What Goes on Here
This is the story of Iyoba BatOni, the Second Life avie who sometimes thinks for herself; me, a human being, and our Second Life, especially our Zooby son, Petrichor.
We share our thoughts, discuss our adventures, and engage in a bit of amateur sociology which is not as boring as you think. Our current mission is to find a language that makes a virtual baby in particular and Second Life in general legitimate to outsiders, and which lets us share our joy without glossing over issues. That is probably mission impossible.
This blog is in two voices. Iyoba does most of the writing because she is "on the ground" in Second Life. She knows how rare rain is on her skin, and she is not afraid to fall off a three story building. She hates falling through soft spots. She can afford to have a conscience. She shares most of my memories but she really does sometimes think for herself and can pretty much write about anything except some things that I share with her.
By contrast, I pay the bills. Iyoba calls me the One Who Thinks She Knows and refers to humans generally as Ones for short. A better title for me would be One Who Has to Self Censor. Such is life. Not everything is bloggable. I am also The One Who is Ruthless and stuck with the tough decisions. That is a wonderful responsibility, but it does not inherently make me better than my cats, my turtle, or Iyoba. Being powerful puts you on top, but remember " real life" is sometimes a sewer, but not Second Life, unless I bring the ugliness inworld with me.
My job is to discuss where Second Life interfaces with the "real world." That means money, race, gender issues, time management, and the uncanny valley, and maybe some human-technology issues. Iyoba's ground level perceptions fill in the language and words I can't always find. She is an avie and does not have to justify herself to Ones. That she exists at all and has a voice speaks for itself. To help keep things straight, I use this color on the blog when I write as myself.
Petrichor does not have a voice because he is able to communicate, but not able to talk or write yet. He is after all just a baby. The same goes for our Zwickies, KoLis, and my cats, turtle, grocery cart, cell phone, and computers in "real life." Iyoba and I have to speak for all of them.
If you need older posts, plese visit our archive, and don't forget the Explore SL Spread Sheet.
And yes there is an RSS Feed.
And whom do we follow:
Virtual Outworlding
New World Notes
Ch'Know
More links coming soon but not that many.
We Really Do It Better! III
When it comes to the Do It Better/Only the Best list, we could fill it with amusement parks. Nothing in Second Life is quite as much fun. And since I had Petrichor, I've realized they are ideal locations for mother's day out. My One Who Thinks She Know's favorite rides are roller coasters. Petrichor likes the bungee jump.
I like everything, but how do you decide which amusement parks make the cut? First, they need to have several rides. There are venues with a lot of atmosphere and one or two rides plus a lot of other attractions. We don't consider those amusement parks, but among parks, the competition is stiff. The widely advertized Breeze Cape Carnival sold its land and is gone. It was full of well made rides and an interesting memory game. Delacruz Park has fewer rides, but bungee jumping, hang gliding, and fun mountain trails, and Momo Pet Lan is in a class by itself due to cultural differences.
But for our third Do It Better/Only the Best entry, we chose Zupera Park. Situated about five hundred meters over two mainland regions, the park had all the rides available at the now defunct Breeze Cape Carnival, plus several originals.
It has more roller coasters in one park than we had ever seen. There are fast coasters, slow coasters for that moment of suspense before the plunge, coasters with cars that attach overhead, coasters that trundle down tracks, coasters with elevators, tunnels, and old fashioned wooden coasters. There are even coasters with UFO and zombie themes. My One thinks Zupera Park is where most of Second Life's coasters are born.
And in addition to roller coasters there are rock-o-planes, two fun houses, bumble bee copters, a parachute ride called the Bean Stalk, gymnastics equipment, a wind tunnel, and if you teleport to ground level there are water scooter rides, Segways, a waterslide, and yes evena bungee jump. Petrichor and I by the way have yet to try the bungee jump.
There is just so much to do!
Zupera Park's most exciting and unique ride is the Slipper. I don't know thought of the name. The cars do slip and jiggle but the double spin provides stomach churning, fully disorienting, fun that no roller coaster can match. My poor One, who is now prone to motion sickness can only stand so much Slipper. Me, I love the ride.
