ThorinII

Why don't you use the JIRA system, then?

I haven't blocked anyone *yet*. But I have ignored some posts at times while skimming through the threads.

I don't know... For me, SL is just one of my hobbies. However, I do (mostly successfully try to) limit my SL to 2 hours in the mornings and 1 in the late evenings; during the rest of the day, I work on my writing projects, browse forums, do off-line stuff, or go for a walk when the weather is nice.

I don't know... when I lost interest last time (with my former avatar), I told my friends that I need a break from SL, and went on hiatus for a while. Maybe that is because I consider SL as one "place" to go to spend my pastime, as only one of my hobbies. I share my time on the computer between writing, translation work, reading ebooks, SL, watching movies and browsing the web. At no time though I've ever had the feeling that I *had to* go inworld for whatever reason. I even have a rule amongst my folks: When I log in, I even do try to limit my daily in-world time to 2-3 hours in the morning and 1-2 hours in the late evening my time, and I'm almost never online past 22:30 my time (13:30 SLT), no matter what - although my wife lives SLT+3, and some activities held in the circles I frequent are mostly for US-citizens.

To be honest, when I began this drawing, I didn't even have an idea of what to draw. I doodled some curved lines, and somehow the bonsai tree evolved from there. Once that small tree was finished, I decided to make it a bonsai and added everything else to it. 😅 And about the medium: over the decades I've learned that, in spite of all practice, I'm not good at using watercolor at all - at least not good enough for *me*. That's why I stick to pencils. ✏️ I'm mainly a writer, after all, and draw rather seldom: When I draw, then mainly to illustrate some scenes of my stories, or to even take a break from writing or other computer-related stuff.

I think it depends. There's positive criticism on one side, and negative - even harmful - criticism on the other side. The latter one, unfortunately, is the most used one, that's why criticism almost always has the meaning of "negative criticism" However, the positive way, as I've learned to realize since showing my works (both written and drawn) to others, is always well-meaning, supposed to be helpful, constructive. Take my drawing for example, "I like the picture in general, but I think it would be better if the bonsai were turned towards the tree outside", or "These characters in your novel are really believable, and the story is inspiring and well-written, but I would find *chapter soandso* better if it weren't so fast-paced. In my opinion, you could describe the setting in there more detailed, something in the ballpark of (example text based on the chapter 's setting)." Such positive critiques show that the person put some thoughts into it, saw potential in the artist and their product, and made suggestions about where and how to improve it. The artist doesn't need to adapt these suggestions, but it wouldn't hurt doing so. On the other hand, the negative way is always meant to be denigrating and hurting, and can be really harmful. So much so that the artist might even give up this path of doing art entirely. With that, I mean stuff like "How dare you to show us this utter piece of ***, my 3y old child draws better than you!" or "It shows that the author is not a native speaker: Spelling, grammar, and word usage are like ***!" etc. etc. I've learned that artists (me included) can be very sensitive at times when it comes to their babies. And especially when one's inner perfectionist is full of bashing anyway.

Actually, I call almost all my drawings "sketches" - even the finished ones, simply because, a) they begin with some scribbling around and grow from that, and b) when I see what others upload to DeviantArt (for example), my own drawings barely reach their "sketch" and "scrap" level. Here's one of my few colored drawings, photographed from the original (because when I made this, I had no scanner at hand). I didn't even start with an explicit idea or a message to express, just with some curved lines which then evolved to the tree, then I added everything else. Is this drawing "good art"? I honestly don't know. I even doubt it. I only know that there are people who liked it and gave positive feedback.

I think such a Carl Sagan Museum would gather less traffic than the International Spaceflight Museum or the Star Trek Museum (though I don't know if that still exists), but it definitely would be worth a visit (or several).

As a writer and hobbyist artist myself, I consider my art "good enough" when *I* think it's just so good enough to let go and publish it or post it on a site like DeviantArt. And when there's positive feedback from others (like favs, comments, etc.), I think "obviously someone thinks my stuff is better than I think it is". Because, even after publishing my stuff (drawings, photo manipulations, free-verse poems, or prose) I can still find details I could have made better. And about practice: I think first you need talent, and you'll improve this talent by constant practice. If you have no talent for a certain art, you can practice for years without getting any better. For example, I could practice painting (with watercolor or acryl) all day, but over the decades I had to realize that I've made no progress at all because I simply lack the necessary talent for it. That's why I stick to the things I do make progress at.

Me (in silver) and my wife (in black), at our Hangout "House Infinity"

German here, living in Germany, Europe. And among the circles I'm frequenting inworld, there are Americans from all over the place between the West coast and East coast, between Canada via the USA down to Mid-America; also Brits, Australians, French people, Italians, Polish people, and German people. Really international, although the South-Americans, Africans, and Russians are rather rare in the places I do visit. However, as soon as there are English-speaking people around, everyone else switches to English or uses a translator, so that everyone has the same chance to be understood. Also, European folks often use English to conquer the language barrier between each other.

By the way, I just checked the password I'm using for my SL account on that site: So why would I need a second authentification?

To be honest, I despise Two-Factor-Authentification. It's very annoying. I even log in on websites that do use it as rarely as necessary because I don't see any sense in having to use my phone to authenticate the login credentials I enter on my computer. The passwords I use are very secure, there are no second credentials needed, in my opinion.

First in: It's not an open collar link, but a link within the inworld profile. And this link is simply the UUID of their dominant partner - and at least the Firestorm shows that in the inworld profiles above the name. You just copy the UUID from your «Owner»'s profile - and write in yours something like "Belongs to <UUID>". You yourself would see that number, but others would see the link. As an example, I put my own UUID into some text: And this would be also what you'd see in your own profile. But others reading your profile would see this: and clicking my name would then open my profile.

I don't know... In my experience, every person I've met who claimed to be "the only one who knows what is right" usually has been pretty delusional, and in most cases wrong.

Hi all! I just remembered a little game from over at SLU back then which was inspired by Chroma Key: you would shoot your avatar in front of a green or blue Screen, and others would put it into another situation or place by photo manipulation. Here's the Before/After pic from Wikipedia: And here's an example of what it could look like using an avatar: I know, it's not perfect, but I was in a rush.😒 Anyways: because I'm basically still in this outfit, I already prepared a green screen pic for you creative folks to work with: I'm curious what you can come up with, and hope to see more people offering their avatars to work with, as well.

Yes, of course I do - well, at least it depends on their species/form, and on my mood. I usually treat others like they represent themselves inworld: So I treat humans like humans, animals like animals, objects like objects - you get the gist. For instance: You might have a hard time getting spoken to by me at all if you represented yourself as a toaster or other inanimate object. And if you were some (realistic-looking) animal I would talk *about* you (for example: "Isn't this a beautiful animal? I wonder whom it belongs"). And if you spoke to me, I would say something like "Oh, this animal can speak!", or something like that before replying.

I'm a right-hander. But as a writer, I'm very prone to RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) which usually affects my right wrist most, and can be extremely painful. Anyways, I had a normal mouse for quite some time, which I used with my left hand (and switched buttons to match) when I had severe RSI last time, a couple years ago. And back then, I only used the camera controls to cam around. To be honest, I still find that more comfortable to do than using keyboard shortcuts and mouse. Since my recovery after that last time, I've not only been taking regular 10min breaks from the computer every 45 - 50min of computer usage to give my wrists a rest; but I also have been using an ergonomic "Vertical Mouse", which (in this version) is built for right-handers only. I already consider buying an extra left-hander mouse for left-hand use in case RSI hits me again so badly that I have to take painkillers to even function. 😏

I have a rather old-ish, relatively low-budget system: CPU: AMD FX-6100 Six-Core Processor (3.2 GHz) RAM: 16 GB Graphics Card: NVidia GeForce GTX 950 (4GB) And I run SL on High-Ultra, with ALM and basic shadows (sun and moon) on. Worst FPS have been when I was in clubs or in busy places like for example HBC, with "only" 10fps -- which I think is still bearable. So I think more RAM might be the way to go for you

I think SL will not "wither and die", nor will it be bought off by Facebook or Google. I rather think that in 10 years, SL will have about the number of active residents as it has now (or a little bit more), with about the same number of active regions as now (I am optimistic in that regard: I rather see SL stagnant or growing a little than further declining). But no matter if SL will eventually grow a little or decline further, I think it will have more innovations, more shiny things, and better functionality than now - for example: flexi-mesh hair and clothes, so that hair (and clothes) actually move again like before the introduction of Mesh; weather that can be set and edited by the sim owner/admin; more and better Animesh NPCs for Roleplay regions, walls that keep light where it is (so that, for example, the sun doesn't shine through the walls), water (and weather) that doesn't go through walls or ship hulls; caves you can build yourselves using land edit tools, without having to rez some mesh building; more Pathfinding usage, more (and more modern) public railway trains, street vehicles, and airborne stuff, better sim crossings, bigger regions and/or more LI per region, even more realistic avatars than now, etc. With more Community Gateways, a new Mentor programme, and - something I hope will be implemented much earlier: a new and improved Inworld-Building Tool. I really do think that in 10 years, SL will be a bit more vibrant than now, rather growing than declining - but still a niche product.

It's not the prims nor the mesh stuff, it's all the scripts and (mainly) all the textures slapped on them. When for example there are tons of 1024x1024 textures to render, then, of course, the fps will go rock-bottom. What you describe seems to me that your puter has a hard time rendering the world. Even without having more specs and setting info, I rather would recommend what @chibiusa Ling said.

I feel very immersed in Second Life. When I'm inworld, I often feel like I'm actually there: I imagine the voices matching the written word (I have voice disabled); I imagine smells matching the scenery or looks, I imagine many things that can't be shown inworld at all, or only be described by emoting it. Although I often have the same grade of immersion when I read a good book - but when I'm reading, I'm reading. There's almost no stopping it. For example, I managed to "binge-read" Stephen King's "The Stand" within one weekend. 😏 However, I must admit, I sometimes even dream to actually be in SL, to actually be my avatar. Although, whenever I have such dreams (which are very vivid, by the way), waking up in RealLife is a tad confusing for a few moments. 😮

Re: 03... That isn't a peeve of mine, rather makes me amused every time I see that. "Master", "Mistress" or "Dom(me)" as Display name only gives ME the impression that this person has some trouble with their own self-consciousness. I mean, those titles as group tags, okay, I myself use such a group tag at times - but as Display names, that's just ridiculous to me. YMMV. Re: 04: That's really confusing.

Sometimes, I greet people with unreadable Display Names: "Hello Unreadable" - and then, with their (Legacy) system name instead 😈