Madelaine McMasters

Sy Beck wrote: Is this not tediously boring and a terrible summary on life that any one actually cares this much about a collection of pixels? I treasure photographs of my late Father, which are... a collection of pixels. I do believe you miss the point. It's the story, Sy.

I'm going to take issue with the idea (cribbed from your blog) that... _____ Forgetting” is important here, for to integrate with the machine the human being must “forget” a great deal, including much that makes us human, makes us, as individuals, singular. As Kumiko insists, "If we converted a memory into digital 1′s and 0′s or some other form of language then it would only be a matter of time before we began to manipulate it. We would cut our sorrows and manufacture outcomes in order to create a shiny surface to our lives with nothing behind them." _____ I think this is backwards. Forgetting is both human and humane. The flawless and endless memory of machines is both inhuman and inhumane. Imagine remembering every slight, every insult, every harm done to you over the course of your life with the precision and immediacy of digital recall. I want (and cannot escape) the ability to forget, and to temper my memories to shape my own narrative. The first pick in my SL profile is "Friendship", which contains the following quote... “Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.” -- Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887) We manipulate our memories every time we recall them, coloring each retrieval with the light our or current selves before filing them away again... or not. We cut our sorrows, and if we're lucky, we manufacture outcomes in order to create a shiny surface on which to skate into the future, full of hope.

Dillon Levenque wrote: For example, there's a portrait I love above all others,.I first saw it in a book of history in which all the illustrations were monochrome. It was years before I saw it in color—I remember mentioning it to my father and he said, "The one with all the reds". I didn't know what he meant about red so I went to the library. Velazquez's "Innocent X". I do not have a print of that portrait in my RL house, because it would only be a copy. But the very first thing I did when I built my first little cabin in SL was to upload a texture of that portrait, put it in a prim, and hang it on the wall. And I do mean the FIRST thing. Before the furniture, even. In SL, it can be the original. I even have a somewhat colorful (or is it off-color?) story of exactly now it came into my possessiion. Velazquez's "Snugs on a Good Day" is a favorite of mine as well. I love the story of how it came into my possession... The thing I like best about art in Second LIfe is that we can be part of it. We can look, but we can also enter. Places like AM Radio's now vanished sims were immersionable art. Also, we can be part of art literally. I was once part of a group of people captured in an image of the diner in Edward Hopper's 'Nighthawks". The thing I like best about art in Second Life is that we're all afforded the tools to create it, and the proportion of playful people here seems higher than in RL. Everybody who comes to Second Life must partake in the ancient art of storytelling more consciously than we do in RL, where life often just happens to us. Here, everything is elective.

In addition to Rolig's excellent advice, there's a small possibility the sofa is right where you left it, but wasn't rezzed when you logged-in. There was an "interest list" issue with the viewer that I think has been mostly resolved, but perhaps not completely, as I still log in to find my sofa, or one of my home's walls missing. Right-click where the sofa should be and it may re-appear.

Hi Tianna, I've not heard of this problem before. But I do see that you're running a old version of Firestorm, which is currently at 4.5.1.38838. I'd recommend doing a clean install of the latest Firestorm viewer... http://www.firestormviewer.org/downloads/ There's a link on the page for doing a clean install, which they recommend. Backup your settings (do so for every avatar you operate) before the update... http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/backup_settings And, if you wish to save old chat logs, you'll need to do that manually. Here's a thread that discusses those logs... http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Viewers/Firestorm-chat-logs-saved-or-not/qaq-p/1012015 Good luck!

valerie Inshan wrote: Mornig guys!!! Wet hugs from Frace! It's pouring non stop here. Ineed floaters!!! Love you! What on Earth were you two doing last night? I've never seen eyes that red! Good morning, Kids!!!

Sy Beck wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Sy Beck wrote: Maddy, Look again at the question in the title of the OP. Yes or no? I'll argue your technophobia and nihilism in another thread. ETA Steve Jobs was not dumb Mac adherents are dumb, yeah I said it. ETA I know what you think because you write extensively, unless..... P.S Can we have a baby? When did OPs start constraining threads here? I don't believe Glyph is competition for anything. So that would be a "no". Technophobia? I retired from a career as a technologist. Nihilism? I'm an optimist and I've no idea what the future will be like. But I would be surprised to see Oculus Rift or Glyph mentioned in the history books. But Glass will be, even if only by virtue of being the brainchild of the world's largest historian. Adherents might be dumb, I don't go by the book because of that concern. But I don't know that Mac adherents are any different than Windows, Democrat or Catholic adherents. Nor do I believe my concern prevents me from being an adherent. I'm not sure what I think, so I'm sure you don't know. Unless you're an RL woman, wish to adopt, love changing diapers and have a ready and compelling explanation (because my little world will surely ask) for why there's a woman and a baby living with me... no. ;-) OK standard courtesy is to address the question or the title. Yay for answer...I agree btw , but that was already obvious. Retiring does not mean you give up your beliefs or practices. Glass will not be attributed to one person and all three will be recorded in history somewhere and may even be avaiable on Glass 2.5 Wiki section Umm a Mac adherent would be very different from a Windows adherent wouldn't you think? I would agree on the other differentiators though. It matters not what you think of yourself, write enough and people will form a popular opinion of what you think. Just so you know, nobody loves changing diapers, but I readily except that there might be a fetish for it. I shall have to ask LeeHereAbsent who is my go to woman on these matters. It's now way past stupid o'clock here so expect no response till October. Standard courtesy would be for adherents, no? Google, while (I think) the world's largest historian, is not one person, so I think we're agreed on the attribution. Opinion is not knowledge. You said you know. That's your opinion. I don't think I know anything. That's my opinion. ;-) !

Sy Beck wrote: Maddy, Look again at the question in the title of the OP. Yes or no? I'll argue your technophobia and nihilism in another thread. ETA Steve Jobs was not dumb Mac adherents are dumb, yeah I said it. ETA I know what you think because you write extensively, unless..... P.S Can we have a baby? When did OPs start constraining threads here? I don't believe Glyph is competition for anything. So that would be a "no". Technophobia? I retired from a career as a technologist. Nihilism? I'm an optimist and I've no idea what the future will be like. But I would be surprised to see Oculus Rift or Glyph mentioned in the history books. But Glass will be, even if only by virtue of being the brainchild of the world's largest historian. Adherents might be dumb, I don't go by the book because of that concern. But I don't know that Mac adherents are any different than Windows, Democrat or Catholic adherents. Nor do I believe my concern prevents me from being an adherent. I'm not sure what I think, so I'm sure you don't know. Unless you're an RL woman, wish to adopt, love changing diapers and have a ready and compelling explanation (because my little world will surely ask) for why there's a woman and a baby living with me... no. ;-)

Sy Beck wrote: I perceive that you agree with me that its (Glyph was it?) competition is with the Google Glass. Google Glass is not much different than this "thang" other than its one selling point being that it has vastly better alpha layer from the Glyph from the fact that it is glass. It will be down to the consumer whether they prefer wrap around immersion while their car drives autonomously or whether they would like to half see the gamble that they have embarked upon. And while basing your assumptions about the future based soley on what you feel is emotionally valid it does not take into account what the early adopters of today and the future users will prefer or be conditioned to use. And believe me, any man will put down any tool for the real life love or the chance of a real life encounter with woman. The same as PC player now, a wrench holding guy in the 50s, a slide ruling guy in the 1800s and a club wielding neaderthal just trying to carve his name. **bleep** always win otherwise we wouldn't be here. When the software/hardware industry encroaches upon that then we are in serious trouble. Anyway Oculus>Glyph getting back on SUBJECT ETA No man or woman is as dumb as you or Steve Jobs think/thought they are ETA Steve Jobs was the most underrated crook in history ETA The next generation as well as the present (SL included) generation of games are being made to be Oculus Rift compatible ETA I still think Oculus will not be the leader in this field , but some company who will take it to the next level No, I do not think Glyph is competition for Google Glass at all. The stillborn never get into the race, Sy. But that's not the reason it's not competition. Glyph is forever tethered to a content delivery device, be it a phone, tablet or PC. Glass stands on its own. I don't think there's a comparison here. I think the mention of Glass in that article (and perhaps the name Glyph) was just name dropping. I don't think Steve Jobs thought people were dumb. I believe that's why he was ultimately successful. I also don't think you know what I think. In the grand scheme of things, SL is a blip, Oculus Rift is a blip. There are sea changes afoot and I don't think immersive virtual reality is one of them. If course I could be wrong, and I hope I am. If I'm right, I already know what's going to happen. Where's the fun in that?

