The Steamland's Third Annual Fleet Week, in Winterfell!

The long awaited Fleet Week is just around the corner, which is an opportunity to fly the colors of the Steamland fleets, starting this Sunday, and lasting until the next liberty call!  Taking place in Winterfell, which is quickly becoming a haven for classic ship combat in the Second Life Steamlands, it will host a number of events this upcoming week, including...

Sunday, November 13th - The Shipbuilder's Exposition; the Exhibit of Naval Arts; and of course, the Fleet Week Opening Ceremonies, starting at 1pm SLT.

Tuesday, November 15th - The first Sailship battle of Fleet Week (6pm SLT)   

Thursday, November 17th - The Iron Melee (6pm SLT)

Friday, November 18th - The Fleet Review (2pm SLT); The New Toulouse Ball (3pm SLT)

Saturday, November 19th - The Windjammer Race (12 pm SLT); Submarine Races (2pm SLT); The Third Annual Uniform Ball, (6pm SLT).

It will be a busy nautical week, but I'd highly suggest taking a moment, pressing your uniform, and perhaps paying a visit to one of the Steamland's most popular events!  To read more details, I'll suggest you cross the brow and head to the smoke pit, where you'll find a copy of the Primgraph, at: http://primgraph.blogspot.com/2011/11/third-annual-fleet-week.html

Kudos on Veteran's Day, 2011!

Just wanted to send my appreciation on Veteran's Day to all the active duty personnel serving in the Armed Forces, and a BZ to the sailors putting in some hard sea-time!

The Golden Age, in 3D

Ideally, someday SL will approach the beauty of this Blender-designed work... but for now, please do enjoy the excellent design, (and amazing water) of the trailer for The Golden Age!

(a thanks to my dear Breezy :D for the link!)

SL Nautical Steampunk: The Waterbug

Continuing on with Nautical Steampunk items, the Waterbug is a unique and nicely designed work, perfect for any "surfacing / landing" RP adventures or photo shoots one might be involved.  Love the texturing and design of this small, 13 prim gem!

However, it is *not* a driveable work, so to keep this in mind when looking at it!  It is copy/mod, so one could conceivable add appropriate scripting to make it driveable, and at being low-prim, its quite easy to add the necessary items to provide an appropriate appearance.

If this vehicle is perhaps something that might be of use , do pay a visit to Miss Devious Noyse's Marketplace location, at : https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Water-Bug/1248201 . There are more photos and stats there... and at 200 L$, its a steal regardless!

What goes on in the mind of an octopus?

One of natures' mysteries of the deep is the mind of an octopus... long considered to be one of the most intelligent creatures, IO9 had an interesting cross-post with Orion Magazine regarding the intellect of cephalods... I've taken the liberty of cross posting from IO9's captivating post just below...



I had always longed to meet an octopus. Now was my chance: senior aquarist Scott Dowd arranged an introduction. In a back room, he would open the top of Athena's tank. If she consented, I could touch her. The heavy lid covering her tank separated our two worlds. One world was mine and yours, the reality of air and land, where we lumber through life governed by a backbone and constrained by jointed limbs and gravity. The other world was hers, the reality of a nearly gelatinous being breathing water and moving weightlessly through it. We think of our world as the "real" one, but Athena's is realer still: after all, most of the world is ocean, and most animals live there. Regardless of whether they live on land or water, more than 95 percent of all animals are invertebrates, like Athena.

The moment the lid was off, we reached for each other. She had already oozed from the far corner of her lair, where she had been hiding, to the top of the tank to investigate her visitor. Her eight arms boiled up, twisting, slippery, to meet mine. I plunged both my arms elbow deep into the fifty-seven-degree water. Athena's melon-sized head bobbed to the surface. Her left eye (octopuses have one dominant eye like humans have a dominant hand) swiveled in its socket to meet mine. "She's looking at you," Dowd said.


As we gazed into each other's eyes, Athena encircled my arms with hers, latching on with first dozens, then hundreds of her sensitive, dexterous suckers. Each arm has more than two hundred of them. The famous naturalist and explorer William Beebe found the touch of the octopus repulsive. "I have always a struggle before I can make my hands do their duty and seize a tentacle," he confessed. But to me, Athena's suckers felt like an alien's kiss-at once a probe and a caress. Although an octopus can taste with all of its skin, in the suckers both taste and touch are exquisitely developed. Athena was tasting me and feeling me at once, knowing my skin, and possibly the blood and bone beneath, in a way I could never fathom.

When I stroked her soft head with my fingertips, she changed color beneath my touch, her ruby-flecked skin going white and smooth. This, I learned, is a sign of a relaxed octopus. An agitated giant Pacific octopus turns red, its skin gets pimply, and it erects two papillae over the eyes, which some divers say look like horns. One name for the species is "devil fish." With sharp, parrotlike beaks, octopuses can bite, and most have neurotoxic, flesh-dissolving venom. The pressure from an octopus's suckers can tear flesh (one scientist calculated that to break the hold of the suckers of the much smaller common octopus would require a quarter ton of force). One volunteer who interacted with an octopus left the aquarium with arms covered in red hickeys.


Occasionally an octopus takes a dislike to someone. One of Athena's predecessors at the aquarium, Truman, felt this way about a female volunteer. Using his funnel, the siphon near the side of the head used to jet through the sea, Truman would shoot a soaking stream of salt water at this young woman whenever he got a chance. Later, she quit her volunteer position for college. But when she returned to visit several months later, Truman, who hadn't squirted anyone in the meanwhile, took one look at her and instantly soaked her again.

By all means, take a moment to eye the IO9 article, followed by the Orion Magazine article... after reading them, you'll be even more impressed at how intelligent Captain Nemo had to be to fend off its cousin's attack on the