Just a quick follow-up on the reading I’ve been doing. I have now read ANIMA. That novel was atrocious. It had a good premise, although it overworked itself up to a tremendously disappointing ending, but it was pretty poorly written, and its editing, proofing, and typestting were even worse (anyone who knows me knows that these things are about as important to me as the prose itself). As a package, it was so bad it almost left me speechless. Almost.

But I also read Circuit of Heaven, a novel about which I feel much, much better. In fact, it turned out to be a great suggestion, and one that will very likely be incorporated into the dissertation work. Thanks, Billy! The same goes–with thanks to Liberty, this time–for Otherland, which is now almost officially a primary text for my project. Both of these works cover the themes I’m looking for without being painful to read, and were in fact extremely enjoyable. After I’m done with the dissertation, I’m going to seek out the sequel(s) to Otherland. (Of course, there’s an awful lot of reading I’m going to seek out at that point…)

Among other candidates are several films, specifically The Matrix, The Thirteenth Floor, and Existenz, which all interestingly came out at about the same time.

And the work progresses…

Song of the Moment: "One Brown Mouse," Jethro Tull
END OF LINE

Once again, it’s been quite a while. I fully intend to post more often…we’ll see how that goes.

Part of the problem is that I’m closing in on the ABD phase of the PhD program. Yup, one more course remaining, and then all I have to do is write a minor book while three faculty members monitor every step of the process.

Good times.

The funniest thing is, the more research I’m doing for this dissertation on virtual worlds, the less time I have to spend in virtual worlds. Did I say “funny?” Sometimes it seems cosmically perverse. That’s OK, though. I’m still learning a lot, and I’m still enjoying most of the learning that I’m doing.

One thing I’m look at right now is fiction centered on/in virtual worlds. My hope is to find some good fiction to which I can apply the research I am doing for a literary application of the work. This is where I need some help. I’m not sure what’s out there as far as relevant fiction goes. My current list:

• Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
• Tea from an Empty Cup, Pat Cadigan
• Otherland, Tad Williams
• Circuit of Heaven, Dennis Danvers
• ANIMA, Dalian Hansen

I haven’t yet read Otherland and ANIMA (subtitled A Novel about Second Life). If you’re familiar with even a couple of these titles, you can probably see where my thinking is.  (If not, what I’m looking for are stories which take place in or prominently feature digital virtual worlds – not, however, just representations of the internet like Gibson’s “matrix” in the Sprawl series, but worlds designed and presented as such.) I know there are not many readers of this blog, but I’m asking in every venue available to me, including this one, whether anyone has suggestions for other works I might look at.

Thomas More’s Utopia has been suggested, as has Edwin Abbott’s Flatland. I haven’t read them, but I’d also love to get feedback on whether either one fits.

Let me know. I can use all the help I can get. Hey, who can’t?

Song of the Moment: "Rockstar," Nickelback
END OF LINE

OK, it’s been a while. I could give you all the excuses reasons for that, but in the end what’s important is that I’m writing again. At least right now.

In any case, I live in the land of the political initiative, referendum, or proposition, and it seems we’re called to the polls at least a couple of times every year to cast votes on the welfare and direction of the Golden State. Which, if you ask me, is pretty cool, though it takes a little getting used to.

This November, along with the national ballot, we have several state and local measures to consider. The two of these that I think are of greatest import are Propositions 4 and 8. I might talk about 4 some other time, but for right now my concern is Prop 8.

Put simply, Prop 8 if passed would ban same-sex marriages in California. You may or may not know that this is an issue that’s gone back and forth in this state; most recently, a California Supreme Court ruling held that it was unlawful to limit “marriage” to strictly man-woman couples. This means that same-sex marriages are valid and recognized in California at the moment, but Proposition 8 aims to add wording to the state constitution to the effect that only a man-woman marriage would be valid and recognized here.

