Book Island Discussion

By Grease Coakes

 

At 10am SL Jackson Arthur at book Island he hosts his own event Office hours every Saturday. When I got back from real things he mentioned he was practicing micro fiction. Micro fiction is a whole story into 100 or 500 words. I said that’s easy to do as 500 words is a mere page. Then he said next week is supposed to be 100 words!

 

“What!" I said in voice chat “How the hell am I supposed to do that?” Jackson laughed at my response and he said he wondered the same thing.

 

 As Jackson was talking in voice chat other Book Islanders showed up like Danger Dave as a pink bunny Nicole and Olivia along with Silver and Relish. Wearing green I reminded everyone that St Patrick’s Day was tomorrow. Jackson Arthur said “Oh no! I don’t have anything green!” I saved his ham and I sent him a green shirt I made.

 

Jackson said today’s topic would be flash fiction. Relish was saying Micro 500 or less and flash is 1,000 or less. 100 or drabble fiction even Steven. Nano fiction is 55 exactly! Everyone agreed that writing so little would be a major challenge.

 

Jackson Arthur pointed out that only 5% of your time is writing and correcting your book as the rest is promoting your book which is very much the case. Tome wise it didn’t take long to type out my book but getting it published and continuing to promote that’s a pain in the butt and it takes a lot of time.

 

Cale came in saying she was late, but I said she was fashionably late.

 

Jackson Arthur asked “Is it better to promote your first book or write a second book?” I said I’d rather promote my first book then worry about a second book. Cale was talking about writing salons and live reading. I said myself I was looking to look for real life book stores to read my story at. Jackson and I both agree Facebook isn’t a good tool to sell my book.

 

Every was suggesting websites to promote their written works. I suggested promoting yourself around your local area is a big key too. Networking is the key everyone agreed to that to promote your writing.  Cale brought up how you could use photography in second life to create book covers. I said it wouldn’t work for my children’s book as a realistic virtual design wouldn’t really work. However for other books it may be just the ticket. She also said how she ran into someone who had a horrible cover picture for his book cover. Cale said she is a visual person as she is also an artist in real life. She told this rude person that his cover design was not going to work but he didn’t seem to listen. 

 

I walked over to the next event hosted by Relish the librarian who was a tiny tiger. He made me think of Hobbes from Calvin and Hobbes he was saying he collected dictionaries. For kicks I said I have some drum and bass records. And I asked everyone who wrote Mulder’s Theme? Nobody guessed so I told everyone Mulder. He asked did anyone want to get into a character’s head. I answered yes when I get purchased at a tail sale I want to get into my buyer’s head and make sure I get the character right for my buyer. Relish said I got it exactly right. I remember asking Dragon Heart what he wanted in his story and I’m not telling in this article.

 

Book Island seems like a great place to hang out and talk with aspiring or accomplished writers. The discussion seems laid back and laughs are always welcome along with gongs If you have any wish to see how other writers operate and you have a story you’re thinking about Book Island is the right place to go. I myself might try a micro fiction for kicks. It’s only 500 words anyway.

 

Grease Coakes

News and Commentary: Relay For Life – Fashion For Life

By DrFran Babcock

What do you get when you mix some of the best builders in Second Life, some of the best fashion designers, and nine empty sims, donated by generous content creators? You get great things like the biggest charity event in the Relay for Life, male and female fashions of stunning quality and variety, thematic builds that challenge the limits of prim twisting and texturing. You also get blog sniping, sludge-like lag, and a little bit of greed.

There will be a lot written about Fashion for Life, and I will provide links at the end of this article for you to learn more. What I want to do, is write an editiorial on Fashion for Life—the good, the bad, and the ugly. I spent a lot of time there…not going as a journalist, but as a regular resident. Although I have a very popular freebie blog, I never use this to get privileges, and I am proud of that. I experience events and sales same as anyone here, so I can know what it’s like.

