Telling: Like it Is

I think a few of my readers are old enough to remember that phrase as an advertising slogan for a cinnamon-enhanced, carbonated cola drink distributed by an obscure company in Atlanta, Georgia... they may even remember it paired with a drawing or two of Santa Claus enjoying said beverage. Of course, the point of the ad was "refresh yourself with our product," but the other available (thus, probably unintentional) lesson was the word pause.

"Seconderth (a deep map)", my ongoing project to record what remains of the Elder Days of Second Life, reached a natural break-point with the post about Tehama. The next phase of grid expansion to be considered coincides with the change from Closed to Open Beta. In the chronology used (inconsistently) in the Second Life Wikia, that corresponds to the release of Version 0.5.0 of Second Life, The Software. In the calendrical system used by the rest of Planet Earth, that was March 31, 2003, and Steller Sunshine had passed her First Rezday.

Come to think of it... reading those old Release Notes may be at least as edifying a glimpse into Second Life's history as the visual record. Between the appearance of Tehama on the Grid (December 12 2002) and the Opening of Beta, two versions of what we now think of as the Viewer were released. Here are some quotes from their respective Release Notes, beginning with Version 0.3.0 (January 20 2003):

OBJECT TAXES

Previous to this release, the taxation scheme for objects was that each shape received a fixed charge of L$3/week.

With this release, the per shape charge will be variable, based on the size of the shape and its height above ground. Small objects or those near ground level will generally enjoy reduced taxes, while large objects or those high in the air will be taxed more. For example, under the old scheme, a default shape created near the ground would be assessed L$3/week, whereas under the new plan, it would be assessed L$1/week. Similarly, a maximally scaled (10 meters) box raised to 20 meters above ground would be assessed L$3/week under the old scheme, but charged over L$30/week under the new plan.

The exact tuning of these numbers will likely change during the beta period. Most users will see a drop in their object taxes as a result of this change. Those with enormous towers or very large/high objects may see an increase.

You will now also be able to see the exact weekly tax an object will cost, by selecting/editing and looking in the general properties panel. Selecting multiple objects will display the total tax for all those objects. So it should be easy to check what your taxes are going to be on a given project.

The charges for lights will remain the same as before.

LAND TAXES

Land taxes now have a discount awarded for land located close to other land owners. The discount is based on the percentage of resident-owned land near the center of the chosen parcel, and can reach as high as 50% (this number will be subject to tuning during the beta). In other words, if you buy a plot which is completely surrounded by neighbors, it could be as much as 50% cheaper to buy and maintain than a plot sitting alone in the countryside. Additionally, the rate applies to your own plot as well, making it somewhat cheaper to buy one large plot versus several small ones scattered around.

The discount rate (for all property owners) will change dynamically as new residents move in, so you drop the taxes of your neighbors by moving in next to them, and vice-versa. This should make choosing neighbors fun--you make their taxes lower by living near them! Choose wisely!

Version 0.4.0 (the Wikia fails to record the date of release):

Find and recycle trash, make money!

"Object decay to public" is a major new feature in this release. Many residents have noted that there appear to be a lot of abandoned objects in the system. Perhaps someone lost an object, or a resident has stopped playing Second Life. Until now, there has been no way to clean up these objects.

As of this release, any object on public land will have a timer. When a resident interacts with the object (edits it, plays with it, pays it money, takes a copy, etc), this timer resets. However, once the timer hits 72 hours (three days where no one has interacted with the object), the object is “released” and ownership is set to public.

Objects on owned land do not have timers. So if you want to keep your objects from going public, you can either claim the land underneath them, or persuade a friend to keep your objects on his land.

If you want to see if your object is "decaying to public", hover your mouse over it. If it is going public, there will be a line at the bottom saying "Decay to public: %". When the number reaches 100%, the object becomes public.

Note that the public objects retain their permissions. By default, no one can modify them or copy them. They can only be deleted.

So how do you make money? As you know, all objects have a creation cost. Refunding of creation cost has been separated into two amounts - one for releasing and one for deleting.

Previous to this release, you would get the L$10/object creation cost refunded when you release to public or delete an object. Going forward objects, whether public or private, retain some value until they are deleted.

Here's how it works using some sample scenarios:

1. You create a cube and then delete it. Creation cost was $10, deleting refunds you $10.
2. You create a cube, release it public, then delete it. Creation cost was $10, releasing refunds you $6, deleting refunds you $4.
3. You create a cube, release it public, leave it somewhere and then it's deleted by someone else who cleans up after you. Creation cost was $10, releasing refunded you $6, and the person who deleted it receives $4.
4. You create a cube, leave it on public land, after 72 hrs of non-interaction it becomes public. Then you or someone else deletes it. Creation cost was $10, once it decayed to public you receive $4 while $2 leaks back to the economic pool. Then whoever deletes the public cube receives $4.

Finally, scripts don't run on public objects. The script window will have the running checkbox disabled and some text explaining that it can't run on a public object.

Say what???

You see: Midbies like me, and all of the folks who've joined since '07, have the tendency to think that the SL we know has always been that way. It hasn't. And I think we're damn lucky that is still isn't the way it was Back Then -- in fact, barely-comprehensible accounting tricks like those from Version 0.3 and 0.4 were bound to have killed SL if they had remained. And while I'm at it... In answer to Hamlet Au's "If You Think an Achievement System is Incompatible With Second Life, You Don't Remember How Second Life Started", here's this, also from 0.4.0:

# Leader Boards - "High Score" has been added to the leader boards. This is a composite of other factors on the leader boards.
* Leader Boards - "Net Worth" has been added to the leader boards. It is based on your cash balance, owned land, and owned objects.
* Leader Boards - "Reputation" has been broken into three categories, "Behavior", "Appearance", and "Building".

# Ratings - When you rate someone, you can independently rate their behavior (like chat, messages, and general helpfulness), appearance (skill with avatar appearance and attachments), and building (skill with construction of objects and scripts).

# Ratings - It costs $1 to rate someone, or to change your rating of them.

I don't need to have been there to know how Second Life started: haltingly, with a lot of experimentation with how the economy and the social structure worked. And all of it by fiat, handed down by the Lab to the Residents without consultation, whose first news of it was probably in those very Release Notes. When, last time, I said that the one thing the Lab could do to improve things was to "stop acting like Linden Lab", it was not without the knowledge that their habits have been deeply ingrained.

It's been five weeks since Mark Kingdon was assisted to "step down" -- a collective pause throughout the Grid where many took a chance to catch their breath, and a few seemed to have held theirs in anticipation of what was to come. Finally, Philip had his public talk. I waited until afterward to read the transcript. And yeah, even while it was still being delivered, the meme (and the jokes about it) hit the Twitterwaves: Fast, Easy, Fun. A lot of promises were implied, details to follow... and as we all should know by know: Acta, non verba.

If 70% of the Lab's recent staff levels can "do less, better" by focusing on the "less" Phil outlined yesterday, then perhaps they can make the in-world experience what it should already have been by now, if they don't burn out first (see Snickers Snook's follow-up on the Marketplace mess for a glimpse of what at least one Linden is going through). But -- the User Experience is only half of what Second Life is made of.

The other half is Policy. "Fast, Easy, Fun" doesn't cut it when it comes to things like intellectual property rights, bots, scams, griefing, harassment, and plain old every day Customer Service. So I have a second three-word mantra to suggest to Phil:

Coherent

Consistent

Cooperative

Show me some of that, and we'll see whether or not the pause was truly refreshing.

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I was at soror Nishi's "No tier, no tears" party a couple of nights ago (she gave up her land in SL; see above), when Botgirl asked me, "Lalo, when are you going to give up blogging about virtual archeology and get back to crisis-of-the-day stuff?"

Well... First of all, I'm not even halfway through the task I set out for myself. 20 sims down, with 27 more to go. But this is how I answered: "Maybe when one of the crises means something to me :P"

What's the latest?

Apparently, that POS Viewer 2 has been given someone's imprimatur and is now The Official Linden Lab Viewer 2.1 -- as if anyone who created an account after 2.0 beta was unveiled has been given a choice. I won't touch it with a 10-meter prim, even if they've fixed everything I objected to about it. So... no crisis there, not for me.

Snickers Snook hit the bullseye about SL Marketplace (beta) in her blog. She makes two basic points, with a great deal of impact and clarity: (1) Marketplace sucks; (2) It sucks because of the attitudes of the Lindens who were in charge of it: arrogant dismissal of genuine user concerns.

Why, that's the same reason Viewer 2 still sucks! Anyone surprised?

And yes, it's true that a month ago most of the arrogant dismissives were themselves dismissed. I didn't keep score, and since I didn't know any of them, I didn't visit that quasi-maudlin graveyard Codie Redgrave set up. Couldn't tell you if Pink and Colossal failureus, who Snickers blames for the Marketplace, are still clocking in on Battery Street.. I was too busy dancing with glee at the demise of M and T, the two most arrogant and dismissive of the whole bunch.

Oh, yeah, and something about "Burning Life" was announced this week -- basically, the event everyone used to make a big deal out of as symbolic of the artistic freedom and party-on nihilism of SL has been cut loose. It's now entirely up to the Residents whether they want to hold it, and if so, on whose land. ~ yawn ~ Good luck with that, folks. Just another lag-fest like "SL_B" I'll be not going to, if it goes ahead at all.

Speaking of Botgirl... There's been an excellent exchange of views in the Comments to her blog post "Why Cost Isn't the Reason for Second Life Land and Population Woes" which is a reply to Darius Gothly's "Changes in the Virtual Land Market in Second Life". Darius postulates that land cost is a significant factor in retention of Residents -- i.e., convincing them to stick around -- and proposes a two-tier (pun intended) pricing system based on a reworking of the so-called Homestead region. That is: create a class of residence-only sim where commercial transactions (payments) are disabled server-side, and charge less for them than for sims where payments are enabled... like residential and commercial zoning in the physical world. Botgirl points out that mere economics are not the only consideration, and speaks of value of a more intangible sort.

We'll get back to that...

Meanwhile, back at the ranch -- Word's out today that presumptive messiah Philip and some complete unknown "BK" (cue the burger jokes) are gonna have a meetin' this Friday! (Yeah, I'm channeling MPoster Linden, bless his pointed li'l font). Attendees to be chosen randomly from among those who apply, it says here... how much drahma you want to bet ensues over who doesn't get chosen, "randomly" or not.

I'm going to wait until Saturday, read all my favorite bloggers' opinions, and then read the transcript... but I'm going to predict now: platitudes, buzzwords, lip service, hand-waving, promises which will be unkept... Im Westen, nichts neues.

You see... Linden Lab has well and truly painted themselves into a corner -- as Ruina Kessel said in one of her comments to Botgirl's post -- or, to quote Crap Mariner, they've violated The First Rule of Holes: When you dig yourself into a hole, stop digging.

I can almost be sympathetic for Philip: the poor bastard has inherited a huge pile of kludges, bad business decisions and intense animosity generated by the guy he helped choose to replace him, and the people that guy hired. Philip is stuck with Viewer 2, and the Marketplace, and Avatars United, and gods-only-know-what-else... and he's also stuck with a Board of Directors who are not likely to enjoy (to say nothing of permit) what ought to happen: a complete, full-stop abandonment -- you know, kinda like what happened to Second Life Enterprise, which boldly went nowhere. No, the Board of Directors of Linden Research, Inc. -- which is to say, with emphasis, its investors -- are probably damn sick and tired of seeing their money pissed away, and Philip had by-god better make it work.

Philip said, on July 16:

[One] key short term goal is to very rapidly make Viewer 2.x the best and most widely-used Second Life viewer. We are unifying efforts across the lab to make this viewer both the best-performing and the most functionally capable for all different users...

Translation: "We're going to keep throwing good money after bad." He also said:

Making content and experience creators more successful is what ultimately drives the growth of Second Life. Optimizing from end-to-end the process of searching for, trying, buying, and using virtual goods will be our first focus here.

And yet Marketplace Beta was released anyway, in spite of it -- along with a nearly-useless Search -- being the antithesis of that goal.

Philip is also widely reported to have written about how the Lab would work with 30% fewer employees, something along the line of "doing less, better". (I can't find a primary source -- maybe one of you has a link?) I've heard that before, in non-virtual business; too often, I'm sorry to say. It is the unmistakable sign of corporate management in financial trouble. It always immediately follows a staff reduction, and it heralds a period where the remaining staff is overworked to the burnout point, followed by another big layoff while the accountants pick over the bones, sell what they can and close up for good and all.

Am I predicting that will happen to Linden Lab and their sole product, Second Life? No doomsayer, I... Will I be surprised if it does happen, maybe even before the end of this year? Sadly, no. There's a cumulative effect to "doing less, better": eventually you learn to do nothing, perfectly.

Now let's talk about Retention... which, unsurprisingly, brings us around to the beginning of this post, and soror's tier-burning party. Most of the time, when people talk abut retention they also use phrases like "first hour experience" and "learning curve". They're talking about getting noobs to log in more than once; real noobs, not alts, not bots, not throwaway griefer avs out to get banned for the lulz.

Just today, as it happens, Tyche Shepherd noted that SL will sign up its 20 millionth account some time within the next three days (based on recent average rates). That's 20 million total accounts created over the life of SL, beginning with Steller Sunshine on March 13, 2002. It doesn't subtract any of the ones that have been canceled by their owners or banned by the Lab; neither does it subtract alts, bots, or people who just stopped logging in after a while (among whom are Charter Members whose builds still stand on land they never have to pay tier on).

20 million... of whom, about 1.4 million (~ 7%) have logged in at least once in the last 60 days -- which means, to me at least, SL has lost 93% of everyone who ever signed up.

Long-term retention is usually not addressed at all. Granted, people leave SL for lots of reasons, most having to do with changes in their organic situation. Economics is definitely among those, especially in the last two years or so, but not the only one. Arminasx Saiman mused on the topic last November and December, and even proposed:

Without a defined requirement to stay, people tend to maintain interest in volunteer or hobby activities for a length of time between 18 to 30 months.

There seems to be some evidence of general loss of interest over time, even if nothing else changes. However, the level of frustration should be considered as seriously for the long-time Residents as it is for the new ones. The difference is: for the noob, it's frustration with how things work; with the midbies and oldbies, it's frustration with why some things still don't work, and why other things (Search and Events, for example) no longer work when they once did. In short, the noobs are frustrated with the world; the long-timers, with the Lab. The cost of land is just another straw on the camel's back; witness the removal of Victoriana's 13 sims in March, or Ener Hax's dissolution of her holdings last winter. After a while, it just stops making sense to keep paying for the privilege of being shat upon.

The irony in all of this: The most comprehensive thing Linden Lab can do to retain active members at both ends of the age scale is to stop acting like Linden Lab.

Ain't gonna happen.

So, what about soror -- is she now also among "the Unretained"? No more so than I will be come December, when my annually-paid Premium membership comes due for renewal and I don't renew it, and abandon that home in Tehama I blogged about last time. She has a new home in another grid now, as do I... which doesn't mean either one of us is going to stop visiting, staying connected, or blogging about Second Life.


Crisis? What crisis? Not in InWorldz....

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We come, finally, to the last of the First 20 -- those regions which were created before Second Life went from closed to open beta.  I saved it for last of this group because, since May 2008, Tehama has been my home.

By a quirk of fate, and the existence of the basement museum at the Governor's Mansion, Tehama also has something most other regions lack: a record, however slim, of its earliest days on the Grid.  On the map of April 1, 2003 (which will be seen with the next group of sims to be revealed in this blog), there is a red pushpin icon stuck into the northeast quarter of Tehama and labeled "Lindenberg".


This is one of three screenshots of Lindenberg in that museum; all of them are labeled "February 03", but carry no other information (such as, who took them).

Since beginning the writing of this entry a couple of days ago, I have become immersed in (obsessed with?) trying to determine where my home parcel might fit into the time-deep map of Tehama.  Clue #1: At the left edge of that Lindenberg photo, you can just make out a sort of stepped sidewalk.  It's still there.


And, it's been "Governor Linden land" since the region first rezzed on the Grid.


The stretch of sidewalk in question is not easy to see in the above shot (taken on the midnight setting to emphasize the property lines, with east at the top)... it's the one running horizontally just beneath the About Land floater.  From this I deduce that the Lindenberg photo was taken from above Tehama's eastern border with Freelon, looking west, and that the cabin appearing beyond the sidewalk sits on what now is my neighbor's parcel.

Clue #2: After the demolition of Lindenberg (date unknown), most of Tehama was bought up by Snakekiss Noir, who built an extensive Japanese-themed park with an open-air market and her store, NeoJapan, at its western edge.


The "sidewalk of interest" is the one directly beneath the stone cliff (pieces of which also survive to the present), that forms the western edge of the square with the two circular ponds.  Compare that with this photo, taken today (July 25, 2010) from nearly the same position and angle:


The sidewalk runs diagonally toward the lower right corner, emerging from behind the treehouse (which is about where the hill with the torii on top was in 2005).  Conclusion:  My home (the small brown cabin in the center of the above photo) sits where the southern (left) circular pond was in Snakekiss Noir's Tehama.

That carries even deeper significance than merely confirming the approximate coordinates.  When I was a homeless nooblet (December 2007, until I took a rental in March 2008), I chose that park as a quiet spot to rez in.  It was convenient to Luskwood, where I spent all of my hang-out time.


That's one of the oldest photos I've ever taken -- when I was still less than two months "old" -- standing on the very spot where, in another three months' time, my front yard would be.

We all know how long three months can be, compared to the way things change in Second Life.  Some time in the spring of 2008, while I was renting a tiny box of a place in the pueblo above Red Rock, Snakekiss Noir pulled up all of her builds and abandoned the land.  In the aftermath, the Luskwood Residents group snapped up a fair-sized piece of Tehama.  I heard about it, and became the second avvie to put down roots there, donating my Premium 512 (and another $5/month to make it 1024)... never realizing, until today, how precisely Fate had plunked me back down on the same piece of virtual ground.

Neither Snakekiss nor her builds vanished from the face of the grid, however... she relocated and expanded, and (with some help) established a Japanese alpine village in the region of Orelle, and parts of Livigno and Ayas.  It's called Silk Waters Mountain.



