New World Notes

Reflections On Surviving Cancer At Relay For Life

I mentioned the near $200,000 in Linden Dollars that Residents raised for the American Cancer Society, at last weekend's SL Relay for Life.  Behind those numbers are countless, unbearably moving stories, for many who participated had very personal reasons for being there. "[E]verywhere I went throughout the [SLRFL] sims," Rik Riel reported, "I ran into pockets of people sharing stories about people they had lost to cancer, or their own struggle with the disease..."  On her blog, Eladrienne Laval provides a powerful example of that sharing, with screenshots of her horse-borne ride along the Relay track, juxtaposed with excerpts from a journal she kept while her real life mother was battling cancer.  Absolutely do not miss.

Invite SL Friends From The World To The Web

Our urbane and innovative friends at the virtual world social network Koinup (a partner to this blog) have a new feature, and if you have an account, it's worth a try:  "Invite SL Friends", which does exactly that-- using some libsecondlife open source code, it logs into your account and displays your Second Life friends list, giving you the option send all (or some) a message from Koinup, and invite them to join.  Caveat avatar: it's still very much a Beta product, and like AjaxLife and other open source projects, it requires you to enter your SL account info into a third party system.  That said, it's the kind of feature I hope to see more of, linking our Second Life identities with various Web 2.0 networks in a seamless way.

Meet The Femmes Fatales of Second Life

Billed as "an honest and brutal approach to dating, mating, and relating in Second Life", The Femmes Fatales is a new blog from Bells Semyorka (left), with contributions from Ms. Alexzandria Aeon (right, caught in high kick), interpersonal advice with an edge.  I discovered the blog via Erbo Evans, who provides the spicy backstory to Ms. Semyorka's new role:  "[R]ecently separated from her longtime partner, [Bell's] decided to take on a 'femme fatale' persona."  Looking forward to their worldly-wise insights.

New World Events, July 25-29th: RMB City Opens; An Irish Summer Carnival, A Japanese Star Festival, And More

Today at 10am Second Life Time, at long last, my friend China Tracy/Cao Fei, the acclaimed Chinese artist, is officially opening RMB City, a metaverse rendition of a fantasia Beijing.  Her latest Second Life project has gone through many incarnations, from a truck in Miami, to book form, to a Manhattan gallery, and finally, to SL itself.  Starting on the 26th, it'll also be featured at London's prestigious Serpentine Gallery, too.  Hope to see you at the morning preview-- direct SLURL teleport to RMB City at this link.

Thanks to New World Notes readers, I have a slew of events to mention, everything from Pink Floyd to surfing to a Japanese astrological festival.  Read for details after the break!

Mistress of Puppets

When their owners go away from their keyboard for too long, Second Life avatars are coded to slump forward at the waist, like a puppet with no one pulling its strings.  Vidal Tripsa took that visual metaphor for the AFK state to another level by creating an avatar with a puppeteer's cross, permanently floating above her head.  In a recent post, she explains what it means to her:  "As far as I am concerned this cross is an essential part of me," she concludes, "just as much as my arms and legs might be, were I a living being. It lends me no actual physical aid, but says far more about my persona than any outfit, name choice or group tag could."

New World Newsfeed: Eshi, Bettina, and Professor Eel in The New York Post

Recent dispatches from the outside world...

AN IRAQI'S SECOND LIFE - New York Post

Thanks to the sharp eye of Post editor Stephen Lynch (who first saw it mentioned on Instapundit), an abbreviated version of my post, "A Babylonian Scholar Returns To Second Life", was featured in the paper's Sunday edition. I showed Alsaramady Eel the link yesterday, and he was thrilled beyond words; he was already familiar with the Post, he explained, because he'd noticed it mentioned in Hollywood movies he's seen. The edited Post version focuses on Professor Eel's interactions with  Bettina Tizzy and Eshi Otawara; even better, Eshi gets a photo credit.  It's one of the latest instances of avatar identities integrating into the real world.  Then again, that phenomenon preceded the Internet; after all, who remembers the real life name of the 20th century photographer known as Weegee?

Open Forum: What Second Life Events Should New World Notes Feature This Week?

This week Charlanna Beresford is taking a well-deserved RL vacation with a respite from writing her Second Life events calendar, Lanna's List, but I'll do my best to highlight events coming up this weekend through to next Wedesday.  Know of cool and interesting SL happenings going on in the next few days?  Post a description with day, time, and place (ideally with a SLURL) in Comments, and I'll feature as many as I can.

New World Newsfeed: Tom Bukowski On PRI's *To The Best Of Our Knowledge*, With Music By ChouChou

Recent dispatches from the outside world...

To The Best Of Our Knowledge - Life as Entertainment

Tom Bukowski/Boellstorff, author of the acclaimed Princeton University book Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human, appears on the latest episode of "To The Best Of Our Knowledge", easily among the very best shows on public radio.  His segment starts at around minute 26, but the whole show, on several variety of mixed reality entertainment, is worth a listen.  Tom talks about what he's learned as an anthropologist in the metaverse, and he paints a vivid, insightful picture in words, assisted by SL sound effects, and even cooler, dreamy music from ChouChou, the SL-only music combo.  (The rest of the show features music from Massive Attack, so Juliet and Arabesque are in good company.) You can stream it here, and it's also available as a downloadable podcast on iTunes, just search "To the Best of Our Knowledge"-- it's the July 19 episode.

Casting Call: Videogame Character Avatars Wanted To Star In Machinima Short!

Been Super Mario in Second Life lately?  How about Solid Snake, or say Master Chief?  Acclaimed SL machinima creator Lainy Voom and I are working on a top secret machinima project, and we're looking for Second Life Residents who've created avatars that resemble classic videogame characters, to star in it.  Can't say who it's for just yet, but it involves a widely-respected non-profit effort that's extremely popular on the Net.  Shooting time will take a few hours at most, a chance to help an excellent cause while showing off your avatar building skills to a larger audience in a machinima by Lainy Voom.  If you haven't seen her work before, take a look here and here.  I'm slightly biased, but I think Lainy Voom is in the very top rank of machinima makers working in the medium, on any platform. 

To audition, send a screenshot of your videogame avatar to Lainy at this e-mail address: tracesanderson @ yahoo.co.uk, or contact her in-world. Also, if you know of any great avatar creators we should contact, please suggest them in Comments!

Pictured: a tribute to a Big Daddy from Bioshock, made by Dillon Beerbaum.

Ophelia's Gaze: What's Virtual Fashion Really Worth?

Exclusive to NWN, Iris Ophelia's ongoing showcase of all things stylish in SL

On a recent flight from Paris, I thought about my new pink umbrella wrapped up in the overheard compartment above me, the one that cost €100, and it made me wonder about the cost of fashion-- in France, and Second Life. Material value seems to boil down to one thing: rarity. Stones like diamonds are rare in the natural world, and their price tag reflects that. The more time and quality materials that go into an outfit, the rarer (compared to the abundance of sweatshop knockoffs that may emerge) and the more valuable it will be.

So how do we translate this principle in Second Life?  Of course, most famous SL brands are known to charge more for their fashion, but no brand is perfect.  After the break, three of my tips for finding real value in virtual fashion-- what you should look for before spending your hard-earned Lindens.