Nalates Urriah

Second Life News 2014-49 #4

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From the Third Party Viewer meeting we learn that the viewer install code has been changed to make use of RC and Project installs easier for the Lab and TPV Dev’s. Earlier I mentioned Name RC Viewer as having the program code changes that allow viewers to be more easily named. Being able to better control channel names cleans up some install problems as well as data tracking.

Third Party Viewer Meeting 2013-49
Third Party Viewer Meeting 2013-49

I am taking what I hear Oz Linden saying about not wanting to get into the details of this change to mean it is complex with Linden preferences driving some of the changes. As long as things work better, none of the detail matters to me.

The Maintenance RC Viewer had a really bad crash rate. It has been withdrawn and users pushed to other viewer versions. If you installed it and disabled automatic updates, you need to replace it. 

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Drax Files Radio

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Drax Files Radio
Drax Files Radio

A new Internet type radio show is coming. Inara Pey is involved and promoting the show on her blog. I gather from her articles she has been instrumental in getting Drax and Jo to go ahead with this project. See the latest here: The Drax Files Radio Hour blog launched. The original, I think, announcement is here: Drax Files Radio Hour launches in January.

From Inara we learn Draxtor Despres, of Flufee and World Makers fame, and Jo Yardley, creator of 1920’s Berlin in Second Life™, will be hosting the show. Both Drax and Jo are pretty much pro Second Life™. So, I see the coming of this show as a balance to the negative energy of the Metareality’s podcasts.

I think people have always needed multiple sources of information. Humans tend to be biased, prejudiced, and often have an agenda. That is not necessarily a bad thing. But, it does make it hard for us to see things without our particular colored glasses. Between Metareality and Drax Radio we can probably get a more accurate picture of Second Life. I am looking forward to how this goes.

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Taxes Closing Regions?

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I saw a discussion on SLUniverse about a number of regions closing without notice. The discussion centers on the closing of Beach Front. See: Beach Front Realty Closed?

It seems the land owners collected the month’s tier from tenants and then closed the regions. Correspondence with Linden Lab revealed the closing was ‘deliberate’. I suppose that means the region owner contacted the Lab and scheduled the closing. Not having seen the actual correspondence I cannot tell if the phrasing is nuanced spin that might indicate the Lab closed the owners regions for some reason.

The tenants may be able to get their money back via PayPal. The Lab generally considers these things a resident-to-resident matter and stays out of them. 

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Second Life News 2013-49 #3

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Next week (50) we will likely have a rollout to the main grid and another to the RC channels. Then we enter a no change window. We won’t see any new rollouts until probably January 7th.

The packages in the tube right now are minor packages with only a small number of problem fixes.

Viewers have the same no change window. We might see RC and Project viewers updating. But, the main release viewer is unlikely to change after next week (50).

Fitted Mesh Viewer

A new version of this project viewer is out: 3.6.12.284458.

This version lists JIRA item STORM-1985 – Mesh garments don’t adapt to changes in avatar shape.  One of the things mentioned in the JIRA item is FITMESH-6 and how enabling and disabling the Advanced Lighting Model changes the behavior of the viewer’s ability to render shape changed clothing items in wireframe mode. For those of us looking to see how well demo clothes are made before purchasing, this is a definite problem.

Presumably this is fixed in this version.

MAINT-3311 – Skinning to some collision volumes is broken. I can’t read details on MAINT items. But, presumably this too is fixed.

Download here: Alternate Viewer Page.

Breaking Oculus news

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VoidPointer Linden is telling us Oculus Rift support is now feature complete. We should see it release Linden ‘soon’. Apparently he is one of the ones working on Oculus and the Viewer.

If you are not using Oculus then there is no apparent change to the viewer.

When asked Void answered things look ‘really’ cool. He also mentioned he was using Oculus during the meeting. If you have seen Void’s avatar, you can imagine that it would be pretty awesome.

Apparently no one has tossed their cookies in testing.

Void says he has a pretty hot machine, but he is getting close to his normal FPS. So, it may not be that much of an additional load. But, it will be another machine by machine thing.

Void is keeping it a secret what they have done with the viewer control panels. We have to wait for the release and official notice. The same with what he is using for a controller, mouse, LEAP, something else… no word.

Watch for the official announcement. It is hard to predict when that might be. I am guessing not before January.

PS: it works with shutter  glasses.

 

 

Climate Change

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There is no doubt the climate is changing. The problem is which climate science is being published and provided to people. Without a complete story people cannot decide whether to prepare for increasingly hotter or colder weather nor can they tell which politicians are lying with an agenda in mind. Will you be supporting ideas and taxes that help you or enrich politicians and their friends?

Volcanoes

Consider. Recent reports of 2013 volcanic eruptions show 80+ eruptions this year. The average range of eruptions is 50 to 60 per year. 2013 has seen about a 50% increase.

Each eruption throws millions of tons of ash and gases into the atmosphere.  That mean more reflective particulate matter, a big concern in the late 70’s when everyone thought we were going to freeze to death from a coming ice age due to manmade particulates in the atmosphere. The USA’s EPA was formed to correct the problem and done an amazingly good job of achieving that goal within the USA.

But, one volcano can release several times more material in a day or even hours than humans can release in a decade, even at 70’s pollution rates.

Sulfur Dioxide is a common gas released by volcanoes. It is highly reflective when it forms an aerosol compound in the stratosphere.

All this means that we will likely see a 2C drop in global temperatures from 2013 volcanoes. How long will such a drop last? When Mt. Penatubo erupted in 1992 it dropped global temperatures 0.6C – 1.5F for 2 years depending on one’s information source and other effects lasted for years. That was just one big volcano.

Have you seen any of this 2013 information reported?

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