Alphaville Herald

Support Virtuality -- Help Game A Netflix Popularity Contest!!!

by Idoru Wellman, staff writer

The Netflix "Find Your Voice film competition" is a great new game where everyone can participate by forming gangs to vote for the independent film maker that best represents their community and interests. Consider this a more positive version of the gang abuse report used in Second Life to get the Linden Governance team to ban enemy players. However, instead of helping bring the ban hammer down, in the Netflix Find Your Voice game, you can help a few lucky filmmakers receive some financial and in-kind support for filmmaking.

To play the Netflix game, you'll need a working e-mail address - but Google, Yahoo, and Hotmail and others are happy to hand out spare alt account e-mail addresses for a reason -- so you can play games that want e-mail addresses! What are you waiting for? Vote early and vote often.

Here at the Herald we are partial to SARAHN_12 - an entry from Sasie Sealy with a plot that should strike a chord among the Second Life players. The director's statement tells the tale:

A Virtual Pilgrim's Progress -- The First Part

A newbie learns how to dance, finds a job, considers an avatar sex change

by Roby Core

I was reading some Google news the first time I’d ever heard about the Second life virtual world, and I thought it would have been childish stuff, but I got curious, and now I’ve picked a very basic avatar available on the subscription page and I’ve logged in. I wanted to move a bit around, see what kind of population lives in second life so I had to face an unexpected matter - how to do the very basic things.

I’ve spent several hours to understand how to walk properly, look around reading menus and tutorials plus being in the place where everybody starts where you find people who are going to ask you help instead of teaching you.

Things start to be interesting, so I decided to work a bit on my avatar - upgrade a bit the basic appearance and try to make a cooler version of myself out of it. After several more hours I’ve realized that couldn’t do much. I’ve decided to look for help and I quickly learned few things: 1st: that a man avatar can’t get easy help as a looks like all the community is after female avatars. 2nd: that finally, when in the avatar island, I found a female avatar giving me some tips and free shopping landmarks, I found out that even if you can get a lot of stuff for free you still would want to make some money to buy the coolest staff, participate in events and more.

How to Skin a Cat (or a Neko)

by Stacia Villota, virtual Neko

Jungle Voodoo’s Leopard skins, “Neko style” (click any of these photos to enlarge)

One of the questions I hear most often is where to find good skins for Nekos. While it would be easy to provide the names of the most popular Neko stores that sell skins, I prefer a challenge. And so my fellow Neko friends, I have compiled an extensively researched list of Neko skin stores, categorized and complete with SLURLS for your shopping convenience.

However, before you click the link at the bottom of this page to see the full list, you might want to take a moment to read a few notes about what information I included, and why:

Double Prim Land Bugfix To Scrog SL?

Aim gun at foot, pull trigger, DDOS your own game

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

Shocking rumors were flying in the metaverse tonight suggesting that a Linden Lab bug fix later this week could result in a serious case of massive prim return - and possible self-inflicted denial of service on “your world, your imagination”. According to usually reliable sources, Linden Lab is fixing a bug in the Second Life server code dealing with object bonus - or "double prim" land - which allows sims with object bonus set over 1.0 to have more than 15k prims.

Normally, object bonus land is only intended to redistribute prims from one parcel to the rest in the sim - a selling point for some land owners. Because Second Life has an virtual land scarcity economy, artificial limits on building complexity help drive sales of virtual “land” - and many real estate agents market sims that allow for more complex builds than normal to differentiate their offerings.

Unfortunately - if our sources are to be believed - the game gods are “fixing” a problem that allowed for excessive numbers of prims and complex builds on object bonus lands. Later this week, when the bug fix is put in place, sims with object bonus over 1.0 will have significant returns of prims when a rolling restart updates the server code - leading to massive grid wide object return.

Red Light Center Exposed -- Part 4: Bringing It Home

Red Light Center neko confused by SL interface, pay-as-you-go and lag a concern for Goreans
The Herald explores worlds beyond Second Life

by Jessica Holyoke, virtual world explorer

I'm standing in a virtual world, populated by people who like virtual sex or at least virtual relationships. The question in my mind is, why aren't they in Second LIfe? I asked that question of a few residents.

The first asked, what is Second Life? And I responded with the standard sales pitches. He asked, how much does it cost? And I said its free. Then he asked if you can do the same things that you could in RLC and I said, name a fetish. Luckily he said golden showers.

If you go to the sex places on SL, its quite easy to find animations and pose balls for someone to pee on you or for you to pee on them. I'm just glad he didn't say ear sex. So I told him about all the possible animations and stations where peeing is involved. He was impressed, but I don't know if he came over.

The only neko girl I met mentioned that she went to SL because she was a furry, something frowned upon and not supported by RLC, but she couldn't figure out the interface. I volunteered to take her back to SL to help her out.

I took her to a sandbox and unloaded on her many many freebie boxes. When I left her, she was having a great time experimenting with her avatar. But when I tried to IM her later to see how she was doing, I never heard from her and I never saw her online again.

You might remember from Part 3 about my meeting Goreans in RLC. I saw a Master by himself one day and I introduced myself in a way that identified myself in a similar way. We got to talking and I asked about why he wasn't on SL if he liked Gor? After going through the same, its free, and you can do so much with it. He downloaded the program and met me in world.

Red Light Center Exposed -- Part 3: Unhitched

Red Light Center leather clad dommes, furries hard to find
The Herald explores worlds beyond Second Life

by Jessica Holyoke, virtual world explorer

I know everyone has been dying to find out more about the kinkier side of things in Red Light Center. Believe me, so do I. Tracking down the kinkier side of things in RLC is harder than it seems. First, the furries. After many months of careful research, I found one furry and one neko girl. Even though they have Dimes dedicated just to them, those dimes are really just a resting place for others. If you want to get away from all the sexiness, all one has to do is go to the Furry dime.

Now bondage is somewhat prevalent. There should be plenty of bondage enthusiasts as evidenced by all the submissives I’ve seen with their names changed to reflect their Owner’s. Finding out more about them was a different story.

It was easy to find the shared bondage furniture in the care free environments. You strip down, chose a partner and whoever clicks on the furniture first gets to be on top. Which means if you are in a room with a robot and you want to use the bondage furniture, the robot is automatically on the bottom. Just another weird thing about using the robots.

Now as a matter of how things are done, the bondage furniture bothered me because it did not allow for clothing for anyone. Because everyone was naked, there was no leather clad dommes or silk clad males -- not that they had silks, but a girl can dream.

And people openly talked about their bondage experiences in the open streets of the BDSM dimes. But again, no one wanted to be officially interviewed about it.

While I was digging around, one user private messaged me and suggested that I use a RL picture in my profile. Now as I was trying to clearly identify myself as Jessica Holyoke and I wanted people to read about their world on the Herald, I did not include a real life photo, but rather used a SL photo of me. Looking at a number of people’s profiles, it was more likely than not to see a picture of a real person in a profile. Sometimes that person was doing things I only do as an avatar. The cross over of real and surreal took me by surprise after spending so much time in a world that can be seen as encouraging you to be what you are not.

Of Memes and Men -- A Newbie’s Guide to Woodbury University

Welcome to teh Internets

by Anise Hankins

Woodbury University. Some of you may know it as a school, but there’s a side of Woodbury University that extends far past just that. It’s also a place in the metaverse we know and love as Second Life. It’s an interesting place where both students and visitors alike can come together and interact both for personal and collective benefits. What was once a simple school funded project has grown into a community featuring people from across the world coming together, all for one purpose: lulz.

