Virtual Underworld

Best Places in SL for 2009

Ariane — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:09:10 +0000

One of the most popular posts I did in 2008 was my end of the year list of the 10 best places I visited during the year. Most of those 10 made the list due to the magnificent scenery that can be found. While this years list has a few outstanding scenery locales, I also picked out a few that are outstanding in other ways. If you want to see these in person, you might want to hurry, two of the places I considered for this list are gone.

The Mainstreaming of SL (or why I will reduce my coverage of Second Life)

Ariane — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 12:42:20 +0000

On a web page I wrote about the history of computer animation, I charted how the industry went from cutting edge to mainstream in about a decade, wearing off the novelty, but still producing quality from time to time. I believe that is the present state of SL today.

Date Simulator 6.1

Ariane — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:37:33 +0000

I made an unusual change to the Date Simulator, it has been on the online version for a while, thought I'd release the changes to the offline version.

War Memorials in SL

Ariane — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:03:57 +0000

November is best known for Thanksgiving, but Veterans Day is celebrated on November 11th, the anniversary of the end of World War 1. Which is a good lead into one of the best educational sims I have ever seen The First World War Poetry Digital Archive (More Pictures - Link to website) built by a group from Oxford University.

A Quick Peak at Dragon Age: Origins

Ariane — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:51:27 +0000

I have played a few MMORPGs, but this is my first PC-RPG and it is quite the experience. There are advantages to desktop RPGs that you don't get online.

The blog is moving… maybe

Ariane — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:57:27 +0000

I’ve been having some ongoing issues with godaddy hosting, I believe the server is falsely reporting too much traffic or too many connections. I’ve set up a mirror blog at http://arianeb.wordpress.com I have not decided if the move will be permanent, or if I should maintain two mirrors, or if I should just move to [...]

Have We Lost the Second Life Vision?

Ariane — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:58:46 +0000

Three other blog posts generated a fair amount of feedback over at SL Universe this week. My response to all three was decidedly negative. Even though these three seperate issues have little to do with one another, they all deny the whole vision and purpose of Second Life as if they are a part of a concerted effort to turn SL into something it is not. Have we lost the vision of what SL is supposed to be?

What if you built an awesome 3D Virtual World and nobody came?

Ariane — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:21:36 +0000

What if you built an awesome 3D Virtual World and nobody came? That seems to be the question facing the makers of a 3D virtual world that I recently discovered.

The Oldest Noob in IMVU

Ariane — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:11:23 +0000

With the popularity of IMVU now matching Second Life levels, I decided to check IMVU out again after a 4 year absence. I signed up after IMVU went open beta, and was the 814th person to do so. In those days IMVU was Instant Messenger Viewer Utility. It was a tool that you add to any [...]

Five Guys Build Their Own Virtual Earth

Ariane — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:51:41 +0000

The video above is not Google Earth, or Microsoft Virtual Earth. It is a creation of five guys in Britain led by Michael Fotoohi of Micazook.com. They have an ambitious plan of creating the entire planet in 3D navigable by avatars as seen in the video. They use freely available aerial photography and digital street maps to create their world. They are hoping to make a combination of Google Earth, Second Life, and Wikipedia.