Adri Saarinen

Hey moo, thanks for the great write-up of Os's video! I just wanted to make sure it's clear that this was an Orange Island event, not a Metaversatility event. We, of course, are part of the team that manages the community along with French consultancy Extralab (http://www.extralab.fr) and a dedicated team of Orange community managers (http://www.orange-island.com)

This was a super fun event and I just want to make sure that everyone who helped set it up is mentioned!

Oh, hey! Cool! Thanks for the info.

This is something I wonder a lot because I often get asked if I'm a furry. I'm never /quite/ sure how to respond. Yes, I'm using an anthro av, yes it's more elaborate than the 'neko' look, no it doesn't have a full attachment set, and, no, I don't participate in furry fandom. I mean, I've only been to Luskwood once, and that was for a concert!

I think, in SL, it's so easy to put on an anthro av, and so much fun, that even people who maybe initially had the 'zomg, furries are animal-sexxing freaks!' stereotype come to realize that animal avs are just fun. I think you see a lot of people in SL in some kind of hybrid or animal avatar who don't have anything to do with furry fandom otherwise.

I do know SL has skewed my perception, because when a Dork Tower comic ran with a furry in it, I was /shocked/ when the comments on the rss feed were furry-negative. I mean, absolutely shocked and horrified. I had forgotten how furry-negative the 'net is as a whole.

I highly recommend reading Verner Vinge's /True Names/, which is about a metaverse, as well. It was written in 1979. :) It's a novella currently available in an anthology with critical essays about it and how the actual metaverse and internet has been shaped as compared to the story.

I think /True Names/ as well as /Snowcrash/ are excellent companions to SL, and the sort of literary mirror that one can use to think critically about his or her own experience.

I love Robbie's video! Such a lovely demonstration of building in SL.

As for the trailer, it's obviously very well done, and I spotted a few of my favorite places/activities, but it really doesn't do a very good job of 'selling' the SL we all know, but more of the idea of SL that brings us newbs looking for guns. I don't fault newbs looking for guns in most cases, it's marketing and writing about SL that misleads them, in a lot of cases.

Hooray!

Jeff /Barr/ blogged about it, not Jeff Bezos. Jeff Barr is the Amazon Web Services evangelist and maintains the AWS blog and development studio in SL.

That's what I get for typing too fast-- thinking of one Jeff and writing about another!

Jeff Bezos blogs about Amazon Web Services and Second Life: http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2006/07/amazon_search_i.html

He also talks about the first SL product to use AWS, Second411 (http://www.second411.com), an item-by-item search engine for SL! With the S411 search HUD, you can search both SL and, now, Amazon.com. Hal9k, the creator, has plans to add both Google and Yahoo! searches in his next version.