Fuzzball Ortega sent in this picture of a Relay for Life committee meeting, "Key points that were covered, each member introduced themselves and talked about what they were covering. The technology for RFL has gone smoothly, a few issues, but nothing major." They also talked about Key dates, such as May 21 and 22 as it "is the ACS Birthday Celebration."
From Rifkin Habsburg, "Learn to play En Garde! The strategic fencing game by Reiner Knizia, brought to Second Life by Procyon Games. ... It's a strategic game, so if you're looking for a game where you bash
someone over the head by clicking the mouse as quickly as possible, you
probably should try a different game. It's not for everyone!"
DrFrab Babcock is back with her column. Her most recent letter comes from a business co-owner. Business has been good, but she's not so sure her relationship is. So what's wrong and what can help?
Gemma Cleanslate recently attended the opening of an exhibition at the Art India Gallery. Introduced with a 1920's themed party, Melusina Parkin's work with the Art Deco style made quite an impression.
Two BURN2 Town Hall Meetings on the Virtual Playa! You are All
Invited!
Burning Man - Deep Hole, Second Life, Saturday, February 9 the BURN2
team will host a Town Hall at 9 AM SLT and 6 PM SLT. The Burning Man Community
in SL comes together twice yearly to talk about what they want to see, what they
want to do, what has been planned, what should be planned, to learn what’s
changed and give input on what SHOULD be changed. So why should you come to a
Town Hall? Well you can ...
Find out about BURN2 and how you can be a part of it.
Find out about hosting events on Deep Hole Sim. Yes, you can use the sim
for an art event, meeting, weekend performance, classes, you name it!
Get all the info on volunteering...there are no bystanders, YOU make the
events at BURN2!
Get a sneak peak into the early planning for the upcoming BURN as we
announce the dates!
Find out about this year’s theme...Cargo Cult!
Come early! Lamplighters will be drumming at 8:30 AM and 5:30 PM to get you
in the mood!
Please arrive at least 10 minutes early on Burning Man - Deep Hole sim and
proceed to Center Camp.
To keep you occupied between Town Halls we will once again have Paintball
on the Playa...or the Zombie APlayaClypse! That’s right...Grab a paintball gun,
smoosh paint at the attacking Zombies (they are walking dead anyway) and
splatter your friends. Expect Music and DJs too! Wear washable prims only
please.
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BURN2 is an extension of the Burning Man festival and community into the
world of Second Life. It is an officially sanctioned Burning Man regional event,
and the only virtual world event out of more than 100 real world Regional
groups.
The BURN2 Team operates events year around, culminating in an annual major
festival of community, art and fire in the fall - a virtual echo of Burning Man
itself.
We'd like to encourage you to use the following labels and hashtags when
you write about the event: Burn2, #burn2 . We will promote those tags to
make it easier for people to find your content
Preparations are well under way for the 1
Billion Rising in Second Life as part of the real life Rising. The four sims are
arriving. The djs and performers are ready. Customer Relations Officers are
training. Greeters are getting ready to meet you at the gates. Both groups will
be able to help you move across the sims to reach your destinations. Saffia
Widdershins is creating the official machimima based on the real life one that
you can view on you tube :
"'Break the Chain' aims to raise awareness around the world about V-Day's
fastest escalating global campaign to date, ONE BILLION RISING. The ONE BILLION
RISING campaign began as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that
1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the
world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than ONE BILLION WOMEN AND
GIRLS. On 14 February 2013, V-Day's 15th anniversary, activists, writers,
thinkers, celebrities and women and men across the world will come together to
express their outrage, strike, dance, and RISE in defiance of the injustices
women suffer, demanding an end at last to violence against women.”
You can also view the words of the song on the youtube site and will
directed where to download it if you like. I am privileged to be a participant
in the dances that will be in the sl machinima that Saffia is filming and
I can’t wait to see it . If you want to learn more about the One Billion Rising
in SL and in real-life you can hear Honour Mcmillan at the Sojourner
Auditorium at Noon, 12:00 slt on Friday the 8th of February. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Ability/67/175/23
I
feel as if I am giving you lots of reading homework! It is worth it. Find out
more at www.onebillionrising.org.
Just after announcing it's purchase of Blocksworld and its release of dio, Linden Lab offered some news for those preferring to stick with Second Life. They had been working on a code for "Leap Motion," a controller that allows one to interact with one's computer using just hand gestures, for use in Second Life.
When our developers first saw the Leap Motion
controller they couldn’t wait to get their hands on one. Thankfully, we
were able to get a pre-production development kit and built demos to
explore its capabilities in Second Life. The demos included tests of
flight controls, object manipulation, and avatar gestures.
This work was strictly experimental, but it showed the power of Second
Life as a platform for exploring gesture-based interactions with
controllers like the Leap Motion, and we’re happy to be able to share
the code with you as a starting point for your own explorations. If
you have a Leap Motion controller and would like to experiment with the
Second Life Viewer, you can find the source code for these experiments
at http://bitbucket.org/simon_linden/viewer-rabbit.
