The Bay City Rollers

Well someone had to mention them, my sister scarred me for life! Via the official blog Bay City is up and running.

The work of the LDPW, a cityscape, a cinema, a lighthouse, a trolley bus, bowling, ballon trips and probably much much more.

No terraform, no subdivide, no join, no messing around with the builds. Auctions start next week and to those of you who claim this is just a hosting service, let’s see what value people place on these parcels.

Aided and abetted by Katt Linden, who not only told me Bay City was south of City Haven, she also told me which direction south was (Thanks Miss Communication 😉 ).

I took a stroll around to capture the new sights.

This is a bowling alley ..honest!

This is a bowling alley, honest!

Continue reading “The Bay City Rollers”

Can We Have Some Ethics Please

Early reports are filtering back from the traffic meeting with the underlying message that they are a waste of time. I’ll hold judgement on that until I attend one, I think I’m booked in for Thursday.

However one issue that is related is the showcase and I’m having a hard time not finding it unethical in a world where we’re supposed to have a marketplace. I’m simply uncomfortable about the idea of stores being promoted in this way. I wouldn’t find it so objectionable if places with stores were being promoted, but highlighting a particular store makes me a tad uncomfortable.

The first thing that should be made transparent about this, the very first step to retaining business credibility, should be that no Linden Lab employees, their family members or their close personal friends are promoted via this process. The sort of thing that happens when companies run competitions, employees not allowed.

Personally I’d prefer them to have awards and the winners showcased, that would have more of an ethical feel about it. The winner of the best building designer for whatever period, a month, a quarter or even a year, gets a showcase spot. The winners would have course have to be picked and probably by the very people making the picks now, but the whole process would appear to be more ethical, and maintaining standards is a very important issue in a business environment.

I wouldn’t even mind if the showcase featured those paying the most for their adverts, I know some don’t consider that fair, but it’s a metric that’s hard to dispute and I don’t object to those who pay more, getting greater exposure.

Continue reading “Can We Have Some Ethics Please”

Environmentally Friendly

Avatar rendering cost, as blogged yesterday by Pastrami Linden in his own stylish way is a good move in my opinion. Inevitably a Linden blog has rubbed some people up the wrong way and some of the wording isn’t exactly tactful but in the wider scheme of things, the underlying message is a good one.

People have mentioned before that residents should take some responsibly for issues in Second Life, back in early february Dandellion Kimban urged people to reduce the clutter from their inventories to reduce load on the asset servers, an ecology drive it was described as, but the message was similar to the one Linden Lab are encouraging.

After that I attended an office hour with CG Linden where the issue of alpha textures was raised, with a sigh, that too many people employed them. My point then, which is the same view I hold now, was that education was required. Many photoshop tutorials mention alpha textures and many people therefore believe they must be included. I’m not a clothing designer myself, but I do believe there’s an issue with a white chalk line feature if alpha textures aren’t included, but I’m not sure exactly what the issue is, hopefully one of you bright readers can help me out on that issue. Continue reading “Environmentally Friendly”

Burn The Witches

The discussions on the future of traffic have raised some important issues, highlighted scalability and created a great new scapegoat: camping.

The discussions seem to suggest that camping is the most heinous event in the Second Life World. Forget griefing, forget obscenity, forget extreme violence, forget ageplay, camping is the number one evil.

I’m just waiting for someone to link camping to rising fuel prices or the subprime crisis. Really, this is getting ridiculous already. Continue reading “Burn The Witches”

Ignorance Is Bliss

I’ve never looked at the showcase page on the website before, I’ve never taken much notice of that at all. Now that its pointed out to me by the blog I’m left wondering why the heck Linden Lab are promoting inworld business?

The issue now is that this is going to replace the popular places tab inworld. Who chooses these business ventures to promote? Is it fair? If people were paying to be highlighted that would be one thing, but I don’t really think Linden Lab should be in the business of promoting inworld business like this.

I’m all for Linden Lab promoting innovation, events, arts, culture, campaigns, news, health, fitness, well being, education yadda yadda yadda but I’m extremely reluctant to give a thumbs up to free advertising. The fact that it has been going on for some time via the website makes some of my concerns a little redundant, but the blog highlights it and states that this promotion will go further and it makes me a little uncomfortable, it’s like the government endorsing a brand. Continue reading “Ignorance Is Bliss”

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