Spiraling Sideways

Getting ready for Raglan Shire's Medieval Fest

2009-09-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

Stomping grapes for wine

It's going to be an awesome time in the Shire.

Jousting in Second Life (as a tiny)

2009-08-25T23:31:00.000-07:00

Raglan Shire is having Medieval Week soon and I've discovered jousting!

Tiny jousting ponies from Zephyr Pennell (And Lone Star is hosting the joust I think). Lances are being supplied by Slydel Rau. Tiny armour is made by Zekeen Phoenix.

All Geared Up, Ready To Joust

Resting my pony after a hard day's jousting

It's going to be fun in Raglan Shire!

Back at the new home on the second life mainland

2009-08-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

Trying my hand at growing corn. At my old place in second life.

I have 7 roots and each one will have a cob on it eventually

Made a little movie about my two little chicks I have there, and my adventure in growing corn.

youtube link

New Second Life Home

2009-08-10T17:37:00.000-07:00

Bought some Estate land with a friend. We wanted a few more prims to play with.

Set up a lovely cottage, pretty trees, a fishing dock, a few chickens, and there will be a barn with horses soon.

Playing with OpenSim

2009-06-26T17:17:00.000-07:00

Decided to take the plunge and make my own Region, just for fun. Building on MacOSX isn't that bad. Nice instructions available here and here

Downloaded all the stuff needed for building and running OpenSim: Mono, Xcode, and Subversion.

Here's the script I wrote, based on these pages (buildopensim is the directory I do all the opensim stuff in, your milage may vary)

#!/bin/sh
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/Versions/Current/lib/pkgconfig
export PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/Versions/Current/bin

cd buildopensim

svn co http://opensimulator.org/svn/opensim/trunk opensim
cd opensim
./runprebuild.sh
nant

cp ../buildopensim/OpenSim.ini bin/OpenSim.ini

Be sure to make the following changes to the OpenSim.ini file:

;physics = basicphysics
physics = OpenDynamicsEngine
av_capsule_radius = 0.68
av_capsule_standup_tensor_win = 1900000
av_capsule_standup_tensor_linux = 1900000
av_density = 80

Then start OpenSim

#!/bin/sh
cd myopensim
cd opensim
cd bin
mono OpenSim.exe

Still not working exactly right (can't walk into hollow boxes), but most everything else is available. Now if I can figure out how to transfer my Sculptie Studio in there so I can play with a million prims if I want

2009-05-15T12:33:00.000-07:00

I have discovered Sculpt Studio, in Second Life.

It enables you to build sculpties inworld. On sculpties.info there are lessons for learning how to use it. I've made a video of lesson 2, mostly to show a friend.

Click the image to go to the video on youtube

Missing Bunny Hunt (1)

2009-04-28T15:39:00.001-07:00

Missing Bunny Hunt (1)
Originally uploaded by yellowduckiee

Been having fun in Second Life on the "Missing Bunny Hunt"

A new "Heaven" podcast is a'coming!

2009-04-06T12:56:00.000-07:00

The new website for Heaven, written by Mur Lafferty, has appeared.

If you buy a paid subscription, you can get "The Inside Story".

There will be PDFs of the story and more lovely benefits.

Now there's a possibility of getting a character named after you. Oh joy!

My new fishing spot

2009-03-31T17:24:00.001-07:00

My new fishing spot
Originally uploaded by yellowduckiee

I've been so enjoying this second life fishing.

The 7seas people, who invented and run it, have created a new community for fishing people. I'm renting this little dock. Room for a couple of cushion, chairs, a nice plant.

If I ever get around to doing custom fish/rods, it will also be a place to put them for catching (as well as my home lot).

This SL fishing thing is too much fun

2009-03-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

A quiet pond for fishing
by me

Discovered 7seas fishing on Second Life. I thought, how much fun could fishing be on a computer screen.

Well it's been hilarious. Besides regular fishing, I've fished with a soda bottle, a cup of coffee, fished while dancing in the surf.

Now I've gone and picked up a little pond and put an invisible 7seas fishing server in it, and when I want a little quiet fishing time, I can fish in my own pond.

Sitting In Pixie Nest

2009-03-14T12:49:00.001-07:00

Sitting In Pixie Nest (Cropped)
Originally uploaded by yellowduckiee

Mandy and I have been on "The Most Random Hunt Ever". Here we are at location #15, after finding the flower. We were looking around and here was this lovely pixie nest to rest in.

I'm wearing some lovely jewelry from location #13, Juicy.

later

2009-03-02T09:15:00.000-08:00

something will go here later

Second Librivox Recording: The Putnam Tradition

2009-03-01T12:20:00.000-08:00

I did another scifi short story today.

The Putnam Tradition, by Sonya Dorman

I'm feeling more comfortable in my reading.

The collection I was reading for, is completed. I feel like I really contributed to the effect.

Firefly's Serenity in Second Life

2009-02-28T17:37:00.000-08:00

Wandering around, I found a little piece of the 'Verse in SL. A replica of Serenity that you can explore in Burnett.

Serenity Itself parked on the ground.

Sitting on the ramp.

Inside the Hold.

Serenity Engine Room

Dining Area.

Outside Shuttle

Kicking Back.

Standing in cockpit.

Cockpit chair

And it's not just Serenity. There are other Firefly themed buildings there. Lots of wandering to do in the days to come.

Librivoxing: First MP3

2009-02-27T15:10:00.000-08:00

I deeply enjoy listening to audio books from librivox. It's a volunteer effect to speak public-domain works into audio. Reminds of when I was young, and did recording of text book for in college. I was told I had a great voice for it because it was so mono-tone. What? Why? Because the tapes can be played at a faster speed than recorded and my voice didn't get all weird sounding with being sped up.

