How my Chicago apartment is looking, 48 hours before ITG's first "mesh" party. Man, I still got a lot of work to go.
The Underwater Lounge at the ITG headquarters, however, is as groovy and ready to go as always. Virtual property is so much easier to keep clean.
Just a reminder to all you loyal gridhoppers, who have been sticking in there with this blog during this so-called "dark age" of Second Life, when those of us on low-end computers seem to be having constant trouble getting on; that this publication is holding its first-ever "mesh" event this Friday, January 26th, starting around 5pm or so SLT and lasting through the evening. For those who don't know, I call these events "mesh" ones because they take place in two very different environments at once; both a party at the virtual ITG headquarters in the grid, and one at my real-life studio apartment in Chicago.
One of my Macs, then, will be running Second Life during the Chicago party, and outputting the view through my television; Chicago attendees will be able to take turns on my avatar during the party, interacting with the virtual guests. My other Mac, then, will have a high-end stereo microphone plugged into it, a copy of Skypecast running and a copy of Nicecast; between the three, and the space on a streaming server I rented out a couple of nights ago, all the sounds being made at the Chicago party will be heard in real time by the virtual attendees in the grid, such as audio responses made to comments avatars give via text.
But wait, the cross-media creepiness doesn't end there! Around 6pm SLT, we're going to have a performance-poetry showcase too -- with hopefully half the performers coming from the Chicago party, and the other half from around the country and world via Skype. All attendees at both parties will hear the performances live; those in Chicago will have their applause and other audience noises picked up by microphone, so that those attending via SL will hear that too.
Yeah, a pretty cool experiment (I think), although ripe for problems, so we'll see how it goes. So anyway, if you want to attend via SL, the party will be at the ITG headquarters [Yongdong 185/179/21]; for those who would like to attend in Chicago, I'm in the Uptown/Buena Park neighborhood -- a couple of blocks north of the Sheridan red-line stop, or six blocks north of Wrigley Field, or six blocks west of Lakeshore Drive and Irving Park Road. (And seriously, the general public is invited; just write to me at inthegrid [at] gmail.com to obtain the street address. I have enough friends attending that I don't mind an occasional lone stranger as well. And if you play SL too, bring your computer! I have WiFi!)
Oh, and for the few of you who might want to listen and participate in real time on Friday, but for one reason or another won't be able to get in via Second Life, you have an option too! Space on a streaming server, after all, is simply a different name for "owning an internet radio station;" and like other stations, Friday's party will have its own web address:
http://xltrax.com:8460
Come Friday evening, then, all you have to do is paste that address into your favorite software for listening to live audio streams, and you too will be able to listen in real time (and participate if you have Skype). If you're a user of iTunes, for example, the instructions couldn't be simpler; just go to "Advanced>Open Stream" in the top pulldown menu, and paste in "http://xltrax.com:8460" starting around 5pm SLT on Friday. That's it! Anyway, hope you'll have a chance to join us; if you're planning on doing so, please do take a moment and say hi in the comments here, and tell us a little about you and what you do.