Burning Life 2008 :The End

Well, I did get to the burning at 6slt last night and it was a great event.
I stood next to Philip Linden and Torley Linden was in the sim but I did not see him.
There were more avatars then we could count! The place where 4 sims came together so many were able to get there.
Today the temple will burn.
I am not sure how long the builds will remain so if you get at chance try to visit before they go. One thing I enjoyed most about roaming the Burning Life sims was meeting some of the creators and talking with them about their work.
I also met some other people involved in the Burning Life . There were several rangers who come by at various times just keeping an eye on what was going on .
I talked to Tom32 Anatine who was in front of the Ranger Station asking him what was their job here. He explained that the Rangers were representative of all Rangers, not only in Burning Life but also of Burning Man. Later I met Rangermickey who is a ranger in both lives! They are there to address concerns, mediate disputes, and keep an eye out for any issues that may arise during the building time and the open week.
It seemed everyone was trying to have a positive effect on making this week as enjoyable as possible for all, builders, greeters, performers , volunteers, and all visitors. I witnessed a lot of camaraderie during the week before the opening. Requests for help in scripting, for additional ideas, for missing objects were readily answered with ,“IM me ,I can help”, or “tp me over there , I will take a look”, or referrals to others who could answer the questions.
Some of the Lindens were around too watching the progress. Philip Linden visited the plains to see how his idea has grown during these past years. Dusty Linden did a great job of keeping things on track and overseeing the project with the others.
One complaint that should be addressed before the next huge project that I heard from builders was the fact that the servers should be better to accommodate the massive projects with more ease as avatars begin moving among them.
Evidently the planning crew also overestimated the number of allowed prims which they promised would not occur next year. If you look in the wiki you will find the names of most of those who were involved.
I was impressed with the SL5B but I must say this was much more impressive to me. I am glad I was able to cover the story as it unfolded and look forward to next year!
By Gemma Cleanslate

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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

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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!

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Cartoon of the Day

By Bixyl Shuftan

Click for full size

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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

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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

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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

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