Istelathis

To be honest, I would rather everyone presented themselves in a manner that was most comfortable for themselves. The way we judge one another on appearances, rather than ideas, is pretty miserable. Plus, considering it was Second Life, for Second Life users, and seems to be tradition, then it doesn't really feel unfamiliar.

Strangely, I haven't noticed a difference in my room while the computer is running. Right now it is 36°C and showing 4 - 5 watts of power consumption, that is with Fallout 4 running in the background. Then I tried it with SL open, and Fallout 4 running in the background. The Bellisseria fairgrounds really pushes my computer, I'm getting about 50fps just standing around, whereas it goes into the 100s if I am standing around at my Bellisseria home. I think overall, my computer is using less than my older setups, with CRT monitors and all of that. My room used to get really hot.

/me wonders what the exchange rate is for Canadian tears

All is well and good, but having just finished watching Fallout, and playing Fallout 4, never trust 'da man! You'll find yourself being tossed in a vat of FEV, or experimented with in a vault.

It is pretty amazing, I have a set of WMR goggles that I used to play around with and watch movies at a virtual cinema with, it was such a fun experience. I also enjoyed having my own arcade, with a bunch of retro cabinets. It even had a little cinema I would watch movies on. Unfortunately, Microsoft fizzled out Windows Mixed Reality and getting it to work on Windows 11 is a bit finicky, plus the resolution on my goggles are a bit off. Still, they are fun to play around with. I was reading in another thread on this forum, that there are applications for cinema where you can join in with other people and watch movies together that sounds pretty immersive, I kind of am selfish though and like having it all to myself. I used to log into SL with them, lay on my virtual couch (while laying on my real couch) and watch TV on the screen with them on, that was a bit of fun as well 😁

Now that is a gorgeous setup, I would love to have something like that. I miss having a computer room 😔 When I had one, it was in the earlier 2000s and I had a four PCs setup on a few desks, I think three of them set to a KVM switch. I remember playing MMORPGs on one computer, while having another computer being used to look at maps, quest information, and so on. Those were fun times, sure the computers couldn't handle as much but it was a nice perk. One of the things I like about AR and VR is that multiple screens become possible in smaller spaces, but to have a permanent setup would be so much better.

I wonder if crypto currency will be under the payment options now.

I was going to build my own PC, but I found a sale for just under a thousand dollars at Best Buy CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700 8-Core Processor (3792.81 MHz) Memory: 48278 MB OS Version: Microsoft Windows 11 64-bit (Build 22631.3447) Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti/PCIe/SSE2 2TB SSD storage. I then spent an additional $100 on 32gigs of memory I went against my better judgement and got a credit card, which has no interest for 12 months. It will be paid off by the end of the summer, a portion of it already has been paid off. My laptop that I was using, was falling apart. It would run Second Life, but was showing its age, the 1050 was able to hold up to a lot of games, even SL but at lower settings, and the screen was giving me eye strain, it was pretty terrible actually, I had to enable night mode and even then my vision would get blurry after a while. I wanted to get a nvida 3060 with 12gb of vram, for AI tasks but settled for the 4060 with 8gb. I plan to upgrade that next year, along with possibly getting a set of meta 3 goggles for some VR play. I play with most of the settings in high, get over 100 FPS in most areas, but it still does drop depending on the location, it can at times spike down to 20 FPS after teleporting to some areas even using Alchemy. Usually, while driving it is over 60 FPS on mainland though. I also purchased a 24" monitor for $150, anything larger would be too much for me, I don't like shifting my eyes around the screen as I enjoy playing games and like to have everything in my line of sight. I don't have enough space to place the monitor further away, it remains less than three feet from me, and having it larger would become detrimental to my gaming experience. Thankfully the eye strain is gone now, that old laptop screen was just rubbish. I would love to get a second monitor, but have no room for it. Alt tabbing to the web and back to a game is a PITA at times, and I like to multitask a lot, with the meta goggles I look forward to having a few virtual screens open at once for a few hours a day. Anywho.. About $1,250 USD so far. This Desktop should last me for several years, the laptop I had lasted for about 6 years I think, this should easily surpass that unless technology somehow advances at a rapid rate. I've been reading of NPUs, and might have to upgrade to one of those, if they become popularized in the next few years.

