Virtual vehicles for the metaverse
So I was gazing out the window, thinking about cloud formations and munching on “zesty cheese” flavour nachos, when an amazing idea struck me. I now know the answer. The big one. I now know that the only way to bring about lasting world peace is– Oh, hold on. I have a call on my cell phone…
OK, I’m back. So… where was I? Hmm… my memory really isn’t what it used to be. Oh well.
Mmm. Cheesy nachos.
There’s a little takeout place called “Little Panda” near the office that serves reasonably priced noodles and fried things. I go there at least once a week because the helpings are huge, and I love that heart-pounding MSG rush I get afterwards.
The owners are friendly and the service is good, but for some reason, I always feel slightly uncomfortable ordering the “battered chicken balls”.
When I tell people that I subscribe to the metaverse, Second Life, I get a lot of blank looks. And when I try to describe Second Life, they think it’s either a role-playing game or another The Sims Online. The most unusual response was from a friend who thought it was some kind of kinky sex-chat program. (sigh)
If you’ve read Neal Stephenson‘s Snow Crash, you know what a metaverse is: it’s a computer-generated shared reality that is built and inhabited by its users. Stephenson’s Metaverse is a virtual world where people conduct social and business interactions much as they do in reality, but without reality’s constraints. Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life, have clearly followed this vision.
In an article on the New York Law School’s website, Cory Ondrejka, Linden Lab’s VP of Development, describes the role of user-created content in the metaverse and how it relates to Second Life.
Link: Cory Ondrejka: “Escaping the Guilded Cage: User Created Content and Building the Metaverse” (PDF)
As an aside, back in ’94 or ’95 when I tried to explain the World Wide Web to people, I got the same kind of blank looks as I do now when I try to explain the concept of a metaverse. “Well, what’s it for?” Since then, the Web has become the single most recognized element of the Internet, and it facilitates human interaction in ways that the Web’s creators never dreamed.
Is a metaverse going to be our next Web? In ten or twenty years, will we do our online shopping in a 3-D representation of a brick-and-mortar shop? Will teleconferences and distance learning happen in virtual seminar rooms? Will we chat with far-away friends and family as if they were in the same room?
Golly, but that would be swell.
A cube van drove past. Its top corner had a ragged, crumpled hole — a driver had obviously collided with a low overhang somewhere. The name on the side of the van was, appropriately, “Urban Impact”.
A is for ASCII chart pinned to my wall
B is for boredom of reading this all
C is for carpels repeating the strain
D is for drugs to deal with the pain
E is for eating my lunch in my cube
F is for food that could come from a tube
G is for grammar which are my best things
H is for hating my phone when it rings
I is for Internet surfing at lunch
J is for jotting down notes as I munch
K is korrecting my speling misteaks
L is for learning how RoboHelp breaks
M is mechanically editing text
N is for noodles I dropped on my chest
O is for opening up a new file
P is for putting it off for a while
Q is the quagmire of project delays
R is for RSI — hurts more these days
S is for sitting and staring at this
T is for typing a very long list
U is for Unicode text on the screen
V is for virtually nothing I’ve seen
W is for wobbling, broken old chair
X is for x-rays for falling off there
Y is for yesterday’s deadline that’s passed
Z is for reaching the end at long last.