Forest in the Fall

Star Ravenhurst: Why am I sunk in the floor?

Thirza Ember: titanic shoes?

Forest Azure: do you see the dancefloor? I don't :)

George Equus: Instant rez for me, glad to  say

Francisco Koolhoven: I see it

Star Ravenhurst: It's fixed, I see everything fine

Yes, Safari is back for our 2025 Fall season and of course, when a bunch of people suddenly arrive on a new sim all together it can take a little minute before all the elements are visible to everyone... not to mention the occasional missing texture here and there, but that's all part of the fun of going as a group. The HG Address is of course at the end of the post.

Our first stop this week, and our second stop too, were both on OSGrid. In fact, this very first destination on sim Forest of Azure, with our hostess Forest Azure, was supposed to be part of last season's lineup. Only, as you may remember, OSGrid was offline for a little while there, back in the Spring. Nice to have it back up and running, perhaps better than ever. We certainly were all glad to be there.

Forest Azure

Forest Azure: welcome ye all!

Cherry Manga: ty Forest

George Equus: Thank you

Forest Azure: Hello all ye safari people! So glad to see you again and welcome you here!  And so great the safari season started again! We are here in the first place for my Maze gallery, but you have time to explore other parts of my region as well, or to dance here if you like, or maybe even both! Let me first show you the tp boards.. here is one and they all look like this.

Star's Hereafter

Star Ravenhurst waited for us on a dusty, grungy street corner by a sign that said 'Welcome to Hell'. 

No, not TP or IM hell for once, this was the 'other' place, our second destination of the day with, as it turned out, a surprising coincidence in the architecture, but more of that later, This region Heaven & Hell is on Star's own grid, TenthDimensionGrid.

Francisco Koolhoven: Well I made it to this grid :) wasn't able to go to alternate metaverse

Star Ravenhurst: Sorry to hear that Francisco

Francisco Koolhoven: it happens sometimes,  I'll try to go there later

James Atlloud: It was great Fran... Oh! Shared environment makes a difference, thanks... rats!

Star Ravenhurst: A lot has changed since you were last week Tina

Kelso Uxlay: A rats parade

Thirza Ember: hmmm definitely a dry heat here

Star Ravenhurst: Yep and dry heat is terrible for the skin!

Thirza Ember: ok we're all here

Star Ravenhurst: We can walk down the block and see if we can catch the bus... This way...

James Atlloud: a bus!!

Sunday HIE25

 The final day of HIE was another spectacular mix of cultures and languages, with presentations touching on a variety of themes from alien visitations, to gallery governance, to the clash of cultures, to the technology of the future. All this, and a fabulous international set by jazz and blues singer Forest Azure. 

Attendance was strong once again, with 40 plus in the audience to hear first of all Luciana Mattei speak about her wonderful primary school project, unAcademy, located both in the real world, of course, and on Craft-World grid, where she has a sim of the same name.

Saturday HIE25

The HIE region filled up nicely for our conference on Saturday, with a peak of 52 avatars on the sim during MorlitaM and Cherry Manga's flawless performance of "Dual Wave", an outstanding audio visual experience none of us are likely to forget. But lots more happened also!
For the full schedule, don't forget to bookmark the HIE website

The event kicked off with a five language, five person panel, welcoming everyone; Emil Jannings  in English , Richi Rizzoli in German, Minord Loup in French, Lorenza Colicigno in Italian and AnaMari Maggi in Spanish.

There were six events, apart from the Welcome panel, three in German and three in French. 

Loru Destiny of ArtDestiny grid spoke first, on her own philosophy of Opensim, the importance of tolerance, of creativity and exploration, and of course of friendship and community.

Hype for HIE

 Today is the Opening party for the Hypergrid International Expo, a two day conference - Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 April, held on HGSafari grid, on a dedicated sim called HIE. 

Tonight's musical guests are Zoree Jupiter, Khiron Ametza, and Wolem Wobbit, giving us three hours of beautiful music to enjoy.

It's an opportunity also to get another look at the Expo Park and see if you missed any of the great Freebies and information that can be picked up on the 130 different publicity booths dotted around the sim.

The full schedule of the event can be found on the HIE website, in simple terms, the event begins at 9am SLT which is 6pm in Europe, there's a German session and a French session on Saturday, which starts at 12 noon SLt or 9pm in Europe. On Sunday, the same routine, with an italian session at 9am SLT (6pm in Europe) and a Spanish session at 12:00 SLT (9pm in Europe).

As you may have read, there are Subtitles provided inworld, so you can follow along what is being said by the speakers even if you don't speak all the languages.

A great mix of art spectaculars, interesting talks, and fine music - in company with many friends old and new. The event concludes with a fabulous set by songstress Forest Azure. 

Hope to see you there !

HG Address grid.hgsafari.org:58002:HIE

Cornflakes 2025 NW Style

It's Cornflakes Week in Opensim, and the HG Safari crew landed on Neverworld for the second hour of our tour, guests of Govega and all the NVW friends, on the brightly colored Cornflakes stage at Never Plaza, just as we did last year.  

Nexus Storm: Welcome to everyone from the Hypergrid Worlds !!!!

Before we get on to the Corny events of the day, just a quick word about hypergridding. If you have recently gotten the 'Avatars from your gird are not allowed' message on a bunch of grids, please don't assume that there is some sort of massive war going on. These are mostly mistakes - the opensim ecology appears to be suffering quite a lot recently, and often the system is messing up, and sending out false 'Not Allowed' messages. Please try again, or try a different avatar, or above all don't assume the worst  ...chances are, it's not the grid owner trying to offend or exclude you, it's just the intertubes getting stuffed up. 

For those who may not remember, Cornflakes Week (the last seven days in February each year) is a festival unique to opensim, not linked to any real world festival, nor a holdover from SL, but a reminder of simpler times in opensim when we were all much younger and so were our prims. Not every grid does it, and no two grids celebrate the same way; Osgrid has traditionally done a big party although with the current rush to save .oars and .iars, likely they will have other things on their minds. 

Neverworld's house band the King Trio were spinning the tunes for Cornflakes Week

Entertainment supplied by the King Trio who gave us a selection of Country music. 

For a lot of people, the name 'Cornflakes' probably only means the breakfast cereal, but it has much deeper roots in the history of opensim. Virtual platforms like Opensim are more and more being recognized as places with a population and its own particular customs, a sort of virtual civilization, and having our own traditions and legends that unite us, well, that is part of what makes our archipelago of grids unique. 

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. 

Paradise of Jade

 Our second stop this week was on Jade Serenity's smallish grid.

Jade was waiting for us on Serenity.
Bink Draconia: hello jade
Thirza Ember: another notch on everyone's hypergrid belt
Sunbeam Magic: Love Jadeyland ! and Jade !
Lucy Afarensis: Hi Jade

Jade Serenity: welcome to my desk top computer LooL!
snowbody Cortes waving in between the keys :)
Thirza Ember: my main computer is offline this week so I'm on a steam-driven machine so apologies if I am a bit slow
Lucy Afarensis: You can run them on steam ?
Drang Po: you can access opensim from steam?
Sunbeam Magic: Steampunk Thirza Woooot hoo!
Thirza Ember shovelling coal into this thing, it's thirsty work
George Equus: Hi Jade.  tp was fast and all rezed just fine :)
snowbody Cortes: she supposed to run 2 thirzas on that pc .. so it wrote her 10 or 20 OMG .. then it crashed ;)
arcanquest frank: hello :)
Jade Serenity: the notecard giver over here has story and LMs for you, there is Hope forest, and a place of whimsy and a floating dance island and a medieval town
Thirza Ember: I love the names here.... Serenity, hope... all positive vibes
Lucy Afarensis: There was a sim called Serenitie on sl or something like that I used to visit. any relation to that ?
Jade Serenity: no I lived in Winterfell in SL

Spike Sol: its a great region here
Sunbeam Magic: how big a var is this ?
Jade Serenity: 4x4,  it is all on my desktop computer.
Bink Draconia: i grabbed the nc and i will explore this region another time. it looks really great and i am curious about all the places here .... but  for today i have to say: good night everybody
Flidais Merlin: 'nite

Sunbeam Magic: Good night Bink!!! HUGS and sweet dreams

Jade Serenity: Has it rezzed?

Lucy Afarensis: Most of it

Thirza Ember: this is a nice comfy computer Jade is it windows?

Jade Serenity: I used to be windows but now it is Linux  version 8.2

snowbody Cortes: Linux ! may I ask which distribution ?

George Equus: curious about the hardware specifications :)

snowbody Cortes: eheh George

George Equus: This works very well for me

Jade Serenity: hardware is AMD phenom hardware :P old

Thirza Ember: this steam powered laptop is not cooperating

Jade Serenity: awww :(

George Equus: My server hardware is 8 years old....

