Linden Layoffs?

I see on Tateru’s and Inara’s blogs and in loads of Plurks that Esbee and Charlar are leaving the Lab. I’m bummed.

As of yesterday Charlar was proceeding with Advanced Creator Tools. I got my join notice to the new group.

Welcome

Thursday,01 Mar 2012 16:05:28 GMT

This group’s purpose is to provide a channel for some communications related to the Advanced Creator tools. You are the first members because you are also part of the closed beta for the tools themselves, especially the Experience Permission system. This beta will take part initially on Aditi with a private group meeting and forum. Currently I see no reason to require an NDA. What we’re doing isn’t necessarily sekrit, it’s more that we want to work out any kinks with you all in a calm, professional group.

That group is for beta testers helping with the Linden Realms Tools. New permissions systems are needed to go with the tools. So, there is lots to work out. I have no idea what the status of this project is now.

Charlar’s departure will likely put a kink in the Content-Mesh Creation group too.

I’ll miss Charlar.

UPDATE: I do have it from a reliable source that Charlar neither left nor was fired… but, he is not here any more. Figure that one out…

I haven’t heard much about what Esbee was doing. I knew her from when she ran the Viewer Evolution group. I missed her when she left the first time. Recently I haven’t been able to tell she was back. So, I’m neutral on her departure.

Phoenix Firestorm Hour

Well after all the tech problems at the Phoenix Hour, now the Phoenix Firestorm Hour, I finally got to see the video of the meeting. I’ll paraphrase it here. As usual I’ll provide time marks so you can listen to the parts that interest you. I try to be accurate, but I have biases and preconceptions so I can hear things differently than they are intended. So, you’ll find the video at: New Linden Lab Policy.

Phoenix Firestorm Hour

I’ll point out here that the paraphrasing I have here is 5,000+ words. The meeting was an hour and 45 minutes not counting time out for crashes and region restarts and the 40 minute delay in starting. If I had stuck it out from my early arrival to the end I would have had more than 3 hours in the meeting. I really think some of the changes talked about here are FAR less important than the fact they regions didn’t stay up.

If you’re in a hurry, there are 250 words at the end that pretty much sum things up.

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#SL Online Status Update

As many know the various online status boards, pagers, and subscription devices were expected to break and stop working when llRequestAgentData() was changed. That change was expected to roll to the main grid in a couple of weeks. That feature change is now on hold.

SVC-4823

This is the JIRA item where the details and issues of the change were being collected. The JIRA item now has quite a few legitimate use cases. There are still lots of people that have yet to figure out the JIRA is not a forum for discussion.

The large number of legitimate use cases apparently surprised the Lindens. They are now considering how to provide for the legit use cases and still disable the griefer aspects. See: SVC-4823. Oz Linden has made a couple of posts in the JIRA and several Lindens have been following it.

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NVIDIA Drivers Update Problems

In the previous article, nVidia Update and Goodies, I talked about the release of a new 295.73 version driver. Now we are getting reports of nVidia Driver 295.73 causing Second Life Viewers to crash. The Firestorm/Phoenix Development team is reporting Firestorm users with GTX460 cards and 295.73 are having problems.

[youtube rXKj6Kw-VFk]

This is not the first time we have had problems with nVidia 460 cards. See: nVidia Driver GTX 460 Problems.

For Those using nVidia 450 and 460 cards it is advised they roll back to driver version 285.62 WHQL.

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#SL Server news Week 9

This week we got a roll to the main channel. This update contains some voice improvements/fixes and I think the Phase I region crossing code.

Oskar is on vacation, so Maestro will be handling the news and meetings until Oskar is back.

Blue Steel & Le Tigre

These two channels get a maintenance package that has only bug fixes.

  • SVC-7631 – New rate throttle on llGiveInventory. The throttle was loosened to 2.5k events per 15 minutes, double the previous value.
  • SVC-7660– http_request()  fails to trigger on RC Magnum 12.01.27.248571
  • Fixed some other miscellaneous bugs, including a few crashers.

 Magnum

This channel has the region crossing project (Phase 1 Project) from last week, with an additional fix for a case in which some avatars would get stuck in a region and be unable to TP out.

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Oz Answers TPV Policy Questions

Innula Zenovka post a link on SLUniverse to an Question and Answers page where Oz Linden answered residents questions about the new TPV Policy. Cummere Mayo start the thread here.

See: Questions about new TPV policy. (Questions only please.)

The most controlversal and misunderstood part of the policy is the idea of what is meant by SHARED EXPERIENCE. So, the number one question is: What is meant by shared experience?

The pertinent part of Oz’s answer is:

A shared experience change is one that modifies the definition of the elements that make up the virtual world, or how they behave, in such a way that users on other viewers don’t experience the same virtual reality.

This rule does not affect changes to rendering, user interface, or the controls a viewer offers for interacting with the world.

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