Long Tail 3D Mental Images

Long Tail Toroid Evolution in Second Life Simulation

I’ve been toying with Chris Anderson’s Long Tail ideas for a few months now; turning them over in my head and trying to resolve some perceived discontinuities: “cult” items, functions of Time, aso. All this in order to arrive at a more complete unified theory, I guess. I’ve even used Second Life as a way to help visualize and discuss these ideas (see above image). Last night I finally grabbed some time to model and render my latest 3D models which I collectively call the “ecoToroid” (I went 3D after seeing those “signal to noise” graphs; and especially that “Sales vs Stuff” image).

As I commented on The Long Tail blog, I’m guilty of not giving this the attention it probably deserves; especially in trying to figure out what this thing looks like in a historical context – I’ve already modified my 3D models once and I could see where they could use more thought and further modification (maybe even reverting back to something more like what I had originally). Perhaps later when I have more time. Anyway, instead of trying to explain what I’m thinking, I’m just going to post a couple of images and see what happens. Maybe these will spark ideas in someone else’s mind. Maybe not. But I figure it’s better than letting these things sit on my hard drive.

The Long Tail Curve as a Partial Section of a Time Dependent Function - Obscurity vs Distribution

Three Long Tale Sections at Distinct Points in Time

I also thought I would open up the comments on this entry. Typically I don’t allow for comments simply because the spam I get is too much bother to deal with on a blog as obscure as this one. There’s also the fact that I need to mod the code so the comment block width works on all browsers; right now you can type well outside the boundary in IE I think – sorry about that. If you want to leave a comment, I’d suggest typing it in a text editor and doing a cut ‘n paste. Hopefully in the near future I’ll fix this page so it’s a little nicer. Til then….

(edit: O-kay. Seems as if opening up one post to comments opens up the others, even though their commenting has been closed. Must be in the WordPress code but I just don’t have time to find out. Having just mass deleted about 500 spam comments, looks like it’s time to close the door for a bit. Oh well.)

(above images Copyright © C. Sven Johnson/reBang)

Our Twenty Year Mood Swing

Interesting entry over on O’Reilly Radar concerning the Supernova 2005 presentation given by Linda Stone. If you’re in the Industrial Design field or familiar with Ms Stone’s background at Microsoft’s Virtual Worlds/Social Computing Group, this may be of interest to you.

The only thing I wonder is if the cycle she describes moves like a wave – with “early adopters” at the leading edge, aso. This might explain what I perceived as a subtle but significant ripple in the social fabric caused by the cinematic release of “Fight Club” in 1999. Seems to me that the movie – and the book on which it was based – might have qualified as early indicators. Guess I have some reading and research to do especially since I see a potential tie-in to some thoughts I’ve had in another area.

Ministries of VideoChina

BBC News online has an informative article on the amazing growth of online gaming in China. Interesting to note the government’s involvement: three separate ministries oversee the videogame industry. Of course there was no mention of virtual worlds. So maybe they could see fit to add another “ministry” – if just to help this poor virtual world resident posting on one official forum:

I Always Play Slingo, I Seen 10k Pot In Xxlodge Club, And Last Night Always From 3k-10k Changing The Pot, I Think The Players Are Mad, But To A Pity , I Was So Bad Luck Played All Night Didn’t Win Any , When I Near Ly Win I Met Devils,
So I Think, We Need Make A Script To Keep Us From Devils

I’ll update this when a “Soul-Saving Script” turns up in the virtual marketplace. Any day now…

Will The Real Virtual Eve Please Stand Up

Virtual Eve and someone else... I think

For the past few days I’ve been noticing a continuing stream of visitors coming from search engines throughout the world – though mostly Europe. They all have one thing in common: they keep landing on this post in my blog because they’re entering “virtual+eve” in a search engine query. At first I thought maybe there was some researcher(s) out there using the net to gather information. A few moments ago I noticed even more visitors so I figured something else was up. And here it is from the second most popular search engine return:

What is Virtual EVE? Is it a video game? “Not exactly,” says Mr. Sexton. “It doesn’t fit within the tradition goal-oriented framework of what we define as a ‘video game’. There isn’t a specific goal you need to accomplish; it’s something you experience. So in that respect, it’s not a game, but it’s not just another static porn movie either. It’s more of a real-time sex simulator. It features completely real-time 3D graphics which allows for a more interactive, immersive experience. You choose the sexual position, you navigate the environment with a free-roaming camera, and you direct the on-screen action.”

That’s from a press release dated 20 June 2005, so it looks as if someone has recently figured out there’s money to be made from selling… who would have thought… s e x. But I have to wonder if the people behind this “game” even know about sims like Second Life or There (the latter of which I’ve heard is nothing but Socializing). And heck, for half that one-time price people could get a world full of Eves… and Liliths and whatever else strikes their fancy (be sure to say Csven Concord recommended you should you register for Second Life. Thanks.). But if this simulation strikes your fancy, google away.

(Above image is Copyright © 2005 Eve Interactive. And btw, sorry for the excess pixelation. Who knew hiding naughty bits could be so much fun?)

Trimersion For 3001 AD

wrl/x3d of Trimersion googles

Via Blue’s News and Game infowire comes news of a low cost VR headset from Kopin Corporation that will be incorporated into gaming developer 3001 AD‘s Trimersion virtual reality system. The post notes that this will be the first time VR-style gaming will be available for XBox, PlayStation and PC gamers. That claim sounds a little overstated (perhaps they mean they support all three platforms), but still interesting news. From the Game infowire entry:

Trimersion brings full immersion and 360-degree head tracking to home gaming, and is the only system to deliver high-quality, cross-platform virtual reality for this market. The Kopin BDM-230K, a complete binocular video subsystem, delivers crisp, full-color, QVGA-quality (320 x 240 resolution) video with a virtual image equivalent to a 35-inch display viewed from a seven-foot distance.