Wednesday, April 9, 2008

A Last Thought On SL and Libraries

I have to say it: Second Life still gives me the creeps. I admit I have never created an account with them and tried it out but I did watch a television program on SL once and I think it really put me off. The creator of SL was interviewed and they explained all about how it originated, how it was set up, how it works now, etc. I didn't like its creator, although I can see it has taken on a life of its own now. I am all for using virtual environments (remember MUDs, MOOs, etc?) for training and educating purposes and I can see how it would be much easier to use something like SL that already exists and can host this type of thing, but I still find the look of SL very odd. Take a look at the first Irish library in SL in the picture I have posted here. The UCD James Joyce Library was set up by University College Dublin. It looks weird! At the time of this article (27 June 2007) there were apparently over 40 libraries in SL. Not bad!

I must admit though, I tend to side with Darren Barefoot and his "Get A First Life" parody site. I love video games and anything imaginative but I find SL too weird at present. There's too much that's inherently false about it. I guess it's just finding a balance between the virtual and the real.

2 comments:

Pete said...

Hi Bambino,

I tend to agree about second life. My first life is full. Who needs a second one?

You might like the cartoon at http://blaugh.com/cartoons/060803_first_second_life.gif

I think watching grass grow at http://www.watching-grass-grow.com/ is probably a better use of my time. It even reminds me to go outside when I've been watching it for too long.

Like the insights in your blog.

Keep on bloggin'

Cheers

Pete

Bambino Velostra said...

Thanks Pete! Didn't know anyone out there had time to comment on other people's blogs now, there are so many of them! The cartoon and grass-growing website were funny - thanks for those. Hope your own blog is going well.