Raul Crimson’s experiences in Second Life®
Archive for September, 2008
SLbusiness… needs to be regulated?
Sep 30th
Reading around the SLblogosphere i saw some posts about SLeconomy. Some of them related or asking for more regulations in SLbusiness and economy.
I’d like to remark the really interesting post in Prad Prathivi’s blog, where Prad plead for a trusting system for SLbusinesses, some like the one in eBay, based on references of customers. Personally i find quite interesting the proposal of Prad, even, as he says too, it would be something quite different to do, technically and “socially”. In any case i strongly suggest the reading of the post (as most of Prad’s blog).
In the other side Grace McDunnough, in another quite interesting post, she pleads for a business license system in this case in order to regulate and increase the trust in business.
I’d like to share my view about all this, about regulations in SLbusiness. Every day we have in Second Life transactions for millions of L$ (what means thousands of US$) and the problems you can find are minimal, at least i don’t think is worse than economy in RL. Moreover most of the transactions have values under the equivalent of 10 US$, normally even less. If one have a problem in a purchase due to grid issues normally you shop owners give a solution in a reasonable time for one simple reason: if you don’t have good customer service you won’t have customers, as simple as this. Under my opinion the system works quite good for the 80 % of the transactions.
But, what happen when your transaction is bigger, when we talk about businesses of hundreds (even thousands) of US$ or €? I still think Linden Lab is doing ok keeping distance of this kind of economical relationships, this kind of businesses are RLeconomy, not SL even generated in Second Life. In this case i think the right thing is too sign a contract,and agreement or something legal like that. I think is more a question of common sense more than trust. To make big money business you need to have some information about your provider or customer, and of course, some legal protection in both cases. RL laws in most of the countries provide this legal protection. It seems for me that asking to Linden Lab to care about this kind of transactions is some like asking them to care about something you should care about.
One of the interesting things in Second Life is that anybody can start a business, big or small. The system itself works for most of the transactions, the RL legal system works for the biggest transactions. In my opinion there is no need of more regulations, a license system will just help bigger business and will damage micro-economy.
Image in this post by Ze Moo, licensed with a Creative Commons license.
What’s sexy about my name?
Sep 29th
What’s Sexy About Your Name
You are sexy because you are smart. People know that there is more to you than meets the eye.
You are alluring and mysterious. While many people are intrigued by you, the feeling isn’t mutual.
It takes a lot for someone to turn you on. First and foremost, you’re only attracted to someone who’s incredibly brilliant. But you just don’t go for brains alone. Physical attractiveness is something you won’t compromise on.
You of all people can afford to be picky. You are demanding, but you are also in demand.
And when someone gets you alone, you’re truly amazing. Not many people get to see you in action.
I just can say… 
Koinup Places project
Sep 29th
The great people of Koinup has released a new feature on their page, Places project.
Some time ago, in a chat with Koinup Burt, one of the founders of Koinup, we were talking about you can geotag RL pics in Flickr… but not SL pics. After some time they developed this Geotagging system for Second Life, using the SLurl system. With this system if you post a pic sending it from SL as a postcard then it will be geotagged automatically, anyway, if you prefer to edit a bit the picture, you can add an SLurl later. The system will group the pics taken in the same region in Widgets one can post in his blog, Facebook, etc…
Anyway, go to Koinup and take a look, they are doing a great job in that page.
Forgetting and remembering…
Sep 26th
Lately I was having some like… how to say it?… like some existential doubts kinda: “what for all that?”… I’m sure you know what i mean. I mean asking oneself questions like: “Why i like to create images?”, “Why i like to post them in Flickr?”, “Do i need to see all that stupid dramas around (even are not related to me)?”, …
For all that was not making images later, just a few ones, or just some RL pics to share only with friends in Flickr.
Yesterday had a long conversation with my dear Khamudy about all this, and was so good, feel relieved someway expressing all my thoughts about that. This conversation helped me to find again my reasons and the passion of making images, of sharing my vision on Second Life.
Thanks, Khamy Kham, for that conversation and for your friendship. 
