Anti-apartheid activist, and later South African president, Nelson Mandela was imprisoned by the South African government for 27 years, from 1962 to 1990…
Yes, crazy resonance that at the same 1962 moment that our boy Rudy Nureyev was escaping Eastern Bloc totalitarianism:
http://vaneeesa.com/category/vaneeesa/nureyev-21/
Mandela was beginning an incredible odyssey wherein he somehow endured 27 years of political imprisonment, and one day, in 1994, became president.
In case you thought we left apartheid back in the 20th century, you were wrong – Blue Mars is bringing it forward to the 21st century for us.
In the immortal words of Virtual Mr. Orwell, “All avatars are equal, but some are more equal.”
Just in case you have no idea what Vaneeesa is babbling about — ha ha ha, like that could happen! 
"Vaneeesa Blaylock" goes for a walk in Blue Mars
I’m talking about the two classes of residents in Blue Mars, the developer class and the consumer class. I’ve literally spent 5 minutes in-world, so I’m actually clueless and uninformed about all this…
B
U
T
What better reason to take a
Blue Mars Field Trip!!
[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibVzvdYfzyQ]
Second Life is, famously, all about “UGC” – “User Generated Content (and, of course, about laying peeps off)
WoW is all about amazing developer made content.
In the words of Larry Lessig, “Read-Write Culture” vs “Read-Only Culture.”
Blue Mars (did I mention I’m a clueless noob?) tries to split the UGC difference with Developer Class and Consumer Class.
Anyway, I can whine about that after the field trip. But with Linden Lab in meltdown we should try not to be Blue Mars haters, as it’s the promise on the horizon for a world we might someday want to live in.
Facepainting in Blue Mars by Angry Beth. Click image for her flickr page.
SO
F-I-E-L-D T-R-I-P !!!
VB/CO Goes 2 Blue Mars!
Saturday, 25 September 2010
Noon SLT
7pm GMT
9pm CEST
5am Sunday AEST
http://www.bluemarsonline.com/
Dale in Blue Mars by Ceoln. Click image for filckr page.
As far as I’m currently aware, there aren’t the same WoW Server / Race / Class sorts of issues. I think (did I mention I’m a “friendless noob!? 
you just sign up and we can find each other.
Blue Mars runs on Windows XP, Vista or 7 in 32 or 64-bit mode. Unfortunately, BM doesn’t run on Macs! 
Or “runs on Mac via Boot Camp”
Of course this will be a problem for our Mac friends!
But we have had a number of requests for a BM field trip, so it seems like we should give it a shot. Hopefully our Mac Users can, uh, “borrow a PC from work” or log-in from a friend’s house…
Their spex page seems to be compatible with a nice spread of NVidia & ATI Video Cards.
I’ll observe our standard field trip procedure and “Vaneeesa Blaylock” will also be available in Second Life to help anyone trying to get set-up or find the gang in BM.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/An%20Li/83/86/26
And do friend me “Vaneeesa Blaylock” in Blue Mars!
OMG I look like crap! Oh well, it's better than Ruth I guess -- barely!
What??? NO Ponytail hair??? F-that!
kk - well - better outfit at least - Where's Eloh Eliot???
If I can make it at the 25th, I’m definately comming.
it looks a bit like Sims to me, although Sims does have ponytails!