Keeping Trust, Keeping Faith
My One Who Thinks She Knows has a good heart most of the time. That is better than an awful lot of Ones and
an awful lot of avies for that matter. She had a very good heart about our Lily Frogs even though she is about
to turn ruthless. I'll get to the ruthless part. You can see an egg rack with four eggs in it. Since the Lily
Frog store disappeared, we could not clean up any eggs. If we put them in inventory they would die so they would never hatch.
We don't have room to hatch eggs as long as we have live frogs down, but well...let's just say Lily Frog eggs are in some ways
more precious than Petable Turtle eggs. We are as far as we know the only source of our own stock. Besides, killing creatures, even ones who may never be born,
just because we want to clean up the land is unspeakably ugly.
My One refused to give up. She kept leaving message to Dragoness Rage asking for egg cups. We had food for our frogs so they would not
starve, but we did not want to lose a single egg. There was no reply. My One came up with an idea. She put Goofy Kitty in inventory and
Goofy Kitty is my own cat couch and I sleep on him sometimes. My One made him for me so that I would not miss SBE (Sad Brown Eyed) Kitty or Kitty Friend so
badly. She understood, and that is what having a good heart is all about. Then my One made egg racks out of lattice sculpty.
She said we could hold twenty eggs if need be and the frogs could continue to reproduce while the eggs in their rack became an attractive
addition to the property.
Then on Thursday, Dragoness Rage left us a present, ten Lily Frog egg cups. This really is not enough (sorry!) One of the reasons
we found out so late about the store disappearing was that when my One found the island in disarray, she took three boxes of egg cups. They were
free, and there was no point in running out. We try to stay ahead of things, and remember, my One does have a good heart.
Well, it was time to put away the eggs.
Then we discovered another problem. My One had done the most humane thing she could to keep our Lily Frogs from laying eggs.
She crated and uncrated them. This "forces a miscarriage." My One even said she was the froggy abortionist, but it is better for
eggs not to be laid than for us to kill them because we have no room. Then we noticed our frogs were not getting "pregnant." They are all
over a hundred and twenty days old. Crating the frogs has retired them. It means they are sterile breedables, and as you can see from
the picture of Yatif (green and burgundy turtle on bottom who is female) and Uriel (male orange turtle on top) breedables exist to... Lily Frogs do
not have amplexus, but you get the idea I hope. My One is talking about "retiring" our current batch of frogs and starting with new stock.
It's been a long time, she says. Our frogs will not starve to death. We kept that from happening and we prevented all the eggs that were laid from being destroyed.
My One sometimes forgets her good heart and acts ruthless. She is going to act ruthless in the next three days. I hate when that happens!
And meanwhile, all our breedables continue to amaze and astound, even our "unsupported" Petable turtles, though every
Petable Turtle egg is special. We have too many to ever hatch out even one tenth of them, but we don't care. Meanwhile, Billie (who is an F2 turtle) and
Shais (who is F1) produced this egg. 60% glows are exceedingly rare. My One prefers tricolors, but this is still an event.
This is the way Petable Turtles are supposed to work, though my One says that tricolors are the true exemplars of what turtles should produce.
Then Saturday night we went searching for
baby zwickies and when we called them heard two voices. We found one zwicky we all ready knew about. She was a binary whom we named Ujaama, which
means either socialism or family working together. Our zwickies are after all family! Then the other two babies were nowhere to be found.
And why were we hearing a single baby crying twice. Well, it wasn't a single baby. Zwickies almost never have twins, but Nimrod and Subira produced
two offspring, fraternal female twins.
This is Fiorella. My One had names ready for a change and I can't tell you why. My One won't let me. Fiorella is luminescent.
Her magenta rough, legs, and skirt are inherited from both her parents. Her father's rough is purplish-magenta and her mother is a red starter.
She is a binary because all zwickies born in the next week or two will be binaries.
And this is Nasrin. She is not luminescent but she is the first and binary with an orange rough we have seen. And yes, the source for
her name is a secret as well. My One is very superstitious. She is also sentimental when it comes to naming our creatures which is why I wonder
why she can retire our frogs. She says that breedables exist to reproduce. She says that we have kept our frogs alive so that there are more frogs.
They laid four eggs while we were running out of food. Maybe if we have to retire the frogs, these are the ones we should hatch. My One is tempted to
hatch only pickerel frogs since poor Tamar and Absalom could not pass on their lovely patterning. I'm trying not to think about the
future with our Lily Frogs.
Iyoba BatOni with help from the One Who Thinks She Knows, Eileen H. Kramer -- May 27, 2013
Once Upon a Kanga
Click on the thumbnail, and you will see the sign that my One Who Thinks She Knows and I saw last night on
Empire State College island. My One thought she knew all about African textiles. I have many
dresses in my inventory that are wax prints, batiks, and of course kente and mudcloth. My One had always assumed that
the best African textiles were from the western part of the continent. She was about to learn otherwise. In a kind of
oblique way, today's entry answers Strawberry Singh's<
Teach Me Something meme. It's not quite a tutorial, but you'll see my One and I both learned a lot.
This kanga celebrates a Chinese-built railway in Tanzania. My One thought it looked something like a Persian carpet.
My One told me that ladies in "real life" wore kangas like wrap-around skirts, long skirts. I wear a lot of long skirts.
I like bright colors. Kangas also are a great way to get a message and slogans across. "Would you like a kanga?" my One asked me.
Lately, my One Who Thinks She Knows has soured on making dresses or at least questioned whether I need to expand my wardrobe.
Let's just say my One was no longer asking questions. In fact she was not even out of sorts. "We'll have to
think of a slogan that we really believe in, and of course
a kanga won't do if the slogan or middle picture gets all wrinkled up when you walk.
And you wear them with a t-shirt. That should make it easier. Of course I could make a cloth texture with a border, and
a four panel skirt will be just perfect. We'll repeat the motif on the t-shirt." my One planned and planned as she
viewed one kanga after another. These beautiful textiles totally fascinated us both.
I sat on the steps of the kanga display while
my One pondered how we could go it one better. My One was also utterly thrilled to see genuine, African art in Second Life.
African art is exceedingly rare. My One wanted to find out everything she couid
about kangas. Here is a web site with even more kangas.
And this web site does not require you to download a PowerPoint.
My One particularly liked this article in
a British newspaper called The Independent.
Of course we needed an American slogan, since my One is American. I'm not sure about my own nationality since I am an avie.
Second Life is my nationality. The One put the slogan on the shirt part of the dress so everyone could read it. It says:
"We protect you. Now it's your turn. Stop White Nose Disease." If you don't know what White Nose Disease or White Nose
Syndrome is, you can read about it here and here. My One who has a very good heart a lot of the time, feels so sad for those poor, little bats.
This shows you what is on the edge and in the center of our kanga. There are bats and a flask of medicine.
The bats are sick, so scientists and veterinarians have to come up with a cure. You can see the center image whether
I am coming or going because my One put it on the back of the shirt and the front of the skirt.
The white nose disease kanga dress also includes a waste. We made it by covering it only with the top or bottom border of the
same texture we used for the skirt. The skirt panels have various portions of the pattern displaying on them as well. This makes the
bats fly big and bright and keeps the waistband covered with leaves, because in the Eastern United States bats often live in the woods.
And here I am test walking my new kanga dress in the Berkman sandbox. We wanted
to make the dress on Empire State College's own sandbox, but
our Looprez only made two panels appear. A Looprez is a device for making prim skirts. Sometimes everything doesn't quite work the way you want it to.
I eeven got to wear my new kanga dress to the #1 Club Valkyrie and show it off, but
I don't think any one there or their Ones Who Think They Know appreciated it. Not everyone cares about the poor, little bats like my good
hearted One Who Thinks She KNows.
Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- May 23, 2013
The Kindness of Friends and Strangers
When my One Who Thinks She Knows writes this blog, she gives the whole world the very, mistaken message that Second Life is a depressing place. That is because she is as we all know perpetually out of sorts. I'm much more sanguine about stuff. Sunday night, my One wanted to lick her wounds so she said: "Let's go check out the Berkman sandbox." I knew what my One wanted. She wanted SNARK! not that snark in the case of this Harvard University sim was undeserved. Some months ago, the Berkman sandbox had outlawed sripts making it useless for any one wanting to use a posing stool or a looprez. There was also new construction/repurposing on Berkman so our snark would serve a purpose.
We teleported close to the sandbox and from where we stood saw an explosion of particles. Particles in the sandbox meant scripts were enabled! Goodbye snark! Hello new dress. This one is a pent with a five panel skirt in a made from scratch design. Sometimes my One Who Thinks She Knows just gets inspired, and yes we h ave the rest of Berkman to explore...and don't forget to click on the thumbnail to see us hard at work at full size.
Sunday night, I was also a bit worried about our zwickies. Bishara, our ice zwicky (not pictured) was nearing the half way point of her life expectancy which meant she would reach zwickapause and stop breeding. My One had brought her a zelly flower, but she refused to eat it. The other zwickies, including Yocheved whom you see turning a somerault (Isn't version 2.01 wonderful!) in the picture, all ate the flower before Bishara could get to it. My One suggested we pick up another flower.
Let's just say I was thrilled. One of the few things that can cheer up my One Who Thinks She knows is a trip to the
main Zwicky Store because not only does she get to pick up food for the zwickies and free supplies like Zelly Flowers, she also gets to see other zwickies and take pictures of them, like this image of a rare, Apheta zwicky. This was from our previous visit to the Main Zwicky Store to get the Zelly Flower that poor Bishara did not eat.
We also saw the first binary zwickies on our last visit. These are new and when Throckmorton, Geronimo, and maybe even Nimrod all have babies, they will be binaries. All binaries have black faces. They remind my One Who Thinks She Knows of pickerel frogs.
And here is a binary zwicky doing what zwickies do very, very well. Oh well, it takes a lot of energy to shoot stars and cut farts that look like daisies or hearts or whatever seasonal decoration is out there. Also it takes more energy to glide face first and turn tumblesaults, and then of course there is always breeding.
And no, our zwickies don't have twins. These girls were born in stasis several months apart. They are full sisters. Geronimo is their father and Fortunata who is green as grass is their mother whom they resemble. My One took Katharinne out of inventory for the look-alike shot. She's the zwicky with the brighter green legs. Nicole's legs/tentacles are more pea green.
Well, when we reached the main Zwicky Store my One Who Thinks She Knows felt a keen pang of disappointment. I guess this is different from a dull, aching pain. There were no binary zwickies to be found. Just a poor little black creature half way through its upate to version 2.02 which is coming soon. That was very sad. Griderz Luv, the Zwicky Creator was also there. My One complained that there were no binaries to photograph and Griderz gave us a this second pod of zwickies that included starter binaries and beta 2.02 creatures.
I don't have to tell you my One got both a Zelly Flower for poor Bishara and some rather nice photographs. This is a miniature type binary zwicky. She looks like a starter.
