Second Life now reporting "Active User" numbers

[Numtini]

Yes, any private island can scam you, which is why it pays to rent from one of the larger and more reputable ones.

Ansche owns a million dollars worth of sims. If her operation goes tits up, that'll be it for Second Life anyway. Or Linden will step in to deal with it.

[Venkman]

Basically, you need to make it SUPER DUPER CLEAR (all caps makes it a legal term) to a user that there has been a significant change to the TOS.

Why can't they highlight the changes in a color? Shit, MS Word has had Track Changes for years. I know the very last thing most developers expect is for someone to actually read all that stuff. But if these things become a legal issue, highlighting "here's what we changed" in yellow would go a long way to proving full disclosure.

[CmdrSlack]

Basically, you need to make it SUPER DUPER CLEAR (all caps makes it a legal term) to a user that there has been a significant change to the TOS.

Why can't they highlight the changes in a color? Shit, MS Word has had Track Changes for years. I know the very last thing most developers expect is for someone to actually read all that stuff. But if these things become a legal issue, highlighting "here's what we changed" in yellow would go a long way to proving full disclosure.

In a situation like this, contract law basically expects you to deliver the changes in writing separate from the contract, or deliver the full changed contract in writing, separately from any "normal" use.

[Furiously]

At another live show right now.

If you are someone that plays well and has a fear of crowds SL is really awesome. (Maximillion Kleene show right now).

[Deniz]

With rentals, you just pay the sim owner and they pay the tier. If you don't pay on time they just retake the land and resell it.

Can they scam you though I mean?  Like offer to let you rent then kick you out before your time limit is up? Or change the rules on you somehow?

They can I guess, but if you scam someone you then have to pay the tier yourself. Land doesn't sell quickly enough that you can just sell it again in a couple of days. It might take weeks or months. Either way, the thought did cross my mind when I read the covenant for my land, which said that the owner could turf me off my property for whatever reason they liked. But then they'd put so much work into their sim and the land prices were so relatively low, that it was obvious that it was their baby, rather than a way of making loadsamoney.

Another clause of the contract was that they can change the rules at any time. I'd imagine that that's pretty common among covenants. Again, though, the only way to enforce a clause is by kicking people off the land and paying the tier yourself, so I can't imagine too many people being interested in enforcing insane covenant clauses.

[Numtini]

I've known a couple of times when private island owners who were fairly large changed covenants from residential to commercial or vice versa. The ones I've known about offered resettlement in a similar sim.

Some of the small owners have closed up shop and sold the sim. And Gods, beware anyone offering you free space on their land. Everyone I know that's done this has had it sold out from under them when the owners got bored with SL or were short on cash.

[Furiously]

They are adding voice chat into the second life client. http://secondlife.com/community/firstlook.php

I know someone will put in the screaming bee plug, but it doesn't work well enough. You sound like a guy trying to make his voice sound higher.

Going to be interesting to see what impact this has on escorting and other aspects of the game. I'm still really enjoying the live music. Turns out one of acts I've seen twice is a local performer, so I might have to catch one of his real shows.

[Venkman]

I thought SL already had this? Vivox has been takling about it for the last two years of conventions, particularly in being able to make real world phone calls from within (and into) the SL client.

[Furiously]

Nope. I know they have been working on it a long time. No RL phone call ability either.

[CmdrSlack]

I thought SL already had this? Vivox has been takling about it for the last two years of conventions, particularly in being able to make real world phone calls from within (and into) the SL client.

It does work with Vivox, because I have been at seminars in SL where it was used.

It's not part of the LL distro, but it is absolutely doable.

[Furiously]

Thought this was interesting...http://slcreativity.org/blog/?p=32

[Numtini]

BTW I'm another live music fan, it's one of the things in SL I'm very fond of.

[Furiously]

Voice client is now live.

I'm not sure I really like how it is going to change the experience.

[Numtini]

I'm in an RP community a large amount of the time and we simply won't be using it.

In general, if I'm in SL I am not really paying a huge amount of attention. I am in SL a lot while I'm cooking dinner, especially if it's something where I'm in and out a lot. Text lets me run out and stir the sauce or baste something or whatever and still be part of the conversation. Or for that matter, surf the net, or occasionally if I'm alone in my office, do work while SL runs in the background.

I can't do any of that with voice. You have to be there and be able to pay attention. And if I can do that, I'll be in EQ2 or whatever my flavor of the month action game is.

I also watched the effect it had when they added it to There and it was, for me, amazingly negative. The maturity level dropped like a stone.

[Furiously]

I'd agree that text is much more passive then voice, with being able to recall the "history" of text super easily. It's also much more "disruptive" in that you can only have 1 person coherantly speaking at a time.

And there are some people who shouldn't be talking.

[tazelbain]

Can't you use both?

EDIT: lol, you aint going to be doing much roleplaying afk.

[Furiously]

Yes and that is another problem. It requires tracking multiple conversations in text and voice. Regardless if you miss something in voice, you can't scroll back up and listen to it again.

[Hoax]

Every day I walk by Linden Labs SF location on my way home from work.  Every day I wish I had a f13.net shirt so I could bust in and demand interviews and shwag then proceed to hump their office furniture and scream about bats.

Or I could just be the guy standing behind one of the Bay Area green names trying not to crack up while he does a legit interview.  I'd be the heavy hitter or something.

Mostly what I'm trying to say is why dont we have fucking f13.net shirts?

[Furiously]

I thought we had cars instead?

[Furiously]

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118670164592393622.html?mod=blog

thought this was an interesting read.

[Trippy]

But since February, he's been spending six hours a night and often 14 hours at a stretch on weekends as Dutch Hoorenbeek, his six-foot-nine, muscular, motorcycle-riding cyber-self.

Sue Hoogestraat thinks her husband Ric spends too much with his Second Life wife.

Ya think?

[schild]

Nearly 40% of men and 53% of women who play online games said their virtual friends were equal to or better than their real-life friends <snip>

The male quotient shocks me. Men bond well in real life. I can only assume it's less than half as that half is anti-social in real life. Now the 53% of women does not shock me. At all.

[Deniz]

Second Wife.

[Furiously]

Just thought I would mention I'm still enjoying listening to live music in SL.

Here are a couple people who I've been watching.

http://www.myspace.com/knavybluesontherun His version of All along the watchtower floored me.

http://www.myspace.com/maximillionkleene He's just entertaining. Video doesn't convey it really.

[Venkman]

vSide.

But, yea :)