User:Which Linden/Office Hours/2008 Oct 23

• [11:20] Which Linden: haha
• [11:20] Saijanai Kuhn: wb
• [11:21] Which Linden: sorry about thatevryone
• [11:21] Aimee Trescothick: wb :)
• [11:21] Which Linden: I still have typing problems, I see
• [11:21] Morgaine Dinova: Haha, the Department of Wheel Reinvention
• [11:21] Maike Short: looks confused at that plant
• [11:21] Maike Short: whispers: Hello.
• [11:21] Saijanai Kuhn: /e amrs he txt lg ers
• [11:22] Which Linden: heh, speaking of copyright, why is it that after ATI open-sourced their drivers, I still have to mess around with binary-only warning from ubuntu?
• [11:22] Aimee Trescothick: whispers don't worry Maike, first time I came here I tried to sit on him o.O
• [11:22] Which Linden: ha ha
• [11:22] Maike Short: Oh
• [11:22] Which Linden: hi Maike
• [11:23] Maike Short: Hello
• [11:23] Morgaine Dinova: Which, I read just yesterday that the work on FOSS ATI drivers is progressing reasonably.
• [11:23] Maike Short: Didn't ATI open sourced their drivers after the last release of Ubutun?
• [11:24] Which Linden: I only read the Slashdot summary so that's probably the opposite of informaiton
• [11:24] Which Linden: "AMD will not be providing any of their current driver code for use in the open source driver"
• [11:24] Which Linden: So I guess they had to start rom scratch
• [11:25] Which Linden: makes sense then
• [11:25] Morgaine Dinova: Haha, nobody reads the article on Slashdot. It's against the T&C's ;-)
• [11:26] Which Linden: heh
• [11:26] Which Linden: speaking of open source, I saw that mysql has a thing on their public bug tracker where bugs are automatically closed after a month of inactivity
• [11:26] Which Linden: would that work on PJIRA?
• [11:27] Which Linden: probably only for things that are actual bugs
• [11:28] Maike Short: SF.net has a state caled "pending" which can be set by a project member and will close the bug after 14 days unless another comment is posted.
• [11:28] Aimee Trescothick: so if no one fixes it in a month they spontaneously fix themselves? neat
• [11:28] Which Linden: heh well the get wontfixed
• [11:28] Which Linden: or there's a special state for "died of inattention"
• [11:29] Aimee Trescothick: it would probably just create a large amount of noise with people pinging their bugs to keep them open
• [11:29] Morgaine Dinova: Well that's totally wrong.
• [11:29] Which Linden: that's true
• [11:29] Which Linden: perhaps that state would have to manually be set by a Linden
• [11:29] Aimee Trescothick: mainly the ones which probably need closing :D
• [11:30] Morgaine Dinova: Unfixed bugs need to keep mounting up, so that the stats reflect that there is not enough resource (or desire) to fix them.
• [11:30] Maike Short: I think there is a difference between reporters not answering questions they got asked and notbody else (inlcuding no Lindens) commenting.
• [11:30] Which Linden: yeah
• [11:30] Which Linden: MySQL seems to have an army of low-level bugdb goons who kind of act as a first layer of defense against bugs
• [11:31] Which Linden: they're like mobs, which you defeat with repros instead of swords
• [11:31] Saijanai Kuhn: well, darn (and yay). Lock's design DODES accomidate the "Fixed type. So my fix SHOULD work but doesn't :-(
• [11:32] Which Linden: i.e. you file a bug and a goon sets it in the "will expire in one month" state, and then you have to find more info within a month or your bug will expire
• [11:33] Maike Short: I think that is a goode idea if that post contains a request for more information or asks the reporter to try something.
• [11:34] Which Linden: we agree, then!
• [11:35] Which Linden: have people been using PJIRA much lately? does OGP use PJIRA?
• [11:35] Morgaine Dinova: I can't even pronouce PJIRA
• [11:35] Maike Short: p-jira.
• [11:35] Saijanai Kuhn: pyogp has its own section. Whump has a meta jira for OGP issues, ironically. So, we have about 2 dozen issues in pyogp and many dozens in OGP, but no high level category to track them
• [11:36] Morgaine Dinova: Sai: got a link to PyOGP section?
• [11:36] Which Linden: that is a bit weak, given that even stuff like chttp has its own section
• [11:36] Morgaine Dinova: Jeez I'm lazy
• [11:37] Saijanai Kuhn: its at the top level, Morgain
• [11:37] Saijanai Kuhn: OGP is a bit harder to find
• [11:37] Saijanai Kuhn: which is the irony of the thing
• [11:37] Which Linden: hah
• [11:38] Which Linden: the categories in the PJIRA aren't as smoothas they could be
• [11:38] Which Linden: but it's not bad I guess
• [11:39] Which Linden: yeah -- why not change that PyOGP category to just be OGP, and have a PyOGP component?
• [11:39] Saijanai Kuhn: eh, after 1.5 years, I finally got a "wont fix" notification for my request to make scripting its own top level category
• [11:39] Morgaine Dinova: Grrrr ... just the jira really have to use flash? Can't the programmers restrain themselves a little? </grumble>
• [11:40] Saijanai Kuhn: even though scripting is about 25% of all jiras and they're sprinkled into all the different categories, they won't make it a separate category. Oh well
• [11:40] Which Linden: it's just a yutube video, Morgaine
• [11:40] Morgaine Dinova: I found PyOGP, but not OGP, you're right Sai ;-)
• [11:41] Which Linden: but hey the pyogp project has a much higher proportion of closed bugs than the other ones
• [11:42] Which Linden: w00t for that
• [11:44] Which Linden: anyone seen the new mainland regions?
• [11:44] Aimee Trescothick: nope
• [11:45] Which Linden: me neither, but I hear they're pretty rad
• [11:45] Which Linden: should go
• [11:46] Which Linden: is there any techy topic that folks want to discuss, or do you want to take a field trip?
• [11:47] Saijanai Kuhn: either is ok. I'm still trying to squash the bug. Need more insight into how to use the wing debugger I think
• [11:47] Which Linden: are you cribbing off of the c++ message syste,?
• [11:48] Saijanai Kuhn: Lock wrote his own parser based on my original code. It works prety well except for one packet :-(
• [11:48] Which Linden: which one is that?
• [11:48] Aimee Trescothick: erm, can't think of anything techy, much at the mo, heads kinda fried from banging in on my maths expression parser I'm writing for the build window :D
• [11:48] Aimee Trescothick: *bnaging it
• [11:48] Which Linden: yeah, I got no tech in me either
• [11:48] Saijanai Kuhn: why its not working, I can't tell. Fixed the missing bit and it LOOKs like it should work, but doesnt
• [11:49] Aimee Trescothick: gives up on typing
• [11:49] Aimee Trescothick: lol
• [11:49] Which Linden: let's tp to one of the nautilus regions
• [11:49] Aimee Trescothick:  :)
• [11:49] Morgaine Dinova: Got a slurl?
• [11:50] Saijanai Kuhn: ObjectUpdate packet. was barfing on the "Fixed" variable used for the llsettext. I added in a handler for "Fixed" so now it barfs elsewhere in the same packet
• [11:50] Which Linden: map...loading..so....slowly
• [11:50] Saijanai Kuhn: textcolor is of a "fixed" format
• [11:50] Which Linden: [1]
• [11:50] Which Linden: just picked that randomly
• [11:50] Which Linden: seeya there!
• [11:50] Morgaine Dinova: Hehe, good enough. TPing
• [11:50] Saijanai Kuhn: why they didn't just create a datatype for llcoloru4 I don't know
• [11:50] Teleport completed: from [2]
• [11:51] Which Linden: ha ha funny you all still look like you're chillin'
• [11:51] Morgaine Dinova: What's the bamboo transport method?
• [11:51] Saijanai Kuhn: and you still look like a plant
• [11:51] Aimee Trescothick: lol
• [11:52] Morgaine Dinova: Aha, it's skidding
• [11:52] Morgaine Dinova: chuckles
• [11:52] Which Linden: nice poolhere
• [11:52] Morgaine Dinova: You look in your element :P
• [11:52] Maike Short: giggles.
• [11:52] Which Linden: just watering meself
• [11:52] Morgaine Dinova: Careful with overwatering
• [11:53] Saijanai Kuhn: oxymoron with bamboo
• [11:53] Which Linden: can you overwater bamboo?
• [11:53] Morgaine Dinova: You're the expert :P
• [11:53] Which Linden:  :-)
• [11:53] Which Linden: wanna check out what's at the other end of this path
• [11:53] Which Linden:  ?
• [11:53] Morgaine Dinova: So, what's here?
• [11:53] Saijanai Kuhn: bamboo will grow in teh desert with a little care, but its very flimsy
• [11:53] Which Linden: I dunno what's here
• [11:53] Which Linden: this appears to be a thing
• [11:54] Which Linden: maybe there's a thing over here
• [11:54] Morgaine Dinova: Love the way the bamboo wobbles when walking
• [11:54] Which Linden: heh, expecially ridiculous at run speed
• [11:54] Which Linden: I guess these will be some of the parcels that will be sold?
• [11:54] Morgaine Dinova: I like this wall, very medieval
• [11:55] Morgaine Dinova: Or monastic
• [11:55] Which Linden: atlantean
• [11:55] Morgaine Dinova: Aye
• [11:56] Which Linden: overgrown old edifices...nice
• [11:56] Morgaine Dinova: Shrine or something here
• [11:56] Aimee Trescothick: thinks her textures got lost in the post
• [11:57] Which Linden: this is where Frodo and Arwen get chased by the nazgul
• [11:57] Morgaine Dinova: I like the mermaid's grotto
• [11:57] Which Linden: oh wow I thought this was just a mountain but it's got a build on it
• [11:58] Which Linden: ha ha cool
• [11:58] Which Linden: presumably these will also be auctioned off?
• [11:59] Which Linden: I really don't get out on the main grid enough
• [11:59] Morgaine Dinova: One thing I REALLY dislike about SL is popups
• [11:59] Which Linden: popups?
• [11:59] Morgaine Dinova: Object popups when they rez
• [11:59] Which Linden: oh like menus that have useless options?
• [12:00] Aimee Trescothick: wahey, relog fixed me texture issues
• [12:00] Which Linden: nice
• [12:00] Which Linden: ooh more new stuff over here
• [12:01] Which Linden: there's like an amphitheater to the east
• [12:01] Which Linden: I'm actually a little surprised this isn't nofly
• [12:01] Which Linden: not that I'm complaining
• [12:02] Which Linden: how's the view?
• [12:02] Aimee Trescothick: heh, I have wings, I find no-fly area offensive :D
• [12:02] Which Linden: ha ha
• [12:02] Aimee Trescothick: I think there should be no-walk areas
• [12:02] Which Linden: that's a neat idea
• [12:02] Aimee Trescothick: :D
• [12:02] Aimee Trescothick: phantom ground lol
• [12:03] Which Linden: I'd really love to have the ability to be in space
• [12:03] Which Linden: heh, you can region cross and get that 'phantom ground' effect
• [12:04] Which Linden: I want to dispatch a unit to harvest this
• [12:04] Aimee Trescothick: lol
• [12:04] Which Linden: get some mana or something
• [12:04] Aimee Trescothick: :D
• [12:05] Which Linden: sl is a very outseide-y
• [12:05] Which Linden: place
• [12:05] Which Linden: I rarely want to go inside
• [12:06] Which Linden: nice wall murals in htere
• [12:06] Which Linden: I guess we lost everyone else
• [12:07] Which Linden: neat, this pool of water has a ripple script
• [12:09] Morgaine Dinova: Isn't it funny how VW houses with open rooftop "rooms" have staircases or ladders leading up to them?
• [12:09] Which Linden: heh
• [12:09] Which Linden: yeah
• [12:09] Which Linden: it's kind of like maybe you want to roleplay that you can't fly
• [12:09] Morgaine Dinova: Why did we come here? What was the "link" to Nautilus?
• [12:10] Morgaine Dinova: Some Linden's project?
• [12:10] Which Linden: no reason, I just heard about it,
• [12:10] Morgaine Dinova: Aha
• [12:10] Which Linden: yeah, it's a new mainland region that we brought up
• [12:10] Morgaine Dinova: kk
• [12:10] Which Linden: blog post about it
• [12:10] Which Linden: heard that there was some fun stuff to discover here
• [12:10] Morgaine Dinova: It's pretty.
• [12:10] Which Linden: yeah
• [12:10] Morgaine Dinova: But having said that ....
• [12:11] Which Linden: I hope that the people who move in here don't build up lots of out-of-place stuff
• [12:11] Morgaine Dinova: One of the Thinkers discussion meetings (2 weeks ago I think) brought up the issue of SL being the same everywhere. Even when it tries to be different, it's the same.
• [12:12] Morgaine Dinova: Not sure why, but it's true
• [12:12] Morgaine Dinova: Might be a consequence of the prims
• [12:12] Which Linden: I think that's just a reflection of the limitations of the tools
• [12:12] Which Linden: Yeah, and the limited rendering options you have
• [12:12] Morgaine Dinova: Hmmm
• [12:12] Which Linden: Having 'materials' would help a lot
• [12:13] Which Linden: The fact that we're constrained to move only within roughly 200 meters of the ground is also a factor
• [12:13] Morgaine Dinova: It's particularly noticing in HD. At 1920x1200, the water reflections look utterly gorgeous. Everything else is, oh dear.
• [12:13] Which Linden: hah
• [12:13] Which Linden: I was just grousing the other day about how all the truly incredible-looking builds seem to achieve that effect by heavily baking lighting into their textures
• [12:14] Which Linden: It's like, "we produce great art by totally bypassing your renderer!"
• [12:14] Morgaine Dinova: Seriosuly, it's like Everquest from nearly a decade ago
• [12:14] Which Linden: It's not that bad
• [12:14] Which Linden: never played everquest
• [12:15] Which Linden: But yeah, hard to make a general-purpose tool that's as good as a special-purpose one
• [12:16] Morgaine Dinova: The client needs to be forked into a community project, so that the graphics can advance. But since a lot of the dullness is probably due to prims, I think the only salvation there is to make sure that objects in OGP are extensible.
• [12:16] Which Linden: Agreed with extensibility
• [12:17] Which Linden: Though that's a much harder problem than it sounds, given that there are like 50 standards for meshes alone
• [12:17] Which Linden: Not to mention shaders and materials
• [12:17] Saijanai Kuhn: whooray found where and why (but not how) the error occurs
• [12:17] Morgaine Dinova: You need to agree on forking the client into a community project too ... either that, or give the Linden devs 10 times the current resources ;-)
• [12:18] Which Linden: The graphics advancing is kind of a chicken and egg problem because a powerful renderer is no use if the world has no content created for it
• [12:18] Morgaine Dinova: Yes, it is chicken and egg, which is why I mentioned the extensible object side of OGP
• [12:19] Which Linden: If you race too far ahead, you risk having people with old hosts being unable to see anything at all
• [12:19] Morgaine Dinova: hosts?
• [12:19] Which Linden: Computers
• [12:19] Morgaine Dinova: kk
• [12:19] Which Linden: Running with graphics set to Low
• [12:19] Which Linden: Or running an older version that doesn't support the new whizbang
• [12:19] Which Linden: Graceful degrdation is the hard part
• [12:19] Which Linden: (as it is on the Web, too!)
• [12:21] Morgaine Dinova: Yeah, it's a problem. But then, older machines can't really do SL at all --- remember that LL doesn't officially support Integrated Graphics even. :-) At some point you have to leave the old behind.
• [12:22] Which Linden: There has been a pretty robust backlash against that, though, and we can't cater only to the people who have beefy-ass machines
• [12:23] Morgaine Dinova: Aye, but the answer isn't to hold back progress. The answer is to hire some people to add object compiling and to fix the cache that insists on losing everything.
• [12:24] Which Linden: Oh, yes, defininely on those
• [12:24] Which Linden: Wait, object compiling? What's that?
• [12:24] Morgaine Dinova: Hahaha
• [12:24] Morgaine Dinova: Exaclty
• [12:26] Morgaine Dinova: The "our objects are dynamic and scripted so can't be compiled" has turned into a bit of a meme, but it's really just an excude. If a state persists unchanged for longer than the time it takes to compile it, compiling is a win, even if the object is dynamic.
• [12:26] Morgaine Dinova: s/excude/excuse/
• [12:27] Which Linden: I still don't understand how a compiled object differs fromanormal one
• [12:27] Which Linden: Is it like, you auto-bake lighting into the texture?
• [12:28] Morgaine Dinova: Anything, from texture baking to actually replacing the scenegraph traversal (which is akin to an interpreted VM) by actual compiled code.
• [12:29] Which Linden: Oh,neat
• [12:30] Which Linden: I believe I read about GTA doing something like that, actually
• [12:30] Morgaine Dinova: The world at the client level is just the VM of a "world specification language" that doesn't actually exist as such. Compiler techniques apply, turn it into machine code ;-)
• [12:30] Which Linden: Heh, that's a neat idea
• [12:31] Morgaine Dinova: I've got a couple of GTAs on the shelf, and not even opened the packs, lol
• [12:31] Which Linden: Played one, played 'em all
• [12:31] Morgaine Dinova: Just like I have a stack of DVDs that I haven't opened
• [12:31] Morgaine Dinova: Must be 30-35
• [12:31] Saijanai Kuhn: wheee. Now I found where it goes rong but can't see how it happens. var_size = varriable.size variable size is 2 but var_size ends up bweing 36K
• [12:32] Which Linden: Dang yo, you need to take a vacation or something, Morgaine
• [12:32] Morgaine Dinova: Vacation would be nice. Not had a proper one for a decade or more
• [12:32] Which Linden: Sai: I believe that there is a meta-size value that tells you not how many bytes are in the message but how long the actual size field is
• [12:33] Which Linden: so you might be seeing something that has a two-byte size field
• [12:33] Which Linden: Well, I should noodle on off, I enjoyed this trip and the ensuing conversation.
• [12:33] Which Linden: Thanks for expanding my mind, Morgaine
• [12:34] Morgaine Dinova: ROFL
• [12:34] Morgaine Dinova: Gimme back those tablets
• [12:34] Morgaine Dinova: Thanks for the link, nice place
• [12:34] Which Linden: Hah, yes, hm, interesting confluence of phrases there hmmm.
• [12:34] Which Linden:  :-)
• [12:35] Which Linden: have a great one!