Bicycle

5 was shopping again. It seems that shopping is a way of exploring the world. 5 was tempted to buy some stuff, and suddenly saw a stunt bike. Since this was a 5 L$ store, and 5 is rather fond of bicycles, this item was quickly purchased.
Where did 5 see the first bike in SL? Yes is was in the Amsterdam sim, it was chained to a fence on a bridge over a canal, yes that was good, but well, what a long long time ago!
5 has to mention the shop: 5 L$ shop it is called.

It goes with a few animations, and the wind speed is increased so your clothes are really flying backwards! Putting it on the ground is like putting clothes or hair on your land, if you have a 512 m2 lot, this bicycle is enough to fill it: 100 prims. All kinds of frame details are worked into the prims. In another store a bicycle was found that was even cheaper: 1 L$. Somewhere called The Dollar Palace
Animations included, like riding a bicycle. Bicycles are arranged with other vehicles, such as sports cars, airplanes….haha.

Then 5 decided to make a more systematic search. This always ends up in a blog!
Looking for bicycle, as expected, not too much is found. Well not much….but clearly not as abundant as clothes!
Showing a bit the limits of SL. No this is not yet the real world, where everything can be found in one city somewhere….

5 found a second bicycle, 18 prims, for as expected, 1 L$! It comes with a leg animation and a standing still pose.

Bicycles By Chase
bike,unicycle,reclined bicycle,exercise,fitness,racing,cyclist,touring,cycle,sport,sporting

This is a real bike mall…..with unicycles too!
Unicycles are 12 prims, 250 L$.
Normal bikes, 30 prims, at 600 L$.
Reclining bikes, yes, at 500 L$ at 25 prims.
Tandems, 30 prims, 750 L$.


Then the next shop is mainly a store for animations, sitting, diving, boxing, and jumping MEDHUE ANIMATIONS, displays bikes of 39 prims coming at 500 L$.
With 18 different riding animations. I suppose they really add special effect, but too expensive for me right now!

La Bicyclette, Bicycle shop and museum of Annie Londoderry
Victorian style bicycle, and other things, carefully built according to photo’s on display. The highrider is 15 prims, 175 L$
There are really neat Victorian clothes too here, but it is a terrible laggy place. But all SL is laggy at the moment....

BICYCLES...Jonx Bicycle store at Ohana, 299 L$
This is a modern but small store, very little imagination
Some race and mountain bikes (45 prims)


3D Digital Art Gallery
A place high in the sky. Racing bikes….yes, but two, for the rest art, well sort of art…..
Strange combination! Two bicycles and art…..
But the bicycle is expensive, one of 500, and one of 1500 L$, but this one apparently rezzes free racing bike's! Prims not indicated…

Ok two bikes richer, for 6 L$ in total, 5 left this search, 5 has to make a bike though, for some reasons explained later….let us go then you and I, march-ing on!

Why 5?

Here 5 explains why 5 prefers 5!
1:
5 is mainly in contrast with 4, that is to say the rectangle, or the square. Nearly all the shapes you encounter in RL or in SL are rectangular or combinations of rectangles. This has a reason: these shapes fit easily together. 99% of beds, books, rooms, houses, buildings, windows, paintings.
Only some shapes, because of aerodynamics or movement through the water have very complicated elongated shapes, like airplanes, ships, propellers. But in the end the dominance of the rectangular becomes repetitive. Worse still, is the fact that this combining easily together is in sharp contrast with the human. Humans don’t fit easily together. But that is what humans try nonetheless all the time. To work together, to live together, to go on holiday together. And then they are always surprised that it either is very difficult, or impossible to stay together. Why are they surprised? Is this because they are used to seeing all kinds of things combine easily, the rectangulars?
2:
So 5 looked for others shapes, and in particular a shape which isn’t too repetitive, so triangles, and hexagons were also banned, being able to fill the plane without holes. Beehives of course are hexagonal. Above hexagons the shapes with 7 9 or 11 and more sides quickly become very circular, or too close to a circle to be discernable. The pentagon has a very recognizable shape, very different from the square. And look at combinations of pentagons! Always different, leaving holes open, and all different combinations quickly show there own “character”.
3:
So geometry, this very logical branch of mathematics displays something strange: it already has something irregular in it’s logic. That’s interesting! The pentagon as a shape is extremely regular, and combinations of this shape are irregular. Isn’t this a bit like the human being? Following laws but also breaching them. Repetitive and creative. The human being must be like that, it is the mark bench of survival.
4:
Flowers are 70% of the time having 5 petals. Why is that? Well, there is no real why of course, but if starting from a center (the stem) and having to cover the plane, a very convenient way seems to be to split up in 5. But you see nature being very explorative and not obeying one strict law: flowers are coming in 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, double 5, triple 5, and even more complicated shapes like the flowers of orchids. Since we are surrounded by flowers, nobody can say that the pentagon is not known in nature! (Not to mention our hands, the five senses etc.)
5:
If you take a pentagon, and fit another to it, rotating it to have a common side, and repeat this process around a common axis, you get a spiral of pentagons with a nice property: is displays a sort of false perspective on cubes! Of course the pentagon cannot be seen isolated from the square and the hexagon; the five sided shape is just part of the enormous amount of possibilities. After having seen these ‘false’ cubes coming out of pentagons, 5 discovered the so called Penrose tiling. Penrose, a scientist, also played around with pentagons and discovered the false pentagons being able to cover the plane in a not repetitive way. The football is a combination of pentagons and hexagons, by the way?
Funny is that space is normally quite “square”, (called a vector space, after going 10 meters left and 10 meters to the right, you end up on the same spot as after 10 meters right and 10 to the left), but in the thoughts of Einstein, space became, “more than square”, that is to say, he needed a space being able to depart from this squareness, or needing a fifth side to connect left-right with right-left. So although for us small human beings square space is sufficient, the universe needs “more”.

