Happy Mother's Day
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 05/11/2008 - 08:39But I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time
And I'm wasted and I can't find my way home.
I’ve always loved those lyrics, but I must admit that I don’t remember ever being so wasted that I couldn’t find my way home. Yet that image of not finding ones way home remains with me. It sometimes shows up in my dreams.
The setting was some sort of mashup of Brooklyn, where I lived when I first got out of college and some aspects of a science fictional Japan. I wander past shops, try to find a subway line that goes the right way, follow avenues and look up streets, but everything seems to take me east instead of north.
This dream recurred the other night in a sleep made light by a crick in the neck. I woke up grumpy from lack of sleep and pondering what this means.
I’ve been receiving more emails about the old house. It sounds like the foreclosure is pretty much complete. We’ve moved to a nice small house that we are renting, and the kids have been spared most of the trauma of the move and foreclosure, yet I suspect that this may have fed into my dream. The house that had been my home for fifteen years is now no longer mine.
Yet it is also Mother’s Day, which is another aspect of what makes a house a home. Memory laden objects have been brought from the old house to the new house and Kim has done a great job in turning this house into a home.
So, perhaps there is something more to this effort to find my way home. Does it have to do with my work? My career? My writing?
Yesterday morning, a wood thrush hopped around on the old mountain laurel bush outside my office. On a branch above the wind chimes, he sang his song for me. I thought of Willie in Willie was Different, a children’s book by Norman Rockwell. I grew up not far from where Rockwell painted and his paintings always evoke some sense of home for me. My mother got us a copy of the book Willie was Different which I’ve read to my children.
Is this wood thrush pointing me the way home? Is the way home paved with blog posts, chapters for books and other writings? I don’t know.
But I do know that the heart and hearth of a home is kindled by a mother. So, to Kim, to my mother, to Kim’s mother in heaven, to all the work at home, stay at home, crazy moms, Happy Mother’s Day. May you, and your loved ones find your way home.
An idiot's guide to OpenSim
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 05/11/2008 - 07:33Over on the Second Life educators mailing list, a member asked for an 'Idiot's Guide to Second Life'. I wrote a reply there, which seemed like it might be a useful post here as well.
OpenSim is a project to create software so that others can create their own servers that run similar to Linden Lab's Second Life servers.
Typically, people running OpenSim set up a grid, similar to the Main Grid, the Teen Grid or the Beta Grids that Linden Lab runs.
Some example grids like this are:
Central Grid has about 20 regions and about 1,400 active members. They are focusing hard on the business community.
OpenLife has nearly 200 regions and a population of over 20,000. They support the RealXtend viewer.
OSGrid claims 240 Regions and 2400 active users. They are running as a non-profit.
When you use a Second Life client, you can specify a parameter to get your client to connect to one of these other grids. (e.g.
"C:\Program Files\SecondLife\SecondLife.exe" -multiple -loginuri http://osgrid.org:8002 )
If you have a reason to, you could create your own Grid that you control, e.g.
Orient Lodge Grid
In the old days of MOOs, this was a common thing. People would set up their own MOOs for their universities, or any other place they wanted. I ran LogMoo, which is actually still sitting around in mothballs. When I get a better Internet Connection, I may bring back LogMoo and perhaps setup LogGrid.
As a general rule, there is essentially no connectivity between grids. Just as it is at best very difficult to move stuff from TeenGrid to the MainGrid, etc., it is very difficult to move stuff to the any of the OpenSim based grids.
There are a few interesting exceptions.
SecondInventory now supports OpenSim. What this means in theory as that you can create something on one grid, say the Main Grid, or an OpenSim grid, and then restore it to other grids. I've had limited success with that, that it looks very promising.
For communications between grids, there has been some work done on using IRC channels so that a space in the main grid could listen and/or talk on an IRC channel and a space in an OpenSim grid could listen and/or talk on the same IRC channel. I've heard this discussed, but I don't know anyone who has done this in practice. I think this fits in nicely with the talk about Twitter as well.
The folks at Central Grid have been working hard to get currency working in OpenSim, including working with a company to do intergrid currency exchange. I believe it is still in development, and it raises a lot of issues. Most notably, some of the folks behind Central Grid have been accused of being scammers on the Second Life main grid and people have expressed skepticism about financial transactions on any OpenSim grid.
It is also possible to run a portion of OpenSim so that you run just a region and that region becomes part of another groups grid. Some of the OpenSim grids discussed above have been exploring allowing remote regions to be part of their grid. I'm not sure how well that has worked yet. You can also run a region without it being part of a grid. I've done that from my laptop when I wanted to have a small Second Life environment that I could bring with me.
