The Winged Girl Blog

Yes, it's all free! Come get it while it's there!

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:52:14 GMT

Well, First Life just keeps getting to be more and more of an attention hog, so in an unexpected and frankly uncharacteristic spate of sanity, I'm going to be selling my store and land (which by the way are very pretty, cheap, and situated on a Linden Road with nearby land available for expansion).

My store is called Kate Tease. (Get it? ;) )

My store hasn't really been my focus for quite some time, so this is maybe even a bit overdue. :) Anyway, in celebration (or something) of selling the store, I've made everything in it free. This includes women's smart remark tops, like "In RL, I'm kissing your girlfriend right now" and "What part of YES don't you understand?"...

Color change fairie glow, wing mask, color change anti-halo, animated Black Angel bullwhip...

And so on. Come help yourself. If you have a store or a venue where you'd like to offer these as freebies, let me know (I may go with just one seller, though, so there is a chance I'll have to say no).

^^^\ Kate /^^^

My secret plan to wear everything

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 02:51:04 GMT

In First Life, I'm a pretty sensible and restrained buyer of clothes. In Second Life...well, not so much. My wardrobe ranges from the conservative (which by Second Life standards means that you can't see the nipples), to the pugnacious, to the downright meretricious, and if you don't know what that means, you're in exactly the same boat I was in before a certain friend of mine drove me to the dictionary.

I don't get to spend nearly as much time as I'd like to in Second Life these days, but when the moist air of this overheated summer...

No, I can't do it. You see, there was a kind of challenge between my friend Lanna and me to use a given list of words in our next posts. I gave her words like "panacea", "absenteeism", and "marshmallow", and she gave me "meretricious" (which is a hilarious word), "pus", "moist", "pugnacious", and "flaccid". Now, I do have meretricious and pugnacious outfits, so I was fine at first, but the rest of the words were bringing the post somewhere that, to be honest, I just didn't want to go, so I'm not going to...oh, wait! I think I did just use them. Mission accomplished! And back to what's really important, which is to say...my wardrobe.

This Hunt Club outfit from Last Call had been quietly hiding in my inventory for a year or two. I got to wear it at a wonderful new live music venue last night, Ka-Leo-Lani, where I mostly listened to Maximillion Kleene, who was terrific.

I really don't know how many outfits I have in my Second Life wardrobe, but my guess is about 300. I know that's not going to break any records, but honestly: that's a lot of outfits! And I bought virtually every one of those outfits specifically because I thought I would enjoy wearing it from time to time, and despite the level of organization I bring to my inventory from my professional life and natural inclination (see my post Who's in charge: you or your inventory?), there are some I've completely forgotten I had, and others I think I know about but don't remember how really elegant or sweet or sassy or interesting they are. So I hit on a plan to, over time, wear everything in my inventory, or close to it. It's a very simple plan, so I thought I'd share it with you. After going on and on for this whole post so far, it's just a single sentence: I created a "Worn recently" folder and move each outfit I wear into it as soon as I change into something else. (Actually, I have a "worn recently" folder in each of two clothing folders, but the idea is the same.) Then, when choosing something to wear, I almost always pick something that's not in the "worn recently" folder, which causes me to wander through my inventory and see what I have, making some wonderful discoveries on the way.

That's it! Clearly posting less often hasn't made the posts I write any deeper or more fascinating, but I hope this strategy will be useful to a few resis out there! :)

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Seeing hidden things in Second Life

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:31:30 GMT

Someone posted a question in a comment on my post from long ago about how to have sex in Second Life (http://kateamdahl.livejournal.com/927.html), and I thought the answer might be handy for some people who read this blog, although others will know all about this!

The question was how to show hidden pose balls in public areas. So: the exact command depends on the particular pose balls, but it's usually something like /1 show . /1 means that you're sending a command on "channel 1", because scripts in Second Life use channels, which can be practically any number, though 1 is very common.

If you want to find out whether there are any hidden pose balls around or not, you can press ctrl-alt-T on a Windows computer or choose Highlight Transparency from the View menu on any computer to see hidden items, which show up in a kind of ghostly red. :) Do the same thing to turn the feature back off...what with particles and hidden attachments and transparent textures and everything, there can be a lot of red on the screen even when there are no secrets!

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Venue owners: interested in some social games?

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:05:57 GMT

If you're an old-timer like me, you might remember The Diversionarium, a venue Eris Fallon and I created oh, about two years ago. It was a different kind of venue, built around games, especially social games. I created five games for it that I've never put up for sale. At a certain point we didn't have the time to keep the Div going, so we had to give it up, and the heirs to it unfortunately had some struggles of their own. That means that the games are only available in one or two places in Second Life (like Grizzy's Cafe). If there are venue owners out there who might like me to give them a game or two to use, please IM me! Here's what they are:

Mystery Build is similar to some building games that resis play at events in Second Life. One player is the builder and the rest are guessers. The builder chooses how hard a challenge they want, and the game gives them something that they have to build. The guessers have a time limit in which to guess what the build is. Then the build is cleared away and a new round can start.

Avisleuth asks a group of avatars a personal question that they can answer creatively. Everyone puts in their answer, and then players try to guess which answer goes with which person. The winner is the one with the most right guesses.

Quoste is a game for everyone to play together as a team. The game gives a clue, and everyone tries to guess what word the clue is refers to. Once the word is guessed, there's another clue and another, all adding up to a quote. The team gets a higher score by guessing the clues quickly and by guessing the quote before it's done.

Limeruckus generates a random first line of a limerick, and then players take turns adding lines until the limerick is done.

The Improvistation offers a bunch of options for different scenes players can act out: it's basically a tool for amateur theater improvisation, and works best if someone's organizing it.

^^^\ Kate Amdahl /^^^

Is Second Life revolutionary?

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:05:32 GMT

On Charlanna's blog (whoops! forgot to link this when I first posted it!), she talked recently about how her expectations for Second Life had kind of dropped a little over time. It's still amazing, I think many of us agree, but it doesn't seem to be turning out to be revolutionary, changing society around us.

So is it revolutionary? Yes! Is it revolutionary right *now*? Probably not.

A lot of us have had very high expectations for virtual worlds, but I think we're expecting them to meet those expectations in just a few years. Honestly, except for better reliability and refinements in building and aesthetics, Second Life as a technology doesn't seem to have changed much in the six years since it started. (That's not to say I don't appreciate all the amazing improvements that have been made within those boundaries!)

