Archive for 'Philosophical Issues'
Forget the Turing Test, How about the Paula Abdul Test?
In an extremely interesting post on Terra Nova, Nathan Combs talks about scripting dance animations on second life. I’m never really sure what Nathan is saying, but his post contains speculation that the animations have an odd kind of community-forming function. He then speculates on the possibility more unpredictable dancers and wonders if one might [...]
Full StoryThe W-Hat Birthday: Cake, Ice Cream and Murdered-Hooker Bloodbath (2/2)
By Neal Stewart It’s the quick and the dead in Second Life. The murdered hooker I found at Baku today is not the murdered hooker she was yesterday. Yesterday’s corpse had character. A furry, she lay there with eyes closed and brows wrenched, as though her eternal sleep was wrought by nightmares. And who could [...]
Full StoryThe W-Hat Birthday: Cake, Ice Cream and Murdered-Hooker Bloodbath (1/2)
By Neal Stewart 24 hours ago, the W-Hats celebrated their 1-Year Birthday in Second Life at their “W-Hat Super Happy Fun Time Land”. “Cake and ice cream for every girl and boy!”, read the event listing. In classic W-Hat fashion, a host of neon pigs, robots, smoking chimpanzees and wheelchair-bound Mad-Hatters laughed and danced away [...]
Full StoryNew Scientist: The Walls are Crumbling!
New Scientist has a short article on how Sony’s new Station Exchange (reported earlier in the Herald) is yet more evidence of the crumbling walls between the real world and virtual worlds. Of course we’ve heard this from the French before, but this time they quote a real live American Philosopher from a land grant [...]
Full StoryStealing Dreams
Perhaps best known as author of the ‘Newbie 2 Newbie’ column, Rose Karuna has returned in print for the first time since writing for the now-defunct SecondLIFE Magazine. It is worth noting that even back in her SL Magazine days, Rose was already flirting with the questionable journalism practices that have made the Herald famous, [...]
Full StoryBedazzled and Stark Bollock Naked
The Herald staff aren’t always as quick off the mark as we’d like to be. When a forum thread on the Bedazzle Nude pics got underway, our editorial board were passed out underneath a poker table following a drunken brawl over the six aces Uri had found in his shirt-sleeve.
Full StoryWhich Came First: the Creativity or the Creator?
by Budka Groshomme Wander at random through Second Life and creativity seems to spring from every corner. Everyone, it seems, is building something. It might be trivial, ugly, overstated, ornate, minimalist, inconsequential, heroic, or offensive but, by God, they are building it! The creative variety is overwhelming. If you doubt this, take a look at [...]
Full StoryWhat Lies Beneath: A Meditation on the Digisoul
by Budka Groshomme When I was a kid I wondered, as most of my era did, whether the light in the icebox really went out when the door closed. Several attempts at divining this led only to a pinched nose. Although I have grown more careful about where I stick my nose since then, my [...]
Full StoryOp/Ed: Linden Labs and Griefers – Hands on or off?
by Neal Stewart OKKKAY? One of the perks of working for the Herald, other than the sex, drugs and heavy metal music… and the power… and the riches… other than those, one of… and the fame…. other than those, one of the perks is being able to pass your forum posts off as Op/Ed’s. The [...]
Full StoryGame Developer Rants burn houses, babies and bridges
If you hadn’t caught them earlier, Cory Ondrejka’s (aka Cory Linden’s) Terra Nova forum threads about the now-infamous Game Developers Rants, were Slashdotted yesterday. The main two Terra Nova threads are called ‘Burning Down the House’ and ‘Burn baby burn’. Some of the things that games developers came out with were beauties like these: “Iwata-san [...]
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