Some snapshots from the West of Ireland anniversary and Library expansion...
I will be returning to the Library on April 21 at 7PM SLT for another round of 100 word stories (and other mad ramblings).
Somewhere, God is shaking his Bag Full Of Mondays and laughing...
... and he tells us all to roll up our sleeve, put our hand in the bag, and pull one out.
He's talking to M Linden now!
Isn't that nice of M to talk to SecondLice?
Adding a few more podcasts to Podcasts on the SL Wiki.
As long as Wiki's a part of the new Search, might as well, right?
Any out there that are missing?
Buckethead Jones looks over the dinner menu at the King Tut Diner on Heritage Key:
"Dear Indy,They have this great restaurant in the pyramids, but everything is soooooooo expensive.
As much as I'd like a Mummyburger with fries, the balloon valet parking business isn't as good as I'd hoped. Not much left after rent and electric to buy luxuries like eating out.
I'll just snack on some dinner rolls, shout FIRE!, and run out.
Love,
Your sister Buckethead"
They've spread out the display of the artifacts on the Heritage Key grid.
Some more audio commentary would be helpful, since clicking on a bunch of online resources gets to be window-proliferation madness.
And even notecards can be read easily inside the viewer, as opposed to resources online which may or may not have features supported by limited Viewer web browsers.
Yeah, I know... notecards require resources and rezzing and occasional asset server failures are annoying.
Oh well. At least it's a welcome break from the noise, right?
Every so often, it's good to just screw around with prims.
Today, I decided to screw around with a few prims to make light fixtures.
I kinda got carried away with it...
Not sure if I will use any of these.
But it was fun making them.
(The spiral ones on the far left and far upper-right rotate.)
What if it's all fake?
What if it's all an illusion... a dream... a nightmare... a fabrication...
If this is all user-generated content, then it's a lie that we're telling ourselves, and we've trying to make ourselves believe it.
As limits and flawed tools are imposed on this imaginary perception and construct, reality sinks in and the illusions wash away like castles in the tide.
Are we howling because we're being forced to wake up to the realities that have been kicked down the road over and over in the past, or because that wakeup call is being done in what we feel is a capricious, cruel and torturous manner?
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"CHILDREN'S STORY"
by Tom Waits
Once upon a time there was a poor child,
with no father and no mother
And everything was dead
And no one was left in the whole world
Everything was dead
And the child went on search, day and night
And since nobody was left on the earth,
he wanted to go up into the heavens
And the moon was looking at him so friendly
And when he finally got to the moon,
the moon was a piece of rotten wood
And then he went to the sun
And when he got there, the sun was a wilted sunflower
And when he got to the stars, they were little golden flies.
Stuck up there, like the shrike sticks 'em on a blackthorn
And when he wanted to go back, down to earth,
the earth was an overturned piss pot
And he was all alone, and he sat down and he cried
And he is there till this day
All alone:
Okay, there's your story!
Night-night!
It's going to be interesting to see what this blog thread on script limits will generate besides noise, heat, and the usual degeneration into madness and invective.
The first two items promised in the post seem... well, promising:
1) Information: The first is to provide detailed information to residents so that they can understand the load impact of scripted items and attachments. The first pieces of script load information are included with the Server 1.38 release in April, although they will only be visible to users of Viewer 2 and Snowglobe. We are not expecting to add this functionality to Viewer 1.23, however third party developers may well integrate it into their viewers.2) Tools: The second phase of the project, later in 2010, will be to provide better tools and controls for managing script load. In addition, we will be providing early guidance on what the limits will be so that everyone has plenty of time to adjust should they need to. The limits should not affect the large majority of people, rather they will impact the heaviest usage regions.
The existing tools and displays are, in a word, laughable and rudimentary for those trying to quickly deal with an issue or diagnose a chronic problem on a sim.
You've got to take a few dozen snapshots to catch a pesky low-frequency, high-impact script triggered by a timer on a sim... not an easy thing to do.
Still, I've managed to do my best to manage what I can with it and intercept any potential issues that could build up over time.
That is, when it's not a case of some careless scripthog sim that ends up landing on a different core of the same CPU that Edloe or Nowhereville or Los Arboles or Harbour happens to be on.
Then, it's almost impossible to diagnose, and you just assume that if you have a good connection and scripts are well in normal range, that Max Kleene just took the stage on your server-neighbors sim or they're rezzing all of their freenises in their skybox at once.