The Fashion for Life sims are a wonder to explore. The theme is the Seven Wonders of the World with a different sim, and a different designer for almost all of them. The shops within the marvels are cunningly created to not detract from the scope and creativity of the builds. My favorite for creativity is the Colossus of Rhodes, which is, as it’s meant to be, a gigantic statue of Titan Helios. What’s most clever is that there is a path that runs along the outside of his body from toe to head. The stores are lined up within the statue, and phantom doors allow easy access. It’s fun to walk up and up and up, and pop into stores. The Colossus was built by Rebecca Bashley, and the sim was donated by EMO-tions.

The Lighthouse at Alexandria has a completely identifiable look. Bryn Oh has lent her feathery and sad genius to the sim, and you walk through water to look at the shops that are in the open air. Come to see the build, and stay to buy some clothes.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were built by Patch Thibaud and are sponsored by one of my favorite stores: Tres Beau. They faithfully recreate the look of the gardens, and conceal the shops within, where I did find a few gifts and dollarbies, in addition to the goods for sale for the American Cancer Society.

The Pyramid of Giza was both a wondrous and not so wondrous build. The flat colored pieces looked dated, but the psychedelic interior made up for this. The shops are tucked within the pyramid, and there didn’t seem to be many there. The pyramid was built by Thoth Jantzen and sponsored by Chop Zuey. I wanted to give this build a second chance, so I went back, and found many more stores, but I still think that the build is not as inspired as the others.

I am ashamed to admit I hadn’t heard of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus which was built by Kaya Angel and sponsored by LAZURI, but I found the build to be wonderful, and it was the first I visited, and I was immediately entranced by the sculpted statues and temples all around. In retrospect the shops there seemed a bit bigger than the other sims. I wandered there with friends, and we found a lot to like, and a few things to buy.

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia is yet another stunning structure, that beautifully complements the shops on the island. The build is by KarlinJames Zepp, and sponsored by Sonatta Morales *8* Vintage Couture. The build is done wisely, with half being devoted to the wonder, and the other half filled with market stalls that boast ceilings of hanging flowered vines. I really liked the way that looked. There is one huge shop there, and as you might guess it is the clothing of Sonatta Morales. I noticed over two million in sales at a vendor for a semi-transparent retro suit names Rose Garden.

The last wonder is the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus which was built by nexuno Thespian. Leri Miles Designs was the sponsor of the sim. This build is awash in white, with bright gold and red touches here and there. Some of my favorite designers are on this sim, and the shops are medium in size.

The other two sims are for events and gatherings, and they were built by Eshi Otawara, whom I thought was a clothing designer. I found lots of avatars on both of them admiring the spectacular build, but didn’t stick around.

Comments:

Well, here is where is start to wonder out loud. The Fashion for Life event is a big deal every year. I usually don’t go, because I have enough clothes, often make my own clothes, and like to spend my Relay lindens on the convio and supporting the teams where I have been a member That said, I went and I shopped, and I kept a critical eye open to things. Here’s what I noticed:

Yes, the builds are out of this world, and really thematically are both pleasing and educational, but how many prims were used on each sim to create these builds? I have a fast computer, and a fiber optic connection, but it took ten minutes for the Artemis in Ephisis sim to rez. Do you really think that folks wouldn’t come if the build wasn’t so phenomenal? I go to Relay events to support Relay. There are thousands of pretty sims to visit. I want to be able to move around and see what’s for sale. Please, please tell me if you think I am wrong. I wonder how folks with moderate to poor internet and computers fare at these events?

Second: Greed. I was about to purchase an outfit I loved at Indrya’s. Then I noticed it wasn’t in a Relay for Life vendor. I decided not to make the purchase. I started going from shop to shop covering once again the whole seven sims. In some shops there was one RFL vendor and the rest was a store for the creator!! I hadn’t realized this. When I have done events for Relay all my lindens went to RFL. Something just isn’t right here. It smells of using charity to increase personal sales, and that’s just disgusting in my opinion. Do the fashionistas raise a lot of money for the American Cancer Society? I am sure they do; I know they do, but put out some vendors and be done with it. Create a central location of just vendors, and let folks know they are donating to the American Cancer Society.

