Great two days of hiking on my vacation so far, both on Beach Mtn. Hiking will continue tomorrow, but more locally. Want to return to Whitehead Crossing, but there’s another story to that. The Michael Story.
Bracket Jupiter, a former King of Comma Islands, is dead. But will be resurrected — as something. Coincidentally, The Bakers of England have also left the company of The King and Queen in Wiltshire County, since the crop circle season is over. I’ll have more to say about that when I have a chance to read the opinion of others on the 2010 season.
I’m still loving Otaki Gorge, but for how long will I stay there? Will the Blue Feather Gallery be moved to the sink? Staying in the Chilbo region is not an option now.
Or will the Blue Feather just go away? Will I downsize in SL and get rid of my own, personal sink in the near future? Depends on the continued strength of the Sunklands idea.
I don’t see the end of the blog coming up, but I see an end to mainland SL. Shifts will be made to other grids — other “mainland” perhaps. Need to study up on the philosophy of mainlanders as compared to estate owners. How does a Chilboan or a Parktowner or a Sterberginite think differently from an isolated island owner? And what of the relative disappearance of sub-continents in SL, like Azure Island #1 or Otherland #1? Or even Big Island for that matter? It doesn’t look very good; Sunklands is really all I have, unless I can make a renewed stake on Heterocera, which is doubtful (?) Or maybe even Sansara.
Why stay in Sunklands when it is so deenergized?
Because I still need it for storytelling. I need to know why Peter, whose burial mound appears to be in the middle of my Otaki Gorge land, after all, was the candidate chosen to lead the Sunklands Initiative. I need to know the relationship of Peter to TILE. I need to understand the connection between SL avatars and toy avatars from Frank and Herman Park in the real world. I need to understand better the writings of St. Nick of Barkley, who may be the patron saint of Big Sink (St. Lemon of Troy is saint of Sunklands as a whole?).
I am writing history. The current condition of Sunklands doesn’t matter as much as what was there in the past. The Sunklands Initiative was there. Little Robert Plant Variant was there; Marty was there. Peter who is a variant Peter Gabriel of Genesis was there.
I think the Initiative all started on my Otaki Gorge property now. Lemon, who is, in turn, a variant John Lennon, called in The Bill, against the protests of Marty (variant Paul McCartney). The Residents of First Life became the residents of Second Life. Revealment of the 2 games of Trivia Ratsuit already played, one to squelch a corrupted “Second Life” path emerging at the end of the Roman Empire, and another to jumpstart virtual reality and Second Life in 19–, let’s see, 1985.
Robert Plant Variant had to be purified of outside influence before he could enter the heart of Sunklands and be initiated into the Initiative there. He then knew of Joplin, Arkansas and the missing Joplin Ball of the Temple of TILE.
My first Sunklands story was mainly about Plant and Marty and how they had to learn to cooperate to make the Initiative a success in 2009. Peculiarly, this phase of the story continued after Plant and Marty had essentially left this blog, their job completed in the Initiative. Perhaps this is because it wasn’t *really* finished, and more work had to be done. Or maybe Peter was really behind this.
Hucka D. recently said that Peter was not ready to speak on this blog as himself. Curious. I need a pep talk.
Hucka D.:
Peter is here. He’s ready.
bb:
Oh hi Hucka D. That’s great news. What of Sapphire? Has she gone the way of Marty and Plant before her?
Hucka D.:
Yes. We need to start speaking to Peter directly. This is a new direction.
Peter:
Hello.
bb:
Hi. Pleasure to be speaking with you tonight, Peter. But we’ve spoken before, haven’t we?
Peter:
No. US.
bb:
(pause) Are you a collective?
Peter:
US.
[long pause]
bb:
How did Lemon attract The Bill to Second Life and Sunklands, Peter?
[no answer]
Hucka D.:
I guess that’s it for Peter tonight.
bb:
I didn’t really understand it.
Hucka D.:
Well. Let’s then look at the Bracket Jupiter situation.
bb:
Can we?
Hucka D.:
Bracket talked about this very subject, and it got him killed. Peter is wise to answer in short.
bb:
Let me venture a guess. They had to make a 4th. Where is the 4th?, you’re always asking.
Hucka D.:
That’s TILE.
baker Blinker's Weblog 
“I don’t see the end of the blog coming up, but I see an end to mainland SL. Shifts will be made to other grids — other “mainland” perhaps. Need to study up on the philosophy of mainlanders as compared to estate owners. How does a Chilboan or a Parktowner or a Sterberginite think differently from an isolated island owner?”
A few comments on your comments above.
I always detected mixed signals from Linden Lab regarding mainland. On the one hand we had the the ad-farm policy that really made an enormous difference, we had the Zindra move while very painful changed the landscape, we had Bay City and Nautilus City, we’ve had a burst of Mole activity particularly on the Atoll continent.
On the other hand LL started the Community Partnership program which I thought ultimately meant LL’s desire to get out of the landlord business. Then of course we had the Linden Homes program and the end of the CP program. I just threw up my hands and threw out all of my theories.
There are so few mainland sims compared to private sims: something like 2500 (not counting the Linden home sims) to 28000 or so. It’s clear that people prefer having or renting on private estates.
I won’t go over all of the various arguments for preferring mainland or private sims. I like mainland best even though I’ve never stayed on a private estate so my arguments would be hollow. I guess the best thing about mainland for me is a sort of intangible depth. For example, the land I hold used to belong to the person who built the Lunalis train station in 2006. I found some snapshots. After he left, the land didn’t disappear, it kept the same grid coordinates from owner to owner, the railroad tracks bounded one side then just like it does now and Sansara has always been south.
I don’t know if the Mainland concept can be carried over to other virtual worlds. From what I read some months ago of Inworldz, for example, the emphasis is on private estates although there’s a small ‘mainland’. That world is second life – like. Then there’s Blue Mars where people develop their Cities (or Places not sure what they’re called) and rent to others. I have a feeling the Blue Mars model might prevail.
Ooops, long post. Anyway looking forward to your postcards from other places.
Hey, thanks for this reply June! Not surprisingly we think along similar lines about this issue. I’ll make a longer comment soon about possible mainland uniqueness. Need to study up more on the Community Partnership program, and also Blue Mars and Inworldz models you mention.
Sansara’s also getting a lot of Mole attention recently as well, at least the water areas.
And some work on the roads on Corsica and Nautilus too. Good stuff.
The Community Partnership program is now done as I understand it. The first (and only I think) was the collaboration between LL and the United Sailing Sims. I believe the USS group helps to administer the Blake Sea sims east of Nautilus City and some of the seas in other parts of the grid (race lines and stuff like that I think). My thought at the time was that LL would bring in the big estate people with specialized interests to help administer various aspects of mainland. I was on the fence about it, I could see pros and cons.
It’s interesting to read about the other virtual worlds. I haven’t tried them for various reasons. But it would be fun to be a tourist though 🙂
CPP links I’ve studied so far. I knew that Chilbo submitted a detailed proposal.
http://blogs.secondlife.com/thread/3023#19529
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2009/10/the-lindens-do-a-fic-thing-again.html
Hmmmm….