What do you want?

(WARNING: This may sound like a whiny emo-kid ramble!)

A friend asked me and my social circle “What do you want to do before your next landmark birthday?” We went away and had a think about it. I think it’s the hardest question I’ve ever been asked.

I had one of those chats that go on till four in the morning with a close friend, and we discussed this. Hers were quite easy for her, including visiting a foreign country, joining the mile high club, and going to a music festival. Mine were much more difficult. Although I haven’t led an amazingly exciting life, most of her list I’ve already done (gone abroad), or wasn’t interested in (I’ve been inside an aeroplane toilet, so see no attraction to having sex there!)

Also, my interests have changed over the last few years. Asking me the same question five years ago would have brought out things like “Visit Japan”, something I’m not that fussed about now, as l only wanted to go for very shallow reasons that no longer apply. I’d have also included go out ‘dressed’ (done several times since), or held a snake (did a few weeks ago.).

There are a few things I want to do that really aren’t such a god idea in practice. For example I want a corset. But although this is great in theory, in practice I’ve got nowhere to wear it, I wouldn’t wear it enough to justify the expense, I don’t have the room, and I’ve no-one to lace it up. Several other require money I’m not willing to spend , or require a level of trust I’m not willing to make with the people I currently know (eg bondage play)

I think I have found maybe five.

1. Find a job I don’t hate (we all had this one first!)


2. Find someone I love, that loves me (vague I know)


3. Go to an Ann Summers Party (tricky with the no-guys rule, but we might be able to work something)


4. Have a food fight (location is tricky, but I’m sure I’m not the only one)


5. Regain my local fame (I used to be a big fish in a small pond, and getting that back would be enough)

But other than that, I don’t know.

There’s no where I want to go particularly and there are no specific sexual practices that I want to do enough to include (or share with my friends!).

I wish I wasn’t so aimless.

Information Highway to the Metaverse

Sometimes futurists like myself sit around and wonder if the technologies needed to fully implement a real Metaverse, like the one described in Snow Crash, will ever exist. Here we are in the tail end of 2006, and staring down the barrel of 2007. I like to try and keep my Wikimedia entry updated to reflect modern achievments, and am willing admit when I am wrong about my predictions for technology.

One of the funniest things I hear from pessimists about why a Metaverse will never really happen is because computers simply cannot handle that kind of data transfer, and will take processrs that are hundreds of times faster than they are today to come close.

I disagree. About the part where it will never happen, that is. As time marches forward, I find that Moore's Law does indeed effect every aspect of technology (not just computers but the entire related industry). I have seen systems that require less central bandwdth the more popular it became (which in 1995 was thought impossible but now we call it P2P and Torrent), and recently I have seen the answer to our processing problems.

No I'm not talking about these Intel Duo chips, or the AMD Quadro chips... these are merely the industry's way of stalling until they figure out how to make things actually faster. A Duo core chip is like when Intel released a Dual Slot P4 motherboard. You knew darned well they were stallin for time, while allowing you to get more speed. That's what the Duo Core crap is about. Yes, they are technically faster. Slap two or three processors into a machine and yes it will run faster (But Linux users already know this because Linux can theoretically use as many processors as you can give it in unison).

The same holds true for the seemingly quiet eradication of the clock speed specification. Remember when you went to a computer store and they told you how fast the computer was running? "This is the top of the line Pentium 4, running at a blistering 1.2 ghz" has turned into "It's a dual core processor, so clock speed really doesn't doesn't matter."

Really, we're looking at clock speeds that are still around 3 ghz or slower, but because it's a dual core chip we are made to believe it's effectively a 6 ghz system. No, Johhny-boy, it's still the same as your old 3 ghz you bought a few years back - they just slapped a second processor to it to keep you from foaming at the mouth due to their lack of innovation.

But what does that really mean to the normal users of the world? Well whenever the microchip manufacturers like Intel and AMD resort to piggybacking more processors it usually means they are reaching a point of breakthrough where the Exponential Return will carry on into a new paradigm.

Moore's Law was only applied to semi-conductors and transistors, but even they have a top end limit. The funny thing is, that the formula can be applied indefinitely past the age of transistors and silicon. I guess Intel hasn't figured out what to do next to get back on track.

And this, of course, is the point of today's entry. What we need is a processor capability to increase the speed of our computers 100 fold, near instant 100 gigabit data transfer, and we need it at the size of a human hair and consuming something like... 1 volt of electricity.

Why does that sound familiar.... hmmm... [here's a hint]
That's right, folks. Such a technology already exists and does nearly everything I just said. Imagine if such a processor was the size of a normal computer chip today? I bet we would have no problem with completely photorealistic Metaverse systems. Just some food for thought, really.

Why would such a system not be out in the stores yet? Because a computer processor that is capable of doing realtime Holographic processing is best used for Internet2 (I2) which is a super fast darkfiber backbone. What does Internet2 look like? You may already be using part of it now, though not nearly to it's capacity. Clicking that link will bring you to a page where you can install a detector that will let you know if you are connected to an Internet2 Network.

So generally speaking, when I wrote the article about Internet 2.0 and what it's uses and interface would be, I already knew about these technologies. It's not really mainstream information - and until recently alot of it classified information. Let's say I know just a tad bit about the future of technology than I let people assume about me. When I say this is the future, just learn to believe me.

Looking Forward to The Future (Resistance is Futile) - MPL Knight

Metaverse EX Reaches 997 Downloads!

I was randomly traversing the Internet today, mostly reading some of the older entries for The City of Nidus and came across the blog entry when I had first gotten Metaverse EX on Download.com. Back then I was happy to see the first milestone of downlads in the range of 300 + downloads (I mean, the fact that other people around the world were checking this out). So today I decide, "What the hell", and go to Download.com and check the status of the downloads.

Hot damn! 997 Downloads!? Wow, I'm greatful that I caught it before it passed the 1,000 downloads mark :) I know comparatively 1,000 downloads isn't much on the Internet, but remember - this is 1,000 more people that have been exposed to Active Worlds as a result of our promotions. Pretty cool, indeed, but nowhere near the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of downloads the original AW 3.2 listing had. Of course, Active Worlds 3.2 has been listed on Download.com for a timeframe of years whereas Metaverse EX has only been listed for a few months.

I believe we are doing pretty good for a lonely little world in the AW Universe :) We aren't totally packed to the hilt, but then again, nobody is. I would also like to point out that the listing for AW 3.2 on Download.com is packed with horrible reviews. At least the few reviews we have are mostly favorable :) Anyways, just thought I would share this little milestone with you, our residents.

Stormclouds in a Cup :P


I know you are looking at the heading, and then at the little picture of what seems to be... a Starbucks Coffee Cup? And saying... Huh? Ok here's the deal. Particle effects like rain have a very small effective range, and thus use for large scale weather effects is really a pain in the butt. I know when we first were working with it, we had to place a particle effect every block just to create proper overlap. This was nearly 10 seperate particle effects just for the area surounding our ground zero. Imagine if we wanted rain for the entire world?

So over in another universe where I like to test my ideas we were screwing around with rain but the problem with range came up again. Some of the Beta people who may read this know what transpired already, but I'm going to spell it out for the people who aren't guessing already. Movers have a much larger visibility range than a normal object, roughly 20 meters from the object itself (which is pretty far) and is independant of the selected visibility of the user. So, we thought, why not attach the rain particle effect to a small object like crate1.rwx and place the object underground?

Viola! There we had rain that extended 20 meters in radius. Actually it extends about 30 radius coming from the object but only 20 when walking toward the object. So to play it safe for overlap, go with 20. Generally speaking, this allows the world VR5 to use only 5 particles effects to cover our entire P-40 with rain.

Useful? More than likely. Did you know about it already? Maybe.

Hey, the concept and idea was new to us and I have yet to see anyone else use this idea in their space or world. Anyway, that's my advancement for the week. Nothing spectacular, but hopefully this is useful to you as a world owner or builder :)

Looking to the Future (With working Mirrors) - MPL Knight