2007 Retrospectacle

Last year I posted the following aims:

Be more assertive
Get more Pandora-time
Get a better job
See more of my friends (especially ex-workmates)
See more of a certain young lady

So how did I do?

Assertiveness? Well, I’ve started saying “no” to things that I really don’t want to do, instead of suffering in silence. I still could do some work on the whole confidence side though. A work in progress.

Pandora-time? Four outings in 2007. Not great, but not bad either. And I managed to tranny outside of the county borders. That was a first!

Better job? Oh yes. Very much so.

See more of friends? Not as great as I hoped, but those tat have MSN/Facebook get contacted regularly.

Certain young lady? We split up in summer. These things happen.

But what of the rest of the year?

Transpocalypse 2was a lot of fun, and I finally got to meet some fellow bloggers in the flesh.

Battle of the Bands continues to be the best place for music on the East coast. I got to meet my newest favourite unsigned band – Punch the Vicar - and got to wear my saloon girl fancy dress to the final. We also had the Town Centre Music Festival 2, which was great fun too.

Sadly my last remaining grandparent passed away in May (and the funeral was on my birthday :( ) but at least she didn’t suffer, and it was nice to see all the family together even for just a few hours.

July wasn’t much fun either, with me learning the hard way that Trans-hatred can be found in unlikely places. This event severely coloured my attitudes and actions regarding trannying.

Fortunately it didn’t stop me trannying at the Waterfront in September and appearing on Outline’s website 

Socially I managed to gain a new gaming group, and discover all sorts of interesting new games like Fading Suns, Serenity, and SLA Industries.

And lastly, I got sucked into Facebook.

So what will 2008 hold?

No aims this year, lets just see what happens.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my readers!

Attention span of a gnat

Its not new, but I've been thinking about this for a while.

Whilst channel flicking I happened to catch Russell Brand's Ponderland. Everyone's always raving about Russell, so I thought I'd give it a look.

I don't know about his other work, but Ponderland tonight consisted solely of clips from old television programmes interspersed by comedy. Well, I say "comedy", but it just seemed to be variations of "Look! Didn't people say/do funny things in the old days? Isn't that hilarious in and of itself".

He's not the only culprit. I've seen a number of clip shows where old fashioned clothes/mannerisms/attitudes are pointed at and laughed at. No actual jokes. Just laughing at how things were different.

I suppose if you have no concept of history, just seeing something different to what is popular today, is a source of never-ending hilarity. But anybody with a shred of historical knowledge, or even just somebody who was there, will just think, "Yes. That's what it was like. Do you actually have a point to make?"

I don't mind playful pastiche. I don't mind jokes at the expense of the past. Even cruel satire at the expense of old-fashioned attitudes can be funny if handled right. But just pointing at something old, and laughing because it is different, just shows how ignorant you are.

On the other hand, all these "isn't the past funny" shows will make excellent material for future shows...

"Look at this clip of a 21st century presenter mocking the past. Aren't his clothes funny? And listen to his dated catchphrases. Hilarious!"

Congratulations VR5 Team!

We would like to extend our congratulations to our own William Burns (Darian Knight) for bringing home the greatest award in Active Worlds Universe - the Cy Award, for his recreation of a BP Gas Station.

The Cy Award is the equivalent of receiving an Oscar in Virtual Reality and is the highest honor you can achieve. Once again, congratulations! The award was a dual award with Sabrina who also lent her helping hand in it's construction, which adds two Cy Awards to the total amount of awards in VR5 World.

Also Will and Wes recently won Best Build for AW Expo 2007, with their design and effects for their expo booth this year, making it two years in a row that they have won this award.

Here's looking to what surprises are in store for 2008. In the mean time, Happy Holidays from VR5 Online!

Does Pandora need a Facebook profile?

I've been on Facebook for a while now, and every time one of Pandora's friends gets a profile, I have to think long and hard about whether to add her as a friend.

I didn't have this problem with MySpazz as my male persona isn't under my real name. So I wasn't worried about people making the connection between the two "me"s. And anyway, on MySpazz people have hundreds of friends and its not such an issue.

But with Facebook, I'm listed under my actual given name. And I have work colleagues (who know nothing of Pandora) as friends.

I added Becky and Jane and thought nothing of it. But now I've noticed a sizeable chunk of the Trannisphere are on FB too, and I want to add them. But I'm wary of having too many T*folk in my friend list. And also I'll have to explain who I am to as most don't know the day-to-day me.

So the question is... Does Pandora merit her own Facebook profile?
It would allow me to add all those fun (but a bit girly) applications I've steered clear of.

But then, do I add myself as one of her friends? Am I setting myself up for problems? I'm wary of weaving a web that will hoist me by my own petard (if you excuse the mangled clichés). Especially If I'm not careful selecting a photo

Of those of you that have done it, are there any things you you've discovered? Or would recommend?

Life's OK actually

Apart from filler, I haven't posted much recently. That's because things are going OK. Not fantastic, but not bad either.

My new job is pretty sweet. I'm gaming twice a week. And I've got a bunch of good mates who I can chat to online, even if I can't always meet up IRL.

The only thing lacking right now, is a special young lady, and Pandora-time. Neither are major issues right now though, although both would be nice.

So as I have nothing much to write right now, I'll leave you with a YouTube video. Sir Mix-a-lot's Baby Got Back. In the style of Gilbert and Sullivan!

Free rice for the hungry

Think you're smart? Literate? Well-read?

Take the free rice challenge. Identify the meaning of the words provided and, thanks to sponsorship, rice gets distributed by the UN World Food Programme.

I've manage to get a vocabularly level of 45. Can you get to level 50?

You can also download an interesting game at Food-force.com that allows you to take the role of the UN World Food Programme representatives in a warzone. Find refugees, negotiate resources, balance a diet and deliver aid by air and land.

New job

I’ve been a bit busy to blog recently what with the new job and all...

The new place is nice. It’s a bit sparse on staff, but then going from a 300-person branch of a national organisation to a 20-person two-location outfit was bound to be a change. There was a small drop in salary, but my yearly travel distance has dropped by 11,000 miles, so I think I win overall.

It’s also very relaxed. It gets a little tense when the phone rings, while I’m helping a drop in, trying to file, and updating the computer; but mostly its quiet. And often I’m left on my own with web access, and no “net nanny” (but I wont be blogging there till I know its safe).

There’s also a couple of cuties, but again, we’ll wait and see what they’re actually like (and if they’re married) before getting my hopes up.

The only downside, being a training facility, is the hordes of (mostly) jailbait young ladies coming in and out. I’m going to play it safe and presume they are all underage. And besides its bad form to flirt with the students :)

I think I might like it here.

When I get the hang of the computer system...

2007 AWExpo

The VR5 Online Expo booth is once again making a grand appearance at the annual AWExpo in the Active Worlds Universe. Complete with our working Hoverboards, Arcade Machines, Streaming Trance Music and Trippy Particle Effects. Below I've posted some screenshots of our virtual Expo Booth as seen in AWExpo World. The Expo will be running from November 2nd to November 4th, so drop into the AW Universe (download the Metaverse EX browser from our site) and teleport to the world AWExpo to hang out with the crew of VR5 Online.

We look forward to meeting you there!

William Burns (aka: Darian Knight)

This is parody!

Frank Miller's 300 has been the source for some very funny parodies. This one made me laugh lots. Thanks to Sanji for bringing it to my attention.

Colour Quiz

I'm not sure if it's incredibly insightful, or just vague and airy like horoscopes. Blame Steg Beetle for drawing my attention to this quiz :)

My results:

Your Existing Situation
Acts in an orderly, methodical, and self-contained manner. Needs the sympathetic understanding of someone who will give her recognition and approval.

Your Stress Sources
Feels that life has far more to offer and that it is imperative that she should find the responsive and understanding relationship she is seeking; she therefore follows up any opportunity which presents itself. However, she maintains her attitude of critical appraisal and refuses to be swept off her feet unless genuineness and integrity can be absolutely vouched for. Therefore keeps a strict and watchful control on her emotional relationships as she must know exactly where she stands. Demands complete sincerity as a protection against her own tendency to be too trusting.

Your Restrained Characteristics
Egocentric and therefore quick to take offense. Able to obtain physical satisfaction from sexual activity but tends to hold aloof emotionally.
Circumstances force her to compromise and to forgo some pleasures for the time being. Capable of achieving physical satisfaction through sexual activity.

Your Desired Objective
Her need to feel more causative and to have a wider sphere of influence makes her restless and she is driven by her desires and hopes. May try to spread her activities over too wide a field.

Your Actual Problem
The fear that she may be prevented from achieving the things she wants leads her into a relentless search for satisfaction in the pursuit of illusory or meaningless activities.

Your Actual Problem #2
Intensely critical of the existing conditions which she feels are disorganized or insufficiently clear-cut. Is therefore seeking some solution which will clarify the situation and introduce a more acceptable degree of order and method.

Small print

Best Terms of Service ever:

READ CAREFULLY. By reading this blog you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies (”BOGUS AGREEMENTS”) that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

I'm free

Yep. That's it. Old job ended.

I'm free!

New one starts in 14 days

Free Burma!

Get involved

Petition to the UN Security Council for action

Tyson Foods, Inc Demo Booth

Something we were working on with Digitell Inc this evening for a demo in the morning. It's a Tyson Foods, Inc Demo Booth for a digital expo. I think it came out very nice with the lighting and various final touches.

If you are interested in having your company represented for educational, training or expo purposes in a virtual environment, stop by Digitell Inc for more information and a tour - www.digitellinc.com

We're just hoping they are happy with the results of this demo we put together with Digitell Inc.

All is quite on the western front...

With the VR5 World research project finished, things have gotten very quiet in the public space concerning our company.

We've been working on a new Galaxy system with Digitell Inc in Jamestown, NY - dubbed Virtual U. It's a galaxy class AW virtual system designed for business, conferences and seminars. This has more or less been taking most of our time and I apologize for the latency in keeping everyone up to date.

In other news, the Cy Awards are coming up this November - one of the only awards I really wanted to win but never did. I've donated a few things for the awards ceremony world (some custom particle creations) and I'll see about actually attending this year (as I usually have whenever the Cy Awards have been going on).

As for project Prometheus, it's moving forward after a boat load of logistics and some original issues with the networking and infrastructure. Now that those things seem to be taken care of, it'll be moving forward. We're hoping to have a demo of this within 3 - 6 months as time permits.

What exactly is Prometheus? I guess I could let some of the news out. Point blank it's yet another research project but with a twist. We're trying to once and for all create a virtual worlds browser system that is easy to use, but also makes use of a number of techniques that no other company has used before.

Things like a custom P2P hybrid transfer system to eliminate bottlenecks and server dependency. Procedural routines to allow the users to create high resolution textures that will intelligently scale in quality with the hardware viewing it. Procedurally generated content such as trees and multi-layered atmosphere with full clouds generation system, and more.

We set the bar really high with this one, but we really think it's possible to accomplish if we just put our minds to it. Octree and Portal Culling for blazing fast framerates, allowing higher definition content without the FPS hits you normally see in a virtual world. Lot's of ideas are on the table with this project, mostly stemming from our time creating content in the Active Worlds universe for research in the City of Nidus.

As usual, we're not sure how effective our efforts will be, but at least we can say we're giving it a go...

In other mildly related news - the phone lines for the company have been purposely taken down during this time and will remain this way indefinitely. We are spending a majority of our time between Digitell Inc and also developing Prometheus, and really will not be accepting any other contracts for awhile.

I know this is very unorthodox, but seeing as the phone line was routed to our cellphones for immediate responses, we decided to remove the number and service indefinite while we work on these things without interruptions.

We appreciate your business, as usual, but for the time being we will only be responding to our emails. If you are a company looking to contract us for consulting or work, please use our contacts page and email to get ahold of the appropriate person, or if you need an immediate response you can email me personally - DarianKnight AT Gmail.com

I thank you for your understanding ahead of time concerning these matters, but our research for the time being is more important and we would rather not overload our company with contracts and split out time from the high end projects we are working on.

Which LOLcat are you?

You are Lion Warning Cat

68% Affectionate, 62% Excitable, 44% Hungry

You are the good Samaritan of the lolcat world. Protecting others from danger by shouting observations and guidance in cases of imminent threat, you believe in the well-being of everyone.

To see all possible results, checka dis.



The Which Lolcat Are You? Test written by GumOtaku on Ok Cupid

I'm quite pleased with that.

Bear

I put a lot of stock in material possessions, but this is one of the few things I own, that I actually love.

Over thirty years ago this little bear was presented to me by my uncle Bob. He wasn't actually my uncle, he was dad's best-man at his wedding, but all family friends were aunty-this or uncle-that.

The bear was saved from a fire in a warehouse which contained toys. The building was lost, but Uncle Bob rescued two very singed black lumps of fur from the pile of rubbish left by the fire brigade.

One went to my 'cousin' Angela and one went to me.

Except I didn't really see him for a week or two. He spent the whole of this time being washed, aired, and re-washed as he stunk of the deeply ingrained soot from the fire. But eventually I got him.

He's been repaired many times, and now his fur is balding, and his stuffing is rotten, and his eyes are dull. But he still weathers on.

He has no name. He was never given one, and he never needed one. He was always My Bear.

And I love him today as I loved him then.

Law of eights?

Lynn Jones has just tagged me, and thus it goes that I must reveal 8 fascinating facts about myself, then dump pass on the same task to 8 other bloggers (which is going to be tricky as most of my blogroll have already been tagged!)

OK so here goes:

1) I've never been to Transformations, and I've never bought any of their products.

2) I've climbed up to the top of Mont Real in Montreal, Canada and seen the huge big steel cross as close as you can get. (It looks like a radio mast close up - I nearly missed it!)

3) I'm a Union Representative and Activist at work.

4) I'm addicted to Animal Crossing: Wide World on the Nintendo DS and have to play 10 minutes everyday or my carefully cross-bred roses will die!

5) I love to dance but am incredibly self conscious dancing in front of people

6) I enjoy Backgammon

7) I have a pathological terror of syringe needles, and injections

8) I've had work published in Ragnarok - The journal of the Society of Fantasy and Science Fiction Wargamers.


And now the tricky bit. Assuming they haven't already been tagged, I nominate Helena, Chuck, Bikerchick, Sanji, Richard, Lara, Charlee, and Batsgirl.

Steam Trek: The Moving Picture

I'm a great fan of homages to silent movies, especially those that are clever enough to use the genre rather than mock it.

This one is incredibly clever, and uses some very well-judged musical cues for additional gags.

Colour Me Sicker

Mere days after I posted my black and white portrait for Luis Drayton's Colour Me Sick, fellow blogger and contributor, Helena Love fired-up her art package and produced this fantastic rendition of me:


I'm absolutely besotted with it!

Proto-Goth icons

Your Score: Siouxsie Sioux!

Our test has determined that you possess
40% Hellbentness, 19% Sanguinity, and 48% Creeps!
Well done!

You are Siouxsie Sioux, lead singer of Siouxsie and the Banshees!

Siouxsie and the Banshees were a British gothic rock band that encompassed the punk and new wave genres. She and the Banshees were not directly involved in the early goth scene as such, but had a massive influence on it in terms of both music and image. Siouxsie Sioux courted much controversy in the band's early days with her dress, often wearing 'bondage' clothes and fetish wear. Their music had been called "gothic" as far back as 1979, and their music formed the template for a lot of female-fronted goth bands in much the same way that Siouxsie's sense of style provided a fashion plate for many female goths. Between the two bands, Siouxsie & the Banshees and Bauhaus pretty much rocked early gothic style into being.

Link: The what Proto-Goth Icon are you? Test written by anastasia_x on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Shameless Plug Time

Being a complete attention-whore (Hello? Tranny!) I couldn't wait to get involved in Luis Drayton's latest adventure Colour Me Sick: The TG Self-Portrait Colouring-In Project.

Its pretty simple really. Luis has posted a number of black and white self portraits of members of the Trannisphere. Its up to you to print them off, colour them in, and post them back on the group page.

I'm going to have a go at Miss K's funky offering when I can get to a printer and my crayons...

And here's mine:

Mother knows best

Reading other blogs about de-princessing, and hiding things from parents made me feel incredibly lucky to have a mum who knows about what I do and is pleased for me.

She doesn't know ALL of what I do, because I don't want her worrying, but she's seen some of my pictures, and heard edited highlights of Transpocalypse and the like.

She was the first person I came out to, although other people may have had an inkling. She's been very supportive, very flattering about my photos, and very quick to raid my closet when she's got a fancy dress party to go to!

My brother is cool with it too, but doesn't really think about it much.

But my father doesn't know. I don't really see him much, or get on with him very well, so I'm happier presenting a façade of normality, as his girlfriend seems determined to cut me and my brother out of his life (and his will...)

Sharon and Tracey

Right. Enough with the hate, more with the love. Feast your eyes on my new shoes.



They arrived today from Alternative Footwear. I ordered the 4" white patent stilettos, but a few days later I got an email saying they wouldn't be back in stock til October! Instead I was offered the 5" which I didn't see on their website (and which were a quid cheaper too!) I said definitely, and here they are!

I'm going to a Tarts and Vicars party with The Biker Chick soon. I think these need to be worn with black footless tights, a denim mini, and my fake gold hoopy earrings!

Just call me Chardonnay!

Law and Toilets...

Hmmm. I've been doing some research on British Law as it relates to the transgender person and toilet facilities.

First, to get it out of the way, the Licensing Act 2003 makes no mention of toilet facilities, except as an Environmental Health issue. See Great Yarmouth Borough Council Statement of Licensing Policy for more information.

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 states that workers must have access to separate toilet facilities, but does not specify how they are used. However a test cast of a pre-op failed because the person had had worked for the company as a man, and female co-workers were uncomfortable with 'her' presence. Here I think the key aspect is that complaints were made.

Also, see what the the Equal Opportunities Comission says on a related topic:

Can a pub refuse to serve a transsexual person?

Discrimination against transsexual people is unfortunately not unlawful in the area of goods facilities and services as it is in employment but there is a strong argument that it should be so. Test cases still need to be brought on this issue in the County Court. So far, cases have been taken to clarify the law on this issue but have settled before hearing. In one case, a transsexual woman had visited a pub on a number of occasions when she was told by the landlord not to come to the pub any more because he claimed that her presence was affecting his business. The case settled with the landlord acknowledging that he had discriminated unlawfully against her. She received an apology and an undertaking from the landlord not to discriminate against her in future, as well as compensation and a contribution to her legal costs.

Its a tricky subject. The statute law pre-dates the Gender Recognition Act, and there is not enough case law for there to be a clear direction.

Plus all of it hinges on officially labelling oneself Transgender.

I don't think I'll be taking V to court any time soon. I think I'll settle for boycotting the place and telling my tale.

Its a dive anyway. I'll suffer no hardship.

Hatecrime!

Wow, of all of the people I've met, I would never have though Vivien (aka "V"), the licensee of Rasputins Nightclub, King Street, Great Yarmouth, would be a transphobic bigot.

Last night (Saturday 28th July), I went out to celebrate a friend's birthday. We were dressed as schoolgirls and I was presenting as female. Whilst in Rasputins I needed to use the toilet, and being dressed as a woman I decided to use the ladies toilets. To avoid any problems, I went in with a female friend, even though the toilets were empty at the time.

While I was using the cubicle there was a knock on the door and a male voice mumbled something. I finished and exited the cubicle. In the main body of the toilets were two young girls (who with hindsight looked underage - wish I'd have picked up on that at the time!) and a male bouncer holding the main door open. He waited for me to wash my hands then told me to leave the toilets.

The owner (the afore-mentioned V) took me to one side and told me she did not want me using her ladies toilets. I told her that unless someone had complained, there was no legal problem with me being there. V claimed that her guidelines for The Licensing Act (2003) said that if she finds a man in the ladies toilets, she can hand him over to the police. I said that I thought this was incorrect, and did she expect me to use the gents toilets. She said she did. I left the matter at this and went to sit with my friends.

I was shaking with anger but thought it best to leave any matters until I had a clear head. However when I left around twenty minutes later, she was on the door with a bouncer and I mentioned that she should look at The Provision of Goods and Services Act (although I think it is still going through parliament) and that I felt I had been discriminated against. She in turn told me that "If I catch you in there again, I'll knock your block off". And she is quite a large lady.

Half jokingly I asked what about if I get "The Operation". She said I would have to prove my new gender and laughed. Lacking a witty comeback, I left with my friends.

Once I have had a good nights sleep I will investigate my options. I would like to demand an apology, and threaten to make an official complaint on discrimination and threatening language. But I'd also like to make sure I have the legal (and moral) high ground before I go shooting my mouth off. I certainly plan to inform everybody who cares of this situation, regardless of the action I choose to take.

WebRage Returns

Like a zombie in a bad B-Rated movie, Web Rage made it's triumphant return today from beyond the grave.

What is this Web Rage, you ask?

WebRage is a small program I made in 2003 that essentially takes a snapshot of the screen
and then allows you to mercilessly shoot and claw at it with the left and right mouse buttons.

Thats it. Made for Windows only, it wasn't a perfect program, but it worked just fine for what I was attempting to accomplish: stress relief when something crashed or just didn't want to work right. Also good for websites that just tick you off to no end.

