Sunday, May 29, 2011

Jokay Unconferential

Yeah. It's a stretch. Today's HGAC meeting on Pathlandia was less about exploring and more about setting up for Jokaydia's Unconference, on from May 29 to June 26.
So what's this festival of unconferenciness all about?
Jokay Wollongong: The events can all be seen on our conference calendar.  We hope by letting the community generate the topics and activities, it will be more interesting than a scheduled conference, even if it makes for some chaos sometimes. It also always leads to interesting discussions. One of the challenges for this group is to get the different groups together a little more.We seem to have two almost separate communities sometimes; the daytime Aus people kinda miss you guys...
Pathfinder Lester: I love it when other folks put things on Google Calendars, because I can then easily add them to my own calendar. It makes it easy for me to figure out timezone stuff, since GCal just converts everything to my own local time zone.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Diversity in Craft today!

Today, at the Museo del Metaverso in Craft, you can see the very best of Virtual Diversity,  the recent photo competition at Koinup. Photos include images of Botgirl, soror and other famous SL names, but also some that may be new to you; beautiful images reflecting the vast variety of mood and makeup in virtual worlds. Luce Laval, Oberon Onmura and Nicola Reinerman have collaborated to create a lively, airy gallery in which to enjoy the photos. The pictures come in the main from Second Life, but other more exotic grids are also represented, including people and places in MMORPGFrenzoo, and IMVU. Roxelo Babenco of the Museo del Metaverso was one of the judges in the competition. I asked her what the word 'diversity' means to her personally.
Roxelo Babenco:  Pierluigi Casolari of Koinup came up with the name. The competition has been about the diversity of avatars in different worlds, and the way different environments spawn diverse concepts of self. I know it's a charged word, particularly in the USA, but for me personally, diversity enriches us. Language, culture, background, the cross pollination all adds up to a richer experience. I've always loved to explore new things, even before I found Second Life and other virtual worlds, but here, I've discovered so much more.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Building an after Life


building is building, no matter the grid... talent is what show.
Hairy Thor
When bloggers are out of interesting topics, they give you the 'SL is Doomed!' routine. Supposing you're drinking that particular Cool-Aid, you may have wondered, what would happen if I went to build in other worlds? 
weirdness in veesome
On the downside, You're going to look like a noob for a while, and WEIRD STUFF WILL HAPPEN. If you go to a commercial world like InWorldz, and are prepared to pony up, you'll soon have good hair and skins. Otherwise, it's DIY or freebies. DIY can be an education, freebies are getting better all the time, but whichever way you go, be prepared to lose time reinventing yourself on your new grid. 
soror Nishi: I looked like a bagwoman for the first year, before we got shops in InWorldz!
   Personal appearance is only part of the learning curve. Don't be fooled by the laid back attitude outside SL - grid owners aren't lying down on the job, when it comes to protecting residents and their rights.
Elenia Llewellyn: My advice for builders leaving SL - not all licenses are the same! Keep your work legal!
Leannan Shi: Remember to check and make sure that everything in your SL builds is fullperm and YOURS before you bring it over. Sculpted parts do not export well.
Raphaella Nightfire: Scripting and animations require patience. And be prepared to be noob for a few hours.
Alizarin Goldflake: Builders need to be aware that not all SL scripts work here. Some have errors that can cause horrendous lag. And you can't edit linked parts.
Leannan Shi: Boobs don't jiggle in InWorldz. But next week though, right? LOL

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Inside Story

Il rimpianto รจ il vano pascolo di uno spirito disoccupato. 
Bisogna soprattutto evitare il rimpianto 
occupando sempre lo spirito con 
nuove sensazioni e nuove immaginazioni. 
Gabriele d'Annunzio
A Roman Count in love with Art itself, a Sicilian family at odds with destiny, a smoker struggling wittily with his conscience, and a madman who returns to sanity, only to find himself trapped in an elaborate hoax. Four turn-of-the-20th century tales from Italian Literature with one thing in common - they have all been brought to life in Craft.
Marina Ninza teaches literature at the Ernesto Balducci Institute in Pontassieve, near Florence. In Italy, kids have options, when it comes to what kind of liceo or High School they attend; glamorous sounding options like classico, linguistico, artistico. The Ernesto Balducci is a liceo scientifico. Kids who choose this option are more into chemistry than classics, as you can imagine, so Marina's challenge is to find a way to get her students interested in texts that matter.
marina ninza:  We've used a lot of approaches to present the material, including ebooks and video games. I had the idea to recreate the settings in 3D. We're just getting started, it's a joint venture with the Computer department. This year, there were only a couple of computers and four avatars for the students to use in the classroom, so it's not as hand-on as we would like, and we live in the country, so a lot of the students don't have broadband at home.
The four builds are on sim Pindaro, donated by Craft owners Tao Quan and Licu Rau. Tao took charge of building  the house with the Nespolo tree, from verga's  I Malavoglia. The famous courtyard is full of charming little details, like the hen house, the bread oven, and round fishing nets.
Tao Quan: I'd never heard of the book before I started this build, but there is a lot of information on the internet and the teacher helped me too. The children aren't online very much, and are still learning cam skills, so if you look at the garden, you may see some of the   vegetables floating above the ground! 
Tao Quan: It is good for the various disciplines in the schools to work together, and in a medium which the children can enjoy. I think this is a safe environment for them, we keep an eye on them when they are here. Opensim has a different feeling than SL, there are different values. There is a lot of our hearts here in this grid, so we want to see people develop, especially the young.
Tao and Licu originally imagined that the students would build vertically on sky platforms, rather than horizontally at sea level, but it's very nice to be able to wanter from one part to another. This is the castle for Enrico IV, complete with vineyard and, at the student's insistence, a car park. Nicola reinerman

Thursday, May 5, 2011

All's Fair


Seventy-two years ago last Saturday, the World’s Fair opened at New York, and we went to see it! No, not thanks to time travel, it was another gridhopping trip with the Hypergrid Adventurers Club. The Club meets on Sundays at Pathlandia on Jokaydia grid. Before you start saying shaking your head and saying you could never go to another grid, oh purleeeeze, it will take you all of 10 minutes to get a Jokaydia account, make an avatar, and kit it out at the freebie shop. Once you’re done, you’re golden for many fun trips around the metaverse.  And if you have a ReactionGrid avie, you can get to Jokyadia quite easily. Here’smore about how to do that.  

 The real World’s Fair was spread out over more than a thousand acres of what had been an ash pile (yay coal fires!). Reaction Grid’s version is build over three sims and includes all the best-loved sights from the original fair including the Star Pylon, the New York building, and of course the Perisphere,which is where the HGAC regrouped once we’d al made the jump from Jokaydia. This is Democracity in the Perisphere. What fun to be able to fly down among the tiny buildings and do the 30-foot woman thing on Yesterday’s idea of the Future Today. It made Pathfinder go quite pale.