Nalates Urriah

I think we get that. The question is, has the issue with SL been litigated?

Naw.... just pelt them with facts that upset them, quote sources they can't refute, upset their cherished beliefs, use the latest PC buzzwords and phrases to describe their words and actions, hold a mirror up for them to bounce off of... they will block you. 😈🤣 People get out of line and are often insensitive. In those situation they seldom think. Others respond to what they say as if they are rational humans. Then being overwhelmed with the absurdity or stupidity of the comments coming out of them, surrender and just block/mute them. It is fine to do that. No one has a duty to listen to a rude uninformed idiot. One just has to make sure they know who is uninformed and who is being an idiot. Some are into virtue signalling. Grind on that if they are being annoying. Others try so hard to be PC. It usually only takes a couple of comments to have them raving. So... if you are into chaos, as a few in SL are, have fun with it. You might actually cause someone to think. The block button is always just a mouse click away. So, while there are all these other courses of action, you ARE ENTITLED to click block/mute at any time for any reason. It is the Freedom of Association which is part of Free Speech rights.

BMI's answer didn't clear anything up. I suspect their response is toward the site that has the copy of the recording. Since the DJ has the CD/DVD and is streaming it through a streaming service which the SL system doesn't stream but only passes along the URL to the streaming site... it would seem to come down to the streaming services process. Is the music copied by the service and then retransmitted? Or do they pass along the upload from the DJ's computer without making a copy? I would assume the later. The streaming service won't want to store stuff nor have to license everything we might play. All the 'stream' is pass-along... The DJ's ISP is passing it along, the ISP's backbone provider is passing it along, The streaming service is likely passing it along, the service's ISP is passing it along, as is that ISP's backbone provider, and so on to the end listener's ISP. There is no streaming through the Lab. They only handed off a URL. Has anyone looked for a case where there was a DMCA/lawsuit for playing music in Second Life?

Even the Pax Romana was pierced by the screams of those killed for disturbing the peace...

Seven thousand plus years of history says NO. Get in touch with reality. Aaah Ha! The Ostrich Solution. If that works for you... but it sort of leaves your butt blowing in the wind... Well now we have Houseboats in the thread. You can mark this thread as proof you have brought a thread back on topic. I doubt they meant it as a joke... English is ambiguous. Written English more so. What we infer into a post is often revealing more about us then the writer. So... In a thread about getting along, I think we have well demonstrated the reason we cherish free speech, because nobody thinks or sees things the same way.

The inactivity fee is a common practice to allow companies to get money off the books. Someone's money is sitting in an account. Assume they die. The account is not listed in the person's assets. No one knows it is there except the company holding it. They either have to track the person down and get permission to do something with the money (Dead - Difficult to do) or keep it on the books forever. At some point the governments often step in and take the money. That too is a hassle for the companies. The inactivity fees give the companies a way to clear the books. If you think checking your balance once a year is too much trouble... I would like to offer you a free checking account where you'll NEVER have to check the balance... 😈 ...more significant than a video game. This would be good advice for any area of one's life where they have to rely on others for information. Like political news...

I suggest filing a trouble ticket with support.

Yeah... I haven't used that body either... 😈 -- Nice looking images. Studly, delicious looking guy. AND... Over on Flickr I just got to 1,000 followers, which is a big deal for me. I am happy that many like my images. I appreciate their clicking FOLLOW. Thank you to those here that did.

Safe to use? Yes. Lumiya disappeared from the list for what I'll call more bureaucratic reasons than technical or security reasons.

And if the HUD is Mod-OK (rare) you can edit it and then in the top viewer menu select Build->Scripts->Set to run or Reset Scripts. Note, resetting scripts will kill some appliers.

@xBaeBeex There are settings that control the default camera positions. There are 3... sort of 4 if you count mouse-look or maybe you know it as first person. You can create new 'default' positions for the 3 primary views, rear, front, and side/shoulder. Camera Position Tips - 2011 Camera controls haven't changed ever since I've been in SL. So, the article is current enough. Firestorm allows changing the default position on the fly for the rear-view, camera behind. You can use the Shift, Ctrl, and Alt keys in combinations with the mouse wheel. Pressing ESC returns the camera to the position you have set as default. Pressing Shift-ESC resets the camera to the system default overriding any 'custom default' setting you have made. There is also a Camera Fly Mode engaged by Shift-Alt-F. This detaches the camera from the avatar. Those of us with a SpaceNavigator, joystick, and other 3D controllers use Fly mode.It is not for use with a mouse. I'm not sure about Trackball controllers. If you have one of these, you may have engaged Fly Mode. When you ask a tech question include information about which viewer you are using and having a problem in. It is best to just click HELP->About... and grab all the computer and viewer specs. Viewers do NOT share settings. So, changing settings on one viewer will not affect another brand of viewer.

A picture would really help... If you cannot find an attachment that is the hair, you might look for a "System Hair" (Firestorm Viewer icon) Also, the viewer and servers can get out of sync. This can leave the viewer rendering a hair, or other attachment, the server thinks has been removed. The fix is to relog. If that doesn't fix it click into the ANSWERS section of the SL Forum and ask for help. Provide a picture of the problem and tell them which viewer you are using.

You may want to follow JuicyBomb's fashion blog. She likes pastels.

Lag is annoying. Discussions of lag and what causes it is even more annoying as few actually know anything about it. But… the discussions are necessary… I think they help. Penny gave a good explanation. It is incomplete but, that goes for any explanation given about SL. There is too much complexity to cover all the points. On those video cards... My GTX 1060 is seldom pushed to 100% use. I mostly run in the 15 to 50% range. I think anyone checking the utilization on there machine (CPUID's HWMonitor - free- is a good tool) can quickly see if they have a hardware bottleneck. You can also press Ctrl-Shift-Alt-4 to toggle Avatar Rendering on and off. If you have the stats panel open you can see the dramatic change in performance for a number of meterics in the panel. And Ebbe's comment... Yeah, he said those words. But, as written it is implying an out of context meaning. The context (paraphrasing) is the problem is hoped to be solved as a byproduct of other improvements and features being made to the system. If anyone doubts that, visit a Tuesday UG meeting and talk with Oz Linden. Or Corner Ebbe on Twitter and ask about it. ARC is a made up number and I think it fair to say it is arbitrary. But, it is not a whimsical or out of the rectum number. The Lindens did go through and pick the factors that are used to calc the number. They picked the metrics that they thought would best serve the SL users and the type of hardware they use, old to new. It wasn't a random selection. The equation was well considered. That doesn't mean it is great. But it WAS the most representative their combined minds could come up with. To say there is a better way... well the open source creed of 'You can do better? Then provide the code or shut up...' might apply. That means only @NiranV Dean actually has the room to talk. Niran is walking Niran's talk. I am NOT saying you can't talk on the subject. Free speech is a real thing. But, check out Niran's blog (NSFW) and learn why Black Dragon has a different ACI calc process. I tend to agree with Orwar on "...ignorance and ...narcissistic" and it too is beyond me how anyone cannot know. But, I know there are literally thousands that don't. I do ascribe it more to ignorance then narcissistic tendencies. I save the later so as to give word more credence in insults, when needed, not to say Orwar is wrong. Oh this is priceless!!! 😈😍🤣 You really should click over to the 'How Does your avatar look today thread and post the image. They will get a kick out of it. Don't accept that concept. The Lindens in the engineering staff are now mostly made up of engineers that like being in-world. Most of the lead engineers involved in setting directions for development were playing in SL before they were hired. Oz Linden is one and Ebbe has spoken about how he worked to be picked as the lead in SL development. Attend some of the UG meetings and talk with Lindens. Also, if you keep up with the SL development and goings on, you'll see the Lindens working hard to improve SL, its performance, and reliability. They aren't just adding the stuff that is fun programming for them. I think the reason we do not see the un-optimized-content and high ACI avatars clamped down on is the Lindens' support of creative freedom for all. When we object to that it is almost always for personal reasons, a bit over on the narcissistic tendency side. I see few proposing things that add to the creative freedom. Most are much more in the fascist-like controls area. Novice creatives that have never built models for real time rendering are allowed to build and sell. To have the Lindens enforce standards to prevent that goes down the Blue Mars road of fascist-like content control. It doesn't end well. I have and do lobby the Lindens for better user controls and information, like ACI being in your face. Sort of the Consumer Reports idea. The Lindens do pursue those ideas. ARC and ACI were proposed by users. The Lindens' take is that helped to improve things. People think about the ARC of their outfits. Now ARCTan is on the To-Do-Soon list. This is to be a revamp of the ARC and ACI we have now. Computers and the Internet have changed. The metrics and equation used for ACI now are out of date. As Penny pointed out, the lack of a factor for textures has resulted in a distortion of what the number should be. Niran's Black Dragon viewer shows how drastic a change is possible as more pertinent factors are added and weighted differently. The Lindens are coping. Just not the way their detractors want.

That is a fair and reasonable inference. What was actually written is In both your comment and janetosilio’s the implication is they are not making posts or providing information on their current and future development work. You point to a coupe of games you are enjoying and how you can go to their forums and find out what is happening. It seems you are implying the Lab is not doing anything similar. I challenge that idea and suggest you look around and see those types of posts and the systematic flow of information from the Lab. The primary information channel for the less attentive is the Lab’s Featured News. The Lab has chosen to provide information here that is generally just days or weeks ahead of being useful. There are occasional year or 5-year plan articles. I think most are now more the immediate project plan type. So, as animesh was released more published focus was placed on EEP and BoM. I have noticed the longer-term plans are appearing less often. But the multi-year projects have been announced and they are in progress. I don’t expect any new plan until after they are complete and the Lindens can test what they can do with the new capabilities. The move to the cloud opens up possibilities. There are weekly User Group meetings. The Lab’s leading software engineers, operating and marketing staff are at those various meetings. The only limit on questions we can ask of the Lindens is that it be within their domain of knowledge. This means you can’t ask an engineer about accounting or support issues. They simply don’t know that information. These meetings are based on a US time schedule because the majority of Lindens are in the US and fit these meetings into their work day. So, bloggers have a readership from those that cannot be at the meeting for whatever reason. Living in the Modem World Nalates Things & Stuff Second Life Newser Each site has a ‘blogroll’, list of other sites with information about SL. Some of us post videos of the meetings. Nalates YouTube Channel. Inara posts edited audio clips from meetings, events, and interviews about specific subjects. Drax is doing an excellent and entertaining radio show podcast and videos about what is going on in SL. In the SL events of SL16B the Meet the Linden interviews were recorded and posted online. I posted one. The leading Lindens were talking about what they have been doing, are doing, and what they are planning. Result All the above provides information to those that want it. One just has to do some looking. One only has to go to the Answers section of the SL Forum and ask how to know what is going on to get all the information I just provided. I am sure someone will go yeah but… and want a list of just the information and project status they want. I think it is an effect from the me-me-me conditioning imposed on the entitlement generation. However, in SL that just isn’t going to happen. SL is moving way too fast. Projects like Animesh II, Last Names, EEP, and BoM have all been delayed when a new rash of disconnects forced the Lindens to stop, study region crossing/TP’s, and upgrade and modernize the process. That work is continuing to a lesser degree, meaning few people on it post-crises. That effort isn’t publically listed or talked about as “project” but it isn't a secret and is discussed on the forum and UG meetings. The Scripts Run % problems are being tackled. Staff is constantly being moved off projects to fix urgent issues. The nature of users is such that a list of projects creates more problems than it solves. Also, the number of people that are actually interested in this stuff is exceedingly small. A well-attended UG meeting will have at most 30-40 people and typically 15-20. Of the 40,000+ online at the time say 35 is 0.08%. Generally, less than 100 people watch Pantera’s video of the Third-Party Dev meeting. That is 100 out of the say 500k active SL users or <0.02%. The Lab’s choices are between keeping a few lazy people informed or focusing on things that users care about. We see the result of their choice in Featured News and UG Meetings. The rest is up to us.

The rate at which concurrent use is decreasing is slowing. There are generally between 25,000 to 54,000 concurrent users online. I have a stats tracker I use that records high and low and the rate people log in and out along with the total number of people that have ever signed up, which I compare on a monthly basis to see how many signed up in the month. In June 345,000+/- people signed up... about 11,500 per day... If that is spread throughout the day that is 480 per hour. As I write this there are currently 43,570 concurrent users with about 60 people a minute signing in. Roughly 8 of those 60 would be first time signups. Looked at another way, roughly 1% of concurrent users would be first timers. Historically people stay active for about 2 years. But, that is a really old stat. I suspect it has changed. Ebbe, CEO, said in 2017 people took US$60 million out of SL. At a recent meeting he said people took US$64 million out last year. I assume he meant 2018 not the last 12 months. It is very difficult to know how SL is actually doing. We can't know how many of the 345k sign ups are actually new to SL people. Or how many first timers are actually in SL. The Lab does not publish much information. The mental midgets that hang in the 'Safe Hub' landing areas have me wondering why they are in SL. But, it appears to be a changing crowd. Whether they are leaving SL or finding there are other things to do... I can't tell. I do know I am selling more stuff now than I ever have. So, if this is a businesses decision... then yes. If this is a social decision, I would need to know if you are cute, wealthy, friendly, and your political and sexual preferences... (teasing).

WELL... what if you are? 😎 And it does get old.

Why do you think they don't have a development plan?

When you ask tech a question like yours, you need to provide information about your viewer and computer. Use the viewer's HELP->About... and copy paste.

I know the problem. From the Linden side I suspect the number of ideas and people (600k to 1,000k active) they are dealing with is overwhelming. So, I expect them to forget and mis-associate people and ideas. I only remember my ideas. After all they are the important ones... If an idea is not in a JIRA item they will forget it. Even when in a JIRA unless it is one they like, I doubt they will remember it until the next list review.

Well, I don't like your style... What is the point of that complaint? There are always Linden Homes available. I've never been to the Linden- Homes-page when there weren't. They do sell out of Bellisseria homes. But they have addressed that and are making smaller but more frequent releases. The Moles are going as fast as they can. With Bellisseria demand has outpaced production. And why didn't you tell them that was going to happen? This is the first Premium rate increase in the life of SL, 16 years. What are you buying that has not gone up in price in the last 16 years? More US laws and bookkeeping requirements are driving up the cost of doing business. More restrictions to avoid money laundering. All this pushes the cost up. The Lab isn't out of line raising processing fees. One doesn't have to get their information from the SL Forum. There are several blogs that cover developments in SL. Mine is one of them. The Lindens provide special events and weekly user group meetings where we can talk to the Lindens. Their SL Blog posts are written in High-School level language. None of the stuff they cover is rocket science. So, if you think it is poorly explained, try doing better. I've never found getting cable or a phone service that difficult. As to focus groups... they have them. Why do you think they don't? Oh wait. You were too tired to notice them... Introduce a polished product... You're funny. What company do you know of that has developed a product for 16 years then brought it to market? You should really try to get in touch with reality. Linden style of "half baked" deliveries... Have you played any MMO other than SL? All the ones I've seen use the same style of delivery as SL. WOW, Guild Wars, Black Desert, Star Citizen which is still in development on v 3.6 and no final release, EVE Online, the old Myst Online...

At the Meet the Lindens events in SL16B, Ebbe said users took US$64 million out of the 'game' last year, 2018 I think. Maybe he meant the last 12 months. So, it isn't the Lab that is making the most money from SL. I originally went Premium to save money. I was buying Lindens, the price of them was going up, with transaction fees... At the time it was a good deal to go annual. Now my marketplace sales are up and I'll be adding more stuff. Premium is not the money saver it was then but I like the bennies. So, I'll keep it. OpenSim is a good example of that process. Debatably things sort of go the direction of designers leaving first... in OS. Whether users leave or stay doesn't matter much as few are ever actually online. A really good day sees 300 concurrent users. The name changes... April and Oz were talking about that at SL16B. Seems they WAY underestimated how difficult that would be. With all the other stuff being added or mitigated I am growing doubtful i will happen this year. I doubt name-change will be an advertising point. They may grant a free name change each year for Premium users and a one time free change for basic users. As they describe it now, all new signups will get the last name Resident by default. There will be no place in the signup process for a last name choice. Testing and stats show having to pick a second name was a major impediment for people completing sign up. The Lab considers that a lesson learned the hard way. On an aside, in June 345,000+/- people signed up... about 11,500 per day... If that is spread throughout the day that is 480 per hour. As I write this there are currently 43,570 concurrent users with about 60 people a minute signing in. Roughly 8 of those 60 would be first timers. Looked at another way, roughly 1% of concurrent users would be first timers. I'll suggest getting new users is not the problem. So, providing better reasons to go Premium probably makes more sense.

I don't see it the same... There are few features in SL that are for Premium only. ...I actually can't think of any. Nor do I get a sense of Lindens targeting Premium users with new features when I interact with them. I am at most of the CCUG, SSUG, and BSUG meetings and the occasional Governance and Web UG meetings. Throughout the history of SL, development of the system has been slow. Simon Linden one that has written a considerable amount of the code running in the system. His big complaint is often how much time he has to spend fixing exploits and mitigating channels of abuse. He makes no bones about projects being delayed because he is called on to put out fires. Everything you have mentioned the Lindens working on is for everyone. What is it you think the Lindens are working on that free members won't get?

I think you have been successful in that regard. You have influenced my thinking. While I cannot say definitively that you have influenced Lindens, they often are moving in directions you point.

Orwar has it right. I'll say the same thing a different way with different emphasis. The original Classic avatar was and is a single mesh body (everything in SL is mesh - press Ctrl-Shift-R to see it). The system allowed us to use 4 layers, skin, tat, underwear, and clothes. The viewer downloaded the 4 textures and composited them on the avatar body. The problem is everyone downloaded the 4 textures and their viewer did the 'baking' - made the composite. It was decided it would be more efficient and provide better performance if those textures were baked server side. Instead of everyone downloading maybe 12 - 1024px textures (like 36MB of textures) they would grab the server side bake (SSB as it was called then) and download about 4.5MB of texture (512x512 was max size returned) plus the viewer would not have to do the bake. It made a decent improvement in viewer performance for CPU load and download and it also gave us the name "bake-fail", when we are a particle cloud. Along came mesh bodies as attachments. In SL nothing other than avatars uses texture layers. An attachment to an avatar is not treaded as an avatar. The attachment is still just a prim like thing. Mesh body designers were to be able to imitate the Classic avatar layers by creating 4 copies of the body that we call onion-skins, like Russian dolls, each just a tiny bit larger. These are modified a bit so that applier clothes avoid looking like they are painted on... they bridge across the breasts rather than adhering like skin. The inner most is for skin and outer most for clothes. Designers stuck with the 3 textures per avatar idea, head, upper body, and lower body. They took us back to 36MB of texture per body that everyone gets to download and then their viewer renders a resulting composite look. BUT... we look really good. So now the Lab trying to reduce the load with mesh bodies as they did with the Classic body. The SSB - server side bake service and viewers are being modified to work with mesh bodies. They are increasing the size of the resulting composite from 512 to 1024. Plus the signaling (inter-viewer-server communication) is being designed to recognize things to apply the baked textures to. This opens up some interesting possibilities. The Lindens are targeting avatar attachments. Users are considering what else they might use the feature for. A serious limitation is the lack of Materials Support in the bake service. I am seeing more and more bodies using materials, both specular and normal. So, will we give that up on mesh bodies? Probably not. The emphasis has never been on allowing us to reuse old Classic skin, tats, etc. with our new mesh bodies. Since designers could only ever get a 512 texture on the Classic body with SSB, most only uploaded a 512 to feed to the SSB service. Now that the BoM service is producing 1024's those old skins, etc. are not likely to look that good. I am waiting to see how my old stuff looks before deciding to keep or trash it. The idea here is to reduce onion skin bodies from 4 body copies to one, less polygons to render. Also, the number of textures we download and render. This gives us the possibility of significant improvement. The question is how well and much will the service be used?