Of course I know my One's chasing after binary zwickies is just curiosity. She loves and cherishes all the zwickies born at Stinky Stinky even if they are a patchwork of every zwicky there is. Hybrid means mixed, and mixtures always hold surprizes. My One Who Thinks She knows said this little zwicky girl was so ugly she was beautiful and named her Salvatrice which means saved. Salvatrice is in inventory. We have no room for her, but we have no room for the binaries either. We're not going to sacrifice any existing zwickies for new babies. That would not be fair!
Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- May 20, 2013
Very Beautiful but Far From Perfect
In the days when Iyoba, my favorite avie, and I stuggled with our Lily Frogs' fate, we also were bushwhacking, and
the University of Idaho archipelago had long been
on our do-list. After a fruitful week of bushwhacking the collection of sims not only appeared on our do-list but also close by
on the map, since we were using the map as a guide and teleporting to sims that surrounded one we had all ready bushwhacked in this case,
National University. Put another way, it was just plain time,
and yes those images with thick borders are thumbnails. Click them for a full size experience.
These top two images are both of the University of Idaho Commons situated mostly on
Idahonia. It appears impressive becuase it is. The architecture is open and airy. There are lots of stairs for avatarim to climb and
balconies where they can group without causing undue lag, but the huge, impressive building is a huge, empty shell, and that's not just
due to the time of day I visited. Classes can leave materials behind. There is space for exhibitions, schedules, and other signs of use.
Most of the time, this building is an expensive, empty shell.
Now, the University of Idaho sims clearly do give
something back. Idahonia and
University Idaho VTD (Yes, that is the way they spell it), offer
art shows. There are watercolods on Idahonia and modern photographs on University Idaho VTD.
And on
University Idaho CBE (It stands for
College of Business and Economics and yes, that's how they spell the sim name.) there is this lovely exhibit on
Fraud Prevention. I have a very, soft spot for poster exhibits. I think they are easy to create and require little scripting or building expertise.
A detailed texture can go a very long way.
Unfortunately, since Iyoba and I visited the Hamilton College poster exhibition, I can't look at posters without wondering how long ago, someone put them on the land. An obliging student named Fanxin Lin gave me the answer. No one has bothered removing these posters in three years, because no one else has needed the space. On the front of Albertson Hall, the main building on University Idaho CBE hangs a large poster with black print on a white background and its little brother, also a big white poster advertising the next class lesson. The posters are a jarring contrast with the building which is one of the lovlier empty class buildings I have seen. Perhaps the original builder is long gone, and the professor knows only how to rezz a textured board. Stranger things have happened. The white poster at least indicates that there is some kind of current class. As ugly as the poster is, it is very good news for the Archipelago.
The strangest project on the University of Idaho Archipelago is
the Intrepid Healthy Lifestyle Hunter on University Idaho CALS which stands for
College of Agriculture and Life Science. Researchers at the college received a grant for and completed this game in 2011. I'm not sure any one has worked on it
in the last two years or if students use it today. It is immersive. You can see Iyoba in her shield (the backpack that is red) and her HUD (heads up display) telling her how
she is doing, though I must admit we had a hard time figuring it out. In addition, Iyoba is also quite sick. Mess up one meal and you get sick, though there is a bit
more to the story.
The Intrepid Healthy Lifestyle Hunt is a superb reminder that gamification is not the solution to every problem. Yes, Iyoba and I were able to learn some rudimentary nutrition facts and see the nutrient content of a wide variety of foods, but that is not how people eat!. A hamburger is a meal not a snack. People do not usually eat raw vegetables for a snack either. They might eat leftover salad or veggies and dip, but as someone who has taken home orphan vegetable trays from parties (Hello soup!), I can attest to the fact that people don't eat raw veggies for snacks. They might eat them with lunch though. Also, it is unrealistic to penalize me for all my vices. No, I'm not supposed to live on junk food, but if I want a can of Coke in the morning, why not? Moderating my vices is beneficial and something I'm far more likely to attempt in real life. Also, and much more importantly, I don't pick my food on the basis of nutrition alone. I choose food for all sorts of complex social reasons. I find confectionary to be a social food. You do not offer a friend veggies and dip. You offer him a piece of fruit or some other sweet item including soda. Think alcohol. The substitute for harder stuff is a soft drink. It's even in our language!
But forget all this nuance. Iyoba's sweetened coffee at breakfast and Coke at lunch did not hurt ner nearly as much
as the game itself. We soon both came to the conclusion that someone needed to fire the cooks and wait staffs in both the
Breakfast and Lunch houses, and have a comprehensive sanitation program for all the vendors in the Farmer's Market. Iyoba received food
poisoning messages three times, one Listeria message, and one Flu. That is a lot of illness for one little avie in one day.
With so much sickness, nothing Iyoba would eat, and she really wanted to eat nothing, could make her well, and worse yet, the poor avie had to run
laps in her debilitated condition. If it weren't my favorite avie suffering wretchedly tonight, I would almost think this funny.
As it is, I think this game has issues, and what would I suggest instead? Nutrition games just don't work very well in Second Life. There are too many food choices, though the Intrepid Healthy Lifestyle Hunter game, seems to handle this half way well, food is complex and we don't (as I said above) just consume it as fuel for our bodies. Second, posters that give comparative data and links to web sites with recipes, would really be helpful. Showing cauliflower in a garden is lovely and learning that cauliflower is good for you is useful, but links to cauliflower recipes or cooking suggestions might actually get me to eat more cauliflower. By the way, caulfilower with bleu cheese dressing and corn bread is one of my favorite lunches.
