1. Leipzig Space Station – Second Life
2. The Beach – Atmosphere in Second Life
3. University of Western Australia in Second Life
Archives for February 2010
Gausthof zum Lowen
February 6, 2010 by Leave a Comment
A group of 40 year-old buddies discuss and discuss where they should meet for dinner.
Finally it is agreed upon that they should meet at the Gausthof zum Lowen ( Guest house of Lowen) restaurant because the waitresses there have low cut blouses and nice breasts.
10 years later, at 50 years of age, the group meets again and once again they discuss and discuss where they should meet. Finally it is agreed upon that they should meet at the Gausthof zum Lowen because the food there is very good and the wine selection is good also.
10 years later at 60 years of age, the group meets again and once again they discuss
and discuss where they should meet. Finally it is agreed upon that they should meet at the Gausthof zum Lowen because they can eat there in peace and quiet and the restaurant is smoke free.
10 years later, at 70 years of age, the group meets again and once again they discuss and discuss where they should meet. Finally it is agreed upon that they should meet at the Gausthof zum Lowen because the restaurant is wheel chair accessible and they even have an elevator.
10 years later, at 80 years of age, the group meets again and once again they discuss and discuss where they should meet. Finally it is agreed upon that they should meet at the Gausthof zum Lowen because that would be a great idea because they have never been there before.
Manhood Rules
February 5, 2010 by Leave a Comment
01: Under no circumstances may two men share an umbrella.
02: It is OK for a man to cry under the following circumstances:
a. When a heroic dog dies to save its master.
b. The moment Angelina Jolie starts unbuttoning her blouse.
c. After wrecking your boss’ car.
d. One hour, 12 minutes, 37 seconds into “The Crying Game”.
e. When she is using her teeth.
03: Any Man who brings a camera to a stag night may be legally killed and eaten by his mates.
04: Unless he murdered someone in your family, you must bail a friend out of jail within 12 hours.
05: If you’ve known a bloke for more than 24 hours, his sister is off limits forever, unless you actually marry her.
06: Moaning about the brand of free beer in a mate’s fridge is forbidden. Complain at will if the temperature is unsuitable.
07: No man shall ever be required to buy a birthday present for another man. In fact, even remembering your mate’s birthday is strictly optional.
08: On a road trip, the strongest bladder determines pit stops, not the weakest.
09: When stumbling upon other blokes watching a sporting event, you may ask the score of the game in progress, but you may never ask who’s playing.
10: You may flatulate in front of a woman only after you have brought her to climax. If you trap her head under the covers for the purpose of flatulent entertainment, she’s officially your girlfriend.
11: It is permissible to quaff a fruity alcopop drink only when you’re sunning on a tropical beach………..and it’s delivered by a topless supermodel………..and it’s free.
12: Only in situations of moral and/or physical peril are you allowed to kick another bloke in the nuts.
13: Unless you’re in prison, never fight naked.
14: Friends don’t let friends wear Speedos. Ever. Issue closed.
15: If a man’s fly is down, that’s his problem, you didn’t see anything.
16: Women who claim they “love to watch sports” must be treated as spies until they demonstrate knowledge of the game (can explain offside or LBW) and the ability to drink as much as the other sports watchers.
17: A man in the company of a hot, suggestively dressed woman must remain sober enough to fight.
18: Never hesitate to reach for the last beer or the last slice of pizza, but not both – that’s just mean.
19: If you compliment a bloke on his six-pack, you’d better be talking about his choice of beer.
20: Never join your girlfriend or wife in discussing a mate of yours, except if she’s withholding sex pending your response.
21: Phrases that may NOT be uttered to another man while lifting weights:
a. Yeah, Baby, Push it!
b. C’mon, give me one more! Harder!
c. Another set and we can hit the showers!
22: Never talk to a man in a bathroom unless you are on equal footing: i.e. Both urinating, both waiting in line, etc. For all other situations, an almost imperceptible nod is all the conversation you need.
23: Never allow a telephone conversation with a woman to go on longer than you are able to have sex with her. Keep a stopwatch by the phone. Hang up if necessary.
24: The morning after you and a girl who was formerly “just a friend” have carnal drunken monkey sex, the fact that you’re feeling weird and guilty is no reason not to nail her again before the discussion about what a big mistake it was.
25: It is acceptable for you to drive her car. It is not acceptable for her to drive yours.
