By Kain Scalia (Maus Merryjest)
As
the ashes of yet another year crumble to dust, we can take a moment
to reflect on everything that has passed us by and derive both wisdom
and pleasure from the last 365 days. This is a tradition of mine,
where I will sit down in a comfy chair with a little wine and a
little music and look back in an attempt to derive a useful maxim for
the future based upon these fading experiences. After giving it some
thought and not a little consideration, I offer my maxim for 2016:
Let
us not do that again.
Now
with that particular hurdle out of the way, we can take stock of all
the possibilities that the New Year ahead might bring- and as far as
Second Life is included, that means the possibility of seeing some
flashes from the past.
Now,
of course, at this time we don't know if there is much momentum
behind the preservation
and restoration of historical sims, but surely most of you can name
at least one location of your past that you would like to see
returned to its former primmy glory. Therefore, to salute the
beginning of a new year, I would like to propose my top three picks
for my wish list:
Linden
light, linden bright
First
Linden that rezzed tonight
I
wish I may, I wish I might
Relive
this sim I envision tonight...
3.-
Prados Azules
This
stunning sim was around in 2010, and setting foot on its shores was
like getting a technicolor pie to the face, thrown by the Cheshire
Cat.
I
admit I never really knew much about this enchanting place, making it
one of my go-to places to relax and visit the 1980s- for surely this
was where the decade retired. Wherever you looked you would find
evidence of your childhood (if you grew up in the 80s, that is)
bridges made of legos, the towering shapes of Mazinger Z and Pacman
staring at you, Atari monitors, giant synthesizer keyboards (alas,
no keytars) and the ever-present palette of the era raging between
neon brights and the cobalt/cerulean combination that was ubiquitous
during the era.
After
the passing of a year that
seemed obsessed with taking away a large chunk of icons from the
‘80s, maybe we could get some of it back in digital format.
2.-
109 Prim Circus
Perhaps
one of the most beautiful places in Second Life when it was around,
this sidereal carousel rewarded visitors with a cosmic vista the
likes of which one was likely to see in dreams only.
While
it had merchandise for sale, it was tastefully presented in such a
way as to not shatter the atmosphere of the delicate plateau
suspended in the inky, starry void.
The main attraction consisted of
a chariot ride that was exquisitely planned through a literal ‘field’
of stars and constellation dolphins. Finally, if you needed a break
from the phosphrescent spectacle, you could stroll and dance on
stardust with your partner.
1.-
DePaul University
Roughly
seven years ago, you could throw a stone and have a fifty percent
change of hitting a university sim in Second Life. A large number of
institutions great and small felt their interests piqued over our
little virtual experiment and decided to run their own experiments:
extending their curriculum online.
One
of the more adventurous sims belonged to DePaul University’s School
of Computing and Digital Media. Managed by second life denized Andres
Kleene, whose secret identity was that of a professor of Game
Development for te University, the sim giddily embraced most of the
Second Life culture. Professor Kleene saw an explosion in the number
of tinies visiting the sim, and he obligingly made them a whole
village on the west side of the sim’s mountain. The Silly Goose and
the Cup Of Goodness were intricately-detailed gathering spots where
one could often find students or other curious visitors with whom to
converse.
Professor
Kleene was very interested in the possibilities of Second Life as an
educational tool, but he was also very conscious of the obstacles
such places faced. In a conversation back in 2010, he said to me:
“The
real stumbling block is the learning curve (...)
A professor in English
literature studies doesn't think twice about posting a lecture on the
web or giving web references, that's because he/she knows that those
are accepted technologies: people are comfortable with that. Until 3D
worlds are as natural to people as opening a PowerPoint presentation,
we won't have the liberty to really explore this tool. We're still
trailblazers, I'm afraid.”
Back
in 2010, Professor Kleene felt that the dean of the college was fully
behind the university’s experiment and felt no pressure from
funding. Sadly, the experiment came to an end, and all that is left
of the University’s sim is this user’s flythrough (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s2upjzcCrrA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Of
course, of the sims in my list, it is unlikely that the Lindens might
resurrect this one- after all, it was created and belonged to an
existing institution... but for its sheer atmosphere, hospitality,
and spirit of experimentation, the DePaul sim will always be number
one on my list.
Kain Scalia
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