As for the whole University of Idaho archipelago, I have the usual suggestions. It's got some lovely architecture. It gives something back, but it is severely over extended. Those in charge need to downsize and tear down some of those lovely, empty buildings. Keep the exhibits. Add a few more. Encourage more poster presentations since these give something back and are within most faculty's technical skill, and they use few enough prims that they are a scaleable project. A used sim is a sim less likely to turn into discretionary spending. It currently costs the University of Idaho $1500/month for four exhibits, that is a large number of copies, a trove full of supplies, or several professors' travel money to regional conferences. If those with exhibits want to keep the University of Idaho Archipelago alive, they need to make it less expensive and more productive. Otherwise it has a target on its back.
Eileen H. Kramer with help from Iyoba BatOni -- May 19, 2013
There is Still No Plan B
I planned to take all of you on a journey of misery. I planned to take more photos and share them as the days ticked down to my
Lily Frogs' demise. I discarded Plan B and decided instead to tell my Frogs and my story. I was ready even to start discussing matters of trust etc... and plans for
what would happen if Dragoness Rage returned and then...
Yes, this is another thumbnail. Please click it to see all the words. I logged in to Second Life
on Thursday evening, and was prepared along with Iyoba to take another set of
pictures so I would have even more images by which to remember my frogs, and I found two saved chat messages from Dragonesse Rage. Each message delivered a 1680 serving box of
regular and premium frog food respectively. This is an image of Iyoba unpacking the 1680 servings
of regular food. I can't say how good and relieved I feel.
I told Dragoness via chat: "You have reaffirmed my trust in you." That sentence says it all. This is what supporting a reedable is all about.
We were down to ten percent of our food supply. I was three days from losing my colony of frogs. I now think I have six to twelve weeks.
That is time enough for Dragoness Rage to acquire new retail space, though I did offer to host a vendor on my land. I don't ask for anything in return.
I get convenience, and constant access to supplies. That would be more than enough. I still need egg cups, but the worst of the crisis is over.
I'm not sure what to think. Yes, I am happy. Yes I am relieved. The worst part of waiting to lose my Lily Frogs was that I could not explain
how awful I felt and expect to get any sympathy. This was true even in Second Life. Residents who do not raise breedables think they
are a waste of money at best and laughable at worst, and those who raise breedables are often in it for the money and chase after the next big or new thing.
They prefer mammals and like their breedables cute or powerful. The manager on Edde Design Island once called my zwickies jelly-fish. When I mention
Lily Frogs, most breedable enthusiasts just shrug and their eyes glaze over.
That is a shame. Frogs are cool. Their pictures are endlessly popular on Pinterest, and besides they
go through metamorphosis in "real life." They are endangered. They can swim. They can catch flies. They hop. Forget that you dissected them in high school,
though familiarity breeds respect and respet for their virtual counterpart.
Just like petpets in Neopets (Sorry no link.) a Second Life breedable is a piece of your avie who is a piece of yourself.
That is why I'm glad my frogs have never retired. That is why I won't cull Petable Turtle eggs. Don't ask why I feel the need to spin off litle pieces of myself into
artificial life. It just seems like second nature. I know I could never own frogs in real life (Too difficult to feed. I do have a red eared slider turtle so art does imitate life at least
to some extent.) and I surely could not let them regularly lay eggs which would never live, though watching them have amphiplexus (frog sex which involves a day long embrace) is fun. I saw
frogs we kept in the ninth grade biology lab do what comes naturally. The whole class saw them. In fact every class that day saw them. The eggs unforatunately did not live.
And unlike with real life pets, I really don't have to think about my Lily Frogs' future as long as supplies are available for them.
They will not get sick. They will live outside inventory as long as I feed them. They will lay eggs as long as there is room for them. I can let them breed
as much as they like and it will not tire them. I don't think a fantasy about animal breeding for an urban person needs any explaining.
I think a bunch of brightly colored frogs that lay eggs, hop, and blink their eyes beats a fantasy about a red Cadillac or a fake house, but each to their own.
There is no harm in fulfilling a fantasy on the screen or even paying a few dollars to do it, though much to my surprise the food from Dragoness Rage was free.
Thank you Dragoness Rage. You are probably one of the few people out here who understands loving Lily Frogs. And in case any one is curious, I made the
Tree Frog shirt some time in 2010 or 2009. It is just handy and proves that frogs are beautiful.
Eileen H. Kramer with plenty of help from Iyoba BatOni -- May 17, 2013
There is no Plan B
Every time the Petable server has glitched and my Petable Turtles have been threatened with starvation,
I have thought about Plan B. Everyone needs a Plan B, and I don't mean the contraceptive. I mean the idea for
which the dubious plan is named. A Plan B is for when things go obscenely wrong. Of course a Plan B is bullshit.
Please click on the thumbnails. The pictures in this entry are all thumbnails. This is a picture of Raine, my
female Mississippi gopher frog. Her father, was a special for spring of 2012. She has his coloring and glow. Her mother was a
Mississippi gopher frog. In real life Mississippi gopher frogs are severely endangered. This Mississippi gopher frog is doomed.
Tzipporah, the red frog, is one of the rarest breedables in Second Life. I paid $4.00 to develop the
Refua Shalemah breed for Rosh HaShannah 2012. Refua Shalemah means perfect healing in Hebrew, and my $4.00 went to
raise money for a friend of the Lily Frog creator's who had a kidney ailment. She has been worth more than I spent on her.
She too is doomed.
