Phil Deakins

I like it too - but the Halloween pic is a bit gruesome

I haven't read every word in this thread but I've read a fair amount and I have a few thoughts on some things that have been said. 1. No part of the human body is obscene - ever - anywhere in the world. 2. Being topless is normal/allowed/legal on any beach in many parts of the world, and I mean females. 3. Females being topless in public is legal in New York, and probably in other parts of the U.S. too. 4. Being naked in public in England is legal - men and women. 5. If the SL ToS prohibits females being topless in G rated sims, then there is no argument, and it is foolish to argue about it. The only possible argument is whether or not the ToS allows or disallows it. Any other argument is irrelevant. Opinions about what should or should not be are different, but they are only opinions and they change nothing. In SL, the ToS is the only thing that counts.

Sorry, Perrie, but I can't resist Perrie Juran wrote: I will not apologize for the fact that Evolution, as he/she/it progressed the human male from our Neanderthal state to what we are today, did not choose to remove from us the genetic material that causes us to become aroused by the sight of a female breast. And while when I was a teenager I may have ejaculated more than I urinated, as I have grown older that has reversed itself so I think as scientists refer to the sexual function of breasts as secondary, so has sex become a secondary function for my male member. Neanderthals died out a very long time ago and, although there is or has been some research to determine whether or not anything of the Neanderthals exists in any of us, we are an entirely different species of homo erectus. I tickled me when I read an old book - early 20th or late 19th century, I think - when a chap ran into the room ejaculating, closely followed by his wife. The image of that made me laugh. Some words have come to mean spomething quite different over time, and that's one of them. So what were you doing as a teenager? Blurting things out (vocally) or what?

Drtamersameeh wrote: Second Life tells people " Come on buy Bitcoins using Lenden Dollars at Virwox terminal in Second Life" so I buy Lenden Dollars and then the support department tells me "Sorry, you can't sell the Lenden Dollars or buy Bitcoins for 30 days" Aha! You answered my question as I was writing it. Virwox is nothing to do with Linden Lab or Second Life. It's a totally seperate company. Your problem is with Virwox and not Linden lab.

Where did you see Linden Lab advertising that you can buy L$ and exchange them for bitcoins? I've never heard of it. I did a search on Google and I see that Virwox deals in bitcoins as well as L$. If it's a Virwox ad you saw, it's nothing to do with Linden Lab or SL.

I'd never heard of that before. Just a note: Turning 'Show Draw Weight for Avatars' on disables the ability to see floating text anywhere on the parcel you are in, and maybe in the whole sim you are in. Turning it off again doesn't return the floating text but TPing to a different sim and back sets it back to normal. Just an oversight on LL's part.

LOL! Actually, I don't pop up in phishing threads a lot but you can name them after me if you like, Porky. I bit of fame(?) can't go astray. I rushed to point this one out because the way that ZoneAlarm put up the notice in my browser almost shocked me, and fired a large alarm in me. And, at the time I pointed it out, I actually thought it was virus-spreading site. What I do mention quite often is the technique of posting a normal(ish) looking post that will later be edited to contain links to other websites - for search engine promotion. It was someone else who realised that it was happening, and it struck a chord with me because I used to be in the search engine business so I understand exactly the reasons for it. It's a neat method that I hadn't come across before, but it's not something we want here. If they wanted to, LL could deal with it at a stroke, and very simply and quickly, so that the method would automatically fail in this forum.

Yes. It's a phishing site.

How about that. Christmas day and all those spam posts have been removed. Quick, eh?

It's Christmas Day and what I'm wondering is if the spam will even get removed today or even tomorrow. There is one thing that LL could do that would prevent the type that pretends to be a normal post but some time later, when it's slipped down the pages of threads, the author changes it so that it contains links to the sites that the author is promoting in the search engines. It's to limit the time when a post can be edited. A day would be more than enough. And a day wouldn't be anywhere near enough time for a thread to slip out of sight. This forum software does allow the editing period to be limited so it's something that LL could do very easily. Info: search engine spiders crawl links, and threads that have slipped down the pages of threads are still crawled and indexed by the search engines. And it's the links in posts, pointing to the promoted sites, that the spammers want - not the post itself. That's why that type of spam happens.

iCade wrote: Thanks for the warning, now I'm hoping people aren't actually silly enough to go there, nevermind trying to actually buy Linden from them. The spamming should raise a big, fat warning flag but y'know...there's always people falling for it >.< Yep. The fact that it's all over the forums should prevent everyone from being scammed. It would probably have had some success if it was only posted once in a suitable sub-forum but some scammers don't have the wherewithal between their ears.

The virwex thread - the thread title starts with "5000" - is dangerous to click on. Just clicking on the thread's name in the list of threads takes you to a dangerous site according to my anti-virus programme (AVG) so DON'T CLICK ON IT. The post contains an auto-redirect that automatically takes you to the virus-spreading site. You may get a fleeting glimpse of the post and, if you're extrmemly quick you may be able to prevent the auto-redirect by pressing Esc when you see it, but if you don't have a very good anti-virus programme, don't even try it. ETA: Correction. It's my ZoneAlarm firewall that stopped me going to the site, stating that it may phishing. So it's not a virus spreader. ETA (again): It turns out that the post doesn't auto-redirect. I decided to continue past the ZoneAlarm warning that prevented the p[age from displaying, and it's the post itself that I was warned about. So I went to the virwex site and some other thing from ZoneAlarm popped up across the top of its page, saying that the page/site is "suspicious". So ZoneAlarm has the site blacklisted. Whatever the reality is, it's certainly spam because it's all over the forums now. So clicking on the thread isn't dangerous as I'd first thought. It was the way that ZoneAlarm displayed a large box in the browser and prevented the page from showing that caused a large alarm in me.

Qie Niangao wrote: Oh do let's interrupt the re-arrangement of deck chairs and settle this pressing matter of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Alright, Qie. How many do you think can do it? Personally, I think it depends on what dance they are doing. For instance, a slow smooch uses a lot less space than a jive, so a pin head could accomodate more angels if they are all smooching.

Masami Kuramoto wrote: Either way, it does not matter. Second Life and OSGrid are not web pages, they are not web sites. The distinction in this, for the general public, is semantic. You should consider yourself lucky that Mr. Deakins called your goof a "small mistake." If I had said similar nonsense, he would be all over it. Not at all. I wasn't all over your statement that a grid is technically a website and I wouldn't have been all over you using the word "webpage" instead of "website" either. I simply corrected a mistake you made about grids. It's you who chose to argue it out like this. It's not dissimilar to me correcting you about W3C and standards. It's a small thing but, like grids and websites, you may choose to argue it for many forum pages. Just in case you do fancy arguing it, read the W3C site and check first.

Masami Kuramoto wrote: Persistent connections to web servers have been around at least since HTTP 1.1. In fact web servers using HTTP 1.1 do _not_ close a connection unless the client requests it or a timeout occurs. This has been used for pipelining (i.e. multiple requests over a single connection) as well as services that needed to push updates to clients. Since HTTP was not really intended for that kind of thing, its use has now been superseded by the WebSocket protocol, which is basically a fake HTTP handshake to establish a generic full-duplex TCP connection. Websites were able to host interactive content before WebSocket was around. WebSocket merely introduced a way to do it in line with W3C standards. A website that implements the same services with non-standard protocols is still a website. This is what the distinction between "technically" and "formally" is all about. And it's even narrower because you say that a grid is not a website but it is technically a website. You are putting words in my mouth, Mr. Deakins. Wow! I wish I was so clever as to accuse the opposition of the same things that the opposition found fault with me over. Why didn't I think of that? Dammit! Ah but you forgot one very small and minor detail. When I said you put words in my mouth - several times - you'd actually attributed words to me that I never said, so I was justified in picking you up on it. If you want to turn the tables with the 'words in mouths' thing, you really need to find something that I've wrongly attributed to you. But you couldn't do that because you have actually said that a grid is not a website but it is technically a website. That's your whole point. It's what you've been arguing about - that a grid is technically a website but not actually a website. Yes, persistent connections can be used with websites. Do you have a point to make by saying it? You keep asking me if I feel cornered and I've told you that I don't so why keep asking? Do you think it will get you into my head? Not a chance A person is only cornered if they are backed into a corner. If anyone here should feel cornered, it's you. You're the one who has to skip over things you don't have answers for. And you're the one who has to try to gain the upper hand by putting words into my mouth, and then replying as though I said them. And you're the one who stands totally alone in this argument - nobody sides with you. And you're the comedian who produced links to non-documents when they are, in fact, html documents. That last one did made me laugh, and I appreciate it Just one little thing. W3C don't, and can't, produce standards. They produce recommendations. That's all.

