From the virtual desk of Krisy B...

Patterns... not just dots and lines

2012-01-25T22:11:00.000-08:00

Patterns, life is full of them. Be it in your own life, orthat of those around you. The question you should ask isn’t what those patternsare, but how much attention are you actually paying to them? Chances are, notnearly enough. If you’re a member of a social network such as Facebook, Plurk,Twitter, or even MySpace (for whatever reason), stop for a moment and thinkabout what you seem to see on people’s updates over and over again. Those arethe patterns.

Some people seem to be forever embroiled in drama, be itrelationship or something more, whereas others may seem to be in constantdepression or self destructive mode. Then there’s the ones who imaginethemselves to be some sort of butterfly of love, flitting from relationship torelationship, grabbing hold of the first open flower, so to speak, only to endup wondering why they’re left feeling unfulfilled… or even up there with the aforementioneddrama plagued group. So, what does this have to do with you? Maybe nothing,maybe everything; this is simply my observations and musings.

No one’s above the patterns, not me, not you. We all getcaught up in one or another, the difference comes in how we handle saidpatterns, and whether we actually learn something from them. It seems that manypeople don’t, determined to keep doing the same things time and time again,changing nothing, and then venting their frustrations to the world. They have aname for that, in case you were wondering, it’s called insanity. Insanity hasbeen defined as doing the same thing over and over again, and expectingdifferent results… I’m often insane, in case you wondered, and I have no shamein that.

So, I guess my challenge to you, should you care to bother,would be to start paying attention. Pay attention to what you say or do. Pay attentionto what other people say or do. Identify the patterns, decide if there’s alesson to be had. If it’s your ownpattern, is it a healthy one? If not, what changes can you make to improve it?If it’s someone else’s pattern, is it negatively impacting your life? If so,can you afford to remove them from your life? Food for thought, random musings…whatever you want to call it.

It’s all just my… Insanity.

SOPA... a borrowed breakdown

2012-01-18T18:46:00.000-08:00

This is being shared with permission of CodeBastardRedgrave, and all the information that this post contains was pulled from theplurk page located at http://www.plurk.com/p/fctraw. Only minor adjustments have been made for readability by way of spelling andsome grammar correction. None of the actual information was changed.

So. DNS Blacklisting.How does it work, and how does it affect the internet? Let me explain all ofthat to you. First and foremost, to understand SOPA and how bad its whole basisis, you have to understand what a DNS server is and how it works.

See, all websites on the internet are accessed through whatis called TCP/IP, the basic internet protocol. But TCP/IP only deals withnumbers. IP addresses are constituted of 4 8bit numbers separated by a dot,looking something like 192.67.23.121 (this address is fake, the 192 Class A isreserved for internal LAN uses and doesn't exist on the net).

so, of course, numbers being not really practical for humansto remember beyond a phone number, the engineers thought about some kind ofuniversal internet Yellow Book, a glue that would take every name and translatethem into an IP address, and vice versa. Enter DNS, the Domain Name System,through which we can affectionately use a common name like plurk.com, and DNSresolves it to an IP. Your web browser then knows where the website is locatedby its IP, and magic! You can now view your beloved web page.

Unfortunately, DNS had to be centralized some way or elsenobody would have had consistent results as for their DNS queries. Enter theROOT DNS servers. Those are a bunch of central DNS servers that are fed by aplethora of other DNS servers in the world. The ROOT DNS belong mostly to ahandful of American companies but some root servers are also hosted elsewherein the world.

Every ISP and hostingproviders have their own DNS servers, which are in Master mode, so when theRoot server gets a query on a non-authoritative domain, the request is simplysent to the DNS server the domain is pointing to, and voila, it replies to thequery.

Simple enough I hope? Now you can see that the wholeinterwebs is stuck together by merely ahandful of DNS servers, the Root servers. This is a weakness but also a forceof the internet, as there is little to no intervention on them, as long as theyare up everybody can count on them to serve then the webpage.

(Quick pause in the thread’s progression with a comment of “btw,people, this also explains why sometimes your browser doesn't seem to work butyour Skype does (Skype uses IP addresses) when your ISP's DNS goes kaput” andthe response of “^ definitely true. Some applications use IP directly insteadof DNS for more "reliability" as DNS is an extra point of failure.”)

Anyways, enter SOPA…

SOPA's whole concept is based on what is called DNSblacklisting, which only exists at a lower DNS level than root servers forexample China and Syria uses a DNS blacklist since the whole country is behinda firewall, the government controls all of the DNS servers being used toresolve domain names for that country. So if they add something on that list,boom, nobody is able to resolve it anymore, and the website is effectivelyblocked. Imagine going to open very popular websites and see them vanish, whilethe rest of the world can see them. Scary, innit?

Think that is scary? This is still on a local point, this particularcountry's DNS. If they added Google to their own blacklist, only their owncountry would be blocking it. But imagine if it affected the whole internet?

More discussion ensues:

Question: is there a theoretical possibility to somehowdecentralize root servers? As in torrent decentralized?

Answer: That's what the SOPA/PIPA have in planning, puttingblacklist software on the ROOT DNS servers.

Asker: Sure, that torrent would be huge... but still soundsnice

Answerer: (asker): yes and yes, it's actually beingdiscussed by several engineers, but it needs a complete re-engineering of theDNS system. There are several propositions in that way and i hope they will beimplemented pronto.

Second Answerer: (Asker): a lot has to do with traffic minimizationtoo. DNS' update themselves only as rarely as they can afford to (diff. levelsetc) traffic "costs money", so you want to keep that battened down

Answerer: yes true (Second), actually the root servers mainlyreplies with other DNS servers as authoritative and rarely replies to requestsdirectly. They are like the glue that holds the DNS system together

Second Answerer: imagine if all the buses decided to talk toeach other ALL THE TIME to sort out their schedule instead of having acentralised routine. don't know about buses in your city, but yeah...NOT IN MYTOWN.

Back to the original discussion line…

So, we got that scary new software installed that wouldallow global blocking of all root servers for any given domain. Can someone seean immediately worrying issue with that? Well, the internet is fragile. Youthink the root servers can't be hacked? Think again. It happens REGULARLY; sooften that the root servers are now multi cluster virtual machines that can besnapshotted and restored. So, compromising those lists by hackers, which willALL go after that blacklist, trust me. It will become better than hacking theNASA. Gaining access to those lists would mean controlling what people can andcannot view. Imagine the blackmail possibilities!

Discussion continues….

Comment: So essentially they’ll break everything. Yay.

Reply 1: Quite indeed. Not only break, but endanger thesingle system that holds the internet together.

Reply 2: The internet was built on the principle of neutral opennessof information and resource, each censorship sets back that original ethos abit.

Comment: It’s the content industry’s failure to offerreasonable alternatives to piracy and adopt new business models. They tend toseek limitations and restrictions through DRMs, content restriction than justdo business in new ways.

Comment: Think abouthow that same industry that lobbied it will be able to also control whocriticizes them.

Comment: Consumers want unfettered affordable access toresources. Not controlled by large corporate who are answerable to stakeholderswho want $$

Comment: Yes. That’s what scares me. Like China’s firewall.How they restrict their media. Americans used to say that was barbaric, look atthis crap now.

Comment: Just shows how little our representatives knowabout the technology, and how much they’re pocketing from special interest.

Comment: Want a good example? Check the Youtube VEVO/BMGarrangement that grants UMG a blacklist right on any Youtube video.

Comment: Thanks for the clear explanation! I think theirreal goal is censorship, not IP rights.

Comment: Really, what comes down to it is simply the USgovernment answering not to the people, for the people, but to profit-seekingshareholders

Comment: Yeah..."piracy is costing us billion ofdollars!" Well, keep charging me $15 a movie then, you dicks.

Comment: Yeah, imagine a net w/out Youtube, Vimeo,Wordpress, Blogger, StumbleUpon, DeviantArt, Wikipedia, Grooveshark, OpenSim

Comment (in addition): Twitter, Plurk, Allrecipes, Pandora,Sourceforge, Mozilla

Comment: Imagine a web without all the good stuff, and theonly sites you can get to are corporate sites full of ads trying to sell youstuff

Comment: But what I really don't get is the global thing,like it's a US bill. Why are they trying to control the world's internet? WellI guess as I was told, most websites or the content are US based.

Response to above: Most regulatory bodies of the net arebased in the US (they DID invent the internet, pretty much). It's the conceptthat might spread to other countries, that is the threat.

And then came the following additional information, fromanother plurker:

Okay. I was going to stay out of this, but since it gotreally interesting, I'm gonna dive in. HERE IS THE OTHER PART OF THE STORY: DNSSEC.

DNSSEC is a set of security improvements to DNS. It providesspecifications for end-to-end encryption of domain names, data integrity, etc. In1990, security researchers discovered fundamental flaws in the architecture ofDNS that could lead to malicious users hijacking or disabling the entireinternet. Not exaggerating: entire internet, at least the way we know it. Thisdiscovery led to the development of DNSSEC, which was designed to protect DNSclients from forged DNS data, such as that created by DNS cache poisoning.Remember that; there'll be a pop quiz.

Anyway, how it works: All answers in DNSSEC are digitallysigned. By checking the digital signature, a DNS resolver is able to check ifthe information is identical (correct and complete) to the information on theauthoritative DNS server. DNSSEC is, at this point, fairly widely deployed;many countries have already adopted it. The US government has been sponsoring a"DNSSEC Deployment Initiative" as part of its cyber-security efforts,and it has been deployed on .gov sites since 2008. It is considered a priority.

So let's go back to what CENSORED was saying about how SOPAand PIPA deal with allegedly piratical domain names. They require DNSredirects, right? Okay. This requirement isn't compatible with DNSSEC; it completelyundermines efforts to build a secure domain name service. Remember the bitabout DNSSEC being designed to protect from forged DNS data? A domain nameservice designed to protect against forged DNS data can't tell the differencebetween data forged by malicious attackers and data forged by the government orthe internet service provider. The only work-around is to punch holes in thebasic security of DNSSEC, which thus leaves the internet itself vulnerable toattack.

(There's another work-around which involves deep packetinspection, but I've plurkjacked enough for today, I think.)

My commentary add-on:

SOPA and PIPA are two dangerous pieces oflegislation that threaten the accessibility of the internet as we currentlyknow it, not just in America, but in the world. If you’re not, at this point,aware of what’s going on, please take a little time to check out websites suchas http://americancensorship.org/supporters.html, http://sopablackout.org/learnmore/, and http://americancensorship.org/infographic.png.

