Another Icky Situation With Google Handing Over Private Info

I don’t really feel informed enough about the situation to say anything too useful. But suffice to say, it ain’t too cool, and I’m concerned.
I’ve already expressed my concerns in a song a few years ago [lyrics]. Same company, different country, and in many ways, same shit, different day. This is becoming the rule, and not the exception, for technology companies, nowadays.
What do we do when using technology to support over zealous government authorities is just “good business?”
What do we do when it’s a company like Google. Who, arguably, none of us could live without?
(Hey, I’m just speaking for myself.)
I don’t have any answers. Sorry. Just concerns.

Maybe a little evil: Google outs Indian man to authorities
By Jacqui Cheng, for Ars Technica.

An Indian man was arrested over the weekend for allegedly posting derogatory and vulgar content about Indian politician Sonia Gandhi on Google’s social networking site, Orkut. 22-year-old Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid had posted his comments in an Orkut community called “I hate Sonia Gandhi” through an Orkut account associated with his Gmail account. With Google’s help, local authorities were able to verify Vaid’s identity and make the arrest…
Google admitted today that it had forked over Vaid’s information after it was requested by Indian law enforcement. A spokesperson for Google told IDG News Service that, while the company is committed to protecting user privacy, it must obey local laws and legal processes.

Continue reading →

A-Z Index of My Songs

Hey sorry this took so long to pull together. I’ve had complaints from people who actually took the time to go to my music site, to try to find a song they liked, to no avail. Doh!
So here it is, a little A-Z Index — of all my published songs to date, that I know about — and it will just live on the lisarein.com homepage from now on.
Hope to see you at the show tomorrow night 🙂
lisa

I’m In The Second Life Musician Showcase: Rock-it Room, San Francisco/Second Life May 14th!

Where: Rock It Room

http://www.rock-it-room.com/

406 Clement St.
San Francisco, CA 94118

When: Wednesday, May 14th 7:30pm

Cover: $5

Streaming url:

http://66.186.45.114:8022

Blue Fusion Lake House slurl: SLURL


I hope you’ll join me in Real Life in San Francisco, and in Second Life or via webstream from anywhere in the world, as I perform at 9pm SLT/PST time on May 14, 2008.

I’m just a little part of a huge Second Life showcase featuring SL star Keiko Takamura and 5 other artists — but I get a full half hour set.

Here’s a link to my music, if you’re unfamiliar with my recent stuff:

http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/my_music_live_video/

The complete line up (all times are SLT/PST):

7:30 – BabbleGrabble Swindlehurst

http://babblegrabble.com

8:00 – Pato Milo

http://www.myspace.com/patomilo

8:30 – Jacopo de Nicola

http://www.myspace.com/jacopodenicola

9:00 – Haley Bailey (aka Lisa Rein)
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/my_music_live_video/

9:30 – Melanie Keller

http://www.myspace.com/melaniekeller

10:00 – Keiko Takamura
featuring ZeroOne Paz on percussion

http://www.myspace.com/keikotakamura

They have free Wifi at Rocket Room too, so, even if you have to work, you can bring your laptops and geek out at the show!

Hope to see you there!

JueL Resistance At Wishfest Sunday Night – 7pm SLT

Who: JueL Resistance

When: Sunday, April 13, 2008 – 7pm

Where: Wishfest 1.0 – Solaris II – Second Life

JueL Resistance’s MySpace Page

JueL on ‘thesixtyone’

As one of the first indie musicians to join and perform in Second Life, she has built a strong presence in the virtual world. A world where she is also known for her visual art work; her paintings, drawings and photography are displayed in various galleries throughout Second Life.

JueL also owns and performs at the infamous “Living Room #13” where she has headlined and hosted Naked Acoustic Sessions for almost 2 years, bringing in only the finest seasoned and raw musicians of SL.

JueL is currently working on her latest CD while preparing for her 2nd adventure to Mahoneyfest in Georgia. Her latest work in progress is a compilation of both recent and past experiences blended soulfully into a deep groove of blues, americana, folk and “unplugged acoustics”.

We’re very excited that JueL will be coming by to play Wishfest Sunday night!

Nick Noir will be going on right after her, at 8pm.

See you there!

Machinima and Audio files of Cylindrian Rutabega’s Performance at Wishfest 1.0

Come play at
Wishfest 1.0
!

Last night’s Wishfest 1.0 show started off our festival with a big bang. About 24 people showed up — that’s actually a lot for an SL event! As you can see from the movies, it was really hoppin!

Here’s my favorite of Cylindrian’s songs, “Sweet Alice.”

I’ve made it available both as a big 54 MB and a smaller 20 MB file.

I’ve also made an audio file available as an MP3 (6 MB) and a higher fidelity wav file.

There’s also a lengthier movie (19 MB) of the same song that includes some pre-song conversation with the crowd, and clip of another song (64 MB), that I’m sure Cylindrian will soon tell me the rightful name of 🙂

Photo below links to LARGE version (54 MB)

Wishfest 1.0: Call For Artists, Poets, Performance Artists

Here’s another of my favorite’s from the Feather’s Boa installation. Bryn Oh and Georg Janick, two other Node Zero Gallery artists, will also be setting up some of their incredible creations soon.

The next acts that I know about at this time (because, of course, it is a Flash Festival – and if things are successful, there should be people on stage springint up at any time), is

Sunday night, April 13, at 7pm SLT,

when JueL Resistance (More on her in a bit…) will be doing a set, and Nick Noir is coming on right after her at 8pm.

You should go on next! Drop me a line: Haley Bailey in-world or lisa@wishfarmers.com so I can add you to the roster and the “Wishfest Performers” group.

Anyone can join the “Wishfest 1.0” group to be notified when people are going on.

Me admiring Feathers Boa’s Robot Friend

Last night’s show with Cylindrian Rutabega provided an awesome launch for Wishfest 1.0 (link is a SLURL to Solaris II).

It would be great for you to go there and check out the space to truly appreciate it. And I, of course, want you to appreciate it, so you’ll set up a space there, or perform there in some capacity.

Cylindrian brought up spoken word poetry last night, and reminded me that I hadn’t really made it clear that Poets are welcome too 🙂

Last night’s show with Cylindrian Rutabega provided an awesome launch for Wishfest 1.0 (link is a SLURL to Solaris II).

It would be great for you to go there and check out the space to truly appreciate it. And I, of course, want you to appreciate it, so you’ll set up a space there, or perform there in some capacity.

Cylindrian brought up spoken word poetry last night, and reminded me that I hadn’t really made it clear that Poets are welcome too 🙂

Wishfest 1.0 – A Flash Festival Inside A Giant Art Installation in Second Life – Courtesy of Somatika Xiao

I just had a great phone conversation with Cylindrian Rutabega, who is playing at Wishfest tonight at 7pm.
She’s been hanging out on Solaris II for two days, just wandering around and enjoying the SIM.

The beauty is that Solaris II is none other than the latest work of artist Somatika Xiao (a.k.a. David Stumbaugh).

Somatika is the artist who collaborated with Spot Draves on the Sheep Vortex exhibit at Node Zero Gallery last month.

So here’s how it started. Wishfarmer Gary Bukowski, Somatika, and I came up with the idea a couple weekends ago of something called a “Flash Festival.” Similar to the Flash Mobs of Real Life, combined with the old school charm of a Full Moon Rave.

For those of you who don’t remember such events of lore, Full Moon Raves were wonderful free dance/art/music festivals that happened in the early 90’s, where you went to the first location just to pick up a map to the second location, which was usually on the beach or in a park somewhere, all tucked away, and usually on private land with the owner’s blessing, where you were generally safe and sound.
These events were free, equipped with lots of water and oranges and things, and often came with a free pancake breakfast in the morning, often while you and everyone watched the sun come up together.
We’re trying to capture a little of that magic, while also expanding upon it a bit to include dancers, artists, and performers of all kinds. The sky’s the limit, if you have a live act, or even a finished work, that you’d like to stream to a large number of people from all over the world.
So again, a “Flash Festival” is kind of ad hoc DIY combination of music, dance, film and art festivals all rolled up into one — and for as long as it lasts!
We’ve also decided to let the artists run wild, where the question we’re trying to answer is: “What if we made a big art installation, with a main floor, three stages, and also an underground cavernous area (The Rabbit Hole), where anyone could stake out a little area and set up a display. (I hope it goes without saying that object spam will be removed 🙂
Node Zero Gallery artist Feathers Boa has already set up an little installation in the Rabbit Hole. Your art installation could be next 🙂
Feathers Boa’s Art Installation on Solaris II (in the Rabbit Hole)

Then what if we took it a step further, and set up each stage with its own media url, and each with its own set of video screens, and wrote some code to enable anyone that belonged to our “Wishfest Performers” group to jump on stage, load in their stream, and just start playing.
If all your friends sign up for the “Wishfest 1.0” group – you can send a notice to them to let them know you’re onstage and playing (or in advance to let them know when you will be going on.
Yes film makers, djs, and video artists, you can invite some friends and load in your pre-existing video/media streams, if you wish. It will work fine! Have a party – Throw a Rave! This island should be able to hold a lot of people. We made it sturdy with lots of Wishfarmer love.
So teleport to Wishfest on Solaris II and decide for yourself how your art/music/films/dance/performanceart/dj mixes etc. etc. etc. can work into the linearly twisted beauty of this SIM, courtesy of Somatika Xiao.
If anyone has any questions, or tech issues, comments or ANYTHING – IM Haley Bailey in world or email Haley Bailey/Lisa Rein at lisa@wishfarmers.com.

