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Thanks,

Jennyfur

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Philadelphia Future Salon: Futuristic Cinema: Mash-Ups and Machinima!

Philadelphia Future Salon meeting: July 17th, 2008 6-8pm

Futuristic Cinema: Mash-Ups and Machinima!

The next meeting of the Philadelphia Future Salon will be on July 17th,
2008; we’re not meeting on the first Thursday of the month due to the
holiday.

The topic will be “Futuristic Cinema: Mash-Ups and Machinima!” Modern media
has caused us to rethink everything from business to entertainment. Youtube
has made it possible for anyone to be a star and share their dreams and
visions. Fans now have the technology in their power to find out who would
win in a fight between Star Wars and Star Trek. Major television franchises
such as CSI: New York and The Office are blending episodes with the virtual
world of Second Life. The most famous brands in the world, such as
Coca-Cola, are making short films in virtual worlds and video games (called
machinima) to enhance their advertising campaigns. Traditional businesses
are finding new ways to use these new technologies.

We will have two panelists from the area lead the discussion, with Timothy
Allen moderating.

The first panelist is Peter Decherney, a Assistant Professor of Cinema
Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His research and teaching focus
on the history of media regulation and on internet policy, specifically the
interaction between Hollywood and Washington. He is the author of Hollywood
and the Culture Elite: How the Movies Became American (Columbia UP, 2005)
and many articles on the Hollywood film industry, on the history of media
regulation, and on fair use and academia, among other topics. In 2006, along
with two colleagues, Decherney successfully petitioned for an exemption to
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for media professors using clips for
teaching. In addition to Penn, he has taught at Yale University, Johns
Hopkins University, and Tsinghua University (Beijing). He is currently
working on a new book on the history and future of Hollywood and copyright
law. He frequently assigns mashups as coursework.

Our other panelist is Ariella Furman, the first person in her Ukrainian
family to be born in America. She acquired her interest in filmmaking when
she was practically in diapers. She took her skillset with her to Temple
University and became a 2008 graduate with a Film Media Arts degree. Her
story began with her love for music videos. Her videos for east-coast bands
have premiered on outlets such as LCN-TV, Adrenaline Nation TV, MTV Italy,
and more recently the channel Logo, a subsidiary of MTV. She then found her
next passion, machinima, by accident, through an experimental documentary
she made for class. Since then, she has worked with Electric Sheep, Popcha,
SLAgency, and created machinima for Nestle, World Bank, IBM, and others.

Timothy Allen is a virtual worlds enthusiast, Philadelphia area tech
fanatic, and co-moderator of the Philadelphia Future Salon.

Refreshments are provided, and free cocktails will be served after the
session. We look forward to seeing you there!

Location: 1835 Market Street, 15th Floor, at the office of Buchanan,
Ingersoll & Rooney.

Please RSVP to francis.ta…@bipc.com – please email him directly, do not
reply to the entire list, as we try to keep this a very low-volume group.
Thank you!

Reflections a Year Later

I’m quickly approaching the one year anniversary of my “hiatus” from Second Life and virtual worlds in general. I never really intended for it to go on so long. I thought that I’d be back in the swing of things after a few months. I guess I was more burnt out than I thought I was…. I was very angry and bitter at the time that I left in my usual path of scorched earth and prims. Its hard to even say why.  There were so many reasons  most of which are now irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Second Life was a big part of my real and virtual life for many years with both extremely positive and extremely negative connotations. Needless to say, that while, I’ve turned the corner after being burnt out on Second Life, that I’m having a bit of trouble resuming any interest in SL or logging in with any frequency. A lot has changed in Second Life over the past year or so. I’m actually more interested in Open Sim these days than in Second Life proper given the myriad of Linden Lab’s asshattery.

Pre-Windlight Texture Problems

It has come to my attention that some of my clothing designs or rather the texture used to create them, have been negatively affected by the release of Windlight. I am sure that I am not alone in sharing this bit of woe. All of my designs were created long before Windlight was even in beta or even public knowledge. Due to the lighting restrictions of the time, most designers had to painstaking add in our own shadows and highlights to bring the fabrics and designs to life. Now that Windlight has been released, it is affecting items with dramatic shading and highlighting.

