sliced sf skyline Originally uploaded by on2wheelz.
I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area for a few days, to get my lasik-ed eyes looked at by my optomitrist and spend some long-past-due family time. I was actually expecting to go under the laser again today, but my doctor told me yesterday that he didn't think that there was much probability that they would be able to improve my vision that much, and that there was even a slight chance of vision degradation. So that part of the visit is kind of a bust.
Which is not to say I'm not having a good time. I spent yesterday in the city with my friend Spuds, mostly to record our bi-monthly podcast on swing dance culture and news called the "Yehoodi Talk Show." We are experiementing with doing a video podcast, which I think is going pretty well so far. It's weird worrying about what kind of shirt to wear or how to sit on the couch instead of the usual audio concerns like hiss and pop. Spuds handles all the tech, I just have to look pretty.
Later on last night Spuds and I went out swing dancing in Redwood City, which was a lot of fun. I came back to his place at around 1am and spent the next couple of hours finishing my event's picks for New World Notes. Tomorrow I'm actually meeting NWN's chief journalist Hamlet Au for the first time in the flesh (rather than the pixels.) Looking forward to it.
Cindy and I were bored the other night so we rented the dance movie “Step Up” which came out a few months ago. I’m kind of a sucker for these formula dance movies which always seem to have the same basic plotline:
Uncouth street dancer meets prissy “professional” dancer through some contrived scenario (community service, partner breaks ankle, trapped in elevator, etc)
Comedic montage of them trying to perform together
Disapproving authority figures warn them about the dangers of mixing their styles
Slowly they realize that the other person is good at what they do, and begin to blend their styles
Appreciation turns to romance
Show-stopping dance performance shows the world how cool they are
Kissing scene leads to credit roll.
See for reference: "Take the Lead," “Strictly Ballroom,” “Save the Last Dance,” “Breakin,” and “Dance with Me.” (Oh, and “Drumline” substituting drums for dancing.) I find them all wonderfully terrible.
So Cindy and I were ready to enjoy trashing this new dance movie. But I have to admit that we were both much more entertained by the flick than we anticipated.
Gotta love this new video from the SavetheInternet.com folks. It clearly and cogently describes the issue and what you can do to defend freedom of expression on the internet. Awesome stuff.
I had a beautiful day at the New York Comic Con hanging with my buddy Frank and thousands of other comic lovers. Despite the teeming hordes, I actually ended up running into several people I knew, which was fun, including scifi author David Mack, who had a couple of his books for sale at the Midtown comics booth. David says that the New York Comic Con is actually much more comic-focused than the much-larger San Diego comic convention, which tends to draw the big film studios and other related industry groups.
The NY Comic Con did feel very grassrootsy, with lots of animated conversations going on between comic artists and fans, as well as RPG, cosplay, scifi and anime lovers. The highlight for me was sitting front row at a panel discussion with Marvel comic artists, inkers and the immortal Stan Lee. Stan the Man was in great form, clearly enjoying the adulation of the fans.
So I'm off to New York Comic Con in just a few minutes! Zillions of comic, manga, graphic novel, action figure, and gaming exhibitors crammed into the Jacob Javitz Cetner. I'm so excited about all the nerdy goodness! W00T!
While not necessarily $100 laptop compatible, the program is designed to run on virtually an PC with speakers or headphones. There's even a flash-based version that you can try out online.
I just finished reading the fascinating study "The Unbearable Likeness of Being Digital: The Persistence of Nonverbal Social Norms in Online Virtual Environments" led by Nick Yee of Stanford University, with Jeremy N. Bailenson, Mark Urbanek, Francis Chang, and Dan Merget. Yee et al. were interested in examining if norms about social space in the real world map into how avatars act in relation to each other in virtual space. To study this, they examined dyadic (two-person) interactions in Second Life, carefully measuring how close two avatars were in relation to each other and calculating their "eye gaze sum," i.e. to what degree the avatars were looking at each other while interacting. Their basic findings were that, similar to the real world, male-male dyads tend to stand further from other and look at each other much less than female-female dyads.
It's a fascinating phenomenon that I hope they do a more in-depth examination of.
I got an interesting email the other day from Amil Husain of the UN Millennium Campaign regarding a new series of educational games they wish to produce to run on Negroponte's $100 laptop:
My agency at the United Nations is entering into a partnership with the NGO, One
Laptop Per Child who have produced a
really amazing $100 laptop for children 6-16... Our unit wishes to produce entertaining game modules for the laptop
on the Millennium Development Goals (8 Goals agreed to by every country in the
world in 2000 which if achieved would end extreme poverty by 2015).I
was looking for assistance finding game developers who have experience
translating difficult development issues into entertaining
games.
As much as I support the vision of the Millennium Goals as political mobilizing tools, I have to admit I have a hard time imagining what kinds of "entertaining game modules" on the Millennium Goals could possibly be created. But here are some suggestions...
Just popped into SL to catch a possibly spontaneous protest against any US military action against Iran. There are twenty-some avatars gathered at the Capitol Hill sim holding signs and shouting slogans at each other. Apparently this protest was a reaction to Iran's defiance of the Security Council resolution calling on them to stop their uranium enrichment program by today. Someone is shooting off some rather spectacular particle effects, which is quite pretty. After the jump see what passes for "dialogue" at the protest. Clearly somebody is pretty upset.
(Story broken by the SL Herald, as far as I can tell.)
UPDATE 2/23/07, 6PM: Errcheck Hicks tells me that some people are planning to organize a regular protest on Saturdays at noon. So drop in with your signage if you want to participate.
In January, I posted some comments about and pictures of the impressive "Roma" ancient Rome build created by Torin Golding (teleport SLURL). Since then, I've received a request to create a video showing the historic sim for those who aren't in Second Life.
I threw this video together over the weekend. (The video might take a minute or two to queue up. Go direct to Blip.tv if you have problems viewing this. Or check out the much crappier YouTube version.) Enjoy!
