Weekend Open Forum: What About The Metaverse Is On Your Mind?

It's a long Labor Day weekend (at least here in the States), and I'm scrambling to get ready for Virtual Worlds Hollywood next week. (Which means I'm thinking a lot about mobile phones for the metaverse, since my panel's called, "Mobile Virtual Worlds: Leaving the Personal Computer Behind."

What SL and Open Sim topics are on the top of your awareness lately?

Comments

[Ann Otoole]

Intergrid Copyright and Intellectual Property Protection from the "everything on this planet should be free for me but everyone else must pay for my stuff" mentality types rolling out of the universities apparently without any common sense education. Universities need to make common sense 101 a freshman year mandatory class in which they explain professors are generally teaching their personal opinions and, unless some irrefragable facts are presented supporting the material's accuracy, the course is nothing but a challenge to see if the student can complete it and the fictitious material presented be discarded and forgotten immediately after the final grade is obtained.

[Vidal Tripsa]

Still matters of identity and purpose, for myself at least. The big question of self, really: "why?" Then I believe that may be part of having accepted the "life" part of my second life, though. Everyone doubts themselves at times in the first, so why should the second life be exempt? :)

Oh, oh, that and ignorant noobs. How long have we had an internet? Yet some people still seem hell-bent on approaching us all with 'real' "A/S/L?" or sly equivalents. It might be nice to think that our world may one day foster better manners, however such an abstract seems to remain pure concern rather than a problem that has solution. Any... meaningful solution beyond trying to politely shepherd the individuals who approach me that way, at least.

[Hamlet Au]

What's the best response to "a/s/l", though? "My avatar is 26, female, and from Extropia," for example?

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

I'll raise a point from edu-land: how will college faculty and their classes keep up with the constantly rising system requirements for SL?

It's driving some users away. Can LL come up with a plan for those running slower and older machines? A lot of us merely want a working metaverse and don't care as much as do SL's graphic designers and coders about how pretty it all looks on an uber-system.

PS: I'm scratching my head over Ann's response: I'm certainly not that sort of prof. She can use my content: all I ask is a citation wherever she uses it. I reckon such profs exist, but they don't last long at our school.

[Arwyn Quandry]

I'm wondering if LL will do anything to help the Teen Grid. It's having problems with its economy, and doesn't have many members that stick around for long. They don't even seem to pay attention to it anymore. It has me worried, since I'm stuck with it for another year.

[Hamlet Au]

Arwyn, there's been rumors (actually an ex-Linden said this) that they were planning to fold Teen Grid into SL proper eventually-- hence the adult verification thingie.

> Can LL come up with a plan for those
> running slower and older machines?

Iggy, do you have any metrics/specifics on problems you've had with slower machines? As you may recall, I raised this issue a few months ago, but the Lindens insisted it's not a problem, at least as it relates to post-WindLight upgrades.

[Arwyn Quandry]

Fold it into the adult grid? That seems unlikely, what with the obsession with keeping kids and adults apart on the internet. I would be interested in seeing how they could do that and keep people happy. Surely adults don't want 13 year olds running around their Islands, and kids are so overprotected that it would be difficult to put them anywhere near an adult who hasn't had ten thousand checks run over them without parents yanking the plug.

Do you have any more information on this?

[Sophrosyne Stenvaag]

I'm reading a terrific little book, that I heard about from http://www.raphkoster.com/2008/08/25/settlers-of-the-virtual-world-new-book/>Raph Koster's blog: http://www.amazon.com/Settlers-Virtual-Worlds-Erik-Bethke/dp/1439203601>Settlers of the New Virtual Worlds.

It's making a profound and shocking case for giving us real rights in digital worlds, and pointing up how basic human rights stop where the digital world TOS begins.

World builders both want their creations to be treated as *places,* but refuse to allow any of the tools people have developed for living together in places. It doesn't seem like it's going to be possible to have it both ways for very much longer.

So much is at stake: I think community management may be the big digital worlds issue of 2009...

[CyFishy Traveler]

I just got back from Dragon*Con, which is not unlike wandering through SL in real life--furries, nekos, robots, goths and other rub shoulders without a second thought.

So I guess if I'm thinking about anything, I'm thinking about the limitless possibilities of self-expression that SL provides and how that can bleed back and forth into this thing we call reality.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

Been rather afk from SL and NWN for a few days, so forgive the lag on this reply. You are asking Mac-dork to spec a PC, but I think I recall how to do that :) Our standard campus PC is a bit dowdy:

--IBM ThinkCentre PC (Pentium 4 processor @ 3.19 Ghz)
--Windows XP Professional
--RAM 1 GB
--Video Card (I think this is our problem): Intel R 82915G/Gv/910GL Express Chipset Family Display Adapter.

We are an "Internet 2" campus, whatever that means, but it does mean blindingly fast connections. That's never been the problem here.

We have dumbed down the client to 800x600 resolution and graphics settings on low. It runs.