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International Year of Astronomy in Second Life

The Leviathan of Parsonstown in Second Life

Today we remember Galileo as one of the great early astronomers, but he spent the last six years of his life under arrest for astronomical observations that challenged the beliefs of his time, but which four centuries later are accepted scientific truths. Two centuries after Galileo’s death, the beliefs that caused his house arrest were commonly accepted and William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse built the Leviathon of Parsonstown, the largest telescope ever made; it remained the largest for seventy-five years, until the Hooker Telescope was constructed in the United States in 1917.

These and other events are commemorated in Second Life as part of the ongoing International Year of Astronomy, being celebrated in 140 countries. You can visit the courtyard of the house where Galileo lived under house arrest, and you (or at least your avatar!) can climb through the mammoth gothic stone arches and wooden scaffolding that housed the Leviathan of Parsonstown in Second Life. You see the Second Life version in the first picture.

Space art celebrating the International Year of Astronomy

In Second Life, the International Year of Astronomy is being celebrated in the Astronomy 2009 sim, which is in a cluster of science-oriented islands known as SciLands. There is a section devoted to astrophotography, with photographs on display that show both distance objects in space as well as scenes on Earth, such as two photographs from Iran, one showing the moon behind the surviving columns of the ruins of Persepolis and the other a striking long-exposure shot showing stars’ motion over a barren landscape.

In addition to astrophotography, there is a gallery of space art, often fanciful visions of the future and of space. One display is shown in the second photo. You can also watch podcasts about astronomy and a movie about the history of the telescope, though neither was working the day I visited.

There are also over three hundred space-themed textures available for free; some of them are shown in the picture on the right.

Beginning in the fall of 2009, star parties at California’s Chico Observatory will be streamed into Second Life to the observatory area in Astronomy 2009.

Other features of Astronomy 2009 are the holodeck, in which you can materialize either the courtyard of the house where Galileo lived under house arrest or an urban street where you can experiment with different types of lighting.

Second Life members can experience the International Year of Astronomy by teleporting to slurl.com/secondlife/Astronomy%202009/130/215/32, You can also get on a list to learn of upcoming events by clicking on one of the informational kiosks that you’ll find all over Astronomy 2009.

Building Dreams

Second Life‘s Dreams is a place for people to let their imaginations play freely and learn new building skills in a supportive, friendly environment. In addition to providing building tutorials and a sandbox for members, it offers one-on-one support for Second Life members with challenges that prevent them from easily taking an active part in Second Life.

A popular Dreams event is its monthly building competition, "Building on the 512". in which competitors can build whatever they want, as long they use no more than 117 prims on a plot of 512 square meters. Prims (short for primitives) are the basic building blocks of Second Life Virtually everything is made from prims. Prims can be shaped, textured, and combined to form an object such as a house, a piece of furniture, a vehicle, or a tree.

In the current Building on the 512 contest, competitors began building on July 30, 2009 and must complete by August 9. Awards will be announced August 15. The first picture shows Hig Bing’s entry. The second picture is Tiger Duesenburg’s entry, and the third picture shows from left to right entries by Franja Russell, Thor Effingham, and Dahlia Jinx.

Dreams was founded by The Sojourner, a stroke survivor and one of Second Life’s early members, who also founded the group Shockproof, a support group for stroke survivors. A widely loved and respected Second Life member, her death in 2008 of cardiac arrest triggered a massive outpouring of grief. You can read more about The Sojourner and her memorial at New World Notes.

Today, Dreams offers tutorials, support, and encouragement to anyone who wants to develop building skills, regardless of what personal challenges a person may (or may not) possess. Second Life members can visit the Dreams store at slurl.com/secondlife/Dreams/161/71/27 and can visit the current competition at slurl.com/secondlife/Dreams/131/142/26. If you are interested in learning more or becoming part of Dreams, contact either Golda Stein or Dorie Bernstein in Second Life.

Here are more pictures from the competition:

Virtual Frank Lloyd Wright Museum

Maybe because I’m blessed to live in what might be the only county with a civic center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, his architecture has always fascinated me. Our civic center is probably the only public building I really enjoy visiting, but I live on the West Coast and most of Wright’s buildings are back East, so visiting them has never been convenient… until last week, when the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum of SL opened in Second Life. Finally anyone anywhere can wander through some of his finest buildings.

Born in 1867, two years after the U.S. Civil War ended, Wright lived until 1959 and left a legacy of unconventionial architectural designs that stressed blending into the environment and in 1991 was declared "the greatest American architect of all time" by the American Institute of Architects.

The first picture shows what is arguably his best known design, the house called Fallingwater (aka Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr. Residence), which was built over a waterfall but which because of leaks, humidity, and mold, Kaufman was known to refer to as "Rising Mildew."

Seth Peterson Cottage

In 1958, Seth Peterson asked ninety year old Wright to design a cottage on a bluff overlooking Mirror Lake in Wisconsin. Peterson died before the cottage was completed and Wright died in 1959. Today the cottage is part of Mirror Lake State Park and is one of only a handful of Wright-designed buildings that can be rented. It’s available for overnight stays for up to four people; you can get information at www.sethpeterson.org.

This picture shows the main room of the cottage, looking out over the lake. The kitchen area is behind the fireplace.

The Robie House

The Robie House, designed in 1908-09 and located in Chicago‘s Hyde Park, was one of Wright’s earlier designs, but came close to demolition four decades after construction. The Chicago Theological Seminary had bought the house in 1926 for use as a dormitory and dining hall but in 1957 announced that they planned to demolish it, prompting Wright to quip, ""It all goes to show the danger of entrusting anything spiritual to the clergy." An outcry ensued and the house was saved. The University of Chicago used it until 2002, when it was donated to the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust.

There’s a lot more to see. Several more of buildings that Wright designed are reconstructed at the museum, and there are photographs and other information about him. There is also a shopping area, where you can buy textures and fixtures.

You can learn more by joining Second Life’s The Frank Lloyd Wright Museum of SL Group, and you can teleport there at slurl.com/secondlife/DiLemma%20City/51/201/22.

Second Life 101: gateway communities – Australia, Ireland, and Turkey

Today we’ll explore Australian, Irish, and Turkish gateway communities in Second Life.

Like Australia itself, the Australian-themed Big Pond gateway community is vast, comprising 16 sims with names such as Ponderama, Pondune, Pondessa, and Pondune. Big Pond is far to large to cover in this article, which will be restricted to the area for new Second Life members.

When you first land at the orientation area, you are given the choice of going to the training area or to Ponderama. If you’re new to Second Life, start by going to the training area. Be sure to join the Pond Orientation Group first; you are given the option when you first land in the orientation area. The training area is open only to members of this group.

Once in the training area, there are signs telling you basics of functioning in Second Life, and you are given free vehicles, including a horse. After you have acquired some basic Second Life skills in the training area, you can return to the starting point and go to Ponderama. You’ll see a small airplane waiting for you. Sit on it and it will take you on a tour, both flying through the air and underwater, finally landing at Pondling’s Camp. The first picture on the right shows the Community Hut in Pondling’s Camp.

At Pondling’s Camp, you can set your Home to there, giving you a home base in Second Life, where you can meet other new members, and from which you can explore the rest of Big Pond and Second Life. To teleport to the Big Pond orientation area, go to slurl.com/secondlife/Pondessa/126/165/31.

Dnncing in the Blarney Stone

Dublin in SL is a gateway community for newcomers, but is also a place that many Second Life old timers will love. Like Big Pond, is too much here to cover in these few paragraphs. You can learn a lot more by going to its website www.dublinsl.com. In Dublin in SL’s three sims you’ll find Dublin famous pubs, such as the Blarney Stone, pictured here on the right, a pool hall, a soccer stadium, regular music performances, and a literary pub crawl.

In the landing area, newcomers will find tutorial Second Life signs and a line of about a dozen free avatars that you can choose from if you want an easy way of changing your appearance. There are classes about Second Life on Tuesdays and Thursdays; for more information, login to Second Life and send an IM to Elwe Eldrich or Ginger Marseille. There is also a guided flying tour of Dublin, though the instructions may be complex for people new to Second Life.

You can teleport to Dublin in SL’s orientation area by clicking slurl.com/secondlife/Dublin/234/146/25.

The Bosphorus Brige

The Bosphorus is a waterway separating Europe from Turkey. In Second Life, it’s a gateway community, Virtual Bosphorus. The orientation area is for Turkish speakers only, but this should not deter English speakers from visiting. The rest of Second Life’s Bosphorus has signs that are mostly in English.

When you leave the orientation area, you are on the Bosphorus Bridge, which is an extension of the orientation area. Most English speakers will find it more productive to fly from the bridge to the left, where you will find a Turkish bath (complete with free tradional bath clothing and pose balls for both male-female and same sex massage!), a large shopping area, venues for music performances, and two museums. The Ataturk Museum contains extensive information about Turkey’s revered early twentieth century leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The Ottoman Museum contains historical artifacts of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey’s seven century long empire. The museum contains no information about the items in it, limiting its usefulness.

There are some technical glitches to be aware of. If you left click the teleport signs, you are teleported without warning and if you right click, the word "Teleport" never appears in the pie chart. You have to click "Sit Here" to teleport. If you try to teleport from the Turkish Bath to the Ottoman Museum, you’ll end up in a retail store instead.

You can learn more by joining Second Life’s Virtual Bosphorus Group, and you can teleport there at slurl.com/secondlife/Bosphorus/25/243/36.

Previous articles in this series were Holland, Avatar Island, Benelux, and China, and Gateway Communities and Renting.

Second Life 101: gateway communities – Holland, Avatar Island, Benelux, and China

This is the first in a series of articles about Second Life gateway communities, which were discussed in the last Second Life 101 article, Renting and Gateway Communities. Today we’ll examine four gateway communities: Virtual Holland, BeNeLux Community Gateway, 3Immersions, and Avatar Island University. One is English language, one is Chinese, one is Dutch, and one is multi-lingual.

When you land in the Virtual Holland Future Nederlandse Gateway, you are on a tiny island, surrounded by instructional signs in Dutch to help new Second Life members. Although there is nothing here for non-English speakers, it is part of a cluster of scenic Netherlands regions with names like Virtual Holland Village Noordzee and Nederland. Even though you may not understand the language, you may enjoy visiting this mini-Netherlands in Second Life.

The teleport link for new members is slurl.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Holland%20Future/176/35/21. Flying is not allowed on the island, but you can walk underwater to the adjacent islands, where flying is allowed. The picture on the right is from one of the Virtual Holland islands.

Avatar Island University is for new members only. If you’re already a Second Life member, you’ll be ejected if you try to enter. The description they give of it is:

"Make Avatar Island your first stop in Second Life. On Avatar Island you’ll find all you need to create and accessorize your avatar before heading out into SL. You can even use a photo of yourself (or anyone else!) to make a truly unique avatar!"

The setting is beautful, a collection of structures on an open sea, which you can see in this picture. I wasn’t able to enter it, however, so I can give no further personal observations.

Choose a different first name

The Benelux Community Gateway offers a comprehensive series of tutorials for new members in three languages, English, French, and Dutch. It’s open to existing Second Life members as well as new members. When you land there, you follow a series of arrows on the ground to a series of areas ringed by tutorial signs int three languages. When you get to the end of the tutorials, there is a large shopping area.

You can learn more by joining the Second Life group Benelux Community Gateway, and you can teleport there at slurl.com/secondlife/ZoHa%20Islands%20N/212/149/26. This picture shows some of the tutorial signs, and boxes of freebies.

My first visit to the 3Immersions, on the Chinese island Lenovo, conjured up unpleasant police state images when an avatar dressed in a police uniform and with "Police" in his group title ran up to me and demanded that I wait. "What kind of place is this?" I wondered, but it turned out that he had no connection with Lenovo, and just wanted to know where he could buy a gun!

Although 3Immersions is a gateway community for Chinese speakers, the primary purpose seems to be to teach the Chinese language (Mandarin) and culture to non-native speakers. I found it fascinating, and if I had the time to study Chinese, I’d sign up for classes.

You can teleport to 3Immersions at slurl.com/secondlife/Lenovo/169/207/2.

Second Life 101: gateway communities and renting

There are two more important things for prospective and new Second Life members to consider: gateway communities and renting land.

Communities

Like our physical world, Second Life is a vast place, with much variety, and a wide variety of languages (Second Life members hail from over a hundred countries!). It can be very bewildering to a new member who doesn’t know people already here who can guide them around. Second Life’s Gateway Communities offer new members an opportunity to have their initial Second Life experience among people with common interests and a common language. When you first sign up and you’re choosing your avatar appearance and name, you can check a box that will give you a choice of communities to land in when you first log on. This doesn’t commit you to joining any groups; it’s just an opportunity to hopefully be with people who share some of your interests and speak your language. As of today, communities are available in thirteen different languages! You can find out more about these communities before signing up for SL by going to Second Life’s Community Gateway page wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Community_Gateway. Some of the Gateway communities you can choose from are Dublin (Ireland), Australia, London, the Fashion Research Institute’s gateway for training & development entry for apparel industry personnel, steampunk, a faery world of dark forests, and a support community for people with disabilities or chronic illnesses.

Renting Land

It’s not necessary to have a premium account to have your own house or land in Second Life. If you want to buy land, then you’ll need a premium account, but you can save the expense of a premium account by renting a house, apartment, or land. A basic account also allows you to buy a house and place it on land that you rent. If you want to learn more about renting, a good place to start is Second Life’s “Land renting advice for new Residents” page, wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Help:Land_renting_advice_for_new_Residents. This page gives some reasons you might want to rent rather than own, even if you have a premium account:

You might want to open a business in a popular area where buying the land is either too expensive or simply not possible
You want to live in a zoned community, that is a community with a defined set of rules
You need or prefer to pay in Lindens (the Second Life currency) rather than dollars
You want the flexibility of being able to move whenever you want without having to find a buyer for your land first.

Event though I’ve had a premium account since my second month of Second Life membership in 2004, I have sometimes rented land in addition to the land I owned. The reason was that I needed the land for building. Everything you build in Second Life consists of "prims" (primitive building blocks), and the number of prims you are allowed to put on your land is directly related to how large your land parcel is (there are some other details about how your prim allotment is calculated, but let’s ignore those for now!). The larger your parcel is, the more prims you are allotted. On several occasions I temporarily needed a lot more prims than I had available on my land, so I rented additional land for my building projects.

When renting, you need to be aware of whether the land is on the Second Life mainland or on a privately owned island. If it’s on the mainland, some considerations are:

Is the land zoned PG, Mature, or Adult? These determine the kinds of activities you and your neighbors can and cannot engage in.
How many prims will you need? Your house, your furniture, even trees and flowers on the property will eat up your prim allowance. Generally a 512 square meter plot is the smallest size people build on, and on the mainland gets you 117 prims (which isn’t as much as it might seem).
Are there clubs, racetracks, or similiar activities in the area, it could enduce "lag", a situation in which response times can become very slow or erratic. They can also attract more visitors, which you may not want.

If you’re looking at rented land on a private island, the above considerations still apply, except that in some cases, you may get more prims than you would for the same size parcel on the mainland. An additional thing to be aware of on private islands is the covenant, which can restrict your activities. To learn whether there is a covenant for land you’re considering renting, and what the covenant contains, right click on the land and when the pie chart pops up, click "About Land" and then click the "Covenant" tab.

There are three ways to find land for rent:

Ask friends. The best way to find a good place to rent is to ask your friends if they know of any good places to rent. Most of the time they won’t know of any good places, but occasionally they will. It’s worth asking.
Use Second Life Search. The picture at the top of this column shows the result of a search for land rentals. Click "Search" at the bottom of the Second Life window, then click either the "All", "Classifieds", or "Group" tab, and then enter what you’re looking for in the box after "Find:". Depending on what you’re looking for, somethings you might enter are "land rental", "house rental", "apartment rental", or "shop rental". Then click "Search". A list of rentals like the one in the picture above should come up. Note: the search window in Second Life is by default smaller than in the picture above. You can enlarge it by left-clicking on a corner of the window and dragging it out.
On the internet, use Google or another search provider. Enter a search term such as "second life rentals".

Be sure to read the Second Life land renting wiki that I mentioned earlier for information I didn’t have room to include here. For many or most new Second Life memebrs, renting land is the best option for getting started, and even for old timers, it often makes sense.

Second Life 101: getting started

Today’s column is for the newest of the new, people who have been hearing about Second Life and want to try it themselves.

The good news is that you can join Second Life for free. You can download the software, install it on your computer, and become active in Second Life without spending a penny. The real obstacle for many people people will be Second Life’s two fundamental technical requirements:

At least a DSL or cable internet connection. Dial-up is too slow.
An approved 3D video card. Generally this means minimally NVIDIA GeForce 6600, ATI Radeon 8500, or Intel 945 chipset. A good card doesn’t have to be expensive. The card I primarily use, the EVGA NVIDIA 9500 GT, can be bought online for $70 or less and produces outstanding graphics.

You also need at least 512mb of RAM, a 800mhz CPU, and Windows XP or Vista (Windows 7 also works). Second Life can also be used with a Mac or Linux. For detailed requirements, go to secondlife.com/support/sysreqs.php.

The next step is to create your account, which you do at join.secondlife.com. You will be given a choice of signing up for two plans: Basic and Premium. Basic is free and Premium costs $9.95/mo. If you’re not certain about your interest in Second Life, choose the Basic plan. You’ll have all the privileges of Premium plan members with one exception: Basic plan members can’t purchase land in Second Life. You can always switch to the Premium plan later if you want to buy land.

Selecting your avatar name

After choosing your plan, the next step is to choose your avatar. Your avatar is your appearance in Second Life. It’s how others will see you. Currently, new members can choose between six female and six male avatar bodies, shown here on the right. Don’t fret over this too much. You can change any aspect of your avatar appearance later. You can even change to a non-human avatar, such as a machine, an animal, or a plant. When choosing an avatar, there’s no need for you and your avatar to have the same gender. Many people openly choose an avatar with a different gender than their own. There is no stigma attached to it. This picture shows the current choice of avatars

The next step is to choose your avatar name, which will also be your account name. This is often the hardest and potentially most confusing part of the process. Give it some thought. This will be how people know you in Second Life. Choose a name that suits you and that you want to be known by. Your name can’t be changed after you set up your account, so choose it carefully.

Choose a different first name

You have to select a last name from a list, but you can use any first name you want as long as no one else is using that first name last name combination.

The first step is to enter the first name you want. After you do that, click "Get Available Last Names" and "choose" will appear after a list of last names that are available for your selected first name will appear. If no list appears, then your first name has already been taken. For example, as of this morning, neither "John" nor "Johnny" as a first name will generate any last names – the message "Sorry, all the last names are taken. Please try a different first name" appears in red. This message often confuses people. It doesn’t mean literally that all last names are taken, only that the first name you’ve selected has already been used for all last names.

"Click the triangle to see the list of last names

In this picture, we’ve clicked "Change First Name" and then entered "Barack" as our first name. "- Choose -" then appears after "Select Last Name" and when we click the triangle, a list of last names appears that are available with Barack.

The rest of the signup process is fairly straightforward. When you log on, you’ll be in Second Life.

Over coming weeks I’ll write several more columns for those of you who are new to Second Life, telling you how you can change your avatar’s appearance, buy or rent land, and do basic building. Until then, you can get some basic but excellent graphic instructions on the first things you’ll need to know by logging into Second Life and then clicking Help/Tutorial. You can get much more detailed help by clicking the F1 key.

You can also get help and information about your account on the Web. Log into your account by going to www.secondlife.com and clicking "Login" in the upper right corner.

Visit the famed Hotel Chelsea, now in Second Life

Silent Art Auction to benefit Relay for Life

For over a hundred years, New York‘s Hotel Chelsea has been famed for the many prominent artists, writers, and other creative people of the twentieth century who stayed or lived there. The very long list includes Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Sid Vicious, Leonard Cohen, Dylan Thomas, Arthur C. Clarke (who wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey while staying there), and Jean-Paul Sartre. The Chelsea played a starring role in Andy Warhol‘s film Chelsea Girls about regulars at his "Factory".

Today the Chelsea is embroiled in a bitter battle between supporters of 72 year old Stanley Bard, a member of the family that managed the Chelsea from 1945 until 2007, and David Elder, a descendant of the Chelsea’s original owners and current manager after Bard’s ouster.

The Chelsea now also exists in Second Life, offering virtual world rooms for rent, live events, and sporting "Bring back the Bards" signs. On one recent evening, three hours of scheduled live music was followed by another unscheduled performance.

