Lab launches SL11B L$10,000 photo contest

SL11B contest
(image courtesy of Linden Lab)

On Tuesday June 17th, in the run-up to the SL11B events across the grid, the Lab has launched a birthday themed photo contest.

The blog post announcing the contest reads in full:

Starting today, you’re invited to take part in the Second Life: Celebrating Your Second Life Snapshot Contest, in honor of 11th Birthday of Second Life.

Participation is easy – submit your celebratory snapshots from inworld to the contest page on our Official Second Life Facebook Page. Click the contest tab, review the contest information and rules and start sharing. This year you will be able to submit up to one snapshot a day for the duration of the contest. Full rules, submission and voting dates, and details are all on the Facebook page.

Looking for some inspiration for pics? Then drop by Hairy Hippo Fun Land to grab your Limited Edition SL11B Robot Avatar. You can also get your free avatar off the Marketplace.

Browse the SL11B category on the destination guide to see what the community has planned to mark the event inworld.

Don’t forget that the Resident-driven Second Life 11th Birthday Community Celebration starts this coming Sunday the 22nd. Visit their website for the latest information.

You only turn 11 once, and we can’t wait to see what kind of celebrations and fun you create and share!

It is a shame that the Lab once again opt to use Facebook as the medium for a contest; doing so effectively slams the door on the contest for many who might otherwise take part, but who have no wish to be a part of the great Facebook machine.

Given other options are available which are not so controversial, it’s a shame that the Lab doesn’t give thought to them when running contests of this kind. Flickr, for example, would seem to be a suitable alternative. It already has a very large SL community, and establishing a group for competition entries isn’t exactly labour intensive, although ensuring T&Cs are read might be a little harder. People might also be more inclined to sign-up to Flickr if they don’t already have an account.

Of course, Flickr probably doesn’t get the same kind of visibility among non Second Life users that the SL Facebook page gets, but for the sake of encouraging more users to take part in something of this nature, does that really matter?

Miracles, wars, quests and more

It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in Voice, brought to Second Life and Kitely by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library.

As always, all times SLT / PDT, and unless otherwise stated, events will be held on the Seanchai Library’s home on Imagination Island.

Sunday June 15th, 10:00: Seanchai Kitely: Miracles: A Trio of  Island Tales

Trio Island  Book Cover V3 smallJoin Caledonia Skytower as she reads from her own book Miracles: a Trio of Island Tales, best described in her own words:

Belief is essential part of life. If there is a through-line to most of my work, it is the essential need for all of us to believe in something beyond ourselves. It does not matter what. Simply believe. By believing in something beyond yourself, you learn to better understand your world: to believe in yourself.

Belief is woven into all three stories in Miracles: A Trio of Island Tales. These stories are fictionalizations of family stories shared by my collaborator, Saane Tome. She is a native-born Tongan and devout Christian. The power of her stories is moving and undeniable. You may or may not share her belief system, and that does not really matter. It is hard to hear her stories and not recognize the essential power of them.

Join Cale in-world at Seanchai Library, Kitely (hop://osgrid.kitely.com:8002/Seanchai/144/129/29).

Monday June 16th, 19:00: Space Wars: The Man Who Would Be Kzin Concludes

Gyro Muggins continues to tell a tale drawn from the deadly Man-Kzin Wars.

The Kzinti, are a warlike race Niven first introduced to the world in his 1966 story The Warriors. They permeated many of his stories set in the Known Space series, and well as appearing in his Nebula and Hugo award-winning Ringworld. In his stories, Niven references a series of conflicts between Kzinti and humans, but did not write about the wars himself. Such was the demand for more information on the wars, however, he allowed the Man-Kzin wars to become a shared universe series, with the majority of the stories written by other science-fiction authors such as Poul Anderson, Dean Ing, Jerry Pournelle, S.M. Stirling, Greg Bear and others.

The Man Who Would Be Kzin, written in 1991 by Greg Bear and S.M Stirling, appears in the Man-Kzin Wars IV, and The Best of All Possible Wars. It poses the interesting question: how exactly does a human spy infiltrate a civilisation of 8-foot tall anthropomorphic tiger-like cats?

Tuesday June 17th, 19:00: A Dog’s Purpose, Continued

Reincarnation can be confusing for a human; reborn into different lives, trying to learn lessons of the past in order to discover one’s purpose … Imagine what it must be like for a dog.

That’s exactly what humourist W. Bruce Cameron has done in his 2010 best seller A Dog’s Purpose. Bailey, pup of a stray, is rather surprised to find himself reborn as a Golden Retriever after being euthanized. It surprises him even more when, after a happy life involving a young boy, a farm and more, Bailey passes from the world … Only to find himself occupying the body of a German shepherd bitch. Thus comes the realisation that he is serving some higher purpose.

The problem is, and as his lives continue, Bailey can’t figure out exactly what that purpose might be…

Travel with Caledonia Skytower and Kayden Oconnell as they continue their journey through Bailey’s heartwarming and funny tale of many lives, a dog’s-eye commentary on human relationships and the unbreakable bonds between man and man’s best friend; a story in which love never dies, and true friends are always with us.

Wednesday June 18th, 19:00: Tales of Despereaux, Continued

Following-on from Flora and Ulysses, Caledonia Skytower reads from Kate DiCamillo’s first novel to win a prestigious Newbery Award.

The Tales of Despereaux is a story of four parts, each part told from the perspective of a different character. Despereaux Tilling, is a mouse, and the hero of the piece. Born a runt with big ears and eyes, he is an incurable romantic, given to reading tales about knights and princesses. Chiaroscuro is a dungeon rat with an obsession with light, bright things. Miggery Sow is a simply serving girl with an impossible dream.

Together, these three become bound in a tale of dungeons, betrayal, kidnap, redemption and a princess named Pea, as well as a host of other memorable characters.

Thursday June 19th

19:00: Legends of the Brethren Court

Shandon Loring takes to the high seas with none other that a young Jack Sparrow, Pirate Lord of the Caribbean Sea, Captain of the Black Pearl, and the youngest Pirate Lord ever admitted into the Brethren Court. With the Shadow Lord seeking to destroy the Brethren Court and it’s down to Jack – sometimes helped, sometimes hindered, by his fellow brethren Pirate Lords – to prevent it.

21:00 Seanchai Late Night

With Finn Zeddmore

—–

Please check with the Seanchai Library SL’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule. The featured charity for May-June is Habitat for Humanity: envisioning a world where everyone has a decent place to live.

Related Links

SL11B: Lab issues limited edition avatar

Second Life’s eleventh anniversary is a fast approaching – as if you needed any reminding! And in keeping with last year, Linden Lab have entered into the spirit of things by giving away another celebratory avatar.

The SL11B celebratory robot avatar
The SL11B celebratory robot avatar (via Linden Lab)

SL10B saw the Lab offer a large, materials-enabled bear to residents. This year, it’s a robot, and it comes as a rigged mesh avatar supporting fitted mesh. Also in keeping with 2013, it appears to be the first in a series of surprises coming from the Lab during June.

The blog post announcing the offering reads in part:

This robot is sleek and ready to explore the landscapes of Second Life. Made with Fitted Mesh, you can put your own stamp on this android by playing with some of the shape sliders. Just make sure you’re upgraded to a Viewer with Fitted Mesh enabled. There are two ways to get your robot – pick it up inworld at Hairy Hippo Fun Land in Bay City or just visit the Marketplace.

I have to say the little fellow (he is around the same height as the female mesh avatars supplied by the Lab) is rather cute and, in difference to the original release of the mesh avatars (which were updated today!), he does have a modifiable base shape, so can the height and shape can be adjusted using the supported shape sliders.

While it’s always controversial, given that AOs are very much a user creation and a part of general commerce within SL, I still can’t help but feel the Lab could also provide a very basic AO system with items like this – not everyone is liable to have robot-specific AOs in their inventory, so providing one with a basic “robot-y” walk and standing pose wouldn’t go amiss. It might even encourage people to wear the avatar more and go out and purchase additional walks and poses to add to it. But that’s just a very minor point. As I said, the little fellow is rather cute.

A closer look at the robot avatar
A closer look at the robot avatar

Elsewhere in the blog post, the Lab again references the SL11B Community Celebration, and give a reminder to all who are planning SL11B celebrations of their own to make sure they  submit it for inclusion in the special SL11B category of the Destination Guide (use the “Misc” category when submitting the form and indicate the event is for SL11B in the description). For those who prefer, they can send their entries for the Destination Guide via e-mail to: editor@lindenlab.com, and using “SL11B” in the subject line on the email.

Prim Perfect asks what makes a strong SL community, and wants to hear from you

We talk a lot about community in Second Life. It’s a concept that touches on many areas, be it the locations and people where we opt to establish a virtual home, the role-play or other groups where we spend much of our in-world time and a part of what keeps us logging-in.

Community touches on many different aspects of discussion about SL, from how the platform is promoted to the world at large, through new user sign-ups  and user retention through to possible directions the platform and Linden Lab should take to achieve and maintain real growth for SL.

Now Prim Perfect wants to hear from you about the topic and concept of community in Second Life, with a view to exploring feedback as a part of the Prim Perfect interactive installation at the SL11B Community Celebration.

The Prim Perfect pavilion under construction at SL11BCC
The Prim Perfect pavilion under construction at SL11BCC

Whether you have views on how SL should be advertised or on matters of user retention, the training which might be given to new users – or both of these together, Prim Perfect would like to hear from you.

Most of all, they’d like to  explore what “community” means to you: what is important about SL? What keeps you logging-in? What type of community would you like to live in? What do think a community in Second Life needs to remain vibrant?

If you’d like you views to for a part of the installation, please complete the form below, reproduced here on behalf of Prim Perfect (note you are not limited to the size of the text boxes when responding to the questions).

 

SL11B Community Celebration: calling SL bloggers and press!

The days are counting down to the to opening of the SL11B Community Celebration, and the start of a week’s worth of festivities to mark the eleventh anniversary of Second Life throwing wide its doors to the world at large.

The sims have been laid out, and across all of them, people are busily putting together their exhibits. Across the rest of Second Life, entertainers are readying themselves to participate in a 24/7 round of entertainment which will run throughout the celebrations.

The SL11B CC Auditorium by Pygar Bu
A part of the SL11B CC Auditorium, designed by Pygar Bu

While the gates officially open to the public at noon, SLT on Sunday, June 22nd, bloggers and members of the SL press can get to see all of the builds across the 11 regions of the celebrations ahead of the rush.

The SL11B Community Celebration Press Day will be held on Saturday, June 21st. The regions will open at noon, and those attending are welcome to take snapshots, videos and blog about the regions, the exhibits and the attractions. Press packs will be provided to all those attending, containing lots of additional information, as well as goodies donated by exhibitors.

There will also be a series of press tours taking place during the day, all of which will commence at the Welcome Area and will be open to anyone attending the Press Day. Tours will start at 14:00, 16:00 and 18:00 SLT, and will visit all the main attractions.

Inside the rock stage, designed by Kazuhiro Aridian )
Inside the rock stage, designed by Kazuhiro Aridian

If you are a blogger or member of the SL press, and would like the opportunity to preview the SL11BCC regions, please complete and submit the follow below (posted on behalf of the SL11BCC team) before  noon SLT on Wednesday June 18th:

 

Related Links

 

Of catching a thief, being a cat, living a dog’s lives and saving a princess

It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in Voice, brought to Second Life and Kitely by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library.

As always, all times SLT / PDT, and unless otherwise stated, events will be held on the Seanchai Library’s home on Imagination Island.

Sunday June 8th

10:00: Seanchai Kitely: Irish Romance

Join Shandon Loring at Seanchai’s home region in Kitely (hop://osgrid.kitely.com:8002/Seanchai/144/129/29), as he brings us tales of love and romance from the Emerald Isle.

13:30: Tea-time at Baker Street: The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

Tea-time at Baker Street sees Caledonia Skytower, Corwyn Allen and Kayden Oconnell open the pages of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, the final set of twelve Sherlock Holmes short stories first published in the Strand Magazine between October 1921 and April 1927.

This week: The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone

The year is 1903, and John Watson has returned to 221B Baker Street to see his old friend and colleague, Sherlock Holmes. However, he is met not by Holmes, but by Billy Boy, one of the Baker Street Irregulars. Holmes, it seems, is up to his eyeballs trying to solve a case – that of a stolen £100,000 crown diamond.

In due course, Holmes appears, but not before Billy Boy has revealed  – much to Watson’s surprise – a very life-like effigy of the great detective, posed in an armchair as if reading and sitting in the window bay. And if that isn’t enough, Holmes, having exchanged greetings with Watson, dispatches Billy Boy on an errand and promptly adds to the good Doctor’s surprise.

“That boy is a problem, Watson. How far am I justified in allowing him to be in danger?”

“Danger of what, Holmes?”

“Of sudden death. I’m expecting something this evening.”

“Expecting what?”

“To be murdered, Watson.”

Join Cale, Corwyn and Kayden as they unravel one of only two Sherlock Holmes mysteries to be written in the third-person.

Monday June 9th, 19:00: Space Wars: The Man Who Would Be Kzin, Part 2

Gyro Muggins continues to tell a tale drawn from the deadly Man-Kzin Wars.

The Kzinti, are a warlike race Niven first introduced to the world in his 1966 story The Warriors. They permeated many of his stories set in the Known Space series, and well as appearing in his Nebula and Hugo award-winning Ringworld. In his stories, Niven references a series of conflicts between Kzinti and humans, but did not write about the wars himself. Such was the demand for more information on the wars, however, he allowed the Man-Kzin wars to become a shared universe series, with the majority of the stories written by other science-fiction authors such as Poul Anderson, Dean Ing, Jerry Pournelle, S.M. Stirling, Greg Bear and others.

The Man Who Would Be Kzin, written in 1991 by Greg Bear and S.M Stirling, appears in the Man-Kzin Wars IV, and The Best of All Possible Wars. It poses the interesting question: how exactly does a human spy infiltrate a civilisation of 8-foot tall anthropomorphic tiger-like cats?

Tuesday June 10th, 19:00: A Dog’s Purpose, Continued

Reincarnation can be confusing for a human; reborn into different lives, trying to learn lessons of the past in order to discover one’s purpose … Imagine what it must be like for a dog.

That’s exactly what humourist W. Bruce Cameron has done in his 2010 best seller A Dog’s Purpose. Bailey, pup of a stray, is rather surprised to find himself reborn as a Golden Retriever after being euthanized. It surprises him even more when, after a happy life involving a young boy, a farm and more, Bailey passes from the world … Only to find himself occupying the body of a German shepherd bitch. Thus comes the realisation that he is serving some higher purpose.

The problem is, and as his lives continue, Bailey can’t figure out exactly what that purpose might be…

Travel with Caledonia Skytower and Kayden Oconnell as they continue their journey through Bailey’s heartwarming and funny tale of many lives, a dog’s-eye commentary on human relationships and the unbreakable bonds between man and man’s best friend; a story in which love never dies, and true friends are always with us.

Wednesday June 11th, 19:00: Tales of Despereaux, Continued

Following-on from Flora and Ulysses, Caledonia Skytower reads from Kate DiCamillo’s first novel to win a prestigious Newbery Award.

The Tales of Despereaux is a story of four parts, each part told from the perspective of a different character. Despereaux Tilling, is a mouse, and the hero of the piece. Born a runt with big ears and eyes, he is an incurable romantic, given to reading tales about knights and princesses. Chiaroscuro is a dungeon rat with an obsession with light, bright things. Miggery Sow is a simply serving girl with an impossible dream.

Together, these three become bound in a tale of dungeons, betrayal, kidnap, redemption and a princess named Pea, as well as a host of other memorable characters.

Thursday June 12th

16:00: More Stories from the Ozland Galley

With Llola Lane.

19:00: Ladon, Part 2

Shandon Loring continues the tale of Ladon, the first monster to crawl out of the sea in search of food that wasn’t fish, only to acquire an insatiable craving for human flesh. Summoned by Hera, Ladon becomes a pawn in Hera’s plot to destroy Hercules. However, not only do the best laid plans of mice an men oft go astray. so can those hatched by the Queen of the Gods.

—–

Please check with the Seanchai Library SL’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule. The featured charity for May-June is Habitat for Humanity: envisioning a world where everyone has a decent place to live.

Related Links