Extropia Core Expands

Despite being a frequent absentee, I remain an avid fan of Sophrosyne's Salon at Extropia Core, and the eclectic gathering who converge there every Saturday for a talk or presentation from some luminary or another, followed by (or often interspersed with) a general chinwag. It's a fun event. The Extropia Core sim seems to change radically between each visit - but has now compounded this rate of change by adding another sim: Extropia.

Although the sim newly minted, the Extropia builders - Vidal Tripsa and Galatea Gynoid - have been beavering away to make it habitable. Parcels are available for rent here, however, before you rush into it, you might want to bear the following in mind: "We will REQUIRE two references from current citizens for all applications. The Board reserves the right to veto any application. To be added to the waiting list, IM Sophrosyne Stenvaag with the names of your references and the parcel size you would like." So that's a bit more stringent that Anshe Chung then.

I don't know what the sim will finally look like - maybe it will look like it does now. But since the group has opened it to wanderers and itinerant ramblers, I thought you might like to see it:

Extropia Salon - Aleister Kronos

A curious day yesterday.

I had the pleasure of being Sophrosyne Stenvaag's guest at Extropia Core, for a conversation/free-for-all loosely related to the subject of "Creativity and Corporate Builds." It was a fun 2 hours, with so much contribution from the floor that I reckon I only got through about 30% of the stuff I had thought to cover. But this is one of the enjoyable things about Sophrosyne's Salon... it is a rambling, open, anarchic exchange of thoughts, ideas and a few prejudices - and very refreshing it is too.

I have to say, it got progressively more difficult to get a word in edgeways, as there was so much to read and react to. A day later, and I still need to sift through the log to catch the many witticisms and insightful ideas I missed. Sadly, I was a tad too preoccupied to capture any snapshots, but you can find some in Soph's blog.

Owing to a personal issue suddenly arising in RL, I had to make my excuses and leave shortly before the 2 hours were up. This issue is now hopefully resolved, but thanks to the many people who expressed their concern and support.

Some Extropian Announcements

Here's a couple of announcements from (or on behalf of) Sophrosyne Stenvaag of Extropia Core. First up:

Sophrosyne's Saturday Salon: Creativity and Corporate Builds
When..... Saturday, December 8, 2007 at 1:00pm - 3:00pm SLT
Where... The Nexus at Extropia Core

Please join us as we discuss what makes an effective corporate build, and how to liberate our design imaginations!

Our Spotlight Guest will be Aleister Kronos, of the popular and insightful blog, Ambling In Second Life! Al is a veteran traveler, wildly creative designer, and incisive design critic. Join him for an amble through the best and worst of Second Life builds!

It's nice to be invited and I'm looking forward to it, albeit with a looming sense of dread. Do come along if you fancy it, and get a thrilling sense of schadenfreude while I demonstrate my mastery of the bleedin' obvious.

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The second announcement from Sophrosyne concerns the excellent - and fun - site: freerice.com. She has set up a contest aimed at benefitting both freerice and Second Life Africa. The latter is an initiative by Uthango, a South African social investment company. As she explains in this blog post:

I've staked $USD 250 as prize money for a contest to run for three weeks, from December 1, 2007 to December 21, 2007. At the end of that time, on December 22, 2007, I'll award all the prize money that's been won at a party in Second Life.

For every person who posts a top score of 50 (one score per player - if you post 10 screencaps of 50, we'll still only pay out once!), we'll pay you $L250, and donate $L1000 to Second Life Africa. For every person who posts a score of 49, we'll pay you $L250 and donate $L750 to Second Life Africa. For every person who posts a score of 48, we'll pay you $L250 and donate $L500 to Second Life Africa. We will *not* pay out more than $USD250, unless we receive other sponsors. Once we have $USD250 in winners, the contest will be over.

Good causes, a fun and challenging game and prizes! What more could you want?

Extropia Salon - Grace McDunnough

I have just returned to New New Alville after another interesting gig at the Extropia Core Salon meet, where Sophrosyne's guest was the mighty Grace McDunnough. The topic of conversation should come as no surprise to the many people who know Grace in Second Life: music in SL. Actually, this was another event in which I met people for the first time in Second Life whom I already know through other social networks: Twitter, Facebook and Virtual Worlds Connect. In fact, Grace is one of these people.

