Safari goes Metro

          Uncertainty in the metaverse - think that's gonna stop us? No Way! Nara Malone and Zetamex's Timothy Rogers have very kindly made us a temporary home in Metropolis while the OSGrid Raid problems continue.

But there is no reason to be fainthearted... I even found a replacement top hat for Mal Burns, when he joins us next. How long will it take to get OSGrid back? Nara pointed out that when Metropolis had some technical unpleasantness some time ago, they were offline for a month. OSGrid is well into its second week, but it will be back. And Han Held reminded us, in the safari after party, that one should always make a backup.
Han Held: You should make an IAR of your region.
Fuschia Nightfire: What's that?

Safari goes to Inworldz

As many of you already know, earlier this week OSGrid has gone offline due to a failure of the RAID drives in the asset system. This is a big deal, because although everyone's assets on OSGrid are backed up, they will now have to be restored - billions of bits and bobs, and it's going to take a while. Fun fact, while you weep for your missing shoes and sculpties, I'm told that RAID stands for Redundant Arrays of Independent Drives. Did that help? I was afraid not.

Fortunately, Opensim isn't just one grid, we are many! so while we're all sorry to lose our homes/stuff in OSGrid, and hope very much to get it back, if possible, many of us have options, even duplicates, on other worlds, and can carry on without missing a beat. Always wise to diversify! So this week's Safari trip is on track.

 The Safari trips are aimed, as you know, at getting more acquainted with the grid-jumping process, and in learning more about the great galaxy of hypergrid connected worlds. This week, while Thirza is away, something slightly different happened.

Fuschia in black and white (Photo by Praline B)

This week's trip HG Safari Week 14 was organized by Fuschia Nightfire, who wanted to show the group her gallery on Inworldz, with a follow-up trip to Sendalonde, a region for literature and art, by Alexina Procter and Prax Maryjasz.

Monorail Travels, and The Meeroo Massacre.

Allellia Zebberman: sat on a bunny :-/

Riven Homewood: Did it hop away, Alle?

Allellia Zebberman: no and its not flat

Nara Mistwood: hypergrid bunnies are tough

We were roasting meeroos around an open fire in the heart of Pathlandia, at the end of another hair raising Safari. We were an intimate group of just twenty - yeah, twenty avies on a regular mini grid. Admittedly not the same twenty as set out; some took off early, some showed up late. 

          Hair is still an issue. But when you've already managed to tp a ram on board a moving train earlier in the day, the smaller hardships like a ghostly head of hair following you around the hyperverse is not a big deal.  Plus we had Pathfinder all to ourselves, on lovely Pathlandia, in the firelight. So we asked him questions. 

Safari Park

Alizarine Goldflake: what does it take to get a sim here?

Wizard Gynoid: a very big ship

We still do not know what Mal Burns was doing in that garden, and perhaps it's just as well. I'm certainly not going to be the one to ask him, he is a TV personality and we all know what they are like...

Mal Burns

           It was a tough night for safarying; we lost Pathfinder Lester before we'd even begun. But Ferd Fredrix showed up in this amazing avatar, apparently an Autocad freebie, which we all loved. And thanks to Mercalia Beck, we have a new Clubhouse friend, a chatty crocodile, who you are welcome to go and feed. He's on the patio.

          Our first destination, the Jurrasic Park of Sarah Kline and Ada Massenberg, should have been a walk in the park since it's right here on OSGrid and is on a Var region, which theoretically should have been able to take the strain of a mere 20 avatars, and they were expecting our visit. Strangely, the lag was palpable, the brilliant and funny builds failed to load, people were frozen or found themselves at 1,1,1 coordinates. Tp'ing to other parts of the region helped a bit, but for many it was just too eye-watering.

          Some struggled even to jump at all.
Cherry Manga: trying trying
Cherry Manga: ok doesn't work
Cherry Manga: don't lose time with me and enjoy the safari
Thirza Ember: this is not wasted time. This is the point of the safari. to help people make hypergridding work for them
          She went to LBSA Plaza. Landmarks are great, sure, but your Map is your bestest friend. Everyone wants to make hypergridding better with a script, or a HUD, or a gate, but in the end it's about you and your map, being aware of your surroundings, and figuring out strategies to get from A to B, like jumping to the Default region of a grid when the all else fails.
Thirza Ember: put this in your map so you can see the region in your map: "Ada and Sarahs Jurrasic Park" then hit Search - it helps sometimes
Cherry Manga: I'm there after a crash, landed on a brontausaurus
          Hypergridding is voodoo. Your juju is your perseverence, and maybe helping someone else stick with it is the best fun of all. People go quiet and we can't always tell if they are struggling, or just busy having fun. Not everyone experienced Jurassic Lag. Look at Fuschia, who found King Kong and is guaranteed a week of charmed life.

It's like the Via Francigena.
          After the collapse of the Roman Empire, much of Europe was engulfed in a hungry, muddy, fighty period called the Dark Ages. They weren't cavemen or anything, there was still life and intellectual thought going on in Europe, and people who had the traveling bug still went exploring. The pilgrimage was your best excuse for leaving home and seeing the world, but getting to Rome was a tough proposition; the old Roman roads and cities were worn out or gone. Pilgrims got lost in marshes, on freezing mountain passes, killed or enslaved by brigands, or completely lost in the long journey South from places like Denmark and Cumbria, and back again. But gradually, the random trackways consolidated into a much more reliable route, and hospitality and security (even ancient credit cards!) trade and communication eased the traveler's lot, as documented by Sigeric the Serious in the 900s and in this pretty cool blog  in 2011.
         Medieval meanderings seem an appropriate metaphor for Safari. We sally out hopeful into the semi-unknown. Not all of us make it back. Anyone who wants help has only to ask. We have Sara fari back at the clubhouse always ready to get you back in touch with the group, so there's no reason to miss out even at a later stage in the event.
            There are so many opportunities in Open Sim, and the period of being a hypergridding noob is really quite short, if you give it a chance. This platform is growing larger, more stable, with more lovely free content every day. Can you really afford to be an SL stay-at-home?

          Speaking of opportunities, our last official destination of the trip was TanGLe grid, that rare thing, a commercial grid with its own currency but open to hypergridding, where Isambard Kingdom Brunel (no relation) organizes excellent Expos on - you've guessed it - Expo Island. Look for him in InWorldz and SL and OSGrid as Peter Veliz, if you would like to get involved with a show. About half the original group was still with us at this point, and probably 80% had crashed and had to re-make the trip from OSGrid back to TanGLe, but nobody seemed to mind too much, it's all experience. 

We were there for the last night of the Fashion Expo, (next up is Air and Space!) and everyone took the opportunity to admire the underwear. Although some of us might not need it.

Serene Jewell

Walking was not an option, for some reason, but the Haunted House was excellent. 

Tangle Grid funfair 

The rides were fast and furious especially the little planes where I nearly up-chucked all over Alizarine Goldflake (too much popcorn!)

Some of us were not wearing undies. Nuff said.

... and the shooting gallery where I discovered Serene is a very good shot, so better keep all my bark-related quips to myself.
Fun? I should say so.

Serene Jewell, armed and dangerous

Scifari

So, the days of Disappearing  Attachment Syndrome are numbered, and in many places already a thing of the past! 

And who do we have to thank for that? The lovely people of Kitely Grid, who have donated a patch to OpenSim core that fixes the problem! 

Obviously, older versions may still give you pause (or not give you paws, if you see what I mean) but this week's Wednesday Safari was a hair-tastic treat. If you want to know 'how' they fixed it, and can read Simulatorese, look here.

We had more than thirty avatars from eleven different grids joining us at the Clubhouse this week, which was officially called 'ContraptionFest' and this event looks like becoming a regular feature of the Safari, because it was thoroughly entertaining (once you got a handle on how gears work). 
It is great to play around with vehicles by yourself, or with a pal, but when you're on a gigantic Varregion, with a huge group, it adds a whole other dimension to the experience. Lifted Pixel shared a scripted toy comprising blue blocks which was hilarious, and I'm sure we will do many more physics tests in future Safaris.
Everyone had their own take on Contraptionfest, and their choices revealed a little bit of their personality. Some used the two vehicles included in this week's LM package, while others went to the mall and brought back a variety of land and flying machines, hovering above us or landing among the crowd. 
Sandbox Plaza is the size of four normal sims, with no sim boundaries. It's breathtaking to be there on the sand, it's like a proving ground in Nevada or on another planet.
At Lani Mall (that's sim Lani on OSGrid) you will find a couple of dozen small shops by a host of different scifi creators producing avatars, weapons and tools, skins, just about everything you can think of inspired by all your favorite Tv shows, movies, along with original ideas. The mall is one of the Landmarks you will find at the Clubhouse on Teravus Plaza, if you want to retrace our steps. We're talking quality and fantasy. Contraptions like the spaceships of Pete Camino, the spankingly cool Tron bike of Tina Bey, and the physics-enabled Curiosity Rover and Bullet Gocart of Cuteulala Artis. 

We set up some prims on SandboxPlaza III in OSGrid, and played around there. Turns out Fuschia Nightfire is deadly behind the wheel, and doesn't care who knows it. I on the other hand, crashed my vehicle and then abandoned it. Gears schmears.

          But ContraptionFest was sandwiched between two other outstanding destinations.  30 made the jump from OSGrid to Dorena's World, our first stop.

DorenaVerne and Anachron Young with Mal and two Art Blues

 Anachron Young, Dorena Verne and other native Doreneans made us exquisitely welcome with a party, lots of dancing and some great music, the perfect start to the trip.

I think we were all amazed by the experience not only of getting there but also of begin able  to cam around the lovely builds, while dancing... or sitting at the bar...

And after ContraptionFest, we moved on to Joe Builder's USS Enterprise. 

 This amazing ship is on 4 sims, and is only one tiny part of the Lost World Joe has put together. From the Welcome region I counted more than a dozen portals leading to themed areas including a wonderful junkyard, an abandoned city, a terrarium and way more.

Joe Builder

He made available free to copy 3 of his impressive collection of ride-able vehicles, a flying bus, a helicopter, and a jeep, and we entertained ourselves on the Bridge, with Wizardoz Chrome wearing that fabulous Predator avie - which goes invisible... this is a pic taken through her.

I got to use the all 40 of my Star Trek sounds... 

and with Serene, found the bar! And no, I can't share the photo of the handsome barman with you. That would be illogical. Go see for yourself.

Spike, SIDA, and Sara Fari

          They say it's wrong, but it's not. Traveling in a group of twenty-plus avatars from grid to grid, I mean. Not that other thing, which is very wrong and you really need to quit.

          Every Wednesday, in the three hours of the Safari, we lose people. Some just drift back to more important things, some get bored or called away, some don't realize that we are still online even though we show up offline - a simple IM will resolve that, and get you back with the group! - and sometimes we all get frozen or can't see much but then there are moments like this, from yesterday, on Francogrid's SIDA monument to AIDS victims, when it is just so worthwhile...
          There are three things that go wrong when hypergridding, one is Attachments disappear, we are working on a Safari strategy for that, two: people get lost, ditto, and three: some grids and/or servers just can't take the strain, but even here, the outlook for the future is good. 

          Meet Sara Fari. During each Safari, she is going to hang out at Teravus Plaza, Osgrid, at our main HQ. If you get lost, go back to see her. She will let us know where you are and we will tp you to where we are.  

         This is us at our first stop, looking at the HG Safari stand, part of the OSGrid 7th anniversary party. We're on the North sim, there are two other 0.8 Varregions hosting exhibits, OSG7BW and OSG7BE. Try saying that 3 times fast. Hey, that's Pathfinder's Map on the ground with pins in it! How long till someone sits on a pin, I wonder. 
Oh too late.

         After Francogrid,we visited the Metropolis grid TP center that is on Spike Sol's home computer - yes home computer! In 21! and we didn't crash it! 

          That's not to say we could see everything: it isn't built for numbers. But we visited, and I hope made Spike realize how much her fantastic collection of Metropolis destination portals means to the hypergridder. Likewise the genuinely wonderful friends on Francogrid who are always so welcoming.
          After Metropolis, it was time to try visiting Pete Camino's Firefly-themed build on sim Landfall and surrounding on OSGrid. I say 'try', Pete warned me before hand that they might not take a lot of avies all at once. Indeed, many of the party had departed, and many crashed like me; only to come back online to find this going on. Not even the presence of Pathfinder Lester was enough to rein in the madness.

Pathfinder , OK I can see that happening. But Nara of Nara's Nook? *looks shocked*

          This region is wonderful. Pete has made available dozens of different spaceships for you to copy and fly. There are interesting buildings and a variety of shops 'selling' firearms, furniture and more. We were too much for the place, and gradually decamped, returning to HG Safari's home on Teravus Plaza, where Mal, Allelia, Miso, Mr Mips, Wizzy, snow and I exchanged Movie Gestures, and pondered on this travesty to the spirit of safariing.

Seven Year Grid

OSG7BW

OSGrid turns seven this month. Take a look at a map of the grid, and you'll notice it is mind-bogglingly large. Those are not simply cookie cutter regions or abandoned builds, either; the variety and wealth of creativity going on here are equally impressive, not least because, as a non-commercial grid where resources are less plentiful, a lot of ingenuity goes into making even the simplest thing. Just a little bit of the magic of OSGrid is on show at the birthday celebrations, held officially this weekend July 26 and 27.  There are three exhibition regions this year, OSG7BW, OSG7BN, OSG7BE plus a performance region, and the sims themselves are special, because they're the new 0.8 release Varregions, much bigger than an ordinary sim and with many other bells and whistles. This also means to get to the show, you need to depart from an upgraded sim... long story - the simplest answer is, go to sim LBSA, and teleport from there.
All kinds of interests and initiatives are expressed through stands and exhibitions, from the real life natural world to the history of virtual environments, to building and scripting ideas

Jeff Hall, for example, is a forestry engineer in the real world, has a fascinating exhibition on trees and the way they make our world beautiful and livable. Enjoy the woodland feel, complete with owls and boards giving some pertinent lessons in the way our planet's forests are being maintained - or not. He has a particularly interesting element, the tallest tree in the world. The best bit for me is the part of the install where you go up to the exact height of the tallest tree, and you can actually feel what it must be like for a bird or an insect to perch up at the top, and it gives you renewed respect for our barky friends.
Fabulous creators Sarah Kline and Ada Massenberg have a completely different build but equally useful and interesting, it's on how to build better, in scale and proportion.

 Sarah Klein: I missed the first 2 Birthday celebrations here in OSGrid. It wasn't until the 3rd one that I had a stand. (here's a video of that). We used the same set up from the previous years and it was an impressive build by Adam Frisby and others. There were 4 regions, which the next year was turned into a Megaregion. We had a few problems with that though and the amount of people it could hold initially, but now we have Var regions and other improvements - it's so much better! This year there are about 50 exhibits across 3 var regions compared to about 30 across 3 regular regions last year so Vars definitely have been an advantage to us, there are always many new faces joining the exhibitors each year which is always encouraging and makes for a great exhibition. Looking at all the amazing creativity amongst the community here is certainly enjoyable and last year we left the regions up for a couple months afterwards for people to see. The party and music at the end is always great fun! 
          There's Danger Lytton's OSMax Theater, and Caro Fayray's Tree of Life, Samuel Greenway's Hatteras Lighthouse; Nebadon Izumi's stand which will teach you more about the Periodic Table than you've a right to know.

OSG7BE

          There's a Roman Bath and Temple right next to a Greek fantasy night club. There are goodies from Wickenshire, Lani and much much more. Some builds are still in a work in progress, the fun doesn't start till Saturday,  but it's clear this is going to be quite an event.

            Gimiso Cerasa's script house, to Tina Bey's hot and hollow hill that represents the heart of football players, are two more unmissable stops. Wizard Gynoid has a geometric tower, with a meeroo barbecue on the roof.  Each of the birthday sims has its own dance hall, and there will be live music with Truelie Ellen on Sunday.
          Fuschia Nightfire has put together HG Safari's contribution, including a machinima showing some of the many grids we have visited so far.

OSG7BN

OSG7B starts on Saturday 26 July. See you there!