Jenni Darkwatch

Void Singer wrote: Jenni Darkwatch wrote: LL could easily have made SL accessible via cellphones. It's trivial to do, yet no one there seems to see beyond the walls of their crystal palace. this one statement puzzles me more than any other.... how exactly would SL be feasibly available from a cellphone? nevermind for the moment the limitations of content to screen size, I'm going to assume you mean cloud rending of scenes, which means massive live video bandwith use, and forget about the inherent delay time to render and send, plus the cost associated with that much wireless phone usage, or the fact that the jitter on most wireless signals and overall stability is not really reliable. and for what? a low rez grainy image or a "live" virtual world that you are constantly lagging behind, all at ridiculous service and bandwith costs? that was a pipe dream even before they tried it with the "interest" beta. not every product is suited for the general market or to every particular directed purpose.... it's often better to target a core market, even a niche one, and then flexible enough to take in closely related markets... Smartphone was of course what I meant, and even there, more the tablet hybrids. Sorry, not a native speaker here. Cloud rendering is an interesting concept, but that wasn't even remotely what I meant. SL on the go isn't what I am really talking about either, though I'm guessing some people would find that appealing too... while driving their car into a crowd of people. For smartphones I feel augmented reality makes much more sense than virtual reality though. The way I see it, more and more people will use relatively low-power "portable" computers. Tablets most likely, considering their popularity. They have decent sized screens but not the oomph to run something like SL without draining the batteries in the time it takes to log in. On the other hand, many have built-in video stream decoding, as used for example by Netflix for streaming vids to iPhone and iPad. So the bandwidth is obviously there. The bandwidth costs... that's an issue of course, but likely less than one would think, especially if programmed right. There's quite a few techniques to limit bandwidth in such environments. Scale the image dynamically according to screen size. Lower the streams FPS if nothing much changes on-screen. If a user wishes to, turn off the visuals and go to text/voice chat only... simple things. Why bother though? SL has, it seems, reached the ceiling. Trying to expand into new markets and become a pioneer is something LL does neither have the vision for, nor would the current user base appreciate it. After all there's still people who honestly think SL was better in '03.

leliel Mirihi wrote: Yeah except that mobile devices and tablets are personal computers with their own OS and applications that have just as many bugs as their desktop counterparts. Terminals were called dumb for a reason, all they understood was plain text. Terminals aren't text anymore. What bugs they have is, for me, irrelevant. All I need them for is a remote desktop session (not the Windows TS kind) and/or a web browser. In most cases, web browser is sufficient.

leliel Mirihi wrote: The G41 (GMA X4500) is not that bad. And if you're still buying the 8-12 year old Pentium 3/4 era 828xx chipsets then you're getting raped hard core. Remember I said new and modern, like the G41 (c. 2008), not whatever decade old piece of junk you have lying around the office. Why on earth would I blow money on "modern" hardware when decade old "pieces of junk" work just as well to get the job done? In an office environment there's rarely any need for anything fancy. As long as everything loads fast and is responsive, that's good enough.

The GPUs on modern low end machines are about 400% faster than the ones on 3+ years old machines. ^.^ Try running SL on an Intel G41 or a (still fairly common) Intel 828xx chipset. The "personal computer revolution" was needed when servers weren't commodities. Today, a decent server can be had for $5k. These days, computers are security risks in businesses. Even the business world is moving to mobile computing. Tablets have become halfway useful, and web apps can fill most ordinary business needs. In fact, our retail stores will soon not even have traditional cash registers anymore, and no "office" in back either. It's gotten to the point where either is unnecessary. If SL wants to attract new users, it has to be useable on tablets and "smart"phones. To do so, they'd have to offer a codepath that my employer has managed to implement with two measly programmers and an external programmer for the phone/tablet side of things. Except that LL has neither the vision nor did it have the leadership for such a thing (during Kingdons clueless reign anyway). Remember the web-based "client"? Nice demonstration of just how unimaginative the people in charge are. Here's a clue: Gaming PCs typically have the needed oomph to render and encode a live stream of the SL visuals and audio. Adding that to the current viewer is beyond trivial. Harness what's there, don't try to come up with yet more expenses. A concept that a good 99% of all "professionals" couldn't grasp even if it hit them in the face.

My employer uses a fairly well-known business PC brand. The problem is the GPU - they have none worth mentioning. And yes, quite a few are older than 3 years. No reason to shell out money if all they need is spreadsheet, word processor and email. In fact, we're moving to web-only thin clients. Cheaper, last longer, cannot as easily be tampered with and they don't get malware. Edit: And no, definitely NOT gonna spend $300 for a work PC Half of that - maybe.

You're right, that option doesn't exist in any official LL viewer.

Good points have already been made, so no point in repeating them. The thing I want to point out is this... SL has very limited commercial value. Regardless of what fanboys say, it doesn't run well on a lot of cheap off-the-shelf hardware. It certainly doesn't run on the average business PC. Out of my employers' PC considerable, world-wide PC pool, maybe a handful of PCs will run it. That alone limits SLs use for any kind of commercial use. Then there is the "what for?" question. What can SL do that other tools can't? 3D visualization? Well, maybe with mesh. Collaboration? There's better tools for that. Conferencing and telepresence? There's better tools for that. There _are_ some limited ways that SL can be used, but again, it's too expensive, too buggy and generally there are very often better and more useful tools to get the same benefit. Phillip Rosedale often likened SL to the next evolution for the Internet. He missed a lot of key points: The Internet is going mobile, and turning to augmented reality, not virtual reality. LL could easily have made SL accessible via cellphones. It's trivial to do, yet no one there seems to see beyond the walls of their crystal palace. That might have broadened the appeal, but I doubt it. It'd only delay the demise. SL missed the boat long ago. It'll still be around for a while, but in todays world, everything has to be rush-rush, don't pay attention to anything for more than a minute then it gets boring. Multitask with the delusion that it increases productivity. We've raised an ADHD generation. LL lacks vision and direction. Combined, that's more than enough to kill off SL.

Minor problem: SL supports older hardware too, which basically locks them into old OpenGL. Though, of course, they could add newer functions in optional extensions. Like, say, GPU based tesselation and such in OpenGL 4.x - which requires a fairly recent GPU/driver. If you look at the forum, a lot of people try to run SL on ancient or cheap hardware, often with very outdated drivers. And then are upset because it doesn't run well. For a reasonably good comparison between OpenGL and Direct3D: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_OpenGL_and_Direct3D (a bit outdated but still ok).

Use a TPV, problem solved. 'Course, you'll get other problems but that's the beauty of choice. You can pick the crap you want to deal with.

Better multithreading would always be nice, but it's non-trivial to multithread a render engine. They're working on that, I think. At least it's gotten better in the last 6 months or so. As for DirectX... you do realize that using DirectX would lock out all non-Windows users? Edit: Btw, SL doesn't max out my old dualcore CPU at all, not even with shadows enabled. One exception: Busy venues, they max out both cores.

There is no direct way to do that in v2 that I'm aware of. Obviously you can go ahead and just copy the items into a folder yourself, but if you're looking for a save as copy button - no luck.

As long as it's optional... who gives a damn? As with everything on the Intertubes, ultimately you decide what you reveal and to whom you reveal it. Workplace? Simple. Don't be an ass and post your whole life online. For employers, it's an easy way to weed out the bottom feeders. On the other hand, for wiley jobseekers it's a way to manipulate their marketability as a loan slave.

~shrug~ I've been on the other side of such a dispute, though not in SL. You can fight it, but there's a few things you should be aware of: 1. It's irrelevant if you make money off it or not. 2. There has to have been significant creative work on your side. Whether your editing qualifies would be up to a court. Different courts see it differently. Then there's another issue that you didn't clarify: If you did, in any way shape or form, use protected terms to advertise your product, you're toast. The movies name, an actors name, anything like that is not permissible. Furthermore, LL can ban anything for any reason they want. Basically, make your own recording and don't use any copyrighted/trademarked/otherwise protected terms and/or imagery. Trying to make money off others' fame is just sick.

Objects, animations, sounds and textures have always been easy to steal. There's not even a need for a "superspecial sekrit client" to do that. All that information does get transmitted to the client so it can be displayed. A lot of that information can be grabbed even by the most stupid moron on earth, and there isn't a thing LL can do to prevent that. Scripts should be impossible to steal. The script itself never gets transmitted to the client, not in binary and certainly not in source. There have been bugs in the past that made it possible. Supposedly LL plugged these exploits. Stealing objects with the original owner intact should also be impossible. When uploading anything, the creator gets set to whoever uploads the content. That's done server-side and thereforeshould be out of reach for a client. While I have no doubts that there's plenty of exploits possible within SL, I find it a bit doubtful that even LL with their history of inaction would sit on their hands if it was possible to steal no-mod scripts. There's plenty of security relevant scripts out there. If someone would be able to steal, say, any of the in-world ATM scripts...

Some badges are quite nice. Most are junk. In normal, regular fora, I turn displaying them off. If I could, I'd also turn post count off, mine included.

I'd suppose they could easily lock that feature for underage/not age verified avis. Not sure how they'd lock RL "bouncy" though.

There's a few ways to keep players assigned to the right table. Aside from the already mentioned one, I'd go for another approach: When a player sits down at a table, you can get that players' UUID. Any HUD communication will allow you to query the owner UUID of the HUD, so you can simply have only the associated table respond. When avis stand up, simply remove them from the authorized players list. Btw, you'll also want to encrypt or otherwise hide any game-relevant communication if you do care about fairness of the game. Probably the easiest way to solve this would be to use HTTP client/server communication (table is server, HUD is client) since that cannot be listened in on by scripts. You'll still need an initial conversation to establish the link, but beyond that it's be a private conversation. Alternatively, have a look at the crypto libraries in the wikis LSL library. They can hit the sims script engine hard though. Texture...depends. I'd probably go for 52 textures and replace them as needed, with the texture size as small as you can get away with. Personal preference, really. Just don't use a 1024x1024 texture for a card that'll only display at (for example) 128x64px on the client. The ideal texture solution depends a lot on your specific needs.

~*~ People who don't appreciate others' hard work to keep their fav hangout running ~*~ Drama queens (and kings). Unless you're a friend, I don't really care if you're an abused welfare-whore with a drug addicted child. Especially since you're most likely a liar anyway. ~*~ Gesturbators, ESPECIALLY the kind with highly annoying "WEEEEEEE" screams at max volume and the damn gestures with chained-together sounds so they last for-fracking-ever. ~*~ Friend invites out of the blue. ~*~ Total strangers asking if I'd give them a ride on my horse avi. NO, I WON'T. ~*~ People who have their "friends" ask my if/why I muted them. Welcome, "friend of x", to my mute list. ~*~ HNGs (Horny Net Geeks) asking for pixelsex. Go buy a blow-up doll, please. Or try winning a darwin-award, that'd be great too. And a lot of the things others already posted. Voice in local especially... pet peeve.

IP is a bit more complex than that. Neurolabs hasn't invented egg chairs - they've been around in the real world for much longer than SL even exists. If Neurolabs thinks this infringes on their IP, they need to resolve that personally. SL is chock-full of stolen content. Search for Lamborghini, Boeing, Gucci, Armani or any other brand name in SL... I'd be very surprised if these content rippers...er...creators... obtained permission. Same goes for textures, sounds, even animations.

I generally only windowshop in SLM because it's ridiculously impossible and time-consuming to find anything in-world. The only reason I often go to a merchants store is to see the item rezzed. My _preference_ would be a good in-world "SLM" of sorts.

Using a newer v-based TPV... nope, don't have that problem.

You didn't mention it, but... http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Second_Life_and_multiple_monitors

Voids assessment is correct, at least for some (not entirely sure if all) viewers. If render unloaded is false and # of avis is low, some distant avis disappear. That behavior is a bug, and it only occurs with very specific graphics settings. The same bug triggers the OPs bug where far-off avis animate improperly. Most people will never see that bug as it only triggers when the shadow code (deferred et al) is active.

I suspect even when (if?) mesh hits the main grid it'll take years for creators and customers to replace existing tiny avis with mesh avis.

Zum guten Ton in der Industrie gehoert eigentlich nur, die eigenen Vorteile hervorzuheben, Nachteile moeglichst nicht zu benennen oder zu verharmlosen und Konkurrenten moeglichst in den Dreck zu ziehen. Das ist unabhaengig vom Industriezweig und Sparte. Dafuer gibt es ja dann auch Lobbyismus. Es steht nach wie vor jedem voellig frei dagegen zu protestieren. Ob eine beliebige Darstellung nun einseitig ist oder nicht ist erstens voellig irrelevant, zweitens voellig legitim (in SL zumindest, solange es die TOS nicht verletzt) und drittens auch ganz klar subjektiv.