DJ SCHEDULE (PURPLE STAGE):
10am - 12pm: DJ Ionic (Techno/Minitech)
12pm - 2pm: DJ Jenns (Electro)
2pm - 4pm: DJ Miss Cyberpink (Electro)
4pm - 7pm: DJ Nexeus Fatale (a Variation of audio pleasure)
7pm - 10pm: DJ Dakota Christensen will take over both streams as we will remember Stori Knopfli. 7.16/07
MUSICIAN SCHEDULE (RED STAGE):
10am - Cylindrian Rutabaga
11am - Freestar Tammas
12pm - Soundcircel Flanagan
1pm - DJ Bono (Progressive House)
2pm - Relaycast by Maximillion Kleene, Mimi Carpenter and Dolmere Talamasca
3pm - Dewran Wopat
4pm - Charles Coleman
5pm - Dolmere Talamasca
6pm - JueL Resistance
7pm - 10pm: DJ Dakota Christensen will take over both streams as we will remember Stori Knopfli. 7.16/07

The Second Life 2008 Footwear Expo is a display of 65 popular Second Life shoe designers.  The Expo aims to help raise money for the ASPCA, which is being done through donation kiosks, raffles, and donations based on the sale of shoes.  Throughout the expo, there will be DJ’s and events to draw more attention to the event.  Thus, this Thursday the Thursday Night Dance Party will be brought to everyone live from the expo to help draw more attention to the great cause.  Things begin at the regular time of 7pm PST (that’s 10pm EST) at the 2008 Second Life Footwear Expo at Club SHOOOOOOZ.

For more information, visit www.phoenixchapman.com/shoefair/

Second Skin, the documentary that delves into the cross roads of people’s virtual and real worlds has have several major developments. The first is their recent website design (way to go Juan and Chris), the second is their release of behind the scene videos from their hours of filming, creating and developing (I’m featured in their first weekly clip talking about sunsets), but their recent major announcement has been their next premier which happens in New York City! Second Skin will premiere at the ACE Film Festival on September 4^th – 7^th. Tickets are available beginning July 15^th (and I assume they will be sold out quickly afterwards). I’m really happy for my amigo’s at Pure West for their NYC Premier. The sad news is that I won’t be able to make it. While New York City is my home town I will be in Tampa, FL helping run the 2008 SLCC! DO’H!

I’ve become very critical of Rolling Stone. Since their proclamation of Lil Wayne as the best MC of 2008, I’ve found myself questioning most of their reviews and features. Santogold was one review that I was very critical of. Outside of RS, I’ve heard very good things about due to her ability to mesh many different style of music into one unique sound. While very talented, Santogold is the No Doubt of Indie Rock. This time the musical mix is that of Indie Rock, Pop, Caribbean, and Reggae. While Santogold is not very revolutionary (if anything it can be very repetitive), it is an amazing mix of music creating a new Ska like sound.

While I like Santogold, I am very conflicted about Santogold. The things that annoy me, many of the overused Lower East Side-like indie artist mannerisms and sound, I appreciate and feel that it is well composed in the music. I’m never one to discredit good mixtures of popular music, and I’m a very much a fan of No Doubt. I really enjoyed their music, felt it was very relevant of their time, and I feel the same about Santogold.

In a world haunted by walled gardens and proprietary software and devices, the promise of open source and interoperability shines like a bright light (not the finest metaphor, but it serves it purpose).

Adam Broitman (http://amediacirc.us/2007/12/13/and-the-openness-2008-award-goes-to/)

“free” items seem to have a “final” and “consumerist” utility–its utility ends upon its “consumption;” whereas “open” items are constantly evolving–their usefulness transforms and adapts to new situations and scenarios.

Eloh Eliot (http://eloheliot.blogspot.com/2007/12/open-versus-free.html)

“Through my content creation process, I’ve come across many frustrations, many of it includes reliable resources for new residents, reliable resources for content creation, and clear help for many questions for Second Life… As a content creator, I feel that content should be accessible to everyone. While freebies are used primarily for marketing and promotional intentions, I would like to take it a bit further.”

Nexeus Fatale (http://www.nexeusfatale.com/journal/my-new-approach-to-second-life/)

These three quotes explain the core motivation for my new project The Avaverse. There is a plethora of open content available in many forms such as open source software, podsafe music, and Creative Common’s Attribution license. Open software and content aids in all expansion of the web by allowing consumer consumption, the creation of new developer tools, and access for hobbyists to learn new items. It also makes the web more accessible to new users and creates new forms of participation. While open has its benefits, many are still hesitant to the idea, open source seems to be synonymous with free including free’s lack of consumer utility. Open source can be an income generator; Wordpress and the recent purchase of MySQL by Sun Microsystems are examples of how open source software can be used as a legitimate business model. These applications have helped transform the Internet, the way business is conducted online, and the ability to develop new, useable, cross platform applications, and to help create a more usable web.

The Concept

Second Life is an area that has major conflicts with “open”. While the Second Life viewer is open source, and there are open-source scripts or applications, there are little or none open content. The Second Life permission system is, at best, rudimentary and would be best replaced by a Creative Content like system. There’s also free content and pay-to-use however you like, these items exist largely in the Second Life world and don’t transfer outside of Second Life well, or at all. With the continuing problems of Intellectual Property Theft, the continued hysteria of content thievery, and a hodgepodge of resources on content creation, it becomes very hard to find reliable multiplatform content, to create new items using more than one method or application.

What makes the learning curve for Second Life a bit harder is the lack of multiplatform, multiuse, quality content. One example of such content would be Eloh Eliot’s skins, which are not only free (so new Second Life residents can have access to quality skins), but “open source” or rather the source files are available allowing people to use them as templates to create their own skins, or to learn what is needed to create their own skins. I use Eloh Eliot as a frequent example because her example really helped usher this idea.

The plan of the Avaverse

The goal of the Avaverse is to provide quality, open, freely distributable content online for Second Life. In the future I plan to expand it to include more than just Second Life (other virtual worlds such as the Open Sim project, and other forms of web development), but for the time being its focus will be SL. I plan for the project to include more than content; I plan to include applications, scripts, and possibly libraries of code for open use. I also plan, in the near future, to open its doors to any content creator who wishes to contribute to the project. The core of this idea is to think beyond free; this is not just giving stuff away, instead giving access to quality content.

Today, I’m launching avaverse.org, with its first two pieces of content. DAZ Studio is a free 3D modeling program that can be used to create poses and animations in Second Life. DAZ Studio is very similar to Poser, and more feature rich than QAvimator, and Avimator. While DAZ Studio is free and Second Life compliant it suffers from not having native Second Life Avatar Files, until now. Today I’m releasing DAZ Studio versions of the Second Life Avatar files. Along with this, I’m also releasing five male poses that can be used however you feel fit. Both will be released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. While I have no control over the base Second Life Avatar files (thus you don’t need to credit me),I ask that if you use the poses as is in any form, that you maintain that they are from avaverse.org (which means keeping the www.avaverse.org in the file name even when uploaded to Second Life). If you make any significant changes to them, I would appreciate making a note of where you received your source files to create them.

By launching The Avaverse, I’m not abandoning my own commercial brand. I will continue to release new content for The Avaverse along with my own commercial items under the upcoming [nf_d] brand. Some of my previous content I will be adapted for The Avaverse, other content will not. This is also not a replacement for handing out “freebies,” this concept is about providing open content for many uses.

As I keep on hearing from many different sources, the future is open, and I completely agree.

A year ago, I was introduced to Buddahead through the virtualive.tv project. I was impressed and moved by the bands onstage performance and emotionally charged music that combines powerful chords, and soft melodic guitar all under the voice of their lead singer Raman Kia. Their second album  “Ashes” is a very dynamic album that displays the bands range from the emotional rollercoaster of Ruin to the light and acoustic Rescue Us, ending with the country inspired Story of Our Lives. From beginning to end their music is a moving tale of life’s trials and tribulations, that fans of Coldplay, U2, and We The Living would enjoy.  Their sound and music very moving, to the point where you will find yourself using their music as markings points for important life situations or to plot the movement of your day.

The Feted Inner Core (or FIC) is the creation of the popular virtual world antagonist Prokofy Neva. FIC is akin to the virtual world illuminati, and best described as those people who are “deemed” as Second Life elite, cool kids, and popular figures. In one way, FIC is like the A list for celebrities, you do have a target on your back. Prokofy has begun a yearly tradition of naming people onto the FIC, adding and removing as necessary. While the FIC list is completely subjective, it has become one of the most talked about references of who’s who in Second Life.

Historically, the FIC and Prokofy don’t get along, and that’s describing the situation in a nicely. There have been many unwarranted verbal attacks, arguments, and heated disagreements from Prokofy to those on FIC. If anything, this list is a list of those who Prokofy is keeping a close eye on; people of the FIC should be warned.

Over the weekend, Prokofy has updated her list from last year, adding the 2.1 and 2.5 classes. With much honor, I am proud to announce that I’ve become a member of the new generation of FIC, FIC 2.5.

Now, there are a few things I find interesting about the new FIC list. The first is Prokofy seems to respect this new generation of FIC. Unlike the previous generations where the classifies them as fakes, power mongers, or the old guard fading into the past, Prokofy has nothing mean to say about 2.5 generation, other than they are on the FIC list. This is quite different from previous generations. Second Prokofy is not on this list. The reasoning for that is Prokofy has not received any Linden favors, or is not popular or cool kid enough. I tend to disagree. If anything Linden Lab is very aware, and weary of Prokofy, she has been their biggest protagonist. Certain policies, namely those concerning how to comment on the blog, forums, etc, has been created based solely on her actions. The FIC list has become a sign that you’re doing something right. So can the creator of such an influential list be exempt from it? I don’t think so. If anything, Prokofy is FIC 0.1, the originator.

Now that the FIC list has been revealed, what’s next? I have very little clue. While I generally disagree with Prokofy Neva, and even in some cases have been the target of attacks, I find the announcing of the FIC list amusing if not a nice barometer of whom is rising and falling. You can’t buy PR like that of Prokofy Neva and the FIC list. I’m not sure if being a part of the list means more attention, but it does mean that Prokofy is watching you. This could be a bad, or good thing.

Otherwise, I just think it’s pretty cool.

The Second Life 5th Birthday has begun, and is going to feature a plethora of Second Life artists, musicians, and DJ’s.  Along with the panel “Second Life Artists making a RL Careers” (I’ll talk about it in a different post).  This week, I’ll be performing at Stage 3 at the SL5B on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 8am PDT (11am EDT) and Sunday, June 29th, 2008 at 12pm PDT (3pm EDT).  It’s going to be a real pleasure to DJ for the SL5B!  For more information on the festivities and links to the art exhibits, visit the SL5B Second Life Wiki Page.

It’s Tuesday, and there has been a LOT of activity in Second Life.  The SL5B (Second Life 5th Birthday) is underway, there’s lag all over the place, and things are just getting crazy.  The beginning of the week is a perfect time to take a breather and enjoy the relaxing, soulful beats of funk, soul, and downtempo at the high.  The event begins at 6pm PST.