Update about JT Investment Certificates

Arbitrage Wise posted today an update on the SLCapex website about the JT Investment Certificates. To comply with the new LindenLab policy, the JTIC are no longer paying a fix interest rate.

Instead they are now a classical investment company with a target of 0.06L$ monthly dividend per share. I dont exaclty understand why this was a need, as the shares are not exchanged within SecondLife, but the move is smart and bottom line is the same, if not better ;-)

The exact information from Arb can be found here: http://www.slcapex.com/home/story/JTIC/1358

We will now see how things will go on, as today is the day LL will supposedly remove all ATMs from institutions paying interests...

JTIC share back at original price

After some strong fluctuations, the price of the JT Investment Certificates (SLCapex: JTIC) came back to its original level, in the 1.12L$ range. When JTF created the JTIC, I bought a bunch of them for 1.05.

During the last weeks, when the banks ban announced by LindenLab shook the banking industry, I was lucky enough to buy a second batch of JTICs at 0.65L$ each. This was kind of a risky bet, but now that the price is back, the question is to know if I must sell some of them or keep them all.

As I continue to trust Arbitrage Wise and the guys at JTF, I will obviously keep them !

Tuesday will be an interesting day as it will be the limit date defined by LL to remove the ATMs... As JTF no longer pays interest, I wonder if they will remove them or not.

Eggs and Basket

As Mr. Oh very appropriately commented on my last post, I'm putting all my eggs in the same basket, and it is true that last time (Ginko...) this strategy gave catastrophic results.

However the think is a bit different this time, because all of the banking industry in SecondLife is at risk with the new ruling LL seems to put in place. As I already explained a bank is vital for me to achieve my goal.

So if all baskets fall down, my eggs will be broken anyway. As I have not a lot of time, diversifying outside banking is not possible, so the fate of my quest is strongly bound to the fate of SL banks...

Banco ! All In JTIC !

The anouncement by Linden Lab to remove all ATMs except those from registered banks (?) created a huge bang and mini-panic on the stock market.

My personal decision is to call for "Banco !" and put all my money in JT Investment Certificates ! So I now hold 20020 JTIC shares and no "cash" on my SL Capital Exchange account. I made this investment for three reasons:

1. Show my support to Arbitrage Wise and all the team at JT Financials
2. LL's new rules seems to apply to interests, not dividends ;-)
3. Thanks to some selling lemmings I could get JTIC shares for 0.65 L$ each !

If JTF was to fully collapse - which I think will not happen - I will lose everything. Anyway my challenge can't be achieved without a bank paying interests...

I wish new successes to JTF and Arb ! You have all my support, guys !

LindenLab to regulate banks in SecondLife !

LindenLab posted yesterday on their official blog a post saying they will start to remove ATMs from SecondLide as of 22 of January !

The only way a bank could continue to operate in SL is to register with LL:

"We will not apply this policy to companies who submit a registration statement, charter, or other applicable license from a governing regulatory authority, or who are merely conducting marketing or education, but not accepting payments."

As a reaction, many people started to withdraw their money from banks, including from JT Financials and the SL Capital Exchange. Consequently cash withdrawals from JTF has been limited (see this post from Arbitrage Wise in the forums).

For the time being I do trust the team at JTF to manage this situation, even if I'm not really surprised by LL decision. My money is still by JTF and partly invested in SLCapex, and remember that even if the withdrawal stop may look "Ginko-ish" the reasons are totally different: Ginko was short of cash - JTF is not !

So no panic, and let's see how things will go on ! The LL decision is new, and JTF will submit for a registration, so the best for the time being is wait and see. There could even be good business to do !

GUEST POST from Wrager Creeley

I mentionned in yesterday's post that I met many interesting persons via SL. One of them is Wrager Creeley, which I could hardly define. Wrag is always full of ideas, of enthusiasm, and of energy.

I asked him several times to share his ideas via the blog, and he finally did it. To be fair, I don't understood myself all what he wrote in this guest post...

"Hello readers:

Well I'd like to tell about a thing for this blog...

I must really do. About some things in Second Life, and my story... Oh and I am Wrager Creeley btw, and you may also know me as, on many other sites, as "Mrcreds", "Mrcreds\Alex", or "MrcredsAlex"

Oh and yeah I am alex11 and Ltalexgt on Anarchy Online too... you really must know about me!

