--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <LEnglish5@> wrote: > > > > What they should do, is create a bunch of firewalled > > Second LIfe islands ala what IBM does for its secure > > corporate meetings and have daily face to face (virtual) > > meetings (that will almost certainly happen within a > > few years for national-level campaigns). > > I've never understood the fascination that > some people have with "virtual worlds." Don't > these people have real lives? Don't they *like* > their real lives? > > JOOC, what does your avatar look like in Second > Life, Lawson? Does it look like you look in real > life? >
PRetty much, except the hair is longer, the fat less obvious (hard to gt extreme obesity right). > In the only one of these silly places I ever > played with (I got bored within a week), I made > a 3D avatar of myself, from photos. It seemed > the only honest thing to do, since the "world" > was populated with gay guys with the avatars of > buxsome babes and skinny wimps with avatars that > looked like Ahnold and fat guys with avatars that > looked like Brad Pitt and nerds who have trouble > lifting a mouse wielding big broadswords. > Eh, if "play" is all you intend, instead of serious work or whatever, I can see it as being boring. > What IS the fascination you see with this > virtual world stuff, eh? It seems to me that > existing conference software with TV cameras > would be a great deal more effective (and more > sane and safer than for the world) than a bunch > of guys and gals having meetings while pretend- > ing to be Superman and Wonder Woman. > Why safer? But in fact, it's often easier to relate to a cartoon than a RL person over video, and it's certainly more entertaining to attend meetings with rodent supermodels, plants, and glowing blobs of light. And it's way cheaper than video conferencing hardware, and you can attend a relatively secure text-based meeting anywhere there is an internet connection (https) and still have some 3D representation to relate to of whomever you are communicating with. Not to mention, you can establish friendships, collaborations, etc., far easier than using simple text-chat or even voice, and you can conduct VR interviews with an amazing array of guests which can be broadcast within the virtual world, as well as podcast to the rest of the internet. I attend software and technical meetings in Second Life with members of the Linden Lab technical team and other programmers from around the USA and around the world on a daily basis. I've attend (virtually), lectures by Eben Mogeln, former counsel for the Foundation for Software Freedom,and author of the GLPv3., and will likely be attending seminars on intellectual property in virtual worlds that he plans on giving later this year. I know educators who specialize in distance learning, who are using virtual worlds with great effectiveness. I know severely brain-damaged individuals who are able to function reasonably well within virtual worlds --infact, Japanese rsearchers have developed EEG input machines (one toy version was mentioned here I think), to allow completely paralyzed patients to interact in Second Life and establish new hobbies and make friends while still tied to their hospital beds. My current job, I got through networking inside a virtual world and I know musicians who are too shy to perform in public who do just fine performing in virtual worlds. Other than that and a few 10's of thousands of other activities that I know people indulge in (besides cybersex), I guess you're correct, IBM wasted millions of dollars on creating their own extension to SL to allow all their employees to meet in virtual worlds, and we're all wasting our time with this worthless technology. Certainly Richard Stallman thinks you're correct. That's why I was able to have a conversation with him about GPL issues on a forum dedicated to Second Life programming: none of hte techno-geeks (like Alan Kay or Grady Booch) would ever dream of creating their own software for VR or avatars to roam inside one. Instead, I should pay attention to what world famous techno-geeks like yourself are doing, since none of the guys and gals involved in virtual worlds right now have ever accomplished anything of note, like, you know, creating software paradigms that define the computer industry (Alan Kay and Object Oriented programming) or creating the original spreadsheet software (like Mitch Kapor, of Lotus, and member of the board of directors (former head) of LInden Lab) or who are helping to define an industry expected to involve up to two billion people worldwide within 20 years. Or, to put it in a nutshell: I have no reason to be involved because obviously virtual worlds aren't the wave of the future--Uncle Barry says so. Lawson
