Sociolotron
Sociolotron is an MMORPG with a social focus:
You can also pursue a public career! You can serve in the justice system, help pursue the many, many criminals in this game and hope to gain enough influence over your fellow players so you can become Prime Minister and control the fate of the world for some time! Whether you accomplish this by showing your good character and make the people vote for you like in an ideal democracy, or whether you accomplish this by blackmailing, bribing and killing your opponents, like in a not so ideal democracy, is up to you.
Looks like they're taking Beta testers right now. Someone tell them that they need a better web site design - STAT.
Crooked Timber: The Everquest Economy
Crooked Timber has an article about The Everquest Economy - there was an article in The Economist saying what we've known for a while: that this stuff is HOT right now, and it's incredibly fun to think about the ever-increasing links between the real and the virtual in terms of money and economies.
course is over, but...
So the official GST 364 course is over for the semester, but I will continue updating this blog and adding links, etc.
I hope to also continue the wiki development - adding movies, revising movies, etc. But since I want to lock down the wiki a bit to "trusted" uses, if you find yourself locked out and you want to participate, just shoot me an email, and I'll hook you up with a login.
My post-semester goals include:
-continue to update the wiki, add sections about teaching activities, etc
-write up Second Life education program experiences in paper
Science on The State of Things
WUNC | 91.5fm | the state of things has a show today 1/24 about how science is portrayed in films and books. They just played a line from Gattaca, the movie we watched last Friday.
The show is being rebroadcast at 9pm tonight. An excerpt:
Science Stories: By the time scientific research makes its way into the mainstream media, it can look a lot different than it started out. According to Priscilla Wald, professor of English at Duke University, distorted depictions of research can create unfounded fear and anxiety. Host Rusty Jacobs talks with Wald about how science is depicted in movies, books, and the news. He also talks with Joe Palca, NPR science reporter; Myron Cohen, director of the Center for Infectious Disease at the University of North Carolina; and Maria Pramaggiore, director of film studies at North Carolina State University. Listener Call-In. (59:00)
It's almost over...
To give you some idea of what this class accomplished in just 3 short weeks: -created an online cyberculture encyclopedia, with more than 50 pages of information about cyberculture, virtual communities, discussion questions, activities, and dozens of external links -answered dozens of reflective and hypothetical questions about technology in movies, books, and popular culture -learned how Plato's Allegory of the Cave, the Prisoner's Dilemma, the Tragedy of the Commons, and the Uncanny Valley related to cyberculture -made quite a splash (!) in Second Life, an online virtual world, including learning how to modify and dress your avatar, build things, talk to people, blow things up, drive fast cars, and of course... how to buy things. -read a 400-page novel about the intersection between the real and the virtual, and compared it in writing to real-life experiences in a virtual community -honed writing skills by creating 5 reflective and informative essays about various cyberculture topics -watched and wrote about 7 different technology movies, learning the rudiments of writing about themes, characters, and plot along the way -created and delivered interactive, multimedia group presentations on cyberpunk and science fiction themes in technology movies -evaluated a dozen new web sites and technologies for creating and sustaining virtual communities -learned to use many new pieces of software (message board, wiki, second life, more?) on an unfamiliar operating system (Mac OSX)
collaboartive art
tiles.ice.org! Tribute to Salvador Dali is a project where a small community of users can create collaborative "art" using a drawing program (Photoshop, etc) and their browser. It's a little complicated, but here's the slashdot thread that discusses the project.
Second Life Police Blotter
Second life now has a Police Blotter. It is updated in real-time, and shows the last 25 incidents.
Example:
Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Violation: Community Standards: Disturbing the Peace, Scripted Objects
Region: Alice <----- could this be us??
Description: Excessive scripted objects
Action taken: Warning issued.
Thursday - cooperative games
Following our day with candy & the Prisoner's Dilemma, on Thursday we'll be experimenting with numerous cooperative games, and collaborative virtual spaces that include elements of cooperation games...
- Just Letters
- Vote Pair
- File-sharing: esp. BitTorrent
- Flickr
- Del.icio.us
- Oh mY News
- Typophile
- Social Networking Services, including Friendster, The Face Book, etc.
