Joe Essid directs the Writing Center at the University of Richmond, where he teaches courses in writing and literature. He is a Richmond native who attended the University of Virginia and earned a Master's and PhD at Indiana University. His research interests include technology in the classroom and Southern literary humor. His academic writing has appeared in Computers and Humanities, The Writing Lab Newsletter, and anthologies about technology and writing. He is a contributor to Style Weekly and has appeared in Eighty One and RVA. Ignatius Onomatopoeia is the "avatar" who represents Joe in the game-world Second Life. Ignatius will be wandering the virtual terrain of Second Life while his creator writes here about what may be either "the next big thing" for the Internet or the latest darling of the cyber-hip... the reader can decide.
E-mail contact: jessid@mac.com | Web address: writing2.richmond.edu/jessid

Location: Sucking Money Out of The System

I’d reported, some time ago and much after the fact, that Linden Lab® had changed the traffic “metrics” in Second Life®.  Now popular places are part of a “Showcase” voted upon by residents. Mere presence of camping-zombies and bots will not help a location bring in active avatars. None of the old camping spots show up in Showcase’s top listings.  As a result, camping rates have fallen off sharply. The old “Free Spirit” group at HippiePay once gave out 2L every 5 minutes.  Now avatars try to crowd in anywhere that offers 2/15.

Pappy Enoch, who covers the freeloader-and-layabout (dead) beat for “In a Strange Land,” went around to check on the status of camping these days.  He was in a grim mood when he came back.  He handed me a faded “fotygraph” of the good old days of camping and began his lament.  As he put it, “them was sum times, Wiggly. I camped on mah tractur a-cuttin’ grass (n’ smokin’ sum) wif them-thar Hippies at Woodstock I-land.  I luved chasin’ wimmin, like that-thar purty gal in knotty britches in my fotygraph. Yu cood scoop in 100L in a night, ol’ son’!”

Pappy got all misty-eyed at this point, so I translated the rest of his report, below, from the original hillbilly:

Land owners are trying a series of strategies to get visitors to their locales to spend money.  Zyngo games are popular draws, as are Sploder balls. For those new to Second Life, those are virtual versions of Bingo and a type of “office pool” that disburses money randomly after avatars have put in a certain amount.  Treasure-hunts, cheap or free items, and lucky chairs of all sorts still abound.  Pappy spotted a large group of avatars at one spot, crowded around a cluster of lucky chairs, hoping the chairs’ letters might match the first one in their names.

Pappy just shook his head and walked off.  These avatars did not talk or interact in any way. They were just there, desperate for a few Linden Dollars and the chance to be the first to sit down.

A system that permits avatars to do other things while camping, and not using pose-balls or camping chairs, comes from Anywhere Camping. In theory, the avatar can earn as much as 10 Linden Dollars every 15 minutes.  The trick involves completing marketing surveys, though the bonus is the ability to leave a camping sim and earn money anywhere in the metaverse.

It’s clever, but will it prove a sustainable business model?  Without visitors paying something back to sim-owners, it cannot last. Yet time will tell, and Pappy, who does not want to do anything productive, will be on the scene to tell you.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Stuck Between a Wiki and a Hard Place

It was simple to come up with a first detailed assignment for my class.  I think it accomplishes a major goal in the service of Tenchi’s Law: Break the Ice.  I want students to state one claim about SL and defend it, after seeing a series of videos and reading some articles about the virtual world.

The next step is trickier. After the writers have an initial impression of SL, how do I get them to navigate to key locations?  Do I provide them with landmarks or do I embed SLURLs into every page of the Wiki?

In the end, students can be easily overloaded, but providing multiple ways to complete tasks is not a bad idea. Read the expanded entry about why I decided to give my class both landmarks and SLURL links.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Pappy Enoch’s Still, Guzzling Shine

Can you manage it, Tenchi Morigi?

First of all, the women on my SL friends list--Cynthia and Di--have impeccable fashion-cred.

But Tenchi has set up a service, Styles by T, for shoppers who have an idea but lack time to put together the perfect look.  She’s available as an expert shopper.  Let’s see HOW expert.

I will pay Ms. Morigi’s fee if she can figure out how to transform Pappy Enoch into the spitting image of James Dean, as shown above in a scene from the epic film Giant. And the photos will run here. Can we do it for under 2000 Linden Dollars, Tenchi??