Conclusion: the pentagon is a very interesting shape, being able to demonstrate what we need as human beings: very individual combinations and a lot of open air (the holes between the pentagons when combined) between us, to be able to establish a healthy and creative relation with other human beings!
In the DevShed can be found 3 simple ways to construct a pentagon in SL, (there must be 5!)
There are much more connections to the 5, like the golden ratio, Fibonacci, but well, you can find that yourself!

Second SL

Looking for an anchor 5 saw something very funny in strange place. Advertised as pirates ships and sea battle games Siege Guild offers all kinds of exploding barrels and bear traps.
(Interactive battles! Plunder and sink for real!!!)

How nice! But suddenly 5 came across a miniature landscape, in quite primitive shapes with a miniature medieval ship in a pool!
This is Second Life in Second Life! Playing the Lindens in the Linden world. 5 could think of mind boggling possibilities: you could ask Linden-Linden dollars to rent this ship, so LL$....
In this square of Second Life squared a battle would rage if it was allowed to gamble, or wager! Because the LL$ is at the moment not yet linked to the real $, it would be possible. Miniature slot machines would appear on this battleship which would provide a relief for the avatars accustomed to spending enormous amounts of money on the virtual slot machines which disappeared miraculously from SL.
Other features would fit in: you would be released from the bear trap sooner if you paid quickly a few LL$. The owner of Siege Guild would be rich fast, only his richness would consist of money which is only to be spend in his miniature kingdom. As soon as he linked his LL$ to the L$ which is linked to the $, the laws which apply to the state where the servers are situated would apply to the Second Life of the Linden would apply to the miniature kingdom of Siege Guild. So the microscopic slot machines would be banned, just like his big brothers and sisters. The miniature economy of Siege Guild would change dramatically from casino financed to selling microscopic miniature worlds inside the miniature world. In this SSSL’s for a moment or two, slot machines would be allowed and the economy would blast it’s way forwards.

So not only “Plunder and sink for real” in the virtual world but also layers of economies and whole geologies of laws applying down from one world on the other.
PS very nicely textured balloons in the neighbourhood!

Astronomy

5 went for a small search on astronomy. Astronomy is about universe, planets, stars, galaxies, space, and the big bang, for instance. Without doubt much more.
Astronomy as a science is observations and theory, like physics, chemistry, biology etc. Theory always checked by observations, although there is a small knowledge loop involved: theory shaping what can be observed. The history of astronomy on the other hand, for the science unimportant, shows the magnificent struggle of human beings to become able to observe without being dictated what to see by others, kings, dictators, popes, religion, old writings,. The Babylonian priests observed eclipses, right to Ptolemy (around 150) observations were made freely with the naked eye, then the Almagest of Ptolemy somehow became a sacred book, and “real observations”, without prejudice, stopped. Until Galileo, who made himself a telescope using the principle of Huygens, observations were curved back to those of Ptolemy, heavily supported by the church and leaning on Aristotle.
So it took a while to put the sun in the centre of the planetary system. It took another while to place the sun in the outskirts of our galaxy and our galaxy somewhere in a big framework of a curved universe. Hubble of course “identified” the first galaxies as such in the 19th century, the universe was shaped by Einstein, his general theory of relativity the 1920ties , and the shape of our own galaxy after the second world war, with radio astronomy.
Well, what can 5 find back of this in Second Life?
First 5 visited

