So. One thing about SL [Second Life] certainly is, you have musical talents performing live that for one reason or another didn’t make it into RL mainstream. Nothing about not making it into RL mainstream or whatever stream within lifetime (see Aby Warburg, e.g.)–BUT theres amazing talents to discover. AND–it enables folks who can’t afford a live concert in RL to visit live music gigs.Of course you can argue what does one need live music for. I say it enriches some’s lifes. And no–I am not the only one. I can objectify that.

[09.07.2007]

via antropologi.info

“Ca y est, c’est officiel : Steve Ballmer et Philip Rosedale ont annoncé ensemble la ‘fusion’ des compagnies. L’acquisition par échange d’actions sera accompagnée d’un ensemble de nouvelles ‘améliorations’ technologiques :
- le langage LSL sera remplacé par le Visual Basic ;
- Second Life sera livré avec Vista ;
- la navigation dans Internet Explorer se fera par défaut en 3D, avec une ‘passerelle’ vers le Web classique ;
- la version Linux est abandonnée, la version MacOS devient payante.”

[Notecard passed by a friend.]

This happened when I posted a report in an online forum about successfully beating a massive spider mite invasion on plants without using azadirachtines and pyrethrine containing insecticids.

I am beginning to concretely think about creating pseudonyms for my contacts in SL [Second Life]. That’s a totally difficult part. What’s in a name. Identity. I have to create a system of meaning that encodes the meanings that those people have for me–to preserve their anonymity, to secure their privacy.

[8:19] You: o btw
[8:20] You: i have written some piece in my blog
[8:20] him: ah
[8:20] You: in december it was
[8:20] him: blog
[8:20] You: you are mentioned there so i thought u d be interested to read it
[8:20] him: i don’t have your blog link
[8:20] You: i give you

IM: [8:21] me: http://orangemcm.wordpress.com/
IM: [8:21] me: http://orangemcm.wordpress.com/2007/11/30/reality-revisited-or-come-in-see-more/

IM: [8:21] him: thanks
IM: [8:22] You: i cook anoither coffee brb
IM: [8:22] him: oh that’s long i’ll read that later xD
IM: [8:22] him: ok i read a little so

IM: [8:26] him: for talking about me you talk about me a lot and some really private stuff, so please never put my name in this blog ,-)
IM: [8:27] him: even if all the people that know us would know who you are talking about
IM: [8:27] him: but that was fun for me to read that
[...]
IM: [8:31] me: dont worry
IM: [8:31] me: i dont name any name there
IM: [8:32] me: i dont name [our home sim]
IM: [8:32] him: yes it’s ok
IM: [8:32] him: :-)

IM: [8.34] me: i share the link to enable the people i write about to interfere
IM: [8:34] me: on whatever way
IM: [8:34] me: comments there
IM: [8:34] me: IM email
IM: [8.34] me: or if there is something somefeels is missing
IM: [8:34] me: or to correct me
IM: [8:34] him: mm ok but i’m to shy to make comments on website
IM: [8:34] me: see?
IM: [8:34] me: yes
IM: [8:35] me: i never do that
IM: [8:35] me: but you could tell me on IM what you think
IM: [8:35] me: even never talk in forums
IM: [8:35] me: if you want
IM: [8:35] him: oh that i could for sure
IM: [8:35] me: like not wanting to find u r name there
IM: [8:35] me: or of you thjink im writing something wrong or so
IM: [8:35] me: well if you say the same things i just read no i don’t
IM: [8:35] me: or of u think u dont want something there at all
IM: [8:36] me: no you can write about me using my name, but not about so personal stuff like what happened to me
IM: [8:36] me: no i wont name anyone
IM: [8:37] him: ah ok
IM: [8:37] me: one name leads to another on the web

IM: [8:37] me: ..but its hard to create pseudonyms for real people :)
IM: [8:37] me: do you have a preference? *smiles
IM: [8:38] me: actually i wont really even name [our home sim] because [...] the term is linked on the net to people
IM: [8:38] me: yes
[...]
IM: [8:38] him: but no i prefer to let you chose a nick for me
IM: [8:39] me: as i wont link my flickr there
IM: [8:39] me: hehe dang. ok. .-)

IM: [8:39] him: ok good

There is a similarity in between blog rolls and friend lists on SL [Second Life].

Some are stable and some are fluent.

The authors of the former in both online spheres do not remove an entry on their blogrolls or SL friend lists once it is there.

The authors of the latter do remove entries on their blogrolls or SL friend lists.

Over the months that I’ve been away from blogsphere I’ve often wondered about the websites that do still link to my blog over that long time of absence–especially in online terms, which means that one month is longer than one month is.

The blogroll displayed on the left is one of the first blogs I found way back in 2005 when I immersed myself into academic blogsphere whose author kept (and keeps? *smiles) his blogroll fluent.

I felt honoured everytime I clicked there and found I am still linked to–still today.

tnks, man. .-)

I’ve been out of joint for a while in here although I have been sneaking in spontaniously from time to time this year. An advantage of taking a break in whatever one does is that once one “is back” one’s perspective on one’s perceptions has changed. Looking back then becomes a productive process of learning.

Something new in academicblogsphereworld to me is the term s-learning I’ve come across few days ago on I can’t remember what row of links I had followed. An eventual reader involved in educational games development may be interested in having a look at Mike Wesch’s attempts: 1, 2.

Mixed Reality [MR] is a term I’ve come across this summer when I was looking on Google for the representation of the SL life music scene on other internet media than Second Life. A big number of hits was displayed, among MySpace and alike music sharing accounts, static webpages, YouTube and alike video media of course there were blogs.

One entry in one blog that obviously no longer exists, as its URL was broken today, entiteled Mixed Reality caught my attention. Its author whom, as I found out after reading, I had met inworld before ['inworld' means within the Second Life online environment, connected to Linden Lab internet servers via Linden Lab software (the client) that is installed on my PC--just in case there one day someone happens to read this who knows even less about information and computer technics than me--like my mom, or so .-]

The article was a reflection about the author’s perception of an event he had been to in SL: a life music simulcast. Simulcasts are events that take place synchronously both in RL and SL–means both offline and online simultaniously. Simulcasts to a certain degree are comparable with life shows on the radio or on television or any other one directional transmission of an event simultaniously to other physical places with all its implications, but simulcasting into an interactive environment, as the Second Life Grid is, of course points to characteristical differences there being as well, between conventional life shows transmitted via conventional (onedirectional) media and simulcasts being broadcasted into SL, where the musicians playing are represented by animated avatars moving on a stage and an additional audience being present communicating with each other _and_ the artists by text via chatline or Instant Messaging [IM] or talking to each other on private voice channels, either in dialogs or conferences, comparable to Instant Messaging: Instant Voicing. Howsoever–’simulcasting’ requires an own entry.

The organizers of the simulcast the author of that blog entry entiteled Mixed Reality had been to had tried something new that night. In the back of the stage in the venue they had designed in a SL sim the RL event was streamed into, they had installed a video media screen on which a life video stream of the event was displayed for those who have quicktime installed on their computers. So obviousy you had the artists avatar in whatever-instrument-they-play-pose moving on the stage, and above them on a screen a video running that shows the RL person playing on the RL stage. [Wish I had been there--actually!! Reminds me to overurgently install quicktime on my computer.]

Mixed Reality is a term that in its origins seems to draw back on Paul Milgram used within Milgram’s concept of a Virtuality Continuum.

“Mixed Reality (…) (also referred to as augmented reality or augmented virtuality) refers to the merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualisations where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time. A mix of reality, augmented reality, augmented virtuality and virtual reality (…)”, reads wikipedia on Dec 1st, 2007.

“The conventionally held view of a Virtual Reality (VR) environment is one in which the participant-observer is totally immersed in, and able to interact with, a completely synthetic world. Such a world may mimic the properties of some real-world environments, either existing or fictional; however, it can also exceed the bounds of physical reality by creating a world in which the physical laws ordinarily governing space, time, mechanics, material properties, etc. no longer hold. What may be overlooked in this view, however, is that the VR label is also frequently used in association with a variety of other environments, to which total immersion and complete synthesis do not necessarily pertain, but which fall somewhere along a virtuality continuum. In this paper we focus on a particular subclass of VR related technologies that involve the merging of real and virtual worlds, which we refer to generically as Mixed Reality (MR),” quotes wikipedia Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino from Virtuality Continuum.

