Prokofy Neva

No idea what your point is, but anyone who wants to find my blog can just Google, and I don't think the forums are a place necessarily to promote one's blog. And what is this "horrible thing" you think I did that somehow I am supposedly "reluctant" to link to or describe? The horror! Oh! I know! Simply reprinting the exchanges on this forum. Just reprinting them. They stand alone, really. Others who may not come to the forums or who don't feel they can express themselves freely on the forums then have an opportunity to respond appropriately.

Um, I'm not asking for any information. I'm asking for people who ALREADY PUBLICLY link their SL avatar and RL identity to come to a discussion group. Pretty simple concept, unless you are an anonymous vicious sniper filled with ill will. I don't need anyone's real-life information. It's also not "easy to fake". You know, if you are an educator, writer, journalist, actor, etc. etc. you are often already linked in RL and SL. Even if you're not anyone prominent, you might have a long-time blog you have run, or you simply have a university page or a Facebook page that is easily determined to be real -- often because you are in business in SL and are responsible to your customers. I guess all these concepts are alien to you, but you're not the one being invited to this group since you're anonymous and don't link your RL identity, hello. I am a person of fairly high morals. Meanwhile, you are showing yourself to be a prevaricator. I think naming and shaming bad actors like griefers and scammers and people who attempt to rip off others or threaten them for no valid reason are good things and beneficial to SL and I'll go right on doing it, thank you very much. You're not required to read my posts or my blog and you can block me if they upset you so much. The degree to which people in this thread such as Kweopi are engaging in "whataboutism" is illustrative of the ill will they bring to a simple exercise. Most people who are either public figures, or not shy about publicly stating their opinion on social media, or who are educators or journalists or some other kind of professional, or who are in business in RL and speak to the media don't need to engage in all these fakes. There's always someone like that Hero Sun who tries to make a fake blog with a common name to see if he can "sneak by" when a requirement, say, on a blog comments system, is that you must link to a RL identity. People like that are easily seen through and you just block them. Good will is usually pretty easy to tell; bad will shines through as it does in spades in this thread : ) It's not true that identity forces people to be nicer; they can be just as nasty especially if they are nobodies and no boss or any kind of restraint governs them on social media. If doesn't matter if someone puts down that they are Sarah Smith of Golders Green, age 63, retired housewife, and that "doesn't tell you anything". If she has a presence on SL or a blog or some kind of professional connection, perhaps she's in a hiking club, then you are that much ahead in trying to debate the issues of the day with her. I imagine none of you know who Sarah Smith of Golders Green is, and never will, but be assured you are not her.

I've never "doxed" anyone in my life. Meanwhile, I have been harassed and bullied for the entire 16 years I've been in SL by others who not only dox me, they think nothing of harassing my elderly mother-in-law or children. Because I simply documented and criticized their griefing and bad behaviour on world -- which is really the only recourse we have in a world without the rule of law or independent press or judiciary. Why would I use the forums to trawl for people to "dox"?! That's absurd on the face it. To what end? I have no need to find strangers who aren't interested in connecting their RL personas and "outing" them. The call here is for people who *already* link their RL and SL identities publicly for professional or personal reasons and don't care about this need for privacy, which is of course to be respected, and has never been respected for me since the earliest days in SL when I did *not* link my identities, but *Lindens* and their alts and friends outed them -- Lindens who no longer work at LL now, and not only for that reason. I don't expect much from the forums. I have many contacts in SL inworld of people who never, ever go on the toxic forums and just aren't interested in them. There are some I have met in RL and we know each others' identities -- and PS that's because they are *already linked publicly*. So those are the people I have discussions with *already*. I'm just happy to open it up to anyone else, and for the simple reason that I really, really am tired of trying to debate people in SL whose level of education, political affiliations in RL, location, experience are all black boxes. This does not afford you the ideal, pristine world of ideas that you imagine.

If you don't behave badly, you won't be called out on my blog. Example of behaving badly: going into a thread started by someone who is black and gay and looking for black and gay hangouts and friends and picking a fight with them.

I started a little discussion group -- little, because of the one simple reason I want this group to have: you must link your real-life name and SL avatar to be in the group and come to the discussions. While there is a certain set of people who make this linkage in SL with RL -- mainly scholars or educators or game devs or something "meta" to SL, it's certainly not the norm. There are a zillion groups in SL; there are a zillion events; everybody can do what they want. As I make this request, I'm sure there will be those who will respond and complain -- as if they were somehow asked to do this themselves, which of course, they are not. But what I would like to do is to talk to people whose RL location, background, education, profession etc. is open and established. It's very hard to debate people especially on the forums who are anonymous, and about whom you cannot understand anything. It gets really tedious. I truly get the advantage of having the "equalizing" effect of SL (it really isn't that) and the "freedom" of anonymity (which more often than not leads to abuse). Even so, I would like to try this search. And by RL connection, I don't mean that you link to a virtually blank blogspot that supposedly links to your RL name, like someone who's name is like the sun here. You have to be unabashedly connected because it doesn't bother you to be connected.

Alvin, are you black or gay? If not, why are you in this thread? I'm neither black nor gay, but I have tenants who are black or LGBTQ, and especially when new, it takes them awhile to find their way. You can try search on topics; it can just produce a lot of adult clubs that aren't for everybody. I can only tell people to try different events, try to find a topic you like, a book club, music, whatever, then you may find friends. But it is not easy. it's hard. And to come at people in the disruptive way you do just drives them away.

No, of course states' rights should not be changed, are you kidding? Especially with Trump as president. But even if it were Obama or some more likeable president that outsiders want, like Sanders (who would be a disaster in my view), you don't take a system that is set up from the ground up and suddenly make it top down. It doesn't work. When FDR was forced to put national programs in place before the Depression and WWII, he did so very cunningly and politically with getting allies in key states and so on and simply not doing things that maybe Easterners or Westerners thought were prudent because Southerners rebelled, and so on. The US is a big country now of huge territory and very diverse groups of people: Area: 3.797 million mi² Population: 327.2 million It's not your little country with a homogenous ethnic group, if you are in one, or even your little country that used to be a world colonialist and has many diverse races and ethnicities but still has a predominant culture maintained by various institutions, even the Queen. I think you mean to say "martial law" as in military law although George Marshall was a very important historical figure to study both in terms of improving readiness of the US for WWII and for the famous Marshall Plan from which you benefited. When countries declare states of emergency or martial law they have to notify the UN that they are derogating from certain human rights -- and may not of course if they hold the UN in disdain as the US does. But there are still checks and balances and a roster of conditions to be met and we are not there yet. You have to weigh the problem Take my large housing complex of 4000 people across from hospital row, with many hospital workers and UN people living in it. Already has 3 confirmed cases. As it is run by the same people who built the NYC subway, they are people who know how to run large systems effectively. Way before anyone else they closed unnecessary shops built into this community, they made elder hours for the supermarket and laundry room, they began washing all the elevator buttons and door handles daily, etc. They urged people to stop ordering packages they didn't need as the doormen were overwhelmed. First they allowed children to play on the large open plaza but urged them to keep the social distancing of 6 feet. Children could not do this, especially those 9-12 unsupervised by parents. So they closed the plaza completely, because parents and children would not self-govern. NYC parks are closed -- but the mayor has also ordered all the basketball hoops to be unscrewed and removed because they cannot stop people from going there and this way might work. My housing complex can likely succeed with a draconian measure as they are mainly middle/lower worker class, medical and UN people largely who are educated and will largely comply even if they grumble. But a big park with no hoops in it may now spark a revolt that in fact makes things worse. You probably never heard of a "BMX hood swarm" or the Hasidim but these are two groups in NYC defying the Governor's and Mayor's orders and themselves getting sick and making other sicks -- and their actions constitute rebellion against rules that is the effect you can expect when you have not Germans as your population but Americans, who are from every country in the world. Some of the states with no "shelter in place" have huge open spaces and sparse populations and don't need the drastic measures of NYC (and even technically NYS has not risen to that drastic state but has something else called "Matilda's Law" named for Cuomo's grandma which is basically "stay home" or even "stay at work if you can't get home") . Yet some states that thought they had wide open spaces and sparse populations like Idaho forgot that when the all-black Brotherhood of Skiers flew into their country, they got sick in Idaho that wasn't as scrupulous about disinfecting, and then took that back to their states and got sick or died in large numbers, in part because they were in a vulnerable group that had less access to health care. The lack of access to both health care and justice is something I have personally witnessed with large numbers of experiences in NYC waiting in the same waiting rooms as they are waiting in, often one of the few white people, simply because of my rare disease and its expense, etc. It's easy to say every country should make their own PPE -- hey, for that matter they should make their own iphones and gadgets and then not have them so cheap so that people like you or me can have them. The global economy is not so easily dismantled. When China needed less of these as their pandemic ebbed, they sent some to NYC and NYC was glad to have them. Of course China is taking a political star turn as Russia was doing the same but any port in a storm. I am not surprised that you are obsessed with wet markets and I don't expect you to grasp that a typical mediocrity with an MBA running a hospital in NYC and making decisions based on ideology or insanity rather than medical facts in dispersing PPE is as bad a problem as a "wet market". Wet markets exist in Africa and Eurasia and Latin America, yet they did not prove sources of the virus in the past or present. Why? Because other factors like an authoritarian communist government that suppressed facts and lied to the public were important, too, and the population's resistance and lack of resistance at the same time, and other things. It seems common knowledge that the virus started in a wet market -- or perhaps a lab studying viruses that did not deliberately release it, but accidentally did so, but it doesn't matter after that because other countries have a chance to do better or worse to stop it -- Germany and South Korea did better, Spain and the US did a lot worse. One thing I can say, it is more complex than you seem to grasp. This is a good article to read: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/opinion/coronavirus-science-experts.html

Generally, I don't find it useful to complain about this very dire situation with strangers because of wildly different levels of education, experience and knowledge not to mention geographical location. But since you used the word "vent," short for "ventilator," AKA "respirator", today is the day Gov. Cuomo said the respirators are likely to run out in New York City. Millennials *are* stupid but possibly no more stupid than other groups -- I know old grannies and grandpas who should know better who are making multiple runs daily to the Costcos and Walmarts and not even wearing masks and thinking they are the lone salvation of civilization even as they infect their family. But I do see millenials outside still congregating in groups like idiots. They are walking a dog and this ends up being occasion to socialize with 4-6 other people not keeping the distance -- which is something of a fiction anyway. My daughter's boyfriend's sister tested positive for the virus and is quite sick. She is 27. She had shortness of breath, went to a hospital, and because she did not have a fever, she was sent home while she waited for the test. Some people with those characteristics have died waiting for the test; she apparently is getting better. For weeks her brother has been yelling at her to stop going out at night and partying. It's hardly the case that people of this age are married with kids already. They're not. But of course the next generation down is even worse. These idiot bmx bikers doing "hood swarms" are in their teens and early 20s. Do they think by riding a bike fast through an empty street you won't catch a virus? Many people casting around for blame can't see the larger issues. If you are ranting and raging about people who eat bats and now force you to stay inside or who killed your mother, you seem to have forgotten that one solace is that you have your cheap cell phone from those very people (most of whom don't eat bats) because of globalization -- and you never complained about that all these decades nor did you care what kind of working conditions the people who make your gadgets had to work in. Many people ranting and raging about Trump seem not to grasp that health, education and welfare are the responsibility of states -- and for good reason. This is the "states' rights" that Eurocrats at the UN and third-world Soviet A pupils get so exercised about and rage that the US is the only country that hasn't signed the childrens' rights' convention besides Somalia. But that's because federal standards can't be imposed such as to enable the US to comply with some of the features of a convention like that. If Obama were telling you he had to protect federal reserves for the core of government that must survive a national disaster so that a core group of top elected and appointed leaders can keep the country running, you might respect that because you liked Obama. It's especially galling when Trump's un-elected son-in-law uses the phrase "that's for us" about these reserves as if he means "our family" -- and he probably does. Even while you can't respect Trump and he's a monster, there are a number of people who keep the lights on who deserve to have reserves for themselves -- and again, it is indeed states' responsibility to ensure the welfare and health of their people. Today I see masses of people raging about Trump supposedly making money off this "wonder drug" and that supposedly is the reason why he is touting it. It's the kind of knee-jerk socialism and idiocy you see all the time on Twitter. The Times, which breathlessly reported this, can't seem to tell us the *value* of this investment -- which was made by a company hired by Trump's three trust funds in the drug company involved. That this attenuated relationship means that Trump -- who is generally out of it on most things -- is unlikely to be aware of how much his investment is and what it is in (such as to wish to chose this drug to make cash) -- simply escapes most people. Most trust funds invest in pharmaceuticals. Many of you could have college funds or pension funds that are invested in the exact same drug company and you have no idea. The amount is not likely to be significant. It is hardly the motivation for Trump's idiocy on this question. This idiotic take on things -- that Trump does X or Y because it makes his business money -- actually prevents you from seeing the far worse problem here, that Trump touts a medicine merely because some underqualified loon has told him so, and he is merely grasping at straws to try to provide hope to people to keep his ratings up. It's not true that "people died" following Trump's touting of this medicine -- because the one man who died ate fish tank cleaner clearly marked as a deadly poison because it had the same ingredient. That's different even than the hordes making a run on pharmacies asking for it -- but they can't get it without a prescription. Yes the drug has helped some small number of people in tightly defined situations that are beyond Trump and most social media users to grasp. This drug is relied on by lupus sufferers and now there is apparently a shortage but even that is mainly about *fear* of a shortage due to the popularity and panic than actual cases of anyone dying because of this. There is a worse reality people are not grasping -- that 80% of the people who wind up on a respirator because of this disease when their lungs becoming completely ravaged are not going to live, miracle drug or no. They are not going to make it. So that's why it be good to know how many vents are left in NYC. And while Trump can be helpful in cracking lose respirators, Rhode Island or Maryland could do this as well -- and yet they won't. It's also hard for the socialist DeBlasio to go to any companies now and ask for help when he's been trashing them his whole life.

