Reading Radar

Read two good posts (one linking to the other) today reminding us yet again of how SL residents always come totally unhinged anytime something changes and then in a few weeks don’t even remember it anymore.

Voice.
Trademarks.
Windlight.
Dazzle.
Gambling ban, although this one definitely did affect some people who ran businesses who I’m sure still definitely do remember this one.

What else? What next?

People bitched about how, in flycam mode, the word “flycam” appeared at the lower right of the screen but would not disappear with the UI toggled off. This was not aesthetically pleasing for machinima and other such activities.

LL fixed this in the new 1.20 release – they got rid of the word flycam altogether. So now when you DO have the UI on and DO want to know when you are in flycam mode, you don’t.  Normally this is not a huge deal at all, but it is if you are editing objects. Anyone with a spacenavigator knows what happens if you go into edit mode and start using the spacenavigator while not in flycam mode. Bad things, my friend. Bad things.

You can disable the ability for this to happen accidentally by going into the Advanced menu -> Debug settings and finding an option for JoystickBuild or something like that (I’m not near my puter atm).  Set this value to false. This means that, when using the spacenavigator it won’t matter if you are in flycam mode or not, if you are editing objects, they can’t be moved by the spacenavigator inputs.

Why they couldn’t just leave it in and have it toggle off with the UI is uncertain.  If anyone knows a setting that makes this happen, please let us know! Thanks.

UPDATE : Stuart Warf points out that you can disable joystick build in the input/joystick controls preferences. Apparently I found the debug settings option first because I was already in there anyway. Sorry. /me hangs head in shame. Now that I’m home from work, I can not only verify this, but give you a screenshot. Here’s where that option is:

Yay Stuart. Enjoy that tidbit from the founder of the SLPN himself.

Podcast Island has taken its share of shots by people in the past. Sometimes it’s about the fact that Gary’s not around much (and he’s not at the moment, he’s dealing with RL work), sometimes it’s about the fact that it’s often empty (which it is to a large degree, atm).  The funny thing is that a lot of the people who say it’s empty are the same ones who didn’t want to stick around and help make it not empty.  I heard on another podcast this week that we are boring and stuffy there. My immediate mental response was “how would you know?”

Recently I was told by someone that they didn’t want to live on podcaster island because of all the weirdos. What weirdos? That’s either me, Arri, Rob, Itazura, or Chug, and now Stuart, a lot of times. There is no one else there, remember?  Sure, there are some shops and some presences set up, but I rarely see any of those people.  I’m paying rent on the SW corner and I’ve never been bothered by anyone.  Then again, I’m personally not looking for privacy and seclusion. So maybe I just don’t care if people blunder in. That’s part of the fun.

I guess where I’m going with this is that I stand by my answer to Crap on his “Podcasting in SL” series of interviews.  My answer to the question of is there a podcasting community in SL is no. There are several communities, and people move between them, collaboration takes place between them, sometimes verbal potshots and comments are issued towards the other communities in them, but they are definitely distinct and (for the most part) fairly fluid.

Everyone has their ideas on how things should be run. I have mine. Certainly if I wanted to I could lob a few cheap shots back at people without even having to strain, but I’d rather not. I know people are all limited on time and energy, and I don’t mind if people aren’t coming running offering to help build community on podcast and podcaster islands. Certainly there’s areas where those of us who are there could do a lot better. So that doesn’t bother me. But you’ll have to forgive me if my enthusiasm for helping your communities sometimes dampens for a little while after another snarky remark or a stupid statement. I’m only human.

Update: I appreciated Crap’s response to this post.

Sitting here with an iPod touch, posting to my blog from it, it occurs to me once again, people need to create. It’s in our DNA.

SL is full of examples of it. Builders, scripters, artists, bloggers, podcasters, teachers, community developers… all working to build things of lasting value. To DO something.

I’m going to be exploring this in more detail, but not from my iPod!

I’m using the wordpress app from the apple apps store on my ipod touch to write this. Yay tiny mobile things with really slow input methods!

It’s pretty easy to really want Microsoft dead sometimes, and to read something like this and be angry automatically. But wanna know something? Sql Express would probably blow MySQL out of the water for scalable database solutions and a version of C# for coding in would not be bad either. If Microsoft has ever made any good products, their names are SQL Server and C#, IMO. While I’ve evicted Windows and MS products in general from my house, I used to code asp.net apps in C# and using SQL Server as the db. Guess what? They scale pretty damn well.

Oh, umm. None of this has anything to do with Las Vegas. I just needed a title.

LL posted release candidate 1.20 RC 13 today (under the test viewers section, release candidates).

First off, the biggest thing about the RC’s since 10, I think… 99.9999% of my crashes are gone (crashed once in RC11 or 12 with a lockup) and no more beachballs, at least not on the MBP. On the Mac Pro, which has an ATI card, I do get very infrequent beachballs. Completely tolerable. on the MBP, it’s become a very stable, very frustration-free client.

Ok, so anyway, the new version has switchable skins now, currently offering the old brown skin and the new light blue skin. It’s up to people to make new skins for those of us who have better things to do. Now if someone could do a whole new UI, that’d be something. Skins? Meh. Who cares.

Using the old look skin:

Using the new look skin:

I have to say, when the new skin first came out, I didn’t like it. At all. It caused eyestrain. But, having used it for awhile now, I greatly prefer it over the old, dark, heavy, clunky, boring look. When you first fire up the new RC, it defaults back to the brown UI. You have to enable the new look, which I promptly did, then log out and log back in again. That should satisfy all the whiners who can’t tell the difference between the blue skin and Dazzle the skinnable interface technology. I hope. But they’ll probably just find something else to fill up every single blog post on the LL blog with replies about.

Bellagio closed. Too bad.. their security goons will be missed.

Ok, that doesn’t work as well as “I declare, I go into Second Life” but that’s ok.. the point is, I moved the blog so I could do things like embed blip.tv videos (see above and below).

Please let me know if you encounter any problems or if you’d like a link in my blogroll.

I’ve followed Eshi Otawara on Twitter for awhile, not really paying her tweets any more attention than any other person I don’t know real well, which means I scan twitter and occasionally read a tweet of hers here and there. I had a vague sense of who she was knowing she produces works of art in SL and also is friends or acquaintances with Crap Mariner.

This past week or so I noticed her tweeting about her immigration status and possibly being deported and never found out any more about her case until today. Knowing about the podcast, she contacted me to see if maybe I could put the word out to listeners about the Immigrant’s list, especially in the next few days as that’s when her situation is taking place. I told her I doubted I’d have a podcast ready in that period of time (you people know me, need I say more), but I said I’d blog it, and also I plan to follow up later in a podcast.

I encourage you to go and read her story, and decide for yourselves how you feel about this issue and whether or not you want to support initiatives like the immigrant’s list. One thing I can say about the US government’s handling of immigration for sure, and that is that it’s not always those who deserve to be deported who are. Nor is it always those who “deserve” (wow, that sounds harsh) to stay who are allowed to. And in terms of getting things done in a timely manner, forget it. It’s the worst. I imagine post 9/11 it’s a lot worse than ever.

I know from having lived outside the US for several years of my own life that other countries certainly don’t hesitate to boot you out when your time is deemed over, so in that regard, we aren’t unique, but again, the way we handle immigration and deportation often leaves a huge amount to be desired. Sometimes shipping people out by letter of law from a slow, onerous government agency is not conducive to anyone’s best interests.