Parhelion Palou

Congratulations, Hippie! You have 6092 posts now ... you must post like crazy. I'll get to 200 someday.

valerie Inshan wrote: Take very good care of yourself and of your loved ones, Par. Thinking of you and hope for the best. Hang on there. Geez, I even received an email from your president: "Valerie -- This is a serious storm, but we are going to do what it takes to keep people safe and secure, and make sure the communities affected get the assistance they need. FEMA is working with state and local governments to respond effectively. We all owe a debt of thanks to the first responders who will be dealing with the immediate impact of the storm. If you live in the storm's path, please listen to state and local authorities about where and how to take shelter and stay safe -- and encourage your friends and family to do the same. If you are asked to evacuate, please take that seriously. For more information on how to prepare for this storm, visit Ready.gov. And if you'd like to find out how to support relief efforts where they're needed most, please visit the Red Cross or your local relief organization: http://my.barackobama.com/Red-Cross Michelle and I are keeping everyone in the affected areas in our thoughts and prayers. Be safe. Barack" /me wonders why I am on his list, I'm not even American, lol. Perhaps the US government expects the hurricane to change direction and cross the Atlantic. That's what they get for running their weather models on Windows 8. :matte-motes-wink:

Good afternoon (east coast time) -- Hurricane Sandy has gained power and is headed my way. The heavy rain and much faster wind will hit in a few hours, but I'm already worried about falling trees. Too bad I can't get a sim restart to fix all this.

The 'interface formerly known as Metro' (IFKAM) is much more than a start screen; it's the future of Windows. MS would like all new apps to be written to run on it, but for now there will be IFKAM apps and legacy (desktop) apps. Unfortunately, MS has decided that people only use computers to consume data (watch movies, play games, browse the web, etc.). IFKAM's a miserable interface if you create things. Other than IFKAM, Win 8 is mostly a tweaked Win 7. It boots faster but otherwise runs pretty much the same as Win 7 (see Gentlemen, start your benches: Measuring Window 8's performance). I'm not planning on upgrading to Win 8. There are some behind-the-scenes improvements I'd like to see MS add to Win 7, but they're not worth the trouble of upgrading to Win 8, IMO. If I somehow ended up with a computer that had Win 8, I'd get one of the products that gets around the IFKAM interface so I could stay on the desktop.

Good morning! The trees seem to know a storm is coming; they've dropped most of their leaves in the last few days. It's better for the leaves to drop than the trees, but that ends the autumn colors. Here's some color for anyone stuck in a stormy gray day today. (Sorry for the avatar stuck in the middle ... I didn't expect to post this one.)

Hi Maddy & Hippie! I'm waiting to see what the hurricane drags in. I hope the power stays on and the rain stays out.

Hippie Bowman wrote: valerie Inshan wrote: Good morning Hippie and all. Aww, this old Mac I am using at the office just died and all my boss wants to give me to replace it is an even older one.... What can you do with such an antique crap? :smileyfrustrated: Sighs and hugs you! Morning Val! Well by the looks of it, it will make a good cat house! HEHEH! Hugs! Peace! Looks more like a litter box to me. Bummer about getting an even older computer.

Ceera Murakami wrote: <snip> A substantial portion, quite possibly the majority, of the more established, long-term users in SL see the virtual world as a place to be something quite different than their real life self. They might play as the gender opposite to their real one, or dabble in graphicly adult sexual situations that intrigue them but that they wouldn't dream of doing in real life. Or the account may represent an entirely fictional character that has nothing at all in common with their real life self. For those people, they are not likely to want to post theior own real world info at all, and many of them would prefer not to know a think about your real world info. <snip> Most of the long-term residents I've met are pretty much themselves, but the people I know aren't role-players. My in-world behavior is very close to my RL behavior and my avatar looks similar to me, but I don't put any RL information in my profile because I want control over what RL information I give out. I don't see a benefit to giving that information to anyone who happens to look at my profile, but I do see potential pitfalls. Besides, why scare people with a RL picture?

Virtual worlds have also been used to treat post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and to help people with autism learn skills to deal with people in real life. I know an organization that uses a private OpenSim setup for drug counseling. They've had better results than they get with RL counseling, partly because participants in group discussions feel freer to talk and because they can easily meet with a counselor whenever they need to. I agree with Echo that SL can be very relaxing. If you're in a stressful environment in RL, being able to get away to a beautiful and peaceful place is very calming, even when that place is virtual.

Good morning! @Val: Thanks. That's a nice shot you took. I'm still playing with DoF - it usually won't do what I want, but you've got it conquered.

