A Triple Space Safari

          This was week 150 of the Safari, and one might think that after a hundred and fifty trips around the hyperverse, we would have run out of new things to see, and just be tootling around previously seen places... if you think that, you could not be more wrong! 

Pangea, Metropolis

           Here are three amazing first looks for the Safari, on three iconic opensim grids. Details of how to get to each one at the end of the post, and you're definitely going to want to see all of these this summer. 

Safari Double Parks

              This week, once again, two destinations with a lot going on! We started on Kroatan Grid, and then went to explore 3rd Life grid (as usual, addresses at the end of the post)  where, once again, we got to meet the locals and get some of the backstory of the places we were seeing. 
               There's nothing better for appreciating your surroundings than to have a bit of context, don't you agree? So here's what we found out, hopefully you will take a trip to see these lovely places, and make some new friends.

              First up, Kroatan, a park-like grid, where the opensimworld Beacon registered our arrival and bumped us up to the top of the webpage... you could tell that, because suddenly some people from a Brazilian grid, and from  partydestinationgrid showed up, rather bemused to come across a crowd, it seemed. We invited them to join us, but it appeared that the concept of a tour group in hg was beyond their ken... maybe next time...

Three years of HGSafari

          Sunshine Szavanna, Whirli Placebo, and Joao Frazao, with some help from the magical special effects of Cherry Manga, and in all about 60 friends and fellow conspirators, all came together to celebrate three years of crazy crashing, awesome art, intrepid investigating, and excessive exploring around the metaverse.

          Sunshine shared with us some fabulous World music, from Africa and Asia, on the theme of travel and family, both central to the hypergrid experience. 

Safari Does Stuff

          This week was a whistle-stop tour through three smallish grids, each one uniquely beautiful and interesting.  This is the first post, please do check out all three. The grid addresses at the end of each post, so you can go and take a look for yourself... they're all well worth a visit! First up Phaandoria.

We landed in the shadow of a Linda Kellie creation, the Autumn Castle, a symbol in a way of the share-alike mentality this grid is famous for. Then we moved over to Nerdpol region, distinctly different in design... time for some fireworks!

Bill Blight's Beers and Cheers

   Our final stop this week was on the action-packed OpenSIm Life Grid, run by Bill Blight who took time out of his day to be with us.

George Equus: Hi Bill
Lucy Afarensis: rezzed fast for me
Bill Blight: great, I like to hear that
Sunbeam Magic: wow Bill you got all dressed up for us he hee
Bill Blight: yeah actually put a shirt and shoes on .. I feel overdressed

Thirza Ember: Beers and cheers that sounds like fun
Bill Blight: yes we have it every tuesday and friday nights... Sunny was the inspiration for it... she has the morning Coffee and Chat, so I spun one on the other side of the clock... Sunbeam could very easily inspire both beers and cheers ... LOL
Sunbeam Magic: shuffles feet and looks down at toes
Thirza Ember: Bill, so what's the story of the grid?
Bill Blight: well, I am disabled/retired .. Been in virtual worlds since they existed , and was starting to get a little disappointed in the state of some of the community. So I formed this grid with the motto of "Social not Stuff" Want it to be a place to come and DO things with friends not just compare inventories ..
snowbody Cortes: great motto !
Bill Blight: So I started building this grid with destinations to DO things in mind, not just shop. Stuff is great, people are better ..
Thirza Ember: You're well known for your scripting prowess
Bill Blight: well if it flies or drives on water here, I did the scripts from the ground up, so I'm not too shabby, I run the bleeding edge of OS code here, the latest and sometimes not the greatest, but I script specifically for it... my scripts are not made to work anywhere, tuned for here. Some grids that are on older code, sometimes don't like to talk to me, for the most part things work ok better most of the time... something about how I build, You will not see cramped or crammed spaces on my builds. I build wide open. Love the big spaces. more room to cam and move the most cramped places on my builds here are the houses, and my bunker which is camouflaged up on the hill
Thirza Ember: thanks Drang for the TP, crashed again
Bill Blight: Welcome back Crash .. I mean Thirza
snowbody Cortes: eheh
Sunbeam Magic: can we see your soccer field ?
Thirza Ember: that is an amazing game
Bill Blight: there is a HG safari tp there to the stadium

Lucy Afarensis: that worked well
Bill Blight SCORES!! for, Team FIRE
Flidais Merlin SCORES!! for, Team WATER
snowbody Cortes: super Bill !

Bill Blight shouts: if your scooter gets out of wack, click it and hit the "UPRIGHT" button
snowbody Cortes: ahahah Lucy

Lucy Afarensis: oops sorry
Sunbeam Magic: kick ass fun !!
snowbody Cortes: :))
Flidais Merlin SCORES!! for, Team FIRE

Sunbeam Magic: win
snowbody Cortes: I hold him ! go for it !
Bill Blight: everybody having fun?
snowbody Cortes: yes Bill !
Lucy Afarensis: glad this is virtual
snowbody Cortes: a very good job Bill !
Sunbeam Magic: we got to get grid teams going ;))
Bill Blight:  some chat lag but with this many people moving this fast not surprising
Sunbeam Magic: working great for me
snowbody Cortes: snow is dead
Bill Blight: click your board.. there ya go
snowbody Cortes: ty done ! I got it ! Sun as the ball ;)
Sunbeam Magic: hey i was gonna make a goal!!!   WINNNNNNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Flidais Merlin: that is a lot of fun
Bill Blight: It is fun and addictive
Sunbeam Magic: yeah I could play for hours
Flidais Merlin: yes and fast
Bill Blight: .9dev with ubODE physics
Sunbeam Magic: where next Bill ?

Bill Blight: jet ski track .

Bill Blight: off to the track!

           But it was already midnight here in Europe and better angels demanded a sensible bedtime... so we left our American cousins to the watersports, with a promise to return. 'Social not Stuff' is an excellent credo, one to live by.

That concludes the three part trip for this week. Thanks to all the grid owners for sharing their worlds with us.  Thanks to you for reading about it!  Different parts of the world, different styles and themes, yet one thing links them all - generous creativity. Viva OpenSim

HG Address: grid.opensim.life:8002

Paradise of Jade

 Our second stop this week was on Jade Serenity's smallish grid.

Jade was waiting for us on Serenity.
Bink Draconia: hello jade
Thirza Ember: another notch on everyone's hypergrid belt
Sunbeam Magic: Love Jadeyland ! and Jade !
Lucy Afarensis: Hi Jade

Jade Serenity: welcome to my desk top computer LooL!
snowbody Cortes waving in between the keys :)
Thirza Ember: my main computer is offline this week so I'm on a steam-driven machine so apologies if I am a bit slow
Lucy Afarensis: You can run them on steam ?
Drang Po: you can access opensim from steam?
Sunbeam Magic: Steampunk Thirza Woooot hoo!
Thirza Ember shovelling coal into this thing, it's thirsty work
George Equus: Hi Jade.  tp was fast and all rezed just fine :)
snowbody Cortes: she supposed to run 2 thirzas on that pc .. so it wrote her 10 or 20 OMG .. then it crashed ;)
arcanquest frank: hello :)
Jade Serenity: the notecard giver over here has story and LMs for you, there is Hope forest, and a place of whimsy and a floating dance island and a medieval town
Thirza Ember: I love the names here.... Serenity, hope... all positive vibes
Lucy Afarensis: There was a sim called Serenitie on sl or something like that I used to visit. any relation to that ?
Jade Serenity: no I lived in Winterfell in SL

Spike Sol: its a great region here
Sunbeam Magic: how big a var is this ?
Jade Serenity: 4x4,  it is all on my desktop computer.
Bink Draconia: i grabbed the nc and i will explore this region another time. it looks really great and i am curious about all the places here .... but  for today i have to say: good night everybody
Flidais Merlin: 'nite

Sunbeam Magic: Good night Bink!!! HUGS and sweet dreams

Jade Serenity: Has it rezzed?

Lucy Afarensis: Most of it

Thirza Ember: this is a nice comfy computer Jade is it windows?

Jade Serenity: I used to be windows but now it is Linux  version 8.2

snowbody Cortes: Linux ! may I ask which distribution ?

George Equus: curious about the hardware specifications :)

snowbody Cortes: eheh George

George Equus: This works very well for me

Jade Serenity: hardware is AMD phenom hardware :P old

Thirza Ember: this steam powered laptop is not cooperating

Jade Serenity: awww :(

George Equus: My server hardware is 8 years old....

Drang Po: needs more water/

Lucy Afarensis: try gerbil power ?

snowbody.Cortes: Linux can renew an old hardware ;)
Jade Serenity: i am going to click my "Media" and head to the dance island
George Equus: Linux and me are not compatible  :((
snowbody Cortes: no George ? aww
George Equus: run it on Windows 7 Pro, UNIX is too complicated stuff for me
Lucy Afarensis: Just had a windows server crash with ransom ware
snowbody Cortes: well that's true George but some distribution like Ubunto are very user-friendly
Drang Po: yes and I have setup step by step for ubuntu on our website :)
Jade Serenity: if you like "weather"  there is a weather map in the beach house
George Equus: The forest is quite wonderful!
Jade Serenity: you should be hearing Jazz music here
Sunbeam Magic: I love to explore ;))
Lucy Afarensis: This really works well for a home computer, maybe you all could visit my home studio in michigan some time

snowbody Cortes: I love to explore as well
Thirza Ember: where in the world - the real world - are we, Jade?
Lucy Afarensis : maybe you all could visit my home studio in michigan some time
George Equus: Working very very well Jade!
Jade Serenity: Connecticut, US

George Equus: well CONNECTed...  :)

Jade Serenity: i am thrilled you can here the jazz music
Thirza Ember: WHOOOOA Drang Po looks like James Bond ... or john Travolta? looking smoooooth
Drang Po: tryed this on with out looking at my self...
Jade Serenity: i thought it quite nice Drang :D
snowbody Cortes: "my name is .. James Drang ...."
Drang Po: Drang, James Drang

Thirza Ember: how long have you been in Virtual Jade, and were you always a builder/landscape maker?
Jade Serenity: oh I started on Zetaworld a complete newbie. I still cannot create...my friend helped me download and run opensim on my pc

George Equus: hmm,,, for not being creative  this is pretty darn good

snowbody Cortes: I agree George

George Equus wonders if Jade is for hire...

Sunbeam Magic: Jade has quite the talent for placement of item s :))

Jade Serenity: awww you are very sweet, i have walked every square inch of this sim

Sunbeam Magic: probably a few time eh ?

Jade Serenity: like a painting... base colors... then grass, trees, clouds... sounds and scripts....

George Equus: seriously, one of the best regions I have seen, the short while I spent below. natural... sound scape... love it

Jade Serenity: and my computer I cannot see my sim very well, i cannot load shadows or distance

George Equus: I will definitely return to spend some time here

Thirza Ember: it's a beautiful environment  and we haven't broken it!
Jade Serenity: still dancing to meditation music? ..... aw you guys are really sweet
Sunbeam Magic: Safarians dance to anything lol
Lucy Afarensis: or sit on it
Sunbeam Magic: Bartender, give that guy in the white suit a 'Martini, shaken not stirred'
Jade Serenity: 11 people.... two still at the home plate

Thirza Ember: we need more medieval clothing so we can do a medieval safari here... we can dress up as robin hood and his merry men
Jade Serenity: my town is a poor one- but I am setting up some castles to the south
Sunbeam Magic: I do believe a medieval fairy would still look about the same though rofl
Thirza Ember: Drang can be the Sheriff, I volunteer me and Sunbeam to be Wenches
Sunbeam Magic: I'd be a wench, they are like blondes of that century, they had more fun !
Jade Serenity: giggle, I have a couple wenches in the town at the pub
Thirza Ember: we could be girl plumbers, sunny... wenches with wrenches

Sunbeam Magic: we could fix everyone's pipes
Thirza Ember: George can get some medieval socks, Flidais has a name that already sounds medieval
Flidais Merlin: Yes Arthurian, called Taliesin in SL
Sunbeam Magic: Flidais (pronounced flee-ish) is a complex Celtic Goddess with many differing stories and aspects
Flidais Merlin: did you just make that up?
Sunbeam Magic: no I googled it ;))
Flidais Merlin: I took the names from the Gay Gavriel Kay books - the Fionavar Trilogy
Sunbeam Magic: I always wonder where folks get their names from
        Tosha Tyran joined us at this point in the Safari. If you ever want to join the group but can't make it at the very beginning of our trip, just friend one of the Safari regulars, and ask them for a TP, they will be happy to bring you over to join us! Sunbeam Magic: TOSHA!!!!!!!! huggles
Jade Serenity: whats a tosha?
Sunbeam Magic: an extremely talented gal ;)) she is on Craft. She was in SL with Lumiere Noir who passed a way a few years ago now... he did the Ivory Towers

Flidais Merlin: yesSunbeam Magic: and a building tutorial system that is great.

Jade Serenity: oh my where can i see that building thing?

Sunbeam Magic: Tosha keeps his towers up and alive and we celebrate his life stillJade Serenity: unless it is Blender...

George Equus: strictly prims, learned a lot from him...  just how to make the perfect stair...  secret is the Control Box  :))

Jade Serenity: oh dear I need stairs to a castle below

Thirza Ember: I hate to break it to you guys... but our time here is up, we're due at Bill's place...: hugs Jade and thank you for sharing this special place
George Equus: Thank you very much Jade
Tosha Tyran: this really is a beautiful place
Jade Serenity: this place is always running,: never off... thank you SO much for coming

Jadeyland  jadeyland.kikiki.org:8002

It Takes Two

 They say it takes two to tango, but in the case of our second destination this week, it was really a case of three... we visited Condensation Land on Metropolis, to talk to Zonja Capalini Ludmilla Writer and Plastichansa Bade about collaboration in art and the journey these regions have taken from SL, to an eponymous mini grid, to their current home in one of opensim's favorite grids. 

Mal Burns: Hi Zonja, all
Juliette SurrealDreaming: wow Zonja, looking pretty cool there
Zonja.Capalini : Thank you!  It's impressive to see all of you coming at once :)
Wizard Gynoid: Hiya Zonja. We've met in the multi-verse years ago.
Juliette SurrealDreaming: yeah instead of mass exodus we are mass becoming
Thirza Ember: We just had a presentation about the Kokua Viewer, I feel smarter, yet dumber at the same time
Juliette SurrealDreaming: lol omg i know what you mean Thirza
Wizard Gynoid: Zonja and I first met prolly five years ago.  We are both Klein Bottle experts.
Zonja Capalini: First of all, Plastichansa, then creator and owner of BRBP, the wonderful island we were going to visit, sends his apologies ...A RL commitment didn't allow him to be present Anyway, he's left here an NCP of him
Ludmilla Writer: Explica que estoy presente pero no escribo bien en inglés, por favor, Zonja
Zonja Capalini: Actually, two of them :) There's an npc of Libdescent, an alt of him, at the bar

LibDescent NPC

Juliette SurrealDreaming: yeah that one is really nice
Zonja.Capalini: Then, also: we have Ludmilla Writer here. She's one of the creators of Arrabal Tango Club! The other one being Favio Piek, but he seems to have left virtuality, which is a pity... Inside you'll find some gifts, and some notecards informing you of some basic facts about Arrabal
Zonja Capalini: Plastic has also created this sculpture in the center, and the moving HG Safari letters, and a number of other things :)  What's in Arrabal? On one side, the tango club -- there's a dance ball stuffed with plastic's npcs, which we'll be able to try later. People who came here liked to take snapshots of the club,  and donated these snapshots so that we could make an exhib
Arielle Delamerlibre: do you have regular parties?
Zonja Capalini: No, not for the moment, Arielle. The exhibition is at the right of the club. I've also put six (iirc) TV sets over there. These TV sets will show you pictures of parties celebrated at arrabal, Even a wedding party :) Decoration was decided by Ludmilla and Favio... You can read the story of Arrabal here 
Ludmilla Writer: I love Arrabal... It's a very beautiful place in SL and Here, now, too
Arielle Delamerlibre: okay thank you a nice environment so far. has to come to life

Zonja.Capalini: And you will find tons of interesting pointers in the notecard, when you buy the HG Safari thing with the flashing light bulbs... In the exhibition you'll find photos from Andromeda Volare, Jaja Lubitsch, Ro8 Avro, India Leigh... Sura Abismo, Favio Piek, Ludmilla Writes, Mikil Tiki... Regarding the migration, we were caught in the Openspace fiasco, I was paying for two full regions, And converted one into four Openspaces, Then the price was raised from 75US$ to 125$, Obviously, there was ample outrage... First we migrated to Openlife. Then we created out own mini-grid,: Hosted in a shared machine, On a *slow* SDSL line,: But it worked, The mini grid allowed free registration and had up to 100 users at the time.

Ludmilla, 'Plastichana' (NPC) and Zonja

Arielle Delamerlibre: and why did you finished with the mini grid?
Zonja Capalini: Then I had problems in RL, stopped caring, the machine had no maintenance, the database got corrupted, and finally we closed the SL version of Arrabal...  Because my RL crashed, and required a cold reboot :), I don't like to mix levels, but it was horrible. All my attention was required IRL
Arielle Delamerlibre: yeah sometimes it does
Zonja Capalini: Then, one year ago, Ludmilla by chance met Plastic. He told her that he was attempting to recreate the full Condensation archipielago from his memories alone! I entered SL and talked to him, I had lost all my technical expertise, but I still had some very old OARs. They didn't work with the then current version of Opensim.  After some iterations, we had Condensation running.: I asked Plastic to co-maintain Condensation with me, and he kindly accepted. And we have since established a creative partnership which is fantastic for both of us :).
Arielle Delamerlibre: I will see the further development and I will dance Tango here
Zonja Capalini: You can read a quite detailed account of the story of Condensation here . And of course today's meeting will have a video and will end up in a TV set here :)
Thirza Ember:  We need more dance animations in opensim, for the Tango would be great... is this site any good for finding useful dance animations? https://sites.google.com/a/cgspeed.com/cgspeed/motion-capture/daz-friendly-release compared with when we first found opensim, there are so many more free and opensource resources available
 Billy Bradshaw: I have used some action type animations, the dance routines require additional work

Zonja.Capalini: Yes, absolutely. Now the performance of Opensim is outstanding
Pathfinder Lester: very true...more content...better performance...
Zonja Capalini: Even in SL, in 2007, with so many people the sim would have difficulties
Thirza Ember: half the problem is tht we just do not know what free resources are out there
Pathfinder Lester: yes, finding the stuff!  lol
Zonja Capalini: And for a very reasonable price...: Metropolis isn't cheap, and still, 30€/mo for a 1024x1024 is a bargain...And with the introduction of mesh, you can have many more objects, since the land impact decreases... What I love of Opensim is that you can always come back and make it a little more beautiful, a little more detailed, a little more perfect. It's like a picture that you can always perfect more and more...
Thirza Ember: and unlike SL, there is less stress about money and time... you can take a long time to make your build
Zonja Capalini: Exactly.  The people I'm meeting here are much more focused on creating and sharing

Thirza Ember: I know, like Cendres,  Plastichansa is a big fan of the free share alike community, that's an important part of the experience,
Zonja.Capalini: Yes, he's so generous with everything he creates
Cendres Magic: for me, in opensim,  no chain
Zonja Capalini: Yes :) The only problem I have is that I can't log in as often as I would love
Cendres Magic: specially thanks to hgsafary helping to discover 
Thirza.Ember: We are having a big party on May 24 to mark the 3rd year of this adventure...it's nice that Wizard Gynoid is here today....she was my first 'victim' on May 20, 2014
Pathfinder.Lester: guinea pig?
Wizard Gynoid: I thought Thirza was my first victim.
Thirza Ember: yes wiz, we were reciprocal victims
Wizard Gynoid: Thirza and I hosted the Safari every Wednesday without fail for a year.
Thirza Ember: To mark the three years of Safari, we will have 3 hours of music and I hope many will come... on FrancoGrid today, Nino Whitman made available a region, on its own server, it is another example of the generosity of opensim... so we can (in theory ) have 200 people... so spread the word!

