Monthly Archives: May 2007

windy city of abaddon

Posted on by July 8, 2012
Reply

  Yesterday Linden Lab released a new “First look Viewer” for “↑Second Life“ (SL) [they call the SL-client a “viewer”], a new test-client. With the ↑WindLight First Look Viewer: 1.16.0.62469 you can regularly log on to SL’s main grid, and experience a new technology integrated, namely ↑windwardmark interactive‘s ↑WindLight, at the heart of which “is a physically-correct model of how light actually behaves in the outdoors. […] WindLight takes into account over twenty lighting parameters, each of which map to real-world light contributors in the Earth’s atmosphere. […] Any time of day, from dawn to twilight, can be represented […]“ … Continue reading →

Share

second life creation

Posted on by July 12, 2012
Reply

a guide to in- and offworld online resources, or: avatar customization 101  A main factor contributing to the attractiveness of “↑Second Life“ (SL) is the possibility to modify and create content—up to the never-seen-before. I have to confess that during my first weeks inworld I tremendously misunderestimated [neologism by George Walker ;-] the capacities of the built-in editors and the general potential—the interpretative flexibility SL-gamespace grants is huge. The environment allows creativity and innovation to bloom. Of course there are limitations, as SL is not to be confused with e.g. standalone professional 3D-visualization software like ↑3ds Max or ↑Maya. The … Continue reading →

Share

cyver

Posted on by July 8, 2012
Reply

  Gritty streets, rundown facades, a torn slip of a propaganda poster flapping in the wind, a buzzing larger-than-life screen showing off animated Coca-Cola logos, graffitti on the walls, freshly lit, but orphaned smoking cigarettes in ashtrays on barcounter tops … everything overtowered by a high-tech skyscraper reminiscent of the “↑Half-Life 2“ Combine Tower—must have been a lot of work to get all that right, to finally create the real thing in “↑Second Life“ (SL). Most of the island of Merricks Landing 2 is covered by Sector 13 of Abaddon City. To me the most perfect cyberpunk ambience in whole … Continue reading →

Share

xah toll

Posted on by July 8, 2012
Reply

  I ran into him in The Future. Xah Toll aka ↑Xah Lee is a professional programmer who was brought to “↑Second Life“ (SL) by his friend Seifert Surface aka Stanford-mathematician ↑Henry Segerman. The latter is the creator of the famed ↵crooked house—which was a key motivation for ↵my coming to SL—, and of most of the stunning things in The Future. Xah himself is another of those math wizards, fond of the works of M.C. Escher, and creating things in SL that make you hanging on the edge of your seat. If you want to see unending symmetry tiles … Continue reading →

Share

coolness

Posted on by October 2, 2012
Reply

cyberpunked second living    Believe it or not, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am getting cooler day by day—in “↑Second Life“ (SL) that is. Remember when I said that graphics-wise SL is ↵insultory to my hardware? Well, concerning the absolute majority of avatars I have met so far, and concerning almost all the architecture I have seen so far, this still stands uncorrected. I am running SL on the absolute highest settings here on my machine, but when you compare the looks to e.g. “↵Max Payne 2“ (MP2), a game released in 2003, SL obviously is inferior. Plus, there is no … Continue reading →

Share

kravatac

Posted on by July 8, 2012
Reply

  Just a quick note—I ran into the real thing in “↑Second Life“ (SL). Yesterday I was proud to accomplish an animation override for my avatar (thanks Sue!), and found a pair of free male prim shoes. For the override you have to stuff a script and the animations into an object, and then your avatar has to wear it. So I for the first time created objects in SL, a bracelet. Then I had an idea. I rezzed a tiny cube, stuffed the override inside, and now wear the cube right in the middle of my left wrist, inside … Continue reading →

Share

cyberculture: call for papers

Posted on by July 6, 2012
Reply

From 01 through 04 October 2007 in Halle (Saale), Germany, the next biannual conference of the ↑German Anthropological Association (GAA) [aka ↑Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde (DGV)] will take place. The conference is called “↑Questions of dispute—On the relationship of empirical research and anthropological theory in the beginning 21st century“ [“↑Streitfragen—Zum Verhältnis von empirischer Forschung und ethnologischer Theoriebildung am Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts“]. ↑The conference agenda is online already.  As of now, on Thursday, 04 October 2007, from 14:00h through 18:00h, the ↑Workshop 30: Cyberculture will take place. Yours truly is honoured to organize and lead this very workshop.    Call … Continue reading →

Share

conceptual heights

Posted on by July 6, 2012
Reply

When I am forced to speak academish anthropologese, I use to babble about “conceptual spaces of interaction induced by the Internet infrastructure,” or else.  When I was a kid I was forced to read ↑Emily Brontë‘s “Wuthering Heights” in school. Frankly, I never came to grips with it. I mean, just have a look at how ↑Wikipedia sums up one of the main characters, Hindley Earnshaw, who “is Catherine’s brother and Heathcliff’s other rival; having loathed Heathcliff since childhood, Hindley delights in turning Heathcliff into a downtrodden servant upon inheriting Wuthering Heights. However, his wife’s death in childbirth destroys him; … Continue reading →

Share