A Few Words on Tonights Dr Who

It was shit.

SecondFest - First Impressions

I was at DJ Jenns (and top one by the way fella) set with Kiralette as the sun went down on Intel1. I made a point of heading over to SecondFest early, before I got too blown away by the obligatory AM IM storm, pressured into RL stuff, and the good lady got out of bed.


There's a lot of cool interactive stuff to do as well as the music and movies, and I'll be back over the weekend (off to RL Ikea now to look for more media storage solutions). A lot needs groups of folks to activate, which works nicely for the social side of things, and there seems loads to poke around at and investigate further. The freebies are a bit half arsed, but it's not targeted at folks who can build lets be honest.


It was a bit quiet, it was early and there's just not that many of us UK residents I guess. Oddly, it had that early morning fest feeling to it when I was there (except for the obligatory pill come-down, the quests for doughnuts and the baggy eyed hong-over). Odd icons like locked up camera trucks and a single half naked bloke still dancing in the dance tent. I'll try and get back later for 'Coldcut' at least.

Go, it's got potential for shits-and-gigggles and it's crawling in Brits with being marketed at the Guardian GMT crowd. There's a full what's on listing HERE.

Belper Against Tesco Superstore

This just goes to show the local feeling, or some off the local feeling anyway, about the proposed Tesco Superstore in our local village of Belper. It was made by a couple of junior filmmakers from Belper School, Edward and Lucy Stephenson and shows the developments potential effect on the town.

Belper doesn't need a Tescos. Most of the less apathetic people in Belper don't want a Tescos in our town. Dex wrote about this a while ago, and I can't honestly add much to his splendid commentary so the facts and figures are best reference there.

There's a lot of documented worry about the tactics of Tescos. Tesco now controls 30% of the grocery market in the UK. In 2007, the supermarket chain announced over £2.5 billion in profits. Growing evidence indicates that Tesco's success is partly based on trading practices that are having serious consequences for suppliers, farmers and workers worldwide, local shops and the environment. This part of the country is beautiful. I'd like it to stay that way and for commerce to stay in a village setting as the small retail outlets and moderate local supermarkets we have already. We have Morrison's, it has a pie counter, why would we possibly need owt else?

Please, if you do have an interest in stopping this retail giant stomping rough shod all over our World Heritage Site, then do visit the good folks at Belper Against Tesco Superstore and register your concerns.

In small way, by posting this, it's eased my moral conscience. I can now afford to be flippant at the end and leave you with this Time Trumpet classic:



For further reading, see the pdf briefing "If Tesco really Wants to be Green" by Friends of the Earth, and this press release on the environment fund and waste.

77 Million Paintings

Tomorrow, at 8pm SLT, The Long Now Foundation will kick off the SL premiere of Brian Eno's 77 Million Paintings. This is in sync with the RL American premiere in San Francisco.

Why do I give a shit? Glad you asked. To quote Metaversed:

"The event will open 8 PM on Kula 1 [SLUrl] at The Commons amphitheater which is a four SIM capacity installation, with an interview of Second Life artist Angrybeth Shortbread at the opening. Angrybeth developed the 77 Million Paintings remix in Second Life."

My good friend AB, and old RL business partner, is heading up the SL side of things. This means it'll be ground breaking, breathtaking and all-round good :-)

Here's the openings across Second Life in time order, with each location having its own unique installation:

1. 8 pm Kula 1 through Kula 4
2. 8:30pm PDT/SLT at Art Center in Avignon
3. 9 PM at Leeds College of Art and Design at The Collective
4. 9:30pm PDT/SLT at Ars Virtua in Seventh Eye
5. 10:00pm PDT/SLT with Jeremy Neumann, Hooper Sim

The best of luck old girl. I'll pop in to The Collective one for sure ;-)

Caledon: The Movie

I'm not usually one for acknowledging the other Caledon blogs here, that's his knib's job, but the post on Bardhaven entitled Caledon The Motion Picture had me chortling into my Nescafe this lunchtime in a 'you have to know em' kinda way.

I've been meaning to do another movie trailer in SL, and will as time permits. I rather fancy a "Carry on Caledon" parody ("Bloomin' eck Jess Patterson, that's a monstrous great erection you got there for the Guvnah" etc., sorry Jess). Trying to prioritise my SL time and spend a bit more time with the Mrs, so not holding my breath on the Machinima front 'till the pop corn hits the screen on O'Tools epic.

Anyway, Oolon's Hugh Laurie apparently, and I can see that. Terry is Sandra Bullock (but I'd go with Tamsin Grieg, for the low budget vote). I must add some more :-)

Getting Home Tonight

This was my journey home tonight. I cobbled it together for our You&Yesterday Derbyshire history site. Nice to record stuff with a purpose :-)

I edited out all my swearing when I was balancing on the litter bin in Darley Park trying to get shots. The Rugby Ground was a moving lake and I had to cycle round the long way to get up to Makeney. The video don't do some of it justice, but video never does. Kinda good fun, cycling through that, but it's killing folks all over the country and I'm bloody glad we don't still live on the boat.

