HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: avatarp@well.sf.ca.us (Peter Rothman)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: MEETING: Second Meeting of the Virtual Reality Group
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 17:39:41 GMT
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu



Sorry for the short notice folks, but...

-----------------------------------------------------------
VRG #2: THE CHANGING FACE OF THE CYBERSPACE INDUSTRY

The recent changes at VPL, the best known virtual reality
company, have radically altered the face of the emerging
cyberspace industry.  At VRG's second meeting we will discuss
what these changes will mean and how they will impact the
development of virtual reality technology.

VRG's second meeting will feature open discussions with:

        MICHAEL EVANS (formerly of VPL, Inc.)

        BEN DELANY and SHERRY EPLEY (Cyberedge Journal)

In addition, virtual reality systems will be available for
experimentation following the discussion (more details to
follow.)

The second meeting of VRG will be held in San Francisco at
Tarzan Studios, on January 19 at 7:00 PM.  A $5 donation
(sliding scale) will be requested at the door to help cover
expenses for refreshments, chair rental, etc.  Tarzan Studios
is located south of Market Street at 410 Townsend between 3rd
and 4th.



UPCOMING VRG EVENTS:

The topic of the third meeting of VRG will be "Computer
Graphics and Virtual Reality." The third meeting will include a
videophone link-up with the Southern California VR SIG, where
Brett Leonard (Lawnmower Man) will be speaking, and other
speakers to be announced.  The third VRG meeting will be held
on February 18th.   The tentative location for the third VRG
meeting is the Exploratorium located at the Palace of Fine Arts
in San Francisco.  We'll keep you posted as further details
become available.

The topic for the fourth VRG meeting, to be held in March, will
be "Homebrew Virtual Reality."



ABOUT VRG...

The Virtual Reality Group is a non-profit organization
dedicated to supporting and promoting the development of
virtual reality technologies in the Bay Area.  VRG welcomes all
manner of scientists, artists, philosophers, educators,
technophiles and technophobes to share their perspectives on VR
technologies and applications.

For additional information about VRG or upcoming VRG events,
contact:

Linda Jacobson (lindaj@well.sf.ca.us)
Peter Rothman  (avatarp@well.sf.ca.us)
Timothy Childs (tchilds@well.sf.ca.us)
-----------------------------------------------------------
From: fester@parnasus.dell.com (George Ludwig)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: TECH: Phone # needed for Toshiba Glasses
Date: 31 Dec 92 16:47:38 GMT
Organization: Dell Computer Co
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu



slb96@cc.usu.edu writes:

>I saw the answer to this question once before but lost my file on it.
>What is the company phone number for the Toshiba Glasses?  I am
>thinking about giving them a shot since the Sega glasses seem to be
>out of reach for me.

Arrgghhh! For the last time, the company is Reel 3-D, the number is
310.837.2368 (my personal mail has been bombarded with this request!)

George Ludwig

-- 
******************************************************************************
George Ludwig                   | "The flame that burns twice as bright 
fester@parnasus.dell.com        | burns half as long...revel in your time!"
Austin, TX                      | The Opions expressed are mine blah blah blah
From: jpc@tauon.ph.unimelb.edu.au (John Costella)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: ADMIN: Announcing sci.virtual-worlds.apps
Date: 5 Jan 93 06:01:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: shelley.1ib90kINN7s
Organization: University of Washington
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu



> From: cyberoid@u.washington.edu
> Subject: ADMIN: Announcing sci.virtual-worlds.apps
> 
> ANNOUNCING SCI.VIRTUAL-WORLDS.APPS!
> -----------------------------------
> 
> WELCOME to sci.virtual-worlds.apps from your Principal Co-moderators,
> 
> YOU MAY SUBSCRIBE TO SCI.V-W.APPS IMMEDIATELY BUT NO POSTING WILL GO
> 
>         Professor Greg Newby of the University of Illinois will
> continue his mailing list service for those of you who cannot access
> the USENET.  If you have problems with the mailing list, please send a
> message to Greg (gbnewby@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu); we cannot help you in this
> regard.

Sci-vw is called VIRTU-L for the mailing list listserver. What is the
corresponding name for sci-vw-apps? Or are those on the VIRTU-L list
automatically going to get sci-vw-apps posts?

Thanks.

