User:Andrew Linden/Office Hours/2008 11 04

Transcript of Andrew Linden's office hours:

[11:01]	Feynt Mistral:	Morning.
[11:01]	Kitto Flora:	Hi Andrew
[11:01]	Andrew Linden:	Hello
[11:01]	Rex Cronon:	hello everybody
[11:01]	Andrew Linden:	So, it turns out that I'm officially on vacation today.
[11:02]	Feynt Mistral:	Nyx sends tidings from his office hour last week, and says I should bug you about some of the questions I had. >3
[11:02]	Feynt Mistral:	Ooo, nice.
[11:02]	Andrew Linden:	But since I hadn't announced it last week, I figured I would show up
[11:02]	Rex Cronon:	what r u doing here:)
[11:02]	Arawn Spitteler:	Great, so we can bug you on your own time.
[11:02]	Feynt Mistral:	Heh
[11:02]	Andrew Linden:	but... that means we don't really have to talk about SL or LL issues.
[11:02]	Andrew Linden:	We could talk about our favorite doughnuts or something.
[11:02]	Andrew Linden:	Whatever you want.
[11:02]	Feynt Mistral:	>D
[11:02]	Kitto Flora:	Is the O word still banned?
[11:03]	Arawn Spitteler:	Could you nag Coral to build me that U$10M Airplane?
[11:03]	Andrew Linden:	I like old-fashioned glazed.
[11:03]	Andrew Linden:	Simon was banning the O-word (openspace)
[11:03]	Feynt Mistral:	I'm a chocolate dipped fan myself.
[11:03]	Feynt Mistral:	Haven't had a doughnut in a while.
[11:03]	Andrew Linden:	I think because he had participated in some of the internal arguments about what to do about openspace, and didn't want to get started.
[11:04]	Feynt Mistral nods.
[11:04]	Arawn Spitteler:	Oh, that word. If Tier wasn't grandfathered, then someone wasn't living with a Linden Lab mistake, and buyers should have been upset.
[11:04]	Kitto Flora sees it as another big LL blunder
[11:04]	Arawn Spitteler:	Null Sims should never have been priced so low, in the first place but, I suppose, LL didn't see tht every prim would be used.
[11:05]	Truth Gravois:	would you like to take your meeting to a spot with better views
[11:05]	Andrew Linden:	perhaps it is an LL blunder... I haven't been involved in the discussions... I'm too busy
[11:05]	Feynt Mistral:	Well they were said, initially, to be "only for light use, not for residential use"
[11:05]	Feynt Mistral:	So I don't see why people are upset now that LL's making people not use them for the wrong purposes.
[11:05]	Arawn Spitteler:	Oh, we have a squatter, now.
[11:05]	Kitto Flora:	People use sims to the max. Any sim
[11:06]	Andrew Linden:	my opinion on openspaces is... we should probably get rid of them altogether
[11:06]	Kitto Flora:	Well, if they cannot be fixed....
[11:06]	Andrew Linden:	they were a feature that was requested by land owners who wanted to have some openspace bounaries around busy regions
[11:06]	Feynt Mistral:	I like the idea of a "sim" that's 4 times bigger than the norm.
[11:06]	Arawn Spitteler:	I wonder if primwise pricing might be done, with extra prims, above the first thousand, being charged extra
[11:07]	Andrew Linden:	unfortunately what happened is that we implemented openspace for our own purposes
[11:07]	03-K64 - Firefly Transport V1.1: Welcome, access granted
[11:07]	Andrew Linden:	and some estate owners also wanted them, so we opened them up
[11:07]	Truth Gravois:	start
[11:07]	03-K64 - Firefly Transport V1.1: Engine switch on
[11:07]	Andrew Linden:	and they were buggy
[11:07]	Rex Cronon:	u could license somebody else to provide/maintain them
[11:07]	Kitto Flora:	I would claim that the only real problem with OpenSpace sims is the LSL performance
[11:08]	Feynt Mistral:	I'd just like to have a 512x512 sim, I don't really mind that it'd have 15000 prims.
