Month: March 2020

UPDATED! Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Free Face Masks and Toilet Paper!

I got an insider tip on a very timely accessory for your Second Life avatar: a face mask! (I still need to hunt down surgical gloves, eye protection, and hazmat suits, but it’s a good start.)

Teleport to MALified (here’s the exact SLURL); you do not need to join any group to pick up this freebie, just click the panel:

The mask comes in seven different colours: black, blue, cyan, pink, red, violet, and white. They are completely adjustable to fit any avatar. Here’s a close-up look at the white one:

You can also pick up these masks on the SL Marketplace for free. Some people are actually charging L$180 or even L$200 for face masks, so this is a real bargain! And best of all, unlike the real world, there are zero limits to supplies.

UPDATE March 21st, 2020: Salt and Pepper have a new free gift available, something that is much in demand in the real world: free toiler paper! Just click the panel in the store (here’s the exact SLURL). You do not need to join any group to pick up all the virtual toilet paper that you will ever need!

UPDATE March 27th, 2020: Sau Motorcycles is offering a complete package of pandemic supplies, including masks (decoration and werable versions), boxes and rolls of toilet paper, even a toilet paper thrower! Just pay the vendor display one Linden dollar and it will be automatically refunded. Here’s the SLURL to the store.

The sign says:

Free COVID-19 Supply Kit: toilet paper, N95 masks included. Decoration, throwable, attachment…everything you need to get a little fun in this hard time. Hope you enjoy this and please share with your friends. We are never out of supply!

Stay healthy!

Editorial: How the Coronavirus Pandemic Is Sending Me Running Back to Facebook

As you know, I am not a fan of the Facebook social network. In fact, my New Year’s resolution at the end of 2018 was to ask Facebook to delete all the data it had collected on me over 13 years, and quit Facebook.

Then, when it was announced that you will require an account on the Facebook social network to use the upcoming Facebook Horizon social VR platform, I reluctantly decided to rejoin. But I found that I had successfully broken my formerly powerful Facebook addiction. I befriended only six people, mostly close relatives. I would go for weeks, even months, between sign ins. I was no longer addicted to Facebook!

But unexpectedly, the coronavirus pandemic now has me running back into Facebook’s embrace.

Kicking the Facebook habit is hard…

What drew me back in were a couple of Facebook groups:

I also belong to a couple of Sinespace groups on Facebook, where I would cross-post sponsored blogposts.

I had installed the highly-recommended F.B. Purity browser extension to control a lot of Facebook’s annoying features, but I found it interfered with the We Got This group, so I landed up uninstalling it completely. And, of course, now that I have uninstalled Purity, Facebook now sends me reams and reams of friend suggestions…

And this morning, I finally threw up my hands, gave in, and started accepting friend suggestions (Facebook is scarily accurate in remembering who my friends and acquaintances were). I’m baaack…

The fact remains that Facebook is tailor-made to keep track of all the loose connections in my life: family (including distant relatives), coworkers (many of whom are now working at home), and friends and acquaintances whom I rarely see in real life. This is now even more true with the imposition of social distancing policies and even lockdowns in places like Italy and California.

And, during a coronavirus pandemic, I am now willing to let Facebook strip-mine my data in order to make me feel more connected while I am maintaining social isolation in my apartment.

So, congratulations, Facebook: you win. For now.

Pictures from Yesterday’s Libraries in XR Meetup in AltspaceVR

Yesterday evening, over a dozen people gathered at the second weekly Libraries in CR meetup in AltspaceVR, which I first wrote about here.

The presentation was by Australian brothers Scott and Steven Mundell, who paid a 30-day visit to libraries in California and who have set up a website, https://augmentedlibraries.com/, which serves as a searchable, curated collection of VR/AR/MR hardware, software, and experiences for libraries. Users can filter the collection by technology, theme or cost.

Here are a few pictures of last night’s meeting:

The Libraries in XR group has members from all around the world, who are interested in applications of VR and AR to public and academic libraries. The group plans to hold regular meetings in AltspaceVR, so check the Events Calendar for the next meetup! You can also join their Discord server (here’s an invitation). See you at the next meeting!

Some Pictures from the Opening of the Virtual VIVE Ecosystem Conference (V2EC), March 18th, 2020

Here are a few screencaps I took from the livestream of the Virtual VIVE Ecosystem Conference opening, held on the ENGAGE educational social VR platform:

HTC Chairowman Cher Wang
Cher addresses the virtual audience
HTC CEO Yves Maitre

Looks like the V2EC conference is off to a great start! You can watch the livestream here.