Newsflash – Giant Cake Explodes!

I was pushing my broom along the path by the water when I heard a noise. I looked up and the cake literally exploded in front of me! Fortunately I had my phone so I grabbed a quick video. Here’s what happened:

 

Well done Mikati!

Thank you SL9B Community

We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the Second Life 9th Community Birthday Celebration for all your hard work and volunteer spirit.  True community spirit in the face of short time,  insane deadlines and with all the team work that you could muster. Amazing!!! I was humbled by your efforts and collective energy.

We would like to thank our sponsors https://sl9b.wordpress.com/our-sponsors/ for the sims and services that were donated and delivered to us without a moments hesitation.

This year’s gathering expressed what true community is about. Community is not just a word it is an entity; a living, breathing entity. An interacting population of various kinds of individuals in a common location. Our common location is Second Life.  It was truly humbling for me to see so much collaboration that the Second Life community shared for this event.

If you enjoyed the event and want to be a part next year,  keep an eye on this blog and stay in the SLB Community Group for notification of next year’s festivities.

It was and always has been an honor and my pleasure to once again work with all of you.

Cya next time…..

Doc

How to have fun removing your build on Thursday…

So, when Thursday rolls around, most of you are going to teleport to your SL9B parcel, pick up your build item but item, and then teleport out.

That’s very thoughtful of you, but there’s another way to do it…

1) Pick up your entire build
2) Take a Copy of it for safekeeping
3) Raise it 100 meters off the ground
4) Delink all the prims
5) Set the prims to physical
6) Set the prims to temporary
7) Let go!

That’s right. It’s raining prims. Hallelujah.

Here’s an old video of my Podcaster build from SL5B:

I imagine the people on the ground, standing there, with a “YIPE!” sign in one hand and a dinky Wiley Coyote umbrella in the other.

Now, please, don’t pull this stunt until Thursday, okay? There’s still people wandering the sims in this glorious less-laggy environment, snapping photos and gathering up all the gifties and such you’ve generously offered.

But when it’s Thursday, oh man… fire up Fraps and LET ER RIP!

(And then post the videos to YouTube for all to enjoy.)

Thanks,
-ls/cm
R. Crap Mariner
SL9B Exhibitor Assistant and Staff Troll

The Egyptian Hunt – Clue Seven

I write these words, the last of my account, from the sick bay of the merchant ship SS Rails Bailey. An odd name for a vessel, to my mind, yet who am I to judge any more?

The last day was filled with horrors I can only now begin to think about. I had just finished my breakfast when the strange lights about the Temple of the Great Physician began to glow and pulse once more, shifting colours as they tracked back and forth across the worn stone surface. Then the noises began. Loud thumping drums, over and over, with strange whoops between them, and the voices singing words I could not understand… I have never heard the like, and I pray I never do again. As this all became overwhelming, a great voice came from the heavens, counting “One two, one two…”

The next thing I remember is Professor McCann shaking me awake. All was quiet again, and I was curled up in my tent with my fists balled so tightly that my fingers had cramped. Doctor Widdershins checked me over and we set about breaking down my camp and securing the finds for transport. An hour or so later we were on our way, down the avenue, turning right by the great cats and heading out across the desert. I slept as we rode, awakening only when we reached the sea. A mariner appeared to load everything onto the boat and I was brought here, when I slept peacefully for the first time in days.

Shin-Dig still had one surprise for me, though: as I walked from truck to gangplank, there on the shore, the side of my boot brushed against something hard. I reached down, picked it up and put it in my pocket – and that last find sits upon my bedside table even now.

Let them know how much you liked their build!

Howdy, folks.

Once the torrent of last-minute requests for parcel name, description, landing point, and music stream changes finally let up, I made it my goal to wander through every exhibit at SL9B to see what y’all are sharing about yourselves and your communities with everyone out there.

And when people ask me for the SLURL or landmark of my own build, I’ve refused to give it out, saying “Go explore them all, and you’ll eventually come across mine.”

In my travels, I’ve been tossing a lot of my snapshots up to the SL9B Flickr Group, but there’s plenty more Second Life groups you can add your Flickr shots to. (Even an Official Second Life one the Lab uses for gathering snapshots of the day and other marketing material… read their terms first, okay?)

You can also post your travels to your mySL social feed, Google Plus, Facebook… whatever social network you’re a part of that you use to connect with your SL friends when the lag takes its toll.

But most importantly, when you come across a build that drops your jaw and leaves you speechless, let that exhibitor know how much you liked their build and appreciated their freebie gifts.

For instance, I came across this cave on Neun just now:

I right-clicked the cave, brought up the profile of the builder, and messaged them about how much I enjoyed the build.

Been doing that all this past week, and I think those exhibitors appreciated someone taking the time to let ’em know it’s appreciated.

Because this past week, yeah, I’ve appreciated it when folks have been posting in the group chats “Well done, guys!” and “This is great!” and WOW! (I assume that last one is not a suggestion for people to log off and go to World Of Warcraft, right?)

Now, I know that there’s been a few bumps in the road to SL9B, and the way hasn’t been perfect for everyone, so in the next few days, we’ll be posting a way to let us know what we did right, what could have been done better, what ideas you have for future events, and if you’d like to toss your hat in the ring for helping get things running even better next year.

Stay tuned, but until then… keep exploring and enjoying the wonder and magic that happens when we come together to share our passions with each other!

Happy birthday, Second Life!

-ls/cm
R. Crap Mariner
SL9B Exhibitor Assistant and Troll

The Egyptian Hunt – Clue Four

Today has been…. remarkable. And long.

I was awoken in the early hours of the morning by the most terrible thunder. As I opened my eyes to see what was happening, a bright streak crossed the heavens and came to earth with a huge crashing sound that left my ears ringing for some time. I rose immediately, of course, and went to investigate.

What I found was so hot as to be glowing a dull red colour, and I could barely approach with twenty feet without discomfort. As I tried to look upon it from other angles, I made another new discovery – two statues had appeared by the temple which was to be the focus of my day’s work! Perfectly coloured and without signs of age, these giant tigers sat to either side of the strange altar in the temple area. Most perplexing!

I took to my day’s labours with renewed enthusiasm. The temple seems to have been a gathering-place, judging by the state of the floor, and such carvings as I found referred to a “Great Physician” – perhaps there were healing rituals here? The altar was strange, too: shades of the strange design I found under the Great Pyramid yesterday. Combined with the unnatural lights that play about the area and the constant gaze from the newly-arrived tigers, the effect was most unnerving. I dread to imagine what strange bacchanales took place here…

Although the Temple took much of my day, it did allow time for the strange device which fell from the sky to cool so I could approach and examine it more closely. A curious thing, this: clearly some kind of machine, and I am inclined to think of it as part of an aeroplane, despite no sign of propellors anywhere about the wreckage and a design the likes of which I have not seen before. Perhaps this lack of apparent propulsion is why it crashed, although I have no explanation for the terrific heat it gave off upon landing here, nor for the foul-smelling gas that leaks from it at intervals. Sadly, aeronautics is a science of which I know nothing, so I must take what notes I can and hope that they make sense to others when I return home. At least my search of the wreckage yielded a little evidence that I can take back with me along with my photographs…

 

Cake Hat Hunt

Isn’t our cake this year amazing? And not is it a cake and a stage, it’s also a fashion accessory. Our incredible cake baker, Mikati Slade, has made a limited edition run of 9 SL9B Cake hats for you to wear (plus one more as a welcome area gift – bonus!). Once SL9B is over, you won’t be able to get these hats anywhere, so you need to get them now!. The first hat is hidden in plain sight at the welcome area, the rest are hidden in the flame area of the 9 candles around the cake. Just right click and buy for $0L And because this is not a super hard hunt, a big clue is below:

 

Lag at SL9B: How to deal with it

KT asked me to share my lag write up with the readers here. I have updated the blog to focus on SL9B. Just remember, lag is like taxes and death–it’s inevitable. Deal with it and it will be a lot less pain for you.

In dealing with lag at SL9B this year, the organizers did all they could to decrease lag (mostly by being really tough on scripts), but let me clue you in—there will inevitably be some lag, so be prepared. That is what this blog is about.

We highly recommend you visit a sim a day or two sims and don’t try to do it all at once. There is a LOT to see at SL9B—folks have worked very hard on their displays and they all want you to enjoy and experience them. Take the full time of the birthday to do that—it goes on from June 10-June 27. Do a couple sims a night. Don’t think this is a one-hour-and-I-will-be-done experience.

A lot has been written about lag, and there are a lot of myths and half truths. We have tried to get to the core of what you what you can do to make your visit more enjoyable. First, let us say that any sim that has 50 or more avatars moving around and doing things is going to experience some lag. It’s that simple.

First off, and we hate saying it’s you but it really is you. The biggest portion of lag comes from the user’s end. It comes from having a lower-end graphics card, a slower computer, a slower internet connection, and a poor set up. We can’t give you all new computers and better internet connections. (Gosh would we love to.) But we can give you some hints to make it all work better. In short, our tips for making your time at SL9B (and everyone else’s) more enjoyable are as follows:

• Make sure you are using a more current version of any client. Most old versions of LL’s 1.23 are obsolete. Get rid of them. Go grab a third party viewer or get v2 or v3.
• Tinker with your Graphics preferences in your client:

Take down graphics quality and performance. (Go to Preferences > Graphics and set to mid or low.) Some people call this “turning down draw distance.” Do it!

Turn off anistropic and antialiasing. (Go back to Preferences > Graphics. In v1 viewers, check the “Custom” and click “Hardware Options.” In V2 viewers, click “Advanced” and “Hardware.” In that window, uncheck “Anisotropic Filtering” and make sure Antialiasing is set to Disable.

 

Stop looking at other avatars. Do this by going to Advanced > Debug Settings > RenderAvatarMaxVisible and just take that down to 5. Really. Are you really looking at everyone else or looking at the displays? Come on! This isn’t some fashion show. (See below.)

• Close other programs you might have running. They may be hogging computer resources and bandwidth. You really REALLY don’t need PS, Firefox, iTunes, Messenger, and WoW running all at once. You need to experience SL9B!
• Adjust your graphics card to optimal settings.
• Remove all scripts (including AOs). Too many scripts make the sim cry. We will be monitoring for script usage on the sims. If people enter with an unusual load, we will ask them to descript or in worst cases, resort to booting them. And we have done it but generally, honestly, it’s the rare individual who needs us to go that far.
• Take off those particle wings, the combat systems, the big glittering ring, the scripted prim toe shoes from 2009 (and you know which I mean). Just be a normal person—or furry—or whatever. Leave the special effects at home. It’s just not necessary. NO ONE IS LOOKING AT YOU. They are all looking at the displays.
• Wait a few days and go later and enjoy leisurely, less-lag perusing. (It’s open from June 10-27! Look on the map and choose a less busy sim.)
• Do not lecture others on their arc, scripts, etc. Mind your own business and don’t be a drama queen. We don’t like the fashion police and really don’t care for the ARC police.
• Have patience. We’re open for over two weeks. You can hit a sim a night, slowly enjoy the incredible bounty of beautiful building and music  and spend more than a week having fun.

If you really want to know how the sim is running, if you REALLY think it’s not you, go to Statistics view and get a better idea (or hit ctrl-shift-1):

If Sim FPS is running in the 10s or less, it IS the sim. They will restart the sims every day to clear the cache of the sims.

Look at the Packet Loss. If that is more than 0%, your connection is struggling. It’s not us. Call your internet provider 😉

Look at the Main Agents. That is how many people are on the sim. Remind yourself that the more avatars on the sim, the more cumulative lag. I typically enjoy most of SL lag free because I have followed all these rules and then some. It really works!

COMING SOON: Performer Schedules

It’s taken me few hours, but I’ve turned the individual stage spreadsheets into a single datatable, and this will feed a Google Calendar, which will in turn feed this blog as well as in-world display units.

It’s going to take a bit more work, but all this should be up on the site and out on the sims in an hour or two.

I apologize for how long it’s taken to get this out to y’all.

As Abraham Lincoln once said: “If given six hours to cut down a tree, I will spend four hours sharpening the axe.”

UPDATE: Looks like the data’s importing!

UPDATE 2: And now it’s talking to one of Codie’s SuperBoards (For sale on Rouge)

I’ll get these puppies out into the wild tonight.

Kick Off Rumor Leaked…..

We are pleased and honored to host Zak and his fans the Zaksters.

http://www.zakclaxton.com/index.html