Creatively Distracted
Creatively Distracted
Do you remember virtual worlds? They haven’t gone anywhere, but back in the middle of the last decade, 2006-2009, they were getting a good deal more attention than they are now. Names from the automotive industry, news agencies, music labels, and even universities jumped in to see what all of the hype was about. Worlds such as Second Life, Open Sim, Kaneva, and Blue Mars were just some of the virtual spaces people could walk into.
Avi Bar-Zeev from Reality Prime has written an insightful summary of how and why primatives work the way they do in Second Life. The explanations are from the developer's perspective and include backfill on early decisions made when SL was still young. If you've ever wondered "Why?" while you were trying to build something, you'll get something from the article.
Philip Rosedale speaks at TED about virtual worlds, creativity, and possibility. Video below:
Linden Labs has successfully moved an SL avatar to OpenSim according to a post made earlier this month by Zha Ewery. Although the news was kept pretty low key, I can’t help but think this is the equivalent of what…
Below are the presentation and links mentioned in my visit to John Bailey's GEO 493 class...
Yesterday I gave a couple of small presentations about Second Life to small groups using Stixy instead of PowerPoint.There wasn’t a lot of time to prepare for these, so I collected images, some were mine and some I found on…
The Iditarod is a huge event here in Alaska and the race kicked off this year just a couple of days ago on 01 March. The race was also commemorated in Second Life with a Virtual Iditarod. I wasn’t able…
There is an interesting write up on how to stream video taken on a Nokia N800 into Second Life here. It would be an odd circumstance that I would need to do this, but it is certainly good to know…
Adam Reuters, the Reuters correspondent dedicated to Second Life reported on Tuesday of the new build by Clear Ink of the US Congress. It appears to be affiliated with the Democratic Party, but when the space is open it will be intended to serve as a non-partisan place for open discussion and information about the 110th Congress.
Gene Koo, Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society as well as Director of Online Training at Legal Aid University, lists three criteria for which computer simulations add value in an educational context: 1. The subject is best…
JustVirtual has posted a fantastic recap of the ZeroG Sky Dancer’s performance, produced and directed by DanCoyote Antonelli the other night. By all accounts this even was a huge success – even in the face of a buggy grid upgrade…
Phillips Design is planing to develop a space in Second Life, in cooperation with the design studio Rivers Run Red, to present concept products to residents and gather feedback about them. They see this endeavor as an opportunity to interact…
The folks at Terra Nova have figured the value of the inworld currency for a number of virtual worlds – and Monopoly and put it all in a nice little table. I feel I have to mention Monopoly separately as…
Ralph Koster has written one of the more well thought out articles about the emergence of CopyBot and some of the implications for Second Life. The conversation following this article is also very thought provoking and worth a scan to…
Synthravels wants to be your virtual travel agency the next time you plan a vacation.
Linden Lab is celebrating their 1M account today. Though I am still a young resident, watching the exponential growth of SL over the past six months is nothing short of amazing. LL is forecasting 50,000 new accounts in a single day this week - ALT accounts or not, it is hard to dispute how rapidly things are growing. Kudos to the LL team of their heroic efforts as they stand in the path of such a large wave. Pull out the surfboards!
Scripted dice now make it possible to play D&D in the virtual world of Second Life. How many virtual steps can one take from "reality"?
Fab-ja-wha? Print your virtual creations to the real world with Fabjectory’s service that will print your SecondLife avatar as a 3D tangible thing. Definitely a vanity purchase, but I would be tempted if I wasn’t afraid of discovering that my…