One of the things that I have been doing recently is constructing a small Directory for Caledon.

I have restricted the push alert to only scanning for avatars every five seconds, but checking for position changes every second. One still would not wish to go into a club full of people wearing such devices, petrified of the Evil Griefer, though.

The script for said device can be found here, and the device itself is available as always from my freebie box in Caledon.

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

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

Another item that I have been working on, I am in something of a quandary regarding. With the removal of the "PVP Abuse Tool" within Second Life there has been some demand for alternatives; a collision sensor has been released for free by Babbage Linden, but of course one problem with collision sensors is that they only respond to actual collisions.

If you have not already done so, I Highly Recommend that you read Hamlet Au's piece on Seifert Surface's "crooked house". This very much falls into the category of "I wish I'd thought of that" - Mr Surface has created an experiential model of a four-dimensional cube (a tesseract) in the three dimensions of Second Life, by means of some trickery. One can walk through a building in a straight line and return to one's starting point.

Watch the video first and see if you can work out how that could be done.

I would like to briefly announce my latest product, which some people have made enquiries about - the Ordinal Derringer.

(more photographs to be found here)

This is not a strict reproduction but instead is modelled on the .410-calibre over-and-under pistols known as "Derringers".

As we all know, the entire grid is under savage attack from free account griefers armed with freebie pushguns and unsavoury furry body parts. Sensible folk of course have banlines up on their property at all times, and ideally sit inside concrete pillboxes as well.

However, we all must go out into the rest of the world sometimes, and what is one to do on such an occasion? The device I believe you require is a Personal Ban Zone.

Oh, I just want to share one extra detail. Yesterday, whilst I was searching for land, I was also testing an improved model of my Blitter (a non-physical personal movement device). This appears as a sort of back-mounted device, and has much smoother movement, though it can have issues with sim crossings, which is something I need to take a closer look at.

Regardless of that, in certain areas I encountered the horrific two-hundred-metre ban-lines that I have complained about before, and of course I was unable to stop in time to avoid hitting them.

I mentioned previously that I had thought of working on a pollution-based ecological system, and today I have taken a few steps in that direction, at least to the extent of setting up a few of the basic elements.

First of all I bought some land, which is rather useful to have for such things. I certainly couldn't do this sort of potentially hazardous thing in Caledon. A 4,096 square metre area seemed sufficient (if not over-sufficient) and I scoured the land sales listings for such, eventually finding a spot in the corner of a mainland sim that seemed to be relatively free of clubs, camping chairs and other simlaggy enterprises, as well as free of banlines. Incidentally, this will cost me to maintain, thus I would like to make a quick commercial announcement: BUY MY STUFF. Thank you.

As an aside, during conversation with a couple of compatriots it was noted that there was an area containing various advertisements involving unclothed ladies, and though this is not Caledon, clearly there are standards to be upheld in a PG sim, both social and aesthetic quite frankly. A few reports were made to the Lindens of the matter and within mere minutes, Coffee Linden was present, recording evidence and removing the offending items! Most prompt.

Whilst this was taking place I did note some confusion on the part of the advertiser, specifically concerned one piece portraying two ladies (clearly close friends) enjoying the great outdoors but seemingly bereft of clothing, with the caption "BUY THIS WOMAN". Quite apart from the illegal and improper nature of the entreaty, and unlikelihood of the purchaser actually receiving a lady of any sort beyond the purely pixellated and inanimate, which woman? And surely that would leave her friend without company, though perhaps she would then have the funds to purchase some clothing, perhaps a nice summer hat and a frock. Really - producers of pornographic advertisements, be aware that a strong narrative should be considered a necessity.

In any case, back to the experiments. The plot now has a central observation tower where one may rest in safety, with the surrounding terrain both dangerous and without flight, though this is not actually significant at the moment as there is nothing more lethal than a few purple slugs. At the base of this is an outlet pipe from which are emitted small containers of the toxic effluvium that is a waste product of some of my less environmentally-sensitive machines, carefully packaged to avoid accidental poisoning but a potential source of energy for some of the creatures residing there.

The first step was to create a basic form of life that would be able to process this waste, the first link of the food chain as it were, and... well, I will let a brief portion of my notes speak for themselves there, if you would be so kind as to read on.

Yesterday's gr

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