Embodied souls: Life Lessons: Shopping

Days saved: 1 (good); communication malfunctions: 1 (bad)

As regular readers will know, am one of coorganisers on regular Thursday meeting of SL educators i.e. Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable. In VWER we
a) discuss hot topics of day or
b) listen to someone talking about hot topic of day or
c) reassure each other that is really cool to be a SL educator: latter achieved by talking about same old same old viz. why don’t people “get” SL, why doesn’t SL fix group chat, will SL disappear when SL 2.0 comes along, what are good examples of teaching./assessing/learning/research in/about SL or
d) tell each other what the weather’s like where we are.**

Most exciting VWER recently was 3 weeks ago when Kali and I had a 2-avatars-1-voice experience, that was nearly a 2-avatars-no-voice-at-all experience. Kali was due to interview 3 v.v. interesting people but sadly had SL voice problems, which is not total bar to interviewing but using text chat tends to make things slower. Also more difficult to manage voiced people if YOU are in chat, not that would want to imply that any speakers would be in need of managing, cough.

Anyway was emailed earlier in day by Kali saying her SL voice was kaput, and could she skype and speak via my avatar. I said no problem, obs. However was busy day and when had seen last student out of RL office felt was in need of some play and rest and so checked out whether kittycats needed feeding and then took opportunity to finally tp into The Arcade (see 1st pic) and scope up umpteen gatcha items that will doubtless sit unused in inventory for forseeable future (except for peacock shown in 2nd pic, cute or what).

As sidenote, am now on constant lookout for new items of food for SL cat cafes (see yummy 3rd pic), unfortunately whilst have increasing cornucopia of exquisitely fashioned cupcakes, steak dinners, pretzels, fruit plates etc. is also rise in % of SL food that simply sits there and looks ornamental, rather than giving portion of said food on click. Would not want clients of the Yoshikawa chain of cat cafes clicking madly on array of coffee and cakes in vain hope of obtaining something to drop into inventory and ADD (here’s me stuffing face with pixel muffin etc. etc.).

Think should be some kind of SL food standards authority decreeing that only allowed to call something “SL food” if can actually eat it. Perhaps non-edible SL food could be called food sculpture, equivalent of RL food being made of plaster or plastic.

To return to the VWER meeting. Whilst was technically free for hour and a bit before VWER meeting, was indulging in SL wandering around and random thoughts as above, so was less than half hour before VWER meeting before tp-ed into the VWER auditorium to say hi and work out the voice thing.

Now must confess that had engaged zero brain cells in thinking this through, but had vague consciousness there was something wrong with arrangements that had been made. When using SL listen via headphones and speak via USB mic. Kali was going to skype and then was expecting to speak via me. How was the sound to go from my ears into SL?
Think now that must have had unquestioning faith in Kali’s ability to manage magic mind transfer, though suppose if she could do that would not have had the voice problem in the first place. Magic mind transfer would solve SL’s frequent voice problems at a stroke though could also cause embarrasment when one forgot to turn off mind transfer and broadcast all sorts of unsuitable things to assembled avatars. Although forgetting to turn mic off can also be embarrassment as I and others have found out hard way, thus does experience teach us life lessons.

Well, to cut long tedious story short was some fruitless inteplay as start time of VWER session approached and indeed was upon us, before realised that headphones were the problem. Essential element for the thing to work was placing microphone next to speakers that had sound coming out of them. Once this was realised, twas but a moment’s work to turn on speakers and so forth and away we went with efficient and effective interviewing process.

Sat in audience being Kali’s dummy and reminding people periodically that was not her. If had put more effort into whole thing could in fact have put notice over head saying KALI IS SPEAKING THROUGH SHEILA but there you go, most people probably didn’t even notice.
So what life lessons come out of THIS experience?

1) Do not go shopping when should be preparing for serious professional event
2) Test things out more than 10 mins before intending to use them if do not want to appear idiot
3) Apply simple questions such as “Is this going to work”?

In fact can dispose of first 2 points, since if apply item 3) will swiftly emerge whether or not there’s time to go shopping or whether need to be
• squinting at incomprehensible Windows control panel
• pulling jack plugs in and out
• checking and unchecking boxes in SL preferences
• deciding which of the unlikely sounding audio device names listed on the pull down menu is the one that is the actual name of the audio device you have plugged in and therefore want to activate

Final life lesson is that if have ace people (i.e. me and Kali) trying to cobble together a solution then solution will be duly cobbled and no-one else will be aware was problem in first place.

Probably.

** NB VWER is one of fave things in SLife so all this tongue in cheek ahem ahem

Reminiscence. Mesh heads. Kitana.

Items gifted at Barerose: 6 (good); SL consumer trends as reflected in inventory at Barerose: 3 (trendy); Months since last blog post: 5 (whatever) 

Spent last night stalking raffle globe in Barerose. Reminescent of old times so decided ought to unleash new blog post. Am surprised to see after all these months that still have 31 followers (though have my doubts about the follower named ZaLV0fYV2Z7OF_LohUC0.m.j7rqKUg). Suppose they have forgotten were following and will be surprised and no doubt delighted to see new Yoshikawa post popping up on their dashboard.

Must have got bout of nostalgia for Old Blogging Times after seeing Barerose refreshingly unchanged i.e. still consists of huge structure like tacky gothic cathedral with walls filled with piles and piles of stuff in no particular order (see pics 1 and 2). Most stuff priced at something like 179 Linden which sounds cheaper than it actually is, so immediately tempted to snap things up esp. if e.g. box of cute floral chiffon tops which is nestling in a bank of costumes for obscure old anime series. Think Barerosers must really be fiendishly sharp businesspeople.

The Raffle Orb detects who is in its orbit and periodically shouts e.g. "ChocolateMunchie Resident has just won a ::: B@R ::: Gold Long Dress just for being here!" Probability is that wouldn't want most of items anyway, but is worth it to find out what some of the things are e.g. what on earth is an "Abs. Dress  C1", apart from being a dress, obviously.

My loot so far for hanging round in the Barerose orb zone (I am in evening dress in foreground of pic 2) is:
- Two mesh heads, one Furry, one not
- Knee length striped dress
- Display katana x 2
- Fancy white fantasy armour with wings
- Spooky Bat avatar
You can see them in their boxes here. Unfortunately none of these were item that caused raffle-stalking in the first place i.e snake neck wrap.Wanted it as in RL was born in Year of the Snake which is also THIS year, so from this you can guess that am at or nearly one of following ages: 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 96. Will give clue that isn't 12 or 96.

Anyway to return to loot, have to admit that anticipation was rather more than the actuality. Indeed to be frank; - are those heads Sheila Yoshikawa style? Think not. How often have you seen me in a demon avatar? Never. And what home requires 2 identical display kitana? Well, actually, could see those nestling in twin niches in some swanky Japanese mansion.

That trip to Barerose reveals top 3 trends in SL fashion consumerism, as evidenced by type of stuff on sale. These trends are:
- Mesh. Most designers now putting things out in mesh, despite fact that means that a) you can’t layer properly and b) you have to have a shape either very thin and straight or VERY curvy with unfeasibly small waist aka Standard Sizes (Xtra Small to Large).
- Petites. Apparently lots more people want to go round as tiny people, and now they have lots of clothes to do it in.
- Add-on breasts aka Lolas aka Tangos aka Lush (etc etc). SL now populated by far more avatars with huge fronts, which bounce in an oddly realistic and disturbing fashion. Or perhaps disturbance not that odd. Anyway lots of designers now issuing clothes with quaintly named Appliers which mean that their clothes adapt to these appendages. Started by being just designers of a more Saucy nature, but has definitely gone mainstream. Thus some of Barerose boxes depict t-shirts and fantasy battle armour of eye-popping proportions.
If this all sounds v. unpleasant is simple solution i.e. to use SL browser that can't see mesh. This reduces Lola-wearing mesh petites to a disembodied name-tag and perhaps the odd non-mesh fairy wand.

Moderating

Sessions moderated: 4 (good); Percentage of speakers appearing on time to give talks: 100 (v. good); No. of pics taken during moderating: 5 (bad)
Calmed self before conference through use of tai chi (see first pic) and it had desired result since rather enjoyed moderating duties in end. Only down side was that since taking pics seemed to trigger crash computer out of SL, did not dare take any until last of 4 sessions, when had minor supporting role.
This was session about "veteran dialogues": ex soldiers in USA using SL to talk about their experiences. Jenaia was really chairing session and I was sort of backup link person. Therefore risked taking pics at that point, and duly crashed. This showed had been sensible not to try previously, but was pity since in particular session from Globalkids Bixby had been very photogenic (involved Globalkids dressed in bee costume raising teen grid avatar from coffin). Earlier in day had encouraged own students into SL and know that majority attended at least one session, after some fiddling around with headphones and audio settings. Saw various other people, including Dousa who was involved in recording some of the conference, and had some nice chitchat with Loreena.
Am wondering whether crashing thing could be avoided by some sort of computer upgrade. However, would have to be inexpensive computer upgrade, what with funding cuts to Higher Ed etc.

Attended some of a session about recording stuff, and learnt about new screenr-type app, which immediately used to record part of the session on recording stuff. Am not sure can remember what it was called exactly - screencastomatic? - something like that. Feature was that you had the opp to upload, download, whatever, and then clicked "done" and it was gone. Main disadvantage over screenr (apart from it not staying online) was that it seemed to have a rather small area for the recording screen.

After this went to session on focus groups. Quickly emerged that I WAS the session on focus groups, since only other person was presenter. He had filled in time by putting words expressing pain in having noone turn up to your session on innovative interactive board. Had interesting conversation: at least I thought it was interesting. Only thought afterwards that perhaps should have asked for a copy of innovative board as prize for being only person there.
Finished day, heady with earlier moderating success, by volunteering to moderate more sessions tomorrow. May regret this.

Library tour, marshmallows, cave

Libraries toured: 5 (good); Marshmallows consumed: (well none, actually); Caves created: 1 (same old, same old)

As part of SLEDcc conference there was a library tour. Assembled on ISTE and could take a library hoodie and a notecard with LMs of places to visit. Also encouraged to join ISTE Tours group so that could get group IMs with info on where to go next etc. Good idea except that various Group functions weren't working so in end although managed to join group, still the organiser Corinne (who worked v. hard BTW) had to go round saying "meet in library XX in 10 mins" and so forth (here she is in 2nd pic, while I'm upstairs in McGill's library).

In terms of libraries main thing that came out for me was that I need to do library tours more often. Although there were libraries where ... there wasn't much to be frank, although some of them looked quite cool, are certainly a lot more then when I last toured round and some of them with more stuff, new layouts etc. etc.
Ended up (after various exploits inc. crashing out, reentering as vapour cloud, losing tour etc etc) in Stanford Uni library, which was basically a giant hall of links to library catalogues and so forth (hmmm).

Our tour leader tried to tp to next place and inexplicably landed in strange subterranean area under library. We all joined her, and when we found a hidey hold with a fire and crates, Georgette produced some marshmallows and we had a pleasant social interlude until it was time for the official social interlude at the end of the day.

Decided that would be nice to have a similar bolt hole on Infolit and did TRY to create one, but turned into idyllic rather than grunge - seem to be drawn inescapably to waterfalls, mossy ferns etc. Will have to give self talking to and try again. In fact in terms af getting steep walls have worked out what need to do landscape-wise ie need to start with flat land and raise spikes of land around it (rather than trying to burrow into side of existing hill as did here.