Tuesday, April 21st will see the 2015 VCARA (Virtual Centre for Archives & Records Administration) Conference, organised ans hosted by the San José State University’s School of Information, take place in Second Life.
The title for the conference, which is now in its sixth year, is Within Our Grasp: Exploring Reality – Virtually, and speakers explore the means by which virtual environments and activities have meaning and impact in the physical world.
The conference will take place between 18:00 and 20:00 SLT on April 21st, at the SJSU iSchool Island. The main event will be followed by steampunk themed party and a tour of US Revolutionary War space.
Keynote speakers for the event are JJ. Drinkwater from Caledon Library and Caledonia Skytower from Seanchai Library, who will each be presenting two 30-minutes papers. Following the keynote addresses there will be a series of 10-minute mini-presentations.
19:10 – 19:20: jsweatt (Jeni Crummey) — Building a Business in Second Life
19:20 – 19:30: Valibrarian Gregg (Dr. Valerie Hill) — Minecraft and Information Literacy
19:30 – 19:40: Jane Awesome (Kerri Keil) — Exploring Virtual Museums,Archives, and Libraries
19:40 – 19:50: Snow Scarmon (Chris Nelson) – Avatar Personalization Through Social Interaction
19:50 – 20:00: Amvans Lapis (Marie Vans) — VWBPE 2015: Recapping A Great Virtual Worlds Education Conference
20:00 – 20:10: Cori (Jennifer Christensen) — Use of Virtual Worlds in the Treatment of PTSD
20:10 – 20:20: Amza Hydraconis — My Renaissance Experience
20:20 – 20:30: Cali Libby (Lori Harris) — Using Second Life as a Creative Approach to YA Library Collaboration,Design, and Study, followed by a tour of the YA Space.
The steampunk party will start at 20:40, and will run for as long as people remain. Guests are invited to addend in costume, although freebie will be provided if required. For those unfamiliar with steampunk, the conference offers the following guidelines:
“Steampunk is an inspired movement of creativity and imagination. With a backdrop of either Victorian England or America’s Wild West at hand, modern technologies are re-imagined and realized as elaborate works of art, fashion, and mechanics … How can we apply this in the 21st century? Think modern technology–iPads, computers, robotics, air travel–all powered by steam and set in the 1800’s. Think about a world where creativity and ingenuity are limitless!”
It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in voice, brought to Second Life and InWorldz by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library.
As always, all times SLT, and unless otherwise stated, events will be held on the Seanchai Library’s home on Imagination Island.
Sunday, April 19th
13:30: Tea Time at Baker Street
Caledonia, Kaydon and Corwyn accept a further invitation from Holmes and Watson to join them in the parlour at 221B Baker Street for a retelling of The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb, which first saw print in March, 1892 in The Strand Magazine, and was later included in the volume of tales The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Holmes offers the injured Hatherley a drink whilst listening to his story (image: Sidney Paget, 1892)
Early on a morning in 1889, Dr Watson attends an injury sustained by a Mr. Victor Hatherley. The injury turns out to be the stump of a severed thumb, and Hatherley, a consultant hydraulics engineer, has a very disturbing tale to tell about how he came to be sans one pollex. Having treated the young man, Watson insists Hatherley relate his tale to Holmes, making this one of two cases Watson himself referred to the Great Detective.
Once before Holmes, the young engineer relates how he was hired by a Colonel Lysander to examine the hydraulic press Lysander has in his possession, apparently for making bricks from fuller’s earth. However, Lysander not only offers Hatherley the outrageous fee of fifty guineas (about £4,000 or almost $6,000 today) for doing so, but insists on a curious amount of secrecy, including transporting the engineer to the press the previous night in such a way that he would be uncertain as to its actual location. Things get stranger still when a woman at the house warns him to run away – and Hatherley eventually does find himself fleeing for his life from Lysander before the night is through, losing his thumb in the process.
So, what is the secret of the hydraulic press? What use could it be put to that would cause one man to contempt the murder of another? Sherlock Holmes has the answer!
Lt. Harry Colbourn and Winne, 1914 (image: Manitoba Provincial Archives via Wikipedia)
We all know AA Milne’s classic character, Winnie the Pooh. But did we all know he was inspired in part by a real bear called Winnie?
“Winnipeg” (shortened to “Winnie”) was the name veterinarian Harry Colebourn gave to a black bear cub he purchased while en route to an Army training centre near Quebec in 1914.
A Lieutenant in the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps (CAVC), Colebourn found his bear unofficially adopted by the CAVC’s mascot, travelling with them to London, where he remained in the care of London Zoo while Colebourn and his regiment went to France.
It was at London Zoo, where Winnie remained, that she became adored by one young Christopher Robin Milne, thus helping inspire the tales of Winnie the Pooh and the 100 Acre Wood.
Join Caledonia Skytower as she reads from Val Shushkewich’s book relating the story of the real Winnie in a special encore reading.
Monday April 20th, 19:00: The Wizard of Karres
Gyro Muggins returns to the universe created by James H. Schmitz and given form through his 1949 novel, The Witches of Karres, as he opens the pages of the 2004 sequel, The Wizard of Karres, penned by by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and Dave Freer, which reunites the reader with some familiar characters.
For Captain Pausert, it would seem that the old saying that no good deed ever goes unpunished should perhaps become the family motto. As a “reward” for thwarting the plans of the space pirates and eliminating the threat of the Worm World, Pausert is given the secret mission of stopping the nanite plague, a self-aware disease that lay waste to entire planets worlds.
Only someone has once convinced the Imperial Navy, unaware of his true mission, that Pausert is actually a wanted man. so it is that the Navy set out to hunt him down – and almost succeed, managing to cripple his ship. When Pausert discovers his funding has also been cut-off, leaving him without the means to get his ship repaired, he and his companions, Goth and the Leewit, the Witches of Karres, are forced to go undercover – and join a travelling circus.
After all, the show – and the mission – must go on, and thus the adventures continue.
Tuesday April 21st
18:00 SLT – VCARA Conference 2015
Caledonia Skytower from Seanchai Library is one of the two keynote speakers at the 2015 VCARA (Virtual Centre for Archives & Records Administration) Conference organised ans hosted by the San José State University School of Information in Second Life.
Freda Frostbite and Trolly Trollop return to the thoughts and writings of Florence King.
WASP, Where is Thy Sting? was first published as a series of magazine essays in the 1970s prior to becoming a book in its own right, is a study by Ms. King focusing on the subject of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (the WASPs) of the title.
While biased towards her own background as a member of an Anglo-Southron Washington DC family, and perhaps slightly dated today, the book explores the various varieties of Protestantism in the United States, which have often been based on social background and ethnicity far more than specific doctrinal differences, and can still resonate with readers today, as one reviewer notes:
After the various ethnic studies which began showing up through the ’60s and ’70s, Miss King decided that WASPs, as an ethnic group, needed to be delineated and explained to everyone else. Overall, she does a decent job. Yes, this is a humorous book, but there are too many parallels to people I’ve known and grown up with to doubt her accuracy. And there are plenty of Miss King’s delicious aphorisms (referring to many WASP womens’ idea of fashion as “Calamity Jane Eyre Chic” is a good example). There are many such quotable bits throughout the book.
19:00: Christie’s Detectives
Join Caledonia Skytower as she presents short stories featuring Agatha Christe’s beloved detectives: Parker Pyne, Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot.
Thursday April 23rd, 19:00: The Lost Race
With Shandon Loring.
Saturday April 25th, 12:00 Noon: Seanchai Inworldz: Inkheart
Shandon Loring opens the covers of Cornelia Funke’s young adult novel, Inkheart, the first novel in what would become the Inkheart trilogy.
The books chronicle the adventures of 12-year-old Meggie, whose life changes dramatically in Inkheart when she realizes that she and her father, a bookbinder named Mo, have the unusual ability to bring characters from books into the real world when reading aloud, as they have the “Silvertongue”.
Mo reveals that he once accidentally brought four characters to life from a story, once of whom is Dustfinger, and the villain Capricorn. while Meggie’s mother, vanished into the “Inkworld” after she and Mo had a bitter exchange.
Now Dustfinger has returned with a warning: Capricorn and his followers have also returned, and are seeking Mo and his daughter, and Mo’s copy of of Inkheart, with the intent of having Mo bring forth a monster known as “The Shadow” out of the book. With Dustfinger in their company, Mo and Meggie flee to Northern Italy and the home of Meggie’s Aunt Elinor, with Capricorn and his minions in pursuit.
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 April / May is Habitat for Humanity, with a vision of a world where everyone has a decent place to live – a safe and clean place to call home.
Cardboard, Google’s open-sourced approach to VR, has really taken off in the 10 moths since it launched. As well as the original headset made from, err, cardboard, there have been offerings from the likes of South Korean giant LG, while at the end of 2014, Virgin Holidays adopted Cardboard as a means of offering customers a “try-before-you-buy” VR experience on certain holidays. It has even spurred an update to the 75-year-old Viewmaster.
Such is the popularity of Cardboard as a development platform that it is actually becoming hard to identify what might work with what; the open-source nature of the platform means when it comes to hardware, people can tweak things to their heart’s content – optics, focal length, dimensions, etc., with the result that not all headsets play nicely with apps created using the Cardboard SDK.
In an attempt to counter issues of poor experience, Google announced the Works with Cardboard initiative on Thursday, April 16th. The idea is to ensure that any Cardboard viewer / headset will work with any Cardboard app. It does this quite cleverly: manufacturers define their viewer’s key parameters to Google, and in return receive a QR code. People buying the viewer can then scan the QR code using the Cardboard app, and all Cardboard VR experiences they run on their ‘phone will be automatically optimised to run on the viewer / headset until such time as another QR code is scanned.
In addition, manufacturers can apply to Google for a programme certification badge (shown on the right) to place on their product, indicating it is suitable for running Google Cardboard VR experiences.
Alongside the new Works with Cardboard initiative, Google have also announced a new set of development guidelines are being put together on the web. These are a little light on specifics right now, but will grow as a resource. The company has also revamped Google Play’s coverage of VR so that experiences can now be categorised by the following types: Music and Video, Games, and Experiences.
Perhaps most interestingly in terms of Google’s VR news, and as revealed by Road to VR, the company has acquired two VR start-ups.
The first is software studio Skillman & Hackett, who had been developing the award-winning Tilt Brush software, which allowed users to draw in VR using three dimensions, with paint, light, and textures, and then play their creations back. The software can be used with Oculus Rift and HTC Vive headsets to create scenes and paintings and play them back, while Cardboard users could use the Tilt Brush app to view art created using the software on other platforms. With Google acquiring Skillman & Hackett, it’s not clear if development of Tilt Brush will now continue.
The other company gobbled by Google is Dublin-based Thrive Audio, specialising in positional audio for realistic surround sound for VR experiences. With two patents filed for the technology they’ve been developing, it looks like Thrive will be added to Google’s growing team of VR specialist working on enhancing the Cardboard SDK.
Freefly
The Freefly headset is designed to work with a range of Smartphones, both iOS and Android
April 2015 also saw the launch of Freefly VR, from UK-based Proteus Labs. With an introductory (“10% off”) price of £59.00 (US $99.00 / 79.00 Euros), the headset is designed to work with any smartphone with a screen size of between 4.7 in and 6.1 in diagonally, both iOS and Android. Freefly utilises the open-source ALP VR SDK, and the headset is not fully compatible with Cardboard apps with use a ‘phone’s magnetometer for input purposes, as this is used for positional head tracking. To find out more on the system, read the overview over on Road to VR.
MIC’s watery exhibit space not only offers a unique environment for installations, the gallery’s own builds are also works of art and well worth exploring, celebrating as they do the cultural heritage of Rome
On Monday, April 20th, starting 13:00 SLT, Viviana Houston will be singing at a special Save the Culture concert to help raise money for the MIC Imagin@rium gallery in Second Life.
One of the leading privately held venues for art for a number of years, MIC has drawn respect from across the community for hosting a wide range of art installations and exhibits, and for also offering a beautiful venue for a range of activities and which celebrates the rich cultural history of Rome.
However, a shortfall in finances of around L$50,000 means the gallery is currently unable to meet its upcoming tier, and the aim of the concert is to help raise funds to make up the shortfall and allow MIC to remain active in Second Life.
To further assist in the fund-raising effort, there will be a special sale of MIC Imagin@rium fashion at the gallery’s store in the Temple of Portunus, commencing on Sunday, April 19th.
“This has been a hard thing for me to face,” Mexi said. “After years of hard work from a lot of people, we have encountered a shortfall in tier. I had considered taking the region offline; but there is always the worry that once it goes offline, it may never come back.
Viviana Houston, singing in support of MIC from 13:00 SLT on Monday, April 20th
“We have several projects going on in the physical world, which have meant we’ve been unable to host any installations lately, and so funding from donations have fallen sharply. However, most of that is behind us now, are we are convinced that if we can get past this immediate problem, we’ll be OK for the future.
“Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of Viviana, we now have a real chance to make-up the shortfall, and I hope everyone will come along to the concert and help us keep MIC Imagin@ruim alive for people to continue to enjoy.”
