Metaversed has a good article on Twinity, which appears to be a social virtual world with very firm ties to real world geography. It uses an “urban” metaphor, so you don’t freely build structures, and instead you rent apartments and the like. There’s clear potential here for the sort of geotagging/mirror world stuff I alluded to recently.

“Booty & the Geek”: The New York Post covers new SL lawsuits.

Simon denied any wrongdoing.

“They can say whatever they want to say,” he said. “It’s a video game.”

He also said the plaintiffs found their “evidence” by taking pictures inside his Second Life home. He contended that if he could be sued in real life for what goes on in Second Life, then U.S. search and seizure laws should also apply in the virtual world.

Ah, it’s interesting how quickly we can slip down the rabbit hole.

Of course I had to write a song based on the wildfire experience. But honestly, the suburban wildfire experience doesn’t make for much of a song. Plus, I was also slightly annoyed at all the people saying stuff like “boo hoo, affluent SoCal people” when anyone who lives in San Diego County knows there’s quite a range of incomes and lifestyles around here.

So I decided to do the song from the point of view of someone who lives out near where the fires started — where there are lots of folks who have farms or ranches. Wrote it today around 2pm, and then wrestled with my recording setup for three hours (misconfigured recording input). So this is just a quick sketch of it done in the last hour.
The song is called Up Near Witch Creek, and it goes like this:

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This links to a 1280×720 pic for anyone who wants it as a widescreen wallpaper…

So this is the moon over Rancho Bernardo tonight. You can see where there is an absence of lights right below the hills; that is where the fire came through.

For those interested in the businessy side of things, this has a ton of meaty info.

Video Game Venture Capital – VGVC

The short answer is “yes, but not where the hype is.”

So the episode of CSI that featured a crossover to Second Life aired last night. Near as I can tell, the impact on the virtual population of SL was not huge and perhaps disappointing, but the new viewer made by the Electric Sheep guys is getting positive reviews. There’s a good roundup of links at Clickable Culture.

(Particularly priceless is the way in which sex webcams co-opted “csi” as a search term in order to drive in-world traffic. Not exactly the sort of mainstream that was probably intended).

It’s been interesting seeing the discussion surrounding whether or not the industry is actually heading in a mainstream direction. And I think the answer is that there’s definitely a bit of a hype bubble around specifically the social virtual worlds side of things.

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Twitter / kpbsnews

This was invaluable, as was this.

And everything looks fine. The filter from the air conditioner was truly horrendous, nearly solid charcoal colored. Here’s some pics from the way back. Click on any of them to get larger versions…

This is what the smoke is looking like over the southern LA area. It was like this in Anaheim (where even the mighty big hotel AC systems couldn’t combat the smell of smoke), and pretty much all the way down to San Juan Capistrano.

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Woke up this morning to the news that the I5 was closed because of fires in Camp Pendleton, so we couldn’t go back even if we wanted to. But that seems to be under control now, and the highway is open again.

There are some reports here and there that neighborhoods right by us are open — ones that were closer to the fire even — but when I called the county’s hotline, they said that our zip code was still marked as restricted, so we are staying put for now. In a half hour, we’ll miss checkout time for the hotel, and at that point, we may as well stay the night.

I am thinking we may also go shopping for stuff likely to be hard to find down there, like dust masks, HEPA filters, and the like.

Good maps:

• Chris Kelley’s

This one shows that Mira Mesa is now an area of concern, as is Santee and Lakeside. It shows our area in the middle, as “previously burned,” but as you can see it’s kinda surrounded by areas of concern. Notable is that 67 just closed, and that Bonita and Chula Vista seem to be OK now. But really, it all depends on the winds.

• KPBS

They are keeping it updated with the latest set of incident reports, etc.

• Homes lost in Rancho Bernardo

The councilman walked the area with his staff and noted addresses. he only covered one part of the neighborhood,though. Then someone else made a Google Map of it. Hurray for the Internet!

• Recent hotspots