Archive - 2008
February 21st
AGPA - Thursday morning
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 07:13My arrival in Washington was uneventful. I checked in at the AGPA conference and picked up my press credentials. My credentials were the only ones in the folder when I arrived and there was not any sort of press packet. Somehow, I suspect that this isn't a heavily covered event. I soon met two friends from the Group Psychotherapy mailing list and we found a place to sit down and explore Second Life together.
I've always been interested in the group dynamics of online communities, and Second Life is no different. Are these dynamics suitable to doing some sort of e-therapy in Second Life? What about confidentiality issues? Pseudonymity? The different set of visual cues that you receive in Second Life than you would receive from a face to face session. We talked about these as we gathered around my laptop, explored some of Second Life and talked with a resident or two.
As we chatted other folks stopped by, friends of my friends, and people that I had met online. Besides Second Life, we talked about what I hoped to get out of the conference. I admitted that I did not know. I talked about how covering the AGPA annual meeting felt a little bit like covering the Libby trial. I could write like a typical journalist, covering the keynotes the way any keynote is covered. Yet that feels to much like heard journalism to me, so I will write things from my own unique perspective. Some how, that seems especially apropos, especially for a conference like this. We also touched upon what the AGPA might be looking for in the coverage of the event. I'm not sure I have a much better answer on that either, other than to observe that it would seem they would want modalities of group psychotherapy to get more and better coverage in the media.
We talked a little bit about how bloggers, perhaps, have become just another new herd. I joked again about rereading Yalom in preparation for the conference. Afterwards, I went to dinner with one of the attendees and we had a nice chat getting to know each other a little better. Now, it is time to throw myself into the fray, balance out how much of a detached observing journalist I will be and how much I'll be an active participant. It will be interesting. Unfortunately, the hotel's WiFi is not open and free, so while I payed for it last night, I may save most of my writing for when I am back at my friends house. With the heavy schedule and the dinner this evening, that might not be for a while.
Something for everyone at the Virtual State Fair
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 07:10(Originally published at SLNN.COM)
MORRILL - Thursday, February 21st, at 9:30 a.m. SLT, the first Virtual State Fair opens in Second Life. The State Fair has been put together by the Cooperative Extension and provides an wonderful State Fair experience.
Upon entering the State Fair, there is a tent providing information about issues that the Cooperative Extension cares about, from fire arts to good parenting. Near that tent, is fair food, cheeseburgers and corn on the cob. The domestic arts building contains; pies, cake and bread with their appropriate ribbons. In the next room are colorful quilts with links to interviews with Appalachian quiltmakers.
The midway has traditional fair food such as funnel cakes, popcorn and even sushi. And of course rides: ferris wheel and bumper cars, for example. The failure of the bumper cars to turn or back up consistently mimics the experiences of any bumper car aficionado.
No fair is complete without the animal barns. The goats, cows, sheep, pigs, horses and chickens are all there. One of the things missing is the vegetables. No State Fair is complete without a giant pumpkin and rows of carefully arranged beans, peas, corn and other produce. Unfortunately, it is still hard to find good vegetables in Second Life. In addition, there wasn’t any antique farm equipment, although there are emergency vehicles standing by.
Perhaps for the next State Fair, residents will be able to bring their vegetables, antique farm equipment, animals and other exhibits.
The ribbon cutting ceremony and reception will take place Thursday at noon, SLT, followed by many great acts on the midway bandstand. These include notable Second Life performers such as Cylindrian Rutabaga, Frogg and Jaycatt, and Kim Seifert.
On Friday, there will be barrel racing, trail rides, and trivia contests, and every night will have a fireworks show at 7 p.m. SLT.
Thynka Little deserves significant credit for putting together the area.
February 20th
AGPA Pregame - Psychology and Politics
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 02/20/2008 - 10:53In a few minutes, I will hop on a train and head down to Washington, DC for the American Group Psychotherapy Association’s annual meeting. In preparation, I thought I should quickly re-read Irvin Yalom’s The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy.
In it, he starts off by delineating the therapeutic experience into eleven primary factors. He spends a bit of time talking about how this is his way of organizing these factors, and how other people may have other approaches. Yet what jumped out at me were the first few factors.
- Installation of hope
- Universality
- Imparting information
- Altruism
- and so on.
As I thought about this, I thought about my membership in a very large group, known as the U.S. population. What are the fears and anxieties that we as a large group face? How do we address these fears and anxieties? What are the group leaders doing to help us address these fears and anxieties?
It would seem as if what we need is a leader who encourages us to hope for all that is good, instead of fearing some external factors, a leader that helps us understand the universality of our condition, between fellow citizens, independent of political orientation, and between nations. Such a leader, would I believe impart important information to us, inspire us to altruism and so on. This puts the current U.S. Presidential race into a particularly interesting light.
So, this evening, I will hear Dr. Robert Michels talk about ‘Psychology and Politics’. I’m ready for that talk. So, I will depart shortly for what I hope will be a wonderful and enlightening experience. My friends on the Group Psychotherapy mailing list have certainly installed that hope in me and I look forward to the information that will be imparted, and whatever changes it may bring about in my own life.
Testing Second Inventory
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 02/20/2008 - 08:38(The following is a comment that I posted on the Second Life Forum discussion about Second Inventory)
There was a discussion about Second Inventory a while ago on the SL Educators list. I got in touch with the developer at got a copy of the the program to test. I provided feedback to him about what features need to be added or enhanced and ideas about how to do it.
There have been a few useful comments here. It does in fact use LibSL to connect you to the main SL grid. The production version does not yet have the ability to connect to other grids, such as the teen grid or any OpenSim based grids, but that is supposed to be in development.
It does not have the ability restore yet.
When you run the program, it does connect you to the main grid, so you will be disconnected from the regular viewer if you are logged in when you connect. You can still IMs while you are in the Second Inventory program.
Currently, you can only download objects one at a time. There is not a good mechanism for either full, differential or incremental backups yet.
For the data that is downloaded, you can extract the images if you have copy permissions. If you do not have copy permissions, you cannot extract the image, and even the view of the image is marred to indicate you do not have copy permissions. Likewise, you can extract tract the text of note cards and scripts.
It is now up to version 1.0.0.1 and there is plenty of development to do. However, to reject it out of hand as a fancy copybot is unreasonable and uninformed.
Why would you want it? If you've ever lost inventory in Second Life, and think that just copying to yet another location in Second Life isn't sufficient, this is a good tool. When and if it gets the ability to upload to alternative grids and when and if it gets better tools for categorizing objects that have been downloaded, it will be an important tool that any developer who has a large number of object and/or develops for multiple grids.
