Prokofy Neva

I'm glad to see the Lindens tackle an exploit that has been used to harass me enormously multiple times by so-called "bots" which I can't be sure are really bots. These creatures go into a group and spam them with racist, anti-semitic, crazy hate messages, pretending to "advertise" my rentals -- or the opposite, pretend they are fighting this purported racist/hater (all fake) -- and claim they are my "bot" or my "helper" with names including the name of my company, etc. So they fill up groups with spam, then the people in those groups send hate messages at me, swearing at me and also spamming me "back," so they imagine, with only a few smart enough to realize this is not me, and not related to me. No one in their right mind would "advertise" rentals in this fashion. PS I didn't vote for Trump, I voted for Hillary, not that it should matter to remove such haters from the People List. Now, if these creatures are "bots," great, they will only able to do this hateful thing 5 times in large groups of 1,000 -- but not all groups have 1000, but let's say they might do it now 10 times a day. Well, frankly, that's enough still to cause my day to be filled with haters over this impersonation of me. Still, I suppose it's progress. The reality is, I fail to see the use case for ANY bot entering a group and spamming ANYTHING. Why would anyone want this? It only annoys people. If the point is that this bot is doing something like saying "and the winner of our wet t-shirt contest is..." or "the next sale is starting at 12:00 noon" or whatever "legitimate" uses it could have, it still doesn't seem to be very wide spread. I'd like to hear what ARE the cases for bots entering groups just because they are open, where they aren't founders or officers, and spamming stuff. I can't imagine what it is.

The Lindens already give reduced tier status to educational institutions, and that includes non-profit groups that can show the 501-c-3 document from the IRS, AFAIK, or the foreign equivalent. You can't expect them to do this with inworld groups that have no external RL non-profit status, which takes awhile to get and maintain, as I know, from having run such RL organizations. In SL, it's not like a sim open to the public versus your private residential sim can cost the Lindens less; if anything, it might cost them more in server power/staff time/electricity. As someone who has run the SL Public Land Preserve for about 12 years now, with about 50 sites in it, I have to say that if you cannot get the public to support it with tier donations, content donations, and tips of cash, then it's not something the public wants. I've found over the years that even keep ads going, and pushing this among my tenants in my rentals business and so on, I can't expect more than 15% of the tier costs to be covered by tips and tier donations. So that means either my business has to cover it, or I have to cover it from out of pocket expenses, which I've done at times. I value it -- but maybe not so much to pay $300 US every month. So somebody else better value it, or it gets the axe. So it's a hard task master, but if your "open to the public" sim can't pay for itself by people valuing it, then you can't expect the Lindens to assume the cost of it. People are always mourning good sims that go down. I've mourned a few so much that I've assumed the care and feeding of them. Then I don't, when no one else values them. Everybody mourns a good sim and wants the Lindens to do something, but their idea of a tip is 5L, when 50,000L is what is needed to pay the US $195 tier on a grandfathered sim.

@germ0742 I appreciate your thorough answer and your nice pictures. But this is a matter of principle for me: if what you are saying is that you cannot get such a good picture AND be able to enter the "photo of the day" UNLESS you use Firestorm that has "not special effects" but which lets you "change quality settings" then there is something fundamentally wrong. It means a key feature of the SL community -- this photo contest -- is not something you can enter with the regular SL viewer, but can only enter if you use third-party programs of various types. And that's wrong. That is, LL and their contestants are free to do whatever they want. But they should tell the truth about it. That their own viewer is not good enough to enter a photo contest with. That doesn't bother me -- I'm happy to go on taking photos for my own enjoyment and not be in any contests regardless. But I think it has to be pointed out. Draw distance is obviously something you can change in preferences to the extent your machine can stand it, and I do that. Windlight is something you have to go learn, that is, sure, you can just go on the viewer menus and pick various presets like "Pirate's Sunset" or whatever but I know that there are all kinds of resident-made windlights, and many of my tenants go to the trouble to insert these into the land description to use them. I assumed that when they do that, it is viewable on the SL viewer, I just never bothered to figure it out. But maybe it's not. In any event, Windlight -- another thing I find as kind of an exotic add-on when the regular problems like grey squares when you land aren't solved -- is "nice to have" for pictures. Yet you yourself say that you don't need to fiddle with shadows to get a good picture, and you prove that -- on its own, there are shadows anyway in SL. I can't tell whether the clarity of your photo is from your use of Windlight or Firestorm. In any event, I'll look into Windlight. I'm not willing to use Firestorm for many reasons.

