Category: Second Life

A butler, a first contact and tales in words and music

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, August 11 13:30: Tea Time with Jeeves

Just for summer, Seanchai Library takes a dive into the world of Reginald Jeeves, a well-educated, intelligent valets of indeterminate age who is employed by the amiable young man-about-town, Bertie Wooster, whom Jeeves routinely has to benignly rescue from the consequences of his idiocy.

Created by author, humorist, and lyricist (working with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern) Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (October 1881 – February 1975), Jeeves and Wooster are perhaps his most iconic characters, their adventures eventually growing to 35 short stories and 11 novels, the majority of which are first-person narrated from the perspective of Bertie Wooster.

This week comes the second part of The Inimitable Jeeves.

A semi-novel published in the UK and the United States in 1923, The Inimitable Jeeves brings together 11 previously published stories structured as “chapters” rather than appearing as individual stories, giving the volume the appearance of being a novel something initially enhanced in early editions, which split the first five and final story into two chapters apiece, giving the impression the book was 18 chapters long (later editions reversed this, each story being just a single chapter for 11 in total).

The stories also add to the novel-like feel, as they each focused variously on a small group of characters throughout including Bertie’s Aunt Agatha, his somewhat inept friend Bingo, and his cousins Claude and Eustace, brought together with Jeeves and Wooster in some familiar Wodehouse themes.

Join Da5id Abbot, Kayden Oconnell, and Caledonia Skytower as they read this delightful series at Ceiliuradh Glen.

Monday, August 12th 19:00: Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama

Gyro Muggins reads one of the greatest science fiction novels of human first contact with alien intelligence.

In 2131, a fast-moving object of extremely large size is detected beyond the orbit of Jupiter travelling on a course that will see it pass through the inner solar system to swing around the Sun, before heading out into space. An automated probe launched from Mars reveals the object to be a perfect cylinder, 50 km long and 20in diameter rotating regularly along its long axis and clearly artificial in nature.

The deep space survey vessel Endeavour, her crew untrained for first contact scenarios, is the only vessel that can intercept the cylinder as it uses the Sun’s gravity well to accelerate and bend its path onto a new trajectory. After a high-speed chase, the Endeavour reaches the cylinder – christened Rama by those who first identified it – and finds one of the end caps has curious triple chamber airlock systems within it. Through one of them, the crew gains access to the object.

What they find within stuns them: the cylinder is hollow, a 50x16km “tube” the inner surface of which forms a circular world of three parts:  a large plain, with six city-like groups of structures scattered around it, a central band of frozen water the crew call the Cylindrical Sea with a single long, thin island (which they dub “New York” due to its superficial similarity to Manhattan island). Beyond the sea lies a landscape of split into cubes and squares, dominated by a group of massive cones extending inward along the cylinder’s long axis from southern end cap.

Initially in darkness and frigid when the Endeavour’s crew enter, the cylinder gradually comes to life, revealing its strange alien nature, where everything appears to be done in triplicate (or multiples thereof). And then, as tensions among the human civilisations across the solar system rise, the “Ramans” appear.

Tuesday, August 13th 19:00: Words and Music on the Wind

With Ktadhn Vesuvino, live on stream.

Wednesday, August 14th: A Cyberpunk Summer

Short stories with Finn Zeddmore.

Thursday, August 15th 19:00: The Blue Salt Road

An earthly nourris sits and sings
And aye she sings, “Ba lilly wean,
Little ken I my bairn’s father,
Far less the land that he staps in.

– Child Ballad, no. 113

So begins a stunning tale of love, loss and revenge, against a powerful backdrop of adventure on the high seas, and drama on the land. The Blue Salt Road balances passion and loss, love and violence and draws on nature and folklore to weave a stunning modern mythology around a nameless, wild young man.

Passion drew him to a new world, and trickery has kept him there – without his memories, separated from his own people. But as he finds his way in this dangerous new way of life, so he learns that his notions of home, and your people, might not be as fixed as he believed.

