Linden Lab – Page 75 – Ciaran Laval

March 18, 2015March 18, 2015

Ebbe Altberg Opens VWBPE 2015 With Keynote Speech

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to remove your weapon.” the woman told me.

“I’m a Dwarfin King, a King! Do you understand me?” I replied.

“Don’t take that tone with me or I’ll have to ask you to stand outside the room.” the woman sternly replied.

I bowed my head and removed my sceptre. Yes, the educators are in town and Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2015 has officially opened with a barnstorming speech from Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg.

Now if you’re looking for a transcript, I’m sorry but I’m not going to provide one. I’m not a big fan of transcripts, but more importantly, my notecard was eaten halfway through so I lost all my notes! However thanks to the power of my memory (this might not end well) and Daniel Voyager’s Twitter stream I may be able to provide some information. An important thing to note is that Ebbe Altberg’s speech may have been aimed at educators but it was extremely relevant to virtual world fans of all types as he delved into the future of Linden Lab’s top secret, but so far unnamed (other than being not Second Life 2.0) virtual world.

Ok so the bombshell news, the nextgen virtual world from Linden Lab will have an age rating of 13+. Now before we all panic too much, Ebbe pointed out that legally there’s really no difference between a 16+virtual world and a 13+ virtual world.

Another bombshell for those looking forward to getting an early look at Linden Lab’s nextgen virtual world is that initially Linden Lab will be hand picking participants and they will be looking for participants who know Autodesk Maya and can create experiences for Virtual Reality and a PC platform.

Concerns were raised as to why Linden Lab were looking for people with skills in what is a rather expensive piece of software, rather than an open source product such as Blender. Ebbe assured people that they will be looking for the nextgen virtual world to be open to many different creation products, but for the early testing, they want people with Maya skills.

In terms of costs, Ebbe is looking to lower land costs and increase sales taxes in the new platform. Linden Lab are spending a decent amount of time trying to find the ideal balance here, although it’s much harder to change the balance for Second Life than it is for the nextgen platform.

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March 18, 2015March 18, 2015

The One Million Linden Dollar Suburban Seastead

The above platform is described as :

Suburban Seastead, Virtual Property (Futuristic throwback), Second Life. Price: $1 Million Linden (most recent exchange value in U.S. dollars accepted). Will not last long. This impressive monument to housing everywhere is single-handedly responsible for upholding the impressive home values of this neighborhood. Calling it a house does not do it justice, mostly because it is in fact a giant virtual platform, situated in the ocean right off the coast of a fantastic and family friendly suburb.

The build is the work of artist Andreas Angelidakis and is part of an Intangibles collection for The Walker Art Gallery in Minneapolis. The build appears to be a somewhat tongue in cheek sale :

Greek architect Andreas Angelidakis is not serious unless YOU are serious and his agent’s motivation can only be described as “cautiously optimistic.”

I stumbled across this via an article in the New York Times by Melena Ryzik : For the Walker Art Center, a Shop That Peddles Evanescence. The article is in some ways odd, especially the part about Second Life :

But the rules of Second Life mean that buyers cannot simply enter the house; Mr. Angelidakis has to log on to show them around. “It’s almost like being a real estate agent,” he said, albeit for “an object and a price that is virtual even to the Internet.”

If you want to buy the item inworld, then you can buy it now, it’s set for sale, although I would certainly advise anyone to have a serious look at it before taking such a large plunge!

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March 16, 2015

A Cautionary Tale Of Why Virtual World Income Is Very Much Taxable

Linden Lab have been asking certain residents to supply tax and account information for over a year now. These requests have caused confusion and annoyance for Second Life residents who were not familiar with such requirements.

I should point out here that there are different triggers for tax and account information requests, whereas there does appear to be a lot of overlap, they are not both solely for tax reasons. The blog post I’ve linked to above and the links there provide extra information and it’s information that Second Life and virtual world business owners beyond Second Life should pay attention to.

Another issue with Second Life, virtual worlds and many online money earning opportunities is that people at times seem to think their income is outside of taxation, it’s not. Although obviously your local laws will take precedence, taxation is an area you should pay attention to.

As an example I’m going to highlight a case, albeit at the extreme end of the spectrum. The Wall Street Journal reports : How Cheating on Your Taxes Can Lead to Prison. This is a tale of woe that involves a US citizen opening a Swiss bank account and not declaring he had over $10,000 in said bank account, which is apparently a legal requirement in the USA.

However later on he was advised by a lawyer to declare his past income, in what the linked article describes as “Quiet disclosure“. However he failed to declare his income from Second Life, which between 2007 and 2013 was estimated at over $140,000. This has proven to be a very costly mistake, in more ways than one.

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March 14, 2015

The Lost Unicorn Gallery Is A Sight To Behold

The Lost Unicorn Gallery in the sim of Ethereal is nothing short of stunning if fantasy art is your thing, and it is my thing. I’m a big fan of the fantasy theme. The parcel description sets the theme :

A fabulous selection of SL fantasy themed artwork created by the best artists in game. Elven castle overlooks a beautiful and magical forest below. Landscaping by JenniferMay Carlucci-Lectar.

This is all helped by the stunning picturesque beauty of the surrounding area.

The Gallery works on a rotation system, as the notecard explains :

The main list you see on this sign is a complete list of ALL the ongoing artists in the gallery. However, they are not all showing work at the same time due to space. Therefore, we do an artist rotation every 2 months. I will post this list here so you all know who’s showing at the time you visit. We will also continue to have our 2 featured artists exhibiting their work in the 2 front rooms every month (new ones each month).

This therefore means you may see different artists displaying at different times.

The current showcase artists (until March 22nd are :

Freyja Merryman
Luka Henusaki

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March 12, 2015March 12, 2015

Second Life Residents Start To Pay Their Respects To Sir Terry Pratchett

One of the first things I did when I joined Second Life was to look up a group for Discworld, thinking that Second Life would be an ideal venue for such a group. Alas that didn’t go very far, despite there being many fans and surnames of Weatherwax and Morpork not being uncommon.

In October 2008 Terry Pratchett visited Second Life. The visit was to promote his book of Nation, but many people wanted to talk about Discworld. A couple of Lindens sneaked in to listen to him, he arrived on stage :

TerryPratchett Morpork: Hello everybody! Sorry, I’m new at all of this kind of stuff and so can anyone tell me how to get the rocket launcher? …and I’m not really into all of this YourTube into MyFace kind of stuff!

Michaelx Beerbaum: Question is if Second life will appear in one of the books?

TerryPratchett Morpork: As far as I am concerned, my books are Second Life.

Having thought long and hard, a quiet voice piped up :

Ciaran Laval: Do you think Moist Von Lipwig would have managed the banking system better than those currently in charge?

TerryPratchett Morpork: It seems that, primitive as it is, the Discworld economy is considerably more stable than the one here. And, come to think about it, Moist’s solution to the problem was not a long way from what has been done over here…

He was talking about real world economies not Second Life. Upon hearing of Sir Terry’s death today I decided to visit a location where fans do gather, the Time and Space sim and already they have start to erect a tribute to Sir Terry Pratchett.

They are also getting plenty of visitors, whom like me, want to visit locations whereby fellow fans may be around.

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