You're really like Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller's teacher! I have been so frustrated with this for so long, and had to wait on other people or buy things that weren't quite what I wanted, now I can do it myself. So I have to say that one key thing is that in the step "Select the new 9 second track by double clicking on it" -- this can be annoying because you click on it and it makes lines and it doesn't seem to be doing the right thing. And indeed, if you do not get this step right, when you try to upload what you see as separate files to SL, it will tell you they are too long. So you have to click on it in such a way that it turns darker. That's how you know it's right. Try to click not making the line that seems like it might slice again, but to the side, where the "hand" comes out. Then, the next step is different on mine -- there isn't "file/export" but only "file/export selected audio". But "export selected audio" will be greyed out and unworkable UNLESS you've clicked just the right way in the previous step.

Thanks for doing this. I struggled and struggled with it, and it is still giving me the message "file too long". It's also very hard. Each individual step is really a bunch of baby steps that you just have to figure out. If I do, I will rewrite it. But I'm not there yet. UPDATE I finally got that to work. There are several "issues" that happen along the way. One is the "select by double clicking" which has to be done "just so" so that it is ready to go. It kept not working. It is hella hard for dummies, as the thing keeps playing instead of highlighting. You keep not getting "Split New" as an option on the menu because you haven't done it right. You keep trying and get it. Then it keeps playing on you. Then you try to cut it and export it -- it's a mess. All of it has to be done "just so". Just showing it on your screen grab -- which is great -- is not enough to "learn how to do it" with your own hands, struggling. Again -- we're talking dummies here. People who don't use these programs. People who don't know Photoshop, etc. Next, what happens when you select file/export and then "file picker" "save as" -- you then get this menu with all this stuff on it -- metadata, etc. etc. They're all blanks. You have no idea what to put in them. You don't mention that, maybe it's not in the version of Audacity you are using. But it pops up and is confusing -- I just pressed "ok" to get rid of it and that turned out ok. Next, you have to find that exported file. Where is it? It's in the Audacity files. Where are those? They are in "documents" for some reason. Don't ask me why. Then -- for dummies again -- when you are trying to upload into SL, make sure you have selected build/upload and then SOUND or you can't even find the file. So I managed to get two 10 second files (actually cut off at the 9 mark because SL marks 0 as 1 as the above explains) -- and I'm exhausted.

I've been wondering about this, too. I understand that people use Windlight and photoshop and poses and all that -- and I'm not prepared to do all that just yet. First things first. I just want a photo that is good enough to submit to the Photo of the Day contest or the SL Flickr that has high resolution. Just clicking off the option "Hi Res Snapshot" on the "Advanced" menu on the regular SL viewer doesn't do enough of this. I read about "this one simple trick" by an SL user on YouTube. Change the number on the big photos saved to disc to "4". OK, will do. That does help somewhat. But this (below) is about as good as it gets. That is, ok, for my own blog or my feed inworld, but not good enough for that "photo of the day" stuff. Or is the point that unless you are prepared to use third-party programs and photoshop and such, you can't be in an SL contest with the regular SL viewer? I guess that *is* the point. Or maybe the point is you need a much better graphics card, although I have one that is better than the recommended SL specs at the moment, as it happens. Notice I don't mean how you set up the photo, the angles or anything like that. That takes skill. I just mean the quality of the resolution. I don't mean special effects on a "free trial" of something like ON1. I mean using the regular viewer. What else can be done?

