Editor’s note: Once more, Extropia DaSilva has finished another of her mind-provoking essays, and it’s time to give her the floor! — Gwyn “Listen: there’s a hell of a good universe next door. Let’s go”-E.E Cummings. INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ‘NORMAL’ ANYWAY? In online worlds the everyday concerns that define real […]
Slowly recovering from a bacteriological infection which leaves me almost unable to focus on anything for more than a couple of hours at a stretch due to high fever, something which is terribly frustrating for me, it’s those special moments from friends that cheer me up. My good friend Gwen […]
You all saw Jon Stewart’s parody of the Second Life® world shortly after Philip Rosedale was at Congress debating virtual worlds, “Avatar Heroes“. Jon Stewart’s style of humour, of course, is legendary, and the sketch is really lovely to watch and laugh at — but it’s also clear that nobody […]
Well… almost! Ariane Brodie has a long list of all the kinds of tips that you would love to have had when you joined the Second Life® virtual world for the first time — from avatar settings, to free skins, to dozens of scripting tips for most things, and to […]
When the Metaverse Roadmap was released last year, people were excited. For the first time in history, several different technologies were planned out for the next 10-20 years, and their convergence — desired, or undesired — laid out and discussed openly, surveys were made, presentations were given, and a lot […]
I’ve just been pointed to this nice sharing tool, a way to share PowerPoint, PDF, or OpenOffice presentations via the web. I’ve just shared most of my presentations vaguely related to the Second Life® environment and platform, and, who knows, some might be useful to you.
The Spirit of Second Life® itself, Torley Linden, recently wrote about his experience with reading what journalists have to say about Second Life. I don’t know if he had just read how badly misquoted Philip Linden had been early this week and, like so many others (Philip included), got very […]
Laurap Linden thankfully replied on the Official Second Life® Blog to our plea for clarification on some of the more subtle issues of Linden Lab®’s policy on the trademark usage. In fact, the most important question was not exactly about the trademark usage; after all, the complete guidelines for their […]
Second Life® residents all log in to Second Life for different reasons, and Soren Ferlinghetti is launching another survey to find out a bit more about the residents’ view of religion in Second Life. The intriguing aspects of Soren’s survey is how exactly Second Life, as an “alternative” environment — […]
Shortly following this post, my blog is joining the 3-day strike as a protest against the lack of clarification on some of the issues regarding the new guidelines on the trademark usage. Notice that Robin Linden’s Office Hours are going to be later today (11 AM SLT at her place […]
Back in 2005, a group of residents were a bit tired about Second Life®’s homepage. It advertised Second Life as a game and was clearly targeted to the market of young creative geeks. Second Life was a MMOG back then, and Linden Lab® did not do much to make people […]
I usually stay away from the more tough discussions on the land speculation in the Second Life® world. The major reason for that is truly believing that land, in Second Life, is a pretty good example of a free market, where demand and supply are two key factors, but the […]
Robert Pirsig‘s classical masterpiece on the philosophy of quality, Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, written in 1974, opens up with a very interesting discussion. Bikers (allegedly) come in two types. One group is constantly fiddling and tweaking with their bikes — they enjoy as much tinkering with bikes […]