SecondLife cures blogging Posted Wednesday, August 24, 2005 8/24/2005 11:22:00 PM

Ok, I'm a bad blogger. It has been 25 days since my last post. It is not that I haven't had much to say (I always have too much to say). One of the main reasons is that I've been screwing around with SecondLife. SecondLife is sort of like a multiplayer online game but the truth is there is not really any game to play. Instead we should call it an online virtual world. It is a immersive 3D environment that gives the players (residents) the ability to create the virtual world they live in. Players can create new objects in the game, program them, and sell them for virtual money. And while in other online games it is against the rules to trade game money for real cash in SL it is encouraged. While most residents are there to socialize or role play there is a large community of content creators the make and sell virtual goods. Matter of fact some people make a living playing/working in this game.

I joined the game and right away started programming new scripts. Some people I've met in the game are very good at making new items... I'm good at programming them. What can I program them to do? Anything really. I can make a ball float around and push people (I have to be careful this can get you banned), I can make objects slide/grow/rotate at the click of a button, I can program a streaming video TV with remote, I even saw a SL implementation of forth. The programming language in SL is simple to learn but surprisingly powerful. Any object in the virtual world can be programmed to do a multitude of tasks. If your into programming and you have some free time (and $10 to spare) I encourage you to check it out. I think it is a programmers fantasy... living in a world where every rock, plant and brick can be manipulated and programmed as you see fit.