Where everybody knows your name

Do you remember Cheers, the American sitcom television series that aired for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993?

The show was set in Cheers, a bar named after the popular toast, in Boston, Massachusetts, where a group of locals met to drink, relax, and socialize.

Muddy’s Music Cafe through the front door window

The bar had a theme song, Where Everybody Knows Your Name, which may have stuck in your mind. It seems as if everybody over 30 remembers the tune.

Virtual alternatives in education

Thousands of educators have used the virtual world Second Life during the past decade for teaching and learning.

VWBPE main auditorium interior

As time has passed this global grass-roots community has brought into focus some top-notch practices for educating students in immersive virtual environments.

Cadeling Garden at the end of the sea

At the end of the sea is a breathtaking small province, a whimsical fantasy garden where French artists display their works in a fanciful notion, a chimera, a poetic imagination on the water.

Cadeling Garden at the end of the sea

Cadeling Garden, by Ling Serenity and Cadel Abubakar, is a place in Second Life to contemplate, to muse, to meditate, to lose yourself in thought while absorbing the plain and simple beauty all around.

Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad Compound

What an eerie feeling it was walking around the Abbottabad Compound where Osama Bin Laden was killed May 1, 2011.

Osama bin Laden's compound at Abbottabad, Pakistan

A metaverse development team, Avatrian, drawing on data from Google Earth and media sources, created in Second Life and opened to the public a replica of Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottobad, Pakistan.

Making Flip Comics in Second Life

There’s a most interesting display of intercultural communication at a comic art exhibition posted in Second Life by hybrid teacher Ines Ogura from the Deutsche Internationale Schule – the German International School – at Jakarta, Indonesia

Ninja Princesses

Being a hybrid teacher means Ines is teaching not just with bricks and mortar, but also with bits and bytes. And, in this case, with comic book art.

Modern protests in ancient Egypt

Second Life mimics real life. After all, SL residents are real people behind their keyboards and they bring along their personal baggage as they travel the virtual world.

Protesters on the Egypt sim in Second Life

Take, for instance, the ancient land of Egypt in the real world, which has been in turmoil for the last week with tens of thousands in Cairo and other cities marching in street demonstrations, rallies, acts of civil disobedience, riots, and violent clashes that began on National Police Day, January 25, 2011.

Sailors Cove for seaside old salts

Exploring means for me following the road less taken. I love to wander the byways of the virtual world Second Life because, quite often, I come across some of the most beautiful countryside and architecture anywhere in the metaverse.

The waterfront at Sailors Cove

Who doesn’t love those quiet, quaint, charming small New England towns? Recently I happened onto the authentic New England village of Sailors Cove on Fishers Island.

Ice skating in Second Life

If you haven’t tried skating in Second Life, you really must this year. It can be very relaxing when the music is right and the scene is lovely.

A very enjoyable place to try out skating surrounds the home of Timeless Photography in Kalamata. The folks there have turned their sim into a most delightful and relaxing winter wonderland with huge ponds for public ice skating.

So what is Second Life?

Second Life is a popular, three-dimensional virtual-reality world — a computer-simulated environment which users inhabit.

Users move about the on-screen environment and interact with each other via their digital representatives known as avatars, which are persons in Second Life. Communication is by text and voice chat.

As a virtual representation of a user’s real-life self, the look and feel of an avatar is limited only by the individual’s creativity.

Portraits of Some Second Life Residents Stoneflower Photography Studio in Second Life

The Japanese fishing village Hosoi Yu Ch’un

Wandering the byways of the virtual world Second Life one day, I came across an extraordinary vision of reality in the Japanese fishing village Hosoi Yu Ch’un and the farming village Hosoi Lung Ch’un built by Amiryu Hosoi at Hosoi Ichiba on Virgin Island.

Fishing boats beached in village cove

Here’s why this could be the most peaceful place in all of Second Life…