New World Notes

TEMPLE AND THE HOTTIE

Machinima becomes the nebbish: Taken on its own, this music video machinima would just be a well-shot showcase for sexy avatars and custom dance moves, cut to a great song from The Cult.  Matched to Temple Oe's hilariously painful internal monologue, it's a tribute to the power of a gorgeous female avatar-- no matter how digital or unreal or presumably unlike the actual person at the keyboard-- to still stupefy men. 

SURVEYING THE WORLD (Updated)

Who are you in Second Life, and how has it influenced the rest of your life?  Wolkam Winger, editor of the French-language SL Observer, is working with a psychologist to compile an extensive survey of SL as it is lived, not for marketing purposes, but educational research, with data freely available to all.  And I'm anxious to publish the results here.

Take their survey here.  Read about it more here.

UPDATE, OCTOBER 2007:  Some results and my commentary on them are here.

Rik's Picks for April 25-29

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

First there was the SL open source client, now comes open source art. Today at 5PM check out the opening reception of the Open Source Museum of Open Source Art (OSMOSA). OSMOSA aims to "open source" the process of art making and curating by allowing visitors to add, modify, and remove art from the museum. The OSMOSA building itself is also open source -- anyone can modify, add to, or delete parts of the structure! At Eson (direct teleport SLURL.)

Also coming up this week: Blue hammers, fashion is hell, jazzy sculptures, dripping fangs, and avatars that go "Ommmmm."  All that and more, after the fold...

Tateru's Monday Reality Mix

In Memoriam: Jesse Malthus, 1990-2007

Tateru Nino's weekly take on mixed reality...

There were all sorts of things that I was going to write about this week, but mostly, aside from our weekly metrics, I'm going to talk about the only thing that really matters. People.

Resident Jesse Malthus died this week, and it should serve as a strong reminder about what is important in our lives, and what makes Second Life important. People are the ultimate in mixed reality.

POLITICAL CAMPAIGNING IN THE METAVERSE

With Hana Dae at the virtual Capitol

With the next US Presidential elections just a year and a half away, primary campaigning has already begun in earnest-- in the Caucus and main primary states, and in Second Life.   Some 800 Residents have already joined unofficial support groups for the mainline Democratic candidates: Senator Obama, with 219 members; Senator Clinton, with 243; former Senator Edwards with the most, at 317.  Last week, the leaders of these groups got together to discuss the role of SL in the election.  Is Second Life another channel in Web 2.0-era campaigning, following the proven success of blogs, social networks, and video streaming sites like YouTube?  Or is it a grief-riven, over-hyped distraction from more effective means of campaiging?

I couldn't attend, but Hana Dae of the Hillary Clinton 2008 group was on hand to document the fascinating conversation that followed, between a group of diverse and eminently qualified advocates for their respective candidates, moderated by an established journalist associated with public TV's highly-regarded "Frontline" program.  Hana generously took the time to edit her chat log into a highly readable transcript, full of nuggets of insight-- in my opinion, it's mandatory reading for anyone even partly curious about the potential of Second Life (or online worlds in general) to become the Meet Up space of 2008. 

"Political Campaigns in SL" after the break.

WIKIFYING ARCHITECTURE

A wise if adorably odd veteran Resident named Nada Epoch once described the act of building in Second Life as creating in a 3D wiki, and the term still strikes me as the most apt of all.  The Arch, SL's astonishingly ambitious coalition of real world architects and designers who've turned the metaverse into their toolchest, have gone and made that metaphor literal: a wikified SL building project.  The impresive details are too complex and articulated to summarize here-- read about it all at this site.

KEVIN WARWICK IN-WORLD

He implanted a microchip directly into his body nearly a decade ago, and in a fitting progression, famed robotics expert Kevin Warwick will enter Second Life today to discuss the artificial evolution of humanity, and address the audience as a fully articulated cyborg.  Sponsored by a couple SL-based transhumanist groups, his appearance starts at the East Coast/European-friendly time of 7am SLT today.  More details (and a full look at the Warwick cyborg) after the break.

WEEKEND OPEN FORUM

Grassroots projects you want to promote, issues you want to discuss?  Post them here in Comments!  Know about any worthwhile weekend happenings which didn't make it to Rik's Picks?  Leave the details here, and I'll try to highlight them on the front page before they happen.  (Be sure to include a SLURL to the location!)

VIRTUAL RASTA

Since Rik Riel has let his real life self succumb to the seductions of the California hot tub, I just added a late event notice of particular interest to reggae fans:  a photographer who took numerous iconic images of Bob Marley and other music legends is also a Second Life resident, and is showing off a number of her photos this Saturday afternoon in a virtual gallery built, according to the photographer, by two Scottish Rastas.  Read more about it at Rik's picks.

Onder's Game - City of Lost Angels

Onder Skall reviews some of the Grid's most intriguing games

There are a number of dark roleplay environments in SL, but City of Lost Angels (CoLA) is the queen of them all. The CoLA Combat System, a marriage of LSL and SQL, has created an efficiently run mini-MMO that packs the sim to capacity all day and night.

Now they’re planning a move to an island of their own (purchased as of the 10th according to the website) and things will only get more insane from here.

Let’s take a closer look at what these creepy cats are up to.