Skye Galaxy Impromptu Concert: 17 July 2018

Another great concert, and all the better it was impromptu and unexpected, you can download it here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1JAkunWZdygaFgB3OtW6KxsveRqfc0SM3

You can also download an earlier concert from 23 June 2018 here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_xFwFIH4BikUtszbdt1GR0pN9TOyqKdd


Skye gave a few concerts in 2015 in SL, and those I recorded you can download here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-TGETLE1x_isvLOKtF4y3rUYgaEwxCpm?usp=sharing


There is also a back catalogue (2010-2014: 51 concerts in total) and not all recorded by me, available here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ByviX67FOgZ4do6a3jGvGlaFcQAA2kX1?usp=sharing


Some of Skye's best, I edited to single tracks, available here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yMvx7DsaW5WVdSuY0LW07dwrdZGIY_bd?usp=sharing

SKYE GALAXY - Live Concert today in celebration of SL15B, 10:00am SLT

SKYE GALAXY - Live Concert today in celebration of SL15B, 10:00am SLT 
at the following SL location 
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SL15B%20Mesmerize/132/216/24

This is the first live performance of Skye Galaxy since 2015

I'll be recording it and will make the recording available for download

A Half Century Mission Statement from Real Life!

General Announcement
(just so you know FYI etc and not aimed at anyone, just one of my rails at life, and people in general):

After yet another jaw dropping moment today pandering to the insecurity of a selfish individual, my absolute resolution moving forward is to dismiss selfish, insecure, energy sapping individuals as quickly as possible and devote time to those who deserve it. By that I mean, those who create a bit of drama for the attention-seeking love of it are going to get a quick "whatever", and my exit, stage left - tout suite.

Those who need compassion will always have my patience.

I too have been guilty in the past of all that which I shall no longer waste time on, so I'm sorry for those times and my respect for those who endured will be evident from now on.

The fact I will be 50 in just 20 days time has shifted my perspective. Sadly my Dad only lived until he was 66, and just in case I may only have 16 years left, I'm not wasting a moment for a single moment longer.

This will also be extended to time wasting activities, like driving, during which I will be singing a lot more, shouting at idiot politicos on Radio 4, waving at other folk for the fun of it, and phoning friends. Work meetings may also become both more entertaining and productive.
Also on the increase will be my general outspokenness, particularly in places where other people think being impolite is like, yeah, so cool, and shit like that. Stand-by to accompany me in some hopefully amusing moments where I'll call them out.

In return, I undertake to put a positive spin on everything in future because worry is also an utter waste of time, energy draining and usually unnecessary when the worry transpires ultimately to be unfounded.

Additionally, and most importantly, I undertake to be much more giving, patient and understanding with my family and my friends - all of whom are clearly lovely people to have put up with me, in many cases for most or many of those 50 years. I perhaps haven't thanked you enough for that, but I certainly appreciate it :)

The SL Reboot, It's a Brand New Shiny Thing

So the SL reboot "will put focus on content creators as the primary customer". I think I heard that about 8 years ago and invested much money, time and emotion getting to a very happy SL.

Now I feel like a happy Windows XP user who is being told I've to move to Windows Vista (and didn't that work out well!) but all of my pictures, video and music files will be deleted, but that's ok, I can just buy some more. Well, just like I can't recreate a picture of my infant son, I also can't just recreate the one-off build I live in now. Some of the precious music I have is no longer available, and even if it were why should I rebuy it?

Move to the SL Reboot? How many years before the next delete all inventory and start again? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

With thanks to the Firestorm team for the following links:

• Video recording of the TPVM where this took place: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S-hoXupxXw (Ebbe’s bit starts aroud 58 minutes in)
• Blog post by Inara Pey (who was present): http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2014/06/21/ebbe-confirms-were-working-on-a-next-generation-platform-with-audio/
• Follow-up to the above-mentioned blog post and a letter from Peter Gray (Director of Communications at LL): http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2014/06/21/lab-were-not-giving-up-on-second-life/
• If you dare, the SLU forum thread… Although this thread is rife with every kind of reaction you can imagine, Ebbe does provide some further comment in there. Warning: put aside a half day if you intend to read through it all. http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/97035-linden-lab-working-next-gen.html

A Grand Highland Ball in The Caledonian Ballroom, Brody Castle

Sunday 16 June, 2013 from 10:30am to 1:00pm

at The Caledonian Ballroom, Brody Castle

in celebration of SL's 10th Birthday
Teleport to the Caledonian Ballroom, Brody Castle

Spock Is Not Impressed

Several recent tweets have forwarded me to a fun site: Spock Is Not Impressed

I submitted this, currently awaiting moderator approval:

World Builder

Rod demonstrates Viewer 3!

The Highlands of Scotland in Second Life

My video for the Highlands of Scotland in Second Life for their exhibit at SL8B

An Exciting Couple of Weeks, Second and Real Life

Ten years ago I moved from London and returned to Scotland, where I was born and educated, defecting to the big city.  I enjoyed it so much I remained there for 14 years, except when I lived in Dublin for around a year.