So, yeah, I'll be happy with new displays and tools if they make it easier for me to figure out what's causing an issue or if someone's using way more resources than the others on a sim that's having issues... and what's going on with the machine you're hosted on in a manner that respects anonymity, but also respects your right as a virtually hosted site to the server resources you're entitled to.
Yup. I'm speaking hosting-speak.
I work for a hosting company, and when some yutz goes out of control as a bandwidth hog, memory hog, hard drive hog, or CPU hog to the point that they impact other customers, they get warned... and then canceled.
If you tell them one too many times that some jerk on the same server went nuts, well, they will find another company that polices and enforces script limits better than you do in the end.
(Can't exactly do that with SL... yet.)
Where was I? Oh right...
Plus, it'll help me get serious about making my own build more efficient so that it doesn't impact the others, and I'd hope they'd feel the same about everyone else's use of the shared resources.
I figure folks do, since we haven't had any issues of maxed-out sims that didn't turn out to be an accident, bad server release, or a sim on the same CPU going ape-shit.
Now, you may have noticed my mentioning Max Kleene by name there... yeah, I'm being a jackass for singling him out, but he makes for an excellent example for what appears to be one hammerblow after another to live music in SL from the Labbies.
If you host an event with this guy, you're going to pack your sim for that hour.
Hey, it's a given. It's why he's called "Max-a-sim" by some folks.
He brings traffic, he gets a few folks to stick around and look-see, maybe even shop for some stuff.
However, if there's script limits, then you're going to be setting off alarms as the hordes of high-ARC fans come pouring in.
99% of people just throw on what they want, never bother checking scripts or ARC, and will just growl ARC NAZI! and leave or blow you off if you need to enforce some kind of performance issue... and that's without any hard limits.
Just go to an RFL launch or other mass conference and see for yourself... scripted attachments, hair, HUDs... you name it, they'll tell you to strip as bare as possible.
*cough* A bunch of clouds and Ruths, sitting around and watching the SL equivalent of Powerpoint.
Oh boy.
But then, when the limits become hard limits, you'll be hitting walls.
That's when vendors go from flaky to fucked... things will stop working, danceballs will stop giving out dances, and so on.
First, it was Search in Viewer 2.0 and its mishandling and prioritizing of events.
Then, it was shoving live music as far out of the website redesign as possible.
Assigning Colossus the Commerce Clown to the SLCC music track in 2007 and him acting like 2007 SLCC and the mailing list never happened was an eyebrow-raiser.
Now, it's script limits to being a potential deterrent for wanting big crowds and events in the first place.
Was I right when I joked "M misspoke when he said music is a killer app in SL, he meant to say he wants to kill music in SL." or am I just being paranoid?
If it were one thing, it would be an accident or side-effect.
Two things, perhaps carelessness.
But if it's one thing after another, well, that kinda shows there's a prejudice or a pattern to it all, right?
Um... why are you staring at me like that?
And what's with that Tas- *ZAP*
*THUD*
Can someone please explain the origin and message in this CNN Money piece please?
Is this some kind of VNR co-produced with Linden Lab or something?
It's presented without context, commentary, or background and sounds an awful lot like "Buy 150 islands and hire some help and you can quit your dayjob just like us!"
Yeah yeah yeah I know, I'm being a jackass, but still... what's the deal?
Of course, they have to work 14 hour days and wake up in the middle of the night, but hey - who's counting, right?
(At least neither of the two were Naked Fat Guys in the Basement, right?)
It is now Day 25 of my War on the Wallet, part of a harsh budget cutback I've imposed on myself at work to kill off my credit card balances once and for all.
This has not been easy to do, but it needed doing.
It goes beyond using the bus with passes subsidized from work instead of buying a decent used car, passing up on SXSW and other meetups and concerts, passing on ogling the fluffy bunnies and chickens at Rodeo, telling people "I'll get back to you" on fundraisers when they'll keep coming back over and over - that kind of thing.
I have been writing notes and reminders to myself on Plurk, documenting my frustrations and bitching on Cinchcast, writing daily to-do lists that contain a few to-don't items, keeping a spreadsheet going to track my progress, and making notes on how much bang and how much fizzle I've been getting for all the bucks I've blown in the past.
I've only picked up breakfast twice on the way to work in the past 5 weeks, and one of those was a part of a St. Pancake's Day celebration. Bringing it in is much, much cheaper than picking it up.
And the vending machines no longer give me caffeinated and artificial sugary headaches. Iced tea or light coffee... free.
I've also been microwaving meals for lunch instead of picking up lunch in the Downtown tunnels. As much as I miss really bad Chinese and overpriced gourmet salads, this is better for me in the long run.
Detours for dinner on the way home have been cut back, too. No Nit-Noi, Rajun Cajun, Hard Rock Cafe, or other deliciousness. Okay, I did one Cabo's run, just to remind myself how much of a mistake that was until I get things settled down.
Cultural events have been cut back... ballet, the theater, symphony.... just a Kevin Smith presser at House of Blues and that wretched Alice movie.
That Chateau St. Jean 2005 at Kroger can wait until it's time to celebrate the death of the first credit card. Paying $50 now while the battle is still on is madness, and they won't sell it out any time soon. (Especially with the 2007 being such a bargain.)
Baseball season starts soon, but I'll be going for nosebleed bleacher seats more often than box seats. And damn Drayton McLane if I'll spend $7.50 for a cheap watered-down American beer, then tip the halfway house slave labor he brings in to peddle it through a contractor.
Instead, it's lots of podcasts and lots of reading books on the shelf that need re-reading. It's been glorious out most afternoons and I should make the best of that:
Plus, let's face it, Second Life can be cheap entertainment if you want it to be.
Sometimes... well... not-so-much.
At least the islands are close to covering themselves and I haven't taken the bait and bought more yet despite wacky CNN Money videos showing a couple with 150 islands making "bank."
Very few people win that kind of scenario when the tables are tilted so far to the house, Batman kicked in the door and yelled "WHERE THE HELL IS THE PENGUIN, RIDDLER, AND JOKER?"
(I was going to go with "The elevators in the casino run left-right instead of up-down." but I haven't made a Batman reference in weeks, eh.)
I've put my Beggars Borrowers and Thieves (Emergencies) Budget at 0 for the next month, I won't contribute to RFL unless it's tax-deductible, I'm not in need of any outfits or components for builds for a while, water's still wet, beer's still cold, and chili's still hot.
Ultimately, this separates the Friends from the friends. The lights come up, and you see who's got their hand on your shoulder, hand in your pocket, or fangs in your neck.
These days, I've gone beyond a dedicated credit card for SL. Now, I track SL-Tier and SL-Other in separate columns in my spreadsheet. SL-Tier reaches 0 every month without fail. But if I don't make that SL-Other last, well, them's the breaks and the joyride slows down or parks for the month.
Goals... a light at the end of the tunnel... land to swim for as the reefs turn to shallows and sand. I look at my list... the only item that's circled in ink at the moment is to buy a painting from Gracie Kendal in May.
That's the goal I've set for myself. That's the reward for forcing myself to cut back and save.
I will be able to look at the wall and say "That's what happens when you buck up and get shit done."
I find myself repeating this at least once a day.
I will make it.
Oh, and I'm making sure to play with the cats a bunch.
They're cheap, full of renewable energy, and extremely cuddly.
The more they get played with young, the friendlier and more sociable they get when older.
Nardo's still-living proof, and Bruwyn's turning out well. (At least Myst isn't going on sardine hunts.)
Fourteen days to go for the first card to go down in flames. The SL card is at zero, as it always is when tier-in matches tier-out. The third card is sleeping comfortably in the freezer, dreaming of the Starbucks in R'lyeh.
The last card is a transition card. I have been using it while slamming the main card as hard as I can.
It is an introductory card with 0% APR until October, nice cashbacks for stuff I already buy, and not much of a balance. Just now, I got my emailed reminder of that balance and it's a cupcake compared to the beast the main card was, so if I stick to my plan and don't have too many surprises, that bastard goes down in flames one paycheck later.
I will make it.
Marvin Hamlisch AND Joel Grey in concert in Houston?
AUUUUUGGGHHHHHHHH!
(The shit I put myself through, man. Can I microwave culture, please?)
By imposing this discipline on myself, I am working towards the next stage of the Big To Do List, a diet and fitness regime.
It's going to be pretty harsh, and I fully expect to hit the wall repeatedly and painfully, but it has to be done.
Live fast, die young, and leave a pretty trail of corpses.
After posting this about a kinetic rotating spiral clock and messing with some cutshape tubes for a while, I gave up.
However, Kyle Beltran went ahead and made the crazy thing!
Cool stuff, man... thanks... and um... I'm kinda short on prims for the park to mount this.
Time to buy a new sim, right?
Some of you may be wondering why the midget butler looks like this.
(You'll have to come see Lailu Loon's Oxymoronic Fusion to find out. Opening is April 1.)
As of late, Coke's virtual worlds efforts have resembled a gambler placing bets in casinos that either shut down or go up in flames.
So when There.com recently crumbled, speculation on where Coke would go to next began.
Here's the $64,000 question: If Coke's been hopping from one failure to the next, why would any virtual world want to court their presence?
Anyway, Coke is asking which virtual world it should collapse next, so if you're under the delusion that Coke actually listens then you're more than welcome to indulge your fantasy.
I, for one, will be suggesting that they take over Farmville and rename it Cokeville.
Got me a big ol bumper crop of Coke Zero comin' up, Zeke... just need to keep from havin' me another syrup flood from washin' out mah pumps... POLAR BEARS! JESUS CHRIST! RUN!
But remember... 2006 and 2007 are gone. Electric Sheep and Millions of Us and Crayon are digital dust, and the snakeoil marketers who rooked companies like Coke and Dell and other major corporations into building marketing mausoleums have moved on to pillage Twitter and Facebook and other up-and-coming suckers... I mean platforms.
If Coke is going to do the most obvious and easy thing, which is to incorporate a virtual world in their point-based rewards systems or bottlecap code contests so they can give out copies of digital junk instead of actually having to redeem for things of value, which platform, application, or environment works the best for such a thing, won't require a huge amount of effort to get it running and maintained, and can handle the potential global audience?
(Maybe Cokeville on Facebook isn't so crazy, after all.)
The continuing comments on Liana Linden's MISSION ACCOMPLISHED post on Search in Second Life are well-worth reading if you're serious about live music in Second Life.
I think Nad Gough's most recent comment hits the nail on the head and is a fair assessment of the true attitude of the Labbies towards live music as expressed by the lack of functionality in the ballyhooed Viewer 2.0, as opposed to the empty buzzwords of "killer app" and "use-case."
I think M mis-spoke. He meant to say that he meant to kill music with the new app.
And Patrick Muggins' comments, well, I'm not sure what short bus he fell off of, but I think my first response to his inane dismissals of the truth says it all:
Patrick-Let's think like a new user for a moment.
Go to the upper-right corner, type in Music, and then hit Enter.
You will get the search window with many pages of landmarks to venues, 90% of which will not have an event going on.
You teleport to the location, you see nothing going on, and you wander around for a bit, click on a few things...
Maybe you try again.
After 2 or 3 times, you get frustrated, log off, and delete the program.
Game over.
(Or, if you're a journalist, you write an article saying that "There's no music in Second Life" which gets Slashdotted and Digg-ed and sent over the wires.)
-ls/cm
Later, he claims that people will click on "Events" ... even though it doesn't appear to be clickable or like a link.
In other words, they won't. My model of the new user is pretty solid, based on experience and the laziness of most new users.
If you don't hand them something linear, they will dawdle for a bit and avoid the tall grass, eventually heading back to the parking lot and back home, never to return.
And when he says he's preparing to teach classes on that kind of thing, well, how will they know if there's classes if all they get is pages and pages of landmarks when they look for classes and don't know to click on Events? Or even know there's video tutorials showing them how to use this, since the help button doesn't bring them up to guide them through the process like context-sensitive help should do?
In the end, it'll all be groups and friends conferences and subscribos for announcing things... and how to get that subscriber-base to begin with will make the learning and adoption curve for new talent more like a 50 foot brick wall.
Thinner and thinner scrapes of the scoop for each out of a slowly melting hunk of ice cream audience base with no real signs of replenishment.
Sad.
I saw a comment in one of the official blog posts saying that either Q or Qarl suggests a rapid timetable for Viewer 2.0 beta to go official release.
Since there's little more for any overhauls of disastrous malfunctions like Search in the meantime, considering that the Lab only just posted for a Lead Engineer to take over Search, I have a very bad feeling about all this.
Almost three hours of goodness at the Freudian Slip can drive a man mad, you know...
Somehow, Lyndon Heart's avatar glitched into a rage-face, so I found a windlight sky that matched his wicked mood for this ominous image.
You know, other images by Feline show him with a normal, serene expression.
Strange... and recently, at a rehearsal, I was told that I was stark naked instead of appearing with a wooden texture skin.
Then there's the fact that people sometimes appear as the poofy clouds, despite switching groups to trigger a rebake/redownload of the avatar.
Does this mean that we shouldn't have any confidence on how we appear to others on the grid, and that subtleties will go unnoticed... or exaggerated?
If this is the case, what hope does this platform have for mass-adoption?
(None, I gather. Just the fringers who are there now, who put up with these glitches and laugh them off as Lindens' Will.)
Oh well...
Enjoy the pixel moon and Windlight sky while it lasts, right?
