Your source of news about the people, places, things, and events across Second Life.
The Olympics are here! And not just in real life, or for most of us the boob tube. The London areas have a number of Olympic themed events. Plus the Flying Tigers have their Sports Festival. If the Olympics isn't your thing, "Jamm for Genes" is this weekend, in which numerous musicians perform live for charity. And of course there's our regularly scheduled lineup of book & poetry readings, club DJ events, talk shows, and church services.
Grey Lupindo has been exploring once again in Second Life. She returned to Cap Estel, and found a picturesque Italian countryside. Created by Maurice Messmer, the place is masterfully done. It looks so real, one would think you could smell the vinyards.
To Phoenix fans, Tonya Southern of the Firestorm/Phoenix team has some less than pleasant news, "Viewer 1 is officially on borrowed time." In the latest post on her blog, she talked about a recent third-party viewer meeting with Oz Linden about some upcoming changes with Second Life. Specifically, Project Shinning. While it should stop "bake fail" in newer viewers, "it is incompatible with current viewers. … The result of the server-sized bake is that viewers that don't handle it will simply see gray avatars, with no way to fix them."
And the Phoenix Viewer, which continues to be the most popular of the third-party viewers? Team Phoenix has yet to make a decision, but in Tonya's opinion, "it's time to say that we are not going to put any more effort into Phoenix."
A few days ago, "Star Wars the Old Republic" was given six nominations for the Annual Game Developers Choice Online Awards. But this seems to be the only good news for the once up and coming online game, which lately has had problems keeping up it's numbers of customers.
Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitello made the most interesting comment about the games recent troubles, "Our conclusion was we had a great product in Star Wars, but that the subscription model in the world of free-to-play was challenging." Indeed, there are reports that BioWare is considering going beyond the free trials to play the game to making it free to play. Riccitiello stated that EA was looking at "different models to bring in more users into the game," but would not confirm that a free-to-play one was in the works. The companies would only say, "In the weeks ahead, we will announce plans for growing The Old Republic with new content, new players, and new ways to play."
Wednesday night this week at Cutlass was it's "Dungeons and Dragons" night, with DJ Cynthia playing music to the costumed crowd. Among the adventurers was a Beholder, and of course a dragon.
The following night at Club Zero Gravity was it's Comedy Night, with people dressing up in clown outfits, clown noses, cartoonish avatars, and one laughing hyena. And whom better to play the music than DJ Shockwave, whom entertained the dancers with songs from Ray Stevens, Weird Al, and a few of his own music parodies.
One of the more popular places in Second Life is London City area, which offers a number of events. And when the real London has a celebration, it's often reflected here, such as the Queen's Jubilee earlier in the year.
We hope you will join us on Friday, from 11am SLT (7pm UK) as we prepare ourselves for a month of fun activities, events, concerts and other special entertainment.
Grey Lupindo recently took a look at Glendale Community College, a Second Life reflection of the real-life college near Phoenix. The place has two main sections, a mountain retreat, and a Mexican village where one can practice his/her Spanish.
In an article written by Sarah Lacy for her online magazine Pandodaily, the writer came across Philip Rosedale, the founder of Linden Lab and Second Life. Rosedale talked about what the writer called, "the all too familiar hero-villian press cycle," about how national publications ignore companies in Silicon Valley until it's certain to be big, "then they make the founders into two-dimensional cover boy 'overnight' successes. … And then when it starts to fall apart, they either become evil or stupid. Either way, they're mocked, written off, and forgotten about."
Once again, a cartoon inspired by actual dialogue, at least the second part. ;-)
Xymbers Slade heard about two performance artists working on an event in Second Life: the Dance Queens Festival by Medora Chevalier and Trill Zapatero. While not a fan of dancing, he noted the two had an impressive reputation in Second Life's artist community and arranged to talk with them about their past work, as well as their current one.