Love in Two Worlds

2011-07-29T22:57:00.000-07:00

So there is a topic which has been brought up several times now on my Facebook newsfeed. Something that baffles many people who have grown up with what society has decided to shove out there as acceptable. How can you tell two different people you love them, in a romantic way, and mean it to both people? Simply put, we all possess the capacity to love multiple people, beyond friendship. The issue isn’t what we’re humanly capable of doing; it’s more so what we’ve decided is acceptable behavior, as well as a bit of human nature.

It’s said that natural behavior through evolution dictates that we should live essentially polyamorous lifestyles, and that monogamy is difficult for some because of this nature. I’d argue against this, primarily because one of the things that separate humans from the rest of nature is our ability to make logic based decisions, as well as form morals and values, not just relying on instinct alone. This is where the primary issue arises though.

It is completely possible to love two people, in the same fashion, and mean it. However, it very rarely works out well. This is, in part, because of the selfish side of our nature. The great majority of us, whether fueled by natural desire or society’s standard, want to be someone’s “one and only” and there’s nothing wrong with that. We all want to feel special and important to the person that we love. We want them to love us in return and only us. Sometimes we want that love to expand into more, by way of having a family. This is all natural ingrained feelings. However, we need to keep in mind that this isn’t always how life works out, nor is it what works for every person.

I’ll mention here that my personal morals and values are such that I wouldn’t personally involve myself with someone on SL were I married in RL, primarily because when I love someone and I’m involved with them, then there is no one else, it’s not an option I allow for myself. I also hold RL steady dating relationships in the same light. I also prefer the same dedication from the one I’m with, as I don’t share well when it comes to the person I’m actually in a relationship with. However, I know that my feelings aren’t shared by all, and for the ones who don’t, hopefully whatever their outlook is, works well for them.

I’d hope most people would have sense enough to agree that love can never be defined in a “one size fits all” definition, nor should one person’s definition be applied to anyone else. Even in religion, you’re supposed to form your own personal relationship with the worshiped figure or figures, in addition to the basic worship of them. Take from that example that once you get past the basics of it, you have to then define the rest for yourself. This is what you do with love.

Having said all of that though, I do not believe that anyone who is in a RL partnership but participating in an SL partnership can ever honestly claim to have a complete RL partnership. SL relationships come about because people have a void that needs to be filled; some want or desire that’s not being met. This can be emotional, sexual, mental, whatever, but something isn’t there. Does that mean it’s not a happy RL partnership? Well, what you or I require to be happy can differ greatly from the next person, so it’s hard to answer that. However, I have enough confidence that I’d be willing to bet money that my assessment is correct.

I believe that these relationships can develop in an emotionally healthy fashion, but that depends greatly on four factors: honesty, communication, respecting boundaries, and not forgetting the reality of the situation when all is said and done. It’s a balancing act that not everyone can do. It takes people with the ability to balance things. Some will participate in these relationships with the full knowledge and blessing of their RL partners, which is great for them. Others will have to keep the two worlds separate, and find the proper balance between the two.

The issue of whether or not it was cheating in some way, on their RL partners… well, it’s another grey area. Some people think that the implied actions via sex animations constitute cheating. Others put that line at achieving RL orgasm via the masturbation that can accompany the sex animations. The line could wait until voice is involved through mediums such as SL, Skype, Yahoo Messenger, Gmail Chat, etc. You get the idea without me continuing down the line. Everyone has their personal line, and a few even start it back at flirting. It’s another situation where it’s going to be a different definition for each person.

Due to the nature of SL relationships, the people who choose to not involve their RL partners with their SL relationships have their reasons. Sometimes they’re not in a happy RL partnership, but stuck in a situation they can’t easily get out of. This doesn’t facilitate a situation where they can be open with their RL partner about what they do in SL, especially not if they get into an SL partnership. I’d venture to say that a lot of people in this particular situation wouldn’t normally step outside of their RL relationships if the issues didn’t exist.

For those who fit somewhat into both categories, where their RL partner doesn’t know about their SL lifestyle, but their RL relationships aren’t heading toward separation, they’re in the most scrutinized position. They cause people the most confusion. However, it goes back up to getting a void filled. The statement “what you won’t do, someone else will” is very true. Should it be considered cheating? Well, refer back to my paragraph above on that. I would personally venture to say that as long as reality is kept in place, that the SL situation can help keep the RL relationship from heading down the path to separation. That might be playing devil’s advocate a bit, but if you consider that if it’s kept to SL, reality stays in place, RL doesn’t get affected by it, and it takes a glaring issue down to nothing… also, no RL kids come out of it, no STDs are brought home, and the only negative potential that I can see in it is hurt feelings if RL finds out and doesn’t accept it, or someone forgets reality in SL.

So how do we summarize this…? Well, we’ll say that each person has to choose what works for them. In addition, keep in mind that what works for you may not work for the next person. Love, happiness, and cheating are two things that have to be defined by each person. There are some common things in each that the great majority will agree upon, but as most know, it’s the details that count. What’s most important is to not find yourself in a relationship that you’re not capable of dealing with.

These are my thoughts on the subject; feel free to share yours below. Thank you for reading.

I Love You...

2011-04-19T04:04:00.000-07:00

(can't see vevo? click here)

Three simple words, strung together, intended to convey an array of feelings and emotions. Recently, I read an article byline that proclaimed them to be number one on some current list of the biggest lies told in relationships. It amused me enough to stick in my brain, not because I think it’s wrong, but rather, because I think it’s been one of the most abused phrases for many, many years. We all think we know what it means, you probably have some image or thought of what love involves… chances are, you’re wrong. Maybe not terribly, but the sad truth is that the concept of love, and what it should be, what it should involve, has been so distorted over the centuries that you’d have trouble getting a group of people to agree with each other on the subject.

Well… that’s almost true. There is one detail that everyone, yes everyone, can agree on… We all crave it to the core of our very being.

What is the real definition? I don’t have a complete answer to that. I know that it’s possible to love more than one person, and I know that there are multiple types of love. I also know that love isn’t a “one size fits all” situation, but not because there aren’t common threads between the different types, rather due to the distortion of what we consider love to be today. What do I know about it? Let’s see:

Love is not stringing a person along, that’s selfishness.
Love is not abusive. It does not harm out of anger, or a desire to control another person.
Love is not turning your back on someone because they do something you dislike.
Love is not being disloyal in your relationships, be it romantic, family, or friendship.
Love is not a word meant for the “flavor of the week”.
Love is not perfect.
Love is not a toy, game, or myth.

I could go on, but I need to also mention:

Love is meant to be like a sweet embrace, comforting and peaceful.
Love is sustaining in its own right. Not in the physical sense, rather in the emotional sense.
Love is respect, loyalty, supportiveness, appreciation, and honesty.
Love is unselfish, and often means some sacrifice.
Love is for friends.
Love is for family.
Love is for your romantic partner.
Love is rewarding.
Love is real.

With what most of us understand love to be, it’s not surprising that we crave it so badly. What’s sad is that the “love is not” list is more descriptive of today’s society than the “love is” list. It’s really not all that surprising that people jump in and out of relationships the way they do, when you take things into consideration.

When I sit back and watch people on SL, whether it’s in game, or more commonly now, on FaceBook, jump in and out of relationships, I notice one common thread. The phrase “I love you”, with whatever additional text they throw in there, seemingly within minutes of them announcing they’re together. Not the worst things in the world, until you see the same person or people announce they’re with someone new, and plastering that same phrase all over each other’s wall posts and in pick tabs. It’s simply not realistic, not with everything that love should really be.

I’d be willing to accept this “love at first sight” style concept, if it didn’t seem like they were riding the word as if it were a pogo stick, bouncing in and out of relationships within days of each other. That’s not love, it’s a giant banner over your head that says “I want so badly to know what it feels like to truly be loved, and truly love someone else, that I’m willing to look like a whore who can’t make their mind up while I try to find it.” (there’s burn cream on the table to the left, help yourself *smiles*)

You want to know what love really feels like? Well, it doesn’t feel like a pogo stick. Pretty much everyone, regardless of the type of love, will have to go through the same process of getting to know someone and putting time and effort into the relationship before real love will begin.

A new mother spends time developing the relationship with her child, during pregnancy, before she truly loves it. A father will go through part of the same process, but a lot of the relationship building happens after birth. Siblings get to know one another, as well as extended family, and build the bond after the birth, as well. The sense of obligation, protection, etc. isn’t love; it’s the barebones nature of many species.

Think about your closest friends, it took time to develop the friendship into what it is today, work and effort. Fights happen, but they make things stronger. Respect must exist in friendship, as with any relationship, and trust is also of extreme importance. Love doesn’t happen overnight here either, it develops from common interests and bonding, from proving one’s self to be a “good friend”, and then, through the bonding process, love develops. This kind of love can range from simple to something that strongly resembles the familial love mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Those warm and fuzzy feelings you have about your new romantic relationship, that’s the euphoria that comes with having someone show interest in you, not because they’re obligated to, but because they want to. Those feelings are the stepping stones to the real relationship. It’s important to note that those feelings are not love. They’re lust, wonderment, amazement, excitement, and probably a few other things… but they’re not love. Enjoy the ride, but don’t let yourself get caught up in the moment to the extent that confusion sets in. Watch things grow, tend to the new bud, and if it doesn’t start to wither away, you might get to watch it bloom into what you’ve been chasing, love.

Take this blog post however you want, comment below if you choose to… but if you made it this far, you may as well take a few minutes to process what you read. Love exists, it’s such an exquisite thing that all humans crave it, yet it’s so often treated no better than a jacket, tossed wherever it lands, and picked back up when we need warmth. Start appreciating it for the gift that it is, and it might open a whole new world out there for you. Just a thought.

Internet Gangstas... they're gonna email a cap right in yo ass!

2011-04-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

Back in 1996 I was introduced to the social side of the internet, via chat rooms on the formerly popular AOL internet program. Boy what a world that opened up… I read some things I’d never heard in my 16 years of life, and a few things that I hadn’t heard since elementary school. I also learned about a whole new set of “people classifications” so to speak. The one that grabs the most notice in the virtual world is the Internet Gangsta. Why, you ask? Well, it depends on which side you want to look at it from.

How do you identify an internet gangsta from the rest of the group? Simply really… they’re the ones with typically short fuses who are known to toss threats around like candy. Anything from telling someone they’re going to kick their ass, to the more extreme threats of taking the issue to real life. Things are often extreme with them more than they’re relaxed, and minor infractions are seen as major offenses when deemed to be against them. They usually have a small group of people who encourage the behavior, and also make attempts to emulate the same tactics. By now, if you’ve spent any time in social settings on the internet, you’re probably able to get a picture of what type of person I’m talking about… if no picture comes to mind, you may need to grab a mirror.

So back to answering the original question of Why? Well, if you’re one of those who support the behavior, you’re going to say, Why not? You don’t see anything wrong with it; you think that it’s fun as well as funny. You probably go to sleep at night thinking about who your next target is. It’s a side thought, even when there are other things going on. It helps your world go ‘round.

