#indieweb 2022-07-28

2022-07-28 UTC
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[fluffy] I see two modes of operation for indie VR: visiting little experiences, and hanging out socially. The former can be pretty neat but social VR is what makes it actually *fun* - hanging out with friends and exploring areas and seeing creativity on display and so on.
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[fluffy] The first use case is also already a solved problem.
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[fluffy] There is absolutely no reason for standalone experiences to need anything special in an Indieweb context, because distributing them is exactly the same as distributing any other webpage.
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[fluffy] The very specific thing I want to see made indie is the social VR experience, like VRChat/NeosVR/etc., where someone builds a shared space and a group of people can visit it together. And ideally, have the ability to modify the space together, like what Second Life allowed.
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[fluffy] To me, the tricky thing is less about access control to the space/session and more about a means of having every user be represented in the space by their preferred avatar. That's a *huge* part of the draw of VRChat, for example.
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[fluffy] And Second Life, for that matter.
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[fluffy] Incidentally, the documentary "We Met In VR" just went live on HBO. I haven't seen it yet but it has really good reviews.
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[fluffy] I'll probably be watching it shortly.
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[tantek] ironically, IIRC Snow Crash did explain a bunch of the design constraints for how "Social VR" should work (including protocols negotiating between custom expressions / avatars and limitations of spaces so custom expressions didn't impose on others)
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[KevinMarks] It was oddly real estate oriented though - buying land near downtown, needing planning permission etc
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petermolnar don't forget that Snow Crash is part satire
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[campegg] Snow Crash is basically “don’t create the Torment Nexus”
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[campegg] https://twitter.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538
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@AlexBlechman Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus (twitter.com/_/status/1457842724128833538)
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[KevinMarks] [jeremycherfas] good article on different ways to plot the same data https://stackoverflow.blog/2022/03/03/stop-aggregating-away-the-signal-in-your-data/
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j12t fluffy: so where would the code reside that creates the (negotiated) shared experience, with an IndieWeb-style architecture? Your server or mine? Both? Where does it persist so we can go back to it next Tuesday?
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[tantek] [KevinMarks] the "oddly real estate oriented" bits seemed to me constraints adopted from making the "VR" experience feel physically continuous
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[tantek] campegg, sorta. The whole "the metaverse was a cautionary Torment Nexus tale" is a bit of a retcon. At the time (1992), the web was just a random prototype hack, and the internet was only used (primarily) by text nerds (myself included). At the time (again, 1992), the "metaverse" was seen as a more accessible view of the internet that would be much easier (UX) for lots of people to use, i.e. a positive thing
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[tantek] some of the tech in Minority Report is more fitting to the upfront cautionary nature of a "Torment Nexus"
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[KevinMarks] Fluffy's story about building Westworld VR sounds like a literal version of that (I have rewatched Westworld in the last month)
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[campegg] [tantek] yeah, for sure… my torment nexus comment was a flippant take on the situation. And 100% that Minority Report is a much, much better analog!
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[tantek] campegg, you're not alone in that, at least one person replied to the Torment Nexus tweet with the FB/meta thing: https://indieweb.org/metaverse#Resemblance_to_a_Black_Mirror_episode
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[tantek] when I first saw Minority Report, I was like "noooooooooo stahhhhhpppppp y'all are giving way too specific feasible ideas to various tech corps / gov orgs" 😞
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[campegg] Companies like Palantir definitely give off those kind of vibes
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