Prokofy Neva

Internet sites of radios and media deliberately change the streams to drive people back to their site to click on the ads. They need to pay their bills. It has become harder and harder in recent years to find the numbered URL you require to put into the SL land menu. Some companies like Radionomy got fed up with SL users taking their streams and thus disabled them. You can sometimes go to a site that converts lettered URLs to numbered IP addresses, but they don't always work. You can buy radios from various SL merchants but the URLs inside them always go dead eventually and the creator may not bother to try to update them. This site occasionally has some workable streams but less and less lately. Take Ambient Sleeping Pill, for example. You can convert it on a domain-to-IP converter page but does it work? No.

The past auction wins are an instructive page to examine; these disappear nearly instantly on the official SL page (or are hard to find, and when you do pull them up, they only go back a week or two on the regular web page). So this is one thing that bonniebots does that is useful, although it comes at a cost, of course, of bots everywhere. Note Zindra - $4+-$5/meter. Supposedly this "can't be". Yet there it is, again and again on the auctions -- or less. Remember, as Qie pointed out, everything on the auction was once abandoned! Or, in far more rare cases, the owner died in RL or their land was seized for non-payment by the Lindens and then auctioned. Note if something is $0 it's because it got no bids at all.

Only objects in "share" can be moved, but you don't want to put them in "share," at least for long, as then they can be jetted up to the sky by griefers or even stolen if on transfer. The Lindens will not respond to a request of this nature unless the deceased left their land to you in their will. You can try, however, you never know.

Very helpful to understand how people come to take the Soviet/Russian view of history, economics, politics -- and of course the Holodomor, which Duranty reported falsely. (And this problem persists today with the war in Ukraine). Interestingly, he reported the Volga Famine accurately, and his problem was not believing Bolshevik propaganda naively, but understanding it all too well, as he spent a lot of time foot-padding around places to be an eyewitness to traumatic historical events. Rather, the issue was that he admired and approved of the Bolshevik methods of brutality, mass terror, disinformation and manipulation for the sake of building communism -- the end justifies the means. Not for the faint hearted. https://www.amazon.com/write-please-Walter-Duranty/dp/B008GDH8F8

Pick up your mic, already. You're stubbornly persisting in only reviewing this in Firestorm; I am exclusively on the SL Viewer, and since that is the official viewer of Second Life, then it should work optimally there. It doesn't. And I haven't misunderstood the issues -- in fact I've explicated them. Changing out of it is is difficult/impossible on some routes; having a scripted item to do this, even if low script time, will add to the load on regions. The end. The Lindens could have had one line in their blog: "Test first before you ruin anything as you might not be able to get it off until you learn all its complications." The idea that everyone is supposed to study wikis, learn physics, learn optics, and stare wide-eyed with mouth open at scripters and Lindens is preposterous. If you have inworld building tools, they should be simple and intuitive. You can have a simple caution that people not ruin their stuff.

No, it's already been established in this thread (see above) that it does not work in the regular SL Viewer as imagined. Just because a small percent use this viewer for valid historical and current reasons doesn't mean the point is overridden. I always marvel at the way people align themselves with the powers-that-be in SL in ways they never would in RL.

Nope. I am going to go on posting on social media and warning my tenants about this because it is NOT easy, NOT intuitive, and a general PITA. If I DON'T do that, my customers will soon be saying YOUR LAND IS MAKING MY THING SHINY AND I CAN'T TAKE IT OFF *REFUND* If more of you were in high-contact business with low-rent customers, you'd be less cocky and assured about all things LL. Having a Marketplace page is not the same thing as being in business inworld although I do appreciate binoculars that are far less land impact than the one I've had for years and just deleted, let's hope I can resize it. (I don't care about Materials and most people don't.)

I'm long, long used to that silliness in the library now and I push past it. I'm actually glad things in the Library tend to be on no-transfer now. For years and years, the Lindens put all the Library items not only on all perms, but on "share." This created endless griefing vectors not only with Philip's party hat, making it appear that he had created a grief object; your own library object, left outdoors, could be swiped and it could be made to appear that YOU created a griefing object. So it's good they closed off that loophole, I suppose, although it's too bad all the things in the library aren't on full mod, especially the avatars and clothing, which can be hideous otherwise.

Um, we're not talking about wiki-woos, we're talking about one line in a blog that says: WARNING: TEST ON A PRIM FIRST AS YOU CANNOT REMOVE PBR TEXTURES EASILY ONCE APPLIED. That's all. That.

In fairness, the Black Forest supplied such a tutorial, touted by Lindens, but with its brutalist approach in the first graph, I gave it a pass.

I let weeks go by without reading your forums, dear. I didn't "read down into" the one thread on PBR. There aren't "scads". One can look up Blinn-Phong. I'm glad he/they are getting credit for his work. Which is more than you can say for lots of things in SL. Plus a lot of people who don't have much going on in their lives rn can get a certain frisson of superiority over others because they know this double-barreled exotic nerd term, right up there with Epstein-Barr and Anton-Babinski syndrome (quite common in SL).

