If you're among the 15% of New World Notes readers attending the real world community convention blow-out this weekend, consider this open forum post like a super-charged Twitter (i.e., no 250 character limit): tell us what you're doing now, what... SLHamlet Open Forum

Online Surveys & Market Research Company land manager Jack Linden has announced a continent-wide ban on "unlicensed network advertising", more commonly known as Ad Farms. ("We are specifically referring to the practice of using many parcels over multiple regions, especially... SLHamlet Social Structures, Social Upheaval

Running concurrently with SLCC 2008, the Second Life Education Community Conference has a truly diverse and impressive line-up of presentations covering a gamut of topics on teaching in the metaverse-- check the schedule here. If you're among the 85% of... SLHamlet Education in SL SL blogger link

Tymmerie Thorne has three questions for you, and in a way, they're not unlike the kind you ask yourself, when you're looking back on the formative years of your first life: What the best SL advice you ever received? What... SLHamlet SL blogger link

I finally had a chance to try out Vollee's Second Life-for-mobile viewer yesterday, because as it happened, the CEO of the company was on my Virtual Worlds LA conference panel. Before the talk he let me tool around with his... SLHamlet Open Source/Reverse Engineer

Exclusive to NWN, Iris Ophelia's ongoing showcase of all things stylish in SL Hair Fair is sponsored by Rezzable (the amazing development group responsible for Greenies and Black Swan, and a partner of NWN), who provided four sprawling sims of... Iris Ophelia Iris Ophelia's Gaze SL Fashion

Charlanna Beresford’s weekly round-up of upcoming SL events… Surf’s up in Second Life! If you’ve been thinking about trying to surf in SL, there are fantastic ongoing opportunities to learn to surf. There are surfing weekly lessons on Saturdays at... Lanna Events

Since I'm at a Virtual Worlds Expo in Los Angeles and the conference has a decided Hollywood skew, I thought Ms. Rocket's "Miss Dynamite" was a perfect Tableau for today. I discovered the image on her Koinup profile, but in... SLHamlet New World Tableau

I'm a fan of Juicybomb, an SL fashion blog with an endless stream of sexy, luminously hyperreal photos. Now one of its lead photographers, Gorgeous Yongho, shows how she takes Second Life's default lighting (depicted above left) and with some... SLHamlet SL Fashion

When I last spoke with Orhalla Zander, the SL Hobo king who starred in a Cinemax movie, he mentioned finding "an island to live on all to ourselves… We put a flag up with the symbol of a circle with... SLHamlet SL Builds - Spaces

Here's an excellent new feature from NWN partner Koinup, the MMO social network-- a Second Life Places directory, an aggregation of SL screenshots uploaded to Koinup with a SLURL attached. These are then listed along three categories, the most important,... SLHamlet NWN Partner News and Announcements Web Resource

After a long interim, there's a new episode to Chloe Streeter's Kyūketsuki, a blog that's the story of a cyberpunk samurai vampire assassin in words and Second Life screenshots. How long an interim? The last episode was in April, and... SLHamlet

Here's an elegantly designed portal of metaverse news created by Kate Amdhal, the winged avatar who's savvy with RSS. Drawing from a copious list of Second Life blogs, Second Links displays the blogs with newest content up top; you can... SLHamlet Web Resource

Online Surveys & Market Research Many eyes now turn to Tampa, Florida, where some 800 Residents will attend this week's 2008 Second Life Community Convention. Unfortunately I won't be able to attend (the cost and logistics got too overwhelming), but... SLHamlet Survey

The shadows of Second Life refuse to remain hidden, for the community's most talented hackers insist on bringing them out. What you're looking at is Kean Kelly standing in the shade created by the latest version of Shadowdraft, an open... SLHamlet Open Source/Reverse Engineer

This is an unprecedented day. On August 24, peak concurrency reached a world record 67,335. About a half ago, however, that record was far surpassed, because the maximum reached 68,593 online-- 1258 more. Before the Summer plateau phase, concurrency was... SLHamlet

Scott "Lum the Mad" Jennings is one of the most respected analysts and developers of traditional fantasy MMORPGs-- on that subject, in point of fact, he quite literally wrote the book-- so when he recently told me for GigaOM that... SLHamlet Gaming the System Mixed Reality Mondays Mixed Reality Profile

Back in May, I wrote about an innovative Loyalist College program that used Second Life to teach students preparing to train with the Canadian Border Services Agency. The college's Virtual World Design Centre created a simulation of the US/Canadian border... SLHamlet Education in SL Mixed Reality Mondays Read World in SL

- How Second Life resembles Japan's Edo era-- a groundbreaking essay from two prestigious academics. - She sells Cthulu hairstyles at the hair store-- and helps kids undergoing chemo. - Has "Avatar Rendering Cost" created a social mechanism for avatar-based... SLHamlet Weekly Recap

Arse Elektronika 2008 is fast approaching! This year, Monochrom's conference on sex and technology focuses on Critical Perspectives on Sexuality and Pornography in Science and Social Fiction. The conference takes place at CellSpace in San Francisco, September 25-28.

The organizers have published a full schedule of the 3 day conference, plus the 2007 Anthology and Prixxx Arse Toy Innovation Award Party. Prices are as follows:

• Opening night ticket + free drink: US$ 8
• All 3 day conference pass (including opening night ticket): US$ 40
• Single day conference ticket: US$ 20