One More SL17B Stage Event, And A Carnival

Tuesday July 7 had one big impromptu, unplanned, event at the Second Life Seventeenth Birthday grounds. At the Auditorium, a number of musicians got on stage. Due to the lag, I couldn't get much of the audience in a picture before crashing. Among the performers was Golan Eilde, a longtime SLB volunteer, whom DJed for a time.

The events went on for some hours, going on to about 6PM SL time. The last performer was singer TJ O. Joubert (TJ Jenipe).

Dropping by after the events, with the lag mostly gone I saw that around the Auditorium was a carnival area. There was a Ferris wheel, a merry-go-round, a water slide, a drop tower, and much more.

There were a number of food stands, such as a pizzeria whose pizzas looked so real, one of them steaming, they had a friend of mine drooling over them. There were also some desserts. One big dessert was a destructible version of Nance Clowe's cake. Press the button, and after an ominous tune the cake would start to shake itself into pieces. One person dubbed it the "Shake and Cake." Nance joked that for a more intense experience, one could always hop in as the cake parts fly.

The carnival is at the meeting point of the four sims SL17B Imagination, Fantasy, Astound, and Awesome. People have until Sunday July 12 to drop by and join in the fun.

Bixyl Shuftan

"Meet The Moles" Today, 2PM

Today, the last of the "Meet the Lindens" events takes place at the Second Life Birthday. This time, it's a number of Moles being interviewed in "Meet the Moles."

Meet the Moles on Friday, June 26th at 2 p.m. (Pacific). The Moles are builders, scripters, and content creators employed by Linden Lab to work in the Linden Department of Public Works.

The interview will be conducted by Saffia Widdershins, and starts at 2PM at the SL17B Auditorium.

The official events at "The Birthday" will soon be over. The last ones take place on Sunday June 28. The sims themselves will stay up until July 12.

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SL17B%20Awesome/32/227/23/

"Meet The Lindens" - Oz Linden Today

Number three of of this week's "Meet the Lindens" will be at the Second Life Birthday today. For Wednesday, the Linden being interviewed is Patch Linden.

Meet Linden Lab VP of Engineering Oz Linden on June 24 at 2 p.m. (Pacific). Oz is responsible for Second Life Engineering and is proud to be working on a product that means so much to so many people.

The event will be hosted by Saffia Widdershins, and takes place at 2 PM SL time.

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SL17B%20Awesome/32/227/23/

"Meet The Lindens" Event Today: Patch Linden

The second of this week's "Meet the Lindens" takes place at the Second Life Birthday today. For Tuesday, the Linden being interviewed is Patch Linden.

Meet Linden Lab VP of Product Operations Patch Linden on June 23 at 2 p.m. (Pacific). Patch works to bring the best of product and support based decisions on a daily operational basis to the virtual world platform for Second Life, while maintaining oversight on how all of the various teams within Linden Lab can best work together for the highest good of the Residents and the business.

The event will be hosted by Saffia Widdershins, and takes place at 2 PM SL time.

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SL17B%20Awesome/32/227/23/

"Meet The Lindens" This Week, Ebbe Linden Today

This week at the Second Life Birthday, there will be the "Meet the Lindens" event at the Auditorium area at the north end of the SLB grounds.

Learn more about the people behind Second Life at our annual series of Meet the Lindens Town Hall events, held daily at 2 p.m. SLT on June 22-26. Participants this year include Ebbe Linden (June 22), Patch Linden (June 23), Oz Linden (June 24), and the Linden Lab Marketing Team (June 25). You also get the chance to meet the Moles (June 26). 

Today, the events start off at the top with Linden Lab's CEO, Ebbe Altberg, or as he's known here, Ebbe Linden.

Meet Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Linden on June 22 at 2 p.m. (Pacific). Ebbe has more than 25 years of experience leading teams and creating software used by hundreds of millions of users. Learn about his vision for Second Life at this special event.

The event will be hosted by Saffia Widdershins, and takes place at 2 PM SL time.

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SL17B%20Awesome/32/227/23/

SL17B Sims Combined

Yesterday on Tuesday June 16, the seven exhibitor SL17B sims were combined with most of the remaining ones. Only SL17B Enchant remains apart from the other twenty, with several SL17B Water sims added to the edges. As this is the sim where the Linden homes will be, presumably there is some last minute work done on them.

