Did Anything Change?

[Prokofy Neva]

So it has been more than a month since the July 9 announcement of the sale of Second Life by Linden Lab to another company (or the sale of Linden Lab itself and all its works? I'm not sure how that plays out).

What has changed?
Other than a lot of posts about really obvious things, like "Here are the forums" or "Here are groups" for newbies (which may have been planned before), I don't see anything that wasn't here before. Maybe it's coming. In fact when I saw a post on the forums, I thought the new bosses were announcing that they were closing it except for the technical or creative ones as too much bother and negativity. Wouldn't be the first time a game company has done such a thing! Remember Stratics and the Sims Online?

But what are the new chiefs going to do? What are their priorities? I don't think there were any greetings from our new overloads. Maybe they are at such a macro level now it doesn't occur to them to descend down the mountain and talk to the villagers. Maybe they are saying and doing nothing so that people will be lulled into a sense of stability. But new owners always change things.

I also don't see anybody was fired. Does Ebbe Linden remain in this new set-up? Do they hire a new person? The one thing that is noteworthy is that Philip Linden has been brought back into the picture, perhaps, again, to provide a sense of continuity and a familiar face. So first he was quoted in the media when the announcement was made, although he left ages ago. Then Strawberry Linden did a Lab Gab with him. In this Lab Gab, he said a lot of the things he has always said, about the atomic nature of virtual worlds and the ability to manipulate them -- only more so, with added insights and much affection for Second Life although he talked about his own projects at High Fidelity. There's a YouTube video with this. But I don't believe he was put on the board again.

When you look at lindenlab.com it is the same people, nobody senior appears to have been let go.

Maybe the reason you don't see any cheeses being moved is because of this -- it's not really done yet:

Linden Research, Inc. announced today it signed an agreement to be acquired by an investment group led by Randy Waterfield and Brad Oberwager. Closing of the acquisition is subject to regulatory approval by financial regulators in the U.S. related to Tilia Inc.’s status as a licensed money transmitter as well as other customary closing conditions. Upon closing, Mr. Waterfield and Mr. Oberwager will join the Board of Directors of Linden Research, Inc.

 

So WHEN it is done, maybe the announcements and changes will come.

Over the years, I or my relatives have worked in various places where the company is acquired. You might keep your job as "legacy". Or you might be let go. But I've never seen the buyers then join the board of the company, implying that the other board members and the current CEO stay put. Usually they put in a new CEO. But then, Linden Lab is not like most companies.

I have no insight into any of this. Silicon Valley doesn't work like the rest of business in America, and then a lot of things are different now anyway due to the pandemic. Like Modell's is going out of business and I got a pair of Nike's for only $19.

So that brings me to my wishlist or your wishlist:

1. Marketplace. The art work there is always from hunger. Currently there is a dog avatar, although dog avatars are quite rare, I guess because of "dog days of summer". I personally do not like to see "what people are buying" because if I keep "adult" on, it's a steady array of sometimes really grotesque stuff. I think you should have the option to keep adult on, but NOT see what your fellow residents are buying, to shut it off. There are many issues with the MP that people have; I'm generally happy since they stopped the idiotic policing of gatchas in the "wrong" category by simply just making one giant category called "gatcha". Smart!

2. Sim seams. I don't care. Not a bit. I would like the Lindens to offer to residents who own roadside property the option of buying the shoulder and fixing it up or flattening it so you can get on the road again.

3. Terrain. The Mainland terrain is really awful in some places. I'd like the ability to change that in the land menu. On islands, the regular viewer should accept 1024 textures the way Firestorm does. I went on one of my ultrarare log-ons to FS merely to put textures into my homestead. Ridiculous. PS it does not lag the sim although yes, I do know the theory that it should.

4. I want the damn edit box to stop opening over the object I'm editing it. That's so I can, you know, work on it. Move it. Re-texture it. Shrink it. Do any stuff to it. All of which requires SEEING it, and not the edit box, which yes, can be shoved to the side but it doesn't STAY there. And PS normal people confirm this with me inworld, it's only on the forums that there is deep denial of this.

5. Get rid of the message that says the owner of this land does not allow you to rez something when the issue is, even with the group tag, mesh bounces. The message should urge the user to rez on the ground or on a prim.

6. I want some way to put my inventory in storage securely somewhere, online, say, like a KittyCat in the Menagerie, so that I don't have to load it inworld all the time. With 146,000 items, 66,000 in Objects, it is a constant lag bomb and scrolling nightmare. Inworld squirreling in boxes is risky when sims crash. If inventory can go on the Marketplace, in can go in a kind of "Manhattan Storage" that I would even pay for to keep, and access as I would when buying from the MP. Like OneDrive or DropBox I wouldn't have to have copies inworld in inventory, it could remain online, not loading or risking loss.

 

[Coffee Pancake]

The last comment I saw from Ebbe indicated that regulatory processes are processing and that may take some time to process. All our super sekret deets will take a while to send via fax, lobbyists need to be lobbied, a committee or three, paper work written up, scanned, printed out, mailed in triplicate, verified, manually reentered into a different system written using fortran, pressed into clay tablets for long term storage and sent to the British Museum's CDLI.

None of which brings any relevant people close to considering your wish-list. Have you thought about creating succinct feature requests on the JIRA and attending the relevant in world groups to present your use cases ?

[Prokofy Neva]

26 minutes ago, CoffeeDujour said:

The last comment I saw from Ebbe indicated that regulatory processes are processing and that may take some time to process. All our super sekret deets will take a while to send via fax, lobbyists need to be lobbied, a committee or three, paper work written up, scanned, printed out, mailed in triplicate, verified, manually reentered into a different system written using fortran, pressed into clay tablets for long term storage and sent to the British Museum's CDLI.

None of which brings any relevant people close to considering your wish-list. Have you thought about creating succinct feature requests on the JIRA and attending the relevant in world groups to present your use cases ?

Yes, I realize all that, and you are absolutely right, including the bit about the British Museum.

I was banned from the JIRA like 10 years ago for pointing out that the ability to remove group-set objects in "share" in a group where the role does not grant "return group-set objects" was a bug, not a feature. So I can't even see the JIRA. And the JIRA isn't what it was, so it's pointless to put feature requests there. PS going to the Moncierge meetings is also pretty hopeless. I saw that those meetings are even less practical and useful than the coder ones. They are just places where people vent and nothing can be done. The ones with the coders have a little more give to them. There is no point in me attending the coder type meetings as I am not a programmer. It's more than relevant to put these ideas on the forums under "general" where a Linden might read them. You never know. The bit about the inventory online is one that might save them headaches even if it initially created work. There is absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever with publishing suggestions in the forums; that's what they are there for. Meanwhile the processes of the JIRA and the meetings range from futile to pointless on most things in my list.

[Daniel Voyager]

Details concerning an acquisition are normally kept under lock until plans are finalized. Ebbe has said that it may take some time before they approve it. 

I would imagine the lab will put out a blog announcement or press release when it's been completed. 

Hopefully before the end of the year most likely we will hear more.

[Lindal Kidd]

9 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

greetings from our new overloads

I approve this typo, and will be adopting it in the future!

9 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

PS (1024 textures do) not lag the sim although yes, I do know the theory that it should.

I believe they do, Prok.  For example, I can stand near the edge of my home region of Masocado, or the west border of Caledon Oxbridge.  At either location, if I look out to sea, away from the region, my FPS goes up.  If I turn 180 degrees and look into the region, it drops like a rock.  What's causing this, if not textures?

[Coffee Pancake]

6 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

What's causing this, if not textures?

 Kinda beyond the scope of this thread to pull everything apart, but the tl;dr would be "Once they have loaded .. it's not the textures".

[Lindal Kidd]

Maybe so, Coffee...but what else is there in SL that would cause that sort of direction-specific lag?

[Whirly Fizzle]

4 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Maybe so, Coffee...but what else is there in SL that would cause that sort of direction-specific lag?

Objects or mesh or avatars with complex geometry.
Or objects with rapid object updates.

Edited August 19, 2020 by Whirly Fizzle

[Chic Aeon]

36 minutes ago, Whirly Fizzle said:

Objects or mesh or avatars with complex geometry.

Easy enough to see and definitely NOT new.  All that someone needs to do is turn in different directions on a fairly highly decorated sim (not all of course but most) and you can watch the frame rates drop and rise dramatically.  I noticed this back in 2015 when I was setting up an LEA region. Also VERY easy to see in Bellisseria :D.   

 

So a good thing for folks setting up a region (where it is your own fault if it is laggy LOL - can't blame the neighbors) to keep in mind.     I decided I better go check mine after saying that.  57 to 74 at ground level and --- 46 to 60 up in the city.  I can live with that.  

 

Agreed that it will likely be awhile before we hear about any finalization of Linden Lab changes. It took a VERY long time before Wookey was unveiled in Sansar even though we knew talks were going on for months  ---  and then a couple of months before anything actually appeared to change. There certainly could have been plenty going on behind closed doors though.  To be expected.  AND with the world in the situation that it is in now, the deal could just fall apart. 

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

11 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

what else is there in SL that would cause that sort of direction-specific lag?

Some sort of algorithm working out what can be seen and what is occluded by intervening objects? Staring into the void presumably clears the working space, turning around causes a rush to populate it.

I always assumed that the viewer code not only looked ahead but looked to the sides and behind the direction of the avatar face, to keep an interest list populated. Lately though it feels as if so much priority is given to what's directly in front of you that there's no spare time left to keep track of what's behind.

Maybe some coders with an insight into how the rendering is organised and prioritised can enlighten us.

Edited August 20, 2020 by Profaitchikenz Haiku

[Zpo4]

1 hour ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

 

Maybe some coders with an insight into how the rendering is organised and prioritised can enlighten us.

It's the X-Y variable - if it's pushed above 90 it can disrupt the string.

[BJoyful]

On 8/18/2020 at 11:10 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

So it has been more than a month since the July 9 announcement of the sale of Second Life by Linden Lab to another company (or the sale of Linden Lab itself and all its works? I'm not sure how that plays out).

What has changed?
Other than a lot of posts about really obvious things, like "Here are the forums" or "Here are groups" for newbies (which may have been planned before), I don't see anything that wasn't here before. Maybe it's coming. In fact when I saw a post on the forums, I thought the new bosses were announcing that they were closing it except for the technical or creative ones as too much bother and negativity. Wouldn't be the first time a game company has done such a thing! Remember Stratics and the Sims Online?

But what are the new chiefs going to do? What are their priorities? I don't think there were any greetings from our new overloads. Maybe they are at such a macro level now it doesn't occur to them to descend down the mountain and talk to the villagers. Maybe they are saying and doing nothing so that people will be lulled into a sense of stability. But new owners always change things.

I also don't see anybody was fired. Does Ebbe Linden remain in this new set-up? Do they hire a new person? The one thing that is noteworthy is that Philip Linden has been brought back into the picture, perhaps, again, to provide a sense of continuity and a familiar face. So first he was quoted in the media when the announcement was made, although he left ages ago. Then Strawberry Linden did a Lab Gab with him. In this Lab Gab, he said a lot of the things he has always said, about the atomic nature of virtual worlds and the ability to manipulate them -- only more so, with added insights and much affection for Second Life although he talked about his own projects at High Fidelity. There's a YouTube video with this. But I don't believe he was put on the board again.

When you look at lindenlab.com it is the same people, nobody senior appears to have been let go.

Maybe the reason you don't see any cheeses being moved is because of this -- it's not really done yet:

Linden Research, Inc. announced today it signed an agreement to be acquired by an investment group led by Randy Waterfield and Brad Oberwager. Closing of the acquisition is subject to regulatory approval by financial regulators in the U.S. related to Tilia Inc.’s status as a licensed money transmitter as well as other customary closing conditions. Upon closing, Mr. Waterfield and Mr. Oberwager will join the Board of Directors of Linden Research, Inc.

 

So WHEN it is done, maybe the announcements and changes will come.

Over the years, I or my relatives have worked in various places where the company is acquired. You might keep your job as "legacy". Or you might be let go. But I've never seen the buyers then join the board of the company, implying that the other board members and the current CEO stay put. Usually they put in a new CEO. But then, Linden Lab is not like most companies.

I have no insight into any of this. Silicon Valley doesn't work like the rest of business in America, and then a lot of things are different now anyway due to the pandemic. Like Modell's is going out of business and I got a pair of Nike's for only $19.

So that brings me to my wishlist or your wishlist:

1. Marketplace. The art work there is always from hunger. Currently there is a dog avatar, although dog avatars are quite rare, I guess because of "dog days of summer". I personally do not like to see "what people are buying" because if I keep "adult" on, it's a steady array of sometimes really grotesque stuff. I think you should have the option to keep adult on, but NOT see what your fellow residents are buying, to shut it off. There are many issues with the MP that people have; I'm generally happy since they stopped the idiotic policing of gatchas in the "wrong" category by simply just making one giant category called "gatcha". Smart!

2. Sim seams. I don't care. Not a bit. I would like the Lindens to offer to residents who own roadside property the option of buying the shoulder and fixing it up or flattening it so you can get on the road again.

3. Terrain. The Mainland terrain is really awful in some places. I'd like the ability to change that in the land menu. On islands, the regular viewer should accept 1024 textures the way Firestorm does. I went on one of my ultrarare log-ons to FS merely to put textures into my homestead. Ridiculous. PS it does not lag the sim although yes, I do know the theory that it should.