You wouldn't necessarily have to take Oz Linden's word for it simply because he's a Linden working for the company, and they might be reluctant to tell you the bad news and lose value at least on their internal shareholder's market. After all, they didn't tell you six months prior to Sansar's closing that it was closing. Even so, the markers you're invoking aren't what I would look for. I never understood why they dumped last names, I thought originally it was because they got tired of thinking new ones up, but it's obviously something with data base tables; it creates two pieces of data instead of one...or something. And putting it back is expensive and time-consuming apparently so they will charge for it -- and they're right to charge for what people actually want, as they don't actually want land very much or there'd be people buying more of the abandoned land. Raising fees is what every business does everywhere, always, since the beginning of time, so that's not a marker. 16 years ago when the Lindens blocked the open Linden markets like GOM (GOM'd even became a verb), we thought that was a very bad sign. In a way, it was, because the Linden never recovered the value it had on the open market, which was $4.00/1000, not $3.75 as it is today. Still, they have lasted a long time since then, longer than most Silicon Valley things including Google's own enthusiasms (see the Google graveyard, especially for really hyped things like G+). I'm not sure what it means to "outsource" the transactions when they own the company Tilia, or what it means that it is separate, but I don't think that's a marker any more than it is for Google to have various company names under which it does business. SL remains free, and is not behind a paywall if that's what you mean. My sense is that there is less abandoned land than there was; that more of it is being bought; that the Lindens now move it faster. I think Tyche Shepherd who regularly monitors sim production can tell us that. SL is shrinking but it's not tanking and Mainland is actually improved. Markers I would look for are really bad performance issues that the Lindens don't try to fix anymore because they are in a death spiral. Refusing to fix the ability to post easily to social media is one bad sign to me because virtually every web page in the universe has that ability, but a virtual world is obviously something more complicated than a web page. I realize it's a hassle but I think it cuts down their presence online. Firestorm did not remove this ability. The Linden getting worse -- which has been a factor for some time. Yesterday I saw 260 behind a huge line of something like $19 million Lindens. Today, that's gone, so perhaps it means that Supply Linden has been joined by Buy Linden -- they are not likely to tell us. Or somebody got a huge packet of cheaper Lindens. But it has been stuck at 260 or 259 for a year now, and as I have records going back for years, I know this is not a good value. It has been 258 or less for years. This happened because with the huge influx of premium accounts, a lot of "printed money" (the stipends) entered the economy and the sinks were not enough to remove it (texture fees, group formation fees, etc.). There's a lot we don't know about the sinks and courses. Are the taxes on the MP sinks or sources? If a sink, it's not enough to keep the value of the Linden up higher. Is it really a source of revenue for the Lindens? If so, what rate do *they* cash it out as? Since the Lindens' dream is to escape land and servers as a revenue generator (folly, in my view) and taxation of purchases and fees on the currency market are envisioned as a core revenue generator, what exactly is this revenue, a sink or a source? Anecdotally, I've seen people come back to SL that have been away from years, some have re-rented from me that I haven't seen in a decade because they are stuck at home now during the pandemic. Others have to downsize or end rentals as they need every dollar now for RL. SL has weathered a lot of storms internally and externally and I think it will last for awhile longer. But I remember a company called "Zoom" with the tag line, "Free Photos for Life!". They were big in the 1990s. The business plan was to allow endlessly storage of free photos but then try to sell photo books and mugs with photos and such. It didn't live (one of many that didn't survive the original dot.com boom), and took my free photos with them if I didn't manage to copy them. That Zoom is long, long forgotten, so much forgotten that another company has the exact same name now since 2011, with a video conferencing service that is challenging Skype. The operative thing about SL that gives it staying power is that unlike any other platform of its type, it enables users to make money from the platform and continues to make a profit itself (and these two functions are connected). That is, there are platforms that enable you to make money, say, E-bay or Etsy or Shutterstock. That is their main purporse and they take a hefty percentage of your profits. SL ostensibly does not have making money as a mission, as most of the people in it use it for entertainment or socializing or education without making money from it; they only spend money. And part of the reason that companies like Facebook and Instagram won't let users make a profit with their platforms (unless they are app engineers in FB's case or arguably those placing ads on FB) is that they will not grant you intellectual property rights. LL does that more thoroughly than anything of its kind, game or virtual world.

You could always try the Linden home first, see if it does all the things you want, and if it doesn't, find some mainland, look for an area that is settled already because one with abandoned land might change and be bought up by, say, a club that would take up all the avatar space on that sim so that you can't even fly home. Don't be the club that occupies 4096 or even 512 and puts 40 avatars on that tiny space preventing every one else on the sim from even coming home -- or living in terrible lag if they do. If you want a club, rent a homestead so that your crowding like that is not spilled over on to other people.

Here, this one's for Solar Legion and Klytyna and other face-makers. And to any Moles who may care about remedying the Coastal Waterways debacle. Name your horse, for crying out loud!

GM began making more respirators even before the president ordered them to, however. He had forgotten that he had once applauded the sale of this one GM plant that made them.

Yes, FDR was late in entering the war, and history has judged him for that -- and PS, for not saving the Jews of Germany which he could have done a lot more of as well. And Lend Lease was vital, and vital for the Soviets as well, although they used some of it to build the bomb. There are some great books on this topic and I think this biography of George Marshall is good because it shows you the advisors clamouring to get FDR into the war, struggling to get him to act, and he doesn't act, because he is afraid of not getting re-elected, and afraid of the captains of industry who were slow in getting resolve about this. If you want to blame someone for getting into the war late, blame the American people. FDR might have gotten in earlier, given his constant communication with Churchill, but the American people, especially the south, who recalled the civil war and had taken the brunt of it, did not want any war. There was also the problem of the woefully small US army at the time and its pitiful supplies, something that Harry Hopkins worked very hard to reverse, in part through first organizing the civilian corps. But there's also other points where you have to ask why the UK was slow to act. Churchill refused to launch Operation Overlord (which ultimately took place and is known as the Battle of Normandy in June 1944). Years before that, the US was urging the UK to invade France, and already was willing to send the troops and ships. They had countless meetings sometimes on ships in Canada or in Asia, where supposedly the UK was going to get on board finally -- but it kept dragging its feet. They wanted to detour off to Asia to try to stop Japan there, and that wasn't a bad idea, given Pearl Harbor and then the Korean War, but historians still argue over whether they really could have stopped Hitler sooner had they launched Operation Overlord faster. Why was Churchill reluctant? Because he didn't want to risk losing masses of young British men, as the UK had lost in World War I: nearly a million. There were some battles, like the Battle of the Somme, where the Britain lost 400,000, and I believe more than 19,000 just on the first day. In order to understand history, you need to know more history -- it's endless. Churchill also had to think of politics -- and the British people who didn't want their sons to die in such huge numbers again. So it is what it is. The US largely sat out WWI, and lost "only" 116,000, which was low compared to other countries. But it is helpful to remember that before *that*, they had the civil war, in which 620,000 lost their lives and the economy was ruined in many places. Governments -- and people -- are always fighting the last war.

A lab worker in my daughter's hospital who is never in contact with the public or even the blood runners (who have spread it) now has tested positive. How did he get it? It must be airborne. Management did not think he and other lower-paid personnel should have been wearing masks all this time -- like, for the last two months. Some of them finally have masks now - one, for re-use. The workers in the hospital who are sick with COVID now are all the lowest paid personnel, not the doctors. But doctors and nurses are getting it too. It doesn't discriminate.

As I have told my doctors for years, with wounds that won't heal, and they won't listen, if they could just get me a bottle of Mercurochrome, I'm pretty sure I could get this immune disease of mine licked. In fact, I'm positive I could. Oh, it was banned? Oh, because it has mercury in it, apparently? Oh. Is that one of the reasons I have an immune disease? Oh, I really don't think so. I think it was growing up 4 blocks from Love Canal that might have done that. OK, but that's fine, I have another thing that my 94-year-old mother-in-law has told me will cure COVID, like it has cured a lot of things, and she should know, she survived the Revolution, the collectivization, the dekulakification, World War II, the stagnation, Chernobyl, and her father and sons winding up in the GULAG. And what is that thing? It is known as "Sea Buckthorn" in the US.

I thought we had that already? PS anxiety has a sale now where you can get ALL OF THEIR NEON STUFF, like tons of it, for just $77. I'm not kidding. It is so glowy.

Here's another data point: When my infant daughter was born prematurely and put in an NICU, the pediatricians, who happened to be African American, told me the following: a) African American premature baby girls have the best chance of surviving b) Caucasian premature baby girls have the next best chance of surviving c) African American premature baby boys have the next best change of surviving d) Caucasian premature baby boys have the worst chance of surviving They may have told me the chances for Hispanic premature babies but I just don't recall them -- I think they were worse than blacks as I recall. So the hardiest little tiny babies are black females who have had generations to develop hardy genes. The white boys have the worst chance. Even so, my daughter, the smallest baby born alive who survived for more than 48 hours in the hospital's history (she had Russian and Irish genes) died at one month's of age because it's hard to get out of the NICU alive and unharmed. Today, they do a lot more for such babies but it's still a lottery.

The Lindens probably saw the pandemic coming earlier than most; hence, the sale of Sansara. Good! And they are making Bellissaria a priority because those people sign up for recurring subscriptions. Good! Can't beat that with a stick. As for the "something must be done" stuff -- Are you just logging in after many years away? It's been like this for years. It's actually better now as more people are buying abandoned land, and the Lindens are processing requests for it faster and more fully -- before they would deny you for various reasons on some kind of grid they consulted, but now they don't. The one person owning all the land and asking a high price for it is sustaining Linden Lab's bottom line now in tier. So I wouldn't wish that person ill will if I were you. I've actually noticed the prices coming down even in Zindra -- which has the most high prices in SL generally because people want that security of adult land where no idiot or ex-friend can abuse report them for mature activity. PS a lot of us have been revitalizing the Mainland since 2004 -- as long as it has been required. And we go on doing so. It doesn't need Lindens or anything. Just good will and attention.

A person who keeps virtue-signalling and keeps arguing against an obvious point that really required no comment at all is not someone who is "not heckling" nor someone wishing me well. Wishing someone well happens when you don't answer an obvious and doable suggestion with vicious and nasty replies. I don't expect people to become able to see themselves, but now might be a good time to start. Bye!

Of course there are sellers that have rent-to-own. I'm not one of them simply because it means yet another layer of record-keeping and management as exposure to the vast population of unscrupulous users who far outnumber the population of unscruplous land dealers -- but I know perfectly respectable and trustworthy dealers like LIFE Properties from whom I myself have done rent-to-own for years. Land barons put high prices on land, especially prime waterfront and sailing land on Blake because they can, it's an open market. They can afford to put what seems like a ridiculous price on it which is more than you will pay and wait months and months because the cost of tier is not greater than what they will make when the sale goes through. It's no uncommon to see land sit there for 9 months or more because a land baron who buys in bulk can afford to do this. If enough people can't pay their prices, eventually they come down. I've known a few others who did rent-to-buy but they simply got out of the business or left SL because it's not a business you're going to get rich at, it has very small margins and high exposure. The Lindens were right to get rid of the shady bankers and stock market founders but rent-to-buy isn't exactly a "mortgage" because the land dealer didn't loan you any money at an interest. He just let you pay for land he himself bought at his own expense over time. That's a different kind of financial arrangement, not a bank or loan, and therefore the Lindens have no reason to stop it, as it is a user-to-user transaction. From his perspective, you're more likely to be the risk than he is, because you could bail at any time after a few weeks rent and then he doesn't have the sale he thought he did. To prevent that sort of all-to-common occurrence, the dealers do this: they remain an officer of the land group. So that way they retain control of land that THEY *paid for up front* and NOT YOU, if you bail. That's why this claim by animats who has never done this and doesn't understand it is false: "Rent-to-own implies that you are building up a credit with a landowner to be used later. There's no way to make the landowner turn over the land when you're paid up." Um, that's not how it works. It's not about the land-owner having "seized your land and made you pay" because obviously...it's HIS land HE PAID FOR AND YOU DIDN'T. Why would you get to have land you did not pay for turned over to you in full?! Many people fail to grasp this simple lesson of land in SL: you have to pay an upfront cost, either to the Lindens, or to another resident -- the purchase price. After that, you still have to pay the tier to hold it, per square meter -- as you would pay a maintenance fee on a condo. I don't know of a single rent-to-own dealer in the history of SL who would let a user give him only installments -- rent -- on land he didn't control, trusting he, the land dealer, will be paid in full in the end. This isn't about "building up credit" obviously. Let's say the dealer purchased on the auction or from another buyer a nice piece of waterfront that costs $50,000, even if only a 1024. It might be on the Blake Sea. He owns the land. You rent from him and pay $1000 a week or whatever he charges, and at the end of 50 weeks or whatever the math is, he turns it over to you. If you were renting, you would just see that rent sunk each week with no equity. If you sign the arrangement to own it, you will keep paying the installments over time that eventually lead to you taking over the land, and him leaving the group. So it isn't a mortgage at all; it's literally rent-to-buy as an installment plan because you couldn't afford to pay the $50,000 up front. If you don't trust him to turn the land over, then don't enter the arrangement, but there are dealers like LIFE who have built up the representation over the years and have no reason to screw somebody over because their continued land business depends on a good reputation. If you don't trust a company to turn over the land to you after your installments, you're not required to do this. It exists for people without capital. You can always raise the $50,000 yourself, perhaps saving it over time in a business, then buy the land outright. The default to always hate and loathe the supposed land shark is misplaced, when the dealer offering rent-to-buy is way more exposed by people who don't follow through than vice-versa.

