Patch and Grumpity Linden at The VWBPE

Last week on April 4, Patch and Grumpity Linden spoke at the VWBPE. Then answered some questions from the event host, Phelan Corrimal, as well as a few from the audience. Grumpity was in her stick-figure avatar. Patch had on mouse ears and a tail.

Of summarizing what Linden Lab has accomplished  in the past twelve months, Grumpity commented there has "so much going on, it's hard to think back a full year." She touted general improvement in Second Life's infstructure, a fair amount of content and feature development, the introduction of animesh, the new Linden homes, new estate tools (still ongoing), parcel and estate management, and helping educators with their courses. Patch brought up Linden Lab's involvement in SL15B, "lots of gift stuff happening," and things coming up beyond Linden homes.

Of moving Second Life from current data centers to cloud-based servers, Grumpity stated the Lab was "very carefully moving things and not disturbing the way things are set up. ... with a 15 year old infrastructure, there's some complexity there." She hoped it would eventually lead to lower prices for residents, but "the migration from the data center to the cloud is quite expensive for us, taking a lot of resources and additional costs." So if there is an effect on what residents are charged, it will be "a few years into the future"

Work on a mobile client for Second Life was going on, Grumpity saying, "I'm looking forward to seeing how that impacts Second Life usage in education. ... There's not a lot to report yet. ... SL wasn't designed to go on a mobile." She stated the Lab was going in the direction of an IOS style viewer for now, "a robust text-based viewer."

Of the new Linden Homes, Patch stated didn't want to reveal too much. He called them a "complete redesign,' from the original ones. The "structure of the regions themselves designed more organically, less repetition, more choices," and more options to modify the homes. People will also be able to modify them from inside the homes themselves instead of "web-based tools" as they are now. Already, the land for the new homes was being placed, "The continent will grow as we continue to roll these things out ... it will get much bigger. We will .. expand continent connections, water pathways" for sailboats and flying.

When asked if they were improving existing tools for users, Patch stated they haven't gotten new ideas or requests from the residents, going on to say his team doesn't make the tools regular users of Second Life put to use, but use them as well. Grumpity called it "eating our our dog food," commenting one can only put so much on a prim.

Of Sansar, Grumpity stated she and Patch have been "rooting for the success of Sansar" but they've been mostly looking from the sidelines with their attention on Second Life.

After a while, questions came from the audience.  One was if the Lab was trying to improve Second Life's Search function. Grumpity answered that there was a project ongoing about that, adding a few years ago there was another for Marketplace search, calling it "painful and complex."

It was asked if having an app to get on Second Life via mobiles would affect age restrictions. Grumpity stated the introductions of mobile clients would have "zero effect on that."  They were also asked if there were any plans for a new grid that didn't allow for adult content so educators could more easily use it to teach younger students. Patch stated that would require a policy change by the Lab, "the idea of a second grid isn't foreign, but it's not on the roadmap." He would go on to say Sansar pretty much handles that function and there's been much improvement there lately.

When asked about plans for artist development, Patch responded that the Linden Endowment for the Arts was in "hiatus." But people have come forward to the Lab to offer ideas to move things forward, so he told the audience to watch for developments.

Asked about why the number of groups residents can be in is limited due to a design issue, it was answered that the Lindens were able increase the number of groups after some infrastructure work, notably for Premium residents.

One question was how can Linden Lab overcome the impression that Second Life is a "seedy world." Patch Linden didn't think that was the case, and if so not as much today as yesterday. Grumpity went on to say the Lab welcomed Second Life's different communities with their different interests.

The last question to the Lindens was how would they like to see more interaction with the education community in Second Life? Grumpity wanted a more open forum for conversation, "We can highlight your work, and you can influence ours." Before leaving, the Lindens asked the audience to spread word about the educational resources of Second Life.



To view the video from the VWBPE, click here: https://youtu.be/BH_Zogm8zAQ .

 Bixyl Shuftan

Second Life Destinations: "Horse Riding and Enthusiast Communities"

(Click here if the video fails to play)

Even though motor vehicles have long been the dominant form of transportation for about a century, there's something about riding horses. In this week's Second Life Destinations, Linden Lab puts the spotlight on places and groups related to horses, or "Horse Riding and Enthusiast Communities."

This week, we shine a spotlight on the many virtual horse communities in Second Life. ... there is renewed interest in equestrian experiences across the Grid. Horse lovers need places to saddle up and ride...and there’s no shortage of destinations that cater to horse enthusiasts ...  Check out the Pets & Animals category in the Destination Guide for even more options.

The number of horse groups, breedable horse companies, and horseback riding locations are too numerous to mention. Last month, we interviewed Kitacelia about the challenges of raising breedable horses. If one wants to get a horse from her, she has a few at Dark Moon Rising at Helmsgarde (14/20/22).

Burnal Equinox Starts Today

The Burnal Equinox art and music festival starts today, Friday April 12. From today at 10 AM to Sunday at 11PM, the Spring Spinnoff of the Burn2 event will take place with many sights to see, and much tunes to listen to.

Burnal Equinox is our traditional event that we hold midway between our annual October “big Burn” events. This year the theme for the spring event is “Eyes to the Skies”. Creatives are invited to start thinking about tunes, writings and art to bring to the playa.

So, what is this “Eyes to the Skies” theme about? And when is the event? Glad you asked.

The next event of Burn2, Burnal Equinox, takes place the weekend of 12th through 14th April. As it happens, the opening coincides with a worldwide celebration of the first human to enter space, called Yuri’s Night.

So, how do we celebrate space, the Great Beyond, on the dusty dry desert lake bed we call the Playa? That’s for YOU to decide! While keeping playa aesthetics always in the forefront of your mind, you can create art and music to celebrate space, human curiosity, and the explorer’s spirit that led us to fly ever further “out there”.

You are invited to come and do this with us, explore with us, create with us, dance and play and … of course, BURN!

For more information check the Burn2 website: https://www.burn2.org/

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Burning%20Man-%20Deep%20Hole/220/60/24

"Good Neighbor Commandments" Obelisks on Mainland

The Mainland gets something of a bad rap among Second Life residents, and not without reason. The land is cheap and there's lots of sims to explore. But there are the ban lines that put your casually going about to a halt. And there are the security orbs that give you just a few seconds before teleporting you back to your home location.

So it got my attention when Lia (Female Winslet) told me about some obelisks she found by the road on the Mainland. Dropping by one at Route 10 at Tangna (65/53/77), ir was marked "Good Neighbor Commandments for Second Life Mainland" on the bottom. On each of the four sides, there were suggestions for better Second Life living, written in the style of the Ten Commandments.

Thou shalt not set thy security orb to teleport people without at least a one minute warning, lest thou beest a jerk.

Thou shalt not block roads or sea lanes with thy objects, nor shall ye set ban lines, for they are the suck.

Thou shall allow build and run scripts on thy land and use autoreturn to keep it neat and tidy, for it is thy friend.

Thou shall beget privacy walls, screens, and shrubbery around thy land which please the eye of thy neighbor as they do thyself.

The obelisks were made by Abnor Mole. Besides the one at Route 10, I saw a few more at Marybank (55/211/51), Hae An (165/120/50), and Lippert (104/214/179). Lia told me of a few other locations I hadn't checked. So will these black stones get more people to clean up their acts, or rather their land, a bit? Hopefully they will, and we can go about Mainland a little longer before running into another yellow barrier.

Bixyl Shuftan

Press Release: 2019 RFL Team Sunbeamer Air Show

Your welcome to the 6th annual 2019 Sunbeamers RFL Air Show and Fly In on Saturday April 13th from 8 AM to 4 PM SLT.

Included in the event is an Airship Steeple Chase. For a donation of 100L, or what you feel like giving, you enter and are given for free a bicycle blimp you pedal through a series of jumps above the ground. The fastest time at the end of the day wins 500L and a cheap trophy. We will be providing a pedal power balloon for the contest so all are equal. For those who wish to pilot their own airship may do so but will not be in the contest, it will be just for the fun of it.

There are more events for any donations around the field. One such is dunking your partner or other victim in a nice cool dunk tank, that is instead of a beanbag you fire a German 88mm shell into its target!!, Then there is being shot out of a cannon straight up to the moon where a provided special RFL 2019 textured parachute for free gently brings you back down.

In addition to the cannon bring your new tested parachute along to a parachute jump from an airplane from 2000 meters at scheduled times.

There will be planes on display with information about them. Some Pilots will be on hand to give rides and flight demonstrations or you can just BYOAP [Bring Your Own Airplane] and stunt around yourself.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sunlight%20Bay/160/40/22

Cartoon of the Day

A self-portrait by a skunk friend, it looked like he was mad at something. So I captioned it, and showed it to him. He chuckled, and told me it was okay to post it if I blanked out the name.

by Bixyl Shuftan

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education At A Glance

A few days ago, the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education, or VWBPE, conference took place. Among the volunteers was the Newser's Gemma Cleanslate. Besides helping out, she also took the time to watch some discussions, look at some of the exhibits, and take part in the games.

