Software Hubris or the Invasion of AnnMarie Otoole's Vehicles Everywhere

If you live and work on the Mainland, you've probably seen them. Badly-textured vehicles careening down the road, and caroming into buildings, grassy knolls, people. When I'm puttering around my rentals in Refugio, I often have to dodge them because they come barrelling right at me, straight up in the air, and then over on to my plaza or the Flea Market. I see them constantly -- schoolbuses, ambulances, trucks, racing cars, etc., I thought at first it was just somebody's idea of making the sims "seem like cities". At first, I didn't mind them. Then I got annoyed as they kept going off road, piling up on abandoned or no-show land -- and especially started finding them in huge pyramids, like a wrecked car lot, in Iris, on a combination of Linden Land and no-show owner's land without autoreturn. They almost never go straight -- they almost always go off-road, hit stuff, land, people, buildings, reverse course, get caught under roads, go up in the air, and just general serve as a nuisance.

The person who makes these vehicles, AnnMarie Otoole, isn't just losing a vehicle occasionally -- this is a deliberate, aggressive, blanket tactic to put unmanned scripted vehicles on as many roads as she can get her hands on, to advertise her vehicles and scripting. The vehicles even invade your screen with a drop-down blue notice that they are available for "free" and $100 for the unmanned vehicle script (snort!). You can say "no thanks" -- until the next one comes along just a minute later invading your space again.

Apparently they are the sort of freebies with a "freemium" that opensource freaks always give in the belief they are being "fun" and "altruistic". She's in the Arcadia Asylum hobo group, so that may be the ideology driving her -- although they'd give the script away, too. Half hobo -- half hustler -- perfect for Second Life!

What I have found out now from ARing and protesting her vehicle pile-ups is that she doesn't believe her littering in the problem, and her deluge of unmanned scripted vehicles on other people's sims. Yes, they're on public Linden roads, but they don't STAY on public roads -- and in any event, the roads were not intended for this heavy scripted use by others with constant unmanned vehicles and used as "experiments" or more often than not, moving advertisements -- how many does she sell a day? (there's some girl with a rentals business that puts these unmanned vehicles all over Patagonia, Zephyr and those atoll sims as well -- this method is catching on and beginning to be a traffic problem and a real nuisance).

No, true to form with the typical software hubris, she believes that the failure to have a scripted command that can return vehicles when stuck on other people's land is the problem. A sort of "encroachment" like issue, only bigger.

So the problem isn't her littering and her hubris, it's the Lindens and their failure to drop what they're doing an add a JIRA solution to their busy agenda.

So she has a JIRA up, and put out this notecard to anyone who had complained to her in the past:

Despite diligent scripting there are times when the SL physics engine is slow or ceases operating temporarily.  Supervisory scripts cannot always act quickly enough to prevent vehicles straying into no-script land where their scripts stop.

If that land also has OBJECT RETURN set OFF, the vehicles are stuck until removed by the Owner, the Landowner or the Lindens, creating an unnecessary burden.
 
Currently there  is no way of removing them automatically.

A new scrpt function has been proposed in SVC-6735
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-6735
that would allow automatic removal of this debris.  A vote for this improvement would show support for litter removal.
 
Any questions, please contact AnnMarie Otoole

My reply to her:

Actually, um...noooo.

The solution to the dead vehicles problem piling up on Linden land, on other people's land, is for YOU to STOP sending unmanned vehicles all over hell's half acre and stop larding up everybody else's sims with your laggy and stupid and cluttery objects. Each time I find one, I abuse report you for prim littering.

It's not the fault of people that they have autoreturn off, it's YOUR fault for littering. That you can't see it that way is part of the software hubris and opensource thinking that infects the script kiddies of Second Life.

Linden Land shouldn't have autoreturn off, but even if on, it can get stuck between Linden Land and a no-show owner whose parcel the Lindens refuse to clear.

So the fault, dear AnnMarie Otoole, is not in our stars but in you. Stop it, and I will continue the ARs.

Prokofy

So she writes back:

[16:19]  AnnMarie Resident: (Saved Fri Feb 04 18:13:18 2011) Oh NP, if you don't want to be part of the solution, that's OK.
[16:19]  Prokofy Neva: no, you're part of the problem, and we need to keep publicizing this.

And so I shall.

This is typical of those geeks who blame companies for holes in their security and imagine they need to constantly probe them with hacking as "helping them strengthen"; it's typical of many geeky attitudes in SL that make software seem a solution for problems that software creates instead of improving bad human behaviour.

This is a case of bad human behaviour. There is no objective need to send hundreds of scripted unmanned vehicles all over SL. It's not a legitimate form of advertising as it lags and clutters sims -- it should be conceived as unwanted spam. It's not a legitimate form of "experimentation" because it does it on public roads and other people's land. The experiment can be done on Linden-owned vehicle testing sims and in sandboxes, and the JIRA can be advocated without harassing other people with junk.

More pictures:

Comments

[Cherowolf Redgrave]

Considering that the Lindens are backed up on responding to tickets, let alone any kind of quick response to this low priority type of ticket, I hardly consider her solution to "just return them" appropriate. The vehicles should at least be scripted to de-rezz when they run off road. For those of us who spend all our time on the Mainland these vehicles are annoying and quickly adding to the blight that we already have to endure. I had not AR'd any yet since I figured with the vast amount running around she must have the Lindens blessing. I never dreamed they were just turned loose like a plague.

[Cinder Roxley]

They can't be scripted to de-rezz if scripting is turned off.

AnnMarie seems to have ramped this up in recent months. I saw her automated garbage back in 2009, ugly little mini-coopers honking for me to move off my own land, but back then it was a once and a while thing.

Recently, she sends them out in what seems like two minute intervals from several launch points, sometimes several in a row. They not down stop and honk, but will push you out of the way if they want.

She has a tank that if clicked on will fire a rocket at you.... Last I remember, automated weapons when you aren't online was breaching CS, as well as weapons in safe zones. Not likely that she cares. I have AR'd these little pests for YEARS with no resolution when they stick into neglected parcels, even logging in to see them stuck inside homes.

Here's one stuck mid-air:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cinderblockz/5387558791/

They're a nuisance, and the blue popup menu is irritating, but she also rides them down SLRR... the cars..... non-phantom so they collide with riders of SLRR trains.

I tolerated it for a long time, now she's just an irritating automated popup pest.

[Prokofy Neva]

Yes, AnnMarie is the latest script-dictator whom the Linden allows to impose her will on the grid because they think it's interesting, or tests sim seams or something.

There is no reason for there to be so many of them, and so frequently, except to sell more of them.

[Magdalena Outlander]

I'm no expert on SL rules and regulations but. . .
It seems to me that land owners in the path of this plague of automobiles could perhaps script something that politely IM's or emails the SL account of the owner of an unmanned physical object that collides with their land boundary.

Such friendly reminders would be no big deal individually. Someone throwing hundreds of vehicles a day down the chute, though, might feel a bit of a crunch when their inbox is getting 1,000+ offlines a day or more.

[Din Avon]

I find it Hypocritical.

In the previous story was Lindens quote re avatar traffic and its potential falsities - "Having residents show up in places they think have people, but are actually empty is a poor experience and reflects badly on Second Life".

Yet Linden labs allows these careening oddities on public roads(near info hubs).

I find myself used to this - the sight of a vehicle drifting through a bridge, a house, or through a person.

To a new resident, how does this reflect on second life?

[Laetizia Coronet]

Agreed, they are terrible. The worst of what's out there on the freebie market, eyesores, badly made and badly scripted. If they had been spinning cubes singing Banana Phone someone would've stepped in already.

In combination with the used name - Ann Otoole is a noted supporter of you on your blog - I'd say this smacks heavily of simple griefing.

[Ann Otoole InSL]

AnnMarie Otoole has nothing to do with me and has been around a long time. I do not have any suspicions of any malevolent griefing going on where she is concerned.

That said, if this issue can be resolved then maybe at some point all that crap like hellrider cycles and other assorted annoying particle spewing noise making aircraft jammed into banlines can disappear automatically. Sadly I don't think LL has any programmers available to work on this sort of stuff given all the other high priorities.

[Prokofy Neva]

AnnMarie Otoole is unrelated to Ann Otoole, and I can't help wondering if AnnMarie Otoole has taken this similar name deliberately.

I do call it griefing when you send hundreds of unmanned vehicles around sims where they end up prim littering other people's land. That's wrong. That's what I call *software hubris*.

There isn't an efficient way that I can tell for vehicles to "just know" they have to delete.

Magdalena, as for me or any other owner having to script something or start notifying litterers like that, again, that's displacing the problems and the solutions from their root. AnnMarie needs to stop being a fucking pig and sending vehicles all over SL, that's all. That's the root of the problem, nothing else is. She can sell her vehicles in a store like anyone else rather than spamming her ads to everyone else on their property. She is no better than an email spammer.

[Cinder Roxley]

AnnMarie has several alts for junking up the roads (Otoole, Oleander, I forget the rest), and if a traffic/garbage counter was filling up her im's, my guess is she'd just mute it.

Wouldn't hurt to count the things, though I don't know who inworld might listen or care with Jack gone. "Governance" seems more concerned with ll's legal issues now, and the Lindens just don't seem to care about our problems if it doesn't hurt their bottom line in a very direct way.

I wonder if Rodvik has ever just roamed around one of the things that sets sl apart from the rest of the grids, yet seems so overlooked, our mainland. It's a wildly different experience than puttering around a private estate.

[Amanda Dallin]

Rodvik said he had been exploring SL.

"One of my highest priorities, over the last few weeks, was spending as much time as possible exploring inworld (with an alt and now Rodvik Linden) to better understand the product experience, your needs, and the culture of Second Life. I have discovered so much. I am amazed on a daily basis by what you have created. "

I've got no reason to doubt him.

[Ann Otoole InSL]

Ann Otoole Resident Since: 2006-29-12 (4 years, 1 month ago)

AnnMarie Otoole Resident Since: 2006-31-12 (4 years, 1 month ago)

Nah. just a coincidence in the names. 2 days apart. Nobody knew me at all when AnnMarie was born.

I was still living in a hole deep under the water in Midnight Reflections trying to build an acceptable avatar when AnnMarie was born.

There is exactly zero affinity between AnnMarie and me.

And I will say my attempts at vehicle scripting suck mightily.

LL needs to make a way for unmanned vehicles to derez automatically when not on a linden road or railroad track. Period.

[Ann Otoole InSL]

Also, as far as road following, LL has tghe railroad track prims named a certain way. So they can get their asses out and name the road prims a certain way so road following scripts can be standardized.

Or delete all the roads and be done with it if they can't think ahead far enough to comprehend people don't want to walk ion the damned roads. They want to drive or be driven on a tour.

[Cinder Roxley]

Amanda, that's about 6 hours a week as far as I've seen. (which I am DEFINATELY NOT saying is a bad thing, it's a very good thing). I'm just wondering where exactly he's spending his time "exploring inworld". He hasn't shown up in my traffic logs in about 80 mainland regions yet, and look in the destination guide, besides "Hot Chat Spots" or whatever they call infohubs there, what else do they showcase on mainland? Anyway...

Ann, you're right about road naming or scripting. Each SLRR track laid is scripted to keep the trains on the tracks and to make sure they don't drift at sim crossings. SLRR train makers run unmanned trains constantly on the rails, but how often do you see trains stuck in banlines, or no script parcels, or inside stores honking away? I've never seen an automated train stick like that.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

"There isn't an efficient way that I can tell for vehicles to "just know" they have to delete. "

There is a simple one which I have had to use in the railcar on my sim: it has an ETA for the next place it has to reach. If at the end of the ETA it has not reached it, it then dies. But, it obviously still can't work if scripting is not allowed.

AMT's vehicles trundle past us regularly. I don't mind them, I think having random movement around us is actually nice, but I admit I haven't had to deal with littering problems. I was very impressed with the steam roller, and the motorbike and side car.

What *would* be useful would be a script function to catalogue my sim, giving me the position, name and owner of all objects there. We have art exhibitions, as a result of which we can't always have Auto-return on otherwise some of the exhibits would vanish. It's a tedious job tracking down who's dumped what on your land each time you log in and them manually returning them after working out if they are litter or a genuine prop for somebody's roleplay.

[Darien Caldwell]

I"m glad for the clarification. I did think it odd that someone who made clothes had suddenly gone into scrpting griefing vehicles. But now I understand the confusion.

I own a sim that has a Linden Road running through it, and these cars are constantly running through it. I've never seen anyone once riding on one, and there are so many on this tiny stretch of road, they often pile up into each other.

It's nothing more than advertising and blatant selling on Linden Land. I thought LL didn't allow vendors on their land, generally.

[Prokofy Neva]

You know, you've just given another hook for abuse reporting -- selling on Linden land! Excellent idea. Indeed the Lindens religious police this, and this is a good example of a violation.

[A1A]

I have three of her griefer crappy vehicles that run in front of my store on Hamnida about every 5 minutes. I can sit in my office and watch the lag meter begin to spike when there are two of them in front of my store bumping into each other. This is simply litter and trash and since AR'ing does not work perhaps some of us who know how to write her type of scripts should begin to build our own crappy griefer vehicles and put them all around the roads where the Lindens have their mainland buildings.

[Cinder Roxley]

That would probably only annoy everybody else, A1A.

[Baloo Uriza]

Not sure what open source has to do with any of this (given that they're proprietary). They're pretty annoying to any road user regardless of software ideology.

Oz called, they want Strawman back.

[Prokofy Neva]

Um, open source has everything to do with it as it is exemplary in concentrated form of the coders' hubris and his formation of what in fact are closed cells to get and keep political power -- such as what you do on the forums and JIRA all day in the most unseemly manner.

This particular blog doesn't somehow raise Open Source and Oz Linden as head of Open Source, so your own strawmen need a recall.

Rather, as it explains, software hubris sums up every kind of coder, open source or proprietary.

AnnMarie's scripts are for sale and appear closed.

And, as I said here:

"it's typical of many geeky attitudes in SL that make software seem a solution for problems that software creates instead of improving bad human behaviour."

Make the Lindens put something into their code to offset her taking over the highways rather than prevent her by human agency from doing that.

The Lindens -- and you --are absolutely disgusting on this. They have Linden roads that are supposed to be OPEN. That means open to the public, not just available for hijacking by asshole coders like AnnMarie -- or you.

You have to restrain the rights of someone like this selling objects on Linden Land and over-using resources to enable everyone to enjoy not only the roads but THEIR LAND around the roads where her vehicles run, too, and pile up.

[Dave Bell]

I worry about the apparent failure of the Lindens to respond.

It's that sort of apparent failure of ARs that made the RedZone business possible: somebody selling a solution to a Linden failure, which they then exploited.

It was a broken solution regardless of whether there was any underlying dishonesty. I wonder what this is going to end up doing to legitimate road users who experience a bad sim crossing and end up off the Linden land?

[Prokofy Neva]

I'm not sure of your point, Dave.

Yes, it's the Lindens' deliberate failure here -- they are breaking their own laws, and allowing wrongful activity under the TOS to continue unimpeded -- sale of items on Linden land, encroachment, bumping, and excessive use of resources -- four violations.

Why? Because they need load tests for their work on sim seams? Is that it?

or because they are cynical software hubris practitioners themselves?

I don't see what AnnMarie Otoole is doing as "a solution to the brokenness of SL" however like Redzone was ostensibly a solution for the failure to stop rogue viewers.

She's not really testing sim seams, she's selling vehicles and extending her "mindshare" in the "market" of "attention".