AnnabelleApocalypse

Isn't he always? That's why I love him . But I dont think he was too high in this one. I think he was actually quite critical of crypto. He acknowledged that crypto is not the great leveller it claims to be and actually makes wealth inequality significantly worse, generally massively enriching a few early adopters at the expense of everyone else. He even says - is society ready for a crypto based economy? - right now, no. Is Bitcoin the way to do money? No. And I would say the point around the 29-32 minute mark is where I personally fall on the spectrum of thought around crypto. "Everyone either hates Bitcoin or is a Bitcoin maximalist, and both positions are really dumb. it only takes momentary thought to identify positions on both sides that are true. The final place we will get to when it comes to crypto economies (and NFTs) is somewhere quite different to where we are now." (paraphrased) So he's far from a crypto bro. And I don't think there is any suggestion we will be seeing anything like this in SL anytime soon. Thank god. I dont want to come off like I am defending NFT's. Please don't misconstrue me. As I said, I dislike pay-to-win and microtransactions in all forms in gaming, and this would just be more of that on steroids. I fall into the "could I just give you $60 and you give me a finished game please?" camp. But as pay-to-win/microtransaction games exist, I do like the concept that a player can "cash out" at some point and get some of their money back. Some games have tried things like that (as you mentioned, Diablo 3 and others) but they usually crash and burn. Diablo 3 auction house lasted less than a year. There really are not many examples of "P2P economies in gaming" right now that have gone the distance. So "NFT based" is going to be the next attempt at making that work. And 99% will crash and burn just like all the previous attempts. Ubisoft recently tried and failed hard. They will try again. I'm not saying I am enthusiastic about it. But I do think its going to happen regardless of how average players or users feel about it. Because - greed. And some models will be more or less offensive than others. Some games I have come across the NFTs are free and you earn them through playing. I have no real problem with that.

I think what NFT's are now and what NFT's will eventually mature into will be very different things. "once all the hoopla dies down" as he said. Right now there is a fever around NFT's which is bound to end badly for most people. There are a few games I have stumbled across that use the NFT concept, but the items are not inherently unique. For example, weapons and armour that can be traded. Visually, multiple items look the same but the thing that distinguishes them are the "stats" gained while levelling them up, and even then the potential for exactly identical items does exist. The individual record on the blockchain is unique, but not necessarily the item itself. They also currently sell for a few cents to a few dollars, rather than the utter stupidity we currently see in the "mainstream" NFT space with things like cryptopunks or bored apes. I do hate pay to win games, but at least with the model outlined above, the player can potentially retrieve or even get more than they initially put into the game if they are lucky. Rather than it just being dead money. Seems like a slightly better deal for the consumer.

Slight tone shift from my last picture a few days ago. I blame the cheap booze.

Your so exhausting. lol. Wish I could find a man with your stamina. That is not what I was saying at all. I make no excuse for bad companies like facebook. I was merely pointing out you cant blame technology for the flaws humans bring to it. No more, no less. Gee, who does that remind me of?

Sorry, still respectfully disagree. Just because people make sh*tty exploitative algorithms does not mean the entire concept of algorithms are inherently bad. Just because we have gone and built a sh*tty exploitative internet model does not mean it HAD to be that way or that the concept of a global computing network is bad. Just because a cave man picked up a piece of flint, tied it to a stick and bashed his neighbours brains out with it does not mean axes, knives and spears are inherently evil. Your conflating the baseline technology with the purposes people set them to. Technology always has a myriad of uses. Some good, some bad. Its up to us collectively what we choose to do with them. I mean.......if you dont think the internet and virtual worlds have been a net benefit to your life, why are you using them?

I don't think that's quite true IMHO. Technology is inherently neutral. Its what we choose to do with it that makes it good or bad. To run with the analogy, if there were no fire in the first place, the accelerant would be useless. The accelerant merely allows the initial problem to travel further and faster, but it is not the source of the issue.

This seems to have flown under the radar. Didn't see it posted or mentioned anywhere. Its a mostly philosophical conversation, but there are some interesting titbits here and there. Most controversial point: We have all been buying NFT's in SL all along!

OMG I just discovered the forum has a dark mode! I feel so dumb but my eyeballs are so happy!

Welcome to SL! For gestures, have a read here - The active places in SL tend to move around. And also a lot of chat tends to go on privately, so it may appear people are AFK when actually they are already engaged talking to someone. Also a lot of people will just ignore you if you wander up and just say "hi". That's just how people are. You'll find a lot of people don't like using voice for various reasons. It overlaps with the "AFK" thing. Many people are only semi-active in SL, meaning they log in all day, but often are doing other things too. many are messing around in photoshop, blender or other apps doing various things. Meeting people can be hard work in SL sometimes. I would say find a community you want to be part of, hang out there often and you should run into some people you click with eventually. This is something I struggle with in SL, but its mostly my fault. I'm not so good at being social Making mesh clothing is HARD if you have no previous experience with 3D modelling. I would recommend starting with textures, or static rezable objects. That way, you "just" need to learn 3d modelling and texturing. clothes require additional steps called rigging and weight painting. There are plenty of youtube tutorials you can use to explore these topics. Then you need to make variations for each of the many different mesh bodies available in SL. Its a HUGE faff and not something I would recommend for a beginner. You'll turn into one of those AFK people Hope that's helpful for you! x

Does anyone know when this comes into effect btw? April 1st? TBH I am pretty convinced 90% of the Flickr-using SL crowd are blissfully unaware of these changes.

