Panther Miklos

KarenMichelle Lane wrote: Coventina Dalgleish wrote: see is you can add a gt640 video card to your system they seem to perform well with lappys even though the will run hot Coventina, This is a notebook computer. Only a selected minority high-end laptops come with the graphics subsystems on a daughter-card that allows them to be replaced and in some cases upgraded. This is not an option for this OP's notebook. On another note, This PC has better specs that many PCs from 8 years ago because any newer PC has better specs than an 8 year old PC. But on these laptops, the graphics subsystem is designed for Business Use and displaying streaming video Only! Your blame is misplaced. Buyers of PCs & laptops need to educate themselves on what constitutes a high-end 3D rendering graphics system on any computer they are thinking of buying. SL and most high-end gaming software won't work on the Intel HD 3000. Period. Hmm... I have my little $300 lappy going on its second summer. It's certainly not my monster machine (who died, was totally rebuilt and then proceeded to fry two high end power supplies lol), but it gets me into SL and I move around quite freely. There are some locations I won't even attempt to go to, but for my needs, it's working. Bonus is, the heat down here doesn't seem to affect this little machine ::knocks wood:: I do run around on low graphics most of the time but can crank it up to high for a series of photos. Main difference, I think, is I'm hard wired - though on a very slow dsl. Here's my specs.... lol at the 3000 (but I'm not complaining, for $300 at 2 years.... pretty dang good deal! One of these years I'll have the monster machine refitted with a ps that can withstand the heat.. sigh...) CPU: Intel® Core i3-2370M CPU @ 2.40GHz (2394.55 MHz) Memory: 3960 MB OS Version: Microsoft Windows 8 64-bit (Build 9200) Graphics Card Vendor: Intel Graphics Card: Intel® HD Graphics 3000 Windows Graphics Driver Version: 9.17.0010.2849 OpenGL Version: 3.1.0 - Build 9.17.10.2849

::runs through and checks out all these magnificent specimens of gaming computers:: Nope, couldn't possibly be connection or user end... nope, has to be LL. Don't mind me, I'm just runnin round inworld with my little way underpowered $300 Walmart laptop with wired connection via the slowest dang dsl service ever invented. Maybe santa or the easter bunny will be nice and bring me the new ps I need for the monster machine sittin next to me. :matte-motes-sarcasm:

"On a seperate note - I keep getting a white dot above my head. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it isn't. I can appear after I teleport sometimes. It floats perhaps a metre directly over my avatar, I can't tell that it is attached to anything and I can't click it, and it does not show up in photographs (I tried to photo it). It's annoying! Anyone know how I can stop it?" That would be the 'voice dot.' It means that you have voice enabled in your preferences. I run Singularity (I have no clue about the official or the v3 versions) and you can turn off voice by going to Edit > Preferences > Voice and unchecking the enable box. The reason you see it at times and not at others is that not all parcels or Sims have voice enabled via the land. Voice can be a great tool once you settle in and find a great group of friends. My family uses voice all around me - I'm the odd one out and only type, but I do listen in. Have fun on your quest to individualize yourself!

Chelsea Malibu wrote: Here's a couple more ideas: 26. Learn grammar. 27. Shut of your PC and do something else...SL is what YOU make it. 28. Learn to take oneself a lot less seriously. 29. Learn reading comprehension - it's not just fer the nerdy kids. 30. Learn to laugh... long and hard.. and sometimes for no apparent reason at all. :matte-motes-wink: **note - Yeah, it was a bit difficult to dicipher but funny as all get out if you formed the mental image it presented.

