We Orange the World in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Artsville: We Orange the World, 2022

Opening on Friday, November 25th at Artsville is We Orange The World, a 16-day arts event intended to coincide with the The United Nations Women’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, and which runs from November 25th, 2022 through to December 16th inclusive.

The physical world campaign started in 1991 at the inauguration of the Women’s Global Leadership Institute, which continues to coordinate each year’s campaign. It is used as a nexus strategy by individuals and organisations around the world to call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls. Initially a civil society initiative, the campaign has – since 2008 – been supported by the UNiTE campaign,  which runs parallel events with the aim of ending violence against women by 2030.

Within We Orange the World, artists have been invited to submit a piece of 2D or 3D art to be displayed within the exhibition, related to the general theme of the beauty and empowerment of women around the world. Entrants were asked to keep pieces positive, uplifting and empowering rather than negative in nature, otherwise subject matter and presentation were left up to the artists.

Artsville: We Orange the World, 2022
Why [are we] having this campaign in our virtual world?
Let’s face it! Gender-based abuse also exists virtually, it may be in an unintentional or intentional form. The extent of this violence may not be physical but will always result to short-term or long-term emotional trauma and anxiety to the member victims resulting to a violation of the Community of Standards (not TOS) of SL. Raising awareness in our SL community will give us reminders that one cannot just violate and do things according to their pleasure in-world with the expense of another person/ persons. It is time to at least put light into this issue by supporting us.

– We Orange the World organisers

The event is taking place on a purpose-built sky platform at Artsville, a space divided into a number of areas, all caught under an appropriately orange sky. The first part is an area of open water backed by high falls against which a seated Buddha floats serenely. An island and small promontory sit over the water, both home to elements of a Zen garden. The island is the main landing point for the event, and is noticeably crowned by a sculpture (Lady Carmagnolle by Bryn Oh). This helps indicate that the statuary in the event are interactive in nature: touch them to receive information in keeping with the theme of the campaign.

Artsville: We Orange the World, 2022

Over a bridge from the landing point, a path winds its way to the remaining elements of the setting: the main art exhibition and the event space – We Orange the World will include a number of related events through its run including music, DJ events and poetry reading (although at the time of writing, a schedule of events had yet to be published), all with the focus of raising awareness of the campaign and what it is trying to achieve / eliminate. After passing through the event spaces, the path winds onwards back through the screen of trees to the little headland on the lake. Along the way are a number of seating areas, with benches also presented within the art display areas for those wishing to appreciate the art.

The call for artists this year went out a little on the late side (earlier in November), but the artists who have responded to the call include: Wren Carling, Mara Telling, Carelyna, Selen Minotaur, GitterPrincess Destiny, Idoliza, Ilrya Chardin, Anja, Mareea Farrasco, AmandaT Tamatzui, Jaz, Elfi Siemens, Sina Souza, Ambre Singh, Justhyne Shewolf and deborakaz. All of whom nevertheless make for an engaging exhibition.

Artsville: We Orange the World, 2022

Photo Contest

The global theme for this year’s UN Women’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is UNITE! Activism to end violence against women and girls. In support of this theme, the organisers of We Orange the World partnering with GP Gallery to run a photo contest on the theme of Unite, with a total of L$10,000 available in three prizes.

The competition runs through until December 10th, 2022, the the rules being:

  • Photos can be taken anywhere in SL but must adhere to the theme of “Unite” and “Violence against Women”.
  • Post-photo editing is allowed for touch ups only – no significant work that changes the content / appearance of a piece.
  • Entrants can submit a maximum of two pieces to the competition.
  • Submission should be made to the contest Flickr group, and must include “#orangetheworld2022” in the description, together with the entrant’s name, and must be uploaded no later than 12:00 noon SLT on Saturday, December 10th, 2022.
  • Photos will be judged on composition, style, creativity and general appeal.
Artsville: We Orange the World, 2022

We Orange the World officially opens on Friday, November 25th, 2022 at 13:00 SLT with a special event featuring the live music of Kael and Maximillion Kleene.

