NCI's Big Damn Glossary

Created and maintained by Carl Metropolitan. Edited by Becky Pippen and Carl Metropolitan. Definitions contributed by Becky Pippen, Candie Apple, SuezanneC Baskerville, Lindal Kidd, Marianne McCann, Carl Metropolitan, Yumi Murakami, Oryx Tempel and Slack Zapedzki. Thanks to the NCI Land Officers and the Resident Answers Forum for fact-checking and assistance. Online version brought to you by the Forum Cartel. 16m2 - (adj) the smallest size of land parcel that can be created in Second Life. Often used for single prim servers or eyesore ads. Abuse - (n) a violation of Second Life's Terms of Service or Community Standards. Access List - (n) see Admit List. Adfarm - (n) clusters of rotating towers of advertisements, considered by many to be an eyesore, now restricted and regulated by Linden Lab. Aditi - (n) the name of the server network known as the Preview Grid, q.v. (formerly called the Beta Grid). Aditi can be accessed by pressing Ctrl-Shift-H on the login screen of the Second Life client and selecting "Aditi" from the dropdown menu. Admit List - (n) the list of those allowed in an area that otherwise excludes everyone by use of a script, or enforced by land management tools. Advanced Menu - (n) a normally hidden menu in the Second Life client that allows access to extra debugging and advanced commands and settings. The Advanced menu can be toggled on/off by typing Ctrl-Alt-D (or Ctrl-Alt-Shift-D for Linux). AFK (Away From Keyboard) - (adj) describes a resident who has left his computer to take care of some task in Real Life (RL). Typing "afk" in chat sets your Avatar as "Away" and displays the word (Away) next to their name. After 30 minutes of inactivity, you will be automatically logged off Second Life. Also see Anti-Idle. Agent - (n) geeky term for your logged-in presence on a simulator. While “avatar” refers to the shape mesh and its appearance and requires the cooperation of a sim server, “agent” refers to a successful login to the Linden Lab grid and does not necessarily require a connection to any specific sim or an avatar representation (e.g. for text-only thin clients). Agent Domain - (n) a set of Linden Lab servers that manage logins to Second Life, manipulation of avatar inventories, profiles, and other agent-specific information. Closely related to Agent Storage Cluster. Agent Storage Cluster - (n) the databases on Linden Lab servers that hold all residents' inventories, profiles, login information, and other agent-specific data. Closely related to Agent Domain, q.v. Agni - (n) the name of the server network that contains the Main Grid and Teen Grid. (Compare with Aditi for the Preview Grid.) Alpha - (adj) Transparent, from Alpha Channel (cv). Alpha Channel - (n) a special channel of a texture file used to indicate transparency, marking which parts of the image should be clear and which should be opaque. Alpha Ordering - (n) or, Alpha Sort Ordering, this refers to a quirk of OpenGL (which the client uses) that causes two surfaces with alpha channels (q.v.) to be incorrectly rendered as if the farther one were nearer the viewer. This is often seen when parts of hair, skirts, and shoes flash in and out of existence as the transparent areas in the scene move in relation to each other. (Also called Alpha Flicker or Alpha Blink.) Alt (Alternate Account) - (n) many Second Life residents have more than one account for a variety of reasons, including: keeping one’s business life separate from social life, role-playing, avoiding harassment, keeping track of L$ (bank alts), and being able to work uninterrupted by Instant Messages. Animation - (n) 1. a file or in-world inventory item that moves or animates your avatar. You can use animations to make your avatar clap their hands, dance, blow someone a kiss, and much more. 2. n, The automatic movement of a texture across the surface of a prim, initiated by a script in the prim and rendered by the client. AO - (n) Animation Overrider. A scripted device that contains replacements for the default walking, sitting, flying, and standing animations of your avatar. Some also have other functions. An AO can be customized by loading your own favorite animations. AOs should be turned off before engaging in poseball or other animations, since the animations can conflict with one another. AR (Abuse Report) - (n or v) formal report to Linden Lab of a violation of community standards or SL terms of service. Also used as a verb. ("I AR'd the guy.") Asset Server - (n) the database that tracks all Second Life objects in-world and in inventory. Overloaded asset servers can cause search, inventory, rez, teleport, and Friends list failures. Attach - (v) usually, to take an item from inventory and cause it to be fixed to a certain part of your avatar's body. Attachment - (n) an object (clothing, weapons, jewelry, shoes, etc) that can be attached to an avatar at a specific location. Usually location is set by the creator of the object. Avatar (AV) - (n) (1) the animated being that represents a Second Life resident in the virtual world; the digital representation of your virtual self in Second Life. (2) a "costume" or outfit; a full set of avatar body parts, clothing, and/or attachments that provides a specific look. Avatar Key - (n) see UUID. Avatars United - (n) Baked - (adj) freshly donned clothing will often look clear and sharply defined and then, a short time later, become fuzzy and clear again. At this point, it can be assumed that everyone in the area can now see your clothing clearly. The textures are then "baked" in. Ban - (v) (1) the act of explicitly forbidding entry to a land parcel. (2) to add someone to your ban list and thus eject them from your land. (3) permanent removal of someone from Second Life (which can only be done by Linden Lab). Banlines - (n) lines of floating red letters spelling out “no entry” that appear on the boundaries of a land parcel that your Avatar is not allowed into by the owner. Banlink - (n) distributed ban sharing system developed by Travis Lambert and Mera Pixel that allows subscribing locations to share banlists with other trusted locations. Ban list - (n) the list of those banned from an area, by use of a script, the parcel or estate land management tools, or by Landban, that otherwise allows visitors. Bay City - (n) a planned community of city-themed regions on the Sansara continent of the main grid, built by residents under the management of the Linden Department of Public Works (q.v.). The community design emphasizes aesthetic beauty, accessibility, and a synergistic blend of residential and commercial use. Beacon - (n) an indicator of location. These take many forms, such as a red circle on the map and mini-map displays, or a tall fuzzy red line and an arrow showing the final location of a teleport destination, or tall lines of various colors with wireframe crosshair boxes when View->Beacons is activated. Beta Grid - (n) obsolete name for Preview Grid and Aditi, q.v. Beta Viewer - (n) obsolete name for the Preview Grid Viewer, q.v. BIAB (Business In A Box) - (n) often sold to newcomers as an easy way to make money, BIAB packages may contain merchandise that is poor quality, out of date, stolen from the original creators, or available elsewhere for free. Bling - (n) jewelry and attachments scripted to emit particle based shimmering “bling” effects. Blingtard - (n) pejorative term for a user, often a newbie, who wears too many blinging attachments. Blog - (n) an online journal of information. Linden Lab's official blog is http://blog.secondlife.com and contains official announcements about Second Life upgrades, new viewers, planned downtime, new policies, and much more. (2) v, The act of adding content to a blog. Bloodlines - (n) Body Part - (n) a component of an Avatar; shape, skin, hair, eyes, and/or prim attachments are Body Parts that combine to create an Avatar's form. Different body parts can be created and saved to a user's inventory and switched between as the mood strikes. Borked - (v or adj) messed up, broken. "The teleport function is borked again" Bot - (n) an alt account run by a computer. (see Landbot and Campbot) Boxhead - (v) the act of wearing an object, usually a package prim, on your head or other location. Package prims are meant to be rezzed on the ground, but newcomers often mistake them for the object(s) they contain, and try to wear them instead. Originally the default attachment point for objects was the head. Later updates of the Second Life client changed that to the right hand. BRB - (acronym) Be Right Back, shorthand meant to imply that the speaker is away from the keyboard for a moment, but will return very shortly. Broadly Offensive* - (adj) a term introduced by Linden Lab to describe images, behavior or action that was considered offensive to people in general. Objects or activities that were deemed to be "broadly offensive" had to be contained within private land in areas rated "Mature". BTW - (acronym) By the Way Bug Triage Meeting - (n) a process where bugs are sorted, prioritized, and processed for import into Linden Lab's internal issue tracking system for deeper consideration and a first step towards an issue being fixed in the official Second Life viewer. This often occurs in several weekly meetings of Linden Lab developers and residents in conjunction with the office hours meetings of several Linden Lab employees. Build - (v) (1) to create/make something out of primitives in Second Life, (2) an object comprised of 1 or more primitives, (3) an engineering term for a specific version of the Second Life (or other) software. Bumpmap - (n) an extra texture layer on objects that adds "bumpiness" to them. This can provide the illusion of detail by resembling wood bark, cut stone or a number of three-dimensional surfaces. Second Life offers only limited bumpmapping. Busy Mode - (n) a mode where your Avatar does not hear nearby chat, where IMs receive the “busy mode” response, and all inventory and teleport offers are automatically declined. BVH - (n) the file format used for creating animations. Cache - (n) a disk file on your local computer that retains copies of textures and other data when they are first encountered and downloaded so that subsequent visits to the same location will render more quickly. Cage - (v) to trap an avatar in place by rezzing (qv) an object that surrounds them. Caging an avatar who has not consented to is an AR'able (qv) offense. Cage Gun - (v) a gun that fires a Cage (q.v.) that rezzes around an avatar, trapping them. The quickest ways to get out of a Cage is to either a) teleport to your home location, or b) right-click on a nearby sit target, and you will be popped out of the Cage and seated there. Calling Card - (n) an item with a player's name that goes into the Calling Card section of your inventory. Calling cards serve as a contact list of sorts. Double clicking on a Card opens an IM window to that person. Offering a Calling Card is similar, but less personal than offering Friendship, and can be done from second level of the avatar pie menu. Camera - (n) the particular viewpoint from which you see the Second Life world. Normally, your camera is behind your avatar. Second Life allows you to move your camera around in many different ways to see things from many different viewpoints. Camping - (v) the practice of earning small amounts of $L by sitting on a chair or engaging in menial activities. Merchants use campers to make their store look more popular on the grid map. Experienced SL Residents usually don't waste their time camping. Campbot - (n) an alt account run by a computer