No Word On One Billion Rising Event

 

For several years, February 14 in Second Life not only had numerous Valentine's Day events, but also had the One Billion Rising event, part of a worldwide demonstration in support of women's rights across the globe. There were numerous music events, and many displays by artists. 

Last year however, the event was called off due to a number of the people being "overwhelmed by real life and other commitments." Checking the blog and the group, there was no information about any event for 2024. 

It's likely the event will revive some time in the future. But it seems for now One Billion Rising is closed. 

Bixyl Shuftan

No "One Billion Rising" Event In Second Life This Year

 

For the past several years, there has been a "One Billion Rising" event here in Second Life, part of a worldwide demonstration in support of women's rights around the planet. This year however, the virtual world won't be part of it, at least not to the extent it's been. Checking the blog, Saffia Widdershins announced she was cancelling for 2023.

Although some of the team are very willing and able to stage the event this year, others of us have been overwhelmed by real life and other commitments. In view of this, it seemed best to cancel OBR 2023, and instead look ahead to a magnificent return in 2024.

I apologise to people who may have started preparations – the delay in informing people about this news is entirely my fault, and not anyone else’s.

For me personally, after ten years, the time has come to step back from an organisational role – although I do hope I will be able to attend and enjoy the event in 2024 and beyond.

 

It's possible someone is planning a much smaller event in support of OBR, but if so the Newser doesn't know about it yet. In the meantime,

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

Announcement: "The Guardians" SL Launch at The Peale, 3PM today

 

Join us as we celebrate the Peale's newest exhibition, The Guardians -- a photo documentary & storytelling project including large-scale photo portraits, and digital archives that celebrate unrecognized Black female leaders across Baltimore City neighborhoods.

This event will officially launch The Guardians exhibition in Second Life, where the Peale building has been painstakingly recreated for online visitors around the world.

We will start with a live-streamed event that explores the future of the Guardians and their tireless work. Hear about their community initiatives and how they plan to continue to make a change in Baltimore into 2022 and beyond.

This virtual exhibition accompanies the physical exhibition on display in real-life from October 30, 2021 – December 19, 2021 at The Peale at Carroll Mansion in Baltimore, MD. Photographic banners are also currently on display on the front of Baltimore’s City Hall

This project provides a platform for women who spend their lives fighting for a better, more equitable Baltimore.

Additional content, including biographies, quotes and audio stories from each of the 13 Guardians is available on the exhibition website at http://guardians.thepeale.org

ABOUT THE PEALE:

The Peale is home to the world’s largest digital collection of Baltimore stories, and is renovating the first museum building in the United States, established by artist Rembrandt Peale in 1814, to provide a showcase for the city’s storytellers that honors their importance and historical value. Our mission is to ensure the whole story of the City is told, and, by amplifying its communities’ voices, to help people everywhere see Baltimore in a new light. In the innovative spirit of the Peale family of artists and explorers, the Peale is a new kind of civic museum: both a laboratory and a teaching museum – not just a treasure house, but also a production house of culture. Learn more at www.thepealecenter.org

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Peale%20Museum/127/100/23
 

Bento Realistic Organs For Avatars For Sale

Remember the "Visible Woman" Beckye Burnstein a few years ago? For those who don't, She added realism to her avatar by adding bones and organs underneath. Since then, yours truly has seen a number of avatars with brains in the head, but nothing more until a friend pointed out a mutual friend had gotten internal organs. Talking to her, she pointed out a certain item on Marketplace: "Bento Realistic Female Organs 4.1."

What the product does install a set of organs and glands one would expect to see for a grown woman, a heart, lungs, intestines, a liver, and more. This includes mammary glands and ovaries and an uterus. There's an option for the brain to give out "emotional messages," which appear in local chat, "What your heart thinks is great, is great. The soul's emphasis is always right." There wasn't really a way to see the organs other than panning inside (I let the lady know, as well as getting the okay to take and publish pictures).

The item, made by a Jackhammerhp Strom, is up for sale both on Marketplace and his inworld store. Most of the reviews in Marketplace were positive, "So realistic in a creepy but awesome way." But one gave mixed reviews, "This product isn't good or bad, it's just...confusing? " Jackhammer recommended an avatar of at least 20% body fat, plus altering the avatar further if some organs end up poking out. One reviewer stated it doesn't always work on furry avatars, though it was a furry I saw with the organs.