26: Thou shalt not buy a car in the colours of brown, pink, lime green, orange or sky blue.
27: The girl who replies to the question “What do you want for Christmas?” with “If you loved me, you’d know what I want!” gets an Xbox. End of story.
28: There is no reason for guys to watch Ice Skating or Mens Gymnastics. Ever.
Two statues
February 4, 2010 by Leave a Comment
Two statues stood in a park for years and years, one male, one female. For season after season, people from all over would come to the park, and marvel at their beauty and artfulness, and they brought smiles and joy to thousands.
One day, an Angel descends from the heavens, stands before the two statues, and claps his hands. Suddenly the two statues spring to life, and look around bewildered.
“I have brought you two to life, for the great service your have done for this community and the world. You bring such joy and happiness, that you can live among the world for 30 minutes, to do whatever you please,” said the Angel.
The man and the woman look and each other, blushing, before grasping each others’ hands and sprinting off to the bushes. After twenty minutes of giggling, strange noises, and breaking twigs, the couple emerge from the bushes, flushed and smiling.
“You still have ten minutes,” said the Angel, smiling.
So the man turned to the woman and said, “Great! Now this time YOU can hold the bird, and I’LL shit on it’s head.”
Two bags
February 3, 2010 by Leave a Comment
A little old lady was walking down the street dragging two large plastic garbage bags behind her.
One of the bags was ripped and every once in a while a $20 fell out onto the sidewalk. Noticing this, a policeman stopped her, and said, “Ma’am, there are $20 bills falling out of that bag.”
“Oh really? Darn it!” said the little old lady. “I’d better go back and see if I can find them. Thanks for telling me officer.”
Well, now, not so fast,” said the cop. Where did you get all that money? You didn’t steal it, did you?”
“Oh, no, no”, said the old lady. “You see, my back yard is right next to the football stadium parking lot.
On game days, a lot of fans come and pee through a knot hole in the fence, right into my flower garden.
It used to really tick me off. Kills the flowers, you know. Then I thought, ‘why not make the best of it?
So, now, on game days, I stand behind the fence by the knot hole, real quiet, with my hedge clippers.
Every time some guy sticks his thing through my fence, I surprise him, grab hold of it and say, ‘O.K., buddy! Give me $20, or off it comes.’
“Well, that seems only fair,” said the cop, laughing. “OK. Good luck! Oh, by the way, what’s in the other bag?”
“Well, you know”, said the little old lady, “not everybody pays.”
Merged realities – events and issues for virtual worlds
February 2, 2010 by Leave a Comment
1. One of Second Life’s most innovative content creators, Ordinal Malaprop, has shuttered his business. Find out why.
2. Forterra have had some business challenges over recent months including laying off staff at the end of 2009. Their OLIVE virtual environment has been bought out by the Science Applications International Corporation. All the details here – this will hopefully be a positive outcome for a virtual environment under somewhat of a cloud.
3. Twinity continues its expansion with a growth in Virtual London: “These areas will include famous buildings and monuments, from the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace to the Millennium Bridge, and the Trocadero. With this, Virtual London, will have grown to the east and south of its present spread, while also marking a foray across the virtual Thames.”
4. Virtual World Best Practices in Education 2010: the call for presentations has gone out. Their website contains all the information you need.
5. The University of WA have announced the finalists of their Machinima Challenge. You can read all the details on the excellent UWA in SL blog, but here’s the list of finalists:
MASTERDARK FOOTMAN, Dallas, Texas, USA
The Heart of UWACOLEMARIE SOLEIL, Florida, USA
UWA Machinima ChallengePYEWACKET BELLMAN, New York City, USA
University of Western Australia in Second LifeCHANTAL HARVEY, Maastricht, Netherlands
University of Western Australia in Second LifeCISKO VANDEVERRE, Berlin, Germany
SEEKSOPHIA YATES, Lancaster, Massachusetts, USA
The Challenge – Architecture, Teaching, Research Arts on the UWA simsIONO ALLEN, Paris, France
Seek WisdomGLASZ DECUIR, San Sebastian, Spain
MachinimUWA: UWA in Second Life, Achieving International ExcellenceLASLOPANTOMIK YAO, Barcelona, Spain
MachinimUWABRADLEY DORCHESTER, Perth, Australia
MachinimUWA: Art Architecture, Research, TeachingNOVA DYSZEL, Toronto, Canada
UWA in SL ChallengeMASTERDARK FOOTMAN, Dallas, Texas, USA
UWA Jan 2010SOPHIA YATES, Lancaster, Massachusetts, USA
Second Life Virtual University of Western Australia
The winner announcement is coming up on the 8th February at 1pm SL time, with Torley Linden making an appearance.