parked on a parcel for the purpose of increasing the apparent Traffic (q.v.) of that parcel. Capability - (n) in the software protocols that connect a client with the Linden Lab servers, a capability refers to the granting of access to a specific server resource (a data item, object, service, etc.) by a server to a client. Central Database Cluster - (n) the set of Linden Lab servers that includes the Asset Storage Cluster (asset database), Central Database Cluster (profiles, regions, groups, classifieds), Agent Database Cluster (inventories, agent login information), and a few other minor databases. Channel - (n) (1) an integer number that refers to the Chat Channel (q.v.) used by scripts or avatars. (2). n, Refers to the variation of server or client software in use. Examples of server channels include the main grid server, and experimental server versions currently being tested on the Preview Grid. Examples of client channels include the main viewer and First Look viewer. Chat - (n) (1) Communicating by text between avatars and objects. Normal chat can be heard by avatars and objects up to 20m away. Avatars can chat by entering text in the chat bar at the bottom of the client screen. Objects with scripts can generate chat text that is heard by avatars and other other objects in range. (2). n, The text that you enter in the chat bar or generated by a scripted object. (3). n, v, The text and the act of communication between avatars and/or objects using default chat (20m radius) or any of its variations, which include Whisper (10m radius), Shout (100m radius), and llRegionSay() in a script (region wide). See also Chat Channel. Chat Channel - (n) one of the "pseudo-frequencies" that objects and avatars can chat on. Avatars normally speak on channel 0, and can only hear chat on channel 0. Objects can chat and listen on any channel. SL supports are 4,294,967,294 possible channels, ranging from -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647. Chiclet - (n) City Sims - (n) a set of four Linden designed sims (Sistiana, Barcola, Miramare and Grignano) meant to represent a city. These are the only mainland sims with a Simulator Object Bonus (qv). Approximately half of each city sim is composed of Linden-owned low-prim streets and walkways, allowing owners of the available space to use twice the prims they normally could. Collectively known as “Nova Albion”. Class 3 Server - (n) an older type of server hardware (see Sim, definition 2), running two regions per server. Class 3 servers have mostly been replaced by Class 4 and Class 5 servers (q.v.). Class 4 Server - (n) an older type of server hardware (see Sim, definition 2), using two AMD dual-core Opteron 270 processors, 2 GB of RAM, running Debian Linux, with a 100 Mb network connection to a 1 Gb network uplink. Class 4 servers are still in use in some places, most notably on the Preview Grid for testing. Cf. Class 5 Server for the more common type of server used for most newer regions. Class 5 Server - (n) the highest-performance sim server hardware in use at this writing (see Sim, definition 2). Each server machine contains a processor board with two dual-core Intel Xeon 5148 processors, 4 GB of FB-DIMM RAM on a 1.3GHz memory bus, and a SATA hard drive, running 64-bit Debian Linux, with a 1Gb network uplink. Each core supports one normal region or four Openspace regions, for a total of four normal regions or 16 Openspace regions per server machine. Classifieds - (n) a way for residents to advertise their products or services for sale. New classified ads may be placed by clicking Edit->Profile->Classified in the Second Life viewer. You can search the classified advertisements in the All tab of Search (Ctrl-F). Classifieds are ranked by the amount of L$ spent to purchase them weekly. Clear Cache - (v) the act of setting the SL client to clear its local storage of SL-related data and textures the next time it is started. Often problems with slow-loading textures can be fixed by clearing your cache. Clearing your cache can also make missing inventory items reappear. Client - (n) Second Life consists of two software parts. The client, or viewer, resides on the user's computer. The server resides in a remote location. Client Menu - (n) a special menu in the client that is now called the Advanced menu, q.v. Clothing Layers - (n) jacket, shirt, pants, undershirt, underpants, gloves, socks, shoes, skirt--the parts of your avatar that are worn on top of its body and created and edited in appearance edit mode. You can create different articles of clothing and save them in your inventory, then switch between them as the mood strikes. You can even design your own clothing and upload the textures to Second Life. Coalesced Item - (n) an item in your inventory that is a collection of many objects. When more than one object is returned to you from someone's land, the objects are often combined into one or more consolidated objects so that you won't receive a multitude of individual items. A coalesced inventory item appears in your inventory window with an icon that looks like a stack of cubes. The name of a coalesced inventory item will be the same as the name of one of the objects inside it. The only way to determine what objects are contained inside a coalesced object is to rez the coalesced item. Colo - (n) a real-world facility where servers, networking, and communications facilities are housed and managed. Portmanteau of “co-location”. Combat Region - (n) a region where the parcel “Safe” setting has been disabled, so that avatars can sustain damage (q.v.), and where weapons and combat are allowed. Community Standards - (n) the agreement all players subscribe to which determines the limits of appropriate behavior while playing the game. The Community Standards are incorporated into the Terms of Service (q.v.) by reference. Concierge Service - (n) a higher level of customer service and assistance available only to island owners and mainland land owners paying more than 125US$ per month in tier. This service level includes Lindens dedicated to Concierge support duties and toll-free Concierge level-only phone help. Concurrency - (n) the number of users simultaneously logged onto Second Life at any given time. Console - (n) any of several windows that can be made to appear on the user's screen to display details about the internal operation of the client. These are useful to investigate client performance problems. Consoles may be enabled/disabled in the Advanced Menu (q.v.) or with keyboard shortcuts, and include Frame, Texture, Debug, Fast Timers, and Memory consoles. Contents - (n) one of the tabs in Edit mode. Go to this tab to see what items, such as scripts, textures, or notecards are stored inside an object. You can move things between your Inventory and the contents of an object if you have Modify permissions. If you need to edit a notecard for an item, you would do this in the Contents tab. Copybot - (n) A gadget and a technique developed from the efforts of the libopenmv (formerly libsecondlife) project, consisting of scripts and client-side software capable of making unauthorized copies of objects that were meant to be non-copyable or non-transferable. Its use is a serious violation of the TOS. Corsica - (n) the name of a mainland continent north of the Nautilus continent. Covenant - (v) stipulations made by the private estate land owner of what the next parcel owner may or may not do with the land. A parcel's covenant may be seen in About Land, Covenant tab. All the residents who live in the area are required to agree to abide by the covenant. Covenants typically describe the types of buildings and activities that are allowed in the area, and are written to ensure that the region remains attractive and enjoyable by all residents. Also see Zoning. Culling - (v) refers to how a viewer doesn't bother rendering objects, avatars, particles, and other visual elements that are hidden behind other solid objects. It's a performance feature. Cyber - (v) short for cyber-sex. The practice of engaging in sexual roleplay using chat and Second Life avatars and animations. Damage - (n) in certain regions, it is possible for an avatar to experience "injury" resulting in a loss of points that may result in death. At that point, the avatar is teleported to it's Home and the points are restored. Damage-enabled areas can be set for one person's property or for an entire region. If you are in a damage-enabled zone, you will see a red heart at the bottom of your screen with a number showing points from 1 to 100. The overwhelming majority of Second Life is not damage-enabled. Also see Combat Region. Dance Balls - (n) pairs (or larger sets) of poseballs (qv) which synchronise with each other to create animations showing avatars dancing or interacting in various ways. Also called Couples Balls. Dataserver - (n) refers to the way LSL scripts request information from Linden Lab databases. Data URL - (n) data:text/html Day - (n) The default SL day is four hours long, consisting of three hours of daytime and one hour of nighttime. The default cycle may be overridden on private estates. Dazzle - (n) (1) The project name for a Linden Lab user interface update project designed to make future customization of the Second Life viewer simpler. The ability to change themes is now part of the standard viewer. (2) The “silver” skin option for the Second Life viewer. Death - (n) when your avatar is in an area that allows damage to occur, a red heart will appear at the bottom of the screen. Next to it is a number that is initially set to 100 percent. If the amount of damage your avatar suffers drops to zero, the avatar dies. It is then teleported to Home and the points are set back to 100%. Deed - (v) (1) to give a parcel of land to a group. The group must already have enough tier contributed it to own the land; (2) to give a tier contribution to a group so it can own land. Usually done via the Owner Makes Contribution With Deed checkbox; (3) to give an object to a group. The object becomes the property of the group. De-rez - (v) to remove (derez) an object from a sim within Second Life. Generally is done through deleting the object or taking the object into inventory. Detach - (v) usually, to remove an item that has been attached to a specific part of the avatar's body, or in the case of HUD, to a location on the screen, and return it to inventory. Developers Incentives - (n) a now discontinued Second Life feature that paid US$ awards to the owners of the locations with extremely high Traffic. DMCA - (n) “Digital Millennium Copyright Act,” a set of laws and conventions that allow copyright holders to notify a service provider of copyright infringements so that the service provider can help remove the illegally reproduced items. Draw Distance - (n) the radius centered on your avatar that your client renders the Second Life world. If you are on a slower computer, you may be able to speed up your Second Life experience by reducing your Draw Distance. Drop - (v) (1) to remove an attached item from your avatar and drop it on the ground, instead of returning it to your inventory. (2) to place an item on an avatar or a calling card. Dwell - (n) a now discontinued Second Life feature that paid land owners in L$ according to their land's Traffic. Sometimes mistakenly used as a synonym for Traffic. Edit Mode - (n) using the tools built into the client to look at the contents of an object, or to see who created or owns it, or to change its size, shape, texture, or other attributes. To enter edit mode, right click an object and choose "Edit" from the