With Shandon Loring, also Also in Kitely – teleport from the main Seanchai World grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI.

A Nordic story in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Nevglide Gaard, August 2019 – click any image for full size

Nevglide Gaard is described by its designer and holder, Neaira Aszkenaze as “the second chapter in the Nevgilde Story”, continuing as it does the Nordic theme of Neaira’s builds, which are intended to offer something of a feel of the wilds of Norway. We visited the first chapter, Nevglide Forest, back in late 2018 (see: Nevgilde Forest in Second Life), so when Shawn Shakespeare poked me with a reminder that Nevglide Gaard was open for exploration, we were happy to hop over and resume explorations.

This second chapter sits within a new – and slightly smaller – location: a parcel of some 8176 sq metres. It sits with a north-south orientation, two sides open to the sea and the entire design once again proof that you don’t actually need an entire region to create something eye-catching and worth visiting.

Nevglide Gaard, August 2019

The parcel offers a rugged finger of Norwegian coastline, knuckled by bare rock that cut by a single west-flowing stream that tumbles down from the northern wooded uplands to reach the sea. No landing point was enforced at the time of our visit, so I’ve arbitrarily set one for this article using the small island located at the southern end of the parcel, and separated from the rest of the setting by a shallow neck of water spanned by flat-topped rocks for easy crossing.

The island, with its little camp site, offers an excellent vantage point from which to view the rest of the land, looking northwards over the narrow curve of a beach sculpted into the landscape by time and water, past the single house that stands above it, and onwards towards those northern highlands. Reindeer graze on the upper slope of the island, while a set of wooden steps lead down to the water’s edge and the rocky crossing to the beach.

Nevglide Gaard, August 2019

Backed by a shelf of flat rock, the beach is a mixture of sand and shingle, a partially-finished raft lying just offshore. Steps lead up to the lone house, a marvellous and cosy wood-framed abode designed by Neaira herself (as an aside, her store sits in the sky over the parcel – see her profile for a TP – although the house does not appear to be offered for sale, sadly).

The house is clearly the home for the largely self-sufficient: chickens and goats are being bred, apples are being grown, and a and pump offers the means to get fresh, clean water from deep below ground.  Meanwhile, the bric-a-brac around the house and grass yard further adds to the sense that this is  very much a “working” home, those occupying it enjoying their lifestyle and the freedoms it brings.

Nevglide Gaard, August 2019

A path winds down from the north side of the little plateau on which the house sits to meet with a log bridge for those who wish to cross the fast-flowing stream and climb the rocky uplands. Wooded but with shallow and deep ledges of their own, these uplands can be scrambled up using further log climbs and offer another vantage point for looking out over the land, as well as an alternate landing point should you opt to take a landmark of your own.

Like Nevglide Forest before it, this is a place that is easy to explore and that encourages people to tarry for a while, whether they wander, or relax on the wooden deck to one side of the house or down on the beach or out on the little southern island.  Rounded off with a subtle and immersive sound scape, Nevglide Gaard is a place to lift the spirit as well as offering plenty of opportunities for photography.

Nevglide Gaard, August 2019

SLurl Details

2019 SL User Groups 32/2: TPVD meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Witchwood; Inara Pey, June 2019, on FlickrWitchwood, June 2019 – blog post

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, August 9th, 2019. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording and providing it. The key points of discussion are provided below with time stamps to the relevant points in the video, which will open in a separate tab when clicked.

This was another  short meeting.

SL Viewer

[0:34-3:12]

The Umeshu Maintenance RC viewer updated to version 6.2.4.529755 on Wednesday August 7th.

The remaining pipelines are as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer dated June 5th, promoted June 18th – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16th.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, June 5th. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, promoted to release status 29th November 2017 – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Viewer Promotions

The hope is that some of the current four RC will gain promotion to full release status in August, as the bug list on all of them is “really small”.