 Boat of Garten Railway Station (run by Steam Railway Enthusiasts)

During the past decade I've been very fortunate to have lived, for the most part, in the Highlands of Scotland, working in Aviemore and Inverness and living in the lovely wee village of Boat of Garten and the seaside town of Nairn.  My greatest pleasure has been to take in the lovely scenery of the Highlands, driving along the twisty roads in my MG, with the roof down.

  

The MGF 1.8 VVC 75th Anniversary Edition.

Only 2000 of these special edition MGFs were produced to celebrate the 75th anniversary of MG, 1924 to 1999. Half were produced in black and half in mulberry red; and all with grenadine red leather interiors. Of these, half were the 1.8i engine and half, the faster, 1.8 VVC.

Only 500 cars were sold in the UK and the rest were exported, mostly to Japan

 

Recently an old friend I have known since I was 8 years old, asked me to join his company and this means a return to London.  I'm excited about my move, scheduled for August, as it will mean returning to many friends, who have continued to remain in touch, and being able to drink in my favourite coffee house again: The Troubadour.

The Troubadour Coffee House, London

On Thursday I took delivery of Windows 7 Professional and spent the day ridding my computer of the sluggish Vista.  It was a very quick and, relatively, painless process even when I moved all my files, videos and pictures, etc. from the back-up drive I'd popped them on before formatting.  Soon I was enjoying W7, except for one annoying thing: I couldn't connect to the internet.  My network controller no longer wished to recognise anything beyond itself.  Using my mobile phone to surf for solutions, I was interested to find many who had experienced the same problem, specifically with NVIDIA nforce network cards.  After a frustrating time, I gave up, went into town and for the huge sum of £7.99 (or about ten bucks) bought myself a new card, popped it into my computer and instantly reconnected to the world again.

I was keen to see if W7 might improve my Second Life experience and, after trying Phoenix, the preview of Phoenix Firestorm, Kirsten's and the Lab's Viewer 2, I was delighted by an average gain of about 5 to 10 fps and have settled on using my favourite, Kirsten's.

I am fortunate in being able to occupy one of the sims which is part of the beautiful Scottish Highlands in SL, so a move to London will not see me leave behind the Highlands completely.  We are taking part in SL8B and I have been enjoying completing our build, a copy of rl's Aldourie Castle.  The Highlands of Scotland is a magical place, so it fits in very well with the Lab's birthday theme for this year.

SL Billing Frustration

Some time ago, I think late last year, Linden Lab stopped all non-US using PayPal, introducing the second life cashier, but only for new non-US customers, and this left me unable to pay the Lab at all.

When the Lab introduced the SL Cashier, they did not "update" my account and so I continued to have the two original choices of payment method: Visa/MasterCard or PayPal.  I have a preloaded MasterCard, which I specifically bought to use online and this has been accepted everywhere, except SL.  No payments are accepted by SL when I try to use this card, and of course, if I try to use PayPal its also not accepted because I am not resident in the US.

At this point I developed my own workaround: I made an alt and, as a new, Non-US customer, I hoped I would be able to use the SL Cashier.  It worked, I now had a choice of payment methods, including Click and Buy, Visa/MasterCard and Solo/Maestro.

I was pleased to see Maestro was accepted, this being one of the most common charge cards issued with a UK current account.  I have been able to make payments for the last 6 months, using my Maestro card, buying lindens, then logging-in with my alt to transfer the cash to my main, until yesterday.

The payment options, under the Second Life Cashier, have now been reduced to Visa/MasterCard or Click and Buy.  Once again, I'm stuck and unable to use my MasterCard.

I read up on this Click and Buy, a little wary of using a service I have never heard of, but checking the internet doesn't bring up anything worrying, apart from the odd moan.  I registered with them, verified my Maestro card, using their process which is similar to PayPal verification of a card, and returned to my alt account page to purchase US$50 worth of lindens.

The transaction seemed to go through, but the lindens did not show-up on the account screen.  I checked to see if perhaps a US$ credit was made to my alt's account, but - nothing, only a "transaction pending" listed in the account's transactions.

I checked Click and Buy, which confirms the transaction is complete.  I check my bank account online and the US$50 has been deducted from my balance, or approx GBP£30.

I log-in again to my alt account and still nothing.

In the end, I had to phone billing, who were only able to raise a support ticket which will not be looked at until tomorrow, at the earliest and, from recent experience, I know it will be a miracle if the ticket is looked at in the next two months.

So, I'm not pleased, not only do the Lab seem to want to make it as difficult as possible to pay them anything, if you're non-US, but now US$50 is floating about somewhere, gone from my bank account, but not available for me to use in SL.  I want to use it now, that's why I attempted to buy Lindens.

Now, what am I supposed to do until the matter is resolved?