User:Zero Linden/Office Hours/2007 Feb 13

Transcript of Zero Linden's office hours from 2007 February 13th:

[12:55]  Redd Nyle: Hey there Zero
[12:55]  Thermoriax Golding snugs her wings back around Zero...
[12:55]  Johnny Clarke: u r the linden.. xD
[12:55]  No room to sit here, try another spot.
[12:55]  Zero Linden: okay - I'll sit here
[12:55]  Zero Linden: hi all!
[12:55]  Johnny Clarke: heyhey
[12:55]  Dezire Moonlight: Hello
[12:55]  Thermoriax Golding: Hi, Low, Median...
[12:55]  Fremont Cunningham: Hello Zero
[12:55]  Redd Nyle: Thanks for having us!
[12:55]  Zero Linden: thanks for coming
[12:56]  Thermoriax Golding: There are quite a lot of us wanting tech info, ya...
[12:56]  Johnny Clarke: i think this is great..
[12:56]  Johnny Clarke: and i actually thought, there would be more ppl
[12:57]  Everett Mills: Maybe people didn't realize it was 1pm PST. I'm East coast.
[12:57]  Johnny Clarke: i see a naked woman.. xD
[12:57]  Thermoriax Golding: People that /want/ to dig into Client/ Server handshaking...?
[12:57]  Redd Nyle: I'm glad there aren't, this is so much more personal
[12:57]  Dezire Moonlight: very true
[12:57]  Johnny Clarke: i guess were not complete yet.. ^^
[12:57]  Thermoriax Golding: 1pm LindenTime, which is PST...
[12:57]  Johnny Clarke: but u r right
[12:57]  Zero Linden: what - there aren't enough people here for ya? there are for me!
[12:58]  Johnny Clarke: no, thats not what im saying..^^
[12:58]  Thermoriax Golding: There... put my Developer cap on...
[12:58]  Zero Linden: okay - I have no format for this - and haven't done one before, so it's kinda open....
[12:58]  Zero Linden: ...
[12:58]  Zero Linden: but
[12:59]  Zero Linden: I'd like to make sure that everyone gets to participate
[12:59]  Zero Linden: so don't take it the wrong way if I table a discussions
[12:59]  Zero Linden: for later
[12:59]  Johnny Clarke: sure thing..
[12:59]  Redd Nyle: Can you start by telling us a little about yourself?
[12:59]  Zero Linden: if there really aren't any others, we'll come back to it
[12:59]  Zero Linden: Indeed
[12:59]  Zero Linden: I'm a "Studio Director" --
[12:59]  Fremont Cunningham: maybe tell us what parts of the technology you know about, Zero?
[12:59]  Zero Linden: which is Linden-speak for a person who
[13:00]  Johnny Clarke: let him talk l0l
[13:00]  Zero Linden: leads a group of engineers on a related set of projects
[13:00]  Zero Linden: things that last more than just a few weeks
[13:00]  Zero Linden: my studio, Studio Icehouse, is working on message infranstructure -- the parts of the system that glue things together
[13:00]  Johnny Clarke: oO
[13:01]  Johnny Clarke: ouch..
[13:01]  Zero Linden: since that is currently limiting our options in the mid-term future (like 6 mons. to a year)
[13:01]  Zero Linden: An example is teh dreaded "Message Template"
[13:01]  Zero Linden: which describes the messages that peices send to each other
[13:01]  Zero Linden: right now - every SW piece has to be running the same version
[13:01]  Zero Linden: which is why we often have to bring the grid down
[13:01]  Zero Linden: or force you to upgrade the viewer
[13:02]  Thermoriax Golding: Ohyes... I definitely want to talk about insystem messaging...
[13:02]  Zero Linden: our studio is working to remove that restriction from the template
[13:02]  Thermoriax Golding: Ever get the feeling you should have rented a stadium...? ;}
[13:02]  Zero Linden: whcih in turn will enable things like gradual sim updates, more optional viewers, estate owner choosing update time, beta tests as part of the live grid, etc....
[13:03]  Zero Linden: gosh - welcome all
[13:03]  Tree Kyomoon: hello there! DId anyone ask about Mono yet?
[13:03]  Zero Linden: who knew this many nerds^h^h^h^h^hnice avatars would show up?
[13:03]  Dezire Moonlight: LOL
[13:03]  Thermoriax Golding: YOu just did...
[13:04]  Tree Kyomoon: :)
[13:04]  Tree Kyomoon: well?? the lack of arrays is killing me!
[13:04]  Zero Linden: okay - mono -
[13:04]  Thermoriax Golding: You have strings... you have Notecards... make your arrays...
[13:04]  Zero Linden: realize that the first roll out of mono will still just support the LSL language
[13:04]  Thermoriax Golding: How hard is it to make a translation layer...?
[13:04]  Zero Linden: which, alas, means crummy data structures
[13:04]  Tree Kyomoon: is there a plan to go ECMA
[13:05]  Fremont Cunningham: Crummier than now?
[13:05]  Zero Linden: well - MONO means that we have a VM that supports multiple langauges
[13:05]  Zero Linden: BUT
[13:05]  Johnny Clarke: why so many questions at once guys? keep it cool..
[13:05]  Zero Linden: no no, not crummier than now - exactly as crummy as now - it will be the same LSL language
[13:05]  Redd Nyle: Guys, let's give some room, we'll get to everything.
[13:05]  Zero Linden: BUT
[13:05]  Zero Linden: adding support for another language
[13:05]  Zero Linden: will
[13:06]  Zero Linden: mena having to port/build interfaces to the whole LSL library
[13:06]  Zero Linden: and figuring out how to match the execution model of the langague to scripts in prims
[13:06]  Heather Goodliffe: Zero, theoretially we could add a a compiler to the open SL client that compiles other langauges and uploads the CLR?
[13:06]  Zero Linden: most languages run a main() function and quit... which doesn't match scripts on an object, now does it
[13:06]  Thermoriax Golding: No, but Realtime handlers do...
[13:06]  Zero Linden: Heather - yes, you could, but we aren't supporting the full CLR - as the full CLR didn't anticipate an environment like SL
[13:07]  Fremont Cunningham: It does as long as you dont quit.
[13:07]  Zero Linden: so we'd have to carefully screen the assemblies
[13:07]  Zero Linden: and that work isn't done
[13:07]  Heather Goodliffe: right, but the compiler is in the client, so I'd imagine the compiling to the mono CLR would still be int he client?
[13:07]  Zero Linden: Fremont - we are event based in our scripting, and while a loop that doesn't quit might seem right - we don't want each person to have tow rite an event fetch loop
[13:07]  Zero Linden: in other languages
[13:08]  Zero Linden: Heather -
[13:08]  Zero Linden: the compiler will be moving to the simulator for LSL very soon now
[13:08]  Heather Goodliffe: ah, ok :)
[13:08]  Zero Linden: so, uploading compiled CLR will require a CLR verification step (like the Java verifier)
[13:08]  Fremont Cunningham imagined a standard interrupt vector set
[13:08]  Fremont Cunningham: But ..
[13:09]  Zero Linden: Fremont - I can too, but again, we're going to have to come up with the "standard" way to map this into each langauge
[13:09]  Tree Kyomoon: how about running from the mozilla to SL and back with scripts?
[13:09]  Tree Kyomoon: is that a workaround?
[13:10]  Zero Linden: Tree - not sure how you mean - but, for many reasons, scripts really need to execute on the server
[13:10]  Zero Linden: for one, they are the only form of asset that we can completely protect since they never need to leave our network
[13:10]  Thermoriax Golding: Data security, for one good reason...
[13:10]  Tree Kyomoon: well if I need to do some math that SL doesnt handle, I can pass stuff from SL to say flash, then return results
[13:11]  Fremont Cunningham: Is it still thought that LSL>MONO> CLR> ... will result in 'LSL running a lot faster' ?
[13:11]  Zero Linden: true - for example now, many people do that sort of work by passing comuptation out to external servers via llHTTPRequest or e-mail and XML-RPC
[13:11]  Zero Linden: Yes, LSL compiled to CLR, run on MONO is dramatically faster
[13:11]  Tree Kyomoon: yes, but HTTP request HIDES the header info
[13:11]  Zero Linden: thogh it depends on what your are doing
[13:12]  Zero Linden: Tree, what does it hide? you mean the headers on the response?
[13:12]  Tree Kyomoon: well I had asked about sending proprietery authentication headers
[13:12]  Tree Kyomoon: SL should ignore them
[13:12]  Tree Kyomoon: but it just gobbles them up
[13:12]  Zero Linden: yes, we don't have support for the script to get those
[13:12]  Zero Linden: that could be added later
[13:13]  Tree Kyomoon: that would be AWESOME
[13:13]  Tree Kyomoon: :)
[13:13]  Zero Linden: it is common to put authentication challenges in the body - since usually most people come up with custom body formats for their LSL scripts anyway
[13:13]  Tree Kyomoon: well, not in the internet world
[13:13]  Tree Kyomoon: at least in my experience
[13:14]  Zero Linden: true - if you are tring to talk to existing services -- though most have found LSL inadequate for parsing such things
[13:14]  Tree Kyomoon: its really close....Im pretty excited about what ive been able to do so far
[13:16]  Zero Linden: alas - I appologize - I worked on llHTTPRequest - and it was great fun my first six months here to be adding new features that people used
[13:16]  Zero Linden: now, alas
[13:16]  Zero Linden: many of us have dedicated ourselves
[13:16]  Zero Linden: to less sexy tasks like message system
[13:16]  Fremont Cunningham: What about resource control under MONO? At present many sims are saturated by excessive scripts. Running faster should help - but eventually people will hog the resources again.
[13:16]  Zero Linden: to enable this place to scale massivly
[13:16]  Zero Linden: whch - in a way - has it's own charm
[13:16]  Thermoriax Golding: Ya... I was wondering about the scaling, myself...
[13:17]  Zero Linden: let me answer Fremont's question - but let's move on to scaling from scripts for awhile
[13:17]  Radslns Hutchence: its always about the messages
[13:17]  Heather Goodliffe: yeah, I actually came here because I couldn't get anything done atm
[13:17]  Heather Goodliffe: grid seems to be having issues
[13:17]  Zero Linden: yes - there has been brewing talk about a mor comprehensive system for resource utilization
[13:17]  Zero Linden: tying many more things to prims
[13:17]  Heather Goodliffe: seems to happen around 2pm most days
[13:17]  Zero Linden: or rather prim allotment
[13:17]  Thermoriax Golding: for an N number of users increase, the messages increase how... Log (N)... N*N... N^2...?
[13:18]  Dezire Moonlight: listens intently to changes
[13:18]  Zero Linden: but it is difficult to come up with a plan that works equitably for land owners, avatars with attachments, and visitors working on your land
[13:18]  Zero Linden: messages? well - now that isn't a simple answer
[13:18]  Zero Linden: - but this is a tech crowd!
[13:18]  Heather Goodliffe: Zero, account level quotas is somethign I had suggested
[13:18]  Thermoriax Golding: We need to separate physical prims, from construction prims, and perhaps even from Scripting prims...?
[13:18]  Fremont Cunningham: Just limiting Scripts attached to an Av, to say 100 max would help a lot
[13:19]  RJ Source: A tech crown - but many sugar crashing from lunch..
[13:19]  Zero Linden: he he
[13:19]  Dezire Moonlight: do you mean that the prims an avatar wears will then count against the land?
[13:19]  Heather Goodliffe: dezinre, I mean quotas for all resources
[13:19]  Dezire Moonlight: ah k
[13:19]  Thermoriax Golding: Sounds more like a simple ceiling to Scripts- On_ PRims, Sis...
[13:19]  Zero Linden: On limits - no, it isn't clear how to handle attachments - and even high end limits, like 100 scripts per, are probably not enough
[13:20]  Zero Linden: okay - I'mgoing to move onto messages
[13:20]  Zero Linden: when y ou are in a region
[13:20]  Zero Linden: like here
[13:20]  Thermoriax Golding: What would /use/ 100 scripts on an AV, really...?
[13:20]  Radslns Hutchence: bad design
[13:20]  Radslns Hutchence: some weapons systems
[13:20]  Thermoriax Golding: Very...
[13:20]  Zero Linden: the simulator is responsible for handling all the messages
[13:20]  Heather Goodliffe: LSL kind of is condusive to bad design
[13:20]  Zero Linden: for the whole region
[13:20]  Thermoriax Golding: Weapon systems can offload some of that to object prims...
[13:20]  Zero Linden: AND all the avatars in it
[13:20]  Kenny Bumbo: do any of u think im sexy
[13:21]  Heather Goodliffe: if you want modular code you have to have multiple scripts
[13:21]  Radslns Hutchence: No kenny
[13:21]  Zero Linden: some aspects of
[13:21]  Zero Linden: the problem are inheritly O^2
[13:21]  Zero Linden: if there are 40 avatars moving, each viewer needs the messages of all 40 avatars+ 40*40 load
[13:22]  Dezire Moonlight: Kenny this is a meeting
[13:22]  Thermoriax Golding: Square increase...
[13:22]  Zero Linden: Kenny join us please
[13:22]  Zero Linden: or....
[13:22]  Zero Linden: well
[13:22]  Zero Linden: okay
[13:22]  Zero Linden: BUT
[13:22]  Zero Linden: right now much of the other work is really only scaled liniearly
[13:23]  Zero Linden: linearly
[13:23]  Zero Linden: like doing search or inventory
[13:23]  Thermoriax Golding: Is there a way we can send non- secure messages from client to client, perhaps...?
[13:23]  Zero Linden: it's just that the load on this sim for all of us is much greater than the load on another sim with only one av in it
[13:23]  Thermoriax Golding: More a Peer to Peer arrangement...?
[13:23]  Tree Kyomoon: have you guys explored HHCodes to make the voxels render more efficiently?
[13:23]  Radslns Hutchence: what's the message packet like Zero? any chances to make it smaller and shorter
[13:24]  Radslns Hutchence: get more messages moving faster?
[13:24]  Zero Linden: Well, peer-to-peer messaging has problems for most people with firewalls
[13:24]  Zero Linden: Voice over IP does it with horrible tricks
[13:24]  Heather Goodliffe: I was in a sim with 80 AVs in it the other day
[13:24]  Zero Linden: that I'm not sure we want to code
[13:24]  Thermoriax Golding: Once SL scales beyond a certain point, some tasks have to be shared off server...
[13:24]  Thermoriax Golding: We cannot reasonably ask the Server to relay everything...
[13:24]  Zero Linden: So, the packets are pretty small - and we don't see data size as the problem - just managign them
[13:24]  Zero Linden: so a plan
[13:25]  Zero Linden: is move avatar related messages to an avatar server
[13:25]  Thermoriax Golding: Sounds good...
[13:25]  Zero Linden: leaving the sims to just simulate and deal with messages
[13:25]  Zero Linden: that are just region based
[13:25]  Fremont Cunningham: Once central Avatar server? Or one per sim.. or few sims?
[13:25]  Radslns Hutchence: do you persist messages to file regularly? in a DBMS? or is it all memory based?
[13:25]  Radslns Hutchence: the client to client messages?
[13:26]  Zero Linden: another tactic is to move manythings, like search, into HTTP based queries that your viewer can do, whcih means they can be vectored to other machines
[13:26]  Zero Linden: right now the simulator for the region you are in must proxy the request for searches
[13:26]  Tree Kyomoon: google search in SL
[13:26]  Zero Linden: Fremont - the design would be one avatar server per N on-line avatars, where N is like 100 or 500 or so
[13:27]  Zero Linden: (number to be determined, actuall)
[13:27]  Willow Ranger: sounds costly ....
[13:27]  Fremont Cunningham: Like he says - cost of scaling...
[13:27]  Zero Linden: so we decouple the two axes of growth: land and on-line agents, into two independently growable servers: simulators for land, agent hosts for on-line agents
[13:28]  RJ Source: Could be worse. Cost-wise.
[13:28]  Zero Linden: well - at present we put a CPU on-line for every region - currently at what, 5000 and growing?
[13:28]  Thermoriax Golding: Now... is there a way to break up the assets, perhaps making them a bit easer to handle...?
[13:28]  Radslns Hutchence: yes
[13:28]  Zero Linden: so, putting a CPU on line for every 500 on-line agents wouldn't be that hard for us
[13:28]  Fremont Cunningham: What does this do for the horrors of sim boundary crossing in a plane at 100kM/h with 5 riders?
[13:28]  Radslns Hutchence: hot assets.. stored closer to the AV
[13:28]  Radslns Hutchence: and cold one
[13:28]  Radslns Hutchence: s
[13:29]  Radslns Hutchence: where delay is more acceptable
[13:29]  Zero Linden: Rads - no, we don't ever persist messages
[13:29]  Zero Linden: Fremont - makes it MUCH MUCH better
[13:29]  Fremont Cunningham: Great!
[13:29]  Thermoriax Golding: Ya... that would make people creep out real quick... the things they do here, being recorded...
[13:29]  Zero Linden: see - at present, when all five of you cross - not only does the sim have to hand off the plane, but it has to hand off managemnt of 5 AVs
[13:29]  Heather Goodliffe: Thermoriax, most things are recorded
[13:29]  Zero Linden: and do this while IMs may be flying around, etc...
[13:29]  Radslns Hutchence: again.. we're talking internal messages
[13:29]  Fremont Cunningham: Right
[13:29]  Radslns Hutchence: not chat
[13:30]  Zero Linden: in the new design, the agents would never leave their agent host during this
[13:30]  Willow Ranger: how about if the region-server and the avatar server arent in the same datacenter?
[13:30]  Zero Linden: so the sim just has to hand off the plane
[13:31]  Heather Goodliffe: the messages aren't recorded, but transactions with the database are
[13:31]  Fremont Cunningham: av attach points all handle ok?
[13:31]  Tree Kyomoon: that sounds like a great plan , Zero
[13:31]  Zero Linden: the goal would be to allow the agent hosts and sim hosts to not be in the same datacenter - and use the public internet if not, though if they were, it would a faster connection
[13:31]  Zero Linden: but again, there should much less hand off as you fly around
[13:32]  Karen Linden: hi all
[13:32]  Zero Linden: so while we are adding a
[13:32]  Dimitrio Lewis waves to Karen
[13:32]  Redd Nyle: Hi Karen
[13:32]  Zero Linden: message path (agent host to simulator) we are reducing the amount of data moved
[13:32]  Tree Kyomoon: then you could opensource the sim servers and av servers at different times!
