Lately people got a bit sensitive about lag, so (some of them) try not to wear attachments made of hundreds of prims and all the HUD gadgets they have. Some got a bit oversensitive so they bitch around to anybody that have ARC in yellow of god forbid in red. While some of the things we wear really add to the lag, some are just pure myth. You might want to check Rika Watanabe’s article about lag, but there is something else I want to talk with you here.Let’s say you’re an responsible avatar that doesn’t want to torture yourself and the others, so before you go to the busy event, you strip all the unnecessary things from your outfit. You wear your simplest hair, find some nice clothes that is made of nice textures on system mesh and no prims. You forget about jewelry, you might even go barefoot. Actually, that is almost expected from you.

If you have managed to teleport to this year’s Hair Fair, you probably saw vendors near each of the rezzing points that offer you basic clothes that cause minimum lag. Which was a nice idea. Or not?

Sure, it will make your walking a bit easier. But there is the other side of the coin. As Annyka Bekkers said:

expecting hair shoppers to go *bald* to hairfair is about as realistic as holding an AA meeting at a tavern

If you’ve ever attended a fashion show, in any of the worlds, you know that it’s not only about the fashion on the catwalk. It’s the audience as well. And while one might say it’s all vanity and that you came to see the things not to show yourself, it’s not that easy.

When we want just to see the things we use web, not second life. Point of second life is to be present, and that means to rezz the avatar. And avatar has an identity that is, beside the other things, presented by its look. So what’s the point if we all go there dressed in the same textures? Being somewhere as yourself is not a matter of vanity as much of the proper use of the medium. In that case we could watch the machinima as well and see how the new hair styles look like. But most of us escaped here from the world of television and passive looking. We wanted to be present, we wanted to interact. We also wanted to be ourselves, not just a generic avatars. And "being as yourself" doesn’t mean just having the name tag above the head.

So one is facing the challenging job these days. Since it is not comfortable nor well mannered to go to the busy places with too heavy outfits, it’s advisable to have an outfit for laggy places ready. Short hair, primless clothes made of good textures. Take it as a challenge, to look good and to look like you but with simple and resources-light stuff. Sure, it would do a great deal if fashion bloggers would pick up the idea and teach the young generation that it doesn’t take hundreds of prims to look good and stylish. And that each occasion has appropriate way of dressing.

Oh and yes, that DCS’ should be detached and MystiTool put to sleep. Thanks.

OK, those shoes are really looking good. But feetlight! I still can’t believe.

I really don’t understand why anybody would want to put a light on own feet. And have in mind that I’m one of those that are very favourable of feet and toes. Yeah, we all have our little fetishes. And mine is now supposed to have it’s own source of light. Only problem is, that source of light is one of the six available and something will have to be turned off because of that. I hope you already know what am I talking about. If not, please, please! read how having too many facelights is damaging your second life experience. And while there is some reason to have ONE! facelight, to get rid of those ugly shadows that exist due to low number of polygons of our faces, there are no such shadows on the feet. So only reason to get something like feetlight is vanity. Or stupidity. Or both.

And even if you like your feet that much that you want them extra lighted, why having that light on open shoes without sculpty toes? This is not 2006. But hey, it’s cool to have a new feature and to shine in the dark, right?

What really bothers me here is the creator’s point of view. With resident’s proven vanity and need to be trendy, sales should go well. Though that pair of shoes should go well even without stupid addon like that. But shouldn’t creators improve our experience? I don’t expect every resident to know that each attachment with light kills one light in the building around thus ruining the view, but creators should know that. And this is not the only case where one product actually ruins the experience of the customer. Just think about all the resizing and color changing scripts that never close and sunglasses with radars and what not. Since when sunglasses are supposed to lag you and shoes to make your environment dark? Should designers think beyond how their product will look on the poster and how it will really feel and make us happy? Am I asking for too much?

I might sound extreme, but I’m really conscious of what I’m trying to do with my builds. They are extremely personal to me.

That’s what makes his builds so great. And yes, it sounds extreme. This is not about copyright and the IP rights on second life creations, it’s more about life of an art piece.

