OMG this medley on @kryptonradio – is this the MUPPETS doing Star Wars Show Tunes??? It’s brilliant.
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Krypton Radio: the only internet radio station featuring B5’s Claudia Christian doing a station ident. “Do NOT change stations!”
#nowplaying Jewel In The Night [vg] on Krypton Radio by @Cmdr_Hadfield Great song! tun.in/seRNl
I think my friend @m_ethaniel has a gig tonight in #SteelheadBoomtown! @TensaiHilra @TLEclipse and everyone from #SecondLife, see you there
I’ve been taking a long break from Second Life again – just when I was getting momentum on the Kipling Rock project, distractions from First Life cropped up. Nothing major; mostly it was lots of new episodes of favorite television shows, family stuff on the weekends, midweek choir practice, and afternoon naps!
But I’ve kept up with blogs and SLUniverse, and ran across this reminder of an underused feature:
Linden Lab is now marketing itself as "Makers of Shared Creative Spaces". And they even might have created a "shared creative" space by accident. It could become the intersection between the in-world SL experience and the web. It could also become a multiplayer interactive online narrative. I am talking about the SL profile feed with its snapshot function. Most people havent realized its potential and they are not even using it. But lets start from the beginning.
Can I seriously be talking about the SL profile feed – this feature that never got adopted by the SL users? The SL feed is what you get to see first when you click on someones profile in the viewer. Its basically an overview of past status updates made by a resident. When Linden Lab acquired  Avatars United in 2010, they integrated pieces of that social network for avatars into the Second Life platform. As a result the profiles of the residents switched to a web-based layout and SL profile feeds were added. However up to now the majority of SL residents doesnt write any status updates and their feed remains empty. Most of the time youll find automatically generated entries like "Xyx resident changed their display name to Xyx+".
I agree with Estelle Pienaar here – the profile feed (with snapshots from within SL) doesn’t get much play, but when I’ve used it or interacted with other residents, it’s been a lot of fun.
via Second Life Play Instinct: The SL Profile Feed – Linden Labs unexplored "Shared Creative Space"
As part of my New Year’s resolution to get back up to speed, I’m going to be using my profile feed more, and playing around with narrative, too.
I got a group message from one of my Steelhead compatriots, Fuzzball Ortega, that he had a DJ gig going on T1 Radio at the Second Life Christmas Expo until 11am SLT.
I had some time in the middle of the day, so off I went to check it out before having to get back to work:
TUESDAY – 12/11 – All Today’s Music Sponsored by T1 Radio!
9 – 11am: DJ Fuzzball Ortega of T1 Radio
11- 1 pm: DJ Mark Attenborough – the Voice of Second Life
1 – 4pm: DJ Vic Mornington of T1 Radio
5 – 7pm: T1Radio.. Rockin the 80s w/ Dee Wolfe
Via the Entertainment | SL’s Christmas Expo
It looks like another Steelheader, Victor1st Mornington, has a set later today, so I’ll listen via the T1 stream. There’s donation kiosks by the dance area, and also a vendor for the 40-track RFLSL Christmas CD.
I couldn’t do more than dance a little and drop some Lindens in the donation kiosk; I was in a tiny AV with a slightly balky Tiny AO that tends to stop and start every time I move the camera. I wonder… maybe it could go in the onboard AO set in Firestorm, but I don’t know if it’s possible. Besides which, my tiny dances are no-copy, so I don’t want to mess with them now that I’ve got the HUD set up. It’s just my old Wynx Siamese Kitty prim AV, which I have a lot of affection for (although I don’t wear it often enough).
As so often happens, a new person dropped in (the event may be listed in the Destination Guide, it’s hard to say) and of course it was the classic “just born today” interaction. He had no idea how to move, how to turn on the music stream so he could hear what we were listening to, no idea how to use the standard dance animations in his library inventory, and said “What is the point of this game?” and quit. He mentioned that he’d seen something on YouTube that made him want to try SL out.
We tried to interact with him – greeted him, asked him if he could hear the music, talk about the Relay for Life charity, but he couldn’t figure out how to do that, either. It’s all on account of the very poor job SL is doing of “orientation.” Also – it’s kind of hard to tell a new person how to find stuff in the official SL viewer when so many of us “oldbie” Residents use a third party viewer. So maybe that’s on us, too.
