SL Science Discussion Forum

A friend has just bought an island, and now we need to put stuff on it.
[God help us, eh, not you Mr. L] anyway... what we plan to do is to have
a weekly science discussion forum.

We both feel that SL could be more than it is.

I think it's a modern day trainset, equipped with copious sex and gambling venues
and people who barely think above the baseline of mobile phone ring tones.

So, we're going to try to give people a bit more.

It's fine to build massive places, but if nobody turns up then what's the point?

So the plan is to have this area, and we have a definate idea for the theme and the
look, to have a place where people can come once a week, and discuss all the
heavy science topics in a virtual setting.

Yeah we have to pay the rent like everyone else and I think this is going to be
difficult, we dont have a lot of space to spare for rent either.

Personally I'm not pleased with the whole thing and think we'll probably just sink
and die in a matter of a month or so, I'm always the skeptic

Anyway that's our news.

Wolfie! [Wolfie Rankin]

If you haven't done so already, check out Spaceport Alpha, the International Spaceflight Museum sim.

That may be the worst "product introduction" I have ever read.


It sounds interesting, I hope you do well.

If you attempt to get people to invest in your project you might want to let someone else do the talking.

I would be very interested in this. I thought about setting up something similar myself on a much smaller scale, maybe with a library of science lectures available on a video wall, we could watch and discuss. (The Royal Society in the UK has tons of great free streaming stuff... anyone see any problem with showing it in a virtual setting?)

Let me know what happens!

Toss in some Geology & you might be able to coerce a friend of mine to give up WoW for SL

Hilarious, lol.
Nice graphic also Sue. you should link something to it.

Seriously tho, great idea, do quantum physics and
cosmology, and future technologies and I'll stop by.

Education is good:

I'd drop in for a science discussion forum. Sounds good.

and since you're such a skeptic Wolfie, perhaps one of the discussions could focus on skepticism/occams razor/rational thinking?

Heavy science topics? How heavy is heavy? I like science but I'm no Einstein. I'd say I have a high school level of understanding in physics, chemistry and biology. In college I got an A in an Astronomy course (although I might add it was for non-science majors so there wasn't as much math). On the other hand, I don't really understand quantum mechanics and the like, so I'd be out of place in a discussion about it. What kind of discussions were you planning?

Let me add that I'm a skeptic, am familiar with occam's razor and wouldn't mind attending that discussion.

I'd like to second SuezanneC's comments and add that you need to get everyone excited as well, not just potential investors/sponsors. Anyway, charming candor aside, you've got my interest.

Off the top of my head, how about:

1. An example of possible conversation topics you had in mind - "Science" covers a wide area
   
2. A request for topics people would like discussed - most important
   
3. Preparing interesting pictures/data/questions for discussion and giving short presentation yourselves, before leaving the floor to open discussion
   
4. Getting people in SL who are specialised in related fields of interest who might like to give short presentations and/or discuss/take questions
   
5. Asking people who would like to attend these forums to prepare a little something themselves, if they like.
   
6. Working out a clearer statement of purpose for the sim
   
7. A name for this project
   

I'd certainly be interested, as long as scientology is no where to be seen

That was great Starax I loved it.

Well due to my feelings about this "Screensaver on steroids" and what my mate who
bought the island seems to be headed, I am no longer interested in doing anything much
here anymore, actually Im fairly annoyed with the whole thing.

Its taking more energy than what I have.

I did have a few words of encouragement [Thanks Troy, Appreciated!]
BTW: I did escort a friend around your spaceport and he was unhappy there
was no Aussie flag, we never got into space, but we did do a lot of space related work.
I did think it was an awesome sim though.

The problem comes where he wants furries on the island, I dont mind furries...
I have a wolfy avatar... but theres going to be sexual stuff going on up the other
end of the island and frankly... it aint going ta work [at least I think it wont,
would anyone care if it did?]

* the apostrophy key is doing some weird stuff right now.

Wolfie!

"yeah ok" I said to my mate with a sigh.

He wants me to keep going, I feel like I'm beating my head against a brick wall,
But your mate's your mate [That's what I get for being bloody Australian, eh?]

So, Ok, think up some topics and join me at the pub some time from now,
wear a blindfold if you don't like nudity.

There will be a PG rating in the forum as far as nobody will be allowed to hump legs.

*oh God why me!*

Wolfie!

I'm really impressed by Caledon, the sort of technology we might have had if things
had gone another way, cute little place.

I was there looking for a tesla tower... now some of you science types know who he
was... last month he would have been 150.

Does anyone out there have a tesla tower in SL?
can someone build one for me?

Wolfie!

Everything is going ahead nicely.

We might have a friday night science forum by the end of the week if all goes well.

*presuming* the pub is up soon, and I tend to believe it'll be up by tomorrow.
Then what will be happening is this.

The forum will begin on a friday evening, which is your RL time, not SL time.
and this doesn't alter whether you're in England, Australia, New Zealand or
that joint where coke[tm] comes from.

This should provide a stream of people coming through and meeting...
we'll give it a shot.

The place to look for is Eragon, or IM me if you have difficulty getting there.

Wolfie Rankin

Wolfie!

Caledon is REALLY interesting and makes me wish I had money to get into the island business. It seems right now, as exhibited by Caledon, that there is a strong demand for well managed, themed sims. There are a slew of other themes one could use for making a sim that could just as easily be as succesfull as Caledon (it helps to have an intelligent owner, such as with Desmond Shang).

Now... a science forum. Do you really need an entire island for that? Seems just a 4096 square would be good. Also, in my experience, online communities (chat rooms, forums), aren't the best place for deep discussion. When you're in there, your text is lagging, 10 people are saying different things at once, you're having to use metaphor and being misinterpreted (a LOT of people can't seem to understand a metaphor)... makes it difficult. With online communities you have a lot of people with opinions, but few with knowledge.
And with science, of course evolution vs. creationism is going to come up and that will be the end of it. I left an online forum awhile back because they were obsessed with the topic (course, I don't personally care).

I don't mean cancel the project or anything. There are intelligent people out there, EVEN in SL, and you're bound to get a nice core group of people which will make the whole thing worth it. It just doesn't seem economically feasible to me to have an entire sim for it. Rent a smaller plot, see how it goes. If it's popular, then you can always move to your own sim.

Well... I think that negates much of my post... maybe I should have paid more attention