Pappy becomes “Jett Rink”?  Wait and see, gentle readers...there’s real money in this for you, Tenchi!

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: STILL at Real-Life Desk, Pondering Syllabus for Fall

I wish I were driving my virtual car...but I’m working and cannot be in-world today. Fall is breathing down my neck!

I did not realize, after answering a query by e-mail, that I’d become the poster-boy in a New World Notes story about educators, SL™, and Millennial students.

One point is clear to me: these students need consistent instructions.  That’s my qualm about using the otherwise strong Onrez client.

I’ve loved Onrez because, unlike the Linden Lab® product, it does not require constant updates.  That confused students both semesters I’ve taught with SL.  So why NOT use Onrez?

Instructions, instructions....every bit of advice at LL’s site and most third-party SL sites is written for the default Linden Lab client.  The Onrez client, while sleeker in many regards, lacks that sort of back-story. 

Or would college kids even care? How much time will they, on their own, spend “goofing around” with SL? I’ll be giving them more defined assignments now and prepare a “just in time” help wiki for them....yet as Intellagirl (a teacher who’s well known for her work with SL) responded in a comment to the NWN story, “Until I gave them a specific goal to accomplish they weren’t motivated to spend the time to play with the tools.” She’s talking about the advanced building tools embedded in SL, but the point is broader.  My students are strapped for time and set a list of priorities.  They do not have the luxury, even in classes that motivate them, to just “play around.”

Back to the drawing board...any advice out there?

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Real-Life Desk, Pondering Syllabus for Fall

College teachers often ask me where to begin in Second Life®.  I say “Sarah Nerd’s Freebie Paradise,” then realize that they have no avatar yet and consider me insane.

Then, with my teacher’s hat jammed firmly on my head again, we discuss lesson plans and a general philosophy for a class using SL™. Those will vary by the subject and students’ ability. 

Still, most classes can begin with a principle given to me by Tenchi Morigi, who served as a mentor for my last class, “Invented Worlds.” She wants to get 18-22 year olds past their initial loathing for the metaverse. She and I, over virtual tea, have discussed this common problem. In this installment of Iggy’s Syllabus, Tenchi rides to the rescue, and I provide a first lesson plan…Read the expanded entry.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

by Dianna Defiant, Guest Writer
Location: Our Virtual Advice Desk

Dear Di,

What is the polite way to deal with pesky visitors who drop by your virtual house, unannounced?  Some are strangers and some are friends.

Some of them, even ones I know, have NO manners and I want to orbit them.

Grumbling and,

Put Upon

Dear Put Upon,

I don’t like unexpected guests either! It’s not polite even in SL™. One good thing about SL - if you own your land, YOU can control who is allowed on it. You can only allow people you know and ban all others. You can also R click and eject/ban them. Now if you don’t own your land that’s another problem. Unfortunately in SL, if you aren’t around and have no device to boot people from your place, any one can come in. If you are there I would ask them what they want and see what they say. Usually asking them to leave works, or you can report them if they harass you. Now if your friends are “dropping in” they apparently LM’d your place. Tell them if they see you online to please “call” before dropping in. If they continue, I would find a reason to leave every time they came by unannounced - if they call, then have a visit - they will get the hint (I hope!)

And a note to the “drop in-ers” If you see a stranger while exploring - that is NOT an invite to drop in and have a chat. If you would like that - ALWAYS IM the person and ask first. If you show up at someone’s occupied house by mistake (via an old LM maybe), apologize and TP out fast. You would never walk into a house in RL and plop yourself on the sofa and start asking questions of the tenant - don’t do it in SL either…

PS - If you want some cool “booby traps” IM me in-world I’ll hook you up!

XXOO
Di

Questions for Di? Iggy will forward them to her! E-mail iggyo -at- mac -dot- com

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Linden Estate Services

Second Life® celebrated its fifth birthday and…I missed it!  So I went to a Linden Lab® sim today, sat at a Linden desk, and penned some birthday wishes.

I want to make a few wishes that I hope to see realized by the sixth birthday next year.