I don’t think this affects every item I have made. At some point in time I will need to do some inspection to see what is affected and what is fine. Unfortunately, I cannot go back and edit most of these pre-existing items without having to redesign the affected items from scratch. I spent some time last night searching for my source files and especially Photoshop Documents etc. I seem to be missing files from my hard drive. One item was brought to my attention, so I searched my design files for it and the Targa file was missing as was the Photoshop Document. The only remnants of the item was the product design for the box. I’m hoping these files got misplaced somewhere and not accidentally deleted during one of my hard drive cleanses.

A Customer Service Solution

All Deadly Nightshade customer service concerns will be handled by FlipperPA Peregrine during my extended absence from Second Life. I apologize for not doing this sooner and for making light of the situation. Mea culpa!

Flipper will handle failed inventory transactions, refunds and other miscellaneous issues. Because he is not a fashion designer, no modifications will be made to existing items.

If you had a customer service issue previously ignored by yours truly please contact FlipperPA Peregrine and give a detail explanation of the problem and inventory items concerned. Since he is not familiar with my entire collection, please give specific item names i.e. (Deadly NIghtshade) Crimson Contact Lenses as opposed to Red contact lenses. This will make it much easier for him to ameliorate the situation.

Please note: all items in the Deadly Nightshade corset sets are sold separately. Yes, the corset is pictured on the three separate skirts available, but that is primarily because the pictures would have looked stupid without them. Also, the corsets were a reissue from an original design made in 2005.

All items should be Mod/Copy No Transfer. Not all are, especially if they are older. If this is a major concern for you please contact us.

We will not provide customer service for free items.

Please also realize that FlipperPA Peregrine doesn’t log in as much as he used to, but please be patient as it can take up to a week for issues to be resolved.

Thanks,

Jennyfur

It’s a Fake World After All…

Sometimes it pays to be snarky and mildly offending… at least I don’t have to change my blog title in light of “Fake World” makers Linden Lab’s new mandate reported by Tateru Nino of Massively regarding usuage of Second Life names and logos in conjunction with third party products and websites.

Flip/Tim and I have been entrepreneurs in Second Life for the better part of the past four years, in which the use of “Second Life”, “Linden”, “SL” etc. as part of a business name or url has been widely accepted and endorsed by Linden Lab. This is evident in the numerous Second Life related websites that have cropped up over this time.

I believe the process for naming the Second Life Community Convention and for using the SL name and logo within our own only involved an email expressing permission, a direction to download said logos from the website and eventually this was put into writing in mid-2007 as part of the formal contract between the convention and Linden Lab.

Beyond the SLCC, Flip/Tim has worked extensively on SLBoutique (now OnRez), SLTrivia and SLPTO. The later two I suppose fall into the trouble zone and will need some appropriate attention whether it is filing for use of the url or changing the name entirely. I know that we are not alone in our contempt for this new decision.

Granted some of the language is vague with no indication of how strict or lax the enforcement will be. The change seems sudden and on the heals of the recent announcement that Philip Rosedale will step down as Linden Lab’s CEO, one can easily wager to guess what may be next coming down the virtual pipelines.

For now, I view this action as a slap in the face to all of the enterprising individuals who helped to build Second Life into what it is today. Linden Lab developed the product and platform, but without the countless enterprising residents engaged in forging the vision for virtual worlds far and wide since late 2002… Second Life never have grown to its current size and popularity.

Read more about changes to trademarks and Linden Lab:

Second Life Corporate FAQ regarding Trademark Use 

Second Life Brand Center

Linden Lab Asserts Control of Name and Image @ Massively.com 

So Long and Thanks for All the Prims

The metaverse is a buzz this afternoon as the news broke across Reuters that Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale is stepping down. Rosedale assume the role of Chairman of the Board, replacing Mitch Kapor. Kapor will still remain on the Linden Lab board.

The news has been reverberating across numerous Second Life related blogs and forums and twitter to name a few. Some regard the change with welcome arms citing many issues with Linden Lab’s management style in the face of a downturn of press and numerous issues with the grid. Others fear that this may be a red flag signally financial duress for Second Life makers Linden Lab. Some are speculating that perhaps, Linden Lab will soon be bought out by another company.

