Coral Ducatillon's SL

New World Notes: NWN Poll: Who is Your Very Favorite Second Life Musician?

2011-02-24T10:33:00.001+01:00

New World Notes: NWN Poll: Who is Your Very Favorite Second Life Musician?

New World Notes: Sander's Villa: The Man Who Gave His Father a Second Life

2011-02-24T10:26:00.003+01:00

New World Notes: Sander's Villa: The Man Who Gave His Father a Second Life

I really recommend this museum. It is wonderful.

Rennete

2011-02-22T10:53:00.005+01:00

To find an inspiration or my muse is not quite simple. It is more difficult, when you have to write or to talk about it, just only to show, who you are yourself. The ideas chaotically flow here and there. Some sleeplessness has been troubling you during the dreamless nights. And then?! This Moon with its majestic magnificence as a full moon pushes you down!

Early morning this huge circle is still shining. However, over its face the wide bands of the black clouds are coming along. Maybe my muse comes and suggests me, whether I can hope for an accomplishment of the most fervid wishes.

It has happened. Her face is still blurry, but I can identify her. We have never met each other. She is coming near and my heart beat is coming behind its limits. Maybe only few small steps to …

Both worlds have merged into one. There was a cruel awakening of treacherous Moon. What I just did you? It is useless to be irritated; the world of dreams and visions is like the virtual one, which reflects the real one.

She was the most beautiful woman of France. Her family and friends called her Rennette. However, she was called Jeanne Antoinette Poisson and later as married – Madame d'Étiolles. The French King loved her implicitly and introduced her to the court in Versailles, in spite of a big protest of the court and family. She was the cleverest woman of France and she governed King and France in a certain sense, even if they had called her as a bitch.

She died at the age of 42 in Versailles. When her coffin left Versailles, King said: “La marquise n'aura pas beau temps pour son voyage.“ (“The marquise won't have good weather for her journey.“) Only her Élysée Palace has remained. Toady, it serves as the residence of the French presidents.

She was called Marquise de Pompadour.

(Source: Wikipedia.org)

SLurls: Arc de Triomphe, Alma Bridge

Valentine

2011-02-12T19:58:00.004+01:00

Late evening, on the first of May—
The twilit May—the time of love.
Meltingly called the turtle-dove,
Where rich and sweet pinewoods lay.
Whispered of love the mosses frail,
The flowering tree as sweetly lied,
The rose's fragrant sigh replied
To love-songs of the nightingale.
In shadowy woods the burnished lake
Darkly complained a secret pain,
By circling shores embraced again;
And heaven's clear sun leaned down to take
A road astray in azure deeps,
Like burning tears the lover weeps.

(Karel Hynek Mácha: May)

February is now only and these verses about love would look like not to fit to the current time. But it is not so like one could imagine for the first look. I am not in no way some favorer of the coming holiday, St. Valentine, because it has no absolutely anything to do with history and culture of my country.

Traditionally, just May is connected with love. Nevertheless, I have not resisted and I have strayed in SL at a ball in our community yesterday. This one was just Valentine’s ball. There were several people in the romantic arbour in Bohemia. So, I have call one lady to dance. Evening has run in nice atmosphere, so no one has wanted to leave.

What was there? So I offer some pictures for an inspiration, even if two last ones are from other time and other place.

The whole poem is here.

A Secret Garden in Second Life | The Alphaville Herald

2011-02-08T09:35:00.000+01:00

A Secret Garden in Second Life | The Alphaville Herald

Wealth

2011-02-03T15:35:00.006+01:00

"Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves."

(Norm Franz: Money and Wealth in the New Millenium)^*

Have you ever held it in you handy? Of course, I think physical gold. This is the yellow metal, which is pleasant to touch and also to look. And also nowadays after many millennia, what people know it, it fascinates, attracts and tempts them. They are able to do everything to acquire it, and at the same time they do not sometimes detest even the most terrible thing, which man can do it to another one.

However, there are even other possibilities to exchange – however not with gold, silver or other precious metals. It is money, concretely paper money, but also virtual money of which real value one can maybe doubt.

When Marco Polo showed Venetians paper money, which he had imported from far China, one form the attendees had took one note and had lighted it. Of course, it burned completely. After that this man took out one coin from his pouch and knocked on a hilt of his sword: “This is a sound of money!” Marco said: “You just burned the note valued at ten golden Venetian ducats.”

Is it that real wealth, which is in our wallets as the notes and coins of dubious value? Is it that, what enrich us? Or is it a freely convertible virtual currency in the whole world like credit cards, bank accounts or checks?

These are quite hard questions and probably there is no unique answer. Whether you think about the real world or about virtual one. I always will be an opinion of particular person.

I try to outline, how I see it, and for both worlds.

Real Life

Something to own is thing, which man has maybe encoded in its genes already from the very ancient time. Maybe even the predecessors of contemporary Homo sapiens sapiens (wise man) wanted to own something, what the others did not have and they regarded it as a kind of “their wealth”. Remember the opening sequence of the movie: A Space Odyssey: 2001. Some chief of one troop find a long bone and begin to bang with it on earth. When he finds out its strength, he tries to beat some animal similar to today’s pig a he kills it. Later he uses this weapon against another troop of modern men in a battle for a water source – the wealth – and hi kills chief of this troop. The first murder in a history of humanity comes to the world.

Nowadays the wealth concentrates to collect all sorts of everything, starting with money, properties, things and ending with others. The mammon governs the world. But to be not so skeptical, there are people that are at least indifferent to that. Their wealth is the wealth of an intellect, whether it is the fine art, the architecture art or the music art, gourmet art, art of enjoying the life, art of love and many others. This is the wealth that I respect and I strive to achieve it. But to have money is still always good. Do not you think? The old saying already says it: “Do not enter into the pub without money!”

Second Life

“Just I do not know!” This world has fascinated me for long time. However, I have never thought about some wealth form. As an avatar you collect many things until your inventory already is overflowed. And to find something there it is sometimes quite horror. Nevertheless, you feel the most things as nothing important one.

Everybody knows that. As newbies, you took everything, what was close to you and cost nothing. The reason was evident – no lindens. Later you obtained some lindens, mostly from today non-existent “camping“, or you had to hire for some job (dancer, DJ, companion, escort service, etc.) and in the best case you have rented something or have sold your own creations to other in SL.

For me the SL wealth is something other. Yes, my inventory contains many nice things with excellent design, mainly branded products. There are several things of the personal character there too. I received them form somebody and I never give them away. However, the avatars are the right wealth of Second Life world, actually live being behind them. This is the right social, multidimensional network. This is an attribute, which will never unsew to SL. And in my private opinion, SL is more “social network” than Facebook.

Tedy:

The wealth is nice, sometime.
The wealth sometime hurts and sometime troubles.
The wealth is a contribution.
The wealth is a burden.
We want the wealth.
We hate the wealth.

We pay for everything.

However, we are not able ever to pay off the wealth.

^*Quoted from a presentation of Nick Barisheff, January 6, 2011 at the Empire Club 17th Annual Investment Outlook Luncheon, full text here

Did Vikings navigate by polarized light? : Nature News

2011-02-01T13:16:00.000+01:00

Did Vikings navigate by polarized light? : Nature News

New World Notes: Second Life & Facebook Were Once Considered Social Network Equals (Or, a Case Study in Mistaken Assumptions)

2011-02-01T10:52:00.000+01:00

New World Notes: Second Life & Facebook Were Once Considered Social Network Equals (Or, a Case Study in Mistaken Assumptions)

Second Life Avatar Profiles Now Published on Their Own Web Page, Shareable on Facebook & Twitter!

2011-01-10T13:11:00.000+01:00

Second Life Avatar Profiles Now Published on Their Own Web Page, Shareable on Facebook & Twitter!: "Linden Lab has a new feature for Second Life users that as far as I know has not been announced yet, but is pretty big: Selected details of SL avatar profiles are automatically published to an individual web page, where..."

Poppies in the wind and Falco

2011-01-04T14:26:00.004+01:00

A piece of work comes to the world as from the movements that failed
as from those ones that succeeded.

You cannot divide any human being, and if you allow to live only the great sculptors,
then you will not have any great sculptors.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

They waved only so, these red little skirts, in the wind. It bowed them first to the one side and then to the other side. They did not scare. They did not scare even of a pestilent fire that somebody kindled on a small fireplace. Maybe he did it to heat water for a cup of tea, to roast potatoes or to barbecue some sausage.

However, a white duvet covered all country. The poppies disappeared to yield to hegemony of the Lady of Winter. I had a feeling, as if I had lost some something. Something, what never come back. I still see these red dots on the golden plains of the ripening corn.

After that some shadow slashed the sky. There was a big bird that majestically flew there. It eagle-eyed looked down to the earth and looked for its prey. However, it was not a merlin. It was peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus). It stooped to the earth so that it forever disappeared in the distance.

These poppies flow in the wind on the wall of my room.

Falco and his Jeanny sound form his special album of 25^th anniversary as a Deluxe Edition from the speakers of my tower, also in my room.

:::: Tribute do Andy Irons ::::

2011-01-02T18:28:00.000+01:00

:::: Tribute do Andy Irons ::::: "

Tuesday 2 November the unfortunate news of the death of Andy Irons (32) filtered through all world wide surf communities.
The 3x ASP World Champion, Irons, was our surf style inspiration.
We still can't believe Andy is gone.

The last time Andy surferd was on Rip Curl Pro Search, Peniche - Portugal.

The waves and all fans of your surf style - will miss you,
Aloha and Mahalo Andy.

THIS PACK CONTAINS 3 T-SHIRTS IN MEMORY OF ANDY IRONS

GET IN FOR FREE HERE

Mixed (pick 'n' mix) feelings at solstice

2010-12-23T10:00:00.005+01:00

Solstice – in Latin “solstitium” = “sol” (sun) + “statum” (stay motionless)
Welsh word for the solstice is “point of roughness”.
Talmud calls it as “Tefukat Tevet”, i.e. the first day of “striping time”.

Longtime I have not anything written, but as onetime I am sitting on the roof in Bohemia, the hard feelings is pouring on me from the last days. It is due to this season shortly after the solstice, or coming of the Christmas. I do not know.

Time goes so fast that one does not suffice to remember all occurrences from our world and also them from the other world. Maybe only several snapshots that show it. It is this roof, party by Nancy and a resurrection of the disappeared Slovakia at the party of its long-time friends.

Let us stay in coming time, same way as our Sun did it.

Let me allow quote Alan Furst about the solstice:

“…day, when supposedly the sun does a break… Pleasant idea… As if the universe stopped for a moment to think about something and to take a day off. One directly feels how time slows.”

Marry Christmas a Happy New Year 2011

Coral

SL Newser - Events

2010-12-14T14:14:00.000+01:00

SL Newser - Events: "– Odesláno pomocí lišty Google Toolbar"

World AIDS Day 2010

2010-12-01T13:32:00.004+01:00

Today is December 1 and many of us in a big hurry and a Christmas rush, by cleaning fresh snow or by carefully driving on the frozen roads, have forgotten that today is the World day of the fight against on of the most terrible illness in the world – AIDS. When I in year 2008 wrote in the context of Second Life world about this day (here), some both sad and terrible statistics had been missed there. So, here are the facts about HIV and AIDS.

To date around 65 million people have been infected with HIV and AIDS has killed more than 25 million people since it was first recognized in 1981.
The vast majority of the 38.6 million people living with HIV in 2005 are unaware of their status.
In 2005 AIDS claimed the lives of 2.8 million people and over 4 million people were newly infected with the virus.
At around 17.3 million, women make up almost half of the total number of people living with the virus.
Sub-Saharan remains the most affected region in the world. Two-thirds of all people living with HIV, 24.5 million, are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Declines in HIV prevalence have been noted in some countries, including Kenya, Zimbabwe, urban parts of Haiti and Burkina Faso and four Indian states including Tamil Nadu.
There are more new HIV infections every year than AIDS-related deaths and as more people become infected with HIV, more people will die of AIDS-related illnesses.
Worldwide, fewer than one person in five at risk of becoming infected with HIV has access to basic prevention services. Only one person in eight who want to be tested is currently able to do so.
Each day, 1500 children worldwide become infected with HIV, the vast majority of them newborns.

What will you do for this thing? I have donated into above mentioned fund in RL and in SL I wear the symbol of the fight against AIDS – red ribbon.

Sources: Care, Keep A Child Alive, USA Today, World AIDS Day 2010

Time

2010-11-04T15:12:00.006+01:00

Jacques Prévert

transl.: Johnny Mercer

Autumn Leaves
(Les feuilles mortes)

Oh, je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes
Des jours heureux où nous étions amis
En ce temps là la vie était plus belle
Et le soleil plus brûlant qu'aujourd'hui

Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle
Tu vois je n'ai pas oublié
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle
Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi
Et le vent du nord les emporte
Dans la nuit froide de l'oublie
Tu vois je n'ai pas oublié
La chanson que tu me chantais

C'est une chanson, qui nous ressemble
Toi tu m'aimais et je t'aimais
Nous vivions tous les deux ensemble
Toi qui m'aimais, moi qui t'aimais

|: Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment
Tout doucement sans faire de bruit
Et la mer efface sur le sable
Les pas des amants désunis :|

Les pas des amants désunis

Autumn leaves fall and are swept out of sight
The words that you said have gone too
Autumn leaves fall and are swept out of sight
So are the memories of love that we knew

The wind of forgetfulness blows then
Into the night of regret,
The song you would often sing
Is echoing, echoing yet

The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to hold

Since you went away, the days grow long
And soon, I'll hear old winter's song
But I'll miss you most of all, my darling,
When autumn leaves start to fall
When autumn leaves start to fall

The scenery is going so fast behind the windows. On scene is switching over another one. It is like slow movie, when the frame by the frame of the film strip passes the light source and it is grabbed by the optics, i.e. by the system of the magic lens, to show the two-dimensional picture to the impatient viewers.

However, it is only an illusion. Only bit to draw mist away and to look through a time mirror. An eyewink, the reality is back again. The car is driving through the hairpins and is coming near to a village. It is long time that I was here. The memories are coming up from my memory.

We are on the place. The car has driven through the village and then into the forest. Only for me as if time has stopped. Actually no in the literal sense, because time still passes. It is never-ending story. So, we, PEOPLE, invented it!

In vain I am seeking some words. After all it is useless, though! It suffices only to listen. Yes, it is that space banked by the trees, in whose treetops wind is spinning. I want only to wait. I want only to embrace everything around me. I want only to forget.

The dead leafs cover the graves of the dead. Autumn has come.

(P. S. I wrote this contribution after our visit of the small forest graveyard, where my beloved great-grandmother rest in peace.)

3 Amazing Second Life Sims You’ve Never Heard Of | The Alphaville Herald

2010-11-02T12:06:00.000+01:00

3 Amazing Second Life Sims You’ve *Never* Heard Of | The Alphaville Herald

One Man’s Story: The Second Life Economy

2010-10-28T20:47:00.000+02:00

One Man’s Story: The Second Life Economy: "Selling virtual drugs, guns, clothes, and wheels while camping for L$s
by Frankie Antonioni.
Since early 2008 I have been in business in Second Life, and by March of 2008 I had two stores running. In August of 2008, I had about 19,000 L$. Both of my stores sold drugs and other goods: clothes, cars, guns, motorcycles, [...]"

To rule the world?

2010-10-17T17:22:00.002+02:00

Oh such a tempting offer! But it is old one as humanity alone. Nevertheless, the big and small men and women don't resist it with unflagging desire. So to have this power to control, to create, to destroy or even to kill. So only when these letters spring from the keyboard of my PC and they appear on my PC screen, so it makes a horrible silent thing.

The world of Second Life seems to be created for these abilities. Where can you find such possibilities? Where elsewhere can you find such a freedom of language, being and creation? Where elsewhere can you find so hate and so envy?

Yes, I would like to rule this world. But it is not like so. It is a responsibility. It is a humility. It is a love.

So, let us it for the next time.

Burning Life 2010

2010-10-15T08:33:00.004+02:00

So, after one year it is coming again. The Burning Life will open its gates and as you certainly know, this time it is already not in Linden's direction, but Burn2. And as a small taste, sooner before it will break up on 16^th October, look the machinima by ColeMarie Soleil.

SLurl: Playa

The Rocks

2010-10-09T20:43:00.008+02:00

„The sorrow is only loss of time.“

Wind juggled with the branches of the palms. The sunny beach was empty. Only stormy sea broke its water against the huge arc of the rock. He stayed there struck dumb, when he had seen this beauty. Whether the sun was high in the sky or the moon with its stars. In all things, everything reflected in water of the large bay themselves.

He stayed there so alone, as if he had not had any troubles. As if he had not felt this soft wind from the sea. As if he had not felt this burning of the sun rays. As if he had not felt the cold of the night. This cold between an hour of dog and wolf.

His sorrow was endless. The endless one in its depth and width consumed his soul and reason. He was fearful that. He was scared. His face was contorted. The loss was big. He did not feel this world even another one. He still came back to it. However, hopelessly.

An then, a distant singing was heard from the see. The luscious Sirens lured this man into their webs. But, he resisted. He did to hold out, even in spite of it that his grief was big. Nobody knows, how it happened. Nobody was there. Only bluish see waves attacked the rock and the snow-white beach

Time has remained.

Second Life Newser: Reaction at Rockcliffe College to Linden Lab's New Policy

2010-10-07T12:16:00.000+02:00

Second Life Newser: Reaction at Rockcliffe College to Linden Lab's New Policy

Autumn Ball

2010-10-04T10:26:00.003+02:00

“One says that dance is the only social activity, when you can without any risk to come near to a partner, her or him, within the shortest possible distance, as it is just possible.”

As I have already written last time, summer was ended, but the season of the balls has begun. It was the same as on last Friday. An arbour near the place in Bohemia has welcome several visitors. Even if they have arrived in some small amount, in spite of them, party was nice. The beautiful evening dresses of the present ladies have glared their partners and we, men, have marveled at their beauty under the light of thousand stars. And maybe in the early morning, tired from the long dance in the red light of sunrise, our pace has led to our homes, where we have fallen into the all-hugging armful of our beds.

Summer

2010-09-28T20:29:00.003+02:00

Summer with the biggest probability has already ended, at least here in the north hemisphere. Even if so called “beldam summer or St. Martin's summer or St. Luke's summer” has come, nevertheless the long and slow rains and cold had come. It is this one what is getting behind your nails, just autumn and its sleet. In spite of that, our so called “frog ladies” promise us more “beldam summer”. Maybe.

Footnote 1: “Frog ladies” is some familiar name of the nice ladies that make the weather forecast on TV. It is linked with some species of frog – tree frog, in Latin Hyla arborea. Historically, it is famous as some barometer, because it reacts to the change of pressure, which varies usually before rain. This frog begins croaks after that.

Footnote 2: “Beldam summer or St. Martin's summer or St. Luke's summer” (or ecological year period called as late summer) is name of long-term dry, sunny, warm and not so much windy weather at the end of summer or at the beginning of autumn. This phenomenon arises at the European continent. During this period, one can often observe free floating webs of the small spiders. In past, these webs suggested gray “beldam” hairs to people. The name of this period originate from thence.

Unlike our world, the weather plays no role in Second Life. The weather is given by the builders of the given sim. In our power there is only to change daytime, respectively to change the sky and water as possible as can be do it to our own idea.

It is only about it to find a suitable sim, where some party takes place, for example by the pool. An then to sink into cool water, take a beautiful woman in the arms and only to have a rest and to enjoy. Other people are coming and leaving, party is in full swing and a pleasure music is playing.

Sun is overcoming the highest point of its orbit and the it is slowly bending down to sunset. Soft see wind is bringing a relief after the hot day. Gradually all people are disappearing. Only I am staying and listening the singing of wind and far see. Sun is drawing to the end of its daily orbit and it is undergoing subsidence into the see as a great light cataclysm.

Summer never ends.

The Ravine

2010-09-27T19:02:00.003+02:00

This one, who for the whole own life is being strong brave and strong persistent to look in the darkness, then that one will see as the first a flash of the light.

Dmitry Glukhovsky: Metro 2033

We are attended by the darkness sooner than we are born into this world. We are attended by the darkness every day, when we sink into to the Morpheus's arms to become anyone we want to be in our dreams. The darkness is present in each of us, because we are maybe afraid of us ourselves, all others around us or all things around us.

The darkness is in hiding in all the corners, it rises from the deep abysses of the Earth, it fills the deep valleys and the ravines. The darkness attracts all material one even an immaterial one, the mass and the light. It suffices only to cross yours event horizon and you are irretrievably lost.

And why now at the beginning do I so philosophize, such a fatalistic one? Just at once I has come to me by my remembrance about such event in Second Life. One club was reopened again at one sim of our community. This club has got a strange industrial face, some mixture of the dark and the light. It has burned from the whole space, as if the walls, the floor and even the ceiling have breathed by the own life themselves. For all that, it was not something like the house of Usher in the old tale by Edgar Allan Poe.

First of all, there were people and music that have filled this space, Also there was a lot of beer there. Maybe even “femmes fatales” or men succumbing to their temptation. Maybe only the flashes of the dawn will slash the darkness and we will from now on live in light.

The club “Rockle” has revived again.
SLurl: Rockle

In memory of Adric Antfarm

2010-09-26T15:50:00.000+02:00

In memory of Adric Antfarm

New World Notes: Night Moves: Five Ways to Balance Your Virtual Life With Your First One (How Many Do You Follow?)

2010-09-24T10:52:00.000+02:00

New World Notes: Night Moves: Five Ways to Balance Your Virtual Life With Your First One (How Many Do You Follow?)

One Day

2010-09-19T18:04:00.003+02:00

It will be one day and the world will be change.

And then at one day, the world has been really changed itself.

This what it was, now it is not of that what has every been.

The old assurances has been changed themselves into certain real life.

Are we only the freaks or do we take the clear place in the middle of the universe?

Face to face of cruel nature, we are still here.

And then as from the clean sky, the lightning enlightens our tiny existence.

Welcome in the world of the Second Life!

Ivanka Akina: Průša je úchyl...

2010-09-17T10:55:00.000+02:00

Ivanka Akina: Průša je úchyl...

P.S. Pokračování je ještě hustší!

Kejtiino poletování (3. díl) | Second Life v ČR

2010-09-17T10:06:00.000+02:00

Kejtiino poletování (3. díl) | Second Life v ČR

Ivanka Akina: Proč dostal Papa Adamski ban

2010-09-17T09:57:00.000+02:00

Ivanka Akina: Proč dostal Papa Adamski ban

P.S. Tak to je docela síla.

Loki's Backyard: Search. Enough is enough?

2010-09-14T08:54:00.000+02:00

Loki's Backyard: Search. Enough is enough?: "– Odesláno pomocí lišty Google Toolbar"

Op/Ed: Our Responsibilities As Avatars | The Alphaville Herald

2010-09-13T10:09:00.000+02:00

Op/Ed: Our Responsibilities As Avatars | The Alphaville Herald

New World Notes: Second Life's Top Twenty Most Popular Regions for August (According to Metaverse Business)

2010-09-10T11:58:00.000+02:00

New World Notes: Second Life's Top Twenty Most Popular Regions for August (According to Metaverse Business)

ALA | ALA Island in Second Life

2010-09-09T11:21:00.000+02:00

ALA | ALA Island in Second Life

New World Notes: Tuesday Machinima: Little Red Riding Hood, the Sexy Kung Fu Edition (Mildly NSFW)

2010-09-08T10:28:00.000+02:00

New World Notes: Tuesday Machinima: Little Red Riding Hood, the Sexy Kung Fu Edition (Mildly NSFW)

Second Life Blogs: Features: Emerald Viewer to be Blocked From Second Life

2010-09-08T09:19:00.000+02:00

Second Life Blogs: Features: Emerald Viewer to be Blocked From Second Life

New World Notes: New World Survey: What Second Life Viewer Do You Most Use Now? (I'll Install and Blog the Most Popular!)

2010-09-02T12:34:00.000+02:00

New World Notes: New World Survey: What Second Life Viewer Do You Most Use Now? (I'll Install and Blog the Most Popular!)

P.S. Some interesting poll.

New World Notes: Falco Rocks: Real Life Filmmaker Merges Second Life Machinima With Masterful Post-Production Effects

2010-09-01T09:56:00.000+02:00

New World Notes: Falco Rocks: Real Life Filmmaker Merges Second Life Machinima With Masterful Post-Production Effects

New World Notes: Second Life Fashion Study Finds SL Consumer Behavior Parallels RL Spending (But Market Is Still Under-Served)

2010-09-01T09:51:00.000+02:00

New World Notes: Second Life Fashion Study Finds SL Consumer Behavior Parallels RL Spending (But Market Is Still Under-Served)

Meetings

2010-08-29T18:11:00.004+02:00

So, do you know such a feeling too that you have been anywhere here? Or do you know her/him? Frenchmen have for that nice collocation, actually it is a literal translation – already seen – déjà vu. So, I still experience such feeling in Second Life. But maybe it is thanks to go to the same places.

However, just there are those right people, you can find there everything you want or everything you long for. Yes, sometimes it is a people crowd. Some other time, you would like to arrange your thoughts an to be alone. Alone and lost in the never-ending space of SL, lost in never-ending time depths.

Nevertheless, then you come back to the same places, you meet same people or you meet some new ones and you enrich your second life. Like me just now. I am writing this contribution now and in the same time I am talking with somebody that I have randomly in my friend list on Facebook and she is from Brazil. First, she has been trying in Portuguese, me in English and finally, she has been talking to me in Czech. But what Czech? Omg, a mad internet translator! Sometime it is sidesplitting, but she is trying hard.

It is not only about that to watch the sunsets or sunrises or a sky studded with stars.

It is not only about that to sit and to meditate somewhere,

It is not only about that to be.

It is about a life

It is about a friendship.

It is about a love.

Just there is no difference between this world and the other one, at least for me.

And what about you?

Ivanka Akina: V zemi za zrcadlem...

2010-08-29T16:34:00.000+02:00

Ivanka Akina: V zemi za zrcadlem...

P.S. Jako Alenka v říši divů. No není to nádhera?

New World Notes: Tuesday Machinima: Lyric Lundquist Explores Insilico in Wireframe (And Celebrates Her Birthday This Week!)

2010-08-26T10:27:00.000+02:00

New World Notes: Tuesday Machinima: Lyric Lundquist Explores Insilico in Wireframe (And Celebrates Her Birthday This Week!)

Jazz Ball

2010-08-07T20:58:00.009+02:00

It is some strange combination of the words “jazz” and “ball”, but as I will explain in a moment, it makes sense. So, there is a tradition that once in a moth some ball takes place in Bohemia city. It is always the first Friday of the month. The avatars, who comes to this ball, they dresses their the best ball gowns and in congenial atmosphere dance all night maybe till early morning. Traditionally this Friday evening, Tirsor Benelli is a DJ (same way as every Friday in Beach Club in Bohemia.)

However, yesterday's Friday has been another, because Tirsor is just now on holiday ergo out of Second Life. So it is happened that some another has organized this event called „Jazz Ball“, but it was in some other line. Well, the people were dressed as for the ball, but music was jazzy. Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra and others have sung.

The evening has carried in the beautiful line and quite amount of people has come. Oh, I have forgotten to say, where this event has taken place. Well, it was in Café LA FABRIQUE.

So and how has it looked there? See!

P.S. Finally, I have added some video from YouTube. It is not just jazz, but he is a jazzman, even if he says about himself that he plays pop jazz.

Slurl: Café LA FABRIQUE

Quartet

2010-08-06T21:54:00.007+02:00

The quartet is some music form, but also, for example, some group of four players in soever music band or group. So and I have recently met such random and beautiful quartet in one club on some sim in our community. Just one planned party, kinda, did not take place, but in spite of this, several people met each other in this club and someone played some music. Then some super constellation had come. Four beautiful girls lined up and than people danced till early morning.

SLurl: Beach Club

Requiem for Qarl Linden: The Man Who Helped Make The Matrix No Longer Helps Linden Lab Make the Metaverse

2010-08-06T20:01:00.000+02:00

Requiem for Qarl Linden: The Man Who Helped Make *The Matrix* No Longer Helps Linden Lab Make the Metaverse: "Karl Stiefvater, a 3D graphics developer known in Second Life as Qarl Linden, has been unexpectedly fired from Linden Lab for reasons reportedly inexplicable to him. Qarl was a leading force behind Second Life sculpties, a groundbreaking building method, and..."

Chestnut's Choice 8/15 - 8/11: Midsummer Machinima Festival, Jamms for Genes Global Fundraiser for Science, Three Hour Poetry Jam and much, much more

2010-08-05T18:11:00.000+02:00

Chestnut's Choice 8/15 - 8/11: Midsummer Machinima Festival, Jamms for Genes Global Fundraiser for Science, Three Hour Poetry Jam and much, much more: "Chestnut Rau’s weekly round-up of upcoming SL events… Jamms for Genes is an annual fundraiser sponsored by SL musicians and the wonderful people at The Pocket, including Delinda Dyrssen and Baldi McMillian (above). This 24 hour musical event will begin..."

The Power of Love

2010-08-04T19:17:00.005+02:00

Ou-Jang Siou (1007 – 1072)

When the Moon was in the Milky Way

The loved pink color
of the some light, delicate branches
burst in the new breath of the east wind.
In the fog, which hided them, and in the dew tears
say for whom
were they so seductive? For someone
or only therefore did
tender butterfly and impulsive bee dare?
With my heart blown up with some feelings
I walked through these sweet places
and adored the greenery around.
But my ecstasy wafted out... Without comeback
my pleasure, which was so hungered, it was gone.
The Moon, so sad that it would tear apart your heart,
came near to the horizon.
Suddenly, the springtime got older.

(The poem from the anthology of the Chinese poetesses and poets of Sung dynasty [960 – 1270 A.D.], from the French original „Floriège de sont poèmes Song“ by French sinologist George Soulié de Morant, was translated by the Vladimir Holan in Czech; and I, Coral Ducatillon, I have tried to translate it in inverse into English in the way of the free verse. This anthology was published under the title “Melancholy” for the first and for the last time in year 1948 in Czechoslovakia of that time.)

One day and sometimes for a long time, there was a garden here. I roamed long, I sought long, and then I found it. There were the butterfly's wings, the tree leaves, the flower petals, water, grass, the trees and a swan.

An even if I looked around as a voyeur, for all that it had been only in good sense. I had the permit to watch and to listen, but only from some distance. Some lonely bank has been attracted the lonely lovers. And then, after sunset, some curious flowers had fallen to the earth and had begun to cover the world under a mysterious mist.

The next moment, an explosion of an aurora australis had lit the night sky. The whole world had shaken to its foundation due to the power of love.

To leave such a nice place was not simple, but a boat has been waiting for me in the shine of Moon, this one that is a silent wanderer of the lovers.

The lost paradise disappeared forever.

* * * * For Michaela and Pavel * * *

Philip Rosedale Comments on New World Notes: On Apologies, Customizable UI, and Making Second Life Fun

2010-08-04T18:54:00.000+02:00

Philip Rosedale Comments on New World Notes: On Apologies, Customizable UI, and Making Second Life Fun: "Second Life founder Philip Rosedale has lately been popping into New World Notes comment threads to discuss various topics on his new initiative as interim CEO. When a reader claimed to have never once heard Philip say "sorry" for Viewer..."

Rain

2010-07-29T18:06:00.004+02:00

Rain is a quite curious and unpredictable meteorological formation. It takes down in a form of common small or big drops. Or as heavy rain, when the water strands lash earth and the lightnings cross the sky. It is often changed on the way and we are bombarded by thousands of frozen hailstones. Sometimes however it is raining three months all the time, as in the case of the monsoons.

I do not like flood.

However, I like such the fine rain, such the small drizzle, when it is not even some need to open your umbrella. You feel, how the small drops fall on your face. The air smell of pleasant moisture. (By the way, such the rain is very healthy and very good for our skin.) Even if my glasses are in a moment covered with the small drops, but, nevertheless, it does not matter. It is interesting to watch the world through such steamed up and semipermeable glasses.

I like watch.

Try something yourself so only to look around yourself, not only in our real world, but even in this other. The looks through such windows offer the interesting pictures – not clear figures in the fog, changed colors, mysterious lights in the dark corners. And then sunrise is coming, all is going clear, we are seeing the beauty of the tropic archipelago, which is hidden somewhere in the ocean.

I like blueberries.

However, the tropic storms are treacherous and your ship can be driven to the wide seas or to unknown shores of other islands. But even here, you find the people that would like to enjoy themselves and those that really enjoy themselves. Even that is the look through the window, even though bit another. Colors and lights, people and things are more clear and more obvious, nevertheless, still more distant, outside the reality.

I like do a dance.

Again the thunderheads are appearing yet. Only several lonely people are solving mysterious lettering on the square. The shadow are becoming longer, the figures are disappearing in the fog, the facades of the old houses are changing their colors and mysterious lights are coming form the deep.

Why can not I go through those doors?

Slurls: Blueberry Hill, Bohemia, Club Arsenal

Výstava obrazů Lukáše Orlity

2010-07-26T17:57:00.001+02:00

Výstava obrazů Lukáše Orlity: "

V úterý 27. 7. 2010 v 18 hodin budou zahájeny paralelní výstavy obrazů brněnského malíře Lukáše Orlity z let 2008- 2010 s názvem "HARD & SOFT". Půjde vlastně o výstavu jedinou, která bude probíhat souběžně jak ve světě reálném v galerii Slévárna Vaňkovka - Salon, Ve Vaňkovce 1, v Brně, tak také ve virtuálním světě Second Life.

číst dál

"

In English

The exhibition of the pictures of Lukas Orlita, Tuesday 27.07.2010 in 6 pm (RL - UTC +1, SL - 3 am PDT), it is the beginning of the parallel exhibition of the pictures of the Brno painter Lukas Orlita (2008 - 2010 years) with the name of SOFT and HARD. This only one exhibition and it will take place both in Rl in Wanieck Gallery Brno and also in SL in Educatica, sim Shinyland. Here is the SLurl.

RFL Fair

2010-07-20T10:34:00.000+02:00

RFL Fair: "Another Fair, another fundraiser! Relay For Life is probably one of the largest Fair organizers, seeing as there are several every couple of months. Anyhoo, this one proved to be a majestical pain in the ass as the fair was made up out of no less than 43 sims, and only lasted for 1 single [...]"

(Notes: Nice pictures and mayby also the 43 sims. Amazing!)

How is your writing?

2010-07-16T12:41:00.001+02:00

I write like
Johathan Swift

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Linden Lab Stock Sinks at SharesPost

2010-07-15T14:01:00.001+02:00

Linden Lab Stock Sinks at SharesPost: "The return of Philip Rosedale as interim CEO of Linden Lab has apparently left real world investors unmoved, as offers to sell heavily discounted Linden Lab shares sit untouched at the SharesPost.com site. While SharesPost reports sales of Linden stock at $5.50 USD/share as recently as February 2010, current offers to sell stock go begging [...]"

(Zdroj: Alphaville Herald)

Other World Notes: Can Unity Save 3D Virtual Worlds?

2010-07-15T09:08:00.001+02:00

Other World Notes: Can Unity Save 3D Virtual Worlds?: ""Can Unity Save 3D Virtual Worlds?" is today's question I'm asking in a new post on Social Times, writing around the Beta launch of Friends Hangout, a virtual world running in Unity 3D: A number of highly-touted 3D virtual worlds..."

(Zdroj: Alphaville Herald)

Long Way – Point Eleven – Photography

2010-07-13T15:37:00.005+02:00

After long time, I have decided to continue in article series, which I had named Long Way. Only for reminding, my second birthday in SL was an impulse to begin and surprisingly now it is my third one again on 11.07.2010. The year passed and there are many flocks of changes, new and old friends, extinctions old places and births of new ones in this world of Second life.

Today I would like to write about photography. I take pictures in my common real life too. I have abnegated still to take pictures on a classic film, so then this agreeable waiting for these pictures from a photolab. Will they bad or good? So this feeling is just irreplaceable, On the other hand, there is really the digital photography boom nowadays and one can simply buy a camera from a common compact to the high advanced digital reflex cameras. Nevertheless, it has not caught me.

Actually, I have taken pictures in second Life from my existence begin. I have taken everything possible around me, not only an environment and countryside, but also people around me, my friends. Many of these pictures have been created before I had begun to write this blog. Much of them are of course private and non-publishable. After begin of my writing, the photography frequency had been increased. Sometimes, there were the pictures only to add to a text, sometimes, they were its inspiration.

On the other hand, the photography in Second Life could be considered as some form of the digital photography. To the intent that you can produce such pictures in huge amount as long as you have enough place on your hard disk, and then you can sort and delete them or possibly changes them using different graphic software. It is same as by RL digital photography.

However, what cannot be done in RL is the possibility of some immediate change of environment. Since SL is dynamic world, it is possible immediately to change Estate Time and with help of Environment Editor Function also what kind of sky, clouds and water will be; all this can be done either manually or using already made templates from the SL creators. And provided you have already the last viewer version, that you can achieve another amazing effect with advanced options. The possibilities are plentiful, but sometimes more is detrimental and sometimes it cause the fall of all the viewer even all computer, because the hardware requirements are enormous.

So by my wandering, these my small fragments of virtual existence in Second Life arise. They are stops on the coast of endless ocean, sittings in its changing nearness and in light flashes from the nearby club on Groove sim. It is fantastic and big ABBA party at rezz day of one avatar in Club Arsenal or only usual party in sim Cafemar or in the shadows of Beachwood.

There is relatively a lot of these pictures, but I was sad did not show them. My former works you can find here on Koinup.

The photography has become my integral and essential part that I cannot already imagine that I could not take pictures in SL.

SLurls: Beachwood, Cafemar, Club Arsenal, Groove

Africa

2010-07-02T10:23:00.013+02:00

They say that Africa is a humankind cradle. In Olduvai, an ancestor of the contemporary man appeared for the first time – Homo habilis and Homo erectus – and from the heart of Africa, it spread into the whole world. The area of the East African Rift Valley is rich for the many fossil findings and Olduvai is just here in Tanzania. However in year 2002, Brunet et al. published in scientific journal Nature^* about the oldest hominid petrifaction. This would not have been anything so strange, but question is: Where were found these petrifactions? The scientists found them in distance of 2500 km (1 553.43 miles) from the East African Rift Valley in central Africa in Chad and they estimated their age between 6 and 7 million years!!! This is Africa surprising.

Africa, these are the streets of Marrakesh, the pyramids near to Cairo, the temples in Luxor and Karnak, the cities like Casablanca and Alexandria, the lost Timbuktu with its doors, the endless plains of the deserted and sometimes green deserts like Sahara or Kalahari, or the deep and impenetrable rainforests with the richness of flora and fauna that often disappear forever.

Africa, these are the Nile River with its cataracts and with all burying Aswan Dam, waters of the Victoria Falls, with snow covered peak of the highest mountain known as Kilimanjaro and the deep mines with diamonds and gold in Kimberley and Congo.

Africa is also the extreme poverty in glamour of the riches. It is hopelessness, high unemployment, pain and sadness, worry and death. These are the depopulated villages. These are prejudices and superstitions. It is hunger, HIV and it is AIDS.

I was in Africa only once sometime in year 1985, it was in Algeria. Nothing of what I have now written, I have seen or experienced. Only the oleander flowers attracted me through their aroma and I drowned in them under rays of hot African sun.

Come back to the reality. Africa has materialized for me on just ending weekend. The theatre “Husa na Provazku” (Goose on String) in Brno has entertained some group of people, enthusiasts, doubters, but even faithful and selfless people and donators this Saturday (26.06.2010). Africa has materialized for me in the form of the large photos, beads and small baskets made by people that are far. Africa has materialized for me in the form of African drummers from Congo; by the way they live in Czech Republic. Their drums have totally overturned the world and the theater has become a furnace of Africa.

However, in an intermission we have listened narrative of Missis Gita Fuchsova about many projects that are under way in Kenya and in neighbouring countries. Missis Gita Fuchsova is the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the UNEP and UN-Habitat ((UNEP = United Nations Enviroment Programme, UN-Habitat = United Nations Human Settlements Programme).

The wide spectrum of programs has covered, for example, the preventive vaccination of dogs in Mt. Kula mountain chain in Kenya, which is every year made by people from the University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences in Brno and they do it successfully. It is also “Doll for UNICEF” project, where the voluntaries sew some doll and it is offered to an adoption for 600 CZK. This amount is needed to revaccinate of one child in the underdeveloped countries against six mortal child illnesses.
And of course, it was Bwindi Orphans, because this civically association and its activities in Uganda were a midpoint of that day. It has begun by some afternoon talk and has continued then in the theater passage and in the evening also during the concert. It was not missing also a connection between Bwindi Orphans and the virtual world Second Life, which was tried to explain by Fanda Ryba. I think that he has succeeded it. At his presentation, he has shown us also several pictures from SL, where is also placed the school, for which there is a fund-raising campaign through the pink pigs that are on many sims of Czech and Slovak community in SL. Around this school you can see also picture made by the court photographer of Bwindi Orphans Michal Prihoda. The account amount is updated regularly on this web site and all donators (more than 400) are there listed even with the respective amount of Linden dollars. To this day (01.07.2010) people has donated 634 805 L$.

However, the performance of the band called Cankisou (maybe pronounced as Tschankeyshow). This band was founded by bigbeat musicians at some Christmas party in year 1999. With help of the most various instruments form the whole world, they threw themselves into absolutely new waters of ethno, world music and in an original way, and they based their work on some legend about an ancient uniped nation of Canki (Tschanki). During 10 years of it existence, the band has gained the solid place in musical sun and today they belong to the top of Czech world music.

To describe an atmosphere in an auditorium and even on a stage is quite difficult, one have to experience it. So, at least there are several pictures from this event here: ones on the official site of Bwindi Orphans and other ones on Zuza Ritt stream. Well, finally you can look at three clips of Cankisou only for an idea what they play.

Zuha clip was shot in Pakistan by LP Fish during our participation in World Performing and Visual Arts festival 2007 in Lahore. Borrega clip is animated one made by students at Film Academy of Miroslav Ondricek and Independent Film College in Pisek. Last one was based on materials that Michal Prihoda recorded and shot in Uganda.

^*M. Brunet et al.: A new hominid from the Upper Miocéne of Chad, Central Africa. Nature 418, 2002, 145.

Pictures: Offical site of BWO [only in Czech], Zuza Ritt stream

SLurl: 3D-model of the school on Shinyland

(Sources: Cankisou [only in Czech], UNICEF, UNEP, UN-Habitat, University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences Brno, Embassy in Nairobi, Wikipedia, YouTube)

Wedding

2010-06-29T15:17:00.002+02:00

Just passed weekend was slightly hectic both in real world and in Second Life. Strictly speaking I did not ever follow the celebration of seven year existence of this world – SLB7. However, I received some wedding invitation in SL. Paula Ghennyn and Fraggo Serrao got married and the party was on sim Mumuland. As usual I came later, but I caught the party. So beautiful created wedding arbor and dancefloor I have never seen so long time. Furthermore, there were full of nice people dressed with wonderful clothes. I went from the arms to other arms, well, ladies was falling in my arms even the bride. Then the night came and the big fireworks only together wit the stars shined in the sky.

Say, is not it romantic?

SLurl: Mumuland

(Note: I have made many pics, about twenty, so I have made some small stream with music. The individual pics are the on Koinup or Flickr).

Nymph

2010-06-22T15:06:00.005+02:00

An avatar is a social creature, dancing on the border between fiction and fact.

(Mark Stephen Meadows: I, Avatar – The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life)

The sea deeps are identically mysterious, dark and deep like in our real world. The exploring of them can have sometimes even the surprising results. What kind of the creatures live around or staying at such depths? And what about such the nymphs! In Greek mythology, they were water, wood and mountain goddesses or demigoddesses. All of them were beautiful and singing, dance and entertainment were their role. They usually occurred in the company of other natural creatures like Sileni, Satyrs, Pans were or in the company of the gods, these were often Apollo, Dionysos or Hermes or Artemis.

Once I bathed in the deeps in Mortifera sim. Actually rather I explored these deeps. Surprise was not long in coming. There was some nymph in the shadows of a reef. We both hung around a while and looked at each other without any conversation. And when darkness descended and the only mere gleams of light penetrated till us, I had drawn near and had asked her.

Surprisingly we both spoke the same language and likeable girl came out from the nymph. We told a whole and since she likes dancing and me too, then later we danced on the floor in some club. Unfortunately, I have forgotten its name.

So then that it dies not pay to seek in Second Life deep.

SLurl: Mortifera

(Source: Wikipedia)

Note: Pictures are published with permission of depicted female avatar.

Destiny – Disaster – Reality

2010-06-16T10:20:00.004+02:00

Some situation can come by each of us, the situation, which influences everyone very markedly. And so that way that one never can forget it and even one will ever forget. Is this an omen? Maybe yes.

This day was not or did not begin like any other. All day there was the big hot (about 34 °C = 93.2 °F) in the shade. It lured to go somewhere to water and to take one’s poor body into the cool waves. On the other hand, many people inclusive me did not want to leave their houses and to beat down sun.

Nevertheless, finally I gave out on the town and sat in some café on the summer terrace. I looked at the world around. At the same time, I looked at the world around me in Second Life. The next moment, as if these two worlds began to penetrate each other and to blend in one.

The darkness had come, slowly like some creeping creature. Yes, the world had darkened, but it was other darkness than if sun sets and the sky is covered with the distant or nearby worlds.

If we would substitute one of the Aristotle elements – fire – for the phenomenon light, that this one had switched off. Strange darkness interlaced with the wads and the cords of heavy rain (water element) however was full of light of lightening and noise of thunders (fire element).

Did the world go crazy? No, it did not, only the nature showed one of its features. There were hard features, because the trees felt down. There were the trees, which destroyed the houses. There were the trees, which killed. One woman died and her five dogs maybe will be placed in some pound.

It was the destiny.

It was the disaster.

Only the reality.

In The Light of the Moment
In the Embrace of the Fire

11.6.1775

2010-06-11T12:42:00.005+02:00

An avatar is an interactive, social representation of a user.
(Mark Stephen Meadows: I, Avatar – The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life)

It is a bit strange title of my today‘s article, isn’t it? Not particularly, I titled it so advisedly, because this day in my country will be the hottest in a row of day just form this very distant date. Today’s outsider temperature should reach 34 °C (93.2 °F), in the shade of course. The streets will become void, the swimming pools and the natural lakes and ponds will crowd, and people maybe will hide at home themselves.

So take swimwear, towels, something to drink and hooray to water!

And what about to water in Second Life? Everything is possible, as I have made sure yesterday, when I have received some IM: … i am in sl by the swimming pool and i bathe …” It only suffices to search through an inventory, takes the right type of clothing and sets out.

So I have looked on my inventory, took some clothing form Splendeurs and set out. First, it has not been to water, but later really to water, so to the sea, where I have lounged in pretty society.

Try it as an avatar! You are interactive and you are social!

SLurls: New Port, Splendeurs, Wirreno

Magic moment

2010-06-07T14:52:00.009+02:00

Every day we live out the moment of an awakening into the new day. Sun rises above the horizon and shines with its lights all around. Sometimes, this day is somber and cloud over and only the shreds of the foggy morning most cover the hills. For all that, these are only the volatile and magic moments of our life.

Since some event will take place on Saturday June 26 in Brno, I have refreshed my memory with reference to the Bwindi Orphans project. Some of you knows that I written here about this project here several times. Only for reminding, Bwindi Orphans is Czech non-profit organizations with the seat in Brno, Czech Republic and it is focused on help to children in Uganda in Africa including a children long-distance adoption. There is already some donation for long time. Its gains will be used for the building of a nongovernmental school in Soroti.

To my big surprise and joy, I have found out that an account rise and mainly it thanks to many people form Second Life world. The possibility to donate Linden dollars via small pink pigs in SL achieved high popularity and the amount such gifted money surely is not small. It exceeded 600.000 L$ and totally there is 75.000, - CZK on this account. The list of people that donated is totally imposing, look here. It is possible to donate also in real world. There was another magic moment of the day.

And even if sun sets behind the horizon, nothing ends. Nigh world of Second Life is like created of seeking and making of the magic moments. Just find the right place.

(Sources: Bwindi Orphans official site (in Czech), SL donation fo Bwindi Orphans)

Eruption

2010-06-01T16:13:00.007+02:00

It was really worth waiting. The half-year passed as nothing and May 30 was here and I was on the road to Vienna. Weather, typical for last days by us, was absolutely bad, but we did not mind. A cup of red Moravian wine warmed us for our whole journey to the final bus stop, which was Viennese Prater.

Since we had enough time, we took a walk into Vienna center. Actually I was never here. So we visited several churches, bought an ice cream and did not forget to take a cup of coffee in well-known Café Hawelka. This old shabby café exists in Dorotheegasse 6 (Dorothy Alley) since 1936, when Leopold Hawelka opened it. It remained no changed till now. So we visited it too. “Zweimal Kleiner bitte,” I said to a waiter. Thus you have to order coffee, if you want an espresso. In other I recommend you to try also Melange or Mokka. I guarantee, you will not regret.

Time passed slowly and thus we set out to our destination. Since it was far form Vienna center, we use local metro, here it is called “U-Bahn” and it goes on the surface. The Austria Center is located behind the Danube in an area, where there are a lot of modern buildings including the residential houses. Just here, it took place that, because of we came to Vienna – an opening concert of 20^th Jazz Fest Wien 2010.

After an initial chaos of the organizers, when they guided the viewers to the bad directions to the concert hall, and after the festival opening speech, some support came on the stage. I have forgotten its name. And it was not surprised, it was total catastrophe. Five same or better said, five same sounding songs put many viewers off, so that they left the hall to take a bit to eat.

But the main one came later. It got dark in the hall, the music started to play and he rushed in. The next concert of the world tour “The Pursuit World Tour 2010” had begun. Jamie Cullum presented his the most new songs from the homonymous album The Pursuit and also from two previous albums Twentysomething and Catching Tales. He enchanted the whole hall, btw. the capacity is 3000 people, and he brought all of us to the boil, which had no any analogy, and he kept it, in fact, till to the final finale.

After end of one song, the whole band including Jamie set out into the hall middle to the twentieth line and thy played one song here in the center among the viewers. All stood up to see them. Some stood on the chairs. This, what came after, it was like some wild dream. The moment Jamie and the band members returned back, the people mass followed them and surrounded the stage. It was given an encore, the song “The Wind Cries Mary”. The wild ride came then. Jamie sang and danced like a dervish on the stage, the band played and when the viewers joined the rhythm, it was nearly an inferno.

Due to a frequency of people mass stomping the hall floor, and maybe even stage itself, begun to vibrate. The technicians had to hold the speaker towers with power to prevent a possible fall into the people. The floor shook in a foreboding of an eruption. The horrified organizers run around and communicated with each other with walkie-talkies, but the euphoria of the crowd had not stopped. The vibrations were not only to feel, but they run through the whole body, which resonated the music sounds at the same time. The vibrations were also visible. It was that, when the imaginary piano strings in the stage background begun to shake too.

The par excellence finale finished with the huge eruption. It was the eruption of big applause, scream and flashing cameras and mobile phones. It was the eruption that longtime did not stop. Then all calmed down and went silent and Jamie sung his last song, nice ballade. There was only he his piano on the stage. The way home through dark Vienna, Niederöstereich and South Moravia was only feeble reflection of that, what it happened before.

…

The words are only feeble rehash of that, what I experienced. Who did not see, he/she will not believe. So, settle for two videos from YouTube.com. The first one is a small official cut form the Jazz Fest Wien 2010 organizers and the second one is above mentioned The Wind Cries Mary from one viewer.

(Sources: Austria Center Vienna, Café Hawelka, JamieCullum.com, Jazz Fest Wien 2010, YouTube.com)

Breathe of Life

2010-05-28T11:07:00.005+02:00

Uich gwennen na ‘wanath ah na dhín.
An uich gwennen na ringyrn ambar hen.
Boe naid bain gwannathar,
Boe cuil ban firitha.
Boe naer gwannathach, [...]

You are not bound to loss and silence.
For you are not bound to the circles of this world.
All things must pass away,
All life is doomed to fade …
Sorrowing you must go, [and yet you are not without hope].

How the time is fleeting. Recently somebody reminded me that he lives in Second Life for the whole of thousand days. Surprisingly, I am also here more than these thousand days. Is it many or few? It is a question. Definitely, I would not want to do here some recapitulation of my being in SL, rather to remind or to remember the distant and past things that has happened me. I would not want to repeat too much, because I wrote here about many things once yet, so only several notices.

Birth of a city was one big adventure. When Vilem Beaumont gave a space on the sim named after mythic vaporous island Avalon, Bohemia city was born there. Some community of great and interesting guys appeared around this city. In some time, the city was moved to own sim – Czechoslovakia – and The Old City is actually Bohemia’s heart. Only informed people know how it was and anyway for me they have certainly nice remembrances of these days and of Club Paradise, where it really lived. The thematic parties have not repeated anymore.

It is Angara’s fall and then its rebirth. It is Angara that then disappeared in time again. Angara is next catching point of my wandering in SL. Angara, where Club Paradise came back in other look and with other name. Angara, where the most beautiful dragon was made and created (in my private opinion). Angara, where you could buy stylish clothing, which is selling now under PXD Toxic label. Angara broken into a sand of a desert.

The Lost Gardens of Apollo I have not even to introduce. They belong to the most beautiful sims in SL. I never stopped to feast my eyes on its beauty, its high towers, trees, flowers, birds and many other magic things. You can only stay on the bridge above the sea and only to look around and to hear.

Breathe of Life.

(Source: YouTube)

Dejà vu

2010-05-20T15:54:00.010+02:00

So, did you ever have some feeling? You are somewhere. You look about yourself. You feel something. As if … I have been here sometimes. I have seen it yet. The remembrances are coming. Anyway like there is sunrise each day. Anyway like my alarm clock rings by my bed and I do not want to get up each day. Anyway like I do my everyday ritual, the ritual of washing, dressing or stripping, toilet, wash my hands, water in a teapot and then? Clicking of my key in my lock and all is open to the whole world.

There is some column, the column as a reminder of something. The old remembrances are coming from my memory. Was it one or many columns? Oh yes, I know. There is a long way runs somewhere, somewhere into a city center, a monumental entrance. All this was it. These two columns stand at beginning of entrance to the San Marco square in Venice in Italy. They present Venice's two patrons, Marco and Todaro, that stand by the water's edge: on them are the lion of Saint Mark and the statue of Saint Teodoro of Amasea, "Santodaro" to the Venetians, who is standing on the sacred crocodile of Egypt. One legend says (many tourists do not know it) that it is not good to walk between these columns, because it brings bad luck. The convicts were taken this way and after the crossing of the Bridge of Sighs (Ponte di Sospiri) they were locked in their jail cell in the infamous prison with the leads chambers.

...
Then the atmosphere changed as the faint, ethereal beat of clapping, palm just brushing palm, seeped through the silence. From one man came the sound of fingers sweeping across strings. From another emanated a deep and plaintive wail that soon flowed into a song. The rasp of his voice matched the roughness of the place and the ruggedness of his pockmarked face. Only the singer and his troupe understood the obscure patois, but the audience could sense the meaning. Love had been lost.

(Passage from the novel The Return by Victoria Hislop)

It was the atmosphere of one burning day. I took one cup of coffee and one glass of wine under the beautiful sky of Barcelona. First time I saw and also heard it totally elsewhere and in other country. In year 2000, the Picasso’s museum had opened in Münster, Nord Rhein-Westphalen, Germany. There are Picasso’s graphics there. This day and night belong to the celebration of his homeland Spain. If the darkness came down, the square in front the museum had filled with eagerly waited people, until he come. The air was headily full of different smells and noises. The grilled gambas (giant prawns) tasted fantastic and red wine from Rioja fast rose into head. Some guitar sounded and he appeared in the stage – Miguel Vargas and his compañía. It was first time that I saw and experienced flamenco.

For the second time I met him in Barcelona after many years. I was there at some international conference. In the frame of opening reception, the organizers invited a group of players, singers and dancers. It was again flamenco, but another. It did not suit here in this big hall space. Nevertheless, it enchanted me again.

For the third time it was another. In the evening after sunset, we walked the most beautiful, at least for me, boulevard of Barcelona – La Rambla Street (or Catalonian Les Rambles, Spanish Las Ramblas. This street connects the square called Plaça Catalunya and the Christophe Columbus at Port Vell. Here it was really another. Lots of people in the street, a lot of light, music and smells from cafes and bistros around and even here people danced. By chance we bumped into some flamenco dancer in one arcade. It was something other there. This dance was half-naked, which is, I think, against the rules, but here evidently something hung in the air. The young man danced with big passion, his sweat descended on his body that shined in the glare of spotlights like see water in the midday sun. His dance totally fascinated me; he led me into his story. It suddenly began and then after several minutes it ended. It was raw and animal. Almost I grasped for my breath by excitement. Finally it sounded festive olé.

We walk onward in this street, but the pictures of this dancer were running through my head. At once, cool breeze blew on my face. We came to the sea.

Dejà vu.

SLurls: The Beach Club, Barcelona del Oeste

Groove

2010-05-10T15:39:00.008+02:00

The word “groove” has many meanings in English. It could be the groove on a gramophone disc, but who knows it today in the era of CDs, mp3, mp4, etc. It is also a term for music rhythm in pop, jazz, funk, rock music, power groove, vision or soul. Or it is a synonym for "cool". Sometimes we say: "It was a groove." This last meaning of “groove” in verb form is that I have in my head. To rejoice in something, to be happy and contented, to be enthusiastic about something.

However, sometimes we need some silence and humility. The world around us and inside us is accelerating with such high speed that we do not feel in everyday life. The small church (or is it a chapel?) is shining in red sun and is luring to visit. I have also succumbed to temptation, have entered and have sat on one of the banks. The sunlight has penetrated through the high gothic windows and I did not want to leave.

Nevertheless, I have stood up and have gone to explore the new terrain. Longer stony road has taken me to a vast castle, of which sharply cut features have come into view against the sky. And if the dark has fully descended, so only vague silhouettes of small houses in castle neighborhood have flashed there.

Next day I have wandered on long and empty plain. To my surprise I have seen some building in the light of the new sun. It has stood there lonely in the middle of nothing such a solitaire in a big garden. I have let it with its calm and loneliness and have continued forward.

Sun has achieved the highest point of its way and I have settled for a small shade and cool touch of the breeze form the see. Maybe the lighthouse will switch on its big light eye and will allure …

But now back to the reality, respectively virtual world. This babblement here at the beginning has some base in homonymous sim in Second Life. Although it is called Groove, generally we call it “The City by the Friends”. It offers several possibilities of an economic character, an accommodation and an entertainment like the other sims in SL. You can rent some shop space, room in a hotel or in one in the old cold castle with some fireplace to warm or some house with two floors. Enjoy also the local gallery, the movie theater or the dance club.

"To be, or not to be there, aye there's the point? And where? And how much is cost?", if I paraphrased the Shakespeare’s text of Hamlet.

So:

SLurl: Groove

SLurl: Hotel
Equipment: two rooms and bathroom
Prize: 50 L$/week
Number of prims: 50

SLurl: Castle
Equipment: one room with style bed and fireplace
Prize: 50 L$/week
Nember of prims: 35

SLurl: House
Equipment: two rooms, security system
Cena: 75 L$/week
Number of prims: 50

Shop rent (the most shops are located in the middle of sim)
Prize: 50 L$/week
Number of prims: 30

IM contact: albus Alex

Surprise

2010-05-06T15:20:00.002+02:00

As yesterday’s RL shadows have become longer and the world was darker, I have visited just after some time the Beach Club in Bohemia city in SL. But something was wrong. Using LM I have landed on right coordinates, but everything was out. It has looked as if the coastal sands have buried the beach and with it also the whole club under the huge dunes. So, it was not that case.

So, I have started to study the map, where was the higher density of green point, alias the present avatars on sim. Behold one placed has fulfilled this condition and it was bull's-eye. Hooray, I have found it!

The club looks well and it is nice change. Immediately I was invited to dance and then everything went like clockwork. I have danced and around us other dance couples have whirled and also there was one female avatar with the violet butterfly wings. Lights and shadows have made wild colored combination.

Tired I have sat down to one of these comfortable chairs and gave myself fully to meditation and later to some nice discussion with Zuza Rritt.

How it has looked you can see on the pics.

SLurl: Beach Club

Island

2010-04-30T14:19:00.005+02:00

“There is a legend of the olden time that all our foolish plans and vain conceits are overlured to world the public good.”

Aristhophanes

The dust clouds from the recently wakened Icelandic volcano with terrible, hard pronounceable name for us – Eyjafjallajökull – have left the sky over the Europe and the harsh beauty of Island is enjoying an attention of many people again.

„Friðarsúlan“ means in Icelandic the peace column. Near the capital of Iceland, Reykjavík, on
Viðey Island in Kollafjörður Bay you can find some interesting construction. It is called Imagine Peace Tower and it is a memorial John Lennon from his wife Yoko Ono.

Not everybody has a possibility to come there in our real world. So settle for a small audiovisual invitation to the homonymous sim – Imagine Peace Tower – in world of Second Life.

SLurl: Imagine Peace Tower

Entertaitment

2010-04-15T15:07:00.005+02:00

During last several days I have often wandered the Second Life and somehow I have come to some party. I begin with a traditional place, which I often visit – the Beach Club in Bohemia city on Czechoslovakia2 sim.

I was dark and balmy night at that time. Stars illuminated the sky and a dance floor was full of many people. In the long shadows, spinning and dancing bodies were hidden and that all was with sounds of breathtaking music. Some bonnie girl fell in my arms and the world reeled.

However, the Baphomet Club on Bohemia Mall sim is completely another character. Here you can hear authentic music in style of metal, gothic, rock, punk, grunge and others. I made interesting dance creations in some flaming circle of hell with hard look of the skulls.

I was also in an old castle, which is in hiding on Groove sim. It suffices only to climb the steep stairway and you are welcome in a gothic hall with the dance floor. The magic eye looks at you from an arched ceiling and you are watched by the monsters as from Apocalypse.

The thematic parties were sometime very popular in Bohemia. It was in time of the oldest club called Xparadise. Unfortunately, this one does not exist anymore. Its successor, X-ko club on Angara sim, resurrected its distant glory, but then it totally disappeared yet. The thematic party was also in the Beach Club yesterday, this time in the swimwear, maybe with an illusion of early summer. To my surprise, the club has undergone the significant changes and it has looked really as the beach. However, somebody has told me, that it was only temporarily only for this party; and then the club would return to original state. So I have took past times again; one, which does not exist anymore today.

Judge you yourself.

(SLurls: Beach Club, Baphomet Club, Castle Club)

Memory

2010-04-12T13:33:00.002+02:00

Hurry

2010-04-07T16:12:00.001+02:00

Do we live a hurried life, full of a rush and a stress? Probably, how someone. Or do our life from our birth till our death is really long or short, respectively, run? I think it is individual; it cannot be generalized to everyone. It seems like some fatalist philosophizing, but somehow it has come to me today’s morning.

