Lamplighting the Plata !

Thursday night I opened an im from the Burning Life group and saw they were getting ready for the lamp lighting and I got an invite so I said to myself , let me go watch!
I found a large group of avs standing and waiting to go light the lamps along the Burning Life roads.
Dusty Linden invited me to help.
I said I would be happy to help and was given a lamplighter’s outfit and the lamps.
After a little chaos of who needed an outfit and lamps and who was going where we were off to do the lamps. I have no idea which way I was going but I went!
We were accompanied by some dancers wearing flames and other interesting accessories as we marched or danced down the road touching the lamps to bring the lights forth!
It was great fun!
Following the lighting we flew north to the temple.
There we danced!!!
I am a lamplighter in Burning Life!! Wow !
I will try to do it one more time before this all disappears into dust. Many would love to see it last another week.
I , along with many others , will be sad to see it all go .
By Gemma Cleanslate

moreless

War of the World sl style?

I arrived at our boxapixels outlet to a scene of destruction,

all I could see was a gaping hole in the back wall and strange green light!

I slowly edged around the outer wall fearing what I would see,

the windows at the side were all blown out

What is it? Why has it attacked the SLN outlet? Maybe its just in the way. Only time will tell!

moreless

Cartoon of the Day

By Bixyl Shuftan

Click for full size

moreless

More Sights and Sounds from Burning Life

Looking around for the American dream that is in all the sims I came upon a sleeper. There he lies on his bed too tired to watch or listen to the flickering TV while his dreams bubbled off in to the air. He will probably forget what they were anyway.
That is Bob. His remote is on the bed so you can change the channel if you like , just touch it. You will be able to see the possible dreams for the future influenced by the constant media feed.
Jenne Dibou has a creation in Micro sim called “The American Dreamer” built by her and Mandy Marseille. Pick up a ticket at the booth.
The walls of the open air bedroom depict the dreams of many from the past and present.
If you watch the dreams in the TV you can vote on what Bob may or should choose to follow and check back on the last day to see what he will do.
Loki Eliot of the children’s sim has a barn set up from the front it is harmless enough but as you wander around it you will find a fearsome dragon peeking through the window searching for the children who might be there.
Well, I am not sure if he is dangerous or friendly.. I did not wait to ask!!!
As usual the Second Life children’s entry is whimsical and fun!
There is a sign which says SL Children at the build in Optic sim.
Look for it!
Later we went to look at the barn again and there was a dance party taking place so I joined in for a while and the dragon did not bother us at all. He looked quiet happy! Look for it! Loki has lots of events planned.
By Gemma Cleanslate

moreless

Xstreet SL Marketplace Sale????

Dear Dana Vanmoer,
Congratulations! An item you have listed on the Xstreet SL Marketplace has been sold! See below for details.
Regards,
Xstreet SL
Now When i read this in my inbox this morning I was rather confused, Xstreet? What the hell is Xstreet? I have never head of it yet they are selling my items from SLeXchange????
So in some trepidation I followed the link and found myself at a site that looks and feels like SLeXchange but is now called Xstreet SL!
It seems SLeXchange has rebranded, (might have been an idea to publicize the notion before actually doing it.) After some research I found a couple of forum posts about the upcoming changes, posted on Sept 10th:
"That's right, we're changing our name! As you can see in the logo above, our look and feel won't change so you won't have to learn anything new or adjust to a different look. The Xstreet brand will cover services similar to SL Exchange for any virtual worlds we decide to work with. The name "Xstreet SL" is specific to Second Life and we'll use different suffixes for other grids and worlds. Different types of services which we have yet to launch will have different names altogether."
The Lindens , it seems are stepping in to help with this grid wide change as there must be thousands of SLX branded items inworld at any given time Linden lab will replace all these textures with the new Xstreet SL ones:
"Because there are so many SL Exchange-branded items in Second Life over which we have no control, Linden Lab has agreed to help us with mass texture replacements. Sometime in the next couple of weeks all existing magic boxes, signs, and terminals in-world should automatically display our new brand."
The question begging an answer then is why? And this is also answered in the first post:
"When SL Exchange was formed it was never intended that we would operate solely within Second Life. "SL Exchange" is a service name owned by Virtuatrade, LLC and the intention has always been to create new service names as we expand into other areas.When Linden Lab announced the changes to their trademark licenses earlier this year, I have to admit - first I ignored it, then I got angry. Over time however I realized that the change presented an opportunity to renew and clean up our brand image and prepare for future business opportunities that we hadn't thought of when starting out."
So if like me you start getting unknown mail or suddenly no longer get mail from SLeXchange (check your spam folder and allow mail from Xstreet) at least you will know why!
If you are worried I would suggest reading the FORUM post to clarify if you need to do anything.

