Day: June 8, 2015

A Toysoldier’s artistry in The Living Room

Posted on by Inara Pey
Toysoldier Thor at The Living Room
Toysoldier Thor at The Living Room

Now open at The Living Room, the music and arts venue operated by Owl Dragonash and Daallee, is an special exhibition of the art and artistry of Toysoldier Thor, which features items of both his 2D and 3D art.

I profiled Toy’s work back in February 2015, and for those who haven’t as yet visited his gallery space in Second Life, the exhibition at The Living Room serves as an excellent introduction to his art, featuring as it does several of his 3D sculptures, some of which are displayed alongside his own 2D interpretations of the pieces, as well as a number of his paintings.

Toysoldier Thor at The Living Room
Toysoldier Thor at The Living Room

Included in the latter is one of my personal favourites, Assassin’s Prayer (shown above), beautifully displayed behind a glass partition. This is quite honestly an utterly captivating piece, which beautifully blends elements taken from both Second Life to produce a finished picture which carries a powerful symbolism and story.

Also on display here is Shattered, another emotive piece (not shown here) which has taken Toy on a remarkable journey, as it has evolved from a painting in the physical world through to a mesh model within Second Life to becoming a 3D printed model, and which is now a beautiful piece of physical art cast in bronze, and which can now be pre-ordered as a part of a second casting run. You can read more about this piece on the upper mezzanine of the exhibition.

Toysoldier Thor at The Living Room
Toysoldier Thor at The Living Room

For the exhibition, the gallery space at The Living Room has again had a make-over to keep the look and feel of the space in keeping with the artwork on display, and the finished result is highly effective. The exhibition of Toy’s work will continue at The Living Room through until the end of the month.

As usual, there will also be special live events at The Living Room in June, comprising:

  • Thursday, June 16th – live music with:
    • 17:00 – Billy Thunders
    • 18:00 – Anidi Huet
  • Tuesday, June 23rd 19:00 SLT – Toysoldier Thor closing party with BartAlan Barbasz.

SLurl Details

2015 viewer release summaries: week 23

Posted on by Inara Pey

Updates for the week ending: Sunday, June 7th, 2015

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.

Official LL Viewers

  • Current Release version: 3.7.29.301305 – no change
  • Release channel cohorts (See my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • Attachment fixes RC viewer (Project Big Bird) updated to version 3.7.30.302190 on June 3rd – core updates: a number of fixes for various attachment issues (download and release notes)
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V3-style

  • Black Dragon updated to version 2.4.3 on June 2nd – core updates: inclusion of the Lab’s new avatar layer limits code, Windows 10 support, conversion to the new viewer build tool chain (release notes).

V1-style

  • Cool VL Viewer Stable branch updated to version 1.26.12.45, and the Experimental branch to version 1.26.13.14, both on June 6th (release notes).

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

Space Sunday: conjunctions, volcanoes and space stations

Posted on by Inara Pey
Solar conjunction: when Earth (r) is on the opposite side of the Sun or another solar system body - in this case, Mars (l)
Solar conjunction: when Earth (r) is on the opposite side of the Sun or another solar system body – in this case, Mars (l)

Solar Conjunction

June sees Mars an Earth move into a period of solar conjunction, when they are one opposite sides of the Sun relative to one another. These periods of conjunction occur roughly every 26 months (the last having been April 2013), can see communications between Earth and vehicles operating on and around Mars severely disrupted due to interference from the Sun.

To prevent spacecraft at Mars from receiving garbled commands that could be misinterpreted or even harmful, the operators of Mars orbiters and rovers temporarily stop sending any commands. At the same time, communications from the craft to Earth are also stepped down, and science operations scaled back. Nasa started to do this on Sunday, June 7th, and both ESA and the Indian Space Research Organisation will be doing the same. For the two Mars rovers, Opportunity and Curiosity, it means parking up and no driving until after full communications are restored. General science observation will, however, continue.

One slight difference in all this will be with NASA’s newest orbiter at Mars: MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution). This arrived over Mars in September 2014,  with the primary mission of determining the history of the loss of atmospheric gases to space and gain insight into Martian climate evolution. As such, MAVEN will continue monitoring the solar wind reaching Mars and making other measurements. The reading will be stored within the orbiter’s memory system and transmitted back to Earth once normal communications have been restored.

MOM Studies Mars’ Volcanoes

Mars: The north polar ice cap, the three massive craters of the Tharsis volcanoes forming a diagonal line in the centre, the mighty "boil" of Olympus mons to their left and the 5,000 km long Vallis Marineris to their right
Mars: The north polar ice cap, the three massive craters of the Tharsis volcanoes forming a near-vertical line in the centre, the mighty “boil” of Olympus Mons to their left and the 5,000 km long Vallis Marineris to their right (image courtesy of ISRO)

Another mission that hasn’t gained much attention since also arriving in orbit around Mars is India’s Mangalyaan (“Mars-craft”) vehicle, which reached Mars on September 24th, 2014. Referred to simply as the Mars Oribiter Mission (MOM) by most, the vehicle reached Mars just 2 days after NASA’s MAVEN orbiter, and like that craft, a part of its mission is focused on studying the Martian atmosphere.

MOM also carries a high-resolution surface imaging camera, and this has been busy returning some magnificent picture of Mars, including the brilliant picture of the planet reproduced above, which shows the north polar ice cap, the almost vertical line of the three massive Tharsis Bulge volcanoes of Ascraeus Mons, Pavonis Mons and Arsia Mons in the centre, the massive rise of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system to their left, and the 5,000 kilometre scar of the massive Vallis Marineris to their right.

MOM’s camera is also capable of producing 3D images, and an example of this capability was released by ISRO on June 5th in the form of a dazzling image of Arsia Mons, the southernmost of the equator spanning Tharsis volcanoes. The image was actually captured on April 1st, 2015, and has a spatial resolution of 556 metres, and the camera some 10,707 kilometres from the surface of Mars when the picture was taken.

The mighty Arsia Mons on Mars, largest of the three Tharsis Bulge volcanoes. The image shows a deliberate vertical exaggeration to the volcano's slope
The mighty Arsia Mons on Mars, largest of the three Tharsis Bulge volcanoes. The image shows a deliberate vertical exaggeration to the volcano’s slope (image courtesy of ISRO)

To give some idea of the scale of this massive shield volcano, it is 435 kilometres (270 mi) in diameter at its base, rises some 20 kilometres (12 miles) in height compared to the mean surface elevation of the planet, and is some 9 kilometres (5.6 miles) higher than the plains on which it sits. The caldera crater at its summit is 110 km (72 miles) across.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: conjunctions, volcanoes and space stations” →