Today in Second Life we had:

• 39,799 new signups bringing us to 3,154,248 signups total.
• A peak concurrency of 25,775 at 4:00PM, and a minimum concurrency of 0 (due to the update). Average concurrency for the day was 11,883.
• OpenSim, the rudimentary reverse-engineered err ... Simulator Simulator (yes, I know) was made into a libsecondlife project. It's in C#, and there's no documentation at this stage. Right now, that means a lot of assembly required, and no instructions to help you figure it out.
• The update to 1.13.3 had a slightly rocky time landing two hours late, but worked. Linden Lab spotted the Offer Teleport issue that had previously been reported to them in a (now deleted) mostly off-topic lambasting blog comment. Basically, you can't offer a teleport to a non-friend, because the system shows them offline.
• A new First Look viewer was released (and took my Shiny away).
• There was a goo attack in the evening (self-replicating boxes) but it was so minor that hardly anybody noticed.
• It was Mera Pixel's rezday today! She has been in Second Life for exactly one year. It's her in the photo there, in fact.
  

Mera Pixel, host of Building Shelter and a close personal friend of mine (though she'll deny it vehemently if pressed), has created a studio to display some of her wonderful portraiture. I should mention here that her photographs are mostly of her own avatar, and that her studio was created mostly to display her work for her own purposes, not to be advertising for any sort of professional photography work.

Her studio is a fine example of what galleries should be: well-lit, clean lines, interesting use of walking space to encourage wandering. If you like what you see, perhaps you can convince her to start up a photography business -- she does good work!

(Thanks, Mera!)

This is the twenty-third in a series of mini-interviews with the residents of Second Life. For the most part, I'll try to leave the responses unedited, except where editing will grant greater clarity.

Shockwave Plasma, or Shocky, as I like to call her, is someone with whom I don't get to speak more often, and that's a shame. I've always found her to be intelligent, witty, insightful, and whimsical, frequently all within the space of 3 minutes. I don't know how she was able to slip the Resident Snapshot noose for so long, but I finally nabbed her!

How did you first come to SL?: I was looking for some sort of on-line social, or gaming group, and tried to find one that was more than just blasting people and space ships. The ones I found were rather bland, or rather stifled, until I came across Second Life. It reminded me of Snow Crash, I must have read that in 2000.

How did you choose your name?: I was trying to decide between Plasma and Pixel, and as Plasma is the fourth state of matter, and as we are neither gas, liquid, or solid,
then a Plasma I must be. One of the first Cyberpunk novels was "The Shockwave Rider" by John Brunner, so that was suitable for for my first name in my first
cyber world. Now I find a Shockwave Plasma is also a spectroscope.

What's your favorite thing about SL?: The people and the imagination they display. Touring the Sandboxes can be more like walking in an interactive art gallery, than walking through a building yard. Meeting people from all over the world is my cure for insomnia. Sometimes I would be awake until 2am, but logging in to SL seems to get rid of the thoughts that kept me awake.

What do you like least about SL?: Being in the UK, and most of the parties, weddings, shows are mainly for a USA audience, where most of my friends reside. (That's life). No boolean searches in FIND/Search. Griefers. LL not banning Mime avatars.

Favorite hangout/store?: Shelter/ Shelter in Exile. I don't have a favorite shop, but I like to crash test Cubey Terra's planes.

Name one new feature you'd like to see added to SL: To have the servers spaced around the globe.

Shout outs: Hi Tateru, Mera, Sumar, Pip, Ordinal, Dani, Erbo, Aldo, Misty, and Oni (where ever you are!)

I knew I'd missed something. I thought I'd covered all the games the Shelter has to offer, but I completely missed Building Shelter, Mera Pixel's contribution to the education/delinquency of residents from all quarters. Education because it's a game that requires building an object based on a theme that Mera announces at the start of each round of the game. Delinquency because it's all too easy to sit in the stands and watch others hard at work, while you make snarky comments.

This game is a great way to learn about building in a fun, communal manner. The best way to learn anything is by doing, so you'll want to just dive right in to the fun and get your game on. Unfortunately for me, being a wolfie means that I can't handle delicate prims very well. No opposable thumbs, don't'cha know. I now know the true meaning of 'You break it, you bought it'.

Building Shelter runs Sundays at 4:30 PM, with your host Dolmere Talamasca, and on Thursdays at 4 PM with Mera Pixel.

Good heavens... yet ANOTHER post about the Shelter! You'd think that nothing else ever went on in the world for me! Well, that's not an undeniable assessment... but I digress. The Shelter is holding an auction of its most prominent members, wherein the winner will get to enjoy an hour's time with their favorite Shelterite, and get them to perform their particular specialty for you! For example, if you win the services of FireEyes Fauna, he'll let you co-host Second Fortune! If you win Mera Pixel, she can help you with a building project, or a scripting issue, or any number of cool things!

Reina Quine created this event to commemorate the Shelter's 2nd birthday, and so far it's going great! But the Auction ends this Saturday, August 26th at 7 PM, so if you wanna compete for the right to win the music services of Jaycatt Nino (currently leading the pack at 20050L), drop into the Shelter and bid your little heart out!

Tateru Nino is a wonderful person. There, I've said it, it had to be said. She's one of those residents whose ideals and activities inform each other, to the benefit of us all. Involved in Mentoring and Live help, Tateru is as beloved a personage as Torley is, and in much the same way, though their respective traits are polar opposites of each other's. Nevertheless, they are good friends with each other, and I'm happy to have finally had the chance to meet her and ask her a few questions.

You can read her blog here, and there's a wonderful article devoted to her in the New World Notes archive here.

SLI: So: How did you choose your SL name?

Tateru Nino: Well, Tateru is a japanse verb. Plain dictionary form. "To build/to construct". Nino was easily representable in Japanese, and was the last name of the person who dragged me in here :) Nino apparently wasn't all that popular as names go. It took a while for it to leave the rotation.

SLI: And how did you discover SL?

Tateru Nino: I'd been aware of SL for ages. Following the press for some time...even some of the early pieces around the time it went Alpha. It was Nene Nino who finally prodded me into giving it a try. Haven't looked back :)

More of the interview and photos after the break!