text:
3D Game Comparison
Creating Active Worlds
RenderWare Objects
Direct3D Support
Cache Deletion
10/17/11: Italicized app, game, and series names.
5/20/7: Added Wikipedia link to What could AW be?
6/28/6: What could AW be? - Added "Competition/Collaboration" to end. Edited recent news/updates to be more specific.
4/11/6: What could AW be? - Bolded game names and Star Trek. Changed holodeck link to Wikipedia since it's more comprehensive and also links to the holodeck FAQ. Minor editing/rewording for time passage regarding Trespasser's physics engine. Added links for VRML and "level editor".
3/18/6: What could AW be? - Updated "World Editor" and its examples; changed remaining "AWC" to "AWI".
3/8/6: What could AW be? - Fixed: holodeck image...again, and various HTML to make it more compatible with Firefox.
7/18/4: Added "mega" cell data limit and 250-character action field limit to saving cell data.
7/16/4: Added media command remark to Saving Cell Data: URLs. Tweaked menus again--I can't decide if I like the smaller font or not. :/
7/15/4: Tweaked WebRing.
7/10/4: Added Saving Cell Data icon and cache link. Tweaked WebRing and menus.
7/8/4: Added counter news/update, screenshot image to Curving Roads tip, and icons for tips and cache deletion. Edited What could AW be?
7/7/4: Added AW webring.
7/1/4: Renamed and updated, well, news/updates. Tweaked layout a bit.
6/30/4: Fixed some dead links. Added subsection titles to What could AW be?.
6/27/4: Tweaked object properties dialog box prototype font with 8-point Tahoma so it looks tighter.
6/18/4: Renamed, edited table of, and added an image to Curving Roads tip.
4/26/3: Fixed holodeck image, added Technical Manual link to What could AW be?, and updated icons.
9/21/2: Redesigned layout.
10/27/1: Fixed some links.
6/19/1: Edited Saving Cell Data.
1/20/1, 7/1/2K: Edited What could AW be?
9/5/99: ?
...?...
10/31/98: Created counter.
What is Active Worlds?
Active Worlds (AW) is an immersive, three-dimensional (3D), on-line, interactive, multi-user, real-time, building/chatting, virtual reality (VR) environment. Overhyped buzzwords aside, AW is basically a 3D multiuser level editor.
AW allows one to "build" with (manipulate) premade 3D objects/models that are made outside of AW. Until AW3 (released in April, 2001), AW had little object manipulation abilities: keyboard used for up/down/left/right/back/foward movement (x-/z-axis movement) and y-axis rotation, but a complicated, crude "scripting" language for changing textures, overall object color (by use of textures on non-texture mapped objects), movement animation, and attaching sounds (WAVs/MIDIs) to objects (activated by either clicking—"activating"—or "bumping" into them), still exists. Prior to AW3 there was also no light control whatsoever within AW directly (only per-object surface reflectivity could be changed). opacity and scaling still can't be accomplished without learning another complicated scripting language, RenderWare scripting (RWX), which was integrated into the rendering engine, Criterion RenderWare 2.1, (but had to be rewritten from scratch for AW3 because of Criterion's lack of backwards compatibility for RWX in RW3) to get any real control over objects, or attempt to convert an object made from even more complicated 3D modellers (3D Studio, Maya, trueSpace, Lightwave, etc.). The whole process just reeks of user-unfriendliness and unintuitivity.
If AW's current developers, Activeworlds, Inc. (AWI), ever hope to make AW more popular, they must make it more user-friendly, intuitive, and easier to use. For example, requiring world owners to edit a text file just to add avatars is not something the majority of computer users would want to do (user-unfriendly). Not everyone is a programmer and there are more end-users than programmers yet most programmers seem to continue to write programs only programmers can adequately use. I just don't get it...
See Wikipedia: Active Worlds for more info.
Curved Roads
(street*.rwx) Left Right
[Shift]+[Page Up] twice
[Shift]+left arrow 5 times
[Shift]+down arrow 6 times [Shift]+[Page Down] twice
[Shift]+right arrow 5 times
[Shift]+down arrow 6 times
Also see Object Manipulation.
Saving Cell Data
Cell data is what is transferred from the world server to your computer when you see the "Received x bytes" in the status bar's property updates section (Show|Property Updates menu). All text fields in the "Object Properties" box make up this data, and is transferred as you move about in a world. The less bytes that need to be transferred, the faster objects will appear and the less likely the Building Inspector will tell you an area (cell) is full, so keeping this data as small as possible will improve performance and allow more commands, considering the 250-character (byte) limit per action field.
The main fields that usually use the most bytes are the "Description" and "Action" fields. So, for example, don't waste bytes labelling every object with your name in the "Description" field because your name will already show up in the "Owner" field. As for the action field:
condensed words: Commands that use "off" (like "solid off", "visible off", etc) can be replaced with "no". It does the same thing and is one character (byte) shorter. Use "on" instead of "yes" to save another byte.
extensions: ".jpg", ".wav", ".mp3", etc; only for object-path files (remote URLs still require extensions).
sign objects: By default, signs have a blue background and white text, so don't duplicate these ("bcolor=", 7 bytes; "blue", 4 bytes; "color=", 6 bytes; "white", 5 bytes; and don't forget about the space between the color statements--another byte). Also, using a single character (like ".", "-", etc) will make the color black, so don't type out "black" (5 bytes) or "#000000" (7 bytes in hex).
spaces: Spaces ( ) after commas (,) and semicolons (;) are unnecessary and can save many bytes when using many action commands.
URLs: "http://" (7 bytes) is unnecessary (except for AW 3.6+'s media command) and "create url" (10 bytes) isn't needed if the URL is the only thing in the action field (which doesn't work in AW 3.1+).
Total byte savings: ~50 bytes (it can quickly add up considering all objects in a cell)
Note: 1 byte = 1 ASCII character
AW cell data (byte) limits:
"normal" = 1400
"large" = 2000
"huge" = 4000
"mega" = 5000
Note: this doesn't work in AW3+. To remove texture(s) from an object (and revert to the solid polygon color), use a texture name that doesn't exist on the world object server. I usually use a dot (.) since single characters save cell data, too.
Reducing Unnecessary Texture Downloading
By default, AW's "animate" command downloads all subsequent/preceeding/previous textures that have numbers in their names (like texture1.jpg, texture2.jpg, texture3.jpg, etc). When specifying textures on objects in the action field (like " animate me texture 1 1 0" to use texture1.jpg), instead of using "texture 2 2 0", "texture 3 3 0", etc for textures after the first number (texture1), use "texture2. 1 1 0", "texture3. 1 1 0", etc so all subsequent textures aren't downloaded. This is very helpful for textures with double- or triple-digit numbers after the same texture name (such as in New Metatropolis), but applies to any same-named textures with numbers at the end. Of course, with AW3+ this isn't really necessary since the "texture" command is much more efficient.
Note: Using dots (.) for textures with masks won't display the mask unless the mask was already downloaded. Masks will download as "#x.jpg": "#" is the number used before the dot in the texture name (i.e. "texture1."), and "x" is the character that designates a mask (usually "m"). Leave the dot off masked textures.
If the action field only has a single "create sound wavfile" command ("noise" doesn't work), just "sound:wavfile" (no extension) will work, saving 7 bytes.
Also see Active Worlds' Help - "Building Tips".
The cache can be deleted depending on what you're trying to accomplish. As a general rule, deleting only the index (idx) files in the appropriate object server directory (like C:\Program Files\Active Worlds\cache\art\objects.activeworlds.com-aw) will be sufficient to cause a redownload of the appropriate data (dat) file of the same name ("download", "model", and "texture"). So if you have texture corruption, delete texture.idx; model corruption, delete model.idx; and if you want to force a redownload of all models and textures, delete download.idx.
The ...\cache\property\<world> directory and subsequent files are only necessary to delete when cell corruption has occurred.
AW's original and old icons were boring, 16-color (4-bit) icons for many years until April 2003. AW's current icon is much better but if you don't like it, replace it with one or all (with a program that can change icons at a set interval) of these cooler 16.7 million-color (24-bit) icons. Right-click and "Save Link As..." 'em:
What could Active Worlds be?
Activeworlds, Inc. (AWI), specifically Rick Noll (CEO) and JP McCormack (CFO), seem to think streaming multimedia (audio-video) is AW's future. They used to think that the much overhyped buzzword-of-the-year (in 2000 anyway) "e-commerce" route is where AW should be marketed toward. They just haven't learned from the failure of their wanna-be mall world, sp@mart (spam mart)--er @mart, and have even gone so far as to sucker companies in countries outside the US (Australia, Korea, China, etc--see AWI's press releases) to lead them to believe this so-called "e-commerce" bandwagon is the direction AW should be marketed toward. Sorry, but it's not working...
Take a hint from other on-line-only 3D games like Ultima Online and EverQuest that interactive 3D gaming environments are way more popular than 3D wanna-be "e-commerce" applications. Think about it. Add simple gamelike features to AW like avatar jumping, an inventory so things can be picked up and dropped, and even shooting and I will bet AW's popularity will easily double within 6 months. People don't want to waste money on a 3D card, downloading and installing software, and waiting for each world's content to download just so they can spend more time and wasing more money on crap they don't want or need in shopping mall worlds and forced in their faces by annoying ads. No, people would rather interact and create/destroy environments. Why? Because it's more fun to most people! Take a poll or something, eh? Or at least hire a marketing suit who actually knows something about marketing and product design. Sure you have some simple card/board gaming worlds devoted to bingo, checkers, chess, spades, etc, but, come on, AW is capable of so much more complex and intensive gaming if you only actually decided to push AW's development more towards 3D gaming on a similar level to most other 3D games out there. Rick and JP, please get the hint before AWLD stock flatlines at 0 soon (which it's been flirting dangerously close to in recent months)--and is now defunct as a publically-traded company. Point proven.
Holodeck
Now for my vision of what I would like AW to become: like a holodeck. Now while a Star Trek holodeck, with its transporter and holographic projection technologies (Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual explanation ), probably isn't possible at this time, a much more simpler, late-20th-/early-21st-century computer 3D environment with VR immersion devices (optics, tactile sensor suits, multi-axis trainer, etc)-equivalent version (a "3D holodeck>", if you will) is. Even still, the VR immersion devices are still science fiction for most people. In fact, what I want is quite possible with current technology because it is mostly what AW is, but with an integrated "level editor", since holodecks can be programmed to portray specific immersive environments.
Now, the term "level editor" is somewhat ambiguous though because it implies AW is a game, as a lot of games have level editors, which allow one to edit/change/modify either the actual original game levels and/or create new levels altogether. But because AW uses "worlds" instead of "levels", the differences are minor. Also, AW is becoming more and more gamelike what with all the game-specific worlds AWI is creating (mostly limited to the "classic" board and card games) and RPG (role-playing game) worlds other people have created.
In level editors, the "level" (derived from when games were two-dimensionally horizontal/vertical scrolling; or "level", as opposed to "angled"--"angle editor"? perhaps "space editor" would be better term) is created by placing 3D object primitives (cubes, cones, spheres, etc—simple shapes) in a usually definable, empty space and carving/cutting/hollowing/slicing them up to get whatever shape one desires. Colors, textures, lights, and game-specific information (player/enemy/item/trigger locations) are added not in real-time as when playing the actual game, but in a separate, "laboratory"-like setting with (usually) four views: three 2D (top/bottom, side, front/back), that usually have a size-configurable grid, and one 3D, that may or may not have zoom/pan/movement capabilities. GameSpot has an article with more detailed info on 3 commercial level editors.
World Editor
AW, in contrast, uses "worlds" and defaults to a flat, infinitely repeating ground object and backdrop image wrapped cylindrically and axis-aligned around the world. These are optional and the world can have no backdrop, any background color, and the ground can be sectional or removed completely. Skyboxes are also possible. For light, AW used to allow only one, white, static light source (but version 3.1 is more like most level editors which allow multiple, colored, dynamic light sources) is currently available. For views, AW uses just a single 3D perspective while level editors tend to have 3 2D views (top, front, side) and a 3D view. Moving objects (as described above) is easy enough, yet there is no x-/z-axis rotation (AW 3.1+ offers limited object rotation). Object scaling and individual vertex/polygon creation/manipulation/deletion (which require learning RenderWare's scripting language, RWX, to get any real control over, and which detracts from 3D-immersed world building) are not integrated into AW.
Other examples to expand on that would make for a more immersive 3D building environment (compared to game level editors) are:
community/collaborative vs. individual building
remote modelling: no need to be in the same physical space
communicate ideas easier and quicker
3D perspective building vs. 2D perspective modelling
textured/untextured/wireframe/vertex rendering
linear/bilinear/trilinear/mipmapping texture filtering
3D grid
2D grids-overlayed into 3D
scale/size configurable
AW has so much potential, but that potential is just not being realized with AWI, which after they alienated AW's original developer, Ron Britvich (Protagonist), AW development has been even more stagnant than it was when he and Roland Vilett developed it, although 3.1 was released relatively shortly after AW3.
While AW is not implicitly a game, I believe it would develop far more quickly if it was treated and developed as a game (and possibly aquired by a computer gaming company with the resources and development team to develop AW faster than AWI can with its now 3-man programming "army", which only during 3.1's development did AW aquire a third programmer). AWI used to be a publically traded company, but I still urge any computer/video game company looking to take over and lead this unique market AW leads (which isn't saying much considering the state of on-line 3D VR as a whole) to think about either partnering up with AWI, buying them out and developing AW better, or simply making a better product altogether.
4/15/2K - In response to a beta newsgroup post:
Of course most of the gamelike functions I mentioned should be optional, but if AW ever hopes to compete with 3D games it will have to become more like them. It should be obvious by now (except to Rick and JP, of course) that AW's popularity lies in its entertainment and not it's supposed e-commerce value. Until AW can even begin to compete with 3D games its e-commerce value will be practically non-existant. However, AW does have one thing going for it: propietarity. It's pretty unique in what it does and if the stock analyst I heard on one of the major networks has anything to say about propietarity is that they are more likely to become profitable than rehashed software/websites that don't really bring anything new to the industry.
So, according to this analyst, while Amazon.com's famous for books (yet also offers CDs, tapes, videos, etc), wanna-bes like CDnow.com won't last very long unless they don't do something the other already established, big-name sites like Amazon.com aren't already doing. Because AW is, for all intensive purposes, the last remaining survivor of "the mid-90s on-line VR software flood", it will probably eventually become popular for being such a unique niche in on-line-only (or massively multiplayer--MMP) software. However, once 3D games integrate more and more real-time level editing features and then make it multiplayer, I doubt AW will be able to survive compared to the budgets of these game developers/publishers.
In essence, AW's time is rapidly running out, and if it does not establish itself as being enough ahead of most MMPs and 3D games (that include level editors) in general, I doubt it will survive a few years from now. Yes, I know a few years is a while in the computer industry but, compared with most 3D games, AW has changed very little since its inception back in 1995. Note that I will soon update this 3D game comparison with AW3's features.
I think AW has real potential but it's just taking forever for it to reach that potential! I just don't think Rick and JP have the vision Ron seemed to have...
I think when AWI (then-COF) initially charged for citizenships it may have helped them out a bit (and still some to a relatively small degree compared to galaxy/universe servers and custom world design--like with Yosemite, The 13th Floor, etc), but I think it will really hinder AW's popularity instead of helping because of how Rick and Danny back in 1995 or so said AW would always be free.
Everquest and Ultima Online (which charge something like around $10-$15/month or so) and have around 150,000 subscribers or so, just show that there is a market for online 3D environments, but the companies behind these on-line games have the funding to take losses while AWI does not.
I'm just waiting for some 3D game company to get a clue and release an on-/off-line, multi-user, real-time, interactive, level editor that has the option of letting users create the level as they play it--changing, manipulating, adding/deleting to it as they're immersed in it. AW allows this to some degree, but most current 3D game level editors allow much more realism in terms of object creation, lighting, and special effects. Real-time interaction is the key, and AW needs to greatly improve on this because it is a very static environment compared to most games, which gets boring quick. The more like a game environment AW becomes, I think the more popular it will be.
Game replayability is much higher with a level editor than without. People are more likely to play levels made by other people and groups of people long after the original game levels have been played to death. Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Unreal, Half-Life, Thief, etc are good 3D game examples of this, and non-3D games like Civilization, SimCity, WarCraft, etc also prove this. Maxis' The Sims is a 2D/3D hybrid game (The Sims 2 is fully 3D) which also has much user customization ability.
And multiplayer just makes a game even more popular. AW should learn from other games' successes and adapt accordingly. A game/program that merges both of these aspects is a definite hit. It's just that for some reason no company has put the two together. Well, I think it's long overdue for such a program! I keep hoping AWI gets that clue. I've tried getting Eidos/Core (publisher/developer of Tomb Raider) to do it but they just don't get it. I think Ron Britvich knows what I want, but of course he's gone from AWI now...so then there's GEL, which Ron told me about a while ago, and may result in what I want, but not much has been happening with it and it seems to be stagnating like VRML was...
3D Holodeck
I think a "killer app" still needs to come out that really motivates people into saying "wow, 3D is awesome!". I think that app would be a 3D holodeck where people could create their own environment (WYSIWYG-style, without requiring textual programming knowledge, and created in real-time—the same time the "game" is being "played") and immersive experience. It could even be linked to a 3D operating system (OS) like Microsoft's GDI+ to provide for an even more seamless immersion experience, but I'd be happy with an app that'd let me create my own 3D games with action, adventure, and simulation all rolled into one. And there's no reason such games can't be linked together seamlessly without requiring separate 3D engines made my separate gaming companies to be loaded, sucking up even more memory and CPU power than they already do.
So, for example, starting out on my 3D computer's OS (3D OS), say I want to go into an urban 3D environment. Well, since I'd probably be on the Net, I Web on over to an urban 3D website, The details of "webbing" seamlessly to a 3D urban website would require how immersive a 3D experience I want my 3D OS to be. Does my 3D OS desktop look like the room where my computer is? If so, it would need to look fairly, if not completely, similar to the room. Or it could look like a hotel as with Buzz 3D's VR Windows desktop (although this is not a good example of what I'm referring to). Next, which "urban environment" do I want to go to? If I'm in a suburb, do I just hop in my car and drive there? How would that be represented by computerized 3D? Oh, why a driving simulation (sim) of course! And anyone into games knows how many illions of those sims are out there...so integrating one into this 3D OS shouldn't be too difficult.
3D Environment
The possibilities are endless for seamless 3D environments, and the key would be the interconnectedness of them all. And of course many people could be in these environments just like all the illions of people on the Net today. This is why I like AW because it is probably the most advanced form of a community-based 3D, on-line, environment today, despite its near-stagnant development growth and obsolete 3D engine (Criterion's RenderWare). It has great potential for what I'm thinking of, but needs more integrated level-editing and world-building capabilities, as well as a much more developed SDK (software developers kit) so it can develop faster (like Linux) and be expanded to other apps (like an OS).
If people realized the potential of just such an on-line, multi-user, 3D holodeck, I think they would be willing to see that 3D offers far more immersive potential than 2D could ever dream of doing. And 3D is only going to get better as more explicit hardware support (like CPUs with 3D calculation support) are developed, different rendering techniques (polygons, NURBS, other curved surfaces) are created, and, of course, the applications (games, utilities, OSes). I remember seeing a link about a guy who was creating a 3D Windows shell or whatever, but I can't find it now. Anyway, it's happening. Hardcore gamers have already embraced 3D for the most part so it won't be too long before most other games are made/remade in 3D. I don't know why people make such a fuss over changing from 2D to 3D anyway; I mean 3D only means more, not less, immersion; and immersion is very fundamental to adventure/RPG games. I think such people just haven't experienced enough immersive 3D environments to realize the potential for 3D adventure/RPG games...
Since 3D environments allow for a great level of immersion, why shouldn't they allow more adventure/exploration and interaction within these environments? 3D seems like a natural for such things to me. And with dynamic polygons, there's no reason one should not be able to build/mold/sculpt/shape the environment in a real-time level-editing (environment-creating) program, preferably integrated into the "game" itself. And letting multiple people simultaneously create this environment would allow for even more of an immersive experience, not to mention make one awesome community!
Immersive, interactive, 3D environments should include complete camera (1st-/3rd-person) control and player control (all body movement: bend, kick, lift, pick up/put down, fingers, sit, stand, crawl, crouch, jump, climb, rope/monkey swing, etc.). Granted it may be a challenge to code all this, but the more games become like this, the more realistic and immersive they will be to "play" in. But such a program would have much more potential besides a mere "game". It's all about virtual reality (VR) and getting closer to a 3D holodeck.
Forget boring role-playingesque adventure games, no-brainer first-person shooters, and dull puzzle games. The game industry needs new genre classifications, including multi-genre (crossgenre/transgenre/metagenre) genres and terms for new genres I can't think up right now (neo-, post-, etc)! Stop rehashing what everyone else is doing and start doing more along what companies like Dreamworks did with Trespasser, Looking Glass did with Thief and System Shock 2, Relic did with Homeworld, Appeal did with Outcast, Bullfrog did with Dungeon Keeper 2, etc. Forget 2D and 2.5D (isometric) games and add another dimension with 3D already; it's where the industry is and has been heading anyway.
For you virtual reality buffs out there, get out of your labs and start doing something with all that "research" instead of writing so many damn whitepapers! Haven't you stagnated the VR industry enough (VRML anyone?). The 3D gaming industry is blowing right past you and you don't even realize it since you're still playing with theories about VR while other people are actually using VR (3D).
Call to Action!
Let's get that 3D holodeck created already! Link 3D games together to create a massively parallel, interactive, real-time, multi-user, immersive environment with seamless transitions between environments (space, air, sea, land, microscopic, subatomic, quark, superstring—well, that may be going a tad too far, but...). Stop competing in development of 3D and start cooperating/collaborating towards an object-oriented, plug-in-style 3D environment architecture!
Trespasser (c. 1998) is not that bad despite all of its negative reviews. It's interesting to have such freedom of movement to manipulate things with the player's hand. Sure, it's clunky and hard to control at times, but at least Trespasser's designers tried new things. And the physics was probably the most realistic of any game I tried until Havok's physics engine came along in 2000. I tire of all the rehashed games out there that focus on aliens, death, destruction, combat, mayhem, shooting, killing, and violence. While Trespasser, unfortunately, has dinosaur killing, I think of it more as an adventure-exploration-simulation game. I like that.
If Homeworld was as adventurous, explorative, and simulating, I think it would have sold better and been more fun. A good story is fine, but if the game is a good enough simulation, the story should be bypassable like it supposedly is in Terminus (I tried the beta but couldn't handle the frustrating unintuitive interface), which has multiple playing modes: free play, scenario (where the story comes in), and deathmatch. This versatility gives it a better chance in general popularity since it covers so much ground. And Thief 2 was rumored to have a multiplayer cooperative mode where, instead of focusing on deathmatch and mindless killing, people would have to work together to "case a joint" (but it never got implemented). Thief's developer, Looking Glass, was also innovative and tried new things, while id and Epic are still stuck on their silly mindless deathmatch model with Quake and Unreal. <yawn> Borrrrrring...id and Epic could learn from Valve (Half-Life et al) and other games like Hidden & Dangerous which focus on cooperative team play. Players want to think more in games. Mindless shooting is getting old, outdated, and obsolete.
If games in general were programmed more modularly to allow other developers to add connected environments (in Homeworld/Terminus' cases: planetary and moon surface environments) to deepen the level of immersion within the game, I think that would draw even more popularity. When a game can go from a space combat sim to exloration on a planet's surface in search of minerals/items/people or just to explore, that will be a kick-ass game! Giving the player the opportunity to do things they would never normally get the chance to do before in immersive, seamless, 3D environments that are huge, expansive, modular, and initially designed to be added onto (with in-game environment creation/manipulation/deletion), will greatly increase popularity (and sales for all you suits)! And add multiplayer/network capabilities and it will even be more popular. Community can play a big role in keeping a game alive. Look at Quake, StarCraft, Half-Life, Ultima Online, and even Active Worlds for examples of this. Most of these games also have level editors which also serve to keep continued interest in them. Integrate the level editor into the game so players can experience full immersion and I bet people would never want to leave.
If one (1) 3D engine was developed in which all 3D gaming companies devoted their resources, time, and energy towards, imagine the state of 3D game technology today. I'm sure it would be many times better than all other 3D games combined!
There's so much potential here! Hell, if I could stand programming, I'd be doing it, but all I can do is rant and try to motivate programmers and other people into working together to achieve this. But I'll be glad to help test and design any such environments! Let's make it happen people!
If you know of a program in development or one that already exists, based on what I've described above, please email me about it! And if you'd like to work on creating (programming) just such an environment, I'd be interested in knowing and would love to help out as well.
Competition/Collaboration
I've been using Second Life since 12/2004 and it has most AW's improvements. There, The Croquet Project, and many other virtual world/environment applications are out there that just seem to just be reinventing the wheel. When are developers going to stop competing with each other and start collaborating? It's like 3D engines--there are HUNDREDS of them out there. Good god, people, do you realize how much further along things would be if people worked together on them instead of competing? I hate capitalism. Give me democratic communism any day (minus the dictator of course and without lobbyists buying off politicians and circumventing the democratic process).
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text:
package org.apache.shindig.gadgets.parse;

import com.google.common.collect.Lists;

import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.Element;
import org.w3c.dom.Node;
import org.w3c.dom.traversal.DocumentTraversal;
import org.w3c.dom.traversal.NodeFilter;
import org.w3c.dom.traversal.NodeIterator;

import java.util.List;
import java.util.Set;

/**
 * Utility functions for navigating DOM
 */
public class DomUtil {
  /**
   * @return first child node matching the specified name
   */
  public static Node getFirstNamedChildNode(Node root, String nodeName) {
    Node current = root.getFirstChild();
    while (current != null) {
      if (current.getNodeName().equalsIgnoreCase(nodeName)) {
        return current;
      }
      current = current.getNextSibling();
    }
    return null;
  }

  public static List<Element> getElementsByTagNameCaseInsensitive(Document doc,
      final Set<String> lowerCaseNames) {
    final List<Element> result = Lists.newArrayList();
    NodeIterator nodeIterator = ((DocumentTraversal) doc)
        .createNodeIterator(doc, NodeFilter.SHOW_ELEMENT,
            new NodeFilter() {
              public short acceptNode(Node n) {
                if (lowerCaseNames.contains(n.getNodeName().toLowerCase())) {
                  return NodeFilter.FILTER_ACCEPT;
                }
                return NodeFilter.FILTER_REJECT;
              }
            }, false);
    for (Node n = nodeIterator.nextNode(); n != null ; n = nodeIterator.nextNode()) {
      result.add((Element)n);
    }
    return result;
  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Ukraine's fourth-largest city by population is one of the most popular travel destinations in the country, not at least owing to it being located at a bay of the same name in the Black Sea. The port of Odessa, along with two others in the nearby satellite towns of Illichivsk and Yuzhne, is now the primary Ukrainian seaport, handling oil and gas and freight transportation as well as passenger traffic. It is well connected to railway and pipeline transfer routes.
The city itself was founded upon decree by Catherine the Great in 1794 with the explicit intention to build a town around the port area. Before, this location had been the home of an ancient Greek and later of a Tatar settlement. Odessa is the administrative center of the Odessa oblast (province) with some 2,3 million inhabitants. The area once belonged to the historic New Russia, before it shortly became a part of the Ukrainian People's Republic and later of the Ukrainian SSR within the Soviet Union. In the Second World War, the city came under Romanian occupation and suffered many casualties, before the Red Army recaptured it in 1944.
Odessa has managed to preserve elements of the influences it experienced over the years in its rich cultural scene. The cityscape is stamped by the nearby ocean with port and beaches. Not far from the city, the Dniester river flows into the Black Sea.
Corresponding to location and the geographical conditions - the city's surrounding areas are mostly flat with very few minor elevations - the climate in the region is largely influenced by the open waters. There are comparatively dry, mild winters with temperatures not dipping below 0° C too often, more precipitation in the summer and a climate that is considered healthy year-round. The water temperature at the coast is rarely higher than 20° C.
These favorable climate conditions are beneficial to the tourism industry, one of the main economic factors in the area. Many sights in the city, such as the famous Potemkin steps or the many tree-lined boulevards as well as a number of sandy beaches lure many tourists to Odessa. Other large employers are in the shipbuilding, freight-handling and forwarding and energy industries. In addition, the city is home to several universities, among them the I.I. Mechnikov National University and the National Medical University. Odessa also has a long cultural, literary and scientific history.
Odessa's airport, renovated in 2012, serves some one million annual passengers and maintains direct connections to a few international destinations, Istanbul, Munich and Moscow being among them. Within the city, tramways, buses and cable cars as well as ferry services are available. There are also numerous connections by railway.


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Maryland Smith Research / June 1, 2020
How To Guard Against Cyber Attacks
Centralized IT decision-making at universities has lessons for other sectors
Can centralized IT decision-making protect an organization from cybersecurity breaches?
In a recent study, researchers from the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business examined how an important information technology governance mechanism – the degree of centralized decision-making – affects the likelihood of a cyber break-in. They scrutinized 504 higher education institutions over a four-year period and found that universities with a centralized IT governance model had fewer breaches.
Of course, the effect doesn't play out in exactly the same way everywhere.
Universities with an assortment of IT platforms and applications, and a variety of technology vendors, appeared to benefit more from centralized IT authority, according to the research from Maryland Smith professors Peng Huang and Henry Lucas, and Maryland Smith PhD graduate Che-Wei Liu, now at Indiana University.
The researchers argued that in the presence of more complex, diverse information systems, specialization and economies of scale played a more critical role in the defense against cybersecurity intrusions. Individual business units were less likely to afford a specialized cybersecurity expert, whereas a centralized IT office is more likely to acquire such specialized skills, because it can use resources more efficiently and avoid duplication of effort.
The researchers also found that public universities and ones with more intensive research activities benefitted the most from centralized IT governance. The research has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Management Information Systems.
The findings are important as information security becomes a more pressing issue across the public and private sectors. Major cybersecurity breaches have caused massive disruptions across business operations, along with giant financial losses and other damages, says Huang, associate professor of decisions, information and operations technology. The 2013 Target data breach, for example, affected 70 million customers, cost $67 million in settlement payouts, and resulted in the exit of the company's CIO and later its CEO.
Larger universities have lots of sensitive data, such as student financial information and social security numbers. That makes those schools highly valued targets for cyber intruders, the researchers explain. Larger universities that are also research and development (R&D) hubs are an even more attractive target, because of the intellectual property that can be stolen and misappropriated.
The centralized IT structure facilitates information-sharing across subunits, and that allows one subunit to benefit from the lessons learned by another, Huang says. "For example, once areas of security vulnerability are identified, a central IT governing body can quickly send out alerts and deploy countermeasures throughout the organization."
Huang and his co-authors focused their empirical research on higher education because the industry sees a significant fraction of all cyber attacks. In fact, 16.8% of data breaches from 2005-2015 targeted higher ed. Only the healthcare industry saw more breaches, at 26.9% of the total number of breaches.
Higher education institutions also varied in size and ownership structure (public and private), and had diverging priorities on IT efficiency and flexibility, which allowed for the comparison among subgroups and the evaluation of the generalizability of the findings. The team's findings, Huang says, offers insights across sectors and industries well beyond higher ed.
Read more: "Centralized IT Decision Making and Cybersecurity Breaches: Evidence from U.S. Higher Education Institutions" will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Management Information Systems.
Henry Lucas
Peng Huang
Journal of Management Information Systems
Maryland Smith Research
Decision, Operations and Information Technologies
Greg Muraski
Media Relations Manager
gmuraski@umd.edu
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Look no further! This 4 bed/3 bath home is gorgeous, in fantastic condition & ready to go. Located in GATED community AND zoned for new high school. Enter the dramatic foyer and look straight through to the pool. Huge living room w/French doors perfect for a home office. Formal dining room boasts beautiful wood floors, chair rail & molding, upgraded chandelier & custom draperies. Chef's dream Gourmet kitchen w/stainless appliances, double wall ovens, cooktop, advantium microwave & fridge. Gorgeous upgraded cabinetry w/crown molding, under cabinet lighting, custom backsplash, center island, granite counters & Butler's Pantry w/glass inset cabinets. The family room features gorgeous wood floors, recessed area for entertainment, surround sound wired & French doors to oversized lanai & pool. The master retreat is King sized w/tray ceiling & French doors to lanai. Pocket door to Luxurious bath with his/her custom vanities & granite tops. Even an oversized soaking tub for stress relief. All baths have upgraded floor tile as well as tub and/or shower tile, upgraded lighting, mirrors & fixtures. 3 way split plan for privacy. Bedroom 2 is HUGE and has a pocket door to guest bath. Decorator window and shower treatments and Crown molding throughout! 12' ceilings, 5 1/4" baseboards and New carpet. Huge Lanai and newly resurfaced solar heated pool. Interior/exterior painted within last 2 yrs. Garage is 20x21 and 29' on one side. You better RUN to this one. One of the few pool homes available and LOADED with upgrades!!
Lot Dimensions: 90x119x90x118, Up to 10,889 Sq. Ft.
From 429 and the Winter Garden Village proceed West on Stoneybrook West Parkway and make a left on Avalon Road. Turn left on Belle Meade Drive, through gate, proceed on Belle Meade Drive to right on Debut and home down on left.
Sign up to view market trends and price history for 1627 Debut Lane.
I am interested in 1627 Debut Lane, Winter Garden, FL 34787.


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First-Born Children More Likely to be Nearsighted
Posted: October 12, 2015 at 5:43 am / by Mer / comments (0)
tags: children, FirstBorn, Likely, more, Nearsighted
Jeremy A. Guggenheim, Ph.D. of Cardiff University in Wales, conducted a study with colleagues that found first-born individuals were more likely to be nearsighted than later-born individuals in a family.
Published online by JAMA Opthamology, the research used a sample of adults in the UK to find that the association was larger before adjusting for educational exposure, which could mean that parents reduced their investment in the education of children later in birth order.
Nearsightedness or myopia is becoming more prevalent in younger generations in many countries and is an important health issue. Some of the most well-known risk factors for myopia include genetic background, time spent outdoors, and time doing work which requires reading or seeing things close-up, including educational activities.
On average, parents have been reported to direct more of their available resources to earlier-born children, which results in better educational attainment. In doing so, parents may be exposing their earlier-born children to a more myopia-predisposing environment.
Participants in the study were UK Biobank recruits from 40 to 69 years of age, were of white ethnicity, had a vision assessment, and reported no history of eye disorders. The researchers determined the odds for myopia by birth order, adjusting for age, sex, and education. First-born individuals were about 10% more likely to be myopic and approximately 20% were more likely to have high myopia, a more severe form, than later-born individuals.
Myopia is such an important health issue, says Marie Ellis of Medical News Today, because it is a cause of visual impairment and blindness. This can take the form of myopic chorioretinal atrophy, or indirectly can cause a predisposition to cataract, glaucoma, and retinal detachment. The study adds evidence to the idea that education could be increasing myopia, but, as the authors explain, "a causal relationship cannot be confirmed using observational data."
Still, the researchers say their results "suggest that the association between birth order and myopia is not due to a new environmental pressure in the last 30-40 years" and "supports a role for reduced parental investment in education of children with later birth orders in their relative protection from myopia."
UK physicist Joshua Silver introduced self-adjustable glasses in 2009, which are inexpensive, flexible, and one-size-fits-all. Over 30,000 pairs of glasses have been provided to individuals in poorer countries.
As Tom Jacobs, writing for the Pacific Standard, puts it:
"First-born kids feel more parental pressure to achieve, which leads them to spend more time reading and studying, and subsequently increases their odds of becoming nearsighted."
But when the authors adjusted for two measures of education, the association weakened significantly. The measures were the participant's achievement level in school and the age when the participant stopped going to school altogether. In a separate study published earlier this year, it was found that an individual who attended an "academically selective school" increased his or her odds of myopia. The study used a sample of 12- and 13-year-old students in Northern Ireland.
Jacobs says the take-away is that high-achieving first-born children should balance their studies with plenty of time outdoors. He adds that kids are spending so much time staring at screens these days, the issue will be one that will no doubt continue into the future.
Grace Smith
The post First-Born Children More Likely to be Nearsighted appeared first on Education News.


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About Laura J. Eden
Egg Tempera artist Laura J. Eden has been passionate about her art since childhood. Born in Hartford Ct she studied art at Syracuse University and the University of Connecticut, receiving her BFA from UCONN in 1980
She has been a member of both the Connecticut Watercolor Society and the Connecticut Women Artists receiving awards from both. She is currently an elected member of the Connecticut Plein Air Painters Society. Laura has been in dozens of solo and group exhibitions. Her work can be found in numerous corporate collections including Otis Elevator, United Technologies Corporate, Kaiser Permanente, Aetna Life and Casualty , Cigna and the Travelers Insurance to name a few. Her work has been collected by over 1400 private and corporate collectors throughout the US and abroad.
After being a full time watercolorist for 22 years Laura switched mediums to egg tempera in 2002. Her intimate, detailed view of nature lends itself perfectly to this medium. Laura says of her work "My paintings are meant to trigger daydreams. They are a response to quiet moments spent in nature's grasp. Recalling a familiar feeling of place, they at the same time, show the viewer a more intimate, exaggerated perspective. Through my work I try to evoke a refreshing response to the commonplace."


On January 25 a large crowd convened at AlphaDogs in Burbank, to learn all about handling EX file ingest from SxS PRO memory cards and XDCAM Blu-ray optical discs, managing data workflows, and learning the tricks of editing XDCAM on Avid and Final Cut Pro systems. The event was a great chance to see how an affordable HD image can also be astonishingly good looking and actually useable in post.
Learn more about the Sony PMW-EX1.
As an added bonus, the folks from Sony showed-off their high-end LCD monitor, the BVM-L230. Learn more about it here.


For informations, to any people interested in trello and org-mode, I am developing a minor-mode for org-mode to sync your org-files with your trello.
Because sometimes, we need to work with other tools than those we like.
This has been released in melpa at the moment.
As soon as i have time, i'll release to marmalade my tags.