Dolmere Talamasca - Second Life "resident"

I flagged this for posting back when Kate first posted her entry. I'm only just now getting around to publishing it though. Ah, blogging.

kateamdahl: What gets you logging in?

To paraphrase Kate's challenge:

What gets you logging in?

What gets you to sit down and enter Second Life? Things to do and commitments; boredom; or friends, lovers, or loneliness? Do you go to Second Life to refill your reserves of friendly conversation or dirty sex or wandering conversation or group shopping trips? Or... maybe it's something else entirely. Tell us!

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 09:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[Originally posted March 8, 2007, converted to newest-entry-first on June 25th, 2007]

Here is a recap of our little not-a-meme blog game from newest challenge to oldest. You may join in at any time if you would like - feel free to answer old challenges if you would like.

Unofficial Challenge #3 - posted by Mygdala March - What's in a name? The story behind your name choice. [Edit 8/15/07]

Challenge #20 - posted by Dalien Talbot - What kind of metaverse would you build? [Edit 8/11/07]

Challenge #19 - posted by Dolmere Talamasca - Find and review art in Second Life [Edit 7/4/07]

Challenge #18 - posted by Rose Farina - At What Price Manners [Edit 6/25/07]

Challenge #17 - posted by Vint Falken - List your groups [Edit 5/25/07]

Challenge #16 - posted by Rose Farina - Report On An Oddball Place In SL [Edit 4/19/07]

Challenge #15 - posted by Jacek Antonelli - Make a New Friend! [Edit 4/8/07]

Challenge #14 - posted by Dolmere Talamasca - SL Usage Habits [Edit 4/5/07]

Unofficial Challenge #2 - posted by Crap Mariner - Imposing Self-Corrective Habits [Edit 4/3/07]

Challenge #13 - posted by Vint Falken - Secrets and Confessions [Edit 4/1/07]

Challenge #12 - posted by Mera Pixel - Support a cause in SL that is important to you [Edit 3/28/07]

Challenge #11 - posted by Dixie Starr - Voice and Second Life [Edit 3/25/07]

Challenge #10 - posted by Rose Farina - What Were Your Expectations of SL? [Edit 3/22/07]

Challenge #9 - posted by Coal Nelson - What has SL brought to your RL? [Edit 3/18/07]

Challenge #8 - posted by Shockwave Plasma - What Would You Show Grandma In SL? [Edit 3/14/07]

Challenge #7 - posted by Mera Pixel - Review a Second Life location that is new to you. [Edit 3/12/07]

Challenge #6 - posted by Jacek Antonelli - Avatar and Identity

Challenge #5 - posted by Dolmere Talamasca - Post a howto article.

Unofficial Challenge - posted by Eloise Pasteur - Commemorative Statues of Second Life's past.

Challenge #4 - posted by Dixie Starr - Predict Second Life's changes by '09.

Challenge #3 - posted by Jacek Antonelli - Have You Burned Out On SL?

Challenge #2 - posted by Mera Pixel - What you like most about Second Life

Challenge #1 - posted by Dolmere Talamasca - Name Two Newbie Locations

About the not-a-meme challenges: we're taking turns on Sundays and Wednesdays posting a "challenge" to the others. We try to keep it Second Life related and more interesting than a top 10 list of favorite songs. To participate you can start by creating a "not-a-meme" category on your blog and post your responses there. Just be sure to add a comment or trackback to the challenge entry so people can find your response easily.

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 09:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The latest not-a-meme challenge was posted by... oh yeah... me. I challenged folks (and therefore myself) to "Find and review art in Second Life."

I thought I might totally cheap out and talk about Dixie Starr's art. She has been creating paintings of avatars which are really very cool. I thought that they were cool even before she made one of me for my basstastic perversion shows. I particularly like the one she made of Chaos Mandelbrot in Pengie form.

You can find some of Dixie's artwork on display at the Shelter in Swinside.

Continue reading "Response: Not-a-meme Challenge #19" »

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 10:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm taking it upon myself to have a turn at posting a challenge again. I think this one should be relatively easy to answer. If anyone has an idea for another please IM or email me and we'll schedule some new ones.

"Find and review art in Second Life"

I view Second Life as a platform for self expression. As such it's also a platform for art of all forms. Paintings, drawings, buildings, gardens, abused prims, music, poetry there are so many living breathing works of art in Second Life to marvel at. Do you take the time to marvel at that fact? Do you slow down long enough to smell the primses?

