Orwar

That is in fact precisely how languages work, and how words change meaning over time. "Hussy" used to be slang for "housewife", just as Frauenzimmer used to refer to a woman's room, a hundred years later it referred to the attendants of a woman, a hundred years later it referred to women of low status, and today it's considered a derogatory term for women in general - the Swedish evolution of the word went much the same way, being adapted as 'fruntimmer' which was used as an honorary term for women of status (especially when addressing someone in old timey third person fashion), to being something really quite misogynistic. That's off the point though. No one goes around saying they make pornography with their spouse, or that they go to browse pornography in a strip club or brothel, or that things 'got pornographic' with that girl they hooked up with at the club last weekend. Well, unless they're in a Shakespearean play, perhaps. ... ... "I tell thee, cousin, t'was most wondrous - I took'th her by t'hand, and ere the sun shone o'er the hills, we madeth such sweete pornography; t'was truly dench!"

Peeve: when you're going to post a completely awesome song you recently discovered in the 'what are you listening to' thread, but the embedded link just turns into a notice telling you that the video is age restricted and thus only available on YouTube. I mean come on, it's just sex, drugs and rock 'n roll (well, Finnish post-industrial goth metal, and girls wearing fishnets and not much else. Also some alcohol to wash down the drugs). NSFW? Well only if your boss is a *cough*.

Although to be fair, imagine the dishes you'd be saving from having to wash up if you just cook a curry and then pour it out on the floor and have at it with a straw!

But what if it's a very tasty curry ..? Personally I find it's best to just avoid dropping food on the floor!

Chocolate fueled, at least!

I thought it was 3 seconds between picking it up and putting it in your mouth?

You make a good point.

Shipping included?

I like both, but I'd have to go with the first if I had to pick one! Skell brought a really nice outfit in that vein to my attention recently, from toksik - might be something you'd enjoy, too!

Oi, that's racism.

Appeal to Definition: "Using a dictionary’s limited definition of a term as evidence that term cannot have another meaning, expanded meaning, or even conflicting meaning. This is a fallacy because dictionaries don’t reason; they simply are a reflection of an abbreviated version of the current accepted usage of a term, as determined by argumentation and eventual acceptance. In short, dictionaries tell you what a word meant, according to the authors, at the time of its writing, not what it meant before that time, after, or what it should mean."

Today's peeve: when you plan to make food for four meals, but you make it so tasty that you'll be lucky if you get three meals out of it.

I've seen this occasionally, I think Doux has some hairs like that .. Might be thinking of another brand though, I never bought it.

Nope.

Hell is hot, Hel is not - 'tis in Nifelheim, 'tis where *bad vikings go. *Technically not 'bad' as such, Helheim is the realm of the dead for most common people, but you could also end up in Helgafjell, Folkvángr, the halls of Aegir, or, of course, Valhalla. Or you could just not go to Hel and turn into a Draugr. Norse death is creative stuff!

But think of all the amazing black metal is being made due to the miserable climate of the Nordic countries. If it was only ever summer, all we'd have would probably be cheery pop music. Shudders.

Benefits exclusive to masochists! Shudders.

I probably shouldn't get iffy about the semantics but no, SL isn't 'porn', and being intimate in SL doesn't make it 'porn'. Pornography is a form of adult media in the form of either text, images, video or audio with the intent of being consumed by / sold to an audience. Private intimacy is not pornography. What a spouse might object to, and generally rightfully so, is if someone uses Second Life to live out erotic or romantic adventures behind their backs. Such behaviour may be regarded as adultery, which obviously is a breach of mainstream convention of monogamous partnerships. If you want to 'play around', that should be something that you discuss with your partner. Having open relationships, or specific allowances for doing things online, isn't that uncommon these days - but a relationship is only open with consent from all parties involved; without consent it's plainly cheating.

Currently browsing for something to watch. Seeing how many terrible horror films are made these days is just sad. But I did spot something that might be mildly entertaining - come watch it with me, @Jordan Whitt?!

There occasionally crops up some questions regarding alphas, and whilst there already are plenty of resources around the forum and various blogs, I thought it might be prudent to make an up-to-date introduction covering both alpha layers for BOM as well as how to use alpha HUDs for mesh bodies (as well as the Maitreya save stick). Now, this is primarily targeted towards new players, or old returning players, or just anyone who hasn't yet gotten into how these things work - so I will be as exhaustively detailed as I can, whilst also trying my best to avoid rambling much too much (as if that's going to work out for me!). Disclaimer: I'm not a tech wiz, nor am I omniscient - I don't expect the first post to answer every conceivable question, nor can I swear by my mother's grave that there will be absolutely no errors (as of writing this, she's still alive, anyway!). For starters, a short glossary for some of the terms pertinent to the topic: Alpha - an alpha generally refers to alpha layers, which are layers that turn parts of your avatar transparent; the term however applies to all forms of transparency in textures, and is used outside of SL as well. As far as avatars are concerned, it's generally used to hide parts of your body that are covered by other body parts or apparel, to avoid 'clipping'. Clipping - when two objects intersect with each other so that they cut through each other. This frequently occurs when an avatar moves, if the skin beneath close-fitting apparel is visible. BOM - short for 'Bakes On Mesh'; this is a feature that was introduced a while back now, that allows mesh bodies to use 'system layers'. The implications of this feature are a few too many to include here, but I will talk a little bit about the practical differences between using BOM and not using BOM further on. Applier - before BOM was introduced, textures were applied to mesh bodies through appliers; again, I shan't go into too much details of the technical stuff, but in short, you click a button on a HUD, and a script will tell your mesh body to change its texture. This is still used for apparel (and occasionally furniture and such) when changing colours of various parts via a HUD. HUD - short for 'Heads Up Display'; essentially just a menu object which you attach to your screen, rather than on your avatar, to serve as a user interface. BOM vs. applier? This is a subject which already has a multitude of threads on its own, and I'm not going to divulge too much into it here, or tell you what you should use - in the end, it's your individual choice which can be based on a variety of factors. Since appliers has been around for a fairly long time, and has been the only means of putting skins and makeup on mesh bodies and heads up until the introduction of BOM, a lot of people still use their applier skins as they don't want to find a new skin, or because they don't want to get into learning how to use BOM. However, I do want to talk about the practical difference between using the two, as they are indeed very different. With BOM, your skin and makeup is found in your inventory in the form of system layers that you wear (or more frequently, 'add') to your avatar. With appliers, your skin is applied through a HUD - you don't 'physically' have the skin on your avatar or in your inventory, it's loaded through the textures' UUID (universally unique identifier - think of it as a unique number given to things uploaded into Second Life, a bit like an individual's social security number). So what does this mean, as far as alphas are concerned? When you're using an applier for your mesh body or head, you'll need an alpha to hide your 'system avatar' - you may notice sometimes when people are loading in that you see weird-looking avatars, that's because you always have a system avatar that tends to be loaded before your mesh attachments (and why you must always wear a shape, a system skin, system eyes, and a system hair - sometimes called 'hair base' or 'brow shaper' - that avatar is hidden rather than actually replaced by your mesh body or head). Thus, you must wear an alpha to hide that avatar, so that you'll only see the mesh body and head you have. The alphas thus do not hide your mesh, as the alpha is used to hide that system avatar - instead, you'll have to use your mesh body's built-in alpha functions, which are brand-specific and generally found in the body's HUD. If you're using BOM, your mesh body automatically hides the system avatar, allowing you to use the alpha layers for the skin of the mesh body instead. And why does this matter? Because whilst most bodies already have a high amount of parts that can be hidden through their HUDs, there are limitations, especially when designing close-fitting apparel. There are also a fair bit of work involved with using the HUDs; whilst many clothes do come with auto-hider scripts, that will tell your body which parts to hide when you wear something, that's A) not always the case, and B) prone to failing, especially whilst in laggy places or when the service performance is compromised. Comparatively, adding an alpha layer made for any given piece of apparel is really easy and essentially fool proof, as well as gives the designer a lot more freedom when designing the cut of their apparel. And whilst not all creators include alpha layers for their apparel, especially that which was made before BOM was introduced, you can often find alphas that will work from other places (a lot of alpha packs with large varieties of alphas can be found cheap or even free), or even make your own very easily. Using system alphas As with so many other things, you're only 'intended' to wear one thing per layer - by default, double-clicking a skin, tattoo, or alpha will 'wear' it to your avatar, replacing what you already wore. If you want to wear more than one alpha (say, one for the top, one for the bottom, and one for your system eyes), you'll want to right-click and 'Add' the alpha in your inventory. I'm not entirely sure what the icons look like in other viewers, but in Firestorm, an alpha looks like this: And honestly, there's no much else to it. Once added, your avatar will be baked and - poof - part of your body is now invisible. If you wear an alpha (or several) and save an outfit, they will all be worn when you put that outfit on again, so it really is super easy to use. Making a system alpha Note: if you have never used an image editor before, it may be prudent to find a simple introduction on YouTube - this post is running long as it is, so I won't be able to include that here. As I mentioned though, not all things come with alphas (the alpha in the example above is one I made myself, for example - exampleception!). You can either start trying out other alphas you have to find one that fits, or you can create your own - again, really easily. I'm sure there are a fair few videos on this on YouTube if you'd rather watch someone do it, but I'll