Scylla Rhiadra

I'm afraid that if "the new thing from the future" is the Ponzi scheme that NFTs and crypto have demonstrated themselves to be, and the future the sterile shell game that is Decentraland, then I, and the vast majority of people here, don't want any part of it. There is no point in "saving" SL if that entails destroying what makes it worth saving in the first place.

Not really. It will tell you what tools it wants access to, not how it intends to use them. I'll admit that I always hesitate before saying yes to an experience, but I rarely go places where I'm likely to find myself feeling uncomfortable or regretting it. Mostly they are shopping experiences. I've never actually had a bad one, so it's mostly just excessive caution and a teeny bit of paranoia on my part.

I don't think this is at all the case -- except perhaps for cryptocurrencies and NFTs, and, at the moment, they're looking like a pretty poor model to follow. It may be, long long term, that land in a blockchain-based model is "cheaper," but no one is building there, because the economic model in place is about land speculation, and not about creating content. Right now, people are investing in SL land, on the mainland, and in estates, to build wonderful things because the startup money is, relatively speaking, much more reasonable here. People ARE more and more used to paying fees for things -- for software, for games, for streaming platforms. I think LL is right in line with that. And, again, I don't think land is the key to increasing SL's popularity and retention rates.

I think your overall point is entirely legitimate. And yes, I get that this isn't about you, and your SL experience. I don't think, to be honest however, that cheaper land is the magic bullet here. There is already, now, under current financial and economic conditions, a great deal of amazing content in SL in terms of regions and sims that have been lovingly crafted by people who want others to share their experience. There's far, far more than I could ever manage to see comfortably. And what there is caters to a really wide range of tastes and interests. For instance, there is a lot of science fiction and fantasy in SL -- neither of which really interests me at all. But that's fine, because there are also a great many sims and regions that do feature things that I enjoy. I think LL could do a much much better job of marketing what is currently available. They could cast a spotlight on a new and different interesting region or parcel probably ever couple of days, and never run out of new content to feature. But, LL has . . . problems, with marketing. It would be lovely if land costs were cheaper. I'd love a really large expanse of land to build an historically-themed parkland on (imagine St. James's Park, or Villa D'Este, or Vaux Le Vicomte in SL!). But that's not feasible given LL's business model. And, ultimately, I don't think that's the route to attracting more people in any case. What they need to do mostly, I think, is focus on the details of how SL is experienced and employed in a more personal way. The new user experience needs to be made better. The UI needs to be made more intuitive. The system for avatar customization, in particular, needs to be simplified and tidied up (it's a disaster as is). People don't pop into SL for the first time and immediately ask to visit a recreation of Rivendell. At least, most don't. They want to know where to find people, and how to make their avatar look better. Once they are comfortable in their own skin, and feel at "home" here, they are more likely to be attracted to the diverse range of places to visit.

Beginning from the mid-70s, consumer and health advocates began to target baby formula companies, and in particular Nestlé, for their marketing of baby formula in the developing world, especially in Africa. Women were being encouraged -- and subtly mislead to believe that they were doing the right thing -- to give up breast feeding and use commercial formula instead. The result was a measurable increase in infant mortality, because of course formula is NOT as healthy as breast milk, but also because most of these women were too poor to afford to use it properly -- it was being diluted, often with contaminated water (because they didn't have ready access to clean water) to make it last longer. Beginning in the 80s, Nestlé in particular became the subject of boycotts because of its African marketing campaigns. They are still being scrutinized carefully, because they're still trying to push it in the developing world.

Most of their social media was pulled down some time ago. The SL group had links to RL Proud Boys material online -- all gone now.

No, and I suspect that its creator (whom I know somewhat from here) is probably incapable of being embarrassed by it. On the other hand, the Proud Boys aren't exactly a prestigious property at the moment.

And sometimes -- pretty frequently, I suspect -- things get ARed, and not a thing is done about it. I don't AR things I find offensive in-world, for a number of reasons, some of which you might find laudable, and some of which you might not. But one is that I have next to no faith that it's at all effective.

Well, given what is still permitted -- Gor, sex groups built around white mastery or racist stereotypes, groups that thinly disguise inc*st and sex with m*nors, not to mention a whole host of venues and groups devoted to just about every kind of humiliation and violence that you can imagine inflicting on women . . . I'd say not very? I am happy to note that the "Proud Boys" group in SL has, after having been ARed months and months ago by a friend, finally disappeared, whether by LL's action or embarrassment on the part of its creator, I don't know.

When my father was slipping away last month, I found that sorting my inventory had exactly the kind of effect you describe. I didn't want to socialize or talk to anyone: I wanted a relatively mindless task that was, at the same time, somewhat satisfying. Sorting socks probably would have had the same effect. So for about a week and a half I'd log in for the evening, put on my don't disturb autoresponse (which most people respected), and, well, caught up on a lot of inventory sorting. The other thing I find satisfying, weirdly, is playing around with lighting. I love socializing, and do chat a lot in-world normally, as well as going to clubs, but it also sometimes frankly feels like work. I have to be in a mood to undertake that. And sometimes I just want me time.

Oh dear. I do wish you hadn't posted this. Now we have to kill you. /me sighs and reaches into her purse

This thread is one of the reasons I love SL. Or more accurately, why I love the people of SL.

I was trying to take a more complicated shot tonight (which I'm not sure I really like), but thought I'd finish off with a simple portrait, which I don't really do often enough, maybe. FWIW and for those who care, this is unedited. (Usually I torture my poor pics to death in Photoshop!)

Beautiful pic! And how lovely to see you back here!

Brilliant. Thank you so much, Jenna!

You should just press the button more often. This is a very nice pic!

Thanks, Jenna! Still grappling with this, as I'm finding a lot of confusing and often contradictory information about Field of View. Which, I gather, can be measured as an angle (angular field of view) or a distance (linear field of view)? Given that CameraFieldOfView ("FOV" in Firestorm, and "Field of View(°)” in Black Dragon) is measured in viewer as an angle, I'm assuming that what it represents is AFOV (where A = "angular" rather than "actual" or "apparent"). So, as you say, FOV is "data," produced by a calculation that includes angle of view (itself dependent on focal length), sensor size and type, and distance from subject. It can be adjusted in-camera only by changing lenses (focal length/angle of view) or distance to subject. But I am confused with how this works in-viewer, as increasing the value of CameraFieldOfView narrows the depth of field. Should not the opposite happen, just as increasing the view angle (which, again, I know is not quite the same thing) widens the depth of field? And an ancillary question: why, in your excellent set of specifications for different lenses and focal lengths, do you leave the CameraMaxCoF unchanged at 29.0 for all? (I might also ask why the 8m field distance and the native sensor size dimensions are left at defaults in the calculator you link to, but I don't want to put you to too much trouble. You've been more than helpful!)

Soooo . . . we done here? (Actual footage of me ransacking Rowan's home.)

Here, just have a nibble. Honestly, it's ok! . . . Trust me!

I didn't read it that way, nor did I intend to suggest the same of you! We are having a lovely civil conversation. You are invited to join me in my kitchen if you want to continue it. I'll add you to the guest list. 🙂

I'm not denying any of this. What is happening is that people are conflating their "right" to use tools provided by LL with their moral right to "privacy" -- or intrusion. Hence the tone of moral outrage some are sounding here. "But my freedoms! My property!" Meh. Nonsense. Your right to privacy in RL isn't "granted" by your government -- it's an inalienable part of your human rights. That is not the case in SL. You are permitted to do exactly what LL permits you do. And, arguably, explorers are also permitted to do exactly what the platform allows them to do. The moral or ethical element here, I've been arguing, is entirely divorced from the affordances and tools. It's not about "rights to privacy" or "rights to exploration" -- it's about being a decent human being.

I think you're hung up on semantics a bit here. The concepts are different, whatever the nomenclature. Call it what you want, "land ownership" means something very different here than in RL. The same applies to "rights." There's been, in my view, a great deal of sleight of hand involving language on both sides of this debate. The "right to privacy" just doesn't mean the same thing here, and to use that kind of language as though it did is misleading. The same can, of course, be said about "exploring." Camming into a building in SL sounds innocent enough a component of "exploring." In RL it could land you in jail. As you rightly note, "exploring" and being intrusive are conflated here in some accounts.

Agreed, but as I pointed out above somewhere, this cuts both ways. "Land" in SL isn't really land, and one doesn't really "own" it. There are no "rights" here (except licensing rights). And to take it further, privacy here is rather different: the platform simultaneously allows more privacy in some ways, and less in others. The stakes here are different. If I get "caught" with or doing something embarrassing, anti-social, or whatever here, its impact upon me is a great deal less than it might be in RL. And, equally, "exploring" here is possibly not as "important" as getting to know our RL environment better. And unlike democratic states, where we have at least some nominal control over who legislates what, here we really are at the mercy of LL's decision making process, which is about "us" only peripherally, in the sense that they make more money if we are "happy" than if we are not.

I really think I've said as much as I want to on this subject. I'll just repeat: You have the "right" to be a jerk. Or the ability and the option to be a courteous and/or generous member of the community. I find people's choice when it comes to this to be illuminating. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go boating. 🙂

Rather than kick them? Yes, common sense is not to get into a fight about it. They're a jerk.