avatarpl_blog – AvatarPlanet Blog

Hyacinth’s Winter Party

I’ve been mostly retired as a virtual world reporter for about a decade, but Hyancinth Jean’s party last night in her Groovyverse grid inspired me to consider coming out of retirement. If you haven’t visited Groovyverse, you can hop on over there on the Hypergrid at groovyverse .com:8002. If there was any doubt that OpenSim avatars can be good looking, the assortment of good looking avatars dancing in the snow last night proved that it’s possible.

Hyacinth’s created a fascinating and growing world. It’s the only grid anywhere that I’m aware of where avatars can take a train ride to explore large swathes of it. I’m sure I’ll be posting more about it.

RedZone, Second Life IP Address Detection Tool, Runs Afoul of New SL Policy, EU Data Privacy Law

“An ingenious system created for Second Life land holders to reduce incidents of harassment and abuse by malicious griefers has itself turned out to be a potentially nefarious tool of harassment and abuse. zF RedZone is a tool that was designed to help Second Life users identify and block problem users from entering their territory and wreaking havoc. If you were looking for a way to get rid of griefers … and copybots … RedZone was one of the best ways to fight back… The incredible thing about this is that it worked–but there was a catch.” (Justin Kwong, Virtual Navigator, Feb 28, 2011) Read

Burning Man wants a mid-Market HQ, tax break or not

Black Rock City, which stages the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert and in a variety of regional Burning Man festivals, including one in Second Life, is now looking for a San Francisco headquarters and wants to apply the principles of Burning Man to a real life city. (Steven T Jones, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Feb 24, 2011) Read

Second Life Muslims confront Al-Qaeda Taliban group

When you enter OnIslam.net’s Second Life sim, a holy place with the Grand Mosque where you can do a virtual Hajj, the first thing you see are prominent signs barring Al-Qaeda everywhere you turn. Al-Qaeda in Second Life? The group that the sim is banning is “(Al-Qaeda-Taliban)the right path1”, which has 67 members. (NadiaLane, CNN iReports, Jan 19, 2011) Read

Religion, Robots and a Second Life: Apocalyptic AI

“One thing that really surprised me is that there are people in Second Life who think of their personalities in that world as distinct from and potentially severable from their personalities in conventional reality. Some of the folks whom I interviewed think (or at least talk) in terms of identities that are separate from their “primary” or “other personality.” It is a fairly unique form of self-consciousness and I enjoyed learning from the people willing to share with me.” (inteview with Robert Geraci, author of Apocalyptic AI,Shelflife@Texas (University of Texas at Austin), May 10, 2010) Read