Lindens go and Lindens come… and i don’t mean the L$
Linden Lab/Second Life HQ by ilamont.com (CC)
Some things still amaze me after being a Second Life resident for the last 4 and a half years. Let’s say one of the workers of Linden Lab (knows by all the residents as Lindens because the traditional last name for Linden Lab employees) is fired, or decides to leave the company for any reason. Then a “choir” of voices raise, in Twitter, Plurk, blogs, Flickr, Facebook or in any social network related with Second Life in any way, and they even ask directly to Rodvik Linden (aka Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab) “Why? What’s happening?”.
And then i wonder: Why… you ask? Why is important to know about the personal or the corporative decision of a company when you are a simple costumer, not even a investor or stockholder? There may be two reasons for someone to stop being an employee of Linden Lab:
- He/she found a better place to work, or a better job conditions or simply a more interesting project for him/her.
- He/she was fired.
In the first case, come on, that’s great! I just can say “Congrats” and farewell. I just can wish the best for him/her and say “thank you” for everything. In the second case… well, in this case i can’t know if is great or not, since i can’t know the reasons but i’ll wish the best for him/her and say “thank you” for everything too.
I’m sure most of the people who seems to feel outraged when some Linden leave the Lab don’t know if that Linden was fired or simply decided to leave. And even in the case the Linden was fired i’m sure they don’t know the reason… maybe he was the one who was stealing the ballpoints, or maybe she was arriving late every single day… or even maybe there was no other reason than a corporative decision to close a department. In any case there’s no a single reason to feel outraged, except if that affects to the service that Linden Lab is providing to you, and of course, in the case you are have some kind of personal relationship-friendship with that Linden (nobody is happy to know a good old friend has been fired).
Don’t get me wrong, is not i’m happy when someone is fired, but i think sometimes a company needs to reduce the number of employees (and i’m sure that’s not a nice decision to take) and i think also some people in some cases totally deserves to get fired. In any case is a company decision and asking the CEO… well… seems pretty silly to me, unless you are a shareholder, of course.
And again i wonder: Why you ask? I have been talking about this with some other residents and it seems there may be at least three reasons: first, Second Life residents are passionate people, we love what we have in here, we love it SO MUCH that some may arrive to think that we actually OWN Second Life, and that means residents should have the last word over ANY decision and ANY change. Second, many Lindens have some like a “star status” and that can be a problem when they are not around anymore, even if it was a personal decision. And third, “evil corporation fires employees” is always a compelling story.
About the first, we don’t “own” Second Life. We are customers of Linden Lab’s services, we may like or not the changes on the services we are receiving, we can agree or not with the corporative decisions of Linden Lab, but we don’t own Second Life. As customers the only power we have is to stop buying the services but we don’t have power over corporative decisions unless we are shareholders, and even less if it’s the personal decision of someone to leave the Lab. About the “star status”, Lindens are only people who works in a company that offers services to us, they are not stars, they can be REALLY COOL people, creative and helpful but they are not stars, they are people who work for us as customers. And about the “evil corporations” well, that’s a real topic and not only affecting Linden Lab… and yes, some are pretty evil.
This is only my opinion, my point of view, and i would like to say again that i can’t never be happy when someone is fired… but i know the people who works in Linden Lab are talented, creative and good enough to keep me feeling i love to be a resident of Second Life and in the sad case they are fired i’m sure they will find a really cool work soon.
What a MESH! Finally it’s coming to Second Life!
Yes, i would say FINALLY! Mesh has been a long feature to implement in Second Life but it seems finally it’s coming, at least that’s what Linden Lab is saying on its blog. Well, it is a huge feature that will change a lot Second Life, as Windlight® did… or Flexible and Sculpted prims too. Let me paste here this video by Draxtor about the arrival of Mesh, i find it pretty funny:
I blogged some months ago with the test i’ve been doing in the Beta Mesh Grid. The effect is just AWESOME! Really complex objects rezz just fast, way faster than sculpties, and the collision maps work just good as any normal prim. About the time of release in Main Grid Linden Lab said:
In July, we will enable a limited set of regions to use Mesh and will roll it out, in a phased approach, throughout August. By the end of August, everyone in Second Life will be able to import Mesh objects. Of course, if we run into unforeseen issues or bugs, then this time line will need to shift.
I’ll paste here also the video i filmed on my first visit to Mesh Beta:
Related articles
- SL Mesh, Update 3 (danielvoyagerblog.wordpress.com)
The MoM (Month of Machinima) and… where is DaD?
LEA Theater (Outside view)
The Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) organized a big event about machinima, some like a festival, that will run starting today May 4th to December, the Month of Machinima (MoM).
Today in the LEA Theater (SLurl), in the opening of the event the screens were showing the entrants for May competition, a variety of films from the artistic to the humoristic and even the musical. MoM has its own YouTube channel so you can see some of the movies in it, but in order to see all the entrants is better you go to the LEA Theater and enjoy a bunch of really cool movies filmed by some of your fellow residents.
LEA Theater (Inside)
The LEA was created in 2010, actually for some event in SL7B (Second Life 7th Birthday) but for some reason it was sleeping since then. Probably that was caused for all the changes in Linden Lab, but it was a really good initiative and i’m happy it is back.
The LEA Committee are a group of really good and really well known artist who work in SL and it’s really good Linden Lab decides to support Art in Second Life with this, specially after they decided to not support Burning Life anymore. In the last times the Lab seemed to be more worried about Merchants than about Artists and, under my point of view, both are REALLY important for what Second Life is and will be. Will speak about this last topic in my next show on Soup Radio and probably will also blog about it some time soon, so lets left the topic until i do it. 
Now go to the LEA Theater and enjoy the awesome work of a lot of filmmakers of Second Life:
Also, if you want to know some more about the opening event itself (i was late, hehehe) you should read Inara Pey’s post about it, really interesting. Also Courtney Linden blogged about the event in the Linden Blogs.
And also i wonder… will the LEA organize and event called DaD, that would be pretty cool! 
“Support the Japan Earthquake & Pacific Tsunami Relief with Linden Dollars”, a great idea from Linden Lab
Japan Relief Linden Bear
The Lindens decided to create one of the famous Linden Bears to help Japan in this terrible moment, after the earthquake and the tsunami. Any Second Life resident can go to the Marketplace and get one of these bears, donating from 300 L$ to 3000 L$.
Let me repost the blogpost Kim Linden published in the Community web of Second Life:
Our thoughts today are with all of those who are suffering in the devastation caused by the earthquakes in Japan and the tsunami in the Pacific. We encourage all Second Life Residents to support the relief efforts however they can, and we would like to help.
We have created two special Linden Bears–one that is wearable and one that sits–which are now for sale in the Marketplace at several pricing levels: L$300, L$1,000 and L$3,000. Here’s the direct link to purchase them. We will donate all proceeds from sales of this bear to the Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami Relief efforts of the American Red Cross.
Please help us to support the relief efforts – buy the bears, and help spread the word in Second Life.
Additionally, we know that independent groups in Second Life are also planning to support relief efforts. For example, Radar Magazine in Second Life will be holding a month-long event and are seeking designers to donate virtual items (see this article for details). If your group is planning an inworld relief effort, then please share it in the comments here.
Thank you,
Kim
So you know… go to the Marketplace and help if you can.
Related Articles
- Japan Relief SL Teddy Bear (danielvoyagerblog.wordpress.com)
The dilemma of the two SLviewers
I was checking Twitter lately and saw some people is speaking again about that “dilemma”… Should Linden Lab have only one viewer for Second Life, or to improve the usability is better to have two?
I think it was Anthony Hocken who restarted the topic, anyway this have been a topic long time discussed by a lot of people in a lot of places. Some people wonders (and for some comments by Rodvik Linden in Twitter that may be the way Linden Lab decides to go) if it would be better to have two kind of viewers instead of only one, one for basic users with a simple and improved UI and one for advanced users with all the options we have and maybe some more.
Even this may seem a good idea some people thinks that would keep the new users away from content creation since they would be used to a simple UI and may be scared to use an advanced one. One thing Rodvik Linden mentioned was the possibility of having only one viewer, but with a “switch” to change between both options.
Personally i think the two viewers option is not a bad idea. One of the big problems of Second Life is how hard the UI and the learning curve has been always keeping potential users away and making a lot of people create an account only to try it and never come back. Having a simplified viewer, or a web-based one, would be interesting to permit new users have a basic approach to Second Life and even to have access for SL from iPads, mobile phones or netbooks. This kind of viewer would permit also that integration as Facebook game some think is a good idea. I think having SL and Facebook together is not actually needed or even a good idea, but this is material for another blogpost.
Then, after this web-based viewer Linden Lab would have a really improved SL viewer (maybe 3.0?) with that “switch” Rodvik mentions. As now we have some menus as optional (Advanced and Develop for standard users) we would have a really improved and simple UI and at the same time the possibility to change to a more complex one but really powerful. And speaking about all this… please, Lindens… can you improve the building tool? Thanks!
I don’t think that last option would keep new users away of content creation, i know people who were SLusers for the last 4 years and never created a simple plywood cube even they had the ability to do it in the viewer. The ones who would be interested in content creation would click the “switch” for sure and will experiment. At least is what i think… and you? *points at the comment section below*
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