Category Archives: SHOWCASE

Introducing the Second Life Endowment for the Arts

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Introducing the Second Life Endowment for the Arts

 
 
Brett Linden

Entry posted by Brett Linden ·

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Linden Lab is pleased to announce the Second Life Endowment for the Arts (SLEA), a new community arts initiative developed in partnership with Tansee and Hannington Xeltentat. 

What is the SLEA?
SLEA is the spiritual successor to the former Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA), a decade-long partnership with the arts community that aimed to help new artists, cultivate art in SL, and foster innovation, collaboration and education. Due to open to the public in January 2021, the new SLEA is a multi-region experience that aims to provide opportunities to further fuel interest in and spotlight the work of both established and emerging artists in Second Life. 

It is hoped that the creations and art featured in SLEA will help draw attention to the overall arts community in Second Life including driving both traffic and awareness to many of the established artists and exhibits found across Second Life. In addition, SLEA would like to reach out to new residents of SL and help them to discover the arts in SL and all the creative tools that are offered so that a new generation of creativity will unfold.

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Pictured: A map of the seven-region SLEA experience including central hub and related art regions and sandbox. (Image courtesy of Tansee and Hannington).

Since LEA ended in late 2019, many members of the community have expressed an interest in reviving the idea of establishing another official showcase hub for the arts in Second Life. In particular, both Tansee and Hannington led a grassroots effort to revive LEA that resulted in the formation of the Hannington Endowment for the Arts in late 2019. That initiative, which has drawn the interest, respect and participation of many artists in SL, proved the concept and the demand from the arts community in Second Life. SLEA promises even more access to engaging events, exhibitions and experiences in the arts for the Second Life community. It is anticipated that the HEA will continue as a separate entity for those who wish to participate in its activities

At the heart of the SLEA presence in Second Life will be a new central landing and information hub featuring a teleport station that will help visitors easily discover current exhibitions, as well as a public park, “art challenge corner,” arts education center and SLEA Theater. 

Here’s a peek at the work-in-progress layout: 

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Image courtesy of Tansee and Hannington.

How can artists and creators participate?
Specific details of how the community can get involved in SLEA will be revealed in the near future. Keep an eye out for the application where artists and creators can apply for consideration for use of full or partial regions at SLEA. There is also a new SLEA group inworld that interested parties can join, too.  To learn even more about SLEA, tune in next week to a special episode of “Designing Worlds” for an insightful interview with Tansee, Hannington and Linden Lab execs Patch and Brett Linden.

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Image courtesy of Tansee and Hannington.

Note: Linden Lab and the SLEA wish to express our deep gratitude to all in the community who have supported and promoted the arts in Second Life over the years. In particular, we want to express thanks to the many volunteers who contributed to the original Linden Endowment for the Arts during its almost decade-long run from 2010-2019. We are grateful for your ongoing passion and support — and we can’t wait to see what the new year brings with SLEA in 2021.

Have a great week from all of us at Zoha Islands and Fruit Islands.

Music Mondays: An Interview With Holly Giles

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Pictured above: Holly Giles at ~No Strings~

 

This week’s featured artist is Holly Giles (pronounced ‘Jiles’), a smooth crooner with an eclectic style hailing from Australia. She likes to sing country, rock, and pop from classic to contemporary and can be found at her venue ~No Strings~ each Tuesday and Saturday at 8pm SLT. (slurl for venue: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Areumdeuli/226/27/80)

Please check out her music on her website as well as this video.

Q: When/how did you hear about Second Life?
A: In 2011 I joined an online chat platform called IMVU due to some personal stuff that forced me to be at home and unable to work. I ended up staying for 5 years. I heard about SL from some people at IMVU who were trying to convert some of us over, haha. I created an SL account in 2015 and kinda used both IMVU and SL for about a year until I decided that SL was more to my liking, with people around my own age. I was in SL for about 2 years before I even KNEW there was a Live Music Community lol, so once i discovered that, I gave away my IMVU account to a friend and I have never looked back.
 
Q: I really enjoyed your renditions of classic country songs. What drew you to that genre?
A: My music is actually very mixed genre, with country music only taking up about one third of my song list. I was raised on classic country music with my mum having her own band in my childhood, so I learnt my love of country from her and I always say that classic country is my soul music lol. But I do love all music so I tend to sing what I love, from classic country, classic rock, 90’s pop and country, through to modern pop like Lady Gaga.
 
Q: As with any artistic style, country music has evolved so much over the last century. Which decade/era is your favorite, and why?
A: Oh that’s easy. I love the old country. The Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn era of country. These country legends are like storytellers. Every song has a story. Every song has a purpose to it. I don’t know how else to explain it. I can have my heart broken and find my story in a classic country song. I can feel overjoyed about something and find my happiness echoed in a classic country song. While I love all music and listen to even the most modernist of pop music, I personally just don’t get that feeling from it. I get the happiness of an awesome beat, or well-written lyrics but yeah, not that feeling.
 
Q: If you could open for any musician (alive or deceased), who would it be?
A:I think a lot of people who follow my music would expect me to say Dolly Parton right now, and I thought I would too, but you know, I think I would LOVE to open for Bette Midler. Wow, what a musician she is. I think if I opened for Bette Midler, I could sing anything I wanted to before she took the stage. I could sing some James Brown, followed by a Dolly Parton song, followed by some Credence lol. I wouldn’t be restricted to one genre, like I would be if I opened for Dolly, I feel.
 
