About

I joined Second Life on July 31, 2004, and I’m (mostly) a blogger, philosopher, activist, and entrepreneur in the Second Life® world.

My physical self was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in the same year the Internet was created, Unix was developed, and the first human being stepped on the Moon.

Unlike other famous and illustrious residents, I have a rather bleak curriculum in Second Life. I can’t build anything at all; and I’m definitely not famous for my scripting. I tell everybody that my own major scripting projects were outclassed by everyone else in Second Life. Two months before SL Exchange (later rebranded as XstreetSL and currently known as the Second Life Marketplace) launched, I had a working prototype — but I never opened the shop. I had a working low-lag animation overrider well before anyone knew what that was (neither did I — it was a device sold for L$50 that “made your walks sexier”) and I never managed to get rich (or famous) for that. I claim to have the most complex combination device for a pack of cigarettes that delivers cigarettes through XML-RPC calls instead of plain and simple llGiveInventory(), because of silly permission problems introduced in SL in 1.8. My dance bracelet is perhaps the only thing that works right (the bugs are too obscure for anyone to notice them).

My last attempt of building a house was in September 2004. I still keep a picture of it to remember never to do another attempt at building.

Even my blogging lags behind famous bloggers like Inara Pey, Hamlet Au, Tateru NinoProkofy Neva or even Torley Linden. Unlike what many people think, only about 400 people read my blog. Sometimes. A few are even nice and post some comments here, so I believe they’re not bots but real human beings. Google is by far my best reader, faithfully devouring every single word I write. 🙂

I’m no land baroness, content baroness, or event princess. I’m still a Premium user, but for no real reason (except for the L$500 weekly stipend); all my land is rented except for the complimentary Linden House, and I only have a few micro-shops anyway. I don’t belong to any large groups and have not founded any which are of notice (I joined Thinkers several months after it was created) — actually, I’m happy of not having too many groups against me (like the SCAG — Secret Conspirators Against Gwyn). So, I’m just a footnote on the Metaverse. Really.

In RL, I started to use the Second Life platform on my job to do educational & cultural projects in Second Life since December 2004, mostly for non-profits and charities who use computers to give young people/senior citizens/citizens with disabilities a better life. Since then, I thought that it would be nicer to work on my own and, well, make a living out of creating content for SL. Thus, Beta Technologies — the company that creates content for an environment which is always in Beta — was formed with my friends and partners Eggy Lippmann, Moon Adamant, and Jeff Bush. Since the Sheep abandoned Second Life, I believe we’re the largest Metaverse Development Company in the world. Well. After Rivers Run Red and Millions of Us. But both were drooling over Google’s Lively (which only existed for 7 months anyway), so I wonder if they’ll stay around here for much longer [edit: Millions of Us as well as Rivers Run Red seem to be both gone], and thus my own claims won’t be fought in court as libel or defamation or false advertising 😉

So… what does someone in SL that does not script, does not build, does no animations, does not engage in land sales, does not work as an escort, does not belong to any lifestyle, does not have any groups…? The answer is: networking 🙂 Second Life is about people — something most residents tend to forget. But we have the example of Torley Linden to follow. Keeping in touch, organising people, putting them together, launching new projects — that’s what I do. It’s certainly not so glamorous as being on top of the world, exploiting a market niche… but it is fun, nevertheless. 🙂

Winking Gwyn in May 2022

Also, it does give me a big advantage: I get a pretty good idea of what different people think. A scripter will see the world from inside LSL; a builder will worry about prims; a land baron will worry about group tools and how much the L$ is worth today. I, however, worry about everything.

I’m a meta-resident. And a loudmouth. And mostly harmless 🙂

Factoid: I’m most definitely not Welsh; I can’t even pronounce my own name (which sounds like this or like this[Gwyneth Llewelyn, in IPA transcript] — aye, that’s IPA for you!). I just happen to like Welsh names, especially the way they’re written (the more consonants and the less vowels, the better!), and how they sound (even if I can’t reproduce such sounds!). There is also a meaning attached to the name: according to popular lore, it sort of translates as white lion, although maiden queen (the colour ‘white’, figuratively used to represent ‘pure’, ‘maiden’, ‘virgin’; ‘lion’, figuratively used as ‘leader’, ‘chief’, ‘king/queen’) could also be an alternative rendition. I still haven’t talked very seriously about this with a native Welsh etymologist (although I’d certainly love to do that!). On the other hand, Gwyneth (often written as Gwynedd) was an ancient (historic) kingdom in Wales (the largest, if I remember my history correctly — there is still a region there bearing that name), while Llewelyn (very likely with a different spelling) was its most powerful king (Llewelyn the Great). The two names go somehow together in my mind.

There is a much subtler reason for one of the names, but I won’t tell you what it is 😉

If you’re looking at this page to send me an email complaining about how boring my blog is, you can spam me at Gwyneth [dot] Llewelyn [at] gwynethllewelyn [dot] net. Really, don’t be shy to write me, I love spam!

And if you’re looking for my Google Profile, . On Facebook I also have a page, and I’m also on X/Twitter as well as the ever-popular Discord; none of which I sign in regularly (or even irregularly); in fact, the only ‘social thingy’ I’m ever connected to is Keybase, which nobody uses 🙂

For sending encrypted email to me, my OpenPGP fingerprint is: CE8A6006B611850F127572BAD93EAA3DC4B3E1CB

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