Mars Institute Island and the SEEDS Project

Grey Lupindo took a recent trip to the Sci-Lands for a little interplanetary exploration. First was the Mars Institute, which informs people about current study and plans for future exploration of the red planet. Then she looked at the SEEDS Project, which is aimed at creating self-sustaining communities in space

Read more in Places.

"Bid Nydia Human" Nets 50,000 Lindens

The "Bid Me Human" event held by the Passionate Redheads was highly successful, raising 50,000 Lindens. But it was an event filled with unexpected twists and turns, including one donor with a special request.

More on the fundraiser in People.

The Linden Memorial

One year ago, Second Life's residents were shocked to find out a third of the Lindens had been dismissed from the Lab, their avatars deleted. Residents expressed their thoughts in many ways. Codebastard Redgrave expressed them by building a memorial. A year later, she has a more lasting memorial to the laid-off Lindens up.

Read more in Places.

SL Speed Limit 450 MPH!

Drag Racing Rocks Second Life With Blinding Speeds! Only the rules limit speeds to 450 MPH, Second Life (SL) drag racers are burning rubber and making tracks! Yes they CAN get out of Denver baby! Woooooooosh!

SL hockey legend, Antonia Foggarty, does SL wrestling and SL drag racing. She invited me to her motorsports factory to view her newest creations, a pair of steps-on trucks with Hemi-modified engines (Picture 1). Sweet!

In Picture 2, Antonia models her pro-sports driver outfit in front of a cherry Plymouth dragster titled Sox and Martin. She explained that it's quite unusual to put Ford parts in a GM car! Oh really!

At Antonia's invitation, I headed out to the drag strip to catch some car thrills. Everyone was just wonderful, excited that I was writing this story! Dragstrip announcer MB Robonaught even made an official proclamation to the audience, announcing my iReporter presence! Hurray!

Racer Rocky Belavidorico explains, "SL Drag racing is a great stay at home hobby .. modifying the cars... the competition is excellent and there are many great racers."

Picture 3 is a burn out, sending up plumes of smoke as drivers heat up their tires to stick to the road. At the pre-start countdown, we saw a very convincing deterrent to jumping the gun! Then it's GO TIME! Pedal to the metal baby! In a heartbeat POOF, the cars are gone! But they come back right quick, because each race is best 2 out of 3 heats.

How they reach 450 MPH in under 250 meters boggles the mind! Real world dragsters reach up to 350 MPH in 1000 meter races. That means SL dragsters accelerate at least 4X as fast!

Just before driving out on the track SeVeN VanDouser told me, "To me it's one of the most interactive drag racing simulations... having done it in real life and now only in the SL world, it keeps the dream alive." Awesome!

One thing's for sure... Second Life AIN'T no DRAG! ;-)

The amazing Antonia Foggarty appears in my hockey report: Click Here to read.

Visit the Amber Drag Strip in SL at Amber (81, 224, 1360)

Originally posted on CNN

Any1 Gynoid

Qarl Linden: He Will Be Missed

On August 4, 2010, Linden Labs killed off Qarl Linden. As the word spread quickly through SL and RL, residents were shocked and sadden by the departure of such a skilled and well-liked creator. A texture was sent to many residents, including this reporter, and posted throughout the SL blogger world, protesting the decision and demanding an explanation. So far, no one from Linden Labs has responded.

Even Qarl himself was shocked at the decision, especially since he had gotten glowing job performance reviews. As he wrote on his blog, “honestly, I’m completely baffled at the decision, as are all my coworkers (and my boss, and…)”. Check out the details at his blog: http://www.qarl.com/qLab/?p=64.

In real life Qarl was Karl Stiefvater, a multi-talented programmer. His credentials include two “Matrix” and “300” movies. His background and professional history was very broad. Most importantly, he loved Second Life and its possibilities. “SL is the coolest thing on the planet - the world we’ve all built is literally incredible - beyond belief,” he wrote on his blog.

I talked with Samantha Glume, CEO of Samantha Glume Enterprises, who builds communities and creates worlds with an emphasis on sci-fi. Like many creative people, she knew Qarl best through his work on sculpts, Jira and other projects. She described him as a talented programmer who had a spotless reputation.

His departure has had a devasting effect on the morale in SL among creators. Glume characterized the news of his removal as demoralizing. Because he was one of their best programmers, she said the Linden decision “just makes no sense.”

Qarl was working on mesh compatibility, which Glume said will enable the sci-fi community to build ships that look realistic without requiring thousands of prims. His work on sculpts was invaluable because sculpts are what make SL look and feel real. He was also working on the shadow engine, which will allow things in SL to cast a shadow, just like objects do in RL. His departure will be a huge loss to the creative community because, as Glume explained, he was responsible for actually building the systems.

“He will be greatly missed,” she said.

Source: Quarl's blog

Grey Lupindo

Reader Submitted

It's life Jim but not as we know it.

So Linden Labs have been clearing out their inventory. 30% of their global workforce have crashed never to return. As we all know it's never nice when it happens, and I am sure we all wish them and their families the very best for the future. It's definitely goodbye and not "brb." This time of course though the crashing is in real life, not SL. And the ones who have gone have real families to support, real mortgages to pay and real bills to face up to. It's not just a few minutes or hours of inconvenience, because you can't dance the night away with your mates.

So what are the ramifications? What does this mean for us toons? Have our gods deserted us??.. Linden Labs are certainly not shouting the news from the rooftops, and why would they? .... Shedding nearly a third of your workforce is bad news however you look at it. Hard facts about the state of Linden's affairs are hard to come by. Facts and figures about the Linden empire fall firmly into the category of "statistics" (as in lies, damn lies and statistics), so we can't know for certain. One thing is certain though ... companies do not relieve themselves of a third of their workforce lightly. Was it always the plan to sack one in three of the workforce or did Bigwig Linden just wake up one morning and think it seemed like a good idea? The fact is they, as a business are in trouble, and if they are in trouble ... we are in trouble!

Residents beware! If the Lindens decide that 1 in 3 isn't enough and that they may as well turn the lights (and the servers) off and go home. What are you going to do? Suddenly the killer shoes you just bought seem less sparkly as you may not be able to log on and wear them tomorrow. If you think that's bad ... have a thought for the poor old landowners. Not only have they previously endured price manipulation of their assets ... now it is looking more likely than not that they will loose everything. I am no land expert but a quick check of prices tells me that an island is $1,000 us dollars and $295 dollars a month for maintenance whatever that is. That equates to over $4,500 us dollars a year for a few pixels that will go "poof" at the flick of an administrators index finger.

If you want my advice fellow residents....save your money and sell your house while you still can.

Izzie Schism

The 30%

Last week, Second Life Newser reported on the appearance of a memorial set up in the honor of those Lindens whose jobs were terminated in M Linden's "Restructuring." A few days later, our reporter Gemma Cleanslate went to the place, and found people were still visiting there to pay their respects.

To read more, go to People.

Memorial Cemetery Set Up for Dismissed Lindens

At the Rouge Lounge and Boutique nightclub, the owner CodeBastard Redgrave set up a graveyard with rows of headstones as a tribute to the Linden staff whom were laid off in the “Reorganization” announced on June 9th. Porting in to the place, it was gray with lag, and half over water. The gray took some time to fade as people were continuing to port in to pay their respects, including a few Lindens. Blue, Teagan, and Mia Linden’s stones were particularly full of tributes.

Being thanked by one visitor, Code commented, “It’s only normal. I didn’t know what else to do.” After building the memorial, residents had been porting in, and leaving flowers, bears, and other items in tribute. When asked about the turnout, Code told that it had taken her by surprise, “it’s been capped all of the last 24 (hours). I had to lower the avatar count to make it less laggy, but it’s been from 40-80 people non-stop. ... I have no idea how many people circulated around here ... since my visitor counter busted over memory usage.”

“I didn’t plan anything, to be honest, but I am on the lookout for a place that could host it better than here, a more permanent one. ... I just wanted to pay my respects to them, for serving us for so long and being so patient with us. I'm just so in awe of the response.”

People continuing to drop in asked about leaving flowers, finding they no longer could. Code explained she had disabled that option, but left at least one flower in front of every stone. She had also made headstones for a few Lindens let go before the purge yesterday out of requests by visitors, such as Pathfinder.


A number of Lindens dropped by, including Zen, Aimee, Cayle, Fisher, Kona, and Coyote. Most spoke nothing. Some greeted the others hello. Only Kona spoke with any degree of boisterousness, “lol ... wow.” Other visitors expressed their sadness for those let go, occasionally one asking one of the visiting Lindens how could they let this happen. Coyote Linden remarked that he couldn’t say anything not in the press release, “Now please let me be,” and he walked to the memorial to contemplate what happened to his peers.

The graveyard is at the Rouge sim at (152, 51, 21). Code plans to house the memorial until a more appropriate place is found.

“Thank you CodeB for giving us all this chance to show the Lindens how much we appreciate them.”

Bixyl Shuftan

“Restructuring” of Linden Labs to Result in 30% Layoffs

In the Linden Blog, M Linden announced there would be “the undertaking of a significant restructuring of Linden Lab.”

Though the company remains in a solid financial position, it has become clear that we need to make some hard decisions in order to bring current and future Residents the kind of product and experience we feel they deserve. After three years of intensive hiring, we've come to a place where it's important that we reorganize our teams and find a renewed level of discipline and momentum as we move forward.

The press release linked to the blog mentioned “the company aims to create a browser-based virtual world experience, eliminating the need to download software.” And “Linden Lab will look to extend the Second Life experience into popular social networks.” Then there was this ominous statement: “The software development teams will be consolidated in North America and customer support will be reconfigured to provide more scalable services. As a result, Linden Lab anticipates staff reductions of approximately 30 percent.”

Almost a third of Linden Labs’ staff will be gone.

In the Linden Blog Discussion threads was “Bidding Farewell to Many Lindens, “ some of the Linden team being let go were disclosed and discussed. The popular Blue Linden was apparently on the list, as residents were unable to find him in search. People expressed sadness for the Lindens let go. As people usually complain about Linden doings, seeing people shedding tears for a group of Lindens was an unusual sight. More than one commented along the lines of “the nice ones were let go.” One resident apologized for her criticism of Pink Linden for not answering her as she was apparently among those let go.

Another posted the following:


I've been physically sick to my stomach all day. I've had the benefit of meeting a great many Lindens inworld - and in First Life - over the last four years. It started back in 2007, just trying to get a straight answer on some of the kid policies, and eventually turned into a number of friendships.

The three losses that hurt me the most are Blue, Mia, and Teagan.

Mia was the first I ever met, in RL. Always a sweetheart to me. She'd give me Linden Bears hot off the press. She worked with the mentors and volunteers, and would put together fun inworld events for the holidays. If you did the egg hunt, the valentines heart hunt in 2009, the halloween event, or some of the others - that was Mia.

Blue sent me and a handful of others to the cornfield once, for fun. Always listened, always cared. Did a mean pole dance in Rouge one night, which was one of the more hilarious things you'd ever want to see (consider the avatar he wore). Always was with us Residents, in many cases literally. He was the sort of guy who would attend Resident events.

Teagan took me to jail in RL one day, sightseeing in SF. In the wake of all the drama over child avatars at SL5B, she showed up as in a chibi kid avvie at SL5B *and* over at Kids5B. "Hired" me to shoot her pics for SL6B, and wore a shirt I created ("Philip Linden Has a Posse") as part of her usual inworld uniform.

All of them respected me as a Resident, and looked beyond the avatar choice.

It's a sad day. I'm not going to say "this is the end of SL," but it's certainly the end of the SL I've known.


How M Linden’s “restructuring” will affect the confidence of the general resident population, and their willingness to put their real-life money into the Metaverse, remains to be seen.

Sources: Second Life Blogs, PR Newswire,

Bixyl Shuftan