Madelaine McMasters

PeterCanessa Oh wrote: "the gostak distims the doshes" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gostak Warning: the explanation may fry brains Twas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe: All mimsy were ye borogoves; And ye mome raths outgrabe. - Lewis Carrol Speaking of fried brains...

Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to. - Mark Twain I find this particularly thought provoking in the context of SL.

4-12-2013 Linden Labs is accidentally listed for sale in the marketplace for $L1. Nobody notices. 4-12-2019 Ralston "Tent Pole" Nutwallow, inventor of Viagra, dies in a freak accident lasting more than four hours. 4-12-2059 SL Viewer V49 is released , earning a rave review. Within three days, the viewer is in use by 50% of residents. The lone holdout, DoeEyedVixen2055 Resident, refuses to download the new release for fear it will mess up V48, which is the first viewer she's ever used that doesn't freeze when she types the letter "P". 4-12-2064 PromiscuousPeppermintPatty Resident attempts to purchase a dollarbie black velvet painting of a Parrot playing Poker with a Pomeranian, a Poodle and a Pekinese, accidentally becoming owner of Linden Labs. When questioned about her good fortune, Patty waxes nostalgic about the days before Vixen finally installed V49.

Dillon Levenque wrote: Is there no limit to your nefariousness? Is this something you really wish to discover?

Parhelion Palou wrote: What a wicked & wonderful idea! If only I had that type of scale (and someone to try it on). Did you try to convince ex-hubby that the results indicated a fat build-up in the head? In the ten years we were married, I think there was ample evidence that his head was no fatter than mine. His lovely new wife does like to cook, so I can now claim to have smaller boobs than he.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it - Alan Kay ;-)

2017 - President Newt Gingrich announces plans to establish a permanent outpost on the surface of Saturn. When informed that Saturn is not solid, Gringrich moves the planned outpost to the rings and budgets extra money for a fence to keep people from falling over the edges. 2020 - Jo Yardley celebrates the 100th anniversary of the first April 11 of Berlin's 1920s. The normally bookish Ms. Yardley is found leaning against a streetlamp singing "Das Mädchen unter der Laterne" while drawing little smoke hearts in the air with an unfiltered cigarette in an elegant gold and ivory holder. 2026 - Pope RuPaul I takes papal purple to new heights by wearing an emethyst tiara to the 1/4 mile elimination races at Great Lakes Speedway. 2040 - Finally old enough to hold political office (and drink), Bay City Mayor Marianne McCann takes her first sip of beer and promptly spits it out, crying "Ewwwwwwww!!!" 2066 - The United States christens its first interplanetary cruiser, the USS Bowman. The Bowman's mission, to promote peace and grooviness throughout the galaxy will be cut short just two weeks later during a collision with the Martian cruise ship Carnival Juran, which swerves to avoid a vintage Millenium Falcon being backed out of orbit by an elderly Keli Kyrie. What could have been an interplanetary melee actually turns into an impromptu love-in as the lingerie clad Martians prove exquisitely sensitive to second hand smoke.

I just added to my reponse, go back and re-read it to make sure you catch a potential additional loophole.

Charolotte, I compared the source IP addresses for both valid e-mails from you and for the spam. They're different. Yet both kinds of messages pass through Hotmail servers, suggesting that your hotmail account is being used by someone else (though I could certainly be wrong). Change your password and see if the spam stops. ETA: check to see that no other changes have been made to your account. Sometimes there are secondary e-mail addresses where password reset messages may be sent. A spammer could insert an address there that would keep them abreast of password changes you make. (I don't know if Hotmail does this, I've seen e-mail systems that do.) Good luck.

Perrie Juran wrote: ETA to add, I would also like to debunk the myth that Martians talk out of their arse. That is a condition that in the whole universe only humans seem to have the ability to do. /me jots another note in her Things I know about Martians File... "May have arses. Don't talk out of them."

