Category: Events

2019: sixteen years for Second Life and twenty for Linden Lab

Posted on by Inara Pey
Courtesy of Linden Lab

We’re all familiar with the Second Life Birthday (or more correctly, anniversary, given Second Life is technically older than the celebrated date), marking the month and date on which the platform opened its doors to the public – June 23rd, 2003.

In 2018, we celebrated the platform’s 15th anniversary – a remarkable milestone given the speed at which software and hardware and platforms themselves can rise to prominence before fading away, replaced by the Next Big Thing.

However, as Linden Lab noted in a March 14th blog post, this year’s anniversary marks another special year:

Sixteen years ago, on June 23rd, 2003, Second Life launched to the public. Though it feels like just yesterday and a lifetime ago at the same time, this year we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go retro and embrace the “Sweet Sixteen” theme for our big party. Sock hops, bowling alleys, and late nights at the diner were a quintessential part of many teenagers lives back in the 1950s, but the 1950s were also a time of political and social change. The world was shocked by the iconic ‘Elvis pelvis,’ and poodle and pencil skirts changed the fashion world forever. Rebellion became the titillating pastime among all that soda shoppe sweetness. It was an era that – like Second Life – rocked and rolled! So, this summer we’re throwing a 1950s themed SL16B with a TON of fun events and happenings. Here is a brief run-down of just a few.

– Linden Lab official blog post

This year the official celebration period will run from Thursday, June 20th, 2019 through to Tuesday, July 8th, 2019, and to mark it the Lab is promising an array of activities, including:

  • The SL16B Shopping Event: scheduled to run throughout the celebration period, this multi-region shopping event is now accepting applications from merchants. Those wishing to participate should ensure they have applied by June 1st, 2019.
  • The SL16B Music Fest:  popular during recent SLB events, the Music Fest will be returning for 2019, and details on how performers can apply will be forthcoming soon.

There will also be the grand community celebration, plus from the Lab the return of the Swaginator and gifts and parties.

Linden Lab Also Turns Twenty

Courtesy of Linden Lab

2019 also marks anther significant anniversary, one that is also worth noting and I would hope (assuming plans aren’t already in-hand) it will also form a part of the SL16B celebrations: the 20th anniversary of the founding of Linden Lab itself.

Linden Research – to give the company its formal name, although it does business under the name of Linden Lab – was founded in 1999 by Philip Rosedale, the company’s first CEO and former Chief Technology Officer of  Real Networks. The company’s original focus was on the development of a immersive virtual reality system comprising both hardware and software known as “The Rig” (which, rumour would have it, still lies in boxes at the Lab’s head offices in San Francisco.

However, unable to develop a commercially viable version of The Rig, Linden Lab turned to software application, producing LindenWorld, the precursor of Second Life.

Initially developed by Andrew Linden, one of the first employees at the Lab (and who would remain with the company until opting to re-join Philip Rosedale and work on the fledgling High Fidelity). LindenWorld wasn’t open to the public, and was more a game than social environment, with a focus on guns and the avatars were made out of prims and carried the name (appropriately enough, of Primitars.

Then in 2001, during a meeting with investors, that Rosedale and his team noticed those at the meeting were particularly responsive to the collaborative, creative potential of the nascent Second Life.

Thus, the objective, game-like focus of the platform’s development shifted towards a more community-drive, social environment, focused on user-created content, and thus Second Life as we  know it today was “born”. On March 13th, 2002, Steller Sunshine became the first public resident of Second Life, and the platform’s public beta commenced in October of that year. Then in June 2003, Linden Lab released Second Life to the world at large.

The first Second Life trailer

So … here’s an early “happy Birthday” to Linden Lab itself. While we may not always agree with the company or its decisions, the fact remains that without the Lab, many of us might never have entered user-collaborative, immersive social digital environments. So I hope that SL16B will mark the company’s birthday as much as it marks SL’s anniversary.

2019 Spoonful of Sugar merchant registrations

Posted on by Inara Pey
Spoonful of Sugar 2018

The 2019 Spoonful of Sugar (SOS) festival will be opening its doors on Saturday, September 14th, 2019 and will run through until Sunday September 29th. It will bring together fashion, home and garden, breedable designers and creators, artists, DJs and live performers to help raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Merchant registrations for the event are now open, with an extensive range of tiers available for those interested in supporting the event. Full details on these options can be found of the SOS Registration page – all of which should be read in full before applying – but a summary is provided here as a means of quick review.

Sponsor Tiers

Facility

  • Only 15 spots available.
  • 500 Li awarded.
  • 30 x 30 metre build size.
  • 2 x 100% donation to SOS vendors required (more if you wish up to LI limit).
  • As many 50% or 75% donation to SOS vendors as you wish, up to LI limit.
  • Up to 15 vendors allowed for your store (exceptions for hair ans skin vendors – see Registration page).
  • Individual fashion show for your brand – see Registration page).
  • fee: L$9000.

Triage

  • 300 Li awarded.
  • 20 x 25 metre build size.
  • 2 x 100% donation to SOS vendors required (more if you wish, up to LI limit).
  • As many 50% or 75% donation to SOS vendors as you wish, up to LI limit.
  • Up to 12 vendors allowed for your store (exceptions for hair ans skin vendors – see Registration page).
  • Participation in general fashion show.
  • fee: L$6000.

Surgical

  • 200 Li awarded.
  • 15 x 12 metre build size.
  • 1 x 100% donation to SOS vendors required (more if you wish, up to LI limit).
  • As many 50% or 75% donation to SOS vendors as you wish, up to LI limit.
  • Up to 8 vendors allowed for your store (exceptions for hair ans skin vendors – see Registration page).
  • Participation in general fashion show by invitation only, and if space available.
  • fee: L$3000.

Clinical

  • 100 Li awarded.
  • 10 x 8 metre build size.
  • 1 x 100% donation to SOS vendors required (more if you wish, up to LI limit).
  • As many 50% or 75% donation to SOS vendors as you wish, up to LI limit.
  • Up to 4 vendors allowed for your store (exceptions for hair ans skin vendors – see Registration page).
  • fee: L$1000.

Additional notes:

  • All fees form a 100% donation to SOS / MSF and are non-refundable.
  • Each tier has requirements and responsibilities specific to the type of merchant applying (fashion / home and garden / breedables) – again, please refer to the Registration page for details.
    • There are exceptions to these requirements at each tier level as well.
  • All SOS/MSF proceeded items must be placed within SOS vendors that will be supplied by the organisers.
  • Non-scripted vendors must be used for all non-SOS/MSF proceeded items offered for sale.
  • Again, all applicants must read the full requirements and guidelines on the Registration page prior to applying.
Spoonful of Sugar 2017

About Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

Also known as Doctors Without Borders, MSF was founded in Paris, France in 1971 as a non-profit, self-governed medical humanitarian organisation delivering emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare around the globe, based on need, irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation.

Since that time, MSF has grown to a 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. See the video at the end of this article for more on MSF.

Additional Links

Detectives, griffins, bards and animal adventures

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. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home at Holly Kai Park, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, March 10th

13:30: Tea Time with Sherlock Holmes’ Great Hits

As voted for by Seanchai fans, followers and listeners. This week: The Adventure of the Dying Detective, from His Last Bow.

A 1917 anthology of previously published Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, His Last Bow originally comprised seven stories published byThe Strand Magazine between 1908 and 1917, but an eighth was added to later editions. The Adventure of the Dying Detective is the fifth story in the collection.

Sherlock Holmes is dying. That is the shocking discovery Doctor John Watson makes on being called to 221B Baker Street. The Great Detective has apparently contracted a contagious and rare Asian disease while on a case in Rotherhithe. Mrs. Watson confirms Holmes has not eaten or taken a drink in three days.

