Madelaine McMasters

I've posted this example of my inventory sorting technique before. It hasn't changed.

It really isn't. The world ain't flat because there are people believing it to be so, nor is this particular thesis correct because of some self-proclaimed annoyingly political person says it is. It's really not difficult to conjure up problems where there are none, when you want to project and assert a political delusio-- Ahem, ideology. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that a bookbinder would judge a book by its cover. That's actually probably appropriate for the eye candy show that SLB is.

I shall imagine a retro-future in which I've learned how to edit a post.

Okay! Google "african warriors 1800s", then "british warriors 1800s" and tell me which influence is most present in the black man's attire. Do the same for "women in africa 1800s" and "women in britain 1800s". Do you see any african women wearing anything as impractical as a corset? Do you see many British women who aren't? Google "women in india 1800s", you'll find they also had the good sense to avoid corsetry (as did most British women, btw). The example of Japanese steampunk you found is of a Caucasian woman wearing what seems to be a renaissance faire outfit and Steampunk monocle while holding a Japanese parasol. She's at Comicon London. Next time, take 6 minutes? The movie "Black Panther" took a much more considered approach to African retro-futurism.

4 months. https://www.britannica.com/event/Victorian-era

Well, put yourself in 19th century shoes and then see if you'd be fascinated by machines, gears and the like. This is, I think, the heart of retro futurism. We feel nostalgia for the wide eyed optimism of that age (as seen in print advertisements ;-), and the fanciful future they imagined, but never realized. Over a century later, we know how their future panned out. There are less optimistic views of the future from long ago. My favorite is Metropolis.

I loved that movie and marveled at Scorcese's long, unbroken, tracking shots.

The problem with that explanation is that Steampunk isn't an accurate retelling of history, it's retro-futuristic science fiction which focuses on the 'age of steam', and yes, that historically started in Britain (although if I'm to be nit-picky again, James Watts didn't invent the steam engine, the ancient Greeks knew that steam = pressure = power, but they didn't find any practical applications for it like the British did centuries later - in fact James Watts didn't invent the modern era steam engine either; steam engines were used for powering drainage pumps throughout the 18th century and roughly half the 17th century, James Watt's inventions included pieces which made the engines much more effective, such as the Centrifugal Governor, invented in 1744 - a piece of tech we still use to this day. Also, James Watt died in 1819, the Victorian era doesn't begin until 1838, so he was not 'Victorian'). .. That's one big parenthesis. Anyway, yes, Steampunk is a form of science fiction, it does not by any means have to include Britain or British culture or any of the political or religious beliefs of the British of the time; there's Steampunk fiction set in ancient Egypt wherein the power of steam was harnessed to build even more and bigger pyramids and temples (with cogs on 'em!). The claim that Steampunk must include any British/Victorian stuff, or at all even be set on our own planet, is as ludicrous as claiming that any fiction featuring a bicycle must be set in Scotland. I never said Steampunk was an accurate retelling of history. I said many understand it as retrofuturism. I also didn't say James Watt invented the steam engine (Hero's parlor toy didn't usher in an industrial revolution). I said that his steam engine was invented in Victorian England. That Watt died four months before the start of the Victorian Era is hardly consequential. It's not like Queen Victoria set out a "Pardon My Dust" sign on the eve of her ascension and pulled the tarp off the following morning to reveal her new and improved Era. By the time the British Empire began pushing steam powered industry out to the colonies, the pushers were recognizably Victorian. The Iron Duke, Japan's first steam train, was introduced 1868 by Thomas Glover of Scotland, who became one of Japan's top industrialists. Here's his family... His wife, Yamamura Tsuru, is in the center, wearing a Victorian dress. To be fair, cultural exchange is an exchange, and Japan certainly had influence on Europe at that time. I didn't think Glover would be an isolated example, so I went Googling. Following are the "search strings" I used to locate the subsequent images. I picked only images showing trains and people. Those shown here are the first such results returned. "china's first train" Look at the people in the crowd. Look at the people in the train. Does Steampunk tell that story? "india's first train" "egypt's first train" "new zealand's first train" It seems you can’t swing a dead cat through the world’s history of steam trains without hitting a top hat or a bustle. If virtually every culture with exposure on the world stage today has Victorian steam imagery in its history, what does something like "Japanese inspired Steampunk" actually mean? I also never mentioned Steampunk requiring or depicting any particular political, economic, or religious ideology. When I look for a Steampunk outfit, I don't wonder if it represents Communism, Capitalism, or Christianity, I want it to complement my Victorian pocket watch. Similarly, when I look for a Steampunk airship, I want absurd, impossible juxtaposition, like one of riveted cast iron, powered by squirrels wearing goggles. But, I think I'm part of the problem that Scylla identified. While Steampunk doesn't require any particular ideology, it represents Eurocentric nostalgia for a dreamy future that never arrived. I think your example of Egyptian steampunk actually illustrates this. I'd not heard of it, so went looking. That search bumped me into Archeopunk, which is a broader version of Steampunk that transplants futuristic technologies (often alien) into ancient civilizations. Arkworld Comics are listed as a prime example of the Genre. Here's a paragraph from Screenrant.com describing Egyptian Steampunk: For example, the people in ArkWorld still believe in Gods (though the Gods have apparently abandoned them), have Egyptian names, wear ancient Egyptian-styled jewelry, call adults their elders and attend to cats with unnaturally pointy ears and massive, protruding fangs like bobcats. But these same people use technology that would not be out of place in a sci-fi comic, though most of their designs are deeply rooted in ancient Egyptian culture, like pyramid-shaped alarm clocks, an electricity power system called the Pyramid System, so-called comms that look like ATMs but display Egyptian runes, old Egyptian-styled temples that can float in mid-air, and flying vessels (though half the world apparently still travels in wooden boats). I’ve highlighted, in red, a phrase I find revealing. Only the designs are deeply rooted in ancient Egyptian culture? What about their actual culture and their dreams for the future? I think this is an admission that Archeopunk is a coat of paint over an underlying Eurocentric, or at least Western faux nostalgia. Do we really think that ancient Egyptians wanted more and better pyramids for their dead despots, or temples for their absent gods? Could this be unwitting condescension for an ancient culture we've only seen depicted in movies? The more I dig into this, the more I realize that Scylla’s concern over the Eurocentrism of Steampunk is well placed. As I said in my previous post, I'd be happy for LL to use retrofuturism, or faux nostalgia as a theme, in the hope that I'd see something other than steamed cooked Western-Industrialism wrapped in another culture's bun. As an official theme, or even a suggestion, my biggest complaint about Steampunk is that it simply doesn't invite the kind of exploration I'd like to see. Been there, done that. It could be worse though. They could have asked me for a theme.

