What SL teaches about other countries/cultures

[Persephone Emerald]

9 minutes ago, Nick0678 said:

Nigerians are cool. i have a few friends in RL who are Nigerians (*Yorubas), wouldn't say they have much to do with royalty but still we had some good times together. (a bit con artists though but then again who isn't..politicians do even worse and are called gentlemen.)

I had a Nigerian co-worker who was one of the most well-mannered and conscientious people I've known. I'd never expect him to be a con artist. We enjoyed talking politics.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Persephone Emerald

[Jordyn McGregor]

That you're all bonkers and live in stupid time zones!!!

[Nick0678]

9 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I had a Nigerian co-worker who was one of the most well-mannered and conscientious people I've known. I'd never expect him to be a con artist. We enjoyed talking politics.

Nods, those that i 've dealt with in RL were ok.

Some habits that they have depend a lot on their ethnic group, Yoruba, ebo, igbo are the main 3. Never met any in SL of course, talking about RL and longterm.

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by Nick0678

[Rolig Loon]

/me backs up quickly to avoid falling into a pit of her own making ...

I, too, had a good friend from Nigeria when I was in grad school.  He was a prince of a fellow, though not a bona fide Prince.  My earlier comment was inspired only by the e-mails I have sometimes received from a very different prince who has kindly offered me exclusive business opportunities in the past. I would not care to offend him or anyone else.

[Pamela Galli]

19 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

My earlier comment was inspired only by the e-mails I have sometimes received from a very different prince who has kindly offered me exclusive business opportunities in the past. I would not care to offend him or anyone else.

Hey I know that guy! Small world.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Pamela Galli

[Jordyn McGregor]

37 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Remember to smile. Think how rotten you would feel if you offended a Nigerian prince and he decided to take his business elsewhere.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Jordan Whitt

[Sid Nagy]

14 minutes ago, Jordan Whitt said:

That you're all bonkers and live in stupid time zones!!!

And I thought you were the one living in a stupid time zone. You show up when people tend go to sleep. Like me.

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[Persephone Emerald]

I went to look on Marketplace to see if there was a Nigerian Prince avatar. There was very little Nigerian stuff at all. I thought maybe most Nigerians wouldn't waste time playing SL, as they tend to be practical, work and money-minded people.

(It's ok to make stereotypes if they're positive, right?) 😟

Edited February 22, 2022 by Persephone Emerald

[Jordyn McGregor]

3 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

And I thought you were the one living in a stupid time zone. You show up when people go to sleep. Like me.

 

No my time zone is awesome.  It's my sleeping pattern that sucks!!!

Plus I like to keep people on their toes.  You never know when I shall appear!  

[Pamela Galli]

[Lindal Kidd]

6 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Remember, in most of the world, that list would be 1.6km long.

Now, that's one of my pet peeves. Scientists, even American ones, use the metric system with no problems*. The USA could switch over relatively easily, but stupidly refuses to do so. Back when we made a halfhearted attempt at it, the Powers That Were went about it all wrong, endlessly trying to teach conversion factors in schools. You don't convert metric numbers to Imperial, or vice versa. You just...you just USE them, dang it. 

Stop selling Imperial nuts and bolts (well, except for a few kept in the back room, for maintaining legacy equipment.) Stop selling 3/4 inch plywood, and don't re-label it as 19.05 mm either. Sell 20 mm plywood. And don't sell any more 5 gallon gas cans. Don't re-label them as 18.9 liter cans, sell either 18 or 20 liter cans instead.

After about three weeks of using the new system, everyone will develop an intuitive feeling for quantities, just as we now have for inches, cups, gallons, and pounds.

*Engineers, on the other hand, are forced to use the Imperial system. We'd like to use metric, but unlike scientists we have to use real parts to build stuff. Although, with so much stuff these days built for the international market, or built in countries that do use the SI (metric) system, we're using it more.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Lindal Kidd

[Rolig Loon]

But, but, but ... that's UnAmerican!   If only George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had had better luck selling the idea while it was still fresh and new...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/09/19/pirates-yes-pirates-may-be-why-the-u-s-doesnt-use-the-metric-system/

[Maryanne Solo]

Try this...
Despite not understanding fractions at all until my early 20's
(dumb huh? as I was constantly ejected & eventually banned from maths classes
throughout high school for unruly & disruptive behaviour),
I now thrive on different measurement systems from different countries.
On a good day I can give a metric comparison accurate to 100ths of a millimetre o.0
What I truly do not know is why and how I learnt to do this.
Is that diversity? *lolliez 

Edited February 22, 2022 by Maryanne Solo

[Abnor Mole]

Three things:

They don't sell personality on the Marketplace. They type of person you are in RL is the type of person you will be in SL.

In a world where you can be anything, be kind.

What you learn about other people and cultures is important. What they learn about you and your culture is important. But the most important thing is what you learn about yourself. 
 

[Garnet Psaltery]

6 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

After about three weeks of using the new system, everyone will develop an intuitive feeling for quantities, just as we now have for inches, cups, gallons, and pounds.

 

I never did.  The UK has used the metric system for decades but it still doesn't mean much to my mind.  There's a whole other culture called 'being old'.

That was my attempt at being on-topic. No disrespect intended to old people, of which I am one.  

[Caroline Takeda]

I learned that many muslim countries do ban websites with explicit adult content.

[BelindaN]

I could easily write a TL:DR post about this, but I won't. Just a few bullet points:

I rarely meet anyone from the UK.

I meet a lot of Dutch people. The Dutch have excellent English, usually with an identifiable style.

Two of my closest SL friends from Europe have English language skills equal to any native speaker.

I have no language skills.

Most people I meet in SL are USA or Canada, which makes regular socialising difficult, but we make it work.

The most important commodity in SL is TIME. Time and Timezones interfere with serious buddying.

Guys from the USA, France and Italy are sort of identifiable by how they interact.

I've learned things about the Netherlands, Sweden, USA, and Canada from my closest friends. 

Think yourselves lucky that this is the short version.😜

[Sid Nagy]

9 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Now, that's one of my pet peeves. Scientists, even American ones, use the metric system with no problems*. The USA could switch over relatively easily, but stupidly refuses to do so. Back when we made a halfhearted attempt at it, the Powers That Were went about it all wrong, endlessly trying to teach conversion factors in schools. You don't convert metric numbers to Imperial, or vice versa. You just...you just USE them, dang it. 

Stop selling Imperial nuts and bolts (well, except for a few kept in the back room, for maintaining legacy equipment.) Stop selling 3/4 inch plywood, and don't re-label it as 19.05 mm either. Sell 20 mm plywood. And don't sell any more 5 gallon gas cans. Don't re-label them as 18.9 liter cans, sell either 18 or 20 liter cans instead.

After about three weeks of using the new system, everyone will develop an intuitive feeling for quantities, just as we now have for inches, cups, gallons, and pounds.

*Engineers, on the other hand, are forced to use the Imperial system. We'd like to use metric, but unlike scientists we have to use real parts to build stuff. Although, with so much stuff these days built for the international market, or built in countries that do use the SI (metric) system, we're using it more.

We changed from our national currency the gulden to euro more than 20 years ago and there are still some folks around that consequently convert every price first into guldens in their heads, before they come to the conclusion if something is cheap or expensive.

I was totally over the gulden era within a few weeks. Simply start using it and don't look back.

Measuring will stay the same:  Measure twice and cut once.
Calculating in the metric system is a lot easier though.
Dividing or multiply with 10, 100 or 1000 is super easy as we all know from math classes.

[Sid Nagy]

1 minute ago, BelindaN said:

The most important commodity in SL is TIME. Time and Timezones interfere with serious buddying

Yup. When people from the east coast of the USA feel like partying, I feel I should have been in bed for a few hours already. Eight at night is two in the morning for me.  And when people on the west coast get into it, it is very early morning for west Europeans, like nine in the evening is six in the morning. 

Same goes with Asian people one meets.

One of the main reasons I know more people from over the world through the forums then in world.
And I should definitely go out more often in SL.

[BelindaN]

Sadly most of the worthwhile social events kick off at 12noon SLT.

For me to be in world at that time...8pm UK time, is exceptionally rare. We eat between 7 and 8pm. So I'm usually gone before 11am SLT. 

I can't help think that I miss out on most of the action. Like being a kid sent to bed while the grown ups party.

On the bright side I can easily get into shopping events.

[Nick0678]

5 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

We changed from our national currency the gulden to euro more than 20 years ago

Yeah, lucky all of us who did that.. If you ask me i still prefer the old currencies, where every country had control over them (devaluation etc).

Changing to Euro was the worst thing ever, plus it raised the prices a lot due to rounding "so that it's easy for folks to understand.."

Glad the UK left the Eurozone and hope more countries will follow until maybe one day we all return back to the basics in terms of currency, instead of being controlled by some folks in Brussels.

Schengen was a good thing, on the other hand EuroZone has proven to be pure nonsense.

[Sid Nagy]

I live right in between Belgium and Germany in the very south of the Netherlands and for me the change to the euro was a blessing. No longer three different currencies in my wallet and no longer having to calculate back and forward to compare prices. Belgium and Germany are part of my every day life. Both only a few miles away.

That people started to notice that everything was expensive is simply because they started to pay attention to prices a lot more, when they had to deal with the euro for the first time.

And yes, commerce takes advantage whenever they see a chance.
The current inflation is caused mainly because commerce grabs whatever they can get hold of due to the corona pandemic. This robbery has a nice economical name though: price optimization: Charging what people are willing to pay, not what the actual costs + a small profit are.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[Solo Alpha]

12 hours ago, Jordan Whitt said:

That you're all bonkers and live in stupid time zones!!!

What do you know about time-zones, you recluse in a skybox .. ?!1!?! 

 

[Nick0678]

3 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

I live right in between Belgium and Germany in the very south of the Netherlands and for me the change to the euro was a blessing. No longer three different currencies in my wallet and no longer having to calculate back and forward to compare prices. Belgium and Germany are part of my every day life. Both only a few miles away.

That people started to notice that everything was expensive is simply because the started to pay attention to prices when they had to deal with the euro for the first time. And yes, commerce takes advantage whenever they see a chance.

No need of a Eurozone for that, it could be easily done with a tri-party agreement..

I traveled in Europe mostly to the U.K and a bit less to Germany, Romania etc (for business) and did that before the Eurozone and also after it. Never really bothered me converting currency to sterling or mark, leu or whatever, after all we still get to do that when dealing in dollars, yens etc with our fellow Americans and other countries.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Nick0678

[Silent Mistwalker]

10 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Now, that's one of my pet peeves. Scientists, even American ones, use the metric system with no problems*. The USA could switch over relatively easily, but stupidly refuses to do so. Back when we made a halfhearted attempt at it, the Powers That Were went about it all wrong, endlessly trying to teach conversion factors in schools. You don't convert metric numbers to Imperial, or vice versa. You just...you just USE them, dang it. 

Stop selling Imperial nuts and bolts (well, except for a few kept in the back room, for maintaining legacy equipment.) Stop selling 3/4 inch plywood, and don't re-label it as 19.05 mm either. Sell 20 mm plywood. And don't sell any more 5 gallon gas cans. Don't re-label them as 18.9 liter cans, sell either 18 or 20 liter cans instead.

After about three weeks of using the new system, everyone will develop an intuitive feeling for quantities, just as we now have for inches, cups, gallons, and pounds.

*Engineers, on the other hand, are forced to use the Imperial system. We'd like to use metric, but unlike scientists we have to use real parts to build stuff. Although, with so much stuff these days built for the international market, or built in countries that do use the SI (metric) system, we're using it more.

No, you don't just use them. FFS. My dad was an engineer (mechanical) and he hated metric. 

If humanity ever learns to leave well enough alone the planet might have a fighting chance.