To some, the ways of Woodbury University may alienate, confuse, and even frighten you. This is a completely normal response when first coming into contact with the denizens of Woodbury. Fear not, that is why I have stepped forth to help you, the innocent bystander, come to terms and accept their ways. Perhaps you too, will spread the ways and mannerisms of the students of Woodbury to your own community and help it grow even more. If not, at least you’ll enjoy an enriching experience that may brighten up your Second Life.

Memes: The lifeblood of Woodbury, and the foundation of conversation. Those ignorant of the memes and the history they are based upon may seem lost when first warping in. Everything in the sim is in one way or another, based off of internet memes, which is simply a fancy word for fad, although some of the students may argue that they are more than fads. The pictures, buildings, and avatars are all in one way or another influenced by a meme. Memes are heavily influenced by anime, video games, or other internet pop culture. There are more memes than a simple article can cover, so I will try to inform you of the most prominent ones you are likely to see referenced in Woodbury University.

Peace March Saturday

straight talk about violence

by Jessica Holyoke

Drive By Agony along with The Blue Angel Police and Firefighters Memorial, victims of crime and concerned SL citizens, will hold a March for Peace  in SL April 19th at 1pm by marching on the Virtual Capitol Hill   http://slurl.com/secondlife/Capitol%20Hill%201/129/1/32 .  In conjunction with the march, a live music festival for peace will be held from Noon to 6pm SLT.  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Oleander/197/230/22

Carmen Gray organized Drive by Agony, an anti-violence group that started in the 1990's in Los Angeles.  Drive By Agony is a RL non-profit organization, that has helped over 75,000 youth since 1988.  Having offered anti-violence training to over 50,000 LA youth alone, she is fighting for Congressional Legislation to expand anti-violence training nationwide and worldwide, starting in SL.

Carmen Gray decided to bring her passion of educating the public about the affects violence has on communities, the health care system and victims of crime, and also to allow people that have been a victim or lost someone to violence the opportunity to talk about their feelings and share in a safe and friendly atmosphere and share with others that have gone through the same thing.  Many people have lost children in America to gun and other types of violence and this is also a way in which they can honor their child's memory.  I had two innocent son's murdered one in 1988 and another in 1992. Her real life name is Lorna Hawkins and her story has appeared in many media outlets.  She hopes to bring awareness about HR 3826 sponsored by Congressman Robert (Bobby) Scott from Virginia. The Youth Promise Act looks to reduce crime before it happens by investing in research based programs in the United States.  By holding the March for Peace in the Second Life world, she hopes to encourage people to write and call their Representatives in support of this bill.

'Cos I Am Beautiful

How to win friends and influence avatars

by Aloe Stradling

Okay, you're new in SL, and hot to trot. You explored around a bit, mastered the controls, and are ready to find a date. Or maybe just a playmate. You wander from sim to sim, wading through crowds of people, until someone catches your eye. Gasp of shock and awe! He or she is beautiful! Perfect hair, sexy eyes, clad in a hot fashion, just generally gets the juices flowing, and the mind turning to thoughts of.... interaction.

Your approach is friendly and polite, not acting like an overeager horny noob, You tell them how attractive they are, make small talk, and move in for the kill.....only to be shot down. Maybe they're nice about it, maybe they're rude, but, the end result is the same -- rejection. They stroll off, possibly saying something like 'Not into noob look', leaving you hurt and neglected, and wondering what was up. You're smart, witty, friendly, and all around charismatic. You weren't rude or obnoxious, and your pickup lines were flawless. You've been snubbed, all because they had to be a self absorbed egotist! Lousy rotten vain shallow....

But wait! Hold it right there, new SL denizen! There is a double standard at work here. Settle down and think a moment, about why you approached that one in the first place. Yeah. Because they looked just right. Because they stood out in the sea of sameness. Remember. You are a special and unique individual with many shining qualities. You are spectacular, never forget that. But, to that person who was so blind to all your charms - well, you were just another noob in the starter T-shirt and jeans. Before you run off to cut yourself, listen to Linken Park, and write about that horrible person in your blog, stop and think. That person invested some time into looking the way they do. Can you really blame them for expecting the same in turn?

The Fashionista's Guide to IP Anonymizers

Fashionista drama means everyone can take hints from the goons and griefers

by Tenshi Vielle

When one is browsing the web and doing nefarious things, wouldn't you just hate to leave a trail of IP address footprints that will show up if, say, you were dumb enough to post on a website as both your main and your alt account? Most websites instantly log IP addresses, leaving the next best thing to a unique ID with your comments - your IP footprints! Just changing your screen name isn't enough to hide yourself.

Thinks about it. Wouldn't it SUCK to finally have someone be able to identify your alts if you were faking an identity with a screen name? In an effort to reduce the drama in the SL fashion world, here is a protip: if you simply must attack other people with sockpuppets, use an IP Anonymizer. "But Tenshi," you may ask, "How on earth does that work? I can barely work prims!"

Oh, dear, sweet reader. It's really quite simple! IP anonymizers are all about bouncing through a proxy to hide your real IP. Downloadable programs are available to assist you in this process. You might say, "Uh, duh, I can do (insert task here), and have a new IP address." Sure, but not quite - you need to have a really different IP address. If someone was interested in tracking you, the difference between 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2 is only one number. You're still not invisible. IP addresses are assigned by your internet service provider in easily guessed blocks. Even if you can force a change (i.e, restarting your modem) your address is probably similar enough and will resolve to a close enough location via a trace.

Does Autism Speak in SL?

Metaverse is a battleground for Autism Speaks and Autism Speaks Doesn’t Speak For Me groups

by Violet McGinnis

There are two sides to every coin. Granted, you won’t often find the tails side of a coin loudly denouncing the actions of the head side; that’s where the analogy rings untrue, especially in the case of the heated battle between one national organization and it’s greatest detractor in Second Life.

Autism Speaks is an organization that supports research into the causes and treatments of autism, as well as finding a cure for autism. They’ve merged several autism organizations from all over the country and are heading up several projects. Some such projects are the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange, a DNA repository and family registry of genetic information, as well as the Autism Tissue Program, a network of researchers that studies brain tissue donated for autistic research.

Autism Speaks Doesn’t Speak For Me is an organization that believes that autism is not negative and not necessarily a disability. They state:

We know that autism is not a disease, and we oppose any attempts to "cure" someone of an autism spectrum condition, or any attempts to make them 'normal' against their will.

The autism spectrum they refer to ranges from high-functioning autistics (such as those with Asperger’s) to the lowest-functioning types at the other end.

Big Game Hunting in SL

Using elephant guns and rocket powered Hummer H1s to hunt virtual kangaroo

by Bawana Bill and Lady Questi

off-road and 649 meters straight up

Greetings big game hunters! Ever wondered about the game here in SL? Well, Lady Questi and I have put together a series of articles on hunting big game here in SL, where we will be showing you the places to bag the big ones!

First we needed the proper equipment. So over to the Black & White sim we went, where we purchased our elephant guns, back packs and pith helmets. For the lady huntress, boots and bag from Box, hair from Mystikal; some old boots for me from Shiny Things, a safari jacket for both of us from Head - TOE Mens' Wear, and a matching pair of pants I made myself and we were almost ready to go...all we needed was a suitable vehicle for our adventure...something with a classic look, yet able to get us out of (and into) difficult situations.

So over to Domus Cars we went where we purchased a Hummer H1 for $1,500 lindens, which had the ability to fly besides travel on rough terrain. This prepared us for our first game outing....to hunt the dangerous and wiley kangaroos at Sanctuary Bay.

