Sci-fi & fantasy snapshot contest

The Alliance Virtual Library has announced a sci-fi and fantasy snapshot contest. The deadline for entering is March 12. You can read more about it at my Examiner.com column

You can read the complete contest rules here, or you can read them on a notecard in Second Life next to the Talis Sci-fi & Fantasy Portal.

A sample science fiction snapshot taken in Second Life
A sci-fi snapshot I made at the bridge of a Darkwolf starship. The Darkwolf was created by Smith Fizz

Ursula Le Guin’s Feb 28th appearance in Second Life

Yesterday’s Ursula Le Guin event in Second Life was an overwhelming success.  You can read more about it on my examiner.com blog.

Here are three pictures from Friday’s rehearsal and from the actual event (click to see each one in full):

Ursula LeGuin will be beamed into Second Life Feb 28th

Famed author Ursula LeGuin will be beamed into Second Life tomorrow, Saturday February 28.  She will be at the Potlatch 18 Conference in Sunnyvale, California, reading from her novel and taking questions.  Second Life members will be able to watch her in real time video from the amphitheater on Info Island.  It will be a two way event: Ms Leguin and others at Potlatch will be able to see our assembled avatars on a monitor in Sunnyvale while we watch her in Second Life.  If time allows, Second Life participants will be able to submit questions to Ms. LeGuin.  The event will be from 3:30-5:00pm.  If you are a Second Life member, you can click on this SLURL to login and teleport there.

A New Blog Is Born

OK, I guess a new blog isn’t something the world desperately needs, but I’ll do it anyway.

I am Apollo Manga, one of the avatars of Erik Gordon Bainbridge, who’s been a Second Life member since 2004, when Second Life was a much smaller and much more primitive world than it is now.  Back then, Second Life could claim only about 4,000 members but there were casinos seemingly everywhere you turned.  Today it’s a very different and much better world overall.

In this blog, I’ll be writing of the many creative and productive activities in Second Life, interesting builds, opportunities, and competitions of various types, starting with a sci-fi/fantasy photo contest that will soon be announced.  I’ll write more about it as soon as I have details.

Stay tuned.

Sundance Film Festival holds first time ever screening in Second Life

Never before had Sundance Film Festival audience members been part fox, used names like “NeoConD” and “Apparatchik,” or had the power to teleport away. Marking a first for both Sundance and cyberspace, these viewers were avatars watching a feature-length festival film Monday from a screening room in the virtual world of Second Life. (Michelle Meyers, CNET News, Jan 24, 2007) Read