Dillon Levenque

Perrie Juran wrote: To heck with The World Cup. I'm going back to watching baseball! When they say a pitcher "has great stuff" I'm pretty sure that right there is what they are talking about.

Phil Deakins wrote: Dillon Levenque wrote: Right on all three, in my opinion. Not quite as much on #2, since there's no problem dropping in commercials anytime during a football match, given that absolutely nothing is happening most of the time.:smileywink: Perish the thought that ads could be slipped in anywhere during a game of football (or rugby) other than during half time. That would really be obnoxious. TV companies would never get away with it, especially as there are 15 minutes at half time to put some in. That was intended as a joke (albeit a bit snarky). As for commericals during games here, it's positively ridiculous. It's bad enough when you're watching on television but at least there you can mute the commercial and go get another lemonade or something. The poor people actually at the game have to just sit there listening to the much too loud piped music while everyone down on the field stands around waiting for play to resume.

Syo Emerald wrote: My theorie why the US does not adapt to football: 1. To many other sports getting hyped. 2. Events like the world cup can't be split into many different tiny pieces to throw advertisement inbetween. I have been to the US once and was confused about the amount of commerical breaks each movie or show had. Because of that the TV stations in the US aren't too motivated to spend more screentime on it, when they have other sports. 3. The US doesn't dominate this sport. Right on all three, in my opinion. Not quite as much on #2, since there's no problem dropping in commercials anytime during a football match, given that absolutely nothing is happening most of the time.:smileywink:

Perrie Juran wrote: Best cartoon ever.

Phil Deakins wrote: Dillon Levenque wrote: I tend to doubt that game, or anything to do with the World Cup will make much of a dent in the USA's indifference to soccer (or football as most of the rest of the world calls it). Yes there was tremendous excitement and a lot of folks here watched but I suspect the interest will wane pretty quickly. There is just too much competition from the other long established sports: baseball, basketball, and by far the number one: American football. Even hockey, a sport that's been played here for decades, is a very distant fourth. That being said, interest in International style football does exist here and the audience will probably continue to grow. One of the cable tv sports packages has Premier League games, for instance. I just don't see it becoming something of major interest anytime soon. If a USA team makes it into a big-time competition we'll pay attention, but the rest of the time most of us will probably not know what's going on. Isn't the World Cup a big-time enough competition for you over there? Football competitions don't come any bigger than the World Cup. Any neither do competitions of any single sport in the world. The World Cup is the biggest there is. Oh, I know that. And yes, for many of us over here having the US in World Cup was a very big deal. I just think that once that excitement wears off there will be far fewer of us paying any attention to the sport. Until the next time the USA makes it into an important international tournament.

LaskyaClaren wrote: I think the answer is a resounding "Yes"!! Particularly if we begin with these very modest additions to the new virtual world: A built-in viewer “Hug Hud” for all avatars, featuring at least 5 different hug animations. A ToS requirement for 15-minute looping “pillow talk and cuddling” animations back-ended on all sex animations. A built-in chat autocorrect feature for male avatars that changes the words “sex,” “seks,” and “sekksies” to the words “a nice walk in the garden so that I can tell you how much your opinions matter to me.” An additional section of the Community Standards document, entitled “Hurt Feelings.” A weekly allowance of flower bouquets and knee-length boots to accompany the weekly L$ payout for premium members. All male avatars on a 28-day cycle; for a five-day period during this cycle, built-in scripts that have the resident doubled over in pain or bursting into tears at random intervals. A choice of 58 varieties of gender identity for your avatar. A ban of all straight male avatars from malls and large shopping areas. Because lag, and they just get underfoot anyway. Polyamorous options under “Partnering.” Available for female avatars. Only. Fitted mesh sports bras built into the viewer for when avatar physics are enabled. A 25% reduction of the maximum settings for chest, upper arms, and thighs on male avatars. Because, srsly, who do you think you’re fooling? Maximum size established in the Community Standards document for male genital attachments. Anything larger than a standard English cucumber can be ARed. A five-minute “Warning Period” for rendering de-rezzed male genitals, with accompanying flashing lights and sirens. Because, no, you don’t just spring that on a girl. A permaban on glitch pants. Because ew. A ban on pierced male genital attachments of any kind. Because ewwwwwwwwwwwwww. A re-organization of the Market Place, with two overall categories: “Footwear,” and “Everything Else.” I think if we work together, we can realize a virtual ideal in Linden Lab's new virtual world that will be a ringing example for all the ages to come! Yes Okay. Fifteen minutes seems a bit of a stretch. Okay Pfft Lingerie and thigh-high boots Should be some chocolate on offer here Sure How do you know they're really straight? IM is your friend. Sexist, aren't you? Not Applicable Yes Well, okay Only if the partner to be responds with 'Yes' to a prior prompt. I can't wear my one and only formal gown (Nicky Ree!) without glitch pants. Well yeah. Still too granular. edited for spelling

We IS em! The great thing about being village idiots is that those of us who are can just go on about our Second Lives as if nothing at all was wrong. If something IS wrong then SL will maybe....stop. Being a village idiot, I don't spend too much time worrying about whether it will or it won't but if it does, it does. That would be bad, but if it happens I reckon we'll all find other things to do.

Madelaine McMasters wrote: My personal experience is that Apple users aren't appreciably different from other computer users. I only know (for sure) one person who uses an Apple product to get to Second Life. There may be others I know who are Apple users, but if so none of them have mentioned that. The one I know is 'appreciably different' from just about everybody. ;-)

madjim wrote: Oh, and I am also a Cambridge educated economist - taught by the Governor of the Bank of England whose belatedly-followed advice rescued the UK *and* the USA following the crisis Of course you are. I remember you from those classes. I do hope the acne has cleared up. I've since gone on to a quite successful career and life. I've even acquired a George Cross, for having disarmed and disabled a group of Provos whe were bent on harming the Queen as she parachuted into the Olympic Stadium.

:smileyvery-happy:

I tend to doubt that game, or anything to do with the World Cup will make much of a dent in the USA's indifference to soccer (or football as most of the rest of the world calls it). Yes there was tremendous excitement and a lot of folks here watched but I suspect the interest will wane pretty quickly. There is just too much competition from the other long established sports: baseball, basketball, and by far the number one: American football. Even hockey, a sport that's been played here for decades, is a very distant fourth. That being said, interest in International style football does exist here and the audience will probably continue to grow. One of the cable tv sports packages has Premier League games, for instance. I just don't see it becoming something of major interest anytime soon. If a USA team makes it into a big-time competition we'll pay attention, but the rest of the time most of us will probably not know what's going on.

Feel free to orbit me. I have a spacesuit with a helmet and air tanks and everything, and I'm pretty sure I look even cuter in the spacesuit than I do in everyday life. Just give me some advance warning—changing to the spacesuit outfit on the fly is usually no problem but I have to get the helmet on before I get much above 1000 meters. After that I can get into situations where suit pressure exceeds air pressure and when that happens getting the helmet seals closed can really be a pain. :-)

I use inworld search for people all the time. I use it for places, too. Sometimes because I know the name of a place but don't have an LM, sometimes because I'm looking for a particular theme and don't know any places. I have totally given up on it as a way to find places to shop (almost—if I'm looking for something relatively unusual like WW I uniforms, I'd use Search at least as a start). All of my normal shopping searches are now done on MP. I might make my purchase inworld, but I find the product on the MP.

Nothing to to do with your post, really. I just wanted to interject that two posts above yours was a post from Ebbe Linden, answering a question posted three days ago. Meaning that in a span of three days someone at the lab has taken the time to wade farther through this thread and find a direct question that can be answered (even if the answer probably disappointed the asker since all he said was that it was too early to talk about that). That post from Ebbe Linden indicates a level of attention from LL that the Forum has not seen since 2010 (or maybe 2011). IIRC, the old Jive forum shut down in late February of the same year as the first Hippiestock (which was 2010) and was reborn in Lithium guise a month or so later. We floundered around quite a bit, but at some point things leveled off and most of us became comfortable with the rules and conditions. What we did not see was any participation from LL employees, always excepting the constant blessing of Torley. Then someone who used to be a frequent forum contributor—I think her name was Scylla something ;-)—started a thread asking the then new CEO to 'Phone Home' (since he'd already made an appearance in an unofficial SL forum elsewhere). He finally did respond to her thread and not long after that Lindens were thick on the ground around here. We'd see them answering questions in the Land forum and saying they'd look into possible violations and all sorts of stuff. It was a really nice time, or at least I thought it was. Since it happened in April and May there's no reason not to think of it as the Forum Spring. Unfortunately, all that visibility stopped not long after, and has not revived until just recently. I kind of doubt the new CEO had enough spare time to ask about the resident forum but clearly SOMEBODY (possibly multiple somebodies) at LL knew about it and cared about it and asked for more participation. Ebbe has clearly encouraged that, just as his predecessor (after starting off so encouragingly) clearly did not. I'm quite happy with that. I know this has nothing whatever to do with the OP, but since we know virtually nothing about the new virtual world (wasn't intended if you're wondering, but I'm sticking with it now that I see how clever it might be taken) everything in this thread is pure speculation anyway. At least it's honestly just speculation and wondering. There's another thread that was asking what the land pricing structure would be in the new SL. The one that is hopefully going to be ready for beta testing before the end of 2015, with (if all goes well) a full release in 2016. Land prices? Are you kidding? I do like Gondwana, although I'd vote for the alternate Gondwanaland just because I like the way it reads. Either way it would give a name to a starting point. Years later, it might have been tectonically separated into several entirely different places but those with the tools to learn could dig back through the past to find common origins in a place that existed in another time.

Happy Canada Day to all the Canadians :-)

Phil Deakins wrote: Dillon Levenque wrote: UW has hooks that go deep. The very well-known and successful British author Terry Pratchett has begun a collaborative effort with another less well-known but also successful British author: Stephen Baxter. The first novel in the series came out last year; a second has been published. The first one was titled, "The Long Earth". The story has to do with a suddenly acquired ability to step into parallel words. For most people, a device is required. For a very few, the ability is innate. A key figure in the first novel was the daughter of the fascinating man who developed the device that permits everyone else to move to the parallel worlds (he himself could move between them at will). He was a professor, she was a student. Both at the same school. University of Wisconsin, Madison. Coincidence? I don't think so. I would never have imagined that I'd get to write a post about the book called The Long Earth in a thread about football. But here I am doing exactly that. If you haven't already bought the book, don't buy it. It doesn't have a proper ending so it's a disappointemnt. The concept is good, and it builds quite well, but it doesn't really finish. It just fizzles out and you're left wondering about very significant things. What was it that all the animals were running away from through the Earths? And what happens when 'it' reaches the home Earth. Seriously. And then you think, what was the point in making a big play of the animals running away from some unkown thing if we're not going to be told what it was? I agree that it's improperly finished, Phil, but I think the authors made it so clear in the pre-publication phase that it was intended as Part One in a series (of five, if they get that far) they felt no compulsion to do a wrap-up ending. They probably assumed that in the age of the Internet everyone who reads the book already knows it's but a warmup. The second book was released in March of last year and the third in June of this year. As it happens I knew nothing of the series prior to reading the book but there was enough information on the jacket so that I wasn't too let down by the sudden stop at the end. I somewhat intentionally don't spend a lot of time reading about what's new in books, prefering to discover them myself when they finally get to the New Fiction or New Nonfiction shelves at the library. It's more fun that way.

Madelaine McMasters wrote: There was some hoopla when I was a kid, over a Sports Illustrated (I think) article ranking the Top 10 party schools in the US. UW Madison was not on the list. Instead, there was a highlight panel dedicated entirely to UW, noting that they were not included in the amateur rank because... ...they were professionals. :-) On, Wisconsin.

UW has hooks that go deep. The very well-known and successful British author Terry Pratchett has begun a collaborative effort with another less well-known but also successful British author: Stephen Baxter. The first novel in the series came out last year; a second has been published. The first one was titled, "The Long Earth". The story has to do with a suddenly acquired ability to step into parallel words. For most people, a device is required. For a very few, the ability is innate. A key figure in the first novel was the daughter of the fascinating man who developed the device that permits everyone else to move to the parallel worlds (he himself could move between them at will). He was a professor, she was a student. Both at the same school. University of Wisconsin, Madison. Coincidence? I don't think so. Edit: As it turns out the first book was published in 2012 (I just didn't see it until last year), the second in 2013, and a third a few weeks ago.

LaskyaClaren wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: LaskyaClaren wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Dillon Levenque wrote: LaskyaClaren wrote: According to some views, the "World Series" is so-called not because it pretends to be world-wide, but because it was initially sponsored by the New York World newspaper. (Baseball is the only sport about which I am in any way well-informed. Go on, ask me about the infield fly rule!) If the Infield Fly rule be invoked but the ball ends up carrying into the outfield, is the rule still in effect? I don't wanna be anywhere near a game in which flies are large enough to carry the ball. She has a point. Or would, were it not for the fact that baseball players are, to my mind, very well proportioned in all of the right places, and hardly look like flies at all. Yeah, but don't you worry a li'l about why they're always scratching those right places? If they have flies large enough to carry the ball, imagine what the cooties are like. Ew. I'm sure you're wrong, and that they clean up very nicely. Unlike hockey players. I'm just going to enjoy having read that you have enough knowledge of hockey players to say that. I shan't comment on it in any way whatsoever.:-)

There are a great many rental homes/apartments/places in Second Life. Just use your viewer's Search function, select Places and type 'rental'. That will by no means give you a complete list but it will at least give you a large selection to investigate. Don't be too worried about finding exactly the right place first time. Once you've had a chance to get to know SL you'll have a better idea of what you really want and by then you might have some recommendations from people you've met. My only really serious advice would be to look at a lot of places before you decide, and don't agree to a long-term rental right off the bat. There are a vast number of well-run rentals that are perfectly happy to rent to you one week at a time. If someone requires a month's worth or longer in advance it might be perfectly reasonable, but for now I'd skip those. You need to know more about SL before you get into any long term arrangement. Also, don't assume that more expensive means better. It's not exactly like real life here. Sometimes more expensive really is better, but sometimes it's not. Cheaper might just mean the land-owner has found a way to profitably provide rentals at a low price.

LaskyaClaren wrote: Um. No!!!! (Damn you, Dillon!) I'm terribly sorry, Laskya. I was so sure you really wanted to be asked! In fact, you should not feel too bad about having trouble knowing the answer to the question (which was in fact, "Yes": Once an umpire has called "Infield Fly" it matters not where the ball eventually lands. Infield fly means a ball that can be caught by an infielder 'with ordinary effort'.) Professional baseball players, who are paid many millions of dollars not just for their athletic abilities but for their skill at the game—a game that to be played well requires every player to be thinking constantly about what is about to happen on the next pitch and what he or she will do depending on the result— have been known to totally biff the Infield Fly rule. I found several examples on the first page I looked, but this one is by far the best since not just one but TWO players failed to understand the rule in spite of having played baseball on an organized basis almost every day of their lives since the age of six: "Other star players, such as Albert Pujols (greatest active hitter) are not as lucky as Perez. On April 8, 2010, Matt Holliday hit a pop-up behind second base. Umpire Mike Reilly called the infield fly before Brandon Phillips muffed the catch. Phillips then mistakenly thought he had to force Pujols at second base, so he threw to second. Pujols mistakenly thought he’d been put out on that throw, so he headed back to the dugout. Orlando Cabrera completed the unlikely double play by running over and tagging Pujols while he was off first base." I apologize to anyone who doesn't follow baseball (meaning most of the rest of the world) because this will have made no sense whatever, but if you're interested you can Google "Infield Fly rule" and get a full explanation. Besides, you're all probably too busy thinking about a poor pass someone made in the 53rd minute anyway. ETA Quoted post

LaskyaClaren wrote: According to some views, the "World Series" is so-called not because it pretends to be world-wide, but because it was initially sponsored by the New York World newspaper. (Baseball is the only sport about which I am in any way well-informed. Go on, ask me about the infield fly rule!) If the Infield Fly rule be invoked but the ball ends up carrying into the outfield, is the rule still in effect?

Coby Foden wrote: Dillon Levenque wrote: I do get the 'penaly kick' thing. I don't like it, any more than I like it in hockey, the only somewhat major American sport that has such rules. Even with hockey I believe that tournament/playoff games must be decided by final score and if the game is tied at the end of regulation periods are added until one team is victorious. In football they play 45 minutes + 45 minutes, which is total of 90 minutes. If there is no winner then there is additional time of 15 minutes + 15 minutes. This makes total of 120 minutes (2 hours) of play. Some players have run very fast already some 13 kilometers (8 miles) during the play. At this time many players are totally exhausted, hardly able to run any more. If the playing was continued with additional time until a winner was found, the play would ultimately slow down into a crawl. Thus the penalty kick system is the best solution to end the game quickly - before the players die on the field. Well that at least makes sense. I suppose with the length of the matches they've just about reached the endurance level of the athletes so exended play would be nearly impossible.

Kelli May wrote: Dillon Levenque wrote: ... I was not happy about goal differential being a decider in Group play but I let it go. Then I looked at the standings today. There were two draws: Chile v Brazil and Costa Rica v Greece. In both cases the team with the highest goal differential moves on, the other team is out. That is so incredibly wrong that I can't get my head around it. A team scored more goals against some other team that wasn't even on the schedule of the team to which they're being compared, and they ADVANCE? Sorry, soccer fans. Your sport bites. ... Either I've misunderstood what you wrote there, or you misunderstand the knockout stage rules. Chile vs Brazil and Costa Rica vs Greece were not decided on goal difference. The games went to a 1-1 draw in normal time. There was then 15 minutes each way of extra time. At the end of extra time, with no deciding goals scored, the game went to a penalty shoot-out. The games were decided on penalties scored, head-to-head, in those particular matches. eta: It's also worth mentioning that in the group stages no progression was actually decided on goal difference apart from the Group G, where goal difference favoured USA over Portugal. The USA vs Portugal game was... a 2-2 draw, so the head-to-head was irrelevant. Everyone else went through on points. You understood what I wrote; I misunderstood (or more accurately did not research) the scores. My bad. I did not look at the full accounts of the games but made my comments based on my misiinformation. I do get the 'penaly kick' thing. I don't like it, any more than I like it in hockey, the only somewhat major American sport that has such rules. Even with hockey I believe that tournament/playoff games must be decided by final score and if the game is tied at the end of regulation periods are added until one team is victorious.

The information gained from the study is, as been ponted out already, very old news. Humans get emotionally involved about things they witness. People leaving the parking area after watching a night of dirt track racing are belligerent when ttwo lanes merge to one. Fortunately, the guy who was driving the car I was riding in had wheels that stuck out past his fenders so he could bang into the car next to us with his tires instead of his sheet metal. The guy driving the other car chose the better part of valor (or maybe of insurance) and we moved ahead. That's just a small example. I can't believe there aren't tons of studies already that bear out the results. Surely someone's taken a look at men leaving a prize fight or even a live televised prize fight. Presumably women are susceptible to the same sort of triggers (which males have wished since the dawn of time they could figure out). Either way, if you think Google respects your privacy, you're being silly. If you think Facebook respects your privacy, you're a nitwit.