JacksonBollock

May 20

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Very cute! Just because I agree with Zal once in awhile, does not make me cowardly. Quite the opposite!

I see that your response of attacking someone else who happens to disagree with you, no - that isn't cowardly at all!

I'm downright proud of you for sticking your neck out.

Well done! Brave, brave lad!

Mmmm.. is there such a thing as a lion with a "passive aggressive" roar?

Maybe when one meets a really big Wildebeest that's just too big to take down, but you know - he still has is dignity after all.

May 20

3 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

I know lot's of insults, but the forum rules prevent me from using the most appropriate ones.

It's only called that by pseudo-intellectuals.

Thanks for pleading "very guilty indeed" so publicly.

Nah, it's called that by people who don't rely on word-of-the-day loo roll

May 20

17 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Well said!

Ooph,
I'm guessing you've modelled your SL persona after the Lion in Wizard of Oz?
Although that particular Lion always had courage he just didn't realise it - so maybe not.

May 20

12 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

None of the utter garbage about SL, that you have posted in ANY of your posts, suggests that you even HAVE an SL.

Hmmmm, so not only are you trying to convince us how "Intellectual and Superior" you are, you are trying to convince the poor saps who share an office with you too.

And thee you go again with that reality hating pie-in-the-sky pipe dreamer nonsense about how SL *could* have been something it was never intended to be, never could be, and never will be.

Let's be CRYSTAL clear here.

LL was founded to develop gloves and boots etc., for use with VR goggles. All those products failed, and the investors wanted to know when the company would actually start selling something, anything, and making money to repay the investor's investment.

So they tuned the test-bed software into an MMO.

Any other assumption about the "true idea behind and purpose of SL" is just BS.

And your "two options" claim is basically an insult to EVERYONE in SL.

So fa, the only hint of the vague idea that you claim to have for a "Better more Pseudo-Intellectual SL" seems to be your charity giving 2nd hand whyPads to illiterate kids in Africa, as a replacement for schools, so they can teach themselves to read by staring really hard at thickapedia pages, before using Crypto-crap to spend their $1 a day wages when they grow up ( in some mythical land where crypto crap transactions don't come with a $150 - $3000 Blagchain transaction charge ), before they log into SL, and go to Frank's Jazz Club.

So far, your plan to "save SL" doesn't look too viable, I really don't see a "vast untapped new market" of illiterate kids from the 3rd world logging in via the MobilerLife Fail-App on 2nd hand whyPads, into G rated only areas, and making SL great again by spending their $1 a day wages via Crypto-Crap, on tipping the DJ at Frank's, instead of *wasting* it on "nonsense" like food and clothes.

Hi @Zalificent Corvinus

Always a pleasure - but you know, a few things.

You've really got to learn a new insult, the whole "Pseudo-Intellectual" thing is running out of steam - it barely smarts at all anymore. May I suggest word-of-the-day loo roll, something will turn up I'm sure.
Also, you go way too deep on what's commonly called the pejorative portmanteau - I mean "thickapedia" - really?
Finally, I'll direct you to Ted for the rest - my Straw Man stand in. I've already introduced Ms Ragu, but I think you'll enjoy him just as much.

All the Best
Jackson

May 20

10 minutes ago, Kathlen Onyx said:

You would probably have better SLex with an AI doing the emoting than a real person running an avatar. In fact, I guarantee you would.

I did want to raise this myself, and yes this is already happening and regardless what some may say, AI is getting really good at "mimicking affect".

There are lots of things to discuss around this, but needless to say adoption of this sort of "She" type partnership is definitely accelerating - for good and bad.

If AFK clubs can make a living, then AIK (or something catchier ) can as well I'm guessing.

May 20

1 minute ago, Kathlen Onyx said:

I can't tell anymore. Are you for SLex, against it, getting none, getting too much?

In answer to your questions.

I'm for it, but in moderation people!
I'm not against it, see answer 1 above.
I'm getting no SLex, but an adequate amount elsewhere.
I don't know what that would feel like.

Jackson

May 20

20 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Sure, if I wasn't single I'd still be doing it.

I think that it's a little hard to explain but:

Category the First - Some people never get much and are happy; while some are not happy and wish they get more. SL may help them with that "lack".

Category the Second - Some people got plenty and are happy; while some are not happy and still wish they get more anyway. SL may help them with that "want more".

Category the Third - Some people got MORE than enough (compared to most healthy people) to be generally satisfied; while some are not satisfied anyway and still wish they get more and more and more. SL may help them with that "insatiable hunger".

..and on and on through Category the Nth.

