Vanity Fair

By the way, LL markets Tilia services to other platforms. Among their customers is the rather dubious and sketchy crypto/NFT-based Upland: https://modemworld.me/2020/05/22/a-further-look-at-tilia-and-their-new-client-upland/

Aah, I did not know this! Interesting.

Have you guys read this recent article in the Telegraph about Meta and Mark Zuckerberg? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/08/03/walls-close-zuckerberg-executives-desert-meta/ (Archived version: https://archive.ph/RQ0lD#selection-1043.0-1043.416) There's a scathing, absolutely SAVAGE paragraph on SL in it: YEEOUCH! That's got to be one of the most dismissive things I've read about SL in the mainstream media for quite a while. Pretty funny for something that still makes millions of dollars a year for its parent company, 19 years after its founding. (Fun fact: did you know that the same Waterfield investment group that now owns Second Life also owns blue-chip investment firm Goldman Sachs? Check out the “Waterfield Network” listing of companies at the bottom of that last link.)

ARTE has some very nice eyes, and I like that they come with a mesh eyes option, which you can control using a HUD, not just the colour but also the size and the position (up/down). GLOOM also has very nice-looking, realistic eyes. I've also been quite happy with the eye options in the LeLutka Evo X (version 3.5) heads HUD, I very rarely have to go to an external eye seller.

Ooh, good catch! I'm going to have write something about this change on my blog.

Well, actually, there are sensors (pucks) which you can attack to your waist and feet to give you full-body tracking. And some social VR platforms do support them (e.g. VRChat, NeosVR).

OMG Gurl6! I haven't heard that name mentioned in a LONG time!

My inventory size is over 240,000 elements and when it gets over the quarter million mark, performance starts to degrade so I have become much more ruthless in purging older inventory. It’s an ongoing process.

Sister Mary Blister is always available for bookings! Sketchy skyboxes, weddings, bar mitzahs...you name it! Reference for those who don't know what I am talking about: https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/484614-do-you-find-it-harder-to-talk-to-perfect-avis/?do=findComment&comment=2429337

What I find really interesting is that this sort of thing (plus Instagram filters, etc.) is having an impact on what plastic surgery people are choosing to have IN REAL LIFE. Every couple of days, I must pop into the r/Botchedsurgeries subReddit community on Reddit, just to see what horrible plastic surgery that men and women (who often suffer from a mental health condition called Body Dysmorphic Disorder or BDD) undergo in order to make themselves look more “handsome” or “beautiful”. It’s a never-ending hot mess, a combination train wreck-dumpster fire that appalls me, yet I cannot look away. I routinely click through to see the pictures of botched plastic surgery results—butt implants that stick out like shelves, facial filler that gives unnaturally sharp cheekbones and chins, eyebrow lifts that make people look like they should speak Vulcan, breast implants that look like overinflated balloons that are about to pop at any second.

NAAAAAAH....

Yeah, see, here's the thing. Although I have tried it once or twice in the 15 years I have been on SL, i have always found pixelsex to be somewhat ludicrous. However, I did once divebomb a BDSM orgy in my Mary Poppins avatar though, staying completely in character the entire time. Fun times! (Yes, I'm weird. Embrace it; be a professional weirdo!) Also, I have a Roman Catholic nun avatar named SisterMary Bliser. I actually lasted all of five minutes at oRgAsMs Adult Free Sex Lounge, whacking the johns and escorts with my ruler, and shouting “SINNERS REPENT!“, before I was banned from the sim! Who says you can’t have good, clean fun in SL? (Yes, I’m evil. As I always like to say: if you’re going to go to hell, why not go express?) 😉

My personal pet peeve is avatars whose arms are too short. @Strawberry Lindenfirst mentioned it on her blog, in a blogpost about proper body proportions, and ever since, I notice it. You tend to see it a LOT. But I wouldn't dream of telling them about it. It's YOUR Second Life, you do you, boo. You don't want to be able to wipe your ass, your choice 😉

I seem to remember somebody talking about what they called "meshism"—a form of avatar discrimination where you prefer to interact with modern, mesh-body avatars over the classic, standard avatars (which I always thought was an absolutely stupid way to make decisions about who you wanted to talk to). I'm someone who also chooses who to talk to by what's in their profile.A well-written, engaging, and grammatically correct profile will always draw me in more than what your avatar looks like.

Awesome, thank you guys so much!

I must have hit some keys by accident, but now my avatar's neck turns to look at wherever my mouse is pointing on screen. How do I turn this off? I can't seem to find this in the Preferences. Thanks in advance!

Chic, have you tried Couture Chapeau at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lorena Blue/106/232/26? I seem to remember that they had some hair that was designed to fit under their hats, but this was a very long time ago.

This weekend I was missing a chunk of inventory, so I used the following instructions from the Firestorm Viewer Wiki to get them back again: https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/fs_missing_inventory (I have this page bookmarked, because I do need to refer to it every so often.)

Curious question: what are these inventory management features? Vanity has an inventory of 244,000 items 😉

It *is* possible to set up a good-looking, fully mesh avatar for nothing or next to nothing, but it requires knowing where to look to find a free or inexpensive mesh head and/or body. On my blog I endeavour to provide a list of free and inexpensive mesh heads and bodies for both male avatars and female avatars, but the bargains (especially the heads) are usually time-limited.

Seriously, about one-quarter of the male avatars in SL are in need of a SERIOUS freebie fashionista makeover. You don't have to look like you stepped out of 2007 (or even worse, 2003!).

Avatars wearing 2003-era shoes with busted invisiprims and (shudder) jewelry with bling deserve the death penalty. I will die on that hill! (I will make exceptions for well-made flexi hair, but not many meet my standards.) Also: the Freebie Galaxy is a 15-story crime against humanity and should be incinerated into pixel-ash. I will die on that hill! (Now I gotta go back and read through what everybody else had to say...)

Happy New Year! I plan to be spending a lot more time in SL as the Omicron wave of the coronavirus pandemic hits over the next month. SL is my happy place to escape from messy, painful, chaotic reality...hope you all are doing well and holding up well under these unprecedented circumstances! I wanted to take some shots of my alts all together for posterity 😉(you know, in case COVID finally polishes me off) and I know that there are many places on the grid that offer backdrops/scenery for taking pictures. Does anybody know of a place like this, but where there are good group poses/poseballs which you could use for a picture of a group of avatars? What I am looking for is a place where there are natural-looking group poses/poseballs which indicate a bit of interaction (NON SEXUAL!) so I can arrange a group of avatars. The attached pictures give you an idea of what I am looking for; in the past, I have successfully been able to get up to ten avatars/alts loaded on my high-end gaming PC if I use the lowest possible display settings on all but one window, so if there are poses for 6-10 avatars that would be ideal. (.I know, I'm insane, but we've already established that on my blog.) 😜 Thanks in advance for any help, pointers, or tips. If I have to I will search on the Marketplace for group poses, so if you have any suggestions for great poses for sale for 6-10 avatars, please let me know! Appreciate it. Oh! I forgot to mention that I’d also be interested to learn more about tools which allow you to make adjustments to existing poses, e.g. making eyes look in a certain direction or moving a hand slightly. Much obliged! Please feel free to leave a comment with your suggestions of poses or tools, thanks!

Has anybody ever gotten one of these error messages when trying to teleport in SL? This is a new one for me! I have tried logging out and back in several times, and no matter what I do, I get the same error message. And I am nowhere NEAR making 6 teleport requests per minute! What's going on? Thanks! (I'm trying to teleport into the Holiday Shop and Hop, if that makes any difference.)