Second Life: The Final Frontier

Other bloggers have mentioned Spaceport Alpha, so I thought I should have a look for myself, being a long-time space exploration fan and amateur astronomer. How long-time? Let's just say that I remember when Sputnik was launched: my Father recorded the beeps of its signal on his ham radio equipment.


This is one of the most amazing sims in SL. There is a lot of information to look at, and the roof of the main building has life sized models of nearly every NASA and Soviet rocket ever launched.

A model of Kennedy Space Center

The Vertical Assembly Building doesn't look so big after all...

The grandaddy of them all -- Robert Goddard's first liquid-fueled rocket , 1926

I wonder what old Robert would have thought of the Saturn V, only 40 years later?

The Business end of Atlantis

If you have any interest in spaceflight at all, this is a must-see.

This isn't in the script

I was unpleasantly surprised when I went to the LSL Wiki page that has been the backup ever since Second Life's website took it down "due to a pending upgrade". I'm still new enough to scripting that I have to constantly refer to it when writing scripts. What popped up was the dreaded

404 Not Found

error. I tried several times over a period of time and got the same result, so it wasn't just a temporary Web glitch.

An emergency Google found another backup here. [Big sigh of relief] But I liked the color scheme at the first backup site better. At least I can continue to try to figure out the llParticleSystem parameters.

Gaining Face

I'm not quite a nubie any more, so I've been working on my appearance. The first step was to get some better hair.

[rant] Do you know how hard it is to find decent male hair, especially for an older avatar? As in Real Life, 95% of the stores are geared for those of the female persuasion. Us Y-chromosome types are relegated to a couple of vendors in a back corner. Of the basement.

To be honest, there are a few good men's stores out there, but even they didn't have what I was looking for in hairstyle. [end rant]

I finally find something acceptable in SL Exchange, the Brits Brandon Varvatos style. It took (and is still taking) some restyling to get it to work right on my particular head, but copy and mod are enabled. I haven't quite gotten the appearance I want, but I could learn to like this look.


I do look rather grizzled, though -- I've noticed that AV children run away screaming whenever I TP in.

Explorations

The ruins at Relic are fascinating, in a creepy sort of way. Perched on the top of a huge pinnacle, this abandoned palace would be a good place for a goth party or moody machinima. Be careful of the dropoffs, though; that first step is a dilly!

Call me Minto

Here I am, a couple of weeks from my creation, an inhabitant of this reality called "Second Life". My skills are increasing slowly; I don't bump into walls or inadvertently wear boxes on my head as often as I first did.

My first experiences were as a "freebie", a landless Palidan wandering and wondering where I willed in the vast world, picking teleport destinations by the attraction of their names alone, encountering infinitely-varied creations and castles literally in the air around each corner.

Feeding the fish at Hypatia Park

Shortly later, now grubstaked by a paid account and a generous deposit of L$, I bought my first 512 sq. m. piece of land, in Varsity. This was enough to throw up a freebie house and a few items of furniture. There was something satisfying in having a place that I knew was my own, where I could TP when weary of the wider world.

The Old Homestead

Which brings us up to the present. I traded up to a 1024 sqm lot in Siriwesk, put the original lot up for sale, and began building my dream castle -- a work still very much in progress. The first lot sold just the other day -- at a satisfyingly-high margin of profit -- to a neighbor who wanted to expand. My ambition? To master the wizardry underlying the Metaverse (prims, textures, scripts, and animations), and take the coveted title of Technomage. I have a few ideas for SL products to develop for sale; maybe I can someday move in the same social circles as Anshe Chung. As if.

So, why the name "Minto" you ask? There is a web site which generates a "Hobbit name" for you: http://www.chriswetherell.com/hobbit/ . My RL self -- being a Tolkien fan since the late 1960's, long before it became fashionable -- once tried it and came up with the name "Minto Gamgee-Took". So when the time came to pick my name, the last name "Gamba" in the list of choices made it irresistible. I am not a hobbit, and don't yet know if there are any in SL (although I wouldn't be surprised in the least), but I'm rather taken with the name. It's mine, my own -- my Prec... *ahem* Excuse me.


The Japanese have a very civilized and beautiful tradition called the "Moon-watching party", where they gather to silently watch the Moon rise. I found a great spot for my own Moon-watching party in a rather nice Japanese garden at Ray's Studio and Gardens in Shawangunk.