Even the venerable Straylight sim is getting the Halloween treatment! Thanks to Kriss Lehmann for pointing it out to me, else I'd not have seen it. As you'll see in the gallery, apparently a race of spiders has taken over a good stretch of the forest, and an eerie green glow is emanating from afar. But wait! All is not lost! Make your way to the reception area, and look! A jaunty Halloween party awaits all who enter!

I took advantage of the festivities to chat up a fellow canine and enjoyed the orbiting witchkitty on her broom. There are likely more fun things to be seen, but I'm a wolfie on a mission, I am. Go check it out for yourself!

(Thanks, Kriss!)

Nebulosus Severine has taken a slightly different tack with her build -- she's based it upon the classic horror tale 'The Masque of the Red Death', by E. A. Poe, which can be gotten here. It's recommended that you read through the story to familiarize yourself with the layout of the place, and to imbue yourself with the proper atmosphere so you can truly appreciate what Nebulosus has done here.

In fact, not only should you read through the story, but you should also check out the lovely slideshow put together by Vady; not only is it representative of the sights to be had there, but it's also presented in a notably gothic, decaying-projector style that completely complements the build itself. Bravo, Nebulosus! Old Edgar Allen himself would be proud of you!

(Thanks, Nebulosus!)

DarkDharma Daguerre is a hell of an artist. Not only is this one fantastic build, but look at her avatar! That alone would be reason enough for coverage, but the classically spooky haunted house is full of little tricks and treats as well. 9 tarot bags of goodies await your discovery, with various surprises contained within. Let it be known that the house itself belongs to Sagittar Spengler, who did us all a favor by letting DarkDharma work her mischief within.

And hey, if you're as impressed as I was with everything, that might entice you into inquiring about her avatar creation business, which is just across the way from this build! I've only taken a few shots, leaving it for you all to discover, which is all the fun!

(Thanks, DarkDharma and Sagittar!)

Continuing with SL's best Halloween-themed builds, here's far-and-away one of the creepiest I've ever enjoyed. The fine folk calling themselves ELITE (Electronic Lesbians In Their Element) have created quite an amazing build they call Dykemare on Elm Street.

Great builds are more than mere geometry; excellent textures are of far more value than prim contortions, and these are fantastic! A lot of weathering, cracks, grunge, and overall color choices make for a claustrophobic, decaying site that will have even the most stalwart heart quail in fear. For those brave enough to make the trip, there's also a photo contest, the winner of which will net 3,500L! Go check 'em out!

(Thanks, Kelly!)

Sloog, you may remember, is a HUD that lets you tag places and people and search for them both inworld and via the web. MERLOT is a tool for indexing, and a database of, online learning and educational materials. SaLamander is a system to tie them together, led by Wainbrave Bernal, aka Jonathon Richter of the University of Oregon, in partnership with Sloog.org and yours truly.

What does it all mean? Well, anyone is welcome to go and pick up a Salamander HUD from the Centre for Advanced Technology in Education and when you find somewhere educational in SL, click the button, follow the instructions and register the site. The UOregon people will sift feeds and transfer them over to the wiki, and we will gradually acquire a register of folksonomy tags for education in SL.

I got some responses to my call for Halloween-themed builds, so I'm going to give them some love as promised. First, we have a lovely graveyard dancefloor, which can be yours courtesy of Csteph Submariner and SLexchange. I've tested it, as you can see in the Gallery; it's definitely danceable! And don't weep for me, dancing all alone; as a werewolf, I'm obliged now and again to do the odd Monster Mash.

(Thanks, Chris!)

When you live in San Francisco, every day is Halloween. I've had this holiday sneak up on me so fast my head spins like Linda Blair's. So it was with some pleased surprise that I found the house shown above, and wanted to share it with you all 'cause you're just so swell. Believe me, this shot does not do it justice. I won't link without permission, though, so if the owner is reading this, drop us a comment!

With that said, October 31st is coming, and I know some of you are planning parties in SL to celebrate it. Some of you are even decorating especially for the holiday. Let's see what you got!

If you have a build you'd like to receive some attention, send me your SLurl and I'll come get some shots and post them here. I believe there are many great things in SL that most people never get to see, and that's a damned shame. So this is my contribution to builder culture; send me your stuff!

