Rick Nightingale

To summarise mine, I really don't think it matters for the vast majority of things (there are some niche exceptions). I believe things fail for other reasons than being left on or continually turned on/off*, and any seeming correlation really isn't. Makes life simple... I do what I want regardless Edit: within the realms of reason. I guess leaving a mechanical something on for 50 years might not be best for it, just like wiring something's power switch up to a relay and turning it on and off at 50Hz 🤣

Those two opposing thoughts on the matter have been ongoing for decades. Similar to the 'don't let your HDDs sleep' which gets argued about all the time with NAS boxes. As an electronics engineer, and both enthusiast and professional user of computers since before the IBM PC, I'll say this: I've never seen or experienced an electronics failure that I could pin simply on the equipment being left on. Or on it being turned on and off on a daily basis. I've done both plenty! It's almost all anecdotal evidence not backed up by any facts that can be applied generally to say one is right and the other wrong. For example: spinning rust HDDs can eventually suffer bearing wear; that's a mechanical failure from running (too long). They can suffer electronic failure, frequently in the MOSFETs that power the motor and which take a bit of a beating when the disks are spun up. So one says don't let them keep spinning when not needed, the other says keep them spinning so as not to wear the MOSFETs. I've gone though more HDDs myself than I can count over the years, and replaced countless in commercial systems. I've had them run for five years almost non-stop, then die on one power cycle. I've had them run ten years almost non-stop in a linux system and still be alive. I've had a couple that were hardly used because they were offline backups, and die when powered up for probably only the fifth time and just outside warranty. I've had HDDs in a NAS which were put to sleep after 30 minutes without access but were accessed every few hours, so have many thousands of start/stop cycles and they are still ticking perfectly after more than five years of that. I've also had the opposite where one has failed quickly, both with just a handful of power cycles and hundreds. There has never been any indication that one way is better then the other to me, yet I have routinely let HDDs sleep for almost as long as I've been using them. Another aspect often cited is thermal cycling, which can possibly cause microfracturing through expansion/contraction cycles and eventual failure. But then... modern CPU and GPU components go from a few degrees above ambient to almost 100C in moments, repeatedly, and still live a long life. Turning the thing on and off isn't a fraction of the thermal cycling it sees when in normal use, so does it really matter? My main PC here is turned on and off several times a day, and still runs fine after ten years. When I ran a server in the loft, it ran almost non-stop for over five years, then the motherboard failed. Another one I have has probably ten years of almost constant use and still runs (well, it did last time I powered it on... who knows if it will next time). Again... I've never seen evidence pointing one way, more than the other. What does often seem to happen in my opinion is that a component will be close to failure, for whatever reason it gets there. Once there, it is often prompted to fail by a power cycle even if power cycling was nothing to do with why it is failing. That thermal expansion, or just being warm, doing something a bit different when being started up than it does while running... and pop it goes. Capacitors love this, especially if they have been overheated a lot (not power cycled, but just ran hot) and double especially if they have then been left powered off for a while... like when I went on holiday for a month, got back, and powered on a PC with an accompanying loud pop and unmistakable aroma of boiled electrolyte. Want to know something that is a potential concern for failure of modern kit, that isn't talked about much? It doesn't depend on power cycles or being run... it just happens... Solder whiskers! When leaded solder was replaced with lead free (because lead=bad, let's all ignore the things that are ten times worse), a new phenomenon was soon observed. Lead-free solder shoots out crystal 'whiskers' a few atoms thick, slowly but surely growing and eventually, potentially, touching something they shouldn't. The industry doesn't really want to mention it outside of itself, but it exists, and happens everywhere. (Expect some military equipment, which is still made with leaded solder as an exemption from the laws.) Oh well, it was an old thread... a bit of drift won't hurt it now.

Some years back I had a server in the loft running ESXi with several guest systems. That ran all the time because it was my file server, in-house mailserver, 'cloud' file access (before The cloud existed), internet firewall and gateway, etc. It also had a couple of instances with viewers on, and the main one was logged on all the time. It only got logged off in a restart or sim crash, until I noticed. Remote access to the instances was OK back then because the graphics demand wasn't all that great. Isn't as good now, but is still usable (like running on an older laptop, say).

Yes, I tried to do the same when I was on mainland. I had an L-shaped plot the length of the region, about a third region overall area. The problem with using DD to hide the neighbours was that it didn't work if moved closer to that boundary, or wanted to have a decent view across my own, nicely landscaped land (which I did). The neighbours' land was always popping into and out of range as I moved around, which was worse than putting up with it just being there. A big woodland screen (transparent on their side) wasn't high enough when they started building towers and low sky platforms, or just leaving random, half-finished rezzes up in the air for a month or three. Permanent derendering was almost pointless as things changed too often. I stand by my suggestion Mainland is what it is, and while I found it annoying eventually I did appreciate the freedom to do what I wanted and wouldn't argue to take that away from others, even if their tastes and skills are questionable 😱

Just quoting myself here to add... This has a benefit (and in fact is why I write it like this in the first place) of the purchaser being able to link other items with mine to wear, to save attachment points or just have a single, wearable outfit as a linkset. Of course... that requires mod perms

Yeah, that's one I get. I've done one or two timed demos for the similar reasons. Sometimes it is the only way to do a reasonable demo. If I recall, one of mine runs* for an hour. * literally ----------------------- Another of mine, the demo is sold for L$2 (because you get two of them, slightly different). Unlike the full product, it's a single use, no-copy item that is gone once it's used. The real thing re-rezes after use. If I did a functional (and it really needs to be), free demo, people could just buy all they wanted and ignore whatever I did to make it a demo. It would still serve the purpose for them, mostly. The demo item is still useful and fully functional, and if you only want one or two for some reason... it's a bargain. So sometimes there is a good reason, but for clothing, I really feel it's completely anti-consumer and frankly daft.

You don't; it's much easier than that. You just have a ready-made, common demo rig, link them, and set no-mod. It's also very easy to script in such a way that it doesn't care about being relinked. All mine are like that. To make my wearable demos: I rez my saleable item, all ready configured for sale, and link the rigged ring to it. Change the object's title to include DEMO, and that's it.

Not sure how I feel about that one. I think there are potentially more useful things that could be done... My top one for a similar effect would be the optional ability to render, or not, by parcel except for the land itself. For instance only render things inside the parcel we are in, or choose entire parcels to not render. That would immediately solve a large number of mainland problems.

I completely agree, although I guess the chances of LL doing so are as close to zero as can be. Prices (per actual quantity rather than packet) for things in the UK have on average more than doubled since COVID (despite carefully tailored retailer and government figures that try to say 50% or less) and are still ramping up on any excuse they can think of, if they even bother giving one any more. Company profits meanwhile are still setting records and our leaders are making literally 100's of millions per year on their investments, while they cry poverty and say we need to endure austerity for the common good. Our total family income has risen less than 1%. I seem to recall LL's membership prices went up a few of years ago, did they not? I guess to fund AWS. We certainly didn't get anything back for that.

What about those body shape related demos where some body part is out of proportion... like banana fingers, yeti feet or pumpkin head 🤣

That's the intended operation. The selection in Edit mode is only to view it during that; it's only a (very useful) feature to help us design and inspect things. It has no impact once out of Edit or the item is deselected. It does not change any setting for the object, only tells the viewer to use a particular LOD while in Edit. Only increased the viewer's LOD factor will do what you want and it cannot be done for a single object. Setting it above 2.5 is not recommended by the Firestorm people, although many, me included, set it to 4*. It's possible to set it even higher but I never would and that is really not recommended. It's not a case of straining your PC by setting it too high, rather that it can mess up the rendering altogether. * Edit to add: only because of the number of rubbish items that don't work properly otherwise, and I tend to like a long view when on my land without noticing LOD models switching all the time. For my own made stuff, 2.5 would be fine even over the length of a region.

Ahh... missed that bit

The only useful comment I can make here is... why are general consumers allowed in the group if it's for Casper vendor operators? It should be a closed group with membership by invitation to those. That would prevent situations like this where people who think they've joined a group where they can get support get upset when they don't (whether the reply was appropriate or not)... because why wouldn't you think that if you can join the group in the first place? (Yes, you could say they should read the rules, but in reality most don't and a lot of the time the rules are ambiguous, poorly written, etc., so it's hardly surprising they get ignored)

Arrr me hearty... I don't be seein' what yer complainin' 'bout 'ere...

Oh my, even I wouldn't go that far. Even though I have come across some that do that, even in RL (for some digital goods like software... there's the whole shareware concept). In fact, I came across a small store with Lara and other rigged clothing that operated exactly like that a few years ago. It was free to take, with the ask that if you liked it, you paid what you could or the suggested amount. My wife took some, and paid. But that's us.

This is what I do... what's the opinion on this? (Kindly demonstrated by my lovely wife) The demo sign is a 1.2m wide ring, rigged to stay exactly where it is when attached. The idea is that it's obvious, but out of the way enough not to obscure the product. It doesn't emit light, by the way, just looks like it.

Randomly Vanishing Clothing could be a good theme for a party, in an Adult venue of course... Sort of like a variation on Russian Roulette or Pass the Grenade.

Waistcoats in natty colours enhance SUITS

Funny thing is that can be totally ineffective too, if you go to a script-disabled place like some of the sandbox regions I use specifically because of that. As long as you don't rez/wear it before going there, and sometimes even then if the programmer isn't too savvy. We've done that occasionally for something Foxy really liked and wanted to demo, although I don't think we ended up buying them anyway. Funny how the worse the demo in that way, the less likely the item is to be acceptable quality. Maybe that's clouded by being irritated though.

Well, this thread gave me another idea... I've just listed my rigged demo sign on the MP as a user-licensed product in its own right. Trivially cheap - everyone who sells stuff should have a demo sign.

Hmmm... I hadn't thought of that one. Personally I would see it as some free advertising for the shop anyway. If it's a popular blog, that's likely worth a lot more than the cost of the item. Anyone's welcome to do that with my stuff

Again, using mine as an example, the latest item I listed has a big rigged banner well above the head out of the way. It has a fully functioning HUD, everything works (texture change, tinting, alpha, other options)... and isn't timed. No need at all for it to be timed. I can only think that's largely another paranoia issue with some sellers, and picked up by others just because. Really... how many people are going to walk around using a demo 'for real' when it has a 2m diameter, glowing demo ring a metre above their head? (Not arguing with you btw, just making my point )

It's absolutely not. When you start looking closely at some mesh, you start to see the chinks in it. The little holes, clipping points in overlapping seams, etc.. Add to that wanting to check alphas (often needed), match to other items... It can take more than ten minutes. We have a number of items that were not timed, and demoed and checked for quite a while, and still found issues after buying them.

Unfortunately, most of the timed ones we've seen still have them.

Mostly applies to my wife, Foxy, demoing things... We hate timed demos! Absolutely hate them. It's stupid. There's never enough time to properly assess a product, and certainly not enough to see if it goes with anything else from the wardrobe. Having to unpack or, even worse, go and get another demo to try, well... forget it. We'll move onto the next item. I don't think we've ever bought anything that had a timed demo, just out of annoyance. Did I mention that we hate them? We did mention it on one of the items on the MP, in the reviews, and dropped two stars because Foxy hadn't even had time to look at it properly and show it to me before it timed out and vanished. To their credit, they did send a non-timed demo in response to the review, but I checked a week later and their demos are still all timed. As usual... not much notice taken of the people who buy the things. Or even don't. Edit to add: The only time it makes some sense, and we've had these, is when there are no other indications it's a demo. I've even done a demo like that myself because the only way to really make a good demo was to make it a full product, but with a limited life span. If it's ten minutes (I think the clothes in question were) at least it's not too bad. Better than the ones with a demo banner that covers so much of your body with glowing "DEMO" notices that you can hardly see the product. Still, I prefer my way: A big, bright rigged demo sign well over the head out of the way. If someone wants to walk around like that using a demo... fine, lol.