One year of CDS passports | B5B Stamp Champions | Events & Announcements | New Locations

ONE YEAR OF CDS PASSPORTS

It's one year this week since the Bellisserian Embassy to SL's oldest democracy – the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS) – opened its doors and CDS began to issue its own passport to citizens. Should you decide to become a citizen, you'll find the CDS has improved on our standard model of passport. Whereas all passports come with a decor version you can leave on your bedside table or adjust to hold in your hand, the CDS hand-held version is actually a fully-working HUD. You can click the controls on its edge to show the latest stamps in world, as modelled here by our staff photographer. 

The CDS is a lively and friendly community, which holds many fun events. It really is run by its citizens and if you have land there you can stand for public office. Whether you're a potential citizen or a tourist, however, it's well worth a visit.

See this week's Events & Announcements and New Locations sections below for details of the planned celebrations and the special commemorative stamp.

Article and photo by Gazette staff

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B5B STAMP CHAMPIONS

B5B has been a real challenge for our stamp collectors. Quite a few holders of SSiD tablets were not much in-world – or not in-world for a range of times to give collectors in different time zones a chance.

There have been internal discussions about whether we went too far in issuing so many SSiDs and we plan to be more careful in future. We will confine them to bureaucrats, diplomats, Lindens and Moles. We won't just hand them out even to those categories without checking likely availability.

Despite this our collectors have done well. As of the last database update on the Gazette's copy deadline - April 25 - two collectors had 49 out of 49 B5B stamps! One had 48 and a further three had 47.

We think all seven of these enthusiasts deserve a shout out, so our congratulations to: Radioactive Rosca, Chloe Roth, Kensey McMillan, Elysiane Sapphire, Betth Ashbourne, Martina Voxel and our very own CEO Bel. 

For comparison, your Editor – usually near the top of these charts due to his privileged position – only has 35! So very well done.

The stamps are for fun. We don’t want to turn collecting into a struggle. We’re just happy that people enjoy it and hope they find new places and new friends in the process.

Statistical analysis by Robert Rhodan. Article by Gazette staff.

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EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

If you have one of our stamp terminals and you're having an event or would like to make an announcement, just let us know and we'll be happy to feature it here. Please drop a notecard on the Editor, Dave (Lord.Junibalya) in-world or use the Email the Editor link in the sidebar to send us your information, posters and/or photos.

Harrrr! - Party at CDS - April 27th 1pm SLT

Here are your coordinates.

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You are invited to the opening of the Tambalyan Embassy to SL

Here's your TP. Be tailed and scaled or wear scuba gear. The Embassy is underwater!

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Welcome Liberty

We are delighted to welcome a new member of our bureaucratic cadre. Liberty Marques has joined the Stamps Team and her designs feature in this week’s New Locations below.

Welcome, Liberty. It’s good to have you on board. May your bureaucratic career be long and thoroughly enjoyable.

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New Video about upgrading to V3.00 Passports

Alexxy has made a useful video showing the process at her YouTube channel Alexxy's Adventures. You may find it useful. Check out your Editor's explanatory comments underneath it. Thanks, Alexxy. Nice job!

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NEW LOCATIONS

Harmony Bay in Corsica is a place for good friends, blue skies, and blue seas. You can take party in Northern Operations Grid Wide Sport Fishing, live events, jetskiing, sailing, dolphin riding and scuba diving. If you're into getting wet, this may well be for you.

If you miss AmandaT Tamatzui's sci-fi creation for the Second Life Endowment for the Arts last year – Planet Tambalya – then you'll be glad to know the universe's cutest aliens have now opened an embassy to SL. You can collect the colourful event stamp for the grand opening on 2nd May. You can also acquire Tambalyan Citizenship and get the unique Planet Tambalya passport.

The event stamp will be available from May 2nd until 31st May. In due course there will be a permanent passport stamp.

See our lead article this week for details of the event being celebrated in the MarktPlatz at Neufreistadt. The stamp will be in place for the event party today (27th April) and will remain in place for one week.