The ones who are targeted often feel compelled to respond back to the verbal or written assault, as they feel like they have to defend themselves. They don’t like the internet gangstas, wouldn’t dream of acting out as if they were one, but often end up looking just as bad in the end. Not of their own fault so much, as it’s natural to want to defend one’s self and one’s honor. Rather, because they were unable to, at some point, decide the venture was pointless and just walk away from it. It’s hard to fault the ‘victim’ in the situation, so they often get a pass… unless a pattern develops, at which time a friend or two of the ‘victim’ might step in and offer some sound advice.

Now we move onto the other primary group, who we’ll call the bystanders. The bystanders are the average social network user. They’re the ones who sit back and survey the interactions between internet gangstas and their victims. They’re the people who shake their heads at the ‘gangstas’ and try to advise the ‘victims’. Rarely do they become victims themselves, because they see the ‘gangstas’ for what they really are.

What are they? Well, I guess that’s what this blog entry is boiling down to… They’re bullies, only more pitiful. What else can you call someone who is so miserable with their real lives that they have nothing better to do than sit behind a computer and spew useless threats of physical harm which they’ll never carry out beyond their dreams. They talk about their attitudes, how dangerous they are, what method they’ll use to cause physical harm. It could be anything from a simple punch/knockout scenario, to the more extreme homicidal threat. In my opinion, the bigger the threat they suggest themselves to be, the bigger the chance they’re deflecting their level of misery with themselves and their lives. A less common, but just as legitimate explanation for the behavior would be that they were bullied when they were growing up, and they’re expressing their anger over that online, where they feel the chance of repercussions are essentially nonexistent. Other explanations do exist, but are even less common than the one I just briefly mentioned, but they all come back to the same thing in the end.

So what might be the proper way to deal with these ‘gangstas’? Not reacting to them is usually the best start. Make use of the mute button, if you feel like you’re going to have trouble not reacting. Of course, I’ll be the first to admit that it can be fun to instigate one of these types to react, as they’re typically much too easy to get response from, it’s not always worth it. The best policy is to ignore the dramatics and go on about your business, and leave them sitting there with their little clique and their misery.

Got thoughts or opinions to add? Go for it, make use of the comment box below, just don’t be abusive.

Until the next time…

Bad Business...

2011-02-02T00:23:00.000-08:00

As a consumer, I often find myself with the outsider’s perspective on things like business ethics, and what seems to make one business succeed where the others have failed. I also have the freedom to my opinion on what makes good business practice, from a consumer’s position.

There’s one thing that will always work out in the favor of the consumer… competition between businesses. Why does this work in the favor of the customer? Simply put, the product that’s presented to us needs to be more appealing than the competition’s. There needs to be something there that makes us sit back and say “Yes, this one is better than that one, and this is the one that will get my money.” It’s important and necessary to have this available, it’s nearly relatable to a “survival of the fittest” effect, where only the best will thrive and the rest will fall to the wayside.

What happens for the consumer when there is no competition? A higher chance of us being presented with a lesser product, and the choice of use it or don’t. There’s nothing that pushes the creator to present us with something that works, at a fair price, and we’re left with the simple choice of use it or don’t. Not a very appealing prospect, is it?

Let’s take this further… What happens when you have this product that is decent, has been selling with no real competition, but has hit a point where there are people who aren’t satisfied with the changes have been made and decide to get back to basics with a product of their own? It means that the product that was already in existence should recognize that they have a competitor and might need to look at what caused the former customer to become competition. For the consumer, it means they have a new option to consider and possibly test out.

Let’s take a real life example for perspective, one most people can relate to. Coca Cola and Pepsi are two major corporations; they have coexisted for many years doing exactly what we, as consumers, would expect them to do. They run their businesses with one primary goal: Make the consumer feel that their company is the better one to spend their money with. They try different tactics in advertising, in product development, in consumer relations.

What don’t these two powerhouses do? Try and run each other out of town. Why? Because it doesn’t look good to the consumer, those people who spend the money that keeps those businesses from going under. They don’t sit there and say “If you consume their product, you’re not allowed to consume ours.” That would be ridiculous, bad “PR” if you will.

What we know to be reality is that some people prefer one over the other, while others aren’t particular and either will do. Either way, these companies allow for competition, because it’s healthy for business. It says they’re not scared of the competition, because they’re secure enough that their product will not fall to its proverbial knees under the weight of the opposition.

What does all this have to do with SL, you ask? Well, simply put, there’s a business in SL that has decided that the best tactic to keep the lindens coming in is to run off the competition, rather than welcome the challenge. It’s not something that’s life altering, but because people’s money is being played with, so to speak, it is worth mentioning the situation in hopes that someone who can make a difference will pay attention to something other than the current “cash out” rate on the Linden exchange and recognize that there will be nothing to cash out if they stay on the same track they’re on now. Slow your damned roll and realize that your product is capable of holding its own against a competitor, if you’d put your priorities in the right order.

Like I said at the beginning, I’m merely a consumer with an opinion.

Breaking Point...

2011-01-29T15:58:00.000-08:00

The above song spawned this post, and I think it’s a fantastic song (can't see the video? click here)…. But the concept of a breaking point in relationships shouldn’t be limited to women, rather it should be recognized as gender neutral thing, as it is something that both men and women experience.

Relationships come about because two people find themselves attracted to one another in some fashion. Conventionally, it’s a physical attraction that occurs when two people see each other. However, in the digital era, online dating has grown in popularity as well, and this brings a different aspect to the dating game. When it comes to dating in SL, you’re most common attraction will be to someone’s personality over their looks, as their real life looks are generally secondary in discovery. Anyway, two people connect on some level, this connection is explored, the relationship is formed, and the fun begins.

You have the honeymoon period, where everything is butterflies and rainbows, and they decide they’ve fallen in love, and so on and so forth. SL weddings are planned, prim babies are ordered, and everything is awesome. Until that moment when they honeymoon period ends. Now this doesn’t happen at the same time for everyone, and not every couple will react the same to it. Some couples will make it over that hurdle successfully where others will crash into it and shatter.

I keep talking about a breaking point, but I haven’t broken it down for you my way, and in terms of people and relationships in SL... Maybe I should get to that, eh?

Everyone has their own breaking point. For some people, the breaking point comes quick, while others seem to put up with a lot before they hit theirs. Basically a breaking point is the moment when a person decides that enough is enough, and they’re not going to settle anymore. They say “You get what you settle for, and you settle for what you think you’re worth.” I believe that rings very close to the truth. The less you think of yourself, the lower your standards will be and the more likely that you’re going to be unhappy with how the relationship goes.

So, in theory, based on the end of that last paragraph, you’d think that the relationship would end quickly. Quite the opposite is more likely. The more probable scenario is that the person who thinks less of themselves will tolerate a lot more, because they may feel like they can’t do better or perhaps they deserve to be treated this way. This, naturally, isn’t typically true at all. The biggest barrier they have in being truly happy is often themselves. They don’t see beyond their own misery because they have trouble seeing outside of the box they’ve placed themselves in. I’d venture to say that it’s the most common relationship situation in existence, because generally speaking, people are easily manipulated into thinking the worst of themselves.

On the flip side of this, you have those who reach that breaking point quickly. They might be the type to jump in and out of relationships at what seems like a weekly rate. They’re typically never satisfied and commonly unhappy with themselves. It’s the opposite of those with a low opinion of themselves. When it comes to the honeymoon ending, they not only stumble, they trip over their own shoelace and barely avoid an embarrassing faceplant. This type usually thinks themselves superior in some way, whether it’s warranted or not, and perhaps directly related to the SIDWs that I dedicated my previous entry to. The reasons for them dumping the ones left in their wake vary in degree, but are often things that seem menial or trivial to those who don’t mimic the same relationship pattern. Or they’ve possibly decided the grass is greener in someone else’s yard, and they’ve already begun sniffing around and need to clear the way. They make the best examples for “misery loves company” situations because they feel that everyone should share their moment.

Somewhere in between you have a good balance of a healthy self-image and appreciation for what’s acceptable in a relationship and what’s not. This is the least common and most coveted scenario because these are the people who manage to buck against the odds and achieve happiness. They are able to clear the hurdle of the honeymoon period ending and walk away with only minor scrapes and bruising. The ones in this situation have learned to respect one another, as well as appreciate each other, and don’t necessarily feel like they’re hitting that breaking point very often. In terms of couples in SL, these are the relationships that last longest, and often go RL. Most of us know at least one couple, some of us are fortunate to know several, and the majority of us feel some sense of envy that we haven’t achieved the same. This is what we strive for, what most of us feel is beyond our grasp.

Whatever category the relationship falls into, one must remember that perfection is just a word, and it’s something that needs to be defined by each person for themselves, not just by a dictionary. What keeps people together past the relationship’s expiration date is a fear of being alone and a belief that you need another person to make you feel better about yourself. Reality is, you need to find out how to be happy with yourself before you can be happy with another person; how to love yourself, before you can love another person. A breaking point is when you say “fuck you” to the fear, to the bullshit, to the games, the lies, the tears. Breaking points can be good, not all relationships are meant to be forever, and some should have never been.

Where’s your breaking point?

Self important drama whores, and the groupies that love them...

2011-01-10T21:13:00.000-08:00

Self-important drama whores and their misguided bandwagon jumping groupies, what a concept, right? More like a plague, if you ask me. Honestly, I don’t know who the worst offender between the two is. Without one, the other can’t survive, and vice versa. Combined, they become a force to be reckoned with… at least until someone slaps them in the face with a “So what?” attitude and they get shut down and they have to find a new subject to toot their own horns about. We’ll refer to the two groups as SIDWs and MBJGs respectively, in the interest of time.

What is a SIDW? Well, let’s make a short list, and see what we come up with, so you can start to identify the offenders in your life:

Constantly in crisis of some sort
Always on one extreme or the other
Constantly on the lookout for supporters
Great liars
Shy away from those who they can’t manipulate
Willing to help, provided they gain something from it
Goes through great effort to make sure you see their “good” points
Can conveniently forget what others have done for them, if it suits their purposes
Crucify someone for wronging them, while expecting a slap on the wrist for their wrongs

First on the list, but no more important than any of the other points, is “constantly in crisis of some sort”. It seems vague until you start noticing examples of it. The SIDW seems to always have something drastic going on for them, whether it be with their real life world or their internet life world. I won’t limit that to Second Life because they exist all over the place, not just SL, as I learned a long time ago when I got my social internet legs in an AOL chat room. They are always being wronged, always being held back, always the victim. They can’t conceptualize what situations they bring upon themselves, they just know that they don’t like what someone else is doing, and they want you to not only be empathetic, but to pity them and make them feel that they’re justified in their reaction. They want you to pay them attention and make them feel important, even better if they feel like they’re at the top of your list of importance in your life.

“Always on one extreme or the other” is similar to the previous point. It’s another attention seeking method. This can even be them taking the “crisis” to the next level, alluding to drastic actions. What happens when the SIDW doesn’t feel sated by the reaction to their “crisis” is exactly what this point is about. Say they share on their preferred social networking site (such as FaceBook or MySpace, for example) that they’ve been kicked from some group. The reaction they’re looking for from their groupies is coddling and outrage, the proverbial scratch behind their ear. When that’s not enough, they’ll allude to something drastic like “the end” and “darkness” which will make the person who’s reading or listening to think of something like suicide, and elicit a more dramatic response of direct attention for the SIDW. Whereas this might be a realistic cry for help from one person, when it comes to a SIDW, it’s just manipulation.

The SIDW cannot exist without supporters, so they’re constantly looking for new ones. It’s not that they need a lot of them at one time, more that they need to replace the ones who smarten up enough to realize what’s going on, the ones who they’ve used up and no longer need, and the ones who see what’s going on, but insist on trying to circumvent the bullshit and try to get the SIDW to grow up and take some personal responsibility in life. The last being the least conducive to the SIDW’s continued success, naturally. In order to gain new supporters, different methods are used, none of which have genuine intention. They may offer something as seemingly innocent as a shoulder to cry on, act like they’re being a great defender for their “friends”; they seem to say the right things, be outraged at the right things, overall a great person to have around. If simply being there and acting like a friend isn’t enough, or if they prefer something more carnal, they might slide into the sexual side of things. This is particularly helpful in gaining the trust and support of those who have lower self-esteem, those who are looking for someone who seems to find them attractive in some sense.

Naturally the best SIDWs are great liars. Then again, it’s imperative that this skill is well developed, as it’s necessary for a good manipulator to be able to not only lie well, but to maintain it as well. They’ve likely gone through the trial and error process, learning what works and what doesn’t. Their consistent interaction with others helps them hone this skill. The lies are preferably small ones, as they’re easier to maintain, but bigger lies are easy enough when they keep the number to a minimum. The best SIDWs can lie well enough that it may take a long time for the truth to come out, and when it does, they rarely end up catching much flack for it.

A logical person realizes that a SIDW is their own worst enemy, but to the SIDW, the biggest enemy is the person they can’t easily manipulate. This one’s an obvious if you’ve been paying attention so far. If they can’t be manipulated, they can’t become an effective MBJG thereby rendering them not just useless, but dangerous. The one they can’t manipulate could see through the SIDWs bullshit and lies and reveal them for what they are. What are they? We’ll get there, grasshopper, have patience.

As was mentioned a little earlier, the SIDW doesn’t mind helping out a current or potential MBJG, because they stand to gain something from it. This can be anything from the simplest request, all the way to something more carnal. If they gain from it in some fashion, and they think they can succeed, they’re there for you. If it’s something they don’t think they’ll be successful with, won’t gain from, or if they’re already in the middle of something with someone else, they’ll either ignore your request completely, or rattle off an excuse as to why they can’t make it, sometimes throwing a random generic apology in there for good measure. This keeps the wheels greased and things moving as smoothly as they can.

The biggest effort they put out, after the first two mentioned points, would be making sure that current and potential BWJGs see their “good” points. They’re smart, sweet, sexy, charming, helpful, loyal, and the list can go on, but it’s rarely as genuine as they want you to think it is. They are smart, that’s a necessary trait of a SIDW, but it’s not always obvious intelligence. There’s a difference between being book smart and street smart, so to speak. You don’t need to be board certified to be a great mechanic, for example, you just need to have spent the time to gain the experience, and possess a talent for it. The rest often comes out in the perception of the receiver, based on the presentation given by the SIDW. Things such as loyalty are never unconditional, and like discussed in the previous paragraph, is expressly limited to what they’re gaining from the situation. If you find you’re dealing with a SIDW and any of their MBJGs, arm yourself with the knowledge and understanding that they will potentially turn on you once the SIDW has decided you’re not useful anymore, or you’re an issue.

Say you’ve spent months being a friend, offering emotional support, loyalty, a shoulder, and maybe even a sexual partner to someone who turns out to be a SIDW. You’ve stressed out, gone through many headaches, and about ruined yourself trying to be there for that person. Well, sorry, as soon as they decide they’re moving on, they do it… and don’t expect them to respect you enough to say anything first, you’re just not as important to them as they were to you. Even if you get the opportunity to confront them about it, and you can tell that they know they were wrong, you’re not going to get genuine remorse from them for what they did. Stupid enough to let them back in to your life? Don’t be surprised when history repeats itself. They haven’t changed, and you just haven’t learned your lesson yet.

Holy shit, the world is coming to an end, someone made the SIDW mad! Let hellfire rain down upon that evil person until they curl up into a fetal position and die! Yes, it really does need to be that dramatic, according to the SIDW, and if you’re a good MBJG, you’ll agree or at least keep your mouth shut and not let the SIDW think you don’t. The SIDW upset you, hurt your feelings, or truly wronged you? It’s just you being dramatic, they’d never do anything like that, and you’re exaggerating. Heaven forbid the SIDW accept responsibility for their actions. Besides, they’d never do anything that requires any type of acceptance of fault, nothing they’d have to really apologize for. Didn’t you know that already?

You did if you’re a good MBJG. If you haven’t figured it out by now, a misguided bandwagon jumping groupie is someone who sits there and feeds into the SIDW’s lies and bullshit. They might even know its lies and bullshit, but rather than calling them on it and risking being cast aside, they’d rather sit silent and enable the behavior. Without their groupies, the drama whore is nothing more than another whiney little bitch that doesn’t deserve more than a moment’s attention. See the connection yet? I hope so, this is taking longer than it should, but I felt it important to give this blight on society 15 minutes of fame as a public service to those who come across this blog and take the time to read it.

So now that you have some information under your belt, sit back and look at those around you, identify the SIDWs and the MBJGs around you and make sure you’re not one of them. SIDWs are hiding behind this created persona to conceal how miserable they are with their lives, and they want to take you down with them, using you as a stepping stone to feel better about themselves. Stroke their ego, make them feel better, get shit on in the end. It’s a never ending cycle until you actually make an effort to stop being a part of it. Remember that misery loves company, but not everyone loves misery.

*deuces*
My dedication to this blog post

A Rant on Love and Sex

2011-01-06T22:38:00.000-08:00

Love. Most of us have experienced it. We’ve enjoyed it, reveled in it. Personally, I’ve experienced what I thought was love in real life, only to discover that it was a strange sort of puppy love that quickly turned sour. That was RL. Then I came to Second Life and *BOOM* I was knocked off my feet. I met a multitude of people, some were in relationships, and some were not. The ones in the relationships seemed as happy as could be. Cooing over each other like it was nobody’s freaking business. Then I met my first real SL boyfriend. He was a sweetheart. He wooed me and I fell for him. It was puppy love. I was freaking enamored with this dude. Then I found out he liked to be a furry. Who has two thumbs and had a complete spazz attack at this newfound information? That’s right, this girl right here.

With that out of the way and him gone from my life. I went on my merry damn way. Then I met another guy. Boy, that relationship was a shit storm. On and off again. Him cheating on me, me screaming at him like a banshee. Oh it was fun.

Then I met the guy that I fell head over heels for. It was the first real, true, unadulterated love that I had ever experienced. The relationship was perfect, up to a point. I had my ex getting in my IM box spewing shit about my current boyfriend in an attempt to get me back for himself. I sadly listened to the bullshit that he was spewing and I went back to him.

Worst mistake of my life. We fought and we fought. We would make up for a while, only to fight once more. We did end up getting married on SL but after a week we ended it.

Now for the shocker. After we broke up, he kindly informed me that he was gay. While we had been dating and married, he had been going to gay clubs and realizing that he was in fact gay.

Iso’s Ego: 0

Gay Ex Husband: 1

After that, I dated a few guys, nearly got married a couple more times. Never followed through because I was skittish as shit.

Then I was single. And I had been single for a while, when I started to observe the dysfunctional aspects of dating on SL.

Watching people getting together and breaking up, it was like my own personal soap opera. I, of course, provided my own popcorn.

I watched people claim that they were in love after a few days, at the most, a week or two. They’d be in the honeymoon phase for a month and in that month they’d have gotten married, had ten kids and were setting up to live happily ever after. Boy were they wrong; the honeymoon phase would end and they started to realize how many flaws their partner had. That was the end of the relationship. On to the next victim, I mean person.

Then there were those who would get into a relationship, stick it out through the honeymoon phase and they’d still be in love with the person that they were with. They seemed truly and genuinely in love with their boyfriend or girlfriend. .

I have seen many instances of the couple meeting up in real life and they fell even more in love with each other. They would soon disappear from SL because they were far too busy being wrapped up in each other to even bother with SL.

I have also seen the relationship where the couple may have met, but they go back to where they live and they continue on with SL. They get married, have kids, and then the little fights start up. They hide them and plaster on the happy face for the public.

I have seen my friends get torn apart by love. I’ve seen people give up entirely, claiming that their heart had been broken far too much for them to even bother trying to find someone again.

That’s where I came in. I had seen so much horror on the battlefield called love that I was actually turned away from it. I vowed to myself that I would never bother getting involved with another relationship. Fuck that shit; I wanted my heart intact, thank you oh so much.

But I guess you could say we’re all slaves to love. We can’t help but fall in and out of it. It’s in our genetic makeup to have the urge to reproduce. And we can’t do that without a partner. Well, we can but that’s just a cold process and it seems so, I don’t know how to put it, it seems so…unfeeling. You meet a person. You start to like them. You start to fall in love with them. And then you’re like “HOO BABY! Lets get to baby makin’ time.”

That brings me to my next subject of SL sex.

I’m going to make a face to explain myself, I hope you understand what I’m trying to portray: O.o

I get the enjoyment of having sex with someone that you care about. You get immense pleasure, right? Right *nods to herself*. But watching two pixels go at it like no ones business? All that comes to my head is complete and utter confusion. Some of you may like having sex on SL; I have absolutely nothing against it. I just don’t get it. I may need someone to explain the whole appeal of it to me so that I can understand it.

