Kiosks at the Isle of View are offering a range of gifts – candy, chocolates, bunting, teddy bear, roses – any of which can be purchased and sent to a loved one. All of the proceeds from gift purchases will go to Team Fox, the fund-raising arm of MJFF, and the Lab are also guaranteeing to match the final total raised and so double the donation.
And that’s not all. This year sees the return of two popular items from times past, as the blog post notes:
We understand that love is sometimes complicated. You have got to work hard to make it work – and we’re not afraid of a little tough love. On February 12th from 10am – 12pm and 2-4pm SLT we’ll be mixing things up with the return of Dunk-a-Linden and Hug-a-Linden booths! You may just meet your virtual Valentine while waiting for a chance to dunk or hug a Linden – and if you don’t – hey you still got to dunk or hug a Linden! It’s a win-win situation.
So make a note for Friday, February 12th!
To find out more about Team Fox, the MJFF and Team Fox in Second Life, you can read my article here. And don’t forget Team Fox is also supported by Creations for Parkinson’s in-world as well.
There are no server deployments planned for week #6. The reason for this is that most of the staff directly involved in developing and enhancing the platform – the engineering team, product teams, etc., are meeting to discuss plans for further enhancements and improvement to Second Life in the coming month, as existing projects such as Bento continue to unfold.
This more than likely means the next deployment will take place Wednesday, February 17th, 2016, to at least one of the RC channels.
This also means the detailed project information is liable to be a little light this week as well.
SL Viewer
The HTTP / Vivox RC viewer was updated post my last SL projects Updates in week #5. Version 4.0.2.310660, issued on February 4th. This update includes three new fixes:
MAINT-6055 [corehttp] Win or Mac – voice does not stay connected on resume from sleep
MAINT-6064 Voice disappeared after rejected IM call
MAINT-6108 Cannot turn off ‘Console Window on next Run’ option in develop menu.
There has been no promotion to release viewer for any of the current RCs, which leaves things as follows for the release channel and project viewers:
Current Release version: 4.0.1.310054, January 15 – formerly the Maintenance RC viewer download page, release notes
RC viewer (+ the HTTP / Vivox RC above):
Maintenance RC viewer version 4.0.2.310545 released on February 2 – 38 updates. fixes and tweaks (download and release notes)
Quick Graphics RC viewer updated to version 4.0.2.310127 on January 20 – Avatar Complexity and graphics pre-sets (download and release notes)
Project viewers:
Project Bento (avatar skeleton extensions) version 5.0.0.310099 released on January 20 – adds 90+ bones to the existing avatar skeleton (download and release notes)
Oculus Rift project viewer updated to version 3.7.18.295296 on October 13, 2015 – Oculus Rift DK2 support (download and release notes)
Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847 dated May 8, 2015 – Windows XP and OS X older than 10.7 (download and release notes)
Open Development Meeting
The Open Development (also called the open source developer meeting), hosted in-world by Oz Linden, will be moving from Monday to Wednesday from February 17th, the time remains unchanged.
Core User Group Meetings
As a reminder, information on current LL technical user group meetings can be found on the SL wiki, and are summarised here. Meetings have an open attendance, but please note that are specifically for discussing the subjects listed. Question on matter such as support issues, the Terms of Service, LL’s general policies, etc., cannot be addressed at these meetings, which are chaired purely by members of the engineering and QA teams.
Tuesday, 12:00-13:00 SLT: Simulator User Group (formerly the Server / Sim Scripting group) – Simulator issues and technology. Held in text chat. Meeting SLurl
Wednesday, 07:00-08:00 SLT: Open Development – discussion of SL development, including open source contributions. Held in text chat. Meeting SLurl
Thursday, 13:00-14:00 SLT Project Bento – Avatar Skeleton Extension project. Held in voice + text chat. Meeting SLurl (Aditi): Mesh Sandbox 2
Thursday, Server Beta User Group (SBUG) – server changes and public beta testing. Held in text chat. Meeting SLurl (Aditi): Morris
There is also the TPV Developer meeting, held on alternate Fridays, which is specifically aimed at TPV Developers, and which is primarily held in voice.
Overhead view of the revised island layout with the new beach location and moorings for our two ‘planes. Also visible is the more watery mid-level of the island
I’m always fiddling around with the island home – as regulars to these pages know only too well! While the changes made in December left us happy with the overall look and feel to the place, I still found one or two things niggling me. Fortunately, Caitlyn is very understanding of my need to fiddle, twiddle and generally play around with mesh and prims, so when the niggles reached a point where I wanted to start doing the fiddling and twiddling, she handed me the prim glue and loads of encouragement 🙂 .
Three things in particular had been playing on my mind: the boat and plane slips, which still looked a bit excessive to my eyes. So over the past few weeks as time has allowed, I’ve been introducing changes, adding new (and novel) moorings for our two motorboats (no, I’m not saying how the moorings are novel; we have to have some secrets!) and re-working the west and southern sides of the island, as well as the “mid level” part of the garden.
In particular, the west side of the island has had the beach and the winding rock path leading down to it from the house removed. While the path looked good, the physics on it also made ascents and descents along it look a bit awkward in my eyes, avatars often seeming to walk on air. It also, when all is said and down, took up a lot of space.
The ‘planes at their new mooring below the house
The path has now been replaced by a set of stone steps leading down the cliff in a switch back, while the beach has been replaced by a stone jetty and moorings for our two DSA aeroplanes. The TUFF stone steps kit proved very handy for all this, providing the means to add the steps and made the jetties. A mesh system, it is nicely modifiable, parts easily resized and re-textured. The latter being handy for us, as it allowed the steps and jetties to be textured to match the stonework of the rest of the island’s ruins (those interested in the kit can also see it at Rya Nitely’s in-world store).
Moving the ‘planes has allowed the southern end of the island to be tided-up, with the mass of moorings there replaced by a couple of stone jetties (courtesy of the TUFF stone steps kit again). These provide both moorings for our Loonetta 31 and the boats or seaplanes belonging to visiting friends, and protects our relocated beach from the tide.
The revised mid-level part of the island, partially flooded, but retaining the “bathhouse” and now with a little pot for the garden hammock
The other change we’ve made is to make the mid-level of the island a little more watery. After installing the outdoor bathing area, the falls and their source pond looked a little unnatural. Solution: “flood” the level with water from a smaller fall exiting from the upper cliffs, and provide a sense of it flowing down to the falls. Stone foundations have been added to the “bathhouse”, increasing the feel of it being part of the island’s old ruins, and board walks now provide passage over the water channels.
Overall, I think the tweaks suit the island, as does Caitlyn. Certainly, having an uncluttered southern end to the place, where we can sit on sun loungers and watch the passing vessels and occasional race through the regions, gives the place a much nicer appearance. And that now really does seem to be job done – so if you’re very lucky, this might be the last time I witter on about the island 🙂 .
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 