I don't think virtual worlds will really start changing society until they're much more advanced. For instance, imagine you could put on a headset and push a button and find yourself in a virtual world with a very realistic and accurate representation of you as an avatar. Then imagine that you could step into an enormous virtual clothing store, narrow down the racks around you by searching terms, and try on any number of things to see how well they really fit you and what they look like. If it were really that easy, that accurate, and that useful, you could get a realistic idea of products anywhere in the world: clothing, houses for sale ... visit locations with a realistic view of what they look like ... visit with a friend who lives a thousand miles away in a projection of her actual living room, seeing each other's actual facial expressions ...

The three real limitations I can think of right now to virtual worlds are realism, ease of use and ease of finding the things you really want. Right now Second Life is hard to get used to, and I think it scares off anyone who isn't good with technology, really committed, or both. When you do get to Second Life, while there are some amazing tools for building and creating, it really isn't like the real world in a lot of ways--think about opening a door, for instance, or dancing, or books. Also, it's very difficult sometimes to find what you want unless all you want is to spend time with friends who happen to be online. Many tools--Web sites, groups, the search feature--help you find things, but if I want to find a pencil skirt or a house with two bedrooms, I might have to search for a long time. That's to say nothing of what happens if I want to find a place where people who like literature are hanging out (unless there happens to be a successful event of that kind right then, and even then I might just want a hangout, not an event), or someone who can teach me how to make virtual clothing.

So I think the success of virtual worlds won't be something we can really measure until these three things--realism, ease of use, and very good searching and filtering of the world itself, including the objects in it--have all the kinks worked out! And the timeline for that, it seems to me these days, will probably be measured in decades.

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Would anyone like to second the motion?

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:03:33 GMT

Video games are not my thing, but my interest was caught by an article about Microsoft because they're doing some pretty interesting motion capture to offer with their X Box game system. It involves (I think) a cloud of little laser points that (seem to) do a very good job of detecting exactly where all of the parts of your body are, and can do other fascinating things, like recognize individual faces. And if it can do all this, then surely it could recognize facial expressions?

I don't for a minute imagine that everyone would start using this technology for moving around and dancing and all that even if it were available, but if *eventually* it could be used for Second Life, maybe we could get much more realistic hugs, easy access to all kinds of facial expressions, and so on! (I won't go into the "so on.") What do you think? Would you have any use for it?

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Cherry-picking in the wing department

Thu, 28 May 2009 23:46:08 GMT

While I've mentioned wings here before that I think are real stand-outs, there are so many gorgeous wings out these days that it hardly seems fair to single out a particular vendor at the expense of others. Still, Cherry Hotaling had passed along two pairs of her Spellbound wings to me quite some time ago, and I've been wearing them so often that it's obvious I need to pass on what I know to you, dear reader, in case you need something new to flutter.

Pictured to the right are her White Fairy Wings.

Cherry has a very modest collection of just three types of wings, two of which are pictured here. All of her wings sell for L$275 and are available at Cherry's Spellbound Animations, her store on Rendervisions Isle (climb the steps into the tree!). The wings will flap automatically, and there are some nice features and adjustments of the kind you would hope for on a good pair of wings, allowing you to adjust the flapping and the flexiness, or hide the wings when you're on the ground, and so on. Here's the menu you get when you click on your wings:

I do like her White Fairy Wings, but my favorites (although my mood for wearing these is rarer) are her Bat Wings, below, which have a beautifully detailed, gauzy texture. The texture is so nice, it feels as though they have substance and thickness.

This picture was taken in the Fallen Providence sim, which I believe is an apocalyptic roleplaying environment-in-progress. The antihalo is from my shop, Kate Tease. Note: there are also free (well, L$1) particle wings there, along with some other freebies.

So there we are. I know it's not an impressive post for having not been posting for so long, but at least now you know I'm still alive and fluttering somewhere. :)

^^^\ Kate /^^^

I guess this is what you'd have to call a hiatus

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:28:59 GMT

Well, I've had every intention of keeping up with Second Life friends and continuing to post here on the Winged Girl blog, but First Life has been trumping Second Life pretty much every waking moment for me lately, so while I might put in an occasional post just to be unpredictable (well, actually just because sometimes I feel an undeniable need to trumpet my opinion on something), for the moment I think we had better consider me to be on hiatus as a blogger, and to be a rare visitor to Second Life. Very nice things are happening in my First Life, though it's disappointing not to have a chance to share that (or other topics of conversation) with my Second Life friends!

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Life or glitches or both

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 20:37:36 GMT

A note! I already got the fixes for two out of three things I complain about below. :)

Yes, I know: what a ridiculous amount of time to go between posts! The holidays began the distractions, and First Life has become even more engrossing. I know it's probably not healthy to spend all my time in First Life to the detriment of my Second Life, but you know how it is...you start playing First Life and you just get caught up in it.

And worse, when I come back to blogging, all I do is complain! Here goes:

Much of the time when I go back into Second Life these days, I seem to have a problem that the textures on me keep reloading and reloading, so I keep going out of focus and looking like a creepy melted waxwork (at least to myself!) - and even when I come back in focus, there are problems, usually a strange line of lightness around my eyes.

The other problem I've been seeing, which I hope is a temporary Second Life glitch that will be fixed soon, is that some clothing textures are repeating and extending in ways they were never meant to repeat or extend! For instance, in this picture I'm not wearing socks or pants, just glitch pants that go with the skirt...yet the glitch pants seem to want to go right down over my toes! It's ridiculous, really. If it weren't a glitch, it would be very handy for making tights that could be worn with just one item or stockings that go a little higher up on the thigh, but as it is, it's just creating havoc with certain outfits, including a few of my briefer things from Armidi. Surely the Lindens That Be will make this right?

By the way, the dress in the picture is a freebie, in fact, from a store with all kinds of cute things in it, Sin & Secret. It has a bit of a BareRose feel to it, though I think BareRose has a level of imagination I've hardly seen anywhere else.

Oh, and as long as I'm complaining, I'll certainly have to see whether there's anything I can do about the not-so-gorgeous quality level of the JPEGs Second Life will now kindly save screen shots to. This picture is a good example...why present pictures of Second Life if they're not clear and unmuddled?

