Video

Far be it for me to make any sort of appalling “new year new product” sort of references, particularly given that there is no such thing, to be quite frank, as a “new” product from Ordinal Enterprises - every piece of frippery that you see emerging has usually been loitering unreleased in my mind and inventory for months and occasionally, for instance in the case of the Swordstick, for over a year. Though never over two years, I believe.

An Idea bubbles to the surface of the peculiar caffeinated swamp of my mind, there is a brief flurry of activity, it approaches finality: and then something or other intervenes, or I spend several months changing the colour of a texture between two imperceptibly different shades, or I set myself a necessary task for its improvement before release which I clearly do not have the time to do and thus can avoid without personal guilt (unless I look too hard into my own motivations). I am led to believe that I am not the only Artisan with these Issues, and I am engaging on a Scientific Regimen of Mental Exercise in an attempt to restrict it in the Future, or at least I will be once I create the proper Folder Structure to file my exercise notes in.

In the meantime, I do actually have a product that I would like to announce - the Ordinal Howdah Pistol - and as is common in this day and age, it has its own Demonstrative Cinema, though I shall place it in the Extended Portion of this journal entry since I dislike the aesthetic effect of numerous of the things on my Front Page.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Ordinal Galvanic Swordstick from Ordinal Malaprop on Vimeo.

Goodness! Three of the things on one front page! Excessive, I would say.

A quick note to announce the current availability of, at long last, the Ordinal Galvanic Swordstick:

(this is the only video I have at the moment, but I shall be doing a proper one)

[draft] Recharge Galvanic Swordstick, zooming out from Ordinal Malaprop on Vimeo.

and also a little thing that I was working on recently, the Ordinal Automatic “Flick”-Knife:

The Ordinal Automatic “Flick”-Knife from Ordinal Malaprop on Vimeo.

Available from:

• My shop in Caledon
• ShopOnRez
• SLX

For the next few hours, the Swordstick will be available for L$50 less than usual (i.e. L$350 in total) in my Caledon shop, but I shall be changing this tomorrow morning, be warned. (Please ignore the price on the box there.) Edit: too late!

Hello World - in Semaphore from Ordinal Malaprop on Vimeo.

Well, that is really just a title to grab Attention, but I have been this evening working on a script which translates Letters and Numbers into the waving of Semaphore Flags (in the above case, in the Oscar pattern). The message sent there should be fairly easily deciphered. I think that it is all correct, but to be quite frank, I cannot myself easily decipher Semaphore, thus I may have missed a detail.

The script, however, will interpret anything said on channel 9 into a series of such gestures, and one is advised to have Flags or Beacons or some such in hand so that onlookers may more easily receive the signal. Given sufficient time, I shall post the script here for general consumption. (I shall also provide a set of flags and the scripted attachment for sale at a very small cost, in order to recoup my uploading expenses for the Animations and such.)

Addition: Please see my following post for details of how to obtain the thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have received some very kind compliments regarding the Mechanical Dragonfly Wings that I have been seen to wear in recent days. These are in development for final sale, a difficult process as they bear flight enhancements, the behaviour of which is a very personal matter, but I do have a short piece of cinema regarding the “double-tap” behaviour.

Vimeo, unfortunately, at this time, has decided to “upgrade” itself. All Second Life residents will be aware of the exact meaning of this phrase; nothing looks as it used to, and random functions do not work. Thus, the above is on Google Video, much as it is an inferior service.

Whilst I am waiting for the latest working version of the econd Life Client Thing to squeeze itself through the Aethernetical Pipes and plop onto my desk, I suppose that I might as well write a little about my experiments with automated photography, mentioned previously.

It has been said by myself (and, to be fair, others) many times that there is no way for a Script to take a Picture, and this is, speaking strictly literally, true. Scripts cannot take Photographs. However, there are ways of getting around this issue, as I have found recently.

The procedure at base works along the following lines: a script, as is generally known, can send a message to an outside Aethernet Server. That server can retain the message that is sent (”take a picture please”). One’s own personal Engine can also receive messages from the same Server, and one’s own Engine is furthermore capable of taking pictures - at least, of the current screen, not nearly as good as the in-world photography tool but hey ho.

To this effect I have an attachment which, at regular intervals, sends off a message to my own Server containing my current whereabouts. I also have a small program running on my own Engine, which contacts my Server regularly and says “are there any messages waiting?” If so, it downloads the information, takes a picture of my current screen, resizes it to appropriately small dimensions and writes my location onto a little bar at the top (also disguising the ugly top-of-the-window part of said screenshot). Since the aim here is to create a record of my activities for my own enlightenment, it also saves the location and a few other data to a daily log.

The time delay between the making of the request and the taking of the screenshot is less than ten seconds, which is not too bad, though it does mean that my precise location is not precisely appropriate to the screenshot, but, well, hey ho again. More rapid polling of the server would help to eliminate this. Oh - the attachment that I wear can be turned on and off, as well. After it sends my location to the Server and my Engine receives it and takes a shot, that information is then deleted from the Server, so when information stops being sent no pictures are taken.

Finally, when all is done with, the pictures are thrown together in a pile and turned into a piece of Cinema, which speeds up my activities dramatically, one minute becoming one second of time. Here, for instance, one might see me building things, then being unsatisfied with them and deleting them (a common pastime):

SLifelog 2007-06-24 - building things and deleting them from Ordinal Malaprop

For technical types, the script on my own Engine is written in Perl, using curl to access a page on ordinalmalaprop.com, then using the OS X utility screencapture (helpfully pointed out to me by Mr Westbrook of the Electric Sheep) to, er, capture the screen. The ridiculously cryptic yet powerful program mencoder is used to compile a video for the day. Should I have the time it would be more efficient for the thing to run using cron or launchd or some such but to be fair, I am not terribly good with these particular tools and have concentrated more on getting it to work in the first place. Addendum: In practice, to produce the above, I actually used ffmpeg, which has options to pad the pictures to the correct size, and may switch to the use of that tool in general.

Ah - I see that the older client is sitting on my desk as I write this, wailing away in its birth throes, and I must attend. Actual scripts etc to follow.

Just a quick note to say that a short cinematic illustration of the Knife-Pistol is now available….

The Ordinal Knife-Pistol from Ordinal Malaprop on Vimeo

• Listing on SLExchange
• Listing on SLBoutique

The Ordinal “Pepperbox” - A Functional Display from Ordinal Malaprop on Vimeo

Currently available from my Caledon shop - and there is also a selection of pictures on Flickr.

The Caledon Militia - On Parade on Vimeo

A view of the Caledon Militia on exercises this morning. Join the Militia, and Be All You Might Someday Be! The footage was constructed from my own recordings and those of Ms Deight Boccara (you will be able to identify the latter’s contribution because it is so much more professional than my own).

As an addendum and as previously mentioned: profits from sales of items here will be going towards Relay For Life.

Daring avatars have provided us with a visual example of a Seance, which I am interested to see, though I do not think this is the best advertisement - it manages to appear simultaneously boring and a bit scary. In a circle of friends, two manage to say anything, and there is no connection between the Audible Part and anything that one can see. Otherworldly Voices come seemingly out of nowhere, as might be expected of them, and say little of interest. A much more detailed vocal explanation can be seen here.

Still. I’m sure we will be seeing a wide array of cinematography soon. Personally, I prefer to have a glass moving around on a table for my communications with other worlds; the traditional way.

With all that in mind, I would mention that the next version of the Twitterbox possesses functions to automatically include a SLurl to one’s current location if one says the word “SLURL”. There are also moves afoot to include a social service, inviting anyone within twenty metres to become your friend. I am not sure that this is desirable, all told, and may remove it.

Heaven knows that I am not a supporter of Public Phallic Griefing, the activity of tiresome faux-rebellious delayed teenagers, but neither am I a supporter of attempts to brush such activities under the carpet.

Puzzled by this reference? Quite possible - do let me explain. Ms Anshe Chung whilst giving a press conference recently was assailed by particles and prims of an obscene nature, something which was reported upon at the time. It now appears that the corporate entity anshechung.com is threatening anyone who published Photographs or Moving Pictures of the occasion with poorly-defined “copyright” proceedings in order to erase this supposed shame.

Quite how the shame of issuing baseless legal threats is less than the shame of being unfortunately assaulted by flexible penii is beyond me, but both behaviours are quite against my particular set of beliefs as to What Is Right. For your further elucidation:

* A report from the Reuters News Agency
* Entry on Clickable Culture
* A piece by the author Warren Ellis on Reuters including comments from Xeni Jardin from the BoingBoing site, threatened in this case
* The original video removed from YouTube, now on Google Video, from where one might download a permanent copy if one were so inclined.

Very poor behaviour. “Copyright” over one’s own form does not extend to portrayals of that form, nor should it.

Well, I have finally managed to put up the snowball technology for sale, and to celebrate, here is a little piece of video, which, well, was made with a slightly older version of the Triple Snowball Cannon, so does not actually demonstrate all possible features.

Snowball Technology on Vimeo

It is still relatively entertaining, I feel, even if it does not demonstrate the effects of retracting the snow duct shielding on the Chambered Farenbaum Engine, nor the triple-fire mode.

The free Snowball System and the two costly products are available as usual at my Caledon shop - do see the left-hand sidebar for a link to the location.

I’m sure that any person of sufficient powers of concentration to be willing to hack through the thick, obscuring undergrowth of verbiage that makes up my Journal in the faint hope that, in sufficient time, they will clear aside one last creeper to find King Solomon’s Mine revealed (or more likely a deserted quarry and a small squalid shop selling badly-painted souvenirs) has had the experience of becoming so engrossed in some project or other in Second Life that they completely forget to perform some vital task, such as - for the gentlemen - trimming one’s moustache before meeting one’s friends at the club for a snifter, or - for the ladies - reloading one’s revolver before facing down Giant Man-Apes near, though clearly not precisely at, the centre of the Earth.

With this in mind I present a small automaton known as the NagBot. Once in existence, the NagBot will wait until its owner is actually in the world, and then begin to remind them of tasks which they really should complete.

NagBot: Can't you get your act together and finish that
project?
NagBot: Stop wasting time and brush the hedgehog!

The NagBot begins by reminding after five minutes, but with each reminder the interval halves, so that the next is after two-and-a-half, the next one after one-and-a-quarter and so on down to a minimum time of ten seconds. (As set.) One cannot escape from the NagBot anywhere on the grid, and it cannot be bargained with, it cannot be reasoned with, it absolutely will not stop until you are logged out. Actually, if it hears you speaking in its vicinity it will just nag you more.

The script for this device can be found here:

• nagbot.lsl

Do modify any of the variables in CAPITAL_LETTERS; their purpose should be adequately explained.

–

On a separate note I have been working on more detailed, and larger, explosions. After some watching of assorted pieces of cinema I came up with a smallish explosive device last night involving three separate particle effects:

An Explosive Test on Vimeo

The part of this which I was most interested in getting right was the flaming cloud of gas that usually results from any interesting explosion. In this example it appears only quite briefly, but one resulting from different components would appear quite differently. Having bright flames mixed in with black smoke was quite tricky, and is still not perfect, though in my mind nothing I do ever is in any case. The next step I think will be to have a convincing pattern of dust and debris coming up from the ground, either as a mushroom cloud or a ground “ring” effect depending on the altitude of the blast, and perhaps a larger explosion involving a huge roiling cloud of flame moving upwards.

–

And on a final note, through Tinselman I see that Qarl has been breeding blimps, a subject which I believe I have mentioned before in the context of trams and am still somewhat fascinated by. I shall be adding a few more comments to said entry in due course.

As a final element of the rebuilding project that has been taking place on my Caledon property recently, I have been Doing My Bit for the Safety of the Island.

Sea Defences on Vimeo

Recently I decided to entirely replace my existing shop with what I consider to be a much more aesthetically pleasing, and spacious, building; the shop floor is a now a broad, high-ceilinged, iron-framed gallery. Clearly I had to retain the breakable windows, and clearly I had to retain a balloon deck from which visitors might board the Touring Dirigible. (Even considering its antiquity, the Dirigible is still very popular. It would probably be worth me renovating it a little as, well, it is a little ugly.)

The ceiling of the gallery is rather high at nine metres or so above floor level, and given that the balloon deck is on the first floor there needs to be some method of reaching it. To begin with I merely placed a large hole through which one could fly, but really, unassisted flight is terribly ungainly and gauche. A large spiral staircase… hm, well, not really me.

I decided upon a balloon-related solution instead. The central component of this is a platform suspended from four balloons, filled of course with my secret formula of lifting gas and thus providing considerably more lift than one might expect from their size. The platform is placed underneath the above-mentioned hole in the first floor. Such a platform, of course, if not strictly controlled would simply rise to the rafters, stay there and be no use to anyone, and so when it is either on the shop floor or at the balloon deck, it is held in place by sturdy bolts.

When the balloon is released from the shop floor it naturally rises upwards, turning slowly, until it reaches the correct elevated position at which point the upper bolts engage. How, though, does it descend? The most straightforward solution would be to have it pulled down by chains, or perhaps drop ballast, but I am certainly not here to provide straightforward solutions, and thus have employed a gigantic Electro-Magnet to pull the platform down again. It sparks and buzzes and pulls the platform down until the lower bolts can be engaged.

Here follows the obligatory video demonstration:

Electro-Magnetic Balloonery on Vimeo

Of course, this is not a traditional electromagnet, which would collapse the entire building, use a ridiculously immense amount of power (I haven’t even bothered calculating this) and brutally rip all of the “bling” from the attachment points of passers-by (perhaps not a terribly bad thing, come to think of it). I am not at liberty to discuss the precise mechanism at this time, I’m afraid, under orders from the Ministry.

Actually I am a little concerned about this and would prefer a more traditional physics-based approach. I may still change it entirely.

Oh, and a quick message to the segment of the population who, upon being given a peculiarly-named object by another peculiarly-named object, have the immediate reaction to rez it upon the ground or other surface: please don’t. One advantage to having one’s own personal Biological Clock running on good old British Summer Time, though, is that periods of Grid-Disruptive Fence-Breaking do tend to occur whilst one is asleep, and be fixed by the time one awakens.

I did mean to put up a video of this previously, only, well, I didn’t. By the way, when it says “cover one’s ears” it is advisable to do so.

I am afraid that the musical accompaniment really is rather obvious.

The Ordinal Gun Balloon on Vimeo

Now. Is there anything else that I might record? If there is, I hope it can wait until Sunday as that is when my allowance resets.

Edit: Vimeo appears not to be working, so I have replaced this clip with a reference to one on Google Video; others can be found “by the same author” there.

Edit again (2006-09-18): Well, Vimeo is there once more, so I have re-replaced the clip, as I find that Vimeo provides a better quality of picture. Apparently they encountered unexpected problems during an upgrade, which makes my continued use of their service most definitely appropriate for Second Life. I jest! Please do not smite me!

I’m sorry to anyone who is getting bored of my cinematography, but I have such fun making these things, even if they are rubbish. The latest efforts are views of two things from Burning Life. Ms Rebekka Ruff told me about the Steam Powered Gumball Factory and clearly I had to visit that - but on the way I also noticed Jillian Callahan’s telescope, and felt that that deserved a piece as well.

Burning Life - Telescope on Vimeo

Burning Life - Gumballs on Vimeo

Unfortunately I am producing these little clips at a rate that seems to be exhausting my uploading allowance on Vimeo. I do like Vimeo very much, it is far nicer, prettier and easier to use than Google Video, and I’m afraid we do not use the Y*uT*be word around here. However, it restricts one to a mere Thirty Megabytes of Information per Week, which sounds like an awful lot but in actual fact isn’t. Particularly as one’s allowance begins anew on a Sunday, and I tend to engage in such projects on Sundays rather than Saturdays. Because of this I have been forced to produce things in piddly little 320×240 format.

I suppose that I should examine the Burning Life areas a little more thoroughly before they vanish.

Oh God, I simply cannot help myself.

The Ordinal Revolving Flare Pistol on Vimeo

I was discussing the tediousness of the “end phase” of commercial production with Mera Pixel earlier today, as I put the final touches to the box that sells the above product (available from Caledon and shortly SLX and SLB, as usual). I simply cannot imagine that anyone actually finds it fun. For the non-commercial and the new resident, I present the following guide to what I, at least, do:

1. Take photographs of product and of my good self holding product. Edit these to put in appropriate text for an advertisement.

2. Copy a product sales box in my showroom. Edit it so that it is appropriately named. Add in the above advertisement on the front. Change the sale price. Add the product to the inventory. Check that it has the correct permissions. Realise that there is no documentation.

2a. Open a bottle of wine and fetch a glass.

3. Write the damned documentation, mentioning all of the functions that one has introduced and how to use them. (No afficionado of the Difference Engine has ever enjoyed this in itself, even though I, being irrepressibly verbose, do not mind this as much as many do.) Place the documentation into the item. Make sure the item has a help function that provides the user with the documentation. In times of sloth, merely place the documentation into the sales box, though this can be most annoying later if people then lose their product instructions and bother you, the creator, with questions.

4. Place updated product in inventory. Add documentation notecard to sales box, to be given out to customers looking for further information. Sigh with relief that everything has now been done.

5. Realise that it is still not in the vendor (I have my sales inventory mirrored in a separate vendor even though I usually sell from boxes, just in case I ever wish to sell things elsewhere). Luckily, I have designed my own custom, immensely-simple vendor, into which I merely need to drop the object, notecard and advertisement, and edit the product listing notecard therein. Sigh with relief.

6. Realise that folk only sometimes pop into my showroom on the off-chance that I have added something new, and thus advertising is necessary. Open new bottle of wine. Compose advertisement in BBCode for inclusion in the Classified section of the SL Forums. Post advertisement. Think about posting it on other forums, generally conclude that one cannot be bothered.

7. Add things to SLExchange and SLBoutique. This is easily the most tedious part of the enterprise. Adding the item itself is easy, simply drop it into the appropriate box in my “Room Of Things That Are Not Very Interesting”, but then one must go to the appropriate sites, click the correct links, type in the details all over again, add photographs and test both the item page and delivery.

8. Knock over half-empty wine bottle, curse, attempt to find salt to pour on carpet.

9. (optional) Realise that there is a fatal flaw in item which requires complete re-engineering and changes in the entire behaviour, and that this means going back to stage 1. Swear indecorously, making abusive gestures. Fall over while attempting to do something completely innocuous. Realise that it is probably time to go to bed.

~ * ~

I do not mention the “compose a product demonstration video” part above because that is quite fun, though I expect that, in time, it will become dull. I still do not understand why it has not become a standard part of commerce on the Grid, though, at least for people who sell things that, well, do things, not furniture or houses or whatnot. Prospective customers do not gain any greater understanding of the nature of a sofa if they see a grainy video of somebody sitting down on it.

But anyway. Honestly, why would anyone wish to submit themselves to that?[1] My vintner clearly would encourage me to continue, but it is not terrific fun. Someone offering a one-stop service for such a process - “give me a copy of the item, I will write up documentation and ad copy, do promotional photographs and video, post it on all of the appropriate sites and go around to Ahern and show it off” - could make a veritable mint.

On that subject, I wonder if there are already any firms offering the services of “street teams” as I believe they are called nowadays. Since so much on the Grid happens by word of mouth and personal contact, a group of people who went around to the popular dancehalls or bingo parlours or coffee shops or wherever it is that people go (I do not keep up with the behaviour of the young these days) talking about their latest amazing purchase could do very well for themselves and their customers. It is rather tricky to evaluate the efficacy of such a company beforehand, but were I so inclined, which I am not, I’m sure I could build up a reputation through an initial promotional phase of low prices in exchange for testimony.

Incidentally, I am only at stage 5 right now, if that. I do rather like the flare pistol, though, it really is rather colourful.

~ * ~

[1]: The question of why I do is, I feel, a matter for another post.

A conversation with Rebekka Ruff yesterday reminded me of something which I made a very long time ago - the Fabulous Multicoloured Snuffbox. Specially-imported and treated snuff from distant lands makes every refreshing sneeze a marvel!

Ordinal’s Fabulous Multicoloured Snuffbox on Vimeo

Another thing I must release as soon as I gather up the nerve. A little tip: if one is attempting to use the product known as “Windows Movie Maker”, and also attempting to use an piece of music in “MP3″ format, and dragging said piece of music onto the file causes incessant crashing, simply use a product such as Audacity to convert the required part to “WAV” format and drag that instead.

I have been most remiss lately in… well, in all forms of activity. I find myself paying no attention to my own commercial interests, and instead doing very little of import. Last night I forced myself to box things up, take promotional photographs and so on, and I can thus announce that the .45 Shansi and the Beehive Launcher (which I believe I mentioned before) are now available in Second Life, some months after they were actually finished and ready. Pictures can be seen here, if you are at all interested, and you might wish to waste a few moments of your life by watching the following demonstration pieces:

.45 Shansi on Vimeo

Ordinal, pursued by bees on Vimeo

The sound seems rather peculiar and distorted to me at times. This “Vimeo” thing is very simple and pleasant to use, but I am not convinced of the quality of their Format Conversion Engineering.

Available from the usual places - Caledon, SLExchange, SLBoutique, bah.

My phrenologist tells me that a few small taps of the hammer upon a point above and in front of my left ear will bring about a much-needed removal of this enervation, but quite frankly I do not trust the man anywhere near me with a blunt instrument.

I thought that I might experiment, yesterday, with the recording of video in SL, and thus I did so.

I have no other tool to record with apart from the built-in “save to movie” option, which I find is somewhat lacking. Whilst it will record, unless the window is set to an extremely small size, for me at least the results are unusably jerky or fuzzy. What is more, it does not record sound. But it does work, at least.

I recorded with the window at 320×240 (well, that is reasonably sized for a compact Aethernet Presentation) and then edited the results with HyperEngine-AV, adding a few captions and a relaxing soundtrack.

It is a simple piece as an experiment in the whole process, hardly art, but what I found most annoying (apart from the poor quality of the source) was the camera; with practice one can swing one’s camera around with great ease in SL so that it is positioned and pointed precisely where one desires, but each time there is a short pause, and a graceful, sweeping pan or circle of an area is rather difficult without some sort of scripted device, which I don’t have. I tried to do this manually at one point, and it was something of a failure, I’m sure you can tell where.

The best results seemed to be to gained in third-person view, holding the mouse on one’s avatar and moving it around to look in appropriate directions.

I think I may try to put together some form of gadget which automatically pans or circles a point, or spirals away from it, or has a number of different effects, though one problem may be controlling it whilst recording and not having this be visible. Perhaps a combination of control keys (say left and right at the same time) could turn an effect on or off, but otherwise controls would be left untouched.