My name is Manal. I am a six year old girl in Syria. I have an older brother and three older sisters. My mother and father are salespeople. We are sunni muslims. Tomorrow I begin school… So begins the life of my new character in the game "Real Lives" put out by Educational Simulations. A…
Month: June 2007
CyberExtruder: bringing your ugly mug into the metaverse
I recently read in the blog Metaversed about a new avatar customization service offered by the awkwardly named company "CyberExtruder" on their sim Avatar Island (teleport SLURL). The word was that you just drop them a good picture of your face and they create a 3D version of it that you can apply to your…
Gamers unite for Net Neutrality!
I forgot to mention last week that at the Games for Change Festival in New York Moveon.org and Games for Change announced a new joint initiative called "Gamers for Net Neutrality." The goal is to leverage the enormous energy and creativity of the digital gamers communities to push for freer, more open internet public policy….
Looking for a roommate(s) for the summer
My awesome roommate Paul is sadly moving off to the Great White North to seek his fame and fortune with a game developer up in Canada. So I am looking for a short-term roommate to share my fabulous, spacious two-bedroom apartment from July 1 to August 31. It’s located on Ann St in the Financial…
Jamie Sue on why she loves blues dancing
My friend Jamie Sue, on the swing dance website that I administer, made an eloquent statement about why she loves dancing to the blues. I have to quote it in its entirety: I love blues. Blues music reflects a lot of my life view. It lives big and loud. It’s passionate and large. It’s about…
Initial thoughts on Season 3 of “So You Think You Can Dance”
I can see that this is going to be a really interesting third season of the Fox show "So You Think You Can Dance." Through the wonders of TIVO, I got caught up on the last 12-hours of show last night in about three hours. I cried 2-3 times already, and applauded at the TV…
Quick video of virtual broadcast of iCommons panel on “I versus Commons”
Here’s a quick video of Jonathan Zittrain answering a question I posed to him from Second Life. Namely: How do we win the fight for free culture when the hardware / OS layer is being increasingly locked down by Microsoft and Apple for freely creating, sharing and re-mixing our content? The context was a panel…
Larry Lessig speaking today at iCommons Summit, streamed in-world
Tireless advocate for free culture, enlightened intellectual property policies and an open internet, Dr. Lawrence Lessig will be speaking today at 11AM PST at the iCommons Summit in Dubrovnic, Croatia. You may know Larry as the CEO of the Creative Commons. For those who can’t jet over there, Larry’s talk will also be streamed into…
Two Joans too many: the problem with mixed-reality events
This evening, I spent some time watching a mixed-reality concert featuring Joan Osborne in the Rockefeller Center Peacock Room in the NBC sim. It’s a lovely space, there was a lively and fun crowd, and Joan sounded great. But I think there was at least one too many Joans. I’ve decided that I don’t really…
MacArthur initiates conversation on role of philanthropy in virtual worlds June 22
On Friday, June 22, Jonathan Fanton, the president of the MacArthur Foundation, and Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Labs, will come in-world for a conversation on the role of philanthropy in virtual worlds. Given the enormous investment that MacArthur is making towards all sorts of research and innovation in the use of new media for…