Ishtara Rothschild

Phil Deakins wrote: Those average life expectency numbers are astonishing! I'd heard that the average male lifespan in my city, at the start of the 20th century, was 28, but I'd thought it was due to the hardness of working in an industrialised city. I'd no idea that 30 was the norm at that time. Of course hard work factored into it. And in prehistoric times, the main causes of death were probably violence such as wars and blood feuds, hunting accidents, diseases and infections. Very few, if any, people died what we've come to think of as a natural death. But quality of sanitation, availability of healthy food, medicine and clean water also plays a huge role.

Phil Deakins wrote: It's true that technology isn't needed. After all, the world of humans managed without it for thousands of years. Technology is every form of tool use or craft. The use of fire is technology. Clothing is technology. Primitive stone tools are technology, and a wooden spear is a primitive weapon technology. There was no point in human history where humans have not used technology. Homo habilis already used stone tools and made fire. Homo Erectus hunted with the help of spears and pit falls, invented clothing, and carried water around in gourds. The first Homo sapiens was born into a world where technology was extensively used in every area of life. Without it, our species couldn't possibly have survived.

wiked Anton wrote: technology hasn't really brought us much when you think about it. :matte-motes-bored: If that's what you think, you probably haven't put a lot of thought into it. Perhaps this will help:  Life expectancy over the centuriesNeolithic Era 20 years Bronze Age 26 years Classical Greece / Rome 28 years Medieval Europe 30 years Early 20th Century 31 years Current world average 67 years First World average 79 years (Source 1 / Source 2) Water treatment plants alone have probably added 20 years to our life expectancy. The rest of this enormous increase in life span and overall health comes down to modern medicine, proper sanitation, central heating, and the abundance of healthy food all year round due to modern transportation and refrigeration. All of this is the result of technological progress. Can you even imagine a world without refrigeration, where meat spoils within a single day? Can you imagine not being able to get any fruit and vegetables during the winter months unless you've made preserves during the summer (which is also a form of technology)? Or try to imagine a world without toilets and showers. Even if you only go back 30 years to a time without cellphones... imagine somebody has a heart attack in the streets and none of the bystanders is able to call an ambulance unless there happens to be a phone booth nearby. Technology greatly enhances our natural abilities. You could say that it gives us super powers

Canoro Philipp wrote: i dont find androgynes attractive, what i find attractive is femininity, that thing that only women can do best, that is not fake or learned, that it comes naturally, those aspects that separate us as genders, physically, psychologically and emotionally. nobody is better then them at that, doesnt matter if an androgyne uses a lot of makeup and even have a sex change operation, men are never gonna become a woman, because our gender is hardcoded from even before we are born. i like women, so i find no androgyne attractive. Well, I'm a natural born male, and I suck at masculinity :smileyvery-happy: And at femininity too, for that matter. Anyway, the fact that some men aren't very manly suggests that there are also women who don't do femininity. Calamity Jane is probably the most (in)famous historical example. At the same time, there are very feminine and in fact genuinely female minds that happen to be stuck in male bodies. That too was hardcoded before they were born, and the gender information that was hardcoded into their brains is the bit that matters imho. They are not fake, they are simply women that come with some assembly required

I've never read an SL fashion blog as of yet. But I would probably read a satirical or sarcastic one that makes fun of ridiculously bad designs and fashion crimes

It might also help to completely delete your cache folder, install a different viewer -- an oldfashioned one that is known to be bug-free -- and then relog in a low-lag and usually empty region such as Lime. I wouldn't trust viewer 3 with my inventory at this point. ETA: Sometimes things show up again when you clear out folders that have grown too large. Sort the things in your Objects and Clothing folders into subfolders and move them to new top-level directories, and then repeat the cache-deleting and relogging routine.

Oh, I didn't mean to give a better example, only yet another example Pattern recognition happens to be a pet peeve of mine, because it tends to trick people into thinking that everything is somehow connected and happens for a reason. We are all low-grade schizophrenics and have to work very hard to develop the skill of rational thought and the awareness that most things are coincidences.