Said blog author reflected in said blog entry about how his inworld illusion was spoiled by the video screen installed. He described how the animations of the artist’s SL avatar in comparison to the real person’s representation on the screen within his screen suddenly appeared angled–expressing an alienation from the (visual?) inworld representation of the RL artist. I have made a comparable experience some months ago when voice chat was about to conquer the grid. A friend of mine had a house warming party in his tree in the sky. The SL voice chat feature was just new in a required update shortly before and (almost) everybody I knew was keen of having themselves be heard to their friends. It increased the exchange of information possible with a given sequence of time massively and I enjoy to hear certain people’s voices. Often enough its surprising. Sometimes its not surprising at all. And some dont use voice at all–for several reasons. On this party howsoever, everyone was on voice. You could hear them lighting their cigarettes, the clicking of the keyboard when typing into the chat line, their background noises, or - silences, and I just couldnt help being totally spoiled the illusion of a dancing crowd. [Well I turned off voice then.]

In other regards than the above, Mixed Reality representations in Second Life among individuals serve as means of authentification–are means of communication. The information that is transmitted deals with identity. There howsoever are many different ways people in SL deal with their RL identity–from sharing RL names and pictures up to avoiding any mixing of the identities and keeping them separate as much as possible, programmatically. [...]

Oh. Once been here, dont miss Mixed Reality Pong.

What I find remarkable about the concept of Mixed reality which does not signify a binary “either/or” status quo, namely either 0 or 1, or “only one boss reality possible at one point of time” is its dynamic approach. Where and however on Milgram’s diagram you apply your concept of boss reality, it signifies theres ongoing motion as it defines two additional variables pointing at that theres something in between 0 and 1: Augmented Reality and Augmented Virtuality. This indicates not more nor less than that individual perception of reality is something that functions in a fluent kind of movement, rather than in a switch on/off mode, which I seemingly until today am just too dorky to apply. [Apparently I dont need a proof whether cyberspace is stable or not, which is well argued here anyways and allways worth a reread.]

Few days ago it was there again. I had visited a near-by living friend to spend some hours in front of her newly installed camino. We hadn’t seen for a while so we quickly immersed in a vivid exchange of our latest news and stories. After a while I mentioned an email I had received from France that day about which I was quite happy as its sender, another friend of mine, all of a sudden had become quiet for about two months. To explain myself I shortly described that person to her as a fellow resident on my home sim in SL [Second Life], with whom I have spent much time on a daily basis for about four months. He is a friend from the very first days and it was him who has brought me to the island sim that has become my home.

This guy is married in RL ['real life'], a father of two children and loving his family. Now coincidence played on him he met a girl in SL he fell in love with. Another french. They passed much time with each other for several weeks and communicated via voice chat many hours a day. Finally he realized he has feelings for that girl and the strong wish arising he wants to meet her in RL threw him into such a strong conflict that he left SL. He felt he was cheating on his RL wife.

Now this guy has been a hardcore user, online every day for several hours. Much of that time though he has spent building, getting to understand LSL [Linden Scripting Language] and creating Particle Art. Whenever I came on, he usually was there already. I had doubted we would hear from him at all anymore after he had been offline and silent for eight weeks. Therefore his shout via email that day was big joy.

My RL friend in front of her camino moved in her seat, threw a long Blick at me and when her right foot began to nerveously whip I laughed out loud.

-You’re just like Tito [the cat]. Your foot works antenna-like sending out information just like his bail does. C’mon, let it out!

-I just don’t understand how people can take that as real, she replied. [Having made her listen to my SL adventures already often before, as I jokingly use to entitle what I experience and learn in the grid,] she goes on,

-I mean i know one passes much time with the others on a daily basis, communicates, exchanges things and thoughts and stuff, gets to know the other… but still its not real! Thats completely different than seeing the other in front of oneself!

I sort of began whipping my foot too although I dont really do this. I tried to argue by another example, aiming to make her understand her how much and widely spread online reality is perceived to be as real as offline reality, which was situated “far away” from SL within the MySpace networks. A piece of news I coincidentally had come across when visiting my mom earlier that day, who in contrast to me owns a television set [I know I even should have one, but I was lazy in that regard and admit I am still]: Suicide following a case of Internet Mobbing.