In Brief

Inventory Issues, Fixes and Log-in Changes

[3:34-10:50]

  • Some Firestorm users are reporting an uptick in inventory issue, such as corruptions. It appears that, while usually a last resort, clearing inventory cache may correct it if it occurs.
  • There is some work being carried out by the Lab that improves their ability to fix back-end inventory issues. This work is getting an “unusually thorough” QA pass, so may be a while before it is ready for support deployment.
  • Also, the Lab is working on a new log-in process that adds more checks to the inventory queries performed during log-in.
    • Currently, some of the queries, a necessary part of the log-in process, can be subject to database look-up failures that go unreported to the viewer, leading to inventory issues for the user.
    • The new process will ensure that if a query fails, an error message will be returned to the viewer, allowing it to request further look-ups. However, it will be a while before this enters production.
  • A reminder that large flat inventories (e.g. thousands of items on the same level) can cause the inventory queries to time-out and log-in to time-out. Should this happen, an inventory transform can be requested from support, which breaks large flat inventories down into a folder structure.

Second Life Engineering Jobs

[16:23-17:25]

  • The position for a Second Life Senior Graphics Engineer remains open.
  • A new position has opened for a software engineer (C++). Oz linden “would love” to recruit someone who has the relevant experience / background and who is a Second Life resident.
  • Applicants need to be US residents.

Sisi, Kayly and Debbie in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Sisi Biedermann’s Gallery and Garden – Sisi Biedermann

I recently paid a further visit to Sisi Biedermann’s Gallery and Garden, which I last visited in November 2018. Since that time, the gallery has undergone a revamp, so I was curious to see the new look, and also the two exhibitions that opened at the start of August and will remain so through until the latter part of September.

The upper three floors of the gallery continue to present Sisi’s own artwork, which as I’ve noted before is the most extraordinary digital work. Produced in the physical world and then uploaded to Second Life, Sisi’s art is the very definition of crossing and re-crossing the digit divide: a physical world artist who produces the must remarkable digital pieces for upload to a digital world, allowing it to be seen and purchased by a global physical world audience.

Sisi Biedermann’s Gallery and Garden – Sisi Biedermann

Combining multiple elements – original art (digital and paintings), elements drawn from Second Life and her imagination – all brought together to form richly layered and texture pieces that combine aspects of collage and montage to produce the most stunning pieces that are utterly engaging and completely captivating. As I’ve said before, those who have not seen Sisi’s art first hand really should drop in and do so.

At the same time, visitors can also available themselves of the exhibitions by Kayly Iali and Debbie7155.

Sisi Biedermann’s Gallery and Garden – Kayly Iali

Kayly is an artist who has been broadening her portfolio of her physical world art uploaded to Second Life over the last while, and here presents a series of her abstract art, with ten 2D pieces and three free-standing items. There are – to me at least – some of the most captivating pieces in her catalogue of work.

Abstract art is potentially the hardest to grasp to the point of being simplistic by some. Kayly’s work, however demonstrates the richness of the technique, particularly with pieces like Orchestra (above), and Creation, but also through the likes of Fires Storms – which also have a particularly poignancy given the environmental situation that places like California and Siberia have so recently faced.

Sisi Biedermann’s Gallery and Garden – Debbie7155

Debbie7155 is an artist I have not previously encountered in Second Life, and her exhibition of fourteen pieces offered here are richly diverse in presenting her work as a physical world artist. All of them have there own appeal, but I found myself particularly drawn to her three watercolour paintings of animals (above), while her acrylic on canvas Moon contains a delightfully Warhol-like echo.

Sisi, Kayly and Debbie demonstrate the power Second Life offers in the presentation of physical world art to a global audience an artist might otherwise not reach, and those who appreciate this should take the opportunity to drop into Sisi’s gallery as see for themselves.

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Rain, sand, surfboards and go karts in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Totem Beach, August 2019 – click any image for full size

Totem Beach is a Homestead region designed by Tlaloc Beresford designed to give visitors a range of land and water activities for their enjoyment.

Nestled along the Pacific North West, Totem Beach awaits those enjoy the ocean and forests of the region. Surf the waves, dive the canyons, or walk through the forest and lay down some roots of your own in this beautiful region.