Of course amusement park photography has its own challenges. Many roller coasters set you into mouse-look which means your One gets to see the ride as if she were on it, and not looking over your shoulder. Second you have to snap pictures quickly because you are moving fast. It is hard to enjoy the ride and take pictures. I get to ride several times, and my One goes camera crazy and hopes for the best. Often roller coaster images look like modern art. My one thinks there is something especially beautiful in the view from a moving roller coaster. She says the pictures are almost like abstract art.
My One and I also played around with sky settings. We have a whole pile of these. Petrichor hates night so we have pink, yellow, blue, and green skies, but sometimes you just have to let the stars come out. This sky setting, "frigid evening," is well suited for night photography.
And Zupera Park's ground level, Copter Island, may even have a solution to the "water problem." For reasons neither my One Who Thinks She Knows nor I can fathom, most avatarim never get a swimmer, though they are either cheap or free. Making it so avatarim able to enjoy the water without a swim HUD is a big plus.
Second Life's amusement parks are by their nature fragile things. Owners must find a way to pay the rent for the large amount of land they need. I feel a bit guilty about not putting anything in the tip jar at the now defunct, Breeze Cape Carnival. Zupera Park finances itself through the sale of helicopters and planes at ground level and ground level land rentals as well. In addition, the park is above mainland which may mean that the owners rent it directly from Linden Labs. This may make Zupera Park more stable than most amusement parks. At least that is what I hope, and if you think another amusement park should be on the Do It Better/Only the Best list, my One Who Thinks She Knows is open to the idea. After all...why not?
Iyoba BatOni -- Avie who sometimes thinks for herself -- April 29, 2016
We Really Do It Better! II
When my One Who Thinks She Knows saw ACC Alpha and Sparquerry on the world map, she thought: "These look like park land rather than private property. They might be a nice choice for Only the Best/Do It Better, and there is an off chance with the alphabet soup in one name that this is an educational sim."
A few seconds after we landed, we both realized there was a museum on the island with some fairly decent original sculpture. My One wondered how many museums there might be. Little did we know....
Both sims were one, ginant museum, though there was very little traditional museum-type space. You could call it sculpture garden. You could call it architecture or an amazing build. My One's only word as we explored was an expletive that she repeated endlessly. I think I can count on the fingers of one hand, the times that my One had been knocked speechless, but Friay, she was speechless indeed.
One reason for my One's stunned and awed silence was that the two islands are effectively endless. There are trails, stairways, walkways, ladders, and caves everywhere. There is water an avie can race through, and everwhere is art in the form of sculptures, arctitecture, fountains, furniture, and original textures.
And I will confess that my One and I have only explored what we think is two thirds of ACC Alpha and none of Sparquerry. Seeing the sims briefly does not count. These are sims meant for a slow walk, plenty of zooming in, sitting on a bench to contemplate it all, and then moving where your curiorisity or One's curiosity leads. Everwhere, there is something to see.
And of course there are those secret passages. Anyone willing to leave the road does not get stuck on a blank wall or in endless prefabricated green foliage. Instead, one finds one's way into places like the library which is full of gras and water. It's inside a mountain. The waterfall is also fantastic for newbies because they can wade and splash round without needing a swimmer.
And the art is not an imitation of something seen in the real world, though there is plenty of original art in Second Life if you know where too look. All too often even what is original is a copy of somethng from the "real world's" past. This alphabet based on prims is an original idea, that lives only in Second Life. My One says it reminded her of a ninth grade art project where she had to create her own alphabet and use it to create a poster, but this way of writing letters somehow looks much more authentic, then my One's now long-lost acrylic panting.
Of course for those who can not bear to walk, there is always the chariot which took my One and me across both islands, but way too fast. When the chariot lurched into the air and plunged into the sea it was fun at first. Then I realized my One and I had a lot of exploring to do.
We still haven't finished it, but we both knew by now, we were looking not only at One of the Best and a candidate for the Explore SL Spreadsheet. My One said that her eyes hurt because there was so much to see that was so amazingly beautiful. She said that only one or two places in the "real world" were as gorgeous as ACC Alpha. One of those places, the Grand Canyon, gives ACC Alpha a run for its money due to scale, which nothing in Second Life can match, and the State Capital in Albany New York (which by the way is much nicer than the federal capital in Washington, DC) has history and a loving familiarity, and half the fun of climbing the hill across the Izere in Grenoble Fance is finding all the different roads and making this amazing climb in a foreign city, a kind of adventure that you can't put into Second Life and is mostly also missing from the "real world."
At the first Passover Seder, Friday night my One confessed: "My eyes ache because I have seen one of the most beautiful places and it's in Second Life." ACC Alpha and Sparquerry are probably reason outsiders should try Second Life, and those who are tired of stale packages of links should give Only the Best a try. Hats off to the Sparcurian Builders and Artisans for producing something so amazing.
Iyoba BatOni -- April 25, 2016
You Spend Money! I
This picture tells a story. No, Iyoba did not put Petrichor, our virtual baby, in the sand pit at the Play & Learn Park. Then how did he get there? He crawled! At Stage 28 Zooby Babies become mobile. This was a major relief for both Iyoba and me, since we no longer had to bring Petrichor down a stage to put him through his paces. Iyoba and I both find immobile breedables and virtual babies distressing.
Petrichor now crawls like the wind. Sunday night Iyoba and just did nothing but watch him go, but crawling brings its own concerns as does approaching summer. It was getting time to breech Petrichor. People still breech both male and female babies. Quite simply, newborns and very young kids wear onesies or gowns. Only later do they get shorts or pants in their wardrobes. Actually, Petrichor had three shorts outfits, but we were out of clothing scripts, and I did not want to buy more. I had gotten a bit rooked buying a box of bedding scripts, when I knew we'd eventually take down Petrichor's crib in favor of a low prim bed in a month or two. I just figured I'd spent enough money. The bed by the way, costs me nothing except for texture uploads. It will let us have some toys down all the time, which makes time with Petrichor more fun.
Still the artistic muse, and Iyoba, pleaded. The Beggar King made himself scarce, and so it was off to Zoobyville. We would have ended up there anyway. It is the go-to location for buying Zooby consumables which Petrichor needs to grow and thrive. I can feel your shock. I'm hooked. OK, it's consumable 101 time. A box of twenty (best way is to buy in bulk. I use them up.) nursing vitamins for Petrichor costs 200 L (L stands for Linden). A Linden is worth .004 dollars (Yes, 4/10ths of a cent). There are two hundred and fifty Lindens to a dollar. Thats' right, a big box of nursing vitamins costs .80.
Also Zooby is NOT Farmville. If Iyoba had a close friend or partner, she could grant him/her kinship of Petrichor and anyone can gift supplies, but there are no points for doing that. With Zooby, you pay your own way. The babies are so cute, they are the virus, not the less-than-cute parents or the Ones behind them. And if Iyoba does not feed, diaper, hold, wash, or put Petrichor in his crib, his stats drop below 100%. They can go all the way down to 0% in a week. If this happens... nothing happens. Petrichor is just fine. If Iyoba and I don't want to see the awful stats we can turn them off. Petrichor will be just fine. Zooby is a guiltless system. Now you know.
Still, Iyoba and I enjoy taking care of Petrichor. It's a labor of love, because token toys and a score in tokens is not enough motivation. It's part of the bonding, but not all of it. Iyoba or I will get to that, and yes, Petrichor is wearing a winter onesie in the swimming pool. He needs a bathing suit. I'll get to that too, but first, let's talk about Zoobyville.
