Omega Point

This Wednesday, (March 21st, 2007) I and the rest of the Social Signal team will be at Social Tech Brewing Vancouver, for this month’s topic, “Learning in Virtual Worlds”.*

From the Social Signal blog:

If you work at the intersection of technology and community-building, we hope you’ll join us for the March gathering of Social Tech Brewing’s Vancouver chapter. Social Tech Brewing brings together folks from social media, nonprofit organizations, community service, social activism, social ventures and technology to share ideas — and beer!

Beer! Virtual worlds! Community-building! It’s got it all! If that sounds like your mug of beer, you should join us!

From 7-8 PM, we’ll be at WorkSpace at 21 Water St. (See Google Maps)
Afterwards, we’ll be moving across the street to Six Acres.

See the blog post at SocialSignal.com for more or RSVP here!

* You know, like that Second Life thing.

I found a fascinating* post about Second Life’s much-debated usage numbers over at Social Signal.

“That number will likely be over 4.6 million by the time you read this blog post. So what does that actually mean in practical usage terms? Are there 4.6 million regular Second Life users? Well, no.”

* Where “fascinating” may or may not mean “written by me”. Link!

For a long time, I was embarrassed about the way my voice sounds. It’s still one of the things I have the most trouble with since the great “Hey, let’s grow 8 inches taller than everyone else in our class!” debacle of my teenage years.

It’s taken me a long time, but I’m finally feeling more comfortable with my body. I actually own (and occasionally wear!) heels now. Take that, feet!

Now I’m starting to warm up to my voice as well. When I think about it, one of the biggest catalysts happened several months ago. I randomly met a group of women visiting Vancouver from Seattle — two couples a decade or so older than me. We struck up a conversation and, one of them mentioned –without any fishing on my part– that she thought I had had a great voice. The other three chimed in, agreeing that my voice was “hot” and did I sing? Oh, but I should! I’d sound great. One of them compared it to “Shane, you know, from the L Word?” This was met with agreement and much nodding.

What!? These are not sentiments I’ve often heard. Were they messing with me? No, that didn’t seem likely, given the spontaneity and apparent sincerity of their words. Sure, perhaps their comparison to Katherine Moennig as Shane was a bit of a stretch, but then again, I’ve always known that I was being just a tad insecure and self-deprecating by describing my voice as sounding like Captain Janeway as portrayed by Bea Arthur.

Days later, after I’d given their words some thought, I realized that even if their opinion isn’t one that’s broadly agreed-upon, that’s not important. What is important is the source of the sentiment: a group of seemingly successful, socially-inclined gay women. Sure, in general terms, it’s nice being told you have an attractive quality, but I know that I’ve always been far more receptive to compliments from the cute girl handing me my coffee than from some random dude as I step around him on the street.

So maybe it doesn’t matter if everyone thinks my voice is hot, so long as it’s possible that someone does. We all seek validation from others, despite mostly realizing that it’s not particularly healthy and that we should feel good about ourselves without needing someone else’s approval. Still, free compliments feel good, particularly when they come from someone unexpected. The fact that it came from several someones — several lesbian someones — made it all the more satisfying to hear.

So where does this newfound sense of not-total-loathing leave me now? I came away from the Northern Voice 2007 conference with an interest in video blogging. I’m beta testing Second Life’s upcoming voice chat system, and as I write this, I realize that I can’t remember the last time I felt anxiety about using the phone. Wow. Maybe just singing along to Dar and Ani isn’t such a far-fetched idea after all.

Sometimes, positive change happens without us even being fully aware of it. I’d like to keep that up.

(Crossposted from a comment on ChangeEverything.ca)

One of benefits of being me is that I have the sort of random thoughts that other people can generally only experience during some kind of medical experiment involving the injection of highly concentrated THC directly into the brain. For example, when drifting off to sleep the other night, it occurred to me to ask: why is the Pentagon pentagonal?

Huh. Why is it? That can’t be the cheapest design for a building in wartime.
A short getting-out-of-bed-instead-of-sleeping later, I was much more knowledgeable about mid-20th-Century civil planning projects than I had been before.

From Wikipedia:

Its unusual shape results from the fact that its originally intended site, Arlington Farms, fronted on Arlington Ridge Road and the Arlington Memorial Bridge approach, which intersected at an angle of approximately 108 degrees (the angle of a regular pentagon). President Franklin D. Roosevelt had it constructed at its current location because he didn’t want the new building to obstruct the view of Washington, D.C. from Arlington Cemetery.

In fact, Arlington Ridge Road no longer exists, its route now mostly replaced by Eisenhower Drive, which winds through an expanded Arlington National Cemetery and terminates near the original site. The Pentagon was constructed as planned, just somewhat south of its intended location.