Two destinations that delight this week. Grid addresses at the end of the post as usual. If you have not visited Avacon Grid yet, put it on your 'Must See' list.
Not only is Avacon closely associated with the organization and prep work that goes into the annual Opensim Community Convention (held over on OSCC Grid), it is also home to some interesting regions, including the Building Tutorial region Primland, you may remember it being originally on Fleep Grid; some nice work-in-progress Library regions belonging to Rockcliffe University, and of course Nebadon Izumi's regions bursting with interesting free stuff, called Oni Kenkon Creations.
Three stops this week, with the added bonus of some teleport hullabaloo. Addresses to our three destinations - all impressive grids and regions worth your time - at the end of the post.
Camping on the beach in Australia
We gathered, as usual, at the Safari Clubhouse on Francogrid, on a region called hgsafari so reasonably easy to find. This week had an Australian emphasis, and although our first stop was not on that continent, our second destination host managed to be with us from the start, pretty impressive since he lives on the other side of the world where the Safari starts at about 6 am, not 9 pm as it is for those of us in Europe.
Each Safari trip lasts about three hours. Sometimes, that's divided into three one-hour visits, and sometimes into two ninety minute encounters. This week was of the ninety-minute-times-two variety, and for good reason! Our destinations were on OSgrid, Metropolis and Mobius grids (huh? three grids for two destinations? You'll see.) and all the HG Addresses are at the end of the post, as usual.
The Absurdists were Post WWII writers, like Albert Camus, who you perhaps haven't heard of, or like the book Catch 22, which you have heard of. So now you've Googled that, you'll agree that nothing really fits the hypergrid paradigm better than 'you have to be crazy to work here'. Yesterday proved we're crazy like a fox, in this case, Foxx Bode.
The planned destination was on Foxx's Red Dragon Club X, built when Foxx first discovered opensim back in the year dot. Sadly, this didn't work out, so we decamped to the Safari clubhouse on Teravus Plaza. But do take the time to go and see Foxx's historic OSgrid build, HG Addresses are at the bottom of this post, as usual.
It's a small country with a lots of names, and loads of personality. Whether you like to call their home Holland, the Netherlands, or the Low Countries, the Dutch contingent in opensim is large, active, and innovative! The Safari group got to see three different aspects of Dutch culture this week, all the destinations are open to the public, and listed at the end of this post, if you want to experience them for yourself.
Utrecht Citycenter is a region on OSGrid built by Avia Bonne. The region is on land owned by Mark aka Repudiator Quann, one of the smart and generous people who have regions attached to OSGrid and allow others to get a parcel or even a whole sim in exchange for small donations used to help cover expenses.
The new Safari house in SL will be holding the first in a series of events on March 25, at 12.00 SLT
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sistiana/106/81/25
Back in September 2014, The Safari was lucky enough to be given some space on sim Sisitiana, in SL.
The 2014 Safari Embassy on Sistiana
The beautiful sim is the home of John 'Pathfinder' Lester.
Safarina Wizard Gynoid immediately took in hand the space and put up a building, very much like an ancient church in the gothic style.
We held a party there in October 2014, with a crowd of bi-virtuals, or should that be multi-virtuals. It was a way to remind all of the symbiotic relationship between SL and the opensim worlds.
Inside there were some posters and information about opensim, including a link at the now famous video that shows the hypergrid jump by some of the Linden team to an IBM owned region in opensim... this video
Time went by, Wizard became busy with other projects and relinquished the land to me, and last November, I began rebuilding and rethinking the space.
As you can see, the classic look of the region has not changed, but the style of the new building is rather different. it's divided into 3 floors. The ground floor is all about general information on how to find people in opensim, how to get help, and some tips and tricks - from things like 'What is an .oar' to 'How come people friend me so fast in opensim'.
The middle floor is dedicated to specific information about grids. Click on the posters and get a notecard that tells you something about the size, location, prices, and ideology of each one. The central display gives you an idea of how the grids are distributed around the world, and shows - just for illustrative purposes - the names of about 200 grids that are hg friendly. Wow - 200, that's a lot!
