Amanda Crisp

I’m kind of a weirdo with no interest in competitive Sport, so the Olympic Money Pit does as little for me as any of the rest. I’m very much into Fitness, especially as age creeps up on my flexibility, balance and muscle-mass - but only as individual effort. I have nothing *against* the olympics beyond questions about the cost-vs-benefit, they are just “not my jam”.

I think this would be hard to answer without knowing Google’s parameters. Also *if* large search aggregators are building a “fingerprint” of people who use their service (thats “if” as I have no way to know for sure) in order to better serve them targeted ads, how might that be influencing search results? Might a “digitally fingerprinted” Asian Female be served search results based towards her own genotypical demographic ? Again, I have no way of knowing for sure and I am making no statement that this sort of thing happens….….. ……but Google is out to sell ads and make money. This underlying objective managing to influence Code is “probable” IMO. Personally, I make my search strings as specific as possible 🙂

I sort of liked Reputation scores. They rather felt like a “pat on the head” for lasting a while here and adding value to the discussion as opposed to being a lightning-rod. I’ll give it a year and then we’ll all probably get a brand new “Social Value” score we can talk about 🙂

I am now the “Resident Warrior Kinkstress”? I’m sure I passed my Residency a long time ago…… The layout of this is kinda borky.

I absolutely agree. Thank you for calling this out!

Speaking for the other aliens present, we’re the LEAST of your problems 🙂 But…in the interest of total transparency, if you guys …nuke yourselves …kill your biosphere …”woke” yourselves into starvation or non-reproduction …otherwise depopulate your planet We are SO swooping in and renaming it “Our Summer Place” even though it will be a fixer-upper.

Speaking as one of those people who was hounded, harassed and bullied into abandoning my 2005 avatar and creating Amanda, I am not on-board with Bree’s suggestion. Besides, the proposal is for the same Linden Lab that was unable to so anything for me to now violate everyone’s privacy ? The list of “unintended consequences” for doing this would be vast. I’m sympathetic to the emotion driving this, but not the proposed fix.

Maybe your alt is just MEAN!

I think you said it perfectly!

Perspective is everything. Some years ago the SL forums were a constant troll-fest that would rival T*W*I*T*E*R at its worst. Subjectively, things are much better on these forums than in the past. IMHO we have even seen OVER-moderation in several instances where the desire to avoid controversy has stifled honest discussion. So even if things sometimes go astray, in my opinion the forums are BETTER than before (altho still imperfect as anything humans touch is destined to be).

In Veteran-ese: “Got any cheese to go with that?” Long version: “Got any cheese to go with that Whine?” Translation: “You can stop whining now.”

Good grief! With all the social interaction I do as the DJ, trying to alt-host at the same time might kill me. On another recent thread someone compared specific Hosts to chat bots spewing scripted nothings. This topic probably sheds a little light on how THAT happens too. A good Host is worth their weight in something valuable (I consider my favorite snack valuable, but saying ‘hosts are worth their weight in pickles” might be taken the wrong way). Alt hosting just defeats the purpose and probably under-serves the guests while appearing to be a money-skim. I have a VERY good host to work with and I’m not trading her for any amount of pickles!

I sometimes keep *very* general information there that might save myself and others some grief if I am “someone they might not like very much” (former military, over-40, raised Rural, slightly Impaired, adherent of an Alternative Spirituality). Other times I take all that down and make fun of the notion of placing *real* real-life information somewhere it can be used by Very Bad People. Personally; I’m here do do all the things that my RL limitations (and physics) restrict. Why would I ever consider wallowing in RL when I can do so much better here?

I am something of a hedonist if I don’t make a conscious effort to keep that under control. I seem to try less as I get older 🙂

I have no Twitter presence *because* is is such a contentious, social dumpster fire. IMO there is less on-platform social engagement because many residents “silo” themselves voicing on other mediums and not really paying attention to local text or even SL Voice. I see the effect of this a lot at dance events. Modern American Society places a lot of stock on “not going outside accepted social norms” in terms of political thought and doing so can have serious social consequences. A plausible result is that people build up the habit of only expressing themselves freely with people they know well. Effectively, this is an “echo chamber” effect where people only open up to those who already agree with them. I spend a lot of time texting in local chat when I DJ and the fruit of this is that…slowly….people open up. Its not a speedy process 🙂

