This is my first crosspost to WordPress using SL resident Koz Farina’s newly released blogHUD application. I bought the pro version, which cost $L900 and allows you to crosspost to WordPress, Blogger and TypePad right from within Second Life.

Neato!

My official page at Koz’s blogHUD site is here (complete with RSS feed) and my profile page should be located here.

A couple of days ago, Koz mentioned on his site how cool it was that you don’t have to exit or minimize the SL window to use his blogHUD. “You might lose the moment of inspiration which triggered yo

What would really be cool now is if the SL interface incorporated a fully functional way to access the Web from directly in-world. I mean, after I publish this very post, I am going to have to break my immersion and close/minimize SL to check Apogeevr to

PS: I don’t know if the html is going to stick, so the links may or may not be dead in the water. If they’re not working, I’ll update this post to fix them.
 
posted by Cheri Horton on Orion using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

UPDATE: As you might have noticed, some of my words got cut off. I’m not entirely sure why, but below the jump is the full version of this post the way it was intended to be published: Read more…

September 24th, 2006
Categories: Site Updates . Author: Noche . Comments: No Comments

After more than five days knocked offline, my Internet service was finally restored at my house about an hour ago. That’s five-plus days, thanks to my incompetent Internet service provider. But alas, I am now back in business.

September 23rd, 2006
Categories: Site Updates . Author: Noche . Comments: No Comments

In this post, I’m outlining two new HUD-based sex products inside Second Life that seem to boost in-world erotic play to a whole new level in terms of elaborateness, technological sophistication, and leeway for Master/slave power exchanges.

–
The Real Slut
During my formal interview with Ishtara Rothschild inside Second Life, I stripped off my clothes until I stood naked inside her laboratory, which neighbors the store Dark Delights (SL URL), where she sells her imaginative products. I then stepped into a sex device she created about a month ago.

My body was promptly strapped against the surface of the vertically positioned display board. Then, rendered motionless and unable to disengage myself using the SL interface’s default “stand up” option, I get packaged into Styrofoam and shrink wrap, with the exception of my breasts and genitals, which remain exposed from inside the air-tight packaging.

“Now imagine to be on display in the store. People walking past you. Everyone stares at your exposed, naked body,” Ishtara says, describing the humiliating but erotic experience an SL resident can have by using what has become one of Ishtara’s best-selling products: the Real Slut. “And of course, the customers have the ability to test the ware.”

They can do that by clicking one of the poseballs assembled at the foot of the display board, each of which allows the potential buyer who is browsing the merchandise to grope, caress, and even penetrate an orifice with a sex toy. “Each of the poseballs has a variety of emote texts,” adds Ishtara, who currently is designing a version of the product for male-to-female transgendered users. Read more…

September 17th, 2006
Categories: Sex in Second Life, BDSM in Second Life, Second Life Entrepreneurs . Author: Noche . Comments: 5 Comments

Very little nudity, but there were lots and lots of pretty particles to feast your eyes on earlier today during the kewl, 45-minute Burning the Man event inside Second Life, a main highlight of the virtual world’s annual Burning Life festival. The man went down in a blaze of glory, and to the text-issued ooohs and ahhhs of a lively crowd. More on Flickr here.

September 16th, 2006
Categories: Burning Life . Author: Noche . Comments: No Comments

The following feature on Bad Girls is part personal tribute and part business profile. It spotlights the club and its owner, Jesse Murdock of Sexy Jesse’s Animations and Pose shops, and hopefully also offers a cool glimpse at what goes on behind the scenes in terms of running a successful, virtual adult dance club.
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On a recent Friday night, I boot up my PC during the wee hours, as is usually the case. It’s about 2 a.m. PST. I check my e-mail, glance at a few blogs that I read regularly, and then I log into Second Life. From inside my SL castle, I hit the in-world search button to see what’s happening on the grid. I’m in the mood to party (pixel style), so I click the “Events” tab, and sure enough, Bad Girls dance and fetish club has its schedule all laid out, with something different happening every couple of hours, more or less. And that’s by design.

“SL is a global game, so if you aren’t open 24 hours, then a lot of people can’t attend just because of their time zone. That kind of sucks,” says Jesse Murdock, the club’s owner.

I open the grid map to see how many people are tracking on the Badlands sim, where Bad Girls is located. As usual, it’s pretty packed, as is apparent by the swarm of little green dots that denote the presence of SL residents. I teleport to the club, and then I can hear the voice of Baby Shortbread, aka DJ XTC, chit-chatting with the crowd as she spins the techno and trance that streams into the sim. I walk the short distance to the front entrance, and a Marilyn Monroe-esque voice greets me as I pass the door’s threshold. “~*~ WELCOME TO BAD GIRLS~*~ Cheri,” the text version of the greeting reads, climbing up my screen along with the other ambient chatter.

Click here to dance
I take in my sexually eclectic surroundings: a male avatar with camouflage pants, no shirt and wielding a flogger; a female in a slinky red teddy, red thigh-high stockings and black shoes; a guy in drag, with a red tube top, black shorts, goatee and twirling around a baton; another guy dancing with a giant red and white Dr. Seuss hat; and yet another with red wings, red bikini shorts and black boots — and a red-tipped magic wand.

In one corner, a platinum blond named climax Catron dances provocatively in front of her SL “master” Savio Bordiga (both shown at left), naked and grinding up against his crotch as he stands with legs spread apart, grooving along while clad in leather pants and bare-chested.

“This is my first time here,” Savio explains after I ask for his opinion of the club. “I think it is good. I like the DJs. The DJs have been playing good songs.” Speaking in the third-person, Savio’s sub climax then chimes in that the club is a personal favorite of hers that she wanted to share with Savio. “Really likes it, Master………have been coming here a while,” she types. “That is why she wanted to bring You, Master. The music is great here. A lot of better mixes than most of the clubs.” Read more…

September 10th, 2006
Categories: Sex in Second Life, Second Life Nightlife, Second Life Entrepreneurs . Author: Noche . Comments: No Comments

Breaking news on the voice front: A text-to-speech application that can be used in Second Life has been created by Christian Westbrook of the Electric Sheep Company. Westbrook announced the news on the Electric Sheep blog and also posted a link to an audio sample of the application. In the comments section of the post, he also put up a link to his virtual home in Second Life, where the device can be tested (although I’m not sure how he feels about the prospect of his place being potentially swarmed with SL residents.)

At any rate, the device allows users to select a language and a voice, Westbrook says. I for one can’t wait to try it later on tonight. Right now I’m at work so I’ll have to wait. I am very intrigued by the idea of text-to-voice. The online erotic world of Jewel of Indra uses this mode of communication and I have been champing at the bit to get in there and test it out.

I did listen to Westbrook’s sample, and the voices I heard sounded robotic. But regardless, this new development has potential written all over it. I wonder if this sort of application could be an effective and successful way of combining the craft of texting with chat audibility. It seems voice in general is probably a more practical way of communicating at meetings and other such gatherings in virtual space. But I plan to investigate what kind of marriage text-to-speech makes as far as communicating during 3-D cybersex or just more intimate settings in general.

(Via 3pointD)

UPDATE: Sheesh, I forgot to mention about what this might mean for the virtual world gender swappers among us once this application is further developed. Also, I wonder what sort of competition it might ultimately pose for companies such as Screaming Bee, which offers voice-morphing software (albeit lame in terms of male-to-female morphing), and Vivox, which is supposedly developing voice fonts.

September 5th, 2006
Categories: Voice in Virtual Space . Author: Noche . Comments: 3 Comments

While poking around on the SL grid for galleries that contain quality erotic art, I came across this exhibit that incorporates a cool voice HUD that enables what the photographer (Chris Thompson) calls an “audio tour” of his virtual gallery space. The nonerotic photos are of New York City’s Lower East Side and are displayed inside the Studio East Photography Gallery (SL URL.)

What you do is purchase the HUD (heads-up display) attachment for a mere $L10 and then use it to punch in the code that corresponds with the ID number of the gallery piece you are viewing. That triggers a voice recording made by Thompson (EastTuesday Borel in-world), who offers commentary and some background info on the respective selected images. There are simple instructions posted inside the gallery for enabling the audio tour. If you click on the photo above, you can see the HUD on the upper left-hand side of the screenshot of the SL interface.

By the way, on a sign that’s posted inside the gallery, EastTuesday states that the HUD is a test version and he invites feedback via IM. My feedback would be that I think it’s a great idea. In fact, I got to wondering what other virtual settings or purposes this voice application could be used for.

Strictly in the context of art, it’s fun to think about the kind of audio that can accompany works like the ones displayed inside this very cool erotic art gallery I spotted inside SL, Read more…

September 4th, 2006
Categories: Sex in Second Life, Voice in Virtual Space, Erotic Art/Photos in MMOs . Author: Noche . Comments: 1 Comment

Quick anecdote: I was hanging out at this adult social club inside Second Life the other night (big surprise, right?), and this male avatar fixes his gaze on me for several seconds, and then he finally types out the words, “So, what are you?”

Mind you, not “who,” but “what.”

WTF? Had he bothered to have some class and make an effort to get to know me, he may have gotten an answer. But I ignored him.

No doubt, during the interval of silence before he asked his ‘pressing’ question, he was perusing my profile, which contains a list of the SL groups that I belong to, a couple of which are transgender-oriented. And then in my list of “Skills,” I facetiously added “gender-bending.” Also in my profile, I don’t flag myself as being either male or female, simply because I despise having to shove myself into either of those normative categories. And if I did so, I would want to then specify my being only “biologically” male, and that in turn would likely prompt even more ambiguity or curiosity with regards to my profile.

The truth of the matter is that I sort of have mixed feelings about the prospect of filling my virtual world profile with specific details about my gender identity and sexual preferences. On the one hand, it’s a good way to let people know ‘at a glance’ who they are interacting with. On the other hand, why would I have to slap a big old label like that on myself? And why would I have to pinpoint my gender identity and sexuality, and not other aspects of my physical-world self? Also, who exactly is ‘required’ to go to such lengths in their profiles? Is it only the people who bend gender, for example, or is it those who represent themselves differently in any way, shape or form in cyberspace, as compared to how they really are or appear in meatspace? Read more…

September 3rd, 2006
Categories: Sex in Second Life, Transgenderism in Virtual Space . Author: Noche . Comments: 3 Comments

Stay tuned for a special feature on Second Life’s Bad Girls dance and fetish club, complete with an interview with club owner and sex animation/pose creator Jesse Murdock. Him and I are going to chat tomorrow. And there will be lots of luscious pictures. Note: Bad Girls is one of my favorite haunts inside SL, not to mention the fact that it’s one of the hottest virtual dance spots in-world. In fact, I’m just getting out of there now (*looks at watch*). And I don’t even smell of smoke or booze.

In the interim, I’d like to direct your attention to what I call A Study in Dick — some pictures I just uploaded and included in the Burning Life Flickr set that depict huge virtual penises, one of which is spouting sperm. It’s funny and erotic all at the same time. And I just couldn’t help myself. I just kept snapping photos and snapping photos of it. The display also has been rousing some interest among a number of roving photographers on the Burning Life grounds in SL who have been posting some images of it on Snapzilla.

September 3rd, 2006
Categories: Second Life Nightlife . Author: Noche . Comments: No Comments