The implications of the leaked emails from University of East Anglia CRU (Climatic Research Unit) continues spill shockwaves across the net.  Here are a couple of collections of articles and a complete database of the leaked Climate gate documents:

http://www.globalwarming.org/2009/11/30/cooler-heads-digest-30-november-2009-special-climategate-issue/

http://www.climate-gate.org

 

OK, so the final word count looks pretty pathetic.  I think I actually may have written a word or two more, but I didn't have the heart to update my totals (on either the main NaNoWriMo page, or in Second Life write-in boards). But I'm still excited, because this is one of those moments where the usual spin about turning failures into triumphs is less hollow! So where did it all go wrong? where did it go OK? Here is the skinny:

 OK, now that I am firmly entrenched in this years NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), it is time to take a look at what Open Source Software exists for writers. As luck would have it, there is a fair number of very useful tools for the writer. Let me mention a few, but first let me plug my own NaNoWriMo page, so that you too can see my complete lack of progress!:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/242225/

THE USUAL LONG AND RAMBLING INTRODUCTION STARTING WITH THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PDAS (Skip a bit, brother!)

It was around 1995 when I saw a sysadmin at Sun whip out his newly released palm pilot and check off an item on his todo list after talking to me about some system issue or another.  I said "whoa! hold the phone! what is that?"  He gave me a quick tour of the device, and I immediately went to the palm pilot website.

I knew a zen-cool device when I saw one.

The last time I had seen a zen-cool device was when I had picked up my TRS-80 Model 100.  There was a device that qualified.  You could edit text (using the last bit of code that Bill Gates wrote before he went management - oh how different it could have been!), keep a simple to do list and calendar, write programs in basic, dial into Compuserve and BBS systems at 300 baud (you didn't scroll text, just read it as it came in). Steve Roberts turned a mobile computing device into a technomadic geography independent lifestyle, which I thought was a logical point of mobile computing devices.

After unofficial medical studies conducted in Second Life, a number of new conditions have been routinely diagnosed:

1. Sim-crossing Migraine: your brain hurts after crossing a sim border - may also cause hallucinatory travel.
2. Non-Sititus: You experience an inability to sit down, or sit on an unintended target.
3. Hormonal Ruthing - the appearance of your suddenly changed avatar causes you to freak out.
4. Unorthagonal Myopia: everything looks distorted from the wrong angle.
5. Ban-line Bulemia: your vehicle/boat/whatever hits a ban line and vomits you up.
6. Prim-Dropsy: you fall down because you accidentally delete what you are sitting on.
7. Macular Camera Obscura: you suddenly can't see because your camera is pushed outside the scene.
8. Bakerosy - you appear to have a rare skin disease because you can't rez properly.
9. Snow Prim Blindness: you TP to where hundreds of grey squares appear to be coming at you.
10. VertigoHavok: you experience dizziness or nausea, due to bad SL physics movement.
11. Slow Lagtabolism: everything SLOOWS down and gets jerky.
12. Cache Crack Addiction: you look jerky and fast because you are trying to write your cache to something stupid like a memory stick.
13. Pose-insons Disease: your av appears to be having nervous degeneration due to a bad gesture or pose
14. Teleportapalegia: the inability to move after teleporting
15. Lackasyncitiis: you experience uncoordinated movements and missing objects

If you experience these or other unusual symptoms, get to a virtual clinic right away!

 Photo: My Second Life Avatar, “Strannik Zipper” on a real California beach.

 

Introduction

I have long considered writing a series of articles about the Metaverse,  and the idea of life in virtual worlds in general, focusing on Second Life in particular. I decided to wait until my first Rez Day had passed (date of virtual birth or entrance into Second Life), which it now has.  I have now spent various amounts of time for over a year in the Virtual World of Second Life, and feel that now is the time to write about it. 

Fr. Seraphim Rose gave a notable lecture at the University of Santa Cruz in 1981, just a year before he reposed, to a class which was a survey of world religions.  Several people found this lecture (alongside another that was given) to be life changing for them. Amidst the spiritual smorgasboard that was UC Santa Cruz, Fr. Seraphim stood out.  The lecture which is now available in streaming form, is preceded by an introduction by Fr. Damascene Christiansen, and the lecture is read by a member of the St. Herman Brotherhood for the first several minutes (this part of the lecture wasn't taped). Then the audio switches, and you can hear the rest of the lecture as given by Fr. Seraphim.