Eyes on the SIM - winter season (by mirjam)

We opened he winter season on our SIM Respect! 

Come and enjoy the atmosphere, have a warm cuddle, chat at the fire with friends, ...

Check out the new ice skating area (see photo). 

Many thanks to ella for the SIM decoration!

Expo with Your photos! (by DSA management)

We are cordially inviting all SL users to take photos on the D/s Academy's SIM in Secondlife.

Go to the photobooth on the SIM, close to the Temple of Discussion, teleport up to the kinky laundry room and have fun shooting pictures!

Don't forget to select "Save to disk" when taking them, else they will go to Your SL inventory only.

Send Your best shots via email to

dsacademyinsl _ at _ gmail.com

and they might soon be uploaded on this blog here.

If You want them on display on the SIM in addition, please save them to Your SL inventory as well and send them to either Julala or Mirjam. The Expo Area will be close to the Temple of Discussion.

Accessibility for discussions at D/s academy (by Julala)

A number of times I have been asked by people I know in real life how they can listen in to our discussions if they don't have a computer fast enough to run Secondlife.  Also, on occasion we've been asked about accessibility for those with hearing or sight impairments attending the discussions.

Firstly, for those who think their computer isn't fast enough to run Secondlife - some solutions:

1.  Whether you use the Secondlife official viewer or a third party viewer there are a number of things that you can do to reduce the amount of memory and graphics requirements (even before logging in), for example:

Choose preferences from the top menu on the viewer before logging in and depending on your viewer choice there are a number of things you can change immediately to reduce memory and cpu usage.

• Reduce Graphics to "low".
• Reduce your draw distance.
• Turn off all shaders.
• Make Terrain detail "low"
• Reduce LOD (Level of Detail)
• Turn off Anistropic filtering
• Slide maximum bandwidth to between 500-1000kbps depending on your Internet connection speed.

For a full set of ways to improve viewer performance visit the SL wiki here: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/How-to-improve-Viewer-performance/ta-p/1316923

 2.  On the third party view list there are a number of "thin clients" available - these are slimmed down and are a good alternative for those with slower or older computers.  Many thin client viewers are text-based only, which is fine if the discussion is text only - but our discussions at D/s academy are often voice/text mixed.  However, thankfully there is a thin client with voice capabilities *yeay*.  (please note that you need "voice capabilities" even if you only want to listen)

Radegast is a non-graphical thin client with voice capabilities so you could use this viewer to access and fully engage in one of our (or other) discussions in Secondlife even on the slowest computer.

Make sure you check "install voice pack" from the install menu (its is unchecked by default) if you want to install voice.

You will, of course, need to have created a Secondlife avatar/account at Secondlife.com before you can login.

If you've never been to D/s academy before....how will you find us?  OK.  Once you are logged in to Radegast with your avatar, first search for D/s academy in the places tab of the search tool.  D/s academy is probably the third one in the list - you're looking for "Live, love, lust" etc.  TP there first - the reason you should do this is that when you first login to SL you are likely to arrive at a PG info hub and pasting the slurl of an adult sim into local chat is likely to get you a kick in the ass. 

Once you have teleported to "Respect" sim where the D/s academy lives you can paste the following slurl into the local chat: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Respect/232/169/22 and then click on it in the chat transcript and select Teleport.  This will take you directly to the Temple of Discussion where the discussions generally take place. 

Now - once you've arrived at the Temple of Discussion - you don't want to stand like a dufus at the landing point - especially if more than one use these instructions because you'll all be standing on top of one another like a pile of newbs on a rainy night!  No, no - come have a seat and join us properly: 

Choose the "Objects" tab in Radegast.  Look through the objects that are close to you and look for an objects called "sofa-lay-m-r" or "Propped Sit-M-3" or "z-slouch-1" or such like - these are towels to sit on.  Select one from your list of objects and then choose "Sit on".  Now - if someone is already sat there, chances are you wont be able to sit on it...just try another.   

Ensure that "enable Voice" is checked in the "Voice" tab of Radegast or you will hear nothing.
If you're going to speak, please consider using a headset as this reduces feedback and background noise.  If your mic is left open or is sending an awful racket out to the room you may end up getting ejected.  Don't take it personally - we just don't want our ears to explode.  Just come back and try again. 

You could always do a test run beforehand at Voice Echo Canyon: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Voice%20Echo%20Canyon/131/126/24 to make sure your voice is working well.

Now - for those that might have hearing or sight impairments - you might be interested to know that Radegast also has text to speech capabilities and speech to text capabilities.  Now - I haven't tried these out so I can't comment on their effectiveness - if you would like to give it a go - please do report back and let us know how it goes!

If other sims would like to adapt this post for their own events - please do - but please link back to this post - cos that's the nice thing to do ;o)

New affiliate of the D/s Academy: PCX Erotic Arts (by Mirjam)

Since the D/s Academy is not only an educational facility in Secondlife, but also a social group of people endulging in BDSM, we are always trying to provide events for social meet-up and for entertainment. Also, we enjoy offering a variety of events of adult interest to our members and support other venues who seem to share our mission and mindset and engage in adult education without intending to gain financial profit.

We are glad to announce that PCX Erotic Arts is now an affiliate of the D/s Academy. To put it in a nutshell, PCX Erotic Arts provides a big library for various topics and an art gallery, both mainly with SL user created content.  Besides, they offer erotic literature readings and some other leisure time events and specials.

 

"PCX Erotic Arts Adult Library was initially created for the Second Life adult community. What started as ‘Post Confidential’, a tell your secrets sim in the Second Life virtual world, PCX Erotic Arts grew to house a library of original erotica,written by and for Second Life library patrons of all races, gender, preferences and avatar types over the adult age of 18. [...]
Material is written and/or provided by people like yourself; writers of all skills and levels, including published works both online and hard copy.  If you have a story you want to share, you can do so through the PCXErotic Arts website under submissions, after registering. You can also submit your story “in-world” through NC. And, if you have a confession you want to share, I can be reached in-world under GiGi Octavia (Serenity30250) for a ‘face to face’ confession, (with or without your identifying information). " (source: http://pcxeroticarts.com)

TUESDAYS:
Serva (PCX staff)  is going to present erotic literature in a reading at the D/s Academy's House of Scrolls every Tuesday at 8 pm SLT.  On November 5th, she is going to read from "The Lady Submits" by Chloe Cox.  Here's the synopsis: "Sometimes a highborn Lady needs to be brought low... It's the decadent, raunchy holiday of Bacchanal, and the Lady Lucrezia Grimaldi cannot find a man to satisfy her. Worse, she's been saddled with the brutish Carlo Castellan as her bodyguard for the last night of Bacchanal. There's only one thing to do: escape to the fabled House of the Severille... The imperious Lady Lucrezia expects to sate herself by dominating some poor house slave. What she gets instead is the harsh touch of a Severille Master who will stop at nothing to make the Lady submit."

FRIDAYS:
Mirjam Munro (D/s Academy staff)  is going to host a discussion on the PCX Sim in SL on Fridays at noon SLT. We'll hear one or two chapters of a D/s related book, professionally presented as a reading by a PCX staff member, then discuss on a subject that the author dealt with in this chapter, bringing in the opinions and experiences of the participants in the discussion. On Nov 8th at noon SLT, we'll start with the book "A Diary of an S&M Romance"  by Dollie Llama and wrap our minds around the needs of submissives. "Diary of an S and M Romance" is the true story of a young widow reclaiming her life in a red-hot world of kinky sex. She's a feminist doing things that many feminists would consider beastly, and loving every second of it."