Civic Regulation

A friend of mine bought some land in Zindra recently and one lot was an attractive beach front piece. With a good ground texture plus access to the ocean and a Linden road this seemed like a really good place to buy. However it suffers from Mainland diversity. Sure, I'm a champion of Mainland and the craziness which it generates, but I have to admit that my land is surrounded by nice neighbors with good taste in what they put on their land. Not so with the land heretofore mentioned.

On one side, as pictured above, is a sex club (Zindra, remember) with excessively large Full Bright signs, some in neon. The structure itself is fairly tasteful. The interior is very poorly put together, but you don't have to go look. If I drop my draw distance from 128m to 64m most of the building would disappear from this vantage point, but that's not a solution. It gets worse to the south.

That land across the road is a series of unfinished sky platforms and terrible fireworks 24/7 regardless of the day cycle. The latter I could live with. Not the sky platforms. They are more disruptive to the experience than are the bright signs on the other lot.

Mainland needs some regulation and I strongly feel that this would improve the Resident experience and possibly save Mainland, bringing in more revenue for The Lab. It has been done before. That his how Zindra was created. The Lab came along and told people "If you have adult activities such as sex clubs, shops with pornographic images, or other such content, you need to move to this new continent." To aid the mandatory move, The Lab swapped out land anywhere in SL with new land in Zindra. Early adopters and volunteers to go first got some favorable swaps. Others were simply forced.

A similar move could be done to separate residential and commercial land. I don't want my home next to a huge department store and I sure don't want my scenic landscaping next to Full Bright signs advertising boobs. Mind you, I like boobs, but sometimes it is better to conceal to reveal. To paraphrase the real estate mantra, "Atmosphere! Atmosphere! Atmosphere!" Harmonious districting of land would let those who wish to have attractive homes cluster together and set all the commercial properties together so shoppers and clubbers wouldn't have to wander all over for their needs.

Linden Portal Park in Winter

Hot on the heels of a spectacular re-dressing of the Linden Portal Park for Halloween, The Lab has let it snow, let it snow, let it snow (SLurl). The whole region has been draped in the cold stuff and accented with some of the best decorations from Resident creators and some great stuff from the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW) Moles. The latter's wicked sense of humor can be found everywhere you look, too.

Of course The Grid Hunt area was snowy, but the current snow fall hit every corner off the region. Check out these pictures:

The Cornfield section has some humor keeping with the in-world game's theme.

I can't decide if these mice are building a snowman or decapitating one. Mice are all over the region and they have these mysterious little crowns. Makes you wonder.

Even the un-named area got hit by the snow storm. This is probably for an up-coming game experience the Moles are working on, but it has been here since the big portal park upgrade that made it a hub for a number of activities, not just Linden Realms. Looking at this do you get the idea that the Moles have a violent streak?

The Gnome Village has turned into a gingerbread wonderland but I enjoyed the warm fire in the cave after eating the roof off of a building (Sorry, Michael).

 Speaking of Wonderlands ... the Halloween area is gone, obviously, but the Winder Wonderland area is still blocked off. With a little Resident magic (a firm Page Up smack and a bit of Up Arrow) I was able to get a sneak(y) peak at what lies beyond the fence.

Two doors on this cottage so I expect something like the Halloween fun ... one entrance for a fun experience and one for a fun experience with Occulus Rift.

I took more pictures (click to embiggen these or see them on Flickr), but decided just these few should do for now and I encourage you to head out and explore now!

The Ancient Greek Regions

It all started with a post by The Lab on the profile feed ...

See the original post here.

So I sent a Poultry Report staff photographer out to take some pictures around the Sea of Fables and here's what she sent back ...

Sea of Fables - Bohol (SLurl)
A quaint little village with houses anyone may use (great as changing rooms).

Hera's Island - Sargasso (SLurl)
Silent Mole's 101 LI tribute to the goddess Hera in her apple garden.

Bacchus Island - Baffin (SLurl)
Atlas with his burden overlooks Hercules about to battle Ladon in the Garden of the Hesperides.
Near by is the old Teen Grid Transfer Station, the last stop before "graduating" to the Main Grid.