Read Gemma's story in Events.

"Darn Teleport Disconnects," Lab Admits Grid Trouble

If you're been having trouble teleporting across Second Life lately, you're not alone. Lately, a number of people in group chats I've listened in on, as well as friends and associates in private messages, have been complaining about various glitches on the grid. Besides the lag, probably the most frequent complaint I've heard has been crashing while trying to teleport from one spot to another.

Well, it seems things have gotten to the point that the Lab has to acknowledge there's a problem. In the "Tools and Technology" part of the official Second Life blog on Monday April 9, they posted that they're aware of the problem.

Many Residents have noted that in the last few weeks we have had an increase in disconnects during a teleport. These occur when an avatar attempts to teleport to a new Region (or cross a Region boundary, which is handled similarly internally) and the teleport or Region crossing takes longer than usual.  Instead of arriving at the expected destination, the viewer disconnects ...

The Lab believes that the cause is "a timing-sensitive failure in the hand-off" between sims when a teleport takes place, and there doesn't seem to be a way to eliminate the chance of a crash. They have people trying to get to the root of the problem and get rid of it. "Quite unfortunately, this problem dodged our usual monitors of the behavior of simulators in the Release Channels, and as a result we're also enhancing those monitors to prevent similar problems getting past us in the future. We're sorry about this - we empathize with how disruptive it has been."

A few residents I've talked to wonder if Linden Lab's moving information of it's data centers to cloud servers has something to do with recent bugs. When Patch and Grumpity Linden spoke at the VWBPE last Thursday, Grumpity stated the Lab was "very carefully moving things and not disturbing the way things are set up." So if one takes the Lab's word for it, the problem isn't The Cloud.

In the meantime, it looks like residents will be dealing with the possibility of their teleports ending up as viewer crashes, and having to restart the viewers and slowly log back in.

Bixyl Shuftan

Press Release: Yuri's Night

Yuri’s Night is a global celebration of humanity’s past, present, and future in space. Yuri’s Night parties and events are held around the world every April in commemoration of Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human to venture into space on 12 April, 1961, and the inaugural launch of the first Space Shuttle on 12 April, 1981.

For more information:  https://yurisnight.net

The International Spaceflight Museum and the National Space Society will co-sponsor a Yuri's Night celebration at: Galaxy Dome Music Venue
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Spaceport%20Bravo/135/56/279

Futuristic, space-related or early '60s fashions are encouraged, but in no way required...and there will be freebies available!

Friday, April 12th
2:00-4:00 pm    DJ Aristippus spins space-themed tunes and songs of the Space Age.

Aristippus, The Sexy DJ, has been spinning tunes for roughly a decade, specializing in rock ’n’ roll. Some years ago, he began cleaning and recording his personal collection of vinyl records. Now, except for the rare special occasion, his sets include only the music that comes from his vinyl.

International Spaceflight Museum:  http://www.ismuseum.org
National Space Society:  https://space.nss.org/  ;  https://nssinsl.wordpress.com

The party will continue at the Sagan Planetarium beginning at 4 pm:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Aspen/200/120/3730

For those out in the open sims of the Outer Metaverse, you can celebrate Yuri's Night (also Friday, 12 April) with a full cast of singers and DJs at ISM's Kitely facility.

3 pm pst Dj Rosa Alekseev  
4 pm pst Dj Jahka Flowens   
5 pm pst Dj Libra Tyrell        
6 pm pst Dj Stone Lunasea 
7 pm pst Singer Agatha Nowles

Kitely venue:  hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/ISMuseum/311/83/22

And happening all weekend, drop in on our friends at Burn2 for "Burnal Equinox" with the theme "Eyes to the Skies" in honor of Yuri's Night:

https://www.burn2.org/events/burnal-equinox-2019/

Events This Week at the Sunweaver, Montecito Bay, and Furry Fashion Clubs

Here's what's going on at the Sunweaver and Montecito Bay clubs and Furry Fashion's Furscape

Club Cutlass: Best in "L", Black and Gray, Surf's Up

The Happy Vixen: Squirrels and Skunks, Space, Lapines and Vulpines, Blue and Green, Lizards and Wizards, Worst Superheroes, Slumber Party, Long Tails, TBA

Club Zero Gravity: DJ JB, DJ Snowbuns, DJ Naughty Nydia, DJ JB

Montecito Bay: Rainbow Rave Night, National Humor Month, Lem N Em, After Dark, Black and White

FF Furscape: CAYA, Cute, 80s, Horror, Sci-fi, Angels and Demons, Neon, Late Night Lewdness, Scales and Fur, Celtic, Metal

Read the schedules in SL Clubbin'. 

Second Life Destinations: "1920s - 1940s New York in Time Portal"

Linden Lab's "Second Life Destinations" from a few days ago is a small step to a time and place most of us have seen only in movies, downtown New York in the 1920s-1940s period.

Put on your very best era-appropriate outfit (think Guys and Dolls, The Great Gatsby, The Aviator, or Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries) and step through the Time Portal and into New York in the 1920 - 1940s. This week’s Destination video takes a jazzy glimpse into the steaming streets and humming hustle of New York during one of it’s most interesting times. Sip a daring drink the speakeasy, cut some rug at the Cocoanut Grove, and experience life outside our current timeline, as you travel back to the noir time of an era gone by!

Gemma Cleanslate wrote an article about the Time Portal in January 2017, with 1920s-1940s New York as one of a few destinations aspiring time travelers can go to.

Press Release: Bid Me Bald Team Challenge (Help Us Save Our Hair)

Please Help Us Save Our Hair and Support the American Cancer Society and Relay For Life of Second Life 2019 Bid Me Bald All Aboard Team Challenge

Chemotherapy and cancer treatments can cause many side-effects, most commonly hair loss.  The Relay Rockers, in support and honor of anyone who has heard the words 'You Have Cancer', offer our hair to help the American Cancer Society Save Lives, Celebrate Lives and Lead the Fight for a World Without Cancer.

As part of the 2019 Bid Me Bald All Aboard Team Challenge our Team will be competing against other teams to raise funds in solidarity with these heroes of the fight against cancer.  The team that raises the most in their special Kiosk will shave the head of the team with the smallest total

                            ~~~~ Please Help Us SAVE OUR HAIR! ~~~~

Our Kiosk can be found at Arinultra Cay (186/46/27) from April 5th to 14th!

Please be generous!

And don't forget to join us on April 14th at 3 pm for a Hair Cutting party at the Barbershop

Until There's A Cure

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Arinultra%20Cay/186/46/27

Announcement: Bid Me Bald All Aboard Team Challenge Update

Cure Chasers 23750
Season Leads 13232
Relay Rockers 10052
ACTS 8101
Heroes Helping Heroes 6301
Inspired Dreamwalkers 5401
Roos With A Dream 5007
UFS Metamorphosis 4700
Relay For Christ 3762
Meiville Steampunks  3613

Total L$83919  or NINE DAYS BALD
Donations Continue until April 14 at 3pm

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Arinultra%20Cay/182/45/27

Numbers from Mon, Apr 08 2019 7:16:22 PM

VWBPE Behind The Scenes: Elli Pinion From The Volunteers Committee

A few days ago, the  Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference took place. For three days, there were a number of discussions and other events. While the event itself is over, the exhibits will be up for another few weeks. During the event, Newser reporter Marcel Mosswood talked to Elli Pinion, one of the women behind the VWBPE. Elli answered a few questions about the event, and her motivations for taking part.

Read the interview in Extra.

Wesley Regenbogen on Cobras MC and "Be The Match"

Wesley Regenbogen is a biker in Second Life. He's a member of the Cobra's Motorcycle Club, or Cobra's MC. But he also wants to raise money for "Be The Match," a group that helps people with blood donor matches. Deaflegacy recently met up with him, and gave him an interview. He had a few things to say.

Read the interview in People.

VWBPE, Home and Garden Expo, Conclude

Two big events in Second Life came to a close this weekend. On Saurday night, the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education had it's conclusion with the closing ceremony followed by a Dick Clark Tribute Concert, featuring performers representing various singers of the past from Freddie Mercury to Louis Armstrong to Aretha Franklin to (preteen) Michael Jackson. On Sunday, the Relay for Life's Home and Garden Expo had it's last shows, including a special appearance by Patch Linden at the Relay Rap.

The sims for the VWBPE will remain up for a few more weeks, allowing people to see the exhibits (and try out the underwater hunt). But it won't be long before those for the Home and Garden are closed. Later this month is the next mega-event for the Relay, the Fantasy Faire, which will be in temporary sims in the area.

We'll soon have a little more about the VWBPE.

Addition: For those who want to check on VWBPE discussions they missed, check the list of videos here: https://www.youtube.com/user/VWBPE/videos .

RFL Team Sunbeamers Reaches 100,000 Lindens Raised, Launces "Bid Me Chipmunk"

Over the weekend, the Relay for Life's  Team Sunbeamers reached a milestone. The total amount ot Lindens raised for this year passed the 100,000 Linden dollar mark.

Beamers:  We hit 100K Lindens on the KIOSK, just 25K Lindens to go for GOLD!  We can do this! 

Team captain Rita Mariner, having just finished her "bubblegum crisis" following her "Bid Me What?" in which she had to be pink for a week, has volunteered for another Bid Me, though a less drastic one: "Bid Me Chipmunk."

I have also started another BID ME.  I will go CHIPMUNK for a week for each 3000L reached.

Rita is occasionally called "Captain Chipmunk" when gaming.

As with other "Bid Me" events by Team Sunbeamers, there are two kiosks. One is for those who want the volunteer to stay as is, and another for the change. To donate, head to Club Cutlass at Sunweaver Bay (114/117/757).

Besides the "Bid Me," there are two upcoming events for Team Sunbeamers. One is the Farshore Field Air Show this upcoming Saturday April 13. Another is a party at the Happy Vixen Beach club on Saturday April 20.

With less than 25,000 Lindens left until the Gold fundraising level, already people are talking about Platinum. That rank is achieved at 250,000 Linden dollars raised. Last year, the team pulled out all the stops and made it to the never before achieved Emerald level. Getting there this year would take one million Linden dollars.

Go Sunbeamers! Go Relay!

Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day

Taken at the Happy Vixen. Where Little Spirit Raccoon and JB Raccoon got these "bodyguards," who knows. But one wonders how they struck a deal.

By Bixyl Shuftan

April Fools In And Out of Second Life At A Glance

The April Fools joke article that we at the Newser pulled last Monday got a bit of chatter. Some loved it, "Hilarious!" Many just gave a chuckle or "laughing out loud." And some didn't like it, "Bix. Yur courting getting murdered here." Thank you all for the comments. For those who loved it, we'll try to be just as funny next year. For those who didn't like it, well, feel free to offer suggestions.

But this wasn't the only April Fools joke around, even in Second Life. Nydia Tungsten made an announcement that she would soon be doing a special calendar, but instead of her usual 12 pictures of anthro females it would be of the new Yinglet avatars. There were a few chuckles, and there were a few asking what a Yinglet was, but everyone quickly realized it was a joke. Marianne McCann of Bay City told me she'd made a joke announcement of leaving Second Life in a group IM chat. Draxtor Despress posted on his Twitter that he was leaving Sansar, followed later by "April Fool."


In the past, Linden Lab had done a couple jokes such as the "Rick Roll" and their parody of the "Mayhem" insurance commercials. But not this year.

In real life, there were some April Fool joke announcements. Probably the one that got the most chuckles was the one from McDonalds about a burger that was all pickles. One Australian city announced they were getting a drug-sniffing bunny on it's force. Australia's Twitter page made a joke image about a koala being born with leopard spots.

In the world of online comics, two I follow had a couple April Fool strips. In "Freefall," cartoonist Mark Stanley included a number of cameos with characters of several other strips. Those going to "General Protection Fault" found a parody of a default page that basically stated "if you can read this, the webmaster needs to get a clue." "The Belfry," which is a list of online comics, had it's page upside down.

With online games, World of Tanks and World of Warships didn't have the joke games they had in the past. But they did have a couple chuckles. World of Tanks had a joke video about the first tank on the Russian field, the MS-1, with the narrator praising it in ways that a used car salesman would be making notes of. For World of Warships, their April Fool was "Skipper," a matchmaking system to assist in making more compatable teams that was a parody of current dating software, "the socially-alienating swipe-based system behind today's hottest dating apps will be your ticket to the perfect team!" As in previous years, "War Thunder" had another April Fools game: "Earth Thunder." In this special game, players fought air battles in flying saucers shooting energy beams at one another over an abandoned city taken over by the aliens (video). Probably the joke game of War Thunder remembered the most was one of their first, the "My Little Pony" fighters in 2013. Years later, I still hear pony fans say they wish the company would bring it back.

So there's April Fool's 2019 at a glance. Hopefully you the readers had a lot of fun, and we'll be back next year with some

new foolery.

Bixyl Shuftan

SL Video: "Always On My Mind"

(Click here if the video does not play)

From Jackson Redstar Videography on August 6 2018, " by Willie Nelson Starring Freddi Raynes (and) Jackson Redstar"