Dragon Mommy

When my first name and the first letter of my last name were visible to clients at an old job, someone used that to figure out my identity and began to friend Facebook friends I had. They then used some good ol' social engineering to get enough information to find an event I was speaking at to confront me in person. I've not have a Facebook, Linked in, or any social media since. I don't share my real name or location beyond a vague general area of the world. If you are getting serious into Photography and plan to do more than serve your local market I strongly suggest the use of an alias or trademarked brand name.

I actually had this problem on my modded iMonster dragon avatar. I discovered the rigged mane I was using had 3 seperate levels of fur hidden under it that, while meant to give it depth, wasn't visible at all once I had switched from Alpha blending to alpha masking. That mane alone was something like 544sq m of textures before that. It was bonkers.

It's no different than meeting a partner online through another medium like an MMO or chat room. Emotions felt at a distance are very real.

This ^ Fill our surveys at your own risk, folks.

I'd prefer those sorts of discussions just banned.

time.

Gambling addictions aren't confined to the grounds of a casino. Gacha mechanics are intentionally designed to hit that specific type of addiction. There's a reason Japan has been changing legislation around them, starting with the banning off Full Set Gachas. Please don't chalk up addiction to a lack of willpower. It's a sickness. And I know people right now who are freaking out at the thought that their fix is going away at the end of the month. It's brutal to witness.

If you have to ask "does this thing fall under the new rules?" And it is anything but a direct sale or free item, the answer is likely yes.

I've been expecting this was on the horizon for awhile now.

There's a boom right now of random cryptocurrencies and virtual worlds that is going to end with a fizzle. The whole virtual goods thing is fascinating to watch though. You can buy more than land. You can also buy, bet on, and breed virtual racehorses: https://zed.run/ This isn't an endorsement, though I think virtual horses you can race with are more fun than virtual land you can't yet use.

I'm watching this with great interest. I really like what this body is doing.

https://fox2now.com/news/missouri/doctor-some-missourians-going-undercover-to-get-vaccinated/ So all of this is anecdotal, but this is my experience too in Canada. Most of the loudest anti-vax people I have met (neighbors in this case) have all quietly been vaccinated. Thin walls make for occasionally overhearing conversations such as 'dont tell my wife, but I went to get the shot while she was out with her sister'

The SCP is a collaborative writing project! https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/ It stands for Secure, Contain, Protect. It's a sort of horror/SciFi writing collab where people write entries into a wiki as though they are writing reports for a fictional shadowy government agency. It's well worth a read through. Some folks even do readings on YouTube of some of the better entries. Once you read some, some posts on this board around vaccination appear a lot less obtuse and a lot more plagiarized. 🤔

Chroma, this isn't the SCP.

If you read the actual legislation it's not at all worth the clickbait articles. But clickbait sells I suppose.

Ah yes, the greatet hits of misinformation like: My great aunt lived to 93 and smoked her entire life, therefore smoking is actually healthy and expands lifespans. My father dying of heart and lung issues from it is clearly the outlier. I also grew up in a family that pushed aside modern medicine in favor of natural medicines. While most have snapped out of its spell, for some they cannot trust experts because the damage to their ego would be too intense. I grew up sick, all the time, a victim of a natural health movement that is plauged by fear of doctors.

Algorithms and biases (racism, homophobia, etc) is a big topic in my industry right now. Turns out feeding algorithms data that's based on racist practices contributes to racism in the algorithm. Who woulda thunk. So it is absolutely possible for an algorithm to show things with an agenda. Google works a little different because Google stores so much data about you, specifically. My google image search is going to differ from yours.

This has been a long time coming. I never worked for Blizzard, but I worked for a company that hired a lot of their ex employees. Where I worked was not immune. It just makes me angry. It's why I left game dev.

This is absolutely insane. Consider a situation like this; I once had someone who rented the parcel next to mine who I made friends with. We got on just fine as neighbors for awhile until he began sending me inappropriate messages. I told him as such, and then blocked him when they continued. He went out of his way to harass me and try to get me to talk to him to 'give him closure' and 'just listen to his apology'. I wasn't going to do either, I had no long term friendship with this man and did not owe him anything. But he still erected bothersome stuff on the edge of my parcel, or sent me gifts from the marketplace from alts with his messages in the gift field. He would then redeliver these over, and over, and over. Each time I made changes to my notifications and de-rendered his signs. If I had agreed to 'moderation' that could have been one more avenue for harassment. I can think of much worse abusers or harassers who would welcome a system like this. Why in the world would I agree to something that forced me to sit down down with someone I've cut contact with? Then what happens if the moderator insists that I wasn't fair for cutting him off? Do I just let him continue to harass me? This sort of thing would never happen, but I want you to really consider how easily abused forced interpersonal moderation is.

I really want to assume positive intent here, because after this long I don't think you're a troll. And I don't want to belittle your pain or troubles because all of your emotions are valid and real. But so are the emotions others feel. They are just as real and valid to them. And they will sometimes clash with yours. What you describe is some sort of society completely devoid of the ability to express differing opinions and needs without validation of a third party. How is a moderator supposed to help someone tell someone else to take a hike? How is that supposed to be a more enlightened society? That sounds like absolutely insane control over my personal self. I understand you see it as a spiritual problem and your place in the world as one where you see some vast spiritual wound society is not healing from. I don't think anything anyone says is going to dissuade you from your view that you are the Most Enlightened to the problems of the world, much as I wish it would. The rest of us aren't savages in some spiritual mud ignorant to problems only you see. We are not lower beings who just need to accept some new world order style changes to reach our full potential.

And what sort of disputes would this neutral party oversee? Many disputes between friends are not so simple as to have someone declare one person Correct and Right. People are not binary robots. People can have falling outs or move on from friendships without anyone being the bad-guy. Friendships aren't hostage situations. I don't really care if some 'neutral third party' tells me it would be wrong to stop being friends with someone. The only reason I need for not being friends with someone, not logging into SL, moving on to new things is simply the desire for any of those things. No moderator can enforce closure, friendships, or some balanced state of a social group.

Living in the host city for the 2010 Olympics has dampened most of my enthusiasm for them as they are happening but I usually do watch the highlights afterwards.

"You know, this seatbelt isn't 100% effective at preventing injury or death in car crashes. I see no reason to wear it." And this is why I will continue to wear masks for a long time, it seems.

No amount of evidence based science or information will ever be enough to persuade someone who has decided that all of those sources are illegitimate, and they are the one holding all the answers. Those people have to come around to reality themselves. If you're on the fence, there's so many reasons to get vaccinated. Save lives you care about and you may never meet, it's the best way you can ever pass kindness along.

I went out for the first time in more than a year to eat at a restaurant with my husband a couple of weeks back. It was on the patio, socially distanced, and cases here in Canada are getting lower and lower as our vaccine rate has been rising. (We are at about 80% eligible vaccinated in my provence.) Vaccines are far less political here, and we got them so late our second wave was much worse than the first. It wasn't that long ago we dropped our mask mandate, but I still see most stores requiring masks, or people wearing them. Overall, things have improved tenfold here due to a prevalaing trust in science. That's not to say we aren't without our nutjobs though. At that restaurant we were seated on one side of the patio and a family was seated at the other side shortly before we got our bill. It was a pretty large family with several adults and a few children. One of the men at the table started loudly spouting conspirary theroy bull***** as soon as he sat down. Something about our health minister belonging in jail for requiring masks, how the vaccine numbers are fake. Something something Trump and Big Pharma and something racist about First Nations. The rest of his table kept trying to get him to change the subject but he turned every conversation into it. He talked about how because he refused to get vaccinated he wasn't allowed to go to family events anymore. (As though this were a badge of honor.) His wife apparently, was still allowed, but he didn't seem to put two and two together as to why. Every time he opened his mouth his family just looked exhausted. His wife profusely apologized to the server when he was in the bathroom around the time we were leaving. She looked exhausted, bouncing a two year old in her lap that she was trying to keep calm each time his dad got too riled up over his imagined enemies. I feel so much sympathy for that woman, trying to reign in someone she loves. And that's the sad reality of watching a family member become radicalized. This pandemic has shown us all areas of our life where we have no control. It's been traumatic. People lost family, jobs, homes, or were cut off from them. Some of my dad's side of the family bought heavily into conspiracy theories around covid, until my aunt died, alone in a room, with nobody allowed to visit her. So to anyone peddling conspiracy theories or videos, I hope you understand the damage you do to yourself, your family, and those around you. I invite you to imagine what it's like to have to say goodbye to someone dying though an iPad screen because you can't be close to them, listening to their labored attempts to breathe until all falls silent. It's absoute hell, and it's a hell I'll carry with me for the rest of my life. Please never put another family through that hell. Get vaccinated.