Pi Day 2015

Pi Day isn’t what it used to be in Second Life, but The Exploratorium still celebrates. The displays were generally visual, with one mildly interactive, and I do mean mildly—touching objects in the display gained you some notecards to fill up your inventory. Most of the other spots that came up in a Pi Day search were for dancing this evening. Dancing? I guess I never thought of Pi Day as a reason for dancing, but do you need a reason?

Area map

Pi display gives notecards

Pi Henge

Pi Pond

Before I went to the Pi Day exhibit, I stopped at Moucault’s Pendulum in Sploland (The Exploratorium is next door to Sploland). I found a lot of blog posts around the web from 2009 that referenced this sight, such as this science post from Jokadia. Nothing much to do at the pendulum, except slow down and wait to see if you will be knocked over. Many places in Second Life are as good as many real life spots for sitting and observing, but they might be a little harder to find. I usually stumble upon them. Why Moucault? I have no idea, unless copyright prohibits using Foucault.

Moucault’s Pendulum

These spaces have been around since 2006, I think. I’m both glad and impressed that they continue to be sponsored by the Exploratorium Museum in San Francisco.

 

Built Spaces Section

I added a section to the site that shows the two spaces I built for two institutions of higher education, one island for a small college, and one campus on a leased corner of an NMC island. Neither spaces exist anymore, but the pictures give an idea of how they were or might have been used. It takes both vision and commitment to make virtual worlds work in higher ed.

You can see the menu item at the top of the page, or visit the pages here:

A College Island

Community College Campus

Hangars Liquides and Mjolka Kyr

It’s been too long since I visited any new spots and I knew I would have to update my viewer, but it went smoothly for a change and the new viewer seems to work better. I had no rezzing problems that I feared at the first spot, Hangars Liquide.

Hangars Liquide is described as a cyberpunk space and is very dark. Very dark. I’m sure I missed a lot, both because it was so dark, but also because the darned taxi kept saying it couldn’t find the spots I tried to visit. Eventually I tried the old-fashioned methods of transportation—stairs, elevators, and teleporters. I found an aquarium for relaxing, but it wasn’t one for viewing sealife; it was one you could walk into (?). Mostly, I found modes of transportation, but will have to find a headlamp and go back exploring for more.

The second spot, Mjolka Kyr, is a floating island. An interesting build, but, except for the island itself, nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps there is more to find there, but, geez, does every interesting spot need to have the sex-toy milking machine? I didn’t see any cows.

Svarga: Still there after all these years

Second Life Destination: Svarga

I took a guided tour on the giant wasp around Svarga, built in 2006 before the some of the more innovative building tools were developed. Built with the original building tools and prims, Svarga is a nice testament to what could be done in Second Life® building from the beginning.

I wish I could have downloaded a transcript of the tour information. Here’s a brief history of the place from Inara Pey in 2012: Svarga: of memories old and new

On the giant wasp

In the library