Philip Linden’s LoveMachine Sprays Hates All Over Second Life Viewers
by Pixeleen Mistral on 21/06/10 at 2:22 pm
A call for bids titled “Create a custom SecondLife client for LoveMachinists” at VWorker.com
will certainly create a fine frisson among Linden Lab fans desperate for good news – until anticipation turns to horror as Philip Linden’s LoveMachine unexpectedly runs backwards and sprays hate all over current Second Life client software. This does not seem to be an accident – the same call for bids is posted at the LoveMachineInc.com site.
LoveMachinists need better tools
It comes as no surprise that Linden Lab founder Philip Linden (Philip Rosedale in real life) hopes to use the Second Life walled garden of cyber delights for the serious business of getting his LoveMachine startup off the ground – but there are problems. According to the VWorker.com and LoveMachineInc posts, Philip’s LoveMachinists “make an effort to have weekly meetings in the Second Life metaverse”, but the experience is less than stellar — LoveMachinists “have to deal with the rather cumbersome and slow viewers available”.
Some may find it ironic that the LoveMachine staff are haters when it comes to Second Life viewers – particularly since Philip was bragging about the Love Machine employee evaluation process at Linden Lab as far back as 2006. Perhaps obsessive gaming of the Lab’s love rating system distracted Second Life staff from the task at hand?
Is it really possible that neither Second Life Viewer 2.0 nor the Emerald dataminer’s delight jiggle factor client can help Philip’s LoveMachine startup create a crowd-sourced employee rating system? What does this say about the fate of Second Life as an enterprise-ready meeting space? Is this why Philip has resorted to publicly dissing M Linden’s triumph – the SL Viewer 2.0 software? What is the virtual world coming to?
All is not doom and gloom however, as the open sourced Second Life client software can always be patched to streamline the user experience.
With this in mind, Philip and associates have started to cast about for low bid piece work contractors to create “a fast, flexible client that improve the machinists SL experience and consider options related to how we work”. You can almost feel your eyes mist up and heart swell as the possibility of a Second Life Viewer 3.0 – designed with a wary eye on the "love" meter, built by low-bid labor – takes shape.
Philip and company hate on Second Life viewers – and will pay for fixes
The journey of a million incremental improvements start with but a single patch, so Philip’s first step in improving the human condition is to “try and build an SL client (LoveViewer) with a very simple first feature to get started”.
According to the call for bids, the first task is “Modify the SL client code to add the following behavior: IF you have selected ‘remember password’, do NOT show the login screen on startup, instead log directly into SL on clicking the desktop icon. Provide a file menu option ‘Logout of my account’ that de-selects the ‘remember password’ checkbox, clears the name/password, and logs out.”
In short, the LoveViewer will not display the login screen if it already knows your password – an amazing breakthrough saving LoveMachinists several seconds per login. Think of the productivity gains if this breakthrough is made more widely available. Philip’s deep design insight in this matter was apparently valued at $75, while writing the idea up was worth $20 based on the the worklist item at dev.sendlove.us – where the nuts and bolts are sorted out to assemble the LoveMachine. The actual work of hacking a working version together was valued at $200.
Can there be any question that the brain trust that brought us prim hair is back in action? As we learn from the Tao of LoveMachine, “if you don’t know what to do, keep moving”.
Pepper
Jun 21st, 2010
One more sign of impending apocalypse. All ye coders, hang on to your benefits package for a few more weeks…if you still have one.
Oh, by the way, don’t forget to scrub the password for the database out of the opensource code repository. That little security risk is documented here:
“The username and the password for the db are mentioned clearly here. This file should be moved away from the public_html tree.”
http://dev.sendlove.us//worklist/workitem.php?job_id=11653&action=view
Lovemachine…….Hmmm, oh, and…how much love can there really be if they have just unquestioningly adopted the standard name for the blame page? Couldn’t they have called it “underloved”? “pioneers”? or even “needs work – don’t reward with bonuses just yet?”
P, P, where’s the love, bud?
IntLibber Brautigan
Jun 21st, 2010
While Prokofy would claim this is further proof of the spreading technocommunism of the infocalypse, personally I see this more as the infrastructure of a technology cult, where worker bees get paid pittances for significant amounts of coding that they cede all rights to, and the queen bee doesn’t even have to pay for the costs of maintaining a hive for them all to live in…
Reminds me of that “Bliss” effect on the new version of the scifi show “V”….
Yeah I was involved in LoveMachine several months ago til I started getting harassing hate phone calls from a few furrys. I discussed it with Phillip and told him I wasn’t going to be involved in some dramafest furpile.
Darien Caldwell
Jun 21st, 2010
LOL! I can’t even express what delicious Irony it is to see the creator of Second Life now dissing his very creation. I only wonder why he didn’t feel it necessary to take these steps while at the helm. Maybe he never actually used the viewer until now?
Pappy Enoch
Jun 21st, 2010
200 dollars, hell! I got me a idear that would only cost ol’ King Philip $20.00.
It are a low-bandwidth viewer with 64 colors called “Crayola” and it are all set to go, rite out o’ the box, like them business fellers like to say.
The Crayola Viewer come with a heap o’ white screens. You can rezz any dang thing you wants and it don’t use no ‘lectricity at all. Filled-up screens am fully recyclable for the Green-tree-huggin’ crowd.
They am also absorbent for the toilet-huggin’ crowd.
I needs to git into this here biddin’ process as my next capitalist venture.
ra ra rasputin
Jun 21st, 2010
Thats the idea pappy!!! You are my Hero!! Lets give them all some crayons. Bet that money luvin, seldom bright, technologically challenged marketing buckweeds can use a crayong and a sheet of paper to have their thing!
Please give SL back to the techies.. without the bullshit bingo!
Emperor Norton hears a who?
Jun 21st, 2010
I would say Pappy is thinking outside the box, but for this;
“They am also absorbent for the toilet-huggin’ crowd.”
Somethings are best left *inside* the box Pappy, if you get my drift.
Orion
Jun 21st, 2010
Uhm gee… Sounds like another reject from the 90′s “internet boom”. Another vague, nondescript, childish sounding description of what the company is supposed to do. FAIL!
“LoveMachine is a startup building things that can make money and have a shot at saving the world. Right now we have three projects in different areas and stages of development:
Work. Software for companies to work better and faster.
Money. A digital replacement for world currencies.
The Brain. Can 10,000 computers become a person? ”
http://www.lovemachineinc.com/
Sophia
Jun 22nd, 2010
Is this that excite thing really. the contraption that each player uses that can u know what to the other form pressing a button? Who know.s Just got in & I’m semi reading what i can stand.
If it is then he left a bird brain @ the last helm. This get’s better byt the day or week and then the week turns into a month and the i’m cured.
I’ve found a new life called real life where my arse gets feeling once again. Thank God for summer.
I wont say the “I don’t know anymore” It’s time for a new hobby and it’s called ME not them. I’ll finish what I had plannned and visit now and then but it’s not the Heralds Dark Day news it’s the big picture I’m looking at it doesn’t look good.
I’ve tried my best to build it up but every corner I turn here we go again. Yes change is good but this is a uck up as far as I’m concerned and who is in charge is really ucking up. what is it with this person.
Trust me people can appear to look like they know what they r doing ion these positions and do all kinds of things to make changes to make it look like they have done somethings but this isn’t working my dear.
Ajax Manatiso
Jun 23rd, 2010
What we really need is a viewer with hierarchal, multi-pass rezzing. It would first rez avis withing a 20 m range (chat range) and ignore all objects. It would then rez all objects within a 20 m range with no textures. Then it would rez everything else within camera distance. This would solve a lot of “voices from nowhere” situations, and newbies walking right into you before they have fully rezzed the scene. It would also eliminate the grey folks dancing in a fully rezzed club.
King Reggin
Jul 13th, 2010
GET A FIRST LIFE
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