New World Notes

Metaverse Viewing: Readers Recommend Wild Palms & The Peripheral

Virtual world experience from Wild Palms starts around 45 minutes in

I asked readers for favorite depictions of the Metaverse/virtual worlds in movies and TV besides Ready Player One, and they delivered -- starting with this oddball post-Twin Peaks TV classic from the 90s recommended by Ariane Barnes:

Back in the 90's when VR was still science fiction, some strange VR TV shows were released. The best was a mini-series called Wild Palms (1993) which I haven't seen in years, but available on You Tube in beautiful 4:3 ratio 480p video. The premise is that in 2007 a technology involving VR goggles and designer drugs would allow a person to travel anywhere experience it in all 5 senses. Virtual sex was the primary motivation of course.

Of course!  Watch episode 1 above. I vaguely remember the show, mostly for Kathryn Bigelow directing a later episode, and William Gibson doing a cameo appearance somewhere in there. Anyway, pretty amazing there was buzz around VR literally 30 years ago.

Speaking of Gibson, Soda Sullivan recommends a much more recent example based on a novel by him:

Top 5 Posts Including: Making a Metaverse That Matters Book Excerpt, Trump's Toilet in Second Life & A Recursive World in VRChat

• Read An Excerpt From Making A Metaverse That Matters -- And Please Consider Pre-Ordering!
• Someone Recreated Donald Trump's Mar-A-Lago Bathroom Hiding Stolen State Secrets In Second Life!
• Tutorial: How To Use Second Life's New LinksetData Feature To Create Roleplay & Quest Games (Guest Post)
• VRChat World Puts You In A World Within A World Within A World... But We're Not Sure How
• Open Forum: What Are Your Favorite Metaverse/Virtual World-Themed Movies & TV Shows (That Are Not Ready Player One?)

Read an Excerpt from Making a Metaverse That Matters -- and Please Consider Pre-Ordering!

Now in hard cover you can hold in your hands, Making a Metaverse That Matters: From Snow Crash & Second Life to A Virtual World Worth Fighting For (Wiley), is in book stores in a couple of weeks! If you've enjoyed anything I've blogged here over the last 17 years (or at least had some fun disagreeing with it) please consider pre-ordering:

On Amazon here

Or on Barnes & Noble here

Or on Bookshop.org benefiting indie bookstores here

As I write in the acknowledgements, New World Notes readers have been an invaluable part of my approach to this book, so if you're a regular reader and commenter reading these words now: Much mahalo.

Here's a sneak preview of the Preface:

Someone Recreated Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Bathroom Hiding Stolen State Secrets in Second Life!

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

Sedition Chic is a Second Life home décor blog post after my own heart, recreating Donald Trump's favorite Mar-a-Lago bathroom:

This new, up and coming storage option let's you surround yourself with state secrets you have no business having, and makes that useless sixth bathroom you never use a cozy place to commit treason. The addition of copy machine gives a fun and dangerous air of espionage to the surroundings. And if you do ever need to take a dump, you'll never be lacking for reading material!

Much more pics here. Most of the world has been exclaiming over a Trump’s idea of bathroom décor. I thought it would be fun to see what other folks could do with boxes. I imagine kraft brown would look good with a tropical décor. 

The reason grocery bags, packing materials, and most cardboard boxes are kraft brown, by the way, is the wood to make them is pulped mechanically (Kraft process) while white and colored papers are pulped with sulfite, which weakens the cellulose, making a weaker product. If you look up bankers boxes, you will see the heavy duty boxes are brown while medium-duty boxes are white. Even in storage, the choices were poorly made. 

Skye Donardson who blogs at The Feathered Nest went with a look quite faithful to the Mar-a-Logo original in its spirit. It comes complete with a chandelier. Her chandelier looks better placed by far. I love that she added a photocopier, showing her far more forward-thinking and competent at violating the Espionage Act. 

• Steffy's Special Things - Cardboard Storage Boxes by Steffy Lavender
• Awesome & Lulzy - Copier LI:1 by Solitude Blackheart

For Skye’s tips on modding a house, click here:

 

Tutorial: How to Use Second Life's New LinksetData Feature to Create Roleplay & Quest Games (Guest Post)

LSL LinksetData is a relatively new addition to Second Life scripting that veteran devs say can powerfully transform interactive experiences in Second Life.

