Phoenix & Firestorm Comparison (First In A Series)

The dude that sent me the snapshots for my last post asked if he could work with me on a comparison of the Phoenix & Firestorm viewers on his Mac.  I thought this would be a good time to evaluate the two, so I agreed and he sent me 2 images that he took on his Mac.  PC snapshots will have to wait until I find someone brave enough to try installing Firestorm.

This is the official Firestorm release.  As you can see it is very close to Linden Lab Viewer 3.  If you are used to the Viewer 1 interface, you are going to have a tough time locating menus that were previously easy to find.  Instead of text labels that identify which buttons perform what function, you have icons.  If you do not know what those icons are supposed to do, you have an annoying pop-up box appear and tell you.

This is the newest version of Phoenix Viewer, that now includes mesh capability.  The buttons for various functions are all arranged at top and bottom of the screen, with easy to read text labels instead of ambiguous icons the function of which you have to guess at.  The chat box at bottom has lots of space to see what you are typing, whereas on Firestorm you get this tiny little box that's relegated to the corner.

The graphics engine looks like it hasn't changed, so that is a plus.  I always liked the Phoenix graphics engine over other TPV's.  I was not told how stability factored into using each Viewer, so that will have to wait for another post.

Block City!

I see some regions in SL are completely being remodeled w/ mesh.  Try looking at it on a viewer that doesn't support mesh, Like Phoenix, and they don't show up at all.  Some noob e-mailed me a few snapshots b/c he could not believe what he was seeing.  Check it out.

Funny thing is, maybe half the grid doesn't use any of the mesh viewers for whatever reason, so they will not be able to enjoy all that meshy goodness.  It'd make sense if something like 90% of grid users was using a stable mesh viewer, but it's not even close to that number.  Why build something half the grid can't see properly?  I just don't get it.

Liars & the Lying Liars Who Post Them (Apologies To Al Franken)

You have to hand it to some people.  Not content with sliming other Dr. Who regions the loser I posted about last time went so far as to smear Krypton Radio after a brouhaha erupted between its affiliate group JLU and known griefers and copybotters called, in various incarnations, Red Square, The Wrong Hands and Woodbury University.  For those of you not familiar with griefers and copybotters, in Second Life a griefer is someone who engages in some form of harassment, be it rezzing more objects then the server it's on can handle or using scripted weapons to annoy other people, while copybotting is making a copy of something someone has built.

Based on my readings of articles posted at Krypton Radio, I have learned that the JLU, a group dedicated to policing regions in Second Life at the request of their owners, was attacked via offline forum (sound familiar?) prompting a response from the reporters. The exact same day Krypton Radio posted the JLU response to apparently false accusations of IP-harvesting, Loser posted on his own blog adding to the attacks on JLU, trying to use accusations of copybotting leveled against another SL resident as a way of proving guilt by association.  This has apparently prompted driven KR editors to remove comments posted in its thread by the accused copybotter and one by yours truly.  Why KR editors would believe anything Loser has to say is beyond me, since he is one of the persons responsible for helping to spread drama against the JLU.

I have sent an email to Krypton Radio inquiring as to why my comment was removed, and why site editors are accepting the word of a self-appointed enemy at face value.  The comments section of the article is closed, disallowing the accused to offer a response in his own defense.  I invite KR editors to post here to explain themselves.

Loser Takes A Break From SL?

Back in July there was a science fiction convention sponsored by the IFT Sci-Fi Alliance and Relay For Life in Second Life.  The theme this year was Dr. Who.  I told you in my first post dear reader that I would include the bad along with the good and here it is.

Word spread that one of the convention's sponsoring groups, led by a turd of a man calling himself Victor1st Mornington, decided to use the convention, which helps raise money to fight cancer, as a weapon to accuse a rival group of deliberately breaking convention rules on what they call split donations--meaning that they sell things through "vendors" and split the proceeds with Relay For Life.  The rule was against announcing that they were splitting sales, which the group apparently did not know.  But Mr. Mornington and his cohorts posted on a blogspot entry that they had deliberately did this and went on to imply that split sales were forbidden at all.

