Obviously, I’ve gone astray

If it wasn’t obvious to any followers, if follow they still do, I have wandered away from Second Life. I’m just confirming that. I still have my account, a free one, having given up the paid account quite a while ago, and I’ve gone in a couple of times in recent months, only to be dismayed by the ongoing slow rezzing and the occasional crashing. I have a good computer, so I can only guess how frustrating this continues to be for people with lesser machines.

I’ve been retired from education for almost two years, so I don’t have that motivation anymore. I tried valiantly to persuade faculty and administration at two colleges that virtual worlds were worthwhile, at least in some fields, but the truth is these institutions purchase the cheapest technology they can for faculty, and can’t guarantee what technology their students have. I’m sure there are a few wealthy schools out there; I didn’t work at those institutions.

There have been attempts by a few virtual worlds to use mobile apps or web browsers, but I hadn’t seen that successfully done before I retired.

I visited many beautiful places in Second Life and I know from others’ blogs that many more still exist, but I’m hanging up my avatar and teleporting off to nowhere. For you, that means I will not be writing here anymore, but please wander around and enjoy anything I’ve written in the past.

 

Cthulhu says, Join the LoveFest in Second Life

I hope I remember to go.

Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

Who knows what you might find wandering the streets of LoveFest …

Now under way, and running through until Sunday, August 23rd, is LoveFest, the annual H. P Lovecraft Festival. Timed to coincide with  the 125th anniversary of Lovecraft’s birth (August 20th), the festival has been organised by the HP Lovecraft Roleplay (and more) Group of Second Life (HPL RPG), and once again features the Autism National Committee (AutCom) of the United States as its charity.

2015 marks the 4th year for the Festival – which I took time out to visit in 2014, including having a go at the interactive adventure which had been set-up for that event. 2015 sees the Festival host another adventure – but this time it’s in the form of a grid-wide hunt, and the official website explains:

Presiding Presence: HP Lovecraft watches over the LoveFest proceedings

This year’s Lovecraft Festival is thrilled to…

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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

A new shadow looms over Innsmouth

Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

Innsmouth

There has always been a shadow hanging over H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts. That much has been known since the town first appeared in Lovecraft’s writing, when it made its debut in the 1936 novel The Shadow Over Innsmouth. It is a place with a long and mysterious history, involving shipbuilding dating back to the mid-1600s, the rise of the Esoteric Order of Dagon, intrigue, mysterious happenings and more.

Innsmouth is also a town which has been lovingly recreated in Second Life, forming a centre of roleplay, an homage to Lovecraft’s writings and very much a famous and significant landmark. Dark and atmospheric, it captures the spirit of the deserted Innsmouth and its air of mystery and menace quite perfectly.

But now a new shadow is, as SLexplorer and Ciaran Laval indicate, falling over the SL Innsmouth and threatening its future.

Innsmouth

The news of…

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