I've fixed the old install version so it now works (old one had a bad header), and this one should work fine now. You can download it here if you would like a blast from my past :) if this version doesn't work for you, drop me an email at DarianKnight@gmail.com and I'll make a Zip version for you.

[ Download WebRage]

Space Station Bingo :)

Well, today the world AWBingo3 opened it's doors (?) to the public for consumption. AWBingo3 is known as Space Station Bingo, and I had a hand in it's creation. The effects on the bingo cards (the neon lights and the rockets), as well as a few minor other touches at the ground zero.

What was a side track for me a few months ago is now to be a part of AW history, and daily gaming in the Active Worlds Universe.

The rest of the place was made by Keith Thomas (Planet Radio VR), King Tex (Ground Texture) and a few others for models.

So what exactly did I contribute to Space Station Bingo (AWBingo3)?

Neon Lighting on the Cards
Rocket Jet Effects under each card
The Traffic in the sky (Space Highway)

There was something else too but I can't remember off hand. In any event, after all of the hard work by many people (not just me), the place looks great. I hope it becomes a long term center of Bingo gaming in the AW Universe for years to come.

In Other News

Made a new Caustics Particle Effect by making a custom 32 frame animation as a WMV file at 126k in size and using it as an asset in a particle. What does this mean? It means that while AW as a technology doesn't use Shaders or HDR Lighting (but I can wish, right?) a semi-realistic caustics lighting animation can be used for underwater and placed over textured ground.

Looks ten times better than the old school JPG animation for water, plus as a Particle it can be resized at will, as well as colorized and variable opacity for effect. Darian FTW!

Also donated it to AWFX world for download and use freely. Talked with Tunablues and Dreamer2 who will prolly be using some of my effects for the new Cy Awards this year - Particle Lighting and Caustics for Water. I look forward to seeing that in action :)

So look for some new additions to the AW community coming soon at a popular world near you.

Also - I take no personal responsibility for what the VR5 World has become. I know there are a number of people who have been telling me how it was better before, and all I have to say is thus:

The world is no longer under VR5 ownership or control. If you would like the place to look better, then by all means tell Neocube and maybe it will encourage him to strive for better. Thanks :)

I Has A Flavor - William Burns

Something I've been working on :)

Hey, just another day here at VR5 Online... drink some Coca Cola, watch some TV, play some video games, and make some custom photo realistic heads for use in the AW browser.

Oh wait.. that last one isn't so normal. Well, anyway - that is something that has been occupying my time along with the Prometheus project. I was set out on the task of figuring out how to make realistic avatar heads. So my inspiration to start were the heads used in Active Worlds and Second Life shown below (respectively).

The first is obviously the best example of a Second Life avatar face I could find off hand (though there are undoubtedly others). The next in line is the latest incarnation of avatar style from Active Worlds Inc (though there are working on avs that at least look as good as Second Life). And last but not least is my entry into this forum of 3D Modeling, as taken from the Active Worlds environment (all snapshots of my head are taken live from the AW environment).

Here are a few more pictures at different angles so you can get a better look, click each for the full size image:

The head itself is using a 512x512 texture map custom made by me, and the actual 3D model of the head is also custom made using specialized software which I will leave unnamed for the time being. The total number of polygons for the head itself is about 3,000 - although I am sure it could be optimized a bit more if needed.

The obvious lack of hair on the head (other than the texture map) is due to a lack of a separate layer added over top the head for hair to blend into the underlying texture map on the skull. Remember, this is a base head and not the finished deal.

Ambient is set to 0.5 on the head in order to give it a nice self shadowing effect in the light. Also, turned the culling on in the model itself so the inside would not display (which prolly ups the frame rate a bit in light of the 3,000 polygons). All in all, I believe that the face of an avatar is what people are paying attention to most of the time, so why not focus most of the detail there and skimp on the rest of the body if you need to?

There are two ways I'm thinking I could go for the hair, but I believe I will be testing out the usage of Shader 2.0 effects for dynamic and flowing hair on these heads (yes I made more than one, I'm just showing you this one) and yes I am really enjoying these HDR Lighting and Shaders lately... too bad neither AW nor Second Life have HDRI or Shaders... oh well.

Well, thats about it for now -

In Other News

Will be starting a project with Digitell Incorporated in New York State in the next few weeks. Working on a new Galaxy server with them for Expos and Conferences. I think I am the BASF guy involved (meaning I don't make a lot of the things you use, I make them better). Or in other words, I'm technical consultant, designer and all around creative solutions guy.

Hence the Photo heads, by the way. Clients of Digitell Inc will more than likely want the ability to have their avatars look exactly like them in real life - so I figured I would start with a test using my own face. The head was made using 2 photos and roughly 3 hours of modeling (which is why it's not *exactly* right).

Anyway, aside from Prometheus (which is coming along nice, by the way), this is what will be occupying most of my time here at VR5 Online. So busy, busy, busy....

Well, back to work :)

Looking for LOLCats - William Burns

Butch/femme

This weekend Siobhan has been playing around with trying to look femme in a butch outfit (and succeeding very well BTW).

As a result I've been having a think about my look. I took some pictures this weekend, trying on outfits for a couple of parties I'm going to in a week or so. Yes they're fancy dress!

Annoyingly I've come to the conclusion that unless I make a concerted effort I look odd dressed as any gender.

As a bloke I look (and act) a bit camp. I think its more to do with being comfortable with myself and not caring enough to indulge in macho bullshit.

As a girl, mainly due to my build, I look a bit butch (see this extreme example). Although I do mostly act girly. Even more so when drunk...

Its not a big thing as some of the blokes (and quite a few of the girls) I hang around with are macho enough for both of us. Its just something I have to bear in mind when posing for pictures.

Update 24/07/07 - I just showed my Mum the picture above, and she said, "Oh wow! You look just like the Saturday girl who works in my shop." So I guess its not all bad after all.

RTFM

I'm glad its not just me...

Double Standards

I recently went to a fancy dress party as a saloon girl. All night I had young ladies coming up to me asking if they could feel my breasts.

Those under 18 were told "no." Those over 18 were told "Only if I can feel yours". Regardless of the answer all grabbed anyway, then covered their chest and backed off.

I wasn't particularly interested in any of these girls breasts, but I was mightily annoyed at their presumption - imagine the fuss if I had grabbed a girl's breasts after being told no!

Can we just have some consideration for other people's feelings and personal space please?

Sneak Peak

Quick demo reel I put together to show off the various effects of Shader 2.0 and High Dynamic Range Lighting. Shader 2.0 support is native to Prometheus so these types of effects are easily implemented and put to use with little to no hassle.

Big Girl (You are Beautiful)

As a plus-size tranny I'm now very fond of Mr Mika.

XKCD for the win

Clever. And very nerdy:



You might need to view full size to read the placard

VR5 Gets a Mention on Indy Gamer :)

Recently, Jamie Sanders of vNES fame was asked to write a short history of Virtual NES for a small gaming blog called Indy Gamer. It pines through the original creation as well as some of the more memorable moments in the history of his now world famous Virtual NES emulator. In it, there is a blurb about how Dreamhost went on a Digital Millenium Copyright Act rampage against him and shut the servers down (although he was getting over 1 million hits a day), and how VR5 was one of the entities that gladly came to his defense (quite successfully).

If you do not already know, Jamie is the genius who graciously paired up with us here in VR5 world to create a version of his emulator that would work within the confines of the Active Worlds universe, and is the backbone of our Nidus Arcade (across from the ground zero). Currently undergoing upgrades to both the server and the code, the Nidus Arcade is currently non-functioning until some server bugs are worked out, though he hopes to get the glitches taken care of in the near future.

If you have a chance, by all means take a minute or two and read the full article here.

In Other News

If you haven't already heard the news, the VR5 World is now under new management (the 3D world, not the company). The new world owner Neocube (Paul Sybrandy) has graciously renewed the world in order to preserve it's historical value as well as remain open to the public as both a home to those who have dug their roots and also for builder inspiration.

As generally noted, the VR5 world was a research project by VR5 Online for the past two years, of which it has won a couple of awards and has been nominated numerous times. It raises the benchmark in many areas for builders new and old to aspire to. As of June 24th the research part of our project has come to an end and we have moved on to the secondary phase which does not include the use of Active Worlds technology.

Paul Sybrandy (Neocube) has stated that he intended to renew the world with the goal of keeping it as a historical landmark and inspiration to other builders in the community, but that being said, does not exclude that the world be some day wiped clean and used for other purposes. The world is no longer in the hands of it's parent company VR5 Online, and as such our involvement will diminish over time.

We would like to thank everyone who has been involved with the VR5 research project over the past two years, and here's to whatever the future holds under the new world owner.

Working on something nifty - Darian Knight (William Burns: CTO VR5 Online)

Fancy dress frenzy

Fancy dress parties are my favourite kind of party. My only problem is that I have to stagger the Pandora costumes with the 'Bob' costumes as I'm not 100% out.

I've got possibly two parties coming up in the next month, but I have a dilemma as they will be with the same peeps, so I cant wear the same outfit.

I've got a "naughty schoolgirl" outfit pieced together from real clothes which is my backup plan for the first party. I also just bought this:
The problem is that the second party might be Moulin Rouge themed, so I want to save the new costume if the second theme goes ahead. But I wont know that until possibly after the first party. *sigh*

I think its going to be a last minute decision. Unless I can get the organiser to commit to a theme now...

Party of the Year - Hands Down

Courtesy of AWNews

Written by Jaguar Hahn

VR5—Usually weekends are great times for parties, right? Right. [Saturday night] I decided to roll into a rather interesting party. No, this wasn't a normal party, this was a party in VR5 world, which was about to close its doors for good after tonight. The owners of the world were celebrating many years of the great VR5 world serving the AW community. They thought it would seem fit to go out with "not a bang, not a party, but a BASH!"

If you have never been to VR5, they have been home to many things in our universe. The first band to play in the Active Worlds Universe, Aztech Rising, held a concert in VR5 a while back at the Nidus Arena. GSK held his virtual isolation here. They have created and launched many successful web sites since their creation and have also designed 3D versions of McDonalds, Starbucks , Best Buy, Target and Alienware. And they have even created their own "Metaverse" browser, which streamlines the Active Worlds experience and enhances it for users.

Upon entering the world, I discovered a basic layout of a stage, some seats and a hotel. I thought to myself, 'wow, this will probably be an ok event.' Boy was I wrong. Right as 7:10pm VRT rolled around, the first event began: a light show that everyone was looking forward to. We were treated to a FABULOUS light show, with everything from snowy white particles to different colored spotlights and spiraling rainbows. Lights came from the tower, they came from the stage, they came from the sky, they came from everywhere. I have never seen so many different effects in my life. It was the best light show I've ever seen. GSK revealed to me that the entire thing was custom. The music was grand, but the particles and lights clearly stunned everyone. By the time it was over, the entire crowd was shouting for an encore. It was that good.

Click For Full Story

Victory From The Jaws of Defeat...

I'm just as surprised as you are about this turn of events.

Neocube graciously offered to renew the world and also went through a lot of convincing to get me to agree to it. If nobody yet knows, I have been assigned to another project outside of Active Worlds so I will be fairly scarce. Neocube is the new world owner, and has placed me as second in charge and Brina as Head of Security.

Other than that, nothing to really report, other than Windows Vista is pretty good so far (but still annoying) and Active Worlds seems to run like crap on it. This coming from a guy with a brand new laptop and a Gigabyte of RAM with a new Graphics Card and all the updates.

Hope AWI works out the quirks...

I heard the Cy Awards are gonna happen this year as well, maybe in October. At the moment, it seems like a cool idea, but honestly I'm personally done shooting for a Cy Award.

Neocube and I had a nice long talk about what we would like to do with the VR5 World for the next year and the jury is out at the moment. So I guess we all take a vacation and do this day to day.

I'll post some things in here as I get the time, but for now, let's take some time and reflect :)

Enjoying Summer Vacation - Darian Knight

Too fat to die

As a fatty this article from The Onion caused me to literally LOL.

Dr. Marjorie Reese, director of UCLA's Obesity Pathology Clinic says, "...the fact that obesity impedes suicide is truly troubling. It appears that the more reason people have to die, the less capable they are of doing so. They are literally trapped in their grotesque, blubbery bodies."

But she advises that losing weight to enable suicide has its own problems: "If they mistake their all-but-meaningless improvement for a legitimate reason to live, their fat, revolting lives may be prolonged indefinitely."

Chuckle.

HTMLOL

It made my sides hurt. I am such a nerd...





More LOLcats can be found at icanhascheezburger.com

“I know where it’s at”

There’s a misconception that local music scene consists of identikit rock bands playing the same ten cover versions. That might be true for a large number of venues (and bands) but there are still individuals striking out from the beaten path.

Here are my personal recommendations. All the bands I name below play sets exclusively of original material.

Our Dead Empire

They call themselves “Emo” but don’t let that put you off. ODE came about as a way for their guitarist dealing with the breakdown of his marriage. All the songs have a deep backstory, and whether that comes out overtly or not, they all have poignancy to them. Therapy has never sounded so good! Plus they’re all really nice blokes!

Turnstone

Turnstone draw many comparisons with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks. Although their inspiration is very obvious, Turnstone have a significant body of original material whilst retaining a familiar feel although they are not averse to the odd cover if the venue is appropriate.

Punch the Vicar

Young female and punk, PTV are just plain entertaining. With songs like “Ode to a Porno Mag”, “The Minge Song” and an energetic cover of the Spice Girls’ Wannabe, it’s pretty clear you are going to have fun. Sometimes enthusiasm wins out over professionalism but that all part of the package. Some bands have printed T-Shirts. PTV have logo-printed knickers!

Blag

My favourite (still-existing) ska band. Fast, energetic, and their lead singer has an amazing way of rolling his Rs. They do a nice line in social commentary too: listen to “Skarrific Gangster” if you can. Or for a laugh track down their cover of Arthur (the kids TV show, not the Dudley Moore film!)

