SL10B and the future

This year’s theme at SL10B is “Looking forward, looking back.” (It says so right here : http://slcommunitycelebration.com/theme/ )

One’s distinctly easier than the other, despite Lewis Carrol’s statement in Alice “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,”

Where SL came from is fascinating enough; historians can give us good details of names and numbers, and perhaps even explain current things in the light of past facts.

But where we’re going... ahh, that one is tricky. Will Second Life go on and grow? Will it close like City of Heroes? 

Will Second Life change? It seems to me the older I get, the more change is bad, change is difficult, and change hurts.

Oh, I’m lucky enough to be exposed to enough of it that I only scream a bit, then carry on. But I’m certainly sympathetic to the point of view that all change is not automatically progress.

Mesh, server-side baking, materials processing - those are technical advancements, and it’s hard not to call them progress. But I know more than one designer who is staunchly waiting for the advent of parametric deform before releasing mesh.

It’s entirely possible that they’re missing a very huge boat and risk being left behind; everyone’s releasing mesh items, which fit more or less well.. while people like Kat and Dari are pushing the limits and dragging everyone along.

I picked two exhibits at SL10B that seemed to me to mean that the artist projected SL in reality. They struck a chord with me - as I think good art will - and made me reflect.

I remembered the first time I went out in a crowd and wished for a way to throw my point of view up like the camera in SL - which requires a helicopter and a Louma crane in RL films, let alone normal vision.

SL will change, and SL is changing us. Mostly for the good, with any luck.

Have a great weekend!

Deirdre and lelo

PS : See Inara Pey’s SL10B picks of the day for “don’t miss” exhibits! http://modemworld.wordpress.com/tag/sl10bcc/

SL10B : It Has Begun!

I can’t hear that without thinking of Mortal Kombat  (yes, I’m a child of the eighties).

Fortunately, SL10B is a little more peaceful, no spandex-clad ninjas will pounce on you, and there is a lot of really amazing stuff to see.

We were there yesterday for the opening, which was a bit more quiet than last year's. No keynote address, just a simple raising of the flags - in multiple locations, a smart move to spread the lag.

The exhibit lelo and I like best so far is the History Walk. Some excellent research and summarizing went into it, and it still works out to some twenty “slides”, set on large posters and surrounded with period items. It's here : http://slurl.com/secondlife/SL10B%20Beguile/157/106/22

And a good link I want to give you is about the pod system. If you want to sit and watch the fairgrounds go by, these cool little automatic gliding chairs are for you.

Linsey Carter covered them on her blog : http://inspiredcreativitystudio.blogspot.com/2013/06/want-to-see-sl10b-hop-on-pod.html

Normal fetish content resumes soon ;)

Deirdre and lelo

SL10B Reaches Out To Other Celebrations

Deirdre:

Only two days until the opening of SL10B - Sunday June 16th!

Lelo and I took the press tour, given by the indefatigable Saffia Widdershins :)

We saw some amazing things, most of which I'll tell you about soon, but right now the most important one is the Connections Board.

This is where other events, including adult ones, will be listed at SL10B.
Here's the SLURL:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/SL10B%20Wonderous/86/97/22

And here’s the post that went up yesterday on the SLCC blog:
http://slcommunitycelebration.com/2013/06/13/want-to-share-your-event-for-second-lifes-10th-birthday-join-the-community-celebrations-connections-board/

With two days to go before the event begins, there isn’t a second to lose.

If you know an event organizer, please send them this post ASAP and tell them to get in touch with Honour McMillan to be listed on the Connections Board.

Have a great weekend and see you at SL10B Sunday!

Deirdre & lelo

SL10B: No Adult Content Please, We're Virtual

Deirdre:

Call me nosy, snoopy, curious, whatever; I wanted to know where the decision to have no adult content at SLB came from.

It’s not like I don’t understand it. There are people in Second Life who are not adults, and restricting the celebration by age would be worse.

Saffia Widdershins and Doctor Gascoigne (both volunteers, Doc from way back) answered my questions patiently: the sims are G, and there it ends.

Doc made it clear that everyone is welcome at SL10B, as they aim to be inclusive. In fact, lelo and I, fetish fashion and BDSM bloggers, are in the press group.

Clearly, we’re expected to act in G-friendly manner when we visit; no hardship, “freaking the mundanes” was never my thing.

There were indications that other, adult celebrations would be pointed to; I’m trying to nail that down but without success so far.

I’ll keep you posted ;)

SL10B and SLB10A are coming fast!

As you know, we’ll be taking a keen interest in the SL anniversary celebrations. 10 years is an awesome milestone!

First, I’ll hit you with the dates. If you have any sort of interest in this yourself you probably know them, but it occurred to me today how little time there really was to see everything.

SL10B: The official community celebration, is from Sunday June 16th to Saturday June 29th.

With 20 sims full of exhibits, if you intend to see any appreciable fraction of them, you’ll need to plan your time.

SLB10A: The adult celebration is smaller and starts a bit later: Friday June 21st to Saturday June 29th. On the plus side, you’ll have time to see everything!

We’ll keep this post short - I don’t want to make your head spin! - but I’ll thank Gemma Cleanslate (here’s her own blog) for being so astonishingly helpful. It may not be the very first published, but here’s our own snap of the SL10B map!

I am sworn to secrecy but I’ll just point to the big, big, big thing in the middle and say one word.

“Cake” :)

Have a great weekend!


Deirdre and lelo

SLB10 A(dult!) - Adult Hub Will Celebrate Too

While SL10B will not have adult content, they will definitely point to adult celebration sites; I think that’s cool, and a decent way to handle things - we’ve been posting in a PG manner about adult content since the start of this blog, so I definitely understand the position of the SL10B organizers.

We heard today from Serjourn Daxter, the prime mover at the Freedom Continent: she’s setting a sim aside for adult content exhibitors, so if you would like to be an exhibitionist, give her or Lexi Lock a call to reserve a parcel.

Inara published the full details, so I’ll point you to her post: http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2013/05/28/your-gateway-to-an-adult-celebration-of-sls-10th-birthday/

This year, we won’t only report news, we’ll also be making them: lelo and I pounced and reserved a parcel.

I still intend to visit SL10B and report on it, so for your convenience, we’ll have two labels: SL10B for posts referring to the community celebration, and SLB10A for the adult ones.

Come see us at SLB10A, and show your support for adult content in Second Life. As I said before, fetish is a valid part of the world :)

SL10B Here We Come

You’ve started hearing the buzz. You know it’s under way, amazing people are already working on it as we speak, and the Web site is up: SL Community Celebration

Well, it is done; I sent in my application to volunteer as “Other: Press” this year, and so has lelo.

I had an amazing time covering SL9B, and I intend to do it again for SL10B.

A certain rubber doll asked whether this was really a fetish-related event. I said not in the least, but it’s a good point, worth sharing with our readers.

I believe that while we specialize on a certain topic, we have a level of professionalism sufficient to justify participating in a world-wide event.

We’re not mainstream, but fetish is a part of the world, as valid as any other.

So while I won’t be wearing gasmasks or capes while covering the event, I’ll hang on to my Leather Goddess tag :)

Have a great weekend,

Deirdre and lelo