Vanity Fair

I found it, thanks! The store is called HCXII, and the line of gowns is called Pendulum. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Luce/48/246/23

I am driving myself crazy trying to refind a store that I only visited once! I came across an avatar at a recent round of the Sabbath shopping event wearing such a beautiful gown with intricate, orante metallic ornamentation. It was so unusual, that I did a right-click/inspect, and followed the creator's bio picks to find their store—but I forgot to save a SLURL, and now I cannot find it again! ARGH!!! The style was similar to Unholy and Petrichor, but it was a simple black store, all in black with a central courtyard and four black walls with vendor panels facing inwards. The store was selling three gowns that came in sets of six colours, and they were GORGEOUS! Each gown had intricate, ornate metallic decorations on it. I need to find that store again! The store also sold metallic headpieces, rings, piercings, etc., all with the same kind of detailed, intricate ornamentation. I have been going through the Gothcore and Sabbath events and scouring the marketplace, to no avail. Does anyone know what store I am talking about here? I am tearing my head out!!! Thanks in advance for any pointers or help.

Watching the Oberwager Lab Gab episode now, and every time he says "Thunes" (it's promouned "Toonz"), all I can think of is this SNL skit: Also: you know WHY Brad is so gung ho on Second Life. right? Philip Rosedale got him to see SL his with his vision (I believe they used to hang out at Burning Man together, but I could have that part wrong).

Yep. Nope. Sorry, I am not touching any social media with Zuck's icky fingerprints on it. I'm DONE done.

I think the U.S. and Canadian dollars were at par for one brief, shining moment in the 1970s. It was a blip. *cries some more in Canadian* And people wonder why I prefer to hang out in the metaverse? 🤣

True story: I signed up for a Mastodon account the instant Elon started publicly musing about buying Twitter. The day he walked into Twitter HQ in San Francisco, I pulled the plug. I watched the mass firings and the ongoing dumpster-fire safe in my Mastodon cocoon, chortling to myself. Eventually, I realized that even though Mastodon was not founded on an evil surveillance-capitalism revenue model like Facebook (which I had quit years earlier) and Twitter, it was still a waste of my time, and bad for my overall mental health. So I have pretty much stopped using all social media, except for a half-dozen snark subreddits (because I am apparently, at heart, a mean girl who sits at the mean girls table 😉 ...and I only use Reddit anonymously, I deleted my previous account there and just use the website on desktop or mobile) So, in a way, I have Elon to thank for breaking my social media addiction. Thanks, Elon! Oh, and f**k you, Elon.

Interestingly, I just updated my most recent blogpost, with a very insightful comment posted in one of the Discords I follow, who foresees trouble ahead with Meta's Horizon Store plans on the VRChat in-world creator economy, which is still in beta. Quote: ----start quote--- UPDATE April 26th, 2024: I sometimes post my blogposts to the various virtual world and virtual reality Discord servers I belong to, in order to drive a bit more traffic to my blog (I don’t do it nearly as often as I used to, though). And PK, on the MetaMovie Discord server, made the following insightful and thought-provoking comment on this announcement from Meta/Facebook: "I want someone to dig into what sort of access Meta would have to data on these third-party headsets, potentially, through various software that would be required. I think it’s existential that we need to keep metaverse data out of their hands. Even now, having failed with five or six different social VR attempts so far, they still manage to collect 1/3 of every virtual transaction in VRChat, at least those using Quest headsets, which is the majority of users now. Their [i.e., VRChat’s]creator economy is only in beta so far, but thanks to Facebook and Steam, and Apple for pushing this model, we don’t have the thriving virtual economy we would have had by now, because even taking 1% of every transaction just for monopolizing app downloads, that would be too much. A third is robbery, but because [Meta CEO Mark] Zuckerberg could afford to make mobile headsets affordable without worrying about profits so far, they’re now cornering commerce in this space. I don’t think it’s safe to trust them with our future, and so I’m very skeptical about these sorts of initiatives." PK is correct; it is troubling that the walled-garden gatekeepers like app store owners (Meta, Google/Android, and Apple) are each taking a cut of any in-world transactions. It has a chilling effect on anybody trying to make money within VRChat (of course, the social VR platform has long had a booming economy going on outside of VRChat, with places such as the Virtual Market series of avatar shopping events and the VRCMods Discord server, where avatar buyers and sellers can connect). Linden Lab was luckily able to avoid this entire mess by creating its own in-world economy within Second Life well before the advent of Google Play and Apple’s App Stoe—but now that they are actively working on a new mobile Second Life app for Android and iOS, it will be interesting to see whether Second Life, too, will be impacted by other players like Meta wanting to take their cut. (Probably not, since you can do things like buy Linden dollars directly from the Second Life website.) ---end quote--- (if you want to read the whole blogpost, the link to my blog is in my forum signature line; you all know where to find it!)