Another 3 days of this rain still to come. Gird those loins.

SaveNetRadio Silence

Internet radio broadcasters have called for a Day of Silence today to make a point and raise awareness against the royalty rate increase that could put most of them out of business. The planned silence is to show what the stations will really sound like if the rate increase goes through.

ShoutCast, today, is pretty much shut.

I listen to Internet Radio a lot in SL, I have my favourite stations and my friends stations playing in all my parcels (both personal and professional) and American Congress is going to ruin this for this for the home and international audience. Do they credit the awareness these sites have brought about in the international listener? I listen to radio, it makes my buy things, that's the pay-off, I'm fine with that, I give them dollars.

Anyway, this was done once before (this Day of Silence) back in May '02 when stations were facing a royalty rate increase, and the that Day of Silence was pretty successful. This year’s Day of Silence will be supported by the big Internet broadcasters too (the last one was geared toward the smaller stations). This is cool of the big guys as they won’t be anywhere nearly as badly affected by the changes as a smaller Internet broadcaster will.

I'd miss my "1920's Radio Network" in the ETC, my "Radio Riel" at Mayfair, my "Whaling Songs & Sea Shanties" at The Salty Mermaid in Kittiwickshire, the raging hardcore Amsterdam techno on the skyplat at New Beach and the "Sky Classics" in the office etc. but I'm UK/GMT and I can't barrage Congress and ask them to support the Internet Radio Equality Act. I hope someone reading this can on my behalf, or SL is gonna be a pretty quiet place.

Classy Facebook

I just read a smashing little article in todays Guardian that flagged up social networking websites increasingly splitting along class lines, this according to Danah Boyd (the internet sociologist and researcher at the University of California). The article has a great quote:

"A month ago, the military banned MySpace but not Facebook. This was a very interesting move because there's a division, even in the military. Soldiers are on MySpace; officers are on Facebook."

And Facebook has taken off of late (especially in my immediate social circle) faster than greased weasel shit off a highly chromed shovel. Good on Zuckerberg. Something useful, addictive, and a bloody grand marketing tool for us.

Brace for widgets.

Second Earth

Just in case you missed this article on virtual metaverse mash-ups and the future of SL/GoogleEarth, check it out at TechnologyReview. A bit waffly but some nice facts and figures :-)

Twitter from Skype

Here’s a little secret I found today on pacificit.ca. There is a Skype robot which will post to your Twitter account. Here are the simple instructions (pirated direct off Robert Sanzalone post):

1. Add twitter4skype as a contact.
2. Type the following as a single chat message to twitter4skype:
   
   /account (shift+return)
   yourtwitteraccountname (shift+return)
   yourtwitteraccountpassword (shift+return)

3. The system should return: twitter4skype Registration complete!
4. The next time you write a chat message to twitter4skype, the entry will appear on your account and you’ll receive your friends’ twitters in Skype.

It works too. Thanks geeza :-)

Here Come the Drums

If you missed tonight's Dr Who, this was the highlight, as it played diageticly when 6 billion mythical Toclafane went screeching in to Earth laying waste to the populace...



...other than a bit of Rogue Traders, the sexily insane Lucy Saxon, a tasty old school Gallifey moment and a few mediocre in gags, it was another cold fish.

Damn I wish the Master had just the whiff of a goatie and I might buy in.

Machinima Fest

The first European Machinima Festival will be held with De Montfort University's Institute of Creative Technologies from October 12 to October 14. It'll have workshops, an awards ceremony, etc.

Prof Andrew Hugill, director of the Leicester university's creative technologies institute, said:

"Machinima is a phenomenon which is capturing the imagination of individuals and communities including games players and filmmakers.

"We aim to bring these communities together and open up the exciting possibilities of Machinima to a wider audience."

Cool.

Quote

Cruising for SecondFest stuff and found this priceless quote on the Guardian site:

"I'm always divided on Second Life. On the one hand I would like to salute Linden Labs for a pretty visionary project with some excellent coding that will no doubt go down in internet history. On the other, laggy furry goth-twat land."

It's funny cos it's true.

More SecondFest News

I'm liking this more and more.

Guardian and Intels massive Virtual Festival 'SecondFest" on Friday 29 June at 6pm GMT (10am SLT) and till midnight (GMT) Sunday night, is now advertising head liners Underworld, The Pet Shop Boys, Hot Chip, Groove Armada, WireDaisies, Clayton, Strangefates, VLB and grid Djs Doubledown Tandino, and DJs DJ Jens, Rob da Bank, Gilles Peterson, a'la Sunday Best, Bugged Out, Ninja Tunes and shit loads more.

Two cinemas with offline blockbusters, BBC short films and Second Life machinima. Wandering thesps and musos, Rocky Horror, ballet, theatre, secret stages, human mazes, mud pit on Sunday! Map as promised.

There, me, in wellies.

Photosynth on Test at BBC

Live Labs have been working with the BBC on a time limited technical trial of Photosynth to support the new 'How We Built Britain' series.

My good SL friend Virrginina will like this, as viewers will be able to check out 'synths' of the likes of the Royal Crescent (in Bath), Ely Cathedral, Burghley House, Trafalgar Square, the Scottish Parliament Buildings, and (my face) the Blackpool Tower Ballroom at http://labs.live.com/photosynth/bbc/.

Now, lets just add a metaverse backbone to this, some Mok3 style, maybe a bit of EveryScape, then add Google Earth, chuck it on a table in 'Microsoft Surface' , add some Skype elements and optional streaming facial recognition elements (for web cam to AV emotion stuff) and combine with projects like RomeReborn etc.

Then I can die a happy chap ;-)

Blogging Toolbox

Excellent post and list of resources for the bloggers: Blogging Toolbox: 120+ Resources for Bloggers by Stan Schroeder, Livia Iacolare, Rodney Rumford, Scott Allen, James Mowery, Todd Carter & Ben Gold.

Big thanks to the good folks at Mashable for strapping this together.

SecondFest

Come one, come all, to SecondFest.

Now this could be interesting. I bet Brad will be there selling pills, so he can probably get me in.

A little bird tells me that if you go to the map and look for "Intel 1" then that's the chillout island. Pet Shop Boys, Groove Armada, New Young Pony Club etc., plus Bugged Out (the primo UK nightclub) are putting in a big appearance as well as Radio 1 DJs.

This is probably one of the biggest things as recognition for SL, like, ever, and the fact its done by the Guardian will mean its going to at least get a pull-out section. Brace for noobs ;-)

I'm going. Weekend after next. Who's coming? I wonder it there will be mud?

More, and map, to follow.

Cold Turkey

Big ass lightning storm here, and now my connection is goobered. The power cut during Doctor Who last night was the nail in the coffin.

This has me wondering (at the synconicity of Oolon regenerating then him being unable to move from the sofa in the TARDIS if nowt else) if there is such a thing as metaverse withdrawal? Is this the tell tale beginning signs of metaverse addiction? Possibly. That said, I read a survey not long ago stating that one of the most stressful thing sited by people in modern business was the inability to access ones email, and this could well be the same thing. An avenue of communication and interaction severed?

I have no phone engineer 'till Thursday afternoon and this has given me an odd hollow sensation.

My SL buddies have rallied round and are sitting chatting with me sacrificing their own SL time to keep yours truly from 'feeling down'. There is a genuine sense of concern for their fallen comrade. Friends are still friends, even when virtual. I like that, but I don't half feel a bit of a albatross. Funny how I can't remember what I used to do, and with The Mrs being away in France there's no release or common sense there.

In all sincerity, television is incredibly passive now. Blogging is so very 2006. My attention span, hampster-like as it is, can do no more that 1/2 an hour of Facebook. YouTube holds no surprises any more. My Flikr login is sending me round in circles and being a twot. I spend my work day trolling tech-based RSS now, so that just work really. I'll have to sink into Wikipedia I guess.

Notice how gardening, exercise, or RL constructive and productives were not an option. Looks like I'm cold Turkey for a while.

Madness?!

Gonna Be One Of Those Days

Wish me luck. His knibs regenerates tonight. An interesting social experiment in a metaverse environment.I think. All role-play led for the big plot thingy with the Time Lords. How will people see him afterwards just for a different AV? Should be interesting going to from pretty -boy to, well, I wouldn't want to spoil anything...

Got a decent bottle of red. Some snacks. Some good stuff I can just cut and paste. No interruptions. Laughin'.

The Future of Virtual?

Picture this, inherent to a metaverse environment.

It makes we want to touch myself.

SL Still Bringin' Em In

I see the Japanese politician, Kan Suzuki, is officially the first politician to jump with both feet onto the rolling SL bandwagon. He's gone and opened a 'cyber office' on our crazy little flat Earth. I ask ya, is nothing sacred?

A "valid experiment to determine how virtual society and politics can interact" or another load of hyped up media cock by some no name back bencher to get his name in the popular rags? I know where money is.

See this story on the Beeb website.

I ran a search for him on Google this morning, and all I could find was the reports on this story and a stub on Wikipedia. Now, that says a lot to me that does...

One for Kira?

