General News

Avatar Size in Second Life

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I see this subject come up every so often in the forum, why did the Lab make things so big, not to-scale?

Avatar Size in Second Life
Why are you so big?

In the 2004 era of Second Life® (SL) the default avatars were 7’ for males and 6’ for females. Camera angles and settings were adjusted to give, in the Lab’s opinion, the best view. Buildings, doors, and furniture were designed to accommodate those conditions, basically the camera above and behind the avatar.

But why those settings?

We are legion…

It seems everything in SL played into making things big. Making the default avatars 7’ and 6’ tall is sort of a chicken and egg conundrum. Are things big because of the avatar or is the avatar big because of all the things?

Neither. I suspect the Lab put some thought into deciding on size and general scale. So, I think it was more of a planned thing than avatars or things making SL what it started as.

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Second Life® New Tech Summary – February 2026

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Reporting Period: February 1–28, 2026

I only quickly read through what the AI generated. I’ll add some info and context here and there from what I’ve seen. I think the AI did a pretty good job this time.

The Stone Computer
I am encouraging my friend to upgrade their computer…

Official SL Platform Updates

  • No new major platform feature announcements, scripting enhancements, rendering overhauls (e.g., glTF/PBR expansions beyond prior), LUA integrations, or avatar rigging updates were reported in official channels for February 2026.
  • The most recent simulator release referenced is from late January 2026 (2026-01-28.21455867889), with no new deploys noted in February.

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Second Life: New Forum Stuff

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What new stuff?

New is a relative term and very much an individualized concept in Second Life®. This new stuff is not the ‘Monthly New Stuff’ I usually report on. And it is a couple of months since it first appeared.

For now, this is about the new SL Forum software that dropped in December 2025. In particular, about how to format a post’s text. I am into that. I like to make words pleasantly readable and my tendency to post WALLS of text creates readability problems.

So, what is available?

SL Forum Formatting
Examples Shown in SL Forum

I experimented to find out what is in there. That experiment is online HERE.

Of course, what is available for formatting is on the page’s Edit/Compose window. See below. There are no [BBCode] short codes as in O L D forums. (AFAIK)

Several of the options are in drop downs. You have to click the down chevron. So, they are not so noticeable.

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Second Life Technology Updates: December 2025

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I’ve explained, I use A.I. to gather and summarize Second Life™ (SL) news for the month. I am interested in the tech updates and other news affecting SL. I’ve been using Grok. It is failing worse and worse each month. Researching and querying Grok to find out why…

It seems A.I. is more forgetful than I am. Grok gave me a ~300 word explanation of what is happening. Of course, since I am a skeptic and have my own ideas about what it is saying. Basically, my take is A.I., specifically Grok, is prioritizing efficiency and memory conservancy on its side. Accuracy and thoroughness are much lower priorities. For me and this report, that SUCKS.

I’ve spent some time today getting around Grok’s bad habits and poor logic. That gives us the information below. I am now looking at other A.I.s to try the task.

Report

December 2025 featured ongoing advancements in mobile performance and reliability, a major new scripting language beta, project viewer releases for specialized features, and a third-party beta incorporating upstream maintenance fixes. Routine grid maintenance ensured stability, with no widespread disruptions reported.

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Second Life™ Technology “Revised” Report: October 2025

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As I work with AI in RL design projects (coding websites), I am learning how to get more from it. This is a ‘revised’ report where I have AI digging for news in more places. Following is what it found.

I am also curious about what is happening in the gaming and virtual world fields in general as I think it will affect Second Life™. So, I have added a section on that. I also have AI analyzing how these developments are likely to impact Second Life. It will take some time to see how well it predicts.

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Second Life Technology Updates: September 2025 – Revised

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A reader, rhet0rica, noted that much of the previous September report was fake. Seems fake news is everywhere. But rhet0rica caught it. I went looking to see what happened. An interesting conversation followed with Grok about why it gave me a load of BS. I may write about that later.

Old Comuter
Created with Adobe Firefly…

Below is an actual comprehensive summary of Second Life™ technology updates, new features, and releases for September 2025, covering official Second Life (SL) platform changes, viewer updates (both official and third-party), and related tech announcements. The summary is based on verified information from the specified sources, filtered strictly to the period of September 1–30, 2025, and excludes non-tech topics like events or community news. The report is organized by major update categories. Notice the references: [web:1] and similar. These now actually do point to the subject discussed.

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