Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, July 14th
This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer dated June 5, promoted June 18 – No change.
Release channel cohorts:
Bakes on Mesh RC viewer updated to version 6.3.0.529185 on July 11th.
Love Me Render viewer updated to version 6.2.4.529065 on July 9th.
Kokua updated to version 6.2.3.45800 (non-RLV) and 6.2.3.45801 (RLV variants) on July 12th (release notes).
V1-style
No updates.
Mobile / Other Clients
Lumiya is currently unavailable through Google Play – see my article and update here. However, it remains available to new users (or can be re-purchased if urgent) via SlideMe.
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, July 14th 13:00: 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.
In Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg things get very turned around as – once again – things go sideways, thanks to the relative of one of Bertie’s friends.
Set in New York, the tale sees Bertie visited by his friend “Bicky” Bickersteth, who is in something of a panic. Bicky has been living off of an allowance supplied to him by his uncle, the Duke of Chiswick – the condition being that Bicky use the allowance to improve himself financially, which he hasn’t found particularly appealing. Now his uncle is coming to New York to see just how well he is doing.
At Jeeves’ suggestion, Bertie and Bicky hit on a plan: Bicky will pretend to own Bertie’s apartment and Bertie will pose as his valet. To ensure things don’t get too out of hand, Jeeves will take on the role of Bicky’s visiting friend.
Things start out well enough: the Duke of Chiswick arrives and is duly impressed with the apartment and Bicky’s apparent success. Perhaps a little too well: the Duke has decided that since Bicky is doing so well, he doesn’t actually require any allowance.
From here, confusion steps in, involving chickens, handshakes-for-money, and a touch of blackmail; but it all leads to a satisfactory outcome, one that also includes the loss of a moustache that has caused some distress…
Join Da5id Abbot, Kayden Oconnell, and Caledonia Skytower as they read this delightful series at Ceiliuradh Glen.
Frost is seen in summer and ice patches form in spite of the hot Australian sun. To the Happy Folk, living on the continent’s green edges, the frost is a reason to laugh and joke. For the Inlanders (Wrightson’s fantasy view of the Australian Aboriginals), however, the frost was once seen as a warning that an ancient foe, the ice-bearded Ninya, were on the rise – and so it might be that they are again.
The first to recognise the rise of the old threat is young Wirrun of the People. He leaves his job and sets out to meet the Ninya, taking with him as a sidekick, the petulant Mimi, and for protection, the Power bestowed by the first of the creatures in their path.
To assist in his quest, Wirrun sends for the men from Mount Conner to sing the Ninya down and keep them in their caves. But he must also beat the Ninya to the Eldest Nargun, source of fire, and use it to hold the Ninya until the men from Mount Conner arrive. And so his adventure begins.
Tuesday, July 16th 19:00: The Penderwicks in Spring
Springtime is finally arriving on Gardam Street, and there are surprises in store for each member of the family. Some surprises are just wonderful, like neighbour Nick Geiger coming home from war. And some are ridiculous, like Batty’s new dog-walking business.
Batty is saving up her dog-walking money for an extra-special surprise for her family, which she plans to present on her upcoming birthday. But when some unwelcome surprises make themselves known, the best-laid plans fall apart.
Filled with all the heart, hilarity, and charm that has come to define this beloved clan, The Penderwicks in Spring is about fun and family and friends (and dogs), and what happens when you bring what’s hidden into the bright light of the spring sun.
Dive into Jeanne Birdsall’s classic revisiting to the lives of the Penderwicks, read by Caledonia Skytower.
Wednesday, July 17th: The Faraway Nearby
In this exquisitely written personal, lyrical narrative about storytelling and empathy, Rebecca Solnit explores the ways we make our lives out of stories, and how we are connected by empathy, by narrative and by imagination.
In the course of unpacking some of her own stories – of her mother and her decline from memory loss, of a trip to Iceland, of an illness – Solnit revisits fairy tales and other stories as she considers life. Her ruminations carry her through tales of Arctic explorers and of Che Guevara’s time among the lepers of the San Pablo colony in Peru during his great motorcycle ides around and through South America in 1951 and 1952; through to the romantic horror of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and more.
Through these and other stories, Solnit consider the lives and works of artists and activists who experienced tremendous growth after witnessing or enduring great pain, and uses fairy tales to examine the idea of self-transformation. In doing so, she weaves these stories, real and fantastical, into a tapestry that charts the territories and extent of storytelling and shows how it allows us to explore, understand and even reframe who we are and how we might tell our own story.
Join Caledonia Skytower as she reads selections from this remarkable book.
Thursday, July 18th 19:00: Monsters and Myths
Shandon Loring resumes a tour through Bernard Evslin’s examination of monsters and myths with The Sphinx – Part 1. Also Also in Kitely – teleport from the main Seanchai World grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI.
The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, July 12th, 2019. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to North 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 a short meeting with a lot of non-specific text chat. Please refer to the video for details.
EEP RC viewer, version 6.4.0.527723, dated June 6th.
Project viewers:
Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, released on June 5th. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17th, 2017 and 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.
Anticipated Viewer Updates
A further iteration of the EEP RC viewer is with QA and should appear in week #29 (week commencing Monday, July 15th).
Bakes on Mesh is expected to go through at least one further RC iteration, although it is believed that all viewer-side required fixes have now been implemented.
The July 9th Love Me Render (rendering pipe improvements / fixes) update moved that viewer closer to being ready for possible promotion to release status.
The 360 Snapshot viewer has now been merged up to the current LL viewer release and is undergoing testing, so should be re-appearing as a project viewer soon.
The update of the viewer build process using Visual Studio 2017 / the latest Xcode is still stuck on a required update (to boost::fibers), and will likely remain that way for another week or so.
The project to improve texture fetching and caching in the viewer, which has been on hold for some time, is expected to re-start very soon. This work will likely including experimenting with using the HTTP/2 library, rather than the current curl library; this is also the project that includes support for higher texture memory in the official viewer as well as large on-disk caches. All of which, it is hoped will result in a noticeable performance improvement.
Other Topics
[5:15-7:23] It’s been noted the final deprecation of asset UDP messaging may be affecting the session times for scripted agent drivers built over LibOpenMetaverse, and the Lab threw out a question to open-source devs as to whether they could provide further information.
[27:02-27:40] There are some improvements coming to search, but it is too soon to say exactly how these will be reflected in the viewer; currently the focus is on improving the search infrastructure.
[29:40-31:25] work is continuing on the re-introduction of the “legacy” Profile floater. However, there are web-side changes needed (e.g. the feed needs to be turned into an API end-point). There is no planned simulator changes for this change, so profiles won’t be capabilities-driven.
At the start of the week, I dropped into Monocle Man, the gallery complex operated by Lynx Iuga and Kit Boyd, to take a look at the exhibition by DustinPedroia. As I mentioned, the complex also includes spaces for artists to display their work, so to round-out the working week, I decided to jump back and take a look at the rest of the complex.
As noted in my first article (see Art with a Monocle Man in Second Life), Monocle Man offers free gallery spaces for 20 days at a time to artists wishing to display their work. These spaces can be found via the teleport disk located outside the front door of the ground-level gallery that also provides access to other points of potential interest for visitors (left-click the disk for a list of destinations, right-click and select Teleport to go to the selected destination).
The sky gallery (“Gallery” on a teleport disk) provides two floors with space for up to four artists. Currently the spaces are being used by ViktorSavior and Lynx Iuga, with (I believe) an exhibition in the process of being set-up by RoseHanry (just the one image was on display during my two visits).
ViktorSavior has been something of a “featured” artist in these pages of late – for which I make no apologies; I find his work attractive and engaging. Here he presents more of his watercolour paintings, wonderful landscape that involve two of his favourite subjects: water and sky.
Upstairs, Lynx occupies two rooms with his art, a wonderfully broad mix of avatar, animal and landscape studies rich in colour and / or ton,e and beautifully focused on their subjects. They reveal a photographer and artist with an eye for setting and story, and a talent for spotting angles by which to add depth to his images. Just take his picture of a goose standing in a doorway as an example of this: the subject is central to the image, but the angle – shot from behind the goose and at its eye-level – serves to give us an usual perspective on the room beyond while offering an almost first-person perspective on the adventures of our white feathered subject as it venture through a door left ajar.
Elsewhere, the teleport system provides access to a photographic studio with two floors of space for posed photography, complete with lighting, pose and backdrop systems; a BDSM-oriented playroom / photographic area; a video cinema; a “fencing studio” overlooking London’s Houses of Parliament; a sky sphere (“Dome”) in which you can float around in a bubble (rezzer close to the teleport disk -and do allow the local sounds to play music, not the main stream); a second skydome (“Menhirs”) offering a model of Stonehenge in which to relax; and a strange steampunk-like aircraft hanger / workshop being held aloft on the backs of airships.
All of these additional spaces can offer opportunities for photography (as well as for relaxing in the case of the Stonehenge setting and sky sphere), but I admit to being attracted to the hanger setting (“Fly”), if for no other reason than it was such an entirely unexpected find.
Thus, Monocle Man makes for a broad-ranging visit, whether you’re out to view art, create art, display your art or simply explore. Those who are interested in making use of the gallery spaces should contact either Kit or Lynx in-world.
We were led to ][Octopussy][ goes Cuba on the recommendation of Shawn and Max, discovering in the process a sun-drenched tropical island with a lot to offer visitors.
A joint design by FleurLaRosa and WillkinThos, this homestead region is adult rated and does embrace nudity and adult activities – providing the clearly stated rules are followed; but this should in no way put people off paying it a visit, as there is a lot to appreciate.
This is very much a place of two halves, visually. There is the tall, rocky plateau of the island, and the low-lying beaches stretching out to the west and curling around to the south. The former is home to the main landing point, sitting towards the centre of the region, and a gaily-painted village location that sits above it. The village, with its 50’s style cars and bright colours is obviously intended to evoke the Cuban feel suggested by the region’s title.
There might be a tendency to make allusions to James Bond given the region’s name, and certainly, the British spy has been to Cuba and other tropical locations, and in places the Octopus logo found the island kind-of offers suggestions of an inverted SPECTRE symbol. But really, any alignment of the region with Bond is purely in the imagination. Instead, this is a place for photography, fun and music.
The latter is catered for at several points around the island, but perhaps most obviously in the underground ][ Octopussy ][ Lounge. This can be found through the tunnel to one side of the landing point, and has is unique visual appeal. This makes imaginative use of the [Original] the Spa – Black edition by Abiss to provide an underground club space designed to give the feeling of being underwater; large screens around the walls present videos of fish swimming among rocks and coral, and the floor of the dance floor is, in part, glass sitting over coral and water through which more fish swim.
A set of steps connect the landing point with the broad western beach, which offers plenty of space to sit and relax in the sun, as well as broad walks extending out over the shallows to reed-covered sand bars. These are home to both birds and waterfowl, and offer more places to relax and enjoy company or the scenery. One of these board walks extends well out to the north-west, offering visitors the chance to gain an off-shore view of the island – although it conveniently connects to the local rum bar should anyone get thirsty! For the more active, the board walk from the south beach connects to a wooden dance floor complete with line dancing options.
Two paths from the landing point lead up to the little village, the longer of them passing a little shrine and a place to sit before arriving at the village square. This offers another place where music and dancing can be enjoyed, or for those who prefer, the opportunity to enjoy the local outdoor bar. A smaller square off the north-east corner of the village plaza provides access to a sunny, cliff-edge terrace, a wide path cut between the rocks inviting exploration.
