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.           Well, some of us did. The others were raiding his collection of copiable freebies.
Pathfinder.Lester: hi Cherry! I'm a big fan of your art! ty for visiting!
Cherry.Manga @hg.francogrid.org: Aloha Pathlandia and thank you :) coming with Gill and Ssm from Francogrid. (nice panties upgrading Snow, ok That's the last time I speak about them).

SSM and snow. Fashion issues?

        I made those shorts, and snowy wears them out of solidarity more than anything else, so it seemed about time to change the subject before the whole group began mocking my underwear construction capability.
Thirza Ember: I have a question - what will happen to Second Life with all these changes, in your opinion?
Riven Homewood: At the moment, SL seems to be the place where everybody comes for meetings and some activities. I hope it will stay that way, or that some other grid will become that
Pathfinder Lester: I think SL will always be around in some form. I agree with Riven, too. As for Sl 2.0 or whatever they call it, it is far too early to tell how that might turn out. But so far I like what Ebbe is saying.
Wizard Gynoid: which will be better? High Fidelity or Secondlife 2.0?
Riven Homewood: High Fidelity will have all the bells and whistles - SL 2.0 might actually work as a society.
Pathfinder Lester: Wizzy, SL 2.0 sounds like a "spiritual successor" to SL in my opinion. High Fidelity sounds like "we're developing tech that we'll license to folks like LL" in my opinion. Riven, well said. What made SL work was it was built not just as tech, but as a society with community planning at the beginning. It's all about tech + communities evolving into societies, in my opinion. That's always been my focus in virtual worlds. The intersection between those 2.
Riven Homewood: Phillip strikes me as being mainly interested in the cool tech. Engineer's viewpoint.
Wizard Gynoid: i think Phillip knows what's he's doing. He's a smart fella. Anybody want to roast meeroos?

Fuschia Nightfire: I am getting kinda peckish
Riven Homewood: Leg or breast?
Thirza Ember: Pathfinder, another question...on one hand, we've got commercial grids emerging, on the other 'free' or 'amateur' grids. Which i s'better' do you think... which kind is more likely to survive in the long term?
Pathfinder Lester: Thirza, I think free grids can survive as long as whoever is funding them can keep it going. Maybe someone who's independently wealthy? lol
          He's right, it's an expensive hobby. Ask Shaun Emerald of Sanctuary Grid, or Bob Wellman of PMGrid; ask the admins of OSGrid or Metropolis. They do it for the love of the technology. I wonder if that does give them the edge over commercial grids. Their paradigm is different, and while their worlds may end up closing, they can't 'fail' in the same way. I wonder if that's easier.

How does Riven put her hand out of the window, I don't know. The tiger also disappeared.

          This was the last of three jumps for week 13 of Safari, lucky for some, in fact, most of us. Our first jump was within OSGrid. Susannah Avonside has been building in open sim for ages, and has a number of really lovely regions, many themed around her native Wales. 

          Considering the chaos we bring in our wake it seemed wiser not to go to her famed region Party Zone, but to see how many avies we could get on the monorail, in her 9 sim region Transport (the hg address is hg.osgrid.org:80:Transport 1) which boasts a collection of airplanes, a nice tram, and plenty of open spaces. 

woot! Transport regions in OSGrid also have trams!

        It peaked at 21, not including the tiger. The train stops at the station for 20 seconds, which is plenty of time, really, to click on a seat, unless you're also trying to make smart remarks in Local Chat, in which case you may miss the train, or end up riding on the roof.

some people just have to be different.

          From Wales to France, or is it Germany, hard to tell, anyway Metropolis Grid and the Art sims of Art Blue.  But for many of us, Metropolis was not cooperating yesterday. Hypergridding is a bit like snakes and ladders - crashing sends you back to your starting point, and you've got to make the hazardous journey again. And again. And, sigh, again. However, Rift Horizon and is sister sims are worth it.

 These amazing spaces contain some of the finest art on that grid or anywhere, colossal statues, sculptures and concepts jostle for your attention and all but demand return visits. Art, aka Ervare Farroretre, brings energy and affable enthusiasm to Art in open sim and he made us very welcome with a recorded message and music. You'll find him in SL too, as Art Blue. Once he'd cleared up after our visit, he joined us in Pathlandia.

Art Blue: hello all, I see I must add a BBQ next time... roasting lifeforms is not permitted!
Han Held: WOW lots of ppl here today
Wizardoz Chrome: buonasera :)
Riven Homewood: Hi Art - i could hear your music stream and see you, but I don't think I was really there - Will try again later
Nara Mistwood: I will be back to explore later Art
Art Blue: you all get the gift, I have copies of radar entry of the bravest ones!
          This is a promise that *some* of us have heard before.
Fuschia Nightfire: I don't think meeros count as life forms
Pathfinder Lester: Don't worry Art. It's a TofuMeeroo!
Serene Jewell once again raises her objection to the practice of Meero BBQ
Thirza Ember: Another question for Pathfinder... do you think open sim devs know about all our trials and tribulations in hypergridding, and are these bugs and headaches at the top of their To Do List?
Pathfinder.Lester: Thirza, I think so, yes. I go to the weekly Opensim dev meetings in OSGrid on Wright Plaza, and I'm often hearing things about hypergrid stuff. Especially now with them planning the upcoming opensim community conference! That upcoming conference will drive a lot of new bugfixes around opensim and the hypergrid, methinks.
Han.Held has screamed and yelled about the attachment bug on their jira...
Wizard Gynoid: the attachment bug is fixed thanks to Kitely
Han.Held: Point being, I think that's one place they listen ...their jira.

Fuschia Nightfire: Wizzy i think your meeroo is burning
Wizard Gynoid: i like em crunchy
Miso Susanowa: they are best when they are crunchy
Wizard Gynoid: meeroo are somewhat gamey
Miso Susanowa: you have to singe the fur off first
Pathfinder Lester: I'm so glad so many of you are visiting. Thank you so much. :)
Allellia Zebberman: it's great to be here Pathfinder
PatriciaAnne Daviau: I am so happy I made it here!
Han Held: Glad to catch up with y'all, I thot y'all were done for the week. :|
Miso Susanowa: thanks Path for having us!
Miso Susanowa: Yay! Patty
Pathfinder Lester: Say, did you notice I changed my old HGAC kiosk behind me to be one that points to my blog post about the Safaris? I want to help spread the word.
Serene Jewell averts her eyes from the Meero masacre.

          Pathfinder Lester put away the Meeroo for the sake of Serene, and drew our attention to his collection of flags. The frenchies and one or two others took the opportunity to add theirs to their contribution. Han held mused on the psychological benefits of having a flag for your home grid, and wondered if griefing was a problem. On balance, Path seemed to think the benefits of allowing others to leave mementos and freebies on Pathlandia outweigh the discomfort of the occasional passing moron.
Serene Jewell: I have a question for everyone.... Do you see an increase in the numbers of people coming into OpenSim? Are we growing?
Pathfinder Lester: Serene, it feels like things are growing to me. Especially with people jumping around via the hypergrid.
Riven Homewood: I'm new here - and I think I'm going to stick around
Nara Mistwood: I think we're growing. Most of my users are new to VW
Mal Burns: According to Maria Korolov - yes Serene. and she collects stats lol!
Pathfinder Lester: SO much easier now, and I run into more folks these days than when I started really exploring OS 4 years ago.
Han Held: Idk, the numbers I see on login screens (osgrid, metro mostly) are lower; iwz is about the same. My view is kinda ...limited. I keep saying we don't have a really good metric that tells us what the numbers are, and it would be good to have one...ut it would also be against commercial interests to have accurate numbers -so I don't see it happening, either.
Pathfinder Lester: Community is still small, but definitely growing. And you all should check out the Opensim Community Conference when that happens. Lots of folks there last year. This year should be bigger.
snowbody Cortes: maybe also the changes in SL are accelerating this process.
Thirza Ember: even Maria recognizes there's - naturally - no way to truly centralize open sim info, since it's all independent initiatives. It is up to us to try to coordinate what we know, what fun and progress is going on, so others can be a part of it if they want
Pathfinder Lester: Well, at the end of the day, I am so happy that opensim exists. Open Source. Not controlled by any one company. Focused on interconnectivity. If *anything* has a chance of being around in the long term, those factors put opensim really ahead in the race.

Thirza Ember: recent threads in FB have revealed once again how woefully little most people in SL know about prices, and the way open sim works. Do you think there's anything more we could be doing to inform folks?

Han Held: get stuff to do in opensim; tell people you're doing things in opensim, they'll want to come out here to do things too.  "Do" is the most important part, ppl come out, get bored, go back to SL.
Riven Homewood: "do" means friends and people. Riding a monorail is fun for a while, but way more fun with a group of friends. And it really helps to have somebody here to bail me out when I get into trouble.
Wizard Gynoid: this *does* take a lot of time and effort
Mal Burns: for you more so
Miso Susanowa: You also have to give in to the craziness, but it helps in a group cause you see others having the same problems.
Mal Burns: yes. Without good hypergrid search we need things like this, and ppl to suggest destinations.
Art Blue: i write stories and reports all over, like the last issue of rez magazine I wrote "The End" (part 1) page 25.
Wizard Gynoid: i think Mal Burns and his group are providing an invaluable service in keeping us informed. so i say thanks to you sir, Mal.
Serene.Jewell: Mal, the InWorld Review show is a service to humanity! Thanks for doing it! There are such great places in OpenSim. I want to help get more people inworld to enjoy and populate them. :-)  It's just a matter of building a critical mass of people in OpenSim so that there are people around to play with when you want to play.


What fun. Next week, Alpha Auer and the Pillars of Mist. Don't miss it.