SL Laser Eyes Worth Looking Into

More residents improve vision with heat, X-ray, and lasers

by Siobhan McCallen, metaverse weapons expert

Coherent light leaves Macbeth Shostakovich with a burning sensation

Remember how Superman had that great heat vision, and could just squint a little and turn a bad guy's gun into a puddle of molten steel, or slice Braniac's spaceship into pieces with these long, red beams from his baby-blues? I don't know about you, but that always made me get all quivery inside. I wanted to DO that! I wanted to be able to blast things with my eyes, burn down trees with a hot, seething glance, cut through a steel door with laser-like precision.

Cyclops from the X-Men was pretty good too, but with him it was more of a curse, because he couldn't open his eyes without blasting away. He had to wear special glasses or goggles to keep from cutting apart homes, furniture, cars, and family pets. Still, it would be neat to be able to flip up your fashionable dark glasses and blow away the bad guys, right?

I looked into whether my dream could come true, and sure enough, you can trot down to your local goodie shop and buy yourself some heat vision. It comes in some interesting varieties, some of it hot and burny, some of it with more of a kick in the teeth sort of punch.

For this little endeavor, I needed to enlist some aid. Shooting at targets is all well and good, but sometimes you just need a willing conspirator to let you blow them away. Hence, my friend and all-around Good Sport, Macbeth Shostakovich, who has agreed to be my crash-test dummy for this and other weapon tests. Say hi, Buster!

Red Light Center Exposed -- Part 2: Vanilla

Sex with robots - while keeping your shoes on -- the discrete charm of a Red Light Center VIP account
The Herald explores worlds beyond Second Life

by Jessica Holyoke, virtual world explorer

heading to the space bedroom

Eventually, I discovered what I could about Red Light Center (RLC) as a basic member and it was time to open more doors so to speak. I bought a VIP membership and started exploring the non-kink side of things.

VIP membership costs $20 US per month and it allows for age verification. Not only are you allowed into the adult areas of the RLC grid, you are allowed into the adult areas of everyone’s profiles. On the profiles, you find that people sometimes like showing off their Real Life naked bodies as well as what they’ve done as avatars.

But there was exploring to do. There were a few adult theatres where if you go in and click, you’ll find pornographic movies that will open up in your web browser. If you are concerned about cost and you pay for porn as well, this might be the economic option for you.

Red Light Center Exposed -- Part 1

Free basic account for clothed platonic friendship - VIP accounts for naked pixel-sex
The Herald explores worlds beyond Second Life

by Jessica Holyoke, virtual world explorer

Red Light Center (RLC) is a virtual world that touts itself as a socialized meeting place where you can make friends and even have sex with them. Because some residents would like to see the lascivious go there, because they are not welcome here or There, I decided to check it out.

Accounts come in Basic or VIP. Basic accounts are free to play but you cannot have sex, and therefore, you don’t know what you look like naked. VIP accounts cost $20 US per month and allows for fuller access. I started with a basic account as Jessi_angel.

In opening an account, you have two things to create. One is your avatar. The customization is limited to either what RLC gives you or what you can download onto your PC. Downloaded textures can change your avatar's clothing or tattoos. No one else can see these textures unless they also download those textures into their PC.

One way to get those custom avatar textures is off a person’s web based profile. When you click on a RLC avatar for their profile, the program opens up your web browser and gives you a MySpace like web layout for that resident. This profile is customizable to the same extent as a MySpace page, except you can include pornographic pictures of yourself and others. The age verification comes by having certain pictures viewable only by VIPs or by your friends.

The use of the web browser is frequent as any tips or special rules are opened in an outside web browser and not in the game itself. FAQ’s, as limited as they are, open outside of the game. If more in depth help is needed, one either learns from others or goes onto the RLC forums which are linked to the profile system.

Intellectual Property Party With FlipperPA Peregrine!

Lawyers, content creators spend night together - discussing DMCA takedown notices

by Jessica Holyoke

Firday night party at the Peregrine pay-per-view salon

Friday night, FlipperPA Peregrine hosted an event to discuss in-world intellectual property protection with attorney Extinct Darwin. In real life, Extinct Darwin is Frank Taney from Buchannon, Ingersoll & Rooney - the firm currently providing counsel to metaverse clients such as the Electric Sheep Company and Stroker Serpentine. Second Life content creators showed up including Calico Ingmann, Nyte Caligari and pup Witherspoon.

Mr. Extinct Darwin started by discussing the four types of intellectual property - copyrights, trademarks, patents and trade secrets -- and how they relate to SL. While waiting for resident questions, he talked about how the Digital Copyright Millennium Act (DMCA) works to protect copyright. Extinct discussed how you do not need to formally register a copyright in order to use the DMCA take down procedure.

Nyte Caligari asked why the Lab only takes down content seen on the Grid and not from the inventory of the offending resident. In contrast, if you upload copyrighted material onto MySpace, you are warned that MySpace may delete your account. In Second Life, the offending material is removed from the world, not from the resident’s inventory, so it can be taken back out of your inventory and put back in-world immediately. Extinct agrees with the proposition that the Lindens have not gone into inventory and that he doesn't think that is living up to the requirements of the DMCA. He continues that the Lindens only remove an offending resident after repeated violations of someone else’s copyright.

Expensive SL Classified Ads Ineffective - Save Your Money

Scientific Metamorph Sky Shop experiment shows increased traffic without matching sales

by Michelle Morphett

THE QUESTION:

As the proprietor of the successful Metamorph Sky Shop retail store, I've always been curious about how Second Life's search engine affects my business. Does paying for an expensive classified ad increase teleports from it, and does it increase my in-world shop and SL Exchange sales?

THE METHODOLOGY:

In addition to my regular $L76 Metamorph Sky Shop ad ($.28 US), I placed a duplicate ad for $L1002 ($3.71 US) to run at the same time, from Friday 12/28/07 at 9 pm PST to Friday 1/4/07 at 9 pm PST. This timeframe should be a fairly busy period, since people are still on holiday break but generally back home from visiting family, and have Christmas money in their pockets.

The $L1002 figure was chosen because it places the expensive ad a little above halfway up the first page in a search for "skybox" in the old classifieds search under the "Shopping" category, with "include Mature content" unchecked. Search engine studies have shown that "about 90 percent of searchers looking to shop rarely venture past the first page" (http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/03/66893). The same search brings the cheap ad up on the second page, about 2/3 of the way down. The new search in the "Classifieds" category doesn't show either ad in the first five pages, which is the most results possible currently.

The SL Christmas List

Gifts fit for a queen - or a porn star

by Wendell Holmer

Second Life is brimming with choices. There is so much content, expanding all the time, that no single person can adequately sift through it and pick out the best offerings. We need your help. This month the Herald begins a new feature—The List. We pick a subject and start ticking off examples recommended by people who should know. Then you take over. Use the Comments at the end to complain share the great things you’ve discovered.

In December, we were looking for romantic holiday gifts. We mainly went to merchants and asked them to make choices from their own inventory. Here are some of their picks.

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The Hostess

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Sky's scene

Whenever I go to Sky Everett’s place, I’m bound to meet somebody interesting, and this party was no exception. Sky Designs has a wide range of contemporary and Moroccan influenced furniture—the wood textures are really remarkable—but when I mentioned romance, she grabbed me by the collar and dragged me over to the BDSM section. The SevereReign trompe l’oeil (L1150) accommodates seven women and two men, when you add the optional overseer throne (L495). For a festive touch, Sky placed two candles (L50 each). They let me sit on the throne for the shot—since it’s designed for a man—and I’m wearing RFyre Pretense. Sky, standing, wore Gisacaci. At my feet is fashion writer and photographer Harper Beresford in Solstice by RFyre. Fashion model Shelby Robbiani, reclining, wore the Entwine Gown by Blaze. I suggested that the four of us might try some of the more interesting poses, but the girls pled urgent appointments and disappeared as soon as the shoot was over. Photo: Harper Beresford.