solstyse

Nalates Urriah wrote: There are several things, I think, you are overlooking. Gamers love large screens, even multiple screens. The new video cards often have connections for 4 screens. It gives the immersive quality and improves aim in FPShooters. That crowd is not going to transfer to small screen devices. Professional creatives are using larger and larger screens. They are not working from iPad's. While the mobile market is growing that is from divergence as more devices divide up the market. So, it becomes a matter of specific demographics as to whether your audience is moving to mobile devices or staying with desktops. I think it is nearly impossible to know what the SL audience is doing because of the viewer requirements. Another problem with portable devices is storage space. It is not cost efficient yet. My SL cache is about 1gb. That is a pretty good sized chunk of storage on a 32gb iPad. Some get around mobile restrictions on storage by using a USB external drive, which sort of defeats the whole mobile thing. The next problem is render speed on tablets and mobile devices. Most are currently optimized for video streaming rather than 3D poly rendering. New rendering paradigms are in development. When one of the more efficient rendering concepts gets worked out, we will likely see 3D moving into mobile and tablets. Until then the high end rendering seen on desktops plugged into the power grid is going to run on mobile devices. It simply consumes too much power. Bandwidth with SL is another huge problem. T-Mobil is about the only service that provides unlimited data, but they slow your speed at when you consume 10gb. Unil the wireless system costs come down bandwidth consumption is going to be a problem. I suspect the Lab is aware of all the problems. I am certain they are aware of Cloud Party and its ability to run in WebGL, which runs on many mobile devices but not iPAD (afaik). However changes in June and some hacking allowed . (Note the USB power thing in the video) So, there is competitive pressure on the Lab. I am certain they are watching to see how well CP is received by the mobile crowd. I think it is too soon to see the Lab taking SL to the mobile crowd. They are obviously learning the tech in small bites with their other products, like Creatorverse. I expect them to wait until the tech is more mature to consider moving SL. They may possibly wait it out through a generation of tech and use 2.0 mobile tech in a year or so. Trying to move the huge SL system with all its complications seems like far to much to bit off. For now waiting, learning, and watching developements is probably more logical. The reason why I overlooked what fps gamers are doing is that SL is not a fps game. There are some sims that use huds and attachments to make your experience like it is, but that doesn't mean that's what it is. LL has been making moves to put more of the "work" on the server side. And honestly, that's a good thing even for those of us on the x86 chiipset. But as more of the workload goes server-side, that means less and less for any device to do. And since ARM devices have already reached the point where they can compete graphically with xbox and Playstation 3, they really don't have that far to go. The tablet is a formfactor based upon consumption, not productivity. That looks like it'll be changing in 2013 though. And designers in sl are a much smaller community than consumers. Want a bigger screen? Dock it. My phone looks surprisingly good on a 50 inch tv. Granted, that's not 3d rendering. But that link I provided in my previous post is. And that's an ARM device. Cache can always be limited, cleared, or cleaned out. Most mobile devices have slots to expand their memory with SD or micro SD cards that greatly increase their capacity. Bandwidth isn't even an issue. Many of these tablets aren't even equipped for 4g. And all f the ones that are can connect to 802.11/b/g/n. I think you may be looking at tablets a little too logically. If everybody realized that they're getting the world's least capable machine for a premium price, nobody would buy them. It's like buying a $700 dollar smartphone that doesn't make phone calls or fit in your pocket. Or, from the opposite angle like spending the money for the latest and greatest ultrabook and being happy with specs that make a netbook look good. But people ARE buying them just because they're something new. What really matters isn't that they don't make sense. It's that people are buying them like crazy, which makes them a market that LL could easily tap. So I'll agree that a desktop computer is best for SL. There's no denying that. But making sl work and look good on one of the fastest growing segments in computing (even if not as good as it is on a traditional computer) really can't be called a bad idea.

There is quite a bit of self realization and introspection in the original post. that's a very admirable quality. So is the realization expressed that what can enhance one person's quality of life can cause decline for another. To the OP, I would wish you luck, but it seems that your intellect will carry you much further than luck ever will. So instead I say that since you are clearly intellegent enough to go far in life, nurture that trait. Always challenge yourself, and continue making the decisions that you know in your heart and soul is right for you. A person who can write a post like you wrote has no need for luck. Just stay true to yourself. I have faith in you.

Much of what you wrote made it easy to see your satements as political, whether that's how you meant them or not. when covering breasts is likened to covering the face, that looks to me very much like a discussion of "religioius freedom." when you mention gender equallity and base it upon the fact that a man doesn't need to cover his chest, that looks to me like an issue of "social justice." Sorry if I misinterpreted, but those points you made are the clues that led to my flaw in logic. The main point I was trying to make is that we can all agree here that the emphasis that society places on covering certain parts of your anatomy are overblown. But I think of G rated land as a haven for people who disagree with us. It is such a small percentage of land that it's not worth fighting over. And just like rl, different places in sl have different dress codes. Spending as much time as I do on private land as I do, I can speak for the relevance of these codes. It's something I always pay attention to. Just like rl, sl has places that are formal, informal, "period correct" if it's a historical sim, etc. And picking your battles is only a matter of practicallity. I meant choose the ones that really matter. When you wrote in response to me "I never look at land ratings, I just went to that particular store to look for houses. As it so happened it was a tuesday and I was topless. I'm not going anywhere to protest something or start a revolution, was just going on at my usual business" that was actually your first indication in the whole thread that being topless in G rated land was actually accidental. Until then, the way you expressed yourself did make it quite easy to mistake what you did as going to G rated land dressed more appropriately for M or A land on purpose. That's where my language of "committing an act of civil disobedience" came from. Now, if accusing you of committing an act angers you, then I think you might be mistaking where i'm coming from. I personally applaud when people commit a necessary act of civil disobedience. I personally have participated in a few such acts. It is, at least to an American, part of being patriotic, and part of being human. To be as technical as possible, any action performed is commiting an act of one form of another. Speaking of language, isn't this quote by you a bit more offensive? "Men are too weak to control themselves so they rather cover up the women." And honestly, in my experience, BOYS may lack such self control, but men don't. Now, to be perfectly fair, there is reason for the obsession that modern men have with breasts. I saw a documentary once that I wish I could remember the name of to cite. But the message is something I remember quite well. Throughout history, for reasons that were practical, men preferred women with SMALLER breasts. Think of victorian times and the fact that they wore corsets. The turning point was acutally censorship. In the early days of movies (long before sound was even a part of it) the films could get quite risque. What happened was that with the introduction of censorship and rating systems, people had to cover more. And what became the feature that defined feminity? Yep, breasts. Why? Because clothig did not cover their size, and they are something that only one gender has. I guess the best summary of what I'm trying to say is that G land is set aside specifically for people more sensitive than most. LL as a "for profit" corporation sees some logic and increased revenue for setting aside these rare parcels of land. Everybody is satisfied and happy if only on "topless tuesday" you stick to land that is familiar, read land ratings since that is a special day, or both. Being allowed on land that has two out of three of the ratings really doesn't make it a battle worth winning, since you really can't claim to have drawn the "short stick" there. Just be a tad more cautious on the day that you choose to be topless, or do your shopping on one of the six other days of the week. It's really a very small consession to make.

My opinion is based on a few things. 1. Tablets took a surprising amount of marketshare in 2012. 2. Most people I know who run ARM chips of any kind are spending a surprising amount of time on a wifi network. I estimate that my Atrix spends roughly 30 minutes a day relying on onlly 4g. That's not even an exaggeration. Everywhere I go in a typical day, the only time I spend away from a wifi network that I am welcome on is when I'm driving. 3. Desktop marketshare is dropping at a surprising rate. 4. Laptop and tablet technology are beginning to merge. Look to the Microsoft Surface and Lenovo Twist for examples. 5. Windows 8 is designed to mimick the look of windows RT, and even behave very similarly when in the Metro UI. This is definitely a sign of things to come. I have little doubt that the shift to more portable computing will be accelerated by this OS. 6. Arm archetecture is growing in capability at a very rapid rate, while x86 archetecture is slowing down. It's only a matter of time before ARM catches up comletely. There are already several emulators for smartphones, several methods of docking them to larger screen devices, 7. To answer the question of whether or not ARM devices have the capability of handling the graphics, just do a google search for ARM game console. Here's one that'll play xbox 360 and ps3 games by streaming from a cloud based service. https://www.onlive.com/store (And yes, I've seen this in action. It works quite well. It IS on a wired network, but there are people using SL on wireless because it's not as "action based" as most video games.) So basically, the technology is here. And year after year it'll only get better. I sort of agree with you Peggy, that ARM is usually a pretty high cost for the specs you get. And personally, for now I'll limit my ARM purchases to a new cell phone every two years (because that's when the wireless providers subsidise your purchase, allowing you to pay far less than the product is worth in exchange for a new contract.) But the demand for it is there, and it's a whole market that LL can tap. If none of my other observations have convinced you so far, then there's one more. 8. Nothing venture3d, nothing gained. I look forward to further discussion on this topic. It's one of great interest to me.

I honestly think LL needs to expand the number of official viewers. Foir one, expanding the full featured viewer to ARM archetecture for IOS, Android, and Windows RT would reflect the changing priorities of the current consumer. Also, it would show that LL is willing to change with the times. Microsoft's newest pair of operatng systems reflect this change in consumer priorities by making windows 8 for PC's much closer to the mobile platforms of tablets and smartphones.In fact, the UI even mimicks the look of Windows RT (Window's mobile os.) Right now, anyone using ARM archetecture doesn't have an official viewer to use. AS for TPV's, the best is probably Lumiya, which falls far short of what any viewer, whether ofical or tpv can do for an x86 chip. It is well known that most tpv's use LL's official code as a sort of "baseline." so doesn't it make sense that even to tpv loyalists, LL needs to lead the way in developing software for tablets? With the high level of marketshare that ARM chipsets are getting, isn't developing software for this chipset that mimicks the experience of x86 archetecture the only thing that makes sense? Now that Microsoft has seen the potential of this hardware, can LL afford to ignore it?

