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PRAYER TO THE SOLSTICE
By Bay Sweetwater

I pray the solstice in its might
To turn the earth from dark toward light
Will turn me with it toward the bright
Of breaking dawn that follows night.

SOULFLOWER
By Bay Sweetwater

My soul is the burst of joy
that blooms in me
when out the curtained kitchen window
I see the pink morning glory
blooming on the lattice
next to the scruffy old cat
the color of evening,
lazing on the porch railing
in the strong mid-morning sun.

The soulflower loves the sun
and turns toward it,
every petal yearning for its touch,
but a soulflower can bloom in shadow,
and yes, even in darkness too,
for its sun is not in the sky
but deep in the heart
where inextinguishable joy prevails.

Facebook’s new Timeline, like fb itself, is still keepin’ it real. The next chapter of social media history, embodied by Facebook’s new Timeline and Ticker, was announced earlier this week at the f8 (as in “fate” ) developers conference in San Fran — see the Zuck’s keynote here. Though negatively received at first (what isn’t?), changes will be coming to a Facebook page near you soon, in the next few weeks, with a target date of September 30 to begin rollout.

But what will it mean for those of us who are …  [sshhhhhh!] … on the pseudonymous side of reality? Will we use it at our peril? I think so. For pseudonymous avatars, the  Timeline presents an intriguing question: What exactly is our “life”? And how will we present it in the Timeline?

Continue Reading ““Timeline” keeping it real – sshhhhh!”

It’s late at night, and I’m deep down. Two questions are bothering me. I don’t know their answers. And in my case, they’re related.

(1) Why is it when a difficult situation  arises in First Life, people leave Second Life? We’re talking a biggie here, like a health crisis, death of a loved one, dissolution of a longterm relationship, loss of a job.

(2) Why is it when we only know someone in the virtual form, we so rarely scratch the surface to really get to know that person–what gets them up in the morning, how they spend their time, and oh so very especially: what troubles them and bothers their sleep? I’m not talking about barging into the avie’s First Life–just really getting to know them as they are.

I’m so tired. But I had to get the questions out. If you ask them, answers come. Maybe even from you. Does anyone know?

If you are a builder who uses a mac and viewer 2, you’ve already got two strikes against you. LOL. Or so the SL lore goes.

Using a mac is always challenging in a program that’s built for windows. And viewer 2 … well, viewer 2 is just plain challenging to use on any platform. Especially if  you’re still trying to learn where things are in viewer 2 — like me, LOL.

So today I’m going to share 2 things I learned by trial and error today.

(1) How to find Local Mode on Viewer 2 (commonly called The Ruler)

Builders often like to line up what they’re building on a grid so that measurements can be exact, and placement of, for example, a beam one one side of a house will be at exactly the same relative location on the other side.

This used to be very easy to find in viewer 1.23: In the edit menu build window, just below the icons of the build shapes, there was a small drop-down bar called “Ruler” or “Grid,” depending on the version. In any case, it was very easy to select “Local” or in later versions, the grid would appear in your building as soon as you picked that “Ruler” dropdown.

But in Viewer 2? Not so easy. It stumped three experienced builders, til we finally figured it out:

1. Get in Edit mode (that’s important)

2. Choose Build, Options, Grid Options.

3. In the Grid Options menu, select “Local” from the drop-down bar.

4. You’re done. There’s your “ruler.”

(2) How to link multiple objects at the same time.

Trick question! This is not really a viewer 2 issue or a mac issue, but because I thought it was, and so spent so long figuring it out, I thought I would include it here.

The key is to get in edit mode first. That’s the step I always forget. Then it’s pretty easy. Here are instructions, using viewer 2.

1. Get in Edit Mode

2. Choose Building, Options, then toggle:  Select by Surrounding, and Select Only My Objects.

3. Then you’ll be able to draw a little yellow box around all the objects you want to select (it’s easiest if you do this from above looking down). Each selected object will be outlined in white.

4. From the dropdown Build menu, select “Link.”

5. You’re done. Your objects are all linked. Btw, the last item selected will be your root prim, and your object will take it’s name. If you want the name of the linked object to be something different, just rename it in the General tab of the Build window.

Sadly, KirstenLee must abandon development of of the KirstensViewer due to personal commitments IRL. This was the best viewer there ever was, and there are many machinima makers who will sorely miss it! The good news is we can still use the viewer; it just won’t be upgraded.

I’m sending prayers and good wishes to KirstenLee and Dawny. Thank you for everything.

Last tracks of KirstensViewer (pic by KirstenLee)

Back in college lit, we studied a Ray Bradbury story called Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Basement! The premise of the story was that aliens, who could take on any form, packaged themselves as mushroom spores, then sold themselves via advertisements in kids’ magazines like Boys’ Life. When the boys ordered the mushrooms, raised them, and ate them with their families, the mushrooms could take over whoever ingested them.

I thought of this story when I saw that Google over the past several years has induced ordinary people to build a world for them–Google Earth. This is the virtual globe that Google first offered as a free software download in 2005, which it still is today (although business-oriented versions Google Earth Pro and Google Earth Enterprise cost some serious money).

Google Earth–like any other social network these days–has been busy harvesting its customers as product. Dangling the lure of free software, Google Earth has enticed people with time on their hands, and an unfulfilled creative urge, to start building houses, parks, trees, water features, bridges, buildings, castles, and every kind of world landmark–all modeled in exquisite texture, size, and scale to match real world counterparts. Your grocery store clerk is probably spending his evenings modeling a 3D masterpiece for Google Earth. Right under our noses, Google is populating its virtual world–and getting us to do it!

Linden Lab’s got nothing on Google . . .

When I first began hanging out in Second Life years ago, I marveled at Linden Lab’s ability to somehow convince a bunch of hugely talented people to spend untold hours building a world that Linden would profit from. More amazing, Linden actually noodled these same people into paying for the opportunity to do so! Even now that I’m a serious Second Lifer, I still marvel over Linden’s ability to crowdsource the building of a world.

Continue Reading “Boys and Girls! Raise giant worlds in your basement!”

My avatar is being recruited for a job! This happens from time to time in real life, but this is the first time my avatar has been approached by a job recruiter. An exciting milestone! And the ironic thing is that my atomic self really is looking for a job in real life .  .  . but it’s my avatar who gets the recruiter’s attention!

Believe it or not, these folks at Zeega are recruiting someone who can “hear story ideas.” I don’t believe I have ever seen that in a job description before. I was struck to see an employer articulate the process so concisely. This listening process is exactly what I try to do when I write poems and stories and make videos.

Attracting story ideas is the idea behind almost everything I do. It’s why I construct virtual poem parks in Second Life, why I built my little (virtual) blogging studio down by the koi pond at my (virtual) home (feel free to visit!), why I construct moody landscapes like this wintry one in Farley Crabgrass’s beautiful video A Second Life Winter’s Night, why I built the little interactive flower path in front of the Elf Circle library that gives out lines of a poem when you walk on it (visit it here), why I log into Second Life to do most of my writing, why I write this blog–why I have a second life at all. It’s all a virtual story stakeout!

Story ideas are such shy and skittish things, like wild birds, or butterflies, or deer. You have to sit still in the places that they frequent, have patience, and eventually the ideas will come. Build it . . . and they will come.

Continue Reading “Visualize building stories in Second Life!”

THE LONELINESS OF THORNS

by Bay Sweetwater

Can a rose who blooms beyond the reach of summer sunbeam,
Awakening to feel the chill and loneliness of thorns,
Missing fragile whisper of companionable petals,
Hold dear the amaranthine dream wherein its flower was born?