1  2  |   Order by default

Jun 21, 2001, 2:56am

Sweet Eep, you speak the truth with a mouth of flame.

I wish there was a decent alternative to AW, too. But unless AOL makes their
chat rooms 3D, it is not going to happen soon. But nah, if AOL went 3D,
would they support decent building capabilities?

I mean this with no offense; Builders remind me of the die-hard model
railroad guys who used to hang at the hobby store before all us D&D players
drove them away. They were mature, professional, well-balanced individuals
who LOVED miniature traffic lights and new modelling compounds. Now only
Revered Lovejoy oh the Simpsons is seen running his trains late into the
night. Nay, I had respect for their craft.

I made my ActiveX control from the Bot SDK. And I can't do much with it. I
want so much more. I want robots with precise DYNAMIC control of the
rotation, color, lighting, & MODEL of each avatar joint. I want enumerated
pushbuttons on the avatar. I want whole buildings that ARE BOTS. I want
built-in JavaScript support..... I want it all, man.

Jun 21, 2001, 2:41am

In computers, anything that is _possible_ is legal. Only that which cannot
(yet) be _done_ is illegal.

Jun 21, 2001, 2:36am

I know ActiveWorlds does not have the resources to create a Mac version of
AW browser. I know that RenderWare does not currently ship a Mac platform
version.

But nonetheless, it would be really nice if my Mac using friends could share
the AW experience. I have VirtualPC 4, and it does work better than earlier
versions, but it DOES NOT use hardware 3D acceleration (older versions of
VPC DID)... And besides, using VPC is lame.

I would gladly create a freeware Mac AW browser using OpenGL and the nice
new tools that I got with OS X. However, the information provided by the
Bot SDK is not sufficient. I have absolutely no idea what the size, shape,
and color of the networking messages are under the hood. I went so far as to
try a packet sniffer, and golly gee I can't make any sense of it. I know AW
uses gz compression, and I know the network code is not the most
multithreaded thing in cyberspace. I would love to be able to make something
I can use on my Mac.

I realize that cloning a proprietary client is not cool these days, is was
the case with MSN Instant Messenger, so I have no hope that a request for
tech info, no matter how formal and diplomatic, would help me get what I
need.

I merely wish to state my desire for a Macintosh AW Browser, my desire for a
MacOS X AW server, and of course a better Bot SDK which plays nicely with
the browser.... Oh, and an AW plug-in SDK... So we can extend scripting,
bots, 3DUTects, and authoring via 3rd party modules a la Macromedia XTRA.

Jul 6, 2001, 3:07pm

1) Why all the rules? Don't we all have modems faster than 14.4, pcs faster
than 90mhz, and plenty of disk space?
2) Don't we all have news browsers that can read HTML?
3) Aren't those of us who do not have these things the minority?


4) Is text on a news server a precious, exhaustible thing?
5) Is the news server a Timex Sinclair?

I am really SICK of nagging CS majors telling me how to use my computer. I
am 34 years old and I have been waiting all my life for computers to allow
us to no longer be shackled by stupid arbitrary rules.

The internet allows different kinds of people to communicate. Protocol and
observance of customary behavior has absolutely no place here.


If someone uses long long long lines, or uses HTML, or talks about something
you don't personally like...

GROW UP!

It's just data, and there's more where it came from.

Jun 21, 2001, 2:36am

test test test???


Jiggly puff PUFF

Jun 26, 2001, 1:16pm

Okay, fine! Go ahead and talk about POOP!
It's normal for young people to need to discuss bodily functions.

But mark my words; some day, when you least expect it, an interesting,
relevant topic will come into this NG and it will infect all the cat breath
and butt itches with the virus of usefulness.

Jan 11, 2002, 11:21pm

I may be way off base here, but what role does the uniserver play in AW?

To my understanding, it provides 2 functions:

1) One central database of all users.
This allows for telegrams, and authentication.
2) One central database of all worlds.
This provides the "worlds" list.

Now I don't see the uniserver being a resource-intensive, supercomputing
sort of thing.

The server application that runs a world does most of the heavy lifting. The
services provided by the uniserver could be very lightweight a la Naptser.
Directory services. Just use LDAP or whatever.

The only reason the Uniserver is essential is because the architecture was
deliberately created to fail without it.

a) You should be able to visit someone's world server simply by typing a URL
in.
b) Telegrams are not super-essential in the world of Instant Messenger, but
could be provided via any number of IM or mail systems.
c) A web server running an application that lists any world server that is
registered with it, and provides a clickable URL to that server, should be
easy to implement. (Such as OnLive Traveller.)

What is my point? It should cost next-to-nothing to maintain the core
functionality of AW, AS-IS, use-at-your-own-risk, RTFM.

Jan 11, 2002, 11:29pm

BTW, I pay approx. $US 134.00 PER MONTH for my cable modem. If AW continues
to provide value, I will pay the price they demand.

Jan 12, 2002, 6:30pm

Well it's not the bandwidth that matters, anymore than the cost of keeping
the British army stationed in the New World Colonies mattered. What matters
is that the Colonists were getting a small amount of protection at a high
price; the price was not simply taxes.... In exchange for having some basic
needs badly met, they paid with their liberty and their dignity.

Jan 13, 2002, 5:32pm

I am sorry. I did not express myself well.

I am trying to make a comment on the Uniserver. The Uniserver is an
essential component of AW. Why?

It is NOT essential for technical reasons. That is my point. The Uniserver
is essential because it makes AW into a service which you can charge your
customers for.

Jan 15, 2002, 2:00am

Okay, okay. I'm not a Marxist, Open-Sourcer, and clearly I am imprecise and
inarticulate. Really, it's just a musing. I am not trying to make a stink as
much as an aroma of curiousity.

I created this post in response to the threads I read recently about how if
AW ran out of money they could not afford to maintain the Uniserver. As if
the Uniserver was this big, expensive, funds-guzzling beast that demanded
too much upkeep. And my response has been to state that:

Uniserver is to AW
as
Toll Booth is to Bridge

(it's not the Bridge, it's where you pay your money!)

But I suppose that I have been stubborn, and really it's not just a toll
booth... But other than the toll-collecting part, it's other services are
not that impressive and not critical to how we use AW.

If anyone cannot clearly see my analogy, please see me after class. I am a
client-server architect, and this sort of thing; the classification of the
various sources and sinks in a commercial internet application, and how it
applies to an attempt to make revenue, it's fascinating to me.

I agree that AW needs to make money. I pay them well and I am not about to
stop payment. But I do not have a shred of pity for their situation. I am
impressed that they have acquired another company! I think that is quite
cool.

I'll abandon this post. I don't like rotten tomatoes anymore than anyone
else does.

Jan 15, 2002, 4:11am

The number of current citizens or public worlds no longer matters to AW.
They are changing their business model. AW is not going to rely upon
caretakers or builders to provide "content" to its product.


Think about what eliminating tourists means:

Many AW worlds were art galleries or office lobbies or information kioks.
Now that there are no tourists, the potential to get "off-the-street"
visitors is gone.
When you sign up for a free trial on AW, you don't get a second chance to
try again (unlike AOL). One free trial, and it's over. So the number of
noncommital newcomers will be very small.

.....This means that it's not important to measure the "number of hits" to AW
in order to prove its success.

Feb 28, 2002, 3:59pm

Chris, I completely agree with you! I know that AW is not going to
dramatically improve, and I accept that. I know that AW needs to charge more
for its services, and I accept that. And I have renewed.

Honestly, most of my discussion here about AW The Software, and AW The
Culture, and AW The Business, is a post mortem. I am very curious about the
future of online VR. ActiveWorlds is a pioneering effort, and it's a
fascinating fish bowl.

I expect to see new and different online communities in the future, and they
will all be compared to AW.

Feb 25, 2002, 11:36pm

"Consider an apocalyptic statement: "Nothing is true.
Everything is permitted." --Hassan I Sabbah. Not to
be interpreted as an invitation to all manner of
unrestrained and destructive behavior; that would be
a minor episode, which would run its course.
Everything is permitted because nothing is true. It
is all make-believe, illusion, dream... ART. When
art leaves the frame and the written word leaves the
page -- not merely the physical frame and page, but
the frames and pages of assigned categories -- a
basic disruption of reality itself occurs: the
literal realization of art. "

Introduction from Apocalypse
by William S. Burroughs (with illus. by Keith Haring)
Pub. by George Mulder Fine Arts, New York


Well, it's all the same. Law is law.

I am not a law student. In fact, I am not the smartest man you'll ever meet.
Nope.

Lemme see... law.... laws are....

Laws exist to the degree that they can be enforced. If it can't be enforced,
it's not a law. Morality primarily deals with various flavors of the
essential Golden Rule. Morality really has no interest in victimless crimes,
but law loves that kind of stuff.

In RL, I can easily stick a toothpick into a sleeping person's eye. It's
pretty easy. But not only is it illegal, it's just plain wrong. I have
absolutely no desire to do such a thing, and I bet few people do.

In software, on the other hand, the only things that are truly illegal are
those things that are truly impossible. If you don't want me to copy the CD
your music company pressed, you have to make it technically impossible for
me to make a perfect copy. Sorry, you have to. Not only that, your customers
may want to pay a little less for a copy-protected CD. Sorry.

In the world of software, not only is it absurd, it is rude to tell people
that they should not do something that obviously, implicitly, they can
easily do if they want to. User interfaces are not supposed to grant people
power to do things that they are not supposed to do.

A great example of this is when I visit someone's world in AW... I try out
some avatars and immediately someone snaps "Av Check". Or worse, someone
snaps "That's a restricted avatar.".

No, IT'S NOT!!!! If I can select it, IT'S NOT RESTRICTED.

This is not a moral debate, it's a matter of designing appropriate user
interfaces. It is the software architect's responsibility to guide the user
experience into polite, pleasant, and moral pathways. No one should ever be
surprised or angered by what another person does with their software. If
they are not happy with how it is used, they should change the software, not
the users.

Feb 26, 2002, 4:08am

Okay, I guess I need to clarify a bit.


I'm a human being, and I really make an effort to abide the Golden Rule. I
will not knowingly treat others as I mysyelf would not want to be treated.

I have been on the internet for a long time. I feel here.

I am a software engineer. I tend to apply a mental excercise to my online
experience:
What, in this experience, should be taken for granted as static, and what
should we strive to imrove upon?



I do not want to be set up to walk into a social trap, where I accidentally
offend sensitive individuals through no intentional action on my part.
People should be free to have their own customs and ways, and we're real
jerks if we don't try to respect that.

In the world of Software, our software should reflect our values. It's been
many revs since the Ancient Nebbishes of Berkeley crept out of their caves,
leaving behind their VT consoles and moving into houseboats in Sausalito,
losing 35 pounds and getting calf implants. In the original MUDS, we had to
show who we were by emoting, bowing, and paying linguistic respect to our
fellows. Language will always be important. We must not make light of
communication. Those of us who can must remember what it's like to share our
souls with telnet.

But we don't all hail from that star. We were not all members of the SCA at
one point or another. The Internet is bigger than one civilization.
"Netiquette" is one protocol, among many, and for some users there is no
discernable protocol....

..... So I ask, what can the software developers (and we are all software
developers) do to create a Universe where it is safe to be
different/diverse? How can we create an experience that does not fall apart
when an uninitiated Guest drops by, and has no concern for typing with all
caps? Typing with all caps is a convention. It's a convention meaning "I'm
shouting", or so we say, but really it means "I'm a redneck", or "I'm
intentionally trying to be rude". But why do we think so? Is it so important
that we pass this notion of correctness onto the next generation? Some
online communities are extremely sensitive to spelling and grammar, where
others are not.

I think the reason is because we are playing Make Believe, and we don't want
another kid, especially a bully, coming in and throwing our consensual
reality into debug mode.
Here is where I depart from some others:

A) I believe that by definition Virtual Reality should exist completely
without depending upon consent. (Reality exists whether or not we believe it
does.)
B) You should not need to share the same beliefs with others for it to be a
valid experience.
C) All aspects of that reality should be discovered through Empirical
evidence, not a backstory.
D) The physcial limitations of the Virtual World, and the User Interface
provided, should be the only needed definition of the Law.
E) Any Virtual World that does not function without a concensual notion of
acceptible behavior is limited in its evolution.

Telnet and AOL/Compuserve are all moving into the past, going where the bbs
has gone. We should be out to discover new ways of building civilizations
that are truly different than those we have lived in already.

Feb 26, 2002, 3:42pm

Okay, one more time.

Point I:

a) In the parlance of the Enlightenment, our civilization is a Social
Contract. We agree to terms of how to relate to each other, what to expect
of our government, etc.
b) CyberSpace is absolutely not a Social Contract, and I am highly
suspicious of any social engineering to make it so.

Point II:

In CyberSpace,

a) If I am able to do something, I have the right to do it.
(If I can type 20 lines of jibberish into a chat window in a public
place, I have the right to do so.)

b) If I am not able to do something, I do not have the right to do it.
(Typing "::scratches chin::" is an unacceptable substitute for my avatar
scratching its chin.)

Feb 27, 2002, 12:42am

Yes, Fox. That's what I mean. I am not an anarchist.


[View Quote]

Feb 27, 2002, 12:59am

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
Mao Zedong

In software, power grows out the barrel of a compiler. When software users
are allowed by the software to do bad things, it's not a moral crisis, it's
a bug.

Consider this situation. A world owner puts up a stack of signs at GZ.

"No Cussing!"
"Keep of the grass! Or you will be ejected."
"My house is private property!"

Sooner or later, conflict will arise. You almost have to conclude that the
world builder actually wants conflict. The world builder must assert his
power by violence (eject button).


There are interesting alternatives to this scenario.

We have what we just described:

A) World builder waits for someone to slip up, then punishes them by
criticism and ejection.

We have an automated form of this:

B) Bot detects cussing and movement onto private property. Makes threats
and ejects.

We also have a "no fault" scenario that does not seek to blame or punish.

C) Transparent walls around private property. Walls go down when
password whispered to bot. Exhaustive list of cuss words blocks out some,
but not all, offensive language.


I would say that if a world builder does not opt for scenario C, they are
asking for trouble and negligent to those who do not understand his/her
culture.

Feb 27, 2002, 1:08am

An excellent case study of this would be the AW Rules Of Encroachment.

The Rules Of Encroachment were developed in forum over a period of serveral
weeks. The rules provide for the protection of private property and the
elimination of vandalism.

The Rules, when drafted, were posted at AWGZ. But they were not merely
posted as if a line had been drawn in the sand. Significant code changes
were made. Objects created within the world hierarchy were now tagged with
owner information that provided the data to drive the Rules Of Encroachment.

Peace was achieved not by punishment. Peace was gained by making changes, at
the lowest level, to the end-user rights.

Feb 28, 2002, 12:36am

Please try to understand that I am not an advocate for anarchy.

I do not believe that life should be a game of "king of the mountain", where
whoever has the most might has the most right.

I do not approve of hacking or stealing anything.

I do think there should be law online. But the law must be in the software
itself or else it will bring on a load of trouble.


When I work on the design of user interfaces, I do not rely upon my
end-users to have any knowledge of how to use my software. I do not rely
upon them to agree with me about what is fair use of my software. I try to
assume as little as possible. If someone uses my software to do something
unethical or destructive, I am to some degree responsible. When you create
an online product, that responsibility is multiplied by the number of people
your product touches. If a law, or Term of Service, is not baked in to the
software itself.... Why isn't it?

I, the programmer, cannot stand over my users and snip at them.
"Don't do that!"
"You can't print yet, you have press the 'prepare printing' button!"
"If you log on while Bob is online, you will boot him... Please wait."

And the same goes for all aspects of human behavior online. Anything that
people can do, they will do. We can argue about whether or not they have a
right to, but there they go.

Mar 1, 2002, 8:52am

[View Quote]
http://www.disinfo.com/pages/article/id1562/pg1/


nothing is true, everything is permitted
by Brian D. Hodges (hajj at disinfo.net) - September 10, 2001

Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted: A Deconstruction of the Last Words
of Hassan-i Sabbah
By Brian D. Hodges
September 6, 2001


According to legend, the master of the Order of Assassins uttered the famous
phrase "nothing is true, everything is permitted" on his deathbed prior to
his soul departing for Hell. [1] This axiom has made its way into a number
of historical accounts regarding Sabbah and the Nizari Isma'ilis. As with so
much of the lore surrounding the "order", it is likely that this quote is no
more true than most of the other legends circulated by Western historians,
medievalists, anarchists and occultists. It is worth looking into three
competing explanations for how it found acceptance and examine the
probabilities of each.

First we should examine some of the most egregious myths that have
propagated through the centuries. The most obvious is that the Isma'ilis
never referred to themselves as "assassins"; other groups used the terms as
epithets toward the Nizaris and the efforts of many scholars to accurately
identify the term's etymology have met with little success. [2] The most
common explanation one finds - that it was a derivation of hashishin, or
cannabis-users - is fairly ridiculous given the abstemious nature of
Sabbah's lifestyle; indeed, he had his own son Muhammad executed for being
drunk in public. [3] A cursory reading of poems written by Sabbah, published
by the Institute for Isma'ili Studies, [4] indicates a man who fits more
into what we might term a "fundamentalist" mindset today than a wild-eyed
radical mystic. Sabbah has been referred to as the "Old Man of the Mountain"
which is a compound error; the term shaykh ('old man' or 'elder') was
applied only to Sinan al-Rashid - the leader of the Syrian, hence Arabic,
Isma'ili faction - by the Crusaders, and "old man of the mountain" was only
translated into Arabic (shaykh al-jabal) after it had appeared in Old
French, Latin and Italian in European works. Moreover, Sabbah was known as
Sayyidna ('master') among his devotees at Alamut. [5] Finally, there has
never been substantive data which indicates there was any linkage at all
between the Nizaris and Adam Weishaupt's Order of Illuminati. This appears
to have been a fanciful literary exploration of Idries Shah's, who made much
of the Illuminati / Assassin association writing as Arkon Daraul in A
History of Secret Societies. The connection has been endlessly hyped -
without any supporting documentation, historical references, or even
consideration of the geopolitical realities concerning such a relationship -
by Robert Anton Wilson in some of his Illuminatus!-inspired writings and Jim
Marrs in Rule by Secrecy, among others.

With this dubious track record in mind, let us turn to an analysis of the
phrase and its utterer.

Barry Miles' Explanation

A significant amount of the material that built up around the Assassins has
come from modern Beat and alternative writers such as William Burroughs,
Brion Gysin and Peter Lamborn Wilson / Hakim Bey. Gysin visited Alamut in
1972 and noted that the fabulous Gardens reputed to have flourished there
could not have had the physical space necessary to justify the myths
surrounding them. [6] Burroughs and Gysin - among notable others - lived at
the Beat Hotel in Paris at various intervals in the late '50s - early '60s
and explored a wide array of metaphysical concepts and applications,
including some Middle Eastern sources. Barry Miles in Beat Hotel writes that
the essence of the quote came from a book about Sabbah by Betty Bouthol ca.
1936; Burroughs apparently arrived at the exact phrase via the "cut-up",
another method of which he was particularly fond. Taking phrases from
Bouthol, he cut them into separate words, reassembling them into the axiom
we know today. Miles notes further:


Over the years, Bill evolved an elaborate cosmology around Hassan, which
bore little relationship to historical fact. [7]
The Weaver Budayl

A competing explanation comes from a historical figure who lived after
Sabbah and developed a following based on the corruption some of the Nizari
master's teachings, resulting in a retroactive misattribution of his words
and actions to Sabbah himself. Budayl, a weaver, proclaimed:


.. . . there is no reality to what is declared lawful or forbidden in
religion. Prayers and fasting must therefore be abandoned.[8]

Structurally this sentiment is very close to Sabbah's wording.

The Isma'ilis reacted to his ideas by capturing and executing most of
Budayl's adherents in a move that mirrored later actions against the Sufat
or Pure Ones. To paraphrase Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now: what do you
call it when the heretics accuse the heretic? In any case, it is possible
that the spirit of the quote, if not its letter, has mistakenly become
associated with Sabbah as a result of Budayl.

Haram vs. Halal

A heresiography of the various divisions of the Shi'a (the minority party in
Islam) categorizes the Isma'ilis according to this precept:


Their third name is hurumiyya, for they say halal about many haram actions.
[. . .] For example, they say, "Paradise means to escape worships and to do
enjoyable things. Hell means to endure the burden of worships and to refrain
from haram actions." [9]

It is important to examine the substance of this statement from a linguistic
viewpoint. Haram means 'forbidden', which carries the same connotations as
'unclean' in Judaic tradition. Conversely, halal means permitted, allowed or
clean. Compare that to this quote, taken from Radd-i Rawafid:


The Ismailiyya group, says that Qur'an al-karim has a batin [invisible inner
essence] as well as a zahir [outward appearance]. The zahir, when compared
to the batin, is like the shell of a hazel-nut in comparison to its kernel.
Whatever a person would obtain by enduring the difficulty and trouble of
obeying the commandments and prohibitions, which make up the zahir, is
easily attainable by adapting oneself to the batin. So, one does not have to
go into trouble by worshipping. For making people believe these statements
of theirs, they quote the thirteenth ayat of Hadid sura, which points out
the wall between the people who are in Paradise and those who are in Hell.
They say, "There is no haram (prohibition). Everything is halal (permitted).
[10]

Virtually Sabbah's own alleged words. It is unclear whether the
classification results from the writers' encounter with Budayl-influenced
material or if it arose independently of that; nonetheless, the concept is
demonstrably present among Muslim scholars of the period.

The quote appears as a corruption of familiar Qur'anic pre- and
pro-scriptions. It is much like a Christian priest accusing a "witch" of
saying the Lord's Prayer backwards whilst engaged in an orgiastic ceremony.
Taken in the broad context of religious studies (especially for
textually-based religions), this is a very common occurrence: stating that a
given individual or party is going against some written advice or
prohibition as an indictment of their heresy.

The Truth in "Nothing Is True" and the Implications for its Acceptance

Like the etymology of "Assassin", the true provenance of "nothing is true,
everything is permitted" is likely lost to the vagaries of history, poor
translations and the collision between competing cultural paradigms. One,
none or all of the above attempts at explanation could be correct. Does it
matter who said it, and does it matter at all? These two questions are
interrelated.

In the final analysis, the Isma'ilis are better known for a great many
contributions to Islamic and 'Alid thought - far more (and far more
important) than ascription of a crypto-anarchistic statement by its founder
nearly a thousand years ago. So much of what Western historians, travelers
and researchers have disseminated about the "Order of Assassins" is
inaccurate, biased and misunderstood that it hardly matters whether Sabbah
said these words on his deathbed or not, and modern Nizaris would be
unlikely to adhere to its logic in any event. Given the data shown above,
though, he could have said it. One could easily envision Burroughs
formulating it - with or without a cut-up - and there have been all manner
of libertines, politicians, military and religions leaders who have lived by
its guidance whether they formulated the sentiment in those words or not.
One finds it written in magickal journals and splashed on web pages the
world over, frequently without even knowing where it came from. So the
answer to the first question must be negative.

The second question is more problematic. Esoteric spiritual seekers often
encounter unusual practices at various points in their initiations;
sometimes these rituals involve exposure to fear, disgust, sensuality,
asceticism or combinations thereof. This phrase unlocks a gateway into the
realm of extreme initiations, where one must truly break the chains of the
Law. [11] But these praxes are not for everyone, nor are they meant to
substitute for the development of the soul; they are specific to a person's
state of being at a given time and are strong medicine that can heal an
initiate at one level and destroy him at another. Thus hearing the axiom on
the mouth of a disaffected teenager is either quaint or annoying depending
on one's sympathies or horrifying if that youth is on an armed rampage
through a school building.

The statement is a tool - and a very powerful one - and not one for
everybody's tool box. Just as spiritual practices require guidance and
wisdom from one's initiator (whether human, oneiric, chemical or
experiential), so this maxim can lead to great liberation or extreme havoc.
Some need first to understand the ancient dictum "discipline precedes
freedom" before they will be able to dance with the last words of Hassan-i
Sabbah.

Endnotes:

[1] This quote has been attributed to William S. Burroughs as well as the
historian Juvaini, depending on the source material - most of which is
incorrectly referenced. I was not able to find any data to substantiate
Juvaini.[2] Farhad Daftary. The Assassin Legends. London: IB Tauris & Co,
1995. p. 131ff.

[3] Farhad Daftary. The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines. New York and
Oxford: Cambridge University Press, 1990. P. 367.

[4] Kutub Kassam (ed.). and Faquir Hunzai (trans.). Shimmering Light: An
Anthology of Ismaili Poetry. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.

[5] Daftary 1995, p. 116; Daftary 1990, p. 367ff. The Persian equivalent of
shaykh al jabal is pir-i kuhistan.

[6] Brion Gysin and Terry Wilson. Here to Go: R101 (San Francisco: RE/Search
Books, 1982; London: Quartet Books, 1982). Recently re-released as Brion
Gysin: Here to Go. London and New York: Creation Books, 2001.

[7] Barry Miles. The Beat Hotel: Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Corso in Paris,
1957-1963. New York: Grove Press, 2000. p. 204.

[8] The Heritage Society. The Legend of Paradise.

[9] al-Shahrastání. Mihal wa Nihal. See: The Heritage Society. Genesis of
the word "Assassin".

[10] Waqf Ikhlas. Translation of Radd-i-Rawafid ("Document of the Right
Word").

[11] Sabbah's inheritor, Hassan II, did utter a phrase which has been
under-appreciated in the occult community: "The Chains of the Law have been
Broken.", thus ushering in the abrogation of Shari'a and the beginning of
the golden period of Isma'ili metaphysical exploration. Daftary 1990, p.
386-88; Daftary 1995, p. 40-42.

Feb 28, 2002, 12:01am

Maybe it belongs in general discussion, but thanks for the levity. I
answered "yes" to way too many of these.

Feb 28, 2002, 1:57pm

Thank you for letting me know. She was a wonderful conversationalist, a
straight-shooter, and for a Mars native, very down-to-earth.

I am very sorry to hear she is gone.

Feb 28, 2002, 11:30pm

Just to be clear, although port-scanning is a signature behavior of a
hacking script, many common applications scan ports when they initialize a
transaction.

I recall getting in trouble with Gap Inc. for implementing PCAnywhere on
their network (d'oh!) . PCAnywhere just loves to scan ports.

Port scanning can happen whenever you might have a program that has a
"connect to..." dialog box that lets you choose which IP and which ports.

Mar 1, 2002, 6:04pm

I am really, really sorry I ever posted this.

Mar 4, 2002, 12:34am

I have gotten a lot of interesting feedback from this NG. In fact I have
probably been treated better than I deserved to be sometimes.

I enjoy participating in interesting discussions, OT or not OT.

But I must say that the last few major threads here have been NOT
INTERESTING.

We can't demand to be liked, forgiven, or respected. We gotta give
something. And we need to be at least aware of what politeness is.

Any thread containing ad hominem remarks, name-calling especially, drags the
author through a gutter that leaves an indelible swampy stain of adolescent
putridity.

Mar 20, 2002, 3:07am

It's a logically formed letter. Good that you've got the guts to say it.
Probably bound to create tension, due to the use of phrases like "you
should".

I remember the COF controversy. I remember Worlds doing a universe for Intel
Research, getting paid well to do it, and then curiously getting bought out.
I recall a story about a storage space filled with office equipment and
furniture somewhere out in the Bay Area.... Worlds Chat continuing and
AlphaWorld continuing on different paths. Studio buys software company, to
do more work... Idea was to sell custom-designed worlds... Loads of them! At
300K each.

VRML Architecture Group archives have threads from original Alpha team...
Leading discussions on problems most of the group had not encountered yet.
Most members of VAG began their threads with some little problem with their
parser or their renderer. The Alpha people were struggling with collision
detection, dead-reckoning, realtime scene optimization, etc. Showdown on
VRML in 1997, Apple burned bridges and Alpha team made friends, which is
ironic since AlphaWorld was never an implementation of the SGI-centric
notion that VRML _is_ the Open Inventor format. (Pesce and Parisi never
intended VRML to be a FILE FORMAT, which is all VRML 2.0 ever really
amounted to. They would have preferred the AW implementation in that it was
at least a beginning of Pesce's "CyberSpace Protocol".) (Pesce, 1995)

One thing is sure: nobody, NOBODY would have founded a startup based on 3D
Chat if it were not for research firms such as Gartner and The Aspen
Institute publishing papers in 1995-1997 for Venture Capitalists to read,
claiming that there was going to be widespread, high-volume consumer demand
for it.

Worlds Inc. was (originally) founded by Worlds Adventure / Knowledge
Adventure, and ActiveWorlds was founded by people who wanted to GET RICH
RICH RICH on a hot new VC buzzword.

1998: Suddenly nobody in the Venture Capital world (or the press) gave a
hoot about VRML, and ActiveWorlds was twisting in the wind.

ActiveWorlds was and is a bastard child, a slave traded child, an abandoned
greedy dream that will never be treated with respect or geniune ambition by
the self-pitying carriers of its liability.

We, those who enjoy ActiveWorlds, are, from the point of view of a marketing
specialist, an insignificant minority of users who prefer something that
simply cannot compete with the only relevant competition, AOL, or MSN.

The only people in the whole world who will look out for our interests is
OURSELVES.

Mar 28, 2002, 11:08pm

Hey, that's MY magical thinking hat!

Apr 5, 2002, 7:20pm

Hey, I am the World's Oldest "Immature teenager".

BTW, I am not in favor of cutting cit prices.... But maybe a bronze, silver,
gold, platinum kinda citizenship price sheet would be good....

AW has to sell on the value angle, not the "cheap" angle. It has to have
something worth spending money on... It does.

May 29, 2002, 2:06pm

in article 3cf3fb70 at server1.Activeworlds.com, strike rapier at
strike at rapiercom.freeserve.co.uk wrote on 5/28/02 5:49 PM:

>
> Now my question in.. does anyone really like the management, does roland? do
> you? and more importantly do u think they are getting in the way or the
> programmers?


The ActiveWorlds developer community is a starved, neglected, and uninformed
group of nomads... Not through any fault of their own.

I can't see why anyone would be enthusiastic about the Aladdin merger or
X3D. Have you been to the X3D website? It's just a Flash promo... Always a
symptom of know-nothing investors who think marketing and having a business
are the same thing.

Sure "X3D" as a post-VRML technology may be appealing (although I have my
reservations... using XML is obviously a novelty designed to make the spec
seem "strategic"), but really, what does X3D Technologies have to do with
X3D, the standard?

The only hope ActiveWorlds, Inc. has of surviving is to be bought out by
someone who gives a hoot about creating a high-quality online experience.

The total amount of cash at stake to the current owners is... Not much
unless you view it as a middle-class individual's life savings. Well, it
would be better invested in real estate. If they _could_ liquidate it, I'll
bet you a martini at the Red Eye that they would.


Ben

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