Knowl Paine wrote: That is an excellent example of Impedance and sources of it. Brings new meaning to the potential of Earth. A giant battery just waiting to be tapped. This force which attracts should be used as a mechanism. I wonder if the saturation point for Earth can be calculated. How much positive power could we send into the Earth before it would lose all it's negativity? If the ground on Earth is grounded, does that mean that the Earth is Negative? A unit of positive potential will tend to move into the ground or soil, or Earth. The Earth accepts the energy. If this were to be reversed, the Earth might send Energy instead of receiving it. These photos may show the same objects, only the scale has changed. It isn't "only" the scale that's changed. The cute li'l atom drawing (which is not at all representative of how the atom would look at any instant in time, thank you very much Drs. Bohr and Heisenberg) is governed by the weak and strong nuclear forces and the electromagnetic force. Gravity hasn't much sway here. That the model looks like a solar system misleads us into thinking that similar forces apply. They don't. The weak and strong nuclear force operate only over the tiny distances inside the atom. Outside, their effect is immeasureable. The electromagnetic force is so damned strong that you don't see it operating over vast distances, except in fairly weak examples, like electromagnetic waves and celestiall body magnetic fields. We would never see a large collection of electrons in one place because the repulsive electrostatic force would spray them apart. You similarly won't see large collections of protons in one place (beyond what can be held together by the nuclear forces) because of their mutual repulsion. And you furthermore don't see large collections of electrons in one place and large collections of protons elsewhere because of the massive attractive force between them would overpower anything in their path. For example, if I had a teaspoon of electrons in the galley of a battleship (ignoring the tremdous energy you'd have to expend to squish them all together into such a small space, which would increase the mass of the teaspoonfull to billions of tons) and a matching number of protons in a small container on the Moon, the attractive force between them would lift the battleship out of the water. (Never mind that the battleship would be torn to pieces by the electrons). Because of the tremendous attractive forces between electrons and protons, you rarely see them far apart. From a distance you feel no force from them because their numbers are exquisitely well balanced and their charges cancel each other out. The only force which we see operate over the large distances of your solar system example is gravity, which is fantastically weak compared to the other three forces. So, while your two drawings seem to differ "only" in scale, that difference in scale changes everything. The mechanics of the two situations are entirely different. So the entire concept of positive and negative only works over very small distances and at very low energy levels. Planets and Suns are neither positive nor negative, and currents don't flow between them. Matter (which is equivalent to energy by Einstein's famous e = mc^^2) may flow between them, shepherded along by gravity, but that's it.

Griffin Ceawlin wrote: Meh. The joke is on them. They'll find out later that the hawt babe that they've been bumping pixel uglies with is actually this guy's sister: Griffin, if she wears the same style glasses, I'm interested!

Verena Vuckovic wrote: So I take it you'd be quite happy for me to set up a group whose entire premise was that you were dishonest, a fake, fraudulent, etc, if you did not join ? You woud not find anything even remotely disagreeable about such aspersion by lack of association ? Well, I was at a funeral last night where the pastor looked out into the room and said he hoped that none of us had drifted away from God, as he was the only way to salvation. This was after he'd uttered some of the most curious things, including the "fact" that the deceased dying on Good Friday was proof positive of God's grand plan. Was I bothered by being told I was gonna be excluded from heaven? Nope.

Lia Abbot wrote: Hi friends. Just asking that you keep me in your thoughts. Something awful has happened. Suffice to say someone very close to me is in deep trouble with the law. I'm going to take a break for a while and try to gather my thoughts. Will do, Lia. Though it sounds ominous, I do hope everything turns out fine.

Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: ikr more than one times in these forums ppl has said to me 'u r not a RL chipmunk' n stuff like that i will not be forced to verify this pressure is unfair n cruel bad ppls bite me You know I've been harboring the suspicion you're actually a weasel, don't you? /me gives you a li'l nibble.

Phil Deakins wrote: Having a bad memory is very good for that, because I don't remember very much and I can read them again after a while, almost as though they are new to me It's the same with TV programmes. It doesn't take very long before I can watch the same enjoyable programme again without knowing the ending. I usually know that I've seen it before, but I don't remember the whole story and how it ends. It's brilliant My Mom is similarly afflicted and I sometimes envy her ;-) We did not have a TV when I was growing up, but we did listen to rebroadcasts of old time radio shows. I suppose there was a limited selection of episodes to replay, so repeats were common. Mom would laugh all the way through them while I rolled my eyes, as I'd heard them all before. Forgetfullness is bliss?

Freya Mokusei wrote: Verena Vuckovic wrote: I'm sure most women in SL have met the ( increasingly prevalent ) folks who *insist* on voice......and it is quite clear *why* they insist on it. The issue that I have is with inferences. Won't voice ? Won't 'verify' ? Oh....then you cannot possibly really be a woman. One is shoved into the 'fake' category by default. You'd have saved a lot of time by getting to your point right away. If this behaviour bothers you, then move on to new people. You're clearly not what they're looking for, and they're clearly not what you're looking for. Trying to weed it out with petty rules and doing so under the guise of 'protecting privacy' are both bad approaches. I'm not (I hope) terribly cynical, but I have encountered a couple "Verified RL" groups which immediately had me wondering if they were smokescreens. On a whim, I joined one briefly. I was never asked to verify anything. But, even if verification was required, that verification is a discrete, controlled event. So, if I wanted to verify as a male, I could get a male friend to make the verification call and I'm now a verified male. I'm with Phil on this. I feel no peer pressure from the existence of such groups and if I ever feel that verification is needed, I'll do it myself. Being a member of a "Verified RL" group is no different than being a member of any other kind of interest group. If "knowing" RL identity is someone's interest, it's helpful for me to know that.

Phil Deakins wrote: That's some job he has! And there's another guy on the other side. Yep! And notice that he must equalize potential between the power line and the helicopter with that li'l probe. The power line is moving up and down by maybe half a million volts, 60 times a second. The helicopter isn't. That's because the helicopter has a "displacement capacitance" which couples it to the universe at large, which on average isn't moving up and down like the power line. The arc you see jump from the powerline to the probe is carrying the current required to swing the helicopter up and down by the same voltage. The lineman doesn't want that current flowing through him, so he gives it a lower resistance path (the probe and cable). Our atmosphere has quite a bit of charge floating around in it (hence lightning). On average, from ground to the edge of space, the electric field increases about 100V per meter. We don't feel this because the impedance of air is extremely high, so currents (which is what we sense) are vanishingly small, but a sensitive enough instrument can easily detect this potential gradient. I remember getting my first oscilloscope and watching the trace wander up and down as the scope probe, dangling over the edge of the bench, swung back and forth. I then noticed that the trace wiggled a bit when I tapped my foot on the ground several feet away and moved even more when I ran my hands over my skirt, trying to pad away the static electricity that made it cling to my legs. That's when it dawned on me that the static electricity on our clothing creates electric fields no different than the radio station miles away. We all wander cluelessly through a muddle of electric fields, ranging from the slowly changing static on our clothes (excepting those pesky shocks) , all the way up in frequency until we can start to see it with our eyes (infrared). We are then blessed with the ability to glimpse just a narrow range of electric field frequencies (red through violet) before nature wanders off into the ultraviolet, leaving us blind once again. It was my frustration over not being able to see all these things around me that propelled me into science.

Phil Deakins wrote: Maddy's reply was much too simplified - in that yoiu look at the length of it and skip to the next post It's the 'potential difference' that matters - the difference in potential between one point and another. Current can't flow between two points that have the same potential. So you can hang on a high voltage cable with impunity as long as you don't also touch something with a much lower potential - the ground or something connected to the ground, such as a pylon that holds the cable up. An example follows... I'll keep this shorter!

JeanneAnne wrote: Knowl Paine wrote: What is the source of Impedance in the human body? Where does the resistance come from? Ohm's Law states: that the current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the potential difference across the two points. Introducing the constant of proportionality, the resistance, one arrives at the usual mathematical equation that describes this relationship im·ped·ance noun 1. Electricity . the total opposition to alternating current by an electric circuit, equal to the square root of the sum of the squares of the resistance and reactance of the circuit and usually expressed in ohms. Symbol: Z 2. Also called mechanical impedance. Physics . the ratio of the force on a system undergoing simple harmonic motion to the velocity of the particles in the system. 3. something that impedes; an obstacle or hindrance. I can understand where positive energy comes from, or how it is created; but where does the ground come from, for negative energy? Mostly from lipids & other nonpolar compounds that inhibit or impede the flow of ions. Jeanne Yep, those lipids are the fats, which like transformer oil, aren't as conductive as the the polar molecules and ions that drift about in water. Ever see one of those body fat bathroom scales (which are terribly inaccurate)? They try to determine your fat/muscle ratio by measuring the conductivity of the lower half of your body, through your feet. If you are heavy and not very conductive, the scale presumes you are a big ball of fat. If you are light and conductive, it presumes you're lean and fit. But the state of your feet makes a big difference. If you rub an oily skin cream on your feet before stepping on the scale, the impedance of the foot/scale interface will be high and it's gonna think you are fat. If you soak your feet in salt water before standing on the scale, you'll make a good, low impedance connection and it will think you are thin. It's important to know things like this so you can convince your hubby (okay, ex hubby) to soothe his dry feet with skin cream before getting on the scale, while you (okay, me) soak your feet in epsom salts. Keeping your composure during the discussion that follows the weigh-in is another matter altogether.

Knowl Paine wrote: 11 paragraphs is simplified? Just kidding, thank you for taking the time to reply. I've read it 3 times. I realize that the impedance of a cell does vary with the cells electro-chemical state. Could the source of the impedance be simplified as to be found in the source elements in the body? Chemicals are elements. Humans might be better identified as electro-elemental. What does the body need; what does the brain need? Let us consider an stable element like Gold. Does the Human brain have synapses (receivers) for Gold? Tiny, tiny , tiny little speck of Gold floating happily in your body, arrives at the Brain, jumps across to the synapse, and fits perfectly, snuggled into a node on the synapse, that has been in the brain since birth. Then.... something happens, science only knows. How about Silver? What is the brain's response when these synapses are activated / stimulated? You do not have to answer any of these questions directly. I'm just presenting the questions. I do have a larger continuing theory, but getting into some of the other subjects would take us way off topic. Well, it was 11 paragraphs that spanned a lot more than you were asking, so it was oversimplified in the sense that I simplified over a vast area ;-) As Jeanne says elsewhere, you don't find bare elements at work in our biological machinery. We are made of complex molecules that store, transform, and transmit energy. Unlike the sorts of electronic things we make, which perform their "magic" by transporting only electrons or electromagnetic fields over large distances (transistors are just now approaching the size of a typical molecular machine), biology is all about using electricity on a molecular scale to power actual physical machinery. These machines are exquisite... Gold, silver and other metals aren't found much in biochemistry because they don't join up in the sorts of molecular engines and energy storage structures that biology needs to work. We are made mostly of CHNOPS (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur). There are other elements (20 or so) used in smaller amounts for specialized purposes. The basic six elements are all lightweight (P is heaviest at 31, your Gold is 197) and make useful connections with each other. Man made electronic devices are vastly faster than our molecular machinery because they use highly conductive metals which are rich in easy to accelerate free electrons. As a result, signals in electronic devices move at nearly the speed of light, compared to that 110 mph of nerve impulses, which have to crank around large molecules. But what our biological machines lack in speed, they make up for in density and efficiency. And that biological machinery is constantly rewiring and rebuilding itself. We've yet to master that in our man made devices, as we still don't know how to rearrange molecules as deftly as nature. The brain's reponses to stimulation is still largely a mystery to us. We have theories of behavior at the largest scale (psychology) and at the smallest scale (neurophysics) and at levels in between, but we're a long way from figuring it all out. The brain has a mind of its own. ;-)

PeterCanessa Oh wrote: Tl;dr, I skipped from: Madelaine McMasters wrote: ... the body, which one might roughly consider as a bag of salt water overall... To: ... jiggles 60 times a second... Now I don't know whether to be offended or excited ^^ Both?

Knowl Paine wrote: What is the source of Impedance in the human body? Where does the resistance come from? Ohm's Law states: that the current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the potential difference across the two points. Introducing the constant of proportionality, the resistance, one arrives at the usual mathematical equation that describes this relationship im·ped·ance noun 1. Electricity . the total opposition to alternating current by an electric circuit, equal to the square root of the sum of the squares of the resistance and reactance of the circuit and usually expressed in ohms. Symbol: Z 2. Also called mechanical impedance. Physics . the ratio of the force on a system undergoing simple harmonic motion to the velocity of the particles in the system. 3. something that impedes; an obstacle or hindrance. I can understand where positive energy comes from, or how it is created; but where does the ground come from, for negative energy? I'm gonna oversimply greatly here, Knowl, but I hope you get the general drift. The resistance comes from the chemical composition of the body, which one might roughly consider as a bag of salt water overall. If you look at smaller structures, you'll find different impedances. Bone has higher impedance than blood, as it contains less water and salts. Skin, which is dry on the outside, has a much higher impedance than internal organs. Resistance to the flow of electricity is dependent on the chemical makeup of the thing. Metals have electrons they easily share, other elements do not. When you introduce water, which is a solvent for a great many other chemicals, you can get ions (charged atoms), which also allow the transport of energy, although not as quickly as by trading tiny, fast, electrons. As for the positive and negative potentials, they are found everywhere within the body, formed by ion exchange, much like that in batteries (or better yet, fuel cells). Nerves conduct electrical impulses via ion-exchange (typical human nerve conduction velocity is about 110 mph). This is different than the way wires conduct electricity, which is through the direct flow of electrons. Most of the conduction in your body is done via a cascade of cellular charge/discharge cycles, powered by the food you eat via a nifty chemical called ATP. Chemical energy extracted from the decomposition of nutrient molecules (think sugar) is stored in ATP for ready use by cells when needed. The impedance of individual cells varies with their electrochemical state, as does the potential difference across their cell walls. As chemical reactions take place inside your body's cells, the potentials measured across the cell surface will change. It's a bit like having a battery in the cell and moving the probes around the inside to change the potentials you measure on the outside. One end of a cell can be more positive than the other one instant, and more negative the next. You don't feel these potentials when touching someone because they are very small (less than a volt) and the cells are not all lined up like a stack of batteries, they're jumbled all about and if you stick two meter probes into a body almost anywhere, you get the average of these many cell potentials arranged willy nilly, producing almost no signal. But it is ALMOST no signal. We can and do measure collective voltage effects of large bunches of cells in the body when we take your ECG (heart), EEG (brain) or EMG (muscles). These signals are vanishingly small (millivolts to microvolts). And we must be very careful when trying to measure these signals from the outside of your body because there is a lot of intervening muscle, fat and worst of all, dry skin. That's why ECG electrodes contain wet salty gels, to hydrate your skin and provide a good salt-water bridge to your wet inner self. The term "ground" doesn't really apply inside a body. There are simply potential differences, whether across the tiny dimensions of a molecule, a cell, an organ or the entire body. The term "ground" comes from the power industry, where the power generation grid's "common" point is actually connected to the Earth itself to prevent dangerous voltages from appearing on things we might touch. In your home, the "neutral" wire is connected to your home's plumbing (which goes into the ground) as a safety precaution. Absent such redundant ground connections throughout the power system, it would be possible for electrostatic charge to build up on the power wiring to the point that lightning bolts would fly from the outlets in search of a return path, which might be you. (This would happen if power lines were struck by lightning). By tying at least one part of the power generation grid to ground, the highest potentials you would find anywhere on the grid are those there by design (such as 120V, 240V, etc). This is also why lightning rods are connected to ground, to provide a return path for lightning strikes, so they don't burn through your roof and home (which are not nearly as conductive as the lightning rod's ground wire, but are conductive enough to damaging currents from the lightning bolt). We carry the term "ground" into other situations to refer to whatever part of the entire system we are going to reference everything to. If you jabbed two voltmeter probes into your arm, you'd be forgiven for calling the black probe "ground". Curiously if you tried that, any measurement you got would probably be more a reflection of the electrochemistry between the metal of the probe tips and your wet insides than of anything actually happening in your arm (like involuntary muscle contraction (and the signals that creates) because of the pain of being stabbed by meter probes ;-). If you ever did a copper/zinc/lemon experiment when young, you know that if the meter probes are not exactly the same metal compositon, you will make a battery if you stick them into something even slightly acidic or alkaline (blood is very slightly alkaline). Finally, if we talk about the body as a whole, you do want to avoid injecting large currents through it, which can cause injury or death. The heart doesn't like being electrically upset (nor does the brain), so passing large currents through the heart (as might happen if you grasp two power wires with your hands, provding a path right through the chest) is not a good idea. Curiously, the electrochemical processes that make everything work in your body move much slower than the speed of light, so you can actually pass large alternating currents through your body if the frequency of alternation is much, much faster than the response time of cells in your body. This is why high power radio technicians can accidentally receive nasty burns on their hands without suffering a heart attack while power company lineman receiving the same shock may go into cardiac arrest. Your heart can respond to a current that jiggles 60 times a second, but not to one that jiggles 60 million times a second. But just like the roof of your house bursting into flame, the conduction of electricity generates heat, sometimes enough to burn. Okay, that's the (stream of consciousness) nickel tour. The full tour will require a few years of engineering school, which will take you out of the dating scene for longer than you may wish ;-)

There is no doubt that SL has had a lasting impact on me. Never in my life have I had the opportunity to share in the kind of joyous playfulness I find here in the company of truly intelligent and thoughtful people. It's an amazing place, Cinn.

The bad LM was actually an error and I was pretty sure she too would enjoy the irony of it all, which she did. She's gone from SL now, and dearly missed.