Drax Radio Show #3

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I just got around to listening to the show. I am writing this as I listen. I love that it is a fast paced show. But, that makes it hard for me to get all the details in.

The main  interview with Esteban Winsmore is annoying… well, it is Esteban that is annoying. Drax asks the pertinent questions, which a good interviewer does. It is obvious Esteban is just having fun with it.

There are some interesting discussions on Oculus Rift and augmented reality.

[youtube Bc_TCLoH2CA]

Index

02:00 – Net Neutrality – Drax provides a link to an audio by Brooke Gladstone at On The Media, an NPR property. See: Net Neutrality and You. They are pointing out how Google controls our Internet experience now. I doubt many realize what Google is doing or how it limits information. Drax points out how Americans are not fighting for Net Neutrality, which is both a good and bad thing. 

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Cloud Party Closing

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Well… this January I’m seeing a lot of closings and endings. Cloud Party has announced it will be closing in February. The announcement is on their blog here: Cloud Party Joins Yahoo. I am not sure what it means when they say they are joining Yahoo. If Yahoo were buying Cloud Party, we would be … Read more

Rod Humble Leaves Second Life

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This came as a surprise. I am a bit behind on things Second Life. There has been a death in my extended family. That Rod Humble has left is another loss I’ll grieve.

I see the announcement in Jo Yardley’s blog: Rod Humble leaves Linden Lab. There is also a thread in the SL Forum: Rod Humble leaving Linden Lab. I suppose this is about as official as it gets without an official announcement from the Lab.

Hamlet on New World Notes has confirmed it: Rod Humble Leaving Linden Lab CEO Role to Start New Art/Entertainment Company, Reports Rod Humble. 

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Second Life and WebKit

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Webkit™ is a core Internet Browser, sort of. More precisely it is the render engine for the Safari web browser. Until mid 2013 it was the render engine for Google’s Chrome browser on Mac. The Internet Explorer browser that Microsoft uses is powered y the Trident engine. Firefox uses the Gecko engine. A number of mobile devices use Webkit.

In 2005 it was announced by Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Bertrand Serlet that WebKit would be open source. In 2010 a WebKit 2.0 project was announced.

All this is of interest to us because the Second Life™ viewer uses Webkit to power its internal web browser and Media On A Prim (MOAP). You see it used most by in-world TV’s. I suspect panels like User Profile are also displayed using WebKit.

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Second Life Depth of Field

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Honour has a post up titled: How Deep is Your Field in Second Life? She was having a problem getting the viewer’s Depth of Field (DoF) feature to work. She links to Ricco Saenz’s explanation of how to get it working: How to actually capture depth of field on your SL photos. But, not why it does what is does.

Viewer Size Image
Viewer Size Image

DoF is one thing I have found I cannot control in my RL S4’s camera, or have yet to learn how. It is a reason I still use my Sony digital camera for RL imaging. DoF is something I seldom use in Second Life™ because I prefer the control I have in Photoshop. But, I can imagine that some will find DoF more usable in the viewer than adding it in post production. 

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The Big Chill (RL)

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In Southern California winter we are wearing T-shirts, shorts or mini-skirts and working on our tan. Really. In Florida, even farther south than San Diego (500 miles/800km north of Miami latitude-wise), they are buying parkas. In Australia they are setting record high temperatures and in the Antarctic mid-summer; ice-breakers are getting stuck in 10+ ft (3m) of ice . It seems the climate is changing. Well, surprise, surprize. That is what AGW skeptics have been saying for decades.

Jet Stream Map - by: Intellicast
Jet Stream Map – by: Intellicast

When we look at what is causing the US West Coast a warm winter and the East Coast an exceptionally cold one, we see the Jet Stream has moved. My parents tell me they used to call such changes in the Jet Stream the Polar Express and something that happened most winters when they were kids. When I hear the term Polar Express I tend to think of the Tom Hanks’ movie of 2004. The previous generation tends to think the movie took its name from this weather phenomenon. At least my parents make that association.

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