It's been said that all people really want is to be missed, or appreciated. I might add root-beer to that list, but recognition is lovely and attribution is a vehicle for delivering it.

I'd offer you my partner, Snugs... but we seem to be inseparable. Good luck in your search, Jason. ;-)

Sy Beck wrote: However, I do think it has more of a chance, as mentioned in the article, in competing against the Google Glass or in its own niche of a tablet/laptop plugin. Google Glass is entirely different. It's a standalone device overlaying real-time data on your field of vision, while simultaneously watching/listening to the environment. And it's got all of Google's magic behind it. Glyph is nothing more than the same virtual screen technology that's been around for 25 years, warmed over for the umpteenth time. It requires another device to serve the content and has no services behind it. It blocks your view of the real world, meaning it's immersive, which is dead, not augmentative, which is where the world is going. Steve Jobs lampooned the Zune when it came out, with a comment that really got to the heart of the matter... "I’ve seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you’ve gone through all that, the girl’s got up and left! You’re much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you’re connected with about two feet of headphone cable." What chance does Rift or Glyph have with young men who, regardless of their love of tech, still eventually want a girl in their life? I'd much rather sit on a sofa with an iPad balanced on one of my knees and one of his than play Prince and Princess of Dork by wearing those monstrosities. He can't find my knee if he can't see it, Sy. (Yes, of course he can, but you get the drift. Until the lights go out, he's going to want to see something, and so will I.) I believe Glyph will be stillborn and Rift will die during childhood. ETA: I can hope for the demise of Google Glass, but there's enough milk for it until its teeth come in.

Perrie Juran wrote: I don't think it was an example he used but one that I think of is the Television as a baby sitter. It doesn't always work but it can quickly turn a group of rowdy kids into a very passive group. What is it about a television that can capture a persons eye and they suddenly find themselves mindlessly watching even the Teletubbies? Brain activity is lower while watching television than when we're sleeping. That sounds shocking until you realize that, while we're sleeping, the brain is furiously working through the day's unsolved mysteries. Nevertheless, while we're awake, it's hard to find a more brain numbing actvity than watching television. I've seen those Teletubbie things. They scare the bejeebers out of me!

Perrie Juran wrote: Coby Foden wrote: There is an interesting article about HDMs (Head Mounted Displays, like Oculus Rift for example) and VRD (Virtual Retinal Display, like the Avegant's Glyph). It seems that HDMs in prolonged use will have some unwanted effects to our sensory system not solved so far - maybe never will be. On the other hand the VRD is claimed to be more natural way for the eye to at. HDM has screens (one for each eye) which are very close to the eyes. VRD has no screens, the image is projected directly to the retinas. There's also a difference so that Oculus Rift is totally immersive virtual scene what one looks at, the Glyph is like looking on a screen projected some distance in front of the user. For example wearing a Glyph one can still see the keyboard sitting on desk which is not possible with Oculus Rift. Link to the article: http://cityofnidus.blogspot.it/2014/01/altered-reality.html I've been a bad boy not posting any comments up until now. I happenned to see the article about the Glyph on one of my news feeds and because I knew of the interest in Occulous here I posted it up. I thought there might be a general interest in it. But getting to your post, years ago I read a book, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. It's a very interesting book and has some great discusion on the impact of visual imagery on people. As I recall one of the issues he raised in the book was that the way an image is produced on a TV, that there is actually never an entire image on the screen like you would have when watching a film, that it had a negative physiological effect. I can't argue for or against what he wrote in the book, especially since it's been ages since I read it. After reading the book I did cut back a lot on watching television, especially when I realised how much the content I was seeing was being filtered by some unknown persons for me. Even to this day I watch very little TV, preferring reading or just being out with friends to it. Think of the mounting evidence that sitting in a chair is terrible for your health, then question the benefits of creating a headset that requires you to... sit in a chair. All those young kids getting together to ignore each other while texting on their phones are probably more active than their parents, sitting at home in... Second Life. People are not only social creatures, we're "natural" creatures. If the augmented reality of interactive maps on phones encourages us to wander out onto the streets and into the woods again, I'm all for it. And finally, after nearly a lifetime without one, I now find myself sitting down twice a week with my Mom to watch episodes of "Sherlock" via Amazon Prime and PBS.org on... a TV! ;-)

Coby Foden wrote: It seems that HDMs in prolonged use will have some unwanted effects to our sensory system not solved so far - maybe never will be. On the other hand the VRD is claimed to be more natural way for the eye to at. I saw a VR headset for the first time in 1986, I think. We were on a family vacation, passed through Dallas and visited a SIGGRAPH conference. Yes, we're an odd family. I think it was there that I got to wear a headset connected to a computer simulation of a gridded room, in which I could grasp objects while wearing a sensor laden glove. I thought it was pretty cool at the time. A year later, Dad and I went to Anaheim to visit another SIGGRAPH. While in grad school taking computer graphics courses, we discussed something like the "Tetris Effect". Some time after that, I recall reading a medical article about a California man who'd become addicted to an immersive VR headset game. He was having visual hallucinations outside the game which interfered with his ability to function. Physicians attending to the fellow noticed similarities to LSD "flashbacks", which were once believed to be perhaps caused by latent bits of LSD coming out of hiding, but were eventually determined to be the result of neural rewiring during the original LSD trips, as the brain attempted to make sense of the hallucinations. Well, immersive VR is really a visual hallucination, right? So if you expose yourself to such a thing for extended periods of time, it's not surprising that your brain rewires in an attempt to make sense of a world in which you can penetrate solid objects, in which your body lags your intentions by hundreds of milliseconds, where audio cues are out of sync, gravity does not exist, etc. Once the rewiring happens, you may find alternate, unproductive or dangerous neural pathways being triggered when you are outside the game. Oops! I have no idea whether the designers of Oculus Rift considered this during the design of their headset, but if they didn't, they will be deserving of every ounce of derision that comes their way. Also back around the time I was in college, there was a movie called "The Last Starfighter" about a teen boy who was recruited by good aliens to pilot a space fighter to help them defend against bad aliens. The genesis of the movie was, as I recall, a story about the US Air Force recruiting young men with good video game skills, with the belief they'd have superior hand-eye coordination and might make good pilots. A few years ago, I read a report revealing that extensive video game experience actually diminishes those faculties necessary to pilot a high performance aircraft. The explanation was that flying a real aircraft requires integrating sensory information from the entire body, and that video games where an emaciated substitute. The Air Force now considers extensive game play history as a minus when considering pilot candidacy. I learned to fly when I was 16 and I'll tell you that "flying by the seat of your pants" means exactly that. If you can't correctly sense the g-forces on your plane via your buttocks, you're in trouble. Even the best video games provide only a small fraction of the sensory input of a real world experience, and training yourself via games is likely to lead to trouble when you encounter the real thing. This is why airline/military flight simulators are so damned big and expensive. They do nearly everything a real plane does, including give you five-point-harness rash. There's a mountain of historical evidence that says immersive virtual reality is a dead end. There's also a mountain of evidence to suggest that young entrepreneurs don't study history. That's okay, there are more than enough people on Earth to allow a good percentage of us to waste our time. If only a small fraction of us discover something grand, it's been worth it. ;-)

Coby Foden wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Where the hell do people sit? :smileyvery-happy: :smileytongue: I am sooooo tired of cleaning up after you kids...

Hola Bellabelen, La venta de cuentas es una violación de los Términos de Second Life sección 11.2 Servicio (TOS) de. Si usted posee los registros de chat de un residente que intentan vender cuentas, copiar, aquellos en la sección "Detalles" de la ventana "Reportar Abuso". Aquí están las instrucciones para la presentación de un informe de abuso ... http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Filing-an-abuse-report/ta-p/700065

Hi Niccolo, First, nobody can kill your avatar. He can annoy you, he can harass you with objects that follow you around a sim or try to crash your viewer by overloading it, but he can not cause lasting damage to your avatar. You simply teleport away and he's gone. You block him and he's gone. You tell your friends to do the same and he's gone. If you block him, he'll not be able to IM you, nor will he appear in your view when nearby. It's almost (almost ;-) as if he's not there. If you own a Linden Home, I believe you can ban him, so he can't enter your house. If you rent, ask your landlord if the stalker can be banned from your sim. If you have chat transcripts of his threats, file an Abuse Report including them in the "Details" section of the report window. Instructions for doing so can be found here... http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Filing-an-abuse-report/ta-p/700065 Good luck!

valerie Inshan wrote: Morning Hippie! Happy Friday to you! Ready for the Olympics? I' in for gold!!! (Maddy can have the bronze medal ) Hugs you all! Bronze? I can't eat bronze! I'm going for the bone... with marrow! ETA: Hi, Kids!!!

I watched a little documentary of Steven Mann's work while at MIT. I was struck by the issues raised by the unfailing memory of his body worn video recorder, which did not match his personal recollections. The perpetual memory of the internet may be the biggest headache it brings to us. We are wired to forget, which allows us to forgive. My first encounter with both augmented reality and "The Internet of Things" was in 2000, when I attended some conferences at MIT. I had interesting discussions with Neil Gershenfeld and others about the invisible encroachment of machine intelligence into everyday life. At that time, Gershenfeld was working on "personal area network" devices that you'd wear on your body, and which would communicate with each other through you. One example was a thingie you'd wear in your shoe, which would conduct a signal up through your body to your hand, which would then complete the circuit with another person during a handshake, exchanging contact information with the thingie in their shoe. One of the most interesting things I learned from Gershenfeld was how hard it was to harvest waste energy from human motion to power these things. Getting the power was actually pretty easy, but getting enough while going unnoticed was not. Extracting even 100 milliwatts of energy from the sole of a shoe was detectable by the wearer and 300mW was unbearable, making it feel like you were walking in sand. In the more than a dozen years since those meetings, I can't count the number of excited, hand-waving news stories I've read describing how we'll power our cell phones and flashlights from "waste energy" produced by the human body. Meanwhile, Nike spends a fortune to engineer shoes that return as much energy to your foot as possible during each stride, because we are quite aware of losses in our footwear, and will pay good money for shoes that minimize it. Maybe the rapid pace of technological advancement can't help but leave the lay press (and even much of academia) in the dust, but that doesn't decrease my frustration over the sensationalizing of things that are impossible, impractical or just plain useless in general. Oculus Rift risks being something like that, just like SL! Don't you love living in a niche? ;-)

Hmmm... Groups should vanish 48 Hours after the member count falls below two, which is why it's often recommended to enroll yourself and an alt in any group you create. There should be no fee extracted for simply having a group. I've had two for years and pay nothing for them. If the groups owns land, that'll prevent deletion and cause fees. Abandon it. If there's no land involved, you've got a double stumper there, AvantGarde!

Hi Alethia, Welcome to the forums! Come back and give us more information. Tell us about your computer, your network connection, what you have tried and what's not working. Are you able to launch the viewer? Do you get any error messages? We're happy to help, but we'll need something to work on!

LepreKhaun wrote: Anything that "promises to beam movies, video games or even video calls directly into your eyeballs" will soon be so yesterday... Just need a few volunteers for my ocular nerve implant prototype tests and I'm off to Kickstarter. Anyone? Virtual reality goggles were "so yesterday" when I first saw them more than twenty five years ago. I think immersive virtual reality is dead, to be replaced by minimally invasive augmentations to real life. There will be small niches for such things as Oculus Rift, but I don't think the mainstream will never adopt them. And implantible gizmos are a loooooooooong way off, even if you only consider malpractice insurance for such elective procedures.

Hi Sam, Snapshots saved in-world are always stored as physically dimensionless textures at a resolution of 512x512 pixels, which has an aspect ratio of 1:1. When saved to disk, or to your profile feed, they retain full resolution and aspect ratio. In-world pictures only look right when displayed at the same aspect ratio as when taken, which depends on your monitor's aspect ratio in fullscreen mode, or the aspect ratio of the viewer window when in windowed mode (normal), or on the settings in the Snapshot window (did you know you can take snapshots with resolution in excess of 6000x6000?!). When viewing snapshots from inventory, you can select various aspect ratios from a drop-down in the lower right of the picture viewer window. If you retain the default "unconstrained" aspect ratio, dragging the window corners allows you to change both size and aspect ratio. If you select any of the fixed aspect ratios, dragging a corner will change only the size. When texturing a prim with a photo, you must make the prim's display face match the aspect ratio of the original snapshot. Unless you know the exact aspect ratio of that snapshot, you'll just have to stretch and squish until you get the right look. I hope that helps!

Hi Dianna, Did you check out the Henmations website? There's a whole column of manuals on the right side of their home page... http://www.henmations.com/hp/