Uncategorized

With reference to my previous entry: an instance of a situation which has caused a significant person within SL to stop producing products has come to my attention.

Sculptypaint was a lovely little application written in the Java language, which enabled the production of all sorts of sculpted primitives. I have been known to refer to it as the “avimator of sculpts”, in that it allows those without the funds to purchase specialist software, and without the time to learn how to use it, the opportunity to access important features of Second Life.

Sculptypaint has now been discontinued by its author, with the following explanation:

I decided to take down Sculptypaint site for the next few days.

Why?

Well there are a number of reasons. I love to create, and write creation tools, that I offer free to download as well. Love the positive response of the majority of people, but the same time.

- People threatning me in real life, that I filed a DMCA complain against.

- I got serious hate mail, about my software thats free to download for everyone.

- The way Linden act on DMCA and copyright infrigment.
Like one person modified my artwork, removed my name and copyright, and have been selling my items for 6 months now.. Using an army of bots to get #1 in the search. I file a DMCA, wait 2 months, Linden removes the vendor boxes. And the next week the person is selling the same stuff again. I filed already 3 times in a row a DMCA takedown to this person, and still this person with ‘Payment info on file’ is running around in SL. Also selling other artist work.
Another person has a huge record on selling stolen goods in sl, created by me and other artist. Selling stolen items for the last 12 months now, all the DMCA takedowns he received he calls just a joke. and continues this ‘bussiness’. The person got ‘payment info on file’ and his own sim.

- Yesterday I learned about the ‘mental mentors’ group in Second Life. This group is for mentors in Second Life, who’s goal is to help Newbie`s, educate teach, lead, guide and so on. Great..
This group is rather big, about 800+ people/mentors.
I found out several of my sculptpacks I sell are offered as freebee`s by the leader(s) of this group. For several months now.
A ‘mentor starter pack’ is given out to all mentors, to help the helpless newbees in SL.
I released my latest SFT-pack around 14 februari 2008. Only a few days later, this pack I created was repackaged, my copyright notices and TOS removed, (all the sculpties clearly state not for individual resell/repackage). The whole pack was distributed as a freebee pack too about 800+ mentors in SL, to use and to give away ‘to help the newbees’.
If this group was called ‘robbers from SL’ I would not care a second, but from a mentor group.. Who`s goal to educate, teach, help and lead in SL?! unbelievable.

You must know, I only can continue developing Sculptypaint and other free creation tools by selling my work in SL.
No income - no time - no coding - no tools - simple as that.
I’m sick and tired about all this crap that sucks all the creative energy out of me, standing alone in the cold here for such a long time. So decided to put a statement here for the next few days. Hope you understand.

Have a nice day!

Elout de Kok - march 6, 2008
SL: Cel Edman

So - copyright breach, threats, lack of action by the Laboratory and (even worse) blatantly illegal redistribution by supposedly officially-sanctioned “mentor” groups has led to somebody of considerable imagination and skill being discouraged and deciding to give this project up, a project which was of great benefit to both the Lab and to residents. And who can blame him, to be honest?

I hope that this is temporary and that the tool re-appears - the author does say “this notice is up for the next few days”, we shall see what happens after that - but it seems a prime example of how breach causes discouragement and harms us all.

Incidentally, my God, if a “mentor” group has been shown to involve the redistribution of items and the deliberate removal of copyright notices, that group should be disbanded and the responsible parties banned permanently from ever stepping foot on the Grid again. I am aware of the debased nature of the “mentor” system in this day and age but this is really an appalling illustration.

Addenda:
1. Forum thread
2. “Mental Mentors” wiki page

Edit:
Since this has appeared, the “Mental Mentors” group has disappeared from within SL!

The group leader, Rails Bailey, despite having reference to the group still in his profile, somehow does not have the group itself listed at all. I am sure that I have managed to miss an important point here and it is not at all the case that the group has been hidden due to negative publicity. I would be very pleased to hear more information on this topic.

Tragically, circumstances have resulted in my opportunities to enter the Grid being somewhat curtailed. Well, in practice, almost completely curtailed. I fear that the Messages are building up and it may be some time before I am able to even answer them, let alone act upon any.

It is surprisingly hard to get New Residents to actually do anything at all for money, I find. Despite the fact that they frequently ask one how to obtain cash, when one asks as Welcome Areas for paid short-term employees (say, to test weapons on) one meets with, well, nothing at all. Ignored or unnoticed.

(as an addendum: er, actually I did not mean to place that particular entry here, but hey ho, it is here now and still quite true.)

The generous Pavig Lok has provided me with a copy of the "oculus v8" spectacles - knowing that my eyesight is not getting any better, I very much appreciate the ocular enhancement. If two lenses are good, surely umpteen must be better!

In other news, Twitter is not responding to the TwitterBox in any sort of reliable way at this moment, and so development has been a little curtailed. Ah well.

I hereby promise to spend the time that I usually spend on reading and replying to various Journal entries across the Aethernet actually engaging in activities upon the Grid, or updating this humble effort. As much as is humanly possible, anyway.

There is a point at which one feels that endlessly arguing about things means that one in fact becomes left behind from them, becomes a commentator rather than a participant. In any case, Explosive Cuckoo Clocks will not make themselves.

A weakness has overcome me recently, dear reader, whereby I have been drawn away from respectable life, the day-to-day affairs of the world - my profession, even - and into the shadowy Other World, wherein one may play at having a “real job”, though it is, truth be told, a poor imitation. After all, in the real world one picks an occupation which one enjoys participating in and produces items for the amusement of both creator and purchaser; resources and economic potential are distributed on a basis of mutual exchange of efforts.

In this Other World - bear with me, it is somewhat fantastical - certain folk are in possession of the means of production, and one must perform bizarre rituals to placate them and gain their favour, which is required to survive. I have heard such things referred to as “grinding” and it seems an appropriate term; carrying out tasks which one knows are pointless brings to mind the grinding of the gears of some immense, irrelevant machine. However, one can get into a state of mind where one is prepared to fritter away all the hours of the day not required for sleep upon such endeavours, and achieve nothing of note in the Real World.

Quite frankly I tire of this “game” - though its irrational adherents deny that it is any such thing - and I have made a personal decision to concentrate a little more on what is important. Recently I have been constructing - never one to actually produce something on time for any festive season one cares to name, but there will be snow on the ground for some while yet - a triple-barrelled Snowball Cannon, as well as an attachment which makes one vulnerable to the excessive chills of snowball assault.

(It must be said that somewhat exotic power sources were required to construct a machine which not only sucked in water vapour from the atmosphere but also froze it into ballistically-suitable projectiles - but the snowballs emitted are only slightly radioactive, and pose no real threat from brief exposure, except if one were to eat them, which I would not advise.)

The snowball victim attachment in fact detects any collision with an object having the last seven letters of its name “nowball”, and with each one increases one’s cold percentage, so that one moves from “Toasty Warm” to “Frozen Stiff” if one is not careful to evade such projectiles. This system allows for any sort of snowballs to be thrown, as long as, well, they are actually called “snowball” or similar. The Cold percentage can be reduced by moving through boxes of warming brandy.

