Second Life is down for a major update, but one that thankfully won't take very long - assuming all goes well. Lots of changes are going in for first stage of the Heterogenous Grid (you can pass some time reading up on what it is, and why it's interesting).

The grid is expected to return at 11AM SLT (US Pacific), running the new software, and no new viewer is required. As always, we wish all our wonderful readers well. Enjoy the break or just catch up on your reading. We'll see you all on the other side.

• [UPDATE] Rather later than promised (2:25pm SL Time) the grid is meant to be back. I can't actually log in, but the blog says it's back...
• [UPDATE 3PM SLT - People are reporting that logins are beginning to function]
• [UPDATE 3:30PM SLT - Logins to the Public JIRA are apparently not working "The credentials you provided cannot be determined to be authentic."]
• [UPDATE 5:00PM SLT - Authentication issues are also impacting land and lindex purchasing]
• [UPDATE 6:30PM SLT - Land and Lindex purchasing are reported fixed]
• [UPDATE 7:30PM SLT - Email to IMs are broken due to a software change in the webservices module of the mail glue code. We'd totally report this via the JIRA, but that's still not working either]