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Updates for the week ending Sunday, February 23rd
This summary is generally 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 Current Viewer Releases 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. This page 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.
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version 6.3.7.535996, formerly the Yorsh Maintenance RC, dated February 7, promoted February 20 – NEW.
InSight’s scoop hovers over the HP3 mole. Credit: NASA / JPL
It’s now close to 15 months since NASA’s InSight lander arrived on Mars (see Space Sunday: insight on InSight for an overview of the mission and Space Sunday: InSight, MarCO and privately to the Moon for more on the mission and InSight’s Mars arrival). In that time the lander has completed a lot of science, but one thing has remained an issue: the HP³ experiment.
This is one of two surface experiments InSight placed on Mars, and comprises a base module and a long, slender self-propelled probe called the “mole”, designed to “burrow” its way down into the the sub-surface to a depth of up to 5 metres, towing a sensor-laden tether behind it designed to measure the heat flow from the planet’s interior. The mole has an internal hammering mechanism that is designed to drive it deeper into the ground, but this relies on friction against the material forming the walls of the hole it is creating – and this hasn’t been happening.
After a good initial start, the probe came to a halt with around 50% of its length embedded in the soil. At first it was thought it had hit solid bedrock preventing further motion; then it was thought that the mole was gaining insufficient traction from the hole walls, on account of the fine grain nature of the material it was trying to move through.
The HP3 “mole” showing the spring mechanism and “hammer” it drives into the ground. Credit: DLR
By mid-2019, engineers thought they had a solution: use the scoop at the end of the lander’s robot arm to compact the soil around the lip of hole in the hope of forcing sufficient material into the hole it would provide the traction the probe needed to drive itself forward. When this failed, the decision was made push the scoop directly against the side of the probe, pinning it between scoop and hole wall to again give the probe the traction it needed.
Initially, this approach worked, as I noted in Space Sunday: a mini-shuttle, Pluto’s far side & mole woes, but then the mole “bounced back”. Since then, the probe’s progress has been a case of “three steps forward, two steps back”, making some progress into the ground and then bouncing back – a source of much frustration among the science team.
After a year with the mole more-or-less “stalled”, mission engineers have decided to take more direct action. The decision has been made to try to “push” the probe using the robot arm’s scoop. This means placing the scoop on the top end of the mole – an approach that has so far been avoided out of concerns to might damage the sensor tether as it emerges from the same end of the probe. However, in manipulating the lander’s robot arm and its scoop over the course of a year, engineers are confident they can avoid harming the tether.
This latest effort to get the mole into the surface will take place in late February / early March. If it is successful, the team may revert to using the scoop to once again compress the sides of the probe’s hole to try to provide it with further traction as it continues to dig down into the subsurface material. Should the attempts fail, it’s unclear what might be tried to get the mole moving again; the mission team admitting they have “few alternatives” left to try.
How to Deflect an Asteroid
On April 13, 2029, an asteroid in the region of 370 metres in length and 45 metres across will pass by Earth at 30 km/s no further away from the planet’s surface than some of our geostationary satellites.
Called 99942 Apophis, an object I’ve written about in past Space Sunday articles, it is one of a large number of potentially hazardous objects – asteroids larger than 140 m in length that in crossing the Earth’s orbit as both they and the planet go around the Sun, pose a potential risk of one day colliding with us, with potentially devastating consequences. When it was discovered in 2004, initial tracking of Apophis suggested it could collide with Earth in 2029. Further observations of the object showed this would not happen, not would it do so the next times it passes close to Earth in 2036, 2068 and 2082.
Extinction level event: a very large asteroid impact. Credit: Anselmo La Manna/YouTube screenshot
Which is not to say Apophis or 101955 Bennu, or one of the many other PHOs – Potentially Hazardous Objects – that are being tracked might one day strike Earth. The tipping point for such a collision comes down to such an object passing through, or close to, it’s gravitational keyhole. This is a tiny region of space – perhaps only 800 metres across – where gravitational influences – notably that of Earth – are sufficient to actual “pull” an objects course onto a collision with Earth.
Currently, plans to try to prevent such an impact revolve around identifying when an object has passed its particular keyhole, making an collision inevitable. There’s a reason for this: identifying where an objects keyhole might lie isn’t a precise science, and relies on scientists known an awful lot, including things like the size, mass, velocity and composition of these objects, what forces might be at work to influence their orbit, and so on. However, by leaving things until after an object has passed its keyhole means the time available to try to divert it is relatively short, perhaps months or just a couple of years or so, leaving very little time to plan and execute a mission to prevent any such collision.
Better then, to identify when an object is liable to pass close enough to its keyhole that it it will be drawn into a collision path. This would provide a far greater lead time for planning how to deal with it. This is exactly what a team of MIT researchers are suggesting in a part that also defines a framework for deciding which type of mission would be most successful in deflecting an incoming asteroid.
It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home unless otherwise indicated. Note that the schedule below may be subject to change during the week, please refer to the Seanchai Library website for the latest information through the week.
Sunday, February 23rd
13:30: Tea-Time Special: Death on the Nile
First published in 1937, Death on he Nile is one of Agatha Christie’s most famous and enduring Hercule Poirot murder mysteries. The book has been the subject of multiple theatrical, film and television adaptations, most of which had by necessity condensed elements of this tale of love, jealously, and betrayal to more readily fit the requirements of their format.
Now, Seanchai Library continues to present the opportunity to enjoy the story in full – and within a setting inspired by the novel, as Corwyn Allen, Da5id Abbot, Kayden Oconnell, Gloriana Maertens, and Caledonia Skytower bring Christie’s characters once more to life for us to enjoy.
The Karnak – Death on the Nile
So, why not join Poirot as he cruises aboard the river steamer Karnak in a trip along the Nile – although a tour of the sights is unlikely to be high on his priorities given murder is a fellow passenger.
18:30: The Secret Garden
Caledonia Skytower continues this classic of children’s literature by Frances Hodgson Burnett, first published in 1911, at the Golden Horseshoe in Magicland Park.
Orphaned after losing her parents in a cholera epidemic, young Mary Lennox returns to England from India, entering the care of her uncle Archibald Craven, whom she has never met.
Up until this point, Mary’s childhood had not been happy; her parents were selfish and self-seeking, regarding her as a burden over which they were not obliged to hold much responsibility. Not overly healthy herself, she is as a result a temperamental, stubborn and unmistakably rude child – and her arrival at Misselthwaite Manor and the relative gloom of Yorkshire’s weather does little to improve her mein.
Her disposition also isn’t helped by her uncle, who is strict and uncompromising, leading to Mary despising him. But her uncle’s story is itself filled with tragedy, particularly the loss of his wife. As she learns more about her uncle’s past, so Mary learns about a walled garden Mrs. Craven once kept, separated from the rest of the grounds and which, since her passing has been kept locked by Mary’s uncle, the door leading to it kept locked, the key to it buried somewhere.
Finding the missing key and the now hidden door, Mary enters the garden, and her passage into it starts her on a journey of friendship and discovery, one that leads her to the thing she never really knew: family.
Monday, February 24th 19:00: Out of the Silent Planet
The first novel in C.S. Lewis’s classic sci-fi trilogy which tells the adventure of Dr Ransom who is kidnapped and transported to Mars.
In the first novel of C.S. Lewis’s classic science fiction trilogy, Dr Ransom, a Cambridge academic, is abducted and taken on a spaceship to the red planet of Malacandra, which he knows as Mars. His captors are plotting to plunder the planet’s treasures and plan to offer Ransom as a sacrifice to the creatures who live there, and his discovers that he is special as he comes from the ‘silent planet’ – Earth – a world whose tragic story is known throughout the universe…
Join Gyro Muggins for more.
Tuesday, February 25th 19:00: The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains
Willow Moonfire reads from Neil Gaiman’s Tale of Travel and Darkness
Two men, bearing both guilt and secrets, and not really known to one another, set out on a journey to reach the Misty Isle where, it is said, there lies a cave filled with gold from which a many might take as much as he can carry.
One bears guilts he can both forgive and not forgive of himself, the other bearing his own secrets. The reasons for the guilt and the secrets gradually come to the fore as they travel across a landscape as bleak and as hard as their lives. Along the way, they encounter others, travellers, householders, and a ferryman. They are similarly hard and suspicious, and also reflect the Jacobite landscape of Scotland where they reside.
