Firestorm Q&A: "The Future of SecondLife"

(via my friend Neo Timeless' blog "Free Your Mind")

Jessica Lyon, of the Firestorm team, hosts a Q&A concerning the future of SecondLife, with Oz Linden and Peter Linden.

This is an interesting talk, especially due to the (in my opinion) somewhat excessive reactions among residents since news spilled recently that Linden Lab is investing financial and labor resources in creating the next generation of an immersive 3D virtual reality, i.e. a new SecondLife or a "SecondLife 2.0".

Funny Coincidences

Yesterday my buddy NE0 Timeless posted a response to my recent post about my problems with insomnia. In his post he suggested a wonderful piece of interesting, soothing and relaxing music that I should listen to whenever I had problems sleeping.

The music was Thomas Dolby's song N.E.O. which I am sending you to NE0's blog to listen to, Free Your Mind: A song dedicated to Bock McMillan.

While I was listening to the song I focused on the photography of a meteor that is displayed throughout the video. Suddenly I saw a vague outline of my own face on parts of the meteor, which was rather amusing.

The next funny thing that happened was that when I was going to comment on the post and thank him, I got the following word verification.

Thank you so much for the caring suggestion buddy, I will try it the next time I cannot sleep!

A Must-See

"On the Grid; Living in Second Life" is a wonderful little documentary machinima made by greybox.tv on life in SecondLife and the residents differing views on it.

You can watch it on my buddy NE0 Timeless' blog Free Your Mind in this post Second Life Documentary: On the Grid. NE0 has always had an uncanny ability to find the most interesting machinimas on SecondLife. Kudos!

My favorite quote from the video is: "You can either say that there is NOTHING to do in Second Life... or that you can do ANYTHING"

A Blogs Demise

It was not without some pleasure and great satisfaction that I late last night noticed that the Swedish virtual worlds blog Netlott, previously named Prim Team, declared that it was closing down after only 20 days (February 21 - March 11, 2012).

I have informed you about this blog earlier in my posts "Ich Bin Ein Prim Teamer" and Bukowski & Witches.

The blog started by declaring that the bloggers were a group of people with technical interests and that they together had amassed more than 25 years of experience in virtual worlds. They also declared that they were going to remain anonymous but gave no specific reason for this decision.

I am sure the blog would have been welcomed in the Swedish SecondLife community despite the fact that the bloggers wished to remain anonymous if the blog had settled for their proclaimed field of expertise, the technical aspects of virtual worlds. Such a blog written by people with keen insight and knowledge on the workings of the viewers and a willingness to share and educate the rest of us is sorely needed and would fill a vacuum.

However, the Prim Team and Netlott blog (Netlott is by the way a word play on the English word "net" and the Swedish word "nitlott" which means "drawing a blank"), instead chose to start delving in social issues and unearthing dirty linen and rusty battle axes from the close or distant past. This caused the Swedish community in SecondLife to erupt and the tentative armed peace that had been established over the past two-three months evaporated. Ghouls from the past that had relished in the previous unrest reappeared and the favorite object of hate was yet again reviled.

Once the blog started declaring who was not a member of the blogging team I declared myself to be one of them to see how they would handle that. This was never commented upon.

I am now completely certain that one of the team members is in fact "The avatar formerly known as Sven Idyll". I have come to this conclusion from the language used in some of the posts, some of the topics raised on the blog, a question directed at me by one of the anonymous bloggers which was exactly the same as one Sven Idyll previously had posed to me and now - finally - the way in which the blog was closed.

The blog was shutdown in exactly the same way as Sven Idyll´s previous three (3) blogs. with some choice words of recrimination, "no one understands me", "you have all misinterpreted me" and "you bore me" etc., and letting the blog stay online for a while after removing all the previous comments and assorted posts and not allowing any new comments.

I would be the first to welcome a new Swedish blog that focused on the technical aspects, but we do not need more trolls. We have enough of those already, thank you very much!

UPDATE (04:58 AM SLT): And now "The avatar formerly known as Sven Idyll" has read this post and has posted a not so subtle comeback at me. Hilarious! (No link to that waste of time will be supplied here, I am sure that others will be happy to help you.)

PROBABLY RELATED: My buddy NE0 Timeless over at Free Your Mind has found an interesting article from March 7, 2012, on a Swedish website that could have some connection to this matter. An IT-consultant of sorts is bashing SecondLife as a waste of time and claiming we now have drugs inworld, something called "Seclimine". 

Apparently it is something that messes with the shared inworld experience I gather, as he mentions something about a hazy viewer and sound distortions. I never heard about it though, but I am a sanctimonious prick so...

NEO Shares Jewels

Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol

My friend and co-blogger NE0 Timeless shares two interesting clips with me - and you all - on his blog Free Your Mind.

The first clip To Bock McMillan (url) shows the creator of our dreams and our amazing world Philip Linden, in first life also known as Philip Rosedale, talk about the origins of SecondLife and the directions we may be heading.

The second clip To Bock McMillan (nr 2) (url), is the first part of three in a series of conversation called "BAN6 Conversations @ YBCA - Radical Identities". In the first part we can hear a mind boggling conversation between anthropologist Tom Boellstorff (url) and Philip Linden about our identities in first and second life and the interactions between them.

Rewriting the Rules

NEO is the blond dude sitting

Ars and I had many things in common. One of them was our deep love for SecondLife.

Although I have lately gotten (un)friendly suggestions that I should perhaps consider emigrating to another world, I have no plans to do so  - ever. The other worlds hold no fascination for me, as they only seem to be cheaper knockoffs of SecondLife.

Today NE0 Timeless has a post where he shows us two parts from a documentary called "Digital Nation".

NEO tells us it makes him proud to be a SecondLife user. Well, I am as proud as you are, NEO!

Watch the two videos on NEO´s blog "Free Your Mind", "Digital Nation, parts 6 and 7 - SecondLife (url).

Oh, and after seeing those videos. no one will ever be able to tell me that Philip Rosedale (a.k.a. Philip Linden in SecondLife) has ever lost faith in his creation. I love that man again, purely, simply and platonically!