The 1st question

Another show of The First Question is about to begin staring Pooky Amsterdam and Hydra Shaftoe. Tonights special guests are Kenny Hubble, Charlene Trudeau, Arkowitz Jonson, and Blotter Republic. For anyone who can’t make it to the location in-world, the show can be watched live on the web at http://www.treet.tv.
posted by Dedric Mauriac on Spindrift using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Interactive Photo Mosaic

Since I was able to download all of my images using Snap Down, I have been able to do some pretty interesting stuff. Today, I used a program called AndreaMosaic to pull images together to make up a larger image. The original image is of my gravitar icon that I use everywhere as well as my blog. 768 images were pulled from my library to make up the larger image.

It had the option to create an HTML file to display the content as a web page. I was able to parse the file name of each image which actually matched the original Snapzilla picture id. From here, I was able to make an interactive cube in-world. Depending on where you touch the face, you get a link to the snapzilla page. If you have web media playing as well, you’ll also see a larger version of the image display next to the cube.

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Applewood using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Embryo of Spring

I took a quick look over at Snapzilla and saw many snapshots comming from Embryo. I headed on over and started exploring. It’s a very artistic simulator of strange and beautiful things.

In the center of the region, it appears there is a child/fetus that is sleeping until the spring. Upon arriving, I received some facelight attachments as well as a note card with a poem titled, Noctiluca. It was about how sad winter had become, that it was depressing him. Memories of what the bright future would bring him and another made him even sadder. The other was with someone else now, and so he sleeps, thinking of her.

The poem is better read than interpreted, and the visuals here are something to be experienced. It feels as if you are walking through a dream of someone elses memories.

posted by Dedric Mauriac on embryo using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Get your macro on

I’ve been trying to get a Macro to work that Torley Linden had recommended in the past. In it, Torley sets up a macro to copy the parcel name and description and paste it into an email snapshot. The code for the macro didn’t work for me, and I finally found a way to fix the macro. The next question I have is if there is a way to open the “About Land” dialog with a key stroke.

{#CTRL -chars a}{#CTRL -chars c}{#CTRL {#SHIFT -chars S}}{#sleep 1500}{#TAB -count 2}{#ENTER}{#TAB -count 2}{#CTRL -chars v}{#CTRL {#TAB}}{#TAB -count 2}{#CTRL -chars a}{#CTRL -chars c}{#CTRL -chars w}{#TAB}{#CTRL -chars v}{#SHIFT {#TAB -count 3}}pics@slpics.com;pics@slbuzz.com;pics@bloghud.com;secret@post.koinup.com;pic@bletaverse.com;me@slprofiles.com{#TAB -count 5}

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Here using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Introduction to Wicca

I arrived a bit late to an introduction to Wicca class. Merlyn went over the basic materials used with an alter and explained how they are used and what they represent in rituals. I walked in on the warnings of carrying an Athame and the legal issues you’ll run into in both the US and the UK.

Most of this is just basic knowledge, but it’s nice to hear someone speaking about it rather than reading about it through books and the Internet. Merlyn also had advice on what materials can be used when preferred materials are not available. He also had suggestions of what to look for in regards to seasonal materials.

The introduction was followed up with a Q&A session that got pretty interesting in addressing how to adapt to enfironments that have restrictive policies against candles and smoke. Next week they’ll cover the circle and the watch towers for part eight of a ten part series.

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Wicca using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Pillowfish at Giverny

I received an invitation to attend a live performance of the Pillowfish over at Giverny. I’ve seen the pillowfish before trying to raise funds to support the people in Haiti. The last event rose about twice as much as their intended target ($700 US).

If you like folk music with interesting stringed instruments (bouzouki, guitar, bass, cello, mandolin, viola, voilin, etc), then you may want to check these folks out. The often have live performances both in- world and out. Most gigs are in Second Life. I would never be able to travel accross the big pond to go see them in person, so this is just as good and more on a personal level.

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Giverny using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Testing uploads

In my little experiments, I’m trying to find out how I can cross-post images to my Pixelpipe email address for images. So far I have failed with trying to trick KoinUp by specifying two separate addresses (one for flickr, one for pixelpipe).

Since KoinUp does wonders for uploading to Flickr compared to BlogHUD, I’m attempting to get BlogHUD to send trhough the pixelpipe email address instead. Here goes nothing.

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Research Center using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Traffic Cones

It looks like I stumbled upon another traffic generator program. This time it is with cones. It’s pretty simple. Anyone who touches a cone gets a link to a location. Once I arrived, I needed to find the next cone. Touch the cone and a captcha is in place where you need to press the dialog button that matches a four digit code displayed as hovertext at the base of the cone. You need to stick around for 11 minutes before you are paid 2 L$, and receive a link to the next location. One of the handy things is that it continues to notify you every minute of how much time is left

This is an interesting system because you are not required to use a HUD or go through a website to use the service. Everything works simply by touching. I am curious if it tries to verify if you are within a specific range, on the same property as it is, or if it doesn’t enforce you to be within the area. When it got down to two minutes, it asked me to stay near the cone so that I wouldn’t miss getting my money. Once it counted down, I had three minutes to touch it in order to claim my money. Afterwards, I had to touch once more get the next link.

There is a free version of the cone, but it would result in me paying 4 L$ per visitor. The 500 L$ version would cost me 3 L$ per visitor. By the looks of it, the first cone that I visited has only had 3 visitors so far and the parcel doesn’t show as having much traffic.

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Nipponbashi using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Trying out Bletaverse

I had listed several services that made use of the Snapshot API. Amisha March told me of another called Bletaverse. The hud is free and it has a simple wizard to walk you through the different options. This is the first photo that I’m posting with Bletaverse. It should appear on my Bletaverse Page along with a previous text message and land mark.

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Bullfish using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

How To Blog from Second Life

I’ve had some questions directed towards me about a recent post about my social media setup where I post snapshots in-world to many different social networks without lifting a finger outside of the virtual world.

Since I’ve been snowed in most of the day, I worked on a document outlining the different parts of automated cross-posting, techniques, and different options to consider when cross-posting. Just like my own cross-posting setup, this is a work in progress, but should serve to help answer many questions that new folks may have regarding these services, limitations, and in general, gaining knowledge about there existance.

Blogging from Second Life

Good luck. You’ll need it!

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Applewood using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]