August 2007

At last, I have had the Breathing Space to release the Ordinal Mechanical Dragonfly Wings for public sale! They are now available at my Caledon shop, for a limited time at the exceptionally low price of L$200. (Tomorrow, I will put them up to a more reasonable price.) Additional: it is now tomorrow, and they are now L$300. Please see the left hand side of this particular Journal for the location of my Shop, if you were not already aware of it.

They may be also be found for purchase or gift here on ShopOnRez. I would advise anyone wishing to send any as a gift to use this service - whilst I could develop and engineer an entire gifting system for each of my products, I do not plan to do so, and I do not plan to release them as Transferrable either, as that would invalidate the Update System that I use and put customers at the Mercy of a Cruel Grid. (And one would not be able to place copies in different Outfits, either.)

As mentioned in the Comments upon my previous entry regarding the excellent Slouching Towards Bedlam, paintings were composed to illustrate it by Sandara - two of which may be seen here, reproduced with kind permission:

(please click to see the full-sized versions)

Further works by the same artist may be found at sandara.net.

I have been attempting to put the final touches to my Mechanical Dragonfly Wings, which I find are frequently admired, yet I still possess my usual level of indecision and would therefore entreat any with an Opinion on the Use of Flight Enhancement Devices to leave their opinion herein. Though, please, if I then do not concur, do not be offended, it is likely that I am merely Wrong.

I have posted before on the things, and if any reminding is required, here is a little more illustrative cinema:

Low-altitude dragonfly wing testing from Ordinal Malaprop and Vimeo.

What concerns me is the detail of the enhancement to Flight. I wish to pare this down to the most basic, useful functions, and have the wearer free from having to use Irritating Blue Menus and Obscure Magic Words as much as possible.

In my own experience I have two main needs when Aviating:

1. Slow, careful maneuvering about;
2. Rapid dashes of speed, coming to a dead stop.

These two needs rarely coincide, but I do wish to be able to satisfy either without having to negotiate my way through various buttons and such. With this in mind I currently have the Dragonfly Wings behaving in the following manner: as standard, one moves no faster than if one was not wearing them, but when a “double-tap” is employed (pressing one’s movement control twice in rapid succession) there is an immediate “surge”, with a consistent impulse as long as said control is not released. When it is released, the wings bring the wearer to a dead stop immediately. The intensity of this surge is configurable via the dreaded Dialog Box, and can be turned off entirely.

As well as this the wings, in either state, will support one above the mark of Seventy-Two Metres’ Altitude, beyond which one naturally begins to fall. This is actually one of the more irritating experiences of flight, particularly in environments such as Caledon SteamCity where one is very frequently above that point without realising.

My question is: would this be sufficient? What more do people want? I am not here in the business of providing a solution to every movement need, but there may be some entirely obvious feature which is absolutely essential that I have not addressed. Granted that I am reasonably sure about my own use here, but really, if everyone else on the grid takes another feature for granted and I do not provide it, I would be being remiss.

Incidentally, for these recordings I use a simple HUD attachment which fixes the camera in whatever position it is currently in, when touched, and releases it when touched again. I find it most useful, and hereby provide it for general consumption by the curious - Fix camera on touch.

The rotating tin cylinder within the phonograph vibrates slightly as a brass needle scrapes against it. The sound of a throat being cleared emerges from the machine’s hornshell speaker, followed by a thin, haunting voice.

This has very little to do with the Grid and Scripting and So On, but I have recently been spending idle moments in a work of Interactive Fiction (some may know such things as “text adventures”) entitled Slouching Towards Bedlam, which, stylistically I believe, may be of interest to Regular Readers - or those of you who are decidedly Irregular.

The rubber piping connected to the back of the machine convulses for a moment, a wisp of steam escaping from it. From within, comes a low whirring which slowly increases in pitch and volume. From out of the magnetophone’s horn comes a soft echo of static…

Bedlam certainly describes itself as “steampunk”, which is frequently in my experience a Bad Sign particularly where Literature is concerned - it is a crude and anachronistic word - but, with a sigh, I must admit that it is useful shorthand at times. (I can hardly disavow it when I am a High Officer of the group “The Steampunks” and use it frequently in my Commercial Announcements, simply so that those who are interested may find me. I would much rather use a more elegant term, “Counter-Historical Scientific Romantic” or similar, but hey ho, that takes up an awfully large number of precious Letters.) Certainly, by any reasonable standards, this piece would qualify, set in a London of 1885 with steam-powered hangmen, a full-size Panopticon and mechanist shops on Fleet Street owned by, erm, red-headed female technologists. The tone is dark and intense, almost Lovecraftian, the writing concise yet expressive. I have not yet finished it, but will be sad when I do - happily, I hear the promise that there are many alternative endings.

Bedlam was published in a format known as “Z-Code”, to be run on a “Z-Machine”. The history of this is too lengthy to go into here (if you are interested, dear reader, perhaps peruse the appropriate Wikipedia article) but suffice to say that it was originally developed by the masters of the art of Interactive Fiction, Infocom, in order that they might produce their products easily for all manner of different Engines, and is now available for general use via the reverse-engineered compiler known as Inform. For the Player or Creator this has two main results:

1. One can run a Z-Code piece on practically any Engine, as there are interpreters now for almost anything imaginable - a list of them may be found here. I have even done so on my Portable Magnetophone, though it is not what one would call a comfortable experience. Conversely, the author must only provide one file for general use, rather than be forced to exclude certain folk.
2. One can also write one’s own Z-Code pieces with ease. The latest version of the Inform compiler is an absolutely astounding effort; fellow Scripters and Engine Instructors will be astounded to hear that it is a “natural language” language that actually works, as opposed to, say, the abomination known as Applescript. If you have the slightest interest in creating these things I would advise you to visit the Home of Inform and obtain their free software forthwith.

It will doubtless not come as a particular surprise to hear that I personally have spent some time attempting to write pieces in Inform, but whilst I find myself perfectly technically capable, I also find that I have no skill with either Plot or Puzzle. I dislike Puzzles in general unless they add to the overall experience of the Piece - Bedlam so far works well in this regard, with such “puzzles” as there are being related to the plot rather than being there to slow one down - but the main issue is that I simply do not think in terms of Narrative.

Within Second Life, narrative is something that other people provide for themselves, simultaneously a collective and an individual effort with everyone’s experience being different, which is perhaps why I remain there; I can provide components, collaborate with other people’s existences, and construct my own, but when it comes to creating an overall “plot” I am completely adrift. My efforts with Inform are (if I may say so) detailed and diverting vignettes, but they have no point to them. My efforts with more traditional prose are similar, for that matter.

Still, enough introspection: I would hope that some readers might be curious enough to obtain the appropriate code for Slouching Towards Bedlam, then one of the interpreters, and enjoy the experience. Perhaps some may even wish to delve further into Interactive Fiction; I would suggest Baf’s Guide as a starting point for obtaining further pieces. A search for those given a Five Star Rating will provide many excellent examples.

I feel obliged to mention the existence of a new version of one of the Free Devices that I provide which has proven to be of Enormous Popularity. Really, it is not a complex thing, but may be of use to some.

Upon the suggestion of Ms Ariel Miranda, I added the ability for the “Freebie Giver” to display an Illustration of the particular “Freebie” that is being dispensed. This is very easy to manage - one simply puts a texture into the thing with the same name as the free item, only with ” pic” appended to it. Thus if I wished to have an illustration for an object known as “Wallflower”, I would also place into the dispenser a texture called “Wallflower pic”.

This texture will not be dispensed individually, but other textures can be. In fact one can have a preview texture for another texture. If there are no appropriate textures in the item, a default one is displayed, the exact identity of which may be Re-Configured fairly simply.

Oh - as well as this, any actual textures in the giver will now appear on the front face as well when selected, so that folk might see what exactly it is they might obtain for free.

A basic effort, but perhaps of interest to those learning the Scripting Arts, in any case. The item may be obtained from ShopOnRez, and it will shortly be in my Caledon Shop. You may see the script directly here.

Well, it seems that “Voice” is present across the Grid now, at least for those who care to Download the newest Viewer, and it is on as standard across Caledon. Those of you who wish to partake in the receiving of other-worldly voices - and coughs, and feedback, and the sounds of errant other-world children, and so on and so on ad nauseam - may do so widely, without even having to pay any sort of Pharmacist for this Altering of the Mind.

You will not be able to do so in any parcels over which I have control, though - I have taken the liberty of disabling said function, lest visitors have the impression that they can ask me questions using it, and I will respond. I will not hear them in the first place, let alone be able to speak back in this arcane fashion.

I do, to be honest, feel a little guilty for preventing my customers from engaging in discussion in their chosen form whilst I am not there. For the moment I shall be leaving this particular option unworking, but perhaps a sign somewhere saying “Ordinal Will Not Hear You” would be more appropriate. As soon as I have developed such a thing I will try its use, and if it turns out to be ineffective, well, back to the blanket forbiddance.

My views on the whole situation have not changed from the last time I pontificated regarding it, by the way.

~*~

As a more serious point: I am able, in the current environment of Second Life, to reject the use of voice, and yet still have people willing to entertain my preferences, as (I believe) I have proved that I am capable of Scripting and Doing Other Things.

It does concern me that those younger than I, with less of a Reputation, will not have that option. I am not concerned for myself, I am awkward and difficult and have no intention of budging, but others in a less fortunate position, I would not like to see disadvantaged, and I do worry about them.

Suffice to say that anyone who wishes to converse on Scripting Matters via the medium of the written word will always be able to do so with me, and with any of the people whom I respect.

~*~

Oh, and by the way - whilst at the moment the service is free, and a relief that must be for Island Owners who were considering having to pay a Hundred American Dollars Extra per Month, this will not remain the case indefinitely, according to the Voice FAQ at this time:

Island Owners will have voice for their land at no cost until the end of the 2007 calendar year. After this, Island Owners will be asked to pay a monthly fee for voice if they are not already at new pricing that includes voice.

Said fee not being explicitly detailed, though, one presumes, it will be less than a hundred dollars.