Marx Catteneo is a name perhaps known to some. He’s been involved in Second Life since 2007, and has made his mark as a machinima maker with an eye for detail, as with his video of the 2012 Fantasy Faire, and a quirky sense of humour which has created Staying Alive, a somewhat different take on the SL zombie scene to that portrayed in the official promo videos…
As a successful applicant to the 2013 Artist in Residence programme, Marx opens up the doors on the machinima film-making process in May as he starts work on his new web series Nin9, and is offering SL residents the chance to see the sets of the 9-part series, which will be debuting in Spring 2013.
The Streets of Felice, Michigan – a part of a set from Nin9
Set in the fictional city of Felice, Michigan in late 2000, the series is described as a dark and disturbing psychological thriller playing in an alternative reality and which influenced by the likes of Se7en, Twin Peaks, Hitchcock, Basic Instinct, European Graphic Novels. The introduction to the series frames the story:
Francis Maddox, lieutenant and head of the homicide division at FPD, comes across a very nasty Neko murder. It has all signs of a serial killer’s first victim. The crime scene brings back traumatic events from Francis’ past. The investigations will lead him into the seductive world of Neko strippers. Will he be able to withstand the charms of Layla? Is she just a colleague of the first victim, is she involved herself, or is she next on the killer’s list?
The set is currently open to public viewing from now until the 15th of May, when filming the series commences. Built by Rachelle Raviprakash, it packs-in an incredible amount of detail into the comparatively small space of a single region, which beautifully renders the run-down heart of an aging city. Several of the principal locations are present, including the Police Headquarters for District 13 and the strip club where (I assume) the mysterious Layla works.
I’m not sure if the region will remain open to the public during filming, or only open between the times when shooting in going on. The LEA blog post on the project suggests the former might be the case, but without sight of a filming schedule, it’s hard to be sure.
If you do opt to pop along and filming is going on, do note that the region is rated Adult, and that Nin9 is aimed “at an adult audience (it’s not porn but there will be nudity and violence). European graphic novels have a long tradition in this kind of adult genre and many of them are on the edge of art and entertainment (Moebius, Enki Bilal, Jacques Tardi, Schuiten & Peeters).”
Update, May 10th: Alex Kadochnikov has posted a further piece on the recent FInCEN interpretive guidelines on virtual currencies.
The recent change in the ToS affecting the use of third-party exchanges for L$ transactions was apparently accompanied by an e-mail from the Lab to such exchanges asking them to cease trading / cease trading in Linden Dollars.
So far, and as reported on Hypergrid Business, around eight exchanges have suspended trading in Linden Dollars while seeking clarification from the Lab as to whether / how they can continue to provide a service to users. Whether the suspension turn into an outright cessation of trading / operation obviously depends on the response obtained from the Lab.
Additionally, Oz Linden contacted TPV developers via the Opensource Development mailing list, stating:
Linden Lab has made a change to the Terms of Service – see the blog post at
If you are a viewer developer, and your viewer includes use of a third-party exchange for functions like ‘buy L$,’ it will need to be changed to use the LindeX instead.
Some are speculating that the move is as a result of the FinCEN issuing a set of interpretive guidelines on virtual currency (which I commented about in April), possibly related to limiting the Lab’s exposure where other exchanges are concerned. As I’ve stated in comments following-up on the news piece on the change – and while, inevitably, IANAL), I’m not altogether convinced by those arguments per se, because there is nothing in the FinCEN guidelines which appears to fundamentally impact LL’s exposure in this regard – rather, they and third-party exchanges appear to be in the same boat where FinCEN’s guidelines are concerned.
US Treasury’s FinCEN: examining virtual currencies
However, this is not to say that I think LL’s move is entirely unrelated to the FinCEN guidelines being published in March. Again, as I’ve commented both in this blog and elsewhere:
I would add that where there is a potential overlap between the two (the FinCEN guidelines and the SL ToS change), inasmuch as by attempting to limit any exposure of L$ to third-party exchanges and confine trading to LL’s own mechanism (the LindeX), the Lab might be trying to strengthen their position that the L$ is a “gaming token” rather than a “virtual currency” – which cuts to the heart of the core difference in their interpretation of the Linden Dollar’s status, and how FinCEN might regard it.
Of course, even in doing this, the Lab doesn’t escape FinCEN’s view that they are effectively a Money Service Business (MSB) and as such, are required to register as such with the US Treasury and meet regulatory requirements and adhere to anti-money laundering and other periodic reports. Some have suggested that the Lab may as a result face escalating costs in attempting to meet these requirements which may render the Linden Dollar, as we know it today, unviable to the company. However, as I stated back in April:
… there would appear to be questions as to how justified concerns over compliance (and the cost thereto faced by the Lab) actually are.
When it comes to money laundering in particular, Linden Lab already has a number of safeguards in place. Whether these are compliant with any requirements specified by the US Treasury is open to debate … However, it would seem unlikely that such safeguards would be without reference to any legal / regulatory compliance, even if they only meet the bare minimum required.
Thus, how much additional work and expense would be required on LL’s part should they have to become a registered MSB isn’t that easy to ascertain; so dismissing them as being unable to comply, or that cost of compliance would be something the company would be unable to bear would appear to be perhaps premature.
However, it is reasonable to suggest that if this move is related to FinCEN, then quite possibly it is just an initial step, one which may well be followed-up in the coming months by further changes as the Linden Dollar’s overall status is further clarified as a result of dialogue between LL and FinCEN. Whether such additional result in the Linden Dollar becoming a closed currency without “real” value is entirely open to debate and beyond the considerations of this piece.
There is another question to be asked here as well. Which is this: while it might be unwise to totally dismiss FinCEN as having nothing to do with LL’s change in policy, are there other reasons why LL would make this move?
Well, yes there are. Here’s a couple:
It could actually have arisen as a result of the discovery of a fraudulent activity or situation which simply could not be ignored, and the Lab had to take drastic steps in order to ensure the door was firmly slammed shut on the matter
It might simply be an attempt to ring-fence the buying and selling of L$ for direct revenue gain. As WolfBaginski Bearsfoot points out, LL are potentially missing out on around $500,000 in transaction commissions going through VirWoX alone. While this may sound trivial, it could go some way to offsetting declining revenue from tier (which in 2012 amounted to approximately $762,000).
Then there is the way in which the change has been announced. If the reason behind it is purely a response to FinCEN setting out its stall in relation to virtual currencies, why couldn’t the Lab have indicated this to be the case? At the very least, and with more considered up-front communication blog-wise, it would have avoided the current levels of confusion, angst and speculation. And why the need to act in such an abrupt manner? It seems odd that if this course of action has arisen from the moves by FinCEN, the Lab explain the situation to users and third-party exchanges alike and give both X number of days to prepare for the changes to come into effect. Were they perhaps afraid that doing so would lead to a run on demand for L$ through third-party exchanges?
It is possible that whatever prompted the change to the ToS may never be known – particularly if it was, as mentioned above, related to a specific fraud-related situation or activity which the Lab could not afford to ignore.As such, this one change – allowing for the current confusion and speculation it has created – is liable to be the end of things,
However, if it is as a result of the rumblings coming out of FinCEN as they cast their eyes across virtual currencies, then this might just be a foretaste of further changes to come.
As noted in week 18, Andrew Linden has been working on fixing a bug related to Meeroos (but which I’ve seen affecting other animals as well).
If you turn your camera away from a crowd of Meeroos, wait several seconds, then turn back around… the Meeroos will be updated, but not quite in the right order. So sometimes you’ll see a head move to the new position, then a fraction of a second later the rest of the body. So I have a theoretical fix that doesn’t crash the simulator (anymore)
Reporting on the situation at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday May 7th, he said, “Right before this meeting I was rounding up some meeroos to do some testing on the beta grid. The bug is theoretically fixed, but I’ve yet to actually see it work. We’ll be testing this week.” If all goes well, the fix may well be progressing towards an RC release in the near future.
“Missing Prims”
Still no major news on this issue in terms of a lasting fix becoming available. Commenting on it again during the Simulator User Group Meeting, Andrew Linden said:
We were having trouble reproducing it on one of our more recent viewers; the viewer that will eventually go along with the recent interest list fixes, is currently stalled for a mysterious crash bug.
We think the “right click to make the object show up” bug is related to loading of object cache in the viewer and that loading code has had an overhaul in this recent viewer project. So we think the bug is fixed there, but we have yet to test it a lot. Because there is a crash bug we’re still trying to track down.
“Missing” prims – viewer-side fix stalled; code might be made available to TPVs anyway?
The question was asked if the code could be made available to TPVs as it is, even if prone to crashing. Doing so might provide extra eyes on the problem which may both help to resolve the issue and fix the crash issue. Andrew replied to the question by saying, “Oz asked us to put that code out on a public repo, but that was before we realized we had a crash problem.” However, he agreed to take the request back to the office and see what the reaction might be.
Other Bits – Griefing Issues
There has been a long-standing issue with objects sitting on the region borders being very hard to return to their owners, and which has become something of an exploit where mainland griefing is concerned. It had been hoped that the fix for the issue would be deployed to the grid this week, However, in reviewing matters, Andrew linden regretfully reported that “It appears that ‘return of objects at region border’ bug fix is not deployed at the moment, as far as I can tell.” There is currently no date as to when this will be deployed,
Similarly, there is still no news as to when the particle muting capability (right-click on a particle to stop your viewer generating the particle stream in your world-view) might make a viewer-side appearance.
There are reports of a new form of particularly malicious griefing involving spinning / flashing objects which appear deliberately designed to trigger epilepsy or migraine. At the Simulator UG meeting, Simon Linden indicated that the Lab is at least aware of this form of attack.
Blocking Banned Users’ Objects from Rendering
A suggestion has been put forward at several Simulator UG meetings where griefing has been discussed that all objects on a parcel belonging to a user banned from that parcel for griefing should no longer be rendered for other users within that parcel.
This is seen as a particularly useful option at events, etc., where time would otherwise be taken up in trying to locate and return objects which may have been left behind when banning the user, and / or in telling other people in the parcel how to mute offending objects from their view.
Commenting on this as a possible server-side capability, Andrew Linden said, “More fidelity of visibility on a per-parcel level would further complicate things that are already fairly complicated. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it would be tricky and I would worry about lag issues… server lag as it picks up more work.”
However, after a discussion on the viability of viewer-side blocking and server-side blocking, he commented, “I’m hip… if visibility of banned owners’ objects were to be done… it would probably be easiest to do it at the server.” Even so, there would still be a range of issues to deal with, were such a capability to be put into place. As it stands, it appears to be more a case of food-for-thought than a definite step to be taken.
Forced Object Return
Another griefing attack is one which sees an object deposited in a region but which doesn’t actually trigger until after the region is restarted. This means it gets included in the region back-up – and any subsequent region restart, leaving it free to annoy.
A suggestion was put forward at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday May, 2nd to force a return of all objects in a region which are not set to the required Group as a part of the region restart process. This idea gained some support at the meeting and might have resulted in a feature request being filed. However, it is not without issues of its own – such as with regions where Group object rezzing isn’t a requirement, where it could result in a lot of items which might otherwise have been “safe” returned to their owners.
It is said that the greatest mystery surrounding the Lindens is that of the disappearance of Magellan Linden, the great explorer of these lands. However, Magellan isn’t the only Linden to vanish under mysterious circumstances while exploring these lands – there is another. His name is – or was – Professor Linden.
“Who?” I hear you say – and not without reason; for compared to the great Magellan Linden, the good Professor is rarely, if ever, mentioned. There are many reasons for this: Magellan, of course, opened up the continents for settlement and was ever pushing at the boundaries of the world to discover new places to explore and claim them in the name of the Lindens. He was a Hero (and as some might have it, a bit of a rogue with innocent young women), and many expeditions have been launched to try to discover his whereabouts (or fate).
Professor Linden, on the other hand, was always of a much lower public profile – or as his fellow Lindens prefer to put it, “completely barking mad”. This is because of his persistently stated belief that these lands were once the realm of a great and benevolent dragon, who was to many a friend, and a guardian to all before changes to the world led to his passing. Such was his conviction on this that the good Professor actually vanished while attempting to find what was left of the great dragon.
Some say he actually found it.
But how much truth is there behind the Professor’s belief and his disappearance? Did he really find the evidence he sought, or is he even now hidden in a cosy, padded room in the Battery Street basement? I decided to set out to find the truth.
