money is often “just a piece of paper” doesn’t make it worth the price of a piece of paper.

Land in Second Life is worth what people are prepared to pay for it. This is an important concept and with a thriving economy based largely upon the land market at its heart, it is important to realise why land owners get twitchy at the boom and bust land cycles.

I also disagree with the lovely Gwyneth Llewellyn about hardware costs being a key factor. As a quick aside if you haven’t read Gwyneth’s blog go do so, she writes extremely well. Where was I? Oh yes, hardware costs, they do of course matter, but not in the way Gwyneth categorises them. Read the rest of this entry »

There appears to have been an outbreak of wild optimism regarding Mitch Kapor’s keynote speech and the announcement that avatars managed to teleport from the Second Life word to open sim as announced on the official blog. Can we all get real please!

We’re a million miles from the 3D interweb. We’re a million miles from the masses embracing Second Life technology. The platform is not stable, there may be trouble ahead, ooh look out for that iceberg!

I’m all for new technology and enterpising advancements, but I’m afraid we’re not there yet. Has everyone forgotten the way windlight cast aside users for the sake of eye candy? I don’t know how public service departments run in the United States but I can assure you that in the UK many of them are not going to take kindly to being told they need to upgrade their graphic cards for the sake of fluff, where I work if I was to present a proposal to bring Second Life to the masses and get funky graphics cards and high bandwidth, the second word would be “Off”. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my tenants awarded me this, sometimes it really is all worth it.

I’ve noticed a definite downturn in land rentals lately. Maybe it’s the summer, maybe it’s my prices, maybe it’s just that more people are renting land but I’m seeing a downard trend. Admittedly there’s also an issue whereby I get five people renting in one go after a week of no new tenants but something seems amiss.

Now I know it’s not just me, I’m not a member of any landlord groups (I was once but the 25 group limit bit me) but I do observe what other landlords are doing.

Sarah Nerd mentioned that she was converting an island to open spaces because she couldn’t rent the island out.

Steve Mahfouz of Ecstasy Realty is selling two of his 21 sims, relocating tenants. Now maybe Steve has other plans, maybe he’s expanding in other areas but it all points to an issue of having too many vacant plots.

Then of course there’s the whole issue of openspaces. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m pretty much at the end of my tether regarding VAT and Second Life. Months of arguing my case have fell on deaf ears and produced a largely patronising response from the bureaucrats, a sort of patting my head and saying “there there, Mommy knows best” approach to the simple fact that I’m being ripped off by paying VAT.

One response even came complete with a quote from American jurist and member of the US Supreme Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. “Taxes are what we pay for a civilised society”

There is nothing civilised about being taxed just because they can tax you, tax should serve a purpose, it should empower people, not penalise them and VAT on Second Life penalises European members. There is no added value and it creates the very problem that the legislation was intended to create, it puts Europeans at a distinct disadvantage.

However Second Life doesn’t have the shakers and movers to bring pressure to the Eurocrats, so they patronise us with small talk.

So it’s with great interest that I note that Irish citizens have rejected the Lisbon treaty. Read the rest of this entry »

I have been offering some free store space for people, however it would seem that people don’t want free store space so I think I’ll go down the rental route instead. I’m not sure why, maybe people think it’s a trick, after all there is no such thing as a free lunch.

The concept of price is a strange one, I sold an item once that someone later said they didn’t initially want to buy because it was too cheap, the item was what they were looking for and it worked fine, but the low price, rather than attracting interest, made people think it was cheap and tacky.

Strange thing value.

Avatar rendering cost, this sounded quite helpful when I first saw it blogged by Pastrami Linden. However I’m a person who is willing to change his mind (see trademark policy whereby I changed my mind more times than a twisty turny thing). I’ve now changed my mind on avatar rendering cost. The premise is good, the execution, it’s starting to look ugly.

I’m now of the opinion that only I should see my avatar rendering cost, you can see your own. To this end I fully support Kathy Morellet’s Jira proposal. The whole divide and conquer routine that’s being espoused over this issue just turns my stomach. I’ve checked my own score by the way, I’m currently in the green zone.

However the blog says that this is about awareness, about carbon footprints and education. However one thing the blog doesn’t mention is that this is about shame, and alas from some of the comments I’ve read on various forums, it is about shame. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a new kid in town, Mark Kingdon is the new CEO the name is M, M Linden. Welcome Mark, may your days be merry and bright and may all your Christmas’ be white.

Mark apparently has a background in art and economics, he’s not a techie! Hurrah! The geeks won’t inherit earth, I keep telling people this. Mark Kingdon also penned this piece, which gives me great hope because he talks about listening to customers, good community relations and respecting the community. This may sound obvious but it’s something that in recent months Linden Lab have been guilty of ignoring on all three points. Read the rest of this entry »

Gwyneth Llewelyn is on strike, as part of the call for bloggers to strike in protest at Linden Lab’s trademark policy changes. This comes on the back of this petition.

The call to not blog comes after Linden Lab refused to respond properly to the concerns of residents. Noble as it may be, there are a couple of reasons why I won’t join this strike.

Firstly I have been on strike over my pension rights at work, it’s a big commitment and it costs you money. I feel that such a strike belittles the disputes that people go through. What harm does a blogger strike cause the individual? What sort of sacrifice are they making? Showing solidarity for a cause is all well and good, but this isn’t exactly showing great commitment to the cause, which runs much deeper than Linden Lab’s trademark policy. If people want to make a commitment to a worthy cause then tier down and show real commitment. Stop going inworld, make a real sacrifice.

Secondly I firmly believe that the pen is mightier than the sword. Petitions, complaints and blogging about the issue are much better avenues to protest this decision. Gwyn is highly respected by the Lindens, she’s the sort of resident they love, she agrees with a lot of their decisions and doesn’t shout or moan or gripe much, Gwyn is one of Second Life’s biggest cheerleaders. She would therefore be doing more for the cause by emailing Catherine Linden, writing blogs and putting forth her dismay.

Will Linden Lab cave in to Gwyn’s demands? Who knows, you don’t know from one day to the next what Linden Lab will do. Read the rest of this entry »