Waiting for Native Client

Lots of changes to the program to get it ready for Native Client. Can't get it working for the UBook index yet. They haven't given us file or database access. I'm sure they are having security issues even though they isolate  the files to a special cached area. Well a lot of the system is ready when they accomplish it. They don't give a time yet but my guess would be, judging from their posts, within another quarter. Probably their next release will allow it. Won't slow me down though, I have a lot of work to do to get the menuing system ready for 3d access to scenes.

Nobody said this was going to be easy.

First Digs at Native Client

My first priority is getting the index working on the book. Got my first taste of what it takes to get the system up on the net with Native Client. I make changes by inserting pre-processor statements in the language I use (c++) and these statements cause the system to ignore parts of my code (commands to the computer brain). I added about 1700 changes yesterday to ignore pieces of code that aren't supported. First, I compile over and over again. A compiler changes my English-like c++ language statements into 1's and 0's understood by computer brain. Then I look at the errors accumulated by the compiler and then I type in the changes to fix those errors. Considering so much is not supported yet, there we're a lot of errors unsupported in by the Qt lighthouse system for Native Client. After those 1700 changes were made, I still had 2632 errors left to fix. I certainly won't finish those today. To be fair, though, when I make a change, the system makes a few changes so I've actually probably edited over 500 lines of code and those were mainly cut and paster stuff so before my I exaggerate too much I need to check my need for accuracy.

It feels really good to get this far. Just from what I've done, I have very little doubt that Native Client can do it. That is, I'm pinning my hopes on it. It's my code that is being fit into it and I trust my code to do what needs to be done, even if it's a partial application.

It's almost unbelievable that I can take all the software work and knowledge I've accumulated since 1981 and put it onto the Internet. Not only the software decades, but also all the electronic work since I was 14. What fun. Say what you will about Google but they are my new friends now. Yes, I know that their real test is coming as a company. Will they have the fortitude to stay the course? Or will their top people buckle under the force of power and money? Time will tell. They have kept their code open-sourced and Native Client is under that umbrella.

I will make money on the automation side of this system. Yes, but people will be able to use it without having to pay me. They will be able to automate and view their homes and businesses on the Internet in 3d without having to continuously shell out from their wallets. They will use my system free of charge. How will I make money from the system to support it? From designers and part suppliers that help you create a 3d automated view of your home or business or building. It's easy to design your view of your home or business and you can use your own parts or install your own stuff and bypass me completely and still use the system without any purchases. So what I do for the Urantia movement, I will do for the automation side of the world also. Using virtualized 3d objects, I can do both using the same system.

I was having a discussion with Dave about the nature of the Adamic bestowal the other day and I needed to know where in the book it mentioned what accomplished the age. Using the index, I found it in less a second after I typed in a few words. I was surprised by his reaction, he said something like 'What's this, where did you get this', it took me by surprise. Something I created could have a reaction from a reader in this way? I have to get this index out there as soon as I can.

Anyway, soon an index that can be used to quickly go through the Ubook It already works on a Windows computer but soon all x86 based computers over the Internet. That's real power. Life is good.
 

Native Client again

Well tomorrow is the big day when I start converting my 10 million character program to work with the beginnings of Native Client. They don't support 3d graphics or connections to other computers yet (sockets), but I know that's coming so I'm going to have the compile system ignore large swaths of the program so that I can get the basics working.

It's kind of a two headed process for Native Client and the Qt SDK. First Native Client supports the feature, lets say sockets, then Qt's lighthouse project gets their socket side working with Native Client's socket stuff and then I can unhide the part of the program that talks using these sockets to other computers.

It's a long road but the first step starts tomorrow. My first conversion will only incorporate 2d text and windowing work that I've done getting the word index and table of contents lookup system on the book working. It's an exciting time.

Anyway that's it, another chapter to a long road home.

Virtual Urantia on the Internet coming closer

Today I compiled my first Qt program on the Internet. The revolution has begun.

Just too exciting

Wow, I've downloaded everything I need to get 2d up and running on the Internet. It's all downhill from here. I'm like a kid in a candy store. It's tough just sitting at the computer keyboard. I'm pacing up and down the length of my home thinking about all the different things I can do with my system on the net. It's like a dream come true. Well OK, it's time to start compiling the Lighthouse version of Qt with Morten's patches and see how Native Client reacts to it. When I get the Qt examples of Native Client running, I'm ready for to start compiling my system. I'm hoping I'll be ready in two days to start with the system. Wow! What a day, what a day.

