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Precious Illusions, originally uploaded by * Lore.

Is this Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia or something from a Second Life dream? Sitting here with a fever and a headache it’s hard to tell. But there are people in the picture so it’s not too lonely.

If you’ve never been to Tuna Oddfellow’s balls then you’re in for a treat! It’s a spectacular show to behold see the Vimeo video and Flickr picks for a taste:

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Hair Fair 2009.

OK, like that was a long time ago! But I happened across my HF-09 folder and tried on the freebies I had collected. I found a keeper!

Ass and Nose, originally uploaded by ** GoSpeed Racer **.

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape,

You don’t spit into the wind,

You don’t grab the ass of the ole Edloe Fembot,

and you don’t mess around with Crap.

Poor fella. If he’d asked Crap for a kleenex she’d a given it to him. The funeral is next week.

(sound of Taps playing)

Based on Real Life conversations I’ve had with friends, coworkers and family these two pictures depict how race and politics are so corrupted nowadays.

Comments are off because a fair number of you are going to go ape-shit and I don’t feel like reading your hysterical diatribes.

Chapter 10 – Logging in

As Rav went upstairs to change his clothes GoSpeed wandered into the computer room with Sarah in tow. She stood in facing the L shaped desk with the 3 computers computers enticing her. The one on the right had some flickering displays which she quickly discerned to be the KONA Radio computer. In the middle was a large LCD screen with a screen shot of herself as wallpaper. “Hmm, I look cute”, she thought while grinning to herself. The left hand computer was off. She sat down in the main chair waiting as Sarah circled around asking questions. GoSpeed paid scant attention as she began to ponderwhat she was about to do.

Rav came downstairs to see GoSpeed seated, with elbows on the desk and hands on chin, deep in thought. He walked up and placed a hand on her shoulder. GoSpeed looked up with apprehension that turned quickly into a smile that seemed to say “Oh, am I in your seat?”. “Don’t bother.Here, slide over here to the left.”, said Rav. GoSpeed scooted over to the computer that was turned off as Rav rolled up another chair to the main computer. He pushed a button on the monitor and instructed GoSpeed to push the silver button on the front of the computer down by her calves. As the computer booted up Rav launched his Second Life client and prepared to log in. She watched the bios screen flash by, then the XP splash screen, a light blue screen and then the desktop appear. She waited, and waited not knowing what to do next. She knew what this was in theory, but had no experience or even instinct to fall back on.

In the virtual studios of KONA Radio a puff of white smoke appeared and pulsed by the desk. A grey male figure flashed into being, the cloud dissipated, and the form began to color in. Caucasian skin, brown hair, blue eyes, jeans, Hawaiian shirt…. .

At the Keyboard Ravishal turned around to face GoSpeed who was still staring at her computer. “Do you know what to do?” “GoSpeed shrugged. “Here, you click this.” Rav took her mouse and clicked the Second Life icon on the desktop. “OK Go, type in your name and password and meet me at the studio.”

GoSpeed typed in her name, GoSpeed <tab> Racer <tab> _____ …. . Password? She had no idea. She tapped Rav on the shoulder and pointed at the empty password field and shrugged. “Watch this.” said Rav as he slowly and deliberately typed in the password so she could see what he typed. In world a puff of smoke appeared in the corner of the studio as

GoSpeed rezzed into Second Life.

“What do I do? How do I move?” she thought. Without thought she reached out for the mouse and held the ALT key and was moving her camera around, pivoting around her avatar, zooming up close and then pulling back. Her camera got stuck on the other side of the wall and she quickly hit the Esc key to brin ghe camera back close to her avatar. She found the movement keys and advanced her avatar towards the couches and chairs. Without much thought GoSpeed was quickly mastering the keys. She may have been stumped by the Windows interface but she quickly recalled the Second Life interface. This was starting to feel comfortable and weird at the same time. She knew what to do, but everything was oddly skewed. Friends list. What had always been a mental picture was now a pop-up menu that blocked part of the screen. Mini-map, Inventory, user menus, all of those had been mental abstracts now were pictorially rendered on the screen before her. What had required a thought to bring into view now required a click. “What next???”

