Simulator User Group/Transcripts/2011.08.19

Simulator_User_Group
Prev 2011.08.16	Next 2011.08.23
== List of Speakers ==
Acheron Gloom 	Andrew Linden 	Annie Obscure
Draconis Neurocam	DrFran Babcock 	Fancy Greeter
Flip Idlemind 	Jonathan Yap 	Kelly Linden
Liisa Runo 	Lomgren Smalls 	lonetorus Habilis
Methias Kira 	Pauline Darkfury	Stickman
== Transcript ==
[16:01] Fancy Greeter: Andrew Linden has arrived!
[16:02] Fancy Greeter: Andrew Linden has arrived!
[16:03] Andrew Linden: Simon won't be able to attend today. He left early for some weekend adventure.
[16:03] DrFran Babcock: hooray for him.
[16:03] Stickman: But this office hours is the real adventure!
[16:04] lonetorus Habilis: hello andrew :)
[16:04] lonetorus Habilis: you seem a bit ruthed to me
[16:04] Andrew Linden: Hi lonetorus. It has been a while, but I recognized the avatar.
[16:05] lonetorus Habilis: yeah, i didnt chnage a thing, same as you, chnageing your av gets old after a while
[16:05] lonetorus Habilis: or something XD
[16:05] lonetorus Habilis: so, do you bring any news and such, i have been out of the loop for a while
[16:05] Andrew Linden: As to the news...
[16:06] Andrew Linden: (I only bring up this week's news... if you want older news you'll have to ask specific questions)
[16:06] Andrew Linden: This week I've been fixing a few more bugs in the mesh simulator.
[16:07] Andrew Linden: The fixes will probably be included in a maint-server soon.
[16:07] Andrew Linden: The only other thing I've been working on is a sekret project to see if I can speed up script runtime.
[16:07] Pauline Darkfury: yay for script speed :)
[16:08] Andrew Linden: I actually completed the demo and ran a few benchmarks. The results are promising so I next week I'll try to wrap it up
[16:08] Andrew Linden: in my copious spare time, of course.
[16:08] Stickman: Nice.
[16:08] Andrew Linden: I know Kelly is also working on some script optimization stuff.
[16:09] Andrew Linden: Maybe we'll merge the two projects. Dunno yet.
[16:09] Acheron Gloom: =D
[16:09] Kelly Linden: we should.
[16:09] Kelly Linden: then we can break everything in one go
[16:09] Andrew Linden: I need to clean up some stuff that I just commented out so I could make quick progress
[16:09] lonetorus Habilis: how did the compression on tp work out?
[16:09] Andrew Linden: (such as the llMedia* stuff)
[16:09] lonetorus Habilis: i left as it was discussed
[16:10] Andrew Linden: The compression during TP is functioning these days, and did speed things up
[16:10] Pauline Darkfury: I've noticed a slight annoyance with the latest change to scripty things. Top Scripts is no longer listing all scripted items. Seems like stuff which has a near zero script time is getting omitted. Could be it's always been like that, just things didn't register close enough to 0 in the past to get omitted
[16:10] Andrew Linden: I think the average time to complete a TP dropped from 4 to 2 or 1 seconds. I can't remember the exact numbers.
[16:11] Andrew Linden: There were some preliminary numbers that were published internally, then no follow ups.
[16:11] lonetorus Habilis: this i suppose could also help in the event ll should set up geo localized sims
[16:11] Pauline Darkfury: Generally I'd say crossings & TPs are hugely improved vs. a year ago
[16:12] Flip Idlemind: Hugely improved vs. a month ago even. I used to have failed tp's all the time. Now, once in a while, but no where near as bad
[16:13] Andrew Linden: TP's can fail in so many ways. I don't even know what might have improved 1 month ago. I've been working on mesh for the last two months, I think.
[16:13] lonetorus Habilis: you think you worked on mesh?
[16:13] Andrew Linden: I *think* it was about two months.
[16:14] Stickman: No one can really say who's worked on mesh, really.
[16:14] Pauline Darkfury: The 1st rule of mesh-dev club is don't talk about mesh-dev club :p
[16:14] Flip Idlemind: My "a month ago" was an estimate, too
[16:14] lonetorus Habilis: *grins* i hear ppl grumble over price of large structures
[16:15] Stickman: Yeah, prim equivilence rules are super restrictive.
[16:15] Pauline Darkfury: yup, still lots of convern over PE in the groups
[16:15] Pauline Darkfury: *concern
[16:15] Stickman: Then there's the "bug" that if you link normal prims to meshes, they get calculated under the same rules, and the prim equivilence skyrockets.
[16:15] Andrew Linden: yeah, the "prim equivalence" formulas will probably need to be adjusted
[16:15] Stickman: Not what the mesh team says, Andrew.
[16:15] Andrew Linden: but we probably can only adjust them down
[16:16] lonetorus Habilis: i think falcon was working on some prim gravity project, late alst year, did anything come of that?
[16:16] Stickman: Nyx seems to be the spokesrobot, and says no.
[16:16] Acheron Gloom: Prim gravity?
[16:16] Flip Idlemind: Yeah, this bugged me: I uploaded a mesh with .5 PE, and I made 27 copies and the PE was 14 (13.5 rounded up). Then I added a script, and the PE jumped to 27
[16:16] Acheron Gloom: You mean like how we can set gravity in mesh-enabled regions ;p?
[16:16] lonetorus Habilis: we can?
[16:17] Andrew Linden: Nyx says "no" to what? Modification of the formulas, or that the skyrocketing cost when linking concave prims to mesh is a "bug"?
[16:17] Kelly Linden: The minimum PE of a set is either the number of prims if scripted or half that if unscripted.
[16:17] Stickman: Nyx says no to new algorythms. Not without a whitepaper explaining what should change and how.
[16:18] Lomgren Smalls: Yuck.
[16:18] Andrew Linden: Ah. Well, best to listen to Nyx and don't pay attention to me.
[16:18] Stickman: And the jump in PE from adding a script is because the script might modify the prim properties -- position, rotation, whatever -- which is expensive. So whether it does or not, it gets the extra cost for it, because it has a script.
[16:18] Jonathan Yap: Does the current whitepaper detail what should happen when linking in regular prims or is this an undefined condition?
[16:18] Stickman: Linking regular prims makes it use the new counting function.
[16:19] Stickman: You get the whole linkset in the new method, or the whole linkset in the old method.
[16:19] Jonathan Yap: Anyhow, we seem to be going off topic of this OH
[16:19] Pauline Darkfury: the PE bloat from adding a script is a real feature killer, tbh
[16:19] Stickman: Also, I think we might be off topic.
[16:19] Stickman: And I think it's my fault.
[16:19] Andrew Linden: Jonathan, we need a new topic. Got one?
[16:19] Pauline Darkfury: Top Scripts. Should it be showing 100% of scripted objects, or less than 100%?
[16:19] Jonathan Yap: I've been away too--no more news to announce?
[16:19] Annie Obscure: student, gotta fly
[16:19] lonetorus Habilis: stick, i take responsibility, i did comment on the cost
[16:20] Stickman: Oh, speaking of top scripts. There's a new script function that shows a script time "as it would be in top scripts." Is top scripts accurate? I remember it used to be totally unrelated and useless for anything except relative usage related to other scripts, but was going to be changed.
[16:21] Kelly Linden: It should be showing all scripts that had any script time used in the last 30 minutes
[16:21] Kelly Linden: Though I plan on dropping that to the last 10 I think.
[16:21] Liisa Runo: yea, drop it
[16:21] Pauline Darkfury: TS has much improved for sim to sim comparison, tbh
[16:21] Pauline Darkfury: As an EM, I'd really prefer it to show 100% of scripted objects, as it used to, tbh
[16:21] Andrew Linden: TS = ?
[16:21] Pauline Darkfury: Top Scripts
[16:22] Kelly Linden: We only track the last 30 minutes of time. If it hasn't used any time in the last 30 minutes there is no number to report
[16:22] Pauline Darkfury: It's still most accurate for relative comparisons at the same time, on the same sim
[16:22] Kelly Linden: however, I've seen some really low reported script times so I think there is a bug in what it is reporting.
[16:22] Andrew Linden: Kelly, does the Top Scripts info arrive through a UDP packet? Or through Caps http response?
[16:23] Kelly Linden: UDP I believe. It is pretty old
[16:23] Andrew Linden: Ah.
[16:23] Pauline Darkfury: Mmm, well something odd going on with it. I've got a stack of volume detect megas to enforce a no fly zone. It only shows 2 out of about 5 of them, even when I've just flown through a bunch of them to force activity
[16:23] Pauline Darkfury: *2 out of 50
[16:24] Andrew Linden: Well, maybe that is a good repro recipe... empty region except for a bunch of VolumeDetect megas -- see if they show up on TS.
[16:25] Andrew Linden: However, I suppose if you have an empty region with only scripted megas, maybe it will show all of them -- no other scripted objects to crowd them out.
[16:25] Pauline Darkfury: It's not quite empty, but it's normally very lightly loaded, the region where that case seems to repro reliably
[16:25] Pauline Darkfury: Am also seeing the same thing in a heavily loaded region, some of the lightest stuff has just vanished off TS
[16:26] Stickman: Speaking of megaprims, did anything ever happen with that prim encroachment tool? It was supposed to take all that load off the support staff. You finished it, Andrew, and I haven't heard anything for months.
[16:26] Stickman: Something like that shouldn't be sitting around gathering dust.
[16:27] Pauline Darkfury: In terms of managing the region as a whole, it's better for me to see 100% of scripted objects, then decide for myself what's significant or not
[16:27] Stickman: I agree, seeing all objects that are scripted is ideal. Even if "top scripts" doesn't have that, some way of getting a complete list would be desirable.
[16:28] Andrew Linden: huh, well I did a quick search in the code for where TopScripts info is bundled up and sent -- I couldn't find it.
[16:28] Andrew Linden: I'll have to hunt more carefully later.
[16:28] Pauline Darkfury: And yeah, encroachment return, last thing you said was the land team had found some issues with it, before it can be turned on for mainland. Any news on fixing those issues and getting it turned on?
[16:29] Liisa Runo: any details about the issues?
[16:29] Kelly Linden: Pauline: I have a guess now actually.
[16:29] Andrew Linden: Pauline, I don't think there are any blockers now for enabling encroachment return, once Mesh hits all regions.
[16:29] Pauline Darkfury: cool, and cross-region encroachment return?
[16:30] Andrew Linden: However, I don't think anyone wants to enable it right away. It should probably be tested on a few regions for a bit and then enabled across the board.
[16:30] Meeter: Timecheck : User Group is half over
[16:31] Andrew Linden: Hrm... I should refresh my understanding of how the encroachment feature is enabled...
[16:31] Pauline Darkfury: it's a sim console thing for private estates
[16:31] pollyanna11: hi
[16:31] Andrew Linden: I wonder if it can be set via a config change and have that config bake into the per-region settings, or if it takes more work to bake it into the regions' state.
[16:32] Pauline Darkfury: And, as far as people wanting it, I'd think that 90%+ of mainland landowners want it ASAP, unless they are the ones that enjoy encroaching
[16:32] Jonathan Yap: Hi pollyanna, you have found a Linden office hour meeting
[16:32] pollyanna11: nice
[16:32] Andrew Linden: yeah Pauline, however there is definitely an override that can be used to force it on or off... I just don't know if it is permenant or not.
[16:33] Pauline Darkfury: if (estate == mainland) { encroachment_return = TRUE; } ;)
[16:33] Jonathan Yap: I bet there is exeception code for Linden Homes, etc.
