What is it with me and software?

People sometimes find it quite surprising that I write scripts in Second Life. I have been working on something I call the "Magic Compass" for a while now and have just released a new version. I call it the new multi-tool for today's SL.

I have had many new scripters, never having scripted or coded anything else in their life, try to compare themselves to me. Not that they are saying that they are as good, no, quite the opposite, that they feel rather inadequate when they do the comparison. (I am an Elf, I am allowed to be elitist.) When I explain I have been doing this sort of thing for about 35 years they are shocked. For goodness sakes, that means I didn't start until my early 40's!

So let me tell you a little about my history. I recall, 40 years ago, when it was said that humans had stepped foot on the moon. I know, who would believe that! But I do recall picking up a telescope and looking at the moon at that time just to see. Nope. I didn't see anyone there. It did, however, make me more interested in humans and their world. We never had an "industrial revolution." I blame (credit?) magic for that. We are, however, excellent bio-engineers. Well, some elves are. I am not. I was in my late 30's when the moon incident happened, and as such was just beginning my wandering stage of life. I decided to learn more about this so called technical science that you humans were doing. This was my introduction to your computing engines. I must admit, I had never considered leveraging the simple logical expressions of AND, OR, NOT and so on to such a level, and then realizing that when you actually took these out of the mind and made them physical that time was also added (it takes time to do something) and this would bring about latches and the ability to "remember" state. This was exciting. A new puzzle!

I brought these ideas back to some of our more creative gardeners, and behold, "Elven Computers" were born. For a very long time it was a game. Our gardeners were able to do everything with bio-engineering, focusing with specialized fruits and vegetables, that you humans were doing with transistors and electricity. I started to write "programs" for these new creations. I contend the best fruits we have used have come from the apple tree, though certain vegetables have proven their own worth as well.

Okay, some of you are saying "Ha! That is not likely! You were barely 40, you had not even done your duty of making and raising a family, much less spend a hundred and some odd years studying under a master so you yourself could be a master! No one your age does such things!" And you might even have a point! But, consider, this was an entirely knew concept to our people. There were no masters in this area. The gardeners were masters, of course, but in terms of "programming" it was unknown. Certainly many of those that entered this field since that time are much older than me, and have contributed in great ways that are beyond me, but still, I was an early pioneer at my tender age.

Over the years we advanced, and we went from simple calculating machines to programmable devices, programming languages, and operating systems. We learned many concepts from what was being done in the human world as well. Eventually I became focused on Operating System design, and it still holds a special place in my heart. I look back fondly on those days. But eventually we decided that it was silly to re-invent all that humans were doing and I began, with others, to work on providing special skin layers for our fruits that would allow us to bring in human software. Eventually this evolved to emulating the actual hardware of human devices. This was very exciting work and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I became to appreciate the beauty of design of some of the processors you all designed, and to loathe others.

During this time we also followed your work in networking. This was another great period for me. Learning to actually communicate from our world to yours! I do not understand the lowest level conversions between our organic system and your electronic, nor how this works between the portal between the two worlds. Some of your protocols take on new jokes in our world, considering we use genetically engineered vines the same way you use networking cables. We adopted protocols such as IP and TCP and UDP. We had already learned that doing it our own way was simply too much work.

Then the bad started to happen. We realized that there were security risks in such things. Initially it did not matter, it was all academic curiosity. But when these concepts provided useful functionality of value, security became an issue. Most recently I have been focusing on such things.

Scripting in SL is something I find quaint and amusing. It provides new challenges, mostly from the quaintness of the language and the interesting interactions with "real objects".

So that is why I, a young elf, do the scripting that I do. I simply have been doing it for a very long time and have had the joyous opportunity to experience so many different aspects of what you call software engineering. I don't really consider myself an engineer. I prefer to think of myself as an artist who expresses herself through the constraints of software.

And I have a confession to make. Very recently we actually started to use the actual electrical devices made in your world. I do not trust electricity, but I am using it, though only to power these devices. I hate to say it, but I am amazed by what you humans have done. I am just glad that my experience allows me to program even these human devices. Most often, what I design can be used on either human or elven devices. But please don't tell anyone. I try to keep the fact that I use electricity a secret...

The Smell Test

I have a dear human friend, in your world, who is in the middle of courtship. She is being courted by what sounds to be like a wonderful gentleman. I am fascinated by this mate selection process. We select our mate explicitly for the purpose of propagation of our people. We are not considered to be mated until the female is with child, and when she is, the couple is mated. Being mated is more a statement of situation than emotion. Mates are, of course, expected to raise their children. Mating is also for life.

Selecting a mate is of utmost importance to our people. Since we are not a people of great number, and we are not inclined to have large families, having healthy strong children, who in turn will have healthy strong children, is very critical to us and something we are conscience of when we select our mates.

