The day is today, im in naughty isles in Second Life. The time is noon local time. And i snap. Im in an open sim where building rights is available publicly. I get my attack bar, i get my carry away weapon and i launch in on both Dawidd Reinard and Denyell Reinard (the two bots) And SLAM! Bang whollop. Im banned from the sim, and not only that sim. Ohh no! It turns out the owner is so into giving his hard earned lindens to bots that he tells the whole sploder group intentionally try to sabotage my account status. 

By this time im outraged, im furious, i report both bots to the linden labs via Help > Report abuse > Other and explain their using alt accounts (Which is against TOS as their sold at a one off fee of $9.95USD after your free one) Several hours after making the complaint, no action taken. I still see the avatars in question. Even as i type this i see them both in the Xploder im in. The injustice that Linden Labs prefers bots is unbelieveable! Surely something should be done to take these things off of Second Life. 

And as for the other sims im now banned from. Well, i guess thats upto them. But if they feel jumping the gun into banning someone from hear say is the right approach to things; then there sadly mistaken. 

Watch out for part 2 when i go undercover and take an in depth look at the scams the 'noobies' of second life face when it comes to camping chairs and small 'coinage' earnings. 

KrazyKizza, reporting for CNN iReport news. 

P.s. I just won 29L$ XD - KrazyKizza 29 - Bots - 4

SL Photography is a whole industry in itself in Second Life, with thousands of residents having Flickr streams and Koinup accounts, and businesses in world which make their trade from the viewer's snapshot function.

But how ethically are these businesses behaving? When you take a photograph for financial gain, are you not making a direct profit from other people's creations in that picture? For example, you're doing a modelling shoot for a client who wants a series of pictures done for a portfolio. You quote a price to them, but will any of that money go to the designer of the skin/eyes/hair/accessories/clothes/shoes?

If you take a nice scenic shot of a beautiful sim, and then frame it and put it up for sale in a gallery, shouldn't the owner/builder of the sim get a cut? Should you not at least ask permission to use the land for a commercial artwork?

Lets look at this from a legal point of view according to US Law. If a photographer creates photographs in their own interest, in their own time with their own equipment from public land (or private land where they have the required permission), the resulting photographs are clearly morally and ethically the photographers property.

So it's okay to take pics and sell them on?

Not quite.. we need to bring "copyright" into this. In the past, you had to specifically state a copyright. However, since 1989, almost everything created originally and privately is subject to copyright by default, regardless of notice. Additionally, it doesn't matter if you charge for it or not - by giving it away for free, you're still attaching a value to the work, albeit a null one.

The section of copyright that concerns us is that the copyright owner has exclusive rights to reproduce their content, and photographing this content is considered a reproduction.

Read the rest of the entry here..

SL Photography is a whole industry in itself in Second Life, with thousands of residents having Flickr streams and Koinup accounts, and businesses in world which make their trade from the viewer's snapshot function.

But how ethically are these businesses behaving? When you take a photograph for financial gain, are you not making a direct profit from other people's creations in that picture? For example, you're doing a modelling shoot for a client who wants a series of pictures done for a portfolio. You quote a price to them, but will any of that money go to the designer of the skin/eyes/hair/accessories/clothes/shoes?

If you take a nice scenic shot of a beautiful sim, and then frame it and put it up for sale in a gallery, shouldn't the owner/builder of the sim get a cut? Should you not at least ask permission to use the land for a commercial artwork?

Lets look at this from a legal point of view according to US Law. If a photographer creates photographs in their own interest, in their own time with their own equipment from public land (or private land where they have the required permission), the resulting photographs are clearly morally and ethically the photographers property.

So it's okay to take pics and sell them on?

Not quite.. we need to bring "copyright" into this. In the past, you had to specifically state a copyright. However, since 1989, almost everything created originally and privately is subject to copyright by default, regardless of notice. Additionally, it doesn't matter if you charge for it or not - by giving it away for free, you're still attaching a value to the work, albeit a null one.

