Remembering Torben

 This week, on June 28, there will be a special event on Pangea grid.

It was in the early Fall of 2022 when we got the news that Torben Asp had passed away after a long illness. 

Born in Denmark, and later resident in Ohio, Torben was known for his gentle demeanor, his electronic music and his otherworldly particles. He started in Second Life in January 2007 and was a sought-after performer there for many years, and later also in Opensim, where many grids can claim the fame of having him celebrate various anniversaries and milestones with them. He was there for the Safari whenever we asked him, and many other grids and individuals will tell you the same.

That's why Pangea grid has decided to offer each one of us a chance to celebrate his life and talent with this event. If you have pictures of Torben, you will be able to share them on the specially dedicated region, and so we can all remember the very good times he brought to us in our virtual homes, and into our lives in general.

The event will be at 11am SLT on Friday, June 28
 and the location is pangeagrid.de:8002:Torben Asp Memorial

Sunshine in Africa

The beautiful Africa region was our second destination this week, and Sunshine Szavanna was on hand to welcome us to this sim, one of three she has on the grid Virtual Worlds Zone, owned by Kashi Takeshi. The talented Shenn Tao, who also has regions on this grid (you may remember the post about Tonglen   back in 2023, the sim has evolved a lot further since then) also joined us, showing nice solidarity with his fellow residents.  We came for the panorama and stayed for the music, and much info about Africa - an ideal combination. HG Address is of course at the end of the post.

Sunshine Szavanna: welcome all to my - never ready - sim lol...we wait for all to arrive and then we move on to the Jazz club

Sunshine Szavanna

We all piled on top on one another, at the tp point. Our Safari travels are wonderfully captured by lifted pixel on her YouTube channel, by the way, so don't miss out on that, and please remember to like and subscribe.

lifted pixel: classic safari stack... hello Sunshine! Thanks for  having us :D

Shenn Tao: namaste

Kashi Takeshi: :) toggle the music thingies to start the nice stream :)

A Change of Venue

Bit of a different trip this week on Safari as our first destination was at home, in a way. We went over to a brand new grid called HG Safari and visited the place that will be (starting next season, in September) the permanent base for Safari trips. HG Address is at the end of the post, as always!

Thirza Ember: welcome This is the new Safari clubhouse on HG Safari grid

Francisco Koolhoven: nice new area

Thirza Ember: will take a moment to rez, when you do, please come find me at the new Clubhouse seating area

Tosha Tyran: oh, poor little alpaca arrived also...

Ayla Alvarez: this looks strangely familiar

lifted pixel: it's an elephant!

Nara Nook: Everything looks great Thirza

Sunshine Szavanna: looks very familiar for sure

Dan Banner's Rec-Creation

 If you're allergic to flashing lights, this post is not for you - but if  you're partial to a little bit of kaleidoscope every now and again, then Dan Banner's multi media experience over on OSGrid's Recreation Plaza could be right up your street. 

If you haven't heard of this sim, then add it to your list of must-see places, for it's a bit of a landmark in opensim culture.

Neverworld by Neverworlders

Never easy to get a group photo of the team that runs a grid, but somehow, Govega Sachertorte, owner of  Neverworld Grid  managed it - she's a bit of a wonder that way! I was curious to meet up with the team after seeing their latest promo video (it's at the end of this post, if you want to scroll right past the wordy bit). 

Here's the first 'class photo' of most of the Usual Suspects in charge of making the grid beautiful and helping residents get the best possible service. We were on a sim that the Safari will be visiting for our final trip of the season, ten days from now. The region is called Wild Kingdom and this seemed like the sweet spot to get their photo, in front of the ice cream van.

Left to right: Art Bell, Nine Zero, Joshua 7, Thom Invr,
Nexus Storm, Govega Sachertorte, Morgant Whelan.

So, why do people love the grid?
I asked around. Tig Eberdene has the lovely and recently refurbished Georgetown region. Birch Grove, Jamie Wright's region, is a must-visit on this grid.

