Reading Radar

Have you ever wondered “Why am i Here?” No? Well, whether you have or haven’t, you should really get Here now and find the answer to your question.

The inimitable Torley Linden has created himself a sim that you can’t miss. You can try, but you can’t miss it. I tried. I failed. You see, Chug put a link to it in the Destination Station. And since it was there, and I’d read about it in Torley’s blog, I had to check it out. I had no choice, no freewill, no way of getting around it.

But, that’s cool, because it’s actually a fun sim. It’s certainly not like any other sim I’ve been too, and this should be right up Mathaios Brandenburg’s alley. I do admit to growing weary of seeing the same old pretty human cities recreated in cyberspace when anything is possible, imaginative options are endless, and we choose to create a mirror of RL. But Ha HA!! Friendly Greetings, because THIS is not THAT!

Upon teleporting in, you realize You are HERE! somehow.. not sure how, something subtle perhaps.

We all know about the watermelons, the piano, and other famous Torleyisms, but he must have something for big birds too. Not the sesame street kind, but realistic huge birds that could peck your head in.

There’s kind of a watermelony easter island thing going on near the landing area.

There’s also a 60+ prim cube that I really wanted to twist and scramble like a Rubik’s cube, but no such luck. I couldn’t get it to do anything. Bummer. Torley, I wanted to twist your cube, man.

Here I am, trying to blend in with my green shirt. Where’s my PURPLE PANTS, DAMN IT!?

And playing the piano, the way I can only in Second Life.

Up There is a vid tut station for watching video tutorials. I didn’t bother to try to find out if you could change videos. The one they had playing there was about changing SL time or daylight settings or how to be a man that looks like a woman.. I’m really not sure anymore.

From there I went to meditate on what I’d watched, with Big Torley watching over me to make sure I didn’t pee in the pool or something.

Speaking of Big Torley, that’s a head that could fill a sim.

We found a couple weird things, like this interesting dance/pose/something something.

And a man eating plant with a link to some videos on building or something on top of it.

Personally, I kind of dug the Starship Watermelonrind.

Torley also posted some of his philosphy in “read me from across the sim” high letters.

I dug the fact he had a small parcel that allowed terraforming just to let people do it, and play. Very cool. I made what looked like a triple dinosaur horn thingy, whatever dinosaurs had horns. I’m sure some dino or other must have. You can’t be a respectable species if one of your kind doesn’t have a triple horn on its head.

After that, we found a natural pool area with floatation devices. I chose the monkey. It’s my way.

We talked to Jack1.24Gigawatts (actually it was JackSomeReallyLongNumber) for a few minutes and then poofed outta there. But not before I took one last look at the sim called Here, created for and by the man named Torley. Truly the only one-name SLebrity (or celebrity, for that matter) that I can stand. And this sim is very Torley in that it’s education oriented, providing resources for learning more about SL, and just generally showing that you don’t need to take a sim, build a town, and generally bore the shit out of people in some apparent desperate need to make sure they’ll never come back.

So git on ova theya, ya heah? And check out the torley meister’s sim sim, sim ba la dim.

Edloe’s sheltered by the Harbour now. To the north, even. You can see it from the tower.

It’s nice to have a buffer from who knows what else that might come along in the future, and it looks good. It’s got water. Lots of it. And here I am with a boat in my pocket… I forgot, damn it… I just stood there like a moron staring at the shore. Sigh…

Oh well. Grats on the turf.

Afterwards, I came back to PI to find Crap resting from his robotic journey through life.

He’s really not a bad guy, for a robot.

A couple episodes ago on the podcast I played a song by Antiqcool called “My Avatar.” One of the lines of the song is something to the effect of “It’s easy to get lost without a trace in cyberspace” or something like that. I don’t recall the exact words, but they were close to that.

The reality of the matter is that getting lost in cyberspace isn’t easy. It takes work, and it’s undoubtedly getting harder all the time as more powerful monitoring systems are set up by those with a vested interest in knowing who you are and what you’re doing.

Everything you do in cyberspace is able to be traced rather easily. For sure in second life, your IP is logged and it’s easy to correlate all your accounts back to you. While the Lindens can probably be trusted as well as anyone not to give out this kind of information, you can gain someone’s IP address rather easily in second life if you know how with a small amount of unwitting participation on their part.

Just as you can keep track of what your own computer is doing in terms of inbound and outbound connections, others can too. The strengths of a lot of how the internet works are also some of its weaknesses as far as privacy goes.

If you ever like considering such topics, you might enjoy reading “Little Brother” by Cory Doctorow. It’s aimed at teens, but it’s not a bad read for adults either. I found some of the situations a little hard to believe, namely the outcome of the book. You’ll know what I mean when you read it, but it has to do with a state standing up to the Dept. of Homeland Security. Most of the technology in the book is plausible, if not currently available, and it’s not hard to imagine that a reaction to another terrorist event in the country would result in even more monitoring of US citizens than already exists.