There are a number of other items in his Marketplace store, and inworld, including Bento skeletons for avatars, and a skeleton and organ "Pregnancy System." It should be noted some of the items are clearly of an adult nature, so the page should be considered "Not Safe For Work."

So has Beckye heard of the Bento organs? Messaging her, she responded, "Of course I did, and I got it right away! Haha, finally someone made it!"

So while selling human organs in real life may get you in a lot of trouble, in Second Life, it can be done. That is, if you've got the "guts" for it, and the "heart" to always listen to your customers.

Bixyl Shuftan

News and Commentary: "Fat Shaming" Publicity Stunt By Store Draws Protests, Traffic

Businesses have tried many ways to draw traffic, occasionally resorting to silly commercials or publicity stunts. But one clothing store in Second Life recently began putting a sign in it's store, and the owner some lines in her profile, that were quite insulting to women of large size. The results were people coming to the store to protest. But might have these protestors ended up doing what the store owner wanted?

Read more in Extra.

Back to Normal: A Look Back At The "Bid Me Human" and "Platinum Challenge"

Do you ever feel like you're not quite yourself? For over two weeks, the Editor was in two avatars quite different from his normal look. First as part of a Relay for Life "Bid Me," he went about a ethnic human appearance. Then when his Relay team reached Platinum level fundraising, he had to make good on an "avatar challenge," going female for a week. So how did his time of going furless, then of the fairer sex turn out?

Read Bixyl's story in People.

Bixyl's Sunbeamer Platinum Avatar Challenge

Those who know me well know that I almost never take on a female appearance in Second Life, at least deliberately. But with the Sunbeamer team needing something to help encourage them on the way to Platinum, once again I offered to put my avatar's appearance on the line. Last year, the result of us going Platinum was me going pony for a week, an avatar I had never had worn. And so I offered another challenge of similar scale, going about in a female avatar for a week.

Maybe it egged on team captain Rita Mariner a little, but the results in any case were the team going Platinum, so I had to make do on my promise. BUT, I didn't say what kind of female look. So when we kept steadily heading to the mark, an idea came to me: get a look as close to our team captain as I could. I asked a few mutual friends first as many who prefer furry avatars take being unique seriously. When I was told she wouldn't get upset, I went for it. Luckily, she had told people what brand dress she had. Getting the hairpiece and the feet was another matter and had to get items that were close. As it turned out, the store where she got the hair was no longer around.

So what did the "Killer Rabbit" think upon seeing the results of the avatar challenge? She had a good laugh, considering it funny and clever, and had the idea of posing for this picture. So for a week, yours truly will be in a skirt. The only complaint so far, one girl ribbing me that I should have done a look based on her. But considering her chest, the results would have given me a backache just by looking at it.

But it's all in the name of fun, and for a good cause, the Relay for Life. And yours truly can say it took a large amount of money to take this step. It just went to cancer research, not me.

Update: Rita posted the following on Facebook:

I am posting 2 days in a row, but this one is too good not to put up. As I mentioned before my Second Life team, The Sunbeamers, raises money for the RFL and the ACS (American Cancer Society). Well we had a small side bet going from one of our members, Bixyl Shuftan. He said, if our team made Platinum, he would go female avatar for a week. We did and yesterday evening he revealed herself to a waiting crowd, at my Club Cutlass. I was surprised, delighted and laughed some. Bixyl came dressed as a Rita Clone, or as close as he could get. It was like looking into a mirror. He spent some time and money on this one. Good Going Bixyl, you got me! 

Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day

From the HFOT benefit at Veterans Isle, this girl showed up in a "Deadpool" costume. In the comics, there was no mention of the quirky "merc with a mouth" having a sister, let alone one having his abilities. But supposedly what gave the "accelerated healing factor" also caused disfigurement. That could complicate any plans for a Saturday night on the town. Then again, a girl doesn't need to look like a supermodel to be "awesome."

By Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day

Taken at Aero Pines' Superbowl party. It seems two friends on a "ladies night out" have different things on their minds.

By Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day

Taken at Club Cutlass, Valkyrie Ice shows off her succubus' "assassin's outfit." Skimpy outfits for women fighters, armor and otherwise, has become quite a cliche in gaming. Perhaps it's the result of perverted designers. Or maybe, just maybe, such outfits actually do offer some practical advantages.

By Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day

Hamlet Au (James Wagner), the head of New World Notes, has been quite a rival for the SL News audience, at least in the past. Lately though he hasn't been reporting on Second Life as he once has. In April 2011, we both dropped in on a Japanese charity event, and to my surprise he was in the Japanese schoolgirl avatar. He told me he was testing the "basic mode" for newcomers on the official viewer at the time, and he somehow got stuck as a girl due to a glitch. My response was over a minute of laughing gestures, "Oh you are SO cartooned!"

