Category: Second Life

Mon Joli Cadeau: art and romance in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Mon Joli Cadeau

I recently received an invitation to visit Mon Joli Cadeau (“my lovely gift”), a quarter-region operated by Avalon Bouvier and Yoh Boa that offers mix of art, dance venue and commercial units in a distinctly French architectural style.

An urban environment, split by an east-west running canal, the street names within Mon Joli Cadeau suggest Paris, but the intended location is not as important as the overall look of the setting. The landing point sits to one side of the canal within a formal garden area surrounded on two sides by town houses with boutique-style units on their ground floors, and on the seaward side a large glass pavilion ballroom.

Mon Joli Cadeau: MarcJersey

The boutiques offer a mix of commercial units and gallery spaces, and at the time of my visit, the gallery units featured the work of Carelyna, PatrickofIreland, MarcJersey and Erika Xaron. Meanwhile, across the canal and on the smaller part of the parcel offers further town house style gallery units.

At the time of my visit, these featured the work of Leonorah Beverly, Cybele Moon, Jolie Parfort, Kaleb Avedon (making his public début with a series of outstanding avatar studies) , Kayly Iali, CliveDillingham, Mirabelle Sweetwater and Isle Biedermann.

Mon Joli Cadeau: Kaleb Avedon

The layout of the location naturally encourages exploration, while within the boutique units and as well as presenting their art, the artists have been given the freedom to turn create more “personal” spaces if they so choose, adding their own interior wall panels and other features, making each a unique mini-gallery. Also be aware that many of the units have an upper floor where an exhibit may continue – so keep an eye out for the teleport disks tucked into some of them.

The range of art offered in this exhibition – which I understand run through until the end of August – is rich and engaging, including as it does avatar studies, Second life landscapes, physical world paintings, digital media, colour images, monochrome and SL photographs as paintings. This mixture adds a further attraction to Mon Joli Cadeau, and I’d urge Avalon and Yoh to try to continue it going forward.

Mon Joli Cadeau: Jolie Parfort

As well as promoting visual arts, the region will also feature music – both gala events to mark the opening of new exhibitions and live music events and DJ evenings within the glass pavilion ballroom. Live performances are currently scheduled for the following dates (all times SLT):

  •  Friday, August 16th from 12:00 noon: Savannah Rain
  • Thursday, September 12th from 19:00: Wolfie Starfire.
  • Saturday, September 14th, from 13:00: Kaleb Avedon.

In addition, Avalon is working on a weekly DJ schedule, which will initially focus on set running Thursdays through Sundays, likely spanning the hours of 16:00 through 22:00 SLT. The schedule has yet to be finalised, so look for details when visiting Mon Joli Cadeau, or make a note to join the local group and stay informed.

Mon Joli Cadeau: Leonorah Beverly

With its delightful design that includes several little corners waiting to be discovered as well as the galleries and ballroom, Mon Joli Cadeau offers a lot to artists wishing to exhibit their work (setting items for sale permitted but not required), and interested parties should contact Avalon in-world. For those who enjoy viewing art and photography in SL it is a venue that should definitely been added to lists of places to visit.

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2019 SL Christmas Expo registrations open with a special announcement

Posted on by Inara Pey
via SLchristmasexpo.com

The 2019 SL Christmas Expo in support of the American Cancer Society via Relay for Life of Second Life will take place from Thursday, December 5th through Sunday, December 15th, 2019 with the theme of Believe in the Magic of Christmas, and the doors have opened for merchant registrations and sponsorship.

Believe in the Magic of Christmas will focus on childhood cancers and their treatment, with the press release noting:

For kids Christmas is a Magical Season! And so, this year the Expo has a new mission. Together with the American Cancer Society and our partners at Linden Lab, the expo will be supporting Childhood Cancer initiatives of The Society. All proceeds of the Expo will be directed to support research and palliative efforts to help children with cancer.

This year, the organisers plan to have:

  • more than 100 merchants,
  • Breedables and one-of-a-kind auctions,
  • nearly non-stop musical performances,
  • Gachas and hunts.
  • Christmas trees, ice skating, and a snowman building contest
  • Santa and Mrs. Claus and the elves
  • The Holidays of Hope Ball.

The event will also encompass the popular Lights of Hope house decorating contest, featuring homes built and decorated by some of Second Life’s best home builders.

RFL of SL 2018 Christmas Expo

Special Linden Homes Unveiling

This year’s event will also include the support and involvement of Linden Lab, with the press release further noting:

This year Linden Lab, the Society’s partner in the fight against cancer, is joining the 9th Annual SL Christmas Expo. Not only will Linden Lab be decorating Linden homes as part of the Lights of Hope contest but the Expo will be the venue of the BIG REVEAL!  The long-anticipated ALL NEW Version 4 LINDEN HOMES will be UNVEILED at the Lights Of Hope!  Expo visitors will be treated with the newest premier member homes as well as some very VERY Special Linden surprises and incentives!

Merchant and Sponsor Registrations

Those interested in being merchant sponsors or sponsors of this year’s event should refer to the following official Christmas Expo pages:

For updates and further information on this year’s Second Life Christmas Expo, please refer to slchristmasexpo.com.

A return to Grauland in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Grauland, July 2019 – click any image for full size

In March we visited Grauland, the homestead region held by JimGarand and home (in the sky) to his M-1 Art Poses (see: Art as a landscape in Second Life). At that time, I noted that the region was one of the more unusual design we had visited.

Since then, Jim has redesigned Grauland to present a new look and theme, as Shawn Shakespeare nudged me about. So we hopped back to take a look at how things have changed, and whether the beautiful minimalism and artistic expression that was so attractive in March has been retained.

Grauland, July 2019

In terms of the minimalism of the region, this is still very much still in evidence. Now forming a C-shaped island surrounding a shallow bay, Grauland is low-lying and marked by a handful of buildings, most of them looking somewhat the worse for wear. They are scattered around the open ring of the island in such as way as to encourage visitors to step out and explore.

There are some carry-overs which help give a feeling of continuity for those familiar with the March design: the basalt columns, so mindful of the Giant’s Causeway on Northern Ireland’s northern coast remain, for example. There are also touches that offer familiarity by with a twist, such as the ranks of rock-like rectangles marching ashore from the small centre islet of the bay. These echo the concrete cubes once present in the courtyard of the gallery from the March design.

Grauland, July 2019

The gallery itself is no more, sadly, but the buildings replacing it offer a curious mix. There’s a cannabis farm within one, another looks to be the remains of what might have been an industrial unit, filled with assorted detritus (including some with adult poses). Alongside the landing point there is what appears to be the skeleton of a theatre, bare stage with graffiti filled back wall, wooden seats still ranged before it, while elsewhere, smaller buildings simply offer views across the water, both within the bay and out to sea.

Other places to sit can also be found scatter across the landscape, including the little islet in the bay, reached via an ageing board walk. This offers a good view of the trawler edging its way into the bay, ready to manoeuvre between some of the rock pillars and come alongside the island’s single pier.

Grauland, July 2019

I confess to missing the slant towards accommodating art that was far more present in the March build, but there is no denying Grauland in this latest iteration offers many opportunities for photography, and for simply relaxing, be it on the beach or elsewhere.

No actual landing point is enforced, so I’ve arbitrarily set the SLurl in the piece to a point in the north-west of the region, simply because it is there that the region’s gust book Flickr link and primary tip jar can be found, and because it perhaps offers the best point from which to start exploring the region.

Grauland, July 2019

Finished with a sound scape that includes the cry of gulls as they circle overhead or vie for space on the beach and which is mixed with the softer song of birds (some of whom add their own splash of colour for those who look closely enough), together with the plaintive warning chimes of a buoy at the neck of the bay, Grauland retains its delightful minimalist feel whilst still offering a lot so see and take in.

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Linden Lab in wrongful termination lawsuit over alleged cybersecurity law violations

Posted on by Inara Pey
©, ™ and ® Linden Lab

Linden Lab has been hit by a wrongful termination lawsuit by a former employee, Kavya Pearlman, in which allegations are made over potential violations of cybersecurity laws.

A security expert, Kavya joined Linden Lab in August 2017, and worked to develop information security strategies, advising on state and international information security regulations, managing IS systems, and more. Her employment with the Lab was terminated in March of 2019.

She publicly announced her lawsuit via a 12-point Twitter thread. In it she states that her employment came at a time when she was engaged in a risk assessment exercise involving the New York State Department of Financial Services, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, and the European General Data Protection Regulation, which came after a period when “the company treated me with hostility when I raised concerns about potential violations of cybersecurity laws.”

The allegations would appear to encompass work related to the Lab’s subsidiary, Tilia Inc., and potentially both Sansar and Second Life – but Ms. Pearlman makes it clear that during her tenure at the Lab as Information Security Director, there were no security breaches.

Within the Twitter thread – and apparently within the lawsuit – she additionally alleges discrimination and retaliation on the basis of her gender and religion.

Given this is a lawsuit, and the fact I am neither a lawyer nor have I had any sight of the papers that have been filed, further comment on the lawsuit itself would be inappropriate, and I doubt that the Lab will reply to enquiries simply because this is a legal matter.

That said, and if and when possible, I’ll continue to watch this situation as it develops.

With thanks to John Brianna for the pointer.

2019 SL User Groups week #31

Posted on by Inara Pey

Tyraina; Inara Pey, June 2019, on FlickrTyraina, June 2019 – blog post

SL Feature Summit

This week is the week of the Lab’s Second Life feature summit. This is the time when engineers, developers and product managers for Second Life get together in person to discuss and plan the next several months of Second Life’s development.

This means that most / all of the Second Life user group meetings for the week are cancelled.

Next Meetings

The following table outlines when the next SL user group meetings will likely take place.

User Group
 Next Meeting
Simulator User Group
 Tuesday, August 6th
Governance User Group
 Tuesday August 6th
Open-Source Development Wednesday, August 7th
Content Creation
 Thursday, August 15th
Concierge & Land Thursday, August 22nd
Server Beta User Group
 TBA – possibly Thursday, August 1st

Server Deployments

Again, due to the Second Life Feature Summit, there are no planned server deployments for this week. However, channel restarts may occur in accordance with the Lab’s 14-day restart policy.

SL Viewer

It is likely that there will no updates to the current pipelines for the official viewer this week, again as a result of the SL Feature Summit, although some of the RC viewers have updates either queued ready for, or getting close to being ready for, update. In the meantime, the pipelines remain as follows at the time of writing.

  • Current Release version 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer dated June 5, promoted June 18 – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, June 5. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November 2017 – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Isla de Sol in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Isla de Sol, July 2019 – click any image for full size

A little while ago I received an invitation from Noirran Marx to visit Isla de Sol, her Homestead region, which I gather is open to the public. It took a while for us to get there, but we did in July and found it to be a quiet, balmy tropical island that makes for an easy, gentle visit.

At the time we dropped in, the island offered a roughly north-south orientation, with the clearest signs of human habitation at the southern end, most notably in the form of a large house sitting within a low walled garden, with two trailer-style homes sitting close by under the boughs of tree that might be more at home in more northerly latitudes than suggested by the rest of the island’s styling.

Isla de Sol, July 2019

To the north, the island is more open and tropical in looks. Grass sits under palm trees and a Greedy Greedy table sits bracketed between and old adobe building and the (rather incongruous) cone of a volcano that appears to be erupting…

The volcano forms the highest point within the region, but does tend to a look a little “glued on”, so to speak. To us, it was slightly jarring visual element in what otherwise is a pleasant low-lying island where the aforementioned Greedy Greedy can be enjoyed, and the outdoor decks offer places to sit, think, cuddle and  / or chat.

Isla de Sol, July 2019

So far as we could tell, the house is open to the public; there were certainly no security orb warnings on approach. It is cosily furnished, but the garden perhaps offers the best opportunities for those taken with photography.

Off to the west side of the island, behind the screen of fir trees, a four-legged platform rises from the shallows. A rusting lifeboat slide to one side of it suggests it might have once been some form of small drilling platform, but it is now given over to a shack in need of some renovation. The sea lions on the raft and rock below it don’t seem to mind its presence, tho.

Isla de Sol, July 2019

Small, quirky and perhaps needing some of the bushes and plants to be made phantom (we bounced off of some of the palm trees while trying to pass under them!), Isla de Sol presents an easy visit for the beach inclined. There are opportunities for photography (rezzing is possible with a 5-minute auto-return) throughout, and it avails itself to a range of windlight options (I again used my default takes on Annan Adored’s End of Silence and Morning Dream in the four images here.

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