Bay City Post, Edition 84

Welcome to the eightyfourth edition of the Bay City Post!

Keeping you updated on the best city on the grid!

While my shoulder was making squeaky sounds I, with the help of your reporters, was able to compile for you the latest and the best.

Between the last edition and this publication the telex started to rattle, a press release we had to put out on time.

Mole Day Coming to BayCity!

In this edition we have for you

Police and Fire Blotter

Never a quiet day for Black, White and Red

Mole Day Was A Success

A look back on a great party

Hopeful: Embedded MP4s,Hopeless: Measuring visitor script times

Qie sees a hole filled wile another remains open

Erik Mondrian Meets

For your listening pleasure

Bay City Cruis'n

Dakota is hungry, why could that be?

Bay City Finest To Bellisseria

After hunger comes thirst

SS Galaxy Passes Bay City

We have the image, it is true

Where Could Dakota Be?

Did I see a mole running?

Epilogue

If you missed it, here is the previous edition.

Laetizia (Tish) Coronet loves painting vehicles.

Her latest project was too much of a success.

She painted a truck in Camouflage, and then wasn't able to find it back.

It had blended into the background.

If you stumble over a nearly invisible Camo painted truck, please inform Tish.

Thank you.

Editor Vick Forcella

Camo image Wiki

200206 

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Police and Fire Blotter

January 6th

Local residents called the Bay City Coast Guard after seeing a large Yacht enter the canals and go under the bridge at Gatsby Drive. The Yacht was unable to enter the smaller portion of the canals and was crushed when the bridge lowered. Witness accounts report seeing passengers escape the Yacht and climb from the canal, only to enter a passing taxi and flee the scene. Divers from the Bay City Coast Guard scoured the canal for any other survivors, however, it seems all passengers were able to safely make it to shore. Detectives from the Bay City Police, along with building inspectors are investigating why the safety mechanisms on the bridge failed, allowing the vessel to be crushed. Attempts to locate the owner of the Yacht have been unsuccessful.

January 12th

In the middle of the night, local resident Vick Forcella embarked on a good will expedition to bring local Bay City Culture to the Bellisserians by bringing them a tanker full of Bay City Brew. In order to keep the operation a secret, the Bay City Police Department had undercover officers stationed along the roadway from the Brewery to New Port. Once Mr Forcella made it to New Port, he was able to offload the tanker onto a barge and begin his long journey to Bellisseria. A pilot tug staffed by the Bay City Coast Guard led him out of the Marina while a marked vessel staged training manoeuvrers in another part of the waterway to divert attention.

January 14th

Bay City Police responded to a resident reporting that someone broke into their house. Officers arrived on scene to an open window and heard loud noises coming from inside the home. When Officers entered the home to confront the would-be burglar, the suspect was found not to be a crook, but simply a raccoon that entered from the window in search of a midnight snack. After a few short barks from K9 Ullock, the raccoon was spotted fleeing the scene.  The resident was advised to make sure they keep their windows closed and their trash picked up.

January 27th

A resident called the Bay City Police Department and reported seeing a man steal the outgoing letters from her mailbox. Police responded and found the alleged crook a few blocks away from the scene of the crime. The suspect was released without any charges being made, as the suspect was, in fact, a mail carrier with the Bay City Post Office.

Reporter Thomas Hooker

200206

Mole Day Was A Success

The worm farms were working at high capacity. Cotton fields in the continent Satori were harvested. The cotton swab factory started spinning. The worms were canned in the most worm friendly way. Snax were made from locusts and crickets, dried and finely salted.

Somebody forgot to make a mole sign this year.

The Bay City Fairgrounds were prepared. Banners were hung, flowers planted, an impressive list of mole builds were set on display.

The pre-announcement for Mole Day was made (with the wrong time) and then came the pressrelease with an amazing poster.

Garden Mole

When the fairgrounds were opened all was ready to welcome the moles from all over the grid.

And they came!

Abnor Mole

Sergal, Chronos, Garden, Adora, Abnor, Dyna, Lulabelle, Notta, Alotta, Moonstruck Mole all dived into the yummy gifts we had on offer. Next to these moles 'certain' residents without a mole name dived in as well.

Most popular snax for the moles were the crickets. [this reporter would like to note that seeing a mole snack a worm from a can is quite a disgusting sight]

Adora Mole

Under the watchful eye of the Bay City Police Department the party started. Our own Miss Bay City, GoSpeed Rasere, kicked off the party with amazing music.

Soon the moles, 'certain' residents and visitors mingled and started dancing.

Chronos Mole

Bay City Brew flowed, the party became louder and louder. The conga line filled up quickly. The region was showing cracks with all these visitors, but it didn't break.

Segal Mole

Exhausted GoSpeed stopped her performance and was guided from stage to be replaced with the live music of Wolfie Starfire.

Sometimes a mole left the party mumbling the words 'Bellisseria' and 'work'. You can blame Bay City Brew if mistakes were made in Bellisseria that day.

GoSpeed Rasere

Through the singing and shouting I am sure I could heard a mole say 'I'll be back in Bay City soon to do some work!' but I am not sure.

Wolfie Starfire

By accident somebody said something about fireworks. Next explosions went off all over the place. Fires started. Lucky the visitors expected this to happen and kept on dancing and singing while the Bay City Fire Department cleaned up the mess.

The party lasted into the wee little hours of the day.

A great success!

 

Reporter Vick Forcella

Images Kennylex Luckless, Vick Forcella

200206

Hopeful: Embedded MP4s, Hopeless: Measuring visitor script times

There's excellent news from the Lab about plans to eventually support embedded MP4s. This has been a problem because many videos, notably including those hosted on Vimeo, use this format that does not work with out-of-the-box Chromium Embedded Framework, the basis of parcel and shared ("Media on a Prim") media as well as viewer browsers. Although there's no schedule yet, it's an encouraging development compared to a previous statement in the Jira that the Lab did NOT plan to support the format. (This may affect plans for hosting SL-related video content and for displaying that content.)

On an unrelated topic, there have long been devices that measure visitor scripts with the goal of controlling the lag they might cause. In a recent forums thread ( https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/448580-avatar-script-count-limit-on-homestead/) some of us took a deeper dive into what such devices might do to be useful, and what they very often do that is useless -- or worse. To summarize:

Scripts worn by visitors can lag other scripts but generally do not contribute to the most common forms of lag experienced by avatars in a busy region. That's because scripts are the lowest priority of sim processes, so a lot of avatars in a region will tax *other* sim resources, squeezing out scripts (and making script-on-script lag more severe). It can be annoying that scripts don't get much time to run, but that's rarely best addressed by reducing the script load itself.

That said, reducing the load of the most over-scripted visitors can improve responsiveness of other scripts (such as vendors), and griefers can take over-scripting to such an extreme that it hurts overall sim performance.

To efficiently find script offenders, what to measure? Turns out that the simplest metric -- count of running scripts -- is probably the best option. That's because, as detailed in the cited thread, both Script Memory and Script Time are actually measuring something very different from what the names imply. Script Time in particular is almost impossible to use responsibly because the more a region is having performance problems, the less accurately Script Time can be measured in the region and the longer it takes (20 minutes or more) to settle into a potentially useful metric.

Worse, the *direction* of inaccuracy is also a function of time and sim load: when an avatar first arrives in a busy region, their Script Time measure will be (hugely) *over*-estimated compared to a less busy region, but later when the measure stabilizes, the same scripts will show *lower* Script Times than when the sim is less busy. Indeed an avatar's Script Time depends less on their scripts than on the performance of the region and the time since the avatar arrived.

Reporter Qie Niangao

200206

Erik Mondrian Meets

Many of the residents of Bay City like the mainland, the continents, the seas and canals, and the roads. It gives a sense of place, a sense of being part of a whole. Exploring mainland and all it's quirks is a great way to loose yourself as a mini vacation.

Erik Mondrian, an old resident of this world, has been involved in many media projects of it's own making. A frequent visitor of Bay City and it's events.

Erik has started a new project named "The Avatars Voice" in witch he discusses this world and, more specific, mainland together with an interview partner. They are published as podcasts on YouTube.

His latest is a discussion with well known Bay City resident Bizi Pfeffer. You can find the podcast here.

Keep an eye out for more podcasts in this project. They are a joy to listen to.

Rumour has it that Erik has interviewed Cuby Terra...

ETA: Erik *has* interviewed Cuby Terra. Listen to the podcast.

Reporter Vick Forcella
Image SL Profile

200206

Bay City Cruis'n

Road trips and food; the two go together.

As I found myself in Bay City - Sandwich, a subliminal message reached my brain and resulted in pangs of hunger.

I had to take action.

Who: Mary Montale

What: White Castle Hamburgers

Where: Bay City - Sandwich

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Bay%20City%20-%20Sandwich/73/205/25

A popular 98-year-old franchise in the United States is this chain of fast food restaurants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Castle_(restaurant)

They've got a menu full of choices for the weary traveler, but are famously known for their unique style of hamburgers that have holes punched into the meat patties.

Buy 'em by the "Sack" is their motto.

And, directly adjacent, some competition ...

Who: Pygar Bu

What: Atomic Bu's

Where: Bay City - Sandwich

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Bay%20City%20-%20Sandwich/105/217/25

With plenty of parking available, here you can quench your thirst with a Voss Frozen Soda while enjoying a Cornfield Dog along with some Mahulu Fries. For dessert the famous Lunar Pie is served in big slices.

This structure is also an example of some of Pygar's building skills (serving Bay City since 2012). He can create made-to-order buildings and accessories for you.

That's it for this cruise through Bay City.

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

Reporter Dakota Schwade

200206

Bay City Finest To Bellisseria

It has been noticed that the natives in Bellisseria are lacking a bit of culture. They party a lot but are missing something essential to make the parties better, more explosive.

Filling the tanker truck

The Cultural Exchange Committee of our Fine city came to the conclusion that a volunteer had to bring them the best Bay City has to offer, Bay City Brew (tm). With this offer of our finest it is expected that the ties between Bay City and Bellisseria will improve a lot, and that the parties will go just as wild as in Bay City.

Lining up with the barge

Vick Forcella, a relatively unknown citizen of our Fine city, was pointed out as the volunteer to bring Bay City Brew to the natives in Bellisseria. The rationale used is that he has won, at the auction, an Infinity tanker truck with sufficient capacity and that he has experience as a janitor bringing coffee to Roc Plutonian.

Barge loaded

Reluctantly he took on this task. Roc did not blackmail him with "those' pictures nobody knows about.

Barge being pushed

The voyage towards Bellisseria took two days of travel. Many problems had to be resolved during the ride one of the biggest problems is, our Fine city has no road connection to Bellisseria. Between Bay City and Mainland Sansara is no paved road available, between Sansara and Bellisseria is only water.

Pushing barge goes wrong

The Bay City Brew donated it's best brew for this friendly cause. After loading the tanker truck, painted with the Bay City Brew logo, Vick took off.

En route

To cross the waters a giant barge was used that had to be pushed by a tug (push) boat. Immediately at the harbor at New Port things went wrong. The barge can not be steered and the push boat was a bit too strong, some boats that were moored there had their paint scraped off. Lucky no boat was sunk and the tanker truck didn't fall off the barge.

Off loading at Cowell

Just after Abbotts, at Cowell, the barge was unloaded and after demolishing some shrubbery the truck found a paved road. Things went a lot faster driving on the roads.

Driving through Sansara

The mission nearly stopped at the winterlands as the truck wasn't equipped with snow chains. The tires slipped dangerously while taking a slope.

Most bridges didn't cause problems except the bridge at Miller where traffic had to be stopped to let the truck pass, very very slowly.

Tight bridge at Miller

When the evening came Vick slept in the cabin after drinking some culture out of the tanker truck.

Arrival at Bellisseria

The next day the only way to reach the water is to go extreme off-roading. The truck was loaded on the barge again and was pushed to Norse Auk on the edge of Bellisseria where the truck was unloaded into the secret tank inside the lighthouse.

Ready to unload

Soon the natives gathered around the lighthouse and filled their cans with the best Bay City Culture could offer.

Unloading Bay City Brew

Representatives from Bellisseria expressed eternal great gratitude towards Bay City.

Reporter Vick Forcella

Images direct from the feed, resized

200206

SS Galaxy Passes Bay City

Just after new-year the SS Galaxy lifted it's anchors to set sail on a distant cruise.
It was anchored East of Scuttle and was part of the United Sailing Sims South of the Blake Sea. 

The mission of the SS Galaxy was a total secret though her passengers were well aware of the cruise ahead and the destination. The distance between the last anchoring place and the new one was large. The seas ahead were treacherous and dangerous. The weather over such a long distance is unpredictable.

The captain had to plan ahead and choose a safe route, passing Daley Bay from afar.

Since the planned route was a secret nobody was aware that this amazing cruise ship would pass our Fine city.

Early January Sheree Honeyflower was visiting the harbor at Daley Bay when she noticed smoke far away. Unknowing what to expect she went to Hau Koda and took a helicopter towards the mysterious source of the smoke.

There slowly but surely she discovered the mighty ship as she came nearer. With great danger she took out her camera to take a shot. Flying and taking pictures don't go well together but she managed to survive and take this amazing shot.

She had to return to Hau Koda as the fuel ran out quickly.
After she returned she told others but not a single soul believed her, at first nobody went out to confirm her discovery and when they did they could not see the cruise-ship, as it had sailed away. This is how the editor of this newspaper came to this picture.

Several days later the SS Galaxy had anchored near Bellisseria. 
Inara reported about this event.

It is great that this ship has found a new anchoring place and future will tell where the cruise-ship will go next.

The Bay City Post has reached out to the captain of this ship to comment on this article but she refused to provide any information.

Reporter Vick Forcella

Picture Sheree Honeyflower

200206

Where Could Dakota Be?

Last month you searched all over town and only a few found where Dakota was hiding.
She was here!

Who: Marianne McCann & Roc Plutonian

What: Bay City History Pavilion

Where: Bay City - Dennis

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Bay%20City%20-%20Dennis/75/78/25

Well worth a visit!

This time Dakota make it easy for us to find her.

Use comments, the feed or Twitter to tell us where she is. (or get hints)

Reporter Dakota Schwade

200206