PheebyKatz

This thread has kinda jangled me some. With the discussion here in mind, I decided to look for a singularly distinctive hairstyle on the MP, and found it being sold by more than one vendor. The demos are identical meshes with different HUDs, and one has an extra version that was tweaked in blender to fit larger-boobied persons. They are directly taken from a website that lets people download content from The Sims. I'm not sure what the "original" uploader's credentials are as far as owning the asset and legally uploading it to that site in the first place, and if they do in fact own the asset legally, I don't know what their own terms of use are for people who download it from the site, because I wasn't going to make an account just to find out the details. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Alba-Mesh-Hair-browns-black/6700650 <-- first one demo'ed https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/SOUL-HAIR-Mesh-Ammolite-DEMO-ALL/6664794?page=1 <-- second one demo'ed In the ads they look slightly different, but inworld they are identical, down to the fit around the ear and the little sidelock that dangles in front of the right ear and the two slight parts in the bangs. All I know is, if it's a legal product, it'd be cheaper for me to go get it, rig it and upload it myself, and if it's an illegal product it's been on the MP forever and nobody's ever done anything about it. TL;DR: I'm about to just quit buying hair from anyone and start making my own instead. I couldn't feel good wearing something that people are praising as such fine creative work from someone who just lets everyone think they made it themselves. The relatively low prices almost scream out that they feel some funny way about selling them, too. It's almost like an apology ahead of time in case people notice. Also, I'm not trying to slam anyone here for anything (if they're within their rights, then more power to them for good use of resources), just mentioning that now I can't unsee all of this. And I wanted that hairstyle SO bad! EDIT: I visited the website (butterflysims), and the person who uploaded the hair to it originally no longer has that account. I got a 404 on the user. Now I'm wondering if they got suspended or deleted their account on their own. And I'm wondering if the vendors got it from the site or got it the same way the uploader to that site got it. Still not trying to neg on the vendors, for all I know they have every right to sell the hair, and at least one of them put a lot of work into improving the original and providing options. It's just the not knowing that gets to me. *Sigh* I'mma go swim and try to forget about it. And then I'm going to try and make my first hairstyle in Blender. Gotta start somewhere.

I can't get it out of my brain, it's stuck in there, someone please, make it stop~! *leaves it here so maybe someone will take it away* It's been stuck in my head ALL DAY. >.<; XD

*~Pheeby's Peeve of the Day~* This is a lifelong peeve, but today I'm sharing it, because I don't often notice anyone else being peeved by it, or at least realizing it might be why they end up so peeved sometimes. I'll say it a few different ways, just so it's more easily digested and understood, and maybe at least someone out there will understand what I'm trying to express, myself included. Here it is. Those who like to argue the most have no grasp of the art of rhetoric, and will take an opposing view simply because they lack the vision to see any other (not all systems of calculation are binary). The most insecure and weak-willed people are the most domineering, and those with little self control try to control everyone else around them. When all else fails, they just pooh-pooh everything, acting like giant, rashy toddlers. Like how those who never made a movie will do nothing but tear down a movie-maker's creative work, and say they'd have done it better. Those with critical thinking skills seldom if ever apply them to themselves or their own thoughts or doings. Hard-boiled skeptics are easily duped, and their fear of looking foolish often makes fools of them. Blindly grasping for handholds in the dark makes one startled when someone turns the lights on. I've always hated arguments. My entire life people have argued, as if they somehow stood to gain something real and tangible by defeating another person and making them submit. All I see is someone acting like a jerk and trying to put people down, and trying to figure out a point to rationalize their actions while keeping others and their inferior views at bay long enough to do so. They want to feel good about pushing someone else's face into poop, basically. What's the goal? No, I mean what's the real goal? As a child people would try to argue with me, and I would tell them what I knew about whatever they were arguing about, and cite sources, show them the encyclopedia article, and all it ever did was make people angry, and they'd declare that everyone was wrong but they themselves, and storm off in a huff. So I know it's not some frantic dash to discover truth or anything, it's just combat. If people like combat sports so much, why not just be honest about it? Dishonesty doesn't do much for one's rhetoric, at least not when it's so obvious to observers. And why are the ones who insist everyone fight with them the ones who lack real fighting skills? Is that why they force everyone to be their practice dummies all the time? I hate arguing. But admittedly I enjoy combat sports. At least they're honest, and teach discipline and respect for others. But I still hate seeing poor technique that leaves openings big enough to drive a truck through. It's so amateurish.

Most of what I sell I made for my own fun, amusement, or use. I share most of what I make with people I meet inworld, and list it on my MP for people who don't know me or who feel like supporting my art/hobby. I only charge for things that took me real work, or cost me a lot to get uploaded for whatever reasons, and my MP pays for future uploads and food for my cat. I also tend to drop prices or make things free when I've sold enough to feel guilty for taking any more money. Not everything in life is one end of a stick or the other, some of us have more than one condition that is true simultaneously. You can do things for fun and for money. I don't know where people get these ideas about everything being only one way and if one condition is true all others must be false. Even LSL scripting isn't that derned narrow in scope. Unless they're doing it just to argue and feel superior? Sigh.

See, SL has cool people who do things like this. I had a friend once who built an entire city, and it had apartment buildings and everything, and it was all free. The rent was 1L$ (just to make the rent box assign the apartment to the user) and he'd even give you the 1L$. He spent all of his time managing the land, trying to improve his city, and provide the nicest homes he could afford to offer, all for free. He struggled to maintain it all, but while it was around he paid for all of it himself, and never asked anything of anyone. I don't even remember seeing a donation pot anywhere. I asked him why he would go so far and do so much without having aything to gain by it, and he just said, "Because everyone should have a place to live, and it should be free. This place is for freedom." If I ever end up rich, I'm going to do the same thing he did.

Being younger and knowing about forums doesn't make me wrong. It makes you an exceptional person. So hah~! XP XD

Now and then friends of mine IRL would show me this cool new thing they had found called Second Life, and then show me how they could stare at lady avatars all day without being seen, and I'd say oh, how nice for you, you found a sex game, and I'd go back to making my internet paper dolls. Or they'd show me the house they were building and I'd think ah, it's a building game, and go back to chatting on forums. Or they'd tell me how much money they were making selling virtual land or making virtual fashions (I actually found a RL friend's children's outlet inworld, and recognized it from the ad snaps he'd shown me without saying where he sold his fashions), and I'd say oh cool, people pay you for things they can only use in VR, and I'd go back to playing my roleplaying games. This went on for about ten years, my few brushes with SL being limited in scope, and naturally strongly influenced by whatever aspect they were focused on and felt like showing me. When yet another RL friend several years ago asked me to join this thing she was on so she could talk to me and hang out online, I said okay fine, and she took me shopping so I could play dress-up, and showed me her Collinwood Manor house she was building on the RP sim she lived on, and I finally got to have the avatar that no other platform ever had the tools or the freedom to allow me to make, and I was pretty much instantly hooked. All that time I'd had no idea that SL was the thing I had been looking for since I first found the internet. But on the advice of Iron Maiden, I've finally managed not to kick myself over all of those wasted years. Still wish I'd joined ten years earlier, though.

I'll just mention here that I resemble that remark, but then everyone already knows that. XD *skips off to play kick-the-can in the Twilight Zone again*

I think that's part of what makes our time with friends inworld so precious. It's all ephemeral, and could poof out of the blue, with little more than an announcment on a web page to say it happened. The whole world is on fire, someone said once. It's all burning up as we look at it. I treasure everything in my virtual life, even the things I know I take for granted. One day I'll either miss it all terribly, or I'll be gone and my friends will be missing me. You can't hold on to it, any more than you can put a river in a bucket, but swimming in it is a pastime I hold to dearly.

Holy freakin' crap! No way! I had no idea, I thought you were like a 30-something! See, I keep telling people, age is just a number in SL. Maybe playing inworld helps keep people young. I know it keeps me feeling that way, and I'm sure others here can tell I'm about as mature as a grade-schooler when I'm online. XD Maybe we all just have this place in common because we're the same kind of people. People who refuse to let reality cast its evil illusions on us full time, and escape to the freedom of imaginative play and creative thinking and problem-solving. If what I'm seeing here is any indication, I can expect to last at least another 30 or 40 years. Thanks guys, it really makes my day to see so many immortal and indomitable souls refusing to buy into the popular myth of decline via the passing of calendar units. And I'm not just messing around and having a laugh, when I'm inworld, or even just here, I barely even notice the constant pain and fatigue I normally feel in RL. Maybe play is the best medicine. I know (non-passively) internetting certainly is medicinal; it keeps the mind active, and keeps you learning, and learning certainly helps one to maintain a youthful-er mindset. and mindset often affects overall health, as well. Anyway, I'm rambling now. 2 pots of coffee and no sleep for two days, go me. Couldn't do that when I was a teenager and still feel this energetic. Maybe I'll get up and do some housework after this. *flops out on the keyboard and snores through spit bubbles*

All I've ever used are the arrow keys. If I'm in a hurry I just teleport by clicking where I want to go. People still go WTF when I tell them I learned SL combat using arrow keys and the touchpad on my laptop. They look at me like I just told them I'm a Slav. I know this because I get the same looks when I tell people I'm a Slav. I've never heard of any of this clicky mouse on avi movement stuff, so now I'm just going to have to try it and see if I feel like obsessively using only this method for a few years instead or not. Thanks for manifesting this thread, so I could find out about this. It's neato.

I, for one, often buy full-perms stuff for my own outifts, just because I can use whatever fabric pattern I feel like wearing that day. I'd gladly pay double the price of any fatpack just to be able to put my own textures on what I wear inworld. I can make and rig my own mesh clothes, heck, I even uploaded my own custom mesh body once, and it looked awesome, but it's a lot of work to make things and rig them, and I have no qualms about paying someone else for their time if I think they made something beautiful and I want to wear it. And a lot of our resident content creators do far nicer design and execution of fashions than I have the patience or skill to do myself. I have loads of respect for that kind of artistry and hard work. I realize it's a thread about creators not marking things properly to avoid customer disappointment, and has veered off into venting a bit about not being able to mod things in general, but I had to blurt that out, just because I forgot to mention it earlier. If I buy FP meshes, it does tempt me to sell my modded versions of them (within the limits of the user license agreement, of course), but mostly it's just for my own sense of control over how various parts of my outfit match each other. I'll happily buy non-transferable, moddable versions of things and pay handsomely for them. It does take work to make and rig mesh clothing, and that work should be worth something, and even more so if they're kind enough to give customization options to those who aren't fortunate enough to have the skills and/or tools and/or time necessary to make the base meshes for their outfits themselves. Even when I decide to make things for myself, I still buy other creator's takes on them so as to support the creative community while finding inspiration for my own personal take on something. I've been known to buy every version of a thing before deciding I want to make my own. I feel it's at least fair to everyone else that way. Plus, my wardrobe is THE BOMB DIGGITY as a result. Anyway, just my other two cents.

Cool tunes, Rolig, thanks for sharing your groovy earworms with us~! ^-^ ❤️

Same thing happened to me when I passed through New Orleans once on a Greyhound bus. I ended up living there, and have lived there for 30+ years now. I can't imagine being anywhere else. And the same goes for SL. The first time I actually tried it out and went inworld, I immediately saw the glory of SL, radiating through the lag, the noise, and the intentionally deformed avatars that liked to push me off of things, and I never looked back. Congratulations on staying stuck for so long, in this best of all virtual worlds! I hope you never get unstuck~! ^-^

Remember when you could just say the name of a computer and everyone laughed like it was a dirty joke? If you do, congratulations, you're part of the hip, older crowd. XD Here's an age-tell for ya, I remember how delighted the librarians were that I took an interest in mastering the Dewey Decimal System, and taught myself how to find any book in the library in a matter of moments. As a reward for this accomplishment, they allowed me to use the card catalog to help other people find books. And if I was really good, guess what the reward was? I got to sit for hours in the library, making punch cards by hand. I... really kinda miss all that... I guess you had to be there.

