Caledon Oxbridge Q&A for 2013-08-25

15:00 Marion Questi Welcome everyone!
15:00 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) hi
15:00 Marion Questi Looks like we have more people on stage than in the audience.
15:00 Marion Questi This is an "open mic" Q&A which we hold at this time every week. We, the Deans of Oxbridge, assemble to answer questions from the attendees about Oxbridge, it's mission and operation, or about SL in general.

Rather than introduce ourselves, you can find a list of all the Deans with summaries of their respective areas of responsibility, on the Oxbridge website: http://www.caledonoxbridge.org/qna_index.php
15:01 Marion Questi Who would like to ask the first question?
15:01 Larkylouz raises her hand.
15:01 Larkylouz http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/86255-turn-off-media-sl-major.html
15:02 Jorge Serapis How's the state of Oxbridge these days? Are we retaining an even amount of visitors?
15:03 Marion Questi Our visitor stats are holding up very nicely.
15:03 Marion Questi We see about a hundred newcomers a day.
15:03 Tali Rosca "Ok, I got some clarification. Streaming music is safe on your own land and at trusted places. The issue is with media on a prim and parcel media."
15:03 Larkylouz I received a message via New Toulouse' chat group that mentioned a security issue related to streaming media. I assume the above link refers to the same issue. Do I need to keep my sound off, should I be warning new folks and visitors, and why can I still hear birds when all my sound is off?
15:04 Tali Rosca Media on a prim runs a full browser, with all plugins you have on your machine.
15:04 Larkylouz Parcel media? Birds at the chat circcle, for example
15:04 Tali Rosca If those have vulnerabilities, they can be hit.
15:04 Larkylouz ?
15:05 Tali Rosca Parcel audio is a simple audio stream. Not many opportunities for vulnerabilities in that.
15:05 Larkylouz Thank you, Dean Tali.
15:05 Wordsmith Jarvinen There are preferences regarding what get's autoplayed, also.
15:06 Larkylouz Yes, I am aware of those, but not particularly literate on how it all works.
15:06 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) I think many environmental sounds are attached to objects.
15:07 Ravelli Ormstein getting your IP is the easiest thing what can happen. i mean, its not difficult to get that. so one could guess your location, more or less accurate with the IP. for some that is already a reason to complain.
15:07 Wordsmith Jarvinen In particular, "Allow Media to auto-play" and "Play media attached to other avatars".
15:07 Tali Rosca I think the "Allow media to autoplay" and "Play media attached to avatars" refers to both parcel media and media-on-a-prim. I have those disabled personally.
15:07 Larkylouz I assume that, Dean Ormstein, is an issue with any web browsing, not just SL?
15:07 Tali Rosca I do *not* want somebody to walk past me with the latest Flash exploit.
15:08 Ravelli Ormstein yes, Larky, indeed.
15:08 Wordsmith Jarvinen Right. I have those disabled also.
15:08 Tali Rosca It is an issue with all browsing. The problem with auto-playing media-on-a-prim is that somebody else decides which page you should see.
15:08 Tali Rosca Usually, you'd have to navigate to an attack page yourself.
15:09 Tali Rosca It's an old issue, and a poor design choice with MoaP.
15:10 Ravelli Ormstein a friend of mine lost her account in Januar. it got hijacked. she didn't know how it happened, and she sweared she never clicked a link... she got her account back from LL within a short time.
15:10 Wordsmith Jarvinen A reason to keep Java and Flash up to date and, if you don't need Java via your browser, to disable browser Java.
15:10 Ravelli Ormstein yep
15:10 Tali Rosca It is not so much a matter of *SL* being vulnerable, as it pointing potentially vulnerable plugins to an attack site.
15:10 Ravelli Ormstein Hello Miss Ruth, take a seat please
15:11 Tali Rosca That is my best guess as to the issue being raised there.
15:11 Larkylouz I also read, perhaps in the same notice, that one should not be saving one's password in the viewer. A related issue, someone in panic mode, or? I do understand how to fix that and could explain it to someone.
15:11 Ravelli Ormstein the password should be strong and changed from time to time
15:12 Larkylouz Thank you.
15:12 Larkylouz all
15:12 Tali Rosca I have a hard time seeing how it could be exploited through a media viewer.
15:12 Marion Questi Mr Serapis, there is a chart to your right. Did we answer your question?
15:12 Larkylouz Unfortunately, I lost the notice.
15:12 Ravelli Ormstein Greetings Miss Tardis, feel free to take a seat
15:12 Tali Rosca I'm not saying it's not possible. In particular, if a viewer allows reading known files (which some exploits have been known to do), somebody could point to the known location of a password file.
15:12 Jorge Serapis *looking now*
15:13 Wordsmith Jarvinen The sharp dip near the end, btw, (on the chart) is when collisions and thus the detector were turned off here.
15:13 Tali Rosca Since people *know* SL is installed, and know the folder structure for that.
15:13 Jorge Serapis A decent amount of traffic.
15:14 Marion Questi If memory serves, we had over 40,000 in the 12 months ending June 30.
15:14 Larkylouz Ah. So not saving the pw in the viewer doesn't necessarily fix that issue. But it also sounds like this is not a immediate threat, just one of many possible dangers. One could get hit by a bus, etcc.
15:15 Tali Rosca Since they refuse to tell about the exploit, except that it's horrible and can steal your account and your boyfriend, I have to go with what I know about the system.
15:15 Larkylouz That is really an amazing amount of traffic. You-all should know that I get compliments on Oxbridge at least a few times a week.
15:15 Larkylouz oh good! I don' thave a boyfriend. Whew!
15:16 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) One form of griefing is to spread rumors about supposed vulnerabilities in a panicked manner.
15:16 Tali Rosca But as I said, I have autoplaying of media turned off, because it *is* an attack vector.
15:16 Ravelli Ormstein good point, Elfbiter!
15:16 Wordsmith Jarvinen Such compliments are in goodly part due to our fine tutors.
15:16 Marion Questi Hear hear.
15:16 Larkylouz yes. I've been around when Dean Tali or some other older person has had to repeat the same answer to the same panic over and over on ISC or COU chats.
15:17 Tali Rosca By and large, though: Keep your OS and all your plugins updated.
15:17 Jorge Serapis Speaking of the griefing, I'm assuming the amateur that was annoying us has gone?
15:17 Tali Rosca Practically all successful exploits hit known vulnerabilities which have been patched for months if not years.
15:18 Tali Rosca It has been quiet the last week, yes.
15:18 Ravelli Ormstein some of these reports about security are just hoaxes, but not all. so its difficult to see the difference for someone who isn't a specialist
15:18 Tali Rosca You can often do some "common sense" check.
15:19 Tali Rosca *If* this was possible, what would be the actual impact?
15:19 Wordsmith Jarvinen Don't use the same password in multiple places.
15:19 Tali Rosca When people claim SL's servers were hacked to mess with their account... Well, SL controls the money flow of a small nation. Would somebody really breach that just to steal 50 cents from a person to spite them?
15:20 Tali Rosca If any account could be hijacked by listening to a music stream... SL would have collapsed by now.
15:21 Marion Questi Have we beaten this one to death? Is there another question for us?
15:21 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) this may be very basic, but I don't know much about caledon or oxbridge. Could you all tell me more.
15:21 Ravelli Ormstein yep, someone found out, how to hijack accounts by trying to order a lost password on Google and Facebook (i think). Both gave out info partially. combining them it was possible to hijack one account. this got fixed already.
15:22 Tali Rosca Oxbridge is just one, self-governing sim in Caledon, though a fairly official "face of Caledon".
15:22 Marion Questi Caledon is a micro-nation of 40-odd sims. It is owned by our Guvnah, Desmond Shang.
15:22 Larkylouz I've given you some reading material for your leisure, Xali
15:22 Tali Rosca Caledon is a Victorian steampunk nation, comprising of some 40 sims, owned by Desmond Shang and rented out to various residents.
15:23 Wordsmith Jarvinen And supported by renting parcels out to the inhabitants of Caledon.
15:23 Tali Rosca It is loosely tied together with the shared theme and aesthetics, rather than being a dedicated roleplaying area.
15:23 Marion Questi Oxbridge is a gateway to SL for newcomers. We have a tutorial, as I'm sure you know, and volunteers to help with the learning curve in SL>
15:23 Wordsmith Jarvinen Oxbridge, including tier, is supported by contributions.
15:23 Wordsmith Jarvinen and by sponsors.
15:24 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) neat
15:24 Tali Rosca And just to keep hammering a point home: The Oxbridge staff has no authority in Caledon-at-large.
15:24 Marion Questi Yes...Oxbridge is run entirely by volunteers and funded by contributions from you good people.
15:24 Marion Questi We get no support from Linden Lab.
15:25 Tali Rosca We just have an ear to the ground, as long-time residents.
15:25 Wordsmith Jarvinen We have information on the web at http://www.caledonoxbridge.org/
15:25 Marion Questi Other than advertising in the Destination guide...:)
15:25 Ravelli Ormstein have we mentioned our daily classes? there is a schedule outsides and on the website
15:25 Ravelli Ormstein and there are events in Caledon daily too
15:26 Ravelli Ormstein here is an event calendar: http://aetherchrononauts.org/
15:26 Marion Questi Did you have any specific questions about Caledon or Oxbridge, Miss Xali?
15:27 Marion Questi We've given you the 50,000 ft view...:)
15:27 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) no, just in general - i've been away from sl for a bit, still getting used to things
15:28 Ravelli Ormstein nice that you came back
15:28 Tali Rosca The very big picture is that Caledon is a themed community, of unusual large size as SL goes.
15:29 Ruth (moabite) We dress differently and have a different sense of humor.
15:29 Ravelli Ormstein the residents are mostly pretty creative and hardworking, if they are not dancing on a ball
15:29 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) that is impressive, the community aspect
15:29 Jorge Serapis On a ball, or at a ball. :-)
15:29 Tali Rosca Loosely controlled enough that it doesn't tear itself apart, but instead encompasses everybody, who feel a belonging and co-ownership of the area. That, I'd say, is really the secret.
15:30 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) is there a dress code for exploring?
15:30 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) haha
15:30 Marion Questi You must be decently covered...:)
15:30 Ravelli Ormstein the only code is, you need clothes
15:30 Wordsmith Jarvinen No, other than being dressed is helpful.
15:30 Ravelli Ormstein to wear themed clothes would be nice, but not necessary
15:31 Tali Rosca Not really. Style is appreciated, but by no means required :-)
15:31 Jorge Serapis Fabulosity is encouraged. ;-)
15:31 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) is the style steampunk?
15:31 Tali Rosca And "themed" ranges fairly wide, from proper Victorian to airship pirates and mad scientists.
15:31 Tali Rosca Steampunk with a distinct fantasy slant.
15:31 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) oh
15:31 Ravelli Ormstein Victorian Steampunk, so both got mixed
15:31 Tali Rosca And some forays into dieselpunk in areas.
15:31 Ruth (moabite) Victorian, pirate, or fantasy/humorous
15:31 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) "Appropriately fantastic"
15:32 Tali Rosca is not wildly in theme currently in this outfit.
15:32 Ruth (moabite) But she is not wildly out-of-theme either.
15:32 Marion Questi We still have a few tinies and furries who dress in all manner of styles...:)
15:33 Ravelli Ormstein :-)
15:33 Tali Rosca Also, tinies get a free pass on the "clothed" rule, Donald Duck-style.
15:33 Tali Rosca As Rav demonstrates :-)
15:33 Wordsmith Jarvinen Most of Caledon's sims are rated moderate. Oxbridge and a few others are rated "general".
15:33 Ruth (moabite) They are only required to wear hats.
15:34 Ravelli Ormstein stood up
15:34 Tali Rosca As a side note, whatever you do in private is up to you.
15:35 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) What inspired you all to become deans?
15:35 Tali Rosca Nagging.
15:35 Martini Discovolante everyone else stepped back
15:35 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) lol
15:35 Larkylouz A love of doing an enormous amount of work for less thannothing?
15:35 Tali Rosca It's a good question, really.
15:36 Tali Rosca Part wanting to lend a hand, part having some ideas you think could work, and wanting to see them.
15:36 Marion Questi If felt like I was giving something back to the community.
15:36 Wordsmith Jarvinen A sense that the place was worth keeping running and relatively few to do that.
15:37 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Number of active people is always smaller compared to passive people...
15:37 Ruth (moabite) passively appreciates.
15:37 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) that is great, really appreciate folks you who are active here
15:37 Marion Questi Caledon Oxbridge has an enormous impact in SL because of the sheer number of people who pass through here, and it needs to be maintained and perpetuated.
15:38 Tali Rosca We have some 1400 people through per week, 700 of those less than a week old.
15:38 Ravelli Ormstein hm, i never had a plan to become a dean. it just happened over the years. i spent a lot of time here since i was a scholar. and i always liked to help someone, to meet new people daily from all over the world, and to do some creative but technological works.
15:38 Tali Rosca Questi maintains the "first week/first day" statistics.
15:39 Tali Rosca I was somewhat surprised to see the total number, when I saw it as part of an unrelated test run.
15:39 Tali Rosca nods. "I think the deans get drafted from people who end up lending a hand anyway".
15:40 Wordsmith Jarvinen Pretty much.
15:40 Ravelli Ormstein its great to be a part of such a team, it is international, virtual only, but works well.
15:40 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) was it difficult to find a community to belong to when you all were new to SL?
15:40 Wordsmith Jarvinen Time spent helping. Familiarity with Oxbridge and the rest of Caledon.
15:41 Tali Rosca As time in SL goes, Caledon is a *fairly* recent thing for me.
15:42 Ravelli Ormstein i have never searched a community when i was new. somehow i found Caledon, explored it via water plane and used Oxbridge as my airport (not tolerated today anymore). so i found friends here and stayed.
15:42 Wordsmith Jarvinen Oxbridge helps with that. I had started looking and exploring teaching sites when Oxbridge was created.
15:43 Tali Rosca I didn't have trouble finding a community, but in a sense, it was somewhat random.
15:43 Martini Discovolante when i was new, i took land near an info hub.. all my first friends just wandered by. one of them discovered Caledon, and we were frequent visitors
15:43 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) *was treated as a human being*
15:43 Ravelli Ormstein well, my RL typist had a dream... of living in the past. where everything was much more beautiful, like buildings and outfits. so Caledon is my way of living this dream.
15:44 Wordsmith Jarvinen A far less expensive dream to explore in a virtual world.
15:44 Tali Rosca "We reached back in time to 1881
We saw the past and it looked like fun
We took their clothes and we took their style
And the rest is history"
15:45 Ravelli Ormstein where does this quote comes from?
15:45 Ravelli Ormstein not the beatles...
15:45 Tali Rosca Abney Park's Ragtime Punk.
15:45 Ravelli Ormstein ah :-)
15:45 Wordsmith Jarvinen Caledon itself was partly founded as a respite from the chaos and garishness of much of SL.
15:45 Tali Rosca Oh, that was a nice thing with Caledon: I met other people who knew Abney Park!
15:46 Larkylouz I met mentors and a group of outrageous punsters. . .
15:47 Jorge Serapis A good pun is always its own reword.
15:47 Tali Rosca I was aware of Caledon and had visited now and then well before I moved here.
15:48 Phrynne I was wandering the grid, and an offline friend suggested I explore Caledon. I haven't finished exploring yet.
15:48 Marion Questi Have you tried the Caledon Quest, Miss Phrynne?
15:49 Phrynne Yes, I did it the month after I came, and met many of my friends during it.
15:49 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) caledon quest?
15:49 Marion Questi Then you have seen a great deal of Caledon!
15:49 Phrynne It is a kind of treasure hunt or scavenger hunt, searching for waymarkers, and it goes through most of the sims of Caledon.
15:49 Ravelli Ormstein i'm close to a crash
15:49 Ravelli Ormstein ups
15:49 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) neat
15:50 Tali Rosca It's a sort of orienteering all through Caledon.
15:50 Wordsmith Jarvinen http://www.caledonoxbridge.org/quest.php
15:50 Tali Rosca It's not a hunt in the usual sense of giving out prizes along the way; the purpose is just to see the sims. (And learn some cam-fu along the way).
15:50 Marion Questi And at the end there is a test of courage and skill...:)
15:50 Phrynne There are a few gifts along the way to help you at the end.
15:50 Tali Rosca ...or sheer speed.
15:50 Ruth (moabite) And you get a silly hat.
15:51 Marion Questi I am greatly offended to hear the Caledon Topi called a silly hat! :)
15:51 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Colonial officer's helmet
15:51 Wordsmith Jarvinen A hat of noble distinction....
15:51 Tali Rosca Aka silly hat.
15:52 Jorge Serapis Imagine how the silly hat must feel, then..
15:52 Phrynne with three green ostrich feathers
15:52 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) What is everyone's favorite thing to do in Caledon?
15:52 Ruth (moabite) Chat with clever, funny people.
15:52 Tali Rosca Do we have any jägers near? Do *not* offend the hat!
15:53 Ravelli Ormstein Oxbridge and my friends
15:53 Ravelli Ormstein or vice versa
15:53 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Interaction
15:53 Larkylouz Photography and talking to visitors (and friends)
15:53 Phrynne Visiting with friends, being part of a creative community, and dancing
15:53 Jorge Serapis Riding the CAT.... when weather permits them to sail.
15:53 Ruth (moabite) Exploring and admiring the gardening skills of my neighbors.
15:53 Marion Questi I like to fly kites.
15:54 Wordsmith Jarvinen CAT = Caledon Air Transport
15:54 Phrynne and riding the train and ferryboats
15:54 Tali Rosca Indeed, the general chatter is a big draw, but if often segues into what becomes sort of small personal technical challenges.
15:54 Ravelli Ormstein in my rare sparetime i love flying with my water plane and fencing...
15:54 Tali Rosca As a scripter and builder, when somebody mentions some idea or problem, I often wander off and try to solve it, or related issues.
15:55 Tali Rosca So it's a way to get inspiration for projects.
15:56 Wordsmith Jarvinen Build, script, teach, Dance, and chat.
15:56 Tali Rosca By and large, I think you an expand the question to SL in general.
15:56 Larkylouz And the issues I run into with new folks prompts me to create materials to help them or help me do my job better. I am still learning, but that part is always fun. And truthfully, I expect most of us are always learning.
15:56 Tali Rosca People do in Oxbridge and Caledon what they like to do in SL.
15:57 Tali Rosca Though perhaps steampowered here :-)
15:57 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) I look forward to exploring more here, but my pc is old so navigating is a challenge.
15:57 Larkylouz And perhaps a tad more civilly.
15:57 Tali Rosca The "always learning" is the big draw for me in SL.
15:58 Tali Rosca I'm feline. Curiosity is in my job description.
15:58 Ravelli Ormstein good point @always learning
15:58 Larkylouz If you drop your graphics as far to the left as you can, then click the ADVANCED tab and lower your draw distance, that may help. Also, use an ethernet cable rather than wifi
15:58 Larkylouz Those instructions are for the default viewer, btw.
15:59 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) ty lark, I'm running on the lowest settings now but don't have a wired connection
15:59 Ravelli Ormstein LL recommends to use a network cable instead of wireless connection too
15:59 Ravelli Ormstein but it is more about stability than speed
16:00 Marion Questi We are almost out of time. Is there a final question from anyone?
16:00 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Wireless seems to cause problems if you use voice channels.
16:00 Larkylouz I find the LL viewer does better with the most basic settings, rather than FS. It looks better. Firestorm does allow me to take photos with a bit more depth, whereas the LL viewer crashes.
16:00 Tali Rosca It's not strictly necessary if your network is running well, but it's one easy way to cut out a link of potential trouble.
16:01 Jorge Serapis I recommend Singularity viewer. Runs great on lean powered machines.
16:01 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) If you could give only one piece of advice to people new to sl, what would it be?
16:01 Ravelli Ormstein best to test them all :-)
16:02 Larkylouz Be open to new experiences. Don't assume that someone's 'weirdness' means you should write them off. but be safe.
16:02 Ravelli Ormstein an advice... well, first coming to Oxbridge to take the tutorial. then exploring entire SL for some weeks, and not starting a business at the very first day
16:02 Ruth (moabite) "There is an easier way to do that. Learn how."
16:02 Tali Rosca Don't stress over "what to do". Just explore until something clicks for you.
16:02 Phrynne If what you are doing isn't fun, do something else.
16:03 Marion Questi My advice would be to try to master all the SL skills you can: building, scripting, texturing. I think being able to create in SL is key to enjoying your time here.
16:03 Jorge Serapis Listen and learn. You'd be surprised the things you learn from people.
16:03 Tali Rosca Personally, the creative aspect is certainly what "clicked" for me.
16:03 Larkylouz Does anyone mind if I adapt some of this Q&A into a notecard for visitors? There is some great advice here. Not to say a few outrageous puns. (Jorge?)
16:03 Ravelli Ormstein the chat log will be published on our website
16:03 Ruth (moabite) Sounds rewording, Larkie
16:04 Tali Rosca Ok by me.
16:04 Ravelli Ormstein you just need to give your friends the link
16:04 Larkylouz wonders why she encourages them.
16:04 Wordsmith Jarvinen If you want to extract some helpful info from it, go ahead.
16:04 Tali Rosca The chat log my be a bit too much to dig though.
16:04 Tali Rosca *through
16:04 Ravelli Ormstein ah, yes
16:04 Xali (xalithra.zifanwe) thanks to you all, this was a great Q&A
16:04 Marion Questi This has been a great session. Thank you all for coming!
16:04 Ravelli Ormstein agrees
16:04 Larkylouz I think I shall cull and edit forsimplicity's sake. Perhaps a fun version and a pun version, yes?
16:05 Phrynne Thank you, Deans!
16:05 Wordsmith Jarvinen Thank you all. Would be boring without you!
16:05 Ravelli Ormstein thank you too, everyone!
16:05 Larkylouz Thank you, Deans!