Ravishal clicked the cushion next to her on the couch and sat down
Ravishal Bentham: Welcome back to SL, how does it feel?

GoSpeed Racer: Weird, really weird. I remember how it “felt” to be in here, but I don’t feel anything like that. I feel the chair I am siting on, the keyboard and mouse in my hand, the noise the computer makes and your daughter talking into my left ear.

Ravishal Bentham: Sorry bout that.

“Sarah, Give Aunt Go some space, ok?”. GoSpeed grinned at her new title of “Aunt Go”. An indignant Sarah stomped off in search of mom to complain at how mean dad was.

Ravishal Bentham: Ok, do you want to meet somebody?

GoSpeed Racer: Ummm, OK. Sure. Who???

Rav opened his friends list scanning  it up and down, finally stopping at LaDonna Upshaw. He opened a conference between the three and invited LaDonna over.

LaDonna Upshaw: OK, but it has to be quick, I am preparing to launch a new line of furniture soon and I’m falling behind.

A third avatar rezzed into the studio and stood before Ravishal and GoSpeed.

LaDonna Upshaw: OK, what is it you need to show me.

Ravishal Bentham: LaDonna, fire up Skype. I need to show you a visitor in my computer room.

Rav could have sworn he detected a sigh coming from LaDonna’s avatar as its AO caused her to fold her arms and look up at the ceiling.

LaDonna Upshaw: Hold on, one minute.

Rav saw LaDonna’s name pop up on his Skype contact list and immediately called her.

“Hey LaDonna, I am going to fire up my camera so you can see who I have here sitting next to me.”

“It better be Cal Ripken, I’m awfully busy today.”

Rav grinned and said, “Oh, much better than ole Cal hun.” A video window popped up on Ladonna’s computer and it did a fade in from white to reveal Rav seated in his chair wearing a headset. Off to his left was a dark skinned woman with short, bobbed hair wearing a v-neck top. LaDonna paused a moment, mouthing but not quite vocalizing the phrase “what tha…” .

“Rav, who is that? Do I know her”

“In a way you do. You’ve met her before in SL.”

GoSpeed was looking around wondering who or what Rav was talking to. Sarah came back with mom in tow  and stood behind Rav with arms folded.

“Oh, this is Sarah and next to her is my wife Izabella”

“Oh, OK, so that woman seated next to you is not your wife”

“Oh lord, not at all LaDonna. Here, lets get a closer look.”

Rav scooted aside and motioned Go to look at the webcam on top of the LCD monitor. Go came over, eyed the webcam and beamed a big smile.

“OMG Rav! She looks just like GoSpeed! Look at her eyes!” Go leaned back in her chair revealing her top and LaDonna gasped again. “The tattoo. She has a rose tattoo!”

There was a moment of silence and Rav spoke up.

“She showed up at my front door yesterday. Her resemblance to GoSpeed is incredible, down to the tatto, skin tone, eyes and clothes. Oh Go, show her the clothes trick. Nothing sheer. How about that INDI outfit, the Sienna.”

GoSpeed nodded and her clothing began to change. A brownish white blur covered her as her black pants and white top were replaced by brown shorts, a white top, a jacket vest and suspenders. GoSpeed looked up and a hat and new hairstyle appeared on her head. Withing the space of a few heartbeats her clothes had fully rezzed and solidified. LaDonna was shocked, speechless. Rav and the family were still wowed by the demonstration too. GoSpeed smiled a big smile and stood up to demonstrate her outfit. She lifted a leg to show off her boots to the camera.

” I don’t know what I just saw Rav. You either are showing me a neat trick or you’ve got a modern miracle in your home.”

“Tell me about it. We’re all trying to figure out what this means. She can’t talk at all, but she can write and type so we can communicate with her.”

In the meantime GoSpeed turned her attention back to her avatar and began moving about the virtual studio.

“How real is she? I mean, is she human?”

” I don’t know. She’s eaten with us and umm, did other stuff. She sleeps too. But you saw what she did with her clothes.”

“If I were you I’d take her to a doctor and have her checked out.” , said LaDonna.

” I think you’re right. God, she may not have an immune system at all! She could get very sick if exposed to a virus.”

Izabella spoke up, “Safe bet would be Urgent Care in town. There would be less questions.”

Rav nodded with agreement. “We should do that very soon.” He turned around to address the family. “OK, no physical contact with GoSpeed until she gets a checkup. I have no idea if she is resistant to disease or not. And Go, no kissing, ok?” GoSpeed blushed and nodded in agreement.

“OK LaDonna, it appears I have a plan of action for today. I’ll get back with you later.”

Rav closed the connection and turned to GoSpeed who in the meantime found her Huddles AO and was dancing away on the studio couch.

“OK frauline, get something plain on and lets see about getting you to a doctor.”…………………………..

Here’s a video I created in Blue Mars. Due to a lack of vehicles and teleports an avatar has to hoof it!

http://www.vimeo.com/6548640

Diamond Head and the hotel in the distance, originally uploaded by ** GoSpeed Racer **.

In a correction to the size of Beach City in Blue Mars the size is 4,000 x 4,000 meters or about 16 square kilometers. The upper limit is 8,000 x 8,000 meters for a whopping 64 sq kilometers! Here I am on the western side of the Beach City map looking east towards Diamond. You can just barely make out the roof of the hotel.

FYI, there are two levels of developers: City developers who invest in a city and Block developers who work in an area about 65,000 square meters (the size of a sim in SL) .

First Impressions of Blue Mars

Like many of my fellow SL users I signed up for the Blue Mars beta way back when. As summer approached I upgraded my video card to handle the software and patiently waited for my invite to arrive. Saturday morning it arrived in my inbox and I downloaded the 1.26 Gigabyte installation package, installed it, and launched the application.

Current required system specifications:

Platform: x86 PC or Mac via Boot Camp
Operating System: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 (both 32bit and 64bit)
CPU: 2Ghz AMD or Intel Dual Core
RAM Memory: 2 GB on XP, 4GB on Vista
Video Card Memory: 512MB and up
Screen Resolution: Screen resolution of at least 1280×768 is recommended
Disk space: Approximately 4GB for the installer, temporary files, and the installed Blue Mars program.
Video Card: Avatar Reality has tested Blue Mars with the following video cards, or better:

NVidia:
Geforce 8400m series
Geforce 9400m series
Geforce 200 and 200m series

ATI:
Radeon 3000 series
Radeon 4000 series
Radeon HD 3000 and 4000 series

As you can see it requires a bit more than SL to run..

More below the fold.

Avatar creation. This may turn some of you off but the current range of face and body shapes are somewhat limited. Be sure you use the ADVANCED tab to further refine your looks. Possibly it’s a limitation of the CRY2 engine. Perhaps when skin developers come on board that can be mitigated. Just look what they’ve done with blocky SL avatars! The avatars are actually pretty nice to look at compared to the noobish looks you find in other worlds. You do get some makeup tools in world that you can play with any time after avatar creation so there’s that . Clothes and hair choices are pretty limited too but they look OK.

You arrive in a Welcome area / Travel hub where you can click a sign and choose a “city” to go to. You can meet a lot of developers and fellow SLers there. 3 are “city” places and 2 are games. The golf game is kinda fun and is multiplayer too (makes SL golf look like sh*t!) but haven’t tried the waterfall game yet.

Now for some pics!

The Shade City is a coastal platform next to a giant grove of trees. Why so big? Maybe plants can grow real tall in the lower Martian gravity. Not sure if there is actually land on the far side, it could be a miniature prop way off in the distance.

Shoreside is a LOT of forested land and a seemingly endless beach.

New Venice is another city currently under construction. There I met a developer with BIG plans in the music scene.

New Venice is a very pretty place with lots of water, bridges and gorgeous architecture.

(Looks like my avi is about to sneeze in this pic!)
Oooh, sailboats! Imagine sailing and not hitting those damn sim boundaries all the time!