1) Fewer mandatory client updates: Universities tend to update their public labs annually using a template installed from a server onto all machines.  This means that most of the time we have to lock in clients once per year.  With the OnRez client I’ve been using on and off for several months, I’ve not been forced to download a single update. I plan to use it with my fall class, not the LL client.

2) More structure for new avatars: The banal tasks on Orientation Island are necessary, but why not make them less juvenile?  If the experience were designed to be an Indiana-Jones-style adventure to solve a mystery, with consequences such as falling boulders and runaway locomotives, new avatars would have something better to do that talk to a silly-looking native idol and a reason to pull the torch out of their library. Finding it to fend off a giant spider would, however, be fun.

3) Better physics and more gamelike games in-world: My recent driving adventures, and comments from Tenchi Morigi, convince me that SL™ is not there yet.  I should be able to drive my car from point A to point B without silly crashes of the computer or the road simply disappearing.

4) Beyond camping: I have defended camping in this blog, because it gives newcomers an easy way to earn some mad money.  Without sitting on a pose-ball or sinking into the adult economy, how can newbies earn enough to begin their second lives?

5) Room of one’s own: With apologies to Woolf, it would be lovely to see paying residents again get a tiny piece of their own land, even if it were in some condo stack. This would not hurt land-barons because the plots would be modest. The fabled “First Land” era is an ancient myth for most of us.

6) More stability: It’s getting better, in my experience, but it’s not there yet.

Next year let’s see if any of my wishes came true!  Share yours here or drop me an e-mail at iggyo – at – mac – dot- com.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Lokashun: Mistophur (boss feller) Kevin’s desk, Richmond I-land

This are a test o’ that-thar blob tu see if’n I kin eggspand them entries.

The part right bee-low the sum’ry am called the “body.” Say, am that whar they dun hid Jimmy Hoffa?

I’m a gonna repeat it in that-thar last part.

Hoo-whee! I dun found mee a photy-graphy o’ that Latin gal, Salami Hi-yak, on Mistopher Kevin’s corn-puter!  Talk about “body”!  Whee-hoo.....

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Richmond Island

Where do you begin to focus the wayward attention of first-year college students in a writing class making heavy use of Second Life®?

I have the luxury, as my school’s writing program director, to do pretty much what I please in my section of first-year writing.  My only mandate, beyond a minimum number of words and a few assignments that require outside sources, will be to meet the program’s goal of assisting new college students make the transition from high-school notions of writing to discourse appropriate to the professorate at a selective liberal-arts university.

And if possible, I’ll keep senior administrators visiting class from seeing students play SL™ golf while dressed in banana-avatar suits.

Actually, my biggest challenge is as old as the coming of written argument to Western culture. Socrates decried this new technology when it began to appear among young scholars in Athens nearly 2500 years ago.  He feared that no one would be able to recall facts, make logical connections, or communicate gracefully once writing replaced the spoken discourse of the Agora.

Guess what? He was correct. 

Writing formally is alien to most college students.  The very process can make thinking sloppy, so my largest task every year is to get writers to untangle their thinking before they type.  Surprisingly, the metaverse, as subject-matter and new medium for embodied communication, doesn’t complicate this process too much.  Whatever the course or content, students face the same difficulties when writing.

Having taught with SL twice before, I can confidently state a few principles educators need to consider.

1) Provide a Good Orientation Experience. As New World Notes readers know well, the first hour in-world can make or break SL engagement. For my students’ first hour, I will offer one-on-one conferences so they can set up an avatar, log in with me nearby, and get my help IRL or in-world.  My avatar is a Linden Lab volunteer mentor, so Iggy can teleport to the Orientation and Help Islands.

2) Assign Discrete Tasks. My first class merely wandered about the metaverse. What a rotten idea! Free-form exploration is good for later tasks, but at first my group of writers will analyze why they chose a particular default avatar. I will require them to post successes, failures, and questions to a discussion board integrated into our class wiki.

3) Focus on Academic Content. Students quickly discover SL’s adult content on their own. Beyond a general warning, I won’t dwell on this part of SL. Each editing group will get a dossier of in-world tasks to complete, along with SLURLs to places such as Svarga, The International Spaceflight Museum, even the Cave of Doom funhouse!

4) Track and Connect the Work. Each assignment must, for this Millennial Generation, involve documenting changes observed since the last visit, new tasks learned in-world, and reflections on the writer’s perceptions of the invented world of SL.  This will get my students past the aimlessness that marked earlier classes’ exploration of the metaverse.

My four principles work in service of a big question: what role will virtual worlds play as communications tools for business, research, education, and entertainment? Future installments of “Iggy’s Syllabus” will follow my students and me in-world as we try to provide some answers.

And, of course, answer another hot question: where can I get a banana avatar?

Photo courtesy of Hennessy Harbour, virtual golf-pro and tasty source of potassium.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Marion VA and Orientation Island

Being away from SL™ can be as disorienting as being in it, when worlds collide.

Outside of Marion, VA, if you drive east toward the Grayson Highlands three-quarters of a mile above your head, you’ll pass a number of single-wides, cabins, and small businesses. More than a few have seen better days.

One house caught my wife’s eye, as we roared up the mountain.

“Oh my God!  He’s been here!”

“Who?”

“Pappy Enoch!”

Pappy, a Grayson County boy who got sucked into the “fake wirld o’ Secund Life” got a reprieve from virtuality last month and was permitted a short “vakashun” to visit his home-folks and still.  Little did I know that he’d be setting up a money-making scheme as soon as he got to the real world again.

I put the Honda into the tightest U-turn it would ever see, outside a test-track.  Then I had to stand in several inches of water, mud oozing over the tops of my hiking boots, to line up this photo.

The curious or foolish can visit the Ask Pappy Web site themselves. In no way do I endorse this.  A rich Pappy Enoch is too much to contemplate.  I don’t want him buying a mansion in Windsor Farms, then putting chickens and goats in the yard “tu keep the grass down around mah Rolls Royce (that wun on the see-ment blocks—I gots to get ‘er runnin’ agin).”

I imagine the backhoe tearing up the rest of the lawn so Pappy can put in “wun o’ them-thar fancified cement ponds, so I kin go a-swimmin’ like a citified boy wood du.”

Then again…maybe that’s just what the real world needs. William Faulkner’s con-man and scoundrel Flem Snopes got a mansion (until his brother, Mink, shot him dead after walking 40+ miles to do the deed).  If old Flem got a big-house, why not Pappy?  And why not in ultra-sedate Windsor Farms?

My God, gentle readers! This is in the great tradition of American literature…Faulkner is the South’s Shakespeare. Maybe Pappy can be it’s Prospero…or Caliban.

I don’t know how many of you have had surreal moments where incidents or avatars in-world began to seep into reality. If you have, let me know and we’ll run that news here.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Every Awful Mall in the Metaverse

Early this year, I wrote about Iggy’s quest to find the perfect pair of combat boots in Second Life®.  At the time, I had discovered more offbeat items than I ever thought possible.

Now my friends and class-mentors Cynthia Barley and Tenchi Morigi have gone and done it right, with their blog ”Absolutely Amazing Second Life Discoveries.”

Yes, you ladies will find a “rideable man”; NO, it’s not an X-rated product, just a goofy-looking fellow who trots along in horse-fashion while the woman rides in comfort above the gritty virtual streets.  There is the “catpig” chair that must be seen to be believed, and there’s a pistol that shoots....oh, I had best let you see that tasteless item for yourselves.

Thank you, Tenchi and Cynthia, for reinforcing my ideas that humanity not only is doomed, but will go down laughing at whoopie-cushions.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Any number of Steampunk Regions

Student Seraphine Larkham spent a good deal of time in Caldedon, Solarya, and other regions of Second Life® dedicated to Steampunk, a subgenre of science-fiction based on Victorian futurism and sheer fantasy.  Now that the New York Times has reported on the emergence of a real-life Steampunk urban subculture, the term may enter common parlance as “Punk” and “Goth did decades back.  Partly out of pure fun, mad inventors are creating wildly original devices to do everyday things (imagine oak-and-brass computer keyboards). To get a sense of this, see The Steampunk Workshop Web Site.

In Second Life, one need not blow glass and turn brass for the desired effect, and as a result the creations wild indeed.

Seraphine wrote about the philosophy and aesthetics of Steampunk:

In modern times, technological showiness tends to come in the form of sleekness, a smoothing away of mechanics. Steampunk, on the other hand, often glories in mechanics. Inner workings are sometimes only partly concealed or even, on occasion, left entirely exposed. . . .This glory in complexity, mechanics, and parts is one of the hallmarks of steampunk technology.

