Cica’s Pink Fairytale in Second Life

Cica Ghost: Pink Fairytale – September 2022

Every one loves a fairy tale, the opportunity to escape to a world where our imaginations can be exercised, to explore to lands far away, share in adventures and see good triumph. Fairy tales are stories we gain exposure to at an early age, and the four words that so often start them tend to remain with us forever – something English author Sir Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman once noted,  both in terms of the memories hearing the words can evoke and the escape they offer.

This power of fairy tales is the subject of Cica Ghost’s latest region-wide art installation which opened on September 12th. It takes as its foundation that quote from Pullman – an author who has perhaps enjoyed renewed exposure to a public courtesy of the BBC adapting his coming of age, multiverse-spanning trilogy His Dark Materials into a television series.

Cica Ghost: Pink Fairytale – September 2022
Once upon a time lasts forever.

– Sir Philip Pullman

Entitled Pink Fairytale, the setting offers an environment in keeping with its name: a pink landscape beneath a pink sky;  a place where pink flowers and trees climb towards the sky, and where the buildings and features of the setting resemble cakes and edibles topped with icing, and the cups of a carousel appear to be filled with ice-cream or some other delight, marking them as a haven for allowing the child inside to revel.

This is a place populated by animals and characters who in turn suggest stories and tales to the active imagination, where thrones with ears await a king and queen – or perhaps a princes and princess – the jug between them perhaps bringing forth thoughts of magic lamps. Elsewhere a princess can indeed be found, together with an entourage of geese – also often characters found within fairy tales –  and watched over by a elephant which, if not fairy tales, when certainly other famous childhood stories.

Cica Ghost: Pink Fairytale – September 2022

Scattered with little vignettes such as these and complete with Cica’s many places to sit or dance or – in the case of the bubble-burping fumaroles – float. Pink Fairytale is another light and fun installation form a Second Life artist who consistently offers us a reasons to smile. So, should you decide to hop over and experience Cica’s work first hand, do please consider making a donation to help her continue to keep us smiling.

SLurl Details

Linden Lab acquires CasperTech for Second Life

On Wednesday, September 14th, 2022, Linden Lab announced it has acquired CasperTech, the multi-product and service company founded by Casper Warden.

Established around 13 years ago, CasperTech is perhaps most famous for its business support services such as CasperLet (for rentals) and – most particularly – CasperVend, a comprehensive, easy to use networked vending and sales management system for Second Life, together with a number of products from rezzing systems through to security orbs. The company even made a foray into providing an on-line market presence as an alternative to The SL Marketplace, in for the form of PrimBay – a service I looked at back in 2013, and which had been designed for merchant operating in SL and other virtual worlds.

Over the years, CasperVend in particular has proven a reliable service to merchants across Second Life, providing a comprehensive range of in-world point-of-sale and produce redelivery solutions, backed by a tools and capabilities that have made the system indispensable to SL content creators and merchants in the sale of their goods.  It is this service which likely featured largest in the Lab’s decision to acquire CasperTech.

Commenting on the acquisition in the official announcement, Patch Linden stated:

This acquisition will ensure that all of the existing CasperTech services in Second Life will continue to operate without interruption into the foreseeable future, but it also opens up brand new opportunities to vastly improve the experience for our users as our next step in the CasperTech and Second Life journey.  
You can expect to see the same great services that you know and love continue on, with all of the same functionality you enjoy today, but with closer integration into the Second Life ecosystem – and as such, an even more reliable and convenient experience.
We wouldn’t have gone forward with this move if we weren’t absolutely confident that it will be a positive change for all Residents and CasperTech customers.

Understandably, the Lab acquiring a business such as CasperVend is liable to raise concerns among those using the service. To this end, the Lab have opened a forum thread where questions and  / or concerns can be raised, and replies provided directly by the Lab – if you do have questions, either as a user of CasperVend or other CapserTech services and products, please ask your questions there; there is no guarantee questions asked in the comments following this article may not be answered.

In  addition, and broadcast shortly after the announcement, a pre-recorded Lab Gab session was streamed featuring both Patch Linden and Casper Warden,  and it is embedded below.

Links