Reflections on Second Life through World of Warcraft

Every now and then I still get asked when I am taking a long term hiatus from Second Life? what I am doing? will I ever be back? why I left? and so on and so forth. The easy answer was that I just burnt out on Second Life and needed a break after having spent the majority of the past four years in the spot light for one reason or another. It is sad for me to admit, but co-founding and running the Second Life Community Convention from 2005-2007  is one of my biggest regrets. If I could turn back time, I would never have gotten involved with it. That is not to speak negatively of those who have been and still are involved with the convention. In a lot of ways the negatives vastly outweighed the positives of that experience. I’m not overly bitter about it, just reviewing it with my usual pragmatic criticism. If I can’t learn something from these experiences, they end up being kind of pointless.

One of the reasons I left Second Life last summer was that I realized that I was too deeply emotionally invested in all things Second Life. A lot of things effected me much more than they should have or than I ever wanted them too. Since July or August, I’ve gotten really into playing World of Warcraft and it has helped me in so many ways to detach emotionally from gaming and/or virtual environments. I enjoy playing World of Warcraft, but stay drama free on all fronts. I’m not emotionally invested in the people in my guilds or anyone else around me (well accept for the few RL friends of mine who also play WoW). Playing WoW is something that I enjoy doing, but it is not all encompassing the way Second Life was for so many years.

Now, I am starting to try and figure out how I can approach Second Life in the way that I have approached World of Warcraft. I do want to get back into Second Life again at some point in time. I just need enough time to let the past be buried and to not be emotionally attached to any aspect of it. I’ve considered retiring Jennyfur Peregrine or at least not using it as a primary account when I return. I’m not sure whether or not I want to get back into content creation or if I want to explore something new. I’ve considered doing something with the music scene in Second Life, well not the existent one, but bringing more bands into virtual worlds. as I continue my explorations of music and new media.

I’ve been keeping up with all that has been going on and am interested to see how web on a prim, mono integration and Havok 4 affect the Second Life client. I’ve also been keeping my eye on the Open Sim project and all that.

Manic Mirrors @ The Barbary March 18th

In addition to my former ventures in virtual worlds, I also dabble in band management. Up until Decemeber, I was managing Trouble Everyday until they decided to call it quits. I now manage Manic Mirrors who rose from the ashes of the dissolution of Trouble Everyday. Things have mostly been quiet as the band was working on new material over the new year.

But without further adoo, Manic Mirrors is performing their first show on March 18th at the Barbary in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia Future Salon: Music in the Era of New Media

I am participating on a new media panel coming up in a week focusing on the topic of “Music in the Era of New Media”.

Here is the event information:

Being a musician in the modern era has offered a huge wealth of tools
and opportunities, however, this can also be overwhelming. The same
thing can be said for the modern media business: how do you promote
yourselves in a vast sea of competition? Which tools are effective?
How do you separate your work from the pack? What artists and
businesses have been successful?

And, of course, the most important question: how can I get people to
listen to music, while still having an opportunity to make a living,
and maintaining the quality of my work?

We will be addressing these questions – and many more, hopefully
brought by you. Our panelists include:

John Allers: program director Radio 104.5 WRFF-FM – or better known to
us, the best local supporter of local artists, Clear Channel
Jennifer Vatza: local band manager; new media promoter, Web 2.0
socializer; virtual worlds expert
Darren Morze: local musician (Manic Mirrors) and studio engineer (Plan
B Studios) in both analog and digital
Ben Morgan: Music Director, Millcreek Tavern; Founder, Musictech
mailing list; Past associate of The Future of Music Coalition, Elektra
Records, CDnow

As usual, we will be having a fairly open discussion with the
panelists, not a lecture. We hope to see you Thursday, March 6th,
at our meeting location:

1835 Market Street
14th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103

To attend, simply drop an email to Frank Taney, our kind sponsor from
Buchanan Ingersoll, & Rooney – francis(d0t)taney(at)bipc(dot)com – if you don’t
have time to register, feel free to show up, but you may have to wait
a few minutes while the front desk contacts us.

We always gather between 5:30pm and 6:00pm EST, and start at about
6:15pm. We’ll have the discussion until about 8pm, and people who want
to join us for a cocktail afterwards at Elephant & Castle at 18th and
Market are welcome.

Sale @ Deadly Nightshade Design Studio

After having many of my objects effected by some price change bug when I moved my store from Indigo to Deadly Nightshade Design Studio in Olive, as I was repricing items I decided it was time for a sale. Most items have been marked down to the $100L to $250L range aside from some Collections, which are higher in price. I am still adjusting my prices at other locations so please bear with me. All items in vendors and on Onrez.com are correct in price.

Updated Locations for Deadly Nightshade

I’ve updated the list of places in Second Life where you can purchase Deadly Nightshade clothing by Jennyfur Peregrine:

Deadly Nightshade Design Studio in Olive

Deadly Nightshade @ Transylvania

Deadly Nightshade @ Nomine

Deadly Nightshade @ Amsterdam

Deadly Nightshade @ Phobos Design in Chaos

Deadly Nightshade @ Promenade Mall

Deadly Nightshade @ No Mercy

Deady Nightshade @ Shop.Onrez.com

Deadly Nightshade Design Studio is Moving !!

For nearly four years, the Deadly Nightshade Design Studio has found its home in Indigo, our soon-to-be -changing-ownership sim on the mainland. The new store is located in Olive along the Indigo/Slate borders in between the GNUbie store in Indigo and the train station in Olive. I will be migrating all my items for sale over during the week.

PS. Don’t forget to pop by the Farewell Indigo party this Saturday!

Save the Date: Indigo Farewell Party

We’re having a party on January 26th at 5pm SLT in Indigo. Feel free to come by and hang out. Invite old friends to the end of one era, and the start of another!

End of an Era

After much discussion Flipper and I have decided that we are going to sell our sim, Indigo. We purchased Indigo in January 2004, which made us one of the first full sim owners on the mainland. Indigo has seen many great residents cross its path over the past four years, many residents turned Lindens have resided there, many of the best content creators have had stores in my first mall, Indigo’s Mourning After and in Deadly Nightshade Design Studios.

This is not to say that Flipper and I are completely leaving behind our presence in Second Life. He owns two lifetime accounts with 4096m each and we currently own parcels in Olive, Hawthorne and of course our coveted plot of land in Ravenglass. While I am still on a long term hiatus from Second Life, Flip spends less time in world and is just working on his bevy of side projects (SLPTO and VWPPV). If we ever get back into Second Life full swing we will just purchase an island. For now, its just not worth keeping an entire sim for what little time we spend in world anymore.

What does this mean for Deadly Nightshade Design Studio... well seeing as my store currently overlaps Indigo and Olive, the store’s main location will reside in Olive with maybe a small outlet in Hawthorne.

The final transaction will take place at the end of January when we turn over Indigo to its proud new owner Maxx Monde. Some of the current tenants will stay the same such as the Sci-Fi Museum and the GNUbie Store.

Humorous Predictions for Second Life in the Year 2008

There is a long running tradition amongst the Second Life blogosphere to post predictions for the following year. Here are my own predictions for 2008, of course, they are based on nothing but conjecture, humor, sarcasm and irony. It’d be highly amusing if any of them came true.

1. Linden Lab will run out of kool aid and be forced to drink Hawaiian Punch resulting in the devaluation of the Linden dollar, mass hysteria and a resurgence of prim mullets.

2. Philip Linden will have a nervous breakdown, assume the name of Fluffy Binkyweather III, move to Tahiti and become a modern day Paul Gaugain. He will write his memoirs “But I Don’t Want to be the Godfather of Gorean Age Play Furries on Dope (Or How I Built the Metaverse in 12 Easy Steps). His memoirs will, however, be written entirely in lolcat.

3. Someone will be severely injured or perish as a result of a teledildonics mishap or some other cybersex related paraphernalia malfunction.

4. Havok will be released and probably break everything for several months, but no one will notice because Windlight makes everything look super pretty.

5. Maury Povich will start a virtual version of his hit talk show in Second Life where he will determine the paternity results of prim babies far and wide.

6. The grid will gain sentience and pwnzor us all… or wait did that already happen?

7. 5.6 billion people still won’t be using Second Life

8. Missing Image

9. Loading……..

10. FAIL =)

It’s that time of year!