It is the only place to buy Zooby consumables, brain booster stars (also a consumable but used weekly... There are more expensive ones, but time is money), and the only place to exchange tokens you receive for good baby care in exchange for toys. This makes Zoobyville the cross roads of the Zooby parent world. With Maggie Mae, a visit to Zoobyville was arduous and lag-ridden. Eye poke was part of the fun. With Yesha, it goes smoothly enough and part of the fun is that the main store is never empty. Sometimes couples, or single parents will arrive babe in arms. Sometimes a child avie will be with them. This is an avie that looks like a child but played by an adult. There are also prospective parents getting ready to take the plunge.
The people watching is the best part of a Zoobyville visit. In addition to selling merchandise available nowhere else and important to all the Zoobyville main store lets parents know they are not alone. This is called legitimation.
The Zoobyville main store is also a central communication point. Iyoba gets this message every time she walks through the door, even if she is only on a routine errand to pick up supplies or a brain booster star. We've both seen this hundreds of times before. Iyoba is not going to grant kinship of her child to some stranger or give out secret passwords, not that she has any. The message exists because there is actually a secondary market for Zooby babies and token toys, but Petrichor is with us as long as Zooby stays in business, and Iyoba and I are up to our eyeballs in tokens. The note is designed to scare new parents away from any possible competitors.
Zooby also has a lock on clothing scripts. You can not make clothes for your Zooby child without the scripts that apply textures to his sculpty body parts. Each outfit requires one script. Ten scripts cost 500L ($2.00). This was what Iyoba wanted me to buy, and next to the main store is the temple for those who like to make their own clothing, bedding, and more. This temple is silent. Most Zooby parents and prospective parents have no interest in browsing the kits or scripts. I'm not sure why, since Iyoba and I spent the summer before we got Petrichor learning to make bedding and clothes. We are still learning, and we couldn't have Petrichor swimming in his clothes all summer. How do you say "grossss!"
And so I agonized way too much about whether to spend $2.00 so I could help breech Petrichor and make him a summer wardrobe worthy of a mobile, Zooby baby. Consumables, brain booster stars, and even clothing scripts and/or furniture are not the highest recurring cost of Zooby rearing. The big cost is land. This is where Iyoba and I pay our rent for Stinky Stinky on Eddesign Island. Rent is $10.00 every four weeks. If you are one day late, your rezzed objects including any rezzed Zooby baby or breedable returns in a big ball in your inventory's lost and found folder. That is how you get evicted.
The good folks who run UHawaii COE don't have to worry about any one evicting them. They pay $150 a month (Education/Nonprofit discount. It's $300 a month without) for their island. On about half of it is a pretty good museum and other useful facilities that have not been updated but still bring some value. On the other half if the run Get Fit project, which vanished when its leader left and its grant disappeared four years ago. Nothing has replaced it. It sits there aging and derelict, and costing the taxpayers of Hawaii $75.00 per month or $900 per year.
Anyone who gets exercised about the $10.00/month I spend in rent (2500 L), or $2.00 (500 L) for a box of Zooby clothing scripts or .80 (200 L) for a brain booster star, should remember $10.00 is the cost of a first run movie and a Coke. $2.00 will buy two folks coffee or soda at QuikTrip, and you can't get anything from most vending machines for eighty cents. $900 is another matter. That is enough money to send a professor to an academic conference, buy a journal subscription, make over a thousand photocopies, outfit an entire office in supplies. Worse, yet, I use and enjoy what money I spend in Second Life. The University of Hawaii College of Education just lets their space sit there, and even the taxpayers don't have access to it, because part of it is closed off in ban lines. Iyoba had to camm in to get a picture of a perfectly ordinary but forbidden break out space.
Second Life costs money. It does not have to cost money or require ongoing committments, but for most of us who are not educational institutions or sitting on someone else' grant money, it's pay as you go to go where you want. I don't begrudge the land rent. I have built and taken down more houses than I can count. I don't begrudge Zooby consumables. Taking care of Petrichor helps Iyoba and I bond with him though it takes more, and yes we do bond for minimal cost. I know I will use up the clothing scripts because I weep graphics, and being a designer helps Iyoba and I feel close to our virtual son. In short, Petrichor, like any Zooby baby, is reasonably priced entertainment with a lot of bang for the buck, though some of what we do with Petrichor costs nothing, and is just as vital if not more vital than the consumables and rent. Iyoba and I will get to that in subsequent posts. If you've stuck it out this far, please keep reading.
