I had read somewhere about the website "Second Life," then read on a website yesterday that Second Life had somehow become involved in Spanish politics. Anyway, this got me interested and I went to the site and signed up for a free membership. I signed up to start out with the "nightclub hunk" character and as soon as my character was introduced into the virtual world, here were these two girls that looked like street prostitutes, sashaying around in front of me. Didn't know what to do, and I hadn't familiarized myself with the controls for the site (Some people describe it as an "experience" rather than a game.) so I hit the red X and got out of the virtual world.

So, I'm left with a couple of questions. Does anybody here spend any time on the site, and is it worth the time and effort (and, I guess, $6 or more a month), or is it one of these things that might have been a good idea, but doesn't work out well in practice.

Also, does the imaging and stuff actually require more than 256 MB of RAM, which is mentioned as the minimum. The fan in the computer fired up right away when I accessed the virtual world--which doesn't necessarily mean there was a lot of stuff going on where memory had to be used and reused rapidly, but it might mean there could be a problem. The CPU is a little faster than the requirement listed, but of course it could have been doing a lot of work independent of anything that taxed the RAM resources.

The site might be interesting in another way for some members. I wonder if a participant's character can become a eunuch in the virtual world, and what the effect on interactions would be. I thought, "That might be interesting to do," and then, on reflection concluded, "No, it wouldn't be me. I have no passion for asexuality." I guess you can change back to what you were before, in the virtual world, so it wouldn't be like having surgery in the real world, but I still think I wouldn't be effective running a character which was fundamentally different than myself.

According to the home page for the Second Life, there are six million people registered for the site, of whom over a million have accessed it in the last ninty days or less. So somebody gets something out of it.

Aw, second life! It depends if your playing for fun or to make money. I read there was a woman who buys all the real estate as they make it and sells it to others. She makes millions! There are a number of ways to make money there.

Art imitates life as they say.

As for your computer, you should be OK. I suppose you could beef it up if you like.

no stay away from second life..i think it sounds so stupid!! you cant smell the fresh air in "second life", do peoples lives suck so much they need an online one? I dunno...

*dont like it*

I tried it out and thought it was boring and not worth the trouble it took learning how to do everything -- certainly not worth paying for extra clothes, houses, and other privileges. I have nothing against virtual worlds, even this message board is a virtual world. I just found Second Life too clunky to deal with. For me, it was a waste of time.

Beau Geste (imported) wrote: Mon May 21, 2007 12:42 pm The site might be interesting in another way for some members. I wonder if a participant's character can become a eunuch in the virtual world, and what the effect on interactions would be.

Hi Beau Geste,

Actually all the male characters come standard with out any genitalia. You actually have to buy a penis or get some one to give you one. Strangely though you can change the size of the bulge in your pants when you edit your appearance. My second life character is a girl most of the time, but occasionally I go out as a boy.

I have noticed that second life runs much better on my tower than on my laptop. I don't know how much RAM it uses. I have more than enough on both machines. I suspect it has more to do with speed than memory because the biggest difference between my machines is speed.

If you go to www.secondlife.com and read all the system requirements, you have to have quite the powerful machine to run it, as well as a very good video card.

I have a Second Life character, but I don't use him much. A lot of what goes on at that site/game is run by scripting, and unless you're a scripting genius with plenty of free time on your hands, the site/game is more work than it is fun. Creating things is a royal pain in the ass, too, and extremely time consuming. It took me over an hour just to position an earring on the avatar, once I spent all that time trying to figure out how to just maneuver him around and work the controls for building things.

Second Life offers a lot of cool enticements to make you want to sign up, but what they don't tell you is how much work it is, and how much time you'll put in it.

For me, it's no fun at all.

Makes me wonder, don't these millions of people have anything better to do?

You're right!

I was a builder in second life, i didn't tough i was putting that much time in it until my BF started to get my hours passed on second life from our firewall. DAMMM!!!

This thing can be a bad addiction if u are not careful.

Otherwise i still think i can be a useful communication tool but without me.,,,

Regards

Radar