Day: February 7, 2023

2023 SL SUG meetings week #6 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Angel Mist – The Cloud Garden, December 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, February 7th, 2023 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

  • On Tuesday, February 7th 2023, the simhosts on the Main SLS channel were restarted without any change to their simulator code, leaving them on release 577734.
  • On Wednesday, February 8th, 2023, the RC channels will also be restarted without any version update.

Available Official Viewers

There have been no updates to the current list of available official viewers, leaving them as:

  • Release viewer: Maintenance Q(uality) viewer, version 6.6.9.577968 Thursday, February 2, 2023.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.577997, February 2, 2023. This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

In Brief

  • The announcement about the Group Chat History gave rise to a discussion on the capability and making it more robust and deeper (e.g. be presenting more than just the last hour of group chat when used), together with general improvements to chat history management (timestamps, etc.). Please refer to the video for the full context.
  • BUG-229675 “Stopping llSetKeyframedMotion should always succeed and never shout an error” was again raised and noted as a not unreasonable request. Again, please refer to the video for further details.
  • Wednesday February 1st issues: a post-mortem on these was published on Thursday, February 2nd – please read it here for specifics.

Reflections on life’s cages in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Artsville Gallery: Ava Darkheart – Cages – Birth

I was led to Cages, an installation by Ava Darkheart at Frank Atisso’s Artsville Galleries entirely by chance. The intention had been to drop into Chuck Clip’s The Book of Caligula; however, a SLurl error on the Artsville blog directed us 1,000 metres higher than Chuck’s installation, dropping us neatly into Ava’s exhibition. It was actually serendipitous – Cages had opened in mid-January, and I’d totally missed the announcements about it – and so might actually have missed it entirely before it closes on March 5th, 2023, had it not been for the mis-direct.

Perhaps the easiest way to describe this 6-part installation is as an essay in art, a story of the one journey we all have no choice but to make: that of life.

However, rather than charting this journey in as Shakespeare did, through the seven stages from birth to death (As You Like It Act II, Scene 7) or as a reflection of both admiration and ultimately ironic sense of despair on the human condition (Hamlet Act II, Scene 2), Ava instead presents a set of vignettes which encourage us to consider six aspects  – six “cages” – of life which may both constrain us and also define us as individuals. In doing so, she challenges us to consider a range of subjects, natural and social / societal.

Artsville Gallery: Ava Darkheart – Cages – Emotions

Presented around a central foyer / event space, the installation comprises six numbered rooms, which can be visited in numerical order, if so desired, although outside of the first room, it is not unreasonable to say the others might be visited howsoever the feet wander. The entrance to each is marked by white chevrons on the floor of the foyer hall, and whilst blank from the outside, can be seen to be a keyhole from within each room – a rather nice metaphor, perhaps for the keys to life and unlocking understanding.  Alongside each entrance, Ava sets out the title of the cage presented within, together with a short text piece to challenge the grey matter into action in considering each vignette.

In total, the six themes, in their default order, are: birth, the body, roots / the family, emotions, work, and the brain. Each offers a static vignette representing the core focus. Each is carefully considered with very little within it to be overlooked, with both obvious and more metaphorical elements awaiting discovery.

Artsville Gallery: Ava Darkheart – Cages – The Body

Take Birth for example: the baby floating within the cage is clear enough, as might be the seabed-like setting in which both reside (suggestive of amniotic fluid and the pre-birth “memories” some claim to have of floating within their mother’s womb) – but don’t miss the little red-crowned crane frozen in mid-dance as a potential stand-in for the stock of childhood stories. Then there is the cocoon bag sitting to one side; not only does the name evoke thoughts of the womb within the womb, it allows us, via our avatars as they sit within it, a means to recapture a sense of warmth, protection and nourishment which carried us into the world.

Some of the commentary is more direct – such as the text panel for The Body’s Cage (The Flesh), speaking as it does so eloquently on matters of gender and the growing divide between personal identity and the increasing (and unbalanced) demands for conformity / regression to purely binary outlooks some in society are demanding (despite nature as a whole rarely being truly binary). Meanwhile, there is such a subtle play on human relationships offered within The Roots Cage (The Family); contrast the reproduction of The Last Supper on the wall behind the family group, the babe-in-arms – and the look on the face of the man with burger and coffee in his hands as he keeps his head and eyes turned away from the conversation; and don’t overlook the little bench outside with its lone light, and all that might say about familial separation and loneliness.

Artsville Gallery: Ava Darkheart – Cages – Emotions

I could work my way through all six – the use of the peacock, the Jaguar, the apple tree and colours with The Untamed Cage, and so on – but this is an installation designed to get the visitor’s grey matter churning on the subjects and their motifs, and as such, I really have said far too much here. As such, I do recommend a visit before Cages draws to a close in early March

SLurl Details

Seanchai Library: Feb 6th – Feb 10th, 2023 in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Seanchai Library

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library – and this week previews the launch of a very special event.

As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home in Nowhereville, unless otherwise indicated. Note that the schedule below may be subject to change during the week, please refer to the Seanchai Library website for the latest information through the week.

Monday, February 6th, 19:00: Vernor Vinge’s Long Shot

Vernor Vinge

First published in 1972 by Analog Science Fiction Fact, Long Shot is a far future story centred on AI.

With the Earth approaching its destruction as the aging Sun starts to swell as it burns through the heavier elements at its core, humanity takes one final gamble –  a long shot – to preserve itself.

A  colony ship is built as a home to human zygotes and sent on a sublight, 10,000 year voyage in the hope of finding an Earth-like planet orbiting Alpha Centauri, where humanity might begin again and make use of the technology and equipment also carried by the ship. Overseeing the mission is a self-aware AI called Ilse; utterly unique, she was a brain which, whilst not “alive”, nevertheless lived.

Ilse’s designed span exceeded one hundred centuries. And though her brain was iron and germanium doped with arsenic, and her heart was a tiny cloud of hydrogen plasma, Ilse was one of Earth’s creatures…
Ilse’s earliest memory was a fragment, amounting to no less than fifteen seconds. Someone, perhaps inadvertently, brought her to consciousness as she sat atop her S-5N booster.

Like any living entity, Ilse suffered from aging, her hardware and system suffering failures, causing her to forget things – including the entire purpose of mission. Fortunately, she manages to retain enough data  – “memories” – to be able to infer her core goal, and enough functional capability to at least get the vessel to Alpha Centauri. But will that be enough for the last cells of humankind to survive and be reborn?

With Gyro Muggins.

Tuesday, February 7th, 19:00: Cold Clay

The second book in the Shady Hollow series, in which some long-buried secrets come to light, throwing suspicion on a beloved local denizen.

It’s autumn in Shady Hollow, and residents are looking forward to harvest feasts. But then a rabbit discovers a grisly crop: the bones of a moose.

Soon, the owner of Joe’s Mug is dragged out of the coffeeshop and questioned by the police about the night his wife walked out of his life–and Shady Hollow–forever. It seems like an open-and-shut case, but dogged reporter Vera Vixen doesn’t believe gentle Joe is a killer. She’ll do anything to prove his innocence. . .even if it means digging into secrets her neighbours would rather leave buried.

Faerie Maven-Pralou reads the second book in the Shady Hollow series by Juneau Black, in which some long-buried secrets come to light, throwing suspicion on a beloved local denizen.

Wednesday, February 8th, 19:00: Seanchai Flicks

Films, popcorn and fun at the Seanchai cinema space.

Thursday, February 9th:

19:00: Tristan and Iseult, Part 1

Perhaps best known as Tristan and Isolde in English – although it has had numerous names down the ages, Tristan and Iseult is a tale which has been told in many forms since the 12th century. It has had a lasting impact on Western culture, with its many versions told and re-told across Europe from the Middle Ages onwards. A chivalric romance, the story is based on a Celtic legend (and possibly other sources), it tells the tragic story of the illicit love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Iseult.

After the defeat of the Irish knight Morholt and his army, largely as a result of his efforts, young Prince Tristan is dispatched to Ireland by his Uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. His mission is to escort the fair Iseult back to Cornwall that she might be married to King Mark and therefore seal a lasting peace between the two kingdoms. However during their return journey, the two ingest a love potion – possibly accidentally, possibly deliberately – and fall deeply in love. Their affair continues after their arrival at the court of King Mar and Iseult’s marriage to the king – something which can only end in tragedy.

21:00: Seanchai Late Night

Science fiction and fantasy with Finn Zeddmore.