Is having a Premium acct. worth it?

Geez, no wonder people are always wanting to kill Bill. *sigh*

Tell that to Schrodinger's Cat.

Basic quantum mechanics. Although the cat was a thought experiment, it was not complete fantasy. It simply extended was has been verified on the subatomic level to the macroscopic level. On the subatomic level, it is perfectly normal for something to be AND not be simultaneously.



Event A happened before Event B.
... and ...
Event B happened before Event A.

If the two events are separated in time and space in such a way that light from one cannot reach the other before it occurs, then the opposing statements above are true. And false.

Basic relativistic physics. Time and space, once believed to be absolutes, were proven by Einstein to be variable.



You insist on pontificating on a subject (the nature of reality), but refuse to educate yourself about it. In light of that, why should anyone take you seriously?



I challenged your assertion with a rather common philosophical idea, and you insinuated I was mentally ill. That is not mellow, Nina, that is hostile. Not that I'm a saint, as I hostiled rightbackatcha by pointing out your ignorance.

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I guess I'm done with this. There is an apparently real lunch waiting for me somewhere downstairs.

Now class, when I get back I want to see at least 3 funny lines from the Kill Bill movies, 5 funny mistranslations of ninja movie titles, and a partridge in a pear tree to be festively attached to Brenda's butt next time she teleports.

If you complete these assignments, I will take us all out for waffles!

so the reality is that 'If the two events are separated in time blah blah', yeah? it is that way whether i like it or not and i cannot change that. it is absolute. whatever reality is, it is and it is absolute in whatever it is. it is not 'kinda/sorta if the two events are separated in time', its not 'so long as i believe is so, if the two events are separated in time'. whether space or time is relative is not the issue. we are talking about reality. even if you went back in time to the stoneage the reality that you went back in time would be absolute. if you fire protons and fancy shit into a paralell universe the reality is that there is a paralell universe. nothing you say can refute that, no matter how fancy it is.
the reality about the magic cat was that it was magic, and that is absolute.

but you want to will things to happen in your own personal reality, knock yourself out.

Okay, so Nina absolutely does not want the truly beautiful waffles with upside down cake which might seem strange but are in reality quite charming.

Can anyone top that without bottoming out?

At the substantial risk of actually dragging this thread back on topic I will respond with my views on the original question:

1. There are many mainland regions that have not been contaminated by ads. Many are the "classic" regions with established owners that have stayed put. My home is in a very nice tropcial region with no ad space and few ban lines. There is one ad space across the border but it has been blocked from view by its neighbors. You just have to look. It IS out there.

2. The cutting of the stipend is unfortunate, but probably reality. Without it, LL would have to charge more for other things like texture uploads in order to remove lindens from the system. This is needed to keep the money supply in balance (else your lindens would be worth nothing).

3. With private regions, you are subject to the whims of the estate holder. IF that happens to be Anshe Chung or one of the other established firms, you're probably ok. But if it is "Joe Shmoe" with one or two private islands..watch out. He could pull out any time and watch that land you "bought" go poof before your very eyes.

The point to all of this is, the stipend and mainland ownership powers are the main benefits to premium membership. In and of itself, as pointed out by others, the stipend alone probably isn't worth it. But combined with owning mainland, sure it probably is. Just don't do it until you have decided to jump into the purchase of mainland. The stipend ALONE is NOT worth it.

When I first joined, I really saw no benefit to paying membership. Then a friend showed me the value. As someone else said here, I'm on SL more than I watch tv, or go to movies, or much of anything else. So while not an investment for profit return, its certainly an investment in entertainment value.

If I can figure this out, you'll owe me more than Waffles. Dinner and a movie , at least.

You are soft-hearted and gentle.... I would demand more...

Morwen.

I said "At Least". further renumeration could be discussed at dinner.

Tell you what... to the first person who tells us what my riddle alluded to, I will give 250L. And if you get it IBTL, I'll double that and make it 500L.

So Brenda, maybe it's not dinner and a movie, but I bet it would get you a nice pair of shoes.

That's really gonna be tough. I hated Kill Bill (the half hour of it that I watched anyway), never cared for Ninjas and I just had my pear tree cut down. Damn. I could use a new pair of shoes.

I'll make it easy on you. Pondering Kill Bill, ninjas, or the pear tree will probably get you no closer to the answer.

I don't even know what the question is anymore

Actually Schrodinger's Cat has less to do with the discipline of Quantum Mechanics and more to do with a flawed perception of it. Early attempts to interpret quantum mechanics talked about a superposition of states that collapsed into a single state when an observation was made (aka wave function collapse). Schrodinger's Cat was a thought experiment which showed the absurdity of that interpretation by highlighting paradoxes arising from that interpretation. Unfortunately, many people have mistakenly taken these paradoxes as something that are part of quantum mechanics, when quantum mechanics says no such thing (like it being perfectly normal for something to be and not be simultaneously). There are many more modern interpretations (such as relative state formulation) that do not result in such paradoxes; so Schrodinger's Cat is really only of historical value is highlighting the shortcomings of the old Copenhagen interpretation. And excellent example of where the perception (the Copenhagen interpretation) was not the actual reality (quantum physics).

Thank you Dr Hawking.

I always thought it was Cosmic Irony that Stephen Hawking is the one man on earth who could probably answer most of the Why questions, but he really can't tell anyone.

Thanks for the schooling Kevin. It's wonderful to have someone refute my arguments with actual information, rather than just "It just is!"

The funniest thing about this whole argument is that it started when someone argued that you could change your PERCEPTION of reality to see beauty and purpose where others see chaos, and someone else responded by saying "reality is absolute. your perception of reality is as inconsequential to reality as mine." I merely pointed out that we can have no knowledge of reality except through our perceptions, and therefore perception is not inconsequential but instead very important. (I'll admit I threw in just for fun the philosophical idea that this means reality is inherently unknowable and therefore cannot be known to be absolute.)

How "absolute reality" entered into a discussion about perception of beauty, I'll never know.

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By the way Kevyn, you might want to take a shot at my little riddle from a few pages back (quoted below). I have a sneaky feeling YOU could win the 500L quite easily!

Everything that you experience with your senses is only an interpretation of reality, everything you see is a picture created in your brain and alot of what you think you see is simply what you expect to see.
see beauty and experience tranquility you must allow your brain to do so.

just be thankfull for what you have, take a deep breath and try to see the beauty that is around you. In SL there are countless spots of beauty, just tell yourself you want to find them..

i was actually addressing somebody that had first suggested people to 'move out of the ghetto', then later decided that because we largely dislike adfarms and the like, that we square and pedestrian; thinking inside the box and behaving like 'cattle'. its all perception of reality, we should just adjust our perspective and appreciate adplots as art.
so yeah i didnt feel the need to pussy-foot and let him know his perception crap was of no value because the reality is that most people hate adplots. and my personal perception isnt going to change anything and it doesnt matter to him either.

then there were a few people that thought they might see an opportunity to look smart a wikipedia warrior will devour an hours worth of wikipedia in an attempt to return to a forum and fill the discussion with fancy words and obtuse theories, trying to look like an expert in something, making a play to intimidate people from feeling qualified to have an opinion, hoping like hell somebody doesnt actually make them explain what theyre posting, and if someone does, they can always resort to shifting off on some dumbshit riddle betting that can reassure everyone that they are indeed smart.
myself i like to communicate in real language and in a manner that i know everyone understands. i appreciate that it makes it easier to keep everyone in on the plot.

was there a question i did not answer? you boasted some theory about time and space, but it really had nothing to do with reality. i pointed this out and was waiting for your reply.
instead i got a riddle.

We are all quantum physicists with Wiki and Google at our fingertips.

No not all of us. You couldn't pay me to read that stuff.

And here I thought the whole thing was just an interesting philosophical debate which got to be a bit overheated. Although, why one person should think it's acceptable to express their own opinions while simultaneously accusing others of trying to show off how smart they think they if they do the SAME THING escapes me. Hypocrisy, anyone?

The riddle was just for fun...and maybe a little defusing of the situation.

What was the riddle? I still haven't figured out what the riddle even was, buried under all the metaphysical babble.......

No clue...Ava's obviously smarter than I am! lol

Or it could just be the whole 'librarian' thing...

This was a response of Nina's to Ava. Things went rapidly downhill from here.

I call it like it is, however, I did not mean for it to come out harshly—perhaps I should have put a smiley and an “I love you all” after being honest.

I just find it fascinating how the average citizen can quickly search something, and paraphrase something they have zero-understanding of, and try and pass it off as their own freeform knowledge.

I’m not pointing fingers. Just making a blanket statement.



I love you all!

Not sure Michael, but I think she was referring to Nina.

Love,
Jannae