A quarter sim (100m) magical water garden with pink cherry blossoms in full bloom, waterlilies, wild tulips, stepping stones and summer pavilion. Do some Secondlife magic - rez a beautiful environment in an instant !
The screenshots below are pure, untouched Secondlife environmental snapshots as seen in viewer 3, with shadows and reflections for the water. Secondlife can easily compete with the latest 3D games graphically.
Does your Secondlife life look like this ? If not, why not ?
There’s often talk of the learning curve being a negative aspect of Secondlife.
When in actual fact the perceived learning curve can be seen as a good thing and should be embraced. Saying Secondlife is difficult is like saying Life is difficult. Just like real life … Secondlife is a challenge. It’s a healthy challenge and no more complex than any current 3D game or MMO.
“In order to keep your brain making new connections and keeping them active, you need to keep moving on to another challenging activity as soon as you reach the point of mastery in the one you are engaging in. You want to be in a constant state of slight discomfort, struggling to barely achieve whatever it is you are trying to do,”
"You want to be in a constant state of slight discomfort, struggling to barely achieve whatever it is you are trying to do" That sounds like Secondlife to me :-) I say that with affection and humour. I do love Secondlife.
Secondlife presents us with never ending opportunities to keep growing as human beings. It’s a true multimodal environment involving networking, creativity, problem solving, collaborative work and social play. Exactly the things we need as adults to stop us becoming fossils of our own younger, vibrant selves.
The Flynn effect, which measures crytalline and fluid intelligence proposes the idea that complex and stimulating environments increases brain matter to cope with new information/activities and Secondlife fits that description 100%. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
One of Andrea Kurzewski’s suggestions to increase brain matter is to seek Novelty and I’m sure this is a major attribute of active residents of Secondlife – Seeking novelty and new experiences. Secondlife is, without doubt, the ultimate virtual playground for adults and a gymnasium for the brain.
Andrea Kurzewski states that there are five primary elements involved in increasing your fluid intelligence, or cognitive ability
These five primary principles are:
1. Seek Novelty
2. Challenge Yourself
3. Think Creatively
4. Do Things The Hard Way
5. Network
Using Secondlife invokes all 5 principle activities.
Secondlife is certainly a novelty, you can challenge yourself and others on a daily basis. You HAVE to think creatively and more often than not you have to do things the hard way before you find an easy way and all the while networking, instant messaging and connecting, role playing, biz meeting, flirting and chatting with people from around the world. PLUS the fun and novelty of experimenting with avatar appearance and identity and the ultimate magical control over your environment .... We can materialise/rez a fairy forest, a tropical beach house, a volcano ….. anything you can imagine is possible in Secondlife. And if it doesn’t exist you can build it !
USING SECONDLIFE MAKES US SMARTER
Here’s a marvellous TED video that re-enforces several of the above points about games and virtual worlds and how coping with these new, complex environments has a stimulating effect on our brains.
So … if you really want to give your brain a work out, become smarter and increase your grey matter and improve your networking and problem solving skills take a good look at Secondlife. http://www.secondlife.com/
When people say that Secondlife is difficult I would say ….. nothing truly worthwhile is easy.
Dolly and I were recently nominated and thrilled to win the AVI Choice Award for Favourite Landscaping Store.
A big thank you to everybody who voted for us and to all who have supported us over the nearly 7 roller coaster years we've been creating plants and trees for Secondlife ..... and a special big thanks to Mrs Bartlett, my nursery school teacher, who told me I drew a nice flower :-)
Here's a brief screenshot look at some of the plants and trees we have created over the years
Get your ice skates on, invite your friends and use the MAGIC OF SECONDLIFE to conjure up (rez-faux :-)) an instant snowy ice skating ring with cozy nook and fire pit to keep you warm on those wintery Secondlife frosty nights.
That truly is one of the most amazing things about Secondlife.... The rez-faux magic. It's a very empowering experience to magic up whole environments in a flash. Don't forget to wear your winter woolies ...... it's chilly !
Find all the snowy, frosty goodies you need to create your own Secondlife winter wonderland...... Everything from snowy trees, snowy mounds, huge glaciers and frozen ice sheets to frosty waterfalls, illuminated trees and garlands, and skyscaping star clusters.
Dolly and I have added new winter trees and updated most of the existing snowy trees so they are now supplied with modify perms which means you can size them down really small and cute or size them up the a massive 64m, creating dramatic skylines and vistas.
Giant mature snowy oaks and tall, young snowy oaks
Frosty horse chestnut trees
Frosty maritime pines
Snowy aspen trees
Snowy giant nordic pines
Snowy weeping willows
Frosty winter hawthorn with red berries
Illuminated starry beech trees in ice blue, pink and green
You can even turn your tropical island in to a winter wonderland with these snowy palms clusters, single snowy palms and illuminated palms
Genuinely scary, soul catching Witch Tree with Runes of Power, creeping roots and watcher skulls. Lots of extra dark forest, Halloween goodies included. The Witch Tree at Heart - TP Now
These amazing Oak trees will size up to a GIANT 64M and modify perms enable you to tint the oaks increase the glow and add your own personal touches
Also
Firey Witch Circle with glowing Pentacle and Beam of Earth Power, surrounded by fire runes and fire stones.
Lots of extra dark forest goodies included such as Tall black oaks, Blackthorn bushes, fiery rocks, rings of fire runes and more. Rez-Faux item making it easy to set up. Ideal for a Gothic, Halloween dance party.
