Your2ndPlace

This just in:

9 May 2008 – Animal lovers and Second Lifers are being encouraged to attend a live virtual event to help end commercial seal hunting – with guest appearances by a US musician and a UK politician.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) concert on Saturday 10 May (3pm SLT & 11pm BST) will feature singer/songwriter Juel Resistance and Labour Member of Parliament for Bristol East, Kerry McCarthy. Second Life's residents will have the opportunity to hear about IFAW’s campaign to help stop the cruel Canadian seal hunt. Residents will be able to view and hear video recorded by IFAW monitors during the 2008 seal hunt which began in March, interact with IFAW avatar Daisy Meadowbrook and take action in support of calls for a Europe-wide ban on seal products.

Kerry McCarthy MP, who will speak at the event, said: “I strongly support IFAW’s work to put an end to this brutal hunt. The annual killing of more than a quarter of a million seals, mostly for their fur, is simply unacceptable.

“An EU-wide ban on the trade in seal products is a vital step to help end this hunt and make sure that Europe plays no further part in this cruelty. I’m very happy to lend my voice in support of that effort.”

Second Life Residents can attend the event on Saturday May 10 at 3PM SLT (PST) by following the link below:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/IFAW%20Island/177/76/53

Those who are not already Residents of Second Life can sign up at no cost via the www.secondlife.com site. For more information on IFAW’s Stop the Seal Hunt campaign, please visit: www.stopthesealhunt.org or www.ifaw.org.

About IFAW

The International Fund for Animal Welfare works to improve the welfare of wild and domestic animals throughout the world by reducing commercial exploitation of animals, protecting wildlife habitats, and assisting animals in distress.

Just wait until the third minute...

With so many things competing for people's time on the Internet...

Personally, I was surprised that LinkedIn didn't make it into this video. I've never had a MySpace page, and I wouldn't want one. Friendster? Nope. Facebook? Semi-useful though the poking and super wall junk is annoying. Second Life? It depends; I spend a fair amount of time in it - and that time has become more dependent on how much I get from it. I'm not a person who really enjoys 3d multiplayer notepad..

Good video - and a bit funny because of the underlying truth. And that truth is something that solutions providers, Linden Lab and social networking sites ponder every day: How to fight over our time.

Thankfully, I have email and blogs to fall back on.

If you hadn't heard, Rezzable Productions and the Not Possible In Real Life group have joined forces to hold a large-scale two month extravaganza loosely themed around “The Garden of NPIRL Delights.” It starts this evening at 8 p.m. SLT, and...

I'm on the list of people tasked with building stuff that doesn't suck. I have a few ideas, myself, but it will pretty much be a free style build for me using 500 prims. Honestly, right now I don't know whether I'll be doing Heaven, Earth or Hell.

I expect it will be a lot of fun, but don't expect the penguin to talk too much while priminating the garden. SLUrl to be provided once I find it. I'm sure it's in a notecard inworld, somewhere...

;-)

As I noted here, I am presenting at Prato 2008: ICTs for Social Inclusion: What is the Reality? this October on inclusion in Synthetic Worlds.

And this means you get to have a say.

The abstract of the paper, as of right now, is:

Synthetic worlds, popularly known as virtual worlds, are 4 dimensional worlds that are extensions of the internet. As with the internet, a variety of people participate from around the world interact and even transact business through these worlds. It seems intuitive that if synthetic worlds are not the future of internet usage, the role that they will play is going to be large enough to have an impact.

From an economic perspective, synthetic worlds as an extension of the internet present a unique opportunity for those who can create goods that fall under copyright law, as in the case of Second Life (tm).

Not everyone can access virtual worlds at a technological level. There are hardware requirements, internet access and even computer literacy in the context of synthetic worlds that need to be addressed.

From a cultural perspective, synthetic worlds can offer a true melting pot - but can also magnify biases and outright prejudices against people of varying skin color (avatars), presentation of an avatar, language, religion and other factors.

Internet governance issues will also play a large part in this.

A part of the future of technology revolves around the communities and societies that develop the technologies. As an increasing number of people around the world gain access to broadband, it is logical that the increase would be reflected in synthetic world usage. How this shifts the use of synthetic worlds will also shift how the technology for these worlds are developed - impacting economies, cultures and technological subcultures, as well as real economies.

The premise of the paper, therefore, is to collect and present as much information as possible, as well as capture real incidents that have occurred in these worlds. Such a capture will allow derivative works to happen, and most importantly, may attune more people to the environment in which many people will not only play in, but conduct business in as well.

As my silence on Y2P probably indicated to a few people, I've been pretty busy in the real world - and let's face it, there really isn't any news related to finance in Second Life® right now. WSE is still coming like a virtual attachment within a synthetic world, SLWallet is a big mystery on the fron of SLCapEx, and for the most part the rest of the inworld businesses in Second Life are... quiet.

One of the things occupying my time between doing everything else is a little thing called reading. Presently, I'm re-reading The Age of Speed: Learning to Thrive in a More-Faster-Now World, and I was considering whether synthetic worlds allow we humans a tease of doing things more quickly. You know - sort of like teleporting around giving us the illusion of speed (our avatars really bounce from one server to another like a hyperlink on the web). Few people actually walk in synthetic worlds when they are given the opportunity to fly. Racing seems like a pastime for some in Second Life, though all vehicle speeds are pretty much the same.

Speed. So I'm wondering if part of the cool part of virtual worlds - the stuff that appeals to us - is this idea of speed? Consider voice - some people prefer it because they can talk faster than they can type. Some prefer text because they can read faster than they can listen (like me). And what about the disabled, is there some removal of the frustration there when it comes to speed as well?

Bart Heart pointed me to his post on SLExchange about the Virginia Tech Massacre which happened on this day 1 year ago. 32 people lost their lives.

It is especially grounding, in the wake of the Geyl Fapp controversy, that synthetic worlds can be places where real people can be remembered without controversy and in a tone that is reflective and at the same time progressive.

Quoting Bart's post:

This is actually a response to Ciaran Laval's great post, Do we expect too much from Linden Lab? - my comment was getting so long I decided to make it an entry.

Ciaran brings up many very valid points. There is a lot of confusion about what residents of the synthetic world of Second Life can expect, or should expect. More, residents should know what their own responsibilities are and what should be in their grasp.

Realistic Expectations of Linden Lab

There are things that Linden Lab is responsible for in the context of Second Life; most of what should be expected from Linden Lab is vaguely defined throughout the Second Life website. That changes in the official Second Life blog do not make it to the rest of the site, including the Terms of Service and Community Standards, is a problem.

The gambling ban isn't in the Terms of Service. The ban on banks without a real life counterpart is also not in the Terms of Service. I find it odd that they wouldn't be - granted, we who have been through these periods are well in the know, but the only reference a new resident would have on such policies, in writing from Linden Lab, should probably be found in the Terms of Service.