Monday, April 14, 2008
Everything is Borked ™
Most of you know this already.

If you have purchased something and haven't gotten it due to the borkedness™ please send another note card. You aren't the only one who is losing inventory, not getting delivered items, etc etc.

At this point, I believe to be caught up on all customer issues. So if you're expecting something and haven't gotten it, give me a holler and let me know. I'll need all the usual information again, transaction number, date, item, destination.

Please note! If the destination is Haedon Quine send the note card to her. I cannot verify purchases that went to her, and vice versa. Please contact whichever of us is listed as the destination on your transaction information. That will expedite things for you.

Customer issues aside, I have a confession. I've had zero desire to create anything for a while. I've played with the Eloh skins, and have some that you might actually be seeing sometime soon. I've spent months trying to figure out sculpties and how to make something that wasn't a phallic stand-in. I think, maybe, finally, I've got it figured out to a large degree, and I picked up some sculpt maps on SLX (who knew branches made good hair?) which also helps supplement my less than fabulous sculptistry.

I know most of you are aware of the IP rights campaign.



The content theft has really been a wet blanket to my creativity. It's really hard to want to create something when the fear of it being stolen is ever-looming. And honestly it's taken me this long to come to grips with it. Just when I think I'm okay, someone else close to me has something copied and I take a few steps back. It's really discouraging and sometimes down right depressing.

And this post has now been sitting unpublished a few days (so I'm likely behind again, lol!) because I found one of my styles stolen again. It's been duplicated and mirrored. So far I've only been able to find pictures on ads for said hair, the hair itself doesn't appear to be in the boxes. Which is strange, and maybe someone else got to them first and has filed a DMCA for their own style resulting in removal of all of them at that location. I don't know. But I've spent a fair amount of time trying to track it down so I can file DMCAs.

See what I mean? Just when you start to think "Okay, I can do this," and reach down to grab your bootstraps, someone kicks you in the behind and shoves you face first in the mud.

Anyway, I'm hopefully back to the grindstone now. I just wanted to let you guys know I hadn't been eaten by the asset server, too.

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posted by Tigerlily Koi @ 1:09 PM   2 comments
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Happy St. Patrick's Day Weekend!
Feelin' lucky?

There are greens and green tips packs of hair in the lucky chairs for the weekend. They will be there through Monday.

There are LOTS of different styles in there, and some for the men too!

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posted by Tigerlily Koi @ 4:40 PM   0 comments
Friday, March 14, 2008
Tag I'm It!
Ryker tagged me, and I'm just now getting to it. Cause honestly I had to wait for a book to end up on my desk that wasn't a board book. So, here we go.

The Book Meme

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

The Tao of Equus

'The only way you'll be able to wake up from your own nightmare is if you start paying attention to all your feelins, in the present. In fact, I'm going to step off my soapbox now, and ask Noche to help you work on it.'
Because Joy was in such a dissociative state, I decided to let her simply groom the bay horse, hoping he still might help her gain a better understanding of how she lost contact with herself when she felt threatened.


And I'm tagging:

Arabeth Laval
Ciera Bergman
Sachi Vixen
Annyka Beckers
Shelly Toonie

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posted by Tigerlily Koi @ 12:14 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
I'm a donut too!
I saw this over on Berry's Blog and couldn't resist.

Krispy Kremes. Lord, had I known when they went public with their stock, I'd seriously have gotten like 100 shares. Anyway, here's my donutality. Strangely enough, it's also pretty much the only kind of donut I ever eat.




You Are a Glazed Donut



Okay, you know that you're plain - and you're cool with that.

You prefer not to let anything distract from your sweetness.

Your appeal is understated yet universal. Everyone digs you.

And in a pinch, you'll probably get eaten.

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posted by Tigerlily Koi @ 2:52 AM   5 comments
Monday, February 18, 2008
Ooo the drama!
Anyone who knows me knows that I avoid drama at all costs. Anyone who really knows me knows that I have no qualms about standing up and saying what I feel the need to say. This is one of those rare times that the two overlap. It bugs me to no end when someone feels the need to speak on my behalf because they don't think I'm capable of doing it for myself.

So lest anyone think for a second that may be true and I don't have the balls to state my own feelings, here are some of my thoughts on a a recently "hot" post to hit the fashion feed. I'd rather my own words be read than implied by someone else.

Truth said...

"P.S Haedon and Lily I have your back on this issue as you guys are some of the quiet ones and I dont mind being the loud mouth cock on this issue ;)"

I saw the comment that was made about Calla on Sofia's blog. It wasn't actually in her original post, but in a comment she made to someone else's comment about her original blog post. (Five times removed and someone is their own grandpa's mother's dog's uncle.)

She said:

Sofia Gray said...

I would agree with you Chardonnay, however Truth (as well as Frangipani, and Calla) is/are a store(s) that build the majority of his collection by knocking off ETD styles. (Actually, Calla has a lot of original stuff, but lately it seems like they are desperately grasping by copying ETD styles...[cut]...

Did it bother me to be accused of being a "store(s) that build[s] the majority" of our collection "by knocking off ETD styles" and by "desperately grasping by copying ETD styles"? You bet your ass it did.

When I read it, I was pissed. Mostly it hurt my feelings, because I work hard at what I do and put a lot of time, effort and thought into the products I make and will not release something that I don't feel 100% confident in the quality of. But after that because I know it's not true and was such a broad generalization and blanket statement. So my pissiness lasted a minute or three until I realized she was stating her opinion, and even if the rest of the grid thinks I copy ETD's styles, so what? I know the truth. I'm the one who has to live with myself. I'm the one who has to look in the mirror every day. I'm the one who sleeps comfortably at night (assuming my kids let me). I'm the one who has customers that adore the styles I've made who own both Calla and ETD styles and don't think they are at all alike.

I know I haven't copied Elika's styles (or anyone else's for that matter). I'm the one who sooo wanted to go and buy up half of her store when she had that 25L sale and didn't feel that I could, because of potential broad generalizations by people who don't know what they're talking about. I guess I'd rather "avoid the appearance of evil" and miss out on great hair than put myself in a position that may look suspect. I'm honestly sick of that whole mentality of hair makers not being able to own something another hair maker made because of "so and so copied so and so, and look they bought this, and look what they just made that looks just like that" but that's an entirely different rant.

We're all entitled to our opinions. We're all entitled to express them however we see fit. In the grand scheme of things, one person's comment about what they think I do doesn't really carry a lot of weight with me. So much so that I didn't feel it warranted a response. She has her opinion, I've got mine, and readers as well as customers have theirs, too.

I quit caring what people thought of me after I made it out of high school alive; which was a long time ago. I enjoy what I do. I enjoy my customers. If I make something you like, that's fabulous! If you don't like it, that's okay too. What a boring place the world would be if we all liked the same things.

I was offended, momentarily, by a blanket statement that was unwarranted and I feel (oooo look, my opinion!) undeserved by someone that I'm not sure even owns any styles I've made. She has the right to express that opinion (whether she owns anything I've made or not) just as I've the right to be upset by it, get over it and let it go. The world turns. We all make choices. We can choose to let things like that upset us, or we can choose to take it with a grain of salt and move on.

Keep doing what you love, whether it be making hair, or stating your opinions about things, or sitting around with your thumb up your ass and watching it all happen.

Really, in six months, will any of this matter?

Sofia, I may not agree with everything you write. I may not appreciate what you said about Calla, and therefore about me specifically and one of the most important people in my life (Haedon, just so there's no confusion by anyone). However, I do respect your opinion as being your own, and your right to voice your thoughts and feelings without being hammered into changing them to suit someone else, and I have no right to ask or expect you to do differently. Lord knows I don't cave to what someone else feels I "should" do.

I'll keep making hair you don't have to like, you keep making statements I don't have to like, and somewhere along the way people are going to agree with one or both or neither of us.

That, to me, is the beauty of creation, whether in words, or prims, or any other medium.

To our customers who continue to show faith in us and continue to send kind words at the times we need them most, thank you for standing by us and enriching our lives, both first and second. To those of you who aren't our customers, I only ask that you evaluate our work first-hand and form your own opinions.

Signed,
A tired Lily whose mother-in-law is in town staying with her and thus feels the need to rant endlessly.

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posted by Tigerlily Koi @ 4:28 AM   12 comments
Monday, February 04, 2008
We need your voice!
Please, if you haven't yet, go here:

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-676

And VOTE! Make your voice heard! The votes are only at 600 this morning. Haedon sent out a notice to our group, which consists of nearly 3000 users. There are lots more who aren't in our group, so that number should be considerably higher than 600! The jira always runs slow (at least for me anyway) so be patient. If everyone hits the page at once, it's going to be even slower. Please, please make it a priority to go and vote on this issue!

The process is extremely easy, and here's what you should see:



Now you need to login to the jira with your Second Life username and password. This is a Linden Labs site, so your information is safe. It's no different than logging into the SL website.



Once you're logged in, on the left hand side of the page you will see this:



This is where you click Vote for it. The page will reload, and you get this:



Content theft effects all of us. In this situation skins are being mentioned specifically, but there is so much theft grid-wide. This impacts the creators the hardest, and first. When our work is taken out from under us, and given for free or next to nothing, we're 1) losing sales and 2) forced to lower our prices to get sales back that *should* have been ours in the first place.

I read a blog entry by dandellion Kimban this morning, and would like to quote parts of it here. Her original post was regarding free skins, but it so applies to this situation of all content being stolen. I found it a really thought provoking article if you have the time to read it. (emphasis added is mine)

"On the other side, there is just one item that keeps its price stable: land. And may I say, compared to anything else, land is too fucking expensive. And, it is very important, land tier is paid in US$, not in lindens. Even if you are living on an estate and pay your landlord/lady in lindens, they pay US$ to Linden Lab. All of a sudden, we are not talking microcurrency linden peanuts, we are talking hard green cash recognizable in any bank on planet Earth. What does that mean?

That means that content creators are working for third world wages while land barons are doing serious biz here. And, mind yu, making skins, hairs, scripts and all the rest of lovely things we use takes a bit more knowledge, skills, creativity and time than buying an island, placing prefab houses and renting all that. All of a sudden there is an ethical problem of giving those skins for free! Dropping prices is not a good idea anymore. Dropping prices is taking money from content creators. And content creators need money. They need to be payed for their work and they need to cover their expenses. They need to pay for the land their shop is on. And that price won't drop with everything else."


Those two paragraphs tell more than anyone could explain in a whole dissertation. When we lose sales because we've lost the content that we spent time, effort, heartache, and money to create, we lose the ability to pay for the land we sit on. If we can't afford our rent, or our tier, they kick us out. We can't keep an island for free, believe it or not! (The Lindens frown on that for some reason.) If we can't pay the rent, they're going to kick us out to find someone who can.

This effects every single person on the grid. When the content creators are not protected, when we can't make enough sales to cover our business expenses, there's not going to be anything for the rest of the grid to buy. Which effects the economy. Which effects Linden Labs. Which means they're not making money to cover their business expenses (servers are expensive!) and will either sell out, or close down.

This is not a minor situation! As Ming-Ming would say: "This is sewious!"

Here is a poignant video from Minnu that sums it up nicely.

And if you've gotten this far, for the love of all that is created on the grid, go VOTE already!!!

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posted by Tigerlily Koi @ 11:41 AM   2 comments
Friday, January 25, 2008
My Skins for Another Fundraiser!
This is one of the most amazing contributions to the grid. Eloh's done an incredibly generous thing by giving the community the .psd files for these skins. I've learned so much over the last few weeks that I've been playing with them. I have a completely new appreciation for those people who make skins. This is not an easy thing!

Here are my donations for the Another Fundraiser. All proceeds from this fundraiser are going to Unicef.

I did three different makeups, in three skintones. Here are some close ups of the faces.







And here's a full ad so you know what you're looking for when you get there.



There are so many skins! I've seen a few blogged that are absolutely incredible, and I'm sure that's just scratching the surface. There are over 100 skins, and they are all 50L$ each. Yes. Five. Zero. Fifty!!! It's for a good cause so please be generous with your L$.

I can't begin to say how much I've learned, and how much I've enjoyed being a part of this effort. I'd like to personally thank Sasy Scarborough for undertaking the organization of this huge effort. She's had skins and ad textures and note cards and questions and who knows what else thrown her way from so many people, and has done a fabulous job putting this together.

I hope to see y'all this weekend, 'cause I am so going to be there grabbing some of these fabulous works of art!

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posted by Tigerlily Koi @ 10:36 AM   2 comments
 
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