Gratuitous ramblings from Rob Knop about astronomy, cosmology, virtual worlds, or whatever he feels the need to rant on about
Read about it on the official blog.
I’ve seen some reactions already that use words like “dramatic shift” or otherwise seem to indicate that this is some kind of “stepping down.” Read what Philip says on the blog. It’s all true. He’s still Our Leader.
The Second Life Shakespeare Company has the ambitious goal of putting on a live production of Hamlet in-world, using voice and either actors controlling their avatars, or (they hope) their own bot technology for doing more sophisticated movement. They’ve already made one Machinema version of Act I, Scene i. Starting this Thursday (Feb. 28), they’ll be doing several live performances of Act I, Scene i (with a bit of stuff thrown in from a later scene). This performance will only last about 10 minutes, but it is kind of interesting to be trying to do live theater in world.
I auditioned for the SLSC, and will be playing the role of Francisco (the smallest part, it turns out) in the upcoming performance.
Update: for those of you not versed in Second Life lore, SLT = “Second Life Time”, which is the same as pacific time (PST right now).
One of the mottos of Second Life is “your world, your imagination.” Second Life has very little content developed or built by anybody employed by Linden Lab. Nearly everything you see in Second Life is built by the residents– that is, people like you who have accounts, and who do creative things with them.
Angel by Light Waves
Click for a larger version
Light Waves is a sculptor in Second Life, and an amazing artist. You can find his pieces here and there (including older pieces created under an earlier name, Starax Statosky) about Second Life. His own region is called Black Swan. I encourage anybody in Second Life to visit it and take a look. The Search result I’ve linked to is at the beginning of a path around the perimeter of that region. You pass by a handful of Light Waves’ sculptures, as well as the occasional pitfall, hole in the path you have to jump over (or, fly– heck, this is Second Life after all), the occasional spike trap, and a lot of atmosphere. At the center is a huge sculpture, enhanced by particle effects that would be difficult to achieve fully in real life.
I’m in San Francisco for a week, visiting the main SF Linden office for the first “DNOC Summit”. The DNOC is the “Distributed Network Operations Center,” the group that I’m in at Linden. Although I’ve only been working there since August, I am now more senior than the DNOC median…. This is a new group that was put together starting with Neuro Linden. The idea is to have operations folk (i.e. system engineering type people) who are online and monitoring the cluster 24/7 during their normal working hours. This means to zeroth order following the Sun, with people in time zones around the world, although of course not everybody’s normal working hours coincide with the sun (especially among computer people). We’ve got five people in the DNOC now, with hopes of continuing to grow.
This week I’ll be meeting in-person for the first time a number of people that I’ve been working with and have talked with extensively. Alas, I foolishly forgot to bring my camera with me, so don’t expect any juicy insider Linden photos here.
I’ll be staying with my father, who lives on a “floating home” in Alameda. It’s a great deal that when I visit the Linden head office, I get to stay with him. Not only does this mean I get free (i.e. company reimbursed) travel to visit my father, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, but also I save the company a lot of money by saving them hotel costs while I’m out there.
Drop by today at 11AM PT to Science School in Second Life to be part of the live studio audience of Science Friday. If you don’t have a Second Life account… make one! A basic account is free!
This is one of the really cool things that happens in Second Life. NPR’s Science Friday has been part of it’s Talk of the Nation show forever. For the last couple of months, they’ve had a live studio audience in-world. What this means is that between 40 and 100 Second Life avatars (usually including Prospero Linden) show up to listen to the show. The audio stream attached to the land is Nashville’s WPLN (I had nothing to do with that, but appreciate it!) . There is an avatar in-world, Ira Flatley, to represent Ira Flatow… although since the real Ira is broadcasting live on the radio, it’s actually a member of his staff running the avatar. Those of us sitting around have a lively conversation in text chat about what we’re hearing on the radio. (Sometimes the conversation wanders a bit from there.) Basically, it’s sitting around with a bunch of fellow science fans all together listening to this national science broadcast. (Well, really, it’s international, since the stream works anywhere, and many of the people who show up aren’t ‘from the USA.) Also, Ira Flatley is listening to the comments and questions we ask, and occasionally one will be read by Ira Flatow on the radio. There was a week when he said “Prospero Linden in Second Life asks….”