Visiting the OmWa Gallery

Today Tomais and I visited Om Feden's OmWa Gallery to, among other things, do the mandatory bicycle-picture.

Tomais took this beautiful photo that we can paste to Om's timeline on Facebook.

Detention Order for Assange Remains in Place

Do you remember Julian Assange, the co-founder of Wikileaks, who after a visit to Sweden during the summer of 2010 is suspected of one count of rape, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of unlawful coercion?

Julian Assange;Photography Anthony Devlin/PA

The Stockholm District Court at the time decided to detain Assange in absentia for the suspected crimes.

Assange, who denies the allegations, has refused to come to Sweden for the investigation into the crimes and has, after the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom decided that he should be extradited from the United Kingdom to Sweden, sought refuge at the embassy of the Republic of Ecuador in Britain since June 19, 2012.

Assange's Swedish lawyer had now asked the court to repeal the order of detention arguing that Swedish prosecutors have dragged out the case for an unreasonably long period by not interviewing him at the embassy and that it has entailed an undue infringement and adverse effect on Assange's liberty (citing his two year long voluntary "house arrest" at the embassy).

The Swedish prosecution had asked that the detention order should be upheld.

The Stockholm District Court today decided that the detention order should remain in place as the reasons for it offset the infringement and any adverse effects the measure entails for Julian Assange. The court also maintained that Assange's self sought and voluntary residency at the Ecuadorian Embassy cannot be regarded as a deprivation of liberty.

Assange's lawyer has informed that the district courts decision will be appealed.

Picture of the Day - 134

"MarCo Escada 2bw" Photography by Antonietta Canucci

If you wish to see more of Antonietta's photography, please visit Flickr photostream here.

Reminder: Second Pride Annual Meeting 2014

The annual meeting of Second Pride will be held on Saturday July 19, 2014, at 11.00 AM SLT, and will take place in the auditorium on the Second Pride sim (SLurl). 

The agenda of the meeting (as posted on the Second Pride website) is:

1. Call to Order
2. Department reviews
3. Plan for Second Pride donation to real life (a.k.a. first life, my comment) charity
4. Election Time Table and procedures
5. New Business 
6. Adjourn

Coming Viewer Improvement - Experience Keys

Linden Lab, the makers of SecondLife, are working on new exciting improvements as seen in this video about "Experience Keys", where Torley Linden explains what it's all about.

According to Torley, Experience Keys is in its final development phase and Linden Lab is now looking for high-quality experiences to beta test the toolset. The lab needs our help to stress-test these features and demonstrate how easily experiences can be converted.

(Tipped by loyal BiSL-reader Tomais Ashdene)

Update
And as luck would have it, I waited to long after the tip so it has now been scooped by the following

• New World Notes; Improved Permission System May (Finally) Make Second Life a Decent Game Platform
• Jo Yardley's Second Life;  "The Cornfield returns" and
• Daniel Voyager's Blog; "The Return of The Cornfield in Second Life".

Picture of the Day - 133

"Good Landing" Photography by Laredo Lowtide

If you wish to see more of Laredo's photography, please visit his Flickr photostream here.

Hand-to-Hand Combat

In the presence of Emperor Stephanus and Praetor Gambit (above) a gladiators tournament was held at Romanum yesterday.

The event was a part of the ongoing GA SummerFest and in celebration of the Gay Archipelago's seventh anniversary.

 I visited the event with my husband Tomais and our friend Vexsten, we were joined by our friend Rusty (above). The rest of the audience was not large, but extremely enthusiastic.

The Rectoris Gladiatoris Austen functioned as a master of ceremonies of sorts. He explained the proceedings to those of us who were not well acquainted with such events.

There were six gladiators present. They were paired of to give us three near-mortal fights.

 

After those fights the three winners of the first jousts got to meet each other in a free for all.

 

The last man standing and winner of this fight was the gladiator Gaius (above), at least in my opinion, although the Rectoris Gladiatoris declared that the victory was shared by Gaius and Tybalt. It is true that Gaius lost consciousness immediately after he had beaten Tybalt, but as far as I could see he was somehow defeated by a gladiator who wasn't among the three finalists.

Gaius receives his due reward (above) by getting a kiss from the gladiator Januarius, whom he had defeated in the final.

The Rectoris Gladiatoris then called in all six gladiators, brought in three lionesses (who did not wish to be photographed) and joined in himself in a final fight, with all against all and the lions.

The winner of the final fight was the gladiator Tybalt (below), this time fairly and squarely knocking all of the rest unconscious and killing some lionesses too.