This evening I stumbled across the Whitsundays, Great Barrier Reef, Noosa Heads and Gold Coast:
We’ve contacted the owner for a chat about the latest virtual part of Australia so watch this space. I’m guessing there’ll be no Jupiters Casino though.
The wolves are out for WSE
July 30, 2007 by Leave a Comment
Over the past 24 hours reports have started appearing around companies delisting from the World Stock Exchange and moving to smaller competitor ISE. The impetus was the theft reported last week. What hasn’t helped is the current trading halt:
We’ve had some brief IM discussions with WSE Chairman / CEO LukeConnell Vandeverre about setting up an interview in order for him to put WSE’s perspective on events. We’re hoping this will occur in the next day or so.
We’d also like to hear from SL users with funds invested on the WSE – how concerned are you?
Thursday’s Fictions Q&A a success
July 29, 2007 by Leave a Comment
This afternoon, the ABC Island Ampitheatre played host to the Q&A session following the ABC TV screening of Thursday’s Fictions.
The panel consisted of Dr Richard James Allen , Dr Karen Pearlman, Gary Hayes and Story Consultant Jacqueline Turnure and the discussion was moderated by Christy Dena and audio streamed. Around twenty-five people sat in-world on the discussion with lots of questions around the translation of the story into SL, the collaborative process that allowed the project to succeed and the potential for such projects to increase the engagement of the wider community with SL as an entertainment medium.
Check out Thursday’s Fictions in-world
(For more pictures: go here).
Welcome to error-land
July 29, 2007 by Leave a Comment
There’s nothing on the LL blog at this stage but there’s obviously a significant issue with SL at present. When launching the browsers a stock standard ‘Access Denied’ message comes up within the browser:
It’s not been a great week for stability in SL, that’s for sure. One important note – you can still log in to SL by clicking the Connect button.
UPDATE: Linden Labs now aware of issue
Relay For Life commences
July 28, 2007 by 9 Comments
The SL Relay for Life is in its third year, and this weekend is the culmination of months of work and promotion.
Spread across four sims, the course has some great sights, music on tap and a bunch of entertainment and commemorative events scheduled (SL Insider has the full schedule listed). There are different themed areas such as Pinocchio and Tomb Raider to walk through in addition to chatting with other participants.
Like the Australian Relay For Life, groups have set up camping areas and the whole thing has that similar community spirit. You can even enjoy the sight of yor hair disappearing as you cross sims on the walk.
Do yourself a favour and do at least one virtual lap and donate some money for cancer support and research. Check it out in-world.
Blow up the pokies
July 26, 2007 by 18 Comments
Linden Labs have clarified in no uncertain terms their stance on gambling in SL – it’s not to occur, full stop.
The actual policy is:
“It is a violation of this policy to wager in games in the Second Life (R) environment operated on Linden Lab servers if such games:
(1) (a) rely on chance or random number generation to determine a winner, OR (b) rely on the outcome of real-life organized sporting events,
AND
(2) provide a payout in
(a) Linden Dollars, OR
(b) any real-world currency or thing of value.
This includes (but is not limited to), for example, Casino Games such as:
o Baccarat
o Blackjack
o Craps
o Faro
o Keno
o Pachinko
o Pai Gow
o Poker
o Roulette
o Sic Bo
o Slot machines
It also includes Sports Books or Sports Betting, including the placing of bets on actual sporting events against a book-maker or through a betting exchange. Linden Lab will actively enforce this policy. If we discover gambling activities that violate the policy, we will remove all related objects from the inworld environment, may suspend or terminate the accounts of residents involved without refund or payment, and may report any relevant details, including user information, to authorities and financial institutions.”
It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes for compliance with the policy to be achieved. When I first joined SL in 2006 I was advised to pick up some free $L by using camping chairs. I still had a casino landmark saved from back then and I tried it this evening and took the pictures contained in this story. As you can see, this casino hasn’t done anything to meet the new policy as yet.
Whether you love or hate gambling in SL, the new policy will remove a cultural aspect of the grid. Maybe some will even miss the sight of rows of zombie-like chair campers:
Will you miss the casinos in SL?
Thursday’s Fictions
July 25, 2007 by 3 Comments
A fascinating Australian collaboration is about to make its SL debut. ‘Thursday’s Fictions’ is described as a surreal dance fantasy and it’s screening on ABC TV this Sunday, 29th July at 3pm AEST. Directly afterwards at 4pm at the ABC Ampitheatre on ABC Island there’ll be a Q&A session with Dr Richard James Allen, Dr Karen Pearlman, Gary Hayes and Story Consultant Jacqueline Turnure.
A standalone SL presence based on Thursday’s Fictions is close to completion. Gary Hayes was kind enough to point us to the build for Thursday’s Fictions for a preview and it looks like being an interesting and interactive presence. It’s likely a landmark for it will be provided at the Q&A session on Sunday.
Check the ABC website for more details on the screening or the LAMP blog for more detail on the SL build by Gary Hayes.
We asked Gary for his thoughts on the build:
“It was particularly exciting recreating what I had read and seen of the film and making it relevant to Second Life – so I was careful not to just clone the sets or be too real world in translations of the metaphors of spirituality – but try to imagine given unlimited pallette what the choices around reincarnation could be”.
Gary also gave a brief synopsis of the film and the SL build’s relationship to it:
“It is the story of a lady called Thursday who tries to cheat reincarnation in that she takes the wrong things with her into each new life. So the Second Life experience is to get you, to think about what qualities you would carry with you into a new existence. I have built a small user journey through this and the idea is to go into further development to build all the story elements – the days representing new lives. Richard Allen and Karen Perlman have been great in allowing me to work with them to be very SL specific with this”.
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