User:Zero Linden/Office Hours/2008 May 22

• [8:35] Saijanai Kuhn: Good Morning Teacher!
• [8:35] Zero Linden: oooo... so slow to rez this morning....
• [8:35] Tao Takashi: Hi
• [8:35] Courtesan DeCuir: Good Morning Zero
• [8:36] Samson Swindlehurst: Hello Zero
• [8:36] Wyn Galbraith: Morning Zero
• [8:36] Zero Linden: welcome all
• [8:37] Saijanai Kuhn: A quick link for those that missed it: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/AWG_Test_Harness
• [8:37] Zero Linden: Well, we sit here and talk architecture and all the big problems we tackle.... and you know what
• I spent two hours yesterday coding?
• [8:38] IM: Saijanai: Kuhn: Zero Linden's office hours at 8:30AM SLT: [1]
• [8:38] Tillie Ariantho: a flushing toilet? :)
• [8:38] Zero Linden: A function to take suspect UTF-8 byte streams and 'sanitize' them of ill-formed and restricted
• characters
• [8:38] Tao Takashi: a new lightweight client with 1000% improved usability?
• [8:39] Zero Linden: two different subsystems last week got hit by
• [8:39] Movies1963 Beck: Zero that's what I was about to guess you did yesterday
• [8:39] Zero Linden: data that was supposed to be UTF-8 - dumpped into XML, and then at some other place, the XML
• parser wouldn't budge --
• [8:39] Tillie Ariantho: Sounds bad.
• [8:39] Zero Linden: 'cuase there is no 0xC0 byte in a a UTF-8 stream..... or ther is no 0x03 control code allowed in
• XML
• [8:39] Zero Linden: sigh
• [8:39] Saijanai Kuhn: UTF-8 is an interesting thing...
• [8:40] Zero Linden: just seems so other end of the spectrum..... ah well..... must be done
• [8:40] Zero Linden: if you don't have a solid text foundation, nothing else works
• [8:41] Saijanai Kuhn: Zha says "hi all, in Mexico currently"
• [8:41] Zero Linden: Ah - I wonder if Zha is actually taking a vacation?
• [8:41] Saijanai Kuhn: scary thought
• [8:41] Zero Linden: speaking of - last two weeks in June I'll be on vacation
• [8:42] Zero Linden: I'll see if I can get someone to take my place here
• [8:42] Felixe Thorne: slacker
• [8:42] BlueWall Slade: hehe
• [8:42] Tao Takashi: so those office hours will be in a different sim (like a beach sim) ?
• [8:42] Arawn Spitteler: hopes Zero won't take those weeks working: We should all be slackers, for the sake of
• Ballance.
• [8:42] Tao Takashi:  :)
• [8:43] Felixe Thorne: I slack enough for all of you put together.
• [8:43] Saijanai Kuhn: good guess. Family wedding, too
• [8:43] Arawn Spitteler: regards Felixe as a amateur.
• [8:43] Felixe Thorne: :P
• [8:43] Zero Linden: Oh no work for me -- two weeks visiting my family -- it's going to be all beaches, baking and
• books
• [8:43] Zero Linden: oh - and probably a little Mah Jongg
• [8:44] Samson Swindlehurst: Some residents work irl and when they come home they work in here.... kinda funny.....
• [8:44] Rex Cronon: hi everybody
• [8:44] Samson Swindlehurst: hello Ironman?
• [8:44] Felixe Thorne: Samson, but working in here might be fun... :)
• [8:44] Courtesan DeCuir: perhaps day jobs aren't stimulating enough
• [8:44] Arawn Spitteler: drones: Hel-lo Rex Cronon.
• [8:44] Rex Cronon: hi
• [8:44] Tillie Ariantho: Anyone knows the status of 'web on a prim'? I know there is that media parcel thingy on a
• prim, but thats not usable for some companies... they need a way to push content from the outside without the use to
• click a prim...
• [8:44] Wyn Galbraith: It's also very good sometimes to step away from computers.
• [8:44] Dyne Talamasca: hey
• [8:45] Samson Swindlehurst: I know Felixe :)
• [8:45] Rex Cronon: seems that each thursday before comming here i have do download a new viewer
• [8:45] Saijanai Kuhn: RC doesn't work on PPC macs right now so I can't see the new ruth
• [8:45] Zero Linden: I understand that the Go master Honinbo Shusai () , last hereditary Honinbo, liked to play
• Mah Jongg after the days Go playing
• [8:46] Zero Linden: ANYHOW
• [8:46] Felixe Thorne: people still use PPC macs? o_O
• [8:46] Zero Linden: Welcome to my office hours
• [8:46] Zero Linden: Agenda items?
