Virtual Life Skills

How often have you said to yourself, "why didn't anyone tell me?"

As in:
"Why didn't anyone tell me how to make money?"
"Why didn't anyone tell me growing up really sucks for everyone?"
"Why didn't anyone tell me I was hot when I was young enough to still be that hot?"
"Why didn't anyone tell me that most people in the world have no idea what they want or how to get it?"

Probably because the individualistic, competitive nature of human beasts tends more towards a sink-or-swim survival attitude. But it also has a lot to do with the fact that a LOT of human knowledge is already recorded, organized and codified. It's explicit.

All that stuff that no one thinks to tell you is tacit knowledge. In synthetic worlds, where we as designers have the opportunity to make our worlds better than real, we have an opportunity to provide players with incentives for knowledge sharing.

Travis Ross says it a bit more cogently (and definitely more academically) here: Virtual Cultures:Tacit Knowledge in Virtual Worlds.

Hello New World

We've been waiting.

While Burmese soliders fire on protesting monks, it's nice to know that the future is out there, with all the potential for careful consideration, integration, acceptance, collaboration and enlightenment (whatever THAT is).

Old World:

New World:

Hegemon In Our Own Minds

Perhaps the decreasing reliance by the world financial markets on the US dollar will eventually (inevitably?) result in the realization that we are not a global hegemon any more, and it's time we start acting like it.

Doubtful.

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7013608.stm]

Who's Agenda Is This?

After allowing inmates to file challenges to lethal injections, now they get to articulate that holding of the amendment, and then protect the prerogative of state governments to use whatever means of execution is viable. Just a hunch.

Since the capital punishment implications of Amendment 8 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution] haven't been addressed by the Court since Wilkerson v Utah [http://supreme.justia.com/us/99/130/case.html], this Court may feel it's about time.

I'd feel a little less Orwellian about this if I thought by some miraculous chance, that the civil rights of the inmate actually were part of the consideration.

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7012863.stm]

Space Cowboys

This is what the Let's Go To Mars folks are up to.







Props to Kris Holland, the creator of these animations.
[http://www.maficstudios.com/sbsp/download.htm]

The Game Begins

Everything I said before was wrong:

[http://inthenearfuture.blogspot.com/2007/08/reality-game.html]

Or, rather than wrong, let's just say "not what it appeared to be".