[geeks] Ubuntu partition on Bootcamp Mac?

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Tue, 31 Jul 2007, Jon Gilbert wrote:

> There's nothing about Second Life that forces you to pretend anything.

But you can't deny that most of SL is pretend.  The overwhelming
majority of what happens there has no bearing at all on the real world.
If you construct a tree object and place it somewhere, you haven't given
a home to a living plant form; you've twiddled some bits in a database
somewhere.  If you build a structure of some sort, the county doesn't
asses taxes on it, and you can't skip out paying the mortgage on your
real abode and go live in it.

> That said, "pretending" is not limited to Second Life. I would argue
> that all GUIs involve massive amounts of pretending, in the sense that
> you're using the word. When you throw a file in the recycle bin on
> your computer, are you not "pretending" to throw a "document" into a
> "trash can?"

I suppose, but I tend to rm or Cmd-Delete; modern GUIs have an annoying
habit of being in my way.  That said, the "document" can actually become
a real document (by printing), and CAD drawings can become real
equipment (by emailing them to a machinist or PCB fab), sound files can
become actual music by feeding them to a DAC and an amplifier, and most
of the other things I create within the confines of the box on my desk
eventually manifest themselves in the real world.

-That- is the difference I'm pointing out.  If SL is self-contained on
that aspect, it's an interesting simulation at best, but primarily an
amusement.

> Are you not pretending that you are a little arrow flying around a
> desktop whenever you use your mouse?

Erm, no?  No-one would pretend he's the needle on a tachometer when
driving a car, either.

> But more to the point, I think that you think it's "pretend" just
> because it is in 3D.

And I've pointed out that this reasoning is flawed because I use 3D in
dataset visualization and CAD.  I've written sufficient software that
uses OpenGL that saying I'm anti-3D is laughable.  I mean, come on, I
had an SGI workstation or OpenGL-capable RS/6000 on my desk for 10 of
the last 12 years!

> I mean, how is a mall in SL anymore a pretend mall than Amazon.com is?

Because Amazon doesn't have virtual stores to walk between.  I don't
have a 2D representation of myself walking around the screen, picking up
items, and dropping them into a cartoon shopping cart, pushing the cart
across the window, picking the items up again, putting them on a
countertop, handing over a few currency sprites, and collecting an
animated receipt.  It's far closer to a mail-order catalogue than a
mall.

I'm not -simulating- a transaction, I'm causing a real transaction to
come about by providing input to a machine.  Yes, there is a metaphor
(and it even uses the word "shopping cart", possibly even with a cutesy
icon), but the metaphor is just a transitory medium.

> I mean, when you review products on Amazon.com, it's not like it shows
> your real name to the rest of the world.

Err, my reviews have my actual, real, legal name on them.

> You DO have a username. So, just because SL is in 3D, therefore it is
> all pretend? I don't understand the logic there.

Fortunate, that, as it isn't the argument.

> It's already being used in ways that are beneficial to the world
> outside. I could go and list all the companies, people, institutions,
> and governments that are using it in ways that benefit their real-
> life operations,

Much as these people could do with any number of technologies that were
already invented and don't suck up a bunch of computing power and
bandwidth with graphics and that don't constrain activities to fit
within the framework imposed by recreating most of the limitations of
the real world all over again.

> actually log into Second Life and see for yourself,

Your attitude throughout this thread has been much like that of a rowdy
child stomping about because no one believes he has a real invisible
friend.  If you're a representative sample of the folks who spend their
time there, I can think of far less tedious ways of being annoyed.

> As well, since you seem to be an expert on being an egalitarian and
> humanitarian (and helping the world solve all its problems, etc.),

I don't claim to be anything of the sort, just that I make an effort.

> I would wonder what are the "two ... primary properties" of the
> internet are that SL loses?

   1)  Most communication on the Internet is asynchronous.
   2)  Most communication on the Internet has modest bandwidth
       requirements.

#1 is important.  You were able to read my communique from this morning
well after it was sent, and I was able to read your response, even
though you sent it while I was away from my desk.  We didn't have to set
up a time in a virtual world to converse.

#2 is also important, even in the face of most of the world getting
faster and faster connections to the desktop, or we'll face a situation
in communications where a growth in available resources is matched or
outstripped by the inefficiency with which we use them, much like our
desktop GUIs.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke ) "When they turn the pages of history, when these
Elgin, TX        (   days have passed long ago, will they read of us
USA               )  with sadness for the seeds that we let grow?
-                (               --Neil Peart, "A Farewell to Kings"