#jackalgirl rambles

Two things I’m currently messing around with: Lamina1 and NeosVR.

Lamina1

It’s a blockchain system (currently running on Proof of Stake); Neal Stephenson is involved in it, which is what initially caught my attention. I’m intrigued by the idea of blockchain -- in particular, the idea of a digital memory/history that is decentralized, where identity can be verified (well, an encrypted identity) but not necessarily linked to a physical person (unless that person so chooses).  I know it can be misused, but at the same time, I feel like there are some powerful opportunities here, such as to unlink other people’s perceptions of your person-consciousness from their perception of, say, (US) federally-protected categories for equal opportunity.  I feel as if the decentralized way that the data is maintained has some potential, also, for linking an identity to their work, and freeing up a creator from having to be reliant on a central authority to maintain access to their work.  Although the community seems to have its fair share of get-rich-quick bros, there are a lot of people there who seem to be dedicated to the idea of creativity, and the protection of creatives (such as by creating blockchain contracts which irrevocably reward the author/artist with royalties), which is a good thing in my mind.

I’d love to see the community develop something I’m calling “Proof of Effort” -- that is, creators being granted a stake in the system for the actual physical labor they put into the work.  There is a story in the making of things, and I think that telling that story should be celebrated and rewarded when possible. 

The Lamina1 testnet is currently active - nothing real is happening, but we’re just testing the interfaces and functionality in phases.  If you’re interested, here is an invite link to “Crew3″, which is the group of people following ‘quests’ (basically, tasks that step you through learning how to use the system), and also should get you into the Discord: https://crew3.xyz/c/lamina1/invite/Ph5vAT1Vci7rqD0W3fwYv -- absolutely no pressure here, as I know that blockchain is not everyone’s cup of tea, and I completely get it.

Virtual Reality

I am dipping my toes into this as well; in particular, I’m using a system called NeosVR.  Of all of the social VR “metaverses”, this one seems to have the most power in terms of the coding that users can do -- it seems to be pretty dang sophisticated, if that’s the kind of thing you’re into (and it’s also interesting enough, I think, even if you’re not).  I made an avatar of Aethelflaed in ReadyPlayerMe and imported it into Neos, and that went well...except that for whatever reason, the default avatars that RPM makes do not have the setup that enables your avatar to do stuff like blink, or have their mouth move when you speak (Neos automatically tries to match mouth shape to the sounds you are making, and I think it does a good job, for me at least).  So I had to figure out how to get it to export the avatar with those things.  Then I learned how to set up OBS (an open-source recording/streaming application) so that it could be controlled by Neos.  Done...but I don’t know how to use OBS, so my grand idea for recording a little video of Aethel talking to you in my voice is going to have to wait.