In fairness to rationality, I'd find it hard to justify promoting SL at SXSW with the image of a woman dressed in sexualized attire, with an "Eat Me" tattoo just above her genitals while simultaneously banning the display of female nipples.

An easy spin on Googlewhacking?

There's no way we can answer that question here. Whether your mobile device is using 4th or 5th Generation (not GHz) radio technology is something you must ask your mobile device. On Apple devices with cellular interfaces, a 5G connection will be indicated in the status bar. https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/10/26/how-to-tell-which-aspect-of-5g-youve-connected-to-on-iphone-12 I don't know how you'd determine this on an Android device. Having 5G capability on your mobile device doesn't mean it will make a 5G connection. That only happens when you are within range of a 5G capable tower or hotspot. Over the course of a day, your mobile device might flip back and forth between 4 and 5G hundreds of time, or not at all. In my neighborhood, it's not uncommon for my 4G capable iPhone to get no data service at all. There are a few spots where I can't even make voice calls.

I've zero points and two warnings, both for inappropriate language I was able to sneak past the naughty word detector.

It's happened to me, too. I think it's a forum software glitch.

The Wild Wild West should be on that list.

I think that image might have worked better if the woman had been facing away, looking back at us over her shoulder, with "Bite Me" tattooed on her bum.

...sets everyone on fire.

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about here, but I've got the laptop open in the kitchen and my oven is warming up. I've yet to see a Steampunk scene that didn't contain more than a hint of Victorian England, as all the images in this thread show. There's a very good reason for that. James Watt's steam engine was invented there, and British Colonialism rapidly spread steam power, initially in the forum of trains and ships, across the globe. All of those trains and ships were introduced by people wearing Victorian fashion. Few people are actively aware of that history. Though the steam age is part of every modern culture's lore, that lore is local. The earliest movies in any industrialized culture are rife with images of steam power and the local fashion of that time. Young Japanese searching for nostalgia on film will see steam power everywhere, but probably won't know that the first locomotive their society ever saw as an "Iron Duke" from Britain. The same is true on every continent. Steam power was like nothing that came before it and it propelled us into the Industrial Revolution. Nobody here in SL escaped that. While history buffs might see Steampunk as Eurocentric, I imagine many enthusiasts understand it as just trendy retro-futurism. That's universally appealing because we're wired to notice juxtaposition and to ponder the "what ifs". If we think SLB 19 as a celebration of retro-futurism, does that seem more inclusive? Personally, I like pushing retro-futurism back a hell of a lot further, all the way to the Flintstones. But, that's harder to depict in SL, which favors the static, the geometric, the symmetric. So, we're left sticking gears and goggles on everything and calling our retro-futurism "Steampunk". I think I find Steampunk more inclusive than Scylla's "Crystals" (if I understand her use of the term correctly). Though crystals are amenable to depiction in SL, the supernatural power of crystals only exists for those who believe in the supernatural power of crystals. Steam power exists for everyone.

Did I get that right?

Greatest loss imaginable? Kids, I think we have an explanation.

If you think your feelings about hand size are disordered, why inflict them on anyone else?

Ooooh, I'd have offered to slowly pull all the cloves out of you... with my teeth. People are gonna wonder which of us is the real ham, Ms. Rhiadra.

Ooooh, I'd have offered to slowly pull all the cloves out of you... with my teeth.

You'd sing a different tune if you ever felt her glass smooth skin, heard her hiss as you unscrew her top, or experienced her bubbly personality. And her taste, oh her taste. So much sweeter than wine.

Every cube in this avatar is mathematically as "perfect" as SL allows. When I go out in public as this, a little devil with a blowtorch, or a cloud of decaying morality, I get more comments than when I go out as human. Others don't seem intimidated by this "perfection". All else being equal, I'm more likely to approach avatars that visually impress me. If I want to know how they did it, they're the ones to ask. Similarly, when I'm at a sandbox, I'm drawn to those who are noodling with the most interesting creations. I think I understand your question, but wonder if it comes from a faulty intuition about the nature of "perfect" people. I've found them to be as warm and generous as anyone else. Do we do them, and ourselves, a disservice by presuming otherwise?

I absolutely don't want to look like males. I want to look like Anne Francis.