From the category archives:

Second Life

5 years later

2009-09-15

5 years ago — September 15, 2004 — I made the decision to start my Second Life. It was one of the best decisions I ever made, but at the time, I couldn't clearly see that: I recall spending at least 12 hours a day inworld for the 7-day trial, hoping to determine whether the US$10 Basic Account cost was worth it. I still remember holding my credit card, hand trembling, as I entered the digits. (Also of note: shortly before I joined, the website had some of the darker shades we've recently redesigned with.)

Now, all this was during a period in my first life when I felt despondent and hikkomori following an accident which caused me to lose my hearing (hyperacusis), which I still have to this day. It hasn't gotten any better, but I've gotten used to it. I haven't given up, and after a long period, got back into making music — now a hobby, not a fulltime career as I have an awesome job working for Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life. So much has happened.

Photo courtesy of Nakira Tennen. You guys are sweet, you even baked me a cake!

I've done so much in Second Life, and there's so much I haven't done. It'd be a travesty to try to summarize here and gosh knows how many personal thanks I give each day, appreciating each piece of wonder and beauty I come across from colleagues, Residents, and to-be-ex-strangers. But I did want to say thank you to Samantha Poindexter, Alchemy Epstein, Nakira Tennen, Kaklick Martin, Daniel Voyager, Riven Homewood, Chestnut Rau, and everyone who remembered and celebrated my rezday better than I did. Samantha has a severely fun press release (at last, one that isn't boring) and roundup here, and there are more photos here.

Whenever I see someone else sharing knowledge or helping another in Second Life, I mentally time-travel back to my very first days: as a noob with so many overwhelming questions, and the gracious patience of volunteer Mentors who helped me… so that in turn (and I didn't realize it at the time), I'd help others. Certainly fitting that I'd become LL's Resident Enlightenment Manager on the Doc Team. This wasn't a coincidence.

Maybe all this sounds like some crazy informercial mating with a storybook fantasy, but it's true: through Second Life, I rediscovered myself and found adventure, friends, a job with purpose, love.

And throughout it all, I found hope to keep living. While the pieces of my life's puzzle haven't entirely assembled yet, I can say with absolute confidence:

Second Life was the best $10 I ever spent.

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Fun with Picnik Show

2009-08-15

I've been beta-testing Picnik's Show and gave them a lot of feedback.

"Why do we need another Flash slideshow widget?" In true Picnik fashion, they have near-unparalleled ease-of-use and some smile-inducing goodies. What you see above is Documentary mode, which couldn't be named "Ken Burns" for legal reasons I suspect. I set my slide interval to 1 second so it moves along at a zippity pace. Lemme know if it causes bandwidth jam. Apparently, I take many more pictures of my Second Life than my first one.

Importing 100 pics (the max) from a Flickr set was easy to do. I wish like PictoBrowser (as described here), I could create a Show that keeps refreshing based on an auto-updated set. Such a feature is wonderful but overlooked, and would allow me to embed a Show always showing my latest SL adventures, based on my Second Life Exploring Flickr set.

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I enjoyed Wild Palms

2009-08-05

Part of me is stuck in the early-to-mid-90s. This is when I discovered a number of technologies that would, through unfolding evolution in years to come, change my life. I didn't watch Wild Palms the first time it came around in 1993 (and it takes place in 2007), but I'm glad I spent several nights going through the miniseries with my wife, fixated on the experience of each scene. Esp. with such depth.

Wild Palms has occasionally been likened to Second Life, and this was part of the intrigue for me; I'm tracking down quality cyberpunk from the era, and while Wild Palms takes place in a much sunnier California than Blade Runner, the film noir influences are at the forefront. I smiled when there was one line to the effect of "You can be whatever you want to look like in this virtual world."

I felt disappointed there wasn't much in the way of cyberspace trips — aside from a ballroom that reminded me of the one on Tempura Island and a retrospectactularly-crude monster that ate a ballerina — and also found it odd how retro many of the cars were, despite contemporary fashions. (After watching Dark City, I'd expect more anachronistic amalgamation.) But despite a conspiracy of un-coincidences, I really got into it.

Wild Palms' soundtrack, by Ryuichi Sakamoto, is a pleasure. Besides the Baroque-esque theme that reminded me of Dynasty, "Harry To Hospital", with its repeated piano figures and airy choirs, sounds like what Moby would take on years later, sans the deep south influence. Not much in the way of beats on that track, but "Tully Hooked" has the same sampled breakbeat as Milli Vanilli's "Girl You Know It's True".