That’s just wrong. There are a whole host of reasons that I hold that opinion, and I may go into them another time. What interests me right now, though, is that this issue – both locally and nationally – points a giant, sore finger at the massively gaping hole in the supposed wall between church and state. Half the problem here is the blanket use of the term “marriage.” If you stop to think about it, you realize that agents of religious authority (clergy) are given permission to perform a ceremony that affects the status of a couple in the eyes of governmental / civil authority. If we’re supposed to support the separation of church and state, isn’t that whole setup in direct conflict of the principle?

There should, from the very founding of this nation, have been a distinction made between the union of two people in a religious context and a similar (though not identical, and sometimes completely different) union in a civil context. The fact that some religions or denominations recognize same-sex marriage while their local governments do not points to that as a basic truth. Or how about this  one?: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (yes, the Mormons) once allowed and recognized polygamy (some fundamentalist groups not affiliated with the mainstream church still do), but the federal government of the USA has never recognized polygamous marriages. This demonstrates quite clearly that marriage does not mean the same thing to religion as it does to government.

But those who support Prop 8 – that is, those who wish to ban same-sex marriage – conflate the two contexts. They claim that if the state recognizes same-sex marriages, then their religious beliefs will be in danger. But wait: if we really have separation of church and state, then no state decision can impinge upon their beliefs. So what’s to be afraid of? The Catholic Church supports Prop 8, but the state is not going to force Catholic priests to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies. So the Catholic Church (and all who support Prop 8) is not really defending their right to do things their way; they’re specifically hoping to restrict the rights of others to do things a different way.

I think civil union (marriage in the civil context) should be separated from matrimony (marriage in the religious context) altogether as a matter of principle. It would make sense for those who are religious to have the two be combined or overlapped in some way, but we now live in a time where there are lots of people who for many differing reasons have or want nothing to do matrimony, while still desiring the rights and responsibilities of civil union. Not to mention many who are married in name but don’t really live that way.

It’s to the benefit of the state to allow same-sex marriages. Just as with heterosexual marriages, it promotes social stability and contributes to economic stability. Beyond that, though, it’s straight-up illegal for the state to discriminate against people on the basis of religion or sexual preference / orientation (among other things, of course). By banning or prohibiting same-sex marriage, for whatever reasons, the state is by definition treating one group of people (homosexual couples desiring to be married) differently from another (heterosexual couples desiring to be married) on the basis of sexual orientation and possibly religion. These two sets of people are otherwise indistinguishable: in each case you have two people who are probably in love and want to publicly and socially declare an intent to commit permanently to each other and obtain all the rights and responsibilities that accompany such a declaration; the only difference is that one pair has different plumbing, while the other pair has the same plumbing. The state should not be in the business of discriminating between people on the separate or combined bases of sexual orientation and religion.

Wait, isn’t that basically what the California Supreme Court said?

Come on, people. How hard is it, really? Do you want to live in a land where discrimination is ok? I probably shouldn’t ask that question – too many people, if they answered truthfully, would say “Yes.” But if you don’t, then oppose Proposition 8 this November. If you live in California, vote against it. If you don’t live in California, urge any Californians you may know or come into contact with to vote against it. It’s that simple.

Song of the Moment: "Hawaii Five-O," The Ventures
END OF LINE

It’s a strange confluence of circumstances. On the one hand is the way content creation – and, in particular, content permission – works in SL. Designers often don’t want customers to have modify permission on their work, because then the customers can, well, modify their work. It also makes them more vulnerable to forgery and cheap knock-offs. On the other hand is the tradition (habit? trend?) of making shoes that are designed to fit the “size 0″ avatar foot.

The result is, as everyone who’s into these things knows, the size zero shoe. You purchase a pair of shoes, and they look fabulous, and they’re designed for size 0 feet, so you adjust your Foot Size slider to 0 so they’ll look right. And, in theory, there’s nothing wrong with that – to a point.

In fact, though, it’s systemic. It’s institutionalized. It’s become accepted practice. And there is something seriously wrong with that.

How is this different from virtual foot-binding? Avatars are being asked to change their bodies in order to fit social norms or fashions. No, they’re not even being asked. In some cases, they’re being politely reminded, but often the bodily deformation is simply taken for granted. And, as we know, it’s not just shoes. There exists a whole host of clothing items that are designed only for avatars that are designed within a relatively narrow (both literally and figuratively) size spectrum. And, I recently learned, the same goes for poses and animations.

Now, this isn’t the case for all designers. When it comes to shoes in particular (but also for other size-sensitive items), there are a handful of creators who for their own reasons give us mod perms. Some of those who don’t will still sell their shoes in two sizes (such as 0 and 10, or 0 and 30), which is at least a little accommodating. And there are starting to be designers who cater specifically to “plus-sized” or otherwise non-standard (as if!) avatars.

But in a world that prides itself on diversity, where even a basic avatar can have any of dozens of attributes sized from 0 to 100 (you should hit the Random button sometime and see what happens), this strikes me as simply insensitive. It’s no different from FL’s neurotic and neurosis-producing insistence that beauty and taste are a single vision that must be administered in a top-down manner. We know better than that, don’t we? How is it that this kind of thinking found its way into our virtual world?

And worse, how is it that we as residents put up with it?

Song of the moment: "Put Your Top Down," Tré Little
END OF LINE

Well, I couldn’t miss it, so (even though it took me a while) I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight.

Let me first say that I really didn’t like Batman Begins. As I’ve already mentioned to some people, I think Christian Bale was only OK as Batman/Bruce Wayne, the story wasn’t all that fun, and the only image that I really appreciated was the picture of Gotham glittering in daylight. Plus the Batmobile was an atrocious-looking monstrosity of a vehicle that didn’t even have the brutish beauty of terrifying power.

So (spoiler alert!) I’m glad they finally blew it up. That little motorcycle-type thing wasn’t much better, though.

In any case, The Dark Knight is a far superior movie. Yes, I enjoyed it. While the story was really good, I don’t think that Heath Ledger’s performance was really worth all the hoopla that the critics have been making. The opening sequence was great, and the Joker’s legendary madness was well-written, more or less. And Christian Bale has grown into the Batman role a little more.

Overall, the movie was a helluva ride, which is generally what I’m looking for in a movie that comes from comic books. Of course, you get a better ride from something like Ultraviolet, and I’m looking forward to the Watchmen movie next year, but that’s not important right now…

While I enjoyed the movie, there is a major philosophical beef I still have with its existence. This issue dates back to Batman Begins, and is essentially going to be a fundamental problem with every installment of the new Batman movie franchise. The problem is a lack of respect for canonicity.

Now, I’m not one who insists that a comic-based movie adhere rigidly to the established stories of the comic. Marvel’s movies have convinced me that movies are a different medium and their stories must therefore be constructed differently. That’s totally fair.

What bothers me – has bothered me since Batman Begins – is that the established canon of the four previous Batman movies was simply erased. Some of us appreciate a consistent story universe, and this has now been completely destroyed. I feel it as a personal affront, that the creators of the two latest Batman movies simply have no respect for their forerunners – and no respect for those of us who have some degree of fondness for those earlier films.

A new Batman movie could have gone with new villains and executed a graceful transition from the more campy movies into this darker vibe. That would’ve been artful. Instead, we just get conceptual amputation. Reboot. A total do-over, as if all that came before was a waste of time that deserves to be forgotten. It’s rude.

And Christian Bale’s Batmobile was just ugly.

Song of the Moment: "Low Place Like Home," Sneaker Pimps
END OF LINE

Well, it was the last day of class. We assembled at the MCGC sandbox for, officially, the final time and presented our term projects.

I’ve waited almost 24 hours to write about it because I’m very sad to see the end of this thing of ours. But more on that later.