So the official viewer of Second Life -- which I definitely prefer for many historical and practical current reasons -- does not work so well with LL's new shiny, PBR. It works better on Firestorm, as many things do (starting with Search, which thank God, was rescued by Cinders back in the day on Firestorm). And...It will work better if I add to the script load on my already heavily loaded Mainland regions. OK, got it.

No, that wouldn't work because that isn't the point. I don't like something that is sprung on us and changes the nature of the elements of the world in irreversible ways -- and that is indeed the case. I don't care about the wiki. The very first blog could have had a line or two with a warning about this. It's NOT the same process as removing a texture because you CANNOT select it from inventory on the edit menu. You can ONLY select OTHER PBR textures. You have to "just know" to click in the texture window and "just now" to select "none" to get the plywood. I don't care about adding PBR to anything. That's what's hard for you to accept because you think everyone should be fanbois and get in line to be whupped by whatever is inflicted on us.

I don't need anyone to post a JIRA, that's not how you effect change in SL anyway. Henri's JIRA isn't about my point, it doesn't matter. As I noted above, using "blank" leaves it still with a ghoulish glow, and "none" works to restore the plywood original. And? It's beastly stuff and I have no more respect for it than I did starting out. I even bought a 25L texture of a volcano on the MP done in this "substance" and it looks like congealed blood. I thought the point was to show actual inworld reflections like a RL mirror.

That's why it's not a texture. That's why it's a substance. It's like shellac, that you can't take off, not wallpaper, that you can.

I appreciate that you're trying to be helpful -- I think -- but you also can't help being knowier-than-thou -- it's a common problem. None of what you are saying is the point. In fact, you reveal that my original post is spot on -- because Once you've added PBR, you can't go back and add, or edit, the old Blinn-Phong textures we used to use Of course, I've never heard of the term "Blinn-Phong" before now and I dare say most people haven't. The problem is: you can't remove the textures if you can't override them "in the old way" and if clicking on "blank" turns them blank, but still that odd, ethereal glow of PBR (which I really don't like, I feel like it's "Tales of the Crypt"). You have to "just know" that you need to click "NONE" to get it "back to how it was". I've made a point, the point is valid, and if you all need to keep man-splaining it and tech-splaining it, understood, but the point is: none of it is intuitive, you would have to come and ask on the forums and put up with knowier-than-though or actually vicious types to get answers -- or experiment by ruining a few things first, before you get it. None of this is necessary. If the Lindens and their fanbois weren't so hell bent on shoveling shiny at us to distract us from other failings -- literally! -- they would supply some basic prompts like this at the get-go.

So this is ridiculously and needlessly complex and again, no instructions were given with the blog, then Lindens advertised a tutorial on Twitter and elsewhere from a creator resident that started out with the snarky "Physically Based Rendering (PBR) is here. Long story short: you will be immersed in it whether you like it or not." -- that same instrumented nastiness was how mesh was introduced -- which doesn't guarantee it a read. If you hit "Edit Selected" you will get a menu that only gives you all the PBR options and nothing else, like "base color" and "Metallic/roughness" etc. That's why it seems like you can't change it. So yes, you have to go back click in the window itself labelled "Material" to get the old option of "blank". So you can change it out of "Gold" or "Copper" etc from the "Materials" file in the library to BLANK, BUT IT HAS A BLUE SHEEN BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN PBR-ized. That is NOT "putting it back like it was". Only "none" brings it back to the plywood that God intended.

I tried none, derp. Again, I have been around the block a few times. It didn't work. So as I said to Scylla, I have to figure out now why it "works on my machine" for you, but not me. Yeah, I get it that Materials is a "real thing" -- I called it a "substance" because I have a major in Slavic Studies and a minor in Philosophy as it happens, not computer science. "Choose from Inventory" will NOT show ANYTHING except OTHER PBR TEXTURES. That's what I explained. And slapping it on from inventory doesn't work. All of this reminds me of how Aaron Gwyn noted that some men would rather tune an anvil to B than go to therapy.

I tried "blank" obviously, I'm not totally stupid. And it didn't work. So I have to figure out why now it isn't working for me.

