Education

More great gifts to pick up at The Bunny Hop!

This is a post also going up on the official Bunny Hop Blog. Please go there for a Japanese translation. I also tend to be a bit wordier in the posts on this blog than I am on the official Bunny Hop gridwide hunt blog. If you’re wondering about the title to this post, it relates to Bob Dylan in the first photo and answers in the second photo!

Wondering what that egg is hanging from my belt in these two photos? Well it comes with a belt latch so you can alway have it handy. Ask the Uncanny Egg from Grimalkin Workshop a question, touch it, and it will answer you - like the 8-ball you had when you were a kid! “The answer my friend…” 

Those of you I hang with in Second Life know that I met Hammer at Toby’s Juke Joint, so it’s a little special to us. And you all know I blogged Toby’s pretty heavily lately. I get a rash if I go too long without the blues, and Hammer named his RL dog after B.B. King’s guitar. So the blues has been the backdrop to our growing relationship.

Dancing to the blues on the deck at home

Now Toby’s is pretty much my regular hang-out (when I manage to pry myself away from the beach house), and since we met there a few weeks back, Hammer and I tend to pop back fairly often. It’s comfortable and feels like home to us.

This has been a difficult week real life and today was the most difficult of all. So I was not amused when I walked into Toby’s tonight, and who was there but my ex and his GF. I know he reads this blog; he knows I hang there. And I know he completely learned about Toby’s Juke Joint from this blog, because he has never, so help me, had an original idea on anyplace to go in Second Life. Ever.

Space Park in Second Life

So needless to say, I didn’t stay. I went out RL for a few hours (I’m a firm believer in the time-honored Friday happy hour tradition), and met Hammer back at the beach house once I was in a decidedly better humor. He wanted to stop by Savoy Jazz Club, which we did, but the dance balls were kind of out of sync. So we did a bit of shopping, and then we decided to head out to the Inspire Space Park, as he hadn’t seen it yet.

If you have not been to the Space Park, cancel all your other Second Life plans and GO. It is beautiful, spiritual and relaxing. We started out having a glass of wine, and could have been happy just sitting there lazily chatting and watching the shooting stars. You see, the sky changes, and you can never be sure what you will see next.

Floating weightless above the Space Park

We walked across some small asteroids to what appeared to be a dance floor. But when we clicked the dance ball, we floated off into space… all very 2001 Space Odyssey.

After awhile, it was time to float back down. I thought a bit of meditation might be in order. I was quite amazed at the calming effect of SL mediation as the platform I sat on slowly rotated among the heavens. The animations were familiar to me, as they are similar (though certainly not exact) to prayer rituals I have practiced so many times before at Hindu temples over the years RL in Bali.  Hammer was feeling a bit under the weather with a stomach bug RL, poor dear, and he said it made him feel better too.

Obviously, I wasn't expecting to be meditating when I put on this skirt!

Hammer and I communing with the universe

While we were chanting, I got a message from Tom Divisadero about an Ozzy concert over at Wild Hogs on the Full Throttle sim, so we did a complete about-face (the sublime to the ridiculous) and headed on over. This is SL at its best perhaps; a pulsating slate for artistry of all types. That, and the fact that Second Life allows us the opportunity to switch gears and attitudes at the speed of light.

Ohhhhmmmmmm

So I guess it is good to get out of your rut, even if you’re forced out of it.  Outer space, even when virtual, can make human idiocies seem small.

Class 5 in my Second Life Photoshop class. In response to what I thought was a simple question, I was completely overwhelmed by the answer.

[11:15] Katya Koolhaas: At the high-end, where one is willing to trade-off higher rendering times for increased image quality and precision, smooth surface representations such as Bézier patches, NURBS or Subdivision surfaces are used. One can however achieve a smooth surface rendering from a polygonal mesh through the use of shading algorithms such as Phong and Gouraud.

All I can say is Eeeeeeeek!!!!!!!!!!!

