Yesterday I logged in for the first time in 2020 after being gone for some 100 days.

Due to the corona crisis I have to stay mostly inside, at least for a while, so I have time to burn. I really can't be arsed with regular home office tasks, and thankfully have access to a more than capable workstation so I can mess around a bit on Second Life.

So far, I have been mostly cracking jokes about corona and got back in touch with the community, and as so many times before, I managed to make some people laugh while others have felt greatly offended.

It's always like that and that's okay. ♥

​I usually do what I do to raise awareness for things that I feel concern the most of us. In this case, it is the corona crisis. The one that everyone is already getting bombarded with in news and on social media.

So what's the point of me rubbing it in? Won't that be counter to SL escapism and only take a healthy safe zone away from everyone who needs it?

Well, let me convince you right here and now, that when you shut your eyes just so, the world around you may briefly disappear, but it doesn't really go away.

Many SLers are not in their best health to begin with, while Second Life's own epidemic is pathological narcissism.

Quite a lot of people seem to eventually go crazy, when they stare at their expensive avatars for hours and fall in love with themselves.

SL narcissism isn't a malign type of narcissism (as in only caring about yourself and unable to feel a thing for others), but the view of "how one sees themselves" is inevitably getting warped.

Even if there is some lingering ability left that allows for rational thinking, many SLers will defy this logic by their own ideation of grandeur:

"I sit behind a computer, nothing can happen to me."

"Corona won't reach my country because we have borders."

"My generation grew up without washing hands all the time, I am more robust than others."

"My social life happens online, social distancing has been second nature to me for a long time."

If you feel negatively adressed by this rambling, please understand that I am not telling you that "you are not your avatar" because I think you are a little stupid, or can't tell apart what's real and what is fantasy, I respect you, and I ramble because I care about you and want to share my perspective in hope that it is helpful.

Now, just for a moment, forget about the news, forget about the toilet paper hysteria (it's okay to laugh about it), try to push the pause button on your anxiety player, and take a look at the following bits and blobs of info.
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• Corona virus came from an animal. It's not man made.

 

• The materials for corona cure are already inside of you. Scientists may take a year or so to develop a vaccine, but your immune system begins developing anti-bodies the moment the virus hits you, and is done with a custom cure for you within only a couple of weeks.

 

• Most people in the high mortality risk category are there because the health system isn't prepared for so many acute cases, and because stats so far show that their deflector shields were already way down - the flu is just as bad in that sense, so maybe consider getting a flu shot in autumn this year.

 

• Washing your hands, taking a distance, all that isn't going to be the new standard, so don't worry about a permanent change of way of life. You do that mostly to give your country's health system time to prepare, so that they can handle it, and you and everyone you care about can be treated and get well again.

 

• For those in the United States: Don't worry about money. In cases like these humans will be humans and the vast majority will help each other even if they are not "getting paid". No doctor will deny you, but the health system also in the U.S. needs some time to prepare.

This isn't a "me against them", but "we against corona" scenario, and when push comes to shove humans will help each other. Human nature isn't as selfish and violent as your jaded, nihilist boomer friend at the pub keeps telling you after a couple beers.

​We are the most noble and kind creature in the world, we don't have fangs, claws or poison glands, but big brains and big hearts.

I'm aware that many of you (including myself) experienced a lot of frustration that last weekend.

Your collars, body HUDs, spankers, and many other items suddenly became unresponsive. You don't know what is wrong, you start messing around, take things on and off and eventually come to realize that upon changing into a different sim everything works again just as it always used to.​

I believe that this is happening due to a change in the way the Second Life® server schedules script events and that this problem is most prominent in items that rely on link message events that happen in between an object's root and its child-links.

Somewhere along the way the script event gets stuck and teleporting to a region that is unaffected unstucks it. You can try that with a spanker or with your collar. Touch it 5 times, nothing happens, go to a region that is currently healthy, and you get 5 spanks or 5 collar main menus.

I have filed a bug on the Second Life® JIRA that explains the problem in detail:
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• ​https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-227786

If you are affected, please sign into JIRA with your Second Life® account and watch the issue.

I will try to ask you guys what you want. There are two approaches that I can take here.

• Modify the OC/P9 collar in a way that makes it meaner, taller and stronger, like a tank that is exponentially more robust against the problems that are happening now on the SL server, but that would also consume a much greater share of resources.

 

• Re-write the collar entirely, keep its most popular features, but get rid of the old OpenCollar bulk to make it more agile, slimmer and harder to take down, having it consume so few resources that you barely even notice it is there at all.

​Obviously each approach has good and bad sides.

The first approach would mean that we keep the collar virtually as it is. You wouldn't notice any difference at all in menus and features. It will juggernaut along merrily but it will cause more lag.

The second approach would make the collar quite different. It would be much faster with less than half of the current script count, but it would also get rid of a lot the knobs and dials that OC/P9 has.

I obviously would prefer the second approach, because it is more fun for Otto and me to develop and because I know from piles of feedback what most people use and what just bloats the collar.

The thing is that regardless whether approach is taken, it will come with a bloody nose and a black eye for me, because we arrived at the point in time where a one-size-fits-all is simply impossible.

Those who didn't get what they wanted will be militantly angry, just as it happened with OC 3.9 and Six, and the Official Wendy Starfall Hate Club™ will get a lot of new members. But I can handle that.

To be honest with you all, I'm working on something new anyway, so whatever you choose, I will do it for you. I mean all of you, heartcore and casual users, modders, creators, nerdettes and nerds. ♥

Please make your voice heard and answer the two questions in the form at the address below:
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• ​https://forms.gle/MJxaN3sZ8ukdhZLq6

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