This is truly astonishing to me: a group of students at Elon University has created a multi-day exhibit on Second Life based on my first book, Bad Astronomy. There are videos based on concepts in the book, a planetarium show, and all sorts of bells and whistles.
If you are into SL you can get there using this SURL. I myself am a powerless and clueless newbie, so I fumble around a lot, but from what I can tell this is really amazing. It runs through Sunday, so drop by!
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
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December 5th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
LOL, I tried SL when you did your interview, and just kept flying around… I couldn’t figure it out if my life depended on it.
December 5th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
I hope they do something based on Death From the Skies! Different scenarios for wiping out all life in Second Life!
December 5th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Isn’t that a Second DEATH exhibit?
December 6th, 2008 at 10:25 am
I never could get into SL… Which is odd since I am quite an MMO player and all. (DAoC and WAR here!)
December 6th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Didn’t know that Phil was a furry. =)
December 6th, 2008 at 10:59 am
There are a lot of cool shapes there. I had to google Fibonacci Pinecone and have my 15yo daughter explain it. I forgot that I had picked up DaVinci code for her, and she had just read about it. She wishes she had understood the Golden Ratio a few weeks ago.
I tried to sit on the Earth on the moon phase example as suggested by the description, but that didn’t quite work as expected. But it’s an interesting display.
For flying, click the Fly button and then use Page up/down to get up and down. Arrow buttons move you around. It’s much faster than walking.
December 6th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
That place is big. Lots of great information there it appears, though it may take some time to explore it all. Got a kick out of the Creationist models of Earth. The CoLab was cool as well. Elon is definately worth a visit.
December 6th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Which is odd since I am quite an MMO player and all.
SL isn’t really a MMORPG, it’s more of a very graphical chat client. It appeals more to people who spend hours on IRC than on WoW.
Didn’t know that Phil was a furry. =)
Sadly, he’s not, at least not in SL. He’d be even hotter if he were. ^^
December 6th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I had a look at the exhibit and it was superb! I’d really love to learn how to create my own little place in SL, but I suspect I will slip into that deep SL black hole of time… Kudos to the Elon guys, they did a great job.
However that was the end of my constructive afternoon. I got side-tracked, found a model Moon and teleported to the Apollo 11 landing site where I ended up chatting to a guy with devil wings and hooves. Didn’t end well as I wanted to see if I could fly off… I hit “Page Up” a few too many times and drifted off the map. SL only knows where I ended up, but I’d like to think that is what a singularity looks like.
I logged back on and found the nearest SL bar, had a beer and a virtual cigarette. Somehow I felt better, but I have no idea why…
December 6th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
I looked into Second Life when it was started. It struck me as an extreme form of escapism for people whose real lives are so miserable and vacant that they had to create a better one online.
So I immediately dubbed it “Get a Life” instead of “Second Life”
Needless to say I am not a participant….
December 7th, 2008 at 6:18 am
Most times I go there, it’s deserted. And the emphasis on shopping, clubbing and ****ing in many areas is thoroughly dispiritng.
But there’s a heck of a lot going on there, if you look. Forex, I have accidentally stumbled on a beautiful buddhist temple, where I could “sit” and read Zen texts, or just admire the wonderfully-rendered sylvan surroundings. And flying around and exploring the world is good fun for me.
Also, it’s a good place to meet up in cyberspace – lots of organisations use it for cyberconferencing – once or twice I’ve found myself in the middle of one.
December 7th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
I think congratulations are in order to the Elon students for putting on a great presentation. Seems to me they really did put a lot of work into it. I disagree with those that think Second Life is to “geeky”, sites like this have lots of potential simply as a learning center.
I balanced my first egg. It was so cool.
December 8th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Speaking of “based on your book”.
Quirks & Quarks from Saturday…
http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/08-09/qq-2008-12-06.html