New, trippiest and most IMMERSIVE way to see videos, EVAH!

Thank you, NPIRLer Crap Mariner, a funtastic videographer and podcaster himself, for turning us onto Thoth Jantzen's hyper-grooovy and totally novel way to watch videos in any life. This is, unquestionably, the most immersive video viewing that I have ever experienced, beating IMAX, HDTV, and every other screen technology by a long shot.

Granted, it is not for the weak-at-heart. You wouldn't want to watch a feature film, television, or anything that requires clear visuals this way. A bit like a roller coaster ride, a bit like an acid trip... it is outrageously cool.

I can imagine all kinds of music and videos being loaded for different purposes, even therapeutic ones. Watching it, I felt younger... or older, I'm not sure which. With some videos, the sides almost look 3-dimensional.

Given that Crap Mariner pointed us to this spectacular find, I looked for him immediately when it came to videotaping this to share it with you. He was not in-world. I teleported virtual florist, artist and videographer Vlad Bjornson in and he made quick work of it, preparing a version to show you right away. Thank you, Vlad!



Standing on one end of the chaotic, trippy video wrapped tube, and surrounded by excited people, I peppered poor Thoth - who's second rez day was in effect (10/22/2006) with questions...


He has chosen the persona of Thoth-Anubis, "expressed in SL as a wandering magician, student of everything, and a "serial connector"

Does this thing have a name yet, Thoth?

Thoth Jantzen: I haven't named it yet, but I am thinking to call it the Kaleidoscopium or some such... it's like being inside a kaleidoscope.

Is this like version 382 of your tweaking?

Thoth Jantzen: Oh, at least, Bettina... probably into the 500's.


Below Kaleidoscopium, Thoth's earlier work and experiments can be viewed in a space he calls Cosmique. The same video plays throughout

Will you be selling versions of this?

Thoth Jantzen: I just like to make things that I hope people enjoy, but I'm not sure. More likely 'no'... unless there's that much interest.

If you aren't present, is there a way that the visitor can load different videos?

Thoth Jantzen: Yes. There is a ZONE box near the end here on the floor. It lets people load YouTube urls in chat.

Thoth considers his video work a sideline in Second Life®.

Thoth Jantzen: I founded a group called Thothica SL a couple of years ago, but I don't run it any more. I handed the control over to some friends. I try to hook up people with other people who may be helpful or of interest to them. I think Second Life's biggest potential is in education and related things, getting people connected.

In Real Life, Thoth works in advanced parsing and linguistics.

Have your own kaleidoscopic and very psychedelic experience by teleporting directly from here.

You don't need to be a nerd to REV up the default Search engine

Given how much time all of us spend using the Search feature, why not make that time as enjoyable and productive as possible? Late last week, DrenBoy Opus from the Elven lands and owner/creator of Opus Labs, gave NPIRLers some hot tips on how to put our personal stamp on Search. While I am sadly challenged on practically every technical front, even I was able to use these easy-to-follow instructions to remarkable advantage. This is brilliant stuff!

By DrenBoy Opus

Second Life's newfangled Windlight First Look release comes to town, along with a non-Windlight Search Release Candidate viewer version... Both have the new web-based search feature. After playing with it, I discovered how to change the default search engine to Google as well as a host of other things:

Here are the steps to change to Google
1. Ensure you have the 'client and server' menu up (press CTRL + ALT + D or press CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + D)
2. Click on Client --> Debug Settings
3. Drop Down to the 'SearchQueryURL'. You will see the default text is

http://secondlife.com/app/search/search_proxy.php?
q=[QUERY]&s=[COLLECTION]&m=[MATURE]
&t=[TEEN]&region=[REGION]&x=[X]
&y=[Y]&z=[Z]

Change that text into (I have prepared other options including LSL search for those who dont want Google ;D)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=[QUERY]
&s=[COLLECTION]&m=[MATURE]&t=[TEEN]
&region=[REGION]&x=[X]&y=[Y]&z=[Z]

4. Close that window, give the search a whirl and (if you dont crash due to a typo / mis-paste), you will be basking in your new-newfangled search!

Google Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=[QUERY]
&s=[COLLECTION]&m=[MATURE]&t=[TEEN]
&region=[REGION]&x=[X]&y=[Y]&z=[Z]

SLBrowser (created by Felix Wakmann and Diva Canto)
http://webi.slbrowser.com:8080/webadapter/results.jsp?
query=[QUERY]&s=[COLLECTION][MATURE]
[TEEN][REGION][X][Y][Z]

NPIRL Blog Search (Yes, LOL!)
http://npirl.blogspot.com/search?q=[QUERY]
&s=[COLLECTION]&m=[MATURE]&t=[TEEN]
&region=[REGION][X][Y][Z]

SLURL (A virtual GPS; not useful but fun)
http://slurl.com/secondlife/[REGION]/[X]/[Y]/[Z]/[QUERY]
[COLLECTION][MATURE][TEEN]

LSL Wiki
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Special:Search?search=[QUERY]
&s=[COLLECTION]&m=[MATURE]&t=[TEEN]
&region=[REGION][X][Y][Z]

SL Exchange
http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?
name=Marketplace&SearchKeyword=[QUERY]
&s=[COLLECTION][MATURE][TEEN][REGION][X][Y][Z]

YouTube Search (some movie controls are kinda wonky)
http://youtube.com/results?search_query=[QUERY]
&s=[COLLECTION]&m=[MATURE]&t=[TEEN]
&region=[REGION][X][Y][Z]

Microsoft's Live Search
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=[QUERY]
&s=[COLLECTION]&m=[MATURE]&t=[TEEN]
&region=[REGION]&x=[X]&y=[Y]&z=[Z]

Yahoo Search
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=[QUERY]
&s=[COLLECTION]&m=[MATURE]&t=[TEEN]
&region=[REGION]&x=[X]&y=[Y]&z=[Z]

Wikipedia Search
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=[QUERY]
&s=[COLLECTION]&m=[MATURE]&t=[TEEN]
&region=[REGION]&x=[X]&y=[Y]&z=[Z]

Ask.com Search
http://www.ask.com/web?q=[QUERY]&s=[COLLECTION]
&m=[MATURE]&t=[TEEN]&region=[REGION]
&x=[X]&y=[Y]&z=[Z]

All these locations tested by DrenBoy Opus on 15th Nov 07

November 25th: Just received this update from Felix Wakmann:

Linden Labs included a new search feature in the Windlight release candidate client of Second Life. At first it looked like another closed system, but then DrenBoy Opus discovered that the search page is configurable via an obscure setting. Since Diva Canto and I have been running our SLBrowser search engine for the last 6 months, we've been looking for better ways to hook into SL. So we created Open Search for Second Life to augment the Linden Search with some alternatives. The Open Search page gives you quick access to multiple search pages, including SLBrowser, Linden Labs, OnRez, SLExchange, and Google. The line-up is subject to change, but this is our current offering. You get all the functionality of Linden Labs new search, plus these other great search engines. We believe that search should be open, and that the best way to improve things is for competition... where the users choose the best solution, rather than being forced to go with once choice. If you have the new Release Candidate (see the link above) you can easily configure it for Open Search. Thanks to DrenBoy Opus for letting us know about this possibility. -- Felix Wakmann and Diva Canto