10
Dec 07

Pausch’s Last Lecture, Dreams and Dying

I wrote a bunch of things, but I think I’ve shared enough about me today. Thanks to whomever sent this over twitter, it was very timely.


10
Dec 07

Eight Things Meme

I never do blog memes, but when Hamlet Au of New World Notes tagged me, I had to give in.

If you’ve somehow escaped this one, here are the rules:

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

And now eight random things about me..

1. I grew up on a horse farm and lived in a log cabin in the woods. I’ve bailed hay, chopped firewood, milked a cow, and hand farmed gardens that were bigger than most people’s lawns. We had an outhouse and carried our drinking water by hand from a natural spring out in the woods. We had a zillion cats, and dogs and horses, cows, chickens, and even some goats once, and with 90 acres of fields, woods, and creeks to play in, and an endless supply of books (not so good TV reception out in the sticks back then), I think I had a pretty good place to grow up.

In fact, urban and suburban life still seems unnatural and crowded, yet isolating and lonely to me. It seems like you should know everyone within a few mile radius of where you live (even if that isn’t really feasible in a city) and that kids were meant to run and play for hours at a time unsupervised (even if they do get hurt). Seventeen years after leaving the country, I’m still trying to reconcile all of these contradictions for myself, and it’s why I bought a house right next to a huge, 1500 acre park – it’s the closest I can get to the country without having a ridiculous commute.

2. My first SL avatar was Mara Brightwillow, and I remember being totally befuddled by the navigation interface – especially flying. The first resident created object I remember seeing was a giant hair spray can. (!)

3. I bumped into Emilio Estevez (literally) at a farmer’s market in downtown Minneapolis. I nearly dropped my bags and by the time I realized who I’d run into, we’d already exchanged excuse mes and he was gone. I was quite crushed considering I’d had a crush on him since.. what was the name of that ice skating movie?

4. I made it to the national spelling bee rounds in 7th grade and lost on the very first word of the very first round – xenophobic. I spelled it with a z. What a bummer that was.

5. I’ve been a priest or cleric in every D&D or RPG game I’ve ever played. Something about saving the hero’s ass at the last minute.. Actually, I think it comes from the early days when video games were largely single player. My brother was the type to open the box and go right for the controls, while I dove for the manual and bossed him around. He was the fighter, I was the planner, and when we got to multiplayer games, the hoarder of potions since he always wasted his. It ruined me for soloing ever after.

6. The only book I’ve ever seriously attempted to read and couldn’t was Infinite Jest. I don’t know why, all my friends liked it, but the second I open the cover my eyes glaze over. Maybe I should try again, it’s been a few years since the last attempt.

7. I once gave a tour of SL to a bunch of educators with no virtual pants on. I could see them on my client, of course, I still don’t know how that happened, but about 15 minutes into the presentation someone asked me if I was supposed to be wearing something on my bottom half. I’ve never been so grateful for virtual underwear! Taught me to always check with someone else to make sure my avatar is rendered properly before a presentation. That’s something they don’t teach you in Presentations 101.

8. Speaking of dumb things, I once ran over my own foot with my own car all by myself. How is this possible, you ask? Well, it takes the right combination of gravity, slope, long black coat, and idiocy. I’d left my headlights on over night and was late for a meeting (of course) and so when my neighbor offered to give me a jump, I was in a rush to get things moving. I decided to push the car down the driveway myself so we could hook up the cables, and while he was moving his car into position, I opened the driver’s side door and was steering with my left hand and pushing on the door frame with my right hand. What I didn’t know was that my flat drive way wasn’t actually flat at the end, and as soon as I hit that little slope, wow the car started moving at quite a clip. Before I knew it, the long black dress coat I was wearing got caught under the front tire and then I was trapped. The car didn’t actually run all the way over me, it just drug me along for a good while, grinding off shoes, tights, and flesh until it came to a rest at the bottom of the hill. Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch.

All things considered I was quite lucky, broken ankle and the proverbial “it’s just a flesh wound!” that eventually healed over. The only thing more painful than the event itself was having to explain what happened every time someone asked while I was on crutches. Moral of the story? Pick one: Don’t wear long loose clothing when working with heavy machinery. Don’t be in such a rush that you do really dumb things. If you hurt yourself in a dumb way, think of a good cover story before word gets out that you ran over yourself with your own car, yes really. *sigh*

And there you have it, eight things you probably didn’t know about me.

There are a bunch of people I’d love to tag, but I don’t want anyone to feel obligated either, so if you’re reading this and have a blog and haven’t been tagged yet, you’re now IT. Link back here and I’ll post a follow up to your site!


09
Dec 07

Twitter Updates for 2007-12-09

  • @rubaiyat Alt SL viewers? http://tinyurl.com/yrhpuh #
  • Lordfly is lying. #
  • laugh #
  • Quite the jam session at Diva’s tonight, think half my twitter list is there. #
  • @anayaixchel I like Flock’s features, but too many tabs and it gets sloooow #
  • @Roxette_Wise Nice tutorial link, thx! http://www.mermaiddiaries.com/2006/11/build.html #
  • @Luscious1 Holy smokes, had your tweet notification off for some reason, thought you were silent! Doh! And np. 🙂 #
  • Thx @jowyang, checking obama rally http://tinyurl.com/yw7cbm #
  • @jowyang Who’s on stage right now? #
  • Holy smokes the obama rally ustream is up to 1100 viewers. was 54 when I looked last. #
  • @Veronique_L hihi! =) #
  • Obama rally supposed to start soon http://tinyurl.com/2yward #
  • Um, obama rally just went up by 700 viewers in about a minute. crazy. #
  • @codebastard Don’t remind me and my headache. 😉 #
  • 18 year old kid from s carolina playing stand by me on violin at obama rally, v.cute #
  • @dizzybanjo I got the same message, had to create new acct. #
  • Arrested Development playing the Obama rally now #
  • Oprah says We all know these are dangerous times, we feel it, even if we’re watching dancin with the stars to forget it #
  • Oprah just finishing, Obama about to speak http://tinyurl.com/2yward #
  • I know this is a campaign speech, and the 1st I’ve watched, but Obama is doing a good job. Not too slogan-y, addressing Real Issues. #
  • @Nexeus – @codebastard never sleeps, duh. #
  • @ericrice Tried to log into Kaneva, someone took Fleep, install took forever, then it crashed. Boo. Hiss. #

09
Dec 07

Obama Rally with Oprah in S. Carolina

I’ve not watched a single candidate debate or speech, have seen almost no video coverage or news coverage, and generally have avoided consuming pre-election coverage of the Dems. But this morning someone sent a link to a live stream of the Obama rally today and since I’m sitting here doing research and filling out paperwork, I thought I’d check it out.

Let’s see if this embedding works..


08
Dec 07

Twitter Updates for 2007-12-08

  • Thanks to @cmduke, now have fab SL calendar at http://fleeep.net/blog/?page_id=166 #
  • Well, got Windlight to run thanks to @Torley and JIRA DIY fix, but it looks terrible. Time for vidcard upgrade? #
  • @Roxette_Wise It’s a GeForce 6800/PCI/SSE2, 256mb which isn’t a bad card, but not top of the line either. #
  • @Roxette_Wise If you have probs with crashing on launch, check JIRA #3178 for the fix. Worked for me. Good luck! 🙂 #
  • Turning off all shaders fixes ugly prob, and performance seems.. screaming fast. wow. Will trade pretty for fast any day. #
  • @MosioQuestions Nope, no smoking in Cincinnati restaurants, but can in Kentucky just over the bridge. #
  • @chrisbrogan MP3 seems to be working fine for me. #
  • @SinTrenton w00t! Happy Rezday! 🙂 #

08
Dec 07

Chilbo Community Blog Reader In-World


Visitors to Chilbo can now read the latest updates on our blog from in- world! Stop by the Town Hall Plaza to check it out!
posted by Fleep Tuque on Chilbo using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]


08
Dec 07

New Tool to Track SL Bugs

Gigs Taggert announced a great new tool to track the top issues and most wanted features in Second Life by aggregating a bunch of data from the JIRA system.

The address is: http://www.sljirastats.com/

Screenshot of new JIRA Stats page

I know many folks either feel overwhelmed by the JIRA interface or just simply don’t have time to dig around to find all the bug reports they are also experiencing, but this site makes it very simple to see top issues and link directly to bug reports so you can vote. Great work Gigs!!


08
Dec 07

Windlight Sadness


Finally got Windlight running thanks to @Torley and the JIRA DIY fix posted at http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3178 – but the bad news is everything looks horrible. Still playing with the settings, but oh my poor face, now I know why everyone is talking about how bad it can make your avatar look. Yikes.
posted by Fleep Tuque on Chilbo using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]


08
Dec 07

Virtual Worlds/Walled Gardens, SL-Dev, and UC State of the University

[Edit: Good grief, it’s the State of the University, not State of the Union. (!!) Recovering political junkie reflex.]

Interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor about big business and Second Life. Tackles the interoperability-slash-walled garden issue, and quotes Metanomics series host Professor Robert Bloomfield of Cornell University, who I recently met during the discussion on Higher Education in Second Life for the program.

The article states that 20 major technology firms, including IBM and Microsoft, have agreed to explore ways to connect virtual worlds. My thought, is Google on that list?

On another note, I was talking with a couple of long time SL residents who didn’t know about the existence of the SL-DEV listserv. Now I am not a scripter or a coder or any label that would imply I could program my way out of a paper bag, but if you want to know where the technology behind Second Life is heading, there’s no better source for info. Sure half to two thirds of the posts zoom right over my head, but even scanning the subject lines tells me what’s the Hot New Topic with the opensource/dev community, and that’s good to know.

President Nancy Zimpher delivers the 2007 State of the University address

Next up, I finally got a chance to view University of Cincinnati President Nancy Zimpher’s State of the University 2007 address. Since she came to UC, her focus on how the university integrates with the local and regional community has resonated with my own sense of priorities, and I am pleased to see that continue to be her focus, in addition to the Master Plan and UC|21 goals for academic achievement. I lived in Clifton for 6 years, and while I miss the convenience of walking to work very much, I don’t miss the noise, the crime, and the grit nearby. As long as economic redevelopment doesn’t just mean shifting vulnerable populations further away from a walled-garden campus, then I am all for finding real, sustainable solutions. She also mentioned the Strive project, which aims to create an educational pipeline to ensure that students complete the _entire_ educational process, from pre-school through to college degree. Good stuff!

Also from President Zimpher’s speech, the Brookings Institute: Blueprint for American Prosperity: Unlceaning the Potential of a Metropolitan Nation. I confess, I haven’t read it yet, but her talk seemed quite apropos considering the recent conversations I and others have been having about what makes a community work in the virtual world, and I think there is much to be learned from real world examples too.

Finally, any SL residents, I beg of you to please vote for the JIRA issue to increase the 25 group limit in Second Life. Even if you haven’t hit that ceiling yet, it is a major major obstacle for those of us who have, and I can’t believe it has less than 400 votes. Sheesh.


07
Dec 07

Twitter Updates for 2007-12-07

  • Anyone heard of Tal Chernov, accused of art theft in SL? Have request to ban him from Chilbo land. #
  • @foulbastard You are getting verrrry sleeeeepy.. #
  • @foulbastard Oh wait, that’s me. GL with the testing. 🙂 #
  • SL Folks: Vote for more than 25 groups on JIRA: http://tinyurl.com/27vboa #
  • Woo hoo! Book chapter proposal was accepted! Friday off to a nice start. #
  • Email inbox under 100 messages for the first time in 6 months. Holy productive morning batman! #
  • @skydaddy Bb8?? Eek, so glad I’m not on that project anymore. 🙂 #