I think I have learned to speak a little more expressively. Well, maybe not. I'll never be as good as my sweetie. Awesome voice on that man.

But I submitted my first librivox works (a short story: The Fourth Invasion by Henry Joephs (about 8min)

I really hope I did it correctly (also my pic of the day for project 365).

Fourth Greasemonkey script for ravelry.com

2009-02-24T22:20:00.000-08:00

Posts asking to get rid of one, or another, or all the voting buttons on ravelry.com pop up from time to time. For example, this post about hiding the disagree button under each forum post (you have to have a ravelry account to see the thread).

And while I don't care one way or the other, I do like playing with greasemonkey for firefox.

At the moment, this script hides all the voting buttons (education, etc). I'll refine it later. But if someone wants to hide the disagree button, and can deal with hiding all the rest, this script will do the job.

I'll post screenshots later. Maybe.

SL 021709: Sitting At Yarnation

2009-02-17T18:30:00.001-08:00

Sitting At Yarnation
Originally uploaded by me

What the title says. Sitting on a comfortable in the cabin at Yarnation. No one else was there, but I hope to attend a gathering there one day.

Wandering a Train Yarn in Second Life

2009-02-13T15:31:00.000-08:00

I'm exploring a train yard Rail Mall & Grand Calleta Termin, Calleta (123, 96, 30)

I'm wearing a new shape, given to me by a VIP Aeriana Erin. I tweaked it some. It's shorter, and I'm wearing my own jumpsuit (I found it at MoonWorld). I really like the hair.

New SL Party Dress

2009-02-12T23:38:00.000-08:00

This was given to me by Aeriana Erin.
The picture is the two of us. I'm the tall one.

I changed it a little. I didn't like how tall it was,

I like my short height so I shorten it some. I really liked the hair.

I changed back into my jumpsuit for more wandering. I didn't want to get my new party dress dirty! :)

Flickr

2009-02-07T18:28:00.001-08:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Finished January's Mosaic for project 365

2009-01-31T21:20:00.000-08:00

LambCam

2009-01-29T13:04:00.000-08:00

LambCam Soon. A favorite sheep farm is putting up a lambcam.. It's not quite ready, but maybe Sunday.

LAMBS!!!!

Playing with Flair Buttons

2009-01-26T16:26:00.001-08:00

First flair button: Crocheting 1

Second flair button: Beagle Puppy 1

RITFAB: Remove Ignored Threads From "Any" Browse on Ravelry.com

2009-01-24T09:21:00.000-08:00

This is a pet peeve of mine on ravelry.com. When browsing forums, you have 4 options. You can look at only New threads (whose you haven't read at all), Watched threads (meaning you have set the watch flag on that thread), Ignored threads (these threads disappear from regular forums reading when set), or Any (all threads regardless of status).

Now, I'm of the opinion ignored threads should not show up under Any browse. When I'm browsing Any I do not want to see ignored threads. I ignored them for a reason (good, bad, silly). Particularly as you can already specifically look at ignored threads whenever you want.

They just shouldn't be in the Any browse. So there!

I present the Ravelry "remove ignored threads from Any browse" script.

Before the script:

After the script:

Version 2 of this script will append the next page to the current page as you scroll down. Also known as auto-paging.

Second Greasemonkey script for ravelry.com

2009-01-23T12:28:00.000-08:00

The post on ravelry.com that starts all this was about someone wanting to hide the "Fave Curse Word" box on our profiles (you have to have a ravelry account to see the thread).

I personally enjoy having it, but it gave me a reason to start looking into script writing.

Ravelry remove fave curse word script

Before the script:

After the script:

Greasemonkey script for ravelry.com

2009-01-22T13:36:00.000-08:00

Casey, the code god of ravelry, added project tabs. Which I love. Which I've made many of.

Sadly, the tabs and the text at the top of the project page are trying to be in the same space.

Time to delve into greasemonkey. Wrote a script the moves the tabs/thumbnails/sidebar down a smudge.

Ravelry project page tweak script

Before the script:

After the script:

Happy Presidential Upgrade Day

2009-01-20T08:40:00.000-08:00

Thank you for your upgrade to POTUS v44.

Our delivery tracking system indicates that your upgrade should arrive today.

We wish you all the best for your coming years with this enhanced version. We hope that you will be discovering additional rich features and robustness throughout the coming years.

Please remember not to hold back on your expectations for this version because of your experience with previous versions. POTUS v44 was redesigned from the bottom up, and will reach its fullest potential when charged from below. Its new inner growth module can respond to input in ways the previous version could not-- the more you fuel it and the more you demand of it, the better it can perform.

But for today, just install POTUS v44, let it activate its bundled peripherals, and enjoy the sparkle as it re-energizes the country.

Joyous inaugural hugs to all,
John & Tibbi

(written by John Scott, my boo)

Round 2 scarf for group26 on ravelry

2009-01-06T20:41:00.000-08:00

traveling_scarf_started, wrong side, originally uploaded by yellowduckiee.

I am so happy about this one. We are doing only plant fibers. I used
South West Trading Company Phoenix yarn, in purple and green. The pattern is "Dovetail Strips". The one side is a little odd. I'm not that great yet carrying yarn yet.

Badges and Buttons For SideBar

2009-01-01T14:25:00.000-08:00

Names will changes

2008-11-07T22:33:00.001-08:00

The blog's name isn't quite what I have in mind. Will have to think on it some more.

edited (01/24/09): as I think on it, I've grown to like the name. Will keep it.