Day: November 22, 2022

2022 SUG meetings week #47 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Green Story, September 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 22nd, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

At the time of writing, a server deployment thread had yet to be published.

  • On Tuesday, November 22nd, the Main SLS and Events channels were updated with the single fix designed to keep regions from running out of voice connections (BUG-229984 “Voice chat is not working” and BUG-7371 “Voice cannot connect”).
  • On Wednesday, November 23rd, simhosts the RC channels will be restarted without any deployment.

Upcoming Simulator Releases

The run of simulator updates through to the new year will likely comprise:

  • Link sounds will most likely the last roll of the year (this should behave exactly as though you had a script in the linked prim and called llPlaySound from that prim).
  • llGetSimStats updates are liable to be the first update of 2023.
  • llHTTPRequest updates (see below) will likely follow later in January 2023.
  • LSDFindKeys sorting updates will most likely be fixed in the first simulator maintenance release for next year.

Available Official Viewers

No changes to any of the current batch of official viewers, leaving them as follows:

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.7.576223 – MFA and TOS hotfix viewer – November 1 – No change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.8.576431 on Monday, November 14.
    • VS  2022 RC viewer, version 6.6.8.576310, issued November 4 – utilises Visual Studio 2022 in the Windows build tool chain.
  • Project viewers:
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.576331, issued on November 3.
      • This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.3.575529,  issued on October 12.
    • Performance Floater / Auto-FPS project viewer, version 6.6.5.575378, October 4.
    • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.

In Brief

  • BUG-232171 “Issue with regions becoming full, but still showing available prims” – this is been causing noticeable issues recently, with a lot of speculation that it may be a griefing vector. However, the important point with the issue is that LL know what the cause actually is, and will be addressing it.
    • BUG-229382 “Vehicles stopping dead at region borders” may be related to this issue.
    • BUG-BUG-227303 “collisions makes a script stop running and revert its mono status” was also raised later in the meeting in relation to Mono concerns.
  • Concerns have been raised about bout removing the LSO bytecode compiler (non-Mono), leaving only the Mono compiler (the run-time environment for LSO scripts would remain – it just wouldn’t be possible to compile new scripts via the LSO compiler or re-compile updated scripts using it).
    • These issues (apparently related to rapid rezzing of objects  and / or some vehicles the Mono control scripts behaving badly at region crossings) have not been the subject of any bug report(s) and so lack documented details. A Jira has been request.
  • A core part of the meeting was given over to combat systems and providing improved means of projective operation (in part related to the Mono discussion above) – please refer to the video for details.
  • BUG-37727 “Regex for LSL” may have a better chance of being implemented now that Regex is exposed to LSL via Linkset Data.
  • With the implementation of LSD, an suggestion has been made to add publicly editable key-value pairs that could be set in the build window via object owners, and then accessed via scripts using an interface similar to Linkset Data. A  similar suggestion has also been made within the forums, however, that does not appear to be a feature request Jira for these ideas (at least at the time of writing this summary).
  • BUG-232551 “We need significantly more RAM for scripts in non-attachments” was raised in discussion;  it has been accepted by the Lab, but no indication of when it it  might be actioned, or how.
  • Rider Linden is playing some enhancements to LSL for 2023, including (but not limited to) allowing a response to an HTTP request with the contents of a notecard.

Alex Riverstone’s Melancholia in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
NovaOwl Gallery, November 2022: Alex Riverstone

After my almost back-to-back forays of late into art exhibitions that either focus on, or lean towards, hybrid art and the use of AI tools (notably MidJourney), I thought I would do a little course adjustment and offer a look at some Second Life based photographic art. To that end, I trundled off to NovaOwl Gallery, curated and operated by ULi Jansma, Ceakay Ballyhoo & Owl Dragonash.

It this there, within the ground-level gallery space, that people can find – through until the end of 2022 – an exhibition of art by Alex Riverstone, an artist whose work I have appreciated for some to and always enjoy witnessing.  This is a modest exhibition, featuring a baker’s dozen of pictures by Alex; however, it stands as proof that quantity isn’t necessarily everything: quality accounts for more.

Second Life has allowed me to enjoy it in a different way: allowing the exploration of scenes, poses and angles which wouldn’t be practical in the real world.

– Alex Riverstone

NovaOwl Gallery, November 2022: Alex Riverstone

On first viewing the exhibition, I was struck by the apparent disconnect between its title – Melancholia – and the subject matter of the images presented.

In purely medical terms, melancholia is a subtype of depression, characterised by a number of symptoms such as severely depressed mood, pervasive anhedonia, and lack of emotional responsiveness. As a concept, it has a history dating back to ancient medicine in Europe, and was long regarded as one of the the four temperaments matching the four humours. However, whilst the pieces Alex presents within the exhibition can be called many things – artistic, picturesque, engaging, and so on – none immediately strike one as being of a depressed or melancholic nature when looked upon.

However, in their visual richness they do encompass another interpretation of “melancholia”, one popular in the Renaissance when it was taken as a sign of artistic genius; and there is plenty of artistic expression to be found in each of these pieces from their initial composition, through their processing and presentation and finishing with their titles, such that each one stands as a unique image capable of carrying our imaginations into a world of self-made narrative.

NovaOwl Gallery, November 2022: Alex Riverstone

And it is within that narrative that we chose – as this is purely subjective – to see some of the images as how aspects of melancholia might be visualised in a picture or painting. For example, take the Duality images (7, 8 and 9). within them are hints of melancholic traits we might chose to see: the absence of anyone to enjoy the flying kites and the puppies on the bridge perhaps echoing feelings of anhedonia; the empty chairs speaking to the loneliness of depression / melancholy; the tree with its suggestion of a figure hanging by their wrists from it suggesting despondency. Others, through their titles perhaps whisper more keenly on the subject – as with the Wall and Lonesome Cottage.  Even the loungers of Summer Holiday, fading into the white-out of the picture as they  do, might be taken as a metaphor for the emptiness of melancholia.

But these interpretations are, as note, entirely subjective. Whether you opt to see then or prefer to take  the presented pieces purely as an expression of Second Life’s multifaceted beauty really doesn’t matter; this is Second Life photography rendered as art in a manner that is genuinely captivating and worth visiting.

SLurl Details

Seanchai Library: shorts, movies and thanksgiving

Posted on by Inara Pey
Seanchai Library

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library – and this week previews the launch of a very special event.

As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home in Nowhereville, 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.

Monday, November 21st, 19:00: Reality Check

In a bizarre future, It takes place in a bizarre future, the technological singularity has occurred. The world have now become a place of biological fabricators, eight-legged cows, talking dogs, microscopic surveillance bots, and mid-life genetic upgrades for humans.

Life is not easy for many in a world where everyone is subject to police and government surveillance, and married couple Joe and Maddie are trying to make their way on their a small farmstead, trying to remain as unnoticed as possible.

But one morning, they are forced to drive off a “farm” a mix of machine, Ai and human, that has decided it is going to fly to Jupiter – and to do so, it intends to use an mix of enzymes and tree sap which, when combined, have a habit of wiping out all life in the area. To prevent this, Joe sets out devising the means to destroy the farm without the police becoming aware of his intent.

At the same time Maggie withdraws into herself, and Joe believes he may have to use a back-up and recreate her through the fabricator. However, he, the farm and Maddie are about to come together in the most unexpected of ways.

Gyro Muggin’s reads the 2003 short story by Charlie Stross.

Tuesday, November 22nd, 19:00: Tales from Life: Lesser Known Stories from History that Read like Fiction

With Caledonia Skytower at the fireside.

Wednesday, November 23rd, 19:00: Seanchai Flicks

The Seanchai cinema space shares Halloween-themed video adventures.

Thursday, November 24th, 19:00: Alice’s Restaurant

A Seanchai Library Thanksgiving tradition with Shandon Loring.

As Thanksgiving arrives in the United States, Shandon Loring presents singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie’s famous 1967 musical monologue, Alice’s Restaurant Massacree (also popularly known as Alice’s Restaurant, and the inspiration of the 1969 Arthur Penn film of that name, starring Guthrie himself).

Aside from the opening and closing chorus, the song is delivered as the spoken word accompanied by a ragtime guitar. The story is based on a true incident in Guthrie’s life when, in 1965, he (then 18) and a friend were arrested for illegally dumping garbage from Alice’s restaurant after discovering that the town dump was closed for the Thanksgiving holiday.

What follows is a complicated, ironic and amusing story told in a deadpan, satirical tone, which encompasses fines, blind judges, guide dogs, 27 8×10 copiously annotated glossy photos related to the littering, frustrated police officers, the Vietnam War draft and, ultimately, the inexplicable ways in which bureaucracy moves to foil itself, just when you’ve given up hope of foiling it yourself.

Don’t be late – the entire presentation is just 20 minutes in length!

Advanced Notice: The Dickens Project

The Dickens Project has officially announced an opening date of December 8th, 2022 and will run through until January 3rd, 2023. Old favourite guests and features will return along with an exciting new land configuration and new collaborators. Details to be published in due course!