[FRIAM] better simulating actual FriAM

[uǝlƃ ↙↙↙]

So, Nick has lamented that the Zoom meetings don't well-simulate actual FriAM meetings, where people can self-isolate into cliques based on some tangent or other. I'd mentioned my first experience with (well-done) virtual meetings in Oz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OZ_Virtual

Well, during the ALife meeting, I learned of NeosVR https://neosvr.com/, wherein a fellow dork (named Guillermo Valle) had set up a Neos VR session with some simulations and several ALify objects with which to interact. We had a great conversation about his PhD thesis and how it might relate to ALife, etc. It was very close to what it's like to actually be in another's presence, except, of course, he was some kind of lizard creature and I was a default box since I hadn't set my avatar. But, you turn to look at the VR whiteboard or the simulation GUI and his audio would shift from one ear to the other. You fly away and his voice recedes. Etc.

The trouble, as always, is how difficult it is to get up and running with such a tool. Installation is easy, as it's on Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/740250/Neos_VR/. But I was using it on the desktop (a VR setup is one dork epsilon too far for me -- though Renee' said she'd be fine if I dropped $500 for one) and it took some work to get comfortable.

In any case, the stay-at-home orders and our "new reality" absolutely SCREAM for someone like SteveS to set us up a more concrete virtual world, with chairs our avatars can hook to, tattooed baristas (human-shaped or not) sporting PhDs, a little Chopin or maybe Tracy Chapman in the background, along with generic containers to house things like Pietro's COVID-19 model ... or maybe a little AgentScript or P5JS <https://github.com/processing/p5.js/>.

While we were visiting the ISS world in NeosVR, Guillermo summoned up a virtual webcam and hooked us into the ALife "pub crawl" (wherein attendees logged into WhereBy and "shared" whatever alcoholic drink they preferred while yapping about whatever dorky stuff sprung to mind). Back in his world, we watched some of the archived lectures (via a youtube widget), listened to the ALife music playist), etc. all while watching his simulation play out in 3D in the middle of the room.

In any case Solaria is already here! We simply haven't admitted it yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Sun

-- 
↙↙↙ uǝlƃ