Tag: Real life

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One year on

  • I’ve reconnected with the sociable, well-dressed, dancing me of younger years.
  • I’ve found a way to continue a connection, of sorts, with Quakerism.
  • I’ve explored, in a participatory way, Unitarian Universalism.
  • Gifts in leadership will express themselves one way or another.
  • I’m good at listening and giving counsel in SL and text chat, as in RL.
  • Tinkering and adapting is easier for me than original creation.
  • Details of hospitality do not come naturally to me.
  • When the fussy aspects of my personality are given shape, I become a bit bitchy in a way I don’t enjoy.
  • I identify quite strongly as a gay man, even when I can be anything (which is apparently typical).

As for the future?

  • I’m dabbling in internet radio.
  • I’ve created a public service, the Victorian Shopkeepers Association group.
  • I need to give some careful thought and attention to Wyre.
  • I’m finding my way as the Duke of Murdann in the Independent State of Caledon.
  • I’m enjoying a mild flirtation with a pleasant gentleman.
  • I’m deepening the quality of some of my friendships.
  • I will have occasions to bring my RL work into SL.
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A vision of architecture

This seems pertinent to Second Life (though not, so much, to Caledon!): An Interview with Lebbeus Woods

Woods’s work is the exclamation point at the end of a sentence proclaiming that the architectural imagination, freed from constraints of finance and buildability, should be uncompromising, always. One should imagine entirely new structures, spaces without walls, radically reconstructing the outermost possibilities of the built environment.

If need be, we should re-think the very planet we stand on.

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On language in SL and RL

I came across an interesting new (to me) blog, with a fascinating post, Avatar’s Mother Tongue, that also has a good comment thread. The premise?

As you probably concluded from all the missing articles and strange constructions of sentences, English is not my mother tongue. At least, it is not a mother tongue of human me.

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Premonitions of Second Life

I just found a post by Marion in Wonderland: The Form of a City Changes Faster, Alas, than the Human Heart

Since joining Second Life, I have come across several quotations and passages in books I am reading in my first life (although SL seriously eats into my reading time!), which strike me as relevant to my experience and feelings about life in this strange alternative world.

And the passages she quotes, from Shakespeare, Thomas Pynchon, and Haruki Murakami, are really stunning in their correspondence to Second Life.

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Totally unacceptable financial services

Linden Lab charges are now made from London, and thus nearly everyone’s financial institution is flagging large transactions as fraud (and it must be large transactions, because recent currency purchases went through fine). On Linden Lab’s part, this is very poor practice. With thousands of customers, surely they can spring for region-appropriate billing services.

For convenience, I decided to use a CapitalOne Mastercard as my LL funding source. When I called them to ask about this morning’s rejected transaction, they said they would mark it as ok. When I mentioned that it is a monthly charge, however, they said I would have to call every month. Calling every month for a routine transaction, just because it’s coming from London? What a load. I’ll be moving my business elsewhere.

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Identity verification

Of course the hue-and-cry has started already over in the comments on Identity Verification Comes to Second Life « Official Linden Blog. As an estate owner, I’m in the potential beta-tester pool, so I went ahead and tried it out. On the “My Account” page on secondlife.com, there was a new menu choice over on the right for age verification. It took me to a very simple form that asked for my name, address, and either my driver’s license number or the last 4 digits of my Social Security Number.

Although I provide those SSN digits when required to, I never use them voluntarily, and of course, the SSN is not supposed to be used for identification purposes. [ha!] So I gave them my driver’s license number, clicked “verify,” and within moments got a reply that I had been verified, along with a request to take a survey on my experience. Which I did, it taking me to a one-page surveymonkey survey.

See? Nothing so scary.Giving LL payment information should be of much higher concern, should one be nervous about such things.

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Caledon Peace Society

Opening Reception for Caledon Peace Society
Sunday, August 26, 2007
12-3 PM SLT
Caledon SteamSkyCity/117/91

The Caledon Peace Society is established to provide a venue for discussion of issues of peace and conflict.

While many RL conflicts rage about us, and people of good will disagree about solutions to conflict and the use of force or violence, the Caledon Peace Society strives always to be a place where all who come in a spirit of listening and goodwill can find respect, fellowship, and resources.

This event will officially open the Baroness Bertha von Suttner chapter of the Caledon Peace Society. Come learn about the Baroness and other peacemakers, find links to internet resources on peace and conflict resolution, and visit with old and new friends.

There will be musical entertainment provided by Radio Riel, with a specially themed program at 1:00 PM.

The Peace Society is immediately adjacent to the telehub.

Second Life | Community: Events