I have a soft spot for pickerel frogs. They are among the most beautiful of the Lily Frog species. This is Tamar. Why are Tamar and my other Lily Frogs doomed?
The store has vanished. It was evicted when its upstream landlord lost the sim. In Second Life if you can't pay your rent... but that is only half the story.
Lily Frogs may be a supported breedable, but that and money on your Breeze Card lets you ride MARTA.
There are only half a dozen of us who raise Lily Frogs in Second Life. That means when one or two outlets for supplies go down, there are no supplies.
With no supplies, there is no way to gather eggs, which need to be packaged. And there is also no food. I learned about the main Lily Frogs' store's disappearance
when I gathered an egg with my last cup, Sunday night.
I teleported to where the store used to be and found the whole sim becoming a role play community, instead of a menagerie.
I tried to get in touch with Dragoness Rage, the current creator. No luck. I tried to get in touch with the Lily Frog group, but usually I am the only one logged in.
I have scorued the classifieds and searched the Secondlife Marketplace. I've come up dry. Now it is just a matter of waiting for my frogs to starve.
I will destroy their eggs when I take them into inventory without packaging. My frogs will take about six days to die.
And yes something that has never been physically alive will die. The image is Absalom, my handsomest Lily Frog and another pickerel frog.
In the past with Plan B, I imagined taking the frogs or turtles back into inventory so as not to have to witness their deaths and find the
property strewn with virtual corpses. I realize now that I don't want to do that. The frog in the picture is Yechiel, a male
I bought as an egg from Jeep Streeter. If you are curious what a Lily Frog costs, I got Yechiel for nothing in a
trade of two of my eggs for two eggs from Jeep. Lily Frog eggs sold for between thirty and a hundred Lindens. That converts to
sixteen to forty-five cents.
Losing my frogs hurts, and I want to tell the world. I don't want to rant against Dragoness. She is a victim of Second Life real estate. She may have a real life issue and can't tend to the frogs. I don't know the story. I never will. This is how breedables die. The good ones die. The high prim ones die. The boring ones die. I've really enjoyed my Lily Frogs. You can see how well made they are from the photos. They really do jump. They blink their eyes. They are inexpensive to feed, and reasonably fecund. I will miss them. I want you to understand.
Eileen H. Kramer with help from a very sad Iyoba BatOni -- May 14, 2013
Pay as You Go and Get Used to It!
Unless you work for the landlord (or unless you are the landlord), you never know who is paying rent in
Second Life until either they abandon their land, carefully clearing it first of course or until that land
just disappears. Still it always surprises me when healthy looking sims vanish and others manage to stick around either left a mess or
frozen in time. This is the case with St Louis Island, and yes the
period is missing. Click the thumbnail and see the full size image which truly does it justice.
Yes, the sim is beautiful, but while the trip to the top of the arch is impressive, and the posters in the lobby are
also goregous (I did not look if the links to the site to by Arch tickets worked because I did not want to buy tickets.), the
sim is lonely. Its owners are still in business, but
there is something very old school about the island. It includes a lot of prims that do very little. The buildings, except for the arch lobby,
have no interiors. I cammed in and found them either phantom walls or solid blocks. In a way this is good. There is something about rattling around a
big, half finished, empty space, that feels woefully sad.
Still St Louis Island reminds me an awful lot of
ClevleandPlus V and its sister sims. Both are perfectly made or nearly perfect
city models. Both are well enough made to evoke emotions. This is true even though ClevelandPlus sims have a fair amount of mess on them due to a slow moving repurposing
project.St Louis Island to its credit does not have spaces that
need to be busy and aren't like the empty Renaissance Center. The lobby for the Arch, one of the few interior spaces is covered with posters and
a URL giver that offers a page selling tickets to the "real life" Arch. As for the rest of the island, the "real life" Arch
is in a State Capital, a park that one expects to be empty in the evenings and on weekends, while railroad stations, a high school, and a tourist trap are expected to
be bustling and full of people.
Like ClevelandPlus, the Arch on
St Louis Island made the the Explore Second Life spread sheet, and I felt
better about St Louis Island because I don't know any of its history. I do know it was created in 2008 which
makes it a very old sim. Somebody has either been paying a lot of money for a bunch of prims that don't do much other than look, very pretty and realistic, or
they paid the educational rate and now are paying twice the price for an old project.
And as I've said before: "If you can't pay your rent in Second Life...." But wait... St. Louis Island really is magic.
Photographs like this don't happen by accident. Here the bridge breaks off half way over the Mississippi. It is a wonderful, artistic statement that there is
nothing on the other side and a majestic, empty park behind Iyoba. It takes excellent texturing, the right subject matter, good composition, and the right amount of space to
get it right. And Designing Digitally has it very right. Unfortunately, very right is also going to be beyond the
reach of most institutions and even most individuals in Second Life. Please click on the thumbnail above to get a good look
at where the world ends.
Second Life can be a brutally hard place for institutions of higher education to operate. The University of Texas
Archipelago inspires schadenfreude and is a cautionary tale. In September of 2009, it rose from the sea, as a subset of institutions in
Texas University System (or whatever they call it. The Texas State universities occupy another portion of the system and
there is yet a third system in there somewhere) received a grant and created islands for virtual education. The archipelago survived as long as it did because
the Texas State Legislature meets every other year, and budgets are a bit long term. Then the recession closed in and the grant money ran out.
Islands began to vanish. Some had squatter problems. Tonight I learned that the three UTB (University of Texas Brownsville) Islands have vanished.