OK, so I need practice

The next city “Beach City” will give you an indication how big a location can be in Blue Mars. In SL a sim is 256 x 256 meters, so 4 in a row is 1024 meters or a little over a kilometer in length. 4 sims by 4 sims is a tad over a square kilometer. That is a fairly nice sized estate of 16 sims. A city in Blue Mars is comparable to an SL continent! Let me show you in pictures how large a city can be. Beach City is a nod to the famous resort city of Waikiki in Hawaii complete with Diamond Head mountain.

I start my journey…

Over 700 feet tall as I recall. Much easier to climb in Martian gravity

The blue lines on the ground indicate the area is to be developed. Oh, notice my hair? It bounces realistically as I run and it drapes over my shoulders, nut cut into it as SL hair would do.

Mountain clouds…

Pant,pant… Wow, look down at the city!

Near the summit I look down at the city. The condos on the far side are starting to de rezz a bit but I can still see way beyond them to the horizon.

The highlands beyond..

The crater. Most likely an impact crater they shaped to look like Diamond Head.

I ran further inland to get a view beyond the crater…

and find a whole other bay…

How big is it? VERY Big. If I had to guess I’d say this particular city was at least 5-7 Km wide and at least 5Km deep. That’s 25-35 sq Kms! so, assuming 16 SL sims is a square kilometer then 35 sq km is about 560 sims! The draw distances are incredible compared to SL. I could see the city thousands of meters away. In SL you can see up to 512 meters, but most of us keep it below 200 meters.

UPDATE**** : Beach CIty is 4×4kilometers

Cities are designed for you to download and install on your system. This ultimately saves you in bandwidth in the long run. Any significant changes are download able as patches or may be even streamed in and applied that way. A new city called “Rock City” with a rock and roll theme is coming soon. Can’t wait for that!

Content. Well this is a beta and it is lacking in content and things to do, not mention a thriving, active population. There are still quite a few loose ends for them to tie up, like IMs, name tags and the like. I’m sure these will come along soon. I do hear voice chat will roll out very soon.

If you’re expecting to come to Blue Mars and be entertained then stop right there. It’s simply not ready for that. I’ve already seen blog posts, plurks and twitters complaining and whining about BM. It’s BETA! SL was pretty raw back in 2003 and look how it improved.  Come to Blue Mars and imagine, think and plan. If you create content or provide a service then Blue Mars might be a place for you to invesitgate and possibly invest in. I am keeping my foot in the door and will follow it’s progess. If I see an opportunity I’ll go for it .

So if you haven’t signed up and are intrigued do so now.  Sign up here: https://www.bluemarsonline.com/

My Flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gospeed_racer/sets/72157622253615812/

The Blue Mars Flickr Pool: http://www.flickr.com/groups/blue_mars/

Who knows who’ll you meet!

Fear is debilitating. Fear cuts. Fear paralyzes you.

Like a dark ship it approaches you, menacing. And then it captures you….

Then the darkness drapes over you like a cloying blanket, smothering you, trapping you.

And then it cuts, eviscerates, carving up your insides.

I hurts your soul, breaking your spirit, crushing, and can ultimately kill. Kill your personality, your love, and maybe your life. Facing fear alone is a terrible thing. A part of you dies even when you conquer it. Still you fight.Why?, I wish I knew.

I haven’t been to particularly inspired to write about much this past month so I’ll tell my story again with pictures.

When I got my new Lagroki skin last month somebody said I looked more “black” now. With my previous skin they said I looked like a Caucasian with a dark complexion. I don’t think so. What do you think?

My previous skin:

and the new skin:

I play a bit with shadows:

I partner with the adorable Taryn Gartner:

Trying out some new hair:

I get all artsy with Windlight, Shadow Draft and Picnik:

Darn clones crashing on my couch!

Shockwave and Lokum get partnered:

and I liven up the reception with a little help from Ordinal:

Wake up Vint!!!

A time to relax:

Frakkin toaster!

An old friend gets a new look:

Until next month!