Over time, MacInnes, the taller of the two and the one that knows the way to the cave, reveals more of it to his smaller, guilt carrying companion, warning that the cave carries a particular price for those who seek it: It strips away a little bit of anyone who enters.
Wednesday, February 26th, 19:00: A Matter of OF Dreams
Ktadhn Vesuvino reads a further story from the Liaden Universe.
Thursday, February 27th
19:00 A Pocketful of Crows
The bonny brown girl, lives in the forest, unnamed, untamed. Her people, the “travelling folk”, have no need of towns, or houses, or linens. Nor of each other, save at occasional seasonal gatherings. The Brown Girl lives in the wild, inhabits the wild creatures when she wants to hunt in the forest, or soar through the sky.
Then one spring day, the day before May Day, she meets William, a young royal, and quickly falls in love. Though she denies being in love, and swears to remain wild, William insists on giving her a name, Malmuira, the Dark Lady of the Mountains.
“Thus are you named, my brown girl. Thus do you belong to me.”
Join Shandon Loring as he continues this tale of love, loss and revenge. Following the seasons, A Pocketful of Crows balances youth and age, wisdom and passion and draws on nature and folklore to weave a stunning modern mythology around a nameless wild girl. Also in Kitely – grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI).
21:00 Seanchai Late Night
A special session this week with Shandon presenting Frederick Pohl’s The Day of the Boomer Dukes.
Open through until Sunday, March 22nd at the Lost Unicorn Gallery is Razor Cure: Man of Many Faces, an exhibition of art by Razor Cure.
A Second Life photographer with a lean towards self portraiture, Razor doesn’t so much present characters and settings in eye-catching images, but actually inhabits the character he creates. some of these are born entirely of his imagination, others inspired by film or legend, while all of them reveal a man in love with stories, as he notes in writing about himself:
I go by Razor Cure, the name itself semi-borrowed from a book I was reading when I made my SL account … I came to SL for naughtiness, after my favour game, City of Heroes, died (and its back now, woo!) and ended up getting into picture taking. Now most of my time here is spent hunting for cool new outfits and attachments, exploring sims, tweaking poses…
The Lost Unicorn Gallery: Razor Gallery
This love of inhabiting characters and telling stories is very much in evidence in the pictures selected for this exhibition. Within it, we can join with Harry Potter at Hogwarts, ride a magic carpet with a Prince of Persia, watch as a Baby Groot borrows a certain stone-laden gauntlet, confront a Joker-esque villain or a masked anarchist; all of whom are framed in in a manner that sets them within a story our imaginations can unfold.
Alongside of these are pieces that might be regarded as more “traditional” avatar studies: the ring master, the cowboy, the hunter, and characters from fantasy. But again, Razor makes them characters he can inhabit, rather than just offer them as static studies, again making them stories in art.
The Lost Unicorn Gallery: Razor Cure
Man of Many Faces sits within the main hall of the Lost Unicorn and several of the surrounding halls. This both provides plenty of space for Razor’s art without overwhelming the visitor whilst also offering gentle encouragement to explore the other gallery spaces and the art and artists they have to offer.
Little World, February 2020 – click any image for full size
Back in September 2018 we visited Little Havana and its neighbour, Voodoo In My Blood. The former was a joint design led by Sofie Janic, the latter largely the work of Megan Prumier. You can read more about that trip here). Given the length of time that has passed, together with catching an image taken by Cecilia Nansen whilst she visited the region set me to thinking a return might be in order.
Little Havana has now gone – possibly for a while, given the amount of time since our last visit – and it has been replaced by Little World, a design again led by Sofie, together with Abaracdabra, and that is apparently still under construction. It’s a place very different to Little Havana but it retains the same photogenic attractiveness that has already brought it to the attention of SL photographers.
Little World, February 2020
The landing point sits on the south side of the region on the bridge linking it to Voodoo Land (which was called Voodoo In My Blood back in 2018, and of which more anon). From here, a road climbs to the east behind tall buildings with their backs to the water, steps point the way north and up to where an urban scene sits under a default sunset sky.
Neon is very much the order of things here, bright signs thrusting out into a narrow street that is in places made narrower by parked vehicles. Street-side eateries fill the air with steam from cooking foods, while steel shutters denote places of business that have closed for the night. Overall, the sense that this is a little corner of Japan is strong along this street – but that’s not to say the build as a whole is meant to represent a location in Japan.
Little World, February 2020
A second north-south street is home to an open market, rich with fruit, vegetables, fish, flowers and, in a throwback to times past, VHS tapes. While the signage on the buildings either side might be Japanese, the price tags and signs in the market are distinctly western. Thus, the sense that Little World is a melting pot of influences in the way of so many urban centres around the globe so often are.
Connecting the two streets at their northern ends is a cobbled square offering an open air café and a space for music. West of this sits an echo of Little Havana in the form of a narrow ribbon of beach. Little fishing boats that look to be more for decoration then for fishing sit moored against a deck sitting over the waves.
Little World, February 2020
While the buildings are shells, Little World offers many opportunities for photography, with locations further brought to life thanks to the local “residents” – human and feline! Photos are welcome at the region’s Flickr group.
Across the bridge, Megan Prumier’s Voodoo Land remains much as we remembered it from 2018. There’s a “new” store area on the west side, with Voodoo still sitting on the east side of the region overlooking the bay. South of this, the region retains its run-down Americana look, complete with ageing buildings and its tired, open beach front that is packed with detail and extends around to a fun fair in the south-west corner.
Little World, February 2020
There are other subtle changes here as well – the high pier and boat moorings have gone, but a new English-style pub appears to have been plonked down on the hedgerows and paved paths on the west side of the region. I’m assuming this is a temporary location for the pub, and that it may yet be moved. There’s also an underground section I don’t remember from 2018 – but that could have simply been missed during that visit.
Like Little World, Voodoo Land presents multiple opportunities for photography and exploration, with both making for an ideal joint visit.
The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on February 21st, 2020. No video this time around, as Pantera was unable to attend, so the notes are taken from my audio recording of the meeting.
SL Viewer News
The Yorsh Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.3.7.535996 and dated February 7th, was updated to de facto release status on Thursday, February 20th.
The remainder of the current SL viewer pipelines are as follows:
EEP RC viewer updated to version 6.4.0.536347, February 11.
Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.3.7.536179, February 10.
Camera Presets RC viewer, version 6.3.6.535138, January 24.
Project viewers:
Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17, 2019. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.
General Viewer Notes
The next potential view promotion to release status is seen as being EEP, with Vir indicating that LL do not plan to promote any other viewer prior to EEP, unless there is a significant blocker.
After EEP, the next likely candidate for promotion is currently the Lover Me Render viewer.
The new Premium Plus subscription viewer-side code updates will soon be appearing in an RC. This is a set of log-in code changes required for easier management of values, etc., set for different Premium levels. At this point, the code will not interfere with anything.
The Camera Presets RC viewer is having some additional UI work done as a result of it experiencing a higher than average crash rate.
EEP Status and Deployment
As per Ebbe Altberg’s comments during the Lab Gab session of February 21st (see: for the video and a bullet-point summary), and the notes above, EEP will be moving to official release status very soon. With it comes notice from the Lab – with apologies – that:
It is no longer a goal with EEP to make all environments across Second Life appear *exactly* as they do under Windlight.
Because of this, some content may look different under EEP lighting than it does under Windlight.
This means some region designers and some content creators may have to make adjustments to their region environments / their content for optimal viewing with EEP.
There will be some known issues with EEP when it is released, but the belief is that these will be minor.
There will be fixes for rendering issues following EEP, mostly likely through the Love Me Render project.
If there are what LL consider to be “significant” breakages, then effort will be made to address these.
Ebbe’s comment on EEP can by heard between 44:10 and 46:45 in the official video of the Lab Gab session.
In Brief
BUG-228227: “Avatar face darkens when sitting on an object” – this is a lighting-related issue that appears to have been introduced with viewer release 6.3.6.535003 (formerly the Xanté RC viewer). It is a known issue and a fix should be appearing in the next maintenance viewer which should hopefully resolve the majority of these issues.
BUG-227179 – “All offline inventory offers from scripted objects are STILL lost” – remains an issue, but an internal request has been made to raise the priority so that investigation and resolution might move forward sooner rather than later.
It is hoped that the viewer caching work will reach project viewer status fairly soon.
There is a known issue of the viewer release pages and index not updating correctly to reflect the current status of viewers (e.g. at the time of writing, 6.3.6.535003 is still listed as the default release viewer, when in fact it is 6.3.7.535996).
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 