New World Notes

Visit in SL: Rosemont, a Cyberpunk City Swallowed by the Forest

Click here to visit Rosemont District - Nirvanic Dystopia in Second Life, a cyberpunk city with a fun twist. Created by master builder Kaiden Tray (last seen here turning the Bates Motel from Psycho into a disturbingly beautiful SL experience), it's a fun twist to the usual dystopian metropolis: Basically it's what the city looks like after the people have gone away, and nature returns to consume it. Tray tells me the visuals were inspired by Horizon Zero Dawn, and set to work fashioning the place like it was a cyberpunk bonsai tree:

"I usually modify plants and trees and bushes," as he puts it. "Sometimes I will take sets apart and just use certain pieces from sets. I might resize different things to make a tree a bush or a bush a tree. I’ll also unlink and link different objects together or even retexture roads is I’m going for a certain look. A lot of the landscaping is custom."

Commissioned by longtime SL blogger Whoop C Daisy (gotta love her avatar name) Rosemont is actually a site for fashion shoots for her blog:

Perfectly Posed Avatars Help This Artist Tell Stories With SL Screenshots

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Brad Zeura’s “Help Me!” is a pic that made me stop and just say “Wow!” That green is just so bold and perfect in this picture of two long-deceased avatars waiting by a vehicle that has likewise seen better days. And of course I wonder if they ran out of gas and why didn’t they walk to the next station. Is that fog some version of ectoplasm? These are the things that make me wonder. Brad’s stream is full of pictures that prompt your imagination. 

For more inventive story-telling pictures, click here:

Netflix's Ultra-Gory Squid Game Inspires 300+ User-Made Games in ROBLOX, the Metaverse for Kids, Attracting 80+ Million Visits so Far

Above: Top results on ROBLOX when searching for "Squid Game" under Experiences.

Depending on whether you're a parent or a gamer, this is either horrifying or seriously cool. Then again, if you're an executive at Netflix or at the only Metaverse platform listed on the stock exchange, you might feel a combination of both: 

Squid Game, the incredibly popular Netflix series which premiered early this month, has already spawned hundreds of user-created game experiences in ROBLOX, the massively successful Metaverse platform. As I write this today, there are easily 300+ such listed Experiences that have already been visited over 80 million times. 

To put that in perspective, that's likely more visits to Squid Game experiences in ROBLOX than viewers of the actual show on Netflix.

Couple minor potential issues here, though:

Incredible Avatar Pics Shot With the Black Dragon Viewer & Pose System

Thyme Carter is fascinated by water. If I were into astrology, I would assume she is a water sign. This fascination is deeply explored in her photostream. She named this “You had me at a point where I would have left the entire world behind for you.” When I think about this picture and the text, I think of a woman who has wised up. She’s over her head and treading water, but she’s no longer swept away by a rip tide. She looks tired, but not exhausted. She will garner her strength and swim back to safety. Her musical inspiration of Billie Eilish’s "Happier Than Ever" reinforces that message. 

For more great pictures, click here:

Anyone in El Salvador Actually Using Bitcoin? Evidence Seems Scarce

Pictured at right: Top locations by usage of Bitcoin over the Lightning Network as of today.

Three weeks after Bitcoin officially became legal tender in El Salvador, its President claims that 2.1 million Salvadorans -- a third of the entire country's population -- are "using" Bitcoin. And while it's probably true there's about that many downloads of the official Chivo Wallet app -- currently over 1 million from Google Play alone -- there's a small problem:

Evidence of actual usage, i.e. transacting with Bitcoin to buy goods and services, is scant.

That's my conclusion after referencing the Lightning Network Search and Analysis Engine, a layer built on top the Bitcoin network, and on which the Chivo Wallet runs. (Handy explanation for how that works below.) As of today, El Salvador isn't listed among its top locations of usage, and doesn't even show up in the engine's listings of usage by country.

BitcoinBeach, a Salvadoran beach town popular with international Bitcoin enthusiasts in El Salvador, currently only lists 55 nodes, i.e., payment points.

This is all, to put it technically, seriously sus.

Over 2 million Salvadorans now own Bitcoin -- anyone who downloads the Chivo Wallet gets $30 worth of free Bitcoin to spend -- yet somehow, not even 1% of them are using it on a regular basis. And El Salvador's government has been pushing Bitcoin for everyday use, i.e. buying groceries, paying employees, etc. 

My old Linden Lab buddy John "Pathfinder" Lester, a Bitcoin supporter, tells me that's it's too early to declare El Salvador's experiment with Bitcoin a failure.

"Time will tell," as he puts it. "It hasn't even been a month since everything went live (September 7th)."

That could be, and l'll be sure to check back next month. But my strong suspicion is almost everyone in El Salvador who owns Bitcoin is doing exactly what almost every Bitcoin owner around the world does with it: HODL-ing.

As for why El Salvador's government is actually interested in Bitcoin, this from my interview with UC Irvine currency expert Bill Maurer from last June:

"El Salvador's adoption of Bitcoin has more to do with efforts there and elsewhere in Latin America to attract wealthy techno-libertarian investors than anything about financial inclusion or remittances (which is what the official line has been)," he tells me, and gives me more backstory.

"Concurrent with the declaration that Bitcoin is legal tender, El Salvador's president also laid out the welcome mat for crypto-entrepreneurs willing to invest in the country... for a certain amount in Bitcoin, you get permanent legal residency. Given the high barriers to actually using Bitcoin for anything--no one will accept it in payment, and you need to be pretty tech savvy to buy and send it-- I don't see it becoming a pathway for remittances, like the president has been touting. The real angle here is providing a tax-free, safe haven for the ultrawealthy Bitcoin bros to take it easy and rake in more crypto-millions in the tropics."

Emphasis mine! Meantime, more info on the Lightning Network from Pathfinder:

Virtual World Landscape Pics Elevated by Unique Angles & Framing

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Burleh Leonard takes fabulous landscape shots of his travels in Second Life. This is a great example of his style, shooting from a low angle that adds a fresh perspective. I love the angle. He adds an aged look with an overlay that frames the picture. It’s gorgeous. You can see this site from any angle by visiting the Whispering Winds sim, click here. 

For more SL travels, click here:

Facebook Moving to Define the Metaverse's Future -- In Part to Rebuild Its Reputation and Despite Low Usage of Its Own Metaverse

Above: Facebook's Metaverse solution in the Oculus Store, currently rated at 2.5 stars

Facebook is ironically moving to define the future of the Metaverse:

Facebook has announced a $50 million fund that it says will help it develop the metaverse more responsibly. It’s officially called the XR Programs and Research Fund, and the company says it’ll be invested into “programs and external research” over the course of two years... Facebook says the fund’s goal is to make sure it builds its part of the metaverse with an eye towards compatibility with other services, as well as inclusivity, privacy, safety, and “economic opportunity.” Right now, Facebook’s metaverse biggest metaverse program is a platform called Horizon, which exists as a beta Oculus app that lets people have VR meetings.

But the thing is, according to its own listing on the Oculus Store, Facebook's "biggest" metaverse application only has 23 user ratings which now stand at an aggregate of 2.5 stars. (The low rating may have something to do with development turnover and lack of prioritization.)

Assuming the rule of thumb of 1 user review per 50 active users applies here, Horizon likely has less than 2,000 user downloads. As a comparison point: VRChat, which is still in Early Access, has 107,517 user reviews on Steam alone, with an aggregate rating of Very Positive. So on the face of it, is Facebook the best qualified organization to "develop the metaverse more responsibly"?

Which brings up the question of why Facebook is doing this in the first place. Here's my take back in July, when Zuckerberg announced plans to turn Facebook into a Metaverse company:

My cynical take (and it's hard not to be cynical, when it comes to Facebook) is this move is made in great part to stave off anti-trust regulation that is now looming over his company. ("Hey we're not really a social media monopoly, look at us trying to compete with Epic/Apple/ROBLOX etc!") But in fairness, Zuckerberg has long been passionate about VR, buying Oculus (with founding Linden Cory Ondrejka's guidance) many years before the Facebook backlash reached fever pitch.

According to a recent Washington Post report, some of that cynicism was warranted after all:

New World Notes Highlights: Inside VRChat's Massive Informal Economy, My Deep Dive Into Matthew Ball's Look at the Metaverse Generation

• FOX 'S Alter Ego: A Mixed Reality Competition Show From Producers Who Don't Understand Avatars Or Why Virtual Worlds Make Them Real
• Inside VRChat's Informal Economy: An Estimated 350+ People Make Real Money From That Metaverse -- Many Likely Earning A Full-Time Income!
• How The Pandemic Helped Make The Metaverse Respectable, The Rise Of The Metaverse Generation, And Why Metaverse Communities Matter Most
• 3D File To IRL Manufacturing Could Be A Killer Applet For The Metaverse

Virtual Town & Country Style Tips from Across the Second Universe

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Nuria Nevin’s recent post “In the Country” is a cheery, fun picture of a woman with her puppies. She’s holding a bouquet of wheat and is sitting on hay bales. This tells me that she was not from farm country because they are scratchy as all get out. She should take that neatly folded blanket and avoid feeling itchy the rest of the day. She used Black Dragon viewer to fine tune the pose. 

• Blueberry - Ivy Overalls/ No Control Bodysuit (by BlueberryStore Resident)
• [BREATHE]-Shizuka Flats-FATPACK (by daisa Admiral) [New @ Collabor88]
  Amitie In the Country POSE #2 + Wheat Bouquet/Single (by BELEN Ackland) [
• SEmotion Libellune English Beagle Animesh - Premium 1, 2 and 3 (by Libellune Starlight) [New @ Anthem Event]

For a must-have dress tip, click here:

FOX 's Alter Ego: A Mixed Reality Competition Show from Producers Who Don't Understand Avatars or Why Virtual Worlds Make Them Real

Above: Pop star Grimes, who believes reality is a virtual world created by an omniscient AI, explains how Alter Ego works

Months after its producers began scouting among the Second Life community for avatar-based performers, the avatar-based reality competition show Alter Ego is here: Watch on Fox TV's site. 

I just saw the first episode and I have mixed feelings about its mixed reality presentation. Fundamentally, the whole concept seems to be directed at an audience who don't quite understand how virtual world avatars work, created by producers who definitely don't know how they work. Which is strange, because the vast majority of the show's target Gen Y/Z audience (I'm tempted to say all of them) have an avatar in Fortnite and other virtual worlds.

Speaking of which, as I suspected, the show uses Unreal, the graphics engine that also runs Fortnite: