General News

Second Life: Project Bento goes GOLD

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This morning about 11:30 AM The Lindens announced Project Bento is now live. The main Linden viewer has updated to include Bento. Firestorm has talked about releasing their Bento capable viewer next Monday the 12th. I suspect if things go well for them they will release an update. But, FS is picky about quality, so there could be delays. Still I’ll bet on next Monday.

The Firestorm viewer is used by half to three-quarters of SL users. The Linden viewer is used by a quarter to a third of SL users. So, until Firestorm adopts something many developers and merchants consider too few people as being able to use the feature to justify releasing products using the feature.

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Second Life News 2016 w/48#2

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In the Server-Scripting meeting Simon Linden told us the regions were being restarted to enable the increased prim limits. So, as of today, all the regions in all the channels should have the new prim limits in place.

Free Wilma
Free Wilma

Jo Yadley, Inara, Linden Blog, and I have all covered the change in prim limits. Designing Worlds had an interview with Patch Linden talking about the change. The video of the meeting will be out in early December. 

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Social Media: A New Scam – Sextortion

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Today I find a new scam is popping up on the Internet. Basically blackmail, a really old crime. The media is giving it a new name to describe a specific kind of crime: sextortion.

Potrait 3
Potrait 3

Sextortion is the scam of getting someone into an online sex thing where it can be videoed or pictures taken. This is apparently most prevalent on Facebook. The threat is they will show your kink to your family, friends, and/or business associates. 

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Second Life Bits 2016 w/47

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Lumiya viewer adds support for Google Cardboard. Inara has an article detailing it. There are some interesting user interface ideas.

Inara covers Radegast’s recent voice issues, a viewer apparently favored by the disabled.

Nothing beats a friend
Nothing beats a friend

VLC

You may or may not be aware of the VLC media player. It is a free, open source video player. It has basically replaced QuickTime in the SL viewers. The development team, VideoLAN Project has added the ability to view 360-video and pictures. See: VLC media player now supports 360-degree videos. 

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Second Life: Dragons as Art

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I’ve seen several people write about “From Here On There Be Dragons.” It is an art exhibit in Second Life(TM). Follow the previous link to find a SLURL and visit. The exhibit closed January 31, 2017. I decided to check it out.

Still pictures don’t do it justice. Since I’m learning Adobe Premiere Pro, I decided to video the exhibit and use it as another project.

Exploring the exhibit is a reoccurring ‘leap of faith’ trek. There is a lot if invisible flooring to walk across.

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Second Life: Horizons’ Land Prices

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Horizons land is pricey. As of Wednesday, the least a parcel was going for was L$1,010, the most L$35,029. The average is L$11,216.

Horizons Nov 2016
Horizons Nov 2016

While most parcels in SL have 1 or 2 bidders and go for L$500, Horizons land has 6 to 15 bidders.

I am not surprised to find a mix of parcels that have yet to be sold and a number that are for sale by owner. Meaning some enterprising people are working to flip the properties. But, I don’t see for sale signs when walking the hoods.

One person has purchased 4 adjacent parcels and put in a custom home and forest.

There are a number of parcels that have not sold, ever… as best I can tell. So, there is land available or that will come available. So, I don’t see why the bidding war. People…

I wonder if the Lindens will create landing points in Horizons for new people. I live south of such a hub. It is often interesting. It does make me glade I have EJECT power on my land. So, I think landing hubs for newbies would devalue the land… for residential use. It might be good for a brothel.