Safari by the Numbers

          Tip Corbett in the real world Gregory Hall put on a wonderful concert for the Safari this week, inspired by conversations with Wizard Gynoid on the theme of "The Aesthetics of Advanced Musical Scales in Words and Music". 
          Originally the concert was due to be on the HG Safari sim on 3rdRockGrid, but the grid showed up as offline until just before the Safari was due to begin, so the event reverted to Francogrid. That meant we missed out on seeing most of Wizard's geometry. These are some highlights of what happened, and here is the link to the audio of the whole concert. 
          As ever, URIs for this week's destinations are at the end of the post, which alone cannot do justice to Tip's lovely voice on stream, let alone his magnificent music.

Tip Corbett:  And... Welcome to the sim! This is going to be lecures and playing, which is something I really like, and I like feedback, so if you want to give me feedback, that's a gift you can give me.
          (go ahead and do that, by finding and subscribing or liking his pages on Facebook, on Youtube, or on his website GregoryHall.org.)

Safari gets corny

This last week of February is, has been and, perhaps, will forever more, be Cornflakes Week in OpenSim. It's a celebration that transcends the rivalries of individual grids, that doesn't require any special outfit or costume, loosely based on the memory of Cornflakes Woodcock's zany, gaudy art, but not limited by his freebies. Anyone can do anything, as Virtual Christine pointed out, no-one's in charge! The week long celebration was publicized in facebook and in G+ and for a first year, seems to have been a modest success. It owes nothing to real life or second life traditions, it is wholly ours, and perhaps as time goes by it will be embraced by all those who love silliness and the mad variety and independence of OpenSim.

Franzi, Nara, Wizard, Mal and Apmel Fransson await the arrival of the latecomers

We celebrated with a few stops this week, picking up birdy nam nam shoulder pets, or

Safarigate

Wizard Gynoid: I've got Stangens up the yazoo

         Well, we all did by the end.  'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the club, we were getting ready to visit some Hypergate hubs. Jump stations have always been an important part of any grid, and now increasingly grid owners are looking for ways to make their grid hyperfriendly.  

Above and beyond that, there are those who've made Hypergrid Hubs central to their virtual life. Are they all equal? We put together a very short list: Hyperica, the venerable mother of all hgstations, the splendid stones of Sanctuary, The great red Weltraumbahnhof most associated with Metropolis, although it runs in fact on a home server, and two smaller collections, the brand new Hydra sim on Craft, and Selea Core's pristine windows on worlds. The great Thinkerer, Selby Evans was there at the start, but we lost him. Not on purpose. Here's hoping he gives us another shot next time.

          Here are the URIs

Safari goes Metro

          Uncertainty in the metaverse - think that's gonna stop us? No Way! Nara Malone and Zetamex's Timothy Rogers have very kindly made us a temporary home in Metropolis while the OSGrid Raid problems continue.

But there is no reason to be fainthearted... I even found a replacement top hat for Mal Burns, when he joins us next. How long will it take to get OSGrid back? Nara pointed out that when Metropolis had some technical unpleasantness some time ago, they were offline for a month. OSGrid is well into its second week, but it will be back. And Han Held reminded us, in the safari after party, that one should always make a backup.
Han Held: You should make an IAR of your region.
Fuschia Nightfire: What's that?

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. 

So near, safari

This week's safari was a bit of a change of pace. We met on Miguel Rotunno's sim, Ilha Magica, in OSGrid, and there were about 8 of us, which was a nice number - some cool new friends from Kitely were there, and even SaveMe Oh popped over to wish us well on our travels. We have plans for a machinima competition in open sim, I hope she and many more of you will join in, more about that in coming weeks.

Ilha Magica house

We really lucked out with destinations this week. Our first stop was Francogrid. Their Fest'Avi was last week, and they have launched a new range of full perm avatars,with lots of weird and wonderful looks for you to try. 

Francogrid arrival

Praline B, Cherry Manga, Phil, Gill, Cendres and all the guys and gals of Francogrid interrupted their weekly meeting at LeVillage to come over to sim Avatar and welcome us. It was immensely heartwarming. There are about 20 avies so far, and the plan is to add to the collection, so by next year, as Cherry said, there will be twice as many! It still very slightly a work in progress, not all the outfits were complete when she unpacked them, Wizard Gynoid tells me, so once you're grabbed your freebies, check in with the folks over there if you're missing a wing or a wingnut, and I'm sure they will sort you out.

From Francogrid to OSGrid, managed to lose a few Safaristas in the process, but bear in mind, our meeting time is the lunch hour/early afternoon in the US, not an ideal moment for many, and we much appreciated them joining in if only for part of the tour. We went to meet Avia Bonne on her sim DutchMountains. It's important not to add a space between the two words, or you may never get there! In fact quite a few people had problems jumping back to OSGrid. Your alternatives are, I suppose, two. Either move to a different sim within grid you're on, and try again or just log out and back in again, in which case you'll find yourself back on your home grid.

Avia's shops put the lie to the rumor that there's little or no mesh in open sim, or that you can't be a 'real' virtual designer unless you sell your stuff. She has everything from menswear to houses, dresses to sofas, (unmissable is Garry Beaumont's wall of manly accessories!) and it is all up for grabs. But please, don't actually grab the items! Take a copy, not the original. 

Duh, I know, seems obvious, but sadly, she keeps coming inworld only to find creations are missing from her stores, because someone took the shop 'original' by mistake. If you do use her creations, remember they took hours - even days - to make, so drop her an IM to say thanks. 

That's the open sim way. If you're not on someone's friends list, or are from another grid, you can still IM a person by clicking Edit on one of that person's prims, and in General, click on the Profile of the creator, then IM them. 

 Take a moment to pan away from the shops and see the full extent of her bravura. The sim has more than freebies to share!

 Avia has been in open sim, she said, for about 5 years, and has a huge portfolio of work on her regions, lots of Steampunk, plenty of fashion. Her generosity extends beyond the many free items she has made available, she's always quick to praise her fellow builders. 

Avia suggested we visit her neighbor Kathje Kitaj's sim, Hill Valley, based on the movie Back to the Future. The entire build is basically all mesh. It is amazing!

Next stop, the grid created by Vanish Seriath and his dear wife, El. The name is TGIB; it's pure poetry. The Grey In Between, The Good In Bad, The Ground Is Below, and a host of different meanings. The regions are poetry too, a tribute to the spirituality and charm of both halves of this lovely couple. All the anxiety of grid hopping seemed to melt away, helped perhaps by a quick dip in the lake.  Vanish explained about OpenSim Creations, which is of course an online 'community shop' for open sim items. I notice they also have a monthly building challenge, how neat! Vanish explained to me what a Var is - turns out you can have a variable sized sim now. I know, right? These crazy scientists! 

It was also a joy to listen to Miso Susanowa, who has been in vw's for just about forever, chatting about the early days of virtual living with DJ Phil and SSM back on Francogrid, as well as talking about the wonderful skin resource that Eloh Eliot put on line, oh centuries ago. Lag is probably the biggest headache in hypergridding. So many proxies, servers, signals, programs. It helps to have a second computer for Facebook or Skype or anything heavy that you need to keep open. Taking Ultra photos is a sudden pit of treacle. Inexplicably, people suddenly are reduced to a name tag and a head of Ruth hair.

 Fuschia looks invariably gorgeous in my viewer, I think it has a crush on her, but when Vanish Seriath, who had been along with the group from the start, took us to TGIB his upper torso disappeared. Does it matter? Not really, on the whole. There's a sense of being on the edge of a great ocean of progress and possibility in Open Sim, a world where people are in it not to make money but for the love of the game, the love of creating. 
Luckily everyone in the group is good at getting pictures, and a special shout-out to the lovely Wizardoz Chrome, who always takes such great shots. We now have a Flickr group too, for those who want to join there.
What about if you don't even have an open sim avatar yet? Don't let that hold you back. Sure, there is going to be an initial moment in which you'll feel dorky, or even invisible. You will crash, I can't lie. But we are in no rush, we'll wait while you come back on line, we keep FB chat open so you can send an SOS and get the hg address of where we are, in real time. Let me stress, it's not just me. You can also contact Wizard Gynoid, Wizardoz Chrome, or Fuschia Nightfire if you need help.  
Next week - the future, today! Join the Facebook group and page, both called HGSafari, if you'd like to know more.

Rhomb here to Eternity

The sacred geometry of chance

The hidden law of a probable outcome

The numbers lead a dance

Sting, Shape of my heart

Wizard Gynoid is all about the Golden Rhombus these days, and it's led to an exciting new discovery about complex geometric shapes, which she describes on her blog. We have the opportunity to experience the quiet mystery of it, in InWorldz at Wizard/120/140/23 (when is IWz going to get functioning WZURLs? I ask nobody in particular.) Her creation looks a bit like a piece of brain, as it turns, orbiting rather than rotating, it calls to mind something Escher would make; the rhombuses or rhombi are all the same shape, size and colour, but don't seem so.

Wizard Gynoid: I like it 'cause it is deceptive. It looks like it's made of squares and cubes and boxes, but it's not. It's made from the Golden Rhombus.
We were quiet for a bit, just watching the oddity. The Golden Rhombus, I thought, would make a good name for a restaurant.
Wizard Gynoid: Or a liquor drink.
Thirza Ember: 'Ambassador, with this delicious Golden Rhombus, you're spoiling us.' or no - 'Hey, it's after 6, I'll have a Golden Rhombus on the rocks'.
Wizard Gynoid: 'I'll take a Golden Rhombus right between the eyes, thank you.'
One thing has led to another, with this rhombus story. She was inspired to build a crystal flower from the same root matter; it too is a zonohedra, and is squeezed in among the other Sacred Toys in the Temple.

Wizard Gynoid: The crystal flower is made of five petals, growing out from a center point, and has  icosahedral  symmetry. I'm into crystals at the moment, and over here are some real crystal structures I made for the Elf Clan Fantasy Art Festival, which is on right now. Soror Nishi, Ub Yifu, Scarp Godenot and a bunch of other peeps were involved also. As you probably know, the Elves recently escaped SL, and came to Inworldz. This thing glitters like it is crystalline; it's significant because this is the real atomic crystal structure that the world is based on, which is why I suggest it with the orbiting electrons.

Wizard Gynoid: InWorldz is great because it lets me make stuff big. and link them together. This object is almost a thousand prims. not possible in SL.
You need to tp to sim Wizard in InWorldz to truly get the effect. Don't forget to friend us when you get there.

Thirza Ember: It's always fascinating to me how, no matter what, we come back to nature. Inside our computers, it's a virtual world far from rain or mud or snow; it might be as alien to Earth as the Moon, or space itself - far from the natural substances of the world. But no. Whether it's traditional plants or the more surreal kind, like the ones soror makes, or this kind of meditation on form - it's still all nature.
Wizard Gynoid: I think duplicating nature in here is ok, but there is so much more potential to do things. To explore the inside of your mind. Which is nature, I guess, too...
Thirza Ember: I guess that's our axis, we can only spin on it.

Wizard Gynoid: The crystals of gold and silver and lead and copper look like this which is very alchemical -they are the classic metals. I found afterwards that they matched, so that was sorta synchronous.
Huh - so maybe she'll figure out finally how to make gold from baser metals?
Wizard Gynoid: I'm not out to make a fortune. I'm not materialistic. I just want to make beauty and help others to see it.