Seraphine’s entire wiki project for me is worth a look. Begin with her ”Link to Seraphine’s Wiki” page and enjoy!

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: SurfWatch Web Site

Since there is obviously a virtual racing scene, why not one for virtual surfing?

I’d like to thank Barchan Paderborn for telling me about SurfWatch, dedicated to reporting where, how, and when to catch waves in the metaverse.  I’d seen a story about his blog in Wagner James Au’s New World Notes, and then Barchan dropped me an e-mail.

As Second Life develops better “physics” and coders have their way with its open-source scripting language, we’ll see virtual sports that compete with a decent video game for playability.  It’s natural that leagues, teams, and competitions will emerge. Jezz and I have both seen that at the Motorsports and Autosports regions, where races are common.  Barchan’s latest entry (as of my writing this) covers “The 2008 Second Life Surfing Association (SLSA) Season One Champion Awards Party.”

I’ll avoid any poorly delivered surfing terms here!  I’m not a surfer, but it’s exciting to see this type of community blossom online.  Barchan welcomes guest-writers, but he notes that “interested contributors contact me first before writing. . . .other than style guidelines, all the stories are written as if they are real life versus commenting on SL from [real life].”

Real-life surfing publications are taking an interest in Barchan’s work, he reports. Now I’m tempted to grab a board and try my luck. It would make for an amusing guest-column for SurfWatch. Some of my students have gone virtual surfing and loved the experience.

DMZ oh, the avatar of a former student, provided the image of him on the beach and about to catch some waves.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Autosports Region

After being outfoxed by her trickster brother, Jezz Enoch was quickly back on her feet, or at least on her four wheels.

I felt so sorry for the murderous, one-eyed, hard-drinking ex-convict that I bought her a car. Not just any car, but a great set of Southern wheels: a “Damaged Nova Purestock” from the car lot I had visited during my own runs on the Motorsports track.

Jezz was soon running laps in under 14 seconds.  She’s a better driver than I am already, but we agreed to “mix it up” for fun (and 200L) soon.

I caught up to her at the track, where, covered in dust, she pecked me on the cheek and left a dusty, Jezz-shaped impression on my new suit.

“Mistophur Wiggly, I are so happy I cood run out n’ kill a whole town!”

“Just tear up the track, Jezz.”

“I aims tu du jist that! I are a-gonna win big here...I owes that worf’less brudder, Pappy, a bunch o’ munny...dang his flea-bitten hide!”

I hope Pappy does not plan to be at the races anytime soon...he may have to run fast if he strays onto the track…

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

by Pappy Enoch, Gest-Riter
Lokashun: Cave o’ Doom Spooky House

Well, gentul reedurs, it am awlways the trickstur hoo wins agin’ the person hoo likes killin’ maimin’ n’ beatin’ the stuffin’ out o’ udder folks.

Corn-sider whut dun jist happened tu mah orful sistur, Jezzy-bell (hoo am that second sort o’ person), She kum intu this-hear fake wirld aimin’ tu kill mee o’ git a large pile o’ Linden dollars.  It were becuz she dun time in the slammer, back in Ol’ Virginny fo’ runnin’ mah still, when the law-dawgs decided tu visit Enoch Holler aftur I got sucked intu Secund Life.

Fo’ I while I give that gal the slip.  Then, I got rite tuckered out a-runnin’ n’ hidin’ n’ pree-tendin’ tu be a grissly bar o’ evun a (rite purty, if sum’whut big-boned) gal.

So I dun telled Jezz that we’d settul matters in the fake-wirld way: we’d go tu the CAVE O’ DOOM Funhouse.

Then we’d have a rip-snortin’ hellbilly battle-royale! Tu Shiners enturs that-thar cave, wun kums back out!

Cave o’ Doom am full o’ munsters, ghosts, n’ stuff which kin kill yu in lots o’ nasty ways.  Pefect fo’ a slap-down by ol’ Pap!

Yu kin find out whut dun happened tu that po’ gal….but I are a-gonna give yu a hint: It won’t purty!  Them-thar fotos I took am tu horry-bull tu run in this blob. 

It wur like wun o’ them-thar munster picture-shows: think “tabul saw, lectric chair, drowed in blood, n’ stuk on’ meat-hooks.” Yukky-poo! But wun good thang ‘bout the fake wirld (well, tu good thangs):

WUN) The blood won’t real-lookin’ (it were mo’ Tom n’ Jerry cartoon then it were a Sam Peckerpaw movie)

TU) Jezz won’t hurt, ‘cept fo’ her pride (which are corn-siderabull).

So git ovur tu mah Holler on the Web n’ take a gander!

NOW SHEE OWES PAP MUNNY!  Whee-hoo! Don’t mess wif no Enoch Holler trickstur, even if’n yu am blood-kinfolks!

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Two Virtual Places of Rest

For an assignment in an earlier course, my student “Ariena Weatherwax” had traveled to our city’s famous Hollywood Cemetery to do a photo-essay.  I suggested that she look into the rituals surrounding death and dying in Second Life®.

In part one, she explores a surprisingly realistic graveyard in-world and funeral home.  She finds it oddly disturbing in its banal details, such as the rows of folding chairs for a mourning family to use at a funeral.

In part two, Ariena discovers a cemetery that is less disquieting, a place to honor people who have died in our world and thus left the metaverse forever.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Motorsports Racetrack

This region, as well as the adjacent Autosports offer a variety of driving adventures.

I’ve not tried the dirt track at Autosports yet, but Tenchi and I, with varying degrees of success, drove the NASCAR-style banked oval. 

That’s us in my car, repainted red for racing--with a mouse-click (no masking tape or dust-masks needed). We are on the approach to the outer track. There’s a smaller oval inside it.

On both days we ran the track odd things happened. The first time, Tenchi brought her Lancer, but Second Life® was acting up and her avatar (not her car) crashed. For a weird few seconds, the empty Lancer did doughnuts in the warm-up area...then vanished. This was of course not the track’s problem, but Linden Lab’s® ongoing stability issues.  The whole region went off line not long after.

Both days experienced drivers made me eat their dust.  It’s doing to take long time to get decent at this track, at least at anything beyond first and second gears. I shudder to think of what would happen were I to get on the track with 10 or more vehicles.

As with other sports in-world, there are teams and scheduled competitions. I intend to keep practicing.  For the bold, there’s also a car lot with racers for sale. 

All in all, this is a nice “build.” The track is big and the distant turns look real as one roars up to them.

The physics of the racing work better than on the open road, though the location of the raceway, at the junction of two simulators, can lead to odd results during high-speed crashes--the car will send up hanging on edge, “neither here nor there.”

Rather like its driver

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Second Life® Home Page

We’ve all laughed at how awful the default avatars could be in Second Life. Their dreadful appearance probably contributed to the low retention rate of first-time users (Wager James Au, in New World Notes, often cites that only 10% of us stick around after our first log-in).  As a recent blog from Linden Lab® admits in its title, “If you don’t look good, we don’t look good.”

I’m very pleased that Linden Lab has teamed up with some very good skin and clothing designers to produce a line of avatars for newcomers.  These pictures cannot lie; the old avatars look awful in any photo, and these will provide much better starting points.

Good job, Linden Lab! Now if you could only make other aspects of the first hours in-world more rewarding.  Then get the roads to work better...or maybe not.  I like the challenges of surreal driving. 

Back to Tenchi’s and my racing adventures, in the next post for the week ahead…

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Lost Highway, and not asking directions

Well, the joy is back…oh yeah. Driving like a nut and racing Tenchi, my black Dominus Shadow against her pink (!) Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. I may be an old-school racer-boy, but even in pink, that Lancer is HOT.

We decided to begin a Ross sim and do a closed course. This was our map, which we quickly forgot as we got lost: 

My driving is better these days, but Second Life® still has a few problems when you really kick a premium vehicle (one with gears or a supercharger) into high speed.

Still, some of the fun means driver error and crashes. I hope “Hugsy Penguin” forgives us for smashing up in front of his/her shop…

Both of our cars feature multiple gears, so we could “kick it up” into third or fourth on big straight-aways.  With my sound cranked I could almost imagine that we were racing real vehicles.

Until, however, we hit the borders between a few busy regions. Then the car would disappear and my avatar would assume a driving position without the car at 10,000 feet.  Needless to say, I had crashed in an SL™ sense, and I had to restart Second Life.