4. I want the damn edit box to stop opening over the object I'm editing it. That's so I can, you know, work on it. Move it. Re-texture it. Shrink it. Do any stuff to it. All of which requires SEEING it, and not the edit box, which yes, can be shoved to the side but it doesn't STAY there. And PS normal people confirm this with me inworld, it's only on the forums that there is deep denial of this.

5. Get rid of the message that says the owner of this land does not allow you to rez something when the issue is, even with the group tag, mesh bounces. The message should urge the user to rez on the ground or on a prim.

6. I want some way to put my inventory in storage securely somewhere, online, say, like a KittyCat in the Menagerie, so that I don't have to load it inworld all the time. With 146,000 items, 66,000 in Objects, it is a constant lag bomb and scrolling nightmare. Inworld squirreling in boxes is risky when sims crash. If inventory can go on the Marketplace, in can go in a kind of "Manhattan Storage" that I would even pay for to keep, and access as I would when buying from the MP. Like OneDrive or DropBox I wouldn't have to have copies inworld in inventory, it could remain online, not loading or risking loss.

 

“6. I want some way to put my inventory in storage securely somewhere, online, say, like a KittyCat in the Menagerie, so that I don't have to load it inworld all the time. With 146,000 items, 66,000 in Objects, it is a constant lag bomb and scrolling nightmare. Inworld squirreling in boxes is risky when sims crash. If inventory can go on the Marketplace, in can go in a kind of "Manhattan Storage" that I would even pay for to keep, and access as I would when buying from the MP. Like OneDrive or DropBox I wouldn't have to have copies inworld in inventory, it could remain online, not loading or risking loss.”

You have read my mind on this!!!  Also some way to sort the inventory as it comes in... like a persistent Recent folder to remind us “where do you want this stored?”

On 8/19/2020 at 12:06 AM, CoffeeDujour said:

The last comment I saw from Ebbe indicated that regulatory processes are processing and that may take some time to process. All our super sekret deets will take a while to send via fax, lobbyists need to be lobbied, a committee or three, paper work written up, scanned, printed out, mailed in triplicate, verified, manually reentered into a different system written using fortran, pressed into clay tablets for long term storage and sent to the British Museum's CDLI.

None of which brings any relevant people close to considering your wish-list. Have you thought about creating succinct feature requests on the JIRA and attending the relevant in world groups to present your use cases ?

“All our super sekret deets will take a while to send via fax, lobbyists need to be lobbied, a committee or three, paper work written up, scanned, printed out, mailed in triplicate, verified, manually reentered into a different system written using fortran, pressed into clay tablets for long term storage and sent to the British Museum's CDLI.”

 I recently saw a Notice inworld that the BBB (Bellisseria Bureau of Bureaucracy) is looking for volunteers and you seem to have experience which might aid in keeping the paperwork maxed and dragging.  If you are too busy I hope you would consider recommending some of the professional bureaucrats you may have encountered?  I’m sure the applications will probably be lengthy and incomprehensible but the exhilaration you feel when you get them completed is worth every head banging on wall moment along the process!  😉.  

Edited August 20, 2020 by BJoyful
Missed “ “ and new paragraph probably missed some spelling errors though!

[BJoyful]

17 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Maybe so, Coffee...but what else is there in SL that would cause that sort of direction-specific lag?

Also why does happen over and over at times? I can see everything... look out to sea a few mins.... look back and some things have turned grey again!  Is there a time-limit they are on call from cache or something?  Perhaps it’s my overloaded, poorly sorted Inventory lagging me?

[BJoyful]

4 hours ago, Zpo4 said:

It's the X-Y variable - if it's pushed above 90 it can disrupt the string.

Can you elaborate or dumb this down for me a bit?  I’m not very techie. 🧐
and very new to LSL and Basic C, C+ and C++ also

Edited August 20, 2020 by BJoyful

[GypsiesSoul]

I dont know but recently i started getting this notice sometimes when i start up the official SL viewer i get this warning:

Quote

"Linden Lab uses cookies on our website to, among other things, fulfill user requests (such as enable users to login to our website), provide enhanced functionality for our users (such as user accounts and saved preferences), and enhance web content (so that web content and design are relevant to you and your interests). If you continue to use this site, you agree that we can place these types of cookies on your device. For more information, please review our Privacy Policy"

 

I think it also shows up when im viewing people's profile it has kinda the same warning.

It never happened before

[BJoyful]

54 minutes ago, GypsiesSoul said:

I dont know but recently i started getting this notice sometimes when i start up the official SL viewer i get this warning:

 

I think it also shows up when im viewing people's profile it has kinda the same warning.