I started to pass this thread by, because the 4th is always conflicted for people like me 🙂 I’m happy to celebrate the occasion, but the run-up to it and the day itself can makE me a little bonkers…. It’s all the noise and random fireworks for weeks, leading up to the day…… I am not Little Miss Killjoy, I just have issues with random bangs and explosions. I have a very good reason to be “alarmed” when I hear them. I also have a lot of company in this situation and we generally suffer in silence. THIS year a bunch of us have rented a group of cabins out in the woods (we have a lot of woods) and the plan is to have an all night get together. This will be about forty men and women (all veterans) and their significant others. A chance to see old friends, meet new ones and enjoy a zero-trigger Fourth 🙂 This is not a rant; if you like a loud and bangy 4th - have a blast 🙂 (Pun intended) For those of you who choose to celebrate; best wishes. I will be celebrating too….just quieter 🙂

Oh, I’m not saying it was RIGHT 🙂 I’m saying thats how it was done (and that we can do better). I once had the very sad duty of trying to help identify bodies that were victims of “ethnic cleansing” and I still have the emotional baggage to show for it. I *still* believe we can do better, but I’m pragmatic about what an uphill battle it will be against eons of Bad Tradition.

The history of the world until quite recently was/is underpinned by the Victor’s “right” to plunder and oppress the Vanquished. It looks even more horrible to modern eyes because we like to think we are progressing beyond that. We like to think that….. Politics and many religions played equal parts in rationalizing that state of mind, which goes all the way back to the stone-age. Many people have ethics and morals that last about as long as six missed meals, regardless of their espoused ideology. Until that changes, I’m not optimistic about the human race’s prospects at become “humane” and “civilized” no matter what our pretensions. Still, thats a good reason to try harder at building a better Human 🙂 We have a big brain; now we need to train it 🙂

I think of “human” as one with the ability to comprehend the abstracts of ethics and morality as well as the capacity to realize obligations to (and the need for) the higher rungs of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need. They can make effective, qualitative decisions about the world around them and be influenced by more than “Eat/Sleep/Excrete/Reproduce” I would *like* to think that altruism is a distinctly human trait - but several generations of Mama Dogs & Cats have shown me that this might not be entirely the case 🙂 Maybe this leads to a better question; “Are all Homo Sapiens Human or do Homo Sapiens exist who do not possess Humanity?”

The sad news is that - historically - Linden Lab can do very little against a dedicated Stalker. If they are willing to keep spinning up new alts and/or have the technical sophistication to have botted resources going after you, LL claims they can do little. I’m messaging from Amanda and not my 2005 original because I ran foul of a dedicated, hateful person with lots of time to spread hate about my rejection of their “amazing” love-powers.. The best anyone could do was advise me to abandon my 2005 Original and leave them to be obnoxious in an echo chamber. Hopefully as resources, capital spent on policing SL (staff) and legal restrictions evolve - this will improve.

Kimmi, I have a disability that makes speaking difficult for me, so I fall within the realm you described in your full post. That being said, the biggest tips I recieve generally come after I’ve dug up something that *resonates* with my audience (I’m mainly a retro DJ) and has not been heard popularly heard in a long time. I am active in chat with the guests - so I do just as many “implied requests” based on what they are talking about as anything else. Its a real thrill for me to get an IM of the “OMG, that song meant so much to be back when and have not heard it in years!!” They seem to like that plus the fact that I am not talking over the music constantly or “ummming” into a mic 🙂 It takes all kinds of DJing to satisfy a diverse world, so even people like me have our niche :-)

Hi Deadly! Fancy meeting you here and not at the Cellar 🙂 Counting my Original, I have been in Sl since 2005 and have lost several friends to the Grim Reaper (that I know of). Sadder are the people who just went offline with no word. I’ve found out belatedly about two of those who passed; one being tragically murdered while out protecting her RL community. I have an arrangement with a RL friend who is also in SL to handle that on my behalf. When I finally go offline in RL, she will make sure that my SL Partner knows that I am “unavoidably detained” but never willingly abandoned her. That sounds glum, but it makes me feel better.

I DJ because I love music. If someone wants to listen and not tip; thats fine! If someone wants to make 5 obscure (intentionally obscure) song requests that require me to buy music (with RL money); then a small donation to defray the download fees is certainly appreciated 🙂 That happens BTW as “stump the DJ” is not an uncommon game…..

If we want to fix it based on per-capita pollution produced; we might need to look beyond the US 🙂 There are several opportunities….. Also……..it will probably need to be a Non-Government Organization. Politicians look at poll numbers too much.