Interlinear, Dana. Forgive me! :) On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Dana Paxson <[email protected]> wrote:
> Second Life faces several fundamental challenges, I think: 1) UI > complexity, 2) Expense of a decent level of engagement (i.e., need for > property), 3) Overheated and even conflicting expectations, 4) Competition. > > 1) seems to stop a lot of people right at the door. Learning how to > navigate, communicate, and dress an avatar with minimal embarrassment is a > huge inhibitor. Imagine being naked and spastic on a dance floor with > costumed lords and ladies swirling everywhere around you and making snarky > remarks in many languages, and you get the idea. > No nakedness anymore. In Viewer 2 you can change your outfits seamlessly. Remember the days when your clothes came off when you put a hat on? That's been fixed. What's daunting is learning the SL-etiquette. If you don't, you get nipped. What's daunting is not having anything to do and no friends to not do it with. ;) > > 2) sinks in after hanging around in the streets in SL for a while, buying > the upgrade, and then discovering that you have to live in the slums with > pervs, bullies, the tasteless and the clueless. To get a decent space for > yourself requires a good deal of cash flow. That repels a lot of people. > Well....I understand that to be a metaphor (pervs, bullies). Many of my friends in SL don't have land and don't get bullied... nor must they hang out with the tasteless. They join groups; they log in and out of their favorite island refuges. They are given sandboxes if they become members of Artropolis. > > 3) is a killer. Sex was and still is a big chunk of SL's appeal, and that > is a hugely offputting feature of the SLscape for those who want to run > businesses there, > Unless you are making thousands of dollars a month selling sex toys. Beds, clothes, animations.... big business for creative tech-minded people. > or serve as educational meeting-places and demonstration sites, or perform > as actors, writers, artists, or musicians. > They have people who police events. On your land, you can set the scripts such that no one can enter, much less rez things on your property. And you can set up an allowed residents list. You have to pay and get a pass to theatrical events. At the talk I gave (about my involvement in Paramount and Star Trek) two known griefers came and the bouncer was a little slow. But that was largely due to the owner's incompetence. . > Linden Labs has not sorted all this out properly at all. First they flung > open the doors, watched everyone rush in, and then struggled while hackers, > sexers, and vandals grabbed everything they could. > That's a bit of an exaggeration. They were blinded by the creative side of things (if you build it builders will come), and when griefers and crackers came in all they could do was ban someone when abuses were reported. It's just as noisome as the real world, but still a lot less dangerous. Even so, this is unsettling to people who want to think of it as a game. It's more like a social life. > I'm not saying that controlling SL is easy - such things are terribly > difficult - but finding ways to separate the different constituencies would > have been a good thing had it happened sooner. We're still waiting. > They have relegated all the businesses that sell "adult" toys to the continent they are calling Zendra. They make it possible for you to search for something only on mature and general settings. So that's a step. But Linden Lab also went a little cookoo over their Birthday Party-- prohibiting artistic builds that showed any nudity.... geez. > > 4) isn't a credible threat yet - OSGrid and others simply haven't reached > critical mass as social settings, and game settings like World of Warcraft > and its like offer none of the freedom of building and scripting and > interacting that SL does. But just wait. There are very smart people out > here learning a lot from SL's failures and successes, and they'll be the > ones to step in with new offerings that will make us all wonder "Why didn't > WE think of that?" > > We keep telling Linden Lab that they haven't thought of that. They don't listen. They're selling the business anyway so they don't care. Other Open Source worlds like inWorldz and Veesome, not to mention the Third Party Viewers are still using the basic architecture that Second Life sold them but without the connectiveness to the diversity and immensity of SL. InWorldz stinks. I haven't tried Veesome. They need something entirely new. And something that doesn't replicate SL's banal ads... but people for the most part just want to socialize and play doll house. > I envision a stage of this developmental process in which we wear a > lightweight skintight undergarment with all the sensors and communications > components needed for situating us bodily in a VW that operates either > independently of, or in concert with, the RW around our physical bodies. > It's already in development, Dana. Ask Piaget Hax. And we already have Wii doing that. > We also wear head-up glasses. No more mousing, keyboarding, command > recollection, menu selection, blah, blah, blah. We just do it. Who pays > for all this? Look at today: we all pay at various levels in various ways, > and the usual social arguments about the deprived and the privileged will > evolve and rebalance things, but in the end it will all integrate in some > form. At that stage, SL will be a fond bit of history. > Much of it is. I'm told they used to conduct poetry readings in chat instead of voice. Now we have media on a prim, which activates the Internet. Sal... > > > > On 10/29/2010 9:26 AM, Pat Rapp wrote: > > Well, the user base has a lot to do with that. The learning curve for > facebook (and it’s games) is minimal. Second Life is still disorienting for > all but the most enthusiastic adopters. As immersive websites become more > prevalent, virtual worlds will become more mainstream. > > > > *From:* [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]<[email protected]>] > *On Behalf Of *David Henn > *Sent:* Wednesday, October 27, 2010 8:38 AM > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* Re: Av Rights > > > > At least one reason for this is that facebook and Zynga are making gobs of > money, whereas Second Life has seen its revenues plummet and has had to > close three of its endeavors. Money talks, and all. > > > David > > On Tue, 2010-10-26 at 23:06 -0500, Sal Armoniac wrote: > > Just goes to show you that Face Book is taken more seriously than Second > Life. ;) > > On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 7:08 PM, Pat Rapp <[email protected]> wrote: > > Interesting … > > > > http://bit.ly/8ZRbw5 > > > > “Under Italian law the virtual burglar's actions are considered "aggravated > entry" and can draw penalties of up to five years in prison.” > > > > *From:* [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] *On > Behalf Of *Alicia Henn > *Sent:* Friday, October 22, 2010 5:00 AM > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* Av Rights > > > > > > http://www.jmir.org/2010/3/e28/ > > This is an interesting article on rights for avatars. It seems > reasonable and yet ludicrous at the same time. My officemate and I have had > a great time expanding on it. - Alicia > > Get Your Paws off of My Pixels: Personal Identity and Avatars as Self > > Mark Alan Graber1,2, MD; Abraham David Graber3, BA > > *ABSTRACT* > > There is an astounding silence in the peer-reviewed literature regarding > what rights a person ought to expect to retain when being represented by an > avatar rather than a biological body. Before one can have meaningful ethical > discussions about informed consent in virtual worlds, avatar bodily > integrity, and so on, the status of avatars vis-à-vis the self must first be > decided. We argue that as another manifestation of the individual, an > individual’s avatar should have rights analogous to those of a biological > body. Our strategy will be to show that (1) possessing a physical body is > not a necessary condition for possessing rights; (2) rights are already > extended to representations of a person to which no biological consciousness > is attached; and (3) when imbued with intentionality, some prostheses become > “self.” We will then argue that avatars meet all of the conditions necessary > to be protected by rights similar to those enjoyed by a biological body. The > structure of our argument will take the form of a conditional. We will argue > that *if* a user considers an avatar an extension of the self, *then* the > avatar has rights analogous to the rights of the user. Finally, we will > discuss and resolve some of the objections to our position including > conflicts that may arise when more than one individual considers an avatar > to be part of the self. > > *(J Med Internet Res 2010;12(3):e28)* > doi:10.2196/jmir.1299 > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<r-spec%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<r-spec%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<r-spec%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en.
