Sansar and Blockchain? – Ebbe Altberg

The site The Next Web has an article about how blockchain currency is democratizing the virtual world, VR, and real life. The Sansar Project gets into it because Ebbe Altberg is quoted. Not because Sansar will use a cryptocurrency.

First, do you know what a blockchain currency is? I barely do. Quoting:

A blockchain is a digitized, decentralized public ledger of cryptocurrency transactions. Essentially each ‘block’ is like an individual bank statement. Completed ‘blocks’ (the most recent transactions) are added in chronological order allowing market participants to keep track of the transactions without the need for central record keeping. Just as Bitcoin eliminates the need for a third party to process or store payments, and isn’t regulated by a central authority, users in any blockchain structure are responsible for validating transactions whenever one party pays another for goods or services.

That explanation isn’t all that helpful. If you think of a cryptocurrency as a paper dollar that you print but yet cannot be forged and shows who paid for it and printed it… you sort of get an idea. This is extreme free market stuff and requires a good grounding in free-market economics to make sense.

Dollars
Dollars

Blockchain currencies and other cryptocurrencies depend on complex encryption processes requiring huge amounts of computer time.  No one seems to think about how quantum computing may change the game. So, for now, these new currencies are the hot thing. Hot as in one currency project raised US$25 million in less than a minute.

I suppose it is the freedom from the control of centralized governments where politicians try to control us that makes them so valuable.

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San Antonio Church Shooting

This injustice brings up the ongoing gun control debate. Everyone wants to stop these acts of violence. But, to do that we need to know the cause of violence.

In the middle ages (1330 AD) when the Black death swept the world killing 60+% of the population the list of most of the preventives and cures were things we consider silly; Aromatherapy, Religion, Rotten Treacle, Live In a Sewer, Let Leeches Suck You Dry, Eat a Spoon of Crushed Emeralds, Wash Yourself With Urine, Smear Yourself With Human Poop, Rub Your Wounds With a Live Chicken, and Kill Jews.

However, they did come up with the idea of quarantine. Unfortunately, they did not understand fleas and rats also needed to be blocked.

Now we understand about bacterial and viral diseases and how they spread. So, we will most likely be able to control the current Madagascar outbreak of pneumonic plague, which is air born and can kill in 24 hours.

But, we obviously aren’t able to control the violence we are seeing in Las Vegas and San Antonio.

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Second Life News 2017 w45

New Premium Shiny

Yesterday the Lindens announced a new benefit for Premium Members. If you are Premium, your Transaction History will now reach back 90 days. Free members can reach back only 32 days. (No I don’t know why 32.)

Whirly at the Server-Scripting UG 2017 w45

With the announcement, we got some statistics.

There’s a ton of activity in Second Life’s L$ economy: every day, the Marketplace alone sees more than 20,000 unique buyers purchasing more than L$16,000,000 worth of goods from more than 15,000 unique sellers. That’s a whole lotta Lindens changing hands! And that’s not even including inworld transactions.

This is set of DAILY numbers. I suspect they are averages. Still, it is impressive.

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Third-Party Dev Meeting (Leaks) 2017 w44

There is some news this week. Most are from a couple of leaks. They give us a clue as to why the release of the Firestorm viewer is delayed. So…

The Linden Voice RC Viewer has 1 bug still left. The Lindens are hunting for the cause of an intermittent channel misconnection. If I understand the voice system mistakes which region you are in and connects your voice to the wrong region. Of course, voice doesn’t work when that happens.

in simple words
in simple words

Vivox, the providers of SL voice, is working on the problem and thinks it is in the SDK….

The Alex Ivy RC Viewer got an update Thursday. The viewer is doing well and Oz Linden is happy with it. However, there was a bug in the updater part of the code. It caused those updating some problems. I ran into it. A manual install corrects the problem.

The Lindens can’t get a good grip on how well the 64-bit viewer is doing as the 32 & 64-bit versions report as the same viewer. From other indicators, the Lindens know 32-bit version has people crashing way more often than previous versions. The 64-bit version is crashing way less than previous versions. Apparently, there is a WAY SIZABLE difference between 32 and 64-bit versions.

Crashes are typically early in the login… Oz suspects it is crashing during the benchmarking tests.

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Second Life – Hot, Amazing, Gorgeous…

I like playing with photography in Second Life… second to dressing up and teasing others… well, maybe dressing up and shopping more than teasing. But, I’m often snapping pictures in SL, whatever I’m doing. Those pictures which I think are good enough, just fun, or show off a new thing I’ve learned, make to Flickr.

Dee Dee Deepdene – April 2017

On Flickr, I look around to see what others are doing. This is where the hot, amazing, and gorgeous comes in. Here I’ll show you some of the photographer-artists I’ve come across. Of course, these are ones I like. I use no objective standard. It’s just what touches, thrills, or wow’s me.

I do in a small measure consider the number of fav’s an image gets when deciding if it is great or I just my really liking it. But, I’ve seen some awesome images with almost no views or fav’s. So, the number of fav’s represents a mix of popularity and marketing. How many people see the image? Is the artist talented and understands social media well enough to promote an image?

The following images are not completely safe for work, no XXX, but some are definitely erotic

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Planned Second Life Updates

The Linens have announced some new things coming to Second Life™. Some are good, some are a pain.

In the pain department first, there is an increase in the fee to buy Linden dollars (L$). It is going from US$0.60 to $0.99 per transaction. This goes into effect today, Nov 2, 2017. Dang. I need Lindens…

Also, when cashing out the fee goes from 1.5% per transaction, with a $3 (USD) minimum and a $25 (USD) maximum to 2.5% per transaction, with a $3 (USD) minimum, and no maximum. This happens January 3, 2018.

- to The Mist -
– to The Mist –

Why? Thank criminals and government regulators. The cost to remain compliant with regulations is going up.

In the goodies department, money is being budgeted for; new features, engineering support, customer support, billing systems and upgrades, and customer acquisition outreach. These are all good things. I like new features. Animesh is the exciting one. The improved server-side baking for 1024 rez and adaption for use with mesh bodies and other mesh attachments is intertwined with animesh phase I & II. But, it has great potential to reduce avatar induced lag. 

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