Second Life's Cheap Motels?

Location: Login Screen

It would be handy for builders to have a rent-by-the-hour location, in order to avoid the public sandboxes, long havens for griefers.

But I'm not certain that is what Linden Lab intended when, upon logging on, SLers see an advisory to click to learn about "renting by the hour" from Leia Lulu.

This does send a curious message to new SLers, and it's one I'm not sure educators will appreciate.

I don't mind Ms. Lulu's entrepreneurship here. It's a brilliant way to make cash, but the fact that Linden Lab put it on the login screen means two things: she paid them a lot of cash and the Lindens really don't care much about changing their negative reputation with non-social SL users.

Or am I missing something here?

I do have another idea, closer to home, as well for this offer. I just evicted all virtual hillbillies from my mainland parcel, abandoning it rather than selling, given the sagging sales of mainland property. I then, for next to nothing, bought a smaller 512 sq. M one (no Tier!) for rezzing vehicles. Pap's living in the cab of his truck there, for now, and he notes that "leastways this-here roof ain't a-leakin' on my sufferin' woebegone head."

When the next avatar arrives with a love-child in her arms, maybe Pappy can rent himself a flophouse from Lulu for the ever-expanding Enoch clan. "She gots a hillbilly name, Wiggly," Pappy told me over a new jug of Old Painless. "I reckons she will take pity on a po' boy like me. Say, what do she look like?"

Why Svarga Still Matters

Location: Chamber of the Oracle

I was delighted to get word, via New World Notes, that Svarga, site of my first "aha" moments, has again opened to the public. In a very real sense, this is Svarga (and SL) 2006, before sculpted prims and Windlight changed the experience in-world for all of us.

Laukosargas Svarog, the original creator, largely left SL, but Linden Lab has apparently purchased the content from her and opened Svarga as a sort of national park. I love this idea for many reasons, and despite some mean-spirited (and not unexpected) carping from Prokofy Neva over Socialist tendencies (yawn) Svarga still matters.

History of Technology: Saving Svarga sets a precedent that, while making some builders uncomfortable, could preserve signature work in the history of virtual worlds. Those of us who study the history of technology lament when monuments in its development do not end up in the Smithsonian or its equivalent overseas. It is instructive to have an actual Xerox Alto, Apple I, and IBM 8088 PC to show to students, not to mention Chuck Yeager's X-1 Glamorous Glennis, Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of Saint Louis, and the Apollo 11 command module Columbia.

With virtual technologies, however, it's harder to preserve things, so Linden Lab presents future historians the chance--if they keep Svarga around in future iterations of SL and whatever comes after--for us to explore. Code may change, but there's a better chance of my students seeing a "heritage" sim as it was meant to be seen than taking a ride on a Saturn V.

Svarga may seem dated, compared to amazing builds I've seen in SL and, more recently, Heritage Key. Yet it provides a touchstone for those works, a bar to be topped. We need Svarga to remind us of what is possible.

A Place to Dream: What use is beauty, in a capitalist sense? Can it be made a commodity? Yes. Does it lose something in the process? Can you tour it on the back of a giant wasp?

I go from the purely pedagogical to the aesthetic and Romantic here. Since my arrival in early 2007, SL has steadily become more professionalized; Philip Rosedale noted that the Burning Man era had ended, after he stepped down as Linden Lab CEO. Of course I hope Linden Lab makes the money to keep SL afloat, but it needs a space to inspire the arts.

Cultural creatives online should not be elbowed out of the way to serve the bottom line. When they do, like art-district bohemians when a warehouse area goes condo, only a shell is left without the "edge" to produce interesting art. This has occurred all over Richmond, VA, and it pains me to see the pattern replicated in virtual spaces.

I suppose Linden Lab had to become more corporate, but along with the Burning Life festival, I'd love to see spaces like Svarga kept around to inspire content creators.

So as long as Svarga stays open, I'll go back, put 25L in Taras Balderdash's oracle (all money supports charity) and see what it portends. The oracle produces random advice, like Brian Eno's Oblique Strategy cards.


Today it told me, "Offer a teleport to a friend." I'm going to do that--and bring them to Svarga. So here's a teleport link for all of you!

Kunstlerism of the Week

No picture for this one. This week James Howard Kunstler takes a break from talking about oil depletion but takes aim at the GOP in "The Party of Cruelty":

The most striking elements of so-called health care in America these days is how cruel and unjust it is, and in taking a stand against reforming it the Republican party appeared to be firmly in support of cruelty and injustice. This would be well within the historical tradition of other religious crusades which turned political -- such as the Spanish Inquisition and the seventeenth century war against witchcraft.

I'd have preferred a European single-payer system, since in my personal experience, Spain had a version of our current rotten system in 1985. Now, without sacrificing private property rights or taxing citizens into poverty, they cover their populace, fully.

To those who would call me a Socialist, in this sense I most certainly am, as I am when it comes to building infrastructure, protecting the environment, and curbing the rapacious power of corporations (or are they people? I guess the Supreme Court just resolved that).

Basic health care should be a universal right for all citizens. And there I stand.

Virtual Conferences: Less Schmoozapalooza

Location: In Recovery, Louisville CCCC

image "borrowed" from multiple sites

Another reason to prefer virtual conferences in place of actual ones: for too many conferees, big events like CCCC and the dreaded MLA meat-market have become places to pal around with the bright lights and impress just the right person.

At a prior CCCC, I spotted a well known scholar of computers and writing pinned in a corner by what I'd describe as a rabid "fan." The scholar is an old friend, so I walked by, inconspicuous nutjob that I am, and made a funny, but pained, face. He nearly cracked up, since he knew exactly what I meant...it's painful to have to play this particular game as an academic. Yet he is accessible to all comers, as are many pioneers I've met in the field of computers and composition. Not so long ago, it was once a tiny field.

I suppose avatars get mobbed at events, too, but there is always the faux system-crash as a way to escape that. More seriously, however, SL luminaries are available because they are connecting from home or office. The sessions end, folks walk around, and odds are you can ask a follow-up Q in person or at least get permission to ask it later, via notecard. Given academics' crowded professional lives, that's a lot less likely after a traditional meeting.

Perhaps is SL truly becomes huge, with millions of users, this familiarity with its "names" will end.

So will I continue to go to big national conferences? At times, yes, but increasingly I plan to attend smaller meetings and, when I can, avoid traditional conferences of any size. In the case of CCCC, which did not fall during a break, I have a few days work piled up before me. A virtual meeting could be visited, as I did for VWBPE, between classes or after lunch.

Obligatory drinking reference (again): We cannot go out for drinks with colleagues at a virtual event (in any way that matters to me). Thanks for that note, Dan. At the same time, I can get to know colleagues well enough in advance to be sure that I would want to have a drink with them, when we meet in the flesh.