The Battle for the Soul of Second Life

A battle for Second Life is being waged, but it's not out in the open, and most people don't know about it. Many people stumble across its effects, but don't understand them.

Basically, it comes down to whether Second Life is to be Googlized or not. And frankly, in real life, so to speak, on the rest of the Internet, there's a battle against Google. Facebook has arisen as a power to challenge Google, and you can opt out of Googlization on Facebook. What that means is that you can create networks, relationships, news feeds, little games, etc. that can sell stuff without Google being involved in scraping you or your intentions or you attentions. That is, perhaps with various events going on now with Google creating APIs and Facebook getting invaded by Google doing that, our short window of independence and privacy from the Google scrape is gone. I think we can still give it a good fight, however.

This isn't just a matter of privacy. You can't have privacy in a basic sense on the Internet because everything you type is copied somewhere and available to someone. You'd have to keep your thoughts to yourself to avoid that sort of invasion. It's more about the ability to use what is scraped in ways that start to harm you and the broader public interest. It's about the constant push of ads and the push of tampered, manipulated, fabricated information that is Wikified and mindmapped and memed and dumbed down. Facebook helps mitigate that by establishing experts and groups that you come to trust and interact with on your own, at your own pace, with your own criteria, i.e. "my relatives, friends, classmates, work colleagues from RL" -- or people you find with various affinities that you don't need to be in those RL categories, because they establish their own reliability through constant, open, authoritative and knowledgeable statements (like a Robert Scoble, for example).

And Second Life is -- was -- like this, too. It was designed as a social media first and foremost, and originally even had a ratings system with financial incentive, which then became a currency sink but still a reputation factor especially for building. Lots happened along the way -- and here we all are now. Some people brag that Second Life is Googlized. Some people don't realize it's happening yet. Others are fighting it.

Fighting Google is really important for the long term, and the future of the Metaverse, but you would never know there was an alternative opinion on this from reading what the Lindens and their fanboyz have to say. They sneeringly tell you that the Internet could not have been populated if there was opt-in -- but of course robot.txt keeps Google from grabbing everything, doesn't it?

And...we're not Google. We are not pieces of information on pages. We're people in a social world doing business, socializing, educating, etc. So really, we need to be treated better than the victims of a giant scrape without our consent. In fact, if our consent is given, and we can consciously tag, it will be so much better.

The greed and impatience of these tekkies in trying to cram everything into Google is really nauseating. They keep trying to prove SL is a web page. Second Life was voted "the worst web page" by Time magazine for a reason: it isn't a good web page. It's a better world, than a web page, but only when all this frenzy about gluing everything to Google like stuck insects on a board ceases and desists. Nobody out on the Internet cares if there are 1,000 pairs of red shoes or 10 million from Second Life on Google. But the people inside Second Life care about finding *the better* red shoes which they can find by tagging, traffic, Picks, etc.

There are three issues I presented on the JIRA, which I bothered with despite its insane arcane inanity:

o VWR 3071 -- items show up in search although no one has been notified that they will be showing up, and they haven't consciously decided to check them off. That's because the Lindens made a mistaken decision, without the will of the community to turn this flaw in their own design into a "feature".

I submitted it as a bug for two reason: 1) 3071 is an offshoot of 2811 and what i've submitted as 3072 as a different variant of this flu, i.e. it has a bug component and 2) every other element of this new Linden search has OPT-IN -- a check box where YOU decide what goes into search. It's just that A LINDEN NERD PACK has decided to make "all objects for sale" show up because they want their search populated so they can show it off in their mad rush to IPO, open source, impress VCs, whatever.

o VWR 3072 -- I put this as a separate bug than 2811 because in this variant, you cannot teleport but these mistakenly-flagged "for sale" items which originate in the original creator's flag as "for sale" are not transferable. Many irritable types on the concierge list keep saying -- well just check it off then. Um, you can't. No-transfer is usually no-mod. I think it's safe to say that there are millions of items like this in SL will be showing up, which will attract day-trippers, griefers, and goons by the boatload showing up for sale -- so therefore, until it is fixed and really moved into the client, it has to remain open.

I could mention here Ordinal's eloquent WEB-380, which is about not labelling issues/bugs as "resolved internally" when in fact they aren't really resolved out in Second Life -- they are not pushed in a patch, not downloaded in a client. It's very misleading. This is Soviet pripiska, over-reporting something as a success when it isn't really done yet. I hope that since Ordinal is a respected scripter, she will prevail on this. Please go and vote for her idea.

I've had to reopen these countless times because little aggressive dweebs close them.

And now what the Lindens are saying is that i must prove they do that (!) in order for them to entertain WEB 382 as any kind of proposition. So if you are the victim of an arbitrarily closed issue, please go weigh in -- or if you at least understand the principle at stake, vote for this issue.

Here's the transcript. I was unable to attend this meeting that in fact I planned to go to because I had a RL meeting come up at the last minute that I couldn't ditch. I sent Rob a notecard as follows:

"Dear Rob,

Unfortunately, I cannot attend this meeting at 12 noon because I have a RL meeting for work that came up.

Your notion that telling everyone that you back these controversial residents and that you've already decided to "resolve" the issues lets me know it's not a real debate anyway.

I'm troubled that you could so pump up these condescending and insolent tekkies on the JIRA like Lex Neva, Angel Fluffy, and WarKirby. You shouldn't be singling out for favouritism such obviously abusive characters, the latter two of whom bleed their BDSM controlling lifestyle into the public domain.

Other residents besides me have pointed out that they follow no demonstrative criteria or overarching principles. Indeed, the guidelines for removing features aren't clear. Why the haste and impatience with removing other people's contributions? That's how you discourage involvement.

I've made all the arguments about by Web 832, VWR 3071 and 3072 and why they should be retained open already on the JIRA.

The items showing up in search is in part a bug, and in part a misguided policy that you are putting over on people without their knowledge or consent.

The JIRA is little used because it's very geeky and cumbersome. The ridiculously complex template and scripts and perl for merely adding an agenda item are deliberately off-putting. There is no reason on earth you cannot make this a notecard-giver or a much more simpler template. But of course in cyberspace, you find such reasons as you wish not only to exercise arbitrary and illegitimate control, but have your fanboyz in this JIRA sweatshop do your dirty work for you. Ugh.

Prokofy"

Some might think, oh, intolerant! It's not about BDSM! And lifestyles!

Oh, but it sure as hell is. Is it any accident that the Capture Roleplay freak Angel Fluffy destroyed the one democratic institution of Second Life, the Feature Voter -- and enabled busy and irresponsible and inconsiderate Lindens to finish it off with a closure?

You don't write, as WarKirby does, "I'm a natural dominant with a strong desire to control and dominate" on your profile without getting a pushback from me : )

And this is very much at issue -- these dominating personalities -- dominate. And when you push back, suddenly some whiner and wimp is found to say, oh, Prokofy, you have a strong personality and you dominate. I'd have no need to appear this way if these BDSM geeks would not behave in their controlling fashion in the first place, indulging in personal attacks, making unilateral sweeps of issues and closing, moving, editing them with abandon.

Some would say, "Oh, you weaken your case by raising BDSM."

Not on your life. I flush out the problem *right in the open*. The problem IS this ideology and this cult, and it *is* taking over Second Life's institutions and mechanisms as you can see. So fight back. Stop pretending it's not the issue.

Here's most of the transcript -- and watch how these totalitarians take a proposal of mine to make more accountability and transparency and more democratic participation and REAL authentic power of the individual and turn it into a concept to give the little cabals closing things the power to be the ONLY ones to close and reopen (!!!):

[12:03] Henri Beauchamp wavies.
[12:03] Squirrel Wood: Its the OSSM Bridie ^^
[12:03] Jason Swain: Hello Bridie
[12:03] Wyn Galbraith: And Soft and Khamon and...
[12:03] Theodore Folsom: Soft ^^ Hullows
[12:03] Theodore Folsom: Aric ^^
[12:03] Jason Swain: Hello Soft
[12:03] Soft Linden: Hey hey hey
[12:03] Wyn Galbraith feels all warm and sniggly over here.
[12:03] Theodore Folsom: Alexaaaa ^^ Hullows
[12:03] Aric Linden: G'Day all
[12:03] Alexa Linden: sorry, I'm late
[12:03] Daedalus Young: hi
[12:03] Alexa Linden: becuase with chat we can log it all on the site
[12:03] Wyn Galbraith: I have a heater on right now so you don't want to hear that.
[12:04] Theodore Folsom: Hi Kerry
[12:04] Alexa Linden: Hey all, sorry I'm late
[12:04] Kerry Giha: Hello everyone
[12:04] Domchi Underwood: Hi everyone
[12:04] Aric Linden: let's get start
[12:05] Rob Linden: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Bug_triage/Monday_Agenda
[12:05] Aric Linden: wiki is ossm slow
[12:05] Bridie Linden: +1
[12:05] Squirrel Wood: the jira seems to be dead again to the public.. pages not loading for me
[12:05] Alexa Linden: Hi Squirrel :D
[12:06] Squirrel Wood: hi hi ^^
[12:06] Aric Linden: jira is dead to me
[12:06] Daedalus Young: was fine 10 minutes ago, then suddenly stopped
[12:06] Wyn Galbraith: Too cute.
[12:06] Alexa Linden: let's begin
[12:06] Alexa Linden: SVC-913
[12:06] Wyn Galbraith: Oops, wrong window *blush*
[12:06] Alexa Linden: Allow LSL scripts to act as HTTP servers in order to replace XMLRPC with something scalable
[12:06] Soft Linden: I wonder at whether we should script something up to make static snapshots of JIRA pages pre-meeting
[12:07] Squirrel Wood: Might be a good idea
[12:07] Michael McLuhan: original concern was deinal of service by external sources of HTTP requests? is this accounted for in proposed design?
[12:07] Aric Linden: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-913
[12:07] Gigs Taggart: soft, I'm working on jira stats remember, well that's going to have a full backup DB of the jira
[12:07] Aric Linden: and we're off
[12:07] Daedalus Young: ahh, JIRA appears to be revived
[12:08] Gigs Taggart: this first one is pretty straightforward, it was even suggested by a linden :)
[12:09] Rob Linden: well, I suppose we can just import it, and change Sean to the reporter
[12:09] Alexa Linden: noted
[12:09] Soft Linden: That vote count and that many watchers... can't see a reason not to push it in
[12:09] Aric Linden: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-29 is next
[12:09] Gigs Taggart: XMLRPC is getting really useless, I recommend no one ever use it for new applications
[12:09] Squirrel Wood: Keep in mind though that scripts acting as http servers do have limited memory while a web server does not
[12:09] Gigs Taggart: SVC-29 is related
[12:10] Aric Linden: This one will be resolved by changes we're making internally
[12:10] Daedalus Young: svc-29 is a regular triage member
[12:10] Michael McLuhan: im concerned with the denail of service applied to a sim that processes these requests
[12:10] Aric Linden grins ad Daedalus
[12:10] Aric Linden: erm at
[12:10] Soft Linden: Aric - should this be linked to that internal issue?
[12:11] Aric Linden: hmm. yes,
[12:11] Tillie Ariantho: Yeah, if the XML-RPC cant get fixed because the server is too slow, and adding a second wouldn't help, then just remove it and offer some replacement.
[12:11] Soft Linden: Ah - this is already imported
[12:11] Tillie Ariantho: Talking about the same dead thingy for a year doesnt help at all.
[12:11] Squirrel Wood: besides, llEmail basically "allows" for "http" service already
[12:12] Aric Linden: Tille agreed
[12:12] Matthew Dowd: I think people want fixes rather than "imported"
[12:12] Henri Beauchamp: llEmail suffers from the absence of event support...
[12:12] Tillie Ariantho: Fix it or remove it as unfixable, but then replace it. It's quite simple. .)
[12:12] Rob Linden: the "XML-RPC is slow" issue is going to perpetually be open, methinks
[12:12] Rob Linden: the reason
[12:12] Gigs Taggart: heh yess matthew, the reason we talk about it for a year is because outside of these meetings it comes up daily!
[12:12] Rob Linden: demand will often (always?) outstrip supply on that
[12:12] Michael McLuhan: reliable and slow is fine, broke and slow isnt.
[12:13] Gigs Taggart: almost every day on scripters group someone asks about xmlrpc and we have to tell them not to use it
[12:13] Squirrel Wood: Isn't xml-rpc routed through a single server ?
[12:13] Aric Linden: afk momentarily
[12:13] Rob Linden: I suspect whatever changes we have up our sleeve will fix it for three months, and then people will reopen this one
[12:13] Squirrel Wood: Most likely
[12:13] Aric Linden: back
[12:13] Squirrel Wood: wb
[12:14] Matthew Dowd: if the front end server is just routing xml-rpc to be hanled by the sim, it shouldn't be too prone to overload
[12:14] Domchi Underwood: Can't XML-RPC be scaled so that every sim can bring up its own XML-RPS servers as needed? XML-RPC is pretty simple.. couple of classes. :)
[12:14] Michael McLuhan: the bottle neck is at the single server?
[12:15] Tillie Ariantho: Yes, I wonder what the server is doing. Is it preparsing the XML or something? THEN I know why it is that slow and overloaded ...
[12:15] Aric Linden: Michael, we're not sure if is server or threading
[12:15] Squirrel Wood: single servers tend to be prime bottlenecks
[12:15] Michael McLuhan: has experiemnt been made to push it to the class5 sims?
[12:15] Rob Linden: not sure that any of the LIndens here can chip in all that much to the conversation. I'd recommend someone send a mail to sldev on the subject, and I'll help engage the right people at Linden to speak about it
[12:15] Michael McLuhan: so each sim handles its own?
[12:15] Gigs Taggart: yes lets move on, we have a lot to cover today
[12:15] Tillie Ariantho: XML parsings tend to be bottle necks too. .)
[12:15] Matthew Dowd: well it should be a cluster rather than a single machine - but it should be a light touch just rerouting to the relevant sim
[12:15] Aric Linden: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-382
[12:16] Squirrel Wood: I spent like half a day reading through that one
[12:16] Rob Linden gives everyone a chance to read and comment. My opinion is one of the last comments in the issue
[12:16] Gigs Taggart: prokofy was supposed to be coming... hrm
[12:16] Michael McLuhan: all items are closed on support with unilateral decision, why not jira?
[12:17] Michael McLuhan: people seem to think its a democaracy; the model of other services doesnt fit that, why should the jira?
[12:17] Squirrel Wood: The way I see issues with Prokofy is that if Prokofy does not like something it must immediately be changed to suit his or her needs.
[12:17] Daedalus Young: just as anybody can resolve and close issues, anybody can *reopen* issues too!
[12:17] Rob Linden: the main question: jira permitting, should I make it so that no one but Lindens can resolve/close issues?
[12:17] Michael McLuhan: yes. or your delegates.
[12:17] Aric Linden looks at Rob Linden
[12:17] Grace McDunnough: Yes
[12:17] Gigs Taggart: There is the question of VWR-3071, it's an obvious duplicate of 2811 but she keeps reopening it.
[12:18] Aric Linden: I vote no
[12:18] Rob Linden: I also vote "no"
[12:18] Theodore Folsom: does that include the moving of issues ?
[12:18] Wyn Galbraith: That's a lot of work for Lindens.
[12:18] Michael McLuhan: then assign spefici delegates.
[12:18] Alexa Linden: I would hate to see that because the residents are very helpful in getting things move to the right areas
[12:18] Soft Linden: I'd sure like a list of issues where this ability has been abused before up and changing things.
[12:18] Gigs Taggart: you all have no clue how much junk we close every day
[12:18] Gigs Taggart: 50% of the bugs filed are resolved within 1 day right now
[12:18] Alexa Linden: far too many things just get tossed into MISC
[12:18] Michael McLuhan: dont open it to everyone to close items. thats a griefer tool
[12:18] Aric Linden: and how much junk gets reopened everday
[12:18] Alexa Linden: that too
[12:18] Alexa Linden: or duplicated
[12:18] Aric Linden: bu the idea is to have a dialog
[12:18] Wyn Galbraith: And this is PJira, not the internal. I think it should remain as it is.
[12:18] Michael McLuhan: assign delegates
[12:19] Rob Linden: we have a "good citizens" group already in JIRA, which we could restrict it to
[12:19] Daedalus Young: good-citizens
[12:19] Squirrel Wood: appointed delegates may "solve" this issue
[12:19] Gigs Taggart: that's probably not what prokofy had in mind here...
[12:19] Gigs Taggart: :P
[12:19] Rob Linden: however, many of the people that Prokofy is complaining about are in that group
[12:19] Alexa Linden: but what if your views don't match theirs? then you're back to the same issue
[12:19] Wyn Galbraith: Except that Prokofy would never approve of anyone sat as a Linden delegate.
[12:19] Michael McLuhan: dont make it democratic how delegates are assigned.
[12:19] Matthew Dowd: is there any reall evidence of abuse apart from the odd mistake or one or two sepcific cases?
[12:19] Gigs Taggart: rob: if only good citizens can close than only the assigner or good citizens should be able to reopen also.
[12:19] Alexa Linden: touche Wyn
[12:19] Gigs Taggart: I mean the reporter
[12:20] Soft Linden: I'm going to edit the title of this one. From the title, some might read this to mean the opposite of what the body implies.
[12:20] Michael McLuhan: reopen should be available to the original person filing
[12:20] Michael McLuhan: just like support
[12:20] Henri Beauchamp agrees with Michael.
[12:20] Gigs Taggart: soft yes I think that explains michael's confusion :)
[12:20] Michael McLuhan: jira mechanics shouldnt be much different than support tickets
[12:20] Domchi Underwood: The question is, what's technicalley possible in JIRA. JIRA tends to be non-customizable in such things.
[12:20] Wyn Galbraith: Reopen is already available, correct?
[12:20] Henri Beauchamp: yes, fro everyone
[12:20] Henri Beauchamp: + for
[12:21] Gigs Taggart: wyn yes, reopen by pissed off users who see it "resolve" as "fixed internally" is a major hassle
[12:21] Rob Linden: Michael: this isn't a support tool
[12:21] Gigs Taggart: that bug is coming up soon on the agenda too :)
[12:21] Michael McLuhan: its what then? seems to me getting bugs organized is a support tool
[12:21] Aric Linden: does it seem that we have a plan for this?
[12:21] Michael McLuhan: for develpers
[12:22] Aric Linden likes that prokovy spawned so much dialog on the topic
[12:22] Gigs Taggart: What is the plan? I'd rather it stay the way it is than only allowing good citizens to do it.
[12:22] Rob Linden: Michael: it's a tool for developers to keep track of issues
[12:22] Michael McLuhan: issue, bug, ok nomenclature.
[12:23] Soft Linden: Can we "needs-more-info" this, asking for a list of issues where the current ability has been abused? Then, if it's just 1-2 abusers (if any), we can start by talking to them rather than locking everything up.
[12:23] Gigs Taggart: if it were linden only it could quickly become as useless as the old FVT
[12:23] Rob Linden: good idea, Soft
[12:23] Jason Swain: I liked to keep it open to all
[12:23] Alexa Linden: noted
[12:23] Wyn Galbraith: It's Linden only on the internal jira, correct? So should be open to all in the PJira.
[12:23] Gigs Taggart: well the answer to that question is going to be VWR-3071
[12:23] Aric Linden agrees with Rob on Soft's idea
[12:24] Wyn Galbraith agrees with Soft.
[12:24] Daedalus Young: besides that, Lindens should use their time for better things
[12:24] Chilli Cao: I found it very usefull to re-open an issue that was "resolved" after the region restart, original reporter was not checking the issue, and today it got the attention it needed
[12:24] Aric Linden: examples may help us better understand the problem
[12:24] Jason Swain agrees with softs comment
[12:24] Rob Linden: k....well, let's talk about VWR-3071
[12:24] Gigs Taggart: Examples are myself and Lex!
[12:24] Alexa Linden: hahahaha
[12:24] Rob Linden: ossm
[12:24] Gigs Taggart: those are the names you are going to get
[12:24] Aric Linden: let's resolve needs more info and ask for specifics
[12:25] Rob Linden: sold
[12:25] Alexa Linden: noted
[12:25] Wyn Galbraith sighs, "Hacker use to mean you just liked to stay up all night programming."
[12:25] Gigs Taggart: VWR-3071 is a duplicate of VWR-2811
[12:25] Gigs Taggart: I tried to close it twice
[12:25] Gigs Taggart: well, resolve
[12:25] Aric Linden: and what happened?
[12:25] Matthew Dowd: jira is so slow!
[12:25] Wyn Galbraith: It doesn't look hooked up to 2811
[12:25] Gigs Taggart: Prokofy says it's different
[12:26] Gigs Taggart: Wyn, it has issue links
[12:26] Rob Linden: my sense on VWR-3071 is that we should keep it open for now, but link it to the same internal jira issue
[12:27] Alexa Linden: noted
[12:27] Rob Linden looks up internal num for VWR-2811
[12:27] Matthew Dowd: 2811 is closed!
[12:27] Gigs Taggart: 2811 is wontfix
[12:27] Wyn Galbraith isn't seeing the issue links.
[12:27] Gigs Taggart: steve wontfixed 2811
[12:27] Squirrel Wood: Prokofy certainly is not going to accept "Won'tFix" as an answer
[12:27] Gigs Taggart: VWR-2908 is the actionable items we could get out of 2811
[12:27] Wyn Galbraith facepalms, "Was in the wrong one."
[12:27] Aric Linden: It's wontfix because the new search implementation should resolve this
[12:28] Gigs Taggart: and VWR-2908 is fixed internally
[12:28] Aric Linden: maybe if we let prokofy close it, she'll feel comfortable with the closure?
[12:28] Wyn Galbraith: Can't fix what's been replaced.
[12:28] Rob Linden: oh, 2908 may be the one I'm thinking of
[12:28] Wyn Galbraith: You can ask.
[12:28] Gigs Taggart: Aric 2811 is calling for search to be opt-in rather than opt-out
[12:28] Gigs Taggart: as is prokofy's
[12:28] Aric Linden: hold please, I'm looking
[12:29] Gigs Taggart: Steve is strongly opposed to this idea.
[12:29] Gigs Taggart: 2908 is about repairing the "not really for sale" items and not listing no-copy items
[12:29] Michael McLuhan: those that have things to hide should be pretty quick on the learning curve to opt out.
[12:29] Squirrel Wood: opt-in would result in content present inworld where the owners don't play anymore not to show up in search at all
[12:30] Matthew Dowd: mmmm, I may have to chase James linden on his fix - the show in search checkbox should be enabled for all objects you own regardless of the permissions
[12:30] Henri Beauchamp: The problem is that it might already be too late when you opt out... Google will already have archived it...
[12:30] Matthew Dowd: his comment implies otherwise
[12:30] Gigs Taggart: matthew what do you mean?
[12:30] Michael McLuhan: google displays on effective permission though, ya? who cares about the archive?
[12:30] Seg Baphomet: HAY GUYS
[12:31] Daedalus Young: hi
[12:31] Squirrel Wood: Yellow Seg
[12:31] Matthew Dowd: James' comment on 2908 is "When the next client ships, you will be able to turn off the "for sale" checkbox for objects you own, are set for sale, but cannot be transfered. (Also for objects set for sale copy, with no copy permissions)"
[12:31] Aric Linden: Hi Seg
[12:31] Theodore Folsom: Hi Seg
[12:31] Gigs Taggart: matthew there's no point is listing them for sale if they are no-transfer
[12:31] Matthew Dowd: but the owner should always be able to set/unset show in search
[12:31] Gigs Taggart: matthew no one can buy them
[12:31] Soft Linden: Google would sure be a boring place if the web had been opt-in.
[12:31] Matthew Dowd: Oh, sorry, I misread, I thought he was talking about the for search box not the for sale box!
[12:32] Gigs Taggart: soft hehe
[12:32] Daedalus Young: yes, robots.txt on sites basically is an opt-out system as well
[12:32] Seg Baphomet: Remember Yahoo?
[12:32] Gigs Taggart: there is one solution
[12:32] Domchi Underwood: The cache/archive problem might be solved with no-archive header on the web page, if I'm not mistaken
[12:32] Henri Beauchamp agrees with Domchi
[12:32] Gigs Taggart: a parcel setting, separate from the normal parcel search that asks "list items on this parcel in search"
[12:32] Gigs Taggart: that would solve this issue
[12:33] Michael McLuhan: we dont need 10 ways to opt in or out.
[12:33] Gigs Taggart: it could still be opt out but if it's opt-out on a whole parcel level I believe that people would be more accepting
[12:33] Henri Beauchamp:
[12:33] Daedalus Young: hm, I rent a shop and have nothing to say over the parcel, really
[12:33] Aric Linden: Gigs: wouldn't you then need a way to opt specifics out?
[12:33] Michael McLuhan: if the parcel says exclude it, then exclude it.
[12:33] Wyn Galbraith: Don't want search to come up with 10kzillion objects called objects either.
[12:33] Gigs Taggart: aric, you would still have the per-item search
[12:34] Tillie Ariantho: I still vote for opt in, not opt out!
[12:34] Gigs Taggart: aric I mean you could make items not for sale if you don't want them in search
[12:34] Wyn Galbraith: Default is not for sale on objects.
[12:34] Michael McLuhan: put forsale items on the parcel that says search is good
[12:34] Tillie Ariantho: Better something is not on sale that you set to sale by error than a sale that doesnt sell because you didnt set it for sale.
[12:34] Henri Beauchamp also prefers to have -all- web based searches as an opt-in feature.
[12:34] Henri Beauchamp: Privacy issues there...
[12:34] Wyn Galbraith: Tillie makes my head spin.
[12:35] Michael McLuhan: game stats that are marked for publishing are private?
[12:35] Tillie Ariantho: What I mean is: If you set something for sale by error, you dont want anyone to buy it, right?
[12:35] Michael McLuhan: have them unmark for searching like we did on our profiles
[12:35] Aric Linden: I think we need to revisit this internally, factoring in the feedback we're getting here
[12:35] Tillie Ariantho: So make it default, that items are NOT found.
[12:35] Soft Linden: Here's the pragmatic point I see: There are already bots that scan for for-sale objects. If we go opt-out on search, that adds more incentive for bots to crawl and feed info th third-party search sites. It would add much less load to have them crawling our existing search listings.
[12:35] Michael McLuhan: let LL provide the listings so the bots dont have to
[12:35] Wyn Galbraith: Good point Soft.
[12:36] Squirrel Wood: hmm.. Odd. things rez in a totally different place than where I dragged them on the ground :(
[12:36] Tillie Ariantho: Yeah, but better have bots that have to do active search than just list all stuff in search!
[12:36] Aric Linden nods at Michael
[12:36] Gigs Taggart: tillie, why?
[12:36] Tillie Ariantho: To make it harder to loose them?
[12:36] Michael McLuhan: opt in default, people learn how to work the controls.
[12:36] Gigs Taggart: to loose what?
[12:37] Tillie Ariantho: those items you set to sale by error?
[12:37] Aric Linden: Folks, I'd like to move us forward. I'm wondering if we can simply capture this part of the chat history and have steve and James take a look at it and discuss
[12:37] Gigs Taggart: oh, you mean lose :)
[12:37] Aric Linden: is that a workable solution for everyone?
[12:37] Gigs Taggart: I was thinking "the bots are already loose!"
[12:37] Tillie Ariantho: that too, gigs. .P
[12:37] Daedalus Young: fine with me Aric
[12:37] Wyn Galbraith agrees.
[12:37] Tillie Ariantho too
[12:37] Soft Linden: Sure, or this may be a good continued sldev discussion.
[12:38] Domchi Underwood: From Internet Archive FAQ:
[12:38] Domchi Underwood: Site owners, copyright holders and others who fit Internet Archive's exclusion policy have requested that the site be excluded from the Wayback Machine. For exclusion criteria, please see our exclusion policy (we use the same one used and developed by other digital repositories and archivists both academic and non-academic).
[12:38] Aric Linden: Agreed Soft
[12:38] Domchi Underwood: Might be a way to exclude search from archive, but allow Google.
[12:38] Aric Linden: I don't think we're going to resolve this here
[12:38] Domchi Underwood: Agreed, let's move on.
[12:38] Tillie Ariantho: yes, next! :D
[12:38] Aric Linden: and it feels as though we're beginning to revisit topics
[12:38] Rob Linden: ok....so there's two parts to this issue. one is the resolution of the issue itself, which we've done
[12:38] Aric Linden: thanks all!
[12:38] Matthew Dowd: is the for sale object default to show in search (on land set to show in search) always the case for newly rezzed objects, or just for the initial load of the new search engine?
[12:38] Michael McLuhan: if you get backup from your archive, then who cares, make sure the display on query is correct based on ownership and permissions
[12:39] Rob Linden: the other is whether there was anything particularly abusive....
[12:39] Daedalus Young: funny thing is Wayback machine still archives, even if they're not allowed to, I found that out by allowing them and suddenly finding my old pages
[12:39] Rob Linden: that warrants a change in policy (per Prok)
[12:39] Rob Linden: I didn't see anything
[12:39] Aric Linden: Gigs, you wanted a ping on https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-442
[12:39] Gigs Taggart: yes
[12:39] Aric Linden: whatup?
[12:39] Gigs Taggart: it's a pretty important patch considering the consequence of messing up
[12:39] Gigs Taggart: you could lose control of land you own
[12:39] Gigs Taggart: etc
[12:40] Gigs Taggart: it's been sitting around for months
[12:40] Soft Linden: Anyway: Pepsi, emacs, matte finish, Ford, OS X, *GNU*/Debian, and opt-out. We're done!
[12:40] Henri Beauchamp votes for VWR-442 too
[12:40] Soft Linden: VWR-442 looks like a win alright.
[12:40] Aric Linden looks at Soft curiously
[12:41] Aric Linden: Let's grab this 442 shall we?
[12:41] Alexa Linden: assign to?
[12:41] Squirrel Wood: 442 is certainly something that needs to be put in ^^
[12:41] Soft Linden: Yup! Might run it by Benjamin just to be sure, but given how much you can forfeit by slipping up and assigning thewrong role...
[12:41] Bridie Linden: 442 already has been imported
[12:41] Soft Linden: Ah!
[12:41] Theodore Folsom: gewd
[12:41] Gigs Taggart: yeah that's why it was a ping instead of a normal triage item
[12:41] Gigs Taggart: more like... hey guys :)
[12:42] Tillie Ariantho: hehe
[12:42] Soft Linden: And it's already assigned to Rx internally
[12:42] Bridie Linden: Sorry Gigs, gotcha
[12:42] Soft Linden: Last input was Ben asked for a screenshot to approve the dialog. I'll mention on the internal that there's one there.
[12:42] Theodore Folsom: Yup yups
[12:42] Aric Linden: Thanks Soft
[12:42] Aric Linden: let's move on to https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-383
[12:43] Gigs Taggart: WEB-383 is pretty straightforward, the page is wrong, newbs will be confused. :)
[12:43] Aric Linden glances around: really nice turnout today
[12:43] Aric Linden: Alexa, let's take 383 - please assign it directly to Jeff Linden
[12:43] Alexa Linden: noted
[12:43] katykiwi Moonflower: any update on the price fixing on rez bug
[12:43] Daedalus Young: I'm confused and I don't see myself a newb anymore
[12:43] Tillie Ariantho: Sure Aric, important agenda. .P
[12:44] Michael McLuhan: you too can have a free alt is what it should read
[12:44] Daedalus Young: I finally got Payment info on file this week! :D so no newb
[12:44] Caroline Ra: noob or not its still easy to assign owner to someone you didnt want to if youre tired/emotional
[12:44] Aric Linden: price fixing onrez bug?
[12:44] Rob Linden: for the record, I wasn't aware of a change in policy there.
[12:44] Gigs Taggart: caroline we are on the next bug now
[12:44] Aric Linden grins at Tillie
[12:44] katykiwi Moonflower: the one where you rex a group of items and all the prices change
[12:44] Gigs Taggart: Rob: I've confirmed it with testing and also mercia says she asked concierge
[12:44] Michael McLuhan: group of items you rez gets one price set on them instead of the individual prices they had when collected.
[12:45] Daedalus Young: coalesced object bug
[12:45] Gigs Taggart: if we could stick to the agenda
[12:45] Gigs Taggart: we have a lot to get through
[12:45] Gigs Taggart: and time is runnign short
[12:45] Daedalus Young: yes, I prefer to too, I'm still confused over the alt
[12:46] Tillie Ariantho: Yes, I saw that in a skin shop too.
[12:46] Gigs Taggart: daedalus alts are free now... the page doesn't reflect that :P
[12:46] Aric Linden: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-380 is where we at
[12:46] Daedalus Young: ok thx :)
[12:46] Tillie Ariantho: Designer did boxes and demo boxes, took them all at once and then placed them in the shop ...
[12:47] Tillie Ariantho: the demo boxes were all no 0L anymore but the same as the sales boxes.
[12:47] Aric Linden: focus?
[12:47] Rob Linden: import and assign WEB-380 to me
[12:47] Alexa Linden: noted
[12:47] Aric Linden: Thanks Rob
[12:47] Aric Linden: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-488 is next
[12:47] Rob Linden: there's more discussion on that issue we should probably have, but I don't need to have it here in this meeting
[12:47] You: So does that mean WEB-380 is resolved?
[12:48] Daedalus Young: no
[12:48] Alexa Linden: it's being imported
[12:48] Tillie Ariantho: Rob is looking at it. Or having someone to look at it. .D
[12:48] Gigs Taggart: someone that knows the gray goo code should check on MISC-488
[12:48] Aric Linden: Let's import 488 please
[12:48] Aric Linden: I'd like to repro it in QA
[12:48] Alexa Linden: assign to
[12:48] Gigs Taggart: I wonder if these people are using temp rezzers..
[12:48] Alexa Linden: ok
[12:48] Rob Linden: does it belong in MISC?
[12:48] Aric Linden: to me Please Alexa
[12:48] Daedalus Young: well I've seen Starax things rez other objects
[12:49] Gigs Taggart: probably SVC is better on 488
[12:49] Alexa Linden: will move to svc and import
[12:49] Carrot: Hello, Avatar!
[12:49] Soft Linden: Yeah, Dominic gives a good solid repro there
[12:50] Daedalus Young: ahh... Group perms specific
[12:50] Daedalus Young: good one
[12:50] Aric Linden: Here's a patch https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3272
[12:50] Gigs Taggart: 3272 looks similar to cards that were being put into class 0 that were modern
[12:50] Aric Linden: yes.
[12:51] Soft Linden: Not actually a patch - they just replaced the file. But close enough!
[12:51] Gigs Taggart: yeah
[12:51] Gigs Taggart: if they own the cards I'd be inclined to take their word for it
[12:51] Soft Linden: I'd import that and pass it on to the WL guys
[12:51] Alexa Linden: will do
[12:51] Gigs Taggart: unless there was a specific reason
[12:51] Nexxus Ambassador: I am confused. Does this mean the shader is NOT installed in the present version of WindLight, and to use it we must install the patch?
[12:51] Aric Linden: I think we need to do a better job of letting people know that some cards are disabled or set to low values based on our performance expectations
[12:52] Gigs Taggart: nexxux only certain cards had it disabled
[12:52] Aric Linden: what platform are you on Nexxus?
[12:52] Michael McLuhan: do any of the disabled cards support directx9?
[12:52] Gigs Taggart: yes
[12:52] Aric Linden: certain cards, certain os'
[12:52] Nexxus Ambassador: How would we know? I mean, would there be a box or slider missing or greyed out?
[12:52] Michael McLuhan: blech
[12:52] Gigs Taggart: ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9600/9700 Series
[12:52] Gigs Taggart: that is the one in question here
[12:52] Michael McLuhan: those dont suck real bad
[12:53] Seg Baphomet: I don't get environmental shaders with windlight on a Mobile Radeon 9600.
[12:53] Rob Linden wonders if this is a critical issue as marked
[12:53] Seg Baphomet: It should be quite capable of it.
[12:54] Daedalus Young: therefor it was filed as a bug, Seg ;)
[12:54] Aric Linden: I don't think so Rob.
[12:54] Seg Baphomet: Linux/fglrx that is.
[12:54] Daedalus Young: and patched, so you should get it in the next release, probably
[12:54] Aric Linden: We debated this a LOT internally
[12:54] Aric Linden: it seemed like a reasonable trade-off
[12:54] Tillie Ariantho: If the graphics sucks for you and you are an SL photographer, it might be critical to you? .P
[12:54] Henri Beauchamp: 9700 are slow... but their shaders can definitely be used. Let the choice to the users via a setting ?

[hopefully the complete transcript -- this is only nearly complete -- will be on the JIRA WIKI TIKI WOO soon].

So...There are many arguments against all this -- I started by filing this IM with Soft:

"Prokofy Neva: Soft, your arguments against my JIRA proposals/bugs are completely unpersuasive. There are landbots that search for land set below market, but I've never seen a bot that searches for anything set to sale to buy it below market -- that's way more complex. You're making that up -- there isn't such a bot. If there is, let's get the name, parcel, item, shall we? Ok, then.

So your concept that Google is boring without populating by force is perhaps valid for pieces of information and web pages. But we are people in an interactive social world, not pages, and not objects. So we don't want day-trippers teleporting in on us constantly looking to pick up something not for sale, or inadvertently set for sale, i.e. a TV needing undeeding. You don't live in the world. You don't have customers in the world. Therefore you are not getting this whatsoever in your geek coder cave. Please stop trying to populate your search at our expense. Google doesn't need a thousand pairs of red shoes out of Second Life. The people of
Second Life need a social search that helps them find the best red shoes. You seriously are out of touch. We don't need to become like Google. In fact we are better, because SL enables networks and picks and traffic to tell you more informed and knowledgeable and smart searches than Google ever gets with its mindless robotic scraping and ad-pushing.

Prokofy Neva: You fail to grasp that Grid Shepherd was forced -- under huge community uproar -- to desist with his scrape. He doesn't roam looking for non-transfer sale items anymore because Chris and Cory fixed that bug on their version of the viewer ages ago -- and they were forced to move to an opt-in format and bolster the opt-out -- anyone can ban Grid Shepherd and also get out of the dbase. It's not a perfect protection, but it's better than what you are planning on shipping.

Here's a snapshot that shows how you are violating my tenants' privacy -- these items were not deliberately set to sale -- they are either non-transferrable, or inadvertently set to sales. Those things that are intended for sale in stalls aren't intended to be in global search necessarily -- and people should have a CHOICE. Google doesn't need this. Privacy and choice are more important. This is a world."

Comments

[Ann Otoole]

so now there are "good citizens" eh? guess i'm not a "good citizen" and neither is 99.9999999999% of secondlife. i think more publicity needs to be given to this "good citizen" thing. what will the vast majority of sl think when they find out they are not "good citizens"?

must we all be white with a shaved head and a nazi tattoo to be a good citizen?

[Cocoanut Koala]

What is this "good citizen" thing?

Do you mean some people have been assigned to be "good citizens" and close anything they want on Jira?

coco

[Prokofy Neva]

I think in their hot-house little world, they imagine that any one who obsessively cleans up the JIRA is a "good citizen". And anyone who challenges the will of the "good citizens" is a "bad citizen". It's awful. Such a perversion of a good concept.

[Harleen Gretzky]

When did Soft ever say there were bots "that searches for anything set to sale to buy it below market"? To me, she said she would prefer bots to search the SL search database instead of parcels like Grid Shephard did.
And she does live inworld, she was/is Soft Noel before she was Soft Linden.

[Prokofy Neva]

I don't care if she's Soft Icecream.

She sure did say there were bots searching for objects for sale. What would be the reason to search for objects for sale unless they were a) $0 price or b) below market.

And she can't prove this is the case anyway. Where are these bots that search for items for sale?!

The Sheep used to have Grid Shepherd that did this the way the Linden search did it with the exact same bug. They fixed it. And they mitigated it under community pressure.

Her point was that if you didn't give bots their head, and enable everything to show up for sale everywhere, they'd search third-party sites. I never heard a more retarded argument. Destructive, and retarded.

Now I understand why Soft was so zealous and landed hard on both feet with this, bustling around to edit the word in the proposal (rolls eyes) although the word I chose is perfectly fine and certain conveys the issue far more strongly (for a mechanism that would do this), and her demands for lists of miscreants arbitrarily closing issues -- asif they don't exist and she doesn't believe it -- lets us know who's side she's on.

I tell you, these Lindens who have been residents in the past always have axes to grind and they can be far worse than the Lindens without a past who never come inworld.

[Harleen Gretzky]

You search for for sale items so you can list them in a database, how would a bot know that they are below market anyway? Grid Shepherd proves it can be done. Her point was that if LL does not pre-populate their database, bots will populate third-party databases, not search them, because SL's database would be inadequate.

[Prokofy Neva]

Why should bots be searching for sale items to list in a database? Only if they wish to exploit the citizens of Second Life.

We don't need to encourage the population of any database, third-party or Linden, by bots or by automatic processes. We need to have the users in charge. A website or a blog isn't search until you press PUBLISH. The people of Second Life aren't getting the option to press PUBLISH.

I simply don't buy Soft's argumentation, which is specious. It's like saying, let's give addicts clean needles and distribute Chlorox to stop AIDS, but then never attempting to stop drug-trafficking or drug addiction in any other way. It's one of those "harm reduction" ideologies, something like "let's let ageplayers act out in SL so they don't in RL".

Second Life is a complex social space and over-automization causes more problems than it solves.

Again, please indicate what bots there are now that are putting items for sale with this bugginess in a dbase -- the Sheep one is no longer doing it. It's not as if there are that many searc pages.

Most search pages have social tagging, and opt-in. You get a cube and decide to activate it yourself or you add to a webpage yourself.

[Harleen Gretzky]

You create the database so people can search for things they want to buy, if I want a pair of black boots I can search for them. The same reason ESC did it. The reason most use inworld objects and other methods to populate is because it is a lot easier than creating a bot to do it. I do not necessary buy Soft's argument either, just pointing out what it is. I have never researched the bots that exist so have no idea what is out there.

[Prokofy Neva]

What's actually sickly fascinating about this transcript -- and Coco pointed it out to me too -- is the cringing way in which people talk about me behind my back.

Instead of talking normally, like, "This point of Prokofy's was valid, I support it for these reasons" or "This point of Prokofy's argument is weak, here's why" -- in some normal, common-sense way, they both infantalize themselves and project some ogre-like nature on me, saying, oh, Prokofy might not like this, oh, Prokofy might not close this, oh, Prokofy should be allowed to close this blah blah blah.

It lets me know how they think. It shows their awful inner life projected. They live in fear like this of everything, they are terribly insecure, and that's the basis for their big BDSM and authoritarian posture, it helps them feel less insecure. They are cowards.

There's nothing I've said that isn't *rational* and reasonably argued. For example, if I call a proposal, "JIRAs cannot be closed without author's consent," it's a statement about how a mechanism should be set it up. Soft Linden changes it to "JIRAs shouldn't be closed" as if to say, oh, let me SOFTEN this a bit -- which is her only motivation -- and then rationalizing that a person making a proposal must cast it in the subjunctive, never imagining that it will be in the imperative, and implemented.

It's a terrible insight into the unfree world they live in.

[Thraxis Epsilon]

As for other bots crawling the grid: http://webi.slbrowser.com:8080/webadapter/results.jsp?query=Ravenglass

Have fun.

As for how people discuss you behind your back. It's no worse then how you spit venom about people on your blog. Behind many many peoples back as well, as not everyone knows about, or reads your blog.

As for your constant denigration of anyone with a technical knowledge greater then yours. It gets old. We do belong to communities, and in those communities we are in contact and discuss things with people who have both technical and non-technical backgrounds. We also as keep a loose contact with each other and can compare or ask for objective testing of specific issues. We don't look for recognition, we don't tell others how to think. But we do work to make SL a better place.

And what have you done for SL in the last two years? What great good have you brought about? In all your bitching and moaning your venom filled posts, your hysterical rants?

You got yourself in the papers.
You made yourself a target for griefers.
And you've made some money renting land.

And what have we, the horrible horrible people that we are... the "TECHIES" (you really must put it in all caps or bold... that's how evil we are)

We've produced countless bug reproductions.
We've produced patches for several critical issues that the community clamored for
We've helped make the client more stable (*salutes Nicholaz*)
We've suggested new features to make SL better.

[Prokofy Neva]

I don't care if people discuss me behind my back. I find it humorous how much they project themselves in doing so, as I indicated.

You are a frequent-flyer contrarian on this blog, and I remember you all to well. You are one of the botherations on the JIRA, too.

I sure do denigrate people with techical knowledge *that use it to try to exercise arbitrary power over other people with impunity*. That's what it's about. It's not about "technical knowledge". There are many people with technical knowledge who are kind, reasonable, and good, and use logic and persuasion, not cynicism, insolence, and hate to explain their technology.

You're not one of those people. Neither are these so-called "good citizens" of the JIRA.

You aren't making Second Life a better place. You are sinking it into a black hole that it may never emerge from, and it could pull us all down. That's why I fight it.

This idea that you are all 'special' and on this special network where you're the smart ones and you're surrounded by idiots is fatal. Absolutely fatal.

Unlike you, I don't have to recite my accomplishments because they stand on their own and speak for themselves. To cite but one tiny example: many people paying $195 and not $295 for their islands all this year have me to thank for this : )

Your bugs are obscure and stupid -- not a single one that we can see have really benefited our real Second Lifes. You are phonies, and I mean that seriously, and I mean that in the worst possible way.

Nicholaz, God bless him, made a better viewer. I don't know if he even claims he made the Lindens' client more stable.

The new features you suggested are tekkie geeky inanities often, with no bearing on the real lives of most people in Second Life.

Seriously, you need the most forceful, most major challenge that I could ever give you, and I'm here to give it to you, if no one else will.

[Khamon]

"you all have no clue how much junk we close every day" -Gigs Taggart

[Desmond Shang]

>>Unlike you, I don't have to recite my accomplishments because they stand on their own and speak for themselves. To cite but one tiny example: many people paying $195 and not $295 for their islands all this year have me to thank for this : )

* * * * *

What did you do?

I'm not asking that in a challenging way; I just want to know why you say this.

I've been rather privately involved in civil feedback myself on this issue for a long time, and I know that I am by far not the only one, especially in number of sims.

I won't drag some other land baron names into it (they will speak for themselves if they choose) but I suspect we've all been very much on the same page.

[Ciaran Laval]

"you all have no clue how much junk we close every day" -Gigs Taggart

Great way to completely undermine the Jira process right there.

[Prokofy Neva]

http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/10/ll_confirms_pri.html

http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/10/sticker_shock.html

By breaking this story on the scandal of the Lindens letting their pets have a crack at the $195 price before they hiked it, I helped publicize this issue widely so that the Lindens relented and gave 30 days for purchases of the cheaper islands that would preserve that rate. Many, many more people bought them than would have, if they had only been open as a special deal for the dev list for a short period. The Lindens had to lay on many more islands at that price than they would have liked to sell at that price.

[Desmond Shang]

Ah, fair enough.

Indeed, many of us knew via contacts, but by and large I'd say that's a compelling argument.

[Prokofy Neva]

There isn't any "many of us" Desmond. There are people on the insiders dev list, the Glenn Linden list. It's not a number of more than a few hundreds.

[WarKirby Magojiro]

Ironically, the magic of Google alerts has found this blog entry for me.

Closing junk does not undermine jira. The junk being cleaned allows proper issues to actually be seen. Junk is support requests, duplicates, impossible issues. things that are not actionable.

[Prokofy Neva]

I don't know what is "ironic" about the "magic of Google alerts," because news and information are good things to scoop up and find on Google. People's privacy, their objects, their private properties in a world are NOT a good thing to Googlize and destroy.

Closing junk undermines liberal democracy because you have one idea of what is "junk" but many other people have quite another. And you shouldn't get to decide. Issues shouldn't be decided as impossible by *you*. Perfectly find proposals like Nicholas' got scuttled for no good reason, merely under peer pressure and political maneuvering. If there are duplicates, they can be merged, which should be a separate operation, not "closed". You are not trustworthy in deciding what is "actionable" because you have your own narrow sectarian agenda.

[Thraxis Epsilon]

Nicolas' proposal did not get scuttled. HE closed it on his own. He then expanded and seperated it into seperate related proposals. Proposals that right now are still open on the JIRA.

[Thraxis Epsilon]

Nicolas' proposal did not get scuttled. HE closed it on his own. He then expanded and seperated it into seperate related proposals. Proposals that right now are still open on the JIRA.

[Prokofy Neva]

Thraxis, you are obdurately refusing to read what I actually put about Nicholas: obviously he closed his own proposal, but I pointed out that he closed it under peer pressure -- because people ganged up on him and argued strenuously with him and talked him out of it. It was a GOOD proposal. If I'm not mistaken, in fact it's what we used to have. What he separated it into isn't the same thing. It was simpler and more elegant the way he first had it.

The argumentation that people used was specious, non-persuasive, and amounted to "that's not the way we do things here".

[Ordinal Malaprop]

Nicholaz has just written a very good piece on Philip's recent post, where he shows that he is quite aware that his own fixes have _not_ been taken up and incorporated, and that the immediate needs to be addressed rather than dealing with roadmaps and future plans.

[Ordinal Malaprop]

Oh, sorry, a link to it:

http://nicholaz-beresford.blogspot.com/2007/11/long-road-behind-long-road-ahead.html