Many artists feel that their works are their children. And they are damn right about it. But we have to let our children go outside and live. We might know our kids the best, but it’s a crime to keep them enclosed in a room, for nobody to see them. And once they go outside and live, many things will happen. They will influence the people, and they might be photographed or used in some other people’s works. Maybe they will be snapshoted or filmed, maybe somebody will make an event or set up a roleplay scene there, maybe it will inspire music or a story. Those derivative works might be more or less successful, some will be loved by the original author, some will not. But it’s always a compliment. Nobody takes pictures of ugly sims.

Once that a piece of artwork is finished and ready for the audience, it really starts living. And (hopefully) it starts to influence people. That’s what art is all about. If the idea catches the eye of an another artist, it might provoke a new piece of art. That means that the idea grows. This is especially true in second life. Many pieces of art here are not to be enclosed in a glass box with "don’t touch" sign. On contrary, they are here for us to walk through them, to interact and live them. That’s what makes this world so charming. Of course there will be a lot of snapshots around. For many residents that’s the way they really experience the world and creations inside it.

And that's where all the simplicity ends. 

If you present that image in public, let it be Flickr, two questions arise:

• What is moral and ethical to do about all the people that contributed to the image? Somebody build that sim, somebody made the clothes, jewelry and accessories, WindLight settings, pose…
• What is legal state of the matter?

Answer to the first set of questions, that I am in no way the sole author of the image above, is something that makes second life so interesting and compelling to me. There is at least ten people that met here in some plane that is even more meta than metaverse itself, ten people whose creativity joined in the moment of clicking the snapshot. But that's me, idealistic and carried by enjoying the world. Take a look at the Bettina Tizzy's post Proper attribution of images taken in virtual worlds to see that things are not that simple nor pretty. Beside that it's polite and good practice to credit people that contributed, some artists might want more than that or can have special requirements about who and for which purposes can take snapshots of their work.

Now, let's try to credit that image above. Sim is Hangars Liquides. I don't know if there are any rules about taking pics there, nothing told me about it. But if we want to be correct, I should find creator's web-site and check there, right? I don't have a clue how many people was working on the sim and if they were using somebody else's prims and textures. Dog tags were made by Dinee Ghia, which I remember because they were a gift directly from her. Glasses, two sets of piercings and clothes can be traced if I log in, find them in my inventory, rezz on the ground and inspect. Wait! Hair, skin and pose should be mentioned too. Hair is easy, but I have no clue which skin am I wearing, let alone the pose. See where this is heading? If you want to share an image you need to employ three more people to do the paperwork about creators of everything around. 

OK, I am exaggerating and I am in no way telling that credits shouldn't be given. Far from that! I just want to point the problem. What was supposed to be shared environment, place where ideas join, inspire and amplify each other, turned out to be a mess of bureaucracy. And we haven't call the law to the party. Yet.

Surprisingly or not, copyright law is not adding much to the mess. As usual, when artsy souls cannot make peace, law cuts sharp and close to the body. Benjamin Duranske explains the practice:

In the virtual world, however, every dress, hairstyle, avatar “skin”, and building is really a tiny piece of online software, and online software, including the output of the software to the screen, is protected by copyright… If you want to incorporate somebody else’s artistic work into your own you are supposed to seek permission from the copyright holder. And if you don’t, the copyright holder can sue you — attribution, no matter how extensive, is simply not enough.

So instead of the purple image above, I end up with the white one. I should name it "White Body on White" and Malevich would be proud of me. I made my body shape and eyes. I hope that Linden Lab is not going to sue me for using the Ruth's pose.

Most of us get away with our crimes of using other people's work in our own. That's mostly because we rarely make any money here or, when we do, L$ peanuts are not worth going to the court. But that doesn't mean that we don't have a problem. And the problem is rooted in fact that our technology develops faster than our morality and comprehension of ourselves and our world.That disproportion creates the space where two extremes flourish. One that would like to cut everything down to white, and the other that steals and declare other people's as its own. Both are ruining creative and sharing atmosphere of out environment – the essence that makes this place so interesting and productive.

I have no intention of saying a single word in defense of those whose shoes, jewelry or whatever are causing serious cases of bling allergy around. They are guilty as charged. And their favourite creators are partners in crime. And they are all guilty of putting bling on such bad voice that goes to the extent that some residents are turning their particles off and even asking for complete turn-off of that function.

