Just posted about a mini-milestone for the Second Life mobile app with a fairly hilarious twist — join my Patreon for free to read that and much more!
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Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Faringdon is, I believe, a cat. Most of their Flickr images (and their Flickr profile pic) are of a Siamese pic in Second Life, exploring and photographing themselves in the virtual world.
Everyone knows cats love books, even on a Kindle. Though, I confess my cat has a love/hate relationship with my Kindle. When I am reading, it is an impediment to receiving 100% of my attention and she often tries to insert herself between me and the Kindle. When it is laying down on the end table, though, she lovingly chews on its corners and lays on it, keeping it as hidden as she can make it. I love the titles of these books, so very to the point.
For more from Faringdon, click here:
I love when a classic science fiction concept becomes a practical reference point in current technology, and that happened during the most recent Town Hall in Second Life, when a user challenged Linden Lab CTO Philip Rosedale over his excitement around A.I., most recently seen with the company's partnership launch of AI-powered NPCs in SL.
Asking: "Look, I understand that Philip loves his A.I. and thinks it's the future, but I don't understand the insane push and force it in Second Life. Will AI rally around a creator when their pet is sick? Will AI support people when their parent dies? What do you have to say to that?"
Here's Philip's answer in full, replete with that perfect Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep reference:
Meta pirated millions of books to train its AI, the Atlantic recently reported, including mine. There's even a helpful look-up tool here to find if your favorite author is in Meta's training set, which is where I got the screenshot above.
I'm not sure how I'll protest, but it does bring up a related topic I've been thinking about lately:
Does it even make sense to feed my latest book into an LLM?
I’ve had friends / colleagues ask me something like that in recent years: “How about we upload your book into an LLM, so everyone can easily ask anything about it?”
For instance, as the head of an AI company put it to me, explaining how this can be done:
"I worked on a project where we hook near a petabyte of data to a LLM that just looped through doing research on authors of Gutenberg books. Then we turned the books into interactive books read by the authors own voice/style.”
My immediate answer to the idea is on the order of: “Hmm, no that’s OK.”
My more thoughtful, considerate answer is: “Fuck no I mean holy shit that’s not even how my book works. Jesus.”
In case you’re curious — and the question keeps coming up, so I guess some people are — let me explain with more details and less cursing, specifically around Making a Metaverse That Matters:
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Miranda Siabonne recently posted “❤️” which is well-named because ❤️ describes how I felt when I saw it. I have a soft spot in my heart for clotheslines. Sure, you have to duck if you’re riding your bike on the lawn, but if you have ever taken in sheets from the line you know what fresh smells like.
Slipping into clean sheets that have dried in the open air is an unforgettable feeling. Sure, the fabric is not as soft, but it more than makes up for it with the fresh scent. I noticed the hand-cranked clothes wringer. My sister had a new washer and dryer and still used the old fashioned one with open tubs and a wringer, though her wringer was not hand-cranked. It would have been safer if it has been. My job was to take the clothes off the wringer while she fed them in. Feeding the wringer was no fun because you’re bound to get your fingers pinched a time or two.
I also love the abundance of vines, bushes, and flowers and the uncut grass. This is a yard for butterflies and other insects to feed and proliferate. Restoring the world!
For more virtual natural beauty from Miranda, click here:
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Gino Ginelli posted “Short Days and Long Nights” (above) in a brand-new Flickr group that was founded yesterday, one that seems exactly like what we need now. It’s called Realistic Second Life, Is It Possible? The advancements of Second Life, especially improvements in environment controls and PBR, there have been so many pics that may we wonder, is it Second Life or is it life?
Avelith, the founder, writes in the group description:
Today I created a group in which I want to collect the most realistic looking pictures taken in Second Life. Portraits, staged photographs of couples, landscapes, still lifes… But all of them should be characterized by maximum realism, realistic lighting, realistic interior or exterior, realistic-looking avatars in realistic poses. Do you think this is a possible task? Let's try to trick our eyes! I'll be picky…
In just one day, the group has grown to 46 members and 125 pictures. I can’t wait to see its future.
For more realistic Second Life, click here:
Above: Radio Remembered How a Father's Lost Art From Second Life was Reborn in Fortnite
Good points by "EmptyEyes", reflecting on how algorithms tend to homogenize metaverse platforms:
Metaverses are weird beasts, outside of Fortnite, it feels like they refuse to compete with one another. They're like MMOs in that sense.
They cater very strongly to their existing communities and don't really try and change things too much for fear of upsetting those communities.
Trying to appeal to their "average" player only leads them to a slow death. They should be trying to capture as many diverse player groups as possible.
As you eluded to, social media sites understand this. The average is not truly mass market appeal. Mass market appeal is giving everyone exactly what they're looking for when they're looking for it.
In some mediums you just have to settle for the average, in others, like this space, you don't. If VRChat, Roblox, Rec Room, Second Life all appeal to different niches then that means there's lots of room to grow. Take something from them all. They are clear targets that you can say, "Hey I want to convert some of VRChat's players, lets add x, y, and z to make that happen."
Fortnite does this. I don't play myself (it lacks deep home decorating, character customization, adult content, and roleplay that's competitive with SL), but you can do so many things in Fortnite. You can build if you want, you can race, you can fight, you can play Rock Band, and so much more. There are so many niche audiences that it serves.
Also I'm not saying alienate your core audience. I'm saying that if you have the resources, you should grow your audience. Ensure your appeal doesn't drop to core users, appeal to new audiences as well, and then support them both.
Bonus points if you choose to grow into audiences that are at the intersection of large and easy to appeal to.
This connects nicely with the recent conversation around advertising Second Life. It's a mistake to create a marketing strategy based on what only seems to be the most popular activity in SL — social fashion roleplay — when that ignores the many multiple niches of other communities creating content that has a proven existing market. For instance:
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 