As noted before, this is an old idea - but one that is interesting, and of course, still in development.
Another individual noted that the military was developing an omnidirectional treadmill - this is true. It is part of the dismounted soldier project. Here is a link. Look around his site, under research and publications - you'll find it as a PDF file.
Basically, the treadmill can be thought of as two perpendicularly overlapping treadmills, the belts of which are composed of longitudinal "rows" of rollers along the length of each belt. Thus, when the user is walking in the center of the overlap, the motion vector is translated into X and Y motion, one axis for each belt (it is tough to explain, but once you see the thing, you will smack your head). It works real similarly to a holonomic drive robot, except in reverse. Also, various "terrain" can be simulated by tilting the platform, as well as controlling the belts with active braking/acceleration.
There is also a Japanese "toroidal" omni treadmill, but it is VERY hard to understand (I may have a link to it on my site).
Personally, I don't think any of these devices will see much entertainment or personal use in the future, just because of the scale of the devices, the complexity, and the cost of materials that go into them.
I personally advocate HMD's with tracking devices, because it allows for the most interaction with the virtual environment (ie, you can explore and look around the world easily, and manipulate and examine objects as well).
With that said, though, I think that this guy is onto something, and may make inbounds to the commercial and personal arenas before anyone...
...by Bernie Roehl and Dave Stampe - go to my site for more PG/homebrew VR action.
It really was something the first time I hooked my glove up to my 486. I was worried the timing wouldn't be right (the parallel port polling used hard coded timing loops), but it worked OK. I even toyed around with hooking the thing to my Amiga 2000.
Someone should try to make a hybrid of Quake and Rend386 (or Avril), with the glove for a controller. With a strong hand (those gloves sucked for flexability), one could form a "gun" with the hand, then motion to fire in some manner - could be interesting...
Sounds like the biggest problem is the fact that they were using Windows. Throw a copy of Linux on that box, lock it down good security wise. Make individual user's config files read only (i.e., the kid's browser settings). Maybe add another machine on the net as a proxy to filter out certain sites (sites added on a reactive basis). Another box as a firewall, with logging to see where they all go. Regarding the BIOS - add the password, but buy a case where one can lock it up (most cases use to have this feature, it is hard to find nowadays - I would suggest a rack mount server case or similar). To get to the BIOS would take an extreme amount of effort.
I am going to take any and all measures to make sure my children (if I ever have any) do NOT know more than me about the machine, at least until I am dead or they are able to make good decisions on their own.
I also plan on parenting my future kids - to take an active interest in what they do, to guide them and help them learn. I would rather keep the computer as open as possible, and give them a Linux box to hack on if they wish. I plan on having frank discussions with my kids about sex, violence, and drugs, as soon as they are old enough to understand. I won't stammer or skirt around the edges, unlike many parents. When they want privacy, I will give it to them. Most of all, I will trust and respect them - and I will expect the same from them.
My parents did these things for the most part, as best as they could. It didn't bother them that I was "online" for many hours of the night (BBS'ing), downloading anything and everything, posting messages and such. I met many friends that way. They trusted and respected me, and I gave the same back. I didn't have "run of the house", but I did know what my freedoms and boundries were, and I think I turned out alright...
Tele-Immersion? This thing eats up processing cycles and bandwidth like nobody's business, all for the sake of a semi-shared environment that looks realistic. It smacks of the same problems of doing high-framerate "flat" videoconferencing on today's internet. IOW, they are feeding a lot of data down the pipe that just doesn't need to go.
A better solution is to give every individual a high-quality HMD (with full tracking). Each individual could have their own client machine driving their HMD (each machine would have the model data for shared "room", and model data of the individuals would be distributed across the network). Perhaps each individual has some way to navigate the world, and manipulate it.
Then, instead of piping all this data, just share vertex position information (along with textures, sound, etc), with each client machine rendering the scene for each individual. With current broadband connections, high quality could be achieved easily. Why does all this sound familiar?
Q3A or UT, anyone? Aside from the HMD, it is all there - one just needs apropriate models and skins to more acurately represent real people, as well as some way to share sound (hey, a partyline telephone call could work in a pinch - ideally it would be shared over the net as well). Maybe Half-Life would be better at representing people.
Would it look "real"? Not completely, but we get closer every day on the graphics front - indeed, there are already modeling projects that look damn fine, but incorporation into a 3D engine is ways off (but probably not too far off). And does it really matter how it looks - how real it looks? For some apps, of course - the more accurate the better. But for regular conferencing or meetings, it doesn't need to be highly accurate.
Imagine a "spherical" speaker - instead of a cone moving in/out in a single linear dimension, imagine the sphere "inflating/deflating". No matter where you were positioned, the audio would always be correctly spatially oriented.
Of course, I'm no audio engineer, so my thinking could be WAAAY off. Anybody have comments?
I guess you can count me as one of the "burned in" ones...:)
Actually, one guy (SockMaster, I believe) built a circuit that could detect which mode you were in, and switch in a circuit to supply the correct clocking to the I/O portions, so you could run at high speed all the time. Also, I remember seeing (in the Rainbow and on the net) a small program that loaded/replaced the keyboard interrupt routine with a better one, affecting a huge increase in speed as well. Of course, one could always drop in an old 6309 as well...
Can anyone point me to a site that shows an actual picture of this piece of metal, as it currently looks? Not a computer rendition, but an actual image (color, b&w - doesn't matter).
I want to know if I am getting my money's worth (something tells me, picture or not, I am not)...
Why is it that we have several (ie, more than two, and definitely more than 3) candidates to choose from, but none of them seem to have all the ideas that we geeks like?
In other words, there's Nader, who seems to have it all together regarding privacy, but thinks that computer games and media violence causes "kids to shoot kids", and should be eliminated (or regulated to nothing).
Browne's against censorship, but is for things that make us cringe. The same goes for Gore and Bush (they each have ideas I like, and others I don't).
All of these candidates are like buying a cake that has a dill pickle in the middle (and a big one, at that). You like the cake, it is sweet - but you know there is a big piece of sourness on the inside, and it permeates the whole, making it all seem not worthwhile.
I see so many posts of "hold your nose and vote this way". Why should I hold my nose? Why isn't there one candidate that is fair and respectful for ALL THINGS. One candidate that knows what is right and wrong LOGICALLY - not "logic" based on a complete emotional level (I can allow some emotion - otherwise we would be led by a robot, and that isn't good at all). One candidate that works for the people, taking all their interests to heart, and not allowing his or her ideas cloud their judgement?
Is this too much to ask? Is it too much to ask for an honest, fair, and logical individual to head up our nation?
Perhaps it would be better if we had multiple presidents, instead of a single one - and they voted on issues (say, three presidents) that come before them. For some reason, this doesn't sound that workable though, and I also feel (I have no rational basis of knowledge for this) that something like this has already been tried in the past with other governments and has failed...
It wouldn't take much to convince me, just give me a candidate that:
* Advocates personal privacy * Doesn't bow before corporate interests or offers (ie, get rid of the fscking corporate lobbiests) * Wants to do away with patents on business methods and algorithms * Doesn't support censorship of any kind * Tells the public what goes on - no more secrets! * Is a moral person, but does not try to inject his or her morals on others * Knows what a computer and the internet is, and actually uses them regularly * Realizes nature is not there to be raped indiscimanently * Is for space exploration and expansion * Wants children to have more rights * Wants employees to have more rights when working for a company
I am sure I could post more to this list, but these are the major ones. Is it that much to want a candidate like this? It is getting to the point where I am considering to run - because these are the things that are important to me (unfortunately, it is a pipe dream - I am not old enough, and I don't have the money or influence)...
I use it on my SuSE system almost every time I log on. I currently use WindowMaker as my WM, and after finally deciding to use this WM, I went and tried to find what text editor I wanted to use for coding and other things (I needed something that would work well for me for coding, as well as allow me to write up simple text documents and other such things), and NEdit is what fit the bill.
It works great for me! I don't think I would use it for extreme document layout stuff, but that isn't why I selected it - I selected it for coding. I have only found one problem, and I believe it is something I don't have configured right:
When using cut and paste, I can't paste data cut/copied from Netscape - other apps I can cut/paste from fine (in fact, I can cut/paste from Netscape to other apps fine as well, just not to NEdit). I can cut from Netscape, see the result sitting in the clipboard (XClip? - Can't remember the clipboard app name), but can't paste it into NEdit. Like I said, I think I don't have something set up properly (so many other things going on I haven't had time to look).
Other than that, it is perfect for what I need it to do (and I am sure I have an older build anyhow - I am currently running SuSE 6.3, updated to 2.1.14 kernel - and the NEdit is what came on the SuSE CD set).
The music - yes, I know what you mean. My friend and I were the same way. He was a much better player than I. One thing we kept trying to get working was saving the game to tape, using a disk image of the ROM (we both owned the ROM, but we also both had disk drives, and we used the drives more). The ROM image wouldn't allow this, for some reason (never did figure out why)...
I'll concede that is a great game as well - heck, probably one of the best on the CoCo.
However, Reactoid was the second game I played on my CoCo, the first being Canyon Climber (who can forget buzzards dropping poop...err, I mean "eggs" on you?). I guess it holds a special place in my heart, since me and my dad played it together (we had also played a ton of Atari 2600 games together before the CoCo) - in fact, my dad and I went through the BASIC coding examples in the book together - he didn't retain any of it, but that is what has led to my current career. Some people have memories of their fathers playing football or catch - for me it was Atari and CoCo games (and to an extent, programming).
Besides all that, I have never seen a clone (or an emulation) of Reactoid, ever (someone correct me if I am wrong). The game would be stupid simple to make, for any platform. I always thought it was a maddening game (esp. when you got to the levels where the emitters were spitting 6 and more particles). Other games on the CoCo were either clones of popular games of the time, or were later cloned to some extent on the PC...
Eh, regarding your DOD "script":
"A R" isn't the best method (unless you are fast with one hand - no pun intended), it is actually better to "P L SWORD" then do multiple "A L"'s - this "combo" of "A L " could be done ULTRA fast, allowing you to kill most creatures near instantly (after, of course, dropping all of the items you picked up, so the monsters would be "forced" to pick up the items before they could attack you, allowing you to attack them easily - game AI wasn't very sophisticated, but hey - the cartridge was only a 4K ROM!!!), because you can easily "roll" the fingers across the keys quickly...
...but had the company that created the ASIC/FPGA/"other 4-letter acronym device" encrypted the configuration bit stream (which is decrypted on the ASIC) - even if it was simple ROT-13 - you would be in violation of the DMCA provisions regarding encrypted streams, etc...
This world is rapidly becoming a fucked place, and I fear a revolution is brewing...
For those of you who don't know, the Dragon 32/64 systems were licenced compatible systems of the TRS-80/Tandy Color Computer 1/2 (IOW, think of the Dragon as a PAL CoCo - for the most part). IIRC, there were some other differences, but for the most part, they were one and the same.
I am all for emulation of these systems, and others like them. In the case of the CoCo (and I imagine the Dragon as well), it is becoming nigh impossible to even obtain the service manuals and such for these machines, to keep an old one running. Even with this in hand, the parts won't be available forever.
As an individual who started programming with Color Computer Extended BASIC (a ROM'd M$ BASIC variant), and as someone who still owns two CoCos (a CoCo 2 and 3 - both which I cherish), it saddens me that someday these machines will die (though they are going on 15 years now, and still running strong, at all of 1 MHz - actually, the 2 only runs at a fraction of that -.78 MHz or so - but with the high speed poke - well).
About 6 months ago I got my CoCo's back from my parents, and after getting a "new" floppy drive (my old one died), I started going through my disk collection, to see what I had (it had been a while)...
Most of the floppies worked fine - a few were bad. I am in the process of moving the data over to my PC, to run on an emulator (a goal of mine is to make a "super" CoCo using an emulator on an old P90 or something, running fullscreen with output piped to the TV). I own the software, I want to run what I own. There shouldn't be any issue...
Even so, some of this software is effectively abandoned - no one is going to ressurect a classic game of Canyon Climber on any machine in the future (though I would love to see a resurection of Reactoid). This software needs to be preserved, and allowed to be used on emulators.
One of the games I had that went bad, you couldn't back up to another floppy (old copy protection scheme), except with something on a PC of the era called a CopyBoard (IIRC - some kind of super copy cracking system using a special ISA card or something). So, I never made a backup - and of course, the floppy fails on bootup (it gets partway, then dies).
That game is called "Gates of Delerium", by a company called Diecom Software, Ltd. It was a Canadian company, so I set out to find someone who might be able to get me a backup (hey, I have a valid license, and now I can't use it!). I eventually found out where the founder of Diecom worked at (heh, a games company for the handhelds) - third one down, Dave Dies. I sent an email, no response.
Hey, I would just like permission to try to recreate the thing (emulate it) on the PC - unless he is planning on releasing it for the GameBoy.
But here is a case of a game, that is unsupported, abandoned, with VERY few original owners (AFAIK, I am the only one on this planet with an original copy - I have not found a disk image of it yet). I would love to run this on an emulator or something, just to play it one more time...
Should you be elected, where do each of you stand on protecting my Constitutionally guaranteed rights (as enumerated in the Bill of Rights) as a citizen of the United States of America?
Furthermore, where do you stand on protecting these rights from encroachments by various corporate interests (as esconced by various actions committed by the MPAA, RIAA, et al., and sanctioned by the DMCA, UCITA and other laws)?
Please: HONEST answers only - I want steak, not sizzle - and let it be known that I can most assuredly tell the difference!
If what you are saying is correct (that the reps don't have to vote the way the popular vote went), and that getting the votes in the big states is what mattered, then wouldn't all a large corporate entity (or group, like the MPAA) need to do to influence (or even control!) who gets elected would be to "buy" the representatives in the states (via campaign funds or such)?
I take it that the electoral college seems to have been set up to prevent this very thing (perhaps), is it feasible that it might be failing (or has failed)?
What is really needed is some way to make voting easier (more convenient) for the working public, as well as much more stricter controls on corporate influence of candidates (so that the richest candidate can't win, and so that corps can't control via kickbacks, funding, etc - or by telling their employee's how to vote under penalty of being fired or some such).
In short, make it possible for real third party action - make it possible for normal people to get into office, level the playing field...
...is make the ball/socket joint an "official" part.
What do I mean by this?
Go buy one of the ThrowBot kits. In each one of these kits, there is one, sometimes two, springy throwing "arms", that allow you to flick the included disks. These arms (as well as some specialized pieces) have a knob "ball" end that snaps into a socket, to allow you to position the arm just about anywhere.
Now, the sockets are nice - pretty standard style pieces in the LEGO fashion. But the ball arms that fit are anything but standard. The hard plastic ones are shaped weird, and are hard to use in anything but these ThrowBots. However, the soft plastic, springy throwing arms...
See the ball on the end? It is attached to the rest of the arm by what? That's right! A short length of cross-axle! Cut the ball off, leaving the cross axle attached, and then it becomes VERY versitile - allowing you to extend it with other axles, attach gears, etc. - the movement is kinda stiff, but a little sanding of the ball with 120 grit and some silicon oil will loosen it up some, allowing you to make great walking machines or any other creations that need such a joint.
I wasn't the one who first noticed this, someone else did - but this is a part they need to make standard (instead of making us cut up LEGO pieces). A standard ball and socket joint - for making walking machines and other things (right now, in order to do something similar, you esentially have to build with universal joints (weak), or use you own system (bulkier, and heavier UJ style constructs) in order to build walking bots).
...that when Bush speaks about there needing to be a "family hour" on TV each night, he is really saying "a Christian family hour". I would be further willing to be he has the network in mind to deliver it, as well: ABC.
Since you note that you haven't looked at network TV for a while, let me assure you the ABC has instead become the "Christian family hour - all day" channel (or so it seems every time I flip past it). There are more shows on there pandering in various ways to "Christian" morality, etc - that it makes me sick (between that and Disney ads).
How does this work? It has been a long time since this was explained to me, and I would like a refresher.
As I understand it, the popular vote means almost nothing, with the EC being there. The question is, who elects (or how are they chosen) the people in the EC?
Finally, who becomes pres is almost irrelevant - while we sit here and discuss all of this, who would be best, blah, blah - we ignore the candidates and such regarding those seeking offices in the House and Senate - where the REAL decisions are made. Or am I off base?
I agree with you there, AC. One thing you brought up, using two displays for 3D, and as well as the price being cheap for small LCD displays:
Why aren't we seeing small, high-res, cheap LCD displays? Imagine a 1280 x 1024 display in a 1 inch display - what good would this do?
A lot, if you magnafied the image, to get a large FOV - use them in lightweight HMD's, for a 3D immersion that (should be) cheap.
It is said that the cost of high-res, large displays is due to the large "die" size of large LCDs, and getting high enough production yields with few flaws - hard to do with that size of a display. So, the solution would be to shrink the display, and wear it! Squeeze the rest of the laptop down to the size of a larger Walkman, add a twiddler (or a controller similar to this and a virtual keyboard), some kind of mouse - and you have an EXCELLENT product. And it should be cheap (one would think, since the LCD isn't the factor, now). Plus, it would consume less power, for longer battery life.
We could have this TODAY - but we are being denied it for some reason...
Ok, maybe the mouse thing is cheap enough - but I can guarantee you that the VisionStation is anything but.
For one thing, the projector alone is going to set you back at least $2000 - probably more. The dome will probably run double or triple that. One thing that struck me as funny - aside from the desk, how is this thing different from the Flostation? The only differences I can see are front vs. rear projection, plus the VisionStation allows multiple people to share the same view (or nearly the same - seems like unless you looked at the exact center of the screen, things would be distorted). Actually, the FloStation allows users to share the experience, just in seperate stations, networked together. Plus, the chair is a "zero-G" chair, which allows for a comfortable position during use.
However, neither of these technologies is cheap.
And true, neither is true immersion (though the Flostation comes much closer).
True immersion is when I can look anywhere around me - turn my head, duck, look between my legs, peer around the edge of a building, etc. I have only experienced this kind of immersion once - using the Virtuality 1000/2000 machines. Almost everything in them were OTS, and while the HMD's could have been better, they weren't bad. I am sure today's offerings (what little there is) are even better, but still not cheap.
No one but a rich geek will be able to afford these for personal use. So what can all of the normal geeks do?
Simple.
Break out the soldering iron, and build your immersive experience!
I am not saying you will get the best of the best - it is homebrew, after all. But with today's PC's, and cheap prices on LCD TV's, anyone can build thier own HMD, for less than $500. In fact, it is easy to buy an old VFX-1 or, if you are really cheap (like me), and old Stuntmaster, off of Ebay. VFX-1's go for about $200-$400, and Stuntmasters can be found for less than $50 in most cases!
Head tracking can be built easily, and using a Forte Cyber-Puck for navigation, exploration can be painless (use the cyberpuck for nav in one hand, and use one of those handheld, trackball mice in the other for manipulation). Cobble some software together using AVRIL or REND-386, maybe throw in Mesa for good measure, or some other rendering library. Output the image through a VGA to TV converter, and into the HMD. Track the HMD via pots connected to ADC's on an ISA interface board (or use PICs and serial ports). Break out back issues of PCVR magazine, and use them!
Heck, it is even possible to cheaply do one of these dome things, with imagination! Fuji used to make a cheap projector called the Fujix P-401 - it was about the size of a video tape, and ran on a 6V source. Not great res, but good enough. I recently found one for $250!!! Build a dome screen (definitely not the easiest task, I imagine), run a version of FishEye Quake, and you're there!
What has heppened? Why isn't there any interest in homebrew VR (on a related issue, why did they change the terminology from VR to VE)? Why, especially when we have all of this great technology to produce greater realism than ever before? To explore worlds of our own creation, data in new ways for new insights...
Or are we simply content to sit on our collective asses, and watch the world go by?
This thing will more than likely cost between $1000-$2000 - I think I would rather spend the money on a Mindstorms set and some parts from Pitsco-Lego-Dacta, then head over here
Long live MIBO!!!
As someone who pretends to be at least semi-intelligent, I know that video games, the media, and the internet do not cause violence, nor do they promote crime.
This is my opinion.
However, if these things don't cause crime or violence, I must ask myself - what does?
Actually, I must not ask myself what causes violence and crime, I must instead ask myself "Why am I not violent and/or a criminal?"...
This is the root question. I am not saying I don't get angry, that I never throw things out of anger, that I don't ever yell - indeed, I have done all of these things, and will probably do them again in the future. However, overall, I am not a criminal, nor am I violent. So, why not?
I think (personally) it comes down to one thing, and one thing only:
Respect.
I am not violent because I respect myself and others. I am not criminal because I respect others and their property.
One thing I have noticed, growing up, is that respect seems (for a lot of people - not all) to come with age and wisdom. It is also something that can be taught. In fact, I would argue that even if respect is instilled at an early age, you still gain more respect as grow older. What makes me say this?
I have seen interviews on TV done with older individuals who, as younger teens and adults, commited various attrocious crimes (murder, rape, etc), but now see the error of what they have done (many times after spending long amounts of time in prison), and are trying to get youths around their neighborhoods to change, to be better individuals. I have also personally seen individuals who, as they got older, gained more respect.
Recently, I got my first driving ticket, for speeding. I was doing 85 in a 75 mph zone. What does this have to do with anything? Well, when the cop hit his lights, I looked at my speed, saw that I was speeding - and thus rightfully deserved the ticket. No prob there. After I got home (knowing that I typically speeded all the time, even going 15 miles to/from work), I decided to do an experiment:
For one week, I would try going the speed limit, and see how it was. I would respect my fellow drivers, and drive more safely. So, what did I find?
First, I found that speeding didn't help me any in the first place at such short distances - and extra 10-15 mph only saves a few minutes, if that, on trips of such short distances.
But most intriguingly (perhaps because before, I was one among many), was the blatent display of lack of respect of other drivers. Now, these same drivers would "get on my tail", urging me to go faster, plus I tended to notice more of the "insane" drivers on the road. I also noticed the ones who gave the same respect as I was now giving.
After the week was up, I continued driving at the more conservative speed. I have since found (it has been over a month now) that I find it less stressful driving to and from work - less stressful driving everywhere, in fact - since I am not having to concentrate as hard as I did driving at major speeds. I can also spot the less respectful drivers on the road quicker, and get out of their way, as well.
Lack of respect - this is what causes the majority of violence and crime in America.
Thank you for that information - I put in a question asking if he knew how the ports worked. If I could get a schematic it would be clear - I have given some thought on RE'ing the thing, but I haven't had much time to do such a thing yet...
Whatever happened to low cost bots? Does anybody remember Movits? These are real low cost kits. They use to sell one called the "Memocon Crawler", that could be hooked up to an Apple IIe or a PC - nowadays the WAO takes on that role.
I first got interested in these kits when I read an article about them in an old issue of Creative Computing - only a few of the original robots are still being sold in kit form (Medusa is one, Peppy is another - though the body style has changed over the years).
Sure, these aren't as sophisticated, but they are a lot less expensive, and fun nonetheless. They also sell a robotic arm kit that has an interface to a PC as well. If you want lower level building, they also sell a variety of gearbox kits. On top of all this, many of their kits are available at Frys Electronics...
Slashdot Mirror
As noted before, this is an old idea - but one that is interesting, and of course, still in development.
Another individual noted that the military was developing an omnidirectional treadmill - this is true. It is part of the dismounted soldier project. Here is a link. Look around his site, under research and publications - you'll find it as a PDF file.