Zonja Capalini: Well Condensation Land turns 10 this month... We'll be celebrating on Sat the 27th I think
Pathfinder Lester: congratulations!: that's quite a milestone
Zonja Capalini: It's an enormity :)
Thirza Ember: the great thing about opensim is even after 3 years we have not exhausted the number of places to visit, or revisit, because many times 1 visit is not enough to see it all
Zonja Capalini: Sure, it's so huge that you'll never finish it...
Wizard Gynoid: This avie has logins on dozens of virtual worlds.
Mal Burns: think am now 12 yrs - but that dates to before i escaped walled kindergarten
Thirza Ember: Mal you don't look a day over 9
Mal Burns: tks Thirza!!!
Zonja Capalini : But I don't move much, to say the truth -- I spend all my time creating and filming :)
Mal Burns: nice films Zonja
Thirza Ember: that is really the paradox of opensim... it's important to take time to be creative, but if we do not support each other, by visiting the builds in other places, then there is no 'audience' and the creativity can stall, it needs to be a flow of both making and sharing, also, because that's how collaborations can happen...for example: there is the Kroatan Photo competition... anyone from any grid can give a photo for the competition... the photo should be something funny or strange that happens in opensim... it can be taken on any grid... that's the kind of multi-grid experience that really helps the hypergrid to become one family 
Pathfinder Lester: Thirza, I remember back in the old days of the Hypergrid Adventurers Club, sometimes I would have trouble finding new places to go.  Amazing how that has changed...
Zonja Capalini: Exactly -- that's why Plastic and me are so happy to cooperate, we are each one the audience of the together one :) I think the HAC came once to Condensation, but I might be mistaken...
Cendres Magic: lot of things around - great
Zonja Capalini: Yes... It's very detailed... You can spend a whole afternoon here and not finish with Arrabal...That's why I'm trying to document it all.. It's a lot of work, but I think it's worth it
Billy Bradshaw: I will test the dance facilities

Zonja Capalini: Yeah let's go dance! :)The dance ball is on top of the bar. All npcs are from Plastic.
Billy Bradshaw: Big girl, but I shall mange :)
Thirza Ember: bad internet tonight...  it's like what we were saying with Gavin, talking about the Viewer.... when everything works perfectly, we don't appreciate it... it's only when there are problems that we notice
Zonja Capalini: Well we had router problems yesterday, I was so afraid that I wouldn't be able to properly host the meeting...So that I tried tethering using my phone's 4G. It works perfectly ...in the end I've not had to use it, tho.
Billy Bradshaw: I find if I change my socks things go so much better
Thirza Ember: Billy's Universal Sock Theory also works
Billy Bradshaw: Quantum socks
Zonja Capalini: Yes. I'm used to a level of performance and smoothness that's vastly superior to the SL of 2007 here...
Billy Bradshaw: This chick tries to remove my specs I swear !!
snowbody Cortes: lol Billy
     Here is Zonja's vid of our visit, please, take time to watch it, it's beautiful, and some amazing quality shots, proving that HG Visitors do not necessarily mean impossible lag on a region.

Thirza Ember: Zonja are you going to make an avatar for Fest'Avi?
Zonja Capalini: Oh, I'm not good at making avatars. Plastic is great, tho. You should ask him :) And he's very unconventional, which is good... Look at the Libdescent npcs, for example, or the one I'm dancing with...
Thirza Ember: I think Billy is a bit at risk though
Billy Bradshaw: ha - live a little, Thirza
Zonja Capalini: Ah! Hadn't seen that one myself. It's superb!
Thirza Ember: that's the fun of group hypergridding, I find, the presence of a group is a sort of catalyst,: a load test but also it has an interesting effect on the way you see a region, changing its personality, somehow
Zonja.Capalini: Sure, one feels compelled to prepare everything so that it's beautiful...

HG Address: Arrabal Tango Club is on Condensation land on Metropolis: 

hypergrid.org:8002:condensation land