Ishtara Rothschild

Venus Petrov wrote in part: Badgers are fierce beasties. I was born in the 'Badger State' so I have heard a thing or three about them. They should not be featured in petting zoos. Take care when hand feeding one (you may lose your hand). I've always thought there should be punching zoos too, with all the ugly animals that nobody in their right mind would want to pet. A couple badgers would be a great addition to a punching zoo.

Sy Beck wrote in part: Men beware though, when honey badgers decide to chow down on a human male they are reported to leap straight for the groin area and once those powerful jaws close your meat is on a one way street to badger faeces. Well, they didn't say which part of Mr. Ramsay's pint-sized doppelganger was eaten It might have been a honey badger after all.

The two types? You mean badgers and midget porn stars? I have to admit, I don't have the sightest idea how well they typically get along. It probably depends on the species (of the badger, that is, not the midget). Honey badgers, for example, can be quite vicious and aggressive. But what would a honey badger be doing in Tregaron, West Wales? This is one mysterious case :matte-motes-bored:

An odd question, isn't it? But this is a Friday thread, and that's exactly the kind of situation that TV chef Gordon Ramsay found himself in. His mini-me, who turned out to be an up-and-coming gay porn star (no pun intended), was found dead and partially eaten in a badger's den. The badger is still at large. Apparently, Mr. Ramsay didn't take the news well and reacted with road rage. Tragic. How would you react in his situation? Has something like this actually happened to you and you would like to talk about it? And do you think that people with a badger fetish should be tall enough to fight off an angry badger? Discuss.

Dartagan Shepherd wrote: "All listings that have been flagged are reviewed by a Linden Lab employee with a Linden last name before the product is unlisted from the Marketplace." And because that's in the automatically generated email, it must be true

Lynda Klossovsky wrote: Was würde passieren, wenn Englisch nicht Ihre Muttersprache wäre... Englisch ist eine harte Sprache schwer zu lernen... Wenn Englisch nicht meine Muttersprache wäre (was tatsächlich der Fall ist), dann würde ich Tippfehler und Grammatik-Katastrophen auf deutsch korrigieren But the fact that English is not my native language doesn't keep me from trying to articulate myself in (American) English as well as I can (I was about to write "as best I can" because I've often read it that way, but it struck me as grammatically incorrect). The excuse of being a second language speaker only goes so far. Untrained English speakers can be expected to try harder than others, just like a new forklift driver has to try harder not to skewer his co-workers. I've noticed that most unintelligible or incoherent posts come down to sloppiness or a general inability to express one's thoughts, both of which is very common nowadays. In my opinion, there is no excuse for not taking the time to write a concise and coherent post, not bothering to proof-read it before hitting the post button, or for not using punctuation. Especially in this day and age where people communicate in a written format in a world-wide medium. PS: As a second language speaker, I'm glad when people take the time to point out my mistakes. How else am I supposed to learn? It would be silly to view a helpful comment as an attack.

Coby Foden wrote: How about disabling all non-mesh compliant viewers from the grid? Yeah I know, there would be a war again if this was done... I'm afraid even to mention it here... :matte-motes-dont-cry: I actually like that idea. I mean, it makes sense from LL's perspective and it's consequential. Some people will grudgingly accept, others will see this as the last straw and leave SL. But LL doesn't care about either group anyway, so just do it already. Stop kicking us useless old horses over and over again, just pick up the cattle gun and get it over with.

It most likely works like this: Someone flags your item for being in the wrong category. The item is automatically delisted and you get an automated email. No Linden ever looks at your product listing. Why would they? They are in the business of earning money, not wasting money on work that can easily be avoided by automating such processes. As Josh has pointed out, your product might have been in the right category all along, but it doesn't matter. Some a-hole flags it, it's gone. Relist it in whichever category you like and it will be back. Nobody will look at your changes either. You can only pray that you won't get flagged again. Great way to get rid of competitors I guess.

Madelaine McMasters wrote: I find it very difficult to look at the behaviour of any particular individual (especially online) and draw any conclusion whatsoever about their viability or even the viability of their social group. We have such a blinkered view here that I've no idea what we can say about viability. I agree, and I would never presume to do that. I'm not mother nature Only hindsight can tell what was viable and what turned out to be not. Viability strongly depends on the environment btw, which includes the socio-cultural environment. The latter is even more important for the selection and evolution of humans than our natural environment, which we have become very adept at modifying for our requirements. For example, in 19th century Europe, a schizophrenic would have been locked away in a mental asylum as a very effective means of eugenics, although his captors would have rationalized their actions differently. But in a neolithic hunter-gatherer society, the same person might have been a powerful shaman with lots of reproductive opportunities, second only to the leader of his or her clan. Research of shamanism in extant hunter-gatherer societies has found that many shamans are indeed schizotypal, if not full-blown schizophrenic. It's debatable if our way of treating what we have come to think of as mental diseases is any better than the more socially inclusive and sometimes even reverent treatment of neurodiverse or neuro-atypical individuals in other cultures. Another example are sociopaths, who would probably have been right at home on a medieval battlefield. Although, actually.... coming to think of it, this is a bad example, because sociopaths are still extremely successful in the Western World. They thrive in corporate environments where a complete lack of empathy and conscience, ruthless competitiveness, and the ability to manipulate people can be very valuable traits. Some psychologists argue that sociopaths have always been more willing to assume leadership positions than others, and were also more likely to be voted or promoted into these positions -- or simply to lie, cheat, scheme and manipulate their way to the top. It is therefore very important which kind of traits we choose to reward in our societies. If we value competitiveness more than cooperation... but I digress It is indeed hard to tell which traits are viable and promote social as well as reproductive success, both of which tends to go hand in hand in human societies. I am fascinated by the larger pictures, as teased out by people like Hans Rosling. If the world geographically segregated into two political ideologies over the course of 40,000 years, might we see Hans' bubbles tracing new species evolving out of those man-made distinctions? I'm not familiar with Hans Rosling's work, but I have no doubt that this scenario would indeed result in speciation at some point. Anthropologists often speak of gene-culture co-evolution, which basically means that different socio-cultural environments allow different types of people to be socially successful and sexually desirable. These successful people will in turn shape and change their socio-cultural environment to benefit their own needs, which renders the social environment less ideal for the needs of others. It's basically a feedback loop. Humans shape their environment, which in turn shapes the people that live in it. In one society, a person is a powerful shaman who hears the voices of ancestral spirits and gods. In a different society, the same person ends up restrained to a bed in a mental hospital. One society abhors violence, whereas another culture revels in it. One culture seeks to eliminate diversity, while other cultures tolerate and celebrate it. (Right now, it appears that the latter are more successful, because great diversity leads to great ideas. If people are forced into boxes, there is nobody who thinks outside the box). That conscious societal pressures affect reproduction might be called "unnatural selection" (surely there's a "real" name for this by now?). It is taking place. I simply don't understand what variables are at work. And if we get the immortality you think might lie ahead, will it come with a vastly different rate of evolution? Or no evolution at all? You've basically described gene-culture co-evolution in your first sentence, as well as sexual selection. Void is correct that both is still natural selection. Being a part of nature, we can't really do anything unnatural imho Although there are aspects to modern life that change the historical course of human evolution, such as modern medicine. Many individuals who would have been infertile or unable to reach adulthood in historic times can nowadays have offspring. We can only hope that medical progress can keep up with the resulting changes to our gene pool. But once we have reached the era of posthumanism (which some say has already begun), we probably no longer need to worry about these matters. I assume that the rate of evolution will increase in the same way as our technological and scientific progress in recent centuries. At some point, we might truly be able to shape ourselves and our destiny. We might even create entire new species, some of which could be digital consciousnesses that live in virtual realities. I mean, what is life if not information? Why bother traveling to distant planets if we have the computing capacity to create entire new worlds? Why procreate if we can create something better than ourselves?

PeterCanessa Oh wrote: I believe it's because they taste better in stews and casseroles than meeros, which are more of a Summer meat. Horse meat is indeed delicious There are still horse slaughterhouses in Germany, which are often jokingly referred to as "Pony Slaystations". Horse tastes like a cross between beef and venison, very lean and a bit gamey. It's very healthy too due to the low fat content. The great thing about horses is that their meat does not become tougher as the horse ages. It's mostly old, decrepit horses that get sold for meat, and yet they're still very tender and delicious. If it was for me, horses would replace cows as a meat source, although I would probably miss veal.

Don't take any of his rants serious. This is just his newest attempt at shutting up people who make him feel funny because he feels threatend by (or perhaps attracted to in some cases, as this study suggests) their sexual orientation, gender identity, or neuro-atypicality. It's the equivalent of a scared little boy hiding under a blanket to avoid seeing anything threatening. And at the same time, it's an attempt to deny us our identity by forbidding us to publicly define and identify ourselves, which is right on topic imho. PS: I just saw that he has shown his true ugly face in his last comment. Now that everyone has seen him for the pathetic hateful creature that he is, can we please just ignore him? Thanks.

Madelaine McMasters wrote: Ishtara Rothschild wrote: Well, I think most people misunderstand that I'm not very fond of the term for that reason. It should be "survival of all individual organisms and social groups that are fit enough. PS: It's not necessarily a competition. PPS: In social species, the fitness of the individual is determined by the individual's ability to cooperate". Well, there is my fondness for deliberate misunderstanding, but I've also noticed that I seem to truly misunderstand fitness in the context you describe as well. The "ability to cooperate" doesn't mean the ability to cooperate with you, or me, or even anyone we like. I respect nature but I don't expect the same in return. I meant both the ability of each individual of a highly social species to cooperate as a member of a group and the willingness of the group to support individuals even if they can't pull their own weight. Both has been strongly selected for in human beings, which means that it constitutes fitness (at least as long as there are enough resources to go around. If resources become scarce, competitiveness and territoriality increase, but humans will still cooperate with and be supportive of their closest in kin. And of course this doesn't mean that all species need cooperate. Of course there is competition for environmental niches, as well as predator-prey and parasite-host relationships). The common misunderstanding of Spencer's phrase is that all species and even individuals are supposed to compete with each other. Another misunderstanding is that only the fittest survive, and not all those who are "fit" enough, even if barely so. And finally, it's not even about survival, but rather about reproduction and propagation of DNA. Even the term fitness is quite unfortunate, imho. I'd prefer "organisms that are sufficiently adapted to their environment are the most likely to leave copies of their genes".

Jenni Darkwatch wrote: So wie's geschildert ist, ist das schon eine schweinerei. LL mischt sich aber soweit ich weiss grundsaetzlich nicht in sowas ein. LL mischt sich zwar nicht in Dispute zwischen Käufer und Verkäufer oder Mieter und Vermieter ein, aber hier handelt es sich ganz klar um Betrug. Da kann ein AR (Missbrauchsbericht) schon etwas bewirken. Vor allem da sich der Betrüger als LL-Mitarbeiter ausgibt, was in jedem Fall mit Account-Bann geahndet wird. Zudem sind unlizensierte Inworld-Banken seit dem Banking-Skandal in SL in 2008 offiziell verboten. Ein Auszug aus Linden Labs "Policy regarding inworld banks": The Second Life Terms of Service prohibit offering interest or any direct return on investment (whether in L$ or other currency) from any object, such as an ATM, located in Second Life, without proof of an applicable government registration statement or financial institution charter. This applies to inworld investment funds, stock offerings, and banking services and the like. Linden Lab will remove any virtual ATMs or other objects that facilitate inworld "banking," that is, that offer interest or a rate of return on Linden dollars invested or deposited. Those who continue to offer these services may be sanctioned with suspension, termination of accounts, and loss of land. Usually, Linden Lab lets Residents decide how to act, live, or play in Second Life, but unregulated inworld "banks" brought substantial ecomonic risks to Second Life. Offering unsustainably high interest rates, they are in most cases doomed to collapse, leaving depositors with nothing to show for their investment. This prohibition does not apply to companies that submit a registration statement, charter, or other applicable license from a governing regulatory authority; or those merely conducting marketing or education, but not accepting payments. To report a violation of this policy: Choose Help > Report Abuse in the Second Life Viewer. Select Fraud > L$. Follow the instructions. IMPORTANT: Be sure to include the word "bank" in your description. Grob übersetzt: Die SL-Nutzungsbedingungen verbieten Geldanlagen, die Kapital- oder Zinserträge versprechen, egal ob in L$ oder RL-Währung, es sei denn, der Anbieter ist im RL als Bankinstitut oder Kapitalgesellschaft registriert. Dieses Verbot erstreckt sich auf alle Dienste wie Kapitalanlagen, Aktiengeschäfte, und Bankgeschäfte. Linden Lab wird alle virtuellen Geldautomaten und andere Einrichtungen, die zu "Bankgeschäften" benutzt werden und Zinserträge versprechen, unverzüglich entfernen. Wer solche Serviceleistungen anbietet, wird mit Account-Suspendierung oder Account-Terminierung und Verlust von Landbesitz bestraft. Im Normalfall überlässt Linden Lab den Einwohnern die freie Entscheidung, wie sie ihr Second Life gestalten möchten, aber unregulierte "Bankgeschäfte" bergen erhebliche finanzwirtschaftliche Risiken. Diese Unternehmen bieten oft unhaltbare Zinserträge, und am Ende steht die Zahlungsunfähigkeit und der Verlust des investierten Kapitals. Dieses Verbot erstreckt sich nicht auf Unternehmen, die eine Banklizenz oder ähnliche offizielle Dokumente vorlegen können, oder Dienstleister, die Leistungen wie z.B. Investitionsschulung und Beratung anbieten und keine Zahlungen annehmen. Um eine Verletzung dieser Richtlinien zur Anzeige zu bringen, wählen Sie "Hilfe --> Missbrauchsbericht" und "Betrug --> L$" im SL Viewer. WICHTIG: Geben sie unbedingt den Begriff "Bank" in Ihrem Bericht an. Also unbedingt einen Missbrauchsbericht ausfüllen. Am besten in Englisch, z.B.: "Bank fraud: Violation of banking policy and impersonation of a Linden! [Hier Namen einfügen] offers an investment banking service, promises huge returns, and even claims to be an LL employee. After receiving a payment, he simply mutes his customers and never pays anything back."