The sheer amount of effort that goes into making a good head and body, I doubt you will find someone who can make one for you at a reasonable price. Obviously, it depends on the functionality you would want. But yeah, highly doubtful you would find someone unless your willing to pay a really steep price (were talking hundreds up to a thousand + RL dollars here). I would say check out Lelutka EvoX (THE best heads in SL right now IMHO). I just popped into the inworld store to take a look for you and I think this one would be your best bet..... Pick up some demos at the inworld store and experiment. You might not be able to match yourself exactly, but I think you could get pretty close.

Listening to the Foo Fighters after learning about the sad and sudden passing of Taylor Hawkins.

Sorry everyone. I just started using Flickr again to post rude picks, so of course they update the TOS. My bad. So far from exploring alternatives, my vote goes to NewTumbl. Its pretty similar and they allow pretty much most forms of legal degeneracy. So naturally, I'm all in!

oh snap! I think a lot of the expressions are very good, but that one is awful! lol I also sometimes use Black Dragon viewer to tweak expressions to my liking.

Yus. EvoX Lake.

Loving my new head. (Only in SL does this sentence make sense, lol). First ever wonky smile!

Just spotted this! https://cointelegraph.com/news/going-meta-disney-second-life-and-k-pop "Linden Lab, the company behind the virtual online world Second Life, announced on Thursday founder Philip Rosedale would be rejoining the project as a strategic adviser along with Metaverse team members of San Francisco-based VR company High Fidelity. According to the firm, the addition of the new and old talent would facilitate Second Life’s entry into the Metaverse." Looks like LL is on the Crypto Metaverse bandwagon! ....I cant imagine this ends well......but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Findoms. And the oblivion of my consciousness upon death is a fairly close second.

This all ultimately comes down to The Lab's very much non-existent content uploading /merchant standards. I mentioned in another thread (about facebooks "meta" flop-in-the-making) that one of the things other online worlds have seemingly learned from SL is to gatekeep the ability to upload content much more closely. usually its in the form of a "creator program" or similar. I think that's even how LL were handling Sansar. Conversations like this is why. And while I love SL for its creativity, if you want to SELL your creations, LL should have clear guidelines and enforce them to avoid this kind of stuff occurring. The guidelines could cover a lot of the issues raised in this thread. Ensuring that certain things in the process (delivery and unpacking, sizes, attachment points, etc) are standardised for a better and simpler end-user experience. But its LL, so that's never going to happen of course

Second the answers above. This is a common issue with alpha textures. The render engine does not know which order to display the textures and has a little mini-meltdown. Second life has two "modes" for standard alpha textures. Blending and masking. If you can, switch one of the items over to alpha masking (go to edit mode, click the "textures" tab and you should see a drop down menu for this next to the texture preview). Set the cut-off to 100 (play with this as you see fit). However, if both the items are no mod, your sh*t out of luck I am sorry to say. For whatever reason, hair is very often no mod.

Wow, I feel like I have been teleported back to 2008. People still do this stuff?

Anything that LL could have done to adapt to this future should have been started 5+ years ago while they were navel-gazing with Sansar. They should have seen the writing on the wall when Facebook bought Oculus. As it stands, I highly doubt they will be able to adapt quickly enough before FB or an upstart "Crypto-verse" eats their lunch. Unless there is some major project going on in the background that I am unaware of. Short-term FB could do some damage, regardless of how successful that proves to be. But long-term, I think the bigger threat is some form of "cryptoverse" coming along and exploding out of nowhere. There is a lot of development and money in that space right now.

Ok hunny, keep taking the tablets! *cautiously backs away from the chat*

I now have absolutely zero clues what your talking about anymore Yes, corporations are made up of people..............? So you think Facebook WILL allow flying freeners, because facebook is a corporation and corporations are made of people? Im not sure where your going with this.

Erm....I think you absolutely 100% misread or misconstrued what I said I said that the lesson OTHER virtual worlds have learned from SL is to gatekeep content more closely (EDIT to be clear: I am NOT saying this is a good lesson to have learned). That is true of almost all other virtual worlds. Name me another space that allows the creative freedom of SL. There aren't any. I love SL for that. But corporations hate that stuff. Thats why the next SL will never spring from a corporation like facebook. Because they will stunt the creativity in favour of "family friendliness".