Suzi_Avonside^✦ @Suzi_Avonside

Thank you Safine :) If only more people could engage the bit of grey matter between their ears and look at issues the way you have here. I have in the past written similar cost breakdowns to illustrate the power of numbers. Your kind of thinking is the kind of thinking behind how we fund our healthcare system in the UK, so many people all contributing a small relatively amount.

The breakdown of what the $60,000 will achieve is outlined on the EchoVoice project webpage. It seems a lot, but professional coders cost money and the only certain way to get anything done in good time is by paying people properly and them working as per contract. And that $60k is just initial funding, it would require more to fine tune the project.

Payment is necessary because people have rent to pay, food to buy and kids to support. You seem to misunderstand what opensource is about. The app developed by the various projects might be free of cost to you the end user, but they are not free in the sense that people have to be paid, and servers also cost money. The opensource definition of free is more in the sense of liberty rather than free of cost. There are many paid for opensource projects, amonsgt them Red Hat Linux, Mandriva Linux and many other applications. And as far as Opensim is concerned, IBM was quite heavily involved in the early days, and their developers most certainly don't work for nothing!

Finally, sure, a voice module could be developed through voluntary effort, but that begs the question, why hasn't it already been done? The answer to that is largely because Vivox was the go to for most who wanted to use voice because it is 'free' and relatively easy to set up. Part of the reason why Opensim isn't as developed as it could be is because it's not paid for, and thus far any attempt to set up a scheme to put the project on a more planned footing with a roadmap and proper funding has been stymied by the complainers who begrudge coughing up a small amount of cash.

What is a collider? is it just a massive invisiprim rezzed at a certain height? Forgive my ignorance, but I'd like to know as I too experience quite a few visitors who think it's okay to fly in a no fly region. Most of my region builds are built specifically to be viewed 'first person shooter' style walking and it's a bit galling, to say the least to have visitors think they've truly seen the region when all they have done is rather cursorily flown over it, missing most of what there is to see.

Many of us work tremendously hard to create rich, immersive environments where we have built with a particular way of seeing it in mind. Flying over this kind of creation is to miss what the artist intended the viewer to see.

As the general consensus here suggests, there is no 'ideal' height, but with all my builds I point out that avatars taller than 2 metres in height will not be able to enter my buildings. I also build all my buildings to scale, and make no allowances for the default viewer camera angle, but there is an easy way to get the 'first person shooter' camera angle: enable Advanced settings in the viewer and choose Show Debug Settings. Once there, type in 'CameraOffsetRearView' and there you can set the Z co-ordinates so that the camera view angle is more natural than the default 45 degree camera view.

As for avatar height, the average female in the USA today is just under 5' 4" (1.265m) and with a bit of work the avatar shape can be made slim and pleasing, so I personally don't understand when some claim that taller avatars look 'better'. They might look better against the usually comically oversized furniture, houses and vehicles, but most of those can be resized with the possible exception of buildings as most seem to have been constructed taking the default viewer camera angle into account.

But there again, it all depends on why one is in virtual worlds in the first place. For me, and those like me it is to build virtual environments that are as realistic and true to life as possible, despite sometimes falling foul of the technical limitations imposed by doing such. For others, it's about having a fantasy virtual life, which doesn't necessarily demand that everything conforms to realism. Both are perfectly valid, though I do sometimes wonder about those avatars that have reached considerable age who still have legs that form two-thirds of body height and who are stick thin, and whose arms are about a third too short. Very few of us conform to the classic proportions used in much western art, but I think a simple look in a full-length mirror, or even one's reflection in a shop window would suffice to give an indication of human proportions to serve as a basis for credible avatar creation.

Ultimately it's about having fun, so best not to worry too much about what is the ideal avatar height or shape.

How about Murray Rothbard in similar situation?

Stick with Lenin in a pirate hat Hyacinth! It might be less authentic, but it's a whole lot funnier - and would show how awake your visitors are if they even notice!

Amazing landscape that I enjoyed wandering around. I wasn't so impressed with the architecture as it seemed to me more reminiscent of Central Europe and North America rather than the Celtic Fringe. Though the builder emphasises Alba, Eire and Cymru, they are strongest on the Irish traditions. I'm hoping that this is just a result of this being a new build in its early stages and that as it progresses more from the two other countries will be included. Personally I can't offer any suggestions for traditions from Alba, but do know a little about the traditions and mythology of my own country, Cymru: the builder will find a wealth of material in the collection of tales known as the Mabinogi (usually known as The Mabinogion, an incorrect title that is itself a part of 'tradition').

The greatest contribution to European culture from Wales is the Arthurian Romance. which though itself not created in Wales, (it is a truly European co-production!) is firmly based on tales found in the Mabinogi.

It's early days, and I shall definitely be revisiting this build. It has the potential of become something really special, especially if more authentic architecture can be built/found. Unfortunately there aren't many buildings available in Opensim that reflect what you would find in the real Celtic Fringe today, or indeed in times past, so this comes down to something you need to do for yourself.

Apart from the architecture (which is a matter of personal taste anyway), I enjoyed my visit to this very atmospheric place. Well done! I thoroughly recommend a visit.

Surely it should be Canadian songs given that it's a Canadian public holiday? The UK doesn't celebrate Victoria Day, (which is the 25th May, not the 22nd).

I love the humour in this. Wikkid!

I contacted Heart Botanicals on the e-mail address supplied on their blog, and this was the response:

"
Hello Suzi,
Any item/product that is listed under this link ..... https://www.kitely.com/market?store=3351293
is legitimate and uploaded to the Kitely Marketplace by myself and Dolly Heart 🙂
Hope this helps.
Best Regards,
Lilith"

In terms of advantage, Mumble would offer enhanced privacy, over especially Skype, which will be eavesdropped on by those people in Richmond, (not sure about Discord, but it's probably safer to assume that the walls have ears there too) but neither of those are any worse than Vivox in that respect. Probably for most, the privacy issue is a somewhat moot point, but there are important use case scenarios where I'm sure Opensim is being ruled out due to the lack of a secure voice application.

Some years ago there was the Whisper/Mumble combination that required the changing the code on the viewer so that Mumble would work, but that project didn't progress, probably due to a combination of lack of demand/lack of technical ability and availability of Vivox. More recently, since it's become known that 'free' access to Vivox is coming to an end there has been the EchoVoice project, which has basically come to nothing due to the funding required to get it anywhere near ready. The $60,000 cost is way beyond what Opensim will bear, though I'd guess on a per capita basis of Opensim users, it will only amount to a dollar or two each.

Going forward, I think that is the way we need to start thinking about the development needs of Opensim. We all get a lot from it being here, otherwise we wouldn't be here. The project seems to run on a shoestring, which is all very well, but if there were more money available, then not only would we see faster progress, but also new features, such as an integrated voice module, and maybe even all sorts of cool stuff that could take Opensim off in even more of a different direction to Second Life. Interesting discussion of the issues here: https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2022/12/vivox-voice-repl...

I think you've just fundamentally described what socialism is! I realise that that will probably scare the living daylights out of the average, everyday American over the age of 40, but think about it!

Best give a heads up though, I'm not referring to the faux so called socialism as practiced in the former Soviet Union, more the kind of democratic socialism of Bernie Sanders and Yanis Varoufakis that is increasingly becoming more appealing to the younger dispossessed generations in most of the world's developed countries denied so many of those things baby boomers took for granted, such as affordable housing, a stable job and in all countries of the developed world apart from the USA, a community run healthcare system that doesn't cost an arm and leg, sometimes literally so.

Of course, it's a bit more complex than that, but it has to start somewhere and caring for one another is a great starting point.

I agree with you Rogue, the OS community, such as it is, is very small, but seems to have more than its fair share of malcontents who must not have that much going on in their lives that they have to resort to the kind of pettiness they do in order to bolster their own sense of self-importance, even though its always expressed in a negative sense. I recently made a rare comment in The Box about contributing money to the voice module project, which is not progressing because of insufficient funding. One person commented that they didn't use voice, so the project wasn't worth backing. The comment served to highlight the small-minded and self-centred attitude of far too many in our 'community'. If we want nice things in OS then they have to be financed somehow, and in terms of development we're talking about RL levels of pay for the coding work needed. I'm sure that those who are willing to do that kind of coding would be more than happy to do it for special rates, but at the end of the day everyone has rent and bills to pay. Many of us would use a voice module were it available, (I personally have no use for it, but some years ago I was involved in developing an OS region for a specific purpose where voice enablement was a crucial requirement. It also needed to be spatial, but Vivox was unsuitable for reasons of privacy and security. The lack of availability of a dedicated OS voice module put an end to the project). There is a similar need for a dedicated OS only viewer, as all the viewers we currently use are primarily configured for the needs of Second Life. There is currently only one such project, the Dayturn Viewer project for those of you who have Windows or Mac computers.

It’s good that we have so many performers and Djs who are prepared to perform or play sets wherever there is a demand. If those grids that are complaining bitterly were employing those Djs and performers for RL rates of pay, then fair enough, they might have some concerns, but only in as much as the particular contract they have with that DJ/performer is fulfilled. No DJ or perfomer is a slave to any grid owner, which is basically what those grid owners are expecting.

Yes, our the OS community is small, but not that small that if we were to come together more and help each other out through making whatever positive contributions we feel able to when we can, the whole is uplifted and we will all benefit. It’s probable that OS is severely underfunded on the development side, but as ordinary users we have no idea about what is needed and how much it will cost. OSGrid has for some years now been constantly asking for contributions, but the splash page gives no indication as a running total of how much is needed, and how much has been raised to meet that need. Ditto with OpenSimulator core itself. We know that development goes on slowly, and that the devs are volunteer, but how much of a difference would being able to pay them so that they could put in at least part-time paid hours on a regular basis?

It’s difficult to know just how many users OS has in its entirety, but surely it’s going to be a figure well into the tens of thousands. If everyone downloading any version of OpenSimulator made a small donation to the project it could make a vast difference, even if that donation were as small as a Euro,a Dollar or a Pound. I run Ubuntu MATE on my machines, and every time I download a new version of the operating system I make a donation of the recommended $2.50. I’m on an extremely low income.I’m aware that others might struggle to even afford that, so I’m adamant that this kind of software should remain zero cost to download and use, but create an awareness that whole notion of ‘Free’ where cost is concerned, is highly questionable.

I have an issue - boats work fine until deeded to group, which then generates an OSSL script error stating that it has no access to the notecards, which affects seating locations avatar posed in centre of boat rather than at the helm. Group only is configurable in the main script, so I would have thought it would follow that this issue shouldn't arise. Apart from that, excellent scripts and pretty amazing boats!

Thanks Shea. As it happens, I had the lights turned on for effect in the video. In reality the lights are likely to only be used occasionally during an event.

Thanks Ellen :)

Thanks Kashi :)

Rwy'n siarad Cymraeg ac erbyn hyn mae cyfieithu peirannol wedi cyrraedd safon weddol dda i ganiatau i bobl postio yn eu mamaith. Mae gan bron pob porwr ychwanegiad gyfieithu sy'n ei gwenud hi'n fater hawdd i gyieithu - dim ond rhaid glicio ar iaith dewisiol pan mae iaith estron yn ymddangos ar eich sgrîn.

For the confused, like I was, it's the Disco section!