New Land - the search ends

So now I had these four lots to choose from I suspected I was leaning to a high slope in a region called Riverchapel. But that was the cheapest and I know I have a tendency to convince myself that the cheapest is attractive. I needed help.


I asked a friend who has great "space sense" to view the lots with me. He's one of those people that everyone goes to for advice on re-arranging furniture. It only took about 10 minutes and two cycles though the four properties. When he said he liked the Riverchapel one best it really helped galvanize me into action. The property was bought less than half an hour later.


Below are the views of the land, of the shore, and from the top of the hill


--DD-

New Land - the search continues

I had now gone around the continents and felt like I had seen it all. But indecision was high. How to make the perfect choice. Then I was jarred two weeks later when one of two lots I had been scoping was sold. I decided I needed to make the move at some time.

So I set off to cruise the continental coastlines again. But this time with more fervor. I created an inventory folder for the search. If a lot looked at all like I might be interested I put a landmark in the folder.

When I was done I hopped through all the landmarks a couple of times, looking at the lots a bit more critically. Is this really a good view? Would I really pay that much? That gave me twelve possibles.

I looked at these twelve even more critically. One of the big factors was looking at the more expensive lots and seeing if they did or did not have something special that merited the extra Lindens.

Out of this came four lots. All were 4096m. All had some water with a reasonable expectation that the water would be accessible in future. All were plus-minus 200$US (I'm sorry...that still sounds like a lot for an electronic rendering!). And I felt I'd be happy with any one of them.

Now came the hard part. Narrowing those four down to just one...

--DD-

New Land - the search starts

So a while back I finally hit that point where 512m was not enough. I think this started when I realized I could not put two 10-meter prims side by side on my lot. I wanted more space. I wanted more prims. And I wanted water!

Shopping for land in Second Life is worse than in real. I can't say how many ugly places I visited from the classifieds. I decided that if I was going to find the place I liked I had to change my strategy.

So what was I looking for?

1. Waterfront: Didn't need to be a lot of water. But did not want to be next to someones' house and to have some interesting area.
2. Not stuffy: Did not want to live in some hyper-restricted area where all the houses were the same and all the people were the same.
3. Not scrungy. While I wanted variety, I didn't want a slum.
4. Reasonably Priced: Sigh. Can't ever leave this one out.

So how was I going to find it? It sounds crazy, but I finally decided that I was going to "fly" around the coastlines of the six continents. It would take forever to actually "fly" it, but scrolling though the map with the land sales highlighted was doable.Took several days to do, but was actually fun to do and good learning. It showed me lots of things that people were doing in SL, helped me refine my idea of what I really liked, and it helped me look for things to avoid (like water where a shopping mall can sprout up).

--DD-

The Presentation

Had the long awaited Second Life presentation with the group, which went great. It was even hard to proceed with all the questions being asked. It was both exciting and fun.

I feel a bit lost now. I've been working like crazy to get the presentation ready and hadn't really thought beyond that. Have to come up with some new stuff to keep it going.

It was fun to hold off any questions as to whether I had bought more land since the ending of the presentation was going to be showing the new waterfront land and clubhouse. It's great that now I can blog about it so look for upcoming posts.

--DD-

What if Real Life used the Second Life Client?

This Youtube Vid is a must-see.

Enjoy!

--DD-

NCI “Newbie ‘Show and Tell’” class

I’m really loving taking that classes on Second Life. But this week I found an unexpected tidbit. NCI (New Citizens Incorporated) offers “Show and Tell” classes. These are not so much classes as get-togethers where beginning Second Life builders can demo what they’ve been working on.

I was thinking “I’m definitely not ready for showing my stuff to strangers”. But as I often do, I said “Ahhhhhh, why not?” They one that was coming up was for Newbies. So I decided to enter a large sculpted fountain I was working on the clubhouse.

The class was very well run, a nice balance of solemnity or frivolity. There were over 20 people in all attending, with 6 of us actually presenting. Each presenter in turn was called up on the stage to rez their item, talk about it, and demo as required.

When they called me up, I felt like the first time I ever did a music recital. But once I got going, I forgot that I was on stage and really enjoyed it. Everyone gets lots of positive support and constructive suggestions about improvements.

Once you present, a picture is taken of your entry and mounted on a voting board. At the end of all the presentations the voting board is opened and everyone pressed gets to vote for their choice of first, second, and third place. Votes are counted and winners announced. I won 100 linden dollars! I know that’s only like 35 cents, but it was a huge rush. I’m definitely addicted.

The contest is open only to residents that have been around 90 days or less. But I’m already eyeing the other version NCI offers… The “’Oldbie’ Show and Tell”!

--DD-

A virtual world in a virtual world?

I ran across this while reading the Metaverse Messnger (http://www.metaversemessenger.com/), so I guess advertising does work.

You go into Second Life. You become virtual and leave RL trappings behind. You are divorced from the physical you. And you’re bored.

So what do you do? Go into a holodeck and become virtual once removed. This sounded bizarre at first. But reading on, the possibilities caught my imagination.

It can get boring shoppoing for furniture in SL malls, with pictures on the walls or nicely organized but sterile floor models. Why not shop in a holodeck where you can dial up a room and see what a roomful of fucrniture would look like including lamplight hitting the wall and artwork.

Have a single meeting space that could be for serious business today, and for an artsy get-together tomorrow. And a zen garden for quiet contemplation at the touch of a button.

Renting properties? Put a holodec instead of ads in an SL mall. Let visitors “try out” the dwellings without having to teleport.

Hmmm…maybe I need to get one!

http://www.insidethisworld.com/the-holodeck.html#free


--DD-

The "Show Me" state goes virtual for recruiting

Here’s a cool video of State of Missouri putting some of it’s IT recruiting resources in Second Life and the reasoning behind it. A bit long, but worth viewing. This is not a bunch of geeks, but as serious large IT organizations deciding to actively test the waters.

See video

--DD-