Ciaran Laval

December 26, 2008January 12, 2014

2008 Reviewed

I was going to do this in the style of a meme I used to do on Livejournal whereby you’d take the first couple of lines or paragraph, from the first post of each month to give your year in review, but that doesn’t quite work for me here, although it’s a fun meme, I’ll do a little bit of that, quickly go through the months, throw in the odd picture and review the year that way.

January

LL’s new policy on banking certainly caused a storm, and more than just one in a teacup I popped down to JTF to check out the scene and we had a run on the banks in full swing, of course later in the year we had the far more serious issue of people running to RL banks such as Northern Rock to withdraw their funds. Bank queues Continue reading “2008 Reviewed”

October 9, 2008January 12, 2014

Terry Pratchett Live Inworld

Robin’s office hour was a washout as she’s on holiday. Jack’s office hour was calmer than normal and Jack is definitely considering options on what to do about parcels set for sale for what many call extortionate amounts, although no change in policy at this moment in time. Thanks to my underworld sources I have a full transcript to read.

However I spent half an hour trying to get out of Jack’s office hour to go to the Terry Pratchett live Q&A, alas the sim was full until ten minutes before the event started.

Just as I was celebrating, I crashed. However fate wasn’t going to prevent my mission, oh no, I got right back in there. I did however notice that a couple of Linden’s (rumours that they were playing hooky are unfounded!) managed to sneak in at the back, hmmm! Continue reading “Terry Pratchett Live Inworld”

May 8, 2008January 12, 2014

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!

Continue reading “The Bay City Rollers”

May 5, 2008January 12, 2014

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”

May 2, 2008January 12, 2014

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”