PheebyKatz

I've lived in the RL New Orleans for around thirty years, and yeah, they did a pretty good job on paying homage to it in SL. It's realistic enough that I instictively avoided Bourbon Street, just like in RL. XD

They just got jealous of me for making a cool hand puppet is all. Had to outdo me, I get it. It's fine. XD As far as puppeteering avatars go, I usually just put on my stern subtext and suggest people do as I say. If all else fails I stamp my foot and cry. That usually works.

You can build pretty much anything in a sandbox. Doesn't mean it'll be there 15 minutes later, but you can definitely build one, if they're open to the public. Builder's Brewery is a good place to build stuff, they have a huge sandbox area just for making stuff, and even a load of freebies to help you do it. Before I had a home sim that allowed me space for building, I did all of my creative work inworld there.

My current main account got its start as my builder-alt-with-no-friends, which I made so I could log in and work on projects without a flood of IMs calling me to socialize instead. I hunted crystals in my spare time to make a few extra L$ so I could get my alt some stuff like a tool belt, hardhat, hammer, etc., so people would know I really was in building mode, and might let me build in peace. So yeah, my main account got its start as an alt whose SL was paid for by playing games, fishing, etc. Heck, I even used camping chairs while busy off in Blender. It was crap pay, but then I wasn't exactly doing anything inworld on those occasions, anyway.

Thanks, I did think of all of that, literally all of it, but you took the time to type it out, and that's cool of you. You're right, of course. I'm tempted to just buy the derned hair. Like, seriously, it's perfect on me, I tried the demo. XD

It could always just be an option that can be turned off in Preferences. My laptop doesn't care much for having Ambient Occlusion turned on, so I just do without it. I don't bother with seeing people's sweat or oiled-skin effects either, and I'm fine with it. I do try to make sure my clothing materials settings are done correctly though, just so I don't walk around looking like I'm wearing PVC while thinking that my dress has a nice matte finish. It can be easy to give wrong impressions when you don't see what everyone else is seeing. I'm sure it can handled in such a way that everyone won't have to buy a new computer, but like anything else, it might result in some people just going around looking great to themselves, and looking like poop to half of everyone else.

Watching this thread with great interest now, I love boats, I just don't know much about them in regards to SL. Which surprises me, as I'm friends with people in SLCG (even attended a stunning memorial for one), my closest friend in SL is way big into boats both IRL and in SL, and I spend half my time hovering over the harbor on my home sim. I mean, I live in a derned fishing village, for crying out loud. XD I've always loved nautical stuff, so seeing a thread on SL boats is cool. Maybe I can learn something.

You guys are trying to seduce me, aren't you? I'll have to look into all of this more deeply, if it's really an improvement. If it's really an improvement. I've switched heads three times now, and I'm getting really tired of having to make my face all over again to look like me. If I think it's really worth it, I might join in the party and *gasp!* change, but yeah. It took a lot of work to be beautiful enough to make angels weep blood at the altars of my magnificence, and all. XD

I agree strongly on this, about tattoos. I really do not like the fact that I can't do text tattoos for arms without it turning into mirror writing. As for a BoM fix for this, I have no idea how to do that.

Thanks for clarifying that for me. If it's an actual, experienced improvement for someone somewhere, then I freely give props for it. And I agree about the body UV. I mean, it's basically an old Poser model, and if you've ever tried to make even a simple pair of stockings using the UV map and struggled to get them to match up at the tops you know the pain of the tortured artist, and can relate. I sometimes wish they'd just design a nice, new, optimized base as a system default though, and let us all go from there. It will probably never happen, because there's already so many different user-created avatars on the market now, but that's only the case because it was the only way around the limitations of the system in the first place. Kind of a catch-22. I made my own mesh avatar, using the SL maps my own way, but I'm nowhere near as good at making a person as I am at making things that explode or follow people around or make particle farts. So yeah, I gave up and use a name brand avatar. I just wish there was some sort of longer-term standard people could go by in making things for heads and bodies. I know it helps the economy, but it can cost a LOT to get the right head, body, skin, makeup, and everything else just right. And I don't mean buying the things that are actually used on any current, "finished" look, I'm talking about how much keeps ending up in the crap-heap. I'd estimate over 90% of my purchases are only still in my inventory because I don't like to throw anything away if I spent a lot on it, even if I never use it. And more and more of what I do use, I made myself, just to avoid all of that mess.

A stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet. Old saying, still valid.

Glad I'm part of that minority of people who are driven by such trends to create our own things, rather than settle for being corralled into following trends and accepting their limitations. It just inspires me to create more of my own stuff. You'd think, though, that with the BoM trend, which is a worthy trend IMO, people would be less likely to try and force a divergence from the SL avatar UV map. Seems that's not the case. Oh well, anything to proprietarize what's already there and make it "exclusive", I guess. If I were younger, I'd be offended by what I see as a push towards what I consider a herd mentality or "sheeple-izing" the market, but meh. Let people do as they will, and I'll do as I will, and everyone's happy. Well, at least I am.

I think a great take-away from all of the dicsussion in this thread is that seeing how the customer base in SL perceives many vendors gives a good idea of how to stand out as an exceptional vendor. Anyone who sells anything in SL can learn a lot if they put personal feelings aside for a moment and look at the reasons people give for what pleases or displeases them about the way they perceive ("most") vendors. One wouldn't even have to change very much to please a greater number of people. Look at successful marketers, and how they can openly present what some might see as flaws or reasons to avoid buying, and others will see them as advantages and reasons to buy. Presentation isn't everything, but it's a big part of everything. All feedback is good, even negative feedback. Not that I feel one should be a doormat, but you could do a lot worse than seeing what displeases people and why, and thinking of how to avoid displeasing them, or even how to make their day. A customer once bought two of something that I sell with full permissions, I'm assuming as gifts for the kids. I sent them a message explaining that they didn't need to buy it twice, and that I was refunding one of their purchases because it would feel wrong to keep the money, knowing they never had to pay me twice. The response I got almost made me cry. They were flabbergasted that a vendor was human enough to actually care, and to do something without being asked, when I could have just kept their money "like anyone else would have". They said they didn't care about the money as it was such a small amount (although 200L$ is a lot to some people, which is why I sent it back), but that my thoughtfulness had made their day. They ended up refusing the money and sent it back, with extra, as a bonus for "being the most genuine MP vendor I have met to date." I've done this several times now, and only one person didn't respond. They probably thought I had made a mistake, and just kept quiet about it, feeling like they'd won something. And that's okay, too. If vendors find they have a tarnished image in many people's minds, it may not be their fault, but they can certainly change it for the better. All you have to do is something unthinkable, like check your transaction history now and then for failed deliveries, send thank-you notecards out of the blue now and then, send a gift occasionally to someone who helps you discover a mistake in a listing, etc. Even if nobody owes anybody anything, it just makes you stand out even more if you pay it forward when it's not even owed, and therefore totally unexpected. People like pleasant surprises. I may have a rinky-dink little MP, and it may all just be stupid junk and toys, but my customers love me. I actually had someone tell me they wished I charged more because it felt unfair to give me so little when others charge so much. I guess if my RL depended on my online business I might be less inclined to be this way about things, but the same attitude always paid off in my RL work, also, so hmmm...

A lot of sim owners do this, just to avoid losing everything if their main gets "hacked" somehow. All of their financial stuff is on an alt that they only log in when they have to do money things. Sometimes they also keep an alt logged in while their main is offline, just as an added layer of sim supervision. Sometimes that dot up there in that skybox is really the sim owner, logged into their alt while at work, or whatever. Addendum: I've actually had visitors assume (or at least get paranoid about it) that I was an alt of the owner of my home sim, or a bot run by them, and was only pretending to be an ordinary user. I actually think it's great that people would be that paranoid. Less to have to worry about if they think the owner is always there watching over them. My own form of this paranoia, which I know is a delusion and is therefore not a harmful one because I pretend it willingly for my own benefit, is my tendency to treat everyone I meet as if they might be an alt of one of my close friends, or one of my sim's higher-ups in the staff, or even the sim owner, who is one of my closest friends in SL. Why do I like to pretend this could be true? And why is it beneficial? Because it's the perfect excuse to treat everyone equally, and fairly. That person could be your boss, or your best friend, and they could be seeing if you behave towards others the same way you behave towards them. Anyone you meet might be the "Secret Shopper", and it's kind of neat, because it's like the old saying that anyone you meet might be an angel in disguise, sent to test you, but even atheists can believe in it and make it work for them. So, I treat everyone with the same degree of respect, to the best of my ability. Every time I meet someone it's a test of who I really am and how I really am. If I really want to be the person my best friends know me as, I have to be that person all the time, and not just with my best friends. It's a test of how genuine I am, and I know it's really me testing myself, so it's okay. They're not really out to get me. I hope, lol. So, even when I'm alone, I sometimes like to pretend that my friends are watching me, testing me to prove I'm really their friend. It's kept me from making some really awful choices before, so I think it's a beneficial part of my daily make-believe. Maybe the whole alt phenomenon is a blessing in disguise. And maybe it's not all about how honest others are.

