Paint SL Purple 2016 Press Release

On Sunday 28th February 2016 Paint SL Purple begins and everyone is welcome to participate in painting the entire grid purple for 7 days. Paint your stores purple, houses, wear purple clothing, wear purple hair, purple skin to show support for the event.

If you are a blogger why not change your blog text and background etc to purple.

Starting Sunday 6th March 2016 marks the start of the 2016 Relay for Life of Second Life season. Over 2.5 million (USD) has been raised so far for Relay for Life of Second Life in the fight against cancer.

Relay Weekend will take place on 16th & 17th July 2016.

Check out the latest press release below for more details.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 22, 2016

PAINT SECOND LIFE PURPLE

WEBSITE:WWW.RELAYFORLIFEOFSECONDLIFE.ORG

For Immediate Release:

February 22, 2016

The 2016 Relay For Life of Second Life campaign is kicking off on March 6th 2016 and to prepare for this the Relay For Life volunteers will be painting the Second Life Grid Purple.  This is a community effort to raise awareness throughout Second Life about Relay For Life and you are invited to join us on February 28, 2016 from 1 – 6 pm SLT for our kick off party!

Since 2004, Relay For Life has been growing through the virtual worlds and raising money for the American Cancer Society.  In the past 12 years, this signature fundraiser has raised over 2.5 million USD leading to assistance globally in funding programs and global partnerships in the fight against cancer.

The announcement to the Second Life grid that Relay For Life is about to start comes from the launch of our Paint SL Purple campaign that begins on February 28th. Sims, businesses, communities and a flood of volunteers will celebrate the power of HOPE by turning the entire grid purple for 7 days. This will be a good opportunity to visit with new survivors, caregivers, volunteers and other who might not know about our mission and get the excitement of our journey in the forefront of the minds of all of Second Life.

Mark your calendar for Feb.28th and come out in your purple to join our fight!

About Relay For Life of Second Life
Relay For Life is the signature event of the American Cancer Society and has been active, and continually growing in Second Life for 10 years. In 2005, the first Relay For Life of Second Life (RFL of SL) was attended by a few hundred avatars and raised almost $5,000 US dollars for the American Cancer Society. As of July 2014 RFL of SL ranks number 17th out of 5000 teams worldwide in donations received. We have brought in close to 3 million US dollars to help with the fight against cancer. This year our Relay weekend will be held on July 16th and 17th.

About the American Cancer Society
For 100 years, the American Cancer Society has been working to create a world with less cancer and more birthdays. Together with our millions of supporters, the American Cancer Society (ACS) saves lives by helping people stay well and get well, by finding cures, and by fighting back. The American Cancer Society is a nationwide, community-based, voluntary health, and international organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem by preventing cancer, saving lives, and diminishing suffering from cancer, through research, education, advocacy, and service.

For More Information:
www.relayforlifeofsecondlife.org

www.cancer.org/involved/participate/relayforlife/second-life

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Home & Garden Expo 2016: come and visit

The 8th annual Hope & Garden Expo 2016 in Second Life is open featuring so many great creators of Second Life’s Home & Garden products. The Home and Garden Expo raises money for Relay For Life of Second Life (RFL of SL) and this year there are ten regions to explore.

• Important Links & SLURLS
• Events at Home & Garden Expo 2016

Home & Garden Expo 2016 will be open until Sunday 6th March 2016. If you haven’t been yet, you have to go and see incredible things. 🙂

New One Billion Rising in Second Life 2016 Video

To the entire staff, Chain Breaker dancers and supporters – thank you for your hard work and time.

Over two days 110 women dancers from within Second Life took part in making a brand new video for the upcoming One Billion Rising event in Second Life for 2016. Many others donated their time to make this video possible. Great work! 🙂

One Billion Rising in Second Life 2016 opens to the public on Sunday 14th February 2016. Head to the OBR regions on the Map and dance to show your support. There are many interesting exhibitions around the outside of the regions worth checking out.

First preview of OBR 2016 in Second Life

OBR 2016 Regions Map 

OBR 2016 Main Stage

Ebbe Linden reveals some new screenshots of Project Sansar

During the past week or so Ebbe Linden CEO of Linden Lab has posted some new screenshots of Project Sansar on Twitter. These new screenshots show some examples of what environments (Mars & the Moon) can look like inside Project Sansar.

Ebbe Linden mentions that it takes a few hours to create a multi user VR experience with Project Sansar. These screenshots look nice so far and I would imagine there will be more new screenshots showing more environments in the weeks or months ahead.

The Moon

The first screenshot shows a possible moon / desert environment featuring a classic looking cinema, realistic shadows and amazing graphics with realistic lighting over objects. In the bottom left corner there are shadows of avatars which is rather interesting.

Posted on 10th February 2016

Team having fun creating another #vr experience in #ProjectSansar. pic.twitter.com/mW6PlMQzQj

— Ebbe Altberg (@ebbealtberg) February 10, 2016

Mars

The second screenshot shows a realistic multi-user Mars VR experience. This is an example of how a landscape can be made in just a few hours and then brought to life.

Posted on 4th February 2016

Took just a few hours to create a multi-user #Mars #VR experience with #ProjectSansar pic.twitter.com/YvTER74Kui

— Ebbe Altberg (@ebbealtberg) February 4, 2016

What do you think about these new screenshots from Project Sansar ?

What kind of environment experience would you like to see created ?  

8th Annual Home & Garden Expo Opens 14th February 2016

The 8th annual Home & Garden Expo opens in Second Life on Sunday 14th February through until Sunday 6th March 2016. This year there are 9 regions to explore, along with a fresh new Expo experience and events planned for the week ahead. 🙂

Home & Garden Expo is one of the longest and largest running event dedicated to home and garden in Second Life. I have attended this event in previous years and for me it’s been a really good experience. It’s just incredible and pretty amazing each year. 🙂

There will be a series of Meet the Designer events where designers will be showcasing their new products and answering questions about their work. These sessions will take place at 2pm SLT and 5pm SLT between 15th February to 5th March).

Upcoming Key Dates & Times – (SLT)

• Display setup time: February 8, 2016 at 12:00 pm – February 11, 2016 at 6:00 pm Start time is not exact
• Press Preview day: February 12, 2016 – February 13, 2016
• Regions closed for setup checks: February 11, 2016 at 6:00 pm – 12:00 am
• 2016 RFL of SL Home and Garden Expo / Breedables Expo: February 14, 2016 at 12:00 am – March 6, 2016 at 11:59 pm
• Lantern Release from the Theatre roof: February 14, 2016 at 4:00 pm – 4:30 pm

“The Home and Garden Expo raises money for Relay For Life of Second Life (RFL of SL). Relay For Life is the American Cancer Society’s signature fundraising event, and RFL of SL is one of its virtual counterparts. You can find more information about RFL of SL at http://relayforlifeofsecondlife.org/“.

“100% of registration fees, sponsorship fees and donation items are paid to Relay For Life of Second Life. Gachas are a new opportunity to the Expo this year, and 50% of the proceeds from these will be paid to RFL”.

More info can be found on the Home and Garden Expo website

Linden Lab announces the return of Isle of View

Linden Lab have today announced the return of Isle of View for Valentine’s Weekend 2016. This year it’s set to be bigger and better than before. The return of Hug a Linden and Dunk a Linden will be happening this year. See times below!

This year there will be virtual roses, candy hearts, chocolate, teddy bears and more. You can send these gifts to your friends and family if you wish. All L$ proceeds from the sales will go to Team Fox – The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

Isle of View is back for 2016 

In this age of modern love it’s important to stop and enjoy the finer things of your Second Life – smell the virtual flowers and dream a little. The Isle of View is the perfect place to discover that the truest hallmark of love is time spent with our loved ones. This year it’s bigger and better than before – with some rebooted classics and new festivities! Read on to find out everything we’ve got in our box of chocolates this year! We’re fairly sure you’ll fall in love with the fireworks, gaze deep into the waters of the Swan Boat ride, and tiptoe through fields of botanically beautiful landscapes! There isn’t an inch of Isle of View that you and your amor will want to miss.

Times for Dunk a Linden & Hug a Linden

Mix It Up at Our Mixer

We understand that love is sometimes complicated. You have got to work hard to make it work – and we’re not afraid of a little tough love. On February 12 from 10am – 12pm and 2-4pm SLT we’ll be mixing things up with the return of Dunk-a-Linden and Hug-a-Linden booths! You may just meet your virtual Valentine while waiting for a chance to dunk or hug a Linden – and if you don’t – hey you still got to dunk or hug a Linden! It’s a win-win situation.

With music, festivities and love in the air – solo or soulmates – The Isle of View Second Life Mixer is sure to be fun for everyone. This region is so scenic, you may want to snap some pics and enter our Leap into Love Snapshot Contest.

Spread the word and save the date > 12th February 2016

The Drax Files: Episode 35 – Project Bento

Episode 35 of The Drax Files is now available to watch and this month it’s all about Project Bento in Second Life. In this episode of The Drax Files there is great footage of the Project Bento, there is a view into the development process, beta deploy and people who are involved with the project.

Project Bento still has a long way to go before making onto the main grid but good progress has been made so far. Project Bento is such an exciting development for Second Life and it’s going to be awesome when it finally launches on the main grid in the near future.

Exciting times ahead for sure. 🙂

About Episode 35

“Our users create content all the time: this world is not bounded, it is not finite!” says Coyot Linden, describing the reason for the sustained success of Second Life amongst digital creatives: in this universe you have the freedom to be and do whatever you want!

And precisely that open world concept is a daily challenge for Linden Lab engineers who have to operate on a “live patient” when trying to optimize performance or implement new features.

Project Bento which added over 100 new joints/bones to the standard SL skeleton was such an endeavor, spanning months of intense collaboration between Lindens, residents and the ever busy SL content making contractors – the Moles.

Now live on the SL test grid Aditi, Project Bento is bound to give the diverse culture in Second Life an even more expressive edge: complex facial animations for humans and fantasy creatures alike are now possible, hands have fully flexible fingers, multiple tails, wings, ears and even two heads are now thinkable: only one’s imagination would be the barrier for identity exploration through colorful avatars.

And all that new activity will be adding little load on Second Life servers, as animations would be running on local machines rather than SL servers.

Win L$10,000 – Linden Lab announces “Leap into Love” Second Life snapshot contest

On 3rd February Xiola Linden announced “Leap into Love” Second Life snapshot contest on the Second Life official blog. This is a great opportunity to submit your Love themed images for a chance to win 1 of 4 amazing prizes. The closing date is 29th February 2016.

It’s time to get into the romantic spirit as valentine’s day approaches.

• Leap Into Love Snapshot Contest Rules
• Offical Contest Page

Price Breakdown 

• Grand Prize – L$10,000
• First Prize – L$5,000
• Second Prize – L$3,000
• Third Prize– L$1,000

About the contest

February is here and love is in the air! Everywhere you go it seems the sweetest of songs plays, red roses are suddenly twice the price, and chocolate finds its way into the hands of sweethearts via heart-shaped boxes. Those things are nice, but what better way to celebrate than with a memory captured in perfect pixels?<br

The “Leap into Love” Snapshot contest is your chance to submit your Valentine’s Day themed images for a chance to win 1 of 4 awesome prizes.

The “Leap into Love” Snapshot Contest celebrates friends, family, loved ones – all of those who are beloved in our lives. While Cupid may be pointing arrows at this time of year, we know that love is much bigger than that. Love is kindness, friendship, balance, warmth, laughter, and so much more – so share it with us! Contest ends on February 29th.

Winners will be selected by a panel of judges made up of Residents and Lindens based on consistency with theme, originality, creativity, and overall impression.

Spread the word! 🙂

Sneak Preview: The Drax Files Episode 35 – Metal Mole Moshpit Time

On Wednesday 3rd February Draxtor uploaded a sneak preview for the new upcoming episode of The Drax Files. Episode 35 will be available to watch on Friday 5th February 2016 and it’s all about the Moles in Second Life.

The Moles are banging their heads to an old rehearsal room recording of a band I was in 1993ish = excuse the bad audio but it seemed fitting….

Episode 34 called Cheeky Pea has now been viewed 14, 394 times on YouTube. Wooot! 🙂

Watch previous episodes of The Drax Files here.

One Billion Rising in Second Life confirmed for 14th February 2016

One Billion Rising in Second Life will be held on Sunday 14th February 2016 to raise awareness of violence against women around the world. The event will feature a four region stage, art installations, live performances and much more. A variety of performers will play over the 24-hour period.

In previous years One Billion Rising has been really good and I have enjoyed the event. I’m looking forward to attending this year. Will you be attending this year ?

History of One Billion Rising in Second Life 

• On 14 February 2013, one billion people in 207 countries rose and danced to demand an end to violence against women and girls.
• On 14 February 2014, we escalated our efforts, calling on women and men everywhere to Rise, Release, Dance, and demand Justice!
• On February 14th 2015, we called for a revolution for change.
• Now, on February 14th 2016, we are escalating the call for revolution!

Volunteering for One Billion Rising in Second Life 2016

• Fill out the Volunteer form – Greeters, Stage Managers, Security and more positions available
• Fill out the Press Day form – Apply for Press Day – Friday 13th February 2016

About One Billion Rising 

One Billion Rising is the biggest mass action to end violence against women in human history. The campaign, launched on Valentine’s Day 2012, began as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than ONE BILLION WOMEN AND GIRLS.

On 14 February 2013, people across the world came together to express their outrage, strike, dance, and RISE in defiance of the injustices women suffer, demanding an end at last to violence against women. On 14 February 2014, One Billion Rising for Justice focused on the issue of justice for all survivors of gender violence, and highlighted the impunity that lives at the intersection of poverty, racism, war, the plunder of the environment, capitalism, imperialism, and patriarchy. For the third year of the campaign, One Billion Rising’s global coordinators chose the theme of “Revolution” as an escalation of the demand for justice, and to build upon the massive efforts of communities worldwide that also looked at the roots and causes of violence as part of their call for justice. On (or around) 14 February 2015, millions of activists in over 200 countries gathered to Rise for REVOLUTION, to change the paradigm, demand accountability, justice and systematic CHANGE. We are rising to show we are determined to create a new kind of consciousness – one where violence will be resisted until it is unthinkable.

In 2016, the theme of Revolution continues with a call to focus on marginalised women and to bring national and international focus to their issues; to bring in new artistic energy; to amplify Revolution as a call for system change to end violence against women and girls; to call on people to rise for others, and not just for ourselves.

The campaign has been covered widely by media in all corners of world including The New York Times, The Guardian, NPR, and many more.

Additional Links 

• OBR 2016 website: https://onebillionrisingsl.wordpress.com/
• OBR 2016 Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/One-Billion-Rising/493344827375934
• Second Life Group: One Billion Rising
• OBR 2016 Twitter Stream: https://twitter.com/OBRinSL
• OBR 2016 Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/2169739@N23/