Dillon Levenque

LOL. LittleMe ID'd it right after your post. It IS an owl. Who's a clever girl, then? :-)

Don't even THINK about pouncing on a bird so beautiful! Besides, it looks like a raptor of some kind, so it would probably do one of those instant vertical things and you'd wind up nose-down in what looks like very soft snow.

and also quite frequently pickled

Everywhere. All sailors are salty

Nonsense. You're a pussycat. ;-)

Cool. I thought that name was familiar and I was right, but when I saw it on the back of so many Rolling Stones albums he had it as Andrew LOOG Oldham. He, of course, produced the original of this, as well as most of the Stone's stuff in the 60's.

Well, yeah, but you only have to resolve to do it. You don't actually have to do it. That's the Escape Clause.

There is one area in which a great many written instructions fail. It happens on a regular basis in technologies subject to frequent and variable change (computers, for example). Second Life technology changes these days by leaps and bounds. Standard was the standard. For years. Then virtually overnight (yes I did that on purpose) it all blew up. Mesh. Standard sized mesh. Rigged mesh. Fitmesh. Did I get those in the right order? Often, a person writing instructions only goes "back" one generation. For someone who is starting five levels back they are pretty much useless. Now a creator can just shrug and say, "Tough. If you haven't kept up then you're somebody else's problem. I've got plenty of customers who pay attention to changing times." That's fine for SL. I didn't have that luxury in RL. My instructions were expected to work, period. For everybody. I settled on writing detailed instructions on how to get up to speed from the old levels, but I'd include that as a step. If it was Step 4, I would lead off by writing, "If you already know how to do/use this that and the other, skip to Step 5." That way even if they did decide they knew it all and skipped Step 4 they'd at least remember it was there in case they needed it. Worked pretty well. For SL, I think a person could probably just have a well organized list of links for Step 4: as in 'Go here to learn about such and such.'

Printer Hatred has got to be the most universal hatred of all who've ever had a job anywhere, I think. We've all seen this probably countless times but it still has appeal. Caution: If you are bothered by foul language, repeated over and over, turn off your speakers/unplug your ear buds or headphones first. I was never a big fan of Rap myself but I must say this one is completely appropriate for this particular scene. I doubt there's a one of us who doesn't feel that same urge. Merry Christmas, fellow idiots! :-)

I LOVE this car! Among other things the handling appears to be in the same class as some fabulously expensive sports cars. I believe the Stanley Steamer, for example, had a cornering stance quite like that.

run screaming from the terrible

Perfect, Aleccia! That's the best way to deal with Maddy. The first time she set me on fire was at a big party and she was torching off pretty much all of us. She was buried up to her neck on a beach and as I got close she lit me up. I said, "Fine, I'll just sit down here next to you and we'll get toasty together", which I did (ignoring the shouts of "Sit on her head, Dillon!"). She went back to shooting fireballs at other people. :-) Oh and welcome to the Loony Bin Forum!

have a safety net ready

Number 1 got my vote simply for reminding me of Don 'No Soul' Simmons. And BTW if somehow you've not seen "Amazon Women on the Moon" you really should do that first chance you get. If you are a science fiction buff and groaned over those 50's movies with the 'rocket ship' crawling across the screen, clearly on a wire and with a sparkler out the kazoo, "Amazon Women" is absolutely required viewing. There WILL be a quiz.

I'm wasted. And I can't find my way home. Alternatively, if you're into the harder stuff, there's always Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention: "Help, I'm a Rock."

Oh, boy. Now we get Internecine Flaming.

There have been days over the years when I'd just say "Screw it" and grab that thing, especially if it was a mug instead of that cup. I might or might not be restrained enough to wear an oven mitt if one was available. Coffee is for NOW; burns will eventually heal. Sometimes the caffeine is just a 'gotta have it' deal, and when that happens you just do what you have to do.

Who couldn't spell 'troupe' either

Sometimes I just don't pay attention the way I should. If I'd kept up with this thread properly I'd have seen this back in September. As it happens, this year I read about an incident that happened in October. October of 1962, right smack dab in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis which in and of itself is by far the closest I thought we got to a nuclear war. Truly, you had to have 'been there' (as in those times) to understand that. We lived with that *****. Every. Single. Day. Not just Cuba—the whole Cold War. Years. Decades, even. You can imagine how pleased I was to recently and suddenly be plunged back into that mode. Sorry. I digress. There was massive tension when the US learned (or publicly revealed we'd learned) that the Russians were deploying nuclear missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from the nearest American soil. We blockaded the island. A Soviet sub that was there before the isotopes hit the fan saw some American ships coming its way and submerged, per normal orders. It was spotted, either visually or otherwise, and the ships started trying to force it to the surface, using depth charges. What made this an issue is that the sub had one nuclear-tipped torpedo. Had it been used against an American ship it would be an obvious first strike. One man prevented that launch from happening. He was a 34 year old officer on that sub: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/you-and-almost-everyone-you-know-owe-your-life-to-this-man/ So that's twice one a them Rooskies stopped Armageddon. Spasibo, tovarisches.

Cool; my 'eyeball' guess on the thickness was definitely close enough for a town this size. As for the 'nominal' data storage space, yeah. That depends on a bunch of other factors which is one reason I didn't worry too much about rounding. I should probably just call it "over a mile high" which I think is quite probable no matter what. I do like the wall idea, but how 'bout if you put them in 6" high stacks, something that was not at all unusual, on a standard 30" x 72" folding table? I bet you'd have enough tables to show up on a photograph. Also, it would be way easier to make the 6" high stacks than the mile-high one. I imagine for that one you'd hear a whole lot of "God DAMN it!" over the radio link from the stackers, followed quickly by a rain of plastic.

"Fear not!", cried the Hero

Darn, I missed this one; didn't see it 'til Tari quoted it. I'm disappointed; you came so close to getting Bingo and then fizzled out. You led with saying those who responded in the negative to Parx's point are trolls. That was such a strong start—hitting the standard bleat hard right from the get-go. You went on to accuse Tari of only reading the parts she wanted. You know this how? Because she only quoted certain posts or only parts of posts? Might have been because what she quoted was what she objected to, eh? Nobody put Skell on any horses, high or otherwise. Overlooking the fact he was one of the contributors to this thread who almost went out of his way to try to suggest other methods and directions to Parx and was far kinder than most of the responders, it's true we do tend to get a giggle out a lot of his posts. Because he's smart, eloquent, and funny. Simple. You then gave us the old "You're a clique!" cry. Again, a good solid standard bleat. In a way it's almost true; we meet some of the definitions of clique. The difference is this forum is an open circle and always has been. Newcomers are welcome. You then righteously pointed out that you dared—dared!—to point the finger at everyone. That took some major cojones right there. You may be hunted forever by FIC Death Squads (somewhere back in this thread someone was trying to figure out what to call our so-called privileged group: have we forgotten the FIC? How can this be?). But then, just when you'd put together a pretty good rant, hitting many if not all of the usual high spots, you biffed the landing. I'm pretty sure you might have been approaching a 10 on several cards if you'd just held form; I heard later even the Russian judge had you in the low nines. Too bad. You left out the FLOUNCE! ps: As for Parx: he seems like an all right guy. I think he overestimates the importance of his community to Second Life in general and I personally am getting really tired of the suggestion that residents not involved in combat sims/groups spend all their time in BDSM/RLV/Sex places (not so much from him, but from some of his fan club). As in any discussion conducted in mixed group, arguments FOR will succeed or fail on their merits, as seen by the group. Arguments AGAINST usually fall flat on their faces.

Must be a river otter; sea otters would probably not care for a fresh water bath. I'm lucky enough to live in a major sea otter habitat; they're common around here. They are relatively okay with humans although they'll flip over and dive if a boat gets too close (their 'resting' position is floating on their backs on the surface, often while eating shellfish held on their chests). I did get close to a river otter once while floating down the South Fork of the Eel River up in the Coast Redwoods. It got to within a few feet of my little inflatable and then sort of porpoised alongside me (not coming clear out of the water, but surfacing for a bit then diving, all while staying right next to me) as I floated along with the mild current. One of those "Damn, I'm glad I did this!" moments, although to tell the truth the whole afternoon was like that. ETA: As fun as that was to see, I do hope whoever it is has a plan for getting the otter back in the wild (unless it was born and raised in human space).

I'll see your 180KB 5.25" floppies and raise with 3.5" 1.44MB floppies (of which we all had stacks and stacks). When TB drives started getting to be the norm (especially in DVR systems), I did some math. These numbers are approximations only; I rounded both up and down quite a bit. The stack of 1.44MB's to equal 1TB of storage would be about 1.3 miles high. (I used .125" as the thickness of the 3.5's; I do still have a few of those around here somewhere but I don't have a micrometer nor calipers. Ask Maddy; I'm sure she has all that stuff. Or if you have enough, just see how many there are in one inch; you can eyeball that close enough with a ruler.)

Well, since we're being chatty, I'll nitpick just a bit. Mind you, I'm an American so I will talk about American naming. In a revolver, what gets reloaded is called here the cylinder. It's really the reason a revolver is even called a revolver—as the action works, the cylinder revolves to bring the next cartridge in front of the hammer. In other English-speaking nations that naming may not be common. I have often seen in literature many handguns referred to as 'revolvers' when in truth the writer is talking about a semi-automatic pistol using a magazine in the grip to hold/feed the cartridges. Revolving would be a bad thing there. Only time I've seen 'drum' used as regards a weapon is when it's been a circular magazine on a semi-automatic or an automatic, like the old Thompson .45 Tommy-gun (which Maddy used to shoot up Snugs' stop sign).