Thirteen year old Megan in the U.S. had found her first love on the internet with a guy named Josh via her MySpace account. All of a sudden his flirty and caring way of talking [means writing in this case] to her changed to an offensive and dismissing style. To shorten it up, the news said she was so psyched from that communication with Josh, she committed suicide hanging herself on her wardrobe.

-Aint that an absolute matter of sign online reality is really perceived as real, I asked her.

-Yeah but ain’t it just prooving what i say, namely that its absolutely crazy to perceive that as real? And that people should not..?

-Let me end this story.

It turned out, the news goes on, MySpace account Josh had been written by a former female friend of Megan and that former friend’s mother living in the same street.

-You see this is an extreme example that points in the same direction you do. But still it is kind of ignorant to deny this communication has not been real. Someone has died.

I try another example she is more familiar with. For a living I nowerdays work for a car rental service as a call center agent coordinating car rentals mostly via telephone all over germany. This is something i also do talk about to her often and I’m there almost as long as I am in SL–thinking about the means of self-identification that willingly or unwillingly come to expression in actions and statements people perform and give when communicating with them on a regular basis over a time of several months. [Identity that leaks through.]

I describe her how there are several persons out of the crowd of people I talk to on the phone at work begin to chrystallize. One gets to know each other. Personalities begin to shape–or an image, at least. One shares memories, two slices of each other’s histories are partly overlapping. I havent seen any of those people I talk to ever. Still I communicate with them several times a week. When doing so I communicate via voice channel–as many avatars in SL do meanwhile–I pick up the acoustic interface with my hand, press it against my ear, with the oether hand I use my keyboard equivalent and type in code which is the phone number to connect.

-Applying your concept of reality means saying all those folks I communicate with within my work routine are not real.

-Yeah.. OK. But I didnt mean it that way!

I ended up discussing at this point and hoped I had made her more attentive for implied categorizing. For myself I recalled one day way back in May when I had learned about what a prim is.

One prim.

Two prims.

One hat.

“Relativität.

Hier sind drei völlig verschiedene Welten zu einer unverbrüchlichen Einheit zusammengebaut. Es sieht dort sonderbar aus und doch ist sie ganz überzeugend: jeder, der gern bastelt und Modellbau liebt, könnte anhand dieses Bildes ein dreidimensionales Modell machen. Die 16 kleinen Figuren, die auf dem Bild vorkommen, können wir in drei Gruppen einteilen, von denen jede eine eigne Welt bewohnt. Für jede Gruppe ist alles, was auf dem Druck vorkommt, ihre Welt; nur sie empfinden die Dinge anders und geben ihnen verschiedene Namen. Was für die eine Gruppe eine Decke ist, ist für die andere eine Wand; was für die eine Gemeinschaft eine Tür ist, ist für die andere eine Luke im Fußboden.

Um diese Gruppen voneinander zu unterscheiden, wollen wir ihnen Namen geben. Da sind die Aufrechten, zum Beispiel die Figur, die man in der Mitte am unteren Rand des Bildes die Treppe emporsteigen sieht. Sie weisen mit ihren Köpfen aufwärts. Dann kommen die Links-Lieger, deren Köpfe nach links, und die Rechts-Lieger, deren Köpfe nach rechts weisen. Wir sind unfähig, einen neutralen Standpunkt einzunehmen - eindeutig rechnen wir uns zu der Gemeinschaft der Aufrechten. (…)” writes Bruno Ernst 1978 in his biographic account of M.C. Escher’s works: Der Zauberspiegel des Maurits Cornelis Escher on Relativity (1953) [p.47].

I was scanning YouTube for something entirely else when i ran into Mike Wesch’s latest youtube clips today. Not only he has found a brilliant way of introducing himself and the students of his Digital Ethnography class at Kansas State University to their field [Introducing our YouTube Ethnography Project], also a video of his World Simulation seminar is on [part 1, part 2, part 3]. See related Savage Minds entries here and here.

And once you’re there and you haven’t watched it yet, invest a few minutes at Wesch’s Web 2.0 … the machine is us/ing us. Meanwhile a final version has been set up and a growing number of video responses have been uploaded. (27 when I began to write this entry.)