I just happen to fall into Category the Third.

I don't truly knock those who fall into other categories, however I have trouble empathizing with those who seem "dependent" on SLex to the degree we read in these Forums, that they "freak out" over changes (the "Sky is falling", "LL will take away my fun", etc.). I understand addiction, I truly do. I am also not accusing everyone made at losing their "fun" of being "addicted". Possibly.."entitled".

And some downplay it all for laughs and sympathy

May 20

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

Yet some of us, who are older and have been married for almost 30 still have regular sex in RL! Why does everyone think that when you hit a certain age that sex just stops? Boggles my mind.

What I have found is that the SLex just doesn't appeal to me anymore. For one, I rarely find anyone I connect with in a way that I'd even want to consider it. I'm not interested in random hook ups at all and honestly, the younger people who I do talk to who ARE interested in it have no game. They have no idea how to engage with a woman.

Ah well you see Rowan. I suspect you're far more attractive in RL than I am.

And to be fair, I'm just exhausted most of the time

May 20

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

* cough * "Incels"

No Sh*t Sherlock,

I'm a late middle aged man, married for nearly 3 decades, 2 live at home kids, and a full time job.

Of course I'm an Involuntary Celibate!

Good catch though *cough" "it takes one to know one I guess" *cough*

May 20

30 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

🥱 good morning...

Jackson -

I've never claimed SL isn't going to do what it wants, rather than what I or others might want. Like I like to say, LL is perfectly within its right to put its hand on the proverbial hot stove. LL own the platform and they'll do what they want. None of us have a say over that. Just don't say I didn't try to warn you guys the stove top is hot.

Second Life has always been a very personal platform for the majority of its residents. The clue is in the word 'life'. You portray adult activity on Second Life like a dirty porno mag but that is not really what most adult activity/intimacy on Second Life is about. People are forming deep bonds and relationships on this platform, families that have been running 10+ years etc. Yeah there are always the newbies to whom pixel bumping is new and exciting that keep sex clubs around, but most people settle down pretty fast.

When I read what you write, you keep using words to describe disgust and to me that's a major tell. Basically, I think your whole disdaine for what adults do on SL can be summed up as 'i think its icky and gross' and that's fine, but to me that seems like a surprisingly immature stance for someone who claims to be 60 themselves.

Good Morning Extrude

Extrude, I'd like to formally introduce you to Ted. Ted looks like me, he even sounds a bit like me sometimes, but he's not me. He's a Straw Man, he lives on the other side of the field from me.

I'm Jackson, I look almost exactly the same as Ted, but I'm not Ted. Sometimes I wish you'd come and talk to me and perhaps chat about topics we are both interested in. However, no matter how much I wave and call across the field, you're not interested in me - you're only interested in Ted.

This makes me sad and lonely, so I'm going to pick up my things and wander off so you carry on your discussion with Ted undisturbed.

All the best
Jackson Not Ted.

May 20

2 hours ago, Extrude Ragu said:

In this thread: loners come to pretend to be puritans to justify their life style, have no idea that actually yes, 30 year olds routinely being intimate with 50 year olds is common because they've never left their sl home.

As I think I mentioned before, I'm not particularly secretive about my SL in RL. In fact more than once I've walked through these forums - and my postings - with a few people from work.

Just by nature of the industry I'm in I spend 10 hours a day with people 20 years my junior (yep, I'm kicking on 60) and reaction - albeit anecdotal - is pretty much the same.

Surprise that SL is still a thing.
Surprise, actually, that SL looks as good as it does.
Confusion about the barely concealed antipathy and distrust towards newbies from oldsters (you must be an ALT of an ex !!)
Rapid perception that yep, SL does consist of a fair few elderly horn dogs who still enjoy the "idea" of sex, even if not the physical reality of it.

(Obviously while choosing to believe the other party is a 27 year old swimsuit model in RL, rather than a retired teacher on the same BP meds and Statins as they are ).
Rapid perception that the remainder of SL comprises people who spend all day in a skybox trying on virtual clothes and taking selfies.
Resignation that a once great idea has been relegated to a bad punchline.

I'll say again, no problem with sex, no problem with adult regions, or for the most part any exploration of other sides of oneself not easily expressed in RL.

But this is the reality of what I hear about SL from the outside world, and maybe we could come up with something other than the two options on the table so far.

Sex with Elders, and loads of it - the more the better - gumilingus pays the bills.
No Idea at all, our speciality is harshly critiquing every other idea - our only idea is not yours!!

So, to get back to the topic in hand.

Finer grained controls are coming, the mobile app is coming, and SL is likely going to head back out into the mainstream after a few years moored up in its cosy little backwater.

I've pitched my ideas of what those controls might look like in another thread, and others have taken a punt as well. I think we're all pretty aware of the real options on the table (not the 2 above thankfully), so we'll just wait and see.

May 20

6 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

IDK about that. I've had more than a few 20 and 30 somethings pretty interested after I told them I was much much older than they were. It's definitely not just younger women who like older partners.

keep-telling-yourself-that-darling-capta

May 20

7 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I like this idea. The family friendly coffee shop is through the front door, but the seedy dive bar is around the back, off the alley. This way there's something for everyone!

Exactly.

May 19

52 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

There are enough dead platforms to be able to draw some pretty stark conclusions at this point.

Make-your-own-fun social worlds live and die based on two simple points; Social momentum and adult content.

Social momentum can be explained with one very simple example. I used to use ICQ to talk to my friends. I stopped using ICQ when they did.

Social momentum will carry us a long way all by itself, but what gets that ball rolling and keeps it rolling is the availability of adult content. Take that away and the ball slows down and eventually stops, no matter how much awesome other stuff we have.

It doesn't matter if the bulk of the population aren't into adult content, in the absence of another driving factor, removing that causes momentum to fade.

VRChat and IMVU both have adult content. All other virtual worlds are dead or daycare.

This view paints a pretty bleak one dimensional view of SL, what it is, and what it could become.

the reality, thankfully, is far more nuanced.

Social momentum, the "snowball effect" of users attracting more users, is definitely important. The idea however that Adult Content is the one and only possible sustaining force driving that momentum is a pretty parlous perspective.

When did "Your World, Your Imagination" become "Your World, Your Imagination - as long as it's imagining ways to use a mouse with your non-dominant hand"?

Even if yours was the only way forward, sorry to break it to you - no one under the age of 40 is lining up to get nasty in SL, for the simple reason that no one under the age of 40 wants to do the nasty with someone twenty years their senior (which is the assumed current SL demographic), regardless how immersive the experience.

So we best think of something else, just in case

May 19

4 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

That is the second rule and would apply to moderate land. The rule about not being allowed on adult land is rule One. Separate rules.

#1 Entering any Region rated Adult. Residents must change to a non-child or non-childlike avatar to visit Adult rated regions.

#2 Engaging or participating in any event or location where nudity and/or sexual activity is present, encouraged and/or expected.

Yep, sorry - my quoting of the original was rubbish.

Thanks @Rowan Amore

May 19

28 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

The majority of the world is comprised of adults. Our platform, Second Life, caters to adults. It's not some small minded niche. It's the majority of the world and it's what we are and always have been.

Trying to turn Second Life into a family friendly mobile app to please Tim Cook is precisely what's going to turn Second Life into a niche product. It's not about stopping technological change, it's about knowing what makes Second Life Second Life.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the majority of residents interested in mobile would not mind if LL said "Don't use the app store if you want an unrestricted app. Open your phones browser, go to Secondlife.com and press download and install." if in return said residents get access to all the content they're used to getting. I don't think most residents actually care if their phones app comes from Google Play or Secondlife.com. This is the sort of thing only tech giants want you to think that people care about. They don't.

Even iPhone users I think would be understanding of the need to get a burner smartphone to get a de-cucked SL in this case. Not like there aren't enough phones sitting around in peoples drawers in the world that are otherwise e-waste anyway.

Sounds pretty good to me!

The thing is that Second Life is almost by definition a de facto niche; isolated and pretty widely misunderstood by the majority of adults out there. (or actually they understand us only too well).

I don't agree that the way to remedy that (if indeed we want to) is to say to the wider world

"you know what guys, we're leaning so far into our rep that the only way you can get our mobile app is via an android burner and an unrestricted app - don't in the name of all that's holy load us onto your main phone!!"

I'm not against sex or adult regions and I'm definitely not saying SL has to be family friendly. What we do have to be is new user friendly, and portraying ourselves as a seedy dive bar which you can only enter through the back door (so to speak) isn't great for that.

I know, I know, a lot of people in here love that idea and maybe a lot of new residents would as well - but at least let them come through the front door and grab a drink first

May 19

35 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

You don't need to be a 'freedom fighter' to open your computers browser, go to secondlife.com and click download app for windows.

The same can be done for android, a device that probably outnumbers the human population at this point.

This whole idea that this needs to be some omega battle of epic proportions to keep Second Life as it is, is silly.

Ok, so that's fine, we just disagree where the "walled garden" begins and ends I guess.

