Hello Again, Happy Atheists!

[NoraCola]

What's up! I'm bored and remembered I used to reply to posts in this forum years and years ago so I thought I'd give it another try. I don't remember why I left it. Actually I don't remember much at all from that long ago, I have mild brain damage & that whole time is especially foggy.

Lately I've been keeping myself busy on virtual worlds (Second Life and Open Sim), being a DJ in both worlds, building virtual landscapes, falling in virtual love, having virtual mental breakdowns, and using ai to write virtual songs about it all (usually but not always with my own lyrics). Sometimes I just make regular songs and occasionally upload a video to go with it. I do have a real life too but that's personal and not terribly interesting to talk about. I'm on disability and can't work anymore, so I have lots of time for making 3D mesh models and all that. I'm not especially good or talented at any of it but I have fun. In a way it all ties together as an art performance about unreality vs reality, life as simulation, lived experience vs vague suspicion, etc.

If I still like it here, I'll post links to all my stuff, including some pointedly godless content!

That about sums it up for now. So how have you lovely people been?

[Recusant]

What's up! I'm bored and remembered I used to reply to posts in this forum years and years ago so I thought I'd give it another try. I don't remember why I left it. Actually I don't remember much at all from that long ago, I have mild brain damage & that whole time is especially foggy.

Lately I've been keeping myself busy on virtual worlds (Second Life and Open Sim), being a DJ in both worlds, building virtual landscapes, falling in virtual love, having virtual mental breakdowns, and using ai to write virtual songs about it all (usually but not always with my own lyrics). Sometimes I just make regular songs and occasionally upload a video to go with it. I do have a real life too but that's personal and not terribly interesting to talk about. I'm on disability and can't work anymore, so I have lots of time for making 3D mesh models and all that. I'm not especially good or talented at any of it but I have fun. In a way it all ties together as an art performance about unreality vs reality, life as simulation, lived experience vs vague suspicion, etc.

If I still like it here, I'll post links to all my stuff, including some pointedly godless content!

That about sums it up for now. So how have you lovely people been?

A returned wanderer, welcome. I should give you a breezy song and dance about how nothing much has changed, but really nothing much has changed except there aren't droves of members. Say, 10 years ago we could perhaps have claimed at least one drove, but now it's more like a bunch. There's usually something going on but as one stalwart member noted very recently, the "Religion" board here can go months without activity. Very occasionally a preacher will stop by but I expect they imagine they have bigger fish to fry on the social media megasites.

A range of political views here including both right and left.

Your writing style seems familiar though I can't recall a username to go along with it.

Regardless . . .

I hope you enjoy your time reading and posting here.

[Tank]

Good to have you back

[Asmodean]

Welcome back!

And yes, do please post some of your 3D work. I do enjoy meself-self a bit of that. Tinker too, though I can't freely publish it on an open forum, because work.

As Recusant said, the religion debate sort-of died, and not just here. I suppose that's a sign of the irreligious "winning" the Internet back in them naughties. Heh... Some would say, "look where that got us."

That doesn't mean that there is nothing to say on the subject. There are some new and creative movements, usually around this talking head or that, who peddle all sorts of faith to all sorts of people with a talking-head-shaped-hole in that place where Jesus may once have been. Then, there is always Islam, with or without the -ism... The likes of Jordan Peterson, who do appeal to a lot of people who consider themselves "culturally disenfranchised" for a variety of broadly-similar reasons and look to a bearded father figure to lead them...

...I am being a bit snarky about issues where serious discussions are called for, but aside from "Old-Tech" forums like this one, the avenues for constructive debate are sadly limited. Not in number, mind you, but in reach and quality, and those "Old-Tech" places I've mentioned... Many if not most have turned into echo chambers. Let themselves be politicised beyond the original scope, and... Well, more or less set themselves on fire. We've gone down more of a slow-burn route here - I think mostly because enough contributing members see an online community as something more than "a place where I can opine no wrong." There can be an occasional validation seeker, but then, there seems to be more than an occasional one of those practically everywhere.

Anyhoo... What was The Asmo going on and on and on about? Ah! Yes! Welcome back.

[NoraCola]

Your writing style seems familiar though I can't recall a username to go along with it.

Ah well, it seems almost unfair to link myself with a version of myself I barely remember & I'd probably be embarrassed by a lot of what I said back then, plus I don't recall posting topics myself, only replying, but the old username was elliebean. I could have logged on that profile but I thought a fresh start is in order.
With the debate having died down to a large extent, my motives for joining a site like this have changed accordingly: I simply despise the alienation and polarization of modern social media and miss the old days of those highly customizable, familiar, and intimately structured forums and message boards, and their far more direct and personal interactions. I miss getting to know people, and not stumbling through a social/political battleground every day.

Anyway I'm at an age now where I mostly don't care about things that don't upset my routines and material needs and those of the people in my daily life. I mean I do care sometimes, but I can't be bothered to react - except during a rare PTSD episode, when it becomes unclear what my routines and material needs are.

[Dark Lightning]

Welcome! I'm relatively new, so don't remember you, if we ever interacted.

[Asmodean]

elliebean

The Asmo remembers you.

[billy rubin]

hi nora

whassup?

in honor of no one, may i ask whether you brought tacos?

[Recusant]

Your writing style seems familiar though I can't recall a username to go along with it.

Ah well, it seems almost unfair to link myself with a version of myself I barely remember & I'd probably be embarrassed by a lot of what I said back then, plus I don't recall posting topics myself, only replying, but the old username was elliebean. I could have logged on that profile but I thought a fresh start is in order.
With the debate having died down to a large extent, my motives for joining a site like this have changed accordingly: I simply despise the alienation and polarization of modern social media and miss the old days of those highly customizable, familiar, and intimately structured forums and message boards, and their far more direct and personal interactions. I miss getting to know people, and not stumbling through a social/political battleground every day.

Anyway I'm at an age now where I mostly don't care about things that don't upset my routines and material needs and those of the people in my daily life. I mean I do care sometimes, but I can't be bothered to react - except during a rare PTSD episode, when it becomes unclear what my routines and material needs are.

I remember you, and I doubt there's anything truly embarrassing. Opinions and perspectives change and we grow; our past selves speak of a time and place that exists in memory, nowhere else. I was going to add a frivolous reverie on the implications of whether time as we understand it objectively exists. Thought better of it. 

I agree regarding the social media megasites. I've never managed to feel at home in any of them but that's on me as much as anything.

[NoraCola]

in honor of no one, may i ask whether you brought tacos?

Only for the lesbians 

[billy rubin]

lol

speaking of which, no one has been gone over a year.

where is he?

[Recusant]

lol

speaking of which, no one has been gone over a year.

where is he?

Yeah, I've missed no one's presence here as well.  I have no idea where he's got to.

[hermes2015]

... I have lots of time for making 3D mesh models and all that. I'm not especially good or talented at any of it but I have fun. In a way it all ties together as an art performance about unreality vs reality, life as simulation, lived experience vs vague suspicion, etc...

Hi Nora and welcome. Your mentioning 3D models caught my interest and I would like to know more about your process. I spend a lot of my time making sculptures from 3D models that I create in Rhino 3D software. That, with other art-related things like painting, takes up so much of my time that I don't post too much here, apart from an occasional update in the The Art and things we've made thread, where I encourage you to show your work as well and tell us about your work flow. Here is the link:

https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/index.php/topic,14266.360.html

[NoraCola]

Hi Nora and welcome. Your mentioning 3D models caught my interest and I would like to know more about your process. I spend a lot of my time making sculptures from 3D models that I create in Rhino 3D software. That, with other art-related things like painting, takes up so much of my time that I don't post too much here, apart from an occasional update in the The Art and things we've made thread, where I encourage you to show your work as well and tell us about your work flow. Here is the link:

https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/index.php/topic,14266.360.html

I would be happy to, except I only created stuff to use in Open Sim (with an eye to eventually opening a store in Second Life) to augment my builds in those worlds, which I've since decided to back away from in favor of other expensive creative pursuits (mainly music). Some of it can still be seen in ZetaWorlds at a region called Banarnia until the end of this billing cycle, as I've canceled my region and it will be deleted after that.

I'm actually pretty sad about calling a premature end to this project & don't feel inclined to document it with in-world photos or videos but others are welcome to if interested.


Anyway, I was never that good at it; I only made really basic things in Blender and never got the hang of making detailed textures in GIMP.

[Asmodean]

Yeah, I'm pretty bad at textures. When doing it for fun, I tend to model heavy machinery and color it "factory new" construction-yard-yellow.

Still, lotsa' fun to get them hydraulic cylinders and what else have you to behave as they are expected when the moving parts move.