Archive for the ‘Observation’ Category

[Second Life] The Mystery behind SecondLie

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

For a while now I have been living with a secret that is not mine to tell, yet a humble burden to undertake. turn of recent events leads me to reveal some of the mystery behind one of Second Life’s most popular faces in culture. this post is not a joke, or a prank. Although the  content of the post fits very well for the day.

This secret involves the twitter account SecondLie. for the uninitiated, SecondLie is a parody account that makes fun of Second Life. SecondLie is a mystery to many, and very few know the real entity behind it. Today I shall expose what SecondLie really is.

To start out SecondLie is a shared account between many users, Aiken to the basic idea of the Internet group Anonymous, although much more mild and with big contributing names in Second Life community. SecondLie is more of the accumulation of what users feel is wrong with Second Life. Everything is in good humor and fun, but also to let off much accumulated steam.

SecondLie’s account info is spread from user to user, and not from a single source. making it very hard to find the original account holder. There has been no leads for me to even consider who started it.

I am friends with a person who is part of SecondLie, but I will not reveal there name to honor an agreement we had previously made. There are at least 5-10 people part of SecondLie, and the creator is unknown to me and many of the collective. there have been suspicion to believe that several large bloggers & known content creators are part of SecondLie, I will refrain from naming them as I have no real facts to base it on, just strong suspicion.

[EDIT] I will not reveal whomever I find out to be part of SecondLie. I love the humor, and do not want to discourage anyone from doing it. [/edit]

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Posted in Humor, Observation, Uncategorized, Virtual Worlds | 2 Comments »

[Virtual World] Content in the Open Grid

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

PrimAt the rate Second Life, and other open source projects like Open Sim,  there will be no reasonable way to deal with one of the biggest issues facing Content Creators in Second Life and other virtual worlds. As of now Second Life is a walled off garden of creativity, and some people want it to stay that way, in the fear of change.

But is it really an issue? Over the years the sky has not fallen with piracy on the Internet. Why would it now?

Second Life content creators are facing what the RIAA and MPAA have been dealing with for years. People making  illegal copies of there work. this is nothing new to the Internet, and nothing new to Second Life.

On the Second Life Grid piracy is wide spread, and for Content Creators not very manageable by themselves. There is need for a middle man. Content Crawler, a system that crawls the Internet looking for copies of content that may have been used illegally. This would allow for content creators to better police there  own content. keep in mind most of the content in Second Life that gets stolen is resold, not for personal use like other content on the Internet.

One thing is certain, Second Life’s economy will be effected when the Open Grid comes online. People will freak out, but nothing will really bad will happen. Things will scale, audience will grow, and the piracy will grow with it. People just need to embrace the change before it happens, and not fight it for many years to no avail *Is looking at you RIAA and MPAA*.

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[Virtual Worlds] 3D Internet? No. Internet made for 3D!

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

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Recently (Edit to read last several years) people have called Second Life the 3D Internet, or call it the Internet of 1995. That statement has of course been said over and over for a very long time, and overly out of context of what Second Life really is, a 3D Virtual World.  

Linden Research is supporting MMOX. this boils down to creating true interoperability for Virtual Worlds. Right now Second Life is a private application that can take any direction it wants, with MMOX it would have to adhere to a certain standard that would allow other virtual worlds to coexist with each other. Of course all of those virtual worlds would need to meet these standards too. So in the end it would create a network that works just like the 2D Internet. This would be a brick and mortar solution.

Saying 3D Internet is a tad overrated. The Internet is not 3D or 2D, it is just information passed back and forth no matter what form it takes. 2D and 3D both have there own strong and weak points. Second Life provides a very rich environment that cannot come close to that of 2D (Extra Dimension makes all the difference). Text is easier to read on a simple 2D webpage, but text in a immersive 3D world can add extra depth and convey emotion better. 

This is all very exciting for uber computer geeks, but means very little to the general public for several years. They are still replacing IPv4 (20 year old Internet protocol) with the new IPv6 (Internet protocol 6) 

[Side Note] I have decided to attempt and keep all blog posts under 300 words, and still carry useful info. Now at 278, wait 280… ugh.

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[Virtual Worlds] Walking? What do you mean walking?

Monday, February 16th, 2009

As most people familiar with Second Life know, all “New User” places are in Second Life, or as it is know “In World”. This is defunk and needs a massive overhaul.

Right now the process goes like the following: Register via website > Download Viewer > Start Viewer and attempt to login > Try to follow a “New User” tutorial located in World that teaches you to use the Viewer.

The process is broken because you are taught how to use the Client from within the World. This method worked better back when Second Life was a small world, with a single viewer.  There are so many flavors of the  Second Life Viewer this method no longer if ever makes sense. The intro for how to use Second Life needs to be moved to the Viewers themselves.  This allows for people to learn what they need, vs a flavor of what they need.

The problem with this being is Second Life Viewer has no plug-in architecture – everything is static for the most part. This poses the need for the overhaul on the Second Life interface that was started with project Dazzle.

The solution being when the Second Life Viewer can handle plug-in architecture for the UI. The process should be streamlined to > Register via website > Download Client > Start Viewer and begin the new user tutorial before log in > end new user tutorial bringing the user all the way in-world and verifying they know what there doing.

Example flying: The UI pops up telling you that you can fly via X keys, then asks you to continue via clicking on a button. This starts a new prompt asking the user to demonstrate how to fly; this is where the viewer watches and check to see if the user is indeed flying. After they complete flying they get a prompt saying Congrats and it moves on.

Keep in mind this also applys to other Virtual Worlds. Second Life’s case is unique because if it becomes easy to get into the active users climb, and could very well over fill.  One of the things holding Second Life back is also the thing keeping Second Life alive.

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