This is something I have struggled with as well. I have the files put into the right rate (44.1) in a wav file (another thing SL is fussy about) but then you need to chop the sound up into 10 second segments. You've already told me something I didn't know about "9 seconds". But try as I may, cutting this as I would on various other recorder programs, then going to "export" I can't seem to work it. It shouldn't be that hard. Hoping someone will reply.

BTW, do the Lindens still have office hours? I guess this is out of date.

Do you mean Alberto Linden who made the black Corbusier couch in the library and other things?

Yes there was a Teagan Linden. Definitely. She did CS on the Mainland, even. I have her bear. I guess she's gone now.

Kyle is in the deep state of LL and the secret power behind SL.

Adam Linden is definitely gone, too. He had another name -- Chad Linden. He left after the SL meet-up in Chicago (was that in 2006?) Jack Linden was actually high up in the command in the old days, although you wouldn't know it because he hung out in the welcome areas -- but eventually he was made VP of the community. He left years ago, after some epic debacles but at least he finally got rid of ad farms. This was his poem: So here we are, floating free a stream of bytes and bits and visual tricks, a digital you and a virtual me. We burn so brightly, don't you see, the old man himself hath no power so absolute as we wield here so freely. Kneel before the Metaversity. Tbone Linden was supposed to be the economist of SL. He didn't last long. I have one photo of him in wire-rim spectacles trying to give a speech at a town hall. Then there was the Linden who coded the LindeX -- Lawrence Linden -- who went on to work at MillionsofUs, a short-lived developer company that never got to that "millions of us". Reuben Linden was another great Linden who did community stuff then went on to MillionsofUs and today is still in the virtual world business. Babbage Linden was the first prototyper of the Internet of Things in SL ages ago, 2005 I thik. Xenon Linden designed the Moth Temple in Iris and other interesting builds. Go to the Society for Virtual Architecture in Warmouth to see a slide show he gave once about all his builds. Bub Linden also definitely left after this ad campaign crashed they had put him in charge of. Robin Linden left years ago, and has worked for other companies since then. Phoenix Linden also left years ago. Blue Linden went to work for a travel agency I believe. Pathfinder Linden was on OS and went somewhere else. Did you forget Lee Linden? He was ubiquitous in the early days and they made a cut-out of him that used to scare people. Remember Jeska Linden? She also left years ago. When Kenny Linden said -- to ME, as it happened -- "There's always another guy to buy the island" -- he didn't mean, "there's lots of people who buy islands." What he meant is that if you complain about some awful thing in SL (and at that time, I complained vigorously about 16 m sign extorters, view-blockers who tried to get you to "buy the view," etc., and said "Oh, I'll abandon my land" or "Oh, I'll quit Second Life," he just blandly replied, "There's always another guy to buy the island." In other words, you're expendable. Other people will buy your land. And he's right about that. He was especially right about it at that time -- SL was booming then and if some customer left, another replaced him. Even today, he's right, even allowing for abandoned land and less islands. The Internet does not care, Linden Lab does not care who personally is on a web site or on a sim, as along as somebody is there, and somebody pays. It doesn't have to be you or me. It's not like a small town in America or Europe with real land as much as some of us would like it to be. BTW, I'll never forget that night with Kenny Linden. I was surrounded by those view blockers in Juanita. So I boxed one of them in as I had land on all sides of his land. Oh, but that wasn't allowed. You could only put a fence or a wall on three sides, and the Lindens would come and remove your fence or tree blocking the 4th side before they'd remove a giant sign that said IMPEACH BUSH on a tiny plot set to sell for $10,000 or more. It took the Lindens four years to get over that phase of their hippie/Burning Man existence and put in rules that you couldn't do that, eventually getting rid of the ad farm extortionists.

What I thought was funny about this guy is that he got all sarcastic and indignant about this supposed incident involving the creation and rezzing of a giant...thing...but then what was the first thing HE did? Go and do virtually the same thing, put on a...thing...and go to beaches and freak people out. Same mentality.

Oh, so we've clarified that Kyrah Abattoir isn't an alt of Kalyrra Heart despite very, very similar personas. Interesting! Doesn't matter, as Kyrah was a long time hater and vicious commentator on my blog.

I think you're just trying to use literalism to troll here, Qie, and that's silly. Um, no, I didn't mistaken him for Pataj (a politician running in my neighborhood which is why I have him on the brain); nor for Pichai. Because among other things, I can read, and even distinguish people's last names, imagine that. But he's still from Indian background, and that's my point. See Wikipedia: Ajit Pai was born on January 10, 1973, in Buffalo, New York, and grew up in Parsons, Kansas.[8] His parents are Konkani[9][10] immigrants from India: The hatred and viciousness toward this man is misplaced, and is really a kind of racism -- the left always gets that way when persons of colour don't follow their leftist extremist prescriptions and "go off course".

I'm guessing you don't actually read any of the newspapers in your country, as a report about the "serious failings" in the NHS has been covered all over. Worse, I don't think you are looking outside your window. We see the results of this by noticing how Brits come over here for treatment. The terribleness of the US health care system isn't somehow an argument for socialism or for pretending there aren't massive problems with British socialist health care. Free tells you it's value, yes. Most Europeans and socialists don't grasp at all, because they can't read even their own newspapers or bother to check fasts, that long before Obama care, the US had health care plans for those with low incomes -- but they are organized by state, not at the federal level -- a fact most outsiders never grasp about America. I know because I as a single parent am a beneficiary as are my children. This enables free or very low co-pay for medicines that for example might otherwise cost me $1000 or more a month because of my rare immune disease. Paying $8 for a medicine or $65 for a specialist who costs hundreds is more than fine, everyone can pay something. The "freeness" obsession makes no sense. America has more social justice under its non-socialist capitalist system than many so-called socialist countries which is why immigrants flock here, and that's normal and a good thing. It's too bad others can't learn reality from this. As for your failure to understand that you have political woes, after your country has suffered this MASSIVE dislocation and drama of Brexit, I just don't know what to do. I realize I'm dealing with lack of rationality here and can't go on. Even the "facts" cited on the railways just show a deep lack of sense about how economics work. So you can have the last word here because it's futile. I suppose every country has the government they deserve when there is ignorance, including our own.

You'd be impervious to the facts anyway. You forget that some of us have long memories, of how you staged demonstrations against the Lindens with bloody hands -- creepy! How you massively defaced Mainland by advertising on little 16m plots to drive people to your islands, etc. etc. You have no shame.

The parroting and ideological straitjacking here are on the side of the pro-"net neutrality" factions. But fortunately, they've lost, and will go on losing, and common sense has prevailed. That's a good thing. There isn't a place where socialism is "patently working well". People cite Sweden, which is filled with its own kinds of woes, including high suicide rates. This is hardly something to compare a large, multi-ethnic and diverse country like America with anyway. England? Really? You can't get fare with that given all its political, health care, etc. woes. Um, it's not about fear, but again common sense and reason, watching many countries and actually living in socialist/communist countries like Russia or visiting countries before they turned socialist, like Venezuela, so having grounded experience which you may not have. Your other gross remarks get an abuse report and you've also signalled that you have no ideas or arguments that are valid. Thanks!

So I guess you're out of argument then if all you can do is write wild insulting stuff LOL No, investment doesn't always go "down". With something like that Internet and cell phones which are changing and developing dramatically, it may go up. You should look at history, too It's funny how ideologues like you love road analogies when they work for you. But you hate them when they don't. For example, I wouldn't downgrade a four-lane highway to a two-lane highway so that "everyone can travel equally" because in some areas of the country, there are only two-lanes. It's like Tor, where the cultists always talk about roads except...on RL highways you have a license plate and laws and cops who pull you over -- all things the Torians refused to admit into their unicorn park.

