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Lancewae Barrowstone

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Everything posted by Lancewae Barrowstone

  1. Female figure crouched on the rooftop, a painted fingernail at the trigger guard. ooh baby what's yo number?
  2. ... so, there is a dress code. Quite a span too, oh say, 1915 to 1955? Or, 1905 to1950. Either case, there's a light year's difference there. Elegant to casual classy attire. Mmph. That's a hurdle. Moving on....
  3. From Ball, "...the rough outlines of future solutions are often understood and, in a sense, agreed upon well in advance of the technical capacity to produce them." That! We were all supposed to doing everything on the "cloud" by now. Remember? You won't even be using a computer anymore, by that initial thinking, just a keyboard, monitor and a modem. Who needs a processor and memory, right? Just go to the cloud. I remember thinking at the unfolding of this understood future solution at the time that, hmmm, this idea is obviously a predetermined outcome by tech industry leader group-think of the moment. This "metaverse" idea strikes me as the newest flavor of what is supposed to be (by a mutual agreement of unfaced giants) but probably won't be, not as expected, that is. Human beings are too individualistic to be neatly techno-boxed in any kind of social sense, games, whatever, just because you want them to be or think they should be or that they want to be. Life elected Unexpected Randomness as king long ago. All hail the king (now get the HELL AWAY from rolling boulder, YIKES!)
  4. No, but this comment is so right-on in more than one way. Never mind LL's failing at this or that. This comment brings us back on point here. We may be sensing that LL is turning her eyes back upon the forgotten children, and eager to get things spiffed up for a new school year, and foster the newborns better into the fold and help get the lost ones onto some pathways a little better than before, when all those early 3rd party reviews and articles about the birth of Second Life in the beginning which brought a bright new buzz and so scores of us showws up to see, ... well that is no longer there. No, this second start, which makes perfect sense in the post-Sansar moment if it is true, will have to create it's own replacement for that early gifted buzz by journalism, by taking fresh new steps now at infusing a brighter energy internally, such as at the newbie starting points of the world. The new work must be to catch all the little minnows showing up on their own, and to try to keep them in the net. There is much doable stuff that can be done here. You can't catch all the fishes but you can catch more. And secondly, many of us individually like to help new arrivals because: (1) they are a resource. There are real people behind the avatar and if they will answer our greeting then (2) we get to help them discover what is not readily seen, the many things others helped us to see (those of us who were lucky). Now we get a chance to pay if forward and a "thank you" is never needed. Plus, (3) this new "resource" might make a good friend, a close friend, loyal and even loving, who also (4) may go on to join you in your SL doings or move on to their own interests and yet keep in touch with you as a friend (5) -- etc -- and beyond etcetras!
  5. Ok, so the upshot, as I believe it, is that many people come to SL not so much to “do” something as in a game experience, but more to “be” something, like another gender, a furry, a character role, a bf or gf, a Gorean assassin, a Star Trek crew member, a housewife, a wrestler, a biker at some hideaway bar, or a dancing girl who loves to flirt. SL is full of so many odd, interesting, quirky or just down right repulsive groups and regions out there. Hah. The list goes on. But this is where the various interests will lie. Now, imagine some kind of a great billboard at the entry points that are listings of ALL those various active sims by category type and emphasis, etc. That list can be LONG! Imagine what this kind of intro does to a newbie’s brain. It wants to explode at the possibilities. I want to be this… I want to be that. Surely, there’s something on that glowing board of living groups out there doing things, that every newbie can zero in on. And then perhaps you can just click one and tp there. The idea is that you don’t teach newbies first. You intrigue them first. So, a tp lands you at an intro point such as with the Wild West sims, or you land at other role-play sims, or shopping or live music. This can begin a process of exploration that keeps a newbie busy for a year. Coming back to this gleaming board of worlds unknown again and again to click another link, NOT to go see something cool (the Sansar way) but to see how you can fit there, how you become a function there, belonging with an existing, inviting group that wants you. You are beginning your own selective personal journey for what you might become in Second Life. You are not a passive element; you are to become an active agent. Also, this inter-active board should have a BIG green button beside each category where a noob can click to “Join with others” to go on this region exploration, and can either wait until someone else clicks to join or just go ahead and when someone does click the blinking green "Join" button, they arrive in progress. Imagine a volunteer standing there and if no one else joins you get the chance to jump in and go with the newbie and see some stuff you may have never seen and become a guide with knowledge, and answer some questions in the fun process of teaching a willing and ready student. You might even be spurred to suggest another sim you know and thus begin a real tutorial of things-SL