Even that glitch added to the fun, because while I was logging in again, Tenchi was adding to her lead…until she dove into the water and her car became a submarine.

“Hah!” I yelled, as I raced past her, her Evo trying to run along the side of a wall.

Later I rode shotgun to get some great snapshots while Tenchi did the driving.  Finally, Linden Lab® is getting the experience of the open road good enough to lure us out.  All we need now are some signs!

Now that Linden Lab is building major new roads, I am so ready for the challenge of a SL road rally.

Next up: Tenchi and I gun our machines around the big oval.  And wreck horribly. I will never make fun of NASCAR driving again.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

by Dianna Defiant, Guest Writer
Location: Our Virtual Advice Desk

Dear Di,

I’m thinking of leaving Second Life. Even if I do not delete my account, I may rarely log on for a LONG time.

I’ve a large friends list.  Some are good SL™ friends, and they’re going to be hurt by my departure.  What is the etiquette here?  Send a “goodbye” note?  Throw a going-away party, like I’m going on a long trip or relocating in real life?

What would you do?

Vanishing Act

Dear Vanishing Act:

People in SL come & go - it is common to see friends either leave SL completely or cut way back on the in-world time. Being here for almost 2 years now I have seen both - and seen both handled differently. If you are only friends with these people inside of SL and do not communicate with them any other way than in-world, and probably won’t talk to them much again, then I think you should tell them of your plans to cut back or possibly leave. I hate to have to wonder what happened to someone who suddenly disappears. If you just want to leave SL but don’t want to leave your friends, there are several things you can do. If you know them well enough, exchange email addresses to keep in touch. If that is too personal for either of you, set up your preferences so you receive your IM’s to your email address - you can reply that way also. Or, there are a couple of programs out there that allow you to see & chat with online friends without actually being on SL. Not quite sure how they work but do know someone who used to use it. I can’t recommend them, but here are 2 I found in my search…

http://slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=231265

http://sl-pop3-im.bashora.com/

P.S. Don’t delete your account right away. Put you avvie in cryogenic stasis and wait. You might want to come back later and you’ll already be fixed up and have inventory. If you delete and decide to come back, you’ll have to go through that WHOLE fixing-up/getting clothes/hair/etc. AGAIN!!

XXOO
Di

Questions for Di? Iggy will forward them to her! E-mail iggyo -at- mac -dot- com

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Still on the virtual road...mining the class wiki

Student responses to a more guided experience in-world, continued...It was a fun semester.  Time to send out a special thanks to the class mentors, especially Tenchi, Di, and Cynthia. She’s at the right of the image here, with me and a group of students from this year’s Conference on College Composition and Communication in New Orleans.

Thanks to Pappy Enoch for not getting any kids injured, jailed, or married to one of your cousins.

Reaction #2: Initially skeptical students let go and begin exploring:

I got curious one day in Second Life® and decided to do some searches. For some reason the first thing that popped into my head when I brought up the search menu was hell. . . . .Hell is a very interesting place. . . . a rather picturesque plot of fire and brimstone that is home to many Second Life citizens. One of the first things I found when I arrived at the train station in hell is that you can rent land there. Why suffer in eternal damnation when you can build a house on a burning plain?

Reaction #3: Awe blossoms in the metaverse:

Second Life has proved to be something of an enigma to me. I believe it was Tenchi [Morigi, a class mentor] who corrected me for calling SL™ a game. Now that I’ve spent probably 10+ hours in-world, I’m seeing that she could not be more right. SL is indeed NOT a game. Quite frankly, it is something that seems to defy definition. Many say that it is an experience. But to me, even calling SL an experience fails to capture its scope. If I were to define it, I would call it a simulation of what would happen if men were gods.

Reaction #4: Negative reactions tend to be more considered, as in this student’s reaction of visiting the Africa sim:

It was a cute experience, but I am aware that it is not even close to resembling the real continent of Africa, nor will it prepare me for my hopefully upcoming journey. However, these photos all represent some stereotype of the Dark Continent - all exotic, all unique, and all very “African.”

Or this student’s realization of how little doing online surveys in-world pays:

5 minutes and $26 lindens latter I realize that earning money this way is not for me.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land®” Archive for old posts