I had a used TRS-80. I got it because my dad bought a new one, the one that didn't leave silver paint scrapings everywhere if you wore punk rock bracelets. I was so jealous of that. Mine left silver paint scrapings everywhere. My sister had the Atari, but I had hundreds of games on floppy disks, so I didn't care. I remember scoffing at the idea that anyone would ever pay 50 bucks for a single game cartridge. But they sure did. And for like, Asteroid-quality stuff. XD I'm just grateful I got the model that didn't come with a built-in desk/pedestal thing. That thing looked so awkward, I'd have been embarrassed to show anyone. It wasn't a desktop, it was a freakin' desk! It probably woundn't have even fit in a car for transport. XD

No, it wouldn't. I value my account and my own rep, what there is of it. Sorry. It's against the rules to do that, as far as I can tell. I don't even mention someone's name if they tick me off on the forum, I just let people figure out who it is from context. Naming people out loud in connection with anything bad is a sure-fire way to get your post edited by a mod/Mole, or get a warning, at the very least. I'm sure you could find out on your own, if you felt like it. I just can't name-drop in here. Wouldn't be right. I mean, if we could, the forums would be full of people assassinating each other's characters for ticking them off inworld, etc., as people try to do on occasion. The forum staff really don't need that much drama bulldooky, they have enough to deal with as it is.

On the copybotting subject: There are entire communities online that promote copybotting, and a ridiculous number of the people in them don't even seem to know what SL is, and/or haven't even been inworld more than once or twice. It's a confederacy of dunces for the most part, at least from what I can tell. On the subject of selling stolen/fraudlent creations, a vendor in the anime community in SL was outed for selling things that they got for free on 3D asset sharing sites and not telling anyone that's what they were selling. The mall had a big sign up declaring the vendor a thief and that they had been ousted from the mall and were to be shunned. They also gave people the link to where the user got the free meshes and told people they could just go there and get the stuff themselves and upload it, because it was free for personal use, and NOT commercial use. They soiled their own reputation for a while, and had to start making all of their own stuff to get any respect from the community. Last I saw it seemed they had learned their lesson and all of their goods were their own creations. I know people with throwaway accounts wouldn't care, but at least in this one case the vendor had enough emotional investment in their SL to try and make good on their mistakes. Probably for the best, because a lot of anime fans can be quite difficult to deal with if you take their L$ when they could have gotten the thing for free, or for the cost of uploading it themselves. I'd be pretty upset too. Especially when they have the gall to make it no-mod, and make a big fuss on their listing page about what they'll do to you if you if you don't follow every jot and tittle of how they expect you to honor their rights as the "creator" of their ganked game assets that weren't even made with SL in mind. Protip: Uploading it doesn't make you the creator. It just makes it say you are. Few are fooled by this if they've seen more of the internet than Second Life.

Yeah, if an inworld vendor doesn't have the C-M-T thingy showing the perms in the ad image on the vendor, I'd be skeptical of the contents. And yeah, anyone listing items on the MP after a long night of making stuff can probably be forgiven forgetting to tick some things in the listing editor. Vendors with a conscience usually go OMG SORRY and fix it if you point it out to them politely. And yeah, many creators really do not like people taking their stuff apart and making things out of it. Others are okay with it, which is why we have loads of full-perms stuff on the MP as well. It just usually costs a lot more than premade-for-the-consumer stuff, because well, people make stuff out of it and make money off of it. Anyone who makes anything has every right to govern their creations as they see fit. I give full perms on a lot of what I sell, just so people can make other things with it if they like, but even I have a few items I really don't want to see anyone sticking an invisible box on (so their name shows as creator) and claiming is their own creation. Still sucks when you get something cool and pay a lot for it, and then realize you can't use it or make it work for you, though.