Jamie Ann Wright:  I originally joined Neverworld in 2020 but it became my official grid home in 2021. The best features of the grid are too many to name but to summarise them I would say it’s a builder’s haven community of kindness with a high level of support by the Govega and grid admins. Everyone champions each other's projects and collaborates in a beautiful way that always makes it feel like home.

Tig Everdene: I've been here just shy of 3 years. The best features of Neverworld are the people and the amazing talents they have and share with everyone. The freedom I have to create as I wish. The grid staff and owner who do their best to keep everything running as well as possible, and support our residents.         

So the residents love the grid - what about the staff? Nosey, ain't I... well, let's see what some of them say.

Unforgettable Amnesia

Druskus  Zonenations welcomed the Safari this week back to his eponymous grid, and we visited Amnesia, HG Address at the end of the post as you probably know by now. The fun began on the HG Welcome sim, where we experienced some of that opensim voodoo that is hard to explain - some osgrid people simply couldn't tp onto the grid, while others had no problem at all.

The Safari always brings a lot of lag with it, so we're best if we wait for at least 5 or even 10 minutes on arrival for the group to re-form and for everyone to rez the place - the more complex the sim, the longer it takes, of course. We mostly try to sit down, so that we don't add to the problem by wandering around and giving the sim one more thing to register. Does it really make any difference? Not sure, but at least we feel like we're trying to cooperate with the system and be considerate. Some of us had more picturesque seats than others...like, on the photocopier...

James atLLOUD: Nara. Best. Sit. Ever.

Forest Azure: are those copies of your butt. Nara?

Nara Nook: I guess. I thought sitting would lower the lag some

Nara on the copier

Weekend Wolf Fest

Sometimes it pays to be cheeky - we asked and we got permission for the HG Safari group to get a sneak peek at a big event happening next weekend, the 15th and 16th of June. It's Wolf Fest, on Wolf Territories Grid, which has seen exponential growth in its relatively short life - with more virtual space in which to wander than even Second Life !

The Fest is all about celebrating the community, and under a deep blue sky, Lone Wolf and DJ Illusions were on hand to welcome us and explain all about it.

Lone Wolf: OK, I hope everyone's settling in.

Thirza Ember: apart from the nakedness, I'd say we are mostly here and good to go?

Lone Wolf: Uh. Nakedness. Ah, that's OK. There's always a bit of nakedness.

Thirza Ember: can never be sure if nakedness is a deliberate choice, or a glitch

Forest Azure: if it was only naked...

Science Circle-d

 Science Circle grid is now offline, possibly for good. It's a shame because it was such a nice grid, with some very interesting and unusual builds on it, of a scientific and educational nature. 

The grid, which was small and only had a handful of residents, was managed by Quaesar Agnomen. It was affiliated of course with The Science Circle group in Second Life. I really loved it, and felt privileged to join the grid in 2022, because although it was not large, it offered a sort of bridge between the walled garden of SL and the wider hyperverse. Ideal, you might say, for people who are interested in expanding their knowledge and extending the frontiers of reputable information. 

The Science Circle is a group in Second Life. It has regular meetings on a dedicated, eponymous sim in SL (and other spaces) where they get real life scientists, like Stephen Gasior, to talk to them about cutting edge scientific research - it's fun and informative! Nym Hathaway and Jes Cobalt are the people to contact in SL to know more about how to get to all their events, for in some cases, access may be limited.

Stephen Gasior at a SC meeting n the theme of 'The Moon' in 2022

Quaesar and Stephen appeared on Mal Burns' talk show Inworld Review about a year ago  for a conversation about the Science Circle grid in Opensim, how it works, and what's to be seen there.

As we all know (or ought to by now!)  Opensim isn't identical to SL, nor is it meant to be; it operates on vastly different decentralized principles. And yet one often hears newbies and even some oldbies lamenting that 'there's nobody in opensim'. Think of it this way - if SL is New York City, then opensim is the West - the wild west at times, but a place of wide open spaces, busy people discreetly creating and getting on with their lives in their own way, without fanfare or crowds. That said, with a bit of intelligent research you can easily find people, projects, and plenty of entertainment in Opensim. 

Bloom and ...Bloom

Winxtropia is one of opensim's most innovative and original looking grids. Lots of low lag mesh here, simple but cute-as-anything buildings,  cartoon people with big personalities and all focus put where it does the most good, not on huge photorealistic textures, but on added features that lift the grid into a league of its own. As always, the HG address of this delightful place is at the end of the post.

Bloom Peters 

Of course lots of people are working independently and in parallel on all kinds of innovations in opensim, the difficulty is often in finding out what's going on and that is where social media often comes in handy, although we all kind of hate it! Bloom Peters (you may know her by her previous name Cuteulala Artist) published a vid on MeWe  that got me curious to learn more, and here's the story...

 Bloom Peters: So I created an animesh AI, currently limited but its connected to external AI software... the ai is able to know people and even speak their names... it creates wav files on the fly, and plays them local... it can also see were you are and walk around you, or attempt to, and even change its walking paths to avoid things. The "Bloom" walking here is the experiment.

Thirza Ember: oh  wow! in  pink ?

Bloom Peters: yes... she follows no tracks and she knows almost everyone, if you go near her she might even say your name

Animesh Bloom

Happy Birthday Soul Grid!

This weekend Soul Grid is celebrating a milestone, four years online! 

The fabulous Janice sang the opening set of what promises to be two evenings of delightful togetherness on the grid known for its tight knit community and many friends all over the metaverse - there were over 50 of us from 15 different grids at this Saturday night party.

Safari Sees Scario

Craft grid was our first stop this week on Safari with a RL place, recreated, and some nifty reproductions of ancient technology that will make you think and wonder. The sim was NoiLab 2, we were guests of Tonino Lane, and the full hop address is, yes, as always, at the end of the post.

Tonino Lane [it→en]: follow me and take your place around the compass of the winds, I hope there are chairs for everyone, what a great group, I'm honored to have you here

The compass of the winds  is of course a great way to enter into the spirit of the Mediterranean world, and  to further facilitate our visit, Lorenza Colicigno helped out with some explanations in several languages in Local Chat so we could better understand the place. Some people think 'oh just tell the group to take a Notecard' but let's be honest, nobody reads notecards, especially long ones, and Notecard Givers fail due to the lag that a big group of people often makes, and anyway it's way more fun if you tell us about your build piece by piece, so we can absorb the information gradually, and ask questions. 

Tonino has been fascinated by virtual worlds and the possibilities of the digital worldwide community from the days of dialup, and his reputation as a builder covers the past 20 years in both SL and Craft Grid. We had arrived in the small port of Scario, about 150 km south of Naples. Tonino spent his summer holidays here for almost 20 years, and had a sailboat with which he used to sail around the Gulf of Policastro, reaching the wild and inaccessible small beaches.

Cyclone Watch

The sim Cyclone on Mobius lay quietly beneath us as we stood on the single rocky point above  a large, barren and open valley of green, with some otherworldly yellow lines surrounding the open space, just at the sim edge. The old rusting flight control building roasted under a cruel sun, as did the tarmac of the runway. It was the calm before the storm. With planes.
The address of this loveliness is, yes you guessed it, at the end of the post. Our visit began with some fast rezzing and a bit of a tech talk.

Luminalore Resident: Alright, perfect. Once Alex hops out we can begin! ^^

Royale Mobian: Alex please get out of the plane, we have a few things to say first before the fun begins

Lifted Pixel: haha telling safari not to sit

Royale Mobian: is there everyone?

Thirza Ember: yes, all here

Forest Azure: /me throws something at alex... a hearing aid

Thirza Ember: he may have some lag, give Alex a moment, he may not be able to move!

Lifted Pixel: we also love to sit