Last Paradigm

With two lead singers with very different voices Last Paradigm sound unlike any other metal band you will hear on the East coast. And since both sing the same lines together you get a weird (dis)harmony effect that is hard to describe if you’ve not heard it. The songs they have on their site don’t really give you a feel

Sweet Dizease

I still am not sure if Sweet Dizease are truly serious about their angry anti-Christian stance, or whether they are having a bit of fun. Either way, their catchy brand of metal goes down well with the crowds, and you would be hard pressed not to yell out “Unite in the death pit!” during Pious. Their lead singer gets totally into character and if the crowd is slack in its response he won’t hesitate to tell them how “fucking pitiful” they are. Sweet Dizease amuse me immensely.

The Divide

More original rock. This is a bit more old school hard rock rather than metal, with the odd cover for good measure. The Divide are showmen and performers as well as musicians, and their frontman in his top hat, wild hair, raggedy coat and skull necklaces will keep you entertained with his capering and growling in between numbers.

Finally we have an odd last entry:

Alcanal

Alcanal is not a local band, but a musician/producer. You won’t see him on stage these days, but he is content to produce tracks exclusively for MySpace. Listen to “Hopton Shark Rescue” and you will know why I find this guy hilarious.

Pandering to Miss EnVerite

My Tranny Footprint

373248 COt

(COt = Cubic Ounces of trannieness)

Calculate your tranny footprint at BeckysWeb!

My Tranny Footprint

I emit as much trannieness as:

ABBA

Calculate your tranny footprint at BeckysWeb!

Chirpy

After some much needed closure, I'm mostly back on form.

Lucy and I will remain friends, now that we've cleared the air. And our well-stocked dressing-up boxes and identical dress size is merely a coincidence.

My gran had a nice send off. And although we will all miss her lots, having the worry of the funeral arrangements behind us means we can get on and grieve properly.

My car still makes mysterious noises, but the garage can find no actual physical problems with it.

My optician has not contacted me following my glaucoma test, so I'm hopeful the first test was a blip.

And my birthday was finally celebrated three days late with cake and family. Present highlights include 35mm scale kung-fu schoolgirls, the pop-up Kama Sutra, and a fantastic Lego mecha.

There's still some crap in session (eg my job) but the week from hell is over.

Phew!

Numb

Last night I went out to celebrate my birthday with a bunch of mates and Lucy. It was a fantastic night.

I *was* going to write up some of our adventures, and draw a discreet veil over someone staying the night...

Except that a few hours after I dropped her home I got a text saying she didn't think it was going to work and she was sorry.

I was surprisingly restrained and understanding in the text exchanges, but now that it is over I just feel numb and a little nauseous.

*sigh* I thought I had something really good here.

"For the benefit of Miss Rogers"

The English language is often quite inadequate. Not because of the lack of words to chose from, but because a lot of the useful phrases have connotations or implications.

Today was mine and Lucy's first daytime date. We went for a picnic in the park. It was really nice and relaxed, and we're beginning to be less guarded around each other.

When I dropped her back at her home there was an awkward silence. Eventually Lucy asked if we were "you know...".

I explained that I really fancied her, and I liked spending time with her.

"But?" she asked.

"No buts" I explained. I really do want to spend more time with her.

So after about 10 minutes of trying to find the right words, we decided we were boyfriend and girlfriend and both went off with silly grins on our faces. We're off to see my friend's band tomorrow night.

But I still cant find the right words:

Dating - Nope, that's what we've been doing.
Going out - sounds like something said in high school
Exclusive - Lucy liked this suggestion, but its still not the right word
Involved - too euphemistic
Going steady - What is this? The 50s?

Any ideas?

Eurovision 2007

What kind of tranny would I be if I didn't do a Eurovision review? Well, I don't know about you, but I wasn't actually watching this year. I was out doing karaoke with Lucy :)

I have been skimming the YouTube archives this morning though, and I'm quite taken by Bulgaria's strange tribal/techno track.

I was less impressed by the UK's sub-VengaAirways effort.

And having heard it, I'm also quite put out that the amusing Israeli tune didn't get to the finals. Bloody politics.

Aaaaanyway... The best way to enjoy Eurovision is to host a house party and watch as a group. Have a few drinks, get everybody to pick a country and then heckle to your hearts content! I still have fond memories of the 2005 party I went to.

Reasons to be cheeful, part 3

1) Lucy
-although that's all I’m saying for now :-)

2) Going to a gig Friday as Pandora
-haven't dressed up since Transpocalypse

3) Kingdom of Loathing
– still the funniest online RPG around

4) Oban Star Racers
- like the best bits of Star Wars pod-racing with characters you care about

5) Tomorrow is Strike-Day
- "Freedom for Tooting!"

2007 Best Use of Innovative Technology!

VR5 Online - Winner of a 2007 Support AW Award

Category: Best Use of Innovative Technology


I would first like to personally thank the panel of judges who voted for us this year. Secondly, I would like to officially thank everyone who has been involved with the VR5 world over the past few years - the entire team has done an amazing job!

If it wasn't already known, VR5 as a world is a research project funded by the company VR5 Online of Lafayette, New Jersey. It was never intended to be a commercial project (though some things we have made have been sold). Instead our focus these past few years has been to push the Active Worlds technology to it's limits.

This is also a double edged sword as well. We are fully grateful for the award and what it means, but as a result, the project leader and CEO of the company, Brad Clark has made the decision not to renew this project for another year. The VR5 research project has attained all of it's objectives as set forth in 2005, with the final being public recognition for works attained. I would like to take a moment and list some of the project milestones:

1. Integration of a P2P system for management of bandwidth on an Object Path.
2. Use of photo realistic quality models, including human character (Adam Phase 2).
3. Integration of Live Television to create a virtual cable channel
4. Modification of the browser to allow for features currently not included (Metaverse EX)
   
5. Dynamic Marketing tests for feasibility and user interaction
6. Photo textures used for every day objects (the roads in VR5)
7. Integration of the Virtual NES system with Jamie Sanders
8. Live Music Concert with online shop, real food, and fireworks|light show
9. Replication of a real life structure in VR - Papa Johns, Starbucks, BP Fuel, AW Expo Booth
   
10. Web 2.0 Integration
11. Web Desktop Integration
12. Active Desktop Integration of the Browser
13. Exploration of ambient sound for environment use
14. Various Functionality In World
15. Snow and Rain using the Particle Booster Technique (1 particle per 20x20)
16. Particle Lighting Techniques
17. Access local computer via VR
18. Use of Avatars as Movers (Ghosting) to allow Tourists an Avatar Preview
19. Integration of Multi-player Online boardgames (Monopoly, Sorry, Scrabble, Battleship)
20. Use of Natural Text To Speech for Voice Cues

These are just a few things we've accomplished from this project since 2005. The current date for the end of this project is June 24th, 2007 - and as such I have been told that the company will allow it to expire.

Again, this isn't an entirely bad thing, as we are working on other projects as a result of the findings from this one. Some persons in Active Worlds will be overjoyed at our leaving, while many will be sad -

For those who are overjoyed at our decision to leave - keep in mind we are doing so to apply what we've learned in Active Worlds towards other projects we are working on. This isn't a recent decision by any means, and has been a pending decision since last year (you are welcome to check the past news entries at: http://cityofnidus.blogspot.com)

We will still specialize in Active Worlds technology at VR5 Online, but our focus will be on our latest project - Prometheus.

Again, thanks are in order to all of the people throughout AW over the years who have taught us never to accept less than the best.

I would also like to personally thank Daphne, rest in peace. She was my first personal inspiration for pushing the limits with this technology. She used to tell me that impossible isn't an answer, but a dream that should be pursued. And all of these years, I kept that in mind. Today, at least for me, I have upheld at least one promise.

Thank you Daphne for always being there and inspiring me to do better - you will never be forgotten. And I believe if she was still around today, she would be proud...

Both Happy and Sad - William Burns [CTO VR5 Online]

Meez

Playing around with online "me makers" can be fun, but it still seems like every virtual me is skinny. Where are the big wimin at?

"Captures theives just like flies..."

Regulars to my Flickr profile will have noticed a recent theme of spider photos. This is because summer draws near again, and my home is about to host a three-month spider convention.

I don't mind the tiny ones (up to an inch leg-span), but the bloody huge ones that are too big to scoop up in a tub freak me the hell out.

The photography is a cheap attempt at suppressing my arachnophobia. If I can get to the stage where finding a new spider is met with "Ooh! Better get my camera" rather than "EEEK! SPIDER!" than I'm winning.

The Freedom of Price

Call me a cynic if you want…

(Waits for cries to die down)

…but surely it’s obvious why the MOD has let the Iran captives sell their story?

1: The British public is far more likely to side with the soldiers, and against Iran, as a result of a newspaper story than any number of press releases from the establishment.

2: Soldiers with a large payout from the Sun/Mirror/Mail etc are far less likely to try to claim compensation for the suffering they went through.

So there we have a simple and elegant plan from the MOD which, if there’s any backlash, will be targeted against the soldiers for greed rather than the MOD for being manipulative.

Everyone wins.

Internet "Cafés"

I’ve got a whole hive of bees in my bonnet right now (mainly work or people taking diabolical liberties), but one of the tiny niggling things is so-called Internet Cafes.

In my town there have been a host of tiny shop fronts opening up that contain a server, a few PCs and some furniture. They offer Internet access by the hour and proudly proclaim their status as Internet Cafes.

What annoys me is that the owners (mostly band-wagoneers woefully out of date) seem to think that a service that provides Internet access is a “café”, when what most of us will realise is that the original Internet cafes were actually cafes that also provided Internet access. The café part of the name refers to the serving of coffee, tea and light snacks.

I want to go into these little places and ask for a full English breakfast, or a croissant and a latte.

I might take a camera to record the look of confusion on their face.

“Nuclear Wessels”

Serious blog posting here today. Sorry.

There is a lot of talk at the moment about the Trident nuclear-submarine defence system. Many people are saying we should update it because we need to have a nuclear deterrent. Some people are saying we should not update and spend the £20bn on hospitals, schools, infrastructure and the environment.

The pro-nuke argument points to rogue second- and third-world countries who are trying to develop nukes (and some cynics suggest we might need to defend ourselves from America one day).

The anti-nuke argument says we have America to defend us, and we’ve never needed to use the Trident system, why would we need it now.

As a budding game-theorist I’ve been looking at the nuclear ‘game’ and have spotted a flaw in the pro-British nuclear deterrent argument.

The basic form of the nuclear deterrent is this: If we both have nukes each of us knows that we cannot launch a strike without retaliation. And where nukes are concerned retaliation means we both end up sitting in a radioactive crater with leukaemia.

The problem with this is that it assumes both sides realise the consequences, and aren’t willing to die to harm their opponent.

This falls down when you consider the rogue states that the politicians point to as a threat. Most of these countries haven’t played the cold-war games, and some contain zealots who are willing to die for their cause if it will harm their enemies. If this is the case, no matter how many nukes we have, we could still be targeted by these countries.

We might have nukes, but no-one is being deterred. Spend the money on something useful.

Body Fascists

I went clothes shopping today. I thought I'd try out a few new places for my Pandora wardrobe.

Firstly I went to Primark. Cheap and cheerful, and I've heard good things about their range. Sadly most of the stock is bog standard stuff or hideous 70s prints. I did manage to find some gorgeous negligees in black and pink lace. Except they only go up to 16/18. I'm hardly huge, but my shoulders and ass requires a 20. I'll try somewhere else.

There's a George store in my local mall, except there seems to be a gap. I can find 18s and 22s but no sign of 20s. Maybe there's been a run of people annoyed with Primark.

Trying TK Maxx I give up immediately when I find "Extra Large" refers to size 16!

Despondent I give up on clothes shopping and shop for other things, although I did find a lovely bracelet in Claire's Accessories.

On the way home I stop into my regular Asda and find a cute pink chemise and a very sexy black basque and knicker set in my size. (The cup size claims to be a DD but oddly when I get home my falsies fit fine). And when I get to the till I find out they are half price, and they just haven't adjusted the ticket yet. Score!

Not sure when I'm going to get to wear the basque, but with detachable straps (shoulder and suspender) it might work as a sassy top with a short black skirt and my snakeskin jacket.

Dcentralized Content Distribution Network

What would happen if a single web server were suddenly inundated with an abnormally high amount of bandwidth, such that the cost of serving the content far outweighed the acceptable cost per user ratio intended by the publisher? This is known as the "slashdot" effect and can be applied to a number of scenarios across the digital publishing realm.

What inevitably happens is that, a small publisher of content creates a particular amount of media (be it an article, graphic, executable application, etc) that somehow finds massive appeal and favor among millions of people around the world. This in turn opens a virtual floodgate of people trying to access the content online, and thus the servers (of which the publisher is more than likely leasing) are collectively bombarded with content requests.

For a fortified server, such is usually not a problem as bandwidth is appropriated accordingly. But for low bandwidth servers (or say, publishers who cannot afford large bandwidth) we see either that the website in question is obliterated under the weight of the traffic, or that the host charges massive overages to the publisher - of which the publisher many times cannot afford.

Decentralized Content Distribution in this scenario can easily alleviate the major cause of this, while using very little of the network resources individually, but overall serving the content as though it were from a high speed server. Undeniably, 10k/sec from a large amount of servers adds up in the end just as pennies can add up in the large scale of things.

So say your server was being requested of 10k/sec. On your access per month, this amounts to very little and is inconsequential. But now multiply that by 200 servers, and you see that the content can be served at around 2000k/sec or higher (depending on the actual Kb/sec each server is appropriating). So, like a vest of Kevlar, when the bullet (the millions of requests) hit the main server, the Decentralized Network intercepts the bullet and spreads the traffic across a large area in small doses.

For websites, this seems to work amazingly well and, in fact, some websites currently handle their traffic this way (with 25 million users even though the main server remains low on bandwidth usage). The idea here is that I got to thinking about how this could be used in order to solve an age old problem concerning online Virtual Reality.

In one of the earliest written synopsis for an online virtual community (Habitat) Morningstar and Farmer pointed out that in order for a wide scale virtual environment to continually grow the servers of the content could not be centralized. Decentralization was key to the continued advancement and growth of virtual environments. I would like to believe also that this pertains to the "environment server" as well as the content server (many times these two are seperate), though I am currently focusing on a solution for the content end (with the environment server being a consideration well into the future).

When I muse of this, what I am thinking is that while current systems can easily handle tens of thousands of simultaneous users, the price per user begins to see an exponential increase in cost proportional to the amount of users. In essence, we see an exponential increase when the system is centralized.