The section of copyright that concerns us is that the copyright owner has exclusive rights to reproduce their content, and photographing this content is considered a reproduction.

But don't assume the copyright owner is the content creator.. that needs checking out too. A lot of people think that all content in Second Life is owned by the creators of the platform - Linden Labs. However, the Terms of Conditions state:

3.2 You retain copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to Content you create in Second Life, to the extent that you have such rights under applicable law. However, you must make certain representations and warranties, and provide certain license rights, forbearances and indemnification, to Linden Lab and to other users of Second Life.

Hmmm.. that's rather vague. Lets read on:

Notwithstanding the foregoing, you understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the service, you automatically grant (and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant) to Linden Lab: (a) a royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to (i) use, reproduce and distribute your Content within the Service as permitted by you through your interactions on the Service.

Okay, so apparently Linden Labs are allowed to reproduce our content and use it however they wish. So if you work for Linden Labs, you're allowed to take pics and sell them on. But what about the rest of us?

(ii) use and reproduce (and to authorize third parties to use and reproduce) any of your Content in any or all media for marketing and/or promotional purposes in connection with the Service, provided that in the event that your Content appears publicly in material under the control of Linden Lab, and you provide written notice to Linden Lab of your desire to discontinue the distribution of such Content in such material (with sufficient specificity to allow Linden Lab, in its sole discretion, to identify the relevant Content and materials), Linden Lab will make commercially reasonable efforts to cease its distribution of such Content following the receipt of such notice, although Linden Lab cannot provide any assurances regarding materials produced or distributed prior to the receipt of such notice.

Okay - the term "third parties" is pretty vague again, but it could be argued that that includes other SL residents. So while other SL residents have the right to sell photography which may feature the works of content creators, it's within the copyright holder's power to notify Linden Labs to stop the works being distributed.

You also understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the Service, you automatically grant (or you warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted) to Linden Lab and to all other users of the Service a non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up, transferable, irrevocable, royalty-free and perpetual License, under any and all patent rights you may have or obtain with respect to your Content, to use your Content for all purposes within the Service.

By about this stage, my head exploded and there are huge red stains across my bedroom wall. This paragraph seems to undermine everything we thought was protecting the copyright holder's content, by opening it up to a royalty-free license to all other users of the "Service". That basically means that SL residents can take photographs of creator's works and sell them within Second Life, without the need to pay royalties.

However, automatically granting a user permission to use the copyright holder's content does not mean that it can't be withdrawn.

4.3 You will comply with the processes of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act regarding copyright infringement claims covered under such Act.

I'm pretty familiar with the DMCA, so I pulled this paragraph out of it:

Section 1201 divides technological measures into two categories: measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work and measures that prevent unauthorized copying (“Copying” is used in this context as a short-hand for the exercise of any of the exclusive rights of an author under section 106 of the Copyright Act.

Consequently, a technological measure that prevents unauthorized distribution or public performance of a work would fall in this second category.) of a copyrighted work. Making or selling devices or services that are used to circumvent either category of technological measure is prohibited in certain circumstances, described below. As to the act of circumvention in itself, the provision prohibits circumventing the first category of technological measures, but not the second.

That's right - the content creator can file a DMCA and give Linden Labs notification to take down the infringing work, which would be the photographs up for sale. I'd imagine it would be a lot more difficult for a content creator to file a DMCA against a user who does photography for a model's portfolio, or something which is not sold as an object in world, or stored in inventory.

So there you have it - unless a content creator specifically files a DMCA to take down infringing content, you are fully within your rights as an SL photographer to sell your works in world without having to pay any royalties.

Disclaimer: This article is the author's personal interpretation and should not be taken as a legal clarification. The author is not a qualified attorney and will not be held liable for statements made in this article. The article is simply a personal interpretation. This article is not endorsed by Linden Labs, and has no legal value or significance. Basically, if you get sued, don't bother trying to blame me.

References and Interesting reading on this topic:

10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained

The Law For Photographers

Second Life Terms of Conditions

Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Yet, I realize, more and more, that I'm just a simple avie in the lower planes of SL, far far away from the higher spheres of influence, where the Linden 'gods' dwell, or even below the allmighty landowners that have more free prims to use in their little toe then me in all my glorious flat and certainly away from the creative and amazing content creators that permeate this brave second world. Gladly, though, I've raised above the lower place of existence too :D So, I'm happy, frankly. I've got my space, my liberty and some obligations I take with pride, friends and fancy clothes... and I feel that I don't need to worry about major political problems... yet I wonder...

Since early on from my time on SL i've come to realize there's something wrong... or at least people keep saying that. I'm talking about people that dwell deep in the higher spheres of SL. But i never got what it is. I've even participate in one rally or two protesting against... something about content protection. It seemed important to me even though I didn't realized why the big issue was arrising from. Now I hear about landowners trowing the towel to the carpet, content creators giving up their venues, and there seems to be some general mistrust about the future in SL from the people that make the core of it.

Yet, where I normally go, all seems well. The sun keeps shining, the shops still open, the sims still around. Sure, it's an organic thing: New sims are created everyday, and great old sims close... new clubs open and fail and old mythic names also wither. But so it happens in RL as well (ok, no new lands are created but you get the point).

So I wonder, if any of you can explain to me. What's happening in the upper realms of SL that I, mere virtual mortal, can't perceive the enormous battles being fought up there?

In other note, I wonder if its not the same ol' problem... people just not getting along with each other...

Second Life needs to fix its' First Life - Will the new Linden Leader make it so .... APLINK

On Tuesday the company introduced Lively, an online tool that allows people to embody a cartoonish online avatar and have text-based conversations with friends and other Internet users in virtual chat rooms. The rooms can be added to any blog or Web site.

Google unveiled the new product in a post on its official blog - its characteristically understated way of introducing new features to the world. It can be reached at www.lively.com, but it is officially part of Google Labs, an area of the company's site where it showcases projects that remain in the beta, or experimental, phase.

Lively and similar products from other companies have the potential to change the way people interact over the Web. Online chat rooms are two-dimensional - they include text, and sometimes voice and video.

Lively tries to make that conversation three-dimensional, more interactive and more fun. As if they were playing a game, users choose from a selection of unrealistically handsome or Disneyesque avatars.

They can also create their own chat rooms, which can be posted to a blog or social network profile as easily as a YouTube video.

Up to 20 people can occupy a room and chat with one another. (Text appears as cartoon-style bubbles atop the avatars.) Users can design their own virtual environments, hanging on the walls videos from YouTube and photos from Picasa, Google's photo service, as if they were pieces of art.

Inside Google, the product was headed by Niniane Wang, an engineering manager. Students at the University of Arizona have been testing Lively for several months.

Wang wrote in the blog post that she developed Lively as a "20 percent project," referring to Google's philosophy that employees should spend one day a week working on projects outside of their day-to-day responsibilities.

Her spare time could cause some problems for companies with similar ideas. Second Life, the virtual world run by Linden Labs of San Francisco, is known for its much larger virtual world, where hundreds of thousands of users can enter at the same time. But it is accessible through a separate program, not a Web browser. (Lively, which works only on Windows computers for now, requires the downloading of a bit of add-on software.)

Mark Kingdon, chief executive of Linden Labs, said Second Life's value was not just in 3-D chat but also in more elaborate environments where people can work, play, teach, and buy and sell virtual products.

"Users are highly motivated to create and transact in Second Life to the tune of almost a million dollars a day in user-to-user transactions," Kingdon said.

Vivaty, a virtual-world start-up in Menlo Park, California, backed by the blue-chip venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, opened its virtual doors on Tuesday. Vivaty's product is a similar 3-D chat room that runs on Facebook and through AOL Instant Messenger.

In one version now available on Facebook, users can create a virtual dorm room and decorate it with furniture from Target.

Keith McCurdy, Vivaty's chief executive and a former executive at the game giant Electronic Arts, said Google's entry was a validation of the concept. He said that Vivaty could get more traction by putting its virtual worlds on every Web site - even those controlled by Google's rivals.