Perrie Juran wrote: We are all products of the times in which we live. Even down to the genetic level

PeterCanessa Oh wrote: Nice one. Thanks for highlighting it. @ Dillon, et al. Computers are great at details, lousy at seeing 'the big picture'. One advantage we humans have is literally being able to look at (certain) situations and see the answer. "Is point X inside or outside this polygon" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_in_polygon) is a classic example. Facial recognition is another example. While computers can be "taught" to compare certain key elements of human faces to existing photographs, they can't "look at" the front end of a creature they've never seen before, immediately recognize it as a face, and deduce "oh my, that beast must be dangerous because it has lots of sharp teeth". Of course this kind of advanced pattern recognition comes with a trade-off, such as seeing elephants in the clouds or the face of long-dead prophets on a slice of toasted bread :smileyvery-happy: Or making up wild conspiracy theories about coincidental chains of events. That's also a side effect of pattern recognition.

Yes, women have a lot more work to do in the grooming and beautification department Men can usually get away with body hair, cuticles and wrinkles, and in some cases even with a lesser amount of personal hygiene than women would feel comfortable with. Which is a shame, imho. Not that men should wear makeup, but a little more grooming (such as body hair removal) sure couldn't hurt. Where men are clearly disadvantaged by cultural norms as well as their own male instincts is the whole area of social interaction. We can't just hug one another. We can't cry in front of other men if we feel like it. We are always on our toes, always careful not to show any sign of weakness or deep emotion, or an inappropriate amount of physical intimacy. We are always rivals and competitors, even if we think of one another as friends. Plus, we are perceived as a danger, by both our fellow gender and (especially) by women. Nobody perceives a woman as a threat. But when trapped in an elevator with a male stranger, or when it appears that one is being followed by a strange male late at night, people of both genders are very guarded and on the edge. I have always felt very uncomfortable in such situations, because being seen as a threat increases my own social phobia. For all these reasons, it is generally much harder for men to be socially accepted, to make friends, or to find their place within a new social group. It is also harder to open up and talk to people about emotional problems, or to find somebody to open up to in the first place. That's why I've always envied women.

Knowl Paine wrote: It's amazing how quickly solutions can be found when profit is not the primary motivation. Too many researchers are making Careers out of Jobs that need to be done today. That. And it's also amazing what a large number of human brains can do when put to when they voluntarily work on the same task. That's why all human minds on this planet need the very best of educations in as many fields as possible. We should all spend our lives learning and researching, at least everyone who is so inclined. At the same time, all mundane jobs and all routine work need to be replaced by industrial automation. It's utter madness that we view the "loss" of such repetitive jobs as something bad. Humans are capable of so much more than plucking coffee beans, mopping up floors, or hauling garbage bins around. No human being should ever have to do this kind of work, it's such a waste of brain power and potential ingenuity. The only thing that stands in the way of a world full of highly educated humans that are free to work on anything that interests them is money. Imagine how quickly we could find a cure for cancer if millions of minds worked on the problem and freely exchanged their research data without any financial interest. And now imagine the same scenario with trillions of educated minds. Of course that is impossible as long as we limit ourselves to this one single planet. Earth has long become too small for us. Societies in densely populated Western countries already show negative birth rates, which is the human equivalent of lemmings jumping over a cliff in a desperate attempt to leave their overpopulated territory. Like lemmings, we always need more room to expand into, new territories to colonize, and there is nothing left for us down here. This is also an issue that lots of educated minds need to work on, so that we can follow our biological program and create even more minds, which will in turn create exponential progress.

As somebody who grew in a time when both genders wore the same kind of casual clothing consisting of jeans, T-shirts and sneakers -- and, at least in the youth scene of my choice, also the same long hairstyles -- I can understand what you mean Perhaps this also helped shape my mixed sexual orientation to some degree. Some heavy metal stars, such as Dave Mustaine from Megadeth, looked quite androgynous, and of course many of my adolescent peers did too. I've often thought that if I was female in RL, I would probably dress exactly the same as I do now -- jeans, tee, chucks. The only reason that I occasionally crossdress is that I'm *not* female As a woman, there would be no point in wearing traditionally and stereotypically feminine clothes. I'm not transgendered or transsexual though, so I can't really compare my experience to yours.

Persephone Emerald wrote: Pull a standing pose out of a free pose stand & drop it inside your new rug. But don't forget to pull out the script too

        :matte-motes-big-grin:  :smileyvery-happy:

Persephone Emerald wrote: The question of identity vs. identification isn't just about gender, though. What abiout racial identity vs. identification? For instance, Is a person black or white or asian if *they* think they are or if *other people* think they are? I never thought of myself as a white person I'm fair-skinned (i.e. pale pink), blue-eyed and street cur blond. There is nothing white about me, except for my... well, actually my teeth are slightly yellowish :matte-motes-big-grin: I've always thought that these racial denominators made as little sense as the entire concept of human races. I also find it odd when people call me a Caucasian. I've never been anywhere near the Caucasus region So no, "white" is not a part of my self-image. I'm a Homo sapiens. Or perhaps a Homo liberalis atheos. World views are a lot more dividing and say much more about a person than skin color, imho.

I imagine that texturing could be a problem if you create a large part of a house as a single mesh, since the texture size is limited to 1024 x 1024 pixels. If you don't want things to look blurry up close, it's best to build it out of smaller parts that can be individually textured. Windows would have to be made from single prims anyway if you want to script them to open or change in opacity. And you can probably lower the overall prim count if you use megaprims instead of mesh for things like floors.

JeanneAnne wrote: >>This is where we disagree. The physical development continues until the age of 22-25 (some traits develop even later, such as the ruddy cheek color in older males that signals dominance). Puberty is a very important developmental stage, especially when it comes to gender development. Unless we are talking about environmentally introduced hormones or the estrogene-producing tumors that you've mentioned, all post-birth morphological development is ultimately congenital, since our genes determine our neuroendocrine development and our endocrine activity<<. Well, if processes beyond the embryonic stage, and continuing into puberty and early adulthood, are going to be considered "developmental" then so may as well geriatric conditions be. There's nothing really "wrong" with this perspective except that to my mind it makes the term "developmental" unprofitably generic. Geriatric conditions are not really congenital, although things like the shortening of telomeres and programmed cell death could be said to be genetically predetermined and inherited. But overall, I would call the adult ageing process a slow deterioration and gradual systemic failure rather than physical and neurological development. If humans were cars, we wouldn't roll off the production line until after puberty Rust, friction plate abrasion, and other wear and tear that occurs later on are not part of the manufacturing process anymore. Those are bugs, not features >>Gender identification is mostly based on facial and other morphological cues.<< I would amend this statement by saying that 'Gender identification is mostly based on OTHER PEOPLE'S REACTION to facial & other morphological cues.' I guess it boils down to the semantics of the term "gender." What you're calling gender characteristics I'm calling secondary sexual characteristics. To me, gender is the entire panoply of culturally inculcated responses & behaviors largly based on the reactions of others to primary & secondary sexual features. I think that the only difference between what we're saying is that you apply the terms "developmental" and "gender" more broadly than I do. Of course the concept of gender in its entirety goes far beyond visual gender cues. My statement was only about gender identification, which happens in the mind of the observer. Although... I just realize that I probably misunderstood you. Did you mean gender identity? In that case, we've been talking about different things. I thought you meant gender recognization, not identity or self-identification.

"Trust no one" and "everybody lies"

I have to admit that I'm somewhat against things like the localization of software, the translation of books (other than into the world language English), and the dubbing of movies. When I grew up, home computer operating systems and software only came in English, which forced me to learn this language beyond the limits of my meager school English. Learning English (and continuing to improve it; there is no end to my learning process in sight) has not only enabled me to communicate with native English speakers, but also with my fellow Europeans and people from all over the world. In my last job, I had to talk to Dutch, Belgian, Spanish and Polish customers, which would have been impossible without English. I find it sad that there are still EU citizens who can't have a conversation with their fellow EU dwellers. Since all media comes in German nowadays, there are less and less Germans who speak English. School English simply doesn't cut it; people tend to completely forget their vocabulary, just like they quickly forget about Pythagoras or the atomic mass of hydrogen after graduating. You can't learn a language unless you are forced to use it on a regular basis. Especially in SL, I find it very important that residents are able to communicate with all other residents. Germans who join SL with the typical German tourist mentality and expect that everyone speaks at least a little German will be at a loss when they encounter problems with products made by English-speaking creators. Or even problems with SL itself, since Linden Lab offers very limited localized support. Even I as a German person can't help a fellow German with viewer problems, since I prefer the English viewer interface and have no idea how the various menu entries have been translated. Bottom line: The world needs to learn English. It is immensely important that we are all able to understand one another. Especially in this day and age, where humanity faces problems on a global scale that affect all of us. English is also the language of science, technology and research. Without English, there would be no worldwide exchange of knowledge, which means that localization efforts are counter-productive to the goal of global understanding, information exchange and progress. (Of course native English speakers should also learn and regularly use a second language, Spanish for example. Being bilingual greatly improves people's cognitive skills and can even delay the onset of old age dementia and Alzheimer's.)

Great job It really looks like her, down to the moustache.

Thanks, I'll give the Dungeon Siege series a try as well Your description reminds me of , which was quite interesting too.

I completely forgot about crouching Probably because it wasn't necessary in the earlier levels. Thanks for the tip, I'll give it another try.

JeanneAnne wrote: >>But this urethral misdevelopment has nothing to do with an intersex condition.<< But indeed it does. Review your college embryology text re: the ontogeny of male morphology from female-like primordia. The closure of the scrotal & "penyle" raphe and positioning of the urethral tube is the very essence of male genital development, with intersexed conditions resulting from something going haywire with this development. I agree, and I stand corrected I wasn't aware that the typical, less severe form of hypospadias, where the urethral opening is located somewhere along the **bleep** shaft, is the result of an incomplete closing of the perineal raphe. I thought it simply came down to the great natural variation in the location of the urethral opening, which is often located on the top or the bottom of the glans instead of the tip. >>As for gynecomastia, why is an endocrine condition not a developmental condition?<< Because in this context, "development" may be considered more or less complete by the end of organogenesis, around the end of the first trimester. An endocrine imbalance or disorder that typically occurs during puberty isn't profitably regarded as being a developmental issue. This is where we disagree. The physical development continues until the age of 22-25 (some traits develop even later, such as the ruddy cheek color in older males that signals dominance). Puberty is a very important developmental stage, especially when it comes to gender development. Unless we are talking about environmentally introduced hormones or the estrogene-producing tumors that you've mentioned, all post-birth morphological development is ultimately congenital, since our genes determine our neuroendocrine development and our endocrine activity. Gender identification: Culturally stereotypical feminine identification to culturally stereotypical masculine identification, with incogruous or ambiguous identifications & gender bending somewhere in between.  Gender identification is mostly based on facial and other morphological cues. Even if the body shape is androgynous or hidden by loose clothing, people can usually accurately determine a person's gender based on eye distance, eyelash length (face-eye contrast), jaw line, nose and mouth size in relation to head size, facial complexion, and face-lip color contrast (which is exactly why women instinctively try to enhance these gender cues by using makeup). Unlike gender-specific clothes and hairstyles, this is not merely a cultural stereotype. Facial gender recognition has been found to work in the exact same way across all human cultures (the anthropologist Peter Frost has extensively written about this topic). This also explains why men who wear makeup that simulates feminine gender cues can mess with other people's gender recognition mechanisms Of course this works better if their facial structure is naturally feminine. As I wrote in an earlier post, Ru Paul's narrow-set eyes are a typical masculine facial trait that makes him immediately recognizable as a biologically male person, even when his clothing and hairstyle meet the female cultural stereotype.

Void Singer wrote: I thought we already covered that ground? If I read you correctly, you argued that the term hermaphrodite is offensive, whereas I wrote the opposite. There are many hermaphrodites in SL. Since they actually possess two sets of functional genitalia -- as far as functionality goes in the context of SL anyway -- their avatars are indeed herms in the biological sense, and the operators would probably be offended if their avatars were called anything else. And if there ever was an RL person who had both functional ovaries and testicles, that person would be a hermaphrodite too.  ETA: In RL, most women would object to being called a bítch, but the term would be very apt for a female canine furry in SL That's pretty much the same. SL is it's own environment with a different set of terms and labels.

Bree Giffen wrote: Interest in androgyny seems to skew more to men who resemble women. Why don't we see more idolizing women who look like men? I say vive la différence. Being ca. 85% male and about 70% heterosexual, I'm of course more attracted to people with feminine traits, which includes feminine men But I remember that Daria had a huge crush on Rachel Maddow, who unarguably has a few masculine traits: See http://dariasafterthoughts.blogspot.com/2010/04/omgomgomgomglolololo.html ETA: Buck Angel also comes to mind. He is a pre-OP F2M trans man who looks 100% male until he takes his pants off, and has become a huge star in the gay porn industry.