Flickr Antics

Joonie Jatho just sent me a mail asking if I will ever blog again. Thank you Joonie. Of course I will. I know it's been a while. I guess I have been spending way too much time in photoshop and on Flickr. As a result I have used up my 200 pictures that come with a free account and I'm rather proud of most of them so I don't really want to delete any. I'm left wondering if I should go for a pro account but something is holding me back. I'll get to that later.

It's a funny world, the SL community on Flickr, and rather addictive. I have wondered why people, myself included, would spend so much time making, processing and posting pictures that will most likely be forgotten the next day. Is it the calling to produce true art, to express ourselves in a creative manner or is it the stream of views, comments and favourites we hope to get and with it the appreciation or even adoration we gain from our fellow flickerites? Maybe after all it's just an ego thing. Or part of it is anyway.

It would explain the extensive commenting and the virtual pats on the back that are constantly exchanged. It is a given that the more you comment on others the more comments you get back. The more comments you get the more you are loved, no? I guess it's like with every other community site whether it be Flickr, MySpace, SLProfiles even SL itself, we want to belong, be part of it. This does introduce some strange phenomenons though.

It's rare to get a "real" comment on a picture. What do I mean by that? A real comment in my opinion is just what it says it is, something a person wants to say about your work, good or bad. Not that I think all the "Gorgeous picture" or "Stunning work" compliments are not real but in all the comments made on my pictures there is just one in which the author states how she thinks the picture could be improved. Thank you Luna! That took courage because it's "just not done". In a way it is sad since we could all learn from each other if we had Luna's courage.

I know, there are groups you can add your pictures to just for that specific purpose, but that's not what I mean. I'm not saying every picture should be thoroughly dissected and evaluated, I'm just looking for some honesty. Usually the honesty is translated into "I don't like it so I will not comment".

Another strange phenomenon I've noticed is the tactics people use to get their pictures noticed. Adding it to a bizillion groups for example or adding a thousand tags or making sure you post it at a certain time for higest visibility. I caught myself doing it. I'm just as guilty of it as the next guy. All of that so I could belong and that brings me back to the pro account. I could easily get one. The cost isn't exactly a problem but why would I need to add hundreds more pictures? Why would I need to get my fix of comments on a neverending stream of pictures? Maybe I should stick to my 200 picture limit and only add pictures I think are really worth it, replacing an existing one. By doing so I would protect myself from the temptation to enter the rat race for pats on the back and I can go back to work on the pictures that really matter to me regardless of the comments.

But that's just a thought because if I started replacing older pictures I would lose the evolution in my work. It is most certainly there and it would be a shame to erase it. After all it is very nice to see how people's work progresses and changes or takes new turns. The endless creative possiblities was what sucked me into it and is what I still enjoy. I suppose I will just have to grow a spine and resist the temptation of picture vomiting and underhand tactics to get them noticed. The comments that matter will probably be there regardless and and I'll remind myself it's not supposed to be a popularity contest when I see 20 favourites appear on the next mediocre picture.

Sorry to say, but ...

I've been reading some posts and comments this evening here and here and here and frankly I felt I had to add a little something...

Prok, you bitter old hag (and I mean that in the most endearing way), you are loosing it aren't you? Wake up and smell the coffee, SL has changed. It's no longer the little playground we had all to ourselves 2 years ago. Business has moved in, hordes of new av's are roaming the sims and there are just not enough experienced residents around to help them find their way. A lot of them don't care about the politics and possible social impact the metaverse could have. People like Vint do!

Now, before I go on I have a confession to make that is important for the rest of my expose. I'm European, a friend of Vint Falken and some of my work graces the walls of the Rezzable Cannery Gallery. I'm just stating this so you can label me properly. (are you still reading ?) In my defense I can say I've often had a good chuckle reading your stuff in the past.

I have seen the mud going back and forth on both your blogs and I'm afraid to say you really missed a few points. I'm not going to bother with the whole rating, google ranks, en what else stuff. What I want to point out is your obvious lack of empathy and ill will to see things as they are. Take your "Vint’s blog is, again, as anyone can see, about fashion, and about her own builds". That's bullocks. It is not because she illustrates her blogs with original material it is all about "her own builds" whatever you mean by that. If she writes about Open Sim it is because she realises it is the next step in a larger metaverse and when she writes about "some html on a prim" (sic) it is because she sees the possibilities it holds. Mean time you whine you have "nothing to click on at Rezzable" which proves to me you missed the boat. That was Command & Conquer.

You complain about the style in which the Cannery was built but you fail to see the fact a company has actually given residents the possibility to set something up they might otherwise not have been able to. I for one prefer that over another Nissan, IBM, etc sim where I can click on stuff only to get info on how wonderful their stuff is. Style is per definition debatable. What makes Rezzable different is the interaction between a company and independant residents and that is an evolution I applaud even if the execution isn't perfect.