*cries in Canadian*

Oh, innnteresting! I see J. Randall Waterfield listed as co-director with Brad Oberwager. Fun fact: Waterfield Holdings includes, among dozens of properties in its so-called "Waterfield network" (https://www.waterfield.com/, scroll to the very bottom for the full list)...blue-chip investment firm Goldman Sachs. 💰

I can think of very few situations that would get me to quit Second Life for good, but Elon buying it would be one.

Wait, Second Life is moving away from Vivox? I must have missed that news.

I think that @JacksonBollock's comment about SL being a "waning cash cow" is right on the money. I also agree that if/when Linden Lab decides to shut down Adult content/regions, that will be the end of Second Life (perhaps not immediately, but it will definitely hasten its end). Ironically, one of the reasons that the adult/sex-oriented virtual worlds struggle is that they cannot hope to compare with Second Life. Here's a quote from a blogpost editorial I wrote about it back in (checks date) 2018: ---start quote--- The biggest problem is that many of these newer adult/sex-based virtual worlds simply cannot compete with everything that the entrenched front-runner Second Life, with a 15 [now 20!]-year head start, has to offer: - SL now has extremely attractive, realistic-looking mesh avatars (male, female, and any mythical creature you could ever dream up), with a near-endless array of avatar customization options (hair, clothing, shoes, accessories, etc.). You can outfit your avatar to fit into any style or scene! No other virtual world can compete. - In-world stores and the SL Marketplace sell tens of thousands of different animations (dance, cuddle, sex, etc.); again, there’s something to suit every taste. Again, no other virtual world can compete with the endless selection. - Finally, Second Life offers hundreds of adult locations, many staffed with dozens of avatars who are ready, willing, and able to roleplay sexual scenes (via chat, voice, even webcam!). Again, no other sex-based virtual world comes even close. Now I want to assure you (despite SL’s reputation in some quarters) that you can easily enjoy and appreciate Second Life without setting foot once in any of these adult areas. You can easily set up your client software to avoid showing adult-rated places to you under Places search, for example. But they are there, if you are curious. And some of these places are quite popular. Frankly, sex is one of the reasons that Second Life is still as popular as it is, for a certain minority of visitors. ----end quote--- In fact, I have often wondered what would happen when Second Life does shut down. What other virtual worlds would benefit? Somebody on this thread joked that we need to set up a system so we could find each other in other worlds if this should happen, and honestly, that's not such a far-fetched idea!

Yes, I have fiddled with the limit on the number of avatars drawn, even taking it down to its lowest level. It still crashes on my mid-range iPad (not sure of the version number). I've also set the draw distance down to its lowest level, it still crashes. I do now have a newer iPad Pro 11 for work, which I could install the mobile client on, to see if that works any better. Honestly, part of the fun in being in a crowded club or shopping event is to see what other avatars are wearing, and do a right-click/inspect to see who made an item of apparel! That is probably always going to be a desktop PC endeavour, never a mobile one!

Lumiya, alas, only worked for Android devices, never for iOS. (And no, I am not going to change.)