– The About Land description for Totem Beach

The ground level of the region is largely given over to water – a rocky bay caught in the arms of tall hills. These lie partially open the sea to the west, but curl around to the east to form a backdrop to the region’s single landmass, a range of high cliffs oriented north-to-south, overlooking a west-facing ribbon of sandy beach.

Totem Beach, August 2019

The setting embraces the Pacific North West’s  reputation for rain, which falls from the sky to the beach and the cliff top woodlands alike. Up on the cliff tops, the rain causes a ground mist to rise, which lurks around the trunks of the trees.

The woods are cut by a path that follows the western lip of the cliffs that connect various tepees, tents and cabins that are available for rent (note that those that are rented nay have parcel access control enabled, and thus blocked from public access.

Totem Beach, August 2019 – Mario Karting with power-ups!

Another path winds down to the beach, where surf boards and a jet ski rezzer await those who join the region’s group (which includes rezzing rights), allowing them to enjoy time out on the water and surfing on the region’s incoming waves.

For those who prefer quieter pursuits , there are places to sit and watch the action along the beach and up on the cliffs, while those who like their action on land can take any of the region’s teleport points up to the go kart track area hidden in the sky.

The latter offers two courses to race either against the clock or other drivers – or both. The system is based on the Mario Kart franchise, including the ability to chose one of several of that game’s Karts (I opted for Yoshi’s because – well, Yoshi  🙂 ). As it is based on Mario Kart, it also includes power-up boxes that provide weapons to take out your opponents (bursting the balloons on the back of their karts with each hit) and bonuses, allowing for something of the full measure of the game to be met.

For those looking for a public region that offers things to do that aren’t too taxing, Totem Beach offers an easy-going diversion that can be fun when visited with one or more friends.

Totem Beach, August 2019

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Linden Endowment for the Arts: update

Posted on by Inara Pey
Storm Septimus, Untitled – LEA 28, March 2018

As I blogged in mid-July, the Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) as we currently know it is due to close at the end of August (see: Linden Endowment for the Arts to officially close). Following that news, I further blogged about a move to try and save – or replace – the LEA (see: LEA: more on the closure, and a move to save it).

Obviously, any move to save / replace the LEA would require the (preferably active) involvement of Linden Lab. In the meantime, Tansee Resident and Riannah Avora, the two artists who formed the in-world group to try to save the LEA have been collecting ideas and feedback from artists and those supportive of LEA, which have been supplied to them via note cards. On August 7th, Tansee contacted me to let me know of the current situation:

I will share with you that we have 33 note cards and I would say 90% of all the ideas presented are all the same, so we know that we are moving forward in the right direction.

One of the note cards received came via Scylla Rhiadra, who took up my request to collate comments put forward in the forum thread also on the subject – so I’d like to pass on my thanks to Scylla for doing that!

The Eternal Suspense, Giovanna Cerise - LEA 21
Giovanna Cerise, The Eternal Suspense – LEA 21, May 2015

Tansee also confirmed – as per comments made through the “LEA 2.0” group, that contact has been made with Derrick and Patch Linden, and a meeting has been set-up to discuss what the group has been doing and the ideas that have been gathered.

In the meantime, people have also contacted the Lab directly on the subject, which has prompted the following general reply:

Thank you for your expressed interest in the Linden Endowment of the Arts (LEA) program. As this program comes to an end we are considering our options to move forward with Arts Program support. Once a decision is made on how best to support the amazing talents within the Second Life community we will post a public blog so that everyone will have an equal opportunity for involvement.

Thank you for your support of The Arts in Second Life,

Linden Lab™

Tansee has dropped a line to Izzy Linden, from whose account the above was sent, to confirm the planned meeting is still going ahead and to ask if input from the group is still required / welcomed.

None of this means that the LEA will be “saved” of course, but it is encouraging that the Lab is considering matters internally, and is willing to hear from residents in the matter. As such, I’ll endeavour to provide further updates as and when possible / appropriate.