Month: February 2008

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Size and social cohesion

Fascinating blog post at Phasing Grace: Dunbar’s Number – Groups in [our favorite virtual world]. (Dunbar’s Number is a theoretical ceiling to the number of stable social relationships an individual can maintain, often casually said to be 150.)

From a modern world perspective and using social network analysis, Chris Allen hypothesizes that that different group sizes impact a group’s behavior and their choice of processes and tools. Based on empirical data from MMOG and online communities, he suggests that for non-survival groups, the equivalent Dunbar number falls somewhere between 60-90.

Grace makes a fascinating comment that seems apropos to Caledon:

Allen argues that group dynamics have more than just the Dunbar number as a break point; three group size nodes emerge and Allen provides some insight into the group construct as it relates to size. Groups with too few people suffer from insufficient critical mass, experience group think, are unable to sustain conversation and the infamous ‘Echo Chamber’ effect is evident. Read some of Eric Rice’s ‘Echo Chamber’ analysis regarding the failings of artificially small groups, aka elites. Overly large groups have far much too noise and cannot sustain an equal and unstructured trust. Cliques and inappropriate politics emerge and social contracts start to break down. From a [virtual world] perspective, an example of this might be the recent [ordinal number following First] Citizen forum meltdown. Note that it’s the group size that creates the breakdown of the cohesive bonds, not the ‘newbs’. When group sizes grow beyond these normalized sizes, even the most senior members of the group can suffer the ill effects.

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Lag: myths and solutions

Gwyneth Llewelyn has posted Lag Myths Dispelled

While it’s undeniable that all highly attended events are laggy — it’s a limitation of the technology — I was surprised to see that almost all “rules” are based on very old limitations of the SL technology, which plagued us in 2003-2005, but that have since then be “fixed” by Linden [Research, Inc.], as both the client and the server software have dramatically improved.

Improved, yes, but the lag is still with us. And, in a desperate attempt to fight down lag, people are coming up with ancient “recipes” for fixing lag — unaware that they’re not really helping out, but just repeating old myths, that simply don’t reflect the state-of-the art of LL’s technology these days. Lag will remain with us for many more years, but not for the same reasons we had it in 2003-2005.

Gwyneth not only dispells three myths, she makes some suggestions about what you can do to reduce lag.

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Amazing map sims

I visited an absolutely amazing set of sims devoted to the map collection of David Rumsey. These photos can’t begin to do it justice, and I simply must go back to explore more fully.

Here you can see the topographic maps of Yosemite used on a 3D topography of Yosemite (to scale), which fills four sims. I am standing on the observation deck just to the left of center in the photo, which is situated at the intersection of the sims. In the distance you can see two globes, which have orreries inside them. (Click on the photo for a larger version.)

Sitting on the orrery inside the celestial globe. You can see me to the left of the sign.

Another shot inside the celestial globe. Although it has rotated, you can still find me sitting on the orrery.

(A tip of the hat to NPIRL.)

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Limber up your tongue (and mind!)

Mr JJ Drinkwater announces the Great Mark Twain Cussoff

The Library of Caledon has joined forces with several other august bodies to sponsor this literary event of the highest merit, suitable for persons of refined sensibilities, from all parts of the 19th century and literary grid: a contest in the art of expression, to wit, unburdening oneself of an excess of sentiment with high-flown phrase and well-aimed epithet, in the manner of a character out of the works penned by Mr. Samuel Clemens, more familiarly Mark Twain.

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Caledon Mardi Gras parade

Last night saw a wonderful, silly, lag-filled, chaotic, creative event: a Caledon Mardi Gras parade (yes, held on the Friday after Mardi Gras, which is to say, during Lent). Radio Riel had a float (dancers on the skirt of Gabi’s dress). Here are a few photos I managed to get.

This is us in the chaos that was the staging area in Tanglewood. Over 60 avatars and a number of floats, all clustered around the telehub. At the left, you can see Admiral Wind’s New Toulouse float.

And this is us with onlookers somewhere on the road along northern Caledon.

I entitled this shot “Gabi, we hardly knew ye.” Sim crossings, as you might imagine, were a terror, as were narrow places. The float consisted of a vehicle base, which Gabi was driving and which incorporated the passenger dance balls, that sometimes got stuck on visible or invisible protuberances along the route. Then there was an attachment that provided the flounces and streamers for the float. Lastly, there were prim elements of Gabi’s personal outfit. These are a phantom copy of the attachments, apparently positioned as attached to her, well, um, you can see that for yourself. At the time I snapped this, Gabi was standing a few meters away wearing not only her personal prim attachments (in the correct spots), but also the float attachment.