Hi SL Future Makers!

The ASF Future Salon Network (15 cities) now has a Facebook page. We hope you will click over and "Become a Fan" of the page at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Future-Salon/235086452515

Once they are "Fans" of the page, Salon leaders, attendees, and the future curious in each of our cities can all use this page to post info about upcoming (always free) Salons, suggest potential speakers, post cool stories about the future of science, business, tech, and social change, upload photos and videos, and ask questions and have discussions on the discussions page. Posts you make here will make it into News Feeds of other fans (unless they hide them), and generally increase exposure of the Salons.

Facebook is improving rapidly. We encourage you to use it wisely now to grow your positive, practical, future-oriented friends!

Visit http://accelerating.org/futuresalon.html for our current list of Salons. Want to start a Future Salon in your city in 2010? Check out the startup guide at the link above.

Friend Future Salon Network Director Brian Hill http://www.facebook.com/brian.hill or ASF President John Smart http://www.facebook.com/john.m.smart if you want to chat more about the Salons…

Cheers,

JS

Happy New Year saloners!

First, overdue, in Jim Purbrick's last email, Music for Virtual
Aerodromes is hilarious =p. Maybe we'll just have to see about that,
or something like it...

Stefan Geens and Mike Liebhold are both in for the future salon on
Google Earth, mirror worlds, and the geospatial web, so we'll have a
date for that soon. I also think it would be fun to have a kind of
"Predictions for 2007" salon or something like that where we go
through a series of forecasts for the rest of the year like Cory
Ondrejka does on Terra Nova: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/
2007/01/2006_prediction.html . If anyone wants to send their
predictions (I'll do mine when I get a chance), maybe we can get
something going for that.

Now, much closer at hand, this Tuesday, January 9th, the Four Eyed
Monsters movie is screening in Second Life at 5 PM PST/SLT . Check
out the awesome machinima invite that Arin and Susan made (they're
first time making machinima too):

http://foureyedmonsters.com/secondlife

I'm totally excited about this and sent an email to the group a while
ago about requesting it come to SL. Well the requests worked and here
it is, a project that really got me thinking more about alternate/
reality stories and lifelogging. I hope you can come check it out and
invite some friends. It'll be showing in the new Sundance Channel sim
and also in 11-some swanky resident theaters so there's lots of room
to fill.

I'll be logging in from London where I'll be from Tuesday to Friday,
so hey if you're out there and want to meet up let me know :).

Cheers,

Jerry Paffendorf/SNOOPYbrown Zamboni

> I wonder what a really fun thing to do with Brian
> Eno in SL would be....... Ideas?

Hold it in Abbotts, get a pile of Robbie Dingo's
instruments together and improvise "Music For Virtual
Aerodromes" at the future salon :-)

Thanks for the salons, they are always ace.

Cheers,

Jim/Babbage.

--- Jerry Paffendorf
<jerrypaffendorf@...> wrote:

> Oooh, good idea Kim, and thanks for the link Mike.
> I'd been thinking
> about inviting Steven Johnson along with Ze Frank
> from http://
> zefrank.com who among lots of other cool things on
> his site made this
> Ugly MySpace video that always makes me think about
> Second Life and
> user-created content in VWs:
> http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/
> 2006/07/071406.html .
>
> I think for the next salon we'll do a Google Earth
> theme, and maybe
> Steven Johnson would be interested in joining as a
> guest on that one.
>
> Mike, I'll work on getting Will Wright too. I wonder
> what a really
> fun thing to do with Brian Eno in SL would be.......
> Ideas?
>
> Jerry
>
>
>
> On Dec 4, 2006, at 6:11 PM, Michael Buckbee wrote:
>
> > Apropos of Kim's post: if you want to hear a cool
> discussion with
> > Brian Eno and Will Wright you can checkout this
> discussion put on
> > by the Long Now foundation. It's very cool:
> >
> >
>
http://media.longnow.org/seminars/salt-0200606-wright-and-eno/
>
> > salt-0200606-wright-and-eno.mp3
> >
> > I'd also recommend this one by Danny Hillis:
> >
> >
>
http://media.longnow.org/seminars/salt-0200409-hillis/salt-0200409-
>
> > hillis.mp3
> >
> > - Mike Buckbee
> > http://www.fabjectory.com
> >
> >
>
>






___________________________________________________________
Win tickets to the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/fifaworldcup_uk/

Apropos of nothing

I'm just back from hearing Brian Eno and Steven Johnson talk at the
ICA in London - ostensibly about Johnson's new book, the Ghost Map

However, they went in to an interesting digression about Second Life;
in particular, Eno seemed very enthusiastic.

They might be interesting future guests?

Kim

Hi guys,

The podcast of the last SL Future Salon on alternate reality games
with Tony Walsh, Elan Lee, and Dan and Adrian Hon is up at http://
www.secondcast.com/?p=87 . I saw a couple of blog write-ups of the
salon, but somehow can't find them on Technorati at the moment. If
you have one let me know and I'll link to it when I blog the podcast.

In Kenzo took some snaps if you want to see what the salon looked
like: http://tinyurl.com/y932ds . DTV was streaming the salon onto
the web at http://dtv.sheeplabs.com . I thought it was cool that in
addition to the 40-50 people we can gather inworld, there were 25
people logged into the DTV page during this last salon. There may
have been a lot of overlap, but it's cool to think that we can do
events extended to the web that really could have 100s of people
watching in video, listening to the audio, and chatting inworld from
the web.

Cheers,

Jerry Paffendorf / SNOOPYbrown Zamboni

A quick reminder that we're meeting at 4 PM PST on the 5th floor
auditorium of Sheep Tower on Sheep Island. More info, background
links, and direct SLURL at http://tinyurl.com/ya7zr9 .

We were on Boing Boing and in the event that we fill the sim you can
tune in and participate at http://destroytv.com for live audio,
video, and chat capability from the comfort of your web browser.

See you tonight! And thanks again to everyone who pitched in on ideas
here,

Jerry Paffendorf / SNOOPYbrown Zamboni

> Please share any topic ideas or questions for this group.

Well, coming from the new media bit of an old media organisation; I'd
be interested to hear the panel think about the ways that SL+ARGs
might interact with longform linear narrative in old media. Where is
the interplay between sitting back/immersion in the story, and leaning
forward/interaction in the uncovering of narrative? Can 'leaning back'
happen in the virtual world space?

One of my colleagues here did some quite interesting thinking in the
space that might inform the conversation:
http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2006/03/why_lost_is_gen.html

A big welcome to those who joined in the last week! And a big thanks
for everyone who offered ideas or support to the salon on ARGs. I've
been able to lock down a date and line-up.

The salon will happen on Monday, November 27th at 4 PM PST, and
joining us will be Tony Walsh from Clickable Culture, Elan Lee from
42 Entertainment, and Dan and/or Adrien Hon from Mind Candy. This is
a great line-up with Tony's knowledge of SL and his experience
designing ARGs, Elan having worked on high-profile ARGs like I Love
Bees, and Dan and Adrien also on big ARG projects like Purplex City.
And of course me encouraging them to think and say crazy things :).

Audio will be recorded and made available on http://
www.metaversesessions.com .

Please share any topic ideas or questions for this group. I have just
a little bit about it at http://blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/jerry/?
p=373 but I've been going ARG crazy recently. If you haven't seen it,
check out the Wired cover story on YouTube and lonelygirl15. I can't
find a link online yet, but I thought it was an outstanding look at a
new medium.

Cheers,

Jerry Paffendorf / SNOOPYbrown Zamboni

Hello

I'm Kim - I work for the BBC, doing strategy and product development
type things in the interactive drama and entertainment areas. I've
just been working on the BBC's 5 year strategy for its internet
presence, and am also involved in discussions around games, virtual
worlds and social media within the organisation.

