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Inara Pey

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Everything posted by Inara Pey

  1. If that's what you want to believe, that's you prerogative. It's inaccurate, but still your prerogative. I'm still curious as to citations for other "big lay offs" that have occurred "in the last few years".
  2. Not at all. My post was purely to clarify the history around the "big lay off" of 2010, which as noted is often referenced sans any actual context. But that said... ... I would suggest calling Sansar a "failure" at this point in time is perhaps an over-statement. Rather, I'd say that, success or failure, it's far too early in the day to judge - thanks in part of Sansar being publicly launched far too prematurely, most likely as a result of the Lab buying into all the over-blown hype around VR (such as pundits claiming it would be a $70 billion a year industry by now *coughs*). Of course, the Lab do have to balance expenditure on Sansar and SL very carefully as a result of the former, but it would appear that SL remains pretty healthy in terms of the revenue it supplies to LL (regardless of where they opt to spend it). User revenue generation through credit processing remains on a par with previous years, grid shrinkage has been a lot slower than previous years, etc. If, by "part of that" you mean the fee increases are related to the "failure" of Sansar, then I'm sorry, I would have to disagree. Practically since his first day at the office, Ebbe Altberg has made absolutely no secret of the fact that he agrees with the mantra "the tier is too damned high!", and wants to rectify that by shifting the onus on revenue generation to other aspects of the platform (for citations on this, I offer the many transcripts and audio recordings of his public presentations at - VWBPE keynotes, Lab Chat events, Meet the Lindens sessions, etc.). At the same time, almost from the time he joined, he's also made no secret of the fact that the Lab needed to do far more on matters of compliance in handling money (something which hit the headlines just before he started at LL, when the US FinCEN issued interpretive guidelines which looked to impinge on matters of virtual currencies). Again, as evidence of this, Tilia's own roots at a Linden Lab subsidiary go back as far as around mid-2014, when the company acquired the name (see: Linden Lab and Tilia Inc. – speculations on the Lab’s new subsidiary, my blog, Nov 2015). As such, I think it would be a mistake to attribute the recent fee changes as anything other than has already been stated: in part to meet the costs of establishing Tilia Inc as a means for LL to better meet its fiduciary responsibilities at federal and state level as a registered MSB. as required by FinCEN et a; and in part to meet the Lab's attempts to reduce the price of virtual land within the platform (most notably the Mainland and private region fee reduction of 2018. If you're reading this into my comments, then I apologise, as no such parallel was intended in my statements. I certainly don't think we're anywhere close to seeing Sansar "dismantled". Yes, LL is trying to shift its revenue model - but again, as noted, it's been a matter of record that they want to for five years now. In that time, we've see various fee increases, up to and including the recent Premium fee increases - and (in 2018 at least) reductions in land tier. Ergo, tying these shifts purely to some perception of Sansar's "failure" is not, I would suggest, entirely correct. Finally, as just as a sort-of aside, I'd actually suggest that when it comes Tilia Inc., is - beyond its role in allowing Linden Lab with the means to meet fiduciary responsibilities as an MSB under US federal and state laws for both SL and Sansar - the company actually allows the Lab to potentially open up new revenue generating avenues, by allowing them to provide their experience in managing virtual economies to clients quite outside of Second Life and Sansar. Again, as evidence of this, I refer you to the Tilia Inc website, and to comments by Soft Linden towards the end of Information About Privacy and Security in Tilia. Obviously, time will tell if this really can work, but the potential is there. So, no, I'm not in any way trying to draw parallels . Again, apologies if this were perceived to be the case. And just as a P.S. none of the above should be taken to mean I think Sansar is / will be a "success". As noted, right now I think it is still too early in the day to say either way - and low concurrency numbers don't always reveal the whole story.
  3. Hope this can throw some light on things . According to Oz Linden, when the decision was taken to push ahead with Sansar, there was a split of sorts. He actively campaigned for his current roles as Senior Director, Second Life, and then sought to bring together those staff at the Lab who indicated a preference to remain focused on Second Life development. Other devs did opt to work solely on Sansar. There were also some (as per comments from Ebbe Altberg made as various public venues) who due to their specific skills sets actually bounced back and forth between SL and Sansar, depending on where / how their skills were needed. Since then, the Lab has restructured and formalised things so that in terms of development and engineering, the two platforms operate pretty much as independent teams, with each recruiting as an when required entirely independently to the other (as often seen within the LL careers page). This has actually meant that some expertise that initially went to Sansar has come back into Second Life (e.g.one of the Lab's long-term rendering experts initially moved across to work on Sansar, but later moved back to focus solely on Second Life). So, broadly speaking, the status today is that while Sansar does still have devs and product managers with a background in SL (e.g. the likes of Aleks Linden - although his exposure to SL was more that of a user than a Lab employee - and Nyx Linden, a long-term member of the SL Product Team before moving to Sansar), many of the Sansar team have been recruited in the last 2-3 years and appear to have little (if any) familiarity with / exposure to SL, as witnessed at the weekly Sansar Product Meet-ups, where questions asking whether certain features common to SL might be replicated in Sansar tend to meet with the reply of, "I'm not familiar with Second Life and that particular capability. Can you explain how that works?" (or words to what effect). The same is true on the support side of things, where Patch Linden has overall responsibility for all aspects of Support for both SL and Sansar (based out of the support centre in Atlanta, Georgia), but at the front end of things, the SL and Sansar support teams operate independently of one another.
  4. The 2010 lay-offs have generally been referred to as the "big lay off"or similar through blogs and elsewhere. And, as far as I can remember, that situation was the only time in recent LL history (i.e. over the last decade (which would count as going back "a few years ago", I think, without stretching the term) there has ever been a "big lay off" (unless you're counting things like the 12 laid-off in 2018 (hardly "big" or occurring a "few years ago"). So yes, I may have made a certain assumption, but given the broad generalisations made in your comment, it's actually perfectly fair. It also doesn't negate the context of the 2010 lay-offs.
  5. Sorry, but no. I was replying to the statement made that "They've been shorthanded since the big lay off a few years ago and they have no intentions of changing that. It's more fun to watch us dance like puppets for them", and pointing out that claims around the 2010 layoffs are so often made without context. As such, I'm perfectly "within the topic".
  6. The UNofficial summary (+ video by Peetie Auer). I've attempted to organise the discussion + questions into topics, rather than a direct minute-by-minute approach to summarising the meeting. I *hope* that will be easier (but frankly, after trawling through things and dealing with an "eventual" Saturday home life, I am at this point somewhat bonkers and not sure what makes sense... Tilia Inc and Second Life: town hall summary and video
  7. People still bring up the subject of the "great layoff" (2010) without actually ever placing it in the correct perspective. So... I'll try to do so here. In April 2008, the Lab appointed Mark Kingdon as CEO. His appointment came at a time when the company was consciously seeking to switch direction, most notably in trying to make SL a platform for business / a standalone application for the same. This involved: A redefinition of the platform as a service. The start of a drive to radically reinvent the Viewer (work that eventually spun out to the "Viewer 2009" project, which itself had morphed into viewer 2.0 by the time we got our collective fingers on it) Engagement with the likes of Rivers Run Red to develop “immersive workspaces” within Second Life The development of what would become known as the “out of the box” Second Life Enterprise (SLE) “tool” and Second Life Workspaces. Part of this drive saw the company undertake a massive expansion, which included opening more offices - some as far afield as Amsterdam and Singapore - and recruiting on a large scale. In particular, and in reference to the "great layoff", this recruitment drive saw the Lab's headcount rise by something close to 50% between 2008 and shortly before the time of the 2010 restructuring (I wish I could quote the exact number; Dusan Writer actually recorded it in an interview with Mark Kingdon from (IIRC) February 2010 - but sadly, Dusan's blog now renders a 404 error in searching, so I cannot give a precise citation). Many of those hired were not brought in to work on SL as we know it. Some were admin and marketing staff needed to manage the new offices; others were hired to work on presenting Second Life Workspaces to interested business and supporting those business (remember Amanda Van Nuys (Amanda Linden) et al?) Others were responsible solely for the development / provisioning of Second Life Enterprise (SLE) - a product that ultimately went nowhere outside of the US military bulk-buying licenses to run it. Thus, when the axe fell in 2010, it was these positions, far more then those directly involved in the development and maintenance of Second Life as we know it, that got the chop. And while it is true that *some* core staff also went as well, it is not as if the company has never recruited since June 2010, or sought to replace those who have since left to seek pastures new - as even a semi-regular glance at the Lab's jobs page will show. So can we please stop pointing to events of nine years ago sans proper context?
  8. The meeting will be livestreamed as well via SL4Live - TV. However, I've no idea if the the steam will also be monitored for questions placed through it.
  9. Correct. Tilia is a Money Transmitter in compliance with US federal and state laws, and is effectively a service provider to (hopefully) multiple clients, including SL and Sansar. The Lab has stated there is no requirement to provide personal info (beyond what is currently required) to purchase L$.
  10. Tilia has been around as a Lab-owned subsidiary since 2014/15, and over the intervening period, its services have been used to power elements of both SL and Sansar.
  11. From Auguest 1st, 2019, Tilia Inc is intended to provide virtual economy services to 3rd party clients - of which, LL appear to be one. These include (if required) virtual tokens (which the L$ has really been for years now). The blog post and FAQ expressly limit themselves to credit processing and USD balances. That said, an unambiguous statement on managing L$ balances and "in game" purchases of L$ through the viewer + use of L$ balances for tier payments, etc., would not go amiss (and help allay at least some concerns / confusion), I agree.
  12. Yeah... Tilia has been powering Sansar for a while now (if not always). But again, Sansar is a separate platform to SL. Ergo, providing proof of ID *directly linked* to your SL persona(s) avoids possible Chinese Walls.
  13. State / federal laws on data protection? Might be a wholly-owned subsidiary, but Tilia has always existed (since 2014) as a separate legal and business entity. Ergo, there may be (probably are?) Chinese walls on what data can be transferred btween Linden Research (Linden Lab) and Tilia Inc.
  14. Yup.. the key word being "estimates" - rather than anything set is stone; hence my reference to it being an "example"; as per the most recent discussion (Oz, April, June 25th, 2019), the fee is still very much "TBD". Thanks for pointing me back; I was so buried in trying to get through Ebbe's MTL audio / video & catch-up on my other SL (and Sansar!) stuff, I hadn't taken a deep dive back through my notes
  15. For those interested, Oz and April's comments on why "last names" is taking so long, and more general feedback on the capability (much of which already kown) and their replies to questions on the capability, as give at their June 25th MTL session: The return of Last Names – a further update with audio The post contains both bullet-points of comments made and audio extracts from my full recording of the session.
  16. I'd be curious as to the "official" source for this - I've attended just about every single meeting (be it User Group meeting, Meet the Lindens, Town Hall, etc), for the purposes of documenting them, and the *only* official statement I've heard on possible cost is that it is still very much TBD, the one exception being Grumpity Linden who gave an *example* of it being potentially costly enough to discourage frequent use.
  17. There is a preview area in the SL16B regions. It's visible in the lower-right-hand corner on the Map (SL16B Stunning). More than that, I'm not allowed to say at this point in time.
  18. Someone said on another thread that getting a Linden Home is like getting an SL retirement home. Retirement?! I'm too bloomin' busy constantly changing interior designs for the different houseboat versions! . The only one I haven't played with thus far is the Evening Star. It's still a work-in-progress, but here's my latest fiddle-farting with the Windlass (including pulling bits from @Blush Bravin's Barnacle Party Add-on). For it, I've copied the idea of dropping a floor into the ceiling well and turning it into a cosy little bedroom - hence the spiral stairs. I also put a wall up between the kitchen area and the houseboat's stairway so that having two set of stairs so close together doesn't look odd. Also, note the extra door in the "bedroom" wall. It's an Anywhere Door allowing me to get from the bedroom to the roof deck and back. OK, so, it's a cheat - but it works . I've used a 2nd pair of Anywhere Doors to counter the fact the orientation of my parcel otherwise makes direct access to the moorings on "water" side of the Windlass awkward. You can see the "inside" door just behind the fridge in the first photo.
  19. Thanks, Patch! As per my e-mail to you, I've dropped e-mails and a DM to both ChouChou and the listed region owner (not sure if the latter is an alt of one of the former) in the hope that someone contacts you directly.
  20. Thanks Whirls for the link to my article, and thank you yo rikutojam for the feeback. As I've noted in reply to one of the comments following that article, I have reached out to Linden Lab on the matter in my capacity as a “journalist”. I am most certainly not saying my doing so will change anything (and they are already more than likely aware of this thread). However, as some have pointed out in the posts here, there is a programme in place for certain regions to be perserved - although it is subject to various and understandable caveats (for example: do the owners of a region want it to be preserved, even if it is deemed suitable by the Lab?) - so there is no guarantees it can be applied to Chouchou. Should I receive feedback from the Lab on the matter (and again, this isn't always guaranteed), I will update my original article / post here. In the meantime, I'll add a picture of Memento Mori of my own...
  21. So I decided to play with the Barnacle houseboat design, and after initially not being a fan of the curved wall, actually came up with something that actually might look cosy.
  22. Re: rez zones, etc. Folks who are interested might want to check out a free clickable map by Yasmin (YouAintSeenMe). Can be used as a HUD or in-world as a map. On the Marketplace: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Bellisseria-Linden-Rez-zones-map/17166108 My review: https://modemworld.me/2019/05/02/finding-rez-zones-in-bellisseria-yasmins-free-hud/
  23. I tend to blog more than forum post, but here are some of my houseboat with additions. External stairways for "balcony" and roof from the moorings, and an interior shot with the new fireplace (and "working" mirror! - the magic of projectors ).
  24. I'm running late on this, as awaiting further bug fixes on the EEP viewer before suggesting people play with it.
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