esz001@cck.coventry.ac.uk (Will Overington) (04/29/91)
29th April 1991 Will Overington Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering, Coventry Polytechnic, Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB, England. [Could you please consider this piece for publication in sci.virtual-worlds.] [Perhaps under a new stream heading, namely Teleutopia of Virtual Reality Objects ] In order to have a go at trying to get a teleutopia going, here is a short first try at a specification document for files describing objects. If there is interest I will try to extend it, taking into account any comments that I get. Teleutopia Of Virtual Reality Objects All objects are defined to lie in a three dimensional space which has integer coordinates, each from 0 to 999999999, namely from 0 to (1 less than a billion), in each direction. In order to allow objects to be rotated without going outside this space, please centre designs around (500 million, 500 million, 500 million) or, if objects are standing on a base, around (500 million, 500 million, 0) Along those axes where data is centred around 500 million, please keep within the limits 250 million to 750 million. This should ensure that simple rotation of any point about the centreing point will keep it within the space. Please imagine a simple handler for files of information having the following pascal data items. vvvx,vvvy,vvvz: longint; vvvstack: array[1..3,1..size_of_stack] of longint; vvvstackindex: integer; The basic system uses eight keywords. vvvzero has no parameter and initializes the vvvstackindex to 0. vvvx has one integer parameter and sets vvvx to that value. vvvy has one integer parameter and sets vvvy to that value. vvvz has one integer parameter and sets vvvz to that value. vvvpush has no parameter, increments vvvstackindex by 1 and puts the current values of vvvx, vvvy and vvvz into vvvstack at that location. vvvfill3 has no parameter, draws a 3 sided shape using the top three points on the vvvstack and fills it. The contents of the vvvstack are not affected, nor is vvvstackindex. vvvfill4 has no parameter, draws a 4 sided shape using the top four points on the vvvstack and fills it. These points must all lie in the same plane. The contents of the vvvstack are not affected, nor is vvvstackindex. vvvend has no parameter, ends an object description. For example, vvvzero vvvx 500000000 vvvy 500000000 vvvz 500000000 vvvpush vvvx 600000000 vvvpush vvvx 500000000 vvvy 700000000 vvvpush vvvfill3 vvvend At this early stage I also define vvvcopy with a single integer argument, herein called i, that increments vvvstackindex by 1 and then performs vvvstack[1,vvvstackindex]:=vvvstack[1,i]; vvvstack[2,vvvstackindex]:=vvvstack[2,i]; vvvstack[3,vvvstackindex]:=vvvstack[3,i]; For example, vvvzero vvvx 500000000 vvvy 500000000 vvvz 500000000 vvvpush vvvx 600000000 vvvpush vvvx 500000000 vvvy 700000000 vvvpush vvvfill3 vvvy 500000000 vvvz 550000000 vvvpush vvvfill3 vvvcopy 1 vvvfill3 vvvcopy 2 vvvfill3 vvvend This introduction, which is deliberately intended to be short, is trying to see if there is any interest in forming a collection of virtual reality objects as an informal group activity, with a view to eventually producing a shareware style disc, though also available on archive-servers and this groups's archive. The whole teleutopia concept is also being tried here as a first active experiment. I hope to gain experience of whether teleutopias are a workable concept, as such, and to gain experience of the best way to try to get one going and of what sort of problems arise. So, if anyone is interested to design an object within these rules, and/or suggest extensions, please do! +-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+ Will Overington Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering, Coventry Polytechnic, Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB, England. +-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+ Putting forward new ideas is like being a quarterback. First of all you will loose a few yards by even starting the play. Then there will be people trying to put you down. Sometimes it's best to hand the football to someone who is better at running, sometimes it's best to forward pass in a controlled, planned way, but at times, the only thing to do is just hurl it up in the air in a long forward pass attempt, and hope that someone out there catches it and RUNS! +-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+ --
esz001@cck.coventry.ac.uk (Will Overington) (05/04/91)
[MODERATOR'S NOTE: I regret that the last posted article in this series did not bear the correct subject header. This can happen when I juggle articles not sent via a reader. Unfortunately, some people do not have access to USENET or reader's. My apologies. -- Bob Jacobson] 3rd May 1991 Will Overington Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering, Coventry Polytechnic, Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB, England. Teleutopias I am wondering, as interest in the Teleutopia of Virtual Reality Objects grows, whether readers might like to know a little more about the theory of teleutopias that I am developing. A teleutopia is designed to be a transitory sort of thing, such that it could forever remain a teleutopia but could become something else. Ideally, it would be nice that there were established some sort of incorporated legal entity to henceforward carry out the work of organizing a knowledge base of software and sending it out to people, with a staff of people to do the work. The problem that I have sought to solve is how one goes from nothing to that situation. May I digress for a while with a view to conveying my thinking partly by analogy? In England, we used to have steam locomotives as the motive power on the railways. That era has long since passed, for everyday transport infrastructure purposes, and electric and diesel systems are used. However, several hundred steam locomotives have survived, and, by a curious chance of history many smaller branch lines were closed within a few years of the end of the era for steam as the main line method of motive power. The result, gradually achieved over the last quarter century, and still developing, is a system of small, independent railway companies using the redundant routes and running steam locomotives on trains. This is very much a hobby sort of thing and a tourist attraction, to the extent that people often travel by the main line railway to visit the steam lines. However, many of the companies now have full time staff as well as enthusiast supporters. The way that many of these companies got going is that groups of people, steam enthusiasts, lamented the passing of the days of steam locomotives actually pulling trains and did their best to conserve something of that era. There is inevitably a lot of early work establishing credibility and so on. However, when dealing with a piece of track bed in a local area by people who know each other and can easily meet face to face, given the desire to get things done, things can happen. Today, such ventures find it easier to get started, simply because there is an accepted belief that such things are credible. Now in the context of a world wide thing, such as my desire for fee-free education using telesoftware transmissions across continents, there are different considerations, as people who may be interested are distant from each other. Thus far, I have not discussed the financial aspects of teleutopias. The concept of a teleutopia is that any money deriving from the distribution of the package of teleutopiaware by the mechanisms of shareware are independent, and SEEN TO BE INDEPENDENT, of any of the participants, including the initiator or initiators of the teleutopia. I envisage this being done by there being, as well as a document specifying the scientific requirements of software and data for files in the teleutopia, a document showing that a trust with an independent trustee and a bank account has been set up, and details of the duties of the trustee. I have it in mind that the trustee should typically be a bank with no interest in the teleutopia, other than carrying out the duties of the trust, and that those duties should be specific and have hardly any discretionary aspect to them. For example, the duty of the trustee might be to keep a note of how much money is in the bank account and, if it ever reaches a certain figure, to use the money to incorporate a small company, to act as company secretary for five years and to mail everybody who has deposited their work with the teleutopia and offer them a share in the company for a very nominal amount. I am no expert on company law, but know a little about it. Hopefully, this document will reach someone who knows a lot more and who may like to improve on the idea of what will need to be specified. I happen to know that, in England at least, and maybe elsewhere, a bank account can be opened free of charge. The only thing that concerns me is as to how much money, if indeed anything, a bank would want to act as trustee until such time as any action pursuant to having got a fair amount of money into the account was needed. Clearly, if I can get my idea for this way of doing things to become accepted, for example by someone seeing this and printing it in the financial press, where people with the expertise to knock it into shape, and who may be willing to act as trustee, will see it, then getting it done will be that much easier. What money? Well, I understand that as well as the registration aspect of shareware where one pays money and gets a manual or whatever, there is a mechanism whereby some shareware distributors will pay the author a small fee for each copy of the disc that they sell. I have no idea how much this is, but suppose that it were 50 cents. In the case of a teleutopia the shareware company would send the money to the trustee. The shareware itself would be zero fee as such as there would be no organization as such supporting it. Of course, once the teleutopia had been replaced by a company, the shareholders could vote to use any further money as they wished, subject to the legal constitution of the company, which constitution may well contain requirements set out in the original trust document. This would provide some measure of protection to potential contributors to the teleutopia that their work would not be unfairly exploited. A company formed from a teleutopia might be a non-profit organization or an organization that is free to make profit and issue dividends. There is, of course, a gap between a company that is constitutionally permitted to make a profit and one which actually makes one, but, although I am not against non-profit organizations as such I feel that I must mention that I am concerned that in seeking to establish new educational opportunities with fee-free distance education, I do not create a situation where only people who have money already or who can make money in another way can benefit all the way. For example, if someone in an African village can be distance educated to the extent that he or she sends in software to such a company, and could write so much of it of such quality that they could live on the proceeds, then I want this to be constitutionally feasible in the rules of the company. Now that may be years ahead, and in practice I expect that it may well be possible to get a company formed by means of a teleutopia such as I have described, but that any dividends will be very small once running costs have been paid, though my idea of issuing trading stamps to contributors of software and having educational materials, including specially produced books, as redemption merchandise is clearly a far closer target. With the Teleutopia of Virtual Reality Objects there is no trustee and no bank account. Money does not come into it, as it is an experiment to see if I can actually get people interested in the aggregation of knowledge bases in this way. I have many matters to sort out before a teleutopia, for any subject, could be started off with money being involved. One of the considerations is that there needs to be demonstrated that there is interest in the idea itself. Faced with the enormous problem of trying to get my fictional Telesoftware Institute, or something like it, implemented in real life, I have devised the method of a teleutopia as a stepping stone to be able to get something going. It will be interesting to see whether, in a few years time, the various catalogues of shareware that are available have a section labeled TELEUTOPIAS with discs for a dozen or more teleutopias available. It will be even more interesting to see whether any teleutopias have transferred to becoming incorporated companies. For the moment we are at an initial stage, with the theory of teleutopias still being researched, yet with steady progress being made. +-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+ Will Overington Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering, Coventry Polytechnic, Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB, England. +-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+ Putting forward new ideas is like being a quarterback. First of all you will loose a few yards by even starting the play. Then there will be people trying to put you down. Sometimes it's best to hand the football to someone who is better at running, sometimes it's best to forward pass in a controlled, planned way, but at times, the only thing to do is just hurl it up in the air in a long forward pass attempt, and hope that someone out there catches it and RUNS! +-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+ --