The Aesthetics and Beauty of Knowledge
Shih was the opposite of facts and raw information; shih was the elegance of knowledge, the insight and skill to organize knowledge into meaningful patterns. As an artist chooses colours or light to make her pictures, a master of shih chooses textures of knowledge – various ideas, myths, abstractions, and theories – to create a way of seeing the world. The aesthetics and beauty of knowledge – this was shih.
– David Zindell, The Broken God, 1993
Geek Attitude
The attitude thing is about flexibility, portability, creativity, sociability and jamming (ran out of suitable “ity” words!). It’s about improvising – in the practical and musical senses of the word; not getting tangled in boundaries and the “right” way to do things.
Definitely the only way to travel.
– Martin Delaney – “Laptop Music”.
Kuehleborn's Unfathomable Thoughts
SL becomes more and more RL
Even the usual upgrading becomes a natural part of my life. Today I had to upgrade to version 1.12.2; I can never start a fresh day in 2L without having to upgrade.
Today I wanted to visit some new places I read about in the metaverse mailinglist. The first was Meta Bank. A building at Nangrim.
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Just like a real bank it was closed when I wanted to open an account :-(.
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I was eager to learn how Second Life economics work. And I’m not the only one: also the American IRS is investigating if it is possible to tax virtual communities. I was already wondering why it took so long before politicians started thinking about milking the cow. And speaking of news: there is also a real news office of Reuters in 2L! You can see on his calender when Adam Reuters has his office hours in Second Life.
Finally I was looking for some fun. So I visited The Edge, a club that was recommended by another person on the metaverse-mailinglist.
Nice, but not my idea of “fun”. So I teleported home asap and that was another day in 2L.
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[…] There are days IRL when you feel like the ultimate Samuel Pepys: “Up at seven and so to bed”. In 2L you experience the similar when you log in and log out, without talking to anybody or seeing anything worth mentioning. I have to admit that this is what happens regularly. Today however was full of interesting experiences, so I need two entries. I posted already on the Meta Bank, The Edge and the Reuters news agency, but there was one thing left on my wish list: the Black Sun Tower sim. The Black Sun Tower is a building mentioned in “Snowcrash”, the novel with so many ideas at the cradle of Second Life. […]
You don’t need to do any messy paperwork to open an account at Meta Bank, just go up to the ATM and pay it money, it will automatically open an account using your SL account info. I know, they should have some instructions for people on that, particularly newbies. I’ll make a note for Thor…
[…] More successful was my attempt to open an account at the MetaBank. It was not difficult at all, but I am just curious what will happen with my money. After all, one of my purposes for signing up with Second Life was to investigate how things in VL differ from RL. […]