• [8:46] Cel Edman: Lot of crashes on latest RC. But it seems finally the lossless bug for sculpties seem to be fixed
• Oo
• [8:46] Zero Linden: I see: PPC Macs, State of Web-on-Prim
• [8:46] Saijanai Kuhn: Test harness?
• [8:46] Samson Swindlehurst: I had a some issues with my candidate viewer while building..... when rotating a prim and
• using the grid marks it goes berserk lol
• [8:46] Felixe Thorne: ooh... click-targets... when when when when when
• [8:47] Tao Takashi: Flash.... ;-)
• [8:47] Zero Linden: I don't know the current schedule for click-target info....
• [8:47] Tillie Ariantho: And after MANY updates, scrollbars and update event on search and ingame browser still dont
• work. .P
• [8:47] Felixe Thorne: it should have been completed last thursday, according to a piece of toilet paper in my shoe
• [8:47] Tillie Ariantho: But thats not really an architecture thingy. .P
• [8:47] Wyn Galbraith: LOL Felixe
• [8:47] Zero Linden: And this isn't the place for a littany of bugs in release and RC systems.....
• [8:48] Zero Linden: ...mostly because I'm not really connected to that part of engineering closely
• [8:48] Tao Takashi: me neither... ;-)
• [8:48] Saijanai Kuhn: waves
• [8:48] Saijanai Kuhn: at Zha
• [8:48] Tillie Ariantho: But web on a prim is: :)
• [8:48] Zero Linden: and I'd hate to give you any sort of false hope that I'm able to influence those sorts of thigns
• [8:48] Wyn Galbraith: There she is!
• [8:48] Zha Ewry: stresses the hotel lobby wieless while waiting for a shuttle van
• [8:48] Rex Cronon: oooo. i see cloud people
• [8:49] Arawn Spitteler: But, we don't know we're clouds.
• [8:49] Zero Linden: Well - web on a prim is, as you know currently done as a HTML media type and hangs off of parcel
• media
• [8:49] Rex Cronon: u r arawn
• [8:49] Zero Linden: and as you pointed out, has some,er, UI challenges --
• [8:49] Zero Linden: it works for some cases, but not all
• [8:50] Saijanai Kuhn: anyway, the PPC issue is exactly the same as the mono viewer issue. I suspect some weird source code
• subversion issue since its the same symptoms: ppc-only crash on startup
• [8:50] Zero Linden: The group that did it is now working on investigating use cases and
• [8:50] Zero Linden: trying to pick out what are the high value things to do next
• [8:50] Tao Takashi: is there maybe an office hour for that?
• [8:50] Tillie Ariantho: yes, which is pretty bad for advertizing... my company is sponsoring a sim and doing some
• advertizing there. And they cant log in 4 times a day to update some info boards. :)
• [8:51] Zero Linden: Well - let me e-mail the lead engineer right now and see if he'd be interested in making a guest
• appearance some time soon
• [8:51] Tao Takashi: and I wonder how much the open source community can be integrated into it as I guess this is also
• more on the client side
• [8:52] Tao Takashi: and wasn't there also some talk about using webkit instead of mozilla?
• [8:52] Tillie Ariantho: If there is a way to update info boards by LibSl or something, that would be a solution, too.
• .)
• [8:52] Tao Takashi: I just remember Phoenix and Babbage running around at FOSDEM looking for webkit people
• [8:53] Zero Linden: Yes - we've been going heavily down the WebKit investigation path
• [8:53] Zha Ewry: runs off to chase RL logistics
• [8:53] Zero Linden: we are really hoping it will work out
• [8:53] Saijanai Kuhn: laters Zha
• [8:53] Rex Cronon: bye zha
• [8:53] Zero Linden: I've e-mail'd the dev, let's hold the rest of this for sometime when he can come
• [8:54] Squirrel Wood: xytext based info boards could get their content from a website that can be updated... solution
• to your problem?
• [8:54] Zero Linden: hopefully within the next two weeks
• [8:54] Zero Linden: xytext is like the 5x7 font of SL
• [8:54] Tillie Ariantho: Squirrel: no. You know how companies like banks are. they want a good looking ad with their
• logo in and all... no ugly monospaces characters. .)
• [8:55] Tillie Ariantho: monospaced
• [8:55] Tillie Ariantho: And my company is a bank. ^^
• [8:55] Squirrel Wood: quicktime media streams ?
• [8:56] Tillie Ariantho: requires a click to start ... depending on user settings.
• [8:56] Tillie Ariantho: That's not wanted.
• [8:56] Latte Writer: Passenger pigeons? No, they're extinct.
• [8:57] Saijanai Kuhn: snaps fingers! Passenger Pigeon avatars.
• [8:57] Tillie Ariantho: Similar to "enforce outside browsers instead of ingame one", banks dont trust anyone if it
• comes to viewing their banking webpages...
• [8:57] Tillie Ariantho: That's a requirement, too.
• [8:58] Zero Linden: RFC 1149
• [8:58] Zero Linden: okay
• [8:58] Tillie Ariantho: so what we need would be an override to the 'use ingame browser' thingy.
• [8:58] Zero Linden: so I'm going to shelve this discussion until we get the right devs here
• [8:58] Zero Linden: which will be another day
• [8:58] Tillie Ariantho: sure. .P
• [8:58] Tao Takashi: looking forward to it :)
• [8:59] Zero Linden: okay - as for PPC Macs -
• [8:59] Zero Linden: yes, people still use 'em
• [8:59] Saijanai Kuhn: waves
• [8:59] Saijanai Kuhn: /me
• [8:59] Zero Linden: last I looked we had about as many people using PPC macs as we did Linux
• [8:59] Zero Linden: of course, one is on the rise, the other on the wane
• [8:59] Dyne Talamasca: has both
• [9:00] Tillie Ariantho: Ok, Saij using the PPC, who is the linux guy? :D
• [9:00] Zero Linden: but, really, it is probably time for us to stop distributing Universal binaries
• [9:00] Zero Linden: and go to two Mac versions --- which will reduce Mac downloads by about 40% or so
• [9:00] Tillie Ariantho: that would be great
• [9:01] Saijanai Kuhn: this particular issue with crashing on startup happened with the last mono viewer update (before the
• current one). I suspect its the same issue: some library got linked in that shouldn't be getting into the mix
• [9:02] Saijanai Kuhn: I know endian macros are brain-damaged so perhaps thats it
• [9:03] Zero Linden: hmmm... I doubt it is that....
• [9:03] Samson Swindlehurst: I read (and I experienced) with the latest RC that when the client freeze for 10 seconds
• it you automatically crash. Why this feature? (maybe it's not on your table Zero)
• [9:03] Zero Linden: but is there a PJira on this?
• [9:04] Tree Kyomoon: [2]
• [9:04] Zero Linden: Samson - it is enabled for RC candidats so that we can get a stack trace of what is going on
• during the freeze
• [9:04] Tree Kyomoon: I posted that one because Im able to reproduce a full low level freeze after 15-20 min of being
• in SL
• [9:04] Tree Kyomoon: in the new client
• [9:04] Zero Linden: the only way to get a stack trace back to us is to crash...
• [9:04] Valiant Westland: Ditto
• [9:05] Zero Linden: so we force it when those awful hang ups happen
• [9:05] Felixe Thorne: Unfortunately linden lab failed to acknowledge that the client freezing for 30+ seconds
• throughout regular use is completely normal operation for second life :P
• [9:05] Zero Linden: so - please, I realize it is a pain-in-the-a--
• [9:05] Squirrel Wood: the freeze causes 100% cpu load (single core) or 50% cpu load (dual core).... so there is
• obviously something wrong
• [9:05] Samson Swindlehurst: okay cause I often freeze longer times and I think it's my graphic card
• [9:05] Zero Linden: but let it crash and let it send in the crash report on next launch
• [9:05] Summer Seale: i just dropped by to say: hey! i like the new client. it looks cool, nice changes - especially
• to search so far. there's a few bugs but that's to be expected with an RC. turning of object to object occlusion seems
• to help with freezing up a lot. love the work you do, big fan, i'll post any bugs/problems on the jira. great seeing
• you again zero! keep up the good work and i know you have lots of work to do. no questions, really, just a pat on the
• back. later! =)
• [9:06] Tree Kyomoon: interestingly, I can actually post crash logs..previous clients have crashed during posting the
• crash log
• [9:06] Zero Linden: oh - TY, Summer
• [9:06] Rex Cronon: i don't like the cloud people
• [9:06] Zero Linden: well- the idea behind cloud people is
• [9:07] Zero Linden: that we can start rendering the avatar sooner...
• [9:07] Zero Linden: before the body shape has downloaded
• [9:07] Zero Linden: see
• [9:07] Arawn Spitteler: If we can't have Age-Play in Germany, we can't have transvestites in Arabia
• [9:07] Rex Cronon: and the colored user names in chat isn"t that HOT either
• [9:07] Zero Linden: we can't just start rendering as soon as we have the body shape -- you'd be naked
• [9:08] Zero Linden: so we have to wait for the clothes too
• [9:08] Zero Linden: so, this lets thigns happen sooner...
• [9:08] Zero Linden: but I agree, it needs some experimenting
• [9:08] Latte Writer: What's wrong with being naked?
• [9:08] Zero Linden: the colored names are... .clickable!
• [9:08] Tree Kyomoon: all you need to do is have transparency for body skin color initially no?
• [9:08] Latte Writer: Or have a non flesh color render until the clothing comes.
• [9:08] Zero Linden: is not going to step on *that* landmine
• [9:08] Rex Cronon: r distracting
• [9:09] Tree Kyomoon: I think supporting alpha for body skin has been on the jira for at least a year or two
• [9:09] BigMike Bukowski: City of heroes is using the colored clickable name thing. Just realeased it tuesday for
• their live client..
• [9:09] Rex Cronon: let them same color but underline or italics
• [9:09] Tillie Ariantho: I like the names being clickable. :)
• [9:10] Tillie Ariantho: Rex: it's links, so they are colored like links, that's only consistant...
• [9:10] Samson Swindlehurst: it's a good shortcut
• [9:10] Tillie Ariantho: and I am pretty sure you can set link color in color.xml to white. :)
• [9:10] Saijanai Kuhn: can the collor be changed in preferences?
• [9:10] Rex Cronon: u haven"t seen underlined links?
• [9:11] BlueWall Slade: agrees - nice feature!
• [9:11] Valiant Westland: The "clickable" chat names are a great idea. The challenge is not being able to change the
• background color of the chat window...
• [9:11] Samson Swindlehurst: in the debug settings?
• [9:11] Charlene Trudeau: I like the background color, can we change the name color?
• [9:12] Samson Swindlehurst: you can change alot in Advanced/Debug Settings...
• [9:12] Arawn Spitteler: thinks that would be an option in Preferences.
• [9:12] Dyne Talamasca: dislikes underlined links, being ambiguous with underlined non-links. Which only goes to show
• that configuration is better than either.
• [9:12] Charlene Trudeau: cool. I hadn't noticed the new feature. thank you its awesome
• [9:12] Zero Linden: hates preference-itis
• [9:12] Charlene Trudeau: preference-itis?
• [9:13] BlueWall Slade: lol
• [9:13] Saijanai Kuhn: bloated preference panels?
• [9:13] Tree Kyomoon: preferences are a lot of work to code I imagine
• [9:13] Zero Linden: yes - the "we can't decide - or our users like it both ways - so ADD A PREFERENCE"
• [9:13] Zero Linden: that's usually a cop-out
• [9:14] Saijanai Kuhn: wonders if -isis is closer (elaphantiesis (SP))
• [9:14] Arawn Spitteler: tortures Zero with: Edit -> Preferences -> Text Chat, but I don't see where to change Text
• Background.
• [9:14] Tillie Ariantho: darn, cant find any link/url or similar color entry in the color.xml ...
• [9:14] Zero Linden: and make other design decisions harder in the future - as now you have to harmonize them with two
• versions
• [9:14] Zero Linden: and that only multiplies out
• [9:14] Zero Linden: til you get to the point where there are things you do that just don't work well no matter what
• you choose
• [9:14] Saijanai Kuhn: well, the compromise is a matrix thingie to let you edit the xml directly in a window
• [9:15] Charlene Trudeau: its not a cop out, zero. I'd imagine you'll get very strong opinions from a lot of us in
• different directions on hwo we'd want things.
• [9:15] BlueWall Slade: when Burger King nuys a sim, you can pick up a "Have It You Way SL Client" there :)
• [9:15] Valiant Westland: The bottom line is UI design should always be "human factor" friendly. Putting non-
• contrasting colors into a critical part of the UI, despite the "coolness" of the function, is a BAD idea, especially
• if there is no easy remedy.
• [9:15] Charlene Trudeau: that's why skins and so forth are so prevalent all over. I'm personally still peeved I can't
• change draw by typing in the numbers. Instead I have to fuss with an imprecise slider.
• [9:15] Dyne Talamasca: It's a balance between flexibility and compatibility, as with many things
• [9:16] Saijanai Kuhn: well, the original idea behind the blue on blue text was to make it easier on people with neurological
• problems where too much contrast interferes with reading
• [9:16] Dyne Talamasca: Or trade-off, rather
• [9:16] Samson Swindlehurst: just a thought I have had for a long time.... when avatars sit they tend to sit on
• different height depending on their body size etc.... could there be a way to make this flexible? I mean like some
• scripting
• [9:16] Rex Cronon: i have been here 4 about 30minute and i still see cloud people
• [9:17] Tillie Ariantho: Samson you can with a script inside.