Q: Do you ever get stage fright before performing in SL? Describe your pre show ritual.
A: OMG. I only started singing, I mean really singing in Second Life AND real life 2 years ago. The reason I never sang before is that I suffered MASSIVE stage fright. I would freeze up and my voice would go shaky if I tried to sing in front of anyone. It took a lot of help and compliments from online friends for me to get the courage to sing in Second Life. My very first show I was so nervous that I felt sick. But by halfway through I suddenly forgot that I was nervous and I just sang. I found the talking part a lot harder than the singing part lol. Now, I don’t feel any nerves in Second Life, but am working on my nerves in RL lol.
 
Q: What is the most meaningful aspect of the SL music community to you?
A: Without a doubt, the part I enjoy the most is singing a song and seeing in local things like “OMG I love this song!” or “Oh wow, I haven’t heard this song in years!” I love getting requests, I love sharing my love of music with others. I love talking about how my mum used to sing this song or that song in her band while I slept under tables at the local pub. I love that 2 years ago I couldn’t sing this song or that song, but that now with some practice under my belt, I can blast that song out like it’s nothing. I love just being able to sing and the fact that people want to hear me sing still blows me away every time I open my mouth.

 

Thank you, Holly!

Have a great week from all of us at Zoha Islands and Fruit Islands

Tech Worker Quarantined At Home

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Tech Worker Quarantined at Home Builds Co-Working Space in Second Life

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“I built an office for those of us working from home during the pandemic,” Annabelle Chimpton recently announced on Reddit, “complete with music, coffee, and a TV for breaks.” Replete with a fire pit, garden, and Koi pond, it’s very much the kind of cool and casual co-working space that tech workers in Santa Monica and other hubs are missing nowadays — except that this one only exists in Second Life: Chimptonck Click here to teleport.

Working from home herself, Annabelle  wanted a place that recaptured her pre-pandemic office environment. “I think the big thing I’ve missed is the random moments of ‘water cooler’ talk throughout the day so hopefully this can help replicate that,” as she explains.

Unveiled just a few days ago, people also working from home have been showing up to work in her virtual space from all over, she tells me:

 
“From everyone I’ve met so far, it tends to be mostly tech workers who have all had to go remote at the beginning of the pandemic,” Annabelle tells me. “I think most are from the USA, but at least one other person is European. It’s been really awesome meeting everyone! Truly it almost feels like an office at times.”

Second Life isn’t an ideal co-working space for everyone, of course, but if you’re already familiar with the interface and have a powerful enough computer so that you can multitask between it and your other work programs, it could be a lovely respite from your home office. 

Have a great week from all of us at Zoha Islands and Fruit Islands

Lab Gab Streams-The Dive Shop

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“Lab Gab” is a live-streamed variety show that showcases events, destinations, and different talents across Second Life. 

Join our host, Strawberry Linden, as she speaks with Cilian McCullough, who runs The Dive Shop in Second Life, which is a platform for training scuba divers in the physical world. Cilian and his team have created scuba equipment, fully functional dive computers, and oxygen analyzers. They have been approved by PADI, the world’s largest diver training organization, to use these simulations in Second Life to meet the practical application part of the PADI Enriched Air Diver course. Watch as he gives Strawberry a one-on-one lesson in diving!

Aired Friday August,21st

For full episodes of Lab Gab, click over to the Lab Gab YouTube Playlist. 

Real Soon we will be working to get some of this rolling in Fruit Islands I will be personally working on this and many more programs like Sailing Instruction ,Pylon Air Racing, Flight Instruction and so much more.

Have a great week from all of us at Zoha Islands and Fruit Islands

 

Linden Lab Confirms SL Sim Crossing Improved

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Due to Code, Not Cloud

SL Sim crossing update Linden Lab

Linden Lab has a blog post that almost seems like a direct response to the one New World Notes posted yesterday, wondering whether the improvements to SL sim crossings in the test grid were a temporary, unintentional side effect. But as April Linden writes, they are real, and a result of changing some code in order to optimize how SL worked once it’s deployed to the Amazon cloud:

When you crossed from one region to another, the regions were putting a lot of information into large packets and sending them across our network. This was usually okay because our network was purposefully built to run Second Life. Then, as soon we tried to do this on someone else’s network (in the cloud), things didn’t work quite right. The problem was most noticeable when crossing from a region in our data center to one in the cloud…

[O]ur engineering team decided to use another way to send the data across the network, using the same protocol and method we use for other types of data. Most importantly, it is faster and more reliable. That did the trick! We’re still collecting statistics on the impact this change has, but things are looking very positive.

Once this new code was written, the performance when going  from region to region got a lot better, and it worked between our data center and the cloud! The improvement was so dramatic that we decided to not make our Residents wait for uplifted simulators, and rolled the changes out right away. That code is what rolled out to the grid this week.

More intensely geeky details here. So the improvements are based not so much on cloud deployment itself, so much as they are based on improvements made to the code base in order run well on the cloud.

Have a great week from all of us at Zoha Islands and Fruit Islands.

Second Life Founder Philip Rosedale!

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Lab Gab Streams this Friday at 10:30am PT/SLT – Second Life Founder Philip Rosedale!

 
 
Strawberry Linden

Entry posted by Strawberry Linden

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“Lab Gab” is a live-streamed variety show that showcases events, destinations, and different talents across Second Life. 

Join our host, Strawberry Linden, as she speaks with the founder of Second Life and co-Founder of High Fidelity, Philip Rosedale! Strawberry will be asking Philip questions about the origins of Second Life, what he’s up to now, and what he sees in the future for virtual worlds.

Tune in on Friday, August 7th at 10:30am PT/SLT. Watch us live on YouTube, Facebook, or Periscope!

For full episodes of Lab Gab, click over to the Lab Gab YouTube Playlist. 

Have a great weekend from all of us at Zoha Islands and Fruit Islands.