I could see it now, Elon Musk purchases LL for 42,000,000,000 USD. Initially it was just a meme joke, but the lawyers held him up to his arrangement. He tries to get out of the purchase by claiming the majority of SL is bots, it doesn't work, he is forced to buy the company. Everyone is required to secure a membership, or they can not view the forums at all, censorship is thought to have been banished by the people who are not being censored, everyone else that was censored is not considered to have been censored as they were agents of evil, the forums become his new playground, accompanied by an army of bots (with premium plus memberships, their posts are elevated above all others) Free speech reigns, at a cost, and censorship has been self proclaimed to have been abolished on the platform. We become more of a 4chan board, but with AI. After running the company in debt for the next two decades paid by the citizens of the US through various subsidies, which elon invests in his other companies, then sells his shares from, he eventually decides the platform requires a neural implant to play, unless you are a bot. The plan is to make Second Life, into real life, an everything app. Great job Linden Lab, and it all started with you selling Tilia, you enslaved us all!!!!11one!!eleven

You have my sword! We will need to toss it in a volcano, of course 🙃

Doesn't SL make a few hundred million a year? That is what I was informed of in another thread, if what I had read was true then SL is still very much a cash cow, I've read on these forums multiple times how it earns more than even the larger virtual worlds such as Roblox which is operating at a loss if I remember correctly. All of this speculating is fun, for sure, but I highly suspect, in another ten to fifteen years, those of us who are still alive (probably the majority) will likely still be talking about how SL is going to end. World of Warcraft forums will likewise be talking about how it is all about to come crashing down, we will be talking about how Twitter is about to die. Every fanbase around the world, will be discussing how their platform is dying, it is just a thing people tend to do a lot of. I simply think LL is adapting with the times, trying to keep up, and planning for the future. At least that is my speculation, if they flub it all up is another matter entirely. Will mobile introduce more customers? Yeah, I don't see it being possible any other way, but will it be a huge number, who knows? Will adult related material be completely removed from the Internet? Pfft, doubt it, that would require government intervention and we all know they are paid off by the big players, and porn, well, it is here to stay. Will there be more regulations requiring verification, well heck yeah, of course, that is a given. I'll start to worry more about these things, when the government gets involved - for now the entire TikTok ordeal is a bit concerning, but we'll wait and see what happens with that. Perhaps TikToK will push some money to our elected officials, and see that all burn.

Linden Lab has been delegating a lot of services to outside parties as of late, such as the servers being moved to AWS, mobile being moved to Unity (my guess is the main viewer will be as well), and now moving payment over to Thune. I don't work in the sector, but I would imagine this is just the evolution of the tech industry. It might make more sense in today's age to branch out rather than run your company like an island, separate, especially considering the rate of change in technology and regulation. Who knows, it might be cheaper to run SL this way, rather than have to worry about having lawyers keep up with every regulation in the globe, keep up with modern hardware and software, and gawdz know what else. It all goes way beyond my paygrade, and I am not willing to spend hundreds of hours doing research as the business side of things bore me to tears. Worse case scenario, they completely destroy SL, some greedy shadowy player at the higher echelons of LL is tapping their fingers together, as they slowly dissect SL piece by piece, selling them off to Meta, I guess the only way we will know is if one day we log in, and notice we no longer have legs... damn you Meta!! Damn you to Hell!

I try to be polite when on other people's property, I even return my shopping carts at Walmart 😋 (I even return items where they belong, when I decide I don't want them)

This reminds me of elementary school, way back when you could get a slap upside the head by your educators in the US.. 🤔 ¬_¬ shhhh.... it's around the corner. 🕶️ They'll never get me! /me runs for the hills As a side note, it really doesn't bother me that there are some words censored here, or when my posts are modified. In the grand scheme of things, I just find it curious. On other social sites, I always find it is kind of weird how far out of the way people will go to get past them, kind of like the entire "Shhh, it's around the corner" where it is seen somehow as rebellious by them, by sticking it to 'da man! Entire secret words have been created by others, and when I do read people's comments on other sites I am finding it harder to keep up with the evolution of language to bypass the moderation and find like minded individuals. We humans are weird.

Poor George Carlin is rolling around in his grave now 🥺