I was reading an interesting article by Cory Doctorow and as I know a few folks on Facebook and other such sites, I thought I’d link to the article here.

It’s an interesting read and I have to say I can certainly see his point, though he doesn’t cover the use of Facebook and other social sites for spamming.  I know I had to deal with spam friend requests on MySpace, and I expect to have to do the same with Facebook in the fullness of time.

It makes you question, as I have been, the exact amount of quality Facebook adds to a persons experience in cyberspace.

I’ve had a little time off from work this week, so as well as my favourite holiday pastime of not getting out of bed. I spent a little time asking and maybe answering a question. What good is Second Life and can a person who is interested in spiritual awakening make any use of it? I think the answer is a definite yes. Read on…..

There are several groups of Buddhists in Second Life, I joined “SL Buddhists” and later “Skeptical Buddhists”. A quick search turned up some meditation gardens and even a whole island devoted to dharma. I’ll write about Bodhi Island first.

Bodhi Island is run by a non profit group, it’s an entire island in Second Life (hereafter SL) devoted to Buddhist teachings, as a quick aside, SL is made up of large islands, which are subdivided into plots so residents can own and/or rent property of their own. teleported straight to the island and was deposited on a Lotus flower amid some trees. After taking in my surroundings and touching a few landmarks for more information, I started to explore. As I wandered the island, I found gems embedded in the landscape which when touched gave me snippets of Buddhist teachings in the Theravada tradition. As I reached one point in the landscape, a Dharma talk started streaming, i found it pleasing to just sit and listen for a while.

There are hidden areas all over the island for the determined visitor to find, which made my subsequent visits very enjoyable, as I found more hidden nooks that I’d missed. I think that this island just shows what can be achieved when someone thinks creatively, further, there are examples of architecture on this island that most visitors will probably never get to see up close. I’ve illustrated two of these in the screenshots, but there are more. Second Life has been criticised for being frivolous and of little value, but I’m finding that it can provide new and interesting ways of putting information across. I would never have had the chance to walk round and examine the buildings and structures I’ve seen faithfully reproduced on Bodhi island with using Second Life.

While wandering in SL I had the  good fortune to find a Buddhist sangha, The Skeptical Buddhists,  that meets regulary for both discussion and meditation and was able to join them for a discussion meeting.  Once again this brought home the fact that SL is a new angle on communication, reference notes were distributed quickly and effectively and we were able to review the history of what had been said. I found it particularly gratifying, given my sometime unreliable memory, to be able to copy and paste the chat into a text document so I can reread it later!

I think this has been a good start, I’m looking forward to seeing where this journey leads me!

Well, I’ve made a second visit to Second Life, I completed the orientation area and seem to be getting along quite well. The system is not the fastest or most stable thing and as the content is streamed from Linden Labs servers, the look can often leave a bit to be desired as things play catch up. I can’t help thinking they might’ve been better off using the Quake 3 engine.

It seems that a number of educational institutions (e.g. the Open University) and companies (e.g. IBM) already have a presence in Second Life, there is also an economy of sorts. The currency is called “Linden Dollars” and apparently can be changed for US Dollars, there are people who actually earn a living through working in Second Life.

There seem to be areas catering to all sorts of pursuits, from adventure, to education and even more adult pursuits.

The whole thing seems to be very open ended to me, and I feel that if you go in thinking it’s a goal oriented game, you’ll be disappointed, free exploration seems to be the order of the day.

OK, this could get interesting. I downloaded the Linux Client for Second Life last night. It’s been a while since I last wandered into SL, and that was only a brief trip right before Duran Duran did a concert in there.

As my system is a bit meatier than the last one I tried this with, I decided to give it another go. As it turns out there are Buddhists in there and I’m sure there are many places of interest to visit.

It seems that Second Life is aiming to be a 3d complement to the 2d web, admittedly my limited experience so far is the orientation island, but so far I’m finding it easier than previously and I have to say it’s growing on me a lot more this time than it did last time.

Let the journey begin…..

There’s a saying “Knowledge is power”, I’ve been starting to disagree with it recently. I don’t know about you, but in my line of work a great deal of emphasis is given to skills and certifications. Do you know this package or operating system? The field of IT changes rapidly and it can be a full time job trying to keep up with it, furthermore it’s almost seen as an unforgivable transgression not to know something, you can never admit to that. But, I’m reminded of some old anecdotes from a friend in the industry of certified “IT Professionals” who were frankly useless at the job. They had the knowledge, they were certified, but still……

The Maasai people have a saying, “One head cannot contain all knowledge”, I think we need to take a different approach; not only in order to cope and keep pace with change, but to get past this fixation with knowledge.

I’ve found that the best approach is practise the basics, whilst taking the view “I don’t need to know everything, but I know how to find out if I need to.” You have to try to put aside the ego driven desire for more knowledge for the sake of it. In short, I’ve come to the opinion that it’s not knowledge, but the attitude of the individual. Knowledge isn’t power, the ability to apply knowledge is where the true power lies, this is why I admire the Zen approach of emphasising real world daily experience in the moment over abstract knowledge.

We apply knowledge in the moment, not in the past or the future, in my IT experience I’ve found a solid knowledge of the basics can go a heck of a long way when combined with good experience.

It’s interesting to watch the approach of some folk to technology. There seems to me to be a view that technology is the enemy, there is a negative view of tech. Speaking as an IT guy, I couldn’t disagree more. When dealing with recalcitrant, misbehaving tech, the key is to remember that it’s nothing personal. Getting all wound up won’t help, sometimes it can be like opening a stubborn lock, you have to know how to jiggle it, I’ve started to think that it might be an ego issue on the operator’s part. I include myself in that, of course.

I always try to bear in mind that computers and technology are as much a part of Tao as everything else.

To misquote Pirsig, “Tao rests as easily at the heart of cyberspace as it does in the heart of a forest. To think otherwise is to demean Tao”

I was checking out some feeds in my RSS reader, when I came across this little horror. It seems the Microsoft just grabbed a software patent. Okay, nothing new there, but it’s for a system that deliver targetted ads to your PC ….. by scanning the content of your hard drive. I kid you not.

From the Ars Technica article:

“It’s such a tremendously bad idea that it’s almost bound to succeed. Microsoft has filed another patent, this one for an “advertising framework” that uses “context data” from your hard drive to show you advertisements and “apportion and credit advertising revenue” to ad suppliers in real time. Yes, Redmond wants to own the patent on the mother of all adware.”

“The adware framework would leave almost no data untouched in its quest to sell you stuff. It would inspect “user document files, user e-mail files, user music files, downloaded podcasts, computer settings, computer status messages (e.g., a low memory status or low printer ink),” and more. How could we have been so blind as to not see the marketing value in computer status messages?”

I hope they’re just grabbing that patent in a form of pre-emptive self defence, it’s a possibility; after all they wouldn’t really be crazy enough to try running that kind of spyware/adware would they? Mind you, considering their record I find myself harbouring dark suspicions, power corrupts and all that.

*Shudder* This sort of thing is one of the reasons why I run Linux.

Thanks to Peter from The Buddha Diaries, I’ve realised that there is another easy way to install Sitquietly. I’m kicking myself a bit for not realising it sooner and I’ve updated the Sitquietly page with that.

Thanks for the nudge Peter!

I found an excellent article courtesy of OSNews the other day, entitled Does Microsoft have nowhere to run? The article deals with Microsoft and the rise of Linux and the conclusion is one I agree with.

The situation with Microsoft really does remind me of the words of the Tao Te Ching, chapter 76:

While alive, the body is soft and pliant
When dead, it is hard and rigid
All living things, grass and trees,
While alive, are soft and supple
When dead, become dry and brittle
Thus that which is hard and stiff
is the follower of death
That which is soft and yielding
is the follower of life
Therefore, an inflexible army will not win
A strong tree will be cut down
The big and forceful occupy a lowly position
While the soft and pliant occupy a higher place

(Source: www.Taoism.net and Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths in 2006.)

Microsoft are in the position of trying defend a fairly inflexible position, they’ve painted themselves into a corner with Windows and Office and can’t move quickly enough. In fighting against Free Software, they’re trying the big and forceful thing, and as noted in the article it’s not working.

They’re trying every trick in the book to get things all their own way, the open document standard in Massachusetts in one example, their position pushing software patents is another. I can’t help but think how much more progress could be made if they’d just work with the community, all this energy that’s being put into fighting could be out into building really great software. How much better off would we be?