This blog post is a bit late - I posted this to my Twitter feed last week when I got it, but neglected to post it here.

Some of my ongoing work for the US Navy and their vNUWC installation has been featured in a conference video put together by the vNUWC Team.  They started with eight full regions when I first began work for them, and have since recently expanded to twelve, delving in to topics of interest and for education in regards to technologies and concepts that are useful to the Navy.

This video is an excellent case study of conferencing, training and data visualization in Second Life.

AkiMeta will be at Land Expo this year! Some info on current and past projects is available and I’ll likely be around for most of the Expo. I’ll also be giving a talk on Thursday at 10AM SLT on Landscaping and Prim economy, at the central discussion area, which is on the central corner of each of the LandExpo sims (1-4).

AkiMeta’s booth is located right next to The Wastelands booth in the south-west corner of LandExpo3, here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/LandExpo3/130/38/2

University of Denver's nuclear power plant in SL

or both?

Anyone who’s kept an account in SL for a while will have experienced an overall theme of negativity when it comes to overall operation, pricing, policy change, availability of alternatives, management of intellectual property, scalability, stability, interpersonal drama, so on and so forth.

A lot of it is even warranted.

I will be the first to admit i tend to be a very negative person.  But I try to be objective about my observations and as such, it’s seemed like many people think it’s the ‘cool thing to do’ to go ahead and bash every new topic that’s come up.

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Found on SL Universe here, Photographer Zack Seckler is seeking gamers to take portraits of for a fine art project. You need to be in the NYC area and provide a snapshot beforehand.

Check his post on this subject at SL Universe for more info.

Wow. That was some big news last night with the XStreet SL/OnRez acquisition by LL!

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out the LL Blog, where they announce that Onrez is closing within the month and XStreet SL is being worked in to LL’s existing services.

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This is the second year running that I’ve had to look in to the implications of being a Canadian consultant working for an American company. Of course, it seems like one needs to relearn the ropes every year when tax time rolls around, and since the US files its taxes one month earlier, this is a good time for Canadians to get on the ball about their taxes too.

I wanted to put this post together because i’m pretty sure about the same time next year, i’ll be wondering the same things, looking for the same paperwork. Why not have all the files and necessary procedures put together in one place?

Anyhow, this post ISN’T intended to be the be-all or end-all of blog posts on this matter, just something to point Canadians (and their American employers) in the right direction. It may even be edited and updated as I learn more. Also, if you’re reading this and have more information, please feel free to comment and I will be happy to add your information to the body of this message.
If you have any questions, please be sure to contact a qualified tax professional for assistance.

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Decimating primmage at Sylvan

I’ve been in talks with Spin Martin for some time about his sale of Saijo City. Some time amidst all the hubbub of the Openspace debacle (though I’m sure mostly unrelated), Spin piped up in a friends conference chat and said he wanted to sell Saijo.

Why?

Mostly because he was fed up with the limitations of SL as a platform for his Saijo concepts, and that it was pretty much time to move on. (Spin, if you’re reading this, feel free to correct me, these were just the impressions I got).

In any case, I’d been stressed out about the whole fee increase, and was really put off by being asked basically to put up with a 66% price increase for no visible improvements. In fact, LL is proposing limits on agents per Homestead as well as scripting limits.

It’s true that I really don’t care about the script limits for the most part, and the only times Sylvan hits over 20 agents are Sundays when either Todd or Erehwon DJ (and even that is variable, as we only really hold these things for fun and to be with friends on a weekly bass). BUT. the whole thing about paying $50 USD more a month for that with no actual product improvements had really been getting to me.

I mean - really. Keep in mind here, that most people who own Openspace Sims are probably doing so through third parties… and paying an extra premium to do so. To begin with, I was already paying an extra $20/mo on top of the usual $75. Sticking on with a ‘Homestead’ would mean paying just abut $50 short of a full class 4 region. For the privilege of NOTHING MORE than fewer people able to access the sim, limited scripts, and absolutely no change in available prims.

So i guess this is really a roundabout way to say that I had a chat with Spin and we’ve arranged for some changes in the near future.

I spent most of yesterday tearing down the bulk of my stuff at Sylvan, which has already reverted in ownership to Azure Islands. It was a pretty painful experience, given the time, effort and memories put in, but I really hope it is for the better. Sylvan isn’t going away entirely… in fact it will probably come back with renewed growth for 2009.

But it’s always difficult to start again from the ground up, and doubly so when it feels like I was forced in to making the decisions I made like a subject of Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning. A small part of me wonders when the time will come when I just can’t take it anymore and leave entirely. I really hope that time doesn’t come… or when it does, it comes on better terms than this.

The last few trees in Sylvan, just prior to deletion.

In other, completely unrelated news, I’m pleased to announce that Nov 17 was the release date for a project I had been working on for about a month and a half.

In collaboration with Craig Wacker at the MacArthur Foundation, In Kenzo of Non Profit Commons, as well as AWS colleagues Mistress Midnight and Brian Rutherford, the MacArthur Foundation’s sim ‘Foundations’ was released to the public and was host to a panel discussion on “Real World Impacts from the Virtual World”, as well as a sim tour from Craig.

There are still some bits and pieces we’d like to fix up before our official opening in early 2009, but being able to give folks a sneak peek on the 17th was great fun and wonderful insight. I really look forward to doing more work along these lines.

Foundations can be reached through the following slurl:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Foundations/198/101/36

LL cemented their decision on Openspaces recently when they sent out their email notice to Estate Owners on Openspaces. M’s final word? Graduated pricing, reduced resources, and a semantic ball and cup game in which everyone is a loser except LL.

By the end of 2009, Openspaces as they are currently will be called Homesteads, and will cost $125/month. They will have a throttle of 20 max agents, as well as some scripting limitations. Another, wholly different and almost useless service will be dubbed the new ‘Openspace’, and still cost $75/month, BUT be limited to 750 prims and only 10 agents at a time, and no dwellings will be allowed. Scripts will also be severely limited.

So this is what becomes of popular dissent, these days. It used to be that LL would listen to suggestions and actually take them to heart, being flexible to the needs of its userbase.

It’s disheartening, really.

At the same time, while i COULD go ahead and keep paying for a homestead, the additional cost combined with the extra bit I pay my landlord puts me pretty damned close to full tier on a grandfathered full region, which is pretty damned ridiculous, considering i am already up against my 1/4 region prim limit as it is.

All this to maintain a place I enjoy, more or less on a hobby basis. :/

So… winter 2008/09 is one of choices, i guess. Already over a thousand regions have been either abandoned or coalesced back in to full regions. For the first time ever, the grid is shrinking, and faster by the week.

While there have been developments towards getting governmental agencies, schools and solution providers more involved in SL, it’s hard to see how LL can possibly find merit in stepping all over its userbase right now because *IT* made bad decisions and can’t now own up to them.

I don’t have much more to add except to leave you with this poignant video Wildefire Walcott put together in response to the whole debacle:

Roslin Petion surprised me earlier today with a new set of gothic themed skins, and I ended up agreeing to DJ a couple of last minute sets, so here’s the outfit i put together around the skin…

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