Cape Ekim
My investigations led me to what had once been an untamed island far to the south and east of the great continents. On this island, in more recent times, the Moles had raised up a huge development of Linden Homes, leaving only the northernmost parts of the island untouched, preserved as a protected wilderness. And it was in these northern reaches, my sources informed me, that the Moles had uncovered part of an ancient road.
So it was that I travelled to Cape Ekim, where I found this ancient road – although “path” might now be a better description – its stones worn smooth with age, as they lead the way through a strangely rolling grassy landscape towards a distant tower which raised a battered head above the low hills and ridges bordering the winding path.
At length the road brought me to a strange a wonderful coastline, complete with standing stones which reminded me of the Giant’s Causeway, beyond which lay that lonely and battered tower, connected to the land by a great stone bridge.
Those logging-in the Second Life on Tuesday May 7th, 2013 were confronted with the need to accept the platform’s terms Terms of Service (ToS) once more. An official blog post on the matter states:
When you log in to the Second Life Viewer today, you’ll be asked to accept an updated Terms of Service. As with any legal document, it’s important to read in its entirety before accepting, but we wanted to highlight one of the changes we’ve made in this update: to better protect Second Life users against fraud, the updated Terms of Service make it clear that trading of Linden dollars (L$) on exchanges other than the LindeX, Second Life’s official L$ exchange, is not authorized or allowed.
As the official exchange owned and operated by Linden Lab, the LindeX is the best place to buy and sell L$ for use in Second Life. It consistently offers the best rates for both buyers and sellers, and by limiting L$ trading to the exchange we operate, we are better able to protect users against fraudulent activity.
The majority of Second Life users who purchase L$ do so through the Second Life Viewer by clicking on the “Buy L$” button. There will be no change to that function, as these orders are placed directly through the LindeX. Similarly, shopping on Marketplace will not be impacted.
The post also includes a link to the Knowledge Base article on the LindeX and the Quick Tips video on getting and spending Linden Dollars.
The core change to the ToS is section 5.3, which has been revised to read:
Third party exchanges are not authorized by Linden Lab and Buying or Selling Linden dollars on third-party exchanges are not authorized transactions. Third party exchanges are wholly distinct from both the LindeX exchange and Linden Lab and they have no affiliation with Linden Lab. We do not endorse or otherwise guarantee the legitimacy of the Linden dollar transfers offered on them, and we are not liable for purchases of such Linden dollars. Buying or Selling Linden dollars anywhere other than the LindeX is done so solely at your own risk. If you Buy Linden dollars that are traced to unauthorized credit card activity or other fraudulent activity, we will recoup these Linden dollars from your Account. The only authorized exchange is the LindeX.
All reference to any third-party exchanges using the Lab’s “Risk API” tool has been removed from the ToS, and the Risk API wiki page has been removed from the SL wiki, although the deletion log is retained for reference purposes.
Bay City reaches its fifth anniversary this year and the community there is inviting everyone to join in the celebrations!
The very first project undertaken by the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW), Bay City was officially unveiled in May 2008 and has since grown into a thriving and vibrant community.
Celebrations will kick-off around midday on Sunday May 19th, 2013, with a special parade which will line-up at the bandshell in Bay City – Harwich prior to setting out along Route 66 at around 12:30 and making its way to the Bay City Fairgrounds in the North Channel region.
A live concert will then be held at the Fairgrounds, starting at 13:30 SLT and featuring Christov Kohnke, CelticMaidenWarrior Lancaster, and RoseDrop Rust, with GoSpeed Racer of KONA Stream providing music leading into the event.
All Residents of the Second Life grid are invited to participate. Celebration goods are already available at the Bay City Community Centre, in the Daley Bay region, for those who wish to be a part of the parade, and able viewing area is provided. The music event is also open to all who desire to attend.
About Bay City and the Bay City Alliance
Bay City is a mainland community, developed by Linden Lab and home to the Bay City Alliance. The Bay City Alliance was founded in 2008 to promote the Bay City regions of Second Life and provide a venue for Bay City Residents and other interested parties to socialise and network. It is now the largest Bay city group, and home to most Residents of Bay City.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 