Basically, my job is to know stuff about teh intornets so management
don't have to, and to apply common sense to ideas.

I'm a new bug in SL, but an oldschool web geek. Google knows more
about me than is of interest to anyone except my mother. Luckily, my
mother isn't very good with google.

Thanks for having me!

xk

H All

Just wanted to say Hi and thanks for the approved invite - hope I can add something to your group - my passion ARG's and SL.

Some background:

I work for Cancer Research UK and I'm currently looking at how SL and ARG's can add to our opportunities of engaging with the general public - I'm very keen that we embrace SL in the same way as ACS has and we work at the opportunities this presents - we have dabbled on a few occasions!!

I think our biggest challenges are

1. Until we have a better broadband infrastructure in the UK connections are often too slow to really get the most out of SL - preventing mass use.

2. ARG's have huge potential but still very much untapped

Anyway enough from me - I hope you don't mind the vested interest and I will understand if you feel its not appropriate for me to participate in any of your discussions - I just feel us charities need to move with the times :-)

Take care

Jean

Thanks for bringing me aboard. If you like, I will post a call-out on
the IDGA's SIG mailing list for ARGs (enough acronyms?).

Thanks for bringing me aboard.  If you like, I will post a call-out on
the IDGA's SIG mailing list for ARGs (enough acronyms?).  There may be
one or two people on that list with fingers in both the ARG and VW pies.


--- In slfuture@yahoogroups.com, Jerry Paffendorf <jerry@...> wrote:
>
> > Hi Jerry -- not sure if this got posted successfully to the Salon,
> > so here it is again...
> >
> > I'd like to offer myself as a guest for a salon on ARGs.
>
> Tony, forgive me for not recalling the depth of your ARG ski11z!
> Welcome aboard. With your experience you've got to be one of the
> sharpest people in the world on ARGs and virtual worlds, so we're in
> luck.

Speaking of things ARG, a couple of months ago I got in touch with
the creators of the 1/2 real (all real...ish?) virtual documentary
Four Eyed Monsters http://foureyedmonsters.com and asked if they'd
add Second Life to their movie request Google Map. They're bringing
their film to any US city with 150 requests for a screening (and
maybe later going international). They indeed added SL to the request
map and after an initial announcement we shot up to 125 requests, so
we only need 25 more. I've been speaking with the FEM creators and
they really want to come in and do the screening and create their own
SL presence where they can release some new material.

So I'm asking everyone here who did not request the film be shown in
SL to please, if interested in seeing this happen, take 30 seconds to
do so by going to http://foureyedmonsters.com/request_film , entering
"2nd Life" as the zip code and choosing "2nd Life" from the top of
the drop-down list of countries. As in real life, your vote matters! :)

Mark Wallace has a nice write-up of the film and its 3pointDness
("LonelyGeeks, LifeLogs, and Four Eyed Monsters") at http://www.
3pointd.com/20060915/lonelygeeks-lifelogs-and-four-eyed-monsters/ and
Hamlet has a post on SL's national recognition: http://nwn.blogs.com/
nwn/2006/09/creating_a_coun.html . There are a whole series of FEM
video podcasts about the film and its making, and this is a good one
to watch if you want to see the filmmakers and get a glimpse of one
of the live screenings that came about from requests: http://
foureyedmonsters.com/e76 .

Thanks, everyone. It'll feel great when we're over 150 and we can
have a virtual screening and salon with the filmmakers! I've seen the
film twice and spent time with the creators and think it's totally
worth your support and time to check out when we hit 150 and it shows
in SL.

Cheers,

Jerry/SNOOPYb

> Hi Jerry -- not sure if this got posted successfully to the Salon,
> so here it is again...
>
> I'd like to offer myself as a guest for a salon on ARGs.

