Recorded May 16, 2010.

We are joined in world on Corona Cay by Keeme Brown, Stuart Warf, Danny Dwyer, and Nika Dreamscape. We talk a bit about some awesome new work by our resident theme performer Jesta Noonan and expose Keeme to the wonderful new world of media on a prim and Linden Homes.

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I know what you are thinking, “Oh God, not another reactionary blog post regurgitating all the crap about Onyx and data mining.”

This isn’t that sort of post, although it could be. I’ve not made it a secret I don’t trust the people who make the Emerald viewer any further than I can throw them. They’ve been caught collecting data on visitors to their island so the fact that they are making an army of bots to canvas the grid looking for ANYTHING should raise alarm bells in all but the most naive or mentally obtuse.

So what am I on about? Well, months ago we found a particular individual taking advantage of the land settings on my island to set up his own little domain. He was squatting, plain and simple. Using up the prims on a group owned parcel. Nothing against the TOS, but doesn’t exactly endear you in the hearts of others. He reminds me of this guy:

Illegal? No. Asshole? Yes.

Then Stuart contacts me asking about some guy doing the same thing on Rezzed TV island. Same guy doing the same thing. He returned all his stuff and without mincing words told him if he did it again he was gone. Neither of us thought much about it after that. I’d occasionally see him around hovering over parts of the island. He wasn’t doing anything as far as I could see. I figured unless he gave me reason not to I would just ignore him since he didn’t seem to be hurting anything. Although I still couldn’t help thinking if you like it here so much why don’t you actually buy a lot instead of hovering over someone else’s?

Then I happen to see a very funny website. It was the page at Modular Systems for support. Guess whose name was there? It was none other than our buddy BrokeAss SquatsAlot! (not his real name) So considering I’ve been highly critical of Emerald what is someone who is actually working for them doing on my island for hours at a time day after day for no apparent reason? Are they spying on me? Reporting back to their buddies on what we are doing? Collecting data?  Maybe. It’s possible. We know that isn’t beneath them now don’t we? Or maybe he’s just the sort of person that they can identify with and want to have representing their product. You know, a freeloading schmuck hacking their neighbors cable TV, stealing their paper, and eating out of the dumpster behind the Burger Shack. Hurry ladies, I hear he’s single and knows how to spoil a girl!

YUUMMMmmmmm… toast!

Anyway… Scrubby McBannedBritches (not his real name) is gone for good and banned from both estates. If I catch him coming back with alts he’s getting AR’ed on the spot. Let him go squat on Emerald Point.

Linden Lab announced yesterday that the 1.23.5 Release Candidate would be depreciated. If you attempt to log in using that viewer you will be directed to the update download. They also mentioned in the same post that 1.22.11 would be depreciated on June 1st.

http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/technology/release/blog/2010/05/12/viewer-123-release-candidate-deprecated

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You can bitch and moan about 2.0 all you want. You can scream and yell. You can threaten to take all your toys and go home. You can hold your breath until you pass out. The steady pace of viewer progression will march on with or without you. It won’t be long before the regular 1.23.5 viewer is no longer officially supported. That means if you have a problem the Lindens won’t help you. They will tell you to upgrade to 2.0 if you want support. Then it will only take one critically necessary update to render 1.23.5 completely obsolete and you won’t have a choice anymore.

Well, not ANY choice. You could always move to Emerald. But then LL doesn’t support that viewer now as it is. Emerald support consists of a handful of ‘volunteers’ who answer questions between gesture spamming in the Korea welcome area. Plus you are trusting that known thieves and data miners haven’t put something fishy in their viewer to track you or totally fuck you over if they feel like it. Good luck with that. (If you really can’t stand 2.0 I suggest Kirstens viewer or one of the other third party offerings NOT made by sleazy quasi-anonymous (former?) hackers and content thieves. )

My advice is to do yourself a favor and bite the bullet and move to 2.0 now while you can still use 1.23.5 as a crutch. Do you know you can add your own tweaks to the viewer? You can find instructions how to do it in the wiki. I’ve added transparent windows and extra buttons to mine and I love it. Hell, if you’re adventurous you can make your own skinned 2.0 viewer that LOOKS like 1.23 if you really hate 2.0 that badly.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_2_Tweaks

Just don’t cry when 1.23.5 finally gets canned. It WILL happen and there ain’t thing one you can do to stop it. The handwriting is on the wall plain as day and you really need to start breathing again. You’re scaring your mother.

Last of the lost episodes… Coronaverse #29 is myself, Nika, Danny, and Radar on location on one of the roads on the mainland. Then we discuss Avatars United.  Nika runs off and we bitch about iTunes and talk about Linden Homes.  Originally recorded at the beginning of February 2010.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Davros/142/198/30

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Lost episode  #28 recorded around Jan 27, 2010. So where is #27? Your guess is as good as mine. As far as I can tell there is no 27. Why? I don’t know. If there ever was one it doesn’t exist now. I’m guessing it was actually a numbering snafu somewhere along the way and we should have called this one 27 and instead went to 28. Either way, here it is.

- What is your RFC?
- Avatar Talk
- Stuart is a land baron
- XWA (VWE) now on Rezzed TV Island
- Lag
- We get griefed by Stuart
- Tuner cars
- Rabbids Go Home
- Stuart tosses a wet blanket on us

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Another of the Lost Episodes. This episode was recording back in December of 2009. We talked about Linden Homes when it was just announced as a limited beta and everyone said it was crap and no one would want them. Turns out they were so popular when they were opened to everyone that Linden Lab ran out within a week or two and had to clone the entire continent TWICE to meet the demand.

Anyway, I ended with one of my favorite goofball songs. Voltaire-The USS Make Shit Up

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