Back to “real” life

Real life demands that I pay attention to it again, so I’ve spent the last few days finishing up projects, tying up loose ends. After today, I won’t be able to spend much time in SL, except on weekends.

Abbotts Aerodrome will continue to run as usual. In fact there’s more now than before… I recently added a new teleporter system to help people get around. It’s slower than a regular “sit target” teleporter, but it has more special effects. It was something to do.

And for fans of Apotheus’ 737 and my airship tours, I’ve added two new AI flights.

An AI-controlled Whistler light aircraft leaves Abbotts every 15 minutes.

Every 15 minutes you can catch a flight on a single-engine light plane (“Whistler”) to the city of Nova Albion and back. Every 20 minutes, you can catch a flight on a stripped-down L-18 Lodestar transport to the northern continent and back.

Hm. As I type that, it occurs to me that the flights will synchronize occasionally and rez two planes simultaneously on the runway. I’ll have to fix that… or hire an air traffic controller.

So have fun with those, and I’ll see you on the weekend! If you need immediatel help with something, you can try me at my e-mail address: cubeyterra[at]cubeyterra[dot]com. Change the “at” and “dot” to the appropriate punctuation.

A pleasant surprise

I stumbled across this pleasant surprise in the forums yesterday: Robin Linden has announced that during a one-week test new users will have the option to arrive in DaBoom or Abbotts instead of the usual Welcome Area in Morris/Ahern. For the duration of this little experiment, Linden Lab will record the stats. How many will choose Abbotts Aerodrome over The Edge nightclub? What kind of first impression of SL will a new user get from these places?

In response, the Aerodrome crew will be trying to add more stuff for newbies to play with. To start, I have a few more Test Drive buttons in my hangar: Tigershark, Cormorant, CLAWW, DS3 drop ship, and Futura 6 hovercar.

Several new aircraft now have the Test Drive button.

And there’s also the usual free things to do: skydiving, airship flights, dogfights, and swilling prim-coffee at Terrabucks.

Another pointless walk

I’m sufficiently bored today to *walk* from Iris at the northernmost point in the new continent to Alcona (180,14) where the highway ends suddenly. At that point we’ll be tired enough not to care that we’re in the middle of nowhere and log off.

pointless walk map: click here to embiggen
Map of the pointless walk: click to embiggen.

Did I mention it was a pointless walk?

If you’d like to join me please do. I’ll be in Iris at noon, game time. My route will be posted on www.CubeyTerra.com. Photographers welcome. No running, no flying, no vehicles.

Photos (click to embiggen):


6 minutes: The trek begins underwater in Iris.


45 minutes: The highway makes for easier walking… or rollerskating.


1 hour, 6 minutes: We stop to chat with a couple of curious W-Hats.


1 hour, 23 minutes: We’ve officially gone insane. For some reason we walked through the mature snow sims, au naturel. Good thing avatars are immune to the cold.


2 hours, 13 minutes: Journey’s end! Alcona’s highway ends suddenly at the sim wall.

Happy 2nd birthday, Second Life!

Two years ago this week, Second Life finished its beta and went “gold”. To celebrate the occasion, Pathfinder Linden pulled together a gaggle of builders and olbies to fill the four sims with well-known builds and objects from throughout SL’s two-year history. Some of the attractions included carnival rides, towers by Maxx Monde and LordFly Digeridoo, Cannabis Cathedral, a city street, the beta time capsule contents, and my contribution, Zoe Airfield.

Founded in autumn 2003 by Apotheus Silverman and me, Zoe Airfield quickly became a meeting place for propeller heads to exchange ideas and hold aircraft-oriented events like building contests. Many of today’s prominent aircraft builders were among the original Zoe Airfield group members. Apotheus and I later moved our operation to Abbotts, where it became Abbotts Aerodrome.

Zoe Airfield - November 2003
Zoe Airfield in November 2003

Unfortunately, I didn’t think to take any snapshots of the 2nd anniversary celebration, and I took down the Zoe Airfield re-creation too early, thinking the event was just the one day. Oops.