[13:32]  Zero Linden: indeed... we could...!
[13:33]  Zero Linden: wow - look at tis crowd
[13:33]  Tree Kyomoon: so any progress on Mozilla?
[13:34]  Thermoriax Golding: LIke I said from the start... there are a lot of people hungry for some Tech Specs...
[13:34]  Zero Linden: Note - we don't actually record much other than the state of things - the onlly transactions in the DB we record are L$ transactions
[13:34]  Zero Linden: since those need careful accounting
[13:35]  Martian Manga: I'm a bit surprised by Linden Lab's decision to strengthen the scripting environment internally (Mono). I guess I would've expected the strategy to be to encourage residents over time to host expensive processes externally and to simply pipe updates back and forth between in-world objects and servers. In other words, to leave objects doing only what only objects can do, if that makes sense.
[13:35]  Zero Linden: Hold that thought, Martian....
[13:36]  Zero Linden: On Mozilla - there are still some significant technical hurdles here
[13:36]  Zero Linden: we've got it working for much content as a 2d window inside the viewer, as you know
[13:36]  Zero Linden: and you've seen (maybe) our demonstration of browsing on a flexible 3D surface with OpenGL
[13:36]  Zero Linden: BUT,
[13:37]  Zero Linden: The Mozilla codebase has been difficult to efficently integrate - it wasn't designed for this kind of rendering situation
[13:37]  Zero Linden: so getting it on a prim is still a ways off
[13:37]  Karen Linden waves back...albeit belatedly!
[13:37]  Zero Linden: another challenge is that we haven't been able (nor has anyone) been able to get Flash to work rendered in an OpenGL environment
[13:38]  Tree Kyomoon: do you lack support from ADOBE?
[13:38]  Zero Linden: Finally, on Mozilla, there are many different ways people might want to use HTML on a prim:
[13:38]  Zero Linden: Is it a way to render text and images and layout statically on a prim surface?
[13:38]  Zero Linden: Is it a shared browser?
[13:38]  Zero Linden: Is it a UI subsystem for LSL scripts?
[13:38]  Zero Linden: Is it a non-shared browser?
[13:39]  Zero Linden: Does it look at content from the web, or content from in-world (HTML on a notecard or dynamically generated)?
[13:39]  Zero Linden: Here's a request
[13:39]  Zero Linden: PLEASE: write up a scenario of how you think of using HTML on a prim on a notecard and drop it on me
[13:40]  Zero Linden: OKAY
[13:40]  Kibble Ahn: I found an error in the source that is easy to fix. Since I'm not a payment member I cannot contribute patches. But it is easy to fix.
[13:40]  Kibble Ahn: Can I just tell you about it?
[13:40]  Zero Linden: We do want to encourage people to off load more computationally intensive processes to off-world servers
[13:40]  Heather Goodliffe: zero, user quotas would do that
[13:41]  Zero Linden: Kibble - I don't konw the procedures
[13:41]  Zero Linden: surely you can put it on the Wiki?
[13:41]  Zero Linden: Again, heather - user quotas aren't so simple - we can't compute the sum total across the grid
[13:41]  Kibble Ahn: Aren't you the open-source guy? Or is that a different lInden?
[13:41]  Zero Linden: and no quota in any region could be low enough to matter -
[13:42]  Zero Linden: that is, any level we set that is functional, would be too high if 200 Avatars took advantage of it
[13:42]  Huns Valen: some things need to run fast that cannot be effectively offloaded to remote data centers, such as vehicle physics simulations. we really need Mono to do that better.
[13:42]  Vitis Obviate: there is nothing wrong with implementing basic html first? After all the web only had very simple html to start with and it was still useful
[13:42]  Thermoriax Golding: Questions about Prims and Prim Rendering...?
[13:42]  Zero Linden: Which isn't to say that we don't want quotas, just that they are tricky
[13:42]  Zero Linden: Kibble - no, that is Rob LInden
[13:42]  Kibble Ahn: Ah... okay. Sorry.
[13:42]  Zero Linden: His plot is just down the way and he has office hours on Mon. Wed. and Fri.
[13:42]  Zero Linden: No probl.
[13:43]  Kibble Ahn: Are office hours of the different Lindens posted somewhere?
[13:43]  Zero Linden: Huns - exactly - and even simple stuff is just too much of a drain with the current LSL VM
[13:43]  Karen Linden: Kibble: I think so
[13:43]  Karen Linden: on the event calendar?
[13:43]  Zero Linden: Thermoriax - sure, but I'm not a big 3D rendering guy...
[13:43]  Zero Linden: but, shoot
[13:43]  Zha Ewry: Very minor logistics question, will you be posting a chat log, anyehere, for the whole session today?
[13:43]  Zero Linden: Kibble - he's not on the claendar yet - but ther eis a sign on his cubicle (yes - his build is a cubicle! )
[13:44]  Karen Linden: ah, yeah
[13:44]  Karen Linden: that's too bad kibble. I see Jeska's but not any others...
[13:44]  Thermoriax Golding: Well... there are all kinds of rumors and half- legends, and such... about how the client and server handle Prims and their related traffic...
[13:44]  Karen Linden: Zero...ahem ;-)
[13:44]  Zero Linden: Zha - yes, that sounds great
[13:44]  RJ Source: Cubicle? Thats a little disturbing!
[13:45]  Zha Ewry: If you'd blog a pointer, that'd be wodnerful. thx
[13:45]  Vitis Obviate: Any plans to implment xml-rpc outbound to help with the offloading?
[13:45]  Zero Linden: Rj - it is
[13:45]  Zero Linden: goone, Thermoriax
[13:45]  Thermoriax Golding notices how well this Sim is handling this many AV's... ...
[13:45]  Zero Linden: Zha - I'll probably just amend the blog post with teh ranscript
[13:45]  Tree Kyomoon: hmmmm
[13:45]  Thermoriax Golding: Well... as I see it as a games programmer...
[13:46]  Thermoriax Golding: You have a DB at the Server end, that holds a Data Record that describes the paramters of a Prim...
[13:46]  Zha Ewry: k
[13:46]  Thermoriax Golding: That is piped to all those in the sim area that will see it...
[13:46]  Fremont Cunningham: only 31 avs in the sim and 1500 scripts. Light load.
[13:47]  Thermoriax Golding: Now... one rumor I wish to find out one way or another, is about the practice of torturing a prim...
[13:47]  Karen Linden: bye all!
[13:47]  Zero Linden: Roughly - there is no traditional DB for the prim storage - they are stored in memory while the simulator is running
[13:47]  Khamon Fate waves
[13:47]  Thermoriax Golding: Or... setting values on properties that are not supposed to be on certain prim types...
[13:47]  Zero Linden: and we don't send them all to the viewer - there is an "interest list" calculation so we only need to send what is required
[13:48]  RJ Source: Torturng, etc, sounds dangerous - and possibly unsupported in the future.
[13:48]  Zero Linden: I'm not sure that is what people mean by "torturing" a prim
[13:48]  Zero Linden: but, in any case, our format for sending prim information down is very very compact
[13:48]  Thermoriax Golding: I can understand if haivng the values be unexpected ranges can cause problems with Havok... or with the Client...
[13:48]  Zero Linden: and doesn't correlate to how complicated it might be to render
[13:49]  Zha Ewry: Cycling through the various underlying forms to get prims set with odd paramaters which wouldn't show in the normal tool
[13:49]  Thermoriax Golding: THis gold halo over my head is a Tortured Prim...
[13:49]  Khamon Fate: zero will we ever be able to see for miles by rendering small approximations of larger prims without having to calc the entire view?
[13:49]  Thermoriax Golding: Not as tortured as some sculptors use... but enough of one...
[13:49]  Khamon Fate: or are we always gonna just stop rendering at some close distance?
[13:50]  Thermoriax Golding: The idea is to get more of a range out of the same data stream and server load...
[13:50]  Khamon Fate: and thank you for posting regular office hours, this is going to be nice
[13:50]  Thermoriax Golding: Many believe that Tortured prims somehow increase load on SL...
[13:50]  Thermoriax Golding: As many believe particles do...
[13:50]  Zha Ewry: (How? the rendering is all client side, isn't it?)
[13:50]  Zero Linden: well - both those things really only put load on the viewer
[13:51]  Thermoriax Golding: /Exactly/ Zha... that is what I can't see...
[13:51]  Zero Linden: unless we are talking about things like mega-prims
[13:51]  Khamon Fate claps for mega-prims
[13:51]  Thermoriax Golding: I can understand the problem with Havoc and Megaprims...
[13:51]  Nobody Fugazi's ears perk up
[13:51]  Zero Linden: those cause problems sim side as they increase the amount of work the sim has to do -
[13:51]  Dimitrio Lewis: what is the policy on mega prims btw?
[13:52]  Thermoriax Golding: Would it improve things, to separate Phys Prims from regular prims...?
[13:52]  Zero Linden: Thermoriax - we already do
[13:52]  Thermoriax Golding: Hmm...
[13:52]  Zero Linden: but even non-physics, phantom mega prims are a problem - for example, they will show up on EVERYONE's interest list
[13:52]  Zero Linden: and will have to be communicated to all neighboring sims
[13:53]  Fremont Cunningham: Thats interesting - how are phys. prims 'separated' from non-phys prims?
[13:53]  Tree Kyomoon: so they wouldnt matter so much on an island
[13:53]  Tree Kyomoon: but on the mainland
[13:53]  Zero Linden: so- you can see that the 10m size limit is really a way of enforcing a limit on the amount of work per prim
[13:53]  Thermoriax Golding: Ok... Megaprims are upscale enough they have to be viewable from a /distance/ like sim- to- sim...
[13:54]  Zero Linden: the are separated in how they are managed with respect to havok - on the viewer it makes no difference
[13:54]  Thermoriax Golding: Prims are primarily a method of conveying a vertex pattern to the renderer...
[13:54]  Tabitha Miranda: so should people be using mega prims or not..i see several used as screens to block ugly views
[13:54]  Tabitha Miranda: some say its ok others say no
[13:55]  Fremont Cunningham: Interesting because of the old old prim drifting and spinning problem.
[13:55]  Thermoriax Golding: If we are willing to accept a negative- space prim as taking a primcount slot...
[13:55]  Thermoriax Golding: Is there a reason we cannot use them to help shape Linksets...?
[13:56]  Zero Linden: Ah - well, abstractly, no -
[13:56]  Zero Linden: but it will require the work to add that to all the various geometry chains - both rendering, and simulation
[13:56]  Thermoriax Golding: Perhaps a surface- limit could be proposed...?
[13:57]  Huns Valen: Andrew Linden commented in 2003 that arbitrary concave stuff would be hard to set up in Havok
[13:57]  Zero Linden: There are a lot of different models that could be considered....
[13:57]  Thermoriax Golding: Might not add to the server end, but it will add work to the Client end, I can see...
[13:57]  Zero Linden: ...but there are limits to finding things that will work with all the generality that SL offers
[13:57]  Zero Linden: I don't think we'd want to offer prim types that could only be non-physical and phantom, for example
[13:58]  Jarod Godel: Isn't that how floppy prims work?
[13:58]  Khamon Fate: yes floppies are autophantom nonphysical
[13:58]  Thermoriax Golding: Flexis are prolly based along a flexible 'spine' that is handled through Havoc first, then the Prim is rendered on it...
[13:59]  Zero Linden: they are client side, and you can have almost anythin floppy - and I know there are desingers willing to give their left-attachment for the rest of the shapes to be flexi
[13:59]  Khamon Fate: how 'bout prims that once locked can only be taken, not unlocked? hmm
[13:59]  Huns Valen: flexible prims don't involve havok
[13:59]  Thermoriax Golding: I would be content with being able to pin another Prim to a place on a Flexi...
[13:59]  Fremont Cunningham: non-phys &phantom prims are used for position markers. But you rarely care about its shape or size. A small cube will do
[13:59]  Zero Linden: Khamon- you raise the issue of the permissions -
[13:59]  Thermoriax Golding: Or describe a path, and a shape to apply on a path...