pie-shaped menu, or press Ctrl-3, or press Tools->Select Tool->Edit. When in edit mode, click the blue "More" button to see more editing options. Press ESC to exit edit mode. Eject (also, Boot or Kick) - (v) to expel from a property. Ejecting a user will cause them to be quickly hurled off your property. The user can come directly back on your property after being ejected unless you also Ban (cv) them. Emerald Viewer - (n) Emote - (n) a built-in facial animation such as smile, or raise eyebrows, which may be triggered by a script. These are different than normal animations in that they are predefined, built-in, cannot be modified, and no new ones may be uploaded. Estate - (n) a collection of one or more private regions owned by the same individual. An estate contains one or more regions (sims); a region (sim) contains one or more parcels. Estate Controls - (n) local preferences menu (such as sun position, ground texture, and other things that only effect that region). Estate controls (World > Estate... menu) are only available to private island owners. Residents who own mainland sims cannot access them. Estate Manager - (n) a resident who has been granted the privileges to administer a private estate. Estate managers have access to the controls in the World->Region/Estate menu of the Second Life viewer. This lets them reboot Estate sims, change ground textures, change the land covenant, debug script usage, change the sun's position, ban/allow access to all the sims in the estate and generally override parcel settings. Event - (n) a group activity, led by a host, that starts and ends at specific times, and can be legitimately listed on the Search/Events calendar. Face Light - (n) a type of attachment consisting of an invisible scripted prim that acts as a light source, to better illuminate the avatar's face. FIC (Forum In-Crowd or Feted Inner Core) - (n) originally a term for SL residents who received unusual access or special treatment from Linden Lab, it has now become more general to refer to any influential SL resident (“She so FIC”). FIC originated at a time when the Forums were more widely used and were frequented by Lindens. First Land - (n) a now discontinued feature of Second Life. Formerly Premium Accounts were entitled to a free 512m2 plot of land from Linden Lab. First Life - (n) the so-called "real world" away from Second Life. Synonym for Real Life. Possibly an illusion. First Look - (n) a version of the Second Life client that contains a major enhancement currently being tested on the Main Grid for a near-future release. Residents can often use the Second Life First Look software and try out new features. FL - (n) abbreviation for First Life, q.v. Flexi, Flexible, Flexified - (adj) describes an object made up of a prim or collection of prims, e.g. "flexi skirt" that utilize many of the features on the "Features" tab on the object edit screen. These features force the object to move with the Second Life wind vector pressures and/or movement of the avatar to which the object is attached. Flight Assist - (n) a scripted attachment that can be worn to enable an avatar to fly higher and/or faster than the normal limits. Floater - (n) a temporary window that pops up in the Second Life viewer user interface. Examples include the inventory window (Ctrl-I), friends list (Ctrl-Shift-F), edit window (Ctrl-3), etc. Folder - (n) a subdivision of your Inventory. Your inventory is organized in folders. You can use the Create menu in the inventory window to make new folders. Sometimes when you buy something, it will go into a folder in your inventory that has a name that matches the name of the item you bought. FPS - (n) “Frames Per Second.” Two important FPS measures of performance are the client FPS (seen in the top of the Statistics Bar [q.v.], about 10-20 fps for most of us) and the simulator frame rate (“Sim FPS” farther down in the Statistics Bar, normally 45 for a smoothly running sim). Frame Time - (n) a simulator has about 22.2 milliseconds per frame to update all its periodic calculations for physics, scripts, texture handling, avatar control, etc. The actual time the simulator spends doing the processing is shown in the Statistics Bar, in the section named Time. A sim starts to get laggy when the frame time reported starts to reach the alloted 22.2 milliseconds. Freebie - (n) an item made available at no cost, often with full or extremely generous permissions. Freebie Resale - (idiom) the practice of selling items at a cost, which are available elsewhere for free. Reselling freebies is generally considered a scam in Second Life. Freebie Wall - (n) a scripted device offering a "catalogue" of Freebies from which a user can choose from by clicking on a prim representing the desired Freebie. The first Freebie Walls were provided by the Lindens at Telehubs (qv), labeled "Free Linden Content". Freeze - (v) a function used by landowners to bring a havoc-wreaking resident under control. Once frozen, an avatar stops flying, falls to the ground, and is unable to move. Friendship - (n) a relationship between two residents that enables them to see each other's online status, in-world location, and gain easily access to each other's profiles. In the standard SL client, Ctrl-Shift-F opens the Friends List (qv). Friends List - (n) Full Perms (Full Permissions) - (adj) an object set so it can be freely copied, modified, and transferred. Furry - (n) Second Life resident using anthropomorphic animal avatars. Gadget - (n) a particular form of scripted item; usually one that is a) worn by its user; and b) focuses on providing that user with extra functions, as opposed to doing anything externally visible. HUDs (qv) and AOs (qv) are common Gadgets. Gesture - (n) Gestures are unique combination of sound, animation, and chat that can be preconfigured to go off with a command or a specific phrase (for example, you can have your avatar clap his or her hands and play the sound of applause whenever you type: /clap). Ghost - (n) an object or avatar that is no longer in the Second Life virtual world, but is still visible on at least one resident's client. Ginko Bonds* - (n) debt instrument issued by Ginko Financial Services to its depositors in an attempt to avoid bankruptcy. Ginko Perpetual Bonds were exchanged for WTF units by the World Stock Exchange. GIRL - (acronym) Guy In Real Life. Sarcastic term for a female avatar controlled by a male player. Glitch Pants - (n) an item of clothing often used with prim skirts to fill in the areas that the prim part of the skirt fails to cover. Glow - (n) A graphics rendering technique that adds a simulated light bloom around light sources in a Second Life scene. This requires a graphics card that can support vertex shaders. The glow feature is enabled when the Basic Shaders option is enabled in the Custom settings of the Graphics tab of Preferences. God Mode - (n) a special mode of Second Life which only Linden staff members can access. A Linden in God Mode is invisible to sensors, cannot be pushed or damaged, has unlimited L$ and has full permissions access to every object on the grid. All actions that Lindens engage in while using God Mode are logged and inspected; any use of these powers for other than testing and legitimate administration purposes will usually lead to them getting fired. GOM – (1) (n) Gaming Open Market, a now obsolete currency exchange service, which closed down in response to the creation of LindeX. (2) (v) to GOM, meaning for the Lindens to create a service which competes with something a resident was already providing ("I hear the Lindens are planning to GOM banlink in the next release.") Gor - (n) series of BDSM-oriented Science Fantasy novels by John Norman that have given rise to dozens of role-playing sims throughout Second Life. Gorean - (n) Second Life resident who identifies with the culture of one or more of the various Gor sims. Governor Linden - (n) imaginary Linden listed as the land owner for land that is owned by Linden Lab. The actual Governor Linden avatar is used by a variety of Lindens from time to time. Governor Linden maintains a Governor's Mansion and SL History Museum in Clementina. Grey Goo - (n) an object which continuously makes copies of itself. Can be produced by accident, but is generally considered a form of Grid Attack (qv). Grid - (n) (1) the network of servers that make up the Second Life world (Example: “The Grid is down so the Lindens can fix it.”) (2) a series of intersecting lines that give a regular reference for building. Grid Address (also Grid Coordinates) - (n) the name of a region combined with three numbers between 0 and 255 for the X & Y (north-south & east-west) coordinates, and from 0 to 760 for the Z (up-down) coordinate. Example: Ahern (200, 155, 50). Grid Attack - (n) a coordinated attempt by griefers to crash Second Life as a whole, or multiple servers within it. Attempting a grid attack is grounds for instant and permanent banning from Second Life. Grid Coordinates - (n) See Grid Address. Grid Monkey - (n) a Linden (which varies at any given time) assigned to care for the grid and resolve hardware and software issues. There usually is a grid-monkey on-call at all hours of the day/night, making sure someone is ready to take care of any issues at all times. Gridnaut - (n) a resident who teleports between different virtual world grids, such as between Second Life and OpenSim grids. Griefer - (n) a person whose primary purpose is to harass others and destroy their enjoyment of Second Life. Griefers should be Abuse Reported. Group - (n) an in-world player-created association. Belonging to a group also includes the ability for several avatars to work on one project. Group Title - (n) the labels designated for officers and members of a group. Group Titles appear over an avatar's name when that group is active. You can change that title by changing your Active Group. To change that, right click on your Avatar and select “Groups” from the pie-shaped menu. In the Groups window that appears, scroll down to the group you want, and then click the “Activate” button. Group Titles can be up to 21 characters long. GTeam - (n) “Governance Team”; The name of the internal group of Linden Lab employees who oversee matters of law, conduct, and governance throughout Second Life. Havok - (n) the physics engine for the Second Life platform that handles real-time interaction between objects or other characters. Help Island - (n) an optional post-Orientation Island new resident learning area. To handle the large number of people joining Second Life, there are a large number of Help Islands which are mirror images of each other. These are referred to as HI1, HI2, HI3, etc… Once you leave Help Island, you can not return, though you can go to Help Island Public Heterocera - (n) the name of a mainland continent west of Nautilus and north of Sansara. Het-Grid - (n) short for Heterogeneous Grid, this is the technology that allows Linden Lab to update server simulator code on a few regions at a time instead of over the entire grid at once. In theory, this should make server upgrades smoother and avoid some grid-wide shutdowns for server software upgrades. HI - (n) abbreviation for Help Island, q.v. Hippiepay* - (n) a survey residents can take inworld and for which participants receive Linden dollars. Hippo Awards - (n) Linden Lab Innovation Awards honoring open source community members who have had the most significant impact on the Second Life viewer project over the course of a year. Hippotech* - (n) an inworld vending system that allows remote updates from one central location. Home - (n) the location that you teleport to when you choose the menu item "Teleport Home" or when you "die." You can set this location with a menu command. Home may be set to land that you own, land that a group you are a member of owns, or Linden Land that is set to allow home to be set (such as Welcome Areas or InfoHubs). Homestead Region - (n) a type of region for light use, with a capacity between an openspace region and a regular region. A homestead region can support 3750 prims and 20 avatars at any one time. Compare with regular regions and Openspace regions (q.v.). Hover Text - (n) the text that a script can cause to appear floating above an object. Hovertext is generated with the llSetText function of LSL. HUD - (n) Head Up Display. A control panel for an AO or other device that appears on screen. Icehouse - See Studio Icehouse. IM (Instant Message) – (1) (n) the chat window that allows two players to speak privately, (2) (v) to instant message another resident. IM Coma/IM Trance/IM Hell - (n) a state in which one person is not moving, chatting, or responding to chat because he or she is being bombarded with IMs. Imprudence Client - a popular alternate SL client created and maintained by a group led by Jacek Antonelli and McCabe Maxsted. Infohub - (n) a Linden Lab-owned information and social area. Infohubs are located at some of the former Telehub locations and are built and managed by residents or resident groups. Some new players first spawn at Infohubs after leaving Orientation Island or Help Island. InfoNode - Places in Second Life where new residents can find information, help, class schedules, and freebies. InfoNodes are owned and operated by NCI (q.v.). Inventory - (n) the window that contains everything you possess that isn't manifest in the world. Your inventory is the collection of clothing, objects, textures, etc. that your avatar possesses. Your inventory travels with you, and you can use any of it at any time. Inverse Kinematics - a technique used in avatar animations to calculate how various avatar joints should be moved in order to result in a desired ending position. Invisiprim - (n) a prim (qv) that can occlude (qv) objects, particles and avatars that are behind it. Invisiprims only hide objects with alpha channel or 32-bit textures unless the objects are animated. Inworld - (adj) (1) the state of being connected to the Second Life servers and present in the Second Life world (also: online), (2) anything that takes place within the virtual environment of Second Life. IRL - (acronym) In Real Life Island - (n) a Sim or group of Sims that are detached from the Linden Lab owned Mainland and only accessible by teleportation (see Private Island). I-World - (n) "In-World," a group of Linden Lab employees involved in support, communication, and education regarding in-world issues or queries. "I" also stands for "International", as the group also supports residents whose first language is not English. Jeogeot - (n) the name of a mainland continent south of the continent Sansara. JIRA - (n) Refers to the online issue and bug tracker at http://jira.secondlife.com . Here you can find bugs that have been reported, enhancements requested, and discussions about them between residents, Lindens, and other developers. Residents may vote for the issues they feel should receive attention. JPEG2000 - (n) a compressed graphics image format used for storing textures on the Linden Lab servers and in the client cache. When a resident uses the Second Life client to upload a texture of any format, the image is converted to JPEG2000 format for storage on the server. Kajira* - (n) (plural: kajirae) a female slave character in Gorean role play. Key - (n) see Avatar Key. Kick - (v) (1) the forced log-off of a resident from Second Life by an administrator. An administrative kick is usually followed by a time-out period, during which the kicked resident will be unable to log into Second Life (2) the expulsion of a resident from another resident's land by the landowner (see Eject). KK - (acronym) equivalent to "OK". Knowledge Base - (n) a website ( http://support.secondlife.com ) containing several hundred articles written by Linden Lab for residents on how to use Second Life. Lag - (n) the condition of running slowly. This can be caused by the server, your internet connection, or the objects, scripts and activities of the players around you. Landban - (v) to ban from a parcel using the SL client ban tools available to land owners authorized members of groups owning land. Land Baron - (n) a resident who makes profit in-world by buying and selling land, or by developing and selling land on Private Estates (qv). Landbot - (n) an alt account run by a program designed to quickly purchase land sold below a set price. Land that is incorrectly priced too low, or is set to sell for a nominal sum to "anyone", will almost certainly be snapped up by a landbot. Land Griefing - (v) the practice of buying land adjacent to a victim, placing deliberately ugly or offensive items (such as Ad Cubes) to blocking the view from (or access to) their land, then attempting to sell the adjacent parcel to the victim at an extortionate price. Land Griefing is not AR'able (as Linden Labs is unwilling to restrict what a resident may place on land they own) unless the items placed on the land violate the Community Standards or Terms of Service in some way. Landmark (LM) - (n) landmarks are shortcuts to places in Second Life. If you double click on a Landmark, a window pops up that allows you to see that location on a map or to teleport directly there. You can create a landmark anywhere using a menu command, and can then be given to other players. Landmarks you create or save default to being stored in the Landmarks folder of your Inventory. LCS - (n) Local Coordinate System, q.v. LDPW - (n) “Linden Department of Public Works,” a group within Linden Lab responsible for organizing teams of resident content creators to improve the beauty and experience of living on and visiting Second Life mainland. Liaison - (n) a Linden staff member who work as front-line technical support or serve as an in-world representative. libopenmv - (n) previously called “libsecondlife” and “libsl,” an open source library of reverse-engineered software written in C# under .NET in Windows or Mono on multiple platforms, covered by BSD license and not affiliated with Linden Lab directly. It is used to construct client-side software for connecting to SL or OpenSim-type virtual world servers. Often used to create text-only clients, or lightweight bot controlling clients. Library - (n) a special folder in your Inventory (q.v.) that contains free Linden Lab content. libsecondlife - (n) obsolete name for libopenmv, q.v. Linden - (n) an employee of Linden Labs. Linden employees are referred to as "Lindens" because all of them have that last name when in the game. (2) (n) Linden dollar, the currency of Second Life. Linden Bear - (n) a gift that many Lindens give in-world to residents upon request. The prototypical Linden Bear is said to have been made by Nicole Linden, and now each Linden has his or her own individualized bear to give as gifts. Linden Dollar (L$) - (n) denoted L$, the unit of currency for all monetary transactions in Second Life. Linden dollars are a microcurrency and can be traded for real world currencies on the LindeX (q.v.) and on other third party exchanges. Linden Home - (n) Linden Lab (LL) - (n) the creators of Second Life. "Linden Labs" is a common--but incorrect--usage. Linden Prize* - (n) an annual award for superlative achievement exemplifying the mission "elevating the human condition" through using Second Life as announced by Mitch Kapor in his keynote speech celebrating the fifth year of operation of the Second Life platform. LindeX - (n) a currency exchange operated by Linden Lab. Residents are able to buy and sell Linden Dollars (q.v.) using US dollars, at market price, or place limit orders. Link - (v) when building, multiple prims may be linked together with a menu command. When linked, they can be moved as one unit. Linkset - (n) also “link set”, an object consisting of two or more prims linked together. A linkset is limited to 255 prims. Live Help - (n) a now discontinued feature of Second Life. The "Live Help" command on the Help menu allowed you to access in-world help chat with Lindens and Live Help resident volunteers. Live Help has been superseded by the support portal on the SL website. LL - (n) abbreviation for Linden Lab, q.v. LLnet - (n) a private global fiber optic networking infrastructure, invented by Linden Lab, for connecting the Linden Lab servers and databases in several data centers. LM - (n) abbreviation for Landmark, q.v. Local Coordinate System (LCS) - (n) a way of describing locations in the world relative to an object. The LCS of a particular object has its origin point <0,0,0> at its center, and the 3 correspond to the forward, right, and upward directions from the object's point of view. This is as opposed to the Global or World Coordinate System (GCS or WCS) in which everything is defined by absolute position in the world. For example, if a human lies down on the floor on their left hand side with their head facing North, then in GCS terms their head would be described as "West of their shoulders", since this is their literal position; in the person's LCS, their head would still be described as "above their shoulders", since this is its position relative to the rest of their body. Local Lights - (n) a feature built into newer graphics cards that helps render the glow of light sources very fast. Older graphics cards must simulate the glow of local lights using software algorithms, which can degrade performance on the client. This feature can be enabled/disabled in Preferences. Lock - (v) to set the lock flag for an item, making it un-modifiable. LOD - (n) “Level of Detail.” Refers in general to the algorithms that determine what level of detail (resolution) that must be rendered for each object, avatar, and other component of a scene. Related to Draw Distance, (q.v.) Log - (1) (n) a transcript of chat, or of computer activities. (2) (v) to log out, to go offline, to stop playing Second Life. LOL (acronym) - "Laughing Out Loud". Shorthand meant to convey that the writer is actually sitting at the computer laughing at something someone has said or done. "That's some silly cheese hat you have there! LOL!" Lot (n) - Also called Parcel, a contiguous section of land owned by one person or group. Size is measure in meters squared (m2). Cf. estate, region, sim, and parcel. LSL - “Linden Scripting Language.” (1) n, The programming language used to create interactive content inside Second Life. (2) n, The front-end compiler and back-end execution environment for executing LSL scripts (as opposed to Mono, for example). Both definitions are used in the sentence, “LSL scripts may be compiled and run by LSL or by Mono.” LSL2 - (n) alternate name for the version of LSL scripting language currently in use in SL. See LSL. LSL Wiki - (n) one of several websites containing reference material defining LSL – the scripting language used in Second Life. The official LSL wiki maintained by Linden Lab is http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Portal . Another resident-run LSL wiki is http://lslwiki.net . Lucky Chair - (n) scripted chairs that give out prizes when you sit on one that is displaying the first letter of your first name. m2 - (1) (adj) abbreviation for square meters used in talking about Second Life land. (2) (n) abbreviation for the Metaverse Messenger newspaper. Machinima - (n) animated movies created using game engines and virtual worlds. Mãebaleia - (n) alternate name for the Satori continent, south of Nautilus and east of Sansara. Main Grid - (n) all the regions that make up the part of Second Life that is reserved for adults. Minors are not allowed on the Main Grid. They may however connect to the Teen Grid (qv). Mainland - (n) the continents managed by Linden Lab. Land on the mainland is initially auctioned off by Linden Lab in one sim blocks. Map - (n) the window in the Second Life application that displays the map. It can be used to find locations, individuals, and specific coordinates. (v) to select an avatar's name in the map window so that the avatar can be located, or followed, on the map. Mapping will only work on Avatars on your Friends list that have set their client to allow you to map them. Map Window - (n) See Map. Material - (adj) Second Life objects can be made of different materials; this setting affects the collision sound, weight, friction, etc. of the object. Example materials are Stone, Wood, and Rubber. Material setting only affect the physics of the object and do not affect its appearance. Mature - (adj) rating for a sim that allows behavior forbidden in the PG areas. This may include profanity, nudity and sexual content and activities, to the extent that such behavior is legal. MDC - (n) See Metaverse Development Company. Megaprim - (n) prims that are larger than what is normally allowed, meaning that they have a dimension over 10m along one or more axes. Most megaprims in use now were created when the server-side lockout preventing their creation was briefly removed during Havok 4 implementation. The existing megaprims were copied, transferred, and are still available today. Currently there is limited simulator support for megaprims. Their existence may cause simulator problems in some sims and so are not welcome everywhere. There is some movement within Linden Lab to support megaprims officially to some degree in the future. Mentor - (n) a resident volunteer working with Linden Lab of Second Life who teaches and guides other citizens. Message of the Day - (n) a message that changes periodically (although not necessarily daily) that appears on the client screen when logging in to Second Life. Metaverse - (n) a term for a virtual universe coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel "Snow Crash". Stephenson's novel was an inspiration for Second Life. Metaverse Development Company (MDC) - (n) a real-world business which charges other businesses real money to develop areas or promotions for them in Second Life. Prominent MDCs include: Electric Sheep Company (ESC), Millions of Us, Beta Technologies, Aimee Weber Studios, and Rivers Run Red. Micro-Prim - (n) prims that have been tortured (q.v.) into shapes that appear to have dimensions smaller than the 0.01m dimensions normally allowed for prims. These are often used to make attachments such as jewelry. Also called Tiny Prim. Mini Map - (n) a small floater window on the client screen that shows a map of the neighborhood. Use Ctrl-Shift-M to toggle the mini-map on and off. Missing Image - (n) a black and while error texture that appears on an avatar or object when the Asset Server can't locate the correct texture. Missing Image problems on Avatars can often be fixed by Rebaking (cv) Money Tree - (n) a tree-shaped scripted object with Linden Dollar (q.v.) bills and fruit. New residents (usually under 30 days old) can pick the bills or fruit by touching them and collect small amounts of Linden Dollars by doing so. Mono - (n) an open source framework for executing .NET-compatible software on a wide range of operating systems. Linden Lab is currently integrating Mono into the Second Life server software. This will give several advantages: (a) allow LSL scripts that are compiled under Mono to execute much faster; (b) eventually will allow additional languages such as C# to be used for scripting in SL; (c) increased security will make it harder for scripts to crash a sim. The alternative to Mono is OSE, q.v. MOTD - (n) Message of the Day, q.v. Mouselook - (n) typing the letter "m" will change the main window to a first-person camera view that will change according to mouse motions. This is the usual view for weapons fire. It is also useful for flying in some circumstances. Hit the Escape key to exit Mouseview. Also called Mouseview. Mute - (v) choosing the option that prevents you from seeing the chat, instant messages, inventory drops, and teleport offers from another resident. Nautilus - (1). (n) The name of a mainland continent south of the continent Corsica, consisting of about 800 regions. (2). (n) Sometimes used to refer specifically to Nautilus City, q.v. Nautilus City - (n) The name of a nautical-themed planned community of about 80 mainland regions built by residents under the management of the Linden Department of Public Works (q.v.), just off the southern coast of the continent Nautilus. NCI - (1). (n) New Citizens Incorporated. A volunteer group providing many services for the new Second Life resident. At NCI locations you can take classes, attend events such as Q & A and building competitions, find free clothes and gadgets, get informative notecards about Second Life, build in the sandbox, and more. NCI locations may be found in Search. Neko - (n) mostly human avatars with some cat like characteristics, such as ears, whiskers and/or tails. Has its origins in Anime. Newbie - (n) a newcomer to Second Life; a resident who has joined for a relatively short period of time and/or is not familiar or comfortable with Second Life's culture, interface, and nuances. The newbie cut-off point is generally considered to be at around 90 days. Night - (n) the default SL day is four hours long, consisting of three hours of daytime and one hour of nighttime. The default cycle may be overridden on private estates. No-Copy - (adj) any object whose permissions do not permit the current owner to make additional copies of the object. These objects have (no-copy) in their name in the inventory. No-Fly - (adj) any land parcel that does not permit flying. You can fly through no-fly parcels, but as soon as you touch down and stop flying, you'll be unable to fly again until you exit the no-fly parcel. If you get really stuck, teleport somewhere else. No-Modify (No-Mod) - (adj) any object whose permissions do not permit the current owner to make changes of the object. These objects have (no-modify) in their name in the Inventory. Non Physical (Non-Phys) - (adj) a method of avatar movement obtained by sitting on a non-physical prim and then moving the prim with the edit tools, or using a script in the prim for controlled movement. A non physical avatar can pass through walls and cannot be pushed; they are considered an immovable object from the point of view of any physical object that strikes them. Notecard - (n) an inventory item containing text and/or embedded textures, snapshots, objects, or other notecards. Items embedded in notecards must have copy/modify/transfer permissions. No-Transfer - (adj) any object whose permissions do not permit the current owner to resell or give away the object. These objects have (no-transfer) in their name in the Inventory. Nova Albion - (n) See City Sims. NUE - (n) acronym used by Linden Lab for New User Experience. Object - (n) one prim (q.v.) or multiple prims linked together to form a three-dimensional geometric “thing” in second life. Objects have attributes such as position, rotation, velocity, ownership, and a set of permissions that control the ability to move, copy, modify, and transfer the object. Objects may be stored in inventory, rezzed in-world, or worn as attachments. Occlusion - (n) 3D graphics rendering technique that ensures that the computer does not spend time attempting to draw things that are not visible (typically because they remain hidden behind something else). Office Hours - (n) scheduled times where specific Lindens are available to take questions and comments from residents on their specific areas of expertise. Offline - (adj) the state of being disconnected from the Second Life servers and absent from the Second Life world. OGP - (n) Open Grid Protocol.” Refers to the software protocols used for interconnecting clients with Second Life regions and regions of other virtual worlds. Oldbie - (n) (1) a resident from the early days of Second Life (pre-2005). (2) anyone who is no longer a newbie. The newbie cut-off point is generally considered to be at around 90 days. OMG - (acronym) shorthand for "Oh My God!" Online - (adj) the state of being connected to the Second Life servers and present in the Second Life world. Also: in-world. OOC - (acronym) role-playing shorthand for "Out of character." Used in role-playing sims to let the listener know that the avatar is speaking as him or herself--not as the character he or she is playing. Open - (1). (v), To make a window appear. For example, press the Search button, press Ctrl-F, or choose Edit->Search to open the search window. (2). (v), To access the contents of an object by right clicking on an object and choosing "Open" from the pie-shaped menu. This will open a window that displays the contents of the object and will allow you to move items to and from your inventory. OpenMV - (n), See libopenmv. OpenSim - (n), an open source project to create a virtual world similar to Second Life. The Second Life viewer can be used to connect to OpenSim grids, but OpenSim servers cannot currently connect to the Second Life grids. Also see OGP and AWG. Open Source - (adj), software that has been licensed and published in such a way that the general public can see it, understand it, develop it, improve it, and expand it. Modified versions of the software may be redistributed within certain limitations. Currently the Second Life client (viewer) is open source, but not the server software. Openspace Sim - (n) A sim (region) for very light use, with a dramatically reduced prim limit (750 prims) that operate four sims (regions) on a single sim processor core. Designed by Linden Lab for creating open fields or seas, they are sold for about one quarter of the price of one ordinary region. Also called Void Sim. See also Homestead (q.v.) regions. Orbit - (v) the act of sending someone so far into the sky that it would take an unreasonable amount of time for them to return to the ground and/or changing their coordinates such that they no longer fit within SL's world model. Requires a physics based weapon, see Orbiter (qv). Normally, teleporting away or, in extreme cases, relogging (qv) will fix being orbited. Orbiter - (n) a physics-based weapon that attacks a resident by rapidly pushing them upwards into the sky with a force that exceeds the amount of counterforce that normal Second Life flight can exert. Orientation Island (OI) - (n) The first area all users of Second Life visit. To handle the large number of people joining Second Life, there are a large number of Orientation Islands which are mirror images of each other. These are referred to as OI1, OI2, OI3, etc… Both Linden Lab and partner companies operate Orientation Islands. Private OIs usually differ considerablely from the Linden OI. OSE - (n) “Original Script Engine,” Linden Lab's preferred term for the classic compiler and run-time software used to compile and run LSL scripts. The other option is Mono. Outfit - (n) a group of clothing items in a single folder in Inventory that can be dropped on the avatar to effect a fast change of appearance. Outworld - (adj) (1) the state of being