The crux of the matter is then "to keep Second Life as it is" - is that sufficient for anyone other than an aging demographic which has found a comfy cosy corner of the internet to wait out the grim ripper?

I mean we could just cut to the chase and have the tagline go something like:

"Second Life - we'll only do enough to guarantee you die before we do"

Not great, but it's definitely got niche appeal

May 19

14 hours ago, Extrude Ragu said:

LL bending over backwards to please the app store gate keepers.

It will never be enough. Google and Apple don't just want a piece of the pie. That is not how those companies operate. They will fundamentally seek to change the character of SL to their own vision.

LL, and actually not just LL, everybody should start learning to stop relying on app stores and living in walled gardens. Phones are just pocket sized Personal Computers, why are we giving some rich folk in san fran the right to dictate what code we run on our personal devices.

Unless you're one of the 4% (charitably ChromeOS takes it to 6.5%) running Linux on your personal devices, then you've been giving those rich folk pretty much carte blanche over your digital lives for about the past 30 years.

PC or Mac, Android or iPhone, either way you've been lining the pockets of the Holy Trinity far too long to be going all guerrilla freedom fighter now.

May 19

11 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I guess it depends on the model!

Much of my freelancing these days involves working on LLM and chatbot training projects. If there's one thing they still struggle with in this here 2024 (aside from totally making things up and getting a bit too sassy for their own good), it's nuance.

Maybe one day they'll get there. Maybe. 👀

I personally hate the idea of using AI for content moderation and hope they don't go that route, but that's just me.

That's really interesting Ayashe - maybe a chat for a different day though ..

We tend more to the domain specific end of things, lots of fine-tuning, but no personality required

We've been using the usual latest and greatest from OpenAI, Claude, and Gemini - but we get really good stuff from open source LLAMA3 too.

All the Best
Jackson

May 19

9 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Lol.

Don't mind me. That part just made me giggle a bit. 😄

It's not bad these days you know... nuances and all

if you take a go at just an open ended chat with GPT4-O it can be a bit off putting just how realistic it is. Then add in some fine-tuning or even just a large-ish context and it starts to feel definitely a bit weird..

My daughter loaded a fair chunk of Harry Potter into the latest Gemini and then asked to have a conversation with Hermione. Hermione was pretty articulate, and did display a surprising emotional intelligence

May 19

One other point to consider is that if you change your region to A rated, it's likely you won't be able to access your own land from the mobile app - regardless the apparent age of your avatar.

May 19

17 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Well if i am paying for land for the privacy then I would at least want it for whatever look i am putting together or wearing. I'm funny that way.

It's a pain but, unless LL create some sort of exception for the parcel owner, then the following will apply:

Quote

Residents presenting as Child Avatars shall be prohibited from the following:

Entering any Region rated Adult. Residents must change to a non-child or non-childlike avatar to visit Adult rated regions.
Engaging or participating in any event or location where nudity and/or sexual activity is present, encouraged and/or expected.
Wearing genital/sexual attachments including clothing, attachments or HUDs created for and/or worn by child avatars to indicate genitalia, whether visible or not.
Being fully nude. Child avatar content creators are required to add a modesty layer which is baked into child avatar skins or bodies, is not transparent, does not match the skin tone, and may not be removed.
Child avatars where the focal point of the body is on the breasts, pelvis, or buttocks
Participation in lewd or sexual acts in which one or more of the avatars appears to represent minors (or the depiction of such acts in images, video, textures, or text).

May 19

10 hours ago, Jaylinbridges said:

I think they will use these tools when they are investigating an age-play case, after an AR to Governance. The new rules just create too many edge-cases and affect to many Adult and Moderate regions for the tiny Governance to handle without AI help. That is a big concern in itself, but LL won't hire and train another 50 employees to enforce these new rules.

Governance does not do general surveillance - they need an AR to act on any violation. So, clubs and beaches where members don't tattle on their fellow club members should never be on the radar screen of LL.

Of course there is always infiltration by enemies. We can rename SL to Spy Life.

We can't talk about allegations that other high level Linden employees with access to everything were searching past chat logs looking for behavior against the TOS for persons they didn't trust. But Brad says new rules about access and Goverance are being considered, so "what never happened in the past" might be fixed.

It's a reasonable take @Jaylinbridges , and I think a fair picture of where we are now.

However, I do think it underestimates the current capabilities of LLMs and Inference engines, as well as where we might be in a couple of years time.

My punt is as follows:

LL could implement real-time filtering on messages at submission time.
Not as outlandish as it sounds with both OpenAI and Google rolling out real time conversational agents over the next few months.