Same tree, five years later, half a continent away: built by Kelwyn Gallant (a Charter Member) in October 2004. The old Red Dragon Market is in Orelle now, too, as are some of the same rentals Snakekiss kept in Tehama.

In spite of all the geologic and social upheavals and the frequent changes in ownership (and my personal reminiscences), there is a corner of Tehama that has remained completely unaltered since December 2002. Scroll back up to the map at the very top of this post for a minute, and look at the southwest corner. See that little winding creek that cuts across it?


That's right -- still there.  It's Governor Linden land, too, and it contains creations by both Eric and Ryan Linden -- most notably, this unnamed statue by Ryan Linden (December 12-13, 2002):


It bears no title, but I like to think of it as King Cnut trying to hold back the tide... of Time.

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The entry for Perry in the Second Life Wikia consists entirely of these two paragraphs:

Perry was formerly home to, in 1.0 and 1.1, Devlin Gallant's mansion, a "honey store" and a marina, as well as an old Linden-controlled educational event area.

As of SL 1.4, and continuing into 1.7, most (about 95%) of Perry has been annexed to Luskwood, maintained by the Luskwood group and forming "Luskwood East", used for events such as Zendo and the Artist Ambush. Together with Lusk, Luskwood's size now exceeds 90 square kilometers [sic].

It is a peculiarity of the Wikia's older entries to speak of periods of time in terms of which version of Second Life was current, rather than a calendar date; in fact, even their Timeline page (which only lists up to 1.10) rarely mentions release dates, for which you must click to the entry for that Release. Translating "1.0 and 1.1" yields June 23 (Opening Day) through December 21, 2003; "1.4" = June 15, 2004; "1.7" = October 21, 2005.

In any event, nothing remains in Perry from when it first appeared on the World Map while SL was still in closed beta -- not even its original coastline, which might have supported a marina (I don't want to speculate what was meant by "honey store"...) And, since Snapzilla didn't come into existence until 2005, no verifiable older photos are available, either. Rather, Perry has become a repository of early Luskwood artifacts, some still used, many not; while they should technically be outside the scope of this survey, as its author, I can stretch my own rules.

This curiosity, for instance:


Created by Liam Roark in February 2005, it turns a simple map of what then was Luskwood's territory in Lusk and Perry into a fanciful war game situation map.  By comparison, here's a screenshot of the interactive map of Luskwood maintained at the Big Tree, as of March 2010:


That's approximately 3 sims' worth of holdings, spread over 4 (not counting the Linden land, which may as well be Luskwood's with regard to who looks after it), nearly 200,000 m² (0.2 km² -- I think the author of the Wikia entry slipped a decimal place or two)

Down in the southwest corner (lower left in the overview), you'll find the Playground:


Another of Liam Roarke's many contributions to the Luskwood infrastructure (June 2004).  Beyond it lies the blockhouse which serves as the "server hub" for Luskwood Creatures Collective, the furry avatar consortium (IMHO, one of the best on the grid, as well as the longest in continuous existence).  It was built by Michi Lumin in August 2004, and houses server racks and associated equipment by Arito Cotton, built at the same time.

Oddly, the build in Perry most significant to Luskwood's history has only been in Perry for less than six months: Pub Giant Eltee Head.


Bearing a likeness of eltee Statoski (one of Luskwood's four co-founders), created in March 2005 by Arito Cotton (another founder, along with Michi and Liam, see above and the Lusk entry of this blog), this Tudor-style venue replaced an earlier version, and was built in Lusk by eltee in May 2005.  It remained there through the spring of this year, when it was relocated to Perry.

There used to be a stable (for the equine furries, I suppose) up in the northeast corner - there's a photo or two featuring it at Snapzilla. And, as always, there's more in my online album.

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Lusk: home of "Luskwood", the oldest furry community in Second Life -- perhaps the oldest continuous community of any kind, and which now extends across most of four contiguous regions.  It celebrates its birthday a mere three months after SL does, in late September.  While much has been rebuilt (compare the first image above, taken a few days ago, with the one taken five years ago*), many items remain from the first days of Lusk's appearance on the map.

Throughout 2003, Luskwood was approximately 12 km2, and began by the unification of Liam Roark's AT&T LongLines tower, Michi Lumin's land, and Eltee Statosky's treehouse. During 2003, Luskwood shared Lusk and Perry with the JazzyJadeWolf estate, Cienna Rand's glass house, and Devlin Gallant's greek-styled mansion.

[source - Second Life Wikia: Luskwood]

Eltee's treehouse predominates the photo from 2005, as its successor does today... but the other two builds mentioned can be seen, if you know what to look for, and they remain in their original places.


Liam Roark's Long-Lines Tower -- the oldest parts of it, including all of the blockhouse, date from October 2003. Michi Lumin's radio station (also from October 2003) sits next to it.


  Also near the base of The Tree are the Luskwood General Store (October '03 through March '04) and a waterwheel (February '04), both created by Liam.


West of the above builds and beyond the ridge they back up to sits Luskwood Estates, which is -- along with the full regions of DeHaro and Boardman -- among the oldest covenanted and zoned residential-only communities on the Grid.


The Estates includes the technically oldest build in the region: the cabin to the left of the water tower is a "Linden freebie" (which can still be obtained from kiosks in the regions of DeHaro and Brown), by Bill Linden, October 2002.

Finally, we come to Lusk's northwest corner, and the only piece of it not owned by the Luskwood groups.  It belongs to Sinclair Valen, and is given over as a memorial to "Americana": another community effort to create a themed region, about which more will be learned when this deep map's focus moves to the region called Blue.


The "Gateway to the West" arch (a tribute to the physical one in St. Louis) was built in July 2003, and eventually moved here from Blue.  The dragon at right is from October, 2003. There's a great deal more photos of Sinclair's memorabilia, as well as more of Luskwood, to be found in my online album.

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* Photo credit: Shack Dougall, noted tourist and recorder of sights in Second Life, whose Snapzilla collection contains 2415 photos, the newest of which is dated May 26, 2009. Shack, if you're out there, I hope you don't object to my posting your photo directly, rather than merely providing this link to it.

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Clementina -- to SL history buffs (I'm not the only one, after all), it means one thing over all others: the Governor's Mansion.  Built in Linden World by Steller Sunshine as a residence for herself; the majority of prims display creation dates in July 2002, and I have deemed it the Fifth Oldest surviving object in Second Life.


It's not really a mansion; it's a villa, with living quarters at one end, recreation rooms in a separate structure at the other, and a swimming pool in the middle.  There is no governor, either: "Governor Linden" is a placeholder, the owner-of-record of Protected Land.  Despite the non-existence of the Governor, the Mansion has been the site of symbolic protest by Residents against policy changes; you can find snapshots of one such (May 30, 2006, regarding stipends) in the Clementina collection at Snapzilla.

The complex is -- rightly -- a museum piece, preserving a sense of what was possible (at least architecturally) in the very earliest version of the software we call Second Life... and a benchmark with which to compare all that has come after. It also houses a museum of sorts, in the basement.  There are two ways to get there: the original is through a hole in the deep end of the pool; stairs from inside the living quarters were added later.  The basement contains a scattering of objects and photographs from 2002 and 2003, all of which need to be Inspected to learn any more about them; that is, there are no informational placards or notecard dispensers... in fact, a couple of the displayed artifacts were once notecard-givers.  No longer.


For instance: I would like to have learned more about the "Teleport Tour" (object at left, above).   Next to that is a time capsule placed beneath the ground layer on Opening Day (June 23, 2003); more about that can be read at the SL Wikia's entry "First Birthday Event".

Outside on the grounds are two monuments:



The first is a reproduction (by Khamon Fate, Dec. '04) of a "thank you" which Philip Linden created (misspelling and all) just before Opening Day, from the Lab to the Beta Residents.  The second is a reciprocal thanks from the Residents to the Lab; on its reverse face, it lists the Lindens of that day.  Older folks than I may be able to confirm if any if them besides "Hacker Philip" are still Lindens... I get the feeling none are, though a handful may have survived up until the June 2010 Earthquake.

There are many more photos taken in and around the Mansion in the Clementina section of my online album.  There are also other spots of historical note in the region, such as this little abstract garden, close to the center of the sim:


It belongs to Fallingwater Cellardoor; the objects in it were created in October and November, 2003.  In the parcel directly to the north was this trailer (and a vendor from which you could buy one, plus other styles):


Built by CaboWabo Song (mostly in 2004 and 2005, but it contained older pieces)  Between April, when the above was taken, and July, the trailer and vendor were removed... but the parcel remains Cabo's, protected by virtue of his being a Charter Member, as is his partner MadameThespian Underhill, who has a large parcel on the opposite side of Fallingwater's garden.

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"I've grown accustomed to the face..."

soror Nishi wrote another thought-provoking post in her blog the other day, in which she named and described a relatively new psychosocial phenomenon: "Third Life Syndrome", or TLS.

TLS is that strange condition where we seek to replicate our SL looks in other worlds. In fact, for many, and for myself in a small degree, our enjoyment of a Third Life is dependent on this replication of name and looks. A virtual Virtual Me.

Now, moving to a new world, new grid, could be the opportunity to take one of those poor neglected alts, dust them off and develop that forgotten side of our psyche to a degree that we don’t do in SL... but that isn’t what we do. It is our Principle Avi that gets to move and have work done on his/her looks first and foremost.

So ... something that springs to mind is that our Virtual Body Image is like our RL body image, a deeply imprinted inner picture of how we look or should look, only in virtual worlds rather than RL. If we have this Virtual Body Image then we are psychologically different to people who don’t have avatars. This would not surprise me. This makes us part of a group of people with cultural links, it’s part of our culture.

One of her commenters, Clovis Luik, backed up her premise:

My partner and I were both severely stressed by not being able to exactly duplicate our AVS in Inworldz. Experiencing the stress of it was an unexpected surprise to both of us. I had no idea I was so deeply connected to that particular pile of pixels.

Given what I wrote about at the end of my last post, it would figure that I've been thinking about this rather seriously of late. But then, I've been thinking seriously about avatar identity pretty much since first arriving in SL. Back in December, for my second rezday (but before I created the human av), I threw together a collage of all the ways I'd looked up until then. I'd become a bit of a shapeshifter, but even so, it took considerable effort to initially embark on that course, and a period of adjustment with each new avatar before I felt fully embodied. We do connect to "that pile of pixels"... and lemme tell ya, nametags help.

Now, here's a topic I never thought I'd address: branding. No, not heating up a piece of iron worked into a design, then burning that pattern into the skin... Not really about products either, not in the commercial sort of way we generally think of. But it is about commerce -- the sort of thing Tateru Nino was talking about the other day in her post "The Attention Economy", and what subQuark blogged about on the iliveisl blog, and his own, back in May. It's the commerce of ideas and reputation. If you wish -- as I do -- to avoid the word branding because it makes you feel like a box of corn flakes or a toaster, try this phrase that means the same thing without those icky consumerist connotations: continuity of image.

soror's sales installation in InWorldz

soror Nishi's trees are iconic. In fact, the designs she creates to use as textures are as iconic as the 3-dimensional wonders she decorates with them. Now, imagine the consternation that might have ensued if an avatar of another name had appeared in InWorldz and begun importing soror's trees for sale. She would have spent as much time explaining "Yes, I really am soror - this is my alt, and these are not stolen goods!" as she would have importing and setting up... which goes a long way to explaining why, when certain Transworlders branch out into other grids, we do so with the name of our "Principle Avi" (nice term, that), instead of an alt.

My own contribution to the commerce of ideas is this blog, and the photos I'm obsessed with taking, and it wouldn't matter a lick if my avatar in each world had a different name, as long as the words and pictures were posted under the name Lalo Telling... but that's my point. In the give-and-take of the "attention economy", name recognition is as important as it is on the grocery shelf.

Beyond the practicalities of genuine commerce (including the fact that to use InWorldz's ATMs in SL to transfer and convert L$ to I'zs in InWorldz, the avatar at each end of the transaction must have the same name), there is a Virtual Name Image to go with the Virtual Body Image soror talks about. Of course I'm in OSG and IW as Lalo Telling -- that's who I am.

In other words, continuity of image works both outwardly -- one's "image" (reputation and trust, as well as appearance) in the minds of others -- and inwardly: one's self-image. It is strongly reinforced, I feel, by one of the as-yet-unnumbered Pillars of The Avatarian Way: We see ourselves in the 3rd person. As avatars, we do not look out to the world from inside as we do in organic life, needing a reflective surface to see ourselves as other see us -- instead, we're constantly looking at ourselves in the world, from outside. That's got to be the strongest reinforcement of Virtual Body Image possible.

That's what drives the urge to make ourselves look the same in every world we enter, I think. soror called it "Third Life Syndrome", and I don't want to take away from her coinage... but if you're in more than one besides SL -- a "third" life, a "fourth", etc. -- it might need something more generic. Since Botgirl has already given us "Transworlder" as a collective handle, I titled this post "Transworld Syndrome", and I suppose you could abbreviate it TWS if you wanted.

soror also has some suggestions for dealing with TLS/TWS:

a) if you are moving grid for a particular reason (i.e. to build) then the way you look may be secondary to what you can achieve.

b) think of your new avi as the younger brother/sister of your SL avi

c) make a skin from a template and use in both worlds....

d) dust off an alt (see above) and go in as your alt..

e) live with the difference until the shopping gets better.

My own experience tells me that a) might only work in mild cases of TLS. e) only works where there is shopping, which leaves out OSGrid. I think I've disposed of the reasons why d) isn't useful...

As for c): soror has an advantage in that she's capable of making a skin from a template that she can upload to as many worlds as she wants, as its sole Creator (not all of us are that talented, let alone have the software).

L: soror Nishi in SL; R: in InWorldz

And b) ... well, a case could be made for my InWorldz avatar being a younger me, caught in a temporal loop:

L: OSGrid; C: Second Life; R; InWorldz

[by the way... the glasses in OSG and IW are hand-made by me; it's as necessary a part of "the look" as the shape of the head and the facial features.  Want a pair?  IM me in IW :) ]

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Before I get back to Seconderth (16 posted, a mere 31 left - oy veh!), it's time for another one of those "loose ends" posts. I haven't just been busy on the blog.

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Inroads into InWorldz

Taking a cue from some "evangelists" in SLUniverse, I created an account in InWorldz back in early April -- mostly to reserve the name, though why anyone else would want to pass themselves off as Lalo Telling is beyond me... Their website led me to believe that the Hippo viewer was usable there, and I already had that for use in OSGrid (because Emerald still refuses to load textures in OpenSim worlds). But Hippo wouldn't stay connected - couldn't even complete the login. So I set InWorldz aside for a while.

Then around Memorial Day, I caught "the building bug" as a side effect of a new friendship, using a platform in the sky above her rented parcel and cranking out some decent work as a team... even packed them up and listed them on XStreetSL (haven't sold any). Then the June 9 Earthquake happened at the Lab. In the aftermath, while talking about alternative grids, I mentioned my sim in OSGrid, and that some people had been talking up InWorldz. We decided to check it out. This time, I installed the InWorldz viewer (yet another branch/clone of the old reliable Linden 1.23.5).

That was three weeks ago. In the intervening time, Imprudence's latest beta (1.3.0 beta 5) fixed the problem it was having staying logged into InWorldz. Now we're both using that, making converts to it, and building like crazy:

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Not for any particular reason, but some region had to be the last of The Original 16 to be posted in this series, and Stanford drew the straw. It's another mostly empty one, but unlike Clyde (due to recent abandonment, with 3/4 now for sale) or Federal (due to recent abandonment with none of it for sale), Stanford appears to be deliberately empty. It is dominated by the only build that dates from 2003, sprawling its gorgeous way down a ridge extending south from Stanford Mountain.


"Hands Across the Pond", the residence of Annie Butler, built on commission by Juro Kothari in October/November 2003 in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright, and furnished accordingly.


I am an unabashed fanboi of Wright's work (and others of that period), and I don't mind admitting I've become a fan of Juro's, too.





Shortly after Ms Butler's home was completed -- some time during December of 2003 -- Second Life underwent its first expansion.  Four regions were added to The Original 16, and this series will continue with another survivor of Linden World: the Governor's Mansion in Clementina.

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Another tale of Opportunity Missed... but the reverse of my experience with Clyde.  You may recall that this effort (which for the longest time had no title) was triggered by a post at SLUniverse asking "What are the oldest remaining places in Second Life?"  Among the first to respond to that question was the founder and owner of the forum itself, Cristiano Midnight, regarding his builds in Federal.

At the time, all I was doing is taking clues from the posts in that thread, zooming out to grab photos, and then posting them in the forum.  The idea for the online albums -- organized by region, with maps and notes and an overhead shot of each sim to lead off the section -- came later.  I went to shoot Cris' place in March, and I hadn't been back since... and in preparing for this entry, I realized I didn't have an overview. The result is above.  That big rectangular inlet in the foreground -- Federal's south coast -- is where Cristiano used to be.


It's a shame those builds are gone... but at least this time I got the photos before they disappeared, and the fact that they were created during September and October, 2003.

A curiosity from the Elder Days which is still there is this unfinished build on Federal's east side:


We've heard of prims disappearing before, and perhaps this March 13, 2003 build by Sturm Valen suffered from that -- but, textures as well?  Barely visible in that shot is another copy of Alberto Linden's "Corbusier" couch, which -- with a creation date of October 9, 2002 -- supplants his own Grand Arch by nine days, as Ninth Oldest.  (There's another copy in Mystic Sunshine's home in Da Boom).

Two other sites of note: First, the blue high-rise in the center of the sim is Tony Tigereye's Second Life Art Gallery, parts of which were built in October, 2003.  I suspect they were moved to Federal from elsewhere, since the land wasn't claimed by Tony until May, 2005.  Second, the black glass building on top of the huge stone foundation is called "Über", and though it is not from ancient times, its owner is: Simon Metalhead, who created the Sacred Space we saw in Zoe.

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Photo credit: Lynnix Muse; 2nd Look Image Gallery

[Update: Sept 6, 2010] Beginning with the April 1, 2003 edition of the World Map, a landmark pin appeared in Federal labeled "Greek Temple".  I finally discovered a photo of it in "2nd Look", a photo-sharing site nobody uses any more, but is still available for viewing.  This was uploaded on March 28, 2004.

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