Nika Talaj

Thank you all! I think I was clinging to this boat because of the difficulty of finding ANY houseboat that wasn't inside a bunch of atolls, but y'all are right. If you don't feel it, why keep it? PLUS, there's two other factors that I didn't mention. One is that the alt who has it is monthly! We were planning to pare down alts after we decided on what log home to keep, but once the moles stopped building, we find that we're spending money waiting ... and waiting ... we'll probably get rid of one of our log home parcels soon as well. Secondly, when was I going to furnish this home anyway? RL has gotten incredibly busy (it lets me spend 15 minutes here and there on forums, but few blocks of inworld time). And there's two scripts that I really want to write ... and the Vic that Elena referred to has been on the cusp of being finished for WEEKS now ... Argh. what was I thinking! If anyone particularly wants this boat, let me know. Otherwise, she will swim away sometime late tonight!

Remember this thread? Help me out here. I love houseboats! I hadn't had one for a long time when I caught this. I began decorating it, and then hesitated. https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Ness/12/24/25 Plusses: I've never kept anything in Belli's older areas, tho they're really neat. Surprisingly decent privacy. The next-door slip is empty (no boat at all), and on the other side is a Linden (actually a very cool Linden), who of course is never there and has virtually nothing rezzed. His slip is offset from mine, too, so no looking into windows. Out back, there's an inlet, one house off to the side, and protected land. Out front, there's water and, eventually, more boats. Altho Ness has a full complement of homes (25), I don't have lag. It's attached directly to real land, not an atoll. That's important to me. There's a sprinkling of benches and suchlike around. Exploring is kind of neat around there. There's a maze that I haven't visited yet. Access to big water isn't BAD, altho it does involve going past a few parcels that I'd rather have! Always just a little galling 🤣 Minuses: No great view. What can I say, I'm spoiled. The land is kind of flat, sandy and arid-seeming. It's rectangular - I like rectangular houseboats, I was just kinda hoping to try a square one, which I've never had. My lord, there are a LOT of boats around! SO SPOILED! Lots of people would love this, amiright? I kind of love it. Should I go fish for a better one? There are very few available, but some people have had good luck lately.

The thread, or the awards? The key to both is to keep it lighthearted. What she's doing is very similar to the Home & Garden Expo demo homes. Each homeowner chosen provides a 'style card' for their place, to help others with their own decorating.

FYI, folks who post to this thread might also be interested in this one.

As a further divertissement this summer, Ziva Zwanger is running a little contest each month to name a "Home of the Week" and "Home of the Month". I learned about it from a notice in the Bellisseria Citizens group. THIS IS JUST FOR FUN!!! And, very much like our Home & Gardens thread as well as the Home & Garden Expo regions, it's a way for more folks to learn about cool decorating stuff. I don't know how long Ziva intends to do this; presumably until she gets busy with something else, lol. It is NOT an occasion to get all competitive. Personally, I regard this as just a cute way for people who put effort into their decorating to show it to more people. I seriously doubt that there will be any particular effort to be 'fair' or 'objective'; no panel of qualified judges, etc.. lol. But, thank goodness, there is also no mention of getting a big group involved in choosing homes. I say 'thank goodness' because then it would immediately devolve into another flavor of the incredibly boring popularity contests that nearly all SL contests become. That could happen anyway, but perhaps it will be fun until it does! You can submit homes every month, even the same home over and over. But because there's only a small group running this, maybe even just Ziva, one shouldn't get bothered if one's homes are never chosen. We all have different styles and goals with our builds, and my style may just not appeal to Ziva, for example.. Personally, I prefer sharing in the Home & Garden thread, because we see a LOT more homes there than something twice a month can 'spotlight', and nobody is curating what we see. But, maybe some homes that haven't been shared in the forums will come to light! I brought this up - well, yes, because there are a LOT of great decorators here in the forums - but also because the first home chosen is that of our very own @Orfeu Miles!!! (It may seem presumptuous to say he's 'our own' since he's only resumed posting lately, but Orfeu is actually a forum alumni from the beforetimes, back when the Forum Cartel was in its youth). Congrats!! Orfeu shared his log home in the Home & Garden thread in May. Ziva's website for this endeavor: https://bellisseriahomespotlight.wordpress.com/2020/06/08/bellisseria-home-of-the-week-june-2020/ Read the 'about' for her own description of what she's doing. I'll message her about this thread; perhaps she'll visit and add her own perspective.

Well, welcome to the forums anyway, Jimmie! Sorry we evidently could not be of more direct help. Stick around and, perhaps, let us know what you're doing with your decorating in the Home & Garden thread. Or, if you're stymied with it, you can invite some of our primo decorators over to help! 😉

What region is it?

/me pets the happy chatbot and ponders "block"

Wow! This is the only time in the last few weeks that I wished I still had a hopper!

You are correct. No idea how long tickets are taking nowadays. Personally, if I owned a home nearby I would be tempted to put that quote from the convenant on a big sign, anchor it to my property, and position it covering their store sign. A less aggressive approach might be to IM the store owner with a polite note - they may not have read the covenant, and may be completely unaware that commercial activity is a nono.

SL17B Enchant has been detached from the rest of the Linden SL17B regions, which I interpret as another indication that it will be a new Belli theme reveal region. Also, the deadline for SL17B resident builds to complete is fast approaching. I conjecture that once the resident builds are complete, LL will join the two SL17B areas, leaving Enchant detached until the combined SL17B area is closed to visitors. Or something like that

I doubt the lag has anything to do with what you've rezzed. If you share the name of the region, I (and probably others) would be willing to stop by and check its statistics, see if there's a bunch of temp-rez around, see if somebody's physical something is killing the simulator, and post here about our lag experience there. The type of lag you're experiencing is not due to scripts. One easy thing to check: are there usually other people in the region? If so, setting "Show Friends Only" in Firestorm (World pulldown, I believe) will nuke any lag you experience from them. I abandoned a nice houseboat because the lag was consistently very bad. It was on a region border, and the lag when I crossed that border was still bad. Region stats weren't awful. I think it must have been the size & number of textures that were rezzed nearby causing my client to lag. I never bothered to take draw distance down to 32, walk around in a pattern, and wait in each spot to see where the lag started. If you're very patient (giving time for cache to fill etc.), sometimes you can pinpoint texture-based lag that way. ETA: I have old, but not bad, graphics hardware. My draw distance is usually 120, no advanced lighting, and I have no problem in Belli unless I'm at a big event.

She means that you can log into the land page using your cell phone's browser, and claim a home just as you normally would from your computer. You would think that tiny box you click to accept terms would be impossible to hit on a screen as small as a phone's, but actually, it is very easy to do it on my android's touchscreen. So even if your timezone forces you to be away from your computer at peak times for releases and abandons, you can still claim a home using your phone. Of course, abandoning it is a different matter!

Can you try changing to a different model home, and then back? Your furnishings will stay in place, but the new copy's wall colors may not be the same as they were. Very rarely, a home's physics shape gets borked during rezzing.

That's a beaut, congrats! If you want to soften up the sand look a bit, I've found these to be really helpful. Recent update (freely and automatically distributed!) makes them even betterer. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Violetility-Mesh-Ground-Covers/9300841

During this month or so while the moles are not slavishly building new Belli regions, I looked beyond our lovely lands and saw that @Patch Linden and his band of merry moles have been busy helping residents create marvelous diversions, for which I thank them! First, there has been the RFL relay, which was very large and impressive this year! Not being inworld during prime relay hours, we didn't walk a LOT of regions, but we did cruise through a few, and thoroughly check out some of the builds. As usual, it was a huge effort, and a way for my partner and I to renew our appreciation for communities whom we don't usually encounter. Just opened, SL Pride looks like it's going to be gangbusters this year. This years theme is "together", and I think all residents of LGBTQ+ persuasions might enjoy the various array of celebrations. We know how much Patch loves holiday lights, so I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise to see him celebrating in neon. The event announcement introduced me to the reincarnation of the word "intersectionality". I may not be cool enough to have known it already, but thank heavens I am still capable of reading and learning! Coming up in less than 2 weeks will be SL17B! The moles have been VERY busy preparing 🥰, and I cannot wait to see what the Linden regions actually look like - they're very intriguing on the map (just type SL17B into find). Particularly Enchant ... ^^ . Which brings me back to Belli. My only question about Enchant is, why doesn't it have a pink cover on it, instead of green? O.o!

Si. You can pay the "premium" fees for several accounts using a single paypal account.

Congrats, Chloe! I dithered deciding whether to make someone premium just to go for this!

This exhibit is really great, folks. It is much more varied than is usual in SL, and the script trick for the photo/history on the 1st floor really draws you into an area of Brazil that one doesn't hear too much from in NA. The portion of it that I thought I'd like the least ("Metal") I actually ended up liking the most. Do you have a gallery someplace where we could buy any of your art, Nando?

Just to clarify, Riley's is not the script used for the fireflies I have out. But those are pretty too

Plus, there's this relatively new arrival above the pink SSP regions. Their numbers start at 1500, and there's 50 of them. Looks like this theme may also be developed as a set of template tiles to be assembled when they get enough regions together to build a subcontinent. My Speculation Crystal Ball 🔮 is expressing a hope that the pink theme might be introduced at SL17B (2.5 weeks away!), and that this SSP1501x is a show region, ready to jump into SL17B Enchant's spot.

Thank you! We have grown to really love it. Fingers crossed the parcel still has that feeling when SSPE1207 is eventually built out!

I considered it, actually. I instead opted for a small texture (256x256) that's only half transparency. I was hoping to have them rez quickly for everyone, no matter how bad their graphics hardware. I remember hating it when I TP'd into a place only to be confronted with big gray sheets that eventually resolved into individual snowflakes, lol. Now that I have better graphics, it's hard for me to test those end conditions. Maybe I should just up them to 512. That's not a big burden. Thanks.

While I cringe at some of your word choices*, I agree that as time has gone on, Belli themes have clung pretty closely to American styles. Even the Vics seem more American than British. The mole team may perhaps be following the age-old advice of designers the world over: stick with what you know. It would be awful if they were to attempt some Thai-inspired style, for example, and blow some critical design elements just through not understanding. But I would really be up for something different. Fantasy, any form of Asian, Mediterranean - I too would love to see a departure from the current norms. * I don't know if you can call any of the Belli themes 'nostalgic', as they echo styles that are currently in use by millions of people. The US has not torn down old Vics and midcentury homes! 'Classic' campers are still being manufactured. And, I don't know why you have to 'subvert' the American aspects of your home; perhaps you've simply adapted it, or repurposed it, to your style? In RL, people do that all the time.

You're welcome! To expand on the size thing: the Landscape ones are really meant to be seen from about 8 meters away. So if you want to cover a larger area, but still position the fireflies ON your parcel, a couple Big ones might be a better bet than one Landscape. The fireflies themselves will be smaller.