poissons d'avril

Yesterday, one of the developers on the OpenSim project introduced an April Fool's "joke" that caused all avatars to render as stick figures. This caused a reaction from many of the users of OpenSim who spent hours trying to resolve the issue. In response, Sean Dague, one of the principles in the project, posted Hey Folks, Please Get a Sense of Humor on his blog. I think he misses the point, in assuming that those complaining have no sense of humour. Worse, some of the comments go obscenely further.

In response, I posted a comment, which appears to have been rejected by the blog moderator. Therefore, I'm reposting my comment here:

Wow. Just wow. Somebody did something stupid in the product, was chastised for it publicly, and now I read whinging about how those people had no right to complain about anything you chose to do. As a developer for over 25 years, I cannot imagine the level of hubris that says of those using my product, even the most bleeding edge version of my product, “screw ‘em”.

There are legitimate reasons to work from the trunk, and anybody working from that has to expect occasionally instabilities and problems, and budget their time accordingly. Jokes are fine, but, when it turns out that a problem that makes the product more or less unusable was intentionally introduced as a joke, well, it demonstrates to me a lack of concern for those using the product.

who am i?

Identity is, to me, a fascinating concept, but I didn't think much about it until a couple of years ago. That was when I got involved in Second Life (SL), a place I first went to investigate the technology.

Perhaps I should start with some things about me. I'm a techie, a software developer and wannabe visionary. I first started investigating SL in 2006 to see what could be done with virtual world technology. If I did see a lot of possibility with the tech, I was also very surprised by relationship.

It turns out that SL is more about relationship–who and where–than it is about technology. And one of the most dramatic relationships, at least for me, has been that between my "real life" (RL)* and my SL selves. That almost sounds as if we're discussing a multiple personality disorder, but I don't think that's it. Rather, I find the relationship of Tho Millgrove and my RL self to be simple and complex. They are both me, yet they're not the same. Or, I could say they are both my identities, but they are not identical, each influencing as well as being influenced.

That is to say, Second Life and other virtual spaces have had a profound influnce on the inner me. I still recall my first month in SL as a time of very vivid dreaming, with my subconscious mind trying to make sense of and integrate this new self into my psyche. In the subsequent time, when things have become much calmer and steadier, there have still been periods of profound disturbance as events and realisations have affected me.

Once, I was experimenting with a text viewer, and wanted to see if my avatar was rendering properly. So I went in world with an alternate avatar–an alt–in the regular SL viewer. The effect was, surprisingly to me, very disturbing. I saw her there, looking like she always does. The normal viewpoint in SL is from a "camera" behind the avatar, and it's not unusual to move that camera view and look at your own avatar from many different angles. And yet, unlike that, this felt felt like an out-of-body experience. I quickly logged the alt out, and shook my head at how odd it had been.

So, ultimately, who am I? Who is "myself"? Is it RL self or SL self, or do they both exist as windows onto an inner reality? I tend to believe the later, and that has a profound effect on how I deal with many of the discussions about things like "immersion and augmentation", role playing, and even friendship, trust, sexuality, religion. I intend to talk about specifics in future posts, but I wanted to make a start.

What do you think about identity and virtual worlds?


* Many SL users prefer not to use "real life", choosing alternatively to use "first life", "atomic life", or "physical life". But, by now "real life" has become rather ingrained in common usage, "first life" only makes sense in the context of "Second Life", and the other two sound to me more like biology terms. So I'll just use RL.

non sequitor

I heard this, or something very close to it, just yesterday from a celebrity who I consider quite intelligent: "I don't believe in God because of all the bad things done in his name."

It's an old argument, but it's an ad hominem one, and it's logical nonsense. Replace "God" with any random noun to see how silly it is. "I don't believe in sex because of all the bad things done for it." "I don't believe in chocolate because of all the colonialism and exploitation that goes with it." Please! If you're going to argue that atheism is more rational than religion, then at least come up with a rational argument.

merry christmas

to all my friends and readers who celebrate it, I wish a very Merry Christmas. To those who celebrate other festivals of the season, please accept my best wishes to you.

To some very special friends in the virtual world, I especially send my hugs and wishes for a wonderful new year:

Parker, a friend with whom I've shared both my frustrations and my counsel, and most of all my love.

Esteban, one of my very first and very best friends in SL, and a wonderful guy.

Danni, whose life I have added spice too (Cajun, specifically).

Chandlr, a guy who has an incredible talent with sculpties.

Effie, somebody I have shared both fun and frustration with.

KayCee, a very creative woman who has given me lots of helpful advice.

Darcy, a fellow bookworm.

Julianna, my favourite mermaid.

NightMorrisey, a recently made friend, who shared her frustrations, and listened to mine, and who has a beautiful place.

Chestnut, another new friend who appreciates and shares beauty.

And most of all, Pauline. I've known you for three of the four months you've been in SL, and have cherished all of the time with you. You are something special, my peapod sister.

so many more that I can't list you all.

To all of you, may the new year be a good one, full of joy, blessings, and friendship.

XO

bibliophilia

Yes! I confess! I'm a bookworm, with uncontrollable bibliophiliac tendencies. A bookstore is a place where I face great temptation.

The list below has apparently been floating about the blogosphere for a while, though I'm just now picking up on it. I've put those I've read in bold, those I'm currently reading in italics, while most of those remaining I intend to eventually read.

If you disagree with some of the entries here, please know that this list was made by others, and, as with all such lists, the choices are arguable. There is, for instance, a time effect that makes some of these more popular than they likely deserve. Indeed, some, such as the Da Vinci Code, I fully expect would not be on a list made a decade from now.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

identity in virtual worlds, preliminary thoughts

I intend to eventually get to a post on identity and reality in virtual worlds. Meanwhile, take a look at CeNedra Rivera's thoughts, and the attached comments. I don't really know CeN, but I find I have a lot in common with her view on sharing RL photos.

CeN's Two Cents: Results of Poll #17 - RL Pictures

this I believe

Chestnut Rau, in her blog entry from the 28th of July, This I Believe, had some very good thoughts that sparked some things I've been noodling with. So, in my usually belated fashion, here are my own thoughts, over a month later.

I am a real person in both physical life and the metaverse. I am the same person, the same self, but embodied in different ways in the different worlds. My avatars in the various worlds are me just as much as my physical body is me. And, yet, there are differences because of the differences between the worlds.

I do not choose to share everything about my physical life in the metaverse, and the reverse is also true. This does not make me any less real or honest in either place. I have no obligation to share "real world" information about myself with you, and I ask that you respect that. I accept that others make different choices, and I respect those choices. If you share things with me in confidence, I will keep that confidence, and I expect you to do the same for me.

If you cannot agree with what I have said, that's fine, but in that case, we will remain only passing acquaintances. I am far from perfect, I know, but it is not your role to "fix" me.

Finally, I believe in the Golden Rule, treat others as well as you wish to be treated. I don't always follow it perfectly, but I do try.