Scattered thoughts

How to get "Reality" from "Virtual-Reality"...

2007-08-10T16:29:00.000-04:00

For my point of focus, I choose www.IMVU.com as my target. Why do I choose them, because you don't have to spend thousands to create a mini-empire with a cash return. The only other alternative, which I will not mention directly, has some advantages, but has more disadvantages. IMVU is the only choice which offers you more for your dollar, a larger potential audience, and creations do not require a college degree in 3D construction. Most can be done by simply swapping out simple images. If you can operate any custom MySpace profile makers, you can make items to sell in IMVU.

Where does reality separate from virtual-reality? You have a great mix of both, or you can sway one way or the other, in many aspects of IMVU. Your items, you home-page, your forum postings, your virtual persona can even be half-real, mostly real, or completely virtual. Your sales of created items does not seem to stray much, no matter which path you choose. However, the unclear part that many struggle with, is turning the virtual funds into actual cash.

IMVU is the creator of all original credits. Each paid credit is created at the exchange of a dollar, for a specified amount of credits. IMVU is not the only way to obtain credits, they allow transfers between accounts, and allow brokers/users to handle the exchange of private sales of earned credits. There are a hand-full of large volume rollers, when it comes to credit re-sales. Biggest is not always the best, and best is left open to interpretation across the board.

If you are looking to buy, the person selling the cheapest credits is the best. If you are a seller, the person offering the highest dollar per credit is the best. There are all sorts of happy mediums, where some sell high, but they make little profit, so there is more for the artist selling credits. For me, in my greatest opinion, the best is one who takes the least, and offers the best of both worlds, while still having the movement of exchanges to compensate both desires.

There is no deal in a broker that offers to sell your credits for more, but takes ten years to sell them for that extra penny. The reality of the situation says that time costs money. Having a dollar in your pocket now, is more valuable than having a dollar and a penny, ten years from now. If the credits move, there are more to go around, and the value will naturally increase. With every item sale, IMVU absorbs a fraction to cover expenses of the item use. Thus, once there are no more discounted credits, the customers have only one choice. Restock at full price.

The restock is not a big damper. IMVU offers volume and bundle discounts, and once restocked credits are spent, the artist have more to sell. Since demand is high, they will sell for more. Now, that was the reality of virtual-reality, when it comes to buying and selling, as a market. Now there is still the matter of the actual exchange, no matter what the cost actually is. Brokers have a rather smooth arrangement on payment, both in cash and credits. Due to the multiple payment gateways and due to IMVU's own credit payment gateway. SSL and secure transactions are a standard.

It is not unrealistic to assume that you will be able to exchange 2,500cr for $1.00usd, with any good broker, or as a private sale, or a mix of the two. For a quick example, I will use a minimum wage of $7.00usd and 40 hours a week times 4 weeks at an exchange rate of 2,500cr per $1.00usd. You would have to earn 2,800,000cr a month to equal the wages of $1,120.00usd a month. Wow, you say, 2,800,000cr is a lot! Sounds like a lot, but you could quit working at McDonalds, and make a few 3D items for a living.

Seriously, if you do work at McDonalds, think about this. If you made only 50,000cr a week, you just earned an extra $0.50usd an hour, or $20.00usd a week. I, personally, make a modest 500,000cr a month. Not enough to live off of, but then again, I only have fifteen items for sale. None of my items are spectacular or special, just simple furniture and pictures. The biggest factor in how well you do, besides quality, is exposure. Oh, yea... I have exposure, some of it is even good exposure!

Just for kicks and giggles, due to issues that have arisen, I am going to be jumping into the development market again. I have a goal of 2,800,000cr a month, and I could use that extra funding to further my development that is being offered to IMVU users. Mostly, I just want to do it, just to show that it can be done, for those who don't think it can be done. Minimum-wage from sales of IMVU virtual items, turning virtual-reality into a reality that anyone can comprehend. Come join me... beat me to my goal... I dare you!

My IMVU credit broker... www.IMVUpay.com

Everything is good in moderation!

2007-08-06T06:29:00.001-04:00

There is no law that states you are libel for the thought of others. Freedom of speech, includes freedom to publish personal thoughts. Personal publications, such as diaries and blogs, which are not documented with references are nothing more than thoughts. Your only obligation to those publications, is that you remove any questionable republication, if presented with a legal obligation to remove such content. It is not illegal, until a judge has determined it to be illegal. Innocent until proven guilty.

If the person requesting removal of content, has no proof of a law being broken, you can leave that content published, until proper due process has determined the legality. Just as you can live in any domicile, until law has determined you are to be removed.

If you use honest judgement, and make no claims of, "Active moderation of all posted content.", then it can not be legally assumed that the presence of a moderation ability, is claim to that statement. Unless you explicitly state anything, nothing is legally assumed. The only assumptions that can be drawn from facts, is that your publication uses a public submitted collection of thoughts and perceptions. (When references are not presented. For references to "Publications", the publication is libel for the content they have written. They are a self-claimed publication of factual statements and knowledge, with all expressed permissions outlined within copyright. EG, no copyright, no case.)

Yes, it is better to moderate, where your moderation is to remove any undesired or questionable content. That is your right, on your public hosted page of perceptions. It is yours, only by limitation. You do not own the internet, or the server, or the hard-drive, or the electricity used to contain the data. You did not force people to read your content in a public display, such as media advertisement, (Like a billboard). You did not pay for the viewers internet connection, or computer that reconstructs the 10100010101001 into the content they see. (They assume the risk of seeing potentially offensive media, beyond control, and with the right to stop viewing such content at any moment, by the ISP TOS they signed-up with.)

Just my 2cents...

(Show me a winning case on this matter, and I will avoid THAT situation. Show me the law that says I am libel for public thoughts, which others publish on my blog. These are not anonymous, posters can all be traced to any ISP. You have my permission to research the offenders, by your own means, when you have proven there was an actual offence. I will gladly remove anything that a judge has told me to remove.)

Terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad-day!

2007-08-05T21:40:00.000-04:00

Picture this, if you will...

A peaceful Sunday morning. The sun just beginning to finish its early morning shadows, the morning dew, long gone. Mid-summer, yet a nice cool breeze floods the surrounding air. You think to your-self... "Today is going to be a good day!"

FTFO

Quickly, before the noon heat decided to break, I figured I would mow the front yard. Bam, done! Knocked that off in a quick hour. Ambitious, I decided to see why our AC system wasn't operating normally. I suspected that mice had chewed through the soft-lines, and turned it into a personal highway to the warm attic.

With a flashlight in hand, and a peculiar stance, I weaved through the rafters. I didn't see anything suspicious, until I reached the second portion of the attic, above our main living-room. My inspection for a leaky feed-line, stopped once I saw that the return-line was collapsed. It looked like a giant had stepped on it.

I attempted to fathom what might have caused such an odd thing to happen. (For those who do not know about soft-lines, they are like dryer exhaust lines. There is a long spring-style winding encased in plastic. That keeps the soft-line from folding and collapsing, so it can weave into odd places.)

Looking around, I could not find any holes, so I made one. Hehe... how else are you going to see inside? I reached in, and felt around. There was no inner support wall, well, it was there, just not where I poked the hole. So I cut the hole bigger, reached inside, and eventually found the inner support. The plastic had torn, and the pressure had sucked the inner case deep inside. Since it is a giant spring, it just bunched up, and fell flat.

The best way to imagine it... Take a roll of quarters, dump half of them out. Pinch the tube flat, but not completely flat. Let the quarters inside, slide to the end where it is flat, but not fall out. That is what the inside looked like, sucked flat, and the spring all twisted and flat, running the length of the tube. Ok, easy enough to fix... Unfortunately, I don't do contract work anymore, so my tools are limited. I don't have a 16-inch soft-line union on hand. (That is what joins two sections of soft-lines. You need to put a piece inside or you have nothing to bond them with.)

Hehe, Time for my ghetto-quick-fix. DUCK-TAPE, the cheap stuff. Not fun to work with, but I didn't have any other options at the moment. All patched-up and ready to go, so I got out of the quickly heating attic, and played with the house vents. (They were all whistling from the pressure, now that the line wasn't crushed.) Yahoo, the AC actually turned off for once. Normally it would run all day, and never get below 81F.

OK, I headed to Home-Depot, picked up a union, some real tape, and got a coffee. (Yes, my tooth is feeling better now, I am on antibiotics.) I come home, and everyone is asleep, in the nice chilly house. The stuff was set aside, for later. I didn't want to climb up there again in the noon heat.

I am not sure why, but I had an urge to "Check" the patch-job, and wanted to see if the union I had purchased was the right one. If it was not, I could take it back before they closed. That was where the nightmare begins!

I found it hard to breathe, the air was so hot, it felt like it was burning my lungs. This was going to be a quick check. Um, No!

While I was up there, I noticed the ghetto tape job, well, worked like a ghetto tape job... It had come undone, and was sucking in full hot attic air. Just a quick hit with some of the new foil-tape should fix it until I can get back again. Carefully I pulled back the insulation, and started to feel for the hole I could hear. Suddenly, I heard water???

I had snapped a brittle PVC water-line that runs to our fridge. In a panic, with water spraying all over the rafters, I flew out of the attic. Frantically I searched for the water shut-off valves. All I could find was the valves to the washer and the water-heater. WTF, some idiot reinstalled new water lines, without adding the water-shutoff valves!

I had to run outside, and dig a foot down to the water shutoff line buried in the front yard. Sure, it needs a valve key to turn the damn thing! Where the hell am I going to find a valve key? (It is a giant T bar that has a special key to fit the water valve. Not a standard twist valve.)

Great, the house and attic is flooding, water pouring out the AC vents, walls, and ceiling... and now I have to try to make a damn valve-key! Lucky for me, one of the neighbors had one. (Don't aks why.)

By the time the water was turned off, it was raining a storm in our house, and small rodents would drown if they didn't know how to swim. Quick, where is the wet-dry vacuum?!?! Hehe... Um... it works!

OMG... Now it is past noon. The attic is like 190F, the house doesn't have AC or water, there is rain slowly dripping through every nail holding up the ceiling... I am never doing a favor again! (Nor do I think they will ask me to do a favor again!)

After suffering for six hours without AC and water, I was able to cool the attic down enough to get to work. The AC works, but I have not tried to turn the water on yet. I hope I am a good plumber!

Know when to fold-em...

2007-08-04T01:22:00.000-04:00

No, I am not talking about your freshly washed clothes, nor am I talking about a bad poker hand. There comes a time, when things just begin to consume you. I suppose it could be cards, but in my case, it was my own mind that consumed me. I am not going to attempt to explain that, not to someone without A.D.D. however, it is a real situation.

I think, if I had a choice, I would rather have lost my mind. Folding hurts, but the end result it worth the pain endured. Pain, the only pain I feel at the moment is my damn tooth! Two weeks ago it was lightning shock and burns. Why? Why does everything come in threes? Ok, everything except eggs, hotdogs, and hotdog-buns. Which come in 12 or 13 for eggs, and 8 or 10 for hotdogs, while buns come in packs of 6 or 12.

Folding, you have to visualize what it takes to find that balance in your mind. You need to buy one pack of 8 hotdogs, drop one immediately on the ground, and let the dog eat it. Throw one directly on the grill, since that one will burn until you get the temperature right. Then you have 6 hotdogs to match the 6 hotdog-buns.

Damn, the dog ate one of the buns too...

(Lets use the extra hotdog for some childishly lewd joke, zipppp!)

That is when you fold-em!

(Your thoughts, not your pants.)