So after three years, here you go Hamlet.

Bixyl Shuftan

An Unexpected Problem With Oculus Rift

By Bixyl Shuftan

Danah Boyd of Quartz wrote an interesting article that suggest a little caution about the notion that the Oculus Rift could be a cure-all for Second Life's ills. Despite all the "guy in real life" jokes, it's agreed that close to half of Second Life's users are female. So when Dana's article suggested that women were more likely than men to feel nausea from using a 3D rig, it's likely to get attention. "By and large, my male friends and colleagues had no problem with these systems," Dana wrote, "My female peers, in the other hand, turned green."

Why were girls more likely to have trouble. As it turns out, there's evidence sex hormones affect the retina more than any other body part apart from genitals. The reason this is a problem is there are two ways someone can tell depth perception, "motion parallax," which has to do with an object's apparent size, and "shape from shading," which is how the light from off an object changes when you look at if from a slightly different perspective. While virtual reality handles the former just fine, "3D graphics does a terrible job of truly emulating shape from shifting." And Dana's research concluded women on the whole rely on shape-from-shading much more than men (pdf link).

This doesn't mean that this applies to each and every one. Some women can still handle Oculus with ease while some guys will need a barf bag handy. Still, it's a suggestion that perhaps more research needs to be done on the matter.

Source: Quartz Magazine 
Image Source: Jeff Chiu

Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day: WW2 RP

By Bixyl Shuftan

Commentary: Gender in Second Life - Take Two

Recently, Newser reporter talked about the issue of taking on the appearance of the opposite sex in "Gender in SL." Some do so more or less freely. Others, not so much or not at all. Bixyl Shuftan had a few thoughts and impressions on the subject, as well as a different perspective. Here, he offers some words of his own on the topic.

For the article, check out People.

Untangling Tango

Today, Becky talks about designer tips for girls with implants. As a clothing outfitter, she included a notecard with her outfits for bustier girls about how to tweak things to get the most out of the dress with the avatar. Today, there's a new kind of implant on the scene, and Becky shows how to get the best out of it and your clothes. And if you prefer furry avatars, Becky shows how the ladies can be busty bunnies.

Read Becky's article in Design.

Gender in SL

Becky "Sha" Shamen had a few things to say on a certain subject that for some residents is a touchy subject. The ability for someone to go about the grid as the opposite sex. In real life media, the topic's become the subject of numerous jokes. Becky on the other hand has her own opinions on the matter of one's gender on the Grid.

Read Becky's comments in People.

Cartoon of the Day

Miyuki shows off her metal bikini. One gaming cliche that never seems to end despite all the jokes, is just how skimpy female armor is compared to the guys. In a fight even remotely realistic, it would be close to useless, especially to protecting vitals. Probably the only place I could imagine it's use would be for the female guards of a pervy villain's lair, one whom was more concerned with his desires than keeping out adventurers.

By Bixyl Shuftan

The SL Ninety-Nines

While at the SL9B, Grey Lupindo heard about a group of women virtual pilots in Second Life: the 99s. Based on a real-life aviation group, they encourage women to take to the skies. Grey reports on the group, and describes her first experiences in the pilots seat.

Read Grey's story in People.

Meanwhile Back in Azeroth: Pandaren Snapshot

Blizzard recently released more screenshots of their upcoming expansion "Mists of Pandara," including one of this lady Pandaren, whom looks more like a farmer or brewer than a monk. The response from World of Warcraft fans seems healthy enough, the forum post this picture was found in had almost 4,000 responses as of March 22.

Blizzard is hoping the game can boost WoWs still gargantuan but shrinking membership. In February, numbers had dropped about 100,000 from 10.3 million in November to 10.2. And the November numbers are almost a million smaller from 11.1 million three months earlier in August. The company can still boast a few successes, such as about one million signing up for their "annual pass."

WoW's smaller numbers haven't gone unnoticed by Blizzard. Also in February, the company laid off 600 employees. While World of Warcraft is still the undisputed giant among Massive Multiplayer Online games, there have been some cracks in the armor. Still, with a peak of twelve million players, no one is doubting it's place in gaming history , "WoW isn't going to die so much as it may eventually peter out, and by that time, you and I are likely going to be well past middle-age."

Sources: Massivley.com, BBC