Wish me luck, and the same to you with your glitches, whether they're in First Life or Second.

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Here's an update: First, I had my JPEG quality set to 75 (in the snapshot window), so when I cranked that up, I got the picture below.

Plus, I got this very helpful note (with the sender's name left off for privacy). Joshooah also nailed it, in comments. :)

Kate,

Read your blog about the glitch where pants cover feet, shirt covers hands, etc.

As an SL mentor, I get questions about this fairly often.

It's an nVidia card problem. Although this problem has been reported with other graphic cards, it does not happen as often.

Solution:

Go into Advanced (Ctrl + Alt + D)/ Rendering/Features/Palletized Textures (uncheck palletized textures).

Then, Rebake (Ctrl + Alt + R)

This usually clears up the problem. Hope it works for you, as well.

Have a good day.

My glitch, fixed, with an improved JPEG snapshot. (Those are now tights I'm wearing.)

Virtual Environments: As Seen on TV!

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:24:15 GMT

On New World Notes today, Hamlet Au throws out this challenge: can anyone come up with a convincing reason that immersive virtual environments will replace the web? He said,

"Over the next few years, virtual worlds of all kinds will become an integral part of the Net; I have no doubt about that. User-created, realistic 3D worlds like Second Life will become an important niche platform; I have no doubt about that either. But where's the evidence that they're on track to become even more than that, eventually replacing the web itself? So far as I can tell, there is none."

Well, I don't think that virtual environments will replace the web, any more than the web has replaced books or television has replaced radio. I do think, though, that eventually virtual worlds will become very important in business, entertainment, and daily life - maybe more important than the web. And I can prove it! Sort of. Here I go:

We all know that virtual worlds are very young and rough right now. Second Life, the cream of the virtual world crop, is difficult to learn, confusing, often unrewarding (think of those ghost town malls scattered throughout the world), sometimes glitchy, and limited. But most people seem to agree that over time, virtual worlds will get better: it will be easier to use them, and they'll be able to do more things. When someone can sit down at a computer, put on a helmet, and find themselves in the middle of a good historical recreation of the Battle of the Bulge or a live football game or an acting class, without spending hours upon hours or even days upon days learning the ropes and getting outfitted, then virtual worlds will have arrived, and their benefits will far outweigh their inconveniences. Not that we don't have a long, long way to go!

But virtual worlds won't replace the web. Why? Because some things are just as good - or better! - on a flat screen than in 3-D. For instance, let's say you want to look at pictures of a friend's vacation with your husband or wife. Is there any real advantage to doing that in a virtual world? Not really. If you do it in First Life, you can sit down together in front of a screen - or when electric paper comes along, just sit on your couch with that! - and look at it. The same goes for reading blogs, look up reference information, viewing calendars, composing letters, and anything else that works perfectly well in 2-D.

But some things are definitely better in 3-D! If you want to look at a hotel before you book a room, 3-D is much better. The same if you want to view a sports game or a dance performance, have a virtual meeting, recreate a historical event, socialize with friends, discuss a new design, act, explore...I won't go on. These things are better in 3-D, just like movies, plays, documentaries, painting demonstrations, and those kinds of things are better on televisions than on the radio.

Which leads to the proving part. People don't think of virtual worlds as having any precedent in history, but they do for *this* purpose, and that precedent is television. When television came on, it offered a more immersive form of broadcast sharing than radio. Radio offered just sound, television offered sight and sound. An immersive, virtual broadcast would offer sight and sound too, but in a 3-D environment where you could look around. People will adopt more immersive environments when they're better suited to the task (like telling a story through a movie rather than a radio play) even if they're more expensive (like television) and less convenient (like having to sit down in front of the television rather than move around freely while listening to the radio).

We're not there yet, and I don't know when we'll get there, but sooner or later, the things that virtual environments are good at will start happening more and more on virtual environments. Like radio, books, and other simpler technologies, the web isn't going anywhere, but it's going to decline in importance compared to virtual worlds, just as radio did compared to television.

How'd I do, Hamlet?

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Only short for a short time

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:51:56 GMT

Well, I've tried being "actual size" (which is to say, I tried shrinking my avatar to more closely match my First Life height) and I don't really think there's much in it for me. Here are some reasons for that.

First of all, Dale Innis pointed out that even people who have measured themselves may well not know what size they are! joshooahlove kindly sent me a height detector (thank you, Joshooah!), and although it tried very hard, it told me I was a good bit shorter than I thought I was. Here's the picture:

The detector measured the prim, which wasn't exactly my precise size ...

So the chance of other people being properly scaled to my height is not very good at all, even if more people were to become interested in matching their First Life height.

Second, as I shrunk myself down, things started fitting worse. The one hug I tried at that height worked all right, but there have been other animations that shortchange me even at my usual, taller height. When I was small, my jewelry floated above by skin, and my hair began to look like an ill-fitting wig.

And third, there were some excellent points made in comments to my last size post that convinced me that a "normal size" in Second Life is not the same thing as a "normal size" in First Life. It's not much use trying to recreate First Life exactly in Second Life, not only because Second Life isn't capable of it, but also because a lot of other people in Second Life are going out of their way to make it a place that *isn't* like First Life. But then, I probably fall into that camp, what with the wings and all. :)

One thing I really did like about being shorter, though, was that my body felt more real to me, a little less stretched or skinny. For a long time my Second Life self has felt comfortably proportioned, but in the last month or two for some reason I've been feeling too skinny. I don't mean that I've felt like I needed to add pounds to be more realistic, because I'm pretty slim in First Life too...it's just that I felt stretched out. So when I moved my height slider from 40 back up to 57, I also moved the next slider, "body thickness," from 0 up to 10 (after experimenting with 15 and 20, which looked too blocky and heavy to me). The difference seems barely noticeable in these pictures, below, but it feels nicer somehow. :)

OK, who else is experimenting with their body these days? My friend Eveline made a beautiful transformation from a form she'd had for quite some time (that was also quite pretty). Any chance of a guest post, hon?

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Have Crazy Fun While Providing Toys to Hospitalized Kids...Tonight!

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:51:13 GMT

I've posted other posts where I wax awestruck about the wonderful creations of brother-and-sister team Seven and Jen Shikami, so I won't crush on them in this post, too, except to say: here's something fun to do tonight! Jen and Seven are doing their second annual benefit for Child's Play, a charity that provides toys and games for children's hospitals, in which they give all of their profits during the event--including sales of Jen's beautiful wings and Seven's cunning video game virtualizations, profits from the Insert Coin arcade, and Seven Seas fishing game income (they invented it, you know) to Child's Play - and they're matching the first $500 raised, out of their own pockets. :)

Jen and Seven. Photo by (I think!) Crap Mariner

The event is from 4 to 10 PM Second Life time, and you can participate anywhere on the grid you find Seven Seas fishing, or come to the stores or to the event at Jen and Seven's Flotsam Beach sim. I live nearby, so I hope to stop in and take a walk down the street to participate for a bit, if I can. :) Have fun, and provide some toys, OK?

Thanks to Lanna for the tip... :)

^^^\ Kate /^^^

The Height of Convenience

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 19:41:08 GMT

Hamlet Au posted today about avatar size, featuring a post from Doreen Garrigus's blog "Original Detail". Here's the thing in a nutshell: avatars in Second Life are naturally a little tall. The default shapes are tall, 50% on the slider is quite tall ... but why (Doreen asks) do people stay that size once they eventually realize how unrealistic it is?

Well, I was a little puzzled about this, since I had measured myself before and *thought* I was about 5'7" in Second Life, about to scale with my First Life self. But just to be sure, I logged in and measured myself. To do this, I took off my shoes (5" heels ought not to count in height measurement!), turned off my animation overrider so I would stand up straight (my grandmother would approve), and created a phantom prim exactly as tall as I was: I stood in the middle of it to be sure I was getting it right. I used Google to convert the meters to feet so that I could understand it, since we Americans aren't too clever with those fancy metric measurements everyone else uses.

Kate's estimate of her height: five foot seven
Actual height according to the stretch-a-prim method: six foot three

Six foot three?? I was an Amazon! I immediately checked my sliders and took my height down from 57 to 47, which I thought would at least get me under six feet. It also made me look a little less skinny, which I approved of (lately I've been looking a little stretched to myself).

Me at my new, shorter height. My swingset was already huge, but now I feel like a 5-year-old on it! Still, I'll keep this height for a while and see how it goes. :)

But when I measured, I still wasn't under six feet! I tried again, shrinking to 40, which brought me to 5.99 feet as I calculated it. This was strange! 17 points shorter, but only 3 inches lost? Of course, that's not 17 *percent* shorter, since if that were true, setting the slider to 0 would make you disappear. But...am I doing something wrong? Mismeasuring? And for that matter, did sizes change at some point? I'm really sure I was once 5'7"! But then, maybe I increased my height since then when it got too inconvenient.

Because it is inconvenient to be short. Doreen asks why people don't change their height to something more realistic once they find out how tall they are, but this lack of change doesn't surprise me at all. First of all, how often do we measure our height in Second Life? Not very often. But let's say we all suddenly knew our Second Life heights. Would we prefer to have more realistic ones? Well, not necessarily. After all, there's very little payoff, unless it's important to you to be realistic with your avatar (it isn't so much to me - note the wings!).

But let's say that you knew you were weirdly tall and you really did want to be more realistic: then would you shrink? Well, maybe not: after all, your friends are probably all weirdly tall too, and your clothes are designed for weirdly tall people, and animations, and ... well, it just doesn't sound very appealing. Worse yet, your shape changes. You don't just scale down everything: you get shorter without getting proportionately thinner. For me, this was an advantage: I've been wanting to gain a little virtual weight without looking lumpy. For most people, I think it would be very unappealing indeed.

So, are we doomed to a world ruled by giants? For a while, I think we are. What might change that is if at a certain point, we start "importing" structures and things from First Life. If a handy tool were to come into existence to, for instance, take multiple pictures of First Life structures or objects and recreate them in Second Life to scale, then we'd start looking kind of huge in those builds, and if those kinds of imported things became very popular, we'd have very good reason to shrink.

Then again, some people--men especially--might prefer the added "authority" that height gives...and other people might keep their avatars large to stay in proportion to those height afficianados. Maybe we should just allow gigantic avatars so everyone can get it out of their system. What do you say? Greece, according to myth, was once ruled by a race of Titans, but everyone there is pretty much normal-sized now. Couldn't it happen in Second Life, too?

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Obama Administration Will Have a Virtual Clue

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 20:15:01 GMT

Interesting! I just found out some week-old news about Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor Kevin Werbach, who is co-chairing President Elect Obama's FCC transition team, which makes him a key person to help steer Internet and virtual worlds policy for the future. Mr. Werbach plays World of Warcraft as part of two guilds: one to destroy monsters and win treasure, the other to study virtual worlds. (But Mr. Werbach, if you're studying virtual worlds, come out to Second Life, where the chaos is!)

Here's the GigaOm article: http://gigaom.com/2008/11/18/obamas-fcc-transition-team-co-chair-a-wow-player/

Mr. Werbach (photo by acaben)

I really don't know what, if anything much, this will mean for virtual worlds, but somehow I suspect it's a very good sign...by which I mean this: if Senator Obama is smart enough to draw on the knowledge of someone who (I hope!) understands virtual worlds, then it may be that the United States will be a place where the government has an intelligent and enlightened stance toward virtual worlds that could eventually mean more fair and safe policies for virtual worlds and more opportunities for virtual worlds to help our economy, our culture, our ability to share information, and so on. Right now virtual reality is mostly all fun and potential, but some day it will mean much, much more. Why not start planning for "someday" now?

Since Senator Obama is now president elect rather than just a candidate, and since therefore it's patriotic to support him, does anyone mind if I mention that I sleep better at night, hearing each day what he and his transition team are up to?

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Lively: Not So Much

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:11:30 GMT

You may already know that Google is shutting down Lively at the end of the year. Google blogged about it here, and the Associated Press reported it here, and Vint Falken talks about it here.

So, what went wrong? It's very tempting to judge Google from the point of view of a Second Life resident, but of course most people aren't Second Life resis, so I have to ask myself the question "Is it really fair to judge Lively's doom based on my experience of a much richer virtual world?"

