voyeurism

Raymaker Land Management - our first two commercial-zoned rental parcels!

i am very pleased to share that Raymaker Land Management has acquired our first commercial-zoned rental parcels!

both are fully-flat greenfield sites with regularly-shaped plot borders, located at Carolina Beach, in a PG-rated private estate.

the estate manager is the very experienced and professional Juan Cusack, whose sims also include Hatteras Island and Jockeys Ridge, where a Raymaker Field Studies Centre and St Michel - the Jules Verne Museum are located :-)

one of the parcels has already been spoken for.

to see the remaining parcel in-world for yourself, teleport there from Raymaker Land Management at Livigno :-)

[update: both parcels have now been rented, within eight hours of them becoming available. thanks be to God :-)

please do continue to let me know your land needs, and i will try my best to either fulfil them myself, or put you in touch with someone who can :-) ]

Technorati Tags: Raymaker Land Management, rent, Second Life

the London-Raymaker Gallery at Etopia Prime

the one hundred and thirty-eighth episode of ventriloquy celebrates three exciting developments in my learning journey in Second Life as Veritas Raymaker. these are:
- the London-Raymaker Gallery at Etopia Prime, which represents my second project in partnership with Sanspareil London; this time focussed on education for sustainable development;
- the ordering and successful delivery of the new sim Temasek, which will be built primarily by its Chief Architect Limkopi Davis; and
- Raymaker Land Management, which represents my first real foray into the commercial sector in Second Life.

Please do take the time if you can, to download this 3.0 MB episode and join me as i recount how i came to make these very critical decisions.

Sanspareil London and i also invite you to browse the Malealea project, which was undertaken last year by Year Nine students of the City School, Sheffield, UK, in partnership with the citizens of Lesothu in southern Africa.

still on the subject of sustainable development, i am happy to say that both Temasek, and all the land and water parcels operated by Raymaker Land Management, are managed under a carbon-offset scheme.

Additional reading:
- Morphs Malls at Castlerigg
- the Official Linden Blog's 24 January entry (Difficulties logging in to Second Life and connecting to secondlife.com)
- my 10 September 2007 blog entry (celebrating friendship)
- my 11 December 2007 blog entry (the Raymaker Learning Space at Etopia Island)
- my 1 January blog entry (Sanspareil London's Lava Gallery at van Gogh)

[update: as of 24 May 2008, Sanspareil and i closed the Gallery at Etopia Prime. Sanspareil's complete portfolio is still on available for your viewing pleasure at the Lava Gallery at van Gogh :-) ]

Raymaker Land Management

Welcome to Raymaker Land Management!

We offer a select number of choice rentals in Second Life.

All our land and water parcels are operated against a carbon-offset scheme. We are one of the first land operators in Second Life to do so.

Raymaker Land Management has a small gallery at Livigno, from where you can learn more about the rental opportunities we offer.

There is also a vendor at the gallery, which enables you to teleport to any rental plot, or just pay the vendor directly to initiate your rental.

Presently, we have parcels on the Linden mainland, some of which are flat and ready for you to build your dream home, while others already have enchanting builds there for that quick weekend getaway.

We also have a number of water parcels for your boating and aquatic-lifestyle needs.

For those who prefer high-rise living with great ocean views, we have partnered with ukryan Bloch at Unzen, where we offer a few apartments for rent at reasonable rates.

Finally, coming online later in 2008 are choice residential and light commercial rentals at the new Temasek sim. Temasek is planned to be a showcase of all that is best about the culture and ecology of Singapore. Temasek is owned by Veritas Raymaker, and its Chief Architect is Limkopi Davis.

Raymaker Land Management is run by Veritas Raymaker. Please feel free to send an IM in-world with your land queries and needs. Even if i am unable to fulfil them personally, i will try my best to help match you with someone who can.

Additional reading:
- Livigno

[update: as of 18 February, the premises of Raymaker Land Management has shifted to a larger plot at Durango.

Additional reading:
- Durango, Colorado]

the lion roars again

Temasek has been delivered!

"we are Singapore,
we are Singapore,
we will stand together,
hear the lion roar.

"this is my country,
this is my flag,
this is my future,
this is my life,
this is my family,
these are my friends,
we are Singapore,
Singaporeans"

- Hugh Harrison (1987)

... and so it begins ... #2

the original post which bore this title, was my very first post commemorating my first day in Second Life.

eight months later, i think it's worth documenting another milestone, just as significant.

we've only just begun...

:-)

love is in the air

the one-hundred-and-thirty-seventh episode of ventriloquy celebrates two weddings - one in Real Life, and one in Second Life.

does the celebration of love need further explanation or justification? :-)

please do join me in this 1.5 MB download, as i wish Jin and Jun, and Aares and Amaly, God's blessings as they start their new life together. i would especially like to thank Aares and Amaly for sharing their joy with me, through the gift of this simple photograph. it means a whole lot more than anything i've seen in Windlight.

the honeymoon home of Aares and Amaly

active avatars in Second Life, ranked as a proportion of countries' respective population sizes (December 2007)

following up on last month's post, here is the breakdown of figures for active avatars per country for December 2007, normalised against the respective population sizes (again, population totals were obtained from the CIA's World Factbook).

for those of you who are new to this, i'll give you a concrete example (if you've read my post from September 2007 on the same topic, you can just skip ahead to the next paragraph). the United States had 186734 active avatars during December. the population size of the USA in July was 301139947. this means that 0.06 percent of the US population had avatars active in Second Life during December.

i took the top 40 countries by active avatars (ranked by absolute numbers), and processed them by 'active avatars as proportion of country population'. just like for the November figures, China, Colombia, India, Russia, Mexico, South Korea and Turkey have been excluded, because the proportions are really tiny. other countries excluded for the same reason from this list of 40 are Argentina, Chile, Hungary, Peru, Romania, and Venezuela.

here's what the numbers for December look like :-)

1. Slovenia 0.11 % (new entrant)

2. the Netherlands 0.10 % (proportion of population has fallen, from 0.11 %; displaced in rank by Slovenia)

3. USA 0.06 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.07 %)

4. Denmark 0.06 % (unchanged)

5. United Kingdom 0.06 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.07 %; displaced in rank by Slovenia, the USA and Denmark)

6. Switzerland 0.05 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.06 %)

7. Australia 0.05 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.06 %; displaced in rank by Slovenia and Switzerland)

8. Belgium 0.05 % (unchanged)

9. Germany 0.05 % (unchanged)

10. Canada 0.05 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.06 %; displaced in rank by Slovenia, Belgium and Germany)

11. France 0.04 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.05 %; displaced in rank by Slovenia)

12. Spain 0.04 % (unchanged)

13. Ireland 0.04 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.05 %; displaced in rank by Slovenia and Spain)

14. Italy 0.04 % (proportion is stable; rank has increased, displacing Portugal, Sweden and New Zealand)

15. Portugal 0.04 % (proportion is stable; displaced in rank by Slovenia and Italy)

16. Sweden 0.04 % (proportion is stable; displaced in rank by Slovenia)

17. New Zealand 0.04 % (proportion is stable; displaced in rank by Slovenia, Italy and Sweden)

18. Austria 0.03 % (proportion is stable; displaced in rank by Slovenia)

19. Norway 0.03 % (unchanged)

20. Singapore 0.02 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.03 %; displaced in rank by Slovenia and Norway)

21. Finland 0.02 % (proportion is stable; displaced in rank by Slovenia)

22. Japan 0.02 % (proportion is stable; displaced in rank by Slovenia)

23. Greece 0.02 % (proportion is stable; displaced in rank by Slovenia)

24. Israel 0.02 % (new entrant)

25. the Czech Republic 0.01 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.02 %; displaced in rank by Slovenia and Israel)

26. Brazil 0.01 % (proportion is stable; displaced in rank by Slovenia and Israel)

27. Poland 0.01 % (proportion is stable; displaced in rank by Slovenia and Israel)

analysed this way, Singapore is still the Asian country with the highest proportion of active avatars in Second Life.

Technorati Tags: geography, globalization, Second Life, Singapore

PowerPoint: mac 2008 and QuickTime VR

i'm posting this in case it helps anyone :-)

PowerPoint: mac 2008 is able to play embedded QuickTime VR (QTVR) movies, when in slideshow mode. this is as it should be, and is a great improvement over its predecessor (PowerPoint: mac 2004), which could not play them in the first place.

more specifically, the behaviour is thus: when in slideshow mode, the user is able to pan around the embedded QTVR movie.

however, the user is not able to zoom in and out of the QTVR movie (at least, i can't find a way to do so).

so, if full functionality of embedded QTVR movies in PowerPoint slideshows is important to you, the version of PowerPoint which you need is PowerPoint X (most current version is 10.1.9) which was marketed as part of Office v.X back in November 2001.

:-)

the Raymaker Vulcanigallery at Da Boom

the one hundred and thirty-sixth episode of ventriloquy introduces you to my most recent learning facility in Second Life: the Raymaker Vulcanigallery at Da Boom.

as its name implies, the Vulcanigallery allows you to come up close and personal with an active volcano - specifically Pulau-Pulau Bompa, which i have relocated from the now defunct Raymaker Field Studies Centre at Sky Island Bay.

the volcano is designed, built and scripted by my good friend Ludvaig Lindman, who is also the genius behind the weather engines powering the independently-controlled meteorological zones in the equally-recently-upgraded-and-renamed Raymaker Field Studies Centre at Norma.

as for the Vulcanigallery at Da Boom, it is situated in the original sim in Second Life - the first-ever to go online - and it adjoins the History of Second Life Museum (unauthorized), which is designed and maintained by Tree Kyomoon (RL: Ryan Cameron).

so why not join me in this 1.7 MB episode, as we take a geographical and historical fieldtrip :-)

Additional reading:
- my 7 October 2007 blog entry (this new ocean)

[update: as of 27 November 2009, Pulau-Pulau Bompa is now at Cassiar Park]

Sanspareil London's Lava Gallery at van Gogh

happy New Year to all!

:-)

i open the year with the one-hundred-and-thirty-fifth episode of ventriloquy, in which i invite you to visit a gallery of fine art and furniture designed and crafted by my friend Sanspareil London.

Sanspareil's Lava Gallery is a bespoke three-storey structure built on my plot at van Gogh, which is part of South Islandia on the original mainland continent of Sansara.

in this 1.6 MB download, i introduce Sanspareil as someone whom i've known since June, when his artistic talents were recognised by him being bestowed the honour of being the first artist to be featured in the Nova S Straaf gallery on the SS Galaxy. Sanspareil has moved on since then, and he is more than happy to undertake commissioned work, counting in his portfolio work done furnishing a boat and a teaching hospital in Second Life.

i end the episode quoting from the Galaxy's chief architect - Bill Stirling - in his New Year message. Bill has very kindly consented to permitting me to reproduce part of it here:

“Every day we see our Second Life in pixels. But the internal emotion this experience conjures is just as real as any. And for each and every one of us, we all help to build this shared reality within the metaverse, every day our presence here creates and re-creates our community. This proves the maturity of our population, and our ability to respect each other, and to co-exist in peace.”

please do take the time to visit Sanspareil London's Lava Gallery at van Gogh :-)