I won't attempt to answer all your questions. It's late for me and I'm no expert at social matters. My comments are embedded in the following: theif519 wrote: <snip> First... making friends: If one has trouble making friends in the real world, is extremely shy, and has a rather... low self-esteem, how are they supposed to make friends any easier in Second Life? For me, it's mostly a self-esteem issue; what if I'm being too boring, I don't want to the other person to feel obliged to keep my company, or what I don't make a good first impression? Thinking negatively like this has prevented me from making friends in real life, and I don't see how Second Life could make it any easier, except that you're not conversing with them in person, just over the internet. I'm not particularly asking for a way to get over my self-esteem issues, but just how is it supposed to be easier? It's supposed to be easier because your avatar isn't really you ... it's anonymous. It doesn't work that way for me. I'm my avatar; my avatar is me. I don't make friends any easier in SL than in RL. Second... attending events: <snip> Third... Creating, Building, and finding a hobby: What exactly can you build, and what is the purpose of doing so? Is it something like a CAD (Computer Assisted Design, used in engineering) drawing? I have some experience but not much, and if I was interested in it, what would I get out of it? I know it could be considered a hobby, but if engineering isn't my thing, how would I find a hobby? I started last night and found a friend... someone rather wealthy and possibly well known and she has taught me some of the basics, but I'm sure she wouldn't want her name to be disclosed like this, so for now she will remain anonymous. She suggested exploring second life, but explore what? Are all of the worlds connected to each other? Can I just walk from one place to another, like Morrowind, until I find something, and hopefully someone that interests me (or I interest them)? Also, how did you become acquainted with Second Life? How did you find your hobby, and what do you do for fun? I got into SL to build and script. If you stick to building with prims, you can build in-world whatever your imagination and skills allow. Several groups have in-world classes on building & about any other SL-related subject, so you can build your skill. I started off learning to stack on box on another & worked up from there. SL is a world made up of regions (square areas 256 meters per side) and void space. Blocks on the map that have names are regions. Areas that look like ocean and aren't named are voids - holes in the world. From adjoining regions void spaces look like ocean, but you can't move onto them. You can walk or teleport between connected regions. You have to teleport to get to isolated regions. Linden mainland areas are the biggest connected regions; most privately owned regions are either islands or small groupings. Use Destinations to find something that interests you & go to it. Some people use the map to find large groups of green dots (people) and teleport to them. I tend to do the opposite. You don't have to build anything ... you can get into roleplaying, explore, go to clubs, build a business, do sports, ... pretty much anything that's done in RL and a lot of things not possible in RL. I suggest exploring and using search to find things that interest you. Once you find people who share your interests you'll find it easier to make friends. Fourth... Relationships in Second Life: The same person I met last night went over a bit more than the basics, she did go on to... give examples when I inquired about people having sexual intercourse in the game... and I can see it is different from other games, and cybering in general... would all of that be the purpose of having a relationship with the opposite (or same) sex? Some people treat SL relationships as a game; others consider SL relationships to be real. If everyone is straightforward about their intentions ahead of time, there's no problem. You don't need to have a relationship or cyber in SL. You can get age-verified (such as it is), go to the adult-rated regions & go crazy. It's up to you. Please remember that avatars are the virtual face of real people with real feelings. We're not NPCs. Fifth... History of Second Life: It states in the "Goals of Second Life" that there are no NPCs in Second Life... at all, except for bots used for advertising. How did Second Life start out then? If there were a handful of people using it, how did the community bloom into what it is right now? Did it start out as a regular chat room and then become something more... 3D? How long ago was it that you started playing, and how much have things changed since then? SL started out as a smaller, cruder virtual world. It's always been 3D & it was never meant to be a chat room. I'd say it was more of a cohesive community in the early days. As it's expanded SL has turned into thousands of isolated communities. There's no mass communication to tie them together. I've been in SL for over 6 years. I've met people who have been in SL for almost 10 years. I know many people will disagree, but SL has become more sophisticated graphically and much more stable than it was in 2006. SL's growth has slowed drastically in the last couple years. I think the global economic downturn and Linden Lab's apparent lack of interest in SL are two of the reasons. Sixth and last... technical support: The graphics settings, opitimization of hardware, and there have been some glitches with the voice options and stuff... First, the graphics and optimization of hardware: The graphics of the game are rather poor for modern games, but it seems to be rather demanding for my hardware... I don't know if it's that it used OpenGL instead of DirectX, but my laptop can run Battlefield 3 at a rather high setting, and can max out Crysis 2, but Second Life runs like... well, like **bleep**. There's also the whole downloading of graphics thing, and everything, the map, characters, textures, is either non-existant or gray for around two to three minutes, and I blame my crappy university internet, but it is rather strange that it doesn't download it during the loading screen instead of allowing me to play while it downloads, don't get me wrong, it's a cool feature, but I'd like it if they had an option of having either a faster download or a slower one that allows you to play while it downloads. On to the glitches: every time I teleport somewhere, my mic apparently turns on, as was stated by the person I met last night who helped introduce me to the game, so I turned off voice communications entirely by selecting 'No Device' in the voice settings. Although I don't like talking... at all, I'd like to be able to have it readily available for the case that I do manage to use it. Has anyone else had problems with the mic turning on by itself? She said you can get "blocked" if you have it on all of the time in certain places. Most games are static except for characters. The content is installed directly on your computer (gigabytes worth) so that all the servers need to do is update the NPCs and players. SL is a completely dynamic world. The content was built by the residents and anything can change at any time. That means everything needed to draw the scene has to be fed from the servers to the SL client all the time. OpenGL was used so that SL can be used on Mac & Linux machines too. Running SL well requires a good internet connection (both fast and reliable) and a good computer with a good video card. You can adjust for some problems by turning down the graphics settings, but it's hard to work around a very slow or intermittent internet connection. I rarely use voice in SL, and I haven't run into the problem you describe. Somebody else may come up with the answer. Your friend is right ... having a persistently open mic could get you ejected/banned from some places. TL;DR: How does on make friends? What events events should I attend and why? What is creating and building, and why and how do I make a hobby? Why should I explore? What is the point of having relationships (besides sex)? What is the history of Second Life (Read the fifth section)? Why are the graphics so bad yet run so slowly on my gaming laptop? How do I stop my mic from activating everytime I teleport somewhere? Also, thanks in advance for taking the time to read and answer ETA: I was too slow working on my response. Peggy got there first (& did a better job, IMO).

Good morning! There's breakfast today -- look back a few posts to see what Hippie said about it. Playing with Windlight settings:

Good morning! @Val: I saw the new picture of your land in The VaNiTy ThReAd. You've done a great job (as you always do).

More autumn, but not on the porch ...

Sitting on the porch in the shadows ...

The idea is to try things out in the wild on a small scale before committing the changes to the entire grid. LL could never set up a test area that has the diversity of scripts/builds/avatars you can find on the main grid.

Happy Friday, Hippie! Three days with no replies to your good morning posts; I guess everyone's gone elsewhere. To Val: I hope you and Ajja are both feeling better.

Wow, it's quiet in here. I hope everyone has a good Sunday. Happy Birthday, Val! I'm sorry you're not feeling well.

Jadeclaw Denfu wrote: There are hundreds of these 'potholes' across the grid. A strange one is here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Barcola/3/13/28 When you walk onto the bridge into the North Channel sim, you sink through the concrete immediately behind the sim border. However, it is impossible to go back the same way up, you have to wind your way out sideways from under the bridge. Fly up and land at the same point where you sunk in and the surface is now solid. Walk back onto the Barcola side - And down you go. Again, you have to wind your way out sideways. I looked at it. The problem is a sloppy build that doesn't take the region handover time into account. When a structure is used across regions, you should put a prim on each side that crosses into the other region. I usually make them invisible and embed them in the bridge/walkway. The server for the region you're on knows about the prim that's going into the other region and keeps you on it while the region handover occurs.

Same thing here: On Health Commons (server 12.09.04.264357) everything is normal. On Aloft Nonprofit Commons (server 12.09.17.264810) I see the same problems as already listed. Flexible objects are at least fun to watch; they look like semaphores. Rebooting the sim didn't help.

I have never posted a truthful reply in this thread. :matte-motes-wink:

I waited to post hoping someone with a better memory would do so ... Groups were created as a land management tool. They weren't designed as a social tool, though that's what they're mostly used for now. I suspect the reason the number of groups is limited is due to the design of the group chat system. Group chat is delivered to group members by sending messages to the servers handling the regions each member is in. Adding more groups per user would mean more (much more?) stress on the central database and on the sim servers. I welcome correction on how the system works. I've read about the history of groups and how the chat system works, but I don't remember when or where. :matte-motes-frown: I'd like to see LL create a new group system for social groups but keep the current group system (enhanced) for land/business purposes. Groups within groups or allowing multiple groups to have parcel-handling abilities would make my SL work easier.

According to your argument, real life is a game too. The rewards and punishments are somewhat greater.

It's been a long time since I've posted here. I just got a new video card - I'm having fun being able to use DOF/shadows and be able to move.

This seems to be just a wording change rather than a new capability. You could restrict land to 'age verified' even if the land was on a G rated region. Restricting land to 'Are age 18 or older' is the same thing. The new phrase makes more sense because age verified really meant 'age 18 or older verified'. There's no more verification, so dropping 'verified' gives you the new phrase. I'd prefer the Lindens use something even more accurate, such as "Claims to be age 18 or older".