I haven’t been taking the time to listen to Drax and Jo’s Drax Files Radio Show. Just too many other things to do. But, the information about the Oculus is of interest and I wanted to hear it. Waking up far too early this morning I took the time.
As always this synopsis is what I heard. Before reacting to anything written here take the time to listen to the original audio of the show: Show #10: Oculus!!!
Time marks are approximate, but they should get you into the audio before the subject’s start point.
Synopsis
00:00 Intro and description of the show contents: Oculus Rift – SL Oculus Viewer version goes to Beta. The Show gave away a LEAP Motion controller. They are giving away another. You need to answer a question to win. Instructions are related between time marks 03: 00 and 04:00.
04:00 More discussion about show content to be covered in this episode.
05:00 Discussion of the ToS. It is apparent from this part of the audio that Jo and Drax are accepting of the verbal position the Lab has stated: ‘We do not intend to steal your stuff and sell it.’ It is obvious that for Jo, Drax and many others this is believable and the problem is with the legalese of the ToS, which I think is a reasonable position.
The show moves forward and presents what I’ll call the state of the industry/things, showing this is the way things are and the Lab is conforming to a generalized behavior of the industry with its ToS.
A clip from South Park and clips from the movie Terms and Conditions May Apply (movie trailer above) is played.
At 07:00 at the end of the clips they start talking about Emily Short, of Versu, being in a future show. ???
At 07:30 they are off to talk about the JIRA. ??? So, I am left wondering what was the discussion about the ToS? Seems very little. We hear that the new CEO knows the community has a problem with the ToS and is having the attorneys rethink the problem. Then we hear a clip from South Park, which I think is supposed to paint a picture of typical human behavior: not reading the ToS and then going all Chicken Little over what someone tells them about it. That clip is followed by various other clips and quotes from business people.
I’m jaded and a student of human nature and thus tend to look for deeper than surface meanings, but it is still unclear whether there is any more that Drax is attempting convey than the standard social messages of: business takes advantage of people that are not smart (or is it engaged) enough to take care of their selves…
It isn’t just business that takes advantage of people… it very simply is a seemingly perpetual scenario of people taking advantage of other people and situations wherever and whenever they can that has repeated throughout 7000+ years of human history.
This is what people have done for 7000+ years, what people do now, and there is no reason to expect they will do something different in the future. People are in business, politics, religion, or any other group you care to name. It is easy to target any group you don’t like and attribute the problems to them. It isn’t business, politics, religion, or any other group that are a problem: it is humans.
The difference between the people being in business, politics, religion, or whatever group is in how much abuse they can engage in, not whether they and their group are the only ones doing so. Those incapable of taking a broader look at things and recognizing the attempts of people to target groups of people as just misdirection, get sucked in to believing whatever line is being pushed.
Regardless of who is pointed at as being the bad guy, the problem portrayed in the movie is real. The movie is available on YouTube.
07:30 Discussion of the JIRA Change. I’ve been covering the changes. I think most people that are engaged in keeping up with SL know it has re-opened and we can now read BUG reports and enter Feature Requests.
Jo Yardley’s pet peeve is not being able to control time of day. She wants a 24-hour day for her 1920’s Berlin. But, she did not give us a JIRA number in the show. :/ Her bug is: BUG-3423 – Request for 24 hour day cycles. Also she has not gone back and changed the security level on it, so most people cannot vote/Watch the issue. It remains private. 🙁
08:40 Mention of the Lab missing the time change from Standard to Daylight.
09:00 Mention of Lee Vermeulen’s blog article, VR and Steam Days, about the VR Room on Valve.
Lee states he had been thinking of the new VR with Oculus ‘…as really interesting, and potentially a game changer, but mostly just another game peripheral like the Wii, or Kinect …’ He had tried the Oculus before. But, using it to experience Valve’s VR Room has changed his mind. He now thinks VR will take over the world. He even worries that it may disassociate us from reality.
Valve’s VR Room
Lee’s description of his experience is well worth a read. I am not going to be able to accurately convey how deeply it affected him. But, the depth of the affect is why his mind turned to concern over being able to distinguish reality from VR.
Also, Valve’s VR is not using the Oculus Rift. The word is the resolution of the Rift is far less than that of Valve’s device. But. Valve’s is not really ready for consumers and Oculus should be releasing this year. Getting parts is said to be the current delay in releasing the Rift.
Thanks Nalates, I think my Jira has been filed as a replica so I’m not sure I can make someone else’s jira public;
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3893
I agree that a lot, perhaps most people have no opinion on SL one way or another even though most people I know have at least heard of it.
But those that have heard of it, have a negative opinion about it.
So SL needs to have its reputation fixed and also needs more promotion.
And yes, the Media has played a large part in the current situation but LL haven’t been helping.
“From the sound of Widely’s voice it seems he is bursting to say more. ” made me laugh, I had the same feeling, he was so excited!
But, you created BUG-3423. I’m not sure if we can vote on triaged/closed items. We used to be able to. And you may be able edit it to point to whatever item is open. Include a refer to note and list related JIRA items. Or email Alexa and ask her the best way to get it out where people can see the feature request.
You could be right about fixing the reputation. But, I don’t know how to massively target those that know about SL vs those that don’t.
I think fixing the reputation is like fighting a gorilla war. The media is much larger and has a much larger audience. You can tackle trying to reach the general audience of billions or target the hundreds of media people that have written about and may write more about SL. Seems changing their minds with an perpetual stream of easy to report stories would have a leveraged affect.
Having those stories out or ready to send to reporters at news stations when the Oculus releases would give the reporters something positive to say. If you can find the oculus release date or get them to alert you the week before, would allow people to flood the media with positive used of Oculus and SL.
I’ll have a look at my old jira.
I think that the media clearly needs some help, for instance, even positive stories about SL keep using 2007 screenshots because journalists are lazy and they just take the first google images they find or take a quick look at the commons.
They also do a little google perhaps and maybe check youtube or flickr.
So best thing we as users can do is at least flood the internet with current and impressive screenshots (I’ve uploaded a few to wikipedia with no copyrights so journos can use them) and without becoming too blindly positive, we as bloggers have to make sure that at least our stories are up to date and make clear that SL has more to offer, good or bad.
If a journalist googles SL and finds good screenshots in stead of 2007 ones, if they find stories about sims where people don’t just do hanky panky and if they find Drax his videos in steads of someone having a virtual baby, then odds are they change their tone a bit.
It is an ongoing battle and LL needs to put some more effort in.
Stop advertising SL as barbie and pervy paradise.
Companies that want news and media coverage make press kits, an article with pictures written as if the reporter had written it. Those are sent to the reporters.
Some lazy or jaded reporters still go with the sleaze or angles unflattering to the company. Then people target the reporter’s editor.
The above are aspects of active campaigns. A passive campaign, putting stuff out for the media to find, is probably not going to work. They simply don’t find it unless you work at getting search position. The result is articles like this continue to appear: http://flavorwire.com/445543/the-provocative-and-disturbing-world-of-second-life-photography/
I doubt we are going to change Alison Nastasi’s mind. But, Flavorwire.com will publish articles that fit their demographic. It seems SL does. So, that outlet could be targeted for monthly releases. The challenge is finding someone that wants to handle it, has the understanding of media needed to make it work, and has the time.