Safari goes High Seas and High Tech

This week was a cross your fingers, don't dare breathe kind of Safari. Two destinations, both on OSgrid, both exceptionally beautiful, interesting, and highly recommended - addresses as always at the end.

First up, a trip to a brand new region on OSgrid, built by Azi Az and Danger Lytton, one of OSgrid's most famed couples, for their talent, for their
hospitality, and for their kindness. Danger has long been well known for his nautical creations - ships and cannons a specialty - and their new region Marina at the Almost Islands is a celebration of all things shipworthy. They plan a Grand Opening this coming Saturday at 1pm SLT, with musical guest Lucky Chiung, so we were very fortunate to be able to get a good look around before the big day!

Some dangerous parking

Phred: i sank 4, is that a record?
Danger Lytton: kinda like the fair - but with lots of bumper boats

         It was a lot of fun watching Siberia, Phred, Wizardoz, Dabici, Logicamp, and others sailing the boats, some with more success than others...

Dabici showing off her motorboat skills

... there are a lot of different boats here, too many to count them all (the Leonardo da Vinci seems the largest and most elaborate, however, well worth a visit) and they really tell the story of a years-long career of building ships in virtual worlds. There are vaporetto type motorboats, old fashioned sailing vessels, yachts, sloops, ski boats, and dinghies, truly something for everyone. You'll see the hand of   
Danger Lytton: The boats are all mostly mesh, with some parts made of prims
snowbody Cortes: water-proof mesh ?
Danger Lytton: and i have a good lantern supplier cause i like her work, and Azi helps with installing the kitchens.

Danger and Azi

Thirza Ember: how big is this place?
Danger Lytton: this is a 3 by 3 var region, all of the regions in this area are same size, and equates out to the equivalent of 162 reg sized regions. You can get to the almost islands from here - portugal south which u all have visited before - Cilla's region is on other side, and Zia Frimmon's Melodie's Garden is here. 

Thirza Ember: it's a very lovely place to learn how to sail, that's for sure, plus, a great satisfaction that you made your own ships
Danger Lytton: we plan to offer sailing lessons to small groups, probably on saturday mornings, since there is a bit of a learning curve. The sailboats here actually behave very realistically and i have added pmac seating to most of the boats so you can bring a crew.
Dabici Straulino: very well done.  I love everything, get a real feeling to be at a Marina.

Loru Destiny: ahh very comfortable
Phred: three to a chair?
Wizardoz Chrome: yeahhh
Azi Az: very comfy and relaxing
Thirza Ember: when is the big opening event, Azi?
Azi Az: The big opening  is Saturday at 1 pm with live music.

xSIBERIAx.ILFREDDOPURIFICA (it -> en): I made a perfect parking! (almost)
Watching the others is hilarious, but eventually, it was time to take to the water. How could anyone resist, with so much space and so much choice?
        I'm no sailor, so I very cheekily hopped on board with Lucy Afarensis as she sailed out of the harbor. 
        In the end Lucy had a full complement of passengers, and she took Aime Socrates, snowbody Cortes and myself for a trip around the lagoon. 
        All went well, and we were soon picking up speed on the wonderful turquoise ocean (the windlight on the region is exquisite, making the entire region glow like a jewel) and we were all impressed by Lucy's piloting... then we came to the rocks!
          After much heroic maneuvering, our thrilling sea adventure ended up in a rather Titanic like sinking... which added to the fun immensely! 
Make sure you don't miss the grand opening on Saturday, there will be notices in G+ and on Facebook I'm sure, as well as on OSgrid. And if you can't make it this weekend, the regions are open to the public, so you can sneak over there any time and improve on your sailing skills to your hearts content! It's the perfect place to relax and to have fun, a gorgeous build.

 Speaking of gorgeous builds, our second destination is equally enthralling though in a very different way.

             DJ Phil is a fascinating guy who combines great scripting skills with a modest, friendly manner that endears him to everyone. 