A separate space called the 'school room' will house some information about educational builds - everything from university grids to privately run sims with a didactic twist, like Graham Mill's Micrographia.
The top floor is for social events. While it's not my intention to have a lot of events in SL, it's nice to think we have a place where experienced opensimmers can share their experiences with people a bit shy about taking the plunge. And dance a bit too. The events here will not be SL-bashing, but will hopefully dispel some of the myths and misinformation out there.
This build has a strong not-for-profit bias. It celebrates the generosity of opensim, not the people trying to make a fast buck out of it. The idea that we can all give something back to the opensim community is paramount - because those are the kind of people I hope will join us. Finding your way around opensim can be a huge challenge to new people. I say this - if someone showed you kindness in opensim, then please, pay it forward by helping someone new. And if you're not fond of newbies, just consider this, if you help them, it is also a way you can help put the rip-off merchants out of business.
It makes no absurdly self-aggrandizing claim to being the official home of Opensim in SL - nobody can speak for the massive variety of worlds, with all their fiercely individual ideas and aims. However, I'm proud to say that people from some 50 different grids have contributed to the build.
Many have provided posters and notecards, advice, moral and practical support, and some have given a few Lindens to help with the upload costs. Thank you all!
Two stops this week, on Francogrid and then on OSGrid. Find the HG Addresses at the end of the post, and add your photos of the destinations to our groups in G+ and Facebook, if you'd like! HG Addresses as aways at the end of the post.
First, to Parcdesarts, a region of Francogrid. Paintings and other 2D art is surprisingly difficult to show well in virtual worlds. But Katia Parcdesarts has achieved something special here.
The landscape suggests an airy oceanside estate, without too many trees or water features to distract from the principal attraction, the galleries, which, even though each represents a very different style of architecture, all come together in a harmonious patchwork.
Yesterday, we answered two questions about Opensim with one big party. Firstly, what is the most popular publication in the Hyperverse? and secondly, is opensim really 'empty'? The answers are 1. HG Visionz magazine, and 2, Opensim empty? No way!!
There are quite a few competing events on Wednesday evening, European time . There's a DJ dance party at Event Plaza, OSGrid, there's the traditional-back-to-the-dawn-of-opensim party hosted by Samira Samtanko on DeReOs, there's the midweek meeting on Metropolis, and a bunch of other music and social events, you need look no further than the Events Tab on opensimworld.com or go to hypevents.net to see what's going on. Why mention all these 'rivals' to the weekly Safari trip? Because an astounding 43 avatars gathered on 3rdlifegrid to wish HG Visionz a happy second anniversary.
Stop me if you've heard this one. Person A tells Person B about a great deal, or scheme, they're working on. Person B gets excited, and tells their friend, Person C, all about it. Person C invests.
To visit Ignis Fatuus is a bit like watching a French film. The scenery is beautiful, and invites long, sweeping, cam shots. The sound track is epic, the dialogue, rigorously atmospheric Gallic. After a while you begin to wish you'd sat up front in your French 101 class, and fear that the subtitles are missing something crucial, and then after a little bit more, it occurs to you that you're not following the plot because ...maybe there isn't a plot. Once you've embraced that - and most experienced Safarians figured this out about 2 years ago - what's left is a wonderland of photo ops, cute corners, and remarkable architecture. It's intime and indéchiffrable, not two words readily associated with a field trip, but we kinda made it work.
The second destination for this week's Safari tour was Escape! on Digiworldz. This is a region dedicated to the teaching of Spanish in an immersive 3D environment. Our guide was Eugenia Calderon, a language teacher living in Mexico, and the region's creator, James 'El Profesor' Abraham was also there. Here's the website.And here's theirEscape Facebook pageand here's the page for'Spanish with Eugenia'.
Colleagues Eugenia Calderon IRL Martha Eugenia Lino, and James 'El Profesor' Abraham
El Profesor: Hola! I'm in a RL class, but I have my students working on an activity so I'm kinda here and kinda not....did you hear them?
This is the first half of this week's Safari which was split into two 90 minute destinations. First up, OMG... HG Address at the end of the post, as usual.
snik snoodle: welcome all to OMG! it's short for One More Grid. We have sailing at the docks where you can rezz a boat and go for a sail, rain and i thought we could either split the group into two, one group sail one explore and then say swap over in 30 mins or so. Do feel free to dance while you wait, if you wish or feel free to ask rain or I anything - should you have any questions. Thirza Ember: Why did you decide to make your own grid rather than join a larger grid?
Cornflakes Week, a seven day festival of silliness unique to OpenSim, began yesterday with a 3-stop party on Safari. If you missed the party, you can still go visit all 3 destinations, addresses at the end of this post.
We started on HGSafari region on Francogrid, with a concert by Torben Asp.
His particle show and original music was a wonderfully smooth way to get us started on our - let's be honest - difficult trip around the Hyperverse.
A very musical Safari this week, with a trip to 3rd Rock Grid for the first two hours, to hear two musicians, and learn about the No Borders Festival, a two-day concert for charity, which happened last weekend. Want to visit the places mentioned in this post? The HG addresses are at the end. Copy paste them into the Map feature of your viewer.
Truelie Telling, photo by Wizardoz Chrome
First up, though, Truelie Telling warmed up the crowd at the Lodi Ballroom with some avatar-centric songs, in her inimitable style. She soon had the room hopping!
This week, Canada! Opensim is a great way to explore cultures and places in the real world, and also see how people express their world view through pixels. Our three destinations were on Pathlandia, GreatCanadianGrid, and Creanovale, all three with strong Canadian connections, although that might not be obvious from first impressions, and about 23 avies joined in the fun. HG Addresses at the end, as usual.
Nobody say 'I'd tap that'.
I was all ready to go - I'd even made mesh moose rack, and a Maple Syrup dress. But then disaster struck - I came down with the flu about 3 hours before the Safari and couldn't to join the group. So, how cool that John 'Pathfinder' Lester decided to Livestream the first hour!
Goodwill. Stop and think about it. Why? Because that one word holds the key to the survival of the human race, and to your personal health and happiness. It's also the world's greatest time-saving gadget. Find a way to slip it into all those nasty sharp bits of your life. You'll be glad you did. Two builds that speak to the good in all of us this week, one is a celebration of pixel power, the other a meditation on what it means to lose your home in the real world. HG Addresses, as always at the end of the post.
First, a crowd of us went over to Littlefield to see the new region, Goodwill. Shopping galore!
Every Wednesday we meet on the HGSafari region on FrancoGrid. About 15-20 people join each week, trips are organized in advance so we can meet grid and region owners. We go to two or three different grids each week, spending about an hour on each. The entire event lasts about three hours, some people stay for the whole thing, some people come and go, depending on other commitments.
To make it easier for people to join us partway through the Safari, event details are posted on opensimworld.com, G+ and Facebook. To keep it interesting for all, there's a mix of destinations, from social to sporty, from arty to educational, from technical to theatrical. No one grid is promoted above all others, though we tend to spend a lot more time with people who are not in virtual worlds for the money. Cuz if we were into that, we would just have stayed in Second Life. You will find the HG Addresses for this week's three destinations at the end of the post, should you wish to visit them yourself. You put the address in your Viewer's Map, hit Search, and then teleport. It's a simple low tech way of discovering opensim for yourself.
Building competition entry by XsiberiaX Ilfreddopurifica
Craft Grid turns 7 on Friday, and there will be a big party from around 1pm Pacific time, which is ten o'clock in the evening in Europe. They will be awarding the prizes for the annual Build
George Equus: as far as Safari goes, pretty successful one today ;}
Two destinations this week. HG Addresses at the end of the post as usual.
First up a Welsh Paradise, devised by Susannah Avonside.
Susannah Avonside
Views of welsh scenery, and views about the future of opensim were on the menu this week. Although it almost seemed like we were going nowhere, at first. Seemed like none of us were entirely present from the very beginning, some of us foggy, George's trousers had gone walkabout again, and a new friend Spax Orion was just hair and a sword, leading us to wonder if he had remembered to put his mesh avie in his My Suitcase folder.
