Philosophy – Page 19 – Nalates’ Things & Stuff

Gwyneth Llewelyn’s mADness

2013/03/11 by Nalates Urriah

I like Gwyneth’s writing because; her ideas are clearly expressed and her thinking rational. Her latest is about Linden Lab starting to use Google’s Adsense advertising and people’s reactions. It ranges from estimates of how much the Lab may be making to the psychological aspects of SL and the freedom available in SL that IS NOT available in other social sites/games/networks.

Gwyneth points out the details of how the Lab is using the advertising. She compares it to how other services use advertising. The Lab is certainly atypical in their use of Adsense.

The basic idea many people have is that paid services do NOT have advertising. But, that is not accurate. Consider cable and satellite TV. Those are paid services that have a load of advertising. Newspapers and magazine that we purchase have a load of advertising too. We pay to go into a movie and then sit through ads for coming movies and local services and products.

Who Do You Listen To?

2013/03/03 by Nalates Urriah

Looking through the comments on Metareality’s articles I noticed one that is typical of people in various online communities. It seems humans have a tendency to provide their opinions for solutions to problems they have little if any knowledge about. In my experience such behavior is pretty much a universal trait of human nature, online or not.

Jo Yardley recently wrote: Noob experience revisited. Jo clearly sees problems with the new user’s introduction to Second Life™ process and is frustrated by it. Jo has some great ideas for fixing them. But, never mentions his first experience with the SL experience, just his looking at the experience as it is now from a more experienced viewpoint.

I’ll give Jo credit for trying to look at it from a new users perspective. But, that is impossible for him because he has 4 years of experience with SL. He can only IMAGINE what it might be like. How many time have we found things not to be as we imagined?

Login2Life Video

2013/02/20 by Nalates Urriah

If you have not yet seen this video, check it out. This is about how people are using Second Life™ and World of WarCraft™ virtual worlds. The video runs 1:27 hour:minutes. This is primarily in German. But, most of the people are speaking in English and the video provides German subtitles. Unfortunately the German, Japanese, and other language parts do not have English subtitles.

I’ve placed a trailer first. It is all English. It runs 2:31 minutes.

[youtube BFalissUWGE]

There are apparently some legal issues with the display of the main Login 2 Life video on YouTube. I didn’t understand what that was about, other than I am NOT supposed to say who tipped me off to the video. But… thanks for the tip.

Gun Confiscation in California

2013/02/12 by Nalates Urriah

This is a political and controversial topic. Skip it if you cannot handle intellectual debate in a civil manner. – We are hearing from mainstream media that the right wingers’ fears of gun confiscation are unfounded. The mainstream media has for weeks said that could not and would not happen. The proof that gun confiscation is a real threat has come to California. The state legislature has submitted the bills. Read these articles:

Mercury News: California’s state Senate Democrats roll out big gun control package.
Sacramento Bee: California Democratic lawmakers unveil gun control legislation.
San Francisco Chronicle: State lawmakers propose tough gun laws.

There are some things the media is not telling people. Let’s take two of the basic tenants of gun laws. The idea of a 10 round magazine being unnecessary for self defense is common. What people do not consider is that most hand guns have magazines of 10 or more rounds. So, the law effectively makes most hand guns illegal.

More Global Warming

2012/12/27 by Nalates Urriah

The data Warmers use most often comes from the UN’s IPCC, International Panel on Climate Change. In an ironic twist 20+ years into the debate more and more of the data used by skeptics comes from… yep the IPCC. If you are one that believes manmade warming is killing the planet, your beliefs are likely being fed by the mainstream media and the UN. If you’re a skeptic, you are either believing your friends or you are digging through reports and skeptic’s web sites.

You could look up the 1990 IPCC report and compare its predictions for coming years. We now have 20+ years of actual data since the report was written to look at. We can see how well the IPCC did at predicting the future, not very well. But, then you would have to get into the data and see how the IPCC has been adjusting it. Start with SurfaceStations.org to get the background on why adjustments are needed and in which direction adjustments should be made.

Donald’s Big Announcement

2012/10/24 by Nalates Urriah

Well… now we know.

[youtube MgOq9pBkY0I]

I doubt President Obama will release the records. In May a blogger offered US$10k reward for copies of the records. It remains uncollected. (Reference) It leaves one wondering why Pres. Obama is the ONLY US President to never release his college records.