A couple of URLs that I found

This one is for the SL Liberation Front...

Virtual loses its virtues

LA Times article on the fight to right the wrongs that exist in SL... Fascinating

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fi-second22feb22,0,4800566.story?page=1&coll=la-home-headlines

In Second Life, no-one knows you're a lapsed Catholic

Worth reading if only for the following quotes:

"It's like online sex — it's satisfying in a weird way, I suppose … but the real thing is so much better, why would you want to waste your time on it?" asked Francis Maier, chancellor of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver and an avid video gamer.

**************

The Easter service this morning will be an experiment — and it carries some risks. "Griefers," or online vandals, have been known to disrupt church activities by manipulating their characters to streak nude through a chapel or belch loudly during meditation. There's also a danger that nonbelievers posing as Christians could engage visitors in text-messaged conversation and teach them false theology.

But in the end, Gruenewald expects great benefits when cats, emus and impossibly buff surfer dudes gather together to celebrate Easter. "This is definitely a messy frontier," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-virtual8apr08,0,5161696.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Blogged with Flock

Two weeks in

Another week spent getting basics sorted out for the campus - primarily, my first steps at mastering the SL building editor, and getting my first 'structure' up (a floating transparent circular 'viewpoint' (with chairs) that sits above New Hope.

Yesterday, I attended a Scilands meeting, where I put forward our case for getting the DIS campus located in their reserved space. This appears to have been successful, and I would hope we'll be in there my mid-May with a workable campus. Thanks go to Dave Taylor (National Physical Laboratory - Davee Commerce in-world) for the invitation to join. DIS will be located in a non-commercial space (barring some oddities who have got land in Scilands by accident - notably, some "Trekkies"), and we join a number of govermental and public-sector organisations from around the world.

The meeting itself was interesting as well, with 12 or so people sitting around and chatting to each other (along with IMs). Meetings require a concentration, as people tend to chat at the same time - I noticed that one or two of participants would chat to me, whilst others were talking to others. The text-based messaging on SL thus rather 'flattens' normal conversation in a room, and means that you have to be on your toes.......

DIS was one of three invitees who were asked to state their reasons for joining Scilands, and I'm going to join their Google group when back from holiday.

Next step after Easter is to get our island ordered. And then the fun will really begin....

Prime's makeover

The adventures of Prime and Annie

Well, what he has forgotten to tell you, is that yesterday Prime gave himself a makeover and appeared with one of the coolest avis in SL. Mr P now looks very very good ideed.

Annie's avi is currently developing a sartorial means to express mood and emotions in conjuction with Jezzie. The funny thing is, it appears to actually help in times of upset. :) It's also fun when times are good.

Blogged with Flock

A week in

The last week has been interesting for all sorts of reasons - notably, my first rather clumsy steps towards social inclusion in SL, and a better sense of the commercial underpinnings of SL.

I'm now better at a) chatting and B) Instant Messaging (IM), and can tell the difference between them (!). I've also been talking to Annie with other users 'eavesdropping' on conversations, which is a bit strange. I'm also beginning to get a grasp of how huge SL is.

Next week (Tuesday), we have the first meeting to discuss inclusion of the DIS campus in the Info Islands next month (eta end of April). The mechanics of the land-buying process should become a little clearer.

Second Life Scripting

Views on LSL from inworld

The latest viewer update has enabled me to actually see where I'm going for the first time in weeks, despite the appearing like a noob, invisibility and friends online status issues. However, even I'm starting to crash often on my mac, and the issue appears to be related to 2 issues.

1. That places such as shops use a lot of scripting for vending machines, large numbers of vending machines means running large numbers of scripts. All of which look as if they have to processed by you as the client before you can get the full experience.

2. That these places also use large number of prims and these need to be rezzed, therefore placing even more work on your humble processor.

The result is currently crashing and freezing.

So, I wonder if there is a more effective way to script? Why people think it is a good idea to overload the sim? Why isn't LSL an object-orientated scripting language?

:)

Blogged with Flock

Annie's First Post

Meaning of culture

Well, I had a really interesting discussion with Jezzie about culture and the sorts of cultural events that we can organise on New Hope. Having really agreed pretty quickly that nationalism isn't really what we are about, we're looking at ideas such as:

• Meaningful events such as Remembrance Sunday (my suggestion) as this is both international and current
• Quirky things such as Guy Fawkes Night, which is really rather bad taste if you think about it
• Festivals to explore cultures like the Aztecs

Jezzie's feeling is that culture is about what we eat, how we live, daily life and so forth. If you include arts and crafts, I really couldn't agree more.

On a slightly less serious note, bizarreness on Cichlid.

Having been harrassed by a moronic griefer, who has now been both banned from Cichlid and reported. I met the brother of said griefer the following day! He came to say that he was really impressed with the way that we responded to the incident, and apparently the attacker is alledgedly 11 years old. Certainly behaved like an 11 year old, I must say.

This elder brother appeared as I was talking to a random German from Berlin via Babbler and a tiny furry from California. Only in SL. :)

Blogged with Flock

Report from Virtual Worlds 2007

Tony O'Driscoll reports (actually 'dumps') from Day 1 of the Virtual Worlds 2007 conference in NYC.

A start

DIS received money from a HEFCE mini-grant in March 2007 to develop a campus on Linden Labs Second Life. This blog will act as a diary of progress as we roll-out a campus during 2007 and early 2008.

There is an awful lot to learn, as I've found out over the last month or two - in fact, the last week has proved to be the steepest learning curve so far in my clumsy attempts to manipulate objects, build things and avoid bumping into people.

This project is based at the Department of Information Science at Loughborough University, where it is managed by Dr James Dearnley and Dr Mark Hepworth. The collaborative nature of SL, and the interest shown in developing VLEs in SL, means that we welcome input, comment and interest in what we're doing.