The House o... ...Props ...Bots ...Houses ...Wiz Stupid Palace Tricks The BotBot! The UnPalace Current Book The Book: 1996 The First Book: 1997

The Book: 1998a Bad poetry? Difficult existential paradoxes? Pointless rightwing rants! Idiotic leftwing whining? Trouble with your cyborg script? They're all here in this collection from the first two thirds of 1998. Feel free to Add to the current collection...

The Palace Ring

Thu, 03 Sep 98 at 09:42:28
Oops, I just realised that was only one question. Oh well. BTW, your palace does not work. All the links from here go to "finchnest.com:9876" which never seems to work. From The Great Crursaelequai
Crursaelequai <cpeters@tig.com.au>
Sydney, NSW Australia

Yup, it's down for now. It will return...

Sure, don't use the ^ sign in the GREPSTR match.

See immediately below.

See immediately below.

If it's DLing the file instead of showing you the file, then it's because your Win95 (98) registry thinks that files of type .ipt have a predetermined application to be associated with. Probably WordPad, but maybe Internet Phone Tool (IPT - get it?). It *is* a browser problem.

If it made the file, why are you cutting and pasting? Just use the file....

Scripts don't kill people. Wizards do (sorry sorry sorry!)

GMT is also known as GMT in every civilized country, even the ones without a significant military. I think I'll stick by that. Thanks for the anecdote, though. How did it get such a screwy nickname?

Check the "p-spot" script in the house o houses, here at botzilla.com

The banlist is written into the mansion.script file (some versions of the server give it a different name). This file is simple text, and careful reading will show you what to edit. EDIT THE MANSION SCRIPT ONLY WHEN THE SERVER IS SHUT DOWN.

The "client" is your local copy of "The Palace." The "server" is the actual site software. Most people only have the client. If you had both, you'd probably be a pretty advanced and technically-astute user.

Please, once again in English. Pretend I don't know what you're talking about, because... I don't know what you're talking about. Password?

Thanks for the vote of confidence...

Let me see if I get this straight. You are a god but you expect omniscience from me? KEWL!

Thanks for the suggestion -- even better would be if you could send along an example, which is exactly what Adam did with the "taser" script described below -- so that I can work it into the botbot.

Thanks for the code! (See above.)

(This was in response to a previous msg.)

It's simple, really. I don't give out other people's wizard and god passwords to anyone not explicitly specified by the owners of those passwords -- certainly not to some indignant and nearly-anonymous passerby. Nor do I trade passwords, which would be a pretty worthless sort of quid pro quo considering how easy it is for those passwords to become invalid. A password represents trust. That's what passwords are about. They are secrets, and I protect the secrets entrusted to me by my friends just as much as I protect my own secrets. In other words, I b down with my own, holmes. Forget it.

No.
See the message directly above.

Actually, Crash, I've been thinking about doing just that. Thanks!

This is one of the all-time great mysteries of palace, first identified by the noble jbum.

Often under Win95 or Win98, the file can get saved as text -- and IE will automatically and quietly append an additional ".txt" to the filename. In such a case, check the filename in DOS. If it's "cyborg.ipt.txt" use the DOS RENAME command to change it to "cyborg.ipt"

I thought you were a god?
(I've tried to help this guy, honest. He wants it done effortlessly via psychis powers, unfortunately)

Nasty. It sounds like your install was bad or incomplete or that you had a serious crash. Try reinstalling. Have you asked on the pserver-operator mailling list, accessable through The Palace?

Try again. Probably a routing glitch, or our host botzilla machi9ne was down.

See here.

Try typing "help" or "?"

See here.

See here.

Beats me. Works for most folks.

See here.

Bot too big? Hard to tell.

Bot too big? Hard to tell.

Bit too bog? Heard two tales.

Swordfish

My records show you had nothing selected. Browser error? Too many cookies?

See here.

Thinking about it.

Thanks

Bogus name.

See here and check out the "prop spot." If you can't be bothered putting it in, however, then I suggest finding a commercial consultant. I start at $200/hr.

Fixed (maybe) (whatever it was)

Try dz instead? I didn't actually write dressup, but will look at it

Bizarre, sounds like a browser prob on your end

;Start Script
;This goes under OUTCHAT
{ "$1" GREPSUB chatter =
  { chatter i ROOMUSER WHOPOS SAYAT i++ } { i NBRROOMUSERS < } WHILE
  "" CHATSTR =
} CHATSTR "sayall (.*)" GREPSTR IF
;Usage = sayall whatyouwanttospoofhere
;End Script

Thanks

???

See here.

Beats me. I got a letter from Publisher's Clearing house, but the bank wouldn't take their promise of $6M until I actually had the money. Consider the source.

??

That's a pretty big bot
sounds too big

Beats me... memory fault?

Fixed, I think

See here.

fixed -- a subtle side effect of switcing to perl vers 5

You'll have to wait... or kill the server, edit the banlist in a text editor, then restart the server

Thanks
"gotcha"?
it's bjorke@botzilla.com
copying from the web to palace is a complicated drag. Better to use a prop palace
no, they don't

I don't see a trap in the OUTCHAT. THe ALRAM handler won't know OUTCHAT from adam.

Ask around at Mansion palace.

Add it to a spot. See the dressing room page here.

U NEED TO TELL XACTLY WHAT SCRIPT YOU MEAN!!

You can't properly initialize a BotBot cyborg by just hitting "reload scripts" becuase of a subtle bug in the way palace is made. "Reload scripts" might reload the script, but it doesn't re-run the "signon" portion of the script -- which is where BotBot borgs do all their initialization. The correct method is to follow the instructions and log off from whatever palace you're visiting and log on again.

A quick check of the BotBot logs show that you, alone, have repeatedly asked the bot for exactly such a nearly-empty file... even as many other users were simultaneously running BotBot without any such problem. I've got to suspect your browser. - *X

See here.

See here.

The scripts you've asked for are readily available on the other pages right here at the house o bots. In the meantime, what do you mean by "wont download the cybrog"? If you see the script in a window, save it. If you don't search your disk....

That would be telling.

A quick check here shows that the finger script works fine. Could you be more specific, or provide an example?

A simpler workaround would probably be to avoid having the browser do anything special for .txt or .ipt files, because they're just plain text. Similarly, if you've already opened the file in Notepad or any other text editor, why go through all these shenanigans with deleting and pasting? "Save As..." is always a convenient alternative.

It still sounds to me like your browser is wonked upside its head. *X

If the browser shows it, then the data is being correctly calculated and sent to you. But your browser "save" configuration sounds whacked... which sadly is beyond my control.

Now there's a firm command of the language.

That's descriptive. Please, more details...

Allscray would do nicely.

("Actual"?) Ask the ratbot author, jbum.

Bizarre. However, we've replaced the server. No more Netscape, we're now Apachified.

Allscray is a ROOM script, not a cyborg script.

Sorry, this is a browser support problem....

See here

They must also be using the dressup script -- that is, they must also have it pre-installed in their own cyborg.ipt file(s). Yes, I would consider this a "downside" to the dressup script. Using the zombie mode "dz" script in tandem with allscray is usually a better bet.

Yes, but it's... expensive (not kidding)

If you can see the scripts, then the botbot is indeed downloading.... you just need to tellyour browser to save the resultant page to disk as "cyborg.ipt"

Add numbered pics to the room, and have the door (which is a spot) change its spot state to be the same values. The different images will appear. Look at the default mansionscript for examples.

Yes

Your browser believes that files ending in .ipt are internet phone files. Change it.

yes.

You mean, the house o houses?

Mail it in, I'll try to add it directly to the botbot.

Many claim to have such generators, but I know from the secret mail chatter that they don't work. Think about it which is "Guest 345" telling you he has a reg code generator? Why isn't he registered, then?

Pass it on, I'll look into adding it to the BotBot.

Details, please....

Depending on your prefered method, you can author from within the palace client or by editing the textfile directly (as long as the server's not running). See here.

Ask on the pserver mailing list, accessable through the palacespace web page.

Well Mr A, once you've hacked directly on the client, who knows what other trouble you've wreaked? Maybe you've offset all internal string resourvces by one byte and trashed the parser.

Did you look at our own house o bots? Other than that, I don't know of any.

As recounted here and elsewhere, Iptscrae is syntactically related to FORTH and Postscript. C++? Surely you jest... iptscrae wouldn't know an object method from an integer. VB is also much more robust (never thought I'd catch myself using that adjective about VB) and unrelated to Iptscrae, except I suppose that you could consider iptscrae as a client-side script mechansim similar to VBScript (which we all know should just quietly disappear anyway).

Bot too big, guessing from your maintenance records.

I think there's such a script in the default pserver script, in one of the bedrooms.

This is something your browser and Win95 will have to work out between themselves. Perhaps you have inadvertently locked the old file or directory?

My first response was to say "you can't." But I don't think that's entirely correct. You'd have to use wizard-style paging, however, and have access to the logs. And use an external link to a web browser. And be good at CGI programming.

Sounds like IE is having a hard time removing old files. Remove or move the old file by hand and run again.

Did you log in again after turning scripts on?

Botbot cyborgs set a default macro at signon. You could replace the MACRO call with an array and a call to SETPROPS. This will, of course, void your warranty.

Return the mouse to the dealer.

See above.

Sorry, unpredictable routing hell. As a safety valve, there are two routing methods, not both available on the BotBot web page (see "Alternative BotBot Link").

Let me get this straight. You want to steal stuff and you're too cheap to do it well? Well, try drawing a flat-colored region behind them, or moving to a flat-colored room, or... asking them for the prop.

The original script should be available at ftp.thepalace.com. Did you try again with a much smaller bot?

Did you look at this page?

Hard to say.

I hope you're not including the < and > symbols.... they're not part of the command, but just there as a documentation convention meaning <actual_name_here>

The script lets you specify the prop names, and the BotBot lets you set a default prop name.

See above.

It wouldn't be very Secret then, would it?

Sounds like you've configured your browser to recognize files ending in .ipt as some special type. I've seen a few people with the same problem recently.

Yes, that's what it's supposed to do it's an ENTER script.

Did you look at this page?

Please, be more specific!

You may have been killed by that server for flooding if you were going through a lot of props (it's happened to me, anyway). You may then have coincidentally crashed. Replacing the prop file will usually solve such problems....

And the additional props flower2, flower3, flowoer4, and flower5?

Odd that you don't mention the palace name, but...
To tell the truth, I'm blissfully unaware of any current Magus feuds.

Perhaps you selected some groups. And perhaps you have a botbot cookie that selects more than you think?

Okay.

Thanks for the pointer.

Sorry, you have voided your warranty.

Thanks, they seem fixed now (the story I have heard is that the phonepole-mounted digital router near the Natpix computer was actually shot! with a gun! Weird).

Sounds like your browser may be doing odd things... but open the (text file) cyborg.ipt in BBEdit or Alpha, and you'll be fine.

If I told you how to open it, that would defeat the purpose of the lock, no?

See above.

See above.

Just log Palace out and log back in. If it's installed in the right directory, the cyborg will load automatically.

See above.

Could you possibly be more specific? At first blush, I'd guess you're trying to use laggy paint scripts in a paint-free room, or a cyborg-free zone. But you tell me.

Please follow previous suggestion.
Sorry, but I don't mail out copies of my own cyborg (many have asked...).

Yes, I suggest you send the script to natpix@natpix.com

It requires a special prop. The prop is available in another room. Good hunting.

Open the prop file in Photoshop? No. But check this page.

Simple. Use the prop ID, not the prop name. That's how p-spots work.

Thanks for the kind words...
The source to the BotBot is not available, sorry.
I actually doubt very much that it would do what you desire a ground-up rewrite to adapt the BotBot to write web pages would probably be more difficult that to just write what you want from scratch.

Dr.X QSTN: Is it possible to have a guest or member banned/killed by a roomscript on a personal palace?
Before killing people you'd like to give them the option to behave or leave. But to have this conversation in a full room isn't always fun for other guests since not all wizards are good with words. I designed a room where faulmouthed guests can be transpported to where they are confronted with the house rules. They are muted and the only thing they can do is to PAGE the wizards and apologize, Leave through the door (if opened by a wizard), or they can just leave. So in the ON LEAVE command I have put the KILLUSER command. But it doesn't work, only when MMEMBERS and CYBORGS CAN KILL is on. But I don't want a holocaust in my palace. Can you help me out on this one? Mel.

KILLUSER is really for wizard use (as you've discovered) the only other useable application I've seen is in some Palace-based games. Instead, why don't you give them a NETGOTO command that sends them to someplace distasteful or better-equipped to deal with twits?
I think you're trying to get the software to do what software is rotten at making social value judgements. And asking someone who's already a demonstrated snert to make such a judgement about themselves is... well, ill-advised.

If you've been editing the file, there's no telling (for me) what's in there....!

Our records show you had an empty cyborg. An error in the AOL browser, perhaps? Then again, this message is identical, right down to the typos, with this. What gives?

See above.

Don't hit "Reload Script" with BotBot cyborgs. Logout and log back in for a full initialization.

See above.

The problem is that you've mistakenly thought that the room script runs on the server it doesn't! It runs on each of the individual users' machines, 6 (or however many) independant parallel copies.
Instead, trigger such a script on something that's genuinely shared by all the people in the room typically INCHAT:

ON INCHAT {
    {
	{ 124 GOTOROOM } 240 ALARMEXEC
    } NBRROOMUSERS 6 == IF
}

The use of ALARMEXEC is to minimize the effects of lag.

