Qie Niangao

That part is interesting, inasmuch as the Bluetooth connection works with no issue until Firestorm tries to use it for a very slightly different thing. If you haven't already tried with a wired USB audio connection (Apple's USB-C EarPods are surprisingly not awful for the surprisingly reasonable price), it may be worth seeing if there's something amiss in Firestorm's voice configuration. Usually I'd fuss about the USB-Bluetooth adapter approach, which always caused me problems that magically went away when I got a motherboard with a proper Bluetooth + WiFi module, but if you're only having problems in p2p mode, that doesn't really seem like a Bluetooth problem. As you may know, the Lab is in the process of replacing Vivox with WebRTC, and on a pretty accelerated schedule. That might possibly fix stuff.

Yeah, this is one of SL's older self-inflicted wounds, confusing instance with class: mesh models are not first class assets to be manipulated in the world, where only individual instances of those models survive the upload process. This is unlike every other object primitive that can be morphed into any other by script. This decision to neuter mesh was intentional, as I understood it, in service of mesh modelers who feared IP infringement (which was a problem with sculpties and prims). Now it all looks pretty anachronistic. Soon enough human-crafted, artisanal mesh will be quaint, the hand-carded wool or hand-thrown pottery of virtual worlds, but SL will still prevent AI from morphing its mesh content.

"Firewall"? "The IP would only be exposed to LL"? Clearly this won't be simple peer-to-peer but I'm not grokking the architecture here at all. [EDIT: Okay, I finally read the SL Wiki article so I see the "relay" of the SL Voice Servers… which must be pretty clever beasts if listeners will be able to mix/mute separate audio sources within the region, which is kinda expected, right?] But then I don't know anything about how Vivox works now either, and strive to keep all SL audio muted as much as possible. Still… internet sing-alongs? That's gotta need some synchronization magic beyond my ken to not end up sounding like an echoey Zoom call.

I can confirm the Kama City phenomenon, at least in the far northwest corner. There were several quite pricey parcels here (well, it's double-prim) that sold, leaving just one still available in this region (Broadwater). Because the sales had (apparently) different prior owners and sold to (apparently) different buyers over the course of a few weeks, I'd guess they went at asking price or near it.

They may have also had privacy law problems, but also they were garbage. People were reportedly verifying as Elvis (not to disparage any theories of his ongoing presence amongst us).

However effective an age-verification method is (or isn't), there's much to be said for sticking with industry standard (which is, basically, asking nicely). If the company is fine with losing lawsuits left and right, then sure: get creative, hire an "age verification" service, etc. Remember Aristotle/Integrity? That might have screened out a handful of underage users but as I recall, it exposed more liability than it averted. This isn't legal advice, but there's much to be said for hiding in the herd, doing whatever everybody else is doing. This is nowhere to innovate.

There's a kind of war among Vietnamese restaurants hereabouts. Every time one opens, it's flooded with negative reviews on all the common eatery directories, Google, etc. It's become an artform, the creativity with which reviewers can find fault with these Vietnamese restaurants, but not everybody looking for a good meal realizes that some reviews might not be quite what they seem. I can only take the thread in small doses, which has been tough during its firehose phases, so I know I've missed lots. It sure does seem everybody has had enough time to air their views remarkably publicly and it's to the point where it seems unlikely much would be lost if it were closed. (But then I thought it was doomed on the first page, so never mind me.)

Finally! A conspiracy theory I can get behind!

That was my initial response too, but a little digging showed claims from years ago that such a viewer existed among the various exploitware and malware viewers that circulate(d) in certain crowds. If those claims were valid even back then, I doubt those exact viewers could even login and rez the world these days, but if they really existed they could have been updated. Given the fence around the llGetAttachedList script function you'd think they'd have plugged such a viewer-messaging leak long ago, but that would be buried behind old, inaccessible SEC- jiras, so who really knows? Besides this, though, there are other places where that post is at best technically naive. I was particularly struck by the forensic pixie dust it sprinkled over UUIDs and the apparently hypnotic powers of PBR. If they're that fast and loose with slightly techie details, imaginary viewer features do seem pretty parsimonious.

Right, but they do have the problem that people were somehow primed to take that bait hook, line, and sinker. Not to repeat my earlier rambling, but the Lab does need to respond to that vulnerability. Removing a business-supporting pillar wouldn't even help beyond the fleeting appearance of having done something, so yeah, let's not do that.