Wow, there's a lot going on in this thread. I'll bet I miss something. 1. Breasts never hurt anyone. You're right about that. However, they are a symbol of feminity, which does make them semi-sexual. A neck or a hairline is something that both genders have. If men grew a nice set of mammaries, they'd be bored by them. Many people consider "private flesh" to be any feature that is specific to one gender or another. Since everybody has a face, the comparison to muslim burkas does not apply. 2. Any complaint of sexism is also pretty moot. G land is kind of rare. Nobody could complain about the topless tuesdays that you participate in on M or A land. Why not just go where it's accepted? That should be easy enough, right? Plus, by your own code of ethics, it's only 1/7 of days that you "must" go topless, which is a demand far more degrading than covering up. And if you think that being told ot cover a part of the female anatomy that males don't posess is degrading, then I have to wonder if you feel the same about sitting down to pee. Cause I mean, if gender equallity is your whole reason, then I must assume you stand despite how messy that can get. 3. Logic does not alleviate consequences for breaking the law. And I can see your point about breaking it on occasion. The proper term for it is "civil disobedience." and Americans most frequently invoke it in defense of the first amendment. A word of caution though. Pick your battles. Be prepared to deal with the consequences of an act of civil disobedience, and know your defense beforehand. Those who commit such acts successfully usually can cite the reasons why a certain rule or law is immoral, does more harm than good, etc. A classic example from US history is Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of a bus. She is considered to one of the people who triggered a revolution that makes it now ilegal to discriminate based on skin color. But being considered a hero now didn't make her life any easier after what she did. But you have to ask youself, will being topless in a G rated sim, or rolling through a stopsign, or speeding have anywhere near the revolutiionary effect of Rosa Parks? Honestly, the answer is definitely not. 4. I'll admit right now. Sure, I speed, and I roll through stop signs. But only when there is no police car in sight. Why do I do it? Because I can get away with it. It's not a revolution of any kind. It's not standing up for anything. And I don't do it excessively. My thought is "Townies don't stop me for 5mph over, Stateys won't if it's 10mph." On the rolling stops, it's "There are no cars, so there are no cops." I have no problem admitting that the presence of law enforcement will make me drive in a fashion that is much more legally responsible. 5. Linden Lab is based in the US, and subject to US law. It is also a voluntary service that we all use voluntarily, making us all subject to the rules they set forth, and them subject to the laws of the USA. So you ARE right about Boobs never hurting a child. But they certainly can hurt a corporation. In the US, where LL resides, female toplessness is considered a form of nudity. In movies, "brief nudity" is an automatic PG13 rating. (Pg13 is not heavily enforced though.) And I have my doubts that your "topless Tuesdays" are what can be considered brief. Any movie that is chock-full of topless women is considered "R (restricted audiences)" Which IS enforced, and requires moviegoers to present ID showing that they are at least 17 years of age. Now, previous to the ratings that I've mentioned are G and PG. G (General Audience) means "There is nothing at all in this film that can be considered in any way contovertial." PG (Parental Guidance suggested) basically means "90 percent of the population will see no problem at all with this, but if you're one of those **bleep**-retentive parents, maybe you should see this first." Here is the rating for television, copy/pasted from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_content_rating_systems#United_States The Parental Guidelines system for the United States was first proposed on 19 December 1996 by the United States Congress, the television industry and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and went into effect by 1 January 1997 on most major U.S. broadcast and cable networks in response to public concerns of increasingly explicit sexual content, graphic violence and strong profanity in television programs. It was established as a voluntary-participation system, with ratings to be determined by the individually participating broadcast and cable networks. The guidelines are as follows. Often sub-guidelines will be used to specify the type of content in the program. TV-Y: Suitable for all children (particularly those of preschool or kindergarten age, as this rating is commonly seen in early childhood shows) TV-Y7: Suitable for children over seven years old. May contain cartoonish slapstick violence, humor considered too ribald or morbid for younger viewers, mild innuendo, and/or themes and stories that would be considered too controversial, scary or incomprehensible for younger audiences. TV-G: Suitable for all audiences; contains little to no adult themes, sexual innuendo, graphic violence, or foul language. Some children's programs that have content that teens or adults will enjoy, such as adult humor, will be used as a G rating instead of a Y rating. Also used for shows with inoffensive content (such as cooking shows, religious programming, nature documentaries/pets and animals and reruns of classic television shows, particularly some sitcoms and game shows) TV-PG: Parental guidance suggested; may contain infrequent and/or mild language and/or sexual references, mild to moderate violence, and/or suggestive themes and dialogue TV-14: Parents strongly cautioned; may be inappropriate for children younger than 14 years of age. Contains moderate to realistic violence (including some blood-letting), moderate sexual references (including censored and/or partial nudity and heavily implied scenes of sexual intercourse), moderate language (including bleeped-out obscenities), and moderate sexual innuendo. TV-MA: Mature audiences; not suitable for children. Contains strong language (which may or may not be censored for advertising reasons), explicit (though, in some cases, not pornographic) sexual content, graphic nudity, and/or graphic violence. The sub-ratings commonly seen with the main ratings are as follows: FV: Fantasy violence (only used with the TV-Y7 rating for action-oriented children's shows) D: Used with the TV-PG, TV-14 and TV-MA rating to denote the use of dialogue that hints at something sexual, violent, disturbing, or drug-related. L: Used with the TV-PG, TV-14, and TV-MA rating to denote instances of crude, offensive language (profanity, vulgar slang, racial and ethnic slurs, etc.) S: Used with the TV-PG, TV-14, and TV-MA rating to denote instances of sexual content (including innuendo, intercourse, nudity, references to alternate sexualities [homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality], and references to sexual acts and fetishes) V: Used with the TV-PG, TV-14, and TV-MA rating to denote instances of violence, gore, threat, and scenes depicting peril and/or distress. And here it is for video games, which LL falls in the category of. This one is directly from the Electronic Software Rating Board.(ESRB, which oversees ALL video game software) http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp As you can see, your "Topless Tuesdays" have no place on a G rated sim when the content is provided by a US corporation. Rating Categories **Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://www.esrb.org/images/ratingsymbol_ec.gif" border="0" alt="esrb ratings symbol for ec games" width="60" height="89" /> EARLY CHILDHOODContent is intended for young children. **Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://www.esrb.org/images/deepyellow.gif" border="0" alt="" width="460" height="1" />**Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://www.esrb.org/images/ratingsymbol_e.gif" border="0" alt="esrb ratings symbol for E-rated games" width="60" height="89" /> EVERYONEContent is generally suitable for all ages. May contain minimal cartoon, fantasy or mild violence and/or infrequent use of mild language. **Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://www.esrb.org/images/deepyellow.gif" border="0" alt="" width="460" height="1" />**Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://www.esrb.org/images/ratingsymbol_e10.gif" border="0" alt="esrb ratings symbol for e10 games" width="60" height="89" /> EVERYONE 10+Content is generally suitable for ages 10 and up. May contain more cartoon, fantasy or mild violence, mild language and/or minimal suggestive themes. **Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://www.esrb.org/images/deepyellow.gif" border="0" alt="" width="460" height="1" />**Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://www.esrb.org/images/ratingsymbol_t.gif" border="0" alt="esrb ratings symbol for T-rated games" width="60" height="89" /> TEENContent is generally suitable for ages 13 and up. May contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling and/or infrequent use of strong language. **Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://www.esrb.org/images/deepyellow.gif" border="0" alt="" width="460" height="1" />**Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://www.esrb.org/images/ratingsymbol_m.gif" border="0" alt="esrb ratings symbol for m-rated games" width="60" height="89" /> MATUREContent is generally suitable for ages 17 and up. May contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language. **Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://www.esrb.org/images/deepyellow.gif" border="0" alt="" width="460" height="1" />**Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://www.esrb.org/images/ratingsymbol_ao.gif" border="0" alt="esrb ratings symbol for AO-rated games" width="60" height="89" /> ADULTS ONLYContent suitable only for adults ages 18 and up. May include prolonged scenes of intense violence, graphic sexual content and/or gambling with real currency. **Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://www.esrb.org/images/deepyellow.gif" border="0" alt="" width="460" height="1" />**Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://www.esrb.org/images/ratingsymbol_rp.gif" border="0" alt="esrb ratings symbol for rp rating" width="60" height="89" /> RATING PENDINGNot yet assigned a final ESRB rating. Appears only in advertising, marketing and promotional materials related to a game that is expected to carry an ESRB rating, and should be replaced by a game's rating once it has been assigned.

I'll be spending the rest of my night on that micromagic link now. Thanks a lot, Peggy Paperdoll, and I mean that sincerely. So far, the options I've been looking at on newegg and tigerdirect just don't compete with the cost of a ready-made computer from Staples. As for ready-made vs. custom, the OP should be told that all the custom options listed are for desktops. If portability is a concern to the OP, then the laptop originally mentioned may be the best. (edit: Not THAT laptop. A different laptop. Sorry.)If the computer is going to mainly sit in one building, then I agree with everyone that a desktop, whether prebuilt or custom is going to give much better results for the money. I'm currently on a laptop that I paid $500 for three years ago, and currently lists on newegg for $650. When looking at any laptop or prebuilt desktop, look for promotions and special deals. That's how the cost of a prebuilt can be equal or better than a custom machine. Avoid the AMD APU. It IS the plague. I have one, and it is the achilles heal in my machine. Right now, what you want is a third generation Intel core processor. i3, i5, or i7, depending on your budget. The next digit after that should be a 3, NOT a 2. (Eg I3-3xxx) 512 mb dedicated memory? Are you playing limbo to see how low you can go? lol. That's too low. Your machine will fall flat on it's back. And honestly, I think you'd have to find a machine that's quite old if you want anything under 1g dedicated to video anymore. If it absolutely must be a laptop, then check out the "ultrabook" line. All ultrabooks have the third gen Intel core processors. They are rumored to handle graphics much better than a "normal" laptop. And as an added bonus, since the only reason to buy a laptop is that you want it to be portable, they are all less than an inch thick. P.S. I just re-read the original post. Only dual core AND an APU... Sorry OP, but that's a recipe for buyers remorse. As for memory, it's cheap. If you need to skimp on ram to fit your budget, then get the better intel chipset with 4 gb of ddr3, and if you notice any problems, you can always upgrade to 6 gb for only $20 (And that price is from a brick-and-mortar store.)