Well it all started on Anarchy Online AKA AO.

Yeah I am the leader of that organization you may know as, "Sixximux", and I own the most-known nickname in all the internet...

Well believe it or not, it's just true...

After beign called "Leader of a cult", "King of Kongregate", "Kongregate's StrawberryClock", and, "OMG DA GUY DAT SUBMITS CRAP TO KONGREGATE OMG OMG I <3>

I think I should really write this...


My Second Life is like everybody's. I(must say first I am a BOY in Real Life) have, my first-created, (NOW NAME REVEALED YAYAYAYYAYA) Super Sexy Outfit, who is just a woman with photo-textured eyes and hair, avatar... I rarely show it now. Only to early-known friends who first seen me with it. I have too my created big avatar, a Mario and Sonic one... and yeah, my Second Life is like yours. I keep hearing "OMG UR A MOTHERFUCKER UR GOING DOWN >.<" sounds, I sometimes get banned for doing good things, and, this is less-known, my nickname is MrcredsAlex... on the internet... and when playing MMORPGs, I too see names like "OMGLETSPVPIPWNUURASUCKERRUBBISHIAM1337YAYAYAYAYAYAY"

You may not expect this, but... I DON'T PLAY WORLD OF WARCRAFT! I play RuneScape currently...

I am not a big-earner, not a poor guy, in Second Life, but I really have big dreams... I am scriptor of things done in 5 minutes that are sold for 50000L$ at least and I sell it for just 100L$... I never use BIG prices...

People hates and loves me, and I believe in the fact, that even applies to myself, "a person is a retard or a complete idiot"

Second Life is not a game... Second Life is a big-earner for Linden Labs... I love it, I play it very, very, VERY, VERY REALLY, VERY REALLY OFTEN! Almost every day. Well, EVERY DAY for around 6 hours if nothing stops me from doing it.

I have a premium account, and, as of this year, I get it free selling the stipends using pay-per-year...

Love, but sadly, unfortunately, this is exactly how the life is... you do good things to get bad things back at you... MrcredsAlex. Oh, by the way, I am NOT crying now because I know life will FOREVER be this, not life, but retarded-brains of people who can't think of things before doing them. I love myself, life, my friends, everyone. But I know everyone except some of my friends hates me... Forever remember... this... I have not lied in this, it's all truth... Talk to you later when you guess the name of a person who has the fake lastname of Loire. (Serously) (not me)

BTW: I love Super mario 64 YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY

Again, love, MrcredsAlex. Love, MrcredsAlex. Love, MrcredsAlex... lololololol... g0mlawlzma0...

Think of that again. Yes, I know what you're thinking of. Because you must OZEY... (yeah, the z is on purpose)... "

SecondLife goes on... without me

Weather in Switzerland was just perfect today. What has the swiss weather to do with getting a millionaire in Second Life ? The link is quite obvious indeed, I'm leaving in vicinity of Geneva, and weather was so appealing today that I spent my day outside. The computers were off the all day, I went online for a very short while.

One of the funny things with SecondLife, which also makes it really addictive, is that it runs even if you don't get connected. The value of my stocks changed, my bank accounts generated interests, some people went to my shop and bought items, some other joined the group, and so on...

Because SecondLife's world is persistent and going on without its users, one is always tempted to go back and see how it changed.... especially people having financial interests in it. And this is not saying anything about emotional involvment...

Nevertheless, a day without any SecondLife activity (ok, only a few...) was perfectly survivable.

Attack on Josephina's 9 / 11 tribute - Shame on you morons !

As announced in my last post, Josephina Bonetto was holding a tribute to 9 / 11 victims yesterday evening (european time). This has been broken up by some "flying dollars" which made the sim quite hard to use, as you can see on this picture. The notes were flying around in large number and were completely out of control.

If this has been caused by some idiot neighboor, it's really stupid and demonstrates bad handling of SecondLife capabilities... But if this has been done intentionally, which is quite likely, it is then the mark of infamy. This kind of action, managed remotely, without any reason, just to harm someone's projects is really mean, especially when it ruins an event dedicated to heroes like those of 9 / 11. I can't find any strong enough words to say how disgusted I am...

Jo filed an abuse report to LindenLab, and I sincerely hope that they will react strongly, and make sure that the abuser will never ever do that again !

About the shop and the campsite directory

As my first customer bought the polynesian tattoo, I replaced it with a female blondie skin, which is for sale at a price of 25L$. You can still find the watches vendor, offering various kind of watches for 2L$ each, and a donation box.

The next step will be the development of a notecard or landmark giver. My plan is to use it to give away my favorite campsite addresses to the members of "Free Money from JohnLight" group, for free. One more reason to join the group, apart from the chance to win 1'000'000L$ when I will have them. This notecard / landmark distributor will be the first step of my campsite inventory project.

I've nothing else special to report, I'm camping again as much as my computer can, and my money by Midas is producing interests, so everything is under control... stay tuned !

GUEST POST - The Reality of Running a Second Life Business by Josephina Bonetto

Club Josephina opened for business on Saturday 21 July 2007 at 11am SLT. Now that I am nearing the end of my first month of trading, I am writing this blog entry to provide an insight into my experience so far.

One choice I made in starting my own business was to buy mainland with no covenant. The negative side to this is there is less prim space. I purchased my first 512 sq.m parcel of land in Gula from my sign up bonus, weekly stipends, and camping proceeds for $L5, 500. I now own 2,048 sq.m in Gula, 512 sq.m in Zoshchenko and 2,048 sq.m in Salliohsis.

On average, since I opened, Club Josephina has hosted three events a week with mixed results but the club is open 24/7. Non cash prizes given away at events have included a Skybox and a Sexgen Bed.

Club Josephina Statistics:

• Group Membership 234.
• Club Managers = 2.
• Fired employees = 3.
• Dance Machines = 2.
• Total Votes Received To Date = 49.
• Total Unique Visitors To Date = 902.
• Total Unique Visitors On Opening Night = 53.
• Total Banned Residents (Griefers) = 5.
• Total Vending Spaces (Mini Mall) = 7.
• Largest Tip = $L500.
• Largest Donation = $L500.
• Total Cost of Lost/Missing/Damages Items To Date = $L5, 600.
• Total Relevant SIM Crashes = 3.

How Club Josephina Generates Income:

• 20% of all tips.
• Donations.
• Sales of my own clothing and artwork.
• Rental of vending spaces in the Mini Mall on the Upper Floor for $L100 per week for 20 prims.

Examples of Club Josephina Costs:

• Land Tier Fee for Club and Garden alone is $15USD per month.
• The original nightclub purchase cost $L2, 500, the rebuild cost nothing.
• Modifiable and copiable tip jars cost $L1, 000 to purchase.
• Modifiable and copiable dance poles cost $L3, 000 to purchase (they can be configured for camping).
• My now redundant Sploder cost $L399 to purchase.
• Advertising for the Club is currently $L50 per week. On off Search entry fee of $L30.
• Group set up costs a one time fee of $L100.
• Three contests per week with $L100 cash prize = $L300.
  

Have I made any money? Income for period 21/07/07 – 16/08/07:

• Tips/Gifts/Donations/Sales for Club Josephina = $L4, 234.
• Camping Income = $L4, 023.

Club Josephina Contact Details:

• http://slurl.com/secondlife/Gula/73/244/114
• http://secondlife-clubjosephina.moonfruit.com/
• http://secondlifeclubjosephina.blogspot.com/
• Join Group “Club Josephina” (no joining fee).
• IM Josephina Bonetto for TP/LM/Info.

Related Groups:

• Josephina Bonetto Holdings
• Postcard From Utopia

Second Life client optimisation

This post is an old idea which remained a draft for weeks, and this relatively quiet period is a good time to publish it, especially as it has nothing to to with banking.

As all long time campers know, the SecondLife client is consuming memory over time (the so-called memory leak) and requires quite a powerful computer. Even if the later versions are more stable, there are some possibilities to make it run longer.

All the settings can be accessed via the Preferences menu. What you can do to help a mid-class PC to run the client longer is:

1) In the General tab, select to never display the names, this will remove the numerous labels over the avatars.
2) In the Graphics tab, reduce the Draw Distance to its minimum,and chose "Sun and moon only" in the Lighting Detail box
3) In the Graphics Detail tab, put Terrain Detail to low, and all mesh detail cursors to the minimum (left side)
4) In Adv. Graphics tab, diminish the Fog Distance Ratio
5) In Audio & Video tab, check the "Mute" box
6) Disable the Voice Chat via the Voice Chat tab

Doing all of that, you will reduce the bandwith and CPU requirements, making your client more stable.

Everything clear now about Ginko

As announced by Ginko, I got an account by WSE (www.wselive.com), and I received one Ginko Perpetual Bond (GPB) for each Linden Dollar I had by Ginko.

I had to go to a WSE ATM to obtain a password, and then I could access my account. The next bad surprise was that these bonds are currently worth 0.16L$ each ! So I lost 84% if my total in the Ginko crash.

As I'm back, I was able to get back online as well, and I saw that many campsites did vanish, and the lands are now for sale. This is probably becasue they got all their money from gambling, so they have nothing left to redistribute via camping.

The group "Free Money from JohnLight" is still active, and I got some feed-back and support from various member, and I want to thank them for that, it is good to feel such interest in what I'm trying to do.

The next steps are to decide what to do with the bonds, sell them yet and loose 84%, or hope they will get more value, which is not so likely, and keep them for a while. I must also find new campsites, and I hope the group will be helpful for that.

The quest for the 1'000'000 L$ is not yet stopped, so stay tuned !

No camping today

SecondLife is still experiencing major troubles, apparently related to the last update and the introduction of the voice client. The official SL blog is permanently announcing trouble, but not a lot of problems solved.

Today I had problems with money transfer, making camping useless, and teleport did not worked, so I could not go anywhere. The mood of the group was quite bad, as we are all facing the same problems. Some even filled problem reports to LindenLab.

I will make a new attempt later on, but for the time being, there is nothing to be done.

Blog refresh done !

I hope you will all like the new layout and colors of this blog... Let me show you all the new features.

First, and this was the main motivation for the change, the archive is now readable. The previous font was a bit tiny...

Another new item is the indication of my present balance, so I won't have to put it in the post titles anymore, and it will be easier for you to have an idea how quickly the quest for 1'000'000 L$ is progressing.

All the blog widgets (feed, del.icio.us contact, ...) are now grouped together, and finally I put a picture of JohnLight, which I will update when funny or special things will happen.

I sincerely hope that you will like this modifications, and enjoy this blog even more.

The gambling days are over - news about the 1'000'000 L$ lottery

It is now clearly confirmes that any gambling in Second Life is agains the Terms and Conditions of use. One indicator how serious it is is that even Ginko stopped their weekly lottery. I certainly did not visit all casinos, but I guess they all shut their slot machines down.

Another hint is that group notices for parties no longer mention any sploder. I'm even guessing if Platinum is impacted by that or not, as their camping rate is random. May be they escape the new rule because there is no need to pay to start earning.

Regarding the 1'000'000 L$ lottery I initially envisaged to do when I will have earnd my million Linden Dollars, I have to find something new. The only thing that won't change is that it will be given to one of the "Free Money from JohnLight" group.

JohnLight's landmarks book - Best-of

This post is a list of all the campsites I use and prefer, with a short description. From my point of view, some are amongst the best camping in Second Life. The head of sections are the name of the islands.

Banquo
My favorite campsite for semi-supervised camping. It offers 3L$ / 10 minutes, but is limited to one hour camping sessions. It's in a dance-club, but not a lot of traffic and no moving trees or such memory consuming items.

Apfelland
This one is really CROWDED and full of complex objects, so a good performance is needed. On the plus side, it offers unlimited 2L$ / 10 minutes camping benches. I must mention that sometimes I got ejected, so I guess that the owner tries periodically to identify passive campers. My "personal best" here was 112 L$ in an overnight.

Oceania
You will find here the Skye Club, with three Dance Dance machines. These were the first I found, and where I met Josephina. They have many pads paying zero, and their total limitation is 150 L$.

Willow Beach
You will find here Club Xero, with three Dance Dance, limited to 100 L$, but with no pads paying zero. Note that recently they were frequently off.

Monevole
This island is hosting an "Hot'n Gay club" (sic...), with a series of 3L$ / 15 minutes pads, limited to 15 L$. Really stable, no issues.

MediaScape
This island is hosting 2 Dance Dance limited to 300 L$, which is the highest limit I know. They have no pads paying 0, but there rate are really slow. Be careful, the rates are expressed for 30 minutes !

Ernst
You will find here the Twist Camper Cafe, with unlimited 2L$ / 10 minutes bench ! However, I tested it with ammounts up to 10 L$ with no problem. But when I left both avatars there for a night, the bench was saying 56 L$ each, but I never received the money !