Harmony Bay CA
Tambalyan Embassy HE Event: May 2nd until 31st May
First Anniversary of the Bellisserian Embassy CDS Event: 27th April to 4th June

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Celebrations continue at B5B | Events & Announcements | New Locations

CELEBRATIONS CONTINUE AT B5B

The BBB has no further events planned at B5B, but our bureaucrats and Bellisseria's ambassadors will be joining in with the other parties to give you more chances to collect our personal stamps. Look out for us as well as the members of the organising committee, Lindens and Moles also carrying SSiD tablets at B5B.

Wear your passport HUD and click on their tablets to collect the stamps. Please note that not all SSiD-holders carry their tablets in such conventional ways as your editor and stamp designer in the picture above. We've seen them on peoples' heads or even swinging from a feline avatar's tail! 

Five of them have not been successfully collected at all "in the wild", so we're showing mercy to our most enthusiastic stamp collectors by placing the SSiD tablets of those people inworld. They are available now inside the Bellisseria Lindens & Mole Building at B5B. They're on the wall under the Building Bellisseria slide show.

As at the date of writing, the stamps most issued at B5B are as shown below. The most collected stamp is – as you would expect – the event stamp itself. Huge kudos to those avis carrying SSiD Tablets issuing personal stamps who've made themselves maximally available to our collectors.

Finally the BBB's very own Robert Rhodan (#3 most popular stamp) has been busy writing more songs for B5B with his AI assistants. In addition to the one we published last week he's written another – in at least two different "cuts" – that was played to general acclaim by DJ Fu at the BBB's final B5B dance party last Thursday.

When it comes to role-playing bureaucrats, our staff are sometimes just too creative, fun and helpful to be realistic! But then the point of Second Life® is not to be a mere copy of Real Life, but to improve upon it! After all, SL bureaucrats can fly and teleport too – not to mention that (very much unlike their RL counterparts) they get prettier with the passing of the years as SL's graphics improve!

Photograph © AmandaT Tamatzui 2024

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EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

If you have one of our stamp terminals and you're having an event or would like to make an announcement, just let us know and we'll be happy to feature it here. Please drop a notecard on the Editor, Dave (Lord.Junibalya) in-world or use the Email the Editor link in the sidebar to send us your information, posters and/or photos.

 

Ansegeln: First Sail Earth Day

Ansegeln means the First Sail of the year, when boats return to sea after winter. The Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS) is doing just that today –April 20 – joining with the neighbouring Etopia Sustainable Communities to celebrate Earth Day 2024, which takes place on April 22nd.

Come sail with us on the Oikoumeni Sea connecting our two communities, starting from Locus Amoenus Harbour at 1:30pm SLT!

Join us when we return for the awesome beats of DJ Calli at the Magazzino, LA!

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This week's calendar of B5B Events

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Yuki's Bus Tour

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NEW LOCATIONS

Be sure to check the latest updates at Robert Rhodan's handy checklist page for personal stamps at B5B. The goalposts keep moving so you'll need to refresh that page if you want to "get them all". 

Kana's Hilltop Café is a small garage, shipping depot and café chill spot, which is home to DJ Kanalicious and friends. All are welcome to take a break, relax and catch up with friends or play some games. It's on Satori's Route 8 road and has a Novum Stargate.

Mindscape is another place to relax; this time among the log cabins of Bellisseria. You can have a meal, dance in the flower garden or just meditate. Inside the house there is a photo collection. There is a rez point for small boats on the nearby island and the Randelsham Forest community center is only a short voyage through beautiful scenery to the north from there. 

St. Aubrey Sud (GrandeSoeur Isle) is an independent part of the St. Aubrey (Du Sud Isle) airfield. It offers hangars for your aircraft in a detailed, impressive environment. We at The Gazette are always happy to see a nice café with our newsstand where customers can get our latest edition.

See above in Events & Announcements for details of the First Sail celebration in CDS for Earth Day. Earth day is on April 22nd but this event is today, April 20th. Take part in the sailing and collect your commemorative stamp.

Blogging Outpost, an existing permanent stamp location, has a new location in Sakurasseria and is celebrating 花見 (Hanami, which literally means flower viewing but usually refers only to the traditional cherry blossom viewing). Come celebrate Spring, view the blossoms and collect the special event stamp available from April 20th to May 31st. If you don't have the permanent stamp already, you'll find that one indoors. 

Kana's Hilltop Cafe ST
Mindscape (Lakeside Landing) BE
St. Aubrey Sud CA
First Sail -- Earth Day 2024 CDS Event April 20th
Hanami Festival (Spring) BE Event from April 20th to May 31st

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A song for B5B | New BBB Promo Video | Events & Announcements | New Locations

A SONG FOR B5B

Our BBB colleague Robert Rhodan loves to experiment with the latest technologies. He's created a techno-pop-electronic song devoted to Bellisseria's 5th birthday. He generated the lyrics using ChatGTP (a chatbot developed by OpenAI). After running various iterations and some personal input, he fed his lyrics into the Suno AI tool by Anthropic, which generates music.

Based on Robert's instructions about musical style, instruments to be used, the voice of the singer, the rhythm, etc., Suno generated a music clip of just over a minute. Robert reran, refined, cut and mixed clips to achieve the full five minute Bellisseria 5th Birthday song. Then he put together image clips to create this YouTube video. The lyrics are at the end.

The music has a happy uplifting techno beat and the AI-generated singer is female. For an experiment, the result is pretty stunning!

So, please enjoy it all you Bellisserians, Lindens, Moles, Hammies, bureaucrats and other residents featured in the clip! Let us know what you think. Let's all dance to our own song at the next B5B dance party!

The official release date of the song is 15th April – Bellisseria's actual birthday. Robert owns the copyright but is happy to license it free of charge for DJ's to play in Second Life® after that date. Here is the audio-only link to use.

Article, song and video by Robert Rhodan

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NEW PROMO VIDEO FOR THE BBB

We're happy to release our new promotional video, produced professionally by SL film-maker Jordan Rizzo. It's intended to show the full range of our activities, not just in Bellisseria where we were founded, but across the grid. We love it and we hope you do too. 

Special thanks to Jordan of course, and to all our BBBug members who answered the call to appear as extras in the Headquarters scenes.

Video © The Bellisserian Bureau of Bureaucracy 2024

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EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

If you have one of our stamp terminals and you're having an event or would like to make an announcement, just let us know and we'll be happy to feature it here. Please drop a notecard on the Editor, Dave (Lord.Junibalya) in-world or use the Email the Editor link in the sidebar to send us your information, posters and/or photos.

The next BBB-sponsored party at B5B

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The second B5B Belli Heli tour is tomorrow. Here's your taxi to the helipad.

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Reader submitted photo @ 100hm of cuteness

An anonymous reader sent in this photo taken at the BDS Party on April 9th at 2:30 PM SLT with the question "Who cloned the Hammies?"

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Updated map of Bellisseria

ClaireM has sent in an updated version of her annotated map of Bellisseria. Enjoy!

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NEW LOCATIONS

Firstly, we have issued some new personal stamps on SSiD Tablets at B5B, so if you are trying to "get them all" be sure to check the latest updates at Robert Rhodan's handy checklist page. 

Bellisseria Bike, Drive & Scoot! has issued a B5B stamp. This is now available in addition to the memorabilia stamps the group is offering at B5B from its past events.

SL Coast Guard Dive Training Center is Second Life's leading dive training facility. It boasts many instructors from around the world and uses a dive system that was created by an RL diver and the centre's current Commanding Officer, Lanny Elderberry. There is both a stamp terminal on land and one under the sea. They're both issuing the same stamp though, so you're just choosing whether to get it the easy way or the hard way!

Come enjoy a cup of tea and a slice of non-caloric cake in the Mad Hatter's Tea Room, and explore the whimsical Alice in Wonderland region. Be sure to visit the bar under the dock, through the boring brown door and take the teleporter pad up to the maze to try your luck.

Bellisseria Bike, Drive & Scoot! @B5B BE Event - B5B to 30th April
SL Coast Guard Dive Training Center SN
Mad Hatter's Tea Room PE

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Belli Heli @ B5B | The Expanded Fairgrounds | Having more Stuff | Events & Announcements | New Locations

BELLI HELI @ B5B

Would you like to have fun and collect five new/exclusive passport stamps at the same time? In that case, Belli Heli has the perfect trip for you!!! Belli Heli is celebrating Bellisseria’s Fifth Anniversary with a Helicopter Ride to collect Anniversary Passport Stamps. The tour will be offered twice: Sat April 6 (at 10 AM SLT) and Sunday April 14 (at 1 PM SLT).

 

The first tour will leave today (April 6) at 10 AM SLT. Meet at the HeliPad and please try to be a few minutes early if possible.

 

Please be sure to click the sign next to the helipad before you board the helicopter. There is a slight chance that SL could bounce you from the helicopter at one of the region crossings. If this happens, the notecard gives you a LM to each destination, so you can TP there to rejoin the tour and collect the next stamp.

 

About the Tour:

 

The tour will visit five Bellisseria locations. Three of them have regular BBB Passport stamps, plus all five of them have a unique limited-edition Fifth Anniversary Belli Heli Tour stamp. The helicopters will fly low enough to see scenery over multiple themes. You may want to have your cameras ready, as some of the scenery will be particularly picture-worthy.

 

The tour should take somewhere between 75 and 90 minutes, depending on how prompt your tour mates are at getting their stamp and getting back on the helicopter.

 

About the Stamps:

 

There are total of eight stamps on this tour, but three of them are not new (and you could possibly already have them). Five of the stamps are brand new, and exclusive to the Bellisseria Fifth Anniversary celebration. These stamps will ONLY be available during the month of April 2024.

 

Self-Guided Tours:

 

Hopefully you can make one of the two tours, because the helicopter rides are a LOT of fun. But if your RL schedule prevents that, you can still collect all 5 exclusive stamps by going to the Helipad and clicking the sign for the tour information notecard. That notcard will give you the location where each helicopter lands so you can find/collect each stamp. The stamps will only be out through the end of April, so be sure to collect them before it is too late.

 

Tour organisation, article and photograph by Teresa Firelight.

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THE EXPANDED FAIRGROUNDS

 

We think that the temporary expansion of the Bellisseria Fairgrounds is a first for Second Life®. Normally, they're two regions. At the moment, they're four. Here's what they look like from the air - and on the world map. 

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HAVING MORE STUFF

 

Am I the only person surprised that Linden Lab has not made more fuss about a significant recent upgrade? As announced on the SL community forums, as of 2nd April, the Lab has lowered mesh "Download Weight" by 15% for all of Second Life®! Since much of our content is made of mesh these days, anyone who owns or rents land will now have more Land Impact (LI) available.

 

Check out the land menu at your home and you may well find you have more space for furniture or landscaping than before. At your Editor's Bellisseria houseboat, it's enough for him to have a bigger boat rezzed out at his dock (or a second small one). At his homestead region art gallery, he has more than 300 extra prims available for new exhibits! Not many companies would make such a big improvement so quietly. The Lab said in the forums; 

We’d like to take this opportunity to remind residents that this allowance is being given for no charge and is intended to help offset any additional Land Impact spent on manually rezzed reflection probes and lights, and of course in anticipation of the upcoming Mirrors release.

How can you check if your objects have been affected by the change? Right-click on the object you want to inspect, then click Edit, then click the More info link to see the current Download Weight.

Article by Gazette Staff

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EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

If you have one of our stamp terminals and you're having an event or would like to make an announcement, just let us know and we'll be happy to feature it here. Please drop a notecard on the Editor, Dave (Lord.Junibalya) in-world or use the Email the Editor link in the sidebar to send us your information, posters and/or photos.

 

New Record High for Stamps Collected / 1000th v3.00 passport issued!

We at the BBB are so happy that you enjoy what we do. We're not a real bureaucracy and have no power or even influence in our virtual world. We're all volunteers, putting in time to entertain you. Our passports, drivers licences, vehicle registration plates etc. are entirely for your amusement.

On the 2nd April we passed the 60,000 mark for stamps collected on V3.00 passports. We'll never know the true total because for years we ran with a passport HUD that only recorded the stamps locally. This remarkable milestone was passed in an enormous rush, with 1,675 stamps being collected in one week, bringing us to a total of 61,659!

