Anywhere’s a better place to be

Most of the 12.5 million or so residents of Second Life get in free. Each has the right to do whatever they can imagine and is possible in a virtual world.

Townscape memorial to singer/songwriter Harry Chapin (1942-1981).

NPR star plugs SL to 3 million potential newbies

by Stone Semyorka

Have you heard of Ira Flatow? No? Well, 1 percent of Americans have.

He’s the host of that National Public Radio (NPR) show, Science Friday, with the catchy slogan Making Science Radioactive.

Crowd gathers to see Ira Flatley at the Science School

According to the stately News York Times, radioman Flatow is one of the world’s most influential communicators of science. Apparently, some 3 million people believe it and tune in to his talkfest for two hours every Friday afternoon.

In the future, cities will become deserts…

by Stone Semyorka

Remember Pleasantville? Where Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon were transported from their tumultuously teenage lives in a stereotypical 1990s household back into the calm and collected black-and-white world of a TV sitcom set in a perfect 1950s town? You know, something like the hometowns of Father Knows Best or Leave It To Beaver?

A yurt welcome center greets a visitor to the post-apocalyptic Wasteland

Reese is hot and Tobey is a nerd, neither of which was imaginable in ’50s Pleasantville. Back home in the ’90s, he had been a couch-potato expert on Pleasantville trivia. She had been sexually precocious.

Who needs history?

by Stone Semyorka

We do, if we want SL to have more than a quick 15 minutes of fame. We need to build a strong foundation under our virtual world.

We live in a new era. Second Life just entered our real lives in 2003. There hasn’t been a lot of time for historians to write about what went on here before we arrived.

Mythical dragon serpent at Morris welcome area commemorates ancient times before we arrived in our virtual world

The present has its roots in the past, and knowledge of our past is necessary for understanding the present. History helps us understand our foundation — how we reached the point where we are today.