Blazing Star Masonic Island Blog

A few days in an enlarged Island…..

Now we have lived for a few days on our larger island with the beautiful sailing waters. There has been some shifting around of residents (Hiram Razor), Hiram Burns. There are new tenants: Uther Parx, Charnock Footman (with dog Bob) , Alan Kiranov and to some extent Ugly Jewell. A lot of us have circumnavigated the Island in all kinds of naval craft and navigation buoys have been placed. Bonicolli is building (again) a beautiful edifice [as Wingedsentry is wont to say: that man invented perfectionism and than he made it better]. Uther has a beautiful Lighthouse on Ashmole Point, Wingedsentry opened a blazing star of a serious Sirius Yachtclub cohabitating a building with the Port authority ( and yes, Boni bettered out the standard prefab building). And in between all kinds of visitors have been coming and going.
Churam has started the build on top of the temple mountain. There is something I noticed there in the layout of our island: one has to cross throught the temple to get on foot from Geometry to Tradition. There should be a small pathway around.
The open sims function as they should, albeit that a few of us have experienced problems when crossing simborders in a sailing craft or accompanied by a pet.
Now, first item on the agenda: find tenants for the vacant lots! And preferable people who would fit in……….

well…. next time!

Association meeting agenda.

We need to develop an agenda for our next meeting of the BSMI Owners and Tenants Assoc., to be held on September 28, 2008, at 5 AM SLT (Second Life Time, which is the same as Pacific Time), in the Chapter Room of Wingedsentry Waechter (please send him an IM if you need a landmark to get there). If you have a suggestion for inclusion on the agenda, please post your comments here.

Details on blog administration.

Because I am administering not only the Blazing Star island in Second Life but also the Blazing Star website and this blog, I am using a rather simple blog configuration until I can get some help with this project (a subject I will be raising at the BSMI Owners and Tenants Assoc. meeting on September 28 — see http://www.blazingstar.info for more details). Presently, the blog does not contain individual fora. Instead, it is simply a list of blog entries that may be posted by any of the persons who actually reside/rent on the island (an exception would be made for any Mason who simply wanted to pay a monthly rent, without actually using land, as a paying supporter of the island, who would then be given resident status). Any Mason who is not residing on the island but belongs to the BSMI Owners and Tenants Assoc. in the role of non-paying “supporter” may attend Association meetings and may comment on blog posts as a blog “contributor,” but may not initiate a blog subject as an “author” (a privilege reserved to residents). Anyone else, whether a Mason or not, may subscribe to the list as blog “subscriber,” but will have no ability to post blog entries or comments. Also, persons who are not Masons may join the in-world Association group in the “observer” role and receive Association notices, but these persons may not attend or participate in any way in Association meetings.

What is “rezzing” really all about?

The term “rez” is a verb derived from the Latin noun “res,” which means “thing.” To “rez” an object is to bring it out of your inventory and into existence in the world. This can be accomplished by dragging the object out of your avatar’s inventory and onto the simulated/virtual ground, or by right-clicking the item in the inventory and selecting “wear” or “attach,” in which case the object ends up attached to some part of your avatar. You can also attach things to your avatar by dragging them directly onto the avatar’s person, with a variety of results. The “wear” command puts an item of clothing, or a prosthesis such as hair or an avatar’s skin, directly onto the part of the avatar for which the object is programmed to be attached. Using the “attach” command gives you a selection of different places it can go, including attaching it directly to some part of your viewer’s screen (as is done for HUD’s — “heads-up displays” — which will be covered in a later blog posting.

Beside these rather mundane details is a much more interesting consideration of precisely what an object is, both before and after the point at which it is “rezzed.” Before an object is rezzed, it is merely a piece of unexecuted code residing within a database of all the objects used by all the avatars which exist in Second Life, known as the “asset server” (it may actually be many physical servers, but everyone speaks of them as though they were all one device). As such, the objects do not actually reside within your avatar’s personal inventory but, instead, are merely pointers to the unique instance of that object in the asset server’s database. As such, the asset server contains probably billions of different objects, or different versions of an object, and references the creator of the object (who can always make as many copies as he or she wants), as well as the owners of an object (who may or may not be able to copy and/or give the object to someone else). When your avatar pops into the world of Second Life, the current state of your inventory downloads into your computer’s Second Life viewer (client) but, unless an object is already rezzed at the time you log in, it remains entirely inchoate and unexecuted on the asset server (only the pointer gets downloaded).

Now comes the interesting part. When an object is rezzed into the world of Second Life, it is a literal instance of object-oriented programming: the object’s code is loaded from the asset server into a location of memory (virtual or otherwise) located in the server for the particular simulator that operates the region into which the object is rezzed (a “simulator” is a virtual server that contains a unique “region” on the “grid” of regions in Second Life). Once loaded, the object’s prims, and the scripts contained within them, begin to execute. The prims instruct your computer’s viewer where they should be placed and how they should be displayed relative to all the other objects in the sim, and your viewer uses your computer’s graphics card to display them accordingly on your computer’s VDT. Ironically, most of the action takes place in the viewer (which actually executes the prim and script code), rather than on the server, which merely keeps track of the placement and orientation of all the objects relative to other objects, as it receives command instructions from all the viewer agents that may happen to located in the sim at that time. The simulator server also keeps track of object script execution for objects not attached to avatars, since those scripts may be animating objects in some particular fashion, even if no avatars are present in the sim. I suppose this answers the age-old Zen koan as to whether a tree falling in a forest makes a sound if there is no one there to hear it.

