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Just a quick life update. Met some great people from Second Life recently. Always odd to meet someone for the first time after talking with them for over a year. Lots of private work on; some local, some London-based. More animation and film-making activities after the recent 48 Hour Film Project. How did we do? It’s hard to say; I’m too close to the film. But I think it’s pretty good, and the edit went well. Shooting with 2 cameras made for plenty of 24-style splitscreens and “real time” action, but mostly it was made great by the actors and their supreme improv skills. Actual filmmaking! Working with people on imdb.com!

My only real concern is that the film is, once again, too weird. If the choice comes down to too boring or too weird, I’m happy with weird. Next time… I have some more ideas.

Eep! Class time. More later.

Adventures in RL

As Tateru says, Sunday night saw a Brisbane SL RL get together, featuring the RL people behind Tateru, Sladen, Lucy and me. (Sorry the circumstances weren’t more festive for Tat.)

Yes, we all had a good time. Yes, it was distinctly odd to make an RL connection to the people behind the avatars. I’ve known Tateru since I rezzed, just over a year ago, and it’s great to be able to extend a friendship (and make new ones) beyond the screen. To talk at normal human speed instead of finger speed. To be able to simply have a chat to a person sitting just *there*, because they’re not drowning in Live Help IMs.

Sure, we can’t teleport, fly or ride hoverbikes in RL, but… hell. It’s REAL life. Much as I love my second life, the sound of clinking drinks is always better in real life. Cheers, everyone. See you on the other side.

The Register is erratic. Sometimes a bile-filled, biased pile of crap, sometimes the only place to find a story. Like Apple in code search profanity outrage, which is pretty funny. For geeks. OK, the rest of you can return to your normal activities.

Last night, for the first time, I videoconferenced with my sister in London, using iChat. This is what technology is for. A free, live window to the other side of the planet, just like I’ve wanted since I was a child. Thanks, technology!

On the other hand, I’ve misplaced my sunglasses, and technology hasn’t done a damn thing.

I was in The Courier Mail yesterday; the interview and photo shoot from a few weeks ago made it into Wednesday’s Connect section. A well-written article with no factual errors, all you can hope for. Bug me if you want to see it. No, don’t all crowd me at once.

In other news, the new, free, Perian lets any QuickTime app play back almost any format, including Divx, Xvid and FLV. So those Flash movies you can download from YouTube or wherever will work in QT Player, NicePlayer, or wherever. Yay.

Warning: this pretty amusing video contains the phrase, “So, there they are at the urinals, discussing the benefits of open source development.”

I’m sure many people I know can find something useful in 1000 words of advice for design students and/or 1000 words of advice for design teachers.

Doing something about Global Warming: GetUp! is getting organised. Also see Murdoch’s opinion on global warming.

This Flash game is very nicely produced. It’s got a lovely “security camera noise” overlay on all the visuals, and the classic modern computer interface: made on a Mac, looking like a Mac, but the close box is an X in the top right. Check out BBC – History – CDX.

If you like short, interesting films, and especially if you have a portable device that needs some free content, check out the 60+ free short films in the Portable Film Festival. Play movies on the site, or download (DRM free) to iPod, PSP or 3G mobile.

Now *if* I was into brazen self-promotion, I might suggest that a vote for Airport would be much appreciated. Of course, that’s not me at all.