User
28
Jan
Why OSGrid?
Apple introduced the iPad yesterday. To be honest, I’m not too impressed with the device. But it shows one thing: The internet is pervasive. It creeps into every corner, into every home, into every part of our lives. Mobile devices are the new black, because they allow us to take the internet anywhere we go on our daily chores. It also shows another thing, that is less obvious, but also true: Our lives move into the internet. Things that were firmly rooted in the physical world, are moving to the digital. Music. Newspapers. Books. Imagine: How many more things could be digitalized? How many more things are actually better when digitalized? How many things can be done more efficiently, economically and ecologically sensible and human-friendly on the internet? Selling? Counselling? Teaching? Creative work? Management? Accounting? Production?
Why OSGrid?
Apple launched a new store along with the iPad, called iBooks. It’ll change the way we buy books just as iTunes changed the way we buy music. There’s no need to go to a music mall anymore. There isn’t even need for CDs. But is it the same? Physical shops have functions that go beyond the simple sale, even though the sale is the final ‘product’. Salespersons are advisors, counsellors, friends and co-fans, they are people that ‘understand’ you in that specific field you’re interested in. They should be. They’re pros. If you go to an electronics store, you might need advice, and you expect the staff to be competent at what they tell you. Shopping on the internet lacks this advice. That’s why there are so many sites dedicated to testing things, explaining things, giving advice. Many more than anyone could possibly comprehend. They’re often contradictive, and confusing to people not very well adept at the subject. Advice is based on trust. You trust the shop assistant because he’s an employee at the shop. It’s his job to be an expert. How do you know whom to trust on the internet?
Why OSGrid?
Second Life is about social interaction. That’s its base concept, which makes it so incredibly popular. Leave the content, but take away all modes of interaction with other avatars, it will become empty within the day. It didn’t do something other programs didn’t allow their users to do before. It just allowed them to share it. To do it together. That’s the single key to its success. What are people doing on Second Life? Just what the name implies: Live. Make a home. Go out. Talk. Shop. Explore. Play. Listen to music. Have a life. The same concepts that apply to their first lives, apply to their second ones as well. If anything, Second Life is cheaper, easier, and more free than first life. It is easy to get beautiful things for your avatar. It is cheap to access all the content. And it is so free to allow you to create things just as you imagine them.
Why OSGrid?
Combine. It is cheaper, easier, more free to live in the digital. The internet is pervasive. You could do a lot of things over it. Where does this lead to? Imagine walking into a virtual bookstore. It is staffed with professional book sellers. They are experts, they provide advice, you can chat with them about your favourite authors. And you can buy books. Imagine going to a virtual representation of your town hall. You can fill out forms there, get advice from the employees about them, have virtual appointments. Dream harder. Imagine the books will be delivered to your home. Imagine the books will be instantly available on your iPad. Imagine, the books will be instantly available in your virtual world software client, to read in-world, or take them offline anywhere. Dream harder. Imagine to upload a full body mesh of yourself as an avatar. Imagine going to a virtual clothing store and have clothes customized, designed and tailored to your measurements in any way you want. Not for your avatar. For you. Delivered within a week. Dream harder.
Why OSGrid?
The internet is based on open protocols. Anyone can know how it works. Anyone can connect to it in any way. Anyone can go anywhere. People will want to have control over their content. They will want to have control over where they can go to, what they can take with them, what they can do on their servers. People will want to have control over themselves. Virtual worlds are facing two great challenges: Infrastructure and assets. Infrastructure means the technology to provide a virtual environment, that can be accessed by anyone. The technology to have a 3d ‘homepage’. One that uses a standardized protocol, to be accessible by any browser. People will not want to have to use one client for this part of the web, and another client for another part. Creating different platforms for virtual worlds is like having to use Firefox to access Amazon and the Internet Explorer to access Youtube. Assets means that people will want to retain their identity throughout the virtual worlds they visit. They will want to keep their appearance, their inventories, their content, their wallets. Nobody will want to have to remake themselves from scratch every time they enter a different part of the web.
Who will offer this technology? Who will want to offer it? Who will be able to make all this code, all these protocols, all this technology open and free for anyone to use? No business venture can do that. It would mean instant death to their business model. No national agency will be able to do that. It would conflict with their own ambitions and goals. Only a free, open, and non-profit community will be able to do this. And they do.
Why OSGrid?