This hurts, because these were well developed sims with attractions that gave something back. Click the thumbnail for a full scale view
of a part of a crime scene simulation on UTB Life.
Of course there were a few trouble signs. The sim owner was not caring for her breedables. An exhibit disappeared.
You can see that sick horse in more detail by clicking on the thumbnail. I wrote the sim onwer and said I would adopt the creature and
nurse it back to health. I never heard from her. I guess $900/month was too much money, and downsizing takes work. A few institutions on the archipelago have managed to
downsize, notably
UT Arlington which went from three sims to one, but many just gave up, let their sims degrade to death, and vanished.
Even those who have survived have projects that would be expensive to scale up. The Arch and state capital on
St Louis Island is also a project way out of scale to what it can possibly deliver.
Maybe you can't deliver a huge emotional message in Second Life due to the financial structure. That does not mean that poster presentations or note card givers or a place to
meet are out of reach, but some projects are just way too expensive to justify even if they are satisfying places.
Like it or not, in Second Life, you pay by the prim. Land in Second Life is the right to rez prims that others can use. If Second Life were an academic department, faculty would have strict limits on their copy cards, and you would have to requisition colored paper one sheet at a time, and faculty and staff would buy their own pencils and pens, while the supply trove would never have paper clips or rubber bands. Someone would guard the white board markers, and forget a big budget for things like conference travel. This is a picture of very lean times in higher ed, but for Second Life, this is normal. It hurts to see the UTB Islands vanish. It will hurt when (not if, and not because nothing lasts forever) St Louis Island disappears. Sorry, you pay as you go in Second Life, and that means some projects just won't work, even if they are possible.
Eileen H. Kramer with help from Iyoba BatOni -- May 12, 2013
On the Back Side of the Posters
I was looking forward to visiting the Hamilton College Sandbox Exhibition on Teaching 5 for all kinds of wonderful reasons. I used to live in Utica, New York, and remember the bus trip to Clinton and the visits to Hamilton fondly. I am still a Hamilton Continentals fan. They had excellent basketball and ice hockey teams (Division III) and no football program.
And there was a lot to cheer for in the Hamilton College sandbox. The college tore down its beautiful and useless buildings and gave the world excellent, student-created posters, on interesting science topics. The posters load fairly quickly, are informative, and rather current. The space is also a public sandbox. Iyoba even joined the group. As my mother would say: "What is not to like?"
Something about all these posters looked way too familiar. They have been in this sandbox for a year and a half. That means there has been nothing new to replace them. That means someone had lost interest in Second Life, and when keeping this exhibit and sandbox takes between $66 and $100 dollars a month (It's a double or triple 4096.), that means it will vanish as soon as somebody plugs the money hole. There are after all plenty of other people's sandboxes.
Now, I am making it look very easy to find out the date of the exhibit. When Iyoba and I toured the sandbox exhibit, we actually had a hard time finding a date for the posters. We also had a hard time figuring out whether the students signed their real or avatar names. The names turned out to be real. Last names did not turn up in the Second Life database and one student turned up in the Hamilton College Public Directory. The rest were gone.
Fortunately, one student supplied the course name, Nature and Technology, a search of the Hamilton College Web Site turned up a catalog entry for ES 290, (ES stands for envireonmental science) and course blogs that dated from the fall of 2011 and maybe fall 2012. The Fall 2012 class if it ran (The blogs may belong to another course with a similar theme), did not use Second Life. ES 290, Nature and Technology, runs only in the fall, hence the F after its name.
And of course there is more. This lovely tree is from the NC State Wolflands2 shoreline. I think we need some visual relief. The professor listed in the Hamilton College Catalot (2012-2013) for ES 290 is Wyatt Galusky. When I checked the Environmental Studies Program's faculty page you can guess who wasn't there. A search of the Hamilton College Directory did NOT retrieve Wyatt Galusky. There is a very good chance he has moved on.
And this picture of NC State Wolflands2 is here to make a point. Unlike Teaching 5, I don't know the history of this sim and it looks active, beautifully lanscaped, and as busy as most academic sims for East Coast institutions in Second Life are in the evening, which doesn't say anything. Unless you look really hard and make several trips, it is very hard to tell which exhibition is ephemeral or which sim is doomed. Because I know the history of the Hamilton College Sandbox Ehxibition I had the motivation and clues to send me searching for the story behind the lovely and informative posters. I hope somebody fills Wyatt Galusky's shoes. I hope the college tears down the posters and builds something else. I hope someone makes use of this land. An academic department can easily spend $100 a month on supplies and photocopying if the money is flush. And if times are not flush up in Clinton, New York, I hope that the department clears the sim and gives it back. There are only five to six of the 4096 plots full on Teaching 5, which means the island is not viable anyway. Why not put it out of its misery and save the money. Seeing a beautiful exhibit degrade to death through neglect is not benign. Visit the Hamilton College Sandbox Exhibit while it's still there.
Eileen H. Kramer and Iyoba BatOni -- May 9, 2013
The Story is Different Each Time You Tell It
As part of revising the the Explore Second Life Spread Sheet, Iyoba and I have to revisit islands in the NMC Archipelago. Most of these islands are called Teaching and have a number after their name. We decided to work our way down from Teaching 16 to Teaching 1, skipping Teaching 7 which we had done all ready because I wanted pictures of the Knot House, one of my favorite small museums in Second Life.
