Bay City Post, Edition 75

The last edition was a hectic one.

We scrambled to make it, then discovered that the demand was much higher as anticipated. Out of paper we went to the paper-mill in Kahruvel to load another pallet (some trees might be missing), out of ink we went to Jizo to squash, in an animal friendly way, squids to retrieve their ink. The presses kept on turning until everybody received a copy of the Bay City Post.

We were even able to deliver the Bay City Post to Sylvia.

This edition was no less of a challenge. Half way most of the staff went missing in Bellisseria. They returned with a sunburn, could not stop talking about their new vacation housing and were half drunk thanks to tequila sunrise.

Next we lost most of the staff as a sacrifice to Mount G'all in the hope to fix things.

Lucky everybody was reincarnated (lava burned) and we were able to write this edition.

But first this,

Budget meeting

Normally I would not bother you, dear readers from our Fine City, with something boring as a budget meeting but this time I have to as the budget has a direct impact on the price you pay for the Bay City Post.

The lazy way to make a budget is to take the old one and add 10 percent. The difficult way is to analyse spending and project future spending.

We know the rental cost of our place in the Hyperbole building, the price of the ink, the press and the logistics to deliver the Bay City Post on your doorstep. It is also important to include the bribes we have to give to the various officials in and around our Fine City. I won't mention the bribes that go towards our Mayori (tinm).

The biggest chunk of the budget goes to the reporters, their investigative time, the development of the pictures, the paper and typewriter. The endless time staring at an empty white page.

We pondered and discussed together with our leadership team and came up with a definitive budget.

We decided to do it the lazy way. We took the old budget and increased it with 12 percent.

The motivation for the additional 2% is the intention to give our reporters a massive and well deserved pay rise!

The old budget was 0L$. According to my calculator the new budget (0+0*12/100) will be 0L$. As a result the future price of the Bay City Post will be 0L$.

Dear readers, show appreciation to your reporters!

One way to do that is to give comments on posts.
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On the web, just read top-down till the epilogue.
In-World follow the links below.

In this edition,
Just a Click Away
Qie Niangau clicks objects

Bay City Cruis'n

Dakota Schwade goes to the car-dealer in Imaginario

Police and Fire Blotter

Thomas Hooker reports the activities of the Police and Fire dept.

Bay City Turns Turns It Up To Eleven

Marianne McCann announces eleven

Mole People

What is living underground? The Mole People!

Bay City Post Office Information

The Post Master of Bay City explains how to use the postal system

Let's Mesh Around

You can make a Mesh!

Molewatch

Where are the moles?

This Month In History
Marianne McCann dives into the archives.

Epilogue


Last period there were breaking publications.
Bay City opens Embassy in Jeogeot

Tsunami does not impress

Group Sacrifice Inside Mount G'al

Happy reading!

Editor Vick Forcella

190504 

A blimp has crash-landed onto the Toxic Taco. The BCPD and BCFD are investigating.

Just a Click Away

The most basic way of interacting with the SL world is by clicking on stuff, but this basic interaction can be surprisingly subtle. The fundamental way an object responds to a click can be changed without any scripting, by simply adjusting the "Click to:" setting in the object editor (about midway down the "General" tab).

Most of the "Click to:" options are the popular choices from the right-click menu (control-click on Mac), and it's worth trying some out to see when they may come in handy. For example, there's a "Zoom" option that might be just right for some TV screen, or for focusing to take a photo.

One setting that's underutilized is "Sit on object", perhaps because scripted furniture usually also includes touch interaction -- but once seated on a click-to-sit item, an avatar's interaction with the object defaults to Touch anyway. So if the touch menu can wait until you're seated, click-to-sit is perfect -- and of course "Touch" is always available from the right-click option menu even if the object is set click-to-sit.

The most surprising (and most recent) "Click to:" option is "None." One simple use for this might be to mask the interactivity of an object so the mouse pointer doesn't reveal that it's touchable (or sit-able, etc), instead only offering those from the right-click menu.

The feature is really intended, however, to apply to individual links in a linkset, and this is a step in addressing an age-old problem in scripting linked objects: Making just child-prim portions of an object visibly touch-interactive. In the old days, this was done by keeping the touch-interactive bit a child prim and scripting it locally instead of in the root, so only that part had an active touch-related event handler. This led to some awkward linkset designs and extra scripts. (Scripters: There's also llPassTouches() -- which is almost never what you actually want, and won't help keep the root prim from advertising its touchability.)

