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346 results for “thatmark”
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just revisiting this interview that Mark from Talking Bass did with me back in 2019. As a primer on what I'm up to, this is currently as good as it gets, even though it's pre-COVID, pre-cancer. Mark really did his homework before this ♥️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=focldUTuyUc#bass #bandcamp #looping #electronica #improv #fretless #bassguitar #scottsbasslessons #talkingbass
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Everyone knows that Mark Andreesen has always been a whore.
'Very funny': Billionaire mocked for bemoaning 'broken deal' and ditching Dems for Trump
https://www.rawstory.com/marc-andreesen-2670860523/#MarkAndreesen #BillionaireWhore #BillionairesAreWhores #TaxBillionaires #EatTheRich #USPol
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IT IS SO BAFFLING that Mark Charles has negative 350 karma on Reddit. I was wrong about that place; somebody there really doesn't want anyone to hear what he has to say.
The indisputable conclusion is: Reddit is perpetuating white supremacy; it is like Facistbook and Twitter, part of the problem.
Updated the instance summary note to the Fediverse; guess who is going to regret suppressing independent voices?
> We stand with Wet'suwet'en! Decolonize your thinking: "Traditional Ecological Knowledge" (TEK) is the most valuable asset you can have as the world continues to sink deeper into the chaos and destruction of broken, inequitable, and faulty colonial systems. We encourage you to join us as we build and participate in an Ecological Democracy that includes #AllThePeople as envisioned by a Navajo Nation member running in 2020. Tell the militants to throw their guns into a volcano; TEK doesn't work like that. Decenter whiteness. Living walls, not border walls."
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IT IS SO BAFFLING that Mark Charles has negative 350 karma on Reddit. I was wrong about that place; somebody there really doesn't want anyone to hear what he has to say.
The indisputable conclusion is: Reddit is perpetuating white supremacy; it is like Facistbook and Twitter, part of the problem.
Updated the instance summary note to the Fediverse; guess who is going to regret suppressing independent voices?
> We stand with Wet'suwet'en! Decolonize your thinking: "Traditional Ecological Knowledge" (TEK) is the most valuable asset you can have as the world continues to sink deeper into the chaos and destruction of broken, inequitable, and faulty colonial systems. We encourage you to join us as we build and participate in an Ecological Democracy that includes #AllThePeople as envisioned by a Navajo Nation member running in 2020. Tell the militants to throw their guns into a volcano; TEK doesn't work like that. Decenter whiteness. Living walls, not border walls."
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We also hear that Mark Whitesuit is a decent dancer, and that last year's winning singer Zoe is now in cabaret.
Voting next, and the jury vote goes *very* quickly - the spokespeople are on stage in Madrid.
They're showing the lower points quickly, so all the 1s, all the 2s, and so on. Er, wha..?
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We also hear that Mark Whitesuit is a decent dancer, and that last year's winning singer Zoe is now in cabaret.
Voting next, and the jury vote goes *very* quickly - the spokespeople are on stage in Madrid.
They're showing the lower points quickly, so all the 1s, all the 2s, and so on. Er, wha..?
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We also hear that Mark Whitesuit is a decent dancer, and that last year's winning singer Zoe is now in cabaret.
Voting next, and the jury vote goes *very* quickly - the spokespeople are on stage in Madrid.
They're showing the lower points quickly, so all the 1s, all the 2s, and so on. Er, wha..?
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We also hear that Mark Whitesuit is a decent dancer, and that last year's winning singer Zoe is now in cabaret.
Voting next, and the jury vote goes *very* quickly - the spokespeople are on stage in Madrid.
They're showing the lower points quickly, so all the 1s, all the 2s, and so on. Er, wha..?
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I just read that mark zuckerberg is funding development of a new kind of VR headset. Instead of being worn over the eyes, it only covers one of your ears. Inside sources in marketing say that the device will be called the side-Quest
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Late in their defeat to the #ChicagoHounds on Sunday, Joe Mano scored his 1st try for the #CaliforniaLegion to secure a try BP, marking the 40th #MLR try of his career! Mano is the 4th player to pass 40 tries in MLR, and reached that mark in just 57 games! #MLR2026 #MLRStats
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@Pino Carafa Well, my problem is not the alt-text.
