one POINT-TO-POINT eight

Posted on: December 13, 2005

And so, it arrived. With less fanfare than I originally thought possible, but maybe that is merely because so many Resis of Second Life are busying their bodies TPing from parcel-to-parcel. Those born today and onwards will not know the struggle, but they, like everyone else in Second Life, will enjoy the fruits. The concept of formerly having been relegated to the nearest Telehub—which have now been fashioned into a slimmer, sleeker community area known as Infohubs—will seem absurd and laughable, and even like a nightmare… but ahhh, for over a year of my existence in this online world, it was true. Now it is so blatantly FALSE.

Attacking an idea, not a personage, I remember one objection to P@P ROX! (point-to-point teleportation) was that it'd discourage exploration. I am an explorer in Second Life, perhaps a composite alloy of many. I found this objection, like Telehub limitations, to also be FALSE. Exploration means discovering new places, not rerunning the worn paths like a 14th-generation tape from The Discovery Channel. Revisiting should be one at someone's leisure, not as a RRL = Really Redundant Loop. Furthermore, a guided tour is done because you want to be part of it, constraints and all, not because you're forcibly thrown into a safety net when you truely know better, and yet, are made to feel the fool. We have airplanes in SL even tho we can fly, and we have food—including a bevy of beverages—even if we can't really taste them.

I did think of a great idea to recycle telehubs, however: zapping them with a raygun to miniaturize their parts, delinking, and then arranging them as beads in a necklace. Showing that the modern avatar is no longer a slave to them—it is the other way around.

I have a feeling I'll be pulling this one up for the newborns of tomorrow… Oz Spade's most excellent article on the history of Telehubs.

And this world, while not round, keeps on a-turnin'.

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