Also,early this morning, for a couple of hours, I studied the 'Punch Hole' technique of getting peer to peer working on the Internet. It's a way for 2 computers to talk to each other over the Internet. You use it when you're looking at your home with a camera or with Skype. Anyway, computers talk to each other with something similar to a phone number, they use numbered addresses. When you talk to Google.com or Yahoo.com, you're really using a hidden number address. There are computers that take the name that you've typed in to your browser and convert them to numbers (DNS computers) and then your computer can now connect to those big servers directly using those numbers.

Well the problem with home computers is that they are really designed to talk to server computers on the net, not very well to each other because you're actual number is hidden and then changed through that router that connects to the Internet that's probably in your living room. Since we had a shortage of addresses on the net, they devised a way to use one address for a set of computers hidden behind a router and that would use only one address. The new version on the Internet IPV6 will have enough addresses for everyone in the world including all the coffee pots and refrigerators that'll be connected to your repairman.

Anyway, using my website, I'll ask your computer to send me your addresses on the net, which is probably temporary, and then I can connect two computers together, that way you can send stuff through the system to other people connected to the trip to Paradise. Getting the system to share content from person to person will be really important. For instance: Everyone viewing a study group remotely and taking part. I was even thinking about putting up a virtual table and placing the videos of everyone video connected around the virtual table. That way, you could extend the table through the wall using either a flat screen or one of those new Oled wallpaper screens that are soon coming and it would look like they are part of the group.

Nothing but fun thoughts here.

Pierre

Native Client

Got it now. Native Client is working and running the examples on my machine. I now have the way to get on the Internet. So here's the schedule: Get Morten's Native Client Qt sample working on the www.virtualurantia.com. That proves that the 2d graphic part of the trip to Paradise can run and then start compiling (create an exe or nexe as Native Client calls it) using the 2d stuff in the Paradise trip, that is, the index capability of the Urantia Book and the like. Then when Google upgrades Native Client in a couple of months, put the entire 3d system up on the net. At that time, I'll only only have the raw 3d stuff working as I am still not completely converted to OpenGL ES2 but it's getting closer. Then I'll be concentrating on actually using the system for content and collaboration of content from the book.

Wow, it sure has been a long ride to get here. It's unfortunately in my nature to understimate the time it takes to make this stuff work and the trip to Paradise is no exception. Also, using the system, I will be able to hold video study groups. That's a good one as I've started my study group every Thursday now from 7pm to 9pm or until it ends Anyone wanted to attend can call me at 714 801-3059

Pierre

Study Group

Finally after 17 years of waiting, our study group is alive again. Every Thursday night, we'll get together on this awesome book.

QT is working on Native client

As developers we stand on other peoples shoulders to get things working. Writing any program can be a very difficult endeavor so we use libraries that do a lot of the work for us.

Libraries come from an evolution that have taken steps of power throughout the years. First we talked 0's and 1's, then we used pnemonics, that is, shorthand words that replaced strings of those two numbers. Then we created languages that brought about much more intuitive english-like statements that could be combined to form a program that represented those same 0's and 1's.

Then we created libraries of pieces of these programs so that the discrete functions could be called from our programs.

A movement that deeply affected the programming world was the birth of open-source communities around the globe that left their libraries in central repositories.

These communities were realized to be sources of knowledge that could be used to create large conglomerations of programs and libraries. That's how Linux, the operating system was born.

Although the story is far more complex as it involved large companies like ATT, the Berkeley operating system (BSD), Unix and others, Europe's mistrust of our court system, helped lead us in the direction of programming freedom and power.

One such library was Qt. Qt was one of the main driving forces that came out of Norway that allowed developers to create the KDE front end to Linux, the operating system (OS) . This library ran across multiple OS's and I took this switch from single operating system libraries in 2001 by using it.

Sitting under the Virtual Urantia program is this library along with others that give me the ability to present the Urantia Book in this fashion.A deep question arises when I ponder the size of this endeavor. Will I live long enough to get it working to a degree where others can use it productively? Can I make it attractive enough to gather a force of people to use it as a springboard to higher ways of expressing the intellectual prowess of the book? And above that, can I create a system capable of expressing the truth, beauty and goodness of the book?

Qt on the pepper 2 Native Client library was made possible yesterday and I face the daunting task of taking my system into it's complex, intertwined pathways of libraries and mixtures of venerable C++ libraries and Internet languages that speak the Internet.

I face this task with a deep feeling of passion, fear of complexity and excitement. That it is possible that my dream can be realized.

I found within the covers of the Urantia Book a majesty that can't be expressed in words, only in spirit.  I will take to my end of days the knowledge and beauty and internal serenity that I find lacking in so many people on this funny little planet.

The world deserves the greatness of this book and I realize fully the distrust of religious bodies that have failed in their duty of searching for real truth instead of ease seeking without the common sense of philosophy and the clarity of the scientific world.

These confused little childen have made the road to truth difficult but not impossible, they themselves are waiting for us to show them the way. The fact that there is a father to life and that we are his children. Not children who hide from him but who stand transparent as friends and  have made decisions on our own without any direct coercion from him who loves us so deeply and affectionately.
I must not take unearned recognition yet I know that I will need to market this program to readers and non-readers alike. This  method of presenting 3 dimensional, animated, information is second to none. I believe the revelators took it into consideration but realized this method would need to be implemented by humans themselves as the involvement is very personal.

I have watched engineers recognize information presented to them in 2D and 3D and seen the results. I realized long ago that the brain is a 3D viewing platform and anything else would be interpretive at  best. Information placed in a 3D world is seen from a billion angles.

I am devoted to this endeavor.

Pierre_chicoine

It's getting closer

It's going to be a very exciting year. I have been working with due diligence on the Virtual Urantia Book system. I am very positive about the move to Native Client and the ability to place all on the Internet. It's coming this quarter from Google. Content has suffered though as I'm having technical difficulties with importing objects into the system from object creators like Blender and 3ds studio. Not to worry though, I will have full import capabilities when Native Client allows me to place the system on the Internet as the object import system will work just fine with the new Internet based version of the system. Hopefully, I'll have the Jerusem Circles working in time for the event.

My progress and travails have been noted in my blog at http://virtualurantia.blogspot.com. 

Soon, you'll be able to go to a webpage and you'll see the trip to Paradise in full 3d animated form. I can't wait.

Scene Copying

Well scene copying is pretty much working, that is, until Native Client releases. I'll have to change locations of scene data and object location data but otherwise it works good and fast. Working on menu creation. I'll be using big cubes that float above the scene that can be used for stuff like dragging and dropping objects. It'll be real interesting to see where all theses scenes float to different types of computers on the net.

The Urantia Book

Did I mention that reading the Urantia Book was the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me? There is no doubt in my mind that no other event can possibly be greater than the pleasure of understanding the capacity and depth and beauty of the Urantia Book and it's worlds. Tickling every part of my scientific mind, the depths of my philosophies, the lost reaches of my early religious rejections and the ecstatic vistas of being (personality as the book describe it). Before the book, I had turned atheist and with good reason. After the book, I couldn't imagine life without the father of life, he's the one eternal friend that will take me an extremely long time to get to know. Now, I just get glimpses of his beauty and the fantastic beings and places I will be visiting and sharing with the friends I've made here on Earth.

Sometimes, it's still difficult to believe that this book is real until I start reading it again and then.........

To the ones who brought it here: Thank you.

Pierre Chicoine (me)

Templates, Scenes and the Internet

The Jerusem Circles aren't ready yet. Haven't found a conversion program that converts properly for the system. Just temporary though. When the Qt3D beta release is done, I'll use the ASSIMP import system built into it and that should do the trick as I can import directly from Blender and skip the problems with 3ds object files.

So, for now, I'm working on the template/scene copy system and that looks good. The way that works is, when you create a scene, you'll be able to copy it or allow anyone else that wants to use it, to copy it also, with your permission, and make their own interpretation of it. Also, any schema needed go with the scene. I think, next, I'll work on the creation of passwords and user unique folders for anyone using the system on the net. Every user will have a unique area where they can create their own views. This, I hope, will lead into the ability for users to view each other's creations and each other's profiles. How to allow sharing and protection of information on Urantia Book users, that'll be an interesting use. I need to be ready for Native Client.

A bit on schemas. I decided a long time ago, that normal humans simply did not want to work with script based languages, so I created a graphically viewable language that works with small discrete program entities which can be placed in schematics (schemas). These entities (controls), are interconnected such that you can create a combination that can accomplish anything you need a computer to do. I use them for animations, input/output of sensors, manipulation of data and a thousand other duties. Generally, the typical user doesn't see them working. In any of my programs, you can see them, if you desire. For instance, reacting to an event and placing the event's result in front of you takes a small combo of a few of these controls. For instance: Let's say you click on Jerusem, the click is sent to a proxy object control that represents the object itself and then it is connected to a click control that outputs to a text view control that pops the book up on the screen in a separate window at the proper place in the book.

Most of these schemas are created for you but if you want to program them or look at what they are doing (debug), then they are all graphical and easy to view as they show their internals in a window when you click on the control cube representing that control. Even a beginner can program without having to understand how to manipulate a computer language.

Anyway, this is the system that will both automate homes and businesses and present the Urantia Book, in 3d,  to users around the world.