The 23rd edition of Lab Gab will be live streamed on Friday, April 24th at 10:00 SLT (18:00 UK; 19:00 CET). For those who have not seen the official blog post about it, the segment will feature the team primarily behind EEP – the Environment Enhancement Project: Rider Linden, Ptolemy Linden and Euclid Linden.
Rider Linden is a Senior Software Engineer who has been with Linden Lab for just over five years – although his familiarity with Second Life goes back beyond that, as he is one of the many personnel LL have recruited from the ranks of Second Life users. He was responsible for initially defining the EEP project. He then went on to develop the viewer controls for EEP, taking considerable feedback from users along the way, as well as working with the rendering team during the project’s development.
Ptolemy and Euclid Linden are more recent hires at the Lab, both are working on the rendering side of Second Life. Both have been Lindens for around 6-7 months, although I confess I have no idea if their familiarity with SL extends back further than that. Since joining the Lab’s team, both have been engaged in clearing-up the rendering issues with EEP and have been regulars at the Content Creation User Group meetings.
Euclid, Rider and Ptolemy Linden will be joining Strawberry Linden to discuss EEP on Friday, April 24th
As EEP was officially released on Monday, April 20th, all three are appearing on Lab Gab to discuss EEP – but I have little doubt they’ll endeavour to answer more general questions on the viewer and rendering. If you have a question you’d like to put them, make sure you submit it via the Lab Gab Google form.
As usual, the programme will be streamed via YouTube, Facebook, Mixer, or Periscope, and if all goes according to plan, I’ll have a summary of the video (and the video itself) available soon after the the broadcast, for those unable to watch live.
The next edition of Lab Gab will be live streamed on Friday, April 17th, 11:00 SLT, and while it is not a show featuring a member of the Lab’s team, I’m mentioning it here because it will be featuring someone I consider to be an exceptionally talented woman, whose work oft runs entirely under the radar for most users – and the amount of work she puts into Second Life is incredible.
Caledonia Skytower is the director of Seanchai Library in Second Life, a post she has held for as long as I’ve known her, and in which she organises, frequently hosts and often designs, the groups activities and events.
For those not familiar with Seanchai Library, it is perhaps the longest-running group in Second Life devoted to bringing stories, literature, poems and more to life in Second Life and beyond through the spoken word. Founded in 2008, Seanchai Library has presented thousands of storytelling events across the grid, and in the process has raised thousands of US dollars for numerous charities. The group takes its name, which it formally adopted in 2010 two years after being founded, from seanchai (pr. Shawn-a-kee – a traditional Irish storyteller/historian).
As well as bringing a weekly series of readings and events at their headquarters at Holly Kai Park, Seanchai Library has also made numerous immersive storytelling presentations across Second Life, including their annual Christmas trip to Victorian England with The Dickens Project, and events such as an immersive telling of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, to name but two. In addition, Seanchai Library lends its skills to events and activities run by others across the grid.
The timing of Strawberry’s interview with Caledonia couldn’t be better, as this year marks Seanchai Library’s 12th year of activities in Second Life (They’ve also built a presence in Kitely), and next week they will again be supporting Fantasy Faire.
Caledonia Skytower (l) with Strawberry Linden on the Lab Gab set
Cale herself is a gifted theatre producer, writer and storyteller. She has also – whilst via in Second Life – brought the virtual and the physical together with a joint presentation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatesby with the Tacoma Little Theatre, which allowed audiences attending a stage performance based on the book to go into a virtual environment designed by Cale and Seanchai Library, and learn more about the novel, the period in which it was set and F. Scott Fitzgerald himself.
Given this, she will make an engaging guest on the show and offer people a real glimpse inside the work of Seanchai Library. As usual, the programme will be streamed via YouTube, Facebook, Mixer, or Periscope, so be sure to tune in!
My thanks to Berry for responding so positively to the suggestion Cale is approached to appear on the show.
On Monday, April 13th, Linden Lab announced the return of Last Names to Second Life. Also known as Name Changes, the feature re-introduces the capability for (some) users to select a last name, as the blog post explains:
Back in the day, Second Life Residents were given the option at registration of selecting from a variety of pre-determined “last name” options. The use of shared “last names” helped build community among Residents who found instant kinship and bonding amidst these newfound virtual family ties shared with strangers of the same lineage. Similar to the commodity of dot-com domains, some “last names” held a special status in the community. Some were extremely rare and, in some cases, there were perceived attributes and reputations associated with certain last name offerings.
However, the capability is more about last names, as I’ll cover in a moment, but first:
The History Bit
When the capability was withdrawn in 2010, to be replaced by Display Names and leaving all new sign-up with the default (and largely invisible “last name” of “Resident”, there was widespread outcry, accompanied by requests and demands that the option for people to once more pick there last name be re-introduced.
Such was this demand, that by the end of 2011, the Lab was actually thinking of bringing the capability back, as the then-CEO, Rod “Rodvik” Humble announced on his profile feed:
Former Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble (Rodvik Linden) raising the possible return of Last Names back in December 2011)
Rod even went so far as to indicate Last Names would return in early 2012 (see Last names back in January? from 2011).
In the end, however, everything got bogged down in exactly how Last Names should be re-offered: should in be from a list again, or free form? (see: Last Names: don’t over-cook the baking). And so, in early March 2012, Rod admitted via a blog post (that is sadly no longer available, but you can read my thoughts on it in Rodvik blogs: No Last Names), that due to assorted complexities, Last Names would not be coming back.
Nevertheless, the requests / demands for the ability to select a last name persisted such that in March 2018, the Lab announced they were once again working on a way to bring last names back to Second Life ( see: Last names to return to SL and more – Linden Lab). Just how complex a task it has been to return them is perhaps made clear by the fact that it has taken two years from that initial announcement to the official re-launch in April 2020.
That said, and despite the title of the Lab’s own blog post, it’s important to remember the returning capability is about more than just last names; it’s about the ability to completely change your avatar’s account name, if you wish – last name and / or first name. This is why the project has generally been referred to as Name Changes, rather than “last names”.
As such, it comes with some important points that are (again) worth noting:
It is only available to Premium subscribers, who may change their first name or their last name or both their first and last name whenever they wish.
First names are free-form.
Last names are selected from a list, with the available names updated periodically.
Once a first name+ last name combination has been applied to an avatar account, it cannot be used by any other account (so “Josephine Bloggs” cannot use Name Change to become “Inara Pey”).
It is possible for you to revert back to any previously-used name assigned to your account.
There is a fee applicable each time the capability is used.
At the time of writing, the free for Premium accounts is $39.99 per change (first name or last name or both first / last) or to revert to a previous name).
It has been indicated that Premium Plus, once introduced, will likely have a lower fee applied for Name Changes.
VAT at applicable rates will be added to accounts in VAT-paying countries.
Name Changes is not replacing Display Names – these will remain available at no charge to all who wish to use them.
Name changes are not being offered as a part of the sign-up process because:
It is a Premium benefit.
The Lab has data to show that asking users to pick a name from a list was actually a sufficient enough blocker to prevent many of them completing the sign-up process.
If you are Premium and use the Name Change capability, then subsequently downgrade to Basic, you will retain whatever avatar / account name you have at the time you downgrade. You will not not “revert” to any past name you may have had, and you won’t be able to change you name again until such time as you re-up to Premium.
Name changes are made via the Second Life dashboard, and you must be logged-out of Second Life in order to make sure any Name Change you make is correctly applied to your account.
As it is now possible for users to change their account names, it is vital that any scripted means of recording avatar details (e.g. for the purposes of purchase redelivery, or within security systems and so on) do so by avatar key (UUID) and not avatar name.
Now you can – if you are a Premium account subscriber – change your accounts first and / or last name. See my tutorial for how
Observations
While the return of last names has long been request, whether Name Changes will be seen as fitting the bill by all users is open to debate. Money is involved (and a not trivial sum at that), so that alone will likely raise objections among those who have not followed the progress of the capability.
The fee has been intentionally set at a level where for those who are attracted to it will not use it to excess. This is because Name Changes go to the very heart of a Second Life account, and thus touch every single element of the platform – from the name you see on the screen over an avatar to things like inventory data, land information, the things and products they make and / or sell, transactions they have made, the groups of which they are a member, and so on and so forth. As such, every name change impacts a range of services and databases which may sound “simple” in terms of field / array update – but which still have an impact.
Some might feel the left out by Name Changes being a Premium-only option, or just not worth the expense – and that’s why Display Names are remaining available.
I find myself entirely neutral on the matter. I’m fortunate enough to have an account name I’m unlikely to ever want to change, because after 13 years, it is very much a part of me. Even so, given the time taken to implement, the (albeit understandable) reason for the fee, etc., I actually cannot help wonder if Name Changes will actually generate the kind of return that will cover the 2-year cost of implementation. But then, if those who do use it are happy to have at least some means to change their name whenever they wish – does that really matter?
No-one from the Wookey management team was present at the meeting, in part because they have yet to have avatars made; however, their presence is expected at times in future meetings, when they’ll be able to talk more about Wookey Project Corp and their goals / view of Sansar.
Sheri Bryant, Sansar’s GM at Linden Lab, and now heading the team at Wookey; credited with bringing the deal together for Sansar to move to Wookey. Fun fact: she’s a huge Godzilla fan, and her Sansar avatar – Cowboy Ninja – features a Godzilla shoulder pet.
A shout-out from the Sansar team was given to Sheri Bryant. Sheri (aka Cowboy Ninja in Sansar) was the General Manager for Sansar at Linden Lab, and she is credit with leading the work in bringing about the deal between LL and Wookey Project Corp. She has also moved to Wookey, where she remains in charge of Sansar.
Many of the team are already with Wookey- attending the meeting were: familiar names: Binah (UI Engineer); Aleks (Product Manager); Galileo, Lacie, and Torley, (Production Director, Sansar Studios). While he wasn’t that the meeting, Boden was also mentioned as having joined Wookey as well, retaining his position as a Product Manager.
Also joining the meeting were some new (to me at least) names: Cynno (Art Production Manager Sansar Studios) and Sansar Studios (Colin – the Creative Director at Sansar Studios), both of whom report to Torley; together with Colo, the Director of Engineering and the Release Manager, and Steel, one of the QA Engineers.
Many positions are still being recruited into, and it was indicated that there are a number of engineering team positions that need to be filled, and these and the SARS-CoV-2 situation are slowing the full resumption of work on Sansar. In this latter regard, the Sansar team was less distributed than the SL team while at Linden Lab, with most of them office-based; this means equipment, etc., has been / is being sourced and shipped to their home locations to allow them to start remote working.
The meeting was also an opportunity to say farewell to Galileo as the Sansar Community Manager, who is departing the Sansar team as a result of having accepted a new position with Pocket Gems, a games development company. This means Lacie will be taking over as the official Sansar Community Manager, although Galileo will continue to be an active Sansar user and involved in the COMETS programme.
Roadmap
As has been indicated through various sources (see the Lab’s press release and the Sansar blog post both announcing Wookey’s acquisition of Sansar), the emphasis remains on building Sansar as an events platform that will attract “thousands”.
There is no public road map as yet, although it is promised that one will be produced – probably not as granular as the internal road map – and might be available in two weeks time at the next Product Meeting. However, current areas of focus comprise:
Continuing on from where things were left off.
Moderation tools development and deployment.
Narrowing the new users on-boarding experience – making it easier for people to get from sign-up to event; improvement the tutorials, etc.
Working on stability improvements for events.
Tip jars are seen as being on the “tail end” of the moderation / on-boarding work.
However, it will take a little while longer for work to ramp-up once more due to both the current SARS-CoV-2 situation and the need to recruit additional personnel.
Avatars, Vehicles, Edit Tools Improvements, etc
Due to the current state of play, a lot of the planned / promised engineering / dev work has already been pushed back further in the road map. Specifically mentioned in this regard were:
Avatar improvements.
Vehicles.
Edit Mode improvement such as folders for items, etc.
Allowing world creators to nominate “admin staff” to help run their worlds.
Creator access to the Backpack.
Collaborative building.
Sansar Mobile Service
Back when Sansar had yet to début, there had been talk of the platform being accessible from mobile devices. Ultimately, this got pushed to one side – but is now something of a priority.
Not much can be announced at this point in time other than:
It will most likely be a streaming service, initially for iOS and Android.
It will not (initially at least) support VR headsets like Oculus Quest.
Precise initial capabilities are still TBD.
Again, no time frame on when any first cut might appear, nor have potential fees been set.
Event Partners
MonsterCat, Roddenberry Entertainment and Fnatic will be returning to Sansar to host events.
There have been continuing talks with musicians and “major names” about coming to Sansar to perform. None of the specifics are ready to be announced as yet, but some may be ready by the time of the next Product Meeting.
General Notes from the Meeting
Support tickets before March 24th, 2020 need to be resubmitted, if still relevant.
The partnership with Marvelous Designer™ should continue as before.
Two-factor authentication for Sansar is “on the list” of things the team would like to implement. However, no time frame on when it might start to surface.
The entire approach with the Nexus is to be re-examined, specifically with the view to making it more linear for incoming users to get from it to the event they wish to attend / the most popular locations in Sansar.
It is still planned to eventually extend the ticketing system so that world creators can use it with events they organise / host.
The Sansar team is looking into improved documentation sharing, tutorials, offering tips and tricks through a wiki-style environment, world templates, etc.
Possible Changes to Accounts
Wookey / Sansar looking at things like the partnership with Steam, subscription options, and how they are structured, but nothing to announce.
The number of worlds a Free account can publish may be revised in the future. Whether this will mean those who have already published multiple worlds will be allowed to keep all of them or not if they have published worlds beyond the new limit, is TBD.
There will likely be a tightening of requirements for users organising Sansar events (e.g. events may only be hosted by “authorised / approved / trusted” – details TBD – accounts).
The 20th edition of Lab Gab live streamed on Friday, April 3rd, featuring Oz Linden, the Lab’s Vice President of Engineering and a member of the company’s management team, and April Linden, the Lab’s Systems Engineering Manager. They were appearing to primarily discuss the work in transitioning Second Life to commercial cloud environments. Ekim Linden had also been scheduled to appear, but was unable to do so.
The official video of the segment is available via You Tube, and is embedded at the end of this article. The following is a summary of the key topics discussed and responses to questions asked. Note that the first half of the video is related to the cloud uplift, and the second half to broader engineering-related questions.
April Linden has some 20 years of experience in systems engineering, and is genuinely passionate about Second Life. She first became involved in the platform in 2006 as a resident (and is still extremely active as a resident). She joined the Lab in 2013. She worked within the systems engineering team, and was promoted to her current position of Systems Engineering Manager, Operations, some 18 months ago. For her, the great attraction of the platform has been, and remains, the empowerment it gives people to express themselves positively.
Oz Linden joined the company in 2010 specifically to take on the role of managing the open-source aspects of the Second Life viewer and managing the relationship with third-party viewers, a role that fully engaged him during the first two years of his time at the Lab. His role then started expanding to encompass more and more of the engineering side of Second Life, leading to his currently senior position within the company.
Both are genuinely passionate and enthusiastic about Second Life and its users.
The bunny and the wizard who bring us Second Life: April Linden (Systems Engineering Manager, Operations) and Oz Linden (Vice President, Second Life Engineering)
Cloud Uplift is the term Linden Lab use for transitioning all of Second Life’s server-based operations and services from their own proprietary systems and services housed within a single co-location data centre in Tucson, Arizona, to commercial cloud services provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google.
The process of moving individual services to the cloud is called “lift and shift” – take each element of software, making the required adjustments so it can run within a cloud computing environment, then relocate it to cloud infrastructure and hardware in a manner that allows it to keep running and avoids disruptions that may impact users, and continues to run exactly as it did prior to the transfer.
The current plan is to have all of this work – up to an including moving all of the SL region simulators – to cloud services by the end of 2020.
Numerous services have been transitioned to date.
The Lab generally prefers not to discussion which specific services have been moved, to prevent users seeing the move as a placebo reason for issues they may be encountering, thus biasing their bug reports.
However, one service that is known to have moved is the inventory (asset) database, so that all users’ inventories are obtained via the cloud, and not from a dedicated asset cluster within the Lab’s co-lo facility.
With the services that have moved, the Lab has seen noticeable improvements in performance, partially as a result of cloud services using more recently / more powerful hardware configurations than the Lab can run without making a major new capital expenditure in equipment (which the uplift is intended to avoid).
A practical advantage of cloud operations is the ability for LL to scale services to meet demand. The recent increase in users logging-in to SL, for example, placed a strain on the services that feed the CDNs that in turn deliver the majority of asset data to users (mesh data, textures, sounds, gestures, clothing, etc.). These services we then able to dynamically scale to an increased number of nodes to handle the load, something LL would not have been able to do without first sourcing, installing ans configuring the required hardware.
Oz and April with Strawberry Linden (c)
What Improvements Might Users See from the Uplift?
Between now and the end of 2020, no appreciable different should be observable to users.
The move is initially being made to a single AWS centre, so things like ping times to regions (once they are moved) shouldn’t change.
In terms of reducing simulator-side lag, the answer is unclear, as simulators have yet to be tested – this is due to start with simulators internal to the Lab Soon™. This will enable the Lab to begin to get real numbers in terms of simulator performance.
It is believed that simply moving simulators to the more recent, more powerful hardware used by cloud services should on its own result in a modest improvement in simulator performance.
That said, the outcome of performance adjustments in distributed environments is “really, really hard to predict”.
Longer-term, as the Lab is able to start exploiting the advantages of being in the cloud, there is confidence performance will improved in various areas.
For example, if simulators can be distributed in accordance with the geographical locations of their primary audiences (e.g. simulators that tend to get the majority of their audience from South America being located in South America), then this could reduce network time in connecting to them for those audiences, and so help boost performance as seen by those users.
While this is a longer-term goal for the cloud migration (it’s not going to be there from “day 1”), it is a part of the motivation to make the transition.
Sidebar note: cloud services typically bill based on demand and usage. This has given rise in some quarters to concerns / beliefs that LL could find themselves facing unexpected large bills for hosting.
Two answers: the first is nothing is ever certain.
The second is, the Lab, with April and Ekim in particular leading the effort, put a lot of work into modelling their likely operations and costs when using cloud services and infrastructure.
This work involved a lot of assumptions on how LL anticipated their costs would look based on how the planned to operate SL in a the cloud.
This model was then put to both AWS and to an independent, outside consultancy with expertise in advising clients on the use of cloud-base service provisioning, both of who gave positive feedback on the approach the Lab would be taking and the likely costs involved.
Further, the fact that SL isn’t a service that dynamically expands under use. All of its services are operating 24/7, so the costs can be readily calculated and pretty much consistent, therefore, the dynamic surges that can lead to high service bills don’t actually apply.
While there are some back-end services that can leverage dynamic hardware use in times of heavy load, these are in the minority (all of SL’s back-end services account for only 15% of its server fleet), so again, dynamic increases in hardware use for those services that can leverage it, are not going to be massively excessive.
As such, and allowing for answer (1), the Lab isn’t overly concerned about costs spiralling.
Will There Be Cost Saving that Can Be Passed to Users?
Unfortunately, the engineering teams are not responsible for determining fees charged to users.
More practically, it is not going to be possible to make any informed judgements on costs to users until the Lab has had the opportunity to see how actual operating costs compare with their predicted costs model.
Further, it is not anticipated that any cost savings will be made in the first 1-2 years of cloud uplift, so any decisions on if and where to reduce costs to users won’t be made for a a while to come, and those involved in making such decisions are not in the engineering teams.
I recently reported (with updates) on the situation with Second Norway and Sailors Cove East (SCE), both of which were facing possible closure due to physical world issues, including the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic – see: Second Norway & Sailor’s Cove East: rumours & statements.
On Friday, April 3rd, Ey Ren, founder of Second Norway contacted me to request that people wishing to keep up-to-date with developments on both estates refer to his Bad Elf Blog, and I’m only too happy to point those concerned about the situation to that blog.
In particular, Ey has posted three updates, all dated April third, and summarised below:
24 SCE regions to Transfer Ownership
A transfer ticket for 24 of the 45 Sailor’s Cove East regions has been submitted today. Original co-founder of Sailor’s Cove, Patrick Leavitt, has stepped up to ensure that over half of the estate continues to exist.
Ey is Still Working to Secure a Future for Second Norway and the Rest of SCE
As per the notice presented by Mialinn Telling in her profile (again, see: Second Norway & Sailor’s Cove East: rumours & statements), Ey is seeking to secure a viable future for the estates and the regions within them. In particular he notes:
Outside of the SCE regions that will be transferred to Patrick mentioned above, there should be no significant changes to either estate before May 2020. In particular:
No regions should be taken off-line in April 2020.
Rental payments are suspended until such time as the future of the regions within each estate is determined and / or regions are transferred to new ownership (at which point rental agreements will need to be entered into with any new owners).
Ey is actively engaged in seeking new ownership to secure the future of as many regions as possible, and investigating the means to finance those regions which cannot be transferred to new owners. However, due to his personal situation, it is possible that some regions that cannot be transferred to new ownership could eventually be removed from the grid.
He also wishes to extend thanks to Linden Lab for all they have done in expediting the unlocking of his account and in providing leeway for him to seek alternative arrangements to try to save as much as possible of both of these estates.
Again, if you are a tenant of Second Norway or SCE, or wish to be kept appraised of the situation directly be Ey, please make sure you bookmark or subscribe to his blog.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 