Since I’m both too cheap and too lazy to take a real life Photoshop class, as you know from a post last week, I’m taking a class in Photoshop in Second Life. I just completed my second class, and it was even better than the first. I learned lots more about layers, including effectively using the history brush. Well, it may not be your cup of tea, but it’s stuff I really wanted to know. However, I had to cut out a bit early for a real life appointment, so I left my avatar to take notes. Where was she when I was in law school?

But I know what you really want to hear about. The dish. You’ve come to the right place - just call me SL Gossip Girl. Because, unfortunately, no matter how ripe the peach, there is just no getting away from that annoying fly that buzzes around and buzzes around, and just drives you nuts.

Today’s class was nearly twice as big as last week. I should have expected that some yahoo who missed the first class would not read the provided notes and would spend the entire second class asking inane questions about lessons already covered. At one point I IM’d this “Gilligan” that I would loan him my notes from first class, but he seemed to miss my poison-tipped point. Gilligan took up so much time that when a friend from Holland called, we were able to completely catch up by phone without causing me to miss a thing in class. Do I look like I’m rolling my eyes in this photo? Gilligan’s face is covered to protect the guilty.

Worse yet, the guy is a complete brown noser. “Oh, Katya, I just LOVE the textures you sent us!” They’re files for us to learn on, Gilligan! I mean one is of a brick wall, for christ’s sake! And then when Katya, our instructor, politely answered “Thank you,” he said, “np” . No problem! You say “no problem” when you perform a favor for someone, like getting their cat out of a tree, not when they thank you for a silly compliment! Like it’s polite to imply “Yes, it was no problem for me to compliment you.” Sheeeesh! I’ve noticed this trend elsewhere in Second Life, and it needs to be stamped out before it spreads to the real world!

On a bright note, in addition to “Gilligan” this class also features a “Professor”. I’m not referring to the instructor, but to a man who knows how to discretely add a word or two of clarification just when it is most needed. Katya, he would make a fine teaching assistant.

My learning is further enhanced by a student who asks the questions I really want to but I know will get a raised eyebrow from the instructor. You go girl! You remind me of Ginger, unflappable and glamorous.

Of course, classes are always great places to meet nice people with similar interests, and I regularly exchange pleasantries and critical shopping information with the class nice girl, the “Mary Anne”.

My next class is tomorrow if I haven’t been thrown out for this blog post. Before then I’m hoping to find a “Skipper” who will toss “Gilligan” into next week.

I sit on a tree stump in the middle of a primeval forest, the soft breeze blowing through the green leaves, patterns of sunlight and shadow shifting at my feet. I glance at my circle of fellow students gazing raptly at our instructor as she explains critical concepts in detail. For most of us, these are lessons we will use for the rest of our lives. Suddenly I feel my teacher’s eyes on me… she has asked me a question while I was engulfed in a momentary daydream. Startled, I burble, “Yes, I understand how to apply the layer mask, Katya!” I look quickly into her face, her glasses pushed down her white snout, her whiskers trembling with authority. No, I’m not hearing voices or taking LSD. I’m taking a 10-week, twice-a-week Photoshop class from a cat in Second Life.

You might expect a virtual Photoshop class taught by a cat avatar for $4 a session (it was between this and a real life class for $120 per session) might not be of Seven Sisters quality. Au contrair, my skeptical friend. The instructor is professional, polished, knowledgeable and very, very experienced. She is, no doubt, one of the best instructors at TUI, Second Life’s Technical User Interfacing college. The students are oblivious to the species of this venerable feline as they question her about apha channels and tga files.

I know enough Photoshop to fake it now and then; it’s hard not to pick up a bit when you are in my RL business. But I’ve always wanted to really learn this program - and I have the stack of unread Photoshop books to prove it. Truth be told, I need deadlines and class assignments to make me focus on this rather than exclusively on my dozens of work deadlines. I invite you to check in here now and then to see how the class is progressing. Who knows, I may even invite you to the class fashion show at the end of the course!