SarahKB7 Koskinen

They're not bungalows (known as "ranch houses" for some reason in the US)! They're literally ranch or farm houses instead. ^ A Ranch House! (House type: "Stable View") ^ Ranch House mailbox thingy. ^ A silo! ^ A grain bin! ^ Overhead phone/telegraph wires/lines. ^ Water towers, with SL logo! ^ Rez zone markers! ^ Tractor! 20m surface water levels. So coastlines with rivers are possible here in the Ranch theme!

Patch announces that Zindra continent is to be completed! Time: 45:50

Patch just formally announced the new theme is the RANCH THEME. Which we knew was coming a year ago.

Mermoles are an actual thing. I've encountered some on my travels! ^ MerMole offshore at Hairy Hippo Fun Land theme park, in Bay City. ^ A labour (group) of MerMoles at Linden Realms, with a Rock Monster.

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Please design and arrange such new themes in such a way that they connect with the protected water at Bleaberry Tarn in northeast Sansara continent and then you'll make lots of people and at least two whole mainland continents very very happy.

Peeve: An official SL history exhibit at SL20B that completely ignores the year 2002. No. SL's birthdate was NOT 23rd June 2003. That was just it's public opening launch date. Second Life was around much earlier than SL20B suggests. SL began in 2002 on the same current SL grid (used initially for Beta testing), with the same oldest SL regions (the 16 San Francisco regions) and even used the "Second Life" name (formerly "Linden World") on 1st November 2002. How else do you think we have some 21 year old avatars, 21 year old objects and soon, 21 year old sim regions? And even earlier during 2002, there was Alpha testing on the smaller different "Linden World" grid, which was closed when Beta testing began in November 2002. Frankly, ignoring the year 2002 from the history exhibit is an insult to all those earliest Lindens and Alpha/Beta testers who pioneered the building and testing of the virtual world that you still enjoy today, 21 years later. Shameful.

The whole island from World Map view. However, the northern coastine has since been terraformed and is more natural looking than the map currently shows. It actually has parts poking into Wetter and Skinny Dip, which are protected areas.

Today, for a challenge, I decided to ride a temporary rez bicycle from the new Welcome Hub down to the similar, smaller BelliHub. Riding south from the Hub, I went into Palmerston railway station, rode off it's train platform down onto the tracks (no station staff looking!) and then rode over the gigantic new MOOSE TRACKS BRIDGE (please name it that, Moles!), On the other side, I entered Log Land through Moose Tracks' railway tunnel, then travelled through the forests and winding dirt track roads, eventually out of the trees onto the west clifftop coast of Log Land, where I noticed there's plenty of room for new railway track to be laid in the future, which corresponds with my latest map. Then I rode the bike carefully down the cliffs into the sea (as you do!), along the sandy seabed westwards to the BelliHub, where I rode ashore ala James Bond Lotus Esprit submarine car style and arrived in the BelliHub! Yay! It was a fairly easy and quick challenge to do too, so I decided to do it again, but in the reverse direction back to the new Welcome Hub. But unfortunately, the bike got clipped and stuck within the Log Land clifftops on a region crossing, forcing me to stand up and losing my temporary rez bike. Aww! Nice bikes too. They have nine gears, are capable of bunny hops and doing wheelies too. But no lights or a bell.

Imagined speculation time.... 😜

^ US only prize: Chevrolet Bolt EV car, value from $27,495 upwards. ^ Rest of world prize: An SL Premium account for 1 year, value of $99 annually. ???

😜

Read what I said again. Carefully.

I am not going to not go.

It's a huge bridge, I really like it. Might be SL's longest bridge too? I wonder if it has an official name yet? ^ Yes, that's me standing on the square mid-section of that column for a sense of scale. The clearance between water surface to the bridge deck's underside measures 31m tall. The gaps between the support columns are about 35m apart. And the water depth is the full 20m, easily deep enough for all large ships in SL. The top deck with the track now has a series of lighting columns too.

Yes. Top of viewer. Advanced > Disable Camera Restraints (enable)

Would love to see other such bridges linking Bellisseria to other neighbouring continent's roads and railways.

*Bing Bong* "The train at platform one, bound for Moose Tracks, has been postponed, due to leaves on the line." (Translation: Trains won't run on the bridge yet because (1) It's not finished, (2) it lacks the necessary invisible guide rail.) 22/6 EDIT: Has since been completed and is operational

^ A giant partially sloped bridge appeared, 36m above the water ! 🤩 ^ Looks like the actual railway track route to Sakura will branch off to the east via these switches/points, avoiding the new bridge. Another bridge across the water to the east would be necessary too. ^ And guess who just became the first person to cross the water by boat?! 😄

... with a truck lorry. (joking)

I hope and expect much from such important annual events, but I always walk away from them disappointed and saddened after the Linden's "Great Plans", changes and announcements are made, as they often promise much but deliver very little in return to benefit the majority of SL's users. These event announcements can often anger me too. I know of some genuinely good improvement ideas for SL from SL's actual long-term users, who often have more inworld SL experience and better ideas than some of the Linden's themselves. But these user ideas are either ignored, brushed under the carpet with false hope, or do not fit into predetermined and overly secretive Linden Labs future plans. SL and Linden Labs biggest problem is that it isn't democratic and doesn't give it's users what they actually want, but instead only gives what LL's staff think what their users want. "Your World, Your Imagination" is their slogan. But it isn't really, is it?

I'm wondering why they built these 9 regions specifically in that location of the SL map. A few of the new areas are completely unnecessary, as there's already a Welcome/Orientation area and a Bellisserria demo area just off Log Homes' west coast in the Bellihub and BelliDemo regions which isn't that far away.

Just looked at those three new sims north of Moose Tracks. The southern-most one is part land and sea, the other two being full water Homestead sims. All three each with 5000 prim limits. Meaning they won't be having any houses in them. All three sims have water height level at the standard 20m too. I hope that a bridge would be built, with a section tall enough to fit a yacht mast beneath. Or perhaps a train tunnel would be used instead? I think the new Palmerston Station in the hubs area is just a terminus station off a short branch line from an imagined main railway line, the tracks do not and could not go any further north from the station as the demo Linden Homes would block the path. Instead, the track which would have to go around the 9 hub sims and continue up to the station in Sakura. One more thing I noticed, the railway track in Moose Tracks is at 56m altitude, while the Palmerston Station tracks are much lower, at only 24m altitude. Railway bridges aren't normally sloped....!?!

More UK place names for future Bellesseria region name consideration. All real! 😜

I sometimes get that that error message too, when the sim region I was last logged into (and logged out of) is currently restarting, was closed, or was deleted. Do as @animats suggested from your SL viewer log-in page, instead of logging into the usual "Last Location", type in a different region name instead, such as Natoma.