To top all this, we've just issued V3.00 passport #1000. The resident carrying this milestone document is Melany Morningstar Danelle. Congratulations Melany!

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The BBB at B5B

The Bellisseria Bureau of Bureaucracy (BBB), Parade of Homes and The Gazette are all represented at the Bellisseria Fairgrounds for B5B. Stop by, say hi and pick up the personal stamps of our staff! Watch out for others carrying SSiD tablets at the fairgrounds to collect their stamps too. Your editor is busy in RL at the moment, but will leave his avi in-world at the B5B Gazette office as much as he can so you can get his stamp. 

Here's your taxi. 

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BBB Event @B5B

The party has hardly started yet! As we move into the second week of celebrations for Bellisseria's 5th Birthday, the BBB is happy to present two more great events at the B5B Bellisseria Fairgrounds. First DJ Jisoo will play Kpop for us. Secondly Belli's beloved Hamsters (so cute that the continent's official measure of cuteness is a scale of 1-100hm (hammiemetres) will be DJ'ing for us, followed by even more musical wonderment from DJ Dulcinea.

Come along and dance with us! We're more fun than real bureaucrats, honest!!

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More personal stamps available at B5B

Some new personal stamps are available from SSiD (Single Stamp issuing Device) Tablets carried by Moles, Lindens, Bellisserian ambassadors and bureaucrats at B5B. They'll only be available this month so get collecting. The checklist of such stamps is here and will be updated if more are issued. If you don't know what SSiD Tablets look like, here's your editor and stamp designer Amanda in The Gazette office at B5B carrying theirs. 

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How to check which B5B SSiD stamps you still haven't collected

Robert Rhodan of the BBB has made a special HUD for B5B that will show you, via a secure webpage available only to you, which personal B5B stamps you haven't collected yet.

Here's how to get and use it. 

Tool and video by Robert Rhodan

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CDS Galleries Egg Hunt

The starting point for the hunt is the CDS Museum of Contemporary Art. Just touch the poster to the right of the reception desk there to get a notecard containing all the landmarks. At the same location, you'll find an event stamp for your Bellisseria, CDS, Tambalya, Mainland or SL Global Passports.

Enjoy the hunt!

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NEW LOCATIONS

Gianfar Peaks of Pern (a role play sim based on the Dragonriders of Pern series of books by Anne McCaffrey) are having their Spring Gather (party) tomorrow (7th April). All are welcome to join in. There will be dragons.

The nice folks at Bellisseria Bike, Drive & Scoot! – a fun group  -  have come up with an interesting idea. As well as issuing a B5B event stamp (in preparation and to be released next week) they're also offering a second chance to collect their old event stamps you may have missed. They're calling them "Memorabilia Stamps". You don't often get chance to collect stamps from before you even got your passport! Thanks to Robert Rhodan for making the multi-stamp texture below, showing the five that are available. Click on it to enlarge so you can see what's available.

Teresa Firelight has organised a super "Belli Heli" tour during B5B. To collect the five new event stamps on the route you'll need to take part in the helicopter tour or (if the times don't suit you) do the self-guided version using the notecard available at the start point – the helipad at the B5B Fairgrounds. All the new stamps available are shown below, but the only location shown is the helipad. There are three other existing stamps to collect on the route, but you may of course already have those. These helicopter tours are great fun and very professionally organised. Take one if you can.

Next there's a new event stamp for the ongoing Galleries Egg Hunt Event in the CDS. Tour the CDS art galleries and collect eggs containing gifts at each location – as well as a stamp at the start. Also in the CDS, there will be a viewing of the Eclipse at the Monastery on April 8th. The event stamp for this may not be in place until the day but will remain available until 20th April.

Gianfar Spring Gather (Anne's Gather) PE Event - 7th April
Bellisseria Bike, Drive & Scoot Memorabilia BE Event - B5B to 30th April
Heli Belli Tour Stamps BE Tours during B5B (see article above for details)
CDS Galleries Egg Hunt CDS
Eclipse at CDS CDS

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