Alternate Reality, August 2019 – click any image for full size
Designed by SimoneFiore on behalf of region holder ThisIsMyAltsAlt, Alternate Reality is a homestead region open to the public on the basis of joining the local group (no fee required).
Offering a simple, low-lying island, it is a place with plenty of space, most of which is open to the public, with the exception of the house located towards the north-west of the region, sitting within a private parcel clearly denoted by ban lines should you get too close.
Alternate Reality, August 2019
Predominantly sandy, Alternate Reality is home to scattered clumps of grass, all of varying sizes, which break through the surrounding sand like islands poking up above the surface of an ocean.
These little islands of green sit under the shade of trees that grow above them, tress that largely suggest that this is place located within temperate, rather than tropical climbs – although there are a few palm trees and other suggestion that perhaps we’re not that far from the warmer tropics.
Alternate Reality, August 2019
Within this setting are numerous opportunities for photography (as group access is required, rezzing of props is also possible) and some fun activities – including a see-saw, beach volleyball and swings. There are also multiples places to sit and relax. These can be found along the beach in shaded little hideaways. Or, for those who prefer, there is a bar, with indoor and outdoor seating, again offering opportunities for photographs while the deck across the sand from the bar is a DJ’s set-up, suggestive of music events.
This is an easy location to tour, requiring little in the way of description, offering a quiet getaway that demonstrates that when it comes to landscaping, sometimes, less really is more. So, this being the case, and unusually for me, I’ll leave you with a couple of back-to-back photos.
Alternate Reality, August 2019Alternate Reality, August 2019
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, August 11th
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.
Artful Expressions Gallery curated by Sorcha Tyles, has (another) new home, and with it, a new exhibition.
Veritas (“truth”) is a selection of images by Anu Papp split into two groups of fives images apiece in the gallery’s two exhibition wings. Avatar studies all, the majority appear to be a mix of self-portraits and images that feature Anu’s SL partner Ferdinand, with around three photos of friends rounding out the mix.
Each of the images has its own sense of mood and presence, which can be added to by hovering the mouse over each in turn to see the title displayed. In this, I found the title of the exhibit somewhat intriguing. While each of the images offers its own narrative (and insight into mood, the possible creative intent), etc., there is little that intrinsically link the images back to the ideal of truth.
This actually offers a possible conundrum, as it leaves those so minded (like myself) to ponder over title and subject. Is the title a reference to the truth that however hard we try to insist “SL is SL and RL is RL and never the twain shall meet”, we actually cannot avoid imbuing our avatars with some (or all) of the traits and foibles of our personalities? Is it the truth that our avatars present the means for each of us to express our inner self to the world more openly and as we would like to be seen by others?
Determining what truth is being referred to can have darker shades, such as the idea is there in truth no beauty? For truth is harsh to almost everyone; it forces us to accept our flaws and snap out of our grand illusions – and our avatars are perhaps one of our grandest illusions. So beautiful they may be – but do that reflect truth? But what then of the individual titles of the pieces presented? Do they fall into place with the idea that in truth, our digital presence is mere illusion, or do they push back against it, revealing that other truth referenced above: that they actually reveal who we are, more so that all of the masks we might otherwise wear in life?
Not that this exhibition demands we engage in such an internal debate. The images are captivating in and of themselves – and I admit to becoming very drawn to the two period pieces offered. Both are marvellously presented, and the case of Les Nobles in particular, I once again saw the greatest truth Second Life offers to us: that no matter who or where we are in life, SL gives our imaginations wings.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
