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.

Leighton  on the jetty

Leighton has been developing some virtual tools to deal with this real world. 
His idea is to create a place where people can come and get counselling and advice from professionals specifically in regard to LGBTI+ matters. Read this to learn more about the work he is doing.

Arriving on Lighthousepointgrid

Why virtual? because it offers unique opportunities.  The freedom to express yourself through your appearance, the greater possibilities for acceptance, the liberating sensation of relative anonymity, these are just a few of the factors that make it a nurturing environment. On the other hand, since counselling is a serious business and there are regulations regarding privacy, it's important that Leighton has control over servers, who comes and who goes, and generally protect the people who come here for help and support. 
That said, certain parts of the grid are HG accessible so we got to visit the Orientation Station... we all crowded into the train to take the tour! It's a fun way for therapists and clients to learn the basics of virtual communication, walking, fixing yourself up and so on, all the usual stuff. 
Leighton Marjoram: A micro skills activity based region for helping new Opensim users to learn the basics in a interactive group session (built for up to six participants and two facilitators working together).
Dabici Straulino: have you experience with people interested in project but not willing to use virtual worlds?
    Much of the discussion went on in voice, the consensus was - inevitable a good proportion of people are initially enthusiastic about virtual worlds, but then don't follow through. The idea is to get the therapists comfortable enough in the environment that their enthusiasm and skill makes it easier for the clients to feel at home and fit in.
Thirza Ember: getting people to learn about virtual worlds is not easy... if they are busy
Isolde Caron: i started using it after i went insane
Kikas BabencoFG: I started using them not to go insane :-D
Isolde Caron: lol
Dabici Straulino: it is like when learning a language, there is a barrier of learning prior to looking as smart and capable as you usually be

           Our next stop was a very cool Glossary Game. It's about how language can make a difference - words matter!
Thirza Ember: So Leighton is a pioneer in this kind of work, helping over distance, but as Leighton is saying, when you work in the real world, dealing with sl clients, there is a challenge - you have to convince the bosses and make them see virtual reality is not just a game.... although this Glossary Game is fun!
Drang Po: finding out that I'm going to have to look these all up cause I keep guessing wrong.
Isolde Caron: -)

Thirza Ember: I asked Leighton about how he came up with this idea, let me paraphrase what he said in Voice. Leighton went to school and qualified as counselor, but where he lives there are already many experts... but someone introduced him to Second Life, and he immediately realized he could reach more people in the virtual environment... however, in SL there is not the encryption that makes it possible to have true confidentiality, but on your own grid, you can be more private. 
Dabici Straulino: this is the closest to face to face, open ended, rather close ended. Have you read Karl Kapp book? really good...Thanks so much Leighton, I will come back to explore
Aime Socrates: Ty Leighton ! see you soon
Cataplexia Numbers: Hugs Leighton, this was wonderful!!
Isolde Caron: ok ty leighton, good job-)
Xirana Oximoxi: Thank you very much!

And on to Condensation Land, quite recently revived in opensim. 
Metropolis grid is the proud home to this set of regions, one of the first places to be showcased in this blog back in the olden days when hypergridding was hit and miss and to visit this land you had to make a special avatar just to get in.  

To avoid crashing the place, we generally look for a good place to sit down while the servers cope with the influx of strangers onto the grid, and this has to be one of the most striking 'waiting' areas we have ever occupied! Imagine a luxury hotel lobby, with full bar and a range of glamorous looking visitors, and you've got the landing point on Condensation Land. We downed a few virtual brandies, well, BlueLou McGrady, Alex Salamander, Yara Eilde and I did.
BlueLou McGrady: Just finished the last of the brandy.. *Leaves 100$ on the bar*
This is the home of Zonja Capalini, Plastichansa Bade, Ludmilla Writer and the rest of the Condensation Land family. Here is Zonja's personal blog, which chronicles some of the history of her virtual art.
 Serene Jewell: Hello Zonja. What a lovely space.

Zonja Capalini: Thank you! :) It's one of the last additions to Condensation In may 2017, Condensation will be 10 years old...and it's still evolving :)  There's a small gift for you, a very low-land-impact Klein bottle created by myself and Plastic. It's floating and rotating over ourselves. If you please, you can pick a copy by buying the object. You might need to turn on seeing transparent objects for a short while to better be able to buy it. Inside the bottle you'll find a detailed explanation of its origin and history.
Sunbeam Magic: Congratulations ! 10 years!!!!

Zonja Capalini

James AtLLOUD: I've just noticed the shadows under the tables.  That is very effective. Rendering real shadows is too expensive for my computer!
Serene Jewell: It's a real skill to make an intimate space like this inside a vast room. So well done and cozy.
Pathfinder Lester: The Condensation Space was the very first OAR I tried out when I first set up my own Opensim grid back in 2010.  Zonja responded on my blog post about it with a great history of the OAR file. 
Zonja Capalini: Pathfinder showed my club, it was Open source. I think Nebadon still keeps a copy. He kept a copy of this club and of the Klein bottle. He kept a copy of this club and of the Klein bottle, linking it into a single linkset was a kind of prowess, I don't know Nebadon personally, but I know that he has done quite some work on OSGrid.  The version you have here is a single prim.  Produced by Plastichansa Bade, who co-maintains Condensation Land with me, currently.  It has things of many different epochs. The club is from 2007 irc. This posh lounge has something like three months. 
Isolde Caron: cool you can save them all
Zonja Capalini: Yes. That's the idea. To keep it evolving. But Plastic is slowly transforming everything into mesh, so that we put more things while the land impact counter goes down.
          We headed over to the dance floor to keep chatting, camming around the sim 
Drang Po: I thought mesh was harder on the opensim server then prims? Or is it a database issue we are talking about?
Zonja Capalini: I guess it's harder on the database. Anyway I tend to make everything possible phantom

Thirza Ember: does that help?
Zonja Capalini:  Yes, sure, no collisions -> less sim load. 
Thirza Ember: so there is your 3d art, but i seem to remember a gallery of 2d art also, is that right, Zonja? this is really a fly-around region, so much detail.

Zonja Capalini: Yes, there's an exhib over there, it's called Mirror Worlds with works of Florence Babenco, Senna Coronet, Monika Finchty, Shoshish Shilova, Mikil Tiki, Ludmilla Writer, and myself. My old personal blog is at zonjacapalini.wordpress.com/ It contains a lot of stuff A description of the exhib, the Klein bottle, and  a number of historical articles about the Openspace debacle And some quite technical articles about the internals of Opensim... Now hopelessly outdated
 Pathfinder Lester: It looks like you've also listed Condensation Land on the OpenSimWorld website - great!
Zonja Capalini: It's quite impressive to have you all here, guys! :)
Dabici Straulino: how many are we?
Sunbeam Magic: i show 23 on my radar
BlueLou McGrady: Cataplexia is drinking the scotch now too, and taking shooters of tequilla on the side!
Thirza.Ember: Yara, look for another bottle for me
Yara Eilde: Thirza there is only air and love
Zonja Capalini: I still get 10 FRAPS fps, which I find really amazing!

Zonja's Avatarfest pavilion

Leighton Marjoram: Drunk and in charge of an avatar @BlueLou "i'm cutting you both off"
Serene Jewel: I'm definitely coming back to explore sometime.
Sunbeam Magic: coming back for sure !!!
Zonja Capalini: There's a lot of stuff, if you pick the reproduction of our exhib in Avatarfest it's packed with information
Sunbeam Magic: are the nearby regions also part of Condensation ??
Zonja Capalini: Yes. There's only one, called Condensation East. It hosts three islands by Omurtag Milev, aka OM Milev. He's the owner of the New Temple regions here in Metro
Pathfinder Lester: It's really amazing to me to think about this history of this place and the builds and the people, and how everything moved over time.  Amazing how resilient virtual worlds and the people in them can be.
Kikas.BabencoFG : beautiful trees out there!
Truelie Telling: but also how ephemeral, I've had several disappear
Unknown UserUMMAU42: Well in Metro, there was a hype from HG Visitors and newbies who deliberately crashed regions by overloading the Physics Servers with many rotating microprims on their Avatars.
Leighton Marjoram: I can relate to that about the sim/region crashing.
Zonja Capalini: Ah yes, exactly. Reliency is the word :)

Classic art meets modern on Condensation Land

The whole of condensation land is a riot of contrasting yet harmonious pieces of art. it's worth flying out as far as you can to get different perspectives, and there is the sensation that you can never quite visualize the entire panorama... the great outdoors, indoors.

          Our final stop, the Haunted Valley by Dabici Straulino and Kelso Uxlay is a piece of Canadian autumnal joy. 

          Hop on the boat and take a tour of this vast varregion, full of trees turning in the first frosts. Ther'es a suspicious looking pirate village, and by going through the back door of the pub you find yourself in a haunted concert hall.

 It takes a good while for this region to rez, but it's definitely worth it! I\m almost sure I saw a wendigo in those endless woods... thank goodness the boat comes loaded with NPCs and funny poses...

          We were happy to hear Truelie Telling aka Ellen Olhsson singing some of her classic tunes, and the dance, a hangover from Halloween, was enlivened by these great NPCs. This time abici and Kelso have outdone themselves with all the little details, and you can easily spend an hour or more looking at it all. But after the boat ride, the music and the dancing was definitely our highlight. 

Kelso dances with Vampyra, Dabici with Shreck, Thirza with a skeleton,
and George risks it with Sraitjacket Ldy

George Equus: I got infected...
snowbody Cortes: George do not accept any kiss !!
Rain.Stormfront: lol

Sunbeam dances with the Pumpkin man, and Wizardoz Chrome with ... I dunno what that is.

Sunbeam Magic: and don't untie her strait jacket either...well gang!!! as always I had a blast took a million pictures and post later on G+ but I must leave now, rl calling  Thanks for having us Dabici and Kelso !!! love the build and the fun NPC's and everything you two do !!!!
Dabici Straulino: thanks for visiting

Dabici Straulino: Let say we are still in Halloween mood, cam out we are in a huge pumpkin

Rain Stormfront: lol don't burn Serene! I need her to help me. lol
Sunbeam Magic: lol
Serene Jewell: Truelie's band looks so hungry.

         Haunted house, maybe, but the haunting was all of a humorous and fun type! This fall version of the sim is only up for a few more days, so if you haven't visited be sure to go over soon... by the end of the month, it will be winter on Creanovale.

 HG Addresses
Leighton Marjoram's LighthousePointGrid   
grid.lighthousepoint.co.uk:8002:LHP HG                                                  grid.lighthousepoint.co.uk:8002:LHP VW Basics

Zonja Capalini's Condensation Land
hypergrid.org:8002:condensation land

Dabici and Kelso's Haunted Valley
hg.creanovale.ca:8052:Novale