Parhelion Palou

I'm right here ...  I'm taking up a few pixels in this picture. Happy Friday, btw.

I may have seen you & a friend ... remember to watch for cars.

Hippie Bowman wrote: Good morning all! Good News! Kylie Jaxxon is back. It was a close call for her but she is back! Peace! Yay! That is great news!

The high-powered PC requirement comes from the VR displays, not necessarily Sansar. Here are the hardware requirements for the Oculus Rift: NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater 8GB+ RAM Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output 2x USB 3.0 ports Windows 7 SP1 or newer

The official celebration (performances, events, etc.) ends today (June 28th) but the regions will be open for viewing through July 4th. Tear-down begins after that (July 6 - 8). The structures/displays in the exhibitor parcels are owned by the people who set them up. I haven't heard of any group asking for copies to create a museum of former SL birthday celebrations.

Amateurs! :smileywink: I've read 432556 messages and replied 259 times, making me a 1670:1 lurker. I expected at least 2000:1. I'm not trying hard enough.

Madelaine McMasters wrote: ... I liked being the Sun ... Is that when your compulsion to to incinerate people began? :matte-motes-wink: Happy Monday, though it sounds like an oxymoron.

Gray hair and gray beard apparently aren't considered in their algorithm. Perhaps it would've done better if the image was brighter.

Vivienne Schell wrote: Amethyst Jetaime wrote: BTW, you can't take your inventory with you to the open sim grids you named. So that eliminates them if inventory were so important to someone Oh, really? :manlol: You can legally export items that you've created. You can also export items when the creator of the items has given permission to export to a particular grid. For most people the effective result is not being able to take their inventory with them.

Hi Val! I popped over to your place and took a snapshot. I don't know that it's better than yours, but it's different anyway. Happy Friday, btw.

Or make some money in SL for at least the next few years, then also use SL 2 if/when it's released.

In September 2006 the rate hovered around L$265 for $1 US. I've been buying Lindens monthly since then & don't recall ever seeing rates significantly higher than that. Perhaps someone who's been around since 2003/2004 remembers the rates in the first few years.

I suspect Hippie is already partying too hard to post something, so happy hump day (and final day of 2014)!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! (secular or otherwise) 2015 is just around the corner and I haven't figured out how 2014 disappeared so fast.

SL is used for many more things than have been mentioned here. A few I know of: Educators use it to teach, artists use it as a creative medium for their art, some people earn their living in SL, nonprofits use it for outreach and simulation, some have used it to model RL buildings as part of their design process. These don't qualify as games. I originally looked into SL as a way to model control systems for physical systems, particularly vehicles. That didn't work out, but I found that decorating my plot of land worked nicely as an online zen garden. It's relaxing. Neither use is particularly a game. Say you have a big pile of lumber. You can build a game using the lumber, or you can make up games using the lumber (see how far you can toss a 2x4, for instance). You can build a shed or even a house. An artist could use it to create art. You could teach woodworking. You can build things and sell them. You can sell the lumber. You could even set the pile on fire and talk while roasting marshmallows. The answer is obvious: SL isn't a game, it's a pile of lumber. (It may also be both a floor wax and a dessert topping.) My answer to the original question: My opinion is the previous replies about emotional/financial involvement and about the tie-in between griefers and "it's only a game" seem the likeliest reasons for getting offended about SL being called a game. As for me: It's a free metaverse - call SL whatever you wish.

Happy Saturday (what's left of it)! It's a fine day for raking.

I don't know about mainland, but private region prices went from $195 to $295 a month at some point. I don't remember the year, but it wasn't as late as 2011. Some regions were grandfathered in & remained at $195, though that may have ended by now.

I was too lazy to write this up earlier, but Maddy's covered almost everything I wanted to say. My contribution is this: Maddy's numbers are for the top 1/4 of her tank of gas. Once she's used 1/4 of a tank, the weight penalty is down to about 31 pounds, When the tank is half full, the weight penalty has dropped to 15 pounds, and there's no penalty for the final quarter. Your mileage is affected more by the way you drive than by the amount of gas/petrol in the tank. Madelaine McMasters wrote: Drake1 Nightfire wrote: For someone who just does in town driving, having a full tank is foolish. The DOE estimates that every 100 pounds of additional carried weight decreases gas mileage by 1-2%. Each fill of my car is 10 gallons, or about 61 pounds. Three quarters of that is about 45 pounds. So, maybe I'm saving 0.5-1% by running on 1/4 tank or less. I can go 75 miles on a quarter tank (30mpg). One percent of that is three quarters of a mile. So, if I must go more than 3/8 of a mile out of my way to fill up, I'm losing ground. The gas stations within that range of my daily errand routes have gas prices about a dime a gallon higher than my favorite, which is a couple miles away (i get near it once a week) and has a dog that loves tummy rubs. That dime is more than 2.5% savings, swamping any economic benefit of driving on empty. The tummy rubs are a bonus, as is the security of having a full tank. And my time is worth something. So, my scientific analysis says, "fill 'er up." ;-).

