The excitement and the entertainment of SL14B has come and gone – but the regions still there for a while, and there’s still a fair amount to see, if you haven’t taken the time to do so before now. What’s more the regions are all now a lot quieter, offering more chances to see things, enjoy the rides and take photos. This being the case, I thought I would, as with previous years, share a handful of the exhibits I enjoyed just in case they appeal to you as well.
I’ve already covered some of the art exhibits I particularly enjoyed in the regions in The Art of SL14B, so consider this a companion article to that piece 🙂 .
Cassini’s Grand Finale – Diamond Marchant / Leeward Cruising Club
Regular readers of this blog can perhaps guess one of the reasons I’m selecting this exhibit – my love of space exploration (and a tenuous “personal” connection to the Cassini mission). But there are other reasons as well.
One is the use of connections between the Cassini mission, the SL14B theme and the sailing. NASA’s Cassini probe has been revealing the secrets of Saturn and his moons to us for the last thirteen years, in a mission which goes back two decades to its launch – and then a further 15 years prior to that. So now, as the mission draws towards its final conclusion in September 2017, is the time to celebrate all that it has revealed to us. At the same time, Cassini ventured forth into the great ocean of space just as mariners her on Earth have put to sea under sail, navigating its way via Venus, Earth and Jupiter to reach its eventual destination.
With links to NASA’s video and website on the Cassini mission’s Grand Finale, as well as to information on Leeward Cruising Club, this is a clean, elegant display – and one where you can catch a ride on Cassini itself. And that’s another reason to visit – Diamond’s recreation of the Cassini spacecraft is simply stunning in its level of detail.
You can also learn more about the Cassini mission in my Space Sunday series, which features regular updates on the mission, including an overview of the Grand Finale, and the first pass between the planet and its rings.
Second Life offers many means to travel – teleport, walking, running, driving, boating flying. One of the most fascinating ways to travel the Mainland is via the network of railway lines which cross-cross the lands. The Virtual Railway Consortium do much to promote and support this infrastructure, and Qie’s display at SL14B is a celebration of their work, presenting visitors with and opportunity to visit VRC locations across the mainland continents, visit their website and discover more about rail travel in SL.
Bay City is one of the most active Mainland communities in Second Life, with Bay City itself a vibrant place to visit, with lots to see and do. Marianne McCann is one of the leading lights of the community and works tirelessly to promote it, and in bringing people together to host events from the Bay City anniversary parties through the Christmas and New Year events to the annual Mole Day – a festival focused on the Moles of the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW).
At SL14B, the Bay City exhibition invariably offers a rich insight into the community, its events and its members, and this year is no exception. Located in a design that encapsulates the community’s 1940s through 1960s theme, it’s a definite stop on any tour of SL14B. Step inside to discover more!
Occupying an original build by Shayla, the Venetian Masks Gallery is not alone at SL14B in celebrating the use of the mask at festivals and celebrations, but it is an informative look at the role of masks in Venetian carnivals. Inside, it encapsulates the importance of the mask, and offers some intricate examples used at carnivals and festivities, from harlequin style half masks through to intricate, full-face items. It’s another simple, elegant display set within a gorgeous design of the building which draws inspiration from the architecture of Venice.
The exhibit is doubly fitting for SL14B: not only does it celebrate the use of masks in carnivals, it also reminds us that within Second Life, we have the mask of our avatar to offer us the freedom to express ourselves and our desires and creativity free from the demands of the physical world, allowing our imaginations to take flight as they will; unfettered and – often times – in full career!
Currently taking place through until Sunday, July 2nd, 2017 is the 12th edition of Second Pride, celebrating diversity in Second Life, and the LGBTQ, gay and straight communities – and “In Between or anything you want to be”, in the words of the organisers. This year’s event has the theme Resist, Rise Up, Be Proud.
Taking place on the Second Pride region, the event has plenty to offer: shopping, music, dancing, amusement rides, lounges and cafés, an oriental themed garden, and more, all in support of a number of charities and non-profits (donation kiosks can be found through the region, and there are two special non-profits donations stores in the south-west corner of the shopping area).
The shopping event includes home and garden decor designers Apple Fall, N4RS, T L C Home Decor, Sources, RJD, Consignment, The Artist Shed, DJ/SF ( Shutterfield), InZane Design and Unkindness; fashion designers S’wear by Lapointe & Bastchild, GABRIEL, MIND, PowerDesign, RNR, RGDW, Jackhammer Gear for Men, DMG, [SM], RedAngel, and DnL. Many of the designers are offering discounted items to attendees, and there are also opportunities to pick-up various free items during the event.
The third Spoonful of Sugar festival, aimed at raising money for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), will in 2017 take place between Saturday, September 16th and Sunday October 1st. right now, the organisers are seeking applications from fashion, home and garden and breedable designers and creators who would be interested in sponsoring and participating in the event.
Also known as Doctors Without Borders, MSF is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation delivering emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare, providing assistance to people based on need, irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation.
MSF was founded in Paris, France in 1971. Its principles are described in the organisation’s founding charter. It is a non-profit, self-governed organization.Today, MSF is a worldwide movement of 24 associations, bound together as MSF International, based in Switzerland.Thousands of health professionals, logistical and administrative staff – most of whom are hired locally – work on programmes in some 70 countries worldwide
Established by Ever Courtois and Angelique Wickentower, Spoonful of Sugar (SOS) aims to raise money for MSF as a part of the organisation’s Vital Pact Campaign.
Meet the Lindens is a series of conversations / Q&A sessions with staff from Linden Lab, held as a part of the SL Birthday celebrations in-world. They provide opportunities for Second Life users to get to know something about the staff at the Lab: who they are, what they do, what drew them to Second Life and the company, what they find interesting / inspirational about the platform, and so on.
Tuesday, June 20th saw Landon Linden sit down with Saffia Widdershins, and this article hopefully presents some “selected highlights” of the chat, complete with audio extracts from my recording of the event. The official video of the event is embedded at the end of this article.
About Oz and Grumpity Linden
Oz Linden is the Technical Director for Second Life. He joined the company in 2010 specifically to take on the role of managing the open-source aspects of the Second Life viewer and managing the relationship with third-party viewers – in his previous role, he had been responsible for leading the company his was working for in taking their product from closed-source to open-source and then managing the technical side of the product as a open-source project for a number of years.
Over the first two years of his time at the Lab, he was primarily focused on the open-source viewer work and in refining the overall viewer maintenance process, before his role started expanding to encompass more and more of the engineering side of Second Life. When Work on Sansar started in earnest, he pro-actively campaigned within the Lab for the role he has now, with responsibility for managing all of the engineering side of the platform.
He came to Linden Lab out of a desire to do something “fun” after working in the telecommunication arena, notably with voice over IP systems (VOIP), which he defines as being “really interesting technology with some really fascinating challenge”, but in terms of it being fun, it really didn’t do what I wanted it to do.”
He classifies the attraction to working with Second Life as perhaps falling into three core areas: through the open-source nature of the viewer, he is directly involved with how SL users are using the viewer and what they do with it – which can often times take the Lab entirely by surprise; through the fact that the Second Life offers the challenge of trying to implement new technologies alongside of (rather than simply replacing) older technologies; and working with the operations team and others to ensure SL constantly evolves without (as far as is possible) breaking anything – a process he refers to and rebuilding the railway from a moving train.
Grumpity Linden is the Director of Product for Second Life, enjoying what she and Oz jokingly refer to as a “symbiotic relationship”. She actually started at Linden Lab in 2009 as a contractor working for The Product Engine, a company providing end-to-end consulting and software development services, and which support the SL viewer development. She became a “full-time Linden” almost three years ago.
As Director of Product she manages the product team, which oversees a wide range of SL-related activities alongside of Oz’s team. This can involve coordinating the various teams involved in bringing features and updates to Second Life (e.g. coordinating the engineering teams and the QA teams, liaising with legal, financial and compliance to ensure features and capabilities meet any specific requirements in those areas, etc.). This work can also involve looking at specifics within various elements of the overall SL product, such as UI design and layout, etc.
Grumpity has a background in psychology and computer science, but has worked in the oil and gas industry. On moving to the San Francisco area, she crossed over into working within the tech industry, eventually settling at Linden Lab as a contractor, working on the Viewer 2.0 project. She enjoyed working at the Lab so much, she resisted all attempts by her employers to move her elsewhere, finally joining the Lab full-time in 2015.
Like Oz, Grumpity is passionately committed to seeing Second Life continue.
Q&A Session
How much control and input do you have over the direction of second life?
