Sim Phantomed Sim!

This week I was minding my own business (literally) with Haley Salomon when suddenly we both plummeted downwards and splattered on the ground! My store was built on megaprims that stand about 50m above the raw ground. Picking myself up off the dusty ground, I looked around and saw nothing but bare land!

Immediately, I thought that somehow my land, store and all my objects had been taken away by an evil land-baron-trickster-bot, or perhaps in an insufficient-sleep induced stupor I had marked the parcel for sale at a fractional price. But no, the truth was even stranger.

I looked up to where my store had been - and it was still there! Somehow both of us had simultaneously fallen through the floor, all the way to the ground. Bizarrely, we apparently were standing on the ground in the middle of a solid megaprim cube.

Having no other obvious course of action, we flew back up through the "solid" cube to arrive at the store's normal floor. Upon casually striking the "Stop Flying" button, I gently set down on my store's floor once again.

And then plummeted 50m to splatter yet again.

Somehow the megaprim floor had become Phantom - and I could freely pass through it. A furious investigation ensued, where I checked the phantomness (is that a word?) of the remaining floor cubes (phantomed). Store walls (phantomed). Any objects nearby (phantomed). Everything was made phantom!

Perhaps, I thought, it's only my objects. I rocketed over to my neighbor, Aspasia Arliss's park and approached her house/temple/not-quite-sure-what-it-is, and being the clumsy oaf I am in a laggy sim, proceeded to fly right through it! All of her objects were similarly phantomed.

Returning to my store, and gaining a slight bit of psychological stability by positioning myself mostly on the floor (see picture above), we set about figuring out how to report this unbelievable turn of events to the Linden Mandarins.

Suddenly, I squirted upwards out of the floor to resume standing normally on the now solid floor. Other objects were also suddenly non-phantomed.

So what happened? A SL Client problem? No, it happened to two of us at exactly the same Second Life second. Did I dream the entire scenario? No, check the picture again. Clearly it was a sim problem of some sort - and fortunately a temporary one at that. It does a business no small goodness to have arriving customers plummet to their death mere seconds after they arrive.

Moral of the story: When you hear a big "Splat", it isn't always due to avatar operator competency challenges.

SocialRanked!

I received a surprise message yesterday from the folks at Sweet Second Life. It's a site that uses the SocialRank service to identify “hot” Second Life blog postings. It seems like a fab place quickly get the SLBlogosphere buzz of the day. I registered the Second Effects blog on their site just for fun a while ago.

But today, the message from them was:

Did you ever wonder how your blog stacks up compared to all other blogs on Second Life?

Well, um, yeah! Duh.

and

Congratulations, you are one of the community leaders!

As you might know, every day SocialRank algorithm is tracking thousands of blogs and identifies the hottest posts on Second Life.

Not only does your blog rank in the Top 50 of all Second Life blogs, we have also created a badge so that you can proudly display your blogs overall rank on your blog.

Ok, I get a lot of SPAM messages, and at first that's what I thought this was. Or at least some kind of scam to promote their site. However, I went to Sweet Second Life and examined their list of “hot” sites, and found that it did have the popular blogs listed, such as my pal Nobody Fugazi's Your2ndPlace (16th), New World Notes (9), Torley (3) and my new acquaintance Zoe Connolly (15). So it seems quite legit – and useful.

Surprisingly, I somehow made it into the top 50! And I have to thank you – my readers for placing me there. Way to go, guys! We were #48 as of this writing.

I've also pasted the Sweet Second Life badge on the right hand side of this blog so we can see where we are ranked. Maybe it will go higher, if I'm lucky.

So how does this ranking take place? Well, Sweet Second Life says:

We use SocialRank software to monitor each of the best Second Life sites and determine today's hottest articles and bloggers in the field. This is done by analyzing how sites and users link, connect, and discuss each other's content. Add a touch of math and what we have is a powerful filter into the hottest stories of the day.

Translated, this means “it's a secret”. And that's a good thing too, since if their algorithm was public, people would be gaming it for certain, and all value would be lost. I think that's already happened to Digg (think “Top Ten Barf Pictures”, etc.) Regardless, I think the SLBlogosphere is growing, but a lot of people don't know their way around it yet. Sweet Second Life can help you out – you can find pointers to many of the best Second Life blogs right there.

Particles at Burning Life

I've never been to Burning Life before (mainly because I am not old enough!) So I thought I would pay a visit. I am fascinated by interesting builds, and there is no better place to see the envelope of ingenuity pushed than at Burning Life. My visit to Burning Life today turned out a lot better than my first attempt - no griefing in sight today!

Since I am sure others are reporting on Burning Life in general, I am reporting on Particle Effect builds at Burning Life. I am not sure if anyone else is doing so. Basically, I tromped around the site looking for interesting particle effects. While there are many wonderful physical builds, I have to say that there really are not many particle effects present. I suspect some shun particles for fear of generating lag, or perhaps there just isn't many people able to build them. Lag doesn't really happen, of course, unless you build massive particle bursts as are often found in freebie particle baskets.

JT Dagger built this amazing creation, called the "Atom Spinner". Perhaps I should have taken a video of it, since it is quite animated. This item rotates, changes colors and emits multi-colored shape-changing particles. Particles need not be like anything in the physical world. It's cool particle sculptures like this that I admire.

A friend of mine, Carrie Cronenwerth, is refitting a mall and is wondering how best to attract more traffic, as many landowners do. She and I toured several Burning Life sites the other night (pictured) to get some ideas. I suggested she might consider placing some fascinating sculptures in her mall to attract visitors - they seem to attract me, so why not others too? And what better way to find builders than to visit Burning Life? It's almost like a trade show for builders.

This one is quite basic, but it certainly collects your eyes! It seems to be made/owned by TheDreamingDragon Nighbor and Legith Fairplay. In fact, there seems to be several "eye" oriented effects at Burning Life for some unexplainable reason.

My friend Jopsy Pendragon has perhaps the best particle display I've seen. The display includes not only the amazing lightening particles, but also sound and animated textures. You can't see it in this picture, but it includes a dancing fountain, like a simplified version of the Las Vegas Bellagio fountain - all made from particles.

And of course, the most notable particle effect was the Burning of the Man that took place today. It was probably the biggest fire I've seen in Second Life so far. Well done, Burning Lifer's! The fire proceeded for many minutes and then gradually died out to the applause of the hundreds present.

But that was not all! After the burning died out, the toasty near-the-fire participants were handed the "Dance Effect Orb", which as you can see produces an iPod-commercial-like appearance. Everyone danced with more particles flying above. Sweet!

Griefing Attack at Burning Life?

After toiling at my laboratory building new particle effects tonight, I thought it would be a good idea to visit Burning Life. My friend Jopsy Pendragon has a very cool display there, as do other legendary builders. And I was not disappointed, there are some truly interesting parcels. I am always amazed at the ingenuity of Second Life builders. Tonight was no exception... in more ways than one.

One parcel seemed a little strange. It had some rotating blue cubes hovering above it. Of course, weird stuff is the order of the day at Burning Life, so I assumed it was part of the site's display.... until I noticed the same cubes at another parcel. And another. And...

Well, you get the idea.

Before long, I was seeing wacky blue cubes and hearing their rather annoying scream on various parcels. Not all, but several. Probably it had infected more than I could see, and I couldn't stand the noise any longer so I did not investigate further.

I did manage to check the provenance of a nearby cube and guess what? It was made by an avatar born today! Who would have thought that something that ingenious could be constructed in less than a day by someone with no experience at all? Or at least, no brain at all. Sigh.

I'll try Burning Life again tomorrow.