Month: January 2013

SL project news: week 3 (1): Servers, Materials, Baking and more

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update 19th January: As is being reported in the deployment thread in the forums, further issues are arising with search, and also problems with scripted vehicles (as Wolf also nones in the comments for this article. Those using regions running on Magnum are advised to keep an eye on the deployment thread for news on issues as they are investigated by other users / feedback from the Lab.

Update 18th January: An issue has ben reported with Magnum regions no longer being listed in the main search floater, although shops, etc, within a Magnum region are still listed. The problem does not extend to the world map search. Maestro Linden has filed a bug report. A rolling restart of all LeTigre and BlueSteel regions commenced at 10:00 SLT due to instablility issues being reported with the regions. The restart will comprise a roll-back of server code on BlueSteel and LeTigre to 12.12.18.268345.

Deployments for Week 3

After the issues encountered last, week, there was no main channel release on Tuesday 15th January, 2013.

Changes also occurred with the RC channel deployments. As fixes for the threaded region crossing problems were not ready for release, this was removed from the schedule and replaced by a maint-server release. Then, a network hardware error forced the RC deployments to be postponed until Thursday 17th January.

The roll-outs duly took place on the 17th, and comprise:

BlueSteel and LeTigre received the interest list improvement project. Originally scheduled for Magnum in week 2, but was held up due to a last-minute bugs, this  update should reduce the bandwidth usage of viewers due to object updates, and should improve simulator performance, especially in sims with many connected avatars – release notes here (BlueSteel).

This release received an additional bug fix, related to seated avatars temporarily vanishing from other avatars’ view when  crossing between regions. This fix may have led to the server release notes as reported and wiki pages for BlueSteel and LeTigre slipping out of sync with the actual code release (this has now been corrected subsequent to my pointing it out to Maestro Linden).

Magnum received a new server maintenance project, which mostly contains bug fixes, together with the following:

  • Server-side code to support “neck” and “center” attach points, which didn’t get rolled out when these were added to the viewer (but which now also require a minor change to the viewer, which is forthcoming)
  • An update to improve the effectiveness of estate bans (i.e. preventing banned avatars returning)
  • An update for builders, which covers SVC-7996 and as a part of STORM-68 (ensuring all created items have the default permissions set within the viewer). This particular fix ensures that scripts created using the New Script button in the build floater inherit the permissions set within the viewer, rather than server-defined defaults
  • An update to how abandoned mainland is handled, as the automated buy-back option for abandoned land is being eliminated (see: Abandoned Land in the Knowledge Base)
  • Release notes here.

Deployments for Week 4 (Commencing Monday 21st January)

There is no major news on releases for week 4, other than the threaded region crossing code now has fixes for the last-minute issues which prevented its roll-out in week 2, so this should be on one of the RC channels for deployment on Wednesday 23rd January.

SL Viewer

The release version of the SL viewer rolled to the 3.4.4 codebase on Tuesday January 15th, with the release of 3.4.4.268864. See the release notes for details of updates and fixes.The development viewer is rapidly progressing through a series of releases, with 3.4.6.269073 released on January 15th, followed by 3.4.6.269108 on January 17th.

After a series of development version releases, the CHUI project viewer also moved to the 3.4.4 codebase with the release of version 3.4.4.268981, also on January 15th. The Development version of CHUI continues to keep pace with releases from viewer-development.

Server-side Baking

Work is continuing on avatar baking (otherwise know as server-side baking or Project Sunshine), with Nyx Linden reporting at the Content Creation User Group on Monday 14th January that the team has, “Been a bit heads-down focusing on some bug-stomping.”

Concern is growing that, since the initial release of the Sunshine Project viewer a month ago, there have been no further updates to the viewer-side code, despite extensive feedback from TPVs, which  – in the words of one developer – is not conducive to enabling everyone to adopt the latest code and get ready for the baking service within anticipated time frames (i.e. mid-to-late February).

Nyx has acknowledged the problem, and hopes that the Sunshine code will be merged-up to the latest viewer development code soon, together with verification that nothing has been broken as a result. In the meantime, and away from the SL viewer itself, Henri Beauchamp reported that he has server-side baking working in the experimental branch of his Cool VL viewer.

A further concern with the project is the manner in which JIRAs are being handled since last year’s changes to the system. Raised issues are effectively being cloned, with one version sitting internally to LL and “hidden” from general viewing, with the cloned version available for public viewing and update. This has resulted in worries that cooperation between TPVs and LL in resolving issues related to the Sunshine project could be hampered if the cloned public JIRA are not properly updated whenever LL update the internal versions of the same issues. Nyx Linden has promised to work to ensure that all cloned public JIRA are kept up-to-date.

Materials Processing

The server-side code for this is “inching towards” a point where it will be ready for deployment to an RC channel. When this will be is unclear, but it is likely to be ahead of any project viewer emerging from the Lab.

Concern is still being raised over the need to run the viewer in deferred mode in order to see materials processing in action once it has been rolled-out onto the grid. Some of this concern may be down to the confusing way in which deferred mode is labelled in the Graphics tab of the viewer preferences (“Lighting and Shadows”), with people thinking they must have shadows running in order to be in deferred mode (i.e. with the Shadows drop-down set to either Sun/Mon or Sun/Moon + Projectors). However, the viewer is running in deferred mode even with the drop-down set to None.

Continue reading “SL project news: week 3 (1): Servers, Materials, Baking and more” →

Of water and “raining” minerals

Posted on by Inara Pey

Curiosity Tuesday January 15th 2012 marked Sol 158 on Mars for Curiosity, and the first NASA / JPL telecon for 2013. As per my last report, the Mars Science Laboratory rover remains in “Yellowknife Bay”, which has revealed itself as a geological treasure trove. The net result of this is that Curiosity will be remaining in the area for a while to come, and that the first drilling operation which had been anticipated for this week has now been pushed back for perhaps two weeks while scientists use the time to carry out more extensive observations and examination of the wide variety of rock types in the region.

Referring the region, mission Principal Investigator John Grotzinger describes it as a “jackpot environment” for scientific exploration. A depressional area, “Yellowknife Bay” had already been identified as a possible location where free-flowing water many have been present. However, examination over the course of the last couple of weeks reveals that the entire area has been subject to very heavy aqueous activity, including the formation of rich mineral deposits.

Evidence of  water having flowed freely in “Yellowknife Bay”.An image from Curiosity’s Mastcam shows inclined layering known as cross-bedding in an outcrop dubbed “Shaler”. This cross-bedding is indicative of sediment transport in stream flows: currents mold the sediments into small underwater dunes that migrate downstream. When exposed in cross-section, evidence of this migration is preserved as strata that are steeply inclined relative to the horizontal — thus the term “cross-bedding.” The grain sizes here are coarse enough to exclude wind transport (click to enlarge)

While orbital surveys ahead of the mission showed the area to be a likely location for finding evidence of water action – it is very much an alluvial plain, after all – the MSL team have  nevertheless been surprised at the diversity of rock formations found, and the very strong evidence of what is called “mineral precipitation” – a process whereby minerals which formed elsewhere being carried to the region by strong water currents (estimated to be perhaps as high as a metre per second), before the current slows to a point where the minerals can no longer be held in suspension and so “precipitate out” as deposits on and in the rocks.

The ChemCam laser has been employed in the study of some of the mineral deposits within the rocks, revealing they contain Hydrated Calcium Sulfates. On Earth, calcium sulfates like gypsum form frequently in veins when relatively dilute fluid circulates at low to moderate temperatures – in other words, water must have once been circulating through the veins in the rocks in order for these minerals, thought to be gypsum or bassanite, to form.

Please use the page numbers below to continue reading this article

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RFL of SL Activities: initial calendar available

Posted on by Inara Pey

RFL-logoThe Relay For Life of SL website is bringing forth news on events planned for 2013. As with previous years, activities will be held across the grid in the months and weeks ahead of the Relay for Life weekend in July, and will also follow-on from the weekend through until the end of the year.

As always, there are a wide range of events and activities being planned – some of them directly by the RFL of SL core team, others by the many RFL of SL support teams across the grid and more still by individuals and groups who routinely support RFL, or who wish to show support for RFL by holding events of their own.

Image courtesy of RFL of SL
Image courtesy of RFL of SL

Here are some of the forthcoming activities  – please make sure you visit the RFL of SL website to keep fully informed of events, activities and other news.

January

  • Sunday 27 January, 15:30 SLT: Relay Rap – details tba

March

  • Saturday 9th: Official launch of the fundraising season, which will include live music, presentation of the 2013 RFL season timeline and more
  • Saturday 9th through Monday 18th: Fashion for Life, featuring everything about fashion in SL – coordinator: Frolic Mills

April

  • Saturday 20th through Sunday 28th: Fantasy Faire 2013 – the best in SL fantasy presented across beautifully themed sims and a highlight of the SL year

May

  • Friday 17th through Monday 27th: SL Home and Garden Expo 2013: The largest Home & Garden Event of its kind benefitting RFL
  • Saturday 18th – Sunday 19th: The Half-way There Fair: an opportunity for teams and committee and supporters to come together and share in a wide range of activities including live music, rides, games and the International Relay Festival

July

  • Saturday 13th – Sunday 14th: Relay Weekend: The largest fundraising event held within virtual worlds. A 40+ region event featuring relays around the track, with entertainment and more. An opportunity to celebrate with those who have survived cancer, add support in the fight against cancer and join in remembrance of those family and friends we have lost to cancer.

August

  • The Wrap-up Party (dates tba): A time to come together and celebrate the success of the year, with awards given to teams and participants and hear news about the next RFL season.

As well as this events, there will be others held throughout the year in support of RFL, including a wide range of RFL Team Events. So again, keep your eyes on the RFL website for news and updates.

Participating in RFL of SL

Those wishing to form a team and participate directly in RFL of SL events, including the Relay Weekend, will be able to register a team from Friday February 8th, 2013, when the registration form will open on the RFL of SL website.

Related Links

Tier cuts: looking from the Lab’s perspective

Posted on by Inara Pey

Apologies to those who may have received notification of an early version of this post being published at the weekend. Slight error on my part hitting the wrong button when trying to clear-up some old drafts.

Tier has long been an issue within Second Life, one which has been exacerbated over the last 24 months by the ongoing decline in private region numbers, which form the greater proportion of LL’s revenue. The decline has been tracked across the weeks and months by Tyche Shepherd via her invaluable Grid Surveys. In 2012 alone, the grid has suffered a loss of around 12% in private regions. Such is the concern over tier that it gets raised following articles which may not be related to the subject – such as LL moving to promote SL through Amazon.

This decline has been subject to many calls for the Lab to reduce tier, with some recently advocating it should be cut by one-third. However, as both I and Tateru Nino attempted to explain in June 2012, while cutting tier may appear the obvious thing to do, it may not actually be the easiest or most comfortable thing for the Lab to do.

Crunching Some Numbers – the Lab’s Perspective

While I have covered some of this ground before, I thought it interesting to look at some numbers purely from the Lab’s perspective, using Tyche’s Grid Survey and survey summaries as reference.

Private regions losses through 2012 (click to enlarge)
  • As of December 31st, 2011, monthly private region revenue for LL was approximately $5,006,000, with a margin of error of +/-$60,000
  • As of December 31st 2012, monthly private region revenue for LL was approximately $4,244,000 per month, with a margin of error of +/- $53,000
  • While acknowledging we have yet to see Tyche’s 2012 end-of-year survey, that amounts to a drop of $762,000 through the year, or an average of $63,500 per month

If there is no reduction in tier, it is probable that the current decline in private region revenue will continue at or near the 2012 monthly average of $63,500. However, were the Lab to cut tier by one-third, they immediately slash monthly private region revenue by $1,400,520. That’s equivalent to 4,747 full private regions vanishing from the grid – 1.6 times more that the total number of private regions (full, Homestead and OpenSpace) lost in 2012.

Even allowing for the tier cut stimulating the demand from new land (and there are problems with that, as discussed later in this article), and assuming set-up fees remain unchanged, it means the Lab would need to see the equivalent of 1,337 full private regions added to the grid in the first month following the cut just to match the revenue loss suffered had they not cut tier (i.e. the difference between $1,400,520 and $63,500).

Continue reading “Tier cuts: looking from the Lab’s perspective” →

Viewer release summary 2013: week 2

Posted on by Inara Pey

This summary is published every Monday and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:

  • It is based on my Viewer Round-up Page, a list of  all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware) and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy
  • By its nature, this summary will always be in arrears
  • The Viewer Round-up Page is updated as soon as I’m aware of any releases / changes to viewers & clients, and should be referred to for more up-to-date information as the week progresses
  • The Viewer Round-up Page also includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.  

Updates for the week ending: 13 January, 2013

  • SL Viewer updates:
      • Beta version rolled to 3.4.4.268697 on January 8th, 2013 – release notes
      • Development rolled to 3.4.5.268856 on January 9th, and then to 3.4.6.268934 on January 11th, 2013
      • Development version of the CHUI project viewer rolled to 3.4.3.268914 on January 10, and then to 3.4.4.268994 on January 14th
  • Catznip released an update for Ubuntu 12.10 on January 8th, 2013
  • Dolphin rolled to 3.4.9.26973 on January 8th, 2013 – core updates: updated to latest viewer-dev code; port of “collapsible” wrold map from Hitomi Tiponi’s Starlight skin (hides legend); release notes
  • Kokua released version 3.4.4 on January 11th, 2013
  • Cool VL updates – three versions for the time being, all updated on January 11th, 2013:
    • Stable version rolled to 1.26.6.5
    • Legacy version Legacy (v2.6 renderer) rolled to 1.26.4.48
    • Experimental version rolled to 1.26.7.5
    • Release notes
  • Metabolt release version 0.9.61.0 (Beta) on January 12th, 2013 – core updates: multi-attachment points support added & UUID / attachment point of selected attachments displayed; multi-layer clothing support addded; option to disable “Network Disconnected” message; translation options removed; creator info added to Object Manager; various Group handling improvements; various fixes and enhancements – release notes
  • Phoenix officially reached end-of-line for SL on December 31st – read more here

Related Links

“Mrs. Hudson, some tea if you would be so kind!”

Posted on by Inara Pey

Once again, the Seanchai Library will be presenting a round of stories and readings in Voice this coming week, which are marked by the return of The Great Detective himself!

As always, all times SLT, and unless otherwise stated, events will be held on the Seanchai Library’s home on Imagination Island.

Sunday 13th January

13:30: Tea-time at Baker Street

Caledonia Skytower opens the cover of the second of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story collections about the adventures of his famous detective: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. This week Caledonia is joined by Corwyn Allen as she presents the first adventure in the volume, Silver Blaze.

One of the most popular Sherlock Holmes short stories, it focuses on the disappearance of a famous race horse, Silver Blaze and the apparent murder of its trainer and features some of Conan Doyle’s most effective plotting, hinging on the “curious incident of the dog in the night-time”:

Scotland Yard detective Gregory: “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

Sherlock Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

Holmes: “That was the curious incident.”

Join Caladonia and Corwyn as this popular Seanchai Library series makes a welcome return.

18:00: Mary Poppins (at Magicland Park)

“Cor Blimey, Caledonia Skytower!”  – Yes, Caladonia delves into by P.L. Travers’ famous story about the umbrella-piloting children’s nanny who  arrives at the Banks abode at Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane, courtesy of the East Wind.

mary-poppinsMade famous through the hugely successful 1964 Disney film starring Julie Andrews and a wobbly accented Dick van Dyke (albeit an adaptation despised by Travers herself), and more recently the focus of a successful West End and Broadway stage production, the tale need no real introduction here.

First published in 1934, Mary Poppins was actually the first in a series of stories about the character written by Travers between 1934 and 1988, all illustrated by Mary Shephard, the daughter of Winnie the Pooh and The Wind in the Willows illustrator, E.H. Shephard.  Mary actually took the job on account of her father being too busy with other work, and  later became regarded as a co-author of the tales.

Join Caladonia at Magicland Park as she brings this magical tale once more to life.

Monday January 14th, 19:00: Notwithstanding: Stories from an English Village

notwithstandingFamous for his more exotic locations and stories such as Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Red Dog, Louis de Bernieres used England for the setting for a series of short stories written early in his career.

Located in and around the fictional village of Notwithstanding, which is somewhat based on the village of Worley in Surry, where he grew up, the stories were various published in newspapers, etc., prior to being brought together into this single volume in 2009. Semi-autobiographical in places, the stories are rich in English rural detail and contain references to many real-world locations in Surrey, and allow de Bernieres to ruminate on a part of English life he believes to now be vanishing.

Join Caledonia Skytower as she dips into de Bernieres’ England.

Tuesday January 15th, 19:00: Inkspell

Faerie Maven-Pralou continues Cornelia Funke’s young adult which forms the second part of her Inkworld trilogy. The books chronicle the adventures of teenager Meggie Folchart whose life changes dramatically when she realizes that she and her father, a bookbinder named Mo, have the unusual ability to bring characters from books into the real world when reading aloud. Mostly set in Northern Italy and the parallel world of the fictional Inkheart book, the central story arc concerns the magic of books, their characters and creatures, and the art of reading.

In Inkspell, a year has passed since the events related in Inkheart, the first book in the series. Not a day goes by without Meggie thinking of Inkheart, a book that has characters that come to life. Resa is back. The fire-eater, Dustfinger, wants to go back to his wife daughters-who are in the story. When he finds a crazy, self-absorbed psycho storyteller, Orpheus, who can read him back into the book, he goes into the pages. Soon Farid convinces Meggie to read him into the book so he can warn Dustfinger of Basta. But Meggie has figured out how to read herself and Farid into the book Inkheart.

Wednesday January 16th, 19:00: Quite a Year for Plums

plumsAnyone who has read the best-selling Mama Makes Up Her Mind or listened to Bailey White’s commentaries on NPR knows that she is a storyteller of inimitable wit and charm. Now, in her stunningly accomplished first novel, she introduces us to the peculiar yet lovable people who inhabit a small town in south Georgia.

Meet serious, studious Roger, the peanut pathologist and unlikely love object of half the town’s women. Meet Roger’s ex-mother-in-law, Louise, who teams up with an ardent typographer in an attempt to attract outer-space invaders with specific combinations of letters and numbers. And meet Della, the bird artist who captivates Roger with the sensible but enigmatic notes she leaves on things she throws away at the Dumpster.

Kayden Oconnell is joined by Caledonia Skytower as they continue to read from the novel.

Thursday January 17th, 19:00: TBA

Hopefully, Thursday will see Shandon Loring either continuing to explore Kona Legends or embarking on adventures new. Please refer to the Seanchai Library blog for updates.

In the meantime, my best wishes to Shandon as he recovers from surgery.

Related Links

Note that throughout January and February donations made to the Seanchai Library SL will go to the real world charity Doctors Without Borders! Have questions? IM or notecard Caledonia Skytower.