Grumpity: I will let Oz speak more to that, but Bento was conceived and reared and launched all through the efforts of Oz’s team and of Engineering. Certainly, Product took a part in defining that, but this is a great an example of one of the long-time Lindens [Vir Linden] suggesting this as a possibility and then this feature getting worked on.
There was a tonne of time spent defining that work with residents, which I’m also very proud of, I think we absolutely took the right path there, but as to the development of that project – Oz, do you want to speak to it?
Oz: Just to comment to that one point about Bento. The general direction of the project we started out with changed very significantly, once we got residence involved. The essential concept of extending the avatar skeleton and adding capabilities, that was the concept we began with, [but] the specific additions we made to the skeleton changed very dramatically after we got resident designers involved.
Oz Linden
We were planning on doing a quite simplified hand, for example, and the designers came back to us and said, “look, we really need every joint in every finger”, and ultimately they convinced us that was the right thing to do, and in retrospect, it’s obviously worked out really well.
The broad question of who or how we set that direction; it’s one of the things that’s really great about working at the Lab … We have an incredibly collaborative process. Pretty much everyone involved, up to and including the residents – emphatically including the residents, I should say – is empowered to put forward ideas. And so our job isn’t so much thinking up what’s going to happen to Second Life, as it is from just picking from among a myriad of possibilities. We could have a staff of 500, and we wouldn’t have enough to do all of the really cool things that we might in theory be able to do.
So it’s picking and choosing, and we try to shift who we’re making happy at any given time, so we’re spreading it around a little bit … My job is to think about what the technology impact of anything is going to be, how difficult it’s going to be to do, and how long it’s going to take to do it; although even more so that most engineering groups, I think we’re really challenged in figuring out how long it’s going to take for things to happen.
And the Product team, headed by Grumpity, thinks about what the implications are for the way that affects the business, affects the activities people are already doing in Second Life – to the extent that we know! And we work together to pick from the things that are possible and can be done in a time frame that’s good. We try to make sure that we’re doing something new fairly regularly; so we can’t pile on everybody to a project that’s going to take two years, because then for two years, nothing would happen. Well, the company did that once, and we all know how that went…
But yeah, between us, we have a lot to say about it. There are aspects of the way that Second Life evolves that are not really our space. For example, we’re not heavily involved in Governance issues; we’re not heavily involved in thinking how much things may cost. That’s mostly other people. But how it works and what it can do – that’s what we spend our time on!
Grumpity: And to mention, we’re not necessarily heavily involved in compliance issues … but we do spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to minimise the impact of compliance while actually adhering to the needs.
As inventory in the viewer is just pointers to assets on the Lab’s servers, could Linden Lab provide a means for redelivering lost inventory items?
Oz: We have recently put out some changes that are intended to reduce some of the ways we think people were unintentionally deleting things, and we’ve fixed some bugs that may have been responsible for things going astray that shouldn’t [updates reviewed here & now in the release viewer] … She’s right, your inventory is a set of pointers to assets; we have the assets, we don’t have a record of what those pointers were. The pointers are ephemeral; they change dynamically, and we don’t today have a journal of what all the changes were that went through.
That’s an area of concern; unfortunately, solving that problem very likely falls into that project that would take at least two years category that I talked about before, that’s difficult to tackle on the whole. So we’re trying to find aspects of it that we can attack and improve … So we’re trying to find ways to do incremental steps that make inventory more and more robust. If I were to go to Grumpity and say, “this is what it would take to completely solve the inventory problem,” she would end-up saying we can’t commit that large a fraction of our resources for that long to that problem. So we have to find ways to break it down into small pieces, and that’s what we’re doing.
Unfortunately, that means we can’t say all the inventory problems will be solved by the middle of next week or even next year, necessarily.
Grumpity: We spent a lot of time investigating this recent uptick in reports of inventory going to Trash accidentally and getting deleted, and we’ve put in a bunch of viewer-side changes to prevent that, and Firestorm has merged those in. so please make sure your viewer is updated. The new Firestorm release [reviewed here] has all of them, and even some that we haven’t released but are in the latest Maintenance RC viewer [version 5.0.7.327250 at the time of writing this transcript].
I would also like to use this platform to say that we absolutely need viewer logs from the session where the deletion or the disappearance of inventory happened, to continue to diagnose this problem. So if you’re in a position to provide those logs from the session where the inventory loss happened, please, please do. There are multiple JIRA already open – file a new one, reply on the forum, we’ll see all of them, and I will be thrilled to take up the cause and find out what has been going on.
Oz: That’s a point worth emphasising. We don’t keep all the logs for a long time; we couldn’t, they’re just too big. Id you report that three weeks ago, you lost 100,000 things, there is no hope whatsoever that we’re going to learn anything from that report. Those those logs are long gone; we cannot tell what you did or what happened to what you lost.
If you report it the day that you lose something, and we see that report – and we’re watching those reports, we have people who watch those reports all the time – and you attach a viewer log, and there’s a page on the wiki about how to find the logs. And you tell us “I was in this region, at this time, and the following stuff disappeared”, or even: “I was in this region at this time, and I knew that I had it then, but two hours later I noticed that it was all gone.” That gives a window where there’s some hope of us finding information about it. And we can use that information to figure out what happened.
We often will not be able to recover your lost items; occasionally it happens, but unfortunately it’s not the normal. But it would be an enormous help to us to get reports that have that kind of information on them promptly, so we can dig out and try to learn what happened and what went wrong, and then those cases at least, we can fix.
Grumpity: So, for the record. In all of the reported cases where we were able to get logs from the server-side for this inventory loss and actually find the log records for when the deletions happened; from our end it looks like it was a regular case of the user deleting inventory. So in order to figure out what’s going on, we absolutely need viewer logs so that we know what the viewer was doing and why those messages were sent to delete inventory, if you did not intentionally do it.
… Again, I’m going to use this soapbox to say we triage incoming bugs pretty much every [working] day, sometimes we skip a day when there are other things that get in the way. We triage incoming feature requests on a regular basis as well, not quite as frequently, and we pay attention to what’s going on. It is our hand on the pulse, and it is also your best bet for getting bugs addressed. If you write about a bug on the forum, maybe somebody else will file it, but may not, and maybe it will never get to us. If you are sure it’s a but – write a JIRA, and then we’ll see it.
It’s time to kick-off 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 new home at Holly Kai Park, unless otherwise indicated.
I’m absolutely delighted to see Seanchai at the Park, becoming part of our family and helping to expand our support of the arts in second Life. The familiar programme of weekly storytelling from Seanchai will continue via their new headquarters at the park, while they’ll also be able to run special events using the park’s grounds and our sky platforms.
So, without further ado, here’s the first week of events from Seanchai Library.
Sunday, June 25th, 13:30: Tales of Ships, the Sea and Other Wetness
Join Library staff and guests in a celebratory 90-minute event to launch their new season at their new home at Holly Kai Park .
Monday, June 26th 19:00: The Book of Skulls
Gyro Muggins reads Robert Silverberg’s novel.
Four friends, college room-mates, go on a spring break trip to Arizona: Eli, the scholar, who found and translated the book; Timothy, scion of an American dynasty, born and bred to lead; Ned, poet and cynic; and Oliver, the brilliant farm boy obsessed with death.
Somewhere in the desert lies the House of Skulls, where a mystic brotherhood guards the secret of eternal life. There, the four aspirants will present themselves–and a horrific price will be demanded.
For immortality requires sacrifice. Two victims to balance two survivors. One by suicide, one by murder.
Now, beneath the gaze of grinning skulls, the terror begins. . . .
Tuesday, June 27th 19:00: The Ordinary Princess
Faerie Maven-Pralou reads MM Kaye’s 2002 novel.
In true fairytale style, the seventh princess is blessed with gifts by a host of fairies, but as her father fears, it goes wrong and one slightly bitter fairy ‘blesses’ her with ordinariness.
So no golden curls, stunning beauty and sublime grace for Princess Amethyst Alexandra Augusta Araminta Adelaide Aurelia Anne. Her dark hair and freckles make Amy (no ordinary princess can be called anything else) stop every suitor from pursuing her. She decides to run away and make her own life, away from boring princes and a confined life.
A life in the forest is bliss, but eventually Amy realises she will need some money, and must find work. So it is that she becomes the fourteenth assistant kitchen maid at a neighbouring palace. And there – much to everyone’s surprise – she meets a prince just as ordinary (and special) as she is!
Wednesday, June 28th 19:00: The Girl Who Drank the Moon
Caledonia Skytower reads Kelly Barnhill’s 2017 Newbery Medal winner.
Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the forest, Xan, is kind and gentle. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster named Glerk and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon, Fyrian.
Xan rescues the abandoned children and deliver them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey.
One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this enmagicked girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own.
To keep young Luna safe from her own unwieldy power, Xan locks her magic deep inside her. When Luna approaches her thirteenth birthday, her magic begins to emerge on schedule–but Xan is far away. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Soon, it is up to Luna to protect those who have protected her–even if it means the end of the loving, safe world she’s always known.
Thursday, June 29th
19:00: Moby-Dick Part 1
“Call me Ishmael.” So begins one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history, Herman Melville’s magnificent Moby-Dick or, The Whale.
As Ishmael is drawn into Captain Ahab’s obsessive quest to slay the white whale Moby-Dick, he finds himself engaged in a metaphysical struggle between good and evil. More than just a novel of adventure, more than a paean to whaling lore and legend, this is a haunting social commentary populated by some of the most enduring characters in literature.
The crew of the Pequod, from stern, Quaker First Mate Starbuck, to the tattooed Polynesian harpooner Queequeg, are a vision of the world in microcosm, the pinnacle of Melville’s lifelong meditation on America.
Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is a profound, poetic inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception. Join Shandon Loring as he commences a reading of this magnificent tale.
21:00: Seanchai Late Night
Contemporary science fiction with Finn Zeddmore.
Please check with the Seanchai Library’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule.
The featured charity for May through July is Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, raising awareness of childhood cancer causes and funds for research into new treatments and cures.
The desert sands lead on, but look ahead – a palace of bright tents and green date palms where camel backs can crumple knee bones down. An oasis waits beneath the desert moon.
East meets west in a special celebration on Saturday, June 24th, 2017. Commencing at 07:00 SLT, Caravanserai 1 sees Dr Chris Mooney Singh (Singh Albatros) of The Writers Centre, Singapore and Scott Grant (Kaylee West) of Monash University in Melbourne Australia come together to create an event celebrating the connective cultural thread that is the legendary Silk Road.
In a desert oasis setting, they have brought together artists from around the grid for storytelling, drama, song, and machinima, to be followed by a panel discussion on the value of virtual arts in education.
Caravanserai’s intent is to celebrate the sharing of different cultures by transporting guests to an earlier time when the Silk Road contributed hugely to artistic and cultural understanding and world culture. Travellers going both directions would seek shelter in oasis’ or a caravanserai: an inn with a central courtyard for wayfarers in the desert regions of Asia or North Africa. These places of rest supported the flow of commerce, information, and people across the network of trade routes covering Asia, North Africa, and South-east Europe, especially along the Silk Road. In that pre-television, pre-internet time, it is easy to imagine people from many different traditions gathered around a fire with refreshments, sharing songs and tales of their lands and travels.
This free performance is open to all Second Life Residents and is both part of this year’s SL MOOC, and benefits Feed A Smile.
For the event, much of which is presented in Voice, Singh narrates the programme, featuring his own adaptation of The Elephant and the Six Blind Men, original songs, special musical guest – gypsy violinist Navtali Torok, and James Elroy Flecker’s 1913 verse drama The Golden Road to Samarkand, he is also joined by actors Pip Albatros, Corwyn Allen, and Mavromichali Szondi.
There will be a screening of a machinima based on the Edwin Thumboo poem Ulysses by the Merlion and there will be time for Questions and Answers as part of the panel discussion portion of the programme. The event will close out with a final song before the caravan comes full circle, and guests disembark for their native lands once more.
About SL MOOC
SL MOOC is a month-long cavalcade of education which focuses on active learning, reflection, sharing, and collaboration. The aim of the courses and workshops offered is for the participants to learn through meaningful connections and social interactions, building on the strength of virtual worlds as learning tools.
About Feed A Smile
Feed A Smile is a programme run by Live and Learn Kenya (LLK) to provide nutritious warm lunches for over 400 children every day, paid for entirely from donations to the project. It is part of a broader programme managed by LLK, which includes finding sponsors to finance the education of children in Kenya and helping to provide them with everything they need: uniforms, shoes, text books, school supplies, etc., and the building of the Nakuru school, Kenya.
In addition, the organisation also provides medical and dental care for children, including check-ups and vaccinations. 100% of the donations received by LLK are transferred directly to Kenya to care for children, provide education, medicine, food, shelter and foster care. Nothing is lost to salaries, fees or administrative costs at LLK.
SLurl Details
Caranvanserai 1: A Silk Road Celebration of the Arts (Monash University, rated: General)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 