Things got so bad that someone calling himself Anthony Haslage, the chairman of the convention itself, had to step in and correct the record: split sales were, in fact allowed only people were not supposed to advertise it if they did.  Once the rival group became aware they seem to have contacted the relevant folks and straightened the matter out.  Still, the lies kept coming and at one point a thread commenter named Nodster threatened to report everyone who posted negative comments to their ISP's.  Mr. Haslage was not thrilled by that threat and again laid the smackdown, but Mr. Mornington and his thugs were not moved to back down or retract their false accusations.

Why, you may ask, did this take place on blogspot?  Second Life terms of service forbid harassment within their virtual world, including spreading false accusations against individuals and groups.  By posting on blogspot Mr. Mornington obviously thought he would get away with telling his lies.

Now I visited the convention and joined their group so I got notices from it in Second Life.  As a result of that drama, future conventions now forbid posting out of SL blogs attacking others during the convention.  If Mr. Mornington or his people try this again next year and someone takes a screencap and sends it to convention heads, the ____ will hit the fan for them.  I saw that one guy defending the other group, someone named Archangel, was accused of posting as someone else (no proof other then accusations BTW), others keeping up the original lie long after it was posted by the convention chair himself that split sales were allowed, etc.

Now Mr. Mornington has posted announcing that he is taking a break from his group activities saying it has become too much work that it is no longer fun.  Since his activities stem no farther than bullying others until they regret ever having come to Second Life, I am not sure what "work" he could possibly be engaging in that would require a vacation--unless he was asked to take one, but that is only conjecture on my part.

I can tell you this: when I became interested in Dr. Who in Second Life a few months ago, I did not fathom the kind of schoolyard behavior Mr. Mornington and his people put on.  I really got fed up and decided that trying to be active in any fan groups is too much trouble.  Why feed trolls?  If he is not lying about taking a vacation, then I am glad he will not be around to attack others.  His activities, along with his friends', left a really bad taste in my mouth.

Look at me, I'm a Gryphon!

So I bought the gryphon avatar from Seawolf.  It is nothing short of amazing.  It comes with a range of customizeable parts including feather headdresses of different sizes, canine, feline and avian parts, and even breathes fire!

Heh, I love my new avatar.  I'm going to wear it for a while.

Party Last Weekend

Last weekend I was at this awesome party at a region called Tardis.  Lots of folks showed up and we painted the town blue.  I had to leave early, but I heard the weekend was a huge success.

I swiped a screencap of the festivities from one of their blog entries.

We all had a good time.  Events like this are the reason I come to Second Life.  Lots better then blockcar city that I blogged about before.

Here There Be Dragons

I am definitely into magical beasts.  Yes I'm a guy and no I'm not gay.  I do not like mythical creatures because I like cutesy stuff.  I like them because they go back to a time when human beings had vivid imaginations and knew how to use them.  Crafting legends out of them.  Legends like dragons and gryphons.  Like these.

 

These come from a place in SL called Seawolf.  I really like the level of detail that goes into making them.  Good talented avatar makers.  I got a look at the price tag and they can get pricey, L$2400 for the full size ones.  But damn they are worth it if you ask me.

Blocks

I was visiting a certain oddball region the other day -- you know, the kind you might go to out of curiosity, take a look around, decide it's not worth your time because the few folks you encounter are too busy giving themselves head to be friendly and then you don't go back to it unless you're bored and have nothing better to do.  So I was bored and had nothing better to do.  I guess they are using those new mesh imports.  I don't use the SL default viewer so I do not get to see them load.

So yeah.  Nice blockcar.  Too bad half the grid can't see what it's supposed to look like.

Hey Out There

Call me Wolfenstein, Wolfy, Wolfie, Wolf, His Royal Wolfness.  Most folks I know do.  OK not really but those are the nicknames I am known by.  I sometimes go to a virtual world called Second Life.  Much of what I see is nice, and some of it is not so nice.  This blog is my chronicle of what I see in Second Life and its denizens.  I will warn you right now that I will include both the good and the bad.  You will ask yourself why any of what I post matters.  I guess it doesn't.  This is just my way of keeping a record of my observations.  It does not mean anything to anybody but me.