[16:34] Pauline Darkfury: yeah, there's meant to be a special case for Maint group, LDPW group, key Linden content accounts, etc
[16:34] Andrew Linden: Yes there is. Estate Managers' content is immune to encroachment return... unless a second bit is flipped.
[16:35] Andrew Linden: The Linden Home regions use encroachment as a feature, but the homes are set to the right owner... I think.
[16:35] pollyanna11: you are discussing the U.S. dollar linden Linden?
[16:35] Pauline Darkfury: That actually reminds me of a case you ned to consider with it, if not already considered. I have some trees on some of my land which are actually on my parcel, using my prim count, etc, but owned by the Maintenance group (deeded to it historically). I'll still be able to return those as and when I see fit?
[16:35] Andrew Linden: I guess I should verify the home ownership myself.
[16:35] Jonathan Yap: pollyanna, we are talking about server issues
[16:36] Pauline Darkfury: 99% certain my Linden Home is owned by Gov Linden
[16:36] pollyanna11: tank you
[16:36] Jonathan Yap: the code that runs the regions you visit
[16:36] Stickman: Pollyanna, "Linden" is the last name used by developers of Second Life. Linden Lab is the developing company.
[16:36] pollyanna11: yes
[16:36] Pauline Darkfury: newly build Linden Homes may well be owned by <someone> Mole
[16:36] Pauline Darkfury: *newly built
[16:37] Andrew Linden: So Polyanna, if you have a question about the Second Life servers, features, and bugs, you can ask them here.
[16:37] pollyanna11: yes
[16:37] pollyanna11: you are the owners of second life?
[16:38] Andrew Linden: On mainland regions there is another category of content I'm calling "Linden Content"...
[16:38] Andrew Linden: that is also immune to encroachment return...
[16:39] Andrew Linden: Which includes objects owned by a few old Lindens who used to manage content in-world (such as Xenon, Blue, Phoenix, etc)
[16:39] Pauline Darkfury: Jack owns a bit of Linden content (now renamed Robin )
[16:39] Andrew Linden: and also objects that are owned by two particular groups: Department of Public Works (DPW) and another one...
[16:39] Andrew Linden: "Linden Maintenance" or something like that.
[16:40] Pauline Darkfury: Presumable either deeded to those groups or set to them?
[16:40] Andrew Linden: Anyway, stuff owned by anyone on that whitelist is considered "Estate Manager content" on mainland regions.
[16:41] Andrew Linden: There is no "Estate Group" feature for private estates.
[16:41] Pauline Darkfury: We can still return estate content if we actually own the parcel it's root prim is on, right?
[16:41] Andrew Linden: But stuff owned by Estate Managers, and the Estate Owner can be immune to encroachment return, or not, depending on the per-region config settings.
[16:41] lonetorus Habilis: so estate managers on private sims wont have imune prims?
[16:42] lonetorus Habilis: ah
[16:42] Andrew Linden: Pauline, yes. That would be stuff on the parcel, not encroaching.
[16:42] Pauline Darkfury: EMs on private sims can be immune or not, at their choice
[16:42] Pauline Darkfury: Yup, thanks, just wanted to confirm the immunity was only for the encroachment case
[16:42] Andrew Linden: There is a little-known "feature" in the simulator...
[16:42] Andrew Linden: The whitelist of "Linden Content" I was mentioning...
[16:43] Stickman: Is this the part where you laugh manically?
[16:43] Andrew Linden: it is immune to autoreturn if it is on your parcel... but not immune to direct return (for stuff that really is on the parcel)
[16:43] lonetorus Habilis: so, has this command console for the sim been enabled in any clients?
[16:43] Pauline Darkfury: yup, the trees owned by the Maintenance group do correctly ignore my autoreturn at present
[16:43] lonetorus Habilis: i presume thats being used to set this encroachment settings
[16:44] Andrew Linden: No lonetorus. The simconsole hasn't had many new commands added to it yet.
[16:44] Flip Idlemind: "Control Shift ~" in reasonable recent Viewer 2 versions
[16:44] Flip Idlemind: (If that's what you were asking)
[16:44] Andrew Linden: The simconsole doesn't actually do much. I think all you can use it for right now is setting encroachmen returnability bits, and a setting for the terrain.
[16:45] lonetorus Habilis: great i dont have a readily available ~
[16:45] Stickman: But how do you go home, Lone?
[16:45] lonetorus Habilis: ctrl shif h or when ppl send me home
[16:45] Stickman: It's a Unix joke, not an SL joke.
[16:46] Andrew Linden: Stickman has outed himself as a UNIX guy.
[16:46] Stickman: LOOK AT MY BEARD. IT IS NOT GREY.
[16:46] Stickman: You were a fantastic centerpiece, Lomgren. Don't undersell yourself.
[16:46] lonetorus Habilis: well, i do have it, but i have to do a alt gr + ~ then release both keys and press space, to get the tilde
[16:47] Andrew Linden: Somone suggested that the keyboard shortcut for the simconsole be changed to something easier for non-US keyboards.
[16:47] lonetorus Habilis: heh, i poweered down my last openbsd machine 4 years ago
[16:47] Andrew Linden: I forget what the recommendation was.
[16:47] Andrew Linden: It might be configurable via the XML settings
[16:48] lonetorus Habilis: andrew, yes please, it was a issue for me in countless games aswell, this us centric tilde for console
[16:49] Stickman: I still think the keys should be mappable. Hard-coding them hasn't been the norm since the dos days of video gaming.
[16:49] Flip Idlemind: I seem to remember you could get to the simconsole from the Develop menu, but I don't see it there
[16:49] Andrew Linden: The shortcut does not appear to be configurable.
[16:49] lonetorus Habilis: hear hear
[16:49] Flip Idlemind: Even though hitting Control Shift ~ highlights the Develop menu
[16:50] Stickman: Oh, I had wondered why Lomgren's head was glowing. It was my voicedot overlaying his head.
[16:51] Andrew Linden: Ok, so that is a good topic: what commands would you like to see in the simconsole?
[16:51] Flip Idlemind: Oh, I found it. Develop > UI > Region Debug Console
[16:52] Andrew Linden: Right, and the keystroke is CTRL+SHIFT+` (backtick)
[16:52] Andrew Linden: do any keyboards NOT have ` and ~ on the same key?
[16:52] Pauline Darkfury: Being able to see virtual memory stats would be lovely
[16:52] Draconis Neurocam: that floater is a bit odd, try stretching it and watching it fall apart
[16:52] Andrew Linden: "virtual memory stats"? of the simulator?
[16:53] Stickman: I'd love to be able to do everything in the console. Spit out top scripts in a way that's copy/pastable, or any other list or setting. Be able to ban or pardon people, assign or remove estate managers, etc.
[16:53] Pauline Darkfury: I've a feeling that ` and ~ are subject to internationalisation moving them around
[16:53] Pauline Darkfury: Yup, so we can see if a region really is using too much memory
[16:53] Flip Idlemind: Whatever you add to it, make sure there's documentation and whatnot for it
[16:53] Stickman: Other things that aren't normally available, like memory stats? That would be fantastic.
[16:54] Pauline Darkfury: And anything that would be more detailed than the sim stats window, to help drill down into performance issues
[16:54] Acheron Gloom: Yeah, I agree with that.
[16:55] Andrew Linden: ok, i wrote those down and will think about them.
[16:55] Andrew Linden: the simconsole isn't a real "shell"
[16:55] Meeter: Timecheck : User Group is almost over
[16:55] Andrew Linden: it just looks kinda like one
[16:55] Flip Idlemind: It also looks like a computer where you type in numbers to save the world
[16:56] lonetorus Habilis: andrew, my backtick and tilde are on seperate keys, accessed through different combos XD
[16:56] Stickman: Well, yeah. I stretched it a bit far. Was just saying what I would like. I am not an average representation of your region manager, I'm sure.
[16:56] Andrew Linden: it's really just a general dispatcher that accepts random data and handles well-formatted input for a few cases
[16:56] lonetorus Habilis: how about ctrl shift plus
[16:56] Andrew Linden: I'm just sayin' it because some things are easy to brainstorm but hard to do... such as scripts and environment variables in the simconsole
[16:57] Flip Idlemind: How about (seemingly) simple stuff, like region restart and estate message?
[16:57] Andrew Linden: That's a good combo. It doesn't appear to be used for anything in the official viewer yet.
[16:57] Stickman: Ctrl-Shift-+, restart 5
[16:57] Flip Idlemind: And RUN!
[16:57] Stickman: Ctrl-Shift-+, say Hello world.
[16:58] Flip Idlemind: So before we run out of time, how is SCR-162 looking
[16:58] JIRA-helper: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SCR-162
[#SCR-162] Bounds error when calling PRIM_LINK_TARGET in a child prim
[16:58] lonetorus Habilis: and should be universally available, esp to ppl who have a keybaord with numberpad
[16:59] Andrew Linden: I haven't started on SCR-162. I'm hoping my time will clear up for a few weeks of maintenance
[17:00] Flip Idlemind: Oh gosh I hope it won't take weeks :O
[17:00] Liisa Runo: just let someone else fix it if you dont have time
[17:00] Meeter: Thank you for coming to the Server User Group
[17:00] Stickman: I'll fix it. Just give me access to the server repository.
[17:01] Kelly Linden: SCR-162 is fixed internally
[17:01] Liisa Runo: ^^
[17:01] Stickman: Oh, nice.
[17:01] Kelly Linden: next server maintenance branch
[17:01] Kelly Linden: (dunno when that will be)
[17:01] Andrew Linden: that is in your next "scripting mantenance" project Kelly?
[17:01] Andrew Linden: ah ok
[17:01] Flip Idlemind: It's like scripting maintenance-maintenance
[17:03] Flip Idlemind: I do wanna say, the scripting-awesomeness project was deployed to the main channel on my birthday, so thank you very much for that gift
[17:03] Flip Idlemind: :D
[17:03] Liisa Runo: ^^
[17:03] Stickman: It's nice when those things work out. Happy birthday, Flip.
[17:03] Kelly Linden: no its in the more general server maintenance which will ship first
[17:03] Liisa RunoLiisa Runo looks at Kelly: my RL rezday is soon, i wonder what kelly make for me
[17:04] Kelly Linden: hahaha
[17:04] Jonathan Yap: Liisa, you will get a slice of PI (/me ducks)
[17:04] Acheron Gloom: in reference to:
[17:00:53] Andrew Linden: that is in your next "scripting mantenance" project Kelly?
[17:04] Liisa Runo: nooo, i also want giant list of new LSL features
[17:05] Flip Idlemind: So, like, this is my giant cube
[17:05] Kelly Linden: Andrew: don't have much in a next scripting maintenance branch yet
[17:05] Kelly Linden: I need to head home. have a good weekend all
[17:05] Draconis Neurocam: take care kelly
[17:05] Flip Idlemind: Baiii
[17:06] Methias Kira: Take care
[17:06] Jonathan Yap: Thanks Kelly and Andrew
[17:06] Stickman: Thanks for coming, Kelly!
[17:06] Liisa Runo: thanks everybody
[17:06] Pauline Darkfury: Thanks, Kelly, Andrew :)
[17:06] Andrew Linden: That giant cube makes a good argument for a few script calls I can think of
[17:06] Stickman: I'm gone. I've got a dinner soon. Thanks Andrew.
[17:06] Stickman: Bye everyone!
[17:06] Draconis Neurocam: thanks andrew
[17:07] Andrew Linden: I guess hierarchy wouldn't really help much... that rubik's cube has dynamic hierarchy
[17:07] Andrew Linden: cheers everyone
[17:07] Flip Idlemind: And now
[17:07] Flip Idlemind: For the new version
Simulator_User_Group
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