It’s once again that annual time of reflection. The winter is with us, the old year is slowing dying, the new year awaits, and it is time to look back across the highs and lows of the virtual year as seen through the pages of this blog. This year has been even busier for me than previous years, so rather than give you a sea of text to wade through, I’ve opted to break things down into three more manageable offerings, starting with January through to April, and have tried to limit myself to bullet-points to the various links. I’ve not attempted to dot every “I” and cross every “T”; rather my aim is to highlight the main items of news for each month (or those which raised a smile), and those aspects of other VWs I had time to cover and well as a look back on some personal elements of my SL times over the year. For those into art and SL exploration, I’ve also summarised installations and regions visited by month in the hope that doing so will stir your own memories of those events / places.
January-April can be found here
May-August can be found here.
September
69 posts
Second Life and the Lab
The SL viewer gets a “request teleport” feature & a group ejection notification
Yurzuru Jewell launches Idobata, a handy text-to-speech tool for Second Life. Later in the month he launches Keshiki, a screen capture tool for tutorial makers
LL’s tie-in with Amazon sees SL appear on the UK and German Amazon sites
The Lab starts opening advertising on its web properties to SL businesses and merchants
Concern over the extent of changes to creators’ rights as made in August to LL’s ToS start to grow. I contact the Lab directly on the matter and receive a statement from them on the matter. As upset grows about the changes, some start quietly to try to get things suitably resolved, while I follow-up on ideas that the changes were due to the Desura acquisition. Towards the end of the month an in-world meeting is announced, and I offer a post-meeting personal perspective
LL issue viewer-side support for their new particle capabilities
The Lab announces SLShare, an opt-in means people to link their SL and Facebook accounts. The capability appears in the viewer near the end of the month, and appears reasonable enough
Singularity adds the ability to export your own textures when exporting your own content to Collada files
Lette Ponnier offers some sage advance to those wishing to improve their SL user experience
Exodus releases a materials-ready version
The San Diego Union-Tribune publishes a detailed story on Fran Serenade, first broken in the SL blog circuit by Hamlet Au in February). I cover the story and poke LL about it as a result, the story become the most-read article on this blog for 2013, with just under 4,000 readers within the first 24 hours of the Lab promoting it alone – thank you, Peter & LL & all who visited!
Chris Stokel-Walker, a UK journalist provides an astute look at Second Life
On top of new platform improvements, the Lab launches a new promo video
My interview with Rod Humble makes it to issue #49 of Prim Perfect magazine
Cocoa updates adversely impact Mac users
Platform News
Week 36: Monty’s server-side HTTP updates start deployment, but require a viewer-side update. These updates include the new GetMesh2 capability and its associated debug, Mesh2MaxCocurrentRequests, both of which are designed to stop people exceeding the server-side capabilities with unreasonably concurrent mesh download requests
Week 37: JSON gets some updates; recursive rezzing as a means of griefing gets nerfed, although later updates are required
Nyx essentially nixes any idea of extensive, in-depth changes to the current SL avatar
A fix arrives for an issues whereby some avatars were unable to access parcels running on regions on the Magnum RC
Week 39 sees increasing reports or region restart issues, while there is further informal discussion on the idea of an SL avatar 2.0″; region crossing issue return with a bite
The Lab issues some stats on materials, Monty Linden dives into issues with tethered cellular connections
Art Reviews
UWA, the Centre for ME/CFS & other invisible illnesses and Virtual Ability launch the Freedom Project
The Portuguese Way – LEA
Events