For the second year in a row, there is no Cake Stage, the tradition apparently having gone away with the resident-run SL Birthday events. Instead there is a Main stage at the corners of SL17B Wonderous, Dazzle, Exhilarate and Fascinate in the middle of the area. To the south end at where SL17B Spectacular and Spellbound meet is the DJ stage. At the north end where SL17B Imagination, Fantasy, Astound, and Awesome meet is the Auditorium for discussions. While we can't show any pictures yet, it will be different from the auditoriums for the past several years.

The exhibitor sims are SL17B Astonish and Captivate in the northwest In the northeast south of the entrance area is SL17B Electrify. To the southwest is SL17B Incredible and Sparkle. And to the southeast is SL17B Pizzazz and Stunning.

Besides the Welcome Area in SL17B Awesome and Beguile, other places include the Tapestry of Time, there's the Gift Area, the Pod Tour Area, and a couple spots to teleport to the Shop and Hop event sims.

The events start at 11 AM on Friday, and go on to Sunday June 28. The sims stay up until Sunday July 12.

Bixyl Shuftan

Reader Submitted: "Meet The Moles"

Taken by Nance Clowes at the "Meet the Moles" event at the SL16B Auditorium on Friday June 28.

Reader Submitted: "Goodbye From The SL15B Auditorium"

From Holger Gilruth, later posted on Flickr by Dawny Daviau, "We, the staff, of the Auditorium at SL15B would like to give a big Thank You to our visitors and performers and we hope to be back next year as it was a pleasure working for and with you!"

Scenes From the SL15B

There's a lot to see and do at the Second Life Birthday.  There's the Auditorium, there's the three stages, there's the dozens of exhibits, and more. Bixyl Shuftan was there to check out some of the places, as well as catch a few goings-on.

See the pictures in Events.

Interview with Patch and Keira Linden

There are a number of things one can do at the Second Life Birthday celebration. Among of which is listen to the Lindens themselves talk about Second Life and answer questions about it. Yesterday on Tuesday June 19, it was Patch and Keira's turn to speak, in an interview done by Saffia Widdershins. Gemma was among those in the audience, and had a few things to say about how it went.

Read Gemma's article in People.

Update: The article failed to upload this morning at 6. It's currently up

"Meet The Lindens" This Week At The SL15B Auditorium

For the past few years at the Second Life Birthday, the residents have had a chance to hear from the Lindens themselves. And this year, they can at the "Meet The Lindens" events in the Auditorium. From Monday to Friday 2-4PM SL time, Saffia Widdershins will be conducting interviews with various Lindens.

Monday: Xiola Linden
Tuesday: Keira and Patch Linden
Wednesday: Ebbe Linden (the CEO)
Thursday: Oz and Grumpity Liden
Friday: Brett Linden

The Auditorium is just north of https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SL15B%20Enchant/25/119/23

VWBPE List of Events

The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education starts today. For three days, starting with the opening ceremony at 8AM, there will be a number of discussions and other events, including one with Ebbe Linden at 1PM SL time. A list of them has been provided, too big for the main page, so they're placed in the "Events" section.

To read the schedule, head to Events.

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education

  

The 11th annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education event, sometimes called the VWBPE for short, will be in a few days. It describes itself as a "global grass-roots community" with the purpose of demonstrating how virtual worlds, notably Second Life, can and are being used for the purpose of education. Gemma Cleanslate was recently at the VWBPE grounds, and took a look around.

Read Gemma's article in Events.

SL Video: "Meet the Lindens - Landon Linden"

(Click here if the video fails to play)

From Linden Lab on June 26, Saffia Widdershins' interview with Landon Linden at the SL14B auditorium,"Meet the people behind Second Life. Guest: Landon Linden, VP of Operations and Platform Engineering."

SL Video: "Meet the Lindens - Xiola Linden"

(Click here if the video fails to play)

From Linden Lab on June 26, Saffia Widdershin's interview with Xiola Linden at the SL14B Auditorium.

SL Video: "Meet the Lindens - Oz And Grumpity Linden"

(Click here if the video fails to play)

From July 26 by Linden Lab, "Meet the people behind Second Life. Guests: Engineering Director Oz Linden and Director of Product Grumpity Linden."

SL Video: "Meet the Lindens - Patch and Dee Linden "

Uploaded June 26, the video Of the June 19 "Meet the Lindens" interview of Patch and Dee Linden by Saffia Widdershins at the SL14B auditorium. Inara Pey would write some on the event, of which hinted that the avatar Linden Lab gave as a gift at the SL14B was related to something that would be released in the late summer or early fall, and that the Social Islands intended for Second Life newcomers may be getting some changes soon.

SL14B on Press Day

Press day is always exciting on the SL14B sims because we are all looking for the first glimpse of the wonderful builds scattered across all the regions. It is the time when we can finally publish pictures of the builds themselves instead of just teasers. Since I was not working this year at the event, I let Bixyl do the teasers. 

I absolutely love the entrance this year. It is an amazing creation by Darkstone Aeon . There was a grand greeting for the press when I arrived!  I hope people take the time to examine it during the week .

 There is so much to see there. You can ride a dragon, or take a hot air balloon ride around the outside. One can also sit in the welcome center building and relax, hoping the dragons don’t get you.   But don’t miss the cave! Before you leave the entrance mountain extend your draw line to get a view of the distance at the top of the stairs. 

Not too far from the Dragon mountain is the auditorium, or as it is called this year , the Entertainment Hall, Digital City. The builder for this ediface is  Anthony (ADudeNamed Anthony). All week long meetings and lectures will take place there and you can see the schedule on the website.

Quite visible from this area is the Cake Stage. Mikati Slade has worked her magic again in creating a marvelous build. There will be many parties on this stage. 

We will visit the parties at the other stages during the week when the parties are going on.

                  

Also not far from the auditorium is the Time Capsule. Will Webb is the curator of this parcel. it is here that collector’s items from all the past birthday celebrations are on display.There is a capsule from 2003  belonging to Ryan Linden that cannot be opened until 3001. Amazing. 

  

This will all be yours to enjoy beginning on June 18 at 12:00 noon and will continue with events and games until June 25 . The sims will remain open until July 2 so you can get to explore more of the magnificent builds . Take a pod ride and jump off when you want to see a parcel. 

 The actual birthday is June 23. I warn you , If you really want to see all the builds plan on spending many hours on the all the sims. There is a big hunt going on in all the regions during the time it is open. There are also gift centers where you can pick up your presents from many of the builders. Check out the website to see everything you will encounter so you don’t miss anything. http://www.slcommunitycelebration.info/

Much more to come. Here is where you start at 12:00 noon Sunday.  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SL14B%20Impressive/96/122/80

Gemma Cleanslate

SL14B Sneak Peeks

The SL14B is just a couple days away. Before the sims were closed to exhibitors, I did some last minute adjustments on the Newser exhibit with Silvia Ametza. Then I went about the sims some. At one point, I went about in this balloon ride over the area.

 A stairway just inside the entrance of the SL14B Auditorium, where a number of discussions will take place, including some "Meet the Lindens" events.

Among the exhibits in the SL14B grounds is "Cassini's Grand Finale," by the Leeward Cruising Club, showing the Cassini Saturn probe in the final part of it's mission, "This exhibit shows the Cassini orbiter in the final part of its 19-year Saturn exploration mission. "Come explore the full-scale model then explore the seas of Second Life ...." In September, assuming the spacecraft is still operational, it will plunge into Saturn's atmosphere.

All these, and much more, await visitors this Sunday, June 17.

Bixyl Shuftan

SL14B Update: Map Art, More Openings For Applications

RaineBow Rose (RaineBowRose Resident) recently sent the Newser this map, showing what's been build so far in the sims of the region of the SL14B celebration, with a slight artistic touch.

Also there are a few more openings for performers and Auditorium speakers.

We have opened up the Performance and Auditorium applications as a few slots have opened up. If you missed your chance, now’s the time. Hit it here and here.

Applicants to be exhibitors of the event will be notified via email starting tomorrow May 24. June 10 is when emails are sent to accepted performers.