New World Notes

GOD GAME

From Molyneux to a new view-- a functioning ecosystem in SL

In the beginning, Linden Lab created the heavens and the earth, but the sky was empty and the land was barren.  The trees were green but did not grow, the sun and wind passed overhead but did not affect them.

Then Laukosargas Svarog came upon this and said, Come, let us make clouds so that they can be borne upon the wind.  She did, and it was good.  Then Laukosargas said, Let these clouds cast rain upon the ground, and where the land is marshy, let marshy flowers bloom, and where the land is open, let open flowers bloom.  And let the sun shine upon these, and where the sun shines brightest, let them grow more, and where it shines least, let them lay fallow.  This she also did, and it was good.  Seeing this, Laukosargas said, Let bees fly amongst these flowers to pass their seed between each other, and thus be fruitful and multiply.  Then she said, Let there be birds to feast upon the seeds, lest these flowers be too fruitful and multiplicitous.  This she did as well, and it was likewise good.

Then her computer crashed.  And that was not so good.

"My main machine has blown up!" Laukosargas announced shortly after giving me a tour of the miniature world she created.  And since her replacement computer was too slow to meaningfully interact in Second Life, the goddess had to put her creation on pause for awhile.

The result of a year's work, Laukosargas Svarog's island of Svarga (direct portal here) is a fully-functioning ecosystem, adding life or something like it to the verdant-looking but arid pallette Linden Lab offers with its world.  It begins with her artificial clouds, which are pushed along by Linden's internal wind system.

"If I was to turn off the clouds the whole system would die in about six hours," she tells me. "Turn off the bees and [the plants stop] growing, because nothing gets pollinated.  And it's the transfer of pollen that signals the plants to drop seeds. The seeds blow in the wind, and if they land on good ground according to different rules for each species, they grow when they receive rain water from the clouds.  It's all interdependent."

Looking more like an African princess than a deity, Laukosargas and one of her angels met me by a small campfire site in Svarga, and explained some of the inner workings of her world, and what drove her to create it.

NWN EVENTS OF THE WEEK, 5/30-6/4

A virtual world triathalon going on tonight, and a live "meet the authors" appearance by accomplished science fiction writers Sharon Lee and Steve Miller happening on Sunday.  Details to those and more arts and culture happenings after the break.  (And remember, you can send in your own NWN Event suggestions-- details and guidelines here.)

YOUR TUBE, YOUR IMAGINATION II

The mini-burst of SL machinima on You Tube has taken a new (but when you think about it, unsurprising) twist:  machinima commercials for SL products.  Nylon Pinkney recently created a series of three ads promoting her heads-up display/camera products, and they work well as both machinima and advertising.  (My favorite above, a spot for Nylon's video camera attachment/"recording" HUD, is a cute tweak on The Blair Witch Project, set to a kickass Phantom Planet song.) 

"It definitly gave the cameras some exposure," Nylon Pinkney told me over the weekend.  "Hardly anyone was buying the 35mm one, and then after I put the movies out, those are selling the best now-- I sold like ten today."  Of course, this success probably had a lot to do with the movies being good enough for people to actually watch.  "I was ready to drop the whole thing by the third movie," she says. "I didn't realize how much work it actually took."

HOORAY FOR BOLLYWOOD

Torrid Midnight and Aishwarya Rai

Something strange and wonderful came to light when Second Life bloggers took up the challenge to run their avatar through a facial recognition program that determines which celebrity their faces resemble most.  Because here's the thing:

Almost all of them resemble Bollywood film stars.

AngryBeth Shortbread looks like Celina Jaitley.
Sabrina Doolittle also resembles Ms. Jaitley.
Ordinal Malaprop is compared (among others) to Rani Mukherjee.
Elikapeka Tiramisu, another unidentified Bollywood starlet.
And Torrid Midnight, as depicted above, Aishwarya Rai.
(Only one SL blogger's avatar, Celebrity Trollop, generated personalities outside the Bollywood pantheon.)

These are all avatars which look, on the surface at least, white/European.  And to have five out of six resemble Indian stars is pretty extraordinary, considering the thousands of famous faces in the MyHeritage.com database.  What is it about Second Life avatars that make them so consistently resemble Bollywood celebrities?

My wild (and not politically correct) speculation:  roughly speaking, Indian faces are similar in shape and proportion to European faces, albeit with an "exotic" (to Western eyes) overlay:  stronger cheekbones, darker skin, almond-shaped eyes, and so on.  Since most Second Life avatars are stylized, idealized, and heightened variations of beautiful European-Caucasian faces, they end up looking Indian.  To the facial recognition program of MyHeritage.com, in other words, an Indian face is the avatar of Western beauty.

It's worth pointing out here, of course, that the term "avatar" is taken from the Sanskrit word for "godly incarnation".  And so the circle of incarnation is complete.

NEW WORLD MEMORIAL DAY

Second Life was born in a time of war.  The public Beta was opened in April 2003 while battles large and small were flaring across Iraq; the first post of New World Notes was published on April 22nd, a week before the official end of major combat operations.  I've tried to make this fundamental reality a recurring theme of NWN, telling the stories of the Residents who've most keenly felt war's impact.  This would include Jason Foo, a Marine who returned from Iraq and Afghanistan to use SL as a way to help rebuild his post-war life; it would also include Dane Street, another Marine who spent much of his first tour's R&R away from Falluja gun battles in-world with his sister Mistress Midnight.  (Dane, last I heard, was back in Iraq, though in less dangerous circumstances.)  This Memorial Day post is a small tribute is to them, and for all the other servicemen and women who depend on Second Life as their peaceful respite.  It's also a tribute to those Residents who found their own ways to remember the war's fallen.

THE WEEK IN NWN

Selected highlights from the previous week:

- The X-Men (and News Corp) invade SL.
- Does your avatar look like Brad Pitt, Aishwariya Rai... or the star of Scooby Do?
- Random observations (and snark) on the latest update.
- How to turn SL creativity into a paying gig.  Be sure to read the Comments, as several of them offer additional advice from leading content development firms.
- SL gets pwnt by machinima-- and folk music.
- Glam screenshots from the first Federated Media Salon held in SL.
- Turning Second Life into an election meetup space.

VIRTUAL MEETUP

Brian Ulaszewski... and Brian Omegamu

If you're a politically engaged Resident-- especially if you're in the 90802, 90813, and 90814 area codes of Los Angeles-- you may want to drop by the home of Tom Bukowski at 5pm tomorrow for a virtual meet-up with Brian Ulaszewski (Brian Omegamu in-world), candidate for Second District City Council in Long Beach, California.  To my knowledge, he's the first political candidate to use a virtual world to help build a coalition of supporters, and like the Internet-driven meetups which spearheaded so much of the campaigning during the last national election, particularly for Howard Dean, he's hoping raising awareness in here will translate into a base of supporters for the early June election. (Though one assumes he's shooting for better results than Dr. Dean ultimately ended up with.)

Something of Brian's Joe Trippi in Second Life, Tom Bukowski put together this event, as well as an earlier campaign feeler.  Tomorrow won't just be a meet-and-greet with the candidate, however, since it will include a virtual world showing of works by local artists.  (And in the spirit of equal time, if any competitor for the Second District seat wishes to start campaigning in Second Life, I will post their events here, as well.)

So far, it should be said, the interest is more theoretical in nature, at least in SL-- though they're also campaigning in other Net-based venues.

"We have not met any Second Life residents who live in the district but Myspace has yielded some great results," Brian tells me.  (He uses his Myspace profile to campaign, too.) "I think as SL increases residents it can be a more viable tool in local elections," he continues. "I can see national elections going into SL door to door.  There is probably enough Californians who are in SL that a gubenatorial candidate would probably do well to do a rally in Second Life."

"And there's a lot of avatars that look like Arnold," I point out, "so at least the Republicans will be all set."

As for his platform, Brian Omegamu mentions his track record as an active volunteer for several public works projects in the district.  "I find in elections that everyone talks about what they can do or what they will do if elected," he says. "With eleven candidates its hard to set yourself apart. Whether parking, park space, economic development or historic preservation, these are things I am already addressing.  Three parks in the pipeline, over a hundred new parking stalls for residents (parking shortage is huge in the 2nd), these are things I am doing today. We have been without a councilmember for three months now and we need someone to hit the ground running.  June 6th is the election and if I win I am ready to go on June 7th."

I would stay longer, but another story is going on.  "Now if you'll excuse me," I tell them, "I have to shoot some photos at a mech high fashion show featuring 50 foot spider robots."

Brian Omegamu seems piqued: "Maybe I can ride that in a parade or something."

"You need something on your platform addressing giant spider robots, Brian.  It's always a threat but most politicians avoid it."

"If they vote I am for them," he says judiciously. "If not, I'm against them."

Update, 6/30:  I've been meaning to clarify the point I made about "raising awareness in here will translate into a base of supporters" like the Dean campaign.  As mentioned in an earlier post, the election Brian was running in was close enough that a few dozen votes could easily make the difference-- a number that could quite plausibly be gained by building a base from SL Residents living in his district.   I should have made that clear in this post as well, while emphasizing that Brian and Bukowski his SL campaign manager (so to speak) primarily saw the SL meetup as an experiment, not a base-building excercise (though Bukowski did consider this as a distinct possibility.)  Thanks to Zero Grace for pointing these issues out.

Ultimately, it must be added, Brian Ulaszewski lost the election, placing in the middle of the 12 candidate contest. 

BATTLE-MECHS WANT TO BE FREE

There was so much interest in this Saturday's mech/tech/steampunk fashion show I mentioned in NWN Events of the Week, publicist Adri Saarinen tells me, that they've moved it from the Emerald Gardens Fashion Center to The Rainforest island, and it's an event that's open and free to the public.  This coming Saturday at 2:00PM SL Time:  details and teleport here. 

FEDERATED FETE

Swinging with Soleil Mirabeau and Celebrity Trollop (background)

Thanks to everyone who gathered on Shipley cliffs for the first Federated Media Salon in Second Life-- most especially for Eggy Lippman who created the suave office space and dance floor, and DJ Master Spin Martin of KSSX (RL blog here), who arrived at short notice to lay down excellent tunes and hipster palaver in between tracks.  (Dubious deployment of ABBA notwithstanding.)  For awhile there, it looked like John Battelle himself would show up, but a delay in his jetsetter trajectory prevented him from making it in time.  Nonetheless, FM advertising executives Lovisa Tackleberry and Jonas Gasparini ably held court at a Salon which quickly evolved (or devolved) into a full-press dance off accompanied by fairly bizarre party chat that made Shipley's M rating come in handy.

More screenshots after the break.  Since this Salon went down during the inaugural of Version 1.10, these ended up becoming a showcase for SL's new local lighting system-- which I have to say, despite my earlier crabbing about other aspects of the 1.10, is pretty excellent. 

The FM office, by the way, is still open for business:  go there to get the latest advertising rate card with L$ listings and direct links to pertinent FM webpages.

SL PWNT BY ILL WILL

Rik Riel just passed along this rude-but-hilarious pwning of Second Life by the "Tra5h Ta1k" machinima talk show from the acclaimed iLL Clan.  I love the quasi-Jack Black folk song at the end, which I hope becomes SL's unofficial anthem.  (Absolutely not safe for work, unless you work in a motocycle bar.)