Moriash Moreau: My Second Life: Second Life Update

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Second Life Update
Things I learned in Second Life this week:

My neighbor, OmegaX Zapata, once directed a faithful rendition of a virtual Catholic Mass. He's not Catholic (in fact he has some aggressively interesting views on religion as a whole, which I won't go into), but he approves of comprehensive virtual world modeling. The real world has churches, so Second Life should have churches. Sadly, the church is now defunct. But it was well received, for the most part, especially by one invalid Catholic woman who was unable to attend real services. They didn't do the Eucharist (or however you refer to that- perform the Eucharist?), for fear of running afoul of sticky theological issues and offending someone. Is virtual bread and wine transubstantiated? Into the virtual body and blood of Christ? Do you need to make the host objects No Copy, No Modify, so people can't go around handing out copies on their own time? Or does No Modify intrinsically negate transubstantiation? It might be interesting to see the game code duke it out with a bona fide miracle. Which server would crash first?
I can be remarkably tasteless, sometimes. Okay, this isn't news. Just a little reminder, I guess.
Having a light source object strapped to my virtual head all the time has taught me quite a bit about local light sourcing behavior in the game. For example, I learned that the only way to actually make an area darker is to make a black object and make it a source. This will map "black light" all over the adjacent objects. I discovered this while trying to edit my halo, and inadvertently selecting the wall behind me instead.
Public bingo (or actually Tringo, a combination of bingo and Tetris) is the most evil thing in the world. Especially when it's outdoors, uses a PA system that can be heard clearly for over 100 meters, and employs a bizarre space-time distortion that slows down time to a crawl every time events are held. Okay, not a problem that comes up often in the real world, but still. Second to this is the dance club, which generally doesn't create as much noise pollution (sound can be stopped at property borders with the proper settings, "shouted" text instructions can't)
One of my neighbors, Walker Spaight, is a "raving reporter" and managing editor for the Second Life Herald. He's a good guy, and is only a few in-game days older than I am. (Moriash Moreau was born on 1/1/05, Walker entered the game a few days before.) I confess that I'm a little intimidated when I talk to him. It's like talking to Lois Lane or J. Jonah Jameson. You can't quite shake the feeling that whatever you say next might become news. Even if you're talking about trivialities like the substandard building practices used by the neighbors.
He and another neighbor, Alain Moreau (no relation), are interested in trying to keep a little green in the Louise sim. We've formed a local civic association group, with tentative plans to try and interest SL Parks and Wildlife in buying up some land in the area. P&W is an interesting group. They co-op to buy up undeveloped land, with the intention of keeping it that way. I'd settle for buying the land and reselling it at a discount to someone who promises he will keep his build tasteful and low-lag. Of course, the only hitch there is that there is no enforcement procedure. Once the land is bought, he can turn around, say "Ha, ha, suckers!" and build a giant neon encrusted strip club.
I have a remarkable, Mrs. Kravitz-esque capacity for neighborhood nosiness. My greatest enemies, currently, are the owner of the Tringo park some 75 meters to my northwest, and the owner of house to my east with the giant lemon yellow staircase and the disco lights on his front porch. I now feel the urge to join my RL neighborhood association. The above mentioned in-game civic association was originally formed for the same purpose, although it currently wields all the power and prestige of a geriatric chihuahua.
A new art museum is going in to my west. I have discovered a previously unnoticed appreciation for the value of local culture in gentrifying a neighborhood.

Well, that's all the news I have this time. More later, I suppose.
Posted by Moriash Moreau at 12:58 PM

Comments:

I have since learned that the "black light" effect mentioned above does not, in fact, happen. I was hallucinating, apparently. Oh well.

# Posted by

Moriash Moreau : 3/17/2005 5:03 PM