Vanity Fair

Thank you Lindal! Actually, all I really ask is that we have at least one good, long, in-depth conversation, so I know who you are. So, if you are still interested in inheriting one of my avatars, please take a look at this alphabetical list, and let me know your preference: https://ryanschultz.com/2018/09/26/leaving-my-second-life-avatars-to-other-people-in-my-will-taking-the-first-step-in-figuring-out-who-gets-what-sl-avatar/ I would prefer to leave my avatars to people who appreciate Second Life and my creative work, as opposed to someone who never signs into SL at all. Here's the latest update from my blog. Two avatars are already spoken for. One is going to Xiola Linden, the Community Manager of Second Life: https://ryanschultz.com/2018/09/27/inheriting-my-second-life-avatars-keep-those-cards-and-letters-coming/

Yes, could you please give me a copy? Vanity Fair in-world, thanks!

I use "avatar" and "account" interchangeably. Yes, I mean leaving my SL accounts to other people in the event of my untimely death.

After a recent health scare this week, I am in the process of figuring out who gets to inherit which of my Second Life avatars for my will.This is fully in accordance with the Second Life Terms and Conditions (Terms of Service) and Linden Lab's posted official policy on Death and Other Worries Outside Second Life. If you want to find out more about what happened to me and why I am doing this now, please visit my blog (Google "Ryan Schultz blog" and it should be the top result) and read the three most recent blogposts to get up-to-speed. Thanks!

There is a freebie male mesh head (static, non-Bento) available in the men's section of the freebie store at Ajuda Sl Brasil.

Yes, it's only the one from the freebie store at Ajuda SL Brasil that does not let you remove the head.

Did you get it from Ajuda SL Brasil, or from the Altamura store?

OK I have double-checked and you CANNOT remove the head on the Valentina free mesh body from Altamura at the freebie store at Ajuda SL Brasil. I will update my blogpost, thanks! You CAN remove the head on the freebie Jenny and Emanuelle bodies.

As far as I am aware, you can remove the heads on all three Altamura's women's mesh avatar bodies (Jenny, Valentina, and Emanuelle). I probably should double-check that you can do that; I do know that I have done it with the Jenny body. I know that you *cannot* remove the head on two of the three Altamura men's free bodies (Tommy and Max), but I have found that you can remove the head from the Robert body from the Freebie Megastore in London City.

I have pulled together all the info I have on free and inexpensive mesh heads and bodies into one blogpost: https://ryanschultz.com/2018/09/24/second-life-steals-deals-and-freebies-free-mesh-heads-and-bodies-for-female-second-life-avatars/

US$59.99 for an ebook?!?? Yoikes. Good thing that I have access via SpringerLink at my university ? thank God for libraries!

You don't need Linden dollars to get started in SL! Start off by going to the four best freebie stores in SL: https://ryanschultz.com/2018/05/15/second-life-steals-and-deals-the-four-best-freebie-stores-in-sl/

I have a whole section of my blog where I post links to Second Life freebies: https://ryanschultz.com/category/second-life-steals-deals-and-freebies/

I did write a blogpost not too long ago with 16 lucky chair locations for women's clothing, shoes, and skin: https://ryanschultz.com/2018/05/22/second-life-steals-deals-and-freebies-the-best-lucky-chairs-for-womens-fashion/

I have found that clothing designed for the Maitreya Lara mesh avatar body fits the Altamura female bodies well, with a minimum of fuss.All the free Altamura bodies come with a complete set of alpha sections on the included HUD, so you can make just about anything fit.

Altamura is really being generous with the free mesh full-body avatars! In addition to the Max and Valentina freebies I had mentioned before, she has also made the Tommy and Emanuelle recent hunt gifts available for free at the front of her store (you do have to join the Altamura group for L$50 to get these, though). https://ryanschultz.com/2018/08/25/second-life-steals-deals-and-freebies-tommy-and-emanuelle-full-body-mesh-avatars-by-altamura-are-again-available-for-free/ And I just discovered yesterday that Altamura is giving away free full-body mesh versions of the Robert and Jenny avatar bodies at the Freebie Megastore in London City: https://ryanschultz.com/2018/08/30/second-life-steals-deals-and-freebies-london-city-freebies/ That makes in total three female full-body mesh avatars (Jenny, Valentina, and Emanuelle) and four male full-body mesh avatars (Robert, 2 versions of Max, and Tommy).

