Musical News - Subway Steps

Leave it to Europeans to come up to come up with a fun way to bring exercise to the lives of many. I found this clip on Twitter, in a post from @SynthGear. You can see the complete post here, although the clip below is what it is all about.



Clever, isn't it? Thanks to SynthGear, as well as to Volkswagon for sponsoring the original video.

moreless

Great News - Tom Goss DLs & More

We all know I love me some Tom Goss, and I just got word that he is dubbing today 'Free Music Fun Day!' So take advantage of his good mood, and click here! There you can download six different songs. If you like what you hear, or know someone who would, pass it along!


JAM on the left, and David on the right.

Also in the news department, two more followers have joined us here. JAM is from Washington state and has a couple of blogs, including G-A-Y.US which can be seen here. David is from Brighton in the UK, and has a blog called David's Daily Dramas, something many of us can identify with. You can check out David's blog here. Welcome JAM & Dave, thanks for your support!

Also, shortly the site will be coming up on 5,000 hits, and words can't describe how much I appreciate you all who time the time to stop by to read and listen to some music. Also, the support from some of the artists who have sent kind words of support. It is greatly appreciated. So much so, I thought for this post I would share Dolly Parton singing Shine, the Collective Soul song I really love. Dolly covered it on her bluegrass album, Little Sparrow. I love Dolly and was going to save this for a Dolly post, but figured it worked here. So thank you everyone, and here is Dolly!

moreless

Great Misc - Just Some Random Thoughts

OK, just a few things I thought I would put out there.


(L to R) Tommy Kessler, Brad Small, Tom Welsch, Derek Nicoletto and Andrew Frawley.

First, visit Derek Nicoletto's blog to see Telling On Trixie's rainy sound check before playing at NYC Pride last week. I am most amused by Derek, his new parenthood showing, as he asks bandmates about pre-show potty stops. And how great is it that TOT played at pride, with out lead singer Derek [himself a hottie] and the band of hot str8 boys?


Stephen on the left, Allen on the right.

Welcome to some new followers of the blog. Welcome Stephen and Allen. Both men have blogs of their own. Steven is Post Apocalyptic Bohemian, while Allen has the appropriately named Allen's Blog. And a thanks to JR Richards for Tweeting his thanks for the post I had done on his new video. Also, thanks to Neal for sending the link for the free download of Gene Dante's CD.



I would also like to thank those that are stopping by to read the blog without commenting. Really, I appreciate it. With my fascination with the FEEDJIT Live program, I am starting to recognize familiar arrivals and am thankful for your support. Also, the never ending stream of Jay Brannan, Theo Tams and Daniel Boys fans who find their way here. Seems the blog is now coming up on 1500 hits, and I have all of you to thank.

moreless

Xstreet SL Marketplace Sale????

Dear Dana Vanmoer,
Congratulations! An item you have listed on the Xstreet SL Marketplace has been sold! See below for details.
Regards,
Xstreet SL
Now When i read this in my inbox this morning I was rather confused, Xstreet? What the hell is Xstreet? I have never head of it yet they are selling my items from SLeXchange????
So in some trepidation I followed the link and found myself at a site that looks and feels like SLeXchange but is now called Xstreet SL!
It seems SLeXchange has rebranded, (might have been an idea to publicize the notion before actually doing it.) After some research I found a couple of forum posts about the upcoming changes, posted on Sept 10th:
"That's right, we're changing our name! As you can see in the logo above, our look and feel won't change so you won't have to learn anything new or adjust to a different look. The Xstreet brand will cover services similar to SL Exchange for any virtual worlds we decide to work with. The name "Xstreet SL" is specific to Second Life and we'll use different suffixes for other grids and worlds. Different types of services which we have yet to launch will have different names altogether."
The Lindens , it seems are stepping in to help with this grid wide change as there must be thousands of SLX branded items inworld at any given time Linden lab will replace all these textures with the new Xstreet SL ones:
"Because there are so many SL Exchange-branded items in Second Life over which we have no control, Linden Lab has agreed to help us with mass texture replacements. Sometime in the next couple of weeks all existing magic boxes, signs, and terminals in-world should automatically display our new brand."
The question begging an answer then is why? And this is also answered in the first post:
"When SL Exchange was formed it was never intended that we would operate solely within Second Life. "SL Exchange" is a service name owned by Virtuatrade, LLC and the intention has always been to create new service names as we expand into other areas.When Linden Lab announced the changes to their trademark licenses earlier this year, I have to admit - first I ignored it, then I got angry. Over time however I realized that the change presented an opportunity to renew and clean up our brand image and prepare for future business opportunities that we hadn't thought of when starting out."
So if like me you start getting unknown mail or suddenly no longer get mail from SLeXchange (check your spam folder and allow mail from Xstreet) at least you will know why!
If you are worried I would suggest reading the FORUM post to clarify if you need to do anything.