connected to First Life and not present in the Second Life world (also: offline), (2) anything that takes place outside the virtual environment of Second Life. Packet Loss - (n) fragments of network data that get lost or mangled during transmission, for a wide variety of reasons. Reducing the Network Bandwidth in Preferences may reduce packet loss, with the trade-off that all data will be transferred more slowly. Parcel - (n) section of land within one region that is treated as one lot. All land within a parcel shares the same owner, prim limit, About Land settings, ban lists, etc. A person can own more than one parcel in a region, and it is possible (though unlikely) for a parcel to be not contiguous. Particles - (n) two-dimensional sprites (graphic images that always face the viewer). Second Life's particle system allows a wide variety of particles, enabling residents to create burning fires, glistening waterfalls, vapor trails on jet fighters, tracers on bullets, the occasional macabre spurt of blood, floating hearts of affection, billowing smoke, rainbows, and much more. Partner - (1) (n) a resident of Second Life who "partners" up with another resident; partners can be spouses, couples, or just friends. It costs 10L$ to Partner with someone, and 25L$ to dump them. (2) (v) Path Cut - (n) a type of shape modification that can be applied to prims of various shapes using the building editor in the Second Life viewer. A path cut in a sphere, for example, can result in shapes such as a lemon wedge, hemisphere etc. Peak Usage - (n) the maximum total amount of land a Second Life resident owned, at any one time, in a monthly billing period. To reduce possible exploitation of land ownership, Second Life bills land use fees based on peak usage; holding 4096 square meters for one minute costs the same as holding it for thirty days. Note that this amount always includes the resident's group contributions as well. Permaban - (v) the act of, and the result of, permanently banning someone. Permissions (Perms) - (adj) Second Life's built-in "intellectual property" system. Creators can choose whether subsequent owners of their creations can Copy, Modify, and/or Transfer that item. Creators who want to preserve their intellectual property rights usually limit one or more of these attributes. PG - (adj) describes an area that does not allow profanity, obvious sexuality, or intentional nudity. Also see Mature. Phantom - (adj) setting on a Second Life object which determines whether the object collides. Phantom objects appears insubstantial, and can be freely passed through. Physical - (adj) objects that have their "physics" flag set are subject to simulated Newtonian effects. These objects will bounce, collide, and be affected by gravity, Physics - (n) (1) Second Life's software model for how forces and objects interact (see: Havok). 2) a setting on objects that can be enabled, causing the object to fall and react to gravity, as well as collisions with other objects. Without physics, object remain exactly where they were placed, no matter what force is applied to them. Pie Menu - (n) the round context menu accessed by right-clicking on objects, avatars, and land in-world. Ping - (n)(v) a measurement and the act of measuring the time it takes for one fragment of data to travel between two points on a network. Ping times between the client and simulator can be seen in the Statistics Bar (q.v.). PJIRA - (n) The Public JIRA issue tracker and bug database (as opposed to any private JIRAs that are internal to Linden Lab). See JIRA. Places - (n) a tab on the Search window in the Second Life viewer, used to search for place names in Second Life. Places results are ranked by Traffic (q.v.). Plywood - (1) (adj) the default texture applied to all newly rezzed Prim. (2) (n) a Second Life comic strip by Moriash Moreau. Poofer - (n) an object containing a script that creates particles on the fly. An example is an attachment that emits small hearts when typing in chat. Pose - (n) a static animation that puts your avatar into a specific position. Poseball - (n) balls that contain scripts and animations that can make your avatar sit, dance, as well as do many other things. Used by clicking on the ball and selecting “Sit Here” or “Animate” from the menu. Usually colored blue (for men) and pink (for women) if the animation is gender-specific. Note that animations can also be embedded in other items such as a rock, tree stump, or furniture. Also see Sit. Posing Stand - (n) standing on this item locks your avatar in position. Used primarily for editing the position of attached items like hair and jewelry while being worn. Preferences - (n) Choose Edit->Preferences or press Ctrl-P to bring up a window where you can change many parameters and settings that affect how your viewer performs. Premium Account – (n) paid subscription to Second Life. Premium Accounts cost between US$9.99 and $6.00 a month (depending whether they are paid monthly, quarterly, or annually), and provide a Stipend (qv) of L$300 a week and 512m2 of Tier (qv). A Premium Account is required to own land on the Mainland. Preview Grid - (n) Previously known as the Beta Grid, an alternate set of servers that run an independent copy of some of the sims using server software that is under development and has not yet been released. Residents may log onto the Preview Grid to experiment with new software features. Any activities, including monetary transactions, that occur on the Preview Grid are only temporary and are confined to the Preview Grid and have no effect on your inventory or L$ balance on the main grid. To log onto the Preview Grid, use the Preview Grid viewer from the SL download page, or press Ctrl+Shift+G on the regular client and choose Aditi from the drop-down menu of grids. Preview Grid viewer – (n) A special test viewer (client) that is meant to be used on the Preview Grid to test new features in the client and/or sim software before the new features are released on the main grid. If a Preview Grid viewer is available, it can be downloaded from the SL download page. Also see Preview Grid. Prim - (n) short for "primitive" the basic shapes that almost all objects in Second Life are made from. An object consists of a single primitive or multiple linked primitives. Prims are created, shaped, and textured via the Edit window or by scripts. The basic Prim types are: Box, Cylinder, Sphere, Ring, Tube, and Torus. Objects are made of one or more prims (sometimes hundreds!). Every parcel of land has a limit on how many prims it can hold (a 512-square-meter parcel of land can have 117 prims). Prim Flicker - (n) the condition where two textures seem to overlap and shift one over the other as you move around them. Prim flicker is caused by badly positioned overlapping sections of prims. Prim Hair (or eyelashes, or fingernails.) – (n) hair made from twisted and textured prims. You can generate a basic hairstyle with the avatar appearance sliders, but a wig made of prims looks much more realistic. Prim Limit - (n) the number of prims that can be placed on a given parcel of land. Prim Sculpture - (v or n) use of overlapping, modified prims to create artistic, realistic, and/or organic shapes. The term "Prim Sculpture" originated well before Sculpties (qv) were introduced, to describe skill at working around the fact that custom prim shapes were not available at that time; thus, Sculptie Prims are (paradoxically) not generally referred to as Prim Sculptures. Prim Taxes - (n) a now discontinued feature of Second Life. Before Second Life 1.2, the amount of prims residents could have in world was limited by "taxes" on each prim deducted from the Avatar's account when prims were rezzed. Prim Torture - (v) (1) a method for adjusting settings of a Prim which are not normally accessible, by switching the prim between different types. For example, you can set a prim to type Tube, adjust the Profile Cut setting, and then set the prim to type Box. The result is a Box with a Profile Cut applied, which is usually not possible. (2) (v) extreme deformations of prims. Private Continent - (n) a large group of privately owned sims. Private Estate - (n) one or more privately owned sims. Private Island - (n) a single sim or a group of sims not connected to a mainland continent, owned by someone other than Linden Lab. Profile - (n) the window that contains personal information about a avatar. The Profile window can contain a picture of the avatar, a list of the groups they belong to, a description. Additional Profile tabs include space for a website, Picks, Classifieds, a First Life section, and a Notes section. Puppeteering - (n) the ability to manipulate avatar joints in real time in expressive ways beyond classic avatar movements, including ragdoll physics and inverse kinematics. Push Weapon - (n) scripted object capable of applying a force to objects, but especially to other residents. come in numerable styles and implementations. Using Push Weapons on other residents can be considered harassment and is not permitted in Safe zones or non-damage-enabled regions. Landowners have the option to cause Push Weapons not to work on their land. Pyogp - (n) software for the OGP project written in the Python language. See OGP. Radar - (n) a scripted gadget, often worn as a HUD, that periodically reports a list of avatars who are near you. Rating - (n) a now discontinued feature of Second Life. Ratings once were the positive or negative vote a player could give to another player for their avatar's appearance, the player's building ability and how well the players relates to others. Ratings Bonus - (n) a now discontinued feature of Second Life that paid stipend bonuses to people with high Ratings. RAW Terrain File - (n) a specially formatted graphics file that defines the land contour of a region, water height, and other land characteristics. Estate owners may create their own custom RAW files and upload them to create their own island shapes and land contours. Real Life - (1). (n) also called Real World, an imaginary, dream-like world frequently described by avatars shortly after waking up in-world. (2).(n) the constant interruptions that interfere with your ability to stay in-world 24 hours a day. Rebake - (v) to force one's clothing and body textures to re-rez in order to correct blurred or “Missing Image” problems with one's avatar. The rebake command is accessible via the Character sub-menu of the Client menu. Also see baked. Recent Items - (n) items that were most recently added to your inventory will show on the Recent Items tab in your Inventory. Click the Recent tab, then choose "Show filters" from the inventory File menu. RegAPI - (n) a software interface provided by Linden Lab that third parties can use to create new accounts and sign up new residents using private entry portals different than Linden Lab's signup website. Region - (n) a land area, also called sim, q.v. An estate contains one or more regions (sims); a region (sim) contains one or more parcels. Region Domain - (n) the part of Linden Lab server software that manages a region. This is almost the same as a “sim,” but emphases the abstract separation between services that are required to support a region as opposed to services that support avatars. Region Say - (v) a form of chat that objects are able to generate on non-zero chat channels and is heard by all other objects residing in the same sim. Rehi - (idiom) shorthand for "Hello, again" Usually spoken to someone who is seen again within a short time of a previous conversation. "Rehi, Kathy. How was supper?" Release Candidate (RC) - (n) a version of the Second Life client currently being tested on the Main Grid for a near-future release. Relog - (v) to log out of Second Life and then immediately log in again. Occasionally necessary to clear up technical problems. Reset - (v) to restart one or more scripts inside an object. If an object is in edit mode or selected by a right click, you may select “Reset All Scripts in Selection” in the Tools menu to restart the scripts in the object. Resident - (n) term for a person who uses Second Life. This can refer to the user of the account as well as their in-world avatar. Resident Help Network - (n) abbreviated RHN, a program in development by Linden Lab with aim to support resident volunteer help groups in Second Life to connect, collaborate, and have greater visibility in their efforts and availability. Groups with emphasis on helping new or experienced residents with Second Life related learning or immersion without charge are eligible to apply to be a part of the RHN. Resmod - (n) a resident moderator of the official Second Life forums. Restrained Life Viewer (RLV)* - (n) a modified Second Life client that restricts the freedom of action of the user and that allows the user to be controlled by another resident. RLVs are mostly used by residents in a sub/dom relationship. Rez - (v) (1) to create an object, or bring an object out of your inventory into the world. (2) (v) Rez also refers to objects and avatars loading when you enter a new area, i.e.,“I teleported to the island, but it took forever for the buildings to rez.” (Derives from "de-rez" a fictional hacker term in the movie "Tron".) Rezzable - (n) a UK-based virtual world design and build company. Rezzable created the Greenies sim, Tunnel of Light, and many other popular sims in Second Life. Rez Day - (n) analogous to a birthday in real life, the calendar anniversary of the day when a Second Life account was created. This is the date that appears in the 2nd Life tab of a resident's profile. RFL - (n) See Relay for Life. Risk API - (n) refers to a set of behind-the-scenes algorithms that run on the grid servers to try to identify patterns of financial transactions that might indicate money laundering, fraud, identity theft, or other illegal activity. RL - (n) See Real Life. Rollback - (v,n) the act of and the result of restoring a region to the state it was in at the time of an earlier backup. This is something that Linden Lab can do in severe emergencies to get a corrupted region restored to a working condition. Root Prim - (n) in an object consisting of multiple, linked prims, this is the prim last selected before linking, and has special characteristics of importance to the operation of scripts. Run - (1) (v) a mode of avatar movement; Ctrl-R toggles between normal avatar walking speed, and “running.” Pressing the up-arrow key twice causes your avatar to run instead of walk. (2). (v), To execute a program. (3). (n), A longitudinal failure pattern that happens to legwear in First Life. Ruth - (1) (n) the default avatar that is rendered on the screen by a client when the shape information has not yet been received from the sim server, named for the female avatar with red swept back hair originally used for that purpose. Currently, a “ruthed” avatar is represented by a soft particle cloud. (2).(v) Being “ruthed” is Second Life slang for appearing in the shape of the default SL Avatar (normally due to server lag or dropped packets). To de-ruth yourself, go into Appearance mode, make a very minor change, and then save that change, or log out and back on, or change shapes, or do any other operation that triggers the shape information to be downloaded fresh from the sim. Ruth Cloud - (n) The wispy particle cloud used in place of an avatar when the avatar shape information has not yet been communicated from sim to client. See Ruth. Rx Team - (n) “Resident Experience Team,” a group within Linden Lab responsible for improving the new user experience. Also see SL-UX. Safe - (adj) describes areas which are set initially to not allow avatars to take damage. Individual landholders can enable damage on their own land, however. Sandbox - (n) an area reserved for building activities. A sandbox must have the necessary land area, prim allotment, and parcel permissions to allow users to rez objects and/or run scripts. Private sandboxes are owned by residents and groups. Public sandboxes are owned by Linden Lab. Most sandboxes are set to regularly return items left there. Selling and combat are usually not permitted in sandboxes. Satori - (n) a mainland continent south of the continent Nautilus and east of Sansara. Also called the Mãebaleia continent. Scanner - (n) a scripted object that can detect objects and avatars within a defined distance. Script - (n) a program that is written Second Life's Linden Scripting Language (LSL). A script can be placed into an object to cause it to have an effect on those people or things around it. Scripted Item - (n) an object that contains a program that allows it to behave in various ways. Scripts and animations are the "life" of Second Life. Scripter - (n) a person who writes scripts in LSL, the Linden Scripting Language. Scrubber - (n) a type of script that, when placed in a prim, resets the persistent properties of the prim to their default states. These properties include hover text, particle effects, sit target, etc. Sculptie (also Sculpted Prim) - (n) a prim with a customized shape, created outside of Second Life using 3D modeling software. Scultpies are a client-side effect and are rendered by the SL client based on a special type of texture map. Second Life (SL) - (n) an interactive 3d virtual world almost completely built by the residents and operated by Linden Lab of San Francisco. Security Orb - (n) a scripted object programmed to eject or teleport unwanted avatars from a land Parcel (qv). (Most often, this includes all strangers.) Server - (n) the processor that runs the programming necessary for one region of the world. Multiple sims are run on different processors in the same computer. Sex balls - (n) linked sets of pose balls that animate avatars to show sexual behaviors. Shape - (n) a body part that determines the overall visual form and appearance of an avatar. It is the geometric mesh upon which the clothing layer textures are applied. Shapes may be modified in Edit->Appearance. Shared Media - (n) Shield - (n) worn as an attachment, this surrounds the avatar with a transparent object designed to intercept bullets, missiles, push objects, or other items of threat to the avatar. Shout - (v) the act of saying text that can be heard by other avatars and scripts within a 100m radius. Scripted items are able to shout, and avatars may shout by pressing the Shout button after entering text in chat mode. Compare with regular chat (20m radius) and whispering (10m radius). Showcase - (n) a tab in the Search window in the Second Life viewer that lists a number of landmarks selected by Linden Lab that demonstrate the best of Second Life resident locations. Silks - (n) a type of extremely revealing lingerie worn by Gorean (q.v.) slave girls, loosely based on descriptions given in the original Gor novels. Silks have moved out from the Gorean subculture and into the more general SL fashion industry, and are worn at times by many non-Gorean female avatars. Sim - (1).(n) Synonymous with “region,” a piece of Second Life land comprising 65,556 square meters (256m x 256m). E.g., “I live in the Kuula sim.” (2).(n) Also called “simulator,” the physical computer server that runs multiple instances of the simulator software. E.g., “The Kuula region runs on a class 5 sim.” (3).(n) An instance of the software that runs on a simulator server that manages a single land region. E.g., “The Kuula sim version was updated today.” Sim Boundary - (n) the border between two sims. Crossing sim boundaries can cause problems, as your avatar and its settings are transferred from one server to another. Sim State - (n) A snapshot of a region, including all the objects, terrain, scripts, and other things in a region. Sim states are periodically saved and backed up by each sim server and used to recover a region after a crash. Alternatively spelled “simstate.” Simulator Object Bonus - (n) a special setting on Private Islands which allows the Prim Limit (qv) on some parcels to be increased. However, the sim owner must 'pay back' the extra prims by leaving other areas of the sim empty. Sit - (v) to sit on something, right-click the object then choose "Sit" from the pie-shaped menu. Sometimes that slice of the pie menu might say something other than Sit (like Relax, Cuddle, or Dance). This will access an animation that is embedded in the object that you clicked on. The same process is used to run many animations in SL – not just to sit down. Also see Pose Balls. Sit Target - (n) The coordinates, as offsets from a prim's center, and the local rotation of where an avatar will be positioned when seated on the prim. Newly created prims have a default sit target and only a script can change it. Once changed by a script, the modified sit target will remain in effect even if the script is removed. Skin - (n) a texture image that replaces the default skin of your avatar. Cannot (usually) be adjusted by the appearance sliders, but looks much better than the default skin. Skybox - (n) any building located up in the sky, instead of on the ground. SL - (n) see Second Life. SLebrity - (1).(n) an avatar who has achieved celebrity status within Second Life. (2). (n) The name, or a component of the name, of several Second Life groups, avatars, businesses, organizations, events, and websites. SLED - (n) the mailing list for Second Life educators and those interested in the educational potential of Second Life. SLGOGP - (n) “Second Life Grid Open Grid Protocol.” See OGP. Sliders - (n) controls for customizing Avatar appearance and clothing. These sliding settings levers in appearance mode (right-click on Avatar and select “appearance” to access) change values for avatar and clothing mesh. As an example, foot size can be altered from tiny to large on one slider, rounded to pointy toes on another, thin to thick platforms on another. SLim - (n) Linden Lab's Second Life text and voice chat client. It allows users to text or voice chat with Second Life residents on their Friends list without having the SL viewer open. SLT - (n) “Second Life Time.” The time zone corresponding to the local time at the Linden Lab offices at San Francisco. Linden Lab now refers to Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) and Pacific Standard Time (PST), but the term SLT is commonly used inworld by residents. SLURL - (n) a type of weblink that launches the Second Life client and teleports you to the location indicated via the slurl.com website. SL-UX - (n) abbreviation for the Second Life User Experience. Refers to the mailing list and activities of the Rx Team, q.v. Snapshot - (n) A picture (screenshot) of the scene rendered in the Second Life viewer. A snapshot can be made by clicking File->Take Snapshot or clicking Ctrl-` (back tick). A snapshot can be saved as local file, emailed to a recipient, or uploaded in-world for 10L$. Snowglobe Viewer* - (n) an open source Second Life-compatible viewer, built jointly by the open source community and Linden Lab. It can be downloaded here. Spam - (n) an unsolicited instant message, notecard, texture, group invite, animate request, or object sent to multiple people. This can be sent by another player, or by an object containing a script. Sploder - (n) slang for "exploder", a scripted object that clubgoers and owners put money into and after a few minutes they "splode", distributing the pot in uneven random amounts to any avatars present. Due to a ban on gambling, sploders are no longer allowed in SL. Statistics Bar - (n) a window of detailed performance data that appears on the upper right corner of the user's screen, enabled with Ctrl-Shift-1 or View->Statistics Bar. The data can help identify the source of performance problems in the client or simulator. Stipend - (n) the money given to a player by Linden Labs on a weekly basis. Premium accounts receive Stipends (300L$/week), though some older accounts have been grandfathered in under previous stipend programs. Streaming Music/Video - (n) music and video that may be heard and viewed on a parcel. Each parcel may have one video and one audio stream set at any one time. Streams are specified as URLs to files or streaming servers on the Internet. With the proper permissions, an avatar can manually specify the URL of the streaming audio and video in the Media tab of Preferences, or by using a script to set those fields. Studio Icehouse - (n) an engineering group in Linden Lab focused on the architectural underpinnings of Second Life. Target Omega - (n) one of two techniques used by LSL scripts to make an object appear to spin on one or more of its axes. Target omega spinning is computed and rendered by the client. The other way to make an object spin is physical rotation, which is managed by the server side. Teen Grid - (n) the part of Second Life that is reserved for minors from the ages of 13 through 17. Adults may only connect to the Teen Grid if given special clearance and in-depth screening by Linden Lab. Tekkie-Wiki - (n) derogatory term for users with advanced technical knowledge or experience of Second Life, who are alleged to be unable to empathize with those who lack similar knowledge. Telehub - (n) a now discontinued feature of Second Life. Telehubs were centralized teleport locations in Second Life. Before SL version 1.7, point-to-point teleporting was not enabled. Teleports all landed at the nearest Telehub to the destination point. From there, you had to fly to your destination. Most Telehubs were eliminated, but some were converted into Infohubs. Telepack* - (n) a collection of Second Life destinations grouped around a common theme and contributed to by all residents in a single file format. Most telepacks can be downloaded from wikiTiPi.com. Teleport (TP) - (v) to transport oneself instantly to another location. In Second Life, you can teleport by clicking on a landmark, using the map window, responding to a teleport request, or by selecting "teleport home" from the World menu. Also used as a verb meaning offer me a teleport ("Oh--that sounds cool; TP me over please.") Temporary - (adj) Objects marked in Second Life as not being permanent. When an object is marked as temporary, it will be deleted a few minutes after use. This is great for things like gun projectiles, dominos, or beachballs that might get away from you, disappear somewhere, or end up on no-script land (where their script would prevent them from deleting themselves). Temp Rezzer - (n) a script that attempts to circumvent a parcel's prim limit by repeatedly rezzing the same non-permanent object(s). Also see Temporary. Terms of Service - (n) The set of rules that all residents agree to follow while using Linden Lab services or products, and the consequences of violating those rules. Abbreviated TOS. Violations of the TOS may be reported with an Abuse Report (q.v.). Also see Community Standards. Terraforming - (v) the act of changing the shape and elevation of land. Most Mainland sims are limited to +/- 4 meters terraformability. Land on Private Estates can be terraformed up to +/- 100 meters. Texture - (n) an image or graphic uploaded to Second Life for application to the surface of an object or to clothing. Textures can be purchased or found for free in-world, or created in third-party graphics programs and uploaded to Second Life for 10 L$ per image. Tier - (n) (1) the monthly land “tax” you pay to either Linden Lab (on the mainland) or to a private island owner to own land. The more land you own, the higher your monthly Tier fees--but the less you pay per square meter (m2). Premium members get 512 m2 of free mainland tier. (2) one of the levels of land ownership (and associated land use fees). Tier Up - (v) to raise the level of tier you pay monthly to Linden Lab. Tiering up allows you to own more land and/or make a higher tier contribution to a Group. Tier Down - (v) to lowel the level of tier you pay monthly to Linden Lab by reducing the amount of land you own. Time Dilation - (n) A simulator tries to update all the physics effects in a sim 45 times a second. When the sim cannot make these calculations fast enough, time seems to slow down. Avatars, vehicles, and other things move more slowly than normal. The time dilation is shown in the Statistics Bar (q.v.), and can be read by scripts. Tiny - (n) An extremely small Avatar, usually a furry, designed to resemble an animated stuffed animal. Tiny Prim - (n) See Micro Prim. Tooltip - (n) the information that appears when a mouse pointer is moved over an item or avatar. Slide the mouse arrow (without pressing any mouse buttons) over the item and the tooltip will appear, telling you the name or cost of an item, or the name of an avatar. Tortured Prim - (n) a prim that that has been modified into a shape that is normally not possible. (see Prim Torture) TOS - (n) See Terms of Service. Town Hall - (n) a meeting where a senior Linden addresses and takes questions from residents. Town Halls are usually conducted via voice. TP - (v) See Teleport. Traffic - (n) a Linden Lab generated measure of how many avatars frequent a parcel of land and how long they stay. Higher traffic results in a higher placement in the "Places" search. See also Camping. Transfer/No-Transfer - (adj) A permissions setting that can be applied to Second Life objects that allows or disallows the transfer of ownership of the object to someone other than the current owner. Triage Meeting - (n) see Bug Triage Meeting. TTYL - (acronym) shorthand for "Talk To You Later" TY - (acronym) shorthand for "Thank You!" UUID - (n) globally unique identifier assigned to each item in the SL asset server database. Every avatar, object, texture, clothing item, body part, notecard, sound, animation, snapshot, gesture, etc. has its own UUID. Also known as a Key. UX - (n) “User Experience,” See SL-UX. VBO - (n) “Vertex Buffer Objects.” This is a feature in most newer graphics cards that can substantially improve client rendering performance, but may cause problems with some hardware. It can be enabled/disabled in Preferences. Vehicle - (n) a scripted object whose movement you can control. Typically, a resident will sit on/in the vehicle and use it as a form of transportation. Vehicles include cars, airplanes, hoverboards, boats, UFOs, and much more. Vendor - (n) a scripted object that designed to sell objects, clothing, or other items to residents. Many brands of vendors are networked and operate of a central server. Vidtut* - (n) a Second Life tutorial in the form of a video presentation. A list of all official vidtuts can be found here. Viewer - (n) the program used to log into and interact with Second Life, also called the Client, q.v. Vendor - (n) a scripted object that designed to sell objects, clothing, or other items to residents. Many brands of vendors are networked and operate off a central server. Voice - (n) a feature in Second Life where a resident can use a microphone and speaker to communicate by talking as an alternative to typing. The voice feature in Second Life uses VoIP technology (Voice over IP) provided by Vivox. Void Region - (n) See Openspace Sim. Void Sim - (n) See Openspace Sim. Voting Machine - (n) a machine that is usually marked "Vote" that allows a visitor to register approval for the owner's building. Voting machines were once tied into the now-discontinued SL "Dwell" system where money was awarded to the owner of the property according to how many votes occurred the previous day. VSTEX* - (n) Virtual Stock Exchange, a community-run stock market in Second Life. VTeam - (n) The name of the internal group of Linden Lab employees who coordinate the volunteer programs throughout Second Life. VW - (n) “Virtual World”. WarpPos - (n) a scripting technique used in teleporters allowing avatars to be teleported farther and faster than other techniques. WB - (acronym) shorthand for "Welcome Back!" Wear - to attach prim clothing or other items to your avatar. You can wear an item by dragging it from inventory onto your avatar, or right click the item in inventory and choose "Wear." Choose "Add to Outfit" to wear all the items in an inventory folder. The creators of wearable items typically set a default body part or attachment point for the item which you can change if necessary. To stop wearing an item, right click it and choose "Detach" or choose Edit->Detach Object if it is prim-based, or right click your avatar and choose "Take Off" or click Edit->Take Off Clothing to remove a non-prim item. Webkit - (n) Linden-funded replacement for Mozilla as the in-world browser embedded in the viewer. Webprim - (n) Welcome Area (WA) - (n) a Linden Lab-owned and designed information and social area. The two largest Welcome Areas (Ahern and South) are located at the intersection of four sims to support a large number of people, and are surrounded by Linden-owned greenspace. Some new players first spawn at one of the Welcome Areas after leaving Orientation Island or Help Island. Whisper - (n) speech (usually by objects containing scripts) that is audible only within a 10 meter radius from the object. WIC* - (n) World Internet Currency. A fictional currency issued by the Austalian company Hope Capital Pty. Wiki - (n) A collaborative, user-editable website for sharing information. Linden Lab's official wiki ("Second Life Wiki") is located at http://wiki.secondlife.com and contains a wealth of information (mostly technical) written by Linden employees and residents. Windlight - (n) Sky and atmospheric and lighting effects for Second Life, developed by Windward Mark Interactive, which was purchased by Linden Lab for their technology. Wire Frame - (n, adj) A mode of viewing the world by seeing only the edges that connect the vertices of objects, avatars, and terrain. The client wire frame mode can be toggled on and off with Ctrl-Shift-R. WSE* - (n) World Stock Exchange, one of the first stock markets in Second Life. WTF* - (n) abbreviation for "WSE Traders' Fund", a fund created by the World Stock Exchange to compensate traders for losses in fraudulent or delisted companies. X-Axis - (n) the East-West axis of the in-world coordinate system. XCite - (n) brand name of a popular line of scripted erotic attachments. Third-party scripted erotic attachments are often promoted as “XCite Compatible”. Y-Axis - (n) the North-South axis of the in-world coordinate system. Yiff - (v) slang term for furry sex. Z-Axis - (n) the up-down axis of the in-world coordinate system. Zoning - (adj) limits to what may or may not be placed on given areas of land. Almost all Mainland sims have no zoning (other than PG or Mature), but many private islands / estates / continents do. Zonkster - (n) a short messaging service that allows users to send IMs to any resident inworld (qv) from outside Second Life. For a more complete list of acronyms ("BRB","WB","ZOMG") and emotes please see Chance Abattoir's Shorthand Guide.