with an interested ear. This is far more fun and productive than standing, greeting newbies who may not even know to look at the chat screen to see your greeting. This becomes a chance for arrivals to test SL by their own selective, guided immersion. In many visited places you can wear a visitor’s tag and enter the active roleplay areas to view the activity and the wonder of the builds. Cities all over the Gorean role-play experience in SL, which is something like 200 sims, all seek new players to take active roles and will train them, as do the Panther Girl tribes in their sims. All are looking for new players. Once a newbie grasps this, and experiences the number of varied opportunities, and can see how one goes about entering into them, then the world of Second Life becomes a broad open universe for the first time, with actual points of real or potential interest. This is no longer a newbie wondering what SL is? Asking, what can I do here? This is a peek into something pretty vast. So many sims want visitors and new players to join them that they will agree to take in newbies through such a new arrival program/partnership, in order to get their listing on the great board and thus build themselves a more active region. Even clubs hosting dancers are looking for new players. This explains SL all over. Opportunities are pretty broad. A newbie can learn this, and no longer feel lost, but begin to lay out goals and proceed to explore them, learning as you go. Secondly, I think newbies need more seed money. But the key should be to make it earn-able. By say, joining a listed, participating region or established group, where you apply and when accepted are allowed to join and become active. This could then free up a onetime “payment” from LL for this achievement and maybe a participation period should be appended, oh, say 30 days of active participation, and upon clearance by the group leader, LL will release this stipend — some decent Lindens, say $2000L. In a combat rp sim weapons can cost $600L and more. A newb can use freebie weapons that work with pretty much the hitting power of the more preferred weapons of the skilled players, but will lack certain of the nice features of those popular weapons. Thus, this possibility of earning this second stipend drives a newbie to stay and work and earn that $L. This type of seed money only whet’s a new players appetite. In other sims it might go toward mesh items. This is no longer an aimless, confused arrival. This is a different being, one with a purpose, and who senses the fun in it. And such a stipend only goes into the SL economy, anyway. A tertiary benefit to this type entry program is that those participating groups will agree to teach their new members. They do it anyway. Groups all over SL are constantly wanting new players, and they will train them because it’s to their group’s benefit. There is no better training than a participatory role where you are building your character/avatar as you go along, and having fun doing it, interacting with others in a group eager to have you and willingly to teach you their skills. So, very easily a newbie becomes no longer just a newbie, but gains a sense of belonging and a path of trajectory. Okay, not every new arrival will fit successfully into SL. We know that. And not everyone will take this path. But the many good ideas found in this thread can help those who are ready and eager to find an entry point, so they can begin making themselves into what they came for: a new and second life.
  6. I tried the process of opening a store myself and the application hangs at the financial information page if you don't fill it out.
  7. Several comments on another thread mentioned that account-holders are entitled to a free store on the MP. I'm curious what "free" means, because also, my understanding is that you can't open a store on MP without providing real world banking, financial info. Yet, the marketplace only deals in in-game currency ($Lindens), and Tilia requirements of personal financial info (needed for IRS reportings) shouldn't kick in unless there was an actual cash out request. Just curious about this....
  8. Protection really is a key. In real life we learn of people by full dimensional space, their body language, expressions and evasions, smiles and frowns, inquisitiveness or close-mindedness, care for details or ignorance of them, "...givers" or "takers..," etc. Oh yes, we can perceive that a sexual interest can exist inside the SL context, but we can't so easily grasp yet all the rest of what another person truly is, nor should we try to believe what small bits are perceived through the little cracks of digital media, nor even so far as chatting in voice like on the phone or even with Skype. Nothing compares to the physical presence plus time, leading to familiarity and enough trust. But even then there is the risk of unknown pasts. So this discussion regarding Second Life in such a context becomes like the old stories of the catalog bride -- letters exchanged, then she arrives. Do people want to get self-righteous about that kind of decision and its outcome? I think it's desperation that leads people to this no matter what era in which it occurs. Oh, it might work, I'll give you that. But you have no right to expect that people in SL should participate with you in this hope and a prayer proceeding. I know men who get huffy when a woman won't voice with them. But i also know they have no desire for anything but a little sexual play and will bully a little bit to see if they can up their pleasure by getting her on mic. It's a sport.
  9. Thus, describeth the World! All the birds that jabber in the trees are speaking at once of the very same seeds, yet each from each a different vantage it sees.
  10. I think it's wrong to suggest SL needs to "live up" to some other construct. Indeed, it could be stated the other way around, "Fortnite needs to live up to Second Life." You see, Fortnite moves too fast, it's superficial and thrill oriented, whereas Second Life is slower, deeply textual, and essentially involves more human meaning (yes, even if you play a furry, you know what I mean). We type out thoughtful text. Our world moves slower (like real life) and there is time to delve the deeper realms of human meaning and even its rich humor to be expressed, when in our Second Life doings and relations. This is different, and not just chasing colorful rainbows or pvp combat where you die pretty quickly (Sl already has pvp combat, too). No, these two "game" experiences will remain distinctively different. Why? Because, where Fortnite, is a busy, jolly, merry-go-round kid's park, Second Life is a more measured gathering of people drawn together for different meanings of their own devise -- scores of unique constructs, imaginings, social events, story lines, live music and dancing, and prims to mould, morph and build our own cool things and mesh that we can upload to augment our constructs. These are very different experiences of real consequence between these two "metaverses," if that term applies. Oh yes, Fortnite can have all the kids of the world, and they will play as long as the money holds out. The real question for Fortnite is, ...err... what then? The onus falls upon Fortnite here: can it really craft deeper meanings into its popular shooter game that might ever hope to approach accomplishing some of with what Second Life does so easily? I suggest not. And the direction toward VR is not an answer to anything; it's just another piece of glitter. The hype of VR became corporate folly several years ago and they are paying for it now. And finally, there is no competition against the power of literary expression that comes in the form of textual communication. It is a magic as old as the written word, and our long history is proof of it. I'm not saying all participants in SL need to be literary genius', but that typing things about ourselves is literary. So, for all the comparisons of a new Fortnite "metaverse" as opposed to the existing world of Second Life, the main ingredient of strong emphasis on textual communication and all the magic it brings, lies firmly here with Second Life. Yes, SL may have been an accidental creation, but Fortnite is not building toward it, and won't be able to displace it. Not unless it can learn how to slow down.
  11. ...exactly. And that suggests that, like with online banks, if you log in from a "different" IP address you may have to jump through identity hoops.
  12. There were merfolk in Ravenscraig (gone now) and I was a sturdy fae warrior who sometimes posed as the tavern barkeep to sneak free drinks and make some loose change until I got outed and vamoosed in the night. Anyway, the Mer Queen of Ravenscraig was a delicious thing and she loved to cast her charms on passing men along the banks as her entertainment and would seek to lure them down to the depths of her watery world and to their own demise. This was a warring land in those days so you could never be sure what any creature might do and that queen could fight. Anyway, one day I spied her from the air far below me and on a whim I decided to drop down and snatch this queen up like an eagle with his delicious wiggling trout lifted out the rainbow waters, and yet she was not so tiny as a trout and a skillful diva with spear as well as her spells, and she possessed slashing blades of deadly sharp conch shards too, and so she grabbed onto me just as quickly as I onto her, and she would have disemboweled me in an instant and taken me down for fish food, I believe, if she could. Or else, surely have enslaved me for her amusement. Well, so suddenly I appreciated the gravity of this situation -- here we were, each locked upon each in a sudden unexpected death-match, as between some Duke of the Airs and the Queen of the Waters, both met suddenly in a seemingly explosion of mist at the wave tops where bordering the two realms we struggled now, half in water, half in the air. Oh, her tail whipped up the turgid waves as she sought to pull me under as HER prize, and I beat my wings half wet now against the thin air to lift us both, and yet neither could happen, And so here we remained, struggling tightly and her lips were so tauntingly close, but I held her so she could make no stabs with her shells nor bite me. Oh how she hated me for the nerve of thinking I could boldly steal her from her queendom, as my own daisy to toy with, and how she hissed her sea curses at me through luscious lips and angry sparklingly, fascinating eyes. But fae have their own magics and though struggling for my life as hard as she for hers, I smiled at her in all gentlemanly grace I could manage, to tease her about our predicament, though my face tightened with the struggle of wings unable yet to prevail against the under-powers of her beautiful curvy tail. Still, I taunted her with saucy sweet musings while trying to calculate if I might conquer this queen, or else, better make a quick extrication lest I find my tired muscles drawing down into the depths of her shadowy world where who knows what awaits me there. Seelie pride could not allow that! So, I laughed suddenly like a sneering lusty pirate to enrage her and feigned a kiss against her lovely neck being sure to keep away from her teeth, and this so diverted her concentration for just an instant that I used my stronger arms to push us apart and grabbed the air with my hardy wings and lifted just above her where I smiled down at her for the neatness of that trick. It freed us both and yes I was safe a few meters above to taunt the beauty if I chose, yet I did not. I paid her the respect she was due for her skills and her reign of charms in her own magical world, and like equals of different realms I saluted her and lifted away with tired wings. That experiment was over, and I'm sure if she were to read this today, even though It was a single chance encounter, she remembers. All should visit the mer world, while they seem quietly satisfied in their temporary and sassy peace.