In my opinion, it’s extremely important to never take what the government says about homeland security and surveillance of its citizens at face value. Whatever the motives or the consequences of these actions, well meaning people screw up and people who aren’t so well meaning gain power that they wield inappropriately. At the very least, people need to pay attention and decide for themselves what level of privacy they are willing to sacrifice for attempts at security. Note that I say attempts at security, as one thing I definitely did agree with in this book is that we really aren’t all that much safer now, but we have lost a great deal of privacy to get to roughly the same point.

So have fun out there in cyberspace! And remember, if you’ve come visited me in SL, I just might have your IP address, so be nice. It’s certainly possible to have a little fun with an IP address and the type of lax security measures most people implement at home. Not that I would advocate such games.

What makes a second life redneck cry? Umm. Second Stress?

It’s interesting the number of comments I’ve seen lately by people on the various social networks about wanting to get away from SL, having so many commitments they are just overwhelmed by them, and really sounding like the whole thing has just become a huge obligation instead of any kind of fun at all.

At the risk of being misunderstood here, I have to say that the only cure for this is to meet whatever responsibilities you’ve set up for yourself in SL, just like you would any other, but as far as social obligations go, do things on your own time table. What I mean is, log in when you want. Don’t log in when you don’t want, aside from having a script or a build or something for a client that needs done. But don’t feel like you HAVE to be in second life otherwise. Your real friends will understand, you do have a life with things to do, and nobody is well rounded as an individual if all their energy and time goes into one thing. It’s just not possible. It’s not healthy mentally or emotionally either.

I think the people with the least stress in SL are those who log in when they want to or need to get something done, and then get back out again without having to worry about a huge stack of social obligations. I think of Airsafety as one of these individuals. He’s got stuff he wants to get done in SL, but he’s got a full life and he’s beholden to none as far as feeling forced to try to make it in. All of his friends understand. Sure, we’re glad when he’s around, and when I do see him on, I try to say “hi” and get caught up before he has to log off. But I’m not going to get upset that he’s doing things he needs to and things he enjoys that keep him out of SL.

I get the impression that some of the people with this stress don’t have that situation. That they feel obligated to log in. All I can say is that you have to get that off of yourself and be allowed to feel like you’re logging in by choice, whether it’s to accomplish something for an SL business or project, or just to be with friends. It has to be fun or worthwhile, or you aren’t going to do it. Second Life social situations cannot always be handled like real life ones, because everything you do in second life is on top of all the things you want or need to do in real life. Anyone really involved in SL has to grok that and have understanding towards those seeking balance as a result. It’s just not fair or healthy to have any other attitude.

I realize for a lot of people, this is their relaxation and fun. But when you’re online in SL, you’re often getting hammered with IM’s, reminded of things you meant to do, but haven’t had time, and generally driven to distraction. Is that really relaxing after a long day at work? If it is, great. If sometimes, it’s really NOT… hey. Stop. Log off. Get some sleep. Get some alone time without 39 people in your ear. If you’re like me, you need that downtime from having to respond to people. You need some thinking time without the world piling stuff at your doorstep. Giving that up every day for months and years on end without balance is immensely draining and stressful. And I’m convinced that’s what these people are going through.

So, really… the next time you’re in SL, and you find yourself getting sidetracked to the point of frustration at not getting something done you set out to do, log out. Say goodbye to whoever or whatever is sidetracking you, and go. Get out. Go ride your bike up a steep hill and then back down again as fast as you can. Go get some coffee. Take the dog on a walk. Read a book, shoot at the neighbor’s garage, whatever gets you feeling mentally refreshed again.

PS. More on the redneck thing later. Hehe.

Nika Dreamscape has a new house, I blogged about that. That’s old news. I mean, that was so earlier this week. So now she’s going to help YOU worry about YOUR house, and she’s doing it through her new blog known as “Second Homes.”

I must say, despite the stupid cat of evil abomination of all that is holy, Nika does have pretty good taste. So her claim to being able to help you choose wisely, sculpty grasshopper, is probably not far off the mark at all. Is that the mark of the green hand? Anyway…

Go check it out. She’s started with coverage of “The Loft” and indeed gotten me interested in seeing what they have, even though I don’t have any place to put anything or anything I want to put anywhere, it’s still cool to admire those who can make, and wish I were one of them. DAMN YOU, CREATORS POSSESSING SKILLFUL TALENTS, DAMN YOU!! Or.. something.

One of the things everyone keeps harping about (rightfully) is that interoperability of virtual worlds is going to be key moving forward, and something second life needs to be geared for in order to maintain success in the future.

Today LL kicked off their Open Grid Public Beta program to help virtual world developers get their virtual worlds interoperate with SL. At the moment, it’s teleport and login interoperability only, no assets or cash money will be able to make the quantum leap.

It’s based on the Open Grid Protocol, which, I guess if I were a virtual world developer, I’d know what the technical details meant. Or maybe if I just had an IQ north of 32.

It’s definitely interesting times, and the prospect of world hopping is very cool. Obviously for SL residents, the prospect of hopping in as a ruth somewhere will be less appealing than it might, and I suspect the problem of inventory, attachments, and money transferring over won’t be the easiest of issues to iron out, but it’ll happen eventually. There’s really no choice. Right now it’s a lot like saying we can only email other people using the same ISP, or call people on the same cell carrier. Fortunately, people are working on changing all that.

Sick again. I really, really couldn’t afford to stay home a second day but I woke up with chills and a clogged throat. I should have gone in to work and made everyone ill. Bastards.

I think today I’ll sleep, script, and be sick. I found the correct rss url to use for blip.tv feeds that gives the mp4 conversions on all files so even if the originals were in wmv or some other format, the itunes feed will let you play all of them in mp4 so they’ll play for anyone in-world. That solves my problem for getting a reliable in-world SLPN Video player set up. Thanks to Dedric and some of my own LSL and a little php modding, we can host the rss -> sss conversion on my server and not rely on third party players that have gone belly up in the past. I know I’ve said it before, but Dedric’s the guy you want for solutions to programming problems.

I just need to finish up the menu code and a couple minor things and I’ll be done. Yay. I got sidetracked with another project this week, but it’s going to be a fun one. It’s something Itazura and I will get going at some point.

That Wacky Particle Guy, Arminasx Saiman, is on the latest uploaded episode of Tonight Live with Paisley Beebe.

Good show! Arminasx is one of the more interesting content creators, IMO.

Johnny Ming (John Swords in RL) sent a reply to one of the posts about the Orange media event today, and that plus a little reflection made me want to post my response to him. I emailed him a copy so he’d get it personally as well. Thanks, John, for your input, and here are my thoughts in response.

Yes, you’re absolutely right that Secondcast was notable in that it was all people who were in it were all very active residents in second life. That showed in the passion you guys had in the topics you talked about. I remember hearing banter back and forth between your group over things and you could tell it was genuine and that you were residents of the place, not people who were podcasters who happened to be in SL as well. One thing I’d also point out is the humor many of you had and enjoyed bringing out in the podcast, lest anyone think I was taking your comments as arrogant. I don’t believe you are an arrogant person in the least. The very few times I’ve had occasion to come into contact with you, you’ve always been accessible, humble, and seemingly very easygoing. I like that in a high profile podcaster. I wish it were more common.

I was actually thinking about this tonight as I woke up (can I blame a cold for making me grumpy today?) and had to admit, in that context, some of us owe secondcast a nod as an inspiration for doing an SL related podcast done as SL residents. You were definitely the first real SL podcast I listened to, although IIRC, Goddess and Banana claimed to be the first, but since I wasn’t around when they started, I couldn’t tell you who came first. I never listened to them. But I did learn about SL from you guys as I started off my journey through this particular metaversion known as second life in 2006.

One thing I would like to stress in all my comments here is that I’m not mistaking myself as some important high-profile representation of the new crop of SL podcasters. While I am a current SL podcaster, let’s be honest here, I’m very small time in terms of listeners and certainly impact in SL. I’m not confused about my place in the world, and I hope I didn’t come across that way. I’ve never achieved anything on the level of anyone on the panel, to the best of my knowledge, and I’d like to acknowledge that fully.

So what bothered me particularly about the Orange media panel was not the credentials of anyone on the panel. It seemed on first blush that Orange was not grokking the current state of podcasting in SL, and that’s what bothered me. I interact regularly with a number of various podcasters who have current, apparently popular podcasts in SL that I think should have been included. I know we keep bring up the example of CC, and while he’s certainly a big name in podcasting I don’t really think he’s been a big name in SL podcasting. I know that whether you agree or not, you can understand the distinction, since your group WAS individuals who were residents first, from very early on.

Having said that, I enjoyed the panel a lot once you steered it to the future. I think you’re a person who will be involved in exploring the evolving forms of podcasting as things continue to change, and I’m looking forward to subscribing to your upcoming podcast, The Shack.

Most of all, I’d like to say thank you for being a good sport about all this and for doing a good job listening to the chat at the event today and being fully engaged with the audience. That’s greatly appreciated.

Ok, aside from going over the past too much, and at times being kind of monopolized by two people, I actually enjoyed the Orange thing. Not because I think it was the best panel for talking about podcasting in SL. But once John steered the conversation towards the future of podcast media, it got a lot more enjoyable.

I picked on the event and the panel a little, and that’s probably not 100% fair. Let’s be honest - I’m a podcaster of little note, and small following, and each of the people up there has achieved more than I probably ever will in media. So fair enough. But all that aside, John did do a pretty good job. I think Stuart could have been given more questions but then again he knows more about the other panelists, and it’s not easy to not go to what you know.

What I am looking forward to from him is is upcoming podcast, “The Shack,” which will apparently be about various virtual worlds and some of the key players. It’s good for SL types to get outside their SL-centricity sometimes because, just like fiber trumps dsl, something better will surely come along at some point. LL and SL will have to work hard not to get moved aside before long. The advantage is the content creation and the wide range of communities, but anyone in SL should pay attention to other worlds, and things like OpenSim.

I’m looking forward to hearing this one.