I read pretty much everything related to synthetic worlds. Lately, my RSS feed (click on my Profile for a list, or my Friends page to view it all - I use LJ as my RSS reader) had a load of interesting and ridiculously diverse stuff. Here are some quick links and comments:

• The best article on the SL banking brouhaha: Virtually Blind delivers an exceptional interview with SL Bank's Teufel Hauptmann. It's clear, coherent and moderate, and highlights the problem of LL's having thrown out the baby with the bathwater. I've stayed out of commenting on this - it's not my field, and there's plenty of both knowledge and passion (though not always both at once) expressed by others on the subject. But, this is good stuff.

• Thanks to Alanagh Recreant for the link, an excellent blog post on Metaverse Development Companies' apparent departure from SL. The comments are intelligent and incisive - there's a lot of food for thought here.
  

• My LJ friend circuit_four  has been flying on afterburners of brilliance! Here's two long quotes that are well worth pondering:

"I think this must be what such moral teachers as Socrates, Jesus, and the Buddha mean when they advise us to wish our enemies well. Obviously we should not wish success to our enemies’ projects; for those projects are evil, and they could not cease to be evil without ceasing to be the projects they are. Hence hatred for those projects is quite in order. But people can always cease to be evil without ceasing to be. If they refuse to cease being evil, we may find it necessary, in self-defense, to make them cease to be; but we should always prefer that our enemies cease being evil. But what is that, but to prefer that our enemies become better people—that they live better, more worthwhile, less destructive, hate-filled lives? And if that is what we ought to prefer, then we ought to wish our enemies well. And while that is compatible with being angry at them, and with killing them if necessary, it is not compatible with hating them."

- Roderick Long

******

The "politically correct" and "politically incorrect" mentalities polarize against each other. One side set up taboos against intolerant speech; the other side backlashes with the same dumb age-old prejudices, but now they're proud of them because they can convince themselves it's heroic.

The antidote is to PIERCE those boundaries with real, honest, good-natured satire. Hip-throw them out of their most comfortable assumptions. Embrace your opponent's right to say whatever they want, 'cause it'll give you more dumb ideas to make fun of later. :) Be more interesting than your oppressor. Pull their assumptions right down to their ankles, with everybody watching.

• Via dandellion Kimban, some wonderful technofetish (NSFW) - Dita Von Teese dripping wet in silver...

• On Your Toes is a great new shoe-focused fashion blog.  Today, something almost as hot as Dita - Barcelona Slingbacks from Armida. Mmmm, want.....

• I need some time to craft a detailed reply to this: Avatar Rights: A Person Chooses, A Tool Obeys. I'll do a long post tomorrow in response.  The short answer?  400 years of law and custom say otherwise. I'm frustrated with this to the point of fury - writing a long quasi-academic response will hopefully get me past wanting to punch babies, and let me keep my paid-up membership in the Cult of Civility.
  

 

I went to a *great* event today!  The Metanomics lecture series is affiliated with a class taught by Robert Bloomfield of Cornell University's business school. Today's session was on fashion, featuring Raven Pennyfeather of Rfyre, FL to SL designer Nyla Cheeky, and virtual worlds consultant and author Jack Myers. 

Despite a very late start due to sound problems, and a fresh-baked n00b stuck on the runway, the event began with a tremendously professional and effective runway show of Rfyre designs.  I've been to a few fashion shows in SL, and this was among the best, with very effective product descriptions and clockwork timing. It would have been nice to have kept the models onstage longer, but considering they had to make up time, the crew did brilliantly.

The panel was *interesting,* despite the moderator's frequent interruptions and somewhat ignorant questions. Raven and Nyla were both engrossing, in talking about their backgrounds, their approach to design and to doing business in SL and FL.  

One of the drawbacks to the Metanomics series, and something that makes it, for me, inferior to the Dr. Dobbs events (and, gods know, to Sophrosyne's Saturday Salons!) is the suppression of audience participation - they require questions to go to a moderator, and then to the host, before being asked.  This time, Nite Zelmanov called them out on it, and we got a bit of backchat going. The quality of the audience at this sort of event is usually at least as good as that of the panel - and it's a real credit to this week's group that they *weren't* outshone by the brilliant audience!

Highlights? The mini-insurrection when Professor Bloomfield scorned Residents for being taken in by cartoons as if they were real people (I'm paraphrasing - the panel was all in audio, so I don't have a chatlog).  More than one of us stood up for our own reality - and all of the panelists backed us up!  They all also ran with a discussion of "entertainment" in virutal worlds as drawing on pre-broadcast customs of peer-to-peer entertainment: both designers said that the unique value in synthetic-worlds fashion was having direct, mutual relationships with their customers, rather than just pushing stuff onto the market.

It was a brilliant, brilliant session, and I just wish it could have run much longer (and that *I* hadn't had to run as soon as it was over!)

