Downgrading Second Life

Here is my alter ego Kuehleborn Spengler, saying goodbye to his home “Undine” and the land he just abandoned. Last week I downgraded my SL-account to the free basic account. It took some time before I made up my mind. Why? I don’t know! Be honest: there is nothing left in Second Life now, fascinating […]

Third International Conference on Virtual Worlds

The Third International Conference on Virtual Worlds (VW’2012) will be held from July 3 to 5, 2012 in Paris. A Virtual World can be defined as a computer-simulated environment with its own physical and biological laws, populated by dynamic interacting entities such as artificial creatures and human avatars. Whereas Virtual Reality largely focuses on the […]

Science thrives in virtual worlds

I haven’t visited the MetaVerse (=Second Life or Twinity) for a very long time, despite the possibilities for education that I have always envisioned. And I’m not the only one. An interesting example is the Department of Digital Media at Leeds College of Art’s investigation of Second Life and other Virtual Worlds for Art and […]

Digital Urban Booklet

I’m a fan of the Digital Urban blog. I wrote earlier about it, and I tried  – inspired by their tutorials – to make an Urban Movie myself, that is, let’s admit it, not worth being mentioned. Now they have made available their booklet “Digital Geography – Geographic Visualisation for Urban Environments“, written by Andrew […]

Moving House in Second Life

Last months I haven’t visited Second Life very often. Reasons are: being too busy with First Life and not enough reason to be there at all. So, November last year I logged in and got disappointed by visiting some of my favorite places: Dublin (almost extinct), the sandbox for new citizens (desolate) and Uvvy, with […]

House Cleaning

That was avery long suspension of my Second Life citizenship. My last post here is from june last year, however I did visit SL a while ago, but only a few minutes. Now, Linden Labs is about to charge me for another year’s subscription and I thought it might be a good idea to look […]

3 Reasons to stay in Second Life.

There has to be a reason to visit Second Life. At least for me, since I can’t help feeling bored in The Grid. So, last week there was again the bill from Linden Labs, to continue my membership for a year – my third year. My (initial) enthusiasm, two years ago, has faded away but […]

Assisi in Second Life

After a very long period of suspension of my Second Life, I returned briefly in the virtual world today. Except for a short visit to try out the portable Second Life client (useless, because very slow) I couldn’t think of any reason why I should spend my time there. Second Life is empty. But today […]

Second Art

Brian Eno’s latest artwork, 77 Million Paintings, is a constantly evolving sound and imagescape which continues his exploration into light as an artist’s medium and the aesthetic possibilities of “generative software”. It is “visual music”. Concurrently with the North American premiere of Brian Eno’s Art installation at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts , at […]

Flying around

More than two months ago I wrote my last entry in this journal. So it is time to write another piece about my activities in Second Life. But that’s just the problem: I haven’t been participating in any activities for the last two months, too busy with earning €€ IRL 🙁 So I missed Kevin Warwick’s […]

  • 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”.