Two Ladies Talking in Heaven
February 2, 2010 by Leave a Comment
1st woman: Hi! Wanda.
2nd woman: Hi! Sylvia. How’d you die?
1st woman: I froze to death
2nd woman: How horrible!
1st woman: It wasn’t so bad. After I quit shaking from the cold, I began to get warm & sleepy, and finally died a peaceful death. What about you?
2nd woman: I died of a massive heart attack. I suspected that my husband was cheating, so I came home early to catch him in the act. But instead, I found him all by himself in the den watching TV.
1st woman: So, what happened?
2nd woman: I was so sure there was another woman there somewhere that I started running all over the house looking. I ran up into the attic and searched, and down into the basement. Then I went through every closet and checked under all the beds… I kept this up until I had looked everywhere, and finally I became so exhausted that I just keeled over with a heart attack and died.
1st woman: Too bad you didn’t look in the freezer – we’d both still be alive.
Avatars United: desire or forced marriage?
February 1, 2010 by 1 Comment
Linden Lab, whether by design or by accident, appears to have pulled their usual stunt: Wallace Linden’s post caused panic and disarray, focussed in a misleading direction, and barely hinted at the truth of the matter. Once again, decisions had been finalised even before the post went live. This sort of behaviour does nothing to inspire confidence in the user population, but I suppose it is at least consistent. These days, many of us know to be very critical of any blog post offering, even from new folk on the team. This consistency means that we can predict with some confidence that changes have been made. What changes? That is a much trickier question.
Putting that aside for the moment, let’s look at the acquisition of Avatars United by Linden Lab.
Acquiring a team of people who have already demonstrated their abilities in a certain field makes a whole heap of sense – especially when you want your existing development team to continue on with what they are doing. It’s also great to bring in new people for a fresh look at old problems.
“[…] we’re committed to keeping this ideal of a place where avatars from multiple worlds and games can come together.” ~ M Linden
The Avatars United (AU) idea is all about collating your online identities, and connecting to other people engaged in the same virtual environments (VEs) or games as yourself. I am forced to wonder, how many people have the time to be heavily engaged enough in several VEs to want to be connected this way? Perhaps AU will encourage cross-pollination of VEs, perhaps each person will remain firmly in their own VE’s social circle. Since you cannot easily share the details for each avatar name between VEs, the latter seems most likely.
“The first design principle in this social strategy is respect of your privacy. We aren’t going to take away any privacy or anonymity for those that want it. We are not going to “out” people. We are not going to force anyone to reveal any private or personal information. […] But for those who don’t want to opt in to an arrangement like that, nothing at all will change.” ~ M Linden
Thank you, M, that’s a fantastic idea – make all linkages opt-in! But wait, what’s this – linking all your avatar names together in AU is opt-out, not opt-in? I sincerely hope that this is changed in the near future, and that the place that this is accomplished is made more obvious, instead of having it tucked away under the Account Privacy settings. I’m also keen to know why there’s a section under the Account tab that allows you to fill in your personal information. It too is opt-in, except for birth-date, but I don’t see how having that section is useful, or who might require or desire access to that information.
“In coming months, we’ll be looking at the best way to create new services for Second Life around some of the sharing and networking tools that Avatars United has to offer.” ~ M Linden
AU is set to be changed in the next few months. Applications for SL users seem imminent, and it will be interesting to see how much work is funnelled into SL-related ideas, and how much is devoted to other VEs. Fortunately, “the AU team already has an active and growing developer program”, so we should start seeing useful, relevant, apps quite soon, regardless of what is happening internally at Linden Lab.
I would like to see AU become a way to be lightly engaged in VEs, whereas actually entering those environments would be a heavy engagement. In the future, AU could become a way to check in, in a central location, and see who is online, what they are doing currently, keep in touch with groups via forums. You could use it to form an “acquaintance list”, or perhaps use the group features to belong to extra groups, or to have a forum for existing group. AU is a good place, and hopefully in time will become an even better place, to keep your finger lightly on the pulse of what’s happening in your social circle online, while still being able to get in-world and experience all the wonders of high social engagement and creative past-times.
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