The World According to Jennyfur

I wish reality had a view like this where I could sit atop a giant mushroom. Having wings would be a nice bonus too.

This is the inner sactum of one of the builds where you can receive a fortune from the little yellow floating orb in the center of the room. The textures and lighting are amazing. Pictured Below are two images from one of my favorite locations. I flew there a couple times and every time I did a field of flowers sprung up around me and no matter what time of day it looked positively lovely.

I’ve begun analyzing the first preliminary batch of results from the SLCC Survey. I have a feeling this is going to take me awhile to get through. After a couple of hours I have only gotten through the eight questions none of which were essay style. I started analyzing results on the first essay style question on the keynote speech when I came upon some dilemnas as to how to present the final data. The organizers will have access to all raw data for detailed analysis, but what I am grappeling with is how to present the results to the community. Here are some questions I am pondering right now:

- Should I truncate some of the generic information in the essay style responses? Many responses are similar given the wide array of essay style answers. Should all “Great presentation”, “This sucked”, “Not Applicable” etc. be kept in their original format or should they be truncated down to general responses? Should responses be paraphrased at all to make them more general or should they remain as specific as possible? I don’t want to misrepresent any of the data collected, but I don’t want to publish a novel either.

- This is probably the most difficult call to make – some of the responses reference people by name and say less than pleasant things directly about them. I don’t know where to draw the line. “I didn’t like this panel/speaker’s presentation” reads much differently than devolving into naming names and personal attacks, which I am not surprised to say there are several of throughout the survey. How do I present this information because I do not want to be held responsible for saying libelous things in order to protect the truthfulness of the results. I also don’t want the SLCC organization to receive more flack removing things that others may perceive as things “we don’t like”. If you have seen some of the SLCC related drama in the forums this past year I am sure that you can imagine the types of things some people said. I am trying to be fair in all of this. I also do not want to be put in the position of the person(s) who have negative things said about them demanding they be removed or demanding to know who said them.

- I had not planned on including anyones names with the published results, but certain statements are recognizable as having come from a particular person. How to I protect their anonimity? or should I even be worrying about it?

The survey is still open and will remain open for sometime. If you have not yet filled out the survey you can do so anytime http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=368902507169 Future surveys may follow on specific topics as well as follow-up questions to the previous survey.

I don’t get out exploring in world that much anymore. One of the most unique and truly otherwordly places I discovered was the island of Svarga owned by Laukosargas Svarog. Sadly, last week I heard via a post on the Second Life forums that she was selling Svarga. Here is the link to that post http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=139846 I really hope that Svarga lives on. I have heard a few rumours regarding this, but just in case I popped by on Thursday evening to revel in the experiences again and to take some pictures. One of my favorite things was feeding birds. Much to my happiness I discovered a small store where one can purchase all sorts of things. I spent over $10,000L there between the donation to the Svarga project and buying all sorts of fun things. This also led me to another shopping spree at Robbie Dingo’s. I spent more money on musical instruments than I have ever spent in the real world. I had such a blast at Lucifer Baphomet’s Drumming for the Death of the Forums event a couple months ago when the destruction of the forums were announced. I am glad now to be the owner of a myriad of virtual musical instruments.
Here are some pictures I took while trekking through Svarga.
It is truly a work of beauty unlike anything I have seen in Second Life before.

Svarga at night is absolutely stunning. The lighting is minimal, but it still looks amazingly detailed and so atmospheric. This picture probably doesn’t do it justice, but I love the detail where the light is concentrated.

If I found a place like this on Earth I would never leave. Svarga is like a virtual painting in motion. It reminds me of some of the Pre-Raphaelite paintings from the 1800s.

To be continued….

One of the first things that made me fall in love with Second Life was the group trivia games back in 2004. I met so many wonderful people at these events and shared many fun experiences. One of my favorites occured at a trivia event at Stage 4 in Dore when a naked n00b flew in and said ” I heard you can get naked and talk to people here”. Before I started designing clothing Flipper and I hosted some trivia events in Indigo. It was at one of the trivia events in Indigo where I discovered that Munchflower and I must have had the same music collection because she pwnnnned everyone that night.

Sadly, quality trivia events began to die down in favor of many of the other dwell inducing events and general schlock. At this point, I discovered the world of virtual fashion design and was focusing my SL energy there. I always missed those days.

After the SLCC, Flipper and I both breathed a sigh of relief and began focusing our energies on new and exciting projects in Second Life since we spent the better part of this past year (Summer 2005 – 2006) organizing both conventions. Flipper being the insane genius that he is decided to revive trivia in a new and exciting way. Drawing from a database of over 4000 questions, he managed to create a grid-wide trivia game coupled with a sponsorship billboard.

After debugging the code, adding more questions and signing up a few early adopters as sponsors we released SL Trivia. Our wonderful sponsors enable us to make SL Trivia *free* to anyone who wants to host or play trivia within the grid.
Within a couple weeks of release SL Trivia is now available to play in over 20 locations on the grid. The game can be acquired by visiting www.sltrivia.com and purchased for free from SL Boutique. SL Trivia is easy to play and a fun way to promote your product, business or hangout spot.

I have really been enjoying playing trivia again in world. I so rarely get to just hang out and its nice to kick it old school as it were. Plus I get to hang out with my best RL friend Vahnia who finally has ventured into Second Life. My favorite feature of the trivia so far is the ability to add your own trivia questions for approval. I love being able to contribute more questions because everyone has their own areas of expertise and it really strengthens the involvement of the players.

If anyone is interested in sponsoring trivia, please contact myself or Flipper to get set up. Here’s what we need to get you started as a sponsor (in world): (1) 512×256 texture (2) a notecard with your avatar key and a sentence promoting your business (3) either a URL or up to two SL items (landmarks, notecards, freebie pack) which will be handed to people when they click your logo

Flipper and I have three upcoming gigs speaking about Second Life in the Philadelphia area in November.

First, on November 8th, we will be speaking at the Philadelphia Future Salon on the topic of Virtual Economies. I am not sure of the location as it is on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus, which is huge.

We will be presenting on Virtual Fashion Design and Content Creation at Philadelphia University to their Fashion and Textile students on November 10th. (I got asked to (re)present the Ready to Wear: Virtual Fashion Design presentation that Catherine Linden and I did at the AATCC/CITDA Global Design Symposium at QVC back in June. Flipper is along for the ride since he knows more about the technicalities of Second Life than I do.)

Lastly, I think we will both end up being panelists at Philcon 2006. Dates, times and topics TBD.

Welcome to my blog! I do not like blogging or bloggers so one may wonder what the hell I am doing here? I have things to say and while I have been using Live Journal for over five years my postings there are private for friends only. This blog will primarily focus on all things Second Life with occasional off-topic flair.

Here are the rules of engagement:
1. This is my blog. It is a privilege to post comments here not a right.
2. No trolling or flaming. You will be deleted and suffer the wrath of bad karma.
3. If I don’t like you I will delete your comments without regret.

Regards,
Jennyfur