Once again we are approaching the holiday season. Christmas Eve also couple as my annual rezzday. I understand how people must feel who are born on or around Christmas or other major holidays. As a consequence of my unfortunate rezzing, I’ve never really celebrated my rezzday, though this year will mark the big number four. But I digress….

As virtual tradition has it, we can all look forward to a month of SL inventory drops of holiday greetings from people we barely know, friends who should know better and business associates in world. I’ve always found it funny when I unearth holiday cards and gifts, sometimes I scratch my head in disbelief because I have no idea who sent them or barely remember them. My friends that know me, know better than to send me holiday greetings in Second Life. Thats why they are my friends =)

I do not want to come across as Cranky McScroogepants, but for the love of all that is holy please please please do not clog my Second Life inventory with Holiday cards and greetings that I will not find until next August. Honestly, I probably haven’t even looked at last years ones yet… So, if you wish to send me a holiday greeting you can do it here or ignore me and be THAT person.

Here are three useful tips for the holidays:

Useful tip #1: Don’t send “holiday” cards or gifts to your entire friends list. Select those that you want to include carefully. Its hard to tell from avatar names who you might inadvertently be offending by sending Christmas cards. For instance, I’m atheist, while I loosely celebrate Christmas for family reasons, I am a stickler for the most non-denominational generic holiday cards.

Useful tip #2: Clogging peoples inventories with crap is rude, but we all do it. Since my absence from SL, I am loathe to think what my inventory must look like from all the random event invites, check out <fill in blank>, rent from my mall etc. Now add to the holidays in the equation. Which brings me to the useful tip in all this… If you have not seen someone online for say a month or longer, its probably best to avoid a random inventory drop. I know its harder to tell when people are online since the privacy controls were launched awhile back. But think about it, you *would* know if they wanted to be seen online.

Useful tip #3: Personally deliver your holiday cards and gifts to friends while they are online. Its much more personal. I’ve done this on the one occasion that I made a holiday card. Ok there were two occasions, but the first holiday card I made in 2004 was for Taco Rubio. I never sent it to anyone else.

And on that note, Happy Holidays and Seasons Greetings folks!

On with the Show…

It would seem that the December 1st Trouble Everyday show at Pianos on Manhattan’s Lower East Side is turning into a mini-SL meet up with quite a few of our NYC SL friends planning on attending. It will be nice to see everyone under less hyperfrenetic circumstances (meaning the SLCC). Even though I left SL for the time being I still cherish the friends I made there.

Death, Second Life and Remembrance

Since the death of Ginny Talamasca, a beloved fashion designer in Second Life, I have been keeping up on the controversy brewing with regards to there being a formal day of remembrance for her. I did not know Ginny well, but I loved her work, which was always top notch and exquisite by nature.

It saddens me greatly to see Linden Lab’s hands off approach towards an official day of remembrance, stating to the effect that — we’re just platform developers and providers, not your community not your friends. Ok, well they didn’t say it in so many words, but they might as well have. I am quickly approaching my fourth Rezzday in Second Life and one of the things I always loved about Linden Lab was that they WERE our friends and part of our community. It is a rare experience in our postmodern times to actually be able to interact with a company in the way that many of the early residents did with Linden Lab employees from the executive management all the way down to the liaisons. I’ve seen the change in behavior change more and more over the past year or so. For all intents and purposes Linden Lab might as well be Exxon Mobil or Microsoft. Its sad, really.

While I think it would be wonderful for there to be an official Day of Remembrance for Ginny, why stop at just one person. Second Life has lost some of its most amazing residents in the past year with the deaths of Feliciaa Feaver and Jesse Malthus (to name a few), who both deserve a day of remembrance as well as well as the countless others who have died over the past year.

Perhaps, the solution is a Day of Remembrance for all our of Second Life friends who have passed on. This is why we have Veteran’s Day or President’s Day in America. It would not be feasible to have a day of remembrance for every single President or every single Veteran. I would also love to see a region that would in effect be like a memorial shrine to those friends who have died. A solemn place where their friends could go, virtually, to remember…to grieve. Perhaps, a memorial fund could be set up, where resident donations would be accepted that would pay for the land and tier.