Of course it is! At least in my opinionated little reality, anyway. :)

I tried Lively once, and although I managed to make my avatar and get into a room and move around and talk to people, I didn't really find anything there that would make me want to go back again at all (until today, when I decided to take another screen shot). So I'm really not an expert on Lively, but I can at least say what was different. For me, it comes down to having only a little control over how I look and what I can do, and feeling kind of boxed in. Oh, and the rudeness levels seem much higher, maybe because people feel much less invested in and responsible for the world (see picture).

How do I teleport away from these kinds of people?

I don't know if that boxed in feeling is because it runs in a window on a Web page or because you can only go to rooms and not wander from place to place or because when I move or look I keep getting intrusive little icons popping up all around me, but Lively felt like a place where I was choosing from menus all the time, instead of a place where I could just *be*.

I don't mean that I think Second Life gives us complete freedom. I still don't manage to have a properly-animated hug most of the time in Second Life, even though I must own half a dozen different objects that offer hugging. I can only control my facial expressions in very simple ways. I can't just move my body in any way I want to: I have to have animations for each motion. But at least it feels like in Second Life I can really draw on an endless array of ways to act and move.

The cartoon bubble chat didn't help, either. I had to choose an avatar that was only a little like how I want to look in virtual worlds, and between my cartoony avatar and my cartoony speech, I felt like, well, a cartoon! (I bet you saw that word coming.) I don't want to feel like a cartoon: I want to feel like a person.

Visually interesting? Clever? Sure! But do I want to be in this picture? Not really.
(Image courtesy of Google.)

And of course there's the no sex thing, which together with everything else makes Lively feel like a cheap imitation of There.com, which to me feels like a cheap caricature of Second Life (sorry, There.com, but I have to be honest with you). (This seems important to me even though I've been SLibate since a couple of months ago. Even if I'm not doing anything dirty myself, I don't really want to be told I mayn't.)

It seems to me that it all comes down to whether you just want a 3-D environment or a virtual life. Lively never offered a virtual life, and a 3-D environment is only useful if there's something you want to do there that can be done better in 3-D. Conversation with friends in 3-D in Second Life feels different because it feels like part of a life. Conversation in 3-D in Lively, though, doesn't really add much. The experience is much more meaningful with these subtle differences: having an avatar you've chosen and perhaps worked very hard on, the ability to go sailing together or wander around through an interesting sim or retreat to your home...oh, I'm sure that in some ways, Lively could eventually provide more avatar options, more animation options, and so on, but that wouldn't change the fact that they're basically offering only the ability to pretend you're a cartoon sitting in a little box, and who wants to do that?

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Watch out for that last step...

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:46:26 GMT

I got a chance to stop by a great party last night (Happy Rez Day, fellow two-year-olds!), and when I had to go, reflecting that I was more than three kilometers up into the sky, decided to leave by jumping. To my delight, there were all kinds of wonders between that sky platform and the very, very distant ground! My favorite was here:

One small step for a woman, one giant splatter mark in central Asia!

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Would it help if I closed my eyes?

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:57:50 GMT

Not long ago, I posted an call for pictures of Second Life that would help explain what was wonderful about it to people who don't use it...maybe even to some of the people who tried it and signed off after half of an hour in frustration or boredom or loneliness or annoyance. I thought this would be an easy one, because really, there are any number of reasons to love Second Life, and a lot of what happens there is what we see on our screens.

Well, that's what I *thought*. The more I've tried to find these kinds of pictures, the more I've begun to think that everything we see in front of us is a way to feel involved with what's going on, but that what's really going on has more to do with our communication and our imagination.

That seems silly, in a way, because Second Life comes right out of our imaginations. Why should we need to do any imagining on top of what we see? But we do need to, and not just to pretend our hair isn't poking through our shoulders or that we can hear the voices of people who are only typing to us. Second Life is half technology and half dreaming, because the visuals and a few sounds are only part of being there.

A picture my friend Antaeus sent me of a moment with a friend. I think it's a lovely picture, but what makes it a wonderful picture for Antaeus probably isn't even visible.

For instance, think of going to the ocean. The shining sand, the undulating aquamarine waves, the sun dazzling sparkles off the water, the children running across the sand, the gulls crying, the dune grass...Second Life can show us all of that, and a really well-done beach sim can start making us feel as though we're there. But when I'm *really* at the beach I close my eyes and breathe in the salty, alive smell of the ocean, I feel the wind pressing against my skin, I feel the heat and the heaviness of the sand under the soles of my feet - and when I'm there with someone, there's the sound of their feet making dents in the sand next to mine, maybe the feeling of holding someone's hand, a voice close to my ear ...

A beach photo from a very nice set by Zyntia Poitier

If I took a video camera and panned across the beach, it would take in all those sights and sounds, but when I watched it again, it would only be a fragment of what it was really like to be there, and if I wanted to relive that day, I would have to imagine it all. Just like in Second Life.

Which means that a lot of what we love about Second Life is internal, is in fact very *hard* to show anyone else. If that weren't true, then the pictures we post would draw more and more people to Second Life as they saw what we see in those pictures, felt what we feel. Here would be friendship and here would be laughter and here would be love and here would be the shock and amazement of seeing people shopping in your own store or the delight at seeing a friend transformed in some way.

Sure, there are wonderful pictures of amazing landscapes and builds, but (I don't know about you), those amazing landscapes and builds are just window dressing, like laughing with a friend in a garden instead of while walking down a suburban street. Yes, the garden is prettier, but it's the moment, the time with the other person, that's the real draw.

But I'm still looking for those pictures. I may have to go on a quest, finding those experiences and then trying to find ways to show how they feel. I'm really not a visual artist, so I'm really trying to play in an unfamiliar sandbox. But I think in trying that, I may learn a little more about what - other than the obvious, the people I love - has kept me so interested in having a Second Life for the past two years.

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Call for pictures! Second Life pics that help explain it to non-resis

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:28:55 GMT

Let's say someone you know or love doesn't use Second Life. What images of Second Life could you show them that would help them understand what's wonderful about it? Images of beautiful locations? Shots of you doing some of your favorite things? Friends together? A chart of your store's growth? Something completely different? I'll collect pictures and select some of the best to post here. You can drop your pictures on me in-world, or e-mail a screenshot or image file (JPGs are preferred, but send whatever you've got!) to wingedkate at Gmail dot com. :) I hope to post the first selections within about a week.

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Are you a bot? Find out with this revealing quiz!

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:51:22 GMT

Listless? Lack direction? Having a hard time differentiating yourself from the crowd? Maybe you're a bot! Take this easy quiz and find out.

1. When you "wake up" in Second Life, do you...?
a) Send IMs to your friends, change your outfit, and choose whether to go shopping or dancing for the day
b) Teleport to an isolated area and resume work on your building project
c) Wander around looking for friends who won't betray you like that b*tch Amulenia7
d) Zzzz

2. Would you describe your wardrobe as...?
a) So full, it's likely to collapse in on itself and form a black hole
b) Better than Barbie's
c) Containing a small number of carefully-chosen outfits
d) N00bwear

3. Is your friends list...?
a) Carefully pruned to remove people you haven't heard from in a long time or have turned out to be not worth your time
b) Enormous and full of people you don't remember meeting
c) Too short, but growing
d) What's a friends list?

4. What are your feelings about virtual sex?
a) It would be a shame for this perfect body to go to waste!
b) Only with my First Life girlfriend and my Second Life boyfriend
c) If Philip Linden had meant us to have sex, he would have given us Bits
d) I think some people have had it with me while I was away

5. How would you characterize your relationship to your First Life self?
a) Superman to Clark Kent (or Wonder Woman to Diana Prince)
b) Like a dim reflection of my incredible First Life coolness
c) Pinocchio to Gepetto
d) Salieri to God

Count up the number of times you answered "d", then use this handy key to find out if you're really a bot!

5 "d" answers.......you're a bot, you were always a bot, and you'll always be a bot.

3-4 "d" answers.......you're almost certainly a bot, but try counseling just in case!

1-2 "d" answers.......much more like a real person, but...sorry, you're still a bot.

0 "d" answers.......You're not a bot. Unless you've been programmed to believe you're not a bot, in which case you definitely are a bot. Try not to think about it too much. :)

^^^\ Kate /^^^

No More Reuters: Second Life and Obscurity

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:44:39 GMT

Second Links is a project I launched to make it easy to find the most active and informative blogs and Web sites about Second Life. I review the Second Links news page carefully every so often to see if any of the feeds are out of date. I've been keeping an eye on the Reuters Second Life news site, since it hadn't been updated for weeks, and as of today I deleted it from Second Links, because apparently it's dead. As far as I can tell, Reuters has given up on Second Life.

Tateru Nino reported a few weeks ago that Eric Reuters (Eric Krangel) would no longer be reporting on Second Life for Reuters, but I hadn't realized they were giving up! Yet from the lack of any updates to the Reuters Second Life news feed since then, and with Pixeleen Mistral reporting that Reuters Island has become a ghost build, it seems as though we've fallen off the Reuters radar, at least for now.

Reuters covered Second Life for two years, treating our world as a place where things actually happen and are worth reporting on. Reuters is the one news source that reported regularly on Second Life with some idea of what Second Life really is, but that was not primarily a virtual worlds organization. I always thought Reuters let us claim a little more legitimacy. I guess we'll have to do without that now!

Maybe this means we're settling into obscurity. I mean, for a while there, a year ago or so, it seemed as though First Life was beginning to see Second Life as pertinent to First Life affairs. Since then a lot of attempts to make use of that have quietly failed (I'm thinking especially of the companies who came in, made huge builds, found nothing was happening, and left), and in a lot of ways, nothing new has happened with Second Life, at least nothing newly important to First Life: it's not any easier to get used to, it hasn't offered any new tools from a First Life point of view.

But if First Life is bored with us, I think it's preparing for a surprise down the road. Second Life is like electronic readers: an amazing, futuristic idea that's a little too much trouble for most people to care about just now. Sure, there are hundreds of thousands of Second Life residents, maybe even millions, depending on how you want to measure, just like there are a lot of people who've bought a Kindle, but most people don't know or care much about virtual worlds or about electronic readers. Second Life requires better-than-usual computer hardware, is a bit hard to get used to, and requires people to try to learn a different way to relate with others and the world. Electronic readers are too expensive, don't have all the reading material people want, and aren't any easier to carry around than books. Both of these technologies are too much work or too expensive or too much of a change of habit for their special qualities to shine through - yet! But as Second Life gets easier to jump into - and either it will or some other virtual world, sooner or later, will appear that does what Second Life does and is easy to get used to, too! - and offers more lifelike interaction and more stability, the barriers to enjoying it will shrink, and its advantages - like being able to hang out with friends or meet with associates from all different locations - will begin to shine, just as when electronic readers get smaller and have more reading material and are cheaper, people will start using them, because they *do* have advantages.

Maybe this example will make better sense: when automobiles were first introduced, they were expensive, noisy, frightening and (here's a similarity to Second Life, at least sometimes!) unreliable. People who drove them were freaky eccentrics. "Normal" people would yell "Get a horse!" when someone drove by in a car. But cars got more reliable, more affordable, and much, much, much more common. So with virtual worlds, even though I have to admit, it's handier for me to be able to drive to New York City in less than a day than it is for me to be able to have virtual meetings.

So the only question in my mind is, how long will this process of becoming more useful than offputting take for virtual worlds? A year or two? A decade? A few decades? Some day virtual worlds will be an essential part of the electronic environment, but it may be a long wait.

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Self-indulgent pictures 1: Violet faerie in Chakryn Forest

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 15:40:39 GMT

I hope you'll forgive a post that's little more than pictures of me, but Violaine Villota's wings got me thinking about faerie skins, which got me trying on some lovely ones I have from Faerie Hax (faerie_h), which reminded me that I have a beautiful Faerie outfit I never get to wear from Chaospire, which reminded me of my leaf jewelry...well, in the end I had a very different faerie look from the one I've used before (you can see my accustomed faerie-self in the thumbnail), and I couldn't help darting off to Bettina Tizzy's Chakryn Forest and getting a few pictures. Self-indulgent? Well, yes. But I also get to show off some beautiful work by people like Bettina and Farie and Violaine, so that's a good excuse, isn't it? (Oh, just *pretend* it is, OK?)

