Porky Gorky

Charolotte Caxton wrote: Intelligent design? Then what could have possibly created that intelligence? Questions like that make my brain ache. :smileyfrustrated:

SIngularities are theorized to exist at the core of black holes and it has also been theorized that the multi-verse is essentially made up of multiple singularities. Taking your theory on negative and positive balance, couldn't we have this balance across multiple universes too? So negative and positive universes all ultimately balancing each other out? I think singularities fit right into some multi-verse theories.

He is a musician in his own right. He used to play keyboards in a band called D:ream who had a few #1's in the mid nineties,

Lucinda Bulloch wrote: The universe is a singularity, so your question is pointless, as all time and space exist within that singularity, what your questions should have been is how does the energy within that singularity express itself. Where did the singularity come from? what existed before it? how did it come to exists at all? If the Universe is indeed a singularity then my question is still relevant. How did the Universe / singularity come into existence?

Yeah Prof. Brian Cox is a bit of a poster boy for science on the BBC right now, he manages to explain technical science fact and theory in a way that most can understand without feeling like they are being patronised, I really like his presentation style and his calming northern (english) accent. When I got that series I just sat there for 4 hours and watched the whole thing. It was really engaging. The only thing I don't like about him is that he is 44 and looks that young. I'm jealous.

Oh no! Rene is posting in the thread and he is going to see that I told him he was living in a political correctness bubble and he is going to tell me off! Im going to hide.

One of the best documentaries I watched recently was a BBC one called Wonders of the universe, If you are in the US maybe it will be shown on BBC America. Or you could just torrent it. I pay my BBC license fee every year so I effectively helped pay to make the show so I give you my permission :smileywink:

ROB34466IIIa wrote: Porky Gorky wrote: Anyhoo....Ignoring Morgan, here is what I think. Ok .. ( but.. have you ever watched ' Through the Wormhole' ? Your multi-verse theory is described in one of it' s episode as well ). I' ll leave you with a quote by Carl Sagan : " Extraordinairy claims require extraordinairy evidence." This goes especially for those who ' believe' instead of confirming matters scientifically. Your guess might be as good as mine when it comes to it. Yeah I love the series and watch all those sorts of documentaries, I am certainly not inteligent enough come to the multiverse/big bang conclusion on my own. I just watch Morgan and others like the godlike Prof. Brian Cox then steal the bits of their theories that make the most sense to me and present them as my own. :smileyhappy: As for confirming matters scientifically, it's a theory so there is no need for the purposes of this thread. Just make it up as you go along or steal it off the telly.

Anywho....Ignoring Morgan, here is what I think. I am currently digging the multi-verse theory, in fact I am becoming more convinced that we are living inside a black hole. I think there were multiple universes in existence before ours. In one of those universes a black hole formed and the energy released during the formation of that black hole resulted in our big bang and the subsequent inflation and expansion of our universe. In turn I think every black hole that appears in our universe creates a new universe on the other side. That is the theory that most intrigues me at the moment. I don’t believe in god in any of the conventional forms found in our religions. But I do believe in a form of intelligent design. I look at the complexity of things like life, DNA and the awesome abilities of atoms and can’t for a second believe that these things have just randomly happened. There is purpose in their existence and that purpose is being realised as the universes age. Whatever is behind this grand design I can only imagine, but I don’t feel any need to pray to it or worship it and hold no illusions about my position within the grand scheme of things. I believe when I die, I die. Whatever energy that is left in my brain, my soul, my intelligence, whatever you want to call it will die along with my physical body and the only way to avoid this is through the intervention of technology.

Porky Gorky wrote: We have active threads on Politics and Child Avatars in GD so lets go for the trifecta and cover religion vs science. Based on your research, experience, religion/faith or paranoid delusions, how do you think the universe came to be? Whilst I agree, he is bang on awesome n' all that in the series, I do wonder though if he is secretly brainwashing me. His voice is so melodic and engaging he could literally tell me anything and I would believe it.

We have active threads on Politics and Child Avatars in GD so lets go for the trifecta and cover religion vs science. Based on your research, experience, religion/faith or paranoid delusions, how do you think the universe came to be?

