The Alphaville Herald

Under Big Blue MegaPrim Skies

by prokofy on 22/12/06 at 3:29 am

The tiny green dots assemble for a stress-test of the IBM four corners.

By Prokofy Neva, Community Affairs Desk

After a somewhat rocky start with an overloaded region at the usual place in Warmouth, a meeting of the Society for Virtual Architecture, featuring IBM’s Lead Architect in SL Jessica Qin, got going at the four corners’ point on the new IBM islands, opened just last Friday. A good chunk of the meeting went to arguing whether four-cornering is even really a workable option in SL, given the sinking through the ground, out-of-range chat, “object not in your sim” error messages, and inevitable crashing. Still, if you have to have more than 50 people over, it’s the option available now in SL.

In a mainly off-the-record informal meeting, Jessica kept the overflowing crowd enthralled with tales of her use of mega-prims (featured on the big roof); a vow to make what might seem a bland corporate sim more tasty with various community activities (like this one); and a contemplation whether IBM or any company would save on airfares and meatworld conference costs or just frustrate the hell out of themselves and their employees with lag, distractions like furry ageplay (IBM will be refraining, we’re told), and just the eternal question of What is To be Done?

The use of SL as a conferencing space was being sorely tested by the very meeting itself — with no repeater and the speaker forgetting to shout; with melting floors and hoochy hair flexi prim induced lag, resident Dominque Severine summed up the problem in contrasting video and telephone conferencing with the SL experience: “Ten times more immersive, but that also means ten times more distracting.”

Lead Architect for IBM in SL, Jessica Qin.

Tantalizingly, Jessica hinted at more LL and IBM cooperation, but stopped short of spelling it out.

Jessica says she herself named the main boulevard for IBM CTO.

But before we hear from Jessica, first a word from our sponsor:

“Try moving closer. Can’t sit on object because it is not in the same region as you.”

“Try moving closer. Can’t sit on object because it is not in the same region as you.”

Roger that.

A building easier to comprehend when you are outside it rather when you are inside it, especially without 39 of your close personal lag-mates.

“Basically, they handed me 12 sims and said “make it look KeWl,” said Jessica, still answering a question from a few minutes previously.

I call these “scroll-your-own” meetings.

But…what about the exact nature of LL and IBM cooperation if any? And what are IBM’s plans? And if it has more than 12 islands, what are the others doing? And will IBM buy LL and take out the lag? Youth wants to know.

Jessica first showed SL to IBM executives two years ago, as a newb when she was building virtual reality rooms and spending her own time and money on exploring the world. It was finally the story of Anshe on the cover of Business Week that got her bosses to step up the pace of their immersion.

Mainly, Big Blue seems to be doing their own thing in SL on their own sims, but there is some evidence that they’re going around and kicking the tires, too.

Was there any truth to the rumour going around the grid that Big Blue insisted on having their own servers wheeled into LL’s colo facility?

“Standing at the crossroads…and I keep on sinking…down…”

Jessica rephrases the question. “Will LL and IBM ever drink way too many shooters one night…and wake up the next morning and do a ‘you got your server in my grid?’ Reeses’ PB cup routine?” LOL.

Finally peppered one too many times with questions about the notorious mega-prim’s provenance (banned W-Hatter Gene Replacement/Plastic Duck’s megaprims hover over much of the build) and whether IBM would have a relationship with the reverse engineers of libsecondlife, Jessica responded, “i don’t know ‘nothin’ bout birthin’ no libsl babies”.

Asked about what her favourite part of the extensive build was, Jessica commented,

“It’s the Caledon-like build on IBM 1, Turner Boehm and I build it. It’s still got a ways to go but it’s really nice i think. The big blue ‘birdcage’, like.”

Pack a pair of Moopf’s roller skates if you come to check out the IBM sims — you’ll be able to skate from end to end and not mind the sim seams much.