voyeurism

all glory, laud and honour

i can't get this song out of my head...

:-)

We will glorify the King of kings
We will glorify the Lamb
We will glorify the Lord of lords
Who is the great I AM

Lord Jehovah reigns in majesty
We will bow before His throne
We will worship Him in righteousness
We will worship Him alone

He is Lord of heaven, Lord of earth
He is Lord of all who live
He is Lord above the universe
All praise to Him we give

Hallelujah to the King of kings
Hallelujah to the Lamb
Hallelujah to the Lord of Lords
Who is the great I AM

-- Twila Paris (date unknown)

Technorati Tags: Christianity

hu's zoo

ha ha :-)

i've been listed in Who's Who :-P

(Who's Who in the World, 2008 Silver Anniversary edition, specifically :-P )

i'm listed between Lim Jung-Wook and Lim Kwanghui.

thank You, God, for all these lovely surprises :-)

Technorati Tags: globalization

God's grace :-) #13

through His grace alone, i have been offered an Assistant Professorship at the Learning Sciences & Technologies Academic Group, at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, with effect from next month.

:-)

the original sim

i have bought a small plot in Da Boom.

Da Boom is the original sim of Second Life. by this is meant, that the grid of continents, open water, and private islands that make up Second Life as we know it, started with the very first sim - Da Boom - on 21 November 2002.

it's mind-blowing to think that Second Life in general, and Da Boom in particular, is four-and-a-half years' old. it literally is very nearly pre-historic, on the Second Life timescale. over the years, many of the original residents of Da Boom have moved on and out. yet there are still parts of the sim where you can immerse yourself deeply in the original culture of Second Life, not least at the Starax Memorial maintained by Rockwell Ginsberg.

for further reading about the historical nexus of Second Life - including how it got its peculiar name - you could do worse than to start here :-)

as for the plot in Da Boom which is now under my stewardship, i could not think of a better name than da Capo. it lies somewhere in the foothills of the Frelon volcano.

da Capo is actually my third plot on the continent of Sansara - Sansara may be the oldest landmass on the grid, but i would concur with what is often said about it still being the best.

as we prepare to usher in 2008, i cannot think of a more appropriate sim to do so in, than Da Boom.

:-)

the continent of Sansara, with Heterocera to the north

these are some of the oldest sims

Da Boom - where it all started

the Raymaker Vulcanigallery at Norma

the one-hundred-and-thirty-fourth episode of ventriloquy is somewhat of a retrospective on 2007, and represents a status report of sorts of my first eight months in Second Life as Veritas Raymaker.

the 1.8 MB download ends with an invitation to visit my most recent learning installation - the Raymaker Vulcanigallery at Norma.

the Raymaker Vulcanigallery at Norma affords a view and opportunities for exploration of, and learning about, the largest geographically accurate volcanic crater that i have so far discovered in Second Life - the volcano at Dante.

the Vulcanigallery itself has been more than two months in construction, mainly because i was waiting for the opportunity to buy contiguous plots along the volcano's flanks which afford the best view. i am very pleased to say that the wait has been more than worth it.

on display at the Vulcanigallery are artistic works which i received this year from two very dear friends of mine - Veritas Variscan and Sanspareil London. i am very pleased and proud to be able to share their talents with you :-)

[update 1: as of 2008, i have renamed the Vulcanigallery as the Raymaker Field Studies Centre at Norma

update 2: this Field Studies Centre was closed on 7 May 2009]

celebrating the Saviour's birth

a very blessed Christmas to all!

:-)

this year, the Christmas episode of ventriloquy is backgrounded by scenes from my plots of land from within Second Life. please join me in this 19.1 MB celebration :-)

"For unto us a child is born,
to us a Son is given,
and the government shall be upon His shoulders...
of the increase of His government and peace
there will be no end."
- Isaiah 9: 6, 7

may the peace of the Christchild be yours, today, and evermore.

no matter how glorious the view, it can never match the glory of His kingdom

last-minute shopping

just in time for your last-minute Christmas gift for that special avatar in your life, Verkin Raven has released a new Cabin Cruiser - the SW-319 and SW-320 :-)

while bearing a passing resemblance to the SWC Seawolf (which i waxed lyrical about here), the SW-319 / SW-320 are actually quite a bit larger, as the picture below shows.

it seats four more passengers than the SWC Seawolf, so it's perfect for that onboard Christmas party you were planning to host :-)

a pat on the back, for all of us

from the inaugural episode of the Inside the Lab podcast, hosted by Linden Lab's Director of Marketing - Catherine Linden (RL: Catherine Smith), in which she interviews CEO and founder Philip Linden (RL: Philip Rosedale):

Catherine: "on a more personal note, what are you most proud of, this year?"

Philip: "... i would say that i'm most proud of the uses of Second Life in education, that have started to happen... the things that have started to happen in the latter half of this year around education are just really, really amazing. i'd say, for me, that emerging use is the thing that i'm most proud of."

:-)

Technorati Tags: education, podcast, Second Life

active avatars in Second Life, ranked as a proportion of countries' respective population sizes (November 2007)

following up on the preceding post, here is the breakdown of figures for active avatars per country for November 2007, normalised against the respective population sizes (again, population totals were obtained from the CIA's World Factbook).

for those of you who are new to this, i'll give you a concrete example (if you've read my post from September 2007 on the same topic, you can just skip ahead to the next paragraph). the United States had 197638 active avatars during November. the population size of the USA in July was 301139947. this means that 0.07 percent of the US population had avatars active in Second Life during November.

i took the top 35 countries by active avatars (ranked by absolute numbers), and processed them by 'active avatars as proportion of country population'. just like for the October figures, China, India, Russia, Mexico, South Korea and Turkey have been excluded, because the proportions are really tiny. another country excluded for the same reason from this list of 35 is Colombia.

here's what the numbers for November look like :-)

1. the Netherlands 0.11 % (unchanged)

2. United Kingdom 0.07 % (proportion of population is stable, but rank has increased, displacing the USA and Denmark)

3. USA 0.07 % (proportion is stable; displaced in rank by the United Kingdom)

4. Denmark 0.06 % (proportion is stable; displaced in rank by the United Kingdom)

5. Australia 0.06 % (unchanged)

6. Switzerland 0.06 % (unchanged)

7. Canada 0.06 % (proportion is stable; rank has increased, displacing Belgium)

8. Belgium 0.05 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.06 %; displaced in rank by Canada)

9. Germany 0.05 % (proportion is stable; rank has increased, displacing Portugal)

10. France 0.05 % (proportion is stable; rank has increased, displacing Portugal)

11. Ireland 0.05 % (proportion has increased, from 0.04 %; rank has increased, displacing Sweden, New Zealand and Portugal)

12. Spain 0.04 % (proportion is stable; rank has increased, displacing Sweden, New Zealand and Portugal)

13. Portugal 0.04 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.05 %; displaced in rank by Germany, France, Ireland and Spain)

14. New Zealand 0.04 % (proportion is stable; displaced in rank by Ireland and Spain)

15. Sweden 0.04 % (proportion is stable; displaced in rank by Ireland and Spain)

16. Italy 0.04 % (unchanged)

17. Austria 0.03 % (proportion is stable; rank has increased, displacing Singapore and Norway)

18. Singapore 0.03 % (unchanged)

19. Norway 0.03 % (proportion is stable; displaced in rank by Austria)

20. Finland 0.02 % (proportion is stable; rank has increased, displacing Japan)

21. Japan 0.02 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.03 %; displaced in rank by Finland)

22. Greece 0.02 % (unchanged)

23. the Czech Republic 0.02 % (proportion has increased, from 0.01 %; rank has increased, displacing Brazil)

24. Brazil 0.01 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.02 %; displaced in rank by the Czech Republic)

25. Poland 0.01 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.02 %)

26. Romania 0.01 % (unchanged)

27. Argentina 0.01 % (unchanged)

28. Chile 0.01 % (unchanged)

analysed this way, Singapore is still the Asian country with the highest proportion of active avatars in Second Life.

