Magnus Brody

Hi Mitchell, the Old Inverness High Street Church (Inverness City sim) has a church service every Sunday at 9:30am SLT. As the Highlands of Scotland sims are run by rl Scots, the minister is Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) but the services are very interdenominational and you'll find a few Catholics attend regularly. Inverness City Contact Lauraclair Benelli if you need more details.

oh! :matte-motes-frown: Try...

Hey Hippie, how're you doing? I don't have a video of my rl me doing anything connected with sl, but I do have a video I made of the sl Highlands of Scotland and I'm doing the commentary. Enjoy :matte-motes-smile:

It's been nice to see some familiar names post in this thread :matte-motes-smile:

Just a guess, but if you're using Phoenix and using your name "ladyofsorrow" then this isn't enough information for the Phoenix Viewer. This name will work to log-in to the SL website and it will work on the SL Viewer 2, but it won't work on Phoenix. You need to enter "Resident" as your last name when logging in to Phoenix. Like I said, just a guess, so you may need to post more details of the specific problem you're experiencing.

Hey Allysa, there's another thing you could try to see if you can find your studio. When the sim owner returned your items, they probably did so in one "return all items owned by you" click. That often means that items will be returned to your inventory in groups or coalesced. When this happens the coalesced item can end up with a random name like "object" or "dining table". When you look in your inventory (try your lost and found folder) grouped objects have a symbol next to them which looks like a little pile of boxes, rather than the normal single box. If you find some of these, drag and rezz them as normal and you will find they might be a whole bunch of things. You can now take them back individually and they will appear in your inventory under their original names, as single items. To make looking for these group objects easier, sort the items in your folders by date, so the things which came into your inventory most recently will be at the top of your list. Have a look at: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/How_to_retrieve_coalesced_items http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Coalesced_Object#Coalesced_Object

Douglas Adam put it best, as he so often did: "People of Earth, your attention please. This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council. As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank-you." Although I think it funny that the destruction of earth be overseen, in a somewhat bored manner, by a contracted bureaucrat, I do remember reading some Erich von Däniken when I was a kid. His general theories, across many books, basically indicate we're been visited over many years and his paleo-contact hypotheses (attributed to wikipedia) can be categorized as follows: Artifacts have been found which are alleged to represent a higher technological knowledge than existed at the times when they were manufactured. Däniken maintains that these artifacts have been manufactured either by extraterrestrial visitors, or by humans who obtained the necessary knowledge from them. Such artifacts include the Antikythera mechanism, Stonehenge, the statues of Easter Island, and the Piri Reis map. In ancient art throughout the world, themes are observed which can be interpreted to illustrate astronauts, air and space vehicles, non-human but intelligent creatures, and artifacts of a high technology. Däniken also points out details that are similar in the art of unrelated cultures. Origins of religions might be a reaction to contact with an alien race by primitive humans. The humans considered the technology of the aliens to be supernatural and the aliens themselves to be gods. According to Däniken, the oral and literal traditions of most religions contain references to visitors from "stars" and vehicles traveling through air and space. These, he says, should be interpreted as literal descriptions which have changed during the passage of time and have become more obscure, rather than as symbolic or mythical fiction. One such is Ezekiel's revelation in the Old Testament, which he interprets as a detailed description of a landing spacecraft. I can remember that he explained angels being depicted with halos, as perhaps crude drawings of astronaut helmets and biblical descriptions of angels with "wings of fire" being some sort of jet pack. Now, I'm not saying I agree with von Däniken, but he was certainly interesting philosophical reading for a child. 

Same as last time, Bill Nighy, despite him being 16 years older than me. However, I am often told I look a lot like Tom Hanks.

Although I'm not going to attempt to claim that I can explain the time difference between your computer and the Lab's computer, I have been fascinated by how much difference there can be, from a few seconds to several minutes, in the time between countries. For many years, I used several computers which synchronised time with the server based in the US, which MS applies as the standard time server in Windows. Once I joined SL, I always thought, being in the UK, in GMT or zero Universal Standard Time, I was exactly eight hours ahead of PST or Second Life Time, but no. When I first noticed there was a time variance of between 20 seconds and 3 minutes, and not an exact 8 hours, was when I was given one of those radio-controlled clocks which receives a signal, from the UK time laboratory based in Rugby, once every day. At about 1:15am, the 3 hands of the clock whizz around to exactly 12, then about a minute later, the red seconds hand starts moving again. The hour and minute (or second hand, which is always confusing because it doesn't do seconds: I was the kid at school who asked why it was named wrongly) hand then move until they reach about 1:17am. Now, as I have often been at my computer when the clock starts whizzing round, I started looking to see if my computer clock was exactly matched to the radio controlled clock and it never was. Even if I reset the time on my computer, calling on the US server to resynchronise, there would still be a difference and the difference varied every day. This prompted me to find a UK based time server, and I found one run by Manchester University: ntp2d.mcc.ac.uk Once I synchronised with this UK server, rather than the Windows default US server, the clock and my comp were exactly matched. I found it interesting that, not only were the UK and the US not exactly (to the hour) time matched, but that the difference would vary by as much as plus/minus 3 minutes. Apparently, it's not good enough to rely on the very reliable oscillations of the caesium atom, all sorts of adjustments have to be made for things like gravity (!), temperature, altitude and so on. Before I bore everyone to tears, those who are a little fascinated, as I am, with what "time" really means, like for example, a second is faster in orbit (because of the difference in gravity) and caused chaos with early satellites, can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Atomic_Time and here, where you find out it requires algorithms and all sorts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_synchronization What really got me started was a trip on Concorde, in my teens, which, because it could cross the Atlantic in about 3 and a half hours, I arrived in New York one and a half hours before I left London. It was great to have a full English breakfast on the plane and arrive in time to have another huge breakfast for lunch, uhm breakfast, in New York.

Excellent! As we all find Mondays in need of a bit of laughter, several friends and me have decided to ring them at 30 mins intervals throughout the day, all with the same query, "ah, hello, I'm ringing about the free home offer, if I take out premium membership, can you tell me more about it, please?"

I once tried to explain SL to my mother, who is in her seventies, and ended-up firing-up my laptop to show her. My mother uses her computer, largely, to play solitaire and speak to the "nice man at google" who answers her questions for her. After explaining that the "little man" was me, in the online world, she said, "that's nice, dear". I showed her round my home and then tp'd (she liked that, "oh, just like Star Trek, dear") to some of my favourite sims. Being Scottish, I took her to the Highlands of Scotland sims, starting in Inverness City and I could see she was beginning to grasp the whole concept, "oh, that's very nice, dear". To complete the demonstration, I went to hear my friend Zachh Cale sing and play piano. My mother liked him so much she insisted we stay for the entire show. Content by this time that my mother "got it", I closed the laptop lid and asked her if she though it fun. "Oh yes, dear", she said, "and I think it particularly kind of that Mr Cale to telephone all his friends and sing to them; transatlantic calls are very expensive, you know."

Soda Lemondrop's SL episodes (now up to No 13) are very funny. I knew the first was a classic from its opening line, "OK, I'm going to tell you how to make a million dollars in Second Life..." Oh! And thank-you so much to Wildcat. It made me smile to see "the grid is down while we bang on things" which is a little ironic. I remember refreshing the grid status page, sometimes a very long time after the quoted grid re-opening time, and I never felt like smiling when I saw the apes again, and again, and again.... The memories of shutdown Wednesdays :matte-motes-not-entertained:

Thanks all for your replies. Thankfully the problem resolved itself about two hours later but, the submitted ticket remains new and unread, so I am unsure if any action was needed to sort out this one payment or not. It doesn't sort out the main problem of how difficult it can be for non-US residents to be billed and/or how difficult it is to purchase Lindens. An example, a few months back, from the time the Lab decided to stop using PayPal, caused me to be suspended for non-payment. Did I receive an email from LL telling me the billing arrangement (PayPal) which I'd had in place for four years was no longer acceptable as payment? No. Did I receive any guidance or advice from the lab about changing to another payment method? No. Was I suspended for non-payment? Yes, despite having sufficient funds available, the Lab chose not to use the payment method they'd used for four years; not really my definition of non-payment. I know this happened to many others too and I'm sure none of them even received an email explaining that the Lab's decision to stop using PayPal was the reason for the payment problem; I didn't. Instead I spent a very frustrating time trying to re-add PayPal and not knowing why it kept failing: no warning screens, nothing. A simple email to all customers affected (and they know which country I live in because they manage to charge UK VAT without problem) would have been best, or even some sort of warning on the account screen, "PayPal no longer accepted from non-US, see wiki article blah blah blah". Clearly the types of acceptable payment methods (for non-US) have changed again recently, i.e. thay have been reduced. Have any non-US been emailed by the lab? I am guessing not. If my phone company irl, cancelled my usual way of paying them, without informing me, then suspended my service for non-payment because they refused to use a payment method they had previously used for years, I'd expect some compensation for their error. Any company which expects its customers to jump through hoops to pay them, is expecting too much loyalty. I remain because I love sl, but I am sure others have just given-up in frustration. To me, it's somewhat akin to shopping in the supermarket, then a fit, young cashier says, "ah, but you can only leave with your shopping today if you pay me; and to pay me, you're going to have to catch me first". Would I be tempted to switch supermarket to one which makes it easier for me to give them my money? Yes, I'm just too old to chase young supermarket cashiers, in fact I don't even flirt with them anymore because there's nothing sadder than some middle-aged guy, thinking he's great, having some young woman be polite because she has to as part of her job.

Some time ago, I think late last year, Linden Lab stopped all non-US using PayPal, introducing the second life cashier, but only for new non-US customers, and this left me unable to pay the Lab at all. When the Lab introduced the SL Cashier, they did not "update" my account and so I continued to have the two original choices of payment method: Visa/MasterCard or PayPal. I have a preloaded MasterCard, which I specifically bought to use online and this has been accepted everywhere, except SL. No payments are accepted by SL when I try to use this card, and of course, if I try to use PayPal, it's also not accepted because I am not resident in the US. At this point I developed my own workaround: I made an alt and, as a new, Non-US customer, I hoped I would be able to use the SL Cashier. It worked, I now had a choice of payment methods, including Click and Buy, Visa/MasterCard and Solo/Maestro. I was pleased to see Maestro was accepted, this being one of the most common charge cards issued with a UK current account. I have been able to make payments for the last 6 months approx, using my Maestro card, buying lindens, then logging-in with my alt to transfer the cash to my main, until yesterday. The payment options, under the Second Life Cashier, have now been reduced to Visa/MasterCard or Click and Buy. Once again, I'm stuck and unable to use my MasterCard. I read up on this Click and Buy, a little wary of using a service I have never heard of, but checking the internet doesn't bring up anything worrying, apart from the odd moan. I registered with them, verified my Maestro card, using their process which is similar to PayPal verification of a card, and returned to my alt account page to purchase US$50 worth of lindens. The transaction seemed to go through, but the lindens did not show-up on the account screen. I checked to see if perhaps a US$ credit was made to my alt's account, but - nothing, only a "transaction pending" listed in the account's transactions. I checked Click and Buy, which confirms the transaction is complete. I check my bank account online and the US$50 has been deducted from my balance, or approx GBP£30. I log-in again to my alt account and still nothing. In the end, I had to phone billing, who were only able to raise a support ticket which will not be looked at until tomorrow, at the earliest and, from recent experience, I know it will be a miracle if the ticket is looked at in the next two months. So, I'm not pleased, not only do the Lab seem to want to make it as difficult as possible to pay them anything, if you're non-US, but now US$50 is floating about somewhere, gone from my bank account, but not available for me to use in SL. I want to use it now, that's why I attempted to buy Lindens. Now, what am I supposed to do until the matter is resolved? Is anyone else, US or non-US, having trouble with payments?

No problem, Eros and yeah :smileyhappy:

Glad to hear it's working for you Eros. You asked, "I was just wondering if everyone thinks its better to use the AA in the viewer or if the one in the Nvidia control Panel is better", and I'd say you should try both. Currently I have the nvidea control panel set to let the 3D application (SL) decide as I find I get better fps when running SL. My card however (an 8800GTS) is older than yours, so you might want to try both and see what works best for you. Make sure you have CTRL+SHFT+1 window open and watch the FPS as you make changes and don't keep any change which cause it to drop. It's something everyone should do, as seemingly unimportant changes in the viewer's settings can have quite an impact on how well the viewer runs (or fps) and it will be different for everyone. You also asked about Phoenix and yes, the advice, in regard to this, is the same as Viewer 2. I tend to use Kirstens Viewer mostly, which is designed for high end graphics cards (so it will run better with yours than mine!)... http://www.kirstensviewer.com/ With your card, as your comp spec is considerably better than the SL recommended comp spec, you can definitely run Phoenix on ultra. I do, even with my older card, and generally get around 20-30 fps. I have everything, except terrain and sky, set to ultra. You mentioned about bottlenecking your cpu and there are two things you can try there to see which works best for you. I can't remember where it is in Phoenix (somewhere in the advanced tab) but look for an option to tick which mentions threading as this will cause Phoenix to try it's best to utilise all your cores. However, some have said SL runs better for them when they "force" SL to run on one specific core, which you can do but you must set this every time you start running Phoenix, by starting task manager, right clicking on Phoenix in the Processes tab, select Set Affinity, then leave a tick in the box of one core only. Phoenix will now run using that core only, until you close it. Good to hear AA is now working for you, have a fiddle around with your settings, whilst watching your fps and you should be astounded at what your card will handle. As an example of how well fiddling with things can turn out, my rl friend could not understand how my SL ran much faster and better than his, despite my comp and card being older and less powerful, until he had a fiddle and now manages fps in the 30s to 40s compared to my 20s. If you're still not happy with how SL is running, IM me and I can talk you through some settings in voice. Good luck

Not sure about that one, Charolette, I only know from Torley that FBO needs enabling for antialiasing to work.

