I’ve decided to start something.
It’s an open club for anyone interested in group explorations of virtual worlds on the Hypergrid and sharing their experiences with others.
Want to join us?
Introducing the Hypergrid Adventurers Club
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Category Archives: Virtual Worlds
The Future of Virtual Worlds: No Fate but What We Make
In the movie Terminator 2, there is a memorable scene where Sarah Connor carves some words into a park bench.
I think those words hold a special meaning for those of us interested in the future of virtual worlds like Second Life, OpenSim, and whatever new worlds will come.
And I believe it’s a very bright future. For everyone.
Need a great terrain for your Opensim on a USB key? Here’s where to find one and how to set it up.
Setting up Opensim on a USB key is a great experience. Looking out with your avatar on a vast expanse of 4 regions is like peering at a huge blank canvas waiting for your imagination.
A Tabula Rasa in the palm of your hand.
But if you feel daunted by the need to terraform many acres of land, remember that you can easily upload terrain files.
I recently found a wonderful 4-sim megaregion terrain that is freely available and looks fantastic. You can find a copy here. I’ll also explain how to quickly set it up.
The Future will be Connected: Maps and the Metaverse
From the movie Time Bandits:
“You see, to be quite frank, the fabric of the universe is far from perfect. It was a bit of botched job, you see. We only had seven days to make it.
And that’s where this comes in. This is the only map of all the holes. Well, why repair them? Why not use them to get stinking rich?”
Or, you could use them to build a foundation for the future of Virtual Worlds.
A Virtual World in my Hands: Running OpenSim and Imprudence on a USB Key
Once in a while, I get a tingling feeling on the back of my neck.
It’s triggered by my discovery of something beautiful that has the potential to change both my own life and the lives of others.
Nascent revolutionary change.
Today I got that feeling again. And it only took me 1 hour of my time and a small USB key.
With every Exodus comes Expansion: Educators and Non-profits in Second Life
As you may have noticed, I haven’t blogged for about a month. I was also quiet on Twitter. The primary reason for this was a nasty bug that knocked me off my feet for a few weeks, and while I recovered I took the time to pretty much unplug from the online world.
Occasionally decoupling from the endless flow of online information gives me a chance to focus on new things without interruption. I spent my offline time reading books on various subjects and deeply immersing myself in the narrative of a couple video games.
While my illness bug is happily gone, my writing bug has happily returned. My next few blog posts will be about some insights I had into the nature of engagement in virtual worlds, games, and immersive stories. But for now, I’ll share some thoughts about the current situation with educators and non-profits in Second Life.
How to build the impossible
Throughout history, we have tried to build impossible things.
Insanely impossible things.
Things that require innovation, complex combinations of technologies, and a lot of coordination and work.
And despite great difficulty, we’ve managed to successfully build many impossible things.
Like airplanes.
But the main reason behind our success at building the impossible may surprise you.
Meanwhile, in Finland
I found that captioned photo while Googling for images of Finland.
But I don’t think we’re allowed to tease Finland anymore.
Not since Newsweek recently ranked them #1 on their list of Best Countries in the World.
I’ll be giving a keynote at a very interesting conference in Finland in October. Here are some details.
The Lattice of Coincidence
“A lot of people don’t realize what’s really going on.
They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidents and things.
They don’t realize there’s this, like, Lattice of Coincidence that lays on top of everything.”
That’s a quote from the movie Repo Man.
And while it may be the ramblings of a character who did way too much acid in the 60’s, I think it has a deeper meaning in Virtual Worlds.
You Look Marvelous
We all want to look marvelous.
And in virtual worlds, we want our avatars to look marvelous.
In both form and motion, we want them to possess beauty and grace. We want people to gasp at their originality and for virtual heads to turn when we walk into a virtual room.
And we want them to look as lifelike as possible.
But there’s a catch. As our avatars march forward into a bright future of ever-increasing realism, we’re going to face a major obstacle.
Be Cunning and Full of Tricks 