Two very exciting projects in OpenSim that you will be hearing more and more about in the future! Ask most safari-goers, and they'll tell you they're into love, not war... but there are always exceptions, and Konk Combat is definitely exceptional.
The King of Konk, Valerious Strongborn
We ran over to Konk on Kitely (full HG addresses at the end of the post) to see what it was all about. There were almost 20 of us by the time all arrived, and it being Kitely, of course, everything rezzed super fast, except for the occasional person with some kinky cloud issues.
So what is Konk? We decided to ask the Man himself.
This year's calendar features 13 destinations visited by the Safari during 2016, with an emphasis on the landscapes we've seen. The calendar is available free and full perms inside the Clubhouse at Teravus Plaza, OSGrid - just 'buy' it from the box on the Rhino table. You can also get it if you visit the courtyard of the Safari Embassy at Mal Burns' Metaworld Township on Great Canadian Grid. And of course it's also available in the Safari Market on HGSafari sim in Francogrid. The calendar bit contains all kinds of opensim-relevant dates, the first hg experiment, the birthdays of most of the major grids, and so on, as well as real-world holidays. If you like to mix opensim with real life, you can also buy a high quality paper copy version atLulu.com Choosing just 13 photos from the thousands we have from hundreds of places visited was a daunting task, and one that is never satisfying - we could easily have ten different versions of the calendar, and still find places and people have been left out. But hopefully this goes some way to showing the wealth of variety that OpenSim has to offer. Not all of the places in the photographs are readily visitable. As time goes by, regions -and sometimes whole grids - close, or change their look, or move beyond our ken. But these are all places where we had memorable Safari visits last year.
Three stops, on three continents this week, and three places you should definitely visit. HG Addresses and details at the end of the post.
Aime Socrates: first time here Roff ? Roffellos Kisses: for the safari yes but i have been here this area befoe Aime.Socrates: safari is a great experience, if you survive you are strong Roffellos Kisses: lol well I like to explore so its a perfect thing for me to tag along on Thirza Ember: so 3 continents this week... Europe, America, then Australia... I need some sandwiches Aime.Socrates: Billy..you know a lot about our first destination..right ? Billy.Bradshaw: yes, it is my home :) Aime.Socrates: insida a laptop..funny idea Billy.Bradshaw: I am a funny kind of guy :) Aime.Socrates: great! world needs this kind of guys nowadays Billy.Bradshaw: the days of sat surrounded by noisy computers has gone for me Aime.Socrates:Opensim way Of Life: just to be cool
Opportunity City and Gotham City... or Metropolis, the choice is yours, the tour this week took us to two of OpenSim's most respected grids, TanGle ad Craft, HG Addresses at the end of the post Aime Socrates: coool party Leslie !!! It's all in the eye of the beholder. We arrived on TanGle grid somewhat late and in disarray thanks to ... well that is a long boring story you did not come to this blog to read about.
The lovely Leslie Kling had invited us over to Tangle's Expo Isle, which for today let's call Opportunity City, because you could use it as a way to get yourself and your creations known all across the hyperverse, This was not the Safari's first visit, we've been here to see the lingerie show, the Steam Fair and the Winter expos over the past two years, so it was nice to be back, enjoying the icy dance floor hidden away in one corner of the vast Expo region.
Sun and savanna, wild animals and wilder teleports, African thoughts, history, and ideals - that's the spirit of our most recent trip. Our first destination took us to the var region Virunga on Outworldz grid.
There was a lot of interest in this Safari, more than twenty of us gathered on the HG Safari clubhouse, not to mention all those who tp'd directly to the first destination. If you can make it over to the hgsafari sim on Francogrid, you will find the Landmarks in a big box marked... Landmarks, and can go take the tour at any time. In a few weeks, we should also have the safari archive set up, too, with all the LMs of the past two years. Sunshine Szavanna, hostess for our second destination, had set out some clothes with African themed textures, which are still available at both clubhouses if you would like to get them.
On December 7, the Safari went to visit 3 very special regions, created by Portuguese builders to tell the story of their native land.
