Amanda Crisp

Live your Second Life Gopi 🙂 I also take every avatar I meet as the typists expression of their aspirational self and not as something that has to match their RL genetic lottery. ”Your World, Your Imagination”

The machine voice service I am familiar with needs about 90 seconds of “clean” Subject Sample to begin modeling with. The bigger the sample, the better the result will be. This is useful for adding a variety of Voices to games, or to add narration to training videos or create radio spots (I use this for the latter two). This service could well be used for nefarious purposes, but I have an example of one non-nefarious one 🙂 My voicemail responder message has not changed in some years, since a stroke impaired my ability to speak. About a month ago, I had the brilliant idea to upload an old sample of my pre-stroke voice ( from a training program I narrated ) and run a new “answer” message with my machine re-generated voice. I’m BACK to having frequently-updated (snarky) voicemail messages and I would be lying if I said that this did not make me happy 🙂 I trust Human Nature to abuse any useful thing it can, but in the interim I am enjoying having that little bit of *me* back.

I *tried* to be diplomatic and explained that I was a strict Vagatarian……..he didn’t get it……. (And no amount of begging on his part helped)

Personally, I agree 🙂 I was addressing the unfortunate minority that feels compelled to try and brow-beat others into their way of thinking/acting :-) One such fellow hit me up while I was spinning tunes at an event and demanded “mic-sex” as proof otherwise I was probably headed to Hell. I only worry about my SL Partners romantic ideas, so his went unfulfilled 🙂 I manage to live a fulfilling life despite a speech “deficit” :-)

My initial reaction to seeing “voice verified” in a profile is generally negative, but I try to keep an open mind. Occasionally, this comes from people who consider SL to mainly be a sex site (and are phobic about their playmates RL status), are in the “Voice escort” business or are sincerely looking for a RL mate here in SL. Other times its a matter of convenience or personal taste. There are Residents who have issues Typing and prefer voice as an easier way to socialize. I’ve encountered *some* in SL who are fairly snarky if you can’t Voice - but thankfully that’s getting rarer. Those of you who know me from my years on this forum and in world might recall that I had a stroke some years back and m speech was affected, so the ones who scorn people for not voicing in SL are a tender subject for me 🙂 Still, it takes all kinds to make a(virtual) world 🙂

I spent a few years as a moderator / Admin in Roleplay sims and had to Moderate height issues The “Height Race” has been a thing for years, be it “alpha” male avatars competing to the “tallest in the room” or creeping height up to be taller than a partner who is wearing Heels. This became a moderation issue when a Giant (relatively) avatar asked us to “size” every door in the sim to allow people of his height. Every….door…in…the…sim….. The admin response was that the sim was built using Linden Lab “new rezz” avatars as scale and rebuilding the City would disrupt ongoing RP, be expensive and take a long time……so “no”. I support “Your World/Your Imagination” completely, but if someone decides to go at an extreme - they should be aware that now everyone CAN accommodate their choice. Not out of meanness but simply due to limited resources. My partner and I solved any size issues by being size-appropriate with each other, so I never have to figure out how to dance while looking at someone’s belly button 🙂 I don’t need everyone to be “my” height, but it helps if my dance partner and close enough for someone’s feet not to be off the ground…..

David Bowie……….

I encountered this after having logged Amanda on using a 3rd party Text-Client for SL while I was traveling. Evidently something in that text client's last update broke my avatar and ultimately Linden Lab had to fix things on their end for me and a lot of other avatars.

Like - Funny, cute/sexy, informative or builds up the community as opposed to tearing it down Add Friends - same as for "like" Follow - consistently earns "likes"

My “zone” aka Home Office is centered on a glass-and steel desk that’s shaped like a “U” w one leg shorter than the other and is set up very minimally. Everything on the desktop has a specific home and I *will* notice if the cat moved anything. When I need to go outside the box, the room is indirectly lit by green neon-ish LED strips, my ceiling fan is spinning on “medium”, the temp is 72 degrees Fahrenheit, an Lemon/Vanilla scented candle is burning and I have Moby’s “Hotel” ambient playing low. It works for me and I have evicted someone from my life for messing with that 🙂

I spent a lot of time in a dystopian RP sim at one point. While there I met someone who had at least three alts in the sim and was perfectly happy to have the alts RP with……each other. It was none of my business so nothing negative to say about that part of it… But when she kept trying to set me up w one of the alts; that felt a bit strange 🙂

All the above is valid! Check that first. If still a problem, suspect Gremlins….

I am disappointed when I can’t mute and de-render obnoxious Rl people….

Also, another nation-state that would have also been seen as Nameless would have been the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics… …..was it a trend ?

True enough at first, but they rebelled to BECOME mini countries in a larger organization, as established by the non-federalized government that was initially created. Things have evolved since then in a different direction, but that was the thinking behind the use of the “United States” as initially birthed.

Actually our “country” was organized out of 13 mini-countries (Virginia, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia), which all have names. “United States” is a description, not actually a name.

I think that expecting avatars to match RL demographics says more about the phobias and biases of the person with those expectations than it does about SL. Facebook, Tinder and other applications are the perview of “RL Meetings”. SL is “Your world, your imagination” with no implicit RL connection. Also, I’m wondering what people who expect demographic SL/RL alignment make of furries?

Yes, depending on what you consider a “cult” 🙂 My definition is pretty broad and would include any belief system (including political ideology) that requires one to “suspend disbelief” and accept an ideaology. Its all about how you “feel” as opposed to what you can prove. I know of one such SL “cult” that believes that Chiropactic can cure almost anything (including cancer) and another that espouses the notion that our RL existence is just another immersive virtual world.

I HATE that thing. BAD Devs !!! https://media1.giphy.com/media/PamyJcqFtKmN9rXC9q/giphy.gif?cid=5e2148868877879a92d1d1ed27e609a77e9c83eb95510955&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g

Dealing with the emotional damage after a RL friend decided to burn her whole life down as a means of “showing her ex how bad he hurt her”. I can’t “not care” - but I’m just stunned that an otherwise smart, successful lady would decide that this was an option. Her Ex is accepting zero blame of course.

My take on this is simple; “Situational Awareness = Awesome”. Over-emphasis on history, precedent and tradition can produce stagnation and feed a lack of cultural initiative. Ignorance or disregard of history, precedent and tradition in the name of “new thinking” can lead to repeats of the same old mistakes in shiny new wrappers. Its important to maintain a base of “Institutional Cultural Knowledge” so we can avoid the pitfalls of both while reaping the benefits of each. MAINTAINING that knowledge-base and linking it to a pragmatic view of “what’s happening in the world around us” gives us situational awareness and access to the wisdom of our ancestors, while keeping it in an ever-evolving context. History is not Destiny, but learning from it can improve our odds of creating a better one.

Both, depending on how decent I’m being at the moment…..

01..Local Chat 02..IM 03..AdHoc Group IM 04..SL formal Group IM (these fail a lot) 05..Discord (for when the SL IMs fail)

The “…and what happened next” on this was quite life changing 🙂