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I was going a bit nuts trying to find out why I was getting an error when adding one of my inventory items to the database. I have a primary key that contains a varchar(64) data type as one if it's keys. One item got in the database that was 63 characters long. I tried to add another item with the same name, except that it had a trailing space. It appears that MySQL thinks that this is the same name without the trailing space. It appears that it may be related to Bug #14131. I'll look into changing the collation from PADSPACE to NOPAD.

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One of my tests that I use on my drop boxes is to copy the large list if notecards in my inventory into the contents of my dropbox. I've had a message pop up each time I attempt to do this: Inventory creation on in-world object failed. I'm assuming this has to do with inventory loss. Just about any information I have found on the Internet indicates that the item disappears in both their own inventory and the content of the prim. The message doesn't go into detail regarding what the name of the item was. In the mean time, I'm trying to identify the limit of how many items a prim can actually hold, and if it has an effect on the scripts performance.

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Continuing development of my drop-boxes, I now have a back-end that is able to record which items are in a prims contents. I've got one box setup with over 800 items to try and stress test the system, monitor the scripts memory, and watch the time that the scripts take up on the top scripts. There are minor hiccups (duplicate names in a single prims inventory) that I'm identifying and fixing up, but everything is working like clockwork. I'm also going to hook up a log4php library on the back-end to enable me to monitor the behavior much better. If all goes well, I may have a simple web-interface to test the delivery of items soon.

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After trimming the fat off of my code for my drop-box, it is back online again. The server-side scripts had to be rewritten to handle the newer/condensed form of communications. The backend database is being updated to reflect when each box had last been verified along with it's api endpoint uri. The next step is to process the inventory that the box sends to the server. I have a method that throttles the http requests to prevent problems with people who have multiple drop-boxes sending inventory at once. It also sends a condensed, serialized batch of inventory information (name, type, perms) so that there is less traffic needed.

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I've been working on my inventory server again in regards to optimizations. I've really cut it down to size while retaining much of the functionality that I had originally put into it. One thing that strikes me is the size of memory available when it's compiled in Mono or LSL. LSL has a limit of 16 KB. The free memory reports 12,431 bytes free, so it's safe to assume that the script itself takes up about 3.5 KB. Mono has a limit of 64 KB and reports that I have 48,298 bytes free; resulting in code roughly 16 KB in size. With Mono scripts taking up roughly four times the memory for the same written code, it's understandable why the memory limit was increased to 64KB for mono.

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Every now and then I have a desire to make a programmable music box in a virtual environment. Today I went a step further. I found a program to create MIDI files and found a music box in the sound bank. I used Audacity to record and alter the sounds a bit to my liking. I then Created a piano keyboard texture and uploaded both the sounds and two octives of sounds. I created a script to sense what area of the prim was touched to play a specific sound. For starters, I now have a 1-prim keyboard that plays single notes of a music box.

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I've been able to cut my scripts initial memory down so that I have about 41k available. Originally I had about 25k available. The primary tips are to reduce the need for functions, global variables, lists, and string length. The other thing to cut back on is the amount of features you are starting off with. Keep the script as simple as possible. The shocker for me today was the memory consumption of llResetScript. I found that in some cases, I could replace it with a state change back to the default state with a memory savings of over 500 bytes. Other times, this method had no effect at all. This confuses me. Why is this method so memory intensive sometimes?

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This little script shows a progress bar as floating text.

Sending Inventory

[||||||||||....................] 33%

showProgress(float value, float maximum, string status)
{
float percent = 0;
if(maximum != 0) percent = value / maximum;
integer barCount = 50;
integer bars = llFloor(percent * barCount);
llSetText(
status + "\n["
+ llGetSubString("||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||..................................................", barCount - bars, -1 - bars)

+ "] " + (string)llFloor(percent * 100) + "%"
, <1, 1, 1>, 1);
}

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After posting information about the MystiTool and Multi Gadget, I got a response from Timeless Prototype stating that a Mono version is in the works due out later this year or early next year due to Mono issues. Radar Masukami handed me a free radar hud that he had made. I checked it out and it took only 0.008 to 0.010 ms. I've seen it jump up to 0.040 for a brief moment once. I started sending him messages about what appeared to be a glitch. Then I noticed that it was open source. I fixed the bug, set the range lower, and delayed the sensor from 1 second to 15. Radar gives credit to original scripters (Sable Till, Water Rogers, Argent Stonecutter, Christopher Omega and Sapphire Bombay).

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After my previous post regarding the performance of Multi Gadget, Sphynx Soleil reminded me of the MystiTool and suggested that it performed better. I checked it out and found that it took between 0.096 and 0.109 (Multigadget was about 0.148). It too offered a suspend utility called the MystiTool Sleeper. I saw that it too decreased down to about 0.072 (Multigadget was 0.049 with the blocker). So, in simple terms, MystiTool takes less resources when running at regular mode. However, with both the MystiTool and Multi Gadget are in suspend/sleeper modes, Multi Gadget saves more resources. Multi Gadget can be forced to suspend with a blocker. MystiTool asks, but does not enforce sleep mode.

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During my day job, I often separate code into functions for purposes of better manageability. Each function is a black box in a sense. It describes what it does, and goes ahead and does the job. In LSL, there are memory limitations. I find that the reverse is more beneficial. You can reclaim more memory by avoiding functions all together and putting the code in-line. A function should only exist if it is being called from two or more places within the code. I was able to reclaim about 6 KB of data tonight. I need to put down my work and breathe in some fresh air. I wonder when the old clouds will go away.

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I started digging a big deeper into my scripting problems with memory and speed. I ran over to the Woodbridge sim to get a snapshot into how much time the server was acquiring. It kept showing me as one of the most time consuming scripts on the sim at around 0.28. I recalled listening to the Podmafia (episode 111) today where Yxes was taking off different items to find the problem. I took off my multigadget and bam! I was no longer on the list. I also tried the multi gadget blocker with the multi-gadget on, but it kept jumping between 0.1 and 0.15. I need a light weight flight assist. I don't see why the SL Client limits us from flying high.

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Crap Mariner and Hope Clary join me for a game of Clued Up.

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Crap Mariner and I were able to brainstorm a few ideas to connect Edloe to Woodbridge. We wanted boats to get through the water between the islands, but it would end up having us create a high bridge. We started to consider draw bridges until I came up with the crazy idea of rotating the bridge on it's Z-axis instead. This gave way to allowing me to bring out the classic covered bridge. We soon found out that an object crossing regions is only solid on the region where it's center is located. I ended up splitting the bridge in half, and then having the two sides communicate with each other when they were touched. Perfection! Now woodbridge has a new attraction adding to it's unique culture.

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Indigo Paperclip contacted me regarding a new website for avatar fashion promoting Acedia Albion's clothing line. Indigo is one of the people who I met through the Mr O show that was hosted at the Acedia Super Deck in Bolinas. Indigo is usually at quite a few of Acedia Albion's events as well where she does photo shoots, machinima and fasion. Tonight I got some hair along with the promo package for the new site asking to promote the new site. Aren't I spiffy?

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My entry for weekly challeng #168 for 100 Word Stories.

I heard stories of a wise person once that lived on a mountain.
The path to wisdom was said to be shrouded in mist.
The guru’s sight was able to pierce through the depths of your own.
Your life is an open book without words.
I decided to take the trek to find the man.
I found a village where many people spoke of the same story.
They pointed to the mountain above the town; its peak was hidden by clouds.
The journey up the mountain took two days.
At the top, I found a shack with only a mirror.

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After moving the ships bridge out of the way into the sky, I came to the realization that I needed a teleporter. I broke out my old sim teleporter and started working on it to resemble something that you stand in. I'm separating the center piece so that another one may be rezzed as soon as the first one is launched rather than waiting for its return. This would help crowds to move to their destination quicker. I am also working on setting them up to detect all teleporters within the region so that setting them up to teleport to each other doesn't require any manual interaction. The sim teleporter transports distances greater than 300 meters faster than other long range teleporters.

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I'm gathering up some ideas for one of my older domains. Long before I heard of second life, i always wanted to make my own web-based MMORPG. I had many ideas, and interesting experiments to boot, but none of them really made it anywhere. I think I'm going to start building up an idea founded on space exploration. The general idea is to make a podcast discovering new songs (mainly through podshow at first), but some how tieing in the theme with a game simulation of building up a brighter world of your own. Perhaps I'm trying too many things at once. Anyways, here is a mockup of a space ship bridge.

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I've been playing with a lot of tools with sculpties. I am becoming frustrated with the inability to make simple objects. The best that can be done is to make rocks. Hard edges are hard to make unless you double-up vertexes. Some programs allow you to double them up on the edge, but they equally distribute points along the depth rather then doubling up the first pair on the top and bottom. I've also got "flaps" to worry about if the edge does not have a solid path to the center of each side. I just want something that can convert a few prims in SL to a 1-prim sculpty. Argh!

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Korii pops up to show off her zebra.

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Harbour sim, home to Trill Lomu, Ravishal Bentham and Feline Slade

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Sometimes work gets so involved, that by time I get home, I can't shake the feeling of "work mode". It's those times when your brain keeps racing to solve problems, or plan ahead that you can't stop thinking. Think, think, think. A couple of Advil should do the trick to help my mind relax and get rid of these head aches.

Work has went into high gear in that I have not been able to post much about my life in this virtual world. The new format of my courses in school isn't helping much as well. Still, I shall adjust and figure out how to resort my life and get control over who I am. I am not work. I am not school. I am me. I think?

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It turns out that anything at 400.000 meters and above are not rendered at all on region maps. When building sky boxes, keep this in mind and do not build too low.

I have a few more tests that I am carrying out. I'm looking into transparency, as well as what happens when two prims at the same position/size overlap. I'm looking into depth as well. If a prims center is 400 meters or above, and it's thick enough so the base is below 400 meters, then will it show on the map? My guess is no - but I'd like to verify. Any reason to this? Not yet. Just playing around in the air.