Geography

I recently rediscovered a Flickr group that I created some time ago for the posting of pictures of the sort of harassing, usually advertising, builds that plague the Mainland and cause all sorts of heated discussion on the Official Forums. Given that I spent a little while writing a Description that supposedly sums up its nature and purpose, I shall simply repost it here:

Griefing builds in Second Life, designed to make neighbours give up and move elsewhere or give up and buy the plot to get rid of the horrible spinning thing. Usually advertising, though not always.

All screenshots should include location (doesn’t have to be exact, as long as somebody could find the plot again) and name of the item’s owner, ideally gained by taking a screenshot that includes the Edit window. This is to provide an undeniable record of the activity, though if it is a series of different pictures of the same piece of ad griefing, only one piece of evidence is required.

(You can use the PrintScreen button in Windows, or Shift+Cmd+4 on a Mac to include parts of the Second Life UI, or some other screenshot program. I use SnapzProX myself, and if you have FRAPS installed, that should work too.)

Due to the nature of the ad/griefing builds posted here, this can’t help but be an 18+ group, even if the actual content on them is at about a 14-year-old level of sophistication.

Lastly - this isn’t a group for just any ugly build. (One could find endless pictures from SL.) It is just for pictures of builds which are clearly being used for unwelcome advertising, to bring down land prices, force people to sell, annoy them enough that they buy the land, or just by cretinous advertising networks who don’t care how much they annoy neighbours. Pretty much anything that is on a 16m2 plot that’s been set for sale is going to fit in, I would think. Oh, and the ads should be long-term ones, not just temporary griefing objects left on somebody else’s land - while those are horrible enough, they don’t have the same motivations.

One can find the group at:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/slgriefbuild/

Please do join and post any horrible examples you wish to! As noted, the naming of names is strongly encouraged - if the owner disagrees that their build constitutes ad griefing or land spam, well, the evidence is there for anyone to inspect, and onlookers can decide for themselves.

I suspect that there might be quite some Drama involved should this become a popular group, but at the least, it will serve some purpose in cataloguing the dizzying variety of different aliases used by these scoundrels. If one sees one of the names mentioned around the Grid, and agrees that their build is indeed a griefing one, do not sell to or deal with that person or their group! And most certainly, do not sell them land, if that was not obvious.

I have been attempting to put together an entry on the recent Banking Regulational Activity from the Lab, but it is a complex issue - not “complex” in the fence-sitting, “on the one hand, on the other hand” way, but complex in that it takes quite a bit of work to say precisely what one means without simplifying economic issues in the way that the Toy Capitalists themselves do. Ad griefers, land spammers, polluters of the visual space, though, there is very little to be said apart from “these are the filthy swine concerned, avoid them at all costs and don’t give them any money”. It is certainly not worth bothering to reason with them, as almost universally they are proud of the fact that they can carry on their “business” safe in the knowledge that they are defended by physical law here, when in the Other World they would have their rubbish torn down in the middle of the night by outraged neighbours at the very least. There is little that one can do at the moment upon the Grid, but what can be done should.

My commentary regarding Banking shall be simply the following cheap piece of graffiti:

---

As a further note: a further entry on certain pictures having been Removed can be found here.

I began to write an entry on the following issue yesterday, but quickly found that it was degenerating into a number of personal anecdotes and supposedly-witty commentary when it should have been short and to the… oh stop it! You are doing the same thing again! *pulls self together* This is a New Feature Of The World of which you should be aware and for the fixing of which I suggest that you vote.

The issue is SVC-1125: Inter-sim teleports do not provide a red beacon unless made directly from the main map, so sims without point to point TP are disadvantaged (though there are other similar ones around) and the further description is pretty much, well, that. To sum the matter up, as I see it:

• Teleporting by any mechanism apart from clicking on the World Map to get a red circle and then going there, or by selecting “Show On Map” from a window before using it to teleport, does not provide a red beacon and arrow to the destination any more. This includes landmarks, SLURLs, the use of llMapDestination, secondlife:// links, and the New Search.

• People who teleport into an area which has a Landing Point set will still arrive at that point.

• But they will not have a beacon to their destination.

• Therefore they will not be able to find their destination easily. They would actually have to track it down by comparing the X, Y and Z co-ordinates of the landmark to their current ones, fly around aimlessly in the hope of seeing a sign, ask for directions, or, far more likely, go somewhere else. Experienced and dedicated visitors will likely find a way but even they may simply give up, and the casual browser or visitor will simply pop somewhere else if unable to find the spot that they came to see. (Customers would quite frequently ask how to find my shop with red beacons available.)

• This means that landmarks and SLURLs and so on are now pretty much useless in any region or parcel that has a landing point set. This is actually more places than one might think. Not only does it encompass many islands such as Caledon, Babbage and so on, it also affects such large parcelled establishments as malls and shopping centres upon the Mainland.

• The whole thing is therefore a serious matter for anyone who owns property in a region with a landing point and wishes others to find it - or for that matter wishes to be able to find it themselves.

This matter seems to affect the latest Client (1.18.5) and more recent Candidate Software; previous to that one still has the Beacon Capability, but one must always assume that the most recent release version is being used.

I am sure that this is a mere oversight that can be fixed with a miniscule tweaking of the underlying gears, and everyone can go happily home for tea and crumpets (perhaps to the bakery first, which they will be able to easily find). In the meantime though I would reiterate that it is worthwhile to vote for SVC-1125, to ensure that crumpets are forthcoming within a convenient length of time. That is SVC-1125, by the way.

It seems to me that I have been seeing more and more complaints along the lines of the following in forums recently, regarding errant and sometimes utterly fraudulent land-lords and -ladies - which is when one thinks about it peculiar, as it is not as if the official forums are more used these days, far from it. I recall a time when they were immensely busy but, after the “accident” that befell them (of which we will not speak, and merely nod in mutual agreement and recollection and move forward) they became far less popular. In fact, only those with verified payment details are permitted to use them, which would exclude more of those renting than those having “bought” land.

Now, this is not any sort of criticism of the general practice of land renting of course; given that I rent property in three different Sims, as well as owning a smallish plot, that would be somewhat hypocritical of me. It does, though, occur to me that this may be a result of rapid growth, in three ways.

Firstly, there is the simple fact that one rarely hears praise of a landlordlady but instances of dissatisfaction will be complained about. As the number of residents increases there will be a noticeable increase in the number of complaints but not in the amount of praise (perhaps two threads per year instead of one). I think that the rise is disproportionate even on this basis but it is something to bear in mind.

Secondly, it takes time and experience for a landlordlady to become at all good at their job. Some will obviously never become “good”, as they are crooks (well, they may perhaps be good at being crooks, but that is not really the sense in which I meant the word). But it takes some time to be aware of the market, the behaviour of tenants, the moments when one should show tolerance of mistakes and those when one must recognise them as fraud, that sort of thing. And rapid population expansion, when combined with the suggestion that land rental is a business opportunity and that one can and should take business opportunities within Second Life, will reasonably enough lead to more inexperienced landlordladies, and thus more confusion and dissatisfaction on the part of tenants.

(I am slightly suspicious, personally speaking, that an ideological concentration on individualistic profiteering as opposed to Commerce carried out to the mutual benefit of both parties may also influence the proportion of cheats and fraudsters, but really, I cannot honestly say that I have noticed the proportion of unprincipled and greedy residents increasing, so I will not put that forward as a reason.)

And thirdly, there is the matter of social circles. As I mentioned above, I rent property in three different sims - two sims in Caledon and one in New Babbage - but I am in the fortunate position of knowing the landlords in both cases well, and having in fact been there from the founding of both. My experience of renting is thus atypical; should I have an issue with the way something works I would be able to contact them personally to discuss it, and in fact talk to both regularly on all sorts of matters unconnected to property.

Now, the landowners in both cases are sound and reliable gents who are not the sort to evict someone on a whim or for the profit of a few Lindens anyway - I would not be friends with somebody who was - but even my choice of them as landlords comes from experience and connections. In the case of Caledon, I was not aware of Mr Shang beforehand - well, briefly, during the Tulip Hunt - but he was recommended to me via Professor Jefferson Gould, who clearly had trust in the man. Mr Sprocket, I have known for a considerable length of time.

The ability to pick landlordladies with this sort of proper background information is a privilege of age, to be frank. I am hardly the sort of Social Butterfly who has fingers, or probosces, in all sorts of social pies, or flowers; it is the fact that I grew up upon the Grid in a time when the social circle was considerably smaller that means that I Know People. I could hardly help but do so. I am privileged, I realise this.

The new resident has a lot more difficulty in this area than I ever did. They do not have access to proper information regarding all of the choices of landlordladies that they may encounter. The social circle of Second Life is far wider than before which makes it harder to meet the “right” folk. Furthermore there is no First Land any more, and whilst Mainland prices have been going down to sane levels recently, it was not so long ago that they were utterly ridiculous - these are things which encourage people to seek rental property.

~*~

Where is Ordinal going with this, one might well ask? Well, Ordinal is wondering whether we might not see a renaissance of mainland property ownership. Much as basing opinions on responses on the Forums is unreliable, it must be said that six months ago, everyone was saying “oh no, you want to find a nice landlordlady, don’t buy mainland” and now they are a lot more guarded.

The fact is that one’s property rights are always more secure when buying Mainland vs renting. (I utterly refuse to speak of “buying” from a private landlordlady - this is a legal fiction. Admittedly, Linden Laboratory is letting land to you rather than selling it, but “buying” from a landlordlady is merely being a sublet tenant - covenants mean absolutely nothing in terms of guarantees.) When buying Mainland one must accept the fact that the Lindens may throw one off for some odd reason, though this is almost unheard-of. When renting, one must accept the fact that the Lindens may throw one off, the landlordlady may not pay their tier and thus end up with you being thrown off regardless of how much you have paid them, or that they will throw you off for reasons entirely at their own discretion and without any possibility of you seeking redress, except perhaps if you are willing to launch an action in Court.

There are landowners whom one can recommend, but they tend to be older ones, and only have a limited amount of property to rent. Messrs Shang and Sprocket, as I have mentioned, I have personal experience of; there are others that I know by reputation - for instance, Mr Prokofy Neva, despite having many critics on account of his outspoken opinions, has in my knowledge never been criticised for his practice of the land rental business by even the fiercest opposition, and often praised. I am sure that readers will be able to suggest others.

But how is the New Resident to know? They will not know me, or my peers, or read this poor Journal. Most of the deals that they are offered or find via searching will be by people whom they will not be able to “google”, particularly given the prohibition on “naming names” in the Official Forums and the lack of meaningful third-party ones. To be quite frank, if I became amnesiac I would be very pushed to reliably identify a reliable landlordlady.

The logical course of action would thus be to find some Mainland plot with a reasonable price, ideally in a PG sim (which does reduce the amount of bother in my experience) and take the chance that the next neighbours might be frightfully tasteless boors or sell to a land-cutter. I can see this becoming a more popular option. To be quite frank I welcome it, too - I have a fondness for the Mainland and the way that one must deal with one’s neighbours no matter who they might be rather than live in a gated community, appealing to an Authority. I love the areas in which I live at the moment but it does sometimes make me feel rather detached.

A few quick notes:

• I am informed further regarding the collection and retention of data by the Searching Homunculus by Christian Westbrook-Prior of the Electric Sheep. It seems that, every time the bot enters a sim to do its work in rescanning the contents of that sim, all previously-gathered information is wiped, and the database is then re-populated only with those items which the bot has been told it may index.

  This seems to me to be commendable practice, in that no more information is gathered than is strictly necessary, and nothing is retained past the time it takes the Searching Homunculus to reach a particular sim again. The issue of the Retention of data is one which is often ignored when considering general issues of privacy, but it is one which has proven very significant at times - a recent case reported in Other World Newspapers comes to mind. It also helps reassure those who were wondering whether the Searching retained data on all items, and only displayed those for sale - it does not. (The practice also strikes me as considerably more efficient.)

• I am sorry to say that my SlurlBlogger does not appear to be operating properly with the “Blogger” journalling system at the moment. Google, the Company which now operates Blogger, has recently changed the Standards which it requires outsiders to operate under, and I suspect may have removed support for older protocols. Ah well. When I have the requisite time I shall take a look at this to see if I can fix it. The device continues to operate with Wordpress and others which still support the old Blogger API, mind you.

• On the subject of SLurls, readers may have noticed a certain absence of, well, the entire grid on them recently. Whilst SLurls still work in the sense of providing a little box with a caption and image and teleportation link and whatnot, they do not show anything beyond that.

  Do not be alarmed, this is known about - it appears that certain parts of the existing map system were causing excessive strain, and re-engineering is required. I personally shall continue using SLurls for the time being. For more information you might wish to consult Linden Lab’s Bug Tracking Thing; as well as this, the more technically-minded may be interested in SignpostMarv Martin’s SLOpenID project implementation of a Map API (also here).

Those readers perhaps a little Jaded by their Civilised Environments, and dreaming of Wild Adventure in Foreign Climes, might well be forgiven for being a little jealous of certain Brave Explorers who have recently engaged on a expedition to the Mainland - all to be documented in the regular publication Frontier’s Horizon.

You may have heard tales of the Mainland or read lurid stories of the loose women and men who inhabit it; as a slightly seasoned traveller myself, I must say that these are gross exaggerations in the main, and most of its inhabitants are perfectly well behaved. It must be said though that one may encounter very peculiar native cultures, some of whom may be a little short-tempered, and I am heartened and flattered that the explorers concerned have purchased Armaments from my humble establishment. Bees, bullets or balls of snow - I take some pride in producing all manner of Devices of Defensive Discouragement for appropriate situations, and hope that they are of Use.

(dageurrotype courtesy of Mr Rusty Buchanan)

I only wish I could join them myself, but I personally shall be following their endeavours with fingers crossed that none come to any sort of undesired sticky end.

I confess to being a little tired, thus I will merely provide you with two small photographic offerings this evening.

I usually have some mainland property at any particular point; I believe I mentioned my piece of land in the Alua region previously, and the above is its current appearance.

Alua is a pleasant, contoured area where I have a riverside plot, and, by God, if that is not an opportunity to dispose of hazardous waste I’m no engineer. Visitors are advised to leave the area of the outlet pipe pointing towards the water at some speed if they hear the warning whistle.

I shall be adding more and more here I expect; I am building in a style which is not, technically, low-prim, more low-prim-density I suppose, where each component (wall, doorway, outhouse) uses fewer of the basic shapes beloved of us all than it might, in order that I may go on to add more and different elements, and end up with some enormous rambling structure that makes no sense whatsoever - or appears to make no sense, I might add, there is of course hidden purpose here. How could one ever imagine otherwise? For shame!

~*~

I popped briefly to Port Caledon after a report that a tram was misbehaving, ready to administer discipline (trams, being what they are, do not respond to belt, cane or paddle, and hydraulics are often necessary) and found not only an absence of misbehaviour (resulting in a pat on the boiler and an encouraging word for the tram concerned) but also…

…an absence of Caledon I. Above you may see that I stand on the edge of Port Caledon, wondering exactly where the rest of the roadway has gone. I found no real answer to that question, but given that I have heard no-one else complain about Caledon I’s absence, I assume that it is a transitory thing.

One can become a little blasé regarding the appearance and disappearance of arbitrary land masses on the Grid. “Oh, several thousand tons of earth, water and plywood appear to be missing… ho hum.” Oh, to be rid of the jaundiced, jaded eye of the prematurely-aged Veteran! (An eye both jaundiced and jaded does admittedly have a pleasant greenish-yellow tinge.) If only it were possible to see the world once more through the marvelling eyes of a freshly-minted Ruth.

Beginning a piece of writing by apologising for not having written previously is most appallingly gauche, and you will not, dear reader, find me doing such a thing. I would like instead to add a few observations regarding the latest Scripting Abilities sent our way by the beloved Laboratory, in particular those dealing with Parcels.

It has always been a source of much irritation to me when constructing Automatic Vehicles that they were unable to check before entering a particular area whether they were likely to vanish into the Mists of the Asset Server, roaming around and mournfully ringing their little bells until finding their way back into my Lost And Found compartment, to join their fellows. In fact, so many trams have entered my Lost And Found that they have actually created their own system of government, which pretends to be a parliamentary democracy but is in fact a poorly-disguised and oppressive oligarchy that keeps plywood cubes as a de facto slave class. I really must go in there at some point and unlink a few of the most prominent, pour encourager les autres.

Nowadays, however, one is able to head off any attempts at self-organisation by the contents of one’s inventory by careful use of the functions llGetParcelMaxPrims and llGetParcelPrimCount. By checking the path ahead at regular intervals to see whether the entrance of the vehicle into a parcel ahead will push said parcel’s prim count over its allotted limit, one can see when a course would lead to disappearance, and make alternative arrangements. The precise nature of the arrangements are of course a slight problem, but I would think that such things as moving ahead using “WarpPos” or perhaps returning home would work. A proper automaton would look for an alternative route, but public transport is meant to be predictable - one cannot have trams deciding that they prefer taking shortcuts, or would rather take a turn around the lake to feed the ducks, leaving potential passengers abandoned, confused and cross. I have not actually yet implemented this but plan to do so when I am able.

Whilst on the subject, it also means that the “re-rezzers” (which recreate trams and balloons which meet a sticky end) can now check that the parcel that they are on is actually capable of supporting the vehicle to be rezzed at all. Currently they cannot, as I have previously mentioned, and must attempt to do so and then check whether they have been successful, which is wasteful and annoying.

~*~

One function with which I have been actively playing is llGetParcelDetails, which enables one at last to actually see what parcel one is on. It is not of course perfect. The owner and group functions return a key rather than a name, and as others of the scripting persuasion will know it is a pain, and a slow pain, to get the names of agents from keys - and, I believe, impossible to get the names of groups from their keys, though doubtless some young thing will come along and show me to be an ignoramus on that score.

In most of Caledon, the parcels are deeded to groups, and as I test most of these gadgets in Caledon I was mostly unable to get any owner names at all. Some of the most recent areas such as Caledon Victoria City use the “covenant” system which does mean that the tenant is listed as the owner - all well and good but still a pain.

That aside, I made myself a device which can be used to create a map of the parcels in a particular sim, something which is not at the moment accessible from the world map, which, while much prettier than anything I can do, just shows construction and terrain rather than boundaries. If you would care to visit the following:

Second Life Sim Parcel Maps

you will perhaps see what I mean, though I do warn those of a delicate disposition that the colours are not perhaps the most aesthetic.

At this point you may wish to skip to the end of this piece… there are two sides to this, as usual: the sim mapping device within SL, and the sim mapping server upon my Aethernet Box. The former divides the map up into four metre chunks and retrieves the details from the middle of each spot in sequence - so, it starts at (2,2,0), then (4,2,0) and so on, until it gets to (254,254,0).

It goes by rows - the data for a row are transmitted as a series of records of where a parcel starts and what its name and description are. So, if Parcel A starts at the bottom left corner (2,2,0) and continue on to (62,2,0), with Parcel B starting at (66,2,0) and continuing for the rest of that Y-position, it will send to the map server the information

row,0
0,Parcel A
16,Parcel B

The numbers here refer to the particular 4m square rather than the exact X or Y position of its centre. If a row is actually the same as the last one, the scanner sends nothing at all, which cuts down on the amount of data to be sent.

This information is stored in a temporary file once received, and once the entire sim has been scanned it puts it all together to create a (very messy and inefficient) page displaying the map. There is obviously more to the technical side than this but I am starting to bore even myself and will thus cut this a little short; suffice to say that any half-competent apprentice in the field of PHP could do such a thing, it is really just opening and writing to files and creating arrays and all that malarkey.

One thing that does interest me is that the system stores every map rather than overwriting the existing one for a sim each time, which would enable a historically- or research-minded person to see how the occupancy and usage of a sim has changed over time. (There are no archive pages or such at the moment, I only made it yesterday, but it is part of the plan to put them in.) I was considering setting up the scanner to, say, do a scan of Caledon every week - the scanner itself could be made to move about between sims, it does have to be in the same sim as that which it is scanning.

~*~

Originators and propagators of Urban Myths upon the Grid will be most disappointed to hear that there is still no function which enables the creation of “land scanners” which allow automatic purchasing of land set for sale at L$1, since there is still no way to tell what the purchase price is or if the thing is for sale at all, let alone buy it automatically.

The practice of Land Swooping is as far as I can see a purely human-powered endeavour, with some odious weasel sitting there clicking “Search” again and again, like an urchin waiting on the street, watching for passers-by who unwisely reveal their Purses, Wallets or Mobile Telegraphic Equipment, whereupon the little beast will swoop in and relieve them of their valuables. In the Other World of course the thief does not usually hang around to taunt the victim and tell them they deserved it, since such practices are illegal there and invite Attention from the Constabulary or even Immediate Retribution by the Injured Party.

Caledon 95,29,29 - Well, this is a post from my back patio…

Caledon 146,78,73 - and this is one from just beside Mr Gould’s rock

Caledon 191,188,23 - and this is from the Caledon telehub - I’m bored now, post this already!

As soon as I had made my entry regarding Slurlblogging, I noticed a post on Second Life Insider mentioning BlogHUD - an attractive device allowing wearers to post slurled posts to a central blog. (A “slurled” thing here indicates a piece of information produced from the Grid and tagged with the location of its production - the equivalent of geotagged.)

This is an interesting service and looks far nicer than my hacked-together effort - really, Ordinal, affixing a texture to a plywood cube is not presentation - but performs a different service. BlogHUD works via a central site and allows many people to post to one blog. I am interested more in allowing many people to post to their own Journals, wherever they are.

Ideally I would like to have a device which allows automatic posting to Journals of all stripes. This is something of a long-term project however, as many are very different. From what I can see, there are two main protocols to crack - Blogger and Movable Type. These should allow one to post to Journals on Blogger, Movable Type (including Typepad), Wordpress, and many others, as many systems support these two. This should not be an insurmountable issue at all; such things as Lev Kamenev’s Blogger gadget already exist, it is mostly a question of getting one’s act together to actually sit down and do the work. It may be complicated by the fact that there are three different versions of posting to Blogger - original, Atom and Google - though while the first two are deprecated or soon to be deprecated, this does not mean that they cannot be used.

I have written a simple script which posts to Livejournal, the interface itself being rather simple, but an issue here is that not that many people actually use Livejournal.

Reading a piece by the esteemed Mr Prokofy Neva this afternoon, I was reminded of certain previous efforts that I undertook to produce such devices as the Slurlchatter. Whilst it is useful to be immediately told the Slurl for a particular location, it strikes me that to produce a proper travelogue, a device which records notes, reformats them into language more friendly for the Aethernet, and then sends them to the prospective author all at once, might be more useful.

I therefore have produced the “Slurlblogger”. This is a HUD device of unfortunately rather primitive appearance, which lurks upon one’s screen, listening for any comments. Saying something on channel 910 (for instance, “/910 This is where I am right now”) will make a note at one’s current location. Then saying “/910 email” will send all of the notes so far collected to a particular email address, defined via a notecard within the device.

I would provide an example here: I took a short tour around Caledon, making comments on channel 910 as I went. I then said “/910 email” as one does, copied the code that was sent to me, and pasted it into this document - and between the lines, one can see the result.

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Caledon 94,33,29 - The rear terrace of Ordinal Enterprises - an occasionally dangerous place, but usually most pleasant.

Caledon 161,73,99 - Professor Jefferson Gould has lifted an entire building using the marvellous substance Cavorite! It must be tethered by a heavy steel anchor, but surely this is the wave of the future.

Caledon II 41,186,23 - The “silentsparrow” emporium is where I spend most of my currency. (Sparrows, though, in my experience, are rarely silent, and in fact usually very noisy. I suppose the silence is a further factor to mark this establishment out.)

Caledon Tamrannoch 102,49,27 - Here, at Elsewhen Tower, one might see the mysterious copper and glass “TM-08″ by Dyne Talamasca.

Caledon Tamrannoch 36,178,23 - At the Tamrannoch Public Community Garden, one may sit amongst exotic blooms, very few of which will cause allergic responses!

Caledon Highlands 155,211,39 - One should most definitely visit the Caledon Academy of Virtual Wizardry - go, House Malaprop!

Caledon Highlands 152,150,37 - And of course while one is in the area, one should also visit the Observatory opposite, a most wonderful place.

Port Caledon 112,211,44 - Anyone wondering how it is that Caledon remains so unspoilt in the face of a troubled world might care to see the fearsome coastal cannonry to be found in Port Caledon.

Port Caledon 140,157,26 - And finally, before my patience and fingers both expire, the trading ship “Venture” sits here by the harbour, carrying fine products to native peoples across the Grid.

---

For each entry here, I simply said “/910 (whatever nonsense)” when I was at the place concerned. No touching of devices, reformatting or insertion of links was necessary.

Hopefully this device will be of some use to travel writers, journalists and others who wish to detail their exploration of the Grid for the Aethernet consumption of others. It is limited to the taking of twenty notes at this time, but really, that should be enough for anyone, and one can always clear the list and record more. I shall put the prototype version in my free box as soon as I am able, and also place it upon SLX and SLB, for convenience’s sake.

Edit:
The SL Boutique listing
The SL Exchange listing
All free, of course.

A slight issue has arisen with the Caledon Directory, in that, ahem, it doesn’t work. Well, to be fair to myself it does work in Caledon I, and it does produce a map with all of the landmarks placed appropriately - it is just that when one touches a landmark outside of Caledon I and opts to Teleport, one does not actually go there.

The reason for this is simple. The Directory holds a number of landmarks, which as I am sure you are aware are a specific and special type of object in Second Life. A script may only read the contents of a landmark via the llRequestInventoryData function (as it happens, this function can only read the contents of a landmark) and the datum returned is the position of that landmark.

Here is the issue: that position is a local position in the sim that the call was made. Thus, if my Directory makes the call from Caledon I relating to the Takashi Estate, say, the returned position is <413, 393, 39> even though the position within the Caledon Highlands is <156, 136, 39>. Now, there is currently no way to retrieve the name of a sim from its global co-ordinates (found by adding the value of llGetRegionCorner) thus the poor Directory is forced to tell the map that the location is, indeed, Caledon (413, 393, 39).

It is fortunate that the map is able to interpret this into a proper position for the little lightbulb icon, but when it comes to travelling back to the Grid, alas, it fails. A secondlife://SimName/X/Y/ link is used and this is not able to interpret a co-ordinate actually outside the sim in question. Try it for yourself - you will simply be pointed to Caledon (256,256) which is not a useful position in the slightest.

From delving into the Javascript behind the Map API (an activity which requires heavy rubber clothing and vaccination beforehand) I was able to ascertain that there is a function therein which translates global positions to the name of their sims, but there are good reasons why one not should not use functions which are not actually part of the API itself; they may change at a moment’s notice. In any case it would be an inelegant hack to use such.

So, well, I had hopes for the simplicity of the approach that I was using, simply holding landmarks, but it seems that it is not perfect. I have a few other ideas involving such things as an additional central list of locations, but they are not quite as elegant.

During conversation, the idea of a device attached to one which repeats notes pertaining to the current location came up, and I have a prototype of such which allows one to records such notes. It might be an idea to create one which is controlled purely by a notecard, a tour guide if you will, which gives the wearer enlightening information when they are within a certain distance of a notable landmark, in a manner similar to the automatic tour guide devices provided by certain Museums, yet less annoying, as it would not require one to follow a certain path and also to listen to irrelevant dronings on the luncheon habits of some long-dead artistic gadabout.

Edit: and now, thanks to the expertise of my readers, it is working. Lawks!

This Journal rarely comments on Matters of State in Second Life - the potential effects of the latest proclamation of King Philip, for instance, or the issues of the economy caused by the moving of stipends to Thursdays and making them payable only in cucumbers.

I would not like anyone to think that this is because I have no interest in such things, or am unable to comment upon them. Such topics are, though, absolutely nothing to do with why I continue to write. Should anyone ask my opinion I would be delighted to bore them to tears with my theories and predictions, but I do not, in truth, wish to do that here.

I prefer to concentrate on more important matters, such as

1. Why are my trams being returned to me on such a regular basis upon passing through a tiny pocket of Caledon that approaches its Prim Limits? It used to be the case that there was a period of grace that meant that such things did not happen. This is a serious affair.

2. Why does it appear that, upon logging in, an attachment can request permissions and apparently receive them, but actually not gain PERMISSION_TAKE_CONTROLS? Oh, it claims that such permissions have been given, but there is no response to the control() event, and the quaint blue buttons labeled “Release Keys” and “Mouselook” do not appear. This used to happen but now does not. Other permissions, such as PERMISSION_TRIGGER_ANIMATION, seem to work perfectly well.

I attempted to recapture my “zing” by constructing yet another replica firearm over the weekend, this time a Chinese copy of the Mauser C96 called the .45 Shansi - a powerful machine pistol with textures, sounds, and three different modes of operation including “pistol whip” (considering the original was sturdy enough to be used as a club in the trenches). As I have mentioned before, the discipline involved in the reconstruction of an already-existing object sometimes stirs me to life. In this case, though, it did not, and it has only been building a launcher of cylinders full of killer bees that has brought me to anything resembling enthusiasm, I fear.

One of the things that I have been doing recently is constructing a small Directory for Caledon. The island has grown to a size where one finds it extremely difficult to know the locations of all of the establishments there, or even of their basic existence.

There are many possible avenues that one might explore in providing such information to visitors and residents, but really, spending too long considering them means that one is unlikely ever to produce a product of any sort, and thus I decided to make something very simple: a giver of landmarks, selectable via the usual back and forward arrow buttons.

The basis of this design was my Simple Freebie Giver, which I find is the most popular item taken from either my freebie box or my roster on SLExchangeBoutique. For those unaware of it, likely most of you, it is a very simple device that one merely drops items into the inventory of, and which then allows anyone to cycle back and forth between them, displaying the name, type (object, animation or whatever) and permissions. Touching provides the item. It is as the name suggests extremely simple, but really, to give out free items there is little more needed I find.

Clearly though I would not be satisfied with this alone, and so I made sure that it communicated with a map of Caledon external to Second Life, which you may view by clicking the previous link. Each landmark present is prefixed with a subdivision in square brackets - thus it includes

[Shops] Ordinal Enterprises

rather than just “Ordinal Enterprises”. At the moment, a user of the actual device in-world will see the square brackets, which has the additional effect of grouping all similar establishments with each other. The map itself, though, produces separate lists of names. As is evident from the page concerned, clicking on the name of an establishment makes the map scroll rapidly to its position, and opens up a small window with a link upon which one might click to teleport directly there. As is customary with maps of Second Life, one may also zoom in and out and drag the thing around.

A small thing, but one which I hope may be useful, if I obtain sufficient landmarks of course and can decide on appropriate categories. Once the system is complete I imagine that I will be able to distribute it to all interested parties, or at least those who have some sort of hosting space to put the page on.

One enhancement that I would like to build in - apart from a search facility and proper use of the categories - is the ability to have all of the landmarks stored in a central server, and choosers being merely clients. This would be extremely simple and quick using the magical llHTTPRequest (which, as one might imagine, is used extensively here) - however I am determined to have this functionality purely in LSL, as this will mean that at least part of the system will be operational if communications fail between Second Life and the Aethernet, or even if Second Life itself fails.

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As an aside I find myself rather… flattened at the moment, and lacking in “zing”. Should a reader find my “zing” (it is of orange and slightly rippled appearance, moving rapidly on seven legs, and should be approached with caution) I would be glad to have it back, but otherwise I imagine that I will try something else to entice it to return.

I was considering writing something regarding some of the attitudes that I see displayed around me, or at least in the Forums; on consideration I believe I will confine myself to one short comment there and leave it at that.

I was, a little while back, alerted by Ms Torley Linden to the fact that there are residents wishing to use the SLurl as a tool when referring to places in Second Life, but finding it awkward, slow or otherwise inconvenient to do so via the web form. I have thus built a small item that should help - something I call a “slurlchatter”.

This is simply a HUD device that sits there and, when touched, will tell you a SLurl for your current location. One merely then has to cut and paste this SLurl into whichever document one is creating. It can also be commanded by speech - say “/121 Caledon,128,128,128″ and it will give one an appropriate SLurl for that specific place. It is available for free from SLExchange or SLBoutique, or, as usual, from my humble establishment in Caledon.

Another item that I have been working on, I am in something of a quandary regarding. With the removal of the “PVP Abuse Tool” within Second Life there has been some demand for alternatives; a collision sensor has been released for free by Babbage Linden, but of course one problem with collision sensors is that they only respond to actual collisions.
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Oh, I just want to share one extra detail. Yesterday, whilst I was searching for land, I was also testing an improved model of my Blitter (a non-physical personal movement device). This appears as a sort of back-mounted device, and has much smoother movement, though it can have issues with sim crossings, which is something I need to take a closer look at.

Regardless of that, in certain areas I encountered the horrific two-hundred-metre ban-lines that I have complained about before, and of course I was unable to stop in time to avoid hitting them. However, I noticed that I was actually able to move into the banned area and in some cases through it - not easily, it was slow and jerky, but I was most definitely inside them for some seconds. I wonder why this might be? The Blitter is really a fairly simple non-physical vehicle and such a thing should theoretically not be possible.