• [9:17] Arawn Spitteler: is about to try such scripting: There's an alternative to Sit Targets, but poorly documented.
• [9:17] Samson Swindlehurst: like Wyn... she's floating lol
• [9:17] Zero Linden: We've discussed this before - there is a big mismatch between the flexibility we give in body
• shape, and the expressiveness that the industry standard
• [9:17] Zero Linden: animation format allows
• [9:17] Tillie Ariantho: llSitTarget() or something.
• [9:17] Rex Cronon: last time i saw sai, he wasn't naked. so why is he still a cloud?
• [9:17] Saijanai Kuhn: the industry standard is for primitive motion capture by a company that no longer exists
• [9:18] Tillie Ariantho: with a vector as param somwhere in there.
• [9:18] Samson Swindlehurst: yes but if a smaller avatar sits on the same poseball they end up in the air while when i
• sit I sit accurate
• [9:18] Tree Kyomoon: /hmm just 15 minutes for a hard crash that time...crash log sent
• [9:19] Tao Takashi: I need to download the new RC to see those cloud people everybody is talking about
• [9:19] Zero Linden: it doesn't mean that he is naked - or was - it means that your computer hasn't gotten BOTH his
• body shape AND his clothes
• [9:19] Dyne Talamasca: needs to get it working on ubuntu
• [9:19] Zero Linden: because if it gets only the body shape - without the clothes, it doesn't want to render him naked
• [9:19] Tao Takashi: can't the client transmit some outline shape to the server which then is served directly?
• [9:20] Zero Linden: I don't think you are following me:
• [9:20] Tree Kyomoon: should secondlife.exe be using 38 percent of my CPU when Im just sitting here with SL in a small
• window?
• [9:20] Zero Linden: the server has all of Sai's info - full shape, and full baked clothing
• [9:20] Zero Linden: Tree - yes
• [9:20] Tillie Ariantho: Tao: that could be used to have prim clothing outside the avatar, too, not sticking into it.
• ^^
• [9:20] Tao Takashi: is there some photo of cloud people online somewhere so I can see how it looks?
• [9:21] Zero Linden: it is a particular client that hasn't gotten that data down from the server yet
• [9:21] Zero Linden: Tree
• [9:21] Squirrel Wood: shouldn't the client re-request the body shape if it hasn't received it within a certain time ?
• [9:21] Rex Cronon: looks like fog machine
• [9:21] Saijanai Kuhn: if I rebake, will that force new info to his end?
• [9:21] Zero Linden: since the pixel filling is done by the graphics card,
• [9:21] Zero Linden: and we are not "pixel bound"
• [9:21] Zero Linden: usually, the size of the window will make no difference to your CPU usage
• [9:21] Zero Linden: and little difference to your frame rate
• [9:21] Samson Swindlehurst: instead of clouds... it should be stars :) We're all made of stars
• [9:22] Tao Takashi: starts the download
• [9:22] Rex Cronon: ooo. the cloud people r just particles. if u turn particles off u see nothing
• [9:22] Zero Linden: but if you hide the app - then it your CPU goes to zero
• [9:22] Zero Linden: minimize on the Mac doesn't work: The minimize windows are live!
• [9:22] Zero Linden: I'm going to skip out a little early today, friends
• [9:23] Zero Linden: I have a full day
• [9:23] Rex Cronon: there wasn't enough bling around, now we have clouds too?
• [9:23] Zero Linden: and my next meeting needs a little prep
• [9:23] Tao Takashi: but isn't looking for body shape and all clothing more work then e.g. sending back the sprite
• representation?
• [9:23] Tree Kyomoon: anyone have a copy of the chat log for today so I can post it?
• [9:23] Zero Linden: thanks for all coming
• [9:23] Tao Takashi: thanks for hosting as always :)
• [9:23] Rex Cronon: bye zero
• [9:23] BlueWall Slade: yeahks zero!
• [9:23] Saijanai Kuhn: did a rebake will see if that helps
• [9:23] Saijanai Kuhn: Later zero
• [9:23] Tao Takashi: have a great day!
• [9:23] Charlene Trudeau: thanks zero!
• [9:23] Tree Kyomoon: thanks zero!
• [9:23] Saijanai Kuhn: poof he's gone