Rene Erlanger wrote: Being narrow-minded and practising discimination.......is nothing to be proud of! I'll happily be described as "intolerant" of such folk. Sounds like you are living in a political correctness bubble. I prefer to live my life based on common sense and my own experience rather than just towing the PC line. My own experience has led me to discriminate against certain groups in society such as people wearing Klu Klux Klan robes, groups of youths hanging around on street corners after dark, adults that are overly fascinated with impersonating children, anyone knocking on my front door to preach religion at me, anyone walking around displaying swastika's, The tax man, double glazing salesmen..... I could go on and on, the list is quite extensive. I assume the worst of all those groups based on my previous experiences with them, I discriminate against these groups to varying degrees because not doing so leaves me exposed to them. I find It's easier and safer to be discriminatory towards these group as a whole and then work on an individual and personal level to overcome that discrimination with select members of those groups. IMO everyone discriminates to some degree in their day to day life. Even if they are not willing to admit it.

Porky, i'm just big boned

Jenni Lefevre wrote: i don't use google. if the internet were religion, google would be the equivalent of the anti-christ. How do you find your porn?

I think this is one of the biggest problems with SL and has been the case throughout it's existence. If anything, the new user experience seems to have deteriorated in recent years especially now we no longer have volunteer mentors to lend a helping hand in welcome areas although the mentors all went a bit off the rails after a while so not sure if we are better off without them. The retention ratio is shocking and I would love to see what percentage of new users stick around in SL after the first week when compared to MMO's and other virtual worlds like IMVU. Just a bit of thought, commitment and money could really revamp the whole system for integrating new users. They need to be instantly engaged, inspired and intrigued and impressed, LL have a very small window within which to catch a new users attention and retain it and if I was in charge of the Second Life that would be my #1 point of focus. So what has Rod Humble done to improve the new user experience and drive up the retention ratio since he arrived over a year ago? Anyone know?

I reads lots and you can find the most popular easily through google. If I had to give you a blog recommendation of the week it would be Ciaran Laval's I've started reading this one more recently. It's entertaining and informative and generally covers the topics that interest me.

Athena Bedrosian wrote: Sixteen thousand (16,000) people sign up on SL a day. Wow is that number verified as being true? Is that new users or does it include alts?

Rene Erlanger wrote: The point is that there are a few that flout the LL TOS and the more serious cases like "Wonderland" ought to be reported to the local Police, but one should not tar the entire Children community with the same brush......that part is very narrow minded imo. I guess this comment was partially directed at me so I shall address it. You are right, it is narrow minded. In a fair world everyone should be given the benefit of the doubt, innocent until proven guilty and all that. However it is generally not a fair world, it's not even a real world. It's a virtual world in which I choose to spend my recreational time. The social conventions that exist in real life are less applicable here. So I can easily label all child avatars as suspicious and get away with it because it has no direct impact on me or my experience here. The point I am trying to make is, I think because we are operating in a virtual world we can get away with having more extreme view points compared to in RL because it has little to no consequence in the grand scheme of things here.

Pussycat Catnap wrote: Porky Gorky wrote: The world is full of sick bastards who either abuse and hurt children or fantasize about such things. SL is an ideal environment for these perverts to role play their sick urges and desires. This has happened in the past as reported in the media. I've also seen it with my own eyes. Meh. The world is full of people paranoid that it is full of such people, but has very few such actual people. Having worked in the criminal justice system I've met a few of the real ones - they aren't who you think, and they're not that common. One of the rarer forms of criminality. It makes for very easy paranoia though. Life is rarely like Law and Order:SVU where you can cart one of these out every week at 9pm CST Wednesday... Most folks will never encounter one in their whole lives - knowingly or not. But anyone from any inner city like where I grew up can easily recall real murderers, thieves, pimps, and dealers. Having worked within the prison service and the criminal prosecution service in the uk for 12 years I guess I do not have the average perspective. I was surrounded by hundreds of sex offenders day in day out and a good percentage of them were child sex offenders, I am not paranoid in the slightest, I have just had allot more exposure to these sorts of criminals and cases than most people. Having worked in the criminal justice system yourself I am surprised you remain so sheltered from the truth. Child sex offenders are common place within our society. There has been an alarming increase over the last few years in the amount of reported cases and the quantity of convictions. As I quoted in my previous post, "the NSPCC suggested one in 20 secondary school children had been sexually assaulted." So no, sexual abuse against children is not "rare" as you put it, at least not in the UK and I expect the same holds true for the US too.

Don Mill wrote: Dear Porky Gorky: I would very much welcome the links/references that support your varied asumptions in your post. I am assuming that all your condescending statements are actually grounded on proven fact, right? Meanwhile, please understand that no one owes you any kind of explanation or justification for their actions. So whether you trust those that roleplay child avatars or not is of no consequence to over 99.99% of the human population (you can include undiscovered alien species too, I am pretty sure they do not care much about you either). Live and let live... or in your case, hide... please I don't think I made any assumptions that require sourcing, however if you need sources I shall provide them. My first source is my own personal experience. I spent 8 years working in the prison service and another 4 years working for the CPS. I've spent thousands of hours surrounded by sex offenders, specifically offenders who rape, sexually assault and abuse children. I've also reviewed hundreds of cases of child abuse during my time at the CPS. So when I say the world is full of sick bastards who abuse children, my statement is mainly based on personal experience. Thousands of people are convicted of sex offenses against children each year in the UK. It's a grossy unreported crime and there are many instances where the perpetrators are not convicted and cases never see the light of day. The same holds true for many countries around the world Here is a link to a BBC article Convictions for sex offences on children up 60% in six years WIthin the article it states "last year police in England and Wales were notified of more than 23,000 offences and that recent research by the NSPCC suggested one in 20 secondary school children had been sexually assaulted." So the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children suggests that 1 in 20 secondary (high) school children have been sexually assaulted in the UK. I don't need to elaborate on that, the world is full of sick bastards, as I said, so I will move on to SL. Drawing from personal experience again, I have seen 2 instances first hand of SL users role-playing a sexual assault on a minor during my 7 + years here. The first instance took place in 2006. I was basically spying on my neighbours as I had noticed child avatars hanging around and I wanted to know what they were up to. One day I swung my cam through the walls of their house and into the bedroom. I witnessed 2 male avatars roleplaying sexual acts with a 3rd avatar that looked like a girl aged about 6. I took lots of snapshots of the scene including Av names, then I contact live help and reported them immediately. A Linden arrived on the scene straight away, I sent them the pics, they cammed inside the house and 5 minuteslater I had no neighbours. The 2nd instance happened in 2008. I was working on a custom sim at the time for a customer. The sim was closed to the general public but I had access as I was obviously building it. So I arrive unexpectedly at the sim one day to do some work and noticed there were 2 other people showing up on my mini map. One was my customer,the sim owner, so I flew towards them to say hello and arrived to find the sickest thing I have ever seen in SL. I won't describe it here but will summarise it as 2 people roleplaying the abuse of a child. So that's my first hand experience. Im guessing by your post that you are not aware of the child abuse scandals that have taken place in SL in the past which is why you are asking for links and points of reference. If you are interested in this subject then you should should search for credible sources on the internet yourself. There are many and the issue has been well documented I shall provide a link to one article to back up my earlier post as you seem to think my comments were just condescending without any basis in fact. Paedophiles Target Virtual World So this is the "Wonderland" scandal. It was reported by numerous mainstream media outlets in 2007 and went a long way in cementing SL's reputation as being a haven for sexual deviants, a reputation that still exists today to some extent in the eyes of the general public. As I said there are plenty of other stories out there. Go and research the subject yourself if you would like to become more informed. So that is why I find all child Av's suspicious, I am not just being inflammatory for the sake of it, There have been many documented instances where child av's have been used in the simulation and roleplay of child abuse in SL. So when a ADULT user makes a conscious decision to play a child av within an environment where child av's have been used inappropriately many times in the past, then I am going to question their motivates. As I said in my previous post, child avatar users need to justify their choice of avatar to me if they have any hope of gaining my trust and friendship.

Everyday some student pops up in the forums asking us to give up our time for free to answer their questions about the SL platform or to find out how we make money or to gain insight into our private virtual lives. On the other hand during the past week we have Linden Labs poking us with a stick, messing about with our TPV viewer choices, our inventory management structure and proposing to inflict pointless privacy policy on us that will break multiple types of content in SL. Does anyone else feel like we are just here to be experimented upon and probed for our knowledge?

Do stipends still get paid on a Tuesday? Maybe a % of people run out of L$ over the weekend and wait till Tuesday to resume shopping. Or Monday can be a busier work day for allot of people as they catch up from the weekend or try to start the week running, so they spend less time on the MP shopping for animations and more time doing the work they are paid to do. I hate days like that.

Grr... now i want cake.

MP is the problem. MB's are still in operation. It can take a while sometimes after synching the MB for the items to show up in the MP inventory. Sometimes for me it's instant, sometimes I have to wait hours.

Ziggy21 Slade wrote: The last week has been pretty dreadful for me, but prior to that things were fine, I put it down to monthly pay packets, especially at this time of year when everyone is skint February is always a stitch up too if a person is paid by the hour due to it being a shorter month. Personally, sales have been ok for me this month with a dip around valentines which happens every year as I don't do seasonal or holiday content and I assume my customer are off spending their L$ on novelty valentines crap in one of those silly shops that looks like a cake or something. :smileyvery-happy: