Recent Comments:
SLCC : It's not just music and vlogging
Second Life Insider
Jul 6th 2007 2:17PM Really, SLCC is only music to me. Largely, SL itself is only music to me.
The other stuff is frosting, but the musicians are the only reason to come. If Cylindrian, Frogge, and Jaycatt cancel, then I will definitely want my money back. As for meeting up with friends ... I'm a live music person, that is really all I do. If the live musicians aren't there, then my friends won't be there ...
That being said, I hope and expect that this copyright release form business gets settled in a way that satisfies everyone. I'm looking forward to hearing good news on this front.
I definitely recommend that everyone take a deep breath and stop with the panic.
No Support for Intel chips?
Second Life Insider
Jun 7th 2007 10:45AM The GMA950 is not a graphics card. It is a tasty, tasty waffle, but not a graphics card.
One of the speakers at Microsoft's GDG 2007 conference actually claimed that the Intel GMA line of products is responsible for the down-turn in the computer games market: Brand new PCs and Macs are just not capable of running modern games.
The short answer: It *will* run, but you will hate yourself. Sell the MacBook on eBay and get a MacBook Pro or a Dell or something that has a real video card.
Copyright, Trademarks, citing, plagiarism: RL concepts whose time has really come at last?
Second Life Insider
May 4th 2007 11:06AM On this topic, I would recommend The Little Book of Plagiarism by Judge Richard Posner to everyone. I think that there is currently a lot of confusiong about plagiarism because IP misuse has become conflated with theft (thanks, RIAA!).
Here is a conversation overheard by my wife the other day:
Student 1: I found the perfect paper for my xyz class the other day. It cost 400$, but I think it is worth it.
Student 2: Isn't that plagiarism?
Student 1: No, I *bought* it, I didn't *steal* it.
So, I'm with you on this.
A Mystery At Hand
Second Life Insider
Apr 25th 2007 10:49AM It looks like a new line gets added *exactly* once a minute.
At 10:40 EST (which is 7:40 SLT), we were at 0x442 = 1090 (decimal)
So, if my math is right (I have not double-checked), this means the countdown started Tuesday , at 7:30pm SLT (10:30pm EST).
Assuming, as another posted, it is counting up to 4096, this would mean we have about 50 hours left to go. Again, if my math is right, we will "finish the journey" at 9:46am SLT on Friday.
Since my original theory was that this was something to keep us entertained during down-time, I guess this blows that theory out of the water ... unless the upgrade goes REALLY bady ...
Where now for Second Religion?
Second Life Insider
Apr 6th 2007 3:50PM Well, for my part, there are a few things that have kept me from pursuing "ministry" or "church-going" inside SL, even though this is a large part of my self-definition in RL.
1) I suspect (but have no evidence, so maybe I'm paranoid) that any Christian event that got sufficiently popular would draw griefers.
2) The point of "going to church" is to participate in corporate worship. Second Life does not current support the most common forms of Christian corporate worship: Group singing, group recitation/prayer, and group celebration of communion. --- The "sermon" is by far the least important part of a church service, in my opinion. It is there so that those who are not reading their Bibles and are not attending small group Bible studies still receive some weekly religious instruction.
3) Most hard-core Christians have some sense of what their "mission" is in the world, and this usually is defined in relationship to some particular community. I would say that 90% of American Christians define their mission as being related to serving their local community. Anyone who was to bring more Christian activities in SL would probably do this because they either:
a) View SL as their primary community, as opposed to the geographical community where they physically live ... or
b) They feel they are specifically called to serve the people of SL as a mission. This is a bit problematic because SL people generally do not have major *needs* that the mission worker can try to meet. SL residents have to have access to a nice computer and a nice internet connection, probably making them unlikely to be the recipients of mission-driven charity.
Vanishing Clubs, Coalescence, and All That Jazz
Second Life Insider
Jan 23rd 2007 10:49AM Actually, I don't think coalesced items necessarily get named "Object." In my experience coalesced items get named to the same name as one of the objects in the coalesced set. In my case, (I'm not 100% sure) but I think that when I sold my land, my objects got coalesced to an object called "Snow Machine" in my "Lost and Found" folder.
This was because, I assume, one of the objects on the land was called Snow Machine. I have not heard of it being renamed to "Object." Every has read http://secondlife.com:80/knowledgebase/article.php?id=292 right? See the first line of the second paragraph.
Ban on photographs in open sim?
Second Life Insider
Jan 3rd 2007 7:10AM I thought the note card was perfectly clear.
"RECORDING, FILMING AND STILL PHOTOGRAPHS are strictly prohibited without first obtaining a written release from OKPride.Net LLC and any such infraction of this policy will be considered copyright infringement and pursued using all available resources in a real world court of law."
I don't see any room for interpretation! It is probably not our job to make sure *your* notecard says what you think it says ... if you are going to spam everyone who TPs in with a legalese document, you should probably make sure it says what you mean first!
Personally, my advice would be to not take yourselves so seriously, and pursue only those that are actually stealing your content. The people stealing your content are not going to be photographing it ... they are going to be using glIntercept, and you will never even know it until you see the texture in world.
The way things currently stand, everyone who enters your sim feels like they are presumed to be texture stealing scum. Just because I have no intention of stealing your work does not mean that I don't feel threatened by your memo!
Ban on photographs in open sim?
Second Life Insider
Jan 2nd 2007 10:01PM Jonas: I over-simplified some-what, to make a short post. You are totally correct that this is a murky area.
Essentially, I was thinking about the sections on "exceptions" in both the first and second web pages that you posted. From my point of view, the "exceptions" cover just about everything that a normal person would want to do.
In particular, the WIPO page says that in most countries you are allowed to take photos without authorization, if you use them for purely private purposes (last part of section 1.6). I think that the OKPride.Net LLC policy attempts to give the impression that one does not have the right to take personal pictures.
But one thing is certain, copyright law is totally murky. I guarantee you that you can find legal precedents for almost any crazy position one might take about copyright. My wife and I have both taught courses that have a week or two discussion about IP law, and we have a little file of apparently contradictory and/or insane IP rulings. IANAL, and I am certainly not an expert either! But I'm doing the best I can. :)
Ban on photographs in open sim?
Second Life Insider
Jan 2nd 2007 8:03PM Jonas: A photograph of a work is almost never considered a copy of the work, and is not covered by copyright. So a picture of a building can be used for anything.
OTOH, if you take a straight-on picture of a wall, and the owner of the texture can argue that you were making a copy of the texture itself (not taking a picture of the wall), then you are in trouble. Even then you could be okay, depending on your intent.
Ban on photographs in open sim?
Second Life Insider
Jan 2nd 2007 7:53PM These guys seem to have control issues. My old avatar was a witch doctor with fiery eyes, and as soon as I showed up the host sent a sim-wide message, along these lines:
"Just a reminder, particles cause lag, and are grounds for banning from Old Salts Pub. Please be kind to others!"
My thinking is ... if the particles get too much for you ... go to graphic preferences and turn them down!
FWIW, I think the live musicians should quit performing at Old Salts Pub. Otherwise, I don't think they will get the hint.