We had many different kinds of projects presented, both group and solo. My project was in two parts: the first part was an assignment I’ve created for a college-level English course that I’ll be teaching next year; the second part was my argument that SL isn’t, at the moment, a particularly attractive tool for English education — specifically when it comes to teaching literature. In fact, I feel the same way when it comes to teaching writing; although some like Sara Robbins use it integrally, what she’s doing is in fact just generating content. This is very important in a writing class, but it’s not something that is special about SL; a creative teacher can use any of a number of things, either technological or not, to help students come up with things to write about. In fact, taking best advantage of what SL has to offer may actually be more trouble for an English teacher than it’s worth right now. Though I hope that becomes less true in the future.

Pamet’s project was actually the planned timeline for a much larger project, something like a year and a half to create a full-scale presence on the Teen Grid. The timeline is pretty big, and she managed to import the whole thing from Inspiration into SL and lay it out so we could see it. It was a pretty impressive visual aid.

I also really enjoyed the two group projects: Bigpick and Tiernan’s Fantasy Island project, which had us following clues around the island to learn about the plight of the local boxfish; and the geocaching project, which Eru tells me will become something bigger thanks to support and assistance from other organizations.

Shailey’s work was the continuation of an article she’d been writing, and she informed us yesterday that it’s been accepted for publication! That’s pretty exciting — the practical or applied nature of these and the other projects we created really showed how far we’ve all come during these 14 weeks. I’m proud of all of us, and I look forward to seeing where we go from here.

Then class was officially over, and we had a party. I know there were lots of pictures taken, so hopefully we’ll have more on other blogs or on Flickr to showcase our party outfits and the general fun and festivity. As you can see from this one shot, though, it was quite the party atmosphere. Someone said it reminded them of their prom — which, with the great ’80s music, was probably true for many of us.

Of course, after a while, other duties called, and people started taking their leave. It really did remind me of graduation day — lots of goodbyes all around, along with “Stay in touch” and “See you soon.” A handful of us lingered as long as we possibly could; we were down to five for quite a while until Tiernan left. Then four: myself, Eru, Esme, and Shailey. Eventually, though, we too had to call it a day.

This was the best course I’ve taken since I started graduate school. I got what I expected from it, but I also learned much more than I imagined I might. I met new people, made friends, and saw parts of SL I might never have heard of. I was exposed to an ordered view of education in SL, as opposed to the aimless wanderings I’d been making on my own and through the SLED. And through it all, I did not lose my enthusiasm for SL; not only that, but I also (earlier comments notwithstanding) feel more enthusiastic about education in SL.

Even though I’ll now have every other Saturday morning free again, I’m going to miss this. I’m glad to have been a part of it, and I hope all of us — and the course itself — enjoy a great and productive future.

Song of the Moment: "California Sun," The Ramones

END OF LINE

Had the strangest experience in-world today. I was going to go shoe-shopping (yes!) with my friend and classmate Shailey – after the Shoe Expo, I have some new favorite vendors, and we need to get gussied up for the upcoming last day of class.

So we met this morning as planned. I actually signed on about an hour earlier, as I had to fulfill my compulsion to create a new outfit – I haven’t done so in over two weeks, and usually I make at least one a week. (Ooh, it hurts my soul just to think of the lost time…)

Anyway, Shailey greeted me in local chat. I’m on vacation right now, using a laptop with no microphone, so voice was not an option. (I don’t think it would have mattered anyway, but more on that later.) I greeted her back, and asked about the dragon that was following her around. Oddly, she didn’t respond right away, and when she did it was to say that she couldn’t receive any of my text even though she could see my typing animation.

“Weird,” I thought. I switched to IM, and got the same result. She realized there was something strange going on, and relogged to solve the problem. Except that it didn’t solve the problem. I tried chat, IM, and our class’s group chat; still nothing. I quickly put a notecard together saying that I could at least see what she was typing and dropped it on her – only to have her repeatedly decline the offer. Same with the shoe-store landmark I tried to give her.