It never happened before

I’ve seen that for a while and am still waiting for my cookies I accepted, @Linden Lab  if there’s a choice I would like gluten free oatmeal raisin ones... oh, this is the other cookies ... https://images.app.goo.gl/NTst5Lz19AD1Q7FM7 😉 💗

Edited August 20, 2020 by BJoyful
I love Gilda Radner

[Adamburp Adamczyk]

29 minutes ago, BJoyful said:

I’ve seen that for a while and am still waiting for my cookies I accepted, @Linden Lab  if there’s a choice I would like gluten free oatmeal raisin ones... oh, this is the other cookies ... https://images.app.goo.gl/NTst5Lz19AD1Q7FM7 😉 💗

 

1 hour ago, GypsiesSoul said:

I dont know but recently i started getting this notice sometimes when i start up the official SL viewer i get this warning:

 

I think it also shows up when im viewing people's profile it has kinda the same warning.

It never happened before

I just started seeing this now, my own thoughts is it's a GDPR thing if you're in the UK or the EU.

 

(Note for non UK/EU users - GDPR is the data protection law over here that specifically states websites have to get consent to put cookies on your PC etc)

[Odaks]

34 minutes ago, Adamburp Adamczyk said:

Note for non UK/EU users - GDPR is the data protection law over here that specifically states websites have to get consent to put cookies on your PC etc)

Unfortunately, by the time you've trawled through the umpteen pages of Privacy Policy, viewed who gets to see what data of yours, made selections and set your privacy preferences, you'll have completely forgotten why you're on that web site in the first place. Which is exactly what the webpage wanted, and drives so many of us to just give up in disgust and just tick "Accept All".

Score: website 1 : GDPR 0

😒

[Adamburp Adamczyk]

4 minutes ago, Odaks said:

Unfortunately, by the time you've trawled through the umpteen pages of Privacy Policy, viewed who gets to see what data of yours, made selections and set your privacy preferences, you'll have completely forgotten why you're on that web site in the first place. Which is exactly what the webpage wanted, and drives so many of us to just give up in disgust and just tick "Accept All".

Score: website 1 : GDPR 0

😒

course if, like me, you use Firefox with the Ghostery add-on installed, doesn't matter if you click accept all, or not as the tracking ones get blocked.  Or just set your browser to not accept 3rd party cookies.

[Odaks]

1 minute ago, Adamburp Adamczyk said:

course if, like me, you use Firefox with the Ghostery add-on installed, doesn't matter if you click accept all, or not as the tracking ones get blocked.  Or just set your browser to not accept 3rd party cookies.

Its not just tracking and 3rd party stuff you have to worry about. A lot of companies will happily share your data directly, unless you specifically stop them.

[Adamburp Adamczyk]

4 minutes ago, Odaks said:

Its not just tracking and 3rd party stuff you have to worry about. A lot of companies will happily share your data directly, unless you specifically stop them.

There's always a way around it.  for the extra few seconds to decline any cookies and the like is fine by me.  and any website that wants me to register to use either gets a variation of batman in the field, or i skip it altogether.

[Odaks]

3 minutes ago, Adamburp Adamczyk said:

decline any cookies

I think that's the only safe option. Then you get threatened that "certain functions of this website won't work for you. or might behave incorrectly".  You're clearly pretty well protected against this sort of thing - particularly as you're only too happy to give the site two fingers and move on. Good on you!

Far too many people will just tick "Accept" to avoid having to face the issue. I bet if you did a straw poll and asked random people, "Do you just tick Accept?", you'd get a frighteningly high number of yeses.

[Adamburp Adamczyk]

10 minutes ago, Odaks said:

I think that's the only safe option. Then you get threatened that "certain functions of this website won't work for you. or might behave incorrectly".  You're clearly pretty well protected against this sort of thing - particularly as you're only too happy to give the site two fingers and move on. Good on you!

Far too many people will just tick "Accept" to avoid having to face the issue. I bet if you did a straw poll and asked random people, "Do you just tick Accept?", you'd get a frighteningly high number of yeses.

and as for a certain site called after part of your head and something you get from the library, that's actually blocked in my hub's firewall and has been for a decade.  so regardless of any technologies in use, they get a box of fresh air instead.

[Amanda Crisp]

I’ve endured a couple of decades in the corporate world after surviving my military service. The sign out-front at our workplace has changed multiple times over the years, but any other changes were mostly cosmetic.

If you’re a target for acquisition, this usually means you do something other people *want* and most of them are Wiley enough to let you keep doing it once their name is on the door. There are horrible exceptions of course; like being bought by someone with too much ego or too little business sense.

My personal experience has always been in line with the old cliche; 

“New boss; same as the old boss.”