That night, I entered SL a few minutes before 1 am, at my home entrance point just in front of my hut, about 50 meters to the west of the pavilion. Fael walked by and we greeted each other.
Fael Illyar: Hello
Pema Pera: hi Fael
Pema Pera: sorry just a sec
Fael Illyar: Ok, I’ll wait at the pavilion
A few minutes later I walked up to the pavilion, joining Fael again.
Pema Pera: Hi sorry
Pema Pera: was in the middle of answering some IMs
Fael Illyar: Ah, offline IMs?
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: when you log in and find IMs, if you don’t answer them right away, it is easy to forget
Pema Pera: and I got five waiting for me :-)
Fael Illyar: Yes, they’re a bit easy to forget.
Pema Pera: and I think not everyone has them forwarded to their email
Fael Illyar: most shopowners require you to drop them notecards or they refuse to do anything.
Pema Pera: I keep them in my inbox and only delete them after answering
Pema Pera: my email inbox that is
Fael Illyar: Yes, SL is missing a proper built-in email system.
Fael Illyar: you can sort of use notecards for leaving messages but …
Faenik is a hairy black ball with eyes and ears.
Fael Illyar: the inventory is just too clumsy interface :)
Pema Pera: yes
I couldn’t agree more! And yet, like with everything, there are two sides to each observation, and we started talking about OpenSim.
Pema Pera: but given that SL has grown more of less from scratch
Pema Pera: I’m also impressed how well it works
Fael Illyar: Yes, it’s impressive in that way
Pema Pera: designing a second generation product will be much easier
Pema Pera: like OpenSim
Fael Illyar: Very much so
Pema Pera: if/when I find the time I’d love to delve into OpenSim
Pema Pera: have you?
Fael Illyar: I keep being amused at people who scoff at OpenSim thinking it doesn’t have a chance :)
Faenik: why not?
Pema Pera: ??
Pema Pera: think “qwerty”
Fael Illyar: I haven’t spent much time looking at it. Either OpenSim grids or the source
Pema Pera: the very fact that it is like SL in its interface and overall behavior gives it a huge advantage for millions of happy customers
Pema Pera: recognizing the old in a new produt
Pema Pera: same reason as why the qwerty keyboard doesn’t go away . . . .
Fael Illyar: Yes, I’m aware of those … although I’m not sure why brought that up
Pema Pera: you mentioned some people saying OpenSim doesn’t have a future
Pema Pera: I think the question is: does anything else have a future :)
Pema Pera: given the qwerty effect
Fael Illyar: There’s still plenty of people with no experience with virtual worlds.
Pema Pera: true, but the first qwerty keyboard was probably used by less than a million people too . . . . .
Pema Pera: before a few billion adapted to it
Pema Pera: a million is a lot !
Fael Illyar: the decision making mechanics for which to choose was a bit different back then.
Fael Illyar: it was effectively that perhaps one single person made the decision
Fael Illyar: that ended up with most people using that.
I mentioned Linus Thorvald, the Finnish hacker who started the open-source project around the Linux operating system, by making his own first attempt to write such an operating system publicly available back in 1991.
Pema Pera: hehe, your fellow countryman Linus comes to mind . . . .
Pema Pera: single persons still make a lot of difference, also today
Fael Illyar: I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Linux is quite a moving target.
Pema Pera: sure, but it had a big impact, and will continue to have
Pema Pera: and a single person made a huge difference
Fael Illyar: not comparable to qwerty in that :) It’s been unchanged for decades.
Pema Pera: the pieces were there for many years . . . . it took the right person to set it off
Pema Pera: qwerty is simpler, that’s true
Pema Pera: but the overall structure of the Linux operating system, while evolving, is unlikely to jump to something completely different
Fael Illyar: Yes, unlikely but that doesn’t mean it stops improving.
Fael Illyar: Linden Labs versus OpenSim … OpenSim has potentially much more resources in it’s disposal. Wouldn’t surprise me if LL ended up running OpenSim in a few years.
Pema Pera: oh, sure, but I mean if Sun wonderland or Sony or Google or whoever comes up with a virtual world with a significantly different look and feel from SL or OpenSim, I doubt they have much of a chance — people like continuous changes, not jumps
Faenik: indeed?
