June 2017 – Page 7 – Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

Lab announces updates to LindeX and credit processing fees

Posted on June 14, 2017May 23, 2020 by Inara Pey

On Tuesday, June 13th, Linden Lab announced updates to LindeX and credit processing fees, which will come into effect from Monday, June 19th, 2017.

These changes will see an increase for those purchasing Linden dollars on the LindeX and some of those paying out higher volumes Linden dollars. Specifically:

The fee for purchasing L$ on the LindeX will increase from $0.40 (USD) to $0.60 (USD) per transaction.
The fee structure for process credit transactions (i.e. paying real money into PayPal or Skrill accounts) will remain as a 1.5% fee with a $3 (USD) minimum, but the maximum fee per transaction will increase from $15 (USD) to $25 (USD).

The blog post explains the reasons for the increases as:

Underlying SL’s successful user-to-user L$ economy and the ability to buy and sell L$’s for real currency is a significant amount of ongoing work to ensure that everything remains compliant with applicable laws and regulations, while also preventing fraud and money laundering.

Investing in improvements to these processes and the ongoing compliance work required comes at a cost to Linden Lab, and we will be making some LindeX fee adjustments in order to share a portion of those costs with Residents active in the SL economy.

As there have been various reports of issues being experienced by some trying to cash-out, the news of the increases is unlikely to be welcomed, whatever the reasons for any delays being experience or however valid the reasons for increasing the charges.

Lost dreams in Second Life

Posted on June 14, 2017April 9, 2021 by Inara Pey

Les Reves Perdus – click any image for full size

Les Reves Perdus (“Dreams Lost”) is a public homestead region designed by Chanell (zaziaa), which Caitlyn and I were drawn to visiting after seeing a photo by Wurfi, a fellow photographer and blogger. Described as “an original world of dreams and creativity, with the atmosphere of nature,” it is a place visitors are invited to enjoy and photograph, and it does indeed present a relaxing landscape in which to wander and spend time.

Placing the region is a little hard; there is a touch of provincial France about it, together with a little twist of Tuscany, thanks to the villa occupying part of the region. The low-lying parts of the island, however, could be representative of just about any temperate coastal / marshland area in the world. Nevertheless, the theme works, and everything comes together to create a charming, photogenic scene.

Les Reves Perdus

A visit starts on the low-lying part of the island, at the end of a dirt track which gently undulates along an avenue of trees, leading the way to a set of stone steps which rise to the highland reaches of the region, of which more anon.

Mostly grass-covered, this lowland is home to grazing sheep and horses, with the greenery broken up by bright splashes of rapeseed and wild flowers. It is also split into two, linked via stone and log bridges, with some marshy outlying areas sitting a short distance across the water to the north and north-west. Over the bridges, the land is more divided between grass and sand, the former giving way to a widening arc of the latter, offering plenty of places to sit and enjoy the view out over the open waters to a sailing ship lying off the coast, or inland over a shallow bay, fed in part by a horseshoe waterfall, to the cliffs of the highlands.

Les Reves Perdus

A lone outcrop of rock rises from the south-eastern end of the beach, a wooden cabin sitting on its flat top. A rope bridge spans the narrow neck of water separating it from a promontory on which sits another cabin, the two offering a cosy place for couples. From here, it is possible to climb up onto the higher ground – but I don’t recommend it: there is neither a path for doing so, nor is the immediate landscape designed to be seen from this side.

Instead, the best way to appreciate the upland area is via the track and stone stairs near the landing point. These will take you up to a broad, largely flat plateau where the Tuscan villa sits, a tide of wild grass and rapeseed washing around it and held at bay from reaching the pool in front of the villa by bushes and bright flowers. Deer roam this wild garden, while the villa’s dining room is set for a formal meal, and its outhouse offers a lounge area with light refreshments. Climb the stairs of the villa, and you’ll enter the realm of an artist, whilst beyond the walls of the villa, the land grows wild on one side, and offers a small orchard on the other, an old pick-up truck offering another place for couples to snuggle.

Les Reves Perdus

Les Reves Perdus makes for a charming visit, and the default windlight offers plenty of scope for photographs and the region as a whole presents plenty of scope for those who like to use their preferred windlights or like to experiment. This is an ideal place to visit if you’re seeking some quiet time on your own or with a friend. Caitlyn and I took certainly found it relaxing to sit on a hammock chatting, while looking out over the water to where the little folly sits amidst the pinks and greens of the marshy outlands.

SLurl Details

Les Reves Perdus (Borneo Isle, rated: Adult)

Second Life Windlight environment enhancements

Posted on June 13, 2017May 23, 2020 by Inara Pey

As I recently reported, Linden Lab are starting on a set of Second Life environmental enhancements, including the ability to define the environment (sky, sun, moon, clouds) at the parcel level. These changes to the environment controls are quite extensive, and wrap a number of ideas together into a single project.

On Tuesday, June 13th, Rider Linden, who is leading the work made a preliminary document on what is being considered available via the Simulator User Group meeting. In it, several enhancements to the windlight environment capabilities are outlined, and are summarised below – please read Rider’s document for the full details.

Environment Inventory Asset

A new asset type that can be stored, managed and traded through the Second Life inventory and the Marketplace. This asset type will:

Comprise a Sky asset for adjusting atmospheric effects, clouds, the sun,moon and stars; and a Water asset for controlling the environment under the surface of Linden water and the appearance of the surface of the water)
Allow users apply any environment settings, viewer-side (they will not affect how others see things) directly from inventory. When dismissed by the user, the environment reverts to the current parcel or regional environment settings.

Parcel-based Environment Settings

This will allow parcel owners to apply their own custom day cycles and environment settings independently of the region settings, and which will be applied to all viewers entering the parcel. Estate owners / managers will be able to explicitly disallow parcel owners in their estates from setting a custom environment.

The new environmental inventory asset will soon make it possible for users to set the sky, lighting, etc., they see in their viewer directly from inventory, while parcel environment settings will allow parcel holder to set the environment in their parcel (subject to region override), which will be seen by all visitors to the parcel

Experience Based Environment Settings

Two new two script functions will allow LSL scripts to change the environment for an individual agent (avatar), providing the agent has accepted the associated experience. Setting the environment for an agent through LSL will override any region or parcel environmental settings and freeze the day cycle for the agent. Leaving a region will dismiss any changes made by either of these functions.

The two new functions are currently outlined as:

llSetAgentEnvironment(key agent_id, string environment, float transition)

Where:

agent_id: The participating agent’s UUID
environment: The name of an environment setting in the inventory of the prim. This item may be either a sky or water setting
transition: The number of seconds over which to gradually apply the new settings.

Sets the agent’s environment to match the environmental settings identified by environment. Passing a null key in environment_id will restore the environment to the parcel or region settings. A script may set water and sky settings independently.

llAdjustAgentEnvironment(key agent_id, list env_params, float transition_time)

Where:

agent_id: The participating agent’s UUID
env_params: A list of environment parameters to be applied to the agent. Any parameters omitted from the list are unchanged
transition: The number of seconds over which to gradually apply the new settings.

Sets specific environment settings for this agent. Environmental parameters not specified in the params list are taken from the current environment and frozen. Passing an empty list will restore the environment to the parcel or region settings.

Extended Day Cycle and Extended Environmental Settings Parameters

The day cycle for a region or parcel may be set between 4 and 168 hours (7 days), and may contain multiple sky and water settings spaced over the course of a day. The environment will smoothly interpolate from one setting to the next over the course of a day.

Further, all adjustable environment fields may be recorded in a sky or water settings object, and in addition the following fields may also be changed:

cloud_noise – the UUID for texture describing cloud noise pattern
cloud_texture – UUID for a texture describing the base cloud texture
moon_texture – UUID of a texture used to render the moon
sun_texture – UUID of a texture used to render the sun
wave_texture – UUID of the normal map used to render waves.

Feedback

Again, please note, all of the above are preliminary ideas for the work, and shouldn’t be necessarily taken as being set in stone. As Rider Linden said in the meeting:

[Here’s] what I’m planning scope wise in very broad strokes. I’d love to hear some feed back over the next couple weeks.

This being the case, those with an interest in contributing ideas and suggestions, etc., about the work are initially invited to do so through the forum of the weekly Simulator User Group meetings, which are held every Tuesday, between 12:00 noon and 13:00 SLT, in Denby. Details on the meetings can be found on the Simulator User Group wiki page.

Lab issues Second Life account security tips / warning

Posted on June 12, 2017May 23, 2020 by Inara Pey

Linden Lab has issued a reminder / warning about the need for Second Life users to keep their account details secure.

It comes as a result of tools such as viewer “wrappers” (third-party applications which must be launched in order to run the viewer) which effectively takes away a user’s ability to control their account. by making changes to both the account password and the e-mail address associated with the account (thus effectively preventing the user from ever recovering their account). In some cases, these viewers / wrappers may even effectively pass control of an account to another user.

All of the above is not only dangerous in terms of account security / integrity – it is also against Linden Lab’s Terms of Service.

The blog post carrying the warning is reproduced in full below, was issued by the Governance Team. It is designed to clarify the use of such viewers / wrappers, and provide Second Life users with guidelines on keeping their accounts secure. Please read and keep in mind.

Hey everyone,

It’s recently come to our attention that there has been an increase in the use of a third-party tools that give account credentials and control over a Resident’s account to another Resident. This and similar products can change an account password and/or details, such as email address, which could prevent an owner from accessing an account, or even from being able to recover the account.