Go forth and discover - take a moment and find something you consider to be artistic then tell us ALL about it. Whether that something strikes you as beautitul, provocative, sinful or enlightening if you consider it art and are compelled to share then you are on the right track.

Be sure to include images if possible. It's show and tell time and you're it - get your finger out of your nose and get out in front of the class!

My challenge response will come in a follow on blog entry.

By the way - I named this category of challenge and response blog entries before I had yet unearthed the meaning of "meme". I didn't bother looking into the definition of a "meme" since I had seen examples of "internet memes" over at last.fm. The examples I saw were less than engaging and did not set forth a great template to work from. They were mostly lists of information according to some request/rule without much thought behind them. The results made for barely readable lists, not really blog posts or journal entries as much as glorified shopping lists. I did, however, like the idea of a challenge/response scenario within a blog community - but one with a bit more meat, one with more thought behind the responses if possible.

It's interesting to me, that after having read Richard Dawkins's "The God Delusion" and enjoying it so much, that Richard is behind the term "meme". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme: "Biologist and evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme in 1976." A meme is "a unit of cultural information, cultural evolution or diffusion [which] propagates from one mind to another analogously to the way in which a gene propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic information and of biological evolution. Multiple memes may propagate as cooperative groups called memeplexes (meme complexes)." Of course there is a list of "internet memes" available at wikipedia.org as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Internet_memes.

So, are we not-a-meme or are we meme-with-purpose or are we challenge-and-response-blog-entries? Any which way I think we're having a bit of fun and that's all we need to be concerned with, right? Thanks for reading, thanks for posting, thanks for being my friends in Second Life.

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 02:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This challenge was brought to us by Rose Farina. I'm overdue in responding to it so it's time to get caught up. As such, here I am to "Report On An Oddball Place In SL".

Aren't all places in SL oddball though?

To answer her own challenge Rose took us to a trailer park complete with propane tanks and rust. I suppose that is kinda oddball!

My SL cousin Akela Talamasca actually answered this challenge well before it was even posted when he wrote about the Hobo railroad. His blog post was an amusing read for me because shortly before reading it I had been TPed to this build several times when Isabel was unavailable. It was freaky to see a message "your home location is not available" and then end up at the hobo railroad. Linden Lab was trying to tell me something and I was not enjoying the conversation.

Continue reading "Response: Not-a-meme Challenge #16" »

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 12:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Jacek Antonelli threw me a curve ball a while back by challenging us to "Make a New Friend!" The problems I have had in getting around to writing this post can possibly be summed up as:

1. At the time I had little in-world time to work with.


2. I'm rarely away from my typical hang outs.


3. Like London Spengler I prefer to keep my friends list under control.

However, since failing to respond to Jacek's challenge I've realized I have added quite a few friends. To see tons of pics and meet some of my newest friends click through to the full entry. I'm including screen snaps in PNG format so they're not compressed down. Why? Earlier I posted about how I had cranked down my viewer settings and I was asked how things look now. Ugly. Here's proof.

Continue reading "Response: Not-a-meme Challenge #15" »

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 07:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Rose Farina's SL Blog: Not-a-meme #18

It seems most everyone I know has been too busy to post any new blog entries lately. I would be among them but I've made a concerted effort to post even though my time in SL is in flux. Maybe this new challenge will get some folks back to their edit windows - Jacek, Mera, Coal?

In the latest of our not-a-meme challenges Rose Farina asks us about manners. Little miss manners herself makes the comment "Dolmere is the guy in charge and if you want to keep playing check his blog here for updates it's that easy! :)" Hmmm... guy in charge? I think I'd prefer something more like "organizer by default" but you know, whatever.

Rose asks us to vent away on the subject of manners:

"When you tell someone you will do something or be somewhere for something do you show up? Are you generally polite to other players you don't know? (Heaven knows I pick on the ones I do know hehe). Do you feel free to blast others because of the anonymity factor? Do you belong to the group who says if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all group? Feel free to rant, vent or rave about your view on this subject."

I couldn't agree with her answer more. OK, there are a few differences in my response.

For instance Rose says "The model who didn't show up for a big fashion show". Since I'm not fashion mogul like Rose I would generalize this to say "Someone who doesn't follow through on their commitments". I think I've been pretty lucky to have interacted with folks who make good on their commitments or at least give enough notice and a good reason to make a change. However, there are folks who treat SL commitments without respect and I dislike that attitude - if you say you're going to do something be sure to do it please.

Another instance would be "The Blogger who trashes other in order to make themselves feel more important." Is she trying to make a dig at me? Doesn't she realize that the SL4G07 stuff is just a joke? [j/k Rose]. I don't think it's rude of a blogger to spout off, I don't think it's bad manners for a blogger to spout off. Instead I look at it as the blogger being in their own home and what they do in their own home is their business. If that same person is spouting crap in-world then it's a different situation completely.

Anyway, Having come across many brand new residents in-world I can say that some folks need SLetiquette lessons indeed. For some general manners come over time and use of the application. For others it comes after some bludgeoning. For yet others there will always be room for improvement. Right? I find random friend requests annoying as well.

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Vint has posted the not-a-meme challenge #17 since we haven't had a new one in a while. This one asks you to list out the groups you belong to. I can handle that (says the guy who has still not made a new friend nor even reported on an oddball place!) challenge.

Atheists United
Group charter:
"Atheists & Agnostics of the World Unite :)

Other groups of interests to free thinkers:
Brights
Freethinkers
SL Humanism
SL Existentialism"
I love this group. They meet occasionally, usually on Sundays, and chat about various topics.

Temporary complete aside
OK, time to make good on my tagline about rambling, eh?
I've just finished reading Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion". What a wonderful read! I highly recommend you buy 10 of these as you'll want to give at least 9 to friends and family after reading this thing.
I've moved on to reading "Snow Crash". I expected more from this book. Hopefully the remaining 2/3 of the book turns out to make it worth the time.

Continue reading "Response to Challenge #17: List Yer Groups" »

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 09:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I use two key combinations most every time I login to SL.

The first is Option-Command-6 - turn off fog! This makes things a bit more crisp for my display which I like.

The second is Command-Shift-N - force noon! This makes the display nice and bright which I like.

Today's not-a-meme challenge is a question about your usage patterns. This could be things you do when you login, things you do just before logging out, activities bordering on OCD, etc :)

"Do you have any Second Life usage habits?"

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

What Is This Crap? The Byron Jar

Crap Mariner writes in a recent blog entry that he is punishing himself for typing a friend's name wrong. Calling for "Bryon" but instead saying "Byron" can be unfortunate. Of course we all have those typo moments. My purple Mera becomes Mear, Schmear and C'mere while Coal Nelson becomes Coala Nielson, Cola and of course the ever popular Caol. Trying to break himself of the typo or forgotten name habit Mr. Mariner decided to send Bryon a linden dollar for each offense, a cute idea and nice take on the swear jar some people keep at home.

At the end of his post Mr. Mariner asks us:
"What self-corrective habits do you impose on yourself in SL?"

How about you? Are any of you, my frightfully fearless avid read, self-imposing corrective habits?

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 09:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week's challenge comes from Vint Falken. The not-a[n]-"een stokje" challenge #13 is to reveal some secrets.

I admit to being a bit scared of this one. It wasn't until Vint explained that the secrets could be something very tame, like "I love beer for breakfast", that I decided it was not a horrid idea. Many of my friends in Second Life are like myself and enjoy the pseudo anonymity afforded by the platform. Sure, the personality I share in-game is 100% me, but it's nice to have a separation from RL concerns when just hanging out in a glorified chat room.

Will anyone reveal truly deep, dark secrets in a response to this challenge? I doubt it. Will people refuse to respond because they're scared off by the idea of revealing more than they care to? Quite possible. Still, it's potentially a fun one and I'll go ahead and join in.

Continue reading "Challenge #13 Response: Secrets Revealed" »

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Mera posted challenge #12 and it's a doozie. Basically Mera asks us to "support a cause in SL that is important to you". I think Rose Farina's response is pretty telling in why this one is tough, especially for me.

Rose says "I am just going to say that I did something... not as much fun if you go shouting to the roof tops what you are up to."

Continue reading "Challenge #12 Response: Support A Cause" »

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dixie Starr has posted this Sunday's not-a-meme challenge. Challenge #11 asks us to consider voice chat in Second Life.

"How will voice [a]ffect Second Life and will you use it?"

Dixie's response, which is posted inline with the challenge, comes pretty close to summing up my own thoughts on the topic with a few exceptions.

Continue reading "Challenge #11 Response: Voice in SL" »

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Rose Farina has gotten involved with the not-a-meme challenges lately and the latest challenge comes from her.
Challenge #10: How is Second Life like your original expectations and how is it different?

This is a pretty challenging question indeed. I can't really remember what my expectations around two years ago when I first heard about the program.

Continue reading "Challenge #10 Response: Your Original Expectations of SL" »

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 04:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Coal Nelson has just posted the not-a-meme challenge #9.

My answer is probably the shortest response so far: nothing. I had to think long and hard on that one too.

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Shockwave Plasma has posted the latest not-a-meme challenge on her website. Shockies asks us the important question "What would you show your Grandmother in SL?"

I think I may still have a living grandmother. Supposing I were to see her under circumstances where she wanted to discuss something other than her ailments I would likely not talk about Second Life.

Continue reading "Challenge #8 Response: Grandma Visits" »

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 07:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Mera posted the not-a-meme Challenge #7 a few days ago and I'm just getting time to post a reply.

"[...] our challenge today, my dearies, is to go somewhere new and tell us about it. "

Someplace New? AKA Can't rip it off!
Mera chose to visit Luskwood - an absolutely beautiful place in SL. It's quite an old community in SL years. I thought the furry Mera picture was priceless.

I've already been to Luskwood a few times so I cannot cheap out and use the same location. I've walked through the big tree, leapt around the tall bridges, and purchased various avatars.

As proof I offer you a few shots of "furry Dolmere". I purchased this avatar for Jaycatt Nico's second appearance playing his piano at the Shelter I believe. I had asked Jay to play a set as basically background music for the game I was hosting named Payment Podium. Jay seemed to have a lot of fun with it each time and frankly so did I! For his second appearance I handed out little tiger ear headbands and declared the day Kitty Day in honour of my favorite kitten on the keys! Does anyone reading this blog remember the event? :)

Continue reading "Challenge #7 Response: A New-To-Me Location" »

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 08:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Jacek Antonelli has posted the latest challenge in our not-a-meme blog game.

Jacek Lives - Blog Archive - Challenge #6: Avatar and Identity

Jacek asks "Personally, do you consider your avatar an extension of yourself, or a character you control?"

I'll note that Mera Pixel has already responded as have others in Jacek's comments section rather than in their own blogs.

Continue reading "Challenge #6 Response: Avatar and Identity" »

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 06:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In the spirit of challenge #5 here are a few links I think are great for new residents.

VTOR posted "Avatariquette" - a nice writeup on behavioral guidelines for the new resident looking to make friends and influence people.

Avatariquette: from an idea by TD - VTOR - Virtual TO Reality

Kittanne Moushold posted a blog entry back in Dec of '06 with a ton of links to resources on the web for new residents to fill their brains full of SL info.

New to SL? - Kitten's Litter

Others:
Second Life | Developers: Resource Matrix

LSL Portal - Second Life Wiki

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My current not-a-meme challenge is "Post a howto article that a new user of Second Life may find useful." I had some trouble capturing a movie so I've included screen shots and descriptions along the way. I hope that you find this howto article useful. If you have any questions on this topic at all you can contact me via IM in-world and I'll try to help you.

How To Wear An Attachment And Customize Its Position

Continue reading "Challenge #5 Response: A Basic Tutorial" »

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was planning on posting the new not-a-meme challenge this past Wednesday but my schedule was rather haywire and I was unable to. This new challenge may be a bit involved for some of our participants so I think we should skip the mid-week challenge this week as well. I'm hoping that Jacek will post the next challenge one week from now, next Sunday, the 4th of March.

Challenge #5:
Post a howto article that a new user of Second Life may find useful.

This howto could be on any topic you feel may be interesting to even a few other people. From where and how to shop to how to build, from how to use various preferences to how to use the map and mini-map windows, etc, etc. The topic can be as simple as you want it to be. An explanation of something we take for granted may help a new user move along the learning curve faster. I'd like to suggest that you include as many screen shots as possible and even a little machinema video if you have the ability.

I'll post mine later - I plan on covering "how to attach objects and adjust them to fit your avatar".

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (3)

Memorial statues? - Second Life Insider

I'm sorry I missed my Wednesday challenge posting folks. This was a very busy week for me. Instead perhaps we could look at this great open question posted by Eloise Pasteur over at the Second Life Insider.

"Let's pretend I'm rich. I'm going to give you a sim. The only thing is, you must use that sims resources to build one (or more) statues of great figures and/or events in Second Life's history."

My response: I'd probably create a statue of Travis Lambert standing atop a mini Shelter for all he has done to assist new users in the game, one of Mera Pixel and Tateru Nino for the work that they have done to assist new users directly through volunteering and ponying up in creating builds for community use, one of YadNi Monde for the work he has done for years in making categorized free items avaialable to new users via his Junkyard and of course for creating the skeleton avatar that I so treasure! I might have one created of the corn field just for the heck of it because it is such a cute move from LL, I love references to classic TV.

What would you do or have done?

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 09:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Since most folks are behind in answering the not-a-meme challenges I suggest we skip this Sunday's new challenge and conctrate on getting caught up. I think it's my turn to post a challenge so I'll take this upcoming Wednesday.

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Starr-ving Artist: Challenge #4 - Not-A-MeMe - SL Circa 2009

On Friday Dixie Starr posted Wednesday's new not-e-meme challenge. Dixie asks "What will be Second Lifes biggest positive change and biggest negative change in two years (circa 2009)?".

Personally my response falls into one of two categories - I don't know or perhaps I don't care. Linden Lab has done a fair job of throwing curve balls at their users in the time I've had an account. So I suppose "expect the unexpected" might be my answer for both the positive and negative changes. Another problem is that due to the large user base in SL any positive change will be argued by some as a negative change and vice versa :)

I'm hoping that eventually someone creates a stand alone building tool or suite of tools to make content creation even easier as well as possible when not connected to the internet (for shame!). I hope that searching will get completely revamped and transform from today's hit-or-miss crap shoot into a tool worthy of today's internet. Bonus points if the search tool has an API and is available from the web rather than only in the client. Hopefully LL is still around and making some money, hopefully the open source initiative pays off for them in bringing faster and higher quality changes to SL.

I suppose that griefing will get worse. I also suppose that spam and phishing will get worse in-world. People already use technical and social engineering tactics to rip off other residents - I suspect that scams will grow from the current state of slight annoyance and"wow, did you just see that!" into something more in your face than it is today.

OK - I guess that sums up my not-an-answer.

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Jacek Lives: Challenge #3: Have you ever burned out on Second Life?

Mera's Reply

Jacek posted Sunday's challenge for our blog not-a-meme. The question is about burning out - have you and if so what did you do to keep things fresh.

My answer is below the fold if you're browsing my web page rather than my RSS feed :)

Continue reading "Jacek's Challenge: Have You Burned Out On SL? (reply)" »

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 09:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

MeraTalk - The Purpleness that is Mera Pixel - Not-A-Meme Challenge Numero B

It's Wednesday and it's Mera's turn to post a challenge for our little not-a-meme blog experiment.

Her challenge to us:
Tell us your what you like most about Second Life.[sic]

The core of the question is similar to something Travis asked me once: What keeps you interested, what keeps you logging in and coming back to SL (and The Shelter)?

We're not supposed to cheap out and say "the people" although it is clearly a social enviroment and the social interactions are just about the richest offering.

I think I'll answer this simple little question with a long winded auotbiography which, thankfully, no one will bother reading anyway.
(the long-winded-and-useless-read is below the fold)

Continue reading "What you like most about Second Life" »

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 03:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I've talked to a few of my good friends in Second Life about a not-a-meme blog thread. We'll take turns on Sundays and Wednesdays posting a "challenge" to the others. We'll try to keep it Second Life related and more interesting than a top 10 list of favorite songs. We'll be attempting to use trackbacks against the original post to send our replies and when that fails we'll use comments in the original challenge blog entry. Hopefully we'll all be able to create a "not-a-meme" blog category where we will post our challenges and responses.

Today's challenge (posted by Dolmere Talamasca, yours truly):
Name two Second Life locations where you would take a new resident on a tour and why.

My response:

Continue reading "Challenge: Name Two Newbie Locations" »

Posted by Dolmere Talamasca at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (3)