But, there is always some "but"…

Bling is not bad. Not if you use it with a bit of common sense and taste. As you probably know, bling script has something called "rate", that is time in which one bling occurs. Usually, it is less than a second, sometimes it's measured in tenths of a second. It's not a surprise that some attachments are flashing as a firefly during the mating season.

That little flare can give a bit of life to the scene. It is actually nice to see it once. So, try tweaking those scripts so the bling rate is something like three minutes. As we rarely stare at each other without moving for that long, chances are that in 15 minutes conversation, bling will be noticed maybe once. And that is actually quite enough. It will serve the purpose, giving a bit of discrete shine to your look. 

- What do you mean no mod?

- Why the hell no copy?

I am not buying non-copyable things. I am sorry, but

• Second life is infamous for its nasty habit to eat items when you rezz them. And if they are no-copy you cannot get them back from the endless pits of asset servers.
• Beside that, I might want to put that thing with some rezzing script if I need it occasionally or I might want to link it to something else.
• I might need them in more than one place and I really don't understand the idea of bringing furniture (or anything else) from one location in the second life to the other.
• Even if we speak about speakers or turntables, I need them in more than one instance but they go in pairs anyway. And if I need three or four… it is not infinite number! You don't expect that somebody will buy the same thing twice, don't you? I mean, when I put my first pair of speakers in the vendor…. hell, I said, I am selling you one, then you see how many you need in your home, club, whatever. It sounds immoral to sell the same digital item many times to the same person. It sounds like a fraud.
• And at last, but it was to be on the first place… I need to make a backup copy? I can mess when I modify it.

What do you mean "no modify"?

You say that no customer would want to edit a single prim of your creation? You are absolutely sure you did every bit perfectly? You are absolutely sure that I might not need to change the cover of the CD left on the broadcasting booth? And you presume that nobody might want to unlink and move the poseballs so they fit avatar's height? Not to mention the possibility to create and (as part of that) to customize things is one of the essential things in second life?

What really bugs me is why people are doing that. Why trying to put things in chains and stone?

• Linking As you probably know, you cannot link objects that are more than 10 meters away from each other. Nice if you make furniture, but what about houses? Then you link parts of it, teake them all as different objects and try to assemble them again next time you are back to work. Do a bit more complicated building and you'll spend hours in that puzzle. Why? Because walls and floors and everything are usually aligning…
• Aligning And when you are try to put all those walls to be next to each other you are with no toolls. Only thing you have is snap to grid thing. But, that works only for centers of the object. So, sides of two parts of your object will align if they are of the same size. Why not having some real aligning tool?
• Handles But,until we got an aligning tool, we align our objects manually. Zoom very close to the critical point, grab one of those handles and drag. Deselect, check from different angles, find that you missed it again, repeat. Oh, have I said that works for not so big objects only? 'Cause, if you have to move 10 meters object a few pixels up, you have to zoom close to the edge. And if you zoom in so close those handles you have to grab are out of your screen. They are in the middle of the object. So you zoom out, grab the handle, but now you're too far away to see what you are doing.
  
• Torus One of my favourite and very used prim type is torus. You know that one, like a cylinder that is bent in a circle? Yes, that one, also called a doughnut. I will never understand why is it defined by its radius and the size of the hole in the middle and not by the radius of the whole object and the radius of the cylinder that is bent. One of the nice things to do with tori is to cut them and align them (yes, aligning again, what else to do with prims) with some cylinders. And the first time you try that, you find out that it is not so easy to make cylinder's radius big or small as you need just by defining the hole size. Once again, it is trial and error game. 
• Boolean operations After I used the word aligning a dozen times it is time to move to something else…. Ops, there is no something else. What can you do with prims? You can put them one beside the others and (if they are not too far away) to link the. That's it. No, so called Boolean operations over them. No substracting, intersecting and the like. Why not? If you want to cut one prim out of the other, that counts like two prims on the sim. And processors will have a bit more work to do to count which faces are visible, but that's not too much. It is lagging already, let's make it look interesting then.

My previous building adventures were different. Most of the times it was kind of a puzzle to do something with what is given. It was a challenge. You have cubes and spheres and tori, let's see what you can make of them. That's nice and fun. But that is not serious building. It goes just like the rest of the second life. It feels that somebody should finally decide if this is a serious platform or a funny toy for geeks. Are we going to make this world an important part of the internet or is it just for fun?