William Gibson said in ‘no maps for these territories‘: “We’re using technology to extend the human neural system (…) The internet is a kind of global prosthetic extension of human consciousness. It wasn’t consciously intended as one, but it amounts to one. (…) It’s become the place where we do everything, it’s become the place where we look for everything. We’re doing something new here; it resembles something that we’ve done before, but it’s different. I think it’s probably as big a deal as the creation of cities.” We are building cities. The population of a medium sized town is online in Second Life at any minute, people from all over the world, speaking all kinds of languages, with all kinds of knowledge and professions. We are building cities. People are meeting not by physical proximity, but by common interests. People who are able to choose their peers from all over the world, who are free to indulge in the things that really interest them without constraints. We are building cities. We are working on letting people get access to things they really want faster, cheaper, more efficient and more personal than anything ever before.
The new cities will be the cities of the mind. Their foundation will be open, and free. Dream harder.
26
Jan
Okay, only 4 days to go to the first live performance on OSGrid, and the end of my first ‘official’ month. Time to get a few things in order.
Ever 01 is slowly taking shape. It’ll be built bit by bit, and I’m aware that there are still lots of things that need to be done. However, we got quite far this month.
First and foremost, I re-thought my initial ideas and decided to release my public creations under a creative commons license. That means, anyone’s free to copy, share, modify and use them for personal or non-personal, commercial or non-commercial uses. All I ask for is to state me as the original creator and copyright holder.
To make distribution as easy as I can, I’ll put the source files of my creations on this website for download, and try to make them available on the osgrid site as well. Additionally, they’ll be put as freebies on my region Ever 01, where they’ll also be released first. (It might take a while until I get my gears in motion and export/upload stuff, so if you want to see the latest creations, go to Ever 01.) I will just rezz things randomly throughout the sim, and the things I want to give out will be set for sale at a price of 0. If you see something you like on Ever 01, you should always check if it’s set free for sale. In the above picture, for example, the hair, collar and TTDL (don’t ask) are free to take.
I will also change the inworld group for updates, events and information about Ever 01 / TGIB/ myself to =TAOS=. Search for that group on the OSGrid group search or click the nice lady at the entrance of Ever 01 for an invite. The current group TGIB will remain for some months still, but will get less and less active, until (I hope) all members will have joined the new one.1
Coming up next is – hopefully – a finished entrance hall, some more hair, and the underground region. Stay tuned.
- TAOS is actually not a ‘new’ group but one I had in SL for quite a while, and which I grew to love, thus the change. [↩]
25
Jan
[Update May 11th 2010: After recent leaks about data mining and exploits directly related to Emerald developers, I can no longer recommend this viewer for any reason whatsoever. This article is also outdated. Please see the newer version for imports using the Imprudence viewer. Thank you.]
On this site, you’ll find occasional downloads of xml files of my creations. These were exported using the export function of the Emerald Viewer for Mac, and are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License “by”. They may be freely distributed and uploaded into any grid, including Second Life. The only condition is that by passing them on to others I ask you to please state me as the original creator and copyright holder.
To use these xml files, you’ll need a viewer that supports uploading linksets (such as Imprudence, Meerkat and Emerald). Functionality in these viewers is similar, basically it’s an option in the file menu, called ‘import’. Click on it, and choose the .xml file that contains the information to the build. You will notice that builds will be created without textures (except when imported to the grid they were exported from), so you’ll have to add these separately. A nice tool for creating textures is Filterforge, which I use for all my builds. I usually do not include the textures used in my builds in the zip archive, which is due to my inherent laziness more than anything else. However, I also believe that builds should be modifyable and modified by the people using them, to suit their own particular tastes.
Right now, it seems the Emerald staff are working on an export function which saves the included textures (see ‘Emerald Object Back-Up’) along with the XML file and allows the upload of both, yet the current Linden Lab Content Management Roadmap and Third Party Viewer Policy might work against that (and render exporting actually unusual at it’s current state).
25
Jan
Art Deco Living Room (sofa, chair, coffee table)
Source XML files: Living Room Set
Art Deco Dining Room (table and chairs):
Source XML files: Dining Room Set
25
Jan
Disclaimer: I had wanted to write this article for a long while now, and am still hesitant to do so, but I believe it’s of interest to the public and may help others who might run into the same situation as myself.
