Archive for 'Building a Better VR'

Bearded Eggheads Talk about Virtual Journalism and Stuff

Henry Jenkins just posted part one of a two-part interview with our own Nutty Professor — Peter Ludlow. In it Ludlow has some not very nice things to say about the Avastar, and some marginally interesting things to say about civic responsibility and virtual journalism, and also where the Herald fits in the magic circle [...]

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Avatar of the Year, Second Place: Anshe Chung

Second place in the Herald’s coveted Avatar of the Year award traditionally goes to the avi who has had the most impact on the virtual world’s economic scene. Last year’s winner, Sir/Father Callahan, was a master of the simolean trade in TSO, as well as a collector of rare cannons and press secretary for the [...]

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Second Life Running on Linux?

Acording to a comment he posted on Boing Boing, this week Cory Linden is going to be at the Chaos Computer ClubCon (ah ok, so now it is upscale and is called the Chaos Communication Congress) in Berlin. Plus he promises to be giving a public demo of the SL client running on Linux. That [...]

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Good Riddance: SL Says Goodbye to Dwelloper Awards

Uri and Prok do Some Last Minute Christmas Camping by Dow Jonas With the advent of camp chairs in the last month, Robin Linden’s announcement of the end of the Developer Incentive Awards (DIA), or the “Dwelloper Awards,” as they were dubbed, came as no surprise to most of the hundred-odd recipients of the cash [...]

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Extra!!: Philip Calls the FBI. W-Hats Shit Themselves

by Dow Jonas Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab, announced at a resident virtual winter holiday party in Second Life’s Wengen today that he is turning to real-world authorities to investigate Monday’s deliberate crashing of his virtual world’s grid. When the party was bombed today by a griefer with pixelated C-4, Rosedale, whose avatar is [...]

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LINDEN ADMITS TO INSIDER SNOW SIM DEAL ON TEEN GRID

By Dow Jonas In a fascinating glimpse into the life of teen-agers in Second Life and the internal pressures with which Lindens cope in their San Francisco office, a land scandal has emerged on the Teen Grid (TG) involving confirmed charges that Blue Linden gave a teen land buyer an unfair insiders’ heads-up about a [...]

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Rate my Linden .com

How’s my driving? Rate Second Life Support: by Pat the Rat Are you concerned about Linden behavior? Have you ever gotten mad at the way a Linden has treated you? Most people are so grateful that the Lindens are *there* that they don’t think of them as problematic, behavior-wise. They are so earnest, and so [...]

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Anshe Declares War on Ginko: “It”s a Ponzi Scheme!” (Lindens block discussion. Transparency is first casualty.)

SL Power Player and Business Girl, Anshe Chung By Dow Jonas A fierce debate about trust in financial institutions is rocking the business community of SL, pitting SL’s largest land baron, Anshe Chung, said to own SL properties valued at U.S. $200,000,against Nicholas Portocarrero, SL’s largest savings and investment bank owner, reportedly holding more than [...]

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Political Speech or Land Extortion? Or Both?

by Prokofy Neva Huge, bright blue spinning signs calling on Americans to IMPEACH BUSH and RESTORE U.S. CREDIBILITY have spread like kudzu all over the Second Life grid in recent weeks on numerous plots for sale. Many residents — even those who share the billboard artist’s sentiments about the U.S. president — are increasingly angered [...]

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Book Review: Synthetic Worlds

Author Ted Castronova demonstrates approximate size of words used in his new book (photo by Cory Linden) Run, don’t walk, to Amazon.com (is that even possible?) and order your copy of Edward Castronova’s Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games today. For anyone interested in deeper thinking about MMOs than just whether the [...]

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