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Waiomao

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Posts posted by Waiomao

    LINDEN RESEARCH, INC. TO BE ACQUIRED

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    For many years I worked for a well-run private company, a leader in its field with tens of thousands of employees, that eventually accepted a buy-out offer. The promise was that all the additional investment would further improve the company's products and services. The buyer appeared to be from a similar industry, but to our surprise turned out to be on a buying spree and we were one of many companies purchased. There was inevitable job function overlap, and thousands of talented people were laid off. That purging of knowledge and experience led to an immediate collapse of product quality, and within months the company lost most of its customer base. The few of us deemed essential who were left behind then spent traumatic years dealing with extremely dissatisfied customers, apologizing profusely for mishaps we had no control over, and trying desperately to fix myriad quality and service problems using ineffective but money-saving tools the new profit-focused owner had provided. And we all did this while scared to death that our own jobs were going to be the next ones cut. I don't wish that hellish experience on anybody, and I hope that the dedicated employees and customers of Linden Lab will benefit from additional investment - rather than suffer from purely financial decisions (it's just business, nothing personal!). Very skeptical fingers crossed. 

    • Like 3
    • Sad 2

    Open Ocean for Mooring

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    On 7/11/2020 at 2:38 AM, Marianne Little said:

    Estates like Fruit Islands do you "buy" but you pay rent to the estate. Fruit Islands is also expensive. Maybe the most expensive estate. That is because the covenant is so strict, and they do not allow ugly junk rezzing. It must be in style with the theme and good quality.

    Thanks Marianne. Yeah, the Fruit Islands are pretty, but the price and the strict covenant are two swords I won't swallow. And Fruit Islands have those strange "waterfall emitting from a butte" things that look more theme park than beach or island. :-)

    Need To Vent

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    Aloha all. I need to vent.

    Have you ever had people break into your home? You know that sense of privacy violation, and your sudden vigilence and tension? What did they touch? What did they photograph? What did they plant? Have you ever had someone corner you, only to have people watch the abuse rather than do anything to help? And what if there’s no video, no evidence? Well, it just never happened then, did it? It was probably all in your imagination, and you have some growing up to do, right?

    I wrote previously about two men that entered my SL home uninvited and refused to go. The home was a rental and had no way to ban people, so I was left with having to report and block. That’s the official SL process, one that does nothing to stop the abuse while it’s happening; you’re left having to accept the abuse in hope that maybe, possibly it will stop several days later. There is no way in SL to fight back, to defend yourself; your only real option is to leave. That means logging out of SL immediately, or to immediately find and move into a new, safer home. Neither option prevents the abuser from continuing such behaviors with others, that same day or maybe forever. You just have to accept and hope that reporting and blocking will do “something.”

    To be fair, there are two sides to every story. Maybe I had it coming, right? Maybe it was just cyber-bullying and I should forget about it in the real world, right?

    I moved from that rental into a Linden home, and a stalker-like neighbor was regularly camming into my home - often enough that he eventually spoke proudly about doing so, and about seeing me without clothes on. I wondered whether I was appearing in a collection of voyeuristic photos. Again I reported the intruder, with the hope that someday the behavior might stop. At that time I was a new home owner and didn’t yet know about the  “avatars on other parcels can see and chat with avatars on this parcel” tick box, which should prevent others from camming into our homes. So I moved away. To my knowledge the voyeur didn’t follow.

    Things in my new home have been going well. Then came last night: two girlfriends and I were on our boat, anchored in the middle of the Blake Sea, chatting offline. Yes, we’re in different rooms in the same RL home and sharing the same VPN; meeting in SL is our pandemic substitute for going out. It was fun until an intruder boarded our SL boat and was asked to leave but did not. Then he started lying about one of us having invited him, and to one of us chatting with him on Skype. It struck me that a boat is a lot like a rental home, in that there is no way to prevent other avatars from intruding and disrupting. The invasion, disruption, and disrespect were infuriating and triggered us all to say things we wouldn’t normally. It was painful to recognize that there was nothing we could do to stop the behavior. Nothing. Like in a rental home, our only choice was to leave. We all reported and blocked him, but it was painful to know that the intruder maybe / probably continued the bad behavior with others. For anyone else who has been sexually abused in RL, you know that reporting is a painful process that often leads nowhere or even to further harassment, and it’s a shame to experience that same dead-end road in SL too.

