Timothy McGregor

I don't think the creative "magic" has been completely lost. I still do a fair bit of exploring and I see a lot of building and creating in various stages of progress, by new residents and older.. I recently visited with someone who had invited me to see what she had done with my popular freebie house, and I was genuinely amazed at how she transformed it from a simple little box into something uniquely her own, in ways I would never have expected to see. The creativity is still out there to be found, experienced and appreciated, that's for sure. What seems to me to have diminished over the years is the sense of community. It doesn't feel as socially engaging as it once did. We're less likely even to have someone take 4 seconds to type "Hello" upon a chance meeting than we once were. I think in the earlier years, the Lindens themselves inspired a lot of that kind of engagement, by being engaged with the community in-world themselves. I'm somewhat disappointed that they have all but entirely retreated from community engagement on a social level. I hope that in the future they will re-think those decisions, and realize the impact that their engagement has had on the larger resident community. That all said, I think the magic is still there on all these levels. I think it's just a bit more challenging to find it. The company has evolved, as have the platform and the community. With that evolution comes shifts in the creative and social dynamics. If we have to work a little harder at keeping them alive, that's fine. Without them, the world is dead.

Great idea for a discussion, DA. Although I don't have a story nearly as compelling as some of the others here in the thread, this does take me back to the magic of Second Life that existed for me when I first joined, and to an extent still exists today. I started in October 2006 after hearing a story on NPR on the way home from work. I recall that the story was about Anshe Chung, and her milestone of becoming the first real world millionaire in Second Life. That really wasn't what grabbed my attention though. What I found interesting was the idea of an entirely user created virtual world, where the shared experience was created by fellow residents, instead of the publisher. That evening, I signed up, and as I've related this story a few times before, I think I spent the next 48 hours in-world, just completely immersed in the visual and social experience. It was virtual world ecstasy. Not long after that initial experience, it was time to buy some land. I was confused, so I summoned Live Help, and none other than Philip Linden himself answered the call. The tier structure wasn't as well explained on the website at the time as it is today, and he admitted that during our session. Ultimately, when the session ended, I understood what I needed to do, and did it. Now I needed a house. I had already been hanging out at a popular social spot, and in no time a person was recommended as a builder. This was the real magic to me. How do these cubes I keep rezing turn into the beautiful creations I see everywhere I go? Well, I stood there and watched my very first home as it was created. I was mesmerized. I saw cubes rez. Then they started changing size and shape, and suddenly they had textures on them, and before too long, I had the coolest house ever. When the builder was ready to be appreciated, I think I paid him L$5,000. He was shocked. But it was worth it. (This was a small shack on a 512 plot) Fast forward a couple years, and I find myself at Linden Lab in San Francisco, attending what I guess was one of the last of the Views sessions. I won't say much about what we talked about, and what was revealed to us for feedback, but it was basically right at the time they were readying the Google appliance to replace the inworld search tool, which if you remember, was pretty crappy. They were also readying some UI updates to the viewer, including that "Communicate" button and the floater it presented. The highlight of that trip for me was a lunch session where Philip joined us and talked about the state of group chat at the time. It was a very informal conversation, and he was perfectly candid about the shortcomings of the platform in general, and group chat specifically. What really struck me about that visit though was the energy that I felt when I entered the front door. A diverse group of humans, passionate about a product that they knew was unique, working together to keep it running and make it better. I have stood in the middle of the room where the developers write the code that makes Second Life work. I've seen humans there. I've seen the passion in those humans. I've sat next to Philip at lunch, and listened to him talk, watching his eyes and his body language. I saw magic. I saw people who are not just trying to do the impossible, they are doing it. I know that things have changed since those days, and they have struggled to keep their footing in an ever changing landscape of resident expectations and business and legal realities, but I have to give them credit. Ten years on, the world is thriving, and we're having this conversation.

Hello, Chief? Max. Dillon Levenque wrote: When I was with the .....company...., we had mobile communication options more sophisticated than you can possibly imagine.

Update: Amber came in (on her day off) and removed the problem scripts.. so big thanks to her! Still, I would suggest stopping by and double checking your items to make sure that we didn't miss any. There were a lot.

I have to join the majority of the crowd here and say that I'm not a fan. And considering you've been suspended over these vehicles in the past, I'm betting that Linden Lab aren't members of the fan club either. There are situations in which autonomous transportation systems are useful, such as the couple that Qie mentioned. Those systems are programmed to travel along very specific waypoints, and they will never wander off course, mow down residents or get stuck in my front lawn. They add value to the specific communities in which they operate. Your vehicles add no such value to the mainland at large, and the majority of them consume region and network resources without any considerable return on that cost. Admittedly, there are some clever aspects to these things, but in context with reality, that's a novelty that wears very thin, very quickly.