Jenika's Astronomy Park of Jenika Connolly
Which is a nice start. Jenika presents telescopes, which offer images of the wonders of the universe. The images are shown when using the "sit" for the telescope in a central circle. But don’t think buying a telescope in real life will show you these very intriguing pictures. With telescopes “for the amateur” one can observe very interesting things like the moon, the planets and groups of stars, maybe even the Andromeda nebula (the nearest galaxy), but never the images of the Hubble telescope. Jenika also makes eyes and paintings!
Then 5 found an extended exposition explaining about observations and astronomy in:
Physics and Astronomy

Very nice equipment is shown and a very joking picture of an astronomer not being able to observe through his small telescope because of pollution in the air….
This is a bit what you can find in public observatories with movies about the universe and domes where they project stars on. It is the presentation of science, an introduction to all kinds of aspects. A bit about instruments, o bit about observations, stars, galaxies. All very neat and objective. You can get a list here of other Science-Related places in Second Life, like eco-systems, marine and biology exhibitions etc.

The third place is called Prospero's Astronomy Gallery
This is a private sort of gallery, explaining a few things like the birth of stars and planetary systems.
Also a very nice transparent map of the stars in the sky is presented which can rotate around a central earth. (Oops, 'central' have we returned again to Ptolemy? Well, no, th earth is just the place from where we see the stars around us. So to observe and find these stars, this position is the best.)
So the main focus on the moment is on the tools, telescopes, and the explanations. Of course theories like modern relativity are a bit beyond the reach of the general public, and Second Life of course is the general public.
The Carl Sagan Pavilion in the sim of the Illusion Factory is more a tribute to the astronomer, Carl Sagan. He was involved in programs to discover radio messages from extraterrestrial life in the 60ties. He supported a steady state universe. Certainly somebody who tried to think along other lines than the main stream astronomer.

Visiting

How do you find things in SL?
Objects, places to visit, people?
It is a 3D world, without a clear one dimensional classification on for instance length or on alphabet.
Words are not what is present.
Never the word was more different from it’s content then in SL.
Keywords are added to everything to attract.
So if something is “not free”- free is in the keywords. Smart? Well the search engine is a blessing, even with the system of false keywords (“no sex”….lol).
There is chance. You are directed, send on a way, follow a path, the oracle is always right, you will find something. So looking for a telephone 5 found nice Victorian instruments and a very amusing brewery. Looking for art, 5 landed in a museum of teacups, still under construction, but very intriguing.

Another link brought 5 to a french rural church, a chapelle, all painted within, which exists in reality

Finding things turns out to be very simple. One word or a simple question from a friend can release a complex query through SL. And looking at things from the perspective of this question the world looks different. Evolution, ecosystem, museum, art, science, laboratory. The search engine won’t bring you the answer or the sim you were looking for, but it will function as an oracle. Bringing better or even more than the answer.
People complain that all is the same in SL. Well only if you don’t have ideas yourself. All you can think of, indeed more, is there, but you have to be able to excavate it from the unordered 3D world. Not only not logically ordered, also in constant reordering.
So you have to be fast, because all is changing, or is being changed, at the same time. Being there in Second Life means changing. Some very nice sims can disappear in a second at the whim of the owner, having changed her mind.
So make snapshots, or and- even better, movies. Avatars change all the time, the sims are rearranged, the ideas trasformed. In SL even more than in the head of the most creative person, ideas are combined and fall apart. Ever shifting worlds.
You can help this process.
Walk around, make notes of interesting things, put these into your profile, you will meet people, look at their ideas, they look at yours, and you have soon other strange places to visit. Talking is more than chatting, you have to inspect the persons you meet, always new aspects to explore. There is more than you ever can imagine!

