Yesterday, some discussion sprang up on the metered vs unmetered status of Second Life bandwidth to Big Pond users. Telstra/BigPond is Australia's largest ISP, and for a variety of largely historical and political reasons, bandwidth in Australia is metered - essentially charged by the number of bytes received (this is the case in more countries than not). That makes any site or service that is unmetered unbearably attractive to local Internet users.

Due to some confusion with conflicting statements on the Big Pond website about what is and is not metered bandwith insofar as Second Life is concerned, we contacted the Big Pond staff to get a definitive answer, and got one quite promptly.

Major Australian Internet Service Provider Telstra/Bigpond has expanded their already large Second Life presence, The Pond. Formerly weighing in at 11 sims, The Pond has expanded to 13, adding Pondagon and Pondi Beach.

Pondagon is designated for residential rentals (since The Pond opened up a rentals program a few months ago, it has proven to be very successful). Approximately half the lots in Pondagon were leased in the first 12 hours. Currently rentals in Pondagon are only open to members of the Friends of The Pond group, but that will open up shortly.

The Pond's three orientation sims have been converted to also support some rental-commercial plots, although at a slightly higher cost than residential.

Pondi Beach doesn't officially open until the beginning of December, so we'll be hearing more about that soon, along with additional plans for expansion.

This isn't about Linden Lab billing, though you might have thought so from the title. Lordfly Digeridoo has an excellent point about the whole MDC business (that's Metaverse Development Companies). Basically that the whole shebang can fall down because a percentage indulge in poor payment practices.

That is, they pay like money-juggling startups, or impenetrable behemoths. Either way you get paid late or never, which drives the creators away from the problem MDCs (because creators talk to each other), who have to fall back on more inexperienced creators, clients get bad experiences, and the MDCs who do do the right thing start starving for clients too (because clients talk to each-other too).

Granted, I've yet to see someone like Australia's Telstra, who have always paid my invoices promptly (in 4 to 8 years - I have no love for them and stopped doing work for them years ago. Still waiting on payments, however) - but when I've signed a contract which clearly states 30 day payment terms, and I'm told 3, 6, 12 months later "Oh, it takes time. that's how we do things here. There's a process." - Well, why did you give me a contract that said 30 days?

I'm comforted endlessly by the fact that there is a process, of course. As it happens I have a process too, which is to mention your payment policies to anyone I know who might be considering signing up with you.

At the end, maybe one third of the contract jobs that I've taken on have paid up, and exactly one of them has paid on time. Many of the rest are in the 30-day rinse-repeat cycle of "Golly. I can't seem to find your invoice. Could you send it to me again?" which alone can string things out for many months.

And to contrast, there's blogging. It pays. It pays regularly. It pays on time, every time. What should I spend my time on? Tough call, huh?

How many of you are in the content creation MDC-subcontracting business and have been paid late? Or paid never?

Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock) is considered to be one of the great natural wonders of the world, as well as one of the most sacred sites of the native aboriginal peoples. For a long time after Federation, Uluru was state property before being returned to the traditional landowners on 26 October 1985, on the condition that for 99 years it would be leased back to the National Parks and Wildlife Agency, who would jointly manage it with the native landowners.

Telstra Big Pond's presence in Second Life contains a replica of Uluru, and this is raising some objections. The native peoples of Australia have specific religious and philosophical beliefs about certain land and sites, and about images of those sites and of deceased people. Images of parts of the northeast face of Uluru are not permitted, and all images of Uluru must, in theory, be submitted to the native landowners for approval.