I joined Second Life (SL) on 31st March 2007. I made myself a couple of avatars back then, which I deleted shortly thereafter, so my main avatar in SL was Shyft Sands, registered on 1st of July 2007. At the time of the events of this article, I had one other avatar, going by the name of Vanish Tomorrow (VT). However, all my assets were with Shyft Sands, VT was simply used to keep land tier low.1 I was quite engaged in SL; I joined Second Life Mentors in 2008, I had a fair share of creations and ran a small business, I owned a whole mainland region worth of land, distributed over several regions. I performed as a musician and DJ inworld at a number of events (most importantly on the Burning Life festival 2009). I never made any kind of profit. Most of the things I did, I did for free, simply because I enjoyed doing them.2 I had my place inworld, I had a small circle of good friends, I had (and still have) a wonderful partner, and I had sufficient tools, land and prims to build to my hearts content.
There were some things that I was sceptical about, though. Ever since I joined SL, I felt uncomfortable with the simple fact that this very advanced (and, in my eyes, really important and revolutionary) concept was controlled by a single company, in whose hands all the inventories, all the infrastructure, all the money transactions, all data and – along with all that – all policies and decisions lay. I was not a notorious critic, I never went public with my opinions about their policies or anything else, I simply tried to be wary, and help others be aware of the risks and policies they would have to deal with, when they joined or lived in SL. All in all, however, I believed Linden Labs (LL) to be aware of their power and responsibility, and I trusted them to deal wisely and carefully with the money and virtual property they were entrusted with.
Over time, I saw a couple of changes happening, which enraged residents to some extent, and I noticed the company and community to change as well. I never was too affected with these changes though, I simply noticed them. I made it a habit to watch the SL blogs for upcoming changes to policies, as well as stay informed about them through several in-world groups I belonged to. That way, I had heard that by November 4th 2009, usage of the CryoLife client, which allows making backups and copies of textures and objects, would be disallowed by LL.3 As the fact that I had no control over my own inventory, that loss of inventory (sometimes loss of the whole inventory) had occured to several people I knew personally (as well as myself), and that I could not transfer things I bought for myself (some of them several times, as I have had several avatars) on to a new avatar of mine, if I ever should retire Shyft had been bothering me all the time I was in SL4, I thought that this would probably be the last chance to make backups of my own things as good as I could, and so I downloaded the CryoLife client on November 3rd 2009.
It wasn’t hard to get actually, all it took was to ask google about it. Being a Mac user, I had to run it on a virtual windows environment on my machine, and I tried it a bit. I was mainly curious about what it could do, and got intrigued by some features I had never before seen in SL or thought possible. I read about CryoLife on the Alphaville Herald and still was amazed that it could do what it was notorious for doing: I could open and save any texture on any avatar I encountered (including myself), I could backup .xml files of any object that was rezzed inworld, and re-upload them. It was a backup tool, but could also be used as a copybot to get assets without the consent of their creator or owner. I experimented a little with it, teleporting all over the grid (using VT for that) and tried to find out how it worked, and what it could copy. Many, if not most shop owners already had installed a defense mechanism which identified CryoLife Users from their shop as soon as they teleported in, but it seemed the client worked over great distances (actually as far as the drawing distance would rezz objects). I copied some avatars and objects just because it was interesting to see what other avatars consisted of. I never gave anything of these things away, or used it for myself, and I never intended to.
On November 4th 2009, while still trying the client out, VT was disconnected from SL. Up to that point, I had thought that when LL stated that “Residents who use third party viewers with the functionality described above to violate our Terms of Service or Community Standards, will be warned and then suspended from the service”, they meant that residents would be warned and then suspended from the service. If they gave me a warning, I never received it. I need to add that the email registered for VT was obsolete at that point, so if LL tried to contact me via VT’s email, I am to blame that I didn’t get it. After this incident, and after I found that I was unable to log in as VT, I thought about what happened, and how I should adress it. VT was a premium account, and paid 25 US-$ per month on tier fees, and I was not sure what would happen about these fees or the associated land holings, would they not be paid anymore. I could not access the VT account on the SL-site either, it simply told me to contact them via phone to verify my account. So I did.