The indra/newview/llleapmotioncontroller.cpp file contains most new
functionality. The Viewer is built to work in several different modes.
These modes can be used to control the avatar while flying, send data
into Second Life for scripts to intercept, detect hand motions that
trigger avatar gestures, or control the camera and avatar movement. To
switch between these modes use the "LeapMotionTestMode" value in the
Debug Settings, accessible from the Advanced menu. To give our experiments a shot you will need get the source mentioned above and contact www.leapmotion.com
to join their developer program and obtain the SDK. Currently only
Windows Viewers are supported, but other platforms could be added by
linking in the appropriate Leap Motion SDK.
There was a small thread on the official forums, where several residents expressed mixed opinions. A few liked it, others seemed to feel it was spending $70 for a buggy device. On the Second Life Universe forums, the posters seemed a little more interested about it. Inara Pey noted how due to a bug, one fired a gun sideways like an urban gangster. Hamlet Au thought it was too laggy to be of much use for building, but imagined some creative uses for it in adult areas with the device used for virtual spankings with just a flick of the wrist.
Second Life Newser recently was sponsored by the Island of Lost Dreams. So what is the place and the people behind it? Bixyl Shuftan was invited by its leader Lisa Salvadori to come on over and have a look. It was a place with never a boring moment, and some interesting friendships.
Last Sunday, millions across the United States sat down in front of their TV screens, or attended parties next to a TV, as the biggest game in football, the Super Bowl, took place. In Second Life, there was a Super Bowl party taking place at Areo Pines Park. Grease Coakes dropped in to see how the party went.
It's a week full of events across the virtual world. The LEA arts festival shows off the work of over thirty artists and video producers. Drop by Valentine Town for a visual treat of hearts and candies. And we have our listing of regular live music and DJ
events, talk shows, church services, races, and book and poetry
readings.
On Monday February 4, following a few months of worry from Second Life's Star Trek community, CBS finally answered the question of whether or not they had a problem with Trek content and roleplaying in Second Life. In short, they have no objections, as long as no one is making money off of it.
The following letter was the most recent one of a series of exchanges between CBS's legal department, and Anthony Haslage of the IFT group.
Thank you for your patience. As I and my colleagues have previously discussed with you, CBS Studios is appreciative of the fans of STAR TREK who dedicate their time and energy to supporting the STAR TREK franchise in the real world as well as virtual worlds such as Second Life. After our internal discussions, we can advise that CBS Studios is pleased that STAR TREK fans interact and role-play in Second Life, but objects to fans who create and sell unlicensed, real or virtual merchandise featuring the STAR TREK properties. As I explained during our discussion, when users of Second Life make it a commercial enterprise to sell uniforms, costume emblems, logos, badges, ships designs, props, etc., CBS Studios is obligated to protect against the unauthorized use of its rights. CBS Studios remains concerned such an approach may cause confusion with its current or future licensed properties. With regard to your inquiry about obtaining a license for CBS Studios or a sublicense from its licensee, I have confirmed that at this time CBS Studios does not wish to pursue a license with you to permit third parties to sell virtual goods in the Second Life. You mentioned Linden Labs’ prior actions against fans of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. We are not aware of Linden Labs policing Second Life on its own initiative to conduct blanket sweeps related to STAR TREK as a result of our prior take-down notice pursuant to the DMCA. Should you become aware of such activities, we would appreciate your promptly advising us. In the meantime, should CBS Studios seek to enforce its rights against users in Second Life, CBS Studios will take reasonable steps to notify Linden Labs of the infringements with sufficient detail. We hope that this explanation enables your fan communities to continue to enjoy STAR TREK in Second Life.
So it would seem Trekkers in Second Life, after months of worry, can relax again. But in a meeting to discuss CBS in December, it was brought up that some had already made places in other Grids. Whether or not they'll return in another issue.
Saturday February 2 might have been Groundhog Day to most, but in Bay City it was Mole Day. The Moles in Second Life are the fixers who help the Mainland with stability, and Bay City set a day aside to honor them. DrFran Babcock was there to check out the event and festivities.
Just a few days after announcing it's purchase of Blocksworld, Linden Labs unveiled it's latest product: "dio."
In the video Linden released in time for dio, it was branded as a "creative and social experience that allows anyone to make and explore places based on anything." The press release stated users could "create places by adding text, photos, videos, and interactive objects into interconnected 'rooms' that give spatial context to the content you share. You can keep your places private, share them with friends and family, or allow everyone to explore and enjoy them." It also states there was an online chat feature with other users, and in the future one would be able to make money off the places they created.
Rod Humble was quoted as saying, "dio is a new shared creative space on the web. Based around the concept of linked spaces, dio makes it easy and fun to create or visit experiences of all kinds." He described dio as still being in development, in beta, "but so far our testers have created a vast range of spaces." He also brought up the future ability to make money by mentioning what Second Life's content creators have done, "One of the things that's made Second Life successful is that users were able to monetize their own creativity by selling their creations. Second Life's economy was extremely robots with over $500 million worth of user to user transactions last year." He hoped that by sharing ad revenue with dio space crators and allowing them to sell their spaces, "this will encourage the kid of incredible dedication and creativity we've seen in Second Life."