[UPDATE: Turns out this is the infamous Bates Motel; how could I not recognize it? It was built by Furiae Blackthorne, and many thanks indeed!)

I'm quite a fan of 2 of the 3 CSI shows, and the games offered here (there should be more to come) work quite nicely. You do have to wonder if the shows would be as compelling if all the clues were highlighted when you arrived though. For those of us outside the US, the fact that one of the mysteries ties in directly to tonight's show might be a bit tricky unless we manage to download a copy of it from somewhere. Is CBS sure that's what it wants?

The game play uses video streaming to relay information about the clues and interviews with the suspects, but there is a text sidebar too for those, like me, that struggle to hear what's going on. The text is rather slow to load though, sadly.

It was a fun way to spend 20 minutes. I guess it will take longer than that for the expected hordes of newbie CSI fans though, as they also try to get used to moving around in SL. It will be interesting to see how many convert to long term users after this, but they will use a fair amount of SL skills, so they might.

I've never been to New York, but exploring New York virtually on this scale was fun!

Oh, if you use their viewer, you can't right click the CSI toolbar - but you can in a normal viewer. This is to stop newbies getting lost and detaching them by mistake according to one of their greeters, but it's annoying if you're used to SL.

The other day I was in a class, and in the wrap up at the end I was asked to say what I thought the differences between working for an educational institution and a commercial one were in SL. It's a situation I'm fairly well positioned on, I've worked with a range of both types of organisations. One group I haven't worked with is the "city council" or similar who try to sell their city and build it anew.

I came up, at short notice with a few differences. I've had a think and refined them a bit, and thought I'd share them and ask for your input and thoughts. You never know, it might be a good tool for one group or the other to learn (I'd suggest commercial to learn from educational - education seems to be booming in SL, although there are some corporate good practise elements from the commercial end too).

1. Build type:
• Educators are more likely (say 50%+) to eschew a "corporate build" - the administration office block or similar. Of those that do have such a thing a high proportion are likely to subvert it somehow elsewhere in their build.
• Corporate types are much more likely to go for "the office block" - I'd say 95%. They clearly identify their office as their corporation.
2. Build nature
• Educators tend to focus on the results. That's both in terms of meeting the educational needs, and being relatively happy if nothing happens, nothing happens, then a finished build appears.
• Corporate types tend to want regular reports, plans, milestones etc.

So, they're my thoughts. What do you think? Just Askin'

When a woman named Thursday finds out she is going to be reincarnated as Tuesday, her attempt to cheat the cycle of reincarnation unleashes a terrible beauty that leaves the other days of the week in turmoil.

Thursday's Fictions, a 52 minute surreal dance fantasy film with Edwardian Gothic stylings, has won three awards, has been a finalist for four more (and the book for the Kenneth Slessor Prize), and is tonight a finalist for "Best Experimental" at the 2007 Enhance TV ATOM Awards, taking place in the Plaza Ballroom, Regent Theatre, Collins St in Melbourne, Australia.

Thursday's Fictions is not only available on DVD (USA, Australia/NZ, UK/Europe/Asia) - you can experience some of the magic in Second Life as well, as constructed by The Project Factory's Gary Hazlitt. There is also a trailer to whet your appetite for the experience, though it may not be suitable for work, including artistically contextualised partial nudity.

The still image you see above doesn't do the place justice. Turn the sound on, and walk through the place. Experience it first-hand and in motion.

Australian Metaverse developer The Project Factory has unveiled an artistic remix of the alleys and laneways of Melbourne (my local stomping grounds). Rather than simply replicating a chunk of the city, the installation draws on the elements and flavor of many scenes and locales, mixing them into an artistic reinterpretation of the feel and mood of Melbourne's almost mazelike webwork of minor streets and byways.

Gary Hazlitt (aka Gary Hayes), Head of Virtual World Development at The Project Factory said, "We wanted to catch the vibrancy of the Melbourne Laneways and the architecture of Federation Square. Second Life gave us the ability to animate these buildings and give them the movement that we feel they want."

The Flash video [courtesy of the fast and friendly folks at SLCN.TV] linked above shows the site being unpacked at Australian Broadcasting Corporation's ABC Island. So what are you waiting for? Get down there and soak some of the Melbournian ambience!

