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Cool News Three-D Reality “Virtual worlds may look like toys for the geekiest of geeks, but they have quietly slipped into the mainstream.” Heck, the most famous of those virtual worlds —Second Life —has even had its own bank failure. That happened when a user created a bank in which some Second Lifers invested their virtual dollars, and then left town. This might sound harmless, but in Second Life, virtual dollars actually are purchased with Real American Dollars. When the scam was discovered, “an angry mob” of Second Life avatars surrounded “the virtual bank’s ATMs.” Angry mobs aside, the reality is that Second Life is home to “worlds” developed by some Last year, Gartner Research predicted that 80 percent of all active internet users will have a virtual-world presence by 2011.” The really interesting part is this: Once 3-D standards are established, “anyone will be able to build a virtual world that is connected to any other similarly coded virtual world,” just as anyone can create a 2-D page today. [Source: Benjamin Duranske, The Wall Street Journal, 7/17/08] Hardware Art Since so many of its customers are artists, it made sense for Crest Hardware in Brooklyn, NY, to display some of their work. The idea began back in 1994, when a Crest Hardware regular, an artist known as Gene Pool, asked whether “he could display some of his work in one of the store’s windows.” Manny Franquinha, the store’s owner, agreed. It wasn’t long before his other artist-customers joined in, and Gene became the store’s curator. “It started with one window, then two, and then he had the whole store,” says Manny. This idea of a hardware store as art gallery continued for several years, until Gene moved away. The concept is now being brought back by Manny’s son, Joe, and tends to favor pieces that manage to incorporate a hardware theme. For example, “Chained Hound” by Wendy Klemperer, is a sculpture of a lunging, snarling dog “made of welded scrap metal” and nails. Naturally, it’s bolted to the wall. That’s the thing about having an art show in a hardware store — there are plenty of screws, wires and tools around to set things up. [Source: Justin Porter, The New York Times, 7/6/08] Theme-Time Radio What makes the Theme-Time Radio Hour something special “is that it flies in the face of the conventional wisdom about radio in the 21st century.” That widsom is that nobody really listens to radio anymore, thanks “to the rise of the iPod … The assumption is that under-40 listeners are now choosing to withdraw into gated communities of musical taste, behind whose electronic walls they listen only to what they already know they like.” This is essentially true even on satellite radio, where you can retreat into any genre you like. The Theme-Time Radio Hour on XM Radio is an exception, although its host does pick a theme for each show — “colors, trains, death and taxes, spring cleaning,” for instance. But then things get weird, as he picks a wildly eclectic selection of tunes, mixing folk, blues, pop, grunge, gospel, jazz, rock, calypso — whatever. As he explains, “You don’t have to be a junkie to enjoy the Velvet Underground song, Heroin. You don’t have to have horns and a pitchfork to enjoy Sympathy for the Devil, but it does help. The thing is, it’s all music, and when the people believe what they’re singing, it’s just better.” The show’s host? Bob Dylan. [Source: Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal, 6/21/08]
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