JIRA Look At

Grumpity Linden tells us that every JIRA is triaged the day it is received with some exceptions on Mondays or after holidays, when there are more than they can get to in a day. Feature Requests are triaged every two weeks.

Every JIRA is read. This has been true for a long time. The know-nothings say otherwise because they are know-nothings… aka wackadoodles.

Grumpity says they are trying to improve the JIRA-Support catch-22’s and overall performance of support. However, that is a general Linden effort and not within Oz’s or any of the software engineers’ purview.

Build Changes

I’ve reported on the Lindens working on the tools they use to build Second Life systems (compiler systems). That work has held up various projects. Apparently some part of that work is completed and allows some projects to move forward again. So, we may see a flurry of fixes and features rolling out in the next 1 to 3 weeks.

Copyboting

This is an ongoing problem for Second Life and other digital creators. Whether you are making dresses for Second Life or music for sale in RL you have this problem. All digital products must be transferred across the network and delivered to your computer for rendering. Once that information is in your computer there are numerous ways for the user to recover and store that data. No matter what the Lab or anyone else may do, the information has to be delivered to your computer, decoded and displayed. At the point it is displayed it can be captured.

So, Copyboting is not a problem that has a technical answer. It is a legal/social issue that requires a legal/social fix.

QuickTime – CEF

Getting QuickTime fixed is still on hold. Basically it is being replaced by Chrome Embedded Framework (CEF). The people that would work on that project are finishing up modifying the build processes for XCode6 adoption and following that with VS2013 adoption. I am guessing they have at least a couple of weeks of work left at this point based on what we have previously been told. Oz is not even willing to make any guesses when the XCode, VS2013, and other auto-build changes will be completed. So, it may be more than a couple of weeks.

Cocoa Bugs

The Mac’s slow typing problem is a system issue that has nothing to do with the viewer. When the system runs low on memory, slow typing is a result. Many users only run into the problem when using the viewer as it is the only high memory use app they run.

The work-around is to turn off SL features to save memory or close other apps to free up memory. I suppose one could add more memory to their system too.

The Alt-Cam bug is still biting people. We will probably see a fix from Cinder Roxley. She is working on retina display and the alt-cam problem.

Mac OS 10.95 (?) is out. Oz says it works great even on his ancient Mac-mini… whatever that is.

The newest versions of the various operating systems have the best crash rates.

Windows 9

It is coming. This will be the fix for Windows 8/8.1. Some screen shots of Win9 have leaked out.

My clients generally prefer to move to Win7. But we are running into problems with those clients. Just little annoying things and Microsoft updates that cause problems.

Our Windows 8.1 users are running smoothly. Their problems are user interface issues, like where is whatever or how do I turn this or that off/on. While these are annoying they are not expensive to fix problems. The result is Win8.1 is proving to be cheaper in the work place. The initial loss in productivity due to UI changes is made up a month or two.

So, Win9 may be to Win 8 as Win7 was to Vista.

It will be interesting to see what Microsoft does with support for Win7. What Microsoft does will likely influence what Linden Lab does. I expect Win7 to be support for some time. The Lab is not blocking Windows XP SP1, yet. So, I doubt they will block Win7 even if Microsoft stops supporting it.

Ebola

This is getting serious. The spread is exponential. The rate of spread is doubling monthly. There will be a million plus cases by the end of December 2014 per the W.H.O. and C.D.C. With those numbers it is likely to escape the African content. With 3,000 American military going to Africa and with open borders and no medical checks for those being caught it is more and more likely Ebola will make it to the Americas.

While the W.H.O. and C.D.C. are continuing to claim it is not airborne their claims are misleading. They are saying it could change at any time, which I think is just CYA for when it becomes so obvious they are called on it. But, with the UN and any government agency one always has to parse the definitions of the words they are using. Ebola is NOT airborne in the way the flu is. Canadian testing proves it is airborne to some measure.

Both viruses are about the same physical size. We lack definitive density studies on Ebola (or I just didn’t find them), but so far it appears the flu viruses particles are lighter than Ebola virus particles. Thus flu is more contagious via air than Ebola. But, a sneeze or cough WILL put Ebola in the air and on surfaces for hours and possibly days. So, Ebola is said to not be airborne as the flu is airborne. For a mom trying to protect a child, while the WHO and CDC claims are basically technically accurate by their definitions, they are misleading.

The agencies say they want to avoid panic. Consider what you would do if you panic. Would you start stock piling food? Having an emergency food supply is a good idea in any case. If there is an Ebola outbreak and quarantines are put in place we are looking at months long of not a year or more quarantine. Think about that.

If people are stock piling food now, while delivery systems are working and able to handle increased demand, is there really a problem? I don’t think so.

What else would you do to prepare? What else would you think of to protect your family? At some point between ISIS and Ebola and the flood of children coming in to the U.S. a majority of Americans will begin loudly demanding the border actually be closed to illegal crossing and everyone coming in via legal crossing be vetted for political and medical issues.

Our schools already have an epidemic of enterovirus-68 that coincides with the arrival of the first wave of illegally immigrating children that were not screened for illnesses. The mainstream news media is ignoring that point. Enterovirus-68 is now thought to be paralyzing some small number of its victims. (Reference) While we have no direct link to immigrating children and the virus, the timing is highly suspicious and many Americans are likely to draw a conclusion. When it comes to our children parents will avoid risking their child’s health and go for safe rather than sure.

Once citizens are demanding real border closure that will create problems for both the major parties; Democrat and Republican. Expect government to do all it can to delay a ground swell of public outcry for immigration restrictions until after the 2014 elections (40+/- days). So, there will NOT likely be admission that Ebola is spreading by more than a fluid contact or could walk across the border.

The truth of whether it can come across the border is in the news. The AP is reporting that Liberian immigrants living illegally in the U.S. will not be deported, Ebola Amnesty. (Reference) While the news currently only discusses those over staying their visa, many got those visas when Pres. G.W. Bush granted asylum to Liberians here illegally during a Liberian civil war. Obviously, we aren’t going to send people back to areas in quarantine for Ebola. That would pretty much be a death sentence. But, Liberians did get and enter illegally and not much has changed on the border.

Children are walking across the border. Many are sick and carrying disease. They are being put in our schools without medial checks, stupid. Border agents and citizens living in border areas are reporting ISIS slogans and banners in known crossing regions. I have trouble with a government asking Americans to continue sticking their heads in the sand.

The question becomes, are you one to prepare or one to wait an panic when it is probably too late to do anything?