As I mentioned, you have to be able to park your avatar in the club to listen to the music stream, and whenever I try to connect to a busy club via the mobile client, it crashes. So no, you currently cannot use Mobile and listen to a club's music stream—unless that club is pretty empty. (Believe me, I've tried!)

I am currently beta testing the iOS Mobile client (I have one avatar who has a Premium Plus account, not Vanity), and I can tell you that the client crashes consistently on my mid-range iPad whenever I teleport into a region with a significant number of avatars (like a busy club or a shopping event). I can confirm that it already works well for group chats, or IMs with people nearby. In fact, it already does a lot of things well, but I would think that getting it to work in places where there are a lot of other avatars is critical to Mobile's success. As for "nobody asked for," well, I have been waiting for 17 years for the ability to lie on my sofa with my trusty iPad and log into Second Life! Mobile is a dream come true for me, even with its current limitations. But I'm an old fart now, and I have no clue how well younger generations of users (the Roblox/Zepeto/TikTok crowd) will take to SL on mobile. It will definitely appeal to the IMVU/Avakin Life crowd.

Don't feel bad...I didn't know about it, either, until somebody told me that you could set up a signature line!

Well said. Second Life is my preferred way of dealing with nasty, brutal reality. It's my creative outlet, my escape hatch. I can get into the zone and forget about everything else that might be bothering me. I suspect that SL probably has about 5 to 10 years of life left in it, unless whoever owns it at the time decides it's time to pull the plug. But I don't want to spend my time in SL worrying about its future end. I just want to enjoy it as it is, now, today. We have had people exclaiming that such-and-such or so-and-so will mean the end of SL, and guess what? We're already making plans for the 21st birthday celebrations. Second Life has had an amazing run, ALREADY, and anything after this is just the icing on the cake.

And—as I have recently written on my blog (address is in my signature line)—one of those major moneymakers, Blueberry, is at the very least hitting pause on its SL operations, and at worst, is possibly leaving SL completely for greener pastures (namely, avatar customization in Roblox, Zepeto, and soon SnapChat, all three of whom, with their millions of users, absolutely dwarf the user base of Second Life). The smarter companies are already starting to look at more lucrative alternative platforms for their work. (I'm not gonna link the blogpost, you can find it easily enough)

Wow, how did I not know that VRChat had partnered with Tilia last December. Playing catch-up now...well, this is certainly interesting! Fun fact: my blogpost about hidden adult content in VRChat is, far and away, the most visited blogpost on my entire blog, after almost seven years of blogging. (It also helps that it's very high up in the Google search results when you look for "vrchat adult," which apparently, a lot of people do search for...who knew?? )

Well, I mean, Linden Lab also had ambitions for Sansar, and we all know how that went. After changing hands several times, Sansar still has a very small but deeply committed user base, but it doesn't seem to matter how well it shows itself off (and I will still say that Sansar is the most beautiful social VR platform)—everybody would rather hang out in VRChat or Rec Room instead. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I have completely given up on predicting what metaverse ventures will fail and which will succeed.

As someone who’s been beta testing mobile SL, I’d say we still have a ways to go before it’s in regular use. Pinning “mainstreamness” on mobile is a gamble that may not pay off.

Tilia really tried to sell its services to other (non-Second Life) apps, with limited success. So maybe this is a good thing, who knows. I doubt this means a shutdown of SL anytime soon, it’s still a reliable cash cow for Linden Lab and its investors. What really hurts is the exchange rate when converting from many countries’ currencies to and from U.S. dollars. The Canadian dollar, in particular.

I gotta say, one example of a newer store that is just killing it with mesh body support is Carol's Store. I like the fact that I can buy an outfit and it comes in both Inithium Khara and Maitreya LaraX mesh body sizes (which are the only bodies Vanity Fair wears nowadays). I can kill two birds with one stone!

Ooh, I *like* this theory! And I have often thought that BumbleBee is eerily similar to Blueberry (albeit with a more muted colour palette).