Scylla Rhiadra

One of the lovely things about the new WebRTC viewers is that I just don't care if it does! Not even a little!

No, it's painful, as are the chippy or dismissive responses to it. I'm soooooo ready to move on to the next crisis. Bring on WebRTC!

Dahling, this is why God invented caterers. I'm an ahtist, not a sous chef!

There was actually a great deal of discussion about it both before and just after LL released its viewer. Most of it was constructive -- both the critiques and the explanations of what it was and how it worked -- and generally fairly technical, although there was also concern being expressed even then about the performance issues (this was before LL tweaked their viewer to make it run better), and some predictions that the **** wasn't really going to hit the fan until FS released theirs. I really enjoyed that round of discussions, because the stakes seemed lower (there weren't as many people freaking out about the hit to their FPS) and there was much more interest in educating people about it than there was in throwing rocks at each other. I learned an astonishing amount of really useful stuff about deferred rendering and PBR materials from those threads, mostly from people who were very much rah-rah PBR, but who were more interested in discussing it than advocating for it. I should really go back and find the names of those who helped me then -- there were some who almost literally took me by the hand to explain things, and I am very grateful to them. What we have happening here now is rather less useful and definitely less interesting.

Dahling, it's not a mustache that's the problem.

Aaaaaand I got sucked into this discussion again, which I promised myself I wouldn't, because it's utterly pointless.

Happily, I have zero inclination to do this. Even more happily I, personally, don't need to. But the idea that someone with no background in computers or computer hardware is going to make a fairly expensive purchase, and then mess around with the innards of a machine, the workings and parts of which are likely to be totally terra incognita to them . . . so that they can play a computer game . . . is nuts. And the notion that one isn't "adult" if one is unwilling to take these chances with hundreds of dollars worth of electronic equipment that are likely vital to their functioning in RL is just offensive.

Mind you, it probably helps if you have the first idea what those are, what they do, and why you'd need them. Right?

As undeniably important and valuable your training as a nurse is (because you help people!), I am soooo jealous of your training at FIT! What a very cool background to have!

Right. Because if you can't install computer components yourself, or are afraid to blindly mess around with hundreds of dollars of tech that you don't truly understand (despite all of those wonderful YouTube videos which really are the equivalent of a college course or two in computer hardware, right?) and that might be vital to your livelihood, you can't possibly be "adult."

Yes, I know you were, Sandor. And I appreciate it.

lol "super easy." Someone (who apparently knows what they're doing, which most of us don't) recounted above "breaking off" some tabs or something on a GPU they were self-installing to get it to fit properly. Right. Breaking bits off a computer component to "make it fit" is something we should all be doing. "super easy"!

Teacher of English literature; formerly I worked at a historical site. Um, no idea if it's been useful to me or not here. I did for several years own a bookstore in SL that sold "digital texts" of works by women (a combination of book objects that linked to online texts, or notecard-based texts), so I guess that counts? I have been involved with running a feminist group almost from the time I've been here, and my academic training has been important for that. Oh, and as a graduate student long ago I was given some basic training in XML (for encoding literary texts), so that's been a bit useful, I guess? But only personally. I dunno. These are all important parts of who I am, and if I have made any contribution to the virtual lives of anyone in SL, that's in part owing to these, I suppose?

To slightly misquote Mark Twain, "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." The fact that Strawberry appeared at the Land UG meeting seems to me to confirm that she's been shuffled rather than let go. I haven't watched the entire thing (because zzzzzzz . . .), but in the first minute or so of Pantera's video of the meeting, someone notices she is there, and she responds with "ssshhhhh . . . trying to be invisible." Anyway, enough speculation about her. I think we are in agreement that she's very much one of the good ones, and whatever has happened, we all hope for the best for her.

Ah, right. Of course.

Oh who knows? Certainly, something has gone down. I hope Strawberry is still with us, or is doing what she wants to be doing.

I don't entirely disagree, particularly with your points about helping people find activities and simplifying the interface, but I do think that clearly laid-out and reasonably comprehensive video tutorials would help with retention. The problem with the ones being produced by independent residents is that noobs have no way of knowing that they exist, and little means of finding them. And most are not produced with noobs in mind. Video tutorials, like those for the SL University but designed with new residents in mind, would help. As regards the demographics of those who use videos, I think you'd be surprised. I'm currently learning two new applications, Affinity (a Photoshop-like graphics program) and Materialize (for making PBR materials). Neither are designed specifically with Millennials in mind, but both rely extensively on video tutorials. Indeed, Materialize has no written documentation at all!

This is an excellent point.

I very much hope you're correct. And if that's the case, I also hope they let her do her thing properly.

Very sad indeed. She was pretty good at the interview thing, but I've always thought she was being misused. She should have been doing what she does best: creating content that assisted people with some of the trickier aspects of SL. She should have been producing the videos and guide books that would assist in retention. That was just a waste. And not fair to her. Shades of Torley.

LL seems to have managed to take someone who was a really powerful asset to the platform, take her in and render her next to useless, and then chew her up and spit her out. This is going well so far, isn't it?

Again, there were a few store that used to hire avis to model clothes in their shop windows, but that was a long time ago -- I haven't seen that in years. What most stores use now is bloggers. Being a blogger means that you get "taken on" by a particular store, who will gift you new items (most often but not always clothing) as they are created. You then produce some good quality photo images of yourself wearing them, in a way that shows them off, as a model would. And you publish them on social media -- most usually Flickr, but other platforms as well. So you won't get paid for it, but you do get free clothing. However, you'll have to apply to particular stores to be a blogger for them. And stores will generally only accept bloggers who 1) are good at SL photography, 2) have a reasonably decent social media following, and 3) look good. So, blogging might be a way to go -- it's a lot of fun, and . . . FREE CLOTHES! However, you'll need to establish yourself on social media, and become competent at SL photography if you want to go that route.

Well, we'll see. The fact that Keira has popped up to calm jittery nerves about Support is a good sign -- were something really dramatic and drastic about to overtake the platform, I doubt she'd have bothered. But it does seem likely that something is afoot. I wonder if we'll ever find out what?

With full-bright shiny Blinn-Phong textures and speculars!

Well, hearing and reporting something doesn't necessarily make him a conspiracy theorist. But it of course also doesn't mean that his source is necessarily correct. Props to Daniel for NOT running wild with speculation over this, though.