It Takes Two

 They say it takes two to tango, but in the case of our second destination this week, it was really a case of three... we visited Condensation Land on Metropolis, to talk to Zonja Capalini Ludmilla Writer and Plastichansa Bade about collaboration in art and the journey these regions have taken from SL, to an eponymous mini grid, to their current home in one of opensim's favorite grids. 

Mal Burns: Hi Zonja, all
Juliette SurrealDreaming: wow Zonja, looking pretty cool there
Zonja.Capalini : Thank you!  It's impressive to see all of you coming at once :)
Wizard Gynoid: Hiya Zonja. We've met in the multi-verse years ago.
Juliette SurrealDreaming: yeah instead of mass exodus we are mass becoming
Thirza Ember: We just had a presentation about the Kokua Viewer, I feel smarter, yet dumber at the same time
Juliette SurrealDreaming: lol omg i know what you mean Thirza
Wizard Gynoid: Zonja and I first met prolly five years ago.  We are both Klein Bottle experts.
Zonja Capalini: First of all, Plastichansa, then creator and owner of BRBP, the wonderful island we were going to visit, sends his apologies ...A RL commitment didn't allow him to be present Anyway, he's left here an NCP of him
Ludmilla Writer: Explica que estoy presente pero no escribo bien en inglés, por favor, Zonja
Zonja Capalini: Actually, two of them :) There's an npc of Libdescent, an alt of him, at the bar

LibDescent NPC

Juliette SurrealDreaming: yeah that one is really nice
Zonja.Capalini: Then, also: we have Ludmilla Writer here. She's one of the creators of Arrabal Tango Club! The other one being Favio Piek, but he seems to have left virtuality, which is a pity... Inside you'll find some gifts, and some notecards informing you of some basic facts about Arrabal
Zonja Capalini: Plastic has also created this sculpture in the center, and the moving HG Safari letters, and a number of other things :)  What's in Arrabal? On one side, the tango club -- there's a dance ball stuffed with plastic's npcs, which we'll be able to try later. People who came here liked to take snapshots of the club,  and donated these snapshots so that we could make an exhib
Arielle Delamerlibre: do you have regular parties?
Zonja Capalini: No, not for the moment, Arielle. The exhibition is at the right of the club. I've also put six (iirc) TV sets over there. These TV sets will show you pictures of parties celebrated at arrabal, Even a wedding party :) Decoration was decided by Ludmilla and Favio... You can read the story of Arrabal here 
Ludmilla Writer: I love Arrabal... It's a very beautiful place in SL and Here, now, too
Arielle Delamerlibre: okay thank you a nice environment so far. has to come to life

Zonja.Capalini: And you will find tons of interesting pointers in the notecard, when you buy the HG Safari thing with the flashing light bulbs... In the exhibition you'll find photos from Andromeda Volare, Jaja Lubitsch, Ro8 Avro, India Leigh... Sura Abismo, Favio Piek, Ludmilla Writes, Mikil Tiki... Regarding the migration, we were caught in the Openspace fiasco, I was paying for two full regions, And converted one into four Openspaces, Then the price was raised from 75US$ to 125$, Obviously, there was ample outrage... First we migrated to Openlife. Then we created out own mini-grid,: Hosted in a shared machine, On a *slow* SDSL line,: But it worked, The mini grid allowed free registration and had up to 100 users at the time.

Ludmilla, 'Plastichana' (NPC) and Zonja

Arielle Delamerlibre: and why did you finished with the mini grid?
Zonja Capalini: Then I had problems in RL, stopped caring, the machine had no maintenance, the database got corrupted, and finally we closed the SL version of Arrabal...  Because my RL crashed, and required a cold reboot :), I don't like to mix levels, but it was horrible. All my attention was required IRL
Arielle Delamerlibre: yeah sometimes it does
Zonja Capalini: Then, one year ago, Ludmilla by chance met Plastic. He told her that he was attempting to recreate the full Condensation archipielago from his memories alone! I entered SL and talked to him, I had lost all my technical expertise, but I still had some very old OARs. They didn't work with the then current version of Opensim.  After some iterations, we had Condensation running.: I asked Plastic to co-maintain Condensation with me, and he kindly accepted. And we have since established a creative partnership which is fantastic for both of us :).
Arielle Delamerlibre: I will see the further development and I will dance Tango here
Zonja Capalini: You can read a quite detailed account of the story of Condensation here . And of course today's meeting will have a video and will end up in a TV set here :)
Thirza Ember:  We need more dance animations in opensim, for the Tango would be great... is this site any good for finding useful dance animations? https://sites.google.com/a/cgspeed.com/cgspeed/motion-capture/daz-friendly-release compared with when we first found opensim, there are so many more free and opensource resources available
 Billy Bradshaw: I have used some action type animations, the dance routines require additional work

Zonja.Capalini: Yes, absolutely. Now the performance of Opensim is outstanding
Pathfinder Lester: very true...more content...better performance...
Zonja Capalini: Even in SL, in 2007, with so many people the sim would have difficulties
Thirza Ember: half the problem is tht we just do not know what free resources are out there
Pathfinder Lester: yes, finding the stuff!  lol
Zonja Capalini: And for a very reasonable price...: Metropolis isn't cheap, and still, 30€/mo for a 1024x1024 is a bargain...And with the introduction of mesh, you can have many more objects, since the land impact decreases... What I love of Opensim is that you can always come back and make it a little more beautiful, a little more detailed, a little more perfect. It's like a picture that you can always perfect more and more...
Thirza Ember: and unlike SL, there is less stress about money and time... you can take a long time to make your build
Zonja Capalini: Exactly.  The people I'm meeting here are much more focused on creating and sharing

Thirza Ember: I know, like Cendres,  Plastichansa is a big fan of the free share alike community, that's an important part of the experience,
Zonja.Capalini: Yes, he's so generous with everything he creates
Cendres Magic: for me, in opensim,  no chain
Zonja Capalini: Yes :) The only problem I have is that I can't log in as often as I would love
Cendres Magic: specially thanks to hgsafary helping to discover 
Thirza.Ember: We are having a big party on May 24 to mark the 3rd year of this adventure...it's nice that Wizard Gynoid is here today....she was my first 'victim' on May 20, 2014
Pathfinder.Lester: guinea pig?
Wizard Gynoid: I thought Thirza was my first victim.
Thirza Ember: yes wiz, we were reciprocal victims
Wizard Gynoid: Thirza and I hosted the Safari every Wednesday without fail for a year.
Thirza Ember: To mark the three years of Safari, we will have 3 hours of music and I hope many will come... on FrancoGrid today, Nino Whitman made available a region, on its own server, it is another example of the generosity of opensim... so we can (in theory ) have 200 people... so spread the word!

Zonja Capalini: Well Condensation Land turns 10 this month... We'll be celebrating on Sat the 27th I think
Pathfinder Lester: congratulations!: that's quite a milestone
Zonja Capalini: It's an enormity :)
Thirza Ember: the great thing about opensim is even after 3 years we have not exhausted the number of places to visit, or revisit, because many times 1 visit is not enough to see it all
Zonja Capalini: Sure, it's so huge that you'll never finish it...
Wizard Gynoid: This avie has logins on dozens of virtual worlds.
Mal Burns: think am now 12 yrs - but that dates to before i escaped walled kindergarten
Thirza Ember: Mal you don't look a day over 9
Mal Burns: tks Thirza!!!
Zonja Capalini : But I don't move much, to say the truth -- I spend all my time creating and filming :)
Mal Burns: nice films Zonja
Thirza Ember: that is really the paradox of opensim... it's important to take time to be creative, but if we do not support each other, by visiting the builds in other places, then there is no 'audience' and the creativity can stall, it needs to be a flow of both making and sharing, also, because that's how collaborations can happen...for example: there is the Kroatan Photo competition... anyone from any grid can give a photo for the competition... the photo should be something funny or strange that happens in opensim... it can be taken on any grid... that's the kind of multi-grid experience that really helps the hypergrid to become one family 
Pathfinder Lester: Thirza, I remember back in the old days of the Hypergrid Adventurers Club, sometimes I would have trouble finding new places to go.  Amazing how that has changed...
Zonja Capalini: Exactly -- that's why Plastic and me are so happy to cooperate, we are each one the audience of the together one :) I think the HAC came once to Condensation, but I might be mistaken...
Cendres Magic: lot of things around - great
Zonja Capalini: Yes... It's very detailed... You can spend a whole afternoon here and not finish with Arrabal...That's why I'm trying to document it all.. It's a lot of work, but I think it's worth it
Billy Bradshaw: I will test the dance facilities

