New World Notes

In Praise Of Second Life Crap

... Crap Mariner, that is, a silver and androgynous wind-up avatar who lives in a clocktower and strolls the metaverse in top hat and a cane, documenting its wonderfully strange unpredictability in a stream of posts, whether it's an encounter between King Koopa and the Pillsbury Doughboy at a disco, or a quiz game in which the contestants are strapped down to crucifixes... or events stranger still.
 

Hillary Bot! ELIZA Updated For Metaverse, 2008 Election

Dedric Mauriac built a chatbot running a modified version of ELIZA, and discovered someone [a guy named Yesterdays Tomorrow] had further modified the code to make it even timelier.  Behold HillaryBot in conversation:

[21:33]  You: what will you do as president?
[21:33]  HillaryBot v1.2: barak obama is no leader!
[21:33]  You: are you a leader?
[21:33]  HillaryBot v1.2: my record clearly shows if i am  a leader. mccains record is clear also. as for obama (cackles) you’ll have to ask him
[21:33]  You: what have you done for me?
[21:33]  HillaryBot v1.2: what is it that you really want to know?
[21:34]  You: how will you help me?
[21:34]  HillaryBot v1.2: have you asked anyone else?

Dedric has the rest.  Use this link to teleport to a talk with HillaryBot... if you dare.

Second Life(tm) Trademark Turmoil Continues-- And Gwyneth Lays Down The Gauntlet (Updated)

"®  is the new black!", fashionista Kit Meredith announces sweetly, then hands me the latest must-have accessory for the metaverse:  Intellectual property symbols converted into giant ear rings. Kit created them on a lark for friends, she tells me, but Crap Mariner has been passing out copies across the grid, so you're likely to see them dangling from fashionable heads around Second Life.  It's only the most overt response to the tumult over the Lindens' latest trademark policies, scheduled to go into effect in three months, but seems to be causing more anxiety, than understanding.

"I know people who've gone through a year of blog posts to update all the references [to Linden trademarks]," NWN fashion correspondent and blogger Irish Ophelia tells me, "and I really won't have the time for that for more than three months, so I have kiiinda been freaking out about it."  I'm not sure that's required-- if I read the guidelines right, it's only necessary for bloggers to include the "®" symbol on "your first or most prominent reference to a Linden Lab brand name", i.e. on your banner. 

Still, I'm not entirely sure myself.  Then again, neither is Gwyneth Llewelyn, and she's one of Second Life's most influential intellects (named as such in the official guide), along with being CEO of Beta Technologies, a leading metaverse developer which just helped launch the official SL presence of Slovenian public broadcasting.  Seeking clarification in an open letter to the Lindens on her blog, she points out how the new policy contradicts Lindens' previously established guidelines:

Your previous policy, established in May 2004 (”Second Life® Fansite Tolkit”), and later reinforced with referral programmes like “Viva La Evolution”, positively encouraged the widespread use of your trademarks, so long as it was quite clearly displayed that no infringement was intended. To requote your own terms of agreement for the usage of your trademarks:

The Making Of *The Making of Second Life* Machinima

When I asked Lainy Voom to create a machinima promotion for my book, I had a hidden agenda: a chance to work with one of machinima's finest practitioners (as evidenced here and here), and an opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse at how she creates such extraordinary imagery.  One of my favorite shots from her promo is this one on the left, a quick upward panning shot.  Not because I like looking at my avatar, but for its smooth, subtle elegance.  Most filmmakers, I think, would have been satisfied with just a static shot, but not Lainy.  She brought me in-world to create it, and it took about an hour.  Here's why:

Rik's Event Picks for 3/27-3/30: Kapor Speaks, a New Documentary on MMORPGs, Virtual U2, and More

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

[CC-licensed photo by Fleep Tuque]

This Friday, March 28, at a special edition of the weekly "Metanomics" talk show, Mitch Kapor, Chairman of the Board of Linden Lab and internet pioneer will be making an important appearance in-world.  From 10:30AM PST, Kapor will talk about the implications of Philip Rosendale stepping down as CEO of Linden Lab, the company that created and manages Second Life. Hosted by Cornell Professor Beyers Sellers, the talk will cover Kapor's "vision for virtual worlds technology and business strategy and, of course, the future of Linden Lab and Second Life." 

Metanomics will take place at CMP I, II and III (click here to teleport.) Or if the sims maxed out, you can also view it live on the web at SLCN.tv.

Also Coming Up This Week: a new documentary on virtual worlds gets under your skin, virtual U2 rocks out in Dublin, Portuguese music streaming classes, German fashion on the runway, indie electronic rock, a new/old monastery opens, and dating for cancer research.  All that and much more after the jump...

True Idoru: Meet Chouchou, A Metaverse-Only Music Group

The future of music can be glimpsed on an island floating high above Second Life.  There, amid snowflakes and trees that grow from a shard of crystal is a performance space, and on show dates, that's where you'll find juliet Heberle, an avatar with girlish gestures and Audrey Hepburn fragility.  She provides the vocals for Chouchou, a duo that's become quite popular in Second Life, especially among Japanese Residents who comprise their core audience.  (The floating isle of Islamey that is their concert hall is in the HarajukuTakeshita region-- direct SLURL teleport at this link--  though juliet tells me they plan to relocate to a region of Chouchou's own, next month.) 

Arabesque Choche composes and produces Chouchou's music, and it's jazzy and dreamy, spiked with synthetic nostalgia. Metaverse mavens Iris, Bettina, and Torley have long been smitten, but for good measure, I played their song "neverland" for Schlink Lardner, my household music expert.  (In a previous first life, she was a producer at two top LA radio stations.) She listened to Chouchou with a critical ear, then gave a positive nod, favorably comparing them to Morcheeba or "a Japanese version of Supreme Beings of Leisure." 

So the music stands on its own, but here is the thing: it only exists in Second Life, and is likely to never leave there.  Though Japanese by birth, she tells me, Ms. Heberle has lived in New York City for the last decade; Arabesque is based in Tokyo, and the two have never met in real life.  He transmits his music digitally, she records her vocals over them, and in Second Life, they perform live together while several thousand miles away.  "He hears what I hear," says juliet, "so I easily know what he wants for each song without asking him. I think that's why we can grow our music together."

Their virtual performance space, with its winter forest and its satellite location, is just as essential to who they are as avatar-based performers. The same can be said of their machinima-based music videos (another here, and here), which creates an indelible visual context for the group in a way that MTV did for pop stars in the 20th century.

And while most SL-based musicians see their Second Life performances as promotion for their real life career, juliet tells me they have no plans to extend their performance into the material world, and is reluctant to share details of her real life. "We're kind of keeping how-we-met thing in secret," she tells me, "because sometimes not knowing RL works better for Chouchou."  In that sense, they are most like the "Idoru" as imagined by William Gibson, a celebrity avatar that only exists in virtual form. 

International Union Protest Against IBM Outsourcing Planned for March 27

The global coalition of labor groups who streamed onto IBM's Second Life campus last year are planning another convergence of dissenting avatars there tomorrow.  According to their press communique, "IBM is misusing outsourcing contracts to reduce the workforce in a cheap way."  They're demanding that the Fortune 500 company open negotiations to offer options to employees potentially hurt by such moves, including voluntary transfer and guaranteed employment in the outsourced firm.  They're also calling in particular for IBM employees to join them in Second Life; however, no word about pro-labor bananas and triangles.  Anyway, read more about it here. 

Ophelia And Hamlet Take Manhattan: Iris Talks Second Life Style At The Fashion Institute Of Technology On April 25th

It's a college known as "the Harvard of Fashion", it boasts an impressive roster of alumni which includes Calvin Klein, Michael Kors, and Joel Schumacher-- and on April 25, New World Notes style correspondent Iris Ophelia will give the keynote at FIT's Technology Day, for a talk entitled "The Second Life of Fashion Design: Metaverse as Prototype Platform". I'll be there to provide a broader overview of the world, but Iris will be the star, telling the industry's future leaders what she's learned reporting from the metaverse fashionista scene-- and what they can learn from SL.

All the details here.  Event's open to the public, hope to see some New York SL fashionistas there!

Second Life (tm) Bloggers Talk Brand Enforcement

The Lindens have announced a 90 day amnesty for third party sites and individual users which incorporate the company's eye-in-hand logo or the Second Life/Linden Lab name into its material.  Extensive FAQ here.  An SL bloggers group has an extended conversation here, and offhand, I tend to agree with Kanomi Pikajuna, who says, "A company as dependent as Linden is on the goodwill and contributions of their community cannot possibly be stupid enough as to harass their fans for failing to put a TM after their company name. My guess is these guidelines are there to give them protection and cause to go after bogus currency exchange web sites and other profiteers."

Unsurprisingly, the new policy has caused some ripples of anxiety, particularly among longtime Residents who've enjoyed five years without this being much of an issue.  (Especially as it'll apparently impact sites that have long included variations of "second life" in its URL.) Jennyfur Peregrine, for example, who co-launched the annual Second Life Community Convention with the Lindens' blessing in 2005, says, "I know that we are not alone in our contempt for this new decision." 

Spot An SL Style Disaster? Call The Fashion Police!

I just stumbled into this snarky gem of a blog, and it's long, long, long overdue:  The SL Fashion Police, a regular blotter documenting crimes against all that is stylish in Second Life.  Whether it's glowing hair, dresses seemingly made from plastic wrap, or that perennial favorite-- and like several selections, this one's almost certainly not safe for work, unless you work in Orange County-- excessive female breast size, patrolwomen Chief D. Rocking, Sergeant Phoenix, and Pansy Snoring ably preserve the thin blue line of metaverse taste.  Avatar faces are obscured to protect the guilty, and designers of these, um, controversial ensembles, are left unmentioned.  Good moves, both, keeping the tone light and the unnecessary fashionista drama to a  minimum.   If you haven't already, jump aboard their paddywagon here.