Another thing that bugged me in your comments is the whole US versus the rest of the world thing. English is the Lingua Franca of the industrialised world at this point, but your own legislators had to push a law to make it the official language of the US because the Spanish speaking community in your own country is booming and is expected to outnumber the native English speakers soon if it already hasn't. Oh, and let's not forget a quarter of the worlds population speaks Chinese.

Your statement that the whole (sexual) ageplay thing came from Europe is beyond the pale and I will not even dignify it with a reaction. Or maybe just one, to point out the proven fact that the concrete reaction against sexual ageplay indeed came from Europe, even if charges were recently dropped by the Dutch state prosecutor. The fact people emigrated from Europe to the US because of religious persecution bears no relevance when it comes to SL; those days are long gone. In fact anyone who lives in a country where creationism is openly advocated should shut up about religious zealotry anywhere else. Anyway, all I have to say about this is that, being European, I'm personally offended by such faux rhetoric.

Now last but not least, you call people amateurs as if it were a disease. Amateurs are by definition people who do something because they enjoy it or believe in something. They don't do it for the money. That spirit is what produces the best SL has to offer. I'm an amateur and proud to be so.

My opinion, no more no less. And no, I don't want the discussion to be continued overhere.

Turbulent times

These seem to be turbulent times. In the last few days two of my friends told me independently they and their significant other are splitting up. The situations are rather different though. In one case my friend, let's call him Fred, decided to leave because his long time girlfriend Ginger admitted to him she fell in love with someone else. In an other case my friend Eve's husband Adam is about to leave her because she confessed she "knew" someone in the biblical sense. Wait a sec ... didn't I say the situations were quite different? Well, in Ginger's case the proverbial green grass on the other side of the fence is a RL person in Eve's he is a Second Life avatar.

So is there a difference? After all, the net result is the same; two couples who have been together for years are about to split up. Does it matter whether Eve fell for an avatar and Ginger for some real life person? I think it does for a number of reasons. When we fall in love with someone we're always on our best bewitching behaviour to convince the other party we deserve a chance with them. How much easier is it to hide behind a flashy avatar than is to hide behind your toothpaste smile? I would say a lot. Sooner or later inevitably the smile will show some cracks but you can hide behind the av reasonably comfortably forever unless and until you decide to meet up in person. In SL there will always be a larger degree of wishful projections about the other party and their feelings even though it rarely feels that way.

Now there is also the matter of sex and adultery. Here I think things are a lot less clear. What is worse, Eve looking at pixels exchange bodily fluids whilst having a racy conversation or Ginger going out with her friend for a beer, holding hands and exchanging dreamy looks knowing all too well what they both rather be doing? I think the clue is in that last bit "what they would rather be doing", because basically that's what it is in both cases; the expression of a longing, not the act itself or lack thereof. Both Eve and Ginger respond to the social rules of their environment and we all know those are a lot more liberal in SL than they are in RL. Ginger is held back from the next step by her own morality and/or social constraints whilst for Eve there is no next step but to take things out of SL into real life.

That's why, if I was in Fred's shoes, I would probably leave as well. Ginger has decided she wants to devote her love to someone else. If I were in Adam's shoes I wouldn't and I know that for sure because I'm still married. Eve explored some fantasies and satisfied her curiosity in a limitless fantasy world. Don't we all fantasise about that new and exciting stranger at one time or other or of indulging in that kinky thing we would never even contemplate in RL? SL provides the sandbox to experiment with those fantasies. Does that mean you want to give up on an existing RL relationship? Of course not.

Fantasy and creativity are what makes us human and sets us apart from your average chimp. SL gives us the space to experiment without fear for consequences other than a better insight into what makes each of us tick. Consequences usually arise from the fact many can't deal with the newfound freedom or because of judgemental people that don't understand the nature of SL. So does experimenting make us adulterous? Of course not.

Right now my heart bleeds for Fred, Ginger, Adam and Eve although for different reasons.

Now before you shoot, I respect the fact we are all individuals, situations vary and a multitude of factors can come into play. Human emotions are not an exact science, I see that all around me on a daily basis. SL provides us with a unique chance that, if used wisely, can help us gain an insight into aspects of ourselves that might otherwise remain hidden.

My opinion until proven wrong...
may it never be ;-)

SL vs. RL Promiscuity Index

After reading Vint's blog on the SLex / RLex ratio a while ago in which she tries to catch the differences between people's Sl sex life and RL one in a formula, I was left with the feeling some things in her math didn't add up. Math is not my thing either, but being a bit bored today I started thinking about it. Since it doesn't always have to be serious stuff, this is what I came up with:

A sort of "Promiscuity Index" so to speak...

