Best-kept Non-secret Second Life feature: Voice-Morphing

Have you ever peeked at someone’s profile and you see “voice-verified female”? I just can’t help but chuckle at this, my first thought being “why is it so important to you that you feel you must advertise this?”

I’m an old-fart, 100% all-american male who’s voice lay somewhere between a resonant baritone and bass… and I could put that “voice verified female” statement into my profile and be telling the truth.

Sort of, anyway.
Well, at least, convincing vocal gender-bending now exists in Second Life.

However, this post isn’t about that, though you’ll see why I bring it up a little later. Rather, I’m writing about the almost totally forgotten Second Life feature called “Voice-Morphing” and you know what? It is totally kick-ass.

A tutorial for playing with it (and then subscribing to it if you are so inclined) follows below. After I explain why you want this.

Very quick rehash: Linden Lab introduced “voice” (ability to speak with microphone to others in Second Life) a few years ago. There was some really loud, obnoxious, hysterical back-lash (secret gender-benders, anyone?). Linden Lab recognized immediately that there are many reasons people would refuse to use a voice feature in Second Life, not least of which: fantastical-themed role players. Think dragons, faerie, trolls, demons, etc. Hence, along with the announcement that voicing ability was coming, Linden Lab also mentioned that “voice morphing” will be added later-on.

That was a long time ago. Voice is here and so are voice-morphs.

Did you even know that?

When first announced, people dismissed the very idea of voice-morphing because after-all, we know that sound-morphing by computer sounds like sound-morphing by computer, right? The quality isn’t all that great and on top of that, Linden Lab expects us to actually pay for it! ZOMG! How dare they?!

So… the announcement that voice-morphs are now available came and went and no one thought anything more about it, if they even noticed it. Voice morphing became a completely forgotten feature of Second Life.

But here’s the thing: voice-morphing in Second Life really works.

Well, about two-thirds of the morphs work well, the other third is uninteresting to me (I speak only for myself, here. For example: “Arena” only adds an echo to your natural voice, nothing else). Many of these are actually a lot of fun and totally appropriate for many non-human role play characters (“creepy” is actually creepy-sounding). I don’t remember why I decided to investigate voice morphs… I think I spotted the “My Voice” option in the viewer menu and got curious.

Snarky tip for all you members of the Second Life Secret-Society-of-Secret-Gender-Benders: I, as an old-fart, very-very male-sounding man can quite easily convince you I am a “voice-authenticated female” through voice - one or two of the morphs are that good.

yes.
really.

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Subjot: Twitter for information-discovery junkies, goes live

[UPDATE below]

I received an email from someone I didn’t know. It was an invitation I apparently asked for some time ago, but don’t remember. There was minimal information in the email itself, except to say my invitation came through and I get to be among the very few starters.

So I clicked-through to read more – and I see now why I’d requested the invitation: think “Twitter” with a bit more than 140 characters, but essentially works the same: a micro-blogging service with follow/follower “streams”.

However, the main difference is that you follow subjects, rather than specific people. Granted, you do follow people as a rule, however each “jot” (think: Tweet) must be categorized by a subject. Then, all followers of that subject will see the twee… er, jot. Nifty is the ability for Subjot to cross-post your jots to Twitter and Facebook if you choose to “connect” them to your Subjot account.

I think the concept is absolutely superior to Twitter in every way – with regard to those of use who follow others more for the information discovery rather than the personable “small talk”. Twitter is obviously far superior in this regard. And they make a wonderful compliment to each other, though I fully expect I’ll be spending the majority of my Tweet/Jot time in Subjot rather than Twitter – because I am more subject oriented rather than “person-oriented” in the Twitterverse.

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News Redux (or How News Media Are Total Fail)

Andy Rutledge:

Digital news is broken. Actually, news itself is broken. Almost all news organizations have abandoned reporting in favor of editorial; have cultivated reader opinion in place of responsibility; and have traded ethical standards for misdirection and whatever consensus defines as forgivable. And this is before you even lay eyes on what passes for news design on a monitor or device screen these days.

This.

Yes, this.

But it’s not only the “digital news” as Andy writes about (definitely an awesome read, by the way - click the title of this post to go there). News media in general is hosed. Especially on television and I mean all of them.

I remember growing-up and my dad would watch Walter Cronkite every. single. night. without fail. But news reporting in those days was different: it was actually reporting and it was actually news. It was the same with newspapers.

In those days, headlines were never a question as they are today. There where never “teasers” to get you to tune-in or continue reading the story.

In those days, a headline was a summary of the news story. You could read the headline and you had the entire gist of the story. Full stop. To read the story was only to get the details.

News reporting these days is full of garbage. Not just the “article” but the chaff surrounding it: television new casts are filled with way too much flashy eye-candy graphics and cut-scenes and lower-third titles and whiz-bang cartoon shows. It’s near impossible to focus on what is actually being reported about. Then there are way too many commercials and they always tease the most useless “news” near the beginning of the broadcast and report it at the end - and it’s always totally disappointing compared to the “build-up” they’ve been doing during the previous half-hour.

And to shift gears just a bit: there’s the ridiculous bald-faced agendas being spewed-forth. Like Andy says above:

…abandoned reporting in favor of editorial…

“Editorial” always comes down to the expression of opinion. More and more “news reports” are really just editorial: opinions intended to influence you toward the reporter/editor’s agenda; especially in political events.

Real example: have you noticed how the “main stream news media” are now discretely pushing (by questioning) how all “Christians” are terrible people because the alleged Oslo attacker proclaims himself a Christian? No, they aren’t proclaiming this directly or openly, but it’s definitely a constant overriding subject lately, isn’t it? Or have you actually not even noticed this (in which case: shame on you)? It’s akin to proclaiming all vegetarians are evil because Hitler was a vegetarian.

Agenda.
Pushing.

It’s what they do best.

You might utterly hate MSNBC or FOX News, but if you’re smart, you’ll watch both of them. It is the only possible way to get the “full picture” as each will give you only one side. If you only stick with those who report what you agree with, you are the fool because it is really you agreeing with (being influenced by) them.

Then, when you have the full picture, you’ll see how vitriolic each are on their respective sides of the aisle. Then, and only then are you able to take a genuinely objective look at what’s going on and actually make an educated decision on things.

Until then: you are just an idiot sheep and the news media you follow are the herders, cultivating their flock.

KISS: Keep It Short, Stupid

Article Summary:

  • Email costs everyone of us if not in real dollars, in lost time 
  • GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, GFX, and all the rest are bloated, archaic and lethargic solutions that are becoming too complicated with too many “features” we don’t need 
  • Email communication, in a social aspect is on the decline as we prefer short-message services like Twitter, Facebook, Linked-in, Tumblr, Posterous and the like 
  • Shortmail (shortmail.com), or at least the concept of it is the real savior of the email time-wasting mess we suffer through every day

My first Internet Service Provider was NETCOM. My first email application was Claris Emailer version 1.0 on Macintosh System 7 and it was an exciting new adventure, this whole Internet thing. The World Wide Web had only been invented months ago, but this email thing has been around far longer. I had an email address. I was finally “somebody” in a clique of a fraction of a fraction of the population proper. I was on the cutting-edge riding the wave that was sure to come.

Of course no one else I knew in the world had an email address. I was alone. Spam had yet to be invented and so it was exciting when I received my very first plain text email in courier typeface. A short reply to one of the dozens of emails I’d sent out that first week, often to web sites with queries.

It was a simpler, peaceful, pithy time.

That was then and this is now: unsolicited spam, garbage, solicited spam, trojans and phishing attempts, friends passing chain-mail jokes and stupid cat pictures, oh - and then there’s “professional” email we must contend with.

But there is a real solution.

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Google+ Terms of Service is Obscure? - Prevent Google+ BanHammer

Various tech publications have found their corporate accounts unceremoniously booted [from Google+], with Google claiming that it’s trying to keep the service for individuals at present.

While this has been met with stoic understanding by the people involved, the company’s next step in the cull might cause a bigger stir: the advertising giant is focusing on those who prefer to be known by an avatar.

Opensource Obscure, a Second Life user who prefers to be identified by his/her avatar rather than by his/her real-world identity, is one of the first to be have been selected for removal from the service. While the account is still present on Google , it is listed as ‘suspended’.

Funny in a pathetic way.

Here is what I suspect is happening: GoogleGods only want individuals, not commercial entities, in Google+. Why? Because Google’s customer is the paying advertiser, not you the individual. You the individual user are Google’s “product” - not their search system. Google’s search system is the carrot that lures you into Google’s fold.

Hence, as a paying advertiser, I do not want to pay for any advertising that goes to “commercial entities” because the likely effectiveness of those adverts is likely in the negative fifty percentile. So, um, no!

Thus, Google boots commercial entities. They want individual people who might actually click an advert or two, giving the paying advertiser the false hope of there adverts actually being more effective than they really are, which gives the GoogleGods hope of raking-in those legal-tender buckaroos.

Which brings us to “Obscure” namesakes in your Google Profile.

You might only use GMail, but Google has many, many different services, some of which you’ve at least heard of such as Reader (RSS), Blogger (soon to be rebranded as Google Blogs), Picasa (Soon to be rebranded as Google Photos…or something) and so on.

However, what you may not be aware of is that you have a “Google Account” which is an ‘umbrella’ that covers all Google Services: one log-in, full access. The part you may not know is that you have a Google Profile.

Go to https://www.google.com/accounts/ and you’ll see a big list of all the Google Services you’ve used and a “More” link to show all the other services you haven’t, yet - but can. Note in the top left of that page is your pretty mug-shot (or not). Next to that is a link to either create or edit your public Google Profile.

If you haven’t created a Public Profile, yet, you will see a link called “Edit your personal info”. Here is the part where I suspect Opensource Obscure tripped-up and “flagged” Google to suspect his Google+ account.

It’s okay to use “Opensource Obscure” in the “first name”/”last name” field. However, there also is a place on that form to put “Other names” - and this is where he can put something else that sounds more like a “real name” - you know, like “Johnny Doe Boy” or something. Hell, anything.

Doing this does not guarantee what happens to O. Obscure won’t happen to you. However, it surely helps. Because in short, I suspect the GoogleGods mistook Opensource Obscure to be a Commercial Entity and not an individual.

This would be because his name is, well Obscure.

Only Stupid People Buy Fast-Food

Yes we actually do save a truckload of money by not having paper towels in the rest room. And allowing the really cheap soap to go empty for a day or two before refilling it saves us a lot also. Besides, we save money with the hair-dryer we call hand-dryer even though it might have someone’s nasty bio-goo smeared onto the vents spitting into your hands (and you don’t even notice it) doesn’t mean it’s not clean. Besides, you’ll gain fresh new filthy nasty germs as soon as you grab the door handle to exit the rest-room. By totally wasting your time by actually really making an effort to stay healthy by washing your hands and suffering a painfully slow hand-drying process, you feel time has been wasted, which makes you in more hurry, thus more likely to not notice how we will abuse you over the next thirty minutes!

The law of the fast-food restaurant business is clear whether you understand it or not: I am not listening to you. I am a lethargic, empty-headed robot cashier. It doesn’t matter what you order, I am not listening to you. If you do not place your order phrased a specific way, I will get it wrong and I won’t care. I work on repetition and if it’s not right, everything goes haywire.

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OpenSim Steps on Linden Lab Toes?

According to HyperGrid Business web site, it’s time for OpenSim developers and founders and whatnot to celebrate as a foundation has been created that will allow things to move forward on “solid legal ground”.

From the article:

The major problem that has been plaguing OpenSim until now is that OpenSim is distributed under the business-friendly BSD license — the entire code base is open source, but companies that build commercial software on top of that code can keep their projects proprietary. For example, IBM sells a distribution of OpenSim that is optimized to work with their enterprise software for around $50,000.

However, Second Life’s viewer and the third party viewers are all distributed under a GPL license — that license does not allow for proprietary commercial distributions, and any software built using the viewer code automatically becomes open-source. If any GPL-licensed viewer code were to make its way into OpenSim, then the entire OpenSim code based would be contaminated and would have to be licensed as GPL — the six-month policy was in place to prevent that from happening.

I’m not an attorney by any stretch of imagination, I am curious how Linden Research, D.B.A. Linden Lab feels about all this.

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(Source: hypergridbusiness.com)