Nalates' Things & Stuff

What is Net Neutrality in 2017?

2017/11/24 by Nalates Urriah

Ciaran Laval is on about Net Neutrality and the coming December 14^th meeting of the FCC. Ciaran buys into to the mainstream media viewpoint things are getting worse with the pending rules change. I see it the other way. I take a long view and consider the principals that debatably created the greatest economic engine in history, the free market.

Ciaran sees current efforts in the FCC as something out of a “dystopian novel”. Well, if we were talking Atlas Shrugged I would agree, but we aren’t.

Quoting Ciaran,

The proposal is not consumer friendly, and consumers are letting the FCC know that. The proposal is not being welcomed by many tech companies and is a glaring example of how officials ignore consumers and fail to serve the public.

Is the proposal ‘consumer friendly’ or not? The answer depends on what you know about the proposal and the principals of the free market. On a purely personal, short-term basis the uninformed will think not. A deeper understanding of the free market gives us the clue that competition is always better for the consumer.

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Pine Lake – November 2017

2017/11/22 by Nalates Urriah

Pine Lake is a post-apocalyptic build in Second Life™. I’m not that much into doing travel guide stuff for SL. But, occasionally I find a place that is like… Wow! Pine Lake is such a place.

PineLake_001 - Landing Point — PineLake_001 – Landing Point

You can get a kinda lame idea of what the place is like from their Flickr Group. The images there today do not do the build justice.

It is the attention to detail that impresses me. Wow! Just wow. The amount of detail is incredible.

Second Life News 2017 w47

2017/11/21 by Nalates Urriah

Servers

The Main channel was restarted with version #17.11.11.510664. This update includes Internal Fixes and a fix for BUG-139176 Issue with OBJECT_REZZER_KEY reporting incorrectly after linking and delinking prims. This version has run on the RC channels for a couple of weeks.

There will be no updates to the RC channel this Wednesday. The next day is a holiday in the USA. So, the RC channels will continue to run the packed just promoted to the main channel.

The internal fixes are typically security fixes and data collection changes. Recent some of those changes had to do with various copy exploits. Simon Linden says they have caught a bunch of people trying to use those exploits.

However, there are still exploits allowing copying without the Lab being able to detect it. So, Simon asks that people keep filing JIRA and Abuse Reports. Lindens are still working on closing the exploits. So, the reports guide their work. Help by filing a report, if you have actionable information.

Second Life Third-Party Dev Meeting 2017 w46

2017/11/18 by Nalates Urriah

The next Third-Party Dev meeting is 12/15.

Alex Ivy

Alex Ivy RC Viewer is holding up well in testing. Actually, better than ever.

There is the one startup crash, they haven’t been able to reproduce. The one they think likely from benchmarking crashing systems. They think they have a fix. The supposed fix will be in next update of Alex Ivy, likely arriving from QA just after Thanksgiving. If that fixes the crashes, then they will be ready to release Alex Ivy in Early December as the main viewer.

Zenos Profile Photo

This is sort of a big deal. I’ve been using 64-bit viewers almost exclusively. They are WAY more stable than 32-bit viewers. If you are not running a 64-bit OS, update ASAP.

When Alex Ivy is released the Lab will have a 32 & 64-bit Windows viewer. They have a 64-bit Mac viewer and no 32-bit Mac.

Linux

If things go as planned, they will build a Debian 64-bit Linux viewer. They will not be able to put much time in on QA. But, they plan to get a Linux build out.

The Lab is counting on the community to provide QA and fixes. Otherwise, this won’t be a working Linux version. Think of the Lab as providing the foundation. The rest is up to the community.

Oz Linden tells us there is a 64-bit Linux version in the Rendering branch. More about the rendering branch below.

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Who is Winning – High Fidelity or Sansar?

2017/11/15 by Nalates Urriah

Second Life™ people are interested in Sansar™ and High Fidelity. We just can’t tell how many and how intently. The VR hype is dying down. The realization that Sansar is NOT going to be the social app that Second Life is has started to set in. I’m realizing just how far Sansar has to go to get to a comparable fun state as Second Life. But, High Fidelity? I’ve found it… less than I expected.

So, while many of us are sort of keeping an eye on Sansar it isn’t a daily thing. But, every so often I look beyond just the headlines appearing here and there. I pay less attention to High Fidelity (HF).

Drax has an interesting podcast on the War of the Social Worlds… sounds familiar. This podcast contains a comparison between High Fidelity and Sansar. I find that interesting. I used to run an OpenSim server. That has left me with a sense of dread when I think of High Fidelity. But, how are things stacking up between the two big VR-Virtual Worlds?

Fortunately, Sansar News has summarized the highlights of the podcast: Galen Compares High Fidelity and Sansar.

My summary of the summary is now High Fidelity is ahead. One can do more in HF than in Sansar. But, Galen doubts both can survive in the future. He is putting his money on Sansar. He explains why and I’ll come back to that. I think Sansar and HF will be like Second Life and OpenSim (OS).

Second Life News 2017 w46

2017/11/14 by Nalates Urriah

Servers

Again, there is no roll to the main channel. It continues to run #17.10.06.509394.

Blue Steel, Le Tigre, and Magnum will update Wednesday to version #17.11.11.510664.

Internal Fixes
Fix BUG-139176 Issue with OBJECT_REZZER_KEY reporting incorrectly after linking and delinking prims.

Viewers

The main viewer remains 5.0.8.329115, released in week #42.

Second Life Alex Ivy Viewer version 5.1.0.510354 – No update, released week #44.

Second Life Maintenance Viewer version 5.0.9.329795 – This is a new version. The previous version 5.0.9.329707 was released in week #42.

Second Life Voice Viewer version 5.0.8.328552 – released in week #42. No update.

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

Second Life Project Animesh Viewer version 5.0.9.329815 – This is an updated version. The previous version 5.0.9.329458 was released in week #42.

Third-Party Viewers

Black Dragon got some updates and a new version is out. 2.9.1

NiranV also has a huge article out on alpha blending verses masking and how broken the viewer is.

Cool VL Viewer v1.26.21 is out and the version with Animesh support, sort of. Animesh is not completed and may change. So, what is out is supported.

Firestorm – We are waiting. Soon, before the end of year… maybe.