Art and Life in the Metaverse and Elsewhere

2010-01-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

Virtual Worlds: The Next Ten Years.

It's true, I do my (un)fair share of mocking these yearly predictions. But here's my promise: I will only do this once a decade.

So you won't see another of these until 2020. At which time I may be posting via my brain implant, from my space ship orbiting Mars. But that's another story.

As to my perspective, I've been living in Second Life since June 2004 when it was a lot more primitive (see screenshot), and I run The Wishfarmers. 'Nuff said.

So here we go (drum roll), a few predictions for virtual worlds over the next decade.

2010 to 2013

1. In a fading celebrity's publicity stunt, they'll announce they're marrying someone they've only known in a virtual world. This person turns out to be impossibly beautiful, and the stunt blows up in their faces. But the publicity will finally catapult virtual worlds into the mainstream consciousness.

Alternate: Politician instead of celebrity.

2. Machinima: That's really all I need to say about that one!

2014 to 2016

1. Virtual worlds are more popular than video games.

2. Very few games or virtual worlds are still "shipped" with player characters. Users instead log-in with their global account, and their avatar is automatically rezzed-into the game. Most users have a variety of outfits for different settings (Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Realistic) and a cottage industry of specialized "avatar stylists" has reached $3bn annually.

3. With the exception of unique "3D artisan crafts", nearly all 3D virtual goods are free. Large "content publishers" buy-up most 3D content for popular platforms, brand them for their advertisers, distribute them to users and charge advertisers. The world's most popular virtual t-shirt is worth $300m in sponsor revenue annually.

4. Meanwhile, "Virtual Fine Artists" use technology to create 3D works of sculpture and interaction that have unique value - Richard Branson buys an important virtual sculpture for $1.2m.

5. "Something Awful" creates the first worldwide virtual experience meme, a simulation of being kicked in the face by Chuck Norris.

It is soon available for every conceivable platform.

6. People do not recreate meetings virtually, because that is silly.

But they do use advanced 3D environments to interact with and visualize data, objects and processes collaboratively, because that is productive.

The most advanced I.T. departments have a team of "3D geeks" for simulation systems administration, development and virtual asset management - giving rise to a new form of Uber Geeks with crap on their heads.

2017 to 2020

1. Anywhere you are, you can see the avatars of most people around you - through your phone, or on your tricorder thing - whatever.

At discotheques, giant screens display the crowd as their avatars. Movie theaters show the audience, seated as their avatars, during intermission.

As an unfortunate side-effect, "Hey babe I dig your polygons" is a common pick-up line. It never works.

2. Most business cards have a picture of the owner's avatar - probably animated. Tattoos of avatars, also, are not uncommon.

3. Few people's avatars look exactly like the person they represent. Because that is boring. Those who do are called "standers", because they also tend to stand rather than fly.

Among the cornucopia of avatars that make up the metaverse, approximately 600 million are Furries.

Who Are The Wishfarmers?

The Wishfarmers LLC is a small California design and development studio innovating for virtual worlds since 2004.

Check us out at wishfarmers.com, and let's talk about your crazy ideas!

2009-12-28T16:38:00.000-08:00

Virtual Goods versus

Virtual Goodies

[This article is also available as a PDF]

You've probably been hearing a lot about "virtual goods" lately. These are micro-luxuries - small indulgences - that comfort us in lean times - but now they are virtual, existing in social networks, and emerging "virtual world" platforms.

But virtual goods (and their uses) vary a bit more widely than is usually reported in these articles.

The term is applied in relation to companies ranging from Zynga - who profit directly from user micro-purchases - to IMVU, and Linden Lab, whose business models rely on a symbiotic relationship with user content creators.

In virtual worlds like Linden's "Second Life", these goods can take the form of almost any kind of clothing or accessory, vehicles, custom toys and pretty much anything else you can dream-up (and quite a few things you never would).

But if you've been wracking your brain trying to figure out how to sell a virtual version of your "real-world" products, just stop.

And start making something cool. Then give it away. For free.

Why Virtual Goodies Make Great Schwag

Obviously, once virtual goods are created, it costs nothing to reproduce them. In most cases, you can give out hundreds (or thousands!) as easily as just one.

Now, if you could afford to give out goodies to everyone on the street, just to promote your brand / product / bake sale - you would, right?

Well, now you can. Sort of.

No, of course I won't try to tell you that a virtual t-shirt is the same as real. But by now you've understood that these virtual luxuries have their own, specific value. If not, go read some of these articles and come back.

The point is that you can now afford to give away something that really does have value to the audience.

And this isn't just some pretty (though ultimately useless) brochure, or coupon for next Tuesday - it can be a favorite hat in someone's virtual wardrobe, or the central component in their virtual living room.

In other words: Something they see and/or use often.

Now all you need is to make sure they think of you when they use it.

How to Make Cool Stuff Relevant

Okay sure - maybe that sounds a little easier than it is. Lots of people do need help making cool virtual stuff, but there are always talented folks to lean on if you haven't got the time or chops to make your own content.

But the real question is what sort of virtual goodies would work best for you. It's something you must invest plenty of your own thought in, first.

The best promotional goodies relate naturally to what they promote: If you've got a business that lends itself to this (a shoe store), then the right promo may be obvious (virtual shoes). Other cases may not be so easy, but it is worth the effort to dream-up something that will best represent your brand out in the (virtual) field.

In Second Life, virtual goodies tend to fall into these categories:

Clothing and Accessories

Functional "Gadgets"

Toys (including Games)

While clothing and accessories are always wildly popular, useful virtual gadgets for Second Life also have great sticking power: Residents make extensive use of Twitter relays, job search tools and other gadgets.

And if they like it, they will remember your brand.

Finally, never underestimate the value of pure enjoyment: These platforms are great for delivering small, fun toys and games. These can really help you connect with users, even if it bears only the slightest relation to your product - as long as it's fun!

Depending on the type of schwag, there will be opportunities to include links to your websites, logos, or other branding. Take full advantage of this, but be tasteful about it.

The important part is to make it something worth having - and you've got yourself a first-rate freebie.

Laughing in the Face of Capitalism: Giving It Away

You will be surprised to learn how easy it is to distribute virtual goods for most of these platforms.

For example, with virtual goodies for Second Life, you have the option of making them freely copyable - meaning anyone with your promo t-shirt can give a copy to another user.

Think about this for a moment: It has incredible implications. Your promotional material now spreads in the same manner as free software. For as long as it remains worth having, people will be sharing it.

That beats the lifetime of most other advertising media, by a long shot.

Another great venue (for Second Life) is provided in the form of XStreetSL, now the official shopping portal. Users browse XStreetSL, choose and buy virtual products, and have them delivered directly to their avatar.

And, as you might imagine, free stuff sells very well.

Using XStreetSL, you can set up a vendor presence for your campaign, complete with a catalog of your virtual goodies. Now users have instant access to your virtual schwag, always.

Your cost: $0.

The Real Value of Virtual Good(ie)s

The real value of virtual goods to most initiatives is as a direct promotional vehicle. In this regard they offer some truly unique advantages.

They are a no-cost promotional venue, with no real distribution overhead, through which you can give infinitely copyable virtual goodies.

You see - I told you this was awesome!

2008-11-19T21:56:00.000-08:00

Wishfarming Real Jobs in the Virtual World

Jobbit Intro Clip on Wishfarmer TV

The Wishfarmers have just released the Kelly Services Jobbit - a simple and effective job search aid for Second Life, that combines Kelly's extensive job listings with unique perks for the metaverse.

The Jobbit is an example of how virtual worlds offer some really new approaches to user engagement. While there has been a lot of focus on virtual "installations" that users can visit (and that plays a role), there are still many other unique opportunities.

One of these is the chance to "ride along" with users in their daily virtual lives - by providing a utility that they use, and will keep at the ready. The key is simply to provide a real, practical value - without getting in the way.

With the Jobbit, The Wishfarmers achieved this in the form of a "Heads Up Display" (HUD) that attaches directly to the user interface. Users can configure it simply with statements like "chemistry in chicago", and apply for jobs they find with just a click. It then monitors the search, and alerts them to new job postings.

We also came up with a virtual twist on the idea of a hot lead. Users can "beam" any job they find to other nearby avatars, sending them right to the job posting. For your jobless virtual friends - the ones always borrowing L$ from you.

This is just one way in which these emerging platforms (Second Life, Opensim, Croquet, etc) can be used for outreach, and engagement and - yes - marketing (the M word) - in forms from the mundane to the exotic.

And honestly we're really just getting started here. So stay tuned.

Drop us a line any time.

2008-08-21T21:28:00.000-07:00

Conspicuously (Conveniently) Absent?

Yet to Ride the Virtual Worlds Wagon

So here we are, in the second (or perhaps third) wave of virtual worlds evolution. We've seen some successful early adopters - and some case-study worthy failures.

And yet, there are still some almost obligatory entrants, which remain conspicuously absent.

No, I'm not talking about the fields we all know are still emerging (such as education) or not yet supportable (gambling, or banking). I'm talking about the businesses that, given the constant flow of announcements, we really might expect to see in a virtual world by now.

For example...

1. Where is the Avon Lady?

I simply can't believe that the Avon lady is not yet a fixture in all of our worlds.

The timeless salesperson of "hope in a jar" translates as well into any virtual world as into any region in flat land. Did you know there are over 700,000 Avon ladies in Brazil? I have not seen a single one in Second Life, nor anywhere else virtual.

Some of you are laughing now, but am I joking?

2. Grocery stores

If you've followed my posts (and The Wishfarmers) you already know I am not about to suggest that grocery stores are a good candidate for virtual worlds. On the contrary, I think they are extraordinarily bad - possibly second only to soft-drinks in the dire prospects of connecting with the audience.

But that alone doesn't explain their absence. Plenty of ill-advised campaigns have been undertaken on behalf of even less relevant products.

So where are the virtual shopping carts to complicate my essentially web-based purchase? I don't want to see it - I just want to know where it is.

3. Heavy Metal Music

Businesses in other musical genres have taken the leap: Where is the hairy, ear-splitting mosh pit crowd?

Yes, I'm dead serious: Metal is big business . . . very. Three of 2007's top 10 albums were heavy metal.

Do metal-heads just not like virtual worlds? Do they even have computers?* Perhaps they're simply waiting for a virtual world they can operate while plastered.

Platform developers: Please remember to include the staffs of "Cream" and "Kerrang" in your product test cycles.

4. Oprah

Actually, this is not a business - it's an autonomous nation-state.

We can only presume that the reason behind this absence is the imminent debut of The Opraverse.

5. Viagra and Those Other Pills Too

Again, I'm not advocating this, I'm just saying: I'm relieved that one of these hasn't sponsored some gigantic phallus hat yet.

Barriers to Entry: A Blessing in Disguise?
I suppose we will simply remain grateful that some of these have never made it past the login screen. Particularly that last one.

If I've overlooked an implementation that conflicts with this, drop me a line - we sure wouldn't want to miss one of these glorious milestones!

*Psst: Yes, some of us do have computers.

Shameless Plug

Are you Slayer? Dudes, call us. That would freaking rock!

Are you Oprah? Please call us, ma'am. Yes that would be quite nice.

The Wishfarmers

Innovations - not decorations

2008-04-24T13:50:00.000-07:00

Sorting, Scoring, and Avatarism
A Wishfarmer Labs Research Brief

This article is also available as a PDF

What is Sorting and Scoring?

This term isn't being used to refer to any specific systems, but to processes both manual and automatic which attempt to sort individuals into groups, based on some linear measurement. The form that these take depend on the objectives.

Sound obscure? It's really not; Here are some everyday situations in which individuals are scored, and sorted:

Being scored on SATs, and sorted into a college
Being scored on resume key words, and sorted into an employers hiring system
Being 'scored' on age and color, and sorted into a penal sentence category

There's nothing insidious about the process; It's a normal side-effect of trying to manage large numbers of people. While we all acknowledge that everyone is different, “everyone” and “different” work out to a very large number of things to think about. The larger things get, the greater our need to flatten them into something simple enough to take in all at once.

But are these aspects of size and diversity really at odds with our ability to comprehend? After all, we managed to navigate the forest, surrounded by thousands of unique life forms, without tripping over ourselves. Most of the time.

Maybe, instead of looking to logical simplification (and sorting) to help us here, we could look backward to nature instead – and benefit from the robust technology that we call “looking at something”.

How? By re-purposing a familiar method of symbolic personal representation, as a visual and psychological model for thinking about the evaluation (scoring) of individuals?

Spreadsheets, Avatars and Eyeballs

The shift proposed here is similar to that introduced by the first wave of accounting tools in personal computing, such as “Lotus 123”.

These were the first to offer advanced graphing capabilities to the general public. By providing a new way to visualize complex data, they enabled users to think at a higher level, applying their entire analytical engine (brain) to all of the data at once.

This was a huge leap in the Average Joe's ability to comprehend complex data.

Sorting and scoring systems measure (and represent) individuals as columns of numbers and attributes: Years of something, rating of something else. But this doesn't support a high-level evaluation considering the whole.

What we want is to represent individuals in the way best suited to the human animal: Such as looking at on another with our eyeballs.

The concept we need here is the “avatar”, and it has been a fixture in computer games since their invention (and even board games before that). It is second nature to modern users as a model for personal representation. The concept is no longer confined to games, and is now a common element in communication programs, social networking systems and virtual spaces.

Users are already familiar with the avatar as persona, and with the concept of various inventory items with unique attributes. For most, these are simply natural.

Some of the common properties of an avatar that lend themselves very well to the purposes of subjective evaluation are:

Avatars may have inventories of objects collected from their past
Avatars may have points, levels, or other measure of experience
Avatars may have personalizations selected by the users they represent
Avatars may attach or “wield” items representing specialization, or training
Avatars can have special skills and strengths in standardized categories

Most importantly:

Avatars represent a large amount of information at one time, and in a natural visual context.

With the ubiquity of avatars in instant messaging and social networks, the re-application of these concepts toward serious work should no longer be seen as novel. It is simply a user interface upgrade.

Benefits of Avatars in Sorting and Scoring

1. Builds into the system a recognition of the wide diversity of backgrounds, strengths and challenges of individuals.
2. Builds into the system a recognition that no single “asset” (positive or negative) represents the entirety. This premise is communicated to both subjects and consumers through this choice of visualization.
3. Supports quantitative scoring, but works to counter the negative effect of “direct numeric comparison” by encouraging subjective thinking that considers the whole.
4. Immediately recognizable to both subjects and consumers of scoring systems

5. Encourages realistic profiling. A horse-mounted rider in a scientist's lab coat, wielding a wrench in one hand and a broom in the other is visually nonsensical. Concepts such as “inventory load” can also be applied to further re-enforce this message.
6. Upgradeable. New measures can easily be added, either in a monolithic “formal” system or in small “local systems” such as a rehabilitation setting.
7. Universal reach: The concept is readily accessible across cultures and age groups

As Next-Generation Scoring Representations

For users (“subjects” of scoring systems), a very new and natural way of representing themselves and their professional and personal history visually. Functionally, this could take the form of a user interface for “dragging experience” onto a visual representation of themselves.

For consumers of scoring systems (such as employers), this could take the form of visualizations of applicant pools. For example, a crowd (literally) of their available applicant pool, with representations of people conveying their personal and professional attributes “at a glance”.

For educators, this could be an engaging way to invest young people in the development of their educational and professional careers. Applications could allow students to maintain avatars representing both their current and future (desired) selves throughout enrollment. This functions as a very complex sort of “string around the finger”, but on many dimensions at once. An visual representation of an idealized future self is much harder to forget than a list of resolutions for the new semester.

As Personal/Professional Development Tool

As a browser-based system on corporate portal, representing the employee as an avatar, equipped with items representing previous experience and inputs, as well as personal elements and representation of where they are “headed” in their career.

As “target avatars”, idealized profiles of a model employee for a certain position, or of specific improvements for an employee.

As Next-Generation Professional “Curricula Vitae”

Targeting the developing convergence of virtual worlds and popular culture, provide tools and standards for representing professional and non-professional recognitions. Example: Red briefcase representing a verified (accredited or otherwise) project management aptitude.

On Implementation: How Might We Get There?

Technologically, we're really not talking about changing the way that mountains of data on individuals is organized, or stored electronically. As previously suggested, this is a change to the way individuals are represented and, as a result, the way they are thought of. All that is needed to support that are a few bits of extra data, and the means to interact with them.

A foundation of basic technologies could speed adoption, so a few of those possibilities are considered here.

Open Source Distributed Asset Type Catalog

Think: Domain Name System (DNS), but for “personal assets”.

A distributed, hierarchical database of attribute types and their visual representations. The “Professional” domain might contain thousands of standard representations for things like jobs, skills, certifications, etc. Obviously there would be a huge Hobbies domain.

Open-Source Avatar Data Format

Think XML, for standardized “avatarism”. Loosely-defined and extensible, a minimal specification for packing up data about avatars would allow developers to easily write client applications, and would promote the growth of large collections of avatars.

Software

Think: Flash API, but for representing avatars.

With a minimal set of routines for displaying the visual elements that comprise an avatar, developers could easily add avatar support to their applications.

Resumes could move quickly into an interim “hybrid” phase, with the addition of simple ActiveX controls (for example) that display an applicant's avatar among the traditional flat resume.

It's Only a Model

This does not change the mechanisms of scoring and sorting, either current or future.

This is a simple “baby step” change, specifically targeting the “front end” of the societal process of sorting and scoring individuals. Its aim is to (slowly) inspire a change in the way people think about the meaning and application of these systems, whatever form they take.

Shameless Plug

Are you interested in pursuing some of these ideas, or related concepts, or something completely different?

Are you looking for a dedicated team combining both inspired creative designers and world-class technologists? Do you need a team like IDEO, combined with a team like Xerox PARC, who is still cool enough to understand the relevance of both?

Do you want to hire someone to turn your drawings of stick figures on napkins into something you can blog about?

Stop nodding your head to a computer . . . and come talk to real people about a virtual world.

The Wishfarmers

Wishes outside. Realities inside.

2008-04-23T17:12:00.000-07:00

Next Generation Virtual Television
A Wishfarmer Labs Research Brief

Also available as PDF or HTML

What's a Virtual TV, Anyway?

Currently, virtual television is the television-like experience, presented in (or from) virtual worlds. Sometimes audiences sit "outside" (in their web browsers), and watch events taking place "inside" (somewhere like Second Life). Sometimes they are inside, watching content "from outside", that may have been created traditionally - or virtually.

It sounds interesting . . . and it is!

But it could be so much more.

Assertion: Virtual Television Does Not Yet Leverage Metaverse

Existing incarnations of virtual television do not yet take advantage of the unique capabilities of the metaverse.

This is not due to audience preconceptions: Audiences are eager to be engaged in innovative new ways.

The currently limited interpretations of this medium stem from knee-jerk replication of the traditional broadcast media model. To take things to the “next level,” we have to throw that away, and go all the way back to the real objectives.

What should the objectives of virtual television be? Well, as we see them:

To be highly visual, and to be animate
To entertain, amuse, interest, inform, engage
To be communicable (be a “spreadable” medium)

Barriers to Innovation: Mostly Conceptual

Let's examine the key elements of current incarnations, the false barriers to innovation. Toss these:

The “view screen”: The traditional concept of a flat ‘screen’ as viewable area need not be observed in a metaverse. Chuck it, and start over from scratch: What would a ‘view area’ be like, if television had been invented in a metaverse instead?
The “speaker”: Similar to the screen, there has always been an ‘audio signal’ alongside the video. In the real world, this is always been linear: You don't tune the video to news, and the audio to heavy metal (well, we do). You also don't complain about the plot twist, and hear someone in Italy respond. Explore these possibilities.
One-way model: Arguably the root of all the conceptual obstacles, real-world television is presumed to be primarily passive on behalf of the viewer: Content comes in, and they consume it…period. Old-school media hacks (ex: dial-in vote) don’t even scratch the surface of what could be accomplished in a metaverse. This is the most obvious direction of innovation, but is also the largest frontier. Read Stephenson’s “Diamond Age” (regarding “racting”) for inspiration.

What follows are some very rudimentary techniques, all of which are feasible in one form or another. Some require only changes in the way things are done - most require both that, as well as some clever technology. Some may require audience ‘education’, but more than likely metaverse audiences would not have any problems adjusting.

Road to Innovation

Most of the ideas presented here relate to virtual television being viewed inside a space like Second Life.

It may be hard to believe right now, but this diagram may help you make sense of the following discussion (click to open it in a new window).

Effects++

Let's go back to the old standby: The ever-mighty pie-in-the-face.

Wouldn’t it be cool to “throw” a pie at the virtual camera, and have it “come out” of the other side? And what if they could throw one back? Funny, huh? Well wait till someone loses an eye, then it won’t be funny anymore.

Now skip past food fights to Real Applications: A public seminar including analysis of some set of statistics. The presenter skips PowerPoint-like slides, and is using a live graphing object that illustrates his topics. But instead of simply showing this, each screen also provides a remotely-controlled copy of the same graphing gadget, for viewers. Now everyone has their own close-up private presentation, live. At the end, a signal is sent from the view screen to destroy the display objects.

There are many creative avenues arising from this which are not even touched on here. Explore them.

Audience++

Get out your copy of Neal Stephenson’s “The Diamond Age,” and refresh yourself with the concept of “ractives”: Clustered, semi-interactive single-user movies where viewers fill the role of the main character, usually for key story junctions. Yes, “Dragon’s Lair,” in a sense – except that many of the character roles are filled by professional remote actors.

These also come in multi-user versions, where a single live broadcast is still viewed by multiple audiences – but at key moments, there are opportunities for audience interaction.

This is also similar to various sci-fi ideas that have been around since the 1960s, such as the futuristic passage in Ray Bradbury’s “Illustrated Man” in which one character sits in front of a large television watching a serial. At a key point, the actors turn to the camera and say “What do you think we should do, Margaret?”. A light above her television indicates that she is now ‘live’. She stumbles, but eventually speaks in character, and the actors turn away from the 4^th wall and continue the scene, changed based on her input.

Worth noting: Bradbury anticipated here the need to ‘dumb it down’ a bit. Not everyone is prepared for live improvisation, but even rare brief interactions greatly improve the “potato” effect of traditional TV.

Immediately after her “scene,” Margaret’s phone is buzzing off the hook, friends all congratulating her on her micro-role.

Taking this to the next level still, consider interaction between viewers.

Here is an example: In today’s episode of “Metasleuth,” a fiendish fiend has stolen the hero's mojo. With investigations mired, the cast turns to the entire audience: “Can you solve the crime for us before the deadline in 1 hour?”

An “investigator’s kit” is delivered to viewers from the view screen, including a small CB radio used to communicate with other viewers of the show. It also includes the necessary clues, such as a lead pipe, or candlestick, or whatever.

While players race to solve the crime, the stars of the show eat lunch, engage in small talk and occasionally look at the 4^th wall telling the audience to hurry up because the hero's mojo expires soon.

Screen++

The astute reader will already have recognized the potential to actually change the “screen,” from capabilities already described. Not only can the video surface itself be changed in real-time, but objects linked to (and nearby) the screen can be controlled by various techniques.

Combined with the ability to rezz objects on demand, this supports dynamic “set dressings” for the view area – deployed and changed, on queue.

For example:

1. During the previously-mentioned presentation covering statistics, the viewer itself can be instructed to provide UI elements such as a button to get a copy of the raw data collected by the presenter.
2. The screen could make use of various kitschy effects such as shaking, bobbing, twisting, which occur in response to control messages from the director.

But that’s just kid's stuff. Let's take it to the next level:

3. During an episode of an in-world serial, the screen rezzes an ocean surface floor, a few low-flying clouds, some seagulls and a tiny desert island to sit on – to go with a the theme of the show, where the protagonist is stranded on a desert island.
4. During a newscast about current RL events, the screen rezzes three walls to form an enclosed “room.” Each of the new walls is a display panel set to show a series of textures – photos or graphics related to today’s news coverage

Of course, all of these ‘scenes’ destroy themselves when they receive the appropriate signal. Keep in mind that any of these objects, rezzed by remote, could be as simple as a floor panel, or as complex as a functional, animated device.

To Be Concluded?

It shouldn't take much to improve on the “real world” version of television, because – let's face it – real world television sucks.

The dimensions in which the “medium” can be expanded, in the metaverse, are dizzying; But we needn't be dizzied.

Just a dash or two of the abundant virtual “spice” should be enough to get started in a big way.

Shameless Plug

Are you interested in pursuing some of these ideas, or related concepts, or something completely different?

Do you want to hire someone to turn your drawings of stick figures on napkins into something you can blog about?

Stop nodding your head to a computer . . . and come talk to real people about a virtual world.

The Wishfarmers

Wishes outside. Realities inside.

2007-11-27T03:56:00.000-08:00

Web Application for Macramé UFO Sketches

Thank goodness. Finally. You could even operate it while suffering from the psychic hangover of an alien abduction.

Perhaps zefrank's string spin toy really was intended for UFO sketches.

The technique is a little like pottery making. Everything looks like it's made of macramé. Don't take it out on yourself.

Here's my personal masterpiece. I call it "12 megaton macramé".

Disclaimer: I do not advocate the use of macramé.

2007-11-15T00:33:00.000-08:00

Planting Node Zero in Second Life

A seed sown just a few weeks ago with a few other Second Life residents is about to bear fruit, when the Node Zero Gallery opens this Thursday November 15th at 4pm PST inside Second Life.

The debut brings together a great sampling of new artists producing very unconventional artworks in an unconventional venue.

That's right, readers -- this virtual gallery is entirely convention-free.

What's amusing about this is that I've never wanted to run a gallery. What I have wanted was a venue in which to exhibit my own experimental virtual artwork.

In the past, however, I've been repeatedly disappointed by curators who were only interested in showing my real-world photography. That's great too, but I could show that anywhere: As always, I am looking to focus on the unique opportunities available only in the metaverse.

But I really couldn't justify launching my own gallery just to show my work. This is where the wonderful tendency of Second Life to inspire collaboration gave birth to its own solution.

I met Aiyas Aya at a one of the virtual showings I've just bemoaned: Not bad art, but not pushing visual arts to the next level, and not even using the capabilities of virtual spaces. After the show, we started chatting, cautiously testing each others position on the issue. How fortuitous to find another modern artist, exploring visual arts in Second Life, who was as hungry as I to give experimental new work a virtual venue.

And sooner than either of us really expected, we had collected a network of supporters, contributors and artists that would make our break away possible, and help to create a completely new space for a completely new artistic agenda.

The Wishfarmers are sponsoring Node Zero, because our mission is identical: To explore, to expand and to exploit the capabilities of the metaverse toward new forms of creativity.

What forms could those take?

If the debut show is any indication, not one among us could possibly guess. And I just love that . . . don't you?

See you at the debut!

2007-09-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

The Virtual Lecture Circuit Will Eat Itself

I've been so busy with The Wishfarmers the last few months, I have not had time to check-out the fast-growing virtual lecture circuit in Second Life. I managed to get some free time this past week, and spent it on a few of the in-world talks by various luminaries, now a nearly daily occurrence.

What I found would shock and sadden, if I were not already painfully aware of the deep-seated public misconceptions about the metaverse. You can list the virtual lecture circuit among the victims of this syndrome, the very disease that The Wishfarmers aim to cure.

To be fair, there were a few inspiring moments among these talks, but most of these speakers are simply regurgitating their peers at this point. The formula seems to be taking their resume and all the disciplines of their field, and pasting these elements into Second Life -- just as one pastes a dress on a paper doll.

But is that really what the virtual world should be about? Translating the real world? (psst: If you think that, you're reading the wrong blog).

These experts are all very excited about "investigating the possibilities" of the metaverse. If I hear one more lecture about how excited they are, I will probably regurgitate something, too. Apparently they are less excited about actually acting on these possibilities -- or even considering them as they stand, before forcing them into some form familiar to them.

Yes yes, we're all very excited too. And we have been, for years. Welcome to the party. You're late. We're waiting for you to catch up, so please move past the buffet table. And check your preconceptions.

What's really shocking (even to me, and this is my business) is how these 'experts' all praise Second Life's possibilities, but they rush to close those doors by indulging their knee-jerk "flatland" reactions. Most go on endlessly about first life/second life analogies, even if they don't exist. They're all very eager to see the second life replicate the first one (perhaps because they are so important in the latter?)

I attended a seminar by a prominent professor this week, who was also 'excited'. Was he excited, perhaps, to see how the endless possibilities of complete freedom of personal representation could affect the way people think about themselves in the real world? Actually, no. He was however very eager to see how concepts of 'zoning laws' might translate into Second Life. Yes, well - that is exciting . . . if you are a gigantic geek! I wasn't close enough to hit him with my Clue Hammer, unfortunately.

Apparently, lots of people like to think these RL analogies are cute. They are not cute. They are flat, they are boring, and they are the equivalent of playing with dolls.

It can take a few minutes to recognize whether you are at one of these clueless presentations, and that's why I've created the following "Cluelessosity" test. If the virtual presentation you are attending meets more than 2 of the following attributes, then it is a flat, real-world role play for people who are accustomed to feeling important, like to flaunt their accreditations and are probably only there to say they were there (too).

Virtual Seminar Cluelessosity Test
A community service provided by The Wishfarmers

Are the seats and setting arranged as if it were an RL presentation at a conference center? If so, they are obviously utterly clueless. Why use all of this technology and flexibility to recreate something boring you could do in Real Life, anyways? Just turn around and walk out now.
Is the seminar area set to "no fly", and "no build"? Refer to number 1 above, for it is the same willful ignorance and real-life knee-jerk reaction that inspires this travesty.
Is the presenter an expert? Well, they can't be an expert in a platform under 5 years old, so if they think they are, they've simply decided to ignore it all.
Is the presenter "excited by all of these new possibilities"? This just means they can't get their head around all of the possibilities (surely not - it takes a couple of years).
Is the presenter "looking forward" to hearing what others think? This just means they are hopelessly lost, and will take any clue they can get.
Does the presenter think it's "incredible" that people spend so much time in Second Life? The translation here is that they cannot amuse themselves for more than 15 minutes in world. They haven't yet grasped what the rest of us are doing in here.
Does the presenter disclose the "one big thing" that "Second Life needs most"? If so, they have not grokked it yet. There is no one big thing -- Second Life already has everything it needs (the Second Life residents!) to be what it is. This doesn't stop "experts" from proclaiming it to need everything from better physics, to operable mirrors (why??) and support for animated .gif files (whatever). It is nearly impossible to convince a geek that more tech is not the key to anything.

Second Life gives us an opportunity to re-invent everything almost from scratch. Throwing that away (usually without a single thought) is waste on a scale that should make one ache. Until the disease is cured, you will have me to expose the symptoms -- regardless of what form they take.

2007-09-10T12:14:00.000-07:00

Could OLPC be The Primer?

I have been fascinated with the concept of "The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" since my first reading of "The Diamond Age" over 10 years ago. Do read it - my own hundredth reading has been as inspiring as the first.

Many concepts seeded by the book, such as "Racting" (hybrid dual-blind remote interactive acting) have been on my R+D list for The Wishfarmers since inception. But it is The Primer that most excites me.

The Primer is a sophisticated computer in the guise of a book, embodying all the functionality of a storybook, encyclopedia, study system and data processing unit. It's tied-into the global network and transparently draws on external resources - and even other people - and integrates them into the content seamlessly. As it does so it constantly adjusts its content and delivery to suit the user, based on what it observes from interaction and even 'spying' on the environment.

I've always considered Second Life a good platform for prototyping it, but I have also followed with intense interest the development of the One Laptop Per Child project. The XO prototype system has built-in wireless community networking, and the operating system is designed in a way that supports complete connectivity between user applications.

What does that mean? Well, it means these applications can talk to one another. What will happen when these children all grow up connected in this manner - connected constantly in what they are doing, what they are facing?

How long before their network results in a collaboration to solve, say, the specific problems of one abused peer? Psst: About 30 minutes.

How long before some of the older ones develop software specifically to organize this and - who knows what other sort of applications we cannot imagine (because we are not 12).

A single child may be helpless, but what happens when they are hyper-connected, and empowered to organize their own (real or virtual) "instant mouse armies"?

At the conclusion of Diamond Age, thousands of adolescent girls raised on the same network of Primers work in unprecedented coordination to beat back an overwhelming force. What will happen when these mouse armies bubble-up and make their ways across the third world?

I don't know the answer to any of these questions, of course -- like you, I can only stare in wonder and watch with bated breath as an entirely new world unfolds.

2007-09-01T01:30:00.000-07:00

Wireframe

It's like a current
That I can't detect
There's nobody here
And yet here we are
In our wire hanger selves

But I sense you
And I feel you
And I know you
And sometimes wires
can be people too

2007-08-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

{Written during my last trip, lost, then re-found}

No Poem for New York City

No poem for you, New York!

Oh, I wrote an epic tale
of love, fear, and wonder
from St. James at midnight
lovers rallied on nerves alone
rose, to riot in your name
rushing Lexington like coming down hard

A poem of mass destruction

But for your sake and mine
thrown down some drain in Chinatown
another secret love for your pyre

2007-07-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

Secrets of Wishfarming, Part One

In this series, I'm going to let you, my loyal readers in on the secret sauce of Wishfarming. Yes . . . all 3 of my readers.

Of course I will not disclose all 11 secret herbs and spices required for this mystical process. That would be irresponsible, if not catastrophic -- in the wrong hands, they could produce all manner of disasters, like self-documenting toothpicks or possibly Silly Putty.

So without further ado...

Number 11 - The Metaverse is Not About Technology!

Seriously . . . duh.

Now, I'm a professional technologist -- tech pays my bills. I've sat in a room the size of a basketball court full of humming megacomputers, and you know what -- computers are boring as hell without humans to give them interesting things to do. It's a symbiosis of sorts.

This is all even more true in a virtual space, an entire computer-realized reality.

Many Second Life residents have come from the online gaming community. Myself, I came by way of the 'virtual reality' route. I have always been into ray tracing (POVRay, for example), 3D visualization and VR. I was once quite committed to VRML, but the obvious absence of that human element meant it never quite hit the mark.

Second Life was not the first virtual space I was familiar with, but it has a way of engaging people in a way that encourages strangers to work together.

A few hours in a sandbox would always lead to some bizarre new invention, cobbled from the work and guidance of near (or complete!) strangers. What a fascinating effect! The immediacy of the medium, along with the slight (optional) anonymity can lead to huge breakthroughs -- in personalities, in collaboration.

This is where Second Life's heart is! Avatars, sitting-around on the ground, collaborating on things, expanding their exposure to other people and ideas, and practicing life.

Yes, Second Life is life practice.

I am constantly telling people Second Life would still work even if it were Goraud-shaded, or isometric! Is the visual presentation of SL really that convincing? Most people fly about in the 3rd person anyways (I do). And yet, it's very immersive. But what has you so immersed is not the graphics -- it's the humanity of it!

Second Life could work without lots of technological voodoo. What it could never work without, is the Second Lifers.

When designing for Second Life, indulge the technology fetish at your peril. Remember how much fun has been had sitting-around on the dirt playing with colored blocks. ;)

Next in the series..."Snow Crash is Not a Bible"

2007-07-19T15:07:00.000-07:00

I'm back? Why yes, I am! What drew me back to blogger, after an absence of over a year? Thoughts, people, thoughts -- I thought, therefore I was.

Let's start with names for things. I like naming things, because I think most things have boring names.

Please note -- for it is an important factor -- that simply mis-spelling a thing does not constitute a witty or interesting name. That abomination (first perpetrated in the 70s by easily-amused hippies) has far outlived its usefulness. So no (not so clever) k-instead-of-c or superfluous eee's or ooo's, please.

For Bands

Deva Ju
The Same
The Mighty
Unknown Quantity
To Be Announced
Solve for X

For Nightclubs

The Stake
Precinct 7
The Sandbox
The Water Cooler

For Movies

Light
Open Door
Hand over Fist
The Last Movie

For Software

Compute X
Big Thinker
Thing Processor
Stuff Doer Deluxe

For Consumer Products

Don't Stink (a deodorant or air freshener)
Geekatron 1.0 (a PDA or other digital device)
Shuttlebus (an electric or hybrid van)

For Design Firms

Smartfuit Design
Limelight Productions
Virtual Light (Yes, this is also a Gibson book, I know)
Biblical Proportions (special effects firm)
ThoughtBubble (web design)
Pen to Paper (copywriters)

2005-03-03T10:02:00.000-08:00

what happened to stone soup?

i mention this story to people, they don't seem to know wtf i'm talking about. back when i was a kid this was one of my favorites. i guess i didnt' realize it was about community dynamics, team motivation, talent management and indeed the entire business process in general.

i don't question that there are some extremely extremely small business that can be started completely on one's own: A florist, a little cookie shop, and of course all manner of art stringers like photogs.

but a :real: enterprise, the kind that generates milestone innovations...this almost always requires more than one human brain. in fact the more the better. amusingly, it appears in many cases to matter little specifically which brains they are. human brains are very adaptable and can reconfigure themselves to accomodate a given task in nanoseconds flat. every single one of them has something so powerful inside, it should be enough for 1,000 innovations...and even the small glimpses that make it out are priceless if you pay attention.

so this is what your people bring to the soup. a little salt, a little celery...we don't need much and everyone's liking the smell of the soup. everyone knows for sure that they are going to eat, and this breeds a communal feeling of warmth and comfort. the team knows the soup is the base of their community. they watch over it, "rear" it for all intents and purposes.

as individuals, they may have only a bit of salt or celery (or, like me, only a stone from the riverbank).

but as a part of the collective, as a founding member of the Family of the Soup, they have each other and their increasingly delicious soup.

it's really beautiful actually. i don't know why i hadn't paid more attention to it before.

2005-03-03T04:42:00.000-08:00

nobody will work for you. ever. you know that, right?

people do not work for you, they work for themselves.
who do you work for? exactly.

every time you interface with someone you are making an exchange, an exchange of assets or other bargain being struck, whether we realize it or not. at your disposal is anything you have that they want, and of course there is something you want. don't get me wrong, what you want may be as simple as a few minutes enjoying their smile. or it might be the contribution of their talent to your project.

regardless of the type of arrangement sought, the formula remains the same: find the most equitable balance, that suits both parties best and you will have struck a deal. typically it's not hard to see what we want out of it, so the trick is simply understanding what your partner here wants. this should also be pretty easy cause most of the time they will tell you and all you have to do is listen. it's not though, haha. write a note to yourself about it. :)

i think my buddhism mentor may be an exception to this whole theory but probably not.

actually come to think of it there's nothing original here, this is all just regurgitated Behavioralism I probably read back in grade school. :)

2005-03-02T15:17:00.000-08:00

so, nth is moving. somehow.
[you are in a maze of tunnels, all alike]

:sigh:

i just realized the ultimate theme song for entrepreneurs: 'the bitterist pill' by the jam haha

and is it just me or does everyone else move slooooooowwww mottttttiooonnnnnn?

:eyes narrow:
:low growl:
:poised for the kill:

who am i kidding. i'm hooked. :)

2005-02-06T13:16:00.000-08:00

Last night I dreamt I was forced to work in a mine underground.

I spent a long time trying to decide whether a CD player or MP3 player would be better to listen to while working underground, and picking-out what I was certain would be my very last playlist ever.

It was mostly full of old dub and I vividly recall cranking-up "Pressure Drop" (Toots and the Maytals)...

2005-02-03T13:06:00.000-08:00

Disco has been discontinued!

2005-01-28T16:57:00.000-08:00

I just had this amusing insight - I theorize that the reason flashing or highly animate visuals (like the gimicks used advertising or entertainment, for example) work on humans is because somewhere in the back of our lizard brain we think that the motion just might be a tiger hiding behind a bush to rip-out our throats.

Of course now that we walk mostly upright this has translated into flashing "DISCOUNT!" signs, movies full of explosions and probably even those blingy hubcap thinggees that the kids are all putting on their cars now, where they keep spinning after they stop moving (btw: huh?).

Amusingly, I'm pretty sure the average modern human is much less equipped than their predecessors to respond to an actual tiger hiding behind a bush to rip-out our throats!

Case in point: Current state of American dictatorship! ;)

2005-01-09T13:57:00.000-08:00

This support "request", recieved by the author of PocketTunes for Palm OS, had me rofl...

...and then I went "hmm...". Coming soon, "pocket vibrator"? rofl...

Random thoughts from a Palm Software Developer: "Monday, December 13, 2004

ROTFL

I just had to share this support request... I'll withhold the name to protect the ... err ... not so innocent.

'I just want to know if I can set Pocket Tunes to vibrate mode so my tunes will vibrate to the beat instead of playing music. I want to drop it down my pants and be happy all day! Rock on dudes!'

# posted by Tim @ 5:25 PM"

2004-11-25T11:26:00.000-08:00

Got a color Palm, Clie, Treo or Handspring? Go download my fun new demo for thanksgiving chuckles!

It's a proof-of-concet test of my onboard scripted animation, media and character interaction engine ("unScript").

Eh, you can also check the secret demo at unscript.unhacker.com (how secret is that?).

Turk E : Poultry in Motion: "Turk-E is the star of 'Poultry in Motion"

Happy thanksgiving everyone!

2004-11-03T19:31:00.000-08:00

Okay, the results are in folks and I am pleased to announce...

Best Response to the Election
That's right, this time the prestigous honor goes to Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jesus Perez:

"We are dancing the tango. When you are dancing the tango and your toe is stepped on, hurting your toe, you complain. If it is stepped on harder, you complain again. There's a whole game, but we are prepared to continue dancing the tango."

Ya know Mr. Perez, I think that just about expresses the sentiment of every thinking person in America. :)

2004-11-03T18:49:00.000-08:00

World Media Complicit in US Propoganda?

Are the writers of The Guardian as naive as Bush's 51%, or is it something more sinister?

Guardian Unlimited | The shape of a second term...: "Now there is no electoral need for restraint. The attack will be bloody (...) That these casualties only fuel Iraqi nationalism, anger with the Americans and a desire for revenge, seems not to be understood in Washington."

Yeah - sure. Washington doesn't recognize cause-and-effect. That's right, we're freakin idiots over here and the capital isn't a thinktank consuming our greatest minds in sociology, economics and of course global domination.

Neither do we, the silly American public recognize that our security is pimped-out time and again, our lives expendible fodder for whatever expensive imperialist endeavor currently wets the chops of our warrior elite. Nope, can't see a thing in front of my face.

Stupid brits! Does a man, even an idiot American, repeatedly shoot himself in the face to scratch his nose?

Is it not obvious that The country has been hijacked and THE CITIZENS ARE ENTIRELY STRAPPED-IN, like some mad carnival ride gone out of control, finally flinging us all to our deaths.

We cannot get off. :(

I had to check my spelling of complicit and the definition I got back was:

Dictionary - Yahoo! Reference: complicit
SYLLABICATION: com�plic�it
ADJECTIVE: Associated with or participating in a questionable act or a crime; having complicity: newspapers complicit with the propaganda arm of a dictatorship.

Yes - how very apt.

2004-09-27T23:18:00.000-07:00

As everyone knows, digital watches aren't nearly as clever as
everyone thinks.

2004-08-26T01:41:00.000-07:00

99 cent stores, beware!

While meditating yesterday, I was suddenly distracted by an ingenius idea that is going to put you ALL out of business.

The 99 cent store as we know it is history.

Say hello to next stage of evolution: The 98 cent store.

Who the heck is gonna pay 99 cents when they can get the same damn thing for 98 cents? Hah! 99 cents is outrageous - and it must not stand I tell you.

The time has come for an intelligent alternative.

My 98 cent empire will sweep the nation, then the world, untouchable. Others will be too greedy or too cowardly to lower their price to 97 cents - for at least a quarter or two.

After that I'd just sell-off to the competition because who the hell wants to run a 96 cent store empire anyways.

I'd rather drive a disco-dancing fire-breathing Japanese robot or film building implosions.

2004-08-25T16:03:00.000-07:00

"How long does a human live on Mars?", my wife asked.

Me: "The same, about 70 Earth years."
Her: "How long is that on Mars?"
Me: "How long is that on Earth?"
Her: "Huh?"
Me: "How long is it anywhere?"

It's so easy for us to believe that we know exactly how all of this works - probably because we desperately want to believe. It's pretty obvious, though, that we don't - we can't even move around in our own dimension without our systems quickly becoming nonsensical.

Go ahead, set your alarms, synchronize your watches, datestamp your blog entries...
...but don't get too caught-up in it, okay?
...it's just a model.

It's quite possible that everything is actually happening at once, and that time is just a funny idea we came-up with to help hunt for food. :)

2004-08-25T15:38:00.000-07:00

What's money? Money is a Hershey bar. Or a motel room. Or a Ferrari. Or maybe it's nothing at all.

I think back to when I was a kid, we were dirt poor. I remember cutting-out a photo of a Hershey bar from an ad and thinking how badly I wanted it. At times it seemed in all the world I wanted nothing more than for that picture to be a real Hershey bar. Perhaps it drove all my future ambitions, wanting that stupid candy bar.

Now I can buy as many as I want - and I have, sure, I've bought a case of Hershey bars (haven't you?). Ya know what, it didn't do much for me. I got the impression that a truckload wouldn't do any more.

A chocolate bar's about what, $0.65 nowadays? I'm puzzled by the fact that $65 worth of chocolate won't serve the desires that might once have been appeased by 1/100th that. What happened?

Somewhere there's a little boy with a picture of a Hershey bar in his pocket. The loose change under my couch is enough to quench his wants. Or is it?

Somewhere a man is panhandling outside a Wal-Mart for the $65 he needs to put his family in a motel room for the night. 1/10th of my 'liquid' fund is enough to quench his wants. Or is it?

Somewhere under Bill Gates' couch is $65,000 in loose change. Would that quench someone's desires for a (cheap) Ferrari? Would that make someone happy?

Somehow I doubt it...

...but I'm going to wander around town today giving-out Hershey bars
...ya know, just in case. :)

PS: You know what, maybe you could find that guy outside Wal Mart and buy him a sandwich or a case of Hershey bars or baby food. Yeah, that'd be a solid deal.

2004-08-20T11:20:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking how funny it is that we tend to think of death as being the ultimate obstacle of our perpetual happiness. Having mastered, say, the mortal planes, it's only death that stands to interrupt eternal bliss, right?

But I wonder if that's not just a lame excuse - we blame death because death is the first obstacle we're likely to encounter that we can't mitigate. Perhaps we only think of death as the ultimate hurdle because it hides from us the many other chasms into which our happines would fall - if given enough time.

If, say, you lived on and beat death - well you'd probably find yourself facing osteoporosis. Or you beat that but now the problem is too much sound.

Or not enough of it.

Or light. Or boredom. Or the morning dew, even a light breeze. Exhaustion.

None of those sound very pretty.

Death is not, I don't think, an obstacle. Consider it a "soft measure" - an easy, graceful, dignified exit from the stage. Before your energy wanes and you begin to waver. Before your spotlight fades.

2004-07-08T15:15:00.000-07:00

I was in the drugstore the other day and I heard my name being called.

It was a wire scrubbing brush with a wooden handle, poised hopefully on the end of a bin full of newfangled 'wipes'.

"99 cents - I think I'll take you up on that"

When I got it home I put it under the kitchen sink and went back to trying to get an updated Nessus installed.

A short time later it was calling me again. It wanted to scrub the entire house. We spent the next few hours together, until the whole house and nearly everything in it that was not immediatly scratchable had been scrubbed.

The wire brush was worn and dirty - with it's frazzled ends pointing every which way, drying there on the patio floor, it seemed somehow satisfied, spent - purged.

It informed me through its new textures, that it had lived a fulfilling, purposeful existence and now wished to be retired. I walked with it, my compatriat for at least 90 minutes of solid cleaning, to the trash...

...but I couldn't do it. I couldn't let it go - though its glory had passed, some morbid desire in me wants to keep it near, as if the spark of cleansing magic would reappear if it were ever again "really needed".

No I know that's not the case. I know that once that energy, once that kernel of purpose in a thing is spent, that's it - show's over folks, move along.

There's just one fire inside, isn't there? Can the flame of being, the essence of purpose and cause - can that be rekindled when it's gone out?

Yes, I guess I feel alot like this brush right now - I've done my bit, I did it well. Could I do it again? Well - I guess so, but why? I think so. I know so?

The brush waits on my desk near the ashtray as I ponder these mysteries.

2004-06-01T13:09:00.000-07:00

Information Security - If you wanna be good at it, you need two hats. People think just their white hat is good enough - I'm sorry folks, it's just not.

Case in point: I've recently discovered (and discreetly reported) a severe vulnerability in a certain popular embedded system - I mean this one is BAD, run any command as root without even logging-in. Nasty one.

Anyways 2 or 3 levels of the vendor have asked me the same question: "how did you find what DoD and other security audits missed?".

Am I some sort of genius? Well, yes actually I am - BUT that has nothing to do with this particular issue. :)

The answer is simple: Audits are just lists of 'bad things', a list of rules. Now if all a skilled hax0r (read 'cracker') did was go down a list, well, he'd be a script kiddie and not a hax0r anyways. DoD may 'audit' and that's good, real good...

...but hax0rs *don't audit*. Hax0rs don't HAVE rules.

Instead, a hax0r sticks his hand in the virtual ASS of your damned system where it says 'no user serviceable parts' and starts poking and pulling things - he *keeps* poking things until something breaks or he sees something out of place - something that doesn't belong. Once they've found that thing that shouldn't be happening, it's generally a simple matter of figuring-out what STUPID assumption the original system engineer has made - and using that assumption against him.

Now, those people out there who run audit-based security, they already KNOW they are slacking-off: They KNOW the security of their system/site/product deserves the focused, intelligent and improvisational meditation that comes with a black hat. They even know how to do this.

Why don't they? Well it's hard work, folks! It's infinitely easier to just run some sort of audit tool and say 'green' or 'red' (more than likely green).

So, conclusion? Yes - if you are responsible for security, LEARN TO HACK! Quit slacking-off and know your enemy because he sure as heck will do the homework on you.

2004-05-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

Today I feel like one of those monkeys that we shot into space in the 60's.

I'm strapped to the damn chair without the slightest idea of why I'm hurtling out of control to a certain doom.

Maybe it's just the state of this country making me feel powerless. The hawks have completely taken-over, we're a sham across the planet - this morning I actually heard a lawyer for one of these soldiers in the Iraqi prisoner photos using the "they'd do it to us" defense. Is this now a legitimate defense here? Have we completely lost our minds?!?

Even Diane Sawyer blinked and paused for a moment...
...but she didn't say anything.

I think we're all strapped-in.

2004-03-30T21:09:00.000-08:00

What's the deal with all this photoshopping/chopping, it's gone from tool to travesty: People will look-back on the results of the practice with the same disdain given to those old colorized photos.

Okay sure, some of those old colorized photos are pretty, but we'll never know what that person's skin really looked like and hell, we could colorize a print if we wanted - and keep the original data intact. One imagines the grandchildren of tomorrow will need advanced systems indeed to figure-out what grandma really looked like before her complexion was cloned into oblivion...

...unless we all saved them with layers intact. So the point is save all your layers, right? No, it isn't.

The point is stop chopping-up your photos, if you've got a damned unibrow well then that's what you look like man, love your hairy self and go on record as such. If your picture is boring then you are boring so get unboring and retake the shot.

If you're cloning-out an old tire or an airplane or an ugly person then you took the wrong damned photograph: Go back and take the right damned photograph and next time be a freakin' professional! Anyways if you're cloning-out ugly things then your mind is too small and you should probably stop shooting now and switch to paint by numbers.

2004-02-23T14:58:00.000-08:00

Well here I am, flat on my face on Blogger dot com and not even 2 full months into the new year yet . . .

. . . looks like 2004 is gonna' be a winner, folks! Oh sorry I misread that - actually it's gonna' be a weiner.

Don't ferget to check-out my other online infractions:
www.unhacker.com
www.pbase.com/metalshop
www.electronicscene.com/metalshop