Moriash Moreau: My Second Life View RSS

Monitoring 29 Jul 2012 11:54 AM (12 years ago)

One of my tentative projects at the new build is to extend some of the monitoring and RL integration aspects. For a good while, I had a basic visitor log and activity log at the old SkyLounge build. Every evening, I'd get an email summary of every visitor and his interactions with the various elements of the build. Or, more often, an email telling me that nothing happened for yet another day. Just for the heck of it, I've continued this monitoring in SkyPod 4 (not that I expect many/any visitors).

Eventually, I started filtering out my own actions and mirroring these notices to a Twitter feed, using TwitterMail. Now, every time a visitor arrives, interacts with a scripted object, changes the holodeck program, watches the fireworks (or turns them on manually), takes an elevator, changes the radio station, or anything else I can think of, a message is sent to the public Twitter feed. This feed is, in turn, relayed to an object at SkyPod 4 via SL's built-in web-on-a-prim.

More recently, I've started monitoring that feed using If This, Then That (IFTTT), with an eye toward adding more channels for integration elsewhere. At present, I'm monitoring for a #VisitorCount hash tag, and pinging my phone via Pushover when a new (non-me) visitor arrives. We'll see how long that lasts. SL is an international community, and I'm not so interested in my visitors that I'm willing to be woken up at 4am local time to hear about them.

In any case, if you can think of any nifty SL-to-RL interactions that'd be worth playing with, please drop me a comment below.

SkyPod 4 27 Jul 2012 8:49 AM (12 years ago)

After sitting on a 560 m^2 parcel with nothing but a tree and a couple of shrubs on it for the last year or so, I decided to throw up a simple sky-house for myself. What you see above is SkyPod 4. It's the architectural offspring of Mo-Tech Tower/SkyLounge, SkyPod 1 and SkyPod 3. (SkyPod 2 was a floating, max-shiny bubble of mercury with a basic old-school camera observation system. I think I mentioned it exactly once.) It incorporates the previous SkyPod clean blank-prim-with-shiny design scheme, with a scrolling color band and a couple of glow and particle accents, just to keep it from looking unfinished.  Nothing terribly cutting edge, but I'm pleased with how it turned out.



This incarnation of the SkyPod series incorporates many features from the previous builds. This picture shows the next generation of the fireworks system from the SkyLounge. They activate every day at dusk (give it a moment to start; they're on a sensor- no sense in adding lag if nobody is around), with a user override for daytime visitors.  It's still just random particle wanking, but pretty nonetheless, if I do say so myself.

The Pod is supported from two counter-rotating props, taking advantage of the relatively-recent addition of megaprims to the current viewers to make plausibly large blades. Yes, I asked my neighbors. They're okay with the props spinning across property lines here, as long as I don't chop up their builds in the process. Silky and Will are cool like that.

Inside, I've kept the usual floating furniture and basic black-on-grey color scheme.  Currently, it's something of a monument to myself, with samples of photography, some my previous SL projects, and the obligatory Mo-Tech Industries freebie dispenser. I even had sufficient ego to add informational "?" buttons here and there, describing various bits and pieces.  Hopefully, I'll replace my prim laurel-resting with new projects before too long.

Building this now, after a year or more of absence, showed me just how far SL has progressed.  When I went inactive, building at 4 kilometers was still a pain in the rump. Not too long before I dropped out, they got rid of the 768 meter build limit, and the 2,000 meter sim-reset permanence limit that meant rezzing and maintaining everything by custom script.  But there was still the matter of the flight cap (~80m to ~100m), and the associated need for flight assists and teleporters to reach those heights, restricting the airspace to a certain minimum builder tech savvy level, and assuring that builds near the absolute 4,096m build cap were rare, private and relatively clear of sky trash.

Sadly, that's no longer the case.  If you visit, you'll notice that it's resting at around 2,500m above ground.  This was because of the overwhelming number of skyboxes and house-on-a-green-prim builds at just about every altitude, and especially at the four kilometer barrier.  (There's also some changes to the behavior at 4,096m with regard to flight and scripted attachments, but that's a matter for future investigation.)  As I discovered by accident, the flight limit has been removed (a decision I fully endorse), and evidently long-distance teleporters have become sufficiently mainstream (as opposed to merely common, but technically daunting) for ordinary use

That's kind of a shame, on a personal level, but removal of arbitrary limits and lowering of technical barriers are (arguably) good for SL overall. As it stands, after spending half an hour flying up and down, I had to settle for turning down my draw distance a bit (no real hardship, given my ancient PC's abilities) and pick the least crowded option. Not a terrible loss, I suppose.

So, there it is. SkyPod 4 is up and running.  Feel free to drop by, if you're bored and/or interested in seeing tiny lo-fi builds on entry-level sized public sim parcels. (Why?!) Map link is up there on the right.

AR Inception! 23 Jul 2012 6:52 PM (12 years ago)

Me and my avatar, looking at the Curiosity rover using JPL's Spacecraft 3D iPhone app, photographed via iPad. That blotchy rectangle in the middle is the AR target, a sample of Martian soil. So basically an augmented reality application enhancing a virtual world by showing a 3D model of a real space exploration vehicle, documented by a digital camera.

Yeah, makes my head hurt, too.

Plywood Archive and Commentary 13 Apr 2012 7:41 PM (13 years ago)

Just a quick note: Plywood is now archived at my DeviantART page.  Also included is comic-by-comic commentary about making the comic and about ancient SL history, by myself and by co-creator Monica Young.  Might be worth a read!

Plywood Shutting Down 15 Jul 2011 7:48 AM (13 years ago)

I'm sure nobody is reading this anymore but I thought I'd mention it, just in case. The Plywood Webcomic page is shutting down at the end of the month. Read it while you can.

I've also hacked down what was up until recently the Tallest Eyesore in Second Life. That's right, Mo-Tech Tower - all four kilometers of it - is no more. My apologies to the half dozen squatters who logged in only to find themselves hanging unsupported a couple miles off the ground. Happy landings.

And, well, that's about it.

For those of you still making a go of it, enjoy your Second Life. Edit: As Octobriana (Oz) points out, Plywood is still available, substantially intact, at the Internet Archive (the Wayback Machine).

Lumber 18 Mar 2010 5:49 AM (15 years ago)

Every month or two, I get another email to the Plywood Webcomic address, from a misguided soul in an exotic foreign locale, wanting to buy or sell plywood. Usually, I just ignore them. I really should start telling them that we only trade in half meter cubes.

Gallery 14 Feb 2010 2:49 PM (15 years ago)

Just a quick note: the former Mo-Tech art gallery has now returned as the SkyLounge Gallery, located on level three of the SkyLounge. Drop by and take a look.

Farewell Ordinal 11 Feb 2010 8:59 AM (15 years ago)

Well, this was a punch in the gut to go with my morning coffee. Evidently, Ordinal Malaprop, one of the most creative builders in SL, has decided to call it quits.

Miss Malaprop was never one for the dramatic flash builds. Instead, she focuses on the small and the elegant. And, of course, the fun. She has always been on my short list of SL personages I wanted to be when I grew up, back when I still had the SL spark. I can't say her work changed the face of the Grid (whatever that means), although some amazing things emerged from her corner Caledon from time to time. But she brought a much needed touch of class to the Grid.

It's heartbreaking to see another Second Life true believer disillusioned. I can't question her reasoning, especially after feeling the same way myself lately. (Not that I would presume to place myself anywhere within a few parsecs of her league.) Like most of the well-wishers on the blog, I find myself hoping she'll find a way back in, on her own new terms.

In the meantime, the Grid grinds on. New builders appear, and others leave. Today, the creativity and the elegance of that work takes a small, but lamentably significant, hit. Farewell Ordinal. Please find your way back soon.

Going out of Business 6 Feb 2010 11:58 AM (15 years ago)

Folks, I'm closing up shop in SL. Mo-Tech Industries is gone. If you've ever wanted a Mo-Tech Product, but couldn't afford one (which I would find astounding), well, feel free to drop in one last time. The entire Mo-Tech inventory is now available as freebies, for a limited time. Click the link up there at the right to get there.

SkyLounge is still staying around, albeit without the tower to hold it up. Yes, that's right, Mo-Tech Tower, formerly SL's real tallest structure, is no more. Couldn't justify the tier just to keep the monument to my own ego around. Feel free to drop by the Lounge, though. The elevator still goes there. Look for the big green carpet and the SkyLounge sign on the ground in northeast Louise.

Addendum: I couldn't bear to part with the Tower, so it's back, albeit in a somewhat simplified form. I know that's a load off your mind. The shop is still gone, however. It's amazing how many prims were left over after getting rid of all the demo products and signage.

Astounding 10 Sep 2009 5:56 PM (15 years ago)

Here it is, 7:00 SLT on a Thursday night. In addition to the hundreds of other events, there are 20-some-odd live musicians performing on the grid as I type this. That's really quite amazing.

That's all. I'm going to pick one at random, kick back in the back row, and have a listen.

Addendum:
Ended up seeing Andreus Gustafson at the Sunset Jazz Club. He sings a mix of original and classic rock/alternative covers, does his own keyboards, and plays a mean guitar, to boot. The man puts on a great show... And he's the first and only person to have ever pronounced my name correctly on the first try! Go see him now. SO SAYETH MORI.

Keeping Busy 8 Sep 2009 2:01 PM (15 years ago)

Haven't done much that is terribly blog-worthy lately, but I thought I'd take a moment to mention a few projects that have been keeping me busy lately. In my ongoing quest to fight off boredom whilst simultaneously paying my tier costs (been more successful with the former than the latter, to be sure), I've been dusting off a few shelved projects and getting them ready for sale.

Here's a video of the Kaleidoscope Carpet in action. The Carpet, which is a greatly improved version of a not-terribly-popular product from 2006, takes any image and turns it into a kaleidoscopic whirl. I was encouraged to come up with the upgraded version when I was contacted by Evaluna Sperber, Italian Second Life performance artist. Evaluna takes avatar animations, particle effects, prim sculpture, video streams, original music, and poetry readings and combines them into one harmonious whole. Several videos of her work can be found here. The videos don't do them justice, however. I was privileged to experience a private showing of a couple of her pieces, and they must be seen in person to get the full impact. Simply amazing.

In any case, Evaluna had purchased one of the original Kaleidoscopes (a simple, wall-hung affair with touch controls), and asked if I could make her one sufficiently large to appear in her performance. Or, rather, after a half hour or so of back-and-forth via Google Language Tools, we managed to sort that out! The above is the result. As usual, I went far overboard and overly complicated, and ended up having to scale it back and simplifying it. The end result turned out to be kind of nifty, if I do say so myself, with HUD controls, programmable speeds, and so on. I'm sure this kind of thing can be found on dance club floors and so on all over the grid, but to my knowledge this is the first one that allows the user to supply his own photos. Kind of a nice feature, anyway. We'll see if the market agrees. In the meantime, if all goes well, one (or more) of these will appear as one of the backdrops for her upcoming shows.


And, lest you think I've become too cultured, this is the other big addition to Mo-Tech Industries' catalog: X-Ray Specs. Not a lot to say about them, really. They have hypnotic "X-ray vision" animated lens effects, just because I could. The picture above is the promo sign used in the various SL storefront and online locations. Never underestimate the value of sexual harassment as a marketing tool!

In case you're wondering, yes that is me in the picture, sans beard. The slider-enhanced leer was distorting the facial hair, so I swapped in the clean-cut version of the skin. Probably for the best, all things considered. I have to say, though, SL-me's chin is huge.

Finally, the Audience Reaction Chair project I mentioned back in July is finally live! This was a joint project between MenuBar Memorial and myself, and I think it's turned out pretty well. Menu did the particle artwork and sound design, and I did the scripting work. This is the first of what I hope will be many joint projects to come. As I understand it, the mechanics for the Chairs now built into the for the latest season of LaurenLive, soon to appear on Treet.TV. So a bit of indirect fame there, I suppose.

Eh, keep the fame. I'll settle for loads of L-bucks. Take a look at the Audience Reaction Chair and its spinoff product, the Audience Reaction HUD, on XStreet.

Garden of Mo Twitter Feed 30 Jul 2009 10:17 AM (15 years ago)

I can't imagine why anyone but me would be interested in this, but the Garden of Mo is now on Twitter. Over the past couple of evenings, I've started wiring the various events and objects in my neck of the woods to send discreet little status message back to a centralized notifications server. The server then relays these exciting updates to the GardenOfMo Twitter feed via Twittermail for the world to see.

I don't know what, if anything, I'll do with this information. Probably nothing, aside from feeding my own curiosity about what goes on in Mo-Tech Tower when I'm not around. Better than hiding in the bushes with a pair of binoculars and a notebook, anyway.

Two Shows 23 Jul 2009 8:53 AM (15 years ago)

While working the kinks out of my Fraps installation, I took a short video of the new dusk-til-dawn fireworks show at the Mo-Tech Tower SkyLounge (SLURL link). Definitely not a cinematic masterpiece, but it shows off the particle effects quite nicely. Music is courtesy of SomaFM's Space Station Soma stream.

On a completely unrelated note, I went to my first live SL comedy show last Tuesday (July 21). Mariner Trilling was on the stage, delivering his comic monologue, "Mariner Trilling, Below the Waist," based on his hilarious and insightful articles on romance, sex, and dating in the virtual world. I didn't really know what to expect when I arrived, but the performance was low key, and quite funny. Mariner simply took the stage, kicked on the SL Voice, rezzed a couple of slideshow prims (which were unfortunately plagued by technical difficulties), and went to work. In spite of the usual headaches caused by lag in a crowded sim, Mariner managed to pull off a warm, natural, engaging show. That, in and of itself, is quite an achievement when filtered through the innate woodenness and awkwardness of the medium. After the show, Mariner informed us that he would likely only do one more show, in a few weeks, before retiring this monologue. (I have hopes that he'll come back again, with new stories to tell, but he was noncommittal on that point.) Date and time are unknown, but it would be well worth keeping an eye on your events calendar to catch him. I know I'll be back again.

My initial excuse for attending, aside from prodding by Taralyn Gravois and Menubar Memorial, was to observe and provide emergency tech support for the first use of the prototype Audience Response Chairs. This joint project with Menubar allows audience members an easy way to give feedback to performers, by showing floating particle comic balloons ("Ha Ha Ha!" "Bravo!" "Yay!" and so on), playing sound clips, and running animations. It's very much in the early beta stages now, and has a fair bit to go (mostly in terms of making it less disruptive), but it could turn into something of a small revolution in SL performances. The jury is still out on whether this is an improvement over audience-member-provided gestures and text comments, but the response was tentatively positive. Mariner seemed to like them, anyway, or so I hear.

We'll see if it goes anywhere. For now, the project has at least gotten me out from my script windows in Louise, and exposed me to a new aspect of SL. Well worth the time, even if the project itself ends up dead in the water. I'm sure I'll have more to say about this later.

Friends 15 Jul 2009 12:39 PM (15 years ago)

Y'know, I really have a pretty impressive Friends list, filled with dozens of the old-school movers and shakers that helped make SL what it is today.

It's kind of a shame I never actually see or speak to any of them.

Fireworks! 11 Jul 2009 5:43 AM (15 years ago)

Feeling bored? Have a little time to kill? Then come by the Mo-Tech Tower SkyLounge (SLURL link) to see some fireworks!

Fireworks start every SL evening at dusk. Stick around a minute or two if you're the first to arrive after dark, as they're rigged with a sensor to save system resources when nobody is around. Or, if you're impatient, here's an Easter egg just for you, dear reader: touch the black stone pyramid in the SkyLounge garden to turn on the fireworks anytime. Enjoy!

Long Time, No Hear 6 Jul 2009 4:23 PM (15 years ago)

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? Slowly working my way back into SL again. We'll see where it goes. But first, a brief video interlude!

A few days ago, I received an IM from a resident by the name of ZTAR Magic, informing me that she and a few of her friends had made a machinima music video featuring the trusty old Mo-Tech Pogo Stick. That video was called "Bounce," and it absolutely made my entire week. A rock video featuring pixel babes in leather cat suits and merry widows, bouncing around on pogo sticks... What's not to like? Thanks, ZTAR!

Okay, assuming you can get that song out of your head long enough (...pogo-pogo-pogo-bounce!) to read further, there's been a few changes here and there in the old Garden of Mo. Mostly, I've once again tiered down. Welcome to the new economy, and all that. I've had to delete some of the old standbys, including a couple of builds that have been around since early 2005. That was kind of sad, but it's forced me to re-think and tighten up the remainder. As a result, I've been taking on quite a few projects that have been sitting on the back burner for months now. There's nothing like losing half your property to make you want to sort out what's left.


Now that I've deleted all the extraneous builds on the property, I've decided to focus my immediate attention on decking out the one remaining structure on the site, that monument to my own ego: Mo-Tech Tower. This involved stripping out two of the four floors of the shop and gallery level (500 meters up), and compressing Mo-Tech Gallery down from three to one levels as a result. Above is a picture of the result. (Okay, this is mostly another excuse to photograph an SL sunset behind the Tower. Sue me.) At lower left is Koshari Mahana's Space Sphere(SLURL link), located a few hundred meters above the Librarium in southeast Abitibi. At present, the teleporter is down, so that SLURL (or a flight assist) is the only way to take a look inside. Kind of neat, anyway. I really need to build my own replacement elevator, in my unofficial capacity as Librarium janitor. One more thing to add to the to-do list.

Since the Gallery floor space was cut by 66%, I was forced to re-evaluate what was on display there. Before, I was rifling through my inventory, trying to find anything to fill walls and floor space. Now, I'm forced to be more selective, and I'm fairly pleased with the initial results. Artists include Menubar Memorial (prolific artist and builder of all manner of luxury SL widgets) and Laura Ingersoll (artist and one-time SL friend, now left for greener electronic pastures), as well as a few of my own SL and RL photographic efforts.

In my efforts to prim down the gallery, I went ahead and coded up a project I've been kicking around for a while now, the 5-Frame Slideshow (link to LSL code text document). This script will modify a single prim such that it presents five frontward facing sides (similar to the prims used in the XyText display system, for those of you who are familiar with that), then cycle through the images stored in the object's inventory. The net result is a one-prim viewer, capable of presenting an arbitrary number of SL texture images, five images at a time. I'm releasing the code as public domain. See the comments in the script for setup and use instructions. Enjoy, and drop me an IM if you do anything nifty with it.

For my part, I'm using it to display pictures of assorted graffiti, large and small, found all over the Houston, Texas area. Taking such photographs has developed into a kind of hobby for me, although said passtime has been on hold lately. It's just too dang hot to skulk around in train switchyards and back alleys. (The local graffiti artists seem to agree, as new work has slowed down considerably in my RL home town.) In the meantime, I've uploaded over 200 images to three viewers at the Mo-Tech Gallery (SLURL link). Stop by if you're interested in such things.


A few thousand meters up, the SkyLounge is slowly coming out of stasis, and I'm starting to do all of the little nuts-and-bolts tasks I've always meant to do. Nothing terribly high tech or sophisticated, just little decorative touches and utilities added to turn it from a dead-end location to... Well, a dead-end location with a few more attractions, bells, and whistles.

Above, you can see one of the additional programs on the HoloDeck on level three (you can just barely make out the holodeck controls behind me in the picture, that glowing green dot). I'd always meant to build a particle light show into the SkyLounge. This is the initial attempt. It's a 10m sphere with four emitters (each limited in terms of particle count, of course) cycling through a variety of canned and randomized effects. The end result is pretty trippy. Once I get all of the kinks worked out, I plan on expanding the fireworks show outside of the Lounge, to considerably larger effects in the open sky to the north. There's a vast amount of empty space out there in my virtual back yard, as far as the rendered eye can see. I might as well use it!


Here I am, listening to Tonight Live with Paisley Beebe on my newly created virtual audio/video system, and watching the electronic sunset from the roof of the tower. The AV tuners and server was yet another fiddly little project I'd been putting off. Nothing terribly sophisticated; indeed dozens of systems like this have been created gridwide. But, instead of going out and finding one of those pre-packaged systems, I decided to do it myself. Radio and television tuners cycle through a variety of stations, courtesy of SomaFM and SL's own Treet TV.

Note to self: time to make another donation to SomaFM. Note to readers: if you're running them through your parcel's media stream, you should, too.

Treet TV was something of a new experience for me. I knew it existed, of course, but never got around to actually watching. Second Life has, once again, astounded me. Not only has it spawned its own news organs, including several in blog format and even a few semi-professional electronic newspapers, but now there is an entire television network with music, sports, shopping networks, educational access, talk shows, and more, all aimed at a thriving community from around the world, living in a place that doesn't actually exist. That's really kind of mindblowing, when you think about it.

Last night, while I was putting the finishing touches on one of the television tuners in the SkyLounge, I sat down and watched a live episode of Tonight Live. There were quite a few rough edges, of course, as there are with any SL endeavor. The interviews were surprisingly good, if a bit forced at times. I found it best to go on with what I was doing, and occasionally glance at the screen when something caught my eye. The sad fact of the matter is avatars just aren't that animated or interesting when they're just sitting or standing there and talking. (I've made this argument before, so I'll leave it at that for now.) But the multiple cameras, audience views, close-ups, etc. made up for that to some degree. This isn't machinima, in the original sense, nor should we expect it to be. It's more akin to an old fashioned radio variety show, with visualization elements thrown in. And that works just fine, really.

This episode was apparently a first for Tonight Live: it was the first time they featured a stand-up comedian (or comedienne, depending on where you fall on the RL vs. SL gender presentation issue) on the show. Ms. Wayland was quite funny, and had some amusing points about life in SL. But, frankly, watching him/her performing via stream to a dead silent audience was a bit eerie. There's a reason why comedy is generally recorded in front of live audiences.

Ms. Beebe and Ms. Wayland discussed this issue a bit in the follow-up interview, as well. As they mentioned, it's difficult to gage the audience's reaction, or pause for unheard and hoped-for laughter. But that's assuming that anyone is laughing at all. Laughter is generally a social phenomenon, and laughing out loud when one is truly alone is pretty rare (kneejerk LOL chat spam to the contrary). We may smile to ourselves, sure, but think about it. When is the last time you laughed when you were truly alone? When you were aware that there was nobody nearby, or even in earshot? I'd guess it's been a while. There's an immersiveness factor at play in this, like in any broadcast medium. This is the same problem that led to the live studio audience in radio and television, and later to such atrocities as canned applause and laugh tracks.

Do shows like Tonight Live need laugh tracks and applause signs? Heaven forfend, although a few triggered applause macros might have livened up some of the brief camera shots of the in-studio audience, standing stock still and blank faced during the filming. (I couldn't help but think of Hitchcock's "The Birds." Again, eerie.) Do they need to hand out puppeteering attachments, as a more assertive form of the hoary old flashing "APPLAUSE" signs? I'd be hesitant to advocate such things, but maybe they should, just to bridge the reality-to-SL gap a bit better. Should the audience lock on their SL voice, just to cut through the silence? That'd be a trainwreck. We can't even get people to stop using their cellphones in theaters, much less behave in a respectful fashion and cut out the chatter when they're anonymous. Of course, it's much easier to make such uncouth louts leave the premesis in SL, given the right scripts and a suitably alert security staff. I have no answers, and I'm likely being presumptuous in suggesting that any are needed. SL TV is finding its own way, just as RL TV did half a century ago.

In any case, that's just reaction to one viewing of one show, so it's likely far too early to form an opinion. I really should force myself to watch more SL shows, be they live, canned, musical, talk, or stand-up, just to see how things develop. Who knows? I might even enjoy being social, and getting out of the Garden to see such things in person, every once in a while.

Nah. That's just crazy talk.

Still Ain't Dead 8 Dec 2008 6:47 AM (16 years ago)

This blog is not officially dead yet, just in extended hiatus due to RL issues. Stay tuned! Or not!

Nothing Exciting 6 Sep 2008 5:22 PM (16 years ago)

Well, I haven't completely disappeared, although my SL time has been severely restricted due to RL work issues. On the other hand, I haven't done anything terribly blog-worthy, either.

I've done a little more work on Mo-Tech Tower, just for fun. This includes adding an automatic landing platform (pic courtesy of Caliburn Susanto) at the SkyLounge. Nothing terribly high tech, really, just a simple auto-rezzer. When an occupant of the Lounge presses the "open" button, or when an avatar (presumably in a vehicle, but not necessarily) approaches from the outside, a door will open on the north face and a network of four 10m circular docking platforms will appear hovering outside. They're not large enough for conventional aircraft (there's no landing strip), but they're perfect for small VTOL craft or, as Caliburn proved, balloons.

It's also ideal for SL's small but dedicated BASE jumping community. One could debate that four kilometers off the ground is not truly a BASE jump, since it's higher than most conventional parachute drops, but why split hairs? It's within 20 or 30 meters of the maximum altitude achievable by SL planes and drop ships (which would evaporate at 4,096 meters), anyway. I suppose if someone absolutely had to be higher, they could climb up to the avatar maximum (just shy of a million meters) using a flight assist. I'd think it'd be a very long, very boring drop down afterward, though.

Just to spite the new rules of the universe, I've also been tinkering off and on with methods of building above the 4,096 meter ceiling. So far, results are not encouraging. Near as I can tell, it's not merely a matter of placing the object root point below the ceiling. I tried multiple variants of room-on-a-stick, with the root below the line, and all of them were returned. Instead, it appears that it's either a matter of center-of-mass or geometric center (which may or may not be the same thing). Long, skinny protrusions anchored to large objects below the ceiling (like the spike on the top of the Tower, which is linked to the roof dome assembly) appear to work just fine. So do tiny objects linked to the end of such protrusions.

I've yet to try usefully large rooms linked to even larger below-ceiling bases, however, mostly because I didn't want to clutter the airspace around the newly installed landing pads with giant, invisible counterweights. In any case, given that any variant of a room anchored to a root point below the ceiling would be limited by the maximum linked distance (about 30 meters, give or take various tricks), it's all a pretty pointless endeavor. Best case, we're talking a small, lightly constructed room sitting at 4,125 meters or so. Aside from the dubious thrill of thumbing my nose at Havok 4, there's really not much incentive to continue.

Otherwise, I've been updating the Fist of Righteous Fury, one of Mo-Tech Industries' oldest products. Evidently, the Fist is the weapon of choice for The Outlaws, an SL biker gang. And one of its members asked if there was any chance of making a Foot of Righteous Fury for their use. Easy enough, given that the Fist uses the built in client animations, which includes punches and kicks. From there, I ended up adding all of the hand-to-hand attacks (left hook, right hook, and one-two combination punches, as well as the aforementioned kick), and cleaned up the status readouts on the dialog menu controls. That, and recoded some of the embarrassingly primitive, kludgey code from my earliest programming days. Now, I can say that it's only about two years behind the times, instead of three. I guess that's improvement?

Get a First Life... Yawn. 18 Aug 2008 10:09 AM (16 years ago)

So I wrote the following comment on this article in New World Notes. I made it as far as positioning my cursor over the "Post" button before I realized it's just pointless ranting of no particular insight or merit, and changed my mind. I think Hamlet (name dropping!) might be surprised at the number of times I've written comments like this on NWN, only to delete them un-posted in an effort to marginally improve the resulting average intellectual value of the discourse there. (If only everyone was so civically minded. You're welcome.) I'll leave the question of whether he'd care as an exercise for my loyal readers. In any case, this one amused me enough to copy-paste over here, instead of just zotting it outright. After all, this blog is primarily for my own amusement, anyway.... And nobody has any illusions about the intellectual value of the content here.

There really should be a stupidity fine charged to every TV or print media figure who makes the blindingly obvious and hackneyed "hyuk, hyuk, they should get a first life" comment. Maybe we could use the resultant profit stream to fund a money tree for the rare individuals who actually take the time to check SL out before speaking... Or fund a chain of educational islands with full-time paid press liaison staff, given the number of times I've seen it.

If nothing else, it just proves they haven't taken the minimal effort to install a client on their machine, or even do a quick Google or YouTube search, before shooting their mouths off. I mean, seriously, when is the last time you logged into SL for more than five minutes and DIDN'T see something sadly hilarious or deserving of such derision? (SL is like the web that way, come to think of it. Imagine that!) But all they can find is "Heh heh, they put 'life' in their name... I'll bet I can make a totally original 'get a life' comment that nobody on the entire planet ever, ever thought of before!"

We can take the derision, guys. SL is populated by some of the brightest, or at least the most tech-savvy, individuals in the world. By and large, we're well used to the knee-jerk put-them-in-their-place-before-they-become-our-bosses scorn that membership in such a group inspires. But please exercise the minimal intellectual horsepower required to be original about it!

Ahem. Well. Gonna climb down off this soapbox now, and crawl back into my parents basement where I reportedly belong.

Zero Point 11 Aug 2008 10:16 AM (16 years ago)

I guess I'm late off the mark here, but I wanted to join the other mourners in expressing my condolences and outrage for the loss of a Second Life artistic landmark, Zero Point. I've been a fan of Sabine Stonebender's megalithic, psychedelic art for over a year now (practically forever in SL terms). Zero Point was always on the top of my list of beautiful and inspirational landmarks to pass on to newcomers, and I know I'm not alone in that. And now, due to some kind of administrative snafu, it's evaporated from the face of the grid. And yes, returned, even in coalesced form, pretty much means destroyed in cases like this. It's like kicking down a sandcastle, then handing the builder a bag of sand.

Now all that remains of the Point are our memories, and a few handfuls of pictures which don't come near to doing it justice. I'd always meant to go back and take better photos, myself, as all I seem to have is a single picture of one of the smaller and more obscure works tucked in an unregarded corner of her parcel. [Addendum: Actually, that was a Starax Stratosky, not one of Ms. Stonebender's works.] There always seems to be time for that kind of thing tomorrow, though, doesn't there?

While Ms. Stonebender is of course upset, she seems to view this as an opportunity to rebuild. I admire her optimism, and eagerly wait to see what will rise from the ashes. In the meantime, I suppose all we can do is wish her luck, check our billing information again (not that that would have helped Sabine), and look warily at our own comparatively feeble builds. Once again, we're reminded that our shared new world is built on shifting sand.

Tinkering and Calculating 11 Aug 2008 9:51 AM (16 years ago)

Just a quick update on the tinkering front. A while back, I decided to pare down the inventory in Mo-Tech industries, converting some older items to freebies, and taking others off the market altogether. (The latter group included poor sellers, as well as items broken by recent changes that I didn't feel were worth fixing.) This reorganization effort allowed me to consolidate two largish, unattractively empty floors into one nicely filled (but still not crowded) space. Somewhat better, from a marketing standpoint, and it doesn't require the use of an elevator to see the rest of my wares. I will never understand why it's so difficult to figure out you should press the big green or red buttons labeled "UP" or "DOWN" to go, well, up or down. Have these people never ridden elevators before? I suppose I should make explanatory signage, but it galls me to have to hit folks over the head with the obvious.

In any case, this left me with three floors (I had two empty floors for future expansion to begin with) in which to tinker. So, I'm proud to announce (somewhat belatedly) the somewhat grand-ish opening of Mo-Tech Gallery! At present, the Gallery is divided into three floors. The first floor contains screenshots, photo-shop manipulations, and other forms of 2D electronic graphic art (putting aside the black velvet Elvis and the dogs playing poker- they're just placeholders). This includes several works by my departed (from SL, not from life in general) friend, Laura Ingersoll, as well as some other works I've collected (or created) over the years. (Basically, the theme is "pictures I had in my inventory that I never got around to hanging" at this point.) Level two contains three dimensional works (currently centered around the theme "low prim things I had in my inventory"- already regretting tiering down), and features sculptures by MenuBar Memorial and Zero Ball, as well as others. Both floors are worth spending a few minutes to browse and admire.

Level three is the one I expect to see the most work on in the future. I've decided to turn it into a gallery of old or failed SL projects and experiments. I've often referred to Mo-Tech Tower as a monument to my own ego. Might as well continue with that theme! Mostly, though, I'm using it as a dumping ground for my old work, as an aid for my ongoing project of letting go of my SL past and gradual end to general laurels-resting. If I dump it there, I can forget about it and move on. Kind of a physical representation of closure, I suppose.

(Speaking of closure, Monica and I are working on a project to close the book on Plywood. Nothing too exciting- and no it's not more comics- but it should be interesting, anyway. I'll make one last post about that when it goes live.)

In any case, this gallery currently includes a mockup of the heli-bike designed for the still ongoing, if substantially neglected, bicycle integration project. (I need to get back to that one. It was kind of fun.) Also shown are a couple of pieces from Babel Two, and one of the versions of the particle contour mapper. Ultimately, I'm going to add samples of the other, more photogenic and/or interesting projects littering my "Projects-Experimental" folder. I'm also going to add a couple of rotating exhibits for some of the excellent props Monica Young/Chrestomanci Bard made for Plywood, as well. A ton of work went into those, and it seems a shame to let them disappear with nothing but photos to remain.

So, anyway, that's one of the things I've been messing with, off and on, for the past few weeks. In other news, I was thinking about SL years verses real-time years, and something occurred to me. Going by the movement of the sun in the virtual sky, an SL day is four hours long. So six SL days pass for every one RL day. That means, by my calculations, avatar Moriash turned 21 on around July 1 (give or take a day). And I didn't even take the poor fellow out for his first legal bender! (Of course, given some of the mind trips I've taken the poor fellow on during his formative years, I'm guessing he'd find mere booze pretty tame, anyway.) I'd say that my rez-day is also about the youngest (give or take a few RL months or SL years) that earns a modicum of respect solely based on longevity. Not ancient or venerable, by any means. But I've occasionally been referred to (if not deferred to) as one of the SL elders in many a group. And, yet, in many gatherings I still feel like a young tyro, a kid. Again, that slots in rather nicely with my calculated age. Still all-but-a-kid, but now with the figurative, metaphorical ability to buy booze for my younger friends. (Don't do that, folks. It's illegal. Unless you mean in SL, then knock yourself out.) Solely by virtue of my age and experience, there are quite a few things I can do, and even places I'm invited to go, that my younger cohorts cannot.

By my calculations, that pegs Steller Sunshine, Second Life's first resident, at the ripe old age of 38. And, depending on how you count it, few of the Linden av-family would be much into their forties. Mind you, this is only pointless numbers juggling, of limited use or meaning. Nonetheless, I find it somehow encouraging. Second Life is still a young world.

Then again, I suppose you could look at this another way. Most avatars won't live nearly as long as Ms. Sunshine. Statistically, the vast majority die off, as their typists get tired of SL, or otherwise move on, long before they reach their teens. Maybe this is more like the harshest days of the early American frontier, or perhaps even the middle ages, where a rare few live long enough to reach adulthood, and the village elders are only in their thirties. But I'm starting to hear the sounds of a tenuous, muddled analogy approaching dramatic tensile failure, so I guess I'll leave it at that. Still, food for thought. Maybe there's something to the 6-to-1 time ratio, in terms of the growth and development of avatars, and of SL in general.

Things To Do 7 Aug 2008 4:12 PM (16 years ago)

Last night, I logged into Second Life discouraged and disheartened. If you've followed this weblog at all, you're no doubt tired of hearing about Mo-Tech Tower and the SkyLounge. This 4+ kilometer tall monument to my own ego was my pride and joy, and at one time I considered it one of my greater technical achievements. [Addendum: Okay, "pride and joy" is overstating things. But I really like it, anyway.] Stop me if you've heard this before, but up until very recently it was a serious pain in the rump to build anything above 768 meters. Beyond that, conventional object editing stops working (objects jump to 768 meters if you try to move them with the build tools). You can still rez objects in place, and have them remain indefinitely, though. So building at high altitudes requires a scripted system of automatic rezzing tools. Build the tower at ground level, tuck them in an automatic rezzer, and let it dump a copy for you at the right altitude. Worse, at one time any object left above 2000 meters would be returned or deleted every simulator reset (this actually changed a few months ago, not long after the advent of Havok 4 physics). So add the complication of scanning for simulator crashes and re-assembling any missing pieces automatically. Really quite a bit of work for a dubious architectural achievement, but I was pretty pleased with having one of the tallest (if not the tallest- it's hard to say for sure) structures in Second Life.

Well, as of a week or so ago, all of that changed. See, as of client version 1.20, objects can be moved and edited all the way up to 4096 meters, using the same build tools you'd use at ground level. Now everyone can build as high as they like, with no special technical jiggery-pokery required. And this is a good thing, really. Much more convenient for me, too. But, suddenly, Mo-Tech Tower isn't such a big deal anymore (if it ever was), and I'm left with the vague feeling that I used to be cool. "Waaay back in the old days, we couldn't just dump our houses wherever, all willy-nilly! If'n you wanted ta' build at the edge of the world then, by gum, you had ta' earn it! An' I had to walk all thuh way ta' ANWR ta' get my prims. Up hill! Both ways! You kids, git offa mah lawn!"

So that's where last night found me, logging in late in the evening to experiment with giant invisiprims and occlusion culling to see if I could build a screen to block out the view of all the new 4000 meter skyboxes I was certain I'd find on my doorstep by the end of the week. Depressing. But, as I flew up to my workshop, I received an e-mail from Jenn Hienrichs, founder of the SL Things to Do website. Apparently, Mo-Tech Tower was featured as the August 6, 2008 Thing to Do! As we chatted, Ms. Hienrichs dropped the landmark to the Things to Do group. (Which is eminently cool, by the way. Go. Join it now. So sayeth Mori.) Soon, the Tower was flooded with dozens of tell-tale green dots, all come to take a gander at the mighty Tower.

As more visitors than I'd ever seen at once flew up the elevator, I read the Things to Do write up, written by the well-traveled Caliburn Susanto. (As I later discovered, Mr. Susanto found the Tower over a year ago, on one of his frequent balloon trips across the grid.) The last line of his excellent article really struck home for me. I can't imagine a more flattering or inspiring epitaph for the project. "The Mo-Tech Tower is a landmark in Second Life and a tribute to the early builders and scripters who pushed the limits of the platform in their efforts to create unique content (or just do cool stuff!)." Needless to say, I was stunned.

That one line, whether my work actually deserved it or not, changed my whole outlook on Mo-Tech Tower. Sure, the achievement, such that it was, has been obviated now. Once, it was kind of clever. Now? No big deal. But that's not the end of it! How long can I rest on my dubious laurels, anyway? Maybe it's worth a plaque or something.

Mo-Tech Tower and SkyLounge
Established April, 2007 and December, 2005
Back when this was hard!

Beyond that, it's time to move on. I don't think I'll be installing that invisiprim privacy barrier to avoid seeing my new neighbors. Not anymore. Instead, I think I'm going to pick up on some of the old projects I'd been putting off; projects I've been avoiding precisely because they used to be irritating to do at high altitudes. I've had a "holodeck" built into the third floor for over a year now, but never added anything beyond a simplistic conference room. Maybe it's time to add a few more programs. Maybe I'll add a high altitude vehicle dock and BASE jumping center, as Caliburn suggested. Maybe I'll convert that press conference room into SL's highest altitude movie theater, as Jenn mentioned. Maybe I'll work on poking and prodding Second Life into letting me dodge around the 4096 meter build ceiling, not to claim any records, but just to see if it can be done. Or maybe I'll pull out any of a dozen half-finished projects tucked in the forgotten recesses of my inventory, or work on something entirely new. In all likelihood, nothing I do will set the grid on fire, or even meet with any particular notice. Second Life isn't the little pond of early adopters and enthusiasts it once was. Dabblers and script monkeys like me aren't going to make so much as a splash in the vast ocean it's become. You know what? That's just fine. Time to stop worrying about that kind of thing and enjoy tinkering for its own sake again.

I guess I'll close by sending out a big thanks to Jenn and Caliburn, for accidentally telling me exactly what I needed to hear, exactly when I needed to hear it. I'm glad I ran into you guys.

2008 SLRFL 7 Aug 2008 10:11 AM (16 years ago)

Well, I didn't have much to say about it this time (or anything else, lately- sorry about that), but I did participate in the 2008 Second Life Relay for Life this year. Not a whole lot of substance to add, really. The Relay fundraising volunteers put in an astounding effort, and raised over L$55 million for the American Cancer Society. That's over US$193,000!

My team, the Relay Raiders, pulled in over L$10 million, or about US$35,000. I wasn't able to participate as much as I would've liked this year, but between the proceeds from Mo-Tech Industries sales in-world and RL donations, I did manage to raise about L$169,000 (around US$640, over twice what I managed last year). Not too shabby, if I do say so myself! And, like last year, the Jail-an-Avatar event was a smashing success, raising a couple million Lindens between the five teams that participated. I only provided scripting and construction services for the jails, and technical support during the day-long event, but I'm still proud to have been a small part of it. All told, I think we can call this year's Relay a success.

On a personal level, I didn't get to do as much with the whole treadmill stunt this year. I'd actually planned on skipping it altogether, due to RL conflicts on the day of the Relay, but ended up hopping on the contraption and joining in late for a few laps. Since it was something of a last minute impulse, I didn't even try to setup the webcam and such (like last year). Shown at right are photos of the mileage and time readouts for two sessions. The top one was taken at precisely 99:59 into it, just before the timer rolled over to zero. A few moments after, I took a misstep off the back of the treadmill and twisted the heck out of my ankle. Nothing too serious, but it pretty much put an end to walking for the next few hours. I ended up logging out in disgust, and getting some sleep instead.

The bottom picture was taken at the end of the Relay Raiders' victory lap, the following morning. By then, the swelling had gone down, so I decided to run the final lap on the treadmill. All told, I walked about seven real life miles, and approximately 26 in-world kilometers (give or take distance lost to lag and poor steering). Quite a bit less than last year, and less than I'd hoped, but enough to make the point... Whatever that might have been. I suppose it was kind of a neat thing to do, the first time, but I'm just as happy I didn't make a big deal out of it this year. It's too easy to cross over from fundraising publicity stunt to self-aggrandizement. And I already have a weblog for that!

Incidentally, I'd like to offer a nod of thanks to Moo Money over at Massively for featuring last year's promo walk video on the July 20 Cinemassively feature. It's nice to be remembered! Not that it matters overmuch, but the 23 miles mentioned was spread out over the actual '07 SLRFL event. (Yes, I was stupid. My blisters had blisters.) I have no idea how many miles I'd actually walked before that film was made. As part of my morning exercise routine, I did somewhere between 2.5 and 3 miles a day, every day, for at least the preceding four or five months. I suppose that adds up to quite a lot, even if it was done in hour-long chunks with a day's rest between. I know I made at least one pass down every road on the mainland continents at the time. One way into the record books, anyway.

The Pleasure Principle 29 May 2008 5:43 PM (16 years ago)

I found myself with a few minutes to kill this evening, so I decided to drop by Harrison Hall and check out the Surrealism exhibit. Harrison Hall is part of the Librarium complex in Abitibi sim. It started out as a virtual library by friend and ex-neighbor, OmegaX Zapata. Since then, it's passed to Caledonian library enthusiast, JJ Drinkwater. It's also expanded to include multiple art exhibits, of both the 2D and 3D varieties. Well worth a visit next time you're looking to get some culture slung at you.

While there, I became briefly inspired by a somewhat obscure René Magritte painting, "The Pleasure Principle (Portrait of Edward James)." (It was either this or a green apple. And I look terrible in a bowler hat.) Not too shabby for ten minutes' work, huh? I may have to wear this one out and about for a while, just to see if I can stumble over any art history majors.

I'm often surprised by the things I have on hand in my inventory. After three-plus years of disorganization and neglect, I've reached a useful state of creative critical mass. Need a big honkin' lightbulb? No problem! I just happen to have made one back in 2006. Need a greyish suit with an off-orange tie? No problem. I apparently have three of them, for some reason. More and more of my little side projects seem to be going that way, lately. I suppose I should get organized, someday, and throw out about half of my inventory. But I expect it'd just stifle my creativity.

Sorry, LL. Those asset server problems? Yeah, my bad.

If... 22 Feb 2008 9:28 AM (17 years ago)

• If you have ever placed a 10 meter wide spinning FOR SALE sign above a parcel...
  
• If your home is surrounded by No Entry bars (because your 512 parcel with the freebie prefab might contain state secrets)...
  
• If you use a home security system left running 24/7 (bonus points if it's at ground level)...
  
• If your home security system is set to teleport home...
  
• If your land is permanently flagged as No Scripts without a damned good reason (hint: there isn't one)...
  
• If your land is flagged No Fly...
  
• If you've ever created, or knowingly used, an SL weapon that fires a payload not set Temp-on-Rez...
  
• If you rely on scripts to delete the aforementioned non-ToR payloads (thus leading to hundreds of inert bullets littering No-Script parcels, although I'm inclined to consider that just punishment for the No-Script flag)...
  
• If you have your auto-return set to zero, and then never visit your land to clean up the mess (bonus points for no script, no return, because 172 physical, particle-spewing, non-ToR watermelons really improve the sim performance and FPS)...
  
• If you've ever used an Orbiter...
  
• If you can't figure out how to turn off your AO (using an AO to begin with puts you on thin ice, far as I'm concerned)...
  
• If you've ever sold someone else's freebies...
  
• If your shop is still equipped with CopyBot protection spammers (which stopped working about five minutes after the CopyBot code went public)...
  
• If you still think Cage Guns are cool...
  
• If you have an LOL gesture that sends your avatar into a two minute long giggling fit, complete with animations and sound effects...
  
• If you're wandering around in public with prim erogenous zones attached (we can see them every time we hit the ALT key, you know)...
  
• If you've ever referred to anything in SL as "rape" or "terrorism..."
  
• If you're a Gorean slave, and tell me to contact your master if I have a problem with you...
  
• If you're a Gorean master, and get incensed if I speak with your slaves...
  
• If you're a Gorean, period...
  
• If you wear enough bling to make Liberace question your taste...
  
• If you've ever sent an IM to a stranger saying nothing but "hi..."
  
• If your shop's welcome script greets me with an unsolicited notecard, a landmark, or more than one line of IM'd text...
  
• If you've ever sold a 4x4 plot for 20 times the market rate...
  
• If you attempt to Friend me after a two line conversation...
  
• If you invite me to join your group without ever having met me...

...Then you, sir or madam, are an idiot and I have no interest in speaking with you. Move along.

Just something I had sitting in my drafts folder, and was too timid to post until now. I'll likely be adding to this as the spirit moves me. Turning off comments here. If you don't agree, well, you're wrong. So sayeth Mori.