See above.

Did you properly load the file by logging off and logging in again?
For instructions, please read the BotBot web page.

See here.

A CGI script for your web page? Or a cyborg weapon for Palace?

Please be more specific.....

See the Power User Page.

It works from here...

I just tested "ap" and it worked perfectly. If you had provided concrete information instead of sarcasm, I might have been able to solve your problem.

Basic "ap" use:

Point where you want balloons to come from, and type ap or ;ap

Subsequent balloons will appear in the chosen location unless preceded by "@" or "="

To turn it off, type ;ap 0 0

There are plenty of other options which I leave for you to find in the docs, and a few (like the aforementioned "=" escape character) that you'll find in folklore or the code.

No, it seems that there's some sort of routing or other DNS "burp" that has a hard time reconciling a mixture of calls to "www.botzilla.com" (or "www.finchnest.com") with numeric lookups that return "botzilla.com"... so I've swapped out all the links and replaced them with numeric entries, which bypass DNS.
Try http://207.92.254.222/cgi-bin/botbot.pl instead.

fixed.

Beats me, they work from here under a variety of browsers.

Did you try just following the links, rather than your bookmarks?

thnx, Jess
Jess <JesseAlbert@worldnet.att.net>
USA

[ [ 1 2 ] [ 3 4 ] ] 1 GET 1 GET ITOA SAY
will generate "4" but watch yourself! This is not C, or even BASIC. Multi-dimensional array use in iptscrae is at BEST a slow process.
I'm not much of a fan of layered spots, and never use them. Not because they're flaky in implementation (they may or may not be), but simply because I like my interfaces to be less fuzzy. Sorry.

I believe your browser has a "flush cookies" option. If not, just turn them off temporarily.

Executive Summary: No.

Technical Detail: Scripts can do some things, but not everything.

1. Send to Any Room: Yes.
2. Pin Them: Only for wizards.
3. Page the Wizards: Yes.
4. Detect Swearing: Not well, since people can play games with spelling. And what about international users? TPI's mansion once had a problem with such a script attempt when it was realized that many Japanese verb forms end in "-shite" and "-shita" (think about it). This is really a part of one of the Great Unsolved Problems of computer science getting computers to understand human language(s).
5. Detect Obscene Props: Not really. How can the script judge prop content? All the script might be able to check would be the prop ID #'s.

Thanks for the heads-up, found it a bug in Palace itself!

Tech Explanation:
It seems that the regular expression "^\.(.*)" (match all strings beginning with a period) matches everything when run through the Palace's version of "grep." This is wrong, but fortunately there's a workaround which I've already applied to the BotBot. The characters "\." are replaced with "[.]" and it now works perfectly.

Sounds reasoned, but that's not it. Most perl-based CGI scripts end in .pl. The real reason appears to be some bad pointers somewhere that confuse www.botzilla.com with botzilla.com. You want the www version.

(Quote from here about diapers deleted... *X)

You said that this situation is one of the only times it is apropriate to pin (situation irelevant). My point is (gasp:-), when dealing with younger users the `pin command is a good way to show them that you are serious and can AND will deal with the problem. BTW: I should be the one to mark your Typos!: LOOK AT MY LAST POST :P
Adam Wolf <<n/a>@<n/a>.com >
<n/a>, CA USA

It depends on the traffic, to be sure my point was that some people seem to enjoy being pinned and consider the chains a badge of snert honor. There are other ways to startle neophyte snerts: like whispering them their own IP address or using allscray.

funny... solves your problem for about an hour and adds another name to your site's enemies list. Why not just answer the question? You don't have to be confrontational about it, just say "I keep the password private because it's easier for me to maintain my site that way."

If you ever get this, change "botzilla.com" (or any ref to "finchnest.com") to "www.botzilla.com"

Thanks for the catch it was indeed a typo and has been correctd to read: http://www.botzilla.com/house/hspain.html

I suspect you got bitten by the subtle bug in "hi2all" (now repaired) an unterminated string would cause memory overruns within the client-side iptscrae interpreter which meant buss error on Macintoshes and GPF's on Windows machines. BotBot is now fixed to avoid this error though in this X's opinion, something as simple as an unclosed set of quote marks should NOT be able to crash the OS (reading this, TPI?).

Scan won't repeat rapidly it's designed that way.

For some reason, "http://botzilla.com" causes an error. Change your bookmark to "http://www.botzilla.com"

"I am not some demented freak" signed DR. DEATH???

Looks like a bogus bookmark. Flush your bookmark and the browser cache too.

Umm, which instructions did I give?

Learn Our Lingo

Um, okay.

Are you changing to RGB mode first, or just going directly from indexed color to custom palette?

	{
	4 Macro  ;Facing Right

	;Call for position
	POSX x = POSY y =
	
	;Fly to Mouse Pos
	MOUSEPOS mousy = mousx = 
	{ 
	i++ 
	mousx POSX - 10 / POSX + newx = 
	mousy POSY - 10 / POSY + newy = 
	newx newy SETPOS 
	} { i 30 < } WHILE

	;Bestowe Kiss
	")Kiss" Say
	1 PENSIZE
	255 0 0 PENCOLOR
	PENFRONT
	MOUSEPOS mousz = mousx = 
	mousz 40 - mousy =
	mousx mousy PENPOS 
	3 0 LINETO
	-4 -1 PENTO
	5 0 LINETO
	-4 -1 PENTO
	3 0 LINETO
	
	;Return to start
	{ x GLOBAL y GLOBAL 
	{
	b++ 
	x POSX - 10 / POSX + nx = 
	y POSY - 10 / POSY + ny = 
	nx ny SETPOS 
	} { b 30 < } WHILE 
	7 MACRO } 200 alarmexec

	
	
	;Call kiss start
	"" CHATSTR =
	} CHATSTR "k1" == IF

Thanks!

Now I have to fix Microsoft's bugs?

First, the page isn't GPF'ing, your computer is...
So it can't be GPF'ing "again." :)
Upon examination I discovered that Ragnarok's cyborg greeting string (that is, the string provided by the user on the HTML form) contained a few illegal string characters. The BotBot has been revised so that they can't cause any more havoc. If just that was causing a GPF, however.... I'd call it a Palace Client bug.

Just use Ctrl+Q, "Paste Multiple Props."
Or press here for more details.

Sketchy answers to sketchy questions:

 { [prop1array] } { [prop2array] } 2 RANDOM 1 == IFELSE SETPROPS

 "mySound" SOUND

 ON ENTER { "words" LOCALMSG }

How's that?

This problem has been dealt with a subtle change in URL handling solved most of these issues.

What a strange bug. Can you send me a copy of the cyborg?

Why not just change its looks?

Try ~clone or (for the Win95 client) ~clon

That's a browser bug. You'll see that the text is being saved on disk, but he browser opens up a window to look at the "leftover" data. Anyway. Since it's all on disk, not in the wondow, you get... a blank window.

Contrast, contrast, contrast.

It usually means that you're running from behind an internet firewall, and the firewall is stripping part of your message. Talk to your ISP.

You've already answered your own question

It's unlikelyt that bot code could cause this error... but sometimes the "blondie" script will cause problems if you don't have the right props.

You were using it in a room that prohibits painting. Just like this guy.

That's not a lot to go on. Yes, I'd say a bug maybe.

Hmm.

Sure, it's possible -- expecting INCHAT keywords are how scripts like finger and dressup work.

Use the bulkhi2 command (aka "bhi"). It lets you specify a greeting, so the greeting can just as easily be a farewell. Just say:
bhi So long,

It was the server. The old server.

That only happens to botbot users, who are sent to a special tea room. If you press a different destination at the gate, it won't happen....

You can, but it will void your warranty.

Get the server from TPI

Details, please!

Sorry, I can't giveout the MexChat wizard password... I can't pronounce it.

There was a botbot bug, I'm sorry to say....
Now fixed
Thanks!

Your point being.....??? - *X

Rename the old file, then save the new one as "cyborg.ipt"

...and if you believe that, I've got ten free hours of AOL time that I'd like to sell you for only $20....
If this person were genuine, not only would have made a claim that could be verified or refuted (instead, he just creates rumor), but he wouldn't have signed this email with a forged address. caveat emptor, baby.

I'd love to, but iptscrae isn't informed wheen users come and go. To make such a script would require a continuous event loop: a timer to click off a test for "anyone new? anyone gone?" every few seconds. It's possible, but has many annoying drawbacks, including occasionally crashing your machine when you run out of memory because GREPSTR has a memory leak in some versions (seems to, anyway) :/

It fails from MIDI combined with AP's use of "@"? And you get a GPF? Sounds like an MS-Win error, but really this is the first I've heard of it. I have heard about mystery crashes when using MIDI under Wintel, but only rumors.

Try:

ON SELECT {
    "mailto:mydearfreind@theirisp.net" NETGOTO
}

Please, could you be more specific?

Again, please try to be more specific.

Try running it in a room that permits painting.

yup

Hi. Who's Carl?