Ebbe Altberg in conversation with Saffia Widdershins, discussing the future of Second Life, Tuesday, May 15th, 2018
Update: the transcript and audio of the session is now available. The video can be seen on SLArtist.
On Tuesday, May 15th, I was able to sit-down at a closed studio recording session which formed part of Design Worlds’ 10th anniversary. The programme featured special guest, Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg.
Ebbe had accepted an invitation to answer questions to him by Saffia Widdershins, focusing on the upcoming 15th Anniversary celebrations for Second Life and the infographic and roadmap blog post issued by the Lab in April 2018, although Sansar was also touched upon as well towards the end of the session.
The programme will be shown at 14:00 SLT today, Monday, May 28th, 2018 at the Designing Worlds studio, and Second Life users are invited to attend the showing. For those unable to get into the region, it will also be shown on the SL Artist website, again starting at 14:00 SLT on Monday, May 28th.
As a part of the event, I’ll be featuring a transcription of Ebbe’s answers to the questions put to him, here on this blog. As is my usual approach to these things, the transcript will include audio recordings of Ebbe’s answrs, which can be listened to either alongside of reading the transcript, or in place of reading it.
In addition, the video will be available later in the week on the SLArtist.com channel, the Aview TV Designing Worlds channel – or on the Prim Perfect or Designing Worlds blogs. I will update the transcript with links, once the video is available.
It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home at Holly Kai Park, unless otherwise indicated.
Sunday, May 27th 13:30: Tea-Time on the African Queen
As World War I reaches the heart of the African jungle, Charlie Allnutt and Rose Sayer, a dishevelled trader and an English spinster missionary, find themselves thrown together by circumstance.
Fighting time, heat, malaria, and bullets, they make their escape on the rickety steamboat The African Queen…and hatch their own outrageous military plan.
Originally published in 1935, The African Queen is a tale replete with vintage Forester drama – unrelenting suspense, reckless heroism, impromptu military manoeuvres, near-death experiences – and a good old-fashioned love story.
Most famously, perhaps it became a 1951 film directed by John Huston and produced by Sam Spiegel and John Woolf and starring Humphrey Bogart as Charlie Allnut and Katharine Hepburn as Rose Sayer. Unable to provide an English (or more specifically, a Cockney, accent, Bogart’s Charlie Allnut was re-cast as a Canadian, and Bogart went on to win his only Oscar in the role – picking up Best Actor in what he regarded as the best performance of his film career.
Join Corwyn Allen, Kayden OConnell, and Caledonia Skytower at Ceiliúradh Glen, which has been redressed as German East Africa as they present The African Queen, combining both novel and film script.
Monday, May 28th 19:00: The Nitrogen Fix
2000 years from now, the Earth has acid oceans, mutating exploding plants, silent, tentacled observers, doomed Hill cities, nomad Outcasts, vicious, power-mad rebels.
In this world, fully depleted of freely floating oxygen – it has all been trapped in the Nitrogen Fix –, humans are the last native animal species on the planet. What civilization is left is isolated and separated.
A doomsday scenario? perhaps. But Hal Clement has a knack for making this beleaguered, suffering version of Earth and the trials of those living on it far more enticing that might be first thought.
Join Gyro Muggins as he travels to Clement’s world and see what might be found there.
Tuesday, May 29th: The Cold Dish (Walt Longmire #1)
Two years ago, four boys were put on trial for raping a Cheyenne girl. Now one of them – Cody Pritchard – is dead, shot and dumped in with a local farmer’s sheep.
For Walt Longmire, it means his hope of finishing out his term as sheriff of Wyoming’s Absaroka county in peace and quiet is at an end; instead, he finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation.
Plenty of people had cause for wanting Cody Prichard dead but who had the guts to do the deed? And are his three compadres next on the hit list? For Longmire, it means facing one of the more volatile and challenging cases in his twenty-four years as sheriff. One in which he means to ensure that revenge, so often regarded as a dish best served cold, is never served at all.
Join Kayden OConnell as he reads the first volume of Craig Johnson’s tales of Sheriff Walt Longmire.
Wednesday, May 30th 19:00: Hello, Universe
In one day, four lives weave together in unexpected ways.
Virgil Salinas is shy and kind-hearted and feels out-of-place in his loud and boisterous family; Valencia Somerset, who is deaf, is smart, brave, and secretly lonely, and loves everything about nature; Kaori Tanaka is a self-proclaimed psychic, whose little sister Gen is always following her around; and Chet Bullens wishes the weird kids would just act normal so that he can concentrate on basketball.
None of them are friends; at least not until Chet pulls a prank that traps Virgil and his pet guinea pig at the bottom of a well.
This leads Kaori, Gen, and Valencia on an epic quest to find the missing Virgil. Through luck, smarts, bravery, and a little help from the universe, a rescue is performed, a bully is put in his place, and friendship blooms.
Join Caledonia Skytower as she reads Erin Entrada Kelly’s 2018 Newbery Medal Award-Winning tale.
Thursday, May 31st: RUSH 2112
18:30-19:00 music from the album and dancing.
19:00: RUSH 2112 Anthem – the story behind the music.
With Shandon Loring. Also presented in Kitely (hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/Seanchai/144/129/29).
19:00 Seanchai Late Night
Contemporary Sci-Fi with Finn Zeddmore.
Please check with the Seanchai Library’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule.
The current charity is Project Children, growing peace in Northern Ireland one (or two) children at a time.
The 10th Home and Garden Expo (HGE) in support of Relay for Life of Second Life and the American Cancer Society, is currently open, and will remain so until Saturday, June 2nd, 2018. Taking place across seven (Home Expo 1 through 6 and Expo Centre) regions, the event offers some of the finest in home, garden, and furnishing designs available across the grid, as well as a range of breedables and breedable accessories.
With over 100 exhibitors taking part, the event offers something for anyone who is looking for a new home, ideas for furnishing and decor, wishing to improve their building (or other) skills, or who just wishes to keep abreast of the latest building / home trends in Second Life.
This year’s hunt allows participants to explore the Expo regions and visit the twenty Awareness kiosks where they can learn about the different types of cancer. There are also hand prints and ribbons to collect, which denote which kiosks you’ve visited and decorate the tree on the Hunt HUD (available for L$250 from hunt vendors). In addition, the Awareness kiosks may award participants an additional random prize.
When you’ve visited all twenty of the Awareness kiosks, hunt participants will receive an Meeroo avatar.
Home and Garden Expo Map (click for full size)
Decorating Competition
*Entry applications close Monday, May 21st*
Twelve homes have been set-up on Home Expo 6, in six different styles by six different builders. The twelve entrants in the competition will be given an allowance of 500 prims (/Land Impact) with which to decorate their home and its garden.
Each contestant can decorate in any style they wish that suits their house, but they must include at least three items purchased from RFL vendors at the Home and Garden Expo. All houses must be decorated by Saturday, May 26th, 2018. Thereafter, from Sunday, May 27th through Friday, June 1st, 2018 visitors to the Expo will be able to vote on which house and garden they like best.
The breakdown of prizes has yet to be announced, but the overall prize pot, at the time of writing this article, stood at L$35,000.
Visit the competition page to enter – and remember, applications must be made by the end of Monday, May 21st, 2018.
Lantern Releases and Luminaria
Every day of the Expo at 16:00 SLT, lanterns will be released from the Expo Reflection Centre, in honour of all those afflicted by cancer.
The reflection area is also the place where you can light a luminaria lantern in memory of a loved one or in support of one fighting cancer now.
Home and Garden Expo Reflection Centre
With so much to see, it is likely that more than one visit might be required to see all of the designs and gardens – and with the number of exhibitors, pointing to specific creators is a little unfair. I therefore suggest that should you go, start your visit at the central Expo Center region – and then work your way around the regions using that as your anchor point.
About the Expo
The Home and Garden Expo raises money for Relay For Life of Second Life (RFL of SL). Relay For Life is the American Cancer Society’s signature fund-raising event, and RFL of SL is one of its virtual counterparts. You can find more information about RFL of SL at the official website.
Expo exhibitors are required to have two 100% donation items at the Expo. These items must be new and exclusive to the Expo for the duration of the event.
100% of registration fees, sponsorship fees and donation items are paid to Relay For Life of Second Life. 50% of the proceeds from the gachas will be paid to RFL and 100% of the L$10 hunt items.
Bay City Fairgrounds set for the 10th Anniversary celebrations
Bay City celebrates its tenth anniversary on Sunday May 20th, and the Bay City community is marking the day with a another special time of festivities and fun to which everyone is invited!
Activities will kick-off at noon SLT with a parade line-up at the band shell in Bay City – Harwich. At 12:30 SLT, the parade will make its way down Route 66, and proceed to the Bay City Fairgrounds in the North Channel region. DJ GoSpeed Rasere (GoSpeed Racer) will be providing the music throughout the parade, which will be followed by at live concert from 13:30 SLT onwards at the fairgrounds.
The line-up for the concert this year comprises (all times SLT):
13:30 – 14:30: Parker Static-Riley (Parker Static) – Parker started singing at a very early age; being in a musical family her passion for singing was inevitable. Her repertoire ranges from pop through ballads, jazz, R and B to soft rock and more. She has received numerous awards including Showtime Magazine’s TOP 10 performers in SL and the Soul Train’s Best Female entertainer of the year.
14:30 – 15:30: Erika Ordinary – singing mix of popular songs and those she has written. She plays several instruments, with a focus on the guitar and ukulele, and especially loves the juxtaposition of darker themed songs played on such a bright, happy instrument as the ukulele.
15:30 – 16:30: Stratus Mactavish – with a light guitar playing style, Stratus has an easy-going, soft, smooth and intimate sound. He showcases showcasing bright acoustic arrangements of popular songs, plus a few atypical acoustic arrangements of songs normally considered as being outside the acoustic genre.
All Second Life residents invited to participate in the event. Celebration goods, including parade float bases and ideas, are available at the Bay City Community Centre, in the Daley Bay region for those who wish to be a part of the parade. Ample viewing areas are provided. The music event is also open to all who desire to attend — not only Residents of Bay City
About Bay City and the Bay City Alliance
Bay City is a mainland community, developed by Linden Lab and home to the Bay City Alliance. The Bay City Alliance was founded in 2008 to promote the Bay City regions of Second Life and provide a venue for Bay City Residents and other interested parties to socialize and network. It is now the largest Bay city group, and home to most Residents of Bay City.
It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home at Holly Kai Park, unless otherwise indicated.
Sunday, May 20th
13:30: Tea-Time with Tolkien
Join Corwyn, Kayden, and Caledonia in Ceiliúradh Glenon Holly Kai for more from Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” Trilogy. This week: The Mirror of Galadriel and the Passing of the Grey Company.
With water from the stream Galadriel filled the basin to the brim, and breathed on it, and when the water was still again she spoke. “Here is the Mirror of Galadriel,” she said. “I have brought you here so that you may look in it, if you will.”
The air was very still, and the dell was dark, and the Elf-lady beside him was tall and pale. “What shall we look for, and what shall we see? ” asked Frodo, filled with awe.
“Many things I can command the Mirror to reveal,” she answered, “and to some I can show what they desire to see. But the Mirror will also show things unbidden, and those are often stranger and more profitable than things which we wish to behold. What you will see, if you leave the Mirror free to work, I cannot tell. For it shows things that were, and things that are, things that yet may be. But which it is that he sees, even the wisest cannot always tell. Do you wish to look?”
Frodo did not answer.
“And you?” she said, turning to Sam. “For this is what your folk would call magic. I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem also to use the same word of the deceits of the Enemy. But this, if you will, is the magic of Galadriel. Did you not say that you wished to see Elf-magic?”
18:00 Magicland Storytime – Mrs Piggle-Wiggle
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle lives in an upside-down house and smells like cookies. She was even married to a pirate once. Most of all, she knows everything about children. She can cure them of any ailment. Patsy hates baths. Hubert never puts anything away. Allen eats v-e-r-y slowly. Mrs Piggle-Wiggle has a treatment for all of them.
The incomparable Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle loves children good or bad and never scolds but has positive cures for Answer-Backers, Never-Want-to-Go-to-Bedders, and other boys and girls with strange habits.
2000 years from now, the Earth has acid oceans, mutating exploding plants, silent, tentacled observers, doomed Hill cities, nomad Outcasts, vicious, power-mad rebels.
In this world, fully depleted of freely floating oxygen – it has all been trapped in the Nitrogen Fix –, humans are the last native animal species on the planet. What civilization is left is isolated and separated.
A doomsday scenario? perhaps. But Hal Clement has a knack for making this beleaguered, suffering version of Earth and the trials of those living on it far more enticing that might be first thought.
Join Gyro Muggins as he travels to Clement’s world and see what might be found there.
Tuesday, May 22nd: The Cold Dish (Walt Longmire #1)
Two years ago, four boys were put on trial for raping a Cheyenne girl. Now one of them – Cody Pritchard – is dead, shot and dumped in with a local farmer’s sheep.
For Walt Longmire, it means his hope of finishing out his term as sheriff of Wyoming’s Absaroka county in peace and quiet is at an end; instead, he finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation.
Plenty of people had cause for wanting Cody Prichard dead but who had the guts to do the deed? And are his three compadres next on the hit list? For Longmire, it means facing one of the more volatile and challenging cases in his twenty-four years as sheriff. One in which he means to ensure that revenge, so often regarded as a dish best served cold, is never served at all.
Join Craig Johnson as he reads the first volume of Craig Johnson’s tales of Sheriff Walt Longmire.
Wednesday, May 23rd 19:00: Hello, Universe
In one day, four lives weave together in unexpected ways.
Virgil Salinas is shy and kind-hearted and feels out-of-place in his loud and boisterous family; Valencia Somerset, who is deaf, is smart, brave, and secretly lonely, and loves everything about nature; Kaori Tanaka is a self-proclaimed psychic, whose little sister Gen is always following her around; and Chet Bullens wishes the weird kids would just act normal so that he can concentrate on basketball.
None of them are friends; at least not until Chet pulls a prank that traps Virgil and his pet guinea pig at the bottom of a well.
This leads Kaori, Gen, and Valencia on an epic quest to find the missing Virgil. Through luck, smarts, bravery, and a little help from the universe, a rescue is performed, a bully is put in his place, and friendship blooms.
Join Caledonia Skytower as she reads Erin Entrada Kelly’s 2018 Newbery Medal Award-Winning tale.
Thursday, May 24th 19:00: Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina
Shandon Loring reads The Storm Trooper’s Tale. Also presented in Kitely (hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/Seanchai/144/129/29).
Please check with the Seanchai Library’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule.
The current charity is Project Children, growing peace in Northern Ireland one (or two) children at a time.
The 2018 Second Life Sci-Fi Expo touched-down safely on the main grid on Saturday May 12th, 2018 ready to embark Second Life residents on flights of intergalactic adventure and fancy which will continue through until Sunday, May 20th, 2018.
Active across four regions this year, the convention once again presents a broad range of science-fiction related role-play and content, all bound together in the aim of raising funds for Relay for Life of Second Life and the American Cancer Society.
In addition, the event features a range of entertainment and presentations. So much is going on through the week in fact, that the best way of staying up-to-date on things is to check the convention’s event calendar (don’t be confused by it being referred to as the 2017 calendar). This can also be found at strategic points scattered throughout the convention’s regions on browsable display boards, so keeping up-to-speed on where to go and what to see is pretty easy.
SL Sci-Fi Expo 2018
If I’m totally honest, the convention seemed – on visiting and in viewing the website – a lot more subdued this year than in previous years. I’m not aware of any significant themes to the regions, outside of Land of the Giants for the central (“hub”?) region; there doesn’t appear to be a list of exhibitors this year, and the website itself – at the time of writing does not appear to have been updated since May 5th, 2018.
Within the regions themselves, traffic was high during my two visits, while Star Trek appears to have the largest presence in terms of the number of booths etc – which is not to say the event is in any way exclusive to Trek; there are a fair few TARDIS telephone boxes scattered around and the odd Viper and Cylon Raider can be seen, as well as a Marvel Comics hero or two. Do be aware, when visiting, that several of the exhibition booths have teleporters leading elsewhere – so if some see a little devoid of information, this could be the reason why.
So, as I’m prone to say when previewing this event: whatever your interest in science fiction, be sure to set your phaser on fun and head back to the future with a visit to the SL Sci-Fi convention.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 