Andrew Linden is Employee Number One. The numbering of employees seems to be one of those Silicon Valley and big tech enterprise affectations. What that means is that he is the first person to be hired by Philip Linden, founder of Linden Lab, back in 2002. So he has been there for some 7 years, and is one of the last Lindens still there (as Robin, who was there 7 years was, who just left in February).
Over the years, I've always found Andrew to be interesting, if a bit snarky, primarily because he does come out of the code cave to discuss broader political issues, including even on this blog, when we were all trying to figure out things like whether LL is profitable. I put Andrew on my enemy list for a time when he was gratuitously nasty, but then he apologized and I took him off. All in all, Andrew Linden is a good thing! He knows where all the bodies are buried, and where all the light switches are. If he leaves, I worry about institutional memory but also just...commitment. Andrew is one of those Lindens who stays up all night trying to fix bugs and such.
I didn't realize he has office hours, but he does and of course, they're usually hugely wonky and geeky and not dealing with the larger issues. Coders always imagine that they can decide things on their own even with social and economic impact outside their immediate area of concern or expertise because they imagine if everything is coded, then everything is understandable and therefore decidable by them. I beg to differ, so I show up occasionally.
This is actually a very important discussion to sift through and read about the attitudes toward bots and traffic. Andrew at least exhibits an intelligent and thoughtful approach. Simon Linden represents the usual knee-jerk tekkie Linden position that traffic is evil, bots are good, eliminate traffic. It's these people, debating just as they do here, inside Linden Lab, that stop progress on these topics.
[10:54] Helena Lycia: Hello
[10:54] Alexander9 Carver: hello
[10:54] Alexander9 Carver: whats up?
[10:54] Simon Linden: Hello ... just getting here for office hours
[10:55] Alexander9 Carver: hows every1s day?
[10:56] Helena Lycia: Good so far
[10:56] Alexander9 Carver: same here
[10:56] Kitto Flora: Hello
[10:57] Alexander9 Carver: hello kitto
[10:57] xstorm Radek: hi Kitto
[10:57] Alexander9 Carver: hello xstorm
[10:57] Alexander9 Carver: afk
[10:57] xstorm Radek: hi hi
[10:58] xstorm Radek: hi Simon
[10:58] xstorm Radek: we found out why the sim was moving so so much
[10:58] Simon Linden: ah, right, you had objects moving around
[10:58] RT Store Greeter: Gareth Maven has entered your store.
[10:59] xstorm Radek: seems some one with full sim powers was doing things
[10:59] Alexander9 Carver: back
[10:59] Alexander9 Carver: cool table
[10:59] xstorm Radek: and they had to have them powers taken away from them
[10:59] xstorm Radek: but there till is some form of drift
[11:00] Simon Linden: Well, that's good to find
[11:00] xstorm Radek: but its do to so many scripts running
[11:00] xstorm Radek: over 200 scripts
[11:00] Simon Linden: So you think the leftover movement is due to scripts?
[11:00] Alexander9 Carver: Can i have ur linden bear plz simon?
[11:00] Alexander9 Carver: hi andrew
[11:00] Kitto Flora: 200 scripts is very small number
[11:01] Moon Metty: hi everyone :)
[11:01] xstorm Radek: seems so it is crashing the sim on some restarts
[11:01] Simon Linden: There's a bear around here ... click on him and he'll give you instructions
[11:01] Alexander9 Carver: kk
[11:01] Simon Linden: I make people work for my bear :)
[11:01] Andrew Linden: Hello everyone.
[11:01] Alexander9 Carver: i love linden bears
[11:01] xstorm Radek: hi Andrew
[11:01] Helena Lycia: Hello
[11:01] Kitto Flora: Hello
[11:02] Andrew Linden: Moon, try the empty chair to my right.
[11:02] Alexander9 Carver: on the teen grid. you have to find alot of linden bears at the linden village there.
[11:02] Moon Metty: was this chair taken?
[11:02] Simon Linden: The one to my left should be the open one
[11:02] xstorm Radek: hi again Kyrah :-)
[11:03] Alexander9 Carver: andrew can i have ur linden bear plz???
[11:03] Andrew Linden: sure, one moment
[11:03] Alexander9 Carver: ty
[11:04] xstorm Radek: odd
[11:04] Alexander9 Carver: ^.^
[11:04] xstorm Radek: why is the table rezzing like that ?
[11:04] Andrew Linden: alright, lets get started
[11:04] Alexander9 Carver: awwww nice bear andrew
[11:05] Andrew Linden: I don't have many announcements today...
[11:05] Helena Lycia: I have a question I tried to ask 2 weeks ago but ran out of time. Would if be beyond feasible for an attachment to behave like a vehicle in order to give agents more movment choices (not to carry people)? I release that attechments aren't normally physical.
[11:05] Arawn Spitteler: Map seems laggy
[11:05] Andrew Linden: The simulator hosts will soon start to get new operating systems (debian 4.x, 'etch')
[11:05] Helena Lycia: Oops SOrry Andrew
[11:05] Rex Cronon: hello everybody
[11:06] Andrew Linden: the process will take a few weeks
[11:06] xstorm Radek: hi Rex come sit
[11:06] Moon Metty: hi Rex :)
[11:06] Rex Cronon: hii
[11:06] Andrew Linden: I think some of the misc hosts are already being updated with etch
[11:06] xstorm Radek: eeeppp
[11:06] Rex Cronon: let me get my bearring:)
[11:06] Alexander9 Carver: hi baloo
[11:07] Andrew Linden: I saw an email this morning about how xmlrcp.agni.lindenlab.com (or something like that) was updated yesterday
[11:07] Baloo Uriza: Hi.
[11:07] Moon Metty: cool, and we're still here :p
[11:07] Baloo Uriza: Sorry abou tthat, got teleported into the middle, things are rezzing slow.
[11:07] Andrew Linden: Kyrah, do you have a jira number on hand?
[11:08] Arawn Spitteler: Is there a Jira on the Sit Bug?
[11:08] Andrew Linden: By your description it is not clear to me which one you're talking about.
