The Big Chill: "Once In A Generation" Winter Storm Rolls Across Much of US, Canada

 

 

 Millions of Americans and Canadians face being stranded at home and without power as a powerful winter storm, described as "once in a generation" and "bomb cyclone" is making it's way through the countries. In some parts of the country, low temperatures are approaching -30F, -40F, and even in a few places approaching minus fifty degrees fahrenhiet. Storm warnings and severe weather alerts are being issued. Record low temperatures are being set and predicted to be set. Flights are getting cancelled. People in a number of states and provinces are being urged not to travel. It's being called the coldest Christmas in forty years.

For Second Life residents, this means the possibility of power outages, which may be for overnight or days, depending on where they are. For those whose power doesn't get knocked out, plans inworld may be inconvenienced as some of their friends will likely be in the dark and unable to log on. For some, it will be a cold, dark, Christmas.

 

Stay safe.

 

Sources: Daily Mail, CNN, weather.com, weather.gov

 

Bixyl Shuftan

SLife and Times: Viewer Issues

 Glitches are a part of any detailed computer game or virtual world. And Second Life is certainly no exception. In the early days, we accepted things like the Grid frequently being taken down and our shoes being up our back ends after teleporting. Now, while things are still far from perfect, they're noticeably smoother. So when more goes wrong then usual, we certainly notice, though still wonder if it's just us or the whole Grid. My own experiences in Second Life this week left me wondering.

Read the commentary in Extra.

Sunweaver Eclipse Freezes Over

Winter has come to the Sunweaver Estates. Shockwave Yareach, a noted builder with accomplishments such as various Relay Weekend campsites, who owns Sunweaver Eclipse informed the Newser the place had recently taken on a look of ice and snow, suggesting it was not exactly deliberate, "My freeze ray has rendered my hot tropical island a winter wonderland. Had a we bit o trouble with the liquid nitrogen. Sadly the ray was supposed to defrost hot dogs.  But oh well."

Dropping by, the sea around the island was indeed iced over.  One could walk around the place without falling through to the sea floor. Perfect for skating, if one had some skates. The ice extended to the SunWater Three sim, so one could walk or skate between the two islands, or north of the larger one. The middle of the Eclipse island also had some snow, and some winterized and Christmas trees, as well as some decorations.

But this wasn't all. Later Shockwave messaged me of a new development out of a "Calvin and Hobbes" comic plot, "Oh no!!  Roving snowgoons have invaded my sim!!" It turned out he wanted to see what would happen if he put a little code in some snowmen. But the results, not unlike with Calvin, didn't exactly go to plan as he now had a mess of scary snowmen crawling around, "Now they roam my sim."

So to get a look at the Sunweaver Estate's wintry corner, snowgoons and all, head to the Sunweaver Eclipse sim.

Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day

Picture taken at the Linden Snowball Fight by Gemma Cleanslate

Dialogue by Bixyl Shuftan

A Laggy Weekend

If this weekend felt especially laggy, you weren't alone. Some friends of mine told me their movement was slower and were crashing more. This included one pilot at a combat sim whom had trouble keeping her plane straight.

For yours truly, it wasn't just lag that was a problem. At times the viewer would freeze for about 30 second to a minute. And sometimes came the "ping" indicating it had crashed, but would not say so for another few minutes. Flying? I lost control after a minute, and thirty seconds later found myself on the ocean floor without a plane.

By Tuesday though, the problems had eased up, freezing only once or twice after a few hours of being online. I'll pass on flying, though.

Bixyl Shuftan