A Message From Our Dear Ebbe

I hope you all got this wonderful email from our darling Ebbe Linden.

Ebbe Altberg, aka Ebbe Linden, sexy as hell in scruff

Dear Second Life Residents,

It’s been an exciting summer at Linden Lab. Second Life celebrated its 14th anniversary, and shortly thereafter we also opened Sansar's creator beta to the world. In addition, we are 

thrilled to announce a set of investments into Second Life and its communities that will include enhancements to our engineering support, customer support, billing systems and upgrades, and customer acquisition outreach. In all, we’ve budgeted many millions (USD, not L$...) in the coming year to make SL even better, and we’ll keep everyone up to date on improvements as they roll out (or sooner).

This summer’s milestones have given us all another opportunity to reflect on just how strong the Second Life community is, what an incredible history SL has had so far, and what an amazing future lies ahead for the virtual world and its Residents.

For more than 14 years, you’ve created memorable experiences, diverse communities, close relationships, thriving economies, engaging art, exciting events, and amazing creations of all kinds. You’ve made the world, and we’re proud to provide the platform and tools that help you to do so. We at Linden continue to be impressed by what we witness from Residents every day, and we want you to know that we share that commitment to and love for Second Life.

Here are a few of the things you can look forward to soon:

• We are hard at work upgrading all of the SL infrastructure and moving it to the cloud, which will bring a wealth of opportunities to Residents near and far, and allow us, among many other things, to make SL more performant for Residents across the world from us. It may also allow us to introduce new products with more flexible pricing. 
• We’re working on several features to increase the value of Premium subscriptions. Most recently we gave Premium members priority access to near-full events, and shortly, we’ll be ready to unveil another bit of exciting news for subscribers. 
• We're building out a series of great extensions to Windlight (code name: EEP!), which will give value, flexibility, and new marketability to land, and will make Windlight settings tradeable assets. 
• We have an extension to the animation system in the works (code name: Animesh) that will allow non-avatar objects to use more powerful and efficient skeletal animations the way avatars can today, and even more changes planned for creators and merchants later in the year. 
• We’ve also got new experiences and events coming. An exciting new grid-wide gaming experience is coming soon! The team can’t wait to share the details with you in just a few days. Also in the works for this fall is an updated Halloween Haunted Tour, with new spooktacular events to celebrate. Not to mention, we’re turning 15 next year - SL15B, baby! That’s an incredible milestone and we are looking forward to collaborating with you to produce an amazing celebration. 

Long live Second Life and long live the creative process in the amazing worlds that you've trail-blazed! Thank you for filling SL with your creations and communities all of these past 14+ years, and here’s to many, many more together.

Best,

Ebbe Linden, CEO & the Second Life Team

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Well, what can one say after that breathtaking declaration of love, other than "We love you right back, Ebbe baby, and the SecondLife Team too!💗💗💗"

I hope you all noticed the remark about "amazing creations of all kinds", which we all know must certainly include my fashion-forward and spectacular "The Jester's Hat"! Nothing else comes to mind really so it must be Linden-lingo for Bock's creation.

It is also good to know that the Lab is going to keep on investing in, working with and improving SecondLife despite the doomsday prophets who for a long time have been crowing about how the Lab will lose all interest in SecondLife once Sansar is launched.

Second Pride Has A New Board

Seeing as there was only one candidate to four different positions on the board the present board made the wise decision to cancel the elections and proclaim the new board elected.

This picture is, alas, totally unrelated to the subject of this post, but nice to look at 
nonetheless. It shows actor Sam Heughan in the hit television series Outlander

The new board will now - well, after the inauguration - consist of
Chair - DJRez Cyberstar
Secretary - MikeAdam Resident
Events Director - Jamie Rozenberg and
IT Director - Lee McKay

Congratulations to you all and may you dispense of your duties as well as the previous board.

The new board faces some difficulties from the start as five heavy positions on the board are vacant, Marketing Director, Treasurer, Security Director, Community Relations Director and Building Director. To even out their workload and get a truly well-functioning board I believe it would be wise for the new board to scout for people to fill the vacant positions.

Sam Heughan in Outlander again, this time with a bit more clothing

Eighth Blogoversary

Bock in SecondLife was first started on August 25, 2009, so today we celebrate the blogs eighth anniversary.

Before moving on to the singing, cheering and toasting with champagne in crystal glasses lets summarize the blog's existence with a few numbers.

During the eight years, the blog has accumulated
907,949 page views (since June 1, 2010),
4,044 posts,
7,378 comments and
119 followers

Please, all rise and join me in singing to the blog.

For it's a jolly good blog, for it's a jolly good blog

For it's a jolly good blog (pause for 4 beats), which nobody can deny

Which nobody can deny, which nobody can deny

For it's a jolly good blog, for it's a jolly good blog

For it's a jolly good blog (pause for 4 beats), which nobody can deny!

Three cheers to Bock in SecondLife, Hip, hip!

Hooray! 

Hooray! 

Hooooraaaaaaaay!

The Great American Solstice of 2017

(via twistedsifter & alex_neises)

There's A New Superhero Team InWorld

A new superhero team premiered last night in SecondLife. It's the Amazingly Patient and Never Cranky Bock McMillan and his cute sidekick Tomais.

"I'm Starsky, he's Hutch" by Tomais Ashdene

It is rumored that Bock is a gay nobleman who steals from the rich to give to the poor and fights crime, injustice and for the Scandinavian way of life diligently as he goes along. 

Most of Bock's superpowers haven't been revealed yet but it is known that he can fly, teleport and charm the pants of anyone with his dazzling smile.