I don't think there's enough detail in the original post. what was the land rated? was it G, M, or A? The only place where revealing clothes are not allowed is G. But for full anatomical nudity, you're best off sticking ot A. In any case, is someone is going to IM someone at all about their level of "revealing" being too much for the sim, then it would only be right to give a chance to comply before reporting. Since M basically covers the "grey area" between G and A, I would say any threat to report a person in the first IM is premature in all areas except G. Since a Faun is usually fur-covered fromt he waiste down, G is the only lace that a faun would even need clothing at all. The whole "defense of children" thing is actually a bit overblown. Parents usually don't pay any attention to ratings until they see something that offends them. Yes, I'm talking about real life here. There's way too much of parents buying video games for their children that are rated Mature (Which is the sl equivalent of Adult, not moderate) and then acting like the blame belongs to Sony or Microsoft when the PS3 or Xbox game has contents they'd rather their child not see. As for children in SL. Well, there's not much to really guard against that. It's a checkbox now. No proof is required. this puts the responsibility for what a real life child sees right where every other form of media does... In the parants' hands. I've seen child avatars on adult and moderate lands too. This means that the person who plays them is, or at least claims to be an adult. And to be perfectly honest, I've seen some amazing things from these people. TOS does restrict them in some ways, but a bit of common sense goes a long way. Obviously, around a person who looks underaged, it's best to treat them underaged. That means no nudity, keep violence to a minimum, etc. In other words, LL does only what it must to protect itself. If you were on G rated land, maybe you were out of line for dressing in a revealing manner. but on any other kind of land, it was the person who threatened you who was out of line.

Are there only a few areas you tend to frequent? I ask because AR is about the slowest thing you can do. Yes, it should still be done. But to grant you some respite in the meantime, you can contact someone with "ban" rights on the land you find yourself mostly going to. This is not a total solution that will get them out of SL like an AR will, but it's a MUCH quicker solution for the places you go to the most. Basically, all it means is that someone with ban rights can put an avatar on a blacklist, and render them unable to visit that parcel. In a case like you've described, I think most admin/staff members on that land would be accomodating. You have the saved conversation where the person blatantly refus4ed to stop pushing you. There are a couple of things to take into consideration. If you and that person are there as equal members, then investigation as to whether or not the original reason this person is bothering you began on that land would come under limited consideration. With a chat log showing that this person has been asked to stop by a third party (your friend) and refused, there certainly would be some consequences on any land I have rights over (which are always private). Ther would be at least a short term ban. Possibly permanent. If they are not registered, then definitely permanent, since ther is no question about them not belonging there. If they are, then communication would be opened up, along with a warning and a temporary ban. If it started somewhere wlse, then the first to bring it to the land I have ban rights on would be the one to get the hammer. (Not the first to come, but the first to cause drama.)

For the desktop crowd, I have to agree with, well, both schools of thought. Buying a prebuilt pc has several advantages. One is that you get everything you need in a balanced system for the cost. Another is that those who save money building their own not only have technical skills, but also some impressive shopping skills. three years ago, I wanted a Win7 computer. After looking into things, the barebones kits didn't seem to offer more value for the money than the prebuilt did. (Barebones, for those who don't know, are basically unassembled collections of parts you can buy online to assemble your own computer. Ten years ago, they wer the best thing going for someone who's motherboard and processor were showing their age. Just transfer your old drives from your old computer into the one that they give you the parts to build, and voila.) The difference in specs are much lower in these barebones kits now than they were in the past if you compare computers in the $300-$600 range. Everybody who feels that building your own computer saves you money is a person who buys individual parts, and probably from different sources. They know who to go to for what parts. However, if a desktop is your formfactor of choice, then there is absolutely nothing saying that you need to keep the hardware it comes with. If you start feeling behind the times on graphics, just install a new card. 4 gigs of memory doesn't float your boat anymore? Just buy more. HDD too small? Buy another one. Unfortunately with a laptop you're highly limited on what you can do internally. Just ram and HDD on most machines. But, to be honest, none of the "build it yourself" crowd is talking about a laptop. My last desktop lasted me more than ten years, and could have lasted me probably another ten if "barebones" kits were still the value they were when I built it, or if even one of the major components was the same standard as they were back then. What happened? Not a single part on that computer is compatible with new hardware. Well, maybe the optical drives, but those are so minor that some computers don't even have them anymore. Due to upgrade costs, it became smarter to retire that machine. When buying a computer, here's what I learned. 1. Clock speed is nowhere near as critical as it was a decade ago. On the x86 chipset, there is a huge divide between low end and high end anymore. If you get a laptop, you'll want a minimum of 2ghz. I may not be looking hard enough at low end desktops, but I'm not seeing anything lower than 3ghz. 2. Especially with laptops, graphics are important. Since you can't upgrade like on a desktop, get the top of the line graphics at the time of purchase. Unlike years ago, it's not the CPU that makes a computer seem outdated. It's the GPU. 3. On a laptop, get yourself something with 2 gigs of video memory. On a desktop, who cares? you can upgrade if you didn't get enough. 4. BIOS matters more than ever. This is the firmware connected to the motherboard. Again, this is less important in a desktop, since if you're unhappy with the hardware/firmware, you can upgrade. But now, after three years of trusty service on my laptop, I want to begin overclocking, and I found out that my BIOS lacks the customization options I need. (disclaimer: Overclocking increases heat, which is far less dangerous in a desktop than a laptop.) 5. Consider the OS when you think of formfactor. If you're buying a prebuilt computer, then keep in mind that most are going to be either shipped with Windows 8, or they'll offer Windows 8 at a highly discounted price. (A marketing move that Microsoft made to keep computer manufacturers and retailers from losing business during the wait for the Windows 8 release date. The Windows 8 interface is designed with touchscreens in mind. Underneath that, it acts very similar to Windows 7 with some tweaks, and with some online guides, can even be made to look mostly like 7. But if you're an OS nerd like me, then you'll want a touchscreen eventually to see what Win8 has to offer. It seems to me that the desktop crowd is going to be quite a bit less happy with Win8 than the laptop/ultrabook/tablet crowd is. Overall, I have no remorse for buying the computer that I did (a laptop), but I AM going back to the good old fashioned desktop. Call me a masochist for picking a bad combo, but it WILL be a Windows 8 machine. And odds are my first monitor when I make the switch will be a spare old CRT display that I have laying around. Even if I do spring for a flatscreen monitor, I'll probably wait for the prices to drop a bit before buying the touchscreen. The touchscreen all-but-dependence of Win8's metro interface will probably someday see the end of monitors that aren't touchscreen enabled. I just pray that the gamers, businesses, and "specs for the money" desktop buyers of the world keep that formfactor alive for a few more years so I can go back to buying one component at a time to overcome performance bottlenecks one component at a time rather than investing half a grand on a new machine each time something becomes dated. But if those "specs for the money" people who want a touchscreen look at an ultrabook without thinking about the upgradability of a desktop, my prayers will inevitably go unanswered.