Once I realized that vendors were way scarcer than actual sales items, I started noting that the items I seemed to want—the new, the innovative—were not the items in the RFL vendors.

So, Fashion folks…please come after me. I will apologize if I am wrong about this, but I have a feeling I am not. Fashions for Life is a charity event that seems to have two charities: The American Cancer Society and the fashion business community in Second Life.

Anyway, go see the builds. Please, spend your lindens in the vendors, and Go Relay!!!!

DrFran Babcock

Traveling Circus in Tombstone

By Gemma Cleanslate

 

 

Saturday at 1:00 SL time, I was invited to a traveling circus in Tombstone sim. You recall Deesue Parx story of Tombstone, an 1890‘s role play sim of the old west in Arizona: http://slnewserplaces.blogspot.com/2013/01/reader-submitted-tombstone-roleplay-in.html 

 

 

The big top was filled with jugglers, high wire performers, lion tamers, dancing bears and more. 

 

 

The town kids were there having great fun and eating popcorn. I grabbed some too. 

 

 

The mayor, Adrian Wise, did the announcing. There was Deesue hanging by her teeth! Pet Karu was the lion tamer. 

 

 

The Sheriff of Benson sat on one side and I saw an outlaw in the other corner. Many Native Americans attended also.  

 

 

 

 

The performers had to put up with a lot of lag but did well!  

 

 

I took some pictures of the circus acts for you to see!  It was great fun! 

 

Gemma Cleanslate

 

Mardi Gras Parade at New Toulouse

By Bixyl Shuftan

On Saturday February 9th, "Fat Tuesday" came to Second Life a little early. At the New Toulouse sim, there was a Mardi Gras parade with a number of floats going down it's streets.  The parade started at Noon SL time, and the sim was crowded with over forty avatars present. There was also at least one balloon.

New Toulouse describes itself as "a private estate community based on the American City of New Orleans" from the years 1900 to 1925. The sim has a number of shops and clubs, in addition to a few vampire and magic role-players.

The floats this reporter witnessed were from one of the clubs, or referred to zombies or vampires. SL personality Holocluck Henley was among those in the parade. People around were dressed for the occasion in period clothes, as well as wearing festive masks.

With so many avatars present, there was quite a bit of lag. And so the progress of the parade was slow at times. And this reporter crashed a few times while there. But the people were in high spirits, celebrating Carnival as only Second Life can.

Mardi Gras is celebrated mainly in Catholic countries. Originally called "Carnival," it is the last day before the season of Lent begins. So "Fat Tuesday," as it came to be called in French speaking areas, was the last chance for people to eat fatty foods before having to give them up when the Lenten season started on Ash Wednesday. Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mardi_Gras

Bixyl Shuftan

The Super Bowl in Second Life

By Grease Coakes

Every year people throw parties order pizza like mad cheer and shout for an American event every year. No one can deny its place in American culture or in other countries it might be a big party too. But in the digital realm of Second life it was still a major event even on the small screen of your computer monitor. 

 

This year the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers duked it out for the Vince Lombardi trophy. Watching on the small screen was difficult however. Usually my Exodus viewer plays nice when I watch a movie in Second life (Like Shock’s movie night I reported on earlier). But watching a live event on TV at the Aero Pines Park along with a lot of avatars like myself the TV signal was garbled. A few people complained to Cindy Bolero the owner of the Aero Pines Park which she did not appreciate. Eventually the signal did stabilize and I was able to watch the game and commercials pretty well. However I admit I was part of the problem as my wings and tail was scripted which add to the lag. When Dalton Prock imed me he asked me to remove my lion tail and wings I did and that did help improve the TV signal on my computer.

 

Cindy Bolero: "Not my fault, and I should not be treated that way after spending over 200 dollars and 20 hours on that party." Cindy also added the reason the webcast wasn't stable was because the whole internet was bogged down by the annual event of pushing the envelope of social networking. Next year Cindy will prep more to withstand the high volume of avatars on her Aero pines sim. But the compliments outnumbered the complaints. People were amazed overall.

 

I myself had a fun time watching the commercials like I made fun of the "Fast and Furious 6" commercial saying "Fast and Furious 7" will star Cloud avenging the death of Aerith as Fast and Furious and Final Fantasy are the same acronym. I remember the Taco Bell commercial was funny with the elderly pranksters. The go-daddy.com commercial with the model and the go-daddy tech kissing each other provoked awkward feedback.

 

The game itself was exciting to watch with Ravens scoring touchdowns left and right early in the game while the 49ers having a tough time getting any rhythm or mojo to move the ball for the first half of the game. The halftime show featured Beyoncé with Destiny’s Child and it was fun to watch. The second half of the game was very exciting to watch.

 

Early in the third quarter half the lights shut down in the Superdome due to a power outage which lasted a ½ hour.  John Harbaugh was enraged by the power outage as he felt as his Ravens were robbed of their drive and game rhythm. He was right as the 49ers’ starting getting their drive into the game and the 49ers answered back with several touchdowns and were within striking range of beating the Ravens score wise.

 

In the very end the Ravens were backed up against their own goal line and ate up the clock with running plays. They had a slick play of a fake punt with the punter eating up even more time off the clock by scrambling and let himself be pushed out of bounds for a safety. The 49ers had all of 4 seconds left to score 3 points or more to tie or win the game.

 

In the last 4 seconds 49ers could not convert and the Ravens won 34 to 31.

 

All in all it was fun watching the Super Bowl on Second Life hearing commentary and cheers for both teams and meeting new people. Second Life is expanding every day meshing with real life events with live singers movies from real life and more. Cindy expanded to the Super Bowl which is big in the US and across the world. Who knows what will come from real life into second life next?

 

Grease Coakes

Bay City Mole Day 2013

By DrFran Babcock (who does not write for those who have a short attention span)

Long-winded Introduction

I was listening to the Metareality Podcast (http://metarealitypodcast.com) the other day, and I was struck by something Qarl Fizz said, while speaking about Linden Lab’s advertising efforts. He was talking about the funny, new video about the LL acquisition, called Blockworld: “They made fun of themselves. That is something that is completely lacking in Second Life’s advertising—it is utterly humorless.”

The Moles of Second Life could be a door to the future of Second Life if only Linden Lab would grab hold of their stubby little tails and make their work more apparent. The Moles are responsible for the infrastructure of the Mainland, and their hard work is evident everywhere. That said, it’s well known that hard workers like to play hard as well. The Moles could attract folks to Second Life, if only the Lab would promote them and their fun ways.

Mole Day on Bay City

Thus, the annual event of Mole Day took place on Saturday, February 2^nd (Groundhog Day, of course) in the Mole-created neighborhood of Bay City. The event was held to honor the remarkable work of the Second Life Moles in creating a world that is a wonder to behold.

The event was organized by Marianne McCann and Ever Dreamscape, and was held on the Fairgrounds of Bay City. The turnout for the event was impressive—at one point I counted about 37 residents on the sim. The guest list was impressive, and many Moles did show up, including their boss, Michael Linden.

 GoSpeed Racer spun tunes, and the whole group just danced, chatted, and exhibited the best of what Second Life can be: A place where folks from all around the world can gather and interact, a place where people can create their dreams, and a place where thanking folks for the good they do is just common practice.

The only sad note on the proceedings was the memory of the recent passing of Hyper Mole, noted by our esteemed Editor: Bixyl Shuftan: (http://slnewser.blogspot.com/2012/11/hyper-mole-noted-bay-city-resident-dies.html).

While I could write about this forever, it probably is best that you check out the many pictures that I took at the event. Truly, this was one of the best events I have been to in a long time.  You can still come to the Bay City Fairgrounds (http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/North%20Channel/130/134/28) and grab landmarks to the Mole builds on the Mainland, look at some pictures of their builds, and pay homage to Hyper Mole at her memorial.