John

[MODERATOR'S NOTE: Prof. Newby will mirror the two lists and then
remove all those who do not wish to receive one or both from the
appropriate list.  I suppose a new mailing list name will be chosen.
Thanks for asking. -- Bob Jacobson]
From: wbritton@sierra.com (Wray Britton)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: PUBS: VR Research Directory?
Date: 31 Dec 92 07:45:45 GMT
Article-I.D.: shelley.1ib6e3INNras
Organization: University of Washington
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu



Hi,

I would like to get the full reference to the forthcoming volume
entitled "VR Research Directory".

If you have other relevant title to recommend, please do so.

Thanks (have a happy new year)

Wray Britton
From: thinman@netcom.com (Technically Sweet)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: TECH: Filtering head position/orientation data
Date: 3 Jan 93 06:43:33 GMT
Article-I.D.: shelley.1ib8l9INN3u
Organization: University of Washington
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu



Diego Montefusco wanted to do dead reckoning:

Everett Carter at the Naval PostGrad School in Monterey, CA, USA,
posted his Kalman filtering C++ class to comp.dsp awhile back.

Just spouting off:

I always wondered if it would be possible to allow palsied users to
use a mouse by running the mouse input through a bandpass filter.

The assumption that processing a position input as a signal is
somewhat dubious.  Basic signal processing is biased towards the model
of sound as a periodic waveform.  If your sampling rate is fast enough
(50hz maybe?) it is a reasonable use of DSP technology, but at
10hz-15hz for Polhemi or Power Gloves it makes more sense to adopt an
underlying model of a person moving around jerkily and predict from
that.  With all-over joint sensors you could predict from a model
incorporating the rotational abilities of the connected joints...


-- 

Lance Norskog
thinman@netcom.com
Data is not information is not knowledge is not wisdom.
From: rarchee@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Ray Archee)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: EVENTS: List of annual conferences?
Date: 1 Jan 93 13:38:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: shelley.1ib7q9INNscg
Organization: Sydney University Computing Service, Sydney, NSW, Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu



Hullo all,

I am an Australian academic who is interested in writing up the recent
TISEA (Sydney, Nov 1992) Symposium for this interest group.  I
attended all five days of this conference.

I have two questions before I do this:

1.  How many other conferences treat such VR, 3D graphics, cultural theory,
    electronic arts material?  I know Meckler, and Siggraph from this
    interest group only, ie I do not know their exact contents...

2.  How can I compose a longish review then post the file to this group?

In anticipation,

Ray Archee
From: joshua@cs.washington.edu (Joshua Blacksher)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: TECH: VR glasses and splitting the picture
Date: 4 Jan 93 19:34:12 GMT
Article-I.D.: beaver.1993Jan4.193412.16655
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu



Please excuse my ignorance.

Why couldn't a pair of vr glasses take a standard vga output and
simply split it into a left a right view, i mean the software would
produce both views, useing one half of the screen for left, the other
for right, and the glasses would show half of the screen to each eye?

thanks.
From: dvb (David Barbour)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: JOB: Twin Dolphin Games needs programmers
Date: 5 Jan 93 10:49:09 GMT
Article-I.D.: shelley.1iq84rINN4t8
Organization: University of Washington
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu



Low end virtual reality programming positions available.

Twin Dolphin Games is a well-funded, well-managed startup company
designing games at the high end of the PC game market, low end of
virtuality reality.

This is an excellent opportunity for programmers with gaming and/or
C++ experience.  Excellent salary and benefits.

If you are interested in real time 3d graphics at super VGA
resolution, high quality stereo sound effects, Fax or send your resume
to (415) 637-9310, Twin Dolphin Games, Inc., 220B Twin Dolphin Ave.,
Redwood City, CA 94065

If you would like more information, call David Barbour at (415)
637-9300 Ext 113.

Please send your resume soon as we are needing programmers right away.
From: wirehead@thedeck.Eng.Sun.COM (Mark Koch)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: TECH: Voltage for Sega glasses?
Date: 5 Jan 1993 23:45:06 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu


In article 16638@philabs.philips.com, kkt@philabs.philips.com (Kim-Kiat Tan) wri
tes:
>
>
>How much voltage is needed to turn the glass on & off ? I built the
>serial interface according to the diagram I downloaded, and it doesn't
>shut the glass dark enough, and when I measured the voltage, it's +/-
>0.5 volts.

The glasses need +/-12 volts( 24v peak to peak) to operate properly. 
Anything less will not make the glasses opaque enough.  What are you measuring 
that voltage with?  I used a scope for my measurements.


Mark

(Now only if StereoGraphics would drop their price on the CrystalEyes.)



---
                                ____      _________
Mark Koch                       \   \    /   __    \
Born again Hacker.               \   \  /   /  \    | 
                                  \   \/   /   /   /
wirhead@thedeck.Eng.Sun.COM        \      /   /   /
                                    \    /    \   \
                                     \__/      \___\
From: diego@minerva.st.dsi.unimi.it (Diego Montefusco)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: INFO: VR Systems?
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 93 01:49:33 CET
Organization: University of Washington
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu



In <9301082239.AA10849@ghost.dsi.unimi.it>, on Jan 8, you wrote:

> From:  <STUPAYNE%EKU.BITNET@uwavm.u.washington.edu>
> Subject: INFO: VR Systems?
> Date: 05 Jan 1993 05:07:59 -0500 (EST)
> 
>   According to some new information I have says that two new systems are
> coming onto the public market.
> 
>      Texas Instruments, Simgraphics, and Abrams Gentille Entertainment
>  is suppose to get releaseing a VR system for just $300. Has anyone seen
>  this or know how good it suppose to be.

I knew this some time ago (maybe read on this newsgroup). I wrote both
TI and AGE, but nobody replied... of course. And since the first time
I heard of this was quite a long ago, I'm beginning to doubt...
 
>  Sega new computer Model 1 is suppose to come with a VR board that creates
>  3d environment with stereo. Any more information would be appreciated...

This one instead is new (at least for me!)

Come on... who knows, speak!

Diego

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   | Diego Montefusco     |         Computer Science Department          | 
   | Via Pirano 4         |         University of Milan - Italy          |
   | 20127 Milano         |                                              |
   | Italia               |     P L E A S E   R E P L Y   M E   T O :    |
   | +39 (0)2 27001467    |         montefus@ghost.dsi.unimi.it          |
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: an1060@anon.penet.fi
Subject: FRACTAL Book for sale...
Organization: Anonymous contact service
X-Anonymously-To: sci.math
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:28:04 GMT

X-Anon-To: sci.math



Hello,

I have the following book I wish to sell:

FRACTALS, by Jens Feder, hardcover, 1988.

"Coherent and clearly written...an excellent starting point for
 students of fractals."
                            -- American Scientist

"This lovely little book will take off and fly on its own power...
 To write such a book is no easy task, but Jens Feder meets the
 challenge head on."
                            -- from the forward by
                               Benoit B. Mandelbrot


The book is like new (hardly ever opened)...

Publishers price:  $49.50 --  I ask:  $30 + shipping costs

Please respond to:  mantell@ams.sunysb.edu

Thanks

Abe


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi.
Due to the double-blind system, any replies to this message will be anonymized,
and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned.
Xref: sparky sci.math:17795 sci.math.symbolic:3394 comp.graphics:13504
From: bill@amy.med.upenn.edu (Bill Tozier)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.math.symbolic,comp.graphics
Subject: Help find optimum display of directed graphs
Date: 7 Jan 93 16:49:04 GMT
Followup-To: sci.math
Organization: Biology Department, University of Pennsylvania

Hello, everyone,
  I need some help with a problem in visualizing mathematical graphs.
What I'm trying to do is display graphs that include numerous
loops and cycles in such a way that they're easy to
understand in a 2-D or 3-D image. For instance:

a -> b
b -> c
c -> d
d -> a
d -> e

is a simple digraph that would end up looking, in this
"optimized" form I'm looking for, like this:

     a --> b
     ^     |
     |     |
     |     v
     d <-- c
    /
   /
  L
e

  The criteria for this are (1) that the nodes are as
far from one another as can be arranged, (2) the edges
are all approximately the same length, and (3) no edges
are superimposed.
  One can imagine the image I'd like by linking all connected
nodes on this graph by, say, loose springs. The minimum
energy (where "energy" is defined by the above criteria)
position of all the nodes is what I'm interested in.
  I've actually been trying a simpleminded optimization
of the sort I just described--with springs, and the
nagging suspicion that it's been done ages ago in a
thorough and symbolic way is still with me.
  Does anyone have any suggestions? Note that,
for trees and other very sparsely connected graphs,
there really isn't any problem. But for very
highly connected graphs, finding a layout that
is simple to "see" is extremely difficult, as
numerous edges must be discernable in this project.

