First conviction for virtual theft in the Netherlands

In a criminal trial in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, on Tuesday, October 21st, two minors were convicted for stealing virtual goods in the online computergame "RuneScape". They had malteated and threatened another minor and forced him to transfer a virtual amulet and a virtual mask from his game account to theirs.

The judge ruled that virtual goods are indeed goods as mentioned in article 310 of the criminal code of the Netherlands and can therefore indeed be stolen.

We can see this as an acknowledgement of all the work virtual citizens put into the creation of virtual goods and we also know now that Dutch legislation is on our side when someone illegally takes these goods away from us. A step forward!

Zoinks!

When I came home from work today I could not get to my home location.

Zoinks! I hate it when my sim is offline!

What an ugly hole in the land...

I could walk to the end of the road, but no further. I just had to wait...

I was so happy when it came back online!
Sometimes you done know what you've got until you lose it...

Linden Lifestyles comes to an end

I just read the sad news: The Linden Lifestyles fashion blog will stop posting as of August 5th. This is very sad news: Linden Lifestyles was one of the things that inspired me to start the "White's Virtual Life"-blog.

I think I have neglected to put a link to them in this blog, so here it is now, now that it is almost too late. Fortunately they will keep the existing content online. So you can still go check it out.

I want to thank Sabrina Doolittle and Salome Strangelove for all the work they have done on that blog! I have learned a lot there and they helped me to find some of the best outfits in my wardrobe.

I know about the effort that goes into maintaining a blog, especially a high-quality, high-traffic one like Linden Lifestyles. They managed to keep it up for a very long time. Kudos to all of the Linden Lifestyles Staff!

The World at your Feet

Everybody wants the World at his or her feet. Well, here is your chance! On Sunday April 6th. 14:00-16:00 we will have an oriental party in Club XFM.

The Serenity Belly Dance Troupe will be performing and a live DJ will be spinning the disks for us.

And the World will be at your feet! It's a promise, come and see ;)

Dress code: Sexy & elegant

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Yeodeol/101/78/83

What's in a name?

You may have heard it: We are no longer allowed to refer to Second Life *) as the title of a website. So I have decided to change the name of this blog to "White's Virtual Life" instead of "White's Second Life".

People say Linden Labs must have been afraid the name Second Life would go the same way as Kleenex or Xerox: No longer a brand, but more a product. Well, I must say I see no problem with Kleenex or Xerox. The same happened to Google: The word google is nowadays not just used as a noun, but even as a verb! So what? It makes Google into a search engine nobody will ever forget. Yahoo tried to reach this effect on purpose with their slogan: "Do you Yahoo?" but it did not work for them.

The way I see it, this change of name in the blog takes me one step away from Second Life. Sure, I am still a resident of Second Life, but with this name on the blog it can also be about other virtual reality, like VRML, VirtuoCity or even the World of Warcraft. :)

*) Second Life is a registered trademark of Linden Labs.

Rezday

Today it was one year ago I first rezzed in Second Life. Time for a party! Tull and I invited all our friends and we broadcast notices in our groups. I also posted this as an official event on the SL website.


The party turned out to be a big success. Many people visited Club XFM and many thought this was a new location. No, it is not, I have just redecorated the place beyond recognition :) People enjoyed the XFM audio stream that features non-stop dance music 24/7. (Well except for the short news broadcasts, but someone even said she loved to dance to the news :D )


Highlight of the party was a performance by my good friend Samantha Gustafson. It was her début as a stand-up comedian in Second Life and it was very well recieved by the guests. I think we will see more of her in the future.

Another train

Today Tull took me for a ride in his car to take me to a surprise location. And I was certainly surprised. He took me to see a train! (At http://slurl.com/secondlife/Steamboat/78/84/68)


Of course we wanted to have a look inside...


So I sat down, waiting for the train to depart...


...but nothing happened! Maybe this was a self-service train?
We got out and started to inspect the engine.
Driving a train can't be very difficult! Where is the main valve?


The was no way to make the train move, so we decided to inspect the tracks instead. Where do they lead? First they went over a beautiful bridge and then they disappeared into a tunnel...


And that was the end of the tracks! Obviously this train was not created to move, it was just a static build. And a very nice one!

We had a nice chat in IM with Farallon Greyskin, the guy who built this masterpiece. He turned out to be a friendly furry character. He explained that the train had far too many prims to be used as a vehicle. It was just designed to be static.
We complimented him on his building skill and then we picked up the car and went home to Tull's skybox for a final dance for this evening...