One important "ritual" we have in our mating process I shall refer to as the smell test. When my friend was obviously serious about the gentleman courting her, I asked her what I thought was a perfectly normal question: "Have you smelled him yet?". She burst out laughing and clearly did not grasp the significance of what I was saying. As I mentioned, we have something called "The Smell Test.". It is probably our nose that tells us first that a person near us is a potential mate. For our females, certain males will arouse in us a combination of sexual desire and our nesting instinct. It is something we are quite conscience of when it happens. From that point forward we treat this other person as a prospective mate. We consider if we will be able to work together to raise a child, if our ages are compatible, and other mundane matters. At some point we know this person is to be our mate. It is at this time we do "The Smell Test."

The smell test is probably as close to marriage engagement as anything in our culture. We do not have marriage, we only have mating. The smell test is a ritual and has several parts. First we must bathe and cleanse our bodies of all scents not produced by our own bodies. This can be done together or individually. After this, if clothing is desire or needed, we each wear a simple robe that has been cleaned and has virtually no scent. The next part is where we strengthen our scent. We partake in some activity together which will cause us to sweat. There is no prescribed activity, though one popular choice is a hot air bath, or sauna. Once we have produced sufficient scent we give each other our robes, if we were wearing them, and we each smell deeply of the others robe. We will then embrace and smell the other deeply, all over each others bodies. While we almost certainly already know the outcome, from the smelling of each others scent we can easily tell if the other is compatible with us. It is similar to smelling an aroma and knowing if it smells appetizing or not

And that is " The Smell Test"

-- Glimmering

Which way is up?

Second Life is an interesting place. There are four "second life" days in a single regular day. If you watch the sun you must come to the conclusion that the planet that makes up Second Life does not have a tilt to its axis so at "noon" the sun is always directly overhead. The sun is never to the north or to the south.

So, does the sun rise on the left and move to the right, or on the right and move to the left? In Second Life the answer is "it doesn't matter". But in the real world, on a cold winter day, you can distinctly view the sun as rising on your right and setting on your left. Or is it the other way around? And now we get the the crux of this post.

It has never bothered me that in my world, where the Elves live, the sun rises on the right and sets on the left while in the few times I have visited the human world, in a place called Japan, I have noticed the sun does just the opposite. They are different worlds after all. Besides, I have a good friend in Second Life who also lives in the human world in a place called Tasmania. She says the sun rises on the right and sets on the left, too.

What made this start to bother me was the calender. Yes, the calender. You see, I realized that the human world and our world have the same equinoxes. Our years are the same length. The axis of the worlds seems to be tilted at the same angle. Our magnetic poles are the same. You might say that the planets that make up our two worlds are identical and exist in identical solar systems. Of course, it isn't true. Our land masses are different. But still, it is peculiar.

Getting back to what is bothering me. So when my Tasmanian friend mentioned the sun for her also rose on the right I thought "Okay, so where we live is relatively the same". Now she lives in a place where the sun is to the north, and I have always considered the sun is to the south. Maybe we just have north and south confused! But that doesn't explain it either. You see, our seasons match those in your northern hemisphere, not your southern hemisphere, and Tasmania is in your southern hemisphere. So the question remains, why does the sun rise to your left, or perhaps, why does it rise to our right?

I have considered possibly time runs in opposite directions for the two worlds, but that does not make sense as I can't remember your future. I briefly thought perhaps, given a planet is a sphere, we lived on the outside and you lived on the inside, but that doesn't work either. You would never see the sun.

Something odd is at play here, something I don't understand. I just know we can enjoy a nice eastern sunset!

When did it begin?

When did it begin? When did what begin?! Well, everything of course! I have researching this question and have decided to write here as I discover things or make my own deductions. As a child growing up I had heard of the crazy old man who lived outside the village in a large stone house, or should I say library? Coincidentally, he happens to not live so far off the trail I run when escaping to the forest for meditation. It also turns out that he has a great great great great grandson named Conyore who is to be my mate just over 5 years.

So back to the question. Well, it is said that after thirteen upon thirteen generations we had forgotten God and God intended to destroy our world. It was the Hobbits and the Eleventh Angel that gave God reason to not destroy our world. That was also, the books have it, that God created the Earth and the humans.

It was about 6,000 to 8,000 years ago we first noticed Humans. If that was the time God intends to destroy our world then it must have been 13 upon 13 generations prior to that that our world was created, or more to the point, when Dawn created the first Elves. Some have suggested the texts imply it was only 26 generations, but most, including myself, take it as 169 generations. So how long is a generation? There is a common belief it it also 169 years, while others consider 128 years as the number, though this seems short.

Recently I have been working on making New Eleven Calenders, associating them with the Human calender. Our New Year starts at what in your world is called the spring equinox. What is interesting is the location of the spring equinox shifts a little each year, taking nearly 26,000 years to circumnavigate the globe. This is called "The Great Year" among other names by Humans. Given the importance the equinox plays in our calender I believe the 169 generations covered one great year.

It is now time for me to curl up into a small ball on my shakedown and gather some sleep.