Tony, forgive me for not recalling the depth of your ARG ski11z!
Welcome aboard. With your experience you've got to be one of the
sharpest people in the world on ARGs and virtual worlds, so we're in
luck.

So Clickable Culture's Tony Walsh will be one of our speakers http://
www.secretlair.com . I have invites out to people at Perplex City
http://www.perplexcity.com , 42 Entertainment http://www.
42entertainment.com , and ARGNetwork http://www.argn.com . I'll
update everyone when it's all roped together.

I asked Jade Lily if she had any ideas for an ARG setting and she said:

9:44 yeah, but they're out there

9:44 and too time consuming
9:44 haha
9:46 everyone shows up to the salon, but snoopybrown has gone
missing.  the only clue is the seemingly live video being streamed
into the salon location in-world...
9:49 through the video, saloners can see inside snoopybrown's real
world apartment
9:49 he was supposed to give a talk at the salon over live video
9:49 something's not right
9:50 the apartment has been ransacked
9:51 there's a symbol on the wall in the background of the video, and
a url...
9:51 and that's where the story begins

9:51 or something like that  *shrugs*
9:52 that wouldn't make for a good salon, but it could make for a fun
arg

So we maaay not be doing that, but fun stuff,

Jerry / SNOOPYbrown


On Nov 11, 2006, at 9:38 AM, Tony Walsh wrote:

> Hi Jerry -- not sure if this got posted successfully to the Salon,
> so here it is again...
>
> I'd like to offer myself as a guest for a salon on ARGs.
> I have worked as a game designer and writer on 3 major commercial ARGs
> that were developed in Canada by Xenophile Media but ran domestically
> and internationally.  "ReGenesis" season 1 and 2 (based on a TV series
> by the same name), and "Ocular Effect" (co-produced by Matt Wolf of
> D20 Productions), an ARG for ABC Family based on the TV pilot
> "Fallen."  I have been heavily involved in creating the storylines,
> interactive plot, puzzle designs, and developing strategies for
> adapting to emergent player behavior.  Additionally, I assisted with a
> "live" ARG that took place in Toronto this summer called "Waking
> City."
>
> I've got lots of thoughts on the game form--big picture to
> execution--and how it could relate to virtual worlds.  Lots of
> possibilities.  One of the winners of the SL Game Dev Competition
> actually made an ARG for SL a couple of years ago.
>
> I totally understand if I'm not A-List enough to grab a speaker spot,
> just putting my name into the hat.
>
> Off the top of my head, I'd like to discuss how virtual worlds might
> be used similarly and differently to how ARGers already use the web
> and chatrooms.  It also would be interesting to talk about how virtual
> worlds could be integrated during the game design stage.  Could an ARG
> be run completely in a virtual world?  What kind of audience are we
> looking at in terms of demographics and numbers?
>
> --
> Tony Walsh
> email tony@...
> mobile +1 416.894.0894
> fax +1 416.366.5848
> home http://www.secretlair.com
> blog http://www.clickableculture.com
>
>
>
>

> it is hard (for me)
> to look very far into the future of videoconferencing without seeing
> good reasons why it is going to have to move away from the camera
> metaphor, if only because cameras have too many inherent limitations
> (like points of view).  Once you have done that, why not move all the
> way to avatars?  Lots of room for discussion here....

Thanks, Fred. Check out this post on the Oddcast blog you might find
interesting:

10 Reasons to go Virtual Instead of Video
http://blog.oddcast.com/2006/10/why_not_use_vid.html

Oddcast http://www.oddcast.com makes talking avatars on the web. I
fiddled around with one on my MySpace page not too long ago: http://
myspace.com/jerrypaffendorf .

Peter Ludlow (one of the first salon speakers back in 2005) and I
were on SecondCast recently talking about the press about SL and
outside business entering the world http://www.secondcast.com/?p=68
and he was asking why some of the music events in SL that were
attended by fewer people than in a virtual world like Habbo Hotel
were getting more attention. Aside from SL getting written about a
lot lately, I think it certainly has to do with the multiple
viewpoints and camera flexibility you're talking about here: SL is an
absolute unique image generating machine. With video from a single
perspective or with the kind of flat virtual world like Habbo Hotel
you can't explore perspective. That's very, very powerful and
something to add to the Oddcast list.

