standalone

[08:02 PM]  Oberon Onmura: hola!
[08:03 PM]  thirza ember: omg
[08:03 PM]  Oberon Onmura: are you totally here yet?
[08:03 PM]  thirza ember: here I am
[08:03 PM]  Oberon Onmura: yay! In my basement!
[08:03 PM]  Oberon Onmura: I'm so excited about this I can't tell you. I've only killed it twice and it's been up almost three days!

Now, I know what you're thinking, 'basement' and 'killed' in the same sentence - not good - but wait! This is actually super cool! If you've ever wondered what it would like to be your own personal Linden, Oberon has proved it's possible.
 thirza ember: I have no idea what this technology is/means. How can you make your own grid in your own computer at home?

Oberon Onmura: This IS a grid, on my computer, and not a powerful computer either. There are four sims here, and I made another whole region somewhere else on the map. If things keep happening the way they're happening, it's all gonna change, as soon as they figure out how to keep the same avatar and inventory and money from grid to grid, it all changes. Content will have to be stored on some kind of distributed database that all the grids can read. They're close, but there's no real physics engine here, and some of the scripting language isn't implemented, but heck, it's still amazing.

thirza ember: blimey

Oberon Onmura: indeed

[Teleport completed from http://slurl.com/secondlife/Portable1%201/129/133/22

Oberon Onmura: wow! that worked!
 thirza ember: yes
Oberon Onmura: so, each region is a port - each SIM is a port
thirza ember: what does that mean port
Oberon Onmura: um ... a doorway into your computer, so when you walk across a sim border, you get logged out of one sim and logged into another one each one has its own port number. When I made this region, I didn't know that only I could get here. I did some digging into the bowels of my router, scary stuff, and now it looks like I figured out that issue!
Oberon makes big art, but that is OK, he has room for his and ours too. Apparently having a lot of prims, textures and scripts wouldn't pose too heavy a load for his PC, so the actual 'weight' of art would be fine, although the physics might pose a problem.
Oberon Onmura: Each server has to have a way to deal with objects when they bump into each other. The physics engine takes care of that kind of thing, plus of course, physical objects. There are Walmart physics engines and super duper ones. This opensim software is Walmart, so my pieces don't really work here. It makes me really appreciate SL!
Once he'd figured out the basics, it was embarrassing how easy it was to set up. He first tried to run the whole thing on a memory stick. You run a couple of zip files unzipped into a folder, then run a viewer like Imprudence, and voila. It took him a day to figure out how to log in, because he's 'slow' *yeah right* - but now he knows the whole thing might have only taken ten minutes. The only complicated part was getting other people in through the firewalls.
Oberon Onmura: The first time I got in, I almost jumped out of the house!
thirza ember: But what was here when you first got in? I mean was it just flat? Did you have an avie?
Oberon Onmura: yes - Ruth! The land was here - all flat grassy earth, surrounded by ocean. Empty. It felt really lonely since at that moment, I had no way of inviting others in, but now it's more fun!

Talking to Oberon was about this made me feel suddenly shy, as if I were asking God what it was like before the Big Bang. I changed the subject.
thirza ember: I love those mountains!
Oberon Onmura: Go ahead and make some. Right click on ground, edit terrain, it's just numbers on my hard drive, I can make the whole thing flat in five seconds.
I made a lump, and stood on it. My feet looked big, and my hair was very brown and very flat. The broad, formless plain drifted off promisingly towards the great Aether Sea. Oberon put a floating script above the little mound.
Oberon Onmura: THirza's ROck
thirza ember: It's like Ayers Rock, but 50% more thirzary
Oberon Onmura: so, now it's a tourist attraction
We stared at Thirza's Rock and talked over the implications of everyone having their own grid.
Oberon Onmura: Second Life works really well, and has a lot of users who make communities. If everyone has her own world, how will that work? There are already index sites pointing people to new grids.

thirza ember: Perhaps something like FB would hold us all together, although- we're not really 'together' anyway, between the way the different interests tend to branch off, and the general lack of communication. Thinking about it, over the past 3 weeks, I don't think a single person has spoken to me, unless I IMed them with a specific question. So what's the difference?
Oberon Onmura: Well, when I have a new piece I can usually count on 100 people seeing it, because they're all there, and I can contact everyone in one shot. Here? It would be difficult...but it's all gonna change, that's clear. It's already happening. The technology isn't there yet, this is alpha level software. It's free, but I'm at the mercy of open source developers wanting to make it better - they could all grow up and get jobs, then what? But then again, LL could go out of business, so who knows.
thirza ember: the interwebs could fail
Oberon Onmura: Republicans could regain the House
thirza ember: sarah palin could shoot me from her helicopter
Oberon Onmura: lol
thirza ember: so how long from zip file to this?
Oberon Onmura: this being stand alone or having people over for tea? Standalone - ten minutes. This now - half a day.
thirza ember: amazing! How does it feel to be your own Linden?
Oberon Onmura: I feel godly
Oberon Onmura: hehe
thirza ember: and cleanly too i hope
Oberon Onmura: actually, Oberon isn't the god here, there's a guy named "test user" who's really god.It all gives me much appreciation of SL - how to do this with millions of accounts, tens of thousands of sims and a real physics engine. Basic inventory is pretty sparse, no search, no groups, can't sell the land. If there was a Search function, I'd put Thirza's Rock in there.

thirza ember::-))
It was time for bed.
thirza ember: Hats off to the Lindens for all their inventiveness. This is wonderful though, I still can't quite believe I'm in your basement. I'm thrilled you invited me.
Oberon Onmura: heh
Oberon Onmura: gosh
Oberon Onmura: having visitors is the best part