Link distance changes

Something I haven't seen any blogging about in the last week is the change to link distances in Second Life.  For some time, linking prims has been subject to an arcane set of rules which left nearly everyone confused... most people link things by trial and error and find out the hard way when things won't link together, or use a tool like the Rez Foo or Rez Faux to link builds that exceed the distance allowed.

There was a change last week that means that if something would fit within a sphere with a diameter of 54 metres, it should link.  This should mean that most house or office builds will link as one piece, which will be a great inprovement.

New linkability fog

Some idiot at the place which may not be named has put the techies in charge of the linkability rules, and consequently I can't understand them and have to call on the help of a fellow resident to explain them. If you would like to see them, read the wiki here.

I am by no means a Mathematics-phobe, I passed my "o" level and can calculate percentages, decimals and fractions considerably better than many of my compatriots, but I read this sort of formula and some part of my brain forces me into a coma. The harder I try to understand, the more unconscious the necessary parts become, until I read the words and figures and they no longer make sense to me. Is it even written in English?

The old rules were that if you tried to link a set of prims and they were more than 30 metres apart, they wouldn't link. Nice and simple. It often failed even if things were only 6 metres apart, for no apparent reason.

Alarmingly the wiki only seems to mention linking two prims, so I expect general mayhem if wanting to link more than two. If someone writes something in plain English I'd be glad to know.