Wanting to assist his friend, Watson finds himself forced to wait – the contagious nature of Homes’ illness preventing him from carrying out an examination – until six o’clock that evening, when Holmes reveals the name of the one man who can save him, one Culverton Smith. Unfortunately, Smith may not be predisposed to lending assistance, as he is not a doctor, but a man Holmes once implicated in a murder.

Before Watson departs to bring the man to Baker Street, Holmes makes a mysterious request: once he has secured Smith’s agreement to come to Holmes, Watson ensures he returns to Baker Street quite independently of Smith. Confused, but determined to help his dying friend, Watson sets out on his mission …

Find out more by joining Da5id Abbot, Corwyn Allen, Savanah Blindside, and Kayden Oconnell!

18:00 Magicland Storytime: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Have you heard? Willie Wonka is releasing five golden tickets in candy bars! Charlie Bucket may have a chance to find one as Caledonia Skytower presents Roald Dahl’s classic, live on stream!

Monday, March 11th 19:00: Fear of Falling

Published in February 2018, Once Upon A Quest is an anthology of 15 fairytales with a twist, their inspiration ranging from The Ugly Duckling to Snow White, and everything in between (including trips to Camelot and Oz). Here, Shandon Loring reads Fear of Falling by Shawntelle Madison.

The sunset-tinged earth was coming at me, and there was nothing I could do, but I refused to die head-first. I twisted my torso in time. First, my right leg hit a narrow cliff. Crunch. Pain seized my right limb and snatched my breath. Clouded my vision in red. Rocks, snow, and branches plummeted past me. I was falling faster and faster.

Fly, Ireti, fly.

I reached out with my claws—only finding the open air—even my smaller, gold-tipped wings, which should have captured the air and lifted me toward the eternal heavens, did nothing. Up here, the air was frigid and thin—only a griffin with strong wings could take flight.

The end was coming before I’d experienced a beginning.

Cast from her griffin’s nest, Ireti is forced into the cruel world of the ground-walkers below. Before she can fly, Ireti must find the strength to walk, and the key to acceptance lies in an undiscovered place—between two worlds.

Also in Kitely grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI.

Tuesday, March 12th 19:00: Poets and Bards, the legacy of Storytelling

Short stories presented by Caledonia Skytower.

Wednesday, March 13th 19:00: Selections from Wind on the Willows

With Faerie Maven-Pralou.

Thursday, March 14th 19:00: The Lady of Finnegan’s Hearth 1

With Shandon Loring. (Also in Kitely grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI).

VWBPE 2019: keynote speakers announced

Posted on by Inara Pey
via: VWBPE

The 2019  Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE) conference will be taking place between Thursday, April 4th and Saturday April 6th, 2019 inclusive. A grass-roots community event focusing on education in immersive virtual environments, VWBPE attracts 2200-3500 educational professionals from around the world each year.

On Saturday, March 2nd, 2019, the organisers of the event announced their list of keynote speakers – one for each day of the event.

Thursday, April 4th Tom Boellstorff: (Tom Bukowski in SL), a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. His interests have included the anthropology of sexuality, the anthropology of globalization, the anthropology of virtual worlds, Southeast Asian studies, the anthropology of HIV/AIDS, and linguistic anthropology.

The winner of the 2009 Dorothy Lee Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Ecology of Culture, Media Ecology Association, his has authored several books, including Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human, (Princeton University Press, 2008), the result of two years fieldwork in Second Life, living among and observing its residents in exactly the same way anthropologists traditionally have done to learn about cultures and social groups in the so-called real world. He has also co-authored Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method (Princeton University Press, 2012) a concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods to study on-line virtual worlds, including both game and non-game environments.

Tom is perhaps best known for his joint study with Donna Z. Davis, Disability and Virtual Worlds: New Frontiers of Appropriation, which I first wrote about in 2016, and which is the subject of the film Our Digital Selves: My Avatar is me!

