Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Red-crowned Cranes: As Rose's Watsu continues, the virtual sun begins to peek in under the tee pee

Harbin ethnography:

... with Rose Rising, things seem more harmonious.

As Rose's Watsu continues, the virtual setting sun begins to peek in through the teepee's door which is over the virtual Harbin Domes' upper pool, just as two other avatars come into the upper pool, for a scheduled Watsu class, as part of the Watsu School at the Harbin Domes. So Rose and I stop the Watsu. One of these new avatars comes from Japan both in Second Life, in real life as non-Second Life is called by avatars, and she is actually in Japan, as her avatar enters the pool; she has also visited actual Harbin. The other avatar is an instructor who lives mostly in Santa Cruz, but returns to Harbin to teach week-long, virtual, Watsu workshops. She's at actual Harbin for this workshop to teach Watsu, both virtually and actually. Not knowing about this class, we open the map of virtual Harbin by clicking on the “Mini-Map” button in the tool bar at the bottom, and look for which pools at Harbin have no avatars. Just 20 meters away, there are some green dots in the lower pool at the Harbin Domes,' indicating avatars, and there are also some in the warm pool and heart-shaped pools in the Pools' Area at Mainside across the valley. There aren't, however, any green dots representing avatars in the pools outside of the Harbin Conference Center 300 meters to the east (figure 1.10), and I've read on the actual and virtual Harbin Schedules that there's an Unconditional Dance tonight, so Rose and I fly off toward the Conference Center.
















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/red-crowned-cranes-as-roses-watsu.html - March 31, 2010)

St Kilda Wren: For 'Finding/Creating the Job you Really Love' - Teach to your Webcam at WUaS ... Network with this Portfolio into a paid position :)


For 'Finding/Creating the Job you Really Love'

Teach to your Webcam at World University & School

Network with this 'Portfolio' you make into a paid position (for example, by reading Richard Bolles "What Color is Your Parachute?" :)

Link your teaching here:
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects

... a creative approach ...


*

Finding / Creating a Job You Really Love:


http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Finding_/_creating_a_job_you_really_love


at World University & School.


















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/st-kilda-wren-for-findingcreating-job.html - March 31, 2010)

St Kilda Gannet: World University & School would like to hire a lot! of Ph.D.s but needs funding now, NYT's Open Course Ware Article, WUaS OCW Tagging

World University & School - worlduniversity.wikia.com - would eventually like to hire a lot! of Ph.D.s, but needs funding & resources now.


*

New York Times Open Course Ware article: nytimes.com/2010/03/31/education/31iht-riedopen.html -
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com lists all of the content mentioned in this article - now for tagging and labeling.


*

It's tags & labels to knit MIT Open Course Ware, UC Berkeley Webcasts (webcast.berkeley.edu), youtube.com/edu at worlduniversity.wikia.com that will make it sing.












St. Kilda Gannett

west-scotland-tourism.com/ardnamurchan-charters/gannets/Gannet_Fly8.jpg






(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/st-kilda-gannet-world-university-school.html - March 31, 2010)

St Kilda Fulmar: Harbin, as milieu, is its church (Heart Consciousness Church) including the waters

Harbin, as milieu, is its church (Heart Consciousness Church) including the waters, Watsu, the 60's influences, the freedom, retreat vision, the clothing-optionalness, the community that happens on-goingly so amorphously - residents and visitors ...



*
Fulmar -
northamptonshirewildlife.co.uk/images/fulmar.jpg


*

St. Kilda (1886):




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Kilda,_Scotland
















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/st-kilda-fulmar-harbin-as-milieu-is-its.html - March 31, 2010)

St Kilda Puffin: Vote with your web cam, Teach what you love at a democratic, open, free, teaching & learning WIKI, WUaS free, video, hosting sites

Vote with your web camera at worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects. Teach what you love at this democratic, open, free, teaching & learning WIKI - editable web pages - University & School, - to youtube.com or blip.com, for example. There are lots of free, video, hosting sites at worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Educational_Software Remember what they say on election day vis-a-vis World University and School - Vote/Teach early and often!


*

St. Kilda Puffin:

chetwynd.info/images/puffins/St_kilda_puffin_1.jpg




















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/st-kilda-puffin-vote-with-your-web-cam.html - March 31, 2010)

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Linden Tree: In Ancient Athens, Solon First Institutionalized Free, Public Education for Citizens Paid for by Government, What Wiki-Add You?

In ancient Athens, Solon first institutionalized Free, Public education for citizens, paid for by the government (see Will Durant's' "Life of Greece"). Let's create a WIKI, free, public World University together http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University for all ... democratic education :)


*

Listening to Will Durant's 'Life of Greece.' Acheans were hard & violent. Life was ' Pan trodlodytes,' or common chimp-ish, - not Bonobo, then.

... lots of articulations with anthropology here in Durant's "Life of Greece" - an overview of group - various Greek subcultures - interactions


*

Ancient Greek Landscape:
istad.org/odyssey/delphi/sikyonian-treasury.jpg



*

added about 15 new & updated MIT courses to World University & School worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects. What would you like to See, Teach, Add?


*

added 2 new MIT courses to 'Mechanical Engineering' subject - World Univ & Sch: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Mechanical_Engineering ... Invitation to teach


*

... particularly likes the virtual hospital in Second Life (SL) at worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects as the site for a medical school & care facility ...

wonders when teaching at the virtual hospital in SL at worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects care facility will begin... Now? Invitation to teach ...


*

What add you to 'Finding/Creating a Job You Really Love' at http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects - besides "What Color is Your Parachute" & Monty Python "Flying Circus" Job Interview :)?

worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Finding_/_creating_a_job_you_really_love











(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/linden-tree-in-ancient-athens-solon.html - March 30, 2010)

Weiflower: After just a few minutes of virtual floating, your new avatar friend says she wants earplugs

Harbin ethnography:


After just a few minutes of virtual floating, your new avatar friend says she wants earplugs, because, in real life, water in her ears give her problems. You tell her that there are ear plugs available in the virtual Harbin Market, across the valley in Stonefront Lodge in Mainside area, and ask her if she'd like to fly there, before proceeding with her virtual Watsu. You add her as a Second Life friend, and she accepts, so that you'll be able to see one another, when you're both online, in case you get separated while flying there. She says yes, partly she's interested in becoming familiar with all of virtual Harbin. And from the middle of the Harbin Domes' upper pool in the middle of the Watsu, you both fly up, not naked, and she follows you across the valley through the virtual air, to the Water Way sculpture path, between Stonefront Lodge and the Azalea guest rooms, where you both land unceremoniously with a splat' among the trees there. You walk down the winding path and enter the Market, find the ear plugs, and you pay Linden dollars at the cash register, since she doesn't have any yet. To purchase Linden dollars, you enter your actual credit card number in a Linden Lab Second Life web page, and, in exchange, Linden dollars are put into your Second Life account. With these you can purchase Second Life builds and creations, which residents build, including, for example, clothes and fashions, real estate, virtual islands, houses, and art. After getting her ear plugs you fly back to the virtual Harbin Domes' upper pool, to continue the water shiatsu. Back in the virtual water with Rose Rising, things seem more harmonious.












(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/weiflower-after-just-few-minutes-of.html - March 30, 2010)

Monday, March 29, 2010

Day's California brightness and Harbin brilliance resound


Coming home
under the moon
near the redwoods
by bubbling brook
in Canyon,
feel the coolness and
its peaceful quietness.

Day's California
brightness
and Harbin brilliance
resound.













(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/days-california-brightness-and-harbin.html - March 29 2010)

Amphipod Hopcroft: She accepts and you tell her a little about what will happen in the Watsu, After virtual floating

Harbin ethnography:


She accepts and you tell her a little about what will happen in the Watsu using the voice option in Second Life. You encourage her to relax completely in the warm water, and that with your support, she'll be able to float freely and easily. You explain how you'll draw her through the water first from her head and shoulders, exploring ease of movement in a kind of watery dance, first supporting her whole body from her neck, head and shoulders, in the crook of your arm. She says she's seen a little Watsu. You ask her to please say something, if she ever feels uncomfortable or if she knows what will feel better, or more freeing. You mention how you'll focus on her breath, and that when, after some sessions, you begin to explore more elaborate movement (for example, water spirals and somersaults), you'll synchronous your movement with her breathing. Facing one another and holding each others' hands and looking into one anothers' eyes, you begin to explore breathing movement together, virtually, where with each exhale, both of you descend in the water naturally and on the inhale, you both rise at the same time. You both smile, as you both explore how this simple movement together in virtual warm water is. You tell her you'll first just float her avatar. You draw her toward you, cradling her head in the crook of your arm. As you begin to draw her through the water, you observe how relaxed she is in the warm water, and how beautiful, and where she's might be holding, and not quite comfortable. She's smiling and at ease, with her eye's shut, happy like a baby.

After just a few minutes of virtual floating ...













(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/amphipod-hopcroft-she-accepts-and-you.html - March 29, 2010)

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Giant Malabar: Keralan World Univ and Sch, It's the kind of school / university where volunteers will make it, Please let people - Keralans - know

Hi Au,

Greetings from the San Francisco Bay Area. I think about you and your class and our meeting on the train to Ooty in 2005 sometimes, - so fun. Greetings to all of your classmates in Kerala, 5 years later.

I just want to let all of you know about the free, open, "edit this page" World University & School - like Wikipedia with MIT Open Course Ware and UC Berkeley Webcasts and so much more: worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University. I hope it will be in numerous Keralan languages, and other languages in India. There's a lot of great, free software here, as well: worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Educational_Software, and a lot more, so please feel free to look through, and to teach, add and learn. It's the kind of school / university where volunteers will make it, so please let people - your class, school and Keralans - know.

With friendly greetings,
Scott

scottmacleod.com
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects
















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/giant-malabar-keralan-world-univ-and.html - March 28, 2010)

Moon setting: Coming home under the moon


Coming Home


Coming home
under the moon
near the redwoods
in Canyon.
Feel the coolness &
its peaceful quietness.

















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/moon-setting-coming-home-under-moon.html - March 28, 2010)

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Fall Oaks in Yosemite: Transcript from Today's "Info Tech and Soc" Class on Harvard's Virtual Island, Online Alienation and Sociality Research

This is the transcript from a class I teach on Harvard's virtual island in Second Life on "Information Technology and Society."


Here's what somebody in my class wrote about World University and School, after this class: http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/act-scott-macleods-world

Thanks, Buffy :)




