Super Powers iRL

Often I wish I could do some of the things in Real Life (iRL) that I can in Second Life (iSL). Speaking is the obvious example. Main chat mimics speaking publicly while Instant Messages are like telephone calls. I'm sure that there are more than a few people wheelchair-bound iRL that enjoy the illusion of walking or running iSL. But living in Bay City for a little while now and working to conform to its relatively close adherence to a Real World appearance have made me wonder about running, jumping, and flying iSL.

Running. I sure as heck can run faster in Real Life than I can in Second Life and with a greater variety of styles. One of my alts, however, has a "dash" attachment (here are a few) that teleports her in such a fashion as to make her appear that she runs with blurring speed, a trail of dust following her. Wouldn't that be cool iRL? And iSL I don't have to put on a heavy-duty bra to keep my center of gravity from going all over the place and slowing me down (or making me ache a lot after a long run ... I hated doing laps in High School gym class).

Jumping. Apparently my avatar can jump, unassisted and with incredible consistency, some eight meters. That's a bit farther than the best Real Life women's long jumpers have done (see here). Pretty impressive. Then when I strap on an Abranimations Jump Enhancer, look out!

Flying. Do I really have to mention flying? If I correctly recall stories I've heard, both flying and teleporting were accidental features in the early days of Second Life, but where would we be without them today? And what would Real Life be like if everyone could fly as they can in Second Life. Even without flight enhancers for speed or altitude, I'd love to be able to fly iRL. Imagine being able to nip off to the corner market or out for a burger without having to get the car out of the garage, drive to the location, park .... you get the idea. If flying were commonplace, then Disney World would have to invent ways to make a human's ability to fly into an amusement ride.

Am I missing any super powers? Camming great distances. Terraforming. An infinitely deep storage closet. Creating plywood out of thin air. Lifting whole buildings with a flick of the wrist. Someone far more clever than me needs to write a novel about this sort of thing, really.

Up and Out

Got the computer running after a dead spell but she's being taken in for service anyway. Warranty is up next month and the hard drive or the controller is going bad. Click Click Click upon waking up or booting and I get a question-mark-on-a-folder icon. I'll probably be iRL for a week. Gonna see if someone will buy me an iPod Touch so I can at least have e-mail. Huggs. Back ASAP.

The Zen of In-World Vocabulary

Kneeling to enjoy the sunset at Samurai Edo (SLurl) I let my mind wander and it alights upon a recurring thought ... where am I? Many in Second Life^® refer to being to being logged into the service as being online. I prefer to call it being in-world. When I am in-world I am in a different place very much like where I am physically, yet intensely different in so many ways. This is not being online. This is not a chat room or a Twitter conversation or a downloaded podcast. Being in-world is an experience. The waves wash ashore at my knees, dampening the remains of an abandoned boat. Part of me is sitting in a reasonably comfortable chair behind a plastic table that holds my iMac iRL. Most of me is on this beach. I'm in-world.

iRL? That is in Real Life. The physical world. Meatspace. Most people use all capital letters, but I like the unique elegance of a lowercase i followed by capitalized RL. It probably doesn't matter. But nomenclature in part defines one's being, whether it is iRL or in-world.

In-world, I am (today, at least) a katana-weilding, blue-skinned explorer with a few super-human abilities, resting on a Japanese beach. iRL, I am an unembellished, anthropophobic girl with a computer somewhere in the Pinetree State.

In-world is nice.