"We are not beholden to any one camp or approach," McCurdy said. "We are trying to create an open system where lots of people have branded virtual scenes."

Google's success is not assured, of course. Other test products it has introduced have languished, like Product Search, originally known as Froogle

W Lively użytkownik zakłada swój awatar, decyduje o jego wyglądzie i finalnym efekcie. Chociaż w odróżnieniu od świata stworzonego przez Linden Labs jesteśmy zmuszeni m.in. do korzystania z elementów garderoby stworzonej przez Google, nie ma jeszcze możliwości kreowania świata przez zewnętrznych deweloperów. Użytkownicy tworzą także własne pokoje (lokalizacje, małe światy), do których mogą zapraszać znajomych. Do dyspozycji jest kilka przykładowych pokoi, gotowe projekty mają pokazać, jak mogą one wyglądać. Można je skopiować lub stworzyć swój własny pokój od podstaw, samemu dobierając meble i dekoracje.

W Lively nie ma wirtualnych pieniędzy jak w Second Life. W świecie Google nikt nie pracuje i tym samym nie zarabia. Obsługa gry jest bardzo prosta, w zasadzie wszystko opiera się na sprawdzonej zasadzie "przenieś i upuść". Rozmowę między avatarami umożliwia komunikator Google Talk. Obecnie świat Lively jest dostępny dla użytkowników systemu Windows.

Źródło & Obrazki: PC Format, Autor: Paweł Bijata

Just Listened Again - Sack the narrator, script writer, creative head .... doesn't anyone at IBM or Linden Realise how it belittles the achievement  - itsReal

http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/4257228/The_Abyss_Scorpion_Skin__TGA_for_Second_Life_Game.4257228.TPB.torrent

it is real Texture from TheAbyss Store , packed includ TGA and DEMO Textures ..

Enjoy

~ WOOFTAILS ROMANTIC RESORT & GARDENS ~ 

Here you will find a nice fun and friendly PG and Mature atomsphere with lots of dancing, relaxing, swimming, dining, or whatever you like. 

WOOFTAILS ROMANTIC RESORT & GARDENS 
consists of: 

WoofTails Gazebo & Main Resort
WoofTails Fun In the Sun Beach
WoofTails Outside Dining & Dancing
WoofTails Wedding Chapel & Waterfalls 

Over 16,000 sq m of fun! 

We ask that you kindly show us your appreciattion by donating to our donation box if you like our place to keep it up and running. There are numerous Donation boxes around the resort. We are also a PET FRIENDLY PLACE! 

Enjoy your time while staying with us. If there is anything WoofTails can do to accomodate your needs please let us now. 

wOOf...wOOf... 

WoofTails does not tolerate violence, guns, discrimination, and rudeness.

TO VISIT OUR SECOND LIFE BLOG CALLED "WOOFTAILS ROMANTIC RESORT & GARDENS
GO to http://wooftailsresort.wordpress.com 

1. Large unique product designers complain of a massive slowdown in sales,

2. land parcel sales are stale stale stale,

3. and the general resident's outlook is pessimistic to say the least.

In RL we are already amidst a massive slowdown regardless the views from some circles that things are 'looking up' - I tend to ignore those comments since they almost always come from either a salesperson trying to protect their fading markets, or a 7 figure salary earner who has no idea what it is to not have money in the bank these days.

In SL we have similar problems and they are worsened by some stupid decisions by Linden Labs.  The three most glaring are:

1. The huge drop in island pricing (wont even go into that in detail!),

2. The introduction of too many new mainland parcels dumped onto SL's land store,

3. and the resistance to take strong action against residents who rip off other designers products and resell them for their own gain.

Before I chat about land, as an open source supporter, I tend to talk about releasing things into the wild when done, but I have to say I have turned a bit on my views on IPR whilst living in SL.  The main reason for this is the blatant abuse of such an approach by some residents who will do anything for Lindens, leaving designers of unique products in the lurch by ripping off their hard work (illegal in terms of the SL ToS) and then selling these on to unsuspecting residents.  The whole point of the ToS clauses covering copyright and IP is to ensure this cannot happen, but time and again I read about designers or hear from designers how they have again been failed by Linden Labs when they report a blatant abuse and do not receive a response.  This MUST stop as it is killing off the creative spirit within SL fast and leaving people disillusioned about the whole concept of creative license protection.

Now land, wow, what a statement the other day from Linden Labs. The old saying of Second Life being for the residents by the residents really got an old kick to the head by the statement that Linden Labs like to control the land pricing to ensure it remains reasonable, and have in fact got themselves a nice tool to show the average pricing per sq meter on a daily basis.  Though this seems quite acceptable to the general residents out there, lets look at this closely.  What this means is that once the pricing rises above L$6 per sq meter on average for too long, the Lindens close in and dump land en masse on the Land Store to help that price drop through the floor limit of L$6 per sq meter again.  However this action does not do that at all, it in fact does the opposite as land pricing on the mainland during auctions go completely kookoo!  And Land barons almost always close in with land bots and seize any parcel available for close to that price per sq meter, to resell again at a much higher price.  The Lindens are happy in both cases, they get a good return on the auction, and they think that the initial low price sale (if any) was a good deal to a resident.  I say all that did is enable those with money to spend on the more desirable parcels on auction and land barons through a land bot got the good deal in-world, whilst the general resident got nothing!

The worse contributor to the land price fall is almost exclusively the massive drop in island pricing, firstly hitting the private owners core (not the Lindens as they only do Mainland) with a loss of 40% in land value overnight, and the availability of Open Space or Void regions to residents to own.  This unbelievably short sighted drop in land value is the largest contributor along with stolen product designs, and these two factors will see the recession bite hard into the Second Life economy in my opinion.

As far as island ownership goes, having bought all my islands other than two Open Space or void regions at the old US$1675 per region price, I can tell you its hard work remaining positive. It seems that at Linden Labs they have forgotten just how hard a private island owner must work to draw residents away from the HUGE mainland where 95% of residents land after orientation as newbies, and then to keep them coming back to your island when you do succeed at the first.  Sq meter pricing does NOT act as a good measure for this at all and I would recommend someone at Linden Labs start to 'own' their own private island with the same rights and facilities as the average island owner has, to experience just how frustrating it is to survive.  Drop into this equation the fact that multi billion $ corporations can now buy land anywhere at the same rate as the average salaried individual who does so out of his or her own pocket, and the entire thing turns on its head!  What makes this even worse is the perceived actions on the part of Linden Labs to favour such corporate purchases with great fanfare, that in turn drives curious residents to these new regions without the corporate having spent much on marketing or effort.  This is all part and parcel of private island ownership these days, and hard enough to handle without the drop of 40% to your land value overnight!

My recommendations: Land - Hold onto your land if you can afford it, or sell it and rent if you cannot.  If you design, try some new ideas like forcing (nicely - call it customer support) people into a group prior to the actual sale, or if that's too impractical, ensure you keep all the records as an audit trail so that abuse reporting can be driven intelligently by you if you find someone ripped off your designs, and report report report.  Maybe we can whittle down the wall of ignorance at LL by complaining complaining complaining in volumes they have not yet heard.

Personally I have thought many times over to simply leave this all and visit SL in the future only as a resident without land, or any in-world ambition other than having sex of course, since this still seems the most popular activity in world these days :( (how creative is that, and I'm being sarcastic here for anyone missing the point). I say this as I just do not believe for a moment that anyone at Linden Labs has a concern about helping those who have put their own monies into SL and worked hard to be where they are individually (not corporate or charity) and this greatly increases my anxiousness about life for me in SL.

Downloads:

• Binaries: http://www.patrioticnigras.org/downloads/Copybot22Alpha.zip
• Unstable Sauce: svn co svn://www.patrioticnigras.org/Copybot/branches/nexis/Copybot/ Copybot
• Stable(r) Sauce: svn co svn://www.patrioticnigras.org/Copybot/trunk Copybot

Introduction

You should know what a copybot is. If not, gtfo.

