SL-Feeds [view: normal]

Continues here.

My deepest thanks to everyone at Linden Lab who made my journey to this point possible. And just as much gratitude to the Residents and readers who've made (and make) it a trip worth taking.

So it suits to suspend my tenure as Hamlet Linden while standing on the cliffs of Shipley, because this is where, more or less, it all began some 30 months ago. I interviewed Catherine Omega in May of 2003, in her mansion along the Shipley shore below, and though I'd been writing New World Notes for a couple weeks by then, it's...

Now it can be told: once New World Notes is no longer sponsored or affiliated with Linden Lab starting March 1st, it will partner with John Battelle's Federated Media Publishing, a vast and mighty new blog network anchored by Boing Boing. It's a new enterprise from the co-founder of Wired and the Industry Standard, and I'm deeply honored to be the little brother in FM's growing roster, reporting...

Fast on the heels of Cory Linden's recent thoughts on using OpenGL to copy SL objects, Mr. Zamboni sends word of an imminent in-world demo of that very technology-- from OpenGL, to an application called OGLE, to a 3D printer, to a once-virtual object you can hold in your hands.

Details on tomorrow's event-- and a startling visual demo-- here....

A unique solution to the high cost of higher education...

For awhile there, he could put himself through college by floating the tuition with his credit card, and with his job selling refrigerators and such at a department store chain. But when one thing led to another (as they're often apt to do), Lordfly Digeridoo found hims...

All the drama, patter, and giggles of SL, now portable for your morning commute: Johnny Ming's Secondcast, podcasting hour-long shows on a myriad of Second Life subjects. The first episode is a Skype-powered rountable between Ming, the SL Herald's Walker Spaight, famed architect Lordfly Digeridoo, fashion empress Aimee Weber, and Snapzilla founder Cristiano Midnight, winging it on assorted topic...

There's been SL comic strips, SL magazines, and SL advertisements that use graphic novel stylings, but unless I didn't get the memo (and that's always possible), there hasn't yet been much in the way of actual graphic novels using Second Life as an illustration platform.

Enter Sidra Stern's "Reavinator", a witt...

In the first part of "Unimpeachable Offense", I mentioned the Gorean subculture of Second Life in passing, and only because one of the Residents I chose at random to interview happened to be a "slave" within the group. I haven't written about them in detail (yet), but as luck would have it, "humdog" has written a vivid confessional of her time among SL's Goreans for the Second Life Herald:

... ...

The nice thing about running a blog for so long is you'll suddenly see an old entry re-discovered to enjoy another surge of readership, then surge again from the first re-discovery, and so on-- sort of like Chris Anderson's "long tail" model applied to blogging. That phenomena happened to me last week, when a Wired.com article on SL included a link to a 10 month old NWN entr...

Walker Spaight just put up his interview with me for the Second Life Herald here, a conversation on my recent decision to take NWN indy, while also touching on issues of journalistic independence and financial backing, bloggers and virtual words, and more. Thanks to Bedpan Unknown, Huns Valen, and an identified Japanese dancing box robot for the mid-interview entertainment....

Being the final word (hopefully) on a curious (if butt-ugly) experiment that tested the boundaries of community values-- and the values of a community.

Just a few weeks ago, it seemed to be the most important thing in the world, but if I don't post something about it now, it'll probably be forgotten forever. So here goes:

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Like so many other online worlds and computer games, SL's 3D graphics are rendered via OpenGL. A great toolkit from a developer's perspective, but in recent times, also a growing concern to the companies-- and in Second Life's case, many of the subscribers-- with livelihoods that depend on controlling the IP rights over their graphic creations. What happens to the concept of ownership in Second ...

... this one from the editor of The Second Life Herald, writing for The Escapist: The romance of Diamond Hope and Unmitigated Gall (!).

Scrolling back to find stories of romance for February 14th, here's a few personal favorites from last year: the courtship of Snow Hare and Phil Murdock, and the partnership of Jade Lily and Torley Torgeson, transcending gender and now even Linden Lab policy. Scrolling back two years, another favorite of mine is the Atlantic-spanning duet of Eddie Escher and Fallingwater Cell...

I'm a fan of the SL blog from Ordinal Malaprop, not because I know anything about scripting in Linden Script Language (her main specialty), but because she writes it in the voice of her Second Life persona-- sort of a Victorian-era mathematrix, say Ada Lovelace as depicted in The Difference Engine, who's somehow stumbled forward in time into an online world. Miss Malaprop's blog, appropriately en...

The Web Ecology of Sion chicken society explained by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk Patrick Davison is part of several performance groups including What We Know So Far and MemeFactory and is also involved with the Web Ecology project at...

"All official Linden Lab sponsored communication channels related to the Second Life Mentor group will be discontinued" by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desks Citing scalability issues, Linden Lab announced the end of the volunteer Second Life Mentors program on Wednesday...

[Florence Raghilda contacted me several weeks ago and I became her friend very quickly. In addition to being a wonderful new friend, she is a magnificent model and a lot of fun to work with. I am proud to present...

by Jessica Holyoke When the creation of an Adult Content policy first started being discussed by the Lindens, a campaign started saying "I am Adult Content." Residents were up in arms about losing their access to Adult Content. And it...

Stroke awakened the radio passion by Alessandra Narayan Did you know there’s a live radio show going on SL every day? Me neither. Jameslarken Supply, a former musician in real life, suffered a heart stroke which led him to discover...

Pink points out Apple takes 30% of iPhone App revenue - will LL follow suit? by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk Pink Linden It is hard to blame Second Life merchants for being concerned about the virtual goods' retail landscape...

Lab curtails Korean language support, closes Korean operations by Pixeleen Mistral, International Affairs desk The Korea Herald reports that Linden Lab has abandoned its Korean localized web site and viewer after allowing its contract with Barunson Games Corp. to lapse....

We're listening to the gullible with money Posted by Mammon Linden Over the last few years, the number one request and core business requirement of many of our money-grubbing, soulless and wealthy customers has been the need for a behind-the-firewall...

Better bondage in Second Life by Jessica Holyoke When you hear about a new Viewer, usually you hear about the new things you can do with it; it will run faster, it can encypt your IM's, it can make your...

[AbidE Blessed aka patience contacted me ages ago about being a Post 6 Grrrl and I'm glad she did. I present without further ado the gorgeous AbidE Blessed, aka patience, Post 6 Grrrl -Timothy Morpork] Words come more easily for...