Visitors

Is that you? People say to 5 in Second Life? No that is not me. Yes indeed, this is not me.
Who am I?
Let’s us look at the others, who are they?
5 meets all kinds of…..people.
Rabbits playing drums in the desert.
Soldiers parachuting from the sky in the developers hangout.
Pirates admiring an exhibition about Rotterdam.
A pirate, who speaks English, but his girlfriend pirate only speaks French. Or an Indian who speaks German, while his squaw uses the Babbler-translator? Is somebody a soldier because she is dressed like it? Is somebody a lady because he has just sparsely covered long legs?
What is this clothing anyway, and indeed, what is it covering? Does it matter?
Yesterday 5 was offered a ride on a horse, well the horse was an avatar. The person was a horse. During the ride, with the horse in command, 5 wondered - what (who) is riding who (what) to where?
Do you want to be a horse too? She asked. You can buy me.
Not yet! I’ll give it to you. What does she offer?
Herself, herself as a horse, or just the horse, or an idea?
What is a horse, by the way, in SL?

A Horse can poop, can stoop, you can change the saddle, gallop, even backwards. Luckily it doesn’t attract flies.
Flies are absent in SL. Too many prims for too small a shape. No midgets, no flies, no ticks, wonderful world. If you are an insect, ou are not allowed in. Strange ecosystem without insects!
But you can become a dragon, a cowboy, a cartoon hero, superman, a horse, maybe even slimy things.
No, slimy is too blobby, blobby is too difficult, slimy things are forbidden.


So is that you 5? You’ll never know. One thing is clear, there is a difference between the newbies and the older generations. They even spot it themselves immediately. Whatever you are, a soldier coming down in the sim, and changing immediately in a general, a small rabbit playing a noisy potpourri and having a lot of fun, not riding the horse but being a horse, even appearing in an abstract shape, running around as a very serious Indian, changing into an alien…..we have adapted to this world, whatever we are. We welcome the other shapes, we know we don’t know who we are, and this becomes the reason of our existence.
This not knowing who we are makes us open for everything and everyone. You just see what happens. Actually we are stripped of prejudice about who we are, about gender, age, education.
Maybe we are more nacked then ever, being without illusions about the other. More nacked and more armed too.
Maybe we speak a few languages, but we encounter dozens more. Maybe we have read a few books, but we talk with people who have read totally different libraries. We have a few ideas, but miraculously ideas appear everywhere all the time. All caused by “is that you” ‘s. A horse can program, a rabbit knows the Illias by heart, batman gives citations from the Mahabharata.
5 would like to be a flower. Must be possible, 5 prim petals would do the job.

CRUISE!

SS Galaxy - Queen of the Sagittarian Sea

Wandering in search of a newspaper 5 landed in a cruise ship! Looking at the map with CTRL M, it turns out that this cruise ship consists of 3 whole sims!
Always new wonders to admire in SL!
The perspectives on the deck are really awesome, because of the stretch of this 3 sim construction.
In the lounge, and indeed everywhere else maps of the ship are displayed, which is good because you tend to loose your way, it’s all sooo big!
Swimming pool, sunbathing, ballroom, everything is there, also lots of paintings. Hmmm, well, always the problem what to ask for this kind of art, is it a real painting, which makes it beyond all pricing, or is it just a picture of a painting, uploaded for 10 L$, and duplicated at infinitum?
Of course, of course, a casino, I bet it isn’t the only one in SL! Slotmachines too, tens, twenty thirty, yes yes, we know the breeding of slotmachines is a matter of a millisecond. Lol!
On the deck a huge dome can be seen, being the Galaxy’s ballroom. Nice structure, consisting of rows and rows of prim windows! A bit a calculation to get these windows right…
Good, very nice, for the events on the Galaxy, the ship provides free evening wear. Blue is the main color. Indeed other free assets, such as a tuxedo can be bought, also for 0 L$!
In the middle of the casino there is a horse track, for the betting, will it function?
Shops of course are to be found here, prim hair for instance, since the ship is a mall too. Sometimes the shops are a bit difficult to enter, because the extend two decks, and you have to cross two sims to get to the stairs between the decks and getting back, or would there be a faster way?
This ship makes one wander: what kind of structures could be thought of, to stretch a few sims, and at the same time retain a kind of unity.
Landscape of course, architecture, palaces.
But isn’t this idea great, not to build a landscape first and then put your things on it, but right from the start construct a world in the form of a gigantic ship. Indeed a ship like this IS a world. Some of 5’s friends spend all his time on two sims, rarely leaving this space, 5 could imagine there are people living on the Galaxy all there SL life!
Maybe ships, these cruise ships, are the largest moving structures in RL. Of course architecture on land is always bigger, but it doesn’t move. Ok, in SL this ship won’t move either. In that sense it is comparable to the stone ship in the summer palace in Bejing. Only the size!