Hi Eros, I have the same problem everytime I do a clean install of a Viewer 2 update. I can think of two possible causes, but there may be more. Firstly, have a look at the settings for your card in your nvidia control panel and make sure it is set to allow the 3D application to decide... 3D settings / adjust image settings with preview / let the 3D application decide. If you do not want SL to decide, because you have your card set to your own preferences, then ensure it is not in this control panel you have limited to 4x as a max. Second thing to check is in Viewer 2 itself, you must have Framebuffer Objects (FBO) allowed for antialiasing to display. Go to Develop on the menu bar (ctrl+alt+Q to enable it, if you can't see it)... Develop / Rendering / Framebuffer objects. Once you click on FBO it should have a tick next to it. Once you have done both of the above, return to preferences and try out 4x, 8x etc. If it's still not working, relog the Viewer, check FBO is still ticked, then try fiddling with antialiasing again. I have an older nvidia than yours, and this is how I enabled antialiasing. I have no more jagged edges at all and only need to have it set at 4x

Back in the day, the Lindens used to have town hall meetings, but those turned into a free-for-all abuse opportunity for the immature. Then there were office hours held by Lindens for their particular area of responsibility/interest. Recently, User Groups have been introduced http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Office_Hours To see things from a Linden perspective, I remember once getting into an IM chat at a live concert with a Linden (sadly now departed the Lab) who was pleased to chat with a resident, rather than be frantically bombarded by IMs from many surrounding residents being very rude. I was told some Lindens were very hesitant to login for that very reason. Some might say, well it's their job and residents have every right to take an opportunity to voice their concerns. Perhaps partly true, but can you imagine if, every time you tried to get from your office to your car, you had to force your way through many of your company's disgruntled and rude customers in the car park, many of whom derived amusement from harassing you? I once had a job irl, for an employer so large, many of my neighbours and fellow townsfolk also worked for them. My post involved advising employees and, believe me, there is no fun shopping on a Saturday, with a child in tow, and being confronted by an angry employee who simply wants to vent their anger about their view of how badly they've been treated by their employer. Did I sometimes stay at home rather than go out, even to a bar or restaurant? Yes!

A while back, Torley made a distinction between suspension and banning. It sounds to me your account has been suspended pending review and, although I can see this is annoying and inconvenient for you, consider: if you had not made this cash-out transaction, your account had not been suspended due to activity perhaps inconsistent with your usual, if someone had hacked your account and transferred your lindens to their paypal, then I think you'd be much more annoyed. It is not unusual for my bank or credit card company to phone me to confirm a transaction is genuine. In fact, many years ago, I had a credit card suspended because three charges were made by a restaurant in one evening. As it turned out, only the first charge was for my meal, the other two were staff taking cash from the till and charging it to my card. Was I embarrassed and inconvenienced later when I tried to pay for after dinner drinks elsewhere, only to have my card declined? Yes I was. I was very angry. It was a first date and didn't make me look great. However, once I found out what had been happening, I was very happy with my card provider's actions as, without suspension, the person who had my card number could have continued merrily along. So, it may be the case, the Lab's financial transactions software has highlighted your account activity as unusual and auto-suspended your account. Less inconvenient than sorting out a situation where your account had been hacked.

Lasher, it looks very familiar and exactly what I see, a lot of the time.

Thanks for your advice about the arts group, Koto. I will check them out. The pics you posted look great.

Opening soon... The Purple Gallery http://slurl.com/secondlife/Purple/89/200/21 I'm looking for advice, artists and a gallery director. Please see, for further info... http://magnusbrody.blogspot.com/2011/03/purple-gallery.html Thanks.

Clearly the spammer! If you choose to vew the most recently updated posts (across all topics) these list at 20 discussions per page. Currently, page 1 has 16 of the spammer's efforts and Page 2 has 15. It's difficult to scroll through and find a discussion which is not spam as the current spam alt has made 84 posts, at almost exactly 3 minute intervals, since its creation.

Hi Sonya and welcome. I'll add this to the good responses you've had so far. It might sound a bit odd to say, but it depends what sort of friends you want to make in sl.... you see, some people are here to roleplay only and be completely real life (rl) anonymous (but make friends with those they roleplay with regularly) and others are here to be mostly their rl self looking for an extension of rl in sl; a social life expansion, as it were. Most are perhaps somewhere between those two as their main avatar (avi) and you can always make a second/third etc avi (called an alt) if you want to do anonymous roleplay later. Think about that one and then, where to go to meet people, might be found in search from your interests. Discussion groups, on a particular subject, are a quick way to make friends.