Yeah, I forgot to mention the time zones thing. Time zones SUCK. I probably forgot it on purpose. Because it sucks. But, at least there's always someone awake somewhere in the world, and if you have a good translator and a sense of adventure, you can always find a congregation of people somewhere on the grid who are active when you are. I have problems with my sleep cycle sometimes, and for a while the majority of my active friends list was made up of people from Romania. I learned a lot hanging out with them, made many mistakes (which helps with learning), and got a lot of new perspective on how truly international SL is. You can make friends with people from literally anywhere in the world that someone has a computer and internet, and I think it's a great way to grow as a person to make friends with people from all over the world. Mark Twain said the best cure for racism is to travel the world. I'll expand that to include all other forms of narrow-mindedness. Hard to keep yourself in a little box with a cozy label on it when a drunk Romanian guy is challenging you to explain what you mean when you make some offhanded remark without thinking it out first. XD Time zones suck, but they can help you learn a lot about diplomacy if you're stubborn about finding places to hang out. I remember being asked, "So why here of all places? Why would you choose to hang out with us?" My answer? "Nobody else is online at this time of day." The general consensus, upon which we all agreed? "TIME ZONES SUCK~!"

I'm sure it's not hazardous or anything, it's just how "cheaty" it feels that puts me off. If I want wood pulp in my diet, I can get plenty of it out of my own yard. When I want grain products, I want grain products, not lumber. XD

Usually if I eat in SL it's just to humor someone. Special occasions like birthdays and Xmas, sure, I'll take a piece of cake or whatever and pretend to eat it. But for my own funtime I don't bother. Finding food and consuming it is just a little too much like RL for me. I'd rather go swimming or ride a bike than sit around and eat a sandwich, anyway. Might as well drop a little Peeve since I'm here: When someone else finally takes a turn at washing the dishes, and then I have to wash them all over again anyway, because they didn't actually clean them, but just left them with dried cheese and stuff on them.

Look too close at anything and it all just turns into a bunch of colored dots. Distance yourself from it and all you see is a big grey blob. My main started as an alt. Half of my best friends use alts for all kinds of things, even managing their Tilia accounts. Even an empty profile doesn't always mean what people might think it does. Looking for witch-marks doesn't save anyone from anything, and can leave all kinds of potential friends and companions off in the dirt without deserving it. I just wouldn't worry about it, and if you like talking to someone, be grateful you found someone to have a good conversation with, or a fun time, or whatever you do together.

It's better a toaster than, "Why is my computer so slow? I have every toolbar!"

Ideally a team of people who could help to maintain it. It could take a small team to keep it up to date, if it caught on, but that's better than one person either way. Like having more than one server for redundancy on a web platform, it'd make sure the system wouldn't fail if a curator went offline for whatever reason.

Even if all a group has is a web page with an event calendar, they can display it on a prim board as a sign. The only real work is getting all of the data on what's happening where in the first place. Like, getting everyone on board with sharing info on when they have stuff going on.

If you see cellulose in bread ingredients, it's bleached sawdust. You're eating wood leavings from a lumbermill. P. T. Barnum (the unsung founder of the consumer reporting movement) wrote a very revealing exposure of the food industry in the 1800s, and they were doing stuff like selling milk that was less than 10 percent milk and had the difference made up with water and chalk dust. Apparently, sawdust in bread has been going on forever, too. Glad I make my own derned bread. A bag of flour and some baking powder costs less than a loaf of fake-o expensive bulldooky "bread" from the store, anyway. On the bright side, it's neat to see how long humanity has been striving for virtual reality. I guess if they start with artificial foods, eventually we could all evolve into avatars. XD