[11:08] Rex Cronon: baloo, almost everybody has similar problems:)
[11:08] Baloo Uriza: I'm aware of that, still trying to be considerate. :o)
[11:08] Alexander9 Carver: main grid has more linden office hours than the teen grid.
[11:09] Baloo Uriza: Main grid has more Lindens than the teen grid, I would imagine.
[11:09] Alexander9 Carver: ya main grid is way bigger. but i miss my friends in the teen grid
[11:10] Andrew Linden: Ok, this is the first I've seen SVC-3806
[11:10] Baloo Uriza: Heh, give it a few months, they'll be here as they age.
[11:10] Andrew Linden: however yes, I'm the right guy to talk about it... let me read it.
[11:10] Alexander9 Carver: i hope the grids merge soon
[11:10] Baloo Uriza: I'm still split on that.
[11:11] Andrew Linden: Ah, you're standing inside a "bounding box of sculpted megaprim"
[11:11] Rex Cronon: when the merge happens things might get interesting:)
[11:11] Andrew Linden: when you try to sit.
[11:11] Arawn Spitteler thinks the Teen Grid was ordained by the Nanny State ofCaliforia
[11:11] Baloo Uriza: Every time someone brings an xbox with XBL enabled over, I tend to hope that never happens... unfortunately not all teenagers are Boy Scouts or otherwise mature for their age...
[11:11] Helena Lycia: How will they keep adults protected from teen obscene material?
[11:11] Rex Cronon: that is old andrew
[11:11] Andrew Linden: but according to the bug the megaprim is phantom.
[11:12] Alexander9 Carver: they can restrict teens and adults from certain land
[11:12] Andrew Linden: Can you sit on phantom prims? I forget.
[11:12] Baloo Uriza: I don't see the age split as protection of children from adults so much as creating a childfree environment for the grownups, which is actually really nice.
[11:12] xstorm Radek: yes you can
[11:12] Arawn Spitteler thinks that Phantom Prim Sits are subject to change.
[11:12] xstorm Radek: you can sit on phantom prims
[11:12] xstorm Radek: i hope not
[11:13] Andrew Linden: Ah, then I'm guessing SVC-3806 will fall into the "won't fix" category.
[11:13] Helena Lycia: Enough adults behave like children, we don't need the real thing as well :)
[11:13] Rex Cronon: that bug has its uses:)
[11:13] xstorm Radek: phandom beds and chairs work do not mess that up
[11:13] Prokofy Neva: what about the fact that PG is so criss-crossed with M, that it's sort of pointless to have PG because M is right smack next to it
[11:13] Arawn Spitteler: Sculpted Prims haven't the hollows, of other prim types
[11:13] Andrew Linden: A couple things about SVC-3806:
[11:14] Andrew Linden: (1) sculpty objects don't have the same collision shape that they appear to have
[11:14] xstorm Radek: PG sims are needed
[11:14] Baloo Uriza: I think a more ideal compromise would be some sort of maturity test to see whether or not your mental age is high enough to qualify for the main grid, but I understand the cost of the hundreds of occupational psychologists it would require to pull off are kind of cost-prohibitive.
[11:14] Andrew Linden: their collision shape is a "convex hull" of a torus
[11:14] Alexander9 Carver: i like pg sims
[11:15] Moon Metty: people use megaprims for sculpties to fool the LOD system
[11:15] Andrew Linden: (2) the sit algorithm uses ray traces that hit the collision shape
[11:15] Andrew Linden: so for sculpties you *must* use the llSitTarget()
[11:15] Andrew Linden: in order to get reliable results
[11:15] Andrew Linden: I'll comment on that bug.
[11:15] xstorm Radek: its better to just say no one under 18 years of age on the adult grid
[11:15] Andrew Linden makes notes
[11:16] Arawn Spitteler: If you're ray trace is inside the collision shape, shouldn't you be able to sit?
[11:16] Andrew Linden: Ok, looks like we've got an alternate conversation here about... TeenSL and the main grid
[11:16] Andrew Linden reads back
[11:16] Helena Lycia: Just chatting I think Andrew
[11:16] Baloo Uriza: True, xstorm, even if it doesn't exclude people who are obviously not 18 mentally yet, and excludes people who are underage but are otherwise well-behaved and mature individuals.
[11:17] Kitto Flora: Andrew: Any news of that punch/kick griefing attachment ? I have not seen it around for several days now
[11:17] xstorm Radek: the TOS is still the TOS and you sign it when you got on to SL
[11:18] Andrew Linden: Kitto, I never heard anything more about that punch/kick grief attachment.
[11:18] Baloo Uriza: I'm not arguing otherwise. I'm just saying at least from the prospective of creating an environment of mature individuals, the age split isn't ideal.
[11:18] Prokofy Neva: I'm wondering how griefers are able to grab the name of every avatar on the sim and then bounce them back as shouting obscenities into chat, but that may not be your department.
[11:18] Kitto Flora: I suspect either the makers are keeping it very quiet, or some LL department found it and removed it.
[11:18] Andrew Linden: That is, I never got an example objects, nor heard people talking about it when I was paying attention
[11:18] Kitto Flora: Prok: Thats a very old trick. All standard programming.
[11:19] xstorm Radek: thats a mimic tool
[11:19] Andrew Linden subscribes to several internal IRC channels at work, but can't read them all the time
[11:19] Andrew Linden: Kyrah, no the touch events use the info provided by the client
[11:19] Andrew Linden: that is, the client does the ray tracing and tells the simulator where it clicked on what object
[11:19] Prokofy Neva: Another thing I wonder is what those dates are on the prims on land now, they don't seem to correspond to the dates the avatar placed them, they seem to change based on the avatar's log-in to that group, and for that matter, what does the date on an avatar in a group mean, his last log-in period to SL or his last use of that group tag? But again, I'm content to live with these mysteries.
[11:20] Prokofy Neva: What was the reasoning for putting dates on prims now? It' sinteresting but I don't see what it does or how it works.
[11:20] Andrew Linden: Prokofy, you mentioned some grief attack about "bounce them back as shouting obscenities". Do you hava a jira number for that problem?
[11:20] Neva Prokofy: Hello, Avatar!
[11:20] Andrew Linden: I don't think I've heard about that one.
