One of the lesser tragedies of Hurricane Katrina were the hundreds of displaced animals who were seperated from their owners by the disaster. Hundreds of them were round up by caring individuals and humane societies and sheltered and fostered around the country. My girlfriend Cindy has been caring for a Katrina cat named Leopold for…
Jeff Barr, Web Evangelist for Amazon.com in Second Life
Just logged off from a cool talk given by Jeff Barr, Web Services Evangelist for Amazon.com. (I love that his official title is "evangelist.") Jeff gave a great overview of the myriad web services provided by Amazon, fielding detailed questions from techies in the audience. The organizers from the Kuurian Expedition I am sure will…
Shout-out from Starwood on my virtual Aloft hotel visit
A couple of weeks ago, I dropped in on "Aloft" virtual hotel being sponsored by the Starwood Hotel chain and posted some pics. Only later did I find out that the sim wasn’t open for business yet and that I was trespassing. Oops. Anyway, the Starwood Hotels travel blog theLobby.com has a nice little write-up…
Snow Crash comes to Second Life: where’d I put my wakizashi?
This weekend I finished re-reading Snow Crash, the seminal 1992 cyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson that was a central inspiration for the virtual world Second Life. Snow Crash is in my top five sci-fi novels and I have re-read it several times over the years. But its been at least five years since I have…
Fake conference scam: “International Conference on Child Labour, Abuse and Neglect”
It’s been awhile since I got a decent scam email from a UN or NGO pretender. These burn me because they play upon people’s good hearted nature, wanting to do something about racism or the environment or child labor. Today I got one ostensibly from the "YCIO," a group who’s acronym was never spelled out…
Happy Birthday, Mole Negro!
My kitten cat Mole is now one year old! Happy birthday, Mole Negro! You’re all growns up! That’s him at 6 weeks above. Click on "continue" for Mole as a grown cat.
Last word on Gov. Warner’s SL appearance: Would you vote for this avatar?
After a restful weekend up in Vermont, I come back to find out that there has been a good bit of media coverage on former Virginia Governor Mark Warner‘s appearance in Second Life last week. Notably, the Washington Post has a humorous piece on some of the confusion and griefing at the event. Hamlet Au…
Short video of Governor Warner’s SL appearance
Presidential hopeful Governor Mark Warner appeared in Second Life today for an interview with Hamlet Au of New World Notes. To give you an idea of what the event was like click on the image for the You Tube video, or here’s a downloadable quicktime version (17 Megs). I’m sure Millions of Us will be…
Governor Warner speaks on Iraq, Democratic Party, Abortion in Second Life
As some predicted, it wasn’t more than a publicity stunt, but Governor Mark Warner’s appearance in virtual form in Second Life still was a historic occasion. When a possible contendor for the US Presidency makes a pit stop in a virtual world, you have to think that something new is in the air. Others, particularly…
Governor Warner brings real world politics into the virtual world
The blogarati and the media are abuzz about the Second Life appearance of Mark Warner in Second Life this afternoon. Getting boingboing‘ed doesn’t hurt, of course. My buddy Hamlet Au at New World Notes made a very last minute announcement yesterday night that he will be interviewing possible presidential candidate Mark Warner, the former governor…