Dana Oceanlane

While I’ve been blogging about Second Life (SL) for some time, I realized in talking to folks, particularly in Facebook that many people don’t know what it is or have misconceptions about SL. So, here is my view of SL, based, of course, on my own experience.

First, what SL is not. Second Life is not a game, though some people play games in it. For those of you who want a fast-action gaming environment, SL is probably not for you.

So, what the heck IS SL? It’s a free 3D social networking platform, with almost as many purposes and functions as you probably can imagine. SL is a virtual universe, with a vast variety of worlds that people have created called SIMS. Most just refer to them as land or worlds. What kind of worlds? I have found that SL very nearly mirrors the physical world and then some. (more…)

Over the last few years, it’s been amazing to see how social media has united people globally in various causes from ecological concerns to political uprisings. These days it’s much harder for a government to silence people, to censor them, and keep them under wraps. (more…)

Married couple playing checkers

This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting two friends in person who I’ve known for a few years in Second Life. We met in the Skeptical Buddhist Sangha, and they have been really supportive in the new island  I’ve been creating, Secular Community. (more…)

Care2.org Act on Banning Drilling

While I was busy raising a family, then starting a career, the world turned and churned even though I wasn’t paying attention.  I filtered information that came to me so it only concerned science and technology. Now, that my kids are grown, my career is doing well, and I have the energy, I decided to poke my head out in the world to see what was going on. UGH! Mayhem, freedoms being violated, ignorance running rampant, and the loonies seem to be taking over. (more…)

Historically and by definition non-believers, such as Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, and Secular Buddhists stood for nothing. Non-believers just went about their lives as though religion didn’t exist, at least not much, and paid little attention to the topic. In recent years, however, that has changed. (more…)

Redwood Forest

I have been in Second Life for 3 years. I started there as a part of my job, leading talks for Java developers. But it didn’t take long before I developed a personal interest in that multiverse, started exploring the many places there, and the variety of communities. Pretty much, any interest you have will be of interest to others, and very likely there is at the least a group devoted to it, and at the most an entire SIM or several. (more…)

Working on Blog

Recently I purchased a SIM in Second Life, meaning a huge chuck of land I’ve called Dana’s Islands of Paradise. So, for the past few weeks I’ve been busy terraforming, shaping the place into a tropical paradise. It’s been a lot of fun raising and lowering plots of land, reshaping mountains, and smoothing out sandy beaches. (more…)