Dragon Mommy

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.

I wish you the best of luck in being able to find somewhere that will make you feel at home and safe. I came to Canada and found that here, but it wasn't a love af first sight sort of thing. Every country has its problems, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else, even after five years of fighting for my immigration. While it may not be a forever option, I definitely suggest looking at moving states. I've lived in almost every demographic in the US and I can tell you that there are areas safer and more comfortable for LGBT+ people. I can't say you won't run into any issues-- every city has its issues, but you might consider that to alleviate some pressure while you continue to look for somewhere else.

Unfortunately immigration these days does not work like that. Most countries will not allow you to enter if you do not have a vacation itinerary and a plan to leave. Your US passport is more than enough to enter most of the world without a visa as a visitor, but as an example if you were to come to Canada with intention to remain and concealed that from the border guard when you crossed into the country, you could be arrested and deported. You'd also not have any paperwork, and could not get a job or a bank account or anything that you'd need. The US is also considered a safe destination country and many countries will not take asylum or refugee immigration for people from the United States. (This is a law currently being debated in a lot of countries, especially for LGBT+ people, but it would be an enormous political move to declare the US unsafe... But that's an entirely different subject.) Immigration to most 'first world' countries involves either sponsorship, merit, or money. It's best to look into countries you want to immigrate to and look up their rules. Most countries will not allow you to work without proper authorization, so crashing on someone's couch in a new area of the world and just looking into your options from there isn't realistic.

I can genuinely never tell if you're serious or trolling. Ive gone the immigration path and it's not closed at all, nor is it too late to start. If you are serious about wanting to move out of the US I'm happy to lend you, or anyone else, what information and advice I have on roadblocks. It's difficult but not impossible.

I know the tone of this post is somewhat joking but you post a lot about wanting to leave Arizona and go to another country. Have you looked into any of the skilled worker visas or experience class style immigration?

So this past week was pretty tough from side effects but they seem to have subsided. I was able to go out this last weekend for some Pokemon Go with my husband. Hoping others are having mild side effects.

Oof. I had no idea there was this much trouble with no copy pets I guess it's good to be aware if I ever get one. I hope you're able to retrieve your pooch

Firestorm is my all around viewer. I use it for building, roleplay, making new outfits, etc. I'd say I use it about 70% of the time. Singularity is my viewer for roleplay, exploration, and some screenshots. It runs very well for my specific setup and I have filters that help increase visual fidelity. I find it is better as LOD than firestorm and it allows me to have a larger draw distance. I hate switching outfits / making new outfits in that viewer however. Black Dragon is my tailored screenshots viewer but I don't use it for anything else. I've also tried Caznip and Alchemy but haven't yet found the strengths of both. I think firestorm is the best 'all around' viewer and others have more specialized strengths.

They did not put the vaccine in my butt. But my 5g signal is now top notch.

Pandemic. I ran an event center that had to close and redirected a portion of the funds I was spending on that monthly into a homestead to build in for my own sanity. Got pulled into a few roleplays that keep me here in the meantime.

I'm finally booked for my second shot. Things are looking much better here in Canada, though it's come and a pretty heavy cost. Fingers crossed we don't see another spike.

So the exact wording of the OP has been showing up around various SL social media with the same axe to grind for a few months now; that places banning brand new accounts makes it hard for new players. I'm very sure the story here from OP is fabricated to help bolster their point. And I wish they didn't because they have a point if they could just express it better. I genuinely think that banning avatars under 30 days old is bad for the new player experience and wish that instead of needing that to deal with greifers we had better moderation tools and more robust options for filtering avatars.

No amount of logic is going to get through to someone trying to see fraud and personal victimhood in every post. Best to just put his posts on ignore I think.

I love my KitchenAid mixer. Got one a decade ago for a wedding gift and slowly over time a ton of attachments. Enjoy!

Setting up multiple avatars is rarely a cheap endevor anyway if you are at a club where the patrons are going to expect a specific look or at least a mesh avatar. If you pay for all that, and then on top of that do two jobs, I don't see the issue with getting tips for both. People won't tip if you do the job poorly anyway.

It's actually a really difficult line to walk! If you make the requirements too high people reuse passwords like crazy. If you make them too low passwords get cracked in minutes. Password managers help. Sometimes. Some companies are opting to allow easier to remember passwords because of this.

There are a number of ways to bypass 2FA and the method of 2FA makes it either easier or harder. Token or app 2FA is more secure than text message. Physical key 2FA is also pretty secure. The most common way it is breached is phone number spoofing or someone using social engineering to get your phone service to port your number elsewhere, taking control of any 2FA you have connected to your text messages. This is why my work bans the use of text message 2FA, and we use token/app 2FA exclusively. Google will have more in depth info on the various kinds of attacks and breaches. No method is 100%. It's important to always have strong unique passwords. Fact is that your data online is not secure. Services get hacked, information gets sold, etc. When 2FA is an option here I will gladly use whatever the most secure option is at the time.