This will be a recurring feature, every couple of weeks at first, featuring an interview with a prominent resident or associated media figure, and discussion of recent news stories. For our inaugural 'cast, we spoke with Nethermind Bliss, one of the coordinators of the upcoming SLCC 2007. I'm joined by Aimee Weber and moo money, and a blast was had by all!

Please feel free to drop your comments and questions; if we like them, they could get a mention on our next episode! Enjoy!

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While staying with Spin Martin and his wife, Astrid Ophelia, there were four laptops needing access to the internet. Two used EVDO, but that left two that needed WiFi. The Hilton charged 9.95-12.95 per night for internet access. However, two machines cannot connect to the same WiFi in the room.

Also, you cannot charge more than one connection per night to your room fees. You must use a credit card for the secondary connection, and then it can take up to 30 minutes before both connections can be used at the same time.

Another issue that came up was bandwidth. While Spin was using Second Life, the connection was dropped and he was unable to restart it. After calling for help, he discovered that a tech monitoring the packets had disconnected him.

Will the Chicago Hilton do the same? Will we go through these issues when two to four people are sharing a room? I certainly hope that isn't the case.

This article makes me weep bitter tears. Beginning the 22nd of March, users of security software Sophos will be able to prevent employees from accessing SL at work.

While the article in question doesn't go into any real detail about how Sophos is able to specifically block SL from a network, the thought alone chills my soul: What if I need to access SL to run down a breaking news story? How can I watch streaming video from SXSW or SLCC? Dammit, what if I need hot, furry-on-robot action, like, RIGHT NOW?

For those of you out there who only access SL from home, and who may be wagging your fingers at those who do a little work-time play, I merely say this: if you want complete employee compliance, make their jobs more SL-like. Give them plush poseballs to sit on! Initiate a 'Come to Work in Your Fursuit Day'! Mandate that, instead of laughing, everyone says 'LOL' instead! Believe me, you'll have happier co-workers, and no one will fling penises at you. Maybe.

(Via computeractive.co.uk)

The SLCC planning committee, which I am a part of, has announced a date and location for the event. I know the anticipation has been killing you, but the wait is over. It will be held at the Chicago Hilton & Towers on August 24th-26th. As you may have heard, we were originally shooting for October, but it is apparently a huge month for conventions and wasn't feasible.

The registration costs will be between $165 and $195 USD, which will include breakfast and lunch on both Saturday and Sunday. It will allow admittance to certain musical events as well. There will also be a Masquerade Ball on Saturday, August 25th! The hotel rate for the conference is $159 USD + tax, but the committee has asked that you please not call for the special rate yet as it hasn't been set up. You can find out more details on the official SLCC 2007 blog.

I'll be running the Machinima track, which will include two days of exciting panels, classes, and discussions. I hope to see you there!

My name is moo Money. While I'm no stranger to blogging on a personal blog, this is my first time doing it in a professional manner, so bear with me. I found out about Second Life in January of 2003 when I was managing the news for TSO Stratics. I wasn't feeling very creative at the time, so I didn't stay for very long in SL.

I returned in December of 2005 after reading an article about Second Life somewhere. It was a wondrous, magical place and I couldn't wait to get started on my new virtual life. I eventually found my niche in May of 2006 at which point I was hired by BuhBuhCuh Fairchild to promote Machinima. I've accomplished a lot since then ...

Many of you saw the Millions of Us/Intel/Datavision project that occurred last week; but you might not have seen the final product. I tracked down Versu Millionsofus to talk with her a bit about the project, and get some shots of the final build. Thank you, Versu, for your time!

Versu, can you describe your position with Millions of Us?

I am one of many builders for them.

How long have you been with them?

Since late August.

And had you been a resident before that?

Oh yes, for about 2 and a half years.

Cool! Did you just apply for the job and get it, or were you referred by someone else?

I was approached by the founder, Reuben Steiger; we had met at the SLCC in New York last year.

Based on, presumably, your previous work?

Right.

Spike TV includes some footage from SLCC, including short interviews with Philip Rosedale and Flipper Peregrine among others. There seem to be a lot of confusing clips and advertisements, but persevere with it ... you get the payoff eventually.

That reminds me that Jennyfur Peregrine published a link to a questionnaire on SLCC for everyone to fill in. It made me just a little bit grumpy, because it seemed to suggested that post-convention video might be an adequate substitute for the in-world convention, and some of the questions about this year's in-world convention appeared to assume that there was an in-world convention to attend, or made no sense.

I'd like to see proper use made of SL to provide an in-world alternative to those who can't attend next year's convention, which will include me if it is held in the USA.

So, farewell then SLCC for another year. The full SLCC itinerary is here. I haven't seen any reports of Sunday's sessions yet, or any links to the video of the conference sessions on Saturday.

As I wasn't able to see Mitch Kapoor's speech, I didn't report on it, but there is a report on 3pointD here.

Tao Takashi has gathered some random bits about SLCC here.

Forseti Svarog gathered some random statistics here.

Katt Kongo blogs about going to Linden Lab here.

For those who read Cory's speech and wondered what Primitar looked like (the original avatar) you can see pictures here.

I should say that the conference seems to have been a social success based upon the lack of reporting lol. I am assuming that if it had been terrible, there would have been hundreds of blow-by-blow blogs about it from the

Philip said that we want to move toward that better place. If you want to get his ear, make sure that what you want to talk about is going to make SL a better place. "We are making the next version of reality and it has to be better or no-one will want to be there," he said.

This seems as fitting a mission statement, as any I have ever heard for Second Life, and it is one I have always subscribed to. I was typing away in the blog at the time, but my heart was applauding.

With the help of a small child, I got the video working for SLCC in time to watch people I know talking on the panel for marketing in SL and the following panel on the media in SL.

I agree the cameraman seems to be drunk or sleepy, as the camera took a lot of time to move from one person to another, but it was great to be able to see and hear the people I know, especially Moopf Murray, as I was wondering if he had made it to SLCC.

The marketing panel was variable, but fascinating because I knew of all the people on the panel, or know them in SL, and it was very interesting to see them talking as flesh and blood people.

I was particularly interested by one of the points that Moopf made, that he had given up on trying to get the green dots to go to his places, and therefore had changed his approach with his reseller vendors, to take his products to the green dots. I have always tended to try to gather green dots with events, but that is getting ever more difficult.

Went to the forums to get any news available on SLCC, the community convention taking place in California this weekend, for those of us not able to make it over there. All I could find was a couple of links to video, and so I tried those, but neither Realplayer nor Quicktime seemed to like them very much.

I searched in world for the SLCC and came up with the four SLCC sims. These seem to be fairly devoid of content - not sure what was supposed to be there apart from some builds from SLCC sponsors, but they could have comfortably fitted onto one sim.

There is a very odd build in the centre of the four sims, which is in the nature of a weird stadium. It's massive and so the avatars in it need to shout at each other all the time, and it has red veins and blood, which one person on the forum said made him feel sick.

I overshot the build at first because there was horrendous lag, but when I got there found that there was no streaming video of the event. Apparently streaming had crashed the sim. So it was back to Quicktime. I tried three or four times, but the video timed out before I saw a second. There was no information about what was happening and so apart from the odd comment from those lucky enough to get it working on their computers, I have no information at all. Except they think the cameraman was drunk and Mitch Kapoor mentioned Bill Gates.

It seems to me extremely strange that more effort didn't go into making sure that the wider community felt a part of this event. Even regular reports to the forums from someone ... notecards in the SLCC sims ... something for those of us who can't get the darned video to work. I wasn't the only one struggling with both the lag and the frustration of not having the video working.

By now you probably already know about the Second Life Community Convention (SLCC) on August 18th. If not, where have you been? If you are planning to attend, Jerry Paffendorf of the Electric Sheep Company has let us know through his blog, The Other Here, there is going to be a Second Life Developers University, or SLDEVU. This is going to be an opportunity for attendees to learn the basics of Second Life building, scripting, texturing, and how to sell their creations as well. This will occur in a group workshop environment where participants will be able to learn from each other at the same time they follow along with a seasoned pro.

In my opinion this is the type of outreach Second Life needs to catch on in the mass market. Hands on experience is priceless. I would like to see experiences like this at less SL centric events to help bridge the gap between people with interest and people empowered with skills. I still wonder if people with the inclination to attend the SLCC need help getting started with building and selling? If not, where would be a good alternative or additional conference or venue? While I can't imagine Second Life booths at sporting events encouraging sign ups with free t-shirts and the like that credit card companies do now, I can imagine similar events at more educational conferences like Games Learning and Society in Wisconsin.

I am going to be careful here. Second Life Insider attempts to be office-friendly, and so I have to warn you that the link to the forums leads to a posting which has linked pictures which are most definitely NOT office-friendly. Except maybe in the Netherlands, according to Oclee.

A manufacturer of toys of a certain adult nature, has contacted SL through the forums, to ask if he may demonstrate these SL-enabled toys to the SLCC. They enable partners who may be apart, to pleasure each other through the medium of SL and some very scary-looking rubbery bits that resemble a dreadful accident in a specialist doll factory. They somehow plug into SL and into each other despite the miles of separation, to allow each partner to feel a response from the other. Or similar.

My first reaction ... oh my! ... was echoed in the thread by a number of people before Siggy posted an historic few lines on the subject, part of which I think can be reproduced without offence being given: "I can't wait to read the article where SL crashes, their 'accu-jack' or whatever it is clamps down on their johnson as windows goes into that 30 seconds of 'hang time' while sl runs the crash logger. I'm gonna live for that day :P." you'll have to follow the link for the full post.

The resmods refused to touch it "I don't know where it's been", though Jeska moved the thread.. Also announced later in the thread, coming soon: the eSpanker. My mind hasn't stopped boggling, really.