[ExI] sim city hipsters please: RE: this is me in another forty years...

[spike]

On Behalf Of John Grigg

Spike Jones wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vksdBSVAM6g

>> This is how they make commercials in countries where they still have 
>> actual attention spans.  Hey it worked on me.

>I don't think a commercial has ever made me teary eyed before!  Wow!

Ja, me too!  Of course I get teary eyed whenever anyone utters the
suggestion "Let's ride motorcycles!"

But that's just me.  The reason I posted this is that I have been doing more
deep thinking about an idea that has been rattling around in my brain for
some time.  Note the scene just before the cancer guy's outburst.  He looks
around the table at his four surviving comrades, perhaps imagining his next
(and perhaps last) 100 or so days on this old planet, seeing one guy unable
to hear, one guy dozing, one guy mourning the loss of his sweetheart, one
guy contemplating another eggroll.  If you go to some nursing homes, it
really is that way.  Our society has evolved to where we spend the last 5%
or more of our lives mourning, lonely and bored beyond comprehension. 

It need not be that way.

I need some of you Second Life hipsters to advise me, or SimCity hipsters:
can we set up one of these VRs to operate using head or eye motion?  We
don't need a dome shaped display.  An ordinary large screen TV will work
well enough.  We can create a sim especially for impaired elderly (with
money of course) which would make their last year more fun than that scene
just before "Let's ride motorcycles."  If they can ride of course, well
good, let them.  But most inmates there never rode a motorcycle in their
lives, and the nursing home isn't the time or place to start.  But I can see
riding in a simulated VR biker gang.

>...Spike, I recommend that we call ourselves the Singularity Riders! John
: )

Singularity Riders.  I like that.  

There was a headline the other day about a big apartment fire started by
candles used in a black magic ritual of some sort.  The headline was "Fire
started by voodoo sex candles."  Now there's your motorcycle gang name
"Voodoo Sex Candles."  Let's have both, then have the Singularity Riders and
the Voodoo Sex Candles have a simulated rumble.

Help me estimate what would be needed, internet bandwidth, the computer, the
device that clamps to a hat or something to use as a means of commanding the
sim, a joystick?  Handlebars?  Keyboard?  Voice recognition?  Speech
synthesis?  Realtime talking avatars?  What can we do now?  Is there a
Second Life version that can be adapted?  Assume using only currently
available commercial off the shelf technology.  Is there already a product
that is virtual worlds sims for the impaired?

spike