Caleb Booker's blog

Now that I've made CalebBooker.com, do I keep doing my personal blogging on Metaversed? I mean, I love posting stuff here, love adding content to this most excellent site... but... that's my little space!

I am, however, MOST gratified to see some of the other members making use of their Metaversed blogs. Robert Bloomfield's introduction is hopefully the first in a long series of posts, and I see Baba is testing the waters. This is one of those things that, if enough get on board, could create a new community of bloggers like nowhere else.

Found a great piece over at Digital Money World about the US Treasury's attempt to sue eGold. It's one of those "this could be used by insert fictitious badguy here, and while we have no evidence or even a hint to support this happening, we want you shut down."

Why are they doing this?

Did it occur to the Feds that maybe people want to use gold as money because they have no confidence in the fraudulent, counterfeit product currently printed by the US Treasury?

Yeah, I think it did. Bye bye government-issued currencies.

Click this link.

Just... click it. Pretend they're talking about your home town and click play. Do it.

CMP, who publish Dr. Dobb's Journal among others, just closed 3 print magazines and laid off 200 people. They're going digital.

What a strange time for a guy to try to break out into the writing field. Magazines are closing, and writers are a dime a dozen. Everybody who lives by the pen is tightening their belts. Stringing words together just doesn't pay anymore... not that it ever paid much.

Damn, though, what I wouldn't give to make a living at it.

I mean don't get me wrong - if I had the chance to direct a feature film I'd do it in a heartbeat. That's been my dream for years, too. Still, even if I *did*, I'd be stealing a few minutes in the early mornings and late evenings to tap at the keyboard about all things metaversal.

Just an odd time to be me, really. That's ok though. The world is changing pretty fast. I'll just keep on doing what I'm doing and wait five minutes... next thing you know I'll be a perfect match for this crazy planet.

Oh god I've succumbed... I signed up for a Twitter account.

I'm under 'onder', if you're curious about the nonsense I'm inspired to type in there.

Umm... alright, maybe once I'm used to it I might become a convert but for the time being this is not doing it for me. Here are my first few entries that I've put in reverse order so that they make sense from a timeline perspective:

-------------

Onder Skall - Funkifying the universe. 19 minutes ago

Onder Skall - Wondering how to find anybody in this thing... 13 minutes ago

Onder Skall - Listening to someone babble on and on and on... what ever happened to just making your damn point? 5 minutes ago

Onder Skall - Oh, now look at that... the Twitter faq says they removed search. I have no way of finding anything now. Goody. No wonder everybody loves it 2 minutes ago

Onder Skall - Blogging on Metaversed.com/onder/blog about how stupid Twitter is. half a minute ago

-------------

What am I supposed to do with this thing? Could somebody toss me a bone here?

Yesterday I wrote about Augmented Reality and speculated on a mashup between that, virtual worlds, lifelogging and Web 2.0 applications. In the comments VeeJay referred to that term "Paraverse", and I kind of just said: "Oh, now we're just making words up!"

Now, apparently, I'm a "Noospherist" which is a fancy way of saying that I commune with the collective unconscious of the Metaverse. Well that's my take on it. I remember Prokofy and I bouncing the term around a few months ago in the comments of something or other, but I was still surprised to see his blog about it today. He sandwitched me between Destroy Television, an avatar that's remote-controlled through a web page, and Apotheus Silverman who co-founded Abbott's Aerodrome and works for SLX.

Hmm. So I'm on a list between a mindless aggregate of the collective consciousness and a major business player. Wait... what's this list for again?

Sitting at 54 people I think this list was Prok's way of saying "These are people nobody talks about who make things move", which is nice, but I don't think it means too much. It's a bit arbitrary. Still, there's something compelling about writing a list of names, slapping a label on them, and then leaning back and saying "Discuss".

Even if there is NO meaning... even if Prok intentionally picked random names and a label that few if any could possibly understand, people will react. They will assign meaning based on whatever those words happened to mean and whatever their personal opinions of the people in the list are, and rants will ensue pontificating without end. People will try to place it in the mythological pantheon of players like the FIC, the Meterati, and who knows what else. All Prok needs to do now is refer to the term once or twice more, casually, as if it's a given, and voila: the term has traction.

Say what you want about Prok but you have to admit, that's damn clever.

*** UPDATE 07/12/2007: Looks like Ars Technica had the same thought. ***

Check out the lastest from the AP wire:

HONG KONG (AP) -- China should not punish people for expressing their political views on the Internet, Yahoo Inc. said Monday, a day after the mother of a Chinese reporter announced she was suing the U.S. company for helping officials imprison her son.

Yahoo criticized China in a brief statement that didn't specifically mention the case of jailed journalist Shi Tao, whose mother visited Hong Kong on Sunday. Shi was sentenced to 10 years in 2005 after sending an e-mail about Chinese media restrictions.

The company has acknowledged sharing information about Shi with Chinese authorities.

"Yahoo is dismayed that citizens in China have been imprisoned for expressing their political views on the Internet," the company said in the statement faxed to The Associated Press, which asked Yahoo to comment on Shi's lawsuit.

Well... so... so you say that sucks, but you're still playing ball with them. Hmm.

I don't mean to belittle Yahoo's move here. It's huge that they came forward with a statement like this. Good for them!

Still, does this mean that they won't be, oh I don't know... handing China ammunition to jail anybody who expresses a point of view? They're not actually saying that, are they? No, they're just saying that freedom is good... and then quietly crushing it.

I mean, we'll see. Let's give them a chance. This might be a sign of things to come. Either that, or it's a total shell game to get the public to forget that Yahoo would sell them out in a heartbeat.

Big bad article over at the Herald right now about a new movement. Here's the comment I posted:

*** BEGIN ARTICLE SUMMARY ***

Sorry it's just this is soooo much text, and I thought it might be handy to sum it up:

The Abuse Report system, as it stands right now, does more harm than good. Ultimately, the thought here is that the only use for the current Abuse Report system is for griefing. The proposal is to get out of the habit of using it and find other ways of dealing with our troubles. This has the dual benefits of:
A) allowing the residents, rather than Lindens, to decide which policies are valid and which aren't.
B) keeping personal conflicts personal.

If you're interested in showing your support for this notion you can join "The Broadly Offensive" group, whose slogan is "Do Good by Doing Jack". Well ok, that was my suggestion... not really sure if they took me up on that or if they're just laughing at me. I think both. Anyhow...

Most of the rest of these comments are arguments about that because arguing is a great way to show that you can form sentences out of words. Your call on whether or not that accomplishes anything. My opinion is most likely clearly implied.

That's it.

*** END ARTICLE SUMMARY ***

Linda Zimmer posted this over at Business Communicators and it was too valuable of a resource not to copy/paste it here.

June 10

Evan Almighty Rock the Ark Party
4:00 – 6:00 p.m. SLT
Celebrating June 22nd opening of Universal Picture’s “Evan Almighty” An Ark, live entertainment, movie clips, best furry couple prize
Dell City

MS Fly Kickoff
National Sclerosis Society’s fundraiser and grid-wide scavenger hunt
9 -12 noon SLT
Music, Scion gear, MS Fly bling, 2008 Scion xB Flying Edition give-away
Scion City (Scion is major sponsor of this MS event)

IBM 10th Annual Rational Software Development Conference opening party, mixed reality event
3:00 – 5:00 p.m. SLT
Scott Hebner, VP Marketing and Strategy, IBM Rational Software and avatar Callie Cline, Maxim’s “100 Hottest Celebrities” 2007
Dr Dobbs Island

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June 11

MS Fly, National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Fundraising event
runs through June 17
Register and more information at www.themsfly.org

Chef Manual Diez of Barcalona’s L’Arrel del Born
12:00 p.m. Spanish language; (Tues June 12 in English)
Cooking demonstration
Placa Real

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June 12

SL Business Communicators Meeting with The Weather Channel
12:00 Noon, SLT
Meet with Lawrence Pede, Sr. Manager, Corporate Development, The Weather Channel Companies
Tour and discussion
Weather Island

Chef Manual Diez of Barcalona’s L’Arrel del Born
12:00 p.m. SLT English language
Cooking demonstration
Placa Real

Playboy Magazine, Launch and two-day party
5:00 p.m. SLT
Get location via email

Information Week
6:00 p.m. SLT, Tuesday kaffeeklatsch
Dr Dobbs Island, Life 2.0 Ampitheater

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June 13

Virtual NBC America’s Got Talent Competition
4:00 p.m. SLT
Virtual NBC Studios, NBC 2

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June 15

iCommons 2007 Summit, USC Center for Public Diplomacy;
Durbrovik, Croatia & Second Life.
“to make sure that, at its crossroads, we guide the world along a path that will enable the kind of free culture and decentralized innovation that has characterized the early years of the Internet."\
Runs through June 17th
Annenberg Island (187/67/40)

Information Week
12:00 Noon, Friday kafeeklatsch
Dr. Dobbs Island

----------

June 16 – 17

iCommons 2007 Summit, USC Center for Public Diplomacy;
Annenberg Island

----------

Upcoming

June 19
Chemical Brothers Music Video Premier: “Do It Again”
7:00 p.m. SLT
Available through June 26th
Illusion Factory Concert Pavilion

August 2 – 5th
YearlyKOS Convention, Chicago & Second Life.
Get more information on Progressive Island (133/74/25) or on the web site here

So this guy... he's running for President. Really.

If you think America needs ... less talking ... and less dry rocks ... vote for him. I guess.

What?

Early this morning I rushed out the news that Forterra had released the OLIVE SDK. Had I waited just two or three hours, however, I would have been able to include this amazing bit of background on the company and their interwoven history with There, courtesy of the games visionary Raph Koster.

Years ago there was a company called There that produced a virtual world without peer. It was heralded as a landmark achievement, but ended up having to close because of customer service problems. They needed restructuring, so in order to continue on There was split into two entities: Makena would run There.com as a consumer product and Forterra would specialize in the technical aspects.

Under the new model, both flourished. Makena worked with MTV to produce Virtual Laguna Beach and The Hills, while Forterra focused on military training applications and expanding the technology in novel ways.

If you've logged into There recently you'll notice the results right away. It loads smoothly, the frame rate is always high, and despite the low-polygon count on the avatars the world graphics are really fantastic. Raph mentioned two other features of the OLIVE platform not mentioned in the press release: a spherical world, and neural net AI. For more details on the OLIVE platform click here.

As with all things net-related, specialization really seems to be key, doesn't it? Trying to do everything at once creates a bit of a glitchy mess, but doing one thing extremely well and inviting other specialists to fill in the blanks creates a finished product.

I guess you could say that I'm a fan of lateral thinkers who speak their minds plainly. Take dandellion Kimban's Living in the Metaverse, for instance. Recently she wrote:

Do you, whoever you are, really think that you can forbid people to have fun? Do you believe that you can put your rules against all the creativity of free human beings with avatars? Those people made this world. Just count all the lifestyles, all the groups and places you are against. Count all the terabytes of created objects, avatars, clothes, animations and code. And that is just a beginning. So many things are yet to come. Now, imagine all the possibilities, all the things those people can create just to f*** you and your rules. And to f*** each other because they love to.

Censorship of "naughty words" by me. dandellion dives into sex, politics, user rights, and creativity with wild abandon and more than a little flare.

The graphics that get posted there make me laugh. I actually scooped one in a previous blog post, and even though I'm not all that crazy about politics, at least this way they're amusing.

Anyhow, bright and brilliant stuff by a clever person. Check it out.

From Ars Technica:

"The virus of Internet repression is spreading," said Tim Hancock, Amnesty UK's campaigns director. "The 'Chinese model'—of an Internet that allows economic growth but not free speech or privacy—is growing in popularity, from a handful of countries five years ago to dozens of governments today who block sites and arrest bloggers."

Amnesty reserves particular criticism for the firms—often American—that go along with censorship or actively contribute to it. The group has attacked Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google especially for their dealings in China, where all three countries have been involved in censorship or turned over pro-democracy e-mails to the Chinese government.

I remember when I first found out that Google was censoring itself in China my heart broke a little. If anybody could have stood up for what was right... if anybody should have stood up for what was right, it was Google. I guess it's just another reminder that we can't count on the world's giants. The power that will change things is in the little guy, the one man, the individual - it's in you.

Countries don't tend to be terribly consistent on all of this, either. The US, for instance, allows fascist organizations to set up web sites, use the swastika, and incite all the hate they want so long as they don't do anything violent, but it bans online gambling and has arrested several UK executives who run gambling web sites.

Lesson here being: governments don't care about you. They care about your money. Well no, I don't honestly believe that even though it feels that way sometimes.

This is more of a Kafka effect. Government and law are like one gigantic machine, and machines don't think. Things happen or don't, and it's never based on thought - it's just things happening to fall together that way. In a system complex enough that no one person can even hope to understand the whole thing, what's legal and what isn't becomes arbitrary.

Imagine a clock where a thousand people individually contribute parts but none of them ever see the whole machine. You can't really expect that thing to tell proper time... or even be safe.

So it's not that "some guy", or even "some people" are responsible for giving the thumbs-up to hate propaganda and thumbs-down to online gambling. It's just the way this machine happened to operate. At best, it can only ever hope to have an insect's intelligence - and even that is for survival only.

Should multinational corporations be forced to make moral decisions about censorship every time they enter a new market? The companies tend to say no and argue that even the limited services they are able to provide are more helpful than no services at all. Their accusers argue that the "we're just following local laws" defense is becoming the equivalent of the "just following orders" defense that has been used to justify some of the most heinous crimes on the planet.

This sums up Linden Lab's current predicament nicely, doesn't it? I feel for them, I really do... now they have trouble. If they do right by the community, other "RL" governments will protest. If they do right by the governments, the citizens will protest.

They're between a rock and a hard place, really. Meanwhile, fear thuds through the populace that one day they may be punished for expressing what lies within. I feel for them, too.

This idea of Linden Lab's to open-source the server is probably their only way out. Once this is done the genie will be out of the bottle for good, and they won't be able to take it back even if they wanted to. The hope, I'm certain, is that one day they will become irrelevant to the concepts of governance and regulation. They want to give up their say in what other people do, I think. At least, that's what I'd want if I was in their place. Being a dictator sucks for the guy in charge, too.

This is going to be the first in a series of posts about blogs that I keep track of. There are way too many good writers without an audience out there, or who are just misunderstood. Let me know in the comments if you think I missed somebody important.

To start off I'd like to tell you a bit about Second Thoughts, the blog of fellow Herald writer Prokofy Neva. This is not for the faint of heart. Prokofy argues his points with complete abandon, "stating the case strongly" as he puts it. People get angry reading Prokofy when he does that. Controversy abounds.

The thing about Prokofy Neva is that he's both brilliant and completely unafraid to criticize. Criticism is one thing, but eloquent criticism is quite another. Not only that, but he's stated on more than one occasion that he feels it's important to make public denouncements of that which he considers wrong or unjust. This places him in the crosshairs of insular social groups, public figures, and the blogosphere at large.

Prokofy and I fight a lot. I really respect him, but we disagree about all sorts of things all the time. That's not usually a big deal, but you don't just disagree with Prokofy. You get into it, debating the point and exploring the possibilities. The challenges come through fast and furious, and may the gods help you if you're not clear on your point. Every time I begin debating with Prok I know I had better bring my A-game. To be honest, I've ducked out of a few of these conversations when I didn't feel up to it.

There are those who have delighted in goading Prokofy to get him banned from various places (I'm looking in your direction Csven and Christiano 'n co.). Typically these people get personal, or play dirty tricks, or just repeat the same thing ad nauseum... rarely have I ever seen anybody bring their A-game. There have been exceptions, but so often people just get emotionally exhausted and end up calling Prok names and attacking him on an emotional level to try to bring him down to how they're feeling. Many want to see Prok just go away.

What these people don't realize is how important it is for somebody, even if it's just one person, to stand up and say "that's not right". A metaverse without Prokofy would be a pale and inadequate one, not nearly as vibrant or as important. With Prok around, people think before they act. How rare is that?

Prokofy and I agree on one thing: if you care about something, that means it's worth fighting for. He and I have completely different ideas on how to fight that fight, but hell, only fools seldom differ.

Hats off to you Prokofy Neva. You are the ultimate crusader of the metaverse.

Today I sent a quick little article to The Second Life Herald about another group of people who think that the Internet needs regulating so that parents don't have to act like "mothers" or "fathers" to their kids. Oh the horror. Yeesh...

Am I sick of brainless morons trying to influence policy? Hell yes. Still, I do find it funny at the same time. I have a number of years of tech support under my belt, you see. I know these people. They're the ones who have 12:00 blinking on their VCRs.

More importantly though, they're the ones who thought that home computers were a passing fad. Now they're angry that they're being forced to deal with these gizmos. We all have to suffer because they are suffering, having to deal with technology they don't want or understand. These attempts at completely random censorship are their way of dealing with the fact that computers didn't "go away" like they expected them to. This is them waving their arms at the silicon chip and yelling: "SHOO!"

Well, you have to love them for it... just a little, anyhow. As a tip of the hat to them I give you two charming videos.

Enjoy!

Series of Tubes
Senator Ted Stevens talking about the Net Neutrality Bill

DJ Ted Stevens Techno Remix: "A Series of Tubes"
Paul Holcomb from The Bold Headed Broadcast mixed this techno version of Ted Stevens' now infamous "Series Of Tubes" speech and Gavin from 13tongimp.com made a video out of it.

(Image blatantly stolen from Living in the Metaverse)

From the Linden Lab Blog:

Real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depiction of sexual or lewd acts involving or appearing to involve children or minors; real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of sexual violence including rape, real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of extreme or graphic violence, and other broadly offensive content are never allowed or tolerated within Second Life.

[...]

Please help us to keep Second Life a safe and welcoming space by continuing to notify Linden Lab about locations in-world that are violating our Community Standards regarding broadly offensive and potentially illegal content. Our team monitors such notification 24-hours a day, seven-days a week.