[11:21] Prokofy Neva: no because I have no idea how it is working, I thought it was prims renamed with avatar names that were set to spam, but there were no prims within 96 m2 so I dunno
[11:21] Andrew Linden: Or perhaps I don't recognize it for your description.
[11:21] Baloo Uriza: Age verification is kind of an odd situation. I was surprised to see how quickly I was verified... either the age verification system is doing no data validation on what's being entered, or they have a copy of the Oregon license database and can access their copy substantially faster than the State can against it's own DB.
[11:21] Prokofy Neva: I should think you could set up a bunch of prims named for the avatars and have them as objects then chat into the chat space but it is done remotely somehow
[11:21] Andrew Linden: Prokofy, perhaps you could provide some more details?
[11:22] Andrew Linden: If you have a time + place that is less than 7 days old I may be able to investigate.
[11:22] Kitto Flora: llRegionSay(0, "My nasty message")
[11:22] Prokofy Neva: I filed tickets on it, I could show you the chat log but it's obscene racist dreck
[11:22] Moon Metty: Regionsay doesn't work on channel 0
[11:22] Neva Prokofy smells.
[11:22] Andrew Linden: Alas, I don't have easy access to tickets.
[11:22] Prokofy Neva: it starts with the day-old account shouting, then reverberates to everyone else in the room, simulating that they are shouting obscenities into chat with SHOUT
[11:22] Rex Cronon: regionsay doesn't work on chnnel 0
[11:22] Kitto Flora: Ah
[11:23] Kitto Flora: Well - its just grifers. Find the object and AR The griefer
[11:23] Baloo Uriza: I live in a police state, too, and will be until I emigrate from the US this summer... but generally IDs only look up that fast if I'm using my US passport, not my Oregon license.
[11:23] Prokofy Neva: well I could try to file a JIRA but basically, it's a new version of an old hack into the chat space, where griefers would spam the chat space for you, no matter which sim you were on, spewing out nutty stuffy so you couldn't see anything but their spam
[11:23] xstorm Radek: i think we have gone off topic a bit
[11:23] Rex Cronon: i have been exposed to that grifieng and i know how it works
[11:23] Prokofy Neva: not it's not about objects, Kitto, if it were that simple you'd remove the object from the land
[11:23] Prokofy Neva: they are inside the system somehow, remotely
[11:23] Andrew Linden: If the grief chat is masquerading as real chat (indistinguishable from the real thing) then I'm particularly interested.
[11:23] Prokofy Neva: ok well nm if that's not Andrew's area
[11:24] Prokofy Neva: it is masquerading ANdrew that's just it
[11:24] Kitto Flora: Yeah :)
[11:24] Arawn Spitteler: Color of text?
[11:24] Andrew Linden: Is it showing up as scripted object chat? No?
[11:24] Arawn Spitteler warns about anyone touching that box.
[11:24] Andrew Linden: Ok, then I'd like to know a time + place when it happens.
[11:24] Rex Cronon: is very easy to mimic somebody
[11:24] Prokofy Neva: I don't understand the topics of this forum, I'm just here to say hi to Andrew and hope he doesn't leave LL because he is Employee No. 1 and if he leaves, people might not know where to turn on the electricity or something, it could be devastating.
[11:24] Prokofy Neva: I believe it's green like a scripted object
[11:25] Andrew Linden: Prokofy, next time you see it please IM me the date + time + region_name
[11:25] Baloo Uriza: Though it's hard to fool people with that unless they're very new or they've tweaked their colors so regular chat and scripted chat appear the same color.
[11:25] Andrew Linden: Ah, so it does show up as scripted chat.
[11:25] Rex Cronon: can somebody try the mimic trick again:)
[11:26] Andrew Linden: Hrm... then the grief trick is not too fancy, but still annoying.
[11:26] Kitto Flora: Its like a 1+ / week event in Orient Isl. Public
[11:27] Andrew Linden: I wonder how to fix the problem in a technical way. Anyone have ideas?
[11:27] Baloo Uriza wonders if Rodney keeps office hours, and if so, when and where
[11:27] Rex Cronon: yes i do
[11:27] Helena Lycia: Could be very annoying when translation devices are being used. Are there any plans for LL to incorporate text translation into the client, now that so many people are from outside the US?
[11:27] Andrew Linden: Go ahead Rex.
[11:27] Kitto Flora: ban by URL
[11:27] Arawn Spitteler: Spoofers are a standard prank
[11:27] Rex Cronon: color is not enough
[11:27] Andrew Linden accepted your inventory offer.
[11:28] Arawn Spitteler wonders if Gestures can carry the new line character
[11:28] Rex Cronon: the script that say somthing should show in chat, witht the name of the owner in front of its name
[11:28] Prokofy Neva: You can't search for Russian in the search in SL, it won't show up for some reason, you can read Cyrrilic but not search for parcels or avatars using Russian
[11:29] Arawn Spitteler: We have clickable names, now. Why not have clickable object names?
[11:29] Rex Cronon: like: "RexCronon: Andrew LInden: hi there"
[11:29] Baloo Uriza: As far as scripted spam, some kind of fence like there is on runaway recursive prim creation would be nice on scripted chat. like, no more than 15 messages a minute or one per second over five seconds, whichever is greater.
[11:29] Andrew Linden: Yeah, that is sorta what I was thinking Rex. Perhaps the script chat should have meta-information about it available in the UI
[11:29] Simon Linden: Helena - I don't think there are any plans to build in translators, but I know some people both inside and out of LL have experimented with them
[11:29] Prokofy Neva: you can m itigate the attack by going to edit/preferences/text chat and reducing the fade and the lines of chat to "1" then the entire viewer doesn't fill up with the spam
[11:29] Andrew Linden: that is, if you're interested in more information about the chatting object it should be accessible via a few clicks in the UI
[11:30] Rex Cronon: u can also mute owner
[11:30] Andrew Linden: I'm not sure I would have all meta-information visible by default, but it would be nice to have it easily accessible.
[11:30] Andrew Linden accepted your inventory offer.
[11:30] Prokofy Neva: you can try to use whosaidwhat HUD
[11:30] Arawn Spitteler: You can't use Mute, when you're running a meeting
[11:30] Baloo Uriza: That can get tricky when efforts have been made to obfuscate the owner, as is common with PN and similar goon groups.
[11:30] Prokofy Neva: but you're in a blizzard of objects on physics, some of them bumping you across the sim, you can turn off particles view to try to get rid of them but the sim can crash before you manage
[11:30] xstorm Radek: the Mysty tool can mimic and there are god huds out there it may be a off shoot of them
[11:31] Andrew Linden: Yeah, good point Baloo.
[11:31] Rex Cronon: at least name of a scripted object should start with @, so everybody knows is script
[11:31] Andrew Linden: That is a good idea Rex.
[11:31] Arawn Spitteler: Scripted PObjects are alrady green, so @ is redundant
[11:31] Rex Cronon: is not redundant
[11:32] Tegg Bode: What if you're colorblind?
[11:32] Kitto Flora: Andrew: Any news of limits on attached scripts - settable by parcel or region owners? Yesterday I found an Av with a scrit load of over 5mS/frame.
[11:32] Rex Cronon: when transcripts are saved, colo0r is not saved
[11:32] Baloo Uriza: If you want to see the latest in griefing tactics, keep in close touch with someone on the g-team and go visit FurNation Hell during a raid. Sandboxes in public furry-themed areas are common targets, so FurNation Vista and FurNation Hell are just about gauranteed to get hit.
[11:32] Andrew Linden: Kitto, no news to report on attachment script limits.
[11:32] xstorm Radek: PN is old griefer group and i think they split and started another group and they are pulling other griefers in to there ranks
[11:33] Prokofy Neva: Could you explain the bit about the dating of prims if you know
[11:33] Andrew Linden: I think the only news on that is some work that Simon did on script scheduling
[11:33] Andrew Linden: I can't remember the details, and am not sure what branch it is in.
[11:33] Andrew Linden: Perhaps Simon could remind us.
[11:33] Baloo Uriza: I tend to call the PN and every group that operates like the PN as the PN because differences without distinction are meaningless to me.
[11:33] Simon Linden: I think it's in our maint-7 branch ... I added some code that could scale back time spent in attachments if the sim was geting bogged down
[11:33] Andrew Linden: There are some internal bugs already entered about limiting scripts per-object and/or per-prim.
[11:34] mimic: who am i:)
[11:34] Kitto Flora: Av-Script loading seems to be a new way to grief a sim :( Unlike other things discussed here, its hard to detect
[11:34] Prokofy Neva: It's all Mark McCahill of Croquet fueling the PNs, it's industrial sabotage.
[11:34] xstorm Radek: then its harder to track down the real griefers with out knowing what group they are apart of
[11:34] Prokofy Neva: LL should call the FBI and be done with it so that tier-payers aren't chased out of here.
[11:34] Andrew Linden: I'm planning on doing work on per-object script limits, but it must wait for a particular code branch to move through the system.
[11:34] Simon Linden: When we run a script, there's a time-slice allocated for it. This code cuts back on that time slice if it's an attachment based on the sim frame rate
[11:34] Tegg Bode: I wonder if PN jave worked out how to get different textures on their mario/cosby griefers yet ㋡
[11:34] Andrew LInden: is this me:)
[11:35] Simon Linden: It's configurable, and currently set to have no effect
[11:35] Prokofy Neva: no!
[11:35] Baloo Uriza: Yes.
[11:35] Kitto Flora: The problem isnt per-object, its per-av
[11:35] xstorm Radek: lol
[11:35] Prokofy Neva: you didn't spell your name right
[11:35] Prokofy Neva: the system prevents spoofing Linden names doesn't it
[11:35] Andrew Linden: Prokofy, I don't believe the Croquet connected conspiracy theory. I'm surprised you would propagate it.
[11:35] Baloo Uriza: I've seen some truly garish not-safe-for-work textures on griefer prims
[11:35] xstorm Radek: thats not funny the griefers take a lot of time to understand there MO
[11:36] Prokofy Neva: Well I'll email you addition information then Andrew, to bring you up to date. I propagate it because I've personally verified it 110 percent.
[11:36] Rex Cronon: [11:35] object listener: ATTENTION: object talk{date/time[2009-02-17T19:35:01], obj[Andrew LInden:5acb6700-587f-1582-995a-c2f2e35f4ce4], onwer[Rex Cronon:fbc19881-74d7-4c93-941d-78390c715dd1], text[13]: is this me:)}
[11:36] Baloo Uriza: It's sad they don't spend that time doing something productive, xstorm.
[11:36] Andrew Linden: Kitto, per-object is another problem. Per-av script limits will probably have to happen too.
[11:36] xstorm Radek: yes it is
[11:36] Kitto Flora: Kyrah: yes
[11:36] Helena Lycia: I know so old AVs have laods of scripts in them - AVs before llSetLinkPrimitiveParams
[11:37] Andrew LInden: i am an impostor
[11:37] xstorm Radek: they are a very smart group and can do so much with there skills if some one try to get them to see that
[11:37] Rex Cronon: the demo has ended:)
[11:37] Baloo Uriza: Along the same tangent, it seems quite advantageous if landowners could set ARC limits.
[11:37] Andrew Linden: Oy... no matter what per-avatar attachment prim limits we were to enforce we would certainly break content.
[11:38] Prokofy Neva: that idea that griefing is somehow hydraulic and you can steer the energy to productive coding is silly, the PN are adults, they are organized, they are deliberate, and they don't steer except to malicious destruction. Call the FBI and stop thinking you can make them go to a building class instead.
[11:38] xstorm Radek: but so far all we can do is AR them all
[11:38] Helena Lycia: Is there any news/progress on mega-prims?
[11:38] Baloo Uriza: Landowners in general get pretty hamfisted ACLs.
[11:38] Andrew Linden: I wonder what is the balance is between LL's will to limit per-avatar prims and its will to reduce content breakage.
[11:39] Tegg Bode: Well if content involves 10,000 prims and 500 scripts then I think we should break it ㋡
[11:39] xstorm Radek: well bring back the cornfield and stick them all in it
[11:39] Andrew Linden: I suppose if we made it a per-region or per-estate limit option then we could let the estate owners lay down the limits.