Basically, the treadmill can be thought of as two perpendicularly overlapping treadmills, the belts of which are composed of longitudinal "rows" of rollers along the length of each belt. Thus, when the user is walking in the center of the overlap, the motion vector is translated into X and Y motion, one axis for each belt (it is tough to explain, but once you see the thing, you will smack your head). It works real similarly to a holonomic drive robot, except in reverse. Also, various "terrain" can be simulated by tilting the platform, as well as controlling the belts with active braking/acceleration.
There is also a Japanese "toroidal" omni treadmill, but it is VERY hard to understand (I may have a link to it on my site).
Personally, I don't think any of these devices will see much entertainment or personal use in the future, just because of the scale of the devices, the complexity, and the cost of materials that go into them.
I personally advocate HMD's with tracking devices, because it allows for the most interaction with the virtual environment (ie, you can explore and look around the world easily, and manipulate and examine objects as well).
With that said, though, I think that this guy is onto something, and may make inbounds to the commercial and personal arenas before anyone...
I support the EFF - do you?
Actually, it should be LASER (or, more correctly, L.A.S.E.R.), which stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emmision of Radiation...
I support the EFF - do you?
...by Bernie Roehl and Dave Stampe - go to my site for more PG/homebrew VR action.
It really was something the first time I hooked my glove up to my 486. I was worried the timing wouldn't be right (the parallel port polling used hard coded timing loops), but it worked OK. I even toyed around with hooking the thing to my Amiga 2000.
Someone should try to make a hybrid of Quake and Rend386 (or Avril), with the glove for a controller. With a strong hand (those gloves sucked for flexability), one could form a "gun" with the hand, then motion to fire in some manner - could be interesting...
I support the EFF - do you?
Sounds like the biggest problem is the fact that they were using Windows. Throw a copy of Linux on that box, lock it down good security wise. Make individual user's config files read only (i.e., the kid's browser settings). Maybe add another machine on the net as a proxy to filter out certain sites (sites added on a reactive basis). Another box as a firewall, with logging to see where they all go. Regarding the BIOS - add the password, but buy a case where one can lock it up (most cases use to have this feature, it is hard to find nowadays - I would suggest a rack mount server case or similar). To get to the BIOS would take an extreme amount of effort.
I am going to take any and all measures to make sure my children (if I ever have any) do NOT know more than me about the machine, at least until I am dead or they are able to make good decisions on their own.
I also plan on parenting my future kids - to take an active interest in what they do, to guide them and help them learn. I would rather keep the computer as open as possible, and give them a Linux box to hack on if they wish. I plan on having frank discussions with my kids about sex, violence, and drugs, as soon as they are old enough to understand. I won't stammer or skirt around the edges, unlike many parents. When they want privacy, I will give it to them. Most of all, I will trust and respect them - and I will expect the same from them.
My parents did these things for the most part, as best as they could. It didn't bother them that I was "online" for many hours of the night (BBS'ing), downloading anything and everything, posting messages and such. I met many friends that way. They trusted and respected me, and I gave the same back. I didn't have "run of the house", but I did know what my freedoms and boundries were, and I think I turned out alright...
I support the EFF - do you?
Tele-Immersion? This thing eats up processing cycles and bandwidth like nobody's business, all for the sake of a semi-shared environment that looks realistic. It smacks of the same problems of doing high-framerate "flat" videoconferencing on today's internet. IOW, they are feeding a lot of data down the pipe that just doesn't need to go.
A better solution is to give every individual a high-quality HMD (with full tracking). Each individual could have their own client machine driving their HMD (each machine would have the model data for shared "room", and model data of the individuals would be distributed across the network). Perhaps each individual has some way to navigate the world, and manipulate it.
Then, instead of piping all this data, just share vertex position information (along with textures, sound, etc), with each client machine rendering the scene for each individual. With current broadband connections, high quality could be achieved easily. Why does all this sound familiar?
Q3A or UT, anyone? Aside from the HMD, it is all there - one just needs apropriate models and skins to more acurately represent real people, as well as some way to share sound (hey, a partyline telephone call could work in a pinch - ideally it would be shared over the net as well). Maybe Half-Life would be better at representing people.
Would it look "real"? Not completely, but we get closer every day on the graphics front - indeed, there are already modeling projects that look damn fine, but incorporation into a 3D engine is ways off (but probably not too far off). And does it really matter how it looks - how real it looks? For some apps, of course - the more accurate the better. But for regular conferencing or meetings, it doesn't need to be highly accurate.
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Not sure if or how it would work, but...
Imagine a "spherical" speaker - instead of a cone moving in/out in a single linear dimension, imagine the sphere "inflating/deflating". No matter where you were positioned, the audio would always be correctly spatially oriented.
Of course, I'm no audio engineer, so my thinking could be WAAAY off. Anybody have comments?
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Those are the right ones.
:)
The low speed drop downs:
POKE 65494,0 (CoCo 1 & 2)
POKE 65496,0 (CoCo 3)
I guess you can count me as one of the "burned in" ones...
Actually, one guy (SockMaster, I believe) built a circuit that could detect which mode you were in, and switch in a circuit to supply the correct clocking to the I/O portions, so you could run at high speed all the time. Also, I remember seeing (in the Rainbow and on the net) a small program that loaded/replaced the keyboard interrupt routine with a better one, affecting a huge increase in speed as well. Of course, one could always drop in an old 6309 as well...
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Can anyone point me to a site that shows an actual picture of this piece of metal, as it currently looks? Not a computer rendition, but an actual image (color, b&w - doesn't matter).
I want to know if I am getting my money's worth (something tells me, picture or not, I am not)...
I support the EFF - do you?
Why is it that we have several (ie, more than two, and definitely more than 3) candidates to choose from, but none of them seem to have all the ideas that we geeks like?
In other words, there's Nader, who seems to have it all together regarding privacy, but thinks that computer games and media violence causes "kids to shoot kids", and should be eliminated (or regulated to nothing).
Browne's against censorship, but is for things that make us cringe. The same goes for Gore and Bush (they each have ideas I like, and others I don't).