  Thanks for any useful advice. I'd appreciate
anyone's hints re: Mathematica, or just a theoretical
optimization in 2-space or 3-space.

Bill Tozier
bill@amy.med.upenn.edu

Newsgroups: sci.math
From: chappell@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Glenn Chappell)
Subject: Re: Let's add some sci.math.* groups
Organization: Math Dept., University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 16:32:21 GMT

In article <43180@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> mstankus@oba.ucsd.edu (Mark Stankus) writes:
>I recently read a post asking that a sci.math.graph group be started.
>
>I think that we should start several new newsgroups so that 
>one does not have to wade through many messages each day on 
>topics which are not of interest to us. Here are my suggestions:

>All of the computer oriented news groups are broken up into multiple groups,
>this one should be also.

Most of these were broken up because of extremely high volume.
Sci.math isn't a *terribly* high-volume group, but I suppose one may
argue it's high enough to justify talking about a split.

>sci.math.beforecalculus  algebra, geometry,... which is learned
>                         before learning calculus

...precalculus would be shorter

>sci.math.calculus calculus stuff
>sci.math.algebra  junior year math major (college) algebra 
>sci.math.analysis junior year math major analysis 

Whoa...careful, there. Algebra & analysis don't end at the junior year.
Lot's of people make a living studying these subjects. Perhaps what
you're really thinking of is "sci.math.undergrad"?

In any case, much of the undergrad. math stuff that gets posted on here
is an attempt to get some information out of "the pro's". Sometimes
people want help with homework; sometimes they just want to talk to
someone who knows more than they do. As long as UseNet is available to
anyone with Internet access, such traffic will go wherever the pro's go,
and attempts to segregate it into its own group will probably be futile.

>Please suggest others if I missed some. Perhaps reading the 
>FAQ to come up with an appropriate breakdown would be good.
>(No flames please if I missed some potential group names or 
>some interesting parts of math.)

Well, here's a completely different idea:

There is enough cross-over between the various fields of math, and (at
this point, IMHO) light enough traffic to make splitting sci.math along
algebra, etc. lines not very worthwhile, and perhaps even
counter-productive.

On the other hand, I have noticed that there are essentially two types
of threads on this group: those that deal with mathematics and those
that deal with people (e.g. the teaching of math, US vs. Japan, quirks
of famous mathematicians, etc.) The latter is somewhat like your
"sci.math.culture" idea, although there is probably a better name for
it.

So, at this point it might be worthwhile to split off *one* group.

				Glenn Chappell  <><
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: High Prices of Math Books. I am pissed.
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 21:22:27 GMT

In article <ARA.93Jan7012128@camelot.ai.mit.edu> ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler) writes:
>In article <C0GEBz.98t@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>
>   The amount of effort required to produce a fairly good book when one
>   does not already exist for a one-semester to one-year course is two
>   or three person-years, and preferably involves more than one person
>   writing it.  An active faculty member does not have the time to do
>   very much writing.
>
>Why is this so? I heard a rumor that Serge Lang can knock off a book in
>a weekend.

From my days as a postdoc at Yale, I can confidently report that Serge
Lang's energy level greatly exceeds that of most mortals.  I think that
the "weekend" figure is an exaggeration; I heard he would write books on
transatlantic cruises.  

Newsgroups: sci.math
From: ilan@leland.Stanford.EDU (ilan vardi)
Subject: Re: Frankly,my dear......was: Fermat's Last Theorem
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 05:40:17 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.021308.10566@nuscc.nus.sg> matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (.) writes:
>I wonder if this might not be an occasion for some soul- searching on the
>part of professional mathematicians. X^n+ y^n = Z^n has no solutions....  
>frankly, who cares? It's recreational mathematics, right? The only reason
>anyone cares about it is that the proof is hard. Let me give you an

I disagree with this. One of the reasons people are interested is that
a certain phenomenon is taking place (i.e., *no* solutions exist) and
no one can explain why this happens. This is a natural phenomenon that
should be explained. Moreover, this is why Fermat's Last Theorem is
still important even though Falting's proved there were only a finite
number of solutions for any p--it says that this equation captures
something special about cyclotomic fields, or whatever will eventually
be involved in the proof (as opposed to another equation).

