Category: pre-image catastrophe

Sometime in late 2014 or early 2015 all uploaded images were deleted from my server.

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Faces of Faith video

Yesterday I was on a panel for a University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism fellowship program project. The fellows had researched and created reports on “Faces of Faith: God Sex Family” and decided to bring their reports into Second Life. As part of their weeklong exhibit, they organized this panel of SL religious figures (video). It was a real privilege to be on the panel.

The panel was actually done via conference call, which was streamed into the parcel audio. There were a couple of times when I just wanted to reach out to my keyboard and interact directly. There was a good turnout, in spite of some confusion over the time.

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Bizarre SL client behavior

This morning, when using either the Voice First Look or the trunk SL client, I get this instead of the usual welcome screen with photo and stats:

ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve the URL: http://secondlife.com/app/login/

The following error was encountered:

• Access Denied.

Access control configuration prevents your request from being allowed at this time. Please contact your service provider if you feel this is incorrect.

Your cache administrator is webmaster [a mailto link to “webmaster”, not an email address]

Generated Sat, 28 Jul 2007 15:32:53 GMT by web14.lindenlab.com (squid/2.6.STABLE12)

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Surveying the neighborhood 2

Karthos 128,112,47 – Standard setup, covenant “This island is being developed as Wooded/Oceanfront themed.” Large parcels, with very different themes, nice builds, good texturing. Volcano in the center of the sim. 4 avies present in sim.

Porto Cervo 130,152,43 – Commercial telehub, stores all empty. 80 agents, double prims, estate sun. Harbour build with restricted access. Most of sim empty. Terrain flat sand, with some water areas with surf.

Wyre 59,196,23 – And that is that for the SW and NW quadrants in the first ring of map screens. I’ll go ahead and start on the next ring of maps, starting with the NNW quadrant.

California 122,106,29 – An empty, fresh out of the box sim.

Coral Sea 101,98,24 – closest sim of a mini-continent, this void sim is all water.

Empress Augusta Bay 104,29,34 – Another water void sim, this one showing clear signs of being set up for sailing races.

Bismarck Sea 33,186,35 – Now this void sim is more interesting–it has an object bonus of 8.5, and there’s a small island on the NW corner with a very attractive maritime building. There’s one person in the sim.

Spoke the owner of the void ocean sims, Svar Beckersted. He says the NYC organizes races there. The center sim of the square of 9 is a full sim, Vella Lavella, which he says is closed to visitors.

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Surveying the neighborhood

Wyre 59,194,22 – I am setting off to explore the environs of Wyre. Starting with the area visible to me within the map, I will begin at 12 and proceed clockwise, spiralling outward.

tenjin fukuoka japan 156,77,103 – Still too new to show any features on the map, Tenjin fukuoka japan (PG) has a water height of .1, agent limit 40, and uses an estate sun. There are large protected areas, clifflike terrain, a dirigible, and two large urban constructions. There are no plants. There is one other avatar here, somewhere.

InWorld Studios 47,108,30 – InWorld Studios (PG) Agent limit 90, fixed sun, telehub. No covenant. 1861 prims. Mostly bare, but green, corporate sim with teleporter to amphitheatre, machinima sound stage, beach, and cinema. Adjoining to the east is InWorld Park, which I cannot enter. There are no other avatars here.

InWorld Studios 47,108,30 – Most of the island seems to prohibit the scripts or communication required for SLurlBlogger and TwitterBox.

Germanius 1 129,129,23 – Germanius 1 (M) 100 agents, fixed sun. Telehub on map, but I didn’t land there. No covenant. A beach commercial sim, with nice wooden walkways above the water and Asian-Pacific Islander-styled rental booths. Also a couple of large (empty) contemporary office builds. No other avatars.

Harry Potter Island 126,147,46 – Harry Potter Island (M) SE of previous sim, touching corners. 100 agents, fixed sun, no covenant. 1144 prims. Telehub, not enforced. All parcels around edge restricted. One has a pirate ship in it. The center of the sim has an alpine/medieval style set of prefabs (I think I’ve seen these elsewhere) with a couple of shops but otherwise empty. One other avatar present.

Wyre 166,143,503 – Caovilla Venice (M) 40 agents, no covenant, 3185 prims on one parcel, with landing point. Some nice stonework piazzas and bridges amongst waterways, with a few boats. Center section has large glass building with rotating prims with RL shoe photos on them, banners in front that say “Rene Caovilla”. SLurlBlogger didn’t work.

Wyre 166,143,503 – I’ve now finished the right-hand quadrants, and will take a break from this exercise. Interesting to see that my neighbors are mostly empty.

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Institute of Compassion and Peace

Lunata 82,151,28 – A very interesting, nearly whole-sim build, on the mainland, dedicated to the unity of world religions. There’s a cathedral, Hindu temple, synagogue, kiva, university, mosque, and Buddhist temple. It looks largely vacant, and it looks much better from a distance than up close, but all in all, pretty amazing.

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Fashion show at BardHaven

Caledon Mayfair 48,90,23 – Fashion show at the BardHaven estate, designs by sachi Vixen, including two new gowns. The models are ladies from Caledon, wearing Adam n Eve skins, hair, eyes, and shoes.

Caledon Mayfair 48,90,23 – One of the hair designs is Victoriana, and I intend to look at it in the store. Sadly, it was not well fitted during the show.

Caledon Mayfair 48,90,23 – The models are having attachment problems, and we have been requested to removed radar and HUDs, so this will be my last live post on the show.

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Caledon titles

(Edit 14 July: There is now a Caledon titles page on the slhistory wiki, where you can make corrections, additions, and deletions.)

At one of the recent dances in Caledon, there was a brief conversation about titles and forms of address in Caledon. There was some jesting about Burke’s Peerage or Begonia’s Peepage. Baron Bardhaven stated that there aren’t that many titled personalities in Caledon, so I went ætherically hunting. And he’s right, or at least, I couldn’t find many.

While it’s all just fun and games, with a little role-playing here, a little prentension there, and a good dash of healthy fantasy life, the use of titles does do one thing, which I believe we must have a care about: Titles, especially for those who are new or who do not know the titles being bandied about, create a sense of an in-group. Now I believe that all groups have boundaries (some permeable, some semi-permeable, some closed), and that individuals can be closer or farther from the center. But I also believe that the common hope of all Caledonians is that our society will be free, open, and inviting.

In the spirit of making Caledonian society more open and inviting as regards formal address, having consulted the fine, though brief, histories available at the Caledon Forums and the slhistory wiki (which appears to be down at this writing), done some cursory searches of the æthernet, and paid attention at a couple of recent parties, I venture this very rough draft of the residents and friends of the Independent State of Caledon who affect titles. I encourage all those who read this to offer correction, addition, and commentary. When I am a bit more confident of the list, I shall add it to the slhistory wiki and submit it to the editor of the Caledon Forums for appropriate placement.

(Forms of address, where I know a preference or general practice, are noted in parentheses. Sir Edward Pearse has begun a series of notes on forms of address.)

Proprietor

  • Guvnah Desmond Shang (Guvnah, Des)

Stewards

  • Khashai Steinbeck, First Steward of Caledon
  • Sir Gerami Fizz
  • Princesa Yuiko Muromachi
  • Vicereine Kamilah Hauptmann, Last Steward of Caledon

Duchies

  • Her Grace, Gabrielle Riel, Duchess of Carntaigh (Your Grace)
  • Her Grace, Eva Bellambi, Duchess Loch Avie (Your Grace)
  • Her Grace, CoyoteAngel Dimsum, Duchess of Primverness, Baroness Lovelace, Defender of the Faith(less), Keeper of the Light (Beer), Speaker to Machines
  • Her Grace, Kamilah Hauptmann, Duchess of Lionsgate
  • ?? Shenlei Flasheart (former Duchess of Loch Avie)

Knights

  • Ordinal Malaprop, Knight of Caledon
  • Leosanni Somme, Knight of Caledon

Titled Caledonians

  • Baron of Bauerhoff Gottfried Eusebio
  • Amber Palowakski, 15th Baroness of Bauerhoff de Caledon (Lady Amber, My Lady)
  • Zealot Benmergui, Baron Bardhaven (Lord Bardhaven, Baron Bardhaven)
  • Kirawill Collingwood, Baroness Bardhaven (Lady Bardhaven, Baroness Bardhaven)
  • Hermione Fussbudget, Baroness Wyre (Miss Fussbudget, Baroness Wyre, Lady Wyre)
  • Lady Pym Sartre
  • Lady Lavendar Beaumont
  • Sir Edward Pearse (Sir Edward)
  • Christine McAllister, Lady Pearse (Lady Pearse)
  • Sir ZenMondo Wormser, Order of the Red Rose (Sir ZenMondo, Sir Zen)
  • Sir Telemachus Dean, Order of the Red Rose (Sir Telemachus, Sir Tele)
  • Sir Adso Krogstad, Order of the Red Rose (Sir Adso)
  • Sir Amplebeak Tinlegs (Sir Amplebeak)

Foreign titles

  • Her Majesty Kendra Bancroft, Kaiserin von Neualtenburg
  • His Serenity Otenth Paderborn, Jarl of Orcadia (Otenth; Your Serenity if you absolutely must on formal occasions: it’s an old germanic influence)

Military rank

(I confess to confusion and inability to keep up. The following is so woefully incomplete I hesitate to even reveal it. Won’t someone else, I beg of you, take up this gauntlet?)

  • Major Erasmus Margulis
  • Captain Lapin Paris
  • Admiral Carricre Wind
  • Colonel/Post-Captain Hotspur O’Toole
  • Colonel Exrex Somme