It seems the UK is a popular place when it comes to people in Second Life finding love that brings them together in the physical world as well as the digital! For the second part of the new mini-series Love Made in SL, the camera turns to Lily Swidlehurst from the UK and CharlesDe Beaumont from Germany.
Released on Monday, February 25th (does the mark the series as being fortnightly in releases?), this is another short video which tells – in the participant’s own words – how their relationship blossomed on both side of the screen.
It’s a story that piqued my curiosity, as Lily and Charles are both Second Life mentors. Together with Aullere Ocello and her SL partner, Notfragile Gausman, they run the Helping Haven Community Gateway, which has been the subject of an article in this blog (see Community Gateways in Second Life: Helping Haven).
This link to mentoring is also reflected in part of the video being sent in Ahern, which also reflects the fact that Lily and Charles actually met at a welcome centre. However, this also perhaps reveals something that tended to be true of Second Life at one time (although I have no idea if it is still the case): that the friendships made during our earliest exposure to Second Life can actually be the most enduring over time.
And in an age where all the emphasis on digital interactions and the “need” to have all the widgets offered by VR – facial expression, etc – in order to make communication and interaction “real”, Charles points out that actually, quite a lot can be revealed simply through text.
If you get to know someone over several months just typing … then in the end, the personality is becoming very clear.
– CharlesDe Beaumont
Simply put, while it is so often maligned in this the so-called VR age, and disparagingly dismissed as “getting in the way”, the keyboard is actually a magnificent tool for communication, honesty and openness. Perhaps because – like our avatars – it removes us by one step from those with whom we’re communicating, offering an opportunity for consideration and the freedom to offer feelings and emotions that might otherwise remain hidden due to things like embarrassment.
Lily and Charles: sharing their experience through Love Made in SL
As with Teal and Wolfie in the first part of this series (see Love Made in SL: a new video mini-series), the relationship between Charles and lily grew to a point where, after 11 months, Charles took the plunge and moved from Germany to the UK. Around six months later, they were setting up home together.
Also like the first segment in the series, the story is simply and beautifully told, making further commentary here somewhat superfluous. So why not watch the video below, and keep an eye out for the next in this series in a couple of weeks time?
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, February 24th
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 6.0.1.522263, dated December 5th, promoted December 13th. Formerly the Spotykach Maintenance RC viewer – No change.
Release channel cohorts:
Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer updated to version 6.1.0.524240 on February 22nd.
Project viewers:
Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) viewer updated to version 6.0.2.524476 on February 19th.
Currently open at THE EDGE Art Gallery, curated by Ladmilla, is an ensemble exhibition of Second Life and digital art entitled All the Colours of Monochrome, featuring the work of Kapaan, Loegan (Loegan Magic), Patrick (PatrickofIreland), Rachel Magic, Trish (trishasrose) Vinicio Armin and Cybele Moon (Hannahoobinoo), together with a special exhibition entitled Tribute to Surrealism by Mirabelle Biedermann (mirabelle sweetwater).
The gallery itself is an intriguing setting, the exhibition spaces split between a medieval style church and a large castle. A medieval house offers a further annex for displaying art, but for this exhibition, it was empty.
THE EDGE Art Gallery: Venicio Armin
Mirabelle’s Tribute to Surrealism is located in two rooms within the church. A Second Life photographer since 2011, Mirabelle notes that her interest in surrealism is something of a recent turn for her. she started by interpreting some of the more notable works by René Magritte – a point most clearly demonstrated with Son of No One, reflecting as it does Magritte’s Son of Man – before she moved to developing her own style and images, which is also reflected in the pieces offered here.
Also to be found in the church are exhibits featuring the work of Patrick Ireland, who displays four marvellous monochrome pieces in a suitably monochrome setting; Cybele Moon, who has more of her narrative-rich images on one of the church’s two upper galleries, the other being taken by the art of Venicio Armin. I confess to not having witnessed (at least, not that I can remember) his work, but I was immediately drawn to it; there is an evocative strength to his work that is entirely captivating.
THE EDGE Art Gallery: Ladmilla
Rounding out the exhibit in the church is a selection of Ladmilla’s art, more of which can be found in the main rooms within the castle setting. Like Venicio, Ladmilla focuses on landscape pieces, and her work is beautifully lit and rich in colour and tone. Above the main halls of the castle – and indeed below them – on both the parapet walks of the curtain walls and within the narrow passages within the walls, visitors can find the work of Loegan, Rachel, Kapaan and Trish.
Each presents a unique and eye-catching style, but again, I found myself drawn to the more monochrome work of Kapaan. His seven images are presented in two groups, each with its own story to tell, and both drawn together by the setting in which they are offered.
THE EDGE Art Gallery: Kapaan
As an ensemble exhibition, All the Colours of Monochrome offers a rich mix of style and images, and the title cleverly reflects the presentation of both monochrome and colour images. This makes for an engaging visit.
A dramatic shot from the tail boom camera on VSS Unity just after the tail boom has been triggered to its raised “feathered” position to commence the gentle drop back into the denser atmosphere following a flight to an altitude just shy of 90 km (56.25 mi). Credit: Virgin Galactic
On Friday, February 22nd, Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity completed a further test flight, its second time in just over two months, and in doing so set itself a new altitude record.
The space plane was released from its WhiteKnightTwo carrier, the VSM Eve at 16:53 UT, some 45 minutes after taking off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The vehicle’s hybrid rocket moor was fired for roughly one minute, pushing the Unity and its crew of three to an altitude 89.9 km (56 mi), reaching a maximum velocity of Mach 3 in the process. After a successful “feathering” manoeuvre of the vehicle’s tail boom, Unity dropped back into the denser atmosphere and glided back to a runway landing in Mojave at 17:08 UT.
The flight, delayed by two days due to high winds over the planned flight test route, marked the first time the vehicle had carried a “passenger”: Beth Moses, Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor. She made the flight with David Mackay and Mike “Sooch” Masucci, respectively the company’s chief test pilot and lead trainer pilot. All three were making their first trips into space, Moses being aboard to provide practical validation and data on aspects of the customer cabin and spaceflight environment from the perspective of “people in the back”. Her presence on the flight was not announced until after Unity had landed.
Beth, Sooch and I just enjoyed a pretty amazing flight which was beyond anything any of us has ever experienced. It was thrilling yet smooth and nicely controlled throughout with a view at the top, of the Earth from space, which exceeded all our expectations.
– Virgin Galactic chief test pilot David Mackay
Moses also kept an eye on the flight’s special payload – four science and technology demonstration packages provided by NASA under the agency’s Flight Opportunities Programme. Three of the packages had been flown on the Unity’s previous flight in December 2018.
Virgin Galactic have refused to indicate how many more test flights will be made before SpaceShipTwo starts carrying fare-paying passengers, although the company’s founder, Sir Richard Branson has indicated he hopes to fly on the vehicle in July 2019, possibly to mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. Speaking ahead of the February 22nd test flight, Mike Moses, president of Virgin Galactic and husband of Beth Moses, indicated that the company is in the “heart” of their flight test regime, and the focus is on expanding the envelope of flights, including their frequency, prior to committing to commercial flights.
VSS Unity touching down at Mojave Air and Space Port. Credit: Virgin Galactic
The altitudes reached by Unity thus far (just over 80 km / 50 mi on the December 2018 flight and now 89.9 km) have caused some to call into question whether or not VSS Unity has really been in space – including Jeff Bezos, who is heading Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic’s clearest rival in the sub-orbital passenger market.
Speaking about his own company’s test programme with their New Shephard launch system, Bezos emphasised the operational difference between the reusable New Shephard rock and its crew / passenger carrying capsule and Virgin’s SpaceShipTwo. The New Shephard is specifically designed to reach altitudes of 100 km (50 mi), somewhat higher that Virgin Galactic have thus far achieved. 100 km is important, as it marks the position of the Kármán Line, broadly (but not exclusively) considered to be the point above which where aerodynamics cease having any real influence over an aircraft’s performance, making it reliant on astronautics. Thus, it is seen by some as the boundary of space.
One of the issues that Virgin Galactic will have to address, eventually, is that they are not flying above the Kármán Line, not yet … We’ve always had as our mission that we wanted to fly above the Kármán Line, because we didn’t want there to be any asterisks next to your name about whether you’re an astronaut or not. That’s something they’re going to have to address, in my opinion.
– Jeff Bezos, New Origins founder, commenting on Virgin Galactic, February 20th, 2019
New Shephard is also in the midst of a test programme that could see it flying passengers before the end of 2019. Pictures is a text flight launch on January 23rd, 2019, the 10th test flight for the system, as captured via video. Credits: Blue Origin via CBS News
However, things are actually not that clear-cut. There is no international law defining the edge of space; for example, the United States – from which both New Shepherd and Virgin Galactic will fly (at least initially in the latter’s case) considers the boundary to be 80 km (50 mi), which Virgin Galactic can clearly exceed.
Further, Theodore von Kármán, after whom the line is named, suggested the boundary could lie anywhere between 91 km and 100 km altitude. The ambiguity is exacerbated by a proposal to set the “edge” of space in international law as the lowest perigee attainable by an orbiting space vehicle – which would place it somewhere between 130 km (81 mi) and 150 km (93 mi), somewhat beyond the capabilities of either SpaceShipTwo and New Shephard, which tends to render arguments about altitude and boundaries a little moot, particularly given the fact that whether at 80-90 km above the earth or at 100 km, passengers on either vehicle will experience the same degree of weightlessness.
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, February 24th, 13:30: Tea Time with Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes
Following his retirement from active investigations, Sherlock Holmes moved to the Sussex Downs in order to keep bees. However, the gentility of his retirement takes a turn after an encounter with one Mary Russell, a 15-year-old orphan from the United States who moved to England to live with her Aunt.
Somewhat precocious, Mary Russell is also gifted with wit and intellect, and without anything being planned, the two form a new partnership, Holmes teaching Russell his trade craft and assisting her in solving crimes, their adventures charted by American writer, Laurie R. King.
For six years the two work together, until 1921, when they deal with the case of A Monstrous Regiment of Women. At the end of that adventure, Holmes and Mary are wed – but the matter was only given passing mention in the story.
With The Marriage of Mary Russell, here recounted in voice Savanah Blindside, Corwyn Allen, and Caledonia Skytower, Laurie King revisits the nuptials between the two in a short story that also helps to fill some of the blanks around the relationship between Russell and Holmes.
A Tea Time Special Vote
In March and April, Seanchai Library will be presenting Sherlock Holmes Greatest Hits for the Sunday Tea Time at Baker Street sessions. BUT – which four stories should they present? A short list of 10 of the adventures completed by Holmes and Watson has been drawn up, but Seanchai fans and supporters have the power to select the final four. Just visit Sherlock’s Greatest Hits, read the synopses of the short listed ten stories and place your vote for your preferred stories in the list. The final four will be selected from those receiving the most votes.
Monday, February 25th 19:00: Hanta Yo: An American Saga
Gyro Muggins reads Ruth Beebe Hill’s extraordinary novel that is either loved or hated – and has certainly proven controversial since its first publication.
Lyrically written, the story is, at its core, a multi-generational saga follows the lives of two Indian families, members of the Mahto band of the Teton Sioux, before and during their first contact with the white man and his “manifest destiny.” Within its sweeping story, Hill attempted to fashion an epic, Native American version of Alex Haley’s Roots.
Allegedly based in part on writings translated from a Lakota Sioux winter account translated by a First Nation Sioux, the story is certainly cohesive and vivid. For those unfamiliar with the lives and rituals of the Plains Indians of North America, it makes for a fascinating and enlightening read.
However, to some in the Lakota, the book is seen as demeaning and misrepresentative – a fact Hill herself finds baffling. Whilst she fully acknowledges the story is a “documented novel” – a fictional story based on actual events – she also notes that she spent some 20 or more years researching Hanta Yo and carrying out hundreds of interviews with representatives of the Sioux, Kiowa, Omaha, Cheyenne, and Navajo tribes, including allowing them access to her manuscript to verify the historical elements from their standpoint.
Event today, in the year of the 40th anniversary since its first publication, Hanta Yo divides opinions. So why not settle down with Gyro to hear the tale first hand?
Tuesday, February 26th 19:00: Selections from Wind on the Willows
With Faerie Maven-Pralou.
Wednesday, February 27th 19:00: Winter Sea in Poetry and Music
With Ktahdn Vesuvino (on stream) and Caledonia Skytower (in Voice)
Thursday, February 28th 19:00: The Call of the Wild, Part 2
First published in 1903, The Call of the Wild is regarded as Jack London’s masterpiece.
Based on London’s experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness and his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence, The Call of the Wild is a tale about unbreakable spirit and the fight for survival in the frozen Alaskan Klondike.
With Shandon Loring. (Also in Kitely grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI).
Open through the rest of February and into March at Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, curated by Dido Haas, is Hydrosphere by Kerupa Flow.
The name is a reflection of Kerupa’s fascination with water, which has been – as she notes – a major theme in her art for a long time.
Creatures can not live without water, everyone knows. However, we forget what water is. Water is infinite, it’s a huge force beyond humanity, which enables us to stay alive …. but it also can destroy us.
This description might suggest the art on offer comprises images with a water theme – and so they do; but not in the manner one might expect. These are images that reflect our complex relationship with water, richly personifying it. In one sculpture, it is celebrated as the place from which complex life evolved, the mother of all that life on Earth has become. In another it appears as a whirlpool drawing a body in to it, a reminder that it can be a destroyer of life; the most powerful demonstration of nature’s power, as Kerupa again notes.
The earthquake and tsunami disasters that occurred in 2011 in Japan were exactly the power of the earth itself. The way the tsunami moved over a long distance with the overwhelming power until it stopped inland, is a terror that can not be forgotten.
The images present many facets of our relationship to water, a relationship which is so complex, it is easy to arrive at more than one interpretation for some of them. Take the second sculpture mentioned above, Minawa. On the one hand there is that sense of water’s power to kill, but it also perhaps personifies that origin of life also mentioned above – and even that of birth; that is, rather than being pulled into the whirlpool, the figure within the piece is coming forth.
The theme of birth might also be evident which might be seen in Twilight dreams. On the one hand, this piece might serve as a reminder of the soothing influence the sound of the ebb and flow of water can have on us, encouraging rest and dreams. On the other there is a suggestion of the womb, and the security it represents.
Elsewhere in the collection, the nature of water is more directly personified, through Merman – Voice of the Sea, for example, or the marvellously animate Water of the Erebus. In this latter piece is another marvellous intertwining of ideas: water is given a face – but not just any face. It belongs to the primordial deity personifying darkness, a child of Chaos – a further referencing to natures raw power through water and the seas around us.
All told, Hydrosphere is another fascinating exhibit at Nitroglobus, rich in context and narrative (I’ve not even mentioned Water Dragon and how it would appear to have a tie with Kerupa herself – but I’ll leave you to read her byline for the exhibition and draw your conclusions on this 🙂 . All I will say is that, as always, this is not an exhibit to be missed.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 