diamond Marchant

One of the differences between Mainland and Bellisseria is that every single square meter of Bellisseria is the way it is because a Mole created it to be beautiful. There are obvious scenic spots in Bellisseria (e.g. lighthouses, underwater caves) but also easter eggs that delight you when you find them. In Bellisseria... everything is beautiful. Also, Bellisseria differs in that a complete and designed travel infrastructure exists. We have roads, waterways, rails, airstrips, and associated rez zones. Many prefer traveling by car, boat, plane, train, bicycle, horse, etc. A navigable route is enjoyed. Administratively, there is much support for this style of experiencing a virtual world. The forums have lots of info about places to visit, as does the Bellisseria Bureau of Bureaucracy, the Parade of Homes, the Destination guide, and various groups (e.g. Bellisseria Boat Parade) that sponsor excursions.

I respect the passion you have for OMT but am a little confused about it. Are you trying to recreate the old telehubs? In skyboxes? And we have a destination guide that seems to work? So what's up?

The OP asked... I would answer "yes" because the other named forum topics refer to some specific topic of discussion. The GDF is open-ended. On July 29 Tommy Linden said in Announcements... Additionally the GDF carries the restriction "Anything that doesn't quite fit in the other Forums welcome here -- so long as it's specific to Second Life. " So here is my theory... I believe the changes had nothing to do with making us feel comfortable and safe. I think it is simply another attempt to reduce expenses. Does Linden Lab really care if a few people argue about politics or social justice or whatever? As long as they are civil in discourse, why not? However, Linden Lab moderates these discussion and perhaps they believe there is less to moderate if they prohibit various topics.

Second Life is a captive customer for Tilia, which may be what Waterfield views as the jewel of Linden Research. I heard on a youtube yesterday that there are 22,000 game studios. Tilia aspires to run the inworld transactions for game studios. Note that the trend in the gaming industry is to generate revenue with microtransactions. This is not a metaverse play... it it a gaming play which should persist regardless of what happens in "the metaverse" or Second Life. I strongly suspect that Linden Labs is required to break-even and is probably achieving that. We experience it as an underfunding of things like governance and region upgrades and stealth price increases like Premium Plus. This means that we will be around as long as Tilia needs us (recall how excited they were to say our inworld GDP is over 600 million, powered by Tilia).

The OP mentioned Goldman. Not sure why. Further research (assuming the source is reliable) reveals that some part of Waterfield does own Linden Research, although the source calls it Linden Lab. So Randy's stake is not a side-hustle. The confusing part is that the press release announcing the 2020 acquisition refers to "an investment group led by Randy Waterfield and Brad Oberwager". I cannot find anything that suggests Brad works for Waterfield. It is worth noting that High Fidelity is also an investor, as discussed in High Fidelity Invests in Second Life. Inara Pey reports the ownership situation as "Brad Oberwager is one of the three investors who acquired Linden Lab in 2020, together with J. Randall (Randy) Waterfield and Raj Date"

No, had not connected the dots. Goldman Sachs is owned by a large number of institutional investors, of which Waterfield may be included. The reference to Second Life as "sadville" is in the context of use by corporations as a workplace. May not be far from the mark. Yet it is clear that the reporters did no research into the current state of Linden Research. About the ownershiip of Linden Research, it is described as "an investment group led by Randy Waterfield and Brad Oberwager". Is this a side-hustle for Randy? If Waterfield Group is the owner, I would except Linden Research to disclose that. Also, because Linden Research is private, they do not report their financials publicly, so we don't know anything about "making millions".

It's likely coming from a neighbor. Try checking the checkbox pointed to by the yellow arrow below.

UPDATE (11:16am SLT) - NEVER MIND.... ALL OPEN AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! UPDATE (11:06am SLT): the SSP regions appar to be closed in numerous places... ????? It appears that residents (or maybe just me) are no longer allowed in the SSP regions in the northern parts of the Newbrookes, including houseboat regions. Seems to be any region with a bumper. Channeling James Cagney in the movie "Mr. Roberts".... Who did it? (assuming a resident did something to invoke the giant banhammer... or maybe this is an unintended boo boo) Note that a large block of Newbrooke regions have now been isolated from the rest of Bellisseria by the horizontal stack of SSPs including SSPTutti Frutti.

As a sailor, I am 100% satisfied with continuous protected water even if it involves edge channels only 10m wide. Very sailable. Anything better would be gravy (i like gravy)

Yes. But to do anything in this space takes millions (or billions) and Brad seems more into Tilia. If it were me, I might just buy a boat instead (for only 5 million)

Absolutely. If you do edge sailing from SSP Admiralty Reef northbound, there is a minimum 16 meter channel width (the spacers being used are 16m). Depth is more than adequate for boats everywhere.

Just to be clear, this is a THOUGHT experiment (Gedankenexperiment). In my thoughts, the new virtual world has avatars that move like they do in We Met in Virtual Reality but look like me (Maitreya/LeLutka).

Yes. The two regions you mention look as if they will connect to more regions on their northern border. This rat (me) has been conditioned to not expect obvious additions to show up anytime soon. I hope that they will add the minimal number of regions (six) to achieve the connectivity that many of us desire and complete the master plan later. It did not escape my notice that if one were to continue the "deep water stack" of regions to the north, it might yield a Satori connection as far north as Atanua. Interesting. A reminder... new regions are under development and change from day to day. Do not assume things are settled until the homes are installed and the region is landscaped.

Yes on some of the bigger islands, for example, SSPBeach Please. The deep water channel gives me an altitude of 7 when standing in it. In general, these water regions are deeper, for example, at the end of a houseboat dock I get an altitude of 14 versus 17 for a dock in Kiva. Note all the water channels in these new regions are easily navigated. Bellisseria is now SIX regions from a protected water connection to Stromberg.

Interesting experiment. Please let us know if you get one via the PP "pick your home" perk. Some speculate that rare and desirable (by virtue of being near a beach or having a great water view) homes will be won by regular Premium members who use their 5 picks per day the second the a region is released.

Meta upped the price of Quest 2 by $100 ha ha ha - this post is OK cause the article I linked speaks of Second Life favorably

demo, dimensions, redelivery, and demo (worth repeating)

Hmmm. Letting residents get away with obvious covenant violations is pampering? How do you distinguish pampering from simply not doing governance. My theory is that no pampering is occurring, rather, governance is understaffed. As Linden Research is a private company, we do not know their finances, but it feels like they are running a tight ship... retaining those who can support revenue growth and minimizing expenses. Governance is an expense. By the way, I always AR, rise, and repeat.

Obviously. My point is that Second Life does not require an RTX 3060 to achieve very good or excellent performance. For those on a budget or don't like to burn their thighs, there are options.

Orbs that do not depend on Experience use llEjectFromLand to eject trespassers. Should Linden Lab decide to enforce a minimum time for ejection, they need only add a delay to this routine.

Additional Info About Sailing Issues in Second Life The main problems facing sailors are associated with the grid itself... region crossings, 4-corners, unexpected lag, and regions down or broken. These occur everywhere. Orbs and banlines are, by comparison, a minor annoyance and appear disproportionately on older continents such as Sansara. They are not present in Bellisseria by design. Kudos to the moles for including 4-corner markers in Belli... those are a huge aid to navigation. Cruise sailing groups (e.g. Leeward Cruising Club), inform cruisers about potential hazards using charts (textures), navigation HUDs, and chat. Our intent is to NOT encounter any obstacles. I personally ground check the cruises I help organize and try to locate obstacles so that I can direct cruisers around them. In summary, I view the priority issues for sailors as those involving the grid itself and continental connectivity. Orbs/banlines are more of an education issue about how water parcel owners can keep sailors out of their waters by simply rezzing a few visual clues.

The New York Times Wirecutter recommends Note that this laptop runs hot and the fans are noisy. I prefer cool and quiet. The RTX 3060 is a bit overpowered for Second Life at the moment. My laptop sports a GTX 1650 Ti/PCIe/SSE2 and works great. CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H CPU @ 2.60GHz (2592 MHz) Memory: 32676 MB Concurrency: 12 OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 19044.1826) Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti/PCIe/SSE2 Graphics Card Memory: 4096 MB

Of course. This is a matter for governance, as Abnor has said. About the OP, clearly he was attempting a transfer. Seems innocent but still a transfer... not what LL wishes to see. My takeaway is that the "reassignment algorithm", needs further development. My understanding is that the original (non disclosed?) algorithm has been observed to be suboptimal, for example, reassigning a parcel to the prior owner (random applied to few choices?) or allowing abandon/pick transfers (LIFO?). The PP "choose your house" perk seems like it will work well only when you want a home that isn't obviously desirable. The really desirable ones are likely to get taken by Premium members using all their picks or by a few PP members of the many that want the choice homes. This seems to be a self-inflicted complication with zero upside to LL. It would have been enough to simply say that PP members have access to special PP homes (e.g. 2048 homes or homes on choice lots). Allowing people to choose specific homes dilutes the "secret sauce" of Bellisseria. Each Linden Home is unique and all are desirable. GoH is part of the sauce. It is enough pick the type of home you want and leave it at that.

No clue. I speculate that some people list things with crazy prices on the off chance that someone will bite. They are not a motivated seller, just one hoping to catch a sucker. It is clear that there are people in SL that don't care how much things cost.

Good find! One thing mentioned was the importance of having inworld friends who can show you the ropes That was my experience in 2009.