Don’t Get Twitchy, Look Forward To Virtual Worlds Best Practices In Education Instead

Iris Ophelia has received a reply from Twitch regarding whether streaming of Second Life via their service is allowed : Update: Twitch Responds With Their Stance on Streaming Second Life. The long and short of it is, that Second Life streaming is indeed prohibited :

Second Life is not permitted for streaming and those accounts reported for doing so will be suspended. Content in this game is unrated and often sexually explicity, which is content we do not allow on our services. We also do not permit Adults-Only rated games and games where nudity is the core focus, feature, or goal.

Please read our Rules of Conduct regarding sexually explicit acts or content for more information:

http://www.twitch.tv/user/legal?page=rules-of-conduct

I could write a long rambling post about this, or point out that Grand Theft Auto, an 18 rated game, is happily streamed. However I’d rather just point people in the direction of The Drax Files : World Makers on YouTube, which is certainly not a series that exemplifies nudity being the core focus, feature or goal.

Another virtual world event that doesn’t have nudity as the core focus, feature or goal is Virtual Worlds Best Practices In Education, which starts on Wednesday of this week and it’s a far more important topic. This is the 8th annual event and here’s a brief explanation of what it’s all about :

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education is a global grass-roots community event focusing on education in immersive virtual environments. This open conference is organized by educators, for educators, to provide an opportunity to showcase the learning that takes place in this community of practice. All educators are encouraged to present, attend and take part in this discussion of collaborative deeper learning and co-presence in virtual worlds and games.

The Opening Keynote speech will be from Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg in Second Life, however this conference does go beyond Second Life, other featured speakers include :

Pam Broviak – Manages the Public Works Group, an online resource offering information related to public works, government, and social media.

Gord Holden – Recipient of the Virtual Education Journal’s Reader’s Choice Award as the Edovator of 2014.

Jeroen Frans – One of the three Founders of the Vesuvius Group, LLC, and functions as Executive Director and Virtual World Technology Specialist.

Sensuous Maximus – Co-founder of the renowned Builders Brewery within Second Life.

Susan Toth-Cohen – Professor and director of the post-professional clinical doctorate in occupational therapy at Thomas Jefferson University.

John Fillwalk – Serves as the senior director of the Hybrid Design Technologies initiative [HDT] and as the director of the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts [IDIA Lab} at Ball State University.

Jay Jay Jegathesan – Holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) from the University of Western Australia (UWA), majoring in management and marketing.

For more detailed biographies about these speakers go here : http://vwbpe.org/conference/vwbpe-2015-keynotes-and-featured-speakers

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A Cautionary Tale Of Why Virtual World Income Is Very Much Taxable

Linden Lab have been asking certain residents to supply tax and account information for over a year now. These requests have caused confusion and annoyance for Second Life residents who were not familiar with such requirements.

I should point out here that there are different triggers for tax and account information requests, whereas there does appear to be a lot of overlap, they are not both solely for tax reasons. The blog post I’ve linked to above and the links there provide extra information and it’s information that Second Life and virtual world business owners beyond Second Life should pay attention to.

Another issue with Second Life, virtual worlds and many online money earning opportunities is that people at times seem to think their income is outside of taxation, it’s not. Although obviously your local laws will take precedence, taxation is an area you should pay attention to.

As an example I’m going to highlight a case, albeit at the extreme end of the spectrum. The Wall Street Journal reports : How Cheating on Your Taxes Can Lead to Prison. This is a tale of woe that involves a US citizen opening a Swiss bank account and not declaring he had over $10,000 in said bank account, which is apparently a legal requirement in the USA.

However later on he was advised by a lawyer to declare his past income, in what the linked article describes as “Quiet disclosure“. However he failed to declare his income from Second Life, which between 2007 and 2013 was estimated at over $140,000. This has proven to be a very costly mistake, in more ways than one.

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The Lost Unicorn Gallery Is A Sight To Behold

LostUnicron3

The Lost Unicorn Gallery in the sim of Ethereal is nothing short of stunning if fantasy art is your thing, and it is my thing. I’m a big fan of the fantasy theme. The parcel description sets the theme :

A fabulous selection of SL fantasy themed artwork created by the best artists in game. Elven castle overlooks a beautiful and magical forest below. Landscaping by JenniferMay Carlucci-Lectar.

This is all helped by the stunning picturesque beauty of the surrounding area.

Outside Lost Unicorn Gallery

The Gallery works on a rotation system, as the notecard explains :

The main list you see on this sign is a complete list of ALL the ongoing artists in the gallery. However, they are not all showing work at the same time due to space. Therefore, we do an artist rotation every 2 months. I will post this list here so you all know who’s showing at the time you visit. We will also continue to have our 2 featured artists exhibiting their work in the 2 front rooms every month (new ones each month).

This therefore means you may see different artists displaying at different times.

LostUnicron2

The current showcase artists (until March 22nd are :

  • Freyja Merryman
  • Luka Henusaki

LostUnicron5

Continue reading “The Lost Unicorn Gallery Is A Sight To Behold”

Jordan Reyne’s Fantastic Sound Rocks The Mango Yacht Club In Second Life

Jordan Reyne Stage

Jordan Reyne this evening rocked the Mango Yacht Club in Second Life with her unique sound. The good news is that Jordan is scheduled to rock Second Life even further this weekend with more gigs before going on a real world music tour in Europe.

Jordan Reyne On Guitar

Jordan belted out several tunes to an eager audience and allowed them to vote on which cover song she should perform, there was only one cover song in her set, the rest of the set was original material from Jordan herself.

Jordan Reyne Sings

Jordan doesn’t just stand there and play music either, she interacts with her audience, which was very well exemplified by the above vote on which cover song she should perform.

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Second Life Residents Start To Pay Their Respects To Sir Terry Pratchett

Terry's Avatar

One of the first things I did when I joined Second Life was to look up a group for Discworld, thinking that Second Life would be an ideal venue for such a group. Alas that didn’t go very far, despite there being many fans and surnames of Weatherwax and Morpork not being uncommon.

In October 2008 Terry Pratchett visited Second Life. The visit was to promote his book of Nation, but many people wanted to talk about Discworld. A couple of Lindens sneaked in to listen to him, he arrived on stage :

TerryPratchett Morpork: Hello everybody! Sorry, I’m new at all of this kind of stuff and so can anyone tell me how to get the rocket launcher? …and I’m not really into all of this YourTube into MyFace kind of stuff!

Michaelx Beerbaum: Question is if Second life will appear in one of the books?

TerryPratchett Morpork: As far as I am concerned, my books are Second Life.

Having thought long and hard, a quiet voice piped up :

Ciaran Laval: Do you think Moist Von Lipwig would have managed the banking system better than those currently in charge?

TerryPratchett Morpork: It seems that, primitive as it is, the Discworld economy is considerably more stable than the one here. And, come to think about it, Moist’s solution to the problem was not a long way from what has been done over here…

He was talking about real world economies not Second Life. Upon hearing of Sir Terry’s death today I decided to visit a location where fans do gather, the Time and Space sim and already they have start to erect a tribute to Sir Terry Pratchett.

Tribute To Sir Terry Pratchett

They are also getting plenty of visitors, whom like me, want to visit locations whereby fellow fans may be around.

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