Video From Last Week’s U.S. Congressional Hearing: The Case For Virtual Worlds

On April 1, 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce‘s Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet had a congressional hearing on virtual worlds.

The official title of the hearing was “Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars (link goes to official witness list).

Video of entire hearing (300+ MB)

Witnesses:

1. Philip Rosedale, Founder/Chairman of the Board/Former CEO, Linden Labs

2. Susan Tenby, Senior Manager, Community Development, TechSoup

3. Colin J. Parris, PhD, Vice President, Digital Convergence, IBM Research/IBM Corporation

4. Larry Johnson, PhD, The New Media Consortium

Philip Rosedale

This hearing was the first time I’ve seen any representatives from virtual worlds get a chance to actually explain themselves.

I think the witnesses did a great job of making what I’m going to start calling “The case for virtual worlds.” (What I believe to be an open and shut case 🙂

Four “witnesses” presented to the Subcommittee that morning. Their names are in the table below, along with relevant stop/start times for their presentations.

If you saw the Daily Show clip on the Congressional Hearings, you may have been concerned about congress being confused about terrorists using virtual worlds. But actually, terrorism was only mentioned a couple times in freaked out passing.

The real story is that Virtual Worlds are about to be as big as Social Networking (a phenomenon that congress seems well aware of and impressed by).

 Susan Tenby
Colin J. Parris

Of course, we know that Virtual Worlds are going to be even bigger than Social Networking, and really already have been for some time. Although virtual worlds are viewed as an outgrowth of Social Networking, in reality, virtual worlds have existed much longer, and have an extensive and rich history behind them going back more than 20 years.

I think hearings such as this one are a step in the right direction, and demonstrate that Congress is finally realizing the potential for community, art, science, and commerce in these worlds, and taking this potential quite seriously.

It’s also great to see IBM stepping up to the plate to explain things in a way that even Congress can understand. (No offense congress peeps, but you guys aren’t always the best at grokking technology. Series of tubes aside 🙂

But that’s the exciting part! The success of virtual worlds has become so tangible that now even IBM can explain this success effectively in business-speak. That’s damned exciting!

Now, hopefully, we can point to the very excellent examples of the incredible business, educational, and artistic applications going on in Second Life, and other virtual worlds right now, and use them to help explain these very tangible scenarios to the rest of the real life world.

 Larry Johnson

Sidenote: The Pete was nice enough to track down this clip for me. Due to technical difficulties, I was unable to edit the file down at this time. So here’s the whole thing, at over 300 MB.

I’ve provided very concise times for the entire hearing, so you can still find the parts you need quickly, after downloading the whole thing.

Witnesses Times in/out
Phillip Linden, Chair of Board/Former CEO/Founder, Linden Labs 29:11-33:19/presentation from 33:20-40:21/40:22-43:14/Q and A
Susan Tenby, Senior Manager, Community Development, TechSoup 43:39-49:19
Colin J. Parris, PhD, Vice President, Digital Convergence, IBM Research/IBM Corporation 49:21-54:55
Larry Johnson, PhD, The New Media Consortium 54:57-1:00

Cylindrian Rutabega – Live at Wishfest 1.0

Who: Cylindrian Rutabega
When: Thursday, April 10, 7pm SLT
Where:
Solaris II, Second Life


Wishfest 1.0 is a Flash Festival of music and arts!
Musicians, artists, DJs, dancers, poets and creative folks of all kinds will be performing on the Wishfest stages.
Think woodstock + earth day + a full moon rave — just grab a stage and throw in your stream. All free! Just because we realized we could, and decided to experiment a little.
Join this group to be notified when acts are performing — and for flash concerts in the future.
PERFORMERS:
If you’d like to perform, just drop me, Haley Bailey, an IM, and I’ll send you an invite to be in the “Wishfest Performers” group.
Then you can jump on stage and type “/777” + the url of your stream.
You will be piped in to the sound system and are free to perform LIVE!
TO FIND OUT WHEN ACTS ARE PERFORMING:
Join the “Wishfest 1.0” group in Second Life.