(RLA -216) / RLP
-------------------- = PI
(SLA x 5) / SLP

where:
RLA = your RL age in months
RLP = the number of RL sex partners since your 18th Bday
SLA = your SL age in months
SLP = the number of SL sex partners since rezz-day
PI = Promiscuity Index (I wonder is someone is going to turn up with 3.14 *grins*)

Now let me explain why I think this is a more accurate way of calculating or if you want more indicative of the differences between yourSL sex life and your RL one. First of all there is the fact that her calculation doesn't take in account we are more or less active during certain periods of our lives be it in RL or SL. At some stages in both our RL and SL we tend to experiment more. So I thought I should divide the time we are sexually active by the number of partners over that time in both lives. To compensate for the fact you can be active inSL from day one and not so in RL I decided (rather arbitrarily I'll admit) to deduct 216 from the RLA thus starting the count at 18 years of age.

Another thing that had me thinking is the fact that there is a difference in pace between SL and RL. Face it, what is the average life span of a relationship in SL? So based on my experience I set the value at 5. Meaning the pace of life in SL is imho about 5 times faster than in RL. I agree it's debatable and any good arguments to change this value are more then welcome.

What do we get out of this? I think it makes for a nice comparison of your promiscuity in SL as opposed to RL. Let's look at an of course completely fictional example:

A male 42 years old has had 15 sex partners since he was 18. In SL he has had 5 since he rezzed 19 months ago.

That makes:

(506 - 216) /15
------------------- = 1,02
(19 x 5) / 5

The conclusion in this case would be that his promiscuity in SL and RL are fairly the same.

index > 1 = RL promiscuity < SL promiscuity
index < 1 = SL promiscuity < RL promiscuity

This says nothing about the frequency of SLex or RLex. I guess if you would like to hazard a guess at how often you've done it in RL since you turned 18 and the number of times you engaged in SLex in SL you could replace RLP and SLP by those values but I'm not going to venture there :-)

On a side note, this equation also solves the problem Vint had with her calculation that could lead to an illegal "divide by 0".

I'm as always curious to hear your thoughts and reactions!
And your Indexes of course ;-)

PS In case you were wondering, no, it's not me in the top picture ...

Easy depth of field for SL pictures

It was Bella March's latest blog posts on renderview and an aside about the "depth" option in the snapshot tool that got me wondering about the possibilities of this option when taking pictures in SL. Maybe I'm kicking in open doors here but what at first seemed a rather useless option, apart from using it like Bella did to create a very powerful effect shot, all of a sudden made sense. I'm sure I'm not the first to figure this out, but I have never seen this trick mentioned before. A few Google searches revealed nothing either so here it goes...

SL shots lack so called "depth of field". In RL you focus on something and the elements in front of your focus point and behind it become increasingly unsharp as they are further from the focus point. How blurry they become depends on a number of factors that are not really important here like the focal lenght of your lens, the aperture etc. What does matter is that applying some blur to the background of your pictures brings out your main object and feels more real.

Making a decent blurred background can be a tedious job if you do it the traditional way as explained very well in Vint Falken's tutorial by making a mask. Not anymore...

In the snapshot interface select what Bella calls the "Matrix view" i.e. the "freeze frame" option and also select the "keep open" option. Now make your composition and save your picture to disk. Before anything else change the selection "color" to "depth". Save this gray-scale picture to disk as well.

The rest of the story is Photoshop editing. Open both bitmaps in Photoshop. Use control-a to select the whole "depth" picture and and control-c copy it. Now go to the actual colored picture. If you're lucky enough to have CS3 duplicate your background layer* and convert the copy to a smart object (right click the layer for the menu). In the layer thumbnail you should now see the smart object icon. From the filter menu select blur > Gaussian blur and apply a generous dose. In your layer appears a smart filter thumbnail. Click it while holding down the alt key. This will open the filter mask. Simply press control-v now to paste the "depth" image into the mask. Click back on the "background copy" layer and bingo, you used the depth image to determine which parts of the picture will be blurred and which not and how much they will be blurred. You can play with the brightness and contrast or the curves of the filter mask to optimise the effect or you can even get a brush out and make some manual adjustments.


If you don't have access to CS3 you can do it another way. Again open both the color version and the depth version of your picture. Start by inverting the depth picture by hitting control-i (or go to the top menu image > adjustments > invert). Select and copy the inverted depth picture as before. Select the color version and make two copies of the background layer. Of the three layers you have now select the middle one and apply some degree of Gaussian blur to it. Now select the top one and drag it down to the bottom of the layer box to the little icon looking like a rectangle with a circle in it to add a mask to it (or from the top menu select layer > add vector mask > reveal all). The top layer should now have a white thumbnail next to the regular thumbnail representing your pic. Click it while holding the alt key and use control-v to past the depth pic in your mask. There... two ways to get the same effect.

However, there are some drawbacks. The "depth" picture doesn't pick up on transparent objects so they take on the blur of what's behind them and there is the fact it doesn't account for foreground blur. On top of that the grey areas in the mask are actually partially transparent so the sharp smart object or underlying layer is showing through to some degree which gives those areas a somewhat haloed look. Nevertheless I'm sure it can serve its purpose as a quick way of enhancing a picture.

as an example:

This one...


... plus this one ...


... makes this one :-)


I would love to hear your comments and suggestions on refining this technique and I'd love to see your pictures created using it.

On a side note: sorry for the somewhat messy layout of this post, the template was not intended for tutorials :-)

* I like to keep the original background layer untouched so I can always go back.

My date with an Australian fire fighter and more.

Got your attention didn't I ?! No, I'm not coming out of the closet. This particular fire fighter is actually a very nice and bright young lady. Ember is the girl I bid for and won at the auction for Relay for Life I wrote about earlier. Because we both have busy schedules and are in opposite timezones it wasn't until last night we finally went on our date. I put on my tux and took her dancing and although that may sound a bit boring I had a great time. I guess it's the company that counts and they don't come any sweeter then Ember. I hope we can do it again sometime.



Upon logging off way too late for a Sunday night I found a rather strange mail in my inbox.

Dear Loki

I am really sorry to send you this unannounced. I am looking for some kind SL enthusiast to do me a big favour and your terrific blog suggested that you might be be that person ... it also, of course, gave me an email address.

I am also an SL enthusiast - not as experienced as you, though. It is a boring story (to do with my Internet connection being by proxy) but my system now automatically blocks access to SL. I am missing the fun of exploring SL but mostly I am missing chatting to my two best friends in SL and they will be wondering where I have got to. Please would you be kind enough next time you're in SL to send by IM two messages for me? I would be so pleased and grateful if you would.

I'll write them out below so that you can simply copy and paste.

I'll understand if you do not feel that you can do this for me - but either way I'd appreciate a very quick reply so that I know where I stand.

Thanks Loki and apologies for bothering you. Have fun in SL !!

(messages and names removed since that's no ones business)

Being the good soul I am and not entirely immune to the flattery (hey, he called my blog terrific... ) I logged back on and found both ladies online, sent them their messages and mailed my mystery mailer their replies. In a way it felt really good doing that. If for some reason or another I would be cut off from friends in SL I think I would try to find ways to get in touch too.

Which brings me to a topic I talked about with a friend a while ago. She and I met online over two years ago and became "e-pen pals" (for lack of a more apt word). At one point she stopped responding and since all I had was her e-mail address there was no way of finding out why. For all I knew she could have been in a car accident or ill or mad at me for some reason. It goes without saying I was worried to say the least. Thankfully, after not hearing from her for several months she resurfaced and explained why she had been silent for so long. I told her I had been worried something might have happend to her. Talking about it we both agreed to make sure that if anything happened to either of us we would make sure the other was notified. It's a small thing to take care of but it could make such a difference if something bad really happened.

SL & traditional media

Second life is a hype in the traditional media, here in Belgium anyway. Wouldn't it be lovely if they also knew what they were talking about?! A while ago I read a column in a respected computer magazine in which an editor of the games section got all upset because someone had the audacity to compare Second Life to World of Warcraft. He ranted that there are no red light districts in WoW and SL is a non-game and the two shouldn't be compared. Fair, that's his opinion, after all it is a column. Unfortunately it was also very clear from the article that he had never even been in SL.

Now, whether SL is a game or not and whether or not it can be compared to WoW, I don't really care. What I do care about is the general tone used when traditional media report on SL. It seems that whereas a year ago SL was sniffed at as something novel and potentially interesting, these days it seems to be fashionable to reduce SL to a playground for perverts, nitwits without a social life and gold diggers. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but they should be based on something. More often than not I read articles written by journalists who actually claim they created an account and had a look around. Based on that they decide SL is only about getting laid or making Linden dollars. What about events like SL4B, beautifully crafted sims like Svarga, communities built around SL like secondlifeprofiles.com, the vibrant blogsphere related to SL, the creativity of people posting in world pictures at Flickr, the friendships forged in world?!? That's the Second Life I've experienced and got to enjoy in the past 19 months.

Anyway, such sloppy journalism is not what I would expect from generally well respected magazines and newspapers. Honestly, I still have to read the first piece written by someone who has actually been in world for a decent amount of time. But maybe there is a glimmer of hope. Dutch writer and poet Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer has published a book about his adventures in SL. Born there in October last year as Lilith Lunardi (yes ladies and gentleman, sorry to burst your bubble but the big-boobed bombshell is a guy with a moustache) he has written a number of short pieces about SL that are now bundled into a book. I'm really curious to read it and to see if his take on things shows a bit more nuance. From the pictures of Lilith Lunardi on Flickr I'm afraid it might be more of the same but until I get my hands on the book he has the benefit of the doubt.