VWBPE 2019 keynote speakers: Tom Boellstorff, Tuncer Can and Jonathon Richter

Friday, April 5th Tuncer Can: Tuncer is no stranger to the vLanguages community, a VWBPE 2019 partner. His most recent collaboration with vLanguages is GUINEVERE, an EU Commission funded language learning project. An exploration of the GUINEVERE project in OpenSim will be offered as an Immersive Experience after the conference.

Saturday, April 6th Dr. Jonathon Richter: a long-time friend of virtual and immersive environments, Jonathon Richter is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN). Jonathon will explore with us what works in immersive XR (VR/AR/MR).

Call for Volunteers

VWBPE would not be possible without the dedicated service and support of its volunteers. If you would like to help at the upcoming conference, please sign up today!

Weddings, aliens and tales new and old

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. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home at Holly Kai Park, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, March 3rd, 13:30: Tea Time with Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

Following his retirement from active investigations, Sherlock Holmes moved to the Sussex Downs in order to keep bees. However, the gentility of his retirement takes a turn after an encounter with one Mary Russell, a 15-year-old orphan from the United States who moved to England to live with her Aunt.

Somewhat precocious, Mary Russell is also gifted with wit and intellect, and without anything being planned, the two form a new partnership, Holmes teaching Russell his trade craft and assisting her in solving crimes, their adventures charted by American writer, Laurie R. King.

For six years the two work together, until 1921, when they deal with the case of A Monstrous Regiment of Women. At the end of that adventure, Holmes and Mary are wed – but the matter was only given passing mention in the story.

With The Marriage of Mary Russell, here recounted in voice Savanah Blindside, Da5id Abbot, Kayden OConnell, and Caledonia Skytower, Laurie King revisits the nuptials between the two in a short story that also helps to fill some of the blanks around the relationship between Russell and Holmes.

A Tea Time Special Vote

In March and April, Seanchai Library will be presenting Sherlock Holmes Greatest Hits for the Sunday Tea Time at Baker Street sessions. BUT – which four stories should they present? A short list of 10 of the adventures completed by Holmes and Watson has been drawn up, but Seanchai fans and supporters have the power to select the final four. Just visit Sherlock’s Greatest Hits, read the synopses of the short listed ten stories and place your vote for your preferred stories in the list. The final four will be selected from those receiving the most votes.

Monday, March 4th 19:00: The World Of Ptavvs

Gyro Muggins returns to Larry Niven’s Known Universe to read the first novel Niven ever set within it  – given it was actually he first full-length novel. Within it, he lays many of the seeds, human and alien that would come to define that universe, its characteristics, traits and races.

A reflective statue is found at the bottom of one of Earth’s oceans, having lain there for 1.5 billion years. Humanity’s experiments with time manipulation lead to the conclusion the “statue” is actually an alien caught within a “time slowing” field.

Larry Greenberg, a telepath with highly developed and honed abilities is asked to participate in an attempt to make contact with the alien. This involves Greenberg and the “statue” being places within a single time slowing field, the effect of which is to nullify the one shrouding the alien.

The the new field in operation, Greenberg finds himself in the company of Kzanol, a member of a race called the Thrint. Powerfully telepathic, the Thrint once rules the galaxy pure through their mental powers and the ability to bend the minds of others to their own will. However, in the time that Kzanol has been trapped the result of a malfunction aboard his ship which forced him to abandon it and fall to Earth protected by the stasis field of his space suit, the Thrint were facing a revolt by all the races they had enslaved.

As a result of this, the Thrint had determined to wipe out every race in the galaxy using a thought amplifier. Now, his own mind mixed with that of Kzanol, Greenberg sets out with the alien with the aim of using the weapon to enslave every mind in the solar system…

Tuesday, March 5th 19:00: The Storyteller’s Path

An original story presented by Caledonia Skytower, together with poems by W.B. Yeats, time permitting.

Wednesday, March 6th 19:00: Selections from Wind on the Willows

With Faerie Maven-Pralou.

Thursday, March 7th

19:00: Beyond the Veil

A story from Ancient Ireland. With Shandon Loring. (Also in Kitely grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI).

21:00: Seanchai Late Night

Contemporary science fiction and fantasy with Finn Zeddmore.

A wedding, a saga, tales, poetry and a wild call

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. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home at Holly Kai Park, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, February 24th, 13:30: Tea Time with Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

Following his retirement from active investigations, Sherlock Holmes moved to the Sussex Downs in order to keep bees. However, the gentility of his retirement takes a turn after an encounter with one Mary Russell,  a 15-year-old orphan from the United States  who moved to England to live with her Aunt.

Somewhat precocious, Mary Russell is also gifted with wit and intellect, and without anything being planned, the two form a new partnership, Holmes teaching Russell his trade craft and assisting her in solving crimes, their adventures charted by American writer, Laurie R. King.

For six years the two work together, until 1921, when they deal with the case of A Monstrous Regiment of Women. At the end of that adventure, Holmes and Mary are wed – but the matter was only given passing mention in the story.

With The Marriage of Mary Russell, here recounted in voice Savanah Blindside, Corwyn Allen, and Caledonia Skytower, Laurie King revisits the nuptials between the two in a short story that also helps to fill some of the blanks around the relationship between Russell and Holmes.

A Tea Time Special Vote

In March and April, Seanchai Library will be presenting Sherlock Holmes Greatest Hits for the Sunday Tea Time at Baker Street sessions. BUT – which four stories should they present? A short list of 10 of the adventures completed by Holmes and Watson has been drawn up, but Seanchai fans and supporters have the power to select the final four. Just visit Sherlock’s Greatest Hits, read the synopses of the short listed ten stories and place your vote for your preferred stories in the list. The final four will be selected from those receiving the most votes.

Monday, February 25th 19:00: Hanta Yo: An American Saga

Gyro Muggins reads Ruth Beebe Hill’s extraordinary novel that is either loved or hated – and has certainly proven controversial since its first publication.

Lyrically written, the story is, at its core, a multi-generational saga follows the lives of two Indian families, members of the Mahto band of the Teton Sioux, before and during their first contact with the white man and his “manifest destiny.” Within its sweeping story, Hill attempted to fashion an epic, Native American version of Alex Haley’s Roots.

Allegedly based in part on writings translated from a Lakota Sioux winter account translated by a First Nation Sioux, the story is certainly cohesive and vivid. For those unfamiliar with the lives and rituals of the Plains Indians of North America, it makes for a fascinating and enlightening read.

However, to some in the Lakota, the book is seen as demeaning and misrepresentative – a fact Hill herself finds baffling. Whilst she fully acknowledges the story is a “documented novel” – a fictional story based on actual events – she also notes that she spent some 20 or more years researching Hanta Yo and carrying out hundreds of interviews with representatives of the Sioux, Kiowa, Omaha, Cheyenne, and Navajo tribes, including allowing them access to her manuscript to verify the historical elements from their standpoint.

Event today, in the year of the 40th anniversary since its first publication, Hanta Yo divides opinions. So why not settle down with Gyro to hear the tale first hand?

Tuesday, February 26th 19:00: Selections from Wind on the Willows

With Faerie Maven-Pralou.

Wednesday, February 27th 19:00: Winter Sea in Poetry and Music

With Ktahdn Vesuvino (on stream) and Caledonia Skytower (in Voice)

Thursday, February 28th 19:00: The Call of the Wild, Part 2

First published in 1903, The Call of the Wild is regarded as Jack London’s masterpiece.

Based on London’s experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness and his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence, The Call of the Wild is a tale about unbreakable spirit and the fight for survival in the frozen Alaskan Klondike.

With Shandon Loring. (Also in Kitely grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI).