So Fine, Safine

 Yeah... it's only just the beginning of October, but this year on Safari we're going to be overloading on Halloween , so if it's not usually your thing, we ask your indulgence because this festival is a huge creative trigger in virtual worlds. Between the costumes, the colorful accessories, the possibilities for scripting spooky things and weird effects, there's a lot to work with in the building gap-months between, basically, Easter eggs and Christmas trees. 

We are beginning this ghoulish month with a flourish, on the lovely Friends Grid where we met Safine Mahoe and Zuzu Bahro. Complete HG Address of the venue is, as always, at the end of the post.

Safine Mahoe: Welcome to the Haunted Halloween Isles!  

Ankh Senaton: hello Zuzu, I saw your art gallery, I like it

Bink Draconia: hi safine and zuzu

Zuzu Bahro: We're glad you're here.

Safine Mahoe: My name is Safine and  I am honored to be included in HG Safari, and appreciate everyone  coming out today.   We want to help with your Halloween decorations, so you will find many items available for copy, lets start out in the Pumpkin Patch... this area is not haunted....but certainly Halloween

 Zuzu Bahro and Safine Mahoe 

Safine Mahoe: The Halloween  region was made by myself and Zuzu Bahro.   Please note, there are 7  different Halloween areas to see, ranging from the extremely fun and seasonal Pumpkin Patch to the terrifying, dark Zombie Hunt.     There is a  round tp stone at  the landing point which will take you to all the areas. Today we will just see a few. areas because of time.

Ankh Senaton: I need some pumpkins for my pies

Thirza Ember: so before we go too far, can you tell us how you two work? who does what? I love to hear about collaborations

Tierra de Marpil

"Abre el ojo y desparrama la vista"

Love it when we end up on yet another new sim where paying attention pays off, and you get the full benefit out of all there is to see and learn. 

That was the case at our second destination this week, as the new season of Safari began with an exciting visit to Cloe Kegel and Vins Watanabe's grid, Astralia.  We were guests of Marpil Grafenwalder who exploded onto the Opensim scene less than two years ago. She has been a positive torrent of creativity ever since. The region is Tierra de Volcanes, 'land of the volcanoes' and of course, the full HG address is at the end of the post.

Marpil Grafenwalder

Marpil's region Tierra de Volcanes is famed for its wonderful Mall up in the sky, but our visit this time was aimed at learning more about her homeland, the Canary Islands. 

The build at sea level is beautifully put together to combine art, entertainment, and RL information and we arrived in the colorful, highly detailed plaza. 

Arriving on Tierra de Volcanes

Marpil Grafenwalder: Hello everyone, and welcome to “Tierra de Volcanes".Tierra de Volcanes was born as an inspiration from the Canary Islands

How Not to be Lonely in Opensim

Ever heard someone say 'there's no-one in Opensim'? Or maybe that was you, talking to yourself - hey nothing wrong with that!

Opensim can often feel like a wide open, empty place. Quite intimidating after, say, the bustling sims of SL. That's not surprising when you compare its size to that of Second Life. 

SL in 2024 by primerib1 aka Claire Morgenthau

SL is not small. This picture shows the main continents at the center of a galaxy of private regions, but if you think that's huge, Opensim is waaaay bigger - if fact, if you're wondering why there's no map of opensim here, that's because it's impossible to say how big the connected hypergrid universe is. 

A few people try to give statistics about it, but they do not, and indeed cannot, know the full extent of opensim, since it is a completely decentralized and unregulated meta-place where anyone at any time and for any duration can have a grid without reporting to any higher authority. 

That means there's no central control, nobody keeping complete records of all the comings and goings of our hyperverse - it just can't be done in a meaningful way. 

Cornflakes Week

'Tis the season... but wait, no real world seasonal atmospherics involved, this is all virtual. Cornflakes Week is coming!
Always held during the final 7 days of February, this year's Cornflakes Week is 22-29 February. It's a festival just for opensim, and for everyone... not linked to any religious or national festivals, making it an all-inclusive addition to the many fun real-world oriented events that happen inworld. 

The first Cornflakes Week event was celebrated in 2015, and HG Safari always celebrates it

NOLA Treat

 Ms Cal: Welcome to the Magical World of Jackson Square Walking Tour! I'm your guide, Cal. I am thrilled to have you here today as we embark on a journey through this iconic location that holds a special place in the heart of New Orleans.

Taarna Welles: Woot woot

James Atlloud: I was here (RL) to celebrate new year's eve 1999!

The first Safari of 2024 began in style - NOLA style! on a new grid that has exploded onto the scene with some of the most realistic reconstructions of real places and spaces

In the Zone

 Zone Nations grid was our second stop this week, for the opening Safari of 2023, and our host was Druskus, who welcomed us to his fantasy sim HG Welcome along with Fiona Saiman, Cleopatra Abu, Ares Kytori who all created a great party atmosphere for us right off the bat.  

The group arrives at Zone Nations. Photo by Fitheach Eun

Druskus gave us some info about the grid and himself - he told us he manages both the Grid and the utilities, he is an Italian who works in the IT field. In the OpenSource world "he is renowned in the beautiful country for his web activities in the JOOMLA and has been mentioned in several books by the Hoeply publishing house on intermediate-level technical texts related to JOOMLA! and is considered a real reference, at the Italian level, for the implementation of Communities and Social Networks."

Thirza Ember: anyone here familiar with Joomla?

Safari SGT: Sauce by Maya Paris

 Personal:   are you flipped, gobby, arch, or tricky?
Would you like to be beckoned with an indistinct finger of mildness? 
  Where do you stand on soup?

A darkened room, 1800m up in the air. Red phone boxes. And immediately you're being asked to choose. Who are you? What do you like? What's your number? Should you jump? 
And you wonder - what is all this sauce?

Think about it. That camp yet classy British look. Having all your own teeth, or not.  Brewing. Fish eating chips. Being tempted to cross the line marked 'Do Not Cross'. Surprising sounds with poses and particles. 

What else could it be but a Maya Paris build?

This is where the inner joy of OpenSim becomes replete. 

Total Annihilation

          Today, Ubit killed me. He has probably been wanting to do that for years.  Unfortunately for him, it didn't take, and here are the photos to prove it.

Ubit's Revenge

          You probably remember sim Outbreak on OSgrid. The zombie game was set in a lovely European town, with trees and squares and alleys and a big old church in the middle. The textures were, if I remember correctly, by Michelle Theiss, but the heart of the matter, the scripting, was by that Queen of Code, Total 'call me Louise' Sorbet. I had the great pleasure of catching up with her the other day and hearing her news. 

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.

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. 

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.

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

It's almost Halloween and so that means it's time to go spookily into that dark night... courtesy of the gang over on Kroatan Grid.   The exact HG Address you will find, of course, at the end of this post.       

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. 

Graham Mills' Age of Steam

   Our final destination this week was on Kitely,  with Graham Mills, a talented builder, educator, and story-teller. Named, Age of Steam, the build celebrates the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company  

Graham Mills: this is a recreation of the world's first railway station 
Don Smith: Nicely done Graham, i was here recently, loved it

Graham.Mills: opened in 1830 and closed in 1836 because it was too small, all before photography, so just paintings and sketches to go from. The opening day was 15th Sept, there were 750 guests, amazingly complex to organise; the army must have helped, Wellington was guest of honour, he was Prime Minister at the time and rather unpopular he got a particularly rough time at the other end of the line, Manchester, 30 miles away, a lot of folk didn't want the railways either as they thought it would ruin the nvironment and put poeople out of a job, which was true in part.
Serene Jewell: Darn railway/automobile/internet/cellphones.... 
 Praline B: wow this build is awesome and all in prims
Graham Mills: normally 4 horse-drawn omnibusses would bring 1st class passengers here, you had to book the day before, on the opening ceremony they came in their own carriages -- there was a one-way system outside. The railway carriages were incredibly tightly packed, 26 was a typical number
Serene.Jewell: Pretty crowded

Graham Mills: most were 4-5 coaches on opening day, yellow were first class, blue second class
Serene Jewell: Let the random sitting on things begin!
Graham.Mills: all sorts of ways to make second class passengers miserable, not least Embers from the firebox, lol many complaints of damage to clothing at the front is a pilot wagon, this was used for brakes
Thirza Ember: some scary umbrella accidents too i bet
Serene Jewell: Lots of stepping on dresses I'm sure.
Graham Mills: the dresses were huge in those days major issues getting into carriages, but folk were used to stagecoaches,  so nobody thought proper platforms necessary. This is the first ever railway shed and incidentally platform, although it was poorly designed as the pillars sometimes meant you couldn't open the doors
Serene Jewell: I need a ticket!
Kurtis Anatine: That will be 1 shilling please
Graham Mills: this was the train used by the Duke, the VIPs and the Directors of the company, it started in the tunnel and they pushed it out -- nice theatrical effect, gasps from the audience, three bands are playing, the Duke arrives. Thousands of people around cheering. He waves to everyone. He's dressed in black but has a sensible thick cloak on (the King had just died)... Notice anything?
Graham Mills: No engines!! They made the tunnel too small!

snowbody Cortes: wow!
Thirza Ember: that is hilarious
Praline B: yes lol
Graham Mills: but there was a slope anyway so they couldn't use engines (which liked it flat) so they ran the carriages down by gravity and up by rope or donkeys, so to get started the staff would push the train - technical, eh?

          We walked through the dark tunnel to the next station Edge Hill, which is where they coupled trains, the dark interior made us al think about how much soot people must have breathed in back then.
Kurtis Anatine: this is where coal lung came from right?
Serene Jewell: What are the barrels for?
Kurtis Anatine: i think its for water isnt it?
Graham Mills: This is where they coupled up the locomotives, the barrels are for water -- to make the steam - easy to forget they needed water, but they were on the outside of town - no mains water, so they pumped their own. The arch above me has stationary engines, one in each tower; they powered the rope for hauling the trains, and pumped the water, the arch was a signature build, but cleverly hid all the techie stuff :)
Serene Jewell: People are ingenious.
Praline B: coming from indian architecture?
Graham Mills: yes -- asian, unusual as most was neo-classical, ie Greek
Praline B: ok ;)

Thirza Ember: people must have thought they were living at the end of one age and the beginning of another.. like the Moon landing... life would never be the same
Graham Mills:it was a momentous step -- travel had never been so fast they moved vast quantities of coal, and fresh food; cities and factories became possible, one end of the country was soon connected to the other - railwaymania began
Serene Jewell: So many people that had only known there one small area would be changed by traveling on railways.
Praline B: yes, a real step , revolution, how exciting it was at this time!
Thirza Ember: what got you interested in this station and event?
Graham.Mills: um, I work on Crown Street. Never knew it had such a pivotal role. Decided it was a good subject for a build,  it's a public park now, so i can do mixed reality.
Praline B: Really interesting build Graham, I very glad to revisit this part of the steam history! This build is really realistic,
Serene.Jewell: So, someday people can take their iphone and see what the park used to look like by viewing your recreation, Graham.
Graham.Mills: yes, Serene, it's easy enough to capture panoramas already, RL to Opensim to AR To RL, that's the idea, connect ppl to their heritage, release an OAR, let them work with it.
Praline B: that works fine Graham ;))
snowbody Cortes: super
Graham Mills: trying to get cultural and historical organisations interested at city level, some progress - I would, of course, like to get the trains running, maybe next 15th Sept
Thirza Ember: that would be wonderful also, but they tell a story here in the statio that is very interesting
 snowbody Cortes: it seems all alive

Graham Mills: well, as you may know, the opening ceremony was a disaster after the triumphal departure - the local Member of Parliament was killed, run over by a loco, so a very gloomy return!
Serene Jewell: Saving the gruesome bit for last, Graham? :-)
Graham Mills: very hostile crowd at Manchester- Hasty return - engine failures, engines in the wrong place, 3 engines ended up pulling 24 carriages -- very slowly, but the next day they ran an excursion and the day after that opened for business and never looked back!

HG Address: grid.kitely.com:8002:age of steam

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.

Back on Safari

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.

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.

An Arrowing Safari

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.

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.

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?

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.