About The Moles
There is a lot of information out on the Internet about the history of the Moles. They were formed from some resident super-builders, and from a group of individuals hired for their building, scripting, texturing, or other skills. Under the supervision of Michael Linden, the Moles have been responsible for the creation of roads, bridges, canals, and other forms of the underpinnings of this beautiful world. The Linden Department of Public Works (LPDW) is deservedly proud of the textures and builds they have added to the grid. If you would like some great, Mole-made freebies, hope a SLurl to the Mole Mart (http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Leafminer/199/142/35).

Next time you see a Mole—and they don’t always hide out underground—say hello, and thank them for their contributions to Second Life.

Resources for Mole Information:

Linden Department of Public Works: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Department_of_Public_Works

Uccello Poultry gets humor: http://poultryreport.blogspot.com/2013/01/ldpw-alien-tech-examined.html

DrFran Babcock

(Dis)Ability in Second Life Research

by DrFran Babcock

This week I had the pleasure of attending a presentation at Virtual Ability, and you can see it as well. Details will be given at the end of this article. 

Most Second Life residents either know or have heard of Gentle Heron (pictured left), who runs Virtual Ability, a group of sims, an organization, and a philosophy (http://www.virtualability.org  ). As Gentle says: Virtual Ability is committed to accessibility. I will have more to say about Gentle at a future date, but I would like to tell you about the aforementioned presentation:

Ambrosia108 Azalee (pictured below) is an Masters student in Educational Technology at Concordia University, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In voice and text, she told the assembled audience in her interest in the meaning of Second Life for individuals who have physicial disabilities. She is conducting a qualitative research study, as her Master’s Thesis, in the lived experience of Second Life.

For those of you who are wondering what I am talking about a brief discussion of qualitative research might be necessary. Most of us are used to research that generates statistics, like: The percentage of women in Second Life who are actually men, or, What countries are most active in Second Life? Questions such as these are best answered by mathematics. However, to answer the question of what it’s like to be a person with a disability in a virtual world, math just won’t do. Ambrosia108 understands that, and that is why she wants to interview people about their experiences as an individual with a disability in Second Life. As Ambrosia108 says: “I think it's important to ask big questions and dig deeper to find out the benefits and limitations of a technology, and the impact it might have on social justice, inclusion, ability, education, and so much more. Yes, I've always been a bit of a rebel. ;-).” She understands clearly the benefits of essence over numbers when one is studying human beings.

Ambrosia108 explained how she started becoming interested in disability in Second Life. When she joined in 2009, one of the first people she met was someone who had been in SL for many years. They later revealed that they were a quadriplegic, a fact Ambrosia108 would never have known if she had not been told. “As I tried to imagine this person behind the computer screen, I began to wonder how people with real physical disabilities experience having a virtually able body, no sign of disability, and a whole virtual world to explore?”

There are two research questions that Ambrosia108 wants to explore:

1.     How do people with physical disabilities experience learning about themselves and others through interacting in virtual worlds

2.     What do people with physical disabilities learn about themselves and others through interacting in virtual worlds? 

Ambrosia108 is asking participants to be interviews three times over the course of one to two weeks. The interviews will focus on broad topics of history and background and move to questions about the meaning of Second Life for the interviewé.  The interviews can be in text or voice, according to the needs of the participants. If you are interested:

You are invited to participate and take this opportunity to share and voice your personal experiences within Second Life.  If you are interested in participating, please read through the consent form and provide the researcher with your Second Life information in the following link:    Consent form and information:  http://fluidsurveys.com/surveys/slresearch/participant-recruitment/ If you have any questions or would like to contact the researcher, please contact Ambrosia108 Azalee in-world, or by email at: sl.pheno.research@gmail.com

Finally, the point of this whole endeavor, beyond earning a Master’s degree for Ambrosia108, would be to support her real agenda, which is to demonstrate the usefulness of and necessity for virtual worlds for individuals with disabilities. “Second Life is not a game!” she declared. I could not agree more.

The event will be repeated this Saturday, February 2^nd, at 8:00 am, SLT at the Sojourner Auditorium: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Ability/53/172/23  Don’t miss it, especially if you are interested in participating.

DrFran Babcock