The basic principle of this attachment is that it takes one’s movement controls when one reaches “Frozen Stiff”, and refuses to do anything with them, or pass them on. Thus one is paralysed. In addition to this there is a signal sent on a particular channel, which scripts can listen for to prevent their users from firing snowballs etc when they are frozen.

The system has been tested this afternoon and seems robust enough. A scoreboard prim is available to keep count of who has been frozen solid and how many times. I also have a less formidable Snowball Rifle, without quite the engine capacity of the larger version, and a simple hand-held Thrower of Snowballs (at low velocity and with a far lower rate of throwing than either of the preceding devices) will be available free, gratis and for nothing.

One issue perhaps of interest to Scripters is that the “cold victim” attachment, when taking controls, at times interferes with existing attachments that have previously taken controls before it is attached. For instance, if one holds a snowball rifle, then attaches the victim cube, occasionally, when frozen and then released by time, one will then be unable to fire the weapon. This is not very convenient and has no rational reason behind it that I can see, though if one attaches the cube then the weapon (or detaches and re-attaches the weapon) it does not seem to occur.

(Please note that none of the above are immediately available - I will post when I have actually put them up for sale.)

(Addendum 2006-12-31: blast it, due to everything I’ve been unable to get the things out this weekend; I will attempt to finally do so tomorrow.)

If, dear reader, you are anything like me - and if you are reading this, you do, I hate to inform you, share certain characteristics with my humble self, for instance, I know for a fact that you have the ability to read English and also a small and annoying mole on the left hand side of the neck which occasionally speaks - you have numerous different folders present in whatever Difference Engine it is that you use regularly relating to Second Life. For instance, I personally have one to store photographs and one for textures, inside each of which are numerous smaller folders, as well as one for sounds converted to the correct format, one for chat logs, one for blackmail information and so on. It may at times be awkward to immediately recognise these folders amongst many others, where they are wont to congregate, folders being gregarious things which frequently multiply.

All that aside, the point of this entry is to make it known that I have designed a few Icons for such Folders, at least for Engines of the Apple type that use OS X.

One may download all three icons here. To use them with one’s own folders:

1. “Get Info” (Apple-I) on both the desired folder you wish to change, and the new folder - this should result in two windows;
2. Click on the folder icon on the top left of the Info window of the new folder, so that the icon is highlighted, and copy it (Apple-C);
3. Click on the top left folder icon for your folder, and paste the icon (Apple-V).

Of course, the Scary Green Eye Hand Thing is a trademark of Linden Labs not Ordinal Enterprises, these icons are purely for personal use and not for any sort of garage sale etc etc. I merely made them to prettify my own Engine slightly and thought that others might appreciate the same.

You are quite correct - I have not been around an awful lot recently. When one has little to say, one says little. As partial recompense I offer a few little graphical pieces meant to make the use of SLurls a little more obvious. Which more clearly displays that one might visit a location - Caledon Cay or Caledon Cay? Well, sir or madam or other, I believe it to be the latter, and should you agree with me, the easiest solution to enable the use of such a display is to add the following to the Style Sheet for one’s page:

a.slurl {
	background:
		url('http://ordinalmalaprop.com/images/slurl-12x16.gif')
		center left no-repeat #fff;
	padding-left: 14px;
	font-weight: bold;
}

and then simply add class="slurl" within one’s links, thusly:

<a href="blah" class=”slurl”>blah x,y,z</a>

Of course, some readers may be unable to access their Style Sheets, in which case there is always the lengthy and inconvenient option that does however produce the same result:

<a href="blah" style=”background: url(’/images/slurl-12×16.gif’) center left no-repeat #fff; padding-left: 14px; font-weight: bold;”>blah x,y,z</a>

as well as the slightly-different-but-easier-to-remember option of using a simple image:

<a href="blah" style="font-weight: bold;"><img src="http://ordinalmalaprop.com/images/slurl-12x16.gif" alt="" /> blah</a>

blah

Lastly, here is a small button-type thing which one might use instead of both hand and text:

<a href="http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Cay/128/128/32/"><img src="/images/slurl-44x15.png" alt="slurl" /></a>

I was mentioned in the noted Aethernet Technological Journal, Wired! (See section Seven; they only mentioned the Slurlchatter, but the Slurlblogger is of course much better. I have sent a quick mail informing them of the existence of the device.)

Caledon 253,37,36 - Just for Chance Takashi

Caledon 253,37,36 - mice wearing hats, oh so pretty, mice wearing hats, oh so pretty, mice wearing hats, oh so pretty, mice wearing hats, oh so pretty, mice wearing hats, oh so pretty, mice wearing hats, oh so pretty, mice wearing hats, oh so pretty, mice wearing hats,

Caledon 253,37,36 - mice wearing hats, oh so pretty, mice wearing hats, oh so pretty, mice wearing hats, oh so pretty, mice wearing hats, oh so pretty, mice wearing hats, oh so pretty, mice wearing hats, oh so pretty, mice wearing hats, oh so pretty, mice wearing hats!

mice wearing hats mice wearing hats mice wearing hats mice wearing hats mice wearing hats mice wearing hats mice wearing hats mice wearing hats mice wearing hats mice wearing hats mice wearing hats mice wearing hats mice wearing hats mice wearing ha

Caledon II 105,121,38 - and on

Caledon II 105,121,38 - and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on an

Caledon II 105,121,38 - for god’s sake that must be enough

Caledon II 105,121,38 - I’ve run out of memory now dammit.

Caledon 116,52,40 - I’ll delete all of these later.

Caledon 116,52,40 - Right now, I want to test a really long post, so this one will be full of rubbish.

Caledon 116,52,40 - Blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah

Caledon 116,52,40 - de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah

Caledon 116,52,40 - de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah

Caledon 181,56,50 - BLAAAAAH de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de bla de blah de blah de blah de blah

Caledon 181,56,50 - *draws breath*

Caledon 181,56,50 - de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah

Caledon II 13,63,48 - de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah

Caledon II 50,66,43 - de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah

Caledon II 50,66,43 - is that enough?

Caledon II 105,121,38 - Blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de b

Caledon II 105,121,38 - that must surely be enough to require two posts

Caledon II 105,121,38 - Oh, fabulous, it wasn’t, that’s really great.

Caledon II 105,121,38 - de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah de blah

Caledon II 105,121,38 -

Caledon 108,53,42 - Please ignore any of these peculiar messages that you see on this Journal.

Caledon 81,79,40 - This is me testing further enhancements to the SLurlblogger.

I never realised quite how beautiful Caledon actually was, until this moment, when I am able to look at it through new mechanical eyes.

It also points out quite how much that I had been blaming on the Asset Server was in fact down to the inadequacies of my former eyes.

Yesterday’s grid problems (apparently, it wasn’t an attack, merely some form of database error or somesuch) made everything in Caledon that was previously moving about, stop doing so. Crows and ducks were frozen in mid-air and the tram sat by the bridge - though I have seen it do that many times in the past.

Whilst I was there and not doing anything I took a few photographs.

“Seth Mandelbrot and (hippos) are stranded on the balloon float! Oh the humanity!”