Select commentary:
From Living in the Metaverse - Spy Thy Neighbour
From Second Life Insider - Our World, Our Rules
From reBang weblog - [edit: deleted this link... long story.]

'nuff said.

Someone has filed a class action lawsuit against IGE, gold farmers extraordinaire. The specific complaint: they're devaluing the real-world value of WoW gold and virtual items, throwing arena matches, and gold farming.

This is a biiiiiiiig problem for Blizzard. As soon as WoW gold becomes a real currency, Blizzard will be liable for all sorts of possible damages if it does something that could affect the economy. They may even back IGE on this one!

Regardless, IGE has pretty deep pockets. Expect more than a few players to jump on the bandwagon. The thing is, this lawsuit is far more ironic than one might first assume.

Let's say this is successful. This would mean two things:

1. WoW gold would officially, legally have real world value.
2. You could get sued for selling it.

(via Broken Toys)

Metaversed readers may remember our previous article What Is "Gold Farming"?, where we described the phenomena of people gathering virtual currency from online games and selling it for real life cash. Recently a player of Everquest 2 was sent a typical spam message by another player advertising a website selling game currency. Most players just ignore these messages, but this time they began a conversation offering new insights into the life of a "gold farmer".

The conversation started with a threat of legal action based on Blizzard's recent lawsuit, which the gold farmer panicked about. He was making the equivalent of US$100 per month, worked seven hours a day, and really seemed to be grateful for employment despite living below China's poverty standards. Apparently he burns through an account a day as they get shut down by system administrators.

It's a bit pittiful. These guys need a union.

Next-Gen has created a great global list of software development studios. It currently lists 42 countries and gives the name, website, and previous titles for each company. If you're shopping around for a developer to create your virtual world, this might be worth a look.

Just some random stuff that caught my attention today. This is a blog, so I injected my completely unjustified personal opinion.

Practical Marketing - getting the most out of your Marketing Team in Second Life - Neat overview of team management techniques for a virtual world. All hail Tateru.

Wirecard unwired - Wirecard's office is open now. Here's the SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wirecard/128/128/0. I guess the build is a bit ugly... they built it themselves. Isn't that sweet? Still have no idea if it'll fly or flop.

There's a new MMO engine and it's called Chaos - I think Qj.net might be a bit confused. They run this little article about the "Chaos Software Group" having released a dev studio for MMOs. This is pretty weird of them because the Chaos Software group is known for dayplanner software and have no official announcement anywhere else. Unsubscribing in 3, 2, 1...

Prokofy Neva argues with csven - I often disagree with Prokofy, but I love how open and honest she is. She and I are fundamentally different in most other ways but it's things like this, where she copies/pastes an argument with ZERO deletions, that I really respect. I guess I respect it because it shows respect for the readers. As far as the actual text here... your take is as valid as mine so I'll refrain from commentary. Do make sure to be wearing something flame-retardant before entering.

Brand names blahblah - Please. Everybody. Shut up. Not one brand has ever been HARMED by brand emulation. If anything this kind of immitation legitimizes the brand in the minds of the consumers and makes it a hotter commodity. Calm down.

IBM Cutting Another 1,500 Positions - Damn.

Second Chinese dissident joins lawsuit against Yahoo - "Another jailed Chinese pro-democracy activist has joined a legal battle against Yahoo, attempting to hold the company responsible for turning over e-mails to the Chinese government that eventually landed him in prison." Yahoo... what the hell? What the bloody hell?

Microsoft Surface - A computer is able to recognize physical objects to allows hands-on, direct control of content. Surface turns an ordinary tabletop into a dynamic surface, interacting with digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects.

When Users Attack: How Online Communities Respond to Chaos - Covers user revolts at Facebook, Digg, MySpace, and Second Life. Very cool.

Alternate Reality Games or Fiction of the Future? - I've edited this comment back quite a bit. It was paragraphs. Let's just say this: most obvious. PR. Stunt. Ever.

Uncanny AI: Artificial Intelligence In The Uncanny Valley - Comparing advanced AI to Asperger's. Um... ok... this discussion is making me uncomfortable.

Facial recognition slipped into Google image search - Technology gives us superpowers. Sometimes though that's just creepy.

Analyst: $100 PS3 Price Cut Not Enough to Move Systems - You know Sony, I was pulling for you. Remember that... as I go buy my Wii.

Also, three BIG media buy-outs featured in Mashable!:
Mozilla Invests in Democracy TV
MySpace Announces $250M Photobucket Acquisition, But Losing the War
WOW: CBS Acquires Last.fm for $280 Million

... and that's the stuff I *didn't* think was worthy of publishing at Metaversed.com!