Teaching 16, however, always makes me sad. Most of the Teaching islands that are NOT on the spread sheet make me sad because they are half empty, often, with abandoned and unfinished projects, and worse. This is one of half a dozen such classrooms on the island, built by someone who works for the University of Washington in Seattle. It looks beautiful and well made, until you realize that it is just like half a dozen other classrooms, has no presentations loaded, and there are never any students around. The halls outside these classrooms are also empty and spooky. There is one way glass to see into the rooms, but the students if they were there, can not see out. The only thing missing is bots.
Well, bots aren't exactly the only thing missing. This classroom is missing walls. You can see from the furniture and pictures that these classrooms are all templates. Somehow I doubt that any one has actually used the classroom without walls for instruction. I also think it has been here about six months, because that is when Iyoba and I last visited this island.
Of cousre Teaching 16, does not have the monopoly on abandoned space. Adelphi University used to rent this space on Teaching 9. They had fairly nice health and wellness displays. This food chart is part of what they left behind along with other debris. The area reminds me of an apartment after an eviction, the ugly kind that leaves stuff scattered all over the lawn.
But the saddest image from the former Adelphi site (The About Land lists the land as "Available" "For Rent" is too blunt and direct a word.) is this abandoned PowerPoint. I wonder who the students were who made this presentation and where they are now. I grew up in the New York Metro area, and the members of Group 1 are probabaly all there.
One common feature of most Teaching Islands of course is signs, particularly this cube that hangs over what I call the sterile core in the middle. I call centers of these islands sterile cores because usually they give nothing back but a few freebies. The Knot House and the art exhibits on Towson Innovation Lab are exceptions that prove the rule. In this case, I believe the sign from Teaching 16 is woefully out of date. About Land lists the land belonging to British Columbia University as "Available."
This is one of the most common kinds of signs on the Teaching islands. You see what I mean about "For Rent" being too ugly. That there are a lot of these signs does NOT mean the islands are NOT financially viable, though it can. NMC and Linden Labs both publish their rental prices so it's easy to do the math. Linden Labs (Link requires a password) charges $295/month for an entire island. NMC charges $400 a year for a 4096 or 1/16th of an island. This translates to $33.33 a month. Market rate on most private estates is $20 to $25.00 a month. I've stated before that the NMC name is worth something, and so is use of the sterile core. In order to break even, each Teaching island must fill nine of its sixteen 4096 plots. Given that three or four plots make up the core, the islands have to run at about seventy-five percent capacity. That sounds like a lot of wiggle room, until you look at how much land is for rent.
Of course, the real excitement on Teaching 16 is about 2200 meters off the ground. The last time we visited this island, we had found an incredible, half finished sky box floating above the land that was supposedly "Available" on the island's eastern side. Both Iyoba and I were curious to see if it was still there. The old skybox was gone, replaced by one with a stable floor.
It was nice for Iyoba to be able to walk around without fear of falling through the sky. In addition, the sky home was full of lovely amusements like this dance pole. Iyoba really enjoyed trying this out.
And here is some of what happened after Iyoba clicked a dance ball labeled "Entice." Now maybe some college is teaching a course in virtual sexuality or human relations, and these are good conversation pieces. The land on the east side of Teaching 16 is locked to nongroup members and squatters' prim draining is easy to see with an About Land, so squatters did not build the sky home.
I'm not sure who built it. Back in September I thought that the building team for NMC was having a little fun with land that was just sitting there. Now I speculate that they are renting this land out to private parties, to keep Teaching 16 from draining dollars. I'm not sure what to think of any of this. I guess a sky home with a stable floor is better than one where you have to watch every step. I think the builders deserve a break and NMC can sure use the rent money. In Second Life, if you can't pay your rent....
Eileen H. Kramer with help from Iyoba BatOni -- May 7, 2013
What You Have to See
Here I am in a clean, dry dress. I am warming myself. Warming myself before a fire is one of my favorite activities. I liked it even better because we could close the doors to this classroom/meeting room and keep the cold mountain air OUT! My One liked it because this lovely space was on the UAA Seawolves sim. Yes, these classrooms are all that is left that the public can visit. The banlines are supposed to keep the public away, so coming here is an act of defiance. Actually, the classrooms are quite beautiful, now that teh doors close, and some of them had new shelving. Some day there may be more than a facility on this mountain. My One Who Thinks She Knows is thinking of returning the UAA Seawolves sim to the Explore SL spread sheet as a facility. It is certainly a nice one.
Of course recording sims that lock you out and that are disappearing is an act of necesary defiance. We don't always know why sims go down. My One Who Thinks She Knows was especially puzzled this weekend when she called off our trip to the repurposed, moved, and rennovated German archipelago. We both could have really used the walking tour, but my One saw something on the map that she said we had to investigate. These sims hadn't departed the grid according to Grid Survey. Instead, they appeared "all wrong" on the map. Someone had either stripped them or was rebuilding them. We were going to investigate. So much for a beautiful walk. You can see I was not too happy.
Worse yet, I all ready knew that Lehigh University was probably not long for this world if not long gone because the sim was under water. My One Who Thinks She Knows just said: "Iyoba put on your bathing suit." Here I am limbering up for the big swim.
And this is me in the Lehigh University sandbox. I guess you could build here. Maybe we will give it a try for the same reason it feels good stand before the fire on the UAA Seawolves sim.
There trully is nothing left of the Leigh University sim but wreackage and a bunch of freebies floating underwater. No one has cleared these last things out and they still sit on shelves but with no way to get to them but dive in. The walls of their "store" are now in someone's inventory. I remember the end of Utopia Portugal, and the drowned sim of Lehigh University looks a lot like what happened to the first home for Stinky Stinky, our big land, except Walter's partner returned all the property to the renters before he flooded the islands.