DJ Phil by his beautiful Mind Tree

             Design Concepts on OSgrid is not really meant for big groups, and I had sworn to him that there would not be more than 10 of us at the event... in the end we were closer to twenty, but his region, with 500 scripts running and all that stuff, didn't show any inclination to crash or even be laggy. How did he get so good? A whole load of experience, that's how!
dj phil: My background is 3D virtual Chat system (like Blaxxun and Vrml in 1980) 
Thirza Ember: I think we should have a rule that Lucy does not touch stuff... 
just in case
 Aime Socrates: no vehicle for Lucy in this sim...ok? ... looks like stuff for educators here. This is only for french educators as it is written in french :)
 dj phil: Not only for French Aime ... a lot of scripts are multilingual, it detects viewer language.
         We saw about eight distinct tools for problem solving and data interpretation, I'm not going to lie and say I understood them all, but they are all beautiful intriguing and fun even if you don't really know what is going on. The first we visited was this tool for teams. The team members can sit around the edge of the main screen (in this case it's a Google map with places highlighted on it) and each person can move and manipulate the items, allowing people to share and visually explain their ideas. The elements you're manipulating come from external sources - like a google map - so the opensim script is turning real world information into a virtual format that a team of workers can all share, view, modify and proceed from. It beats explaining yourself in words!
Brian: most original work I have seen in any virtual world
Wizardoz Chrome: beautiful
Larysa Firehawk: so where does the rest of the data come from?
dj phil: data from mysql or google docs or access etc ... any database system
         Another nice tool is this one that maps the knowledge and skills of people in the workplace, to figure out, perhaps, who ought to be in charge of a project, or who deserves Employee of the Month. It takes all the information and displays it in three or four different types of 3D graph. I bet there isn't a HR department in the world who couldn't use one of these.
           The beauty of all these systems is that they are thoroughly touchable. despite all our best intentions to show self control and not click, we were sending all the graphs wild and yet, the system seemed robust enough to handle all our naughtiness, which alone was impressive.

          Witness the fabulous molecule maker, a highly touchy feely tool that shows you what a tryptophan molecule looks like, among many others. 
         The white cubes in a circle are each marked with the name of a molecule, and when you touch the cube, the molecule appears.
dj phil: First you clic cube, then it rez a molecule, then you can click on the center picture, to get a url with the wiki reference.
          The inevitable happened - in a matter of seconds we had a whole menu of molecules floating around us as everyone picked a favorite, and Phred proved that the system is unbreakable by sitting on his metaphorical methane. Hmmm there is a joke in there somewhere, probably shouldn't look too hard for it....
        This place is not only useful and inspiring, it's fun. There are moving objects, bright colors, and lots of sounds too. 

dj phil: Sounds are very important for me. they make things more realistics and attractive. They are there as a complement, to help understand, to inform, and if you don't like you can always "mute". I like mixing the visual, the sound and trying to make the most of what opensim can do.

Thirza Ember: you are an artist and a scientist, Phil
Lucy Afarensis: indeed
Dabici Straulino: comme Leonardo
         We went on to see The Gantt Diagram, used in project management, here powered by Notecards,  and then we saw the Knowledge Tree. Here is was looking a bit bare, but when full, could be a superb tool for a community.

dj phil: User completes a Google Form, green are the offers, red requests, and yellow the answers. Exemple: You are a best mesh builder, and you want to share your experience. you can add your info to the tree, another user comes and needs someone to make build, searches on the tree, and gets all infos about user able to create build :)
         Here is the Debating tool, this one is an explosion not only of colors and sounds, but also of NPCs.
dj phil:  This is called Debat mouvant / Moving Debates. It is used to animate debates. This tools exists in real life and now in 3D !!! :) It is an animation technique that promotes the expression of participants' thoughts and encourages discussion and listening to each other's arguments.

Advantages) :
• allows the argumentative expression of everyone within a group.
• Its dynamic form promotes participation.
• promotes sharing and building collective thinking.
• develops critical thinking.

      It would also make a great place for a disco party, although I'm not sure Phil would agree... although wait a minute... his name is, after all, DJ Phil, isn't it? I'm sensing a party in our future....

HG Addresses
New Marina var region        hg.osgrid.org:80:marina at the almost islands
DJ Phil's scripted tool paradise   hg osgrid.org:80:digital concepts