Below, an account of the visit, as told by Aime Socrates,
with photos by Wizardoz Chrome.
HG Addresses at the end of the post.
DESTINATION 1 Belem Tower is the
creation of Ni Lemon, it's an exploration of some of the history and
culture of her homeland /hg.osgrid.org:80:belem_tower
Approximatively 15 Explorers went to
the sim at the right time..but sadly, Ni couldnt join us...
Azi.Az gave un a lot of informations
Aime Socrates: Azi can you tell us a
bit more about this sim ?
Azi.Az @hg.osgrid.org: that is in
Lisbon
Azi.Az @hg.osgrid.org: Lisbon is the
capital of portugal
Aime Socrates: the harbour of Lisbon ?
Azi.Az @hg.osgrid.org: and yes u can
say its the harbour
You may know that most grids like to celebrate their anniversary, and you also know that lots of grids don't stick around very long. So for an opensim grid to be celebrating seven years of existence is really something! Craft, the 'Friendly Grid', has its 7th anniversary coming up at the end of January.
Every year, they hold a building competition. Perhaps in past years, you've attended the anniversary party, even admired the winning entries to the building competition. The first prize is a free region for a year. Second place gets a 10k prim region for a year... which to my mind is just as good. Wowee, you may say, lucky Craftians... but did you realize that anyone from any grid can take part, and win that prize? Yes, you too can compete in the Craft competition!
Three artists, three countries, three genres, three grids this week. The theme this week, the interplay between real and virtual worlds when it comes to art. Obviously, it's all art. But working in virtual worlds can be a great stepping stone to begin or re-ignite an artistic career. It can inspire your creativity, suggest new ways to express yourself, give you the courage to put your work on display, and help you find fans and clients. HG Addresses as usual at the end of the post. Landmarks are available at our clubhouses on OSGrid and Francogrid for the next few days also. Our first stop, A'Shaala on Francogrid, home of Talie Tramont also known as Talie Tramontane. An art school graduate based in France, Talie is best known for her photography, which you can find on Deviantart, as well as on this lovely region.
Thirza Ember: everyone has the Lms? Malon Wyngard: got all Thirza Ember: her computer broke suddenly yesterday, she was fixing up many winter things for us to do but... boom - no computer Cherry Manga: She has computer issues so she leaves us on her region, she can't imagine what a safari can do when alone! Sunbeam Magic: Does it snow in France? Cherry Manga: here, it's fog and fog and fog since 3 weeks Spike Sol: liegt überall schnee im Moment.. nur draussen nicht Dabici Straulino: na hier her haben wir ca 50cm Schnee - Quebec .... as you can see we're a very international bunch.
Billy Bradshaw asked if we could do a quick Load Test on TGrid before we headed to our first official destination this week.
If you've been doing anything more than sitting at home alone dropping cubes off towers or checking the hiccup time you get when you cross a sim boundary, you will know what a horrendous condition intergrid communications has reached. For many months now, sending offline IMs to people on other grids - which used to work just fine - fails more often than it works. When this started, it took me a few days to notice that the 'User not online. Message saved' message was actually saying 'Unable to send instant message. User is not logged in.' which caused some really amusing headaches. But of course, now we have all learned that to be sure your reply gets through, you must actually go to the other person's grid to send it.
Words Matter. George jinxed us. Or maybe it was the fruit. Or the sudden decision to get out some NPC line dancers. Thirza Ember: Hello all and welcome to the Safari. Two destinations this week, first grid EVER and then on to Kitely. You should know that grid-jumping directly to the EVER grid welcome sim, Gutenberg, is a problem. For some time now, it's not been working right. I have given an alternate LM that always works, it takes you to a different part of the grid, and from there you can get to Gutenberg.. and then to theater... so multiple jumps....Aime, can you confirm for me that the direct jump to Gutenberg region doesn't work? Aime Socrates: OK ~momentary silence and distinct lack of teleport particles ~ Aime Socrates: no, cannot go there directly, you are right thirza, we must use the alternative lm. Lucy Afarensis: We have already started ? Aime Socrates: yes Lucy..we started the party before safari..you know why ? its a dangerous safari... Thirza Ember: you can tp out of the grid, but to get in, you have to do contortions - multiple tps Lucy.Afarensis: oh dear Aime Socrates: some will not come back
Lucy Afarensis: shudder... Thirza, You have a pear on your head ?
Three destinations, and all the Hypergrid Addresses at the end of the post, the first house of this week's trip around the magnificent metaverse was a lighthouse.
It represents a point of reference, of illumination, and security, while hinting at the feelings of loneliness and isolation that can afflict all of us, any of us, at different times in our lives. Leighton Marjoram is here to help, specifically people dealing with gender issues, and where they fit in to the spectrum of attraction and identity.
On the day after the night before in the US election, the special Italian Night Safari was a much needed moment of restful, intelligent fun in the company of a borderless band of creators and thinkers.
We meet on Francogrid. Some Safaris have last minute changes, or there is a special gift for the group, so it's worth taking the time to join us here, rather than going straight to the first destination. Also, the LMs for each Safari remain in the LM giver for about a week, in case you want to get them on a later date. And as usual the HGAddresses will be at the end of this post.
This week, the Safari trip had a single destination, to the literary grid Nara's Nook, celebrating three years of writerly pixels.
Nara's Nook is the brainchild of Nara Malone, and styles itself as a colony for people who would like to explore their literary creativity online. Whether you're an author in need of moral support, or trying to revive a stalled novel-in-the-works, or looking for inspiration to come up with a new storyline, or curious about using new 3D methods to convey your narrative, Nara's Nook can help. Here's the Nara's Nook website. Scroll to the end of the post for them list of the places visited this week.
The adventure begins each week with a gathering on Francogrid, sitting around on the deck outside the clubhouse. Some strange reason, in all four incarnations of the clubhouse, the group always seems to prefer to be outside. Perhaps it's the adventurous spirit of those brave souls who show up each week to boldly go.
Aime Socrates, Pathfinder Lester and Snowbody Cortes, waiting for the fun to begin
It's almost Halloween and so that means it's time to go spookily into that dark night... courtesy of the gang over on Kroatan Grid. The exact HG Address you will find, of course, at the end of this post.
On Sunday, 11 December we will be holding a special OSCC Safari.
The event will start at 11am Pacific Time - one hour earlier than our usual time. The starting point will be on OSCC Grid, at the Safari Expo, here's the hg address cc.opensimulator.org:8002:expo zone 2
As usual there will be 3 destinations, each lasting about an hour. But this time, there's a new twist... to cope with the large number of visitors, we will be running two different trails at the same time.
Safari Trail A and Safari Trail B will both include places of artistic, educational, and practical interest and the two groups will meet up at the end in a very entertaining place!
Being on a Sunday, we hope that many who can't attend the regular Wednesday events will be able to come along and sample the simple pleasure of grid-jumping. So please, mark the day on your calendar, and invite your friends.
If you have experience at grid-jumping, especially in a group, we can use your help as tour guides! Send an IM to Thirza Ember in OSGrid, or email me at thirza.in.sl@gmail.com to get more information.
A few new items at the HG Safari Market, next to the Clubhouse on Francogrid, that may interest you.
Sunshine Szavanna has donated a lovely delicate nosering, and there's also a mesh witches hat that may fill your seasonal needs. Neevo Geesink, after our recent Safari visit, very kindly sent us this Teleport device, which you can program to fit your needs.
Generositania isn't a real place... it's loads of places, where the spirit of generosity is the fundamental working principle. Here are three fun places in opensim, with an emphasis on altruism, that you should definitely go and see. HG Addresses at the end of the post as usual. First stop, the Dune Project on Metropolis. Neovo Geesink: Welcome at Dune-1 Wizardoz Chrome (it>en): Like film Dune? ... or ... Truelie Telling: there is no resemblance to the world of the film Dune, or the books Neovo Geesink: I don't know why they are Called Dune. Lena Vanilli is the "boss" and has made this Project of 5 4x4 var regions possible. James AtLLOUD something gigantic just rezzed in my camera view.