Then it was off to dry land at Texas Woman's University. These beautiful buildings are on Texas Woman's University 3. Click the thumbnail to view them at full size. See them while you can. My One Who Thinks She Knows says that while they are pretty, they give nothing back. She is right. The exhibition space in the sky and the library have vanished. The balloon ride, the old fashioned art museum, and the student presentation display are gone. One small art exhibit remains, but its owner may not have yet reclaimed it. This often happens when sims get abandoned.
What you see in this picture is NOT what happens when tenants surrender their sims. My One Who Thinks She Knows thinks that a lot of a half made built fell out of the sky when unlinked or turned physical just for the heck of it. Another explanation is that this is possibly the scene of a roll play or machinima starring chaos.
Of all the educational sims in Second Life, my One says she would have picked Lehigh University and the Texas Womans University archpelago as among the least likely to go under, but my One says we don't have access to any one else' budget or financials. Second Life sims tend to be the kingdoms of small teams of dedicated souls who when they move on to other employment or retirement in the "real world" leave them behind. Sims with no one to take care of them, are sims that should disappear. When you can't or if you can't pay you're rent...your gone.
Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- May 1, 2013
It Was Fun But...
We needed to visit somewhere so why not Arts and Letters. The sim is one of many in a still, very large NMC Archipelago. Don't I love that word. It earned its strange name (Most other sims in the archipelago begin their names wtih "Teaching") because it once belonged to Eastern Carolina University before they set up their own sims. Like all the former ECU sims on the NMC Archipelago, Arts and Letters would have an abandoned feel, but there was at least something good there.
Of course that something good was a sandbox built by the University of Hong Kong. There is also an empty exhibit hall where students can but
don't display their projects. Yes, I realize that academic calendars vary in different parts of the world, but I've never seen this place with anything old or
new in it.
But the real attraction on Arts and Letters is the Dangerous Office.
Of course this is not an original idea. The scuzzy home/laboratory/office is a classic, immersive, learning environment.
There are great examples such as Dr. Scuzzy's Lab on UTMB Alpha and
Scuzzy Town! on CIST Nebraska, but the Dangerous Office definitely deserves to
be a member of the club in good standing due to its subtlety and grit. It takes more than one look to find this out of date fire extinguisher.
And might employees actually have to use the
fire exctinguisher that has seen better days? The answer is unfortunately yes. Temperatures in the server room according to this thermometer are a toasty
thirty plus degrees Celsisu and about eight-six degrees fahrenheit. I'm not sure a malfunctioning server could catch fire, but I wouldn't want to know.
Certainly an overheated lab with badly functioning servers does positive wonders for
employee morale. The employees search Second Life Market Place, bring in flash drives from home (Not sure this is against company policy, but there are wonderful things a tech savvy user can
do with a flash drive.), play games, have computers tainted with malware, and they don't even bother to hide their passwords in their desk drawers.
Poor hot blooded employees in a warm office. I think we need to ship them to Central New York and have a few menopausal, female colleagues constantly opening the door every time
the sun shines in February. The unhappy employees will be grateful for the heat upon their return. Short of that, I think fixing the air conditioning systemm and reminding a few employees to be
more discrete will work wonders for the Dangerous Office. Wouldn't it be nice if
all of life had such simple solutions.
I wish the rest of the problem of maintaining good ecucational builds in Second Life was as simple as fixing the Dangerous Office.
Actually, even the Dangerous Office has its problems. Someone built it in 2009 and it's been there ever since, catering, I believe mainly to the passer-by such as myself.
Meanwhil, I do not have the heart to remove Brasil Tourismo et Cultura
from the Explore SL Spread Sheet. This was once an
innovative project where students could read sample articles and talk to bots about assignments to learn and write about Portuguese and Brazilian customs from
avatarim who spoke the language. Second Life has a huge Brazilian population. Alas, these days the bots are silent and the links to sample assignments on
the bulletin board in the building lead to nowhere. This facility is degrading to death. It would be better if the parent institution just got rid of it.
And I'm not sure what is happening with the Cappella University parcels.
They are built. They have not changed much. Sometimes parcels don't have to change. The sandbox is not for the general public, but
it's their rental property and their right.
Most of the build is decorative. It is comfortable enough for an avie to sit in. It is great for taking photographs. It, however, gives nothing back, no sandbox, no museums, no link givers, no library. Of course they don't have to give anything back, but giving something back is one very good reason for Linden Lab to offer educational and nonprofit institutions discounts.
And that is it for Arts and Letters. The rest of the island consists of
the sterile core which usually has an amphitheater and freebies, and plenty of plots for sale, about half the island. This does not bode well
for Arts and Letters. NMC, which owns the archipelago has a business model that can handle a less-than-fully rented
island and remain stable
in the short to medium term. Assuming they have lost their educational discount (a safe bet though not necessarily correct and even if it is correct, it only bolsters my argument), they
pay, $295/month. For a 4096 square meter plot (1/16 of an island) NMC charges $400 year. That breaks down to
$33.00 a month. With ten 4096's rented, NMC breaks even. Under the old system where they paid $150/month, they only needed to rent out
five of these. Of course, NMC's rents are close to 33% above market rent ($20/month for a 4096), and there is nothing to stop
a savvy educator from renting estate land on the Secondary Market or mainland for that matter. NMC trades on its good name, but it still needs to fill a requisite
number of sims to survive. Iyoba and I await the contraction with mixed emotions.
Eileen H. Kramer and Iyoba BatOni -- April 28, 2014