[11:08]	Andrew Linden:	yeah, that would be nice Feynt
[11:08]	Feynt Mistral:	256m^2 just isn't enough for some of the landscaping I have in mind.
[11:08]	Andrew Linden:	I've pondered how such large regions might be possible...
[11:08]	Andrew Linden:	it would be hard to do, I think
[11:09]	Kitto Flora:	How hard-coded is the 256M limit?
[11:09]	Feynt Mistral:	Possibly, but I think the first step would be solving the inter-sim transfer issues.
[11:09]	Andrew Linden:	I suspect the only way to get it done would be to make a simulator process that acts like four distinct regions to most external processes
[11:10]	Andrew Linden:	the main benefit would be less region crossings, and a single physics engine
[11:10]	Kitto Flora:	And single script engine?
[11:10]	Feynt Mistral:	I still maintain that having neighbouring sims overlap in physics control would be ideal. They should track any physics based object in a certain half of the neighbouring sim, as well as their own (essentially expanding the current sim's physics boundaries from 256m^2 to 512)
[11:10]	Andrew Linden:	oh yes, that too
[11:11]	Kitto Flora:	I rather wonder that the OS poor LSL performance is because its running 4 LSL engines
[11:11]	Arawn Spitteler:	For a race track, or rail road, you might want to stretch, rather than block.
[11:11]	Feynt Mistral:	With overlapping physics, the host sim would be the authority on what the object's doing, but when you cross region borders the neighbouring sim already knows what it should be doing physics wise.
[11:12]	Andrew Linden:	no Kitto, the problem with LSL on openspace is that the LSL engine is used to help maintain FPS
[11:12]	Kitto Flora:	A 512M^2 region on its own - just needs to be able to handle the larger x and y numbers. And the viewer does too
[11:12]	Rex Cronon:	that would require 8times more data
[11:12]	Feynt Mistral:	So it'll just be a matter of knowing "anything beyond this boundary, I'm no longer the authority" and the host sim stops commanding the resident's client to show the correct physics.
[11:12]	Andrew Linden:	that is... when the FPS starts to get low the first thing that is done is to give the LSL script engine less CPU time
[11:12]	Andrew Linden:	otherwise, the script engine is allowed to eat all remaining CPU resources allocated to the region, once all the other stuff is done
[11:13]	Andrew Linden:	it is the same on regular regions
[11:13]	Kitto Flora:	The boundary issues are that there could be 2 sims per side. Wich one at 0X now depends on Y
[11:13]	Kitto Flora:	Yes, I understand that LSL is low man on the CPU runtime
[11:13]	Andrew Linden:	however there is just less CPU resources on openspace, so the script engine loses disproportionally
[11:13]	Kitto Flora:	Right
[11:13]	Kitto Flora:	Byt why is there so much less.
[11:14]	Andrew Linden:	512^2 regions would be nice, but that really is a blue-sky feature idea
[11:14]	Andrew Linden:	that is... it is so hard to do right now that it may never get done
[11:14]	Arawn Spitteler:	Would it be possible in Open Grid?
[11:15]	Andrew Linden:	OpenSim? yes probably
[11:15]	Rex Cronon:	couldn't there be openspaces without scripts, physics or both?
[11:15]	Andrew Linden:	should we ever opensource the simulator I would expect a larger simulator to get done
[11:15]	Arawn Spitteler:	Along with Write your own Physics.
[11:15]	Andrew Linden:	no, the 256^2 region size is so hard-coded into the system right now it is just really hard to change
[11:16]	Feynt Mistral was thinking something like this, with the overlapping of physics.
[11:16]	Andrew Linden:	it is hardcode through the simulator code, the viewer, the database, the map, and a bunch of other services
[11:16]	Andrew Linden:	the way to tackle the project would be to remove the hardcode and replace with settings
[11:16]	Andrew Linden:	then once everything has different settings available start changing them
[11:17]	Andrew Linden:	and watch what breaks
[11:17]	Kitto Flora:	Thats odd. Programmers usually never put fixed numbers in code.
[11:17]	Andrew Linden:	Feynt, overlapping physics would be nice, but you're talking about adding a bunch more processing to each region
[11:17]	Andrew Linden:	especially if the overlap is large
[11:17]	Feynt Mistral:	Well they already track neighbouring agents.
[11:18]	Feynt Mistral:	To little effect.
[11:18]	Andrew Linden:	Years ago LL went through some design and we think we came up with a way to solve the overlapping physics problem
[11:18]	Andrew Linden:	however, it was hard enough to do that we haven't attempted it
[11:18]	Andrew Linden:	I keep thinking that it would be fun to revisit that project and actually attempt it
[11:19]	Andrew Linden:	however, things are soooo swamped these days. There is just soooo much important work that needs to be done
[11:19]	Kitto Flora:	Any idea why 256M was chosen as sim size?
[11:19]	Feynt Mistral:	I'd like to help, I'd like to apply to LL in the new year.
[11:19]	Andrew Linden:	that project doesn't yet have a chance
[11:19]	Feynt Mistral:	I'm working up some "move out there" funds right now.
[11:19]	Andrew Linden:	Feynt, I can't remember why we picked 256 over 512
[11:19]	Arawn Spitteler:	Overlapping Physics sounds like a good Developers' Apprentice Piece.
[11:19]	Andrew Linden:	in the very beginning the region size was going to be configurable
[11:19]	Feynt Mistral points to Kitto.
[11:20]	Andrew Linden:	but as we started developing we stopped supporting the configurable size
[11:20]	Kitto Flora:	Theres float problems at large numbers...
[11:20]	Andrew Linden:	Ooof. I don't think overlapping physics would be a good intro project for a junior dev
[11:20]	Feynt Mistral:	>D
[11:21]	Kitto Flora:	But the z-fanatics dont see that untill several Km up?
[11:21]	Arawn Spitteler:	Very high profile junior developer
[11:21]	Feynt Mistral:	Well Havok is free to use now, you just don't get access to the source.
[11:21]	Andrew Linden:	Feynt, we are trying to hire more devs. Your prospects may be good.
[11:21]	Feynt Mistral:	But this would probably be a "hack the source" thing. >)
[11:21]	Kitto Flora:	Havok went free to use?
[11:21]	Arawn Spitteler isn't too sure what's meant by "Free as in Beer."
[11:21]	Andrew Linden:	It isn't really the physics engine that is the problem
[11:22]	Andrew Linden:	the physics engine is very flexible
[11:22]	Feynt Mistral:	I'd like to hit the GDC next year for sure, and I'm almost certain I can afford it, so I'll drop my resume off while I'm there and annoy everyone at LL with my ideas. ^.^
[11:22]	Andrew Linden:	the problem is that our own code that uses the physics engine is not flexible
[11:22]	Andrew Linden:	also... many content creators have designed their scripts to expect 256^2 regions
[11:22]	Feynt Mistral:	There's "free as in beer" as in, "dude, free beer, drink as much as you want!" and then "free as in freedom" which is the right to modify stuff as much as you want.
[11:23]	Arawn Spitteler:	Open Grid should be more flexible.
[11:23]	Andrew Linden:	and have hard coded 256-isms into their LSL scripts to work around border crossing problems
[11:23]	Kitto Flora:	Oh thats true. My sim-crossing vehicles used hard coded 256
[11:23]	Andrew Linden:	imagine if we bumped stuff up to 512^2, lots of content would just break.
[11:23]	Feynt Mistral nods.
[11:23]	Kitto Flora:	I'd need a readable sim parameter to get the local sim size
[11:23]	Feynt Mistral:	I'm not saying there won't be issues, but it'd be nice and I'm sure people would adapt.
[11:23]	Andrew Linden:	so, it may be the only way to do it would be to hide the expanded size to scripts, viewer, and ALL other external processes
[11:24]	Andrew Linden:	yes, people would adapt, and legacy content would eventually be replaced
[11:24]	Kitto Flora:	All my stuff gets updated.
[11:24]	Feynt Mistral:	I'd love to make SL a viable game development platform. It would be great if it were optimized more and had a few other bonuses.