[11:00] Lemondrop Serendipity is Online
[11:00] go1984 Winsmore is Online
[11:00] Wibble Poplin is Online
[11:00] Dallas Trefoil is Online
[11:00] Connecting to in-world Voice Chat...
[11:00] Connected
[11:01] You decline Friends Meeting, Sea Turtle Island (188, 21, 25) from A group member named Scot Jung.
[11:01] Kevin Menczel is Offline
[11:06] Aphilo Aarde: Welcome Sandhya!
[11:06] sandhya2 Patel: hi
[11:06] sandhya2 Patel: nice to see you
[11:06] Aphilo Aarde: Nice to see you, as well :)
[11:07] Aphilo Aarde: How are things going?
[11:07] sandhya2 Patel: very well thanks
[11:07] Aphilo Aarde: :) The sun here in California is shine-singing :)
[11:07] sandhya2 Patel: it is sunny here too
[11:08] sandhya2 Patel: a beautiful day
[11:08] Aphilo Aarde: I'm glad that winter seems distant
[11:08] Aphilo Aarde: Let's wait until 10 past
[11:08] sandhya2 Patel: yes very good
[11:10] Sybex Drachnyd is Online
[11:10] You decline Welcome to Info Tech & Soc from A group member named Aphilo Aarde.
[11:11] Aphilo Aarde: Hi Sybex
[11:11] Sybex Drachnyd: hi
[11:11] Aphilo Aarde: The weather is often nice in SL ... hope it's nice where you are
[11:12] Bon McLeod is Offline
[11:12] Aphilo Aarde: So last week we talked about both early Internet governance, and
[11:12] Aphilo Aarde: the cultures which gave rise to the internet
[11:12] Aphilo Aarde: which in order of importance were
[11:13] Aphilo Aarde: 1 Technomeritocratic
[11:13] Aphilo Aarde: 2 Hacker
[11:13] Aphilo Aarde: 3 Communitarian
[11:13] Wibble Poplin is Offline
[11:13] Aphilo Aarde: and 4 Entrepreneurial - leading to the diffusion of these technologies significantly in the 1990s
[11:13] Curious George is Online
[11:14] Aphilo Aarde: Now we'll begin to explore the uses of the Internet in Society
[11:14] Aphilo Aarde: especially in terms of virtual communities and how they emerged initially.
[11:15] Bon McLeod is Online
[11:15] Aphilo Aarde: There were a lot of myths about what these technologies were doing to society, just as they were emerging.
[11:15] Aphilo Aarde: And these information technologies were widely diffused in the mid 1990s.
[11:16] Aphilo Aarde: Hello Ms. Roussel
[11:16] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[11:16] Ju Roussel: Hello Clever Ladies and Gents!
[11:16] sandhya2 Patel: hi
[11:16] Aphilo Aarde: So the World Wide Web was commercialized in December 1994
[11:16] Sybex Drachnyd: hi ju
[11:17] Aphilo Aarde: And 1995 was the first year of widespread use of the internet communication
[11:17] Aphilo Aarde: The first survey at the end of 1995 showed 16 million users
[11:18] Aphilo Aarde: In the year 2000, the number of users was way over 400 million
[11:18] Curious George: Hi, are you in voice, or just text?
[11:18] Aphilo Aarde: And now there are around 2 billion users
[11:18] Ju Roussel: Curious George is here! WOW! Text.
[11:18] Aphilo Aarde: Hi Curious!
[11:19] Aphilo Aarde: Text only this course
[11:19] Aphilo Aarde: Not everyone has voice around the world
[11:19] Aphilo Aarde: Welcome
[11:19] Curious George: Ah, low bandwidth.....
[11:19] Aphilo Aarde: :) still
[11:20] Curious George: I guess that's the usual story of socialism: since some are poor, let us all be poor ;)
[11:20] Aphilo Aarde: In the U.S. in the year 2000
[11:20] Malburns Writer is Online
[11:20] JonathanE Cortes is Online
[11:21] Aphilo Aarde: Perhaps ... but how new technologies disseminate vis-a-vis a world wide network for communication that's real time is interesting
[11:21] Aphilo Aarde: OLPC is perhaps the most proactive story
[11:21] Aphilo Aarde: So in the year 2000
[11:21] Aphilo Aarde: in the U.S., depending on how you counted it, between 42 and 48% of computer users were connecting
[11:22] Ju Roussel: Curious and I probably have first-hand experience with socialism...
[11:22] Aphilo Aarde: And now it's around 80%
[11:22] Aphilo Aarde: Many of these statistics
[11:22] Aphilo Aarde: are here
[11:22] Curious George: have fun, all
[11:22] Curious George is Offline
[11:22] Aphilo Aarde: at webnographers.org
[11:22] Aphilo Aarde: Hello Jonathan!
[11:23] Aphilo Aarde: http://webnographers.org/index.php?title=Papers#Statistics_about_the_Internet
[11:23] Aphilo Aarde: From 1995 and 16 million users, to 2000 with 400 million users is a huge transformation
[11:23] Aphilo Aarde: from small to mass
[11:24] Aphilo Aarde: and from 400 million users to 2 billion is equally as dramatic
[11:24] Aphilo Aarde: In the late 2000s,
[11:24] Aphilo Aarde: sorry, the late 1990s
[11:25] Sysku Mayo is Offline
[11:25] Aphilo Aarde: a UCLA study showed 90 million users in one day
[11:25] Aphilo Aarde: Can anyone guess how many users there are on any given day these days
[11:25] You decline TLE Newbie Park & Classrooms & B, Raziel (218, 176, 22) from A group member named aelwyn Fields.
[11:26] Sybex Drachnyd: a gozillion
[11:26] Sybex Drachnyd: lol
[11:26] Imper Fegte is Offline
[11:26] Aphilo Aarde: On average, today, according to the Pew Trust (Pew Center for Internet in American Life - a good research organization)
[11:27] Aphilo Aarde: there are about 40 million users, so less than the peak day 10 years ago which the UCLA study found
[11:27] Andromeda Mesmer is Online
[11:28] Aphilo Aarde: So the Internet usage jumped in just 5 years from a middle size medium of communication to a mass medium
[11:28] Aphilo Aarde: And it's a Many-to-Many commuication medium
[11:29] Aphilo Aarde: This is critical to understanding what makes the Internet unique.
[11:29] JonathanE Cortes: hi all sorry Im late
[11:29] Aphilo Aarde: (By contrast, the TV is a 1 to many communication medium, and the telephone is a 1-1 communication medium - mostly).
[11:30] Aphilo Aarde: Welcome Jonathan and Andromeda
[11:30] Aphilo Aarde: So the WWW is a many to many medium
[11:30] Aphilo Aarde: And it's Global and Chosen
[11:31] Aphilo Aarde: That is, it's world wide - in all of the about 200 countries and 20 territories
[11:32] Aphilo Aarde: and it's chosen in the sense that it's synchronous - in real time, so all of us can send/produce and get information when and as we want it
[11:33] Aphilo Aarde: and it's asynchronous - that is, all of the endpoints and nodes - us and the internet system - can work asynchronously - that is offline - sending and receiving information
[11:33] Aphilo Aarde: not in real time
[11:33] Eme Capalini is Offline
[11:33] Aphilo Aarde: ... astounding information technologies
[11:34] Aphilo Aarde: And Second Life is an example of the WWW being Chosen - in that
[11:34] Aphilo Aarde: it's both synchronous and asynchronous
[11:34] Aphilo Aarde: Well, this is the beginning of new forms of people being together.
[11:35] Aphilo Aarde: Virtual Communities is one name for this...
[11:35] Christinapsu5152 Palianta is Online
[11:35] Aphilo Aarde: Under the vision of Virtual Communities
[11:35] Aphilo Aarde: the Internet allowed people to get together
[11:36] Aphilo Aarde: Obviously, this wasn't necessarily a given - for example, if the Internet and the WWW was governed in a top down way
[11:36] Aphilo Aarde: it could well have been very community phobic
[11:37] Aphilo Aarde: Governments can tend toward the authoritarian - think China - and can choose to control information
[11:37] Aphilo Aarde: Virtual Communities are a potential threat to this way of thinking
[11:37] Aphilo Aarde: and these authoritarian Governance controlling processes
[11:38] Aphilo Aarde: So, under the vision of the virtual communities
[11:38] Aphilo Aarde: the Internet allowed people to get together
[11:38] Aphilo Aarde: for
[11:38] Aphilo Aarde: or with
[11:38] Aphilo Aarde: Free communication
[11:38] Aphilo Aarde: Building of Communities
[11:39] Aphilo Aarde: Breaking through from isolation
[11:39] Aphilo Aarde: Finding people like themselves online
[11:39] Aphilo Aarde: By contrast, as the web was diffusing widely in the mid-1990s
[11:39] Aphilo Aarde: you had another, opposite view of the world wide web
[11:40] Aphilo Aarde: which held that the internet and web alienated people
[11:40] Aphilo Aarde: The media especially perpetuated the idea that
[11:40] Aphilo Aarde: "The Internet is a world of perverted, lonely people"
[11:40] Aphilo Aarde: And there were a series of academic studies that began
[11:41] Aphilo Aarde: to address these questions
[11:41] Ju Roussel: sadly, today witnesses perversion of SL for me...
[11:41] Aphilo Aarde: We'll look at some of these studies shortly
[11:41] Aphilo Aarde: In what ways, Ju?
[11:41] Aphilo Aarde: Are you finding Second Life becoming perverted ?
[11:43] XiuJuan Ying is Online
[11:43] Aphilo Aarde: ( I think Second Life has actually strived a lot to remain open to sexuality, as an open, 'we build it,' virtual world - in a world of norms which mitigate against this, and yet where in SL there are so many other islands to go to, that this sexuality - perhaps what you call perverision - becomes contextualized)
[11:44] Ju Roussel: a youtube video that mocks Lindens, but has my friends avatars in it.
[11:44] Aphilo Aarde: (What do you think - I know Phil who was the Linden Lab CEO for a while, was very pro sex in SL).
[11:45] Ju Roussel: Right now looking into how to tackle this rather sensitive issue. The avatars are active in various communities of practice here in SL: education etc.
[11:45] Aphilo Aarde: Yes, I also think this SL virtual community gets a lot of bad press - perhaps like this youtube video - because of its pro-sex perspective).
[11:45] Ju Roussel: no sex in that video, just heavy mocking
[11:45] Aphilo Aarde: It's a sticking point for a variety of perspectives
[11:45] Aphilo Aarde: I see
[11:46] Aphilo Aarde: Well, let's look at some of these early studies on the role of alienation and the World Wide Web
[11:46] Jennette Forager is Online
[11:46] Christinapsu5152 Palianta is Offline
[11:46] Froukje Hoorenbeek is Online
[11:47] Aphilo Aarde: Presently, Keith Hampton, at the University of Pennsylvania, is the researcher who's research continues to examine these questions, and developments, with a longitudinal approach.
[11:47] Aphilo Aarde: On webnographers.org, his research
[11:48] Aphilo Aarde: is here
[11:48] XiuJuan Ying is Online
[11:48] Wibble Poplin is Online
[11:48] Aphilo Aarde: http://webnographers.org/index.php?title=Papers#Empirical_Studies_of_Particular_Internet_Projects.2C_Applications_and_Institutional_Adaptations
[11:48] Aphilo Aarde: for one
[11:48] Cat Abeyante is Offline
[11:48] Aphilo Aarde: and here's one relevant paper: Wellman, Barry, Anabel Quan-Haase, Jeffrey Boase, Wenhong Chen, Keith Hampton, Isabel Isla de Diaz, Kakuko Miyata. 2003. Social Affordances of Networked Individualism. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication JCMC 8 (3) April 2003.
[11:49] Aphilo Aarde: and it's URL is here: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol8/issue3/wellman.html
[11:49] Aphilo Aarde: And many of his papers are here: Hampton, Keith. 2009. Selected Information and Communication Technologies, Social Networks, and the Urban Environment Publications. University of Pennsylvania.
[11:49] Aphilo Aarde: so, here: http://www.mysocialnetwork.net/pub.html
[11:50] Aphilo Aarde: http://webnographers.org/index.php?title=Papers#Information_and_Communication_Technologies.2C_Social_Networks.2C_and_the_Urban_Environment
[11:50] XiuJuan Ying is Offline
[11:50] Aphilo Aarde: But before we begin, let's take a 10 minute break
[11:51] Aphilo Aarde: And when we'll return we'll begin to look at how People use the Internet for Personal Meaning
[11:51] XiuJuan Ying is Online
[11:51] Aphilo Aarde: So, a ten minute break ... and see you around 12 Second Life Time
[11:52] Malburns Writer is Offline
[11:53] JonathanE Cortes: kk
[11:53] Froukje Hoorenbeek is Offline
[11:53] Andromeda Mesmer: k
[11:55] Ju Roussel is Offline
[11:55] Cup of fresh ground coffee whispers: Now THAT I needed!
[11:56] Ju Roussel is Online
[11:57] JonathanE Cortes: say hi to everyone puppy
[11:57] Andromeda Mesmer: good dog
[11:59] JonathanE Cortes: lol
[11:59] Andromeda Mesmer: yes - yesterday & today.
[12:00] JonathanE Cortes: brb
