Author: John

I first tried the High Fidelity worlds in late 2014 and really didn’t like it. Using it was way too technical and there really wasn’t any social aspect to it.  On Monday I heard Philip Rosedale’s discussion with Draxtor

(https://draxfiles.com/2017/10/15/show-158/ The trick is getting beyond the endlessly repeating introductory music thing don’t really get started until 28 minutes into the video.)

and liked what I heard. About how user driven and inclusive High Fidelity was.

So, I decided to try it again. Yes, it is still too technically involved even for an old geek like me to use it without considering a lot of options and there is not enough of a population to be very social right now. But when I started using High Fidelity I was pleasantly surprised.

No, it’s scenic graphics are not as refined right now as the other VR experience. But it does not…

Picnic at Mr. Darcy’s

Step back into Regency England and pay a visit to Mr. Darcy’s splendid manor house and grounds. Here you can picnic as you watch the croquet match (even play), waltz to a sweet melody on the vast marble terrace or just take a long walk to gather your thoughts.

So reads the invitation from Solas (SolasNaGealai in Second Life) for people to visit Picnic At Mr. Darcy’s, one of her Sansar experiences. For those seeking a relaxing, period walk and time with a friend, it could be just the ticket – albeit with a little bit of a twist in places.

As the invite states, visitors are offered the chance to visit the grounds of Fitzwilliam Darcy’s magnificent Pemberley manor house as imagined by Solas, and spend time exploring them. A visit starts on the grand lawn, with Tchaikovsky‘s waltz from Sleeping…

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Mysteries

Melusina Parkin returns to the Nitroglobus Roof Gallery for October, with an exhibition called Mysteries, and it is a thought-provoking display of photography.

“Missing faces, veiled ones, obscure looks,” Melusina states in introducing the exhibition. “Statues and mannequins populate Second Life with their mysterious mood. Sometimes they are creepy, sometimes they are gentle, always they are silent.”

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Mysteries

Thus, Mysteries presents thirteen images of mannequins, figures and statues captured from around Second Life. Such figures, to be found all over the grid, whether in stores or art events, parks or role-play regions, homes or photography studios, all have some kind of story to tell – be it part of a larger setting or contained within the frame of their own display as a work of art or object of everyday use.

So to, through Melusina’s collection, do they tell a…

Coming to a screen near you in 2018  – and not to be missed. Via: Draxtor Despres

In 2016 I wrote about the work of Tom Boellstorff and Donna Z Davis (respectively Tom Bukowski  and Tredi Felisimo in Second Life). Since 2015 Donna – a strategic communications professor at the University of Oregon specialising in mass media & society, public relations, strategic communication, virtual environments and digital ethnography – and Tom –  a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine – have been engaged in a National Science Foundation funded study formally entitled  Virtual Worlds, Disability, and New Cultures of the Embodied Self, and more informally referred to as Our Digital Selves.

Their work, which will continue through into 2018, focuses on the experiences of people with disabilities – visible and invisible – who are using immersive virtual spaces to represent themselves, possibly free of the shadow of…

Scare Me Silly: the haunted mansion

Scare Me Silly 2017, in support of the American Diabetes Association (ADA), opened its doors on Friday, October 13th, 2017, and will remain open through until the end of the month.

Organised by Team Diabetes of Second Life, the event features live performances. DJ parties, a hunt and a quest,  tricks and treats, a haunted mansion, ghostly rides and – of course – shopping!

Participating merchants include:

Scare Me Silly 2017

@AdReNaLiZeD@, Albino Peacock, Babey, Bad Dragon Clothing, Beyond Persuasion Design, Blush, BRYNE, Candy’s Designs, Cats ‘n Kittens Boutique, Cazimi, ChiC buildings, Chiffon, Cleopatra Inc., Creepy Midget Designs, Dallas MacKenzie Designs, Dominique’s Designs, Epicine, Fae Fantasy Creations, Fashiowl Poses, Gidget’s Style, Gross Princess, GypsyRose Botanical, IMaGE Factory, Indigenous, Just Imagine, Just Ordinary, Kades, Kiliki Bikini, Kitty Creations, Kittycat’s Creations , LC Fashion, Lunar Seasonal Designs, MadCatCreations, Mahlberg Tailors, Mara’s Mysteries, Mariposa, Metal and…

House of Woe

Halloween is approaching, and in both Second Life and Sansar, suitably themed regions and experiences are appearing; the chance of a US $10,000 prize in the Sansar’s Scariest.

I’ve no idea if House of Woe by Nick the Brain Guy is an entry in the Sansar contest, but as it attracted my attention in the Atlas, I decided to hop in and take a look. It’s a nicely interactive experience – one which can actually take up a fair amount of time, and can be enjoyed in a group. However, it does have one or two issues.

Welcome. I see you made it out of this dreadful storm.  I am the butler, and I greet you in the name of Baron Nicolas Winterborne, lord of this house and grounds. He’s quite the master of obscure knowledge you know; his wife is too, but I would advise steering…

Cynefin – Creations: Milly Sharple

I’ve long admired Milly Sharple’s art, as I’ve tended to mention in the past. I’ve reported on her work – which includes region designs as well as art; and along with many others, disappointed to hear she was retiring from Second Life art and shutting down her facilities at Timamoon Arts and Isle of Lyonesse.

However, such was the outpouring of support from those wishing to see Milly continue to display her art in, she relented and established a new gallery called Cynefin, where she is now exhibiting a select of work called Creations.

Cynefin – Creations: Milly Sharple

One of the major attractions for me with Milly’s work is her fractal art; I’ve written about it on numerous occasions, and Creations includes examples among the 52 pieces on display. However it also includes pieces representing her more recent experiments with…

Seanchai Library

It’s time to kick-off 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, October 15th

13:30: Tea Time at Baker Street

The pages of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, the final set of twelve Sherlock Holmes short stories first published in the Strand Magazine between October 1921 and April 1927, are once again opened for another tale from the diaries of Dr. John Watson…

This week: The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place

Originally entitled The Adventure of the Black Spaniel, this story marks the last of the 56 Sherlock Holmes’ adventures penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; although it is not always the final story in printed versions of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, nor is…

Scare Me Silly 2017 has now opened its doors! This event takes place October 13 to 31, 2017 and features shopping, two hunts, haunted rides, tricks, and of course treats!  Join us today at 4pm slt for an opening party with live performer Thunder Lovencraft! The slurl to this event is:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Water%20Haven/149/136/23

You can find a list of participating merchants and info about our hunt at the following links:

Scare Me Silly Event

Click for Shopping Guide

Click for Pumpkin Hunt Info

Click for Skeleton Quest Info

Click for Event’s Schedule

La Vie – click any image for full size

La Vie has reopened! Please come pay a visit! And don’t forget to put your pics in the Flickr group. I can’t wait to see you and all of your art!

Thus read the invitation Krys Vita sent out to members her group a few days ago, inviting folk to drop into her homestead region of La Vie and enjoy its new look, and with an additional prod from Max and Shakespeare, Caitlyn and I hopped across to see how things had changed. The last time we were in the region, it was a tropical paradise designed by Krys and TreMeldazis; for this iteration, Krys has once again collaborated with Arol Lightfoot.

La Vie

“It was time for a change I think,” Krys said as we arrived. “La Vie has been around a long time!” Seasonal changes are not uncommon…

Fractal 397 (Wrecks, 2016) by Gem Preiz, on Flickr

I’ve been an admirer of Gem Preiz’s fractal art ever since I first encountered it several years ago on my travels as a reviewer of art in Second Life.

This year, 2017, marks the fifth anniversary of Gem’s first exhibitions in Second Life, and he has been marking the with two retrospectives. The first, A Retrospective, was held at the start of the year, and you can read about it here. The second, appropriately called Five Years of Fractals, opened in September 2017, and you can read about it here.

To help celebrate this anniversary – and the fact that Gem himself is fast approaching his 10th anniversary in SL -, I had the opportunity to sit down with him in late September 2017 and discuss his work with him on behalf of Kultivate Magazine. It was…

After leaving the lovely roadside park in Pak, walking a few meters forward you arrive in Seopophang. There’s a rez zone. An avatar was sitting there when I walked by, perhaps waiting for a pod.

Then you pass through Taesot. There are palm trees added to the mix of trees, flowers and bushes along the road.

The next sims are Gwail, Ge, Saengseon and then Yeot.

Then we arrive at the end of Route 10, Route 9/Route 10 Rez Zone, Yeot.

The infrastructure photos were taken in early October, 2017.  I plan on choosing a new route on a new continent soon.

Image courtesy of Linden Lab

The following notes are taken from the Sansar Product Meetings held on Friday, October 6th. These meetings are held every Friday at 9:30am PTD and 4:00pm PTD, and are open to all. There is no set agenda (currently), and the meetings are a mix of voice and text. The official meeting notes are published in the week following each pair of meetings, while venues change on a weekly basis, and are announced in the Meet-up Announcements.

The October 6th meetings took place at Spinnervale, a creepy experience for Halloween by Debi Baskerville (and which I’ve reviewed here). Attending the meetings were Bjørn Laurin, the Lab’s VP of Product, and Cara and Boden from the Product team.

Discovery Release Update

The Discovery release was deployed on Wednesday, October 4th – see my overview on the release for core details. However, there were some…

Tavana Island – click any image for full size

I was drawn to suggest Tavana Island as a place Caitlyn and I should explore on the basis it is designed by Brayan Friller (Brayan26 Friller) and Elyjia (Elyjia Baxton). They were the couple behind the gorgeous Au Petit Jour (see here for more) and The Heart of the Sea (see here for more), so I was keen to see what they had cooked up with their latest design. As it turned out, we weren’t the only ones: digging into my inventory I found Shakespeare and Max had also sent me a landmark for the region!

If there is a word to sum-up Tavana Island, it has to be “exquisite”. This is a place we and I arrived in with the intention of having a leisurely exploratory wander – and ended up spending the better part of our evening within. It’s also…

Seanchai Library

It’s time to kick-off 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, October 8th 13:30: Tea Time at Baker Street

The pages of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, the final set of twelve Sherlock Holmes short stories first published in the Strand Magazine between October 1921 and April 1927, are once again opened for another tale from the diaries of Dr. John Watson…

This week: The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger

“You will understand, Mrs. Merrilow, that if I come to Mrs. Ronder I should prefer to have a witness. You will make her understand that before we arrive.”

“Lord bless you, Mr. Holmes,” said our visitor, “she is that anxious to see you that you might…

Sansar: Spinnervale

What happens when you’re invited to dinner with friends, only to arrive at their little place in the country as the Sun is setting and the Moon rising and find music playing, the front door open, but no-one home? All you have is a hurriedly written plea for help:

Please help!!

Bob went to the wood this morning saying he’d be back in a few minutes, but he never returned. I’m worried!!

I’ve gone to look for him. Please come help me. Follow the river until you see the rock bridge and cross the river into the woods. I’m going to look at the cave and also lover’s leap. I don’t think he would have gone to Bat Hollow.

You’d hopefully set out to to provide the requested assistance. And thus you’d be drawn into the realm of Spinnervale, the seasonal experience designed by Debi Baskerville.

Sansar: