Squawk – Twitter Meets Second Life and…Facebook’s in there somewhere too

Squawk is here – twitter/SL.
I’ve wanted this so bad I almost tried to do it myself a couple of weeks ago with a friend of mine — but we decided to build some other sl stuff instead…
Note that I think the Facebook/SL integration is a result of the Facebook/Twitter integration. Which is just plain beautiful (though I haven’t implemented it yet, several of my buds have, and all say it works great…)
But my point is that Facebook got Second Life integration “for nothing.”
(Just from having open apis, i mean!) And look what it got them!
here’s one post on it. I’ll discuss in more detail shortly. Just wanted to start this “tidbits” category, so I can let you know about things in a more timely manner — instead of waiting a day or two to attach a write-up to it.
I’ll also go back through here every week or so and make sure I follow up on the tidbits and link to them properly from the a-z.
I have no idea if squawk thing works yet. Trying to get to it! Seems to be working for others though.

Still working out the kinks of the information structure for my Second Life data

Ok so some of you may have noticed that there’s a Second Life A-Z Index kicking around, but I’ve been kind of hedging on its existence because it wasn’t until late yesterday that I figured out how the indexes are going to best fit together.
So basically, I still need this external document, but it will still link, for the most part, back to blog posts *of indexes* of things. Like the one I just put up for “Places to Go Practice with Objects.”
(Note just saying hi to the two or three people on the planet that this level of detail is of interest to.
You rule. The four of us should get together some time. Now back to the rest of the world 🙂
Now where was I? Ahem. Yes, so anyway. I think I’ve figured it out and that’s why I’ve been dinking around on announcing it. I’ve been sneaking links to it into old posts, so I don’t forget to do that later. But it really didn’t feel like anything worth announcing until it had some meat on its bones. (And I’ve got a freezer full!) (no offense to you veggies! I have um. tofu in the freezer too!)
So now I’ve had a nice sleep, where I remember having a nice dream about my new information architecture, and “how interesting…this *does* seem to fit in there” and, “why yes, I wondered about that too, and I just happen to have a little list of how to fix that right over he-are.”
And then I awoke, because it was just a dream. And I, of course, won’t know for a week or two if mine’s even going to work. But it will be fun trying.
Me parachuting in Second Life

12 Monkeys Is the Bomb

See I’m not always complaining about movies, sometimes I just can’t get enough of them.
Such is the case with 12 Monkeys.
Bruce Willis, Madeline Stowe, Brad Pitt, yeah yeah yeah, but also incredible to look at, so many things going on, I notice new ones every time I watch it. Great plot. Great script.
Also can be a great party movie because all the scenes are interesting on their own — even if you don’t watch through the whole thing — and would look up on a big screen if you just wanted something to loop through the night.
(Every single scene is fantastic to look at and will look great large screen.)
Plus it’s a great movie in the classic hollywood sense! Classic intrigue and intense character development!
Ok i gotta get back to work!
Just don’t miss it 🙂

Blood Diamond: Spare Yourself

So I’ve been watching a ton of movies while I’ve been working on the repetitive task portions of the project I’ve been working on non-stop these past few weeks, and I’m getting the urge to start doing reviews again…but sometimes they’re going to be kinda short, like this one for
Blood Diamond, which I had to shut off after 27 minutes.
What’s wrong with it? Boring, bad dialogue, stupid characters, actors trying to seem interested in the boring cliched script….zzzzzz….click!

A Little On Public Sandboxes In Second Life

As I mentioned earlier, I found out the hard way that buying land isn’t that easy, and provides a quick barrier to entry when you’re trying to jump in and experiment with objects right away. That’s why I created my Metaverse Playpen.
But I wanted to step back a minute and talk about the public sandboxes (Teleport Now), because they are very useful and entertaining places to visit for lots of reasons.
They’re fun in a Mad Maxxy kind of way. There are explosions and funny noises going off everywhere. People running into you for no reason, and just scuttling away. Intimidating messages being broadcast from Big Brother overhead. The whole nine yards.
I’m working on finding a movie, or making a new one of it.
So sandboxes are fun, but they’re a little crowded, and made me want a sandbox of my own.
Me at the public sandbox


To my right are three open windows that you use a lot in SL:
1) Friends – how you see who’s online and send them messages and object using their “profile” window
2) Build – how you create, modify, and program objects.
3) IM – how you communicate privately (There is also a public “chat” window where everyone in the room can “see” what you are saying. The chat window is often also used to communicate with objects you’ve created.)
Second Life A-Z

Come Visit Me In My Metaverse Playpen In Second Life

My ‘Metaverse Playpen’ (go there)


Okay! Time to start telling my tale of Second Life.
I’ve been sitting on all this information for far too long, but I just wanted to make sure that I had really thought about it well enough and was able to restructure the information in such a way that would be most useful to everyone.
Today I start posting and indexing and hopefully things will start to self organize a bit.
It’s taken me two weeks to figure out that it’s just too hard to start from the beginning, so I’ll have to back track from time to time — to fill in the backstory and such.
So let’s start off with the land I finally leased successfully! That was an adventure in itself, let me tell you. (Another day – but the story will be linked to from here…)
Let this post serve as a formal and open-ended invitation to come experiment in my Metaverse Playpen. (Teleport Now)
I’ve left the permissions open, so it’s basically my own “sandbox,” for those of you who know what that is. “Sandboxes” are public land where you can experiment with building and programming objects. Otherwise, you have to own your own land to do so. (If still don’t understand quite yet, no worries — you’ll know in a minute, because it’s the subject of the next post.)
I tend to leave my Second Life window open like my IM window or my twitter window – so I should hear you if you come online and slIM (second life IM) me or something. (It will become important later to distinguish between a Second Life IM window (slIM) and a “regular” IM window, AIM, yahoo, whatever later…which is the only reason I make this distinction now.)
I tend to be in there paying more attention at night after 10pm, but if you’d like to meet in world at another time, just ask.
There isn’t a lot there right now. I have a little furniture and some example objects for you to use as examples for the learning assignments I’m putting together.
Second Life A-Z

Sixth Song From My Show at Irelands 32: Slipping Away

I’ve set up a
June 10, 2007 blog category so you can see the all the songs in one place. Zips available soon too…
Special thanks to a friend of mine that talked me into including this song in my set.
(You know who you are 🙂
I almost pulled it the day before — and it ended up being one of the best songs of the night.

MP3 (3 MB)

Quicktime File (11 MB)

IPOD file – M4V (15 MB)


Slipping Away
Words by Lisa Rein – Music by Lisa Rein and Ron Taylor
As Performed and Played by Lisa Rein June 10, 2007
Lately, I can’t seem to unwind
I’d put my feet in the air
But there’s too much on my mind
And I’m just
Traveling with my face in a jar
I got one foot in the door
And things are fine how they are
But sometimes I think
I got it made in the shade
And then, starts a feeling like it’s slipping away
In my mind
But everything seems ok
Everything seems ok
Dying
I’m dying to win
And I’ll be killing myself
To be born over again
Are you lying?
I ain’t too sure who you are
You’re just a traveling salesman with your face in a jar
It’s always when I think that something’s coming my way
Then I get that funny feeling like it’s slipping away
For the last time
But everything seems ok
Everything seems ok
Yeah
It’s always when I think that something’s coming my way
Then I get that funny feeling that it’s slipping away
In my mind
But everything seems ok
Everything seems ok
Yeah everything seems ok
Everything seems ok
Yeah everything
Creative Commons Attribution License

Slinging Hash Day for Video

Alright, all my hard drives are completely filled up with video I’ve taken the time to prepare to blog, and never blogged. (DOH!)
Now I have to throw this stuff up…and quickly. Or forget about it for the time being. (eeek! noooo!)
So I’m gonna try to have a slinging hash video day – where I’m just throwing stuff up without much else.
I might end up going back later and filling stuff in. It will depend.
There’s just been so much going on so quickly. I’ve been able to document it all accordingly to explain to you, but haven’t had time to organize it and get it up. This last week, I did get it organized, just still haven’t put it up. Now…it’s a goin up!
more later… for now…. another song from June 10!

Using

Here’s a video from my video blogging week on using Animations for dancing in second life.
I’m putting it up here for archival purposes – to link to it from my a-z index….
Lots of stuff going up today that still needs to be linked together a fair amount, so bear with me…

In today’s movie, David Meade and I “getdown” a bit, while I learn about collecting animations in to my “Inventory.”

First Ryce starts dancing, and asks me to join him, and I tell him I don’t know how to dance with him. So he sends me an animation, which I accept and then double click on in my inventory to activate.

Ryce sends me an “animation” called “getdown,” so I can dance with him.

David Meade (Ryce Broderick) does a handstand while we’re Dancing

I used cdk’s “Beat” as a soundtrack, from CC Mixter.

Please visit us at David Meade’s Second Life Pad:
Teleport Now
– http://slurl.com/secondlife/Gyeongju/106/166/73

(Note, I originally wrote this for the mefeedia blog. For completeness, since I have learned that things go away sometimes when you don’t host them, I republished it here 🙂