July 2013 – Page 2 – Ciaran Laval

July 21, 2013

Calas Galadhon Park To Close Temporarily

With thanks to a post from Bonita Brianna over at SLUniverse, we receive the unfortunate news that The Calas Galadhon Park will be shedding some of their sims. The news, which is confirmed on the Calas Galadon Park Blog informs people:

“It is with regret that because of new rl challenges for both Truck and I, it will be necessary that we close Calas Galadhon Park sims to the general public on Monday, August 1, for a period of time. This unfortunately must include our live music program for that time as well.

To continue financially carrying the estate on our own, we will need to drop at least 4 of our 13 regions and possibly make another of the homesteads into an OpenSpace. At this time we see that the sims that will be removed are Bay of Balfalas, the new water sims of Belegaer & Sea of Nurnen and regretfully, Eryn Vorn.”

There’s more information on the Calas Galadhon blog about this, including the options they are looking at. However it’s important to note that this decision is due to RL challenges and the financial challenges of running thirteen sims in Second Life. A point oft missed in the tier debate is that of people having to deal with challenges outside of Second Life.

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July 20, 2013

Three New (To Me) Enjoyable Second Life Related Flickr Streams

First of all, new Flickr still sucks! I’m still not talking to it and I think it has been a very naughty boy. However I can use it, and I am using it. I’ve also discovered photostreams of people whom I don’t know inworld, the photostreams of the people I do know are excellent, but this post is about some new folk, two of which are a bit adult, one is very adult.

Anyway, first up is Sadbab Shan’s Flickr Stream (alternative link for lower bandwidth version). Now I am rather artisitically challenged generally but Sadbab produces images that make me go “Wow” .. I’m not sure this is a good plus point considering my knowledge of art! However the stream is very eyecatching and attracts lots of awards from other digital photography groups.

Sadbab’s images are more scene based than some, you won’t see close up portraits of avatars but you will see wonderfully constructed scenes.

Next up is Benjamin Glendale’s Flickr Stream (alternative link for lower bandwidth version). First things first, Benjamin’s stream involves some adult imagery but you should not see that if you’re not logged into Flickr and even then the adult images will not be viewable unless you’ve selected the preference to view adult content. Benjamin posts male nudes sometimes and sometimes the male nudes are a little bit, shall we say, pleased to see the camera. However if that’s not your thing, then fear not because Benjamin has a vast array of stunning photos from within Second Life, his recent images from Mad City really capture the noir feeling the creators would want to be exemplified in a stunning fashion.

Benjamin captures avatar portraits and landscapes to stunning effect and there are some superb examples of what can be achieved in Second Life by creative minds.

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July 15, 2013July 16, 2013

Private Regions Tread Water Just Above The 20,000 Mark

Like a plucky last wicket stand by Australian batsmen at the first ashes test, Private sims are desperately clinging on to their status above the 20,000 mark, with the latest Tyche Shepherd survey revealing there are 20,006 private sims on the grid.

Like the plucky last wicket stand, resistance to going below the 20,000 barrier would appear to be somewhat futile. the amount of private sims on the grid will dip below the 20,000 mark soon. However a couple of weeks ago, on June 30th, Tyche was reporting that private sims had descreased by 4.6% for the year, with a loss of 959 sims, which at that point left 20,033 private sims on the grid. However by the same time last year there had been a decline for the year of 5.2%, 1,230 sims, so the rate of decline is slowing although it shows no signs of stopping.

The tier remains too high and slashing tier would probably halt the decline, but that would hit revenue for Linden Lab. There are other underlying factors behind the decline.The reasons for the decline are not just due to the costs of tier or even the change in dynamics brought about by the rise of the Marketplace.

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July 12, 2013July 14, 2013

From Here To Ipernity

I’ve decided to open an account on Ipernity, which is a photo sharing site similar to Flickr. I’ve decided to do this because quite frankly I feel that Yahoo/Flickr have lost the plot. I say this with rather a heavy heart because I’ve long loved Flickr, but the justified only views really are irritating and the fact that they are removing choice to view streams in different sizes all over the site, including the new groups system, is beyond baffling.

The worst thing about the new groups is that initially, you could view group pools in small, medium, large, justified etc. They inherited your last setting from the old group system, but Flickr deemed this a bug and rectified it so that justified is the only view. Flickr have also now decided they are working on counting photo views based on a viewers intent ….. I’m not making this up!

Now I’d joined Ipernity a few weeks ago, uploaded a few screenshots but I was a tad wary as to whether they really approved of Second Life type images. This week I contacted their support and after showing them a couple of example snapshots they said that sort of content is fine, as long as it’s not inappropriate, I take that to mean no boobies, which is fine for me as I don’t snapshot them!

Anyway Ipernity isn’t Flickr, it doesn’t have as many users as Flickr, but it does have a nice simple to use interface. If you want the full kit and caboodle you’ll have to pay and this means joining the club, UK rates are:

3 months -£5.49
12 months – £19.99
24 months -£34.99

Now this is slightly more expensive than Flickr pro, but it’s a lot less than the new Flickr Ad Free option. One point to note is that embed codes aren’t available for free members, so for bloggers, it’s a bit of a pain but club members get embed codes apparently.

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July 9, 2013

The Trouble With Mainland

The trouble with mainland is quite simple, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. I popped along to the sims around Shermerville, places such as Shermerville Central, Shermerville NW, West Haven, Blumfield etc. and they feel quite a lot different to sims such as Bedos, Molay, Croix etc and the reason they feel different is because they are different. The former sims have a nice road network, they feel like a small town and the way they are designed seems to encourage good neighbourly practices, although there is drama. The latter, they have a lot of grass, far less of a road network and they don’t feel like community sims, they feel more as if each parcel or a set of owned parcels is its own kingdom.

I can recall when I was a lad in Second Life asking Jack Linden why there weren’t more sims such as Shermerville and he told me something along the lines of they were an experiment and weren’t that popular. Now if you’ve never been out that way, I suggest you do. When you come out of the straits of Shermerville across the suspension bridge, you feel like you’re entering a new town. The way these sims are designed encourages that feeling of being one community, although as I said, that doesn’t mean all the neighbours get on with each other.

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