Lessons from a Second Life

Friday, October 10, 2008

The NPR radio show Science Friday has been airing its shows with an added Second Life component. The team has designed a spiffy outdoor ampitheater and Ira Flatow has an avatar he uses in world to represent him. His producers read the questions and comments that fly by in chat, relaying the more interesting ones to Ira, who will acknowledge the questioner and answer the question on national radio. During this session, I was delighted to actually have him addresss one of my questions on the air. It was my fifteen seconds – hehe!

Following is my Coveritlive.com transcript of my notes I took live. Please forgive the rough nature of the notes.

1:20
Science Friday host Ira Flatow on Oct. 10 hosted a 2-hour radio show which ran on National Public Radio and also in Second Life, with opportunities for questions from both.

The show included guest Robert Colwell, Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Connecticut.

1:29
Scientists have found a bacterium that is self-sufficient – contains all the tools they need to eat and grow.   Here’s a link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080929104601.htm

1:33
Off-duty Linden Prospero Linden attended the show in Second Life. “Self-sufficient bacteria should be able to take over the Earth,” he commented in the chat window during a discussion of the self-sufficient bacteria discovered near a gold mine. “They really CAN kill off all other species without worrying about themselves.”

View image

Visit Science School in Second Life
1:34
Be sure to visit the Science Friday Web site for background information about the guests and the topics discussed, as well as a replay of the show.
1:35
You can listen to the show live online at http://www.sciencefriday.com/about/listen/.
1:45
Bjorlyn Loon, the Science Friday group manager in Second Life, adds: “From Birth to Death and Bench to Clinic: The Hastings Center Bioethics Briefing Book for Journalists, Policymakers, and Campaigns http://www.thehastingscenter.org/publications/briefingbook/.”
1:53
Question: re: Congress getting pertinent information from lobbyists, why can’t legitimate science organizations provide information to Congress in addition to lobbyists?
Answer: There is an increasing effort on the part of nonprofits to provide good information to the government. Example: The Bioethics Briefing Book.
1:54
The Hastings Center is next working on a book about end of life issues like hospice care and palliative care.
1:55
Also, the Hastings Center is working on researching the ethics of performance enhancers such as steroids, etc.

1:56
The chat log is scrolling very fast now and people are vociferously debating the ethics of health care policy and how it should/can be made better.
1:58
*End of first hour**Second hour to start soon*
2:08
A law has been passed which classifies some forms of mental illness as coverable by health insurance. William C. Moyers, Vice President for Internal Affairs at Hazelton Foundation.
2:09
The biggest highlight is that Congress and the President have acknowledged that diseases like bipolar and depression are actual chronic diseases that need to be treated and included with other diseases in terms of coverage by private health care insurance.
2:10
So the bill is a major step in the right direction of acknowledging mental illness as a legitimate illness. This would affect businesses over 50 employees and are already covering addictions treatment. It would require the same copay for that kind of treatment as for other kinds of treatment that are not classified as mental illness.
2:13
Will insurers be able to refuse an application for insurance based upon a family history of mental illness? Moyers said he really didn’t know – it is possible. He said he is a recovering addict and alcoholic and he thinks being able to talk about one’s recovery is a healthy thing and not a negative.
2:13
Is addiction treatment a bipartisan issue?
2:14
The reality is that this is an illness that has reached across both aisles of Congress. We have a terrible problem with the War on Drugs where we just lock people up for being addicts. Governmental leaders are waking up to the idea that we need a different way to handle this by holding addicts responsible for seeking their own treatment for this.
2:15
Correcting an earlier attribution: Not “Hazelton” but “Hazelden” – http://www.hazelden.org/
2:16
Has there been an emergence in this country as talking about addiction as a form of treatable illness.
2:17
Stat: Only 25% of people who need treatment for addiction ever get it in this country. (needs attribution)

2:18
Question: Does the new law limit the number of visits to the doctor for treatment? It’s not a carte blanche and companies need to be able to limit the overall costs of health care, but the point of the bill is to make the treatments for mental illness and addiction treated in the same way by insurance companies (copays, etc.) as other kinds of illnesses, for companies that cover both already.
2:19
Broken: My Story of Redemption and Addiction is the name of Moyers’ book.
2:19
Next segment: Gardening
2:22
Topics
Gardening all year long: four-season gardening.
Most important ingredient for a buffer crop in your own back yard is COMPOST.

2:23
Find out why your compost heap just isn’t working.
First guest – Barbara Damrosh, owner of Four Season Farm in Brooksville, Maine and a Washington Post correspondent.

