Having been put back from its usual May time slot due to unavoidable circumstances, the 2014 Home and Garden Expo in support of Relay for Life of Second Life and the American Cancer Society, is now accepting registrations from exhibitors and are seeking bloggers to help cover the event.
The Expo will open its doors to the public on Tuesday September 16th and run through until Sunday September 28th, 2014. The press preview days will be held on Sunday 14th and Monday 15th September 2014.
The Home and Garden Expo is the SL event where users can see homes, gardens and furnishing from creators across SL, attend talks and presentations by designers, enjoy entertainment throughout the week and – most importantly, help raise funds for RFL of SL. The 2014 event will take place between September 16th and 28th, with press days on the 14th and 16th September (image: 5th HGE, 2012)
Exhibitors
Those wishing to participate in the event as exhibitors should check out the following links:
The application form for exhibitors is available on Google Docs.
When applying, do make sure that you follow the instructions in the application form for making your payment at the HGE Office in-world, and that you supply the requested note card alongside of your payment.
Bloggers
Those wishing to register as official bloggers should note that there are new requirements on blogging this year, and the organising team are looking for two groups of bloggers:
Online Shopping Guide (OSG) Staff (12 sought), who will be instrumental in promoting the donation items raising funds for RFL of SL and the other new releases and prizes being offered by our extraordinary exhibitors and program contributors
Third-party bloggers who are willing to blog about home and garden items, as well as in promoting the Second Life Home and Garden Expo and our fundraising efforts.
Those wishing to apply as either OSG staff or third-party bloggers are requested to read the official HGE post on blogging opportunities, which includes links to the relevant application forms.
Updates for the week ending: Sunday August 3rd, 2014
This summary is published every Monday and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information
Zipper Viewer RC viewer version 3.7.13.292263 released on July 30 – faster viewer installation (download and release notes) (note it is likely that this viewer is liable to be removed from the channel shortly, due to older operating systems not supporting the archive format used to zip the viewer skins for faster installation Removed from the channel on August 6th)
Dolphin viewer released a beta version 3.6.99.32369 on August 1st – core updates: mostly under-the-hood changes – download and release notes
V1-style
Cool VL viewer updated on August 1st – Stable release to version 1.26.12.10 and Legacy version 1.26.8.68 – core updates: please refer to the release notes
In February 2014, Mac Kanashimi unveiled Dragon Curves at LEA26. A stunning 3D piece of fractal art which quite captivated those who visited – including myself.
Now, as a part of the Artist In Residence (AIR) round 7 series, Mac is back at LEA26, this time with Pinwheels, which he invited me over to see on Saturday August 2nd, not long after he’d set it up in the region. Pinwheels is another remarkable mathematical structure with something of a fractal bent, and which uses Charles Radin’s pinwheel tilings, themselves based on the Conway triangles, to tremendous visual and artistic effect.
To explain this requires delving into a little bit of maths and geometry, but bear with me. A Conway triangle is a right-angle triangle with sides of 1, 2 and . which can be divided into five isometric copies of itself by the dilation factor of 1/ (see the image below), and when suitably rescaled and translated / rotated, can produce an infinite growing pattern of isometric copies of the original.
A Conway triangle divided into 5 isometric copies of itself (via wikipedia)
A pinwheel tiling is essentially a pattern of these isometric triangles where one tile may only intersect another either on a whole side or on half the 2 side (which actually makes the Conway triangle itself a pinwheel tiling – again, look at the image on the right and see how the five smaller triangles are positioned relative to one another). There’s actually more to the math than this, but I’ll let wikipedia explain the rest.
Like Dragon Curves, Mac’s Pinwheels is a huge piece, measuring 256 x 256m, but this time is confined vertically to a height of 256 metres as well, so to get the full measure of the piece – and to appreciate the overall complexity and beauty of the piece, you’ll need to ramp-up your draw distance to at least 600 metres, and cam out.
When you do so, the patterns of pinwheels and triangles and triangles within triangles becomes apparent. Each Conway triangle forms an individual segment made up of five prim isometric triangles of a similar shade (blues, greens, reds, etc, sometimes mixed with whites), which helps the eye to define individual groupings. These segments in turn are arranged to form pinwheels among themselves – although you’ll need to cam overhead to see them clearly.
Nor is it static; sections of the design rise and fall, creating an ever-changing landscape of colour and form, with only the arrival point, which is itself quite fascinating to watch. However, this motion isn’t in any way random; the triangles making up a particular pinwheel pattern all move together, and in doing so, they communicate their height and position to one another and to the surrounding segments.
The result of all this is that as the landscape changes and triangles and patterns rise and fall, paths can be found running through the entire construct, allowing the visitor to walk through it starting at the landing point (itself a static platform of 5 Conway triangles), with the individual prim triangles within each larger Conway triangle suitably adjusted so that they form steps for you to follow.
Just how artful this is requires you to walk through the piece. In this way you get to experience how the motion of segments works – no matter how the triangles on which you stand rise or fall relative to one another or to the surrounding patterns, no matter how high the plateau on which you find yourself lifted, or how far down into the depths of the piece you are carried, a footpath can always be found before you and behind you, leading you through the piece without ever necessarily reaching an end.
Pinwheels is another mathematical masterpiece from Mac, and will remain open through until the end of December. If you enjoyed Dragon Curves or if you’re into maths-based art, it’s a recommended visit.
It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in Voice, brought to Second Life by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library.
As always, all times SLT / PDT, and unless otherwise stated, events will be held on the Seanchai Library’s home on Imagination Island.
Monday August 4th, 19:00: Far From Home
Gyro Muggins continues reading stories drawn from the “Fuzzy” series, initially started by the Late H. Beam Piper in 1962 with Little Fuzzy, and which continued in 1964 with Fuzzy Sapiens, and then posthumously in 1984 with Fuzzies and Other People. Over the years, further books in the series have been written by the likes of William Tuning, Wolfgang Diehr, John Scalzi and Ardath Mayhar.
Little Fuzzy charts the discovery of small furry species on the planet Zarathustra are sentient, and the other stories in the series build on this and the evolving human / fuzzy relations.
For Golden Dreams: A Fuzzy Odyssey, Mayhar took a different approach, re-telling the incidents depicted in Little Fuzzy from the perspective of the Fuzzies – or “Gashta”, as they call themselves. And it is from this book that Gyro contniues his reading.
Tuesday August 5th, 19:00: American Fairy Tales
With Faerie Maven-Pralou
Wednesday August 6th, 19:00: Selections from Chestnut Street
Maeve Binchy, journalist, columnist, playwright and author, began her writing career by accident, thanks to her father sending the letters she wrote to him while on a kibbutz in Israel during the 1960s to a local paper in Ireland, which subsequently published them. This in turn led to her being offered a job with The Irish Times on her return home, thus starting her on the road to becoming one of Ireland’s most successful and internationally recognised writers.
Through her writings, she would often jot down short stories about an imaginary street in Dublin, where people would constantly come and go and experience the most diverse of times and situations. Once written, these stories would be put away for “the future”. That imaginary street was called Chestnut Street, located not far from the setting of her 2010 bestseller Minding Frankie.
In 2014, these tales of the folk who live along, or visit, Chestnut Street were gathered together in a single volume and published posthumously under the title Chestnut Street.
Join Caledonia Skytower as she delves into the rich diversity of stories to be found inside the covers of this book. Perhaps you’ll meet Bucket Maguire, the window cleaner, who finds himself going to extraordinary lengths to protect his son; or hear all the local gossip from Melly, and see how it helps a local fortune-teller for the good of all; or maybe you’ll find yourself sympathising with poor Nessa, whose summers are blighted every year by the arrival of her aunt from America on a vacation sure to turn Nessa’s life and home upside down. Chestnut Street is inhabited by the most colourful characters, and their stories are lovingly and humourously told; so why not join Caledonia as she pays them a visit?
Thursday August 7th
16:00 More Stories from Ozland Gallery
With Llola Lane.
19:00 Basque Legends
Join Shandon Loring in scaling the majestic heights of the western Pyrenees in search of some of the ancient myths and legends of the region.
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Please check with the Seanchai Library SL’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule. The featured charity for July-August is WildAid: seeking to end the illegal wildlife trade in our lifetimes by reducing demand through public awareness campaigns and providing comprehensive marine protection.
A TPV developer meeting took place on Friday August 1st, 2014. The core items discussed in the meeting are reported below, with timestamps in the relevant paragraphs indicating the point at they are discussed in the video embedded here. My thanks, as always, to North for the video.
SL Viewers
[00:15] There have been no changes to the RC viewer currently in the release channel or to the project viewers. The limited release log-in viewer which is being used for some unspecified A/B testing is still in the wild as well, although this is not available for manual download via the Alternate Viewers wiki page.
The Zipper viewer (for faster installation), which reappeared as a RC viewer on Wednesday July 30th (version 3.7.13.292263), is reported as doing “pretty terribly” crash-wise on older operating systems which may not support the archive format used to zip the viewer skins for faster installation. As a result, the Lab is currently unsure as to whether the project will be continued or not. Until a decision has been made, TPV developers have been advised not to port the code.
The Oculus Rift project viewer was updated to the current viewer code base in week 30. However, it is not currently clear when any updates related to the Oculus DK2 kit will start appearing in the viewer.
As indicated in part 1 of this week’s update, the Experience Keys beta project is going well. There are some issues to be addressed, although these are describing as being “nothing major”, and it’s not clear if they are viewer-related or not.
Unsupported Operating System Versions and Windows 8.0
[38:03] A reminder was issued at the TPV Developer meeting that the Lab will no longer be providing assistance with unsupported operating systems. This includes Windows XP and, once the Library Refresh RC viewer reaches a release status, Max OS X 10.6.
[39:05] It was also reiterated that Windows 8.0 users who are experiencing crash issues with the viewer should consider the free upgrade to Windows 8.1, which has a much lower crash rate, with overall improvement in viewer stability being described as a “really big difference”. A blog post on this subject (and viewer crashes in general) was posted by the Lab towards the end of July 2014.
Group Chat
[03:00] Following-on from the discussion about group chat and the initial testing of updates which took place at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday July 31st, Oz said of the work, “we’re continuing with making back-end changes, there’ll be another roll-out of some experiments shortly and we’ll see how they go. Like I’ve said before, we’re not going to generally announce when those happen, because we don’t want to change the experiment by changing people’s perceptions.”
[10:27] Although at the moment the focus is very much on what can be achieved on the back-end services without the need for changes within the viewer itself, Oz gave notice that the Lab may want to talk to TPVs about possible changes to group functionality and viewer behaviour at some point in the future. One of the questions being asked within the Lab is whether or not the members list needs to be displayed for all groups. Some groups, for example have a “no chat” policy and / or are only for the outward flow of information (e.g. product update groups); so are these a category of group for which the updates of people coming on-line or joining / leaving the session are no actually relevant, and could be eliminated or suppressed, thus reducing the volume of update messages?
Just a quick reminder to all who are interested. As I blogged on July 24th, there will be a special presentation by Agenda Faromet on the July 2014 Terms of Service updates.
The presentation will take place on Saturday August 2nd, commencing at 10:00 SLT at the he SLBA courtroom.
Agenda is a real life attorney specialising in privacy and internet law operating out of San Francisco, and is a member of the SL Bar Association. She will be talking about both the changes made to Section 2.3 of the Terms of Service (the section relating to IP rights assigned to Linden Lab) and also on the changes to the Lab’s Skill Gaming Policy, which will be coming into effect as of September 1st, 2014 (having been previously scheduled for August 1st, 2014).
I hope to be able to record the meeting and provide a transcript through this blog for those who cannot attend.
The SLBA courtroom
About the SL Bar Association
The SL Bar Association (SLBA) is a group for legal professionals and others interested in legal issues in Second Life. It is registered as a 501(c)(6) organisation in the United States, and operates in Second Life from the Justitia Virtual Legal Resource Village, which serves as a resource for both attorneys and the general public, and has law offices available to rent on the square, along with general legal information on a variety of topics. Rental units are also available at sea level.
Details of SLBA talks and presentations can be found on the SLBA website, together with further information on the association and its members.
. which can be divided into five isometric copies of itself by the dilation factor of 1/
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 