jim1 // User Search

jim1 // User Search

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SDK for PayPal or 2checkout?

Jul 24, 2005, 2:31pm
Sorry I don't know exactly how SDK would help with payment options.
Maybe it would help supply additional authentication? E.g., the
AW_EVENT_AVATAR_ADD event provides a user's unique citizen
number. A bot might create and activate an account in response to an
AW_EVENT_OBJECT_CLICK event on a sign. (Does PayPal provide
a machine interface for creating accounts?)

My best source of bot information so far has been the official
http://www.activeworlds.com/sdk/ . (You might want to ask here for a
better example instead of investing any time in the "simple greeter bot"
example there.) For just an overview, you might be interested in the
Introduction, FAQ, Events, Attributes, and World Server Administration
links there. Skimming the Methods and Events sections gives a good
idea of what bots can do.

I too would appreciate other bot-related links.

I really appreciate ActiveWorlds providing this SDK. It makes my cit
worth every penny. It's a bit overwhelming -- not because it's difficult
(it's really very simple) -- but because there is just *so* much you can
do with it!

Jim1

[View Quote]

SDK for PayPal or 2checkout?

Jul 26, 2005, 7:08pm
Hi Mark,

No, sorry. After over 3 decades of programming, I haven't yet learned
to program -- with sufficiently obnoxious arrogance. Teach me, please?

Are you that old yet? ;-)

Jim1

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Test

May 30, 2005, 2:02pm
Test

ISO: Random Tours Advice

Jun 26, 2005, 2:46pm
I'd like to make a feature in a bot to conduct random tours throughout
AlphaWorld. This has likely already been done but I'd like to do it myself
just for the experience.

The help for the aw_teleport() method says "The calling instance must be
owned by a caretaker or have the EJECT right in order to use aw_teleport."
(neither of which conditions I satisfy) so instead, I'm considering having a
bot create a teleport object (to random coordinates) in front of my avatar,
delete the teleport object after the avatar has leapt, then having the bot
move to the new location to prepare for the next random leap, etc.

As a sanity check, can anyone think of pitfalls I might try to avoid in this
experiment? One that comes to mind is that there may be no immediate vacant
land on which to create a new teleport object. In that case I might
continue attempting to create it farther in front of the avatar until
succeeding or aborting the whole tour at some specified distance in front of
the avatar.

The only intended purpose of this is to discover interesting, previously
unknown places in AlphaWorld. Most random locations are likely to be vacant
or garbage-ridden areas so perhaps the human explorer could rate each
location and the bot could record only the highly-rated locations for future
guided tours. Perhaps some heuristics could be formed along the way to make
future expeditions more productive if less random.

Related, I recently tried to locate the "50% vacancy radius" in AlphaWorld.
The program calculated random coordinates at specified radii from GZ. I'd
go there and record whether there were any visible objects in the vicinity.
After recording results from large samples at each radius and increasing or
decreasing the specified radius in a binary search fashion, the answer
converged on approximately 1967 dekameters from GZ. (It's unlikely to be a
strictly monotonically increasing function, hence the approximation.) I.e.,
at 1967 dekameters from GZ in any direction you might expect a 50% chance of
finding vacant land. It would be interesting to have tracked this metric
over time since AW's big bang.

ISO: Random Tours Advice

Jun 26, 2005, 11:16pm
Thanks for the personal response, John.

I'd rather not bother AWI. They seem too busy with other things and this is
just for kicks anyway.

I'm having some success with this project. It now creates teleports that
send me to random locations but the vast majority are barren. For now I'm
using the back button to return and create a new teleport but I hope to
leapfrog the bot along with me soon. The idea is to have a human team up
with a bot so they can both contribute their best to the exploration goal.

Have fun!
Jim1

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Fricker" <johnf at 3d-reality.com>
To: "Jim1" <JimMoore2 at Cox.net>
Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2005 4:46 PM
Subject: Re: Random Tours Advice


> You could beg AWI to do this on a bot with eject
>
> :-P
>
> John
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jim1" <JimMoore2 at Cox.net>
> Newsgroups: bots
> Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2005 5:46 PM
> Subject: ISO: Random Tours Advice
>
>
>
>

ISO: Random Tours Advice

Jun 27, 2005, 9:45pm
[View Quote] Yes, that would be the ultimate goal after all the exploration yielded
fruit -- like the Vincent bot in the VanGogh world. (Nice world, that.)
For now, bot-aided exploration is the goal.

Now I see that the vast majority of random locations are completely vacant,
making the exploration boring. Maybe it should randomly select only from
sectors found populated by an aw_query() survey. That seems impossibly
slow.

So far it creates teleports directly in front of and facing my avatar
regardless of avatar yaw. It tries to create it every meter away until the
RC_ENCROACHES errors stop (success) or it gets to 100 meters away (abort).

I assume the bot needs to be near the place where it creates an object. Is
that not correct? Could a bot be at one end of AlphaWorld and create an
object at the opposite end?

Now I'm wondering how to reliably detect that the avatar has used the
teleport. I assume that would be when an AW_EVENT_AVATAR_DELETE happens
while the avatar is near the teleport object. Then again, the user might
close the browser while near the object. Maybe I should use activate
instead of bump. I dunno. FunFunFun...

Jim1

Return avatar to last known position?

Jul 21, 2005, 7:24pm
Sorry I don't know anything about those bots, but it just so happens I was
working on a similar problem recently.

In case it helps, the last-know position could come from tracking the
AW_EVENT_AVATAR_CHANGE event discussed at
http://www.activeworlds.com/sdk/ and the avatar could be moved with
the aw_teleport method discussed there.

For aw_teleport, "The calling instance must be owned by a caretaker or
have the EJECT right in order to use aw_teleport."

Since I'm privilege-deficient, I instead had the bot create a teleport,
delete
it after I'd used it, then follow along for the next leap. It worked very
well.

Wish I could help more.

Jim1

[View Quote]

Newell Teapot

Jul 22, 2005, 10:39pm
Has this been done here yet? If so, where?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_teapot

Proxy Bots?

Aug 5, 2005, 7:26pm
You should be able to make a bot that uses your avatar type and constantly
matches itself to your position and orientation. I'm not sure what value
that would have. Interesting idea though.

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Proxy Bots?

Aug 6, 2005, 5:57pm
> ... functions as a go-between with the client and server....
So it would sit between the client and the modem and inject packets as
if they were coming from the client? Is that not allowed here?

> ... a utility that controls my avatar for me automatically ...
Ah. Yes, that can be convenient. I used to use the old MS recorder.exe
program to do that through the client's user interface at another website.
(I get the impression that MicroSoft no longer appreciates the need for
that capability. That's sad.) Come to think of it, that other website
objected to the technique but never explained why. Maybe they just
feared what they didn't understand.

Does anyone know of things that a human operator can do through
the GUI that a bot can't do? I guess a bot couldn't display the human's
name over its head. And the bot can't display its view in the operator's
browser. Anything else?


[View Quote]

Stereoscopic AW?

Jan 11, 2005, 8:52pm
Has anyone ever worked out a stereoscopic AW?

With gaming goggles and a way to coordinate (aw_teleport()?) two
avatars, one for each eye's view, one might route each client window to
the corresponding goggle eye or maybe put each client window on a
separate monitor then route the monitors to the goggles.

Is this even possible?

Imagine the immersion!

Objects react to collision?

Jan 15, 2005, 5:53pm
[View Quote] I think the bump trigger only works when the object is touched by an
avatar. To get an object to react to another object's touch, you might
try a chain of animate (as a timer) action commands. There's an example
of chained sign commands in AW at 20007N 7779E 270 (the scrolling sign).

> If
> it was to be done and show everyone, it would be quite harder, I would
> imagine.

I think a bot could do that, even if only by creating the reaction on
the fly.

Objects react to collision?

Jan 16, 2005, 12:39am
[View Quote] np. Well, then the bump trigger could at least initiate the process.

I'm unauthorised to use "move" in AW so I haven't played with it.
The help at http://www.activeworlds.com/help/aw36/move_command.html
says it "causes an object to move ... and then back again." It wouldn't
seem natural for a soccer ball to bounce back to where it was kicked.
No dice there.

This is an interesting problem though. It might be generalised to
avatars striking any object, like a cue ball or a baseball. Dreaming
now ... a bot could find the angle of approach of the avatar with an
arctangent function and even its velocity of approach with the
AW_EVENT_AVATAR_CHANGE event (delta AW_AVATAR_Y and
AW_AVATAR_Z/delta time) and then recreate the soccerball at its
projected landing point using sine and cosine of the aforementioned
approach angle multiplied by the impact velocity. (Lather, rinse,
repeat, accordingly.)

This seems an architype for other ball games. Has this been done
already? Maybe in that bowling game?

(I'm new here, haven't bowled yet. Sorry if this is too geeky.)

>
[View Quote]

Objects react to collision?

Jan 16, 2005, 6:31pm
Just for kicks I made an object/object collision anyway. It switches
visibility off and on instead of using the move command.

If anyone's curious, it's in AW at 20019.5N 7778E 90 . Click the green
cylinder and it knocks the red cylinder away.

I understand this doesn't resolve the original wish for an
avatar-kick-object command but maybe this will help someone else peeking
in on this thread. :-)

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Objects react to collision?

Jan 29, 2005, 3:04pm
Fascinating stuff. Imagine orbiting bodies like a twin star or a
star-planet system. Crash your avatar into it, perturbing it, then you
can stand back and watch the whole mess restabilize into new orbits!

Also, virtual artillery! lol

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Objects react to collision?

Feb 28, 2005, 12:46am
At AW 20017N 7784E there's a curious example of one object appearing to
react to another which in turn reacts to the one. It's a pneumatic
oscillator that could be manufactured in the real world. (If you spot
the possible problem of a piston port connecting the wrong pressure
lines, consider it could be solved by shifting the depth of alternate
ports.)

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NEEDED - Garages With HIGHER Ceilings (and one with a doorway leading to kitchen area)

Apr 10, 2005, 10:25pm
Even the Harold avatar has room to spare in the thseb3a.rwx garage. Are
you sure it's not partially sunk underground?

Yes, an internal doorway would be nice.

Jim1


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NEEDED - Garages With HIGHER Ceilings (and one with a doorway leading to kitchen area)

Apr 10, 2005, 10:45pm
I think I know what the problem is. Try propping up the house on a
thsea2.rwx basement object. Works great for me in AlphWorlds.

[View Quote]

NEEDED - Garages With HIGHER Ceilings (and one with a doorway leading to kitchen area)

Apr 11, 2005, 9:38am
[View Quote] Yes. The Butch avatar fits nicely into the garage at AW 272N 178E.
(Click the garage door to open it.)

Do you need steps leading up to your front door? I had to add steps
because the thsea2.rwx basement object raised everything up 1 meter.

Jim1

Voice

Jun 1, 2005, 8:43am
Regarding software version numbering, I believe the convention is to
increment the number left of the decimal point when enhancements are made
and the number right of the decimal point when bugs are fixed.

If that's true with AW then we could easily skip from 3.6 to 4.1, or,
conversely, even have a v3.10, v3.11, etc.


Jim1

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Boolean

Jun 9, 2005, 6:41pm
Please give the coordinates for both of these calculators.
ty!

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Boolean

Jun 9, 2005, 11:40pm
Cool. I couldn't find the "2 bit full ripple adder ... at 65S 35W in
AWGames" but the logic gates seem to work well.

Imagine simulating an entire computer inside AW then running AW on the
simulation! lol The mind boggles.

In gratitude I humbly offer the Pneumatic Oscillator at 20016N 7784E in AW.

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Test

Jun 10, 2005, 9:44pm
Testing here too. Honest.
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Expressive Avatars

Aug 18, 2005, 10:37pm
Mondo had a clever idea:

Avatars wearing T-Shirts that display words of the user's own choice or
a protester avatar carrying a sign with words of his own choice.

Expressive Avatars

Aug 19, 2005, 8:34pm
Well then, that doesn't seem too practical. Still, I think Mondo identified
a
attractive feature that might be done, but can't yet be done: The ability to
display some persistent user-definable text -- even in areas where signs
can't
be built, like GZ -- without having to flood chat to keep a message visible.

Hmm.

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HELP!!!

Jan 14, 2005, 9:21pm
If that doesn't work, set tab_rollup to 0 in the [Layout] section of
Aworld.ini . Worked for me.

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Invisible Wall Is Around AWGate

Jan 29, 2005, 3:30pm
Just curious. Why 32764 and not 32767 (2^15-1)?

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Changing GZ Without Changing GZ

Mar 9, 2005, 11:02pm
Both sides of this issue are clearly passionate.

Can't this be resolved by simply leaving GZ as-is AND placing a
prominent teleport there to a newer alternate GZ, perhaps a featured
"Alternate GZ Of The Month"?

GZ is obviously important because of its coordinates but I see no need
to squabble when a simple solution exists.

Maybe I'm just naive.

1 Successful night in the chamber

Mar 14, 2005, 6:47pm
Don't forget a toilet.rwx .

It's like those flagpole sitting and dance marathon fads in the '30s.

Good luck!

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OT: Water Campaign

Apr 9, 2005, 2:13pm
Thanks, Callidus. As a desert dweller myself I appreciate it. With
population and industry growth, more and more watersheds around the
world are running dry. Here, the ground water has been depleted so much
that fissures open as the ground level sinks.

It says an average of "up to" 15 litres on http://www.aquaplastics.org ,
which would mean that the average is less than or equal to 15 litres.

The point is that many neglect to turn off the tap while they're
brushing. Turning off the tap is a very small sacrifice with a very
large dividend in water savings. Reusing dirty water for things like
irrigation is another big saver. Reusing paper helps too because paper
is a water-intensive industry.

That website isn't anti-industry. It's partly sponsored by the European
plastics industry. You can click every day.


Thanks!

Jim1

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