  13. Theresa posted the LL language: "We quickly opened a ticket with the network provider and started engaging with them. That’s never a fun thing to do because these are times when we’re waiting on hold on the phone with a vendor while Second Life isn’t running as well as it usually does." Thank you, that is clear. However I can see how it is curious an ISP is referred to as "provider in one breath and "vendor" thereafter. It only suggests to me that the communication came from the business side rather than the technical. In contracts and accounting an ISP can indeed be a "vendor." But, I quite like this keen little comment, that went unnoticed: Hah! That was like Lecter saying, "Oh, agent Starling, do you really think you can dissect me with this blunt little tool?" And it's such a keen point with all the ToS being thrown in OP's face. Adhesion contracts are broad and one-sided and while reasonable, they have holes precisely because they are broad. Purchasing an airline ticket is agreeing to an adhesion contract and yet airlines are sued all the time. There are many, many other reasonable expectations. The weakness of adhesion contracts ( TOS, or "General Conditions") is that they are ultimately challengeable in court since they can be found unfair, especially since they are also the blunt-force bargaining chip leveraged against consumers wishing to partake, or already invested in, the provision of a service. In a discussion amongst squabbling vendors on a development or a construction site you might be laughed at for bringing up the boilerplate general conditions when it is the “special conditions” that holds relevance to most arguments of interest, such as reasonable expectations of service. Nice point, hit like an uppercut nobody saw. Just because something is in TOS does not mean one should not be able to ask questions.
  14. Also, beware of your expectations. In general, running SL "fast and with no lag" does not equate with "$200." Realize that most players on older laptops and desktops tend to have to adjust down their ingame SL graphics settings, those settings are found in the "Preferences" tab. A $200 lappy doesn't usually run on "Ultra" performance setting, or even "High" or even "Mid." Often their owners run them on "Low" graphics just so the lag is at least tolerable. This is a choice you will surely face no matter what laptop you get in that low price range. In fact, in that range you are likely going to face buying something that either won't run SL hardly at all, or will run SL but slow as molasses, even when you crank down all your graphics settings to the lowest. You hope to hit somewhere in the middle of that spectrum and well hopefully be acceptable to you. It's a gamble. But if you are somehow lucky in what you find, you still won't be using Ultra setting, but something below it. How far below, no one can tell until you plug it in and log it on. I tell you so you won't be disappointed no mater how hard you work finding a good $200 machine. You're gonna crank down your ingame graphics. And frankly that's not a tragic thing. We do that in all games. We adjust the game graphics to our individual computer. We trade between running the game fast, OR taking some loss in speed for better graphics. So, your's is not a simple equation, but a sliding scale between those two factors. That's how it is. My first years in SL were spent in the lower/mid graphics settings. Good luck.
  15. Any update? What I envisioned in reading your ideas (which I've just now seen here) was Christopher Alexander's, A Pattern Language. You are starting out at the "towns and communities" level and here the patterns are beginning to be laid, such as say, a rigid, grid-like conception coming from doing it all in once with a godlike overview, or as organic and free-form morphing over time and by necessity of collaborations with the life and the buildings occurring around you and how to fit with that evolution in form of patterns and uses. This is as any growing community will do over time and necessity. I found myself thinking oh, I would want to build Miss Pitty Pat's house on PeachTree Street. It was of course only a dirt lane at that time in Atlanta when the defeated Confederates straggled tragically back into the city past that house wherein Scarlett O'Hara lived with her aunt and stoodon the porch that day to watch in horror. Oh, how Peachtree Street is different today than when Miss Pitty's bungalow sat and horse buggies passed by. But too, A Pattern Language is filled with stunning micro examples of how people, doing just as you envision in your experiment except extended over a span of history, tended to create organic structures to fit with organic needs and expediencies of any particular time in both for external and internally linked utility and as integrated aesthetically. Such a uniqueness of living found in that study of Alexander's and the patterns he isolated out of it. Its a new world today, different ideas and technologies and different organics. Would be fun to see what you have done so far.
  16. Please. This does not convey the full risks alluded to by the poster. Today's cities all over the USA are being locked down by ransomware intruders with remarkable persistence. Risks today are broad, and to believe LL is immune because of your perception some DDoS preventions is to be living in a dream world. As for Goggle, you choose your own poison.