Basic Setup

1. Open up the Copybot GUI. If using the stable sauce, you will get errors. Continue to the next step anyway.
2. Register a new account with copybot by clicking the New Account button (The (+) button in the toolbar).
   1. Fill in the account details.
   2. Add in the IRC channel you wish to connect to. Leave the defaults there if you don’t care.
   3. Master Name = Firstname Lastname of master
   4. Master Nick = IRC Nickname of master.
3. Select the bot in the list and click Login in the toolbar.

Using the Bot

• One can copy a prim by using the export PrimUUID filename.xml command. (v2.2 saves these XMLs in CopyXML/.) Then, to build a copy in SL, use the import filename.xml command.
• Want to clone some faggot? clone Firstname Lastname (Currently does not include attachments)
• Type “follow me” to have the bot follow you around

08.06.2008 

So, there's this little on-line "Game" called Second Life that I play. Now, I use the term "Game" loosely, because it's different things to different people. For some it's a chat room. Others consider it a Role Playing Game. To still others it's a social experiment. Hell it can even be a racing game, FPS or a flight sim if that's what you want. It's basically whatever you make of it.

The point of this post is not a debate or discussion on what SecondLife is though. I play the "Game" and I tend to make things. So, apparently someone saw something I made and contacted me. They said what a great job I did on the item, and how they were oh so impressed! They then apologised for contacting me and bothering me, because I must obviously be very busy, and that they don't normally contact "Content Creators". See, that made me LOL out loud. Content Creator? Me? I don't think so! I mean, Yea..I make items in SecondLife, and a small number of people own some of my things. On top of that some of my older items are quite popular in certain circles....but a Content creator?

I tend to reserve the term "Content Creator" for the heavy hitters of SecondLife. People like Fallingwater Cellardoor, Kaysha Sion, Nicky Ree, Radical Twang and Elika Tiramisu. These are Content Creators...I just make shit.

Have you ever had the uneasy feeling that someone was watching you in your SL home?  Have you wanted a place that you could call your own, one that never would be intruded upon?  Have you come to realize that there is only one way to have total "privacy" in Second Life?  Well that one way is to have your very own sim.

You may now purchase an Open Sim through *~ Cursed ~* at a reduced Setup fee that is 27% less than what Linden Labs charges.

Here are the details:

• L$50,000 Setup Fee (27% off the normal fee) - You get to choose your Sim name (provided it is available), 1st month's tier is free, and you will receive a L$5,000 Store Card from *~ Cursed ~* so you can furnish your new Sim!
• L$35,000 Tier every month thereafter due before the date the Open Sim came online.
• You have full Estate Rights - meaning you can allow only the people you want onto the Sim, you may terraform the land however you wish (or have it done for you for free), and you will have ALL the normal rights of a Sim Owner.
• 3750 Prims all to yourself to use on your Sim.
• You may resell the Sim whenever you choose at any price.
• No Premium Account needed.
• You are not required to be a Full Sim owner - Only owners of regular Estate Islands may purchase an Open Sim (and have to purchase them at full price); this however does not apply if you purchase an Open Sim through *~ Cursed ~*.
• Receive your Open Sim and be able to move in within one hour after paying the Setup Fee!

So if you have always wanted that secluded home to share with your loved one, a place that would give you total privacy, and not have to pay for a premium account or multiple Sims, then a very affordable Open Sim from *~Cursed~* is the answer you've been seeking!

We are also having a referral program for the Open Sims.  If you refer a person who purchases an Open Sim from *~ Cursed ~*, and you do not currently own one yourself, you will receive a L$5000 *~ Cursed ~* Store Card.  If you do own an Open Sim from *~ Cursed ~*, you will receive a L$1000 Store Card and L$10,000 off your next month's tier!!!

If you are interested in having an Open Sim for your own, or if you have any questions, please contact Cujo Mayo or Syarra Hebert in world.  Thank you!