So, Google isn't a corporation? It's a magical unicorn pasture?

America works on the precedent system, it's common law, not civil law, and not a magisterial system. It would take a long time to explain if you don't know the differences but they matter. Show me the cases -- because this is a precedent system. And they don't exist. So end of story.

I suggest you go to Google's business web pages and see all the HARDWARE products they make for your home. Google is indeed a monopoly. Nobody uses Yahoo, it's crap. Bing has some usage but it's tiny compared to Google. It's so small that Microsoft bombards you with offers of games and coupons and contests to try to earn points using their search to cash out for a restaurant meal or $5. So yes, monopollist. The proposition at hand is a federal decision for the whole country. If your particular county only has Comcast, then fix it at your level without forcing the rest of the country into your socialism/socialist "choice".

There isn't anything I've "swallowed" dearie pie. I've been studying and observing these issues for years. Liberals indicated were indeed the Liberal Democrats and indeed they were in the coalition government. What's astounding is that you can't see what's wrong with Jeremy Corbyn -- his grotesque anti-Semitism, pro-Putinism, apologis for Assad and all the rest. This is clear and obvious even to many in the Labour Party itself who have flocked out of it, and not just Jews. It's truly amazing that Second Life people can be in such a bubble, so out of touch, and only capable of cutting and pasting what they see on Sluniverse instead of reading actual newspapers. Why would I have to "show evidence" when a good lefty like you should be reading the Guardian, which I do, to keep informed, as a liberal, not leftist: Here, here, here, here.

So did you see any journalists murdered, lately? How about just journalists going to jail? OK, how about just a web site blocked. In America. In Russia, these things are annual, monthly, and daily occurrences, respectively. And I could go on.

Actually, if it were implemented, it would be "net neutrality" that would be doomed because people would see how it stops innovation, stops progress, stops free enterprise, and stops consumer freedom of choice, and doesn't do these things the ideologues think it will do, like improve literacy and employment in Appalachia or whatever, as the problems of these regions are a lot more complicated than just broadband, and giving broadband anywhere, in any demographic, leads to more consumption of MMORPGs and YouTubes, not improved education and employment, so let's not be ridiculous. In fact, you have to explain why you can make your claims when we HAD "net neutrality" under Obama for some time. Your notion that there is "innovative content" in...what, Mitch Kapor's failed cable TV project that was going to disseminate ripped content? What, exactly? RTV? And that it is competing with...what, Netflix? You're going to call Netflix "innovative content". Want to put out innovative content? Make it, and pay for it, like the news media has -- destroyed by your Internet. Hello! Patai isn't a despicable shill. He's a perfectly qualified and decent human being who is no different than say, people of his background that work at Google, even, it's just through various life circumstances he ended up in this job -- which isn't only about "net neutrality" after all. He's actually a very good example of an interesting demographic. Indians as a group have benefited from H1 visas and opportunities to work in America but that's only because their cynical Silicon Valley masters want British-styled educated minorities they can pay less, instead of domestic minorities they won't be able to pay less because they will lobby more for their rights as citizens. That's all that is about. All you net neutrality groupies don't want to look at the ecology that feeds your Silicon Valley. So what's interesting now is that you see many more Indian people, now as the next generations are born here especially, are entering politics (in my district there is a young Indian running for councilman and there are hundreds of Indians in my housing complex who weren't here 15 years agp). And interestingly, they are not taking up leftist politics in knee-jerk fashion that you would think as putatively part of that great Third World the Soviets were always promoting. Instead, they even *gasp* become Republicans -- they are from conservative and religious backgrounds, after all. Go know! And they've also, like Russians or Poles, in some cases seen up close how socialism doesn't work, and don't root for it. Imagine, that.