Grace's Salon gig was in two halves - a chat, followed by a live performance. It was interesting to hear (or rather, read) her experience of Second Life. I found a lot of resonances with my own views. I may be paraphrasing a bit too much here, but she has always had a passion for music, but lacked the confidence, or perhaps the conviction, to perform in RL. She found the degree of separation offered by having a virtual alter ego in SL was enough to tip the scales, giving her the confidence to perform live. Second Life has given her the freedom to express herself in ways that she would find too difficult in RL, not least because of the need to earn a crust in RL, which in itself is enough to force a constraint. In SL her creativity has had an opportunity to blossom, and she is now one of the "must see" live performers in our virtual world. Her songs, performed to the accompaniment of her acoustic guitar, are a mix of original material (often co-written with Salome Strangelove) and covers.




I confess I prefer my music a bit more brain-battering, but I have broad tastes and throughly enjoyed Grace's performance - albeit without the aid of Musimmersion (go look it up). She has a wonderful, emotive, strong voice - and she kept the audience enthralled.

Next week, yours truly will be in the hot seat - so you will doubtless find that Grace's gig was the Salon's high water mark, as there's no way I can come close. Grrr... why did I agree to it??! Perhaps I need to take up juggling or something... or maybe take inspiration from the works of the great Le Petomane.

Oh... I couldn't resist --- here's the moon setting on New New Alville.

Africa in Extropia

More often than not my time in Second Life is somewhat squeezed as a result of the various activities I need to cram into it: rambling around the islands and blogging them (that's the real biggy), building and scripting stuff (if only for my own amusement) and chatting with friends. So it is not often that I make the effort to tootle along to one of the many meetings and presentations that occur on a dizzyingly frequent basis in SL. That - plus I can be something of an anti-social git.

Now if you've read this blog before and have actually made your way to somewhere near the bottom of the page, you may have noticed that I am a member of Virtual Worlds Connect. This is a social network, built on the Ning platform, for anyone with an interest in virtual worlds. It is completely agnostic about which worlds, and there is no need to be a member of any of them. As with other such networks, you can join up with old friends and meet new ones (albeit rather asynchronously). One such new chum of mine,and fellow SL blogger, is Sophrosyne Stenvaag. She sent me a notification (via VW Connect) of a presentation today by my SL friend, Alanagh Recreant, of the South African non-profit organisation, Uthango Social Investments. Alanagh was going to talk about the work of Uthango and its Virtual Africa projects in Second Life. How could I not go?

The meeting was held at Extropia Core - about which I will write more on another occasion - and was attended by around 16 people. Sophrosyne hosts such a meeting every Saturday at 1:00PM SLT, and for those unlucky enough to be around, the guest in 2 weeks might well be... ummm... me. Anyhoo...

Alanagh gave a thorough walkthru of the work undertaken by Uthango and the use of Second Life as a tool to assist them. Second Life can fulfil a variety of roles with respect to Virtual Africa. At its most basic, perhaps, it can put technology and other skills providers, regardless of their geographic location, in direct contact with Uthango. It can also act as a vehicle for raising awareness, not only of the challenges facing Africa, but also of the resources, knowledge and skills that Africa has to offer. As an immersive social network it fits very well with the African culture(s), where such networks are a strong component of everyday life. Hopefully, Uthango will also be able to broker African communities learning new skills and learning from each other.

Here's a couple of photos I took of the meeting:


Now you might be thinking: "Hang on, Al... Africa is a big place... this feels like an over-simplification." If you are, then you share my concerns. At the end of the day, Uthango's remit is South Africa, not the entire continent. However, I am not aware (unless you tell me otherwise) of any other direct African engagement in Second Life yet, and so I cannot really object to this apparent inclusiveness that spans all of Africa. I hope (and expect) that other African participants will emerge in Second Life, but until then Uthango is the torch-bearer for the entire continent. It was a good presentation, followed by a lively Q&A.

On a final note - Soph, any chance of some seating next time? My old virtual legs were seizing up by the end! And finally, just for completeness, here's a link to the Extropia blog.