SLurl Details

The Snows of Where Our Journey Begins in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Where Our Journey Begins, November 2022 – click any image for full size

Following a suggestion from Suzie Anderton, I jumped back to Vivian Ewing’s Where Our Journey Begins, which I last visited back towards the start of the year to catch its 2022 wintertime dressing once more.

Back in February, the setting was blooming into an early spring and offered an engaging mix of places to explore among the trees and flowers as they threw a rich palette of colour across the region. Now, with the closing of the year, the setting is very much folded in a blanket of winter snow and seasonal elements in readiness for the coming holidays and celebrations.

Where Our Journey Begins, November 2022

Visits commence at the main landing point in the south-east corner of the region, the land stretching away to the north-west, a large ribbon lake crossing it diagonally from south-west to north-east. The latter is shouldered at its northern extremes by a curtain of rock to one side, similar to the curtain cliffs backing the landing point and possibly part of the same upward thrust of rock, and on the other by a plateau crowned but winter cabins.

From the landing point beneath the great iron gazebo in which it sits, visitors have a choice of exploration routes by which to discover the rest of the setting. Turn right a short walk from the gazebo, and the path leads to snowy box hedgerows enclosing an small terrace. A path from here runs down to the water’s edge to one side of the region, whilst a second points north, passing a corral where horses are held and a rezzer is available should you wish to explore the region on horseback, before the path branches once more.

Where Our Journey Begins, November 2022

Take the left arm of the fork, and the way is clear to wander along the southerly shore of the lake and even reach its icy surface. Places to sit and rest can be found along this route, ranging from a little campsite through water’s edge gazebo warmed by a log fire to a cosy little hut standing within sight of a high bridge spanning the lake – of which more anon.

Meanwhile, the right arm of the fork quickly crosses a covered bridge spanning the banks of a little stream – also frozen – to reach a fenced trail which also skirts the lake as it runs up and around the north-east head of the waters.  From here, it runs onwards and westwards, passing over steps and between gates to reach the local (and festive!) village snuggled under the aforementioned plateau. Rides and seasonal kiosks have been set out on the village square, the lights of the houses glowing brightly beyond before the sheer face of the rocky highlands intervene between village and hilltop cabins.

Where Our Journey Begins, November 2022

The latter are reached via a further route of exploration leading away from the landing point. It sits beyond the snow-frosted gates at the end of the path leading outwards from the landing point gazebo, and a snow-dusted path meanders upwards through hoar-frosted trees to where an unexpected sight awaits: Santa’s cabin, complete with the jolly old man sitting outside, his elves keeping things moving. Flagstones arc their way around the cabin to lead to the bridge mentioned above and, across it, a single-track road providing access to the cabins.

Fully furnished and separated from the rest of the region as they are, these cabin offer their own setting and opportunities for photography both indoors and out.

Where Our Journey Begins, November 2022

This latter point is what makes this iteration of Where Our Journey Begins; while the region comes together as a single setting, it is laid out in such a way as to offer multiple little vignettes offering their own opportunities for enjoyment and photography, all rich in detail and with enough space between them so as visitors needn’t feel as if they are tripping over one another as the explore.

As with previous iterations of Where Our Journey Begins, Snowtide – as this version has been called – is a genuine delight to visit. My thanks to Suzie again for the pointer.

Where Our Journey Begins, November 2022

SLurl Details

2022 SUG meetings week #47 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Green Story, September 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 22nd, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

At the time of writing, a server deployment thread had yet to be published.

  • On Tuesday, November 22nd, the Main SLS and Events channels were updated with the single fix designed to keep regions from running out of voice connections (BUG-229984 “Voice chat is not working” and BUG-7371 “Voice cannot connect”).
  • On Wednesday, November 23rd, simhosts the RC channels will be restarted without any deployment.

Upcoming Simulator Releases

The run of simulator updates through to the new year will likely comprise:

  • Link sounds will most likely the last roll of the year (this should behave exactly as though you had a script in the linked prim and called llPlaySound from that prim).
  • llGetSimStats updates are liable to be the first update of 2023.
  • llHTTPRequest updates (see below) will likely follow later in January 2023.
  • LSDFindKeys sorting updates will most likely be fixed in the first simulator maintenance release for next year.

Available Official Viewers

No changes to any of the current batch of official viewers, leaving them as follows:

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.7.576223 – MFA and TOS hotfix viewer – November 1 – No change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.8.576431 on Monday, November 14.
    • VS  2022 RC viewer, version 6.6.8.576310, issued November 4 – utilises Visual Studio 2022 in the Windows build tool chain.
  • Project viewers:
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.576331, issued on November 3.
      • This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.3.575529,  issued on October 12.
    • Performance Floater / Auto-FPS project viewer, version 6.6.5.575378, October 4.
    • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.

In Brief

  • BUG-232171 “Issue with regions becoming full, but still showing available prims” – this is been causing noticeable issues recently, with a lot of speculation that it may be a griefing vector. However, the important point with the issue is that LL know what the cause actually is, and will be addressing it.
    • BUG-229382 “Vehicles stopping dead at region borders” may be related to this issue.
    • BUG-BUG-227303 “collisions makes a script stop running and revert its mono status” was also raised later in the meeting in relation to Mono concerns.
  • Concerns have been raised about bout removing the LSO bytecode compiler (non-Mono), leaving only the Mono compiler (the run-time environment for LSO scripts would remain – it just wouldn’t be possible to compile new scripts via the LSO compiler or re-compile updated scripts using it).
    • These issues (apparently related to rapid rezzing of objects  and / or some vehicles the Mono control scripts behaving badly at region crossings) have not been the subject of any bug report(s) and so lack documented details. A Jira has been request.
  • A core part of the meeting was given over to combat systems and providing improved means of projective operation (in part related to the Mono discussion above) – please refer to the video for details.
  • BUG-37727 “Regex for LSL” may have a better chance of being implemented now that Regex is exposed to LSL via Linkset Data.
  • With the implementation of LSD, an suggestion has been made to add publicly editable key-value pairs that could be set in the build window via object owners, and then accessed via scripts using an interface similar to Linkset Data. A  similar suggestion has also been made within the forums, however, that does not appear to be a feature request Jira for these ideas (at least at the time of writing this summary).
  • BUG-232551 “We need significantly more RAM for scripts in non-attachments” was raised in discussion;  it has been accepted by the Lab, but no indication of when it it  might be actioned, or how.
  • Rider Linden is playing some enhancements to LSL for 2023, including (but not limited to) allowing a response to an HTTP request with the contents of a notecard.

Alex Riverstone’s Melancholia in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
NovaOwl Gallery, November 2022: Alex Riverstone

After my almost back-to-back forays of late into art exhibitions that either focus on, or lean towards, hybrid art and the use of AI tools (notably MidJourney), I thought I would do a little course adjustment and offer a look at some Second Life based photographic art. To that end, I trundled off to NovaOwl Gallery, curated and operated by ULi Jansma, Ceakay Ballyhoo & Owl Dragonash.

It this there, within the ground-level gallery space, that people can find – through until the end of 2022 – an exhibition of art by Alex Riverstone, an artist whose work I have appreciated for some to and always enjoy witnessing.  This is a modest exhibition, featuring a baker’s dozen of pictures by Alex; however, it stands as proof that quantity isn’t necessarily everything: quality accounts for more.

Second Life has allowed me to enjoy it in a different way: allowing the exploration of scenes, poses and angles which wouldn’t be practical in the real world.

– Alex Riverstone

NovaOwl Gallery, November 2022: Alex Riverstone

On first viewing the exhibition, I was struck by the apparent disconnect between its title – Melancholia – and the subject matter of the images presented.

In purely medical terms, melancholia is a subtype of depression, characterised by a number of symptoms such as severely depressed mood, pervasive anhedonia, and lack of emotional responsiveness. As a concept, it has a history dating back to ancient medicine in Europe, and was long regarded as one of the the four temperaments matching the four humours. However, whilst the pieces Alex presents within the exhibition can be called many things – artistic, picturesque, engaging, and so on – none immediately strike one as being of a depressed or melancholic nature when looked upon.

However, in their visual richness they do encompass another interpretation of “melancholia”, one popular in the Renaissance when it was taken as a sign of artistic genius; and there is plenty of artistic expression to be found in each of these pieces from their initial composition, through their processing and presentation and finishing with their titles, such that each one stands as a unique image capable of carrying our imaginations into a world of self-made narrative.

NovaOwl Gallery, November 2022: Alex Riverstone

And it is within that narrative that we chose – as this is purely subjective – to see some of the images as how aspects of melancholia might be visualised in a picture or painting. For example, take the Duality images (7, 8 and 9). within them are hints of melancholic traits we might chose to see: the absence of anyone to enjoy the flying kites and the puppies on the bridge perhaps echoing feelings of anhedonia; the empty chairs speaking to the loneliness of depression / melancholy; the tree with its suggestion of a figure hanging by their wrists from it suggesting despondency. Others, through their titles perhaps whisper more keenly on the subject – as with the Wall and Lonesome Cottage.  Even the loungers of Summer Holiday, fading into the white-out of the picture as they  do, might be taken as a metaphor for the emptiness of melancholia.

But these interpretations are, as note, entirely subjective. Whether you opt to see then or prefer to take  the presented pieces purely as an expression of Second Life’s multifaceted beauty really doesn’t matter; this is Second Life photography rendered as art in a manner that is genuinely captivating and worth visiting.

SLurl Details

Seanchai Library: shorts, movies and thanksgiving

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 – 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 21st, 19:00: Reality Check

In a bizarre future, It takes place in a bizarre future, the technological singularity has occurred. The world have now become a place of biological fabricators, eight-legged cows, talking dogs, microscopic surveillance bots, and mid-life genetic upgrades for humans.

Life is not easy for many in a world where everyone is subject to police and government surveillance, and married couple Joe and Maddie are trying to make their way on their a small farmstead, trying to remain as unnoticed as possible.

But one morning, they are forced to drive off a “farm” a mix of machine, Ai and human, that has decided it is going to fly to Jupiter – and to do so, it intends to use an mix of enzymes and tree sap which, when combined, have a habit of wiping out all life in the area. To prevent this, Joe sets out devising the means to destroy the farm without the police becoming aware of his intent.

At the same time Maggie withdraws into herself, and Joe believes he may have to use a back-up and recreate her through the fabricator. However, he, the farm and Maddie are about to come together in the most unexpected of ways.

Gyro Muggin’s reads the 2003 short story by Charlie Stross.

Tuesday, November 22nd, 19:00: Tales from Life: Lesser Known Stories from History that Read like Fiction

With Caledonia Skytower at the fireside.

Wednesday, November 23rd, 19:00: Seanchai Flicks

Films, popcorn and fun at the Seanchai cinema space.

Thursday, November 24th, 19:00: Alice’s Restaurant

A Seanchai Library Thanksgiving tradition with Shandon Loring.

As Thanksgiving arrives in the United States, Shandon Loring presents singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie’s famous 1967 musical monologue, Alice’s Restaurant Massacree (also popularly known as Alice’s Restaurant, and the inspiration of the 1969 Arthur Penn film of that name, starring Guthrie himself).

Aside from the opening and closing chorus, the song is delivered as the spoken word accompanied by a ragtime guitar. The story is based on a true incident in Guthrie’s life when, in 1965, he (then 18) and a friend were arrested for illegally dumping garbage from Alice’s restaurant after discovering that the town dump was closed for the Thanksgiving holiday.

What follows is a complicated, ironic and amusing story told in a deadpan, satirical tone, which encompasses fines, blind judges, guide dogs, 27 8×10 copiously annotated glossy photos related to the littering, frustrated police officers, the Vietnam War draft and, ultimately, the inexplicable ways in which bureaucracy moves to foil itself, just when you’ve given up hope of foiling it yourself.

Don’t be late – the entire presentation is just 20 minutes in length!

Advanced Notice: The Dickens Project

The Dickens Project has officially announced an opening date of December 8th, 2022 and will run through until January 3rd, 2023. Old favourite guests and features will return along with an exciting new land configuration and new collaborators. Details to be published in due course!

2022 viewer release summaries week #46

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates from the week through to Sunday, November 20th, 2022

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

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.7.576223 – MFA and TOS hotfix viewer – November 1 – No change.
  • Release channel cohorts::
    • Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer updated to version 6.6.8.576431 on Monday, November 14.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

  • No updates.

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links