Naturally, after the last minutes aired with a beautiful yellow-white sunset, I went into Second Life and made a WindLight sky setting which I'll include in the forthcoming v3:

But I must say, before the calm, Wild Palms sure had a lot of messed-up people.

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Here island panorama

2009-07-30

Want to make Second Life panoramas? See this guide!

Purrhaps more explanation on this later. After what came before, this 360-degree view of Here island is next. Lovely if you don't have a Second Life but are curious what it, as a 3D world, looks like. Click 'n' explore!

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Check out Ravenelle's new blog, ZUGZUGZ.COM

2009-07-10

I'm so proud of my wife, she's so creative and she's started a new blog at ZUGZUGZ.COM — it's a play on her Second Life name, Ravenelle Zugzwang, altho she'll be blogging about other things as they catch her fancy. Check it out, and encourage her to speak up some more: trust me on this, she has a beautiful voice and I keep telling her she should be reading children's stories, poetry, and more literature that needs her special touch.

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[STORY] Why I started saying "Friendly greetings!"

2009-07-08

I might as well share the story now, lest I forget about it in my elder years: it was over a decade ago and I became quite prolific posting on Internet forums. (And BBSes before them, for that matter.) I've lost count but I'm certain I've made 100,000+ posts across forums of all kinds, from popular and public ones to obscure little niches which required login and secret handshake. At times, it was a compulsive hobby. Others, it was because I garned specific knowledge in a given community and doled it out — couldn't stop helping!

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Anyway, I was a shy kid, and it was hard for me to get my intentions across. In person, I'd start to stammer and lose focus. Over time, getting past my introversion, I learned if I was more upfront and simple about how I said hello, people would like me more. (And those that didn't, I could weed out quickly.) But a lot of people said "Hello!" In elementary school I had a good friend named Jared who was masterful at going "Yo!" So I thought to myself, "What would be accessible enough to be easily recognizable and help me meet new people, but not so generic… or alien that it'd be majorly offensive?"

Hallmark, for all the undeserved derision they get, is always onto something. And I thought of various staples like — well, Season's Greetings! But it isn't always the "Season" as in… the holiday season. But I am a pretty positive and friendly guy. So — hey!

"Friendly greetings" was born.

Or should I say, reborn, as it's no unique phrase by any stretch of imagination, but has become so associated with me because I use it frequently in my Second Life and other videos. I say it like I mean it, and yes, I mean it like I say it too.

I wish I had a way to easily search for the first time I typed "Friendly greetings!" on a forum. There've been many introductions over the years, but it's served me so well from one destination to the next: hearing "Friendly greetings!" said back to me makes me incredibly happy as it (harkening back to being a kid who was afraid he'd be forgotten) acknowledges my presence and positive influence on others.

Here's a picture of Daniel Voyager and me proclaiming "Friendly greetings!" today. You should really check out his Flickr sets, he travels so much in Second Life and voraciously photographs the many cool things he finds along the way.

Memorability matters, after all.

Today, I just googled and I've got the #1, #2, and #8 #7 matches for "Friendly greetings!". I didn't set out in the beginning to accomplish that, but it's been a secret hope. Well, secret no more.

And now you know, as Paul Harvey (who's moonwalking with Michael Jackson, no doubt) would say, THE REST OF THE STORY.

And I am ever-so-thankful for all the wonderful people I've met in my lives' journeys because of "Friendly greetings!"

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[VIDEO] The joy of incremental updates

2009-06-11

I enjoy process and watching how something is built up, brick-by-brick. This partially explains my devotion to time-lapse photography and wikis, which I emphasize in this video, using the specific example of the Second Life Wiki which my Documentation Team work at Linden Lab is connected to.

We live in a world where despite having so many ways to record information, our deprived attention leaves us at a loss to cherish that history — I believe so strongly in preserving what's come before so you can apply that in the future.

Prescient theme: big announcements frequently need to be doggedly followed up to be effective.

(I'm pleased with my hair in this video, minutes before flattening it with my headphones.)

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[SECOND LIFE] Download the Second Life Quickstart Guide

2009-04-19

I don't blog much about Second Life here at present because I've got an official home to do it, but I just wanted to share the Second Life Quickstart Guide is out — as I blogged on SL Tips & Tricks: