Suzi_Avonside^✦ @Suzi_Avonside

It's clear that this post by Dorena was meant to be satire, but it's equally clear that it was going to trigger the Trumpistas and fascist fellow travellers. To those who want to hide away and try to avoid taking a side, consider this quote from Hannah Arendt "The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."

Anyone considering Dorena's post 'inflammatory' had best take a step back in contemplation: that was entirely your misapprehension. If you disagreed you could just have ignored it. On it's own it's hardly contentious: many in the USA, both Republican and Democrat, hope to high heaven that this vulgar demagogue is denied the presidency, and moreover, he loses, not only the election, but also his liberty.

Progressive thinkers and lovers of liberty the world over fervently hopes that Trump is not elected. He's an affront to human decency.

And what do you advocate Pagane? Some form of Fascism? Liberal democracy certainly has its faults, but as Churchill noted, it seems an awful way of running things until you consider the alternatives.

"The compulsion to do good is an innate American trait. Only North Americans seem to believe that they always should, may, and actually can choose somebody with whom to share their blessings. Ultimately this attitude leads to bombing people into the acceptance of gifts."
Ivan Illich.

And Pagane seems to be only capable of writing nonsense. If she thinks that she knows what socialism is, she is deluded. As Rosa Luxemburg reminded us, "There is no democracy without socialism, and no socialism without democracy." Though I suspect that Pagane, without realising it, along with all the other Trump lovers here, are quietly promoting fascism.

And, Pagane, I know exactly what was going on in all Soviet Bloc countries prior to 1989. It certainly wasn't socialism.

"Sometimes those who do not stand for something, will fall for anything." That is a huge worry, especially in our times. O know people often don't want to be placed in positions where they have to take sides, where they have to condemn and maybe wish to delay taking a stand. But sometimes it's better to make a firm decision to stand on the side of right and do a little condemning, to go out and vote, to take a stand so that justice and liberty, democracy, and yes, even those who are marginalised and genuine victims of being bullied.

Tyrants and demagogues take over when too many do not stand for anything, or who hide themselves away and try to tell themselves that it's not their fight. One day it could well be their fight, but it might by then be too late, and anyone who could have been around to stand with them are long gone.

I may not agree with a lot of things, e.g. religion or differences of political opinion, but I will always stand in defence of people's right to practice a religion or to express differing political opinions so long as they do not transgress another person's humanity or worth as a human. That's the point when I hit the block button.

I think interest in HGB is because the interest of Maria Korolov in Opensim has waned and the website is now used to promote news of things like VR and AI, which is fine, but the site is a shadow of its former self when all things Opensim were discussed there. Comments there were at least strictly but fairly moderated, something OSW could learn from. The main barrier to Opensim core being under active development is the lack of developers. Up until around 2015 there were quite a large number of very active developers involved in the project and new stable versions of the software were being released several times a year. It's interesting looking at the release history of the Diva Distro. There was a point where there were several releases a year, but now we're lucky if we get a new release every two years.

Nothing annoys me about Opensim, though some things do frustrate me at times, usually those who use these worlds, but that's a given wherever there are people, and is even worse in RL. Opensim doesn't behave like Second Life simply because it isn't Second Life. That might sound a little trite, but it's just the way it is. Nowadays Opensim is far closer to Second Life in the way it works than it ever was in the past. Personally I had hoped that by now that Opensim would be light years beyond Second Life, but things change and whilst that might have been possible in the earlier days when Opensim had a number of developers, that isn't the case now, when there is only one developer working on core Opensim. The issue of voice has been covered previously, and I'm not about to enter that fray except to say that there are projects that could be developed, but no one is prepared to finance them... Ditto some of the capabilities of the viewer that don't work in Opensim. There have been various attempts to create an Opensim only viewer, but once again, they have been individual projects, and whilst Firestorm still allows access to Opnesim, the FS team have difficulties attracting Opensim developers, especially those with Linux skills. Viewers that also allow access to Second Life contain a lot of code that is not only unneeded for Opensim, but actually impede operations in Opensim. There is no easy way around this issue, as all mainsteam viewers are optimised for Second Life, which is to be expected, given that the numbers of users on Second Life dwarf the numbers who use Opensim.

The physics engine that affects the way an avatar walks is an ever ongoing thing. When I started in Opensim there was only really ODE physics running on X Engine. Avatars could walk, and run etc, but vehicles were not exactly well supported, and we had the grand choice between one of Sara Kline's golf carts, or Neb's Racer and maybe one or two other options. Evidently it had been decided, but I don't know who, that Opensim wouldn't have vehicles... Then, around 2014 a survey showed that of everything, the most desired thing was vehicles that worked, and so work started on Bullet physics and later of course we got ubODE and Y Engine, which brings vehicle script behaviour closer to that of vehicles in Second Life. As far as steps are concerned, since the change to Bullet required a different, and considerably bigger avatar capsule, walking up and down stairs and steps became a little problematic. I've had to adjust some of my builds to accommodate the physics changes, but in terns of getting your avatar to walk up stairs and steps smoothly I've found it necessary to include an invisible prim that allows the avatar to glide up and down steps.

Most who come from Second Life usually don't stay because they find Opensim quite empty of avatars, and many don't grasp that Opensim is a confederation of grids, and not one grid like SL. Opensim also runs on servers quite literally located all over the globe rather than in just a single datacentre somewhere in the USA as is the case with Second Life. Things don't work like Second Life here, because it isn't Second Life. Most who come here aren't builders either, but we have far more who don't build nowadays than in the past where virtually everyone built and also ran their own regions, if not their own standalones or even separate worlds, like Dorena has done since quite early in in Opensim history.

The great thing about Opensim is that it's opensource, so if there is a feature you want there is nothing stopping you creating it, all you need are the skills. That applies to a voice module as it does to developing a dedicated viewer solely for Opensim, or even a completely different feature that you think might be good. Let's not forget that's how we got things like Varregions, the 4096 bug crushed, the tide module, or even an inworld currency module.

But as the great German writer Thomas Mann reminds us, 'Toleration becomes a crime when applied to evil'. Something to ponder on in these tense political times.

I've just logged out and read Xpletive's mega rant on his profile. He doesn't seem to like me for some reason :) I'd call that a bonus, and despite what he says, I do not hate him. I tend not to waste my energy on such emotions on people like him. I don't like him, and that's about it.

I suppose one great advantage is that now he isn't any longer able to post his hate filled diatribes. The guy is an idiot, that much is clear .

Is there something wrong with the region? I can't HG teleport there from Speculoos World or OSGrid. :(

Please do keep your unwanted and unsought opinions to yourself. Dorena hasn't made you feel crappy, you have chosen to feel crappy, so that's entirely on you. I'm not aware that Dorena has ever claimed to be a pacifist, as I know she acknowledges the right of sovereign peoples to self-defence. I know she is a person of peace, as am I, but that does not mean we are pacifists. There is a huge difference.

Wonderful stuff Dorena!

Great train, and will definitely be in the queue when it's released to the public. What I now want to know is, where is Aldi?

Waves frantically back! (?)

That's a great image!

I suspect that FreshVirtualWorld is a Russian troll, a Putin stooge, and if not, the language they use, especially in the quote you use is very similar to the rhetoric used by Putin and the Russian extreme-right who are his main support (along with the communists, bizzarely, but these are nostalgic Stalinists, who are hardly better.

Those who think a group such as this is superflous are the same kind of people who stood aside and enabled Hitler in 1930s Germany. Not bad people, but people who do nothing to prevent the triumph of evil.

You would be quite welcome Courreges - especially with a name like Malatesta :)

If anyone would like a hoodie like the one so well modelled by Dorena, I can sent them out. All sizes, but for women only at present. If men would like one, please message me and I'll consider producing one, depending on how many would like one.

You are indeed Dorena, Wilkommen!

I think to remind ourselves of the nature of what we're all dealing with here we could do far worse than watch the film American History X, or maybe watch it for the first time. It is an excellent film, though hard to watch at times.

Xpletive, is that you?