Well this is it. As of this week, I have been in Second Life for five years. FIVE YEARS. My first account -- Tillman Terra -- was created in the first week of September, 2003. I abandoned that a few days later because I was spending several hours a day exploring SL, and I didn't want to be an SL addict. On September 6, 2003, I came back to SL and created Cubey Terra, and I never left.

Five years later, I've built countless gadgets and vehicles, founded two airports, and created a virtual franchise with hundreds of locations across the grid. I spent a short time as a Linden liaison and cleaned up way too many replicators and giant penises. I tried to boost interest in SL aviation, and in doing so I gained many new friends, and many new competitors. I took fire from some of the most irrational, vitriolic trolls SL has ever produced, and then learned that trolls really don't matter (don't feed trolls). I've been mentioned and interviewed in various magazines and newspapers, but managed to escape the scandal rags. I've transitioned from a hobby income from my SL creations to a full-time business. I've also found the limits of SL in the fragility of the platform.

It's been a strange five years, and it's taken my real life in a direction I could never have expected. I just want to thank every Second Lifer for the most remarkable five years of my life.

Thank you.

Something in the latest Second Life simulator version seems to break my Terra Skydiving Pod. Specifically, when it lands, instead of returning to a ready state as it normally does, it goes into a loop. This affects anyone who operates a skydiving pod in a sim that has been updated to Linden Lab's latest server version (1.24.2.95174). The pods work fine in older versions. You can see the simulator version by clicking Help > About Second Life, and reading the number after "Second Life Server". Each region can run a different simulator version.

I am now working to see if I can change the pod to work around the server's new... "feature", but since I don't know what is specifically causing the problem, it may take a while. Please keep an eye on this space. I'll announce when a replacement is available. Sorry for any inconvenience.

UPDATE: Aug. 29, 2008: Get your free version 2.0 skydiving pod on the top floor of Abbotts Aerodrome! Look for the box in the Freefall Shop.

According to the anagram server at Wordsmith.org, an anagram of "Cubey Terra" is "a beery curt", which is oddly accurate. Also in the list: "a beet curry", which sounds delicious.

Today Sir Richard Branson and Burt Rutan unveiled the sleek and sexy White Knight 2: a twin-fuselage, four-engine jet designed to carry a spaceship to launch altitude. Created almost entirely from carbon fiber composite, the gleaming white hull is completely seamless with the words "My other ride is a spaceship" painted by the door.



Links:

• Gizmodo.com: "Spaceships: First Virgin Galactic White Knight II Photos"
• Crunchgear.com: "Live from Virgin Galactic: We visit the White Knight II"
• Telegraph.co.uk: "White Knight Two space rocket in Mojave Desert for testing"
  

Wired.com has created the (mostly pointless) "Celebrity Meter" to gauge just how Internet famous you are based on links and Google score.



I scored a measily 7... whatever that means. Anyway, I guess I'll have to work harder at becoming Internet famous. Time to release that viral video of me dancing with a hamster with a lightsaber. Or something.

Several times a month, estate owners ask me about my old Terra Airship, and whether it can fly itself in a loop around an island. It seems that a lot of landowners want to use blimps or airships for advertising or for tours, but don't want to spend time piloting them.

At risk of sounding like a Ronco ad, the solution is here. The Terra Aerius flies like a blimp, looks like a blimp, and even tastes like a blimp. OK, I just made that last one up (if you lick the Aerius, I expect it would taste a lot like your computer monitor), but that's because I'm so excited about this one. Why? Because this is my first lighter-than-air vehicle that isn't limited in size to SL's 10 meter maximum. The Aerius is 55 meters long and 20 meters wide. This thing is huge. Not only that, but it has my latest flight script that includes features and detail that I've learned from five years making vehicles for Second Life.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! Estate owners, you can create your own tours and release the Aerius to fly itself over your islands. The Aerius includes instructions on how to plot a route for the autopilot and has scripted advertisement panels that you can either wear yourself or link to the blimp.

The Aerius is sold with modify permissions, which is rare for vehicles. I want owners to be able to really personalize their blimp. If you have a knack for building or texturing, create your own look and launch it into the SL sky.

Try it today at Abbotts Aerodrome's east landing pad. That's on level four of the Aerodrome tower. It's also available on the web at SL Exchange and and OnRez.

Any MSTie knows that "SoL" means "Satellite of Love" -- the home of Joel and/or Mike and the bots. Now you can find them in BlaksleeWorld, where the Satellite of Love has landed at the feet of gigantic statues of Tom and Crow (if they had feet, that is).

For deep hurting, drop by for several streamed b-movies per day.

Link: Squeebee's Mystery Science Theatre

When I dropped in on my Bay City shop today, I was thrilled to see that someone had bought the plot of land next door. The buyer: legendary automobile artist, Ahkenatan Grommet. I couldn't have hoped to have a better neighbour.



I met Ahkenatan in the Morris sandbox years ago in his first days in SL. Even as a total newbie, he had constructed a gorgeous roadster in exquisite detail. Now, years later, he puts everything he's learned into what I can only describe as the best classic cars Second Life has ever seen. His in-world company, Primouth Motors, will have a shop next to mine in the "Bay City - Handa" region. Ahkenatan says he can't begin construction immediately, but I'm sure his storefront will match the classic style that we associate with a Primouth car.

Link: Primouth Motors, Bay City

As promised, there is an Aerius blimp parked at the east landing pad on the Abbotts Aerodrome tower. It's available for public flights, so walk up and hop in. You can start the autopiloted tour or pilot it yourself. Fly as far as you like, and as long as you like. When you're done, it will wait five minutes before deleting itself.



The final version of the Aerius blimp will likely be for sale by next weekend at the latest.

Second Lifers who visit Abbotts Aerodrome regularly have probably seen me at the east landing pad tinkering with this behemoth, so the secret is out -- if it ever really was a secret. The next big thing in Second Life is literally a big thing: it's a truly ginormous blimp.



This whale of the sky owes its existence to three recent technical developments by Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life. First is the introduction of the Havok 4 physics engine, which makes it possible to enable physics on objects larger than ten meters without risking a disastrous sim crash. Second, at the same time that Linden Lab introduced Havok 4, they increased the permitted link distance beyond 30 meters, which opens the door for much larger link sets (like my blimp). The third innovation was the advent of "sculpted prims*". Where previously an irregular shape had to be crafted by linking together several prims to approximate an overall shape, now we can sculpt a shape in a 3D modelling tool and upload that into SL. Because of sculpted prims, instead of using the eight ten-meter prims that I used in my older airship hull, for example, I can use three enormous sculpted prims.

Previously, a physical vehicle of this size was impossible in Second Life. And note that I say "physical", which differentiates it from other large, moving objects that simulate flight by using a rapid-fire succession of llSetPos function calls to stop-motion their way through the sky. These craft "fly" in the same way that Wallace and Grommit's rocket appears to move through the sky in the animated short, "A Grand Day Out": one frame at a time, but fast enough to almost fool the eye. In constrast, an aircraft using the SL physics engine is capable of smooth, fluid motion.

With the confluence of three technical innovations, at last Second Lifers can make lighter-than-air craft in a realistic scale.

My first attempt at a blimp is the Terra Aerius blimp. It seats four avatars in addition to the pilot, and will include an autopilot that lets you "program" a tour route by entering waypoints into a notecard. This means that estate owners can make the blimp fly at regular intervals on a looping route over their islands. It can also transport avatars from one site to another in a one-way journey.

The Aerius blimp is in its beta testing phase right now, but should be available for free flights in Abbotts by the weekend.

It's really fun to say "blimp", isn't it?

(*"Prim" is short for "primitive". A prim is the basic building block of objects in Second Life.)