Dana Vanmoer

moreless

PHAT CAT'S JAZZ CLUB TO BE SOLD ON EBAY

Second Life, Phatland, Sept 27, 2008
-- Phat Cat's Jazz Club, one of the most recognized venues in Second Life, is set to be sold by auction on eBay starting October 1, 2008.
This marks the most prominent auction of virtual property since the highly-publicized auction of Amsterdam on eBay in March 2007.
The owners of Phat Cat's have posted information about the sale at: www.phatcatsjazzclub.com
Among residents of Second Life, Phat Cat's has long been known as a premier destination for dancing, socializing, and shopping. The club's sumptuous virtual facilities were designed by Amethyst Jetaime, in an art deco style reminiscent of many real-life jazz clubs.
According to the Second Life In-World Travel Guide:
Phat Cat's … is one of the premier dance clubs in Second Life. The theme here is ballroom with many residents gracing the dance floor in beautiful flowing dresses and tuxedos. An element of romance is certainly in the air and, in fact, it was romance itself that helped to create this location … Phat Cat's is a wonderful and safe place to dance and make new friends. (By Sean Percival, published by Que in Dec. 2007)
Phat Cat's Jazz Club is owned by Jody Huet, Amethyst Jetaime, and Barbarella Noel. According to club co-owner Jody Huet: We have reached many of the professional and personal goals we held going into ownership, and we are moving to focus our attention on other projects. Phat Cat's has always been a magical place, where Second Life residents can find a luxurious escape from the mundane pressures of daily life. The club's hosts, hostesses, and managers work around the clock to create a warm and inviting environment where anyone can feel welcome. We can't wait to see that environment continue, even as ownership of the club changes hands. Going by Linden Lab's traffic counts, Phat Cat's has more traffic than any other jazz club in Second Life, once clubs that use camping (paying residents for their presence) are removed from the measurement. Phat Cat's has never used camping, robotically controlled avatars, or any other means to artificially inflate its traffic measurement.
According to the virtual world consulting firm KZero: The Phat Cats Romantic Ballroom is a great example of creating a genre-based venue in a virtual world with music (jazz) acting as the catalyst for popularity - Phat Cats is consistently one of the top twenty most frequented venues in Second Life.
("Phat Cat's, phat traffic", Aug. 15, 2007, http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/?p=1030) Phat Cat's is famous for shopping as well as dancing. The Courtyard at Phat Cat's hosts more than 30 top designers of virtual clothing, including Details by Nonna Hedges, Styles of Edo, Apple May, Haute Couture, Alchemy, Head-to-Toe, Classico, Eros, Callie Cline, Zhao Shoes, Inca Temple, A La Folie, Fashion Fruit, and many others.

moreless

Changes to let you know about

In the next week or so you may notice a few changes here at sl-newspaper.

We are getting ready to bring you a brand new layout that will hopefully make your experience easier and more pleasant.

For the full changes to take place we will have to take the newspaper offline, hopefully for no longer than 12 hours - so if you click to read and can't find us - don't panic we will be back very soon.

We will have some notice of when this is to happen and we will endeavor to let you know.

At the same time we will launch our new vendors

These will be available as a pack initially both at our main office and on SLeXchange.

As always with our vendors they are free and copyable, you can rez them or pass them on to friends to place them at their home or business for ease of access to the brand new SL-Newspaper.com.

The older vendors will continue to work so don't panic - if the newspaper is offline - they will work again once we are back.

We are looking forward to the new look sl-newspaper and hope you will be as excited about it as we are.

JamesT Juno

Dana Vanmoer

moreless

Griefing steps into RL

We have all seen incidents of griefing in SL, and a lot of big events are ruined by them. Important functions are now patrolled by security, increasing the costs to the manager of the event.

Now it seems Secondlife griefing is not enough, a couple of pro-Kremlin Young Russian activists are thought to have copied last years griefing incident at CNETs interview with Anshe Chung which was interrupted by a barrage of flying virtual phalluses.

Former chess supremo and Kremlin critic Garry Kasparov must have felt like a pawn in a larger political game after a speech he was giving last weekend was interrupted by a radio-controlled flying penis.

The below-the-belt disruption is thought to be a real world copycat version of a similar, virtual attack perpetrated in December 2006 by cyber vandals in the multiplayer online world ‘game’, Second Life.

Source: Mirror UK

moreless

Reports of IntLibber Brautigans' Death Greatly Exaggerated

Hi folks, I've been offline for the past 4-5 days due to a very serious bout of the flu. In the mean time, theres been a lot of real nastiness brewing by folks hostile to us, but were dealing with it in a proactive way and are moving forward.

Continue reading in the FINANCE section

moreless

Ad Farm policy causing grief at Ancapex new branch

The opening of the new mainland branch at Caldbeck should have been a happy occasion but, with the new policy on ad farms, instead caused consternation and anger:

'Protest Against Adfarm Policy

We have been informed that both ROBO Marx and Tyrian Camilo have been warned by Harry Linden that even having "For Sale" signs on land is a violation of the adfarm policy. This is too much, too far. Enough is enough.' IntLibber Brautigan

Tyrian Camilo: i have a premium tree on every parcel for sale, and intention is to increase parcel value! thus that ALSO breaches the policy!

What's it all about?

"Despite the title of this blog post, the phrase 'Ad Farm' is a bit of a misnomer, so to be clear up front, adverts themselves are not the issue and we don't want to stop legitimate advertising or use of small parcels for promoting events or stores. For the purpose of this post, 'Ad Farm' will apply specifically to advertising or content that is intended solely to drive an unreasonable price for the parcel it is on, usually by spoiling the view of others. We have heard the feedback, read the comments and blogs and so we are making some changes to address it."

read the full blog post HERE

Hard on the heels of this new policy Tyrian recieved this email:

'Hi, Your account is in violation of the Ad Farm policy. Please clear your plots of any visual spam/land sales notices. If by Monday, your plots still are violating the policy we will clear all plots and suspend your account. Regards, Harry Linden.'

Tyrian states:

"I don't ad farm, but the policy is too vague and broad!

hell even the nicest land i've ever had falls under the ad farming policy.

Bottomline is that i have done everything possible to be an honest ad network, and nice to neighbours, do what i can to support arbor, do what i can to stop ad farms from appearing (yes, i've bought A LOT of land on the sole basis of preventing ad farms!)"

Whether Tyrian is guilty or not here is beside the point when right on Linden villages doorstep is a small plot of land 2560sqm set for sale at L$80,000 more than 3 times the average land price and right next door to the new Ancapex building, the huge for sale signs in full view of Linden Village!

Many would agree with new policy and some ad farms are a blight on the secondlife landscape, but maybe LL should be concentrating on the ones right under their noses!

Dana Vanmoer

moreless

Phat Cat's DISAPPEARED!

The Phat Cat sim was auto returned 9/02/08 between 2-3 pm slt by Melah Carter without warning.
'All our guests that were there at the time were dumped into the water suddenly, and all shop owners had all their objects returned into their inventory.'
Group Notice sent by Melah Carter:
"I have auto-returned everyone's items due to the new owner's failure to complete payment on the sale of Phat Cats. I am sorry it came to this, and that the club and mall will be down for a time."

So what's going on?
In a press conference held by the new owners, Barbarella Noel, Amethyst Jetaim and Jody Huet some questions were answered although please take into account that Melah Carter was not present to answer the charges due to the fact she was banned (understandably) from the sim.
The sim in question was bought from Melah Carter 2 weeks before and a deposit to the value of 37% paid the rest due to be paid upon delivery of all agreed to pieces of property that makes up Phat Cat's :
Sales Information - Phat Cat's Jazzy Blue Lounge Property for Sale:
1. Phat Cat's Jazzy Blue Lounge
2. "PhatLand" Sim
3. Phat Cat's Name and Logo
4. Phat Cat's Music List
5. Phat Cat's Operating Procedure
6. Phat Cat's Staff Information
7. Phat Cat's Vendor Information and Contracts
8. Rights to use the above-mentioned items in operating the business
9. All groups of Phat Cat's Jazzy Blue Lounge
Jody's Information: SL Name: Jody Huet
Melah's Information: SL Name: Melah Carter

So far they, reportedly, have not received the Music List or the complete ownership of the Groups or the signed contract from Melah.

Jody Huet stated that "on repeated occasions we attempted to contact Melah to arrange the final details of the contract, however, she did not respond on any of the occasions we attempted to contact her" after more questions Jody also stated "we were able to restore most of the sim by asking Linden Labs to roll it back." He further asserted "We will be very glad for Melah to have the chance to sign the contract, transfer the rest of the property as agreed, and receive the final payment."

Phat Cat's was up and running again quickly.
A complete overhaul is planned for the near future, lets hope this hiccup can be sorted out quickly and painlessy.

Dana Vanmoer

moreless

BREAKING NEWS: Copybot is Back!

Back in November 2006, Second Life was in uproar for a whole week. And I mean complete mass panic. Businesses were leaving SL, protests were there, it made Real Life news, it was announced that it would be the end of Second Life. Fact was that Libsecondlife created a tool, a piece of software outside the standard viewer, that was designed for backup purposes with all good intentions. It duplicated any object in SL and made it full permissions.

Of course it was only a matter of time before people started using this to their own advantage. When that happened and was discovered, all hell broke loose. The CopyBot, as it was called, was dealt with in a swift and secure manner by Linden Lab, and the civil unrest came to an end.

Nowadays, people tend to think that if they create content in SL, that it is safe from copyright infringement. But rumours and accusations have been starting to fly around again, about expensive skins (up to L$ 5000 a piece) being copied and resold for a lot less by thieves. We reported on this just over a month ago.

Yesterday, I received a freebie skin saying "I'd rather go naked than wear stolen skin", created by Laynie Link. Ms. Link is a clothing shop owner and I bet she has a passion for protecting her content. But not only that, she must have a good reason for it. Ms. Link was unavailable for comments, but this made me research the issue again.

I talked to a scripter, and he claimed that he was able to do it within 10 minutes. And you know what? I'm not a scripter, but after I fllowed a false lead and ended up on a dead-end street, I followed another lead and managed to do it myself within 10 minutes !!!

So, for me it is confirmed, it is true. CopyBot II is here !!!

Now, what can this thing do? It can copy any texture in Second Life. When I tested it, I had access to any texture that my virtual eyes could see, starting with the moon and ban line pictures in Second Life, but also including complete skins, eyes, clothing, the sand that I was standing on ... EVERYTHING!

The fact is that it's not too hard to build things in SL. The true art lies in texturizing it properly. And with the arrival of Scuplties in May 2007, this has been taken to a whole different level. Well, this thing can also copy complete sculpties.

Imagine that you have created a true work of art. You're a sculptie artist and have created something that you have been working on for many many hours. Imagine that you're Light Waves (or Starax, as he's commonly known), and that you have created the best art there is in SL and that you're selling it for up to L$ 25,000. And then imagine that someone just copied your blood, sweat and tears and is selling it inworld for only a fraction of that price.

Would you leave SL over it? Well, I bet you would, if you know that just about anyone can do this, and that Linden Lab is unable or unwilling to do anything about it. And I bet that you would feel the same if you were a skin creator like Naughty Designs, X2 or RaC, or if you were a successful clothing designer like Blaze Columbia or Nicky Ree. This thing could put you out of business. Or imagine that you are a RL photographer and are selling your art in a gallery, and that anyone would be able to grab your photos without having to pay for them. What would be the point of having a gallery anymore.

Linden Lab has been made aware of this in several ways, amongst others on the JIRA, the SL bug reporting system for residents. The number of votes on this particular issue has sky-rocketed and will continue to do so, up to the moment where Linden Lab will take action.

LL has dealt with the original CopyBot in a quick and decisive manner. They haven't done so with this one. Knowing what I know about this issue, it is now not as simple as with the CopyBot. Just for the record, if you are wondering if this is actually a legal way to copy textures ... it's not. There is a very specific USA law that applies to these cases, and LL has claimed that it is in compliance with those laws. Well, it seems that they are not.

Now, I have solid proof that it works, that Linden Lab has been aware of this security breach from early 2006 and that they have not taken any action against it. And they probably will not, unless this issue causes widespread panic and anger amongst residents, as it did with the original CopyBot. And it seems that now the time has come for that panic.

The protest skin is available for free from SL Exchange, so please all wear it, and go to the JIRA article to vote for the topic. Not only is it the right thing to do morally, taking action now will also protect your content.

For the record, I have deleted any stolen content that I retrieved in this way. I will also not provide proof here, because it might lead to revealing this security breach. Just know that anyone with a few basic computer skills has access to this.

SL Newspaper will continue to follow this story. Please look forward to more news about this as the story develops.

moreless