Thursday, December 29, 2016

A Tale of Two Cities

       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.

Thursday, December 22, 2016

The Safari Goes on ... Safari

pat gresham: Wow. A real HG safari.         
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.




George Equus: Think I'd better relog - only see 7 proper names
Unknown UserUMMAU42: what'a a proper name ??

Saturday, December 17, 2016

Safari Went To Portugal

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

Thursday, December 15, 2016

We Are One - are you in?

            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?

Another Arty Safari

           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.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Fully Loaded

            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.           

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Safari Goes Pear Shaped

 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 ?

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Safari Goes House to House

        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.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

La Dolce Safari

          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 HG Addresses will be at the end of this post.

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Safari Fiction

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.

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Safari Takes a Cure

          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


  HG Addresses  the end of the post.


          It's almost Halloween and so, time to go spookily into that dark night... courtesy of the gang over on Kroatan Grid.          

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

OSCC Safari!

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
https://gyazo.com/9df7606133580ad1ccb96f03a968975b 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.

Friday, October 21, 2016

Freebies!

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.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Safari goes to Generositania

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.

Friday, October 14, 2016

Chat !

A little bit of HG help from opensimworld.com
It happens every week, on Safari..
The group meets at the clubhouse, at 12 noon Pacific time 9pm CET.
Everyone grabs the Notecard with the landmarks and details about the trip, and at the appointed time, we all set off...

...well, most of us do. But glitches happen.
Maybe your avie freezes.
Maybe you get stuck in tp limbo, neither here nor there, and have to log out.
Perhaps you click on the wrong landmark, or can't find the notecard.
Maybe you're waiting at the Clubhouse on Teravus Plaza, OSGrid, not realizing that our main meeting point these days is on Francogrid! (There's a portal)
The Teravus Plaza clubhouse
Maybe your clothes fail to rez, so you rush home to fix the problem, and when you come back the group is gone.

Or, you show up late, and it's hard to figure out where people have gone.

Of course, you can just go fishing, like Aime Socrates. But if not, what can you do?
The obvious solution is to have a way to communicate with the group outside the Viewer. That way, even if you get logged out, or are on a region that refuses to let you send IMs to people on other grids, you can still find out where we all are.
There are lots of different ways to chat outside the Viewer. Skype, Facebook, G+ hangouts, even Twitter come to mind.
The problem with all of these is that there is no consensus among OpenSim people about which is good to use. Some people find certain websites difficult to use while they have their Viewer open. Some people don't like one or more of these chat providers, other people like them, but use an account name they don't want to share inworld.

The solution may be at hand. Satyr Gator has just introduced a Chat feature on his website OpenSimWorld.com. It is still in Beta, so we will be testing its robustness!
OpenSimWorld is free, and you do not have to have a region to be part of the website.
There is an HG Safari group in OpenSimWorld, which you can join also.
The chat feature on this site is not for the exclusive use of HG Safari, and we'll be using it mostly as an SOS resource. Both people who are hypergridding pros, and those new to HG are encouraged to join soon, so we can see how useful this will be when the hg gremlins make life hard for us!

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Safari goes Past, Present, and Future

           Virtual worlds are ephemeral, we all know that, a hiccup on a server and all your stuff can be gone. Of course, a housefire can do the same thing in the real world, but it's a lot easier to lose, or lose touch with, things and people dear to us in our online existence.
HG ADDRESSES AT THE END OF THE POST
Tina Bey
           Tina Bey posted this video on Facebook recently,  telling the story of Arcauana, her region (hosted by the great Ken Savage) on OSGrid. How could we resist?
        In a lot of sci-fi films, we are presented with a universe full of different life forms all living together in (dis)harmony. Now, imagine if all the life forms in the the universe of sci-fi films were able to interact? The characters from Star Wars, Star Gate, Star Trek, and more. This is Tina Bey's premise. It is also an exploration in lighting and audio effects, so be sure to turn on Sound and read the instructions on windlight, for the best effect.

Friday, October 7, 2016

Safari Tours Turin and Counts its Blessings

This week the Safari experienced a symphony of building- a concert of creativity! HG Addresses at the end of the post.
          First stop was on OSGrid, the region called Torino Italy, with our hosts Alfiere Rossini, Lucy Rosadisharon, and Giuliano Carminucci. People hypergridded in from at least nine different grids to be part of the fun, and learn a little about Alfiere's build.
Thirza Ember: we need to study piemontese for our first stop tonight
George Equus: Hope  chat will be in English  :)  No parlare Italiano buono  :)

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Safari heads for the Fests!

Mal Burns: reminder - AvatarFest starts this Friday and all weekend - http://avatarfest.net:6000         
      Shock horror - turns out Oktoberfest actually begins in September!
     This is one of the many things we learned on this week's Safari. We were invited by NextLife grid to come and see their fabulous Fairground and dancing region, where much of the Germanophile and germanophone opensim community are gathering during the two week festival. 

Thursday, September 22, 2016

SafariMania

          So, this season of the Safari, we are going to be promoting builds with some kind of - let's not call it educational benefit, that sounds too dry, but the idea is that we all come away from our tour feeling like we now know something we didn't know before. First up, Anachronia sim on the German language grid, Dorena's World.
          HG Addresses at the end of the post, as usual.
          Dorena and Anachron, the grid-mama and grid-papa were there, along with other residents like Uwe Furst, Lureen Persephone, and the lovely builder and creator Klarabella Karamell, an authentic opensim heroine. We first sat down which really helped with the lag that comes when a region is bombarded with a dozen or more avatars arriving from multiple grids.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

Gor and More

This week two destinations, both fun and at the same time quite serious, in that they deeply connect with the real world beliefs, creativity, and endeavors of their creators. HG Addresses as usual at the end of the post.
          Despite some craziness in hypergridding which slowed down our arrival on Destination one, Counter-Earth grid, pretty soon about 15 of us were at the arrival area at Sardar Mountain, which in the books is a marketplace where it seems anything can happen, from the dangerous to the delightful. There are community evenings on Counter-Earth Grid, at 8pm Pacific Time, and there are organized games of Gorean soccer, and they are working on getting combat events - the arena is ready, just some scripting left to do. For those in the Antipodes, you may like to join the New Zealand cohort on this grid, so there's something for everyone.
If you visit the grid, be sure to leave some feedback on the OpenSimWorld page

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Back on Safari

https://gyazo.com/8316d87426377fa31567b39bedeee17d
Sound artist Morlita Quan, check out her music here

... And we're back.
The first Safari of the new season was a celebration of creativity, style, sensuality and above all the free open source ideals of Francogrid, and the wider hyperverse of OpenSim.
https://gyazo.com/478fe90d73b8843d7730792c7e270bf0
Fest'Avi is always about the body beautiful. It is about creativity and a practical need for more original avatars for people to use and share. Anyone can contribute an avie, and this year there are about 19 different models, some very human-like, some romantic, some very unusual.
Here are the avie makers this year: Sunbeam Magic,  Archael Magic, Canonboymaty Duffield, Zany Foxtrot, Serene Jewell, Praline B, Shannan Albright, Meilo Minotaur and of course Cherry Manga, whose artistic imagination and passion are the fabric upon which these avatars are displayed.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Sun Sets on Safari

Thai Low: allora abbiamo resistito al terrore delle griglie: HG Safari!

https://gyazo.com/1bc2c1a1c0cc0491e1eaa30b92b9211c
           Just for a few weeks, the Safari will be taking a break. This was our 110th consecutive week jumping from grid to grid, and it's time to take a moment, hose out the clubhouse, reorganize the landmark giver, purge the cache, and have a bit of a rest.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

An Arrowing Safari

https://gyazo.com/08f4c76bdd1aa8bc40a3460fc54ec0cb
Yellow Submarine time! Safari headed off to Pepperland this week. It was about a year ago that we last visited Mudpuddle Cleanslate and Chelsea Louloudi's Beatle-inspired world. HG Addresses at the end of the post, as always.

Thursday, June 9, 2016

A Fact and Fantasy Safari

          Sometimes we think of it as a fail, but one of the virtues OpenSim is that it has no theme, beyond its variety, liberty and instability. Everyone does what they feel, and it's a testament to the inherent positive spirit of, well, humanity, that here are so many grids and regions that celebrate beauty, generosity and goodness, without being self-conscious or coy about it.
          This week, the Safari visited three grids, Saraneth region on Ignis Fatuus, ArcadiaShop on OSGrid, and three sims on Craft Grid, Hildesheim, Heritage and ESOC. HG Addresses, as usual, at the end of the post. Some builds are factual, some are pure fantasy either of an original form, or developing beloved stories or images, but all of them teach us something.

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Carima to Raious: Safari gets Ed-ucational

          From Middle Earth to the inside of an iPhone, that was this week's epic - and surprisingly smooth - Safari. 
          First up, the sims belonging to the Carima group on Metropolis.
           Primus, Anna and the gang were there to welcome us to this huge, heart-breakingly lovely region. So what's the Carima story?

Monday, May 30, 2016

True Grid

 Matilda Charron came on Safari!
Matilda Charron at the clubhouse
          Now that is true grit. The Safari begins at like 3 am, Mati's time, and we were so glad she decided to join the fun and games this week.
          And what a game of it we had.  Generally speaking, hypergridders like to be able to jump directly from A to B. Having to go through Welcome sims or make multiple leaps to reach one's destination is not a huge burden, but obviously, if somebody builds a region and wants people to visit, then it would be good if they made that as easy as possible. Is that dumbing down? I hope not. The 'idiot-proof' opensim viewer we're always being promised doesn't matter to me, mostly because I'm not that interested in meeting idiots. HG accessibility is, however, key to making it worth your while to build worthwhile, quality installations and regions.

Friday, May 20, 2016

Safari Turns Two

https://gyazo.com/68a60ebe7bd349514e21c0a881a300a1
Truelie Telling
Two years of grid jumping, and to celebrate, we had a great party, thanks to many wonderful guests and some fantastic music! Sarah Kline said it best, seems no time at all since we were celebrating our first anniversary right here on Event Plaza.

Thursday, May 12, 2016

A Hearty, Arty Safari

         Some seriously fun art in OpenSim this week for the Safari, on two excellent art-friendly grids. HG Addresses at the end.
          First up, Francogrid and Michaël Borras aka Systaime with his show "Curating Money" curated by Wrong Grid organizers Ellectra Radikal and Frere Reinert.

Friday, April 15, 2016

The 'is' and 'isn'ts' of Virtual Money

We love what you do when you do it with heart
Truelie Telling, the Safari song

It may have been Pathfinder who brought it up, at this week's Safari, the subject of some sort of hypergrid friendly virtual currency. His comment was to the effect that it would give him the opportunity to support content creators. There followed a little polite but determined chorus of 'hypergrid currency?? thanks but no thanks' from many of the other attendees. Why is it that? What is it that makes people like me feel so passionately that the predominantly no money culture in open sim is the better way?

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Safari One Hundred

This week, a little celebration to mark our one hundredth consecutive Safari. There was music, last minute panic, interesting conversation, lag, unsolicited boobage, laughs, and failed Tps. So much like any other week!
First up a Truelie Telling concert, on hgsafari sim, with the added bonus of the Guess the Grid competition, organized by Wizardoz Chrome. There are 25 images spread out around the sim, devilishly hard to find, and once found, you've got to guess what sim they are on! You will find the grid names and their hg addresses in a poster marked Guess the Grid Answers, at the Clubhouse on hgsafari sim, Francogrid. The winner on the day? Probably Sunbeam Magic got the most right answers, and Freewee Ling was the champion of finding them... she found fifteen, though confessed she couldn't identify any of the grids in the pics!!

Monday, April 11, 2016

Chasing the Safari


RL comes first, we all know that, and for a lot of people, that makes joining the Safari impossible. Same happened to me this week. But while some weeks, the group visits specially opened sims or one-off events, this week's destinations are all easy enough to visit when the fancy takes you. And very worthwhile too. Just grab the LMs from the Safari clubhouse, for your convenience they are available at Teravus Plaza on OSGrid, as well as at our usual rendezvous, hgsafari sim on Francogrid. If you made a  LM to our Francogrid clubhouse more than two weeks ago, it will no longer work, as the sim has been moved onto another server. But if you put our hg address into your map, you will find it OK. That address? hg.francogrid.org:80:hgsafari
This week the first destination was something of a load test for the group, and by all accounts it stood up well to the onslaught of the safari waifs and strays. The grid in question, Sailonbye, (full HG Addresses at the end of the post) is a mini grid that brings together three of opensim's greatest virtues: a sense of place, a talented builder of original content, and a generous heart.

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Safari does Particles and Prims

         There are some weeks when, I'm not going to lie to you, organizing the Safari is like boxing an octopus while wading through molasses. And then there are weeks like this.


         Two stops, with a retro feel. Our first stop on Metropolis grid, at a place with a name you may well know... The Lost Gardens of Apollo. There. You're sighing. Well, if like so many of us you came into SL in that golden age around 2007, you may remember it.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Safari goes Under the Radar

            Small grids! Hypergridding was made for them. We visited three outstanding examples this week. All three are open 24/7 and are worth visiting by yourself for their art, charm, freebies, music and information. Full HG Addresses at the end of the post. 

          First, Isis Ophelia's grid. Arcana. This grid is just exquisite. It's based on Epic Castle (here's a link to Austin's excellent blog post on the subject) plus extras from Kitely Market, and of course original touches by Isis herself.