If they don't tell you the permissions when they sell it to you, which they really should, I mean, there's checkboxes for all of it, sometimes you can look under the Contents tab and see if what's in the folder they're selling shows the permissions. If it's in a box or a depacker though, this won't be relevant. Usually you can tell if it's boxed, though. And if they don't make it possible to find out, and they won't tell you, and you buy it and don't like it, leave a review saying so. Warn other potential buyers that what they're getting isn't Mod and isn't marked. Me, I'd just not buy it if they don't bother telling me. Why support someone who doesn't care if I'm happy as a customer? Some vendors are total jerks and don't even display any but the good reviews, but you can always still boycott them and refuse to buy from them again, and I'm pretty sure letting friends and acquaintances know to avoid that seller might at least give them an incentive to change their ways, and at least not be so lazy as to refuse to tick a couple of checkboxes when listing an item. Not sure about reporting, or how it'd work or turn out, but if there's any MP rule about it, you could probably report them, Iunno. I hate no-mod stuff myself, but I sell some. But I try to make sure whatever isn't mod is that way for a reason, like a script I wrote and don't want changed. I don't understand why so many people wouldn't even allow a person to tint the mesh of an item, but a lot of vendors are indeed that stingy with their perms. Like if they only sell one shirt, and it's in one color, like white, at least let people tint the derned thing! The other side of this of course, is if they sell multiple versions of say, a shirt, and allowing people to mod the texture would be cutting their own thingy off. In that case, they'd be pretty dumb if they left it mod. Anyway yeah, they could at least mark the permissions on it in their listing. Lazy vendors can't expect to get paid like hard-working and attentive vendors, and ignorance of this fact probably costs them a lot more than they realize. A lot of people are just like me, and won't buy anything if they don't know exactly what they're getting. It's almost as bad as misspelling all of their keyword spam, and never having their listing be seen by anyone who searches for it.

I've done it in the Dashboard thingy before, as shown above, but I prefer to use my profile inworld. You just click the little thingy that looks like a wrench/spanner and you can change it right there. I prefer this method because I see the change inworld instantly, and doing it on the WWW doesn't really change it inworld for me, at least not in a timely fashion. I mean, both work, I just prefer to do it inworld.

One of the first things I learned about meeting people and making friends in SL is that when there's a bunch of people and nobody's chatting in local, the best course of action is just to start chatting in local. Find things you like about the place, the avatars around the place, and just start saying stuff about it. If nobody responds, hang out for a while to give people a chance to see someone spoke and maybe decide they feel like responding, and if nobody talks, then explore the sim a while before trying another place. Eventually someone will respond to you somewhere, and you'll end up having a conversation. If all they say is that nobody there ever talks, shrug and try more places. Get creative with search keywords, and explore a lot. Find out when places might have more people in them, like what times they're busiest, and try to go there then. Clubs aren't always great, but at least most people who are annoyed by people trying to chat in local won't be too crabby out loud, and if they are, well, whoever likes talking in local will talk to you regardless. Even just saying things to the DJ about how you like the tune they're spinning can evoke similar responses from other people who are there, and you can sometimes cultivate acquaintances that way, when you see them again and tell them it's cool seeing them again. Just stay positive, and open to meeting people, and be stubborn. Stick it out and before you realize what's happening, you'll be like OMG I can't even log in without getting a bunch of IMs. XD It'll happen. Just keep at it. If I can make a bunch of friends, anyone can.

Fine, okay, this is art too. XP XD

Anyone any younger doesn't know forums exist. They've never heard of them, lol. So, how's it feel to be part of the hip, older crowd? GABBA GABBA, ONE OF US, ONE OF US~