Developers’ Selection

Normally, computer nerds (as people as me are labelled), only get a warm feeling looking at a brand new mother board that is again some not-noticable percents faster then the previous version. Mostly, the warm feeling in those cases is caused by the blush I get when I look back at the bill after having bought the motherboard in an impuls. This weekend however, a warm feeling was developed inside, not by a brand new silicon device, nor by looking at a bill…

I was at the Relay for Life event that was held June 19 and 20 in Second Life, and was simply amazed. I started at the sim Heroes 16, where one of my best “SL-friends” Talia (together with others) builded the archery range of Robin Hood. After having tried to aim but always missing the target, I joined her and some others at the side of the path that goes through all the sims of this event.

At 11 am SLT the survivors (of cancer) and caregivers walked the opening lap. This was kind of overwhelming… avatars kept coming and coming… sims almost crashed because of too much people there at the same time… Also the organizational talent behind this all was impressive; notices were send out right on time, when a sim was almost going to crash there was set up a detour in no-time,… the organization really did a wonderful job!

Afterwards, at 12am SLT the people that builded, created and organized all events and scenery’s walked a lap. Over 80 teams consisting of several people to dozens of people walked in the parade. It was really wonderful to see how many people putted in a lot of effort and time in order to accomplish this.

A few days ago I already posted a preview with some pictures of buildings on the scene, but seeing everything “in action” was more impressive…

After this lap, I putted on my virtual roller skates and started “rolling” around. It was fun to do, and especially the themed laps were sometimes real funny… Special hats, rolling vehicles, special shoes,… several themed laps were held, some more crazy then others.

I also like the virtual art; some people really make wonderful sculptures in SL. At the silent auctions at RFL, I saw a sculpture of a saxophone player. At first it was still affordable, unfortunately for me, it went up very fast, and out of budget… On the other hand I was real glad to see how this creator made several k’s of Linden Dollars for RFL with his sculpture.

Another impressive thing was the live broadcasted radio. Some real good DJ’s and interviewers entertained you some more while you were visiting the builds.

It was for me one of the most impressing and nice experiences I had in Second Life so far, if not the most impressive. At the moment this post was written, the counter stands at L$51,268,958… Congratulations to all people working on that project!

If you missed this years’ edition, be sure you make it in 2009!