    Maybe the wonderful creative freedom and virtual escape from pandemic self-quarantine that we experience in SL comes at a price: having to acknowledge that the same abusive behaviors that are illegal in RL exist in SL too, but in SL they are something that we simply have to put up with. Take it or move away. There’s no easy answer to this in either RL or SL, which is why these behaviors persist. Maybe rich people in RL could buy a remote island and set up a new life. Maybe rich people in SL could buy a remote island region and set up a new life. The rest of us? We just have to take it.

    I don’t want to hear sh*t like “she must have had it coming,” or “virtual bullying isn’t real bullying.” If those thoughts come into your mind, get some d*mn education.

    I’ve met some really nice people in SL. Artists, educators, readers, writers. But a quick glance at all the ‘roid rage male and sexual object female avatar and clothing options makes it seem like SL is overrun by hormonal teenage bullies, frustrated old men going through male menopause, and abusive online trolls. You can spend all your time treading carefully in SL to avoid all that, only to have it come find you. Over and over. Maybe the SL experience I want isn’t one that you want, but nobody’s experience should involve harassment.

    This has me pondering whether to leave SL. Or maybe to save up, buy a remote island region sanctuary, set up ban lines, and never leave it for interactions with the rest of SL. But then what’s the point? I could draw a pretty picture for a lot less cash. And Linden Research has just been sold, and we all know what that means: new owners will jettison LL staff, will set up ways to profit off of user data, and will offer invasive new “features” marketed as great leaps forward. SL’s future is less clear, but what is clear is that the new focus will be stronger on profit than on user experience. Seems like a good time to *not* renew my premium membership.

    Thanks for listening.

    Open Ocean for Mooring

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Aloha all. I have several boats and would like to buy an affordable plot of open ocean to moor them on. All the places I’ve explored in Linden Auctions have been landlocked mainland properties. A search in SL Marketplace finds a ton of places all priced at zero that turn out to be rentals (and frustratingly, the listings can’t be sorted by weekly rate or keyword (e.g. “sailable.”). I’m not looking for a full prim or a private island, just some ocean I can moor boats on. I rent space in a marina now, but would love something a little more "out there." Can anyone recommend how to find a spot of open ocean to call home? It sounds like I want to buy an ocean region, but I haven't found such a thing.

    Neighbor's objects music/sound heard on my land...

    in Technical

    Posted

    I sympathize SO MUCH with this. Every once in a while a film can be heard playing near my houseboat. Nothing in my place has a media player, and I have right-clicked > edit nearly every piece of furniture, art, etc in my home to see if any contents contain an unwanted media file. The truly weird thing is that this audio from a film can be heard EVEN WHEN MY MASTER VOLUME CONTROL IS SWITCHED OFF. A friend wrote down the first spoken line of the film and googled it; it turns out to be the crappy 2014 film "Addicted." Hard to know then if a neighbor has this old dud on constant play, or if my home has been infected by a spurned lover. The film audio plays on different computers, different OS, and different viewers, so I know the problem is within SL (not a virus on one pc). My home has no media, no music, etc. I've tried unchecking the box "avatars on other parcels can see and chat with avatars on this parcel." The soundtrack can be heard other places in my region (not just within my home), which made me wonder if a mole had the film playing as an audio test while the region was being built, and forgot to switch it off. But... the audio is occasional, not constant. This leads me back to thinking it is a virus handed to me by a spoofer or someone whose advances I rejected. I just wish the sound would go away; I don't enjoy it nor do all the people who visit my home.  

    OpenGL

    in General Second Life Tech Discussion

    Posted

    29 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

    The items you create will continue to work, the 3D formats SL use are long established and are supported by all mainstream 3d rendering engines, I can't imagine LL would ever drop support for them as that would mean breaking 100% of all mesh creations to this date in-world.

    Thanks Extrude. Thinking long term, because when Apple drops some big change, within a year or two Windows and Linux do the same. I can see LL, viewer makers, and content makers grumbling loudly but eventually shifting over.

    OpenGL

    in General Second Life Tech Discussion

    Posted

    28 minutes ago, Fritigern Gothly said:

    Unfortunately, all viewers (with the exception of text-based viewers) require OpenGL, so the moment an operating system does not support OpenGL, the viewer will simply refuse to work.

     

    Thanks Fritgern. Any idea if LL, Firestorm, Kokua, etc are creating an alt viewer that will be compatible with Apple's "Metal?" It would be a shame for SL to lose all their Mac residents. 

    OpenGL

    in General Second Life Tech Discussion

    Posted

    Aloha. Noob builder question:

    I'm curious about the potential impacts of Apple's move away from OpenGL. Will the impacts be felt primarily behind the scenes at LL, or will changes also be necessary for residents and builders?

    I enjoy digital art and would like to take a stab at creating 3D content too. I use Linux, Mac, and Windows for SL as a resident, but use Mac exclusively as an artist. Most of my experience is with Photoshop, so before I try out tools like Blender, Avastar, Maya, or 3D Max I'm wondering if items created with these would be successful in a post-OpenGL world.

    Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

    Need a HUG reaction button STAT!

    in Forums Feedback

    Posted

    I'd definitely vote for a hug button in SL, especially because we can't do hugs in RL right now. Scientists talk about how important physical contact is for social animals like us, and that isolation (or self isolation during quarantine) has negative effects on our mental health. So yay to the hug button!  

    • Like 1

    Nip Equality

    in Forums Feedback

    Posted

    For me, discussions like this highlight the absurdity of many cultures, including our own. Everyone has a strikingly similar body, we all procreate and poop and pee, but our cultures tell us that we should hide these things and be embarrassed of them. Why? Humans are the only animal with such attitudes. Porpoises, cats, and lemurs aren't embarrassed of their bodies or bodily functions. We don't find dog, rat, or horse nipples offensive or alluring; why should human ones be thought of any differently? If we're OK with giraffes not wearing clothes, why do we think of humans not wearing clothes differently?  Why do we think of our naked selves as "flaunting" rather than just someone washing the dishes or reading a book or getting a drink? I suspect the answer may lay in our inability to control our sexual desires. Sexual desires are a tool of every species' survival, but if buffalo can function without thoughts of screwing blinding them all day, surely we can too.

    • Like 1

    Author/Book Recommendations...

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    Aloha Jordan. I'd recommend joining the Second Life Book Club. There is a meeting every Wednesday at noon SLT. In each meeting, a panel of authors discuss their books, the writing process, and how being an author impacts their lives. Questions can be asked by us in the audience. Here's a reading list prepared by the host, Draxtor: https://bookshop.org/shop/draxtorreads The weekly meetings of this group have been so well attended that the sim fills up, so every Wednesday the SL Book Club is also live-streamed on SL's YouTube channel! 

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

    Look and feel of Brussels / Belgium?

    in Favorite Destinations

    Posted

    Aloha Lilith. I understand why you would want such a sim: Brussels is beautiful! How can you not love the beer, chocolate, music, art, history, etc? I haven't been since the mid 1990s, but have to admit that I haven't seen anywhere in here that seems Brussels-specific. Yeah, you may have to use RL photographs; most urban landscaping I've seen in here seems intentionally generic in order to have wider appeal. Most Euro stuff in SL seems very Germanic. There's a nice Venice sim though. A lot of other places appear British, but they're no longer European :-)  There have been a few Paris sims, but the ones I visited were built many years ago so are technology dinosaurs. In any case, BYOB (Build Your Own Brussels).

    • Thanks 1

    Shape keeps changing.

    in Your Avatar

    Posted

    Aloha Snugglebeard. This usually means that you have different shapes in each outfit. Open the Appearance > Outfits window and try on outfits until you're in one that has the shape you like. Under the Appearances > Wearing tab you'll see a list of the items you're wearing, and the shape you like will be among them. Make a note of its name.

    Then go back to Appearances > Outfits tab, and wear a different outfit. If that outfit has the wrong shape, open up the Appearances > Wearing tab and identify the name of the shape you don't like. With that outfit still on, go back to Appearances > Outfits again, find the shape you did like, and either double click or wear that shape. The shape you like should now have replaced the one you don't in that outfit.

    Go back to Appearances > Wearing tab and do a "save as" so the outfit and proper shape are saved. You're done!

    Things I'm kinda glad about

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    16 hours ago, Selene Gregoire said:

    I love it when it rains in the front yard but not in the back yard. 

    heh heh heh me too Selene; it's like walking under the edge of a cloud. This was intentional though - I love a rainy beach. In Honolulu it rains every morning for several hours, before burning off in the sun. "A few windward and mauka showers" is in the forecast every damn day, it means showers and mist on the east coast and central mountains of Oahu. This rainy beach is something like home :-)

    I did try placing the rain emitter over the house too, but it insists that I have an invisible leaky roof. Hmmm, a nice wet living room? I tried placing it higher up in the sky, but the rainfall is "jagged" and stops at a variety of heights. So, rain on the beach it is.

    • Like 3
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