Freya Mokusei

You'll have to submit a support case. Explain the issue in full, be a lot more clear than you were when posting here. You'll have to explain that you're not responsible for these other accounts, and that the email address registered to your account was used by someone without access to your account. (which is curious to me - how did they 'verify' the email account exists?) Hmm. If you believe these people got access to your Email account as well, follow this advice: SL Wiki: Account Security

The function that starts the particles again in your script is called MyParticles() - you'll need to call that within touch_start in order to restart emission of particles. You'll probably also want a toggle, setting a variable to 1 or 0 depending on whether the particles should be on or off. Something like:- touch_start(integer num_det){ if(showParticles) { showParticles = FALSE; //Also end particles } else { showParticles = TRUE; //Also start particles }} Remember to use the 'Add Code' button when posting code to the forum. It looks like a </> button at the top of your editor. Makes everything much easier to read! Good luck.

Good one Theresa. This one had me puzzled too, I've copied it all down for future reference!

Adobe Illustrators probably do. On their forum. https://forums.adobe.com/community/meet

entity0x wrote: And people wonder why I rail on things like listings having no demo button, repeated product images for each color and style of one product, repeated gacha images to reflect 30-item-sets, the overuse and abuse of keywords (probably unknowingly), etc that all contributes to the MP having cluttered searches. I like these examples, they're possible to implement without changing the underlying algorithm. And I agree, having the first 12 results cluttered with "X-Long-ProductName \ Creator \ Colour" with only the Colour element changing... is not very readable. You folks all use Marketplace more than I do, I'd never want to stifle the opportunity to come up with ideas on how to improve Marketplace. As far as I'm concerned it's all possible. My input into this thread was to attempt to explain why it works as it currently works, to better understand why some ideas are more difficult than others. I'm glad you found it useful - it's definitely helped with any approach I take on this subject in future.

Hrmm. How much disk space have you got free on your cache disk (typically C:\, but include both if your SL cache is on a different disk to your swapfile)?

Kohonen-model Neural Networking allows for engines to teach themselves the correlation between subjects - and is typically the technology being used (or, well, as a base). I use these regularly, they do have limitations - they don't correlate subjects based on purpose (or other human-recognised attributes), but instead on correlation between acceptance tests. In short (and as a very indirect example), if a search engine offers you a product page for "carrot" when you search for "shoe", and you click the carrot... carrots are more likely to be associated with shoes in future. That's how it builds the association between "laptop" and "computer" - essentially through people getting their primary searches slightly wrong. This works to avoid the drift of words (kind of like a thesaurus!), but it makes it especially hard when a word has multiple connotations (e.g. acronyms) or doesn't produce 'like-for-like' results that can be used for testing (e.g. company names rather than descriptive names). "SMB" hits the sweetspot - it's both puzzles together. You're right that - too often - people throw a search algo at the problem and assume that will sort out the mess on its own. If you look around the web today at some clothes shops (1, 2) you'll notice that they have far more available options when searching than just text entry - filter by size, by style, by colour, by gender. A more natural solution to navigating large datasets is construction of a tightly-designed search system that compliments the market that the site operates across and gives users the options they expect to see. Linden Lab did this once, for the original in-world viewer search system (now it uses a re-jigged Google ANN engine). Everything they've produced since - being derived rather than designed - has been less suited for Second Life. Marketplace is an awkward beast, it's hard to search the same dataset for lawn chairs and rocket ships and dark blue heels and it's very difficult to build-in suitable filters. The history of the Marketplace service (being born out of acquisition / competition) also never allowed it to have development time spent on avoiding the mess of single syntax search. My suspicion is that getting them to write a new search engine this late in development is... not likely. I entirely understand the user experience argument - it's way more important than making developers happy. I've always wished Marketplace could be a better attempt - even IMVU's Catalog did it better (through virtue of it having been designed in since the beginning). Syntax search maybe the best option we have - fortunately there's a whole industry designed around succeeding in this environment. This has been a good chat. Thanks for understanding my perspective.

Phil Deakins wrote: Do you know where it's linked from? It's not linked from anywhere in our implementation of Lithium. Original post by KarenMichelle Lane: https://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/There-is-always-something-new-to-learn/td-p/2900052

Trip Hastings wrote: Searching for a simple word should reasonably return results based strongly on that word, though that is of course my opinion. That wouldn't be considered a useful way for the engine to respond. It wouldn't let the user find similar words that they might instead be searching for (again, my example of laptop vs. computer). The idea would be that a search for computer could return laptops, and this diversity allows better targetting in secondary queries. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just explaining how search engines were designed - they anticipate that the user is just as faulty as the indexing mechanism. They're not humans. Machine systems become flawed every time they encounter humans (at least until we do a little better at AI). Humans are adjusting to the way search strategy works (a vital skill!) but it's slow, and the SL userbase is not tech-savvy by average. I agree the service provider could make assisting the user more of a priority, but remember their background: In Silicon Valley, everyone knows how to Google - everyone who works on Marketplace probably understands syntax-based searching. This is probably a blindspot to them (blindspots are bad) - fortunately exposure helps, those who've used search tools for a while are improving. I agree we're looking at different angles, I hope you've not read my posts as taking 'a side', there's opportunities for improvement everywhere. I'm explaining my perspective based on my background, which is... largely speaking to machines, and not humans. Keyword searches are an element that humans are moving beyond as well, and our marketplace ecosystem is too complex to support them (and has always been - 'SMB' is just a very good example of why).

Trip Hastings wrote: Why is this pedantry even being addressed? *headache* I won't mention it again. Sorry, just because I'm a statistics nerd. It wouldn't have mattered if you'd presented hard evidence - if it only related to your sales it would still be anecdotal evidence because it's a non-representative sample. I'm not trying to be a pain, I'll happily abandon this point - it's just a word that caught my eye. Trip Hastings wrote: On the actual topic at hand, if the search cannot handle a short term that appears in thousands of products' descriptive text, then I would have to assume it is not indexed properly. You'd be wrong. I've tried to explain this myself, but perhaps I'm not doing a great job. I'm far better at understanding this stuff than explaining it to others. Maybe this will help: Search Engine Watch - Longer Queries are Becoming the Norm and this one: Forensic Focus - Beyond Keywords "Using short keywords or acronyms – including company names, slang words or a person’s initials – will often return huge volumes of irrelevant data. Such a short term will occur with great frequency within the data. For example, the letters “ge” occur more than 30 times just in this article." It's not about frequency, it's about diversity of the search result - an acronym probably won't be correctly interpretted by automated means and so it jumps into fuzzy matching very very quickly. The aim of a Search Engine is to firstly help the user clarify their search - diversity enables this. A more typical search route might go:- SMB (too wide, engine has no idea) SMB shoes (still too wide, but at least the engine can offer types of shoes) SMB shoes blue (narrower, now the engine can offer types of blue AND types of shoes - diversity is happening!) SMB heels dark blue zips (precise! The user now knows what type of blue AND what type of shoes. Probably leading to the specific item!) It sounds like you're seeing this a lot, especially because of the variance in the number of results. What absolutely isn't happening, is a change to the search mechanisms over this short of a timespan. You're not seeing new changes each time you get a different number. You're just seeing a series of different bad guesses at what you probably mean. Again, sorry for any confusion caused. SEO is hard, and while I'm good at it it's not something I'm fluent at explaining. ETA: Some backup sources and examples.

Trip Hastings wrote: As opposed to concrete statistics of my personal sales. This would still be anecdotal! Any claim that is based from your experience (all of your claims in this thread - I wasn't saying otherwise) would be anecdotal. Fuzzy matching on short search strings is intentional. It's considered poor behaviour to not attempt to complete a "short" query. It would be rare or unlikely that a three-character search string would be seen as 'complete' - precision is required. "SMB blue shoes" is objectively a better search string than "SMB" - it tells the engine how to best satisfy the user and allows creation of a diverse results page. This is better because it enables the user to drill-down, rather than stifling too early. SMB might be a useful term to you as a human. It is not a useful term to the search algo, it's too short and non-descriptive. Yes, explicit searches (those with " ") will return more specific results, but these are also more stifling (e.g. maybe you're actually looking for a laptop type computer, not a "computer", even if you search for computer), which is why this is not default behaviour. Search algos typically assume the user is searching inaccurately, not explicitly. Hope this helps.

Phil Deakins wrote: Where is the rejected list? I haven't seen that. I didn't even know that it existed. It's here. :-) KarenMichelle pointed me at it once upon a time, and now I need it on a weekly basis. 'Cause am controversial.

Trip Hastings wrote: I don't keep sales stats, so that's purely anecdotal, but there it is. FYI - it would still be anecdotal even if you had kept sales statistics. ;-) Anecdotal means that it how a situation applies to you may not be the way felt across the board. Your sales have dipped, but this doesn't implicitly mean that everyone's sales have dipped - therefore dipping sales is anecdotal. I'd agree with Entity in this case, expecting a three-letter acronym to be a useful keyword wouldn't ever be realistic. Your customers are unlikely to search in this way (rather than all your stuff appearing, they're more likely to view through your store page), you're far better trying to improve relevance to reach new shoppers. Not criticising you, and I've not used Marketplace in probably a year - so I've no perspective on the new search stuff. I mostly like statistics, but SEO is something I have a knack for.

Curse Urban Dictionary for exposing my insincerity. Or my horniness. Or my dalliances! (Yeah I'm not helping you narrow that down - I need my air of mystery!) @Phil - sorry, that's a mistaken understanding of what happened, let me clear it up. I edit most of my posts for up to an hour after posting them (not a personal quality I enjoy, and I try to minimise the effect it has on others), it was one of those edits that caused the trigger to fire, and then I couldn't get it to not-fire. The post would submit, but disappear from the page immediately upon refreshing. It's possible you saw one of the incomplete copies I did manage to submit. There was no message, no notification. But it appeared in the Rejected Items list (which... I don't think is in date order).

Phil Deakins wrote: I saw someone else post that messages were being put in something like administrative hold, where they are waiting for a moderator to clear them. I think it was Freya. Yeah, though mine was from an automatic wording flag. Some term (probably terms, it was occuring in multiple paragraphs) was causing the automatic filter to move my posts to Rejected Items. In my experience, most of these terms are associated with the types of automated spam we get here (escorts, movies, sports), but it's possible a few of those terms are far-reaching. You might have fortune finding yours and rewording, then you can resubmit and it'll appear in place. For me, though, every time I posted it it'd immediately be stripped back out. HTH.

Perrie Juran wrote: "Next, let us turn to the problem of our fiscal policy. Here the myths are legion and the truth hard to find. But let me take as a prime example the problem of the Federal budget. We persist in measuring our federal fiscal integrity today by the conventional or administrative budget— with results which would be regarded as absurd in any business firm—in any country of Europe—or in any careful assessment of the reality of our national finances. The administrative budget has sound administrative uses. But for wider purposes it is less helpful. It omits our special trust funds and the effect that they have on our economy; it neglects changes in assets or inventories. It cannot tell a loan from a straight expenditure—and worst of all it cannot distinguish between operating expenditures and long term investments." JFK Yale Commencement Address Agreed, that's a lot of the problem (and where the US and UK share economic similarity). Being 'bastion' countries (the US prints the international reserve currency, the UK does... banking... things*, also history!) that run the NASDAQ, NYSE, FTSE etc etc the prevailing wisdom has been "too big to fail" - loan money is fine, we can take it. This isn't because of over-spending on policy or public services (I'd say maybe defence budgets play a part, though), it tends just to be seen as the costs of doing business. Fractional Reserve Banking (a subject waaaaaaayyy too annoying to get into here), as practiced in the US and UK builds its internal cash reserve and operating funds on debt by turning existant $1 into $10 using financial magic. The money we think we have in their accounts doesn't exist anywhere except on paper (well, in computers), there's no way for all of us to draw it out of a bank. That's how deep debt goes, all the way to the point where almost no money is real. Nation states and debt go hand-in-hand, it's not like personal lending where it adds risk and uncertainty. Governments go into debt because growth is felt to be inevitable (capitalism expects untethered growth and complexity in order to function), GDP goes up and up and - in their minds - they'd be crazy NOT to draw out the capital that they can balance against this seemingly endless growth. Crazy because their competition definitely are doing this ("keeping up with the Joneses", as Phil said), but also because governments constantly need to justify their own existance - if they're not building boondoggles and creating marvellous shiny wonders during their 4-5 year mini-reigns then their party will never get re-elected, and if they're not constantly giving money to cronies and outside interests they'll never get that cushty, multi-million 'advisor' job in the private sector when they're bored of serving the people. It doesn't take long for a government to find it virtually impossible to survive without living on credit - and that's also intentional. The more debt a country needs, the more it can be swayed by outside forces - whether it's the EU, the IMF, OPEC, or any other acronym that aspires to control the world from the top down instead of the bottom up. Like (to draw in another issue, because so far there's too few) the new decision that Apple Inc. should pay the EU £11Billion in back-taxes, because of a legal deal they struck with the Irish government (that the EU don't like). There's a lot of people talking about this, which option to take, who Apple should strike a deal with - the only approach that's not being discussed seriously is paying Ireland the full amount they owe. They'll make a deal with someone, use a new loophole under some country or other, or change the way they do business, but they definitely won't end up paying a fair rate of tax in Ireland, this money will be lost as "part of the game". The costs of doing business should profit the elites, not the people - that this case is so public is inconvenient. None of these systems creates a sustainable economic perspective, that's why I said that debt is accrued by design in our economies. It's so hard to avoid that even the people who make these agreements can't tell how deep the trench is anymore, that the line between 'borrowing' and 'paying off debt' has largely become the same thing, it's just shuffling spreadsheet columns around so that mostly poor people die, and mostly only already-rich people get richer. I'm not sure this is as uplifting of a note as I wanted to finish on, but... that's where we are. I too am appreciative to Pamela and others for adding such awesome content to this thread. It spans a lot (it's a massive subject, like I say I've been studying the effects of this for 3-5 years already) but it strikes the core of our modern society. This is just the most recent attempt to manipulate things. I massiveely appreciate being taken seriously, as someone with my age and radical perspective, I've not always been given a fair trial when offering my less-mature opinion that upsets most of the available apple-carts, but I feel I've been treated well here. I believe I sit somewhere that remains progressive without becoming regressive, a mostly sensible and forward-thinking angle that has a few answers to small and localised aspects of this. Enjoy your weekends. *While I wanted to tackle economic arguments a bit, they aren't my area. I know the maths and the probabilities but understanding how it gets used gets... fuzzy. Administer with multiple grains of salt.

GUYS GUYS GUYS. You're missing the most important controversy. Phil Deakins wrote: scones But is it pronounced S-conezz or Skonzz! :matte-motes-evil-invert:

Phil Deakins wrote: You do sound cynical about politicians. We are a like-minded there. I'm told I'm not allowed to be this cynical and still be this young. I argue that I wouldn't have to be if everything wasn't so broken. In the words of Comicbook-writer Sam Keith, "Grown-ups run everything and nothing works." I can't afford not to pay attention. As before, it turns out quite a few people rely on me and my perspectives to help inform themselves. No amount of warning seemed to persuade them this was a bad idea. On top of this trust, as I said to Maddie, it's been apparent for some time that these are the new battles for our rights and freedoms as citizens and as humans. As an aside, I've found the secession discussion fascinating. I don't have anything to add - it's not a legal process I have any context for - but I've been learning more and more about the US system since I started dating Americans in.... 2003. It all feels very familiar by now. And, yes - the problem with ideas in general is that it's impossible to know which are yours and which belong to other people. Which you can trust and which will mislead. I don't find it effective hate individual people, but I often have extreme distaste for ideas that I encounter. Thanks for letting me use your perspective as an example. Keep on thinkin' what you're thinkin'.

Phil Deakins wrote: The debt numbers confuse me. I don't mean to misquote you, or make this look like an attack. This applies to everybody. I assume you know me better than singling anyone out. The point in me posting the previous post was to demonstrate that the debt numbers confuse everyone, even politicians (even me ). They don't have any better than answers than you or I, they have - at best - the same probability of solving the issue (probably less to be fair. As before, they're incentivised to protect themselves, not us) as a well-trained pig (don't worry, not a link about David Cameron). There are no "hard numbers" in these sums, it's all projections. Politiicians know this, and they know they can pass anything they like provided the public believe their pensions or healthcare are at stake. That's why they put pensions or healthcare in danger in the first place. When you see a shortfall in care, it's because they intend for a shortfall in care. We've become trained to the idea that pensions can be threatened and even lost, and they have learned how to keep this threat alive. "Coddling" doesn't have a purpose that ends with education, or even with insulating people from sources of criticism. Once people will accept lies on this scale from those in power - once it becomes so hard to understand the truth for yourself, once they ensure that there is no middle ground, and - they know they have you in a world of arguing based on emotion, instead of logic.Once this happens... They can get people to vote against their own best interests. They can establish order any way they like, for any reason they like. They can ignore criticism and prevent effective organisation of opposition. We'll even help them do it. <3

Phil Deakins wrote: over 14 TRILLION!!! quid in debt Is that a big number for a country? Bigger than other countries? It's only really a threat if we're likely to be called on to repay. Is that likely? Phil Deakins wrote: we can't even afford to keep systems, such as the NHS, running well enough for our people Sounds like a spending priority issue. Like the propogandising idiots last week who were determined to pit cateract sufferers against transpeople, this is almost certainly a fake deficit designed to push the burden onto vulnerable parts of our society. Phil Deakins wrote: You know as well as I do that for far too long (through the whole of your lifetime), our governments have calculated how much 'borrowing requirement' we need for the coming year. They sometimes try to reduce the 'borrowing requirement'. It's become the norm to live on borrowed money, and pile up more and more debt, because we can't afford all that we spend each year. That's by design in the current system and will continue regardless of our membership in the EU. The money we *could* save in membership fees won't be returned to the public services purse (definitely not any time soon, probably never), this was all a lie, and they've admitted this. I don't know, it all sounds very alarmist. These aren't real problems that you (or anyone else I've seen) can put into real terms that affect individuals, they just sound scary because of big numbers and complex political arrangements. Politicians say they're big problems, but politicians are more interested in job security than serving the population anyway. Money is transitory, debt is mandatory. P.S. Phil Deakins wrote: In the last election, I voted Conservative, solely because it was the only party that intended to reduce the horrendous debt. Cameron has gone now, but I hope they still intend reducing it. Oops (2011). Double oops! (2015) Well I'm sure one day they'll get around to it.

Phil Deakins wrote: wherorangi wrote: Phil Deakins wrote: So you have a chip on your shoulder about it. and two fish. Is history What? A chip and two fish. Fish and chip. ...British things! Yes? No? This line was still way easier to understand than a British (as in, someone with all the benefits of having grown-up under British institutions) person who didn't want to spend a negligable amount of money to help out the people around them who are doing worse-off. I'll keep trying to understand, though.

You might want to check that your system is free from malicious software. An application like MalwareBytes is designed to help identify, quarantine and remove 'adware' installed onto your PC - the type that intrude in *any* browser instance, not just Second Life's browser. These ads are not caused by the pages you're viewing, your PC could be adding them due to installed malicious adware. As far as I'm aware, the in-world browser doesn't act like this on its own.

I would never describe 5/6 frames per second as healthy, it sounds like you have an underpowered laptop. Analogue TVs output at over 20 frames per second, and modern monitors at 50 or 60 - these numbers aren't just convenience, they're designed to reduce visual flicker, which can lead to eye strain and user fatigue. Laptop fans are supposed to whirr (this is a sign of healthiness), but because laptops aren't generally designed for constant 3D use - of the kind that SL requires - they can suffer from a shortened lifespan. It sounds like you might want a beefier system to improve general performance as well as product lifespan. An auxillary blower ('cooling mat' as they're sometimes known) can be useful to encourage airflow, but this won't lead to more harmonous operation.

Madelaine McMasters wrote: Amongst my elderly friends, there's a dissapointing "The world is going to hell, I'm glad I won't be around to see it" outlook. Yeah. Very much this. (But also not at all this) I have a barreload of respect for many older folks. They've made compromises and decisions I'll never have to make, they've dealt with hardships I'll probably never see - that I probably can't even create a context for. Somehow they hold up in the wind, despite so much time having been spent trying to tear them down. But I've seen this sentiment a lot - when I first started working in my career (6.5-ish years ago) an adanced-in-age coworker told me that I "should be learning Chinese" (I think he meant Cantonese) instead of applying for British jobs related to the engineering industry. When the referendum came, company policy was to hedge bets - buy plenty of foreign currency, hope to ride out the worst of it in the short term - the long term will likely be someone elses' problem. So to counterbalance this mindset, I've experienced some of the opposite. I had a bit in my still-buried post about this concept as it related to Brexit, I'll try and include:- "My group (folks my age or a little older) all voted in, along with myself. My parents/relations (and those of my peers), members of my old church, a handful of academics that I'm familiar with - all voted with me too, many asked me - specifically - how they should vote. This might be an effect some of you saw - since the decision wouldn't affect people who've now retired, they wanted to vote in a relevant direction for the youth. I am told I make well-reasoned arguments, and my band of listeners grew after the last UK election, during which I was highly involved in political works (raising awareness in general, I've never been interested in party lines)." I don't say this as someone who thinks all people above a certain age should've done this (some my age would go that far), just that it was a very endearing thing to see and I appreciated what I saw going on around me. There's valid, individual reasons for older people to have chosen to retain their votes as well, but acknowledging the likely timeframe required to see the change was more long-term thinking than I thought most of the UK electorate had. I found this a lot more complicated than the "old vs. young" numbers shown in the demographics. I don't think age goes far enough in explaining why this split occured so deeply within UK society. (Although Bill Maher recently aired )

Madelaine McMasters wrote: While Googling around, I found this... http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/07/10/when-and-why-nationalism-beats-globalism/ Stenner is now on my reading list. Authoritarianism is a central pillar of my study, and has been for the last couple of years (same reasoning as Stenner: "intolerance is not a thing of the past, it is very much a thing of the future."). Of particular interest to me is how authoritarians buckle-under when they meet someone more authoritarian than they are. Stenner seems to agree with this (I don't off-hand remember if I've read her before, but it's fantastically familiar). It lines up with what I said in the last lines of my earlier post, that the nationalists/traditionalists objections come from the same internal mechanisms as those they hate - they become 'triggered' into authoritarian mindsets when they perceive a threat to something they want to protect, and arguments come from a place of emotion, rather than logic. It's a scary effect, and not one that secular Western culture is quite ready to tackle (it's an area that institutionalised religion does okay at, though unsurprising as it's part of the same animal). My perspective is that these feelings, the need to protect something, are based off of principles of artificial scarcity and politics of fear (e.g., "I need all of this land", "this land must stay mine"). To remove those mechanisms, though, means turning a lot of established systems on their head. Fascinating stuff.