[14:00]  Thermoriax Golding: Ahh... dreams of spline solids...
[14:00]  Zero Linden: there are quite a number of possible changes to the permissions system
[14:00]  Zero Linden: but
[14:00]  Khamon Fate: i'm more thinking lack of updates
[14:00]  Khamon Fate: but
[14:00]  Khamon Fate: ha ha ha
[14:01]  Zero Linden: I think we are going to let that sit for a more comprehensive review
[14:01]  Khamon Fate: my original client-oriented rendering question was whether or not we'll ever be able see long distances without having to download, calc and render every tiny little prim?
[14:01]  Zero Linden: whew - well, it is 2pm - I can go for another 1/2 hour if folks like
[14:02]  Nobody Fugazi: sure :-D
[14:02]  Zero Linden: Khamon - I don't know
[14:02]  Tree Kyomoon: please
[14:02]  Zha Ewry: Yes :-)
[14:02]  Nobody Fugazi: ok... well, with attachments when crossing sim borders, is it that sometimes pointers don't pass correctly - thus flexihair ends up in the crotch? :-D
[14:02]  Redd Nyle: We would like, I think I can say for all of us
[14:02]  Dnali Anabuki: plse
[14:02]  Khamon Fate: for instance, it'd be nice to set my client to see clearly for 256m then only larger prims up to 1024
[14:02]  Khamon Fate: or something
[14:02]  Huns Valen: ok, are we going to see any motion on fixing stuttery physical objects soon?
[14:02]  Zero Linden: It would more difficult in SL - as that is typically done with precomputation
[14:02]  Zero Linden: but that doesn't seem like it is going to work well for SL
[14:03]  Jarod Godel: Couldn't the client do the precomputation?
[14:03]  Jarod Godel: Like floppies. Just dump everything to the client, and render based on his local settings?
[14:03]  Jarod Godel: We already do that with particles.
[14:03]  BinaryMe Remblai: I hope I don't start a riot, but how can huge prims adversly affect my region?
[14:03]  Rex Cronon: hello everybody
[14:03]  Zero Linden: but Jarod - then you'd have to send all the geometry
[14:04]  Khamon Fate: wull particles aren't visible across borders in first look anymore
[14:04]  Jarod Godel: That doesn't get sent already?
[14:04]  Jarod Godel: Then how does the client know what to draw?
[14:04]  Khamon Fate: jarod we only download up to our draw distance
[14:04]  Khamon Fate: so we see that far then we see a blank horizon
[14:04]  Zero Linden: Nobody - yes, the attachment move on region cross is a plague! We know about it... don't have a fix for it yet
[14:05]  Jarod Godel: But downloading and rendering are two seperate processes, Khamon.
[14:05]  Tree Kyomoon: New question....you guys must have an offline client for scripting....is that possible for us to get our hands on?
[14:05]  Zero Linden: BinaryMe - I discussed that earlier
[14:05]  Jarod Godel: Tree, Khamon has a copy of one
[14:05]  Zero Linden: Tree - you will be surprized to learn that we do not
[14:05]  Khamon Fate: i'm wondering if we can download just the groundmesh and very large prims beyond that and see for some actual distance
[14:05]  Zero Linden: We all script in world
[14:05]  Nobody Fugazi: cool, thanks Zero. Its why I stopped using human form. Hair in the crotch is hard to explain when showing up at events. :-D
[14:06]  Soft Noel: What's the advantage of scripting offline?
[14:06]  Zero Linden: Actually
[14:06]  Khamon Fate: the problem with scripting inworld is the thing HAS to compile or it can't be saved
[14:06]  Thermoriax Golding: Yes... and you need to teach the LSL engine about commutative math...
[14:06]  Zha Ewry: Related question, to the prim on crossing question. What's exactly going on with a re-bake? and why does it seem to be so random in whether it takes or not.
[14:06]  Khamon Fate: that's kinda silly
[14:06]  Tree Kyomoon: I ran a say script today by accident that went into an infinte loop conversation...had I been on the mainland....
[14:06]  Zero Linden: personally, I use SubEthaEdit, with the LSL plug-in (which I wrote, but it is on their site),
[14:06]  Zero Linden: to edit scripts
[14:06]  Zero Linden: and copy/paste into SL
[14:06]  Khamon Fate: i script using an offline colour coded editor and upload to debug
[14:06]  BinaryMe Remblai: About what I figured. Going to have a transcript of the answer?
[14:07]  Zero Linden: Yes, I'll post transcripts to the blog post
[14:07]  Tree Kyomoon: Im looking more for a practice runtime so I dont blow up SL with some crazy script
[14:07]  Khamon Fate claps for transcripts
[14:07]  Heather Goodliffe: hey Zero, btw, do you know anythign about the vehicle stutter movement issue?
[14:08]  Zero Linden: Heather, alas, I don't
[14:08]  Nobody Fugazi: hmm.... a LSL simulator would be useful for a few different reasons, but overall if it has to work in a concurrent environment, the simulator would have to allow for concurrent scripts as well.
[14:08]  Heather Goodliffe: do you konw who I can talk to abou tthat?
[14:08]  Tree Kyomoon: not necessarily...there is a lot you can do with script that is just gruntwork
[14:08]  Zero Linden: Heather - do you mean on region crossing?
[14:09]  Huns Valen: I bet she doesn't!
[14:09]  Thermoriax Golding: Could we have more 'revolve' or 'extrude' prims...? Prims that are made from revolved 2D shapes... or ones dragged in the 3rd dimension...
[14:09]  Heather Goodliffe: Zero, no, when you try to move a vehicle in a straight path it stutters
[14:09]  Heather Goodliffe: within the sim
[14:09]  Heather Goodliffe: stutters really badly
[14:09]  Zero Linden: I'd IM Andrew Linden about that
[14:09]  Heather Goodliffe: it's like lag, but not
[14:09]  Khamon Fate: heather are you using the first look client or the regular one?
[14:09]  Huns Valen: low velocity with no angular momentum = moving in huge discreet steps rather than smoothly
[14:09]  Heather Goodliffe: the server just isn't sending updates
[14:09]  BinaryMe Remblai: is there a way to move something underground?
[14:10]  Zero Linden: BinaryMe - no
[14:10]  Zero Linden: not really
[14:10]  Huns Valen: that problem is not specific to first look
[14:10]  Heather Goodliffe: Khamon, the regular one
[14:10]  Khamon Fate claps for terrain prims
[14:10]  BinaryMe Remblai: oh ok
[14:10]  Zero Linden: or rather, not intentionally
[14:10]  Khamon Fate claps for mesh prims
[14:10]  Heather Goodliffe: it's been happening since the last big update
[14:10]  Redd Nyle: Has LL been working in depth with any companies to allow custom solutions for large corporate projects or do all projects have to go through third parties?
[14:10]  Tree Kyomoon: more mesh prims :)
[14:10]  Khamon Fate claps for caves
[14:10]  BinaryMe Remblai: hi
[14:10]  Zero Linden: I can see a future with more prim types - including meshes and ground types
[14:10]  Zero Linden: BUT
[14:10]  Rex Cronon: actually there is a way to move objects underground
[14:10]  Huns Valen: redd I am pretty sure they just say "electricsheepcompany.com thx bye" when a company asks them abou tthat
[14:11]  Zero Linden: I don't think much work is going to go on there until we get the scaling issues out of the way
[14:11]  Jarod Godel: Your chairs are insane.
[14:11]  Tree Kyomoon: what would be really handy is FONT prims
[14:11]  Khamon Fate: SIT DOWN JAROD
[14:11]  Thermoriax Golding: Prims move Ok underground, as long as the Havoc engine is not invoked, as it detects out of bounds, and flushes the prims...
[14:11]  Khamon Fate: any eta on those scaling issues?
[14:11]  Zero Linden: Redd- LL doesn't do any solutions for 3rd parties - we refer them ALL to the developer listings
[14:12]  Redd Nyle: I see
[14:12]  Redd Nyle: That's rule seems to be iron clad, then
[14:12]  Zero Linden: Really - we just don't have the bandwidth for that sort of thing - and really, the developers do a much better job of that sort of thing than we could!
[14:12]  Zero Linden: (IMHO!)
[14:12]  Khamon Fate: zero can you itemize the scaling issues for us?
[14:12]  Rex Cronon: i would really like to be able to create/edit notecards using scripts
[14:12]  Jarod Godel: hahaha
[14:12]  Redd Nyle: hehe
[14:12]  Khamon Fate: bandwidth == manpower
[14:12]  Fremont Cunningham: Heather - the vehicle straight line stutter was introduced the the last update, it was identified and bug reported several times. It was ignored and moved to main grid.
[14:12]  Jarod Godel: sorry. just calculating the odds of that ever happening.
[14:12]  Tree Kyomoon: and have Fonts in notecards
[14:13]  Heather Goodliffe: Fremont, thanks
[14:13]  Zero Linden: Rex- will never happen - really - use llHTTPRequest and store the data on your own server
[14:13]  Heather Goodliffe: I couldn't seem to get a Linden to acknoledge the problem
[14:13]  Khamon Fate: have script writing to notecards ~ have script writing to mysql ~ dream dream dreeeeeeam
[14:13]  Heather Goodliffe: good to know they supposedly know abou tit
[14:13]  Huns Valen: Heather, look for "jerky" on jira
[14:13]  Jarod Godel: http is the new filehandle. rss is the new |
[14:13]  Rex Cronon: than allow to read more than 256 chars per line
[14:13]  Huns Valen: I'll get the link maybe...
[14:14]  Khamon Fate: uhuh jarod curlhead
[14:14]  Huns Valen: yeah here it is https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-86
[14:14]  Zero Linden: khmon - excellent question - re scaling
[14:14]  Khamon Fate: zero can you itemize the scaling issues for us?
[14:14]  Zero Linden: Let's see: there are
[14:14]  Zha Ewry: Zero if the answeris http request, can we get beyond 2048 bytes? (and Ideally non text)
[14:14]  BinaryMe Remblai: So - it only takes a sec to see, zero that you are sort of delivered as meat for those who do have questions. Thanks. But not so tasty.
[14:15]  BinaryMe Remblai: Have fun guys.
[14:15]  Redd Nyle: Hey! BeKind.
[14:15]  Zero Linden: 1) Database access - we have lots of things in a central database, - this worked well when small, but needs to be broken up
[14:15]  Vitis Obviate: and xml-rpc outbound?
[14:15]  Jarod Godel: But baby Jesus needs his central asset server.
[14:15]  BinaryMe Remblai: Not in the mood- just had a bad experience with "help".
[14:16]  Khamon Fate: shush jardon
[14:16]  Rex Cronon: oh, and i would also like to be able to read textAbove and particles attributes
[14:16]  Zero Linden: 2) Managing a growing network of machines in multiple data centers
[14:17]  Zero Linden: 3) Re architecting the system a bit to be able to scale linearly (discussed extensively earlier on)
[14:17]  Khamon Fate: are y'all able to pay for a severly limited number of hops between colos?
[14:17]  Khamon Fate: or is that prohibitivly expensive?
[14:17]  Huns Valen: khamon that is a great question
[14:17]  Zero Linden: 4) Handling a more hetrogenous grid - so that we can do all operations in stages
[14:18]  Zero Linden: 5) Removing dependencies between sub-systems so things can go down without pulling everything with them
[14:18]  Zero Linden: That was a really off-the-top-of-my-head list
[14:18]  Zero Linden: not bullet points off a slide
[14:18]  Jarod Godel: How many sub-systems are there, if I may ask?
[14:18]  Zero Linden: so, take it for htat
[14:19]  Jarod Godel: Roughly.
[14:19]  Thermoriax Golding: Messaging - Is there a way we can have a UUID we can send a message to, with a preamble of UUID from, and UUID to, and the Message Body... so anyone/ anything can send to anyone/ anything...?
[14:19]  Khamon Fate: thanks, that helps me envision the BBLOTD a bit better considering the recent offloading of services to the new messaging system
[14:19]  Huns Valen: well yeah we can email objects by uuid
[14:19]  Zero Linden: Khamon - we have beefy links between our two colos - but the VPN in there is a limit.... we need to rearchitect things so that we can make use of the public internet for those transfers
[14:20]  Zero Linden: How many sub-systems? Well, right now about a dozen - but with
[14:20]  Khamon Fate: not a UUID anymore Therm, messages are not assets anymore
[14:20]  Jarod Godel: Will #2 and #5 help with that?
[14:20]  Zero Linden: the need to break things into separately scalable parts, there will be three to four times that
[14:20]  Khamon Fate: rather message sessions are not assets anymore
[14:20]  Khamon Fate: khamon's head begins to tingle
[14:21]  Zero Linden: Uhm- well here, look at it this way
[14:21]  Zero Linden: if we could identify a thing by a UUID -
[14:21]  Jarod Godel: I am glad to hear you guys are modularizing.
[14:21]  Zero Linden: then there would be a central relationship that knows how to find an object, anwhere in the grid, by UUID
[14:21]  Zero Linden: that doesn't scale so well!
[14:22]  Khamon Fate: oh granted if you're going to allow private hosting to connect the TGAHTCG, it'll have to use public pipes
[14:22]  Zero Linden: So we need to look at ways to build delgation and heirachy into the infrastructure -
[14:22]  Khamon Fate: can i say pipes?
[14:22]  Zero Linden: it is the only way to scale and have redudency
[14:22]  Willow Ranger: why not give it an ipv6 address instead of an UUID and route to it...
[14:22]  Jarod Godel: I thought people were the only trackable UUID's, SQUIDS then handled per-sim UUID locations. That's why we can't IM objects.
[14:22]  Zero Linden: \Willow -
[14:22]  BinaryMe Remblai: was the question covered already: Do the LSL dataserver calls for member status(on/off Line) follow the new restrictions?
[14:23]  Zero Linden: remember that giving everything an IPv6 IP would still require that we route to it - if the IPs are allocated based on location, then either things can't move, or objects change names
[14:23]  Zero Linden: this is why there is DNS
[14:24]  Jarod Godel: You guys need to hire some Smalltalk hackers. Make everything a listening object.
[14:24]  Zero Linden: on the grid objects move - not just because the object moves in SL space, but because we sometimes have to run the simulation on a different computer
[14:24]  Thermoriax Golding huffles... Atomic Fireball jawbreakers... Ahh...
[14:25]  Zero Linden: Jarod - I AM a Smalltalk hacker - I worked on Apple Smalltalk for Macintosh
[14:25]  Redd Nyle: Oh! P@wned!
[14:25]  Jarod Godel: Couldn't you use inhertience to solve the location problem?
[14:25]  Khamon Fate: jarod are you saying to assign each object a listening port on the server? like a forked process?
[14:25]  Jarod Godel: Like Java objects
[14:25]  Khamon Fate: assigned it's own ipv6 designation?
[14:26]  Zero Linden: Jarod - no, you need delegation, like DNS
[14:26]  BinaryMe Remblai: Do you have a "what questions can be asked" guide?
[14:26]  Jarod Godel: ala sub-domains?
[14:26]  Zero Linden: Jarod - java objects don't live on a mesh of 5,000 CPUs... usually...
[14:26]  Zero Linden: Binary Me - I don't
[14:26]  Zero Linden: but this is a "techy-geeky-nerdo" office hour
[14:26]  Zha Ewry: And.. if you do delegation, you end up having to decide how to not end up with a trail of obejcts behind, as your objects move, and when you can safely reap them
[14:27]  Zero Linden: which - by the way all, is almost at a close
[14:27]  Jarod Godel: I didn't mean the actual objects, just the naming scheme. Sub-domains works just as well.
[14:27]  Khamon Fate: but aren't we trying to move away for object having to rely on a mesh of 5kCPUs and toward a model where prims rely on local asset management?
[14:27]  Zero Linden: Zha - I meant delegation of authority to know where something is
[14:27]  Zero Linden: rather than delgation as in the chain of forwarders sense
[14:27]  Tree Kyomoon: thanks for taking the time Zero, really appreciated
[14:27]  Zha Ewry: Errm.
[14:27]  Zha Ewry: Ok.
[14:27]  Thermoriax Golding: Well... most of the internet isn't planned to support a growing, evolving virtual world, either...
[14:27]  Zero Linden: pitty that Computer Science is getting big enough now that we have over lap in use of terms!
[14:27]  Khamon Fate: this is why virtual worlds need our own root servers
[14:27]  Zha Ewry: Even there, you'll still have delegations chasing, but less so
[14:27]  Thermoriax Golding: Things have to adapt, to grow...
[14:28]  Jarod Godel: Nah. Everything's just a database when you get down to it.
[14:28]  Zero Linden: Zha - yes -
[14:28]  Zero Linden: it seems a messy problem no matter how we solve it, really
[14:28]  Zha Ewry: Yes, thanks Zero, and we'll be back with more questinos, once we've read the transcript (regular office hours :-)
[14:28]  Everett Mills: For large spectator events, would it be possible to have a read-only (view-only) view that could be scalably broadcast?
[14:28]  Zero Linden: thank you all for coming
[14:28]  Thermoriax Golding: The RL universe seems to be a Holographic DB in many ways...
[14:28]  BinaryMe Remblai: o god - why did I think you would have a clue?
[14:28]  Jarod Godel: I think the object+dns idea is rather elegant.
[14:29]  Vitis Obviate: ty Zero -- useful and interesting
[14:29]  BinaryMe Remblai: Back to lovely Blanda.
[14:29]  Khamon Fate: thank you zero, see you next timea
[14:29]  Dimitrio Lewis: Thank you, Zero! It's been educational.
[14:29]  Soft Noel: ty Zero :)
[14:29]  Nobody Fugazi: thanks Zero... quick thought... UUID...land... communication.
[14:29]  Nobody Fugazi: have fun ;-D
[14:29]  Fremont Cunningham: Everett - I did that in the early days of TH meets - few watched the relay. Was not worth the effort.
[14:30]  Redd Nyle: Zero, thanks for taking the time to talk with the community. I hope other Lindens follow your lead.
[14:30]  Fremont Cunningham: Thanks Muchly Zero... I look forward to more enlightenment sessions :)
[14:30]  Zero Linden: Quick - someone grab an island named "UUID Land"...