Classic Safari

Once upon a time, there was a grid called Virtyou, and it had gallic village on a sim called Niflar. This was all pre mesh, you understand. Well, Virtyou seems to have sort of morphed and amalgamated with another grid, Nick Zwart's 3DLES grid, a language acquisition environment in association with Digischool. The idea is to make immersive environments for the students to play and learn in - there are Quiz chairs, videos, Sloodle boards, and games like Snakes and Ladders, which is Snakes and Chutes to you, probably. This is Chatterdale, with its pub, Belisha beacons, Job Center, fish and chip shop, and so on. You'll find a potted version of France and Germany on sims Parolay and Plauderstein respectively.

 Nick frequently has 20 students on the grid at any one time without his system even blinking. OK, now you're thinking: "hahaha, famous last words" and of course, you're right. Hypergrid visitors are not like regular local visitors. We really should get that printed on a tee shirt or something.

Safari In Wonderland

Wizard.Gynoid @hypergrid.org:8002: this is starting to look obscene

Clustersled!

 Not one Wonderland. 

Three. 

On three different grids. 

Because this is OpenSim, not merely SL. We saw Alice, rode dragons, made new friends, honed our ability to grid jump, and thoroughly came to terms with the instability - and beauty - of hypergridding. 

Cherry Manga's new Alice build on Francogrid

First up, a Winter Wonderland, Canadian style. L'Hiver du Grand Nord is on Dabici Straulino's VAR region full of snow and fun, and oh boy did we take advantage. Kelso Uxlay and Dabici herself were on hand to welcome us when we arrived, via a gate she supplied, although the Safari Landmark seemed to work OK for most. The HG Addresses are at the bottom of this post, and of course, the LMs and explanatory Notecard (not reading the NC can make your life more difficult) are still available on both the Metro and Francogrid bases, and in Group Notices on Craft, Francogrid, and Metropolis. 

L'Hiver makes you shiver

Creanovale is the biggest little grid, and has a gallic smart ass bot called Jean-Givre on hand to keep you company if you go over there by yourself. If you're into festive stuff, there loads of decorations in the winter market. James ATLOUD found what he described as an HG Wells lost underground vessel (an excellent excuse for another visit) but that's not why we came. 

The Kids are Arles Right

James AtLLOUD: Thank yous to our hosts and organizers. W00t w00t.

If you'd been on Metropolis about 3 hours before the start of this week's Safari, you would have found Art Blue rehearsing his performance on a perfectly functioning Futurelab sim.  Art's Performance, which kicked off the first Safari of the month had as its theme 'open sim identity', although this being Art, it was a lot more complicated than that. But to help him illustrate the point, there were four Thirzas online, three of them hanging out in Futurelab, his combination workshop, theater, community sandbox and meeting-place sim, complete with Harry's bar. We sat in the Safari zoo and tested the stage as he went through his lines, little thinking that by 12 noon grid time, something sinister would happen.
 Here's Lena's 11 pm post on the Metropolis Forum *thanks, Google translate!*

Winter, Water, and SafarAI

What's it like, going on safari? 

Well, imagine trying to order off a high-class menu while riding on a train travelling through a hurricane. And your clothes keep falling off. In quicksand.
Four excellent destinations, which produced as usual a sort of 'if it's Tuesday, this must be Brussels' sensation. These are all places worth visiting again (and again!) by yourself or even better, with a friend.

Mattie Mcbride's festive forest, on Paradise Island, Metropolis

First Metropolis, to Mattie Mcbride's Paradise Island, and second to Tangle grid for the Expo. Similar theme, very different scales, from Mattie's exquisite winter market, full of baubles and tinsel, to the three sim extravaganza on Tangle. 

Paying Thanks

Thanks to everyone who came to see my knickers this week on Paradise sim in Nara's Nook. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and this is a mediation on why none of the things I make are for sale. Anywhere.
OpenSim  freebies have a reputation (fostered by people who want YOU to pay for THEIR Content) for not being very good. When someone says to me, as they did this week, "Oh yes, I put out some crap - I mean basic items - as freebies", that makes me sad.  My content is free because I want to crush that 'free=Crap' nonsense out of existence. There are a growing army of creators providing amazing avatars, houses, mesh items, and so on without charging anything.  I want to be a part of that. In the olden days in SL, it was a village where people shared and worked together. There are still many pockets of generosity in SL, but in many ways it has sunk into the same grasping, money-oriented economy you can find in the real world. Let's not permit OpenSim to fall into that trap.

A Tale of Two TPs

'Safari' means journey in Swahili, and the hypergrid safari is really two journeys in one. 

There's the sightseeing trip, of course...

...but there's also the 'I'm going to beat this 'Identity Not Verified' crap if it kills me' journey, and last night was perhaps our greatest ever triumph in that department. 

German Grid is a hypergridding Shangri La. Dabici Straulino summed it up in an IM.

Dabici Straulino

Dabici.Straulino: My curiosity is driven by the fact that I have never been able to visit German Grid and this what ever the multiple ways I tried.  I just checked using the LM to Folkcafe - same problem - unauthorized teleport.  and I tried with the second destination, Star trek - same message Any ideas why I experience this - and I am quite good with hyperjumps in general.

Attention Spike

There are some things that are really hard to get your mind around. 

One is the relative size of the planets in our solar system. Another is German. A third is Spike Sol's smexy girl avie, even more mind bending when you hear his voice.

Where were you listening to Spike Sol's voice? you ask. Right now.