Bits of Second Life 2014-41 #2

PS CC 2014 Color Panel

The new Photoshop has a new color picker. It isn’t different as much as how handy it can be has improved. See: The Improved And Enhanced Color Panel – Photoshop CC 2014.

Sightline: The Chair

Indigo Mertel has been pointing me to an article on Road to VR about a holographic VR interface. For whatever reason I was missing her subtle hints until she contacted me and sort of asked why I was ignoring it. Oops. I have no idea why I wasn’t picking up on it. I follow a lot of her links from Plurk.

There are a number of articles out about Tomáš “Frooxius” Mariančík creating:  SightLine: The Chair.

This is pretty impressive. I can see why people are excited. It is the best use of the LEAP Motion Controller that I have seen to date.

Experimenters can download his ‘Chair’ experience: Download The Chair. (300mb) The link jumps to Sightline’s home page. There you can link to places to support him, Facebook and Steam. He says a Kickstarter is coming. 

Second Life Taxes

Ciaran Laval has written about the tax issues in Second Life. See: Second Life Tax And Identity Woes Continue To Strike Second Life Residents. It seems the Lab has published more information about what information is needed and when and why. See: Tax Documentation FAQ and Account Documentation FAQ.

If you want to complain about these tax matters, write your Congressional representatives.

However, the Linden customer service seems to be falling down at getting these matters handled for SL merchants. This makes it difficult to cash out. In some cases this means merchants with land in SL have a problem using those funds to pay tier. I would think that the Lab  would handle things more expeditiously so they could get paid.

There is salt in this wound too. Read Ciaran’s article to raise your blood pressure. Customer service has seriously fallen down… again. Generally customer service has been getting better. But, something has gone sideways in these cases.

Like many things in life, handle these matters well before they are critical to your business.

Drax Radio Hour #39

Apparently another episode is out. Ciaran has a write up on it that I think is a fair review of the show. So, I won’t do a review of it. Ciaran’s is here: Drax Files Radio Hour Episode 39 – Argyle Alligator. Drax’s site is here: Episode 39 of The Drax Files Radio Hour. I find it easier to use the audio posted on YouTube.

If you don’t know, Argyle Alligator is a person (cute little alligator avatar) new to Second Life that is doing in-world voice interviews. Hamlet at New World Notes and other blogs have covered Argyle Alligator. His interviews while apparently not intended to be funny are often quite funny.

You’ll find the Argyle part starting at about the 24:00 minute mark. Argyle has a channel on YouTube.

One of the things you’ll find in the Drax show is Jo and Drax talking about how bad it is to have a private company choose how people can use their service and require use of real names. They sort of get to the free market ideal of getting someone to complete with FB by providing a better service.

There is a well known problem of abusive and bullying behavior on the Internet that most feel is aggravated by anonymity. This is part of the reasoning used by FB to justify their position. Jo and Drax haven’t gotten into that. May be in a later show.

Daniel Voyager SL2 Status

If you found my write up of the Ebbe interview a TL:DR, check out Danial’s extracts from the interview. He provides a list of the things we learned. He has boiled it down to 369 words. See: New updates on the next generation platform from Ebbe Altberg.

Second Life and the Hajj

With the move of ISIS to take over the world Things Muslim have gained attention. The simulation of the Hajj in Second Life and other programs has become a bit of a controversy. For more details see: The Controversy Over a Virtual Hajj for Muslims.

The controversy isn’t about having the Hajj in Second Life or other virtual worlds, but whether visiting Mecca (Mekkah – depending on which transliteration you follow) in a virtual world is ‘spiritually’ the same as physically visiting Mecca  in Saudi Arabia.

I have no doubt the Saudi’s will say people must visit in person. But, people into this are divided on the issue.

Halloween Town is Open

The Destination Guide’s page for Halloween Town popped up on Google. I’m not sure what triggered it or why today it appeared in my reader. But, it is there. It looks interesting.

Visit: 2014 Halloween Town.

Hang Out Places

A thread is running on SLUniverse about good hang out places in Second Life. See: A good place to hang in SL?

SL Wiki

The SL Wiki is still read only. This is the third day.

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