Getting Around...

At the start of last week I came across an article published on Diva Canto's Blog  where she appeals to those who build on top of Open Sim to not patent their code. I learnt from the article that the core infrastructure of Open Sim is being put in jeopardy and could lead to it being strangled at birth. I was sufficiently troubled by this to write a piece on it and submit it to Chapter & Metaverse for publication.  Well, it caused quite a stir which, to put it mildly, I was too ill-informed to deal with. However, I am used to dealing with rude people so I carefully worded my response but the brunt of the attack came from someone that was only too willing to give me more information to arm myself with. In fact I was prompted to dig deeper and found out quite a bit about this person and their involvement with OpenSim, In Worldz and Open Life. I am tempted to write about it but not without more research. Anyway, see the article, Free Metaverse vs Patented Monopoly You might find the comments interesting.

 

Moving on from that, Rock (the blog owner of Chapter & Metaverse) agreed I should go off and review Role Play Worlds which was right up my street. So I set off into the hypergrid and landed at RPW which I already knew was the home of the Gor Grid. In fact I had been there a while ago. Anyway, I enjoyed that visit and got all the gen so look out for a major review from me on C&M.

I actually wrote a long piece and edited it back a lot but I did get all that needed to be said down and some great pictures. I was particularly struck by the city of Ar which, in the books of Gor, is described as the leading city of Gor and famous for it many cylindrical towers. I did dwell on it some and when I was shown pictures of the old city that this new build was replacing I actually preferred it and wish I had seen it when I first visited. The old city reminded me of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. It had suspended walkways high up in the mist spanning between the cylindrical towers and the colours were not so bright as the new build. To me it had a Steam Punk feel to it, slightly Victorian and I could imagine Tarn war birds flying over and landing on the tower perches.


I couldn't add too many old Ar pictures to the C&M article so I have put the remainder here...

 

  

  

  

 

  

 

Fritz Lang's Metropolis

RPW Gor