New World Notes

ED WOOD: THE MACHINIMA FESTIVAL!

What would Wood make, if he could make machinima?  Yes kids, it's that time of the year again, when the spirit of Ed Wood haunts a 48 hour machinima-making marathon.  Buhbuhcuh Fairchild and Moo Money of Alt-Zoom are back with their Halloween contest to create machinima worthy (if that's the right word) of the auteur behind Glen or Glenda? and Plan Nine from Outer Space.

It works thus:  this Friday at the stroke of Midnight, go to this Alt-Zoom page, because that's when the title/theme of this year's festival will be announced.  From that point, you'll have exactly two days to create machinima that'll vie in many categories of ass, including Worst Film, Worst Story, Worst Acting, Worst Costumes, and Most Disturbing Film.  L$60,000 in prize money hangs in the balance of badness.

Surely you can make worse machinima than one about a pre-op transexual in an angora sweater who flees a horde of zombie babes in g-strings only to crash into a pair of midget rhinos dancing around a bonfire to The Smiths.  (No seriously, that's last year's winner.)  I can't wait to see the results, though the results may also make me throw up a little bit in my mouth.

Go here, young director, to take up the gauntlet of suck!

POSTCARDS FROM THE SANDBOX: GOGUEN TODAY

A stampede of human cactus (cactii?) cuts across Goguen, likely spooked by the space dreadnoughts and giant robots that usually rule the desert-- photographer Alastair Chamerberlin reports from the scene.

Send me your own sights and sculptures from the heart of Second Life at its most inventive and freeform-- guidelines to submitting to Postcards from the Sandbox series here.

RIK'S EVENT PICKS, OCTOBER 25-30

Rik Riel's weekly round-up of upcoming SL events

On Sunday October 29, Doc Boffin, Ospey Therian and friends invite you for some "spirited" Halloween swordplay as they launch their new "Horror Expansion Pack" to their popular Combat Cards series. The Combat Cards Hallowe'en Horror Expansion Launch Party will take place from 10AM-2PM SLT in the Spangle fighting arena. Combat Cards is a turn-based game of dueling warriors in which players buy, sell and trade cards to provide different combinations of fighting moves that you can use to turn your opponent into lunchmeat. If you show up as a zombie or vampire, you might end up being featured on the new card set. Mmmmm, braiiiinnnnsssss. At Spangle (163, 181, 30).

Also coming up: open source developers unite, the Center for Disease Control drops some health knowledge, sumo wrestlers clash, cities are built, and yet another Second Life news service debuts.  All that and much more after the jump...

THE WORLD FROM MY WINDOW: ESPERANCE

"Here I am on a typical work day in my custom-made office pod overlooking an island called I built called Esperance," Gary Hazlitt e-mails me.  (Direct portal here.)  He developed the island for a real world film/TV/radio school. "[It's] been hard work creating the machinima areas, theatres, cinemas, film set backlots, display and play areas, but well worth it.

POSTCARDS FROM THE SANDBOX

Someone I'll call "Dark Sunglasses" sent me a short IM, pointing me to the Newcomb sandbox, then slipped back into the shadows.  And that's where I found them-- small, green, and wreaking havoc. 

"Seem to be taking over," my source observed wryly.

The aliens were attributed to some dude I did not know, and that only deepened the mystery, because judging by the creator's birth date, this was a newcomer who somehow had first-rank building skills.

"It's not me," Dark Sunglasses added coyly.  "Mystery it seems..."  And so there it is.

"You don't see this kind of build all the time," Sunglasses added.  But there I'd somewhat disagree, because you're liable to see something about as wild and inventive as it somewhere in the free-build sandbox regions any given day. 

Which is why I'm launching a new image and video series in addition to World from My Window.

"Postcards From the Sandbox" will highlight the daily marvels of SL's sandbox culture-- for my money, still Second Life at its best-- builds and scripted extravaganza created by you, or people you meet there.  Details for submitting your creations and discoveries after the break.

BLOG ME, BLOG YOU

I'm about to expand my woefully out-of-date SL blogroll and move it into a more prominent place on New World Notes.  (In other words, not way the hell down the left column.)  If your blog isn't on it, e-mail me the link, along with your avatar name.  Rough guidelines to keep listed:  blog at least once a month, with at least 30% of your entries pertaining to Second Life or online worlds in general, and more-or-less adhere to SL's Community Standards in posting.  A reciprocal link to NWN is not obligatory, but would be lovely.  Also seeking links to new SL wikis and web publications!

NEW WORLD NUMBERS: THE MEANING OF A MILLION

What's it mean to have a world that's tripled in population within a few months, and increased tenfold in under eleven?  If there's one person in Second Life who knows, it's Tateru Nino.  As an informal leader of the thousand-strong Mentor volunteer program, she's ever been on the front lines as new Residents have arrived by the tens of thousands daily, in a Welcome Area that's quickly become a teeming, overtaxed Ellis Island.  For veteran Residents from before Second Life's 100,000+ era, her thoughts are sobering and humbling, but ultimately optimistic. 

Her second installment on the demographic shifts of Second Life (first post here) after the break.

THE WORLD FROM MY WINDOW: OCTAL KHAN'S HOME IN SHAMROCK

"This is the view from my home in Shamrock," Octal Khan tells me. (Direct teleport here.) "This is also the view (kind of) from my home in real life in Los Angeles, the main difference being in SL, I get to put it right by the ocean."  He grins. "About a year ago, I got the idea to do a reconstruction of our mid-century modern RL home in Second Life. The architect, Gregory Ain, was a protege of Neutra and Schindler and one of the unsung heroes of early modernism, so I attempted it partially as an exercise in building, but also as a way to perpetuate Ain's ideas as a sort of 'ghost in the machine'.

THE MIXED SUCCESS OF MIXED REALITY

What if the real world came in, and no one really noticed? 

When I created Mixed Reality Mondays as a weekly catch-all for SL events/sites funded by real world corporations and organizations, my main goal was to keep New World Notes from being overwhelmed by yet another announcement of yet another bricks-and-mortar institution setting up a presence in the metaverse.  But there's another reason, and it speaks to NWN's mission to document Second Life as an emerging society and culture.  And it's so crucial, I think it's worth highlighting:

For the most part, real world companies and organizations are having neglible impact on Second Life society as a whole.

Take a look at the Popular Places list taken late last night; a measure of raw foot traffic, they're the locales where the most Residents are visiting, or where the most Residents are staying the longest.  And despite the presence of so many real world companies and organizations with such deep pockets, every single one of the most Popular Places are grassroots and Resident-run.  (All of them in the casual, social gamer nexus of casinos/nightclubs/malls/adult entertainment, to be sure, but even then, only four of the top twenty are explicitly sexual.)

The lowest Traffic rating in the top 20 is 45,997.  How does the traffic of real world-funded sites match up, by comparison?  With one exception, the contrast is striking.

NEW WORLD NOTES IN THE NEWS

I've been bad at keeping track of recent interviews and appearances of NWN in the media, so at the risk of irksome self-aggrandizement ("But enough about me-- here's what they thought about me!"), I'll be posting regular clip compilations like this; ignore or read on at will.