If you get a flat that's a simple puncture in the tread, the can of goo should work. If anything else happens to the tyre (such as a cut or damage to the sidewall), you'll be stuck. IMO, leaving out the spare is a terrible idea.

I'm sure you've seen the place, Hippie. Your photos a few posts earlier are from another part of The Wilderness. I'd forgotten about the place, so I visited it again after seeing your pictures.

From the Tapir region in LL's The Wilderness. It was a premium membership area, but I think it's now open to all.

Vivienne Schell wrote: "I'd say LL is handling SL pretty well." They certainly handle it sufficiently. But obviously not well enough to escape the niche or even keep the customers they have. Which isn´t exclusively a Linden generated failure, but they contribute decisively. Talking about "performance hits", to stay on topic: Allowing something absurdly excessive like "sculpts" and almost unrestricted resource abuse by avatar attachments is the reason for the flood of nice looking but performance killing items on the grid. Such things never were and never will be online game compatible in a technical sense, unless someone invents the affordable supercomputer and free LAN broadband for everyone. That´s not what i call a good handling. "Starting anew (the next generation) is the way to go." What leads you to the conclusion that they are able to handle this "next generation" thing in a better, more successful way as they handle SL? Imagine someone builds a car which breaks down any 100 km and then this company comes up and promises that the next one will be better, faster, next generation and whatever. Would you believe in such a company? "An $800 (US) computer can run SL well" Oh yes, on a fairly well built sim with not more than 10 other high poly mesh, sculpt, script and monstertexture cladded avatars in the 96m viewer range, without shadows and probably windlight disabled and LOD set to zero it will riun fine, as long as your avatar does not move. 2006 revisited. That´s true progress for the masses. Unfortunately not everyone on the planet likes to watch her little high poly mesh avatar in the non-existing mirror while dropping tons of highest poly attachments onto it. Tho, I must admit, these dolls look cute on the blog screenshots. They only look kinda lonely there. " I think an automated process to determine efficiency would be hard to build." Not at all. They implemented the "land Impact" meter in the mesh upload functionality, which is quite helpful. Unfortunately land impact does not matter for attachments. And why they do not finally stop further uploads of sculpt maps, i have no idea. And of course they have a problem with abusive content now, but only because they allowed it. And that´s not a graphics engine problem, it´s a 100 percent user handling problem. "An NVidia 650 card (approximately $100 US) would work well." No. But i must admit, it depends on what you do in SL. It can be enough, but if you don´t wanna bath in your very own lil metaverse, forget it. U.S. auto manufacturers got along well with carburetors until the 1980s when emission requirements and fuel economy requirements came into effect. They tried to make carburetors meet the new requirements, but the car ran terribly. Would you say that since they couldn't make the carburetors work, they shouldn't be trusted to build cars with fuel injection and engine computers? On an $800 computer: Per Newegg as of today, including shipping costs but ignoring the rebates that were offered: motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-B75M-D3H LGA 1155 $ 76.09 memory: G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) $ 79.99 processor: Intel Core i3-3220 Ivy Bridge Dual-Core 3.3GHz LGA 1155 $124.99 case/power supply: Cooler Master Elite 311 - Mid Tower Computer Case w 420W PS $ 67.98 video card: MSI N650-MD1GD5/OC GeForce GTX 650 1GB $ 94.99 hard drive: Western Digital WD Blue WD10EZEX 1TB 7200 RPM - OEM $ 59.99 optical drive: ASUS DVD-Writer Black SATA Model DRW-24F1ST - OEM $ 19.99 o/s: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM $102.98 Total: $627 That leaves plenty to go to a better video card (650Ti, 750, 660, 760...), but assuming you don't have a monitor or keyboard/mouse: monitor: BenQ GL2460HM 24" Widescreen LED Backlight LCD Monitor $149.99 keyboard/mouse: Logitech Desktop MK120 Mouse and keyboard Combo (920-002565) $ 13.99 Total 790.98 I've run SL on a NVidia 650. You can do shadows if you wish, but you can't run ultra mode. Think the high setting with some settings turned down. If you're in a crowded area you would have to reduce settings some -- turn off shadows for sure. My main computer has a 660 Ti. I run in ultra mode (with some settings turned up) with draw distance set to around 300m. Frame rate does drop to 20 fps in really crowded areas if I'm moving around, but it's not bad.