If I could strap one of these to my feline friend in SL I would, alas I can't but I can to Pixie. Actually, scratch that, when his-knibs isn't around I shudder to think what Kira gets up to ;-)

I have just purchased, at a bargain price I must say, a CatCam.

Yes, a CatCam.

Pixie being Pixie, I expect many charming polaroids of the window ledge, the food dish, my knee, and the comfiest chairs and warmest sweaters in everybody else's houses in our row.

I will post results ;-)

Ok Who

Reasonable Dr. Who tonight I thought. All right Daz, yeah, fair enough, a pretty good Dr. Who tonight...

...bastards. Now I'll have to bloody well go back and watch all the cock I missed from the last 4 weeks for being stubborn.

5 Doctors Revisited

Parts 1 & 2. Genius...

Hitlers Downfall

You & Yesterday on the 18th

Had the opening do for You & Yesterday on the 18th of last, and here's some footage I finally wrangled together for Sian.



Hope that's okay ducks ;-)

Bike Hating Whore Hoppers?

I got an email from Ph@tBoy just now.

PROPOSED ANTI CYCLIST CHANGES TO HIGHWAY CODE - SIGN THE PETITION

Would you mind being forced to use cycle paths (even when you have to slowly negotiate about 15 junctions when you could have easily cycled straight down the main road)? If you would mind then read on...

Your right to ride on the road is in jeopardy. The revised Highway Code says cyclists should "use cycle facilities where possible". If this Code is approved, cyclists will effectively lose the right to ride on the road where there are alternative routes or adjacent facilities. The implications of this are too bad to contemplate. First we will suffer more abuse and intimidating driving. Second, if a cyclist is involved in an accident and tries to claim damages, the insurance companies are likely to argue that the rider contributed to the accident by not using the cycle facility.

The Highway Code has been laid before parliament. It will automatically be approved unless it is referred to a House of Commons Committee which cannot amend it and can only recommend the whole document be rejected. It will take an unprecedented amount of adverse publicity to persuade the government to reject the Highway Code in its entirety.

It is interesting to note that 35 MP's objected to the original revised wording. Unfortunately, the replacement wording is no better. Only 11,000 objections were received to the previous wording. If this Highway Code is approved by government cyclists will effectively lose the right to ride on the road where there are alternative routes or adjacent facilities.

Please register your name on the petition and persuade others to do the same.

Slyly worded (Labour-style) stuff. The amount I slam my face into oncoming vehicles this could cost me dearly (not that the police ever catch the buggers or I ever see a damn penny anyway).

I think this might be cobblers, and so does Ph@tBoy, but this could have repercussions and better safe than sorry...

Celebration IV SW Preview

Funniest damn SW parody in years :-)

Oh, and if ya interested, the new Clone Wars trailer is out :-)

Fried Mechinima Gold

Filming for SL RFL "50 seconds over Neualtenburgh" today. A long one, but some scenes of beauty. Starting the edit next week.

Big thanks to Hotspur, Gabbi, V, Terry, OldSage, Mr Newall etc., plus our million long suffering performers sat in blimps all day.

2 x 20" windscreen LCD monitors have given me a bloody sun tan today. Knackered now. Been at this since 12. I need my bed.

Resignation

The sun says the Dr Who team is quitting I see.

Apparently Russell T. Davies and his mob have decided to up sticks to concentrate on other projects and will all resign as a group in summer 2008.

Who has left me cold of late. I'm not going to cry myself to sleep.

Caledon Expects

Ever thought about a career at sea? Fancy a spanky new uniform and loads of other goodies? Come join the navy. We're like the Caledon boosters, with rum and really big hats...

We're having a recruitment event at the Salty Mermaid by the hub in Kittiwickshire. Come down and get ya self some grog. Tis a free bar from 2pm SLT 'till 6. The 9th of June, '07.

Do your bit for your sim. Come on over, find out more, and join in the wholesome nautical shinaigans. We need you to help us run events and social gatherings on behalf of Caledon and good Admiral Shang. Let's help celebrate Caledon.

Why not volunteer to be:

A Captain - Those who pledge to routinely provide lands for events to be held upon...

Lieutenant - Those who do "during event" services, like providing djing, coding interactive "things" for the various events (games, dancecards & such)...

A Midshipman - Would be those who do more of a preparatory thing, making signs, getting decoration stuff if need be...

A Sailor - chap or chapess who passes the good word about events, or mighte be on hand at events to explain things (like how games work, how to get from the hub)...

A Naval Auxiliary - any sturdy lad of lass who wants a pin and a mug. Perfect for those who want to help if they can (but who don't want to be too relied on) :-)

So come on down for dancing, games, fun, and grog. 2pm SLT, 'till 6 (or 'till we drink the bar dry). Prizes for best arm wrestler!

All the nice girls, boys, and furry creatures of indeterminate gender, love a sailor!