[12:00] Aphilo Aarde: Hi
[12:00] XiuJuan Ying: hi
[12:00] Aphilo Aarde: Hi All
[12:00] Andromeda Mesmer: Hi
[12:00] sandhya2 Patel: hi
[12:00] Sybex Drachnyd: yo
[12:00] Aphilo Aarde: I've posted the transcript from the first half of today's class here: http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/InfoTechSoc8
[12:00] Aphilo Aarde: Hi XiuJuan
[12:01] XiuJuan Ying: hi Aphilo
[12:01] Aphilo Aarde: Welcome, Xiu
[12:01] Aphilo Aarde: So, in response to the idea
[12:02] XiuJuan Ying: thank you
[12:02] Aphilo Aarde: just as virtual communities were emerging in the mid 1990s
[12:02] Aphilo Aarde: that "The Internet is a world of perverted, lonely people"
[12:02] Aphilo Aarde: a number of academic studies emerged to look at this
[12:03] JonathanE Cortes: thats better
[12:03] Aphilo Aarde: And what these studies were asking was how People use the Internet for personal meaning.
[12:03] Aphilo Aarde: And what people were doing was role playing significantly
[12:04] Aphilo Aarde: On the Internet, people play roles with life.
[12:04] Aphilo Aarde: A MIT psychoanalyst
[12:04] Aphilo Aarde: Sherry Turkle
[12:04] Aphilo Aarde: wrote "Life on the Screen" at that time
[12:04] Breeze Underwood is Offline
[12:05] Aphilo Aarde: It's here: http://webnographers.org/index.php?title=Books#Identity_and_Internet_Ethnography
[12:05] Aphilo Aarde: in the 'Identity and Internet Ethnography' section at webnographers.org
[12:06] Aphilo Aarde: And what Turkle found was that people were using the Internet for
[12:06] Aphilo Aarde: - chat
[12:06] Aphilo Aarde: - building identities online
[12:06] Aphilo Aarde: - pretending to be someone else
[12:06] Aphilo Aarde: which in many ways is what people are doing in Second Life and many, many other virtual worlds.
[12:07] AJ Brooks is Offline
[12:07] Aphilo Aarde: ... each virtual world has its own focus
[12:07] Aphilo Aarde: The possibility of being 5 different people was what people were exploring in virtual communities
[12:07] Aphilo Aarde: for example
[12:08] Aphilo Aarde: And Turkle offered an origintal analysis of these fake identities
[12:08] Lemondrop Serendipity is Offline
[12:08] Aphilo Aarde: It was the notion that people would escape from lives as they are
[12:08] Aphilo Aarde: and in these new identities, they could
[12:08] Aphilo Aarde: - express what they want to express
[12:09] Aphilo Aarde: -psychoanalysts adored the possibilities in virtual worlds - because there was the potentially for no inhibitions.
[12:09] Aphilo Aarde: In 1995, the New Yorker published
[12:09] Aphilo Aarde: a cartoon with 2 dogs on a computer
[12:10] Aphilo Aarde: where one was saying "You know, the good thing about teh computer is that no one knows you're a dog"
[12:10] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[12:10] Aphilo Aarde: And in this context
[12:11] Aphilo Aarde: 3 visions for how people were engaging these early virtual communities also emerged
[12:11] Aphilo Aarde: 1 vision of the 1960s / flower culture
[12:11] Aphilo Aarde: where people were exploring counterculture
[12:11] Aphilo Aarde: 2 vision of perverted, lonely peoples - which we've talked about so far
[12:11] Lolly Dovgal is Online
[12:12] Aphilo Aarde: and 3 a vision of normal people living life online
[12:12] Aphilo Aarde: The problem with all of these positions and visions was that no one had looked at the data, or was even looking at the data.
[12:13] XiuJuan Ying is Offline
[12:13] Aphilo Aarde: (Here's the data: http://webnographers.org/)
[12:13] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[12:14] Aphilo Aarde: webnographers.org is the best wiki aggregation of all the great research on the internet to date, that I know of (I'm a main editor - and as a wiki - it's open to all of us to add and edit)
[12:14] XiuJuan Ying is Online
[12:15] Aphilo Aarde: So the important thing in exploring all these claims about how life online and virtual communities were affecting people
[12:15] Aphilo Aarde: was to find out what is actually happening online.
[12:15] Aphilo Aarde: In other words, what is the real view of what's really going on?
[12:16] Aphilo Aarde: And the media obscured the issue
[12:16] Aphilo Aarde: by jumping on the negative side
[12:16] Aphilo Aarde: And, of course, because "Bad news sells"
[12:17] Aphilo Aarde: So, again, the three profiles of virtual communities:
[12:17] Sophie Zuta is Online
[12:17] Aphilo Aarde: 1. everyone can live the way they want online - from his/her own experience online
[12:18] Green Tea (Hojicha): Mmmhh... leaves perfectly roasted, enjoy it XiuJuan Ying
[12:18] Aphilo Aarde: according to their own experiences of sociability and solidarity - online.
[12:18] Aphilo Aarde: 2. The World Wide Web is an instrument of personal isolation
[12:19] XiuJuan Ying is Offline
[12:19] Aphilo Aarde: of social deviants, where, if they're not, they will become deviants
[12:19] Buffy Beale is Online
[12:19] Aphilo Aarde: And this was the dominant view of the media, - that is the internet as the alienated masses
[12:19] Aphilo Aarde: Hello Buffy!
[12:19] Malburns Writer is Online
[12:19] Aphilo Aarde: (Welcome to Information Technology and Society)
[12:19] Buffy Beale: Hi! Sorry I'm late
[12:20] Aphilo Aarde: (Here's the transcript - http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/InfoTechSoc8 - through noon SLT and where it will be after).
[12:20] Aphilo Aarde: Welcome
[12:20] Buffy Beale: perfect thanks and u using voice today?
[12:20] Aphilo Aarde: So, the 3rd view of the media was that the Internet is an Instrument of role playing - of building fake identities.
[12:21] Aphilo Aarde: Boring
[12:21] Bon McLeod is Offline
[12:21] Aphilo Aarde: What really happens was the question in the mid 1990s, and still is ...
[12:21] XiuJuan Ying is Online
[12:21] Green Tea (Hojicha): Mmmhh... leaves perfectly roasted, enjoy it XiuJuan Ying
[12:21] Aphilo Aarde: So good sociological studies were conducted and published.
[12:22] Aphilo Aarde: ... and in different countries, etc. the U.S., England ...
[12:22] Aphilo Aarde: What's happening?
[12:22] Aphilo Aarde: Not much.
[12:22] Aphilo Aarde: People are using the World Wide Web to adapt to life
[12:22] Diego Ibanez is Online
[12:23] Aphilo Aarde: They're putting online at the service of what they want
[12:23] Lolly Dovgal is Offline
[12:23] Aphilo Aarde: And what results is that people twist and adapt.
[12:24] Aphilo Aarde: So, these studies begain to look at People's sociability in and on the Internet
[12:24] Bon McLeod is Online
[12:24] Aphilo Aarde: And they began to look at concrete statistics
[12:25] Aphilo Aarde: And a new organization at the time - the Pew Center for the Study of the Internet in American Life emerged
[12:25] Diego Ibanez is Offline
[12:25] Aphilo Aarde: to begin to develop concrete statistics - from the very beginning of the popularization of the internet!
[12:25] Aphilo Aarde: They were right there at a key moment with data gathering :)
[12:25] Andromeda Mesmer: Is this the Pew Center which does worldwide opinion polling?
[12:25] Aphilo Aarde: Yes
[12:26] Aphilo Aarde: They're actually called Pew Internet & American Life Project
[12:26] Aquiel Aero is Online
[12:27] Aphilo Aarde: Here's a current URL: http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_category.aspx?id=48 with research
[12:27] Aphilo Aarde: Some of the first questions that these researchers were addressing had to do with PATTERNS OF SOCIABILITY
[12:28] Aphilo Aarde: For example, How much do these new patterns of sociability influence how these internet users meet with families
[12:28] Aphilo Aarde: with neighbors
[12:28] Buffy Beale: interesting!
[12:28] Aphilo Aarde: and what do these people do with meeting their families neighbors, and new friends online
[12:28] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[12:29] Aphilo Aarde: Another set of questions
[12:29] JonathanE Cortes: it is always thus
[12:29] Aphilo Aarde: have to do with activities people do online beyond work
[12:30] Aphilo Aarde: Jonathan - that new technologies come along, and people want to know what's happen
[12:30] Aphilo Aarde: I need to move something here
[12:30] Aphilo Aarde: - be back in 2 minutes -
[12:30] Aphilo Aarde: sorry
[12:31] Aphilo Aarde: brb
[12:31] Buffy Beale: kk
[12:31] JonathanE Cortes: np
[12:31] Buffy Beale: so hi everyone, just catching up
[12:31] JonathanE Cortes: Hi Buffy
[12:31] XiuJuan Ying: hi buffy
[12:31] Andromeda Mesmer: Hi Buffy
[12:31] Buffy Beale: whew, you're all awake
[12:31] Buffy Beale: lol
[12:31] JonathanE Cortes: lol
[12:32] Sybex Drachnyd: ya
[12:32] Buffy Beale: so forgive me if I ask some dumb questions
[12:32] JonathanE Cortes: or am I ?
[12:32] Buffy Beale: wait, not dumb, curious
[12:32] Buffy Beale: depends what else you're multitaking at JonE
[12:32] JonathanE Cortes: dinner
[12:32] Buffy Beale: so fill me in, is this the first class
[12:33] Andromeda Mesmer: sure -
[12:33] JonathanE Cortes: :-)
[12:33] Buffy Beale: :)
[12:33] Andromeda Mesmer: no -- early on in a series of lectures and discussions though.
[12:33] JonathanE Cortes: un UK its a late dinner
[12:33] sandhya2 Patel: na it's like the 10th
[12:33] Aphilo Aarde: Haven't figured out how to move much physically from a digital perspective - garage doors and amazon books are as close as it gets
[12:33] Ju Roussel: No, it's like a serious semester... stopped counting them
[12:33] Andromeda Mesmer: Earlier ones are posted .
[12:33] Buffy Beale: hahah
[12:33] Buffy Beale: ok
[12:33] Buffy Beale: I'll catch up
[12:33] Buffy Beale: oh oh iPuppy needs to go out
[12:33] SL-iPuppy V1.3 att 2.0:
Mmm. Aw. I will mention that to my Sancho Almodovar, .
[12:34] JonathanE Cortes: there are notes for the last few weeks online
[12:34] Andromeda Mesmer: Jonathan - don't know if you are aware - but your puppy is spamming in the chat ...
[12:34] Aphilo Aarde: Hi Buffy
[12:34] Buffy Beale: Hi aphilo
[12:34] Aphilo Aarde: This is a class on "information technology and society"
[12:34] Ju Roussel: Woot, the puppy is trashing the chat
[12:34] JonathanE Cortes: sorry off
[12:34] Andromeda Mesmer: Thank you
[12:34] Aphilo Aarde: on the information technology revolution - which began in
[12:34] Aphilo Aarde: January and will continue at least through May 1
[12:35] Buffy Beale: ok ty I'll read the posts to catchup
[12:35] Aphilo Aarde: I'll give you a card shortly -
[12:35] Buffy Beale: so some house rules pls
[12:35] Aphilo Aarde: the transcripts are online here -
[12:35] Buffy Beale: if the others dont mind
[12:35] Aphilo Aarde: http://socinfotech.pbworks.com
[12:35] JonathanE Cortes: np , welcome
[12:35] Buffy Beale: is backchat encouraged, on topic I mean
[12:36] Profdan Netizen is Online
[12:36] Aphilo Aarde: Today is week 8 of this open, free class, which goes from 11:10 a - to 1 pm on Harvard's virtual island, with office hours from 1:10p-2
[12:36] Kate Miranda is Online
[12:36] Buffy Beale accepted your inventory offer.
[12:36] Buffy Beale: great ty
[12:36] Ju Roussel: Buffy, go for it! I had mini rebels on here, and enjoyed them very much.
[12:36] Aphilo Aarde: Backchat makes enriches the conversation
[12:36] Sophie Zuta is Offline
[12:36] Buffy Beale: agree
[12:37] Aphilo Aarde: a lot ... and I also have a lot of material I cover ... so yes, please ...
[12:37] Aphilo Aarde: Observations and Questions throughout my talks helps people focus, and it isn't disruptive because it's in group chat
[12:37] Buffy Beale: Sorry I missed the beginning but I'll catch up quick
[12:38] Buffy Beale: ok perfect ty
[12:38] Buffy Beale: and thanks to everyone for your patience
[12:38] Aphilo Aarde: It leads fascinatingly to multiple lines of reasoning, especially because the transcripts are saved and we come back to ideas
[12:38] Buffy Beale: perfect!
[12:38] XiuJuan Ying: welcome
[12:38] Aphilo Aarde: The SL group is "Soc and Info Tech - Aphilo on Berkman"
[12:38] Buffy Beale: ty X
[12:39] Buffy Beale: ok I'll join up
[12:39] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[12:39] Aphilo Aarde: Glad you're here