Taking this into account, even the best planned and programmed system will begin to see an ultimate limit as to how many users can co-exist per centralized server before the costs of that system become prohibitive to it's expansion. And herein lies the point of Decentralized Content Distribution Networks.

While I am unfamiliar with the detailed mechanics of systems such as Second Life or There, I do understand that they take a fundamentally similar approach to the content that is served in their virtual environments. While Second Life effectively "streams" content using a derivative of the RealMedia system (as Phillip Rosedale was one of the creators of the format) I am want to believe that the content still comes from a centralized system of servers. In this much I am certain, though it is quite possible that the Second Life system also groups persons by node in order to offload the distribution of the content. I could be very wrong in the last aspect, but the behavior of the system seems to warrant such node grouping.

In recent months, I have read such articles wherein a self replicating object in the Second Life environment has managed to disable their servers, so in light of this new information I am now leaning toward the idea that they are attempting to run the Second Life environment on a centralized system.

This in itself is fine if a company in this field wishes to establish a user base of no larger than 100,000, but around such time, the cost per user will begin to skyrocket out of control as the numbers increase past this threshold.

In the end, seeing as I am interested in the theoretical applications of virtual environments and it's advancement, I have found that the Active Worlds environment seems to be the most receptive to this line of testing, and have continued toward attempting to find solutions to problems outlined in the synopsis "Lessons Learned From Lucasfilm's Habitat" Morningstar & Farmer, of which happens to be attempting to address the centralization problem.

Over the past few months I have indeed found a very plausible candidate for solving this Decentralization aspect within the Active Worlds environment by routing the Object Path through a server-side P2P network which self replicates and organizes the information from a main server across 260 high bandwidth servers around the world as a specific type of hash file. The more bandwidth that the Object Path requires, the more efficient the CDN will become, even though in beginning to use it I have noticed variable speeds (but not enough testing or time has been given to this in order to gauge it's overall ability).

One thing that I have immediately noticed is that it actually works in the Active Worlds environment, though entering the specific address to begin with in the World Properties Dialog and hitting apply will crash your browser, after you restart the browser you immediately realize that while it crashed your browser the change in address did take effect and the Object Path is being redirected through the CDN, thus beginning the hash replication and self organization across the whole network (server side and not user side).

After some various testing in the virtual world, I have noticed that it has a 99% accuracy when downloading the various files from the distributed network (99% as in that maybe 5 or 6 files will randomly time out while trying to be located and thus not properly loading, though simply exiting and re-entering the world seems to automatically correct this problem).

While I will not disclose exactly how this method is accomplished, I will say that for the most part it works just fine. I would imagine that it would perform much better under much higher stress than a few users entering at random, so this method would be best used for virtual environments where you are expecting a much higher stress on the Object Path (hundreds, thousands or more users). In theory, it would be possible to minimize the overall bandwidth consumption of an entire universe server's set of Object Paths even if it were to be filled to the brink with users (possibly serve every Object Path in a universe from a single cable modem and a home computer with low latency).

So from the theoretical application to the proof of concept, at least the serving of the content part can be decentralized as suggested by Morningstar and Farmer.

Update of Doom

So among the things I was up to today, updating the website was one of them. I had previously thrown in a ton of AJAX and javascript for the site but never actually put them to use, instead simply laying the foundations for a later date. While I am not completely finished with this AJAX thing, I did manage to accomplish quite a bit for this round. And then something entirely odd happened...

Firefox decided it no longer wished to display PNG files. Actually, I should rephrase that - Firefox refused to display one particular PNG file I was trying to use for the new design. The image in question happened to be the new header image with the AW Gate, of which I originally saved as banner1.png on the server. No big deal, I figured, since I had already used PNG format for most of the site.

So I go to load it up in Firefox to check what it looks like and it simply doesn't show up.

Weird... so I crack open Internet Explorer 7 and it shows up fine. Stranger still. Then I ask a friend to check out the page using Opera (you know, the code nazi) and it shows up in Opera. Now I'm totally baffled...

Once again I open Firefox and still it doesn't show up. At this point I start tearing apart the HTML by hand to see if there is a missing div tag or something that IE7 would overlook... no dice. For all intents and purposes, the code was fine and it should have worked.

So after about an hour of tearing out my hair and using words reserved for less of a family occasion, I finally just open Photoshop thinking "This is a stupid reason for Firefox not to see this... it can't possibly be the reason..."

So I open the graphic and simply rename it. Uploaded it to the server and bingo... it worked in firefox.

What the heck just happened here? The world may never know... in any event, along with using the reflect tag for some images on the site (I had previously set the framework up for this but never used it) I also redid the Updates section to match the theme of the website. Again, I used a framework I had set up but previously didn't use (being the AJAX RSS feeder) to pull the RSS for this section you are reading into the custom layout for the website.

While I was at it, I decided to make a few more graphics for the website (logo for the Metaverse EX listing on the products page, and also the AW2EX) and throw the reflect on them. So all in all, things look good. There are still some things I need to work out for later (like the header for the templates section) and I am thinking about changing the Updates link to read News instead - apparently this may be confusing for some readers.

I also decided (out of shear boredom) to place a Digg link on the first page as a private joke to try and get a story about VR5 Online buried. Seriously, I wanted people to bury the story just out of boredom... lol. Either way I didn't care, but just wanted to see what would happen.

Also changed was the wording for the About Us section to reflect our laid back attitude (or more importantly, mine) and also to announce that VR5 Online apparently qualifies as a Web 3.0 company. Seriously I have no idea what that means, I was trying to validate some AJAX on the site to make sure it registered and the site that did the validation said we do not qualify as a Web 2.0 company, to which I raised an eyebrow.

Further down the list it was overjoyed to inform me that we were a Web 3.0 company instead. Now I'm just outright confused, but my train of thought says that 3.0 is better than 2.0 any day. So if Web 2.0 is the next big thing, then Web 3.0 must be like a religious experience to geeks or something...

Anyway, that's my news for today... other than that, I'm still messing around with the AJAX stuff. Oh wait.. one more thing...

I noticed recently that there seems to be two prominent frameworks for AJAX being used. In one corner you have Prototype and in another JQuery. Now, I know people from either camp could go on for years about the benefits of either, but here's the deal - I use JQuery simply because it more or less makes my life that much easier to code. I haven't had a chance to mess with Prototype in detail yet, but it seems a hell of a lot harder to work with than JQuery.

So what is the concern? Well the Web 2.0 validator looks specifically for Prototype when checking for Web 2.0 and not JQuery (or both). So many of the things that would normally qualify as Web 2.0 and AJAX simply are a no show to this validator because there is no instance of Prototype being used.

Just something that came to mind on the spur of the moment. Why is it that Web 2.0 has to be ridiculously hard to deal with in order to garner any credit? I mean, if somebody creates an easy to use framework, then why try to discredit it?

I don't think I'll even understand how this works... and trust me, I have over ten years in sociology, so you would think I would be able to have a bit of insight. After all of these years, the only thing I know for sure is that people in general are lunatics.

And I mean that in the nicest possible manner, of course...

Heavily Medicated and Enjoying the Padded Room - Darian Knight