The point that I’m really trying to make with whole ramble on SL sex is that it can lead to cheating. And do you have any clue as to how easy it is to cheat on SL? *someone in the back raises their hand* Yeah. I know. All you have to do is make an alt, find someone who is interested in bumping the uglies and you are freaking golden. Maybe you’re not getting the pleasure out of the relationship that you used to, I hear married life can suck balls like that. Or maybe you’re just a cheating bastard that gets off on the misery that you are inflicting on your partner, causing them to feel worthless and unwanted. Niiiiicccceeee. But with the ease at which someone can cheat, I would be terrified to get into a relationship. Hell, I was for the longest time after I got cheated on. I have one friend who was so affected by the cheating of her partner that she refused to get into another relationship.

Cheating is easy, yet we trust our partners not to hurt us. It takes a lot of guts to do so and earns mucho respect from me. I mean if my friend trusts them, then I’ll trust them too. But if my friend gets hurt, I’m out for blood.

This entire rant was to talk about how I felt when it came to love and sex on SL. I guess I sort of went overboard with the whole thing. I’ve just done a lot of observing and a lot of experiencing. Not all of it was pleasant. Some of it was down right horrid. The observations that I have made are that of my friends and what they go through with dating. I wish I could tell other people’s stories. But as for right now, I think I’ll stick to my little rant.

/me boogies out to music while singing: “What is love? Baby, Mike hurt me, Mike hurt me, no more.”

Isobel

Lag... In Summary

2011-01-03T19:11:00.001-08:00

So recently I was clued in on a blog post from 2009, entitled The Anatomy of Lag, by Gwyneth Llewelyn. By the time I finished reading, I felt less concern over things like ARC and my frustration that good prim fur shot my rendering through the roof. I was impressed enough with the information shared in that blog post that I shared the link on my Facebook and Skype statuses. What I got back were comments about the complexity of the information that was given, in the midst of appreciation for the share. Being that I know that I struggled over a few sections myself, I’ve decided to attempt to summarize the information a little bit.

What many people may not understand is there’s a difference between server lag and client lag. Server lag is lag on Linden Lab’s side of things; it will affect everyone to an extent, equally. Client lag is something that you, yourself, experience that others don’t necessarily notice. There isn’t always a distinct difference between the two, but generally speaking, the causes are what make them different.

Client lag has many causes, but the most common offenders are connection, graphics card, computer not being configured properly, or not adjusting settings in preferences on the viewer. Adjusting settings both on your computer and within the preferences panel of your viewer can make a world of difference in your Second Life experience. I’m not going to get into specifics here on what adjustments can help, as it would make this far too long of a read. I will say that if you’re using a third party viewer, look to see if they have an inworld support group or a forum to see help with settings. If you’re on an official Linden Labs viewer, you’re going to want to search their Wiki to find information.

On the server side of things, everything is given a priority. Where an avatar is, in comparison to where your avatar is, is the first priority for the server when you land somewhere. Rendering their avatar if they’re within your visible area, also known as your draw distance, is second. Third and fourth are prim data and the textures, respectively, in your visible area. Last come scripts that directly affect or are controlled by you. While you may personally prefer a different order, this is the order than Linden Labs determined was most appropriate across the board, and is a major improvement over what they had when they first started.

If you’re experiencing lag while logged in, the first thing you can do is open your statistics window. You can bring it up quickly by pressing CTRL SHIFT 1 on a pc. You’ll see several headings including Basic, Advanced, Simulator, Physics Details, Time, and Time Details. These are all the factors affecting both you and the sim you’re on. The first thing in Basic is FPS which is short for Frames Per Second. This is how quickly your system is rendering everything that’s going on in your viewing area, specifically what you can see on your screen, at any given time. Packet Loss is how much information is being lost while your system is communicating with Linden Lab’s servers. Ping Sim is how long it’s taking, in milliseconds, for the server to answer your system in regard to information about the sim you’re on. The information from the Simulator heading is related to the sim you’re currently on and how the server is handling what’s on it. Specific descriptions for each section can be found here.

There is, generally speaking, only one thing that will lag everyone on a sim… a lot of avatars coming to the same place. This causes lag for everyone because the server has to go through the process of loading the new avatar for everyone who’s already there, and, in turn, everyone who’s already there for the newly landed avatar. This includes positions, textures, prims, and then lastly scripts. Everything happens for everyone in that area, all at once. Naturally, you should expect to lag. It has nothing to do with the person next to you who’s ARC is over 6,000 even though you’ve been taught all this time that it is. The only solution is reducing the number of avatars in that space.

While all the information is great for you to have, it’s easier said than done to educate and inform others, especially those who are set in their ways. When dealing with those who aren’t aware, it’s best to take a passive position, and offer the information, but don’t push it on them. Land owners are free to set their own rules for their places, and this includes dictating the ARC’s of people who come there. You don’t have to agree with it, but respecting their position will be better in the long run, especially if you want to try and give them information about lag, such as what’s here and in the blog by Gwyneth Llewellyn.

It was pointed out that I should have included a quick bit of information regarding common methods to reduce inventory without deleting things. Tactics such as boxing items and taking them back into inventory, or putting things such as scripts, landmarks, textures, notecards, or even boxed items that have full perms on them onto a notecard does not help with lag. The asset server will still have to load those thing into your inventory to account for their existence in there. While those methods can be awesome for organizing, they're not effective in reducing lag. If you're wanting to use a method such as mentioned above and want it to be effective, my suggestion would be to box those items, or use the notecard method, then put those notecards into a box, but do not take them back into inventory. Also, allowing your inventory to fully load before jetting around the grid can help with lag as well, because the asset server is done loading these things, therefore won't be a factor until you introduce something new or delete something from the inventory.

This is the first informational blog I’ve attempted in quite some time, so if it falls short, I apologize. Please feel free to use the comment section below, and thank you for taking the time to read.

Krisy

Blog to address RL Topics...

2010-12-15T15:41:00.000-08:00

I've decided to keep this blog to SL topics and start up a new one related to RL topics. If you're interested in following that one, or checking out the post that started here, but was migrated to the new blog page, please visit: http://krisysays.blogspot.com

Thank you,
Krisy

Someone cue up Taps....

2010-09-07T13:09:00.000-07:00

"Emerald Viewer Blocked From Second Life

Dear Second Life Resident,
As of 10am PT Wednesday, September 8, the Emerald Viewer will be blocked from logging in to Second Life as a result of violations of our Policy on Third Party Viewers. Residents who have been using any version of the Emerald Viewer will need to use a different Viewer to access Second Life.

You can download the official Second Life Viewer, developed by Linden Lab, here. Or, you can learn more about alternative Viewers, developed by third parties, here.

Please be aware that attempting to circumvent our blocking to access Second Life with a banned Viewer is a violation of the Policy on Third Party Viewers and may result in the loss of one's account. For more information, please read the blog post.

Joe Linden
VP, Platform & Technology Development"

I love the wording in that blog post, by the way... <insert sarcastic smile here>

Rather than make it seem like they saved SL from some great peril, why not just say something more along the lines of 'We wanted them to do A, B, and C in X amount of time, in order to right the wrongs and pay their penance according to the guidelines we set out for them. They weren't able to get it done, and the repercussion for that is we're blocking the log ins of the viewer." I guess that wasn't melodramatic enough *bites bottom lip*.

Farewell Emerald Viewer, it was fun.

*Waves buh-bye as she opens Phoenix and carries on with her SL* ...What, you didn't think I'd desecrate my computer with Viewer 2 did you?

*Smiles* ~ Krisy

Missing Comments?

2010-09-04T20:15:00.000-07:00

I woke up to a message on Skype indicating that there are comments that may have been missing from one of the blog entries. In response to this, I want to assure everyone who's commented that I don't intend on censoring the comments made here, whether I agree with them or not, without really good reason. However, until I can figure out (I'm still new to this website, still learning everything) what happened with those comments in question, I'm changing the way the comments are allowed. For the time being, there will be no 'anonymous' comments, and I've chosen to have the comments all go through me first, and then I will make sure they go up.

So basically: I am the only one who should have the ability to remove any content on this blog. I did not remove anyone's comment, as I've been asleep for the past nearly four hours. Until I can figure out what happened, everyone who wants to comment will have to sign in via one of the options that Blogger gives.

Guest Blogger: Mindy Spiritor

2010-09-03T21:43:00.000-07:00

The Big Picture: Look Beyond the Trees.

If ever there were an appropriate time for cliches, this moment in Second Life history is a prime candidate for “you cannot see the forest through the trees.” In the case of the Emerald “scandal,” the trees have been stared at, chopped down, shredded, reconstituted, and still not yet drained of all perceived viable uses, yet even still the community as a whole cannot take their eyes off the trees for one moment long enough to see the big picture. In fact, I’m not sure most people even realize that there is a big picture, and I find this depressing. Oh I see your perplexed faces behind those computer screens as you read this asking yourselves, “what the hell is this woman on about?”

The trees I’m referring to are the various issues that I’ve seen beaten to a bloody pulp in-world and all over the internet during the last few weeks with respect to Emerald--emkdu, DDoS, data-mining, banning, blocking, user safety, the Third-Party Viewer Policy (TPVP) and its Directory (TPVD), the viability of Emerald, and so on and so forth. I’m in no way delegitimizing any of these discussions any more than one could suggest a forest doesn’t need trees. However, with what appears to be the heart-breaking demise of a viewer enjoyed by roughly 125,000 unique users each day, and the information that has come to light during that process, it’s high time people shift their focus and start looking at the bulldozers surrounding the forest.

Now, before I delve into the big picture, I think it wise to give you some facts about me and my perspective through all of this, since, quite frankly, many of you don’t have the foggiest idea who I am and have no reason to listen to my ramblings or give them any credence whatsoever. I’ve been deeply involved in Second Life for a year now, which for me, is long enough to know a thing or two, but not so long as to be completely jaded or have developed an “I know it all” attitude. If memory serves, I’ve been an Emerald user (erm, that makes me sound like some crack addict *laughs*) for about 6 months. Despite loving the viewer, I still attempted to use Viewer 2.0 when it came out and nearly gouged my own eyes out after 15 minutes. I joined the Emerald Support Team *drum roll please* the week before the DDoS news broke. Prior to getting involved in the Emerald Viewer group, I had no history with any of the Emerald Development Team or the Support Team for that matter. I had no personal vested interest in the Emerald Viewer except for one thing, and one thing only--its community of users, for whom their preferred viewer is what helps make their Second Life experience that much more enjoyable.

My stated vested interest has been the only thing that’s driven me through this time, and for the last couple of weeks, I, along with the entire Support Team, have worked tirelessly to continue to provide the best support we could to our users. Throughout this entire affair I believe I have remained rather even-handed in the positions I’ve taken. I have been both supportive and critical of several members of the Emerald Development Team on both sides of the internal conflict that lead to the end of the project. I never assume anything as fact or truth without having the information necessary with which to base my own opinion or come to my own reasoned judgments.

So after having said all of that, here is my reasoned judgment of the “trees” that make up the recent Emerald events. Although it may have been the actions of one or a few who truly caused the downfall, the Emerald Development Team failed as a whole in allowing a structure to persist that created the opportunity for what has occurred. I’m not passing judgment on anyone personally, and actually have a large degree of respect for most of the team, some of whom I am now proud to call friends. Rather, I have come to the conclusion that those who acted to rectify the wrongs did so too late and after too much sordid history to have any reasonable chance of saving it. This is a testament to what happens when a group of people manage to successfully create something bigger than themselves without ensuring a system of transparency and accountability necessary to serve as a check and balance on individual behavior. For that, and for the breaches of trust that resulted therefrom, the project earned much of what it got in terms of the strict requirements to continue functioning in Second Life. Notably, most of the team rather gracefully accepted that fact, sucked it up, and put nose to the grindstone to try to accomplish the impossible. However, there can come a time when the punishment is no longer reasonably related to the “crime.” I have witnessed Linden Lab change the rules along the way and go too far in their demands, and it became patently clear that this was not simply about user security or trust.

Finally, I come full circle back to the forest. While the vast majority of you are still bickering and debating the trees, Linden Lab has parked bulldozers outside the forest. Let’s examine this a bit closer, shall we? The Lab's original reasoning for requiring Emerald to remove emkdu from its viewer is that it is not GPL compliant:

The Emerald viewer’s closed source emkdu library is not in compliance with the GPL. Bring all current and future versions of the Emerald viewer into compliance with the GPL by omitting emkdu. Use OpenJPEG or other GPL-compatible code.

Despite this issue never being raised before or during Emerald’s listing on the TPVD and the reasoned disagreement between those intimately familiar with the GPL as to the accuracy of that assessment, I can still swallow this as a “legal” excuse for preventing what might otherwise pose a security risk to users. Keeping in mind that the emkdu file was used to gather private information from the user (full path names), it is fair enough and understood, although I’m unclear as to why the Lab couldn’t simply use that fact alone as the reason for their requirement. That is, of course, unless there are other motives behind the stated justification that go beyond just Emerald.

After issuing their written list of requirements to Emerald and just days before the deadline for compliance, Linden Lab changed the rules. The Lab informed the Emerald Development Team in a meeting that in addition to removing emkdu from the installer package, the viewer code itself must be re-written to remove the calls necessary for the viewer to use any such file, including llkdu. In other words, for those of you who have enjoyed the ability of copying and/or downloading llkdu and dropping it into your chosen viewer installation, the llkdu file would simply no longer be used by the viewer because the code wouldn’t “see” it. Certainly, Linden Lab isn’t concerned about viewer security in utilizing their own Kakadu library, so what is the justification for this new rule? The Lab claims that upon further review, they seem to have “misinterpreted” their Kakadu license, and that the license does not permit distribution of llkdu. Accordingly, Linden Lab informed the Emerald Development Team that this new coding requirement is going to be added to their TPVP. In other words, every TPV will be prohibited from containing code that calls up llkdu for use and will only be considered compliant with the TPVP if it’s using openjpeg or “other GPL-compatible code.” Phrased another way, TPVs containing code that calls up llkdu for use could be considered illegal and malicious viewers, subject to banning. For those of you who question the accuracy of this information, I can only tell you that the members of the Emerald Development Team who were present at the meeting with Linden Lab separately confirmed this information. Notably, this includes members who were on very opposite sides of the conflict that ultimately resulted in the end of the project.

From what I understand, many TPVs have relied upon Linden Lab's distribution of llkdu to improve their rez times and texture handling. There is no question that for some, being forced to use openjpeg in their viewer will not make a huge difference in their SL experience. However, there are many users, myself included, who find it excruciatingly difficult to function in the SL environment using openjpeg, which is not prepared to efficiently handle texture rendering in many ways. Countless users find themselves living in a mostly grey and clouded world, while others suffer with completely corrupted textures. Just ask the rest of the Support Team about the barrage of problems we encountered from users who were running openjpeg after the release of Emerald Viewer Beta 2587 and how easily most of those problems were remedied with use of emkdu or llkdu. From my experience on the Support Team alone, I could write you a list longer than this blog post.

There was a time when the discussions were properly focused on Emerald, what transpired, and what would be done to remedy or deal with the breaches of trust. That time has now passed. With the much anticipated blocking of Emerald Viewers, its users are clamoring to find an alternative viewer they can live with. The vast majority of Emerald’s users came to discover it because of dissatisfaction with the Linden Lab viewer, a movement that increased to a large degree after the release of Viewer 2.0. Therefore, the thought of going back to those viewers has caused sheer panic and chaos. Many are attempting to quell the panic with the comfort that there are several other TPV options available to them, even if not entirely comparable to Emerald. Are you seeing the forest yet? While features are certainly deeply important to users, it’s almost undeniable that the availability of the lldku file to offer comparable or even improved rez times than that of the Linden Lab viewer has become somewhat of a foundational level of functionality for TPVs to build around....but the bulldozers are parked outside.

There is no question that Emerald opened the door to its demise, but if you think for a moment that Linden Lab isn’t milking this opportunity for all that its worth to rid the grid of its competition, I’m afraid you may be sadly mistaken. If you do not start asking the right questions now, the bulldozers will have flattened your chosen viewer before you ever saw it coming. Even if you think I’ve completely bought the farm on all of this, before you pass final judgment, I implore you all to please take a moment and ask yourselves and others the following questions:

What legitimate user security purpose is served by requiring Emerald to remove a call to llkdu, when that is the file users are to trust as it belongs to Linden Lab?
Given that Linden Lab has permitted the use of llkdu by other TPVs for quite some time, why are they suddenly interpreting their Kakadu license to prohibit it? I, for one, would love the opportunity to read the relevant portions of that licensing agreement.
In light of the potential change in the TPVP regarding llkdu, will other TPVs be permitted to license their own Kakadu libraries as Emerald did with emkdu? (Remember that Linden Lab now claims the use of such closed-source libraries would violate the GPL).
If, in fact, the GPL prohibits use of such closed-source libraries (I’d start questioning this position as well by the way), does this mean Linden Lab will now also prohibit TPVs from using fmod and vivox for media and voice? If not, what makes the Kakadu library different from other permitted closed-source files?
If you cannot get reasonable and satisfactory answers to the above questions, then you really must ask yourself, what exactly is Linden Lab's motivation at this point with respect to TPVs and do their actions coincide with their public statements in support of them?

If you’ve made it to this point still questioning my information or position on this issue, two more recent developments may be of interest to you. First, I personally inquired of Linden Lab as to their plans to cease distribution of llkdu and to modify their policies to prohibit TPVs from containing code that calls up the llkdu file. In what I consider to be classic corporate non-speak bollocks, today I received the following reply:

If we decide to stop distributing llkdu and/or make changes to our Third Party Viewer policy, we will make an announcement via the official SL blog.

Second recent development--the just released Phoenix Viewer does not contain code that calls up the llkdu file, because they were advised of the intended change to the TPVP as I indicated above.

If at this stage, you do in fact see the bulldozers outside the forest, what are you going to do about it? Don’t ever lose sight of the fact that although we would have no Second Life without Linden Lab, they too would have no Second Life without the users. However, Linden Lab can never be effectively called to task unless and until the users are willing to remind them of what a vacated Second Life would be like. It is, after all, a business and bottom line matters.

The "Phoenix" has risen...

2010-09-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

I woke up today to a frantic message on Skype asking where I was and being told I was missing a big story. So I read what had been pasted to me, and the first was a resignation letter from former Emerald Support team member Nisa Maverick... In that was an interesting link which I'll get to. The second was from Jessica Lyon's blog with her latest post entitled "From the ashes...." which I'd encourage you all to check out if you haven't already.

Former Emerald users now have a new project to support, the Phoenix Viewer. The website is http://phoenixviewer.com where you can get a copy of the download for your computer. I've decided to download and install it so that I can accurately blog what I see, given that I expect Emerald log-ins to start being disabled next week, possibly Monday at the earliest (and note that this is my own guess, not something that's been confirmed). Want to know what I've found with this first release of Phoenix Viewer 1.5.0.1? Keep reading.

I've found my replacement for Emerald. I have all of the basic features that I had before, such as sim-wide radar, building tools, spam blocker, tattoo and alpha layers, the two-page menu for Phoenix specific settings, and yes, for those who will undoubtedly ask, the enhanced breast physics option is still in place. I don't personally use that feature, so I haven't tested to make sure it's functioning, but it's there. The recent popular 'tag color' feature doesn't seem to be working in this first release, but I feel that's a minor feature, as it doesn't really affect viewer performance. "Get More" in the Skins preference tab doesn't appear to be working at this point in time either, so if you have problems with the 'Gemini' skin that appears to be the default on first load up, you still have two other default options with "Default" and "Silver". I still had my preferred "Metallic Blue" skin available, but it's possible that it's due to the fact that I had installed it on Emerald, and still have my 2587 copy of Emerald installed on my system.
[Edit: one of the support team offered this information regarding skins: " users need to make a copy of the entire skins folder, then they can safely delete emerald. Then when they reinstall they can add the skins folder to the Second Life user settings folder". Note that this will only carry over the skins you had while on Emerald.]

Also, I must note that Phoenix does not access kdu files at all, instead they use the OpenJPEG library as shown in this comment from the "About Phoenix" window: J2C Decoder Version: OpenJPEG: 1.3.0. It seems concern may have been premature regarding the speed of rendering with OpenJPEG, as I didn't see any real difference in my rendering time. Although again, I still have 2587 on my system and the texture cache wasn't deleted prior to my installing and logging in with Phoenix. I'll also point out that with this viewer being in it's infancy and still not known about by likely the majority of current/former Emerald users, the rendering time may also not have the anticipated load on it at this point in time.

I took a moment to upload an image of the interface, it should look very familiar to Emerald users. The only things I blurred out were my location and my linden balance, as I didn't deem either necessary to include. As you can see there, you're dealing with the same interface, basically the same options, and at this point what seems like nothing is lost when you make the transition.

Take the time to check it out, decide for yourself, and know that hope is not lost. For those who are interested in making the change but have questions, and for those who choose to go to Phoenix, there is an inworld support group already established, Phoenix Viewer, which is open join and can be found in my profile as well as the Phoenix team's.

As always, thank you for reading. ~Krisy

He said WHAT?!? This might take a while o.O

2010-09-01T19:49:00.000-07:00

Now making it’s way through various interweb channels is a notecard with two separate but related conversations between Loney Bluebird (aka Phox) and Soft Linden. The majority of us will read them and say ‘I don’t really know what it all means, but it doesn’t sound good.’ and they’d be right... but not in the way they’d initially think. Read on to see what I mean.

2010-03-18 16:41:57] Lonely <3: Speaking of which, has Fractured mentioned EmKDU/OnyxKDU to you at all?
[2010-03-18 16:42:12] Soft Linden: Nope
[2010-03-18 16:42:46] Soft Linden: We haven't talked much of late. I think he was annoyed that I offered to rename groups for the *Life viewers, after asking him to get clearance from Kyle for a group rename before
[2010-03-18 16:43:19] Lonely <3: Ah, well, we needed some way to identify people using our kakadu library, we came up with something really clever: The Emkdu variant encodes the window title into the j2c comment.
[2010-03-18 16:43:32] Soft Linden: Nice!!!
[2010-03-18 16:43:41] Lonely <3: The OnyxKDU variant contains the other end of the cipher, and an exported function to retrieve said comment.
[2010-03-18 16:43:44] Soft Linden: I'd figured that library would be the place to hide things. So it shows up in their baked texture.
[2010-03-18 16:44:07] Lonely <3: Yup, Linux variants encode 128 characters of the path, since window title depends on window manager etc.
[2010-03-18 16:44:27] Lonely <3: I've got it nicely tied in to the radar here, it's fun to see the various names I get when all I see on people is a shiny emerald tag.
[2010-03-18 16:44:45] Soft Linden: I'd look at other places you might store that. We were at least planning to start encoding some info there to help us with DMCA takedowns
[2010-03-18 16:44:56] Lonely <3: We caught the HXO/Sl Black edition creator that way.
[2010-03-18 16:45:11] Soft Linden: Does the jpeg2k format support arbitrary tag/value pairs?
[2010-03-18 16:45:12] Lonely <3: Hmm, well there are various places we could encode that.
[2010-03-18 16:45:21] Lonely <3: Yes
[2010-03-18 16:45:25] Lonely <3: At least I think it does
[2010-03-18 16:45:33] Soft Linden: You could make something misleading like "encode parms" or w/e
[2010-03-18 16:46:38] Lonely <3: Unless someone starts poking at it with a disassembler all they'll find is a string of mixed printable and unprintable characters in the comment.
[2010-03-18 16:47:18] Lonely <3: We figured it was a good way to keep track of who's using the proprietary library without a license, not to mention identifying those viewers that want to hide, which is always a goal.
[2010-03-18 16:47:29] Soft Linden: :3
[2010-03-18 16:47:33] Soft Linden: I love that you guys are doing this
[2010-03-18 16:47:55] Lonely <3: Saves you guys some work I guess.
[2010-03-18 16:49:01] Soft Linden: I'd also be inclined to get the end of the path for Windows & Mac builds too. Odds are people are going to rename the viewer filename, even if they don't change the window title, etc
[2010-03-18 16:49:12] Lonely <3: Yeah that's what I said >_>
[2010-03-18 16:49:15] Soft Linden: just w/e is in **argv
[2010-03-18 16:49:19] Lonely <3: Zwagoth and Fractured wanted the window title.
[2010-03-18 16:49:19] Soft Linden: I thought you said you just did it on Linux?
[2010-03-18 16:49:27] Soft Linden: Gotcha.
[2010-03-18 16:49:32] Soft Linden: Yeah, I'd shoot for both.
[2010-03-18 16:49:35] Lonely <3: Only because linux doesn't offer a single function to grab the window title in all window managers.
[2010-03-18 16:49:55] Lonely <3: Yeah I know the path is more useful.
--- next conversation---
[2010-03-25 16:35:40] You sense a disturbance in the force... (Soft Linden is typing)
[2010-03-25 16:35:51] Soft Linden: Are the marked textures in the current release version?
[2010-03-25 16:36:01] Lonely <3: Yes
[2010-03-25 16:36:06] Soft Linden thumbsup
[2010-03-25 16:36:27] Lonely <3: After we spoke I decided to make a bit of a change to kdu
[2010-03-25 16:37:40] Lonely <3: I made it check the top corner of the image for transparent pixels, if it finds any it encodes the folder name like the linux lib originally did.
[2010-03-25 16:37:50] Lonely <3: If not it encodes the window title.
[2010-03-25 16:38:28] Soft Linden: ah cool hack :3
[2010-03-25 16:38:56] Lonely <3: That hasn't been released yet, but it can go out at any time since the pack is seperate from the binary.
[2010-03-25 16:39:00] Soft Linden: the transparent pixels specifically - last I knew you were only doing the meta tag
[2010-03-25 16:39:04] Lonely <3: We are
[2010-03-25 16:39:08] Lonely <3: Just the image comment
[2010-03-25 16:39:14] Soft Linden: right

Okay, if you’re anything like me, you’ve read that more than once and still couldn’t make out sense of the technical aspects of it. If you understood most or all of it, then here’s your imaginary cookie lol, you’re a few steps of where I was. However, if you’ve read my first post you’ll know that I wasn’t going to stay in the dark any longer than I had to. With that said, let’s see how well I’ve come to understand what it all means and if I can relay it to all of you properly so you can start to make sense of it as well.

So let’s start at the top, pointing out that both conversations took place in March of this year. I want that little tidbit to stay in the back of your mind as you read on. What you’ve read is a conversation between an Emerald developer and a Linden Labs employee. In it, the two use terms such as ‘hide’, ‘tied into’, and ‘misleading’... terms which can be scary when taken out of context. We live in a time where the potential for identity theft via the internet is a huge reality, and anything that makes people wary about their safety and security is something that should never be taken lightly. Let me interject the addage ‘Knowledge is power,’ at this point, because it’s oh-so-appropriate thought out this entire ongoing situation. The more you know, the less likely you are to make decisions based on fear.

So the technical side of this starts almost immediately in the chatlog. “The Emkdu variant encodes the window title into j2c comment.” The first thing to explain here is j2c is short for jpeg2000, an image compression standard and coding system. The “comment”, simply put, is a field in the file that’s designed to hold additional metadata. Metadata describes other data, an easy to understand definition can be found here. The second part of the statement quoted mentions a “window title”, which is pretty much what it sounds like. In this situation, the window title would refer to the viewer being used by a person. So the emkdu file at that time was set up in a fashion that it would take the name of the viewer you were using and encode it into metadata that was then attached to a baked texture in your avatar textures. Baked textures simulate things such as lighting, shadows, and bumpiness on an object... think avatar skins or shadow maps on sculpted prims. Not really life altering if you weren’t doing things you shouldn’t have been doing.

So you have the emkdu which was set up to encode and attach metadata, then you have onyxkdu, from the now infamous Onyx viewer. The onyxkdu was set up so that it’s library was seperate from that of the emkdu’s. Onyxkdu had the capability to decode (read) the metadata that the emkdu embedded in the av. textures. The limitations on this, however, were that they could only view the data inworld, and only if the avatar was in view of the Onyx user. They were not able to actually export or otherwise use the av textures, as some concluded, otherwise the viewer and coding would have been in direct violation of LL’s TOS. What’s shown in this screenshot is not a texture being stolen aka ‘copy botted’ or ‘ripped’, as some might want to sensationalize it as, but rather the encoded information being read by onyxkdu. The texture is being viewed in what’s called an ‘avatar texture floater’ which actually comes from LL’s own coding, and is hidden from the menu options in their official releases. You can find a modified version of the avatar texture floater in the latest Emerald beta release (2587) by using the pie menu on any avatar, including your own, but you’d only be able to make changes to your own textures in this floater, provided they’re modifiable by permission. It doesn’t circumvent the permissions system. The purpose of the metadata encoding and collection was to identify who was accessing the ‘proprietary library’ aka the licensed kdu library, as well as who was using a malicious or illegal viewer that was spoofing itself as a legal one, as mentioned by Lonely.

In relation to the previous two paragraphs, I’ll take this time to address the line where Soft says that LL was “at least planning to start encoding some info there to help us with DMCA takedowns.” What this means is that LL, at that point (whether it’s been done, I’m not aware, some one is more than welcome to comment if they know the answer) part of their plan to combat copyright infringement (DMCA issues) was to also encode metadata into the baked av texture section of llkdu. They won’t need to have an alternate viewer to read the data, as it’s all accessible to them. DMCA, if you’re not familiar with the term, stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It’s part of United States Copyright Law and deals with the copyrights of Intellectual Property on the Internet. The wikipedia definition is here and LL’s policy and process is outlined here. The suggestion by Soft for Lonely to relocate where their metadata wrote was so that LL’s coding wouldn’t overwrite Emerald’s.

The parts of the conversation that deal with executable paths, encoding paths, and end of paths, all deal with identifying the executable files where the viewer was located on a user’s system. This also wasn’t in place to be used to hack into some one’s system, it was so those who were using illegal/banned viewers couldn’t sneak around pretending to be on legal viewers based on their tag data, by simply changing the name of the file. Think of it in terms of, you save a SL snapshot to your computer using the ‘save to disk’ option in the snapshot window, then on your computer you change the name from snapshot_01 to ‘hanging out’ (just an example, but you catch my drift). Well, you’re not changing the fact that it’s a snapshot from SL, you’re only changing the name that it’s viewed as.

So that all basically covers the technical aspect of the conversation, and has hopefully allowed you all, the readers, to have a better grasp of what they were talking about. With that out of the way, we can get into what’s not likely to be recognized between all the jargon (and yes, some editorial commentary)... The fact that in spite of LL’s claims of ignorance to what the emkdu file was doing, and the onyxkdu file as well... at least one of their employees did. Now if this is a case of the right hand not talking to the left, which it may very well indeed be, then it’s understandable that statements claiming ignorance could be issued... but one would imagine (or myself, at least) that it would be good corporate sense to have all of your ducks in a row first. Is that a criticism made by me about LL? You bet it is. This is not to say that I agree completely with the methods employed by those on the Emerald and Onyx teams who were involved in this coding system, but it’s obviously not as devious as LL would like Joe Public to believe. This leaked chatlog is a frank discussion by two people who expected it to stay between them, and I suspect it was just two conversations out of many, given the actual context.

In a recent conversation I had with former Emerald Support team member Mindy Spiritor, she expressed her viewpoint on the situation “At some point, though, people really need to realize that the Onyx project was never part of the Emerald Viewer. The same goes for the datamining project. It was NOT Emerald. Yes, it was in fact Emerald developers, who were also running their own projects on the side, and the fact that they engaged in something even potentially questionable (let alone outright questionable) shows a blatant disregard for how it would reflect upon Emerald given the undeniable ties. However, the conversation between Phox and Soft also clearly shows that at a minimum, Soft not only knew of what was being done with both emkdu and Onyx, but also offered ideas, guidance, and at least apparent approval by virtue of his position with LL.” This is, naturally her opinion on the situation, but I’m drawn to agreement with it. It raises valid points that should not be overlooked.

There are those who will succumb to the fear and panic, even if they’ve read this as I’ve lain it out. Those will be the ones who, regardless of their love for the Emerald viewer and it’s capabilities, will move away from it and onto other third party viewers, or even back to an official viewer. This is in addition to those who’ve already gone to other viewers after the initial tactics and rumors were employed, the ones that were blogged about in my first two posts. Those people did what they needed to do to make themselves feel secure, and I don’t fault them for that. For those of us who will stick with Emerald until the day we can’t log in with it anymore, I give you much respect. It takes guts to stick with something and make a statement like that. Stick to your guns, so to speak, and remember that there is power in numbers, even if, in the end, it doesn’t seem to have accomplished much... someone always notices.

Thank you for reading and I hope this helps you understand more of what’s been going on. Please feel free to comment below, and share this blog with others.

Krisy

Short and to the point...

2010-08-27T22:44:00.000-07:00

Another fresh Beta release from the Emerald team...

Windows 32bit version: http://emeraldviewer.net/box/Emerald_Viewer_1.5.0.2587.exe
Windows 64bit version: http://emeraldviewer.net/box/Emerald_Viewer_1.5.0.2587_x64.exe
Mac version: http://emeraldviewer.net/box/Emerald_Viewer_1.5.0.2587_Intel_Beta.dmg
Linux version: http://emeraldviewer.net/box/EmeraldViewer-i686-1.5.0.2587.tar.bz2

ekmdu.dll free files are now up and available. If you're installing one of these versions after having a previous version of Emerald on your computer, you'll want to uninstall the old version, restart your computer, and then delete any files that were left from the uninstall (cache, and possibly a few files in the Emerald Viewer folder in your Programs folder, and make sure that emkdu.dll isn't hiding out in your temp folder by searching your computer for it.) before installing the new version. This is called a fresh install and seems to help.

edited to add:
The Emerald team has set up an HG Repo where source code and the such can be found: http://hg.emeraldviewer.net/

The latest bit....

2010-08-25T17:15:00.000-07:00

So today I wake up wondering how the meeting between the Emerald Development team and the LL people went. I logged in and made an inquiry and was handed a link to the latest blog entry by Jessica Lyons. In it she gives as much information as she can regarding what's going on between Emerald and LL.

Apparently Emerald Devs were handed a list of requirements they had to meet in order to even be considered for TVPD listing again... but LL said it's gotta be kept hush-hush so for the time being, the Emerald supporters and those who were scared off of Emerald in the previously blogged 'mass paranoia incident' are going to have to wait and hope that everything turns out ok. One thing we were allowed to know is that LL wants the Emerald Devs to stop using the (now infamous) emkdu.dll or llkdu.dll files in their coding.

Side note: emkdu is licensed by Emerald and llkdu is licensed by Linden Labs...so is Linden Labs going to stop using llkdu.dll or is this going to be a 'do as I say and not as I do' thing? hmm... Back to the topic at hand...

As mentioned in Jessica's blog post, kdu is "a closed source image decoding library which provides a significant speed improvement over the open source alternative." I found that particularly helpful for those of us, including myself, that had never even heard of emkdu/llkdu/kdu prior to all of this. Well, the Dev team are going to comply with the hypocritical request, in future releases, possibly (hopefully?) reluctantly because they know it will affect the viewer. It's also mentioned that the intention of the Dev team is to fully comply with the terms that LL has given them, and that they are working hard to come into compliance as quickly as possible.

I was the recipient of a group notice today that made me literally face-palm myself in frustration. It was yet another log tossed on to the 'mass paranoia' fire. As I looked back in the group notices I realized the one prior was even worse... it essentially says that if you value your SL account, you'll delete Emerald and change your password (same garbage story as before, right? read on...) then it goes on to proclaim that people have lost their accounts due to having Emerald viewer (um what? when? where?) then it references the blog post made by Phillip Linden yesterday. Today's notice wasn't much better, 'don't listen to anyone who says it's ok to use any 3rd party viewers!' it shouts (not verbatim, but very close), 'you're giving these people the keys to your account when you log in with their viewer!' (um, LL has that information too, and they can be just as irresponsible with it, for that matter, they have more than just your password) 'They can take all your stuff!'... ok let's stop there. Enough is enough. Anytime you open the internet and put your information in, whether it's as simple as your email address or as important as your credit card number, you're taking the chance and having faith that the company isn't going to misuse your information and for that matter, that it's not a spoofed site. Your IP address isn't as private as you'd like to think it is, there are sites like ipgoat that give you an idea of what's easily obtainable information.

So you get to make grown-up choices now, what will you log into SL with, if you log in at all? I'm still logging in with Emerald. Why? Because I trust that the past transgressions are just that, the past. I have faith that this Dev team will prove themselves to be honorable. I also know that at this moment in time, the Emerald viewer, for me, is far superior to the official SL viewer and it works better on my system. I've downloaded the latest beta, the questionable section of coding in the emkdu.dll has been removed, and I'm back off and running pretty quickly. Make an educated decision for yourself, don't change viewers just because the scare tactics seem convincing, if you're a current Emerald user and you're happy with it, just upgrade to the 'clean version' and continue as usual.

For 1636 versions: http://www.emeraldviewer.net/downloads.shtml
For the latest Beta versions: http://emeraldviewer.net/forum/index.php?topic=4176.msg21413;topicseen#msg21413
(I'm linking to the Emerald Forums for the Beta releases because when the Mac build is ready, I'm assuming that the link will also be posted there, other than that, the links in my last post are still good)

Until the next time.... Krisy

Your Emerald Viewer will explode in 5...4...3...2...1.....

2010-08-24T19:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, some of you might be wondering what in the world this first blog entry is about, whereas others will get it immediately. Sunday evening I logged into my Facebook account like I do several times a day (addict? maybe) and saw several posts related to the Emerald Viewer (a popular 3rd party viewer used to access Second Life) claiming that it was banned from SL and using it could potentially lead to your account being suspended or even terminated... Say what?

Since I know that the rumor mill is a vicious tool and can take forever to stop turning, I've decided to share what I know, based on the official statements from the Emerald Viewer Development Team, and information from the blog posts on the Modular Systems website. Read on so you can know what I know, and then make your own decisions regarding the situation...

By the time I logged off of SL Monday night, there was what I can only describe as budding mass paranoia regarding Emerald's 'legal viewer' standing. Rumors spanned from the mild 'uninstall and change your password' to the more extreme 'anyone caught using this viewer will be suspended or banned from Second Life'. Mass hysteria was sparked and caught fire quickly causing many people to panic and uninstall Emerald Viewer and tell their friends to do the same. I can understand the reaction... but I have one question for all of those people... Did any of you stop for a minute and even attempt to find an official statement regarding the issue from Linden Labs first? I'm rather doubtful on that as nothing came from LL until today (Tuesday) and it was

Here's where I'm at with the whole thing... I heard the rumors I got a few of the paranoia notecards... I did not remove Emerald Viewer from my computer. What I did do was log into SL on my Emerald Viewer, open up my Emerald Group chat, and get the skinny from their side. I also embarked on my own journey searching for some official statement from Linden Labs. What I came up with throughout the day was this:

Emerald Viewer is currently removed from the TVPD (Third Party Viewer Directory) due to actions by recently departed Fractured Crystal from the Emerald Developers team, the related blog entry can be found here.
Following his voluntary step down from the team and the disassociation of the Emerald Viewer from Modular Systems, there was a restructuring of the development team which has been described I think fairly well here.
The Developers of Emerald, as well as the Support Team have been rather open regarding what's been going on, in my personal opinion, issuing statements both on the blog and in the inworld group, answering questions in the group chat as they come in.
The TVPD listing is completely voluntary on the part of Emerald, they've chosen to reapply for inclusion on the page as an approved 3rd party viewer.
There was a public statement released in the Emerald Group related to the issue, included was an explanation of where they were at with everything, specifically mentioning the why's of their removal from the TVPD, what changes they were making in their development and team policies, and not once making excuses about what happened. If anyone would like to read it themselves, I will happily share upon request. However, you can get a great idea of what happened by listening to this interview.
With the severing of ties between Fractured Crystal/Modular Systems and Emerald, the introduction of a fresh website for the Emerald faithful to redirect their bookmarks to has come out of the ashes.

Today, Phillip Linden issued a statement which was also sent out to many SL resident's email accounts addressing the events that led up to Emerald's removal from the TVPD listing as an approved viewer. In this statement he references the actions which Fractured Crystal has taken responsibility for, and mentions that LL is in contact with the current Emerald team regarding the issues. He also mentions that although Emerald is the focus of the current attention, that all 3rd party viewers are held to the same standards (for approved TVPD listing). He states that at this time (pay attention people), "We have not yet disabled logins via the Emerald viewer, but will do so if we feel the software and team behind it is not able to meet the standards we've set." The side of me that isn't cynical would also like to believe that his statement encouraging people to (naturally) consider using an official LL viewer or one of the other TVPD approved listed 3rd party viewers isn't biased, although at least part of it appears to be.

Before we go further, those who know me, know I'm an avid Emerald user, so yes, generally speaking I am personally biased. My first 3rd party viewer was the now outdated Gemini viewer, and I was so excited about all the new options that it provided me, as well as less lag and faster rezzing, that I was faithful to the viewer from that point on. When the developer announced he'd no longer be updating the viewer and instead would join the Emerald team I scoffed at it, I had never used Emerald and I wanted my Gemini. I did acquiesce and downloaded and installed Emerald and what I found was a new 3rd party viewer that I really did enjoy using, and now hate the idea of doing without. I am now Emerald faithful and with the current situation going on, I'd rather find out as much information as I possibly can before I run away screaming. I'd like to think I've made a good go at it, and hopefully a good go at sharing what I've found out.

My personal closing thoughts are if you use Emerald and are happy with it, please continue to enjoy it. If you have questions, please join the inworld group which you can find in my SL profile, as I find the support staff to be a great group of people, as well as quite a few very helpful and knowledgeable regular users. Most importantly, if you're not comfortable using Emerald right now, please do check out one of the other 3rd party viewers or even one of the official viewers, as I feel that being comfortable with the viewer you use to be very important to your SL experience.

For those who are current Emerald users, there is a new beta version out, I'm sharing the links to the currently available builds here:
For Windows 32bit users: http://www.emeraldviewer.net/box/Emerald_Viewer_1.5.0.2573.exe
For Windows 64bit users: http://www.emeraldviewer.net/box/Emerald_Viewer_1.5.0.2573_x64.exe
For Linux users: http://www.emeraldviewer.net/box/EmeraldViewer-i686-1.5.0.2573.tar.bz2
For Mac users: It's in the works (Sorry *sadface*)

Until something else inspires me to ramble, and thank you for reading... Krisy