As I said, " I do buy public domain from people even for that much. It's a skill to get it framed and lighted properly and looking good in SL and I value that. But sometimes my own $10 upload will do." I don't see that there is any "massive slash" across this item other than it is old and has those kinds of lines in it -- sometimes you destroy the nature of an artwork by "repairing" it. This version of it which I found and uploaded for $10 is perfectly fine for anybody who wants to save $225, and I do. Of course everybody's Google is different, maybe you didn't find it. I pointed out that your store doesn't have landmark givers for anyone confused or curious about this. So the few notecards you passed out to your friends don't count, and um, yeah, I can tell the difference. When someone like you who has heckled me for years in the forums says "Have a nice day," I know how to read it. Once again, let's remember what this is about: 1) Concern that nice areas the Lindens made disappeared for some reason -- but they didn't 2) Appreciation of the Linden areas but exasperation that THEY ARE ALL NAMED EXACTLY THE SAME 3) The suggestion that if the Lindens would rename these on the fly as they are doing them especially to make them more memorable with terms like "castle" or "docks" they would get more use, more sharing, and more appreciation 4) The absolutely insane, inexplicable resistance this simple, normal notion gets from people who are Linden fanboyz even beyond the Lindens own take on themselves, and who will rage and rant for days against anything I say, even something obvious which others agree about. No one should have to rename thousands of places named "Coastal Waterway" when Lindens could not only name them at the get-go -- a bright intern could be sent out to finish this in a day and forever leave their mark on SL with all kinds of fun names. Who wouldn't find that a resume-builder.

I'll just add a few more data points and then since not very many people want to discuss these larger system-wide issues, I will try to find time for my blog. By and large, my tenants do not ask for handouts because either they know they already have a very good deal and are grateful, or they know I do a lot for them, or they grasp even if they never heard of me or have no idea what rental market prices are, what they have is pretty nice. Not a single one has asked me for a handout. I'm proud of them. Some have left their rentals as well they should, don't pay for entertainment when you need food. Some left small rentals to go to larger ones simply because they are spending more time here because they sadly have more time being either sent home from work or out of work -- yet the few dollars that an SL rental represents a month is not a pinch for them. Some downsized, because the difference between $10 and $5 is significant now. It always has been for me. $25 was the minimum I could spend per day to feed a family of 3 that was sometimes 4. In NYC. Where prices are higher. Where I worked multiple jobs and couldn't always buy things and cook them -- and where buying in bulk is not possible, as there are no Costcos for 50 miles. But I am seeing bad behaviour or just the typical thoughtless behaviour which I am used to, because it's not personal, it's not RL. o A tenant who broke up with her boyfriend refunded her rental weeks ago -- before all this virus stuff (for most people -- it's now day 22 of self-quarantine for me). I always ask people if they had problems -- sometimes I can fix them and they came back. This person went off to cry about her lost virtual love, but then came back and answered my IM. She asked me if she could use my land as a sandbox now. I guess that boyfriend paid. I said no. Because you can't use my land as a sandbox, as I said elsewhere. Not when I have actual sandboxes. And actual free places to hang out in. o A neighbour pulled a huge rage fit in the land preserve group because a tenant had put a build on her land and put out an aggressive orb that sent her away from her own land. We had noticed that encroachment but thought the tenant was in the same land group -- only someone who already owned the land next to my rental would so boldly spread a build across it right -- and one that didn't return, right? I don't allow orbs on the ground, but sometimes tenants put me AND my alts and son in the list so we won't notice -- although we always do eventually. The main thing to grasp is that this situation takes literally five seconds to fix. This neighbour raged for 15 minutes before she would tell me WHERE it was; I went and eliminated the problem in the five seconds required -- ultimately I had to send the whole house and build back because it was rooted, and the orb was built into the house -- that really is a problem because few people bother to adjust those to the perimeter only of the house but leave it at 96. I knew doing that would mean the tenant refunded -- they always do, even though it is entirely their fault their build was returned. The neighbour kept raging -- why, that tenant must be Latinx; why, she got to be racist because she was Latinx herself; why, they are the worst blah blah. She raged at me for having free land available to poor people (this was actually a paid rental even if in the land preserve, but whatever). She raged at me for renting to people of her kind because they always create problems. I have no idea what ethnicity that tenant is because I didn't study her profile and you can't always tell and more importantly, it doesn't matter. I rent to everyone who follows my rules. Finally I had to block this rage machine. She kept raging to my other tenant who was nearby. Why, I must need psychotherapy. Why, I must not have any children. Because I instantly removed a nuisance after she disrupted my group with insanity LOL? No. It's because she thought that if I gave free land to poor people (as she imagined) and they or I somehow profited from this, that orbs should not be allowed. Well, they aren't allowed anyway in my rentals? And it was a paid rental, not free. I have children; I have a daughter-in-law who is from Latin America. Etc. So whatever, many people rage and rage for no logical reason and then they imagine I'm the problem. BTW, I've found the following to be true: People from Texas, Brazil, Australia and Russia sometimes overprim and encroach on others' lands. People from Portugal, UK, Estonia, and Rhode Island don't. Even though they share the same language and cultural heritage in some cases. Something about the hugeness of their country/state versus the tininess or island status of their country/state, and how they fit themselves in it gives them a sense of themselves, like it or not. A social scientist could study this; I'm not a social scientist but just commenting on my experience. But like viruses, overprimming and encroaching are not behaviors that are inherent in one race or ethnicity, because even a Texan can keep to the limit and even a Japanese can overprim. o Remember how I told you I took this area that was losing me US $15 a month (all empty 512s plus some pathway) and recouping me US $4 from 2 x 512s that cost $2.75 total in tier - not very great margins (The US $1.25 profit you make from two parcels is not enough to cover the others that are empty that together cost you US $15). They aren't used. Partly they aren't used is because people don't like living so close together. Or because I have rules -- no orbs, no fences, no building smack on the property line -- to enable people to live cheaply in close spaces -- but they don't like those rules. I have offered those kind of areas that stay half empty for years, but now I have much less of them. It's crazy to keep them open. People don't want such small spaces AND they don't want to follow rules, even if it means 16 of them could have a nice SL for $2 US a month only, without a premium. That's the reality. o So I moved the two long-term faithfuls to other sims -- one took a slightly larger lot, the other had to quit SL due to the fires in Australia. BTW, I kept his rental available for him, unpaid, for weeks on end, he came in and paid once and told me about the fires, I kept them some more after his box expired, then he came one day and said sorry, he had to leave completely). I wrapped up all those 512s into one giant lot of 6000 plus or whatever. It stood there two days, and today it was rented by someone who didn't mind paying $1750/wk for a big lot. That lot costs me US $16.66 in tier every month. I will now collect US $23.62 for it. So now I have a $6.96 "profit" from this parcel -- if it stays rented, but occupancy is low on the mainland. I no longer have to put any content or time into it -- it has a big build/store on it now. My "profit" will get eaten up paying for the next sim's occupancy or even the camp sites that are only $50 and subsidized. But it stops the hemorrhage. It does NOT pay me back for all those years (15) I ran that newbie community at a loss. Another data point: the person who rented that big lot was on another sim with a fairly big build and lot and was there for years and years paying her rent more or less on time. I considered her one of the greatest customers who has a pretty build AND pays her rent. Can't ask for more than that! One day she disappeared abruptly. I never did find out why. It was unlike her, and she was missing for weeks. I kept her build because it was so elaborate, and had been built up over time with little intricacies, and because I knew that land wouldn't rent instantly. So if someone wanted it, they could pay the box -- but I left the build. That's what I do. Months went by. I saw in another group that she logged in. She didn't think to come and either pay for her rent, pick up her build or explain anything. Nor is she required to. I returned her build and lowered the land because by making a flatter area it rents better. Half of it rented nearby; I never did rent most of her land, even cutting it in half. It just happened to work out that way. So now she appeared out of nowhere to rent this newly-created profit-making former newbie patch. I greeted her and simply told her that while I had kept her build actually 3 months last time thinking she was sick or something, I couldn't do that again. What happens when you look at cases individually and try to be kind and just; what happens when you figure, well, why not leave their stuff until it's rented, you are merely taken advantage of. You are a chump. I have learned that anew in the last 6 months as I turned two formerly low-cost starter areas or theme areas for those who are supposedly creative (another big lie of SL, no one needs this) into larger lots that pay for themselves at least, or make a profit because otherwise, how can you pay the bills of a thing like this, and your own RL bills, to boot? So when people go on and on and ON about heartless landlords who won't cut them a break even during a pandemic, I have to say -- I cut breaks -- during 9/11, the London terror, the Japanese tsumani, the Chinese earthquake, the Australian fires, you name it. I cut people breaks because they were new, or didn't speak English, or had trouble learning SL. I cut them breaks because I knew they really were ill in RL, or faced challenges. And there is little sense in this. It *might* be that someone who remembers you kept their prims for them for 3 months will come back and rent again; but they might not.