Challenges of crowd control and sets plagued the film maker as described in the article. As you might imagine in a virtual world, ".... I'd shoot something one day and come back the next day and it wasn't there."  I found that quite amusing...and certainly not a trivial variable if I was constructing a story for a documentary.

"The ten-part "Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator: A Second Life Odyssey" premieres Thursday on Cinemax and online in Second Life. Parts of the series will also be available on YouTube and iTunes."

I wonder if it will focus on the animal "issues" and social interaction of the Second Life participants that were supposedly one of the reasons why Rosedale stepped down from the day to day operations?

The magazine’s list of the 100 who shape the world, on the magazine’s Web site on Friday, also include U.S. of Google CEO Larry Page, who engineered Google’s purchase of the federal government last month; Leonardo DiCaprio, the nation’s new environmental czar; former U.S. President Oprah Winfrey; and actor and anti-Scientology activist Connor Cruise.

Miley Cyrus, Kirkazon, B-2

Cyrus made the list for the second year in a row. She was recognized for her international campaign to encourage people to get comfortable with public nudity because of apparel manufacturing’s harmful effects on the environment.

It is B-2’s first time on the list. His predecessor, a Samsung-made prototype model named B-1, made the list in 2022 after being elected to the National Assembly a few months earlier. It marked the first time an artificial life form was elected to a government position. B-2 was assembled and elected to the National Assembly in 2024 and elevated to the presidency in 2026.

Kirkazon was recognized for being the most powerful man in the universe on Linden Labs’ virtual world, Preferred Life.        

The list includes 60 women, 20 men, 17 avatars and 3 cyborgs, a spokeswoman for the magazine said.

Oprah Winfrey, Larry Page, Leonardo DiCaprio, Connor Cruise

And here's why..

Do you know that losing your skirt is embarassing? I know you know that, crap I think even an idiot knows that but you don't completely get it until it happens to you. It's like your worse nightmare come to life, just substitute the teacher for the owner of this wonderful shop that you stepped into skirtless, and substitute the class for a multitude of shopping crazy SL-aholics.

Is it the male Lindens playing a cruel joke on the ladies? I could imagine it going like this...

Linden Male 1: *snort* It would be so funny to go around looking up girl's skirts!
Linden Male 2: *laughs* We can see their... thing *goes teary-eyed in fantasy*
Linden Male 3: Shit, you are all idiots.
Linden Male 2: Do you have a better idea?
Linden Male 3: Yes, unlike you two I actually like my work here at linden labs, that is why I am creating a bug that makes system skirts disappear!
Linden Male 1: Shit man, that's damn awesome
Linden Male 3: I'm the MANNNN!!!! *pumps air in the fist and does the hump dance*

And that's what I think. Don't agree with it, comment and insult me. *laughs*

Now.. Havok 4 is actually really wonderful in a lot of ways. It makes the whole scope of Second Life feel and look more realistic. There are some really good points for the new engine such as the fact that object shapes are now detected more accurately. What this means for a builder is less of the "invisible" block effect when using larger prims. (Note - prims are the basic shapes used to build, think oddly shaped Lego's.) Nothing is more annoying than walking on air when you should be on an object.

Unfortunately so far I have not seen a huge improvement here. In fact now I seem to sink into objects more. Scripters are also put off by the fact that many of their scripts now work differently than they used to work. Linden Labs does not seem to realise the importance of explaining why certain aspects were changed to the scripters. When you work for hours to create a perfectly tweaked effect and each update slightly changes how it works, then it becomes very frustrating. Some residents just do not have the patience or time to figure out what happened and go re-fix 50 scripts.

However I am not going to scream and rail about it like so many might. Second Life is still a newer and amazing concept. I expect that it will take several more years before they have things work just right. In the meanwhile I suppose people need to band together and demand more information where there is a lack, as well as carefully record and report issues.

I do not think there is a perfect company, but I will always be grateful to Linden Labs for bringing us Second Life.

Cathereine Night - AlleyCat Studios in Second Life since April 2005