Not sure how we can weave it in heavily in this salon, but avatar
teleconferencing certainly serves to make everything just that much
more ARG :),

Jerry



On Nov 11, 2006, at 4:53 PM, Fred Hapgood wrote:

>
>> Any thoughts on framing some particular ARG salon themes? Any cool
>> ideas for a setting or some inworld ARG tie-in with the salon?
>
> This might not be central to the mission, but I'm interested in the
> integration of video- or teleconferencing and virtual worlds.  In
> particular I'm curious about how the latter might change the former,
> though the other side of the story -- how teleconferencing might drive
> VW graphics -- is pretty interesting too.  Anyway, it is hard (for me)
> to look very far into the future of videoconferencing without seeing
> good reasons why it is going to have to move away from the camera
> metaphor, if only because cameras have too many inherent limitations
> (like points of view).  Once you have done that, why not move all the
> way to avatars?  Lots of room for discussion here....
>
> Fred Hapgood
>   www.pobox.com/~fhapgood
> www.BostonScienceAndEngineeringLectures.com
>
>
>

Hi all,

While we're still waiting on a VLB field trip, I'd like to do a
future salon on the future of alternate reality games (ARGs) and
virtual worlds, like the kinds described at http://www.argn.com/ .
("I Love Bees" is a classic example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Haunted_Apiary .) I'm personally inspired by 3 things here: 1.
Increasing fascination with how the stories and descriptions of what
happens in virtual worlds are "true" and how that can be played with
(as in, when something crazy happens in a virtual world, it's
described as a real event, and news about it spreads that way) 2.
Having fun creating and playing with the identity of DestroyTV.com
(she has a girlfriend, her own history, a personality co-created with
everyone who uses her, and she leaves comments on blogs as Destroy
Television, etc.) and 3. recently seeing the Borat movie and
following the controversy with the real life Kazakhstani government :).

Does anyone have any speakers they'd especially like to hear on this
topic? Any thoughts on framing some particular ARG salon themes? Any
cool ideas for a setting or some inworld ARG tie-in with the salon?

I'd like to get the invites out very soon and solidify a date early
next week, so please let me know if you have any ideas. If not I'll
run ahead, but can't wait to hear if you do.

Cheers,

Jerry Paffendorf/SNOOPYbrown Zamboni

  From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game

An alternate reality game (ARG) is a type of game that overlaps the
game world with reality, by utilizing real world media, in order to
deliver an interactive narrative experience to the players -- a kind
of surrealism.

ARGs are typified by involving the players with the story and its
characters, by encouraging them to explore the story, solve plot
based challenges, and interact with game characters. ARGs can be
delivered via websites, email, telephones, or any other means of
communication which is readily available to the players.

ARGs are growing in popularity, with new games appearing regularly.
They tend to be free to play, with costs absorbed either through
supporting products (collectable puzzle cards in the case of Perplex
City) or because they support or promote an existing product (Halo 2
in the case of I Love Bees).

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.

Hi saloners,

While we try to wrangle everyone for the Virtual Laguna Beach field
trip and podcast, there's an event taking place on the Laguna Beach
sim in Second Life tomorrow/Thursday and over the weekend.