You're a good use case to prove my point. You do an enormous amount of exploring as I know from chatting with you as you have come to my land preserve areas. If you didn't realize you have to rename them, how much more the average schmo who is just flying around trying to enjoy SL. I am very savvy about making and renaming land-marks, because I run 3-4 servers with interesting places I update constantly with landmarks I sometimes rename because the Lindens named them all the same in the Coastal Areas and because people rename things or re-parcel. It's not a problem for me to do this. But I recognize IT IS A PROBLEM THAT THE LINDENS CAN FIX EASILY AND NOT MAKE ANNOYANCE FOR OTHERS. More to the point, fix and get A LOT MORE USE OF THEIR LAND. That there are two forums regulars who regularly snipe and hate on me who can't grasp this, and have to rant and rage about how it is easy to do, or I should do it or else I'm a moron, is never surprising. As I said, Lindens, even Lindens who might close this thread, are so much better than forums regs who behave like this. They get it. They will rename their parcels -- watch them. Yes I saw that region too. Was that Linden? Well, whatever. Let's hope not. The Lindens can easily ensure that THOUSANDS of their special locations ARE NOT ALL NAMED EXACTLY THE SAME, COASTAL WATERWAY. They may not have reflected on this. They make the places, then go to the next and don't worry about how to get use out of them; how to share them. They may figure if it says the sim name when you click and use "show on map," that's enough. But the average clueless SL travelers, casual or experience, doesn't first check the map. they just go. They make a landmark. And now have a mess. The end.

I stand by everything I've written here because it's true. And I'll repaste what I said because it's true, again: I think you and Tari Landar have never visited these Linden places so you can't understand what I'm talking about, but that's common. Anyone who explores a lot in SL and enjoys the Linden places get this, but you don't because you don't. 1. I surmised -- "I think" that you must NOT have have visited these places. Because you denied that this was an issue -- and still do. And I have to conclude that no, you still have not visited the Coastal Waterway issues because you are still huffing and puffing. 2. Those who explore the *Linden* places as distinct from any other place of which there are zillions knows this is a frustration especially when sharing something. I encountered this in my Mainland Appreciation Group with me and others having a bunch of "Coastal Waterways" and not knowing what they hooked up to FROM INVENTORY until we tested on the map - one more chore. 3. I'll say it again: you must not go to Linden docks which are nothing special with no markings, and get COASTAL WATERWAY and get frustrated. I have no doubt that your inventory does not contain COASTAL WATERWAY now -- and you'd admit that if you were writing in good faith here -- and it's not because you went and re-named them on the fly. Nothing you've said or Tari said proves that you go to these places because if you did, you'd at least get the problem -- and you don't. When people response to a statement of fact with "You are slandering me," I can often conclude that they understood something is true, but can't admit it. Re: "But I do sometimes make things to travel about on and include a notecard with some of my favourite scenic Linden locations and nearby rez areas (always Linden because they're stable and reliable No doubt these aren't COASTAL WATERWAY as you would have had this problem so many times you would have joined me in asking the Lindens to fix this. Old Linden places do have labels. These new ones do NOT. If you have these in a giver at your store, great, but they may not have Coastal -- and I bet you do NOT have them. Because if you DID, by now, customers would be saying , "Hey, these things are all named the same." Another thing I can understand about it is that instead of serving the public, serving people and preventing their confusion, it's more important to you to rage about being "slandered". (By the way, "libel" is the correct legal term for *written* speech). These Linden areas are all named the same which means landmarking them is pointless and cuts down on their visits and sharing. It's hard to keep re-naming lots of landmarks as you fly around and it's easier for the Lindens to give unique names to parcels they make as they parcel them. After all, they want use of their free places. It's not a big deal for anybody to rename a landmark BUT THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE TO. Many people landmarking these nice places DO NOT REALIZE THEY ARE ALL NAMED EXACTLY THE SAME and will have trouble sorting them and returning them and - yes, renaming them. I guess you don't have that many customers so you don't think first of what is a problem for YOUR CUSTOMERS, then a problem for you as the manager of a small boutique business. I do. If you log in and travel, that's great, but since so many of the mainly anonymous and unaccountable people on these forums do NOT, and make avatars with zero activity to post on the forums, it's a safe assumption. Most people who are ordinary and not on the forums and not special and not in with the Moles find it difficult to do this. Some don't even know you *can* do this. Some can't make landmarks. You are not thinking of this because you don't deal with the masses; you deal with a small sub-sett of the SL population who buy old mosaics for their walls. bTW that includes me, who has a) bought your products for years b) won a design contest in your house, giving you enormous amounts of publicity. It's easier to keep sniping and raging and imagining that things you do are the norm though, isn't it? Well, don't. PPS I stopped by your store. I didn't see any landmark givers of interesting places to explore, but that's ok, it's not required, people can just be hobbyists and just collect places and sometimes share them. Let's recall how you greeted my point about this problem: Landmark names can be edited. A friend drops LMs on me when he finds somewhere he thinks I'd like and I always add a FROM GEORGE on the end so I can find it again The LM name comes from the parcel. The owner of the parcel gives it the name. Are you complaining about this in general or because the Lindens didn't name things to your specifications in their parcels? So before you rant and rage some more about "slander," consider that your nasty, vicious, stupid, vitriolic comments to me about things that we both know I know and are obvious -- and aren't the point -- just to be "clever" -- they get a pushback from me. You then focus on that pushback and not your behaviour as if you are flying around in a white robe like one of your art pieces. PPPS I considered buying the Pompei Bouillabase which is nice but I knew you had copied it from the Internet -- it's in the public domain after all -- and I could pay $10 and upload it -- after lightening it in Paint -- rather than $225. I do buy public domain from people even for that much. It's a skill to get it framed and lighted properly and looking good in SL and I value that. But sometimes my own $10 upload will do.