[12:39] Buffy Beale: rats too many groups just sec while I do some weeding to join but carry on and
[12:39] Buffy Beale: glad to be here!
[12:39] Marian Dragovar is Online
[12:40] go1984 Winsmore is Offline
[12:40] Jules Mandelbrot is Online
[12:40] Aphilo Aarde: So, are there observations and questions at this point
[12:41] Aphilo Aarde: What are the qualities of alienation and sociality that each of you experience with virtual communities, before we proceed with some more interesting studies?
[12:42] Ju Roussel: I experienced no allienation.
[12:42] Aphilo Aarde: Let's take these research to ourselves - chat-ethnography :)
[12:42] Andromeda Mesmer: I guess one point about synthetic worlds = there is a dropout rate of 90% in SL, and apparently others too -- within 3 months of joining. And many people never actually proceed after they register.
[12:42] Aphilo Aarde: from the beginning, JU - in retrospect with all the time you've spent online - since when?
[12:42] Buffy Beale: well for one, I connected with people and wouldn't have believed how personal it could get, real friendships with folks I've never met
[12:43] Buffy Beale: and yes was alienated before I met some 'like-minded' people
[12:43] Andromeda Mesmer: Very true, Buffy -
[12:43] sandhya2 Patel: for years i stayed quiet socially but now i'm branching out a little
[12:43] Ju Roussel: My hardware allienated me, so this avatar is in fact active for about 6 months, and it will be my 3rd rezday in the Autumn.
[12:43] sandhya2 Patel: sl gives endless opportunities for art expression
[12:43] Aphilo Aarde: Interesting Andromeda - I think ease of use, and information diffusion are two reasons , but I don't know the "retention/attritition research"
[12:44] Andromeda Mesmer: It's also interesting that just as in RL - one can have friends who you associate with for different activities - like say, for building, or others for discussions.
[12:44] Buffy Beale: yes Sand2
[12:44] Aphilo Aarde: for virtual worlds very well - would you like to do a little research project, Andromeda, on this, - starting with webnographers.org
[12:44] Andromeda Mesmer: The 90% dropout rate is astonishing to me -- why I've remembered it, checked on it from time to time -
[12:44] Andromeda Mesmer: That is one reason why I try to help newbies .
[12:44] Aphilo Aarde: There's probably something in the papers section - http://webnographers.org/index.php?title=Papers
[12:45] Sybex Drachnyd: i am new
[12:45] Buffy Beale: yes and why Linden are putting more effort into better first time expeience
[12:45] Sybex Drachnyd: it is not easy here
[12:45] Aphilo Aarde: What's great about SL is its open-endedness with an already existing fairly large community - making it social.... and a lot has been built here since 2002-ish
[12:45] Bon McLeod is Offline
[12:45] Andromeda Mesmer: Very steep learning curve in first 3 months, and lots of opportunity for newbies to get embarassed about mistakes - or offended at something.
[12:45] You decline Music Island, Sea Turtle Island Metaverse (49, 43, 21) from A group member named Kate Miranda.
[12:46] Ju Roussel: Sybex, feel free to IM me any time. Nobody deserves hardships here.
[12:46] JonathanE Cortes: I find great value in events like this
[12:46] Aphilo Aarde: So, Buffy - do you think that 'getting personal' has to do with avatar identity - which makes it safe?
[12:46] Buffy Beale: Agree Aphilo, time to form groups
[12:46] Sybex Drachnyd: thanks ju
[12:46] Aphilo Aarde: (Glad we're all chatting:)
[12:46] Buffy Beale: yes, eventually I mean, as I became more attached to my avi
[12:47] Luna Bliss is Offline
[12:47] Buffy Beale: at first no, just felt like a cartoon walking around, more playing
[12:47] Aphilo Aarde: So, Buffy, you experienced alienation first with digital technologies, and virtual worlds with community building changed this?
[12:47] Buffy Beale: than anything serious
[12:47] Buffy Beale: yes exactly
[12:48] Andromeda Mesmer: I had the good fortune of running into helpful people, and used to hang out at the New Citizens place too ...
[12:48] Buffy Beale: the flat web, email, I understand why some would connect via email though, but in virtual it adds another dimension
[12:48] Bon McLeod is Online
[12:48] Jules Mandelbrot is Offline
[12:48] Buffy Beale: yes Andro, it's all about the first experiences, and connecting
[12:49] JonathanE Cortes: deffo
[12:49] Aphilo Aarde: So Sandhya, would you say quiet = alienated, and
[12:49] Aphilo Aarde: branching out means sociality building?
[12:49] sandhya2 Patel: i do not understand the question
[12:49] Aphilo Aarde: (I'm going back to read your observations - conversation is great).
[12:49] Andromeda Mesmer: But I was also very interested in learning - people who are older are then more inclined to help, if you are serious.
[12:49] sandhya2 Patel: no not alienated at all
[12:50] Ju Roussel: Many people real cognitive impairments break through their life-long shiness by participating in communities here.
[12:50] sandhya2 Patel: i love art and i see sl as an art medium of endless possibilities
[12:50] sandhya2 Patel: i did not take time for much social endevor
[12:50] Buffy Beale: @Andro older being the more experienced, its not just older people younger too
[12:50] Andromeda Mesmer: Right.
[12:50] Aphilo Aarde: Yes, Andromeda (re: 12:44) - multiple groups expand dramatically with virtual worlds and digital technologies -
[12:51] JenzZa Misfit is Online
[12:51] Aphilo Aarde: and this is waht researchers found in the mid-90s - that digital technologies lead to different forms of sociality, and not alienation
[12:51] Buffy Beale: @sand2 that is great! Creativity is unlimited here
[12:51] sandhya2 Patel: that is why i came here in the first place
[12:52] sandhya2 Patel: and i have met others who feel the same
[12:52] Aphilo Aarde: And even this year, Keith Hampton, at the University of Pennsylvania - and who studies this academically (he knows the research literature the best), was confirming this, and pointing to new studies
[12:52] Aphilo Aarde: confirming this.
[12:52] Andromeda Mesmer: Very tempted to illustrate the possibilities of art by dragging out the one man band blurtaphone, but think I shold refrain :D
[12:52] Sybex Drachnyd: hahahah
[12:53] Buffy Beale: lol andro go for it
[12:53] Buffy Beale: haha
[12:53] Sybex Drachnyd: new as i am i have seen tht
[12:53] Aphilo Aarde: Yes, Andormeda @12:48 - lots of serendipitous meetings in virtual worlds, paralleling real life - worth going to academic conferences on virtual worlds, for examaple.
[12:53] Buffy Beale: yes! and from these events you connect with others
[12:53] Aphilo Aarde: Buffy - 1248 agreed - virtual worlds are experiential and connecting oriented.
[12:53] Andromeda Mesmer: Well -- I got the blurtaphone as a result of going to the artists "Show & Tell" on Sundays --
[12:54] Buffy Beale: lol someones mic is open...
[12:54] Aphilo Aarde: I see, Sandhya - makes sense
[12:54] Andromeda Mesmer: This is what the blurtaphone looks like --
[12:54] Andromeda Mesmer: made by 2 professional sound artists --
[12:55] Buffy Beale: lol you wear it?
[12:55] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[12:55] Aphilo Aarde: Love the euphonium :)
[12:55] sandhya2 Patel: play it for a second please
[12:55] Andromeda Mesmer: Yes -- I wear it.
[12:55] sandhya2 Patel: hahahahah
[12:55] JonathanE Cortes: grins
[12:55] JonathanE Cortes: lol
[12:55] Sybex Drachnyd: cool
[12:55] Buffy Beale: very
[12:55] Andromeda Mesmer: It was made for free by Loren Tone and his friend Madcow Cosmos.
[12:55] Dallas Trefoil is Offline
[12:56] sandhya2 Patel: madcow is famous
[12:56] sandhya2 Patel: a great artist
[12:56] Aphilo Aarde: So, to close for this week, is it playable Andro?
[12:56] Aphilo Aarde: Can we hear?
[12:56] JonathanE Cortes: I can hear it
[12:56] Andromeda Mesmer: It's got many variations -- and -- was described as a way to entertain at a party, organize a parade, scare the dogs and cats, and irritate the neighbours.
[12:56] Buffy Beale: madcow's art is amazing
[12:56] Aphilo Aarde: And I just wanted to point out the budding Music School at World University & School
[12:56] Buffy Beale: hahahha
[12:56] Buffy Beale: me too, fun!
[12:57] Aphilo Aarde: :) as a parallel - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Music
[12:57] Aphilo Aarde: :) :) :) :)
[12:57] Andromeda Mesmer: It has MANY variations -- loops -- very well synchronized.
[12:57] XiuJuan Ying: we shud all have one next week
[12:57] Andromeda Mesmer: I'm just playing one --
[12:57] Aphilo Aarde: So cool :) - the Euphonium music you're making Andromeda!
[12:57] Ju Roussel: Avatar Orchestra should be starting on Music Island in just a couple of minutes :)
[12:57] Aphilo Aarde: Let's bring musical instruments and jam
[12:58] Aphilo Aarde: Will you post the URL Ju?
[12:58] Aphilo Aarde: or SLURL?
[12:58] XiuJuan Ying: so cool
[12:58] Andromeda Mesmer: Let me get the LM for Loren Tone's place --
[12:58] Buffy Beale: sure
[12:58] Aphilo Aarde: Now the drums kick in
[12:58] Ju Roussel: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sea%20Turtle%20Island/39/2/24
[12:58] Aphilo Aarde: This is pretty wild
[12:58] Andromeda Mesmer: I turned on the drums.
[12:58] Buffy Beale: lol ur rockin
[12:58] Ju Roussel: no idea what that orchestra is though
[12:58] Aphilo Aarde: Do check out the Bassoon lesson at World University and School's budding Music School
[12:58] XiuJuan Ying: can we danse in class
[12:59] Buffy Beale: there is a concert today in Sl, made up of an orchestra
[12:59] Andromeda Mesmer: I said to somebody that this would be one good reason to get a bunch of alts --
[12:59] Aphilo Aarde: It's a Juilliard / New York Philharmonic musician
[12:59] Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Music
[12:59] Aphilo Aarde: And the 9-part Banjo work shop is from a folk festival
[12:59] JonathanE Cortes: can you hear my Didgeridoo/?
[12:59] Aphilo Aarde: Love it!
[12:59] Andromeda Mesmer: just changed it -
[12:59] Buffy Beale: great!
[12:59] Aphilo Aarde: not yet, Jonathan
[12:59] sandhya2 Patel: hahahah
[12:59] Aphilo Aarde: Thank you!
[12:59] sandhya2 Patel: sounds good together
[13:00] Buffy Beale: aren't we bad, jumping up and having fun in the middle of class...
[13:00] Andromeda Mesmer: Now met me fish out the LM --
[13:00] Aphilo Aarde: Thanks so much for the music !
[13:00] Aphilo Aarde: Wish I had a drum to add the drums that are playing
[13:00] Andromeda Mesmer gave you Lorin's Sound Shack, SINNIQ SIM 01 (199, 115, 22).
[13:00] XiuJuan Ying: does the doggie not danse?
[13:00] JonathanE Cortes: no but will chat
[13:01] Aphilo Aarde: So thank you all for coming ! - Invitation to Teach, Add and Learn at World University and School
[13:01] Buffy Beale: Aphilo I'm so happy I stumbled across this, will be unplugged next two weeks but will catch up
[13:01] Aphilo Aarde: There is a free Ph.D. at Harvard listed at World Univ in Education for 2011 and 2012
[13:01] Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses#Free_Ph.D.s
[13:01] JonathanE Cortes: thx
[13:01] XiuJuan Ying: ty andromeda
[13:01] Aphilo Aarde: And free degrees will grow at World Univ
[13:01] Buffy Beale: wow thats amazing Aphilo! A free PhD???
[13:02] Aphilo Aarde: Next week, more on the sociality of the internet
[13:02] Aphilo Aarde: And this was an example of great sociality - our conversation and the music
[13:02] Ju Roussel: I hope they do give a scholarship heh :) A normal US PhD.
[13:02] Aphilo Aarde: Glad you all could come
[13:02] Aphilo Aarde: Yes, Buffy
[13:02] JonathanE Cortes: so we off for 2 week now
[13:02] Aphilo Aarde: Free Ph.D. at Harvard - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses#Free_Ph.D.s
[13:02] Buffy Beale: great Aphilo!
[13:02] Aphilo Aarde: and free degrees will grow
[13:03] XiuJuan Ying: that realy good andromeda
[13:03] Buffy Beale: thats good news
[13:03] Aphilo Aarde: Degrees aren't free in the U.S. too often, Ju, although you in Sweden get scholarships :)