[11:24]	Kitto Flora:	No biggie that one needs a new version
[11:24]	Andrew Linden:	Yes that would be nice to make SL more game-platform friendly.
[11:25]	Feynt Mistral:	SL in general is too slow for most things, sadly. The physics control isn't there quite yet, scripts are just now getting to the point where real programmers can use a language they'd like...
[11:25]	Arawn Spitteler:	Would it be possible for Open Grid Sims to warp space? Maybe compress subgrids to save on map space?
[11:25]	Andrew Linden:	Feynt, the LSL language hasn't changed much, really, in years.
[11:26]	Feynt Mistral:	I watch people doing sword fights with the C:SI system and there's huge delays on dodge movements sometimes.
[11:26]	Andrew Linden:	I find it odd that you say it is just jow getting to that point.
[11:26]	Rex Cronon:	game like? scripts would need to be able to tell if the object they r in is selected or not
[11:26]	Feynt Mistral:	I meant with Mono.
[11:26]	Feynt Mistral:	We'll be getting actual languages soon enough.
[11:26]	Andrew Linden:	Ah, Mono is a big step.
[11:26]	Feynt Mistral:	Like C#, Python, Java, etc.
[11:26]	Andrew Linden:	Hopefully we'll see some more rapid enhancements to the script engine now.
[11:26]	Feynt Mistral is waiting patiently for Python before he scripts anything else in world.
[11:26]	Kitto Flora:	Real programmers can write in anything :)
[11:27]	Feynt Mistral:	Real programmers CAN, but do they want to?
[11:27]	Andrew Linden:	Yes, a Python interface to SL objects would be nice.
[11:27]	Feynt Mistral hates lists in LSL, and wishes Cory was around still to slap. >.>
[11:27]	Arawn Spitteler:	"Real," that's not the four letter word that would be most used.
[11:27]	Kitto Flora:	No. They dont want to write in Fortran :)
[11:27]	Andrew Linden:	No, they don't want to write in awk
[11:27]	Feynt Mistral:	Or assembly/bytecode.
[11:28]	Kitto Flora does assembly :)
[11:28]	Arawn Spitteler's not written anything in AWK
[11:28]	Feynt Mistral does too, to a certain extent.
[11:28]	Feynt Mistral:	I'll admit, my assembly knowledge is lacking.
[11:28]	Andrew Linden:	awk has its usefulness. It is almost limited to printing the 2nd word froma bunch of lines of output
[11:29]	Kitto Flora:	Assembler problem is they are all slightly different. depends on the hardware
[11:29]	Andrew Linden:	no, assembly is way too basic for virtual world programming
[11:29]	Feynt Mistral:	I was talking with Nyx about finally implementing SpeedTree, but I believe he said, "Well since we're going open source, we can't really use it now. If someone out there would like to develop an open source alternative though, we could use that."
[11:29]	Andrew Linden:	bytecode is as close as you can get to assembly in a VW
[11:30]	Feynt Mistral:	I know HOW SpeedTree works, I've just never thought about trying to duplicate it. >)
[11:30]	Andrew Linden:	Feynt, are you talking about using speedtree for the SL client?
[11:30]	Feynt Mistral:	Yes
[11:30]	Andrew Linden:	Yeah, the only way to do it would be to make the SL client be able to handle plugins
[11:30]	Andrew Linden:	and then write a speedtree plugin
[11:31]	Feynt Mistral:	I've subtly (and not so subtly) hinted to Nyx that he should do that as his first major project.
[11:31]	Simon Linden:	hi everyone
[11:31]	Feynt Mistral:	Morning Simon.
[11:31]	Kitto Flora:	Hi Simon
[11:31]	Andrew Linden:	Hey simon, you got any news? I don't.
[11:31]	Feynt Mistral:	Qarl keeps telling us that Nyx's first project is implementing heirarchical linking. >D
[11:31]	Arawn Spitteler:	Welcome, Simon, we were just no talking about O--- S----
[11:31]	Rex Cronon:	hi simon
[11:31]	Andrew Linden:	We already completed our talk about openspace regions, so you lucked out Simon
[11:31]	Simon Linden:	Not really ... ah, good timing
[11:32]	Feynt Mistral:	Yes, so now we move on mega prims! >D
[11:32]	Andrew Linden:	ooof
[11:32]	Kitto Flora:	I saw in last weeks meeting log that there were words about the SL Rail Road.
[11:32]	Arawn Spitteler:	SVC-2931, in which I call someone a moth, for being annonymous.
[11:32]	Kitto Flora:	Anything new on that?
[11:32]	Andrew Linden:	Kitto, I spoke with Michael Linden about the SLRR
[11:32]	Arawn Spitteler:	Marianne noticed some track torn up, on the street car line.
[11:33]	Andrew Linden:	he said that they are working on some new RR content
[11:33]	Feynt Mistral:	I can't tell you how many projects I've been working on lately that all builders involved say, "I wish I could resize this prim, it's only 5m off from perfect on one axis :x"
[11:33]	Andrew Linden:	that is, the moles are working
[11:33]	Andrew Linden:	I mentioned that perhaps they would be willing to buy some RR solutions... dunno, just brainstorming
[11:33]	Feynt Mistral:	And it'd be a 30x30x10m prim, but it needs to be 15m.
[11:33]	Kitto Flora:	The streetcar does not actually run on track. It hangs on the overhead line.
[11:34]	Arawn Spitteler:	Is that why I can walk on the overhead?
[11:34]	Andrew Linden:	I don't know all the details of what they are doing, but I think they are going to replace all the track with new track
[11:34]	Kitto Flora:	I dont want to sell SLRR anything - I want them to make track & signalling thats consistent, so anyone can build stuff for it
[11:35]	Andrew Linden:	Kitto, perhaps you should contact Michael and ask him to get you in touch with the moles
[11:35]	Arawn Spitteler:	There're a couple things that Andrew shouldn't do, on his vacation time: One, take an SL Road Trip, until he gets lag orbitted; Two, go to a handicap riding therapist, and see if she's room for an overworked software engineer.
[11:35]	Kitto Flora:	I already did. Several times. Also other have - Moundsa MAyo -
[11:35]	Kitto Flora:	Result... dead silence.
[11:35]	Andrew Linden:	Ah ok, sounds hopeless.
[11:36]	Arawn Spitteler:	I do't think they know what they're doing yet. Maybe Marianne can ask Qu Qi
[11:36]	Kitto Flora:	I heard Michael L runs a Wednesday Meeting, but I dont know where
[11:37]	Feynt Mistral:	http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Office_Hours#Michael_Linden
[11:37]	Arawn Spitteler:	Shamon, listed in his Office Hour. Wednesday at 3PM
[11:37]	Andrew Linden:	Michael Linden runs an "office hours" type of meeting?
[11:37]	Kitto Flora:	Yay ! TY for the link
[11:37]	Kitto Flora:	Looks promising
[11:37]	Feynt Mistral nods
[11:38]	Arawn Spitteler:	I remember someone else's office hour, where he got upset "Oh! So we're the entertainment!"
[11:38]	Andrew Linden:	Yeah, google would be your friend in this case.
[11:39]	Arawn Spitteler:	Huggers simply shouldn't be put aside, even if Sniffers work better.
[11:39]	Kitto Flora:	Are you aware that As still sinnk while hovering - any time they turn or maybe edit stuff?
[11:40]	Andrew Linden:	Avatars still sink? Yes, I think I knew that.
[11:40]	Andrew Linden:	But it is much better that it was.
[11:40]	Kitto Flora:	It is
[11:40]	Andrew Linden:	I don't know of an easy fix for that last bit of sinking.
[11:40]	Kitto Flora:	OK
[11:40]	Andrew Linden:	I banged my head on that problem a lot.
[11:40]	Feynt Mistral:	Low end dampening of movement while flying?
[11:41]	Andrew Linden:	I'll probably revisit it someday, but I currently have a bunch of other stuff I'd like to get done before tackling that problem again.
[11:41]	Arawn Spitteler:	I'd simply turn off Gravity and flight, for hovering, but it might be more complicated.
[11:42]	Andrew Linden:	Yeah, those sound like likely solutions but... they have bad side effects.
[11:42]	Andrew Linden:	No gravity means you can drift
[11:43]	Andrew Linden:	add some friction and you have trouble getting the avatar motion transitions between fly/hover/fall right
[11:43]	Feynt Mistral:	So perhaps my idea would be a good one then, or make a weak move lock.
[11:43]	Andrew Linden:	and also, idealy the hovering avatar isn't too pushable
[11:43]	Rex Cronon:	since when can wind affect avatars?
[11:43]	Kitto Flora:	Whats getting worked on now, Andrew?
[11:43]	Arawn Spitteler:	What would be possible, in the way of a personal floor?
[11:43]	Feynt Mistral:	Wind doesn't affect avatars, that I know of.
[11:43]	Feynt Mistral:	Wind doesn't affect anything but particles and flexiprims.
[11:43]	Andrew Linden:	Sometimes the avatar can drift UP rather than down when turning
[11:44]	Kitto Flora:	(and trees)
[11:44]	Feynt Mistral discounts trees because they seem to shamble in the same direction all the time, regardless of wind.
[11:44]	Andrew Linden:	wind doesn't affect avatars, nor do avatars affect wind (anymore... years ago they did)
[11:45]	Feynt Mistral:	Yeah, I heard about that.
[11:45]	Andrew Linden:	Kitto, what is getting worked on right now...
[11:45]	Feynt Mistral:	Creating a whirlwind by flying around in circles. ^.^;
[11:45]	Andrew Linden:	Right now I'm working on some internal tools. I can't talk about them much right now, but they are very important.
[11:45]	Rex Cronon:	if 100 avatars doo that u have a tornado:)
[11:45]	Feynt Mistral:	You had.
[11:45]	Andrew Linden:	Simon has been fixing some important bugs, and also has some side projects I think.
[11:46]	Feynt Mistral:	Hmm...
[11:46]	Simon Linden:	Slowing getting performance improvements into the pipeline,and occasional bugs
[11:46]	Andrew Linden:	I've got some notion of what some of my fellow #core (server-side) LL developers are working on
[11:47]	Simon Linden:	I'm going to bail out ... collegues just made a call to head to lunch, so will say 'bye' early
[11:47]	Feynt Mistral:	Andrew, I've got a real "out there" proposal. Do you think it'd be possible to enable mega prim creation for a week to see if anything bad occurs?
[11:47]	Rex Cronon:	bye simon
[11:47]	Simon Linden:	bye
[11:47]	Andrew Linden:	We've got my project, another project working on an overhaul of avatar access rules... a new way to divide up the grid I think.
[11:48]	Andrew Linden:	Simon, Don, and Monty have been working on some emergency issues... crashers, security bugs, and general important broken content of perms bugs.
[11:48]	Kitto Flora:	All boring stuff... :)
[11:48]	Feynt Mistral:	Heh
[11:49]	Arawn Spitteler:	What siz prims are you needing, Feynt?
[11:49]	Feynt Mistral:	Particles, physics, mega prims, importable mesh support! >D
[11:49]	Andrew Linden:	The UK team (Babbage and others) have been on Mono maintenance, and I think they are working on some project... maybe related to HTTP capabilties or something.
[11:49]	Arawn Spitteler:	If it's on the Z Axis, you can use a greater Z, and Dimple
[11:49]	Feynt Mistral:	It varies, sometimes I need prims which are all different sizes on each axis.
[11:49]	Feynt Mistral:	Like 15x30x40.
[11:50]	Feynt Mistral:	Or even more specific, like a 7x22x30.5m
[11:50]	Andrew Linden:	Feynt, there is no way we could open prim sizes for a week... there is no way to remove cool content once it has become popular.
[11:50]	Kitto Flora:	IS the encroachment fix getting anywhere, Andrew?
[11:50]	Andrew Linden:	I had a megaprim plan... I haven't been able to work on it.
[11:50]	Andrew Linden:	:-(
[11:50]	Feynt Mistral:	>P
[11:50]	Feynt Mistral:	Well see, my idea was just to see how many people would create AR'able content.
