Around the blogs 7/13/07
Posted by Burgess
Happy Friday the 13th, everyone! If you have a superstitious streak in you, rest assured that for some, 13 is a lucky number. Check out the old school bee from the early days that was enticed to Clockwork by the sparkly dance ball. Or maybe he was just there because some n00b didn’t clean up his trash. Strangely, it wasn’t the same n00b who left her BDSM rack in the balcony. . .
In celebration of lucky numbers (I stayed home on the 7th, any craps player will tell you sevens and elevens are nothing to mess around with) and n00bs, I thought I’d take a moment to look at some of the cool stuff going on this week in case you missed it the first time around. (And no, there’s no logical connection there.)
JellyBean highlights what I think is some of the best kind of mixed reality, how you can plant a tree in SL and help save the rainforest. We’re all about urban renewal in Topgol, and I’m going to plant a few of these near Clockwork. Maybe I can attract more fauna. I’ll have to ask Wrath and Timothy their secrets.
Linden Lab announced the opening of the 2007 Innovation Awards. This is for developers (including open source people). Sorry bloggers, y’all can’t qualify for this unless you’re a hotshit coder to boot. That would exclude me. I vote for Katharine Berry, who developed an Ajax based SL viewer so you can use your web browser to access SL (thanks Vint and NWN for the tip).
Performance art SL style: Aenea clues the rest of us (or is it just me?) in on some real-time artistic performance in SL that uses the platform to create in ways that are specific to virtual reality. Without the particular virtues of SL, there are no ZeroG Skydancers. In this case, no virtue, no art.
Metaversed notes the opening of the Eolus Project, which
incorporates many things. Not least of which are real examples of how Second Life can integrate with real life, such as a fully working house in the virtual world, whose controls, doors and light switches all corrsespond with a real life house. Also, working demonstrations of virtual world ecommerce integrated with real world supply chain and CRM solutions. But it’s more than just tech guys messing around with neat toys, it’s a think tank with the purpose of discovering ways that Second Life can help us to define, and make, a better planet for everyone.
Onder Skall did a very nice in-depth comparison of the two most-used combat systems in SL, DCS and CCS. I’m still undecided as to which I think will work best for Topgol and/or the Met a Stranger metaverse, but this breakdown does a thorough job of evaluating the different options.
Stay tuned for news about the season premiere of Met a Stranger and the opening DJ schedule for Clockwork.
Friday, the 13th. I’m not tremendously superstitious, but I hit every stoplight wrong this morning. My cafe eggs were undercooked, and I had to send them back. What next?
Makes me want Mr. Bee fried chicken…
I so vote for Katharine, too!
She didn’t only make AjaxLife - she also built her own web-based SL commercial exchange, TSL Emporium; in response to the removal of the ratings system, she made TSL Profiles (where messaging from web to SL and viceversa has been possible since it was opened) and a grid-wide sim statistics project (that she also used to make a 3D version of the grid map with sculpties =D).
@Mariel: Wow, she’s like a coding superhero! Is the 3D grid map only viewable in TSL? Or can those of us banished from Eden get a look at it somewhere?
@Myg: Oh, man, Mr. Bee. I haven’t thought about Mr. Bee in ages. (Mr. Bee was a one-of-a-kind fast food restaurant that never blossomed into a chain out there in the nightmarish fantasyland of “real life.”)