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, November 7th: That Hell-Bound Train
Martin, an out-of-luck orphan, struggles to fulfil the American dream – but fate conspires against him at every turn.
On the verge of giving up hope, our young protagonist is visited by a monstrous train, one whose conductor might just have a ticket to fame and riches… if Martin is willing to pay the price!
Join Gyro Muggins as he reads this classic short story.
Currently open at the Third Eye Gallery, curated by Jaz (Jessamine2108), is an exhibition of art by Zia Branner entitled EUNOIA, drawing on the ancient Greek word.
Essentially meaning “beautiful thinking, a well mind”, the word’s usage is more complicated than that. Originally, it was applied to the art of oration, and the need for speakers to cultivate a sense of goodwill between themselves and their audiences to encourage a better reception of their ideas and / or viewpoint. However, Aristotle used it to define the foundations for an ethical existence: the kindness and benevolence flowing between spouses. In this, it might be taken to mean approval, sympathy and readiness to help.
Both Isocrates, and (later) Cicero leaned towards a more political usage of the term (eúnoiã, in the case of the latter): as a means to describe an individual’s feelings toward party, or the city-state, and the benevolence in which the city-state or party so hold city-state should bear towards the honest citizens, and allow them their right to hold an opinion. Much more recently, it is used as a means of referencing good mental health and general good disposition.
Third Eye Gallery: Zia Branner EUNOIA
It is in terms of finding that mental balance and our desire / need / want / struggle to achieve it that Zia presents this collection of her art. Presented in her familiar mix of abstract and impressionistic work, these are piece in which – as the artist notes in her introduction to to this exhibition – the ebb and flow of colours (for Zia, red and blue) represent the ebb and flow of our emotions in that drive to try to achieve that sense of equilibrium.
In all lives from time to time it isn’t easy to have a mind in balance. We have our downs, we have our challenges. There is cold, there is warmth. Our strength then lays in our goodwill, in our kindness and with this the balance in our mind and our well being goes up again.
– Zia Branner
There is something faintly ironic in the idea that “balance” is something that should be sought after; the idea that we must strive for it through meditation or study or exercise or whatever so often can lead to frustration or annoyance that the calming balance we desire remains tantalisingly out of reach. Yet through art we can find that balance, be it as the artist or the witness. For the artist, the act of creating art can be a harmonising act; bringing the disparate parts of self together to present a finished work; for the witness, it presents the opportunity to become lost within the flow of a piece of art, to naturally put aside consciousness of self, and thus achieve that inner equilibrium.
Third Eye Gallery: Zia Branner EUNOIAAll of this is present in the 11 images offered in this collection. Whether you see the expressions of mood / emotion in Zia’s red and blue or other colours or whether to see the expression of a coastal scene or of a daydream matters not; these are pictures in which it is easy to lose oneself in the flow of colour or the contrast of hard and soft line – and in doing so, perhaps find a balance of thought for yourself.
Come Write In, November 2022 – click any image for full size
November is a notable month for many reasons; however, for budding (and some established) writers, it is National Novel Writing Month (often shortened to NaNoWriMo) – a 30-day challenge to write a novel of at least 50,000 words. The brainchild of San Francisco freelance writer Chris Baty, the project was actually first held in July 1999, but moved to November in 2000 to take advantage of the “miserable weather”.
During its first year, the project saw 21 people take part. In 2000, 140 participated, and the project gained the attention of US national press and also bloggers such that by 2001, the numbers taking part had grown to 5,000; and things snowballed from there. By 2005, the project had been registered as a non-profit organisation in the US and had gained international status with budding writers the world over participating annually.
Come Write In, November 2022
I mention this because Kestrel Evergarden has established Come Write In – a Writer’s Retreat, a place where Second Life writers can visit, relax, hone their writing skills and develop their NaNoWriMo entry – or simply write for their own pleasure or talk writing. Occupying a cosy parcel on the north side of Heterocera, Come Write In offers numerous points of retreat, indoors and out, where writers might relax in-world and listen to the voice of their muse.
The home of a small, but growing community of writers – visitors are welcome to join the local Come Write In (CWI) group – the setting offers, in the words of its Destination Guide entry:
Private tents and communal space, games to unwind with, and an inspiring setting beautifully landscaped to call for your Muse … CWI offers prompts, resources, and more to help you reach that 50k in 30 days goal, and more.
Come Write In, November 2022
Nor is this purely a Second Life only adventure – Come Write In is an officially recognised NaNoWriMo virtual write-in location, open to writers from outside of SL.
From the roadside landing point, CWI offers a number of indoor spaces (one of which looked to be a new development at the time of my visit) built around a deck and open-air café. Alongside of these sits a terrace space for discussions, a games area with table-top games and a winding path that winds through a landscaped setting visitors and writers alike might explore.
Come Write In, November 2022
This meandering path wanders past a round pond fed by a stream that tumbles its way through the setting, passing under a pair of bridges which bracket the pond, before vanished into a tunnel. The path also offers access to the private tents mentioned in the DG description. These are available for short-term rental (L$50 a week, and provided with their own furnishings. These are offered for the purposes of unwinding and (again) retreats where one might exercise one’s writing muscles – or use as a place to toss around ideas with a close friend or two.
Rich in plants and wildlife, with plenty to see, CWI forms an excellent retreat for both budding writers and for those looking for a quiet, natural retreat.
Are usually chaired by Reed Linden, who is the Lab’s Product Manager for the Second Life front-end web properties (Marketplace, secondlife.com, the sign-up pages, the Lab’s corporate pages, etc.).
A video of the meeting, courtesy of Pantera, can be found embedded at the end of this article (my thanks to her as always!), and subject timestamps to the relevant points in the video are provided. Again, the following is a summary of key topics / discussions, not a full transcript of everything mentioned.
All of the currently planned updates are complete and are awaiting the opportunity to “turn them all on”. This will likely happen (with an announcement) ahead of US Thanksgiving, 2022.
Some of the noted updates include:
Merchant and store names will no long be searched in product searches.
Searches for exact matches (using quotation marks around search descriptors) has been added.
Wildcard (e.g. using *) will be possible.
The back-end supports fuzzy matching to better handle typos when inputting searches.
There should be a noticeable increase in speed of search results being returned.
Once running, these updates will allow LL to add-in the relevance engine AI to the Marketplace search (as a separate API entity to the relevance engine already running on the web search).
Work will resume on Marketplace Styles (allowing multiple colours, etc., for an item to appear within a single listing rather than each requiring its own listing) as soon as the MP Search updates are officially enabled.
It is hoped this capability will be available towards year-end.
It will obviously be up to merchants as to whether they use it to group variances in a product within a single listing or continue to list them separately – single listings for multiple versions of an item will not be mandatory.
A complete re-write of every route by which users can obtain and hold land, from Premium (+Plus) Linden Homes, obtaining Mainland (incl. Abandoned Land), and private island regions, and renting from private estates.
The first element of the land work to be user-facing will be the new Land Portal, a central hub from which to get to all aspects of land “ownership”.
Overall, this work is not liable to be surfaced much before the end of 2022.
When it does, it should be looked upon as a template / proof of concept for overhauling the rest of the Second Life web properties to give them a coherent appearance; make it easier to maintain existing web portals and pages and to add new ones; make SL’s web presence more performant overall and ensure it works on mobile devices as well as desktops / laptops.
The new subscription option is to be called simply (if possibly confusingly) “Plus”.
This is designed to sit between Basic and Premium.
Its core intent is to unlock the ability to hold land on the Mainland, although it will have a modest stipend associated with it + a small bump in the number of allowed Groups.
Pricing is subject to the formal announcement that Plus is available, which is anticipated as being by the end of November.
It is hoped that once available and given time to determine how it performs / users respond to Plus, that further subscription levels – which may possibly include an “a-la carte” option – can be defined and added to the selection.
Premium Plus (and Premium) to be Renamed in the future?
It was suggested that the new subscription level would be better named “Basic Plus” – something that was not dismissed by Reed as an informal means of referencing it.
However, the Lab is apparently considering single-word names for all current and future subscription offerings, and Reed indicated that if this is the case, then Premium Plus is likely to be renamed at some point in the future, and this renaming might extend to Premium as well.
In Brief
It is hoped that a future Marketplace update will allow store owners to have access to search metrics for their items (e.g. which items are being popularly searched / purchased, etc.). However, this is not part of the Search updates described above.
The web properties updates will likely include improvements to the web version of the World Map. However, what these changes may be & which they might be implemented is very much still TBD.
Web profiles will not be entirely shut down for as long as the profile Feed remains popular with users – this is the one element of Web Profiles that has not been moved back into the viewer (and appears unlikely to do so).
It has been noted that if a user has the Profile Feed set to Private, the new Legacy Profile viewer code shows a broken version of their web profile in the Web tab.
For all other discussion points, please refer to the video below.
Next Meeting
Wednesday, December 7th, 2022. Venue and time per top of this summary.
I found it hard to believe that two years have passed since I last visited an exhibition of Milly Sharple’s fabulous digital art; so when I recently happened across a Landmark to her current gallery, I knew I would have to pay a visit.
For those who may not be familiar with Milly and her work, she is a successful artist and photographer in the physical world. Not only is her art sold on a global basis, it has been used for book and CD cover art, in promotional material, posters for theatrical productions, and even on bank cards. In 2020 she was invited to do a collaboration representing the Covid pandemic with Salvador Dali’s protégé, Louis Markoya.
Milly Sharple – November 2022
Milly joined Second Life in 2008, and established her first gallery the following year. Not content with simply displaying and selling her work in-world, she also established the Timamoon Arts Community, which in its day, hosted over 40 resident artists and was regarded as one of the most successful and popular art communities on the grid before circumstance forced Milly to retire the region on which it was based.
As one of the pioneers in introducing the world of fractal art to Second Life audiences, and while in recent years her work has diversified as she continues to develop and extend her range of artistic expression, fractals have remained an integral part of her creativity. To produce these pieces, she works with Apophysis, and open-source software package which allows her to create soft, flowing, liquid effects that sets her work apart from other, more rigidly geometric fractal art that can also be found displayed within Second Life. It’s an approach that not only acts a a differentiator between her work and other fractal art, it also gives her work a stunningly organic look and feel, rich in life.
Milly Sharple – November 2022
Alongside her fractal pieces, Milly also produces digital portraits that combine her use of organic forms with the human face and body. Flowing with intentionally rich and vivid colour, these pieces have a life that is both connected to, yet utterly separate from, her fractal pieces, containing as they do their own stunning depth of expression. These portraits share the upper floor of the gallery along with pieces that enfold within them elements of abstract expressionism, pure abstractionism and touches of surrealism in a further engaging selection of digital images.
And if this weren’t enough, the gallery offers a rich vein of Milly’s 3D sculptures and pieces. These again fold within them those elements of natural, organic form and multiple artistic genres to offer a rich and engaging select of pieces that work individual and collectively as works suitable for display in one’s own home.
Taken individually or as intentional sets (such as We Didn’t Start the Fire … Or Did We? – a quite marvellous commentary on climate and ecological disasters that can be said to have their roots in our own role in impacting the world’s climate), Milly’s work is always expressive not just visually, but in offering an idea or story.
Milly Sharple – November 2022
Offering the full richness of Milly’s art, a visit to her gallery is a must for anyone interested in either her work or in the potential of Second Life presents to physical world artists to display their work to a global audience.
On Tuesday, November 1st, 2022, Linden Lab announced that Homestead regions are now available to Premium Plus members directly from Linden Lab and without the need to hold a Full region.
The offering was first indicated as a “coming” Premium Plus benefit during the Lab Gab session with Grumpity and Patch Linden held on October 21st – see here for a summary of that event – and the November 1st announcement builds on this.
In short the details are:
Premium Plus members are now able to hold one private Homestead region from Linden Lab against their account:
Those intending to avail themselves of the option should also review the Private Regions knowledge base article.
Regions can be requested using a Support Ticket via support.secondlife.com. Tickets should:
Place an order via Land & Region → Order Private Region.
Provide a unique name for the region (in accordance with the region naming rguidelines) and a preferred location on the grid for placement.
The region can be held only as long as the member maintains their Premium Plus account. Should they downgrade to Premium (or any forthcoming Premium subscription level that does not include the Homestead “benefit”) or to Basic will lose the region.
There are no other changes to Homestead ownership, including the fact that anyone is able to own Homestead regions as long as there is at least one Full private region owned on that account as well, and pay the required fees.
Does This Make Premium Plus More Attractive?
Whether the ability to hold a Homestead region when taken on its own will make Premium Plus a worthwhile upgrade is questionable.
If you are not already a Premium or Premium Plus member, then looking at Premium Plus purely in terms of a means to obtain a Homestead region probably isn’t a worthwhile proposition.
When you add the minimum monthly fee for Premium Plus (US $20.75) to the Homestead region tier of US $109, it likely comes out to more than the monthly cost of renting a Homestead region from an established private rental estate.
Both renting privately and holding a Homestead via Premium Plus have the same core risk: paying the monthly tier.
If you are currently a Premium Member, then looking at Premium Plus purely as a means to obtain a Homestead region is a little less clear-cut.
On the one hand, upgrading to Premium Plus from Premium costs at least an extra US $12.5 a month.
On the other, this fee, plus the month Homestead tier will still be a competitive outlay when compared to renting a homestead through a private estate.
If you are a Basic or Premium member who already sees value in other Premium Plus benefits (such as the reduced fee for Name Changes, the other reduced fees, etc.), and are attracted to the idea of holding your own region, then upgrading to Premium Plus is liable to be worthwhile and cost-effective.
This last point is really the key to this offer: obtaining a Homestead is not the sole benefit available to those upgrading to Premium Plus, so it needs to be considered as a part of the overall package of benefits, and any decision made on upgrading should be made on that basis. For example, the option of holding a Homestead region is of little interest to me – but the forthcoming Premium Plus Linden Homes do. I’m therefore waiting to see what happens on that front before I make any decision on a potential move from Premium to Premium Plus.