[11:51]	Feynt Mistral:	My theory is you won't get any for that week, but the builders will run nuts.
[11:51]	Andrew Linden:	I'd rather liberate megaprims right.
[11:51]	Feynt Mistral:	I would too.
[11:51]	Andrew Linden:	I agree, the troublesome content would be in the minority.
[11:52]	Feynt Mistral:	But it's just to answer the security issue I feel, or alay the fears of those doubting mega prims at the moment.
[11:52]	Kitto Flora:	There are already megaprims available to griefers. They dont seem to be using them any more now than say 6 months ago.
[11:52]	Feynt Mistral:	Right.
[11:52]	Arawn Spitteler:	Oh, I filed an AR, the other day. Someone clutter3ed up the Theta Sandbox with Pink 3. Pink 3 is mostly using up prims and blocking views, but it also pushes avatars, without registering.
[11:52]	Feynt Mistral:	But there's people out there who are saying, "What's to stop people from making giant prims and overlapping them onto my land?" and they forget about (or don't know about) the mega prim packs out there already.
[11:52]	Rex Cronon:	this is how the 100 year "right plan" for liberating megaprims has started
[11:53]	Feynt Mistral:	>D
[11:53]	Andrew Linden:	100 years sounds about right
[11:53]	Feynt Mistral hopes that's 100 house fly years. ^.^;
[11:53]	Andrew Linden:	well, not really
[11:53]	Andrew Linden:	I'm always hoping to be able to get back onto it
[11:53]	Kitto Flora:	Griefers can do ok with ordinary prims. But never for long
[11:53]	Feynt Mistral nods
[11:54]	Feynt Mistral:	I need to get my particle engine done....
[11:54]	Kitto Flora:	The megaprim problem is more a presumed one, about un-thinking builders.
[11:54]	Feynt Mistral:	Right.
[11:54]	Kitto Flora:	And the resulting load on Linden Cleanup Crews
[11:55]	Feynt Mistral:	You know....
[11:55]	Kitto Flora:	Andrews Encroachment fix would take a lot of load off Linden maintainance, probably
[11:55]	Feynt Mistral:	If you made prim max sizes a parcel setting...
[11:55]	Andrew Linden:	yes, that would go a long way to solving the megaprim problems
[11:56]	Feynt Mistral:	Then you could limit Linden sandboxes to a certain size (like say, 1/4 of the sandbox) so people can't stuff a sandbox as easily.
[11:56]	Feynt Mistral:	And you'd be able to use that max size in tandem with parcel sizes, so you can't build any larger than the smallest dimension of the parcel.
[11:56]	Andrew Linden:	well...the plan is to eventually allow people to have as large prims as they can fit on their parcels
[11:56]	Andrew Linden:	or on their buildable space
[11:56]	Arawn Spitteler:	Pink 3 wasn't megaprims, but just lots.
[11:56]	Rex Cronon:	u can encroach using regular prims, u don't need megaprims to do that
[11:56]	Feynt Mistral:	Right.
[11:57]	Feynt Mistral nods
[11:57]	Andrew Linden:	This office hour is almost over.
[11:57]	Andrew Linden:	Anyone have some last minute topics?
[11:57]	Feynt Mistral:	I was just thinking, if you allowed people to set the maximum build size on a parcel, it'd help people in private sims renting out parcels as well.
[11:57]	Arawn Spitteler:	How's your vacation planned?
[11:57]	Andrew Linden:	(some poeple wait to the end and then send me private IM with their questions, so I usually try to ask)
[11:58]	Feynt Mistral:	My questions are all about mega prims, and about solutions to problems if they're sticking points. >)
[11:58]	Andrew Linden:	Actually, I'm just staying home during the election because my wife is a poll-worker on call. If someone is sick they may call her in
[11:58]	Feynt Mistral:	Aww, sounds boring. >)
[11:58]	Andrew Linden:	and if she gets called in then I have to take care of some stuff around the home
[11:58]	Andrew Linden:	rather than work from home i'm taking the day off
[11:58]	Kitto Flora:	Yay is endofadday!
[11:59]	Arawn Spitteler:	So it's just one day of vacation?
[11:59]	Andrew Linden:	Yup.
[11:59]	Feynt Mistral:	The president has no power, it's all in the senate. >P
[11:59]	Andrew Linden:	But the work schedule at LL is very flexible. I can take time off when I need it.
[11:59]	Feynt Mistral:	Nice.
[11:59]	Andrew Linden:	But I worked extra long hours last night to get some stuff done before my day off.
[11:59]	Kitto Flora:	Today's most popular press word... 'landslide'?
[12:00]	Feynt Mistral:	Is it "just work X hours a day, and Y days a week, and you're fine"?
[12:00]	Andrew Linden:	It feels like a landslide here in the SF Bay Area
[12:00]	Arawn Spitteler:	Long Obama Lines in Connecticut
[12:00]	Andrew Linden:	No Feynt, it is more of a "as long as you're getting your work done you're fine".
[12:01]	Feynt Mistral:	Nice. So as long as you were super productive one day of the week, and managed to do in a day what others do in a week, you're good? >D
[12:01]	Arawn Spitteler:	Noibody gets asigned work, in development?
[12:01]	Feynt Mistral doesn't actually think that's possible, but assuming it were...
[12:01]	Andrew Linden:	No, we get assigned work, sorta.
[12:01]	Arawn Spitteler:	It's possible, and probably doen
[12:02]	Andrew Linden:	For instance, I was asked to join this one project (my current one), which needed more devs.
[12:02]	Andrew Linden:	But it was clearly an important project, so I didn't have much trouble reprioritizing my other work.
[12:02]	Andrew Linden:	Some projects come through as internal feature requests.
[12:03]	Andrew Linden:	Some come through with just a lot of Resident support, however those projects also tend to pick up internal LL support
[12:03]	Feynt Mistral:	I think it'd be good to have a listing of all the projects planned and on going available to the residents so they know what's going on and don't feel people are sitting on their hands at LL.
[12:03]	Andrew Linden:	a lot of LL employees are also SL Residents, so there is a lot of empathy for the residents, really!
[12:03]	Arawn Spitteler:	Let us vote on the internals?
[12:04]	Andrew Linden:	You know... we've stopped voting on internal jira items.
[12:04]	Feynt Mistral:	Like, I'm sure there's a lot of internal work going on, but it's kind of nebulous, "We're working on making SL faster" stuff.
[12:04]	Arawn Spitteler:	Yeah, Andrew needs his road-trip today.
[12:04]	Andrew Linden:	yeah it can be Feynt. I try to be open and honest in these office hours.
[12:04]	Feynt Mistral nods
[12:04]	Andrew Linden:	And also informative when I can be.
[12:05]	Feynt Mistral:	But there's just the four of us, out of... What, 30k+ people online right now? >)
[12:05]	Arawn Spitteler:	Have you lost any vehicles to lag orbitting, yet?
[12:05]	Feynt Mistral:	No, I don't use the vehicle system.
[12:05]	Arawn Spitteler:	Well, he also posts his transcripts
[12:05]	Arawn Spitteler:	Andrew should experience lag orbitting
[12:06]	Arawn Spitteler:	It's weird.
[12:06]	Feynt Mistral:	It's largely confusing to work with in LSL, and up until now I haven't had a computer capable of getting more than 8fps on a good day.
[12:06]	Feynt Mistral:	When I have made vehicles, they were flying vehicles, and used the non-vehicle physics commands.
[12:07]	Feynt Mistral:	And I operated them well above the ground where I got a more passable 12-15 fps. >)
[12:07]	Arawn Spitteler:	I'm learning the vehicle commands, but also use the non-vehicle types.
[12:07]	Feynt Mistral:	Now I get 30-40fps with x16 AA and AF active, and a draw distance of 256m. ^.^
[12:07]	Arawn Spitteler thinks 4 fps looks pretty smooth
[12:07]	Kitto Flora:	I loose vehicles off edge of sim - either to lag drift or pushy Avs - cant tell
[12:07]	Feynt Mistral still thinks the Linden trees look like ass though, highest detail or no.