What in the world are “prims”?!

Prims are the essential building blocks in Second Life (”prim” is an abbreviation of “primitive”). Every object is made from three components: (1) prims; (2) textures; and (3) scripts. Except for special prims called “sculpties,” each prim is a very simple, three-dimensional, geometric calculation that the viewer (client) uses to draw the object via the special processor functions contained in most state-of-the-art video cards. It is the use of these formulae, rather than bitmaps (which have to be rendered in pixels) that allows the software to operate as quickly as it does. Sculpties are prims that are essentially three-dimensional bitmaps (unlike the regular prims, which I just described). For this reason, sculpties (which are always just one prim each) will reduce the prim-load for the server but will slow its performance down (you wouldn’t notice any difference until you had a few dozen sculpties, which make them a popular alternative to regularly designed objects made from many more standard prims).

Why is prim-load important? Because you are only allowed so many prims per square meter of virtual land. Remember that virtual land is basically an illusion; it is really the number of prims you can use that is important, rather than the “space” they are placed in. Each physical server contains anywhere from 4 to 16 regions; each region is essentially a logical server, called a “sim,” which is short for “simulation.” Each sim can manage a maximum total of 15,000 prims, which are then “rented” out to users. In this regard, you could say that, when I rent land to users, I am managing server space for Linden Lab, the company that offers the Second Life service.

Presently, the island runs 0.229 prims per square meter of land. This means that, for 2048 square meters, you are getting 469 available prims. A house placed on that land that uses 214 prims for its construction would therefore use a little less than half your available prims, which is really quite good. Eventually, you will want to rent more land to supplement your prim use (I find that you need about twice as many prims as the physical space you use for a satisfying build). The good news is that, to be able to use the additional prims, you do not need to rent adjoining land; you can rent land anywhere in the same region and still get to use those prims.

Blazing Star (where the present Masonic build is located) will soon become an “estate” (the technical term for a mult-region area under the same ownership) composed of two, full-load regions (15,000 prims each). For this reason, it is important to know that land rented in one region will not benefit land rented in the other region for purposes of prim use; both parcels need to be in the same region in order to benefit from the same collective total of prims. But dont’ worry about us running out of prims in the near future: on Blazing Star, we will have 16,384 SM (square meters) of additional prim land available for use in the new region (named “Tradition”).

Island expansion sims are now available for viewing.

Although they have not been moved yet, you can see the terraforming of the expansion sims, presently named Raza del Sol and El Mar Azul, but which will be renamed Tradition and Astronomy once they are moved West and adjacent to the region of Geometry (where the present Temple build is located). You can teleport to the new expansion regions by putting the following SLURL into your web browser: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Raza%20del%20Sol/194/143/101. Although the island still has a somewhat artificial shape, this should improve with further expansion. When you go, be sure to turn on the property lines in the view menu of your viewer, so you can see where the rentable parcels are located. Please note that the very large parcel at the very top of the mountain (and which extends down the mountain via two perpendicular pathways), as well as the square parcel inside the mountain (to be used for the conference center), will not be availalbe as rentals. The two very steep sloped parcels on the North and South sides of the mountain top are “prim land” and will be available for additional prim use but are not suitable for building on (except maybe for decorative foliage).

Architectural Design Review Committee for BSMI?

I am proposing the formation of an Architectural Review Design Committee for BSMI. I want this thread to be a place to where we can begin to develop a consensus regarding a comprehensive design policy for the island. If we cannot develop one overall consensus then different proposals can be presented at the Association’s official meetings, where we can debate and vote on them. If a proposal seems premature then it can be tabled until a later meeting. Please start your comments here.

Announcing the formation of The Masonic Society, one of Freemasonry’s premier institutions of Masonic Research.

You may be pleased to hear that The Masonic Society is now officially established and is seeking memberships from all those persons who desire to participate in their program of Masonic research. In addition to fellowship with like-minded Brethren, you will receive the Society’s much-anticipated journal. Their website can be found at http://themasonicsociety.com. — Penumbro Eclipse, Representative to the Island Secretary.

Masonic Apron Exhibit is Open!

The long-awaited-for Masonic apron exhibit, entitled “Emblems of Innocence, Emblazened in Glory,” is now open for viewing on the Blazing Star Masonic Island. In addition to the beautiful exhibit of Masonic historic artifacts presented by our Chief Executive Curator of Collections, Churam Rau (http://www.blazingstar.info/Churam_Rau.html), you will also find an exhaustive index of every symbol displayed by each artifact presented in the exhibit, also prepared by Worshipful Rau. Quite amazing! Please be sure to stop in and visit this new destination at the Blazing Star Masonic Temple in Second Life at http://www.blazingstar.info/BSMT.html. Thanks for all your support! — Penumbro Eclipse, Representative to the Island Secretary

The latest incarnation of Wordpress is up and running.

Because I was unable to resolve the problem with the first installation (I was unable to change the appearance of the blog so that it would display all posts made to it), I scrapped the whole thing and started over. Since all the posts had been made by myself, the only thing we lost were our two subscribers. I will be making an announcement regarding this change, and as to how the Island residents may sign up as blog authors. — Penumbro Eclipse, Representative to the Island Secretary.