Tech -- Culture -- Humour
As mentioned by Abi Goldflake on the SLOz forums, on May 16th ABC Island will host a Prim School at the ABC Sandbox.
Hosted by Gizzy Electricteeth (who’ll be profiled on SLOz next week), it’s a free building school and it kicks off at 9pm AEST (4am SL time).
“Ever wanted to impress someone by telling them you’re a doctor? Or have you ever wanted to be a doctor but lacked the time, money, and sheer will to go to school for it? Well not to worry! By joining The Fake Doctor’s Association, you get the title without all the fuss! Now you can finally tell people that you are in fact a person of medicine!”
That’s the description you’ll find for the Fake Doctor’s Association, which I was offered membership of late last year after a conversation with an FDA member. This week I received a Group Notice from FDA’s founder (pictured):
“Hello Doctors,
I have an assignment for all members of the Fake Doctor’s Association. This week, I want you to commit malpractice at least once and tell me about it.
To help you, here is an axe.
Regards,
Janette Deakins
Founder, The Fake Doctor’s Association”
So if you see someone wielding an axe, they’re likely to be fake health professionals, so no need to be concerned.
America’s National Public Radio (NPR) is running a story on SL called Don’t Stand So Close to Me. It looks specifically at the issue of personal space in SL and there’s some interesting, if not surprising results:
1. Male avatars tend to keep more distance from each other than when interacting with a female avatar
2. That there’s a natural tendency for users of SL to maintain real-life personal space boundaries
3. That the level of eye contact is intrinsically linked to personal space
The premise is that these issues are both hard-wired and ingrained in our real-life social behaviour that they naturally flow over to SL. As the social behaviour expert says in the interview – we’re not as free as we moght think we are in a virtual world. It’s also another example of how SL provides ample opportunity for human behaviour research.
(Yep, I’ve just replicated one of those endlessly forwarded email jokes but given I hadn’t seen this one before I thought it was worth the post)
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How to Please Your I.T. Department
1. When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies and children’s art. We don’t have a life, and we find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.
2. Don’t write anything down. Ever. We can play back the error messages from here.
3. When an I.T. person says he’s coming right over, go for coffee. That way you won’t be there when we need your password. It’s nothing for us to remember 700 screen saver passwords.
4. When you call the help desk, state what you want, not what’s keeping you from getting it. We don’t need to know that you can’t get into your mail because your computer won’t power on at all.
5. When I.T. support sends you an E-Mail with high importance, delete it at once. We’re just testing.
6. When an I.T. person is eating lunch at his desk, walk right in and spill your guts right out. We exist only to serve.
7. Send urgent email all in uppercase. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.
8. When the photocopier doesn’t work, call computer support. There’s electronics in it.
9. When something’s wrong with your home PC, dump it on an I.T. person’s chair with no name, no phone number and no description of the problem. We love a puzzle.
10. When an I.T. person tells you that computer screens don’t have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.
11. When an I.T. person tells you that he’ll be there shortly, reply in a scathing tone of voice: “And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly?” That motivates us.
12. When the printer won’t print, re-send the job at least 20 times. Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes.
13. When the printer still won’t print after 20 tries, send the job to all 68 printers in the company. One of them is bound to work.
14. Don’t learn the proper term for anything technical. We know exactly what you mean by “My thingy blew up”.
15. Don’t use on-line help. On-line help is for wimps.
The Unearthed Club on ABC Island had a slight facelift over the weekend. The unconfirmed report is that in the process of returning objects from the ABC Sandbox, the previous upper structure of the Unearthed club ended up a crater. If this was indeed the case then a great patch-up job has been done:
The interior of the club has the meteor theme going, so even if the renovation was unintentionally instigated, its added something new. A thanks to Aussie SL resident Skribe Forti for giving us the heads-up on the meteor.
With recent media attention on performance pay for Australian teachers, it is fitting that SL has an event coming up on May 25th where “the educators in SL are gathering for the first 24-hour best practices conference in Second Life.”
The event is billed as having “REAL colleges and universities, and this is a REAL conference including keynotes, breakout sessions, and vendors.”
A 24-hour conference for education community members is indeed a first. This is but one example that highlights cutting edge approaches many educators, and a small number of Australian universities, are taking to integrate the technology of SL into teaching and learning.
A unique approach to this conference will be the use of multiple venues to cater for prim counts and avatar attendees. However the main venue is Hyperstring’s “Huge Conference Center” with a number of other venues used for breakout/overflow areas, poster sessions and vendors. Expect to teleport to various places as the conference progresses.
In-world you can contact Desideria Stockton for more information on this first for education or visit the Second Life International Best Practices in Education Conference website.
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