I’ll keep my stream on T1 for now while I work. It makes the time pass pleasantly.
I just ran across this, will have to drop it off at SLUniverse and see what develops.
I first encountered this trope of the inappropriate elder’s interest in the newest games a few years ago at a philosophy conference in Oxford University (I was an interloper in those hallowed groves). An aesthetician – a philosopher who specialises in aesthetics – gave a talk on his research into games. He defended them as serious works of art. The art of games, he argued, if I understood him right, lies in their interactive dimension and liberation of shared authorship. But he never answered the question: what was a professor doing playing all these games?
Now the Museum of Modern Art in New York is up to the same manouevre. MoMA has announced that it is to collect and exhibit games from Pong to Minecraft. So, the same museum that owns such great works of art as Ma Jolie by Picasso, Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh and Vir Heroicus Sublimis by Barnett Newman is also to own SimCity, Portal and Dwarf Fortress.
MoMA claims these games belong in its collection because they are art. Really? Is that so?
via Sorry MoMA, video games are not art | Art and design | guardian.co.uk
Really? Is that so? I’m no artist, but I think there’ s some pretty artistic stuff going on in Second Life, though Jonathan Jones will pooh-pooh the idea. The Guardian article posted a companion gallery of images from or for the exhibition, but didn’t bother to include any images from Second Life as examples of digital-game or immersive-world art. They did include shots from Sim City, EVE-Online, Myst, The Sims, and Portal along with other game screenshots.
I don’t know, but I’ve experienced some pretty breathtaking sights and images in Second Life. Is it art, when it’s a collaboration of the original creator, and a photographer tweaking light and atmosphere settings?
Future Communities, by Yoke Nuitze, on Flickr
You tell me.
I’ve uploaded a set of “arty” photos from Second Life to a set called “Art or Not Art?” on Flickr, and I’d appreciate any comments. They’re just a small selection – but of course a bunch are from my home community, Steelhead. And many are my attempts to document immersive art installations from various Second Life Birthday celebrations.
Two hours of Swing Revival, Jazz and a little Electro-swing, as only Edward Pearse can do. Friday night 30th November 7:00 – 9:00pm SLT http://slurl.com/secondlife/Seraph%20City/64/80/106/
Link: Through the Filter of a Victorian Aesthetic: Swing Dance at The Seraph Club
UPDATE: This was a really enjoyable event; I went dressed in a kind of gun-moll outfit and wore my Thadovian Man-Melter pistol (non-lethal) on my thigh. I also was at Cafe Wellstone listening to a comedy podcast, at Toot Toot’s Carolina Pub listening to a great set of tunes all about whistling, and ended up at Steelhead’s Friday night dance, which was a simple theme of “Black Friday” (a week late). So since my “swing dance/gun moll” dress had a lot of dramatic black and coral in it, I added some shopping bags and a hatbox and went as a belated shopper. Another great set of music curated by Fuzzball Ortega, we about maxed out the sim. Sorry, there are no photos – everyone was in black so it would have been hard to photograph.
Simple four-panel Asian style room divider or boudoir screen. Semi-transparent, so best if placed in front of a solid textured wall. Works with many different styles of decor and eras.$L25, copy/mod/no transfer.
via Second Life Marketplace – @LC@ Asian Four-Panel Crane Screen
The Avi Choice Awards is the premier annual awards presentation recognizing the people and talent of SL’s amazing creations, completely chosen and voted on by SL residents. 2011 Avi Choice Awards response was tremendous and the websites saw an amazing 35000 visits and an staggering number of votes.The Avi Choice Awards will be presented during the Avi Choice Program held at The Christmas Expo, in the Auditorium, on Friday evening, December 14th, at 6pm SLT. NOTE: This is a black tie/formal event.
via Avi Choice Awards | SL’s Christmas Expo
A number of my friends and neighbors in Steelhead are up for nominations in the Avi Choice awards – they’re great people and the competition is fierce, because some of them are up against very well known Second Life avis in their categories.
Whoever your favorite creators, builders, entertainers, and other folks are, be sure to drop by and vote.