Archive - Feb 28, 2008
Surrendering my temporal able bodiedness
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 15:11Today, I attended a session on universal design in Second Life. At the beginning, Atsuko Watanabe asked why Second Life and places in Second Life are not more accessible. She noted that in Second Life, accessibly can be added without cost, yet it is rarely added. Why is that?
“It is perfectly acceptable t have flying rabbit but an avatar in a wheelchair is not acceptable.” She went on to say, “I've often been challenged quite publicly as to why I chose too represent my self as disabled in SL”.
Possible interpretation is that SL is a mirror of the real attitudes of the inhabitants bring with them from the real world. Another interpretation is the "medical model", “that people with disabilities are broken and that they need to be fixed and in SL no one should have a disability because it is ‘Wrong’ somehow”
Atsuko Watanabe responds to that line of thinking by saying, “I'm not broken, I am proud of who I am”. Well, as a temporarily able bodied person, and an Episcopalian, I acknowledge that I am broken. My brokenness has nothing to do with any physical abilities or disabilities. It has to do with when I have not loved my neighbor as myself. To take the joke from those in wheelchairs, it is when I have appear to people in wheelchairs as just another belt buckle in the crowd.
It is in that mindset, that I entered the discussion on Orange Island about community rules in Second Life. A friend gave me a wheelchair, and I am now presenting avatar as disabled in SL. As I commented to my friend, it is my first experience surrendering my temporarily able bodiedness, so I may end up being quiet, unsure how to join in, but that may be an important part of the experience as well.
As I sit in the room, a friend teleports in and I bump into her with my wheelchair. She is a multiple stroke survivor and understands the struggles of those with disabilities better than I do. She graciously says, “hehe.. didn’t even feel it”
So, I try to listen into the discussion. At the same time, I try to write about my experiences while they are still fresh. I fail to connect with the discussion. I feel uncertain, unseen. Perhaps that is an important part of the experience. Perhaps we all need to get more in touch with the temporary nature of our able bodiedness.
Upcoming Events in Second Life
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 12:31Over the coming few days, there are several interesting discussions. Today, at 9 AM SLT, there will be a discussion about universal design on Healthinfo Island sponsored by SL Accessibility Center, Healthinfo Island, and Virtual Ability, Inc. Jondan Lundquist and Atsuko Watanabe will lead the discussion. Mr. Lundquist has studied biomechanical engineering and has a doctorate in education. Ms. Watanabe is a degreed engineer who has worked on accessible transportation engineering projects for many years and works in Second Life on redesigning and rebuilding some of the structures on Simon Walsh's Second Ability sim.
Also, today starting at 9 AM SLT is “Orange Explores Second Life Culture”. Topics include how live music performances have changed over the years in Second Life, what the current trends are, where music is headed into the future of SL, the impact that rules and protocols have on the behavior of the community members and how many diverse communities have come together, bringing their unique ideas, for the common purpose of fighting back against cancer. The event will take place on Orange Island.
Tomorrow, also starting at 9 AM SLT, Simon Walsh will speak at the Nonprofit Commons Amphitheater about his work in Second Life. Mr. Walsh is best known as the chief executive of Enable Enterprises which manages the Wheelies nightclub for people with disabilities in Second Life and the Second Ability Second Life simulator. The talk will be followed by a day long discussion on TechSoup’s Accessible Technology and Public Computing forum.
Starting at 10 AM SLT, Kathy Im, Program Officer at the MacArthur Foundation, Tony Curzon Price, Editor of OpenDemocracy.net, and Jonathan Zittrain, Professor and Internet Scholar at Oxford University will explore issues of Credibility and Reputation in the New News as part of the MacArthur and Virtual Worlds series. The event will take place on the USC Annenberg Island.
At 3 PM SLT, SL Shakespeare Company will produce a “live scene from Hamlet, with a professional troupe, and photorealistic actors and historically accurate wardrobe and props.“ The event will take place at the SL Globe Theatre. The performance will be repeated several days through out the coming week.
To tie it all together, there will be a Leap Year celebration tomorrow at jokaydia “because a leap year is as good a time as any for a party!”
R
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 10:30The self exists at the intersection of our inner neural network and our external social network. That is a loose approximation of what Dr. Jeremy Holmes said in the opening plenary address to the 2008 American Group Psychotherapy Association's annual conference. The phrase has rattled around in my mind ever since, as I walk back and forth from my friends' house where I was staying, as I drifted off to sleep, and at other times when my mind wasn't otherwise activated. What does it mean?
I've always been interested in how artificial neural networks learn. In a simple model, input is fed in through the neural network. The inputs are multiplied by various factors until an end result is obtained. The predicted result is then compared with the actual result and changes are back propagated through the artificial neural network to adjust the factors in the network. I've often wondered if this process of back propagation could be applied to the online social networks we are in. Social networks often represent relationships as binary symmetrical values. Either two people trust each other, or they don't. Either two people are friends, or they are not. In reality, one person may trust the other more or less than they are trusted by the other. What if our online social networks gave us the ability to quantify such trusts? What if they used such information to predict friendships and ideas that would be interesting to us? What if they learned from our reaction to such predictions?
I've thought and written about this for years, but I just haven't been able to get anywhere with it. My mind wanders to Mr. Ramsey in Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse. Mr. Ramsey is a bright scholar, but he is stuck. He cannot get beyond R. These thoughts about the self existing at the intersection of our internal neural networks and our external social networks have brought back my thoughts about artificial neural networks and online social networks, but I feel stuck at R with them, along with Mr. Ramsey.
