Sansar: Lindens Can Be Slow Learners

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Warning – Things are changing quickly as this story unfolds. Some blog articles have changed since I started writing… So, if something is different from you expect from reading this… please remember time and change are factors.

We just witnessed a community backlash against the Lab’s heavy handed Intellectual Property Rights protection when Strawberry Singh was order to take down a Second Life tutorial for new users. Now the Lab has ordered Ryan Schultz, the author of Sansar NewsBlog, to take down pictures of the Intel-Linden build in Sansar, Aech’s Garage. See UPDATED: First Pictures from Aech’s Garage, the Ready Player One Movie Experience in Sansar.

Please take it off
Please take it off

It has apparently taken a couple of days for Ryan to reach a boil. See: I’m Taking A Break (1/10). That cuts off my primary source of Sansar news. 🙁 I’m not a daily reader, but more than once a week… Have you tried to find another dedicated to Sansar source?

So, what is going on? Is there a new employee at the Lab trying to make their bones? Someone that doesn’t like Ryan? Some new emphasis on a legal policy?

The Lab has already stated they need to rethink and reword some of their IP protection policy. One would think information about respecting helping those helping the Lab would make it through the company without regard to which project people were working on. It would seem to be a corporate culture thing to cultivate. But, I guess not.

Many of us have over a decade of experience with SL and LL and the engineers and managers. And some a bit with the Lab’s legal and marketing people. We have seen their blind spots and dumb mistakes. The last few years I’ve seen a change in those running SL, which I attribute to experience. The development of mesh was shaky, in not listening as well as they might to user feedback. Material, Fitted Mesh, Bento, and now Animesh are examples of good communication, better than mesh. I didn’t say ‘perfect’. And in that time how bloggers and other fans are treated has matured. At least this last go-around with Strawberry had me thinking so.

But, it looks like the Sansar team is going to have to go through the same learning curve. But, I had hopped the SL experience of the Linden support people, like accounting, legal, marketing…, would carry over. I suppose not, now that I see this second ‘take down’ call.

I think I’ve met Ryan in Sansar. Based on my biases and prejudices I am way cautious trusting him. But, what he has said so far is very basic. Paraphrasing, they asked me to take down these pictures, I took them down, and I’m pissed. Excuse me while I go cool off. So, there is not much room for drama or spin in what he has said. A bit rare for this community.

I do agree with him something isn’t right, or fair if you are still into ‘fair’. Other sites are posting similar images. So, what’s up?

#SansarCensor

UPDATE: Ryan has commented below. Seems the Lab has changed its mind. Images are back up. This is a good thing. My confidence in LL is increasing.

UPDATE 2: Seems problems are not over. More of the story is coming out. See Ryans new(er) post: I’m Taking A Break, which I think is an edit of the original.

Second Life News 2018 w2

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Ugh… still fighting something between a cold and flu…

Servers

The main channel is getting a restart but will continue to run version #17.12.01.511131 rolled out 12/12.

All three RC channels with get version #18.01.08.511751. This change is declared to have internal logging improvements.

Worlds 3
Worlds 3

Viewers

The Main viewer remains version 5.0.9.329906. We first saw this version as a RC candidate in week #47 as a Maintenance version. It promoted to the main viewer in week #49.

Second Life Alex Ivy Viewer version 5.1.0.511732 – This is an update from 5.1.0.511248 which we saw in week #48.

Second Life Maintenance Viewer version 5.0.10.330148 – Another update. Replacing version 5.0.10.330123 out week #51.

Second Life Voice Viewer version 5.0.10.330039 – Last updated in week #50.

Second Life Project 360 Snapshot Viewer version 5.1.0.506743 – no update since week #27.

Second Life Project Animesh Viewer version 5.0.10.330058 – Last updated in week #49.

Second Life Project Render Viewer version 5.1.0.511604 – has updated from version 5.1.0.511446 released week, #50.

AS of this morning the Wolfpack version of the viewer has disappeared. As this is a version of the main viewer with additional data reporting, I think we can expect it back when the main viewer next updates.

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Second Life Bits and Pieces 2018 w01

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Crap. I’m coming down with a cold… sniffle, sniffle, hack, hack… need more chocolate. So, I’m browsing through the Second Life™ related blogs finding things I think are neat.

Strawberry

Strawberry Singh has a nice article up titled 10 Years of Second Life Fashion. Damn. She has always looked good.

10 Years of Second Life Fashion
10 Years of Second Life Fashion

Click the image and jump over to Flickr. Read the comments. Check out her albums.

…and you do know she does videos from Sansar? HMSS Videos

Torley

Sansar News Blog has the article, Special Torley-Inspired Scavenger Hunt Edition of Atlas Hopping with Berry and Drax, Saturday, January 6th at 11 a.m. PST. Yeah, that whole thing is the title.

Seems Torley is connecting with Drax and Strawberry to pursue a hunt in Sansar. I suspect they will be streaming it to YouTube.

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Internet Speed Tests

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Answering a question in the SL Forum Answers, I found that I needed to update an article I wrote on testing your Internet connection to Second Life™. It is creatively titled: Troubleshoot Your #SL Connection. I posted it in October 2011.

At the time SpeedTest.net allowed one to test to a destination of their choice. SpeedTest.net has changed. Now one can only test to a nearby server from a list provided by SpeedTest.net. I suppose the idea is one only need test from your computer to your ISP. I suppose that works for most people. For our testing purpose, it is now useless.

Speed Test – Image by Lunchbox Larry @ Flickr

The article is about specifically testing your connection to an SL server. So, I need a new speed test. I started looking for a good choice to add into the article. I came across LifeWire, which has a list of speed test sites. It shows as having updated 1m/2d/2018.

Those freaking out about being splashed with freedom from the repeal of Obama’s socialist pretend Net Neutrality, you’ll need these sites to see if your connection is being throttled.

From reading the page you’ll see the main interest is in testing the speed your ISP is providing. The question they are answering is, “Are you getting what you are paying for?” So, these sites do not really answer the question we are asking, “How good is my connection to an SL server?”

There is no way to actually get these tests to download a file from an SL region server. But, you can probably find a server in the city where the SL region servers live. Pulling the geolocation of a region server from the viewer’s HELP->ABOUT… sim10446.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.51.152:13021) I get San Jose, California.

A site named BandwidthPlace.com will let me select a server to test to. That is as good a bandwidth test to SL as we are going to get. You’ll have to check to see which servers your viewer is using, geolocate them, and then find a testing service with a server in that city.

You may have to work through the LifeWire list to find a service that will let you test to the city you want.

OpenCollar No Longer OpenCollar?

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More SL drama. Unfortunately, about 100,000 SL users will be affected. It seems in November 2017 there was a sudden change in the OpenCollar programming team. Wendy Starfall and Garvin Twine were doing most of the work, programming, marketing, support, etc. for the last 6 years.

The early founders, from the history I can find, are Nandana Singh (now Nirea Resident) and Athaliah Opus. Several involved in the OC Project say they have ignored the project for the last 6 years or so. Leaving it to Wendy, Gaven, and others in the team to do the work and pay for websites and land (regions). But, we would have to define what the speaker means by ‘ignored’.

A point came when Nirea and Athaliah decided the OC project was going the wrong way. It seems that while the open source OC code was being maintained with no income for the programmers from it when the active programmers decided to sell an add-on under a brand name called Virtual Disgrace and some other things based on OC open source code.

“You can't stop the future You can't rewind the past The only way to learn the secret ...is to press play.” ― Jay Asher
You can’t stop the future You can’t rewind the past The only way to learn the secret …is to press play

The entitlement mindset folks decided it was an outrage that programmers working for free should even consider working for a profit and not giving them everything free… So, the great divide opened. The eventual result Nirea and Athaliah reclaimed the OpenCollar in-world group and kicked Wendy and others on the new path out of the group.

OpenCollar remained fee. But, the programmers were making other toys and selling them on their own. I could use the OpenCollar code and make a toy and sell it. But, you would still be able to get the free OpenCollar code and made your toys and sell them.

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Catznip Viewer R12 – Awesome or Not?

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This is the first final release in something like a year… It has great stuff in it. Definitely worth a try. And for anyone playing the inventory maintenance game, this is likely the winner’s choice of viewer.

Catznip R12 Opening Splash Screen

You can download the viewer here: Catznip Viewer Download. If you have the beta links, forget them. They have stopped working.

While 64-bit is the preferred choice, those of you with HD Graphics may have to run the 32-bit version. There is a notice on the download page explaining the problem and what you can do.

Install

The download is about 98MB if that matters these days. Install runs, no problems.

Test Drive

My first login I butter-fingered the password. I mistakenly added a space at the end that didn’t belong, assumed it wouldn’t matter, it did, and then I could not get the viewer to accept the password without the space. The Login button would not wake up. I had to restart the viewer.

This is a quick viewer. In my standard test places, I get 107 FPS on my porch, 122 FPS in my green-screen room at 1500m, and with 12 avatars in my field of view, it drops to 19-33FPS. The first two are faster than any of my other viewers by 20 to 30%. The ‘avatars present’ slowdown is typical.

The viewer uses its own cache. For this viewer, I have an empty cache. So, I was thinking scene render is a bit slow because of that. However, on return to a place, it renders things fast. But, textures are lagging.

After 3 or 4 hours of use, I was unhappy with the speed of Catznip scene renders. I went shopping. That’s when the problem became unbearable. During that time, I switched back and forth between Catznip and Firestorm. I was checking to see if my connection was acting up, memory loading up, the region was just slow, or what. I decided it is just Catznip. However, running the cursor over a thing I wanted to render helped and was quick to fully render whatever. But, it would not stay rendered.

So, both Firestorm and the Linden viewers were rendering the shopping areas in the Region Evocative, the SWEAR stores for men are there, way faster than Catznip and they stayed rendered. So, doing cam-shopping with Catznip and my SpaceNavigator is out.

View after 45 minutes…

I ran into texture thrashing. Thrashing may not be the best word in this case as I think of ‘thrashing’ as a faster thing. But, it is the words we use to describe the problem. When textures did finally render, they would drop back to a blurry render. Then on a somewhat slow cycle, they would render, stay clear for a bit, then go blurry. They might remain blurry indefinitely. I seldom see texture thrashing in ether Firestorm or the Linden viewer.

While writing this I took my avatar home. Most of my textures there did not render while I typed the majority of this article.  I would use the viewer, write some more, use the viewer… never did see most textures fully render. Some did, but they did not stay fully rendered

I tried the trick of removing all the HUD’s, restarting the viewer, leaving chat closed… nothing seems to help.

Profiles come up WAY faster in Catznip than in Firestorm. Is that just me that has slow, way slow, profile renders in FS? I use web profiles, not the legacy. So, that may not be a fair-to-Firestorm comparison. Catznip’s Profile panel is more the legacy type profile.

I’m not a fan of the Profile panel in Catznip. But, I like fast.

Inventory search has an upgrade or two to make finding stuff easier and improves how results are displayed.

The Quick Preferences is awesome. Ctrl-Shift-P to open. Inara explains how to use the panel, so I’ll skip the details. There are other WAY handy features not found in other viewers. So, this could become the shopaholic’s viewer of choice.

Inara is, apparently, a heavy user of Firestorm’s Photo Tools. I am too. What I use most is Firestorm’s change to WL Sky, which in Catznip is the Fixed Sky setting. So, for the majority of my use, the Catznip Quick Pref’s are good enough. And the Windlight presets, while extensive, have been cleaned up.

RLVa is available. It is off by default. You’ll find it in Preferences->Catznip->General. A viewer restart is required when changing the setting.

Summary

Inara is adopting Catznip as her alternate viewer. For her Firestorm remains the preferred Viewer with Catznip in second place. For me, the slow Catznip render during shopping kills it for me. The Linden viewer remains my primary backup. Other viewers, I consider as specialty viewers, best for specific tasks.

Black Dragon for photos when I need to adjust poses. Catznip when I have a lot of inventory maintenance to do. Linden for playing with new features, think animesh. Firestorm is my primary viewer.

I’ll do more testing with Catznip throughout the week. I am hoping it is something transient. The features in Catznip I could get really attached to. I think they are awesome.