Day: February 26, 2019

Mainland land holders will soon be able to auction their land

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update, March 26th: user-to-user auctions are now live.

Update: Well, an Oopsie from me. Seems the user-to-user Mainland auctions aren’t *quite* live, but still in a testing phase. As such, this article has been revised.

In July 2018, Linden Lab overhauled the Mainland auction system – see Second Life land auctions get a face-lift and the official blog post A Face lift for Auctions.

The “new” auction system leverages Second Life Place Pages as the medium for presenting land for auction and for placing bids, together with a new “cover page” listing available parcels up for auction. which can be found at https://places.secondlife.com/auctions. At the time the system launched, it was restricted to land being auctioned by Linden Lab, with the promise (at that time) that Mainland land holders would be able to start adding their own parcels “soon”.

“Soon” took a step closer to becoming an reality on Tuesday, February 26th, when a new Knowledge Base article appeared, entitled Creating Your Own Auctions. It is designed to walk Mainland land holders through how to set a parcel for auction. According to Alexa Linden, who contacted me on the matter, the system is still in testing, but will likely be ready t go in the very near future.

The Knowledge Base article outlines a number of requirements for those wishing to auction their Mainland parcels:

  • The parcel must be owned by an individual resident; group owned parcels cannot be auctioned.
  • Auctions can only be created by the parcel owner, and the owner must have a verified email address.
  • Parcels for auction must be set for auction via their associated Place Page.
  • There is a 15% commission payable to Linden Lab on all successfully concluded auctions.
  • When you create the auction, the ownership of the parcel is transferred to a temporary holding account named AuctionServices Linden.
    • You will no longer be listed as the owner and will not be able to edit, cut, sell, or change the parcel in any way once you create the auction.
    • If you cancel the auction, or if the auction completes without any bids, then the ownership of the parcel returns to you.
    • Note: it is not clear what happens to any payable tier during this time, but I presume it remains payable until such time as the auction concludes.
Mainland auctions for user-to-user auctions are now very close to being launched

If you are not familiar with Place Pages, you can find out about them via my Place Pages tutorial. This will be updated to include the relevant information on setting a parcel for auction in the near future, once the service has been confirmed as being “live”. In the meantime, additional details on Mainland auctions can be found in the Second Life Knowledge base as follows:

Again, and for clarity, do please remember, the auction system is for Mainland only. Private regions or parcels cannot be offered through it.

Melusina’s Empty Spaces in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
DiXmiX Gallery: Empty Spaces

Melusina Parkin makes a return to DiXmiX Gallery about a year to the date after her latest exhibition there (see Melusina’s Minimalism in Second Life), to present Empty Spaces, this time in the gallery’s Black exhibition hall.

Melusina’s work is often a fine blend of detail, space and minimalism, all carefully combined and crafted to present images that are elegant in their unique focus and rich in narrative and feeling. This is perfectly reflected in the twelve images presented in this collection which – if I might be so bold as to suggest – carry with them something of a thematic link to her previous exhibition at DiXmiX, Less is More (see link above), and perhaps more particularly to her June 2017 exhibition, Absences (see Melusina’s Absences in Second Life).

DiXmiX Gallery: Empty Spaces

As with that latter exhibition, Empty Spaces presents images that are perhaps notable for what is absent; rooms and hallways that are devoid of furnishing and décor – or, where furniture is present, it is noticeably absent signs of use; there is no-one seated on the couch or chair while the dresser appears unattended and the pool strangely sans water.

But where Absences offered a single point of focus within a room or setting – a chair, a coat hanger suspended from a hook, a ruffled bed – Empty Spaces in many respects takes a step back; while some images do offer sight of a couch or chair, a rag hanging from a hook,  most offer a much broader view; the focus is far more on the room, the space the image represents, than the object or item within it.

DiXmiX Gallery: Empty Spaces

Windows and doors, for example appear in many of the images – even those featuring a specific object – halls and open views can be seen, as at times, are hints of other spaces just out of our sight. Thus, the narrative many of these places is broader than that of Absences. What lies behind the closed door, is there something awaiting discovery around the corner of a hallway our in the spaces that lie between us and a distance doorway, hidden from our view by intervening walls? What might lie at the bottom of the empty swimming pool or beyond the opaque glass of windows, where shadows can only give hints – and perhaps deceive.

These are images that again allow us to become playwrights; we can write the stories they hint at; but so to is there the sense of something more within them. Are we looking at images that reflect the lives of others, vignettes of their times and presence-in-absence? Or are we in fact looking at spaces in which the echoes of our own times and actions might still be heard?

DiXmiX Gallery: Empty Spaces

And this is what I continue to love and admire in Melusina’s art; through it she offers both and theme and idea that is – by the nature of her having taken the image – her own, but leaves the story behind it entirely down to us to define and tell. Thus, her exhibitions are always engaging and thought-provoking delights.

SLurl Details

A further day at Sol Farm in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

Sol Farm; Inara Pey, February 2019, on FlickrSol Farm – click any image for full size

In looking back through my notes on regions visited in these pages, I came across Sol Farm, a place we first visited just over two years ago (see A Day at Sol Farm in Second Life) but had failed to return to in the intervening time. So I suggested to Caitlyn we hop over and take a look at what may have changed over the past 25 months.

During our first visit to this Full region, designed by Show Masala that utilises the additional 10K Land Capacity option available to private regions, I noted it to be:

A largely rural setting, centred around Sol Farm, complete with thatched farmhouse, fields of crops and livestock, outbuildings, and many of the mechanical accoutrements of a working farm. However, there is much more here than may at first be apparent.

Sol Farm; Inara Pey, February 2019, on FlickrSol Farm

This is still very much the case. In fact, on first arrival, I wondered if anything had changed since our original visit or if the region had settled into one of those wonderful places that, rather than offering new looks to entice visits and exploration, instead preserve its original look and feel, making it an attractive and familiar place to re-visit,  where memories can be re-awoken be familiar sights.

For example, the thatched farmhouse with its fields are still there, sun-ripened crops looking ready for harvesting. Also still in evidence is the Mediterranean villa to the south of the farm, complete with its suggestion that it is perhaps a holiday home; while off to the west from the landing point the familiar Ferris wheel of an old fun fair breaks the horizon, as does the rocky knob topped by a lighthouse and pavilion.

Sol Farm; Inara Pey, February 2019, on FlickrSol Farm

But first looks can be a little deceiving: Sol Farm has changed over the intervening time. Thus, for those both new to the region or those who have perhaps visited it in the past but have not returned of late, it makes for an engaging and in places a quirky visit, with much to occupy the eye and camera.

The quirkiness can immediately be evidenced when using the SLurl given in this article. When looking west from the landing point in provides, it is hard to miss the blue whale serenely and slowly circling through the air over the farm, a small wild garden apparently growing on its back (and on in which you can ride for an aerial view of the region). But it is not the only twist to this setting.

Sol Farm; Inara Pey, February 2019, on FlickrSol Farm

It is also to the west that I spotted another change from our last visit. What had once been a large house occupying its own island connected to the rest of the region via a wooden board walk, is now a headland where another crop is ripening and which ends in a rocky promontory, where sits the most eclectic little group of houses, both on the ground and up in the trees, a little wind turbine supplying them with power.

During our January 2017 visit, I noted in passing the presence of a little Japanese village occupying the west side of the region, but somewhat separated from it by a rocky curtain wall. This is still present and open to visitors (just follow the track around the island to the east and under the Torii gate sheltering beneath a rocky arch, or take the north side beach eastwards until you come to it). However, it now offers another odd little quirk, being the home to a host of cats. And not just any cats; these all stand upright as they go about their business, a large part of which appears to involve some kind of festival.

Sol Farm; Inara Pey, February 2019, on FlickrSol Farm

There are many elements that bring this setting together as a landscape painting made real. The first, perhaps are the rutted tracks that run through the region. These link the various points of interest – the farm, the villa, the broken old fun fair, the Mediterranean farm alongside it and the north-western headland – into a cohesive whole, giving the feeling you’re really travelling through a place. Another is the use of farm animals, sheep, horses, cattle, that neatly help stitch the central farm and the western lands together. Then there is the rich sound scape that perfectly enfolds everything.

Stay within the region long enough, and you’ll discover another somewhat unique element to it: the weather. Every so often a small tornado will pass through, bringing with it a squall of rain, the wind tossing bits and pieces of rubbish into the air which fall back to Earth in the storm’s wake before vanishing along with the storm itself.

Sol Farm; Inara Pey, February 2019, on FlickrSol Farm

Beautifully conceived from farm to beaches to houses and village, richly detailed and presented, Sol Farm remains a photogenic joy to visit.

SLurl Details

  • Sol Farm (Story of Infinite, rated: Moderate)