run through it here quickly: Step I: what you'll need The UV maps for your mesh body (some bodies have their own ones, others use the 'standard' UV - this is why not all skins work on all bodies!). You'll want them as textures downloaded to your computer; they're generally included in the creator packs for bodies (as well as heads), and you'll have to figure out where you can get yours (from what I've seen, most bodies supply the UV maps for free, for tattoo and skin creation). The UV maps uploaded in-world to create system layers for your avatar (see step II). An image editor (Gimp!). Step II: wear a UV layer To be able to see what will be covered by your clothes, it's a lot easier to work with the UV maps displayed on your avatar. In this example, I'm using a Maitreya body which uses the standard UV for SL avatars - I simply made a system layer for trousers and one for a jacket, and put the top and bottom UV maps on both of their textures (the procedure is essentially the same as making the alpha itself in step IV, if you need to make your own). Surely, this can't count as full frontal nudity ... Now, simply put on the piece of apparel that you wish to make your alpha for. Here you can see why you'll want to wear an alpha - the shoulders of my body is prodding through the jacket! You'll also get a fairly good sense of what parts of the UV map is visible - you'll want those to remain visible (aside of course from the shoulders that are clipping through the jacket! .. Well, I suppose. You do you!). Step III: creating your alpha texture Now you'll just need to go into your image editor and open the UV map that you wish to create an alpha for. Just make sure to enable alpha channels in your image, grab an eraser, and erase whichever parts you want to be hidden. You'll need to export your image in a format that supports alpha channels - PNG or TGA are both compatible with Second Life (I tend to go for PNG). As far as I've been told, the resolution of alpha textures don't really matter, higher resolution allows for better detail. Once you think you've got it about right, export your texture - but don't upload it to SL just yet! Step IV: creating an alpha mask in Second Life Go to your inventory, find a suitable folder for your alpha (the folder of whichever piece of apparel you're making it for, is my choice!), right-click on the folder and, in the drop-down menu, go into 'New Clothes' -> 'New Alpha Mask'. Rename the new alpha appropriately for ease of finding, put it on (right-click and 'Add' - always 'Add'!), and whilst wearing it, right-click it again and select 'Edit'. A window will appear where you'll get to select which part of the alpha that you wish to put your texture in - in this example for the jacket, the alpha texture goes in the 'Upper Alpha' slot. Before uploading the texture, you can try it on locally. Simply tick 'Local' in the Pick: Texture window (below the preview), select 'Add', find your texture and open it, then select it from the picker. Now have a good look at your avi, preferably whilst moving a bit (do a dance or something, so that you can cam your avi whilst it's moving around) - if you see things clipping, you can go back to your image editor and fix it with your eraser - or, if you've erased too much, just draw it back with plain white (the alpha doesn't really care about colours, it only cares about whether there's alpha or not - which of course now makes me wish I had painted the remains of the UV map plain white just because I'm a neat freak!). Once your alpha is finished, you'll have to upload the texture to Second Life (build -> upload -> image) - it'll cost L$10 a pop, mind (which is why we try it on locally first!). Then select 'Inventory' rather then 'Local' in the texture picker, and find your texture in the inventory searcher. And there you have it - your very own alpha! Now, generally you won't have to go through this hassle if the creator has included alphas themselves (it's quick when you've done it a few times, don't worry!), but depending on your avatar's shape, you may occasionally find that the included alphas don't work for you; in which case it's very handy to know how to make your own! Save sticks! Okay, so one final thing then - if you're using a Maitreya body and, whether you're not using BOM, or simply have an outfit where the HUD's alpha masks are sufficient, let me run you through how to create and use the save sticks. Go to your Maitreya body's folder and find the object named 'Maitreya Mesh Body - Save Stick Vx.y (rez to rename)'. Drag and drop it on the ground (you'll need rez rights to do this, of course). The save stick will now tell you in Nearby Chat how to change the name, which is to simply right-click it, select edit, go to the general tab (first tab from the left in the edit window) and change the name of the object. Your naming convention is up to you, but personally I figure putting the name of the outfit on it may be prudent - once you've renamed it, right-click and take the save stick from the ground. It should appear in your Maitreya folder, as that's where it was rezzed from, but if it doesn't appear there it may have ended up in your Objects folder - just do an inventory search for it (as in, whatever you named it) if you can't find it. Now, I don't generally use save sticks, but for the few I have used, I made a separate folder within the Maitreya body folder for my save sticks, just to keep things tidy. Put the stick wherever you want to have it in your inventory, and right-click and 'Add' it. It will by default attach as a HUD (should, anyway - if it doesn't, you can detach it again, and then right-click and attach to HUD, and wherever you want it to appear on your screen - objects will attach to wherever they were attached last, so in the future, simply adding or wearing it should put it on your HUD again). As you can see, the save stick will appear on your screen, and clicking it will open this menu. By clicking 'SAVE ALL', your current setup for alpha cuts, skin settings, nipples, layers (i.e. the 'onion layers', the clothing, tattoo and underwear objects in your folder) and nails will be saved to the stick. Once you've done that, with the save stick still attached, save your outfit in your inventory. You can then detach the save stick, as you're now finished. Next time you want to wear that outfit, simply put it on, and the save stick being part of the outfit will attach, simply click on it on your HUD, and load whatever it is you want to load (all or alpha, generally), and you should be good to go - simply detach the stick once you've used it and you're good to go. Super easy! I hope this has been informative without being too text-wall-y .. Maybe I should have just tried to make a video instead. But then I'd have to go learn how to make videos first. Obviously, questions go below, and I'm sure someone will answer them eventually!

Well. I reject your rejection. So, there!