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)
New Search system in Second Life… search it, search it!
I just can say: YAY!!! Search is vital in Second Life, it’s the way to find people, places, stores, events, land for sale, groups with similar (or totally different) interest than you… And let’s be honest… Search in SL right now is, let’s say not the best it could be.
Right now Search is slow, sometimes inaccurate and even sometimes seems pretty random. Sometimes i think SL is a world that changes so fast that Linden Lab could not have a search engine good enough, but that can’t be possible. The web changes faster than SL and Google seems to work pretty good! So, finally, the Lindens posted a blogpost about the new Search engine, in Beta for what it seems. Torley Linden made also this video-tutorial:
For what i can see in the video it works pretty cool and they will be work on it improving it after its first release… so i think it’s a GREAT start. About the new Search system on SL Viewer 1.23 and 3rd party viewers, let me paste something that say in the blogpost i mentioned above, pretty important:
One of the first questions many will have is, “Will new search work in Viewer 1.23 and Third-Party Viewers?” New search will soon be available to you in the official SL Viewer and we will not be implementing it for the 1.23 Viewer. To be clear, you can still use the 1.23 Viewer, but search functionality will be impaired once new search is released into general availability, after the test period. (We cannot speak to which Third-Party Viewers will adopt the new search technology.)
After they fix Search… please.. start with Group Chat… 
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! 
The solved dilemma: SL Viewer Beta 2.6.0 with Basic and Advanced modes
Exactly 10 days ago i blogged about the possibility of having different configuration in SL viewers, basic and advanced modes, and… finally we got it here!!!
Rodvik Linden posted in the Community blog today about the release of a Beta Viewer (2.6.0) with this option. I think it’s a really interesting post to read and gives a lot of information about the project.
I downloaded the Beta and started playing with it, first of all you get the “Welcome” window and next to the Password area it appears a “switch” for the different modes. Switching modes will require a restart of the Viewer. For what i read in the post of Rodvik the default for new residents will be Basic:
"Welcome" screen with the Mode switch
There are many differences, but let me first paste the description Rodvik Linden made about the modes:
Basic mode is an easier, simplified experience designed to introduce users to Second Life. It includes simple communication and navigation tools such as click to move and hold to move the camera, a choice of 24 pre-configured avatars, and an integrated Destination Guide to help you connect to friends and interesting places quickly and easily. Certain functionality, such as voice capability, building tools, and the ability to purchase virtual goods, is not available in Basic mode.
Advanced mode is for those already familiar with Second Life who use the full feature set of the SL Viewer.
So, as you can see in the next image the viewer is… let’s say REALLY basic:
SL Viewer Beta 2.6.0 in Basic Mode
I think it is a bit too basic, only Chat, friends, basic avatars, destinations and a simple “How to” information. No menus, no outfits, no inventory… but i think is a good idea. One of the things i remember when i logged on the first time is how hard was to work with the UI, and that’s a huge problem, there are a lot of people who create an account, try for some minutes and when they feel all is too hard all together they decide to not come back anymore. With this i’m sure more and more people will, at least, be there for some minutes more to just try and once they are used with the environment they will switch to the Advanced mode.
It is a Beta and probably they will change some things before releasing the Viewer, but i think this is a good start. It seems things are moving in the Lab.
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