Sure.

Let's do it. Write things down. Treat the Internet like a 1.0 database/journal/archive. I should do something with it. And when? Now? Now.

And so it comes to an end...

Second Life has been one laggy ride. I started out with Robbie Clarity, my first avatar who was promptly killed off after I become creeped out by people I didn't know calling me by my fist name. Then after much name research I became Eno Cyberschreiber, named after the prominent musical producer. That name proved to be a wise choice as I met many interesting people on the basis of my name. One of them being Harpo, whom I had great discussions with.

I gave Second Life the benefit of the my doubt, not holding back and trying incessantly to become a part of the culture. I met up with some generous people who aided me in becoming not recognizable as a noob. After about $3.00 or 2000L I was set. My appearance was how I wanted it and I was ready to get into the culture.

My first stop was music. I wanted to see what kind of a House music scene there was, with specific refernce to Detroit Techno. I ended up finding a haven of mine named Necto which I frequented. Again, the people were great and the music was great. Necto lead me to a lot of other places too, and other friends. There was still one thing that struck me in my journeys that I have blogged over and over about.

Aside from the place known as Greenies, Second Life has become an exercise in trasferring real life into a digital reality. It seems a lot of our limitations have been transferred over, and this can be seen in the online lecture we have held in class. The potential is there, but it is not utilized. It is more often than now frustrating because you know you would normally be able to do some things that Web 2.0 makes capable, but in the end it is not supported.

It feels like Brock University in their attempt to creat a proximal learning space amongst a traditional style of learning. Seems like a badge they wanted to slap on the school, while still retaining traditional and unquestions forms of teaching.

I say we break free from tradition, we question and query it and back it into a corner and make it explain itself. It if doesn't stack up then we move on and retain fluidity in our learning environment. We know not what the future holds, so why stay on train tracks approaching in from one perspective. We must soak it with all we have and see what happens.

Second Life is a culture industry only as far as there is no real term to describe what is going on in Second Life. It is not bound by linearity like corporeal reality is and therefore does not subscribe to the same rule set that we do in this reality.

It is not bound my narrative, as it is a hypertextual environment that exists outside of our traditional definitions of reality. We must redefine and then we must realize that we live in a fluid world inbetween tenses. We are no longer past, present and future. We are all of them, all at once and at the same time none of them at all. We are hypertensical beings, and this is the beginning of the definition of the rest of our realities and lives.

Ofelia Pevensey

Here are my thoughts on her talk. As always, I will start out with the meta analysis, because, well I like meta-analysis and I think more people should pay attention to it.

The Forum

I was talking with Amy (seminar leader) about the first Second Life talk and it seems we have potential. In her classroom there were people talking to each other in Real Life as well as in Second Life. There are lots of private messages being flung around during the event which is good in my opinion. How many times have we had ideas we wanted to discuss in class or lecture but we weren't able to because we couldn't disturb the lecturer? Now we can and it is awesome!

Interruptions

I think with this Second Life lecturing, we need to place more importance on the chat window and less on the slowly loading , low resolution visuals. Or perhaps we can have a second screen with a large chat box to facillitate real time discussion without flooding the small chat box during lecture. There is a lot of potential for good discussion along with the presentation and it would only add to the presentation. A live stream of conscious where people can talk out and speak their mind via text or voice would be freeing. No more @'s to ask a question! We just end up mirroring the limitations of real life and that sucks!

Speed

The flow of the lecture in the SL was quite slow. There was nothing positive I could think of aside from the idea that it was giving the presenter a voice to present with that she might not normally have.

Aside from that, it was like reading a news paper. Huge chunks of text thrown up to the screen (much like a dry power point, was this any different), combined with our need to be silent in both real life and second life left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I think what GIMP is doing is credible, however the idea that it is done in SecondLife seems somewhat arbitrary. There are message boards and chat rooms and the like, and to have to go through the process of loading and lag and waiting for people to log in and find you and then have the environment rez seems like a large hassle.

There are so many other better ways to do this, however I suppose being able to represent yourself via avatar is important to them. I do have a final gripe, and that is the inability for men to join the group. The group predicates itself on being accepting or everyone, but then explicitly states no men. I suppose it could be awkward for men to sit through a conversation on menstruation, but that could be easily avoided if that came up. Seems discriminatory and ancient to have a "girls" or "boys" club of any type.

News and Olds.

Pictures in order are Korea1, Morris, and Munich City.

For this week's blog post, it's all about news and news media in SL. To start things off, in the SL world, people seem to be obsessed with mirroring real life. Why is that so? With the potential benefits of having an online world, why are people trying to make it just like it is in real life?

The reason I say this is because places like Reuters and CNN's iReport are emulating real world news transmission services (because they are real world news media stations). Utilize the technology! Take advantage of hypertexual techniques and Web 2.0! Don't have a desk with a camera and read off news stories! Technology takes us away from the linear construct of time, so why try and transplant that into a world such as Second Life? This has been a frustration with me for a long time and a big reason I am not a fan of SL. Actually it's the only reason I don't like it (actually that's not true, lag is another issue, as well as the commodity based system of acceptance...but that's another story)

So anyways, I don't want to look for a story from these websites because that would be old-digital-hat. So here's my idea. I'm going to the incident report website on secondlife.com to look at what sort of "crimes" have gone on. I'll then visit the place to see what happens. Will I get sexually harassed? Will I get griefed? Will anything happen at all? Find out as I visit the worst places in SL.

First Place: Munich City

Violation: Community Standards: Harassmant, Verbal Abuse

(offensive language)

I've been to Munich City before, but not to the night club that I transported to. Seems to be another mirror for RL Munich City. I think it's funny how a lot of people like to keep RL and SL separate, yet they feel the need to create a RL Munich. Seems counter-intuitive and ironic to me, but what do I know.

Sexual harassment seems to happen a lot in clubs, heck I've been in places where a lamp as been autoscripted to tell me I was good looking. I suppose this was a case of someone not liking some comments they received at a night club. Seems a weird place to make that call, considering most people at night clubs wear only shreds of digital clothing. Ah well, perhaps this was not the case.

I deem Munich City to be a dead spot on my first visit. Nothing happening. Perhaps because of rampant sexual harassment?

Region: Morris

Violation: Caging

This is an offense where someone has created a program to lock an avatar in a cage. Sometimes the user has to restart SL, but some cages are more difficult to escape, with the aggressor being the only person able to set them free.

Well well well! I came to report on the story and got attacked! I was asking around the place in regards to the caging incident and low and behold I was attacked! Check out the picture, was put into some sort of spirial of white dust and flew up into the air by a man in his underwear. Apparently in this sand box, griefing is not uncommon. It's such a hard second life being a news reporter.

Last up on my journey into the underbelly of SL is in Korea1

Violation: indecency (perhaps the youngin's should cover they eyes. this could get racy)

Ahh downtown Korea. When you go downtown in any city, you can almost always expect some indecency. People yelling on street corners, overhearing conversation with swearing, public nudity (trench coats catch people by surprise a lot) and various other lewd acts are not uncommon in a city life.

This appears to be a popular hangout. It's full of people who are strict followers of the PG code. It is full of really annoying people who talk about stupid things. Frankly I'm not surprised indecency occurred.

The place where I collected the news is on secondlife.com. It is aggregated as it happens and updates occur daily. It is all news related to infractions that occur in Second Life.

http://secondlife.com/support/incidentreport.php

A musical update

Here is one of the websites I was trying so so hard to find. And I found it again thanks to Harpo!

Check it out. It's a support site for SL musicians who, ahem, have discursive views of the RIAA.

Enjoy!

http://riaa.isfullofcrap.com/

Ponderous Pontifications

"The flourishing trade of virtual items for real life money suggests that virtual worlds will sometimes welcome the intervention of real life law." First off, why the use of "sometimes"? Is the author not sure of this point? If that is the case then why make it? Secondly, how is this jump in assumption made so easily? Yes, the author goes on to say in the article that there must be a  conversation between one world and the other (virtual and reality for lack of better terms) but to say that the use of money welcomes real life intervention is hotly contested. I understand that to use real money is to utilize real life law, but when this is one of the only available means to make money (with which we don't have a choice whether we want to or not in order to have a fufilling life in North America), then why does the author assume that using real life money welcomes real life law? That is a huge jump to me and warrants a debate.

2.) Grimmelman is arguing for the potential re-appropriation of laws in order to better suit virtual and "real" worlds. Is there any problem with this? That is, why don't we look at better re-appropriating laws themselves in an increasingly shrinking world. The global economy and global village; the glocal is becoming more and more present. Why must be hampered with traditional ideas of law while and continuing to struggle with them in their application to virtual worlds and real worlds? Technology is evolving at an exponential rate, and law seems to be almosts static in comparison. Is this suitable focus, or should technology be held the reins for law to catch up?

The Illusion of the Prosumer

Mark Bell came to talk to us in Second Life about virtual economies and possible implications. He brings to attention some points which seem apparent but sound profound when they are told to you. For example, once products are made once in Second Life, then they may be endlessly reproduced and instantly (again taking time out to the equation, or at least making it less important). This again signals to the change in dimensional importance and why we view as important in various realities. 

I want to bring another issue up. I was talking with a fellow classmate (Kyle) about the scam Mark was talking about. Kyle (view his blog here) raised a good point about how the scammers actually stole more money then he realized, and that if it was that easy to do it once, then why not do it multiple times? Mr. Bell did not fully realize the potential implications of this, and as Kyle suggests, the crooks made off with more money then he thinks. Perhaps it was worth the time to figure out the scripting involved. Also, it may not be thousands of dollars in real life, but in Second Life it is a substantial amount. Why compare the two anyways? It's a lot in one reality and it could be put to uses that are important in SL but not so much in RL. So why predicate one importance over the other?

A prosumer is an illusion of agency. We must learn the machine. Just because we are aware of it doesn't make us a prosumer. We are becoming increasingly aware of our corporeal reality also, and because of that we could be said to becoming closer to prosumers here too. Our ability to produce and consumer in Web 2.0 mirrors this reality, and in doing so gives us a similar sense of agency, which is not aptly described as a prosumer. I believe this is a term devised to help give the augmented reality a positive spin. There are larger audiences and more exposure, but it is the same agency involved, just more of it.