Back to Chat: Twinity

You know exactly how it is. Loads to do, deadlines looming, and that little demon inside you says 'nah... let's go play'. So for absolutely no reason, a trip back to Twinity.
It's been a year, and what has changed. First of all, all the cities have disappeared. Apparently it's due to copyright issues with the Maps that formed the basis for those fabulous builds for which Twinity was rightly famous. *visualizing Googlemaps using a large stick*. Well, hold on a minute, looking back, it seems that even a year ago, it wasn't possible to visit Tower Bridge, despite the pics of it plastered all over their site back then.
There was a free apartment waiting for Thirza, on arrival. It's supposed to be in Berlin, but there's no berliner ambiance; could be in a sealed container, since you can't really cam out of the window far enough to see, and you certainly don't seem to be able to go walkabout at all. There is no air here. But hey, real estate. Woot, right?

But hanging around in an empty apartment gets old surprisingly quickly. Logical step - go look for people. The main hangout is called The Pyramid, or some such name. Invitations to 'parties' and 'events' pop up pretty often on your screen. 

Unrezzed Twinity people are transparent, but anatomically correct - much nicer than SL's lil cloud, and lag seems to be non existent. 

The conversation was a pretty highbrow. It was really hard to resist the invite to Whitney's party.  It was going to be Awesome.

Hobo from home

 Hobo. I say that, you probably think Thinkerer. But not this time: it's Patti Mallory, aka Judy Muircastle, who for years has had a Hobo dream all her own; a living, growing place of spills and thrills, the Hobo Fun Fair.

 Judy Muircastle: I built my first park on SL in 2008. It was built in the memory of my late RL husband. He felt so sorry for the homeless, and he loved amusement parks in RL,  so I decided to call it Hobo Park. I went to SL under the advice of my RL brother to get my mind off things. When  I learned I could build, I knew right away what I wanted to do, and started studying. It really has helped me heal from it all - it's just so much fun!

I visited the SL version with

IMAB Begins

The Intergrid Metaverse Arts Biennial isn't just a mouthful, it's also an interesting art project headed by Velazquez Bonetto and Josina Burgess. 

They want to raise awareness of multimedia art in all grids. They are based in Second life (with a presence on the Metropolis grid) and the IMAB ball rolling with a performance of The Change, a mixture of music, scripted scenes, costumes, particles, and general-mind blowing virtuosity. 

The show will be repeated each Sunday at 2pm PST on sim Benvolio (SL), so don't worry that you missed the premiere, which was timed to coincide with the centenary of visionary scientist Nicholas Schoffer. More about the opening night on the IMAB home page.

 Tonight, the fun continues with another show on another grid, this time on InWorldz. 

Cherry on top

This week the already beautiful Francogrid just got even more beautiful. Terra Mater is now home to Cherry Manga, one of SL's top visual artists. Look in the sidebar for a page of instructions on how to visit, via hypergrid.

 For those of you who still hang out in SL sometimes, never fear, Cherry's store and showcase Mysterious Wave on sim Dark Swamp, a space she shares with fellow artist Anley Piers, is not going anywhere.

Here in Francogrid, she's sharing with another fine builder and lover of prims, her RL husband, Archael Magic, who she met in SL and married a couple of years ago. After just four days in Francogrid, Cherry and  fellow builder (or, as he prefers, 'cube maker') Archael are cautiously optimistic. 

This is still 'just a try'. The high prim limit and the free uploads are still delightful novelties. It's a place where both will be able to build side by side, which may slightly ammortize the sense of loneliness that most expats experience when

Open Wales

Welcome, or should that be Croeso, to Little Wales, Susannah Avonside's home from home on Speculoos grid, handily reachable from Osgrid, for anybody who still hasn't figured out HYPERGRIDDING IS EASY, AND HAS BEEN FOR AGES...  

OK, calm down, have a cuppa, and a Welsh cake, and remember the people who get on the bus last are always the noisiest. The folk of Open Sim have been plugging away quietly for years, refining and improving the system in many different ways, and Susannah's been doing her bit, by adding a fascinating corner to inform and delight anyone who's curious about wales and its culture.

Susannah.Avonside: After being on SL for a while, I kind of got bitten by the virtual world bug and felt that SL was needlessly restrictive, predicated on greed. Being an enthusiastic supporter of Open Source (I've been a Linux user for four years now) I read up and discovered Open Sim and OS Grid. I created my first OS Grid avi in April 2010, but that first experience must have left a lot to be desired, as I didn't log into OSG for more than 18 months. Eventually I found my account details and password on an old half forgotten HDD, and came back to, well, 'Ruth'. I saw that there had been

Coming to Grief

Wandering from grid to grid has become such a piece of cake. 

Anyone can do it, jumping from Upper to Lower (with some stop offs in the super-convenient Hyperica stations) using a single avatar. 
Backwaters, in other words apparently private or obscure grids, are now within anyone's reach, and that may not be such a great thing, since the population of 'Anyone' seems to include a fair number of jerks.

Look what they did to EUITOP, a tiny Spanish Polytechnic grid, with a little Linda Kellie downtown area. The place is overrun by raw spheres spewing, in a sinister, almost Lovecraftesque manner, from the lagoon. 

The spheres bear the name of a lady from Francogrid, I won't name 'her', but it's easy to see who it is. Euitop is a relatively new world, it only joined the Hyperica database in March of this year, and still has Build open to anyone. We've all experienced the

Toast

"It was a willingness of the heart."

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crackup

If you want free land, here's where to be - Les Carpathes. 

At the heart of this new grid you'll find some stunning sims, easily rivalling many builds you will find in Second Life.

vladimir Djannovic and his lovely RL wife Miranda left their wealthy vampire life in SL in favour of another way of life. Here, they can be in virtual worlds, and have a safe place to bring their older children, too.
Miranda Djannovic: Ici, tout est gratuit pas de fric et pas de debauche.
Well said.
It's early days yet, just 40 residents on the books, spread out over a