Pema Pera: yes, I agree
Pema Pera: in fact there are more extreme examples: Apple switching to Unix as its underlying operating system
Pema Pera: while of course keeping its interface
Fael Illyar: Yes, that’s sort of similar
Pema Pera: I think the LL people have reasonably good sense, as far as I can judge, given how much they collaborate with OpenSim, even though it started of as a reverse engineering attempt . . . funny world
Fael Illyar: I think LL realizes that as long as their platform is closed, they don’t have a chance at being part of the eventually evolving virtual world ecosystem.
Pema Pera: yes, and it is remarkable realization — by far most companies don’t realize such things . . . .
Fael Illyar: If LL stubbornly ignored OpenSim, they’d eventually be marginalized and no say in what goes on where. This way they can even keep partial control of where things go.
Pema Pera: yes, indeed.
Pema Pera: And ignoring would in fact increase the chance of a third party getting a chance
Pema Pera: the combination SL + OpenSIm strengthens the qwerty effect
Fael mentioned realXtend, yet another Finnish innovation.
Fael Illyar: It does, yes, although some projects are going in rather different direction on some things. like realXtend
Faenik: could be
Pema Pera: Is realXtend mainly an interface?
Fael Illyar: Although, I really hope those features will eventually be universal
Fael Illyar: just much better tools for content creators and more possibilities for things.
Fael Illyar: a bit harder to use though so it’s not without it’s downsides.
Fael Illyar: for example, the viewer comes integrated with new avatar technology
Fael Illyar: you can have non-humanoid avatars for a change.
Faenik: could be
Fael Illyar: with the system itself. Instead of tricks with prim-attachments and animation like they do it here
Pema Pera: interesting, yes, I can see that it has many advantages to be able to shed the original limitations
Fael Illyar: also comes with a system that builds a face from 2 photographs
Pema Pera: much better than from 1 I guess!
Fael Illyar: and a system that allows for more intuitive modifications of the face too
Pema Pera: nice, looking forward to seeing that!
Fael Illyar: they’ve got demo videos on their site
Fael Illyar: just turn the sound off
Pema Pera: they are Finnish?
Fael Illyar: Finnish company, yes
Pema Pera: do you know why Finland is so ahead in many of these things?
Fael Illyar: no, not really.
Pema Pera: small-number effect perhaps?
Pema Pera: a fluctuation of a few interesting people getting together, then attracting more interest and activity?
Pema Pera: creating a culture?
Pema Pera: Easier to do that in a smaller country
Fael Illyar: could be
Pema Pera: hehe
Pema Pera: why not?
Pema Pera: We’ve managed not to talk about PaB for 26 minutes, I notice :)
Fael Illyar: Yes :)
Pema Pera: and I’ll have to leave in another 5 or so.
Well, this 5 minutes turned out to be somewhat stretchable . . . :)
Fael Illyar: Oh, no PaB talk today then :P
Pema Pera: well, I can mention that we got five new guardians :-)
Fael Illyar: ok, that’s quite a few at once.
Fael Illyar: how?
Pema Pera: Avastu Maruti, Delani Gabardini, doug Sosa, Neela Blaisdale, Quilty Bookmite
Fael Illyar: Oh, Avastu as well
Pema Pera: (answering “who” as if “how” was a typo :)
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: have you met all of them?
Faenik: indeed?
Fael Illyar: the others don’t really surprise me. Yes I’ve met them.
Pema Pera: I thought I might as well ask Avastu. Of course he must be more than busy running his own group, but even so, there is a large spread in how much time a guardian may want to contribute here
Pema Pera: there is no minimum time involvement really
Pema Pera: everything is optional, like leading sessions and attending weekly meetings and choosing a plot of land here
Pema Pera: in the same spirit of Play as Being
Fael Illyar: How many didn’t pick a weekly slot?
Pema Pera: where nothing is obligatory
Pema Pera: oh, I haven’t asked them yet
Pema Pera: I invited them, they all accepted, and we’ll take it from here :-)
Fael Illyar: Ok :)
Fael Illyar suddenly remembers you can be a bit forward with that.
Pema Pera: ?
Fael Illyar: Just remembering getting pulled in myself after less than a week.
Pema Pera: hahaha
Pema Pera: well, but your first week was, what, 20 sessions?
Pema Pera: Most of these five have not been here for 20 sessions I think
Pema Pera: perhaps Doug has
Fael Illyar: no, not that many. 2 per day.
Pema Pera: 14 is still a large number — for most people that takes two months or so :
Fael Illyar: it was more like half a week though
Fael Illyar: 3 days maybe
Pema Pera: ah! Now I understand.
Pema Pera: I must have counted Fael and Faenik separately, adding them up . . . .
Fael Illyar: umm?
Pema Pera: :-)
Fael Illyar wonders if that’s supposed to be a joke?
Pema Pera: I guess it was — sorry
Faenik: なるほど^^
We talk about the way guardians are chosen.
Pema Pera: well, there are no rules in PaB, also not for inviting guardians
Pema Pera: but of course, if guardians have suggestions for inviting new guardians, they are surely welcome to do so
Fael Illyar: Well, you have your personal rules I’d think.
Pema Pera: and we can then talk about it in our weekly meetings
Pema Pera: and/or our email group
Pema Pera: Yes, I have my personal impressions
Pema Pera: and I consult others
Pema Pera: or others make suggestions
Pema Pera: I have asked at some point, earlier on, ah, that was before you joined:
Pema Pera: would you like me to check with all of you before inviting someone new?
Pema Pera: And the answer was: don’t bother if you feel that someone clearly fits; if you’re not so sure, then of course we can discuss
Pema Pera: and then has been my strategy since then
Fael Illyar: So far that hasn’t been a problem I guess but it has the potential to become one as the group grows.
Yes, Fael had a goint point. I thought about that a bit more, after the meeting, and I then decided to propose to the guardians to change the procedure: instead of me inviting new guardians myself, letting everyone bring up names during our weekly meeting and discussing those. Then, after reaching agreement, any or us guardians could approach new candidates and invite them.
Pema Pera: yes, I agree
Pema Pera: and that comes back to the general question of rules
Pema Pera: Must as I like to improvise,
Pema Pera: if some day, say ten years from now
Pema Pera: there would be a few thousand people actively involved in Pab, hahaha, you never know
Pema Pera: then clearly structure is needed beyond what we have now
Pema Pera: interesting question how much
Pema Pera: most organizations would say: a lot
Pema Pera: but perhaps a large group could be like a tree of small groups
Fael Illyar: meeting sizes at least would need to be controlled somehow.
Fael Illyar: or otherwise the topics
Pema Pera: each one still being largely unstructured
Fael Illyar: and who is allowed to talk
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: it should not get much larger than what we have now
Pema Pera: we’re getting close-ish to the point of dividing up further
Pema Pera: My suggestion would be to first use time to make the groups smaller
Pema Pera: Like, we could meet every three hours instead of every six hours
Fael Illyar: yes, potentially too many logs soon for anyone to read alone.
Pema Pera: instead of having two parallel meetings every six hours
Pema Pera: what do you think?
Pema Pera: Yes, log reading would take a different form — but with an indexing system you could still try to follow particular threads
Pema Pera: That’s a top priority perhaps for us to research/brainstorm soon
Fael Illyar: Yes, finding interesting material from the logs
Fael reminds me of time passing, even though as an astronomer it is my traditional task to keep time . . .
Fael Illyar: it’s been 15 minutes since you had to go in 5 :)
Faenik: could be
Pema Pera: I feel that if someone would dig out the gems, a small book with hundred pages could easily be formed from what we already have, and might well be very interesting by itself . . . . and in a year we’ll have vastly more.
Pema Pera: Yes, I know
Pema Pera: I’m stretching time
Pema Pera: seems like a SL thing to do
Pema Pera: a kind of virtual relativity theory
Fael Illyar: hehe :)
Fael Illyar: Yes, the gems are there.
Pema Pera: but just for brainstorming:
Pema Pera: what would you prefer, if we get more people
Pema Pera: two or three parallel sessions every 6 hours
Pema Pera: or a meeting every 3 or 2 hours
Pema Pera: until we have continuous presence first
Pema Pera: and then parallellizing?
Fael Illyar: the number of guardians currently doesn’t really allow for too easy addition of the number of meetings spaced away in time but one could potentially handle two meetings at once … well, if not for the log.
Fael Illyar: we could use scripted things for saving the log though
Pema Pera: that could work — and we could leave the addition of comments optional
Pema Pera: for busy-bee guardians willing to add the additional content :)
Fael Illyar: :)
Pema Pera: well, I’d better run — many possibilities to ponder!
Pema Pera: ncie talking with you, Fael!
Fael Illyar: Ok, see you later :)
Pema Pera: take care
Fael Illyar: you too
