by cameron | Oct 16, 2007 | environment, Uncategorized
Well today I learned a few lessons in Second Life.
About three weeks ago, I rented my first land in Second Life with the idea of experimenting to see how TPN could use it to spend more time with our community. I rented the land from an avatar called Rich Bulloch (who also apparently goes by the avatar Dog Fargis). We paid six months in advance and it wasn’t a lot of money – about L$20,000 for six months (about US$80). After about a week on our first block of land, Rich sez he has a bigger block, a whole island, we could rent for a bit more L$. I asked Rich if there were any “gotchas” on the new island and he said it was “low prim” (1874). Being a complete n00b, I asked him what the practical implications were of that and he told me it limited what we could build. It was twice the prims we had on the previous block however, so we upgraded.
The first thing I learned pretty fast is the real implication of “low prim”. We ran out of building room pretty fast. Everything you want to build on your real estate in SL requires “prims” or “primitives”, like building blocks. And when you use up all of your prims, you can’t build anything else – buildings, chairs, etc. So we figured out pretty quickly that we were going to have to move again.
Little did I realize how soon….
This morning I found out that Rich Bulloch, who was renting the land himself from a Gigs Taggart, is behind in HIS rent and as a result, I’m getting evicted from my island. Gigs claims he hasn’t heard from Rich is over a week and Rich is way behind on his rent. So Gigs is evicting us! We can rent the land ourselves from Rich but he wants US$114 a MONTH. Remember I’ve already paid Rich about US$150 for SIX MONTHS. That’s a pretty big rental rise and way more than I had budgeted for.
I tried contacting Rich myself but his profile said he hadn’t been online for a week. So I IM’d the R & A Realty Group, Rich’s group of tenants, and asked them if Rich is a scammer. That started a slanging match between a few members of the group until I finally got a private message from one of Rich’s friends, telling me it was all a very big mess, that Rich wasn’t a scammer, that it was all her fault, involved “mafia stuff”, and that Rich would refund my money by Wednesday. I told her that even if it wasn’t Rich’s fault, he should get in contact with his tenants and explain why they were getting evicted. I paid him money in good faith, not I’m getting kicked off my land. I gave her my email address and asked her to pass it onto Rich.
A few minutes later I got an email from Rich saying:
well i tell ya what i will get you in the next few days all the proof that it was paid that is how i paid threw paypal but i did cancle that account afterwords but i have spoke with paypal and they are gathering the info where i did pay him i will make sure you get copies of that also they will be faxing it to me within 48 hours and i will make sure you get copies of it to post with your blog if you would like gigs is saying something deffernt and i will not fight with him in world i am letting sl take care of that issue for me and paypal for charge back
Okay, so… I may see my money back (not that it was a lot of money) and there are some lessons learned.
1. Second Life needs a good way of reference checking who you are dealing with. Ebay has a pretty good (though not infallible) rating system. These things may already exist. If they do, I’m not aware of them and it would be good to have them built into an avatar’s profile for handy reference. Rich’s profile in SL was only a month old when we rented from him. Probably should look for someone with a longer track record?
2. I deliberately jumped into my first land rental without ANY research, knowing I might get hurt, but wanting to learn. And I’m a big believer in LEARNING BY DOING, as long as while you are DOING you minimize your downside. This time I’m going to do some more research before we get new TPN land. I’m talking to people like Duncan Riley and Jeremy Chase (from the Second Life mafia, as heard on G’Day World #105). Duncan sez we should buy our own land, not rent. Sounds like a good plan, if I can afford it.
I want TPN HQ to be a place where our audience can experience and experiment with Second Life, learn the rules, find their Slegs, in a safe and encouraging environment. So I’d rather I learn these lessons and be able to pass them on. I’m fairly resilient. 🙂
Bye Bye for now TPN HQ. 🙁
by cameron | Oct 14, 2007 | climate change
If you haven’t seen this video yet, then watch it now. It’s a presentation of a basic analysis on the consequences of getting our position on climate change right or wrong. The arguments contained within it might be useful when you find yourself in a debate with someone who is still arguing against taking significant action.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDsIFspVzfI]
(thanks for Des Paroz for the link)
by cameron | Jul 30, 2007 | environment, Gloria Jeans, Hillsong, Melbourne, Uncategorized
Shoe-lovin’ Telstran CathyE has created a Twitter profile purely for announcing Melbourne tech events. Very handy. Don’t forget MODM this Thursday night! We’ve got our biggest registrations to date and a new venue.
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I’m writing an article on Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 for MARKETING magazine. If anyone has any good examples of how Aussie companies are using Web2.0 in a respectable fashion, let me know so I can include them.
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Speaking of Enterprise 2.0, I had lunch today with Tony Clement, one of the guys behind AEGEON, a young Melbourne-based services company focused 100% on helping corporate clients adopt Web2.0 technologies. I’ve known Tony for a few years, he was a CTO client of mine back in my MSFT days, and it’s great to see him taking the stuff we were doing back then around web services and helping other companies adopt them. Tony ran one of the first significant Microsoft.Net-based projects in Australia back in 2001/2 and had a bold vision even back then for how to use web services in an enterprise environment to innovate and engineer value. Keep an eye on Aegeon. They are the first services firm I’ve heard of in Australia that is really throwing serious effort behind Web2.0.
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I’m back on my weight-loss regimen. Listened to The Health & Fitness Show #058 – Easily Identify Low Fat + Low Sugar + High Nutritional Value Food this morning. Lots of great tips from Beti on how to tell what you are putting into your body. I was thinking we should run a competition for G’Day World listeners to see who can lose the most about of weight over the next 90 days. Get a sponsor to put up a prize. Who’s in?
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McDonald’s just don’t get blogging, do they?
Some of you will remember the fake blog they put up in early 2005.
Now some hired PR guy in Perth is blogging on PerthNorg under the alias “cookie2”. He’s pushing the “Name the Burger” campaign that McDonald’s is running in Australia at the moment.
Cookie2 writes: “Burger naming legend Ken Thomas, renowned for his creativity in naming the Cheeseburger, Double Cheeseburger, McChicken and the Hot Apple Pie, has retired from the senior ranks of McDonald’s Australia, giving the company the opportunity to throw the job open to the Australian public.”
Unfortunately, Cookie2 (aka John Cooke a PR consultant working for McDonald’s Australia) has just broken Rule #1 of Corporate Blogging – Be Honest.
“Ken Thomas” is (perhaps obviously) a fictional character, created by advertising agency Leo Burnett.
So why can’t McDonald’s just tell the truth? Why not just start a campaign about naming a burger? Why do they have to make up some bullshit story? I don’t get the rationale. Do you? Can someone explain it to me?
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Watching this amazing “Russian Scam” video (aka “How To Take Someone’s Wallet Just By Asking Them”) by Derren Brown. Amazing.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIIz2FAgwcw]
After you’ve watched that, watch this guy’s attempt at explaining it using NLP.
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Just been watching Tanya Levin, author of a soon-to-be-released book about the very scary Hillsong Church, on Denton’s Enough Rope. My old mate Phil McCreddan has an article about Hillsong, which includes an interview with Tanya, on his Signposts blog. Interestingly, publisher Allen & Unwin were going to publish her book (“People In Glass Houses”) but pulled out of it, apparently because of a perceived risk of defamation. The book was picked up by Black Inc which is owned by Morrie Schwartz, who also published Monthly magazine. This is the church that has links to Gloria Jeans (see my earlier posts on that here and here and why I don’t drink Gloria Jeans anymore), has received a bunch of government grants, and where the founder’s father, who held senior positions in the church, but was forced to resign in 2000 following exposure of his homosexual paedophile activities whilst ministering in New Zealand some thirty years earlier.
I’m looking forward to reading her book.
by cameron | Jul 29, 2007 | environment, Podcast, Uncategorized
What does driving a Prius *say* about you? As a person?
What a load of crap.
You aren’t defined as a person by what clothes you wear or by the car you drive. You are defined by what you *do*. Are you contributing something every day towards the betterment of the human race? Or are you merely buying things you don’t need with money you don’t have to impress people you don’t like?
The average income per household (in real dollars) in Australia is up 300% since 1950. And yet two-thirds of the population believe they don’t have enough money to buy everything they *need* to be happy. The advertising industry spends billions of dollars a year trying to convince you that you are unhappy, incomplete, that you aren’t successful until you have one more piece of *stuff*. The Government, the media, big business and the advertising industry all want you to buy more stuff and they spend BILLIONS trying to convince you that you *need* it. Not just want it – NEED it. Advertising is all about creating new wants and then turning those wants into NEEDS. You can fill that hole inside of you, the hole that tell you that you aren’t quite right, if you just buy a new pair of shoes, flat screen tv, house, shares, iphone. Meanwhile, the factories that make the stuff, vomit out pollution into the atmosphere, use energy which is dug out of the ground, that requires us to invade other countries, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.
Where does it end?
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Sitting at a cafe this morning, scanning the paper, saw lots of stories about celebrities out of control – Lohan, Richie, Spears, Hilton. All women. Girls, really. The media built them up into massive celebrities, role models for young girls, sexual fantasies for men and boys, and is now viciously tearing them down. It can’t be a coincidence. There must be an agenda. I’m trying to figure out what it is. Why are we seeing the destruction of the young female sex icon? What are they trying to tell us? That young women can’t be trusted? That our women are out of control? That behind every attractive young woman lies an alcoholic, drug-dependent kleptomaniac? That we cannot trust our fantasies? In this era of mass media controlled celebrity, we no longer have leaders. Who are our heroes? Who are the people we look up to?
Sporting stars. The media builds them into celebrities and then reveals that they are all secretly druggies, lying sex maniacs, violent misoginists.
Actors. But then we find out they are all druggies, racists, wife-beaters.
Reality TV stars. But then we find out they are all vacuous and slutty.
Business people. But then we find out they lied about stock options and profits, raped the environment, took the money and run.
What’s the common theme?
The mass media builds up non-entities into celebrities, heroes, and then tears them down in front of our eyes. They spend a couple of years telling you to admire someone, and then show you how shallow, cheap, flawed your hero is.
The message?
There is no-one to look up to. Your heroes are all shameful. Your politicians are liars, cheaters, bullshit artists, greasing their own pockets. Your sporting heroes used drugs to enhance their performance and have out of control egos.
So who do they want you to trust?
Them. The media. Trust them. They will look after you. Tell you who to trust and who not to trust. Tell you which politician to vote for. Which country to invade. Which products to buy. Which foreign leaders to fear. Which dark-skinned person to put in jail because they don’t look like you and don’t believe what you believe.
It’s an economy of lies and the biggest lies, the biggest fraud, is committed by the very people telling you what to believe and what not to believe.
The mass media.
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Speaking of things I *need* – check out this AT-ST Second Life avatar!
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I’ve created a couple of groups inside Second Life. You can now add yourself to the following groups:
Friends Of G’Day World
MODM
The Podcast Network
If I knew how to link directly to those groups from here, I would. But I don’t. So for now you just need to search for them in-world. Or you can add “Cameron Switchblade” to your friends and check out the groups I belong to.
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Apparently people DON’T need to be in Facebook to view or RSVP to an event in Facebook. That’s good news. One less reason for the spate of recent Facebook phobia I was subject to.
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Update on that Paypal fraud issue I had a week ago. Remember I ordered some products off a website, never received them, couldn’t get the site to respond to my emails, they didn’t have a listed telephone number? Well I took Fi’s advice (thanks Fi!) and made a complaint via Paypal. The process took a couple of minutes and, a couple of days later, the company refunded my money, claiming they were out of stock with the product. A good outcomes from Paypal! Obviously the company (DirectDiscount.us) takes Paypal’s emails more seriously than they do mine. A lesson for anyone out there who gets ripped off in a Paypal transaction – make a complaint.
by cameron | Jul 12, 2007 | environment, Melbourne's Leaders, Podcast
Today it’s again my pleasure to catch up with Dr Peter Ellyard, Australia’s leading futurist. We caught up for lunch in South Yarra today and chatted about why visionaries often feel frustrated with their own progress, the need for a world democracy and how shareholders can use their voting power to effect political change.
G’DAY WORLD #243 – Dr Peter Ellyard (Part Three)
GDAY WORLD #213 – Dr Peter Ellyard, Futurist (Part Two)
GDAY WORLD #204 – Dr Peter Ellyard, Futurist (Part One)
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by cameron | Jun 26, 2007 | climate change, energy, environment
Half the time I try to open a Microsoft Word attachment in my email (which is Gmail through the browser) I get this error message:
Windows doesn’t seem to know that Word is the application to open a .doc. Anyone else seen this? Damn annoying!
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If you want to know what carbon trading is all about, listen to The Cleantech Show #007: Understanding Carbon Offsets – Interview with Jeff Angel, Total Environment Centre. It’s an excellent overview. Well done Nick!
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