Dana Vanmoer

moreless

Burning life - Sounds and Symbols

Nish Mip created a marvelous structure that will entice you to climb as high as you can to reach the source of the wonderfully hypnotic sound that surrounds you as you listen to the didgeridoo . What a joy visually.
It was one of the first large builds I visited and it really is huge! I walked up and up and up to reach the top, and then another step and I was enveloped in an eye in meditation.
Someone near entered another eye and began to chant.
Later I talked to the creator who told me it just sort of grew as she went along and said,
” I just had ideas coming from all over it was really fun I was getting a huge buzz from it.”
Buzz is the best way to to describe the whole thing!! Look for it in Micro.
Another interactive project you can play with and hear musical sounds is one in Hydro sim by Salwin Yosikawa. Enter and pause to listen to the wind whirling around you visibly, then enter and walk among the rods to create the wonderful soulful tones. That project is in Hydro.
One build that I could see almost always from several sims was that of the Planet of the Apes with the statue of liberty sunken almost all the way below the earth but still holding the flame up high. One of the apes was leading a horse along side and you can sit there if you like or throw yourself into a beam of light in near despair .
One really cute smaller builld I saw in my travels was a tribute to Dr. Zeuss I believe. Green eggs around a rotisserie with a huge ham cooking and in the sky the Cat in the Hat looking on!!
Among the larger builds you will find many smaller interesting projects.
Do not forget to look around for them. More coming….
Gemma Cleanslate

moreless

Another 'M' Pep post!

4 months at the Lab
I recently celebrated my fourth month at the Lab and it has been a terrific adventure so far. As the leader of this amazing company, what have I been focused on? Leading the company’s efforts to make Second Life more relevant, more usable and more reliable.
How are we doing?

Good question M(ark) ......
First M sets out to let us all know how much better our inworld experience has been over the last month: "We wrapped up a very busy and productive Summer here in the Northern Hemisphere with great results to report." - umm maybe he should ask the Residents instead of the number crunchers? Up until the last 10 days I would have agreed with him, but I guess he is looking at averages.
"First off, each week since August 31st has brought a concurrency high. Yesterday, the peak hit 71,232 – that’s an increase of 6% in less than a month." I would love to know the ratio of actual users to BOTS!
"We simplified the registration process to make it easier for Residents to join, registrations are continuing at a healthy clip" See comment above.
"All are indications that Second Life is becoming more relevant, more usable and more reliable."
Great job 'M' except you are not listening to the actual people who use it, numbers cannot give you a complete picture as long as you allow alts/bots etc! But it certainly makes you look good to commerce looking for figures.
"First Hour Experience: Shortly after I started, we kicked off a project to reinvent what we call the “first hour experience” (our web experience, the viewer, and the way we acclimate and acculturate users inworld) for new users. We’ve made great progress and will be working with an award-winning interactive design firm to help us complete the reinvention and bring it to life. Yes, we are creating a viewer that is new user friendly! Stay tuned for updates."
Great idea - thanks to Dusan writer who came up with it a while ago, maybe you should look at some of the ideas that came up there? After all they were Resident created!
"We are now at a stage in our development where we need to add additional product strategy, product development and product management experience to help us better tailor our product offering for each of our key markets. We’ve found just the right person to lead this important transition in the company. His name is Tom Hale (he will be called T Linden) and he is a technology industry veteran, having spent the last 14 years at Macromedia and Adobe where he held a variety of product strategy, development and management roles. Tom joins Linden Lab as Senior Vice President, Chief of Product. Read more about T Linden here."
Congratulations to Mr Hale - I hope he knows what he has taken on!
"Linden Lab is buzzing with activity. We’ve just completed a major strategy project to define the areas of focus for the next 18 months and we are in the process of translating those strategies into tactical action plans." Again sounds good, but what strategies? What plans? Guess its on a 'need to know' basis and we the Residents 'don't need to know'?
"To support the strategic initiatives we’ve identified, we’ll be hiring 60-70 more people over the next several quarters. This is all part of our commitment to ensure Second Life remains the largest and most successful virtual world." More staff can only be a good thing, lets hope they can focus at some point on Resident experience!
On the positive side of things I would say it is good to see some improvements and see the areas where Linden Lab is focusing - all area's and in need of improvement.
The discussion is in full swing in the FORUM with 'M' actually clarifying some points there.
Although from reading the post I find it slightly condescending and half trying to convince us, as Residents, that things are getting better. I feel that Linden Lab as a company is pulling further and further away from the Residents, this has been happening for quite some time. It is good that they are utilising the forums a lot more but the place most of us go for information is the blog which is pretty much dead now.
As for Resident early experience the one tool that all newbies (and older Residents) need to utilise is Torleys Tutorials yet these have been shoved to the side and removed from the main blog where they should be! Bring Torley back 'M' - he is the one Linden that actually cares about Resident experience, shoving him to the side is paramount to declaring you don't care!
By Dana Vanmoer

moreless