I'm going to leave aside the question of "what the world looks like" and "the hit on performance you take if you set the dials to PBR" etc. etc. which is addressed in another thread. Let's just look at the issue of what happens when you try to build with it as an ordinary bog-standard user using the inworld tools to make stuff, not someone schooled in Blender, etc. There isn't a warning in the Lindens' first blog on this, so let me point out: be careful what you slap any PBR/Materials texture on *because you cannot take it off*. That was not something I expected, leading me to conclude that PBR is not a modification, like a texture, but a substance -- like a Linden tree (one kind of thing in SL) or a prim (another kind of thing) or a sculpty or mesh (still other kinds of things, or substances, if you will). If you test a prim with the items in the Materials folder added to the Library, you can toggle out of them -- but you can't put ANOTHER texture to overlay it -- or go back to what you had in the first place. It's locked. It literally won't budge. You are now stuck with a PBR-ized thing, which is like something vulcanized in a microwave or otherwise changed so that you "can't put it back the way it was." There are always knowier-than-thou types who come along at this juncture and say butbutbut -- except go and try it, and you'll see what I mean. You cannot overlay another texture -- not only can you not select it from inventory from the edit menu on that unfortunate object -- even if you go to a texture in inventory another way and try to slap it on, you can't. Again it's locked, for some technical reason. I noticed on the MP, there are few creators -- not of the best known ones -- offering PBR textures, and those that are, are true unknowns not even bothering to put up pictures of their wares. The more scrupulous among them are adding warnings to their TOS such as "PBR is new and may bug out." Indeed. I also noticed that the first version of this "phenomenon" just labelled the edit menu toggle "Materials" -- now in the latest version it is changed to "PBR Metallic Roughness," such as to suggest a kind of super bump map (which I guess is what it is?) So...I'm not sure I'm going to put anything made with this out for a freebie or sale because I like to put things on mod for people (mercifully) and this would violate my code and also be sure to lead people IMing with annoyed questions "how come I can't re-texture your thing?" I realize this violates a sacred religious code -- criticizing a new Linden shiny -- and one (as mesh was in its day), shoveled at us with some venom and malice by some -- "take that, get used to it or else!" but still it has to be said. I doubt this feature can be changed but there at least could be warnings before somebody ruins their rare gatcha or house they spent days getting "just so".

So if I understand correctly, if the web site currently says NONE AVAILABLE, there is no point in flying around and looking for an empty one to put in a ticket, correct? In other words, the web site would show AVAILABLE if any empty ones were available to select and ask for via ticket. So then either we wait for someone to get tired of theirs and release it, or until January 8 when they may or may not make new ones?

I think many readers have been able to answer for themselves here the question "Is SL more toxic than other games?" and as a bonus, can now answer the question, "Is the SL forums more toxic than other game forums?"

No, like I said, it's rewarmed 1970s pop psych. Knowing yourself is a noble and valid exercise -- it doesn't involve validating griefers who commit crimes, which you seem to want it to do. It's not insane to live your Second Life using the available land tools and hope for harmony and happiness. The good news, most people are decent, and most of the time, you do not have adverse results by leaving groups open to join without fuss and leaving land to rez on immediately without waiting for an absentee landlord to show up. Most of the time. Imagine that. I don't think I should warp my SL around the tiny percent of miscreants and change my use of the affordances of SL; the Lindens should instead ban obvious recidivists so it sticks and stop listening to word salad. No, no, no. No woman deserves to be beaten by her partner, end of story. You don't say "was it your short skirt?" or "was it your pushy attitude?" Because beating is wrong. She doesn't "bring it on herself" -- the abusive man is wrong, full stop. These are basics, and it truly is a shame that Internet-bred youth have a different notion of all this, in part based on magical thinking.

You might like to visit my installation where I have a card "Why Twelve-Step Programs Doesn't Work". Basically, it's about infantilization.

Go back and read what I just wrote. It applies. In spades. I don't accept the thesis that "there could be a reason..." I COMPLETELY reject that thesis because it is a criminal thesis. It means that outlaws get to mete out "justice" to people they think "deserve it." There is nothing that anyone does anywhere -- their lifestyle, their beliefs, their blogs, their business in SL -- NOTHING in RL or SL that "deserves" griefing or "attracts it" in some way -- which is always and everywhere blaming the victim. I reject the concept of "blaming the victim." I reject the idea that someone should examine their conscience or reflect on their behaviour to see how they may have "attracted griefing" because griefing is wrong, and nothing anyone does anywhere should attract it -- because it is wrong, and unlawful. This seems to be hard for you to grasp, and that's a big problem in SL. Taylor Lorenz doesn't deserve to be ridiculed and hounded and misrepresented because she has an immune disease and doesn't choose to have a party at her house in the holiday. She's an outspoken public figure but there is no need for her to reflect what she might have done or said to "attract the hate" because...the haters are wrong to start with. If someone shoots at an intruder in a safe zone and griefs them back, that may be another story. But just because someone is an outspoken public figure -- that's what you mean, isn't it -- doesn't mean they "attract griefing" -- and by implication then must shut up, stand down, "not feed the trolls" and blah blah blah. Again, I reject all of those theses as utterly unsound. Some GOP Congressman in Upstate New York who I wouldn't vote for and don't agree with does not "deserve" to be swatted. Swatting is wrong. Swatting can cost lives. He gets to be an unmolested public figure if people voted for him.