It is the holidays and everyone is busy. Plus we are coming up on the No-Change-Windows. So, while there is some news, things are slow.
Servers
Last week the email update rolled out. So, if you haven’t verified your email address, you have stopped receiving your offline emails of IM’s.
🐼483🐼
Main Channel – We get an update to version #17.12.01.511131. All we know about this version is there are internal changes.
If you think about the usual pace of server development at the Lab, which we see when shinnies are in progress, and the months of ‘internal improvements’, where we aren’t seeing much change, you start to think the Lab is slacking off. I doubt that.
Since the community is complaining about content theft, we’ve had a few hints they are dealing with it, and we know the Lab doesn’t talk about security fixes… I assume there is quite a bit of work going on to fix exploits. But, we can’t really know.
RC Channels – No update this week. The RC’s will continue to run last week’s version #17.12.01.511131. Mazidox Linden found a bug in the planned updates and stopped the release. So, next week… probably not. That is the start of a no-change-window.
Viewers
The main viewer is 5.0.9.329906. It updated in week #49.
Second Life Alex Ivy Viewer version 5.1.0.511248 – last updated in week #48.
Second Life Voice Viewer version 5.0.8.328552 – Last updated in week #42.
Second Life Wolfpack Viewer version 5.0.10.330001 – last updated in week #49.
Second Life Project 360 Snapshot Viewer version 5.1.0.506743 no update since week #27. 🙁
Second Life Project Animesh Viewer version 5.0.10.330058 – The is a new version released in the last week. The previous release was in week #46.
We are still hearing a lot of talk and whining about animesh limits. Oz Linden told us at the Server-Scripting UG, “I dislike hard limits; I prefer cost incentives, but that having been said it may turn out that there’s a transitional period where animesh is otherwise ready to go and we’re not ready to change LI accounting. In that case, we might decide to retain some limit for some time.
The important thing to remember is that we’re not done yet, and no final decision about any of that has been made. [emphasis mine]
LI and ARC are related, but ultimately they are different formulas that serve different purposes so it’s not a requirement that they both evaluate a given object in exactly the same way.”
Conversations about animesh tend toward custom skeletons. If I understand correctly the skeleton is part of the viewer, not a part of the asset. The asset has info on how to work with the skeleton, not the actual skeleton. So, changing the skeleton is not an easy thing to add.
This doesn’t seem right
Oz replied, “Nothing we’ve done so far precludes the possibility of custom skeletons, but that’s a really really big project so it’s not on the roadmap now.”
And Simon Linden points out, “Remember if you do custom skeletons, you need custom animations to match them.”
Second Life Project Render Viewer version 5.1.0.510978 – last updated in week #49.
BUG-202691
BUG-202691 – [Alex Ivy] Images displayed with Shared Media/llSetLinkMedia() now have scrollbars where they did not previously. Breaks existing content.
Callum Linden edited comment on BUG-202691 at 12/8/17 7:26 PM:
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Ok – I found the issue and fixed it. It was my fault so I apologize – it was a scaling issue after all.
The viewer scale is linear but the CEF one is log based so I convert between the two with a formula a bit like this:
double cef_zoom = 5.46149645 * log(viewer_zoom * 100.0) – 25.12;
That sort of works but of course, for a viewer scale of 1.0, the corresponding CEF scale is not quite 1:1 so the image is scaled slightly and the scroll bars appear.
I fixed it but the Alex Ivy viewer is pretty far along the release process and I’m not sure if I will be able to squeak in a whole new CEF (I almost certainly won’t) – but I’ll do my best to make sure it gets into a release as soon as possible.
Yay! Fixed, before it hits main viewer.
Net Neutrality
The Lab is linking to a site that allows you to send a complaint to Congress about the Internet being freed from government regulation. Check the main viewer download page.
The Lab is based in San Francisco and no doubt they are inundated with SF news unrelated to reality. If you are wondering how much fake news is being pushed on you regarding Net Neutrality read the book The Political Spectrum, The Tumultuous Liberation of Wireless Technology, from Herbert Hoover to the Smartphone. Amazon. The government delays innovation by decades and always drives up the cost while limiting your options (freedom to choose). The book reveals the historical examples the news is omitting telling you about.
Forbes has a good article on the cost of government regulation (2011) and how it is a regressive thing hurting middle and especially lower income people. So, likely you and me and those poor people.
In the late 1700’s Adam Smith pointed out that what ever government sets out to accomplish, it always achieves the opposite. Remember. AT&T has been operating under the 1934 Telecommunication regulations currently imposed by Obama, not the people, and created a monopoly, been broken up (no Tel-Comm law prevented or aided), and now reformed. They have barely changed anything they do or offer that comes from the Tel-Comm field. The changes you see at AT&T all comes from the previous free Internet world of information services.
If you want a cheap, diversified, innovating Internet services with new stuff in your life time, support the Obama regulation roll back. Go for freedom.
Artizana Closing this month…
Artizana is an ethnic hair and clothes shop in Second Life. After 10 years Dainie Fraina, the creative force and owner of Artzana, is retiring. The store is to close December 22. The marketplace shop and satellite stores will close December 31. Until then everything is off 40%.
Gift cards and store credits will be honored in-world until December 31. After that gift cards can be redeemed for merchandise directly with Dainie Fraina (no refunds will be issued).
You will find Dainie around the grid figuring out how to live a retired SL life.
Firestorm
No word. I think they are close. But, we only have a few days until a no-close-window settles on us. That would push release into next month. 