After going through the verification, the call center told me that the only thing I could do to get the account back, was to submit a ticket to LL. So I did. I submitted the ticket, using my main avatar Shyft Sands, stating what I did and what happened and asked what I would need to do to re-enable VT’s account, offering any help neccessary to undo whatever I had done wrong. As a ‘reply’ to this ticket, my account Shyft Sands got terminated as well, and I was permanently banned from accessing SL through any computer I accessed it with ever since I joined (and, probably, from any network I accessed it with, too, but that’s unconfirmed). I got a statement from LL, stating that they had reviewed my appeal, and found that the permanent closure of my accounts was “was justified and correctly applied”. There would be “no refunds or exchanges for any unused time on your subscription, Island purchases, Linden Dollars, or inworld objects, items, or content.”. The ticket was signed with ‘Customer Support, Linden Lab’. It did not tell me, which part of the TOS or CS I violated, nor did it tell me how this conclusion had been reached and what I could do if I felt unjustly accused.
I made myself a new avatar the same day, using my correct RL name, as well as the very same credit card I used for Shyft Sands. I could not access SL using the native Mac environment, but found that I could log into it without problems using a virtual windows machine (of which I can make an infinite number using virtualization software; however, operating SL is awkward, not only because of windows). I got in contact with my partner and friends, telling them what happened and talking about how to deal with it. It was a serious blow to me, and the first thing I worked on was to try to keep damage as low as possible. I found that I could still access the beta grid using my old avatars, and thus make a backup of my inventory, especially of my own creations. Also, the land holdings were still there, as they were group owned, and obviously would remain with the group as long as the tier was covered. Also, some of my objects which were still rezzed in-world, could be taken by my partner, as she had the ‘privilege’ to edit and take my objects. (Not everything could be transferred that way, though, even if the original object was transferable.) On the bottom line, I lost all my inventory, and was forced to access SL in a way which made it hard to enjoy.
After the initial shock waned, we had to think about how we could go on. I thought it pointless to appeal to LL any more, as the two previous tickets did not have any positive effect. So, the first impulse was to start with a new avatar, and keep my head down and be more cautious. At the same time, I started looking for alternatives to SL, only to find that there weren’t any that were appealing to me – all of the alternatives lacked at one or more aspects. Either the graphics were bad, or the interaction and creation tools were too restrictive (or not there at all), or the terms of service or setting was not what I was looking for. What I wanted, was an open, virtual world, where I could do whatever I wanted, as long as I would not violate RL laws.5
- I’ll probably explain the concept behind this in another blogpost regarding land and tier, for now you’ll have to trust me on that. [↩]
- In fact, I paid a monthly sum of 195 US-$ to Linden Labs for tier fees (in addition to two premium accounts). [↩]
- I really can’t find the blogpost that said so, as it’s impossible to find anything on the SL Blogs anymore. The closest I could find was the post on LL’s third party policies. [↩]
- my inventory consisted of around 14.000 items for which I paid between 500 to 800 US-$ over the course of 2 years, including one of the few complete collections of Primout Cars [↩]
- And, given my above explanation, I do believe I didn’t break any RL laws – at least not those relevant to the country I live in. And yes, I know the law. [↩]
25
Jan
The closest thing to what I was looking for was OSGrid, which I joined just a few days after the incident on 9th of November 2009. I have to admit, I was sceptical at first, as the project appeared to be very bleak and years and years behind of SL by number of residents, performance of the grid, technology available and in-world creations and economy. It took me a while (and still does, I think) to open myself to what OSGrid is and the different approach it takes on virtual reality. As of the time of this writing, however, I am certain that OSGrid and the Open Simulator project is what I really need and had wanted SL to be all along.
My one base belief is that more free is always better, both for an individual, as well as for society as a whole. The web itself is built around free and open technologies and software, so I am most certain that the future of the web will always take the path of freedom. For a long time I had assumed that LL knows about this, and will eventually open up and become free (just as M Linden stated in his new year’s blog post), but despite all their claims at being open, I had to realize that LL can not, and will never become open. This is not because they’re evil or misguided or plain ignorant, it is due to the nature of their business.
Linden Labs is a webspace provider. They make money (a lot of money, in fact) by renting out servers. That’s the core service behind the Second Life software. In the end, it all revolves around land tiers, and land is nothing else than server space, and tiers are the rental fees for that server space. Linden Labs controls all land in Second Life, and will never open that market up to others (as their competitors will be much cheaper and much better). And most long-term residents own land. Even if they don’t rent it from LL directly, they will pay indirectly for it, as their landlords will have to pay their tiers to LL. In fact, the biggest businesses (and most profitable ones) in SL revolve around land trade.
Even if you don’t have any land for yourself, you still contribute to it whenever you buy something from an inworld store, as the shop owners will have to pay tier for their stores. Actually, to be a profitable business in SL, you’ll have to overcome a certain ‘critical mass’ that will cover your land tiers first. Only then, you’ll make profit. (Not many of the shop owners I know make much profit beyond covering their own tiers. I certainly never did.) Every other aspect of the service serves to bring people to eventually pay tier to LL. And to understand all the improvements and changes that were and will be made, you have to keep one thing in mind: LL’s business always comes first.1That’s not as heartless as it sounds when remembering that LL is a capitalist venture, and it’s the nature of such to strive for revenue and nothing else. But this also means that: a) there will never be any changes to the SL service which will threaten this business model (which means, there will especially never be a way to rent server space from someone else than LL for use in SL) and b) no matter how things are being promoted on the blog or website, in the end, the driving force will be to further LL’s business. It is not, and never has been, about the residents, unless it means that these residents will in one way or another be drawn to spend some more money on SL.
To make some kind of comparison, think of LL as the AOL of virtual worlds. AOL had the same business model when the internet became mainstream, giving its customers all kinds of content on their own servers, and offering them everything the web had to offer through their own services. Needless to say, in the end the customers didn’t want that protected and walled garden, and left off to the wild spaces that are the real world wide web, and LL knows that the very same thing will happen, once SL starts to open up. Therefor, I think it’s safe to say: they never will.
And that’s alright, because others will. Just as the WWW is based on free and open technologies, so will the future of virtual worlds be based on free and open technologies. Any closed source, proprietory approach is eventually a dead end, as it will lead to a secluded portion of virtual worlds, which will keep some people entertained, but will never further the development of the internet, no matter how good the services are. And for this reason, I decided to stick with the service, that works on building an open sourced and free platform for the virtual reality to come. It certainly will move beyond Second Life, integrating technologies and services which LL will not. Simply because it can, simply because it doesn’t have to make business considerations and fear for losing its hold on it’s ‘product’. As there is no hold. It’s with us all.
- Some examples for this are the openspace pricing changes of early 2008, the acquisition of XStreet SL in 2009, which was a threat to tiers, as the marketplace offered merchants the ability to sell their goods without needing to have a shop inworld. [↩]
25
Jan
Space and time, frozen
Distance is behind.
- Thirteen Senses, Automatic
23
Jan
The skins on this site are freely available on OSGrid at Ever 01. Additionally, I offer the source texture files for download to use them in any other grid, including Second Life. To make a wearable skin, first download all textures needed for the skin and upload them to the grid you like to use them into, or get the textures inworld at Ever 01 for use in OSGrid. (Basic skins have a common upper and lower base that can be used for any of their makeups.) Then right-click on a folder (preferably the ‘Body Parts’ folder) in your inventory and chose ‘new body part’ > ‘new skin’. Rename the skin the way you like, then right click and wear it. Right-click on your avatar and chose ‘appearance’, then select the ‘skin’ tab. You’ll see three empty spaces named (misguidingly) ‘head tattoos’, ‘upper tattoos’ and ‘lower tattoos’. Drag the according texture from your inventory into these spaces (the makeup goes to the ‘head tattoos’, upper body to ‘upper tattoos’ and lower body to ‘lower tattoos’). Then click on save.
23
Jan
This skin is based on templates offered for free by Eloh Eliot, without makeup or modifications. It serves as a base for all rosy black skins, the body allowing for different combinations of freckles and body hair. (Regular skins are made to serve all manner of timeframes and interests, and especially makeups that hail from a bygone decade require some different attitude towards body hair.)
OSGrid: Ever 01
Source:
See the tutorial on how to use TGIB skins.
(Get the Da Vinci Machine here.)
23
Jan
This skin is based on templates offered for free by Eloh Eliot, without makeup or modifications. It serves as a base for all rosy blonde skins, the body allowing for different combinations of freckles and body hair. (Regular skins are made to serve all manner of timeframes and interests, and especially makeups that hail from a bygone decade require some different attitude towards body hair.)
OSGrid: Ever 01
Source:
V-blonde-upper-freckles-unshaven.png
V-blonde-upper-freckles-shaven.png
See the tutorial on how to use TGIB skins.
(Get the Da Vinci Machine here.)