Second Life and Virtual Worlds
This year has seen many attacks on free speech. A new restriction is going into effect in the UK. UK to censor online videos of ‘non-conventional’ sex acts.
I’ve already been contacted by people in Second Life™ worried that it may mean SL will be banded in the UK. It gets complicated as banning requires ‘unconventional sex acts’ be defined and that age verification meet certain standards, which seem to be poorly defined and left to some bureaucrat to decide.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is not the week for news. Because of the US holiday Thanksgiving Second Life™ is in technical lock down, no changes. So, there are no server upgrades this week, main or RC channels.
Viewers are included in the tech freeze. So, the main viewer at version 4.1.2.321518 will remain there until Monday 11/28 or later. Word is it is much more stable than the previous version. It has a lot of fixes.
I like science and math. Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. To practice science one needs observations and experiments.
On the observation side, Nov 19th the NOAA GOES-R weather satellite was launched.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_k637XQUOM
Launches and later positioning are not as simple as one might imagine. Getting into a geo-stationary orbit at the correct place is no simple thing. It is expected to take 16 days to maneuver and test the satellite before it is in the right place. Then a year of testing follows. Depending on the results and the health of other GOES satellites this new satellite will park over either the east or west coast of America.