An open letter to Philip Rosedale

 (For others, Philip Rosedale was the creator of Second Life, and recently returned to Linden Labs as an Advisor.)

Dear Mr Rosedale,

Look at me, getting all formal and old-school...

Just read an article/interview with you from Axios on Nov 29, 2021.  Quoting from the Article, "Of the metaverse, he says: “I think what we've learned — and somewhat with some sadness, given the work that I've done, I would have to agree — is that it's not for everybody, and maybe it's never for everybody.”

 You may be right.  Then again, almost nothing is for everybody.

 I will offer a perspective for you, that it is for a lot of people who may not even know it (still) exists.  Autistic people like me.

ASD folks have trouble in particular with face-to-face interactions. No actual face-to-face in SL.

ASD folks don't make eye contact much. No eye contact in SL, at least not person to person, avatar to avatar isn't much trouble at all. And no one knows if you don't make eye contact, or stare, which can also be an ASD "thing" for some.

ASD folks are often non-verbal. Some, sometimes, can manage a bit of typing.  SL again.

ASD folk don't do well in crowds. Haven't noticed as much problem with virtual crowds. A little, but not near as much.

Sensory issues are at the core of much of ASD. SL does stimulate the senses, but not as much as RL for sure.

And some stuff I just flat can't do -- drive a car, fly a plane, drive a boat or a submarine or a spacecraft, or even swim -- I can do in SL.  Those aren't purely ASD issues, and neither I suppose are the others.  Might want to talk to author Nathan Lowell about that, he spent some years working on exactly that.  (Sorry if I'm being presumptuous, Nate.)

So maybe it isn't an issue of "not for everybody," but rather of not reaching out to everybody who might find it enjoyable, healthful and liberating?

Seems like everyone who's created an online social-network-ish thing has had it turn out to be something other than they'd planned.  Why would yours be different?

Something for you to consider, I'd think.

Thanks for your time.

Griz

That back-again bump

As with so many events in my life...

I have repeatedly intended  to do another podcast, to restart the process of Being A Podcaster.

Facing a stack of obstacles.  I've always been an audio-only podcaster, and now I don't have my Libsyn setup.  My only recording environment is my lil bedroom with the computer and whatnot (always been that way), and this time of year, daytime is too noisy with the traffic out front, and nighttime is too hot and stuffy unless I run the fan, which of course makes fan  noises.

It's somewhat "Best is enemy of Good," don't feel comfortable producing a merely adequate podcast, don't feel comfortable doing a terrible-looking video, but don't have the video skills and don't have the audio studio space I'd like.

I know about the closet-full-of-clothes trick.  Must be nice to have a closet.

So I'm hangin' fire here.

FOLLOWUP:

 Wanted to see if this still works the way I think it works...

 

Theodore Roosevelt's column, "Citizens or Subjects" from the KC Star, April 6, 1918 -- My live reading on my Grizzly's Growls podcast.  

I found my podcast again... sort of...

 Just got an email from YouTube indicating folks "watched" 2627 minutes of my so-called videos on YouTube last month.  My Libsyn setup had a thing that posted my audio podcasts as "videos," basically combining the audio with an extended still shot of the cover art.

So my podcast is still sort of out there, and people are still sort of listening.  

Now I wonder if I want to try producing stuff directly for YouTube.  Don't have to pay for it, and there's a very large potential audience there.  Assuming I have anything interesting to offer.  Last project I was on and never finished was the Federalist Papers.  I was up to 17 out of 75, as I recall.  Kinda dry stuff, much of it, but it's still important.

Then there's another project I could do.

I noticed something the other day, and I can't say this is still true.  Back when I was in school, we knew Thomas Payne was an important pamphleteer before and during the revolutionary war.  And we all knew he'd written an important pamphlet called "Common Sense."

But we never read it.

Don't know that many have.  So I read it, and it's interesting what he considered common sense.  I suspect that's why they didn't have us read it in High School -- because he didn't particularly approve of stuff we do as a matter of course now.  

 

So now I have a three volume collection of the works of Thomas Payne.  Question is whether I'm interesting enough to sustain that.  Or all that interesting so far.  And would it make sense to redo the old Federalist episodes?  Or my other projects?

I'm not particularly pretty enough for video...

Griz

 

Oh, well...

 Just completely lost my Libsyn site, so Grizzlysgrowls.com now points to the blog here.  At least Blogger is still free, and the domain is paid for for another three years.  So, now I'm not a podcaster anymore, just another blogger.

Got laid off from my job early in the whole stay-at-home thing with the pandemic.  Laid off hell, basically just fired. The Texas company that had bought the local company I worked for, packed up their carpet bags and headed back to Texas.  That's happened to me twice now.

Doesn't appear to be much work here anymore. Maybe none for an older fella like me. I do have Social Security, but that's enough for nothing-in-particular, about half what I made when I had my last job.  And now I can't even say I'm a podcaster.

I want to be working.  I keep reading about how there's so much demand for workers. And I look, and I'm not seeing the demand, without a college degree.

I do have a Diploma for Media Studies and Production, which'd seem to show I'd be qualified for some radio station. Except of course the radio stations aren't looking, best I can tell.  Really aren't "local" radio stations anymore, all corporate owned, and they don't use people, they use recordings and computers.

Most of my life I've been able to (1) get a job through a Temp agency, (2) have the employer decide to keep me for the full 90 days, then (3) get asked to stay "permanently."  That's how I got the job from which I was discarded after seven years.

I'm a fair writer, I think, though not brilliant. Only talent I have realistically is sounding pretty in front of a microphone.

Now I can't do that.

That's all I got.