Welcome to the twelfth episode of On the Inside, Second Life Insider's Official Podcast!

This episode features our interview with Brace Coral, Founder and Instructor at New Citizens Institute, and all-around fly in the ointment. Haver Cole co-hosts with me, and we talk about polyamory, Active Worlds, and Just Doing It. As always, feel free to leave your questions and comments!

Get the podcast:
[iTunes] Subscribe to On the Inside directly in iTunes (MP3)
[RSS] Add the SLI Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically
[Mp3] Download the MP3 directly

It's a pretty old concept for most of us, harking back to the days of early childhood, when we would bring our favorite toy/parent/mishandled frog to the front of the class and make some pertinent remarks regarding them.



New Citizens Incorporated (NCI) has been running Show and Tell for new folk for ... well, just about as long as it's been around. Now, however, it's time for all those of us 91 days and older to polish up our skills and have a bash at "Oldbie Show and Tell"!

NCI (New Citizens Incorporated) is expanding its non-profit new-resident-support programs again. The three existing sites, NCI North, NCI International, and NCI South are soon to be supplemented with NCI Beach.

The launch party for NCI Beach is scheduled for 2pm-7pm SLT, on Saturday 17 March, and will be DJ'ed by NCI's own Zi Ree. Show your support for this charitable organization and join the party, maybe offer a small donation to help keep it all growing and running.

And if you see Brace Coral, for heaven's sake, don't let her get near any cheese!

Now that I've got a machine powerful enough to handle them, I'm going to be trying out some established MMOs to see how they compare with SL (if they do). While looking over A Tale in the Desert (ATITD), Brace Coral and Trep Cosmo (who are active players of that world) have been providing me with some information on how the game is played, and it's intriguing.

Perhaps the main component of ATITD is its cooperative leaning. While one can certainly progress up to a point by playing solo, the game really rewards groups of players cooperating to complete a given task.

With the possible exception of providing advice to builders and scripters, SL doesn't really have a cooperative component on this level. Certainly there aren't any built-in tools to aid in any sort of collaborative creation, IM notwithstanding. Once you begin to build an object, no one else can help or interfere. Creating the appearance of your avatar is also a solo project. I'd like to add this to my growing wishlist of features: some collaborative tools, please, for seasoned residents to use in helping newbies with building, scripting, and appearance ... or just to invent new ways to communicate.

There are certain individuals to whom I look for inspiration... residents who are intelligent, crafty, witty, outspoken, and just plain filled with the Spark o' Second Life. Brace Coral is one of them... hell, she's at least three of them. I invite you to read her personal blog, and dig through the archives to get an understanding of what drives her, and the fierceness with which she lives her life. Send her your love, because she deserves it.

Despite never having met her in-world, she agreed to let me interview her for SL Insider, just 'cause she's so wonderful that way. The following is the transcript of our interview. Note: Any editing done is to aid clarity; no words have been replaced and no meaning has been altered. Ladies and Gentlemen (if you are), I give you: Brace Coral!

SLI: How did you find SL?

Brace: I was actually looking for another online place to "live", and since I'm a google-a-holic I was googling around using 3D Chat, 3D Worlds etc as key words.

Second Life came up on one of my searches among other places like There. I did take a look at the There.com website, and it looked awfully cartoony to me. Not to mention there was the age factor.

I had been disillusioned with my then current 3D chat space, (I'll let you all know where that was on the next question) because it was generally an all-ages kind of place.

I have a pet theory of mine and it goes something like this: 30 year olds and 13 year olds dont mix. When that happens the "powers that be" always "Default to Disney". That means in order to protect the children, they cater in that direction and suppress the adult things.

Those of us with kids are all fine with that, and I'm no different, but BECAUSE of that, I'm not the one who wants to spend my down time or my recreation time with minors. Even though the place I was in had recently implemented a ratings system, they also put in place a ban on any adult worlds to compete in the game-wide awards contests. I'm not sure why that decision went down, but it MIGHT have been because in the previous contest, adult worlds (including the one I helped run)pretty much swept most of the categories.....

So that really was the clincher for me when I started to read the PR about Second Life. They had an age limit, 18 years old and above. 18 is the legal age for adulthood according to the state of California, where Linden Lab the creaters of Second Life reside. (At that time there was no Teen Grid).

It was pretty much a case of never looking back at that point. I was also intruiged by the fact there was an economy, and you could own and sell the things you made, and also if you put on events, you got paid for supplying the game with content.

Unfortunately at that time my computer was not up to spec with Second Life's requirements, and it wouldn't even let me download it. It was a bittersweet moment when I realized I'd have to kiss my home-built (used to be state of the art) dual OS 5-hard drive havin Baby goodbye.

Through a strange twist of fate I had some money appear out of the blue a few weeks after I'd found Second Life, and I was then able to get a new computer.

While I had been reading everything I could about SL, I had sent in my friend Grey Mars to scout out things ahead while I waited for my computer to arrive. Then, finally, I stepped out of my other onlife and into my Second Life.

More after the break...