[13:03] Andromeda Mesmer: I go to the artists "Show & Tell" on Avaria -- that's every Sunday, and anybody can come.
[13:03] JonathanE Cortes: have fun
[13:03] JonathanE Cortes: :-)
[13:03] Aphilo Aarde: Great Andromeda :)
[13:03] Buffy Beale: nice Andro
[13:04] sandhya2 Patel: thanks
[13:04] JonathanE Cortes: for got I made it ,:-) you reminded me
[13:04] Andromeda Mesmer: Some time I will be brave enough to show somethere there that I made, but not yet.
[13:04] Buffy Beale: if anyone has a nonprofit, we meet every week on Fridays at 8:30 AM SLT
[13:04] JonathanE Cortes: thx A/M
[13:05] Sybex Drachnyd: tx
[13:05] XiuJuan Ying: it so quiet lol
[13:05] Buffy Beale: or even if you're interested in nonprofits
[13:05] JonathanE Cortes: we shoulld have a drum party
[13:05] Aphilo Aarde: So, I've posted this whole transcript here: http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/InfoTechSoc8
[13:05] Michele Mrigesh is Online
[13:05] Buffy Beale: or Metanomics, now there's an interesting group of folks
[13:05] Buffy Beale: have amazing sessions and discussions
[13:06] JonathanE Cortes: that my fave group
[13:06] XiuJuan Ying: Aphilo can you rap the lectures
[13:06] Andromeda Mesmer: So there is lots of opportunity for artists to have fun -- but engineers and scientists can have fun in SL too -- like building the International Rocketry Museum -
[13:06] Buffy Beale: yes!
[13:06] JonathanE Cortes: lol
[13:06] Andromeda Mesmer: Writers meetings -- interact with fans --
[13:06] Aphilo Aarde: A drum party would be cool
[13:06] JonathanE Cortes: Ill make some drums if I get tim
[13:06] Andromeda Mesmer: Yes it would be
[13:07] Buffy Beale: can we go on a field trip sometime, maybe tour our fav places
[13:07] Malburns Writer is Offline
[13:07] Aphilo Aarde: If you want to organize it, we could do it in office hours Jonathan
[13:07] Andromeda Mesmer: Or just get the blurtaphones -- they are already synchronized, and I understand that getting instruments synchornized can be a problem.
[13:07] JonathanE Cortes: yes , whos making the sandwiches
[13:07] Buffy Beale: Svarga, a wonderful sim has a drumming room
[13:07] JonathanE Cortes: cool
[13:07] JonathanE Cortes: no its gone
[13:07] sandhya2 Patel: you are all invited to the gallery
[13:07] Andromeda Mesmer: I think Svarga went away --
[13:07] Aphilo Aarde: I also want to add musical jam opportunities in virtual Worlds to World University & School's Music School
[13:07] sandhya2 Patel: it is on my pics
[13:07] Andromeda Mesmer: It may be back now?
[13:07] Buffy Beale: it's back JE I was there the other day
[13:07] Buffy Beale: surprised me too
[13:07] Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Music
[13:08] JonathanE Cortes: I thought Svarga had gone ! ?
[13:08] Andromeda Mesmer: Oh -- wonderful!!!
[13:08] Andromeda Mesmer: Svarga has musical instruments too.
[13:08] Buffy Beale: yes it's changed but it's still there
[13:08] Buffy Beale: yes
[13:08] sandhya2 Patel: it's back!! and better than ever svarga
[13:08] Bon McLeod is Offline
[13:08] Buffy Beale: oh, and so does The PotHealer
[13:08] JonathanE Cortes: SLURL ? plz
[13:08] Buffy Beale: nicely tucked in the woods I think
[13:08] Andromeda Mesmer: PotHealer? LM?
[13:08] Buffy Beale: Pothead is in my pics
[13:08] Aphilo Aarde: I'll keep the nonprofits meeting in mind, Buffy - World University and School is becoming a nonprofit
[13:08] Buffy Beale: Svarga, just open your map and look up Svarga
[13:09] JonathanE Cortes: I loved that place (Svarga)
[13:09] JonathanE Cortes: kk
[13:09] Buffy Beale: wow Aphilo! Come have an office at the NPC
[13:09] Buffy Beale: kk
[13:09] Aphilo Aarde: can't rap lectures yet, Xiu ... but let's explore
[13:09] JonathanE Cortes: I know where Im going now
[13:09] JonathanE Cortes: Svarga Svarga Svarga woooohhhh
[13:10] Andromeda Mesmer: Who would like a LM to the Sunday Artists Show & Tell? It's on at 2 pm SLT.
[13:10] JonathanE Cortes: me plz
[13:10] Buffy Beale: sure Andro not sure I can make it but just in case
[13:10] XiuJuan Ying: that would be good
[13:10] Aphilo Aarde: Class meets next week, as well
[13:11] Aphilo Aarde: Dancing in class is great Xiu
[13:11] JonathanE Cortes: thx
[13:11] XiuJuan Ying: ty
[13:11] Andromeda Mesmer: Anybody else for the LM?
[13:11] Sybex Drachnyd: yes
[13:11] JonathanE Cortes: so Im off to Svarga , sory I love that place , was sad when it went
[13:12] Buffy Beale: great, see if u can find the cave where the dragon hung out
[13:12] Andromeda Mesmer: I'm delighted that it is back -- it would be nice if Privateer Space came back too.
[13:12] sandhya2 Patel: i think the lindens are supporting it now
[13:12] JonathanE Cortes: l8r guys
[13:12] sandhya2 Patel: so it is a perminant landmark
[13:12] Buffy Beale: bb JC
[13:12] JonathanE Cortes: so is that it for 2 weeks ?
[13:12] Aphilo Aarde: Great Buffy - let's talk
[13:13] Aphilo Aarde: about the office later
[13:13] Andromeda Mesmer: That's wonderful that the Lindens decided to do that.
[13:13] Buffy Beale: kk
[13:13] XiuJuan Ying: Thanks Aphilo
[13:13] Buffy Beale: Maybe time for an update lets talk about getting u on agenda
[13:13] sandhya2 Patel: great class aphilo
[13:13] Aphilo Aarde: Music island has a concert now, and I have office hours until 2 SLT
[13:13] Buffy Beale: Aphilo I mean
[13:13] XiuJuan Ying: nice meeting you buffy and sybex
[13:14] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[13:14] Buffy Beale: lol go to the concert
[13:14] Aphilo Aarde: Sounds good, Buffy
[13:14] Sybex Drachnyd: nice to meet too
[13:14] Buffy Beale: yes likewise Xiu, feel lucky I found out about this
[13:14] Aphilo Aarde: Loves the music, Andromeda - thanks :)
[13:15] Sybex Drachnyd: this feels good to come here
[13:15] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[13:15] Andromeda Mesmer: Anytime, Aphilo -- :)
[13:15] Sybex Drachnyd: i do not type well\
[13:15] XiuJuan Ying: bye every one
[13:15] Andromeda Mesmer: I've got more musical instruments too --
[13:15] Aphilo Aarde: Bye Xiu
[13:15] Sybex Drachnyd: bye
[13:15] Buffy Beale: byee
[13:15] XiuJuan Ying: great music andromeda
[13:15] Aphilo Aarde: Bye Buffy, Sybex
[13:15] Buffy Beale: me too I'm off, bye for now
[13:15] Aphilo Aarde: Which instruments do you have?
[13:15] Andromeda Mesmer: At Lorin Tone's Sound Sahack -- you can try out everything ...
[13:15] Aphilo Aarde: I'll check it out later
[13:16] Alice Thibodeaux is Online
[13:17] Andromeda Mesmer: I've got some that are just shaped like instruments -
[13:17] Andromeda Mesmer: But others do play --
[13:17] Andromeda Mesmer: The best is probably the latest one, my Blurtaphone.
[13:17] Buffy Beale: yes thinking I'll go get one now
[13:17] Andromeda Mesmer: I'll show you one more.
[13:18] Aphilo Aarde: Yes please
[13:18] Buffy Beale: rats that I have to miss but going away to a place with no internet, phone or cable
[13:18] Andromeda Mesmer: Oh -- cant' rez on the floor here.
[13:18] Andromeda Mesmer: However -- Aphilo -- you can rez here ?
[13:19] Andromeda Mesmer gave you drum stompbox.
[13:19] Aphilo Aarde: Thanks
[13:19] Andromeda Mesmer: I gave you the Drum stompbox -
[13:19] Aphilo Aarde: I'll try
[13:19] Aphilo Aarde: thnx
[13:19] Buffy Beale: bye, thanks again Aphilo this is fantastic!
[13:19] Andromeda Mesmer: There's also bad lag
[13:19] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[13:19] Andromeda Mesmer: Just press the keys --
[13:19] Aphilo Aarde: well the drum box appeared
[13:20] Andromeda Mesmer: I heard that -
[13:20] Aphilo Aarde: can't hear anything when I press the numbers
[13:20] Aphilo Aarde: heard cymbol
[13:20] Andromeda Mesmer: I hear cymbals.
[13:20] Aphilo Aarde: lag perhaps
[13:20] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[13:20] Aphilo Aarde: 'tis working
[13:20] Aphilo Aarde: love it
[13:21] Andromeda Mesmer: Keys #7 and 8 don't work, I think.
[13:21] Andromeda Mesmer: I haven't tried out these other ones -- but -- they should work too.
[13:21] Tara Yeats is Online
[13:21] Second Life: Your object 'drum stompbox' has been returned to your inventory lost and found folder by Synthetic Berkman from parcel 'Meeting Area' at Berkman 114, 44 due to parcel auto return.
[13:21] Andromeda Mesmer gave you keyboard stompbox.
[13:22] Arawn Spitteler is Online
[13:22] Aphilo Aarde: very cool - thanks - 6 new instruments - a little like the first personal computer - Altair
[13:22] Aphilo Aarde: Thanks !
[13:22] Andromeda Mesmer: I've got a rather large inventory, and mostly well organized.
[13:23] Aphilo Aarde: I'd love your musical instruments, if you share them
[13:23] Andromeda Mesmer: Much of this is actually only the instrument and an animation, but no sound.
[13:24] Andromeda Mesmer: This is pretty well what I've got --
[13:24] Aphilo Aarde: ok ... thank you very much!
[13:24] Dena Dana is Online
[13:24] Andromeda Mesmer: Oh -- also a large harp - but the music there is limited.
[13:24] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[13:24] JonathanE Cortes is Offline
[13:24] Andromeda Mesmer: Last time, Lorin Tone showed his 2 large harps -- they sang to each other, had faces --
[13:24] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[13:24] Aphilo Aarde: sounds beautiful
[13:25] Ju Roussel is Offline
[13:25] Andromeda Mesmer: Lorin Tone likes to do presentations at the Show & Tell every few weeks -- astonishng things with music, floating planets, light effects.
[13:25] Aphilo Aarde: :) Please let me know
[13:25] Aphilo Aarde: sounds illuminating
[13:26] Andromeda Mesmer: Well -- this is all at the Avaria Show & Tell -- on Sundays at 2 pm SLT.
[13:26] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[13:26] Andromeda Mesmer: Other people show things like buildings, gardens, animated critters, airships.
[13:26] Aphilo Aarde: often not online then, but ...
[13:26] Andromeda Mesmer: There is a huge Steampunk movement --
[13:27] Dallas Trefoil is Online
[13:27] Andromeda Mesmer: They show the alternative technologies -- if Babbage had been able to build a working computer -- what would have the world looked like?
[13:27] Ju Roussel is Online
[13:27] Aphilo Aarde: very interesting
[13:28] Andromeda Mesmer: That group of people go in for wearing vaguely Victorian style clothing -- make giant airships -- buildings with a Victorian look to them --
[13:28] Ju Roussel is Offline
[13:28] Ju Roussel is Online
[13:28] Andromeda Mesmer: It's a very romantic view of Victorian times -- with a good dash of Jules Verne.
[13:28] Wibble Poplin is Offline
[13:29] Andromeda Mesmer: it seems to have attracted a very intelligent group of people too.
[13:29] Aphilo Aarde: interesting
[13:29] Aquiel Aero is Offline
[13:29] Aphilo Aarde: sounds worth checking out
[13:29] Andromeda Mesmer: The main area there is called "Caledon - have their own flag too --
[13:30] Ju Roussel is Offline
[13:30] Andromeda Mesmer: i think those LM's are still good.
[13:30] Aquiel Aero is Online
[13:30] Ju Roussel is Online
[13:31] Andromeda Mesmer gave you STEAMPUNK 19th c. Steampunk Vic, Caledon Victoria City (133, 1.
[13:31] Teleport completed from http://slurl.com/secondlife/Berkman/113/45/25
[13:31] Connecting to in-world Voice Chat...
[13:31] Connected
[13:31] Andromeda Mesmer gave you Caledon Glengarry, Caledon Glengarry (213, 89, 23).
[13:31] Teleport completed from http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Oxbridge%20Village/171/53/36
[13:31] Connecting to in-world Voice Chat...
[13:31] Connected
[13:31] Ju Roussel is Offline
[13:32] Ju Roussel is Online
[13:32] Jennette Forager is Offline
[13:32] Aphilo Aarde: Oops hit teleport by accident
[13:33] Andromeda Mesmer: I made some adjustments so these days, don't get accidentally teleported.
[13:33] JenzZa Misfit is Offline
[13:33] Aphilo Aarde: What are some of the 'bests of SL' which you know about? Things which push the SL envelope - like Pi Day at San Francisco's Exploratorim in SL
[13:34] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[13:34] Andromeda Mesmer: Well -- Svarga, Gardens of Apollo,
[13:34] Andromeda Mesmer: Museums --
[13:34] Aphilo Aarde: Patio Plasma and company are making a lot of Physic's exhibits which use the Havoc physic engine in new ways.
[13:34] Aphilo Aarde: ... for example.
[13:35] Andromeda Mesmer: The Star Trek Museum -- International Space Flight Museum.
[13:35] Aphilo Aarde: Interesting
[13:35] Aphilo Aarde: And avatar design?
[13:35] Andromeda Mesmer: I didn't hear of Patio Plasma - I should look at that.
[13:35] Aphilo Aarde: And do you see any modeling of RL world in SL which might fit together in to a whole earth?
[13:36] Andromeda Mesmer: Oh -- Avatar Design -- that's at the Sunday Show & Tell -- my favourite was a tugboat with smokestack.
[13:36] MacZ Urbanowicz is Online
[13:36] Aphilo Aarde: Patio is one of 20 research Ph.D.s at San Francisco's Exploratorium, and a senior scientist there
[13:36] Aphilo Aarde: with degrees from MIT - who is exploring Second Life physics vis-a-vis the Exploratorium
[13:37] Aphilo Aarde: Henry Segerman - (he has a Stanford Ph.D. in math is also making interesting math objects in SL).
[13:37] Andromeda Mesmer: My interest currently is how to animate my builds -- I failed, except for the spinning.
[13:37] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[13:38] Andromeda Mesmer: I will try again to put something on the ground here.
[13:38] Aphilo Aarde: Great - not sure why it won't work here for you .. only in the sandbox perhaps - doesn't make sense
[13:38] Aphilo Aarde: there you are
[13:39] Andromeda Mesmer: Ah - worked that time!
[13:39] Crimsom Nightfire is Online
[13:39] Andromeda Mesmer: I wanted to make the central figure turn and jump - unfortunately, was not possible.
[13:39] Andromeda Mesmer: A scripter friend said there are oftlen several ways to dos omething in SL -- and none of them are really good.
[13:40] Aphilo Aarde: Dancing figures would be great
[13:40] Andromeda Mesmer: At one point, I was trying for zero gravity.
[13:40] Aphilo Aarde: I've had that experience ... and yet SL is instantiated
[13:40] Andromeda Mesmer: This figure could be animated with Puppeteer -- but I don't know Puppeteer yet.
[13:40] Andromeda Mesmer: I was pretty happy with this - entered it into a competition.
[13:41] Andromeda Mesmer: Did't win -- I think cats are more popular -- like this one --
[13:41] MacZ Urbanowicz is Offline
[13:41] Aphilo Aarde: Hmmm
[13:42] MacZ Urbanowicz is Online
[13:42] Andromeda Mesmer: It doesn't actually play anything --
[13:42] MacZ Urbanowicz is Offline
[13:42] Andromeda Mesmer: But - people liked it.
[13:42] Aphilo Aarde: It's so close - partially finished builds are many in SL
[13:42] Aphilo Aarde: It's visual interesting
[13:42] Buffy Beale is Offline
[13:43] Andromeda Mesmer: More interesting than the other one -- I tried to give it an active sort of look - cat in mid leap --
[13:44] Andromeda Mesmer: Well, my current build -- what I am working on -- roof for a Pagoda. I ws surprised to find out how difficult those are to do well.
[13:44] Andromeda Mesmer: One basically has to do some cheating to make it come out.
[13:44] Aphilo Aarde: Building in SL is like that
[13:45] Aphilo Aarde: I think -- I like M's Hot Springs
[13:45] Andromeda Mesmer: Well -- some building is pretty straight forward -- but other building can be difficult.
[13:45] Andromeda Mesmer: Do you have the LM for the Hot Springs?
[13:45] Aphilo Aarde: I'm still wondering how to build virtual Harbin with no budget - about 4 sims worth
[13:46] Aphilo Aarde: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Veil%20of%20Shadows/123/12/22
[13:46] Andromeda Mesmer: I've decided to build by doing small sections first.
[13:46] Aphilo Aarde: It's simple but the nature and hot springs ideas are central
[13:48] Andromeda Mesmer: I'll have a look -- I'm particularly interested in use of -- particles -- hide the defects in water.
[13:48] Andromeda Mesmer: I mean -- hide seams, where 2 water prims come together.
[13:49] Andromeda Mesmer: That's the only way to do it -- or stick in a plant or rock --
[13:49] Aphilo Aarde: Virtual Harbin is a long term field site
[13:49] Aphilo Aarde: And also topographically realistic
[13:49] Aphilo Aarde: I hope
[13:50] Aphilo Aarde: My hands seem to be scripted typing
[13:51] Andromeda Mesmer: I'm not so enthralled with realism these days :) "Beautiful" -- is good enough.
[13:51] Andromeda Mesmer: "scripted typing" -- that can go on because of lag.
[13:51] Buffy Beale is Online
[13:51] Aphilo Aarde: I like the Yosemite top grid on Rumsey's sim - seems imcomplete
[13:51] Aphilo Aarde: And i like the Mont St. Michel island in Normandy, France
[13:51] Aphilo Aarde: fair realistic
[13:52] Andromeda Mesmer: Mont St. Michel is beautiful.
[13:52] Aphilo Aarde: But there is a Second Life Bird's Eye View which is fascinating
[13:52] Andromeda Mesmer: Not aware of that last one.
[13:52] Aphilo Aarde: which comes together with realism
[13:52] Andromeda Mesmer: There is much of SL that I'm not familiar with.
[13:53] Aphilo Aarde: i.e. there's not a one-to-one scaled down correspondence
[13:53] Andromeda Mesmer: I miss the old San Francisco that was in SL when I was new --
[13:53] sandhya2 Patel is Offline
[13:53] Andromeda Mesmer: well -- not "old" -- current San Francisco -- it actually had visitors from all around the world, like the RL San Francisco.
[13:53] Ju Roussel is Offline
[13:53] Aphilo Aarde: of RL to SL
[13:53] Andromeda Mesmer: Then - one day -- POOF - gone.
[13:54] Aphilo Aarde: I didn't see SF in SL
[13:54] Andromeda Mesmer: I was surprised - am surprised -- the the Lindens have no interest in recreating their city.
[13:54] Breeze Underwood is Online
[13:55] Buffy Beale is Offline
[13:55] Aphilo Aarde: I don't really like commercialism in SL or advertising ... Sea Turtle Island is another sim I like - and it's a kind of cooperative/collective with an education focus - Cedar Island I think it's called
[13:55] Andromeda Mesmer: SF had 2 streetcar lines, a bit of hill, Golden Gate Bridge, some tall sky scrapers, and many clubs and stores. Lag was pretty bad
[13:55] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[13:56] Sybex Drachnyd is Offline
[13:56] Andromeda Mesmer: Well -- unfortunately for you -- I suspect that SL is being more commercialized -- the accountant tpes are coming into the company.
[13:56] Dallas Trefoil is Offline
[13:56] Andromeda Mesmer: That may not be good long term.
[13:57] Dallas Trefoil is Online
[13:57] Aphilo Aarde: Yes, but fortunately, there are infinite sims, and you can't see them all ... so I imagine lists of related sims have already begun to emerge :)
[13:57] Aphilo Aarde: infinite! it's incredible
[13:57] Andromeda Mesmer: Customer care -- for the well-paying customers -- is not really great.
[13:58] Aphilo Aarde: LL historical trajectory - haven't entered that realm yet
[13:58] Andromeda Mesmer: What do you mean by "LL historical trajectory"?
[13:59] Dallas Trefoil is Offline
[14:00] Andromeda Mesmer: There is a SL artist -- incredible skill at making sculpties -- like waving fields of oats -- who says that LL have made some bad mistakes in the way things are rendered. Certainly, serious flaws in the avatar shape which drives artists bananas.
[14:00] Aphilo Aarde: I have heard poor things about LL customer service over the years, and nothing seems to have changed ... I see this as part of its culture, and, of course, it could change ... but someone from within Linden would have to initiate this ... they're a kind of tightly networked group
[14:00] Arawn Spitteler is Offline
[14:00] Andromeda Mesmer: Actually insightful there -- I didn't think about "part of culture."
[14:00] Andromeda Mesmer: Hmmm --
[14:01] Andromeda Mesmer: Then the customers have to look for their own solutions to problems --
[14:01] Aphilo Aarde: Either Kingdon the current head has to change it, or some other Linden
[14:01] Michele Mrigesh is Offline
[14:01] Andromeda Mesmer: There have been problems with theft, illegitimate copying, and griefer attacks.
[14:02] Aphilo Aarde: True - it's part of the 'we build it' ethos, which distributedness also informs the Lindens themselves
[14:02] Andromeda Mesmer: One of the texture artists is leaving SL because of lack of help, to do with griefers.
[14:02] Andromeda Mesmer: That's just one example -- I'm not sure, but what she might have been able to do something -- certainly her friends and customers are upset.
[14:02] Aphilo Aarde: long term problems ... as an individual you have to strategize around them
[14:03] Dallas Trefoil is Online
[14:03] Tara Yeats is Offline
[14:03] Aphilo Aarde: Well, I'm going to take off ... it's nice to chat and visit ... I like your penguin shirt
[14:03] Andromeda Mesmer: Would you like a copy? It's for fans of Linux -
[14:04] Aphilo Aarde: Yes ... please ... I also have
[14:04] Aphilo Aarde: a friend who's very penguin oriented and I'll pass it to her
[14:05] Andromeda Mesmer: Wonderful!
[14:05] Aphilo Aarde: as well, if I can
[14:05] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[14:05] Andromeda Mesmer gave you Penguin Shirt.
[14:05] Aphilo Aarde: Thank you ! :)
[14:06] Andromeda Mesmer: I've also got a shirt with the caffeine molecule on it --
[14:06] Andromeda Mesmer: and many others too -
[14:06] Aphilo Aarde: That would be sweet - are they multi-sized :)
[14:06] Andromeda Mesmer: LO - yes, they are --
[14:06] Aphilo Aarde: ;)
[14:07] Andromeda Mesmer gave you T-shirt - gray - Caffeine molecule.
[14:07] Aphilo Aarde: Thank you, again ...
[14:07] Andromeda Mesmer: That point about "multisize" -- that's actually a problem for the SL designers.
[14:07] Froukje Hoorenbeek is Online
[14:07] Andromeda Mesmer: They get very picky about how the mesh works in SL -- and they don't like it at all.
[14:08] Aphilo Aarde: I can imagine that makes for interesting programming challenges, as do a whole set of scaling questions vis-a-vis SL.
[14:08] Andromeda Mesmer: One of them said -- full of elementary mistakes, like what she would have made, if she was just starting out.
[14:08] Andromeda Mesmer: Oh -- final thing to say -- forgot --
[14:08] Aphilo Aarde: :)
[14:09] Andromeda Mesmer: A synthetic world called There.com went under -
[14:09] Andromeda Mesmer: Some of its residents have come into SL - others have gone to IMVU and elsewhere --
[14:09] Aphilo Aarde: Oh, no ... might be an interesting possibility for World University & School - is it interoperable with SL, do you know?
[14:09] Andromeda Mesmer: They miss the demise of their community.
[14:10] Aphilo Aarde: Yes, that's a sad occurrence ... yet, better, in some senses than loss of homeland, which has occurred in RL again and again ... over the centuries ... Ah, modernity ...
[14:10] Andromeda Mesmer: I'm not sure how There.com worked -- only found out from an island owner here -- she was going to auction off some items she made - but that was not possible.
[14:11] Andromeda Mesmer: Losses of all kinds continue -- there are even cemeteries in SL, memorials of different kinds too.
[14:11] Aphilo Aarde: I never visited it, but virtual worlds need a scale of community that isn't all that easy to build, because of limited eyeball stickitiivity
[14:12] Kazuhiro Aridian is Online
[14:12] Andromeda Mesmer: Many of the communities that I have seen seem to center around one or two individuals. New Citizens is a group endeavour --
[14:13] Andromeda Mesmer: My bird's eye view anyway -- focused more on the artists running stores.
[14:13] Andromeda Mesmer: But -- even here at Harvard -- started with one professor --
[14:13] Aphilo Aarde: I think art is a most remarkable set of representations to come out of Second Life
[14:14] Andromeda Mesmer: The Lindens had no idea of how far that would go --
[14:14] Luna Bliss is Online
[14:14] Aphilo Aarde: And Second Lifers can appreciate this more ... getting into Second Life takes a little added effort which limits the number of visitors, and makes the appreciation of such art all the more great.
[14:14] Aphilo Aarde: Nice to visit, A, and look forward to chatting with you further :)
[14:15] Aphilo Aarde: I'm taking off now ... see you soon :)














(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/fall-oaks-in-yosemite-transcript-from.html - March 27, 2010)

Friday, March 26, 2010

Ben Lomond, NZ: Looking for a key developer of the WUaS wiki and database, WUaS Law School in Guatemala? Striking Employees, WUaS Medical Sch & Clinic

Hi Rose,

Visiting Stanford now for an Internet talk on privacy (the end of a CodeX - - conference I didn't attend - http://research.it.uts.edu.au/magic/privacy2010/) and Canada in the Law School. Walked back away from the campus, and into a lovely neighborhood which felt like coming home vis-a-vis many of our houses. And the weather is so great, here.

Looking for a key developer of the WUaS wiki and database, - someone like Peter Deng who graduated from Stanford in 07 and is the chief engineer at Facebook.

Talk to you later.

Love, Scott



*

Hi Roam,

Nice to see you, and looking forward to visiting perhaps in April. I have a few things on my mind when we talk. I'm curious what's on your mind these days.

1) I'm looking for a key developer of the WUaS wiki and database, - someone like Peter Deng who graduated from Stanford in 07 (computer science as undergrad?) and is now the chief engineer at Facebook. I'm curious about your thoughts about finding such a Stanford alumni, or student (e.g. the developing the English wiki into 7400ish languages idea, as wiki; Wikipedia has 272 languages by comparison).

2) Your thoughts about going from an unlocked, quad band, hot-syncable Treo with Palm OS with data, to iPhone OS or Android OS (with Samsung's Behold II or other innovative handheld). I haven't seen how to move my data from my Palm to either of these new OSs, but am glad to see that the iPhone is officially 'leaked' as unlocked.

3) To chat a little about your possible vision, and my vision of setting up online law schools (and other aspects of WUaS) - beyond posting links to courses for a law school in Guatemala, for example, how would such a free, open, online version help folks, and what might information technology do to transform legal processes (e.g. http://www.jureeka.org whose developer I met today in Rm. 180)?


Where interests are taking shape for you in the Law? And how might World University & School as wiki be of help to developing them e.g. If you wanted to teach part time at some point in the future, would laying out course structures, or syllabi, (e.g. MIT OCW) for a particular area be of use to you? And in any particular language besides English? Here's the WUaS Nation-States - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Nation_States - where I hope 50-100 countries/states/territories will have their own virtual WUaS law schools.

I'm curious what's on your mind these days. I hope this finds you well, and looking forward to talking.

Sincerely,
Scott



http://scottmacleod.com
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University



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Safeway employees were striking loudly ab out 30 minutes ago when I passed by - didn't see why they were organizing or what their goals are ...


interesting to see how labor disputes come up in internet search engines ...


Not easy to find information about it, for example - www.your-story.org/dozens-of-janitors-at-northern-california-safeway-supermarkets-stop-work-contractors-proposed-benefit-cuts-intimidation-are-at-issue-109325/



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Scott:
I particularly likes the virtual hospital in SL at worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects as the site for a medical school & care facility ... Check it out. Applying to Med Sch in a few years, let WUaS know... And what might you like to teach there?


A friend asks:

are you really there or are you just advertising for SL?? lol


Scott:

I hope I'm letting people know about a possible free medical education and clinic in the future ... open source & free ware vis a vis nfo tech rewrite questions of advertising and outreach, too ... and I like the SL hospital and its idea. Check it out and let me know what you think ...







(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/ben-lomond-nz-looking-for-key-developer.html - March 26, 2010)

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Natural Geothermal: “Om Shanti Padma Om – How ya doing?,” someone in the virtual Harbin Domes Pool Area asks

Harbin ethnography:


“Om Shanti Padma Om – How ya doing?,” someone in the virtual Harbin Domes Pool Area asks after you land near the new Solar Panels' Grid, which is also becoming virtual car ports at the same time, and walk through the Bubble portal into this fascinating, bubbles-like building (Figure 1.8). From across the valley in the Mainside Pool Area The Domes look evocative and intriguing. The actual Harbin Dome Pools aren't geothermally heated, so these solar panels will save about 7%? on emissions as well as the heating bill. Harbin's Hippy-New Age thinking, emerging with the 1960s and 70s, includes still today many echoes of practices originally from India. Your avatar friend and you say “Namaste,” and begin to chat about the virtual Watsu class taking place in the lower pool, before heading into the upper pool, with virtual bathing suits. The actual Mainside Pool Area is clothing optional, and most people at actual Harbin go into the pools nude, whereas the actual Dome Pools are a Watsu school, with guest accommodations. Watsu - water shiatsu – is a form of water movement originating at Harbin (Figure 1.9). Since many people who may come to the Watsu School aren't necessarily interested in clothing-optionalness, and because the actual Harbin Domes were built with a a Watsu school in mind, wearing clothes are the norm. Watsu itself was started probably mostly clothing-optinally in the Harbin warm pool perhaps in the mid-1970s just by starting to float people, and as a way to meet. You offer to give your new avatar friend a Watsu in the upper Harbin Dome pool.

She's accepts and …









(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/natural-geothermal-om-shanti-padma-om.html - March 25, 2010)

Bird Color: Check out the Juilliard / NY Phil Bassoon lesson At World Univ's budding Music School, Looking for World Univ funding sources

Vivaldi's Oboe Concerti Vol 2 played by Stefan Schilli (Naxos) is very lovely :) Not very much Oboe at WUaS - worlduniversity.wika.com/wiki/Music yet. Check out the Juiilliard / NY Phil Bassoon lesson by Morelli. :) Invitation to teach & learn music at World University & School's budding music school.


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Looking for funding sources for the open, free World University & School - like Wikipedia with http://webcast.berkeley.edu, MIT Open Course Ware & other great Universities' open, free content - free Harvard Ph.D. at WUaS now worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses


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... codes & practices seem to make possible forms of bliss e.g. music & the Dalai Lama, - all to explore at free, open worlduniversity.wikia.com


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Friend in Guatemala on FB:
today I'm starting a 10 day Vipassana meditation course...so long internet, music, human interaction; hello enlightenment!


Another friend:
sending you my best thoughts for your expanding mind!


Scott:
relaxationresponse.org/steps opportunity with enlightenment-focused awareness :)


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Bliss neurophysiology elicitation simply by playing chamber music, Raga, Grateful Dead mp3s? Musical scores for mutual bodymind bliss? Notation & Improvisation?


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... listening to Will Durant's 'Life of Greece.' Aecheans were hard & violent. Life was ' Pan trodlodytes,' or common chimp-ish, - not Bonobo, then.


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Do we still lack an easy to use 'Name this Image' search e.g. what's this: onemindblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/plant-at-catcha.jpg URL?


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Friend:
Anyone down for Academy of Sciences tonight?

Scott:

Or the Thursday evening Contact Improv jam at 7th Heaven yoga in Berkeley, near Ashby exit, at 8:30 for $5 donation?


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iPhone is now officially leaked by Apple as unlocked, as a friend recently observed: mashable.com/2010/03/23/iphone-without-contract/ :) According to a leaked document by Apple, everyone will now be able to buy an iPhone in Apple stores without an ID and without an AT&T contract. You can buy one iPhone per day; the devices, however, will still be ...... locked to AT&T, meaning you must either use an AT&T SIM with it or unlock it.The prices are: $499 for the iPhone 3G 8GB, $599 for the iPhone 3GS 16GB and $699 for the iPhone 32GB.


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Added new subjects/courses/content at World University & School in "Peace," "Martin Luther King, Jr.," "History," "Evolutionary Biology," "History," "Literature," "Memoir," "Psychotherapy" :) - worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects


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Added new 'Evolutionary Biology' subject material to World University & School 1st with Google Book by Alfred Russel Wallace: worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Evolutionary_Biology

"Alfred R. Wallace's Malay Archipelago Wallace, the co-discoverer with Charles Darwin of evolution by natural selection, produced this ...classic of Victorian travel writing on his return from eight extraordinary years of scientific exploration throughout South East Asia. A mix of travelogue, science, ethnography, and pure adventure, it is wonderfully readable (much more so, frankly, than Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle), and reveals a Wallace forever struggling to reconcile his child-like sense of wonder at what he is seeing with the stiff-upper-lip expectations of his Victorian audience. Perhaps this conflict is best captured by his account of a previous expedition that ended disastrously when his ship home from Brazil caught fire in the middle of the Atlantic, leaving Wallace and ship's crew adrift in an open boat for ten days until rescue arrived. "During the night I saw several meteors, and in fact could not be in a better position for observing them, than lying on my back in a small boat in the middle of the Atlantic." Positive-thinking, Victorian-style! Reading Wallace is a wonderful antidote to the prevalent notion that the theory of evolution is Darwin's, and Darwin's alone." (Harvard professor on Fly By Blog).














(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/bird-color-check-out-juilliard-ny-phil.html - March 25, 2010)

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Half Dome: You fly down to the virtual Harbin Temple with your new avatar friend,

Harbin ethnography:


You fly down to the virtual Harbin Temple with your new avatar friend, where you land with a 'splat,' due to the Second Life scripting of landing when you press the no fly button, on this beautiful cobb and hay bale Temple structure (Figure 1.7), which roof looks like an old, straw hat, with cupola and crenela (decorative element at the top of roof above cupola?). Your avatars jump from the roof to the ground in front of one of two main entrances, and you both enter the rose-colored, swirly-stucco building, with the peaked spiral, wood-roof dome, which looks somewhat native American in origin. The skylight at the top makes the light inside soft, yet not too bright. The three avatars who are practicing yoga with each other in the Temple all live in the actual Harbin and Middletown area. Both you and your avatar friend join the virtual yoga practice. You live in the actual San Francisco Bay Area, and you don't know yet where your virtual avatar friend is from. Although her profile allows her to state something about what she does in “1st life” - real life, or RL, as many SL people say – she has only noted her Second Life interests. Since you are within a 30? SL meter radius of each other, all of you click and lock on your sound so you can speak, and don't have to type, which allows you to draw a whole range of avatar yoga pose positions from your inventory, as well as script new related movements. Some of you explore these movements in your own bodyminds at home in front of your computers. As you watch what your new yoga avatar friends are doing with yoga in the virtual Harbin Temple, they too are watching and learning virtual yoga from you. One of them mentions that someone is doing Yoga Contact-Watsu up at the virtual Harbin Domes. You and your friend walk out the other door of the Harbin Temple, and fly northeast over the Harbin Garden, across the Harbin creek, which becomes a stream in winter, and head for the Domes, some distance away.

“Om Shanti Padma Om – How ya doing?,” someone in the virtual Harbin Domes ...














(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/half-dome-you-fly-down-to-virtual.html - March 24, 2010)

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Cano Cristales: After talking with your new avatar friend, switching between both voice & type chat, you head to look at the virtual Harbin Temple

Harbin ethnography:

... talk with an avatar you meet on the sun deck in virtual Harbin.

After talking with your new avatar friend on the virtual Harbin sun deck, switching between both voice and type chat, you decide to go look at the virtual Harbin Temple, so you click the “Fly” button on your Second Life screen interface, fly up, use your arrow keys to aim for the heart shaped pools 30 meters away, and soar out over the Harbin Main Side Area. Flying over the red roofes of the virtual Harbin guest buildings, over Stonefront lodge, and over the garden to the strawbale Temple, built in 2005 at actual Harbin by Sunray, and in 2010 by Harbin residents on virtual Harbin in Second Life. These Second Life “builds” are based on virtual islands called simulations, which continue to exist on Linden Lab servers even after you turn your own computer off. For a group of people's builds to remain, Linden Lab sells virtual land, typically four 264 square meter simulations together (around 528 x 528), which are stored on Linden servers and always accessible by avatars from around the world.

You fly down to the virtual Harbin temple with your new avatar friend …















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/cano-cristales-after-talking-with-your.html - March 23, 2010)

Beautiful Succulent: Letters between Friends Interested in Exploring Eliciting Loving Bliss Together


M!

Very nice to get your email, and Happy Birthday! So glad you wrote. And I'm glad you're somewhat wired for bliss :) - 'tis a sweet thing, ~ sweet, bodymind weather. I'm curious to see what you have written about it, if you'd care to share this. I suppose I think I've written about many of the thoughts, and perhaps even concerns, you share in your message below, in my blog: scott-macleod.blogspot.com/search/label/loving%20bliss. I'm not sure what you're trying to say about loving bliss vis-a-vis music (e.g. academically, or in a blog, or in a journal), but here are some starting places for me: music is in a different register than language which adds an element of challenge in writing about experiences of it. Yet writing about loving bliss vis-a-vis music isn't impossible, and it's very worth exploring - perhaps in your own blog, where you just musically rif writing-wise, regularly, away? - Blogger.com is free. And perhaps you can already point to some writing about this which you find inspiring. I'll see if I can find some of my blog entries about this too, over time - under the 'music' or 'loving bliss' labels, as two starting places. And, if you'd care to, please add great items you find here at World University & School's "Loving Bliss" subject - https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Loving_Bliss_(eliciting_this_neurophysiology) (was: worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Loving_Bliss_(eliciting_this_neurophysiology) ) - or elsewhere at WUaS. Perhaps we can come into a long term conversation about this, especially with your interests in ethnomusicology (in which I'm interested, as well).

I draw the idea of 'bodymind' from John Money's "Concepts of Determinism" section in his 1988 book published by Oxford - search in my blog under "Concepts of Determinism" to read these 3-4 pages (around p. 114 in the actual book), which I've posted below. He uses it in the context of sexuality, which seems to go like planets around the sun - i.e. all the generations that precede us - and to offer an alternative to dualistic folk-psychology/metaphysics. These pages are worth reading: scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/09/planets-around-sun-john-moneys-concepts.html.

Vis-a-vis Quakers, I see a parallel between Silent Meeting and the relaxationresponse.org/steps, for which there's a focus aspect on releasing. I just returned from a Quaker retreat at Ben Lomond Quaker Center on 'Rightly Ordered Financial Management - groups.google.com/group/quaker-ben-lomond-rightly-ordered-finances (please join if interested) - south of San Francisco about 1 hour; I enjoy Friendly gatherings, and Ben Lomond is beautiful in the redwoods near Santa Cruz. But I spend more time at Harbin Hot Springs - harbin.org - as my ethnographic field site, about which I'm writing an ethnography (scott-macleod.blogspot.com/search/label/Harbin%20ethnography) with a virtual world aspect, and where, in the pools, I often richly experience the relaxation response, and where, sometimes, bliss bubbles up, which I find similar to what sometimes occurs in Meeting. I've been active in quite a few Meetings. What Meeting did you grow up in?

Your observation that the more you seek 'loving bliss,' or peak experiences, the less you find them, is interesting. I often return to the relaxation response - I sit every morning - and then explore loving bliss biology, with this releasing practice as a reference experience. In my thinking about the neurophysiology of loving bliss, I use ecstasy (MDMA) as a neurochemical, reference experience - naturally (you'd have to imagine it if you haven't tried it). I experience this neurochemistry naturally in the Harbin warm pool, as well as with music, - all of which can lead to very positive qualities which touch on loving bliss. (Search on 'ecstasy (MDMA)' in my blog here for more related thoughts - scott-macleod.blogspot.com/search/label/ecstasy%20{MDMA}). So I'm exploring, as a focus of inquiry, eliciting loving bliss neurophysiology, when and as one wants it. "What's the on/off switch for this biology?" - is one way of asking this question. And I don't experience these qualities as frequently when I'm tired, as not - so it's not chasing the experience for me, but rather getting enough rest that is key, as well as being in touch with relaxationresponse.org / silent meeting centering biology (with which quite a few bodyminds in this world aren't:) - and then sometimes loving bliss bubbles up. Or I turn on Vivaldi or the Grateful Dead, and soar with neural cascades of pleasure which are kinds of 'flow'. :) {Sometimes I explore my own bodymind improvisation with the music, - I might sing a line in harmony, but silently, as one example}. So, as a focus of inquiry, I do desire to understand how loving bliss - and all its related qualities - works, and then go there, in the midst of a busy, yet somewhat free, life. So I try to stay on focus, - perhaps as a form of desire in your sense - in exploring how to elicit loving bliss. How does it work biologically, yet subjectively, in all its many qualities? I'm curious about your thoughts about this?

I also think code - e.g. music, and especially language - can give form - cause - qualities of loving bliss. Also, flax seed oil (for Omega fatty acids) has specific harmonizing and brightening effects in my experience, but I haven't seen the clinical research to support this. So code and bodymind neurophysiology are key, and these are biological.

I think the music recording examples I've mentioned are all examples of information technologies which bring me to bliss. I too get tired when staring at the screen too much, but this is partly a scheduling question. Has reading, as information technology - nose in a book - been relative widespread (and alienating?) since Gutenberg? I don't think so, and this is key aspect of the internet. And I prefer the enjoyment of being social a fair amount, and do find myself engaged with information technologies at times at the expense of sociality. I suppose it's all about troopbonding see John Money 1988: 114) of an unique (communitas - see Victor Turner) persuasion (and scheduling - see Stanford Professor Emeritus Phil Zimbardo's FB office hours: Zimbardo, Phil. 2009. Stanford Open Office Hours: Philip Zimbardo, Part 1. (Heroic Imagination/Insight - also here: facebook.com/video/video.php?v=614090435683 Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University, and see his Pts. 2 & 3 sections, concerning 'planned hedonoism' for busy Stanford students. Phil Zimbardo is also great. I think social conditions do emerge as a consequence of the industrial revolutions that precede and inform us, where all these technologies we live among create conditions of alienation, especially around possibilities for making money and livelihoods - I've experienced this in myself and others (e.g. when you see really wigged out people). But I also think we have agency, and that we can and will choose the technologies we want to use. I don't see widespread agrarianism emerging en masse in the next century either, for example, as a response to the alienation of modernity and cities. Jobs are in cities, and cities will continue to grow tremendously around the world in the next century.

When might you come to visit, so that we can check out cell-phone free Harbin Hot Springs together? The warm pool there is richly and refreshingly releasing, - even for the most wired, information technologist. :) And Harbin is very natural, so I agree that nature is wonderful for bliss ... but so is the experience of traveling there and back again. It's Harbin's milieu which is so remarkable and unique. Findhorn isn't the same, although I haven't visited it. I know of no place in the Britain like Harbin.

For me, with a focus of inquiry on loving bliss, the next questions I'm curious about have to do with bodyminds vis-a-vis chamber music, rock bands, and raga and related musicians, as metaphors. Can people do what such musicians do, but bodymind to bodymind, that is, metaphorically, as human musical instruments (and with or without musical instruments), both with notation and improvisationally vis-a-vis loving bliss. Contact Improv dance jams are a metaphor here for me, as well. And while I enjoy contact improv, and it also makes me fit - being healthy helps with bliss elicitation - it usually can lead to flow for me, but not bliss, let alone loving bliss, in my experience. What's the musical score, if one were to develop chamber music-like jams/practices? What musical instrument is your bodymind? How would you make it soar with another musical instrument bodymind? How would this work? (The video I posted to your FB page, here, is an amazing example as model: İşte Gitarı Konuşturmak Ben Buna Derim Four-Hand Guitar - facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1107177801715&ref=mf - but there are many. Humans are complex, and there's a lot of evolutionary biology behind us, and ahead, as well as culture, all informing us. One kernel for this idea of exploring loving bliss as musical score is here: http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/bonobo-relaxing-loving-bliss.html as well as here: http://scottmacleod.com/GuidelinesPracticingLovingBlissvavMusicalInstrument.htm. Shall we explore this together, from afar, in writing and media? :)

Happy birthday :)

With friendly greetings,
Scott














Hi Scott - many thanks for the guitar four hands - fantastic!

I have been meaning to write to you for a while - I always find your statuses intriguing and your blogs very interesting.
I am particularly interested in your work and ideas on what you call 'loving bliss' and how you relate it to Csikszentmihalyi's theories on flow.
I too am a little wired for it I think.
I've been trying to write about it in the context of musical experience recently, but there are not terms for it that are unambiguous that it is proving very difficult.

I like how you don't express it in terms of religious or spiritual language. I'm also interested in the idea of the 'bodymind'

I'm interested in your case because I too was brought up in a Quaker family in Scotland. I am used to focussing my mind and bringing my consciousness into certain states , and have been pratising it since childhood. Have I learned from a young age to welcome such experiences in? Or is it to do with a perspective on life? simplicity, integrity, open-endedness and focus on goodness as you say?

I seem to spend my whole life chasing these peak experiences, but in fact it seems like the more I desire them the less I experience loving bliss, because of artifical expectation. The more I desire loving bliss the less likely it is to just come over me, because I desire it. I don't know.

I have a question though. I know you are interested in the anthropology of information technology, and I wonder about this in relation to loving bliss.
I am an addict to information and I definitely feel that living in a virtual world, constantly plugged into a digital feedback loop, makes me unhappy. It forces me to live perpetually in the future. And if I am in a situation whereby I cannot access information instantly, it makes me anxious and uptight.

I only experience loving bliss, as you call it, outside the world of technology. I experience it most often in nature, where I am not wired into this artifical world. It is only when I am not connected to the web that I can appreciate the world 'as it is,' in that moment. It is only then when I can appreciate the universe without looking to the future. To observe the passing sky, the regularity of the waves lapping the beach - the great salt pulse of the earth.
In fact, i would say that my happiest peak experiences happen when I am as far removed from technology as I can be. Not necessarily alone, not at all. With great friends, yes, playing music with great friends, having fantastic conversations in real time.
As much as I revel in the world of information and knowledge at my fingertips, I feel that it is having a profoundly detrimental effect on my well-being, my mental health and my ability to elicit experiences of loving bliss.
I worry that as a human race our attachment to information technology will have an negative impact, unless we learn to use it wisely.
Have you any thoughts on this? I would be very interested to hear them.

In anticipation,
M.M.






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Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Am seeking to recall who M.M. is, and which social media ... (would think I can search various social media in 2010 to find out).




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...


(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/03/beautiful-succulent-letters-between.html - March 23, 2010)