Honey, it’s all right… cause, baby, i don’t care
Sep 20th
Drama… that ingredient of human relationships. Second Life, as any way of “virtual” communication (from the phone to a chat, a blog, etc) is not complete, there is not “body language”. Not only that, sometimes the text one can write is limited (like in Plurk or Twitter), or one doesn’t have a complete knowledge of the language he is using to communicate through this ways (like in my case). That means misunderstoods are easy to produce. Moreover some people takes advantage of the “anonymity” to do somethings, or to react in some ways, they are not “allowed” in RL.
Being Drama inherent to Second Life, how to face it? Well, that’s THE question. Sincerly, i’m quite antidrama. I find it boring, stressing, disturbing… I don’t like to have it around and i don’t want to cause it. Sometimes is difficult to be away of drama, for the simple reason that sometimes drama comes alone… one doesn’t need to call it, that means that sometimes having drama it doesn’t depend on your acts… so again, how to face it?
I just can say how I face it, i don’t even know if is the “right” way… but is my way, at least the way that stress me the less. When drama comes then i wonder: “Should i care?”. This is not the only question, the other questions are: “Is this drama caused by me?”, “In this case, did i acted right and is a misunderstood?”. If the answer to the first question is “No” then i should’t care, if the answer to the second question is that all is a misunderstood then i try to explain myself better, if i acted wrong by mistake (I always try to act under my ethics) then i apologize and try to explain my reasons or try to find a solution. If after trying hard to explain myself clearly in a misunderstood, or after apologizing and fixing in the case of a mistake the drama remains then i should’t care, i did my best.
Anyway, i should say now there are different levels of care, i care specially for the ones i call family or friends, for the ones i love. That means i will try harder to clear misunderstoods with people i love. Anyway there are what we can call “sidelines” about all that, some like principles about all this:
- As the song says: “I am what i am, and what i am needs no excuses”, if one doesn’t like me, sincerly, i don’t care. I try to respect everybody and i ask for the same respect, if one doesn’t like me, just go, is easy.
- If someone comes and says: “Oh, Raul, [Avatar name here] is upset with you because [issue here].” normally i don’t care, if someone needs to talk with me, he/she has many ways to do it. If that person doesn’t talk with me that can mean three things: he/she doesn’t care enough to come and talk about it, the one saying that is making BIG a really small issue, or, finally, he/she doesn’t care enough about me to come and talk about it.
- If someone comes and says: “Oh, Raul, i’m having issues with [Avatar name here] becuase he/she did [issue here].” i listen as a friend, try to understand the one explaining me the issue but i always end saying: “You should talk with [Avatar name here] about this”. All for the reasons explained before.
I’m not sure, as i said before, this is the best way, but, at least, is working.
Maybe you wonder why the name of this post, all is becuase an old song i love named “Baby I don’t care” of a group of the late 80’s-early 90’s called “Transvision Vamp“.
Another one of those reports…
Sep 15th
Sometimes i like just to explain my last days in SL instead of rambling about something, this is one of that times.
About Ursa Major, my sim, is really a place where i’m enjoying a lot. Not only is really looking nice with the work of all the neighbours, is really a place where all we love to stay and to play. All the people living there are good friends and awesome and imaginative creators… and really fun people! Dingo, Ganymedes, Keiko, Khamudy, Luther, Silverdrake and me… soon Keeran will join us. With Keeran the residential area of the sim will be full, at least with the plans we are having now. The north part of the region is mainly commercial (still not opened to public, but Ganymedes and me are working on that area, it will include a fishing area). In the north side of the main island i’m planning an art and events area, but well, now i’m not sure about it because lately we are having in SL more art galleries than sex clubs… maybe we should have a sex art gallery where creators strip in a pole to earn some L$!
This last weekend the top of the hill in the main island was invided by giant zombie n00bs!
Even we were scared at the begining as you can see in the pic finally they are being quite polite and we will let them live there for a while. Maybe even we can make a machinima with them… who knows?
Also some of the residents are planning a Yard Sale. After two years in SL my inventory needs to be… how to say it?… not so heavy. From Beer Barrels to male clothing by Redgrave, from BDSM stuff to Teddy Bears… More info about this soon! For the moment i have a lot of work packing all the stuff.
Sunday was the “parties” day, the “Moon Autumn Chinese Party” in SHIKI sim, my friend Domch Raymaker was the host, and in “my” evening, the Plurk party! This last one was fun, specially because was the opportunity to meet some in-world some of my favourite Plurkites.
Recent Comments