These are just three places in the Greek Isle regions, a former part of the old Teen Grid, but now accessible to all explorers. Sailing is encouraged – there's a timed course, actually, and a Rez Zone on Hephaestus Isle (SLurl) – and numerous islands to explore. Brush up on your Greek mythology and history or just have some fun. You might even explore the Labyrinth (SLurl) if you dare. It is one of the most ambitious builds of classic Second Life with a nice reward at the end. If you like the village in Bohol, visit Posiedon Island - Celebes (SLurl), a place familiar with those who have tried The Grid Hunt (AKA The Magellan Hunt; SLurl).

Don't forget to thank a mole from the Linden Department of Works when you see them for the Greek Isles and the numerous other LDPW builds dotted around Our World. Plenty of private islands are featured by The Lab in social media but the workhorses (workmoles?) of the community make sure there are plenty of great but under-promoted places to visit.

Do you remember ...

Here's an oldie from very long time resident Javier Puff. This is about 8 or 9 years old and I believe it stemmed from a contest held by Linden Lab to create video adverts for Our World. I'd love to see a shot-for-shot recreation of this with they way Second Life looks today but I lack the talent and my hardware lacks the sophistication.

Best of Intentions for a New World

With great excitement the other day I ran about the newly remodeled LR Portal Park 1 (now simply called The Portal Park; SLurl), the region once used as the gateway to the Linden Realms game grid. When The Cornfield game was announced (see here) and released the region was given a make over so it would be a portal for not just Linden Realms, but for the new Experience Key-based game and several other wonderful Linden-created games and attractions. In my excitement I promised a soon-to-be-published blog post with many pictures and more information based on personal exploration.

Lately, though, I've had little desire to even get out of bed. Except for what I must do in Real Life (it is no secret I'm a Care Giver) I accomplish so very little it is almost laughable. If I could laugh. I'm stuck in one of my regular depressive lows. Until I can get a manic high again or at least up to a so-called normal I present my pictures as posted on My.Secondlife.com in the last week in lieu of something more original. Click each picture to see the original post (though the caption of each picture is more or less from the original post so the seeing the original isn't a time saver).

LR Portal Park 1 now takes you to The Wilderness and The Grid Hunt as well as Linden Realms and the new Cornfield. Note: The old Corn Field – two words, not one – still exists (SLurl).

Left to right: Ancient Mole and NaughtyMole on the bench. Abnor Mole looking griefer-y, me, and Alexa Linden!
The LDPW Moles have really gone above and beyond in this creation.

Selfie with Troy Linden.

Left to right: A Reseident I don't know, Bat Mole, Ancient Mole, Naughty Mole, and Kona Linden.

Tea Party?

Tea Party! And the source of some silly hats I've seen people wearing.

One of the silly hats you can get at the Tea Party.

My original guess that this is a portal to Social Island (SLurl) was wrong. It is simply a decorative gathering spot.

Me and Patch Linden in the new Portal Park. Amazing makeover.
I was able to trade Bears with a few Lindens and Moles. If you visit, don't hesitate to ask for a Bear or, better yet, trade your personalized Bear.

I wonder what Gnome Village is ...

The Gnome Village isn't really a portal but a fun, scenic place.

There's an un-named portal that looks scary ,.. lightning, rain, ruins, and an armoured car.

Of course, there's The Cornfield itself. Check out the video from The Lab and then head on over (you'll need a test viewer available here) and try it yourself.

Bay City 6th Anniversary Festivities Announced!

From a press release:

BAY CITY, SL (21 April, 2014) - Created by Linden Lab® in May of 2008 and the first of their "Linden Department of Public Works" projects, Bay City has become one of the most popular mainland communities. In honor of the sixth anniversary, Bay City's Residents welcome everyone to join their annual parade and live music event.

Anniversary celebrants will gather at noon SLT/PDT on Sunday, the 18th of May, with a parade lineup at the bandshell in Bay City - Harwich (SLurl). The parade will make its way down Route 66 beginning at 12:30 p.m. SLT/PDT, concluding at the Bay City Fairgrounds in the North Channel region (SLurl).

