XStreetSL charging for freebies

Two posts on Xstreet talk about how they want to charge creators 99L a month for free items.  They believe that freebies are really just promotional ways to get people to buy your other products, so they think it’s logical to charge people a monthly fee to list FREE items.  Details are here.

• the blog post announcing the Roadmap for managing freebies on Xstreet SL
• the FAQ for the roadmap for managing freebies on Xstreet SL

Two threads in the Xst forums (here and here) are exploding over this announcement, and it ’s a really sad state of affairs when they actually believe in the bullshit they spew.  Everyone knows they are just trying to squeeze more money out of this dying economy, so they just squeeze harder allowing content creators to just slip between their fingers.

They actually have the gall to state that there is a cost associated when people get freebies from Xstreet.  How so? It’s no more of an overhead of costs from people just browsing the XstreetSL website, and not buying anything. This is simply ridiculous and they go on to say how they had big meetings and group sessions over this, yet I never heard anything about this. They rarely give much awareness for these things for people to attend.  Sure I’m not a big content creator, but these kinds of choices effects EVERYONE.

New pet peeve! Scroll Blocking!

This isn’t about SL, but with web pages, and browsers (I use Firefox)

Why is it that my mouse has to be hovering over a blank space on the screen for my fucking scroll wheel to acctually scroll down the page?  I can understand it if my mouse is inside an edit box or frame that can scroll up and down (if it has a scroll bar). However some advert banners, Flash and video boxes (often from youtube) which don’t even HAVE scroll bars will disable the use of my mouse wheel, until I move my mouse to a different spot, which will likely ALSO lock out my scroll wheel too.  Often I’ll find a good spot to start scrolling but as items come up and under my mouse, I can’t scroll anymore… ARG!  just fucking scroll already!

It would be really nice if browsers had some way to FORCE SCROLL the full page, say holding down SHIFT (or ALT, CTRL, whatever) while I spin my mouse wheel.  Maybe this is already a feature I just never heard about?

Save the Grid, GO NAKED!

Think of this as being environmentally conscious in regards too the Second Life Grid.

One of the biggest problems I’ve learned with the lag issue are users wearing objects that are loaded with heavy scripts that aren’t really needed anymore; notably resizing scripts.  Prim hair, prim skirts, shoes, body part attachments (like boobs and penises), and so on use scripts that are using initially, and then never used again.

The issue is being tracked on JIRA, SVC-3895 so please VOTE!

Sure, these scripts help users who aren’t really keen on how to build and edit things, and it’s a necessary evil for items you get that are ‘no modify.’  But once you have your item all properly re-sized and set up, you don’t use the re-sizer script anymore, but it’s still sitting there (often the script exists in EVERY PRIM in the object you’re wearing, which compounds the problem) and it’s still running taking up resources from the region you’re hanging out in.

I also find these re-sizing scripts annoying since if you happen to accidentally click that object you’re wearing (especially hair, prim skirts, or your boobs) you have to deal with the stupid menu that appears, and then see a useless time out message about 30 seconds later telling you that your time us up.

So please, be consciously aware of simulator lag issues, and to help save the grid, GO NAKED!  Don’t wear items that have these scripts that bog the sim down. If at all possible, try to REMOVE the offending scripts once you have it altered to how you need it, since you really don’t need the script anymore once you have it properly set up for your avatar. Even if the object is (no modify) it still may be possible to remove the scripts.  So as long as your object is copyable (or you still have the original box you unpacked with the original copy still in it) you should try to lighten the load you cause on the simulator by removing excess scripts you’re not using.

Also STOP WEARING SPAMY OBJECTS.  I swear to gawd this is my biggest pet peeve.  Why is it that 90% of all the items people wear, have to {llSay(@#!$@#$!$#)} some meaningless stupid inept bullshit no matter now mundane and pointless the action is?  I really don’t need to know that someone is touching your boobs (or has touched anything), or has spanked your ass, or even the really mundane bullshit like how someone is sitting on the sofa.

It is extremely asinine to see this crap because so many content creators for some FUCKING reason believe this is needed; when most people on SL already know how to read and write, and they CAN roleplay/emote/cybersex/netsex on their own… you’d THINK. But all this crap really does is ADD TO THE LAG to the simulator you’re hanging out in.  Then we have those ridiculous language translators which fall into the same category.  It’s annoying and it just adds to the lag.

I also recommend using Emerald Viewer to help ligten your lag-footprint on the grid. Emerald has a lot of built-in functions that make many scripted objects people wear obsolete.  Such as radar HUD attachments, Emerald’s Radar if fucking AWSOME!  Also Emerald has recently added an Animation Overrider (AO) so you really no longer NEED to have an AO attachment anymore.

Less scripts running on your avatar, them smaller footprint you load on the simulator you’re in, the less LAG you incur on the simulator, and the grid at large.

One of the things I did recently was to take even my nude avatar lookset, and removed exesses prims and scripts I just don’t need if I’m not really using them, and still preserve my hot avatar’s appearance.  I even took my new penis, removed all the scripts in it, and removed all the extra prims off leaving only the “soft” sculpted shape and the penis head, plus I don’t bother wearing the HUD for my penis if I’m don’t plan on using it, but just show off.  So if I do plan on using my penis, I’ll just wear the full functional one if I’m going to dance on the poles, or if I get hired.  Otherwise there’s no point in me wearing the full functional penis if I don’t plan on doing anything with it, other than to have it hang between my legs all day.  Makes sense dosen’t it?