Second Life Examiner. Apollo Manga in SL. Descending Road - Electronic Literary Macrame. You've probably seen macrame. It consists of knots woven together, often to make patterns. Probably originating in the Middle East eight centuries ago, macrame has been popular with groups as diverse as sailors, Victorian ladies, and hippies. Now Dana Paxson - Jeddin Laval in Second Life - is mating macrame with web technology to create what he asserts is a new way of telling stories and distributing literature.
He calls it Electronic Literary Macrame (E.L.M.), a process he is patenting that allows telling a story in intertwining threads, so that readers have their choice of entry points to the story, and of threads to follow. Instead of printing a novel in the traditional way, the story would be released in revisions, like software, with new threads added and old threads modified with each release. It began with the 200,000 word manuscript of a novel that, in Paxson's words, "got what every novel gets - rejected. " Meatspace or real life? A disagreement broke out this week in a Second Life educators' discussion group over the word "meatspace".
If you read authors such as Charles Stross, you already know the word and may use it regularly. For most others it's probably new, but it has existed in the Oxford English Dictionary since 2001 (although Wikipedia incorrectly cites the year as 2000). Most sources including Wikipedia ascribe the first uses of the word "meatspace" to a 1993 Usenet posting and a 1995 Seattle Times article about John Perry Barlow. Most of us however have learned the word through reading science fiction and especially cyberpunk authors.
Many people, including this writer, dislike using "real life" for the physical world, because it implies that virtual life isn't real. However, "physical life" isn't a completely satisfactory alternate to "real life". The disagreement this week among Second Life educators was over whether "meatspace" is offensive as an alternate to "real life". Solving Second Life performance issues - part one. Joel Foner last week published an article 10 Ways To Make Second Life™ Run Faster On Your Low Performance Computer that's worth reading. Today we'll begin a discussion of how to improve your Second Life performance, including both Foner's and other suggestions. (The picture is of a classic Bentley MK VI created in Second Life by Apolon Obscure.)
The first step is simply making sure that your system and internet connection meet Second Life minimum requirements; if they don't, then some suggestions here might help, but you'll be swimming upstream until you upgrade your system. You can learn the minimum requirements here. For a Windows computer, it means a minimally a cable or DSL internet connection, 512mb of memory, Windows XP, Vista, or 7, an 800mhz CPU, an approved video card, and a display that's at least 1024x768 pixels. If your computer doesn't meet the minimum requirements, it doesn't necessarily mean that you can't run Second Life. The Vanishing - part two. This is part two of a report on The Vanishing, an interactive collaboration by Second Life's Caerleon Island artists; you can read Part One here. For those who like following a story line, it's the story of a Second Life noob who vanishes, and your job is to follow clues to find what happened to him.
However, this is not the only way to enjoy The Vanishing. It's also an exploration of beauty and creativity, and an opportunity for visitors who are not experienced gamers to discover by touching and exploring the nature of things rather than just relying primarily on visual clues. To learn what happened to the vanished noob, you'll need to find the cube shown in this picture. It contains the answer. However, the surroundings aren't shown because this writer doesn't want to spoil your fun by giving away how or where to find it. Regardless whether you ever learn what happened to the noob, there is plenty to see and places to explore. The Vanishing - part one. Second Life's Caerleon Island artists have created The Vanishing, an interactive collaboration for you to explore.
There is too much there to report on in a single report, so this is the first of two reports about it. On the surface, it's a quest: a noob (Second Life newcomer) has gotten lost. Your goal is learn what happened to him. However there is so much to explore and see that this writer forgot about the noob and found himself just exploring. This picture shows one of the locations in The Vanishing, a "cross" on which an avatar can find him/herself shackled. Don't worry. When you first arrive, you are in what appears to be a noob welcome area, with choices of clothing and skins you can have for free. Before you leave the Welcome Area, be sure to take a notecard dispensed from the white orbs, and which are available in English, French, German, and Japanese. It's easy to miss the real treasures of the maze.
There are two ways to leave The Maze. U.S. Military Veterans Center. "It is important to note that the US military does not just go to war ... we also provide support for others in the form of protection & aid when it is asked for or needed, such as humanitarian aid following tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, and yes... war... " These words were spoken this morning by Dahlea Milena, a Cherokee Native American and 22 year veteran of the United States Armed forces who served in Persian Gulf during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, but who also served in United Nations humanitarian work.
She is currently 100% disabled. We were on Second Life's Patriot Island, the location of the U.S. Military Veterans Center, owned by the US Military Veteran group, which emphasizes that it is not a role play group. Membership, currently about 900, is restricted to veterans and current active members of United States armed forces, and their families. The center provides a number of services to veterans. Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The mood at Second Life's Vietnam Veterans Memorial today was somber. Some people were there to honor friends or family who fell in the war, while others were there just to honor the fallen.
In this picture, Dominick Hargrove,Ruth Sandalwood, and Kenny Moreland look at some of the over 58,000 names on the wall. Dominick is a Vietnam War vet who is grateful that all of the people he served with survived the war. The Second Life Vietnam Veterans Memorial was created by Meme Science and replicates the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC, including not only the Wall itself but the Three Servicemen and Vietnam Veterans Women statues. The original was designed by Maya Lin, whose design won a competition in which 1421 designs were submitted, and was inspired by Vietnam veteran Jan Scruggs. You can see more pictures of the Second Life Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the slide show below. Berlin Wall in Second Life. For nearly a half century after World War II, East Germany was a brutal, totalitarian state after Germany was partitioned into East and West Germany in the war's wake.
The oppression only grew worse in 1961 when the country's Communist rulers built a wall separating Communist and non-Communist Berlin. The wall divided neighborhoods and families with a no-man's land of barbed wire and armed guards ready to shoot to kill any East German who tried to leave. The Berlin Wall is commemorated in Second Life in the Ciel sim, where Christo Larsen has built a replica of the notorious Checkpoint Charlie crossing through the Wall, shown in this picture. There are more pictures in the slide show below. It's difficult for people today to imagine what life was like for East Germans before the Wall came down in 1991. North Korea is the best parallel today. You know people who have been jailed and you may know someone who could no longer stand it and one day just disappeared. CDS portal: CDS HOME.