2:25
Maine is very cool, moist climate, but not a lot of sun. Growth is pretty much continuous so right now there is just harvesting going on.
ABCs of fall gardening:
1. Clean up any debris or weeds.
2. Put down a couple of inches of well-rotted compost to begin soaking in
If you don’t have to till or dig you can get started more quickly in the spring.
If you want to get crops in early winter, you have to sow crops in early fall or late summer. Some areas are still okay to start this stuff. Look for unusual greens that do well in cooler areas like asian greens, etc.
2:25
If you’re in the South you probably can leave them in the regular ground. But if you’re farther north you need to use a cold frame in the ground.
2:27
Some of the root crops do very well in colder soil.

Debra Martin on worms and composting. You can set up a worm bin in your home with a plastic storage container of about 14 gallons. Your worms will eat a couple of pounds of kitchen compost per week. The soil should not be too wet but only lightly moist. Martin started her bin with about 200 red worms from a fishing bait store.
2:28
Interesting: red worms like warmer environments like manure rather than wild worms which are for the most part night crawlers and like cooler temps.
2:29
Preparation of the worm bin – drill some holes in it about 6 inches apart for air flow.
Shred some 3-inch pieces of wet newspaper, mix in a cup of compost and a cup of soil to help the worms digest the food.
Throw in a cup of corn meal to start the food. Mix well and add worms.
YUMMY!
2:29
When are the worms ready for the kitchen scraps? Not long – a couple of days. Monitor the bin by lifting the lid – if there is a lot of condensation or the worms are near the top, it may be too moist and you’d want to prop the lid up for a while to air it out.
2:31
Worms don’t tend to like anything with a potential to grow, as in seeds. They like:
coffee grounds and filters
tea bags
peelings
apple cores
bad spots on veggies
egg shells
bread crust
moldy bread
cooked vegetables (not greasy or salted)
NOT onions or citrus
2:31
Damrosh has a compost bin outside.
2:32
Flatow says there is a video on the Web site about how to make a compost tea out of worm compost. I think it is this one: http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10112
2:33
Correcting the spelling – not “Damrosh” but “Damrosch”
2:34
Managing larva in your compost bin – scrape them off and remove them.
Bury the food in the compost soil to make the scraps more available to the worms and also to discourage the flies from being attracted.
2:34
Damrosch’s book can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Garden-Primer-Second-Barbara-Damrosch/dp/0761122753
2:35
Other ways to garden when it’s cool:
floating row cover
wall of water
cold frame
greenhouse
2:36
Martin’s book info can be found here (as well as her Web site with lots more info about composting): http://www.compostgardening.com/
2:38
Martin – on the care of the worms and harvesting the compost :
dump the compost out on a piece of newspaper in a lighted place in a volcano shape. Gradually scoop off the top and sides of a cone. The worms will continue burrowing to the center to avoid the light, and in this way you can get compost for the garden without getting your worms. Use a soil sifter to get the rest of them before putting the compost in your gardens.

2:40
The author of this blog gardened in Oklahoma for 10 years and thoroughly enjoyed it (except for weeding in August!). I got a strange pleasure from handling the worms, but I didn’t know to try out the red worms. I just had night crawlers. But my compost bin was a great design – like two farm pens with a lower dividing section in the center. Both sides had a gate with latch so you could easily turn the pile from one section to the other. Bricks were underneath.
2:42
Can you compost with seaweed? Yes, you can – has lots of nitrogen and trace elements and composts very easily. Shells are also wonderful for the compost bin and will gradually break down. Lobster shells and similar chitin coverings also will compost, a bit more quickly than the clam shells.
2:56
“Worms Eat my Garbage” by Mary Hasselhoff
Great starter book on worm composting.

Can you grow mushrooms in the worm bin in your house? I asked and Ira repeated on national radio. Answer: Yes, we’ve grown mushrooms in worm compost before. It’s worth a try.
3:00

These notes were taken using the online live blogging tool coveritlive.com. If you haven’t yet tried this tool, you really will like it. See the CoveritLive.com transcript and get a link to the site so you can try it too.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

One of the things I enjoy doing in Second Life is participating in, and helping with, online discussion groups. I volunteer with a group called Play as Being, which holds daily meetings in Second Life for the purpose of discussing the results of their experimentation with meditation techniques.

There’s not a teacher or a lecturer; rather, it’s a loose grouping of people having a free-form discussion which sometimes closely follows the meditation topic and sometimes only touches on it. The participants, a mix of regulars and new drop-ins, are diverse in their geographic locations, level of expertise in the topic, and spiritual beliefs.

As a group leader for the Thursday night meeting (7 p.m. SLT), my responsibility is mostly to welcome new people and explain the premise of the group as needed. I also help facilitate a good discussion by asking questions and clarifying to keep people engaged, but I don’t guide or teach, because I am not an expert by any means.

With the permission of the participants, we save the chat log from the meetings and post them to our Play as Being wiki with comments from the “Guardian” that was facilitating at the meeting.

After participating in these meetings for a few months, I now realize there is a natural pattern to these meetings which helps everyone have a better experience in the discussion. What follows is my attempt to offer some suggestions to all participants of online discussion groups, in Second Life or otherwise, which will make the overall group experience much richer.

Basic etiquette for any gathering in a 3D world:

1. Take care to choose your appearance to match the formality of the group; avoid wearing extremely revealing or possibly
   offensive clothing or attachments until you know the group norms better. If everyone else has a hat on, get out a hat.

2. Adjust the size of your avatar or use a smaller avatar if it looks like it will be too large to fit in the discussion area. Some avatars are very large and could fill entire rooms or block views.

3. Avoid using sounds or gestures unless the group is okay with that. In Second Life dancing events, for example, it’s considered polite to show appreciation for the musician or DJ by making cheering noises such as Hooooooo! In a quieter discussion group, this would be off-putting.

4. Follow group behavior norms about avatar positioning to avoid distractions. If everyone else is standing, stand. If everyone else is sitting, sit.

5. If someone offers you inventory, such as a toy or a garment or a notecard, be sure to thank them in regular chat or in IM. If possible without disrupting the group activity, wear the object or in some way try it out to show your appreciation.

6. Tipping of the musician/DJ and hosts is customary in entertainment venues. It’s not expected and probably would be considered rude to directly tip a discussion group leader. If you appreciate what the group is doing and want to help, ask the leader if there is a tip box somewhere in the region. There usually is, and donations would be appreciated there.

7. Choose your entry and exit points with consideration for others. In 3D worlds like Second Life, you can teleport to specific locations and save those locations as landmarks. Save the landmarks for locations slightly outside the discussion group area so that if you follow a landmark after the group has begun, you don’t suddenly appear on top of someone’s head. If someone lands on your head by accident, be forgiving. It happens sometimes.

Tips for better discussions in any kind of chat, 3D or otherwise:

1. When you are responding to something another participant said, start your response with his or her assumed name. Even if you know someone’s real name, don’t use it in open chat.

2. If you know that someone is in the middle of expressing an idea (i.e., you can see their hands typing or they’ve already said something that appears to be an incomplete thought), hold off on adding your comment to the chat until they have had a chance to finish. This will make the conversation flow more understandably.

3. Try to stay with the general topic of the discussion group and try to contribute to the specific topic that’s being discussed during that particular meeting. Sometimes a change of topic is a helpful thing, but if the group is still chatting about a previous topic, it can be jarring to have a new one brought up.

4. Differences of opinion can be stimulating and helpful for the discussion, but be sure to phrase your responses respectfully and in a way that will encourage everyone to keep participating.

5. When you join the group late or must leave early, try not to interrupt the flow of the discussion beyond brief greetings and good-byes.

6. Try to be mindful that each participant brings something of value to the discussion and comes from a different background. What they say may be different from what you would say, but each comment can further the exploration of the topic.

7. Ask for clarification or more information when someone says something that you are not sure you understood completely, or when you sense that there is something interesting that’s being left unsaid.

8. Share examples from your personal life, literature, or even pop culture.

9. Remember to be careful about making jokes because they can easily be misunderstood in an environment where people cannot see each other’s faces. Humor is a wonderful addition to a group discussion, but be careful to phrase it so that it is not perceived as an attack.

10. Phrase your remarks for a diverse audience to avoid accidentally offending someone. The participants’ names or avatars probably don’t match real life. For example, someone who appears male may be actually female, and someone who appears skinny may be in real life overweight.

11. Role play should be reserved for regions where this is commonly agreed to be acceptable. While exploration of other appearances is fine and sometimes a great learning experience, in a serious discussion, adopting a whole new personality or faking experiences or knowledge can be offensive to the participants and misleading to those who are trying to explore a new concept.

Bonus suggestions (extra credit if you can do these):

• If someone makes a “faux pas” in the group setting, try to have a sense of humor and be gentle. Understand that not everyone has had a chance to read this blog entry (LOL) and may need a little time to realize that there are norms to be observed. Patience and tolerance can enhance the group experience.

• If you really like a group that you attend, tell others, give them landmarks, and bring them along to meetings. Be sure to give them a few pointers about the behavior norms for the group before their arrival so that they don’t suffer from embarrassment after missing a cue. Take care to remember the group’s preferences to make sure that the person you invite is not an inherently bad match for the overall tone of the group.

If you follow even a few of these suggestions, your group experience will be much more pleasant and constructive. Being a good group participant is an art and can lead to lasting and significant friendships.