This path reveals it actually runs along the far side of a box canyon that quickly opens up, in part separating the north side of the island’s uplands from the village. Water flows outward from the bottom of the canyon and a rope suspension bridge offers a means of crossing it from the north-east corner of the village. Follow the path as it slopes gently downwards and it’ll take you to a little log bridge spanning the canyon’s water just before it tumbles over high falls. The path then leads back to the landing point (but don’t miss the little look-out point!), making for a nice loop around the upper reaches of the island.
][Octopussy][ goes Cuba is a region rich in detail, including the support sound scape, and which also has its own sense of fun – including the late Stan Lee enjoying a twirl on one of the dance floors! His presence, and that of others dancing and static figures also help to add a little depth to the island, making it feel occupied even if you’re a lone explorer.
All told, an attractive region with much to offer visitors and nicely photogenic; whilst exploring, keep an eye out for the little gift envelopes waiting to be found.
Officially opening on Saturday, July 13th, but available for preview at of Nitroglobus Roof Gallery curated by Dido Haas, is Silences, featuring the art of David Silence.
Dido is justifiably proud to have been able to persuade him to present his first solo exhibition at Nitroglobus, and Silences demonstrates he has considerable skill in constructing scenes that present a moment in time belonging to perhaps a larger story canvas, and for evoking emotional and intellectual responses through his work.
After returning from a long absence, SL became for me a tool to discover, recognise things of myself without filters without masks. I use Silence to capture emotions, which we can find with attention in an avatar. In this first exhibition … the intention was to see myself, to strip myself of myself, look at myself from a distance, naked, try to understand me and show me during this phase of my life.
Thus it is we’re presents with a series of marvellous images, predominantly of David’s avatar, each of which engages the eye and mind on multiple levels. Given there is something of a metaphorical stripping away of preconceptions of self and the influence of how one might wish to appear to the rest of the world, many of the images feature naked, or near-naked avatars; their nudity perfectly reflecting the idea of the stripping away of ego and self (it also means, as an aside, some of the images might be considered NSFW).
Whether it is intentional or not, the images are displayed in such a way as to suggest grouping by theme. Along the southern arm of the gallery, for example, are images pairing David and his model (Dido?) in a manner suggestive an exploration of self and relationships – who are we with those closest to us?
Meanwhile, along the gallery’s north facing wing, are a pair of images that are suggestive of an exploration of self without the masks we so often wear, and the questions of who we might actually be, beautifully suggested through the presence of owl and zebra head, as they lead the way further around the gallery and its exploration of self before returning to the studies of self and companionship.
In this way the images engage the intellect, encouraging us to consider matters of self, identity and generate a degree of personal reflection. But alongside of this, many of the images have, as noted, a broader canvas of narrative in which we can become engaged. Again as an example, take the initial three images feature David and his model on the southern wall of the gallery; these present a story of a relationship that paints itself in our thoughts: who are the couple? What are the thoughts they are each holding? What is the cause of the apparent tension evident between them? And more.
Thus, Silences is a richly engaging exhibition, powerful in the ways in which it engages the eye and mind, the dark tones evident in many of the pieces simply serving to draw us deeper into them. With its official opening at 13:00 SLT on Saturday, July 13th, featuring music by Gitu Aura, this is yet another Nitroglobus exhibition that should not be missed.
![][Octopussy][ goes Cuba; Inara Pey, July 2019, on Flickr](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48250373461_9467c8ce90_o.jpg)
![][Octopussy][ goes Cuba; Inara Pey, July 2019, on Flickr](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48250445942_4dbb383a22_o.jpg)
![][Octopussy][ goes Cuba; Inara Pey, July 2019, on Flickr](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48250447047_4e20614c0c_o.jpg)
![][Octopussy][ goes Cuba; Inara Pey, July 2019, on Flickr](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48250446682_9911ec93e0_o.jpg)
![][Octopussy][ goes Cuba; Inara Pey, July 2019, on Flickr](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48250374206_16e8555aa0_o.jpg)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 