All of these candidates are like buying a cake that has a dill pickle in the middle (and a big one, at that). You like the cake, it is sweet - but you know there is a big piece of sourness on the inside, and it permeates the whole, making it all seem not worthwhile.
I see so many posts of "hold your nose and vote this way". Why should I hold my nose? Why isn't there one candidate that is fair and respectful for ALL THINGS. One candidate that knows what is right and wrong LOGICALLY - not "logic" based on a complete emotional level (I can allow some emotion - otherwise we would be led by a robot, and that isn't good at all). One candidate that works for the people, taking all their interests to heart, and not allowing his or her ideas cloud their judgement?
Is this too much to ask? Is it too much to ask for an honest, fair, and logical individual to head up our nation?
Perhaps it would be better if we had multiple presidents, instead of a single one - and they voted on issues (say, three presidents) that come before them. For some reason, this doesn't sound that workable though, and I also feel (I have no rational basis of knowledge for this) that something like this has already been tried in the past with other governments and has failed...
It wouldn't take much to convince me, just give me a candidate that:
* Advocates personal privacy
* Doesn't bow before corporate interests or offers (ie, get rid of the fscking corporate lobbiests)
* Wants to do away with patents on business methods and algorithms
* Doesn't support censorship of any kind
* Tells the public what goes on - no more secrets!
* Is a moral person, but does not try to inject his or her morals on others
* Knows what a computer and the internet is, and actually uses them regularly
* Realizes nature is not there to be raped indiscimanently
* Is for space exploration and expansion
* Wants children to have more rights
* Wants employees to have more rights when working for a company
I am sure I could post more to this list, but these are the major ones. Is it that much to want a candidate like this? It is getting to the point where I am considering to run - because these are the things that are important to me (unfortunately, it is a pipe dream - I am not old enough, and I don't have the money or influence)...
cr0sh for President!!! (just kidding)
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I use it on my SuSE system almost every time I log on. I currently use WindowMaker as my WM, and after finally deciding to use this WM, I went and tried to find what text editor I wanted to use for coding and other things (I needed something that would work well for me for coding, as well as allow me to write up simple text documents and other such things), and NEdit is what fit the bill.
It works great for me! I don't think I would use it for extreme document layout stuff, but that isn't why I selected it - I selected it for coding. I have only found one problem, and I believe it is something I don't have configured right:
When using cut and paste, I can't paste data cut/copied from Netscape - other apps I can cut/paste from fine (in fact, I can cut/paste from Netscape to other apps fine as well, just not to NEdit). I can cut from Netscape, see the result sitting in the clipboard (XClip? - Can't remember the clipboard app name), but can't paste it into NEdit. Like I said, I think I don't have something set up properly (so many other things going on I haven't had time to look).
Other than that, it is perfect for what I need it to do (and I am sure I have an older build anyhow - I am currently running SuSE 6.3, updated to 2.1.14 kernel - and the NEdit is what came on the SuSE CD set).
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The music - yes, I know what you mean. My friend and I were the same way. He was a much better player than I. One thing we kept trying to get working was saving the game to tape, using a disk image of the ROM (we both owned the ROM, but we also both had disk drives, and we used the drives more). The ROM image wouldn't allow this, for some reason (never did figure out why)...
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I'll concede that is a great game as well - heck, probably one of the best on the CoCo.
However, Reactoid was the second game I played on my CoCo, the first being Canyon Climber (who can forget buzzards dropping poop...err, I mean "eggs" on you?). I guess it holds a special place in my heart, since me and my dad played it together (we had also played a ton of Atari 2600 games together before the CoCo) - in fact, my dad and I went through the BASIC coding examples in the book together - he didn't retain any of it, but that is what has led to my current career. Some people have memories of their fathers playing football or catch - for me it was Atari and CoCo games (and to an extent, programming).
Besides all that, I have never seen a clone (or an emulation) of Reactoid, ever (someone correct me if I am wrong). The game would be stupid simple to make, for any platform. I always thought it was a maddening game (esp. when you got to the levels where the emitters were spitting 6 and more particles). Other games on the CoCo were either clones of popular games of the time, or were later cloned to some extent on the PC...
Eh, regarding your DOD "script":
"A R" isn't the best method (unless you are fast with one hand - no pun intended), it is actually better to "P L SWORD" then do multiple "A L"'s - this "combo" of "A L " could be done ULTRA fast, allowing you to kill most creatures near instantly (after, of course, dropping all of the items you picked up, so the monsters would be "forced" to pick up the items before they could attack you, allowing you to attack them easily - game AI wasn't very sophisticated, but hey - the cartridge was only a 4K ROM!!!), because you can easily "roll" the fingers across the keys quickly...
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...but had the company that created the ASIC/FPGA/"other 4-letter acronym device" encrypted the configuration bit stream (which is decrypted on the ASIC) - even if it was simple ROT-13 - you would be in violation of the DMCA provisions regarding encrypted streams, etc...
This world is rapidly becoming a fucked place, and I fear a revolution is brewing...
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This is completely on topic...
.78 MHz or so - but with the high speed poke - well).
For those of you who don't know, the Dragon 32/64 systems were licenced compatible systems of the TRS-80/Tandy Color Computer 1/2 (IOW, think of the Dragon as a PAL CoCo - for the most part). IIRC, there were some other differences, but for the most part, they were one and the same.
I am all for emulation of these systems, and others like them. In the case of the CoCo (and I imagine the Dragon as well), it is becoming nigh impossible to even obtain the service manuals and such for these machines, to keep an old one running. Even with this in hand, the parts won't be available forever.
As an individual who started programming with Color Computer Extended BASIC (a ROM'd M$ BASIC variant), and as someone who still owns two CoCos (a CoCo 2 and 3 - both which I cherish), it saddens me that someday these machines will die (though they are going on 15 years now, and still running strong, at all of 1 MHz - actually, the 2 only runs at a fraction of that -
About 6 months ago I got my CoCo's back from my parents, and after getting a "new" floppy drive (my old one died), I started going through my disk collection, to see what I had (it had been a while)...