Here's a later edit: Despite the relative dates, honestly: I wasn't trying to copy Lanna's outfit in this lovely picture...I've had my Chaospire outfit for almost two years! Well, at least we didn't show up wearing it at the same time. ;)

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Gorgeous Textures and First Life Crossover: Fancy Fairy Wings

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 23:55:36 GMT

Let's assume you already know about my obsession with wings in Second Life and jump right to the question of why, when there are wingmakers like Material Squirrel and Jen Shikami of Seven's Selections and Seraphina Pinion, along with some other innovative wing options like Coadey Concord's Aurora particle wings, there would be any need to get excited about new wings of any description. What is there about Violaine Villota's wings from her shop Fancy Fairy that would make her store an important stop for wing-lovers?

In a word, it's the textures. Her wings do have some nice features, and I'll mention them, but it's the lovely textures that enchant me so much.

Aphrodite wings in the 'seafoam' color scheme

Violaine has a very specific audience: fairies. Her store, Fancy Fairy, offers clothing and wings for women in fairy styles, and in designing her fairy wings, Violaine shows a delicate and artistic sense of color.

I've already seen quite a number of beautiful fairy wings, like Jen Shimami's Dragonfly and Ragged Fairy wings (staples in my wing wardrobe), and the delicate Flux and Faylinn styles from Material Squirrel. Violaine's stand out even in this lovely crowd, however: she frankly has more detailed painting and a much greater use of subtle coloration in her wings than I've seen anywhere.

Lilt wings in the 'harvest' color scheme

Like virtually all good wings these days, Violaine's are scripted to offer a slow, fluttering movement when you want it--they offer two variations of flutter plus one called flap. They also can be opened, raised, lowered, closed, put in resting position, or made rigid. You can control glow or recolor the wings by clicking, although the coloration menu is a little awkward, and recoloring wings that have been designed with a particular pallette doesn't always lead to the result you might expect.

lowered

Animations are controlled through chat (for instance, by saying /7 flutter), and may need to be re-animated after teleporting.

In the packs I looked at, the wings came in five sizes, from extra-small to extra-large, with an additional set of non-scripted, flexi wings in the small size. Most of her wing styles seem to be double wings, that is, two on each side.

Large Aphrodite wings

The other remarkable thing about these wings, even though it isn't specifically a selling feature for Second Life, is that Violaine (or Angela Jarman, as we should call her here) also makes fairy wings and costumes for First Life, and her First Life wings are just as beautifully-textured and colored as her Second Life ones. Just look! Angela is the only person I know who sells the same kind of product in both Second Life and First Life, and does a lovely job of it in both.

Angela Jarman, wearing a pair of her own wings

I have absolutely no excuse for dressing up like a fairy and wearing wings like that in First Life, but when I see Angela doing it so beautifully I think, is it time to be jealous yet? Yes, I think it is.

Her fairy costumes, which make clever use of sculpties, colors and patterns and come with matching wings, are lovely as well.

Queen Bee

Olde World Faery

Her store (there are six locations; here's a link to the main one) offers a few lovely freebies, including a pair of free wings. Wings and outfits that include wings go for L$200 and up; generally the prices are quite reasonable.

Angela has a Ning group called the Fairy Society, a flickr group, and a blog as well. Her First Life wing shop is at www.fancyfairy.com.

^^^\ Kate /^^^

The "Who's Really a Boy?" Game

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:08:01 GMT

I admit, I sometimes play the "Who's Really a Boy?" guessing game. That's a bad name for it: I should really probably call it the "Whose First Life Self Is a Man?" game, but that doesn't have the same sparkle. :)

Do you play? I suspect most people do at one time or another. One thing that Second Life has demonstrated to the world is that there are a surprising number of males who for one reason or another will walk around in female guise if it's easy and anonymous - which in Second Life, it is.

It's tempting for me to think that I understand gender differences so well that I can pick up on the subtlest cues and tell for certain the First Life gender of any Second Life resi. Maybe it's tempting for you, too. After all, identifying physical gender is a real knee-jerk reaction for humans. What's usually the first question we ask about a baby when it's born? What's the main way stores categorize adult clothing? If we're looking for a date, what's most people's most basic requirement? We're driven to sort people into genders. I guess it's natural for us, then, knowing that people have First Life genders as well as Second Life genders, to try to figure out if those two lives match, in the same way we would automatically separate our dessert from our mashed potatoes on a dinner plate.

Cowgirl Barbie in pink plaid outfit: First Life man candy?

There are two main problems with the game, though. First, if someone wants to have a Second Life identity with a different age or gender or skin color or personality than their First Life identity, isn't it unkind to try to interfere with that, even mentally? And second, there's hardly any way to tell for sure based solely on what a person says or how they present themselves virtually.

Let me repeat that for emphasis, because I think it's easy to imagine that we've figured out someone's First Life gender for sure based on what they say: there's no way to tell for sure.

Sure, when I play the game, certain things tip me off and tend to make me mentally mark someone down in the "First Life boy" or "First Life girl" column. For instance, very girly avatars usually go down in my "First Life boy" column on the guess that they're overcompensating, using a cartoon version of femininity because they don't understand actual femininity. Second Life women who never wear pants, for instance, or who have names like Bambi, tend to go in my boy column. But really there are girls who are excessively girly in both lives, so that's not truly a way to know.

Another thing that tends to make me guess "First Life boy" is an obsession with typically boy things, like Lingerie Model-Style Virtual Lesbianism, or weapons. But there are women in First Life who like extremely feminine female lovers, and there are women in First Life who like weapons. And sometimes women do things that fit male "sexy woman" stereotypes specifically because males latch onto them. If you can get men to salivate over you by being Lara Croft, there are women who will take that route.

A Second Life Lara Croft outfit...picture by DJ Ket-Su

So yes, I have my mental lists of First Life genders, but when I'm thinking clearly I also realize that my lists might be completely wrong. Actually, every once in a while someone offers me specific information about themselves that makes it clear I have them in the wrong column. And I like to think I'm unusually clever with gender issues. I suppose the reality checks help build character!

Have you run across "Every Woman Knows" tests, those quick interrogations that some people suppose will reveal First Life gender? It turns out they're not very useful, but here's what I mean: in the general population, there are certain questions that very few males could answer in detail and virtually any adult female could, like "Describe your last pap smear" or "What kinds of feminine hygeine products do you use, and when?"

