IMMOVABLE OBJECT MEETS IRRESISTIBLE SQUIRREL

Yesterday afternoon, a squirrel asked me to be a volunteer in an engineering experiment.

"I'm over in Cardova," Relee Baysklef explains. "And I've been working on a new method of moving super heavy physical objects, and percision-controlling smaller ones. But there's a problem: it tends to fling people at high velocities through solid walls. I need someone to stand inside of a booth for a few minutes while I fly it around."

The squirrel teleports me into Cordova, puts me in a metal booth, locks me in, and levitates me around the simulator awhile. Somehow, though, I eventually wind up on the outside, flailing.

"I think that this method of moving is too unstable," she decides, as I hit the ground.

"Well, you see," she explains, when I ask her what the purpose of all this is, "one of my hobbies here on Second Life is lifting super heavy objects. Until the vehicle scripts came along this was mostly impossible... I'll show you one."

A giant iron cube materializes on the ground in front of her. "Technically," the squirrel explains, "any [building block] prim that is 10x10x10 [meters] is a super heavy object. There are some tricks you can use to lift them. I just recently discovered a new one."

She points at the cube, as it lifts, improbably, upward. "Watch this... one lifted superheavy object! The amazing thing is I didn't even use a script to do that." It begins twirling end over end.

"Spin baby spin!" says the squirrel.

I ask her how she can do this. "Well, first you need to make a super heavy object. Then, you create another prim, which is non-physical. Select the super heavy prim, then select the non-physical one, and create a point-to-point joint. Then if you move the non-physical prim, the whole thing will move. There it goes," she says, smiling, as it makes its way airborne once again.

"I was one of the first people to ever lift super heavy objects," Relee says, with evident pride.

"This is a pretty strange hobbie for a squirrel," I tell her.

"Yeah," she says, "I'm a pretty strange squirrel." Actually, she's a Canadian college student learning how to program, with an emphasis on developing computer games. "It helps me practice scripting. And working with physics. And trouble shooting!

"Mostly," adds the bushy-tailed heavy object mover, "I do this for fun, though."