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Madelaine McMasters

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Everything posted by Madelaine McMasters

  1. You are you. You don't need to fit any category. None of us do. Well, thank you, Colleen! I do pretty much my own thing, and don't go looking for groups to join. Still, I am curious whether my little devil avi would be classified by others as belonging to some sort of group. ETA: I do think of myself, both in SL and RL, as something of a Looney Tunes character.
  2. Yeah, I caught a bit of that discussion too. Neko, furry, tiny, dinky, anthro... It got me wondering what the hell I am, besides intimidating. I don't have a human face, so I'm not neko. I don't have fur, but I do have a tail and horns. I am tiny by human standards, but I've no idea where I fall on the devil standard distribution. So, what am I, besides intimidating?
  3. Years ago, I read about the case of a young man in California (IIRC) who experienced flashback hallucinations after spending thousands of hours playing a VR game using a headset (this must have been in the days of wireframe animations, as this was more than twenty years ago). VR can be indistinguishable from a drug induced hallucination, and there's a theory that such hallucinations cause the brain to feverishly rewire in an attempt to make sense of things. Done to extremes, both VR and hallucinogens can result in so much rewiring that the brain can jump tracks onto that wiring, producing flashback hallucinations in the absence of either drugs or VR. This particular fellow was having coordination problems, presumed to result from his ability to move through objects in the virtual world. The real world was far less accepting of such attempts. This raises potential concern that the development of tolerance to VR might result in some intolerance of RL.
  4. I rarely read about the biggest challenge of VR, which is that headsets don't create gravitational/inertial stimulus to match the visual/aural simulations. Do you know if your vertigo issues are inner-ear related? The stimulus provided by our inner-ears and mechanosensory systems (touch, joint position and load, etc) are integral to comfortable proprioception. Your buttocks (when sitting) and feet (when standing) are integral to anchoring your frame of reference. If what we see doesn't match what we feel, we get uncomfortable. If you raise your right arm in RL and don't see that reflected in your VR visuals, you'll become disoriented. In mouselook, the majority of your visual field is probably still the real world around your computer. This anchors your proprioception and keeps you from becoming disoriented. Nevertheless, you still feel discomfort. A VR headset would mask all of that comforting feedback, leaving you with increased sensory dissonance.
  5. I imagine VR would make you vomit!
  6. Well, sometimes I am being satiric, but it's in a context where everybody would appreciate it. My neighbor's poodle is a complete asshat. When I visit, I often bring a little treat, then coo to him, "You're such a good match for the floor mats in my Miata that I'm going to use your pelt to make replacements." He eats up my mock enthusiasm and the treat. My neighbor is so tickled by the juxtaposition that she's taken to doing the same with her husband.
  7. How about post-mortem videography? Here's Dad, a couple months after his death in 2008. Some of his ashes are in the rocket... Max recorded altitude was 8300 feet, after which the parachute ejection charge poofed him into the sky. That altitude hardly compares to what he achieved flying Corsairs during WWII. I made it right two years ago when I lofted both Mom and Dad in a weather balloon on Halloween. I've no way of knowing at what altitude the balloon burst but, according to the instructions that came with it, it should have been between 100 and 130 thousand feet. That's nowhere near the Karman line (330K) that's considered the edge of space, but there's only so much you can do on a budget of $200. ETA: Mom’s sitting under the umbrella.
  8. It is possible for an impulsive assault to be triggered or exacerbated by premeditated animosity towards whatever difference is presented. Are you suggesting that the analysis of impulsive crime must ignore contributing factors?
  9. Even people who fade away and return are not necessarily being deceitful. Though SL is not an "escape" for me, I know it is for some who have difficult real lives. I can't begin to understand such difficulties, so I'm slow to judge those who vanish and return. I simply hope they are well and that anyone they left behind heals and moves on, as I do. It's pretty rare for me to encounter someone who purposely tries to hurt others. Giving the benefit of the doubt seems prudent to me.
  10. I've had quite a few friends go missing over my 14 years here (and many more over my much longer life online), some via death, most for unknown reasons, some anticipated, some quite surprising. I know I'll survive the grieving process, so it's just a matter of waiting it out as I continue to plug along. Some of those disappearances have been deceptions, but that doesn't negate what I got while they were with me. I remain eternally grateful for that, and wish them well. I can recreate anything I thought they took.
  11. The degradation mechanisms for vacuum tubes are different than for solid state devices. While there are components in power supplies that are stressed by power cycling, that stress will be compensated for by a good designer. The rest of the system is generally insensitive to power cycling, and ages entirely due to on-time and operating (or even storage) temperature. If you aren’t using it, shut it down.
  12. Yep, that's you, almost eleven years ago...
  13. I missed a comma on that tattoo. I was supposed to be Nothing, Last's Forever.
  14. You're okay in my book, Pheeby! Do it, I have no regerts...
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