Technorati Tags: geography, globalization, Second Life, Singapore

active avatars in Second Life, ranked as a proportion of countries' respective population sizes (October 2007)

following up on October's post, here is the breakdown of figures for active avatars per country for October 2007, normalised against the respective population sizes (again, population totals were obtained from the CIA's World Factbook).

October was the first full month of the imposition of VAT on European residents. it was also during that month that CBS aired its special Second Life-focussed episode of CSI: NY.

for those of you who are new to this, i'll give you a concrete example (if you've read my post from September 2007 on the same topic, you can just skip ahead to the next paragraph). the United States had 201396 active avatars during October. the population size of the USA in July was 301139947. this means that 0.07 percent of the US population had avatars active in Second Life during October.

i took the top 35 countries by active avatars (ranked by absolute numbers), and processed them by 'active avatars as proportion of country population'. just like for the September figures, China, India, Russia, Mexico and Turkey have been excluded, because the proportions are really tiny. other countries excluded for the same reason from this list of 35 are Peru and South Korea.

here's what the numbers for October look like :-)

1. the Netherlands 0.11 % (unchanged)

2. USA 0.07 % (proportion of population has increased, from 0.05 %; rank has increased, displacing Denmark, Portugal, Belgium, Australia, the United Kingdom and Switzerland)

3. Denmark 0.06 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.08 %; displaced in rank by the USA)

4. United Kingdom 0.06 % (proportion is stable, but rank has increased, displacing Portugal, Belgium and Australia)

5. Australia 0.06 % (unchanged; displaced by the United Kingdom, yet also displacing Portugal)

6. Switzerland 0.06 % (proportion is stable, but rank has increased, displacing Portugal and Belgium)

7. Belgium 0.06 % (proportion is stable, but displaced in rank by the USA, the United Kingdom and Switzerland)

8. Canada 0.06 % (proportion has increased, from 0.05 %; rank has increased, displacing Portugal and Germany)

9. Portugal 0.05 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.06 %; displaced in rank by the USA, the United Kingdom, Australia, Switzerland and Canada)

10. Germany 0.05 % (proportion is stable, but displaced in rank by Canada)

11. France 0.05 % (proportion has increased, from 0.04 %; rank has increased, displacing Italy and New Zealand)

12. New Zealand 0.04 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.05 %, displaced in rank by France)

13. Sweden 0.04 % (proportion is stable, but rank has increased, displacing Spain and Italy)

14. Ireland 0.04 % (proportion is stable, but rank has increased, displacing Spain and Italy)

15. Spain 0.04 % (proportion is stable, but displaced in rank by Sweden and Ireland)

16. Italy 0.04 % (proportion is stable, but displaced in rank by France, Sweden, Ireland and Spain)

17. Norway 0.03 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.04 %; rank is unchanged)

18. Singapore 0.03 % (proportion is stable, but rank has increased, displacing Austria)

19. Austria 0.03 % (proportion is stable, but displaced in rank by Singapore)

20. Japan 0.03 % (unchanged)

21. Finland 0.02 % (new entrant, displacing Greece and Poland)

22. Greece 0.02 % (proportion is stable, but displaced in rank by Finland, yet also displacing Brazil)

23. Brazil 0.02 % (proportion is stable, but displaced in rank by Greece)

24. the Czech Republic 0.01 % (new entrant, displacing Poland and Argentina)

25. Poland 0.01 % (proportion has fallen, from 0.02 %; displaced in rank by Finland and the Czech Republic, yet also displacing Argentina)

26. Romania 0.01 % (new entrant, displacing Argentina)

27. Argentina 0.01 % (proportion is stable, but displaced in rank by the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania)

28. Chile 0.01 % (new entrant)

analysed this way, Singapore is still the Asian country with the highest proportion of active avatars in Second Life.

Technorati Tags: geography, globalization, Second Life, Singapore