Torley Lives

Always a joy when I see SL on another site I frequent: in this case, Robin Harper's (Linden) recent talk mentioned on Cool Hunting. In some way, this is a sign to me SL's really getting bigger, when I see it more and more around me. And it doesn't just have to be "big news media" either.

O how much the world has grown. And when I started in SL, there were Resis from beta who said it'd already gotten quite large. I hear tales of when it was easy to fly from one end of the grid to another—now, teleportation must take care of such journeys. (If only we could TP offline!) I look at my ratings panel sometimes, and ratings have been in a passive state lately: there used to be forum brawls and much controversy over changing them, but here they rest, barely going up (and they can't go down anymore since negatives were removed). Most new emergants will see a rare sight at all if they even get a +1, or +2. But I remember when they were doled out en masse.

It was a familiar experience, when I close my eyes and really think about it, when I used to be able to find trivia easily in the Events and then sit down, at Stage 4 or whatever else was a nice setting (Baku "town square" was popular, lots of fireworks shows). I'd quickly see the blue boxes come up, "So-and-so has rated you positively". I'd continue conversation and smile, rating back in return. And that doesn't happen anymore. Things like "rating parties" are an alien antiquity to newcomers. But those are my memories.

Ratings were a seminal part of my early Second Life. They used to be L$1 a pop, were like sprinkles on cupcakes, and while the world today at large not knows what they were like, so I could say in turn, that I wasn't there for public land swoopings. Public land is on its way out, and I look at the Region Land Usage bar in the Mini-Map, almost always 100% and in red… falsely prescient of some unforeseen danger. I look back through the pictures I've taken, and they trigger memories.

Micala Lumiere's brought together some memories of her own—of a place she'd like to visit. Shakespeare and Company Bookshop @ Bucker (249, 119), which is based on a real build and makes me recall Amelie, not just because it's French, but because of the magic involved. One of those "mythic everyday" things, even a magical reality. So she gave me a tour:

I wasn't a "content creator" in both senses of the word before, but I sure am now! After learning to make my own clothes, I'm building more. And bare prims look bland, so I just had to spice 'em up with textures! Not just any textures, mind you, but THOSE OF MY OWN DOING… mostly.

So here's the deal: "Torley Texture Bundle 1", includes all of what you see below and more, for a total of 50. I labelled it "1" because that motivates me to do more, and I gave it my name not because I made the textures, but because… aye, it's from me to you. Putting my graphics tablet to good use, some of them I sketched+painted out in a surreal style, and texture genetics proggies took care of the rest.

All 100% seamless (as hard as it may be to believe) so they're perfectly tileable, and I did them with SL in mind. I think there is a shortage of painterly and organic schtuffs and I would like to see more Resis roll their own thang. Some of them are more "realistic" in common situations, but for the most part, I'm just being… me.

Cranking the speakers up and blaring the noise through the house as I hip-hopped to the proverbial beat, my Mom came downstairs—and I'll ever forget this—asked out loud where all the barking dogs were. I was blindsided for a sec, but then realized she was referring to scratch samples. There's a lot of room for interpretation.

This may not seem like it connects, but o, it does (as it always does in my world): Salazar Jack announced that the Nova Albion Infohub (for lack of a better name) is nearing completion. This fantastic shot of the city goes is his; ain't it a beaut?

Especially… in a temporal world where so much changes. Where you can live in a sim, especially one of the newer regions, and so much will go by. You may never know your neighbors, altho if you could, would you?

There are some older communities still in place, altho the villagers don't come 'round much anymore: the Welsh people are very friendly, Taber is notable, and there are institutions like the Kazenojin stronghold in Gray. Nova Albion is also very old, and cohesive cities in SL are rare. But what's even rarer is the old being revitalized, and Nova Albion's time is now.

What I love about working at Linden Lab (among many other things I'm sure, and by at I refer to LL's presence as SL) is motivation that comes with selecting your own projects that'll benefit the company and the community, making for an absolutely antiunilateral win. While there are priorities, things do not get bogged down in a mess of ugly politics… I hear the word "actionable" used a lot, I think it's a favorite of Philip Rosedale's. Being the CEO and Founder of Linden Lab, he wants things done. And when I went from Torley Torgeson —> Torley Linden, I immediately hopped on the Infohubs with the encouragement of Robin Harper, who heads Community Team which I'm on! And she's absolutely awesome!

So, things happened really quickly. And I think in the pulse of life, and Second Life, when everything moves so fast and your head's in a spin… you want to eventually go sit down in a corner and rebalance yourself so you can unwind and tell the tale, explain what went on. I often find this is the way when blogging, so I reference my Snapzilla roll, including captions written in the heat of the moment, to remember what I was doing.