Pussycat Catnap wrote: Having lived in Asia, Korea to be exact - I'd say the eyes tend to be noticeably larger, and different shaped. That's because real life korean's aren't being designed by people who attempt to make absolutely sure that nobody will ever mistake their shape for "anime." by going to the exact opposite extreme. lol. I get what you're saying though. Avatar ethnicity compared to person ethnicity is kind of bizarre. In sl, even something like the clothes you put on your avatar can change the race someone percieves them as. It's a lot of fun to change hair and clothes, and see how many different ways you are percieved.

I think the barbie/ken look would actually be ideal for a G rated skin. Although I must admit, I never bothered to dig that far into the TOS to find out if lack of ugly censoring would push it up to an M rating. There are plenty of g rated clothes out there which I can imagine would allow the painted on underwear to show through. Not much of it, but enough to know it's there, and to do some damage to the realism that most people are going for. Maybe a wasitband poking over a swimsuit or something. Considering the OP's real age, wouldn't it be against TOS to spend naked time anywhere other than a private dressing room anyway?I guess the painted on underwear would offer some protection against accidental occurances, such as your viewer crashing and someone else entering the room and getting you ejected before you could relog, or the soon to be extinct bake fail. But really, since the avatar will be clothed, nobody but the OP will realy know about the existance of anatomical details anyway. If the skin or template is editable, then the barbie/ken look shouldn't be too hard to achieve. It's as simple as a healing brush or blur tool in whichever picture editing software the OP shooses to use.

Just some thoughts... Driving on one side of the road or the oher has nothing to do with morallity. It's all about practicallity. The driver is universally on the side of the car that is closer to opposing traffic because that is the side that he or she can better judge distance on. Traffic cannot move if there is no standard for where to place the driver controls and which lane a car is supposed to occupy. Cannibalism is a risky behavior. Most of the time, feeling "grossed out" by something is a survival trait. Spiders and wild snakes gross people out because they can be venomous.Insects gross people out because they can carry viruses and parasites. Wild rodents gross people out because they are vectors for fleas, which in turn spread disease. Whole tribes of cannibals have been wiped out by pathogens that have specifically adapted to human hosts. So there is an element of danger to the eater. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease) Most religions cite in one way or another that it is wrong to do things to others that you either would rather not have done to you, or that you are not absolutely certain that they would do. That is one of the few things we can all agree on in terms of morallity. Jewish and Christian belief has the "Do unto others" commandment, and the Pagan religions all have karma. The problem comes in the form of details. If a cannibal can accept that someday he or she will be eaten, then to eat another person does not violate the karma or "do unto others" clause. The "age of consent" in most developed countries began more due to practicality than anything else. In most cases a person is biologically ready for parenthood before they are mentally ready for it, by society's standards. This is because of the lengthening life span of our species. There were times in human history that it was rare for a person to live past their 30's. Of course back then puberty and all the hormonal urges it brings were considered more appropriate than now. But with extended life comes extended childhood. Now, in most societies, it's mandatory to attend school until the age of 18. A person cannot get good grades in school while tending to a child. In fact, in our technology driven world, either some college or some life experience is greatly needed so that a parent knows the reasons for things, and how the world works before giving birth. Add to this the biological instability of adolescence. Most people's minds have changed quite significantly quite a few times between the age of 13 (puberty) and the age of consent (generally considered to be 18.) Having not been alive for two decades, it is wrong to expect them to put them at risk of a two decade long responsibility to raise another person. Consider the milestones that lay in between. A person in the US can't drive until the age of at least 16. In some states, their right to travel at will is limited until the age of 18. Babies have places to go. doctors, someone has to move the diapers and formula from the market to the house. They are not released from their paren'ts care until 18.

I'm having a hard time understanding why you so vehemently hate the tea party. maybe we're looking at them from opposite viewpoints, or maybe you know something I don't. I see something almost heroic in what they did. In 2010 they formed and organized, under the basis that Obamacare, which was a 2000+ page text that nobody had the time to read before signing into law, and 72% of citizens polled were opposed to, was not something to be forced on the American Public. That there is language in it that is quite questionable, and that the rising debt is a problem to be dealt with. they infiltrated the republican party and thoroughly spanked the democrats in the house of representatives. Admittedly, I tend to vote very anti-incumbent, and very pro-third-party. For a long time, I felt that the idea of choosing from only 2 candidates was a system that is flawed at it's very core. I can also concede that in many ways, the Tea Party's method of handling the budget would be akin to hunting a rodent with high explosives. However, they brought a counterpoint to the table that I thought was very necessary for the single election where they had any kind of relevance. Sadly, politics in America has degraded to balancing one extreme with an equally appalling extreme. Ironically, this is mated with parties and candidates seeming to jump to the opposite extreme in an attempt to appeal to those of us who consider ourselves "moderate." There have been some scary statements that came out of the Obama administration, particularly in the time right before the Tea Party was formed. "We have to sign this bill to see what's in it." by Nancy Pelosi. Wow. Just wow. The housing market had just crashed from too many homeowners (ex-homeowners) thinking the same thing. And she thought this is an appropriate thought for our country to be run by? I would expect that by making the purchase of health insurance mandatory, the stocks for insurance companies will see quite a bubble. "...businesses that are too big to fail." From a Democrat. Aren't repbublicans supposed to be the party of big business? But yet this is the language used to justify rewarding banks that failed by awarding them billions of money taken from the taxpayers. That money, if you recall, was misused to purchase other, smaller banks, to award exectutive banks with lavish vacations, and to award their CEO's with huge bonuses. Oh wait. That wasn't the bailout money. It was OTHER money that the banks conveniently couldn't keep track of. Nevermind the fact that banks have only a single reason to exist... keeping track of money. To be fair, Bush also praised this idea. So when republicans and democrats work together, the resto of us better bring some vaseline. Cash for clunkers was another funnel to redistribute wealth from the lower class to the higher while claiming to do the opposite. let me explain. Dealerships are FRANCHISES. That means they are relatively small, in the grand scheme of things. They pay dearly to the car manufacturers for everything they have. A dealership doesn't cost the car maker any money. The only thing they can "cost" is reputation if it's a bad dealership. Part of the cash for clunkers deal was to pull dealership franchises, which the manufacturers simply hadn't done before because the dealerships were NOT failing. The result: lost jobs. Then, they dragged their feet paying the dealerships, who succeeded in selling new cars only to those who could afford it anyway. The result: More dealerships failed, causing mroe lost jobs. Then they ordered these trade-ins to be destroyed. The result: Higher wholesale prices, resulting in almost no consumer demand for cars 1-5 years old, and much higher prices on cars that are 6+ years old. Plus a huge spike in the cost of used and remanufactured parts, which harmed used car lots, mechanics, and people in the lowest income brackets. This all seems very pro-wallstreet, anti-mainstreet to me. Very pro-rich. But then to counteract, there was the extension of unemployment, the promise of free cellphones, and the promise of free money to the non-working poor. That leaves the "moderates" of the middle class to watch the deficit grow exponentially and say, "This won't end well." This, in turn causes them to spend less, which leads to further cuts, which leads to more unemployment coupled with those who do work being made to work longer shifts for less of a chance of any kind of raise. Add inflation, and what you get is more work to earn less spending power. I honestly think that whether or not you agree with the political agenda of the tea party or of the occupy wallstreet movement, the overall effect of their existence is good. they energized voters, and gave the public a voice to cry out against the rising debt and the sweetheart deals being made with corporations. It is especially important now that most businesses are quite large, quite topheavy, and the divide in pay between the executive "white collar" workers and the "blue collar" workers has become unjustifiably big.

There is a group that's been forgotten in the list of people with good reason not to upgrade theri computers. Those who's computers work well for most things that aren't second life. There are plenty of those machines out there. And if the owner thinks that the 500-600 dollar cost for a computer could be better spent on something else.... well, so be it. See, to some of us, that smartphone that allows us to talk and text, to get updates about our rl jobs, that acts as a gps when we're on the road... I mean, we may be a small part of the population here, but to at least some of us, that matters more than sl. Some of us are fine with our cheap apartments and our mediocre computers, but would like both to be better. So we go into the computer store, and come out empty handed because we want to save for the bigger thing. Maybe, for some of us, it's both the car and the computer showing it's age. So we're thinking, "It's just a few more weeks until I have enough to start looking for that new car to take myself to work, or I can buy a new computer right now and be happier with second life." So are you trying to say that if Second Life isn't your first priority, then you don't belong here? Because as far as most of us are concerned, SL is one of the luxuries that we can deal with some imperfections in.

It's actually surprising how large sl has become. Thousands of sims, at a cost to the sim owners of $300 per month. Millions of items on the marketplace. All for something that started out as "just a 3d chat." It has grown to be much more, and I don't think even LL could have predicted it would have become as profitable as it is. A business shrinking is never good, but in the case of SL, it seems like the whole time it was inevitable.Just about every rl market is shrinking too. And with the economic uncertainty that exists now, of course regions that were sparsely populated are disappearing. To say that as early as 2014 SL will stop existing doesn't give sl real estate a chance to stabilize. I do see a smaller grid possible by 2014, easily. But as long as SL remains profitable, it'll still exist.

Seeing posts like this a couple of times is making me wonder about profit margin vs. sales volume. What I mean is that there's no doubt that LL is making a killing from the sim ownership fees. But the high cost is prohibitive to many. so I guess the real question isn't whether or not they should lower the cost of sims, or increase what they give in terms of area nd prim allowance for the cost. The real question is whether doing so would help or harm business. It would be really interesting to learn how they arrived at the prices they set. What data made the prices what they are, and how old that data is. And since sims often end up being subdivided by land barons, how the price that's set now for what you're given would affect them, too. In other words, would lowering tier gain enough in either new business or retaining old business to overcome the loss to their profit margin and lead to a bigger bottom line? If the data that SL uses to set prices says it would, then prices would be lower. but is this the most current data? In another post, someone mentioned that LL lost something like 1200 sims in 2012. Which means, at current prices, they would have to sell 1200 sims to make up for the loss. If tier was lowered to, say, $200 per month, then they would have to sell 30% more than the total number of sims that they lost AND the ones that are still around (since they would also be paying the new $200 rate.) I'm oversimplifying a bit. I'm not taking setup fees into consideration since that's a one time fee. In order for this kind of exponential growth, the land barrons would have to pass the savings on to the people who are paying rent for 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 sims, etc until their land is saturated and they need more room to expand their sl businesses. But how would you motivate that? Sure, for the upper echelon of rent-payers, it would become more appealing to tier up then. Some would say "why pay a land baron $130 for a homestead when I can get a ful region for $200 instead of $300. But odds are that instead of getting new land set up, they would rent from land barrons, who have plenty of empty land to go around. That prohibitive $1000 setup fee would see to that. I think this is most of the reason why begging for cheaper tier gets ignored. Believe me, I wish tier was lower. And I think in the long term, it would be better for promoting growth, or at least shoring up losses. What I wrote in this post is merely playing devils advocate. Sadly, businesses almost never take a deliberate short term loss in hopes of a long term gain. Rather, large businesses tend to be quite short-sighted. So tier will only lower when the grid shrinks so much that new sales will make up for lost margin, IF LL's timing is good. Increasing prim counts may be an option that LL would be willing to try earlier than lowering tier. After all, if there are fewer sims on the same machines with no sign of that thrend reversing, then it stands to reason that costs to LL to give more prim allowance for the money would be minimal. But I think the shrinking land has more to do with changing rl priorities for many people. After all, more and more individuals are looking at more and more ways to save money, and $300 per month is quite a large expense. I doubt that there are many people paying the full $300. Many sims are owned by groups, many are subdivided, etc. The problem is that as more and more people become unable or unwilling to pay their share of the land cost, the burden on those who remain get higher and higher, until the group abandons the sim, or there aren't enough renters to support the sim anymore. So my prediction is that SL will have fewer and fewer sims, and continue to shrink until either the economy picks up in rl enough for people to afford tier again, or it drops below a certain threshold where growth potential can overcome margin loss. And there's no way that LL will tell us what that threshold is. edit: I just re-read that post I referred to. The number is more like 2700 regions lost. Read it here http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Second-Life-in-2014/td-p/1768165/page/2

After seeing your summary of how New Zealand politics works, I think I would prefer that over how US politics works. I think you're right about the seperation between government and the governed. Too right, in fact. for the US to save itself, we need multiple parties. Not just two. I think that's why it's so difficult for a third party to get onto the ballot. Both republicas and democrats enjoy the lack of competition. The only part of the New Zealand model that you wrote I can't see working in the US is eliminating states. The US covers too much area not to be divided into states. In fact, in the early days, the States did more of the governing than the federal government. Because of it's size, that worked better. It is about the only way to put government close to the people. Unfortunately, what we see in modern times is a bloating of federal government, where most of the seperation you mentioned is. The constitution was written as a set of laws that government must follow. And the seperate branches of government were created to enforce the constitutiion on eachother. Failure to uphold the constitution and enforce the laws it sets is actually what put the US in the situation it's in right now. Any method of changing things for the better can happen only after significant changes for the worse. Americans have grown to accept things that previously would have been considered unacceptable. It will take becoming unlivable to spur people into any form of action. The US was founded by people who were overtaxed, and unrepresented. I consider government spending in 4 years to be greater than it was in 200 years combined unacceptable. Particularly when much of that money went to certain "pet" corporations. I find the rate of inflation unacceptable. And it horrifies me that a president who calls himself a democrat would be so willing to give billions of dollars to banks and to energy companies that have yet to provide any viable product or show any profit while allowing the middle class and the working poor to flounder.

If you want to upgrade hardware, you'll need to buy a desktop. Laptop ram can be upgraded, but graphics cards cannot.. SL is becoming more and more intense on graphics cards. But then again, so has everything else our computers do. Right now, I'm on a laptop just like the OP. And I'm having he same issue. But since we've been getting told that V! viewers are being phased out for over a year now, I've just learned to deal with the lagginess of Firestorm (compared to Phoenix.) When I open my resource monitor, I can see that CPU usage is consistantly over 90%. When I was at 4gb of ram, that was way up there too. Upgrading to 6gb of ram helped a little, but the cpu spike is due to the integrated graphics. It's just the nature of laptops. Interestingly, Photoshop performs better on a decade old desktop that I have than it does on my laptop, despite every single specification on the lappy being better. This is all because the old desktop has a video card. So why not use the desktop? Well, the motherboard is too old for me to buy any modern upgrades for. Buying a new computer would be cheaper than upgrading.

To say that SL will cease to exist by 2014 is only giving LL one year to throw everything they have in their corporate bag of tricks at it. Who knows what'll happen by maybe 2018, but I see the recent developments as a sign that they'll certainly be around in 2014. Why else would they have spent resources on the changes to mesh, pathfinding, going on steam, now the new method of avatar baking... Businesses don't operate without a plan. Whether that plan is a success or not is a seperate issue altogether. If 2013 sees significant losses, the amount of money that sl makes for ll will probably lead at most to a significant change to the business model. There is no threat of SL "shutting it's doors" until we stop seeing any updates altogether.

16 wrote: the power to regulate Congress/Parliament is in the hands of the citizens. works every time in a democracy whenever we choose to do so I really wish I could agree. The ideal would be if you wree right. But think about this. A bad employee can be fired at any time by an employer. We can only replace people in government oncce every two years or four years, depending on what branch they're in. And that's about the most minor problem we have. The president of the US earns about $400,000 per year. That's $1,600,000 for his full elected term. Which is far, far less than the amount of money spent to gain that 4 year term. Why do they spend so much more than the salary they'll be bringing home? That's something to think about. Congress and Sentate also typically spend more money trying to get elected than the amount they'll bring home in a single term. Add to this all the smear campaigns that get run against basically all candidates, and an honest man would end up overspending for a job that pays less than the cost of getting in, only to have his reputation ruined and his family verbally attacked? Then there's the issue of a two party system being flawed at it's core. There are two possible outcomes. Either both parties agree, leaving those who disagree with no voice, no representation, or they disagree, usualy for the purpose of political posturing, and an issue becomes so polarized that there is no effective solution. Not to mentiion there is always a minority and a majority. Basically, whatever party holds the majority in 2 of our 3 branches hold the power. Third parties have to do much more, with much less financial backing to even get on the ballot. And where does this financial backing come from? If not corporations, then unions. Neither of which are currently geared toward helping the worker. The truth is that unions have become "corporatized." And the worker is it's product. They are not so much about worker's rights as they are about recruiting, sometimes against members wills, so that there are more people to pay dues, thus providing more income to the union president and "administrative team." and more money for them to persue their political agendas, regardless of whether or not that agenda provides a direct benefit to the worker. There ARE some unions out there that are very good. But there are also some that do nothing but exert force on corporations to make them hire more people than what they need, then prevent them from layoffs, thus driving the corporation out of business, sacrificing thousands of jobs to "save" maybe a hundred. Occupy wallstreet was inarticulate. I could see what their cause was, and agree with it, to an extent. The problem is that every single one of them who was interviewed either contradicted another, or sounded like an idiot. It's an idea that lacked leadership. The tea party is a single-purpose movement. It seems their only agenda is to decrease government spending. They're right. Bill Clinton had a balanced budget and over 200 years of US history before him left us with a deficit of only 5 trillion dollars. Bush, a republican, ran up an additional 4 trillion in only 8 years, nearly doubling that number that seems to go against everything republicans stand for, doesn't it?. Obama so far has spent over 6 trillion by himself. Spending is out of control. But with a record number of people recieving some form of government asistance, simply chopping the budget will cause panic. What you don't hear from any party is the fact that federal minimum wage has stayed the same since the clinton era. Several states have raised it on their own, but that's not the point. Minimum wage earners do not recieve enough money to pay income tax. One of clinton's coolest tricks was to raise minimum wage, which gave people more money to live on (happier voters and more confident consumers), widened the taxpayer base (more government revenue), and uplifted the working poor (less government spending on benefits.) Yes, Clinton, a democrat, actually reduced the number of welfare recipients. Basically, this country can't be fixed by the way that democrats or republicans are talking about right now. Redistrobution of wealth will not lead to more productivity. It will simply take from the rich to give more to the unproductive. (Please don't think that I'm saying that all people who are not currently productive are that way by choice. I'm not.) While the republicans plan to increase the benefits to corporations will not trickle down anywhere near the middle class, and it will keep consumer confidence low. Put it this way. If someone is dedicating 40 hours of their lives each week so that a business can run, then that is a person deserving of a living wage. That is a person who should feel secure that they can afford rent, a used car, to have their bills paid, and at least a minimum of luxuries. A college student should be able to feel confident that if they find a job in their field of study, then they can afford to repay their student loan while doing all of the above, and then begin saving up for a new car and a house to own, if that's what they want. What is needed, but what nobody wants to do is bring the minimum wage up to at least some form of standard of living. Anyone who tries to argue that bringing up minimum wage causes inflation clearly hasn't bought anything at all in the last 14 years to see how inflation increased independantly of minimum wage. And the corporations, which pay their CEO's more than 300 times what they pay these minimum wage earners can certainly afford it, nomatter what they say. Executive compensation needs to be capped. Not at the same number for all corporations, but based on a formula that accounts for how many people that company employs and what kind of standard of living that company provides to it's workers. Our generation has seen too many scandals involving "white collar" fraud that to continue paying these execs like we do is inexcusable. Furthermore, our government needs to stop making sweetheart deals with individual companies. To do so is simply robbing everyone else. Remember Haliburton? Remember the bank bailouts, which provided banks with plenty of money to award bonuses to the same executives that made things so bad they couldn't stand on their own while the tellers that do your banking for you are still earning only $8 per hour. The reason why our economy is in shambles is that our taxes were dedicated to longterm occupation of foreign countries and to reward banks, who do nothing but handle money, for robbing from people and mishandling their ill-gotten gains. The solution is not to give money to the rich and hope it trickles down, or to take from the rich for redistribution to the poor like Obama wants. The solution is to demand opportunity, to narrow the rich/poor gap by distributing the wealth properly in the first place. Raise minimum wage, cap executive wage, balance the national budget, and the economy will once again be able to take care of itself.