We want to remind everyone that giving another Resident access to your account or account information, by any means and for any reason, is both dangerous and not permitted by the Terms of Service. An account is intended to be used solely by its creator, and keeping your account details secret and secure helps you keep it that way.

We’d like to provide you with some quick tips on how to keep your account secure:

Choose a secure password with upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, spaces, and symbols, and avoid common dictionary words or phrases. For instance, “password” is not a good password, but “wh4tAr g@t4P55!” is much better (though you shouldn’t use that last one either, now that all of Second Life just read it, too).

Choose a secret security question answer. To keep your information extra secure, choose an answer that you will remember, but that no one else could possibly guess. For example, answering “What is your favourite vacation spot?” with “Potsdam, Pennsylvania” isn’t secure if you have that listed as an interest on your social media accounts. Answering “The Wide Wide World of Sports” might be much more secure!

Keep your password and the answer to your security question secret from everyone, regardless of their relationship to you. Only you should know this information; not your significant other, family member, casual acquaintance, person with an honest look in their eye, or anyone else.

Keep your password unique and special to Second Life. Reusing the same password across different platforms or websites makes your account vulnerable if one of those sites suffer a data breach.

No Linden will ever ask for your password. Likewise, there is never a reason for you to enter your password to unlock an item, receive a discount, or anything else.

Use only the official Second Life Viewer, or a Third Party Viewer from the Third Party Viewer Directory. If the viewer does not allow you to log directly into your account for any reason, the viewer is NOT secure.

You can read more about keeping your information secure on the wiki at Linden Lab Official: Password Protection

If you have any problems accessing your account—especially if you believe that your password or security information may be known to anyone other than you—please contact the support team by opening a support case.

Thanks for keeping your account secure!

– Governance Linden

Floating worlds and Dutch proverbs in Second Life

Posted on June 12, 2017January 1, 2022 by Inara Pey

*The Vordun: Pictures of the Floating World*

Now featured at The Vordun Museum and Gallery curated by Jake Vordun, are two new exhibitions Caitlyn and I recently dropped in on, and which make for an engaging visit.

The first, and most recent, is Pictures of the Floating World, occupying the gallery’s South Wing. This takes visitors in to the world of ukiyo-e, (literally “picture[s] of the floating world”) a form of Japanese art using woodblock prints and paintings which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Ukiyo (“floating world”) refers to the hedonistic lifestyle enjoyed by the merchant class of Edo (modern Tokyo) who were at that time benefiting the most of the city’s economic expansion, and who became one of the prime audiences for the art, purchasing it to decorate their homes.

Much of this is explained in the foyer to the exhibit, via an informative wall panel together with notes on how ukiyo-e were / are made (see the image below). Such is the design of this foyer area, it is as much a part of the exhibition as the images themselves, and deserves the time taken to read the information offered. Beyond it, 20 images of ukiyo-e art are presented, each with its own information tag which provides the name, artist and date of creation for the piece.

If I’m totally honest, I’d have preferred the prints to be somewhat larger: ukiyo-e is a beautiful art form, and the small size of the works here do make it difficult to fully appreciate some of them, and having to zoom a lot can intrude into one’s appreciation of individual pieces. But make no mistake, the is an exhibit well worth seeing and appreciating – I particularly like the central themed display of five images focused on the shamisen musical instrument.

Also on the south side of the gallery is Proverbs of the Low Countries, which opened in May. Reached via a short hallway, it comprises a single, large reproduction of Pieter Bruegel The Elder’s The Blue Cloak (or Netherlandish Proverbs or Flemish Proverbs or The Topsy-Turvy World, depending on your preference), painted in 1559. This is a truly remarkable piece which may at first seem a chaotic, nonsensical rendering of somewhat comical people; in fact it contains no fewer than 112 illustrations of Dutch language proverbs and idioms, offered together as a commentary on human folly.

Finding your way around the 112 proverbs – many of which transcend Dutch use and will be recognisable to English speakers (and probably familiar to those from other European nations as well) – is made possible through the use of a dedicated HUD. Instructions on obtaining this are provided on the wall of the hallway leading to the painting, so please be sure to read and follow them in order to be able to properly appreciate the piece.

*The Vordun: The Blue Cloak (1559) by Pieter Bruegel The Elder*

Floating Worlds and Proverbs are two considered, informative exhibitions which again demonstrate both the uniqueness of The Vordun in the art presented there, and just how informative / educational / enjoyable an art exhibition can be in Second Life. Don’t forget as well, that when visiting the gallery, you can also enjoy the long-running European Masters, 300 Years of Painting (which you can read about here), and Winning a delightful exhibition showcasing the 51 winning entries from four years of The Arcade’s photography competition.