You know, in a strange way I quite enjoy being in-world when some sort of grid attack is taking place (such as right now). All of one’s communication is shut off and one is left just simply talking to anyone who is around. No instant messages, no teleportation… it is like being snowed in, and it is such a change that it is as good as a rest.

If only scripts were working as well; I was just trying to perfect an intelligent camera attachment that would detect who was speaking in a conversation and target the camera on them.

I’m also a bit lonely here.

I am not given to excessive complaint…

…well, that is not entirely true. I frequently am moved to complain about almost anything, but I find that rarely does it make any difference in practice, thus usually confine myself to bitter sarcasm in conversations between myself and associates. Really, any reader thinking that I complain at times here about the physics engine should hear me in Second Life itself.

I do like to think, though, that I am able to take a balanced view regarding changes and their import; I may have preferred some small detail as it was but really, it’s hardly the end of the world. It is also not a worthwhile pursuit badgering people with abuse regarding something, even if it is actually quite serious: “I am still extremely concerned about the changes in permissions that mean everything I own now belongs to someone else, and would like an update on when it is going to be fixed” rather than “how could you DO THIS? don’t you IDIOTS ever CHECK THINGS before releasing UPDATES? WELL???”. The former carries information, the latter is a noise, and one does not have the right in polite society to make noises at other people simply to make oneself feel better.

Having said all that, an hour or so of trying to put on and remove clothes and having to close all inventory folders and then search anew each time has driven me rather close to the line. I am aware that this issue has drawn Linden attention and thus I won’t rant about the situation (too much) but there seems to me to be a fairly simple principle at work here: if I open a folder, or select something, I do not expect the folder to close or the selected object to change until I change things myself, deliberately. If I deploy a filter and then remove the filter, I expect my view to go back to how it was before deploying the filter. That’s all, really.

I would say that this was a generally applicable principle - if I change something it shouldn’t change back unexpectedly. I am sure that there is some academic term in the field of Human-Computer Interfacing to describe it, though I am by no means an expert in that area.

Looking at this principle in the broader spectrum of scripting within SL, designers are aided by the fact that scripts tend to keep their state even if one detaches or takes an object and then re-rezzes it. It does mean, though, that one should be careful with anything that might reset a script. It is sometimes useful to have

on_rez {
    llResetScript();
}

in a script, but really, in many cases it is idleness, not wishing to update variables or indeed having lost track of all of the variables concerned. It is quite common, for instance, for scripts to keep the key of the owner in a variable which needs to be reset should the owner change, but all that means is that one needs to have

on_rez {
    owner = llGetOwner();
}

rather than having to reset everything. For simple scripts this does not matter, but I was reminded of my own breach of my principles yesterday when considering the HUD attachment that I use to plot courses for my automatic vehicles, which clears the current course and also the email address to send it to each time it is rezzed. This is not good design. (I did, in my mitigation, write that script an awfully long time ago.)

The Aethernet company “Yahoo!” have apparently closed my account with their “GeoCities” service, on which I was storing certain script files referred to in this journal.

Despite my annoyance I know better than to try to argue with an enormous corporation based on another continent with undoubtedly no interest in my affairs whatsoever, and thus I will be looking for alternative storage of some sort. In the meantime, cached versions of these scripts can be found through the services of another enormous corporation based on another continent with undoubtedly no interest etc:

• Battery
• Advanced chat relay
• Doorway logger
• Etheric generator
• Event logger email subscript
• Event logger
• Flare bulb
• Lucky dip
• Paper aeroplane
• Simple chat relay

I have also been informed that this journal is of Most Peculiar Appearance when viewed with a peculiar, antique Aethernet Browsing Device known as “Internet Explorer”. Imagine my surprise upon discovering that this malfunctioning gadget is actually amazingly popular! I cannot for the life of me see why it is that this “i.e.” (as I’m told it is abbreviated) refuses to correctly draft my writings, but clearly something must be done, thus I have changed the journal’s appearance temporarily until such time as I know what the necessary modifications might be.

I regret boring you, dear reader, with these mundanities but I feel that notice needs to be given. I shall however be boring you with relative non-mundanities forthwith. Hamlet Au’s latest post regarding Laukosargas Svarog’s virtual ecology has reminded me of a few further developments of my own humble system of more technological ecology which I have been mulling over, and feel that the time is right to now mull more publicly. Be warned that the piece contains possibly the most strained metaphor ever attempted.

**Edit** (2006-06-11): Botheration. I left it too long to take copies of said scripts, and now they have disappeared from Google’s cache, it seems. I shall have to get them from the actual objects in-world. Most vexing.

As per a suggestion by AngryBeth Shortbread, I have this morning been playing with an Engine-driven system that attempts to match one’s features to the most appropriate star of stage or cinematograph. I have to say that I am not entirely convinced by the results; repeated use with various pictures resulted in the following being judged most similar and appearing most often, the more common on the left:

Christina Ricci	Rani Mukherjee	Christy Turlington

I must say that one thing that I have never been told in Second Life is that I look like Christina Ricci, and I think it unlikely that I ever will. Still. Diverting.

Well, it has happened: I have finally divested myself of my mainland property. It was really getting to the point where maintaining two plots simultaneously was becoming an absolute chore.

I shall now be dwelling on the island of Caledon, though do by all means visit my old address to see what has been done with it. I have sold the land to my neighbour, aliarna Deladda, part of a very pleasant group of people whom I am certain will not be filling the place with horrible advertisements, but rather will put it to good use, which was a major concern of mine.

It does not seem too long ago that Ms Deladda first arrived in a plot of First Land right in the middle of my Theretra area, and I confess I was a little annoyed at the time, as I had been planning on taking over that plot myself. However, one must have manners, and she was (and remains) a perfectly reasonable person - there was certainly no rancour, and after an introductory chat I was perfectly happy. A degree of land-swapping took place after this, with which I was quite happy, maintaining a contiguous plot for myself and for the growing group to the side of me.

Eventually I decided that the time was right to remove myself from the mainland, where I had been since bought First Land, expanding and consolidating. Given my well-known objection to land spammery I was most concerned that the area would not become a burden to my neighbours, thus offered it to them for what I feel was a fair price. And today we have concluded the sale. That corner of Theretra is safe from spinning ad cubes. Good luck!

Permit me a little moment of nostalgia here. It has only been, what, less than six months, but in Second Life that is an awfully long time.

Now, if you will excuse me, I must return, as I wish to speak to Mr Shang on the subject of a noticeboard for residents.

Or maybe not.

*drums fingers*

One of the things from which I have gotten the most amount of use recently is an Event Monitor. This is a very, very simple device. All it does is:

1. listen on a particular channel, in this case -122;
2. add anything said on that channel by an object with the same owner as its to a string, with a timestamp;
3. email said string to a particular address once it has reached a certain size, or when a new day has been reached.

It’s really amazingly simple to do - not being in SL right now, I haven’t access to the code, it is available from my free vendors - but if one has a number of different interactive parts of one’s build, there is nothing simpler than to add the line

llShout(-122, name + " has touched " + llGetObjectName());

for instance, allowing one to monitor how many people are interested in that object, whether it might be in an inconvenient place, and so on.

Even more information can be gathered by the use of volume detect objects. For the uninitiated, the use of llVolumeDetect turns an object phantom, and triggers collision events as appropriate whenever anyone walks through it. Such a thing is perfect for monitoring who is going where in one’s property. On that basis I have also placed a doorway monitor object in the free vendors, the script being fully commented, which will tell a main event monitor whenever someone enters or leaves a building.

Once one has an event monitor set up it becomes almost routine to add a notification to any script with which a visitor might interact. I have it in various places around my property, as well as in all sorts of touch scripts and others - for instance, the free vendor incorporates it so that I can tell who is taking what. (The Block Rezzer seems to be popular for some reason. Well, it is quite amusing I suppose.)

The result of all of this is a deeply seductive voyeuristic experience. I look forward to the reports each day, telling me who has gone where and touched what while I have been asleep. I am not entirely sure that this is healthy.

I would just like to say that I cannot believe that anyone took the time to score 770 on my Steel Pigeon Projector. I re-engineered it to record the highest score so far, and clear the scoreboard every day, but really. 770? Even if all of those were double-scoring red pigeons, that’s 335 of them to be shot down.

*shakes her head in amazement*

Still. I certainly mean no criticism. If it is seen as entertaining enough, then by all means shoot as many as you desire… they feel nothing, it is not cruel.

Ordinal Enterprises is proud to announce an Easter event of sorts: the Easter Egg Cannon.

Merely find and touch the above device (which should not be a matter of great difficulty) and… well, what to do should become clear.

I am not planning to make a huge amount of steam-powered confectionery in the future, and know of no-one else in the business of doing so, thus this will likely be your Only Opportunity to acquire such a thing - and for No Charge! How can this be resisted by a rational lady, gentleman or other?

(go there directly)

Product not for internal use. Ordinal Enterprises is not responsible for diabetic comas or coal poisoning.

Edit: Well, if you, the reader, did not pick one up, I fear that you will never obtain the item. My apologies, but I did say that it would only be available for a limited period.

I had thought that I would wait until I had actually completed something new related to the power generation system before I made another post but, with typical dilletantism, I have done very little on that front, preferring instead to:

(a) build a scanning device to detect the “Magic Money!” items, which have been spoiling the pristine look of much of the grid, or, more realistically, adding three more ugly, shiny, spinning, exploitative prims to the environment. This device is available, with full permissions, at both of my locations for No Lindens At All, and whilst these particular parasites will not be in existence forever, the device might at the least prove educational for anyone wishing to look at a basic sensor device that also uses a dataserver call;

(b) play with chemical weapons. Ahem. ‘Tis nothing unethical. Unfortunately, I have been encountering some quite significant problems with the basic Engine of Second Life here, and I will wait to see if that can be resolved before posting on the matter of the simulation of the physics of gas clouds;

(c) creating a Duelling Field. Once paralysed by peculiarities of the physics Engine, I decided to concentrate on something a little more conventional, the creation of an area specifically for duelling - the settling of scores by the skill of arms.

I have created an area specifically for this purpose, just across from my rapidly-expanding home in Theretra, at Theretra 177, 168, 98. What concerned me (apart from a simple “ring out” system) was that weapons should be balanced for this purpose, and so I have provided duelling pistols for general use.

These pistols are designed in a manner such that their activities are easily documented. One can only load them with bullets by touching a specific ammunition box, and every bullet loaded causes the pistol to say on a public channel that it has been loaded, and with however many bullets. Thus, one can always be sure that one’s opponent is keeping to the correct rules.

In addition, the pistols will publicly state when the wielder has been struck, so that there can be no doubt who has drawn first blood. (It must be said that one can also use one’s own weapons in this area, there is no requirement to use mine.)

The matter of shield devices has been concerning me. Most shields are gaudy things that are quite noticeable, but it would certainly be possible to have one that merely nudged an approaching bullet out of the way, and this would be difficult to detect. I am working on this particular issue. I also have a rapier that is usable for less clumsy, random duels, and I will be putting this out for general use in the near future.

Edit: The duelling system is now for sale.

~ * ~

I would like to mention before closing that Roger Wake has used the windmill code to build his own wind turbine, of a more modern nature, which you can see at Arah 76,147. I am extremely flattered that my scripting has been of interest to others and would encourage anyone to visit this particular creation.

As mentioned, I constructed a windmill that draws power from the movement of the wind, and was considering also building a solar panel, but then I thought: what sources of renewable energy are exclusive to Second Life? Why limit oneself to those existing in the Other World? I therefore created the latest generator, one that taps energy from the movement of frames. After all, frames mostly do nothing, there is plenty of excess power there for the taking. As long as the framerate remains high, it will continue to generate a reasonable number of Ordinal Energy Units.

One can find these items, as well as the battery, in the Engine Room at the Caledon Lighthouse. Please feel free to take a copy for your own examination. At the base of the lighthouse is a transit chair to take one directly there - one can also fly upwards, should one not have a great sensitivity to banging one’s head.

~ * ~

A couple of other things of minor note: a neighbour of mine in Theretra very kindly offered to swap her plot (which was right in the middle of my other land) for a part of mine next door to it, which was advantageous for the both of us; I now have a large, continuous piece of land, and she is right next door to her friends without my firing range getting in the way.

I was not too sure as to what I was going to do with the increased area. I did have an idea concerning a ruined “steampunk cathedral”, but a problem one faces when constructing things out of geometric primitives is that it is hard to actually make rubble without it involving a vast number of them - and so in the end, I simply built a sort of non-ruined cathedral.

It doesn’t look terribly like a cathedral from the outside at the moment - I would like gargoyles and similar flim-flammery, and more rivets are clearly required - but I am running out of prims I’m afraid, and I do actually wish to put some objects inside it as well. Inside, it does, at least a little more. My plan, vague as it is at the moment, is to incorporate much in the way of gears and machinery, and also a miniature museum of computational history. (I’d like to build an Enigma machine in LSL, for a start.) It may, however, be a little blocky in appearance.

This would all be a lot easier were the land next to me not apparently Linden-owned, but set to sell to only one person. Dash it. There are several plots in that state nearby and, while on one hand I relish the peace of empty plots and dread the appearance of some appalling casino or other lag establishment, on the other, if I wish to extend myself I need to be able to actually buy these things. I could purchase random plots around Theretra simply for their prim allowance, but I would prefer to have continuous land, as stated above.

If only my prim mine did not simply distribute prims to other parts of the grid, but rather allowed me to keep them. I should really have thought of that, I now see.

~ * ~

Ah. Yes. One final point. I did also speak with a gentleman on Sunday who was interested in my Touring Dirigible script, visible in Caledon at the moment. I promised to inform him when said work was publicly released, only, rather predictably, I failed to take his name down. I do most humbly apologise and would ask him, if he is reading this particular piece, to contact me forthwith. ‘Tis not actually publicly released as yet, but likely will be shortly, as soon as I decide on a price and arrangement for it. Clearly it should be copiable, as vehicles are prone to all sorts of mishaps, but on the other hand, should the smallholder wishing a brief tour of his or her land pay the same as the landowner using it for ferry tours across multiple sims?

Oh, Second Life is too short to worry about such stuff. I shall just pick a sum and sell at that.

The latest version of the model of the proposed Steampunk Sim can now be found in the back garden of the Manor at Caledon.

The old location has disappeared, but this is a more appropriate place. Whilst there, why not visit Ordinal Enterprises and take advantage of the Steel Pigeon Projector (plus free rifles for sporting folk) or perhaps, take a ride on the Touring Dirigible, newly updated to process around Caledon?

Yes, some actual scripting posts soon. I have been working on a polite “Do Not Disturb” notifier which simply tells visitors that you do not wish to be bothered and would prefer it if they would leave - a civilised alternative to security devices. More significantly, I am also writing a key database system, which will allow one to store a practically indefinite number of keys, using linked scripts and rezzing of more when necessary. And there are always other projects on the hop, as it were.

I have to say that, while the update to version 1.9 has been delayed for three hours, which will likely cause my fingernails to become practically non-existent, looking at the video by Ben Linden regarding camera controls - a sizeable Quicktime file - gives me hope that I will be able to tailor the view inside of the lighthouse to make it perfectly possible to view the interior, rather than the visitor’s camera bouncing through stone walls in an unfortunate manner. This should be an extremely interesting thing to play with, in any case. Top show, Linden Labs! (At least I say that now, on the assumption that other problems will not be broken. It does not do to take a negative outlook on these things when one has no hope of actually affecting the outcome.)

I foresee that it might perchance become used a little much generally, but hopefully the necessity to script it will restrain some of the more egregious uses. And of course, one can always refuse to allow an interloper to control one’s worldview.

Edit: Well, looking at the details, it appears that only attachments and vehicles can control the camera as yet, which is something of a blow. But I’m sure something will arrive at some point. Meanwhile, there are other things to consider.

Recently I have been spending most of my time in Caledon, where one can be assured of good and polite conversation and fine design. I do occasionally pop back to the mainland when I wish to design something that explodes, but not too often these days.

I referred earlier to my confusion as to what to do with the plot; this has not really disappeared. Mr Desmond Shang, the landowner, provides every resident with their choice of one of his fine houses - I originally selected the Fogg Residency, which is extremely impressive but also, well, far too large for me, really. For a while it sat there, intimidating me with its immense open spaces, and while I made some pathetic efforts to furnish it, it became clear that I was unlikely to ever do so in a manner that would satisfy me.

There are those that have an instinct for interior design and the building of furniture, and I am afraid that I am not one of them. I can also be both ridiculously perfectionist and extremely tight-fisted. I was aware that I would not be able to build enough quality furniture of my own to decorate the place, and I was not prepared to spend the time and Linden Dollars necessary to select and buy it from others. (One might contrast all of this with Mr Gould’s fabulous work on the Manor nearby - well worth seeing.)

I therefore removed the Residency (do not be concerned, it is still in my inventory and shall doubtless find its way out at some point in the future) and engaged in some extensive landscape gardening.

The relatively flat terrain of Caledon has now developed a small hill, atop which is a lighthouse. I think that a lighthouse is a more suitable home for an inventor, really. As noted on the photograph above, the top deck, designed for socialising, supports one of my Champagne Waiters (now for sale) and a small table, though should really also have some chairs and perhaps a telescope. The lamp itself detects the rise and fall of the sun and, once it dips below the horizon, lights and begins to rotate. Inside the tower one can find transit chairs to take one to the different decks, as well as a vendor of my free items.

The issue that I have at the moment is that I have decided to begin a small career as a merchant, and really, the inside of a lighthouse is not a particularly good commercial environment. It is difficult for a customer to look around without their viewpoint going outside of the tower and their being presented with a blank stone wall, unless they enter mouselook, that is, in which case they lose many of the camera controls that they are used to. Baffling one’s customers is not a terribly effective commercial strategy and thus I think that if I am to sell any of my creations, an exterior building might have to be, well, built. For the meantime I will be placing them in a separate vendor.

For posterity, here is a short list of other things that I am working on or plan to release soon:

* A non-physical ground vehicle script, enabling a design to be more stable and controllable than current ground vehicles in Second Life (which are, well, not) and also of greater than 31 prims. This works fairly well but unfortunately ignores the presence of other objects, which is amusing but not that desirable. I think it may emerge that physical vehicles and flattish terrain are the best solution. Given this, I expect that I shall be putting out the script for general inspection as a freeish item.

* A bubble machine, and associated scoreboard which counts the number of bubbles popped. I may have mentioned this earlier; it was a toy that I was working on a while ago and recently remembered. I find it rather diverting and others have as well. This will be appearing at my home area and in the appropriate vendor.

* I have also put my Steampunk Car up for sale, a large and unwieldy vehicle that nevertheless some people expressed an interest in. I think the wheels need a little work, as they are currently unsupported by spokes of any sort and look a little bizarre.

* The Cranial Pistol, a concealed device mounted on the side of the head. Upon entering mouselook, an protective monocle and barrel appear, and one can fire a series of small, somewhat inaccurate projectiles. This will be another that I shall be selling closer to market prices.

* I shall also be putting out the Mk909 Engine Rifle, which I really must stop fiddling with and just sell for heaven’s sake.

* I had a request for a simple chat relay script - a chat relay is a device that allows the owner or another person to listen to speech from an area that they would not normally be able to do so. For this end I here publish two scripts - a simple chat relay, and an advanced chat relay which detects whether the owner is offline or within range of the relay device already. Be warned! Simple as it is, this script can be used for surveillance, which can land one in trouble should those being eavesdropped upon not appreciate it. Pay attention to propriety and simple good manners.

* And probably a number of other things which I have entirely forgetten.

—

Oh, I nearly forgot! The makers of SLurl have now officially incorporated my SLurlBuilder page into their site - thus no longer will one have to visit scrappy Geocities in order to access it. I have added a SLurl for the Lighthouse at Caledon to the side of this journal in honour, and hope to continue using this fine service whenever referring to a place in Second Life.

I am most gratified by the number of people who have mentioned to me, during conversation in Caledon and elsewhere, though mostly in Caledon itself, that they have read this particular “blog” and, amazingly to me, continue to read it and even find it not completely worthless. Dear reader, your correspondent is most flattered indeed, and will certainly try to continue producing whatever it is that people actually come here for.

As to my current activities, well, I have been and continue to be somewhat busy, though not producing an awfully large number of actual products as such. One thing I have done is construct a Pepperbox Pistol for Professor Jefferson Gould. This is a six-barrelled firearm, designed to be used at close range, perhaps across a poker table.

‘George Bemis . . . wore in his belt an old original “Allen” revolver, such as irreverent people called a “pepper-box.” Simply drawing the trigger back, cocked and fired the pistol. As the trigger came back, the hammer would begin to rise and the barrel to turn over, and presently down would drop the hammer, and away would speed the ball. To aim along the turning barrel and hit the thing aimed at was a feat which was probably never done with an “Allen” in the world. But George’s was a reliable weapon, nevertheless, because, as one of the stage-drivers afterward said, “If she didn’t get what she went after, she would fetch something else.” And so she did. She went after a deuce of spades nailed against a tree, once, and fetched a mule standing about thirty yards to the left of it. Bemis did not want the mule; but the owner came out with a double-barreled shotgun and persuaded him to buy it, anyhow. It was a cheerful weapon–the “Allen.” Sometimes all its six barrels would go off at once, and then there was no safe place in all the region round about, but behind it.’
- Mark Twain, “Roughing It”

I have decided to make all of my projectile armaments use (at least) two seperate scripts in the same prim for firing and control, as this eliminates the awkward and somewhat unpredictable sleep after each projectile is rezzed. One script is merely something along the lines of the following:

// Firing sub-script
// Ordinal Malaprop
// 2006-03-08

float gBulletSpeed = 60.0;

default
{
 link_message(integer c, integer n, string msg, key id)
 {
  if (n != 0) return;
  vector rot = llGetRot();
  vector dir = llRot2Fwd(rot);
  llRezObject("Bullet",
  llGetPos() + dir + <0.0, 0.0, 0.75>,
  dir * gBulletSpeed, rot, 1);
 }
}

and with the other, whenever one wishes to fire a bullet, one simply calls

llLinkMessage(LINK_THIS, 0, "", NULL_KEY);

from one’s main firing script. (One would also likely trigger a sound and activate other special effects.) In the case of the Pepperbox Pistol, the accuracy must be reduced, which is done by modifying the third parameter in the above script - the velocity of the bullet - by a random vector, thus making it travel in a different direction. For completeness it would be better to apply a random factor to the rot variable and thus rez and point the bullet precisely in its direction of travel, but really, in this case, it makes no practical difference.

The other element is to add a chance that the pistol will discharge all of its ammunition at once. For this purpose, we use an llFrand check whenever the trigger is pulled and, if this succeeds, instead of issuing one link message we issue a number equal to the current number of bullets left:

do {
 llLinkMessage(LINK_THIS, 0, "", NULL_KEY);
} while (--gAmmo > 0);

The beauty of using link messages for this purpose is that they queue up whilst the fire script is asleep. Recall that after every llRezObject call, there is a short pause, depending on the mass and velocity of the rezzed object. If we had these calls issued from the main script the whole thing would sleep for a while, but given that it doesn’t, we can do other things whilst the pistol is chain-firing. Any controls or sensors, for instance, would still activate, say one that detected whether the owner had left mouselook. (In this case there are no other things to be doing, but I can certainly imagine cases where one might.)

One does not wish to have one’s master control script ever pausing any more than is absolutely necessary, and this holds even more true when one is considering such particularly sleepy functions as llGiveInventory and, God forbid, llEmail, which pauses for twenty seconds at each invocation. The use of link messages and sub-scripts is a vital tool for any complex scripting, and if I ever become organised enough to put together a scripting class for Withnail Academy, as I have occasionally muttered about doing, I shall certainly devote a lesson or more to it.

Whilst not actively scripting, building or taking tea with like-minded folk, as I have mentioned previously, I am known to be involved in politics, much as I’m sure that many of you find that a bore. Occasionally I am known to engage in events such as political debates, helping in the construction of a Black History Month exhibit, or, in the case of last Sunday, a protest rally regarding the shameful laws recently passed in the state of South Dakota. Whilst I am not personally affected by the laws of the United States, it is a matter of both principle and international solidarity.

Merely touch the image below to view photographs of the event:

We visited Democracy Island, the Neualtenberg Marketplatz and the Welcome Area, pursued by a helicopter from the Metaverse Messenger and a selection of our regular team of griefers, who were actually relatively quiet and unobtrusive (once muted, anyway). It was only upon reaching the Welcome Area that we received a little opprobium from those around us - I believe that they were put out at their in-depth and wide-ranging debates on science, ethics and the Arts (these are standard topics for conversation at Welcome Areas) being interrupted by a squalid team of ragged Communists. For which I can only apologise.

Despite having Linden approval, I and many others ended the rally being frozen by a Linden; I was forced to leave Second Life due to technical issues anyway at this point. Certainly, it was an interesting experience and, I consider, worthwhile, though as with all rallies one is never quite sure whether one has made a blind bit of difference.

In a fit of enthusiasm last night I rented a large plot of waterfront land in Desmond Shang’s new Victorian sim, Caledon. (This is not the steampunk sim that I and others have been discussing, but a number of us can be found there regularly.) It is an extremely pleasant sim generally and well worth a visit, even at this early stage. However, this morning I must admit that I have absolutely no clue as to what I am going to do with this plot.

I really have been spending money insanely on Second Life this month, buying land and L$, increasing my tier and so on, and the time has come for my accountant to grab me by the scruff of my neck, haul me back and wag a finger in my face, saying “Malaprop! Stop immediately! Spend a cent more and I’ll have your guts for garters!”

So, hm. I shall probably put a shop there of some sort, selling my more complex and decorative items for a price. I am not giving up my old land or stopping building freebies and toys, they will always be available, but I have to make a little money or I will end up in debtor’s prison at this rate. I think I may also build a café. I did also have another idea but I’m not sure of the demand for it… sorry to be cryptic, I shall mention it if I do go ahead. I’m sure that, as more people build there, ideas will start to come to mind.

I shall provide a direct link to the area once there is actually something there to look at. And there will be no more tier boosting, no more huge Lindex purchases. Well. Okay. There is one more thing to do. Don’t look at me like that! It’s really important, and it’s a great investment, it will boost the value of my existing land… what are you doing with that ledger?

(Exit, pursued by an accountant.)

Goodness, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Well, I have been reasonably busy, though that is not a very good excuse, I know. Conversing with my fellow steampunks takes up quite a bit of time, as has building various pieces of gadgetry - the Prim Mine in my home area, for one. As I say to new residents, you don’t think prims come out of thin air, do you? No, they have to be extracted by dint of hard labour, sorted, and distributed across the grid.

I cannot hope to equal the output of some of the great Linden-owned prim mines, where the suspended are put to work (this stuff about “the cornfield” is nonsense, they hand the miscreant a pick and shovel and don’t let them out until they’ve come up with the required number of toruses). However, I do have a steady flow of prims emerging from the ground now, which gratifies the heart.

My distribution system is causing me some irritation, though, and I can’t see why. One can’t let the prim reservoir overflow so, at regular intervals, a balloon takes off from next to the mine, ascends to a specified height and then shoots the prims off in all directions - a noisy process, but one which takes place quite high in the air. It then returns to await the next load.

I could simply have moved the balloon with llSetPos but I felt that this would be cheating. Instead, I made it into a self-piloted vehicle, like my tour balloon. The cycle is quite simple really, it all depends on the actions of a timer, which every time it ticks reasons thusly:

Am I within 2m of my current target? If so…
If the current target is the mine:
I’ve returned home. Turn physics off and use llSetPos to make sure I’m precisely at the home position - also, this way I can’t be pushed about while asleep.
Go to sleep for sixty seconds.
Set current target to 100m up.
Turn physics back on again.
Toot whistle, announce departure.

Otherwise:
I must be at the top. Shoot prims out in random directions and make a lot of noise.
Then set current target to home (the home position is stored in a global variable at state_entry).

If not within 2m of my current target…
Calculate direction from current global position to global position of target.
Set velocity to be that divided by my rotation (I think that’s what it is, I hate rotations).

It’s quite simply really and while it took me a while to get working, that was just me being a fool.

What I’m finding rather annoying about it now, though, is that it is quite simply lazy. When I’m actually there, watching it, following it or sitting on it, it seems to perform as required, toot, up, bang bang bang, down, toot, up and so on. However, when I leave and return I invariably find that it is not at the mine. I take a quick jaunt upwards and what do I see? The balloon sitting there motionless. I have to give it a “push” somehow to get it moving again, either by sitting on it, touching it or, bizarrely enough, right-clicking and just selecting the edit option, not actually making any changes. Any of those things sends it down again and the cycle resumes.

I thought the idea of mechanical servants was that they didn’t need watching all the time, that they wouldn’t slope off for a fag whenever your back was turned, and then have the cheek to sit there insolently until you actually pushed them back to work. Clearly I was mistaken.

—

There are a couple more devices available at the showroom, a blank sign for protestors which is scripted to let one hold it in a reasonable posture rather than just dangling it vaguely, as avatars are wont to do if not given specific instructions, and a balloon, also for protestors or advertisers or anyone having a message to annoy others with, which follows its owner at a set (yet changeable) height above the owner’s head. This balloon is much more obedient. Perhaps it knows it is being watched.

There is perhaps a serious point here that for purely cosmetic systems, one might consider that there is no actual point in them being active and laggy in situations where there is nobody around to see them. I prefer the idea that my balloon is actually active while nobody is around, certainly considering that sim resources in Theretra are hardly taxed, but were they to be I might incorporate a sensor that activates on returning home. If nobody is around, it turns the timer off and enters a waiting state, where it scans once a minute for avatars, and if any are around it wakes up and continues.

I have often complained about the lack of suitable animations in Second Life of use to a designer of mechanical items, such as myself. I have often complained at quite tedious length, in fact; I was doing so just yesterday. The issue is that the standard method of creating these thing is a program called Poser, which I’m sure is a fine piece of software but seems not only over-featured for use with SL, but also overpriced.

I was therefore extremely pleased to come across a forum thread devoted to a free animation production program called Avimator. It is claimed that it is still in an early stage of development but I found it perfectly adequate and, indeed, intuitive for the production of custom animations and poses. For instance, my Mk909 Engine Rifle and swordstick (both unreleased at this stage) now have holding poses more suitable for their designs than the standard, and I produced a “lunge” animation for the swordstick far more appropriate than the existing `sword_slash_r` (only a very poor fencer would swish their blade about in such a manner).

I confess that I have been building weaponry yet again, and this time some of the most devastating and immoral devices ever created. Yes, I have been building paper aeroplanes.

The basic launching device is quite simple, just a paper aeroplane that you hold in your hand and which throws a sub-aeroplane of identical appearance but quite different behaviour. The sub-aeroplane (which I shall term the plane, as opposed to the launcher, for convenience’s sake) is the issue here. It’s quite simple to give the plane a high buoyancy and just let it fly across the landscape or classroom:

// Simple paper aeroplane script
// Ordinal Malaprop
// 2006-02-21

default
{
 on_rez(integer param)
 {
  llSetBuoyancy(0.9);
 }

 collision_start(integer n)
 {
  llTriggerSound("pop", 1.0);
  if (llDetectedType(0) & AGENT) {
   llWhisper(0, llDetectedName(0) + " has been hit by a
   paper aeroplane from " + llKey2Name(llGetOwner()) +
   "!");
  }
  llDie();
 }

 land_collision_start(vector pos)
 {
  llDie();
 }
}

(Note the telltale element there in the script, designed to prevent pupils from pretending that it was not they who committed the offence.) This looks perfectly fine and would allow one to rain paper aeroplanes on Philip Linden quite effectively - as long as one throws them horizontally. At a steeper angle, however, they look a little ridiculous. Firstly they travel quite happily at the same speed a great distance into the air, which real aeroplanes do not do. Secondly, as they fall, they retain the precise same angle that they had at launch, which again, real aeroplanes do not do.

It would seem that the best idea would be to have a simple simulation of aerofoil lift combined with the “point in the direction of travel” mechanism described in my previous post concerning rocketry, and on investigating this I really do mean simple. Lift appears to be proportional to the square of the speed, and I plan to simplify the lift co-efficient drastically, so that it simply goes to zero after the plane goes outside a certain angle. I shall remove the buoyancy too, as I am not actually using Cavorite-impregnated paper.

A useful enhancement to the launcher here would be to allow the wielder to hold down their mouse button to increase the speed at which the plane will be launched, releasing it to throw, as this will affect its behaviour.

Please do not ask how I plan to deal with planes that have rolled around their forward axis, because I will make a face as if sucking on a sherbet lemon.

I have recently expanded and redeveloped my showroom area and to celebrate this, have constructed a device of great social import - an Automated Champagne Waiter, controlled by its own specialised engine and the most accurate thermometers available to chill the vintage champagne to the perfect temperature and pour it as if one was in the finest Paris hotel. Moreover, it has the capacity to top up one’s glass as often as desired. (It will not actually follow one around doing this. That is a project for later I feel.)

I think, though, that it could be improved. Dear reader, what is it that you would most like to see from a champagne device? I’m at a bit of a loss for ideas for improvement.

Incidentally, I would hope that no visitors consume so much champagne that they come to believe that damaging the highly volatile fuel tank on the dirigible deck is a good idea. A few impacts from high-velocity items such as bullets and… well, I’m not responsible for the consequences, and my lawyers confirm this.

I would also appreciate it if they did not use the high-speed transit chairs if their stomachs are feeling a tad unstable, as there is nobody to clean the area apart from myself, and I am a modern woman who does not feel it is her place to do such a thing. We are not living in the eighteenth century any more. I trust that anyone becoming ill after a jaunt will bring their own mop and bucket.

—

More practically, I note that folk are still complaining about the interference of ne’r-do-wells in their home areas, and I agree that it is most improper occurrence should someone return again and again to taunt a lady or gentlemen, and take photographs of their bedroom activities, which I am informed is a common pastime of such people. With this in mind there is now a Defensive Panopticon available, easily updatable with specific names, that warns one when any of those on the list of unwelcome people is around.

Of course, there is always the ban tool on a land parcel, but that does not help anyone who has chosen to make their home some way above the ground, and if one has a somewhat small area it is quite possible for a ruffian to sit very close and listen in to one’s private conversations. For this reason, the Panopticon alerts people whenever offenders come within ninety-six metres, over one’s land or not, and has the potential (if so desired) to eject them at any altitude should they trespass.

I have often pledged never to produce any so-called “security” item that is indiscriminate in its effects, throwing pilots out of aeroplanes and so forth, but one which requires specific names to be added I feel is quite legitimate. This is a simple device, which I designed some time ago, and have been meaning to release for some time once it has developed a friendlier interface.

It must be said that it might be considered somewhat, well, intimidating in appearance.

Vending devices in Second Life are often distinctly brusque and indeed even rude, as well as being festooned with garish floating text. Last night, whilst designing a device of similar purpose for my own potential use - I have not made up my mind - I decided that in any case mine would be more polite.

(Also note a new spinning FOR SALE sign… *sigh* I really need to move out of this area.)

A perpetual problem for myself and others whose body clocks are tuned to Greenwich Mean Time is that of communication with other residents of Second Life. A gap of eight hours between London and the Western coast of the Americas means that, when dealing with those resident in the Colonies, one spends much of one’s time asleep when they are awake, and then wakes and is eager to speak, but is unable to actually enter Second Life due to the demands of work and has to wait for many hours, tapping fingers irritably and perhaps forgetting what one meant to say.

(This is not to mention the much greater irritation caused by not being able to attend events, but there is little to be done about that apart from demanding that they start earlier. LSL doesn’t have any time machine functions it appears.)

There are also other occasions when one is trapped in the Other World for extended periods - say, on account of one’s Powerbook having broken down again - with access to email but not to Second Life itself. It would be nice to be able to at least initiate messages, and at the moment one cannot do this. Most people are aware that instant messages from within Second Life can be forwarded as email, and many of those people are also aware that replying to the email will send an instant message back.

What fewer people are aware of is that the address that one replies to is actually only a temporary session one, and is not reliable for long term use. Normally, to send an email into Second Life one addresses it to key-of-the-recipient@lsl.secondlife.com, and when one receives an email from an instant message, the reply address is similarly key-of-the-sender@lsl.secondlife.com.

And that’s all well and good when dealing with objects. Objects retain their key indefinitely, so I can save the key of an object somewhere, send it emails until the end of the world at the same address and it will always pick them up. But this does not work for communicating with people - the value of key-of-the-sender above when they send you email via IM is not their actual key.

I am not sure whether addressing mail to actual-avatar-key-of-the-recipient@lsl.secondlife.com works, but it’s inconvenient to carry around an address book, or keyring I suppose, full of impossible-to-remember keys. If this doesn’t work, and it’s only temporary keys that do, which may be an attempt to limit people harassing others via email sent from the Other World (laudable intention, annoying results for me) there is no way to initiate a conversation from outside.

(Yes, Ordinal, get to the point.) So, anyway, here is my temporary solution - a script that waits for email and turns it into instant messages. Say I wanted to send a message to my friend Professor Jefferson Gould but was unable to log on. When I first set the object going, it said three things which hopefully I recorded somewhere:

Email-IM Gateway: My email address is some-key-or-other@lsl.secondlife.com
Email-IM Gateway: Security key is *12345678* - include this as the subject of the email
Email-IM Gateway: Polling for email every 60.00000 seconds

Actually I don’t need to record the last one, that’s a bit irrelevant, but the first two I do. I compose a short message to Professor Gould and send an email in the following format:

To: some-key-or-other@lsl.secondlife.com
Subject: *12345678*
---
Jefferson Gould//Mr Watson - come here!

The gateway receives the email and sends two instant messages to Professor Gould:

Email-IM Gateway: Ordinal Malaprop has sent you the following message - please use the IM tool to reply to them directly
Email-IM Gateway: Mr Watson - come here!

“Aha!” I hear those of you who script thinking, “How does it know the proper key just from the name Jefferson Gould? You need a key to send a message with llInstantMessage. You’re cheating, aren’t you?” Er, that’s the problem really. There is no way of getting a key directly from a name in LSL. So I have to have keys and names listed in a notecard, and the script reads through the lines of the notecard until it finds the right name, then takes the key from that. Which is a pain because they need gathering first, which means that I won’t be able to send an email to anyone whose key I have not already obtained, unless I can find a public key database somewhere.

I’ve not tested the script for this so I won’t post it up right now - in any case this entry is getting rather long. Once I do so, though, I will, and also the script for the key harvester that I use, and they’ll be in the showroom as usual, which could get a bit crowded. Maybe I should script a vendor too so that not all of these things need to have their own prims, even if I do quite like the current layout.

The issue of keys and names is an interesting one. People do feel protective about their keys being recorded. I wonder how much of that is just simple suspicion at surveillance. Perhaps that’s something for another entry.

*thinks* I might integrate this into my existing “contact me” object, to produce a Multi-Functional Communications Engine.

—

Edit: I’ve been informed that there are public name to key databases in existence that can be used for this purpose - for instance, the one maintained by Ulrika Zugzwang or this one on w-hat.com. These are not entirely complete, and would take a long time for a script to search if fully included - but the public web lookup pages give one the option of finding a key from a name and then sending to that. I shall modify the script so that one can specify either a key or a name to send to.

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Tip jar,
originally uploaded by Ordinal Malaprop.

I have changed the manner in which my showroom operates. Instead of having a few free things and the rest being all very cheap (nothing over L$50), items are now either free or cost L$1 - the latter helping me keep records of who has bought what.

In the corner is the Lurking Crate, which reacts… unusually for a crate, when approached. This contains random items that I’ve designed but which aren’t serious or detailed or working well enough to warrant my building a whole retail box for them. These are all free.

Almost everything should be full mod/copy, although doubtless I’ve failed sometimes since I am appalling with permissions. Let me know if anything does not meet this standard. New scripts should now have the following licence header however:

// ---LICENCE START---
// The latest version of this script is always available for free
// from Ordinal Malaprop via dispenser in my home area or directly.

// I would appreciate it if you let me know if you are using the
// script yourself, but that's not part of the licence.
// ---LICENCE END---

If you are a past customer and I have not already contacted you regarding a refund, do please let me know and I will send you back the difference in prices.

The only real income that my establishment will now generate is via the tip jar. If anyone feels that products from here are useful or entertaining or otherwise worth something, and feels like expressing their appreciation, that is one option. One could also rate me up if one was moved to spend - I do appreciate this as well.

My lovely Powerbook has just this afternoon gone in for repair, and may be some time (well, hopefully it will be back before the end of the week). Until then however I will not be Second Living, so don’t complain if you need to speak to me and I’m not around.

My last act was to modify the rocket mentioned below so that it fires out submunitions on detonation which themselves detonate in random colours half a second later, providing a rather extensive and messy shower of particles.

Well, colour me an embarrassed shade of mauve - after lots of faffing about with llSetTorque et cie, I find that llRotLookAt does work with physical objects, it’s just that you need rather inflated parameters to get it to do anything.

If we declare

float strength;
float damping;

at the top of the script, and set those variables to be

strength = llGetMass()*3;
damping = strength/3;

in state_entry(), things work out quite well if we just add the instruction to rotate to set_engine, which now looks like this:

set_engine(vector dir)
{
    vector vel = llGetVel();
    vector drag = vel / gMaxSpeed;
    rotation rot = llGetRot();
    llRotLookAt(rot * llRotBetween( * rot, vel),
    strength, damping);
    llSetForce((dir - drag) * gAcceln * gTimer, FALSE);
    gFuel -= gTimer;
    if (gFuel