How did it happen? From beginning, it seemed like usual way by train to my job. But when we stopped on the mains station in Blansko (city, where I live and there are to train stops there), then we had waited relatively long time for departure. Afterwards at once, the travelers begun to get out of our train even that one, who sat against me. It was bit curious, but no strange, because the speed train units commonly stop at the main station in Blansko with an exception of IC or EC trains (IC = InterCity, EC = EuroCity).

So, and this was just a situation, when one speed train from Prague had big delay. And so just these travelers change in big hurry to this speed train, some of them were half dressed, some of them run at a trot. Maybe time pressed them and some ten minutes could save them. I do not know. They simply hurried, maybe groundlessly, maybe with some intention.

Than I ask me: “Are we the slaves of time?” A slave? Human being, who is subject to an authority, submissive? Time? So it is, on the other hand, a physical quantity, which was made by human being. It has no begin, no end. We only determine some limits, time intervals ourselves. Henceforward hereunto, from here till over there.

Some silhouettes are coming up from the fog. The universe is coming to existence from the depth of time and space. It is no to hurry somewhere.

SLurl: Freestar Bay Isle

(Zdroj: YouTube)

Party in Beach Club

2010-04-06T15:14:00.004+02:00

Here are several pics from one dance evening in the Beach Club in Bohemia. So, once again I have went for the party.

SLurl: The Beach Club

Dagon

2010-03-31T11:05:00.006+02:00

I have found today this fantastic machinima. I absolutely recommend you to watch the best just on page god Vimeo.com in fullscreen mode, because this machinima is made in HD mode. Comment below is from machinima author Lainy Voom.

Dagon - HP Lovecraft from Lainy Voom on Vimeo.

This is a story adapted from Dagon by H.P. Lovecraft (1917).

Content credits are listed at the end of the film, with special mention to the pose creator, Del May. Poses can be found here.

A very big thanks to Carlos, the narrator, for being a great voice artist, and also the easiest person in the world to get along with!

The initial idea for this was to create a film in a noir/comic style using a digital novel format. However, as the film progressed, it took on a life of its own and became more of a traditional film. It is also not nearly as weird as I had initially imagined!

*At the moment, I think the weakest point of the film is the ending, I do like the crazy episode and the walking shots. I will probably go back and redo the end scene at some point, when I figure out what it needs.

Sound was designed from the freesoundproject.org (available under creative commons).
Attribution list here.

Texture credits and linkbacks: (will link when I can get deviant art to work for me again).

The original text for Dagon can be found here.

The Old Gate is open

2010-03-22T16:19:00.004+01:00

The Sufi guidance says us to speak only after that, if our words went through three gates. At the firs gate we ask ourselves: “Are our words true?” If yes, we allow them go through. At the second gate we ask ourselves: “Are they necessary?” And at the last gate we ask ourselves: “Are they kind?”

This gate is only one it is old and half-open yet, only the proud towers loom over it. Nevertheless, it does not mean that we could not ask ourselves the same way or similarly as in above mentioned guidance. The shadows are becoming shorter and the gate opens a space, about which I have already written here in a contribution named “Oasis of silent and meditation”.

The sun is rising over the horizon and I am entering under the massive portal and between the massive leaves into Svarga. Struck dumb, I am look up at the sky, nothing has changed here. As if time has stopped here. Einstein’s relativity of time?

And if we remember Aristotle, then we find all his elements here. Earth is presented here in a land and in a rock massif, on which Svarga stands. Water is presented here in the sea, which surrounds Svarga. Water gushes form the fountains on the island, storms and falls in a waterfall and fills up a watering place for the small birds. Air is presented everywhere around and fire burns in the torches or only so free on the ground to light our way or to warm us.

The last element, aether, is difficult to handle. This divine substance, which according to Aristotle makes up the heavenly spheres and heavenly bodies, i.e. planets and stars, is virtual for somebody or real for other. Maybe the central tower makes a magic gate, through which eater enters and fills Svarga.

The sun is going down to the horizon and I have to leave slowly this place with that I will certainly come back sometimes.

Eye of the night.

(SLurl: Svarga)

Changes of time

2010-03-11T16:00:00.003+01:00

When I today morning woke up, so my still cloud eyes had only narrowed one’s eyes through a window after my turning of the thin lamellas of the window blind. However, when I made the same procedure in our kitchen, then my look had sighted some big white plain outside. We have been so near to spring and Mother Nature moved it again some small piece back.

The first change has came.

In other time and at other place. Paris dusky due to just coming night hides hundreds and thousands of destinies and stories of the hundreds and thousands of the human beings. This is the story of one woman.

One of the trials of woman is the fear of being old maid. To escape this dreadful doom, young girls used to rush in matrimony with recklessness, which astonishes the beholder; never pausing to remember that the loss of liberty, happiness, and self-respect is poorly repaid by the barren honour of being called “Mrs” instead of “Miss”.

Chantal Harvey

The second change has came.

A mad world. Yes, so such real world seems look like to me. On the other hand, then it comes some nice change in some form of a meeting, some form of some art piece of work, some form of everyday common joys, which we give each other ourselves, or in some form of a glass filled with sun, which is concentrated into juice of the bunches of grapes harvested at some Moravian vineyard. No, the world cannot be mad.

The third change has came.

(Source: YouTube)

My Saturday in Second Life

2010-03-07T18:20:00.003+01:00

Can be some interesting on Saturday in Second Life? Yes, maybe it can be. No, maybe it cannot be. My Saturday, 06.03.2010, was broadly boring. There was nothing in SL and thus I have aimlessly flew from a place to another place, till I have found this place, see the pictures below.

To my surprise, I did not know about this place. At the same time, I had it just directly before my nose. But one still walks only on the land and he/she flies to the uplands only that time, when one needs fast to move somewhere, etc.

This oasis of calm and silence has directly invited to some sitting and to meditate. An ecology works also even in Second Life. Actually, I do not know, if it could be realized in our real world.

Just a surprise, and great one, directly on home stage.

Islands of bliss.

Bohemia.

Spring Ball 2010

2010-03-06T20:11:00.002+01:00

I am not some fun of the balls in the real world, but sometimes I like the balls in our Bohemia and I go there. It was also the same yesterday. There was cold and dark in our world, but there, there were a lot of beautiful people. I do not know even, maybe I have talked nonsense, but mainly I have danced. And that time NancySweet Kanto was my partner. Just I have had a good time.

Lascaux

2010-03-04T15:56:00.001+01:00

Perhaps we painted on our own skin, with ochre and charcoal, long before we painted on stone. In any case, forty thousand years ago, we left painted handprints on the cave walls of Lascaux, Ardennes, Chauvet.

The black pigment used to pain the animals at Lascaux was made of manganese dioxide and ground quartz; and almost half the mixture was calcium phosphate. Calcium phosphate is produced by heating bone four hundred degrees Celsius, then grinding it.

We made our paints from the bones of the animals we painted.

No image forgets this origin.

The future casts its shadow on the past. In this way, first gestures contain everything; they are a kind of map. The first days of military occupation, the conception of a child, seeds and soil.

Grief is desire in its purest distillation. With the first grave – the first time a name was sown in the earth – the invention of memory.

No word forgets this origin.

(Anne Michaels: The Winter Vault)

I have begun to read this book today morning and just this introduction has put me in good mood. The recollections at my loved France have jumped out of my memory. I have not been there for so long time. I have to go there this year.

I have also remembered Lascaux. I was there, but no in this original one, because it is inaccessible for public due to paint damage by carbon dioxide from visitors breathing. In year 1983, a replica of Lascaux was created, so-called Lascaux II. Here, there are two replicas of cave halls from original Lascaux – The Great Hall of Bulls and Painted Gallery.

Even if they are accurate replicas, they look fully fascinating. One asks oneself, how could prehistoric men paint it? And what conditions like, lack of light, only under a shine of an oil lamp, which was found there too.

The picture, which I have attached, does not affect so monumentally as these ones in the cave, but at least you can make some vision about Lascaux. Second possibility is, of course, to visit France. And surprisingly, Lascaux does not miss even in Second Life.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Architect

2010-02-24T15:21:00.002+01:00

Recently, I have found some article about this man. His name is Frank Lloyd Wright. He is one of interesting, perhaps the most interesting architects of his own days. There is one sim in Second Life related with him, where I have found many interesting things.

Who is Frank Lloyd Wright? The surname Wright suggests Wright brothers and their flight. Lloyd’s, it is famous insurance company, which mainly insures the ships. Or Andrew Lloyd Weber, its music author of the most famous musical West Side Story. And Frank, it associates me one madman from TV series M*A*S*H, Frank Burnse.

However, F.L. Wright was American architect, interior designer, writer and educator. During his life, he designed more than 1000 projects, which were realized more than 500. Between years 1900 and 1917 he designed so-called “Prairie Houses”, mainly in Chicago surroundings. For example, Darwin D. Martin House in Buffalo, New York or Hillside Home School, 1902 in Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin. But Frederick Robie House in Chicago and the Avery and Queene Coonley House in Riverside, Illinois are the masterpieces of this period.

The private residence – Fallingwater – built for Mrs. And Mr. Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr. in Bear Run, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh is one of his well-known and the most famous one. I cannot miss out also his other masterpiece, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. He built it for 16 years from year 1943 to 1959.

The sim, on which The Virtual Frank Lloyd Wright Museum stands, bears characteristic name Usonia. After landing on island, you are right confronted with the majestic museum building. In the middle under an arc, there is an information desk and the museum rooms are at the both sides. There you can find the pictures of Wright’s houses. After visiting of the exhibition, I recommend to continue to the fountain and then on patheway round the houses, which are the replicas them form the real world. You can also use the teleport pads that are placed at each house on the ground. But form this walk was interesting; one can relish surrounding beautiful scenery.

What is also important, the owner of the virtual museum has the official license directly from the Frank Lloyd Foundation, which was founded by the architect himself in year 1940. I will not say, what you find there, but the pictures can suggest you.

SLurl: Usonia

(Sources: New World Notes, Wikipedia)

Remarks

2010-02-23T15:13:00.004+01:00

Today it will be short, only several remarks from real world, how I remembered them.

Three stars, which are chased by a manzatita, these are three hunters.

The souls of old chieftains come back on earth in form of the orcas.

The trees cry!

(from the open ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games 2010 in Vancouver, Canada)

The Buddhism does not say to drink any wine and spirits. The Buddhism says, how to behave if you have a drink.

(superior of monastery Byodoin, near Kyoto, Japan)

Tango Argentino

2010-02-09T15:13:00.002+01:00

Dance is part of life such as this and Second life is not any exception. Dance is one of the socially accepted activities, when the pair is close to each other as never. There are a lot of dance clubs, small or big dance halls in Second Life. They do not miss on any sim and daily many people amuse themselves there.

For instance, a social ball is a unique possibility to dance in wonderful suits. I took advantage of it every time, if I have an occasion. Tango is my favorite dance, even if I do not it well in RL. But I love tango music and Astor Piazzolla is my best. He was big tango composer. However, his “nuevo tango” is bit different from classical tango, mainly jazz elements use.

Tango, it is tension and passion, fire and water, joy and sorrow. Piazzola himself plays on the first two movies. The last one is a composition called Oblivion from the album “Hommage à Piazzolla” in presentation of violinist Gidon Kremer.

(Source: YouTube)

Party in BlueBerry Hill

2010-01-27T15:01:00.002+01:00

Yesterday’s evening; I have popped in Second Life for a while, only to look what is happening, how things are going. After long time, I have flown to London to one club in Kingsbridge. I was welcomed kindly by long-time friends. So, we have talked like every time about everything. I have told about my spend weekend and than I have received another notice to other club. So, I said goodbye.

It was written in the notice that somebody another is seeking to dance at a dance pole. It has interested me, because sometime I danced at the pole in former club on Slovakia. But this one was another. There were ten poles there! However, the people have danced only for an amusement and every body could dance at these poles. We have listened super music, so I had a good time. Well, Andie Rau and Rg Papp can do it!

How it has looked there, it shows the pictures below. The lighting is original like it was set in the club.

(SLurls: BlueBerry Hill, London Kingsbridge)

Herbert Tobias (*1928 – †1982)

2010-01-25T14:01:00.003+01:00

Actually, I do not know how I should begin. I am on the trip to Prague again (Sunday 24, 2010). This time I am going by train through the white snow cowered plains of my country. In spite of that, my journey could be different, to Vienna shopping. However, it was canceled and I traveled how I initially planned.

Today’s morning I have woke up very fast and left my home in deep darkness and bitter cold outside. There is some supermarket shopping car in front of our house?! Tobacco shop is closed and so I do not buy some newspaper. Some slightly drunk gambler is coming out from a gambling club and we are passing each other.

Finally, I am sitting in Eurocity train Carl Maria von Weber. Surprisingly, I am alone in the first class coach. Is that due to the global crisis? No, I think, it is not. Only red sun shining at sunrise on the horizon is driving me to the reality.

We are passing the train stop called Bezpráví (Injustice) and a lonely man there and some kilometers another stop (Uhersko). So we arrived to the city of the gingerbreads – Pardubice.

We have stopped unexpected in some field again, lost between a civilization and nobody. There are only light, shadows in space and reflections on snow that evoke some atmosphere that I had first time if I had seen the pictures of Herbert Tobias on his website. And now, I am going to visit his exhibition.

However, reality has overcome all my expectations. The retrospective exhibition of his 150 pictures from his the best era (50’s and 60’ of 20th century) is to see in Prague in Gallery Rudolfinum till March 28. It is hard to describe it. Each picture is another story that presses you to think about it, not only to run through the exhibition without any think. Those are the pictures of Andreas Baader, young Klaus Kinski, Amanda Lear, playing children in Berlin 50’s or fashionable pictures in Berlin ruins right to male portraits.

It is not possible to name all, it just must be seen. I fully recommend this!

(Sources: Gallery Rudolfinum, Herbert Tobias)

Reincarnation

2010-01-19T16:10:00.004+01:00

The term reincarnation means word for word translated “repeated embodying”. It is an idea that life or an existence of something repeats more times. In Buddhism, it does not mean the embodying of something form one body into the second one. They use term “repeated rebirth”. It is a flow of repeated birth and death of mind. In Hinduism, our personal “I” transfers to new born body. What with we become, it depends on our karma, so on our last deeds. In spite of that, Hindus try to break out this passing of occurrences. According to the tradition, there are three paths leading to the liberation (moksha):Path of Knowledge – Jnana Marga or Jnana Yoga
Path of Deed – Karma Marga or Karma Yoga
Path of Devotion – Bhakti Marga or Bhatki Yoga
Someone adds the fourth path: Royal Path – Radha Yoga
I do not know if I have experienced my own reincarnation. However, I have unexpectedly reincarnated myself in Second Life at the last weekend. I was with my friends on one sim, where we talked and watched a new building. I wanted to ask for something, but at the same time I explored setting Advanced in SL client. I clicked something and then it happened.

I changed fully myself – shape, hairs, eyes, and my whole body. Further, I was in public and naked! Even my clothes were away. Nobody around me noticed anything. In arisen panic, I automatically pushed ctrl + h and teleported home. My Home is a place close to New Square in city Bohemia. OMG, it is another crowd of people! Somehow I chose randomly some LM, but I finished totally elsewhere. I was never there before yet.

Lagomorph is curious name for sim. It is nomenclature for big rodent of Lagomorpha order that has two pair upper gnawing teeth. For example, rabbits or hares belong to here. There were none of them around me, only many trees and grass. I was cold. I was there alone. So, I lay up into the roots of one tree.

My mind wandered and sought answers unexpressed question. How did it happen? Where am I? Whose face is it? I search in my memory this face. Memory cells are not as memory places in some computer. You cannot only set Search and it offers you all possibilities. Meditation helped me to explore the deepest places and then I recalled. This is me, but me in earlier times as a newbie.

So, I had to return. However, it sufficed only one magic click fort in my inventory. I do not know how many reincarnations happen daily in SL, but I like this embody and I would hate to change it. Somewhere the reincarnation, even if not wanted one, good for something. It is new knowledge, new feeling or new interesting place like Lagomorph.

SLurl: Lagomorph

Urbanica

2010-01-18T14:09:00.003+01:00

So, I am bit sad about it. Again one project finished and Urbanica city disappeared from the Second Life surface. Shiny Iceberg always makes some surprising. OK, it is his decision. For us only these shots remain.

Avatar

2010-01-13T16:45:00.001+01:00

Actually it began as every usual day. My alarm clock ringed. I was “extortionate hour”, 5 am. I am sorry. Nevertheless I got up. It was Friday, January 8 this year. Outdoors behind the windows was snowing. In fact it was not snowing, only so small, slow and slight falling of the snowflakes from the sky.

I stood on the platform and awaited a train to Brno. The gates fell, but my train could not arrive yet. After that however one train passed. It only whizzed by us and then more one in opposite direction. Snow settled in rails took off like mighty, wide and silver curtains, which glittered in twinkling light of railway station lamps. This snow fluttered, spun around and then it hit our faces with its massive power.

Maybe some main thing happened in the evening. Such a waiting for whole day was unbearable. I got together with my friend in city center and we wanted to go some eat up. Unfortunately, the nearest pub was closed. So we went to McDonald’s. I do not like them, but it was OK.

So and then it got dark, of course figuratively speaking. Cinema lights loosed their brightness and shine. The most discussed, the most expensive, the most sold, the most visited, maybe the most successful and on the other hand, maybe the most cursed, unoriginal movie began. Was it a time loss or only a scream into the dark?

No, it was not! I think something from that maybe yes and something from that no. It is not easy to write about something what was so much described and discussed. Is that a hit of this season? My opinion is yes and even no.

This movie achieved many things mainly due to marketing. The story, it is a question. Is it original or not? The idea, when human or being can connect itself with other object using technology whether in actual world or in virtual world, this idea is not new. Sci-fi literature already found it long time ago. What it is different, e.g. in the case of Second Life, this is immediacy, perception, emotions and other features given to human or being.

The second aspect is an existence of male and female principle, respectively. So it is not such as Ying and Yang or matriarchal and patriarchal archetype both in contrasts, rather some domination of female one. I know several examples, when female principle plays the main role – Eve in Paradise, Alma Mater (in Latin it means “Nourishing Mother “, also one's old school, college, university) or Gaia – Earth Mother.

What fascinated me in this three-hour epic was following: except movie effects just Pandora nature with all plants, beings and nation. Their (Na’vi) artistic depiction, moves and facial expression are fascinating. I am not fun of Neko or Furry style in SL, but the moves of Na’vi’s tails and little ears was super. It was pity that one had known more or less from the beginning, how it would finish – old good Hollywood cliché.

Rose Theater

2010-01-12T17:08:00.002+01:00

(Notes: Today’s contribution was originally written in Czech for Second Life in-world magazine Globe long time ago. I have the permission of both authors. Boren Ragu wrote it and Michaela Klang made the snapshots. The picture set placed in this blog is my personal selection. The complete set is on Koinup.com here.)

The Arts is sometimes wrongly omitted in Second Life. In today’s article we visit Rose Theatre that is famous due to its architecture and rich decorations. Theater creators really thought of every detail. In front of the theater there are the gardens, which look as Versailles gardens. You can found there also the arbours and the interesting sculptures. I was fascinated by the Venus de Milo sculpture, which is very beautiful. In front of the theater entrance itself you can found the board with information about the events for the next days.

The whole is so huge that it covers practically ¾ of the sim. After entrance into the theater you are welcomed at the reception, where you can join Rose Theater Group yourself. There are also the cloakrooms, if you would want to change your clothes into the formal. The creators thought of everything, because there is one free formal close to the cloakrooms – one smoking for gentlemen and one evening dress for ladies.

I was fascinated by the decorated columns and ceiling in the foyer. The big crystal chandeliers dominate practically in every larger room. On the left there is a shop with the period furniture. You can buy here armchairs, chairs, sofas or paintings. Even they sell here some fireplace and treasureable vases. There is another wall and ceiling decoration in every room, which you notice first during passing through them.

On the second floor in some rooms there are on show the paintings, which you can buy as well. Some of them are very good and original in their own way. The painting in one room images young Japanese woman, probably she is a geisha. While in the next room you can find some work with half-dressed woman at Big Ben.

The wedding room is really beautiful. On the ceiling there are different paintings together with the gold decoration. Not only the weddings, but also the parties, and other events take place here. For romantic souls it will be surely a hot candidate for the wedding ceremony.

All passageways are decorated by the flowers and the sculptures. On the ground floor there is the large dance hall with some stage, where the artists perform. The opera adjoins the dance hall. On the opera ground floor there are the armchairs and the loges are upstairs.

Behind the theatre there is garden full of the flowers and the sculptures again. Two peacocks move around and show us their beautiful tails. The garden is full of sounds. If you only want to have rest, then this place is just for you. You can also sit with your intimates at the sea and only to look at the horizon. The theatre surrounding is masterfully designed in the same way as the interior. The swans swim in the small lake and the birds fly in the sky. Simply it is an idyll for lovers.

The theater has its own web, where you can find all new information about new events. More is here. When I joined Rose Theatre Group, I had received very often Notice Group. So I think, in the theatre it is still something happening.

SLurl: Rose Theatre

Rituals

2009-12-30T20:24:00.002+01:00

The plain scarred by the lines covers the snow. The snowflakes fall down to the ground in red light of the Sun on the horizon. There is a small silent oasis in an infinite whiteness. The lonely house and the lost boat only remind us a purity of the spirit of the human itself and its humility, of which we miss in this cloven world in these days.

I myself remind it during Christmas time every year. Daily rituals that we do every day during the whole year, the next moment they obtain another dimension. As if we would change and try to slow our swim and to think about us ourselves.

The Christmas tree decoration is one of these rituals. At the first look, it seems that it is every year the same, but it is not truth. I always remember, how we (I and my sister in childhood) decorated the tree, which my father brought from the forest. Later it changed. We bought some plastic tree and we have it till now. These child bulbs and small lamps in a form of red fly agarics are maybe funny. But nevertheless, I like them and in general, the next generation, ergo sister children like them as well.

Even Second Life is full of the rituals. Although, we do not admit it ourselves. Maybe they exist only close to the bounds of our observations. Thereabout, where our eyes or other senses already cannot reach. It is just the interface between that, what it already is and is not real or virtual.

This is my last contribution in this year. I would like to wish to all of them that stray here the best to the next year and I hope that we will meet somewhere in SL

Peace to all people of good will.

The Tower

2009-12-15T15:37:00.002+01:00

Pure and disposed to mount unto the stars. (Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy – Purgatorio)

Since it is possible to see many interesting and fantastic things in Second Life, I already know for long time. During my stay in SL I have seen so much amazing and fully surprising that I never had supposed to be surprised by something.

There is one interview of SL freelance writer Mariner Trilling with SL builder Mariner Trilling on The Alphaville Herald blog. You can find the whole interview here. The SL tallest object is interview topic. Certainly you remember my blog contribution about the largest object in SL. It is SS Galaxy ship that lies on 4 sims. In this case, it is a huge column built from about 300 proms and it rises up to height of 2 miles, which is 3.22 kilometers.

I have decoded to explore it. So, I have flown there myself. This object is placed on sim named Campus and in fact you will land right now near it. Then I have decided to fly right to the top and to see world and the tower from close-up.

It is a bit heady feeling, when you rise up, you pass different skyboxes and you see fading sim surface. It is so breath-taking away feeling that you do few stops. One look up, an end is in distance beyond sight. I am continuing up and I am gradually passing several platforms, where you can have a rest. The horizon is missing now and the stars waken their lights. I am breathing heavily du to tiredness and even my wings do not obey me.

Finally top! I am landing heavily on the platform. Coordinate z, so altitudinal one, is showing the value of 4097. Here maybe only the angles may. I am staying calmly and I am listening the distant singing of the stars.

SLUrl: Campus

Documental movie

2009-12-14T13:05:00.004+01:00

There is no enough information about Second Life world. Now I have in my hands an interesting contribution at New World Notes blog. Here, some documental movie about SL is presented. This super machinima is made by Studio Kanzen for its SubPixel series.

Are you newbies in SL and do not know what SL is and what you can do here? So, this machinima is just for you.

WARNING: It contains sexual content, which is suitably filtered over blurry graphic to do not go against ToC at YouTube! The full version is placed at the official site.

(Source: New World Notes)

Decision

2009-12-11T11:12:00.002+01:00

We make the different decisions every day. Often it is the essential decision; otherwise it is wholly common one that we make automatically without any forethought. Often they are the painful decisions that we do not want make. However, the agreeable ones we make without a blink.

Even I have made recently several decisions. The first one was surprisingly spontaneous. And I did not have to force myself to do it. There was my old vice, which I could not get rid of time. I have stopped smoking. Ah, of course in RL!

Look at the world is still super beautiful! The second decision was more prosaic. I needed the winter shoes. I chose a long time and finally I found something to my satisfaction.

It is funny, that both are possible to live it up also in Second Life – a cigarette, a cigar or a pipe and super shoes and other accessories as well. One has to buy them only. You do not worry about where they are stored. Maybe only, if the inventory would go crazy and the thing would disappear from it.

One says: “The third time all good.” Nevertheless, my third decision was absolutely cardinal because of SL. I am longtime member of our Czech and Slovak community in SL. I was at many births and at many endings here. The newbies support is one example. So, I decided to leave just the support for good. I think that a scope for help is exhausted and to continue with team that did not satisfy me yet.

So, I have enough time now to paddle, to wander and to explore beauties of Second Life. One example is the sim Peterhof with the beautiful palace from time of tsarist Russia.

SLurl: Peterhof

Long Way – Point Ten – Magazine

2009-12-08T13:39:00.001+01:00

“… same away from the stars and from the atoms as well we extend our knowledge to grasp both the very small and the very large.”

Carl Sagan

It is a bit longer delay, but I would like to come back to my wandering through Second Life. Actually, I do not know how it is begun. Somebody spoke to me, if I wanted to work in a team, which is preparing new and particularly the first Czech in-world magazine. At that time, I was already writing my blog, so not a big problem to disagree.

If I am looking back at this, so I think that nobody of us in the team was not doing some illusions that we will be the best and the most interesting. But some ambitions were, at least by some of us and by me too. Without these I would never join such a business. Thus for some time, ma SL wandering was teaming with many people, who were embarking on some experiment. However, they did not know how this experiment ever will end.

The number of published issues finally achieved number ten in a span of the entire one year. We also published even one special issue about the Blue Mars virtual world. The content quality and the graphics increased with each new issue. I wrote rarely, but I had a big task to make language correction of each contribution.

To speak to bigger amount of people by force of our magazine was surely our main aim. If it succeeded, other people would have to judge it. Of course, some objection could exist, for example, a website or a blog can speak to more people. But on the other hand (Btw. we had also our own blog.), if some is launched longer time, then it has much bigger chance than some new.

However, I would not want is as an excuse. We achieved at least certain audience both the magazine and the blog. We recruited the advertisers and fair number of group members. The magazine was available at many Czech and Slovak sims and it was also free to buy at xstreet.

I do not regret it and it was my great pleasure to work wit these people. The matter that the magazine closed its existence is one thing. The second one is that it was big experience for me in all respects, both proofreading and work with people.

And some small paraphrase at the end: “The distance from the stars or the atoms is, actually, big in both directions – big and even small. Nevertheless, I extended my knowledge in both directions as well.”

Fragments

2009-12-01T16:31:00.004+01:00

Today, it will be not long contribution. I am working on some longer now. Now there are only two fragments from today's. In the morning, I wanted to sit under the tree with book in my hands in park in Bohemia and to meditate bit. Day has flashed by quite slow and I have remembered later, what day has been today. So even I have joined to the AIDS Day as you can seen on the second picture.

In Farinelli’s Footsteps

2009-11-19T16:11:00.001+01:00

So just it was name of Friday’s concert (13.11.2009) in Besedni dum in Brno, Czech Republic. Who was Farinelli? His proper name was Carlo Broschi and he lived between 1705 and 1782 year. Since in the time of baroque, the women characters were sang by men, so called castratos were needed. To boys, mostly from the poor families, the testicles were removed surgically just before the beginning of their puberty. It was almost at age of 8. In consequence of that, the boy voice was preserved and we are speaking about boy or male soprano. Since male has bit other physiologically ordered vocal cords and bigger volume of lungs, then such soprano has not only a big register but also a dynamic. Besides women may not sing in the cathedral choirs in Vatican and so the castratos were required, even if the church denounced it.

Farinelli, he himself, was considered as a star mainly due to his singing technique (mezza di voce, bel canto in his time. He sang in Italy, but also in Vienna, London and Madrid. Such greats of baroque music like Johan Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Händel or Antonio Vivaldi wrote just for the castratos.

Therefore, I was very curious about this concert. The reason for that was following. The male soprano Marian Radu (male soprano) sang with musical group called Ars Antiqua Austria form Austria. They play the period baroque instruments. I would like only mention that the last real castrato died somewhere in Spain in the middle of 20th century. Marian Radu is absolutely unique soloist. He was born in Romania. He has a pure natural soprano with register from c´ to c´´´ (C4 – C6). Strictly speaking, he is so called “Endocrinological castrato”, because he did not undergo the surgical operation, but testicle evolution was not finished by him. The timbre of his voice is absolutely unique and absolutely not comaparable with contratenor or women soprano.

So, I am giving you here two inspirations.

Absinthe

2009-11-13T15:59:00.003+01:00

I never tasted the legendary drink of “cursed poets”, but I still have in my memory some scene from Total Eclipse movie. Artur Rimbaud (palyed by Leonardo DiCaprio) and Paul Verlain (played by David Thewlis) are drinking absinthe in twilight of some pub somewhere in France.

The typically conic goblet placed on small plate is partly filled with green liquid of absinthe. Then some special flat spoon – maybe of silver – is placed over the goblet and white sugar is put in the spoon middle. Old wiry host is pouring small amount of pure water over sugar into goblet. Absinthe is milk diming; however it is losing nothing from its sharply green color. And then this wild drink is moistening the lips and the throats of poets and their brains is going crazy due to an influence of a substance called thujon.

It is just thujon presented in “grande wormwood” (Artemisia absinthium), which is with anise (or anise essential oil) and huge amount of alcohol (close to 75 vol.%) part of absinthe. Thanks to thujon influence, absinthe was forbidden in 1915 and it was replaced by other similar drinks without wormwood – pernod and pastis. Its renaissance in original form begun in 1990, when it was produced in several European countries and also by us. Nowadays, it came back to home France and to the U.S.A.

My first meeting with absinthe in Second Life was maybe like this. I obtained somewhere a bottle with it. After wearing, there where tiny green fairies around me, they flew round and round in some hyper. Of course, it is reminiscence on famous music movie Moulin Rouge with Nicol Kidman and Ewan McGregor as main characters. The green fairy was beautiful Australian singer Kylie Minoque.

My second meeting with absinthe in SL was more artistic. There is one small exhibition of works of art in some way related with absinthe. By the way, it is placed on very nice sim with characteristic name – New Toulouse. You can find the exhibition in the library building. Chessboard floor and the hall walls are absinthe green. In the hall middle is small dance floor. What it captures for the first time, so it is a huge goblet filled to capacity by absint. I recommend you to test it.

And now whitherward? So just this way!

Water

2009-11-09T15:25:00.003+01:00

If we were immortal, we would not respect the life so much. (Jacques-Yves Cousteau)

He gave human being knitted to Earth the key to the world of silence. (The epigraph on the National Geographic Society Gold Medal, which Cousteau received from the hand of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1961.)

For bee and even for dolphin, the life itself is happiness for them. For human being, it is happiness to see life and to be amazed at it. (Jacques-Yves Cousteau)
Today, I have begun my contribution with several citations, which have not only inspired me, but at the same time are fascinating for me. The see deeps are one big unexplored world. Unlike that we look at the stars and fly to them, but still we know about the underwater universe quite little. There is a micro- and macro-world around us that is maybe an analogy of space distances measured by kilometers, astronomic units and light years. The space, where the stars come to existence and die in a cataclysm of energies of mega-, giga- or terajoules, Energies, about which we know nothing.

Water is one of the Aristotle elements, where belong also fire, air and earth. No, he would assign them himself, but he talked as the first one about them in Greek philosophy. There is also some elements system in China philosophy. Unlike Aristotle, it includes wood and iron. And whole system becomes hexagon and connection of all six systematically placed elements in circle give a star symbol with its all relations.

The world of Second Life is of course closely connected with water. Except Mainland, all sims are placed on the surface of Second Life ocean. Water itself is also on the sims whether as free surface of lakes and ponds, or as part of rivers and waterfalls or fountains splashing water in the cities.

When I searched for suitable pictures I used in internal search word “elements”. So of course many links appeared for different places. The first one is sim named Elements, where I liked small lakes. But the hillside with a dance floor is bit cluttered up. But Dolce Valentina hides in some shop just these four elements. So, I made the snapshots for you.

SLurls: Elements, Dolce Valentina

Silence

2009-11-05T15:20:00.005+01:00

Yesterday’s day (04.01.2009) was a little bit funny, but also even sadder and silent, at least by me. The funnier part was set in RL, I was at some degustation of wines from Vinofol Novosedly wine making. These wines was no any miracles, but we have tasted ten samples of white and red wine in an agreeable atmosphere of nonsmoking room in restaurant called in Czech “U zámečku” (Restaurant by manor). Humor was funny, in places too noisy.

After the degustation, I have already moved in Second Life. The 2^nd November has in calendar written All Soul’s Day. Even if it was on Monday, then Momo Seriman and Scalex Overton prepared nice audio evening consisted of songs and music only so for contemplation and silent. That all in La Fabrique club.

I will not name individually all interprets on playlist, because of course I do not remember all of them. I have found on YouTube three examples that were heard in this evening.

Marika Gombitová – Koloseum (Colosseum)
Hana Hegerová – Lásko prokletá (Cursed Love)
Věra Špinarová – Jednoho dne se vrátíš (Once Upon a Time in the West, music from this movie by Ennio Morricone, Czech text by Zbyšek Malý)

It was great day spent in very pleasant society.

(Source: YouTube)

Baphomet

2009-11-03T15:41:00.002+01:00

Recently I have read some article about rock club Baphomet by xender Xenno at Globe blog (in Czech). Surprising I have received an invitation to party in this club. Behold, I was kindly surprised. The club has gone through several exterior and interior changes.

Two maybe fallen angels welcome you at the entrance. They stand on the pedestals with mysterious inscription in foreign language. The inscription symbols burn in color of fire. The column capitals are crowned by four big human skulls. There was only one fallen angel, was not there? I think so.

There is a big burning dance floor inside. Pictures and symbols move on this floor and one has spin head. After hard dance and music, everybody settles for some drink at very style bar. Possible one gives himself/herself to laze on a big sofa. There several possibilities to relax there on poseballs and also in pair. By the way, there are two sofas in club; one of them is near to dance floor.

Personally I am not fun of the music, which is played there, but if you switch off, it is never mind. The way is simple in club, use only this SLurl.

Do not burn yourself!

School

2009-10-29T15:42:00.004+01:00

With permission of Fanda Ryba I would like to offer you a translation of his article about Bwindi Orphans Project. It concerns a new school for the orphans in Uganda, see here for more info.

If it was all so simple in real life as it is in the virtual world. It would be sometimes too nice, but sometimes also not. If children had amongst themselves man like Shiny Iceberg in Ugandan village Angola. He would build the school them possibly without a blink. And maybe he also would fit the WC door by all manner of useful sensors. These children have maybe amongst themselves some like Shiny. So, their Shiny have to more learn. But where? Well, he has to go to the school. Do you think that he has a chance to prove himself in the classroom with other 150 classmates?

So, you know that there is some fund-raising campaign both in SL and RL to build the school.
Bigger chance could be given to all Shinys to learn something there. Do you know ever how this school should look? We acquired plans of the school that should be … What should … It WILL build even many of you. Therefore, Shiny Iceberg took the tools and he dared to call even me (Fanda Ryba) for some pair of helping works (but only to hold the timbers and to mix the clay in mix-machine). Now, you can scan through the model of the school that will serve the children in real world, the children, which receive school fees from some yours personally.

So, where is this school? HERE!!

(Pictures with permission of Fanda Ryba)

Antinomies

2009-10-21T15:11:00.001+02:00

So, it is here again! Hour between dog and wolf has already passed, but I am remaining somewhere in wasteland. There are only the following things as my companions – a muesli stick, a silent railway station, vibrating engines of some train, a ticking railway station clock and then nothing.

Second Life is maybe only wasteland too. Sometimes we roam and grope there. We look for something and somebody and we still do not find anything and anybody. Is that vainness or? No, it is only my motional effusion at so moved hour, when strangely influenced brain is producing these lines.

I would only like to dream and fall asleep in the arms of some honey or only to fall in the embrace of beauty and nature of the lost gardens of Apollo. Small interruption of a local drunk, who is talking to himself and bit diffusing early morning glooms and fogs. Some bird screams in the darkness maybe brings beneficial Sun.

Small mouse is running around the rails and it is an observation of reality of our world. After long waiting, a rescue is coming. It is the leaving train, in which, of course, I am sitting. The escapes from and the returns into the world of Second Life separate only PC switch on and off and log on, log off. Such as the Yin and Yang principles are the antinomies each other, then also Second Life and Real Life drown one in other and they take from the other, what they need.

Burning Life in Flames

2009-10-20T15:39:00.004+02:00

“Rise ancient city from sand of desert and show its own beauty!”

In fact, I do not know where I have heard it. However, even I already long time ago heard the sounds of wind in sand dunes and saw the flashes of the fire flames. Yes, the Burning Life festival is in full swing and the individual installations already are covering the big space of Second Life now. I also have not withstood and have clicked to some places using of the interactive map at official website of Burning Life. What arises from that, you can see on several pictures below.

Temple

Tokyo Stage

Berlin Stage

Snakes

Funny