Second Living Bay Sweetwater @ home

Here is my first quickie demo review of Dragon Dictate 2.0 voice recognition software for the Mac. I’ll be doing a more thorough review later, but I had to rush right out to let you all know that it works inside Second Life! An exclusive peek, first time demo’d on the Internet inside Second Life, and you get it here straight from the dragon’s mouth! LOL (using review copy of Dragon Dictate 2.0, kindly provided by Nuance Communications)

Every once in awhile something comes along that leaves me speechless.

This time it’s Toxic Menges’ Little Red Riding Hood machinima (definitely NSFW though, lol). She released it on her blog a week ago here, where you can read a little about the work that went into it. You can also read more about it in a post here by Phaylen Fairchild (who stars as the voice of “Red” in the film).

Open Film features it on its home page here. Rightfully proud, Phaylen describes this achievement as a first for machinima:

Little Red Riding Hood is sitting on the homepage alongside real life short films that had costumes, budgets, actors, camera, extras, producers, cinematographers- everything we equate with real life film, and to be included in, and sit amongst those triumphant independent endeavors by creatives around the globe is a benchmark in the advancement and recognition of Machinima in the real world.

I’ve embedded the youtube version below, but watch the Open Film version here if you can; the quality is tons better.

I’ve been working on building a virtual dahlia that “grows” in Second Life during the summer, and then — just like IRL — blooms in early fall. But the snails are eating all my dahlias — in SL and RL both! LOL.

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

(a snail’s version, with apologies to Led Zeppelin. lol)

There’s a snail in the bed

And it raised its little head

Said “I’m sending the dahlia to heaven.”

It chewed at the roots

And it nibbled at the shoots

And said, “Those dahlias, they taste like heaven.”

It’s a lonely night, and I’m kinda blue. Don’t know why. My friend Doodle says, “I’m always blue.”

When I was about eight years old, my friends and I became convinced that aliens were trying to take over our brains. We fashioned elaborate tinfoil helmets and wore them everywhere to keep the aliens from getting inside our heads. Those helmets must have worked because a month or so later the aliens left, without one of them ever penetrating my skull.

I was reminded of all this listening to Google CEO Eric Schmidt lately. Sure could use one of those helmets now! The things he is saying make me want to rez a cave and become a digital hermit. LOL

In case you think I might be over-reacting, here are a few quotes from recent interviews with Schmidt.

Continue Reading “Maybe I’ll be a digital hermit”

I have always been skeptical of things that are centered around something (or someone), like governments, guru cults, wars, big businesses, courtrooms, rock star entourages, twinkies, and the like. That’s why I moved to Second Life. No matter where I went I found disorder and chaos. What was here today, tomorrow was often not. Dreams went flying into the stratosphere because there were no atoms holding them down. You could throw out the craziest ideas because there wasn’t ordinary friction to burn them up. When groups or sims did attempt to raise up a center and gather around it, the sheer momentum of Second Life whirled it away. I cheered every time. My kind of element. Of course, there’s a downside to all of this. But for me, the advantages of chaos always outweigh the minuses.  This is why I have held my breath watching Philip Linden’s recent homecoming. Yes of course I went to the birthday parties and ate the cake and listened to the speeches. But it all tasted just a little too much like gathering around the hero coming back to his hometown after the war. Don’t get me wrong. I will forever and ever and ever love Philip Linden for creating Second Life.It means more to me than almost anything I can think of, except maybe being given my first life. But I will never have a center, and I hope all the rest of you zany, wild, unkempt, uncentered avatars won’t either. Yeats had it right: things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

"Picture yourself in a boat on a river."

Well, it’s late, and I’m taking a night walk under the stars in the woods thinking about the world-tumbling events of the day. Philip Linden returning to the helm! Mostly I’m thinking about something he said during a speech at the SL7B yesterday:  ”We’re safe. The world is safe.” He said that’s why they laid off a third of the company and “stepped back” – so everyone would be safe. It was a strange word to use, a wonderful word. Safe. As in, Second Life will continue. After his speech, someone asked him if there was any truth to the rumors that Second Life might soon be up for sale. His answer was another nice word: “Nope.”

Safe. I can’t remember the last time I heard that word applied to any place in any world. Safe. Tonight, it’s so late, I just want to go to sleep with that word on my tongue. I don’t know if he really means it, or what he means by it, or whether he can bring it about, or if it’s even possible in any world anywhere anymore. Safe. For tonight, I just like the sound of it on my tongue. G’nite, all you Second Life night owls, if you’re still up with me. Safe paths. And soft hugs.

G'nite, all you dear night owls.