Phil Deakins

Not quite The space shuttle is a rocket - invented in Germany, and continued by a German in the U.S. Candy apples? Maybe, but who knows? We call them toffee apples. Soft drinks (represented in your list by coca-cola and pepsi)? Again, who knows? Drive-ins aren't an invention. They are merely a way of marketing an invention. What's a "cotton gin"? A cotton Jenny? Probably invented in the U.S. Television? That was John Logie Baird (Scotland) and Marconi - where was he? He doesn't sound american, but he might have been. Lobster traps? Who knows where they originated? The rest aren't inventions.

Alright. So my electric light bulb and aeroplane suggestions have been shot down in flames, but I think the Internet suggestion still stands. Packet-switching is all well and good, but it isn't the Internet It's rather like Tim Bernars-Lee(?) inventing the hyperlink. It's said that he invented the Web, but the hyperlink isn't the Web. It's merely something that is used to facilitate the Web - AND BT claimed to have invented the hyperlink earlier, anyway.

Brilliant! Made me LOL. Trivia: The very first international cricket match was played between Canada and the U.S.

I wouldn't have known either, but one of my premium accounts got an email with a link etc. The other premium account didn't get an email, but the reason is probably at my end.

The electric light bulb? The aeroplane?

Somebody said... name an actual original American Invention... Try hard, there are fewer of them than you think... The Internet? I think that's right. It started in the U.S. as Arpanet, or something like that, didn't it? Which, I think, was an inter-college network, and grew from there.

You need to move.

Done it, Whirly. Things aren't loading properly but I dropped it anyway. Hopefully you'll get it.

Duly dropped.

@Muiregwen I don't have anything to add to what the others have said, but I do want to give you a pat on the back for coming up with something that will make a nice hobby for yourself within SL. Plenty of people find hobbies and plenty don't. I like to think that having something like that to do makes SL a much more interesting passtime.

On temp rezzers: Most people realise that, for about 16% of the time, there are 2 instances of each temporary object rezzed simultaneously, because the next one is rezzed significantly before the current one is removed by the SL system. But what many people don't realise is that there are sometimes 3 instances of a temporary object rezzed simultaneously. When it happens, there are always 2 instances rezzed and, for some of the time, 3 rezzed. It happens when, say, a temporary sofa is sat on (temp rezzers were often used for furniture, and probably still are). The system doesn't remove temporary objects when they are sat on, so the one that's sat on stays rezzed, and the rezzer still rezzes the next one. Then, of course, the one after that is rezzed before that next one is removed, making 3 rezzed simultaneously for a while. The rezzing system can be scripted to stop rezzing if the current instance is sat on, but I doubt if any do. Mine didn't (I created and sold one back in the day). Note: I have a Linden-made temporary objects detector if anyone wants a copy (created by Frontier Linden). He gave it to me many years ago, and once in a while someone will find mention of it in the archived forum and ask for a copy.

I'm on Firefox 60.0.2 (64-bit) AND on Windows 10, and I'm not having that problem, or any similar problem. And I keep Windows up to date automatically.

They are not free. They are a Premium perk. LL plugs the Premium gifts as being a part of the Premium membership. Premium membership costs money, so whatever comes with it is paid for.

Because of this thread, I got the crystal place. I normally don't get the Premium gifts, because I never see one that's of interest to me. I have 3 observations about it:- 1. The dragon takes 2 clicks to rez and stay rezzed. It rezzes on the first click and then poofs in about half a second. Clicking it before it poofs, causes it to stay rezzed. So 2 quick clicks are needed - for me, anyway. 2. The crystals don't look like crystals, because they don't have sharp edges. 3. The teleporter is nice. The script can be removed and placed in any object if the pseudo-crystal shape isn't desired. For me, that's necessary because the crystaline teleport object tends to disappear (not transparent) after being used. My graphics are set to midway between low and mid, and I have to up the graphics setting to get it to show again. If the crystals looked like crystals, I'd possibly use it, but I'm unlikely to use it as it is. I might make use of the teleporter though.

You have the patience of a saint, Qie. While all that was going on externally (you writing message is external), I wonder what was going on in your head that you never divulged I read the whole first page of that thread, and one person posted something that rang a bell with me - that some (inadequate) people desire power, just for the sake of it or, more especially, to be seen by others as having the power. The bell it rang was from years ago, when I was in the Concierge group, which was owned and moderated by LL. It sometimes got spammed, of course, so a few members asked LL if they could be moderators so that they could deal with the spam. LL agreed, and they were given moderator privileges. The first thing one of them did was try to direct the discussion, in that he said that a particular hot SL topic, that everyone was talking about, has been discussed this morning, so stop discussing it now. I refused, and he ejected me from the group. You could only get in the group by an invitation from a Linden, but he ejected me. I learned later that he only intended a short suspension but had made a mistake. He who was set up specifically to deal with spam, decided that he was now something special and proceeded to excercise power over other things. Another of those who were set up specifically to deal with spam asked me, "Do you think we should let them discuss anything they want?" Power. They were given it for one specific thing and immediately extended its range, just because they could, and they liked it. Your SL14B case wasn't too dissimilar, Qie. A user believed that you infringed the LL ToS, stating that it's LL's rules and not theirs, and asked you to change something. A Linden then said that you weren't infringing it at all, so there's no need to change anything. After that, the user decided either that the Linden was wrong, or to invent a new 'local' ToS, and you had to comply. Power. Some inadequate people want it, not so that they can do good with it, but just for the sake of having some power over other people.

No. The viewer makes no difference.

It all depends on the landlord's circumstances. It could be the way to do bad business.

Maybe someone once sent 'huggles' to someone, meaning 'hugs,' of course. But the recipient misread, or mistyped, and inadvertantly replaced the 'l' with an 'i' when sending hugs to someone else, and so the nappies version spread Well, maybe.

Thank you for the link. I listened to most of it. It confirmed a suspicion that I've had, and posted a number of times, about mesh. It is that LL didn't bring mesh in for avatars. They brought it in for objects, and they hadn't intended or expected it to be used for avatars. That fact does highlight a way in which LL works. They saw what users were doing with mesh, and they followed it. They didn't just leave the users to it, because it hadn't been their intention. They actually sat down and worked it into SL. From what was said in that interview, it sounds like that's not uncommon.

If it were chips (plural), I'd want a battered fish with them - not a motorbyke And they wouldn't stay on my shoulder for long. They'd be eaten in minutes

@Qie Niangao You've got me thinking - not very productively, but thinking nonetheless. LL wouldn't want to offer the option to buy a private, low-prim, sim to all Premium accounts, without the need to own a full private sim, because it would most likely cause the gains they've recently made in mainland ownership to deteriorate to some extent, but they could offer such an option to the highest of the upcoming Premium levels, so that the user would need to pay for the highest Premium level in order to qualify for one. Like I said, my thinking isn't very productive, but I enjoyed it

@Callum Meriman It's how I knew he'd been previously banned.

Chip? What chip? Explain please.

I know it is. That's what I looked up when his profile wasn't available in the web search. It's why I told Theresa that "I see what you mean".

To be fair to LL (and I'm not even suggesting that you weren't), there used to be only one landlord, and that was LL. LL LL has a product - Second Life - and Second Life is land (and sea). That's all it is. So it's not surprising that they would seek to earn more from it. And, of course, lower land costs is something that we users have been asking for since forever. I don't consider it to be "moving agressively" into any market. They are merely selling their own product. So any impact on landlords doesn't bother me. We've all been asking for lower land costs, and it was always known that it might affect some landlords.