Commenting on several things: The 'next generation' means just that ... the next generation of software. LL has not said that it will be designed to use only the latest & greatest. It will work with the Oculus but not require it. Of course VR and AR (augmented reality) devices are going to be the best thing since fire. That's the way the hype cycle works. People will try them on everything and eventually AR/VR devices will settle into the uses that they fit. As for LL talking of the next generation kind of processing while not being able to handle the current, I'd say LL is handling SL pretty well. The problem is they are limited by the design of the system, by having to remain compatible with SL's content, and by having to deal with 11+ years of changes to the software. Starting anew (the next generation) is the way to go. SL doesn't require a high end computer. An $800 (US) computer can run SL well. That's a low or low/medium end computer. Encouraging efficient content design by taxing inefficient content in the marketplace is an interesting idea, but how would it be implemented? I think an automated process to determine efficiency would be hard to build. To Cibernut: The amount of memory on a video card is of secondary importance. The card's performance is primarily based on its processor. An NVidia 650 card (approximately $100 US) would work well.

SL is good for simulations, not so good for teaching in front of a blackboard. Here's one use that supposedly works better than real life: I don't expect colleges to come back to SL in a big way. Most of them can do what they need in an OpenSim grid anyway.I'd expect LL to create some sort of SL-like world based on whatever they build. I'm not certain how that fits in with them not wanting to bring in users. Then again, they don't really do that now.

ChinRey wrote: LillyBeth Filth wrote: They are not going to release specific details on technology or indeed any type of plans for what should be obvious reasons. Very good point. LL has actually been surprisingly open by any standard with information about SL2. Vivienne Schell wrote: "experience creator" What is that? Judged by LL´s own "experience creations", namely Linden Homes and such it demands a lot of masochism, extended love for boredom or the mentality of a 12ys old to become a next generation Linden darling then. LOL :matte-motes-big-grin: Actually, the Meadowbrook homes aren't that bad. Outdated by now of course but perfectly OK for the early sculpt age when they were built. Don't really know Elderglen or Tahoe well enough but of course, the Shareta Osumai theme is sheer rubbish. And in any case, the point you're trying to make is very valid indeed: Linden Labs don't have any content creators. This is painfully obvious when you try to bring up some building related issue with them. They're always very nice and polite and patient but they just don't have the reference frame needed to understand what it's about. (That doesn't mean all official Linden Labs builds are bad. They've had good builders working for them in the past (Eric Linden for example - one of the greatest, perhaps even the greatest, SL builder ever) and over the years many LL employees have contributed lovely little miniature builds all across the grid. But even so, they don't have the expertise in-house to understand modern SL building.) As for other content creators - well, obviously they have no animators, texture makers, sound artists or game authors at hand. Apparently they used to have quite a lot of educators (yes, they are content creaotrs too in this context) but I have no idea what happened to them. Were they all lost in the Big Layoff? Surprisingly, they don't seem to have enough good scripters either. You would have thought that lsl is child's play for a professional programmer but they still can't produce something as simple as a working holding animation script for a teddybear (or teddymole actually). This lack of in-house creator expertise is going to be a real challenge for LL now that LS2's focus has shifted from technology to content. They seem to be aware of the problem now though and awareness is always the first step to solving a problem. :matte-motes-smile: So far as I know, LL never paid educators to create anything. Education/nonprofit organizations got a 50% discount on regions. When that discount was taken away (in the middle of most schools' budget cycles), many of the educational institutions and nonprofits could no longer afford to be in SL. The discount was restored in the last several months, but it'll take time before the organizations that were burned will be willing to come back. LL's shift in the next generation virtual world (bad idea to call it SL2 because I don't think we'll recognize it as that) is to consider creators to be their customers. The customers will build experiences. Don't think of that as the SL Experience project ... think of it as entire MMO games, virtual worlds, whatever. I think LL is planning on getting into the infrastructure business ... they'll supply the servers, virtual currency, and maybe avatar registration to the experience creators. In the transcript Ebbe said "We still have to think about whether we want to have multiple name spaces. Like do you have to ‑‑ if you come to different experiences, do you have to register all over again or can you have the same tea across now?" He also said somewhere that perhaps a 3rd party would do registration for an experience. He also said LL doesn't want to attract users ... the experience owners will market their experiences to users. ETA: That's my speculation anyway. Too bad it'll be several years before I find out if I got anything right.