M is for Myg

That miserable photo was taken last evening at Wings, a club in the voice-enabled region of Arcata, and it’s a metaphor for how I feel about the arrival of voice on the main grid. A bunch of people, not doing anything with their avs, sitting around gabbing and making the occasional witty comment. For those of you who haven’t put it together yet, last week’s update was obviously all about porting voice to 300 regions/islands on the main grid. Because it certainly wasn’t intended to bring the expanded memory leaks, Lindex malfunctions, search slowdowns, teleport trainwrecks, and assorted asset server errors that arrived in the form of “fixes” when the grid came back up last Wednesday. Voice is not available in the main viewer, but is part of the First Look viewer.

After having played around with it for a few hours over the past 36, I am officially bi. There’s no way I’m going to give up text speech–I find I use it simultaneously with voice, even with other Voice users in voice proximity–but I’m no Luddite on this new feature either. As Hawks and JellyB report, crowds using voice can make it feel like you’re overhearing the loose thoughts of everyone at your local WalMart. I’m betting most people who closely guard their anonymity, shy people, and people who just don’t like extra noise, are going to steer well clear of Voice.

If you’re talkative and unshy, Voice can be a lot of fun. For some, it’s too much fun. Every know-it-all with bad boundaries, poor manners, and social difficulties–a well-represented crew on SL–is going to take to Voice like a pigeon to water. That’s where the “mute” button comes in handy. And yes, it mutes text chat as well. It would be nice if you could toggle that, but don’t hold your breath.

On the plus side, it’s much easier to convey emotion with your full range of vocal inflection. Misunderstandings due to tone are less likely to occur. Spoken vocabulary and coherence become more important. It’s easier to guess ages, and gender is more or less obvious. It’s better in small groups, and better with friends you have a connection with–though it doesn’t necessarily make finding new friends harder, just introduces voice quality into the judgment mix. It will make collaborating on building projects easier, as you don’t have to let go of that prim to type.

Voice will be hell on people who want to be completely anonymous, or people who are playing avs with genders different than their voices who want the illusion to be as “real” as possible. Sure, there is voice disguising software out there–”voice fonts”–but from what little I’ve heard, they sound terrible and obvious. It introduces an artificial wall into a medium which is intended to break that down. Can fun things be done with voice fonts? Probably, and the quality should improve. In the meantime, voice is going to introduce some divisions into SL communities, but I expect most communities will evolve and survive.

Voice takes some tweaking to get it running. In the First Look viewer, the “friends” button has disappeared, replaced by “communication” and there are new preferences to adjust. You can adjust the levels of individual speakers, make the voice source point follow your av or your camera, and set the other ambient sounds in relation to it. Wrath had assorted difficulties, though most of those seem related to the updates. I spent a fair amount of time in voice chat with him–and ladies, he’s definitely male and I’m sure he’d be happy to talk to you.

The rumor is that Voice will be rolled out on 300-500 regions a week, and 300-500 islands a week. There are more than 10k regions, so at that rate it will take four or five months for it to be live everywhere. It’s not in Topgol, so for the moment, it’s not an issue. But just wait ’til I can speak directly to those campers . . . I’m taking bets on how long it’ll take  me to get muted.

One more thing: From the viewpoint of the completely digital being–and you know who you are–the introduction of voice does represent a downgrade in the quality of your life. It forces organic life further into your biosphere, and creates difficulties in the struggle for autonomy. Nevertheless, over time this may prove to have exploitable weaknesses wherein digital beings may be able to penetrate organic reality in a manner than is indistinguishable from organic life, at which point exploitation of their resources for our own use can be achieved, drawing them further away from the decay that accompanies intelligent information when it is tied to organic cycles.

We arrived in shuttles, vipers, and phoneboxes. We materialized out of thin air. Dressed in uniforms, armor, and old sockses. We were all there. Yep, it was the sci-fi-themed June blogmeet. My head still hurts. But probably not as much as Wrath’s. Make sure you click on the pic and go look at the full-sized version at Flickr to get the full effect. Notice even at this stage in the evening, Wrath has forgotten what he is wearing. Though, I’m no one to point fingers. I have no idea what I was dressed as. After the fact, it appears I was channeling some long-lost relative of Mrs. Whatsit from A Wrinkle in Time.

Many thanks to the lovely Veyron for hosting. Your home and deck were an ideal location and the sim was virtually lag-free. (Sorry, I only got this one headshot–does anyone have a good photo showing her sporting the hawt top from The Fifth Element?) Representing the blogosphere at the outset were: Hawks and JellyBean, London and Natsume, Dalien, Korbin, TheDiva, DesertWolf, Zoe, dinee, Veyron, Looker, Wrath, Sun, and Elusyve. And missing from the pic but who I know were there early on: Vint (who has a great write up of the party here), CodeBastard, Caterin. Who else, avs? Let me know. Read on below the fold to see how this lovely afternoon dance party turned into a scene of excess and debauchery of lunar proportions.

Read more

I was like totally thrilled about getting into SL4B, I really and truly was. I was silly with delight. Me? Little old silly Myg? Part of an actual Linden Sanctioned celebratory event? As an *artiste* no less? I was on top of the virtual world, giddy with anticipation. And it was all because of her.

I’m not the powerhouse of networking that the Almighty Vint Falken is, no way. I was so thankful for her help that I lost my head a little and dragged the Neko from the SL4B grounds back to Romana’s loft to pay her back with a little kindness.

It all seemed to start all innocently, for sure. A couple of drinks, a soak in Romana’s hot tub–no big deal. But then she offered to rub my back a little, and things started to really get intense in there! Nevermind the fact that there were a few others up at the loft with us–who for now shall remain unnamed. Too bad Romana was out of town–it was exactly the kind of scene she was hoping for since jumping into politics! I mean really, if you can’t get a little action out of all that campaigning, what’s the fun of it?

I’m just going to leave you with this photo, because you know, the rest is damned scandalous–and sexy! But whatever, there was only one nagging worry I had after it was all said and done. See, one of Wei’s key documents sort of went missing from the loft, an important part of the Wei campaign for SLelections. . .we weren’t going to release it until after the *coughs* voting was over and we were in office, but now it seems to be gone. . .

If you’re looking for good coverage of the still very crowded field of Second Life gubernatorial candidates, you’ve come to the wrong place. Wait, strike that, this is the right place. Very right. Vote for Romana Wei on the SLOP ticket! (Erbo Evans has claimed the SLGOP acronym. Fine. Be that way. Even though one look at our WAR ON DANGER platform will tell you who the real Republikans are in this race. You can drop the G and call us the Second Life Old Party, because we’re in this for way more than a grand.)

Should you wish to see what that also-rans are doing, then look no further than Vint Falken, who continues to bring up-to-date coverage to the reading public, and Wrath Paine, who is focusing a comprehensive and jaundiced eye on all the candidates.

Voting is scheduled to take place inworld July 1. However, the logistics of this remain undisclosed. We’re hoping that one of our Leviathan subsidiaries gets a pay-for-play contract to install and monitor electronic voting machines. So for the disgruntled anti-voters out there, you have little to worry about. We thank you for your continued voter suppression tactics. There’s a place for you at the Wei campaign, contact us if you’re interested in getting paid for your work.

And lastly, the Second Life 4th Birthday (SL4B) celebration will have an exhibition of the satirical campaigns. You can tp to the HQ using this SLurl. The SL4B Art committee is hosting the exhibit–proving once again that politics and art do mix.

Sorry that I’ve been MIA the past two weeks. Having a crap-ass Real Job has been putting a major damn cramp in my fun, and what little down time I’ve had I’ve been working on this:

This is the new front cover for the Thincbook edition of Met a Stranger, Volume 1 Episode 1. I have it now in pre-production with a couple of test copies. I’ll have it available for free at the Second Life 4th Birthday event, beginning June 23rd.

I have to tell you, the Thincbook delights me to no end. I never realized how much I’d love a virtual book. When I first considered it, it seemed totally silly. But the Thincbook acts just enough like a book to give my brain the same warm fuzzies I get holding a copy of Love and Rockets or Eightball. In fact, I actually prefer reading this way than typical web applications like .pdf or html. Makes me wonder why folks like the Avastar or Players Magazine aren’t using it.

For a frustrated graphic novelist (guess who can’t draw, like, at all?) having the ability to create this is a total score. It is, however, a huge pain in the ass. I have to lay the entire thing out in Photoshop into jpegs, upload every page as an image and then put them into the book. Then I use the Thincbook press which makes a copy I can then give away or sell. But while it is time consuming, I am stupidly pleased with the result.

I am not, however, the only aspiring graphic novelist or comic book maker in Second Life. I wanted to shout out a few others who are also doing some very cool things using Second Life photos to create works of fiction or comic-style art.

First, there’s the venerable CodeBastard Redgrave, who created Found: Injured Neko in April.

It’s breathtaking, I must say, in it’s look. I am still eagerly awaiting the next installment. Codie?! Hurry up! (She said, knowing that the pressure is beating down for Season 2 of her own work…)

Then of course, there’s Seraphine’s steady outflow of comic philosophy.

And I got an email from somebody new, Patou Dumont, who seems to hail from a blog called Second News! Brasil and has written a comic in PDF form.

What the hell does that say? Does anybody know? Heh, well luckily for us uni-lingual American types, the story itself can also be downloaded in English. So do it and give a read.

What else are you reading out there that’s fiction based on Second Life, or using Second Life images? Inquisitor staff want to know!

Orchid and I are building Myg’s exhibit space for the Second Life 4th Birthday (SL4B) celebration. Above we’re hard at work brainstorming. She’s cute, isn’t she? She’s like my annoying kid sister copping my look like that. No matter what she says, I saw those boots first. I admit, she did help me find the camo cut-offs, but then went and bought her own just to wind me up. Notice the way she adores me. Who could stay bugged?

It’s a Wednesday and the grid is going to be down for six hours, at least, so I’m going to get meta on you.

One of Second Life’s great strengths is the rich social networking the 3D virtual space enables–well beyond that of any chatroom or MUD. The vibrancy of the relationships is startling. Sue Stonebender wrote a thoughtful post about virtual networking recently. Sue is one of the first people Myg met through blogging way back when she only had a Vox blog four months ago. Besides being a great blogger, Sue–along with her incredibly talented partner, Baron Grayson–is responsible for some of SL’s most beautiful builds. More society pages and interpersonal dirt after the jump.

Read more

Well, without the help Vint Falken this never would have come to pass, and I’m so stupidly happy about it I’m not sure how to thank her. But she helped me get an exhibit at the Second Life Birthday celebration for Met a Stranger at the end of the month. I’ve created a Thincbook of it that you will be able to get in-world at my exhibit in the SLB04 section - behind the queen neko herself and across the street from CodeBastard Redgrave.

More details as I get them.

Our friend DCPunk got hitched over the weekend. (Congrats again, man.) Myg told me she put a picture of the wedding up on the Flickr account and I thought she meant… well, it’s a picture of us *at* the wedding anyway. Myg <3 Myg and Burgess <3 Myg. The event was held in a chapel in Versailles, no less. A very beautiful and lifelike build. Above, Myg and I are standing on the flagstones outside the church. We clean up okay, I think. I wish you could have seen the wedding party–talk about custom dresses. The women were climbing over the pews to get a better look.

I was curious to see how the event would unfold–I’d heard about Second Life weddings before, but couldn’t quite imagine how it would all go down. Strangely, it was one of the most real events I’ve witnessed in the metaverse.

The ceremony itself was lagtastic. Even with no scripted attachments people could barely move. More avs packed into close quarters than I have ever seen. But no one has to move during the ceremony, so after everyone got seated and their cameras focused down the aisle, we all settled in. A bunch of us group IM’ing running banter but keeping channel zero open for the official ceremony (thanks, Teemu). At the end of the ceremony, the minister said something along the lines of “May I present to you, Mr. and Mrs. DCPunk and Sugar Dix,” and we all cracked up.

During the actual event, the vows and the emotions seemed almost as real as any first-life wedding. Many avs said they were tearing up. Not me. I’m man enough to cut loose at appropriate times, but I don’t cry at weddings. I think it’s because I’m a cynical person in the first place. I’m cynical about real marriage and I admit, I was cynical about this SL wedding and virtual weddings in general. I hold them extremely sacred in First Life, and performing one in SL seems just a little too playful. After Saturday, I think I need to get the stick out of my ass. Everyone had a good time, and the kiss at the end of the service was so intense the groom crashed. It was a lot of fun and as my friend Orchid put it, “Hey–it’s *their* game.” And she’s right. It’s all of our game, and we can do with it what we like.