Nearly every wall, staircase, and even the occasional ceiling is adorned with artwork in Second Life’s Hotel Chelsea. It’s a pleasure just to wander the hallways and climb the stairs. Most of the rooms are rented, but some are still available.

The door to Room 100 is blocked off with yellow police tape. This is the room where in 1978, Sid Vicious’ girl friend Nancy Spungen was found stabbed to death while Sid Vicious wandered the halls crying that he had killed her and couldn’t live without her. He was arrested for the killing but died of a heroin overdose while out on bail. When you enter the room, you see signs of Sid and Nancy’s tumultuous life, hypodermic needles, grimy bathroom with a smashed mirror, and blood from Nancy’s painful death, stabbed by a knife she had given to Sid just hours earlier.

Room 211 is evokes more pleasant memories. Bob Dylan lived in that room, which has become controversial with the hotel’s current management recently gutting the room. You can see photographs of the gutting on the Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog.

You can learn about up coming performances at Second Life’s Hotel Chelsea by joining the group Hotel Chelsea Manhattan NYC, which is dedicated to "bringing the famous bohemia of the Chelsea Hotel to Second Life." Live events include poetry readings and music. Live music generally is on Wednesday evenings starting at 5pm and Saturday evenings starting at 4pm. Second Life members can teleport to the virtual Hotel Chelsea at slurl.com/secondlife/Lanestris/53/153/99.

Friday Night at SL6B

If you harbor any doubts about the creative talent among Second Life members, be sure to visit SB6L, Second Life’s sixth birthday celebration, this weekend. Even if you harbor no doubts and just want a good time, stop in this weekend. The exhibits will remain in place through July 6, 2009, but the performances and other events end on June 30.

Last night’s events had both DJs spinning music and live concerts. The picture to the right is DJ GoSpeed Racer (in the blue shirt) leading an enthusiastic group of dancers doing the bunny hop. Other DJs included Cataplexia Numbers, Ghostwall Schwarz, and Deede Debs. The live music, which featured a range of music including country-western, included performers Bosco Constantine, Gregg Huet, and Ichie Kamachi. They all enthralled enthusiastic audiences.

One oddball event last night was “Ask The Omni Prim”, in which avatars seeking wisdom – sort of – knelt respectfully before the Omni Prim and asked questions.

You can get a calendar of upcoming events here and a list of exhbits and their coordinates here.

SL6B, “The Future of Virtual Worlds”

Dallier’s Hope, a meteor 600 light years from Earth and said to have been discovered in theyear 2499, is the location of Second Life’s 6th anniversary celebration, "The Future of Virtual Worlds". It consists of 20 regions of exhibits and a wide range of events from June 23 to June 30, 2009, including dancing, storytelling, panel discussions, opera, and even a marching band. You can read the full schedule of events here.

The best way to begin is to get a special HUD at The Paradox, the official entry point to the festivities. There are five landing points at The Paradox. One landing point is slurl.com/secondlife/SL6B%20The%20Paradox151/128/188. You can find other Paradox landing points as well as other teleport coordinates at Linden Lab’s SL6B wiki page wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/SL6B. When you wear the HUD, it appears in the lower left of your screen with arrows for going to the next or previous SL6B location.

An alternate way of getting around is the tram, a 35 minute tour of the exhibit. The tram however lacks one very important feature: a tour narrative describing what you’re passing. Still, it can be useful as a general survey to see what’s there. Look for green triangles. Clicking one of these will rez an instance of the tram for you.

Android Stage

One of the opening day events was dancing on Android Stage, pictured here. DJ LilTank Thibedeau was positioned high above the stage, spinning music while avatars danced on the circular stage, located at slurl.com/secondlife/SL6B%20Android/128/128/29.

Exhibits cover a wide range of interests, with titles such as Women of Second Life, The Lost Avatars of Zion, Social Metaverse, The Future of Media in Virtual Worlds, Global Online Hockey Association, The Future of Being Human, and America. You can get a complete list of events with their dates and locations here.

SL6B events will be held through June 30, 2009 and the exhibits will remain in place until July 6, 2009. Be sure to visit, and to allow plenty of time. There’sa lot to see.