2019 SL Christmas Expo: call for DJs, helpers, bloggers and more

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.

The aim of this year’s event is to raise $20,000 toward the American Cancer Society VR Headset programme for kids receiving cancer treatment.

Over the past few days / weeks the organisers have put out a number of calls for interested parties to sign-up to the event.

In particular, the organisers are seeking DJs, hosts and stage managers to help with the event’s entertainment programme, and for bloggers interested in cover the event. A call has also gone out to breedable auction houses interested in participating in the Xmas Expo.

DJs / Broadcasters, Hosts and Stage Managers

The event is looking to offer as much non-stop entertainment throughout the Expo, but in order to do so they need DJs and broadcasters willing to provide that entertainment, and hosts and stage managers to help with running the entertainment activities.

DJs / Broadcasters are asked to fill out the DJ application form, and note the following guidelines:

  • Performances cannot be adult in nature – this includes behaviour, music, objects, avatars, sets, or props etc. However, performances do not have to have a Christmas / holiday theme.
  • Tip jars are not permitted, as this is a charity event, and RFL of SL donation kiosks will be available in the performance areas.
  • All performers will be supplied with a note card listing key points and sponsors to be mentioned during their sets, and are asked to mention at least one during their set – although they may mention more.

Stage Managers will be asked to oversee event hosts (including ensuring entertainment notices have been posted), ensure proper streams are set and performers are at the correct locations.

Hosts will be asked to offer assistance to attendees when required and engage with attendees (welcome them, etc.), share information about the event and mission of the Expo and send group notices on the events they are host are sent out.

Those interested in being either a stage manager or event host are asked to complete and submit the Christmas Expo Stage Manager / Event Host application form.

Bloggers

The SL Christmas Expo welcomes all bloggers to participate and share the holiday magic, promote the event and the activities at the event and encourage attendance. Full details on opportunities for blogging, expectations and requirements can be found on the SL Christmas Expo Blogger application form.

Breedable Auctions at the Expo

All Breedable Creators and Auction Houses are encouraged to show their support for The American Cancer Society by holding one or more auctions at the SL Christmas Expo. This auction will be promoted as being sponsored by the creator or auction house running it, and should involve a minimum of 15 breedables being auctioned.

Space will be provided at the Expo, and auctions will be promoted via the SL Christmas Expo web page and social media in addition to any advertising run by the creator / auction house through their own channels / groups.

Creators / auctions houses will be responsible for organising and running their auctions, and all proceeds must go to RFL of SL.

Please refer to the Breedable Auctions page on the official SL Christmas Expo website for additional information. Those interested in running an auction should complete and submit the Auction House reservation form, no later than Thursday, November 28th.

Full details on all of the above available from the RFL of SL Christmas Expo website.

2019 Simulator User Group week #45 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Whimsies and Dreamscapes, September 2019 – blog post

Simulator Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for news and updates:

  • The SLS (main) channel on Tuesday, November 5th, leaving it on server release 2019-10-26T00:06:48.532192, previously released on October 30th and comprising:
    • A previously released hotfix to fix teleports being 5%-7% less reliable.
    • A change that makes the simulator take a little bit longer to report as “Up” to the Lab’s internal tools to more accurately reflect when residents can actually access a region.
  • There is a single RC deployment planned for Wednesday, November 6th: version 2019-11-01T18:02:37.532376, which is essentially a rebuild of 532143, originally deployed on Wednesday, October 30th and containing the above updates as well. No release had been released at the time of writing.

Note: a second RC deployment, 532377, comprising an internal update and a script to monitor additional region data during rolls was cancelled after it was discovered in QA it broke script uploading. 

Linden Lab request that if anyone sees messages about “Unable to upload 12345678-90ab-cdef-1234567890ab due to the following reason” on a version that isn’t 532377, could they please file a bug report and provide full information of when, where and how they encountered the message. 

SL Viewer

The Ordered Shutdown RC viewer was updated to version 6.3.4.532299 on Monday, November 4th. At the time of writing, the rest of the viewer pipelines remain as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.3.3.531811, formerly the Voice RC viewer, dated October 18, promoted October 31 – NEW.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.531949, October 28.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.3.531844, October 21.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16.

Simulator Performance

There are continued reports of simulator performance issues – notably with Mainland regions. The most common description of the problem is that over time, script performance on Full region simulators declines to the point where only around 20% or so of scripts are running per cycle, and the simulator has no spare time, forcing the region holder to submit a ticket requesting a move to a different server. This tends to resolve the problem – at least until the next rolling restart, when the performance degradation starts again.

There appears to be no discernible reason for this. Rider Linden has been making improvements on how scripts – particularly idle scripts – are handled, and at the meeting, Simon Linden noted:

We’ve been looking at scripts and performance and there are some changes in the works that will hopefully help … those are on about 15% of the regions now, and will expand to about 20% tomorrow.

…Rider’s work looked at a bunch of the event distribution code like that, and he made it faster with re-writing it and getting rid of brute-force searching and so on. Of course, that changed some script timing and killed some kittens and pot plants. Sometimes it really hits me what a strange job this is.

The issues have led to speculation that the Lab might be stacking more regions on their servers or are reducing the server resources available to each simulator. Responding to an enquiry on this, Simon indicated that the Lab have not changed either for years. However, he did note the fact that the servers the Lab uses do change, so something may have been introduced to impact performance.

Melusina’s Cars in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Melusina Parkin – Cars

Now open at Melusina Parkin’s gallery space, located above her Melu Deco store, is her latest exhibition, Cars. It is a small, cosy exhibition of a dozen pieces focused – as the name suggests – on cars. Or more specifically, cars in Second Life.

In keeping with Melu’s approach to her art, these are not simple studies of motor vehicles; Melu has an eye for detail and angle, and this is much in evidence in these pieces.

Melusina Parkin – Cars

So, rather than presenting us with what might be regarded as “traditional” shots of cars – side views, three-quarter front or back views, etc., Melu presents us with images in which the framing and background is as important as the vehicle itself, or where the car is presented in unusual circumstances. Nor are these bright shiny models: Melu offers shots of vehicles that have seen better days.

The result is a collection of images where the vehicles depicted within them are more than just cars, they are characters, and the pictures containing them are studies of their nature. It’s an elegant series, each beautifully presented and with a story within it.

Melusina Parkin – Cars

As well as Cars, visitors to the exhibition space can also view a copy of Melusina’s Second Life Exhibits, a gorgeous collection of her exhibitions between 2011 and 2019. Just click on the book and follow the web link.

SLurl Details

Last Dove: a western homage in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Last Dove, November 2019 – click any image for full size

Created with love in the spirit of West Texas honouring those that came before, those with us, and our future.

So reads the About Land dedication for Last Dove, a Homestead region designed by Erythro and Shannon Cardalines. And while there are many western-themed role-play regions, Last Dove is something special, as Shannon noted to me as we discussed it after Caitlyn and I had made our initial visit.

It was designed for a set for Erythro to make machinima he wants to show at film festivals in real life. We based the sim on the novel and screenplay of Lonesome Dove. The characters you see here are all bots that Ery scripted to work as his actors.

– Shannon Cardalines describing Last Dove.

Last Dove, November 2019

For those unfamiliar with Lonesome Dove, it was the title book (although technically the third instalment of the story) of a series bearing the same name, written by Larry McMurtry. It started as a film script collaboration between McMurtry and Peter Bogdanovich, but after languishing in development hell for over a decade, McMurtry purchased the rights to the script and turned it into a novel, first published in 1985 and winning the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

The story did eventually reach the screen – albeit the television screen – in 1989 in a CBS 4-part mini-series starring Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover, Diane Lane and Anjelica Houston among a long list of notable actors. It is a particularly memorable story not so much because of its western setting, but because it is a tale that intertwines themes of old age, death, unrequited love, and friendship – something reflected in the dedication for the region.

Last Dove – riding into town – November 2019

As well as being the title of the novel and series, Lonesome Dove is also the name of the Texas town where the story begins. It is this town – the set of which still stands – that serves as the inspiration for Last Dove; and it is no exaggeration to say that the region marvellously captures the spirit of the location, with several of the notable buildings being reproduced along the dusty main street. The echo of The Stockman’s Hotel, for example can clearly be seen in Last Dove’s Dry Bean Saloon.

In addition to recreating the town, Ery has also scripted a number of characters from the book / series. These may vary between visits – there is a control board for the bots hidden away in one of the building. However, when visiting, you’re more than likely to come across the two principle characters, Captain Woodrow F. Call (played by Tommy Lee Jones in the CBS mini-series) and Captain Augustus “Gus” McCrae (played by Robert Duvall) – with the latter looking particularly reminiscent of has actor alter-ego!

Last Dove – after a day in the saddle, even a girl needs a drink! – November 2019

Given Lonesome Dove is set against the backdrop of a cattle drive to Montana, other touches reflecting on the film include the bunkhouse and a small herd of Texas longhorn cattle, complete with a cowboy bivouac, suggesting the drive out on the trail. In addition, the great plains of Texas are represented by the region surround, which directly abuts the region on three sides, offers scrub grassland  that rolls gently off to the horizon and the hazy slopes of distant hills. This gives Last Dove a tremendous sense of depth, with the west side of the region separated from the surround by a span of water that perfectly echoes the Rio Grande, which features in both the story and the town (the set for Lonesome Dove is located near Del Rio, West Texas).

While inspired by Lonesome Dove, I have to admit that initially, the setting put me in mind of Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter. There was something about the plains rolling away to those haze-softened hills and the town on a shoreline that put me in mind of Eastwood’s ghostly Stranger (Death) on his pale horse, riding out of the shimmering haze to  mete out vengeance. So much so that, in looking across the plains of Last Dove, I wouldn’t have been surprised had a horseman slowly materialised riding towards the town! In this respect, I did feel a bit of a twit when Shannon explained the actual inspiration – I’d been looking at the Captain Call character with the name ringing bell, but unable to place where I’d come across it.

Last Dover, November 2019

It’s important to state (again) that Last Dove isn’t intended as a role-play region per se. However, it is ideal for photography and for getting into the spirit of the old west, as I hope a couple of my pictures here suggest! Rezzing is also permitted for props – but please ensure you clean things up afterwards.

This is genuinely a superb setting, richly evocative of the story on which it is based. Its offer plenty of opportunity for horse-riding, easy exploration and – as noted – for photography. Absolutely not a setting to be missed. Those wishing to see more of the Lonesome Dove set as it looks in more recent times can do so via the Lonesome Dove Remember link, below.

Last Dove – meeting “Gus” McCrae (centre) and Woodrow Call outside the bunkhouse – November 2019

SLurl and Links

With thanks to Shawn Shakespeare and Alsatian Kidd for the region SLurl, and to Shanon for her time while visiting

April reports on the SL Marketplace mix-up

Posted on by Inara Pey

On November 4th, some users on the Marketplace who accessed their account page ended up seeing some account details for another user currently logged-in to the Marketplace at the same time.

The user account page gives a user’s SL account name, L$ balance, a small portion of their activity on the  Marketplace activity, their wish lists, received gifts list, and the obfuscated version of their e-mail address (e.g. i****@g****.com, designed to provide the user with enough information to identify their own e-mail address without revealing it to others).

Multiple bug reports on the issue were raised with Linden Lab, and at least one forum thread was raised on the subject, with some pointing to the Marketplace maintenance that was in progress as a possible cause – and they were right, as the Lab’s Second Life Operations Manager has revealed in a blog post (Report on the Recent Marketplace Issue), that reads in part:

We’ve been working to make the Second Life Marketplace more robust and handle higher numbers of page views at once. Due to a change made this morning, the user account page got cached when we didn’t mean for it to be. Once we realised what had happened, we rolled back the changes immediately and deleted all of our caches. No other parts of Second Life were impacted.

Our engineering teams are now working with our QA (quality assurance) team to make sure we develop better testing for this in the future. We want to make sure we catch something like this long before it makes it out into the hands of Residents.

We’d like to extend a really big thank you to everyone who reported the issue to us the moment they saw it! Because of your vigilance we were able to react really quickly and limit the time that this misconfiguration was live. (Seriously, y’all rock! 💜)

We’re sorry this issue happened this morning. We’re working to make sure it never happens again, and developing better test procedures for use in the future.

While the error was unfortunate, and might have been a little discomforting for some who encountered it, the Lab estimates that no more than 500 users visited the account page during the time the issue could occur, and not all of them were given the wrong page to view.

Where the issue did occur, April notes that it did so at random, and randomly selected the incorrect page to be displayed, so it was impossible for a user to “pick” another user’s information and intentionally view it. She also notes that it was not possible to either make purchases via an incorrect account page, or to make any changes to the page.

As always, details in full in April’s blog post – and many thanks to her again for providing an explanation of the issue and what is being done to hopefully avoid future repetitions.

Cica’s Rocks in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Rocks, by Cica Ghost – The Sim Quarterly

The Sim Quarterly, curated by Electric Monday, opened its latest exhibition on Monday, November 3rd, 2019, featuring a full region installation by Cica Ghost.

Entitled Rocks, it’s a homage to art itself, introduced by a quote by Juliette Aristides, founder and director of the Classical Atelier at the Seattle Academy of Fine Arts:

How you draw is a reflection of how you feel about the world. You’re not capturing it, you’re interpreting it.

Rocks, by Cica Ghost – The Sim Quarterly

In particular, this is a celebration of Cica’s love of art and a reflection of her own creativity in Second Life. As the names suggests, the installation features rocks, huge blocks of semi-regular shaped stone that rise for a mostly flat ground scarred with cracks as if the earth has long since dried out.

All of different sizes, the blocks share a common feature: each has a painting on at least one of its vertical faces. These paintings mirror aspects of Cica’s work in Second Life. Some, for example, present her tall, slender houses, others are home to her famous stick figures and paintings of her flowers. Mixed in with these are pictures of some of her fabulous creatures: a snail here, a fish there, sheep and chickens, while many include references to what might be called her familiars: cats and crows.

Rocks, by Cica Ghost – The Sim Quarterly

It’s a bright, happy place, the paintings bright and cheerful. If art is a reflection of how an artist feels about the world, then this is an installation that tells us Cica loves life and finds the world a bright, warm place in which she can feel at home. And visitors can share in that love and happiness: many of the stones can be touched and offer single and multiple dances, with some additionally offering sit points as well.

A genuinely engaging installation, rich in images and expression.

SLurl Details