Why Shouldn't a Mermaid Have a Sailboat?

I own a Flying Tako, which as most people who sail in SL know, is an amazing little craft that sails fairly realistically. But I'd been having to change to human when sailing because of the pose.

With the Blake Sea and the sailing sims to open east of Nautilus, a short swim/sail from Mermaid's Dream, I decided to do something about that. It didn't take long to fire up Poser and make a mer equivalent of the Tako pose, which I then replaced the original pose with in the boat.

Always looking for more things to put up for sail sale in the store, I made up a vendor sign and slapped a L$50 price tag on it.

I'll probably be spending more time on the water now.

Flaming Newbies!

While swimming behind the store, I noticed a red line that hadn't been there before. A closer inspection showed a rocket-powered newbie figure fetched up against my back wall.


Was he part of a rocket zombie newbie invasion?

His root prim wasn't on my land, so the autoreturn couldn't get rid of him. I fixed that by jumping on his head and bumping him around for a while, with the hope that I could get him to fly south for the winter. I couldn't push him far enough, but I finally was able to get him enough over the land boundary that I could send him back to his launch pad.

Moving Notice

No, not our main store, but the branch that was in Elounda. The mer colony there has joined the Minoan Empire and is moving north into the Island of Thera sim. Work is proceeding on the sea floor landscaping, and it promises to be an exciting place! Here's a landmark: Mermaid's Dream, Island of Thera (76, 39, 2)

Protest Regatta Machinima

I found this Machinima of the Openspace Protest Sailing Regatta by MarkTwain White, courtesy of Vint Falken's blog.

The People Have Spoken

No, I'm not referring to yesterday's U.S. presidential election, but LL's amendments in M Linden's Letter to Second Life Residents to its recent Openspace pricing changes. The widespread consternation and protests expressed in user blogs and inworld seem to have gotten our concerns made known to the SL gods.

Here's the new setup according to M Linden:

Here is how we are amending the price change:

1. We are going to retain the Openspaces product at its original price point and its original intended use (forest, water, etc.). We will have technical limitations to help regulate their use, initially avatar and prim limit restrictions, eventually event, classified and script limits. Those of you who chose to use the Openspaces as intended may stay at the US$75 rate, but will need to contact the concierge team to do so.

2. If you want more than an Openspace, we will offer you the choice of moving to a new product called Homesteads that is intended for light use such as low density rentals. For existing Openspace owners we will phase in the price increase for this new product over the next 6 months. Homesteads will also have technical limits for avatars and prims, and eventually script limits as well.

* January 5, 2009 – non-compliant Openspaces will transition to Homesteads and the maintenance fees will go from $75 to $95 per month. We will offer an educational discount to qualified educators on the new Homestead product. The discount amount will be the same as Private Regions, roughly 30%.

* July 2009 — the maintenance fees for Homesteads will go from $95 to $125 per month

This was exactly the solution that I had hoped for, and one that I think is fair to all concerned.

The cannons can still roar at Beek Haven!

Openspace Protest Fleet

To protest the insane price rise for Openspace sims, a multitude of ships representing Second Life sailors gathered at Hollywood to stage a mass fleet sail. As you can see from the map above, the turnout was immensely successful. It clearly demonstrated the level of concern that this controversy has raised in the SL population.






I joined the crew of the Mer Cruiser to represent the mer population of Beek Haven, as well as the other seas that we all like to swim in. Sea dwellers as well as sailors have much to lose if our open waters vanish.


Some comments from other SL bloggers on the Openspace pricing controversy:

Linden Labs' announcement - Openspace Pricing and Policy Changes

Hotspur O'Toole - On How The Price Hikes Endanger Themed Communities
Ordinal Malaprop - Shouting into the Void
Second Thoughts - Jack Bombs the Humper Bunkers
Vint Valken -Linden Lab has it’s business model ass backwards


Here is a picture taken at sunset in the Beek Haven sea, to symbolize what we all may lose if Open Sim owners are forced to abandon their lands. Let's hope that this will not be sunset on such marvelous areas such as Beek Haven, Antiquity, the Second Life Sailing Federation sims, and much of Caledon, as well as the other areas we have enjoyed so much.

Fit to a T

I haven't done much in the way of tailoring yet, but I just had to make this T-shirt with one of my favorite quotes from Adam Savage of Mythbusters. It seemed so appropriate for SL.

A Piraat's Life For Me

I've been swimming around a set of eight sims (with more planned) dedicated to Pirate RP, anchored by Beek Haven. The sims all have wonderful Dutch names.


From their web site:

This be a guide to activites in Beek Haven and the Beek water sims - Second Life's ONLY multi-sim Pirate Role-Play. This be 24/7 Pirate & Mermaid RP - no exceptions. Even if ye be here to just shop or camp - ye gotta be a mermaid or dress like a pirate or wench from the Golden Age of Pirates. Wearing an eye-patch and a t-shirt with a Jolly Roger don't cut it. There be freebie clothes by the doors of the Keep as well as in a few shops ... Or ye can loosen yer coin bags and buy some proper attire!!

There always seems to be some activity here, especially when the regular sea battles are held.


Best of all, Beek Haven is mer-friendly! There are some underwater areas for merfolk and I've run into several of us already.


Be warned, this is a mature sim, and they make no bones about it: toplessness is not only tolerated but encouraged. Arrrr! ;-)

The Mermaid's Dream Empire grows

I've opened another store in Elounda Bay, just outside of the Drunken Clam. I don't know how much traffic goes through there or if the store will be worth the rent, but I'm willing to give it a few weeks to see how it works out.

If you want to visit, and see the other fine mer stores there as well, it's at Elounda (235, 104, 8). From the entry point, swim South, through the first shop area and the Drunken Clam, to the second shop area. The store is upstairs on the left side.

School's Out

My latest project is a fish rezzer. My original idea is to have a bracelet that surrounds the wearer with his/her own private school of fish. Instead of the usual "pet" that just circles around you mindlessly, these fish will swim independantly but try to keep themselves near the rezzer even if it moves.

I'm using the old trick of rezzing temp objects (in this case, fish) to keep the overall prim count at a minimum. Temp objects, as you probably already know, onliy last for about a minute before evaporating. So at the rate of a new fish every 10 seconds, there will always be five or six fish swimming around.

The fish are animated sculpties: I used Blender to make a fish shape, then copied that to two other shapes, one with the tail to the left and the other one to the right. The fish's script changes the sculptie between these to make the tail swish. It actually works pretty well, although the built-in function delays mean that I can only twitch the tails about once a second.

For some reason (probably cranial denseness), I always have trouble getting objects to move right, particularly when they're physical. For a long time, I couldn't get the fish to do anything but float around aimlessly in a drunken tumble. Or fall to the ground and flop around sadly. But by banging on things persistantly (I am nothing if not stubborn persistant), I finally got them to swim more or less properly.

Now I just need to make some good textures. For development, I cheated and used an abalone shell texture which actually looks OK. But I can see hours of trial and error coloring scales and getting eyes and fins in the right places.

Hey, it keeps me from swimming around the docks, trying to pick up sailors.