The Brain Talks forum is down again!!!!
 

I know many of you go to that forum also.

Well, lately, you can barely get to it. The website is always have troubles. I got on yesterday only to read that EVERYBODY is having problems accessing it. And if you get to access it, you can't reply to anybody's postings.

What is going on with that site??

Anybody know???

Melody

Maybe the brain talk site itself decided to try Second LIfe and got lost in the woods.

Yeah, and I'm sure my son is flying around in Second Life as we speak!!

lol. now that was funny!!!

Melody

I can still access it....
 

If you click several times on the command you can read, and post.

Signing in takes a long time. Posting takes a very long time. And the index may take up to 10minutes if it loads at all.

I have stopped posting there until it is "fixed" if ever.
If you have a lot of time to kill...it is a great place to visit.

Thanks for the report. I'm SOOOO glad they are having problems. That is the ONLY time I have been scammed on the Internet and I have been on the web for many years.

I gave the admin of that web site 50 bucks for a new server, yeah right. (some time last year when it was down for so long.) Turns out the admin went and started another business with the money he received (not just from me but from many others many of whom could least afford it but wanted to help a good cause.)

I hope that website totally collapses and the admin with it. I don't mind the 50 bucks as much as I mind the fact that the admin scammed people who are for the most part DISABLED. How LOW is that?

Guess this is a good time to give thanks to the current admin of this site for coming to the rescue. THANK YOU!

If you are curious as to where your $50 went, just go to secondlife.com

You'll see the virtual reality world that was created.

My son is addicted to this virtual reality world. He must spend 10 hours a day in this place.

I went in it to see what all the fuss was about. Bored me to tears.

Oh well, it has millions of users so I guess the guy who designed it is now a millionaire!!!

Melody

eThe concern that they have for that site tends to have me believe
that it will take quite a while before they fix it, if ever.
It was a good place at one time, but it has been increasingly unreliable.
Here, the admins and mods seem to care for us.
I'll spend my time here, rather than at hastypastry, BT1.

Odd - I don't have any trouble getting into the "BT1" site. I have this in my Favorites and I get right in:

http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums/...prune=-1&f=219

I do note that hardly anyone is posting there. Wonder why people are not able to get into the site?

I also use the PN board to get in....
 

It is pretty fast because not many are on that board.

Other boards take a LONG time to load.... LONG TIME.

Dan, try clicking on Spinal, Chronic Pain, or Forum Feedback or Forums Home.
You'll see.

I feel the same. I gave John Lester a good deal of money, feeling it was worth paying for something I had gotten so much out of, only to have him use the money to buy land on Second Life.


<<I gave the admin of that web site 50 bucks for a new server, yeah right. (some time last year when it was down for so long.) Turns out the admin went and started another business with the money he received (not just from me but from many others many of whom could least afford it but wanted to help a good cause.)>>

I tried to log on to Forum Feedback & it took more than 3-4 minutes to load (dial-up) and then when it came up - it caused my 'puter to crash- blue screen of death! (but then my 'puter crashes if I sneeze wrong)
I'm not going back to FF. Didn't try PN forum. Scared me off.

I was able to get in there ok, but its terribly slow.
I tried to give Neurotalk website as a refferance to a person in need of help, but when i posted it i got ************************* hiding Neurotalks web address, i always thought that it was suppose to be a place to help people, guess i was wrong.

What is going on? I can't even access the PN forums on BrainTalks 2.
I know it's slow but really!!!!! And you can't post a link to neurotalk?? What is this.....a jealousy thing going on?????


I mean, really!!!!!!

melody

maybe if you gave the link as wwwdotneurotalkdotcom the info would get through the filter.

I went there before (after waiting FOREVER for the site to load up).
I tried posting a link to this website. Forget it.

All that comes up is ************** when you try and put a hyperlink in it.

The site is not allowing any linking to other websites. I wonder why??

Melody

I guess we all know why, the moderators here are open, friendly and help full, by BT doing this it is only hurting their own members who they are suppose to care for, its all very child like behavior in my book.

Yeah, good one Joe, i seen that you have already done that.

bummer
 

I discovered that censor a while ago... since I link here sometimes.

It is really a bummer... I was very angry...now I really don't care!
I think blocking is stupid. It is not like people over there don't know about here?
Many post at both places. It just makes OBT look stupid, and petty.

I'm very greatful that DocJohn put this site up and many thanks to MGH

Braintalk is back to normal speed again.

cyberspace
 

I gave up on the other forum over a year ago due to problems. One thing I do have to say about forums is, whatever you put on here goes worldwide. Just like secondlife is a fantasy world, you never know who you are really talking to, who you are giving personal information to, who is using what you put online and what some of those people are up to. It is a shame that people gave money to a scammer, but there are millions of scammers online.

Just look at the success of something like Secondlife....it makes money..go figure.

Sick people are very vulnerable to snake oil sellers, and not all snake oil dealers appear to be what they are. Studies have shown that people develop emotional intimacy much faster online, because they can not read body language of the other person. Body language gives clues to whether or not we can trust others. It is subtle, but online, you lose that component of communication totally. People get online and are more uninhibited, thinking they are anonymous. We are not. It is amazing the information a real pro can glean from the net.

Part of taking care of your health is protecting your privacy. Please be cautious posting medical records, names of docs etc. That is best done by private communications after you get a better feel for the person you are communicating with.

Remember, anything you say online exists forever, and can and will be held against you! While cyberspace is great, it also holds a lot of potential for abuse.

Secondlife?? I really do not get it. Call me old fashioned, but my real life is enough, I do not need to buy 'land' in a virtual community. Amazing what people can sell!

Thanks for mentioning the online safety and cautions.

Let me paraphrase something my son told me on Mother's Day. He said "Mom, I'll be a millionaire by the time I'm 40".

My reply: "you've never worked a day in your life (he's 26), so how do you make a statement like that?"

His reply?? "DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY CAN BE MADE IN SECOND LIFE??? YOU MAKE LINDEN DOLLARS, THEN YOU TURN AROUND AND SELL THE LINDEN DOLLARS FOR REAL DOLLARS". He's right, I checked.

I also went into Second Life to see what the heck all the commotion was about. All it is that there is a representation of you in this virtual world. It's called an Avatar. You design it, you make it look however you wish it to look. It can be a human, a robot, an animal, a demon with wings. Whatever it is and you want to pay for it (these are called skins), you can create whatever you wish to have your avatar look like in this world.

I saw the most BEAUTIFUL women in one of the virtual islands. She had an outfit on that you would see a movie star wearing to a premier. I never saw such a gown, draped on her body, like shimmery satin. And she looked human. Nothing like an artificial being. I text messaged her asking how she looked like that. It seems, you can pay to look exactly however you wish. And this woman was a designer INSIDE SECOND LIFE. She designed the skins, the outfits, etc. etc. I mean, she looked like a dream. She was standing on a beach with the most realistic looking ocean I have ever seen. I mean, it looks like you can just jump in the water.

But Second Life is all virtual. So if a person has nothing in the real world, I would assume they go into this fantasy world and it helps them cope with whatever stresses in life they have to cope with. I mean, just imagine, you can look however you wish to look, and do whatever you wish to do.

But you pay for this privilege. I mean, there is a free account but the people who pay for stuff, well, they look human and they have virtual apartment. And they gamble. And any money they get (in Linden Dollars), well it stays in their account.

To me personally, it's all nonsense. But my son lives in this world sometimes for up to 10 hours a day. He's addicted. Plain and simple.

Just like his compulsive gambling.

It's a real shame, believe me. And John Lester, well, he just encourages all this virtual stuff and people DO NOT LEARN TO COPE WITH THE REAL STUFF THAT GOES ON IN LIFE.

Just my opinion.
Melody

Just to clarify something...

JL did not take the money donated to BT and start another business. He used the money to pay the monthly connection costs for a server for BT, as well as a new server itself.

It is my understanding that the money BT continues to make today continues to fund the connection to the Internet, as well as 4 islands in Second Life.

JL is an employee of Linden Labs, the company behind Second Life. He had nothing to do with the company's founding.

John

more on cybersnot
 

OK, I have a tendency to speak my mind, however I usually can restrain it...this time I can not.

I have an adopted daughter with Aspergers. She doesn't appear handicapped, and in fact is very intelligent, however, she is very handicapped. While I was ill she was in a voluntary placement that allowed her unmitigated access to the internet. She discovered these fantasy life sites. She came back so hooked and obsessed with that crap she would sell her soul for it. (I am missing stuff) She is now in an institution. We specifically said not to allow her access to the internet. Aspergers people have a very hard time controlling obsessions to fantasy stuff.

It is a shame, but another life ruined because of the net. her obsessions were hard enough to deal with prior to the exposure to these sites. It is like CRACK to these people. They have to have it, and many of them are afflicted with autism spectrum conditions.

The internet is fabulous, however who benefits from sites that give people fantasy lives they PAY for? Isn't that like 'adult' sites, or even like games that teach people to fire at will with the precision of a military trained sniper? NO GOOD comes from this. There is a sucker born every minute and these unethical conscience-less people know that.

Any one who invests in this crap is an opportunist who preys on the illness of others. Yes, that is judgmental, and probably not politically correct, but at times you just gotta say what you gotta say.

End of rant.

Cyclelops:

I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but my son has ASPERGERS also. He was diagnosed 4 years ago. He left home at age 20, and began gambling and that was it for him. He went on SSI, they gave him an apartment, a computer, (the worse thing in the world for a person with AS), and dvd. well, let's say he has it all.

He is absolutely obsessed with Second Life. Now I might be wrong, but I think the majority of people inside Second Life might just have Aspergers.

I mean, I wish my son was like the guy on Boston Legal. He might jump up and down, and make funny sounds, but he's an attorney for goodness sake. My son, and others like him, well, they just gave him everything so he's not motivated to work. He's absolutely brilliant and could have been a web designer. But no, Second Life, day and night (when he's not gambling).

oh well

Melody

Hey Melody...
 

Check out Doc John's picture... I think all docs, including, and especially Doctor Fred, should be required to post their pictures somewhere, so we could evaluate them before making an appointment... :)

Cathie

I can understand why those of you with a son or daughter who has Asperger's are so upset when they appear to abandon their "real" life in favor of the "virtual reality" of SL. I am no fan of John Lester. Even if he did not technically take people's money and divert it to SL, I firmly believed he abandoned all the good folks of BT. I find his attitude and behavior nothing short of reprehensible. And as far as I know, he never provided an accounting of the monies he took in, however I will take DocJohn's word for what happened.

I also do not want to stand up for SL. I have a number of questions about how "members," especially those who may be vulnerable, like those with Asperger's, are recruited into SL. I have heard some of them proclaim the value they receive, but I wonder just what that value is and what it does for them.

However, I do think we should all be careful in assuming that SL has had a malevolent influence on these individuals. You may not like that your son or daughter appears to have given over their life to a virtual reality site. But what we don't know is what would their life be like if they were not involved in SL. I am not hearing that these individuals went from a higher functioning life to a lower functioning life. I know of so many cases where the individual was essentially isolated from their family and not effectively functioning or relating in the "real" world.

I am a clinical psychologist and I got to see the pain and heartbreak, and it is both horrific and tragic. The real culprit here is the disorder itself. Individuals so afflicted may really have no other choice than to live the kind of life they live. But the pain for parents is almost unimaginable, and the person with the disorder just can't understand, let alone empathize with their parents.

Who knows what these folks would be doing now if they were not involved in SL? I have no doubt that some would be dead, others would have serious alcohol, drug, or gambling problems. It may be that for some of them SL has become like a virtual halfway house. Maybe they can get enough structure and support to keep them going and to keep them away from worse things.

I would just clarify again that I am in no way defending SL. I have lots of questions and doubts. But I have seen this exact phenomenon quite a few times, except that instead of SL, it was some other group or outlet.

What hurts me the most is that we in mental health really do not yet have the answers to give to parents whose lives have been wrenched in this way. You might think that we are just a short step away from the breakthroughs we need to deal with such disorders. You can read about this neuroscience discovery and that pharmacological development and so forth, but none of it as yet adds up to anything that is remotely close to the kind of breakthrough that will truly make a difference.

I can certainly understand the anger at SL. No one has any answers and no one can really help very much, if at all. Most parents in this kind of nightmare have been given the run around, along with a heaping dose of uncaring professionals and overworked social service workers. When a target like SL comes along, I think it might be irresistible for so much of the frustration and uncertainty to get directed towards them.

I hope the best for all those who have a child in this or a similar scenario.

rafi

I am a medical professional and my daughter was into studying bugs. She knew everything there was to know about bugs. Had she not been introduced to this addictive crap on the net, she might be an entomologist.

So if I get the reasoning here, is, Crack is OK, it is just that some people can't keep their lives in order. It is OK for 'adult' sites that exploit children to be on the net, because, it is just the sickos that get into it who ruin their own lives...oh, and the lives of innocent kids?

It is hard to believe that cartoon characters could be addicting. TV, chat rooms, casinos, booze, food, exercise you name it....do we ban it all? We can't do that.

No autisitic spectrum person is better off for living in a virtual world. Aspergers kids, especially, can relate to eachother, real world, real time. They can become experts at many things if they don't get hooked on these ethereal characters that drain their budgets.

I didn't allow my kid on the net, so I am irate that others did. Eventually she would have found it as an adult, but I was hoping before that we could help her use her incredible brain for the betterment of her life and humanity. I would rather hear every detail about every genre of dragonfly than hear one word about some 'avatar'.

She will likely end up dead or in jail trying to get money to support this habit. She has lied, stolen, and manipulated to get on the net and get access. It isn't just this website, it is others like it, you can feed your 'pet' or 'build a new you' whatever.

Unlike a gambler, or alchoholic, she has a brain that will not yield to treatment programs. Promoting living in a fantasy world is not much different than leaving a schizophrenic untreated. Sorry I disagree with the premise that lives are improved by living virtually instead of living fully. We should concentrate our efforts on linking Aspergers individuals together as real people, and concentrate on assistive technology to free the more severe cases of autism of their blocks to communication.

My motto. Get real.

I completely agree with Cyclelops:

If my son had never gotten that computer and stayed on it after school, well, actually, it began with the nintendo games, the playstations games.

You see, moms are tired, and when they see their kids in front of the tv or playing a game, and the kid is quiet, well who is tell them, go outside and bring your kid to the park so he can play with other kids. I did that by the way. Every day after school, I took my son to the playground. EVERY DAY!!!

When he got old enough, we got the computer. No computer games then by the way. By then, he had the playstation, the super nintendo. And it kept him quiet and isolated. Now I had only one child. How would it have been different if I had more than one, I have no idea. The same way, that I would not know how it wouldn't be different if Frank had not had aspergers. If he didn't have aspergers, and he got the playstation and super nintendo, he might have invited some friends over and they would all be in front of my tv playing the games.

But after a while Frank liked his isolation. Sure, we had him in therapy, we took him to the Jewish Board of Family Services to be evaluated. They said "social anxiety disorder". He would not go on anti-depressants. He would not go to groups. He just went to school, came home and went on the computer. Now if one of those PROFESSIONALS had had the decency to tell us about ASPERGERS, maybe would have thown out the computer, and put him in a therapy program geared to his Aspergers. You see, Aspergers WAS ON THE DSM 4 Manual for mental health. Frank was 15 or 16 then and he threatened to kill his father. I now know much about Aspergers. I know that MANY OF THEM HAVE RAGES, ARE MANIPULATORS, and can get exactly what they want. The difference between a person with Aspergers and a regular person is the Aspergers person is so smart, he can manipulate his way around anything.

I will always wonder why my son's psychologist at the Jewish Board of Family Services never told me "you know Melody, there is a disorder named Aspergers, and it was named after Hans Aspergers, in 1944, and he was a doctor who watched kids playing alone, and they always wanted to be by themselves. Why wasn't I told this?

Now kids are in special programs geared to their specific gifts. And boy do they have specific gifts. They are usually computer geniuses. They say Einstein has Aspegers, and Bill Gates has Aspergers.

Many people in prison are wrongfully imprisoned because they should not be in prison, they should be in a group home getting ABA therapy.

But was I told any of this? NOOOO!!!! I just went from therapist to therapist, from wrong diagnosis to wrong diagnosis. By the way, all these kids getting the ADD diagnosis and the Oppositional Defiance Disorder diagnosis, well MANY OF THEM are now found to be Aspergers.

To me, if a kid has a predisposition for an Obsessive Compulsve Disorder, the worst thing you can get them is a video game, or let them go on the internet.
They will get money any way they can to fuel their obsessions.

My son's obsession is gambling and Second Life. He lives, breathes and exists just for these two things. He couldn't care less about what this has done to his family. How could he? His brain has been fueled by all this Second Life Nonsense. You want to know what he might have been had he never gone on Second LIfe?

Well, since my son had never gotten less than 100% on any test he took in school, and since he got a full scholarship to college, and graduated with a degree in web design, well he could have been a web designer.

But the fact that gambling is so readily available and Second Life is so addicting, well forget it.

I would tell any parent of a kid with Aspergers, to move to the Amish village where there are no tv's internet, or dvd players. I would tell them to get their kid to use their hands, to build, use their minds and brains to learn to socialize. Get them involved with group activities. Anything but tv, and the computer and video games.

I know, I sound crazy. WE need techology, but with an asperger person, they have to re-wire their brain first. They can learn the technology AFTER THEY GROW UP!!!

This is just my humble opinion. And I'll never post about it again.

But it does destroy families, believe me.

Melody

fertile land
 

Mel

Your son is 10 years older than my daughter, and I probably had more info than you did, but it was me, not a doctor, or shrink who contacted a world reknown doctor and expert on Aspergers years back. Dozens of shrinks, therapists, neurologists, and no one could figure out what caused every day to be 'Ground Hog Day' as the movie goes.

Back a few years, AS was thought to affect only boys. Girls have it too. No one believed me that this was what she had.

I had normal kids who could use computers and video games and then go outside and play in the country (so thankful we had land). They did normal things, music, track, soccer, gymnastics....not this kid. Like I said, my kid had no computer access, I knew it would lock her in forever. She knew a ton about bugs and dinosaurs, until some well meaning person decided it was great for her to have unmitigated usage of the net. She even told the shrink sometimes she thinks she is a cartoon character. It is like the movie 'Tron' if I remember correctly.

This my last word on it too. Sites like that sell an addictive product to a very vulnerable population and there is probably little that can be done about it. Not very many normal kids or adults are building creatures on the net that they have to pay to feed...(most of us our busy feeding ourselves literally not virtually.) Now there is an idea....virtual feeding weight loss systems! Hey-some wizard should take that and run with it! Eat your virtual 2 lb burger for $5 worth of 'intestinal incentive'. Put it on your visa card. It is worth $6 when it comes out the other end...that is what these sites are selling. That stinks.