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May 1, 1998, 12:39am

Okay, being a full time computer nerd, I don't get out much, so please
forgive my ignorance, but...
Who are Howard Stern and Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf anyway?

TechnoZeus

May 1, 1998, 8:48am

Okay, I still have no idea who Howard Stern is, but I did look at the
current totals for that beutiful people award (or whatever they call it) and
it looks like Hank is winning by a landslide. Now... as I see it, there are
enough avatars in AW that everybody would probably be able to choose a
different one as the one we should vote for, but since Stiff CY is our
candidate, we should all push together and consider a vote for Stiff CY to
be a vote for ActiveWorlds, and all of the beutiful people who share it with
us.

That said, if you haven't voted for Stiff CY yet...
Please go to
http://www.activeworlds.com/cyvote.html
(with your proxy server off if you usually use one please)...

and place a vote for "Stiff CY"
it has to be entered as a write in vote because Stiff CY is not on the list.

Spelling counts, and make sure to put the CY part in caps like I have it
here... just to be sure it counts toward the total.
Take your time and type it in carefully. I understand if the system taking
in the votes thinks it was entered by a robot, it will count as a negative
vote, so give it at least a couple of seconds to figure out you're real...
however it does that. :·)

The entry should appear in the box as:
Stiff CY
and last I checked, we still needed aver 190000 more voted to beat Hank, so
please vote for Stiff CY and ask your friends to also.

Thankyou
TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 1, 1998, 6:04pm

:·)
Thanks.

TechnoZeus

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May 3, 1998, 5:23pm

Careful Grover... Some people may "actually" not recognize that you meant
that in jest. (You might start seeing your post in telegrams from people
you thought knew better.)

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 3, 1998, 5:29pm

Maybe a good way to control it would be to only allow world owners to send
mass messages (to a maximum of maybe 20 people) and let the rest of us do it
the hard way if we want to send out the same message to many people at once.
Fact is, it's not something most people should be doing very often (if ever)
anyway, and at present you can only put 100 people on your contact list....
how hard could it possibly be to message them all?

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 1, 1998, 6:16pm

Great way of making a general object "library" I would think. Of course the
down side is that it would take a while before objects in the secondary path
would load... but if that's acceptable to the would owner, I would think
they should have that choice. One thing though... a password would be a
good idea, so that people don't start using other world's objects as their
secondary path without permission. Here's a suggestion for how that could
be done. Zip a file named "password.txt" so that it requires a password to
unzip it. The contents of the file are not important. Then when an object is
not found on the primary object path, the cache would be checked to see if
it had a record of the secondary path as being password verified... if so
the file would be looked for on the secondary path. If not, the
password.zip file would be looked for in the main directory of the secondary
object path, and the secondary path password would be used to unzip it. If
successful, AW would then store a record in the cache that the secondary
path had been password verified.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 1, 1998, 6:58pm

I would think it possible also to allow such temp objects to be turned on or
off for a world, and purged by the world owner or a caretaker at any time.
Here's a similar idea... dynamic objects: These would be objects that are
treated as avatars by AW. In other words, their positions would be
constantly updated as if they could get up and walk around. This type of
object would be nice for situations where an object needs to be set in
motion rather than just placed. Any object could be temporarily converted
to a dynamic object if set as allowable by the object's original owner.
Needs more work, but there's the basic idea anyway.

TechnoZeus

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May 6, 1998, 9:40pm

Just a "guess" but have you checked to see if it behaves differently
depending on which control (or dialog) has the focus at the time?

TechnoZeus

May 11, 1998, 6:00pm

Okay. Well, the reason I had asked is because although it's generally
irrelevant, the AW program itself may have been programmed to behave
differently depending on what has the focus.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 4, 1998, 11:41pm

If you want to pay for the next 30 years in advance, I'm pretty sure they
wouldn't object, but I can't afford it. ActiveWorlds is "not" expensive,
but some of us can hardly afford inexpensive items and are glad they chose
not to make it impossible for us to register.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 5, 1998, 5:33pm

No, I didn't miss the point. I just don't think there's "any" chance of
that because of the way the upgrade process works. In order to be able to
upgrade world servers and universe servers, it becomes necessary to upgrade
"all" ActiveWorlds browsers once in a while. Most programs allow you to use
one version until you feel like paying for another, but if CoF was to make
non-expiring licenses for full citizenship privilages, they would be cutting
their own throats. I also would like to see AW free for everyone, but at
least to some extent, it is right now. Who knows?... Maybe some day
tourists will have all (or most) of the privilages that citizens have now.
Anyway, if you would like to see a one time charge for citizenship that's as
low as the present annual amount, don't hold your breath... but you CAN
wish. :·)

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 3, 1998, 5:41pm

Perhaps one on Left Shift and the other on Right Shift?

TechnoZeus

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May 3, 1998, 5:05pm

Can't say weather or not sounds to notify you of such things as telegrams
would be "good" to have, but I can say that if it were made available, it
would be very good to have an option to turn it on or off, or better yet, to
be able to set it seperately as on or off for several different modes of
operation, each of which woud have it's own defaults based on expected
priorities for that mode.

For example:
There could be an "away" mode (toggle?) which would be based on the idea
that you can't see your screen, but MAY be able to hear your computer from
another room. There could be a "busy" mode which would be based on the idea
that you are working on something... possibly with one or more other
people... and do not want to have your work interrupted unnecessarily.
There could also be a "building" mode which would be designed to allow you
the most flexibility and control in examening and manipulating objects,
among other things. Another mode would be the "browsing" mode, which I
would think should be the default and have a balance between several other
modes. Then there could be the "exploring" mode which would be the optimal
mode for enjoying new discoveries in a completed world without being
"bothered" by as much technical information as in "building" mode... and of
course there would be "chat" mode which would be selected when a persion
mainly just wants to talk to people, and allow people to talk to them. This
would of course be no easy set of features to add, but if done as a general
named mode scheme, I think it should be reasonable for some future revision
of AW. That way, the only mode that would have to be defined right away is
the "browsing" mode (or "default" mode perhaps), and then others could be
created and saved. During the beta test phase for the release that would
have these modes added, new modes could be tested, and a set of usefull
modes (saved hardware independant configuration settings) would eventually
be decided on to be included as part of the new version of AW when it is
released.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 5, 1998, 5:37pm

Would be nice, but I for one couldn't use it. If implimented, it would have
to be something that you could disable if you lack the bandwith or
processing power to handle it. Might also be nice to have it disabled by
the installation process as a default if you are running too slow of a
connection on too slow of a computer.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 5, 1998, 5:47pm

Simple solution:
When AW looks for a file with a specific extension and doesn't find it, it
could then look for a .zip file by the same name and attempt to extract the
file from it if found. The possible exception here being the one that is
already in AW which is that a zipped texture file is expected to be a .bmp
file rather than a jpg file. Also, it may make sense to default to no mask
when getting a jpg texture from a source other than the object path.
Further comments?

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 5, 1998, 11:20pm

The reason JPG is able to compress so well is that it uses mathematical
formulas to extrapolate approximations of some parts of the image from other
parts of the image. That way, only part of the image needs to be stored to
get an aproximation of the whole image. The more you compress the image
file, the more loss there is, and the less it looks like the original.
Using a compression scheme that has no loss at all, you could encode a text
file, or even an executable file into the pixels of an image, and after
compression and decompression you could extract the original file and it
would be exactly as it was before you started. Using JPG for the same
purpose, it is unlikely that you would even recognize the file if you got
any reasonable amount of compression at all.

TechnoZeus

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May 6, 1998, 9:44pm

No. Not what I mant. (As if you didn't know.) But cute though.

TechnoZeus

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May 7, 1998, 5:42am

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------=_NextPart_000_003A_01BD796A.2EC998E0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Here's my understanding of it: PNG is not very common at this time. =
GIF has been around much longer and is therefore more common, but =
supports fewer colors, has no advantage over PNG in it's compression =
scheme (as far as I know) and yes it would cost to include. The PNG =
format was created to allow the same flexibility and quality as GIF (or =
better) without the need to pay for the right to support it.

TechnoZeus
[View Quote] [View Quote] Yes, I suggested this to Roland months ago: ZIPped WAVs and =
MP3s. COF just can't develop AW fast enough to keep up with the =
industry...they're gonna lose it if they don't move it...=20
Note, since JPGs are already compressed, compressing them more =
with ZIP and other compression algorythms will just make them bigger. AW =
needs to support GIF and PNG image formats, as well, for optimal image =
compression.=20

[View Quote] I just had an interesting thought. You know how worlds use =
the default=20
directories (models, avatars, textures, etc.)? Well, most =
of the files=20
are in a compressed format (.zip). Well, with all of the =
huge files=20
coming along, and sizes getting bigger...couldn't you add a =
..zip=20
extension to the create picture, noise, and sound commands? =
Think about=20
it, when you do a create noise xxx.wav, it is not in .zip =
format, and=20
would take longer to download. But, if you had a .zip on =
the Web with=20
the .WAV compressed, it would download quicker (usually ;-). =
And you=20
could probably use this for the picture command so that =
pictures could=20
download faster (or not, I dunno). The only problem that =
*I* see with=20
it is that the browser would have to determine if it was a =
sound or an=20
image .zip file. Any comments on this? I'm tired of =
putting custom=20
.WAVs at different locations and they take forever to d/l. =
Maybe=20
streaming audio would be better, but this is a "low-end" =
idea for now.=20
Or AW could add the .MP3 file format... ;-)
=20

------=_NextPart_000_003A_01BD796A.2EC998E0
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>

<META content=3Dtext/html;charset=3Diso-8859-1 =
http-equiv=3DContent-Type>
<META content=3D'"MSHTML 4.72.2106.6"' name=3DGENERATOR>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2>Here's my understanding of it:&nbsp; =
PNG is not=20
very common at this time.&nbsp; GIF has been around much longer and is =
therefore=20
more common, but supports fewer colors, has no advantage over PNG in =
it's=20
compression scheme (as far as I know) and yes it would cost to include. =
The PNG=20
format was created to allow the same flexibility and quality as GIF (or =
better)=20
without the need to pay for the right to support it.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3D2>TechnoZeus</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE=20
style=3D"BORDER-LEFT: #000000 solid 2px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: =
5px">
[View Quote] ------=_NextPart_000_003A_01BD796A.2EC998E0--

May 7, 1998, 6:03am

Well, I can't speak for CoF, but it would make sense to assume that as long
as the developers are attempting to beat the clock putting in the features
that NEED to be in the version they are working on before they release it,
they probably won't spend much time looking for NEW ideas. My guess is
there will probably be quite a bit of time spent on sifting through the
complaints in this newsgroup in an attempt to find the best ideas and
suggestions or comments about them "after" the release of version 2.0 of the
ActiveWorlds browser, and most likely also "after" the release of the new
world server. Of course, I'm speculating, but if you think about it,
they're busy right now, and many of the posts here have been more personal
than productive so the productive ones will probably have to wait until
enough time can be set aside to "find" them.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 11, 1998, 6:09pm

Only way to live. :)

[View Quote]

May 11, 1998, 7:28pm

Add an animate command to the Action field:

for the stars...
create animate me zspace 1 1 0

and for the clouds...
create animate me steam 7 10 4999 2 3 4 3 4 5 4 3 4 3

Objects:
10m by 10m =
walk001h.rwx
walk002h.rwx
walk005h.rwx
walk010h.rwx
walk23h.rwx

8m by 8m =
walk1.rwx
walk3.rwx
walk7.rwx
walk002.rwx

4m by 4m =
floor01.rwx
floor02.rwx
floor10.rwx
floor15.rwx

3m by 3m =
roof2001.rwx
floor31.rwx

Try the each object listed for each size to get a larger or brighter display
of the texture.

Keep in mind that the animate command does use space, and will therefore
reduce the number of objects you can fit in a given area.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 11, 1998, 8:56pm

Actually, it should be possible to make a polyhedron based select where each
object you select in this way would add to the points on the outer edge of a
polyhedra or a poligonal vertical prism in which all objects enclosed by the
defined area would be added to the selected group. Not that difficult to
use, and probably not difficult to add to the program either... although I'm
sure it won't be in 2.0 since it might be a bit difficult to thoroughly
test, and it would definately take up too much time to get put into the
works right now. (IMO)

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 11, 1998, 9:34pm

Please stop. You are both capable of much more productive input.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 12, 1998, 3:36am

Exactly my point. Relatively more would be nice. :·)

[View Quote]

May 12, 1998, 3:37am

Thought it "was" clear. What part are you having trouble understanding?

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 12, 1998, 5:10am

More productive than the childish bickering that led me to post a message
asking you to stop doing it... or pick a higher goal if you feel up to it.
:·)

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 12, 1998, 5:35am

Okay, I'll give it a shot...

"Actually, it should be possible" is a statement declairing the likelyness
of a possibility.

"to make a polyhedron based select" is a prepositional phrase which taken in
the context of my earlier post states that what is likely to be possible is
the addition of a feature to ActiveWorlds that would allow a polyhedral
space to be selected.

"where" is an indicator of position, used in this case to connect the idea
with it's descriptor.

"each object you select in this way" indicates the sum of objects which are
individually chosen to be included in the definition of the polyhedral
space.

"would add to the points" indicates the modification of the polyhedral space
to include the selected points in 3D space as a consequence of polyhedral
selection of objects.

"on the outer edge of a polyhedra" indicates a location potentially on the
outer boundries of the polyhedral space.

"or a poligonal vertical prism" mentioned to highlight the fact that the
polyhedral space could alternatively be defined by the definition of a
polygon parallel to the ground plane by including all objects within that
polygon at any altitude.

"in which all objects enclosed by the defined area would be added to the
selected group." indicates that once such a polyhedron is defined, all
objects whose point of origin are within the defined polyhedron would be
selected as a group.

"Not that difficult to use," basically means that just about anyone could
successfully select a group of objects in this mannor without having to be
able to see all of the objects they wish to select.

"and probably not difficult to add to the program either..." Means that
the math and logic involved are not very complex and much of the needed
coding is already in the program.

"although I'm sure it won't be in 2.0" means that I do not expect to see
such a feature in the next comming release version of ActiveWorlds.

"since it might be a bit difficult to thoroughly test," specifies the wide
range of possible test situations as a reason why I do not expect this
feature to be introduced in the version 2.0 beta for ActiveWorlds.

"and it would definately take up too much time to get put into the works
right now." means that I think the programmers are keeping busy already.

"(IMO)" means In My Opinion.

Hope that clears it up a bit.

TechnoZeus.

[View Quote]

May 12, 1998, 5:03pm

I withdraw my position. You wish to have this newsgroup all to yourself?
Have it. I will return to my usual channels for submitting suggestions.

If anyone would like my comments on anything, or my help with anything that
you would otherwise have posted in this newsgroup, please contact me
directly. I will continue to check the Beta newsgroup as long as I am
welcome there.

Signing off of WishList.

TechnoZeus.

[View Quote]

May 18, 1998, 5:56am

My intention was not to lose anyone. I apologize to whoever may have found
my terminology unclear. This is not easy for me, but in an attempt to be
nice to the people who have expressed appreciation for my efforts in the
past I have decided to swallow my pride and attempt to re-join the wishlist
newsgroup. I was insulted, but I'm sure it was not intentional so I will
attempt to go back to offering my input as long as I am allowed to do so
with some dignity. Of course I do make mistakes, and perhaps my choice of
wording was one of them. I simply did not think of a more concise or more
accurate way to say what I said at that time. Please forgive me for not
doing better. To me it really was "plain English" but I do realize that
vocabularies differ, as do dialects and many other factors. By the way, I
had originally intended to use the more generic term "polytopal" rather than
"polyhedral" since it would then have generalized readily to any number of
dimensions, but I thought that there may be some people who were less
familliar with that term, and therefore decided to use the "every day term"
even though it was slightly less encompassing, in order to make it easier
for a few people to understand more clearly.

Eep, since I know you will read this, I would like to point out to you here
that although there is nothing wrong with pointing out that something could
be improved on, it serves no purpose to do so without regard for people's
feelings. Many good ideas may be lost if we chase away the people who would
have offered them before they get the chance. I am not perfect, nor do I
try to be, but I do try to be kind and helpful to others. Please don't
punish me for not always doing as good as you would like me to. I do my
best, and that's all I can do. Hopefully in time my best will get better.

Now, to try to put the idea I stated earlier into plain English...

It sould be possible to add a feature that would allow selection of all
objects in a specific 3D area (or space) by selecting certain objects to
define a bounding shape for the selection of all objects within that shape.
An alternative would be to allow selection of objects to define a 2D
bounding shape parallel to the ground for selection of all of the objects
that have their "x,z" coordinate location within that shape.

If any of this is still unclear, please politely let me know exactly which
part and I will attempt to clearify further. Thankyou.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 20, 1998, 3:49pm

Thankyou.

[View Quote]

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