Digital Urban is a blog I wouldn't have normal come across, but it showed up on my radar today, with an article, at least in part, about branding issues and the likelihood of prosecutions for breaking them. There is a nice link out to the original piece in Retail Bulletin too, which covers some of the potential issues of bringing a suit - finding the name of the avatar doing it, jurisdictional issues and the cost of bringing the case against the probable returns.

Digital Urban is worth a look as well. It's the blog of a UCL project to map urban environments in digital media. That might be somewhat tangential to us you think, but have you visited Manchester, Liverpool, the Sistine Chapel, Amsterdam, etc? That's the kind of thing the blog looks at. Oh, and if you map places in the UK, you're breaking the Ordinance Survey's copyright guys, so be careful! Now, to the best of my knowledge, a UK government sponsored part of Manchester Council built the Manchester sims. Surely they've got to be easy enough to find and sue, if the OS are so inclined?

A Virtual Museum Tries out the Real World

The International Spaceflight Museum (ISM), a non-profit, volunteer-run educational facility in the virtual realm of Second Life, takes its exhibit sponsorship auctions to eBay to attract the attention of more real-world bidders. The sponsorships for full-scale models of two lunar vehicles are up for auction -- the "Apollo Lunar Module" (built by Lora Chadbourne) and the unflown Russian "Lunniy Korabl" (built by Helori Pascal). The auctions will run from October 1 to October 21, and sponsorships will begin on November 1, 2007 and end on January 31, 2008. Winning sponsors will have their names prominently displayed on the exhibit's display signage. They may also elect to have a logo displayed for an additional fee.

Kat Lemieux (SL name, Katherine W. Prawl in real life) is co-founder of the museum and CEO of the nonprofit ISM Corporation. She said, "The exhibit sponsorship auctions allow us to give individuals as well as organizations the opportunity to support the museum, and get some recognition for their contributions at the same time. We are very interested in seeing whether eBay auctions are a viable approach, since this might permit us to reach a much larger donor pool than only holding silent auctions within Second Life."

"I'm curious to see how this sponsorship auction turns out," Troy McLuhan (Troy McConaghy in real life), Vice President of the ISM, added. "Like many things we've done at the museum, it's an experiment."

The museum is the principal activity of the ISM Corporation, a non-profit organization incorporated in the state of Kansas, USA. The ISM hopes to raise enough money to cover the monthly usage fees owed to Linden Labs for the maintenance of virtual land, and contribute to the corporation's operating costs.

The Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi is one of the great enduring architectural beauties of the world, and on the 21st of September, it will be available to tour in SL. This build is a joint project between Wedoit s.a.s. (Assisi) with the partnership of Metafuturing S.l. (Madrid) and Euromedia Italia (Terni). From the press release:

"The Basilica, built with original proportions and sizes, is unique in its quality and details, and in its interior churces avatars can enjoy many renaissance paintings of Giotto, Cimabue, Pietro Lorenzetti and many others. Every painting has a caption explaining the brief details, just by clicking on it. It's also possible to wear an HUD (Heads Up Display), built by Wedoit too, to have a complete virtual visit, accessing textual and audio informations about the paintings. The device is currently available in italian and english languages only, and it is distributed at the two entrances of the churces."

For more information, check out this site, though be aware it's in Italian.

(Thanks, Valentina!)

Although I'm sure there are already muslims in SL, there hasn't been that I'm aware of, a purely Islamic sim before. Now we have a microcontinent of 2 sims officially opening at 12:30 today in Al Andalus Alhambra and it's neighbour Al Andalus Generallife.

Now, I have to say I'm a huge fan of Islamic art and architecture, so a quick sneak preview, purely in the interests of reporting of course, was inevitable. There are a few places where there is building work still going on, but it looks pretty spectacular already.

This build, perhaps unusually, is also reported on Virtually Blind and Your 2nd Place. As you might guess, this isn't because of the build directly, but the Al-Andalus Caliphate is going to run as a private government (shades of the Confederation of Democratic Sims for example), but run under Sharia Law.

Interestingly, when you arrive there is no explanation of what this means - and as it is a mature sim is it alright for me to turn up naked? - but it will be interesting to see how this develops. There is a blog available if you'd like to follow them too.