I think your statement applies more to conjectures like Goldbach's,
twin primes, or even 3x+1, for which one has a good idea of why they
should be true and what is going on. In the case of the first two, it
seems like it really is only a technical gap that needs to be filled,
for example, Chen's method, which is the best so far, is not exactly
well known.

In the case of 3x+1, one understands why it should hold but a proof
would probably explain a lot about what is going on.

-ilan
From: lordSnooty@cup.portal.com (Andrew - Palfreyman)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Help needed with optimisation problem
Date: Sat,  9 Jan 93 23:01:06 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: world

I am interested in finding an efficient algorithm for solving
the following problem:

System
------
A bounded Euclidean 2-D surface with discrete coordinates (0<=x<=XMAX,
0<=y<=YMAX) is assigned numbers z(x,y) at each point. Nothing is known 
_a priori_ about this assignment. The range of z (0<=z<=ZMAX) is far
higher than the total number of points; 
	i.e. XMAX*YMAX / (dx*dy) << ZMAX/dz, where d(i) is the granularity.

Problem
-------
Given a fixed range of z-values RZ (RZ > dz), the problem is:
group contiguous points within the range such that, after covering
every point on the surface, the final grouping minimises the total 
number of groups.

Notes
-----
* "Contiguous" is taken to mean +/- dx or dy of the point under
  consideration, but not both (i.e. no diagonal connections).
* The minimum size of a group is one point.
* Note that RZ is a range = zmax-zmin, and we are free to choose the
  absolute value of one of {zmax, zmin} for any group.
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
| lord snooty @the giant |  inceptus clamor frustratur hiantes             |
| poisoned electric head |              andrew_-_palfreyman@cup.portal.com |
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: byrde@imhfhp16.epfl.ch (Olivier BYRDE)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: sum(i=1 to n, i^3) = (n(n+1)/2)^2
Date: 7 Jan 93 15:47:12 GMT
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

Many thanks to those who e-mailed me this....

Olivier BYRDE
From: liuli@unixg.ubc.ca (Li Liu)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: proof wanted 2
Date: 10 Jan 1993 09:54:05 GMT
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
NNTP-Posting-Host: unixg.ubc.ca

The claim that there is a closest point in C (a close set) to a point
x (a point outside C) is not true for general metric spaces.

A simple example is to take the metric space to be { 1/n | n is positive
integers }, under the usual metric d(a,b)= |a-b|. Let C be the space 
itself. C is closed. Let x be 0. There is no point in C that is closet to
zero.


Xref: sparky sci.math:18022 rec.puzzles:8339
From: clong@remus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long)
Newsgroups: sci.math,rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: HELP: limit (SPOILER)
Date: 12 Jan 93 09:30:21 GMT
Followup-To: sci.math
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


A correction:

In article <C0pAC9.CtH@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, Jon Hamkins writes:

>               k+q  
>               ---    i
>           -k  \     k
>  lim     e    /   -----  ,
> k->infty      ---   i!
>               i=0

> where q is a positive integer constant.

The limit is 1/2.  Using the fact that P = \lim_{k \to \infnty}
\sum_{i=0}^{k} k^i/i! ~ 1/2*e^{k} (*), we see that limit =
\lim_{k \to \infnty} e^{-k}*(P + \sum_{i=k+1}^{k+q} k^i/i!) =
\lim_{k \to \infnty} e^{-k}*P +
\lim_{k \to \infnty} e^{-k}*\sum_{i=k+1}^{k+q} k^i/i!).  The first
term is easily seen to go to 1/2 by (*), and the last term is seen
to be 0 by the fact that e^{-k}*k^{k+c}/{k+c}! ~
e^{-k}*e^{k+c}*(1-c/(k+c))^{k+c}/sqrt(2*pi*(k+c)) ~ 1/sqrt(2*pi*(k+c)),
where ~ is used throughout in the asymptotic sense.

(*) This is proven in Newman's _A Problem Seminar_.  I can't seem
to find my copy of it to verify that it's there, but my memory
is pretty good about things like this.

Challenge:  For what finite constant c does \sum_{i=0}^{p*k} k^i/i!
~ c*e^{k} as k \to \infnty?
-- 
Chris Long, 265 Old York Rd., Bridgewater, NJ 08807-2618

Score: 0, Diff: 1, clong killed by a Harvard Math Team on  1