Firestorm celebrates its third anniversary
BURN2 announces selected artists for 2013
Virtual ability announce the 3rd annual international disability rights affirmation conference and panelists from around the world
Grendel’s 7th Element Hunt
The Michael J. Fox Premiere Party for Parkinson’s Disease set to be held in SL the event raises L$425,000 ($1700) in just three hours
Pey’s Travelogue
Palomar Observatory, Honah Lee islands
Biminist
Honah Lee Islands
Deadpool
Toru
Artists Garden
Pangloss
Collins Land (2)
Savoir Faire / Serenity Gardens
The Looking Glass
Cyprian Garden
Moonlight Teahouse
Personal Notes
Blake Sea became my playground (again) while flying my lovely Spitfire
I move to Blake Sea and take-up residence in a themed estate there
It is confirmed that Voyager has left the Solar System and that, surprisingly, Mars may have far less methane than might have been thought
October
60 posts
Second Life and the Lab
Patterns gets a website overhaul and the dev team hold live streams with users
Western Digital (Asia) launch a short film competition with a special machinima section suitable for SL film makers
LL announces it’ll be offering all IndieCade nominees & official selections a Desura distribution deal
World’s End Garden announces closure
LL seek to re-vamp Desura client open-source project after the SL viewer open-source model
The LL ToS changes continue to rumble on:
Machinimatix refocus terminology in their products & Bryn Oh resigns from the LEA
I point out that (unfortunately) the wording in the ToS is very common
An in-world legal panel is announced to address concerns and answer questions
Qarl Fizz quits SL
I provide audio recordings and also transcripts from the in-world legal discussion
Designing Worlds plans a special programme on the subject
Lab runs a Halloween photo contest with L16K in prizes
CastAR gets immersive capability to place it on a par with Oculus Rift and $500,000 in first 3 days of modest kickstarter
The Lab announces a “mobile beta” programme for accessing SL using OnLive streaming
The CtrlAltStudio viewer has an unofficial first pass at including SL viewer UI elements when using Oculus Rift
Firestorm discuss their upcoming 64-bit Windows release with me prior to launching their 4.5.1 beta update and Windows Alpha 64-bit versions
Platform News
Week 40: Andrew and Maestro Linden continue to try to pin-down the cause of recent region crossing issues; Baker starts working through the viewer-side code for his group ban list work; render weights and their associated calculations are tweaked. Additional bug-fixes are announced
AIS v3 officially pointed-to as coming soon
Week 42: upcoming viewer-side interest list changes are previewed, and viewer-side code is made available to TPVs for testing purposes; Monty Linden starts into HTTP work directly related to HTTP pipelining
Unfortunately, the interest list viewer proves itself determined not to make in through LL’s QA, delaying the release
Art Reviews
Overto Omonto – Per4mance MetaLES
Colour Key – LEA
Moving Rafts and Gaia Theory Project – LEA
Mixed Pixels – Art India
Events
BURN2
Virtual Worlds: new frontiers of appropriation
Pey’s Travelogue
Alki
Alki
Harrowdale
World’s End Garden
Avedon Park
Calas Halloween special at SilverMyst
Nagare
Tudor Rose
Other Worlds
InWorldz launches a unique means of RL exercise while spending time in-world
Cloud Party jumps on the Oculus Rift bandwagon
November
76 posts
Second Life and the Lab
The Drax Files features the Fran Seranade and her daughter, Barbi
Drax offers some thoughts on Leap Motion
In the long-running Evans et Al vs. linden Lab case, Judge Ryu gives the OK for the settlement to proceed
CasperTech launch PrimBay, an on-line Marketplace for SL & other VWs
The Lab moves to improve SL Marketplace security
Singularity updates with support for materials and particles and with a 64-bit Windows version
Firestorm commences blocking older versions from SL
The Machinima Expo6 sees a film from SL win the Grand Prize
The Lab announces the Fitted Mesh project, I get to preview the viewer
Lab issue cautionary reminder over L$ purchases
A request for tax information from some users causes confusion; Desmond Shang gets additional clarification via e-mail
CtrlAltStudio offers Kinect support for the viewer
Lab offers Leap Motion integration for SL, but looks to TPVs to handle the work
Qarl considers the Fitted Mesh solution to be “mostly good”
The Lab issues a password security reminder in the wake of the Adobe security breach
The Drax Files Radio Hour is announced
Platform News
Week 44: Lab starts pushing TPVs to ready AIS v3-ready test versions of their viewers so that further testing can get underway; viewer issues means that some types of crash are not being reported; Monty starts updating third-party libraries used in the building of viewers while also digging deeper into server-side HTTP capabilities / pipelining requirements
CHUI updates see viewer FPS adversely impacted
Black dragon continues to progress very nicely
Week 45: dealing with “Trojan objects” and upcoming code contributions for the viewer, and a tidy update on group ban lists
The interest list updates finally make it to a project viewer release
Week 46: recent server-side changes to combat griefing see rezzing systems hitting the grey goo fence
Week 48: bug fixes are the order of the week, with region crossings camera distance issues and a weird region restart issue in focus
Art Reviews
Give the Numbers! and Arithmos – LEA
The Machine – LEA
Lost Second Life – Dryland
Oceania Planetary Park – LEA
Invisible People – Lost City
Events
War of the Worlds
The Well
Pey’s Travelogue
Taka no Sakura
Cupcakes
Imagination
Noble New England – Isle of Myrth
Caprice and Easy-A
Asalia House
Small Town Green
L2 Studio
Taka no Sakura
Jomo
One Christmas Night
Dawn of Radiance
Personal Notes
It’s that time when everyone is trying to get to Mars, although Curiosity has a slight hiccup
I finally get the menu tweaks to this blog finished and then realise I’ve passed the 2,000 posts milestone
December
70 posts
Second Life and the Lab
Season 2 of the acclaimed The Blackened Mirror premieres
A unique RL / SL cross-over sees A Christmas Carol performed before audiences in both
UWA launch “What Makes Us Human?” in SL
The Romeo + Juliet winter season announced
Documents obtained from Edward Snowden and sifted by The Guardian (and others) reveal that both the NSA and GCHQ had a fine old time in SL (and elsewhere)
The UK’s GCHQ: vacuuming SL data after hunting down crooks
Firestorm hold their last Q&A of the year
Andrew Linden announces he’s leaving the Lab
Lab asks users to complete a survey on SL Marketplace search
LL offers a review of 2013
Tutsy Navarathna wins the WD Sci-fi challenge machinima section
It appears profile feed direct messaging is discontinued
Saffia spots an issue affecting SL users using Gmail
Platform News
There is an announcement that Oculus Rift support will be “soon”, but quite possibly not quite-so-soon as anticipated
Week 49: Problems continue with the Interest List project viewer and the Fitted Mesh project viewer continues to be tweaked
As a final treat for the year, Andrew Linden announces uniform scaling of prims and linksets via LSL
Week 50: Fitted Mesh gets a viewer update, code contributions move closer to a release
Lab issues a “last call” for feedback on Fitted Mesh, with the project set to head towards RC release in early 2014
Group Bans progress, Dwarfins and other breedables start poofing
Art Reviews
Red Shoes – MIC Imagin@rium
We Annihilate Remotely – Artemis Gallerie
Sleepy Snail – MetaLES
Asterion Coen – LEA
Fisicofollia – LEA
Plankton – LEA
35 Elephants – LEA
Faces – Art India
Roots and War – Song Bird
Sun to Moon: Transmigration Between Day and Night – Myhns Land
Events
Xmas Expo 2013
The Dickens Project 2013
Santalarity
Pey’s Travelogue
Crystal Oak Falls
Crystal Oak Falls
Yuki no Yume
Slightly Twisted
Calas Galadhon
It All Starts With a Smile
Other Worlds
Kitely announce pricing changes
I give materials in Kitely a go
AvaCon launch a revamped website
Personal Notes
I reach 7 years in SL with this avatar
My new Nexus 7 means I can really enjoy SL with Lumiya
Impressed by others, I revamp my little corner of SL
Saffia bravely asks me to write another piece for Prim Perfect
I offer a little review of Morgan Garret’s brilliant birds
Filed under: Personal Notes, Reviews Tagged: Blogging and Me, SL Annual Reviews