As part of the Machinima Festival ( http://festival.machinima.org )
happening this weekend at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria,
NY, there will be a virtual pre-fest event tomorrow night (Thursday,
November 2nd) at the movie theater on the Laguna Beach sim starting
at 5 PM SLT/PST. We'll meet with some Mackie award-nominated
machinimists, watch some of their work, and chat them up about where
they see it all going (SL Future Salon represent!). ( SLURL to Laguna
Beach: http://tinyurl.com/yeu39n )

On the line-up for Thursday:

* Jacqueline Turnure presenting “Stolen Life” nominated for “Best
Picture”

* Philip Rice presenting “Rest Room Etiquette” nominated for “Best
Independent Machinima”

* Harrison Heller presenting “Machinima with Officer Dan” nominated
for “Best Off-the-Shelf Machinima”

* (tentative, as he’ll be traveling to New York to attend the real
life festival) Pierce Portacarrero presenting “Game Over” which is
nominated in three categories

I'll be at the real life festival over the weekend helping to stream
some sessions into SL. Come on out to the museum if you're in the NY
area, and if not you can check it out in SL or on the evolving http://
destroytv.com site where we'll flip to live streaming video for that
so you can watch and chat into SL from the web.

Those who were at the last salon with Justin Hall and Mark Barrett or
who checked out the podcast at http://www.secondcast.com/?cat=12
might remember me mentioning some ideas for Destroy Television. She's
up! Very betaversal, but pieces are being added regularly and she'll
be full-time full streaming video soon.

I also recommend checking out this Secondcast video podcast where
they do a Mystery Science Theater thing over top of SL machinima:
http://www.secondcast.com/?p=72 . Interesting to think about
something like IMVU http://www.imvu.com/catalog/web_index_new.php for
video where you could chat like this while watching YouTube videos
etc. YouVu :).

Cheers,

Jerry/SNOOPYbrown Zamboni

*le sigh*

Sorry about the second rescheduling, and apologies to the few who
didn't hear about the first and came inworld last Thursday, but there
will not be an organized future salon field trip to Virtual Laguna
Beach tonight. I am fearless in my cat wrangling and we will put this
back together and head off to VLB come rain, snow, sleet, hail, or
band! I'm not sure when yet, but will reconnect with the guests from
MTV, There.com, and ESC to zero in on when, definitively, would work.

Copied from http://slfuturesalon.blogs.com/second_life_future_salon/
2006/10/vlb_field_trip_.html .

Ack, sorry to have to reschedule on such short notice and for a
second time, but we're going to have to postpone the field trip to
Virtual Laguna Beach ( http://mtv.vlb.com ) for another week. I'd
planned for guests from MTV, There.com, and Electric Sheep to join us
on Skype tonight, but last week a virtual event with the band Open
Air Stereo came up for tonight that conflicted and required the
guests attention. I was thinking we might still hop in and have a
look at the event and the new episode of Laguna Beach which is airing
in VLB tonight a day before it goes on TV, but I've decided it's
better to postpone the official future salon meeting until we can get
some people on the podcast. Apologies. We shall persevere!

For everyone raring to go, at 6 PM PST you can watch the new episode
of Laguna Beach in VLB, directly followed by an appearance from Open
Air Stereo.

Cheers,

Jerry Paffendorf / SNOOPYbrown Zamboni

Hi all,

A reminder that the next future salon has been rescheduled for
Tuesday, October 24th. We'll be heading to Virtual Laguna Beach,
built on the There.com platform, so grab a free account at http://
www.vlb.mtv.com if you want to join. Details are at: http://
blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/jerry/?p=335 . My VLB avatar name is
"Jerry". Ping me if you plan to come and/or want to stomp around early.

For any US east coasters, we're having a real life meetup Friday
night, October 20th, in New York City. The meetup.com group is at
http://gamedev.meetup.com/153/ and there will be 15-20 of us there
talking about our virtual worlds interests and projects.

Note that SL has hit over 1 million accounts in its lifetime, with
around 400,000 logging in in the last 60 days. Obviously that's not
the true number of active avatars, but there it is and exciting
nonetheless!

Lastly, Terra Nova has an interesting post going called "Searching
for the 3D Tipping Point" if you want to check that out: http://
terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2006/10/searching_for_t.html .

Cheers,

Jerry/SNOOPYbrown Zamboni

Heya saloners, and a big welcome to Bill in Alaska!--Bill, if you
haven't yet, join the SL Educators mailing list linked from http://
secondlife.com/education ,

The podcast of our last salon with Justin Hall and Mark Barrett is
now up at http://metaversesessions.com . Many thanks to Johnny Ming,
the host of SecondCast and Metaverse Sessions for our our new audio
channel there.

The next SL Future Salon meeting will be at 6 PM PST on Thursday,
October 19th. We're taking a field trip from SL to Virtual Laguna
Beach! Details at http://blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/jerry/?p=312
and copied below (sans links).

Heads-up for those interested, this Tuesday at 7 PM PST I'll be doing
a presentation in SL on the Metaverse Roadmap for the Kuurian
Expedition, part of Ted Castronova's Synthetic Worlds Initiative.
Details at http://arden.blogs.com/ .

Cheers,

Jerry Paffendorf / SNOOPYbrown Zamboni in SL

---

  From http://blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/jerry/?p=31 :

For this month’s salon at 6 PM PST on Thursday, October 19th we’re
taking a field trip and hopping virtual worlds from Second Life to
Virtual Laguna Beach, the virtual world for MTV’s Laguna Beach
reality TV show built on the There.com platform. We’ll meet in the
Laguna Beach prototype sim that’s now open in SL (above left) and
then reconvene in VLB (above right). Joining us for the exploration
of VLB and conversations about interactive TV, comparing the SL and
There platforms, and big media-built virtual worlds will be some
Electric Sheep Company peoples who work on the project (Chris
recently listed sheep credits) and someone from MTV. More details soon.

As prep, sign up for a free VLB account (and of course your free SL
account if you don’t have one) and check out the world a bit. Please
email me your SL and VLB names at jerry[at]electricsheepcompany[dot]
com if you plan to join so I can keep tabs. Note: VLB is Windows-
only. SL has a Mac version (of course, with my new MacBook Pro I can
now run Windows when I need to, yay).

Here are some background and related YouTube videos to check out:

Torley bopping around in VLB

Laguna Beach TV show clip

First 10 minutes of the South Park World of Warcraft episode

Hope to see you on the 19th for some cross-world fun in the pixelated
sun! Warning: upon entering VLB you may be asked to dance and make-
out by cute, young-looking avatars. And, depending on if you’re a
Laguna Beach fan or not, there will be some putting-to-the-test of
Steven Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good for You thesis ;) . Good stuff.

Hi everyone and greatings from Alaska,

I recently joined SL and am working hard to educate myself. This may
prove harder than my first undergraduate degree :)

I can see from your posts that you are a very busy group. If you run
into links etc. that you think may help me progress along I would be
gratefull if you would forward them to me or post them here.

At the moment I live in Anchorage but will soon be moving to the
Bush. If you are not familiar with "Bush" (no not the president)it
is the term used to describe remote locations that you can only get
to by plane, water, or snow machine.

I not only plan to incorporate SL into my own life, but also into
the workings of our health clinic and student education at our two
schools that serve our native and non native population.

Thanks in advance for any advise.

Bill
(Tenpa Bulton)

Hey everyone,

Quick reminder we've got the next SL Future Salon coming up on
Tuesday night at 6:00 PM PST with Justin Hall and Mark Barrett. The
theme of the meeting--which will happen in voice over Skype--is
balancing the deep creative possibilities of transparency and
lifelogging with issues of privacy and control of personal information.

I've posted a short spread of read-ahead links to some relevant
articles, podcasts, and videos at http://tinyurl.com/htshs if you
want to check that out in advance.

And BTW, for anyone in New York or anyone who occasionally travels
out this way, we've started a real life Metaverse Meetup group. Our
first meeting was last Friday and I just created a meetup.com profile
you can check out and join with a description and link at http://
blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/jerry/?p=296 .

Hope to see you on Tuesday!

Jerry/SNOOPYbrown Zamboni