[11:39] Prokofy Neva: You mean the alphabet Lindens you have now? I would say 80-20 then.
[11:39] Helena Lycia: Heh - my primary AV has around 1000prims and that's not including any HUDs I use
[11:39] Andrew Linden takes note: 10k and 500
[11:39] Arawn Spitteler'd like the access page expanded to script-rbuild, and to allow by groups and ISPs: It would be nice, if we could keep German, and other corupt regimes, away from those who want to experiment with their sexuality.
[11:39] Rex Cronon: why doesn't ll allow sim owners to choose how heavy the avatar can be on their sim:)
[11:39] Baloo Uriza: I'll be interested to see what happens to No Copy / No Mod / No Transfer bits if congress criminalizes the implementation of DRM if doing so violates a consumer's rights under the fair use clause.
[11:40] Simon Linden: Um, hello Ella
[11:40] Kitto Flora: Per-Av prims are not much o a problem. Just slows limited capability viewers
[11:40] Prokofy Neva: Don't you DARE touch no copy/no mod/no transfer!
[11:40] Kitto Flora: Per-Av scripts are more of a problem. Slows down the whole sim.
[11:40] Andrew Linden: Rex, the main reason we haven't done it yet is that we haven't gotten around to it. It is a new feature after all and new features are not on the fast track right now.
[11:41] Prokofy Neva: It doesn't violate consumer "rights" to fair use because you are too broadly defining "rights" and there's always that hacker's excuse, "Gosh, I needed to put a copy on my other computer"
[11:41] Prokofy Neva: Andrew, what *is* on the fast track?
[11:41] Rex Cronon: if u do it that way than no content is broken:_
[11:41] Baloo Uriza: So far, I'm rooting for congress on this one... especially if it means No Copy / No Mod / No Transfer. More than one occasion some underhanded primhawker has sold me something without properly conveying that my ability to use what I purchased as I see fit may be infringed.
[11:41] Andrew Linden: For the record Prokofy offers this link for evidence in the Croquet vs SL conspiracy:
[11:41] Rex Cronon: :)
[11:41] Andrew Linden: http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2009/01/who-is-pixeleen-mistralreally.html
[11:42] Prokofy Neva: um, Congress consists of two parties, and different positions, this will be debated, and more fairly than it would on an SL JIRA, with more fair voting procedures, thank God
[11:42] Baloo Uriza: Which is a Bad Thing, since I automatically knock 90% off the remaining value for each permission bit set against my favor when I'm deciding how much I want to spend on something.
[11:42] Prokofy Neva: A private corporate entity with a subscription service that can no longer show itself to be a common carrier may not be obliged to follow some putative congressionally mandated DRM removals anyway.
[11:42] Andrew Linden: Things on the fast track are mostly scaling work and "LL initiatives"
[11:42] xstorm Radek: conspiracy: ? did i forget to bring my tin foil hat ahain ?
[11:43] Andrew Linden: We've got a project we're calling "Scalable Space Services" that is on the "fast-track".
[11:43] Helena Lycia: WHat's that?
[11:43] Andrew Linden: Which is to help us remove an old single-point-failure process we call "spaeserver"
[11:43] Tegg Bode: I guess the other problem is if you set limits whayt happens when people try to ebtre or TP in with higher numbers or add them while in the region
[11:43] Andrew Linden: er... spaceserver
[11:43] Helena Lycia: Ah
[11:44] Andrew Linden: We're going to replace spaceserver with an army of load-balanced servers that do the same stuff over HTTP
[11:45] Arawn Spitteler expects we'll eventually be able to prescript avatar changes in teleport
[11:45] Baloo Uriza: Andrew, are you talking about the map?
[11:45] Andrew Linden: No Baloo, but there is some new map work in the pipe too.
[11:45] Baloo Uriza: I understand that's going to HTTP.
[11:45] Arawn Spitteler: Maps a bit wonky, when I teleported up here. It showed lots of people at Aric's Parcel, and none here.
[11:46] Andrew Linden: I think there is a big overahaul of the SL UserInterface planned in 2009. I suppose there will be some real features in that.
[11:46] Arawn Spitteler: They just upgraded precision, I think
[11:46] Arawn Spitteler: Get rid of that Stop All Animation Scam, in Tools?
[11:46] Prokofy Neva: For the record Prokofy has more evidence in the theory of the link, but to produce it on the Linden servers runs the risk of a ban for "disclosure" so whatever, make up your own minds based on the information published not on the Linden servers.
[11:46] Andrew Linden: Well, the green-dots info is actually transmitted in a different protocol, not really map related except they show up on the map.
[11:47] Baloo Uriza: If it's going to HTTP, will there also be a WMS layer available for GIS users? And if so, do you know if the Linden map data is licensed in such a way that I could use it to generate a GIS map of the continents? Things like highways, place names, railroads, ferry connections, etc.
[11:47] Prokofy Neva: Could you have the dots glow a different colour if they are bots? I am so tired of this nonsense coming from geeks that you cannot define or monitor or display bots. Of course you can. They have automated log-on routines. They have various behaviours on sims that are eminently detectable. When will you label bots, Andrew?
[11:47] Prokofy Neva: Label and *charge for the accounts* too while you're at it
[11:47] Andrew Linden: Baloo, I don't know the answers to thos map questions. I'll write them down and either try to find out or find someone with office hours who knows.
[11:48] Baloo Uriza: I'd love to start a project similar to OpenStreetMap.org in purpose and identical in functionality, focused on mapping Agni's mainland continents instead of Earth's continents.
[11:48] Baloo Uriza: Thanks, Andrew. Lemme know what you find out, pleas.e
[11:48] Kitto Flora: Is running a bunch of Bots on your land against ToS? Should it be?
[11:48] Arawn Spitteler: I'd like to see Agni on Google Maps. Can you imagine, when the US is Bug Reported, because you can't TP there?
[11:49] Baloo Uriza: Kitto, I don't think it is right now. But it should be.
[11:49] xstorm Radek: hi Ardy come sit :-)
[11:49] Kitto Flora: LL makes money from Bots - not much, but some
[11:49] Andrew Linden: Hrm... bot detection is something I'm a little bit interested in.
[11:49] Arawn Spitteler: Bot isa matter of degree
[11:49] Baloo Uriza: I'm not sure Google Maps is the answer, mostly because Google's data is licensed in such a way that you can't even use one of their maps to tell people how to get to a party...
[11:49] Ardy Lay: hello
[11:49] Prokofy Neva: I hope you can get more interested, Andrew!
[11:50] Ardy Lay: bump bump...
[11:50] Tegg Bode: if traffic was calculated from scripted prims then bots wouldn't be a problem ㋡
[11:50] Baloo Uriza: Which is why I suggested the OpenStreetMap approach, which allows for reuse.
[11:50] Andrew Linden: I'm mostly interested in detecting them. Not sure what to do about response.
[11:50] Prokofy Neva: It is damn hard running the infohubs, seeing them all standing around like idiots, and people talk to them not realizing they are mere bots, or now, they have them as fashion models, you can't always tell, I usually tell by offering them money and they never answer
[11:50] xstorm Radek: like the Alice Bots on paid user accounts ?
[11:50] Arawn Spitteler found an issue, pertaining to WEB-814, but doesn't know how to phrase a Design Philosophy Issue
[11:50] Andrew Linden: If we started cracking down on bots then we'd have an arms-race that I'm sure we could not keep up with.
[11:51] Moon Metty: that's true Andrew
[11:51] Tegg Bode: 90% of bots are just traffic cheating devices,, get rid of them and bots aren't as big an issue ㋡
[11:51] Andrew Linden: But, if we could detect them and learn more about why they are being used, perhaps we can eliminate some things that make them so useful.
[11:51] Ardy Lay: Is this where I come to say "Map loading is now awesome"? :-)
[11:51] Kitto Flora: Me - I dont care about Bots... but some residents seem to.
[11:51] Andrew Linden: That is, it has been proposed that we get rid of dwell, which would eliminate some camping bots.
[11:51] Rex Cronon: u could have them pass a iq test:)
[11:51] Prokofy Neva: Andrew, 90 percent of bot activity is not useful, but annoying, sucking resources, taking up avatar spaces when they land on infohubs because of poor home scripting, etc.
[11:51] Prokofy Neva: Those that find them useful should pay for them
[11:52] Andrew Linden: However, the "green dot effect" would still make bots useful.
[11:52] Simon Linden: Ardy - I'll pass that along to one of the people who worked on it, thanks :)
[11:52] Kitto Flora: 'Dwell' is obsolet e - gamed out of existance by bots.
[11:52] Ardy Lay: Simon, thanks. Speed and clarity are much appreciated.
[11:52] Prokofy Neva: No, that's cutting off your nose to spite your face, traffic is a perfectly valid and useful metric and is the engine of sales inworld, sorry, but you need to stop listening to geeks constantly screaming about a few gamed places. Traffic has merit, it is a useful public indicator of merit, and it should remain in search. But you should a) make it a TOS offense to game traffic with bots and b) label and charge for bots.
[11:53] Andrew Linden: Indeed, so suppose we stopped compiling/keeping dwell data. Some bot farms would be reaped by their creators.
[11:53] xstorm Radek: i do not see any thing about bots in the TOS but if a BOT is running a users account that can be AR as that person is no longer running there own account a script on the computer is
[11:53] Andrew Linden: But some would still stick around to create little crowds of green dots on the map.
[11:53] Arawn Spitteler: Traffic is a twisted stat, and has to be rethought.
[11:53] Andrew Linden: How to eliminate that need for bots?
[11:53] xstorm Radek: there are more then one type of bots
[11:53] Simon Linden: Agreed about bots ... most of the discussion I'm heard at LL is about shifting the dwell and traffic usage, not trying to fight bots
[11:54] xstorm Radek: some bots drive and move prims
[11:54] Andrew Linden: Yes, more than one type of bot. Some are pretty stupid and probably pretty easy to detect.
[11:54] Arawn Spitteler: Soem users are dumb enough to pass for bots
[11:54] Tegg Bode: Traffic would be more relevant if it were just a number land owners plucked from the air and entered themselves :P
[11:54] Andrew Linden: Or... we could come up with estimates about when they are acting like bots.
[11:54] Simon Linden: I (personally) think some bot usage is good ... a well done scripted greeter, for example, can be useful
[11:54] Rex Cronon: most things can be gamed:)
[11:54] Helena Lycia: Some bots exist for legit reasons like performing functions that cannot be scripted inworld... I've been to shops that send you group invites almost instantly after a purchase via a bot
[11:54] xstorm Radek: in a way the zombie that got away from its maker was a form of a bot and it griefed even help island
[11:55] Rex Cronon: that doesn't mean some people don't use them:)
[11:55] Andrew Linden: I think we're all agreed that some bots are cool.
[11:55] xstorm Radek: and that was removed
[11:55] Helena Lycia: Where I work we'd love to be able to automate group invites
[11:55] Prokofy Neva: Simon, the tiny minority of good usage should not be allowed to offset the glaring problems with them, that they are used as armies of traffic manipulators and they are confusing because they land everywhere and can't be distinguished
[11:55] Andrew Linden: Let's itemize the annoying bot behavior:
[11:55] Prokofy Neva: Erm, the National Guard in the United States is a good thing if it helps with the Katrina flood, it is a bad thing in Iraq. Surely you can accept such analogies, you don't declare an entire army "good" just because of a few "useful" things it does somewhere. And you mark them.
[11:55] Andrew Linden: camping bots and selecting bots are on my main annoying list
[11:55] Simon Linden: "Can't be distinguished" is key here, and why Andrew mentioned that we don't want to start a bot arms race
[11:55] xstorm Radek: there just needs to be a set of rules under the TOS what is a good BOT or not
[11:56] Rex Cronon: it takes server space. 1 mbot means one less user:(
[11:56] Tegg Bode: Some bots are good, but 90 packed into a box 24/7 isn't productive, traffic would be just as well calculated on the number of plywood cubes you put under you club or store
[11:56] Prokofy Neva: There isn't a bot arms race, Simon. You can figure it out. You know the routines, you know the log-ons they use, you know the behaviours. 99 percent of them are not scripted to run like ALICE, for God's sake, please.
[11:56] Andrew Linden: ok so bots contribute to resource exhaustion
[11:56] xstorm Radek: i know a club that had 50 BOT's using free user accounts
[11:57] Prokofy Neva: It isn't provable to be "resource exhaustion" unless you define by that term "scarce avatar spots on a sim"
[11:57] Rex Cronon: not only to the sim they r in:(
[11:57] Andrew Linden: Prokofy, there is a small bot arms race between bot creators already.
[11:57] Prokofy Neva: so one of those lovely greeter bots that Simon finds so useful uses up the 1 space on a sim that holds only 40 on mainland, and everyone then has to have them plus fashion bots and then you have 10 avatar spaces taken up by "useful" freebie accounts denying the rest of the owners on that sim the use of their sim eventually when they rise in numbers.
[11:57] xstorm Radek: they was using the BOT's to farm camping chairs
[11:58] Tegg Bode: There is a bot arms race why else would people run 90 trafficbots instead of 10. This allowing of unlimited anoymous alts just encourages this.
[11:58] Prokofy Neva: So? Are you not capable of deterring this, Andrew? Yo udon't have to have 100 percent effectiveness; even 27 percent deterrence is all to the good. this all or nothing stuff has to go
[11:58] Rex Cronon: technically the grid doesn't care is idle or not:)
[11:58] Prokofy Neva: it's what hobbles you and always hobbles you on every good action and has for 5 years
[11:58] Andrew Linden: That bots use resource it not a question. Whether they are using too much in some cases, also not in question.
[11:58] Helena Lycia: Has anyone tried using bots as a grief tool? To fill up a sim so noone else can get on?
[11:58] Prokofy Neva: You used to say you couldn't handle land cutting or ad extortion because of extreme "use cases" of good -- FINALLY you got over that sillyness.
[11:58] Prokofy Neva: It's done all the time Helena
[11:59] xstorm Radek: and now from what i hear there will be people selling there old BOT user accounts for real money on ebay
[11:59] Andrew Linden: Prokofy, I've never made any claims about what I could or could not do about land cutting. Some policies were made I think.
[11:59] Rex Cronon: if bots could exist only on and for the sim that they r in:)
[11:59] Andrew Linden: I'm much more interested in technical solutions (not policy) as you know.
[12:00] Andrew Linden: Which is where I'm trying to guide the conversation here.
[12:00] Prokofy Neva: Andrew, the "you" is the collective "you" of LL on the land cutting issue, it took you three long years to come out of the code cave ethos on that and act with a policy
[12:00] Andrew Linden: Hrm... bots on sale on ebay? That is interesting.
[12:00] xstorm Radek: i see that as the best way keep the bots only in the sims the owner has
[12:01] Prokofy Neva: Yes Andrew of course they're for sale, they are advertiesd on the Herald, you can buy a fleet of 40 in a program called "traffic infusion"
[12:01] Arawn Spitteler: The thing the unlawful bots are trying to alter, is the area to attach, and that's commercial stats.
[12:01] xstorm Radek: yes the bots use a free account so they sell the av account
[12:01] Andrew Linden: Oh I see, they are selling their bot services, not their bot accounts.
[12:01] xstorm Radek: there account too even if its free
[12:02] Arawn Spitteler: WEB-814
[12:02] Andrew Linden: Ack. I've got a meeting immediately after this one.
[12:02] Andrew Linden: So I've got to run.
[12:02] Andrew Linden: Thanks for coming everyone.
[12:02] Rex Cronon: bye andrew
[12:02] Helena Lycia: Take care
[12:02] xstorm Radek: thank you Andrew
[12:02] Arawn Spitteler: Bye, Andrew. I'll try to make it Thursxdcay
[12:02] Prokofy Neva: thanks Andrews
[12:02] Helena Lycia: Bye guys
[12:02] Moon Metty: thank you Andrew
[12:02] Tegg Bode: Yes I got griefed by a bot that sent me a few thousand IM's from around 500 different sims in 4 hours which gave me a few hundred emails because I had IM diverted to email. there is a limit on how many IMs you can send from a sim so they jump from sim to sim. It was teleporting every 10 seconds or so, let a few hundred of them loose hammering the asset servers and see how well performance is.
[12:03] Rex Cronon: bye everybody
[12:03] Moon Metty: and Simon :)
[12:03] Rex Cronon: have fun
[12:03] Prokofy Neva: is Andrew suggesting you could crack down on them because they re-sell accounts? Essentially, that IS what they do
[12:03] Moon Metty: zebra alert!
[12:03] NonSmokerGirl Tulip: haahhaha
[12:03] Simon Linden: Maybe I should move the TP arrival point a bit
[12:04] Moon Metty: it's ok Simon, i tped her in
[12:04] xstorm Radek: thats rude
[12:04] Blue Linden accepted your inventory offer.
[12:04] NonSmokerGirl Tulip: am i standing on someone?
[12:04] Kitto Flora: Byebye all
[12:04] Simon Linden: hehe - no worries
[12:04] Moon Metty: :)
[12:05] xstorm Radek: thank you Andrew
[12:05] Simon Linden: Thanks everyone for coming
Heya Prok, just wondering... some of the ads on your site lately seem rather unrelated to your topics.
Do you have an ad contract or something going?
Posted by: Desmond Shang | February 17, 2009 at 07:22 PM
The ads are more likely relative to you Desmond, I see UK based ads.
Posted by: Ciaran Laval | February 17, 2009 at 08:03 PM
I'm not sure what they mean by a bot arms race, we might see the development of more useful bots but that's not such a bad thing, however there's no need for 50 useful bots tucked away in a skybox.
People simply shouldn't be allowed unlimited alts. Five and then you pay for another five.
Posted by: Ciaran Laval | February 17, 2009 at 08:17 PM
I see things like "online degrees in a few years" and something about "Microsoft Search that pays you back" or suchlike. Can't quite remember but it seemed strange.