Just a general heads-up to everyone who offers free items at Stillman. As I was checking my transaction logs I noted that one of the items I have at the bazaar had its name changed. Upon examination I noted that somebody had added some "vendor" scripts to the item. The scripts were added on September 1. They are no mod and I have no idea what they actually do, but they do request debit permissions when you rez the item, so they could be malicious and potentially drain the accounts of innocent freebie shoppers. The scripts are present in numerous items at the bazaar that have been shared with the group. If you've got free items there, I strongly recommend that you go have a look at them. The name of the script is "Updater Vendor System". It is impossible for me to know what actually is in the script, or who is responsible for them being in the bazaar items, but it appears to have been done on 9/1/2012. I and a couple others have AR'd a couple of the items, but so far I've not seen any action. Meanwhile, people are coming to the bazaar and grabbing stuff, and there's a real potential for them to have Lindens stolen.

Russ Moonites wrote: Ive been a member of SL for a very long time longer than this profile dates. But i won't get into that. Good, because it's irrelevant. I think mainly because there is SOOOOOO MUCH USER CONTENT and that there are COUNTLESS NUMBERS OF ADULT PRODUCTS made by users that this game should be Rated A for Adults. Rating it T for teen just doesn't seem to be a good rating weither linden labs created adult content or not. They did not stop the making of adult products. There has also been a more than reasonable effort to keep that content segregated into Adults Only areas of the game. Furthermore, nothing in the ESRB ratings guidelines seems to indicate that a publisher has any obligation to stop the user creation of adult content. They simply don't rate it, and require the publisher to post a notice of unrated user content on the package and at sign-in. If you can make a showing that the overwhelming majority of content that users are likely to encounter in Second Life is Adult content, you would have a good case for rating the game Adult. In reality, exactly the opposite is the case. The vast majority of the content present on the non-zindra regions, and thus the majority of the grid, is not, in fact, Adult content. Sure, I dont doubt there are scatterings of it where it shouldn't be. I've encountered it myself. But I have spent a LOT of time over the years exploring the grids North, South East and West and very rarely have I encountered anything but what could be considered General or Moderate.

I would leave it alone. Even if you did have compelling evidence that he was operating the alt himself, and receiving the tips paid to it, I'd be more concerned about how such a response would reflect on your own character. At any rate, revealing the names of a person's alternate accounts without their consent or when they haven't publicly done so themselves is in fact a violation of the Community Standards: 4. Disclosure Residents are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy with regard to their Second Life experience. Sharing personal information about your fellow Residents without their consent -- including gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual preference, alternate account names, and real-world location beyond what is provided by them in their Resident profile -- is not allowed. Remotely monitoring conversations in Second Life, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without the participants' consent are all prohibited. EvaFord wrote: There is a DJ in SL who uses an Alt as his Hostess/Partner. He claims "She" is voice verified implying that this ALT is female. I find this unethical. Guests are being asked to Tip the DJ's Alt. I see it as a Scam. Since this is a Public figure in SL. Someone asking you for L$, is it ok to post information about this in your profile? I feel that people who ask to be compensated in SL, need to be required to be honest as to where that money is going.

