February 2015 – Page 6

February 10, 2015

The Guardian Talk About The Second Life Penis & Virtual Romance

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic has posted an interesting article over at The Guardian : Virtual love: is your Valentine an avatar? The article looks at the rise of digital romance and looks at virtual boyfriend and girlfriend apps, the website Tinder, the issue of cybersex briefly and even has a mention of Second Life. I don’t know much about those virtual boyfriend and girlfriend apps and the first I head of Tinder was via a recent story regarding some major websites being down for a short period of time recently, Tinder was mentioned. When I asked some of the folk at work about it after that news story there was much mirth and very little belief that I had never heard of Tinder!

The article itself links to a website that has advice for lovemaking in virtual worlds such as Second Life :

Virtual communities, such as Second Life, recreate all aspects of the relationship cycle, including pregnancy and birth. In fact, there are now multiple guides on how to have sex in a virtual world, which perhaps suggests that physical skills are not necessarily transferable to our avatars. One salient difference is that most avatars are not equipped with genitals. As an expert notes: “The first thing you need to do, get yourself a penis/vagina. Here’s a piece of advice: Second Life is a visual medium. Hence it does have a certain importance that you choose a penis that actually looks realistic and is in-line with the colour of your skin.” Other suggestions include upgrading looks – because “with the prefab [Second Life] avatar you will find it very difficult to get laid” – and making an effort to role-play a seductive or erotic situation. Indeed, directness and bluntness is as discouraged as in the analogue world.

The website it links to even goes into the murky world of the talking penis. I’m really not a big fan of the Second Life penis, indeed I don’t find it very realistic at all. There would be a world full of pain if you had to walk around with one of those all day outside of Second Life. Obviously there are some advantages, the detachable nature of the appendage would have uses and of course your partner could hide it when they were miffed at you, but realism isn’t something I’d associate with that accessory.

A more interesting aspect of Second Life and virtual world relationships comes near the end of the article.

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February 9, 2015

If You’re A Fan Of BBC Drama Wolf Hall You May Want To Visit Lightbridge In Second Life

I’ve been to Lightbridge in Second Life before, a medieval roleplaying sim set in the year 1529 in part of English controlled France. The thing with Lightbridge is that the roleplay is aimed at human characters rather than the more fantasy based element we usually see.

The other thing with Lightbridge is that it’s set in a period of history that is currently being covered in the excellent BBC drama Wolf Hall. The BBC drama itself is based on the book Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel.

There are of course some key differences between Lightbridge and Wolf Hall. Whereas Wolf Hall deals with the rise to prominence of Thomas Cromwell at a time of great upheaval for the church and monarchy in England, Lightbridge is set in the fictional harbour town of Pont de Lumière, which lies between Calais and The Duchy Of Burgundy. This is a small garrison city and therefore you wouldn’t expect to see characters such as Thomas Cromwell, Anne Boleyn, King Henry VIII or Cardinal Wolsey roaming the streets and popping into the tavern.

Indeed the character generation forbids the roleplaying of such characters :

We do not permit players to play important real life characters (Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Cardinal Wolsey, Charles V the Holy Roman Emperor, etc.) as they are reserved for admins for special roleplay events. Players may, however, play a real life character if there is no significant history to speak of that might be altered by their gameplay. Players must provide references for the existence of the character.

However fans of Wolf Hall, armed with their knowledge of these times could indeed create quite interesting characters whom would know of the politics of the times.

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February 9, 2015

A Visit To St John Parish In Second Life

I stumbled across St John Parish in Second Life via someone’s Flickr stream when I saw some nice photos of the land. St John Parish is owned by Gabrielle Riel, Prim Minister, The Duchess of Carntaigham and makes up a group of sims that extend to Lake St John, Bayou St John and St John Woods.

St John Parish itself is a bustling urban sim with a theme set in historic New Orleans, Louisiana in the early part of the 20th century.

Rolpelay is positively encouraged but is not at all required. Indeed the rules will allow you to visit the sims without even being in period attire. However if you do want to get into theme then you should be looking at anything from Medieval to Victorian, to Edwardian to the early 1920’s, so quite a lot of scope.

This means you can generally stroll around, take photos and not get chased off the lawn for not being dressed in the right attire. However you may want to try and ensure you don’t get ran over by the tram that traverses St John Parish.

In terms of entertainment St John Parish offers ragtime and early Jazz.

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February 6, 2015

Dispatches From The Snowball Warzone – A Snowball Fight With The Lindens

They came from all corners of Second Life, the young, the old, the weak and Strawberry Singh! They split into teams, some residents backing The Lindens. Xiola Linden purred and recruited.

Uccello Poultry not far from her side aiding the recruitment drive.

Meanwhile Vitae Linden was aided and abetted by Pygar Bu as they prepared for battle.

The Lindens were out in force and looking very menacing, big guns and little guns were on display.

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February 6, 2015February 8, 2015

The Problem With Twitter Is People Not Names

I was driving home from work the other week listening to BBC Radio 4 when I heard an excerpt from a forthcoming television documentary. The excerpt featured the agent of a woman who is infamous in the UK for being controversial, and that seems to be her main talent. The excerpt had a point that was rather sad, the agent admitted that his client deliberately targets Twitter trolls by spelling words incorrectly on purpose or making outrageous comments. He admitted that without the Twitter trolls, his client would not be so successful.

At this point it is worth noting that picking someone up on their spelling isn’t exactly trolling, but the concept that people deliberately court controversy and know that this will work on Twitter to generate revenue, is rather depressing.

Twitter continues to make headlines for the wrong reasons but those of us who have been in Second Life for a number of years know that those headlines can be very misleading. Hamlet Au over at New World Notes has an article about Twitter : Twitter CEO Basically Admits Pseudonym Policy a Disaster. That headline itself is a tad misleading as I can’t see anything from Twitter CEO Dick Costlolo that suggests that. However Hamlet’s article links to another article on The Verge : Twitter CEO: ‘We suck at dealing with abuse’. In that article Dick Costolo is quoted as saying :

“We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years. It’s no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.”

I use Twitter, I’ve seen the trolls in action, I’ve seen the heinous abuse but if Twitter was as bad as some folk make out, I would not be on Twitter. The problem with Twitter is not pseudonyms. Over time, even with a pseudonym, you build up a reputation of sorts, you own your words. The problem with Twitter isn’t accounts who don’t say much but use a pseudonym either. Whereas people can demonstrate horror stories from Twitter to try and claim pseudonyms are a problem, the same thing can be done on Facebook with people using their real names. Names aren’t the issue here, people are and more to the point, the way we interact online.

Online communications are largely faceless. We don’t see the person we’re talking to, we lose the tips that guide us in a face to face conversation. We lose sight of emotion, intent and humour and we focus on the words. On a platform such as Twitter where you’re restricted to 140 characters, this doesn’t make for a healthy meeting of minds when it comes to debate.

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