Link (via Wonderland)
With Metaplace, designers can build worlds using a markup language, style sheets, modules, and a scripting language. Every world acts like a Web server, Koster says, and every object in a world has a URL. What this means for users of these worlds is that they can move seamlessly from the rest of the Web into the virtual world and back again, he says. A user can browse to any object in a Metaplace world from outside, and every object can be linked to the rest of the Web and exchange information with Web services. With this architecture, Koster says, he plans for users to be able to build worlds with games as simple as a two-dimensional Tetris game, or as complex as the World of Warcraft, a massive, multiplayer, online role-playing game. Users might also build widgets, such as a virtual weatherman who could deliver the latest news from weather.com, or a Coke machine that gives them a real-world coupon whenever they drink a virtual Coke. Koster says that users should be able to stage up a basic world with chat functionality and a map within about five minutes.Koster envisions users coming to a Metaplace world by clicking on a link in a Web page. That link launches a page where the user finds herself inside a world, perhaps using a default avatar, but no log-in or registration is immediately required. "They don't make you log in to play a YouTube video," Koster points out.
The Metaplace client is basically a Flash application, he says, and, consequently, is available to nearly everyone who uses the Internet. Currently, Metaplace does not allow users to build 3-D worlds, but Koster says that he expects Flash to add 3-D capabilities in the near future. The client will work anywhere on the Web, and Koster adds that he hopes to see user-generated clients built for mobile devices such as iPhones.
(Disclosure: I'm a proud member of the advisory board for Areae, Inc, the company that makes Metaplace)
Do you know where Becky's current site resides? Post in the comments and I'll add it to the main post.
Link (via Wonderland)
Schaefer feels there are strong parallels in the 'boxing-in' of experience that craft kits and mass-release games like Tomb Raider offer. In both cases, a smoothed and prefabricated reality provides entertainment to fill and define idle time. Recombining the bucolic/domestic and the erotic/violent helps Schaefer to expose these similarities and to remind us that we've checked out of everyday messy existence, whether threading our needle, or booting up our pc.
These congressional requirements will turn out to be expensive dead-ends -- the industry-sanctioned online music services are laden with DRM, and network detection/filtering programs present privacy risks and are inevitably rendered obsolete by technological countermeasures.Link (via /.)Advocates of the bill stress that the language stops short of demanding implementation -- that it only requires universities to "plan" -- but this argument misses the point entirely. The passage of this bill will unambiguously lead universities down the wrong path. For the sake of artists, administrators, students, and consumers better approaches exist.
The bill also would hang an unspoken threat over the heads of university administrators. In response to concerns that potential penalties for universities could include a loss of federal student aid funding, the MPAA's top lawyer in Washington said that federal funds should be at risk when copyright infringement happens on campus networks. Moreover, earlier versions of "Campus-based Digital Theft Prevention" proposals nakedly sought to make schools that received numerous copyright infringement notices subject to review by the US Secretary of Education.
At issue in Stoddart's letter is the idea of protecting "Digital Rights Management" anti-copying and use-control systems in law. These systems frequently spy on users and then "phone home" with detailed information about your activities. The Privacy Commissioner is understandably alarmed at the prospect of changing Canadian law to make it illegal to tamper with this spyware:
If DRM technologies only controlled copying and use of content, our Office would have few concerns. However, DRM technologies can also collect detailed personal information from users, who often do no more than access the content on a computer. This information is transmitted back to the copyright owner or content provider, without the consent or knowledge of the user. Although the means exist to circumvent these technologies and thus prevent the collection of this information, previous proposals to amend the Copyright Act contained anti-circumvention provisions.Link (via Ars Technica)Technologies that report back to a company about the use of a product reveal a great deal about an individual’s tastes and preferences. Indeed, such information can be extremely personal. Technologies that automatically collect personal information about individuals without their knowledge or consent violate the fair information principles that are central to PIPEDA and most other privacy legislation. That this occurs when individuals are engaged in a private activity in their homes or other places where they have a high expectation of privacy exacerbates the intrusiveness of the collection.
Link
Travel snacks can be enjoyed while the car is in motion with a dashboard tray which prevents cold drinks or water glasses from tipping over. The tray hangs from two cords which are held on the dashboard by suction cups. Bottles or glasses rest on two disks which are suspended below the tray on chains. When not in use, the tray can be folded into small space for storage in the glove compartment.
Link (via /.)The researchers had agents play 50 games using different RL methods. They found that methods utilizing the cross-entropy policies performed better than methods that were hand-crafted. As they explained, the basic idea of cross-entropy is that it selects the most successful actions, and modifies the distribution of actions to become more peaked around these selected actions.
During the game, the AI agent must make decisions on which way to go, which are governed by ruled-based policies. When the agent has to make a decision, she checks her rule list, starting with the rules with highest priority. In Ms. Pac-Man, ghost avoidance has the highest priority because ghosts will eat her. The next rule say that if there is an edible ghost on the board, then the agent should chase it, because eating ghosts results in the highest points.
One rule that the researchers found to be surprisingly effective was the rule that the agent should not turn back, if all directions are equally good. This rule prevents Ms. Pac-Man from traveling over paths where the dots have already been eaten, resulting in no points.
See also: Rosie the Riveter: one of many finds in that LoC Flickr set
Link to part one, Link to part two (via Making Light)Campbell provided the Military Intelligence man with Cartmill’s address–in Manhattan Beach, California. The link to the top-secret Manhattan Project based in Los Alamos was too obvious to overlook. Riley sent word to the California branch office of Intelligence that Cartmill should be placed under immediate surveillance; plainly he knew too much about our hush-hush A-bomb research. Who had tipped him off ? Both Cartmill and Campbell would need further watching.
And before long it began to seem as though a whole network of science fiction writers might be involved–a chain of conspirators. For example, the report continues, "It is established that Cartmill is very friendly with [ ], Retired U.S.N.R., who is associated with [ ] at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. This [ ] formerly was doing research work at Columbia University, and he is said to have accepted some material thought to be atomic copper from [ ] in order to measure it in the mass spectroscope at Columbia University. [ ] was advised by [ ] that the device was broken. He never received the material back from [ ]. One [ ] who has written for [ ] Magazine is said to be working with [ ] also. The possibility of the transmittal through [ ] to Cartmill has not so far been resolved. . . ."
Well, now it can be told, and you are quite familiar with the names of these sinister people. The retired naval man was Robert A. Heinlein. His Philadelphia Navy Yard associate, the former Columbia man, was Isaac Asimov. The one who sent the copper to Asimov and never got it back was Will F. Jenkins, who wrote science fiction under the pseudonym of Murray Leinster. The blanked-out magazine was Astounding, and the other writer working at the Navy Yard with Heinlein and Asimov was L. Sprague de Camp.
See also: Pulp SF magazine's role in atom bomb
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