2nDisability

Changing the looks

2007-07-26T15:57:00.000+02:00

As one first step of the newly growing activities on 2nDisability I will change the look of this blog in the coming few days... Just to make it brighter and nicer to look at...

Revitalising 2nDisability

2007-07-25T15:00:00.000+02:00

Well, back after a long time.
Thanks to more than one request of Wayne Porter and some mentions of 2nDisability on his blog I will slowly start to work on the HUD again.
Unfortunately my daily work doesn't give me much spare time at the moment. But I think some development I do there might come in handy for the HUD.

The next step will be to really get into contact with Wayne and join forces on the project!
So I'm really looking forward on the new development!

Started working on CVI...

2006-11-14T07:17:00.000+01:00

before

after

As I reported some time ago Rowella James gave me the idea for a new disability which could be included in 2nDisability. This visual impairment should be based on experiences a friend of hers told her about. She provided me with some images that show how this friend sees the world (see comments on the linked post).
Now I did a first prove of concept to see if one could replicate this impairment in Second Life. On the right hand you see screenshots with and without an attack. So it works...

I just have to finish the effect and then we will have a new version of 2nDisability ready. Yay!!!!

Rowella James reporting back from SL

2006-10-30T15:47:00.000+01:00

Hi everybody!
as i reported yesterday Rowella James is now the second 2ndisabled person! She wrote me an eMail about her experience which I want to share with you. Her text is italic, comments or additions I made in the text look like [this]

Hi Fez,
First of all, thanks for letting me testing out the 2nDisability script. I didn't encounter any script-related problems after you left.
The blindness was very disorientating to say the least. The weird thing was that for me the speech bubbles were gone too, so I could only see what's being said when having the history window open. Of course moving around in that state is not advisable as there is no way of guiding yourself by audio or touch. [This is a very interesting fact as I did not know this... So in some cases you are blind and deaf...]
The stuttering caused a bit of confusion at first for the person I was talking to, but once they understood what was going on they didn't make any problems of it. Same with Tourret.
The [camera-]palsy effect was weird at first, but once you know what can happen you're a bit more prepared to be disorientated.
The most disrupting disability is (apart from blindness) epilepsy, it can throw you really into trouble. I ended up in the water at least three times, on top of someone else once and bumped a few people once too.

I haven't noticed any effects from hayfever. [This is because it only works on the sim of the SL-EcoSystem and she did not go there yet...]

I'll probably test it some more in the coming days if time permits. To be honest, some people find it really weird and are a bit freaked out by the idea.

Well according the last comment: This is what I realized too and what is not very surprising... But it looks as if we're one step closer to a growing community!
Thanks to Rowella for her help!

Tags: secondlife, disability, betatest, community

Another disabled person

2006-10-29T01:52:00.000+02:00

I was VERY excited yesterday, but I just did not find some spare time to report the GREAT news.
After talking with Rowella James about the new disability she gave me the idea for (reported here) she tried the 2nDisability HUD as the first person (excluding myself...) ever.

She kept it on for quite some while (also I still produces QUITE some debug output) and maybe she will occasionally report her experiences here on the blog!

So stay tuned everybody!

Images by a blind painter [written inGame by FEZ Rutherford]

2006-10-27T11:01:00.000+02:00

While wandering the lands today I stumbled across a place called "Art in the park". I met one of the owners (Has Lassard) and while chating along he told me that they were showing works of a blind artist (Amaya Summers). And the most amzing thing about her images is HOW realistic they are (the one in this post is by her).

This really made me wondering how she interacts with SL and other graphical software...
I hope to meet her sometimes soon to get some more information about that!

SLURL: Art in the Park

Web2.0 Schizophrenia

2006-10-24T15:38:00.000+02:00

Just made an interesting discovery on Muli Koppel's Blog: Desktop Regions: The Real My Space.

He talks about a flickr project of someone else (Desktop Regions)... But he invents the term "Web2.0 Schizophrenia".
Well and this surly is some new form of virtual disability. One that surly should be lookd into somewhat deeper... Interesting thing is that it somhow exists BETWEEN the virtual and the real world.

Tags: post, flickr, schizophrenia, disability, blog, web20

on 2nDisability: SL-FORUMS.COM

2006-10-24T08:35:00.000+02:00

I just found a thread on SL-FORUMS.COM which was started by Rowella James...

Looking forward to how it will evolve...

Tags: on2nDisability, forum, post, discussion

A new idea... [written inGame by FEZ Rutherford]

2006-10-23T17:05:00.000+02:00

Rowella James and me
Originally uploaded by FezRutherford.

Today when I was hanging out at the museum Rowella James came buy on her flying carpet. We started chatting along...

Well after a little while she had another idea for 2nDisability. That is why I put the chatlog up here on the blog...

[7:38] Rowella James: What's 2nd Disability?
[7:38] You: an project / experiment of mine
[7:38] You: its about disabilities in virtual worlds
[7:38] Rowella James: cool
[7:39] You: I try to think about which disabilities might exist in virtual worlds
[7:39] Rowella James: Great idea
[7:39] You: and I build scripts to live them
[7:39] You: thanks
[7:39] Rowella James: It will help people understand the diffulties disabled people have in RL
[7:40] You: CORRECT!
(I have an epilepsy attack and drop down from the museum)
[7:41] You: sorry
[7:41] You: that was an expilepsy attack..
[7:42] Rowella James: That's ok, a youth friend of mine had epilepsy
[7:42] Rowella James: well he still has, but I don't see him anymore
[7:42] You: okay...
[7:42] FEZ Rutherford: okay...
[7:42] Rowella James: So what scripts have you created so far?
[7:43] You: blindness / epilepsy / tourret / "Hay Fever" / CameraPalsy
[7:43] You: oh and stuttering
[7:44] Rowella James: Oh wow! You've been really working a lot on it then...
[7:44] You: well... kinda...
[7:44] You: ;-)
[7:44] You: it becomes an obession...
[7:44] Rowella James: I guess
[7:44] Rowella James: Need an idea for the next?
[7:44] You: If you have one...
[7:45] Rowella James: A friend of mine has CVI (Cerebral Visual Impairment) he sees only the periferal area, but foggy. The centre is black blots
[7:45] You: okay... that is possible...
[7:46] You: may I put the chatlog from this session on my blog?
[7:46] Rowella James: Sure!!
[7:46] You: So I can keep track of this idea
[7:46] You: Thanks a lot
[7:46] Rowella James: I should thank you actually!
[7:46] You: lets take a picture ;-)
[7:47] FEZ Rutherford: Eat my shorts
[7:47] You: lets go up front
[7:47] FEZ Rutherford: lets go up front
[7:47] FEZ Rutherford: Eat my shorts
(We walk up in front of the 2nDisability projection screen)
[7:47] FEZ Rutherford: *GNARRRRRF*
[7:48] You: okay... thanks
[7:48] You: (I'm not a good photographer I must confess ;-)
[7:48] Rowella James: I haven't mastered it either yet. This was my first photo :-)

Well, we kept on talking. But that is another story ;-)
I will for sure read myself into CVI and include it into 2nDisability as soon as possible.

So stay tuned!

Tags: secondlife, disability, chat

Some more debugging done [written inGame by FEZ Rutherford]

2006-10-18T17:32:00.000+02:00

While living with my 2nDisability I somehow had the feeling that blindness and tourret attacks occour more often than camera palsy and epilepsy do. So I added a logging script which tells me what attacks start and stop when. After some days of testing I now realized that something in one of my scripts went wrong. I changed it and now I hope that all attacks do occour at (more or less) the same rate.
As a technical sidenote: It was one of those typos where you type a "2" and think a "4"... And bang results depend on "2" and not on "4" as you thought they would ;-) Anyhow, it's fixed now, the HUD is rebooted, let's wait and see what will happen.

As another side note: Camera palsy seems to have a easier cure than I thought it would have (althoug I had a certain feeling about it), when I first came up with the idea. Due to limitations in LSL the attack does NOT have any effect when you have focused onto something (using ctrl+alt+mouseClick). I will leave it in the HUD anyhow.

Tags: secondlife, disability, HUD, debugging, campalsy

[offTopic] Taxes in Second Life would be a mistake...

2006-10-18T16:24:00.000+02:00

As Reuters reports [link] Jim Saxton, chairman of the Joint Economic Committee which is studying ways to tax the Second Life economy, said it would be a mistake by the IRS to step forward with such regulations.

Well let's wait and see how long the US government will keep to this word. [*humm*]

EDIT:
After posting it here I went to the Reuters place... and well, what must I see? It already has been "tagged" by sprayers...
Seems like there are sprayers ou there who really are into their art... Let's hope this does NOT go to far.

Tags:
secondlife,
taxes,
government,
news,
reuters,
graffiti

Virtual Hallucinations [written inGame by FEZ Rutherford]

2006-10-17T23:41:00.000+02:00

Just got pinpointed to the "Virtual Hallucinations" project (SLURL: Sedig/26/45/22) which is basically the same idea as 2nDisability. Although "Nash Baldwin" can base his indeed VERY IMPRESSIVE and frightening experience on real patient interviews. He als

Unfortunately he's not online right now, so I will leave him a message and hope we will get into contact soon.

Everybody reading this blog should definitly visit that space and take the tour... wow, I think I will dream of this tonight....

Tags: secondlife, disability, hallucinations

[offTopic] Taxes on SL??

2006-10-16T23:53:00.000+02:00

As the lately joined Routers reports on Second Life Insider the United States of America are thinking about putting taxes on Second Life.
Let's hope that will not happen, as I just don't know which kind of unforseeable effects that may have on Second Life and its economy (including the Linden Exchange)

Tags: secondlife, commercial, taxes, economy

Brigadoon

2006-10-12T11:38:00.000+02:00

While surfing the net I stumbled across this blog: Brigadoon. It is the blog of a community which uses Second Life as a platform to communicate about their disabilities.
It started of as a project for people suffering from Asperger's Syndrome and Autism but seems to broaden it's spectrum up.
I will try to get in touch with them, maybe we can join forces in some way.

Tags: secondlife, disability, autism, asperger, blog

Camera Palsy update

2006-10-12T00:08:00.000+02:00

Just a short little update on camera palsy.
It now is implemented into the tool. Only problem up to now is, that I cannot take focus from the user if he used Alt+Ctrl+MouseClick to focus on a certain object.
I will have to dig into this problem a little more. Will keep all of you up to date!

Tags: secondlife, 2ndisability, scripting, virtual disability, campalsy

InGame only Disability

2006-10-10T11:03:00.000+02:00

While walking to my workingplace today (in RL) I had an idea for the first inGame only disability to be invented in 2nDisability. "InGame only" in this case means a disability which does not have any real life counterpart as so called "transfered disabilities" would have.
I call this new disability "camera palsy". It is a Second Life specific disability. When an attack occurs, it fixes you camera to a certain position (maybe even randomly) and does not allow you to change the focus. I think I will add it to the scripts as soon as possible.

While talking about "inGame only" and "transfered" disabilities, I once more realize that I should come up with a first version of the Manifest as soon as possible!

Tags: secondlife, 2ndisability, virtual disability, campalsy

Rebuilding done

2006-10-10T07:28:00.000+02:00

Rebuilding done
Originally uploaded by FezRutherford.

Today I finished rebuilding the 2nDisability Meeting Center with adding Some scripts so I could work on the house more easily.
The script seems really to be fine. So it's official: We can start beta-phase from today on! Just contact me, if you want to join!

Tags: secondlife, modeling, 2ndisability, meetingroom

Creating a shirt and a commercial

2006-10-05T23:21:00.000+02:00

Snapshot_008
Originally uploaded by FezRutherford.

Today I created a little 2nDisability shirt and tried to shoot some pictures for a box to put it into and realized that I'm not really a modle (as you might already have realized)
If you have any idea about how I could package the shirt... Let me know

Tags: secondlife, 2ndisability, commercial, donation

Tourret and the fear of being banned

2006-10-05T17:25:00.000+02:00

The longer I live with my different disabilities, the more i realize that one of them really gets me into trouble: Tourret (or at least the way I transfered it into SL).
At the moment each attack of Tourret (which appears randomly about every 5-10 minutes) makes me shout some (randomly chosen) swearwords. Some of these words were - as I must confess - quite obscene (on purpose). But the more I get around, the more people tell me to just shut up, which of course is just the same as they would do in RL.
Well the point I fear at the moment is, that some of these people start reporting me to admins for using bad language or spamming the chat... This would lead to a ban for me. And this would kill the whole experiment.
So I'm in quite a conflict at the moment. What I did as a first countermeassure is to reduce the obsceneties and to introduce some not so bad words into the script, plus I reduced the amount of words said.

I would be happy about some feedback and thoughts of you about that. Maybe someone has an idea on how to cope with this situation.

All the other disabilities do stay the same at the moment.

Tags: secondlife, 2ndisability, tourret

eMailer Bugfix [written inGame by FEZ Rutherford]

2006-10-05T11:13:00.000+02:00

Object-Name: FEZ Rutherford
Region: Tan (256000, 257024)
Local-Position: (136, 85, 28)

Just fixed a bug in the HUD-Blog-emailer. It now sets the correct name as sender of the article.
In addition to that it now give a visual feedback while sending emails.

Technical update [written inGame by FEZ Rutherford]

2006-10-05T08:10:00.000+02:00

Okay... Here is one more update on the technical status of the scripts:
- All disabilities (well the one I have up to now) seem to work
- Right now I'm writing a logging extension which sends emails to a log-server
- I will do some more testing, then it's up for a little open-beta
- The hud has to be designed a little more for a better look ;-)

Okay that's it from me and for now....

Hope to see some of you inGame soon...

Writing the manifest

2006-10-04T08:40:00.000+02:00

When I had to (RL-) drive by train for some time last thursday I found some time to start writing on the 2nDisability-Manifest. Originally I wanted to do that on my notebook. But it did not boot anymore...
Well so I had to write it by hand, which stuck my some kind of funny as writing a manifest as a digital person for a project which only exists in cyberspace on "analog" paper feels kind of strange.
Anyhow, I will publish a first version of the manifest in a few days here on 2nDisability.

Very short update

2006-09-27T20:07:00.000+02:00

Just finished porting all scripts into the new version of 2nDisability. From now on it will be quite some testing and debugging before we can start a beta-phase of the tool. I will be out (in RL) for the next few days, so it will be around a week till then. But nevertheless I hope we can start beta in about 10-15 days!

I hope you have a nice time!
FEZ

PS: I nearly forgot: I got a first applicant today for the beta ;-) Yeah! So application is open, just contact me inGame (IM if I'm not online!)

A short snapshot of my place

2006-09-27T11:24:00.000+02:00

Snapshot_001
Originally uploaded by FEZ Rutherford.

This more a technical test than a real entry to the blog. I just startet an account at flickr and it allows me to blog on pictures directly via the flickr page.
And now I want to test this.

Enjoy!

PS: If you want to support 2nDisability by building a nicer meeting place than the one you can see here, feel free to contact me ;-)