A while back, this caught my eye:

High Fidelity is Philip Rosedale’s new virtual world project. This is currently in the very early stages of Alpha but you can signup to that Alpha from the main webpage. However you won’t be able to login to High Fidelity or see any of its features.However it does seem as if it is possible to login to High Fidelity. There are clues on how to do this, starting from the jobs page. There a challenge is laid down to people who may want to do paid work for High Fidelity:“We are seeing lots of great applicants! If you’d like to get our attention and also have more fun than sitting in an interview, do the following:Checkout our code on GitHub, build the Interface client, and see if you can login to Hifi. Then, take a look at Worklist and see if there’s a job you can do to show us your work skills.”

via So You Want To Login To High Fidelity? » Ciaran Laval.

I’ve been following a few blogs that have commented on High Fidelity. So far my comment is “Why can’t Philip Rosedale name something with a uniquely searchable name ever?” If this thing takes off, John Cusack will wonder what’s going on with his web hits.

I boggled at GitHub and looked at Worklist – it’s all way over my virtual pay grade. And forget about compiling a client, that’s not alpha testing, that’s cuneiform torture.

Still I did a silly thing and signed up for the alpha. I haven’t built much recently, though Dhughan caught the bug tonight and did something quirky. But I’ve been thinking about Second Life almost constantly, wondering about things to make and kind of… building up a static charge of creativity (literally not much more than the proverbial spark).

So today, knock me flat, I get an email with a link to a survey. I’m on the alpha test mailing list, so I duly filled out the questionnaire. I’m not a highly skilled builder, but I can knock prims together, and texture them, and when I get the bug, I enjoy building. Where I get bogged down is with some of the tedium, and I am too easily frustrated (insert obligatory “Blender broke my brain” comment here).

They asked that the survey link not be shared, but they emailed back the survey and my responses. Edited to protect the clueless (me):

Email * [never you mind]
I am a *

potential virtual world resident
virtual world content developer (designer, programmer, artist)

What are your specialized skills?

I have built things using the Second Life build tools – buildings, attachments, scripted fountains and picture frames, etc.

I have some knowledge of Blender and own two good reference books: John Bain’s “Complete Guide to Blender Graphics” and Ben Simonds “Blender Master Class.” I belong to various inworld Blender support groups and also to a couple of Google+ groups (as GinnyRED57, feel free to follow me on G+, all 3 of you)

I’m a GIMP user and have created my own textures for my objects, and also I create abstract digital art occasionally with other programs and apps (and High Fidelity makes me want to play around with this more).

I’m good at texturing, aligning small prims, and have some familiarity with using scripts (though I am NOT a scripter). I have done some work with a standalone Open Sim workspace and can load OARS, IARS, and terrain files.

I take photographs in RL and in SL; my inworld pictures are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lelanicarver although I am behind on uploading. I enjoy photographing landscapes, streetscapes, and friends’ events, as well as large builds and “art.” I have a large-ish catalogue of RL travel photos on Flickr as GinnyRED57 and wow, I need to upload my backlog. I use my photographs as inspiration for SL projects.

I have several WordPress blogs, and several Twitter accounts, and am comfortable with social media.
Hours per week spent in virtual worlds and/or games:
6
Do you play Minecraft?
No
List any other online games you currently play
Patterns
Have you ever used an online virtual world? (Second Life, ActiveWorlds, There, et al)
Yes
List any virtual worlds you currently use
Second Life, OSGrid, and a standalone installation of Open Sim
Have you ever sold things you created in a virtual world? *
Yes — I’ve earned MORE than $100 USD
In a new virtual world, I’d likely do this the most: *
explore what others have built
Do you mostly use a … *
desktop
When did you buy your laptop/desktop? *
2012
Tell us more about your system *
Well, I like it, I had it built at Fry’s:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz (3292.53 MHz)
Memory: 4077 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 560/PCIe/SSE2

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 9.18.0013.3165
OpenGL Version: 4.4.0
On this computer I have: *
4GB to 8GB RAM
What’s your preferred mousing interface? *
High-end mouse with buttons I program
The operating systems I use most are: *

Windows 7

When you are at work or away from home, is there an internet-connected laptop or desktop left behind at your house? *
Yes (I wonder what that’s about? Distributed computing, probably)
How many?
4 (actually this varies from 2 to infinity depending on your definition)
If High Fidelity created a much better virtual reality experience using extra hardware (like a 3D camera or a motion-sensing glove), how much would you be willing to pay for that equipment? *
less than $200
Any closing thoughts?
I am excited by the possibilities that High Fidelity could realize and look forward to hearing back from you whether I am involved in the alpha or not.

So that’s that. I’m not sure what will come of it, but I’m curious to see what happens next.

In the meantime, I discovered that the pond by the St Helens shop froze, so I went ice-skating. IN AN AWESOME DINKIES OUTFIT. That’s Dhughan’s nature reserve behind me, with the miraculous frost-resistant plants.