Home » Journal Entries, by Month

December 2005

Penguins and balloons

22Dec2005

Two quick notes:

1. I finally got my balloon vehicle autopilot to work - say "target theretra/200/200" and it locks onto the global co-ordinates of point [200,200] in Theretra, "auto on" and it starts to fly. In the right direction. Correcting the course if, say, you bounce off an object and start spinning, which was the hard part because to get a vehicle to move in a particular direction you need to take account of its facing as well, which means calculating the angle between the forward rotation and the vector to the target and turning that into another vector.

Bullets and Such

13Dec2005

Right. As promised, here are a few things I've discovered so far about bullets, which might at some point save somebody some time. The basic idea is that you rez a bullet using llRezObject to give it an appropriate velocity towards the target - but I think if you're looking for advice you probably know that much already, as it's already in the standard .

I had a frustrating time originally when I tried to build an automated gun turret that fired at intruders.

Late Night Push

13Dec2005

It was late and I wasn't asleep for some reason, so last night / this early a.m. I made myself a revolver, added a modified version of the Linden Revolver Script and an explosive upwards-push bullet, created some target dummies - simple wooden pyramids with balls on top, physics and temporary - and took them all to a sandbox, where I spent some time shooting them and then trying to shoot them again on the way down. (Total score: zero.)

What struck me was how normal this seemed.

A multiplicity of Bushes

11Dec2005

Okay - has anyone seen more than nine IMPEACH BUSHes in one area? The neighbours must really have been vocal.

nine IMPEACH BUSHes at once

(Chaska [56,58])

The area in question has every land flag ticked for some reason - no fly, no script, no build, and damage allowed, for some reason, though I can't see anything that would actually cause you damage.

I should start a competition.

The Obligatory IMPEACH BUSH Post

11Dec2005

Despite it now being rather yawnsome for anyone involved in any of the SL communities, it may be the point at which I say something about the IMPEACH BUSH guy, Lazarus Divine. (Not, I understand, the one who represents Rugged Regiment, the Soul Mechanical Crew and the 6th ward.) If you're a SLer who has somehow remained unaware of IMPEACH BUSH...

Concerning an Irrationality of Permissions

11Dec2005

I recently received notice from a person to whom I had given a copy of my Visual Radar Display (which, now that I think about it, is a stupid name - a radar display that wasn't visual would be worth noting, but not one that was) that it wasn't working. Odd.

I took a look and asked him to try a few things. The marker object - the glowing dot - was apparently disappearing from the radar's inventory after the first appearance of one, and the radar was complaining. Very odd.

A new hobby

5Dec2005

Something that I have been doing quite happily since I built my first vehicle has been spotting and investigating skybuilds.

I'm a curious sort of person anyway, and one of the things that I enjoy doing in SL is looking at other people's homes, particularly trying to get into bits that they're trying to protect. Is this bad? I suppose it is a little, really.

In which more peculiarity occurs; also, a vehicle

5Dec2005

I was innocently sitting at home, minding my own business, when a hovercar pulled up above my property, stopped, and one of the occupants opened up with an automatic weapon. Either it was a rather ineffective one or it missed, because nothing appeared to happen. Then, the car flew off. This all took a few seconds and I was entirely unable to respond with any form of responding fire. I have a Seburo for these purposes, you know.

Anyway, I've been investigating vehicles.

Ring ring ring etc BANANAPHONE?

2Dec2005

So I was playing with an object, that, when touched, sent you flying a few hundred metres in the air. And I tried it out, and it did indeed do that, and when I returned, I found I'd acquired

bananaphone

Yes, a bananaphone, playing a segment of the music on a loop and following me around.