Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund update: First $1,000 raised!!

I posted the following "press release" to the SLED Picayune blog and to the SLED listserv yesterday:

"In an effort to provide Second Life residents with a means of supporting the "Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund," SL resident, a RL Virginia Tech faculty member, Milosun Czervik (Ross Perkins) initiated an in-world fundraising campaign on April 19th. Hundreds of SL residents have been donating funds via donation boxes and vendors, where they can receive a Hokies t-shirt to wear on their avatar.

After a silent auction, held this past week on EduIsland (see the Chronicle of Higher Education web report), the goal of raising L$300,000 has been reached. The funds have been converted to US dollars via LindeX, yielding $1,085 US.Once the money has been deposited to a PayPal account and can be accessed, Perkins will write a check for the full amount to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. Next up? Perkins plans to initiate a new campaign to raise more funds for the Memorial Fund and scholarships that have been started in memory of the victims of the April 16 tragedy."

For this blog, I want to personally thank a number of volunteers who helped make the VT Memorial and the HSMF fundraiser possible (this list will grow as I remember/find more names!)

Lorelei Junot, Abbey Zenith, Katrina Sol, Marston Davids, Penelope Ghia, Perefim Cao, Eloise Pasteur, Dedric Mauriac, Dagmar Kojishi, Ann Enigma, ZeroOne Paz, DianaPrince Carter, Eddie Hagoromo, Robin Linden...

HSMF Fundraising Report

I am *so* excited to announce today that I am on the way to raising another US$1,000 for the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund! This means, of course, that the wonderful, generous SL residents helped meet the first L$300,000 goal! That goal was surpassed this week, when those who participated in the Silent Auction on EduIsland helped raise nearly L$15,000. Then, tonight, the HSMF received an unexpected, generous donation of L$10,000 - which is great start for the next L$300K goal.

So, I put the first batch of Linden dollars up for sale on LindeX (a limit sell of L$265 to US$1.00) on the advice of one SL colleague. I expected this to sell in three days. However, I got impatient after waiting all day and see nada. In fact, I was quite discouraged to see that there was something like L$15 million in open orders at this rate. Another SL colleague (Coal Edge) shared his wisdom - he sells for 267/1.00. I tried this tonight and within 10 minutes, ALL funds had sold and the net result was $84 greater than my goal! Now - I just have to move it to PayPal and give a check to Virginia Tech!! It appears that Edge's logic to sell at a rate where there is a low amount of open orders works very well (generally the lowest rate +1 or +2). If I'd gone with 265, I'd possibly have waited 3 more days for a mere US$8.00...

One question I am trying to get answered is whether not LindenLab will waive the 3.5% conversion fee. This would give another US $40 (or so) back. I can understand if they do not, but it would be great if they did that. Perhaps they'll make a matching gift ?? ;-)

VT Memorial Digital Archive

A digital library that captures stories and images about the tragedy at Virginia Tech on 16-APR-07.

Nozulla

Just funny...

Nozulla may cause the following symptoms: itchy rashes, full body hair loss, projectile vomiting, gigantic eyeball, the condition known as 'hot dog fingers,' children born with the head of a golden retriever, seeing the dead, bone liquification, possession by the Prince of Darkness, tail growth, elderly pregnancy....

Sculpties test on the Beta Grid

I downloaded the new SL Beta Client yesterday and tooled around with the "sculptured prim" (sculpties). I'm sure this will be big when it hits the main grid; we are likely to see SL come to stand for "still life," as bowls of fruit will start popping up all over the place. What I want to learn is how to make a sculptie texture. The beta client only comes with the APPLE texture as default, so you have to save/upload the banana, stem, plate, cube textures yourself. The link for that is here: http://tinyurl.com/32wfx8




I found some problem though - that a sculpted prim would snap out of shape from time to time. So, instead of being a sculpted cube, for instance, I would all of a sudden see a sphere. I'm not sure if this is an artifact of my graphics card or if its beta bug (my guess is the latter).



http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Sculpted_Prims

http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/04/27/the-advent-of-an-illustrious-age-of-sculpted-prims/

Silent Auction covered in Chronicle of Higher Ed blurb

Ms. Foster called me today around 11:30 am; the short article about the Silent Auction in SL has already been posted! Thanks, Andrea!

Silent Auction to benefit Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund

To benefit the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, I've set up a "silent auction" on EduIsland. It goes from today through Sunday, May 13.

The idea is to browse the objects and offer the most you would be willing to pay for them (which is done via a web-based survey tool). Remember, this is a charity event, so the point is to bid generously!!

You do not need to be in SL to bid. The bid forms (which have links to pictures of items) are linked from: http://www.oero.soe.vt.edu/sl/index.html

More detailed instructions are found at the SL site and on the bid forms. Going to the SL allows bidders to learn more about the tools on which they might be bidding. The SLURL is: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland/121/127/23


The following items are available:

1) Many tools useful for educators, donated by Eloise Pasteur, Dagmar Kojishi, Dedric Mauriac, and Ann Enigma

2) A Retail Holodeck Room (with 40 scenes) donated by Bishop Carroll

3) Artwork by Alchimia Jewell and Professor Believeau

4) Misc. furniture


Happy bidding!! If you have questions, please let me know. I guess we'll see how this works...