To illustrate how, longtime scripter Grace Ling, creator of the popular roleplay app, Really Needy HUD, explains how it's used in her roleplay system -- and how it can be used in a location-finding game.

Read on for her tutorial! 

VRChat World Puts You in a World Within a World Within a World... But We're Not Sure How

Quite the mind-bending VRChat world....
World - Thad Recursive Room, by Thad Gyther pic.twitter.com/WsRNo4iHSt

— Rcbif (@rcbif) January 19, 2023

The trouble with writing a book about the Metaverse is you end up too busy to write about what's currently happening across the best metaverse platforms.

Which takes me to Thad Gyther's Recursive Room in VRChat, which puts you in a world within a world within a world. Watch the video above to see what I mean.

"It's really well made," my best VRChat source affirms. As for how it's made, we can only speculate at the moment:

 

Fabulous Photos from a Flickr Group Devoted to Second Life's Boating Community

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

When I first joined Second Life, I bought a sailboat for 1 linden from Enkythings. I am sure I still have that boat. I passed hours upon hours sailing that boat on the Linden Ocean. I bought a fancier sailboat that responded to the Linden Wind and required a person to actually know what they were doing. I tried it once or twice and went back to my Enkythings boat. Still, I love sailing the Linden Ocean and am always facing the water. I found a Flickr group dedicated to sailing in Second Life and am in love. 

Here is “Good Day on the Water…setting sail” from Benny Jets. Not only does B-B-B-Benny get points for a perfect Seventies reference, I love his use of a watercolor filter to create his excellent picture. Beautiful watercolors of water are so refreshing. With the smoke blanketing parts of North America and Europe, a lot of people are staying in, but Second Lifers can go out and about and enjoy the outdoor life without a respirator. 

For more boats, click here:

Watch: Teal Aurelia Wonderfully Wields Twin Pride-Themed Lightsabers -- Then Reveals How She First Created This in Second Life!

Wednesday was exhausting for ridiculous reasons, but there's still time to look at this beautifully rendered Pride-themed laser sword machina by the master, Teal Aurelia. Fairly unique among SL machinima creators, Teal lovingly (and painstakingly) captures raw footage shot in Second Life, then heavily post-processes it, usually to great effect and transformation. (I particularly love how we also see the after glow of the blades, conveying a real sense of heft and substance.)

I profiled Teal last year, who gave me a glimpse of her background, and her impressive process:

Today's SL Flickr Pick: Stunning Virtual Nature Pics from OnceAgain

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

OnceAgain is an artist as well as an art curator who operates the OnceAgain gallery that features women artists in SL. Her gallery is currently closed though we can hope she opens it again. I am sure she will announce it on her stream or on her in-world profile. I am stunned by the realism in so many of her pictures, particularly her landscapes. There are some true is it live or is it Second Life moments. She often adds some thoughtful commentary, as she did for this picture. The white frame is done so cleverly in this picture. At first glance, you see two different landscapes and you are asked to choose, but look more closely, it’s one picture that is framed to appear as two. So does that mean it’s a false choice? To visit this location, click here.

For more stunning pics, click here:

Open Forum: What are your favorite Metaverse/Virtual world-themed Movies & TV Shows (That Are Not Ready Player One?)

I was just doing a podcast interview about the book, happily getting into the weeds about the Metaverse and its history, when the host asked me a question that caused me to go blank:

"So what are some movies and TV shows about the Metaverse you recommend to listeners?"

By brain seriously went empty for what felt like three minutes before I finally mentioned a recent example (which I won't reveal until the podcast comes out).

Ready Player One would have been the most obvious example to mention right there; but while I liked the Spielberg adaptation just fine, it now leaves a bad aftertaste. (Which probably contributed to my brain freeze.) The movie doesn't add much to the original concept from Snow Crash, for one  -- other than basically presenting it as a fun, single shard multi-player video game. Worse, depicting the virtual world as only being accessible through VR has created a unfeasible and frankly undesirable vision that's inadvertently caused enormous damage to the concept's evolution. 

None of that's the fault of original author Ernest Cline, of course, and not taking away anything away from the novel's success! If anything, I'm faulting executives who only read and recommended his novel. 

As I write in Making a Metaverse That Matters, the book was made required reading for new employees at Oculus before and after its acquisition by Facebook -- even if that meant ignoring earlier, more important readings: