Griefers Take to the Waves at SLSF Cup

by Alphaville Herald on 19/07/06 at 10:49 am

by Pixeleen Mistral, Herald sports desk

Welcome, Griefer
– Philip Linden

Griefsail
Sailor Espresso Saarinen (pink hair in the foreground) points out two suspected underwater griefers to event security just before being sent into orbit himself. Photo courtesy of Espresso Saarinen.

Herald readers have observed that public events in SL always have a the possibility of a game of griefer cops and robbers in addition to the nominal event. Last Saturday, while mildly minding her own business and trying to cover a sporting event, your correspondent was sent into orbit three times in the space of two hours, in spite of (or perhaps because of?) the presence of a hired security force.

While this may speak volumes about SL’s suitability as a platform for serious pursuits, it does provide a certain level of theatre of the absurd to supplement the entertainment value of an event. If the Herald keeps sending me on these assignments and the Lindens don’t start allowing for better policing of their own land, I will be forced to file additional expense reports for certain, ahhhh . . . aides and accessories, let us say . . . so that I can stay at the event site long enough to get the story. This is bound to get expensive fast, but the story has to come first, and the Herald has a grand tradition of investigative journalism to uphold.

With SL’s limited tools, it is impossible to prove exactly who was launching boats into orbit during the four races that were held by the Second Life Sailing Federation on Saturday, but no race was completely disrupted, as most sailors found ways to finish in the races before the time limit. In one case the boat I was in was launched into the air, but landed in the water, and we simply continued sailing. I think everyone was orbited at least once, and the sailors that shrugged it off seemed to perform better than those who felt it necessary to complain to the event organizers. As is the case in many sports, whining to the referee does not seem to be a winning strategy.

Over the last year, Kanker Greenacre’s Flying Tako sailboat has developer a vigorous (and at time acrimonious) racing community. There are now two yacht clubs with well over 200 members each, and three newer clubs, all of which offer a somewhat different take on sailboat racing. The goal of the SLSF Cup was to increase awareness, sailing sites, and participation in SL sailboat racing. But the reality of this sort of multi-week, high visibility event is a strange pentathlon of fun, combining cops and robbers griefing, Linden-schmoozing, politics, mainland/island land struggles, and even a bit of sailing.

Saturday was the first of six weekly events leading up to the two weekends of championship races, to be held August 26-7 and September 2-3. Previously, each of the five participating yacht clubs selected teams of up to four sailors for the SLSF Cup series. Each club enters one boat in each race with a captain steering and tactician to assist. Teams can switch boat crews between races, so there are potentially 20 sailors involved in an event, plus event organizers, hired security, and spectators. Your correspondent was the tactician for both Oliphant Ming and Skippy Spatula.

Shortly before the first race, Oliphant and I were sent flying two sims south, but simply flew back to the start, rezed a boat, and sailed the race. During that race, two other boats were lost due to either a sim crash or some sort of weapon. Dark comments were made by a few sailors that this would keep happening, which makes one wonder how they could predict that. In any case, during the next three races, some sort of man-made mishap occurred to at least one boat per race, nearly always the boat which was in the lead. It was difficult to believe that this could have been chance, and the hunt for perpetrators was on.

Follow-up interviews with various participants (sailors, security, suspected griefers) did little to solve the mystery. The lack of any sort of temporary permit system for the the virtual commons (in this case the water sims near the ANWR sim), results in resident conflict that could be avoided were there a process for securing official temporary usage rights. The usual Linden suggestion of buying or renting sims from Linden labs seems unlikely to be appropriate for short 1-2 hour events, so the residents press on, and are presented with a multi-faceted sporting experience that includes some non-traditional and extreme sports — including impromptu griefer hunts, marathon Linden help sessions and grid monkey wrestling.

Loki Clifton’s SL-Security group had been contracted for the nearly impossible task of locking down a Linden protected sim (the event was being held in Linden water sims), and the rules of engagement were such that a “shoot first, ask questions later” approach to security was not an option, given the preferences of the event organizers. This put Security in the position of saying, “Stop! Or I will say Stop again!” Here, the conflict between the Terms of Service, abuse reporting, and residents with conflicting ideas about who has right to use the space is brought into sharp relief.

After a sailor located two avatars on the ocean floor, Security attempted to persuade them to move on. I interviewed one of the alleged griefers, who took the position that Security was trying to bully them off a spot that they think of as “theirs.” Without some sort of official Linden-blessing for the event, this turned into a contest of the wills. This raises the question of why there is no process for issuing a sort of parade permit for events that occur on Governor Linden’s land. Temporary right to use the commons has been an accepted practice in RL, and it is odd that Linden Lab does not provide for this in SL. Without any sort of temporary use/parade permit (and tools to control those disrupting an event) drama and low level ToS violation are inevitable.

In talking with Loki, he seemed to be trying to offer an alternative to the usual goons and mafias and was willing to take a “shoot as a last resort” approach if that is what his client wants. Loki also mentioned that one of the two suspects has a psiTech implant, and after looking over the psiTech manual, that does seem suspicious. Once the event had been called (after four races) the griefing suddenly stopped, and Skippy Spatula and I sailed the course without trouble. This lends some credence to Loki’s suggestion that this was not random griefing.

Reactions to the the event interruption seemed to follow mainland/island affiliations fairly closely. Those invested in islands look at this as yet another reason to move to a private island where they can control everything. Those affiliated with the mainland look for ways to make use of the shared commons. Since four of the five yacht clubs are on the mainland, finding a way to effectively deal with griefing should be a valid concern for everyone.

Another issue in planning the event was the variable performance of Linden water sims. The venue originally planned to host the first event was found to be unbearably laggy on Monday night, and a mass IM to Live Help from the assembled sailors eventually resulted in a visit from Red Linden, who offered hot dogs to anyone who wanted them. I got my first hot dog from a Linden, as the assembled throng pointed out that Max Cases’s Sim Neighbors tool showed the Hepurn sim running on a slow server with far too many other sims.

Investigation of other water sims in the area showed a pattern of significant overbooking of the servers (eight sims on a class-three server that normally would support two sims). Without any assurance that the Lindens would fix this problem, the event was moved to the ANWR sim, where a class-three server hosts two sims per server. Ironically, the buoys and starting line in both Hepurn and ANWR were placed there by the Lindens to help promote sailing, but the grid monkeys seem to have their own ideas. Ideally, Governor Linden would take better care of his water sims when he puts sailor-attracting starting lines and buoys in them.

Although the race committee chose to discard the entire series due to “adverse conditions,” I was able to obtain the unofficial results, and of the four yacht clubs that sailed Saturday the overall results were:

Kazenojin Seiringu (KS) – 6.5 pts.
Vagbonds Yacht Club (VYC) – 8.75 pts.
Mowry Bay Yacht Club (MBYC) – 10.75 pts.
Starboards Yacht Club (SYC) – 15 pts.

Sailing results for individual races:

Race 1
Kanker Greenacre (KS) 10:24 splits 0:06 2:24 4:57 8:27 10:24
Oliphant Ming (VYC) 10:32 splits 0:03 2:33 4:57 8:28 10:32
Jamey Sismondi (MBYC) 17:14 splits 0:29 2:42 10:39 13:50
Faykin Odets (SYC) DNF splits 0:12 2:24 4:44

Race 2
Myrrh Massiel (KS) 11:20 splits 0:11 3:36 5:47 8:26 11:20
Faykin Odets (SYC) 11:32 splits 0:12 4:16 6:22 8:49 11:32
Jamey Sismondi (MBYC) 12:35 splits 0:24 3:41 5:51 9:27 12:35
Oliphant Ming (VYC) 13:20 splits 0:07 3:07 5:38 9:17 13:20

Race 3
Skippy Spatula (VYC) 10:11 splits 0:00 2:17 4:47 7:59 10:11
Kanker Greenacre (KS) 10:18 splits 0:14 2:25 4:52 8:13 10:18
Faykin Odets (SYC) 10:19 splits 0:02 2:11 4:35 7:27 10:19
Jamey Sismondi (MBYC) 11:06 splits 0:01 2:25 5:02 8:42 11:06

Race 4
Jamey Sismondi (MBYC) 12:49 splits 0:01 2:19 5:16 9:35 12:49
Skippy Spatula (VYC) 17:25 splits 0:01 2:14 5:11 13:55 17:25
Myrrh Massiel (KS) 23:34 splits 0:21 2:33 4:56 18:25 23:34
Faykin Odets (SYC) DNF splits 0:02 2:18 4:51

27 Responses to “Griefers Take to the Waves at SLSF Cup”

  1. Anonymous

    Jul 19th, 2006

    Great writeup.

    It brings to focus one of the key elements of sailing in Second Life, namely that adverse conditions are an inevitable fact of grid. Just like RL sailing, where one may encounter equipment failure, bad weather, or unanticipated navigational challenges, there may be all manner of situations requiring quick thinking in the face of adversity.

    SL skippers are accustomed to these sorts of contingencies when sailing recreationally, and racing is no different. At some venues it’s a matter of anticipating sim performance issues, at some it’s coping with dynamic course obstructions, and at others it’s accomodating the sporadic interference of curious passersby. All the popular sailing venues – six yacht clubs plus three Linden Lab courses – manage to host regular regattas where people adapt and have fun in their native environment, regardless.

    The SLSF Cup series brings together all these disparate communities, and by design can’t help but sum each of their unique challenges at some point in the series. Saturday’s regatta was dropped more due to participant disruption than to actual interruption of the races, and it’s telling that unofficial scoring shows those teams which perisited with a good attitude, despite the difficulties, rose to the top of the rankings.

    It’s reflective of the same qualities by which champions succeed at each individual venue.

  2. Max Case

    Jul 19th, 2006

    Hi. I appreciate the mention, but
    “as the assembled throng pointed out that Max Cases’s Sim Neighbors tool showed the Hepurn sim running on a slow server with far too many other sims.”
    Why don’t people ever read the caveats?
    I clearly state:
    “If you are seeing more Sims on your server than there is supposed to be, first thing you want to do is use the go to link to visit those Sims and re-register them with a Registrator-Tron. The info in my database may be out of date.”

    I don’t even know if it’s theoretically possible that they can stack 8 sims on one class 3. :)

  3. Espresso Saarinen

    Jul 20th, 2006

    Goo article. But, for the record, I was not blown anywhere after finding perps. I was officiating, responsible for the North mark, and boats were approaching it so I had to get back to it. I then returned and took the photo shown in the article.

  4. PIxeleen Mistral

    Jul 20th, 2006

    Sorry Espresso, you did correct me, and I didn’t fix the caption in the final draft, which is a shame since accordinng to one of the alleged perpetrators the other perp was orbited a bit after the picture was taken. It was getting hard to keep track of who was getting orbited when…

    Max, we made a point of visiting all the sims with one of your updater HUD thingies before contacting Live Help, so the information was as fresh as it could be…

    I just re-checked jasckle, and your site says it is class 3 and it has at least 8 sims on the same server (Elderbridge, Henshaw, Jasckle, Murray, Odezia, Hanshin, Joseon, Jabiwon) plus two I cannot get to: (T.Mainland2 and QA.Mainland4). And yes, I JSUT vistied each of the sims that are listed as neighbors. What do you think is going on?

  5. Max Case

    Jul 20th, 2006

    So, I have been informed that they did read the caveat, and rechecked te other sims.
    So Feh on Max! :D In which case, i would say ask Lee Linden.
    This would mean it is theoretically possible to stack that many, and maybe they do that for in house void sims? Alternately, it’s always possible there’s a bug in my system :)

  6. Espresso Saarinen

    Jul 20th, 2006

    the maxcase sim measurements were after visiting all neighbors.

    2006.07.15 09:45

    Buckaneer’s is in Christabel, which is on a class 4 server with three neighbors: FurNation Omega, Culture Isle (which I could not visit),
    and Yangbaechu. I visited all the sims and their neighbors while wearing a Registrator-Tron in order to freshen the data at
    .

    The Medium Course starts in Christabel and runs through:
    o Martine, which is on a class 4 server with 12 sims: Hofzinser, Zaharik, Shelef, Kovari, Baltic, Amundsen, Daseuri, Algol, Pavo,
    Vogelriff, and Romney
    o Otherland, which is on a class 4 server with: Aplasta, and Dongmoon
    o Renie, which is on a class 4 server with 14 sims: Capelli, Brindamoor, Smith, Naveh, Rosedale, Adriatic, Inga, Itaipu, Idaea,
    Dongbaekmaeul, Acacia, Byeulddongbyuel, and Terminus (which is getting a Foundation for Rich Content build!).

    006.07.19 00:25

    Cristabel is on a class 4 server with Nunki Kai as its only neighbor.

    o Martine is on a class 4 with 14 sims: Hofzinser Zaharik Shelef Kovari Baffin Baltic Amundsen Laptev Daseuri
    Algol Pavo Vogelriff Romney
    o Otherland is on a class four with only two sims: Malaika NorthWest
    o Renie is on a class 4 with 12 sims : Capelli Brindamoor Smith Rosedale Inga Itaipu Idaea Dongbaekmaeul Acacia Byeulddongbyuel
    Borealis

    -30-

  7. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 22nd, 2006

    >”If you are seeing more Sims on your server than there is supposed to be, first thing you want to do is use the go to link to visit those Sims and re-register them with a Registrator-Tron. The info in my database may be out of date.”

    Um, Gosh, Max, those caveats weren’t there when you first advertised this device on the forums. Not there when Hammie wrote about you. Not there when Torley enthused about you and your device as if this was some new social software to discover your hidden sim pen pals. Not at all. Not in the ads. Not on the notecards. I know, because I got it and looked at it carefully. And it wasn’t on you website back then, either.

    If you’ve put them in there *now*, then could it be because Prokofy blogged about this repeatedly? And you ducked the question repeatedly as to why Lindens say your device is inaccurate. When you see the “stacked up sims,” you go *visit* them, Lindens tell you, exasperated at being banged on over claims of stacked sims. Then you discover that in fact the numbers of these sims reveal that they aren’t stacked up. It’s old information piling up. Are they ever stacked up? Well, who knows? There’s something wrong with the Lindens’ sims, sure, but they aren’t telling, and your device, which promised to help us hold their feet to the fire, doesn’t work as claimed.

    You were terribly evasive about this. I wonder how come all of a sudden when it’s on the Herald, you come up with this “caveat” and start “blaming the victim?” This is really crappy customer service.

  8. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 22nd, 2006

    People think they are “freshening the data” when they go with Max Case’s HUD to a sim and by flying on to that sim, send that data up to his web site. So let’s say at 7:00 pm you look at his website, and see the putative 8 sims stacked up. So you allegedly “freshen the data” by donning the HUD and flying over the sims, and looking at his web site again. So you go and see that oh, allegedly the 8 sims are still stacked up.

    But that’s not what Lee Linden tells you to do, and whatever your issues with Lee Linden, he has a very logical point easily checked by any non-tekkie with common sense. He says, ok, go visit all those sims. Go up to “HELP” and get the pull-down “about this sim”. Look at its sim number, which is there with the agni.lab URL.

    So you go to sim one, sim two etc. etc. in Max’s supposed “neighbour” list. And you find that these alleged sim neighbours are all showing different for the sims. Proving that in fact they aren’t all stacked on that one server. Oops, Max’s thing isn’t working.

  9. TrannyPet Barmy

    Jul 22nd, 2006

    Ummmmm Porky, wouldn’t that come down to which portion of SecondLife is telling the truth ?

    Now i’m guessing at what this said device does, but i’m assuming it keeps track of the server hostname any given sim is running on, and then shows which sims are sharing the same host.

    Lee Linden obviously implies that the hostname shown in the Help section of the client is correct. I’m sure Max claims his ‘device’ is correct, and i would assume he is using llGetSimulatorHostname, http://secondlife.com/badgeo/wakka.php?wakka=llGetSimulatorHostname which i’m sure he will claim is correct.

    Now it could be that Max’s code doesn’t work – SHAME ON YOU MAX if this is the case, or more likely it could be that the Lindens are telling you to look at something that isn’t correct but in it’s incorrectness supports their case that they arent stacking sims.

    So Porky, your ‘proof’ falls flat on it’s face, until you can prove there is no discrepancy between the Help display and the llGetSimulatorHostname() command – and “well Lee Linden said so” really isnt what i would call substantial proof of anything – especially after you read the next paragraph pertaining to the reliability of the Help display.

    Two things. First if you’re going to go by the hostname showing in the help section of the client, then you MUST also be willing to beleive that LindenLab has now actually moved to the Netherlands. Why ? Well just recently some one let me know that from looking in the Help section of the client, many sims were showing a .nl address. So Porky……. being as you go with Lee Linden’s suggestion that the HELP display is correct, are you willing to beleive that LindenLab have now infact relocated to the netherlands ? No i some how doubt you will be, but then we all know you have no continuity in your methods or your arguement, and you’ll follow what ever route is best for Porky’s arguement at any given time. Fact is though, from what i’ve been told, the HELP display most definately is *NOT* 100% accurate !!

    Secondly, has any one actually bothered to compare the llGetSimulatorHostname command with what is showing in the help display ? Perhaps this may help Max to prove his system works, or debug it if it doesn’t.

    As i’ve said to you many times before Porky, you shouldn’t bother with ranting on about things you have little or no understanding of, and this time even claiming some one else’s work not to function correctly, with only speculation, poor logic, and some one else’s say so as backup.

    TrannyPet Barmy
    The REAL ONE

    ps. Couldn’t possibly be that LindenLab’s DNS server has screwed up now could it ? So in actual fact, NO ONE knows the reality of what is going on, and never will until LindenLab fix their crap.

  10. TrannyPet Barmy

    Jul 22nd, 2006

    not to mention, if you really want to see weather there is any stacking going on, you really ought to resolve each of these hostnames to an actual ip, as i’m sure Porky would be aware, you can have many hostnames all pointing at one ip address ;) Meaning …. LindenLab could have one server, but assign it 8 or so different hostnames, each begin with a different sim name/number, ie; sim405, sim323, sim234.agni.lindenlab.com …….. and if you follow Porky’s logic, you’d be none the wiser of any stacking going on.

    Even then though, you could still question it, since any one server, could have multiple ip’s assigned, either on the same NIC or through multiple NICs. So if you get right down to it, you still couldn’t know for sure, one way or the other, what was going on at LindenLab regarding server stacking. So seriously, as for ‘prooving’ anything Porky, FAR FAR FAR FROM IT.

    TrannyPet Barmy
    The REAL ONE

  11. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 22nd, 2006

    I’m quoting Lee Linden. Take it up with Lee Linden. Common sense would dictate that Lee Linden is correct.

  12. TrannyPet Barmy

    Jul 23rd, 2006

    Why would common sense dictate that Porky ? I guess this means that you do genuinely beleive that LindenLab temporarily relocated all of it’s sim servers to The Netherlands for a couple of hours, then move them all back again ?

    Common sense would dictate that Lee Linden will tell you to look where LindenLab want you to look, he’s hardly going to tell you to go get the answers that LindenLab wouldn’t want you to see now is he ?

    Don’t get me wrong, i’m not saying either Max or Lee is correct on this, i just feel you need to investigate further, and thoroughly, before you start ranting on about who’s ‘devices’ work and who is to be beleived. Especially as i’ve already pointed out, where Lee Linden is telling you to look is not totally reliable at all !!

    On the note of ‘taking it up with Lee Linden’, some how i think not, not only do i prefer to steer clear of the piss show called SecondLife, but what ever Lee Linden said, he’s a Linden, i wouldn’t trust him any further than i could throw him.

    But then on the note of trusting Linden’s words, and taking them as Gospel, weren’t you ranting on in disbeleif and disputing the Linden’s figures pertaining to SecondLife userbase only six months ago ? LOL – like i said before Porky, you have next to no continuity in your arguements, and seem to twist and turn with every post, this time with who should be deemed a reliable source …………

    btw, you didn’t say, since the Help Display showed as it did, are you still with Lee Linden on it’s validity ? ie; the whole of SecondLife temporarily relocated to The Netherlands for a few hours recently ? LMAO maybe thats why they had to take the whole grid down shortly afterwards, so they could move them all back again LMAOOOOO, the wifi connections didnt work too well from 33k feet ? PMFSL

    TrannyPet Barmy
    The REAL ONE

  13. Espresso Saarinen

    Jul 23rd, 2006

    i am sure all you whiners are entitled to double your money back from max. but take it somewhere else please. same with pissing contests with lindens. for the purposes at hand, overloaded sim debugging for void sailing sims, it seems to work damned well. thank you max!

    the subjects at hand are what to do about the griefing of sailing races. for the second week in a row the little children acted out in silly and destructive ways.

    and how to deal with overloaded servers being used for ‘void’ sims which are far from void when we try to rez a dozen boats there.

  14. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 24th, 2006

    Lee Linden’s company owns the servers, or rather, leases them from another server storage company, and can access them, and have all the information about them. That’s more than can be said about Internet Dude Max Case who is Somewhere Trying to Get Something.

    Of course, Lee Linden has every reason to lie about his company’s server’s performance, if he is evil and wishes to put one over on us. But I actually don’t think he has reason to lie.

    It’s an urban legend in SL that LL overstacks their servers. One pictures a mischievous Lee or Phoenix or Grid Monkey Linden slyly skulking around spinning tops on top of tops — cranking up servers and making them spin — going to the next one and deliberately jacking it up, running all over the room, the warehouse, maybe even using rollerskates, eh, to get around all those servers, or using some incredibly complex console, where these jaded Lindens, in between long drags of their cigarettes and gulps of their Jolt Cola, cry cynically to one another, eh, let ‘er rip there Phoenix, see if we can crank up this baby, lay another one on.

    Surely it’s nothing like that. And one of the ways you can find that out is by going to each server that is allegedly “stacked” and taking down its number. Through that simple exercise — with p2p, you can zip around in seconds — you find that no, Max’s data is out of date. By minutes? By hours? Even though you just “freshened” it. Maybe because in fact his device can’t get what it says it does get.

    There is a hugely deep-seated prejudiced against the Lindens that they overstack. That’s because they really are caught at doing that and really do admit when they’ve done it, and that poisons the well.

    But they seem to have worked hard at replacing all the servers lately to class 3 and it’s not always the case that the lag one feels is on their side. It’s annoying dealing with Lee, I grand you; Lee has never met a server-side lag he’ll admit to. But client-side lag is a big topic. Endless. And it’s subjective. I often tell Lee Linden that the sheer multiplicity of the subjectivities creates an objectivity that he must deal with because we pay tier. Lee hates our little literary and metaphorical discussions. I don’t blame him. He’s an engineer, not a poet.

    At least Lee, being an engineer, tries to find facts. I join him in trying to find those facts, too. What I see coming from Max Case and TrannyPet is blustering and pseudo-science. I don’t see them facing the facts. I didn’t see Max facing them when I said, hey, the numbers don’t jive with your HUD. He ducked. And TPB is willing to make up just about any wild story to try to fit his “facts”.

    I have no knowledge of any move to the Netherlands. And that’s beside the point. The point is, I followed Max’s instruction. I listened to Lee’s beef, and I found it persuasive.

    I also found the reason 2 of my sims were lagging: one was a helicopter buried in an empty apartment and still spinning; the other was a rocket shop half buried in the dirt and not immediately visible due to another build. These kinds of things lag a sim way more than Lee Linden’s server problems.

  15. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 25th, 2006

    Espresso, can you confirm or deny, that when you used Max s HUD device, you also went to that sim that you saw as stacked up on his website, and you also checked the number of that sim or server to see if all the sims listed as stacked up all had the same number. That’s what is required. If you did that, then it works for you.

    Secondly, can you confirm or deny, that once armed with this ammunition, you went to a Linden, got them to fess up that they were overstacking, and got them to destack. Let’s stay on topic here.

    It’s not about “whining,” it’s about establishing the methodology and the facts.

  16. Espresso Saarinen

    Jul 26th, 2006

    sigh. yes, i did the whole http://neighbours.maxcase.info movie. and with max’s quite competent help.

    no, i did not whine at lindens. i am gathering technical data, not getting into a pissing contest. they are aware of the issue, and likely have means of gathering data themselves.

    and please direct all “let’s you and him fight” vibes elsewhere.

  17. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 26th, 2006

    Sigh yourself. Um, the whole Max Case movie *does not include* doing the following, as I wrote:

    “you also went to that sim that you saw as stacked up on his website, and you also checked the number of that sim or server to see if all the sims listed as stacked up all had the same number. That’s what is required.”

    Max did not have anything like this on his website, his instructions, or his site in world. Perhaps he’s just added it. That’s why I have to ask you very meticulously whether you did this.

    Did you? or not. Can you please stop referring to Max Case’s instructions or Lindens and whining and doing other one-up-manship against me, and engaging in unrelated expression and answer yes. Or no. Not snotty answers like “yeah I did the whole Max Case movie” or elevating Max, who refused to answer any of my questions about this simple matter, to some “guru” who is “able to give competent help”.

    You’re a technical and competent fellow, right?

    Then answer the question technically and competently.

    Did you look up the sims numbers, and were they the same?

    Yes. Or No.

    Max Case does not tell you to do that. Lee Linden does.

    If you are so willing to gather technical data and refrain from what you view as emotional, whiney, and untechnical discussion, Espresso, then please answer yes or no to the question and state explicitly whether, simultaneously, or near simultaneously, with p2p:

    you did, or did not, fly around, to each sim, and check its number.

  18. TrannyPet Barmy

    Jul 26th, 2006

    It doesn’t matter how you try to paint it or package it Porky, you’re talking out of your backside yet again. The general tone of your posts would indicate that we should all beleive what you say of sim stacking based solely upon *YOUR* character judgement of the Lindens, which, as already noted, wanders from good to bad and back again, depending on what you’re *trying* to prove in your rant at hand.

    “And one of the ways you can find that out is by going to each server that is allegedly “stacked” and taking down its number.” – like i’ve said to you many times previously Porky, you really should try ranting about something you have at least some knowledge of, you might also try reading my posts in full before responding. *IF* you had of, you would have seen how little reading the “number” from the help display would give you.

    For starters not so long ago for a short period this “number” was identical for all sims that a friend of mine visited, so if the Help Display is always correct as you would have us beleive, then not only did LindenLab stack ALL sims onto one machine recently, they also decided to stack them all on one machine in The Netherlands !!

    Secondly, if it was an IP “number” that you were looking at you’d have a clearer indication of any stacking that was occurring. You dont have much concept of name resolution do you Porky ? Essentially though, and making this simple so that even you can understand, you can configure a DNS to point as many HOST NAMES as you like to any one IP Address Porky. Meaning, LindenLab could make every single sim have a seperate hostname(which is the ‘number’ you refer to, which is actually a ‘hostname’), and have all of those hostnames point at the same ip address(the same device, machine ….). According to your logic though, even in this situation you’d still claim no stacking was going on.

    What i suggest you do if you really want some proof, is resolve each of those hostnames(ping is a quick and simple way to do this), then see how many hostnames resolve to the same ip address, then you have your TRUE picture of sim stacking. But then i’m sure you’re not really all that fussed over the answer any way, it’s just another excuse for you to attempt to put some one else’s stuff down, in some desperate attempt at making your self look better *yawn*

    MAX – maybe you should consider doing this with in your program if you dont already ;)

    I’ve a good mind to sign up an SL account and come back for a few days, simply to write this bit of code, reliably, to prove the point one way or another !!

    So Porky, we should all beleive what you say is true over sim stacking, based upon your sole character reference of Lee Linden, and your blatent lack of technical knowledge ? LMAO

    TrannyPet Barmy
    The REAL ONE

    ps. sorry to those who had to read this all again, it’s a shame that some one who credits herself with so much intellect needs to have the simplest of concepts explained to her twice. Just as well i decided not to bother with explaining the “they’re hardly going to tell you where to look to find the truth, when the truth isnt what they want you to see” concept again ……..

  19. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 27th, 2006

    So, I’m supposed to accept the word of someone who can’t even log on to SL as Gospel?

    As always with arrogant tekkies, I’m finding it difficult getting why a simple answer to my simple question isn’t available.

    >Essentially though, and making this simple so that even you can understand, you can configure a DNS to point as many HOST NAMES as you like to any one IP Address Porky. Meaning, LindenLab could make every single sim have a seperate hostname(which is the ‘number’ you refer to, which is actually a ‘hostname’), and have all of those hostnames point at the same ip address(the same device, machine ….). According to your logic though, even in this situation you’d still claim no stacking was going on.

    Gosh, golly, gee-whiz, this is just so hard to grasp, wow, what a hard scientific concept, I guess only smart people can understand that.

    Except…that’s not what they do. They don’t explain it that way. And you’re just talking out of your ass. You’re just fantasizing, speculating, and posturing in trying to do some kind of wierd pissing match with these Lindens. I hardly have any need to accept their word as Gospel, and am happy to criticize them. However, if one of them makes a reasonable, cogent argument, and I can duplicate their points for myself inworld, then I have no reason as such to question since I’m not busy trying to show myself a techno brain as you are.

    While Lindens could be using any sort of subterfuge, I imagine the simplest answer is closer to the truth. Perhaps they stack. Perhaps they stack void sims where it is less likely to matter. Perhaps they stack but for brief periods that doesn’t affect sim performance. I’m not an expert. However, I do think we need better proof of this user-based belief, elevated almost to urban legend status, that the Lindens deliberately overstack and keep overstacked their servers as a matter of policy.

  20. Espresso Saarinen

    Jul 27th, 2006

    prokofy peva :

    perhaps instead of bitching, whining, and making assumptions about what others have and have not done, you can do some actual work and post some useful technical data?

    otherwise, it would seem safest to assume others are competent. unless you just like typing. in which case, no problem, i have a delete key.

  21. TrannyPet Barmy

    Jul 28th, 2006

    That’s not what a name resolution is about huh Porky ? And of course you are fully in the know aren’t you, armed with your Linden supplied information …….. Hate to tell you this, but just about every techie reading this thread is now laughing at you with your idiotic retort over name resolution !!!

    I suggest you take a read here http://www.howstuffworks.com/dns.htm and save your self any further embarrasment, before you continuing ranting over what you evidently know little about, especially if you don’t accept that my description of name resolution is correct.

    Funny to, that if i use the following config extract in my dns configuration, i will have 4 hostnames all pointing at 1 ip address :-

    $TTL 86400
    @ IN SOA ns1.local.lan. administrator.local.lan. (
    2005032901 ; serial
    3H ; refresh
    15 ; retry
    1w ; expire
    3h ; minimum
    )
    
    IN  NS     ns1.local.lan.
    IN  MX 10  mx1.local.lan.
    
    ns1         IN  A      192.168.0.1
    mx1         IN  A      192.168.0.2
    
    localhost   IN  A      127.0.0.1
    
    hostname1   IN  A      192.168.0.4
    hostname2   IN  A      192.168.0.4
    hostname3   IN  A      192.168.0.4
    hostname4   IN  A      192.168.0.4
    

    Now, lets get over this silliness, you can point as many hostnames as you like, at a single IP address – lets not have any more “black is white” idiocy from you Porky.

    On a note of a “pissing match with the Lindens”, actually no Porky, i’m simply pointing out that :-

    a) We don’t KNOW who is correct here
    b) The Lindens are bound to tell you to look in the place that supports what they want you to think
    c) Max is obviously going to continue to claim his work is correct
    d) You have no idea what you’re talking about, and are just desperate to manipulate a situation(as always) to make Max look bad – with no PROOF what so ever
    e) No one has done a full and conclusive independant analysis of all sim’s to find out each IP address as oppossed to it’s hostname, which would then give a completely clear indication of the level of sim stacking in SL
    f) Your judgement of validity of sources of information varies with every arguement you start Porky, depending on how you can manipulate it

    as you say Porky “I’m not an expert. However, I do think we need better proof of this user-based belief” – so stop trying to claim fact over weather some one else’s product works or not until you have some solid evidence/PROOF, as oppossed to your wishful and manipulative beliefs.

    Last thing, “So, I’m supposed to accept the word of someone who can’t even log on to SL as Gospel?” No Porky, you’re supposed to accept the word of some one who has worked with internet technology professionally for many years now with equal credit, as that of any Linden, who is not nessecarily any techie at all !! But then as i’ve pointed out on many occassions, instead accepting reality, you’ll try and manipulate it to fit in the best way for Porky’s arguement ;)

    Oh and since when “can’t i log on to SL” ? Yet another stupidity from you Porky ? Incase it’s escaped your attention, i’ve made many posts in a recent thread showing exactly how i’ve come back previously, and for that matter, there is no verification any more, and i’ve lost track of how many times i’ve changed my MAC address now ……… so no there is no concept of “can’t” there at all Porky, it’s a concept of “choosing not to”, though i’m seriously considering a return, simply to write the code to do a decent analysis of this situation. Then unlike you, i’ll be able to be able to post the truths along with supporting factual evidence. But then again, what’s the point, if it doesn’t say what Porky wants it to, it’ll be all “well thats not what the Lindens say, so you must be wrong.”

    Mind you i’m not entirely sure what being able to access SL or not has to do with understanding how name resolution works, and how if following Porky’s instructions on calculating the level of sim stacking taking place, you would quite likely come up with a totally incorrect figure.

    Lots of love
    TrannyPet Barmy
    The REAL ONE

  22. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 29th, 2006

    I keep asking the same thing, Espresso, and I’ll ask it again:

    Did you look up the sims numbers, and were they the same?

    Yes. Or No.

    I’d like a simple answer to this simple question. I’m not understanding why it is so hard to answer, why a hundred dodges keep being made.

    Why am I to assume others are competent when they cannot face a simple question about a simple device? Yes, or no, Espresso. Did you take the information that Max’s HUD provided, then LOOK IT UP DIRECTLY IN WORLD by flying immediately to each and every one of those allegedly stacked-up sims, and TAKING DOWN ITS NUMBER to see if it was THE SAME.

    YES.

    OR NO.

  23. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 31st, 2006

    Um, yeah, gosh, that’s such a difficult technical concept, gee whiz, I don’t know how anyone could possible understand it? Except, it’s like a teacher with a pointer in a classroom, pointing to a blackboard. Before her, let’s say there are six students. The students are the host names. She has the pointer in her hand, pointing to the blackboard. The blackboard is the one IP address. The six little children’s attention is like “how stuff works on the Internet”. They are all “on the IP address” watching the math problem. Suddenly, one’s attention wavers and he looks out the window. Or, another child suddenly arrives late in the class and gloms his attention on to the blackboard, too. Stacking! Now, imagine they are all called up one by one to chalk up a formula — or 6 suddenly came at once, or 6 or 7 suddenly “walked off together in separate directions”. Yes! Imagine that.

    See, whatever thing you’re trying to explain will have some real-life analogy or metaphor or simple device to explain it. And it can be grasped by any of us with some reasonable faculty for abstract thinking. Anybody could study the same rote material, using the same capacity for abstract thinking, and master this same material. *Shrugs*. There’s nothing special about you, your mastery of this material, or the material itself. I hardly need to go study sites named “How stuff works,” just like I don’t need to know the theory of internal combustion to drive a car.

    So knock it off already. What I’m doing here is questioning a lot of posturing and swaggering idiots who are in some kind of pissing match with LL. I have absolutely no reason to believe LL is faking us all out. They may well be! But I have no reason to be believe these swaggerers in this pissing match EITHER.

    What I get is abstract far-fetched theories for what might explain Max’s near-religious belief.

    What I’m not getting is some actual field data. Did anybody go check the sims? What did they say? It might turn out later that hey, they all point to the same address. We could press it further. But let’s see if they are even ON that same address, pointing to it, shall we? Then we could go to the next step.

    The inability to say “yes” or “no” baffles me. Either you checked the actual sim numbers and visited them, checking them against Max’s HUD, or you didn’t, and took Max’s HUD readings and his website data rendered as gospel. But…why? If your own little avatar eyes in world show you something different in real time, and you have the authority of a Linden to back up that interpretation, which, when all is said and done, simply seems more credible than the blustering of script kiddies like Max or grid bombers like TrannyPet *shrugs*.

    I’d like some reasonable and plausible explanation given for why sims lag, if they aren’t shown to be stacking; if they lag AND can be shown to be stacked, what the Linden response is.

  24. TrannyPet Barmy

    Aug 3rd, 2006

    “Um, yeah, gosh, that’s such a difficult technical concept, gee whiz, I don’t know how anyone could possible understand it? ” – no neither do i Porky, however you appear to have difficulties with it in your previous post claiming “Except…that’s not what they do. They don’t explain it that way. And you’re just talking out of your ass.”, so i just figured i’d explain it in a more illustrative fashion for the likes of *YOU* who didn’t quite grasp it ;)

    Now why dont you try this Porky, goto one sim, get the address from the help display, then with out teleporting, goto an adjacent sim, and get the address again, then goto another adjacent sim, and retreive the address, don’t teleport whilst you are doing this, and what do you find Porky ? THE SAME ADDRESS FOR ALL OF THEM, UNTIL YOU TELEPORT, THEN THE ADDRESS WILL UPDATE – so something in SL’s set up isn’t quite telling the truth now is it ?

    After getting a friend to run some test code for me i also worked out how Max’s ‘device’ could actually be failing, it’s due to a delay in the llGetSimulatorHostname() command, and dependant upon his timing, his code may well infact return an incorrect hostname(the hostname of the last sim it was in).

    Although Max’s device ‘should’ give you a clearer picture, i actually beleive that neither the Help Display nor the llGetSimulatorHostname command are giving correct information, because, if they were, they would ALWAYS show one sim per server. Why you ask ? Look here http://www.secondcentral.com/agni.lindenlab.com_report.html Unfortunately dig’ing on agni.lindenlab.com doesn’t help much since transfering a whole dns zone is disabled on their dns, however, with a little php scripting, i retreived all of the sim hostnames along with the ip they resolve to. It doesn’t take much to run through the list and see quite easily that every hostname does infact map to a single non-shared ip address.

    So what does this mean as far as working out sim-stacking figures ? Simple, if anything device/display is working correctly and accurately, and each sim has its own hostname, and each of those hostnames resolves to only one ip address, all devices and displays should show that there is only 1 sim running on any one ip. This however is where things halt, it’s not possible to investigate any further, there is no way that any one can tell how many ips address have been assigned to any one physical machine. The fact is LindenLab could well have 4-16 or more of the ip address listed running from any one machine – in otherwords they could be running 4-16 or more sims on any one machine, and NO ONE would be able to tell any difference. There is absolutely no way you can identify a machine that an ip is attached to with out additional serviceson or access to that machine.

    So Porky enough of your stupidness and attempts at creating pissing matches with any one who will listen to your foolishness. Again you’ve been shown to be talkin idiotics, again you look an idiot, and again i implore you, TALK ABOUT SOMETHING YOU KNOW ABOUT YOU FOOL, oh and quit ranting your new phrase “gee whizz”, it’s not big, it’s not tough, and it certainly isn’t clever.

    lots of love and kisses

    TrannyPet Barmy
    The REAL ONE

  25. TrannyPet Barmy

    Aug 3rd, 2006

    Oh and Porky, just for reference, http://www.howstuffworks.com/dns.htm is not something i ‘studied’ lmao, infact i dont even think it existed at the time i was learning about DNS, it was just given to you as a nice simply explained way for you to get to grips with the basics of DNS since you were quite obviously struggling.

    lots of love and kisses

    TrannyPet Barmy
    The REAL ONE

  26. TrannyPet Barmy

    Aug 28th, 2006

    P.S. I am a tranny pet and if anyone is interested hit me up so we can have a party of love on linden land and hire cute security guards

    lots of love and kisses

    TrannyPet Barmy
    The REAL ONE

  27. Somas do they have codeine in them.

    Codeine. Codeine pvtussin.

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