Even with "None" selected, you can always use that right-click menu to direct a Touch to any link (although that behaviour can be viewer-specific for fully alpha-masked surfaces).

What this setting does NOT do, however, is provide a "click-transparent" click-through surface because "None"-clickable prims still occlude clicks from prims behind them. (All this seems to be counter to reports when the feature first appeared in Firestorm -- hat tip to Juliana Lethdetter. In short, the feature addresses jira BUG-216339 but NOT the related BUG-216375.) Also, there's no way to change this link-specific setting from a script in another link, for now limiting it to stuff you can set once in the object editor.

Reporter Qie Niangao

190504

Bay City Cruisin'

"On the road again ... Just can't wait to get on the road again ..."

Oh. Hi there!. Allow me to reduce the radio volume.

Before I begin my travels through town I thought I'd have my Primouth convertible checked out by the dealer. I looked at a map to find the address. It's the 1950's/1960's remember? No GPS :-)

There's my destination, just south of Route 66, on Willoughby Way, in Bay City - Imaginario. Put the convertible top down, and away I go.

(quite some time later)

OK, I'm here, and ... Primouth Motors is no more. Dang it!

In its place is:

Who: Marianne McCann

What: ACME Hotel and 190 Willoughby

Where: Bay City - Imaginario

The hotel and record shop/apartments are a part of the Bay City Role-Players Union. Come and create a story with your friends.

In the record shop can be found a wide range of "stacks of wax."

My exploration of the apartments and hotel yielded various discoveries. Thankfully, the occupants of the rooms were out and about, as I made my way from floor to floor. Some of their personal belongings strewn about indicate they might be shady characters.

From the upper-most floor of the apartments I saw something not too far away, to the east. Something glinting in the sunlight. I decided to go see what caught my eye.

(a brief time later)

Ah, it's a "Mole Build."

Who: Guaca Mole, Naughty Mole, Sunny Mole

What: Mole Build - Molexandria Archeological Site

Where: Bay City - Imaginario

The Molexandria Archeological Site awaits you! Bring your friends!

Study the details of the Arena, explore the Labyrinth and attempt to obtain an A-Mole-T Amulet, or two, or three.

Speaking of three, that's how many people are required to engage the Mole-azers so you can release the fireball (it sounds dangerous, but why not?).

Before your move on, be sure to investigate the Mole Ruins.

That's it for this cruise through Bay City.

I hope to see you on the road. Happy motoring!

Reporter Dakota Schwade

190504

Police and Fire Blotter

April 1st

A woman wearing a mime outfit reportedly looked in the direction of a person's residence and then moved on. The Bay City Police responded, but no mime was found. The responding officer noted the date and said "Hmm.. Must have been Ever."

April 2nd

The Bay City Fire Department noted that several of the fires burning recently were extinguished, seemingly at midnight once Ever's Night was over. One fire needed to be put out by the BCFD, and is believed to have been caused by a photographer's flash bulb ending up in a trash can while still hot.

April 4th

After receiving a tip about the upcoming deployment date for the new continent, the Bay City Coast Guard was seen securing the boats at New Port in preparation for the tidal wave surely to accompany a whole new continent being connected to Sansara.

April 11th

Residents were startled by the warning sirens going off around town. Bay City Civil Defence trucks were seen heading down Route 66 along with the BCPD and BCFD. A spokesman for the city's emergency services had this to say about the incident: "This morning we were alerted to an impending tidal wave as the new continent was connected to Sansara. Once the wave made it to Bay City, it was not large at all. Only one resident was injured, and that was one of our Bay City Coast Guard members who spilt his coffee as his boat rocked on the wave."

April 14th

While walking around town, this reporter noticed several large trucks with BCPD markings heading out of town. One of the officers replied when flagged down that the BCPD was volunteering to help the Bellisseria State Police during the initial rush on the new continent.

April 15th

Route 66 was blocked for a short time as residents lined up to cheer on our own Marianne McCann as she attempted to make the first cross continent flight from Heterocera to Jeogeot. One resident was overheard saying "If she makes it, she deserves an award."

April 17th

Fighter jets were seen passing overhead just out of town. Reports seem to indicate that the Sansara National Guard were tracking a helicopter from Jeogeot that possibly belongs to a smuggling group. The Coast Guard responded by stating "The SNG hasn't notified us of any threat to Bay City, but we've stepped up our watch over Bay City waters for increased smuggling activity now that two more continents are connected to us"

April 25th

Officers responded to a resident who complained about a neighbour blowing a duck horn. The officers informed him that it was a crow.

April 28th

The Sansara National Guard responded to reports of a cult gathering at Mahulu on Mt. G'al. The cult leader, one Marianne McCann, called for members to jump into the volcano "For The Greater Good!" of the grid. Despite a daring attempt at saving people by the SNG pilot who actually flew into the volcano, all of the cult members sacrificed themselves to G'al. There was only one survivor. The survivor went on to eat at the Toxic Taco, which could be called the greatest sacrifice of them all. Unfortunately, G'al must not be sated, as the feeds are still broken.

Reporter Thomas Hooker

190504

Bay City Turns Turns It Up To Eleven

Help observe the eleventh anniversary of this unique mainland community

BAY CITY, SL (4 May, 2018) - In May of 2008, the mainland community of Bay City were opened to Second Life® residents. Over the last eleven years, Bay City has grown into one of the most vibrant mainland communities, boasting a long-time community focus. To honour their anniversary, Bay City Residents will be hosting their annual parade and live music event this May.

Participants in the annual parade are asked to gather at noon SLT/PDT on Sunday, the 19th of May, to lineup at the band shell in Bay City - Harwich. The parade will wend its way down Route 66 beginning at 12:30 p.m. SLT/PDT, and will conclude at the Bay City Fairgrounds in the North Channel region.

A live concert will kick off at 1:30 p.m. SLT/PDT at the Fairgrounds with GoSpeed of KONA Stream providing music leading into the event until 1:30 p.m.SLT/PDT , followed by Parker Static from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. SLT/PDT, Melenda Baptiste from 2:30-3:30 p.m. SLT/PDT, and Maximillion Kleen from 3:30-4:30 p.m. SLT/PDT.

All Residents of the Second Life grid are welcomed to participate. Celebration goods, including parade float bases and ideas, are available at the Bay City Community Center, in the Daley Bay region for those who wish to be a part of the parade. Ample viewing areas are provided. The music event is also open to all who desire to attend -- not only Residents of Bay City

Bay City is a mainland community, developed by Linden Lab™ and home to the Bay City Alliance. The Bay City Alliance was founded in 2008 to promote the Bay City regions of Second Life® and provide a venue for Bay City Residents and other interested parties to socialize and network. It is now the largest Bay city group, and home to most Residents of Bay City.

For more information, contact: MarianneMcCann.

Reporter Marianne McCann

190504

Mole People

Last time I asked for your assistance.

I asked for information about a scruffy man that walks stately and that wears a hat with feathers.

I received various reports about this man. Sightings and some had more information.

Apparently he identifies himself as one of the Mole People. Unfortunately I do not know his name yet, I was unable to have a talk with him despite hanging out at various corners in our Fine City.

When we hear about moles in our Fair City we immediately think of the moles that helped build our city. Perhaps the mole people are the moles, perhaps not.

If you talk with experts you will find out that the mole people live in every large city. They are homeless and live down below in sewer systems. They are shy and only come out in the evenings and nights. Because they live under ground they are pale, their eyes have adapted to darkness.

They are not accepted by normal people as they are different. Not only are they pale, they can be deformed, have shapes that make normal people shrug.

Some think they are monsters that eat rodents and attack normal people. There are graffiti warnings on walls "Beware of the mole people!". At some places there are signs that say "We exist. - The MolePeople".

They exist

Underground they are safe. I do not believe the mole people are dangerous as long as they are not disturbed. They are just extremely shy and will try to avoid any contact with people in the above world.

Because they live so near they know everything that goes on in the normal world. They have TV, see us and hear us.

It is very rare that one of the mole people comes out of hiding during day time. That is why I am very curious who this man is.

Thank you all for your help so far.

Please keep on the lookout and send me more information about this man.

Also. The LDPW WIKI speaks of a bit of graffiti that appeared in the original city regions long ago and it's not the graffiti I have shown here. I wonder where that might be and whether that graffiti is still there. Help me out guys. Let me know.

 Reporter Vick Forcella

190504

Bay City Post Office Information

Send your package in style with the Bay City Postal Service.

Our cargo handlers will ship your package to anyone, anywhere in SL. We will ship not only by air, but by sea and land as well.

Neither rain nor snow nor lag of grid can stay these messengers about their duty. (We are, however, not responsible for wet, frozen, or otherwise lost parcels…)

Postoffice

All services are roleplay only and are opt in. If the recipient does not wish to roleplay the delivery, we will simply pass them the package.

The boxes work just like the many postal boxes you see in First Life. You address a package and drop it in, the postal worker picks it up and delivers it.

Local Bay City mail will be handled by the Bay City Post Office, and large parcels or mail going outside of Bay City will be handled by GridWide Cargo Service.

Mail can be delivered to any mailbox that has Allow Inventory Drop set to TRUE.

First, you need to find one of our boxes. You can currently find them at:

Imaginario

Docklands

To use the service, select Send a Package from the menu. Enter the legacy name of the avatar you want the package sent to into the textbox IE: ThomasHooker Resident.

Hold down the CTRL button and drag your item into the mailbox. Please include a notecard with the recipient’s name and the location of the delivery. The package must be transfer enabled or we cannot deliver it.

We will pick up the package at our earliest availability. We try to always deliver in character, and using realistic vehicles to do so but in some cases that is not possible. We will walk the package to the destination if we cannot use vehicles in that area, for example a roleplay region that does not allow non-residents to use vehicles.

We will place a mailbox at your location. I will need an invite to the land owning group, however, I will leave the group once the mailbox is placed.

ThomasHooker Resident - Postmaster

190504

Let's Mesh around

Making mesh only for geeks? Mesh needs an extreme level of skill? Not if you know how to build with prims!

Many can build with prims but have no idea how to make something out of mesh. What you didn't know, you can build something out of prims and convert it into mesh!

Let's find out how!

(This works with Firestorm, I am unsure if other viewers have the same options)

• Rez a box
• Copy the box and align it almost against the other
• Select the two faces that face each other
• Make the two faces transparent
• Move one box so that it just hits the other box
• Select one outside surface and make it red
• Select the other outside surface and make it green
• Select both boxes and link them

Now comes the magic.

• Right-click your amazing build and select Save as=>Collada (make sure the Skip transparent option is checked)
• Click Save-as and find a place on your hard drive where you can find it back, give it a name. It will have the extension .dae

• Log out
• Log back, on the Beta grid (Aditi)
• Find a sandbox (Morris)

• Build=>Upload=>Mesh Model
• Find and select your amazing build
• Ignore the 1000 options
• Click Calculate weights and fee
• Click Upload
• Your inventory now has the object

Useless box

• Rez it

Your two prim object has become a one prim white thing with two coloured sides.

Apply different textures and colours to see what happens.

You have made a completely useless but 100% mesh object! Congratulations!

This method is better as the convex hull trick but you need to own the textures to re-apply them.

More info about this function can be found here.

About the import options:

The visible object

There are three levels of visibility, close, near and far away. By changing the numbers you can make the object disappear when your are not close. This can be useful for objects you use inside a house. They don't have to be visible when you are zoomed out. Reducing the numbers reduces the LI value but can make an object look horrible.

The physical object

These numbers are useful for buildings (floors and walls) and objects you can bump into.

There is a small example on how the object will look once imported, two models, the visible object and the physical object. You can experiment a bit before you upload.

1/ Transparent surfaces do not count for the LI calculation. Not visible surfaces should be transparent before exporting.

2/ Same textures reduce the LI count but limit modification options.

3/ You can upload and test things on the Beta grid without spending a single L$. When you are sure your creation is ok and uploading won't cost you an arm and a leg upload it to the normal world.

4/ Avoid curved surfaces, they will increase the LI count drastically.

5/ Always use a sandbox to experiment. If you made a mistake the LI count can go through the roof and your house could be returned to your inventory.

6/ For uploading mesh you need to agree on an additional TOS and you need to have payment info on-file.

Happy meshing!

The same, but better, can be done with Mesh Generator by Naonao Watanabe.

This machine does the same with a few important differences.

You can use curved surfaces. You can select how accurate the curves have to be made.

Same texture+same colour surfaces are treated as one surface reducing the LI count even more.

Make the same object as our experiment and see the differences.

Find the Naonao shop (Shop NN) in-world here. Also, pick up a tonne of freebees and learn to speak Japanese (most freebee manuals are in Japanese only).

 Reporter Vick Forcella

190504

Molewatch

Molewatcher Mari

We have been missing the moles in our Fair City so we reached out and asked where they are.

Our tough little critters are busy on some well known projects.

Last month, the latest iteration of Linden Homes hit the Second Life grid as the Bellisseria continent raised from beneath the void sea, linking our home continent of Sansara with the southern land mass known as Jeogeot, aka "The Korean Continent."

Bellisseria currently features two types of home environments: houseboats with a portion of dock for parking one's own watercraft, and "traditional homes" which give the area as mid-century suburban feel. While not as community close as, say, Shermerville, the nicely manicured lawns and shaded streets surrounding these homes should be nothing but attractive to your average Bay City looking for a commute to the suburbs.

The continent is probably best reached -- by those who opt to not otherwise just teleport there -- vis air: a trek from Bay City Municipal to the Coral Waters airstrip on the coast of Bellisseria will likely take you an hour by light aircraft.

As you can guess the (new and improved) Linden Homes (also known as SSP and Bellisseria) is taking most of the time of the moles.

The preparations for SL16B (the 16th birthday of Secound Life) is taking most of the rest.

If you want to participate as exhibitor, performer or volunteer read this article by Daniel Voyager.

They are also doing some secret marketing jobs!

Some are busy fixing things, also in our Fair City. Who knew that things can break.

When I did a critter-count I realised some are not busy on all of the above.... so..... what's up?

Patch Linden: "There are some other items on deck that I can't discuss at the moment surrounding future plans.  :) " ...

We'll have to do it with that.

If you see a mole in our Fair City, don't forget to take a picture, shake it's paw and give it a worm. (and tell me all about it)

Reporter Marianne McCann, Vick Forcella

190504

This Month In History

History Marianne

Anshe Chung was featured on the cover of BusinessWorld for their May 1, 2006 issue, labelling her as the first person to become a real-life millionaire due to her business in Second Life.

This story helped fuel the first big boom in Second Life, pushing the Grid to see its first million members later that year, and drawing the attention of established national brands to the virtual world.

While most of the big companies have long since left Second Life for other pastures, Anshe Chung remains in Second Life as a successful land entrepreneur to this day.

Reporter Marianne McCann

190504

Epilogue

In May 2008 a crowd gathered at the border of Nova Albion. Something spectacular was going to happen. From afar people tried to look over the bridge to see what was happening but the fog took away the sight.

Then the bridge closed and the crowd started running in. Bay City was opened!

Long before some clever minds were plotting something never done before. Michael and Blue wanted to make something unique. For that they deliberated, plotted and draw up the lines of roads and waterways.

They asked the most clever creators in our world to help out. The clever creators received the name Mole. The LDPW was founded.

They started mining as many prims they could gather so to build the infrastructure of our Fine City. Their secret wasn't unnoticed, word got out and people started asking questions, that were left unanswered. All they could do is wait at the bridge and so they did.

When the crowd raced out over the newly opened bridge they found a beautiful themed city with parks, canals, roads and land that can hold twice the amount of prims.

The lands were sold faster as you can say Bellisseria. Houses and buildings went up in great pace. All within the set theme, 1950's Chicago.

This month we will celebrate the 11th anniversary of our fine City.

Join us!

This concludes the end of this edition.

I want to thank our reporters Qie, TJ, Dakota, Georgiana and Mari for their work. Without them the Bay City Post would be rather empty and boring.

Thank you Roc for hosting the best newspaper in town. Patch for not revealing any secrets. Keira for being Keira. Pygar for reaching out. All the photographers that allowed me to use their pictures.

See y'all soon!

Editor Vick Forcella

190504