You say that America is on the path to becoming a corporatocracy, so I have to ask how much further you think we have to go? It seems to me like we're already there. The link you posted seems to be a very accurate depiction of the current state of the US. I would really like the chance to talk more with you about it Maybe if you agree we should take that to it's own thread. But back to the original subject. Use of a company computer should be for business purposes only. I can understand a person getting fired for using a work computer for personal things, but nothing further as long as the content accessed is not illegal. Most businesses make you well aware that nothing done on THEIR computers is private. At the same time, there is no way that a company would ever get me to submit my PASSWORDS to anything. Passwords exist to limit who can log on or access. Paying me barely enough to live, as most busineses do while their CEO brings home it's average worker's salary each and every day does NOT in any way entitle them to any password I have for anything. It's not even a reasonable request. As someone else has already mentioned, that's like asking you for the keys to your house and car. There seems to be a growing movement by businesses to watch everything everyone does, at work and on their personal time, and try to control it. More and more, it seems that corporations are trying to assert a sort of "ownership" of their employees and sometimes even customers. I do not see government as a solution to this so much as an enabler. Whether republicans or democrats hold the power, ludicrous amounts of money taken from the shrinking middle class are dedicated to corporate interests.The only real difference is that the r's pick different corporations than the d's. Meanwhile neither party seems interested in passing more than a token gesture to workers rights. If they did, Unions would be obsolete. This whole facebook thing is as token as it gets. Maybe we should be blaming ourselves. I mean, really, if your privacy is something you value, and if you want to keep your professional life seperate fromm your personal life, then what are you putting all of these things about youself on facebook for anyway? It's like handing over your rights without even being asked to.

You don't want a SL job, and you don't want to do HUD tasks or fishing. And you said you can't build or make clothing. so becoming an sl merchant is out. You would have to upload some rl cash to buy land to subdivide, so that's out. The only thing I can think of for you to do is start looking for contests. There's a contest for just about everything. It won't be steady or guaranteed, but it's the only possibility I can think of that you didn't already rule out.

So, pathfinding, I guess we can all agree is useful if you're into sl aminals, and may become useful for everyone who's not into sl animals in the future, depending on how the merchants decide to use it in the objects they sell. But Opensim... What keeps all the ppeople who are talking it up here in sl? I'm not asking to be rude. I'm asking because both grids have theri advantages and disadvantages. I looked at opensim, and it looked like a great resource for groups, but not so much for individuals. I say that because most of us prefer to go to busier sims. Even on a sim, most of us like to be with a group of people. So exploring opensim alone, like I did, was actually very boring. The land costs are far lower than sl, which is awesome for land owners, but it felt like there was maybe too much land for too few people. If you have a group, and some of your members can do all those things that are needed in sl, then opensim has potential. I can see it being a popular option for schools, for roleplay groups, or for people who regularly go to venues in sl together to build one that's perfect for them. To me, the two grids seem too different to compare, let alone directly compete with eachother despite any apparent or real technical similarities.

Abigail Merlin wrote: one question for those complaining that I do not go above the TOS of SL, do you expect sim owners to police their renters in line with your personal ethics? I don't like bestualety or rape, should I check all my renters to make sure they do not have a scripted sex animal? or likewise if your neighbours are having a RL sexual ageplay party will you complain as wel? If I happen to see something that is against the TOS I will most likely inform the renter first if they are aware they are breaking the rules and only if they do not adjust so they comply with the rules will I report but I will not activly go looking what they are up to, that would be a serius breach of privatie. There are to many self apointed moral police officers already. report if you see it but don't go looking for it Let's be completely honest about this. As the owner of the land, you assume partial responsibility for what goes on there. What if someone is griefing? Maybe they're not violating TOS directly, but does that mean you should alow it? What if they're lagging the sim with excesswive effects and upsetting your other renters. Are they allowed to do that just because TOS doesn't ban particles? Or would you ban them? Someone may covertly engage in activities that you do onot approve of and get away with it. Even something as appalling as ageplay. That is no excuse to approve it though. It's a clear violation of everything. Not just LL's Tos. A landlord doesn't need to snoop in order to enforce some sort of morals. Ever hear of a land covenant? People do this all the time. Even though a covenant is typically stricter than LL's TOS, breaking the covenant is reason enough to get you ejected. Can you get away with breaking covenant? Sure. Sneaky people find ways to get away with things. It doesn't make it right though. If you ban the ones you catch, then maybe the others will find somewhere else to be perverts. Think about it. If someone's selling drugs out of a rl apartment, the landlord doesn't need to go snooping through their personal posessions to get suspicious. Same thing in sl. Someone getting away with smoking pot on your property because you weren't playing sherlock holmes is a much different scenario than setting up a drug den yourself. The fact that some people might slip through the cracks when they commit crimes is no excuse to welcome crime, and to decide that those who do get caught don't deserve any consequences. We may all be reading this wrong, but it seems like you're trying to justify setting up a haven for pedophiles basically just because you heard a rumor that you can. All these negative comments about "moral policing" might carry some weight if you were talking something less commonly despised. Even if LL allowed pedophilia, what kind of renters do you think you would attract by welcoming that to your land? And if it's the money that matters to you, how many decent people do you think would want to be surrounded by that? There is no reason to hang a "pedophiles welcome" sign unless ageplay is something that you want yourself. And as for your other question, about whether you would call the police if you knew your neighbor was having sex with a minor. Absolutely. There's something seriously wrong with the person who wouldn't. But the last sentance of your post, "Report it if you see it, but don't go looking for it." is actually the best way to conduct yourself in sl. Look for what you enjoy, do what you enjoy. Live up to your own morals as long as they meet or exceed those set forth in the TOS and your land covenant. But if you happen upon a severe violation, ar the person involved, and if you own the land it's on, ban them.