As you'll know if you read my earlier posts, I use Barney Boomslang's Mac-port of the Nicholaz patch. (You may know that I also use the Release Candidates, at least when they're vaguely stable.) Barney was moved to comment on why he makes the effort to write open source material - and he has a long history of it. You might not agree with him: you might think he's stupid and giving his work away for free; you might think he's some kind of wicked communist; you might think he's a hero.

Personally, money isn't the be-all-and-end-all of my life. You can read some of my thoughts about the American drive for money and the English class system from an online class if you want. Obviously for open source coders money isn't the be-all-and-end-all either. I'd just like, again, to say a big THANK YOU to all the open source bug fixers for their work and efforts. Some of us, I'd like to think almost all of us, appreciate what you do. The world is a better place for it.

Yesterday in Second Life we:

• Spent US$1,170,000 at an exchange rate of L$267 to US$1
• Exchanged US$257,000 at an average of US$10,700.0 per hour.
• Market buys were US$184,000
• Market sales were US$72,000
• Limit-limit buys were US$1,300
• The busiest time was at 5am when about US$18,000 was exchanged.
• The quietest time was 8am when about US$6,000 was exchanged.

Yesterday in Second Life we:

• Spent US$1,021,000 at an exchange rate of L$266.8 to US$1
• Exchanged US$209,000 at an average of US$8,700.0 per hour.
• Market buys were US$157,000
• Market sales were US$51,000
• Limit-limit buys were US$200
• The busiest time was at 5pm when about US$13,000 was exchanged.
• The quietest time was 4am when about US$5,000 was exchanged.

There will be downtime on Wednesday between 6am and 11am for asset server upgrades. Everyone hide and hang on to your inventory, this can be a bumpy ride as our very own Moo knows only too well.

Expect both the main and beta SL grids to be down for at least 5 hours (as per the blog) and for some "lucky" proportion of us a "your inventory is being moved to a faster database" message - and if you really are lucky, it will all get there too!

[UPDATE] This downtime has been postponed. The Great Old One's plans to take over Second Life this Hallowe'en have been thwarted!

Yesterday in Second Life we:

• Spent US$987,000 at an exchange rate of L$267.3 to US$1
• Exchanged US$194,000 at an average of US$8,100.0 per hour.
• Market buys were US$152,000
• Market sales were US$42,000
• Limit-limit buys were US$200
• The busiest time was at 10am when about US$12,000 was exchanged.
• The quietest time was 12pm when about US$5,000 was exchanged.

It looks a bit like "normal" folk stayed away from SL yesterday because of CSI:NY since there were no other obvious differences/difficulties on the day.

For my sins I read an RSS of the JIRA. Often this is dull, sometimes fascinating, frequently tends to flame wars, but...

Every now and again you get pure gold. Ever wondered how long it takes a bug fix to propagate? Well, we have a putative number now:

In response to a bug about sculpties, Qarl Linden says: "i'll fix it asap - but it'll be about a month or so before it appears in an RC client..." Of course it will take a bit longer than that to reach the main client, but a month from a fix to an RC release.

I'm quite a fan of 2 of the 3 CSI shows, and the games offered here (there should be more to come) work quite nicely. You do have to wonder if the shows would be as compelling if all the clues were highlighted when you arrived though. For those of us outside the US, the fact that one of the mysteries ties in directly to tonight's show might be a bit tricky unless we manage to download a copy of it from somewhere. Is CBS sure that's what it wants?

The game play uses video streaming to relay information about the clues and interviews with the suspects, but there is a text sidebar too for those, like me, that struggle to hear what's going on. The text is rather slow to load though, sadly.

It was a fun way to spend 20 minutes. I guess it will take longer than that for the expected hordes of newbie CSI fans though, as they also try to get used to moving around in SL. It will be interesting to see how many convert to long term users after this, but they will use a fair amount of SL skills, so they might.

I've never been to New York, but exploring New York virtually on this scale was fun!

Oh, if you use their viewer, you can't right click the CSI toolbar - but you can in a normal viewer. This is to stop newbies getting lost and detaching them by mistake according to one of their greeters, but it's annoying if you're used to SL.

Abraham Lincoln that is. The Alliance Libraries have secured funding for a "Land of Lincoln" immersive sim that will recreate Lincoln's birthplace, his Springfield house (please resist comments about Bart!) and will also look at his White House time.

This new area will run on a similar basis the Renaissance Island which looks at Tudor England, and is inhabited by volunteers who largely dress and talk in appropriate period style, as well as having the period setting. Land of Lincoln is still at the planning stage, if you would like to be involved please join the google group for discussion.

Yesterday in Second Life we:

• Spent US$1,071,000 at an exchange rate of L$267.6 to US$1
• Exchanged US$201,000 at an average of US$8,400.0 per hour.
• Market buys were US$147,000
• Market sales were US$54,000
• Limit-limit buys were US$600
• The busiest time was at 1pm when about US$13,000 was exchanged.
• The quietest time was 3am when about US$4,000 was exchanged.

The other day I was in a class, and in the wrap up at the end I was asked to say what I thought the differences between working for an educational institution and a commercial one were in SL. It's a situation I'm fairly well positioned on, I've worked with a range of both types of organisations. One group I haven't worked with is the "city council" or similar who try to sell their city and build it anew.

I came up, at short notice with a few differences. I've had a think and refined them a bit, and thought I'd share them and ask for your input and thoughts. You never know, it might be a good tool for one group or the other to learn (I'd suggest commercial to learn from educational - education seems to be booming in SL, although there are some corporate good practise elements from the commercial end too).

1. Build type:
• Educators are more likely (say 50%+) to eschew a "corporate build" - the administration office block or similar. Of those that do have such a thing a high proportion are likely to subvert it somehow elsewhere in their build.
• Corporate types are much more likely to go for "the office block" - I'd say 95%. They clearly identify their office as their corporation.
2. Build nature
• Educators tend to focus on the results. That's both in terms of meeting the educational needs, and being relatively happy if nothing happens, nothing happens, then a finished build appears.
• Corporate types tend to want regular reports, plans, milestones etc.

So, they're my thoughts. What do you think? Just Askin'

Yesterday in Second Life we:

• Spent US$1,222,000 at an exchange rate of L$269.6 to US$1
• Exchanged US$248,000 at an average of US$10,300.0 per hour.
• Market buys were US$163,000
• Market sales were US$84,000
• Limit-limit buys were US$1,300
• The busiest time was at 4pm when about US$16,000 was exchanged.
• The quietest time was 2am when about US$5,000 was exchanged.

Yesterday in Second Life we:

• Spent US$1,207,000 at an exchange rate of L$272.2 to US$1
• Exchanged US$226,000 at an average of US$9,400.0 per hour.
• Market buys were US$161,000
• Market sales were US$63,000
• Limit-limit buys were US$800
• The busiest time was at 5pm when about US$15,000 was exchanged.
• The quietest time was 10pm when about US$6,000 was exchanged.

The Telegraph is carrying, in it's property sections, a piece about Prim Perfect - they're slow to the party! Inevitably there is a chunk of explanation about what SL is and how you use it, and it's surprisingly good.

There are a few sentences that will make people howl - apparently if you don't own land you can't fully participate in SL (which, from the point of view of the property press might be defensible I guess) and the like, but it's well worth a quick look.

(Thanks to Saffia Widdershins for the tip.)

Yesterday in Second Life we:

• Spent US$1,099,000 at an exchange rate of L$271.6 to US$1
• Exchanged US$222,000 at an average of US$9,300.0 per hour.
• Market buys were US$161,000
• Market sales were US$60,000
• Limit-limit buys were US$1,100
• The busiest time was at 7am when about US$15,000 was exchanged.
• The quietest time was 4am when about US$5,000 was exchanged.

Following on from the story of Ginko's long protracted death finally ending in termination, and a shifting to the WTF "rescue" plan Shaun Altman has decided he can do better. He is proposing a clear liquidation plan of his own - for full details read his website. The highlights - Everyone get Ginko stock value to Shaun by the end of October, he'll say what the state of play is on 1st November, liquidate the assets (and say who is still holding any others as best he can), and give the money to Luke to buy out the Ginko bonds so they can be delisted. All GBP holders get some (size to be determined) bottom line return to walk away from it all.

Nobody Fugazi is in agreement with Shaun's analysis of the merits of the WTF plan - a quick bit of back of the envelope stuff at my end gives the same numbers too. Like Nobody, I won't tell you what you should do with your money - it's got to be your choice. It all comes down to a balance of trust - Luke (and maybe Nicholas) v Shaun. Who do you trust the most?