Tag: Steamlands

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Overcome by fabulousness

Last night while acting as the Radio Riel host for a treehousewarming party for the Davies clan in Steelhead Harborside, I was quite overcome by fabulousness. (No, not mine, the home’s and the assembled company’s!) Luckily for me, Miss Myfanwy Davies was prepared to assist not only her guests but her event staff:

Just for the sake of a modicum of self-defense regarding the outfit, I plead temporary insanity by virtue of being egged on in Caledon state chat by Lady Edwina Heron and Lady Diamanda Gustafson earlier in the day. (The Caledon Second Anniversary treasure hunt prepared by said ladies and their minions being an enormous success and the occasion for the foolish chatter on the state channel.)

I’m sorry not to have gotten a photo that would do justice to the tiara and <ahem> lovely hair sent to me by Lady Edwina to accompany the tutu, similarly gifted. I was also holding a rather large, winged steampunk wand for most of the evening.

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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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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.

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Lovely, rich conversation

Last night I had the pleasure of hosting Sir JJ Drinkwater and Dame Kghia Gherardi at Ormsby Hall for totally delightful conversation at my monthly salon. No photos to show, but I can share the poem Dame Kghia contributed, by Mr Thomas Hardy:

Neutral Tones

We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
—They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro—
On which lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing…

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

The contrast with Miss Rossetti’s poem made for wonderful discussion.

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January salon

Tomorrow (Tuesday, 15 January) evening at 5 p.m., SLT, Ormsby Hall on Little West Sniggery island in Caledon Murdann will once again be open for conversation. This month’s starting point is a poem by Christina Rossetti, the notable Pre-Raphaelite poet.

In the Bleak Midwinter (1872)

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen,
Snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign;
In the bleak midwinter
A stable place sufficed
The Lord God incarnate,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for him, whom Cherubim
Worship night and day
A breast full of milk
And a manger full of hay.
Enough for him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;
But his mother only,
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him —
Give my heart.

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Very poor marketing

I’m posting about the Harlequin novelist a second time because the only way to make a comment on the press release is to give them a trackback to a web page. My first post was too indirect to serve as a good response.

A romance novelist apparently has a book series (of two) with a Victorian female detective. A site called PR Web has a press release about it: Author – and Her Victorian Creations – Come Alive in Second Life

In addition to live question and answer opportunities, book aficionados and Victorian enthusiasts can participate in the upcoming Victorian Ball, to be held on Thursday, January 24th at the ACTIV8 complex. The overall aim of the Second Life promotional campaign is to bring new and existing readers of Raybourn’s novels and fans of Victoriana together in an environment that allows for community interaction with the author, while immersing attendees in the world of the novel.

Harlequin’s hosting the event in Second Life is a natural fit since the publisher continues to seek innovative means to reach out to readers and because ‘Silent in the Sanctuary’ is a novel set in the Victorian era, which is very popular with Second Life residents.

Second Life marketing agency TheSLAgency is handling all of the technical and marketing aspects of the program, including re-creating several key creative features of the book’s setting and plot items.

This would be of note only as a moderately interesting Victorian event in SL, were it not that SLAgency has done such a spectacularly poor job of marketing the events, which transforms it into a perfect target of ridicule.

As an active member of the Independent State of Caledon (a group with over 700 members, an active internet forum, wiki, and innumerable blogs), I had never heard of this marketing effort until I came across a tangential reference to the press release somewhere. Neither had my compatriots, and I’d wager that none of the residents of Antiquity, Steelhead, or Babbage had either. It certainly doesn’t speak highly of a marketing agency when they miss a community not only situated squarely in their target audience but that has been highlighted in a variety of guides to Second Life. It’s not like we’re hard to find.