And, I got to friend Lillie Yifu (who agreed to do a Salon! weeee!) and Cybergrrl Oh - *and* panelist Jack Myers friended *me* out of the blue (even if I did turn him down at first for having a day-old av with a blank profile!  go me!  :P  ) Special thanks to Raven's assistant Harper Beresford for her unnerving, but deeply appreciated, offer of assistance! Today was the first time I've been *recognized,* and it was kind of weird but really nice :)

	the Metaversed conference facility, with runway
	Rfyre fashion show
	Media Blessed (Jack Myers), Raven Pennyfeather, Nyla Cheeky, Byers Sellers (Robert Bloomfield)

I've been asked to do my first corporate presentation, tomorrow at noon, for CMP Metaverse, the sponsors of the Dr. Dodds Life 2.0 conference from a couple weeks ago!

Tomorrow at noon SLT, come check me out on the *other* side of the podium at the Amphitheater on Dr. Dobbs Island (215, 117,26), along with Pontiac spokesmodel Callie Cline and others, discussing identity and fame in synthetic worlds!

And, for the important stuff!

Suit:          "Evelyn" by Mischief Designs
Shoes:      "Leather Vixens Liquorice" by TESLA
Wings:       "Scalpel" by jenshikami
Jewelry:     "Irina" by Lassitude & Ennui
Hair:          "Saturated ice-kiss" by !TAUNT
Eyes:         "EyeFidelity IdealEyes, Gunmetal" by ShapesByZada 
Skin:         "Charmed Silver 1" by Celestial Studios
Glasses:   "glass 2 BLACK" by elle
Sputnik:    by galatea_gynoid (Happy 50th Anniversary!)

Once I learned that I'm going to be able to attend the Life 2.0 conference this weekend after all, I had a problem - nothing to wear!

Yeps, 9500 items in inventory, most of them clothes of one sort or another, and... nothing to wear. 

I've got Victorian, goth, EGL, street, gynoid, latex, every imaginable kind of tarty, even one or two things that could pass for atomic-world casual - but no business wear.  Let me modify that - no *women's* business wear - I've got a few good men's suits (ah, the sacrifices I endure to indulge my family's kinks!  :P ).

And after completely ransacking my inventory, all I could come up with was, yeps, one men's suit outfit (from Lindmann, Elibia (141, 29, 27)).  Which, while it would *definitely* make every red-blooded woman at the conference swoon, wasn't necessarily the *first* impression I wanted to make! :D



So, with Life 2.0 principal Rissa Maidstone's blog entry on dressing for SL success as inspiration, I went shopping!

Last Call was a nightmarish waste of time: no organization whatsoever in the store (though the new build is *really* pretty, a refurbished old brick building), and nothing that would really even pass for office wear.




Pixel Dolls wasn't much better, though I picked up another nice cheongsam as a fallback.

I *scored* at Nyte'N'Day (Couture Isle (76, 95, 62)).  It's a store I've never thought much of, though it's a favorite of galatea_gynoid's and vidaltripsa's. But this time? Another new interior layout, but clearly labeled by section.  And the perfect suit set, right inside the door!





  I also got a much more me-ish sleek black cami and slacks, a nice cozy sweater (I'm even worse on warm clothing than on office wear!), and a very sexy one-piece swimsuit.  Thank you Nyte'N'Day!!



I'm looking forward to tomorrow, and meeting John Zhaoying and Rissa Maidstone (who, ironically, IM'd me right as I got my wardrobe settled out and ready to go!), and learning to script!

I'm finally getting the time to get on with living and working!

After renegotiating the week with the mun and the wetware, I got to go to my first class!  Prims 101, and it was really good: I learned some new stuff, and just as good, I discovered I've already picked up a lot, and more than some other people. Friday I'll do 102, 103 and 104, and maybe Basic Clothing Creation, if I still have any brains left by then!

I did some *window* shopping today (well, and bought some great boots) as part of figuring out where my design market niche is going to be. There's got to be more people out there who want grownup techno/goth wear, right? Most of what I see is either really, really femme - please, not one more gown!! - or street punk. And if I can bring in Chinese design, I think I could have something that would sell.

But first, I've got to learn how to get my prims horizontal!  :P

I entered Second Life today!

It was a rocky start - somehow I managed to erase my entire body when I tried on a skin from Help Island - and did I really need a round-body skin anyway?

It worked out for the best: I was able to figure out how to override the cybergoth defaults, and I like the result a *whole* lot better:

Soph before:                                                           Soph after (though I'm going to add the wings back on as soon as I uncrash):


      


I bought an outfit from a designer store to get out of the generic sweatsuit, but crashed Second Life three times as I tried to put it on: if it won't work tomorrow, I'll try to get my Linden $ back. Frustrating!

Otherwise, browsed a gallery island and some stores, and tried to get more graceful. Still, I ended up underwater more than once!

A good first day, and nobody bothered me. Tomorrow? Definite wardrobe upgrade, and more exploring!