Vanity Fair

Yes, that must be it. LL needs to word their announcement a little better, in my opinion.

@Grumpity Linden I have two Premium accounts. One let me renew with the 10% discount and the other one (Vanity Fair) does not show the 10% discount offer at all. I checked and my current Premium account renewal date is Sunday, 06-13-2021.

If you are looking for a great deal on menswear, EVERYTHING in the Kauna store in the Time Portal sim is free: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Time Portal/242/130/1930 Tons of high-quality clothing for male avatars (mostly suits and formal wear, but a few other nice things as well), and it's the best deal on the grid.

Oh, WOW. When are THOSE homes coming available? They look a bit bigger than the first batch of traditional homes, don't they? They look SO good, that I am actually tempted to upgrade an alt to Premium just to snag one!

I used to lie in wait for the list of last names in SL to turn over to a new batch, then snap up good combinations for future use, before they got picked over. I got lucky with "Fair"; it was only up for a two-week period in 2008. I also got Scarborough Fair for use as a medieval roleplay avatar. I also have a vampire avatar named Mary Fang 😉

It's a good article, I agree. And an interesting approach to the subject: interviewing all the authors of the Wiley series of books on SL, written way back when.

My understanding of the issue is that it is technically impossible to fix this, but I don't know the technical details about why. Perhaps someone with a better knowledge than I can elucidate. I just wear updos when I want to avoid the problem.

I am constantly amazed by how many older avatars I encounter at clubs, stores and events which have a legacy name (first name and last name). There are still a lot of SLoldbies out there on the grid! My record oldest avatar spotted in-world was a 15-year-old avatar I met while dancing at Muddy's Music Café.

It's nice and intimate, a good find, thank you!

Yes, I too would like to know where all Frank's clientele will go to now that Frank's Place is closed. If you do hear of a place where people are meeting in a similar environment please let me know, thanks! I joined Frank's Elite group back when it was just L$500, so I can still go to the Frank's Elite Jazz club, which is running under new management.

You know, now that you and Alyona Su pointed out this flaw in Maitreya Lara, I cannot unsee it!

Yes and I loved it! Becky Sharp is quite the character.

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I've always lived in fear that the Condé Nast lawyers would come after me because of my name! Of course, I could always tell them that I named myself after the 1848 novel by by William Makepeace Thackeray 😉

Avakin Life is *incredibly* popular amongst the tween/teen community. Here is my writeup on the blog: https://ryanschultz.com/2018/06/30/avakin-life-a-brief-introduction/ One of things I hate about Avakin Life is that clothing textures are VERY poor (at least on my ancient iPad 2, which I still use). I would be interested in hearing about other mobile-compatible virtual worlds, though.

Frank's did relax that policy slightly. I do remember a regular visitor to Frank's Place who had a tail. But you're right, overall it was humans only.

THIS. This is an excellent 2-paragraph summary of the situation Linden Lab currently finds itself in. Thank you @Qie Niangao! To be fair, social VR overall is in a Catch-22 situation right now: those worlds that have built in-world economy features have had trouble attracting users (High Fidelity, Sansar), while those worlds that have been more popular don't have in-world economies and therefore, no way to generate steady long-term income (VRChat, Rec Room). VRChat may be popular now, but they face a daunting challenge: a transition to an in-world economy, marketplace and currency in a world where everybody expects ripped intellectual property like anime avatars for "free" (similar to the situation in Hypergrid/Opensim where content creators are ripping off SL content creators and making their work available for free). It's an interesting time for virtual worlds. Can't wait to see what happens next.

If Elite has not already been used previously as a last name by Linden Lab. You can check using the SL Name Watch website, instructions are provided here: https://ryanschultz.com/2019/11/21/second-life-news-last-names-to-become-available-by-february-2020-plus-sl-marketplace-and-events-fees-and-changes/ By the way, you guys: sharing your ideas for new last names on this thread is great, BUT it means that somebody with less scruples could take your idea and submit it to the contest themselves. I spent a very enjoyable hour coming up with new last names (checking them all against the SL Name Watch website), and I am keeping that list a SECRET until I can submit the names to the upcoming contest. Winning a free name change (which is a contest prize you are eligible for whether or not you are Premium) is a powerful incentive. This is going to be a fun contest!

Linden Lab would switch out the names for a new list at random times. Sometimes the list would be up for months and months and you would have trouble finding the first name-last name combination you wanted. I distinctly remember that "Fair" was up for only a two-week period in early 2008, along with a bunch of other common-word last names like Church and House. And sometimes you could get a different list of last names from 3rd party sites, as Selene has said. When SL had that official tie-in with CSI:New York, there was a separate list of last names available (like Delight and my personal fave, Cliffhanger). I named a number of alts using that particular portal: Happy Delight, Hearts Delight, Joy Delight...the Delight sisters 😉 I suspect that Linden Lab will make lots of money from reintroducing last names (which, of course, is the impetus for this announcement). There is a LOT of pent-up demand.

Let me explain this again: All new account creators will still have to pick a single-word name (NO spaces). BOTH existing accounts (first-name-last-name accounts and one-word-name accounts) AND new accounts (one-word names) can change their name IF they upgrade to Premium. IF you have both a first name and a last name already AND are Premium, you will have the option to update EITHER your first name OR your last name, or BOTH AT THE SAME TIME.You will select a new last name from a predetermined list of names. YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PICK ANY LAST NAME YOU WANT. If you have a single-word name AND are Premium, you will have the option to pick your preferred first name AND select a new last name from a predetermined list of names. YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PICK ANY LAST NAME YOU WANT. IF YOU ARE NOT PREMIUM, you will not be able to change your name unless you upgrade to Premium. When I quoted Patch Linden as saying "Everyone", I meant that this new renaming feature is available to EVERYONE (BOTH THOSE WITH A FIRST NAME AND LAST NAME ALREADY AND THOSE WITH A ONE-WORD NAME), which I thought I had made perfectly clear from the context.

No, it is NOT mandatory. You can keep your original name if you prefer it. Here is all the information I have collected about the upcoming last name changes, in one blogpost: https://ryanschultz.com/2018/03/22/more-details-on-the-upcoming-ability-to-change-your-user-name-in-second-life/

No, you have to be a Premium member to select a last name.

As far as I am aware, ALL locations run by Frank's Entertainment Group were closing. EDIT: Well, it looks like someone else is taking over Frank's Elite Jazz from Nanceee Sinatra. Here is a quote from a notecard posted the Frank's Elite Group yesterday: "I have new announcement to make regarding Franks Elite, our member's exclusive venue of FEG. In the late hours of last evening, I had a meeting with Mr. William Zeta. In this discussion we have agreed to allow Frank's Elite to continue and to be owned by him." Apparently, William Zeta owned the personal home that Naceee Sinatra bought, which became Frank's Elite Jazz club, so it kind of goes full circle. I quite liked Frank's Elite Jazz club, so I am glad to see it stay open.