I saw another ad for There.com which seems related, at least.
Posted by: Desmond Shang | February 17, 2009 at 08:49 PM
Why do you care, Desmond? Is there a law that my blog ads have to be related to my blog themes? I signed up recently with the Six Apart adify.com program and they serve the ads they serve. I think they are roughly supposed to be on topic but who the hell knows. It's a huge complex panel of stuff where I actually have the option to go chose what I want served, but I haven't been able to take the time to figure it out and take their webinar and all the rest of it to figure out how to work all this. I just let it kaching.
What the geeks mean by an arms race is that as soon as you figure out a way to detect them by noting that they do XYZ, the bot coders will change that routine to KLM. But that's silly. First of all, you don't have to tell them how and when you detect. Secondly, so what if they arms race? Like...it's so hard to be in an arms race? I mean, you're in an arms race with every other platform serving up a virtual world. Do you say, "Oh, to put in a new graphic rendering system would put us in an arms race with World of Warcraft". You do what you have to do. And as I pointed out to these perfectionist literalists, you work for 27 percent. You don't say "Oh, we always deter 100 percent". As Andrew was willing to say, some bots will be stupid. Some won't. As I pointed out, not every bot is an ALICE graduate. So please. Let's first have the political determination and the spine and the balls to do what's right, then figure out how to adjust the tech.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | February 17, 2009 at 08:53 PM
Yeah fives a good amount of alts for anyone.
The google ads are always scarily acurate (just clicked a link to the free LSL directory)..the main image ad is always way off the mark.
What a long bit of copypasta this blog post is..yes a muddled meeting for sure.
Posted by: Monk Zymurgy | February 17, 2009 at 08:54 PM
Actually the reason I care about the ads is that it's business, and I am constantly learning.
Your thoughts about inworld business ads at resident arrival areas have fascinated me a bit.
I've got a small 'sponsors' area at the Caledon gateway, where 19th c. style in-theme ads to inworld businesses can be shown in a sort of Victorian greenhouse.
It's completely full and booked through June (I'm not looking for more advertisers, it booked solid in one day back in September). Doesn't even really come close to covering region tier... but I've tried to err on the side of taste.
Done right, I think a tasteful amount of advertising is a good idea.
Posted by: Desmond Shang | February 17, 2009 at 10:03 PM
lol ranting about PN griefing...
"WUT TO DO TO STOP THEM?!?!?!"
nothing, quit the game, we win.
Posted by: fjdbvgdfkg | February 18, 2009 at 12:38 AM
I don't know where you've been, Desmond, I've been talking about resident ads for 4 years.
This "done right" stuff is a hobble, because it usually means "let's not do it at all, because it can't be done right."
Ads don't have to be tasteful to work. I've allowed the businesses on my infohub to put up signs that aren't the most aesthetic thing in the metaverse, perhaps, but they work. They don't spin and aren't garish or anything, but I'm sure they don't fit with the Victoria steampunk cultural norm.
Of course sponsors will book a thing like that, and greedy gus that you are, with your losses, you will make ANOTHER gazebo. You have to. That's what works. AND ANOTHER.
And then I can point out that if the Company streams newbies into YOUR ads sales for free, without you paying anything to get that extra loving, then...why can't other companies BUY the splash page space? Why can't they advertise in the fucking welcome areas then?! See, then it becomes REALLY fucking ridiculous and unfair. Desmond gets newbies streamed to him FOR FREE without paying A CENT off the splash page, right into his lab, to click on ads he sells. Amazing! And yet, I have to limit my ads on the Governor's land completely to this tiny unworkable square called "resident ad system" which is stupid.
I've never aggressively sold to people off my infohub or pushed my rentals or signs in their faces from the land I do own, visible from the infohub, simply because I thought *it was in poor taste* and it would be *unfair* and it would be *poor public stewardship of this public good, namely the infohub and its newbie stream*.
I guess I'm just a chump.
Done right indeed.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | February 18, 2009 at 01:07 AM
I guess the arms race could lead to all bots behaving like "Alice", and using more and more resources to behave in less obviously botty ways, using clients that send more data to look like genuine viewers. Which could be even worse than it is now.
I don't know the answer to that. Maybe that would be too taxing on the computers of people who run these things.
Posted by: Ace Albion | February 18, 2009 at 04:17 AM
Bot AI would be performed at the botserver side, using c# and other code. LSL is not a good language for making AI work. So good AI would not really cause the grid infrastructure any more load. It is very hard now to get a openMetaverse driven bot to wear attachments reliably, so most bots are done with no extra prim/script overhead. I guess if someone is deliberatly forcing more data on the sim-server, in an attempt to spoof the bot as a real avatar...that would be very suckky.
Posted by: Monk Zymurgy | February 18, 2009 at 04:35 AM
My feeling is that the grid is heavily populated, no need for bots because there are many many people.. people employed as models, that happens to Prok is that people stop reacting with her when they see her.. offer money? yeah while someone is AFK, that really works to tell if they are bots or not, I assure you, the interactive problem of the multitude of people is that certain people are just failures at attracting and interacting with people..
Most I am sure will run the other way when Prok comes to "chat".. even people who HAVE to, like some of the Lindens, and those who pulled the short straw when it was time to figure out "OK who is going to tell her/him.." I think Torley got that short straw on one published time, thats for certain.
BOTS? show me the bots I wanna dance with the bots!!
Posted by: AlterEgoTrip Svenska | February 18, 2009 at 05:59 AM
Actually, Prok, I think you are quite missing the point here.
You weren't keen on resident businesses being "GOM'ed" ~ so why are you so against the exact opposite process in other areas?
It makes no sense, unless your real fear is fear of change itself.
Posted by: Desmond Shang | February 18, 2009 at 12:40 PM
Um, fuck you, Desmond, I've seen more change, experienced more change, and changed more than you ever will in your fucking priggish little life, in both SL and RL. So seriously FUCK you with that kind of smug idiot California bullshit. Tell me that someone who runs a Victorian fucking Steampunk sim is someone embracing modernity, please.
I have no idea what you mean by "the exact opposite" but you aren't in good faith on this debate.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | February 18, 2009 at 01:22 PM