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Scylla Rhiadra

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Everything posted by Scylla Rhiadra

  1. Scylla Rhiadra
    It's an indication of how much nicer you are than I am that you gave Mr. "Can I Pay You for Sex" a chance to redeem himself -- which it sounds as though he did, at least a bit? My clubs sound a bit like your beaches. Tonight, I went, as I almost always do, on my usual Sunday night club date at The Mercury Room, which Maddy mentioned above. She was there too tonight, as she often is (although not, tonight, in scuba gear). It's a lovely club, there's wonderful vintage jazz, and the people are lovely and welcoming. Tonight I was IMed by two women I'd never spoken to before -- one someone I've seen there before, but never interacted with, and the other a newcomer to the club. I don't know that I made two new friends, but it was just . . . nice. I like people. Maddy was surprisingly unembarrassing tonight too! She danced for the first time with a friend of mine she doesn't know terribly well, and, from what she said afterwards, had a lovely conversation with him (as I'd expect: he's a lovely man). Oh, and I looked adorable tonight. (Ask Maddy!) 😎 So, yeah, a success! And mostly because of people. ETA: Forgot to mention that, after clubbing, Maddy talked in IM for a half an hour with my date about plumbing. No, seriously. She did.
  2. Scylla Rhiadra
    You didn't have to deal with the cleaning staff afterwards.
  3. Scylla Rhiadra
    It's really rather lovely, Ceka, that this seems like it's news to you! I think this is a case (and we see it a lot here) of people judging SL as a whole from their own narrow experience or values. There are, for instance, five clubs that I have gone to fairly regularly over the past few years -- in some cases, weekly -- in SL. In none of them would someone be snubbed or criticized because they were wearing a system avatar -- or were a furry, or whatever. I'm sure there are individuals at those places that might not respond favourably to an IM from someone who wasn't meshed up with the latest, but the communities themselves are really inviting and inclusive and welcoming. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend any of them to a noob still using a system avi. It seems odd to me that people who knowingly go places where that does matter -- where some segments of the SL resident population are unwelcome -- would express surprise that they find people there . . . unwelcoming.
  4. Scylla Rhiadra
    Now, the funny thing is, this hasn't been at all my experience in SL. Personally, when I message or hail someone in SL, I'd say I have at least an 80% success rate in getting a response. If it's someone I know from the forums, or Flickr, or elsewhere, it's probably close to 99% success. And the funny thing is . . . that 1% who didn't respond? Well, ironically, Randall, that would mostly be . . . you. I know I've mentioned it before, and it's probably pretty boring now and all, but you keep coming back to post about rude and unresponsive other SL residents are, so I feel sort of compelled to remind you that on at least 2, and I think actually probably 3 occasions, I've tried to chat with you in IM or local chat in-world. Not recently -- I'm not a glutton for punishment, so I've stopped doing it when I've seen you at Fogbound or wherever. But it is rather funny and ironic, isn't it? Now, I don't want you to think that being ignored by you on these occasions has left me in tears or anything. It's fine! You're allowed to ignore, or block me! It's your prerogative totally. But it does occur to me that there just might be a connection, cause and effect, perhaps, between how you seem to treat people in-world (as I've noted from my own experience, and from what you've recounted in your OP), and how you get treated? Just a thought? So, because I want to redeem your lost faith in SL humanity, I'm going to make an offer! IM me in-world, and I'll say hi back! And be pleasant and everything. It's an offer that is open to anyone on this forum, but I especially want to offer it to you! Sometimes the problem with misanthropy is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, maybe?
  5. Scylla Rhiadra
    Lol No, I get that. There are two or three DJs in SL I somewhat follow who are very knowledgeable, and from whom I have picked up now favourite songs and bands. I wasn't really dismissing the music, but rather suggesting that there are other sources for that (I have found some wonderful playlists on Spotify, for instance), whereas the people are, literally, unique. I also get that there are people who are not as gregarious as me, and I know there are some who go to clubs just to listen to music. That was not the context of the OP, however, to which I was responding. YMMV, however, certainly.
  6. Scylla Rhiadra
    I've known Randall for a very long time. I'm not sure I've ever seen him crack a smile, yet alone a joke.
  7. Scylla Rhiadra
    When one thinks about it, clubbing in SL is really a remarkably artificial and even, one might argue, pointless exercise. There we all are, pretending to be moving to music we'd be able to hear better through an online streaming service or YouTube, in an environment that most often looks either like a beer-sodden dive of the sort we'd never go into in RL, or the basement of student frat house. And it's all code. It's all an illusion, it's all pretense . . . except for two things. The music, and the people. And the music we can hear better elsewhere. The people, on the other hand, are irreplaceable and unique. I like "dancing" in SL -- I have nice animations, and I enjoying watching my reasonably attractive and stylishly-dressed avatar "moving" to the music. And I often enjoy the music. But it's the people I go for, because I've established very real and often quite deep friendships at these places, and built for myself a place in the lovely, warm, caring communities that the better clubs foster. Remove those, and all you really have left at such places is . . . code.
  8. Scylla Rhiadra
    Abraham, have you tried contacting Virtual Ability in Second Life? https://virtualability.org/second-life-disability-resources/
  9. Scylla Rhiadra
    Then consider this. How much terror might women have visited upon the world --- had they so chosen?
  10. Scylla Rhiadra
    What is this in Ordinary Person speak?
  11. Scylla Rhiadra
    Fair point, Ceka.
  12. Scylla Rhiadra
    I think this is certainly an improvement over what was there before! I only had to wait a few seconds for the video to start playing. On the whole, it was pretty good, although there were a few clips I'd have skipped. The slow shot of the woman and the butterflies was gorgeous. A few quick observations: Are there particular communities here that might be very popular incentives to join, and weren't featured very recognizably if at all? SciFi? Fantasy? Furries? Is the whole video maybe too slow? It's almost as though it is simulating lag, in a few places. In others, the slowness is good, and seems contemplative. How much of this is likely to scream uncanny valley to people not used to SL graphics? This gives the impression of VR -- it's all first-person (mouse) view. I can get SL looking REALLY lovely -- for photographs and things -- on a really old desktop. But that's in particular circumstances. There's no way that most people are going to be able to enjoy this kind of ultra graphics in places with more than a few people. It's not actually very representative of how SL looks to most of us, most of the time. I did, generally, like the categories included below, but thought that the accompanying pics might have been more representative of these.
  13. Scylla Rhiadra
    /me considers very carefully the possible ramifications of reporting a post by a mod as "off topic" . . . 🙄
  14. Scylla Rhiadra
    I sort of get that . . . except that a lot of what is on display here is not and has never been in the arsenal of the Canadian Forces. They are most often American imports, with teams coming north for this show, and they are (or were: it's been a while since I actually attended the event) often introduced first by the name and maker of the aircraft. So, something will be introduced as a "Boeing F-15EX Eagle II, flown by the USAF, [unit whatever]." Interestingly, the most prominent (and maybe even only) display by the Canadian Forces is the "Snowbirds," who are military, but fly unarmed jets demonstrably not outfitted for war. Canada was in Afghanistan, but by far our most important military duties since the Korean War have been peacekeeping. I do get the "honouring the past" thing. As I said, I enjoy watching vintage aircraft of all sorts, even military. But as an inveterate peacenik, I personally find the sight of Toronto being stalked by a Stealth Jet a bit . . . not good.
  15. Scylla Rhiadra
    Oh, here's a Pet Peeve. Every year here there is a four-day long (well, three days + one "rehearsal" day -- that's today) Air Show. For those four days, the city is buzzed and straffed by all manner of aircraft, which sometimes is fine. I actually like seeing the old WWII planes in action. But OMG the fighter and bomber jets. They pass sometimes very low over the city, often in formations of five or six. The noise is so intense my dog hides under my desk, and my windows rattle. I've literally had things vibrate off tables and onto the floor. I also worry about those in this city -- and there are many thousands of them -- who are refugees from war-torn countries, where the sound of a military jet was often a literal harbinger of death. The trauma this revisits upon them must be awful. And there's the other side to it: a lot of this stuff is modern military hardware. As I said, I do like seeing a Lancaster bomber or Spitfire from 80 years ago in action: it connects me with my (now sadly deceased) British grandparents. I feel less charitable about what are essentially public showcases for multi-million dollar machines of death.
  16. Scylla Rhiadra
    It's work enough chatting with you in-world for an hour or more. Pet Peeve: Maddy.
  17. Scylla Rhiadra
    So, it's complicated! This doesn't need to be an either/or, right? The world is full of amazing and brilliant and beautiful things made by others. Art, literature, music, well-crafted and beautiful instruments and objects and devices. I like making stuff -- this is why I spend so much of my SL time on photographs, planning them, building backdrops, experimenting with light and shadow, modifying them in Photoshop. I want to make beautiful things too, and sometimes I even come a little close. But I want also to experience the beauty others produce. I'm never going to write a To the Lighthouse or Paradise Lost. Not if I did have eternity. I'm never going to be able to craft a beautiful guitar that is a joy to hold, play, and sound. But I can lose myself in the beauty someone else has created -- and connect through that with the artist and craftsperson, and with all of the others who are also doing so. I can imagine a very happy eternity doing both of those things. Making and sharing -- they are flip sides of the same very human thing.
  18. Scylla Rhiadra
    This is kind of brilliant. Yay you!
  19. Scylla Rhiadra
    You really just don't get it, do you?
  20. Scylla Rhiadra
    it would make it easier to be patient and accepting of being unable to get into really busy events to buy stuff, though.
  21. Scylla Rhiadra
    Interesting, although a 7 year old article, so they ain't got it working yet. Fingers crossed though.
  22. Scylla Rhiadra
    /me looks sceptical Soooo . . . they've finally cured cancer, have they?
  23. Scylla Rhiadra
    Well, totally. I mean, I can think of a zillion really useful applications for some of the technologies here. Imagine if you could save that data to reproduce healthy copies of body parts that go wrong with disease or age! And it would be useful to have a reliable copy of me to work for me while I went shopping at Uber or C88 instead . . .
  24. Scylla Rhiadra
    I learned a lot of really interesting sciency things from the Kaku video -- but he's so caught up in the "how can we do this?" that he never asks "Should we do this?" or "What are the implications of doing this?" He's well aware that his teleporter isn't actually teleporting anything other than data, and making a copy of the original elsewhere, but he doesn't even acknowledge that until the very end of the video. So, what do you do with the "original" at the departure point? Continue to replicate it (you) every time it's teleported, with the result that there are potentially endless copies running around? Or destroy it/you? This is the kind of "science" that sometimes scares me. Larry Niven's piece was much better in that regard. I didn't learn nearly as much "science," but he asks the right questions, and frequently responds with what I think are the right answers, because he is thinking about this in human and in ethical terms, and not merely as a science problem that needs to be "solved."
  25. Scylla Rhiadra
    Lady, that's an add-on you don't need or want. You look fabulous just the way you are.
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