It's certainly possible. Whether there's an off-the-shelf script that does exactly what you want may be hard to discover. (I, at least, have no idea, and don't know the scripts you mention which I gather are common scripts for doing something related.) There are shirts and pants scripted to change which parts are visible based on touch or HUD control, so maybe they're using a relevant script you could discover by inspecting demos. Passage of time, hmm… probably that, too, like wet clothes that dry off or something. If you were to ask someone to make this script for you (perhaps on the Inworld Employment forum) it may help to have a little more specificity on a few points. The surfaces involved are separate links in the linkset? Or separate faces of one or more links? These are discrete states, right? i.e., the surfaces are either visible or invisible, not transitioning through a continuous range of alpha levels? The textures are old-school "Blinn-Phong" materials, right, not PBR? (This one is kind of a big deal right now because we expect script control of PBR transparency to get a lot simpler soon-ish.) The state transitions trigger based on just the passage of time, right, until it gets to the final state? and then what should the wearing avatar do to restart the sequence? touch? (Ease of touch for the user can depend on attachment point and model geometry) a HUD? a chat command? And it's always only the wearer who can trigger the restart, right? What should happen when the item is attached from inventory, as when an outfit is worn or the user logs in? just continue where it left off, or reset to the first (or last) state? It's all possible regardless of those specifics, it's just a scripter would need to know. Also, this isn't a complex script in any case, but it could be really simple if the states were modeled either as the faces of a single link or all faces of a set of links; it's just ickier to have State One be several faces on several links, and State Two be several different faces on different links, etc.

In my experience with managementspeak, any outfit hired to do a job is immediately a "partner." No external investigator could escape becoming a "partner." Vocabulary word of the day: dysphemism

Yeah. The more this thread dwells on what resident and Linden behavior or appearance might be offensive, the more it misses the real point: The Lab needs a way (a process, an ombudsman, an external tribunal, something) to insure future compliance problems are addressed without a whole credibility crisis like this. Because such problems will always arise, regardless of how hyperfine we slice the definitions of acceptable conduct. Those definitions are not the big failure here, nor are the occurrences of non-compliance. The problem is lack of confidence that those problems were handled effectively, fairly, responsibly. Allegations such as those in that Medium post must never again have any credibility because, going forward, everyone knows how problems are handled and everyone trusts they are being handled. The main challenge I'd expect in designing management practices that achieve this kind of confidence is staying transparent while complying with mandatory confidentiality. It would be a huge breach of individual privacy for the Lab to tell us everything some would want to know about the current situation. There were surely some staffing actions that cannot be discussed (especially if under litigation) which makes it extra important that trust is established with those practices that can be revealed.. Why is it so difficult in Second Life? There are two very different constituencies: employees and residents, but it's hardly unique to need to maintain the trust of multiple stakeholder groups. It can't help that many stakeholders havean appetite for the salacious subject matter of these allegations. Tricky business, virtual pornographer to the masses.

Everyone surely agrees about this. But anyone with a (merely) realistically-sized avatar who visits Adult venues at some point will have been challenged for appearing too child-like, regardless of how representative the avatar's skin, eyes, etc. The explanation is always that the management must never fall afoul of the regulations because it's a terminating offense, which they know from a friend of friend who got banned through no fault of their own… which is, somewhere in that game of telegraph, almost certainly untrue but these situations are not about truth, they're about the chilling effect of rumors and hysteria. Maybe that FOAF was an obvious child avatar flagrantly violating ToS, or maybe the story was embroidered along the way, or maybe it was all made up on the spot, but no matter the truth: it arose out of fear stoked by events like this. Now, I have to admit I've never gone out looking for age-related adult content violations, so yeah, color me naive: I don't think I've ever encountered it in all my years of SL. I can accept that it's happening somewhere, and there's stuff on the Marketplace that shouldn't be there, etc., and I hope all that is dealt with responsibly. But I very much have encountered the hysterical response that arises whenever this topic gets mindshare. It will be worse for a while after this, pretty much regardless of what the Lab actually does.

I don't know to what this refers. Was this something where I (or somebody?) could be expected to assess the reporting account as a source? Or was it a thing I (or they) could investigate to determine truth independently of source? Probably we can't discuss the specifics because I guess it's about forums moderation, right? But anyway, in case I wasn't clear before, I'm not saying allegations such as those in the Medium article shouldn't be investigated by those with access to the ground truth (which investigation I have no objective reason to doubt has been happening). But the rest of us should find better use of our time and attentions than to automatically accredit that source.

The source is never unimportant. That's how people who "do their own research" end up in the loony bin.

I'm genuinely curious what people think explains the delay. Two theories I dreamt up are clearly silly for an issue of this magnitude: It's not just bureaucratic bulk nor a doomed hope that it would all blow over. Those didn't happen, it had to be a conscious decision to wait, and to be seen to be waiting. But waiting for what?

They should be considered innocent in a court of law. That doesn't mean a reader should forgive themselves for taking any of it seriously until they know something about the source. If the author(s) need to remain pseudonymous, they must make some compelling explanation of why. And they do not get to concoct obvious codswallop about their identity. And one of the red flags for me was seeing names that had appeared in the fevered peak hysteria of earlier witch hunts who already weathered those allegations. Could all those discredited claims have been true after all, despite everything? Or are we watching all the convenient targets reprised every time the bread and circus brigade thirsts for blood? Yeah, I'm a little skeptical. (And not only about the ones accused, but there's some pretty dubious character elevation, too, if you ask me.) Can we shut it down until it's fixed? Or is that too inconvenient? Wouldn't it be easier to parade all the usual suspects through the streets before the stake burning ritual? I remember. Everybody maxed-out the sliders and it still wasn't enough. When the ceilings and doorways are high enough to accommodate the cams, every avatar looks like a child again. Meanwhile we feel so righteous in our crusade.

That's more or less what I understood Sid to be saying. Or at least that's what I agreed with, combined with the fact these forums are a little more "official" than whatever gets said on Reddit or wherever. The Lab has some responsibility to respond to whatever we spew here. So I think it's very much a service that the thread was created—I, for one, hadn't yet seen Oberwager's post—but I think we can expect some moderation will need to be imposed, sooner or later.

Most importantly, we heard from Oberwager with a commitment to stay the course rather than what I'd feared: pulling the plug out of annoyance at having to deal with this when he surely has better things to do with his time. So that's good. I think he said a little too much about protecting real life children, as Coffee said, when nothing specific to that was ever alleged. So in that sense I agree with Paul: that statement was clearly written by a PR person, not a lawyer (although I'm sure counsel at least reviewed it). But I didn't see the actual word "trafficking", nor anywhere new rules are implied. It's been this way for ages, hasn't it? I suspect our little Count of Monte Cristo got most of what they wanted. I presume at least one pen is no longer anonymous to those investigating, if it ever was.

This is complicated in a couple ways. First, just to get it out of the way, based on the four arrows control I'd guess that "orientation" actually means offset here, rather than rotation. Both are possible, but either way "it's complicated". As a first approximation, a script might call llOffsetTexture (or llRotateTexture) to change the simple diffusemap texture on a surface. These do not affect the normalmap and specularmap, however, so if those were used, this won't be good enough and three parameters will need to be specified (each also identifying the image to be used) with llSetLinkPrimitiveParamsFast : PRIM_TEXTURE, PRIM_NORMAL, and PRIM_SPECULAR. But that's for old style "Blinn-Phong" materials. For PBR, I don't know of a way to manipulate rotation and offset of the PRIM_RENDER_MATERIAL, and instead there are potentially four glTF override parameters, PRIM_GLTF_BASE_COLOR, PRIM_GLTF_NORMAL, PRIM_GLTF_METALLIC_ROUGHNESS, and PRIM_GLTF_EMISSIVE. Also, the glTF surface dimensions are defined differently (like the vertical offset is sign-inverted or something like that). So if the surface will be painted with both generations of materials (to remain compatible with pre-PBR viewers), there's some work involved on the object being textured. Of course the script in the HUD must communicate with the one in the to-be-textured object. Sorry, I have no idea whether such a script exists in the library or Marketplace or anywhere, really. Also, regarding the need to identify the images in texture-related calls to llSet*PrimitiveParams*, I recall some discussion about being able to specify that the existing image should be preserved and only manipulate other parameters, but I've lost track of if / where that is on any roadmap.

No, I was responding to Sid:

Love this. Turn AI James Madison loose on AI Antonin Scalia and see what becomes of the "originalism" conceit. Just don't give them pistols.

I mean, yeah, they're both payments that go mostly to the Lab, but they're buying different things, which I took you to deny by claiming it was delusional to pay for mainland. They'd only be buying (almost) the same thing if mainland couldn't be resold, which is how it works for estates, Linden Homes, and the hypothetical Mainland 2.0. As long as there's reasonable prospect of selling the mainland one buys, it's simply a different commodity. It's not that I'm arguing it's a good "investment" or anything—in one of these threads I recently called Mainland an anachronism—but it's still not delusional to pay for it. Also, at least for some Mainland, there's a reason for that "reasonable prospect" of somebody buying the land on resale: it's not as interchangeable as a parcel on Belli or a typical residential estate. Some folks want the predictability that comes with that kind of uniformity—Belli is a huge success because it offers just the right amount of customization for many (many) SL residents. But the "sense of place" of a Belli parcel is very attenuated compared to much Mainland where one parcel is remarkably distinct from all others; not surprisingly, those parts best retained value through Belli's growth (so far). I don't think anybody knows how much distinctiveness a Mainland 2.0 should have, at the cost of less predictability. Would that market want to bring their own structures as on mainland, where the neighbor's choice might be a little too "distinctive"?

Apparently, unless the account has already pre-approved the necessary tier on the Land Use Fees dashboard page, they won't be able to proceed past the confirmation page (e.g., https://secondlife.com/land/lindenhomes/confirm/Fantasy_1024), with the warning: