A new version for Version 5.0 of this part of the blog





What it's All About

This is the story of Iyoba BatOni, my favorite avie who sometimes thinks for herself; me, the One who Thinks She Knows; and our Second Life.

We share our thoughts, discuss our adventures, and engage in a bit of amateur sociology which is not as boring as you tink.

If you need older posts, plese visit our archives.

You can also follow our RSS feed..

Don't forget the Explore SL spread sheet for the most current and extensive collection of educational and cultural sites in the metaverse.

To return to the main blog page, just click here...

And here is our small blog roll. Stick some butter on it!
Virtual Outworlding
Focfoca News (in Portuguese)
Ch'Now
New World Notes
Notes from an Alien

We Will Never Forget our Lily Frogs
And We Still Love our Petable Turtles

Shouting into the Wind -- Almost the end of the Petable Turtles.
Illicit Grief and Real Loss -- Now the frogs are in trouble as well. This hurts!
All I Want -- What do I want out of Second Life? Losing breedables, fully or partially means I really have to think about meaning.
Our Frogs are Really Going to Die! The end was almost upon us.
Dragoness Rage was Here -- There is no one to rescue and resurrect our Lily Frogs.

Eileen H. Kramer and Iyoba BatOni -- January 1, 2014



The Godawful Skirt Sculptie

It's called Skirt Sculpt 20 My One Who Thinks She Knows and I have long ago lost count of the number of demo sculpties we have acquired from Es0 Torok's LC Sculpties. They are handmade in Texas and usually let our imagination create old school builds that work for us and that don't age. The best part about sculpties is repurposing them of course. Sculpties have a thoudand uses, well maybe not a thousand. Usually every sculptie from Es0 Torok's yard is a winner, except Skirt Sculpt 20. I was glad we only had a demo of it, because it is misproportioned and does not work when shortened, is off-kilter, off center, impossible to fit.

making a wasteband out of four Skirt Scult 20's Skirt Sculpt 20 Demo sat in our inventory gathering virtual dust, until my One had an idea. Remember most of her experiments are over. She always feels out of sorts. She gets her "therapy" in the sandbox. You can guess what my One Who Thinks she Knows idea was. "Let's do something with that godawful skirt sculptie." At first she talked about building some sort of structure with it, but neither of us really hae much use for houses or kiosks, so when push came to shove at Sandbox ABC my One used Skirt Sculpt 20 to make a new dress. Wait...well my One figured out that if one Skirt Sculpt 20 barely made a good waistband and made a piss, poor hard skirt (sculpted skirts are hard skirts as opposed to flexi prim skirts), then four Skirt Sculpt 20's would make an excellent waistband.

Iyoba walks in her new Barbet Ensemble with a waistband made from four Skirt Sculpt 20's Strangely enough this "logic" worked in practice. You can see me test drive the result in the illustration. Then my One had to take things a step farther. If one of Skirt Sculpt 20 made a godawful hard skirt, then why not use eight of them, four for the waist and four more for the skirt itself to make a decent sculpt skirt.

Iyoba dances in her experimental short, 
barbet skirt made with eight Skirt Sculpt 20's Well, this logic also "worked." Here I am dancing. No the skirt is not flexible, but the multiple sculpties give the illusion of pleats, and no I have not yet looked at what it does to my draw weight. Oh well it is very, very hard to turn my draw weight yellow. Building from scratch just means your are naturally economical of bandwidth. The hogs are always alas someone else, and usually someone who doesn't even know they're a hog.

Iyoba tries out gestures during a shift at CVL on Imagination Island. 
Look what she's wearing! Making the barbet dress of course was a bit of sandbox therapy my One desperately needed during her quest for fame and fortune. She was nearly done with her quest by the time I went to work at CVL on Imagination Island. I did not know that in a few days, my One would end up feeling very let down. I don't remember this happening before when my One's quests for fame and fortune ended, but it did this time. And Rosh HaShannah did not make her feel any better. Mostly, she was just very unwell with a bad stomach and a few worries that she still nurses.

Art is a conversation from inside a fortress that does not really protect 
the last corn in Second Life Naturally, we took refuge in the LEA5 sandbox. My One said that if she spent some time pushing prims around, we'd both feel a lot better. The cure did not work, but eventually I got a dress out of it. My One also got inspired. If you are wondering where this is. This is Seene's fortress where she guards the last corn in Second Life. Sadly, half her crop has failed or she has ploughed it under to put up a tent. Now, Second Life is a desert so providing soil and water is a bit tricky, but plant life, including corn, is not scarce, just not particulary diverse. My One wanted her own garden, and she wanted it on a five sided platform with a canopy.

One of the two five sided platforms for growing a garden at ground level in LEA5Making a pentagon was easy. My One had been thinking about it as she walked four miles to services eacch day. She really walked four and a half miles. Writing four miles is easier. If you want to know how far this is. It's the distance of crossing thirty-two (32) sims. My One walked across an entire Second Life continent six times and she says it was easy. Of course there are no banlines or security orbs in "real life."

Both five sided platforms are up Anyway, walking the distance of thirty-two (32) sims did not make my One sick. She was sure of that, and putting up the platforms did not make her healthy, though it made her feel better. The poles and canopy on each platform consist of ten (Yes 10!) Skirt Sculpt 20's! By the way, we need better soil, and more corn, gourds, beans, and flowering tobacco (Why shouldn't it flower since we don't intend to smoke) and also sunflowers and useful herbs for a truly, great garden and one that DOES NOT need a fortress.

Taking a break to make another dress Of course we did not have the textures we needed ready. When do we ever have that. You either have structures or you have textures or you have time. All three just don't come together, but my One wanted to try to use Skirt Sculpt 20 to make another dress. The idea was different this time. Since bead sculpts make excellent waistbands, my One took six Skirt Sculpt 20's and added them to a torus to make a six pointed star waist. That's me fitting it in the picture above.

Test driving the horsetail dress And here is the finished long version. The waistband turned out a bit big, but that is true for most experimental dresses. The horsetail pattern texture, made weeks ago, was a surprise. We also watched the LEA5 Sandbox go social We met someone who reads this blog. We duscussed safety for high altitude building. My One apologized for not writing much but between fame, fortune, Rosh Hashannah, and jury duty tomorrow, it's been a struggle to get us both inworld.

Iyoba dances in the short version of the horse tail dress My One still wants to try making some hair with Skirt Sculpt 20. She wonders if we should purchase the thing since we have used it so much, and used it so well. I guess it isn't truly godawful any more. My One is also looking forward to "Doing it Better" for 2014/2015. We have one dead link on our chart (at the bottom of this blog) and we should review and revise which they don't do at VStark State's Virtual Tourism Center where five out of nine links are dead and two are role plays, one of which forces you to dress your avie in character. Quite simply, we can and will do it a whole lot better! And Es0 Torok, THANK YOU for Skirt Sculpt 20!

Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- September 28, 2014

After Fame and Fortune

I thought these might actually help my One but...My One Who Thinks she knows has all but returned from her seeking of fame and fortune. Unfortunately, she has the High Holy Days plus jury duty breathign down both our necks, and as soon as my One returned from her quest...you can guess the rest. You know her usual mood and even if you don't. She was OUT OF SORTS pretty much as always. For a while, I hoped these sorts, moveable type used by printers back in the day, might actually help her. We found these at the Printer's Devil Project on Western University 1. Unfortunately, the phrase, "out of sorts" predates printing. My One Who Thinks She Knows does not know everything.

A view out a window on AITUISo what do I do with a One Who Thinks She Knows who won't give me enough time to blog and is alternately elated, reteched, worried she won't have enough time, knows she not have enough time etc...? Yes, I put up with her, but it also means that in the bits and snatches we spend inworld, we bushwhack in places that will make her feel just a little better, and sometimes we explore randomly just to get the poor One's out of sorts mind off her out of sorts self. That is why we went to AITUI.

A city of saphire as fine as a sculptureYes AITUI is commerical. Second Life is monetized. Say that three times fast and say it a few more times for good measure. If you don't pay your rent.... But the sim is one of the most gorgeous urban builds, my One and I have ever seen. It is a city of saphire and shadow even when the sun shines. It is fine sculpture/architecture. Needless to say, it made the Explore Second Life spread sheet.

A fruit and egg custard many times human scale on KSA 3sha8Of course if we could include AITUI on the spread sheet, why not include KSA 3sha8. True, the area many meters above the sim is a Zingo parlor, but you don't have to waste your money. You can enjoy the giant's kitchen with its oversize food that is just a little bit different from American food.

Cutting the cheese in the KSA 3sha8 kitchen KSA 3sha8 is an Arab build and hospitable. I suppose we should ask the owners. It is not the Zyngo that bothers my One. It is the size of the display. Is it large enough to justify being on the Spread Sheet? She hsn't decided yet. I think, though, she is going to say "yes."

Efficient use of roofs on IEEEMeanwhile, I knew that IEEE was a good, safe, friendly place to take my One. At least there was one good exhibit there. There turned out to be several more, but this roof really pleased her. Instead of just throwing up a prefab or building boxes, the development team made sure to use the building roofs by planting grass on them and putting down tables. Sometimes the really good stuff doesn't make the spread sheet.

Iyoba poses with an R2D2 clone in need of repair Of course there is still a lot of ill-maintained or out of date area on IEEE and IEEE 2. These robots were a sorry lot. They either did not work at all. This one in the picture just looked pretty. Others sat knocked over on their sides and immobile. One little, "roomba" could only move slowly in circles.

Iyoba shows off one of several new dresses she's had made, but this one was in the IEEE 2 sandboxOf course IEEE 2 comes with its very own sandbox, which meant I got a new dress. The motif is sensitive pea leaves. It surprised me how well it came out.

The Drake Theater on Western University 1 And my One roused her courage, and we went off to visit Western University 1 that used to be the University of Western Ontario. Long ago, my One and I had an intern named Oliver who worked for us. That is not his real name. Suffice it to say, the One did the best she could, but the whole business left a bad taste in her mouth. Oliver attended the University of Western Ontario.

Iyoba reads about Tynedale's religious books, printing, and the reformation Well, were we both glad we visited. We found the Printer's Devil Project on Western University 1. This was all about the last communications revolution, the one started by Gutenberg in 1440 and led to mass produced, books, newspapers, broadsides, nationalism, the Reformation, the Englightenment and more. My One says that if the internet leads to anything half as good, she will be very surprised.

Leave lots of time to read the papers at Yesterday's NewsAnd then we discovered Yesterday's News on Western University 2. That is what we called this exhibit of old newspapers. It really doesn't have a name so we named it. If you go there spend lots of time. My One thinks the ads in old papers, many of which come from smaller towns, are the best part.

A big brain and not much else on Western University 3 And there is now even a Western University 3, future home (It's still under construction) of the University of Western Toronto's medical and nursing schools. This exray or CAT-scan of a brain is waiting to become part of a larger exhibit. They make me think of a sick joke: "Somebody's got brains but they belong in a skull not all over a sim." OK, no sick humor is going to make my One feel better. I'm not sure if there will be another blog episode this month. We'll try to get one more in. We're going to miss our quota, and I feel bad about that.

Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- September 24, 2014

Blue, Yellow, and White

Iyoba rests on her outdoor bed and watches the Zwickies fly at Stinky StinkyThis is what my One Who Thinks She Knows would like to be doing right now. She has to stay up and work on other stuff, but she is so tired, and so busy keeping awake and functional, she is NO LONGER OUT OF SORTS!

A vision of Info Island International circa 2009 This is true even though we've been bushwhacking every now and again, and bushwhacking is a recipe for making both a One and an avie very sad. We did buswhack on Imagination Island around the time we had our work shift there, and found this on the computer. Info Island International has been gone for over three years, but it is still here on the fake computer screen in the reference hut. I remember wandering through this long-gone island's gardens and riding the balloon and hanging out in the pagoda. It's all gone now. Even an avie can get quite emotional and very sad.

The big auditorium for C.E.L.T. on SUNY Oswego Fortunately, there were more pleasant places to bushwhack. My One felt like going to SUNY Oswego before finishing up Imagination Island. I thought this was a good break too. Unlike many educational sims, to SUNY Oswego was still in use. In fact, there was even a new attraction, a "theater" showing economics PowerPoints.

Iyoba in her Bane of Fleas DressThere was also a sandbox. My One wanted to help make me a blue dress with yellow box fish on it. We were both concerned that I had a whole, bottomless, inventory of blue and yellow dresses. It seems to be a better color combination than just plain blue ones. What can I say. My One wanted to test out the Bane of Fleas dress to see if it looked different from the Calendula Dress. Sure enough it did, but it was missing a long/gown version because it was an experimental skirt. Needless to say, my One took advantage of the small sandbox to fix that problem.

Iyoba in the Calendula Dress on SUNY OswegoAnd you can see that the Bane of Fleas and Calendula dresses are different. The Calendula number has a very conventional skirt, and a basketweave pattern in the background. It also has a somewhat greener shade of blue for its background color. Calendula are creamy yellow and larger than daisy fleabane as well.

And yes, my One made the Box Fish dress experimental And I eventually got the Blue and Yellow Box Fish Dress too. My One decided to make it experimental. This is a reverse panel pent so it is a bit ungainly but not as big as some gowns. It won't fill anyone's face with feathers or knock their eyes out, and the short version is a "hard dress" made from an interesting skirt sculpt from LC Sculpties, handmade in Texas! Thank you Es0 Torok!

A kite flies over the coast of Imagination Island Of course my One and I still have dreams of wearing one of these experimental numbers and some big hair to Never B Solo and sitting there to write out new notecards for the Free Academy while we scare teh fashionistas and conformist adoptees. And, now we aren't going to put up our panel and try again. We may even leave the group. Dee is gone. My One asked to take a break for a few days and since Dee was never easy to get ahold of, that was it. She never friended me. She has not tried to get in touch. I have not gone to Giano Estates to look to see if Dee is still in the orphanage that treated Shaka worse than dirt. Her being a Giano conformist is not exactly a deal breaker, but it makes my One and me just that much more reluctant to pursue her.

The antiquated diner on SUNY OswegoAnd not all the news from even a place like SUNY Oswego is good. Parts of it are an old build, done on the cheap. These chairs were made from boxes. They are not even sculpties, and they have pose balls on them. I'm not fan of menued sit, but this diner is showing its age, which is about five years old.

Louis Comfort Tiffany Stained Glass in the secret attic dance hall on SUNY OswegoOf course older builds sometimes hide sweet secrets. Older builds can of course age well. This attic room is a case in point. A teleporter leads upstairs. The mural is pretty and someone has even installed a couples dance ball stand. That is a clever idea, and clever ones don't get stale even when they get old.

Zwickies greet Iyoba on Stinky Stinky And last night we put up our stone benches in the Free Academy rather than those godawful Appalachian Chairs. No more pose balls for us. Our zwickies are also pregnant again. I asked my One to think up three girl names and she said she wants to sleep on it. She also wants to find somewhere pleasant to bushwhack. I guess I want that too. Maybe after my One gets some sleep I'll have her back wide awake and as usual OUT OF SORTS.

Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- September 12, 2014

Art Can be a Conversation

Iyoba shows off her new pansy dress in the LEA5 sandbox Sunday my One Who Thinks She Knows needed her "sandbox therapy" again, so I got a new, pansy dress. I don't have any pansy themed items. Shaka does, but this was a first. I got to wear the dress to work on Imagination Island last night when I went to work, so this dress was more useful than most, but still, we really have enough dresses.

The short version of the pansy dressI can only wear one dress at a time, and the other artists who use the LEA Arts Sandbox all have much more imagination than we do.

The amazing Fountain on CIST OmahaThis beautiful fountain on CIST Omaha shows what those with both Lindens to burn and imagination can do. It's just one very, drop dead, gorgeous fountain.

A lovely tropical fish tank in LEA5And this tank of tropical fish that was in the the LEA Arts Sandbox had my One longing for the Linden tropical jungles and both of us green with envy. If we had the prim space and the money and the expertise....oh only if.....

A well defended corn fieldAnd of course I had to wonder what was behind the big cement walls near where I was sewing and...it was a corn field, a lush, green, perfect, corn field. Oh that such a place should exist in the sterile, desert of LEA5!

The corn is green and lovely!Of course I had to go inside. Oh such an oaisis! Such cool, green, lovely corn stalks. And of course the plants needed walls to keep the rich soil and moisture in. Guns, though were a bit extreme. There were guns and a guard, tower, and barbed wire, and an avie who insisted that this was the "last corn field in Second Life."

The worst walls can be the best inspiration As you know that avie is oh so wrong! We have corn in our Temperate House at Stinky Stinky and it's free to copy. We also have squash, tobacco, amaranth, and much more. We have a whole garden complete with pollinators, since only corn and a few other plants are pollinated by the wind. And our garden doesn't need a prison wall. "There are," my One Who Thinks She Knows told me, "much better ways to build a wall."

Up goes the banner over the gate in the dry wall on LEA5My One remembered the dry walls of her childhood and adolescence. There are not many of them in Georgia where she lives today. She misses them. They are organic, long-lasting, and usually simply mark off property without keeping people out. That was very important to BOTH of us. Our wall of course also needed a gate, and a gate needed streamers. The streamers on our gate had a corn design. We have lots of corn-patterned fabric in inventory, so this was no problem.

A view of the wall with the gate and benches Making the benches was harder. You can see them just beyond the gate. Benches were important because people needed a reason to come through the gate in the wall or else to jump over it. Either was a good way of getting inside. The important thing was to invite people in. My One called our art project "If You Build a Wall."

If you build a wall, give people a place to sit on the other side so they can watch teh world outside the gate go by If you build a wall, give people a place to sit once they come inside. And of course invite them inside. This bench looks simple, but it is anything but. It uses no pose ball. The pose script is in one of the prims, which means we save a prim. It also means the benches are easier to put up and take down. That is a plus for our school, where they are going to replace the beautiful but clunky Appalachian Chairs. Of course they'll need a different texture.

A young ear of corn falls in the fenced in fieldCorn is great for "If You Build a Wall" but our school needs something wooden. It is time to scrounge through inventory, and as for the farmer who guards her field against enemies, the squirrels, insects, groundhogs, and/or crows, are already hard at work. It is time to make peace with the ecosystem. The lot of all creatures in Second Life is hard enough.

Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- September 9, 2014

All Dressed Up and Thinking of Going Places

Iyoba clicks her heels in her new, campanula dressLet's get down something really basic. One of the things that makes my One Who Thinks She Knows feel better, which she always needs, and which makes me feel, fresh, clean, feminine and happy is a new dress. It does not matter that we have thousands of them. It kind of matters that we worry about duplicate dresses and wish we had the imagination of those who build wonderful and huge sculptures in the LEA Arts Sandbox.

A wonderful pineapple lies on its side in the LEA arts sandbox It would be great if we had the imagination to make something like this pineapple. My One loves pineapples. It has a realistic texture, and there was just something pleasant about it. It was not particularly useful and would just have to come into and out of inventory in a sandbox, but still it seemed better than we could do.

Glowing cubes in the LEA Art SandboxThen there was this lovely, big, tower of cubes. They are scripted to change color or perhaps texture. All right, my One thought they were a dull ugly bunch of browns and blacks and what do you do with a bunch of cubes that change color like Christmas lights. At least the pineapple looked like something.

Iyoba shows how the prim skirt of her campanula dress spins Still, my second newest dress (Sorry for the spoiler) looked distressingly familiar, despite its pretty design on the back and the way the skirt moved with me, which was nice. The truth be told, I had a lot of lavender dresses. My One listened to my worries, shared, them and then suggested....

Iyoba in the lavender salvia dress in LEA5 ....A fashion shoot starring all our recent, lavender creations. This is the Oh Salvia 'Nuff Said Dress. The color scheme is similar, but it has an all over pattern, a wider collar, and no interesting back work. Also the background color for the campanula number is just a bit darker and more intense and the flowers larger.

The Implement Dress that started it all or I think soThe Implement Dress was our first lavender/orchid, summer offering. It is a deeper, richer orchid than either Oh Salvia or Campanula and it's straight rows and Mandarin collar give it a very tailored personality.

Only a short version of the Loex Peppers dress existedThen my One dug out this dress which is called LOEX Peppers because the design is based on purple peppers my One Who Thinks She Knows saw for sale in a greenhouse near where she attended a convention in Nashville, Tennessee. She knew it would be her last LOEX. It was a sad adn rainy day, when my One photographed the peppers. Some weeks later she turned them into a dress for me, but the dress was only available as a short, experimental skirt. The long version was only half made.

Losing my head. My One lost hers long ago. And it was a balloon dress/hobble skirt. This is an odd, experimental shape and it left my One inspired. My One also determined to finish teh gown, and since there was another dress pattern waiting....

Iyoba models her new Sweet Potato Dress with hobble skirt at the AlamoAnd of course I got to wear my new creation to the Alamo on UTArlington III The Alamo is still there, and still beautiful. Its gardens are relaxing. It's museum is charming.

Iyoba pays her respects to Ruby, the Alamo catAnd no visit to Second Life's Alamo is complete without a visit to Ruby's memorial to pay one's respects to the beloved Alamo Cat. Ruby was a cute tortoise shell who lived only five years in the 1980's. Her successor, C.C., died a month ago at the ripe, old age of eighteen. My One hopes the Alamo staff will draft a male (a neutered tom) as C.C. and Ruby's replacement. My One would also like to write a note to Lora Chadburne to include a memorial to C.C. In real life C.C. and Ruby are both buried where the public is not allowed. I suppose if one begged and pleaded one might be allowed to pay one's respects. What my One can not do in "real life" without a lot of begging and wheedling and luck, I can half do in Second Life. Remember C.C. needs a plaque too.

CIST is big, beautiful, and usefulThen it was off to CIST Nebraska Omaha to take in the exhibits for the Explore SL Spreadsheet. The architecture on CIST reminds both my One and me of that on many Arab sims, except it is charcoal grey and red. The school colors are red and black, so this makes sense. There are few traditional buildings. There are spaces with awnings and overhangs, lots of ramps and stairs, plenty of platforms etc... It is useful, beautiful, and might be what we would do with a sim if we were lucky enough to have that much land.

A rainbow in the sky replaces the scuzzy townOur first stop was a scuzzy town at least nine hundred meters above the land. Such towns are exhibits/tutorials for nursing, social science, computer security, laboratory technician programs. They are negative examples. Students look for everything done wrong. In the case of the scuzzy town (Actigraph Exhibit is its formal name on CIST, the teleport to it no longer worked, and when we flew up into the sky, we found an undulating rainbow sculpture had replaced the ill-kept houses with their flies, ratties, garbage bags, dirty dishes, and fall risks. So it goes.

My One has to decide whether to renew our advertising panel for the Free Academy at Never B Solo. It doesn't get much action, but there is much to be said for walking in an experimental hobble dress in front of all the fashionistas just to pay for our advertising board and to go through our note cards for our school. My One thinks there is room for improvement and that is better than building some big, show-off sculpture. Thank you to LEA Arts for making the Free Academy and a lot of our creative work possible.

Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- September 5, 2014

Losing our Knife in Billows of Soft Flesh

Iyoba sits in a directors chair in a private office on the fourth floor of the Wounded Warrior Veterans' BuildingMy One Who Thinks She Knows has said: "NO MORE SNARK!" She says it and she means it at the time. She really does. Poor One, but there are just times when we see abanonment, work in progress that may never progress to anything, and just plain waste of prims or helpful sims that have grown too old to perhaps be helpful. This as you readers well know or need to know, is an occupational hazard of bushwhacking.

A tank sits outside the Wounded Warrior Veteran's Building. It sits there just for decoration.Sometimes though it takes a little bit of detective work, to separate the up-to-date and helpful sims from the whited selpulchers. A good looking timeless buildcan hide a lot. The tank in the parking lot and monumental architecture make one think that Wounded Warrior SL is a vibrant concern. In reality is the last of what was once a large estate called Valhalla Paradise. Of those fourteen or so original islands, only two are left. Wounded Warrior SL is what was once Valhalla Paradise XI and before that Valhalla Paradise. Next door to Wounded Warrior is the other remaining Valhalla Paradise island, Valhalla Paradise VII.

A cup of coffee, a leather folder, and a fountain pen in the upstairs classroom at Wounded Warrior SLIn some ways Christopher Saltana, owner and creator of Wounded Warrior SL, is very lucky. Some things like this sculpty cup of coffee, link givers that rezz quickly, and the government sites to which they link either DON'T go out of style (Remember what my One Who Thinks She Knows said about durability.) or are stable. This means that Wounded Warrior SL has aged very well.

Look carefully at the date of this PowerPoint on PTSD

But still it has aged. And no, my One does not think the PowerPoint from which I took a picture of the retrieval dates dates from 2005/2006. She suspects it is about four to five years old and may have been in some other building when Wounded Warrior SL was known by another name or when the Valhalla Paradise estate was more extensive.

Map of CAVE And face it, information DOES AGE. Science comes out with new findings. There are new dangers. Agencies change call-in procedures and contact information. Would you use a five year old phone book, if you still use a phone book? My One Who Thinks she knows, by the way, says that old phone books and Polk's Directories (criss cross directories or reverse look up directories) are like flies trapped in amber. They give snap shots of a neighborhood at a particular time. Long ago when my One bought a house in Utica, New York, she traced the neighborhood's history through the Polk's Directory from the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Her house was built in 1867. CAVE dates from 2009, and this map shows how it looked about fourteen months ago.

A great big hotel or house sits in the center of CAVE's quadrangle These days a big prefab complete with swimming pool sits in the center of CAVE's grassy quad. The building is a total mystery, and that is a total euphemism. It has a few signs in it giving the most basic and jejune definitions of social media. There is a link to a web survey that doesn't work, a wordle on teh wall, and the rest of the place is just empty rooms with nonworking for-rent boxes sitting outside of them. In front of the huge building is a pool.

Iyoba poses on the ARVEL Deck on CAVEEverything about this huge building scream's WRONG! ! ! First there is tons of unused space in most of the island's buildings. Lack of space is not the problem on CAVE. Lack of content is. On the Arvel Deck, plywood boards have sat for over a year awaiting something.... The interior of the AECT Building and the ICT Library's first floor are both free of any content except furniture.

A PowerPoint advertising a project that may or may not exist in the ARVEL Caves on CAVE And of course what content there is on CAVE is OLD. There has been no reason to push aside this four year old display because there is nothing to take its place.

Banner hanging in the AECT Building

And no one has bothered to take down this five year old banner in the AECT Building. I checked out the web site to which it links. AECT gave up judging the student media contest two years ago. And yes, someone is still paying $150/month (or $300/month if Linden Labs did not reinstate academic tier) for this island. That's at least $1800 a year. My One says she could do a lot with that money. By contrast our 512m which we gave to Shaka is $60 a year which we get back in Lindens to upload textures or feed the zwickies. That's a premium membership, and the 2048 we rent is $240/year. Our last update was a couple of months ago, when we gave the 512 to Shaka. We need room for the zwickies.

Iyoba stops to meditate in her new cockroach themed dress in Sandbox ABCMostly we make clothes. It's a question what we would do with a whole island. If I were Christopher Saltana, I would probably invite veterans to display their art that discusses the difficulties of coming home and adjusting. An art exhibit on Wounded Warrior SL or Valhalla Paradise VII would breathe fresh life into a pair of sims that have gone stale below the surface. As for CAVE, I'd set up a "Speaker's Corner" with PowerPoint Boards available for any one with a noncommerical message, anything from stopping factory farming to not letting your pants sag. Second Life's monetization wreacks havoc with intellectual freedom. Factory farming proponents allied wtih cooperative extension in the South can rent a whole island, but those opposed to the cruelty of industrialized agriculture have no where to display their message. Wny not rent them five prims or one PowerPoint viewer for one linden a week. That would solve a real inequity and bring in a pile of fresh content. Meanwhile, ordinary citizens of Second Life, even those of us who rent land, most of the time have to express ourselves through the clothes on our backs. And yes, cockroaches can and are beautiful.

Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- September 3, 2014



Eileen and Iyoba's Do It Better 2013 Roster

Name of Place

Why it Qualifies

The State Fair at Morrill It has great rides; fun games; a huge, educational, archipelago nearby and also the Avatar Fitness Club near by with hard, house music and a crowd.
Hanako Land Interesting architecture, amusement park rides that are kinetic sculpture, a four story castle, and a house of horrors that is sure to have your nightmare waiting for you. This sim vanished May of 2014.
Shinrei Ueno Hospital This is a unique build with shadows, darkness, urban exploration, and ghosts. It also is an abandoned mental hospital with all the assocations this brings.
Fiteiro Cultural Two clubs, art exhibits, innovative builds and architecture, sculpture, an old Dutch village and more!
Towson Innovation Lab Art that comes alive and is always updated plus a well run, public, sandbox.
Soho New York Home of the Cyclone and gateway to a variety of museums and galleries, temperate nature walks, the largest train on estate land, and the second longest ski run in Second Life. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Portugal Porto Enter the Old City to see a Southern European fishing port as old as the Roman Empire. Visit four clubs. Shop in the stores, or just go for a walk. Unlike most of Second Life, this sim is populated but almost never crowded enough to crash or lag.
Virtual Rosewood It can happen here and it did. A monument to and museum about the Rosewood Massacre that happened in January 1923 in Florida.
Electrobit City Gaming meets kinetic, flat work and hard edged art for an immersive and exciting experience that never grows stale.