I used to limit my alt-texts to 1,500 characters because Mastodon and its forks truncate longer alt-texts at the 1,500-character mark. In the future, I will limit them to 512 characters because Misskey and its forks should truncate them at that mark if they're longer, but instead, they delete them.
But in addition to my alt-texts, I describe my original images once more (= twice altogether). The other description is what I call the "long description", and it goes directly into the post text (as opposed to the alt-text). I don't have a character limit to worry about (over 16.7 million), so I can do what's outright unimaginable from a Mastodon point of view.
It's this long description that's causing trouble.
That is, I wouldn't wonder if the Mastodon HOA were to sanction me for my alt-text not being detailed enough when I limit it to 512 characters. In fact, I wouldn't wonder if they were to sanction me because a 1,500-character alt-text of mine is lacking important elements (descriptions of certain details, transcripts of all text within the borders of the image etc.).
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #MastodonHOA -
@Pino Carafa Well, my problem is not the alt-text.
I used to limit my alt-texts to 1,500 characters because Mastodon and its forks truncate longer alt-texts at the 1,500-character mark. In the future, I will limit them to 512 characters because Misskey and its forks should truncate them at that mark if they're longer, but instead, they delete them.
But in addition to my alt-texts, I describe my original images once more (= twice altogether). The other description is what I call the "long description", and it goes directly into the post text (as opposed to the alt-text). I don't have a character limit to worry about (over 16.7 million), so I can do what's outright unimaginable from a Mastodon point of view.
It's this long description that's causing trouble.
That is, I wouldn't wonder if the Mastodon HOA were to sanction me for my alt-text not being detailed enough when I limit it to 512 characters. In fact, I wouldn't wonder if they were to sanction me because a 1,500-character alt-text of mine is lacking important elements (descriptions of certain details, transcripts of all text within the borders of the image etc.).
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #MastodonHOA -
@Pino Carafa Well, my problem is not the alt-text.
I used to limit my alt-texts to 1,500 characters because Mastodon and its forks truncate longer alt-texts at the 1,500-character mark. In the future, I will limit them to 512 characters because Misskey and its forks should truncate them at that mark if they're longer, but instead, they delete them.
But in addition to my alt-texts, I describe my original images once more (= twice altogether). The other description is what I call the "long description", and it goes directly into the post text (as opposed to the alt-text). I don't have a character limit to worry about (over 16.7 million), so I can do what's outright unimaginable from a Mastodon point of view.
It's this long description that's causing trouble.
That is, I wouldn't wonder if the Mastodon HOA were to sanction me for my alt-text not being detailed enough when I limit it to 512 characters. In fact, I wouldn't wonder if they were to sanction me because a 1,500-character alt-text of mine is lacking important elements (descriptions of certain details, transcripts of all text within the borders of the image etc.).
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #MastodonHOA -
@Pino Carafa Well, my problem is not the alt-text.
I used to limit my alt-texts to 1,500 characters because Mastodon and its forks truncate longer alt-texts at the 1,500-character mark. In the future, I will limit them to 512 characters because Misskey and its forks should truncate them at that mark if they're longer, but instead, they delete them.
But in addition to my alt-texts, I describe my original images once more (= twice altogether). The other description is what I call the "long description", and it goes directly into the post text (as opposed to the alt-text). I don't have a character limit to worry about (over 16.7 million), so I can do what's outright unimaginable from a Mastodon point of view.
It's this long description that's causing trouble.
That is, I wouldn't wonder if the Mastodon HOA were to sanction me for my alt-text not being detailed enough when I limit it to 512 characters. In fact, I wouldn't wonder if they were to sanction me because a 1,500-character alt-text of mine is lacking important elements (descriptions of certain details, transcripts of all text within the borders of the image etc.).
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #MastodonHOA -
"speckle face, they call me, funny looking, then they gripe when i & the girl cleverly conceal ourselves in the limbs of distant trees!" -- funny-looking parrot
note: these birds presented a huge challenge & would not come close & they laugh at your bird feeders, they can find their own food, but if you squint MAYBE you can see the red undertail feathers that mark this as a Pionus parrot
#Bird #Birding #Parrot #Wildlife #PhotoMonday #Photograph #BirdPhotography #BirdsOfMastodon #CloudForest
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CW: Possible visual spoilers for "Fall of the House of Usher" on Netflix
On top of the more illustrative work I did on Fall of the House of Usher, we also needed to work out the layout of this scene so that Mark Hamill could walk around it and navigate to find the points of interest.
The different colour bodies represent different levels of "hero detail" for the physical props.
#ConceptArt
#Blender3D
#3D
#Blender
#Netflix
#FallOfTheHouseOfUsher
#MastoArt
#FediArt -
♲ @[email protected]:On this day in 1973: “The First DEVO Concert”
by Gerald V. Casale
At #KentStateUniversity’s 1973 Creative Arts Festival, we were the “ #Sextet Devo ” Why was it a sextet? Because my college student best friend and early #Devo collaborator, Bob Lewis, was insistent that I couldn’t sing. He convinced us that having a crooning signer — who had sung with the James Gang ( #JoeWalsh) and with The Measles, a locally popular cover band — was the way to go. I didn’t buy it, and I was personally offended that he said I “couldn’t sing.”
But there was a more important and subversive reason for going along with the ploy. It allowed us the “Sextet” billing to qualify for a pretentiously curated arts #festival, sponsored yearly by the university gatekeepers. Clearly “Sextet #Devo” was “art,” and not Rock N Roll. So we slipped in with a vote from Dr. Robert Bertholf, a tenured English Literature professor (and all around cool, brainiac guy), who was sympathetic to our cause. And that cause — starting then — was spreading The Gospel Of #Devolution.
Our setlist was eclectic, to say the least, and ample evidence that Lewis and I had spent way too much time philosophizing — and convincing Mark #Mothersbaugh of the merits of the #De-evolution trope — and way too little time with songwriting.
On April 18th, #1973, our line-up was my brother #BobCasale and #BobLewis on guitars, myself on bass guitar and vocals (I prevailed and sang “Sun Come Up, Moon Go Down”), #FredWeber on lead vocals/tambourine, drummer #RodReisman, and #MarkMothersbaugh as #keyboardist.
The video that my good friend and colleague, #ChuckStatler, shot that night to document our nascent performance is interesting in the same way that the recently surfaced news footage of 11-year-old Prince supporting the teacher’s strike in Minneapolis is interesting. Looking back, it is important historical evidence of… something.
In front of an audience of 20 or so students, seated in a small auditorium and curious enough to check us out, we slugged through mid-tempo experimentation on songs like “Wiggle Worm,” “What Goes Up Must Come Down” (a relatively lively blues stomp by comparison), and a #folk-rock indulgence titled “River Run” that showcased #BobLewis’s #country-folk leanings.
All of that followed after Mark had played a solo #keyboard warmup intro while the meager audience trickled in. He plunked out tunes like “Here Comes Peter Cottontail,” and “Mr. Jingeling” which was a Northeast Ohio advertising jingle for Halle's department stores. (Their mascot character, named Mr. Jingeling, was a grotesque man in a Christmas elf-type suit who went from store to store enticing kids to come in with their parents to buy, buy, buy!)
The preamble that Mark provided was an excellent example of what we called “Low #Devo.” But for me, the rest of that set doesn’t matter much, in retrospect. However, at age 24, it did provide a painful lesson on an artist’s learning curve.
What did I learn?
(A) Sing your own songs.
(B) Don’t let others discourage you with doubt and fear.
(C) Practice, do more, and talk less.
The real highlight, though — given our critique of technology and of conformity culture — was classic Devo perfection. Mark’s #Minimoog malfunctioned, and it was stuck in a loop of sine wave #noise that swooped up in pitch like a warning alarm in a nuclear plant. He could only flip a switch and make it swoop down. And boy, that’s what he did for what seemed like an eternity, while we stood and watched. He kept putting his hand to his forehead, as if confused, and in pain. (Oh, did I mention that Mark was wearing a full-head chimpanzee mask for the entire set to hide his identity?)
As the “Dada” aspect of Mark’s broken #synthesizer disaster began to fatigue the audience, the other performers walked off stage and into the wings. But Mark and I refused to leave. Because our set wasn’t finished. And I can be heard in Statler’s video, yelling to a stage hand, “Hey! Go Get Those Guys!”
Mark’s improvised “Headache Solo" was Devolved genius, and the thing that still resonates with validity nearly half a century later.
©2022 GVC | GeraldVCasale.com/
Permalink to this story:
GeraldVCasale.com/pages/the-fi…
P.S. Witness historic video clip here:
yewtu.be/yslKp2DKe0I
P.P.S. Today, Bob Lewis admits: “The only reason for having Fred Weber was he was a ‘professional’ singer who fronted #theMeasles and sang with #WalshandtheJamesGang on occasion. In retrospect, an aberration.”
NOTE: #GeraldVCasale in the yellow plastic raincoat in the photo.
#protopunk #postpunk -
Mark Wahlberg Returns to Ted with New Animated Series Details
Fans of the crude comedy know that Mark Wahlberg is back in the Ted world. In a recent interview, Seth MacFarlane said Wahlberg fits the role of John Bennett like a duck to water. He added that Wahlberg sounds exactly like the character and brings the same swagger fans love.
What We Know About the Animated Series
The new show is called Ted: The Animated Series....#MarkWahlberg #Peacock #SethMacFarlane #TedTheAnimatedSeries
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Mark Wahlberg Returns to Ted with New Animated Series Details
Fans of the crude comedy know that Mark Wahlberg is back in the Ted world. In a recent interview, Seth MacFarlane said Wahlberg fits the role of John Bennett like a duck to water. He added that Wahlberg sounds exactly like the character and brings the same swagger fans love.
What We Know About the Animated Series
The new show is called Ted: The Animated Series....#MarkWahlberg #Peacock #SethMacFarlane #TedTheAnimatedSeries
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Mark Wahlberg Returns to Ted with New Animated Series Details
Fans of the crude comedy know that Mark Wahlberg is back in the Ted world. In a recent interview, Seth MacFarlane said Wahlberg fits the role of John Bennett like a duck to water. He added that Wahlberg sounds exactly like the character and brings the same swagger fans love.
What We Know About the Animated Series
The new show is called Ted: The Animated Series....#MarkWahlberg #Peacock #SethMacFarlane #TedTheAnimatedSeries
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Michael West here lists the rich right-wingers funding Advance Australia. I see this as a list of our richest racists given Advance's role in defeating the Voice Referendum. Strange then that Mark Leibler, National Chair of the Australia Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, donated through a trust ($100,000) while having claimed to support the Yes vote in the Voice referendum. Apparently he supports Indigenous rights – but not enough to withdraw support from Advance, it seems. I guess he must value more highly Advance's other campaigns like trying to destroy the Greens, denying the role of fossil industries in global warming, or is it to fund pro-Israel campaigns? Some of his online posts claim he is not politically aligned. Wow! #Advance #TheVoice #auspol
https://michaelwest.com.au/the-billionaires-bankrolling-rightwing-astroturfer-advance-australia/ -
Bloop is just shy of $1100 from $300K on our Phase 1 fundraiser!
Be the one to push us past that mark:
http://givebutter.com/bloopholiday
#museum #museums #PGH #pittsburgh #tech #technology #retrocomputing #retrogaming
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Mark Schlereth fires back at Miami fan after Dolphins ‘took a giant dump’
Entering Week 5, it appeared that Mark Schlereth had drawn one of the less attractive broadcasting assignments of…
#NFL #MiamiDolphins #Miami #Dolphins #Football #MarkSchlereth
https://www.rawchili.com/nfl/426699/ -
Mark Schlereth fires back at Miami fan after Dolphins ‘took a giant dump’
Entering Week 5, it appeared that Mark Schlereth had drawn one of the less attractive broadcasting assignments of…
#NFL #MiamiDolphins #Miami #Dolphins #Football #MarkSchlereth
https://www.rawchili.com/nfl/426699/ -
Card 020: Legionnaires (2)
The previous triptych's were pretty good about not cutting characters off at the edges; the layout of this one misses that mark, unfortunately.
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Card 019: Legionnaires (19)
The previous triptych's were pretty good about not cutting characters off at the edges; the layout of this one misses that mark, unfortunately.
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⇅ 📜 Some history-changing events or trends were easy to see as they started unfolding. Just consider the various actors and their real motives and objectives. 🤯
Democracies, imperfect as they are, had opportunities to react and either prevent or mitigate nefarious developments, or they could just choose to not care.
I saw through #putin when the assassinations of critics first started. (NB. he already had neoimperialist track record!)
I've watched #CCP's *actions* through the eyes of its victims while listening its manipulative win-win BS. (never in doubt)
I knew America's 'Iraq adventure' would, besides a few other things, destroy #USA's standing in *most* of the world... (the wild exhilaration of Chinese nationalists was the icing on that cake)
#trump? One of the easiest characters ever to see through... (which makes all that followed all the more shocking...!)
As a natural 'liberal democratic' friend of tolerant and secular Indian republic — always an ideal — I've watched the rise and rise of the intolerant hindu nationalist populism with concern and sadness.
💥 I didn't foresee the Gov't of #India assassinating a political (religious) opponent — a citizen of #Canada —on Canadian soil and then revelling in its ability to execute the deed and to taunt the elected leader of the 'target country'. With apparently most of India 80% Hindu population — including the opposition — celebrating this new-found audaciously extraterritorial muscularity. 🙋️ (me=fail)
June 18, 2023 — the day Hardeep Singh Nijjar was gunned down outside a Sikh gurdwara in Canada — may well mark brave new #Hindustan's coming-out party.
Now, I get the "why" without accepting the act's necessity. It's the "how", "where" and what followed that mark a new era. A hindu-nationalist India is *not* even interested in being full buddies with liberal democracies on a 'fundamental' level.
This actually exhaustively explains #Modi's solid attachment to the #CRIBS#BRICS alternative formula and Modi taking India into the "Shanghai Cooperation Organisation" (SCO) in 2015.
But just how far down the rabbit hole is the dominant Hindu electorate willing to follow, with "the greatest democracy's" closest allies consisting of a motley crew #AxisOfDespots whose sole unifying drive is "liberal democracy delenda est"?
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RE: https://techhub.social/@manlycoffee/116415429272342259
When Pierre Poilievre said that Mark Carney is badly educated on economics, sure, I don't think Poilievre should be the one saying this, but I still held back from hopping on the dogpiling bandwagon of laughing at Poilievre.
To quote Nassim Taleb on this "I don't care if we have 15 PhDs or 500 PhDs", in reference to people criticizing Taleb of unhedged risk moments that lead up to the 2008 recession, many of them claiming "these PhDs disagree with Mr. Taleb".
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CW: What is a "metaverse" or "the Metaverse"? A long piece of rambling
Since a couple months ago, you can read it all over the place: "The #Metaverse is dead." Everyone agreed, because for 99% of all people out there, "Metaverse" refers to the series of 3-D #VirtualWorlds (to be) launched by #Meta, formerly #Facebook. And as far as I know, Zuckerberg actually tried to use "Metaverse" as the registered, trademarked, exclusive brand name for his worlds until he learned that he can't trademark something already used in a commercially published novel, namely Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson from 1991.
Thus, he settled for names like #HorizonWorlds which nobody knows nor cares about because everyone still speaks of Meta's worlds as "the Metaverse". And I guess people would continue to do so even if Snow Crash was turned into a massive Hollywood blockbuster with a budget of $400M that makes $4B in theatres within the first week.
What we can take away from this is that Mark Zuckerberg did, in fact, not invent the term "metaverse".
Oh, and just recently, Linden Labs started a massive PR campaign for #SL20B, the 20th birthday of #SecondLife which has also only recently started referring to itself as a "metaverse" to try and jump into the gap that the Horizons leave behind as Meta drops them like they're hot in favour of #ArtificialIntelligence.
Many have rubbed their eyes in disbelief. Didn't Second Life, like, shut down in, what, 2008 or 2009? Because the rampant news coverage about it died down back then. Yeah, but that was because it was no longer viable for commercial mainstream mass media to have virtual offices in Second Life after what few big corporations had joined it had left again. And when journalists stopped using their avatars (said avatars are still there, only unused), they didn't know what was happening in Second Life anymore. Besides, what was still happening in Second Life was only of interest for Second Life residents, but not for casual mass media consumers.
Nonetheless, Second Life continued to exist, and it does so until today. It even developed and advanced greatly. Today's avatars look nothing like those from 2007 when the hype was the biggest and from when the most images and videos seem to have survived. Oh, and they blow everything that Horizons has ever dared to demonstrate clean out of the water while consisting entirely of user-generated content.
What we can take away from this is that the Metaverse (no capital M here) is not dead, and that #HorizonWorldsIsNotTheMetaverse and has never been "The Metaverse".
However, between Snow Crash and the renaming of Facebook (the corporation) into Meta, the term "metaverse" was still used a lot, only it was used in places which next to nobody even knew, which are still largely unknown today. I'm talking about the worlds based on #OpenSimulator, a sort of free and open-source implementation of Second Life, and its community.
To give you a few examples: Alternate Metaverse counts as the fifth-biggest #OpenSim grid by active users and the sixth-largest by land area. It was launched in late 2019 under this name. That already was well before Zuck implied having invented 3-D virtual worlds. And the name wasn't chosen to cash in on Snow Crash, but because the word "metaverse" had been all around OpenSim for years already.
The Infinite Metaverse Alliance is from 2016, if not even older. And it has always been all about OpenSim with two grids of its own, one named Metaverse Depot.
#Metropolis, launched in 2008 was one of the first OpenSim grids, it was the first mostly German-speaking OpenSim grid, and when it was shut down for good almost a year ago, it was the third-oldest still existing grid. Its full name was "Metropolis Metaversum" for which there's proof from as early as 2010.
I'm tempted to say the earliest uses of the term "metaverse" in conjunction with OpenSim go back until even earlier in 2008 when OpenSim introduced the #Hypergrid which federated grids much like Fediverse instances are federated: For the first and so far only time in the history of virtual worlds, it became possible for avatars to travel between separate worlds with separate operators. Some said the Hypergrid was worth being referred to as a metaverse.
This was when it was increasingly attempted to define what a metaverse or the Metaverse is. Another idea was that "the Metaverse" refers to the entirety of all virtual worlds, regardless of whether they're connected or not. It would include 3-D worlds like Second Life, There or the various OpenSim grids, it would include 2½-D isometric worlds like Furcadia, it would include 2-D worlds and maybe even text-only worlds, and it would include out-right games like Minecraft or World of Warcraft, even if the worlds in the former are created procedurally. Basically, "metaverse" became the new "cyberspace".
And then there were those who had probably read Snow Crash and who knew what the Metaverse in that book is: a centralised, monolithic, corporate-owned walled garden. Essentially, that Metaverse was a vision of an Internet that had evolved into a 3-D world, but in 1991, the Internet largely consisted of corporate-owned walled gardens such as AOL and CompuServe itself, and Microsoft tried to establish its own one. That was three years before the World-Wide Web.
So while the requirement of being corporate-run and even a walled garden wasn't pursued further, "metaverse" was defined as being one single world. According to this definition, there isn't "the Metaverse", but there are many metaverses. Each OpenSim grid would be its own metaverse. No wonder not few grids actually refer to themselves as metaverses.
Sometimes, another criterium is added to the definition: It's only truly a metaverse when it's possible to move between separate locations (rooms, spaces, lands, call them whatever) by natural means. Usually, a virtual world has to be divided into smaller units, especially if these smaller units can be run by someone else than the creators/owners of the whole world. Now, this criterium means that these units have to at least be able to directly border on one another. An avatar standing near the border between two units must be able to look into the neighbouring unit. And in order to enter the neighbouring unit, the avatar must be able to walk or ride a vehicle that's actually moving instead of being a teleporter in disguise (I've seen both in OpenSim). Teleportation must not be a requirement out of basic technological limitations.
Now, imagine a virtual world that's IRC or Discord ported to 3-D just like the Metaverse in Snow Crash is AOL ported to 3-D, a world that only consists of separate, enclosed chatrooms which are built in-world as virtual conference rooms which you enter by logging into them and leave by logging out again. It probably doesn't have any windows. It definitely doesn't have a door working as such; either there is no door, or the door is decoration, or the door is the logout button, but there's nothing outside that door. If your avatar runs into that door, provided your avatar can walk and isn't bound to a chair at the conference table (yes, there are virtual worlds in which avatars can't walk around), it'll log out of that conference room and back into a kind of lobby. By the above criterium, this cannot be a metaverse.
However, if the door actually opens, and your avatar can look and walk through it into a hallway, from there into the lobby and even leave the building, then we're getting closer to a metaverse, probably even more so if the conference room is actually a separate virtual location operated by someone else than the lobby and the hallways.
Second Life fulfills this definition. You can walk around the mainland for hours, constantly crossing from one sim into another, all rented and designed by different residents, even though they all run on the same server cluster under Linden Labs' control. Sure, you can teleport, but that's only necessary if there's no other way to get somewhere. That might be because your current location and/or your destination is too remote, i.e. isolated by empty regions with no sims running in them which can't be crossed, or out of convenience because your destination is too far away.
OpenSim grids fulfill it, too, while the Hypergrid doesn't. The Hypergrid requires teleportation because it connects separate worlds and not different places within the same world. Otherwise, it's like Second Life while sometimes taking the "separate places with separate owners" part even further: Between renting land on grids and running a whole grid of your own, you can host your own sims and have them attached to certain existing grids. As a visitor, it might actually happen that you walk not only from one sim to another, but onto someone else's machine.
Still, if you look around, if you look at the various platforms that have "metaverse" painted on them, whether they're operational or only vague concepts, each one of their creators has a different definition of what a metaverse or the Metaverse is, always corresponding on what they plan their worlds to be like. Corporations that place all their bets on #VirtualReality claim that "pancake" worlds which can be accessed through conventional devices with 2-D screens like Second Life or the OpenSim grids can't be metaverses. Those who want to include the real life and #AugmentedReality or #MixedReality claim that this is part of the very definition of "metaverse" so that they can also deny VR-only platforms such as #VRchat or #RecRoom any metaverse status. At the same time, even companies that offer nothing more than e.g. concerts in virtual reality claim that their secluded concert venues make up a metaverse, too.
Corporate definitions of "metaverse" almost always amount to, "A metaverse is what we call a metaverse; all metaverse definitions by our competitors are false, they don't have/work on true metaverses." Exceptions are limited to Meta ("We're inventing the Metaverse from scratch. Wait, what do you mean, we can't trademark that word?") and Linden Labs ("We've had a metaverse before any of you even had computers. And our very own Philip Rosedale has actually read Snow Crash. Your arguments are invalid.").
Sometimes the definition of "metaverse" even goes hand-in-hand with a declaration of what makes a virtual world, and what's necessary to build and operate one. Cryptobros, for example, insist that the Metaverse/metaverses/virtual worlds can impossibly function without a blockchain, a cryptocurrency and NFTs. Others who invest in AI currently state that virtual worlds won't and can't be possible without AI. Second Life has been proving them all wrong by successfully and continually running a virtual world without a blockchain, without crypto, without NFTs and without AI for two decades now, but they build their business model on their customers either never having even heard of Second Life or believing it was shut down before summer 2009.
The IEEE even has a scientific paper on the definition of "metaverse". No, really.
This leads us to a set of criteria for the Metaverse or a metaverse that may or may not be valid.
The first one is that it's 3-D. This is easy to agree upon unless pre-3-D worlds protest against that definition.
Persistence is another criterium. The world must not only exist on your end-user device and start up when you join it and shut down again when you leave. This is generally fulfilled. Generally because many OpenSim users run their own grids based on the #DreamGrid distribution on Windows computers at home. Some do leave them running 24/7, others only start them up when they're at home and awake. And then there are those who only own one functional computer which therefore serves as both the machine they run their viewer on and their grid server. Now, the typical Windows user starts up their machine when they need it and shuts it down when they're done. So there are actually public grids that are only online when their grid owners are, even if that's only two or three hours a day. But this only applies to a limited number of grids and not OpenSim as a whole. That said, even grid servers in data centres running larger public grids have to be restarted every once in a while.
Thirdly, some make a functioning economy an absolute requirement for a virtual world to call itself a metaverse. Second Life has one that works so well that Linden Labs makes more money per user and month than Meta, all without privacy breaches. It helps that nearly all in-world content is made by users, and Linden Labs doesn't take offering free content in larger quantities kindly.
Its younger open-source sibling, OpenSim, however, which has been referred to as a metaverse or multiple metaverses would fail this definition. It's technically impossible to implement an in-world economy both with "monopoly money" and with virtual currencies that can be exchanged with real money, either grid-independently (Gloebit, Podex) or grid-specific (like #Kitely or #WolfTerritoriesGrid handle it). But the vast majority of grids has chosen not to include any method of payment for anything. OpenSim in general doesn't even need an economy because most grids by far are run by hobbyists in their spare time. And openly for-profit grids are not only suspicious, but usually not very long-lived. In the meantime, OSgrid, the first, oldest and largest of all grids, celebrates its 16th birthday next month (I guess), and it's non-commercial and running on donations.
By the way, OpenSim also took over Second Life's set of item permissions. But since so many avatars in OpenSim have access to admin mode ("god mode") which can override them, they're symbolic at best and useless at worst.
Immersion is a point that's being debated. However, this lastly depends not only on the underlying technology, but also on how in-world places are designed. Immersion is something that I personally am very very interested in. But most OpenSim users neither know what it is, nor do they care, especially not if it stands in the way of convenience. For example, building an in-door club with no doors to the outside saves the sim owner the effort of a) cutting a hole into the walls of the building and b) scripting and configuring a door. Sim owners tend to believe that if they wouldn't use such a door, nobody would. But a building with no doors is not very credible and realistic, and having to teleport to get into it and back out is not very immersive.
If we're talking about "the Metaverse" instead of single virtual worlds as metaverses, decentralisation is of course important. Now, by this definition, everything else from Second Life to #Roblox to #Fortnite to Horizon Worlds is just a bunch of centralised walled gardens and not even close to being part of the Metaverse. The few exceptions are all not corporate-owned; they include the #HighFidelity fork #Vircadia, the Vircadia fork #Overte and OpenSim's Hypergrid. The latter is made up from hundreds, if not thousands of separate grids, and very very rarely do even two have the same owner. On top of that, there isn't even an "official grid" run by the developers; lead dev Ubit Umarov only owns one standard region that's externally attached to OSgrid.
On the other hand, OpenSim entirely runs on one and the same software product. Even if various versions and even a number of forks are in use, it's only one platform and not several. And besides, how can the Hypergrid be "the Metaverse" if only a tiny minority of the grids that make it up pass the "metaverse litmus test" themselves because they don't have an economy?
Not even Vircadia could comply with this definition. It's decentralised, and it's commercial. Also, it's said to be fully compatible with Overte, so we already have two different virtual world platforms interacting. But for one, Overte is still a Vircadia fork, a soft fork even, so they aren't as different as Second Life and #ThirdRoom, and Overte messes with the economy requirement by being decidedly non-commercial at platform level already.
But seriously, debating such details is kind of futile as long as it's even unclear if it's "a metaverse/multiple metaverses" or "the Metaverse". So no, nobody has the privilege of having that one single "official" definition of "metaverse". -
Messing around with books, as I always do.
I found a book by John Ball, who wrote "In the Heat of the Night" and other Virgil Tibbs novels. This one is called "The First Team", and it's not related to the VIrgil Tibbs series at all. So far it's about a man who works in the White House as a Russian translator. But Russia has conquered the USA thanks to the hippies and liberal politicians.
John Ball was a bit of a right-winger. And a white one, if you were wondering. Sydney Poitier did Ball a HUGE favor by not playing Virgil Tibbs the way he was written in the book, i.e. as basically a white guy dyed brown (metaphorically).
I'm not sure how far I'll get with "The First Team". The Russians are comically evil, so far.
I also took a look at the first few pages of "The Impossibles" by Mark Phillips. It features mind-crime (apparently) in the far-flung, exotic future of 1972! So far the writing seems above par, so that's good. I'll see where it goes.
Hold on! Turns out that "Mark Phillips" was a pseudonym used by Lawrence Jannifer (a good science fiction writer) and Randall Garrett (the author of the "Lord Darcy" stories, which is basically Sherlock Holmes in a magic-based universe). They wrote a series of three books under that pseudonym, and all three are available for download from Project Gutenberg—along with quite a few others!
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/25267
#Books #Bookstodon #FreeEbooks #ProjectGutenberg #ScienceFiction #QuasitBookRecs