A live concert will kick off at 1:30 p.m. SLT/PDT at the Bay City Fairgrounds, featuring a trio of live acts and including GoSpeed Racer of KONA Stream providing music leading into the event.

All Residents of the Second Life grid are encouraged to participate. Celebration goods are available at the Bay City Community Center, in the Daley Bay region, for those who wish to be a part of the parade, and ample viewing area is provided. The music event is also open to all who desire to attend. 

Bay City is a mainland community, developed by Linden Lab™ and home to the Bay City Alliance. The Bay City Alliance was founded in 2008 to promote the Bay City regions of Second Life™ and provide a venue for Bay City Residents and other interested parties to socialize and network. It is now the largest Bay city group, and home to most Residents of Bay City.

For more information, contact: Marianne McCann (marianne.mccann@gmail.com)

# # #

Our World v. Blocksworld

At Home Depot (a massive, warehouse-like construction supplies and equipment store in the United States) today my iPad was pretty helpful. I was able to look up items for comparison, take pictures of things to show my mother since her vantage point in a wheelchair was really a disad-vantage point, and to sketch ideas. Later, while waiting for my steak (!!) at lunch, I was able to play Blocksworld, Linden Lab's iOS-based 3D building game and think about what Our World in Second Life could take from this mobile world.

First, the building interface is super simple. Well, it is aimed primarily at kids so that's probably a given. Drag pre-shaped blocks or other items from a toolbox to the virtual ground then change dimensions and/or placement with simple tools. That is how I re-created my deck from Second Life in Blocksworld:

After setting up the blocks I dragged-n-dropped some colors and a texture and *boom* it was done. This was more of a "see if I can do it" exercise. I can save it but it isn't easily moved and I have no idea for what I'd use it, but I spent 10 minutes while eating popcorn and sipping Mt. Dew, so there is no waste, really.

Blocksworld seems to be geared more to vehicles and creating games which involve vehicles. Most of the build kits one can buy with in-game coins fit this description though many of the user-created worlds (and the contents thereof) are split between gaming and creation for creation-sake, like my deck. Lots of possibilities and some very simple tools, like drag-n-drop to script.

In Second Life I can't script my way out of a paper bag. Sure, I can make the bag, but ... anyway, if I can't use some pre-written scripts or get someone to script for me, I couldn't make a car, for example. Some 5 minutes in Blocksworld and I'd have a car with steering, reverse gear, and lasers. Drag a wheel to the ground then drag "scripts" to it. Bam. Do that again and you have most of a bicycle. Twice more again and you have a car, more or less.

Now imagine Second Life with a similar builder toolbox. Beginners could get started right away making something more sophisticated than a chair. Talk about generating excitement! Talk about potential Resident retention!! Not only could n00bs catch the building bug right away but non-builder residents would have a very simple way to enhance all their in-world purchases. Look inside any Linden Home (ahem ... privacy first!) and you'll see that a majority of residents have cobbled together walls and floors to enhance their homes. Simple stuff, but so many people don't really know how to rez a prim. When I joined Second Life there were people who hung out at Help Island and sandboxes just to show new Residents how to rez a prim. Not so much these days.

Another feature that SL could import from Blocksworld is the idea of easily sharing your creations. In the iOS game user creations are featured in a couple different ways and any user can play with these builds at any time. The Lego MMO of a couple years ago had such a feature and so did the former CloudParty virtual world. SL has the Destination Guide, but a category like "Come See What I Made!" could be added. But that would work best with one more Blocksworld idea ...

Visit "worlds" created by other users and play with their builds!

Every Blocksworld user has their own "world" – a build space they can call their own, with a  pre-set landscape, roads, some water, and even some atmosphere effects. It's pretty cartoonish, but you can actually have several build spaces, naming them for different purposes. No, that's not practical in Second Life, but I have an idea. Give every resident some land. Mainland is incredibly empty. Give non-Premium members 512m² free to use on the vast, empty Mainland. If they don't want it, they don't have to use it. Premium members could still have a choice of a Linden Home (a great value, I think, compared to just a 512m² parcel) or they could have 1024m² of Mainland free to use instead. Like a Linden Home, these lands could not be sold, merely exchanged for another parcel somewhere else or simply not claimed. But everyone would have a space associated with their avatar where they can build and show off what they build. There'd have to be a mechanism in place where folks like me who have met our household's maximum allowed number of accounts would have our land options limited, but ... well, details. I think that that idea is a good one over all and should stimulate account retention.

Maybe when I help put up new window treatments tomorrow, hang some shelves, or help swap out the shower hardware, I'll see other features of Blocksworld that might transfer well to Second Life. Or maybe I'll just be tired enough to flop into my bed with my iPad and build stuff in Blocksworld. If I do come up with more ideas, though, I'll be sure to blog about them.

Where to Valentine?

The beach at Valentinefrom Me (SLurl) won't impress you, but hopefully this Map screenshot of the latest in landscaping from Linden Estate Services will. If you decide to visit anyway, fly around and try to cam around from as high as you can go. Thanks for the tip, Hexapoda!

How easy it is to be a Noob? Part I

The Lab's recent announcement (not on the Official blog, mind you as that would be too easy, but here for one source) of its new CEO, Ebbe Altberg, has many people thinking about what might happen to Our World. Most of the comments I've seen in various sources has to do with The Lab's famous inability to communicate with the Residents – like not making their announcement on the official blog, as noted. One of my first concerns has been about the New Resident Experience. I had both of these in mind when I made a late night purchase from the Second Life Marketplace.

For many of us with our own land its natural to just unpack things at home. Long time Residents might even have build rights on some group land for said purpose. At minimum, experienced users know of at least one sandbox location (I keep two in my Favorites so I can log in to one right away). For the rest the question Where can I rez my purchase Inworld? applies. Thank goodness the Marketplace is there to help us on the post-purchase receipt page (or so they call it, but its not really a receipt). Click the handy link and you are whisked to the Opening Boxes page on the SL Wiki.

Then find a buried link for "this list" of public sandboxes and click ...

... then scroll almost to the bottom of the page for a list of links to public sandboxes (or keep scrolling for a list of privately-owned sandboxes). Easy as pie, right?

Where do we go from here?

Shortly after reading the news that Rod Humble (who still owes me a bear) has left Linden Lab (see here), I popped into the Sutherland Abyss (SLurl) on a lark and was about to move on when I just stopped in the stillness. Then I thought "Where do we go from here?"

Learning Island

While looking at the new Social Islands on the map (SLurl) I saw new set of Learning Islands, too, so I quickly whipped up a test account and logged in hoping to find one. I certainly did and here's an annotated photo essay about my experience.

When you first arrive, you are on a beach.
By looking in the address bar, you'll know you are on a learning path.

There is no tutorial about camming around, but if one did know how to do this they'd see that the region is beautiful. Later they'll see that it greatly resembles the new Social Island, too, in form and style. More about Social Island in a subsequent post, but the rocky terrain, the beach, and the coliseum structure are the primary similarities.

If you take the time to look around, you'll see rocky (mesh) Islands, and a recently stranded Linden Premium Boat. Yes, it is supposed to be there. Very scenic but perhaps not a good portent of success.

If you wander off the beach, there are plenty of multi-lingual clues pointing you where to go. To be serious, though, I saw absolutely no signs of any nature – instructional, directional, informational, non-sensical – save for some arrows.

Follow the numerous arrows and the rather obvious path and you'll find more arrows. Experienced users might get a sense of Déjà Vu – look at the steps and arch.

The path continues. If you fall off the bridge or simply jump off the cliff edge, you can climb out over a series of stepped rocks on the far side but you'd have to fly to get out on the initial side. By this point, you might have expected some instruction on how to talk or move or ... well.

Déjà Vu again. Like the aforementioned arch and steps, these "ruins" are not custom-created items for this build, but are pre-fabs anyone can buy in-world or on the Marketplace. Some might say that's cheating, but it is nice to see The Lab supporting in-world creators.

Past those ruins is another cliff one can fall off or a bridge that serves the same function. Yes, you can climb out, but if there had been any sort of How-to-Fly or How-to-Jump tutorial beforehand, then one would not need to climb. Generally speaking,  I got the distinct impression that Learning Island is a work in progress. With any luck, some sort of signage will show up soon.

Round the corner after your death defying escape from a fall that should have broken one or more of your bones and there's a lovely waterfall to cross under. Again, if one had been taught how to cam out, then they'd see a view like this.

Some residents and readers of this blog might recognize the coliseum here from an earlier New Resident Experience (as detailed in a post here). The structure is another non-Linden piece, this time by creator Damien Fate with the arched portal beyond the robot (another new resident) created by someone whose name I totally lost. Again, no instructions here, but it's reasonably clear that if you walk into the vortex, something will happen. In this instance, you are transported to Social Island.

Big kudos to The Lab and all the creators involved. This is much, much nicer than my last New Resident experience (blogged about here) and possibly even the one before that. All-in-all my best experiences were when my new characters went through privately run introductions like the excellent one in Caledon's Oxbridge University (SLurl). If the very simple official experience could be blended with the sometimes-too-detailed Caledon experience, I think that a wonderful introduction to Second Life could be had by new residents.

After a hard 45 minutes of combing Learning Island, my new character (with a really cool name so she might stick around) enjoys a G-rated beverage at the Tiki Beach on Social Island (SLurl).

Logs, Clouds, And Alts

Slowly I'm learning to work with the Communications Hub Interface (CHuI) in the most current official viewer. Anyone who has spoken to me in-world, followed my posts on this blog, or on MySL might have caught a few angry words (or quite a few) about the CHuI. The same people would know that until this feature debuted in October 2012 (Web) I was an unofficial apologist for the official viewer. Better, stronger, faster – it was the Six Million Dollar Viewer to me. Then The Lab innovated and introduced the CHuI.

Tell me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Third Party Viewer (TPV) Phoenix introduce the all-your-chat-and-IMs-in-one-window feature? I think that I remember digging through menus to turn that off in Phoenix and did that in the current Firestorm so I don't know how innovative The Lab got that day. The real new thing in The Lab's CHuI, though, is fast access to one's chat logs (Web):

One new feature is the Conversation Log, which provides a list of all the conversations you’ve had in the last 30 days. This includes IMs received from both friends and non-friends while you were offline. From the Conversation Log you can open the entire history of your communication with another person, so you no longer need to search for it on your computer’s hard drive. (You just need to choose the option of saving chat logs on your computer for this feature to work.)

I finally tried that today and I have to admit, I was surprised. Basically, it simply opens an IM window with whomever is in the list and shows part of the contents of a file stored on your computer's hard drive. Same for Main Chat History. Surprise!! That capability has always be there, really, or at least for a very long time. One simply had to start an IM with someone to view the same information. Again, same with Main Chat History. A real wonder would have been to make the conversation pop up in an external text editor. But, no.

From my experience tonight of using my brother's usual computer to log in an alt to check her IM history (totally forgetting her logs were on our other computer) I can know now that an even bigger innovation would be to keep the logs in The Cloud. Then I could access them anywhere from any computer. Such an ability could even tie in with the abandoned My Second Life feeds to make it a robust communications platform for residents to use when they can't visit in-world to keep in touch. Like a grown up social network.

Sadly, development at The Lab seems to be based on a variation of String Theory: Develop something, promote it meekly, then leave it to waste away while the staff starts to chase a new, more interesting piece of string. Some old strings include My Second Life, the Second Life Marketplace, Avatars United, and more. Mostly Web products, mind you, but Windlight hasn't seen any innovations by The Lab (Firestorm users have new clouds to play with) since introduction and the proper use of Materials was poorly explained thus I expect that to founder sometime, too. And Mesh. Introduced then development stopped (and blocked? Qarl?).

So while I get used to the mandatory CHuI – Firestorm, Dolphin, and other TPVs will implement it soon so I kinda have to use it – I have to think about how it could be improved but likely won't be looked at ever again by the developers.

The Inventory Meme

Another Monday, another Meme. I saw Strawberry Singh publish her "Inventory Meme" blog post just before I went to bed last night and, oddly enough, I didn't dream about Second Life at all so eloquent words and pretty pictures for me to post didn't pop into my head. Here's what I came up with on the fly while eating a hamwich and some yogurt at lunch ...

Meme Instructions: Copy and paste the questions and answers below, delete my answers and input your own. Don’t forget to leave a comment with your link so I can come by and read it!

What is your current inventory number?
61,731 items, after emptying the trash. This is a sort of misleading number when you consider how I organize my Inventory. The pic above is an example.

Small, color-coded cubes become the home for stored items such as whole outfits, avatars, furniture sets, and all purchases where I can't save the copiable item in it's original container. These are then put into a larger "trunk" in lots of 100 (The Lab recommends putting no more than 100 items into a prim or risk loss of all though nesting 100-lot-cubes in another doesn't seem to be a problem). These are then stored in an Objects (Stored) folder so I can get them later. I'm in the process of sorting clothes to store, give away, or just delete and then I'm going to do that with all my building materials since I doubt I'll do any serious building soon. Right now I have eight "trunks" marked Clothes and one each for footwear, jewelry, tattoos, etc. All totaled, I have about 100+ of these so you can imagine how much larger my Inventory would be should I release all the contents back to the wild.

Another factor that skews the 61K is that I use alts for storage. Way back in the day when Hamlet Au wrote a book about Second Life he recommended creating an alt character to dump all un-used transferable inventory to so if your main account loses it's Inventory, you have at least some fall-back. I do that when I can and back then is when I started this boxing strategy, too. But I also have an alt that I use just for landscaping. At some point I decided it would be in her personality to be a gardener and it would ease my Inventory to have her buy and keep all things outdoor. A quick guess without actually taking the trouble to look, I'd say that she has about 35,000 items boxed and unboxed in her Inventory. My "back up" storage alt has fewer items, but I do have other alts so I have a lot of stuff scattered about.

If you had to delete your whole inventory and could only keep one thing, what would it be?
Aside from my shape and other things that the system wouldn't let me delete? Pictures that I don't have backed up to Flickr or to my hard drive. Everything else can be replaced, but pictures can't be.

What is the last thing you purchased?
An outfit from Plastik (SLurl). Actually, it was their July gift so I guess I didn't actually pay for it. Just before that I grabbed a 2009 Winterfest Linden Bear, also free, and that needs to go into my Linden Bear storage box.

Which item do you wear most often?
My shape. In my Saved Outifts folder I have a couple versions of a "Dressable Uccie" each with a shape ("mesh standard shape" boobs, busty boobs, Furry, Neko, Male, etc.), hair, AO, and other items that I need minimum before getting dressed. A shape is the core. If we are talking prim attachment, then it would be my wedding ring. I change pet collars, hair, eyes, etc. faster than most people change their underwear, but the wedding ring is always there.

When you search for the word penis, how many items pop up? Six. Three of those are in a Freenis kit I give out to poor male Noobs in need of a confidence boost. So many have really sketchy bits I found a decent-looking freeb that I give them then tell them to leave me alone. Two are pictures with the word "Penis" in the title and I'm afraid to look at them since I also know who sent them. No, I didn't search for euphemisms but I'm sure the count would go up a bit.

If you aren't bored enough after reading this, check out this post from when I had about 50,000 items in my Inventory in April 2012. With more time on your hands, I have quite a few posts tagged with Inventory you could look through as well. Probably a better use of your time, though, is sorting your own Inventory. Good luck and happy packing!

What's In My Closet: Kiwiberriness

The convenience of having a clothes closet in Second Life is not to be under-rated. I took well over half an hour putting together this outfit and being able to save it means that I can easily whip it back out when I want it. In the past, I'd have one "Quick Me" folder at the top of my Inventory that I could simply drag onto my name tag at a moment's notice and be fully kitted without a fuss. But that meant putting a copy of every item worn from the shape on outward into the folder then changing the contents every few weeks so my appearance wouldn't be too stale.

Eventually, I also made a "Quick Dressable Me" folder with all the necessary body parts and HUDs so that I could quickly add any outfit and then some shoes and be on my way.

When The Lab came out with Saved Outfits I was  apprehensive. My blog entry from June 7, 2010 showed that I had a right to be wary: "Recently, I and two of my alts experienced massive inventory losses: skins, prim attachments such as hair and shoes, eyes, mesh-based clothes, and more. Interestingly, items that survived the loss were ones that I had 'linked' to create Saved Outfits in the My Appearance pane in the Second Life v2.0 viewer." The problem was eventually solved and hasn't re-occurred and I've enjoyed my clothes closet ever since.

Body Parts: unBra Indigo C62/M5 skin (this has a bit of violet in the eye shadow); Lola's Tangos "Implants"; Ibanez Fantasy Glow Eyes (Ostara); Slink mesh hands; Wasabi Pills Amelie Mesh Hair in Crystal Violet.

I don't want to automatically run to the "fun hair" part of my Inventory when I have a colorful outfit and this looks good with a short blonde bob, but the hair drape forms a nice frame with the dress bottom.

Clothes: KnocKeRs Lady Luck dress in Kiwi Berry; HOC platform pumps (not shown as they sunk into the backdrop when I posed but were colored to fit the dress); PrimOptics freebie Plume eyeglasses; GanK Violet Voltaire collar and cuffs (adding OpenCollar and LockMeister scripts is what took up most of the time then choosing the right hair took almost as much time); R.Icielli Neon 02 Lipstick; Wedding ring and Magellan's Secret Decoder Ring.

If anyone can't search for these items in-world or on the Marketplace, let me know. I'm too lazy to look up the stuff for this post but I could probably be persuaded to help if asked.

Infographic: 10 Years of Second Life

Source: Linden Lab (URL)

An SL10B-themed advert about winning a new computer at the top of the page when I viewed the infographic on the official blog.

SL10B: Some Photos

Without getting into a lot of hoo ha, I'm not involved with SL10B this year. Yes, I was for a short time, but it seems I'm not really welcome there. I had planned on some photo essays and had a head start, but it's just not going to happen. Here are some photos that I've already stocked up and I may well sneak back in for more photos. There are some exhibits that weren't finished when I was ejected and would like to see in their completed glory. Without much comment and no SLurls, here are some highlights. I encourage you to explore, ask Greeters for gifts, compliment anyone you see with a Sim Coord tag, and generally have a good time.

This picture of the Turtle Stage was published on this blog earlier, but at the creator's request I removed it. You might have seen it, though, as it has been on the official event Flickr since then. I guess no one else was asked to remove theirs. Since this was taken some waterfalls have been added and quite a few details. Flea Bussy and Toady Nakamura have created one of the most wondrous places in all of Second Life and I truly wish The Lab would find a way to preserve it as a "national" treasure. You can't see me in this picture as I had hidden myself, but I would have been a tiny speck on the snout of this massive creature.

Bear Island is back, largely thanks to Marianne McCann, I suspect, as most of the bears are hers. This picture was originally posted on MySL so you may have seen it.

Another picture of Bear Island from MySL. You can grab copies of some of the bears.

The Lake Stage is one of many venues for DJs and live performers. Its beautiful is a bonus.

Another view of the Lake Stage.

New England is represented again this year. I visited often and felt right at home.

Another view of the New England Exhibit.

Now & Then is a brilliant art project that fuses portraits of a Resident's oldest avatar with their current one into a single piece. Several of my friends have their portraits here and I was lucky enough to be asked to pose, too.

The first floor of Now & Then is a gallery while the second floor has several studios so that you can create your own dual portrait and add it to a free frame.

Some of the best exhibits this year are from the kid community in Second Life. Soken Kids beautifully fits the event theme of Looking Back, Looking Forward and is fun to explore. Oh, and lots of gifties.

Oldbies ... well, people of my SL generation, too ... will recognize The Cornfield.

I always enjoy Transgender Lounge's exhibit. This color-shifting umbrella is fun to watch as you read through the informational displays.