Per Token cost might be an issue here, not technology or privacy concerns. Even that will be mitigated by self hosting an open source LLM - something like LLAMA 3 - with OLLAMA (which I run quite happily on a modern-ish laptop rocking just 16Gb RAM - albeit it not for 50,000 concurrent conversations )

Either way LL is an Amazon customer, and Amazon are already pitching their Bedrock and Sagemaker offerings.

Also leveraging multi-agent systems (something like CrewAI) could triage conversations to minimize the AI attention spent on harmless conversations.
Privacy is protected (as much as it is now anyway), because the conversation will not be stored unless it is flagged as potentially inappropriate.
Flagged conversations are sent to Humans for final review and decision making.
Mitigating False Positives:
LL has a goldmine of data collected over 20 years that could be used to fine-tune the LLM for Second Life's specific context and language. This would significantly improve the accuracy and effectiveness of content moderation, ensuring the AI understands the nuances of in-world communication.

This is technically feasible now, just not cost effective, but at the rate open source models and availability of inference compute are increasing, I give it 2 years for most companies, probably another 2 decades for LL

May 19

8 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Absolutely. But then, any change to the maturity ratings is going to involve a fair amount of churn. I don't think a lot of landowners and creators yet appreciate how much even the new guidelines for child avatars is going to involve recalibration. (In part, because a great many people are still largely oblivious to the change.)

Consider what designating some Moderate places as "mobile accessible" and "inaccessible to mobile" would involve in real terms. It's going to be a mess either way.

Also, who'll be doing the "designating"?

May 19

16 hours ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Not exactly. PCs and PC gaming are still quite popular and I don't really see that changing much. Known and lesser-known PC builder brands are currently partnered with the top streamers on Twitch and have ads all over. People are still faithfully following Linus and Gamers Nexus for build advice. Steam is still going strong. r/BuildAPC is huge and extremely active. That's where I've been getting all my recent advice from. 😄

The console market is a bit different. Different audience and games on console are difficult to mod (if you can do it at all - lots of platform rules and mod availability is lower than PC), and the modding communities for open-world games in particular are pretty massive. Plus, there's the entire streaming and YouTuber scene and their audiences who blindly buy whatever their favorite streamer is currently specced out with (and big PC component/peripheral brands like Corsair and Razer are loving that, I'm sure - they also do a lot of sponsoring of both big gaming events and individual streamers/YouTubers).

I'll note - many streamers do also stream via PS5 and Xbox Series X, but mostly only exclusive new releases. Most seem to favor PC. Then there are the lifestyle gamers who own everything, too - PC, Xbox, PS5, Switch, Steamdeck, retro consoles, etc.

The mobile market is different from both of those, as well. I think it's larger generally, but they aren't the same type of gamers, really. Their tolerance for "creative monetization" (lootboxes, gacha games, etc.) is higher than a lot of PC gamers, for example.

Second Life wouldn't really work well on console I don't think, just given how content is constantly being added and how laggy things can get. Not sure how it's going to work on mobile either. I really think mobile is just going to appeal to current users, but who knows.

Short version - nobody's running away from PC, and I do think Second Life will run best there. Console players often look for a different type of experience (very modern, sleek UIs and a tight, snappy response time, much like mobile gamers). Us PC gamers will put up with some major jank that others likely will not tolerate much. 🤣

I really like this analysis @Ayashe Ninetails thanks.

I'm most excited about the release of the mobile app, but more from a customer acquisition and onboarding perspective than anything else.

Current Market trends are towards a Unified Experience , so offering a unified but adaptive experience across multiple form factors - both in terms of a consistent design language, but also in terms of delivering adaptive feature sets.

This means ensuring that the platform provides a seamless experience whether accessed via mobile or PC, while also tailoring functionalities and access levels to suit each device's strengths.

Customer Acquisition through Mobile is proving successful across the industry, not just because of mobile's relative ubiquity (67% mobile to 33% pc), but also because of more widespread discoverability and reduced barriers to engagement.

If done right, then customers onboarded via mobile are very likely to download the PC version to be able to engage fully.

We're going to see some of this enforced anyway just by virtue of required compliance with App Store Policies. Due to content restrictions, particularly in adult environments, we will need to offer a moderated version of our platform on mobile, directing users to the full-featured PC version for unrestricted access.

At the end of the day, if the mobile app is well-designed, it will serve as a gateway, attracting a broad audience with its accessibility and convenience. The PC version, in turn, can provide a more immersive and unrestricted experience.

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