NSA, Google, and Games

by

Within the SL Blogospher several people are writing about the NSA listening to players in Second Life™ and other games like World of Warcraft™. Well, they are listening to our phones, reading our emails, tracking our Internet use (notice how often Google comes up in the results) and tracking our GPS locations. It should be no surprise that they are inside our games and listening to  us.

I’ll paint you the really dark picture of what is most likely happening.

[youtube HiwjXGjbPD4]

The security teams are looking for any way that terrorists and bad guys can communicate. If that was all the information was used for, it would not be a problem. But, they are limited by law in the USA and they are breaking it. If they are willing to break one law for a supposed good reason, they will have little if any resistance to breaking others for what they consider good reasons. But, they are still breaking the law, something politically active citizens shape. 

Read more

Second Life News 2013-50

by

Tuesday the main grid will get the roll out expected. This is a small maintenance package has a fix for llGetAgentInfo() so it now detects AGENT_CROUCHING.

RC Channels

All three channels will get the same package. The Maestro Linden in the SL forum describes the new packages as: “ This project contains a single bug fix, related to vehicles becoming stuck in the ‘sat upon’ state (which prevents parcel autoreturn).”

This will likely be the last set of server updates until after January 6th.

Viewers

Read the viewer update in the previous article for the latest viewer news.

Regions Closing

Beach Front Reality closed as I mentioned last week. They ran about 50 regions. Ciaran has an article up: Private Sim Losses Swell Due To Large Estate Closure. Ciaran’s suggestion that the Lab should approach some of the people that owned 50% or more of a region, is something I think would have been smart.

Fifty regions at $300± per month is US$15,000 or $180,000 per year. I would think that marketing or customer service could have put someone on contacting these people and making a deal with them.

Second Life News 2014-49 #4

by

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. 

Read more

Drax Files Radio

by
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.

Read more

Taxes Closing Regions?

by

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. 

Read more

Second Life News 2013-49 #3

by

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.