By now you may have guessed what we later discovered – she had accidentally muted me. Now, I have never experienced the power of the mute before, and it was both frustrating and challenging. How to get a message to Shailey to let her know my side of the experience, and to say that I did indeed by this point suspect I was muted?

In a moment of inspiration, I rezzed a cube – thank goodness we were in a sandbox! – and dropped my earlier notecard into it along with a floating text script saying “Open me, Shailey!” I don’t know whether that worked (we’re going to meet again tomorrow, and I’ll ask her), but it at least had a chance and, while tedious, might be the only way to let someone know they’ve muted you – if it wasn’t done on purpose. (It occurs to me now that even if she couldn’t get the notecard, I could just make the floating text display my message; similarly tedious, but saves a step and guaranteed effective.)

But really, all of this got me thinking. SL offers a lot of things to residents, not the least of which is an infinite shoe closet just waiting to be filled. In addition to that wonderful fact is the great variety of ways to communicate with others. IM and chat, notecard and voice, prims that talk or link to websites, not to mention gestures and muting (an extreme form of communication!); our communication options are incredibly flexible. I’m not sure how many people (outside of vendors and other business people) think about it this way – I know I hadn’t. The power of the platform really hit home today.

Song of the Moment: "Mosh," Eminem

END OF LINE

Update, 8/2/08: It also occurs to me, depending on what you’re teaching, that this could be a great class exercise: communicate something (perhaps a predecided something) to someone else, perhaps in-class or perhaps out-of-class, without using local chat or IM. Or, as a series of exercises, first without chat, then without IM, then with increasing restrictions to promote lateral thinking on the issue. Lots of possibilities here, and it can be presented as a challenge or a game…

Song of the Moment: "Kismet," Bond
END OF LINE

Alright. Now that I’ve got the shoe thing out of my system for a minute, I can get back to business. In class the other day, we used some Sloodle tools with our own course Moodle in order to better get the feel of what it can do for us. We added more definitions to the glossary that we could access from in-world (that tool should allow you to add definitions from in-world) and played with the toolbar HUD and chat logger. We also looked briefly at a couple other unrelated tools.

After that, we broke into two groups to discuss some pertinent issues. My group was thinking about SL’s affordances for professional development, and we came up with a pretty good list. The other group discussed the objections and obstacles to using SL in education. This could not have been a better topic, as not only does it regularly come up in our class forums, but I was just talking about that very question the day before regarding my own campus. What does one say to those who complain of a steep learning curve or other problems as reasons to resist using SL in their department / school / district? What can you show people to demonstrate its feasibility without being to complex or technical? These are important questions, as even the most enthusiastic of us have doubts at least once in a while, and cogent answers are useful not only to convince the unbelievers but to help us articulate our enthusiasm in terms better than “it’s just so freaking cool!”

Then we went to Weather Island, owned by The Weather Channel, to do some surfing. Yes, on surfboards. It looks like a lot of fun, but – ironically, given my own enthusiasm for SL and the recent discussion – I couldn’t get anything to work. My client started lagging super-hard, I couldn’t even see the water for a while, I couldn’t get on the surfboard, and finally the program just crashed altogether. Esme was her usual great, patient self; when I signed on again she did her best to get me back to the beach and on the board. It took quite a while, but it eventually worked a little (and it was freakin’ cool), although it was perhaps the most frustrating experience I’ve ever had in SL. Not only that, but we got griefed on the beach: some bonehead was running around caging people, and another (or maybe the same?) was making sexual propositions in Spanish. So now I truly understand what some of the resisters are talking about when they describe their bad experiences.

Very educational, that was. So, too, was the general experience I was having that day. You ever have one of those days where it seems that it’s just hard to keep up? No, I wasn’t hung over or anything. But class was more talkative than normal that day, and between managing my avatar in SL while looking at Moodle, plus trying to keep up with all the chat going on, it was all I could do to stay on top of things. I found it difficult at times to participate in the discussion, which is usually not a problem for me. It was commented more than once that I was unusually quiet; I can only say that for some reason the multitasking was just overwhelming at the time.

But it got me thinking. It is assumed that the so-called digital natives don’t have that sort of problem. But how true is that? And everyone has an off day now and then, no matter how much they can usually process at once. As we (some of us, at least) strive to integrate more technology into our classrooms, this is a factor that I think must be kept in mind. Even though we as instructors never feel like we can afford it, we should probably always be mindful of the pace at which we conduct our classes.

Song of the Moment: "Simon Says," Drain S.T.H.
END OF LINE

Okay, so I’ve decided on an answer my own question: it’s not shallow if you feel it deeply.

I have recently visited SL’s First Annual Shoe Expo (going on through July 27 at the four Rezzable sims: Create, Design, Discover, and Explore). Twice in two days, actually. (No pics just yet, because the place is always crowded and the snapshot feature wants to crash my client.)

So here’s the thing: being at the Expo feels (and I mean in an emotional way) for me a lot like being in an Apple store. Or one of those exotic, import-only auto dealerships. I knew (and those who know me have seen it) that SL has awakened my inner fashion force, but the shoe expo experience was something else altogether.

I’m normally pretty tight-fisted in SL, as I don’t want to turn my time-eating habit into a money-eating habit. Plus you really can dress extremely well on a micro-budget, although it helps if you develop some basic building skills. But on my second visit to the Expo, while waiting for about 2 minutes for some friends to meet me, I saw, coveted, and acquired a L$500 pair of boots.

It was a visceral thing. I just had to have them.

They matched the outfit I was wearing at the moment rather perfectly, enhancing the overall effect I was going for (I will be taking pics of them when I have a moment), so that helped. But I found myself, heart pounding, making an impulse buy that was totally uncharacteristic.

Walking around with my friends / shopping buddies, I later spent another few hundred L$ on further footwear. I had just that morning been reading in the Mermaid Diaries a tutorial on making your own shoes, and was (and am) pretty excited about trying that out. But I couldn’t resist some of these shoes. Hell, I didn’t want to.

If you’ve seen The Devil Wears Prada (and if you haven’t, you should), you know the scene in which Miranda (Meryl Streep’s character) berates the new assistant for snickering at an agonizing belt choice and talks about the true place of fashion in the real world. That scene gave me a new respect for fashion. And I took it to heart in SL, as witnessed by my overburdened inventory that is mostly wardrobe. But I now really understand the passion, as it were, for fashion. It’s real love.

And thus I have no guilt over my purchases. But if you suffer from that irrational ailment, your conscience can be assuaged by knowing that significant portions of the Expo’s sales are going to the ASPCA. Unless you’re like me, as I eat enough meat that the ASPCA might not even take my money. But as I said, I have no guilt.

And did I mention that the Expo covers four sims? I haven’t yet been completely through even one of them. I’ll be going back real soon.

Song of the Moment: "Belle," Paige O'Hara and Cast (from Disney's Beauty and the Beast)
END OF LINE

Esme, our fearless leader, was at a conference last weekend (about which she probably owes us a blog post ), so we held that class session yesterday. Two major things in yesterday’s experience.

First, I’m mad at myself because I didn’t get any pics of the Second Louvre, which was among a few spots we toured in class. I’ve been to Paris in FL (though not for many years), and it made the appropriate impression. But it was not until I’d visited Paris 1900 and now the Second Louvre in SL that I realized why France is such a cultural center. I’m not much of an art buff, but this museum was too cool. It was the sculptures that particularly caught me (so much so that I forgot to take freakin’ pictures!). If you’ve been around in SL even a little, you know that good prim-work is the cornerstone of any quality 3D work, and there are some lovely examples at the Louvre. They range from FL-looking pieces (“traditional”-style sculptures) to shimmery, animated, or simply outlandish things that are only possible in a virtual world. I was captivated.

To take a moment and look at this from an educational perspective, just think of what SL museum tours might do for the imaginations of children and young people who are looking for artistic inspiration. Think of how this can augment the notions of art appreciation and art history!

Can you tell the Second Louvre was my favorite part of yesterday’s tour?

So anyway…the second part of class was a presentation by Giannina Rossini on Sloodle, the mashup of the Moodle course management system and Second Life. Basically, adding the Sloodle module to your Moodle installation allows you to use SL to enhance your online course by giving you and your students access to various parts of the Moodle while in SL. This includes chat (the chat can be conducted with those both in and out of SL at the same time), posting to your Moodle blog from in-world, access to glossaries, and more. Pretty nifty, and growing in capability all the time.

A good question was brought up, but there wasn’t time to address it (though I suspect we will in our own Moodle discussions this week): why was Sloodle created? The creators themselves have their answers, some of which are on the website. But the question underneath that is, I believe, “why would we use it?” And my answer is: I’m not sure we would, at least not all of us. It might have been a good tool for this TLVW course, for example, since it’s being conducted completely via Moodle and Second Life. At this point in the course, however, I think of the blogs we’ve created: some of us use the Moodle blog tool, which can be enhanced with Sloodle. Some of us, however, chose WordPress or Blogger blogs, which are – as blogging tools – much more dynamic. If we’d been using Sloodle from word one, these options might not have been available, and I for one would have enjoyed blogging much less. (Let me quickly add that compatibility with major blogging tools is probably on the horizon, since the BlogHUD system already allows blogging to various platforms from in-world.)

The bigger consideration, though, is for teachers who are not using SL as a major component of their classroom or course, even with a major Moodle component. I’m thinking now of the back-end issues, really, since every effort has been made – rather successfully, I think – to make Sloodle easy to use for teachers and students. Unfortunately, unlike BlogHUD (or even SL, to an extent), it’s not a tool you can just pick up and use. It’s a third-party add-on module for your Moodle installation, and for many educators (like me) that means a long heart-to-heart with your sysadmin, IT division, or computer science department. The natural reticence such folks often display when someone wants to add yet another something to the Frankensteinian monster that is the school’s or department’s server comes from the fact that – even if the tool is a plug-and-play module – after the work of the installation, the thing needs to be kept up-to-date (remember that “growing in capability all the time” I mentioned earlier?), and it needs to be integrated from a systems point of view with the rest of the tools on the network (strange incompatibilities pop up for no reason at all, like on my PC, where Thunderbird won’t auto-update if Logitech’s QuickCam software is running). It is what they get paid the big bucks for (!), but is the return (in classroom terms) on the investment (in IT energy and time) worth it? That is, of course, up to each individual. But it’s a serious question.

I did get a pic to share, by the way, which leads to the last thing I have to say about yesterday’s class. This comes from the moment when we are gathering for the Sloodle discussion; Rossini is perched on the orange box, and the rest of us are milling about on the ground. And there’s not a newbie-looking avatar among us! You don’t have to have prim hair or blingy accessories or store-bought tuxedos to transcend that “just out of Orientation Island” lack of style. Everyone here has created their own look, and whether it’s simple or complex, it’s not the cookie-cutter, factory standard. Compare the looks in this pic with those of our first or second meeting, and you’ll see how far we’ve come. Am I too obsessed with appearance? I dunno; how many SL fashion blogs are there out there? Check them out and judge me later. But these are people, not dolls, and in a 3D, visual, digital world, one of the ways to make that most clear is to have an individual look – something at which we’ve all succeeded.

It makes me warm and tingly inside.

Song of the moment: "Telephone Call from Istanbul," Tom Waits
END OF LINE