Masami Kuramoto wrote: Phil Deakins wrote: A website is a website by its very nature. A browser can display and render various things that are not documents; e.g. Flash, video, music, voice etc. The way it displays them is by embedding them into documents. So websites are document-based. But the browser can't actually display or render those things. It calls on extra programmes to do it. Nevertheless, a website needs a webpage to hold the embedded things - a document shell. Click this link: http://www.mozilla.org/media/img/home/firefox.png What do you see? A PNG image, embedded into nothing. The image _is_ the document. Wrong. It's an html page (a webpage). See below. Click this link: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/ What do you see? A folder on a FTP server, embedded into nothing. The folder _is_ the document. Wrong. It's an html page (a webpage). See below. Click this link: http://www.youtube.com/embed/YE7VzlLtp-4 What do you see? A Flash applet, embedded into nothing. The applet _is_ the document. Wrong. It's an html page (a webpage). See below. Browsers have been able to handle "foreign" formats and protocols since the beginning. Sometimes support is built in, sometimes it requires a plugin. However, it _never_ required a web page. The red bits above are my short comments. My longer comments are below. For the first one (Firefox image), I see:- <html><head><meta content="width=device-width; height=device-height;" name="viewport"><link href="resource://gre/res/TopLevelImageDocument.css" rel="stylesheet"><link href="chrome://global/skin/TopLevelImageDocument.css" rel="stylesheet"><title>firefox.png (PNG Image, 117 × 125 pixels)</title></head><body><**Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://www.mozilla.org/media/img/home/firefox.png"></body></html> It's an html document - a webpage. For the second one (FTP), I see:- <!DOCTYPEHTMLPUBLIC"-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>FTP directory /pub/ at ftp.mozilla.org</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> and then the BODY content, in which is the text content that you see. It's an html document - a webpage. For the third one (Flash), I see:- <!DOCTYPEhtml> <htmllang="en"dir="ltr"> <head> <title>Big Buck Bunny - YouTube</title> and then the rest of the Head, followed by the Body, in which is embedded the Flash that you see. It's an html document - a webpage. They are all html documents - webpages. What point were you trying to make? Oh yes. I remember. Your point was that:- "Browsers have been able to handle "foreign" formats and protocols since the beginning. Sometimes support is built in, sometimes it requires a plugin. However, it _never_ required a web page." (the bolding is mine). Really?

The money is paid to those who are entitled to it about a day after it was received (after the land was sold). If you own the group, make sure that you are the only one who can receive the money. If you don't own the group (if you deeded the land to somone else's group), get in touch with the group owner and ask for it to be sorted out.

"You can export region archives from OpenSim. They include the scene graph in XML as well as all the attached assets." I'll grant you that regions and websites have those things in common - like a car and motobyke. It doesn't make a grid 'technically' a website though, any more than a motorbyke is 'technically' a car. They are both transport but they are not the same thing, not even technically. If something is technically a something, then it is that something. If a kitchen appliance is technically a washing machine, then it washes things and, therefore, it is a washing a machine. "Would you consider a live update of a web page via AJAX a document? How about Cloud Party's use of WebSocket communication?" Yes to AJAX (javascript and XML). I wasn't familiar with Cloud Party so I had a quick check via Google. It appears to be a programme that runs in a browser. About Cloud party. It doesn't make any differecne what protocol data transfers use. Using one that was designed for the web doesn't mean that the thing on the server end is a website, or that the local thing is a browser. A website is a website by its very nature. A browser can display and render various things that are not documents; e.g. Flash, video, music, voice etc. The way it displays them is by embedding them into documents. So websites are document-based. But the browser can't actually display or render those things. It calls on extra programmes to do it. Nevertheless, a website needs a webpage to hold the embedded things - a document shell. A grid does not need a document shell to hold the 'action'. A grid is a programme, and the viewer is a programme that connects to the grid. Unlike a website, neither of them needs anything to be in the form of a document. With a grid, it's often useful to have some data in the form of documents, but it isn't actually necessary. It is necessary with a website. A website is an entity that can be accessed with a browser. You open your browser and you go to the website - you fetch a single page of the website but you don't connect to the website. You simply fetch a single page and that's the end of it, unless the page has something embeded that needs a connection to be open. You can't do that with a grid. For a grid, you need to open a different programme (a viewer), and connect to the grid. You don't fetch a page from the grid, you fetch data that is understood by your local viewer programme. And you stay connected to the grid. Unless you are connected, you cannot use the grid at all. It's self-evident that a grid is fundamentally different to a website and that the two are not the same. They may or may not use some of the same data transfer protocols, and they may or may not use some of the same data formats, but they are fundamentally different things. They are not even technically the same because they achieve different things - i.e. they don't do the same things. "Even if I was right, I would still be wrong. Do you feel cornered, Mr. Deakins?" You wish If you were right about anything, I would say so. We are only discussing one little thing - whether or not a grid is technically a website - and you are wrong about that. It's such a narrow thing that there is no room to be right about different aspects and wrong about others. I've agreed with you about documents. Actually I've taken your word for it, because it makes good sense to me, which means that I haven't disagreed with you about it. But there's precious little possible common ground here because the disagreement is about such a narrow thing. And it's even narrower because you say that a grid is not a website but it is technically a website. As long as you maintain that, I'll say you are wrong about it.

Masami Kuramoto wrote: Phil Deakins wrote: A grid and a website certainly have some elements in common but that doesn't make them both websites - not even technically. A motorbyke has an engine, seats for more than one person, a steering mechanism, wheels, needs fuel, etc. but it is not a car, and never will be a car - not even technically. Your logic is flawed. Your analogy is flawed. Here's an accurate one: A Skype call is technically a phone call. You could go on for hours telling me that Skype uses a proprietary VoIP protocol, requires special phones or no phone at all, can do video, text chat and file transfer as well, etc. blah blah blah... it's still a phone call, because it involves person A talking to person B over a network. And this is all that matters. Nope. My analogy is very accurate. You said that a grid is a website because it has certain things and a website has similar things - documents, etc. A car and a motorbyke also have similar things - wheels etc., so it's a very good analogy to what you've been saying. I don't like your Skype analogy but I can't dimiss it out of hand. It seems to me that a phone call is only ever a phone call if it uses the phone network and, if a Skype call doesn't use any of the phone network, then it's not a phone call. You may agree with that but still say that it's technically a phone call even if it doesn't use the phone network, because it achieves the same thing as a phone call. That may be what you mean by 'technically'. You may mean that a grid is techically a website because, although it isn't actually a website, it achieves the same thing as a website. If that's what you mean, please say so.

Masami Kuramoto wrote: So far, there hasn't been anything "hard" coming from you. Most of the time you say things like "You're wrong" or "Do your own research." You shift the burden of proof on me because your hands are empty. When I argued that both the browser-centric and the standards-centric view fail to properly describe the web, you completely ignored that. Now you even dispute the authority of the very person who wrote the browser that gave the web its name: The hard bits I referred to were my questions. You've avoided answering questions that I've asked because you have no answers for them but, rather than let them influence your thinking, you simply ignore them. I don't dispute the authority of Tim Berners-Lee. I stated clearly that he has no authority. And that is abolutely true. Or perhaps you meant that he's an authority on the subject. I am not arguing otherwise. You keep arguing because you disagree that a grid is technically a website. I haven't changed my position at all. You say that a grid is technically a website but not actually a website. What's the difference? That's another question. I hope you won't ignore it like you've done so often in this thread.

Phil Deakins wrote: I've decided that either you are really stupid or that you are someone who enjoys arguing the impossible, just for the sake of the enjoyment. I don't recall seeing anyone call you stupid in this thread. I'm sure that many of us have thought it, but I haven't seen it written. Emphasis mine. I like your passive-agressive style and your frequent illusions of unanimity. Do you feel cornered, Mr. Deakins? Ha. You wish. If you had put forward anything whatsoever to refute my point, then I wouldn't feel cornered so much as feel defeated. Actually, I'd feel corrected. But you haven't put anything forward at all to support your case - except your personal opinion, and you're the only one who agrees with it. Some of the things you have put forward are inventions of your own that you placed in my mouth. It's a silly tactic and so easy to shoot down. It hardly makes you appear credible, does it So I'm hardly cornered, am I? Just the opposite. Your arguments are wrong, and you frequently try to support them with inventing things I said and responding to the fiction, so that much of what you write is all too easy to shoot down. And I should feel cornered?

My replies are coloured. Masami Kuramoto wrote: Phil Deakins wrote: Complete ditto to what Solar said to you. Solar misrepresented what I said. I never said "OSgrid is a web page." I said it's a website. Solar keeps confusing these things because he really has no clue what I am talking about. I know that. I already said that Solar made that small mistake. I've decided that either you are really stupid or that you are someone who enjoys arguing the impossible, just for the sake of the enjoyment. I can't deny that I am enjoying this. I've done this before, and there were people calling me stupid just like now. When I said the mesh deformer will take a long time to implement and still fail to work for a lot of meshes, some people probably thought I was stupid. When I said WebGL could be used to make truly web-based (rather than just browser-based, as with Unity) virtual worlds, some people probably thought I was stupid. You're the first person I've seen who actually enjoys being shot down all the time. Still, whatever floats your boat. I don't recall seeing anyone call you stupid in this thread. I'm sure that many of us have thought it, but I haven't seen it written. I get the enjoyment out of being proven right later. I've no idea about the past but I do know that you'll never be proven right in this case. I prefer to think it's the latter but I may be mistaken. So I'm going to leave you with your silly belief - that nobody has supported or agreed with. Since you failed to prove that my definition of the web is wrong, I'd rather say that only three people disagreed with it. I recommend looking at Tim Berners-Lee's original proposal to CERN, written in 1989. It contains a list of requirements that the proposed world wide web should meet. If you go through that list, you will find out that the hypergrid (which Second Life is _not_ part of) fulfills most of them. I wouldn't go as far as saying that the hypergrid protocol is good enough to become a W3C recommendation. A grid is formally not a website. But technically it is, because it is pretty much in line with what Tim Berners-Lee had in mind for his web: remotely accessible, platform-independent, decentralized (this is where Second Life fails), merging existing data and formats, hyperlinked, featuring bells and whistles, dynamic. I haven't discussed your definition of the web, so I haven't tried to prove it right or wrong. I've only discussed your false claim that these grids are websites. In discussing it, I've made you decide not to answer most of what I've said and what I've asked, because you don't any answers. You simply ignore the hard bits, hoping that I won't notice lol. Not only that, but I've forced you to resort to making things up and putting them in my mouth. It a technique that's resorted to by people who don't have answers but don't want to admit they were wrong. Tim Berners-Lee came up with the hyperlink which gave rise to the web. He doesn't get to decide anything about the web, and neither does W3C, but that's another discussion. I think that (the bit in red) says enough. A grid is formally not a website. On that we agree so I don't know why you keep arguing otherwise. A grid and a website certainly have some elements in common but that doesn't make them both websites - not even technically. A motorbyke has an engine, seats for more than one person, a steering mechanism, wheels, needs fuel, etc. but it is not a car, and never will be a car - not even technically. Your logic is flawed. Just one thing before I leave you though. Where is this OS or SL document that you speak of? You've held it up as proof of your argument so it's important to you. But where is it? Explain it please. Each region on a grid is an independent unit of information. Like any other 3D scene, a region is basically a scene graph, i.e. a tree-like hierarchy of objects. Scene graphs can be encoded as XML documents, using markup languages like VRML, X3D, or COLLADA. The process of loading a region is essentially a document retrieval process. It starts with the root node and then proceeds to download the leaves, in this case linksets, prims, mesh data, textures, all of them stored on local or remote asset servers (which happen to speak HTTP). Do you have an example of this region document? I agree that XML documents are in fact documents but I'd like to see either an example of a region document, because you said thayt's what a region is, or an explanation of it by either LL or OS. Even if a region is intially described in a document, are all the live updates also described by documents? I'd like more information, not written by you but pointed to by you, on all these documents. I don't believe that everything is transfered in the form of formal documents. I believe it is transfered in the form of data. Nevertheless, even if everything is transfered in the form of documents, it certainly wouldn't mean that a grid is a website. HTTP is a transfer protocol which, although it was devised for the web, is still only a protocol for transfering what needs to be transfered. It's not a protocol that can only be used to transfer documents. So don't rely on HTTP as evidence.

Innula Zenovka wrote: I don't know about "Solely our of a sense of morality". Seems to me that no colonial government -- no government, come to that, colonial or not -- is going to tolerate armed bands, independent of government, going up and down the country killing people, if it can help it. That's one of the main reasons you have governments, to my mind -- to stop that sortf of thing happening. I agree. I'll change my mind and say that there may have been an element of morality in the British at the time but it must have been mainly that the British didn't want to be eaten Some of Cooke's people were eaten in New Zealand and they probably didn't like that idea very much lol.

Complete ditto to what Solar said to you. I've decided that either you are really stupid or that you are someone who enjoys arguing the impossible, just for the sake of the enjoyment. I prefer to think it's the latter but I may be mistaken. So I'm going to leave you with your silly belief - that nobody has supported or agreed with. Just one thing before I leave you though. Where is this OS or SL document that you speak of? You've held it up as proof of your argument so it's important to you. But where is it? Explain it please. When I said that a region may be a document, I meant that it may be initially delivered to the viewer in the form of a text document, just like animations are text documents when they are uploaded to the server. I don't know what form they are in when delivered to the viewer though. It's probable that the layout of a sim is a similar document when uploaded to the server as a .raw file, but I don't know what form a sim is when delivered to the viewer. It may or may not be in the form of a document. What I feel certain of though, is that the real time sim (everything that occurs in the sim in real time) is not delivered to the viewer in the form of a document. I feel certain that real time changes are delivered in the form of small binaries. The reason I feel certain of that is because I once wrote an online multi-user graphic environment - back in the mid 90s - where the characters moves from screen to screen, and I didn't use anything that could be described as documents to pass real time changes to the viewer - not even for the initial passing of screen layouts. For speed, everything was passed in the form of binaries. Perhaps you think that all files are documents? You'd be wrong to think it but you may do. Anyway, you can choose to answer or not, as you wish. It may go the way of most of my questions and points - ignored by you because you have no answers for them. Or you may answer. I've no idea. It just seems silly to use up any more time arguing with a person who steadfastly reduses to acknowledge reality - especially about something that doesn't matter either way. So please feel free to wrongly think of OS grids and SL as websites. It doesn't change anything either way, so it really doesn't matter.

Solar Legion wrote: 16 wrote: on survival less than 200 years ago my tipuna/ancestors were headhunters. cannibals even they not subscribe to the moral that all men are created equal. in the same way that: sealion is not a seal. kahawai is not a eel. kiwi is not kakahe to survive they live according to the universality. kill and be killed. eat and be eaten i am Ngapuhi. i am not Ngati Whatua or Tuhoe. i/we am not them. they are not me/us. they are creatures like any other. and i/we am a creature just like any other to them also. just the same as a bird in the sky and a fish in the water. is how that goes + this horrify the British Empire when it come here. like totally unchristian and heathen savage they get even more horrified when my tipuna Hongi Hika get invited to England. he was darling of the Establishment. a actual forreal headhunter. get introduced to the Royal Court even. he get lots and lots of presents and gifts off them. so that part was ok on the way home tho he stop in Australia. he trade all his presents and golds that he get off them for guns our warriors armor up and they went down the country and killed all them other creatures they found. 100s and 1000s of them the Empire went mental over that. and impose the all men are equal moral on us. so cant kill anyone now. or eat them the Empire was pretty brutal to us in how they went about imposing that. so not much different really + edit: i change from kill or be killed. eat or be eaten. to kill and be killed. eat and be eaten is my bad to say or. bc leads people to think i am saying something i dont mean ok Cannibals act counter to the survival of the human race as a whole. The British Empire acted on two very distinct grounds there: Their own societal morality and in the best interest for the continued survival of the human race as a whole. Not on your nelly. The British acted solely out of a sense of morality. There is no way in the world that the cannibalism that existed in various places had any chance of threatening the survival of the human race as a whole, and the British didn't think that it did.