OK, why not, here goes... hello Dakota, hello everybody! My avatar name is Vanity Fair. (Yes, I got lucky; the last name “Fair” was only available for a two-week period back in 2008 and I snapped it up immediately.) I do have alts, but Vanity Fair is my main avatar now. I have been in SL for eleven years now. Ironically, I was first introduced to the virtual world of Second Life through my real-life work as a librarian. Eleven years ago, I was sitting on a bibliographic instruction planning committee, and we were all brainstorming various ways to teach the undergraduate student population how to properly navigate all the information resources offered by our university library system. Talk turned into how to best turn education into a game, someone mentioned Second Life, and I said I would look into it. Of course, that particular idea went nowhere, but I stayed in SL. I spent the first ten years of my time in Second Life quietly exploring the grid, serving as a volunteer reference librarian at Info Island. building a house in Bay City and then selling it, going shopping, going out to clubs and dancing, etc. For a couple of years, I even worked as a fashion model for Lemania Indigo, the clothing designer. I got lucky again when I was invited into the then-closed beta of Sansar in December 2016. I started a blog about Sansar, formerly called the Sansar Newsblog, in July 2017 when Sansar first opened its doors to the public. Earlier this year, I renamed my blog RyanSchultz.com and I expanded my coverage to include all the newer social VR platforms and virtual worlds: Sansar, High Fidelity, Sinespace, VRChat, AltspaceVR, etc. I also cover the new blockchain-based virtual worlds such as Decentraland and Virtual Universe. So as you can see, I am quite busy hopping from one virtual world to another! I seem to have found my calling as a virtual worlds blogger. There's always a new virtual world to visit and report on! Frankly, I never, EVER expected to blog about Second Life because there are already a thousand bloggers who are doing such a great job covering SL already! However, I have started a Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies section of my blog. If you're not interested in digging through my entire blog just to find the stuff about Second Life freebies, you can go directly to those blogposts via this link: https://ryanschultz.com/category/second-life-steals-deals-and-freebies/ I have found the best way to make friends in Second Life is to simply follow your interests. There are always communities to join, discussion groups to participate in, and clubs to visit to suit every possible taste in music. If you are friendly and outgoing, people will be (mostly) friendly to you in turn.

You took the words right out of my mouth... https://ryanschultz.com/2018/07/09/decentraland-and-the-greater-fool-theory/

Thanks for the shout-out, Blush! Yes, I have been blogging about Decentraland since it first attracted my attention early this year. The recent BBC radio item is a good introduction to the project if you've never heard of it before. Here is my initial take on Decentraland, written back in February, and it explains in detail exactly why I remain such a skeptic on the project: https://ryanschultz.com/2018/02/13/decentraland-why-i-remain-a-skeptic/ The folks at Decentraland could learn a lot from Second Life's 15-year history, and it would appear that they are going to make many of the same mistakes all over again. I am afraid that many investors have leapt on board this particular bandwagon, hearing the magic word "blockchain" and bidding up the price of 10m-by-10m plots of virtual land, without doing proper their proper due diligence. The minimum price for each 10m-by-10m parcel of LAND is currently 6,000 MANA each (which works out to US$443.48 per plot). This is much, *much* more expensive than SL land, which you can already do a lot more on, and actually visit! I do believe that Decentraland virtual land is a financial bubble that will hurt a lot of investors when it pops: https://ryanschultz.com/2018/04/06/the-land-price-insanity-continues-at-decentraland/ https://ryanschultz.com/2018/02/27/decentraland-land-sales-is-this-a-financial-bubble-in-the-making/

My understanding is that yes, we will be able to pick a last name from a list as in the past.

(Ryan Schultz from Sansar here, hi Ebbe!) My question for you is: when will Second Life Premium users be able to select a new first name-last name combination? My post on my blog about this upcoming SL change is now my most popular blogpost by far, with 2,266 views as of today! So I think that you can expect a lot of people to take advantage of this feature when it does become available.

Thank you for your comments and suggestions! I have posted my blogpost: https://ryanschultz.com/2018/08/16/the-top-18-controversies-in-the-15-year-history-of-second-life/ If you can think of anything I forgot to add to it, please leave a comment on the blogpost or here. Thanks! ?

I have written up the first version of my blogpost which is here: https://ryanschultz.com/2018/08/16/the-top-18-success-stories-in-the-15-year-history-of-second-life/ But I will update it as new ideas come in. Thank you all! ?

Yes, Firestorm definitely ranks right up there as a success. Good answer!

I think they were called "OpenSpace" sims