Autism Awareness Raises over 200,000L

Late Saturday night on January 9th at the Tiatopia sim, after a week or poetry readings, art contests, live music events, and a lot of fun, the Autism Awareness Project came to a close. With a climatic performance, singer Ichie Kamachi wowed the crowd and brought donations over the top. The final total, not counting last-minute donations, was a total of 226,290 Lindens raised, or $874 US dollars.

We started with a goal of 65,000, sim owner Tia Macbain explained, Then when we saw we made that in the first day, I was like Okay, so lets go bigger. And so we pushed it to 100K in each (of the two) pillars here." Added to that were the amounts from the art contest, the art auction, wedding certificate purchases, "a big chunk of stuff.

Story continued in Community

Book Island Revisited

In a previous article, I had discussed Book Island and the fact that the owner had seemingly disappeared and Book Island seemed to be dying out.  I spoke recently with Selina Greene, sim owner, who has set the record straight.  I had previously been unable to reach her for comment when I wrote the first article. 
 
Selina explained this was due to the fact that her computer died, and the one she was using was unable to accommodate SL.  In addition, she was also going through a complicated pregnancy.  She and her new baby and doing quite well now.

A large extension  to the Cartland Court area of the island had been built, which would explain the many empty shops I saw when I was last there.  The island now has a 90% occupancy with many tenants remaining and new vendors coming in.  

 

In 2010, Selina, together with Arton Tripsa, are planning many things, including a redesign of the public areas,  as well as multiple events.  A google calendar has been installed in the main square for "Events on the Beach."   The addition of the calendar will provide residents with the opportunity to plan and scheduled their own events.  To date, 3 events are planned, including a Book Island party with DJ Grizzly Silversmith, one of the residents. 

The island has become home to quite a few new residents.  One of the groups includes Podcrafters, organized by Emz Mazie, Imarad Breen and Insight Zadark.  Members of the Written Word group will recognize Emz Mazie's name (aka Emerian Rich).  The group promotes Podcasting and Marketing.  In addition, they produce Podiobooks, serialized audio books.  These are available for free at http://podiobooks.com.  Examples of the podcasts will be shown on the TV screen in the main square.   As well, a trailer of Arlene Radasky's (Imarod Breen) book, "Mark of the Druid," will be shown on the TV screen.

 

RL romance writers, Melissa Mayhue (FaeWritr Bookmite) and Elaine Levine (Vinnie Mimistrobell) hold a month SL Salon on the Island,  held often at Books at the Beach. During the past year, they have hosted RL literary figures, Deidre Knight, Elissa Wilds, Deb Stover and Terri Brisbin. Another resident is Nightmare Scribe, a writer and co-founder of the award-winning Colorado Springs Fiction Writer's Group at http://www.csfwg.org.

Over the next couple of weeks, new homes are being built for  writers who would like to live in a literary community.  

 

With the many plans in place, the future of Book Island looks, indeed, very bright and I look forward to becoming a bit involved with events there.

Shellie Sands 

The Joy of SL Belly Dancing

By Any1 Gynoid, reporting for SL-Newspaper

Get wild, get nakies, and party your tushies off, usually means a trip to SL naughty land, SLs adults only regions. But there is an alternative: belly dancing. In mature sims round SL's main grid, amateur belly dancers are fun party goers who bare it all, or at least most of it, in a brave new form of personal freedom and self expression. Why is it brave? Because I can't even coax most my bff macho party buds to check it out. And they call us "chicks"! Who's chicken now? Ha! Hey, SL belly dancing is guys and ladies and a whole lot of tushie shakin' goin down. Too much fun! This is why God invented the perv cam! lol

When you think about the Middle East, do you ever think FUN? But our mission in SL is fun, and yes we do bring out the fun in every RL culture to SL. Belly dancing has ancient Babylonian origins, but in modern times was revealed to the West at the 1893 World's Fair. The golden age of belly dancing was in the 1960s and 1970s, promoted in part by an Egyptian film renaissance. Which is quite interesting, Islamic cultures were very much more liberal than they are today; even in Afghanistan, women openly wore miniskirts in public in the 1970s. How far we have regressed RL, backwards in cultural values and human progress.

The personal is the political, and you can participate in cultural revolution right here in SL, by shaking your tushie to Middle Eastern beats. Belly dancing in SL is amazingly liberating and extremely fun. In fact, I can only think of one thing more fun in SL, and I shall cover that soon for SL Newspaper. It's NOT sex silly! Shame on your dirty mind! Terrible thang to waste! Tee Hee Hee!

From left to right in picture 1 is Guy Vollmer (a supercool party dude), Garret Mehrens (an impossibly hot dish of male beefcake), me (wearing my naughtiest outfit), and my beautiful friend Acceber Smythe. Picture 2 shows Garret's flip side. LOL Making it painfully obvious why we love belly dancing in SL!  Am I objectifying men? You betcha! And high time for that! Yuppie Buns! Slurp! lol

Anyways, I hope you get a chance to try SL belly dancing soon. Most Mondays at 4pm and Thursdays at 8pm, you will find me slinking round the club Parvana Ayre in Angel Shark Shallows sim, wearing practically nothing and "working it"! You know what I mean! IM me if you dare! Only the brave and truly fun loving need apply. Peace!

There are lots of free silks in SL, and I would be happy to share. In fact I only wear freebie silks when I belly dance. I've tried most of them all and can tell you about the best ones. I fancy my blue & white silks (shown in pictures), my chrome, and my tie dye colors. By losing the top bits, these free silks can work for guys too, just put on a thong, and attach silks to arms and legs. Well at least 1 brave bff was able to do that! There is hope!

Eye on the Blog: Lindens "to Retire the Current Mentor Volunteer Program"

 

 

Upcoming changes

The company has decided the time to evolve and grow as a volunteer community has come. While the official Mentor Volunteer Program has been an extremely valuable endeavor, its sheer size has made it increasingly difficult to support, and we need to reallocate our resources at the Lab for other Resident-focused programs. We've decided to retire the current Mentor Volunteer program—launching new opportunities for expanded volunteerism within Second Life.

For more information about the close of the Mentor Volunteer Program, please take a look at our FAQ.

We're sad to see the Mentor Volunteer Program go, but we're also excited about new opportunities! Now is the time participate in new offered programs, create your own programs or groups, or simply volunteer on an individual level. On our end, Linden Lab will work even harder to create the framework that highlights your efforts and supports the efforts of even more volunteers—heralding in a more sustainable and more creative phase of volunteerism. Rest assured that we will always want and appreciate volunteers in Second Life!

Announcing two new programs!
Linden Lab is focused on building robust volunteer programs in collaboration with the Residents of Second Life. Not only do we plan to help support their amazing work, but we also want to increase the visibility of their contributions for other Residents to enjoy.

If you're looking to volunteer, here are two Linden-supported programs that might interest you:

1. Second Life Answers. Residents submit questions and other Residents answer them—it's both simple and awesome at the same time. With over 200,000 page views, the Second Life Answers Beta has been a huge success, thanks to our Residents who participated by sharing knowledge, guidance, and friendly support on a wide range of topics in multiple languages. As Second Life Answers continues to grow, it will become even more effective as it attracts even more questions from Residents and more knowledge from our volunteers.

2. Coming Soon: The Resident Help Network (RHN) Beta! This program, which is expected to launch in about a week, will highlight the “best of the best” Resident-run help groups. There's a lot of great information out there among different help groups, and this network is designed to help our Residents find what they need. To apply to be part of the network, help groups must meet a high standard for helping new Residents, maintain over 50 active members, have an established history, produce documentation on how they help, and submit three Resident testimonials. There are more criteria for applicants, which you will be able to read when the blog and wiki information is available at launch. The accepted RHN groups will be listed on the website, featured inworld, and help shape future new Resident experience. We also hope to have an inworld Resident Help Network Fair early next year, so you and other Residents can learn more about the first groups accepted into the network.

Read more in the complete blog post by Lexie Linden Here.

Cartoon of the Day

 

 

Cartoon of the Day

Brother and Sister Team Up in Second Life to Support Relay for Life

By Nazz Lane
 

While working on a story, I’d been introduced to Renfew Sperber who along with her brother msw Tomorrow own the Callidora SIM in Second Life. As we chatted about the upcoming event, she told me of her brother’s struggle with cancer and of their efforts on behalf of the “Relay for Life” activities in Second Life and of their ongoing fundraising activities for the American Cancer Society. I found their story compelling and had hoped to meet with both for a conversation. We exchanged e-mails and in-world IM’s to set up a date and time for the three of us to meet. It was unfortunate that msw was unable to join us as his real life job interceded, but he agreed that Ren could speak for him since she was integral to the efforts at Callidora.

Nazz: What was it that brought you into Second Life?

Renfew: Initially I came in to research the viability of the second life platform for my real life work. I was challenged by our engineers to come up with a way to provide more worldwide communication and peer-to-peer collaboration opportunities to them. We are dispersed ... seven countries. So this was a big challenge. I bought a copy of Wired to read on the plane trip back from France and stumbled on an article about IBM and what they were doing in second life at that time (2007). Light bulbs started going off in my head and after a couple of months I built up the courage to come in to research a bit more.

Nazz: Does your company still use second life?

Renfew: My company never bought into the idea … a little too new and untested, although they did seriously consider my proposal. It is really following this initial testing of the waters that the story of our lives, mine and my brother’s … and our evolution in second life begins.

Nazz: When you started, had msw already been diagnosed with cancer?

Renfew: Yes, he had been diagnosed with colon cancer in January 2007. In fact, he spent his birthday that year in the hospital room after having had this diagnosis and three feet of his colon removed. He was in chemo at the time that I found out about second life and came in. I needed a partner in crime, and could not think of a person more likely to support this and see the potential of the technology and least likely to laugh me out of the room. I told him about it and the next day he had an avatar and was here. He has been amazing and inspiring.

Nazz: Is that when you both became involved with Relay for Life?

Renfew: Yes, we had purchased the islands and developed them to create a test site for the work project. During that same time msw joined the survivors group in second life. It was amazing for him. He had not responded well to his chemo and was very sick. In real life there was not a local survivors group within easy commute distance, so the second life survivors group became a lifeline for him. In the group he met many people and through them he became involved in Relay for Life. Also I need to mention Dolcebella Zabaleta. Dolce is msw's real life wife. She also came in and comes to most of the concerts. So this is real family thing. She has been incredibly supportive of him, me, and this entire journey. Ishtar Roux has been our team captain for the past two relays. After the work project fell through we seriously had to reconsider what we wanted to do with the island(s) and our second life journey. We decided to use the islands for hosting benefit concerts to raise money for RFL. This started in early 2008. After the relay ended, we decided that we wanted to continue to raise money year-round for the American Cancer Society. msw contacted them and made arrangements for special kiosks to be made to allow us to make direct donations year-round. We launched these benefits October 2008 to supplement the RFL season.

Nazz: How many islands do you own?

Renfew: We have just the two, Callidora and Kleio.

Nazz: Callidora is for events?

Renfew: Callidora Beach is the home to our benefit concerts. We have had the great gift to be able to work with some amazing talent and this just would not have happened without them. From October 2008 to July 2009 we raised just a little under $6,200 USD for the ACS.

Nazz: With the end of RLF, will you be doing same this year?

Renfew: We plan to kick off in October again. Finalizing the schedule now, but typically we've run the events the third Saturday of every month. We will continue through July 2010 and the take August and September off as we did this year. Our goal is to break $8,000 USD this year.

Nazz: How is msw doing, he’s still in remission I hope?

Renfew: msw is doing great. He is still in remission and we are incredibly thankful and humbled by this. I wish he was here to tell you about his experiences as a survivor in second life. A number of months ago the survivor group pulled together a number of survivors and had them share their stories with the rest of the survivor groups. msw participated and told his story, along with a number of others. I was totally blown away … sitting on this side of the screen, just listening and watching the chat, truly left me without breath. The power of the ways that second life can provide community and support to individuals that are in such situations was very clear and incredibly moving.

Nazz: It sounds like an incredible journey for you both.

Renfew: He is my only brother and we are very close. I was there with him and his family after the surgery ... to be able to have him here is an amazing gift. We live in different parts of the US and second life was a way to keep very close during this time in his life. We joked that we talked more in a single week after second life than we had in a month before that. Put on the headsets and there you go! It has been so very wonderful, being able to share all of this with him. And look at what he created … this beautiful … beautiful place. An architect in real life, this was a way for him to really exercise his imagination and became a healing place for him. I wish I could find the words, you know, to really articulate all of this … there is a great deal of emotion involved.

Nazz: Any closing thoughts or comments you'd like to share with my readers?

Renfew: I think that the one thing that comes to mind is that the journey in second life is not always the one you think it will be. Serendipity steps in and the process you, the vision you have, the work you do evolves. msw and I talk about this a great deal. We found things here, and in ourselves through being here, that we could not have possibility imagined. Being open to possibility and embracing it is a big part of the second life experience.

Nazz Lane

* * * * *

Dana Vanmoer mentioned this article to me in a conversation online yesterday, from when this article was reprinted on Friday September 7 2017. The Second Life Newspaper would fold less than a year later, and Nazz Lane would leave virtual journalism to concentrate on writing fiction. But the Relay for Life in Second Life would go on, to continue to strive for the day a cure is found for all cancers. - Bixyl Shuftan