  17. Relax and get used to it. I have a friend who keeps her hover slider open on her screen (well, minimized up to one corner) so she can make adjustments on the fly. Some shoes require a slight adjustment, some floors are different, etc. plus she is picky and loves to sit right in all occasions. Hah. Works for her.
  18. I will say that from my observation, the options are so many and the great results you encounter among others in world are so complicatedly constructed -- even if by done by haphazard accident, the arrangements themselves are complex because the ability to customize is wide, the sliders are sensitive, the combinations so broad, and that means even if you bought all the things that went in to making that ONE avatar you saw in world, you might find you can't seem to ever duplicate it. You would almost need a list of some 20 or 40 exact factors and minute adjustments or MORE to duplicate in minute detail that which you saw, if you could even get such a list. That is a high bar. Mesh body components can look very similar in world or they can look highly individualistic because of the attentions different people apply to them in different ways. That brings a final point. Creating avatars is essentially the work of art, and art is never just duplicating a mental vision you hold because creativity always entails exploration and discovery, and that opens attractive unexpected pathways you hadn't foreseen and that catch your attention and your wonder. So while trying to make a face look exactly one particular ideal way you might accidentally discover real surprises that marvel and attract you in different ways. If you then turned your attention to that and pursue it and build upon it and then use it a while, you will likely in time look back at that one ideal you held in such esteem and realize you like what you have put together even better. To my mind, this is how art works -- yes it's conception and approach but it is also about discovery and snatching that little golden ring from the dragon's lair when you stumble upon it. And, thanking the goddess as you dash away with it.
  19. Re: Mackbook. Have you tried installing Windows on your Pro via bootcamp in order to play SL? I did that on an iMac a few years back and it brought a marvelous boost to using SL. I didn't bother to quantify it, i just enjoyed it until later I built a strong PC for gaming. They way I run macs is like... a 3 year old Mackbook Pro would be still super. Don't know what performance you are getting in SL with it, but I would certainly love to hear how installing Windows as above suggest would boost your performance.
  20. ... and maybe clearing Inventory cache? Also, I would get a redelivery on the mesh body, delete the old one and just start again. I suspect something upstream like your connection and settings might be involved, but only a guess. Also, I must say the one responder above with the snide attitude clearly has personal issues and has polluted 5 hours of this post. Surprised s/he has taken those useless responses down yet. Fully an embarrassment.
  21. And this IS the issue. LL needs to hire a skilled writer with IQ enough to synthesize complexities into thorough simplicities. Yes, I am available.
  22. Well yes. Because isn't the only way to transfer your lindens into your Tilia account a process step done on the cash out page, or whatever that page is called? And say, you transfer some lindens into this holding Tilia account, but later decide to pull them back out. What then? Is there a fee applied? Is it even possible to pull them back? Has a tax liability occurred once they reach the Tilia account? No big questions, but is this explained somewhere?
  23. The Gatcha trick, exposed. Number 1, is very cool and appealing graphics. You gotta hand it to 'em, they do that very well, and it makes you want what you see. That's good work! 2, is that the machine gamble is a clever way of increasing volume, not steady lackadaisical sales in the normal sense, but whirlwinds of purchases in gusts and bursts of $Lindens pouring in. Than all goes quiet for a while. Yes, the uncertainty of this kind of purchasing from a consumer standpoint is rather unsavory to me and many others, but.... there it is. Take it or leave it. 3, is that those who decide to gamble their way through and achieve that rare item depicted so enticingly, take their product along with a chestfull of all the unwanted parts and pieces, and off they go. Now that's HIGH sales volume per point sales! Sure those customers can go resell those unneeded items, and believe the Gatcha folks are wayyy cool with that, since you are doing sales for them (as alluded to, above). Now, that's technique! Unsavory still, to me. But... it is what it is. This goes back to the Old Arabian Markets, and Kipling's Kim and ancient Rome. 4, is that I always thought some of the clothes didn't actually fit that well. You now can find fitted mesh for your avatar but still, is it really all that well fitted? That's real potential downside since there are no Demos to try on. 5, I forget ..if there is a 5th... just fill it in for me here >>..... SO, the appeal of gatcha marketing is the appeal of the carnival, the lights and spinning wheels, the cotton candy and the chili dogs. You spend a little more than you intended. You fall immersed in the unique visuals. It's a thing! But hell... it's the Carnival! That's gatcha! Almost short for gotcha.
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