An inside look at Get the Freight Out in Second Life

It’s really amazing. After more than 10 years being in Second Life I still learn about new corners of this virtual world. The broad variety of communities and possible activities seem to be endless. Just tink of sailing, flying, building fantasy worlds, art, Gor, fashion, music events, relay of life, history ….
And today I read about Get the Freight Out (GTFO), a popular in-world game among many vehicle users, in Inara Pey’s blog. It’s not that I’m going to try it out, I’m way to busy already with my Second Life family within the BDSM communities and with my simploring activities. But I wanted to share this very interesting blog post about GTFO. Thank you Inara for your very detailed post, which is a real teaser.

Inara Pey's avatarInara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

Get the Freight Out (GTFO) is a popular in-world game among many vehicle users. HUD-based, it allows players to “haul” cargo from by land, sea or air, point-to-point across the mainland continents of Second life, and over their connected waterways and seas (e.g. Blake Sea). In doing so, players can earn in-game (and non-redeemable) “Goal dollars” – G$ and game experience points which allow them to “level up” through GTFO.

Since its launch, the game has grown to encompass, at the time of writing, over 280 different land, sea and air vehicles, and has over 300 “hubs”- the points at which players use to collect / deliver their cargoes – scattered around the Mainland continents of the grid, presenting players with multiple opportunities for collecting and delivering cargoes, with more being added all the time.

In fact, such is the popularity of the game that many vehicle creators are offering…

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Designing Worlds in conversation with Ebbe Altberg – Transcript + Audio

Thank you Inara for this blog post! I appreciated to read this summary on SL’s future and what is on stock for us.

Inara Pey's avatarInara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

Ebbe Altberg in conversation with Saffia Widdershins

On Tuesday, May 15th, I was able to sit-down at a closed studio recording session which formed part of Design Worlds’ 10th anniversary. The programme featured special guest, Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg.

Ebbe had accepted an invitation to answer questions to him by Saffia Widdershins, focusing on the upcoming 15th Anniversary celebrations for Second Life and the infographic and roadmap blog post issued by the Lab in  April 2018, although Sansar was also touched upon as well towards the end of the session.

The questions were a mix of those submitted to Designing Worlds ahead of the session, and those formulated by the Designing Worlds team. What follows here is a transcript of Ebbe’s responses to the questions, with a précis of each question and an audio extract from my own recording of the session.

A summary of the topics / comments is…

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Diary 2018 (57) April 1st – Mario’s Easter Light Show

I had an invitation to for Sunday, April 1st, Easter 2018, to visit Mario2 Helstein’s Easter Light show. Angelique accompanied me to the event, which was once again at the Theatre On The Hill. Mario presented an amazing show again. The light effects are breathtaking, the music is selected thoughtfully. There were quite some elements that I saw in previous light shows of Mario, but it looks different from every angle, and different if you zoom in and out – and even more important, you I can’t get enough watching it. Following the show was a real Easter event for me.

April 1st: Diomita and Angelique Maurer attending Mario2 Helstein’s Easter Light Show

April 1st: Impressions of Mario2 Helstein’s Easter Light Show 2018 (1)

April 1st: Impressions of Mario2 Helstein’s Easter Light Show 2018 (1)

Of course I took dozends of pictures again, much more than I can show here. I got the link to a videotaping of the whole light show from Mario a couple of hours after the show. The video was recorded by Peet Auer. There you can get an idea how amazing the light show looks like seeing it live.

And the next day I got the linkto another video showing some parts of the Easter Light show at the Theater In the Hill. This video was taken by Suzie Anderton of InWorld Films.

Thank you for the great show, Mario!