Forbes writer Carol Pinchefsky wrote about someone from the Linden Lab staff showing some of what dio had to offer, saying it could be used for personal pages, games , and more. He suggested the same features that could be used for a game could be used to make an advertisement for a hotel's page. Of the plans to allow dio users to make money, Pinchefsky called it a welcome contrast to the Instagram service changing it's fine print to sell the pictures uploaded by it's users without permission or giving them a dime, "Linden Lab will be giving rather than taking. It's a great concept, one that I can't wait to see implemented."
Hamlet Au expressed similar optimism about dio. He also noted that in the terms of agreement, transactions would be done in Linden dollars, and mentioned the LindeX exchange. He felt this was a sign there would be some future interaction between Second Life and dio "at least through commerce." Hamlet reported on a dio space created by SL blogger Inara Pey, "it seems to be the most detailed and interactive by far, though there seems to be no sign of it now.
Not everyone has been impressed with dio. Iris Ophelia commented that the hype made it look like "possibly the latest and greatest thing." But sitting down to take a look at it, her impression changed. She described the video as misinforming, feeling it suggested moving a character around. She, and a number of other readers, felt "dio is more like a MUCK/MUD/MUSH with pictures than anything else." The idea of using dio to make a store for Second Life merchants she thought "would be one of the least effective uses of the platform," contrasting the "dynamic social experience" of the Bare Rose store to the "comparatively static spaces of dio." She felt dio was easy to use and had much potential, "but it's not the only option, nor is it the best tool for the job."
If you want to check out dio for yourself (and yes, it really is spelled with a lower case 'd'), go to https://www.dio.com. One of the spaces there is a new rendidtion of a classic computer game from the late 70s, "Adventure the Colossal Cave." There's also a list of tutorial videos Here.
As demonstrated in the recent "Relay Rap" article, it seems my Cool VL Viewer is having a harder time in Second Life these days, objects and people taking longer to rezz. Firestorm won't work on my Mac, for whatever reason. So I'm taking a look at the official viewer from Linden Lab, Viewer 3 (or rather, Viewer 3.4.5 as the latest version is called).
So far, it does rezz objects and people faster, sometimes. Other times, it can lag almost as badly. Although items rezz eventually, it seems more likely to freeze up and crash. The interface is quite different from Viewer One and similar Third-Party viewers. I had to look around for the minimap and movement controls for a minute. Looking for the map took time. I still haven't figured out yet how to shout a text beyond 20 meters. And multiple IMs can be a problem.
And oh yeah, if you log off V3 in one avatar, use another in Cool VL (and presumably Phoenix, Singularity, and others) and log out without changing, logging back into Viewer 3, you'll be wearing both avatars. Quirks like these can result in a few surprises.
Since September 2011, the "Fluffee on a Meshion" video series from Pookymedia has been entertaining Second Life residents. But after a year and a half, it seems the videos are coming to an end. Episode 19, "Quo Vadis Fluffah," will be the last.
The videos took a brief hiatus in June 2012, but after the summer there were a few more.
Comments have been coming in on both the Youtube video and the "Superflufee" account, expressing sadness over the news. Producer Draxtor Despress stated in the video he and Pooky Amsterdam didn't own the rights to Flufee. In the comments below, he stated there were differences in opinion "about how to make someone popular in today's world."
And so, the final video shows Flufee driving off into real life. At the end are a few words from Torley Linden wishing Flufee well, "You truly are an iconic character."
"The commercial of Podex Exchange - official Linden Lab reseller of
lindens. Visit our web page to buy, sell and exchange linden dollars.
Thousands of satisfied customers can not be wrong! http://www.podex.info/ "
This week on Virtual Ability Island, Ambrosia108 Azalee discusses her ongoing research study about Second Life and its disabled residents. Her second discussion is tomorrow at 8AM SL time. For her first, DrFran Babcock was there in the audience, and wrote about the event.
"'Break the Chain' aims to raise awareness around the world about V-Day's
fastest escalating global campaign to date, ONE BILLION RISING. The ONE BILLION
RISING campaign began as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that
1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the
world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than ONE BILLION WOMEN AND
GIRLS. On 14 February 2013, V-Day's 15th anniversary, activists, writers,
thinkers, celebrities and women and men across the world will come together to
express their outrage, strike, dance, and RISE in defiance of the injustices
women suffer, demanding an end at last to violence against women.” 
You can also view the words of the song on the youtube site and will
directed where to download it if you like. I am privileged to be a participant
in the dances that will be in the sl machinima that Saffia is filming and
I can’t wait to see it . If you want to learn more about the One Billion Rising
in SL and in real-life you can hear Honour Mcmillan at the Sojourner
Auditorium at Noon, 12:00 slt on Friday the 8th of February. http://maps.secondlife.com/
