NPIRL fashion sometimes obeys the laws of geometry and thrift

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

While both the Spring and Summer catwalks for 2009 featured fashion with a geometric - even architectural – construction, Alpha Auer (aka Elif Ayiter) kicked that up a notch under her label Alpha Tribe. What’s more, whether she is aware of it or not, she’s in tune with the global economic mood. During the great Depression, a popular maxim was "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without:" To create her latest outfit, Deagu, Alpha Auer recycled a poster she had designed for an invitational exhibition at the Daegu Culture and Arts Center in Daegu, Korea in 2006.

On her blog Strange Pixels, Grady Echegaray seemed to be invoking the Gods when she composed her post about Daegu: "I can feel them. They are coming again. Sweeping in over the shoulder of Orion."


Daegu, as modded, modeled and photographed by Grady Echegaray


The Deagu headdress, as modded, modeled and photographed by Grady Echegaray

To obtain your own Daegu outfit teleport directly from here.

Something wicked good this way comes, and it is happening today

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

All those survey numbers and spreadsheets are beginning to register what most Residents of the bustling city that is our Second Life® already know firsthand: Virtual worlds for more than games are popping with potential for the serious stuff… business, education, science, and the arts. The naysayers are still out there, Twittering about how they don’t even have enough time for their first life, etc., etc., but they are off-world. They aren’t here to witness how this 3D world is getting stickier than molasses.

While the Real World is staggering in a recession economy, this virtual world is humming merrily to the tune of $120M in user-to-user transactions during the 1st Quarter of 2009, up 65% from the same quarter last year. Moreover, according to a recent in-world business study, 20% of Second Life’s businesses earn all their income in Second Life, with approximately 2,000 full time businesses in operation.

At the very heart of this bubbling stew is an organization called Metanomics that explores the serious uses of virtual worlds in the company of tout le monde: the executives, educators and artists that are making it all happen. It’s a virtual talk show. It’s a forum for hundreds of conversations going on simultaneously at a dizzying rate of speed, both in voice and in text chat. In fact, I defy you to attend any of these sessions without perceiving… without recognizing that something really important is going on: potential and yes, even success.


The new set and studio for Metanomics - Photo by Keystone Bouchard

Something wicked good this way comes today, and it’s big. For as long as I can recall (and I rezzed in January of 2007), the leadership of Linden Lab, the company that owns and operates the platform of Second Life - and governs it, too – has gone into hiding whenever the Residents of the world they created convene. But changes are afoot, and the citizens have been in agreement lately… dare I say it? Linden Lab is starting to step out. The Lindens are actually becoming involved with, and becoming a part of the Second Life community.

Oh, they still infuriate us with unsurprising regularity over one thing or another, but I can’t begin to tell you how welcome their participation is. The more we communicate, the better things get… and stickier… and more fun. And successful.

So it is with mild astonishment that I find myself typing the following words: Today, May 6th at 1:00pm SLT, a real first… M Linden (aka Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab), will join host Beyers Sellers (aka Robert Bloomfield) for the kick-off of Metanomics' new season at its sparkling new studio and set created by acclaimed award winner and architect Keystone Bouchard (much more on that structure soon).

Something wicked good this way comes, indeed.

Teleport to it directly from here.

Fun with prim math - What would YOU do if you had 45,000 prims at your disposal?

While many of us are agonizing over how to cope with Second Life®'s upcoming 750 prim limitations for the same Openspace sims that were sold to us with 3,750 prim allocations, I can't help wondering what you would do if you had FORTY FIVE THOUSAND prims to play with on your sim.

Consider, too, that each of those 45,000 prims is scaleable to 100m....

Indeed, you can purchase a single Openlife Grid region within a private cluster for $145 with $75 monthly tier.

And yes, your ankles will often sink into the grid, your avatar may bounce dizzingly, and even endless Ctrl Alt R's (rebake) won't save your often sorry bald self from a bad case of the greys. It's not a grid for the vain. Yet.

No charge for texture uploads, either. Yet. I imagine this will change when Openlife's new economy kicks in by the end of the year.

Many thanks to Osiris Indigo who sent in this photograph of a playful moment over at one of the more viable alternatives to Second Life, the Openlife. He reports that it was "rather easy and stable," to do.


45,000 prims! by Osiris Indigo (Click to see large)

Seriously, what would you do with 45,000 prims on your sim?

Will the economic crash spell boom times ahead for virtual worlds?

This strikes me as a pivotal time in the history of virtual worlds. Not long after establishing residence in Second Life®, I became convinced that a major act of terrorism would prompt millions of new users - cocooning at home out of fear - to begin exploring the metaverse. I am now thinking that the economic crash may have the same effect, only this time because people will not be able to afford most entertainment, travel and other recreational offerings.

Early and frequent users in my circles were already reporting an acceleration in fresh technologies and creative developments and while the number of new Second Life users may have plateaued recently, as reported by Hamlet Au (aka James Wagner Au) of New World Notes, the people who are active participants are becoming more so.

While I, too, can feel that the pace in Second Life is picking up - though admittedly I can only substantiate this claim by pointing to blogpost after blogpost by my colleagues Hamlet Au, Dusan Writer and Robert Bloomfield of Metanomics, among others - I suspect that wide-spread adoption will be swift and deep when it does happen, transforming every aspect of society as we know it.

In my view, the only barriers to entry at this critical point in history will be the technical requirements to run Second Life. Most of us await further developments with HTML (the web) on a prim, as well as other expected breakthroughs, but I don't believe that they are essential to bringing in hordes of bored and financially strapped new users. I suppose the next question might be... are these the kinds of tourists that the metaverse is prepared to welcome?

Virtual fashions: recycle and reuse that scrap metal in times of economic and environmental woes

With the global economy (and my own) getting slammed every which way, most of my near-future fashion pleasures will likely be derived from the works of virtual designers because, among other things, I'll be spending more time in-world and not going out in Real Life as much, pixelated clothes don't suffer from wear and tear, and I can generally mod them if I grow weary of them. But the #1 reason, for me, is that I love, love, love the new directions that several designers are taking in Second Life®.

One such designer is German cutea Benelli (rez 3/10/2007) who's Grim Bros shop delighted surreal artist and humorist four Yip so much that she thought to share her find.

cutea's brainy collection - she calls it "cyberpunk thingies" - couldn't come at a better time. We must recycle and reuse every scrap...



cyberscrap

These days we aren't just recipients of information anymore. We are the information, and we must be plugged in.




synapses enhancer


information overload - cyan

Be sure to check out her many backpacks and accoutrements for the avatar who's in a special mood...


neuromechanical activator

Notably, cutea was also blotto epsilon's co-creator for the recent zany bogon flux build - a wonky, wonderful building that rezzes and destroys itself...



...and is also the co-creator - together with Giuseppe Spicoli - of the fun 15 Second Poetry Generator (teleport directly from here). When you play it, keep in mind that there are values assigned to the phrases and you lose points for collecting the clichés.

Teleport to Grim Bros. directly from here.

Max Newbold (aka Beth Harris) of the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and I are still looking for more designers of quality NPIRL fashions.