Second Life

By Prokofy Neva, Community Affairs

I was so proud of our very own Second Life rich and famous appearing in the article published today in Business Week, Big Spenders of Second Life.

Every single person on the list deserves to be on there for their hard work and long hours in the risky business of Second Life. While some important leaders may be missing, I think there is likely to be a lot of consensus around this particular choice — which is defined by wealth and influence.

I’ve already written the letters section to alert BW to the fact that the picture they ran of the blinged-out gent to the left is not attributed — I guess it was just too tempting to swipe! It was actually taken by the Herald back in December 2004, and shows BallerMoMo King, a famous club owner and grid-grasher-about-town who I believe doesn’t exist anymore even on a new alt (maybe someone will have an update on this). He was evidently banned for various misdeeds, including nuking sims and evening eliciting the ire of Andrew Linden in the Herald comments. Ah, those were the days when the Lindens actually got indignant about griefing and grid-crashing, and didn’t actually sponsor it with open source programs! Sigh.

My quibble with this list — one I imagine others will share — is that it mixes those who made their fortunes in US dollars as metaversal sherpas for big corporations, outside of SL, with those who made their fortunes inworld. Of course a few on the list have done both.

And say, Philip Linden being on there — hey, no fair! I mean, put him in an article about entrepreneurs or something, but not people who have made their fortunes from Second Life! I don’t think SL is even profitable yet, is it? And while Philip once said he was confident he could make more money inside SL than outside it, well, that remains to be tested, no? Even at the girls’ resale yardsales, I don’t see Philip’s fairy-castle slot machine selling for much…And that party hat *never* moves, except as a self-replicating griefer object.

Sybley Hathor (Sybley Verbleck) and Reuben Millionsofus (Reuben nee Linden Steiger) surely belong on the list — but their fortunes are with and around SL, not from selling anything inside it. Maybe it doesn’t matter? Perhaps this distinction is eroding?

Barnesworth, who looks smashing, and for the first time is outing his RL name publicly (Adam Anders), is curiously (or maybe not) mentioned as only Sheep-bought talent, when he has designed for other metaversal development agencies. Of course, they all pay him a lot more than we do for his (pre)fabulous homes, but I think he probably does pretty well even with only his inworld sales. He’s the one member of the top 10 Rich and Famous of SL who makes coin both in and out of SL. And to think, we knew him years ago as Cornelius Vanderbilt, the mop-headed bowl-cut blonde-haired struggling Emperor of Alphaville in The Sims Online!

In fact, for any of our homegrown rich and famous, it’s hard to assess how much they really do make inside and around and outside of SL because they are all private persons or companies. We’ll have to take their word for it.

In any event, congratulations to the 10, which includes Anshe Chung, previously featured on the BW cover — we can all say we knew them when…and mourn the passing of the colourful MoMo.

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By Prokofy Neva, Community Affairs Desk

Second Life avatars gathered again tonight at the Velvet club in Iron Fist to leave flowers, candles, cigs, and drinks in memory of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, a beloved internationally-known American author who died April 11 at the age of 84 of brain injury suffered after a fall.

Somehow a virtual world seemed the perfect place to remember a man whose characters easily moved about in time and history. Indeed, peterSL’s Twit Obit on Twitter within an hour of the news of the great novelist’s passing was perfect: “Kurt Vonnegut has become unstuck in time” — like the famous character Billy Pilgrim of Slaughterhouse Five, a book many had read. The avatars talking about whose custom it was to leave alcohol and cigarettes on graves — Irish? Russian? — as somebody walked by bumping into people and speaking Spanish — gave illustration to Spin Martin’s Kosso’s new coined new word: “glocal”.

“He’s with Jesus now,” cyrusbryan had joked on Twitter, quoting an old joke that Vonnegut himself had said about Isaac Asimov.

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be” was one of the many applicable Vonnegut quotations remembered for the occasion.

Kurt Vonnegut actually had an SL avatar, which was made for his visit in July 2006, apparently Vonnegut’s last sit-down interview, when Infinite Minds radio show had him speak on a broadcast that was simultaneously aired on a sim in Second Life, produced by Lichtenstein Creative Media and Infinite Vision Media. He was said not to have piloted it, but to have been busy talking and smoking his Pall Malls, talking about America. “Now it has become a nation I’m utterly ashamed of,” he said. “We’re the beacon of freedom to the whole world,” he said and described a sampler he’d like to embroider and put on the wall: “Dear Iraq, do like us. After 100 years, let your slaves go. After 150 years, let your women vote,” he said in criticism of the patronizing role the U.S. has been playing in the world. “It’s actually possible to get a better life for some individuals,” he said of Second Life, though confessed he was “frequently an enemy of technology.”

“One thing that is missing from this computer life is…waiting for an answer,” Vonnegut told the SL audience, confessing he was a “Luddite”. “Mystery! Mystery!” he said of the anticipation of a friend answering a letter in snail mail versus email.

Regarding art, he said that the awful thing about art criticism was the demand to be original, but he urged people just to get out and create. “Just do it, and it will make your soul grow,” was his advice.

“I can’t see anything wrong with it,” he said about Second Life, admitting there was little in the real world he could say that about it. “Human resourcefulness at its best.”

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By Prokofy Neva, Dept. of Worlds, Planets, Universe, Multiverses, Metaverses (Yes, There’s More Than One) and Deep Negative Hyperspace

OK, so I’m clearing away prims in Neumoegen and suddenly I see Michael and Nigel Linden have a new train, a dark-red, old-fashioned beat-up one that I guess fits in with the hobo build in Calletta at the start of the line. I fly after it eagerly and select SIT and get RIDE…and away I go down the Linden tracks, clackety-clack.

So I settle in for what I imagine will be one of those bumpy but fun rides on the old SLRR. I realize it is hopelessly analog of me, and I know I’m supposed to teleport and p2p and skin off my hair, or strut around with AOs, but I still like riding the rails of Second Life. Maybe it’s the old beta-era hobos I meet along the way, their hands stretched out over barrels on fire, fingers protruding from hole-filled gloves. Their hollow eyes tell the story. They’ve Been There. I spot an Asian build coming up and the train bumps and halts and starts to give me messages. Then it starts up again.

I ride without event out of Achemon — or nearly so, when whoops, the land falls away to make a gulch. OK, pas de probleme, this is de rigeur. I zoom around looking ahead…and notice the land is dropping beneath me. OK, it will recover. It often does. If you ever watch it from the sidelines, it often jumps over sim seams.

Suddenly, I look out and realize we are aloft. No, we are not in Soho and no, this is not a project of Forseti’s. We are in the sky. And suddenly, I realize I am in a living, breathing, metaphor for the game of Second Life.

Is this the journey I signed up for? Of course not. But did I right-click and press “sit” and get “ride”. Of course I did!

Pondering whether I should file this under “Herald Literary Suppository” or “Philosophical Issues,” I hurtle upwards in the sky, despite sitting on a locomotive that is many simulated tons. I see the horizon.

Green chat is wafting up toward me. It’s telling me first that we are being struck by another train. Not to worry, however, this is Second Life. Then it is telling me to jump, jump for MY LIFE! I hit “stand up” desperately and…nothing….

And then we ride closer to the sun. I gulp. I know what can happen up here.

It’s time to IM Eggy Lippman. Eggy will have done this in beta. Eggy tells me to relog, meh, he’s no fun.

Perhaps Ordinal Malaprop who scripts the tram in Caledon will have some insights but she’s not online. Again, no worries. I know where to find her. She’s at the pub in real life, before everybody! Or, filling up an envelope before she is paralyzed with boredom! Or making some grub! I go to Twitter. Yoo-hoo? Ordinal! Where are you?

Meanwhile, the negative numbers are increasing with frightening speed. Ordinal pops online…Ordinal is then falling offline…struggling online…fallilng offline…Bye, Ordinal! the Concierge group is yammering about inventory loss…and I’m not lost. I’m right where I’m supposed to be. At negative -15,238 offworld somewhere…or perhaps deep in the world.

I lob off an PM to Michael Linden. “Linden, we have a problem,” I write. If I were a bug report, what would I be? Uh, user interface? Or uhhhh indecency? My hair is stripped off, my glasses and boots, no doubt, no wait…all in place…

I notice how silent it is up here. No Lucky Chairs talking. No whispering vendors.

No Lindens.

I realize my avatar is getting the sky-high jitters…he’s breaking up…I had heard about this….the eyes were bugging out in terror. The nail beds were turning red…or was it purple?

Hanging upside down in hyperspace, -100,000 plus meters from any living Live Help (which is cancelled now anyway), I realized I didn’t have to be afraid. I was still wearing my Ninja Fighting Trainer Jacket from Hammer and Coop.

I was still interacting with the brand. I was going to be all right.

That was before I got to -500,000 — and kept hurdling. My avatar face became a mashed Picasso painting.

Now, above (below? but there was the sky… -250,000,000, Michael Linden’s train was holding fast. I was a mess, but then, well, it’s their world and it was all my imagination that…

Then…nothingness. Just…blue sky. Perhaps I was in Itchycoo Park, or Eight Miles High. Sims always perform their best when there is nothing, nothing, nothing at all on them, not even Linden stuff…Yet the bar at the stop, incredibly, still said IMPERIAL. Negative two million meters in IMPERIAL.

Suddenly, I noticed the sky was grey. Or had I merely landed, and was suffering from the usual grey square issues? My computer was making strange grinding sounds…Ordinal was logging off again, probably unable to keep a purchase on a crashing sim or something…Eggy was writing something…that he’d already did this in beta…that I would reach 2.1 million and then it would reverse and go backwards…but I was already at 2.5….the grinding was growing louder and louder, even on my brand-new expertly tweaked machine…

I decide to log off. As the screen dimmed, I caught a glimpse of a lunchroom…there was Michael Linden with a Yahoo and a Ring-Ding, laughing…

What did you do there?
I got high
What did you feel there?
Well I cried
But why the tears there?
I’ll tell you why
It’s all too beautiful
It’s all too beautiful
It’s all too beautiful
It’s all too beautiful

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