If someone's being given one of these tests and they really want to prove they're a woman, they might answer questions like that, but other people might be insulted and not answer, which of course would "prove" they don't know and are therefore "really a man"...or they might have to run off and take care of a baby who just woke up, then answer when they get back, making the asker think they were using the web to get their information and are therefore "really a man". Or they might answer correctly off the bat even if they're male, because they're observant or have done some research. These kinds of questions are just plain rude, since the only reason to ask them would be because the asker thinks they have a right to know someone's First Life gender and won't believe the answer to a direct question.

I probably don't even need to point out that voice (unless used a lot) and especially pictures are no proof of gender. Any male with a willing female friend can "have a female voice," and any male at all can get his hands on a picture of a woman.

I'm not even tackling the question of First Life women who have Second Life male avatars. They're rarer, and I bet they almost always go unnoticed because so few people expect that kind of a switch...and even fewer seem to care! What's interesting to me about having a cross-gender avatar is that even though the male gender has a number of explicit, obvious advantages, like higher average wages for the same job, a laxer standard for appearance, and a greater likelihood of being taken seriously, apparently there are a lot more men who feel they're missing out by not being female than the other way around.

There are advantages to being female, of course! Though some of them are subtle. But men seem to specifically pick up on the advantages of being female and "attractive," because there don't seem to be nearly as many men who are interested in being female when they don't get to match whatever their standard is for physical beauty. This seems to be true even though the greatest advantages (I think) of being female - not being looked down on for sharing emotions, having closer social bonds, and being "allowed" to express friendship and love more freely - have nothing to do with how cute we are.

In the men's defense, though, not very many First Life women seem to be interested in being unattractive by their standards in Second Life, either.

In the end, whether we're talking about males or females in First Life or Second, whether we're talking about people who are the same gender in both lives or not, since there are very few ways to really know for certain that someone is one particular gender, and because there's so much to be gained from a society where people are able to be who they want to be, ultimately I think the "Who's Really a Boy" game can cause a lot more harm than good. But it's too automatic a response to ever imagine that people won't play it. The game can make many people who maintain privacy about their First Life nervous about having to prove their gender identity, leading to more conformity and fear and secrecy.

But it also opens up a special avenue for trust and kindness, because anyone who proves that they're more interested in a person's heart and mind than the contents of their First Life underthings can prove their willingness to offer friendship and support in a way that isn't available in First Life. "I like you and I'm comfortable for you to be whoever you want to be" is a powerful message in any world.

^^^\ Kate /^^^

On Merging Lives: Telling Someone in First Life about My Second Life

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:54:16 GMT

There are a few people in First Life who know I have a Second Life, but none I've talked to about the personal side of my Second Life any time lately. I talk about my First Life in anonymous terms with Second Life friends sometimes, but I certainly haven't been talking about my Second Life trysts and romances, obsessions and interests, with anyone in First Life. All that may change soon, possibly. Maybe soon I'll find myself talking about my Second Life in detail with someone. I can only imagine it will be a wonderful relief not to be so private with all that information, so you can imagine this is someone I trust deeply, or else the result of a court order. ;)

By the way, I'm not going to be revealing anyone *else's* secrets: just mine. I wouldn't want or feel entitled to reveal anyone else's secrets. Look what happened to Peter Pettigrew!

So how does a person prepare to reveal a secret life? I'm glad to say I don't have the big problem many people doing this would have, of having to explain about cheating on someone. I would guess that would be the hardest part...but the rest of it is hard enough! I mean, I've lived my Second Life accountable to only myself, and haven't worried about how things I would do might look. Even though I've withheld details of my Second Life romances in public arenas (although I know that must be an annoying habit to some readers!), I've felt very free to be sexual and romantic and daring in Second Life...and now, possibly, I might be telling someone about that. And that person may ask for details that I may have to blush a bit as I give.

I'm not cleaning anything up, not deleting pictures I have or clearing out my e-mail or vanishing my blog. I'm not leaving Second Life either, although recently I've become SLibate. No, actually I intend for Second Life to be part of my First Life for quite some time, possibly forever in one form or another, so it seemed to me important to bring the two lives together a bit. Even if I were to leave Second Life forever today, I think it would be important to be able to tell someone, sooner or later. Otherwise it would always be something I had to hide, always a secret. I like to think that for some people at least, there must come a time when all secrets can be revealed, a person to whom they can be a told. A truly intimate First Life relationship would kind of require that, wouldn't it?

On some level, I've always intended to share, to arrive someday in a relationship that was that close. I know that not everyone wants or needs that kind of relationship, that there are different kinds of love and different kinds of partnerships, but I've always been a fan of the deep ones.

I'm going to take it in easy steps. The poor potential recipient of all this information isn't familiar with Second Life, so before I dive into telling the intimate details of my Second Life, I need to introduce that person to Second Life and help them see why it has always to me been something human and open and meaningful instead of something cheap and geeky and false. I think it's funny that I can't point them to my own post on that topic, since of course that post is part of this blog, and this blog has kind of a lot of personal information about me in it, and that person would probably recognize me as me.

So, first I'll need to introduce Second Life itself. Then I'll introduce my present Second Life situation, explain about my friends and projects. And finally I'll share my blog and my history. All of this is a lot to deal with! So I need to be considerate to the revealee, not to impose too much on them at once. Even though inevitably anyone I reveal it to should be fascinated and hugely impressed, of course. ;)

Has anyone gone through this before? I'd love to know your experiences. Seen any good blog posts on the subject?

^^^\ Kate /^^^

A ridiculous Meetaverse error, now fixed

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:51:32 GMT

To my wonderful preview users of Meetaverse, thank you so much for all your feedback so far! I'm working hard on some of the issues you've told us about, have Lucas working on others, and have fixed others.

The most ridiculously awful problem to date is that "full member" status wasn't automatically getting turned on for anyone, so nobody was able to send anyone else a message! That has been fixed, so now you can actually *use* Meetaverse! Sorry about that. This is why I'm so grateful you're helping me find the kinks so that when it's opened to the world, all of these things will be sorted out.

There's also currently a nuisance problem with loading profiles where sometimes they don't come up, but all you have to do is reload one or a few times and up they come...of course that's a top priority one.

Hope you're having fun! Just e-mail Meetaverse help if you find anything, or get in touch whatever way is most handy. :)

^^^\ Kate /^^^