An article on Cnet.com in March discussed about an agreement between several ISPs and RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America, to adopt policies to discourage illegal music and software downloads last year. The White House was also involved in the deal. "During a panel discussion before a gathering of US publishers here today (March 14)" RIAA's CEO stated most of the ISPs in the program were set to "begin implementing the program by July 1st."
Charlotte Bombastic recently sent us her interview with Ranma Yoshiro, the producer of the Digital Wrestling Roundtable (DWRT). The show had been put on hiatus, but now it's back in business. Charlotte asks what got the show running again, and what does it hope to bring to fans of wrestling on the Grid.
"The video I made for Duran Duran at the Olympics will be used for the opening gig seen by 4 billion people. How cool is that. I wonder if the servers can handle a huge influx of newbies on the 27th of July." ... "I spent the better part of the day there filming over 26 gigs of footage 3 hours worth of film that once edited down to 13 minutes gives you a small insight into what happen's at the Duran Duran Sim in Second Life."
"Use what you have for as long as you can." That's a piece of advice I was given by family when it came to expensive items, such as computers, especially in tough economic times such as now. But with the popularity of mesh, more and more objects and people have appeared as crude shapes. And it seemed like I'd have to get a new computer sooner than I was ready to. Lomgren Smalls did tell me about an alternative to going into debt for a new machine: the Cool VL Viewer.
I was very happy to receive an invitation to the opening of a new exhibit at Art Studio 33 in the Art Warehouse. Mino ( Minollo Menges) has a display of new work. Monroe Snook says of the artist, ”His new direction is a departure from his last exploration and is rich in a wonderful glow."
Looking deeply into the content, you care about the figures represented. "Who are they? What has put them in that position? What are their thoughts?” It does have a rich glow. Mino says he does not take his work too seriously. He has feelings like all humans, and likes to put them out in his art. I tried to ask Mino about his works and he told me, “You know Gemma, since I used to make my works for myself, because I need to catch all many things I've inside my head, I barely think about exhibits, or anything else. I just need to work and I do.”
The images are lovely and the light shines out of each one. The exhibit will be there until August 17. I love to visit the Studio33 exhibits at the Rockcliffe Conservatory. Monroe Snook, the gallerist , always invites outstanding artists to display their works. After you visit this exhibit you may like to TP down to the ground exhibit to see a retrospect of the scupts of Elros Touminen from several years ago, from Monroe’s private collection. They are placed all around the studio 33.
Last weekend, was one of the largest events in Second Life, the Relay for Life Walk. Nearly 2000 avatars over the course of 24 hours walked the track made up of over 40 sims. One of the Newser team was there not just as a reporter, but also a participant. So many pictures were taken, they had to be split into the two different days.
Friday July 20 was the day that the RFL track was officially on borrowed time. Despite the previous day being the Teardown, many builds were still up. Peeking in time to time, there was little activity, an individual here or there. At around 9PM SL time, I took another look, and saw a gathering at Steelhead. I headed there, and found several of the Steelhead Salmons team, including Tensai Hilra, who greeted me hello. And around them was wreckage.
The team was joining those ending their exhibit with a bang - literally. They had stored the original exhibit, and were re-erecting copies of the larger parts, such as buildings and towers. Once the individual prims were unlinked, physics took over, and the structure came down in a crash, bricks, springs, wall sections, scattering all over.
Besides the Steelheads, I saw a couple other people. They were using the time the track still had to run a few more laps. Their reasons, unknown. Maybe they were enjoying the sights while they were still up, or perhaps running laps for a late friend. They quickly came and went, their images fading away into the distance.
Description: In honor of the upcoming Olympics the Flying Tigers Sims are having a 16 day special event! Events will include live DJs, tribute band concerts, a sports themed fashion show, and sporting events! We will also offer merchants and exhibitors a free shop or exhibitors space with 50 prims.
As you know, Hair creators usually let you wear a demo before you decide to make a purchase. Can someone explain to me what is the sense of handing out a demo box which cant be opened immediatly at the fair to try the hair??? I left that shop quickly. The easiest way to find your favorite vendor is to check the website which lists all the shops and you can get to the slurl by clicking on the name. http://hairfair.wordpress.com/
There are some lovely mesh hair styles if your computer supports mesh. I did try on some offerings. You will find styles for children, male and female, as well as adults. The Fair is not just for humans. I ran into an android shopping for hair and hats. July 29 is Bandana Day when you are all invited to wear a bandana in honor of those children who have lost their hair in treatment. You will find a shop with all sorts of bandanas to purchase.
Sometimes the teardown was made into an event, having the build go down in a blaze of glory. It one case, it was literal. The builder of team "Armada Fights Back" had a kind of pirate base, of which the wooden structures were set afire. When word got around, it wasn't long before someone rezzed a fire truck, drove it over, and began hosing the fire. She was joined by DJ Madonna and one other, whom also turned hoses on the blaze. But not being a scripted fire, the hoses of course had no effect, "these flames must've been fed by pirate booze." Madonna was joked about being out-of-uniform when hosing the flames in her latex, "then again, it's waterproof."
Team "Walking Tall for a Cure," whom were featured in the Newser a couple days ago in a cartoon, also made an event out of their exhibit's end. The place resembled the skeletal beams of a building in progress. Instead of having the place just simply vanish, the builder unlinked the prims and enabled physics, with the result being it collapsed over several seconds. And even after that, the beams kept settling and tumbling down, "they just kept falling." SL Newser didn't get to the event in time to see it happen, but Rastrolinkow Roffo provided some pictures (including the one to the left). The group cleaned up everything, "just like we found it," except for a single kiosk, and headed to Lollygagger Lane.
But as the evening wore on, some of the builds were still up. This included the Passionate Redheads build, of which Lomgren Smalls copied, but delayed taking down. Team "Relay Wizards for Spunky," along with Spunky Young, were partying late in the evening with their build still up. But one way or another, all will soon be gone.
On Wednesday, the final day of the Relay track before the takedown, people were going about seeing a few more sights, taking a few more pictures, and of course there was what's become a Relay tradition in Second Life since 2010: the "Flood Party." Group announcements from Trader1 Whiplash let people know.
Please be advised the grid-wide weather service has posted a severe weather watch for numerous RFL sims this evening, possibly around 6 PM SLT. 
People were gathering at T1Radio's Studio in the RFL Acceptance sim, the station playing music. And as 6 PM rolled around, the rain began to fall, and the water began to cover the road. DJ Madonna joked this was one reason why she wore a latex rubber suit. People danced away, some sporting ducky inflatable tubes. As time went on, the water got a little deeper. Fortunately for anyone without a swimmer AO, it didn't match the ten meters of the first flood party in 2010, but on the road it did get waist deep.
Osgrid will be celebrating it’s 5th birthday on Friday 20th July until Tuesday 24th July 2012, which is going to be awesome and bigger than ever before. This is another major milestone for Osgrid to reach it’s 5th birthday. OSG5B has 7 regions dedicated to the birthday with OSG5B exhibits to visit and there will be many live music performances.
Gemma Cleanslate recently found out about about what some kid avatar fans regard as their best time in Second Life: Camp Hardknock. Heading over, what she saw was a place with a wide range of experiences for the kids. The place is guided by the counselors of course, of which doing thing behind their back is a favorite pasttime. Gemma took an in-depth look at the place, and the fun the SL kids had.
The Relay Track doesn't have much longer before it's down. Wednesday's the last day to get a good look at the place. And what awaits the visitor, quite a bit.
In the eastern half of RFL Overcome and the western of RFL Manage, there's a huge laboratory. Just about everything is built to giant scale, the tables, the equipment, making normal avatars look mouse-sized. For some Relayers, it brought back memories of the classic "Greenies" sim from the earlier days in Second Life.
There was one party for Wednesday I did hear the time for, though not the place: the Flood Party. It's supposed to start sometime between 4 and 6 PM SL time, of which one of the sims gets flooded. Residents are advised to bring their own inner tubes or swimmer AOs.