I don't think so. It has always been possible to get anybody's online status using llRequestAgentData. I don't really like this feature, but it definitely is a feature, not an exploit. The use of this product to stalk people, however, can be a ToS violation imho.

Tini Jewell wrote: I'm not sure if it's my lack of coffee yet this morning or my lacking of understanding much about the technical aspect of mesh...but your reply seems based on the opposite of what I believe the OP had stated??? I thought the OP was stating that mesh is taking longer to rez...not sculpty. I'll reread the OP but I've already done that a few times. /me rubs her eyes, swigs her coffee and goes back to read again. You're right of course. I was only looking at the lower streaming cost of mesh. That was my lack of coffee, not yours And lack of sleep after having been awake for 23 hours.

Madelaine McMasters wrote: Ishtara Rothschild wrote: Btw, I would just ignore the troll with the strange name. He is the one type of person that can't be tolerated or accepted in a tolerant and open-minded society, simply because he is against everything that such a society stands for. Simply don't pay any attention to the neanderthals, they will become extinct soon enough. Oh dear, Ishy! What if we misunderstand what "fittest" is? ;-) Well, I think most people misunderstand that I'm not very fond of the term for that reason. It should be "survival of all individual organisms and social groups that are fit enough. PS: It's not necessarily a competition. PPS: In social species, the fitness of the individual is determined by the individual's ability to cooperate".

Josephina Bonetto wrote: Thanks for the thread Scylla but people are being so rude I won't be replying anymore. I don't know if I would refer to the person who was rude to you as "people". I'm very supportive of consolidating the genera Pan and Homo and listing Pan troglodytes as a human species, but I won't extend the same courtesy to this anonymous creature that has time and time again proven to have no respect whatsoever for human beings. Just ignore it like we all do.

Btw, I would just ignore the troll with the strange name. He is the one type of person that can't be tolerated or accepted in a tolerant and open-minded society, simply because he is against everything that such a society stands for. Simply don't pay any attention to the neanderthals, they will become extinct soon enough.

I generally agree with you, and I usually do my best to respect other people's gender and sexual identities. That is, unless a person denies myself or others this basic courtesy. The prolific blogger that you mentioned has a long history of doing just that. I've noticed that she doesn't seem to be very fond of her biological RL gender, and if I had to take a guess, I'd say that she mainly represents as a male person in SL in order to avoid a gender bias that she herself helps perpetuate. But be that as it may, I will always extend as much courtesy as others extend to me. Or at least that's what I'm trying to do. In case of this infamous blogger, my upbringing always gets the better of me. When she beats other people (such as M2F transgenders) with a sledgehammer, all I do in return is poke her with a stick. If she doesn't like that, she might want to put her sledgehammer away. As for myself, I don't really care which pronoun people refer to me as. Of course I notice when someone uses the male pronoun in an attempt to ridicule me, but it doesn't really offend me, and other people who refer to me as a male mean no harm. I'm somewhere between the genders in SL, which makes both gender pronouns acceptable. There is a reason that I call myself "gender-confused" instead of transgendered I think some people, like myself, merely self-project onto the desired gender, in the way that a furry self-projects onto something cuter and more likeable than his or her RL self. What personally bugs me most are the absolutes that people tend to think in. Black and white, gay and straight, at ease with one's biological gender or transsexual/transgendered. Bisexuals are thought of as closet gays, crossdressers are confused with transsexuals, and all biological men who live as women must be "pre-OP" and "transitioning". There are more than two sexual orientations (a LOT more), and of course there are more than just two gender identities. Many M2F transsexuals are perfectly happy with the contents of their panties. They are not pre-OP, they are non-OP. They're not transitioning, they're already where they want to be. People who are happy being a "shemale" and wouldn't want it any other way -- which actually constitute the majority of trans women in societies that are accepting of a third gender, such as the Thai culture -- are still a taboo in the Western World. Like crossdressers, they are thought of as fetishists who don't deserve a female social identity. In Germany, it is impossible to get a female name and passport unless one is willing to be mutilated. It is disgusting that people who are fine with an intermediate gender identity are coerced into undergoing an unnecessary surgery that has a chance of leaving them disfigured, undesirable, and unable to feel sexual pleasure. It's sick that any form of transsexuality other than this self-mutilation by proxy (no offense to those who desire this option) is still seen as a paraphilia. But that's probably a different topic.

Phoenix (and other v1.x viewers too I think) has also an entry called "Remove scripts in selection" in the Tools menu. Is that no longer available in Firestorm? That would be a shame, because I've always found this function incredibly helpful.

Because mesh geometry files can be smaller in size than lossless 128 x 128 pixels large sculpt maps. Besides, sculpted shoes usually consist of several sculpties, each of which is individually textured, whereas a mesh shoe can be made of a single mesh with a single texture. However, sculpties do have some advantages. I have groups of 8-12 palm trees in my sim, and each group only consists of two (!!!) prims. Sure, they take a while to rez, but if the same group of large palm trees was created as a mesh object, the prim count might be in the hundreds.

I bet Theo Waigel, the former German minister of finance, had a whole lot of privacy too. ETA: You should have seen those in motion when he gave a speech on TV. Like wrestling caterpillars :matte-motes-bored: scary. Needless to say that he was immensely popular with caricaturists.

I was only offended by Charlar's comment, not by your post.

Ashasekayi Ra wrote: If you want to get personally offended by a comment that wasn't personally directed at you, that is your right. It was directed at a large group of people that probably constitutes the majority of customers, which makes it even worse. I took offense because I'm a member of this group. The fact remains that unproductive threats and forum negativity isn't going to solve a single one of the issues in your post. Negative customer feedback should be a welcome wakeup call for any company. Not for Linden Lab though. They've always ignored everything except for things like "good one, Charlar". Be a good little fanboy or you won't be heard. Somehow, I would imagine general dissatisfaction with LL's viewer isn't going to be solved in a forum that is dedicated to *mesh* development. But anyway, that's all I have to say on this derail. My apologies to the OP. Look at the thread title. This thread is all about "non-compliant viewers". There's no need to apologize for being on topic.

Angelique LaFollette wrote: ellerc wrote: So, I just discovered the camera function and was able to see my neighbor up close. This concerns me as I am often nude @ home and would not wish to be have someone spy on me in that way. Is there anyway to disable this feature? There IS a Function that informs you if anyone has thier camera focused on you. I used it Once, but didn't like it because it stopped ME turning my head to look at the people i was speaking to, or people who are speaking to me. It's a Trade-off, so Decide what you want. Angel That can be turned off in Phoenix (and in Firestorm too I guess). It's in the Preferences under Phoenix --> Page 1 --> Shields --> Broadcast camera focus point. Otherwise I would never dare to stare at somebody's butt (or any other spot on their avatar, for that matter).