In a fit of extra-geekyness I’ve bought EverQuest 2. I know I will love it for a week and then loathe it.. but what can you do? When the geek calls, I must reply!
Worse, since I will be borrowing World of Warcraft I will be officially playing FIVE games. WoW, SWG, HL2, EQ2 and of course, Second Life. Damn! Now that’s geeky!
Posted by TinyPirate on December 2, 2004
https://tinypirate.com/2004/12/02/ubergeekdom/
Been enjoying getting the digital camera out a bit more and took this great piture of Auckland on the weekend that I was very pleased with. I really would like a bigger more feature-full digital camera but they cost a lot of money so I think I will ignore that impulse for now.
Posted by TinyPirate on November 29, 2004
https://tinypirate.com/2004/11/29/a-nice-picture/
Recently I’ve been enjoying podcasting, a technique whereby sound files are delivered to people via RSS. The sound files are collected by programs such as iPodder and then added to your iPod library (I assume it works for other MP3 players too.
This wonderful tool means I need no longer listen to the radio at all. With the BBC getting involved already I will soon be able to tailor any audio entertainment to my exact tastes. I can be going to work, at the gym or at home and by listening to a documentary on quantum physics, a news show on new technology, a Spanish lesson or any one of hundreds of Podcast feeds.
Right now Podcasting is pretty new but I expect it to become very popular quite quickly. It’s almost like a TiVo for radio or the internet and it’s a lot of fun so far.
But this leads us to the question, is it better to have a wide range sources or information or to be able to tailor exactly what one wants to hear. This challenge to our collective understanding of the world, indeed, this challenge to society itself, is something we will have to tackle this century and I’m not sure we can handle it just yet.
Posted by TinyPirate on November 28, 2004
https://tinypirate.com/2004/11/28/the-convergence-is-now/
Flickr is a wonderful service that lets you upload, store and share pictures in a flash. If you haven’t noticed already I’ve been using it for a few weeks and I am completely in love with it. It can have my little ginger babies if it wants and I promise to never ditch it and fight over who owns the dog. Never! You are mine flickr, MINE!
Ok, well, yes, you should all go and check out flickr. It lets you use a tiny application to directly upload images to your image store and you can also send in images by email, mobile phone and via a web page. Once you have loaded the images you can title them, send them to groups (kind of like a shared image noticeboard) and you can quickly post them into blogs. You can also stream them to web sites easily as you can see further down in my blog.
The groups function is quite nice. I started one for my family and joined ones for Second Life, Auckland (where I live) and Wellinton (where I studied).
Posted by TinyPirate on November 25, 2004
https://tinypirate.com/2004/11/25/i-love-flickr/
The best thing to come out of the Neverland project (other than 3 fantastic sims!) are the bicycles. Seen here, ET over Navora? I believe!
Posted by TinyPirate on November 18, 2004
https://tinypirate.com/2004/11/18/et-in-second-life/
Well, let me be more clear, your ancestors were definitely all cowards. Think about it. In order for you to be here people in the past generally had to live to be old enough to have babies. To do this they didn’t die young. Yet who did die young? Well, people at the front of armies did, people who thought they could take on the woolly mammoth with a sharp stick, people who went on crusades to liberate the infidels and people who won Darwin Awards. By this logic many of the people who came before us were a good deal braver then we are. Except, of course, your ancestors.
It makes you wonder why genealogy is so popular. Who wants to find out that great great uncle Ricky was the guy who dressed as a woman when the draft came to town, or that great great great aunt Martha happily ‘fessed up her witches coven to the local lynch mob in order to avoid a nasty hot flush. Really, your ancestors were a pretty nasty bunch.
And frankly, who would have it any other way! If it were different neither you or I would be here after all.
Posted by TinyPirate on November 15, 2004
https://tinypirate.com/2004/11/15/youre-all-cowards/
From talking to a few people it seems my last blog entry tickled some people’s fancy. Or something. Consequently I think I will start reporting in a little more detail on some of these amusing things. I know there is already a fantastic Second Life reporter in James Wagner Au. But, if he’s the Second Life’s equivalent of the New York Times, I’ll be the Second Life equivalent of the National Enquirer. Yes! More smut will come soon!
Posted by TinyPirate on November 12, 2004
https://tinypirate.com/2004/11/12/more-sex-please/
The dark side of Second Life is something I’ve not spoken about before, but it is there, hiding away in quiet corners, skulking around dark alleys and sometimes standing right there in plain sight too! What is this dark side? It’s the world of sex, fetishes, escorts, strippers and a wide assortment of sex toys and paraphenalia.
To be honest, I’m not surprised by the sheer amount of x-rated content in Second Life. Second Life is no different from real life and it’s a good deal harder to hide away from the public gaze in Second Life. And this is where the tale of a recent journey begins.
But what kind of content is there? Well, a particular catalyst for the X-rated side of Second Life seems to be the custom player-created animations feature (try not to think about it!). This has resulted in clubs which now have patrons who can dance, gyrate, do strip routines and frote. The next step was obvious.
Sex machines. Well, strictly speaking beds which can be ‘used’ in various ways to put the player’s character into various poses with an animation running. Several players make good money selling beds and other kinds of equipment (even ‘erotic’ locker rooms!) that players can use to engage in suggestive animations with each other. Worryingly, some of these units have configurations for multiple users!
But all of these animations then begged an obvious question. If we’re going to be getting naked, shouldn’t we look good? So, another industry has spawned, full skin texture redesigns. There are some close to photorealistic skins out there for players now and, yes, it’s true, they look a lot better nude than the original skins. This still leaves players interested in, er, animation, with a problem. What to do about their lack of anatomical correctness? Well, everything in Second Life can be made by players, so someone started making items to fill this gap in the market, so to speak.
All of this is background to my rather curious trip in search of something interesting to report on the other night. I had wandered into a mature-zoned area and while walking past shops of lingerie I came to a large ‘sex furniture’ shop. Yes, furniture made entirely for the purpose of getting jiggy on. Beds, rugs and chairs abound along with an adjacent shop full of animated sex toys. There were even frames and hobby-horses for the more kinky player. I only know this because I made the mistake of trying to use one of these odd items in an atempt to work out what it was. I hope to god I never have to see my guy humping air ever again.
Fleeing the scene I teleported off to a remote private island. It was open to the public and these places can often be good to visit for the wide variety of great content to be found on them. However, as I pop out at the telehub I see in front of me two people, a kneeling woman in underwear and a leather-loving bloke standing in front of her. My dodgy-meter starting buzzing and sure enough they were talking fetish. I moved on.
The next private island had a few huge mansions on it. Interesting. There were some people in one corner so I flew over. Being quite lagged I used the ‘builder cam’ to zip to where my co-visitors were. What I discovered was two people going at it on the bed and another asleep in the hot-tub. Oddly, they didn’t seem to be talking, just quietly bouncing away.
Checking the profile of the girl I saw she was an escort from one of the adult clubs in Second Life. Curious, it seems two guys hired a virtual escort, took her back to their virtual pad and then virtually had sex with her. Not wanting to disturb the happy threesome I moved off.
The next island I visited looked great! A pirate-themed location I hoped to see sword fights, sea shanties, quaffing of grog and assorted cheers of “Yaaar!” and “Ahoy there!”. Instead I was in the worlds largest pirate-themed shopping mall. Again, seeing some people in a building I zipped the camera in (rather than negotiate narrow streets in my bad lag) and discovered a shop devoted to things of a sexual nature. All kinds of animations were for sale, along with toys and clothes. Pride of place in the middle of the room were large changing room booths where two people were happily animating away. I guess some people find changing rooms sexy. And then some of them come to Second Life and spend hours coding up ways to get it on in a virtual one.
Deciding enough was enough I turned tail and fled back to Navora and our project, safe in the knowledge I would be protected from obscene lockers, shared escorts and unusual, worrying attachments.
Posted by TinyPirate on November 11, 2004
https://tinypirate.com/2004/11/11/sex-and-second-life/
This lovely sim has roller coasters, a wicked mini-golf game, hockey, a mono-rail, everything! It’s well worth a visit. The only sad thing is I saw no placet to buy souvenir t-shirts, caps and over-large teddy bears that end up in the cupboard within a week. I would love to have been able to show my appreciation some how, so folks, don’t forget to let us give you money ok!
Posted by TinyPirate on November 10, 2004
https://tinypirate.com/2004/11/10/spitoonie-amusement-park/
The DarkLife project is coming along well and Mark was confident enough with the code to start closed beta testing today. We have also briefly stopped the beta while we work out some slighty changes but expect things to be up and running shortly.
Posted by TinyPirate on November 9, 2004
https://tinypirate.com/2004/11/09/darklife-closed-beta-starts/
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