Most of the floppies worked fine - a few were bad. I am in the process of moving the data over to my PC, to run on an emulator (a goal of mine is to make a "super" CoCo using an emulator on an old P90 or something, running fullscreen with output piped to the TV). I own the software, I want to run what I own. There shouldn't be any issue...
Even so, some of this software is effectively abandoned - no one is going to ressurect a classic game of Canyon Climber on any machine in the future (though I would love to see a resurection of Reactoid). This software needs to be preserved, and allowed to be used on emulators.
One of the games I had that went bad, you couldn't back up to another floppy (old copy protection scheme), except with something on a PC of the era called a CopyBoard (IIRC - some kind of super copy cracking system using a special ISA card or something). So, I never made a backup - and of course, the floppy fails on bootup (it gets partway, then dies).
That game is called "Gates of Delerium", by a company called Diecom Software, Ltd. It was a Canadian company, so I set out to find someone who might be able to get me a backup (hey, I have a valid license, and now I can't use it!). I eventually found out where the founder of Diecom worked at (heh, a games company for the handhelds) - third one down, Dave Dies. I sent an email, no response.
Hey, I would just like permission to try to recreate the thing (emulate it) on the PC - unless he is planning on releasing it for the GameBoy.
But here is a case of a game, that is unsupported, abandoned, with VERY few original owners (AFAIK, I am the only one on this planet with an original copy - I have not found a disk image of it yet). I would love to run this on an emulator or something, just to play it one more time...
I support the EFF - do you?
Should you be elected, where do each of you stand on protecting my Constitutionally guaranteed rights (as enumerated in the Bill of Rights) as a citizen of the United States of America?
Furthermore, where do you stand on protecting these rights from encroachments by various corporate interests (as esconced by various actions committed by the MPAA, RIAA, et al., and sanctioned by the DMCA, UCITA and other laws)?
Please: HONEST answers only - I want steak, not sizzle - and let it be known that I can most assuredly tell the difference!
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This clears it up, and refreshes my memory.
If what you are saying is correct (that the reps don't have to vote the way the popular vote went), and that getting the votes in the big states is what mattered, then wouldn't all a large corporate entity (or group, like the MPAA) need to do to influence (or even control!) who gets elected would be to "buy" the representatives in the states (via campaign funds or such)?
I take it that the electoral college seems to have been set up to prevent this very thing (perhaps), is it feasible that it might be failing (or has failed)?
What is really needed is some way to make voting easier (more convenient) for the working public, as well as much more stricter controls on corporate influence of candidates (so that the richest candidate can't win, and so that corps can't control via kickbacks, funding, etc - or by telling their employee's how to vote under penalty of being fired or some such).
In short, make it possible for real third party action - make it possible for normal people to get into office, level the playing field...
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...is make the ball/socket joint an "official" part.
What do I mean by this?
Go buy one of the ThrowBot kits. In each one of these kits, there is one, sometimes two, springy throwing "arms", that allow you to flick the included disks. These arms (as well as some specialized pieces) have a knob "ball" end that snaps into a socket, to allow you to position the arm just about anywhere.
Now, the sockets are nice - pretty standard style pieces in the LEGO fashion. But the ball arms that fit are anything but standard. The hard plastic ones are shaped weird, and are hard to use in anything but these ThrowBots. However, the soft plastic, springy throwing arms...
See the ball on the end? It is attached to the rest of the arm by what? That's right! A short length of cross-axle! Cut the ball off, leaving the cross axle attached, and then it becomes VERY versitile - allowing you to extend it with other axles, attach gears, etc. - the movement is kinda stiff, but a little sanding of the ball with 120 grit and some silicon oil will loosen it up some, allowing you to make great walking machines or any other creations that need such a joint.
I wasn't the one who first noticed this, someone else did - but this is a part they need to make standard (instead of making us cut up LEGO pieces). A standard ball and socket joint - for making walking machines and other things (right now, in order to do something similar, you esentially have to build with universal joints (weak), or use you own system (bulkier, and heavier UJ style constructs) in order to build walking bots).
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...that when Bush speaks about there needing to be a "family hour" on TV each night, he is really saying "a Christian family hour". I would be further willing to be he has the network in mind to deliver it, as well: ABC.
Since you note that you haven't looked at network TV for a while, let me assure you the ABC has instead become the "Christian family hour - all day" channel (or so it seems every time I flip past it). There are more shows on there pandering in various ways to "Christian" morality, etc - that it makes me sick (between that and Disney ads).
LET ME DECIDE MY RELIGION, IF ANY!
Family hour - BAH!
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How does this work? It has been a long time since this was explained to me, and I would like a refresher.
As I understand it, the popular vote means almost nothing, with the EC being there. The question is, who elects (or how are they chosen) the people in the EC?
Finally, who becomes pres is almost irrelevant - while we sit here and discuss all of this, who would be best, blah, blah - we ignore the candidates and such regarding those seeking offices in the House and Senate - where the REAL decisions are made. Or am I off base?
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I agree with you there, AC. One thing you brought up, using two displays for 3D, and as well as the price being cheap for small LCD displays:
Why aren't we seeing small, high-res, cheap LCD displays? Imagine a 1280 x 1024 display in a 1 inch display - what good would this do?
A lot, if you magnafied the image, to get a large FOV - use them in lightweight HMD's, for a 3D immersion that (should be) cheap.
It is said that the cost of high-res, large displays is due to the large "die" size of large LCDs, and getting high enough production yields with few flaws - hard to do with that size of a display. So, the solution would be to shrink the display, and wear it! Squeeze the rest of the laptop down to the size of a larger Walkman, add a twiddler (or a controller similar to this and a virtual keyboard), some kind of mouse - and you have an EXCELLENT product. And it should be cheap (one would think, since the LCD isn't the factor, now). Plus, it would consume less power, for longer battery life.
We could have this TODAY - but we are being denied it for some reason...
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Ok, maybe the mouse thing is cheap enough - but I can guarantee you that the VisionStation is anything but.
For one thing, the projector alone is going to set you back at least $2000 - probably more. The dome will probably run double or triple that. One thing that struck me as funny - aside from the desk, how is this thing different from the Flostation? The only differences I can see are front vs. rear projection, plus the VisionStation allows multiple people to share the same view (or nearly the same - seems like unless you looked at the exact center of the screen, things would be distorted). Actually, the FloStation allows users to share the experience, just in seperate stations, networked together. Plus, the chair is a "zero-G" chair, which allows for a comfortable position during use.
However, neither of these technologies is cheap.
And true, neither is true immersion (though the Flostation comes much closer).
True immersion is when I can look anywhere around me - turn my head, duck, look between my legs, peer around the edge of a building, etc. I have only experienced this kind of immersion once - using the Virtuality 1000/2000 machines. Almost everything in them were OTS, and while the HMD's could have been better, they weren't bad. I am sure today's offerings (what little there is) are even better, but still not cheap.
No one but a rich geek will be able to afford these for personal use. So what can all of the normal geeks do?
Simple.
Break out the soldering iron, and build your immersive experience!
I am not saying you will get the best of the best - it is homebrew, after all. But with today's PC's, and cheap prices on LCD TV's, anyone can build thier own HMD, for less than $500. In fact, it is easy to buy an old VFX-1 or, if you are really cheap (like me), and old Stuntmaster, off of Ebay. VFX-1's go for about $200-$400, and Stuntmasters can be found for less than $50 in most cases!
Head tracking can be built easily, and using a Forte Cyber-Puck for navigation, exploration can be painless (use the cyberpuck for nav in one hand, and use one of those handheld, trackball mice in the other for manipulation). Cobble some software together using AVRIL or REND-386, maybe throw in Mesa for good measure, or some other rendering library. Output the image through a VGA to TV converter, and into the HMD. Track the HMD via pots connected to ADC's on an ISA interface board (or use PICs and serial ports). Break out back issues of PCVR magazine, and use them!
Heck, it is even possible to cheaply do one of these dome things, with imagination! Fuji used to make a cheap projector called the Fujix P-401 - it was about the size of a video tape, and ran on a 6V source. Not great res, but good enough. I recently found one for $250!!! Build a dome screen (definitely not the easiest task, I imagine), run a version of FishEye Quake, and you're there!
What has heppened? Why isn't there any interest in homebrew VR (on a related issue, why did they change the terminology from VR to VE)? Why, especially when we have all of this great technology to produce greater realism than ever before? To explore worlds of our own creation, data in new ways for new insights...
Or are we simply content to sit on our collective asses, and watch the world go by?
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This thing will more than likely cost between $1000-$2000 - I think I would rather spend the money on a Mindstorms set and some parts from Pitsco-Lego-Dacta, then head over here
Long live MIBO!!!
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As someone who pretends to be at least semi-intelligent, I know that video games, the media, and the internet do not cause violence, nor do they promote crime.
This is my opinion.
However, if these things don't cause crime or violence, I must ask myself - what does?
Actually, I must not ask myself what causes violence and crime, I must instead ask myself "Why am I not violent and/or a criminal?"...
This is the root question. I am not saying I don't get angry, that I never throw things out of anger, that I don't ever yell - indeed, I have done all of these things, and will probably do them again in the future. However, overall, I am not a criminal, nor am I violent. So, why not?
I think (personally) it comes down to one thing, and one thing only:
Respect.
I am not violent because I respect myself and others. I am not criminal because I respect others and their property.
One thing I have noticed, growing up, is that respect seems (for a lot of people - not all) to come with age and wisdom. It is also something that can be taught. In fact, I would argue that even if respect is instilled at an early age, you still gain more respect as grow older. What makes me say this?
I have seen interviews on TV done with older individuals who, as younger teens and adults, commited various attrocious crimes (murder, rape, etc), but now see the error of what they have done (many times after spending long amounts of time in prison), and are trying to get youths around their neighborhoods to change, to be better individuals. I have also personally seen individuals who, as they got older, gained more respect.
Recently, I got my first driving ticket, for speeding. I was doing 85 in a 75 mph zone. What does this have to do with anything? Well, when the cop hit his lights, I looked at my speed, saw that I was speeding - and thus rightfully deserved the ticket. No prob there. After I got home (knowing that I typically speeded all the time, even going 15 miles to/from work), I decided to do an experiment:
For one week, I would try going the speed limit, and see how it was. I would respect my fellow drivers, and drive more safely. So, what did I find?
First, I found that speeding didn't help me any in the first place at such short distances - and extra 10-15 mph only saves a few minutes, if that, on trips of such short distances.
But most intriguingly (perhaps because before, I was one among many), was the blatent display of lack of respect of other drivers. Now, these same drivers would "get on my tail", urging me to go faster, plus I tended to notice more of the "insane" drivers on the road. I also noticed the ones who gave the same respect as I was now giving.
After the week was up, I continued driving at the more conservative speed. I have since found (it has been over a month now) that I find it less stressful driving to and from work - less stressful driving everywhere, in fact - since I am not having to concentrate as hard as I did driving at major speeds. I can also spot the less respectful drivers on the road quicker, and get out of their way, as well.
Lack of respect - this is what causes the majority of violence and crime in America.
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Thank you for that information - I put in a question asking if he knew how the ports worked. If I could get a schematic it would be clear - I have given some thought on RE'ing the thing, but I haven't had much time to do such a thing yet...
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Whatever happened to low cost bots? Does anybody remember Movits? These are real low cost kits. They use to sell one called the "Memocon Crawler", that could be hooked up to an Apple IIe or a PC - nowadays the WAO takes on that role.
I first got interested in these kits when I read an article about them in an old issue of Creative Computing - only a few of the original robots are still being sold in kit form (Medusa is one, Peppy is another - though the body style has changed over the years).
Sure, these aren't as sophisticated, but they are a lot less expensive, and fun nonetheless. They also sell a robotic arm kit that has an interface to a PC as well. If you want lower level building, they also sell a variety of gearbox kits. On top of all this, many of their kits are available at Frys Electronics...
I support the EFF - do you?