Recent Comments:
Cinemassively: Making shirts for Second Life in ArtRage
Massively
Jul 15th 2008 2:04PM Sigh... Windows-only. Anyone know if it works with WINE?
Archipelis' SL Exporter allows 3D model importing into SL
Massively
Jan 14th 2008 10:25PM Sounds great... alas, it only runs under Windows. It says .NET is required... so is it written in C#? If so, why isn't there a version the runs on Linux, given Mono?
Linden Lab on Battery
Massively
Nov 28th 2007 1:08PM Whew... from the headline I thought they'd lost power. :)
Regarding content in virtual worlds: build it, or buy it?
Massively
Nov 9th 2007 2:33PM It's an issue of specialization, how much you value your time, opportunity costs ("If I work on this widget, I'll miss the Punk Monks' thrash chant show!" or more seriously, "...I'll have to give up a modeling/etc. gig"), and how much discretionary spending money you have. Specialization makes sense--people do what they do best, and everybody gets better stuff as a result.
That said, I'd say everyone should try building... including me; I'm perpetually ashamed of myself for having spent more than a year in SL without doing any scripting or anything more than rudimentary building.
Why do Open Source coders do it?
Second Life Insider
Oct 28th 2007 4:40AM Reasons to do it that people might not realize:
1. It can serve as a portfolio for programmers. Sure, you can list your experience on a resume, but you can't show potential employers the excellent code you wrote for your previous employer. If you do good work on an Open Source project, you can point at it and say "I did this... check it out."
2. How the heck are you going to gain N years experience with [insert language here] if you don't have it and can't get hired without it? Gain the experience working on Open Source projects.
If SL Disappeared Tomorrow, Where Would You Go?
Second Life Insider
Oct 17th 2007 7:11PM I use Linux, so yes... off to grab the OpenServer code I'd go!
Law & Order SVU portrays their fake Second Life as sex playground
Second Life Insider
Oct 3rd 2007 4:44PM Actually, Isaac Asimov once wrote a hilarious short story, "Playboy and the Slime Gods," after Playboy magazine tried to tar all SF with the brush of some third-rate "spicy" (as they were called back then) story with SF trappings. L&O SVU is playing the same game as Playboy, and as CSI did later with the "Fur and Loathing in Las Vegas" episode, for the same reason.
Ironically, real life is the real sex playground, because there natural selection plays for keeps... but nobody would say that's all there is to real life. Why should Second Life be so mischaracterized?
What does your choice of avatar mean in a job interview?
Second Life Insider
Oct 3rd 2007 12:21PM The way the question was put points up a difference between RL and SL, and a difference in how people think of their avatars.
Some think of the avatar as like clothing--and indeed in SL it's trivial to change avatars, just as it is to change clothing. I have a harder time thinking of my avatar that way--perhaps it shows that I'm old-fashioned. To me, my avatar _is_ me in SL, and I think about changing it--maybe not quite as seriously as I'd think before undergoing cosmetic surgery in RL, because it's no problem to undo--but seriously.
Does that ease of change mean that an employer in SL has the right to insist on changes to your avatar as a condition of employment? In RL, there's BFOQs ("bona fide occupational qualifications") and then there are things that, if an employer demands them of you, you go hire Gloria Allred and get in the news. A flight attendant can't be too tall to fit in the airplane, but a restaurant owner in RL who tells someone she's too tall to be a waitress will hear from the EEOC. In SL, can you be told to shrink yourself if you want a job, or to alter your shape?
'Home' Not Home Free Yet
Second Life Insider
Sep 27th 2007 7:43PM Microsoft's way is to wait until someone else has pioneered and proven there's money to be made, and then move in. If MS goes in for VR, you can bet that the client will be Windows only and it will be bundled with some version of Windows--it worked for web browsers. The only question is whether they'll attempt to embrace and extend whatever cross-VR platform standards are developed if/when they do it.
"Second Life is boring, nothing much to do."
Second Life Insider
Aug 28th 2007 7:37AM Eating a durian is interesting in the same way that getting a root canal without anaesthetic is interesting.
Can one chew gum at Singapore's spot on SL? If I leave an object lying around, will I be caned?