Zonja Capalini: Yeah let's go dance! :)The dance ball is on top of the bar. All npcs are from Plastic.
Billy Bradshaw: Big girl, but I shall mange :)
Thirza Ember: bad internet tonight...  it's like what we were saying with Gavin, talking about the Viewer.... when everything works perfectly, we don't appreciate it... it's only when there are problems that we notice
Zonja Capalini: Well we had router problems yesterday, I was so afraid that I wouldn't be able to properly host the meeting...So that I tried tethering using my phone's 4G. It works perfectly ...in the end I've not had to use it, tho.
Billy Bradshaw: I find if I change my socks things go so much better
Thirza Ember: Billy's Universal Sock Theory also works
Billy Bradshaw: Quantum socks
Zonja Capalini: Yes. I'm used to a level of performance and smoothness that's vastly superior to the SL of 2007 here...
Billy Bradshaw: This chick tries to remove my specs I swear !!
snowbody Cortes: lol Billy
     Here is Zonja's vid of our visit, please, take time to watch it, it's beautiful, and some amazing quality shots, proving that HG Visitors do not necessarily mean impossible lag on a region.

Thirza Ember: Zonja are you going to make an avatar for Fest'Avi?
Zonja Capalini: Oh, I'm not good at making avatars. Plastic is great, tho. You should ask him :) And he's very unconventional, which is good... Look at the Libdescent npcs, for example, or the one I'm dancing with...
Thirza Ember: I think Billy is a bit at risk though
Billy Bradshaw: ha - live a little, Thirza
Zonja Capalini: Ah! Hadn't seen that one myself. It's superb!
Thirza Ember: that's the fun of group hypergridding, I find, the presence of a group is a sort of catalyst,: a load test but also it has an interesting effect on the way you see a region, changing its personality, somehow
Zonja.Capalini: Sure, one feels compelled to prepare everything so that it's beautiful...

HG Address: Arrabal Tango Club is on Condensation land on Metropolis: 

hypergrid.org:8002:condensation land

The Snowind Swansong

          It is their swansong, and so it is up to you and I to make the most of it.  After many years of providing fun and delight to their fellow residents, in the form of their seasonal treasure hunts, Nani Ferguson and Ange Menges have decided to take a break.  

   
          Ange and Nani's Hunts marked things like Easter and Christmas, which provided a convenient deadline to them, and a signal to us that there would be hours of fun to be had.

Monorail Travels, and The Meeroo Massacre.

Allellia Zebberman: sat on a bunny :-/

Riven Homewood: Did it hop away, Alle?

Allellia Zebberman: no and its not flat

Nara Mistwood: hypergrid bunnies are tough

We were roasting meeroos around an open fire in the heart of Pathlandia, at the end of another hair raising Safari. We were an intimate group of just twenty - yeah, twenty avies on a regular mini grid. Admittedly not the same twenty as set out; some took off early, some showed up late. 

          Hair is still an issue. But when you've already managed to tp a ram on board a moving train earlier in the day, the smaller hardships like a ghostly head of hair following you around the hyperverse is not a big deal.  Plus we had Pathfinder all to ourselves, on lovely Pathlandia, in the firelight. So we asked him questions. 

Star Struck Safari

Thirza Ember: Hypergridding is about weird shit. 

Our main purpose is to experience the weird shit together.

Fuschia Nightfire: weird shit is good

Wizard Gynoid: i love drinking my recycled urine. ;-)

Miso Susanowa: THE SPICE MUST FLOW

Ten of us, there were, this week on the Safari. We 'assembled' for about half an hour, at Ilha Magica on OSGrid, just to try to make sure we didn't miss anyone. Of course, I bet we did, but as you probably know, if you IM us in Facebook, we will wait for you, or send you our hg address, and help you figure out how to use the address to hypergrid, if you're a novice. The key thing is to say beforehand you are thinking of coming.

Romenna on PM Grid

Mercalia Beck, who has a Travel Centre at Wright Plaza, and Kosmos Unlimited and Alex Zed were among the newcomers to the group, though not to hg in general. When there are such different time zones represented, from Australia to America to Europe, it's impossible to find a time that suits everyone, but we appreciate so many people fitting in with the current arrangements. First off, we all try to friend each other so that if hypergridding hoodoo fails us we have the option of attempting a personal TP. 

Opensim is full of people, it's just that most of them are busy. However, there are socials and meetups happening, like the one Lani Global organizes. We also heard Arcadia Asylum was on the grid, *starstruck!!* but it didn't seem right to bug her while she was building. So we left her alone. Or most of us did. Wizzy attempted to TP to her location but the sheer quantity of sims in the sandbox where Arcadia was working seems to have ejected Wiz right back to Ilha Magica.