Drang Po: needs more water/

Lucy Afarensis: try gerbil power ?

snowbody.Cortes: Linux can renew an old hardware ;)
Jade Serenity: i am going to click my "Media" and head to the dance island
George Equus: Linux and me are not compatible  :((
snowbody Cortes: no George ? aww
George Equus: run it on Windows 7 Pro, UNIX is too complicated stuff for me
Lucy Afarensis: Just had a windows server crash with ransom ware
snowbody Cortes: well that's true George but some distribution like Ubunto are very user-friendly
Drang Po: yes and I have setup step by step for ubuntu on our website :)
Jade Serenity: if you like "weather"  there is a weather map in the beach house
George Equus: The forest is quite wonderful!
Jade Serenity: you should be hearing Jazz music here
Sunbeam Magic: I love to explore ;))
Lucy Afarensis: This really works well for a home computer, maybe you all could visit my home studio in michigan some time

snowbody Cortes: I love to explore as well
Thirza Ember: where in the world - the real world - are we, Jade?
Lucy Afarensis : maybe you all could visit my home studio in michigan some time
George Equus: Working very very well Jade!
Jade Serenity: Connecticut, US

George Equus: well CONNECTed...  :)

Jade Serenity: i am thrilled you can here the jazz music
Thirza Ember: WHOOOOA Drang Po looks like James Bond ... or john Travolta? looking smoooooth
Drang Po: tryed this on with out looking at my self...
Jade Serenity: i thought it quite nice Drang :D
snowbody Cortes: "my name is .. James Drang ...."
Drang Po: Drang, James Drang

Thirza Ember: how long have you been in Virtual Jade, and were you always a builder/landscape maker?
Jade Serenity: oh I started on Zetaworld a complete newbie. I still cannot create...my friend helped me download and run opensim on my pc

George Equus: hmm,,, for not being creative  this is pretty darn good

snowbody Cortes: I agree George

George Equus wonders if Jade is for hire...

Sunbeam Magic: Jade has quite the talent for placement of item s :))

Jade Serenity: awww you are very sweet, i have walked every square inch of this sim

Sunbeam Magic: probably a few time eh ?

Jade Serenity: like a painting... base colors... then grass, trees, clouds... sounds and scripts....

George Equus: seriously, one of the best regions I have seen, the short while I spent below. natural... sound scape... love it

Jade Serenity: and my computer I cannot see my sim very well, i cannot load shadows or distance

George Equus: I will definitely return to spend some time here

Thirza Ember: it's a beautiful environment  and we haven't broken it!
Jade Serenity: still dancing to meditation music? ..... aw you guys are really sweet
Sunbeam Magic: Safarians dance to anything lol
Lucy Afarensis: or sit on it
Sunbeam Magic: Bartender, give that guy in the white suit a 'Martini, shaken not stirred'
Jade Serenity: 11 people.... two still at the home plate

Thirza Ember: we need more medieval clothing so we can do a medieval safari here... we can dress up as robin hood and his merry men
Jade Serenity: my town is a poor one- but I am setting up some castles to the south
Sunbeam Magic: I do believe a medieval fairy would still look about the same though rofl
Thirza Ember: Drang can be the Sheriff, I volunteer me and Sunbeam to be Wenches
Sunbeam Magic: I'd be a wench, they are like blondes of that century, they had more fun !
Jade Serenity: giggle, I have a couple wenches in the town at the pub
Thirza Ember: we could be girl plumbers, sunny... wenches with wrenches

Sunbeam Magic: we could fix everyone's pipes
Thirza Ember: George can get some medieval socks, Flidais has a name that already sounds medieval
Flidais Merlin: Yes Arthurian, called Taliesin in SL
Sunbeam Magic: Flidais (pronounced flee-ish) is a complex Celtic Goddess with many differing stories and aspects
Flidais Merlin: did you just make that up?
Sunbeam Magic: no I googled it ;))
Flidais Merlin: I took the names from the Gay Gavriel Kay books - the Fionavar Trilogy
Sunbeam Magic: I always wonder where folks get their names from
        Tosha Tyran joined us at this point in the Safari. If you ever want to join the group but can't make it at the very beginning of our trip, just friend one of the Safari regulars, and ask them for a TP, they will be happy to bring you over to join us! Sunbeam Magic: TOSHA!!!!!!!! huggles
Jade Serenity: whats a tosha?
Sunbeam Magic: an extremely talented gal ;)) she is on Craft. She was in SL with Lumiere Noir who passed a way a few years ago now... he did the Ivory Towers

Flidais Merlin: yesSunbeam Magic: and a building tutorial system that is great.

Jade Serenity: oh my where can i see that building thing?

Sunbeam Magic: Tosha keeps his towers up and alive and we celebrate his life stillJade Serenity: unless it is Blender...

George Equus: strictly prims, learned a lot from him...  just how to make the perfect stair...  secret is the Control Box  :))

Jade Serenity: oh dear I need stairs to a castle below

Thirza Ember: I hate to break it to you guys... but our time here is up, we're due at Bill's place...: hugs Jade and thank you for sharing this special place
George Equus: Thank you very much Jade
Tosha Tyran: this really is a beautiful place
Jade Serenity: this place is always running,: never off... thank you SO much for coming

Jadeyland  jadeyland.kikiki.org:8002

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.