diamond Marchant

I discussed this insanity here

Well... I agree that they are rarely used. I occasionally ride a bicycle around or a Mad Pea Krazy Kart. My primary use of Belli roads is to provide a protected land path (free of orbs) when flying over Belli land (very useful in the Log Home regions). Note that orb avoidance is desirable even if you can beat the timer because orbs typically pop up a dialog that redirects the input focus, meaning you may lose control of your vehicle until you deal with the dialog. Roads are also useful for Bellibin trash collectors Beyond transportation, Bellisseria roads are useful as buffer space between homes and as an organizing principle for laying out houses. My only complaint about Bellisseria roads concerns the Stilt Home regions. As the Stilts are fundamentally water regions, we don't really need roads and low bridges connecting islands, as the low bridges are a hazard to navigation. And to make matters worse, the places one would expect to be able to use land vehicles.... ON THE PIERS... are riddled with invisible barriers that actually prevent you from traveling more than a few meters. This seems ridiculous to me. In a RL marina, appropriate vehicles are allowed to travel on piers.... this is how you get your stuff to your boat or yacht.

No, voice is not required. Here is a brief summary of what IS required... courteous, friendly, inclusive and professional in their interaction with Newcomers and other Residents two hour shifts at a time and at least one shift each week training sessions that you must complete You will not be paid cannot solicit for tips wear your group tag appearance, profile and behavior need to reflect a General (G) maturity rating use the Second Life viewer Mole team leaders

Yes. Or "facilitator". As described, the two positions simply aid the "onboarding" of new residents, which is necessary due to the complexity of the SL user interface and lack of properly packaged noob content. I believe one becomes a mentor when giving guidance/training/support on more advanced topics such as being successfull in a profession or avocation.

Is this new round of mentors a good idea? No

No

Isn't Apple Vision Plus the ultimate privacy screen? Perfect for frequent flyers or Starbuckers that want to view company confidential material free from onlookers? 😉

Possibly when the land changed ownership, some of the objects were auto returned. Before you do something like this, use area search to determine who owns what and take steps to prevent unwanted auto return.

"Just one more thing" was used by Peter Falk in Columbo... but Steve Jobs also used it at the end of a presentation prior to revealing the next blockbuster product, such as the iPhone. update... will be available "Apple soon", which means early 2024... anticipated price is US$3,499.

just one more thing... https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/5/23738968/apple-vision-pro-ar-headset-features-specs-price-release-date-wwdc-2023 The Apple AR/VR headset has appeared at today's WWDC23. Anyone taken a deep dive yet? Care to share? Would this be a high-end "green fields" opportunity for Linden Lab (as opposed to the low-end-battle-royale of mobile)?

I would like to nominate this for the ALL TIME BEST POST award (except for the ps part).

I guess that the milestone is 20 years, as that is a typical type of thing to call a milestone. It would be misleading to term a product announcement or release a milestone, in my opinion.

Me too. In the current Firestorm, if you use 1024x1024 or 512x512, it displays as a 1:1 (square) photo. If you use 1024x512, it displays as a 4:3, so it sorta looks ok. Historically, I recall that Firestorm displayed 4:3 always, so I would make a 1024x768 portrait and stretch it to a 1024x1024 (anamorphic) which looked perfect when displayed as 4:3. But now such an image displays 1:1 so it looks squashed. I was too clever. Bottom line, just use a square photo as a profile pic.

Mainland comes with a "baked shape". You can only change that by plus or minus 4 meters using the terraform tool. To see the baked shape, set the tool to "revert" and the strengh to maximum and apply the tool. To see the maximum amount of water you can have, set the tool to "lower" and apply the tool. To see the maximum amount of land you can have, set the tool to "raise" and apply the tool. If your desired shoreline was somewhere in between, you are in luck. Lower the land completely, then set the tool to "raise" but with the minimum strength. Raise it until you get the desired shoreline. Experiment with the strength. Also use the "smooth" and "flatten" options to see what they do. Terraforming is easiest when your elevation changes are parallel with the tool edges. Diagonals are more difficult. Also, if you have big elevation changes over small distances, you get bumpy terrain, The smoothest terrain happens with gradual elevation changes. You can terraform only your parcel, not your neighbors. The terrain closest to the parcel border is effected by the elevation of your neighbor, and vice versa. Here is more basic info from the knowledge base https://community.secondlife.com/knowledgebase/english/editing-terrain-r23

What made you want land in sl? Object permanence. Initially for a place to moor a boat and rez an Xstreet SL Magic Box. From there, it snowballed.

A basic member can see the Linden Homes currently available. if you choose one, you get a dialog to sign up for Premium.

I think the responses to the OP may be focusing on the wrong thing. Yes, the OP has a specific issue... but don't we all have some issue with LL that really annoys us? I certainly do (don't get me started!) Unlike other virtual worlds such as Fortnite or Roblox that have concurrent user counts in the millions, Second Life is stuck in the 40 thousand range and the trend is not favorable. The original investors departed years ago and the current investors are a black box. What we experience as "raising the rent" is more likely a simple attempt to keep a declining business going... fake it until you make it... where "make it" means selling the assets. (speculation of course). In the larger world of media and metaverses, the world has moved on. AI and augmented reality are the current darlings. At the moment, we are all "weirdos on this bus." These are the sunset days of Second Life. Enjoy it while it lasts, I certainly will try to. Linden Lab is going to try various things, some of which you will like and others, not so much. It is really nobody's fault, and certainly not the fault of the employees (Lindens) or the contractors (moles). They are on the same bus as us.

Linden Homes are "no modify" but you can configure a house using the House Controller to select a floor plan and the Control Panel, to recolor/retexture house elements. Because the Control Panel recolors the entire house and/or entire rooms, some use mesh or prim skins to get things like accent walls or wallpaper. You also can buy or make addon decks, pergolas, docks, stairs, etc. All exterior alterations must be "in theme" and some themes have specific restrictions (e.g. no slanty roofs on Newbrookes). Each theme has a "content pack" that provides matching textures, decor items, and landscaping/fencing. The covenant prohibits various things that would detract from the neighborhood aesthetic. The Parade of Homes has links to Linden Homes that are open to the public and show different approaches to enhancing and decorating Linden Homes. My Topaz Tea House is included and shows an approach for a square houseboat parcel. The Linden Homes Photo Thread is also a good resource.

As I understand it, Linden Lab is a 20+ year old company that compensates its employees primarily with salary, as there is no market for for any equity position they may have received. Even if they were a public company, the suspected financials do not suggest big bucks. Hiring highly-skilled technology professionals might be difficult given that they have options with better long-term financial prospects. I believe that it is very difficult to know why a company behaves as it does, particularly when it is private and answers to no one in public. For all we know, the "employees" may desire to take actions that are precluded by higher-ups, who might see things differently.

The primary impact of Premium Plus has been to create drama among residents debating its worth. When announced in 2022, I was expecting it to be awesome. When final details were revealed in June 2022, I was like "wut?". Annual cost increased by a factor of 2.5 but stipend increased only by 2.16. What should have been a no-brainer now became a complicated decision about worth (except for those who don't care what things cost). The 2048 Linden Homes need to come out ASAP, certainly no later than SL20B. Lowering the annual to $199 would also be a good ideal (along with reducing the stipend to L$600).

Patch is known to operate on the Geologic time scale, hence, it is wise to adjust your expectations.

What has always struck me as odd about this forum is that it appears to be both irrelevant and a "gold mine". Irrelevant in that, compared to other social media, so few read it (or even know that it exists) and even fewer ever post. A "gold mine" because it so intensely discusses/debates/critiques the issues that any virtual world would face. As for Linden Lab, a charge of "a failure to communicate" (by any means) seems fair. I suspect that they have the opposite problem... employee retention. Reliance on contractors (moles) likely addresses this issue.

Perhaps, after TOS is struck down by litigation

That is US dollars per month that Linden Lab charges for either a Mainland region or an Estate region. The graph shows the actual costs per month and one must compute or visualize the actual differential. At present, the difference is $43 ($209 - $166). In 2018, the difference was $100 ($295-$195).

I suspect Linden Lab is paying attention. It's not clear that there is any easy way to occupy these spaces in a profitable way, given that Second Life is likely shrinking. However, they might be able to decrease the expense of keeping abandoned regions on the grid by load balancing the binding of simulators to computing machinery. In other words, allocate resources to regions that are used and give minimal resources to unused regions. Load balancing would have to be dynamic for this to work. Consequently, I would not expect them to do it for "technical reasons"