ok, that was weird. my first proper business meeting in sl. Myself, as a fox, and three
women, two of whom are the same person, all talking about chatbots in the demo suite
anyway it looks like a great opportunity to get chatbots into SL through the SL Library, the
people who came second in the Talis Library mashup. Great fun.
blog end
Posted from Second Life at: Nari <53.84446, 168.29950, 180.95680>
A List Apart: Articles: Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing
Cracking essay on ubiquitous computing. And it looks like a lot of people are using SL as a test-bed for the UC/AC model.
end
Posted from Second Life at:Suffugium 92.49999, 112.33124, 34.14900>>
town hall meeting
Posted from Second Life at:Suffugium 92.49999, 112.33124, 34.14835>>
looks like this is as far as I can go with the SL blogging tool so far.
can't find a way to post a hyperlink so that I can SLURL the location.
Never mind, see if I can find another way later.
Back to the RSS and chatbot SL scripts.
Posted from Second Life at: Nari 55.77996, 170.22108, 137.25417>
Posted from Second Life at:Nari !55.77996, 170.22108, 137.25417>!
just checking
blog end
Posted from Second Life at:Nari 55.77996, 170.22108, 137.25417>
blog blogging from second life
this is a test of my blogging object in second life
it lets me blog from wherever I am in SL, and even shows you where I was
lets hope it works!
Posted from Second Life at:Nari 55.77996, 170.22108, 137.25417>
This is a simple one line test post from Second Life
Posted from Second Life at:Nari 55.77996, 170.22108, 137.25417>
test again
Posted from Second Life at:Nari 55.77996, 170.22108, 137.25417>>
this
Posted from Second Life at:Nari 58.73904, 166.93364, 137.89986>>
Did some work last night on a small app that would let me blog from SL. Basics are working fine (although I've deleted the test posts now). It even shows you the location you blogged from - although I'd like to create that as a dynamic SLURL. Other things to do are:
- Use the MetaBlogAPI extensions so I can post category and title
- add in a record feature so it will record SL conversations as they happen
- embed the script in a nice comms type bracelet.
Started exploring Burning Life 06, the SL version of the Burning Man festival. First place was a giant sphere, and when you're inside it it projects 3D bubble photos onto the inside so that you appear stood or floating above some RL location. There was a city (Paris?), a coast (New England?), an opera house and many more.
The next was a small garden with fish swimming in the lake. When you clicked on a stone you were transported to this vast space, almost llike a planetarium with planets, stars and other everyday objects (table, bed etc), suspended in mid air.
Torley's Second Life & techno music Blog
Rank #1 in the SL Power Top 10
The Power Elite of Second Life, Part II - Kotaku
Beats the West Midlands Power 100!
Managed to get Halo into SL. Very easy in the end. Just wrote an XML template for her to pick up on the web end, and then an LSL script to parse the XML being returned by the REST call. Added a few extra SL side functions like Say, Whisper, Channel, Be Quiet. Will also add some SL specific patterns to pick up on things like her location, who she's speaking too etc. Will be equally easy to get Charlotte and Lillian in.
The Nabaztag link is working very well. It's reporting probably half a dozen people a day coming into the office or up to the demo suite. The next step would be to get Halo to talk to them as they come in as well.
Between the RSS stuff and the chatbots there could be some real opportunities here.
Typing this just had a thought - would be good to be able to blog from within SL. And if only I can work out how to display text on a prim. Could do it at a prim per word I suppose. Perhaps some sort of scrolling display?
What happens when two lonely hotbots get their wires crossed? Ikea's Anna talks to the US Armies SgtStar (or rather is jointly interviewed with him).
The Gapminder World 2006, beta
Cracking data visualisation tool. Just watch Southern Africa and Former USSR states buck the development trend.
The main Gapminder site is worth checking out too.
wikiHow - The How-To Manual That Anyone Can Write or Edit
Nice idea, particularly with all the DIY I'm doing at moment at the cottage.
%u30ED%u30DC%u30C3%u30C8%u30DF%u30E5%u30FC%u30B8%u30A2%u30E0 in %u540D%u53E4%u5C4B
The world's first end-user robot store?
Ben Schott's latest image is reminscent of the classic War of 1812 graphic by Minard.
With all the activity around Second Life at the moment, and the availability of an HTTP call from SL (Second Life) to RL (Real Life) I've decided its time to starting spending more time in SL.
First project was to create a virtual Nabaztag. I went down to the main sandbox area and built a simple Nabaztag out of three white cones and some small blacks prims for the eyes and mouth. I'm sure I saw on the Nabaztag web site that someone had already done one but couldn't find the link. Mine's not brilliant, but it's really the scripting I'm interested in.
The script was fairly straight forward. LSL (Linden Scripting Language) is quite C like, and very event driven. So there's a start-up even to initialise it, then a listen script to wait for someone to talk to it, that then calls the REST call to nabaztag.com to send the message, and then a final event that triggers when the response to the REST call comes in. Tested it out and it all worked quite happily. SL to RL communications at last. Chatbots here we come.
am
The lotto ad has gone, but there's another offer from LL to buy my land! His plot is a real sales yard now. Every plot around me has some form of no entry barrier - very frustrating - I have to fly up a couple of hundred metres to get over them. Hope my trespass didn't persuade the Japanese couple to put one up.
From Ariane B's SL pages I find a script for a simple clock and alert system. I install it on a small black pyramid on the desk. During the day I get a couple of emails from it telling me that people are in my office - I'm sure one of them is one of the Japanese. Finally don't feel so bad now. The clock also tells you how long til sunset, didn't realise that SL has several solar cycles a day.
Got my first invite to join a group. Someone's set up a Nari residents group. Just amazing how SL mirrors RL. Join up, notice the Japanese already have. Will be interesting to see meet a few of the locals.
pm
Quick session to add Nabaztag functionality to the pyramid. Looks like its working. I really need to get a second user account so I can test things from a non-owner perspective - particularly if I'm going to try and sell things. Find out that the pyramid also plays Virgin Radio!
First real neighbout issue. LL has put a huge Lotto ad cube on the edge of his land so that it actually extends over mine and almost blocks the way in to my office! Although I can send object on my land home I can't move this as its centre is on his land. Real system bug! I think about reporting the abuse but decide on a polite IM to him. Feel bad about having trespassed in the Japanese garden.
More work on the script having got the PERL sorted. The virtual Guardian looks good on the desk. Click on it and give you the news headlines. They say READ and a keyword from a story and you get the story. Added an auto fade so the text goes after a while, and an auto-refresh so that it will get the new news every hour or so. Lots of configuration settings to make it useful for me and others. Only problem was that since I use Touch to get the news I can't use Touch again to give the user the notecard with the instructions. Next step is to build a larger display version in my demo area.
Look around the neighbourhood again. To the East there's an inland lake, I head over to what looks like a large development on its western shore. Find a nice free market, lots of stuff on the stalls, furniture, clothes, skins, shapes. Buy a big relaxing armchair for the sun deck. The only big store I see there is called Naturale. It sells naked body skins/shapes at around L$1000.
It's funny, one of the problems I'd always had with SL was that there just appeared to be so much of it that you didn't know where to start. But now having bought a plot you suddenly know where to start - at home. There looks like quite a bit of building off to the NW. What appears as a large cross on the map in the middle of an empty area looks interesting so I fly over. Turns out its going to be a new SL reception area. Good news. It's only a kilometre or so away so traffic could be quite heavy in these parts. Near to that there is a new housing development. Looks like something straight out of a US suburb. A neat rectangle of houses and flats. All for rent. Beyond that there is a trading area. The description says it's meant to have an SF feel. A couple of Mech stand over the main public square, but no ones around.
Back at the SL office I start work on the RSS script. Things start well, I get the RSS feed, but can't find a way tp extract the item entries I want. After much playing around I finally realise that the problem is that SL only accepts the first 2048 bytes. I'm testing it on the Guardian's feed which is in RDF, so there's loads of channel crud at the start, so its not even getting to the stories. I'll need to write a Perl app to do some pre-processing.
Put some posters and signs up, with notecards describing Daden and the chatbots. Can't find a way to embed a URL to take people to the web pages. Surely there's a way.
Meet more neighbours. Behind me a couple with Japanese type names have built a Japanese type garden and house (Dojo?). It looks like they are practicing Kendo or drumming. They're playing music. In front a guy called LL ? keeps asking if I want to sell my plot so he can combine it with two others he has next door to make a larger unit. I politely refuse. His plot is full of large adverts. To the N there's a big building, looks ad based again, and to the NW another big structure selling signs. Most of the land around is now built on. Amazing the SL growth rate. A real land grab!
Went to have a look at the Japanese garden last thing. Nice bench which shouted out when I tried to see if I could take it. One of the owners then spoke out from the Dojo - next time I'll check the map first to see if anyones at home! I said hi neighbour but they didn't reply.
Nice blog about 3D worlds (of which more soon). Pity there's no RSS feed.
Spoke too soon. The whole site is actually an RSS feed put through a rendering programme (though I don't know why they didn't just use CSS or XSLT. )
Met the neighbours. Land plots look like they've almost all gone. To the south of me an English guy has bought the plot. He put up one wall, then waited for his girlfiend to come along. Took the wall down, did a bit more building but nothing finished or substantial.
He belonged to the English Group. Seeing s I've got no Group affiliations yet I thought I might was well join too. Can't see a Birmingham group, may have to start one.
Started Building. The original grand plan had been to have a whole series of levels off into the air; the 512 sq m plot is actually a stretched cube, 512 sq m by almost unlimited metres high. However in each plot you'e only allowed 117 prims (basic building primitives), so whilst I could have lots of levels I couldn't have much on them.
I start simple. A white single story office with roof deck (just like my Alpha World one). A ramp takes you up to the roof. The front wall of the office, facing west over the scarpe, is open giving the view. Build a simple table and chair. The second new home of the summer!
To the left of the office I just put in a few trees. Might add some seats and a fire later. I add a separate platform about 100m up, and a simple teleport to move between the two. Hit on the idea of using a circular wall - its a single prim rather than the 4 prims for a rectangular wall.
Amazing just how fast the area builds up. My virtual home-office in the foreground.
With all the activity around Second Life at the moment, and the availability of an HTTP call from SL (Second Life) to RL (Real Life) I've decided its time to starting spending more time in SL.
First project was to create a virtual Nabaztag. I went down to the main sandbox area and built a simple Nabaztag out of three white cones and some small blacks prims for the eyes and mouth. I'm sure I saw on the Nabaztag web site that someone had already done one but couldn't find the link. Mine's not brilliant, but it's really the scripting I'm interested in.
The script was fairly straight forward. LSL (Linden Scripting Language) is quite C like, and very event driven. So there's a start-up even to initialise it, then a listen script to wait for someone to talk to it, that then calls the REST call to nabaztag.com to send the message, and then a final event that triggers when the response to the REST call comes in. Tested it out and it all worked quite happily. SL to RL communications at last. Chatbots here we come.
If I'm going to be working in SL then I thought really ought to have a base there. I've been watching the First Land sales for the last couple of days. About 12 plots (each 16m x 32m = 512 sq m) go on sales each day in a different new part of SL and are reserved for those who haven't bought land before. They're called First Land. The price is fied at L$1 per sq m, compared to a market rate of 5 - 10 L$ per sq m. Locations might not be ideal but its silly not to buy at that price if you can.
Later afternoon todays allocation came on line. They were in Nari, a sim (SL region 1000m x 1000m) roughly in the middle of the big new SL island continent to the SE of the original. The plots were simple green grass, no trees and relatively flat. Lots of people were looking around. I found a nice on just at the edge of a small west facing escarpment - if I'm lucky it'll give me a decent view out west. I bought it.
Almost instantly a real estate dealer was offering money for it. Over the next few hours several arrived, IM'd me and offered anything from L$1000 to around L$2500. It might be a 5x multiple, but the problem is that its almost impossible to buy 512 sq m for less than L$4000 on the open market, so I refused all offers.
First thing on the land was the Nabaztag. I'll get building tomorrow.