Link to Peet Auer’s videotaping of Mario2 Helstein’s Easter Light Show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn0KyEgltDU
Link to Suzie Anderton’s videotaping of Mario2 Helstein’s Easter Light Show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV5oY8h2quY&feature=share
Landmark to Theatre On The Hill
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Pure%20Luxury/60/231/3403
Website of Theatre On The Hill (watch for other vents in Second Life)
http://www.toth-sl.com/
Mario2 Helstein’s shop inworld
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dark%20Heaven/33/133/21

Happy Easter

Image

Ebbe and Oz talk Second Life in the cloud

Second Life moving into a cloud? I first thought, that will not change a thing for me as a user. But it does in several ways. First of all, Linden Lab will be able to turn fix costs into variable costs. That might help them to increase earnings and hence helps to keep Second Life running. Good News!
But there’s more that might change by the move. Nowadays Linden Lab’s revenues mostly depend on land tiers and as land is quite expensive it limits growth – revenues are more likely decreasing today. The move into a cloud might offer new pricing models based on usage, something that doesn’t frighten most users off as much as regular recurring payments do.
Right now the move into a cloud is decided but there’s no fixed date for it yet. The plans about a new pricing model aren’t yet fixed either, there’re just some ideas out so far.
Inara Pey’s blog post gives us some insight of what to expect. I look forward to the change and I hope it will be a smooth move with only little unavailability of Second Life.

Inara Pey's avatarInara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

Credit: Linden Lab / Amazon Web Services Inc.

It’s a huge effort. Right now the Second Life grid is a proprietary set-up in a hosting facility that we have customised for the purposes of what we’re doing – which made sense a decade and half ago. But these days, with the services from Google and Amazon and Microsoft with cloud infrastructures, it makes a lot of sense to shift our technologies to be on top of those cloud infrastructures instead of having our own.

Ebbe Altberg, VWPBE, March 15th, 2018.

That the Lab is working on moving Second Life to the cloud is becoming more and more widely known. First mentioned by Landon Linden (aka, Landon McDowell, the Lab’s Chief Product Officer) during his SL14B Meet the Lindens session, it was “officially” announced in August 2017 via a blog post.

Landon Linden, June 2017, talking about the Lab’s…

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The return of Second Life Last Names – update with audio

When I joined Second Life more than 10 years ago I had to pick a last name from a list of about 20 or 30 names and decided for “Maurer”. Up until today you know that those wearing the last name Maurer come most probably from Germany and as the list of offered last name changed you can also suspect their potential rezz date. Then Linden Lab disposed the last names in Second Life and we first cracked jokes about the fast growing “Resident family”. But as it is with many changes we got used it with the years. Nowadays having a last name clearly indicates that you’re an oldie in Second Life.

Now I read in Inara Pey’s blog about Linden Lab’s plan to reintroduce last names and what problems are to be solved with the return of last names. For me it was quite interesting and I wanted to share it in this blog.

Inara Pey's avatarInara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

Following the Lab’s announcement that last names will be returning to Second Life  later in 2018 (see my post here), Oz and  Patch Linden have been providing further details on the change.

Patch has been commenting on the forum thread related to this topic (and the Lab’s 15th anniversary blog post in general), starting here, and I’ve also quoted him below.

Oz Linden took time to address questions on the subject at the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting on Thursday, March 22nd.

The following is a summary of what has been said thus far, predominantly using Oz Linden’s comments at the CCUG meeting. I’ve attempted to summarise the key points as series of short topics, and have included audio extracts of Oz’s comments with each topic.

Note that the audio extracts draw together related comments voiced at different points in the session, as Oz addressed questions. I…

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February 11,12,13th – Anniversary row

We have quite some anniversaries these days among our family and friends. Starry (Starbright Wingtips) and I rezzed the very same day, Feb 11th, 2008. Hence we both celebrated our 10th annverisary of joining Second Life before yesterday . Very close to one year older in Second Life is Argi (Argi Boa). She joined February 12th, 2007 and celebrated her 11th rezzday yesterday. And today, February 13th, 9 years ago in 2009 our Flo (Florence Riddler) joined SL.

Happy anniversary Starry, Argi and Flo!

Happy anniversaries Starry, Argi and Flo!

Dio’s 10th year in Second Life Feb 11th, 2018 – Part II

Yesterday, I had my my 10th anniversary of joining Second Life.
It has become a tradition for me to write a longer blog post on the occasion of my rezzdays, to have a look back on the last year and to realize the changes in my Second Life as well as the things that didn’t change. Yesterday, I published Part I of my anniversary entry and talked about my home, the changes in the family and my simploring tours.
Today’s part II is about family members,  other Highlights of my 10th year in Second Life and about my relation with my property, my wife, my Mistress Jenny. Enjoy!

Back to my SL “family”. They had their own highlights in my 10th year and of course these are also highlights for me.
slave Flo wrote another story, which still can be continued: The Victorian Corset. You’ll find part I, part II and part III in this blog. We had fun reading and illustrating it.


Kitty Maurer had kind of a competition with our ex-slave Dana and became a Hu-cow (Human Cow) like Dana. Considering that Kitty is male gave it an extra kinky touch. Kitty did well and produced lots of milk. I could have considered to drink my coffee with milk again *winks*. It was fun!

August 5th: Diomita with Hu-cow Kitty

Angelique got very active at the Oak Meadow community and managed a lot there. It was a new experience for her, trying to get all interests aligned. Some day it was all too much for her and she retreated from her “job” there and started something new. She then began to study at Birchwood Academy …. and gave in her studies in January 2018, saying that the academy is a step to high for her, she can’t follow the classes and gets behind. Oh my, I don’t want to sum up all the tuition we payed over the last years for Angelique’s education and still she’s a real brat sometimes. She’s now at another Institute called R.M.I., where they want to  treat her self wetting problems. It looks like we’ll pay more tuition.

September 17th: Angelique Maurer

Our slave slut cecy continously added to our fun. Her sluttiness and desire are insatiable. Unfortunately slut’s online times do not fit with ours anymore and we see her only during the weekends lately. Nonetheless, slace slut cecy is dedicated to us and loyal and we enjoy having her in our family and love to tease her when she’s around.

September 6th: slave slut cecy hanging around at Lochme (pictures by cecyme)

Our slavin Christa had the fantasy to become a puppy slave. Be careful, what you wish for! She became our puppy slave and we restricted her hearing and speech to that of a pet (there’re some great scripts for that). We had agreed to keep her as our pet for one full year. After 6 months, we allowed her to change her outfit and we loosened her restrictions a bit, so that she can communicate with us at least. She still has another 6 months to go.

December 26th: Diomita with slave pet Christa in her new puppy suit at home and at Mesmerize Dungeon

slave Adarra couldn’t be with us as much as she and we wanted due to her RL and the timezone issues. We did not see her often, but when she was around, she was always helpful and tried to add her part to the family. For example she made slave Kelly’s branding for the Maitreya mesh body.

October 17th: Diomita watching the slaves kelly and Adarra at our Stonehaven patio

My 10th year starts with Kitty Maurer, slave Flo, slave slut cecy, slave Adarra, slave puppy slavin C, slave kelly and slave Bella as officially collared slaves and subs. Angelique Maurer is not collared by us, but as our niece she’s part of the most inner circle. We’re quite full again:-).
In March 2017 we started our key-holding service. Our idea was (and is) that unowned slaves and subs may come to us, ready to be locked. We will lock their gear and take their keys for a predefined (longer) time of a week or more. They can enjoy being helpless and controlled. There’s no way back. We take a small fee for it, that is used to support our regular Friday night parties and our dj Virgo Babii. We had some feed back and the service also added to our fun.


The Friday night parties are a fix date in our Second Life. We enjoy starting the weekend dancing and chatting and being very relaxed. It might be one of the oldest regular parties in Second Life, running since 2008. WOW. Lately our parties have been very well attended and we came to the limit of our homesim, that can only handle 20 people simultaneously. Thank you for the great music and for providing this fun, Virgo. It became a part of my RL.

November 10th: Friday Night Party

We pursued our kinky Second Life not only within the family. We had several potential slaves and subs around us for a limited time. They left again for different reasons. Nonetheless they added to our fun. I want to mention here: Maddie (), slave Jade (,), Summer Robertson (), Rubbertoy (), sissy maid (), ally () and slave D ().


My relation to Mistress Jenny is the base of my Second Life. I wouldn’t be here without her. She continued to strenghten her position as my Mistress. As of right now, this is not going to change. She grants green lights to me, where I may control her (I do enjoy the green lights a lot!) and she holds me in a red light, when she’s in the mood to apply her full control. This is keeping our relation exciting.

During one of these red lights, Mistress Jenny had me in an outfit, that she named “submission complete”, and this describes our relation as how it is right now. Mistress Jenny is in charge and I am her Ehesklavin, her married sub wife. Nonetheless we mostly are a domme couple and we both enjoy controlling our slaves. Thank you Jenny for being my Mistress, my world and for being Mine nonetheless.

August 31st: Mistress Jenny with Ehesklavin Diomita – “Submission complete”

What’s left from my 9th year in Second Life, that I didn’t mention yet? Yes, an actual picture of myself. Inspired by Angelique and others I decided to try out a mesh head. In Second Life you become more beautiful with time, YAY. Such a shame that we can’t transmit that to real life. With Angelique’s help I managed to get the mesh head looking quite similar to my system head, hence it is still me (Angelique’s mesh head is really “wow”). I can switch between both heads and I do change according to the technical needs. The mesh head for example isn’t animated correctly for animations of older equipments. In addition I sometimes come the the maximum of possible attachments when I wear the Mesh head. The Mesh head is of Advantage, when I take close-up pictures, particularly when I use my LUMIPro HUD.

September 16th/17th: Diomita Maurer with “systemhead” and with “mesh head”

For sure 10 years is a long time in reality as well as in a virtual world like Second Life. I was blessed to come across Jenny with who I share not only Second Life. Our relation is the strong base upon which we built our world, but we also need and enjoy the community of family and friends around us. Thank you all for making this world for me and for us. SL is first of all about people and it’s you all who make my and our SL what it is: Still going strong, still enjoyable and still exciting! It was a great 10th year in Second Life and I look forward to the 11th!
Love from Diomita
xoxoxoxox

Dio’s 10th year in Second Life Feb 11th, 2018 – Part I

Incredible!
Today marks my 10th anniversary of joining Second Life.
It has become a tradition for me to write a longer blog post on the occasion of my rezzdays, to have a look back on the last year and to realize the changes in my Second Life as well as the things that didn’t change.
As this post became a little bit too long, I decided to split it into two parts. The part one will be about our home, the changes in the Family and my simploring tours. Enjoy!

Let’s start with our home. It hasn’t changed. This time I also can’t report about a major refurbisment. There have been only some minor changes, some more plants, some new furniture and toys. I personally am very happy with the layout as it is now, but there’s always room for improvements.

December 15th: Our winterly homesim “Mount Everest”

Since my 9th rezzday the family has only grown. None of our slaves and subs left. We still have slave Flo, slave slut cecy, slave Adarra and slavin C. Our sub Kitty Maurer is still owned by us and enjoying spreading mischief and causing trouble for herself and others. And Angelique Maurer, our niece, stayed close to us as well. She left Zoey and finds more and more her own way in Second Life but she feels being at home when she’s with us.

The Maurer’s: slave Adarra, slave puppy Christa, slave slut cecy, Diomita, slave kelly, Mistress Jenny, Angelique, slave Flo, slave Belly and Kitty (from left to right, picture is from January 1st, I added in slave Adarra, slave Bella and Kitty)

In October 2017, I met kelly (kellytrip) at Heavy Bondage Club. I knew her as Claven’s slave. Claven brought her sometimes to our Friday night parties as a kind of a decoration for her. Claven gave her to Mara (Maralyn Corleone) and Mara allowed kelly some freedom, like looking for trouble at Heavy Bondage Club. kelly found the trouble she was seeking for. What started with teasing developed to a longer roleplay. We had kelly and later also her former owner Mara as our victims at home. We shaved their heads bald, we (ab)used them and we threatened both. The roleplay ended when kelly offered to fully submit to us if we let Mara go. slave kelly, Maurer’s lil slave, had no traditional trial, she was simply enslaved and is our slave now.

October 2017: Diomita with slave kelly

In November 2017 Bella (BellaRose1998) came to us. She attended one of our Friday night parties from a quite secure distance. Bella didn’t dance but stood aside most of the time and she spent some time at the pit, where slave kelly was stored that night. She was picturing herself fully controlled, tied and locked and was not at all shying away even from isolation but had no experience. Bella stayed with us for several weeks, was treated like a slave and fitted in well. She’s patient and accepts her place. After a short traditional trial in the tube cell, we collared her as Maurer’s Rose in January 2018.
I explored and discovered a lot in Second Life during my 9th year. I admire the creativity of artists in this virtual world, I visited galleries like MetaLes ..O.. ArT Virtual Space, Blue Orange, SOOSH Art Gallery, Serena Imagine Arts Center, The Eye Art Gallery and La Maison d’Aneli. I saw several installations within the LEA programm like Another world, Surreal Chess Wonderland, 16 Fields and The Mind of The Machine. I came across the light shows of Mario2 Helstein and saw the Solstice Light Show. I discovered the fractals of Gem Preiz in his exhibitions No Frontiers and Chaos. I visited Enchanted art and Cerridwens Cauldron, I saw Moya …. and many many more.

Dio’s 9th year in Second Life – selection of art that I saw

I found many cosy and lovely sims where people buildt their own dreamworld, peaceful and picturesque. You don’t need many prims or a large place for it, Long Journey and Another Long Journey are examples for that. Most of these dreamworlds were homesteads: Maison de L’amitié, Amandia, Follow Your Bliss (II), Ash Falls, Tavana Island, Sunfall, Sol Existence, Binemust, Borneo Island, Aspen Fell Memories, Cherishville, Holiday Trace, somewhere ….. just to name a few. In these sims I spent relaxing hours and enjoyed the views and the peace.

Dio’s 9th year in Second Life – selection of visited sims

Then there were the sims that have a real background, where a place in the physical world was build in Second Life. This way I got a picture, an idea of the real places and my visit gave reason to do a little bit of research. Khodovarikha (in the Barents Sea, Russia) was one of the most impressing places and I spent some time learning about this place in the real world. I didn’t read or hear about Marfa before seeing it in Second Life, now I know that this place in the middle of nowhere is quite known as a major center for Minimalist art. But there were more like West Of The Rain (inspired by The San Juan Islands in Washington State), Costa Blanco (a southern province of Sweden), A piece of Ireland (Blarney Castle in Ireland), ~Neive~ (Neive is located in the Province of Cuneo in the Italian region Piedmont) and New Greenland (inspired by Kangaamiut, Greenland).

Dio’s 9th year in Second Life – selection of places I saw with a RL background

I also discovered many places related to my kinky side, to BDSM. That’s another dream you can live in Second Life and I do. Some of these places were not new at all, but new for me or I just rediscovered them. I want to mention the Seaside Slave Storage, Angel of Pain’s BDSM Island (which I visit more often again), SJC Playground, Fortress Mortice, Chek Chau – Daisy’s playground, LICK and Crystal Bay, Elegant Femme Gallery and Maison Sybille, Sadiana, Headlights, Mirage and The Havens. But there’re many many more. Also these places are build with passion and love and they all offer a lot more than just bdsm.

Dio’s 9th year in Second Life – selection of bdsm places I discoverd

Thank you all for building, for creating and for sharing your dreams with the rest of the community. And please apologize if I forgot to mention some of my tours, it were too many. I did really enjoy all of my simploring tours!

End of part I

Simploring Destinations

After publishing the blog post about my simploring tour to La virevolte I got a message from Annie Oh (anniebrightstar) who follows my simploring tours. She knows that I look up the SL Destination guide every once in a while, when I have no destination on my list to visit. Annie has collated every travel blog she can find for some 4 years now and put into scoop.it. Look it up here: https://www.scoop.it/t/second-life-destinations. Here you can search blog entries about a SL destination or just look up the latest published entries. I added the link to the “Other links” section on the right.


Annie has also her own blog https://anniessl.blogspot.co.uk/ and I’ll have a look at that from now on. She’s a simplorer like I am. I added her blog “Exploring Second Life with Annie” to the list  “Active blogs” on the right as well.
On Annie’s blog I also found another scoop.it page, which is curated by Annie:
Art & Culture in Second Life – art Exhibitions, Literature, Groups & more
I added it also to the “Other links” section on the right.

Thank you for the hint, Annie!

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