Updates

The policy is slowly trickling out regarding landcutting. I am still kinda optimistic. Altogether I have rejoined about 208m of land in random places since jack's first post.

In the checkerboarded picture in this and the previous post- there has since been about 80m added right in that area. It would be cool as hell to rejoin 208m all in one area. Not very likely, but judging from having gotten 4 tickets answered in 2 days, hopefully things will keep turning around.

The other update is relocating KC's Wooly Garden's. Part of the reason was having begun to give up that there would be any sort of policy change. But also, it is a much more lively area which the garden is in now. Sadly, not everything moved to the new area. I hated to dredge up things like the loss of a wonderful person for people. But it was time for a better place for it to be. Maybe where it should have been all along.

KC's Wooly Garden is at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dongyeongju/3/101/66

Checkmate

During the past year or so, Linden Labs has been slowly addressing their long forgotten Mainland regions. After several different ad farm policies, floaty spinning things are mostly gone.

Getting landcutting and extortion addressed finally has been in the tubes since at least October. It has finally been posted on the official blog by Jack Linden today.

While fairly short, there also weren't any surprises overall that had not been discussed during his office hours. I am not sure how much more it can be talked about. The time for action, really, was long before I ever heard of Second Life. Many of the cut areas have been like that for years. Likely many more were set for sale with ads on them until that was no longer allowed.

It is a starvation diet for a group of parasites that is long long overdue.

A Dark Day On The Mainland

Secondlife is not a static place, things change all of the time. But the loss of really really good things is the change that hurts the worst.

My first RL job after college was writing obituaries. I never really thought I would end up writing them for the mainland as well. It's not what I wanted to write about in an incredible location that is over half a region.

This is one of those places that I had been trying to work on writing about for awhile. It was just somewhere that amazed me at every turn, so I really was at a loss for words and hadn't written it yet. There are some things that take a bit to do really really well.

I was struck first by the floating islands as one of the coolest things I had seen. Given the limitations of terraforming on the mainland, I am a big fan of out of the ordinary ideas that draw your eyes up... truly broadening horizons. On a previous visit, a friend and I had enjoyed the dance floor that is sadly no longer there. (The music is still really really good though.) There was also an amazing movie available to watch that left me sitting there going "wow". The offering when I went today was by a neurologist which had applications to what I do in RL. It also had some ideas which were of an amazing help to my dad.

This is a location which covers "The Study of Psychology Theology Philanthropy Quantum Physics Science Nature History Philosophy Painting Sculpting Drawing Photography Music Writing Chess & Art." An SL educational offering that essentially covers the study of everything is quite simply; life changing.

Sadly, it may be one that goes in the missed opportunity column. There is always speculation when someone lets their land go. As long as they are ok, that is my main concern.

It's the constant braindrain while the asshats remain that gets to me.

Borked Into The Twilight Zone

When the grid is having "issues", unless you REALLLLY feel like seeing just what you can do before you get logged out, you end up standing around feeling like a bot. So I figured I would push my luck.

At first, I was going to write about how the Forgotton Step Children Route is actually along Route 9. Pictured here is driving the underwater stretch through Tamna. There are a few scattered places which are labeled Route 9, along with pavement from the moles. There are also stretches which seem much smoother. I am kind of hoping the lake stretch might be an underwater tunnel or something. I have gotten so used to driving down below I am not sure what I would do with a view.

I went fairly far before I really hit any problems. Even the sim crossings weren't bad. Surprising when the grid is borked. But then I began noticing that the road was labeled Route 10, which was a bit odd as I was nowhere near. Before I got to wonder too long about this, I hit banlines and a lovely "you have no car because it went off world" message. But when I looked around, somehow it flung me from Ungnyo to Sunwi Do. As pretty as Route 10 looks, I stumbled my way back to the sad little bumpy road to look for somewhere to rerez my car.

Ahhh... a Sunday drive in the twilight zone.

It's not the end of the world...

... but you can see it from there.

My partner and I went riding along Route 10 when we found the new section. It was a great drive for the most part... a few rides on the vomit comet when we crossed sims, nothing too new.

But then we got to Otaki Gorge. Silly me, I thought that the road just hadn't rezzed yet, so I didn't slow down. Picture what happened when Thelma and Louise drove off the cliff... I think we went to -1000m deep at least before crashing ourselves. I started to fear we might end up in There.com or something if we fell too far off the end of the world.

When we both managed to come back... we found that the sim we were in was cut off from everywhere else. If we tried to walk to the next sim, we kinda bounced along on thin air. The map still looked normal, but if we tried to TP to anywhere we would get logged out.

We finally just made do with the free bikes and blimps to ride around on. It even let us ride a little farther out into thin air where we could see under the sim even. SL was acting weird enough that day that I don't have photos of it. The photo here is of the other weirdness of 1000m landspikes that I have seen in a few places.

Wanting to spend time together, we put up with being trapped on one sim. Fleur still swears she will never set foot back into that sim ever ever again. I thought at first it might have just been a bad day in Second Life. Till it happened again, in the same sim. I also had it happen in another sim on another continent.

My ticket about Otaki Gorge is still open. I am waiting to see if Yoda Linden will be the one who gets it. "Very cut off, you are."

AXEL Mainstore; Wollondilly

I first found this store during one of the grid wide treasure hunts. I thought at first that I was out on an estate.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wollondilly/91/68/71/?title=Wollondilly

When I saw that it was mainland I was more impressed as it wasn't something made to fit in a covenant. Mainland has a reputation of gawdy, laggy builds and screaming lucky chairs in every store and mall. Axel is not one of those places.

I loved their little bridge across the road when I first saw it. It looks even better now that Route 10 has gotten paved. I especially liked being able to park while I looked around.

The store itself is by the Axel Design Team Lila, Niki, and Hadi Axel. They pretty much cover everything in women's clothes. From the land description; Funky Indie Urban City Formal Gorean Neko Grunge Beach Punk Alternative Couture Outfits Clothing trendy sculptie shoes stilletto original stylish new fashion kooky fun colorful kajira, panther bikini FW, Gor, freewoman lolita hand drawn . Now, Gor isn't particularly my thing, but their silks and such make me seriously reconsider.

My inventory is kinda like McDonald's... billions and billions. It's definately hard to limit my purchases at their store. Overall though, it is a great place to shop along Route 10.

Art In The Park; Hobak

Art In The Park is a large outdoor gallery featuring many different artists. It has a relaxing stream that runs through the area and is one of the better non-Linden water features that I have seen.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hobak/133/69/50/?title=Hobak

From photography to oil paintings, it is a rich and diverse collection of art. The artists include Carlo Pimpernel, Petal Rich and Conde.

One of my favorite in the park is Conde. His paintings with amazingly detailed textures and skulls in a variety of ways, including the Mona Lisa are fascinating to me. From his bio card this quote "If you fear death, you are afraid to live life to the fullest, therefore depriving the Universe of all of Your Positive Creative Potential." sums up the amount of life which explodes from his art. His website www.deathisnormal.com is a fascinating look as well.

The gallery is located along Route 9 which appears to be getting a paved road courtesy of the moles. The pavement starts in Yeodeol and is only a little ways through Hobak so far. The sim itself still shows some scars of ad farms and land cutting, but hopefully as the road goes in, the rest of the sim will begin to improve as well.