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I'm a novelist and have an interest in space science and physics. I've been a programmer for more than 40 years and I like reviewing new and up-and-coming authors. I have become a committed member of the OpenSimulator community.
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Making Videos
I made my first OpenSimulator video recently using OBS, to explain how my scripts for cross-region, cross-grid object communications was both powerful and very simple to use. Since then, I've been making test videos trying to improve the output.
First off, I had to get rid of the hum that accompanied whichever microphone I used, or which ports they were plugged into. I realised in the end that it was an electrical shielding failure. My computer is a brick, so although a powerful computer, everything is packed into a small box. Any analog audio circuit is going to suffer in these conditions.
IRCBridgeModule Networking
Opensimulator has a module called IRCBridgeModule. I won't go through how to configure this module, which comes by default with OpenSimulator, I'm just going to talk about networking using the module. To setup the module, just peruse the wiki page: Opensimulator IRCBridgeModule. See also the Gotchas below for a very specific configuration setting.
The first thing you have to know about the module, is that communications using this bridge are grid agnostic - that is, it doesn't know (or care) about the grid it is on. An object on one grid can talk to an object on another grid. You have to be able to control both regions in order to configure the simulators properly, but it's possible. I have regions on OSGrid, a private grid of my own with (currently) ten regions on it, and a standalone server supporting two regions: objects can (and do) happily chat to each other across all these configurations.
There is a video overview of the scripts discussed below, showing you how it works and how simple it is to use. Hopefully it will ignite ideas on what you can do with it. YouTube: OpenSimulator integr-grid object communications
In the image at the top of this article, you can see an example of inter-region communications at work. The master - the object you see in the image - sends out a request for information from objects in other regions. Their response is the number of agents (account-based avatars) and NPCs (non-account-based avatars) in each region. It takes less than a second from sending out the request to receiving the last response. In fact, I have trouble releasing the mouse-button before all the information is returned (touching the board sends out the request). As you can see, the list includes most of my regions in mossgrid and two from OSGrid. The fact that some regions are in another grid has no relationship with how long a response takes to arrive back to the display board.
Moss Grid
Many years ago - about a decade I think - I hosted a region or two on OSGrid, an Opensimulator test grid. Opensimulator is an open source version of SecondLife's region server software, allowing you to host your own regions and even your own grids. Standalone regions and grids can be connected via the hypergrid, allowing your avatar to teleport to regions in other grids as easily as it can teleport between regions in your own setup.
Opensimulator has come a long way since I toyed with it back then. I now host two regions on OSGrid, and have my own micro-grid hosting a region - currently just the one but easily expandable. The image shows my avatar standing in the corner of my region of my grid. The avatar skin and clothing came from OSGrid, showing how easy it is to go shopping in other grids.
The regions in OSGrid were easy to setup, but the micro-grid was problematic. Thanks to some great support from people at OSGrid I got it working. The reason it had failed initially is because I mis-interpreted instructions, so entirely my own fault.
CV-Multiply
Some years ago I encoded the cross-vertical multiplication system into PHP code. A 64-bit system can't natively understand any number larger than ~18,446,744,073,709,551,615 so mutiplication of numbers larger than this or whose result is larger than this is completely out of the question without special software or libraries.
I recently updated this code - which could only handle integers - to properly handle floating point numbers. For an explanation on what Cross-Vertical multiplication is and how it works, read on.
Windows Updates
I am reminded today why I hate Windows 11. It doesn't matter what configuration settings I have, the next Windows update may (and probably will) trample all over them. The latest update did just that. I had W-11 setup so that it would notify me of any necessary reboots after an update so I could choose when to reboot.