(edit: better syntax highlighting. it’s good things.)

I’ve gotten a few questions regarding my sim monitor doodad from folks trying to track their own, so I figure it’s useful enough to show off. First, PHP5 and mySQL are necessary, along with an email address you can push to a PHP script (via .forward or whatever mail pipe your system allows) and access to crontab (you can skip this one, but it’s handy). Also: this hasn’t been tested on Windows type setups at all, I trust them as far as I can crash them.

1) It’ll use email. HTTPRequest is awesome and would be near real-time, but I’m after a statistical history & low overhead. If you want real-time, go stand in the sim with the sim stats open & save your requests for something more useful :p
2) I like having only one email address piped to a script, but have multiple things going on. So we’ll set up a message queue as well, using cron to get all the messages to their proper handlers.
3) We’re only tracking dilation. Easy to get to via LSL, nice & simple. Not too tough to extend to tracking wind speeds, or whatever. Sim Dilation is more useful to me though.

(more…)

I somehow got a wacky, unexpected writeup in NWN of me playing the reloop doohickey (eek). I swear it’s not half that cool or innovative or anything, but still - holyawesome :)

So, blatant abuse of traffic. Anyone popping in from there, here’s some actually wonderful things that i think deserve credit more than me. Not trying to discredit or one-up Hamlet or anything, these are just my personal favorite things of-the-moment (and a maybe unsubtle way to point any spotlights away from me. i burn easily :p).

1. Stella Costello’s Camping for Creativity at the Bear infohub. Sit around the fire for a couple minutes, and get a nice notecard with tips on how to overcome creative blocks, tips on building, texturing, and so on. The infohub itself is inspiring enough, with all the awesome bear statues and general comfy feel. Go there, get inspired, and submit your own tips. I’m trying to think up some of my own to submit too.

   This, along with generally being awesome, is why she is Stella #1.

2. Gerami Fizz (FizzWorks)’s playable instruments. He might’ve been beaten to the punch by Robbie Dingo’s Hyperflute (not trying to contribute to silly competitiveness, both are darn nice), but there’s also a trumpet, clarinet, trombone, and possibly a harmonica floating around as well. Amazing modelling, great samples, playable via keyboard HUD or movement controls, great syntax for notecard songs, etc. Plenty fun, too. Only thing it’s missing is a particle effect on the spit valves :p Find FizzWorks in Caledon, or i think there’s a vendor in the Suffugium flea market right now too (until we get a proper shop set up for him :D).

   (Disclaimer: G Fizzle has recently been swallowed by the Squid(soft) for his coolness. I’m pretty biased.)

3. Trep Cosmo’s tables. Someone else made similar too, but I knew of Trep’s first. One table with one chair. Sit on it, and it’ll make room for & rez another chair. And then another. And so on, until it can’t rez any more. This is one of the most SL-ish things I’ve seen - easy on prims, socially inclusive (always room for everyone, long as the table’s big enough), and makes a great “foop” sound.

   Sadly, Treppy’s currently on vacation from SL due to hardware problems (if i remember right). But check the barstools & tables in the Cabaret (commercial district) and at the counter of the Blue Arrow (slum district, which is now open to the public) in Suffugium - those are a straightened-out version of Trep’s chairs.

4. Suffugium. I feel okay hyping this, since I’m only associated with the folks who really build/built it, and add only a little bit to it myself. I’ve seen it go from plywood model & junk laying around the Squidsoft yard to what it is now, and it floors me. I almost wish I hadn’t been involved in it, so I could explore it objectively - so many neat little things all over. The automatons, the little in-jokes, the hidden bits scattered all over, the general theme & consistency throughout… stuff that I’d never seen anywhere else in SL, or at least not to this degree. Not that Nexus Prime & similar places aren’t the same… just there’s something in Suffugium that really clicks.

   I’m gonna go out on a limb & say that something is probably the Squidsoft Collective. Binne, Kaeli, Lex, Aliasi, Chiri, and everyone else that’s thrown down their stuff in Suffugium. Every prim & texture & script in that sim has been placed & tweaked with so much heart that it can’t help but show through. Nobody’s been hired or paid to build anything in there. No Squid gets squidded because they’re good at building or whatever - it’s more because they’re good at being fun & generally cool folks. And now we’ve got ourselves a nice hideout that fits too.

   (when a Linden drags in other Lindens to show it off, and those Lindens start bringing their friends there to show it off, I think it’s safe to be all “man, this really is awesome” :p)

(i’ll try to add slurls to that stuff later, when i’m a little less at-work and more in-world. find->places in the meantime, lazybutts.)

Another plug or two, real quick:

1) Suffugium is going to be staging some stuff on saturday for SL’s 3rd birthday party. The big one is Jaycatt and Frogg making wonderful noises at the Moonrise Cabaret (TP to Suffugium and head down the street the giant statue is facing, can’t miss it) from 6-8pm SLT/PST. The cabaret can hold a whole lot of people, but it’ll probably pack the sim so get there early!

Also, there’ll be tours of the sim before & after - anyone who hasn’t had a chance to really explore (gone dumpster diving for freebies, seen the slums, etc) can join in & see all the nifty secrets. I think our pal Gomi Mfume will be DJing as well, with her insane library of industrial/EBM/noise/wacky songs (including the work of a few Suffugium residents!). Search Events for “suffugium” & come say howdy.

2) June 21 is Go Skateboarding day. It’s good times.