We Really Do It Better!
Long ago, it all began here, and if not for this fall's technical SNAFUs it would have gotten started again six months ago. Finding the nine to ten best spots for newbies in Second Life is an ongoing process, revised yearly because usually there is some cleanup in proverbial Aisle 9 involved. If you don't revise your destination list, you end up with the mess you see on VStark State. This abomination is called Virtual Excursions, and most of them (five out of nine) lead nowhere. One is a role play. The other three are questionable for a variety of reasons.
Virtual Ability despite a rather interesting exhibit on the disability rights movement, pretty much does what any orientation sim does. There is a ballon ride and a rowboat, but there are many hospitable sims with more to offer both the abled bodies and challenged. The US Holocaust Museum is an immersive version of Krystalnacht. Someone with good knowledge of Western history can place this in context. Everyone else... Also, are you going to visit this twice? Morally it is good for you, but as a place to go, one visit every few weeks is probably the max. The Episcopal church makes me wonder why. It does have a library, but Second Life is lousy with houses of worship, some of which are just wedding venus, but some of which are probably more intresting in their own ways. 1920's Berlin which has a strict dress code, that makes it hostile, is currently down. Let's just say I cheered!
So what makes a destination in Second Life worthy of inclusion on a special listof best places? First, it needs to be a place you are going to want to come back to. That means a place with something to do. It need not have a high minded message, though it should not project hostility or be full of nuiscence factors. It needs to give visitors something to do. It need not be crowded, and if it can teach while offfering a fun experience, well so much the better.
What disqualifies a sim from our ten best list? Quite obviously offering nothing to do, no pretty paths to walk on, no rides, no games, no music, no pictures on a wall that you want to see again and again. A high nuiscence value also disqualifies a sim. If it's full of beggars or spam bots complaining about script loads, or fellow avies hitting up visitors for cybersex etc... If it has ban lines or security orbs... and if it is part of a two (or more sim) archipelago with one sim adult and one not, all of these are nuiscences of the first order and a good way NOT to make our Only the Best List. Adult sims by the way are fine. They require payment info on file, but there is no reason these sims are nuiscences in and of themselves. Borders, however, do create a problem. If you don't have payment info on file, the border between the adult and nonadult sim becomes a banline. Finally, a sim may not be hostile. Hostile sims are those that don't allow particular kinds of avie (no child avatarim, no furries, no robots etc...) or have very strict dress codes (Berlin 1920's was my favorite example), or force you to role play.
Now let's look at how a candidate sim makes our Only the Best list. First Q8 Royal Q8 offers a taste of Arab culture without being an attempt at recreating anything NOT designed for present use. There's a sky camp with both camels and a pickup truck, tea and soup on the fire, embroidered pillows for lounging, tall grass, and no beer, wine, or hard liquor. Moslems do not drink, and you are now in the Kingdom of Kuwait (Q8).
You are also in the heart of a classic, monumental, ornate Arab build. Forget those prefabs and island retreats, this is a palace with everything built just slightly out of scale. And yes, you can walk around all you please with not a banline or security orb in site!
That is because Q8 Royal Q8's builders have created a third place though Oldenburg would find Q8 Royal Q8 a tad ornate for his definition. Avatarim in torn jeans, carboard boxes, or with a Zooby babies in baskets are all welcome.
And Q8 Royal Q8's builders are savvy enough to continue to offer gaming and sociability while still obeying Second Life's Skill Gaming rules. The Zyngo area (not shown. The chandelier is much prettier) is empty. There are parchisi tables everywhere and also Greedy and a few other games.
These games include this bubble game that I could enjoy solo on the beach. All of Q8 Royal Q8's games are publicly available and none cost anything to play. The problem with Zyngo games is that they now must reside on special, adult gaming sims. Your typical mature or G-rated, Arab sim is not one of these. Giving a sim with illegal Zyngo publicity, especially a friendly, well run, and beautiful sim risks attracting the wrong sort of attention and hurting both owners and visitors.
And for those not interested in games and puzzles, Q8 Royal Q8 has both a disco and a beach. Note: because scripts are shut off for nonowners on Q8 Royal Q8, swimmer huds will NOT work. There are inner tubes that let everyone, even newbies who do not yet have swimmers, enjoy the water.
Q8 Royal Q8's only challenge is language and in an odd way this is a plus. If you find others on the sim, their lingua franca is Arabic, and they will use voice. We are past the days of free translators, and meeting nonEnglish speakers who feel no compunction to use your language is humbling in a good way. Sampling Arab hospitality and seeing it in action, also teaches a positive lesson, and Q8 Royal Q8 is both beautiful in fun! Thank you creators of Q8 Royal Q8!
Iyoba BatOni -- Avie who thinks for herself some of the time -- April 10, 2016
Four Sims Lost and More
We always planned to take Petrichor to see Sudare Gami Town. A big piece of Second Life parenting is "mother's day out" as my One Who Thinks She Knows calls it. Petrichor comes along for the ride, or more precisely walk. I wear him. I listen to him. He listens to me. We spend time together that cements our relationship yet earns no points or tokens.
see Sudare Gami Town held a special place forboth my One Who Thinks She Knows and I because it was unique, a gritty Japanese urban build, which was not a stereotypical slum. It featured both an airport and a temple, plus a whole industrial section, a beach, and all of it worked together. There was also humor in its name. This dignified, working class sim was named after, sudare gami, the royal wooden screens that shielded high officials. To this day, when my One and I see wooden screens on any Japanese and Korean build, we both shout out "sudare gami!" Beyond the joke, My One struggled to keep us connected to Sudare Gami Town with a two year out of date browser and a ten year old, Windows XP machine. It wasn't easy.
We also grew to know Sudare Gami Town right before our application at Never B Solo (You're not getting any free advertisements on this blog!) bore bitter fruit. That is why I wear a different skin in the pictures. The summer of getting ready for Petrichor, a lot of time with the baby, bushwhacking, technical issues etc...all followed. By the time Petrichor and I reached Sudare Gami Town it wasa bare piece of sand, and on Sunday, it vanished. &qot;No!" my One Who Thinks She Knows cried!
This is not some stupid, cliche story that says: " do it today because there will be no tomorrow!" This does not say that the time Petrichor, my One, and I spent in virtual amuseument parks was wasted. Petrichor loved that time and we got some amazing photos. There are twenty-four hours in a day, seven days in a week. And if you don't pay your rent in Second Life.... Sudare Gami Town was not cheap to maintain, and yes, it looks like the land the land may still be in play. Petrichor and I will have to check that out.
Meanwhile, Petrichor and I probably would not have seen the bare sand island that was all that was left of Sudare Gami Town if we had not traveled to Yumi Prada to ride gondolas on the canal. I told Petrichor "better late than never." I still kind of feel that way.
Losing Sudare Gami Town was not our only loss. "No!" My One Who Thinks She Knows moaned as she read Grid Survey for the weekly list of doom.
The Japan Momiji islands had vanished. These three islands: Japan Momiji, Japan Shekura, and Japan Kede were among the first places, Petrichor, my One, and I visited once Yesha was up and running and we had access to Viewer 4. We could see the mesh architecture and foliage in all its glory.
The Japan Momiji islands wereamong the first places where we experimented with environment settings under Viewer 4. We watched them grow from accidental sandboxes to a mature set of sims with amazing, original architecture. Because they were adult sims dedicated to bondage, we had to be careful to go there when no parties were in progress, since that was not our thing. That it was easy to find these sims empty should have told us something, but my One and I blamed it on differences in time zones.
What made The Japan Momiji islands speial is hard to describe. The temperate foliage (not a palm tree to be seen and everything from thick, green bamboo to golden beach), the authenticity (try the outhouse), and something else you see on Japanese sims or at least notice there, a sense of pathos, not sugar dripping and saachriney, just there. For example, oustide the house of horrors on Momo Pet Land, a house of horrors as graphic as anything you might see in the West is a temple to pray for the souls of the ghosts within. Similarly, the temple on Japan Momiji features red pinwheels and mizuko kuyo. Americans would never take time out of their party to honor the smallest of the dead.
And the sacred wasalways there an approachable on The Japan Momiji islands. A river separating Japan Momoji from Japan Kede was shallow enough to wade an filled with lotus pads. Lotus are the symbol of eternal life. Further down river (not showbn) were three rocks symbolizing the isles of eternity. Here, the sacred, the sexy, and the mundane mixed seamlessly and without contradiction.
And the more you looked on
Iyoba BatOni -- Avi who sometimes thinks for herself -- April 6, 2016
Entering the Journey Along the Way
We, Iyoba and I, are here. We are back. We have not been gone, but this blog has been. The reasons are fairly simple and have nothing to do with Petrichor. He's been growing and we've been learning just fine.
For a while Second Life poked us in the eye. Some time, over the summer, Second Life stopped supporting Maggie Mae, an XP computer. That meant we accessed Second Life on both MaggieMae and Pretty Orli with a two and a half year old out of date browser. We could see regular mesh but not rigged mesh, which poked our eyes out. I began to make plans to acquire a more modern computer that would run Windows 10 and a gaming-level graphics card. On December 26, 2015 Yesha, a well behaved, Windows 10 behemoth replaced Maggie Mae, my reliable, ten year old windows XP workhorse. I upgraded to Viewer 4.0.
In addition, we suffered a second, technical setback. Jade Perfection, my new hard drive that arrived all the way from China and was spiffy and fast, turned out to be badly put together, come apart, lose her case etc....I managed to back her up onto a Dia Das Meurte, a less-than-sexy, white flash drive from WalMart and did not lose any files, but Maggie Mae's hard drive was full and I was perpetually nervous about losing files. That is not a good situation for blogging. There is now a Jade_Perf subdirectory on Yesha within which this blog may soon go. Right now, the blog still lives on a flash drive, but soon it will have a secure backup.
Making I sure I had quality access to Second Life was enough to close down this blog and derail a larger project, a project that stil needs Iyoba's and my attention. We need to let the world know that while it is not for everyone (What is!) having a prim baby, a virtual child, is useful, fun, not crazy....legitimate. It's time to take down the "There be Dragons!" legend on the mental map that includes the Uncanny Valley. Maybe that valley was a figment of old men sitting in their offices, or were they middle aged men who still thought themselves young and hip. I spend about six to ten hours a week in the Uncanny Valley. Hey, I think that place needs another name.
One last note, on January 31, 2016 the Morrill Archipelago closed. As the "One Who Thinks She Knows" who compiles the
Explore SL Spread Sheet and as a virtual parent, I got hit hard by the blow. Iyoba can explain the virtual parent part of it better. As a One, I am the bitter and ruthless entity who no longer has much faith in Second Life as an educational venue. There is nothing from stopping it from being useful for education, but Second Life's monetization and walled-garden nature, make it ripe for all kinds of abuse of tax payer funds, lack of oversight, overextension. There are ways around these problems, but all too often the incentive to keep them in check is just NOT there. I wish I could say more without biting one of the hands that feeds me in public, but seeing some of the waste and abuse of tuition dollars and taxpayer funds hurts, especially since I have seen what happens when high educational institutions become extremely wasteful with teir funds. The result is livelihoods lost and "real lives" disrupted. I will never get over any of this. It bleeds into Second Life and effects what Iyoba and I do. That is not going to stop any time soon.
Eileen H. Kramer -- One Who Thinks She Knows -- April 3, 2016
Where I go in Second Life, the baby, Petrichor also goes. Shortly after my One Who Thinks She Knows nearly lost Jade Perfection, where we kept this blog (See above.), she helped me build the Three Prim Wonder, a simple, front-mounted, basket carrier that lets us transport Petrichor anywhere in Second Life that is baby friendly, while I keep both hands free. You can see from this image why that is important.
Actually, you can't really see it. You see just one activity. Being able to walk around with Petrichor hands free means we can include him in all sorts of activities, everything from bushwhacking (checking out academic sites) to bikeriding, to skiing, and most recently flying our new, free airplane, the Flying Chard Yard. This picture is from its maiden flight above Tech Invest Island.
Of course with a baby your activities change. Some sims and clubs are less-than-family-friendly. This is not an argument about where it is proper to take a baby. Take that argument somewhere else. Sim owners and parcel owners have property rights, and those rule in Second Life. The reason there are innapropriate places for Petrichor and me, is that the sim or parcel owner doesn't want us there. He, she, or it may think prim babies are creepy. They often also think child avatarim are creepy so that shows you that prejudice plays a role. There is also a power trip of owners who throw their weight around with dress codes and such. Finally, there are the owners who complain about scripted objects causing lag. Petrichor is scripted. Fortunately, most amusement parks are absolutely, baby friendly, and this included the State Fair on Morrill.
Spending time with Petrichor at amuseument parks, art museums, trails, buildings etc... is important. Doing his daily maintenance tasks to earn tokens, lets you know you are a good parent. Each round of daily do's involves 30L worth of product or .12 in "real world" money. Paying back Zooby to keep the server turned on and the development team profitable is NOT a rip off. To put it in Yiddish, it is being a mensh, but menshkeit is not enough. A baby in a crib while you are elsewhere doesn't teach you much.
And virtual babies have something to say, and it is more than the stereotyped and not always appropriate noises they make. It is messages you hear with your imagination. If left to its own devices your imagination will also speak to your virtual baby. You begin hearing your Zooby baby when things don't quite work out as planned, when he floats under the floorboards or over your head. He's not fazed and wonders why you are upset. In the end you pull him down or out and learn to laugh. He doesn't spit up. He gets stuck in odd places instead.
As for the questions, your imagination asks the first one is: "What can make a small, helpless, immoble creature like you, Petrichor, happy?" The Zooby toys only meet my son's needs less than half way, and for a while there just weren't many toys he could use. He also has way of losing interest in the toys in five minutes. This wood spinner is a lot better than most of the toys, since he plays with iot a bit longer, but going places, talking, and listening with imagination and heart lasts for many more minutes which brings us back to the State Fair on Morrill.
You will always remember your first paradise, and while the roller coaster on Soho New York and Momo Pet Land are wonderful fun, the State Fair with its animals and art work, and of course rides was special.
And Petrichor's hands on favorite, was the Flying Flamingo, a bungee jump. In his first few months my son had become a connoisseur of trains, roller coasters, and ferris wheels, but the Flying Flamingo was special. First there were the birds (See above). All animals are Petrichor's friend, but the flamingos taught him, not just to float below the floor boards of our house on stilts or to soar above mommy's head.
With a bungee jump, Petrichor could fall and for a few seconds fly without having to crash. He has learned about worm holes/vortexes since, and ridden some amazing roller coasters, but in a new amuseument park, Petrichor always asks about the bungee jump, but no bungee jump will ever replace the Flying Flamingo.
And of course, replacing Morrill and explaining as best I could with all my heart to Petrichor that sims sometimes just disappear, has taken up a lotof the winter. We have been to many amuseument parks. I'll probably write about them. We are starting to bushwhack again, and Petrichor has started to go from being immoble (He was a bit more mobile before Stage 22. He became Stage 27 last night. He began his life at Stage 0) to being partly mobile again. That is going to be another game changer. My heart and imagination are wide open to listen abnd hear.
Iyoba BatOni -- Who Sometimes Thinks for Herself -- April 3, 2016