Kenbro Utu wrote: In Texas, a majority of the profits from the lottery program go to directly to public education. Not sure of other states. Edit to add: Also this particular lottery is spread across 40 some states, individual state lotteries don't get that high that I am aware of. You can take an annuity or a cash sum. The cash sum for that amount I think is 397 million or some odd. Of course, for the annuity payments, you get the full sum eventually (or at least your estate does if you die). I can't recall the longevity of the annuity at the moment. Ah, the great Texas pipe-dream (not a put down to you Kenbro) of funneling lottery monies to the education fund. The state as a whole fell for that one. The last breakdown I recall seeing was something along the lines of 62% goes to winner payouts, 10% goes to the company running the lottery and whatever is left does indeed go into the education pot. However, when one digs a little deeper, they'll see that any unclaimed prizes (whether lotto or scratch off) is dumped into the infamous state general fund, not into the education fund. That's a load of money that some of us believe should have gone into education... not into the Governors play money account. Here's one story I could find in a quick search... "It's the unclaimed prize money. In fiscal year 2010, it added up to almost $87 million. Local 2 Investigates found $10 million of that goes to the trauma center at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, but the rest goes back to the state's general fund." Story In the end, each individual will either take the lottery chance or not. I don't believe most take into consideration the ins and outs of who/what/where/when/why... they just want that money. :matte-motes-big-grin-wink:

TPV's are my friend. lol While my monster machine is out of commission, I'm on a tiny laptop. Cheap little thing really. Win8 with I3 processor, 4G ram Dell. It isn't ideal for SL (low graphics are my life right now), but I can get in world, run around and do most anything. Sure, bit more of the lag situation than with my big machine but it's doable. I'll never understand why end point sales are choosing to put win8 on any machine that isn't touch abled. I had to switch to Singularity a while back when LordGregg didn't update Emergence to go along with all the do-dads. I've not done much of anything to the machine itself, just use the integrated chip/card. Haven't tried the official viewer in years. Things went wonky on my end when I tried V2 for the first time. Stayed with it a few days, but it just didn't agree with my dsl and setup and I've not gone back to official since. So, if you really want to use that win8 system, give Singularity a try. It works just fine for me.

Perrie Juran wrote: Panther Miklos wrote: The last piece of advice, which is huge to me, the devil really is in the detail. I abhor having to mire through several paragraphs (or even one really) telling me exactly the density and thread count of the dadblasted sheets. Argh! Stories are an adventure and as such the reader needs a wee bit of room to add their own selves to that adventure. Maybe I don't want 500 count cotten sheets - flannel suits me just fine. :matte-motes-wink-tongue: Best of writings to you. Then write your own book. Or stick with the Classics Illustrated comic book versions. Melville spent around 30 pages on the significance of the color white. Would you rather the Whale was colorless so you could insert your own color and chase your own demons? Sebastian Younger spends an entire chapter on wave dynamics. Somewhat technical and tedious to wade through it adds depth to the story, enhancing our understanding of what the crew of the Andrea Gail was up against. Just because you miss the significance of the 500 count sheets does not mean that others will. And it still is after all the Author's story to tell. Wholly guacamole, Perrie. For such a jovial and otherwise enjoyable martian, it certainly seems as though the grumpy bug got up under that helmet of yours and bit you straight on the noggin. Knowl invited feedback. I indulged by giving my personal advice based upon my opinion. No need to go hogwild. Without your knowing my history, I had to chuckle at the assertion that I 'stick with classic illustrated comic book versions.' I do so wish, for the books I have written, that I could have taken the illustrated comic book version route. Sadly, the collegiate world would have most likely frowned upon that. I will concede your point in that the masters (classics if you will) dealt with detail in a very rich and enhancing manner. Those endless details did not detract from the telling in any fashion. Something greatly missing from many of todays writings. Now, if you don't mind... Might I borrow that box of colors? I've got this rather nifty drawing my wee one sat on my desk and it's calling my name to color outside its lines. :matte-motes-wink: Have a great evening, Perrie - watch out for those grumpy bugs.

I agree with Hugsy. Leave editing for much later in your process. Writing is the companion to senses. As such, more often than not, forcing it will only lead you down the path of frustration. Let it flow naturally like the ebb and flow of tides. The first real piece of advice I can give you is to develop those characters. There is nothing worse than reading through what might otherwise be a great read, only to come away not knowing a damned thing about one or more characters other than their surface resume (additionally, glossing over a character or two takes them out of the running for a whole new series). While you do not have to develop their entire life story on page, drop enough golden eggs to leave the reader wanting to know more about them. The second piece of advice is to write.. anywhere, any time. Carry a notebook with you at all times. Inspiration hits us at the oddest and simplest of times. If you don't get a short note (or longer passage) down, right then and there, you will lose it. The last piece of advice, which is huge to me, the devil really is in the detail. I abhor having to mire through several paragraphs (or even one really) telling me exactly the density and thread count of the dadblasted sheets. Argh! Stories are an adventure and as such the reader needs a wee bit of room to add their own selves to that adventure. Maybe I don't want 500 count cotten sheets - flannel suits me just fine. :matte-motes-wink-tongue: Best of writings to you.

I don't know if this was ever resolved, but I remembered reading something similar earlier on. Took a bit of digging, but I finally found this thread: HMDI Kills SL Viewer (from Feb of this year) in which Kwakkelde Kwak offered the solution of "Go to control panel > apperance and personalization > personalize and select one of the "Basic and High Contrast" themes. I didn't even have to shut down the frozen viewer. It insantly loaded correctly." Maybe this will help.

Just jumping in to wave to another Miklos. :smileyvery-happy:

AveryGriffin wrote: the educational system in America is deeply flawed and helpful to a small selection of kids who are good at memorization. They don't have to understand the material as long as they remember the answers! Wow! (I'm a little jaded - can you tell?) @Panther - I will admit to relying heavily on the cash register (which is actually very much an antique in its own right) for figuring out change and the like. However it's much faster than me sitting there counting on my fingers or dragging out the calculator to figure change when someone is standing there staring at you like 'I haven't got all day'. When it comes to printed books vs. ebooks, I used to be hateful of ebooks until I got myself a kindle for school and wow it's just so much more efficient than lugging around 20lbs of text the teacher might not even look at. I like the highlighting and bookmark features and I like how it tells me about how much long the current chapter will take me. It's super handy and I can read it outside and not blind myself with sun-brightened pages. I also bump up the text size to massive to reduce eye strain because I have difficulty putting books down once I start them and little 12 or 10 pt font for a good four hours is a pain! I still cherish my physical books, and often buy two copies of a title I highly enjoy, however I do not hold books on pedestals so many seem to do. The actual physicality of the book is not of importance. It's what's IN the book, the story, the message, the characters, the life inside the pages that matters. You could easily burn a book after reading it, but the story never gets lost if you keep it with you. The way it is delivered doesn't make much of a difference at the end of the day, it's still going to make an impact either way. LOL Avery! Many of us oldtimers could give you a ten minute crash course in making change. I think we all learned the same way. Count up to the nearest $.25, then the next $1 and up from there. It does speed up the process quite a bit. You do make me chuckle with the "type font size" of professors/teachers. I, personally, think that they were just as lazy as the kids. This process made it easier for them to thumb through and find the appropriate paper and allow their eyes to glaze over when grading them. Hence the confusion for some of us when our perfect paper was returned with a B+ instead of the A it should have received. ::shrugs::: Books are very personal when it comes to preference. Just as some love westerns or sci fi, others love mystery or romance. To each their own. I'm all for any method that gets kiddos reading and comprehending AND having the ability to form complete sentences. I am just a tactile person. The look, feel and smell of that plant based version is just.... relaxing. My three kiddos also share this preference and have been caught in the library, "sniffing" the older versions of books. LOL As long as you are reading and enjoying the escape into the story, great! I wholeheartedly agree with your comments on textbooks. Oh how my life would have been easier not having to lug around Black's along with the other texts when I was studying!

::steps up to the front of the class:: Being of the readin - writin - rithmatic generation, I'm torn. Cursive as it was taught during the stone age is not just antiquated, but totally irrelevant. I don't remember one student capable of writing EXACTLY like those signs hanging on the chalkboards. Lord, the hours and hours trying to get that curly on all those letters! That was a waste of time. However, to this day I still write letters to pen pals I've had since 3rd grade. Cursive (legibly) is of high importance in regard to those letters. I'm a heavy handed writer (started out ambidexterous - more lefty than right and after injury lost the fine motor skill of the left - right hand uses way too much pressure for some reason) and plain print takes me forever. I'm a huge proponent of the long lost rote memorization and the fine art of what I call muscle memory (I can't think of the actual term right now). Both of those skills now allow me to belt out all sorts of answers, spellings, auto answer most word problems without taking pen to paper, etc. The auto answer is simply because we had to copy down the question from the chalkboard and then perform the operations. After having done so for a few years, my brain automatically started writing those operations out on the blackboard of my mind. These days, pen and paper are almost absent from classrooms. Everything being computerized, children have lost out on these things I consider basics. Just watch the next time you are at a store and their neat little computerized cash register locks up. They panic! They can't take pen to paper to figure your bill. Hell, half of them can't make change in their heads... they have to have the computer tell them that you gave them a $20 and they owe you $14.30 in change. Or, here's an experiment for everyone. When their credit card machine goes down, just ask them to bring out the old style slip charger. hahahahahahaha Just watch their reaction when they look at it. Priceless! Thanks, but I'll keep my 'old school' waste of time skills and blow you modern kiddos away when they start rationing electricity (hey.. it can happen yanno!). Ah, and the book thing? I do have a kindle. Neat little device. But, um..... I do confess to having a rather LARGE hardcopy library that I gravitate toward more often than not. I still purchase my paper style books more often than e-books. What can I say, I'm a habitual 'fanner' of the pages while reading - this does not work well at all with the kindle. :smileyvery-happy:

:matte-motes-oh-rly: ""puts on captain obvious hat for a moment"" Right, so they can develop something like this, but they just take newcomers to SL and drop them in the middle of nowhere (really) and expect them to know all the basics? Flabbergasted just doesn't seem enough..... edit - fergot about the dang smiley thingies

Suddenly I'm glad this topic jumped out at me. I tend to be the low end spec user in my SL family, so constant redlining when in certain areas in-world is the norm for me. After reading through most of what I could find on this subject, I decided it might be a good idea to check my bandwidth numbers. Holy guacamole! What a surprise I found. Although I've not been in-world for a while now (certainly not during this pathfinding release - at least not to my knowledge... it's been about a month since I've been in for more than one minute), it seems I suffered this excessive bandwidth issue during the last week of May. As one can see.... 2k GB basically on one day is a wee bit... shall we say excessive? I do not use my system to stream or download movies, tv, etc. So, yeah.... this would be SL use. I'm gobsmacked and hoping like hell my provider didn't see that and decide to smack me upside the head with throttling and wicked over rate charges for this massive bandwidth use. Yikes!

"Now this was in the "good old days" but the best post ever that I can recall was the one about the woman who lost her **bleep** under some floor boards- I really wish I had book marked it..." Lost Bleep Thanks, now I need to go change drawers... :::snort:::

This isn't directly related to the OP, but we had an issue over the weekend that we've never seen prior to the idle being turned on. When I logged on in my home sim, there was one other avvie present. I then went to another region. Upon tp-ing back to my home sim, voice stopped working. Having had the voice working delayed before, I relogged. Once I logged back in and started asking, none of us had voice. A quick check of the land tools showed that voice was indeed enabled, but that entire area was greyed out. I tried starting a private voice chat, which worked. Strange. Tp-ed to another region, all was fine. Our sim owner got a sim reset and that apparently did the trick. But now that I've had time to think about it... the sim idile seems to knock the voice channel on the sim down and an avvie tp-ing in doesn't seem to rewake it. Also.. it wasn't just our sim. One family member lives on another sim and had the same issue. Perhaps the sim idle is causing some stop action in worn scripts. Not that I know a thing about scripting. But it would seem to me that script resource allocation might get tripped up when a sim is sent into idle (much like the voice incident).