Category: Second Life

2021 SUG meeting week #1 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Outer Garden – The Farthest Light – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, January 5th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting.

There were no planned deployments for 2021 week #1. It  is hoped that the deployment schedule will resume in week #2, depending on their run through QA.

SL Viewer

There have been no changes to the current crop of official viewers, leaving them as:

  • Current release viewer version 6.4.11.551711, formerly Cachaça Maintenance RC viewer promoted on November 12 – No Change.
  • Release Channel cohorts:
    • Dawa Maintenance RC Viewer, version 6.4.12.553723, December 15.
    • Custom Key Mappings project viewer, version 6.4.12.552100, November 12.
  • Project viewers:
    • Simple Cache project viewer, version 6.4.11.551403, issued on November 12.
    • Project Jelly project viewer (Jellydoll updates), version 6.4.12.552224, December 4.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, October 26.
    • 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.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

In Brief

Experience Keys

It is believed that the end-of-year experience keys issue (the XP_STORAGE_EXCEPTION problem, see my 2020 #week #52 update and BUG-229892) has been resolved. However it has been noted that some user may still be experiencing “lingering performance issues” with experience keys. Those experience any experience key issues are asked to contact Support.

Issues and Rumours

There were some issues experienced over the weekend, with users reporting an inability to rez and / or their avatars remaining as a cloud, and poor attached scripts performance. Rumours circulated about the issue being due to a “server” fire, and some reports appeared to have been  exaggerated (e.g. the issuing being open on Grid Status for “several hours”, when in fact it was reported as resolved some 45 minutes are initially appearing). Whilst not going in to specifics, Oz Linden noted that while there were issues, in terms of the circulating rumours, he noted:

It was much much less dramatic and interesting than that.

Map Tiles

Map tiles are still not being regularity updated, however the Lab both identified the cause of the issue and a possible fix. Progress is being made on the fix, however, it appears that it is taking time due to the Map code not having been touched in a good while.

General Post-Uplift Issues

While the core work of transitioning all SL services to AWS systems has been completed, there are still some niggling problems that are being dealt with – such as with the Map tiles (above) and on-going issues with things like the official viewer Splash screen updating, the land store, etc. The Lab is addressing these as they can.

Linden Lab gives cloud migration update & new ownership announcement (updated)

Posted on by Inara Pey
The former co-location cage used to operate Second Life and its services. Credit: Linden Lab

Update: since this post was published, Linden Lab have clarified the fact that the acquisition process is in fact complete, revising their comment on the acquisition process.  I have therefore revised the end of this post to reflect the updated comment on  the acquisition. See also: Meet Linden Lab’s new board of directors.

On Tuesday, January 5th, Linden Lab provided a short update on the cloud migration work and on the current situation regarding the company’s acquisition.

The physical move to AWS services was completed at the end of 2020, and the blog post expands on some tweets made by April and Soft Linden over the Christmas period.

In her December 23rd tweet, April Linden confirmed that the last of the Lab’s services had been migrated to AWS services, and that the remaining systems within the Lab’s (now former) co-location facility in Arizona had been powered off.

April Linden confirming the migration of the last of the SL services to AWS

In discussing the fate of the data held on the old hardware in late 2020, Oz Linden had indicated that Linden Lab had arranged for all of the hard drives from  the co-location facility would be shredded – and on December 31st, 2020, Soft  Linden tweeted that the work had been completed by a professional data destruction company, with a total of 10,588  hard drives and solid state drives that had been contained within the Lab’s old hardware had indeed been shredded.

Soft Linden on the shredding of the Lab’s old disk drives

The January 5th blog post builds on both of these tweets by providing a photograph of the cleared-out cage at the Lab’s former co-location facility, and a short video of drives being shredded, both of which I’ve included here.

Linden Research Acquisition Complete

Turning to the July announcement that an agreement in principle had been reached with an investment group led by Randy Waterfield and Brad Oberwager to acquire Linden Research Inc., (as Linden Lab is formally known), the blog post confirmed the acquisition process has been completed, and Linden Lab is now under new ownership:

Another noteworthy development for the new year is that Linden Lab has new owners! As announced in mid-2020, an investment group led by Randy Waterfield and Brad Oberwager signed an agreement to acquire the company subject to regulatory approval by financial regulators in the U.S. related to Tilia Inc.’s status as a licensed money transmitter as well as other customary closing conditions. We are pleased to share that the regulatory review has been completed and Linden Lab is now under new ownership.

At the time of writing, the official About Linden Lab page had yet to show any changes in the board structure to reflect the acquisition completion – I expect that will come in due course.

Read the official blog post for more.

Related Links

Tales and myths and letters from history in Second Life

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. 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, January 4th, 19:00: The Dark Bright Water

Gyro Muggins reads Patricia Wrightson’s second novel charting the life of Wirrun of the Inlanders.

First encountered in The Ice Is Coming, when Wirrun set out on a quest to overcome the rise of the ancient enemy of Australia, the ice-bearded Ninya, the young janitor now has a reputation as a Hero among the Inlanders (Wrightson’s fantasy view of the Australian Aboriginals). It’s not a title he appreciates; he would much rather just get back to his janitorial work.

But the spirits of the land are restless: Yunggamurra, a river spirit is lost, so uses her siren-like powers of song to draw to herself those who might might take her home. Her singing come to Wirrun’s ears, and those of an elderly aboriginal emissary, and he realises he must journey to the very heartlands of Australia to better understand what he is feeling.

This he does, with the old emissary and his friend Ularra. Once there, he discovers that a storm is indeed rising within the domain of the spirits, and he is uniquely placed to both find Yunggamurra and prevent the coming storm. And so his new adventure begins.

Tuesday, January 5th

12:00 Noon: Russell Eponym, Live in the Glen

Music, poetry, and stories in a popular weekly session at Ceiluradh Glen.

19:00: Written in History: Letters that Changed the World

WRITTEN IN HISTORY celebrates the great letters of world history, creative culture and personal life. Acclaimed historian Simon Sebag Montefiore selects over one hundred letters from ancient times to the twenty-first century: some are noble and inspiring, some despicable and unsettling; some are exquisite works of literature, others brutal, coarse and frankly outrageous; many are erotic, others heartbreaking.

The writers vary from Elizabeth I, Rameses the Great and Leonard Cohen to Emmeline Pankhurst, Mandela, Stalin, Michelangelo, Suleiman the Magnificent and unknown people in extraordinary circumstances – from love letters to calls for liberation, declarations of war to reflections on death. In the colourful, accessible style of a master storyteller, Montefiore shows why these letters are essential reading: how they enlighten our past, enrich the way we live now – and illuminate tomorrow.

Join Caledonia Skytower as she reads selections from this remarkable book.

Wednesday, January 6th 19:00: In Walt We Trust

More from Craig Johnson’s Sherriff Longmire Series with Kayden Oconnell.

Thursday, January 7th, 19:00 Monsters and Myths

The Pig’s Ploughman – Part 1, Shandon Loring presents another mythic adventure from the works of Bernard Evslin. Also in Kitely!  Find teleport from the main Seanchai World grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI.

Second Life land and users in 2020, via Tyche Shepherd

Posted on by Inara Pey
Sunset at home in Second Life

The last few months of 2020 saw Tyche Shepherd release some brief summaries related to Second Life that – as always – make for interesting reading for those interested in the general state of the platform.

In the first, a tweet Tyche issued in October, we were offered insight into general use of the platform in terms of sign-up and concurrency. It came as a the last in a brief series of tweets from Tyche on the subject that started after the Lab indicated that with the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, they were seeing an increase in general usage of the platform, particularly among returning users.

Following-on from Tweets in June -, Tyche confirmed that overall, median concurrency on the platform saw clear growth in March through mid-May (when the first ’bout of lockdowns hit a fair portion of the world  due to the pandemic, before gradually falling through until mid-August, when a further “bump” occurred that lasted through until October (when Tyche made her Tweet). She also showed that overall, median concurrency remained well above that seen in 2019.

SL concurrency, March-October 2020. Credit: Tyche Shepherd

That concurrency is up can be taken as a good sign; it means that more people are engaging in the platform at any given period, allowing greater opportunities for interactions  – which can be particularly important for incoming new users looking for things to do and people to meet. However, it is with regards to the latter that Tyche’s observations have been more mixed.

On the one hand, the second graphic included in her tweet appears to in part confirm commentary from the Lab itself: that 2020 has seen an upswing in the number of users returning to the platform, whilst also suggesting that – again, understandably, given the pandemic – that existing users were spending longer in-world in 2020 that had been the case in recent years. All of which is also to the good (particularly if returning users find reasons to maintain their engagement in the platform once more).

Second Life new user sign-ups 2020. Credit: Tyche Shepherd

However, on the other, the graphic reveals a niggling concern: whilst sign-up have remained relatively stable for a number of years, with occasional peaks and crevasses, 2020 saw a distinct decline in sign-ups from the end of March through until early October, despite an initial spike in sign-ups in the March-April period, again potentially fuelled by the pandemic. In particular, the drop-off not only saw sign-ups fall below the average set in the first two months of 2020, but also fall and remain below average sign-ups seen throughout 2019.

As such, Tyche’s figures tend to suggest that, while the Lab is determined to grow SL’s user base through the attraction of new users – a programme it has, to varying degrees,  indicated it has been focused on since around mid-2019 – there is still a lot to be done in this area, if the hoped-for growth is to be realised. However, this is somewhat tempered by the fact that given the rise in median concurrency is in part fueled by returning users, it demonstrates that the Lab is correct in focusing a portion of its marketing efforts towards former users who have drifted away for one reason or another.

Land use – or more correctly, grid size – is another metric Tyche tracks, providing as she does regular reports on the overall size of the main grid and the comings and goings of both private and “Linden owned” regions. While the relative size of the grid, if looked at in and of itself only, can be a false or misleading indicator of the overall state of SL, tracking the number of private regions does help in building a picture of LL’s core revenue flow – region tier.

On January 3rd, 2021, Tyche tweeted her year-end analysis on private region numbers, revealing that 2020 saw an overall net growth of some 919 private regions (Full and Homestead) through the year, representing a 5.7% increase.

Second Life private regions in 2020. Credit: Tyche Shepherd

The majority of this growth came in two bursts: mid-April through to the end of May (with one significant period of shrinkage during the week to Sunday, May 10th, 2020), and then November-December 2020, immediately following the period of unavailability of new regions through the mid-months of the year resulting from the work transitioning SL to AWS services.

While the increase in the size of the grid is not exceptional when compared to increases seen prior to 2011/2012, it is still positive, indicating that there is a general willingness among users to invest in land, helping the Lab’s bottom line. The uptick in 2020 has meant that when the general reduction of Linden-held regions through the year is taken into account, the total number of regions in the grid grew by 3.3%.

Given the difficulties of 2020, Tyche’s figures tend to show Second Life held its own through what has been what might be termed a less-than-optimal year. With the Lab looking to further ramp-up advertising in 2021 (and perhaps further tweaking of the on-boarding process), it’ll be interesting to see how the overall level of users / size of the grid fares through the year.

Related Links

The art of … well, me, actually!

Posted on by Inara Pey
Kultivate Loft Gallery, January 2021

As a rule, I’m not a great believer in self-promotion, however, I also have to admit to being delighted and honoured to be invited by John Huntsman to present some of my images of the places I’ve visited in SL in the opening exhibition of 2021 for Kultivate Magazine’s Loft Gallery.

As I’ve oft – and genuinely – stated, I do not consider myself as “artist” when compared to the many, many talents of genuine artists who have a genuine talent for bring Second Life and its avatars to life; my work is really attempts at illustrating the places I visit rather than trying to be any form of artistic statement. So, when I receive an invitation such as this, I am genuinely (and quite considerably) honoured and flattered. In  this case, very, very much so, given the calibre of artist who are generally invited to exhibit at the Kultivate galleries.

I’m also not great with opening events – I prefer to keep to the background and patter / putter around where I can’t be notice. However, and all things being equal, I’ll be at the Loft for the opening John and Tempest have arranged, and I hope that you’ll drop by either for the opening event from 12 noon SLT on sunday, January 3rd, or over the next few weeks and have a peek at the images I’ve selected for the exhibition.

Many thanks again to John and Tempest for arrange this exhibition.

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An Ambient Hideaway in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Ambient Hideaway, January 2021

Shawn Shakespeare got us off to our 2021 visits around Second Life with a suggestion we drop into Ambient Hideaway, a Homestead region that is a joint design by Yoyo Collas with the assistance of Mirias and Silly Snook.

A rugged setting currently caught beneath the cloak of winter, the region comprises a large island with a north-to south orientation with a smaller shelf of rock to the south-east, reached via a wooden bridge.

Ambient Hideaway, January 2021

Visits commence in the northern highlands of the main island, a plateau sitting atop cliffs rising from an icy sea.It is home to a cosy restaurant bar delightfully called The End in contrast to it actually being the start of a journey through the region. With seating space both indoors or out under the low-lying (mesh) clouds, the bar shares the plateau with a small hall where visitors can find out about the region’s photography contest which still had a few days to run at the time of our visit, the closing date being January 6th, 2021.

There are three routes down from this plateau, each of which offers its own opportunities for discovery. To the west, wooden steps and a board walk lead down to first a lower shoulder of the plateau and then to a finger of rock pointing west as a slender promontory. Deer wander here, and a wooden cabin lends the warmth of a fire within and that of a brazier to the rear, where the snowy slopes drop down over frosted rocks to the ice and cold waters of the sea below.

Ambient Hideaway, January 2021

Further steps  lead down to a deep bay that faces south-west, sitting between the western promontory and the southern lowlands of the main island. The bay holds within its arms a frozen beach and an old pier and deck extending into the waters, what might have once been a warehouse located on the deck now converted into a cosy snug.

Stone steps climb gently from the east side of the snow-covered beach to link with the second route down from the plateau with its bar and restaurant. Watched over by a Canadian goose and an impressive statue of a stag-headed female figure (“Hern the huntress”, perhaps?), this second path down from the landing point offers the way to a long, thin sand bar that points south and east to where a great circular tent stands in a suggestion of Genghis Khan, the horses walking the sandy finger perhaps adding the feeling one is travelling time to the Mongol times as one follows it to the tent.

Ambient Hideaway, January 2021

Also reached from the path is an open-sided gazebo with a hint of the Christmas just passed standing alongside it, as both stand over the bridge leading to the smaller island. A beach house awaits discovery on this small shelf of rock, and while it lacks a fire inside, a brazier on the deck outside offers an invitation for visitors to go in and a spend a little time away from the cold.

The third route down from the high plateau is by way of wooden steps and platforms to a low-lying out-thrust of flat rock with a shale beach on its north side. An old shipping create, perhaps washed ashore years ago, resides here, but rather than being left to rust and fall apart, it has been turned into a comfortable little hone, complete with windows and doors cut into its side, a large raised deck offering additional outdoors space as it overlooks the beach.

Ambient Hideaway, January 2021

This is a setting that appears to be a lot larger than the 256×256 metres of a Second Life region, the natural shaping of the land and the use of elevation and defined paths giving a sense of expansive space, while the sound scape adds to the sensation that this is place within the wilderness – perhaps an island in northern latitudes lying off the coast of a continent that is itself caught in winter.

There is a wealth of detail to be found within the setting as well – be it outdoors or within the various buildings. Couples are clearly welcome here; there are numerous opportunities for romance waiting to be found in the form of cuddle spots such as that waiting at the end of the western promontory or the old cable-car sitting on the edge of upper plateau.

Ambient Hideaway, January 2021

Photogenic – hence the local competition – richly designed and constructed, Ambient Hideaway makes for an engaging visit; just mind the rather exuberant humpback whale off the south coast! 🙂 .

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