As a final note, Open Sim is still in early development. Unless you are pretty geeky and like playing things that might break even more frequently than the Linden Lab Main Grid, you might want to leave Open Sim to others. I'm a hard core geek, so I love OpenSim.
Okay. Perhaps that was a little bit longer and geekier than a true idiots guide to Open Sim, but I hope it is helpful.
EntreCard, Technorati and RSS feeds
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 05/10/2008 - 19:00Pinay Mommy Online is looking to build out a 100 EntreCard drop list. It looks like an interesting project to build links back to her blog, as well as provide links to other blogs and find a set of blogs worth reading and dropping EntreCards on.
She says that what she is specifically looking for is “mommy bloggers, digital scrappers, money making blogs and blogs that talks about page rank and SEO”. While I read a fair amount of mommy blogs, I’m a daddy blogger. I do talk about page rank, SEO, and even making money from time to time, but I suspect I may not be her target demographic.
Nonetheless, I’m going to highlight her project, and if she, or any of her readers chose to read me regularly, that would be nice. Random Thoughts expands on this and talks about the three criteria to make this successful, an EntreCard account, a Technorati account and an RSS feed.
The idea is that you should drop cards on people’s EntreCard accounts, add them as a Technorati favorite and then subscribe to their RSS feed with your favorite feed reader.
So, my EntreCard account is here. If you use EntreCard, please drop a card on my widget on the right, add me to your favorites and if you’re interested, set up an advertisement. I generally approve most advertisements, but if the ad wouldn’t look good on my site, I might end up not approving it.
My Technorati account can be found here. It points to Orient Lodge, Twitter and a few other sites that I have. Adding me as a favorite on Technorati would be greatly appreciated.
For my RSS feed, the best feed to use is probably this. Adding it to any feed reader you have would also be greatly appreciated.
I will check out various blog that are participating, drop some cards, add some favorites, and perhaps even get into some interesting discussions.
I know that some people don’t like that I use Drupal here for my blog, which has a completely separate comment system from the big ones, and you have to register here. Yet, registering and adding a comment would be appreciated, or sending me a note at aldon dot hynes at orient dash lodge dot com would also nice.
Finally, if you join, add a link back to my blog, as well as to Pinay Mommy Online and Random Thoughts. I hope a bunch of EntreCarders participate.
Update:
Here is a list of participants:
=====================
PEXLINKS TRIPLE LOVE PARTICIPANTS
=====================
Pregnant Alpacas
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 05/10/2008 - 15:54Baby alpacas are expected at Alpaca Hill Farm in Seymour, CT in a couple of weeks.
Alpaca Hill Farm has a small shop on their farm which we stopped at just before Christmas last year. We had a great discussion with the owners and they mentioned that they had some alpacas that were do sometime in the spring and we might want to stop by in May to see some baby alpacas.
Well, as Fiona and I were out doing errands today, we drove past the farm, and I thought, let’s stop by, see if anyone is there, and if so, if there are any new alpacas. It was a beautiful spring day, and Eileen Warner was sitting on the deck. She told us that the alpacas are due in about two weeks, so they are planning on having an open house, hopefully sometime around mid June.
As we were chatting, Tom Warner showed up with three recently shorn male alpacas in his trailer. It is striking how small a newly shorn alpaca looks. Tom and Eileen led them into the field as Fiona and I watched and patted the herd dog. The new alpacas got to know their new surroundings as they glanced warily at the dog, curiously at the ducks, and even more curiously at the alpacas they will be living with.
We look forward to a chance to see some baby alpacas in the next month or two.
Gary Hart Speaks in Hartford
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 17:40Former U.S. Senator, Former Presidential Candidate and Author Gary Hart addressed a group of lawyers, legislators, candidates and activists this afternoon at the offices of Shipman and Goodwin in downtown Hartford this afternoon. Prior to Sen. Hart’s presentation, people gathered, shared sandwiches and discussions about the legislative session that has just ended. Folks more often seen wearing T-Shirts supporting one candidate or another put on their suits to join the discussion.
The event was sponsored by The Connecticut Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society and the Council for a Livable World.
Sen. Hart started off by acknowledging that the priorities for a new administration would be a long and complex agenda, and he chose to focus on two key themes, security and the restoration of constitutional government in our county. The next president should start off his or her administration with a televised speech to the nation about the importance of our constitution and the checks and balances it is supposed to afford us. The next president should talk about why an independent judiciary is so important and about the dangers of the unitary executive theory that has been espoused by members of the current administration.