I'm late to the party but after having spent considerable time looking around for a way to do a smooth pivot, I finally just modified the old "Smooth Door Script" by Toy Wylie. It uses targetomega for the animation, rather than dozens or more individual rotation changes pushed through the server. The result is an almost perfectly smooth rock/pivot with much lower cost to region resources. At the end of each swing there is just a single llSetLocalRot() to snap it in place. It's a door script so this would be needed, but it also seems to correct for accumulating rotation oddities I noticed when I commented those functions. I didn't do much to the original script, just added some code to do start/stop on touch, and to put it in a continuous back and forth loop. My application was a simple rocking chair, and it works perfectly. You'll likely need to use an extra prim as the pivot point, depending on your requirements and build. // Smooth Door Script - Version 1.1// by Toy Wylie// Distributed under the following licence:// - You can use it in your own works// - You can sell it with your work// - This script must remain full permissions// - This header notice must remain intact// - You may modify this script as needed// -------------// - Modified into basic rocker/pivot with// - touch start/stop. Zaphod Kotobide float openingTime=2.0; // in secondsfloat openingAngle=15.0; // in degreesfloat autocloseTime=1.0; // in secondsinteger steps=4; // number of internal rotation steps float omega=0.0; vector axis;rotation closedRot;rotation openRot; integer swinging;integer open;integer rocking; openDoor(integer yes){ vector useAxis=axis; open=yes; if(!yes) { useAxis=-axis; } llSetTimerEvent(openingTime/(float) steps); llTargetOmega(useAxis,omega,1.0);} go(){ if(swinging==0) { if(!open) { axis=llRot2Fwd(llGetLocalRot()); closedRot=llGetLocalRot(); openRot=llEuler2Rot(<openingAngle,0.0,0.0>*DEG_TO_RAD)*closedRot; } swinging=steps; openDoor(!open); }} rotation slerp(rotation source,rotation target,float amount){ return llAxisAngle2Rot(llRot2Axis(target/=source),amount*llRot2Angle(target))*source;} default{ state_entry() { rocking=FALSE; swinging=0; open=FALSE; omega=TWO_PI/360*openingAngle/openingTime; llTargetOmega(ZERO_VECTOR,1.0,1.0); } touch_start(integer dummy) { if (llDetectedKey(0) == llGetOwner()) { if (rocking == FALSE) { llLoopSound("rocking-chair",0.8); rocking=TRUE; go(); } else { llStopSound(); rocking=FALSE; } } } timer() { if(swinging>0) { swinging--; if(swinging!=0) { float amount=(float) swinging/(float) steps; if(open) { amount=1.0-amount; } llSetLocalRot(slerp(closedRot,openRot,amount)); return; } llTargetOmega(axis,0.0,0.0); if(open) { llSetLocalRot(openRot); llSetTimerEvent(autocloseTime); } else { llSetLocalRot(closedRot); llSetTimerEvent(0.0); if (rocking == TRUE) { go(); } } } else // autoclose time reached { llSetTimerEvent(0.0); openDoor(!open); swinging=steps; } }}

if it doesnt inform the consumer about user created content then its fraudulent To reiterate: Online Rating Notice Online-enabled video games carry the notice "Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB." This notice warns those who intend to play the game online about possible exposure to chat (text, audio, video) or other types of user-generated content (e.g., maps, skins) that have not been considered in the ESRB rating assignment.

whats the point of having a rating system then ?? To inform consumers about the nature of the content, and to assist parents in making informed parenting decisions. At the end of the day, it is still entirely about being a parent. Ratings systems don't replace that.

JeanneAnne wrote: anything less than an Adult rating would be lying thers Adult content on G sims .. & its uber easy for kids to lie about their age if Steam rates SL less than A the rating system is meaningless Jeanne There isn't a game in existence in the entire Universe that has adult content which isn't "uber easy" for kids to access. Second Life isn't unique in that regard, by any stretch. That would include ESRB rated games currently in the Steam catalog that might contain user-generated Adult content. I think that's probably why ESRB seems to focus on the game publisher's content in determining its rating.

Zaphod Kotobide wrote: Not nearly as long as last week and the week before. Today maybe 20 minutes. A couple weeks ago it was close to an hour. It's no big deal, just found it a bit curious. Meant to say weeks previous to last, since there weren't any last week.

WolfBaginski Bearsfoot wrote: It's good to hear that there's finally some progress on this. The long restart delay, an hour or more, makes the whole roll-out process that much more disruptive. The numbers are not as good as they used to be, but they are moving in the right direction. A small price to pay for progress. We've come quite a long way since this weekly occurrence:

Not nearly as long as last week and the week before. Today maybe 20 minutes. A couple weeks ago it was close to an hour. It's no big deal, just found it a bit curious.

Oskar, this isn't a rant, but just a curious thing I observe consistently each Tuesday for some time now. After the restart sweeps through, all the regions surrounding my home region (Samoa) come right back to life, while Samoa can often take upwards of 40 minutes before it comes back. Is that something to be expected due to the channel it's in?

Well, you have a point. I just don't see them taking a particularly unique approach to rating Second Life, as published by Linden Lab. Yes, it's a unique product, but in terms of content presentation, it has features common to other platforms that enable people to play online and interact with and in a virtual space. Consider the following quote from ESRB's ratings guide: Online Rating Notice Online-enabled video games carry the notice "Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB." This notice warns those who intend to play the game online about possible exposure to chat (text, audio, video) or other types of user-generated content (e.g., maps, skins) that have not been considered in the ESRB rating assignment. ______________ Note the word "maps". That's what they are called in other virtual spaces. In Second Life, we call them "Regions". While it is true that they are all provisioned by Linden Lab, none of the Linden Lab-created content within them is Adult oriented. So I think it could be effectively argued that Zindra is comprised of user-generated maps that happen to contain user-generated Adult content. In the case of private regions rated Adult, I think the argument is strengthened. Again, I think the distinction between user-generated and publisher-generated content is key. In the end, they may not be able to successfully argue the case, depending on the attitudes of those persons assigned to do the rating, but I still think there is a strong case to be made for a lower rating than Adult that is consistent with ESRB's published guidelines. It remains to be seen. In a culture where gratuitous, bloody violence is acceptable material for a 13 year old, but even sexually suggestive material is the ultimate deadly sin, who really knows how this will go?

Well said, and point taken. Prokofy Neva wrote: Der, nu? derr.

Deja Letov wrote: of course....could it be rated on the status of the sims (pg, M, Adult). If so, then it would be the highest rating possible, meaning adults. I don't think that would necessarily be true. Linden Lab publishes and markets and promote the platform for 13 and older, and keeps adult content segregated on an adult-only section. Technically I see no reason they couldn't receive a Teen rating.

Eh, I don't think it will be nearly that disastrous. Those in the broader gaming community are already well aware of Second Life, what it is, what its quirks are, and have already taken the decision to either use it or not. If the idea behind publishing on Steam is to broaden the distribution of the platform, and reach into untapped markets, they might see some moderate success but that's it. Steam is like an entertainment sotware buffet. I happen to like buffets, for their variety and convenience. But I don't like yams. Displaying a tray of candied yams prominently on the buffet is not going to cause me to put them on my plate.

There is no rule preventing you posting a link to an external blog, as long as it isn't done as commercial promotion. In this case, it's very relevant to the discussion. Go ahead and post it.

Linden Lab's first order of business is to obtain an actual ESRB rating, which they have hinted at eventually doing after the Teen Grid merger, up until which point there really wasn't any need for a 3rd party rating. They self-policed well enough by aggressively enforcing the grid segregation. They likely won't have any difficulty getting a Teen rating from ESRB however, since Linden Lab do not themselves publish adult content with their platform. Any adult content on the grid is user created, which is beyond reach of ESRB's rating system for the most part. They will just need to add a notice concerning user created content and interactions to the various product splashes, probably including log-in. This move won't kill Zindra, and won't push Adult content off the grid. At most, they will just start getting aggressive about enforcing the segregation rules that already exist, and will have to respond more readily to reports of violations than they have been as of late.

"1. Open Source culture is reprehensible. It's authoritarian. It's what led both to the awful practices and atmospherics that led the Lindens to shut the JIRA interactivity down; and it is that very culture as well that led to them shutting it down for their own reasons. All in all, a lose-lose." I just have a couple quick questions, Prok. If Open Source "culture" is reprehensible, then why do you choose to use Open Source products? If you find the actions or motives of the author who released his rental system as free, open software to be reprehensible, and you object to the consequences of that decision, why, pray tell, do you USE the software, and then **bleep** and moan when you don't receive the coddling you feel you deserve when you request help sorting out a problem? I don't suppose you recognize the hypocrisy here, do you? Oh, I'm sure you'll just take a few moments to explain it completely away, won't you? You have developed a notable skill at using pseudo logic and rich language to wrap your otherwise ridiculous propositions to make them appear like a delicious intellectual sandwich. I'll give you props for one thing, Prok. You are persistent in your intellectual dishonesty.

I tip a minimum of L$1000. Not because I'm a big spender, but because I try to consider what I might tip a person in a similar real life situation. What's L$50? 20 cents? That seems cheap to me. L$1000 to start. If they play music I enjoy, another L$1000. If they do it competently, another. Granted, I don't get out much, and if this was something I did very frequently, I probably wouldn't be throwing 10-15 real dollars around each time. But still, I think people forget what those L$50 tips are actually worth - not much. Like Qie said though - start throwing around those "whoooooooo" gestures with the ASCII text, and I'm out. I stopped using IRC for a reason.

"I think the Jira had become a bully's playground with more opinion, ranting and flaming than bug reporting or relevant information posting. It had degraded to the point where it failed to serve its originally intended purpose. No where in the blog posting does it say anything about shutting down server development ... that's just an example of the type of inflamed rhetoric that resulted in the change." Yeah. This. JIRA has been this way since day 1. It is an intellectual pissing contest more than it is a useful bug tracking tool. It's too complicated, and the signal to noise ratio makes it unusable and most off putting.