- Mediachest - social networking PLUS borrowing
- Collective Proza
- Distributed Proofreaders
- Meetup
Disney Plans Tron Remake
Slashdot is covering the news that Disney is planning a Tron remake, for those of you interested in bad 80's cinema... well, I shouldn't say "bad"... just "graphically-challenged" - especially when compared with our sophisticated present-day special effects!
the word "hacker"
What is a hacker anyway? Yesterday we discussed the American fascination with the image of a hacker in science fiction and cyberpunk. In fictional portrayals, the hacker is a great representative of "individualism" - s/he often rebels against society (in physical appearance, acceptable passtimes) and against authority, is often self-taught, and has rampant intellectual curiosity. The hacker is simultaneously misunderstood and revered in society. In this essay, Paul Graham discusses the word "hacker" and why its meaning to the general public is so different than the meaning embedded in science fiction and cyberpunk.
Some links to help with HW 4
Here are some links to help you with homework 4:
- Daedelus Gateway: the psychology of MMORPGs. Includes resources and links on gender, relationship formation, avatar identity, demographics, economic issues ("making a living"), critiques and concerns
- There is no spoon: the connection between online worlds and the real world, using a metaphor from The Matrix.
- Economic issues in Second Life:Trading real dollars for Linden dollars, goods exchange rates, links.
- MMORPG play as a "real life" economic activity
- Stereotypes and prejudice in MMO play
- Prices of male vs. female avatars on secondary markets
- Griefing vs playing nice
- Player Types: includes early description of griefing
- male and female: this one is Everquest specific, but has some good points (also see links on the left)
- Do Avatars have rights?
- Economics of virtual worlds, Edward Castronova
- Laws of virtual worlds, Lastowka and Hunter
- The Unreal Estate Boom, Julian Dibbell
- Sex, Politics, and Religion in Second Life
- King for a Day: race in Second Life
- Money in Second Life
- Wilde Cunningham:an avatar embodied by a group of severly disabled adults
- Gambling in Second Life
- Second Life Fashion: numerous links to interviews with fashion designers
- Man on Woman: gender in Second Life
- Users talk about race and sex of avatars
- The Gesture of Sitting in Second Life and gender stereotypes
- A funeral service in Second Life
- An interview about ethics, morality, & governmental structures etc within Second Life
gender in second life
New World Notes: MAN AND MAN ON WOMAN ON WOMAN: "So there's this guy who's a guy in real life but a girl in Second Life, even though in real life he's into girls, and then there's this other guy who's also a guy into girls in real life, and he was playing a guy in Second Life for awhile, but then decided to be a girl instead, and then like two months ago, guess what: the first guy met the second guy, and they fell in love, so now they're a couple-- even though they're really two guys into girls."
confused? read on...
Snow Crash Discussion
An excellent list of Snow Crash discussion questions can be found at this UCSB link.
The Helix... Loaded (2005)
A parody of the Matrix has just been announced. Starring... oh dear... Vanilla Ice. The Helix... Loaded (2005) I'll have to add this to next year's viewing schedule. (just kidding.) (maybe.)
books on reserve
Here is a list of books on reserve for your Matrix Essay (homework #1) due Friday. They are on a 1-day reserve, but you'll want to be kind and return them as soon as possible so that everyone can use them. (I've also seen the best of these books, the one called "Taking the Red Pill", at Books-A-Million in the Burlington Mall. It's in the entertainment section.)
Most of them are in chapters, where each chapter is written by a different author and has a different focus, so you should be able to make photocopies of the chapter(s) you like and return the book.
- Yeffeth, Glenn. (2003). Taking the Red Pill: Science, philosophy, and religion in the Matrix.
- Faller, Stephen. (2004). Beyond The matrix : revolutions and revelations.
- Horsley, Jake. (2003). Matrix warrior : being the one.
- Seay, Chris. (2003). The Gospel reloaded : exploring spirituality and faith in The matrix.
- Irwin, William. (2002). The matrix and philosophy : welcome to the desert of the real.
Here are some web resources to get you started on thinking about the movie. Be careful with web resources because they often lack the "heft" and authority of a paper, article, or book. You are thus limited to the number of web resources you are allowed to use for the essay.
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