Second Life

Second Life is a virtual reality world like the Metaverse of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.

Second Life is the most interesting online game yet. It gives players ownership and developmental control of their own spatial and intellectual property within the game. In-game object and structure creation, primitives modeling, uploaded texturing, script writing, debugging, AIM instant-messenging

Join Second Life Free

Get a free Second Life accountTo sign up, all you need is a credit card to verify your identity (no charges will be made.) If you cannot use a card of your own, ask lxpk or other group members if you can borrow someone else's card. Ideally you should only use one card per account to get the free offer. No monthly fees to worry about, unlike a massive multiplayer game.

TheEmpowerment.com Group in Second Life

A Second Life group exists for The Empowerment. It can be found in-world using Find. The group could own property in common for a fixed meeting location but there is none as yet. Certain aspects of Sim Empowerment training can be experimented with in SL. For example, many items of ACTSPEC equipment can be modelled including written instructions for usage. Training scenarios can be conducted in SL. The possibilities are endless.

Second Life Limitations

  • People should be able to use their real names. SL's arbitrary naming scheme is annoying and interferes with real-world crossover interaction.

SL Used For English Class

—A mixed-reality event where physical and Second Life atendees mingle.

Second Life Prototypes

Standing in the full-scale UN dome created for a Future Salon with Thomas Barnett. Sadly, the building is now offline, but I know the developer and we might be able to borrow it from him in the future.
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Standing in the full-scale UN dome created for a Future Salon with Thomas Barnett. Sadly, the building is now offline, but I know the developer and we might be able to borrow it from him in the future.
A survival training space
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A survival training space
A simple recreation of the more elaborate version of the UN building in SL
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A simple recreation of the more elaborate version of the UN building in SL
Sitting in the UN
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Sitting in the UN

 

Sun builds Sun Pavilion and does in-world press conferences and trainings

Empowerment systems are going to integrate into Second Life in a big way.

I'm developing ways of taking all the activism stuff in-world to promote ideaas there
Using custom objects that will interact with your online Empowerment-based campaigns
So you create a Booklet object in-game and link it to a booklet on the web
And the content gets imported for them to read in-game and with links to the web version
With the ability for them to give copies to others
tables, tents, sound systems, all for teaching people how to do real events
Using a simulated version
message shirts
My avatar has an empowerment t-shirt
I'm going to do an overhead message box that gives you a holographic banner to spread a message over your head
I've made protest signs already
And done Frank Chu protesting
People really have no idea what that's about
its hilarious

 

Future Salons

The Future Salon is a good example of a regular and worthwhile SL event. LXPK attends regularly and it is an excellent excuse for ACTFOR to get together every month or so.

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Better World Island

I recently met Sue Stonebender at a Future Salon. She is involved in running Better World Island as a meeting space for activists from Omidyar.net.

Someone on Omidyar has similar ideas:

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VR Techniques

http://secondlife.blogs.com/nwn/2005/07/post_2.html

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SL people to invite

Some of the more experienced SLers like Ichiro won't join new groups because SL imposes a maximum number of memberships. Contact:

  • Ichiro Tokugawa: Creator of buildings like UN and SCOTUS
  • Torrone Trumbo - coeditor of MAKE: and guest at Future Salon (Phillip Torrone)
  • Margot Abatoir - builder met at MAKE: salon
  • Maggie Marat - middle school teacher teaching in SL
  • Lyre Calliope - http://Aoide.net
  • Kathy Yamamoto - online radical activist
  • Zarf Vantongerloo: Creator of Creative Commons licensor, awesome guy!
  • Kim Anubis: Does real-life paid content creation. very interesting!
  • Gonta Maltz: Same suit! futurist art student check out The Port.
  • Dagny
  • Lawrence Lessig
  • Falk Bergman book maker

To Contact:

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Amazing Things in Second Life

Nathan Welch: With new so-called "personal fabrication" devices, most people could produce real products cheaply in their own homes. Plans to build them could be exchanged online. What commons-minded projects would you advocate in this upcoming field?