One of the hallmarks of MIC Imagin@ruim is that as well as hosting in-world art exhibits and installations, it has also bridged the divide between the physical the virtual. One such example of this came in December 2013, with Red Shoes, which saw MIC and 25 artists in Second Life collaborating with the Il Margutta Gallery in Rome and Mexican visual artist Elina Chauvet.
Giorgio Mayo’s piece for Red Shoes at MIC, December 2013
Save the Culture with Viviana Houston will take place in the MIC Amphitheatre on Monday, April 20th. On offer will be great music and the opportunity to help a wonderful venue for art continue into the future. And if you can’t make the event, donations to Mexi will be put directly to the region’s tier.
Hyakumonogatari is one of two regions designed by 兇 (Merurun), the other being its neighbour Heinakyo. I was drawn to them after reading a blog post by Abinoam Nørgaard recording his explorations of both.
Hyakumonogatari in particular attracted me because of the apparent link with the ancient parlour game Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai (百物語怪談会) or A Gathering of One Hundred Supernatural Tales, which was popular in Edo period Japan and may have started as a game of courage played by the samurai class.
Given that Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai was a game played at night, involving the possible evocation of spirits, ghouls and demons, it should come as no surprise that the region bearing its name (at least in part) has a dark, heavy atmosphere occasionally split by flashes of lightning (note that other than the topmost image in this piece, I’ve used lighter windlights in my pictures to help show some of the details of the region).
The main landing point is a temple courtyard, huddled at the foot of a tall mountain. Crows caw from the trees and paper lamps strung between wooden poles provide the main illumination. Follow the path around to the imposing bulk of the gate house standing before the temple’s shrine, and you’ll see a wooden bridge passing eastwards over a narrow gorge to a small town beyond which straddles the two regions, Heinakyo offering more of a retail environment as one travels through it.
For the intrepid, however, it is the route north and west which is the one to take, following the path and steps up the mountain and under a train of torii gates. Here the mist lies heavy and the default lighting is dim, adding to the atmosphere. As shines to honoured ancestors appear, so to does the path become increasingly unpredictable.
There are two routes here. One will take the traveller directly up to a high shoulder on the mountain. The other, which might take a little bit of finding, leads into the heart of the mountain, although the fact it has done so might not at first be obvious. Here you’ll find an old, careworn temple, the home of a couple of additional stores, and which plays on the idea of the Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai. Keen-eyed will find an alternative route back down to the main temple, while those careless of foot may find themselves taking a fall or two…
Taken together, HyakuMonogatari and Heinakyo make for an interesting visit. both look as if work on them might still be in progress in places, but the village and temple are photogenic. And should you fancy getting a group of friends together and lighting a series of andon in one room, ready to tell supernatural tales in another, this is the place to do so.
And to keep to the tradition of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, just make sure you bring a mirror and a table on which to lay it…
Bright Canopy’s new blog has launched, and with it a competition as well.
The blog, which will be used to keep people up-to-date with developments in the project and news on things like the upcoming pre-launch beta testing, is still a work-in-progress, and the introductory note indicates there may be a few changes as things settle down.
As well as the introductory note, the blog also carries a brief update, which includes some news on the forthcoming pre-launch beta programme, and also information on the aforementioned competition.
This is a photo contest, and on offer is a free month’s subscription to Bright Canopy once it officially launches.
Those interested in participating are invited to submit a snapshot, taken in-world, which can be used as the background image for the Bright Canopy desktop – the screen users will see when they log-in to the service, and which allows them to launch the viewer to access Second Life or OpenSim.
Snapshots must be at least 2000×1378 pixels, and must be PG in nature – so no nudity! The guidelines for the competition note that Bright Canopy are looking for images that will make a good desktop background; things like in-world landscape pictures. They note that avatars can be included, but shouldn’t be the primary focus.
Submission can be made via one of the following methods:
All entries should feature the hashtag #SLFreedom, and those entering via Twitter or Google+ message should also follow Bright Canopy, while those entering via Facebook are asked to Like the Bright Canopy page. In addition, all entries must be submitted through the chose channel no later than 23:59 pm PDT on Friday, May 24th, 2015. Please make sure you ready the competition notes and guidelines in the Bright Canopy blog prior to entering.
There’s currently no date for the official launch of the service, so the winner may have a short wait before the closing date and getting access to Bright Canopy.
Tuesday, April 21st will see the 2015 VCARA (Virtual Centre for Archives & Records Administration) Conference, organised ans hosted by the San José State University’s School of Information, take place in Second Life.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 